Starfish_ A Novel - James Crowley [69]
His grandfather placed Beatrice on the travois. He picked Lionel up and set him on the big horse’s back. Grandpa swung up behind Lionel, and Ulysses stepped forward into the fresh and falling snow as if he knew exactly where he was going.
Lionel saw the government men in their uniforms all stop what they were doing and watch as their somber procession left the meadow and slowly made its way into the dark forest of the Great wood. They rode for the better part of an hour to a place that, despite all of his rambling, Lionel did not recognize.
The trees were knotted and their branches bent into strange, almost fantastic configurations, often doubling back on themselves in swirling, living tangles.
As they traveled farther into this forest within a forest Lionel saw feathers and small pieces of colored material hanging from various branches and secured around the bending trees’ trunks. He also saw that there were bones dangling from strips of rawhide, and skulls resting in the cruxes of the trees’ upper branches. They continued, and Lionel saw horses ahead of them tied off in a small stand of trees that stood dwarfed by their giant counterparts.
As they approached the horses, Lionel saw Corn Poe up in one of the trees, securing what looked like a small raft or a bed. Brother Finn, Tom Gunn, and Barney stood on the ground below him, handing him strips of rawhide and rope to keep the tiny bed in place. Corn Poe jumped down from the tree when they approached.
“Hey, Lionel” was all he said, and then he stepped aside, next to Brother Finn, Barney, and Tom Gunn, who stood with their chins to their chests.
Lionel’s grandfather sang softly as he dismounted, lifted Beatrice from the travois, and carried her toward the bed in the tree. Lionel followed and watched as he raised her up into the branches and set Beatrice in her resting place. Tears welled in his eyes, but he thought about Beatrice’s strength and fought the tears back as best he could. He wasn’t successful.
They stood in the woods listening to Grandpa’s singing and the wind that rushed through the treetops. Birds sang, and there were long shafts of light illuminating slivered sections of the forest floor. After some time, Grandpa put his hand on Lionel’s shoulder and turned back toward the horses. Corn Poe, Tom Gunn, Barney, and Brother Finn followed, leaving Lionel standing in the bent shadows of the small stand of trees.
Lionel knew it was time to go and that he would never see his sister in this form again, so he climbed the tree to be next to her one last time. The bending tree that held her wasn’t high, and as if he had just climbed a ladder, he soon sat on the branch at her side.
Beatrice looked beautiful and in the buckskins that their grandfather had made her, every bit the black-masked warrior that Lionel would always remember. He could still see her high up on Ulysses’s back, riding across the plains and into the mountains.
Lionel took her cold hand in his and studied her face. Beatrice looked at ease, almost peaceful where she lay, looking up through the canopy of the Great wood toward the endless skies that waited overhead. Lionel held her hand in his for a moment longer, and then dropped from the tree and joined his grandfather, Corn Poe, Tom Gunn, Barney, and Brother Finn, who stood by the horses, waiting with a steady trail of tears falling from their eyes.
Chapter Thirty-Six
LEAVING THE MEADOW • JENKINS AND LUMPKIN • GOOD-BYE TO TOM GUNN AND BARNEY LITTLE PLUME • BACK TO BOARDING SCHOOL • INACCURATE WHISPERS • BEATRICE MOVES ON
LIONEL COULD never remember much of the days that followed. They returned to the meadow and gathered their belongings for the journey back to the boarding school. Unlike before, Lionel was anxious to leave the lodge. without Beatrice, the fallen cabin wasn’t the same. Corn Poe was quiet but stayed close to Lionel’s side, offering to help him in any way he could.
Lionel looked around and remembered