Rocky Mountain Company (39 page)

He snatched an oblong glass with a wooden handle, and bounded back toward Dust Devil. He saw her clothes, then: her scarlet capote folded neatly, her doeskin skirt, her woolen blouse, her moccasins in a heap. Right there. He held the mirror close to her slack mouth, hovering just off her lips, and waited, and then pulled it away.

A faint fog was rapidly disappearing.

He held it to her mouth again, and snatched it into the firelight. A new mist lay upon it.

“Dust Devil!” he cried, and fell over her, choking on the fire in his throat.

He could only wait. She lay inert before the fire, some faltering thread of life sustaining her. He held the mirror to her open mouth again and again, and each time he found vapor misting it, though he could detect no heartbeat and no rhythm of her lungs. An illusion, he thought; she’s dead. The mists on the glass meant nothing.

He lifted himself awkwardly and dropped another log — the last in the woodbox — into the fire. Heat; more heat. Then he eased down to the puncheons again, damning his leg, rubbing her with his hard hands to force sensation into her. But she lay stupefied, in a place beyond his knowing.

“I don’t reckon you can hear me, Dust Devil. But I got to talk! You listen now. You hear me, wherever you are!”

Nothing changed. A cold gray tinctured the apricot of her flesh.

“Bad mistake. I got all het up and put you out, and then I knew I’d done it, done the worst. I got a temper I can’t hardly bridle and bit. You got to live, Dust Devil. I want you. Don’t you give up, don’t you quit on me! You’re a strong woman, a Suhtai Cheyenne woman, and don’t you forgit it! Hyar now, you got a porkeater pilgrim for a man, you got a greenhorn and a drunken fool, but you got a whiteman that loves you anyway. Godalmighty, Dust Devil  . . . “

Nothing changed. He held the mirror to her mouth and mist didn’t form, and he knew he’d lost her. But the blaze had heated the mirror. He tried it at her nostrils, and caught a mist again, swiftly vanishing in the radiant warmth.

“I’m taking you home, Dust Devil; home to the post!” His voice cracked. “I reined you in too much; I should have given you your head. All you did was visit your people.”

The door swung open behind him, and he heard someone at the threshold, taking him in. Fitzhugh glanced that way, and saw an engagé, and beyond, a ghostly gray light rubbing shape into the world beyond. He grew aware of her nakedness, her taut bared breasts, and he pulled a white blanket over her up to her neck and snugged it down around her gently, making woolen sanctuary for her altar. She did not respond. Would she linger like this? False hope and nothing more?

Behind him the engagé left, but soon more came, opening and closing the door, sending gusts of air boiling along the floor. He ignored them, and drew a second blanket over her. The blanket smelled of things he didn’t want to think about.

“Stiffleg!”

He turned and found Julius Hervey above him, a pepperbox pistol lost in his massive hand, and aiming at him.

“Is she alive?”

“Yes.”

“I enjoyed her.”

“She didn’t enjoy you.”

“Too bad you put her away. It spoiled my fun.”

“That’s how you see a woman.”

“Property, Stiffleg. I like property.”

Fitzhugh clamped down his rising bile. “I’ll take her back when I can.”

“Take her back? Ah, Fitzhugh, you are as slow as ever. It’s all in my hands. She’s mine; your outfit’s mine. You’re mine.”

Fitzhugh braced himself against the goading, and found Dust Devil’s clammy hand under the blanket.

“The slut won’t live. Won’t sing songs. You don’t want a slut anyway, Stiffleg. She came to me, you know.”

Fitzhugh knew.

Hervey turned to his engagés. “Take her outside and leave her.” They stared at him. “Now.” He swung his pepperbox toward them, a vast amusement illumining his face.

Fitzhugh clambered to his feet, helping himself up with a grip on a table. He had nothing to kill with, except his hands.

“Take him out, too. And shut the gates. And don’t give him his coat.” He glanced at Fitzhugh. “I might just shoot you. I’m debating it. A thief in our trading room. Busted right in, the Opposition and his lady.”

He swung the pepperbox toward Fitzhugh, the madness building in his eyes, a mock Fitzhugh had seen before once or twice, and understood for what it was.

No one moved.

“Why doesn’t anyone obey this morning? It must be something about eighteen-forty-two. Something new in forty-two.” He beamed. “Well, I’ll do it myself.”

Hervey swung the pistol downward toward Dust Devil, aimed at her chest, and shot, the explosion deafening. Just as Fitzhugh slammed into him. The ball struck the puncheon, shattered, sprayed lead fragments, and stirred the fire. Dust Devil winced and groaned.

Hervey laughed, delighted, and righted himself as Fitzhugh topped on his bad leg. Fitzhugh landed like a poleaxed ox, and Hervey booted him with heavy square-toed hightops. The blow landed on his bad leg, right at his injured knee, and Fitzhugh felt screaming hurt sail through him, clear into his throat. He rolled just as another shot shattered the air, and felt something pluck at his shirt.

Above him, someone landed on Hervey from behind, like a monkey riding a bear. Lemaitre. And someone pulled Lemaitre off of Hervey. Gallard. Through it all, Hervey laughed and chortled, demonic pleasure lacerating the trading room. They tumbled into a table loaded with gewgaws. Yellow ribbons sprayed outward, and blue trade beads rolled, and a box of awls clattered, along with trays of butcher knives, a silvery cascade clattering over Fitzhugh. He grabbed one and crawled, but flying boots clobbered his ribs, and above him, Hervey roared. A pistol cocked. Fitzhugh rolled into Hervey’s legs and sliced.

The pepperbox pistol exploded so close Fitzhugh’s ears rang. Blood gouted from Hervey’s leg, just at boot-top. Another table toppled, spraying bolts of red and green tradecloth outward, unrolling as they bounced. A blue bolt bounced over Dust-Devil, trailing cloth like a comet, and landed in the fire. The wool caught, pumping acrid smoke into the room, while flame rode down the bolt toward Dust Devil.

Brokenleg’s leg tortured him. He peered upward. A melee. His own former engagés fought the others — except for Gallard, who wrestled against his old colleagues. Julius Hervey grabbed a rifle and swung it, its heavy stock scything through the brawlers. He lifted it and bashed Lemaitre in the head, caving in the skull. The engagé crumpled to the floor. Hervey swung around to murder Fitzhugh, but Guerette caught the weapon and yanked it, drawing Hervey off balance. Fitzhugh couldn’t stand, couldn’t find a purchase to put his bad leg under him, so he crawled where he could, doing what damage he could. Then Hervey toppled over him, thrashing among the tables, clawing away beads and ribbons and combs, laughing crazily.

“Stiffleg!” he whispered, swinging those massive hands toward Fitzhugh’s throat from behind.

Fitzhugh felt them on his windpipe, clamp him, crush cartilage, squeeze life out of him. He thrashed under the frightful force, and felt his throat collapsing under the sheer pressure of those thick fingers. He clawed wildly, felt his lungs suck at nothing and knew his eyes were not seeing. With his last strength he sawed at the fingers with his butcher knife, sawed through the back of the hand, down to bone; slashed at the other hand clamping him, knowing a slip would cut his own throat but sawing anyway through tendon and muscle while hot blood splattered over his neck and chest. Hervey shrieked and the useless hands surrendered. Fitzhugh gasped, sucking fiery air into fluttering lungs. Hervey lay beside him, howling, the unearthly sound filling the trading room with pain.

The ghastly howl halted the rest. They stared, stunned, at the giant trader whose half-severed fingers gouted crimson blood into the floor, soaking bolts of cloth with it. Fitzhugh sat up, glaring wildly, daring anyone to do anything, wheezing through the ruins of his windpipe. The fire smoldering in the blue bolt had reached Dust Devil, making her twist and groan. He reached across the floor and batted it away. The room stank of burning wool.

Lemaitre lay dead, his mouth an open hole, his head caved in. The fort’s engagés outnumbered the others, but their chief trader lay howling like a wolf, his fingers leaking life.

Painfully, Fitzhugh struggled to his feet, panting. His throat hurt. Everything in his neck felt broken. “Fix him,” he said, pointing his bloody butcher knife at Hervey. “Fix him or I’ll kill him.”

Two of the post’s men crabbed over to Julius Hervey, tore up tradecloth, and applied tourniquets to his upper arms, twisting until the bright blood dwindled. Hervey’s hands looked ghastly, their backs and fingers severed to the bone and sheeting blood from a dozen slices. His eyelids sagged, and his eyeballs rolled upward.

“Sew him up and bandage him,” Fitzhugh snapped. “Or let him die. I don’t care which.”

“I’ll do it,” said someone, a thin, blackbearded one who looked like he might have doctored men before. He plucked a packet of needles and a roll of thread from one of the two remaining upright tables. They were popular trade items.

Fitzhugh didn’t care. He peered about. The room was a shambles. Ruined bolts of cloth hung everywhere. Beads rolled underfoot. Blankets sprawled. Sour smoke hung. Bercier knelt beside Lamaitre, weeping, holding the dead man’s hand. Emile Gallard eased toward the door, looking stunned.

Suddenly Fitzhugh understood about Gallard. “Stop him!” he muttered.

Abner Spoon and Zach Constable responded, but too late. Gallard bolted into the glare and vanished. Spoon followed, but Zach Constable stayed close, armed and ready. He and Fitzhugh locked gazes for a moment, gazes that spoke of old times, beaver days, campfires shared. A sudden pleasure filled Brokenleg. Constable hulked like an open-jawed trap near the door, his deadly throwing knife in hand, an ally.

“Don’t reckon they treated Dust Devil proper, Brokenleg,” he said so softly he strained to hear. But Constable had said a lot.

Dust Devil moaned and writhed, alive but unconscious. The door had been left open, admitting arctic blasts of air. He found a blanket and covered Dust Devil again. Outside, in the snow glare, others gathered.

Alain Lemaitre dead. A pity swept through him. Killed trying to help him; killed by the hand of Julius Hervey. He choked back a sadness for the moment, knowing later that he’d weep for one of those whose brute toil had built Fitzhugh’s Post for him.

The fight had gone out of the Cass engagés, most of whom were half-dressed and without weapons — and hungry.

“Go eat,” he said. They filed out silently, most of them looking relieved. None had wanted to carry Dust Devil back into the cold. But some, he knew, had violated her, and he hated them for it, and he’d hunt them down and deal with them like a seared conscience.

He discovered his own rifle, the one Hervey confiscated from him, in the trading-room rack, awaiting a buyer. He took it, and helped himself to his own powderhorn as well. He loaded his weapon, and felt the familiar heft and power of it in his hands. On the floor, the remaining engagés sewed up Hervey, and every time the needle poked flesh and thread drew finger muscle together, the man winced and groaned. He lay in a darkening pool of his own blood.

Fitzhugh didn’t pity him: the man who’d boasted he’d put his hands on everything, had lost the use of his hands. Or most of it. Mountain justice, he thought. A biblical justice. Those hands could never grasp again. Their tendons had been severed. The fingers could not pull a trigger or guide a nib pen or clamp a knife — unless all those severed muscles healed, and Julius Hervey became more dangerous than ever, Fitzhugh thought uneasily. His throat remembered those hands, and burned still.

“Zach,” he said. “I owe you and Abner. We’ll get our outfit moved to my post. Get my shelves stocked with all the truck, and then you take your pick, and stick for the winter.”

Zach nodded. “Like beaver days,” he said.

“I’m thinkin’ maybe I can put you on the fort roster.”

“Aw, Brokenleg — we’re a pair of lone wolves. With all the country just out the window, it’d be worse than going back to the States.”

“Whatever you want,” Fitzhugh said curtly. His head throbbed.

And Dust Devil watched, her brown eyes expressionless.

He spent the morning fighting a headache, hovering close to Dust Devil, who lay silently under blankets in the devastated trading room, and trying to bring some order to a chaotic time. He gathered his own subdued engagés and addressed them roughly.

“I’ll put you on the roster if you want,” he said without preamble. “I need you. I owe you for helping me — and Dust Devil — and my company. I’m fixing to load up our outfit — what’s left of it — and haul it back. I got horses now, passel of Cheyenne back there, Dust Devil’s people, come in to trade and see how the stick floats. They got robes, too, and more if we open our window.”

They stared fearfully at Hervey, who still lay on the floor of the trading room, under a trade blanket.

“There’s nothing he can do to you,” Fitzhugh snapped.

Bercier and Brasseau peered at each other, and seemed to come to a decision. “Ah,
oui, monsieur  . . . “

“I don’t reckon you want to stay here.”

They nodded.

Zach Constable, standing sentry at the door, let two men in, Emile Gallard with Abner Spoon poking his Hawken into Gallard’s back. Gallard surveyed the ruins malevolently, his gaze settling on Hervey, and then glancing at Dust Devil.

A shudder and groan erupted from Dust Devil, and Fitzhugh saw the fear gripping her, and instantly knew Gallard had violated her. Gallard and Hervey. Maybe others. He’d find out, and find them.

“Caught him,” Spoon said. “He’s some runner and got the best of me and I lost him. But he doubled back — he ain’t clothed much — and ducked into a Crow lodge. They didn’t want none of that and fetched him out when I come back.”

Brokenleg felt something akin to murder boil through him. He discovered the bloody butcher knife still clamped in his hand, and lifted it, and then winched his arm down slowly.