Where the Lost Wander: A Novel(99)

“The problem with the white man is they want to tell the Indian how to live. They say, build your fence. Grow your food. Build a house that has no legs. A house like that is like a grave. Do you want me to tell you how to live?”

“I wish someone would.”

He frowns at me for a moment, surprised, maybe even a little offended, but then a smile breaks across his face, and he laughs, a sound rough and choked, like he has a fly caught in his throat.

“You are like a man whose feet are stretched across the banks, trying to live in two lands at once, Indian and white,” he says, and his ire is gone.

“That’s why they call me Two Feet.” I shrug. It has always been this way for me, but I’m more at peace with it than I’ve ever been.

“Maybe we are all stretched across the banks,” he says, thoughtful. “Living in the land of yesterday and the land of tomorrow.”

Like many of my conversations with Washakie, this one leaves me pensive and sad. The banks seem to be crumbling, and soon the land of yesterday will disappear.

He comes back to me a few days later and asks me about planting. He’s been thinking about it.

“I don’t know much,” I say. “I am not a farmer. My father’s not a farmer. My mother’s people raised corn, but their crop was constantly getting burned by the Sioux. Her whole village was burned out and gone the last time I returned.”

“Your father was a mule man,” Washakie says, remembering. We’ve talked about it before.

I nod. “He bred and sold and broke mules. He didn’t want to farm. He wasn’t any good at it.”

“I don’t want to farm either,” Washakie says, his mouth hard. “But when the herds are gone, my people will be hungry.”

In a place like this, it’s hard to imagine the herds being gone or the food being scarce. The trees are radiant with color and the valley thick with abundance, but I know why he worries. Washakie has his own pit of snakes. I promised to look after the Mays—not that I’ve done an especially good job of it—but Washakie feels the responsibility of a people.

“You are a mule man too,” Washakie says, abandoning talk of farming and pointing at my little herd of three—Samson, Budro, and Delilah—grazing among the horses. I started my journey with twelve.

“Can a mule man tame horses?” Washakie asks. Several of the horses stolen from the Crow haven’t ever been ridden, and the men have been taking turns getting thrown. I’ve had other things to do. I’ve made it my job to make a woodpile, saving the women from traipsing into the timber for hours on end when the snows come. I overheard a few of the men grumbling to Washakie that I am making them look bad, doing women’s work the way I do. The next thing I knew, Washakie was beside me with an ax, chopping away. We have enough firewood now to keep the village warm for six months. Lost Woman just watched us, dumbfounded.

I am at it again, chopping, chopping. It clears my head. Washakie does not help me this time; he made his point to his men. But he has an air of mischief about him.

“I’ve broke more green mules than I can count,” I say, my thoughts returning to the question at hand. “It isn’t much different.”

“Horses kick higher and run faster than mules,” he says, a gleam in his eyes. He gestures to a gray stallion with a black mane and a blacker temper. “If you can ride that one, you can have him. Then the men will see you can do women’s work and their work too.”

I put down my ax and swipe at my brow, turning toward the horses. Washakie laughs and follows me, calling out to his men and drawing their skeptical attention. Naomi is helping Hanabi somewhere; I hope she doesn’t make an appearance. She won’t like this at all. I won’t like it, but I’m going to do it.

This isn’t going to be leading the mules across the Big Blue or convincing Kettle he likes the mare. The stallion won’t want me on his back, so I’m going to get there as quick as I can. Once I’m there, I just have to outlast him.

A few of the braves goad me, telling me not to get too close, but the stallion isn’t all that skittish; he just doesn’t want a man on his back. He doesn’t react as I draw close, especially when I offer him a handful of dried berries from my pocket. His big lips curl around my flat palm, letting me stand at his side, one arm outstretched, the other resting lightly on his rump, willing it to stay down. When he lifts his nose from my hand, I move, using his mane to swing myself up onto his back in one smooth motion. And that’s where smooth and motion part ways.

The stallion bolts like I took a hot poker to his rump, and I hear Naomi cry out my name. I don’t look back or sideways or down. I hardly look at all. I just hold on and let the stallion go.

And he goes and goes.

He doesn’t buck and doesn’t rear up, and I count myself lucky, keeping my belly to his back, my hands in his mane, and my knees pressed tight to his sides. When he finally slows, several miles from where we started, he is spent and subdued. I can’t feel my fingers or my thighs.

“Damn bungu,” I moan. Bungu is the Shoshoni word for horse, and it fits him. When this is over, I’ll have a new black-maned bungu and some new black bruises.

I don’t dare unclamp my hands or my legs, afraid he’ll bolt when I’m not holding on and shake me off at last. We’re both sweat slicked and panting. The river isn’t far, and he can smell it. We’ve run along the flat, the land rising away from the river, which now sits below us down a steep bank. I can see the tops of the trees that crowd the shores, but I don’t slide off Bungu’s back. I’m not walking. He picks his way down to the water; I’m sure it’s the same river that runs south from our camp. When we make it to the bottom and step out from the trees, I discover we’re not alone.