The High Missouri by Win Blevins Read Free Book Online Page A

shovel of dirt halfway. “Except when you go through rapids. Then you may sit in the river!” He made a mock motion to throw the dirt into Dylan’s face and pitched it over his head onto the grass. Dust sifted on Dylan’s head and neck. He climbed out of the grave and brushed off.
    “Who’s this grave for, Sexton?” asked Dylan. “You said twins.”
    “The Talon twins,” said the sexton. “A sad case, both dead within ten days of birth. The mother is still languishing, they say.” He added piously, “This world is a vale of tears.”
    “Ah, laddo,” said the Druid, “you mustn’t ask who a fresh grave is for.” He threw his shovel onto the grass at Dylan’s feet and, with bravado, lay down full length in the grave. “A man digging a grave should have sober thoughts of his own mortality—seen truly, it is always for him.” Dru folded his hands across his chest and closed his eyes. He began to snore.
    Suddenly he jumped up, mimicked the creaky movements of a skeleton, and grabbed Dylan by the ankle. He wailed, “I drag ’ee to thy end, Dylan Elfed Davies, thy woeful end.” He tried to pull Dylan into the grave by one leg.
    Dylan stood firm and glowered at him.
    Dru let go and said in a relaxed way, “Better get in here, laddo, and lift your share of the load. Or whose shillings will ye eat on tonight?”
    Dylan jumped into the grave and jammed his shovel into the soft dirt with his foot.
    He hit something hard. He turned up the rock, but it wasn’t a rock. A—
    “Jawbone,” said Dru. “The talking piece of a human being.”
    He reached for it. Laid it on an open palm. Studied it curiously.
    Then the Druid gave a look of antic glee. He made his two hands into a mouth hinged at the wrists. The jawbone with its gapped teeth lay on the bottom hand. He made his hands flap.
    “Quack-quack!” he said.
    He danced around like a fool. “Who was buried here, Sir Sexton?” cried Dru. He flashed a wicked grin at Dylan and brought the flapping hands to his mouth. “I am Samuel de Champlain,” he said in an orotund voice, “author of The Travels of Sieur de Champlain and governor of New France and in my person a highfalutin boiled shirt.”
    He waggled his ass and turned the flapping hands into his face. “And tell us, Sieur de Champlain,” he said to the hands, “of what consists the greatness of New France?”
    He reversed the hands. “It’s a place you can send Jesuits far, far into the interior. If the Indians don’t eat ’em, the cold kills ’em. Or they confuse a New Testament with a compass and get lost. Either way, the world is rid of the dolts.”
    He talked to the hands. “And what should be our policy toward the benighted natives, Sieur de Champlain?”
    The jawbone talked. “Why, we must save their souls by day,” it pronounced, “and frig their wives by night.”
    Dru asked, “And what do we want with New France, anyway, Sieur de Champlain?”
    The jawbone answered loudly: “What do you want with any virgin? Lust, me buckos, lust!” He thrust his pelvis suggestively, and laughed at his own act until he fell down.
    “Let me see that,” asked Dylan, his hand out.
    Dru gave him the jawbone.
    Dylan looked at it, turned it over, studied it. “This was a real person,” he said softly.
    “Aye, laddo.”
    “Spoke using this. Bit and chewed.” He thought. “Kissed—here,” pointing above the gapped front teeth.
    “Doubly aye, laddo.” He took the jawbone from Dylan and held it up. Mockingly, he quoted, “Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio.” He spoke quickly, seeming to snatch words out of the air. “Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment?”
    He looked sideways at Dylan, saw puzzlement, and rolled his eyes. “The bard again, laddo.”
    He proceeded airily, a sprite now. “What if it was a fair maid died young? Kisses in vain. What if it was a great preacher, a Jonathan Edwards? Where are his perorations now? What if a diva of