Read Online The Old American by Ernest Hebert - Free Book Online Page B

Blake. I suggest you show a little humility. And may God have mercy on your soul.” Nathan responds in heavily accented French. “Mercy bohcoo.”
    Caucus-Meteor is outside the lines getting over the dizzy spell brought on during his encounter with Captain Warren. The gauntlet reassembles, the participants sullen and watchful. Who can guess their mood when they’re not sure themselves? The old American is thinking that the tormentors are waiting for the gauntlet spirit to manifest itself when he hears a voice in the crowd calling to him in French.
    â€œA man your age testing a bully in the gauntlet—you should know better.”
    Caucus-Meteor is looking at a wizard as bald and almost as old as himself, and gaudily attired with beaded headband, and like himself with split ears, red sash, but unlike himself, reeking of liquor and tobacco, bone through his nose, and heavily armed with two knives, a hatchet, and a hand musket in a shoulder sling. Caucus-Meteor remembers his dream.
    â€œBleached Bones!” says Caucus-Meteor. “I’m surprised that none of those people you cheated has killed you yet.”
    â€œIt’s because I say my prayers and think pure thoughts.”
    â€œBetween the two of us, pure thoughts gather the attention of the gods for their rarity.”
    â€œWhat was impure between us for you was pure for me. This fellow about to run—he’s yours, no?”
    â€œI captured him myself back in New England.”
    â€œHe has legs for running. Do you think he can make them go fast enough to get through this mob?”
    Caucus-Meteor is mulling over his dream. The adversary was Bleached Bones. The runner must be Nathan Blake, and the stones must be a wager. The tormentors in the gauntlet are the crowd in the dream. But who or what was the crow with the delicate claws?
    â€œI think you are mocking me, Bleached Bones.”
    â€œIf I mock you, old king with his turban for a crown, it won’t be with such subtlety. I was testing your confidence in your slave.”
    â€œHe has my confidence,” Caucus-Meteor says, but what he’s thinking is that his confidence is in his dream.
    Bleached Bones smiles, tweaks the bone in his nose. Caucus-Meteor remembers the day they pierced each other’s nostrils many years ago, but Caucus-Meteor removed the bone through his own nose because it was a bother. Bleached Bones says something in Iroquois, in English, in Dutch. It’s a joke. Caucus-Meteor and Bleached Bones were once interpreters in the employ of the French. Playing with languages was their shared art. In spite of his better judgment, Caucus-Meteor, as he has done in the past, succumbs to the wiles of Bleached Bones and bets his entire interpreter’s salary that Nathan Blake will make it through the gauntlet. Bleached Bones, who knows how much Caucus-Meteor despises alcohol, offers him a drink from a noggin he carries in his belt pack. Caucus-Meteor takes a tiny swallow to be polite.
    â€œYou make a good living as a gambler?” Caucus-Meteor asks.
    â€œExcellent, but I don’t do it for the money. I like the travel, the excitement, the desperate characters you meet.”
    â€œYou’re not afraid to lose?”
    â€œThe feeling—it’s better when you lose.”The conversation is interrupted by a stirring in the crowd. “I think your man is preparing to make his run.”
    Caucus-Meteor watches. Nathan is about to begin his test.
    But Caucus-Meteor is thinking about his bet. Even if he’s not killed, Nathan Blake might be too injured to be of any use as a slave. Caucus-Meteor will be forced to sell Nathan to the French for a prisoner exchange. It’s doubtful he will bring a very good price if he’s broken up the way the last fellow was. Caucus-Meteor will have to return to Conissadawaga without any gifts for his people. It’s likely he will lose favor among them, and that his rival in the community, the