The Holy Warrior (5 page)

“Come on, Christmas!” She always called him that instead of “Mr. Winslow” or “Chris,” and she was laughing as she jumped from the rung of the ladder to the floor. She reached up to pull at the feet of the man who was carefully and painfully creeping down after her. “Hurry up, now! I helped Mama make you some corn hoecakes and battered eggs for breakfast—come on!”

Knox smiled at the sight of Missy’s blond head bobbing as she pulled the man toward the rough board table that took up most of the room in the parlor. The child was the brightest thing he’d ever seen, already reading books that would have given a much older child problems, and was in the center of every activity in the house. She had made a big
toy out of Christmas, bringing him his meals and fussing at his bad manners. She was the one thing that would bring a smile to the face of the sick man. Once she had said in the midst of her babbling, “My favorite man in the Bible is Mephibosheth.” Chris had stared at her, then burst out laughing. “Are you sure this isn’t a midget you’ve got here, Preacher? Mephibosheth—who in the world is that?”

“He’s the little lame boy, Jonathan’s son, the one that David was good to,” Missy informed him. “Don’t you like to read the Bible, Christmas?”

“I used to,” he had muttered, and left the room abruptly.

Now she was standing beside him, spooning a heap of battered eggs onto his wooden plate.

“Not so much, Missy!” he said quickly. In spite of his sickly condition, he had a slight smile for the child. “You say you made these hoecakes?”

“Yes, but Caroline made the jelly. It’s muscadine, and it’s real good!”

He took a cake, smeared it with the rich jelly, and tasted it. “This is real fine, Miss Caroline,” he said. “You’re a good cook.”

Caroline had been pouring coffee into Knox’s cup, and he noted the trembling hand and the flush that rose to her cheeks at Chris’s words. Knox looked at her curiously. She didn’t answer Chris, but there was a nervous smile on her lips.
Can’t be!
Knox thought.
This female preacher can’t be falling for a wild man like Chris!
But he kept an eye on her as he went on eating, and soon was convinced that it was true. She wouldn’t be the first preacher’s daughter to get silly over a bad apple, Knox reflected. He could think of several cases of such with no trouble.

Chris picked at his food, seemingly unaware of the conversation around the table; but when he realized that Greene was talking to him, he listened carefully.

“... a letter from your father last week. He said that
Doucett and Conrad would be passing through—in fact, they got here late yesterday afternoon.”

“Who are they?” Chris asked idly. He was sitting back in his chair now, allowing Missy to fuss with his hair—“fixing it,” as she called it.

“Two of the men that work for the company,” Knox spoke up. “They came... after you left.” There was a slight hesitation as he avoided mentioning the circumstances of Chris’s leaving. “Father said he’s going to send them up the Missouri to open new territory.”

“They better have their scalps on tight,” Greene remarked as he took a huge bite of biscuit and washed it down with a swallow of milk. “Those aren’t tame Indians in that part of the world.” He considered Knox soberly and added, “Far as I can make out, there’s nothing
but
wild Indians up in that part of the world.”

“You’re pretty well right on that, but Father says it’s worth the risk. First fur trappers that go in will make a fortune! Guess those two can handle it,” Knox said, shaking his head in admiration. “They’ve traveled everywhere—and done just about everything. Both of them have been all the way up the Missouri and have convinced Father that they know what they’re doing—that we can be the first to set up a trading post there. Wish Father would let me go with them.”

“I know Lawrence Conrad,” Greene informed him. “We fought together with Paul Winslow in the old days. Conrad was a good seaman. Never thought he’d leave the sea for trapping, but Nathan says the man is one of the best.” Then he added, “They want to see you while they’re here—said for you to come by the tavern tonight.”

“Sure wish I could go with them up the Missouri, but I know Father’d never let me. Guess that settles it!” Knox grumbled.

Missy had been standing patiently by Christmas’s chair, waiting for a chance to speak. With a deep breath, she blurted out, “You both are invited to my birthday party—it’s
tomorrow, and Ma’s going to make me a plum cake.” She paused, then added as an afterthought, “And you can bring presents if you want to.”

Chris grinned. “Presents? What sort of present would you like, Missy? It’s better if you just come out and say what you want, you know. You’re more likely to get it that way.”

Missy clapped her hands together and her brown eyes flashed. “I want a finger ring, like Mabel Durant!” she exclaimed.

“Missy, that’s a little rich for a preacher’s daughter,” her father gently chided.

“You against women wearing jewelry, Reverend?” Chris inquired.

“Well, I was a Quaker for quite a spell, and none of the women wore any jewelry—except wedding rings, of course—but I don’t see any harm in it myself. ‘All things in moderation,’ the Bible says, but...”

Embarrassed, the minister dropped his gaze, and at once both his guests realized that Greene was not battling with his conscience but with his empty pockets. Chris said quickly, “Well, I’ll come to your party, Missy, and you can bet I’ll have some sort of pretty for you—can’t promise what, though.”

“Goody!” Missy jumped up. “Remember, you promised to take me over to see the baby coon that Emily’s pa cotched her.”

He got up and the two went outside, the child reaching up to hold on to his hand as they picked their way along the muddy road. Watching them disappear, Knox shook his head. “Strange the way he takes to that child. He never was much with kids, Chris wasn’t. ’Course, he always did like the girls...”

“Did he—ever have a steady girl?” Caroline asked, a studied look of indifference on her face. She stopped cleaning up the table long enough to look out the window at the pair.

“Oh, girls always liked him,” Knox shrugged. “He just went from one to another—like a bee buzzin’ from flower to flower.”

“What do you think he’ll do—when he gets well, I mean?”

“He’s not going to get well if he doesn’t quit drinking,” her mother murmured quietly.

Knox turned to Rev. Greene. “You said Father wanted me to come home, but I can’t leave Chris here.”

“Looks like you’ll have to. Nathan was pretty strong about it. But we’ll look after Christmas the best we can.”

Knox said no more, but he went around with a frown all morning as he helped Dan with the chores. When Chris came back with Missy and went up to his room to rest, Knox finished milking the cow and climbed to the loft. “Father says I’ve got to come home,” he told him.

“Been expecting it, Knox.”

“I can’t do it, Chris!”

“You can’t spend the rest of your life nursing me.”

“But—”

“Look—” Chris broke off when a coughing fit doubled him up; the hacking stopped only after Knox gave him a glass of water. “Knox, you see what’s going on. I’m not going to get any better.”

That very thought had haunted the younger man, but he had pushed it out of his mind. Shaking his head, he argued heatedly, “Shut up, Christmas! You ain’t going to die!”

“We all are.” A cynical smile touched the lips of Chris, and he looked at Knox with a knowing look on his thin face. “That prison did me in, I reckon. I won’t go home as an invalid, Knox. And I won’t get better, even if you stay. Go home—I don’t want you around to watch me die.”

Knox shook his head stubbornly, but the more he argued the more adamant Chris became. Finally Knox left and went downstairs. Dan was gone; anyway, there was no point in talking with him. Knox struggled with the problem all afternoon, until Chris appeared wearing his coat and hat. Suddenly a thought hit Knox and he stood up. “I’m going with you,” he insisted. “I want to see Frenchie and Conrad.”

“Come on, then. But it won’t change nothing. You still got to go home.”

The faded letters on the weatherbeaten sign spelled out “The Red Horse,” though the crude drawing underneath looked more like a buffalo. The two men pushed inside the tavern. Knox spotted the trappers immediately. “Frenchie! Conrad!”

A game was in progress at the far end of the long, narrow building, but at the sound of Knox’s voice, a squat shape quickly rose up from the group. “By gar! Look here who eet ees—the leetle chicken!”

“I told you not to call me that, Frenchie!” Knox protested, but he was cut off when he was seized around the middle and heaved into the air by the burly halfbreed. Christmas had never seen an arm with more power.

“Cut that out, you idiot!” Knox yelled.

Frenchie Doucett was almost as wide as he was tall; and dressed in smoke-blackened buckskins, he made a formidable figure, his bulging muscles rippling with each move. The man’s broad face and dark coloring disclosed his Indian heritage. His wide smile, under a jutting brow and deep-set eyes, flashed yellow teeth large enough to crack walnuts. Hovering over this giant was a smell of sweat and smoke that seemed to permeate the atmosphere around him.

“Your papa, he say for me to give you thees”—he dashed to the wall and plucked a rifle from the peg it hung on—“and your fine mama—she say give you thees!” Thrusting the rifle into Knox’s hands, the big man grabbed the boy in a bear hug and planted a noisy, smacking kiss right on Knox’s forehead. Then he stood back and roared with laughter at the boy’s embarrassment as a howl rose from the crowd.

“Ah, leave him be, Frenchie.” Another buckskin-dressed man by the name of Canby stood up and walked across to put his hand on Knox’s shoulder. “This here young coon is full of fuss—looks ready to charge an elephant!”

“Con!” Knox smiled, pushing aside the flash of anger
Canby’s remark had sparked in him. “You look as bad as ever.”

“Ma health is shot, boy, for a fact. Don’t reckon I’ll last through more’n two or three clean shirts.”

The man’s mournful words contrasted sharply with his appearance: medium height and lean as a panther. His face had been exposed to the sun so long that his naturally fair complexion was now permanently sunburned, including his long nose. His bright blue eyes were striking against the bronze of his skin.

Christmas was puzzled. What could be wrong with the man? Greene had warned him that Laurence Conrad was an odd one, and now Chris could see why. Conrad was at least forty-five, Chris knew, for the former seaman had been a shipmate of Greene’s in the days of the Revolution. But the youthful look in his eyes belied his stooped shoulders. And despite his talk of ill health, the man was obviously still strong and hale.

“Ah, you’ll bury all of us, you old pirate!” Knox grinned. Then he looked down at the gun in his hands. Holding it up, he exclaimed, “Why—it’s Father’s Pennsylvania rifle!”

“Shore is,” Con nodded, a gleam in his eyes. He looked at Chris. “There’s another one jest like it for you, if you be Christmas Winslow.”

Chris stood there, stunned. He had not expected anything from his father. Con moved to the wall, took the other rifle and slipped it to his shoulder, sighting down the long barrel. “Same weapon Colonel Morgan’s men carried in the war—’cept these is better. Got them fancy double barrel on ’em.”

He held the rifle out, and Chris took it, somewhat awkwardly. There was no way he could refuse it, not with the crowd watching him. These weapons, he knew, had been made by William Antes and were highly prized. They carried one hammer, two frizzens, and two sets of sights. This doubled a man’s firepower: after the first barrel was fired, the hammer was drawn back and the second barrel could easily
be swiveled into place. Chris was painfully aware that any man in the room would have loved to own such a handsome rifle. He could not say a word.

“I say we ’ave a drink on eet!” Frenchie said and moved to the bar and pounded on it with his ham-like hand. Knox had been determined to drink no more, but in the hours that followed he was carried along by Doucett’s breezy manner. Glass after glass of raw whiskey found its way into the young man’s stomach; and in spite of all his good intentions, he was becoming very drunk.

Soon Knox and Chris were pulled off to a corner table by Doucett. There the ebullient trapper told them of the fortune to be made going up the Missouri, punctuating his tales with sweeping gestures of his mighty arms. He and Con had made the trip once, and his eyes gleamed as he said, “Beaver? My leetle chicken—you nevair see no beaver teel you get to Yellowstone country—
n’est pas,
Conrad?”

“That’s true. Heap of critters, right enough. Brought back all we could stack in four bull boats. Reckon the Winslows gonna be filthy rich if that keeps up...” The middle-aged trapper trailed off, then tried to cover up his rare outburst of optimism. “ ’Course, we probably won’t do as good this time,” he sighed. “If the Mandans or the Flatheads don’t scalp us, we’ll probably go over the Big Falls—if we don’t git sick and die on the way, that is.”

Frenchie chuckled. “You know heem, Knox. He always say what bad theengs gonna happen—but they nevair happen!” He went on to describe in glowing terms the breathtaking mountains, alive with an abundance of game, until Knox cried out, “Frenchie, I gotta go with you!”

“Your pa, he said you can go next time,” Con said. “Him and your ma, they say as how you need to light a shuck and git yourself home right off.”

Knox was drunk enough to blurt out what he wouldn’t have dared to admit if sober. “They think I’m a baby!”

“Well, they ain’t far wrong, boy!” Canby had come to
stand beside them, a thin smile on his lips as he stared at Knox. “Why don’t you get along to your mama now and let the menfolks get to their gamblin’?” Ignoring Knox’s angry stare, he turned to Frenchie and added, “How about it? You want to lose any more money?”

Instantly, Frenchie snapped up the challenge. “Come on, Con! We skin thees one, eh? Leave heem like wolves leave a buffalo—wis nothing but ze bones!”

The game went on into the night. At first, Canby won a great deal of money from Doucett and Con. Chris sat at the table with a glazed look on his face, taking a roll now and then, but mostly just drinking. Knox drank more of the raw whiskey as the disappointment of having to return home ate at him.