The Revenant

Tu es mon compagnon de voyage.

Je veux mourir dans mon canot.

Sur le tombeau, près du rivage,

Vous renverserez mon canot.

You are my voyageur companion.

I’ll gladly die in my canoe.

And on the grave beside the canyon,

You’ll overturn my canoe.

Glass looked toward the jetty, seventy-five yards upriver. Two Arikara appeared on the rocks. They pointed guns and began to yell.

Glass put his hand on Dominique’s shoulder. He started to say, “They’re coming,” but the report of two rifles said it for him. The bullets thudded against the bank.

“Dominique, we can’t stay here.”

“I won’t leave him,” he said in his thick accent.

“Then we’ve all got to try the river again.”

“No.” Dominique shook his head emphatically. “We can’t swim with him.”

Glass looked again toward the jetty. The Arikara swarmed over now.

There’s no time!

“Dominique.” Glass’s tone was urgent now. “If we stay here, we’ll all die.” More guns cracked.

For an excruciating moment, Dominique said nothing, gently stroking his brother’s ashen cheek. La Vierge stared peacefully ahead, a dim light glinting in his eyes. Finally Dominique turned to Glass. “I won’t leave him.” More guns.

Glass fought a collision of instincts. He needed time, time to think through his action, time to justify it—but there was none. Rifle in hand, he dove into the river.

Dominique heard a whining sound and felt a bullet bury itself in his shoulder. He thought about the horrible stories he had heard of Indian mutilations. He looked down at La Vierge. “I won’t let them cut us up.” He grabbed his brother under the arms and dragged him into the river. Another bullet crashed into his back. “Don’t worry, little brother,” he whispered, leaning back into the current’s welcoming arms. “It’s all downstream from here.”

EIGHTEEN

DECEMBER 6, 1823

GLASS SQUATTED NAKED next to the small fire, as close to the flame as he could bear. He cupped his hands to capture the heat. He held them close, waiting until the last instant before he was certain his skin would blister, then pressed the hot flesh against his shoulders or thighs. The heat seeped in for a moment, but failed to penetrate the chill instilled in him by the icy waters of the Missouri.

His clothing hung on crude racks around three sides of the fire. The buckskins remained soggy, though he noted with relief that his cotton shirt was mostly dry.

He had floated nearly a mile downstream before climbing out into the thickest stand of brush he could find. He burrowed into the center of the bramble on a trail cut by rabbits, hopeful that no larger animal would follow. Within the tangle of willows and driftwood, he found himself once again taking somber inventory of his wounds and his possessions.

By comparison to the recent past, Glass felt considerable relief. He had a number of bruises and abrasions from the fight on the banks and the flight down the river. He even discovered a wound on his arm where it appeared that a bullet had grazed him. His old wounds ached in the cold, but did not appear otherwise aggravated. Except for the possibility that he would freeze to death, a possibility that seemed very real, he had managed to survive the Arikara attack. For an instant he saw again the image of Dominique and La Vierge, huddled on the cut bank. He pushed the thought from his mind.

As for his possessions, the most significant loss was his pistol. His rifle was soaked but serviceable. He had his knife and his possibles bag with flint and steel. He had his hatchet, which he used to shave kindling into a shallow pit. He hoped his powder was dry. He uncapped his powder horn and poured a dab on the ground. He set a flame to it from the fire and the powder ignited with a smell like rotten eggs.

His satchel was gone, with his spare shirt, blanket, and mittens. The satchel also contained his hand-sketched map, carefully marking the tributaries and landmarks of the upper Missouri. It mattered little since he remembered them by heart. Relatively speaking, he felt well equipped.

Though still damp, he decided to put on his cotton shirt. At least the weight of the cloth helped take the chill off his aching shoulder. Glass tended the fire for the rest of the day. He worried about the smoke it created, but he worried more about catching his death of cold. He tended his rifle to take his mind off the chill, drying it completely and applying grease from a small container in his possibles bag. By nighttime his clothing and rifle were ready.

He considered moving only at night. Somewhere nearby lurked the same Arikara that attacked the camp. He hated just sitting there, even if his position was well concealed. But there was no moon to light a path along the rough bank of the Missouri. He had no choice but to wait until morning.

As daylight faded, Glass took the clothes from the willow rack and dressed himself. Next he scooped a shallow, square pit near the fire. He used two sticks to remove scorching-hot stones from a ring around the flames, arranged them in the pit, then covered them with a thin layer of dirt. He added as much wood to the fire as he dared, then lay down on top of the seething stones. Between the mostly dry buckskins, the stones, the fire, and sheer exhaustion, he crossed a minimal threshold for warmth that permitted his body to sleep.

* * *

For two days Glass crept up the Missouri. For a while he wrestled with the question of whether he had inherited responsibility for Langevin’s mission with the Arikara. He finally decided that he had not. Glass’s commitment to Brazeau had been to provide game for the deputation, a task he had dutifully performed. He had no idea whether Elk Tongue’s band represented the intentions of the other Arikara. It mattered little. The ambush underscored the vulnerability of slogging upriver by boat. Even if he received assurances from some faction of the Arikara, he had no intention of returning to Fort Brazeau. His own business was more pressing.

Glass guessed, correctly, that the Mandan village lay nearby. Though the Mandan were known as peaceful, he worried about the effect of their new alliance with the Arikara. Would the Arikara be present in the Mandan village? How might the attack on the voyageurs have been portrayed? Glass saw no reason to find out. He knew that a small trading post called Fort Talbot lay ten miles up the Missouri from the Mandan village. He decided to skirt the Mandans altogether, aiming instead for Fort Talbot. The few supplies he wanted, a blanket and a pair of mittens, he could find at the fort.

On the evening of the second day after the attack, Glass decided that he could no longer avoid the risk of hunting. He was ravenous, and a hide would also give him something to trade. He found fresh elk tracks near the river and followed them through a grove of cottonwoods into a large clearing, flanking the river for half a mile. A small stream parceled the clearing in two. Grazing near the stream, Glass could see a large bull along with two cows and three fat calves. Glass worked his way slowly through the clearing. He was almost within range when something spooked the elk. All six stood staring in the direction of Glass. Glass started to shoot when he realized that the elk weren’t looking at him—they were looking behind him.