by Win
The meat was stringy and tough. He wanted coffee. Hell, he wanted whiskey. He swigged creek water from a flask. He poured the water onto his head and wiped at the sore spot. The hand came away pink.
“Why did you follow me?”
Baptiste shrugged. “You followed me.”
For a moment Tomás woozed toward a memory. His head rocked like a boat on choppy waters.
“Your dad and I rode into Canyon de Chelly. You followed us. Warned us about Nez Begay.”
Tomás brought back the pictures of that night.
“Too late,” said Baptiste with a grin, “but you warned us.”
He remembered Nez Begay pointing a rifle at himself and Sam Morgan.
“Maybe we better get the hell out of here,” Tomás said.
“We already got the hell out of there,” said Baptiste. “You rode all night, face down.”
Tomás remembered the bumping, the feeling of being rapped in the head over and over, and the mad dreams. He grinned. He would have shaken his head, but he knew how that would feel. “Where in hell are we?”
“We rode into the river and then up the creek. We picked up Kallie. We came up the creek a long way and then crossed the divide to Black’s Fork. Eventually, they’ll find the tracks where we came out the water. We’ll be to hell and gone by then. If you can ride.”
“What’s the hurry?” Tomás teased.
“Maybe we like Joaquin’s jokes?”
“I need a few minutes.”
They were quiet. After a while, Baptiste said, “You’ve been wanting to kill a man, now you did. How’s it feel?”
Tomás floated his mind back. At the time he’d lost consciousness too fast. Finally he said, “Fantastic.”
47
“I am sick of this stuff,” Tomás.
Baptiste looked up from his knees. He took a few more strokes with his skinning knife on the whetstone. The beaver was flopped in front of him, drowned. He reached out and applied the tip of the knife to the right place.
“Every day, up a creek, down a creek. It is boring.”
Baptiste quoted Sam Morgan as he worked. “You will learn to like trapping. When you ride upstream in the pre-dawn light, the mist is still on the surface…”
Tomás took over in a mocking tone, “It is like the breath of the water.”
“You find just the right set,” Baptiste plunged on…
“From your own sense of being like a beaver.”
“You set the trap well, you bait the stick…”
“And you ghost your way back out of the cold, mysterious world of the water.”
Baptiste held up the hide. “Result,” he said in his own words, “the beaver loses his precious coat, so that there may be felt hats.”
“And what,” said Tomás, “is there to recommend all this labor?”
Baptiste turned half serious. “Well, when you’ve skinned the animal, scraped the hide, and stretched it to dry, you have a plew worth six dollars. That’s a week’s wages in a town.”
“In a town,” said Tomás, “you have many friends, you have good food, you have whiskey, you have women.”
Baptiste rolled the skin and tied it behind his saddle with another one. “I like eating beaver tail,” he said. Most evenings he cooked the tails covered with hot coals.
He stepped up into the stirrup. “Trapping is a craft,” he told Tomás, “a dollar, a way to live.”
“Beaver stinks. You stink,” said Tomás. “We stink.”
Baptiste clucked his mount downstream, toward the camp. “What do you want to do?”
Tomás said, “Quit.”
They told Joaquin he couldn’t come along—they’d see him in Taos. They said goodbye to Old Bill. The next morning they set their ponies’ muzzles south along the river. Baptiste said, “How are we going to make a living?”
“Let’s just live.”
“All right.” Baptiste mused. “Where are we going, exactly, and how are we going to spend our time?”
“I want adventure,” said Tomás. “I want action.”
Baptiste just looked at him sidelong.
“Also, I am mad to find my sisters.”
“I can see that much. So why don’t we start with Walkara?”
Cold, little bubbles squirted up through Tomás’s gut. “We’re riding into the village of a damned slaver.”
Baptiste smiled. “We rode south from rendezvous with him. Besides, you said you wanted adventure.”
Regardless, it was too late now. A half dozen riders were on their way to take the strangers prisoner, or take them to the chief’s hospitality, as the case might be.
Steely faces pointed at them. Tomás recognized two of Walkara’s brothers, made sign language greetings, and said “Walkara” twice.
One of them corrected Tomás’s pronunciation, though Tomás couldn’t hear the difference. Funny how the faces never got less steely. Into the village they went, their status unclear.
At the sight of the two trappers Walkara’s face burst out with joviality. “I am glad to see my beaver-man friends.” He was also glad, according to his protestations, to have a chance to practice his English, and his Spanish, and with Baptiste even his Shoshone. He told Tomás and Baptiste they were guests of honor, and invited them to a multi-lingual smoke of the pipe. “Afterwards we will have a feast,” he said.
Then, studying Tomás’s face, he asked Baptiste, “Why does your young friend look so relieved?”
Baptiste said, “I think he was afraid you would kill us.”
“Kill you?” Walkara laughed and slapped his knees. Then he gave a devilish grin and said, “That would be bad for business.”
Tomás didn’t think he was kidding.
They smoked. They ate. They shared their only jug of whiskey with Walkara and his brothers. Late that night, Walkara showed them that his wives had put up a small tipi for their comfort. His last words to them that night were, “You are men without women. This is not good. While you are with us, perhaps you will look with favor on some of our beautiful women.”
When they were stretched out in their blankets, Tomás said, “You think he means women for a night or women for long term?”
“Either one,” said Baptiste.
Tomás slept at a simmer.
At breakfast Tomás put it to the chief. “Your brother-friend Pegleg has my sisters. I want them.”
Baptiste leapt in, “I apologize for my young friend. Though he…”
Walkara interrupted, laughing. “The man who never quits!” He seemed to take thought, and shook his head. “I still don’t know where they are. Pegleg has not returned. Maybe the three of them are living in a tipi in a beautiful place in…”
He asked Baptiste a question in Shoshone.
“Wedded bliss,” Baptiste told Tomás.
Tomás frowned at that. “I am afraid he will trade them to men who will use them badly.”
Walkara shrugged. “Anything is possible. Not all husbands are as good as Utes, and Comanches are especially bad. So… Here’s my idea. I will tell you where I think Pegleg might have gone. I will even tell you without asking for anything in return for the information, since you come to us as paupers.” He paused dramatically. “If I were them, looking to trade those horses, or the buffalo robes, or perhaps even the women, I would have gone to the new fort the Bent brothers are building.”
Sam and Baptiste looked at each other quizzically.
“You heard about the fort,” teased Walkara.
“Vaguely,” said Tomás. There were reports of it at rendezvous. William Bent and his brother Charles were known as traders all over the southern plains, and now they were constructing building a fort on the Arkansas River, below the Purgatory, within range of the Arapahos, Cheyennes, and Comanches.
“What fort?” said Sam.
“It will very big,” said Walkara. “Those Bents, they plan to do very big trading.”
“And you think Pegleg went there.”
Walkara shrug
ged again. “Even I want to see this great fort. A man could trade anything there. To anybody. For months, in and out of that fort, you could trade. Go to Cheyenne, come back. Go to Comanche, come back. Since Pegleg is not back yet, I think he is still there.”
“You really think so?” asked Tomás eagerly.
“Yes. And now I will make you a proposition. I will lead you straight to the fort myself, with enough of my young men to make us safe against enemies. I want to see it, and I want to show you what a good friend Walkara can be.”
Tomás and Baptiste gaped at each other.
“The season is a little late,” said Walkara, “for a long trip. I suggest that we start today.”
48
Tomás was exhausted and exhilarated. He couldn’t believe they’d ridden so far so fast. They loped the horses more than they walked them. Every rider had two or three mounts and switched a couple of times during the day. They did not cook but ate pemmican. They barely took time to make fires, but rode from before sunrise to after sundown. Tomás had never seen anything like it.
And now they could see it in the distance on the north bank of the river. Relaxed, they walked their mounts ceremoniously toward Bent’s big house.
Walkara put on one of his devilish grins. His favorite mood seemed to be devilment, not all of it in fun.
“Now is the time for me to apologize,” he said. “I’ve been having a bit of fun with you.” He looked frankly at Tomás.
“What do you mean?”
“Your sisters are not here.”
“No?!” Tomás was pissed off.
“No. They are in California.”
“They what?”
“In California. Or maybe they have started back by now.”
“What the hell are they doing in there?”
“Pegleg decided to go to California to buy horses. People say horses in California are as common as leaves on trees. Your father once brought back a herd from there.”
Tomás didn’t need any more Sam Morgan stories. “They’re buying horses?”
“Well, I don’t think they’ll actually pay for them.”
Tomás couldn’t speak for fear of yelling.
Baptiste said, “This is the second time you led us on a wild goose chase.”
Walkara shrugged. “My brother wouldn’t want this hotheaded young man following him to California. And I like your company. And I wanted to go to rendezvous. And to visit Bent’s fort….”
“You son of a bitch,” said Tomás.
Walkara laughed. “I only have a little fun with you. Now let us enjoy ourselves at the fort, no?”
The fort stretched in front of them now. The outer walls were adobe, and though they were unfinished, the place was going to be huge, about sixty paces long.
A courtyard was partly enclosed, with a big fur press in the center. Rooms lined three sides, two stories high.
“Hell, it’s a small town all by itself,” said Baptiste.
“I have never been in an American town,” said Walkara.
Neither had Tomás.
Walkara strutted around the trade room all agog. He stroked each of the dozen rifles. He pinched several Hudson’s Bay blankets.
“Look at these,” said Baptiste. He pointed to a row of handsome coats sewn from light blue blankets.
“I have every kind of cloth you might fancy,” said the man who introduced himself as William Bent, though the Indians called him Little White Man. Bent fingered a bolt of calico, another of wool.
“Your wives would appreciate these,” he said, indicating the display of pots, pans, and other metal utensils.
“I want some of this,” said Baptiste. It was blank paper. “And a bottle of that ink.” Little White Man handed him the materials.
“Notions,” said Bent, pointing to needles, thimbles, buttons, thread, and yarn.
“Here’s a treat for you,” Bent told Walkara, and handed the chief a dried apricot.
“Eat it,” said Baptiste. “Dried fruit.”
Walkara bit off half, tasted, and gave the remainder back to Little White Man, who made a face. The trader turned on a big smile, though, reached into a barrel, and offered Walkara a slice of dried apple. The chief nibbled a bit, popped all of it into his mouth, chewed, and shrugged his shoulders.
Baptiste held up a piece of chocolate, raised an eyebrow at Bent, and indicated the chief. “Sure,” said the trader.
Walkara took one bite and said, “I want more. How much?”
Bent gave him a handful. “From a friend to a friend,” he said.
Walkara started to pop all the chocolate into his mouth, but Tomás reached over and snitched a little. The chief laughed heartily and chomped the rest greedily.
“I have brought two dozen good horses,” he said to Bent, “Ute horses. No other people have such fine horses. Maybe I trade you some.”
“I have no doubt,” said Bent, “that we can do business.”
“Do you think,” Baptiste asked Tomás softly, “it’s Walkara the man who’s excited, or the businessman?”
Tomás said, “It’s the one who knows he can make enough profit to buy a hundred more horses.”
Suddenly Tomás jerked to attention. A tall, rangy Indian with gray hair, a middle-aged woman, and a young woman had just stepped into the room, escorted by a clerk.
Tomás watched them cross the floor with the fascination he might have given the archangel Gabriel.
Baptiste coughed out a caution.
Tomás tore his eyes off the young woman, stepped close to Bent and asked, “Who are those three?”
The clerk got out strings of beads, and the older woman admired them with oohs and aahs.
Bent said softly, “That is the Cheyenne Yellow Eye, his wife, and their daughter.”
“Who is the daughter?”
“Her name is Grass. She looks delicious, doesn’t she?”
Tomás was too mesmerized to answer.
“Excuse me,” said Bent. He picked up a large twist of tobacco from a pile of twists, strode across to Yellow Eye, greeted him in the Cheyenne language, and made him a gift of the tobacco.
Walkara had gotten the same treatment, and Bent was back in an instant.
Tomás asked, “Is Yellow Eye a chief?”
Bent’s smile was hard to read. “No, but I’d say he’s a man not to piss off.”
“Will you introduce me to them?”
Bent gave him a lecherous grin. “Are you interested in Grass? She’s probably available.”
“Available?” If the Crow people were loose, the Cheyennes had a reputation for the opposite.
“Their daughter died, and Yellow Eye bought this one as a gift to his wife.”
“Bought her!”
Bent spoke as though it was plain and simple. “Grass is a slave. To replace their daughter.”
A slave!
“She’s a pain in the ass, though. If she keeps up with that, she won’t be a daughter long.”
Trembling, Tomás said, “Will you introduce me to them?”
For a moment Bent looked taken aback. Then he said, “I’ll do better than that. My wife is Yellow Eye’s niece. If the three of you will join me at the head of the table in the dining room this evening, my wife will get her relatives to sup with us.”
The next morning William Bent enjoyed telling everyone around the post that Tomás, son of the well-known free trapper and trader Sam Morgan, was infatuated with a slave woman. “And the way she looked at him,” Bent went on, “I’d say there’s likely to be fireworks.”
At Yellow Eye’s invitation, Tomás, Baptiste, and Walkara rode over to the Cheyenne camp, along the Arkansas River.
On the way Baptiste got up the nerve to tell his friend, “You need to talk easy to Yellow Eye.”
Tomás said, “He looks like a difficult man.”
Walkara laughed. “He looks like a damn devil!”
The oval of yellow that covered one eye, combined with the black line painted from forehead across
the nose to the chin, gave the Cheyenne a sinister aspect.
“Anyway, mind your manners,” said Baptiste.
“Don’t worry,” said Tomás, “I am smart.”
When they arrived, Yellow Eye’s attempts at hospitality were defeated by his natural sourness. He responded to Baptiste’s overtures in the Cheyenne language mostly with dark looks. Yellow Eye’s wife stayed in the lodge, and their host made sure that Grass served them coffee, and asked several times if they wanted more sugar, and refilled their cups repeatedly. Naturally, Baptiste said nothing about her. Just as naturally, and because he spoke no Cheyenne, Tomás paid attention to no one else.
In half an hour they took their leave. Tomás looked back at Grass, and she at him. For Tomás parting was like unraveling rope.
On the way back Baptiste spoke gently to him. “Your face is in a rage.”
“Of course I’m enraged,” said Tomás. “She’s amazing. She’s magnificent. And she’s a slave.”
“It’s not what₀”
“I can see what is going on. I don’t need to speak Cheyenne to know slavery. The one who hasn’t been a slave is you.”
Baptiste said gently, “My mother was. My father bought her from the Hidatsas who abducted her. And though he was drunk sometimes and behaved badly, she loved him, and they made children together. They made a family.”
Tomás glared at Baptiste.
After a few clops of horses’ hoofs, Baptiste said, “It appears to me that Yellow Eye is exasperated with this girl. He was showing her off to you. Why don’t you do something to impress her?”
“What do you have in mind.?”
“Perform on Vici.”
“Yes!”
When the sun was low in the west, twenty or thirty Cheyennes gathered in the big courtyard of the fort. A dozen Arapahos, some Mexicans who were building the fort from adobe, and a few trappers also wrapped their blankets around their shoulders and waited for the show.
On the south side of the fur press was a circle of willow branches Tomás and Baptiste had cut that afternoon. They were now in the autumn colors of orange and purple, and Tomás had taken the trouble to weave them into a giant wreath.
No one knew exactly what was supposed to happen, but Baptiste had spread the word enthusiastically, and Bent had added to the festivities by promising fiddling and dancing after the show.