Into the Savage Country (14 page)

“Won’t be double,” I said. “It won’t even be half.”

“That is the most fertile land imaginable. Never touched,” Layton said. “And part owners of a company that has returns like that is of inestimable value. Once you return, those shares of the company can be sold and will be worth more than any accumulation of pelts. You could come out with five or ten thousand dollars. Probably more.”

Behind us Branch and Pegleg were throwing their knives at Smitts’s new door. The intermittent thuds punctuated Layton’s words.

“Who else is going?”

“Smith, like I said. And Glass and Bridger and Branch and Pegleg.”

Pegleg heard his name, and turned holding his knife, and yelled, “You don’t decide on your own to come we’ll drag you out on a mule. You think we’re letting you get hitched to a St. Louis lady? You’re a trapper, Wyeth.” He turned and hurled his knife.

“Grignon, too?” I said.

I had seen him sitting by himself at a table with a bottle, oiling his mustache.

“He’s handy with a pistol,” Layton said. “And he’s been useful to me.”

“Let me talk to my counselor,” I said, indicating Ferris.

Layton hesitated, then, without a word, walked back to Pegleg and Branch. He took a knife and threw it at the door, hard. It lodged in the pine door and stood vibrating. I leaned in close to Ferris.

“Have you really promised all your money to Layton?”

“Not yet,” he said.

“Do you trust him?”

“There are few people I trust less. But damn, Wyeth, I can’t say I’m not tempted. It’s not free and clear like before. The Hudson’s Bay Company’s been leaving wasteland behind it. There are two more brigades from Astor’s company out this spring. There are Mexicans around Santa Fe. There are even Russians in California. All the fertile land’s been trapped.”

“And you believe his story?”

“I believe he has spoken with Long Hair. And Layton’s right about one thing. The golden days are over. You weren’t just in St. Louis, Wyeth. Dandies in ambassador hats everywhere, saying, ‘Make way for the gentleman.’ The returns are diminishing. It’s never going to be like that first season. Way I figure it, the Crow aren’t our enemies, the Blackfoot and the Brits are. And he did get Smith to lead the brigade, so there must be something to it.”

“And Smith’s in his room right now?”

“I know he’s not down here drinking,” Ferris said.

I asked which room he was lodging in, then motioned for Ferris to wait and went up the stairway to the second floor. I saw a narrow hallway with doors on either side and a window overlooking the snowy prairie at the far end. There were framed pictures and glass flumes over unlit candles at intervals. I stopped in front of the last room on the right. I knocked and heard Smith say, “Come in, Wyeth.”

The walls there were very thin. I opened the door and there was Smith studying a hand-drawn map with a magnifying glass. He swung his legs around and stood and shook my hand. “William Wyeth. In the flesh. Have you signed on?”

“I’ve been petitioned to,” I said. “But I have other engagements. Tell me. Is it true we’re to be let into all the Wind?”

“The entire northern half. Yes.”

“And you believe Layton?”

Smith was a mild-spoken, cautious man. A teetotaler, a Bible-reader, a man of business, but also fearless, a natural leader, and a fine judge of character.

“You’ve found the point of weakness,” he said. “The risk is in trusting Layton’s word. I don’t know that any of us would want to risk our life on it. But I’ll tell you one thing, Layton hasn’t
done any of the greenhorn conniving I’d expect from him, like get inferior powder or imitation guns. He’s gotten real Pennsylvania long rifles. Real Taos Whiskey. Held up his end. I’m willing to take the chance.”

“Layton’s never run a brigade.”

“He won’t be running anything. He’s paying me to run it.”

“And the other men?”

“You saw them as you came in. Fine men that you know as well as I.”

“And Grignon?”

Smith looked at me steadily. “Grignon is an underhanded scoundrel who is wanted in St. Louis for forgery and assault on a woman. But he is one man and I will manage him.”

“You’re sure you can.”

“Grignon will not be a problem,” he said.

I took this in silently.

“There are no sure things, Wyeth. But the land’s becoming trapped out. This is the last, best chance of a big take.”

“Or to get scalped by the entire Crow Nation.”

“You have taken a fair assessment of the situation, Wyeth. I understand he is offering you fifteen percent stake for a three-hundred-dollar investment. If it were me, and if all my money were not tied up in another company, I would take the chance. We’d like to have you on with us. We leave in three days. Think it over.”

Smith shook my hand and then I stepped out and shut the door and stood at the end of the hallway looking out over the snow-covered prairie. I could hear the men carousing below. I knew that Layton was capable of almost any underhandedness, but the worry about the money was fleeting. Money was not the real enticement. A brigade promised adventure and camaraderie.
It promised another year in a wild, untouched country that was quickly changing. I knew the chance to hurl myself out into this country would not come again in my life. I wanted to take it. I knew I did.

I walked back down the stairs and sat next to Ferris at the bar. I turned and waved to Layton, who came over, grinning.

“I need to talk to Alene. But don’t give away my spot.”

“He’s calling it
his spot
now,” Layton said. He held his glass up triumphantly. “To three St. Louis ruffians out in the wild. We’ll make our fortune and come back with riches and glory. To the expedition.”

“To the Crow,” I said.

“To Long Hair,” Ferris said.

We all drank. Layton shook my hand and shook Ferris’s hand, then walked back and picked up a bottle and jumped on the table.

“We got another two booshways teetering. Drink up!”

“Booshways? Where? I don’t see ’em?” Pegleg shouted.

Ferris leaned forward and looked at me. “You better go talk to that pretty little maiden while you still got a working tongue. This party could go on a while.”

I came home reeling and it was not until the following morning that I told Alene of Layton’s proposition, which she took even worse than I expected.

“Layton has taken pains to court you, William. He has chosen you because he saw I was partial to you. Now he means to ruin you.”

“I hardly think it would be worth the bother,” I said, and Alene leaped off her chair in indignation.

“Layton is an undisciplined, spoiled, greedy, destructive man
who possesses a genius for gathering men around him. It is not a bother for him to destroy others. It is what he does for pleasure. He has taken an interest in me and because I refused him he has set out to destroy any man I have affection for.” I laughed, as all this seemed overly dramatic, but Alene’s eyes blazed. “Oh, William, you only see the charismatic side now. The part when he persuades. When he wheedles. When he promises. When he uses all his charm and cunning and good nature and energy and cleverness to arrange things so men follow him, so they bind their lives to his. But when it is necessary for him to fulfill his promises he will feel the necessity as a form of bondage and he will wilt and turn sour and ugly. Then you will see the weak, contemptuous part of his soul. In St. Louis he ruined countless women. Countless. First seducing, then deriding. He killed a man in a duel—”

“I am not joining the brigade for Layton’s noble qualities. He has hired reliable, capable men.”

“And that Grignon. I saw him ride in, too.”

“Grignon is only one man.”

“One man, well placed, can cause inestimable damage. You must see that. If you are to break off our engagement—”

“I’m not breaking it off, Alene. I thought I was postponing it.”

“If you are to break the pledge you made earlier this year and leave on a brigade and give all your money to an inevitably losing venture, I do not see why you must do it with the exact man I loathe above all others.”

I could hardly find a response for this other than to say it was Layton who had arranged the most promising brigade, that Ferris and others I trusted had linked themselves to this brigade, and the idea of profiting from Bailey’s death was poisonous to me.

“You are an able and likable man, William. You would thrive
at any occupation you put your mind to. You have money of your own. Sufficient for a start in St. Louis. I will most likely receive an inheritance.”

“Which I cannot be seen to profit from.”

“It matters little to me, William.”

“But it does to me,” I said. “I hardly knew how much until this moment. I will succeed on my own and will know myself to be a sturdy and reliable fellow. From a young age I was told my wandering nature was a weakness. I mean to show otherwise.”

“I feel you will prove your unreliability by trying so desperately to live against your father’s false prognostications,” she said.

“They will not be false unless I return to the drainages.”

“They will be true if you break your word to me,” she said.

We went round and round like that. She saw I was determined to go.

“At least promise me that you will return at the season’s end,” Alene said.

“Of course I’ll return,” I said. “I only leave to secure our future.”

“You say that now. But I know what trappers are like when the fever of the hunt gets into them. I saw it with my father. Now I am seeing it with you. I will wait until the end of the season, but no longer.”

I let out a deep breath and sat back in my chair.

“That is all I ask,” I said. “I will return before the heavy snows. We will reunite, spend the cold months together, and float back at the breakup in the spring.”

“And if you don’t return?”

“I will.”

“But if you do not?”

“If I don’t it means I have perished and I release you.”

She took my hand and looked me in the eye. “You understand you are releasing me if you do not return before the new year?”

“Yes.”

“Swear that you understand. Put your hand here.” She pushed a Bible over. “Put your hand on it. I do not want there to be any misunderstanding. I’m sorry to do this, William. But trappers have short memories. I have seen it all my life. I saw it in my father. I had even begun to see it in Horace. And now I see it in you. Swear that you will return after one season. Swear I will not spend another winter alone.”

I put my hand on the Bible. A sort of premonition hovered but I brushed it away. I said, “I swear I will return after the fall season and long before the spring thaw.”

Alene took the Bible from me and set it near the window.

“I am sorry to sound defeated, William. I saw this happening months ago. Henry Layton has now twice ruined my life.”

“He could be the means of enriching it,” I said.

“How much you sound like Horace,” she said.

“I may sound like him. But I will not end up like him.”

“Those will be my prayers until I see you again.”

A day later I bought a wooden hut with the last of my money. It had two rooms and a loft up top and there was a corral behind for horses. I acquired it from a Swede who was heading farther west for better land. Smitts arranged the transaction, completing it in a day with the Swede unable to sign his own name.

A day after that I moved Alene into this improved lodging and prepared for departure. I did what I could to console Alene, but I’d be damned if I knew how to explain my attraction to the trapping lands without making it rankle.

The next morning I was mounted early. A brief kiss, a wave,
and I dashed off on my mountain pony. I looked back once and saw the pale light at the window of the cottage, small and insignificant from that distance. For a moment I saw the situation as it really was and not as I wished it to be—she had committed herself to me and I was leaving her to fend for herself for a year.

You’re a vile fellow, I thought.

I almost turned back, but that inner restlessness and yearning, subdued for a moment, began churning again.

As I passed the infirmary the old nun, who had heard of my imminent departure, turned off the path and kept her back to me in a gesture of disapproval. I laughed loudly so she’d hear and spurred my horse, my thoughts of Alene receding and my heart bursting with anticipation at a final season in the savage country.

BOOK THREE
   
The Far West

My father had predicted I would die a lonely death in some distant drainage and I am sure if he saw me riding into Crow country with Henry Layton, a notorious idler and miscreant who knew little of the trapping life, he would have felt all his predictions were coming true.

To his credit, on the voyage west Layton did his best to remedy his ignorance of life on the trail. In a matter of weeks Layton had learned to balance and pack the goods, scout the land ahead, and manage his string of ponies, which were the main duties when on the move with loaded horses.

After six weeks of arduous and monotonous labor we arrived at the Crow village, which was situated in a flattened bowl at a spot where the Popo Agie flows out of the Wind River Mountains. Native sentries flanked our progress and all the men and women of the village came out to observe our approach. The brigade stopped. Smith, Layton, and Branch rode forward and disappeared into the village while the rest of us settled into makeshift fortifications. We waited for an hour. Then Smith returned, followed by ten natives.