The Revenant

by Michael Punke

Glass’s rifle was the one extravagance of his life, and when he rubbed grease into the spring mechanism of the hair trigger, he did so with the tender affection that other men might reserve for a wife or child.

cloven

Glass looked west, where the sun still perched high above the plateau that formed the distant horizon.

pemmican

sow.

keel,

travois,

predilection

He knew that the frontier respected—required—independence and self-sufficiency above all else. There were no entitlements west of St. Louis.

Though no law was written, there was a crude rule of law, adherence to a covenant that transcended their selfish interests. It was biblical in its depth, and its importance grew with each step into wilderness. When the need arose, a man extended a helping hand to his friends, to his partners, to strangers. In so doing, each knew that his own survival might one day depend upon the reaching grasp of another.

Viewed through the cold prism of economics,

The tree was a sibling to the lodgepole pines that the local tribes used to frame their teepees, but the seed of its origin had been lifted high above the fertile soil of the forest below.

sundry

paltry

awl

quirted

parfleche.

scabbard,

swashbuckler,

traipse

He vowed to survive, if for no other reason than to visit vengeance on the men who betrayed him.

The horizon stretched out for miles in front of them, a sea of muted grass and swelling hills, each exactly like the last.

From his vantage point on a high bluff above the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers, Henry and his seven companions commanded a vast horizon demarcated by a blunt plateau. In front of the plateau flowed gentle buttes, spilling like flaxen waves between the steep bench and the Missouri.

There was something to fear in an evil that could make men leave their old lives behind and live in such disgrace.

Traipsing

parried

FOUR PADDLES HIT THE WATER in perfect unison. The slender blades cut the surface, pushed to a depth of eighteen inches, then dug hard. The bâtard slogged forward with the stroke, bucking against the heavy flow of the current.

basking appreciatively in the midmorning sun and enjoying the nostalgic, buoyant sensation of floating on water.

The colder weather settled into Glass’s wounds the way a storm creeps its way up a mountain valley.

howitzer

The wind seemed to animate the cold, endowing it with an ability to penetrate every seam of his clothing. He felt it first as a biting sting on the exposed flesh of his nose and ears. Wind forced water from the corners of his eyes and his running nose created moisture, compounding the chill.

As he trudged through the deepening snow, the sharp bite faded slowly into an aching numbness, leaving once agile fingers as lumps of dysfunctional flesh.

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.

“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.

tallow

He raised his eyes to a horizon carved from snowy mountain peaks, virgin white against the frigid blue sky. He could climb up there if he wanted. Climb up there and touch the horizon, jump across and find the next.