The High Divide by Lin Enger Page A

rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword.” Above him the sky hovered thick and low, like a clever lid fashioned for the sake of keeping his prayers on earth. He prayed anyway, for the past to stay where it was until he could find his way back to it, and for the chance to make good. Then the water was ready, and he drank his morning coffee, which had the effect as always of lightening his mood and improving the look of his prospects. It might be possible yet that all would be fine.
    When the sky had cleared enough to show the tops of the hills, he kicked out the fire, rolled up the dusty robe, and packed his gear and the keg of molasses, too. He put the half-blind ox in its traces and set out in the wagon for the Cheyenne agency. It was a long, steep climb, Ulysses urging the ox to the top, but once they had achieved the trail again, their wheels fell into the double-rutted path and they rolled on, squeaking, the Tongue River a mere curving twinkle beneath them. The late September sun had burned off every trace of fog.
    By midmorning the back and flanks of the yellow ox were dark with sweat. Ulysses drove with his sleeves rolled to his elbows and shirt collar open to catch the small southwesterly breeze, which kept the dust they raised behind them. From time to time, he took out his mouth harp and blew a few tunes, hymns mostly, with the occasional Army song tossed in for good measure, and long about noon he approached a small cluster of unpainted wooden buildings, a dozen or so, set out on the brown plain. Off to the north on a low rise, he saw a scattering of white tipis. Spitting distance to the south, a group of skinny boys played with sticks and a ball of hide, yelling and spinning and swatting each other. They caught sight of Ulysses on his wagon, and they set off in a run toward him.
    All but one of them stopped well short of the wagon. The smallest boy came closer. He reminded Ulysses of Danny, his eyes too large for his head and seeming to take in the entire compass of space around him. He had a crippled leg but managed even so to skitter like a bug around to the back of the wagon, ducking as he went, and then pull himself up by his hands and peek over the backboard. There was not much to see, everything covered with tarpaulin, but the boy’s nose twitched at the scent of edible goods.
    Ulysses crooked a finger at him and the boy dropped out of sight, then reappeared, moving in a wary arc, circling like a sly mutt around the wagon’s starboard side. The other boys—five of them—hung back in a tight knot.
    â€œBet you’re hungry,” Ulysses said. He set the handbrake and crawled back into the wagon’s bed, where he peeled away a corner of the canvas, exposing large bags of potatoes. He shook out half a dozen cloth sacks, one after another, sliced open one of the big burlap bags, and put together a bundle of potatoes for each boy, now and then glancing at the little one, who had come up close to watch. He lifted the first sack of spuds and dropped it with a wink into the boy’s waiting arms. The boy staggered to one side from the sudden weight of it, then righted himself and trotted back to his friends. One by one the rest of the boys came forward.
    â€œYou boys got mamas?” he asked them.
    They looked first at each other, then off to the north at the tipis white beneath the noon sun.
    â€œThat’s good,” he said.
    Their faces were wind-burned and gaunt, their cheeks hollow. They stole glances at the sacks full of potatoes, which rested on the buckboard next to Ulysses.
    â€œOne more question. Where do I find Adams?”
    The five biggest boys turned as one to the small one, their spokesman now, who raised his arm and pointed a narrow finger west toward a long, squat building with a green door.
    â€œThank you.” He tossed down the sacks of potatoes one by one, then watched the boys run off toward the north and the tipis. He released the handbrake,