Rocky Mountain Company (31 page)

“Have you left him?”

“I don’t know. My medicine was no good there, with him.”

He nodded. “You’ll see your Suhtai relatives and learn about your medicine. Are you staying?”

“I don’t know.”

“Tell me everything about this new post and what we may get for our robes, and what he has to trade, and who is with him. And everything about Fort Cass as well.”

She wished to leave. She wished to find the lodge of her parents and eat a large bowl of buffalo stew and make herself strong. She wished to be among her Suhtai, not with this Omissis chief. But she could not leave, and he would hear all the news, and ask questions, because it would be a matter for the headmen and shamans. For only ten winters had the Suhtai shared camp with the Tsistsistas, and she didn’t forget that. She eyed this chief with a certain hauteur.

She told him everything. She told him about St. Louis, knowing he wouldn’t believe any of it. None of her people would believe what she had seen with her own eyes. She told him about the Buffalo Company, and coming up the great river on the steam boat, with a mountain of tradegoods, wagons, horses, oxen, and those whitemen called French. She told him how the blankets had vanished, and about the long trip in wagons to Fort Cass, and what they found there. And how her man had been defeated at every hand, and ignored her wishes to bring everything here, to the People.

“I think he needs the river to bring those things,” White Wolf said. “You did wrong, nagging him. We can go to the Yellowstone to trade.”

She felt rebuked. A chief ’s rebuke weighed heavily, even if he was Omissis. She ached to escape and join her people but strict duty required that she continue. She told him of the Crow horse theft, and Fitzhugh’s suspicions about it.

“They have no horses or oxen to draw the wagons? How will they get their things from their enemies at Fort Cass?”

She remained silent.

“This is a serious thing. They have taken or killed the horses for his wagons. Maybe the Crow will get those rifles. We have many robes here. Many buffalo. More than can be counted. But the posts are a long way away. Laramie, far to the south, Fort Union far to the north where we would be in danger from the Cree and Assiniboin and Blackfeet. I will think about these things. We will have a council.”

She said nothing. He eyed her sharply. “Are you leaving your man or are you going back? I must know that.”

“I will consult with the medicine man,” she said, her voice combative.

He did not dismiss her. “Fitzhugh is no longer a trapper; he is a rich trader, willing to take our robes and give us things we need. What you do concerns the People. You will think long and hard about the good of the People,” he said.

It was a command. With a nod, he dismissed her.

She whirled out, no smile on her face, into snow. It surprised her. The young hunters who had escorted her had vanished, no doubt into the lodges of friends in this village. The people who had followed her to the chief ’s lodge had vanished in the whirl of white.

Home! Everything she saw lifted her heart. About her lodges glowed, the fires radiating amber light through the lodgecovers, sweet against the lavender sky. The whirl of wet air captured the smell of cooking buffalo meat, tongue and hump, or white backfat, a prized delicacy, flavoring a stew. And in the midst of these happy smells lay the acrid one of cottonwood smoke, not as aromatic as pine or juniper.

She knew where her parents’ lodge would be: winter villages were established in a certain order. She walked swiftly that way, knowing they had heard and would be waiting. White Wolf’s village would have about sixty lodges, six times the fingers on her hands, and each would house five or six of the People. Her band was strong, with many great warriors, the best of all.

She wove between the cones along Cheyenne streets better lit than the ones of St. Louis, each lodge a gentle amber lantern in the dark. She found the one her parents owned, its white and ochre horse designs faintly visible on its snow-crusted sides. She scratched the lodgedoor softly, joy building within her. Here she would find her mother and father; her grandfather the medicine man; a sister, Sweet Smoke, and perhaps one of her unmarried brothers, Night Runner, or both. A married brother, Badger Nose, lived with his wife’s people.

Her mother slid the flap aside and bid her in. In the soft glow of a tiny fire she found them all, waiting, their faces alive with welcome. They would listen to her describe her journey, and learn of honor or dishonor, divorce or marriage, and the omens good and bad, before all else, such as rejoicing. She took her place, the daughter’s place, and stared back proudly at them, letting the snow on her scarlet capote melt into beads. She forgot her need for food and rest; the esteem of her people and her grandfather would have to be won.

No food again. Brokenleg stared helplessly at his engagés, who were awaiting the day’s instructions. Feeding twelve people had become impossible. They’d had only coffee that morning. Even the sugar was gone.

“Trudeau,” he said. “I’m going to Cass and palaver with Hervey. We’ve got plenty of staples in their warehouse, but no way to bring them here — but maybe I can hire it done.”

“Some of us should hunt, monsieur.”

“Yes. Send as many out as you see fit. Put others on firewood. And the rest to making a comfortable post out of this cave.”

He waved his hand at a cavernous rectangle, ill-lit by fires because no window shutters were open. They were far from done: a trading room with shelves had to be carved out of one side, and behind it a warehouse for robes. And on the other side of the building, an engagés’ barracks and kitchen, with bunks, plus private quarters for himself and Dust Devil — if he ever saw her again — along with an office. Another month of work, even without the brutal labor of cutting and chopping enough firewood to keep two huge fireplaces roaring.

“It is exactly as I would do it, monsieur.” Trudeau turned to the unhappy engagés and began issuing directions in voluble French. Their stomachs pinched as empty as his own, and some of the Creoles looked gaunt.

“Any kind of food — not just meat, Trudeau. Fish. Any roots they can pry out of the river. Birds. You know.”

Trudeau nodded. Men began clambering into capotes and hats and gloves.

“Maxim — you want to come with me to Cass?”

The boy was obviously suffering even more than the men, but he had contained everything tightly inside, determined not even to whimper. Brokenleg liked that in him.

“I’ll come,” he said tautly.

“I may need help. Four miles on my bum leg is a lot. And if we have to carry some vittles back, I need you for a mule.”

Fitzhugh and Maxim headed out into a vicious cold that lacerated their lungs and made breathing hard. Two or three inches of squeaky snow dimpled the ground, enough so maybe they could skid something back from Cass. Dance, Fitzhugh and Straus stored large quantities of staples there, beans, flour, sugar, intended for both trade and the fort’s commissary. He glanced longingly at the wagons, hulking useless at the side of the post, and set off. With a little luck he’d have some horses.

The more he limped, the less he noticed his pain, but the air bit his face and frosted his beard, turning it white. The boy looked miserable, gasping cold air that wouldn’t go down his gullet, each breath steaming.

“We’ll get us warmed up in a bit, Maxim. And we got the blow pushing on our tails comin’ back.”

“I’m not thinking about that. I’m thinking about Julius Hervey.”

“Oh, he’s a devil. But I got this hyar devil-chaser,” he said, waggling his Hawken.

“He won’t let us have anything.”

“He might say it, but I got ways of persuadin’.”

“What?”

“I got a couple of friends in there. Slicker than Injuns with knives and ’hawks. And besides, Hervey’s not so bad. Just when he’s drinking he’s bad. And he’s got bosses, y’know. He can get hisself booted out of the comp’ny. Your pa, back there in St. Louis, he’s got a few levers to pull with old Chouteau. And I got me a few levers to pull, too. Old Alec Culbertson up yonder knows how the stick floats.”

“What does that mean?”

“Beaver talk. If there’s a beaver down in the trap, the stick’s floatin’.”

“Hervey won’t let you in.”

“Haw. He’ll clap a hand around my shoulders like I was some long-lost brother. That’s winter, boy. That’s how fur men git themselves through the long dark.”

The river had frozen over, maybe enough to walk on. But he stuck to the trail that ran nearby, through a latticework of black branches meshed into a gray heaven. He stopped periodically, more to let the boy rest than to pamper his game leg. In fact, the cold just stiffened his hip worse when he wasn’t swinging that ungainly leg ahead of him constantly.

The trail swung east, paralleling the Yellowstone, and then Fort Cass loomed before them, silvery in the dull light, bleeding smoke from all its pores like some dragon. Only half a dozen tawny Crow lodges clustered there, all of them belching pillars of smoke, their flaps fastened tight. There’d be no trading at all on a day like this one, he thought.

The trading window was shuttered and the gates closed, but they’d come running, he knew. Anything for a robe or two. He banged heavily on the gate, the noise magnified by the heavy air. Maxim looked upset. Brokenleg banged again, imperiously, announcing his presence upon this bitter day.

The trading window shutters creaked open and Hervey himself peered out.

“You,” he said, a sudden grin widening his lips.

“I come to fetch us some of our goods, Julius.”

Hervey laughed. “I told you you’d never see them again.”

“Open up, now. I got Dance, Fitzhugh and Straus stuff to git, and I want to hire it hauled. You got a couple friends o’ mine in there with horses.”

Hervey smiled easily, his hand never far from a sheathed knife at his waist. “Who says you’ve got friends here?”

“They’re in there.”

Hervey chuckled. “We’re not trading today. Too cold. And you don’t have robes anyway.”

Fitzhugh edged closer to the trading window, intending to grab the man by his shirt and drag him out of there, but Hervey glided a step back, his face mocking.

“Getting hungry, Stiffleg? I hear the Crow made off with your livestock. Hard to hunt with a bum leg.”

Fitzhugh slowly went cold, draining his soul of doubt, feeling the deadliness of his intent steep his numbed muscles. He’d felt this thing a few times in his days in the mountains, usually just before something died.

“Maxim,” he said, “you go try that gate there. I reckon it’s unlatched, or about to be. And we’ll pick up our goods peaceable.”

“What goods?” said Hervey. “I’ve traded them away.” For a terrible moment Fitzhugh believed him. “Go, boy. Git. Open the gates yonder.”

“Your concern about his safety is touching, Stiffleg. He’d be safer in here, don’t you think? We’ll keep him fed and warm. I’m sure his father’d be grateful and happy to oblige us with a few tokens of his esteem — “

Fitzhugh swung his Hawken up, waist high, and pulled the trigger, even while the massive shutters slammed, cutting off Hervey’s heckle. The recoil of the unshouldered butt yanked Fitzhugh’s arm back, and almost toppled him. Powdersmoke drifted. A yellow gash, gouged by a half-inch ball of lead, marred the dark surface of the righthand shutter.

“You were going to kill him!” Maxim cried.

Fitzhugh didn’t answer. His blood pulsed wildly. He unplugged his horn, measured a handheld charge and slid it down the barrel. Then he swiftly patched a ball and rammed it home with the rod he plucked off its clips. He pawed around for a fresh cap and slid it over the nipple without checking to see whether it had fouled. And all the while he watched for the slightest movement of the shutters and the thrown knife that would zip through the widening crack. But all he heard was laughter. Cass stood tight, with a fortune in Dance, Fitzhugh and Straus tradegoods and commissary in its belly.

“They’ll shoot us when we walk back!” Maxim cried, staring at the top of the palisade.

Fitzhugh ignored him. He’d become too mad to speak. He was primed to shoot again at anything that moved. He glared at the boy, demanding silence. Maxim stared back, terror all over his young face. Fitzhugh knew he had yellow-eyed murder in his gut just then. Hervey did it to him. He stank of it. He felt the bile build in him, hating himself as much as he hated Hervey; hating himself for storing the whole outfit in this place like some sheep being led to the slaughterhouse. Hating himself for trusting that Hervey would abide by the few whiteman rules fur men heeded, arrangements that kept the trading wars a notch or two less brutal than savagery. He’d let Hervey mock and goad him over the brink, and knew he’d only opened himself up to his own murder, as well as charges against him back in St. Louis. For there had to be witnesses, probably several engagés out of sight, watching it all.

From behind the shutters, Hervey’s muffled voice. “I never forget, Fitzhugh. Sooner or later, you’re dead.”

“Open them shutters and make it sooner,” Fitzhugh said.

“Maybe I will.”

But nothing happened. Fitzhugh waited murderously, waited for the smallest shiver of movement. He intended to catapult himself right into the trading room if anyone inside unbarred those shutters. But no one did.

“Mister Hervey,” said Maxim, “those are our goods inside, and we have a right to them. We want to employ some men to help us take things to our post. We’re paying you rent. You’re responsible for keeping our things safe from all harm. If you keep them, we’d bring you into court. My family will. If you steal them, it’s on your conscience. I think you’re an honorable man, just the way we are, so let us in to pick up our goods. We won’t cause you trouble. I don’t think you’d really want to be called a — “

“Come in and warm up, boy,” Hervey said from behind the shutters. “We’ll send word down to your pa.” His sardonic laughter eddied through the shutters.

“You’re not a good person,” Maxim said solemnly.

“Let’s git afore we freeze, boy,” Fitzhugh muttered.