Starfish_ A Novel - James Crowley [21]
They paused before the fence and marveled as it snaked north and south as far as their eyes could see. Lionel looked across the fence and thought that besides the proximity of the looming mountains, the rough terrain looked remarkably similar to the land that they had traveled for the majority of the afternoon.
Beatrice seemed nervous and turned Ulysses in a circle, surveying the snow-covered desolation that surrounded them.
“You think you’re ready?” Beatrice asked, breaking the uneasy feeling that the immense border brought.
“I guess” was all Lionel could think to say.
“We may never be coming back, you know. we may never be allowed back,” Beatrice added, and then dug in her heels, asking Ulysses to proceed.
The horse stepped forward, and with that step, completely alone and without permission or legal permit, the children rode through a gaping hole in the fence, leaving the reservation and all that they had ever known.
It grew dark, and Beatrice led Ulysses toward a small rock outcrop that jutted up from the bank. That night they slept off the reservation for the first time in their lives, wrapped in the buffalo robe in the shallow of a small cave at the foot of the mountains. They roasted the elk on sticks and ate; then Beatrice lay down and did not move until morning. Lionel wondered how much she had slept the night before.
Lionel fell asleep listening to the crackling embers of the small fire they had built. He dreamed that he stood on the side of a great river. There, he saw the bighorn sheep, the antelope, and then the buffalo rise from the earth and run across the river and out onto the open rolling plains. Lionel heard a low rumble from the earth, and Beatrice and their grandfather rose from the banks. They also crossed the river and followed the buffalo and the other animals. In his dream, Lionel tried to follow, but could not make it across the great river. The river’s opposite bank was moving farther away, moving to well beyond the distant horizon.
Chapter Twelve
BEATRICE GROWS WEARY • COLD AND MORE SNOW • INTO THE MOUNTAINS
WHEN LIONEL woke, Beatrice was still asleep. He lay curled in the buffalo robe next to his sister and thought about the clay people and if they grew to become the Blackfeet. He wondered if the people Napi the old Man created were the same as the first two people the Brothers and priests at the boarding school had told him were the first created. Their first man had also been created from the earth: the woman from a rib. Lionel concluded that they must have been the first two white people, and that the clay people Grandpa had told Beatrice about were the first of the Blackfeet.
Lionel got up, stoked the fire for Beatrice, and led Ulysses down to the stream to drink. A distant sun stretched across the dull morning sky. Lionel turned with the first light and looked toward the great mountains and the black menacing clouds that clung to their tops. He returned to their camp and found Beatrice rolling up the buffalo robe. She seemed detached and tired, so Lionel lifted the bundles and tied them to Ulysses the way his grandfather had showed him, without speaking.
They ate cold elk and were soon on their way, riding well into the afternoon. They continued to follow the stream, pushing Ulysses up the increasingly rough and rocky terrain and under the long stretches of trees that seemed to touch the sky. They came to several forks in the stream but always kept to the right, fighting the deep banks of snow that lay on either side.
Lionel noticed that the stream grew smaller the higher they traveled, and eventually more difficult to follow. By late afternoon, the only evidence that the river was still with them was the low gurgle of water that struggled unseen under its heavy coat of winter ice and snow.
Sometime late that afternoon, it began to snow again. The snow covered the trees and caused their branches to bend and drop their burden onto the children and the great horse as they passed. Lionel grew cold as the day