A poor cards player, the sutler was a cagey trader. “Price has gone down since this afternoon. I’ll give you three dollars a plew.”
“You son of a bitch!” hissed Fitzgerald.
“Call me whatever you like,” replied the sutler. “But that’s my price.”
Fitzgerald took another look at the pompous lieutenant, then nodded to the sutler. The sutler counted sixty dollars from a leather purse, stacking the coins in front of Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald pushed ten dollars to the center of the table.
The dealer threw a card to the boatman and three each to Fitzgerald and the lieutenant. Fitzgerald picked them up. Seven … Jack … Three … Goddamn it! He struggled to keep his face impassive. He looked up to see the lieutenant staring at him, the slightest hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth.
You bastard. Fitzgerald pushed the rest of his money to the center of the table. “Raise you fifty dollars.”
The boatman whistled and threw his cards on the table.
The lieutenant’s eyes traveled across the mound of money in the center of the table and came to rest on Fitzgerald. “That’s a lot of money Mr.… what was it—Fitzpatrick?”
Fitzgerald fought to control himself “Fitzgerald.”
“Fitzgerald—yes, sorry.”
Fitzgerald gauged the lieutenant. He’ll fold. He hasn’t got the nerve. The lieutenant held his cards in one hand and drummed his fingers with the others. He pursed his lips, making his long mustache droop even further. It irritated Fitzgerald, especially the way that he stared.
“I’ll see your fifty and call,” said the lieutenant.
Fitzgerald felt his stomach sink. His jaw tensed as he turned over the pair of aces.
“Pair of aces,” said the lieutenant. “Well, that would have beat my pair.”
He threw down a pair of threes. “Except I got another one.” He tossed another three on the table. “I believe you’re done for the evening, Mr. Fitz-whatever—unless the good sutler will buy your little canoe.” The lieutenant reached for the mound of money in the center of the table.
Fitzgerald pulled the skinning knife from his belt and slammed it into the back of the lieutenant’s hand. The lieutenant screamed as the knife pinned his hand to the table. Fitzgerald grabbed a whiskey bottle and shattered it on the pitiful lieutenant’s head. He was poised to ram the jagged neck of the bottle into the lieutenant’s throat when two soldiers grabbed him from behind, wrestling him to the ground.
Fitzgerald spent the night in the guardhouse. In the morning he found himself in shackles, standing before a major in a mess hall dressed up to look like a court of law.
The major talked for a long time in a stilted verse and cadence that made little sense to Fitzgerald. The lieutenant was there, his hand in a bloody bandage. The major interrogated the lieutenant for half an hour, then did the same thing with the sutler, the boatman, and three other witnesses from the bar. Fitzgerald found the whole proceeding curious, since he had no intention of denying that he’d stabbed the lieutenant.
After an hour the major told Fitzgerald to approach “the bench,” which Fitzgerald assumed was the rather ordinary desk behind which the major had ensconced himself.
The major said, “This martial court finds you guilty of assault. You may choose between two sentences—five years imprisonment or three years enlistment in the United States Army.” One quarter of Fort Atkinson’s men had deserted that year. The major took full advantage of opportunities to replenish his troops.
For Fitzgerald, the decision was simple. He’d seen the guardhouse. No doubt he could break out eventually, but enlistment presented a far easier path.
Later that day John Fitzgerald raised his right hand and swore an oath of allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America as a new private in the Sixth Regiment of the U.S. Army. Until such time as he could desert, Fort Atkinson would be his home.
* * *
Hugh Glass was tying a pack on a horse when he saw Jim Bridger walking toward him across the yard. Before now, the boy had avoided him scrupulously. This time both his walk and his gaze were unwavering. Glass stopped his work and watched the boy approach.
When Bridger reached Glass he stopped. “I want you to know that I’m sorry for what I did.” He paused for a moment before adding, “I wanted you to know that before you left.”
Glass started to respond, then stopped. He had wondered if the boy would approach him. He had even thought about what he would say, rehearsed in his mind a lengthy lecture. Yet as he looked now at the boy, the particulars of his prepared speech eluded him. He felt something unexpected, a strange mixture of pity and respect.
Finally Glass said simply, “Follow your own lead, Bridger.” Then he turned back to the horse.
An hour later, Hugh Glass and his three companions rode out of the fort on the Big Horn, bound for the Powder and the Platte.
TWENTY-THREE
MARCH 6, 1824
ONLY THE TOPS OF the highest buttes held a grip on the few rays of sunlight. As Glass watched, even those were extinguished. It was an interlude that he held as sacred as Sabbath, the brief segue between the light of day and the dark of night. The retreating sun drew with it the harshness of the plain. Howling winds ebbed, replaced by an utter stillness that seemed impossible for a vista so grand. The colors too were transformed. Stark daytime hues blended and blurred, softened by a gentle wash of ever darkening purples and blues.
It was a moment for reflection in a space so vast it could only be divine.
And if Glass believed in a god, surely it resided in this great western expanse. Not a physical presence, but an idea, something beyond man’s ability to comprehend, something larger.
The darkness deepened and Glass watched as the stars emerged, dim at first, later bright as lighthouse beacons. It had been a long time since he studied the stars, though the lessons of the old Dutch sea captain remained fixed in his mind: “Know the stars and you’ll always have a compass.” Glass picked out Ursa Major, followed its guide to the North Star. He searched for Orion, dominant on the eastern horizon. Orion, the hunter, his vengeful sword poised to strike.
Red interrupted the silence. “You get the late watch, Pig.” Red kept a careful tally of the distribution of chores.
Pig needed no reminder. He pulled his blanket tightly over his head and closed his eyes.
They camped in a dry ravine that night, a ravine that cut the plain like a giant wound. Water had formed it, but not the gentle, nourishing rains of other places. Water came to the high plain in the torrential flood of spring runoff or as the violent spawn of a summer storm. Unaccustomed to moisture, the ground could not absorb it. The water’s effect was not to nourish, but to destroy.