Ghost Dance: A Play of Voices: A Novel

VII: Certain Passions

VII CERTAIN PASSIONS Risk. In enterprises of great pitch and moment there were casualties. And that, said Bird Peacock, is the law of taking off on your own. And the question always nagging at you, for which you could never get an answer to satisfy you was what made folks take the gamble anyway.Think of them all, he said, with a peculiar light in his eye, as though he were watching the passing of multitudes who'd thrown caution to the winds, left the past behind, all their family connections and bric-a-brac, and thrown themselves into the future. From Independence , Missouri, into the blank on the map. To be killed by Indians, or cut down by cholera or measles, or to find death in childbirth, drown crossing rivers, or starve in the desert. No wonder some had turned right around and come on back. Busted. They'd come to see the elephant all right, had the dream stripped from their eyes, and were going back to the known disasters. Who could blame them? But that didn't stop the rest. Not the danger, nor the trail of bones across the continent. They streamed out West like cattle on a stampede. They beat down the grass, wore a trail into a road, and kept on coming. "He's got going," Curry Gatlin leaned over to whisper to his wife. But she had her eyes on him too. As did several others in the huge living room, little conversations dropping into silence as one and another paused to listen. "He'd make a great politician ," Netta Gatlin said. "I wonder why it's never crossed his mind." "Can't sit still long enough," her husband said. Fortunately, he thought. Plus you had to have at least some stake beyond 166 your own self-interest, no matter how consuming that interest was. He didn't say this aloud. A certain quality in his voice, Joan thought, for Peacock had directed his attention to her—or maybe the chitchat around the room had gone dull. And something in his eyes too. Youcouldn't help getting caught up. Fascinated like the bird watching the snake. Maybe there was something to the rumor that he could hypnotize you. And she wondered if the same picture was in her mind that was in his. Washe putting something on for her benefit ? She looked around the room. Was it the dream of the land, blotting out everything in sight, Bird was asking, the gleam of gold dazzling the eye? The lust for adventure? Who could tell? That passion to live beyond your life, to break its boundaries and let in the giddiness of circumstance? Bill could see him acting out one of the greater dramas of the West. No, he was too much of a loner for that, but not entirely. Maybe he had only one horse to ride, and he could carry a certain craziness only so far. The rest of the time he was tripping people up for the sake of a little attention, or entertainment. Bird had a theory: passion was what created the casualties, both living and dead. Land or gold or the desire to strike out on your own. Everybodygrew out of the object of his passion, had his life shaped by it. You became a violet or a sunflower, depending on the splashiness of your inner feeling. 11 You'd make a dandy lily of the field, Bird/7 Someone else laughed. "What about a rose? One of the big red ones that you're supposed to come out smelling like?" "I know about them all," he said to Joan. "Let me tell you about my family." His mother had outlived his father by fifteen years, and died in a nursing home with three million dollars in stocks. She loved her stocks, little hard-bitten old woman that she was, shriveled into her love of gilt-edged securities. The only thing she'd ever loved. Not his father and not him, not the ranch or the mountains. Money, but not to spend. To hoard and gamble with, but not to spend. "It was gambling," Bird said. "And when she was going over that portfolio with her broker, she was having a real orgasm." 167 A couple of the women laughed uncomfortably. "Sounds like he hated her all right/' "Loved her money though, 111 bet." "I used to...