IX

My G.o.d! What had she seen in me to love? I sat up and held the book against my bosom. Its cry out of her past filled the world from horizon to horizon. The ox that she had wreathed in roses would have heard it through her silence. But the brutal, slow Bourbon had gone his way, turning his stupid head from side to side, leaving her to perish.

Punctuated by years, bursting from eternities of suppression, it brought an acc.u.mulated force that swept the soul out of my body.

All that had not been written in the book was as easily read as what was set down. I saw the monotony of her life, and her gilding of its rudeness, the pastimes she thought out for children; I saw her nursing the helplessness which leaned upon her, and turning aside the contempt of pioneer women who pa.s.sionately admired strong men. I saw her eyes waiting on the distant laggard who stupidly pursued his own affairs until it was too late to protect her. I read the entries over and over.

When day broke it seemed to me the morning after my own death, such knowing and experiencing had pa.s.sed through me. I could not see her again until I had command of myself.

So I dressed and went silently down stairs. The p.a.w.nees were stirring in the kitchen. I got some bread and meat from them, and also some grain for the horse; then mounted and rode to the river.

The ferryman lived near the old stockade. Some time always pa.s.sed after he saw the signals before the deliberate Frenchman responded. I led my horse upon the unwieldly craft propelled by two huge oars, which the ferryman managed, running from one to another according to the swing of the current. It was broad day when we reached the other sh.o.r.e; one of those days, gray overhead, when moisture breaks upward through the ground, instead of descending. Many light clouds flitted under the grayness. The gra.s.s showed with a kind of green blush through its old brown fleece.

I saw the first sailing vessel of spring coming to anchor, from the straits of the great lakes. Once I would have hailed that vessel as possible bearer of news. Now it could bring me nothing of any importance.

The trail along the Fox river led over rolling land, dipping into coves and rising over hills. The Fox, steel blue in the shade, becomes tawny as its namesake when its fur of rough waves is combed to redness in the sunlight. Under grayness, with a soft wind blowing, the Fox showed his blue coat.

The prospect was so large, with a ridge running along in the distance, and open country spreading away on the other side, that I often turned in my saddle and looked back over the half-wooded trail. I thought I saw a figure walking a long way behind me, and being alone, tried to discern what it was. But under that gray sky nothing was sharply defined. I rode on thinking of the book in the breast of my coat.

It was certain I was not to marry. And being without breakfast and unstimulated by the sky, I began to think also what unstable material I had taken in hand when I undertook to work with Indians. Instinctively I knew then what a young southern statesman named Jefferson Davis whom I first met as a commandant of the fort at Green Bay--afterwards told me in Washington: "No commonwealth in a republic will stand with interests apart from the federated whole." White men, who have exclaimed from the beginning against the injustice done the red man, and who keep on pitying and exterminating him, made a federated whole with interests apart from his.

Again when I looked back I saw the figure, but it was afoot, and I soon lost it in a cove.

My house had been left undisturbed by hunters and Indians through the winter. I tied the horse to a gallery post and unfastened the door. A pile of refuse timbers offered wood for a fire, and I carried in several loads of it, and lighted the virgin chimney. Then I brought water from the spring and ate breakfast, sitting before the fire and thinking a little wearily and bitterly of my prospect in life.

Having fed my horse, I covered the fire, leaving a good store of fuel by the hearth, and rode away toward the Menominee and Winnebago lands.

The day was a hard one, and when I came back towards nightfall I was glad to stop with the officers of the stockade and share their mess.

"You looked f.a.gged," said one of them.

"The horse paths are heavy," I answered, "and I have been as far as the Indian lands."

I had been as far as that remote time when Eagle was not a Cloud-Mother.

To cross the river and see her smiling in meaningless happiness seemed more than I could do.

Yet she might notice my absence. We had been housed together ever since she had discovered me. Our walks and rides, our fireside talks and evening diversions were never separate. At Pierre Grignon's the family flocked in companies. When the padlocked book sent me out of the house I forgot that she was used to my presence and might be disturbed by an absence no one could explain.

"The first sailing vessel is in from the straits," said the lieutenant.

"Yes, I saw her come to anchor as I rode out this morning."

"She brought a pa.s.senger."

"Anybody of importance?"

"At first blush, no. At second blush, yes."

"Why 'no' at first blush?"

"Because he is only a priest."

"Only a priest, haughty officer! Are civilians and churchmen dirt under army feet?"

The lieutenant grinned.

"When you see a missionary priest landing to confess a lot of Canadians, he doesn't seem quite so important, as a prelate from Ghent, for instance."

"Is this pa.s.senger a prelate from Ghent?"

"That is where the second blush comes in. He is."

"How do you know?"

"I saw him, and talked with him."

"What is he doing in Green Bay?"

"Looking at the country. He was inquiring for you."

"For me!"

"Yes."

"What could a prelate from Ghent want with me?"

"Says he wants to make inquiries about the native tribes."

"Oh! Did you recommend me as an expert in native tribes?"

"Naturally. But not until he asked if you were here."

"He mentioned my name?"

"Yes. He wanted to see you. You'll not have to step out of your way to gratify him."

"From that I infer there is a new face at Pierre Grignon's."

"Your inference is correct. The Grignons always lodge the priests, and a great man like this one will be certainly quartered with them."

"What is he like?"

"A smooth and easy gentleman."

"In a ca.s.sock?"

"Tell a poor post lieutenant what a ca.s.sock is."

"The long-skirted black coat reaching to the heels."