The High Missouri (38 page)

She stayed with Anastasie when Dru and Dylan were gone to Red River three weeks, no explanation offered or needed.

It was a drizzling March afternoon, nearing sunset, when a young Minnetaree left his horse at the edge of the village, walked up to their lodge, saw Red Sky chipping at her flint, and spoke briefly to her. He was a round-faced youth, with what seemed to Dylan a sweetly friendly countenance, but he spoke only to Red Sky. He gave his message in signs, and Dylan politely averted his eyes. She went into the lodge, got a knife she’d made, gave it to him, and he left.

“Père Noël came back,” she announced in the lodge. “He’s already gone out again, hunting on Owl Creek.” She was gathering her gear. She wouldn’t even wait until morning. Dru and Dylan rode with her.

Chapter Thirty-Four

The tale was, Père Noël came in from winter camp and went straight back out to hunt for a white buffalo. The Minnetarees had glimpsed it twice in the last moon, once a group of women out digging prairie turnips, and once an old man walking. The old man followed the white buffalo, but he was afoot, and the herd ran off. Now the men, young and old, were making their medicine, riding out to seek the elusive creature, failing, making medicine again, venturing out onto the infinite plains on their quest.

A white buffalo. Dylan could see the light in Red Sky’s face. The holy grail of the Indians of the northern plains, the shimmering and elusive vision that lured warriors into great quests. Such buffalo were talked about constantly, seen at best infrequently, slain perhaps once in a generation. To take one would be a great coup, talked about by your grandchildren’s grandchildren. The hide would be specially tanned and offered as a sacrifice to the sun, and all the people would be blessed through this offering.

For a man to slay a white buffalo—it would establish him among the people for life as a man blessed, a man of affinity with spirit. For a woman to do it—it would make her storied among the people, a great hero of the winter counts, a figure of legend and fable for generations to come. For a woman wanting to be accepted as a warrior… it was a coup hardly to be dreamed of.

Dylan was desperately curious to see what would have a greater hold on Red Sky, the lure of the buffalo or revenge against the man who enslaved her.

They did not talk about that or anything else that night in camp, a miserable, wet bivouac with only blankets for warmth. Dylan and Dru slept dry under the oiled cloth they brought, but Red Sky declined to join them and got soaked. In the morning they ate pemmican silently and rode on.

Dylan thought of the
bourgeois
Père Noël. This hunting the white buffalo fit the nasty picture he was building of the man. To Père Noël the buffalo was not an object of religious veneration. Dylan outlined to himself carefully the reasons a white man would want to kill one. First, greed. He could trade the hide for a fortune in furs. Second, reputation. The Indians would revere him. Third and perhaps most important, power. No one would dare go against the medicine of a man who killed a white buffalo.

It was like a Muslim competing with the knights of the round table to find the original Holy Grail, the chalice of the Last Supper. The chalice would have no meaning in itself to him. He would want it only because of the sway it would give him over Christians and the Church.

What sort of man, then? A Captain Chick. A cynic, a master, a tyrant, a luster for power.

No, Dylan did not like this Père Noël.

It was a spring day that shone with sun and sprinkled gently and blustered raw, all by turns. Late that afternoon Dru was relieved when Red Sky said they’d stop early, on this rivulet flowing into Owl Creek. She said Père Noël was camped with about twenty Minnetarees nearly five miles downstream at the mouth of Broken Leg Creek. She wanted to bivouac here and scout things out tomorrow. He might have moved the camp. He might be bivouacked away from it. He might be anything. She wanted to be sure.

Dru had a lot of thoughts he didn’t speak. He was impressed with this strange young woman’s zeal for revenge. Not that he didn’t understand why. From the look in Dylan’s eye, he thought his son in spirit was nearly as bloody-minded, and wondered why. The way the young take the blind and indifferent assaults of life as personal insults? Or what, exactly?

He was tempted to explain something to Dylan. If he, a trader, attacked another rival trader, or backed up an Indian who did, the fur men would never forget it. They would ostracize him. They might try to take him to Montreal or St. Louis in chains for trial. They might even assassinate him. A breach in the common front against the so-called savages would not be tolerated. Particularly a blow against someone’s manhood of such a personal sort as Red Sky planned.

But Dru was not a man to rail against the way things were, whether a bitter wind or raging waters or the anger of a person who could not be assuaged. He accepted.

After they ate their pemmican, he did address Red Sky. “We will help you hunt the white buffalo,” he said simply.

She inclined her head in acknowledgment. “Thank you. I will be able to hunt the buffalo when I have set myself right. When I have fulfilled my oath to take Père Noël’s scalp.”

When they were ready to roll into the blankets, Red Sky laid out the plan.

That fact left Dylan feeling unsettled. Dru should have decided the strategy, or even he. They were warriors. They were men. They had experience.

Yet Dru did not seem unsettled. He listened to her idea, nodded, turned over to sleep.

It was a simple plan. Red Sky wanted to take no risk of being recognized. For some reason, she was sure Père Noël would guess how bloody-minded she was. So Dru and Dylan would get up in the middle of the night, ride quietly downstream, and locate the camp. If they saw Père Noël for sure, one would keep watch, the other come back for Red Sky. If not, Dru would go into camp and ask for the
bourgeois
. Dru was less associated with Red Sky than Dylan. They would take no action but would simply report back to her.

Lying awake in his blankets, Dylan tried to feel easy about taking marching orders from a woman. Maybe Dru accepted her as a warrior, and that made the difference. But of the three warriors, she was the green hand. Why didn’t the older hands lead?

Yes, he remembered what he had learned at Fort Augustus, especially what Bleu had told him. A man had a dream or another medicine sign that he should venture forth. He told selected others about his sign and invited them to go along. The medicine led the party, and the one man had a bond with the medicine, so he made the decisions. Or rather, the medicine made them through him.

Maybe Dru saw it that way, and so accepted Red Sky’s leadership.

But it didn’t make sense to Dylan. Or at least he didn’t like it.

He fretted and rolled over and fretted and thrashed and fretted almost until Dru shook him. The Big Dipper said past midnight—he seldom looked at his pocket watch anymore—and it was time to go.

The camp was in the cottonwoods just upstream of the mouth. Dru studied it with the naked eye through the first light seeping into the sky. The laddo was carrying the Dolland telescope. It was a large camp for a buffalo-hunting expedition. Père Noël had a military tent for travel on the plains, one big enough to sleep a dozen men, and in front of it a tightly stretched paulin for sitting and eating under. Dru had seen such tents occasionally for HBC mucky-mucks, but he never understood them. Stoves were a cumbersome thing to be packing around the wilderness. And what good was a tent you couldn’t have a fire in? Père Noël even had a chair to take his leisure on. Funny fellow.

Actually, Dru did understand why white men insisted on such tents. They were making a show of being white men. It was a flag of pride, a declaration of superiority. He did not like such men. They were flaunting their ignorance. Until now he could mock them all as Lords and Ladies. He had no idea why an independent trader would set himself up to look as foolish as an HBC man, an alien.

Dylan looked sideways at Dru. Both of them were lying on rocks on a low bluff about a hundred yards from camp, in front of a rock shelf so they wouldn’t be silhouetted. They had done well by the moon, getting into this position, and had a perfect view of the camp. He put his eye back to the Dolland.

No one was up and about yet. Père Noël must have taught them the regal habit of sleeping in.

Dylan couldn’t see perfectly through the glass in the half-light, but he didn’t like what he saw. A few ponies were staked beyond the cottonwoods, where the grass was thick, but not enough for the twenty men they’d heard about. Most of the men must be out hunting, riding one horse and leading a buffalo runner. Surely leading a buffalo runner for this great event. They were probably bivouacked somewhere. Maybe they thought they had scent or sign of the white buffalo. If so, they might not be back for days. He would have to take a frustrating message to Red Sky: the
bourgeois
was making a royal procession out on the plains, route and present location unknown.

Dylan could picture Père Noël playing king of this camp, though. Sitting on the camp chair while his
voyageur
cronies and Minnetaree sycophants looked up at him from the ground in admiration, sat awed by his stories, repeated his bits of wisdom to each other, and laughed at his jokes. Nearby two young slave women cooked. Dylan couldn’t see their faces. The tale-telling group made an exclamatory sound, and over that Dylan could almost hear the high, hard, haughty laughter of Père Noël.

Why did the man take such a name? A
bourgeois
of arrogant bearing and hard demeanor, identified by Cree as an English Frenchman—this fellow could hardly be a French version of Father Christmas.

Dylan had a grand thought. In his imagination he saw himself and Dru creeping up on the camp, finding three men left behind, enslaving them, and forcing them to brew up Père Noël’s coffee and pour whiskey and generally toady to their captors until their chief came back. The chief turned out to be Captain Chick, still naked of breast under his brigade jacket, but downcast of face. They paraded him in chains up the creek and delivered him to Red Sky, who accepted regally.

Click!

Dylan froze.

That was the click of a lock, a gun lock being cocked, wasn’t it?

He turned his head slowly to the rear. He glimpsed Dru already facing him with a mortified expression.

On the rock shelf stood two Minnetarees. One held a flintlock on them, a good rifle, not a
fusil
. The other was making signs in a commanding way. He had a tickled expression on a face that still looked sweet. It was Red Sky’s round-faced messenger.

Dylan looked at Dru. Well, the messenger had told them truly where Père Noël’s camp was. And had known when and how they would approach. And had waited with exemplary patience. And closed the trap smoothly. A perfect setup.

Because he didn’t want Red Sky to get hurt, Dylan told the truth.

It was the Indian of the round and sweet face who was sitting on Père Noël’s canvas camp chair, which he and the other Minnetarees evidently thought funny. Now Dylan could see the cunning in the face, and his name turned out to be Blade.

In signs Blade asked where Red Sky was and what she wanted to do to Père Noël. From his expression, maybe Dru didn’t like Dylan to tell. Dylan said she was at their camp five miles back, waiting. He thought Red Sky was less likely to get hurt being captured unawares in her camp than attempting a lone rescue of her partners. Which was bloody well what she would do. It would suit her fantasies dangerously well.

Blade spoke in tones of confident command to four other Minnetarees, with jerks of the head toward Dylan and Dru. Two of them sat down near the prisoners, and the other two started to leave with Blade.

Dylan asked if he and Dru could have something to eat. Blade brought them pemmican. He cut it with the bone-handled knife Red Sky had bribed him with. Dylan asked if their hands could be untied so they could eat it. Blade said no. Maybe they could fill their bellies with their eyes. He seemed to think his joke was funny.

It was lucky Blade thought the next part was funny. When he got back, he said Red Sky was not at the bivouac. After midnight she had followed Dylan and Dru on foot away from the camp, leading her pony, the signs said. How curious that Dylan and Dru hadn’t noticed. They might not see Minnetarees sneaking up on them, that was understandable, but a woman? That was funny.

Her tracks veered off and followed the trail of Père Noël and the hunters toward the white buffalo. Blade was tickled by that too. The tracks would lead in many circles, here and there, he said, for Red Sky didn’t know where Père Noël was camped. Like a mole, she would root about, blind.

He looked at his chums as he said this next part. She was as likely to find a white buffalo as Père Noël. That got a good laugh. And a lot more likely to hurt the buffalo. A bigger laugh.

What did she want with Père Noël anyway? A child, really, not yet a woman, but not bad-looking. Père Noël had something for her, and it would keep her busy for a couple of years, giving suck. He gave it to her last summer. She must be infatuated with it, and back for more.

The bastard had more to say of that sort, there is praise be. Dru kept giving Dylan quashing looks, and the lad didn’t seem to be doing too badly. He felt for the boyo. If the lad didn’t provoke this bugger Blade, but let things rest and let Blade go off to serve his master, then he might be able to do more than feel for Dylan. He already had a flint in his hand. He only needed some privacy, or darkness.

He wondered if Dylan had noticed the name of the trading company stenciled on the keg sitting by the door of the big tent. He doubted it.

A reasonable precaution, really. To cross the boundary and do business in the United States was illegal. If you affronted the authorities, smuggling could even be charged. To smuggle was easy, but to do it openly was taking unnecessary risks. So you changed your own name and the name of your company for your operations below the border. A fellow of fine fancy, like this one, would give his company a name with a flourish, like the St. Nicholas Trading Company. And himself a name like Father Christmas.

Dru looked sideways at Dylan. The lad wasn’t suffering too much from Blade’s teasing.

Dru smiled to himself, inside, without letting his face change. The irony was delectable, really, the sort of touch the master changeling Life liked to use playfully and bring his creation to a high luster.

If he could cut them loose, Dru thought, Dylan would find out soon enough who Père Noël was. A pungent surprise.

Dru squirmed. Yes, he could work the edge of the spare flint against the ropes. He only needed time. Meanwhile he could contemplate. He had savory thoughts. Life never let you run from your ogres. It always put the two of you in the coliseum and made you fight it out. Which, win or lose, was your salvation.