The Deliverance

by Richard S. Wheeler

  “I don’t want anyone with us. Just me, you, and her.”

  “That’s just one thing. I’m in debt to Bent. We’ve been sipping a lot of Taos Lightning. How can I get out of that?”

  “We just go!”

  “I am a man of honor.”

  “Well, who says he is, eh? He charges too damn much.”

  “There’s a few more problems than that. If we find her children, how do we free them?”

  She grunted. He knew she had no reply.

  “I don’t have any money,” he added.

  “We got to steal them children, then.”

  He didn’t reply to that. He knew what the odds were.

  And so they spent the night snugged together but in the morning Skye felt exhausted. He splashed himself with water and called that his toilet, and headed into the quiet yard just as Goddam Murray was opening the front gates.

  As always, Standing Alone huddled against the mud walls, greeting the day.

  Skye stepped outside into the golden hush. The Cheyenne woman saw him, and stood slowly. She was waiting for an answer, and her gaze enveloped him, missing nothing.

  He had to think of the signs. The finger language was so poor it never sufficed. But finally, he signaled her: Grandmother, I will go. Soon. Not today. Much to do first.

  Standing Alone nodded and touched him with her hand. He felt a strange power flowing from that gentle touch, from the tips of her fingers upon his wrist. There were things about life he never would grasp, and one of them was this strange touch that sent something deep into his heart, something that was more than gratitude or encouragement; something that bonded him to this Cheyenne woman.

  He felt mesmerized by the force of it and then shied away from her, fearful of this strange force.

  “Soon, Grandmother. I must talk to Bent. Quit this place and get my horses and all. Then we’ll go.”

  It was English, but she nodded. Odd how meanings sometimes conveyed, even if words failed.

  She stood solemnly in that gold dawn light, the level rays of the sun strong on her face, her features once again young. He knew she was barely thirty and yet all those years at the gate she had been an old woman.

  He left her there, and hunted down Bent but failed to find him. He looked for Barclay, intending to give notice. It was too early. The post didn’t stir until midmorning.

  He crossed the quiet yard again, and then up the stairs to the hunters’ rooms. He would need to look at his outfit. He would need powder and balls and caps at the least. The outfitting worried him. He owed the company. Many a night he had squandered his future pay in that billiards parlor and saloon.

  He found Victoria in their room, packing up gear.

  “We going?”

  “Soon as we can.”

  “You ain’t got much powder.”

  “That’s going to be tricky.”

  He left Victoria to the packing and headed for the pens to round up his three horses. Two of these he saddled. The third would carry a pack. Someone of them would be walking.

  That done, he headed for the store and there at last he found Bent.

  “Mr. Bent, I’m resigning.”

  “No you’re not. You owe the company three months of back wages.”

  “I’ll write you an IOU.”

  “No you won’t. You’re going to stay here and hunt. If it’s Standing Alone, forget it. I told you, leave her alone.”

  “I’ve told her I’m going.”

  Bent was growing angry. “Well I’ll tell her otherwise. You will not duck out on me.”

  Skye sighed. “What I owe is just about the price of a horse. I’ll give you a bill of sale.”

  “The hell you will, Skye.” Bent loomed over him, beetle-browed and tough.

  “All right, what are your terms?” Skye asked.

  “Terms? Terms? There are none. You’ll go hunting today as usual and you’ll give me your word you’ll return this evening. Your wife stays here. Your outfit stays here.”

  “You didn’t hear me, Bent. I’ve quit. You’ll get a horse for what I owe. I’m going to do something that will make the Cheyenne happy. If you pen me up, they are not going to be happy.”

  He glared at Bent, ready to pound the man if it came to that. No one, no one on earth, would imprison him again if he could help it.

  Bent retreated. “Your funeral,” he said.

  “I need powder and ball and some other stuff.”

  “Your problem, not mine.” He turned to the chief trader. “Murray, he’s got no credit. Don’t give him any.”

  “My word is my credit.”

  Bent laughed. “Don’t come back,” he said.

  five

  Two young hunters, Tom Boggs and Lyle Lilburn, braced Skye while he was packing his duffel in the plaza.

  “We hear you’re leaving us, Mister Skye,” Boggs said.

  “Word gets around fast.”

  “You going to help that crazy Cheyenne woman?”

  Skye nodded.

  “That’s a fine thing to do,” Boggs said.

  That wasn’t what Skye had expected. He supposed they would all echo William Bent, and greet his decision with a horselaugh, or consider it a self-imposed death sentence.

  Goddam Murray and the clerks had been talking, and it took only about two minutes for gossip to work through Bent’s Fort.

  “You’re doing it for nothing, too,” Lyle said.

  “No, I’m being paid,” Skye replied.

  “Yeah, with that.” Lilburn pointed at the Cheyenne medicine bundle. “That don’t buy DuPont.”

  Skye shrugged. “It’s just something I want to do. That’s pay enough.”

  Boggs shook his head. “You’re likely going to get yourself killed, if not by a pack of mean Utes, then by some ornery greasers. You’re walking into the devil’s own lair.”

  Skye nodded. There was no point in denying it.

  “You’re doing it to help Standing Alone?”

  Skye straightened, lifted his top hat and settled it. “I suppose I am.”

  “You suppose you are!”

  “Maybe help those children, then.”

  Lilburn grinned. “Now that sounds more like the Skye I know. Help those young ‘uns escape from ten years of stoop labor and an early death. That wouldn’t have something to do with your sailor past, would it?”

  Skye grinned.

  Boggs eyed the heap of goods. “You outfitted proper?”

  Skye evaded that. These boys were relatives by marriage to the Bents.

  “No, you ain’t,” Boggs said, relentlessly. “I heard they wouldn’t even spare you powder.”

  “I’ve enough,” Skye replied, tightly.

  “It’s bad enough you going off on this grouse hunt, like you’re after the Holy Grail, but it’s worse you going off half fixed.”

  “I can live like an Indian,” Skye said.

  “Indians don’t live like Indians anymore; they get stuff from us. How long since you seen a stone arrowhead?”

  Lilburn lifted Skye’s powderhorn and shook it. “Thought so,” he said. “A man going off into Ute country without spare powder is a man gonna push up flowers. Skye, you just stay right here.”

  “I’m busy, mate.”

  But Lilburn ran up the stairs and into the dormitory where the trappers and hunters bunked. Skye could hear him up there, and moments later half a dozen of his comrades and rowdies burst out the door, clattered down the stairs, and surrounded Skye. There was something afoot, and it made Skye uncomfortable.

  Then Will Gibbs thrust a powderhorn at him. “This here’s for you, Mister Skye. I got me another. It’s full of DuPont.”

  He hung the horn over Skye’s neck, and patted Skye’s arm.

  “What a thing, helping that savage,” he said.

  Johnny Case was next. “I got a spare bullet mold, fifty caliber like yours, and here’s a few pigs.” He dropped the one-pound lead bars into Skye’s duffel, and added the mold. “This’ll let you throw someth
ing that stings.”

  “I think maybe we’d better get us a proper pen and paper so I can record what I owe,” Skye said.

  “You don’t owe nothing,” Boggs said. “Not one in a thousand would do it. Risk his life like this for nothing.”

  “It’s not for nothing,” Skye said, uncomfortably.

  “I seen that woman there at the gate all this time, and I feel bad for her, but you’re the one who’s doing something about it.”

  “She chose me, mate.”

  “So I heard, but you said yes.”

  Skye felt itchy. He wasn’t used to anything like this. He saw Victoria watching quietly, approval in her face. The crowd grew, until most of the engaged men in Bent’s Fort crowded the plaza around Skye. And one by one, they brought him sustenance.

  “Mister Skye,” said Walt Gillis, “this here’s cowhide shoe leather; real sole leather, tougher than any buffler hide you’ll ever find. You’ll need it.”

  Skye accepted it gratefully. He and Victoria and Standing Alone would be walking because they lacked horses.

  One by one they brought him valuable things: from the clerks in the store, some trading items, including the prized blue beads the tribes loved so much. From the cooks, some jerky, tallow, commeal, sugar, flour, salt, and tea. From the engagés, spare flints and steels, a spare blanket, soap, half a candlestick, a canvas poncho, thong.

  Skye watched the pile grow, wondering whether he could fit it all on his two remaining horses, wondering what he had done to earn this sudden outpouring of honor and esteem.

  Now a silent crowd stood around him in the plaza. Skye saw Victoria standing proudly by; and there at the gate was Standing Alone herself, oddly isolated, as if this blanket squaw had no connection to the portentous events unfolding a few yards away.

  Above, on the broad deck of the galleries, stood those in command: William Bent himself, his posture dour and his face furrowed. Beside him the chief factor, Alexander Barclay, exuding disapproval as only the English can disapprove. And the excitable Goddam Murray, rising up and down on his toes like a tottering barrel. The entire post had come to see the Skyes off.

  The heap of offerings exceeded what his horses could carry. And offerings they were, as if a church’s collection plate had passed through this motley crowd of bearded men, and they had spilled their very substance into it. They were honoring him. He had never been so honored. These were a bold race of men, whose imaginations were fired by this quest for the Holy Grail, two imprisoned children; or more likely, the news of their deaths. Not for money was Skye setting out into dangerous lands, nor for fame, but only to help a woman whose presence had haunted the post for years.

  Skye scarcely knew what to say, so he pulled off his top hat and bowed his head.

  When he lifted his gaze again, he discovered Bent racing down the stairs, and that spelled trouble. He’d get out just as fast as he could.

  Bent pushed through the silent crowd until he reached Skye.

  “I’ll lend you the horse,” he said. “You’ll need it.”

  Skye nodded. “I do need it.”

  “And another. You need another.”

  “Mr. Bent, I can’t assure you that I’ll ever—”

  Bent wasn’t listening. “Get that horse, and the dun pack mule, rigged up.”

  The stable man, Voller Campbell, leaped to the command.

  “It’s yours. Skye, I can steer you a little, if you’re so determined to commit suicide. The Ute band you want isn’t the Mouache who live around here. Those were maybe Weeminuche or Capotes. We think Capotes, from the San Luis Valley. We don’t know. We looked hard, offered bribes and rewards. They’re trouble, the Utes. Treacherous buzzards. I don’t have to tell you what you’re facing. You know the Utes. Dangerous and unpredictable. All smiles and murder. Likely to sell these women into slavery if they can.”

  Bent offered his hand, and Skye found the grip strong and affectionate. “I will remember this,” Skye said.

  “We’ll remember you.”

  The stable man brought the bay horse Skye had turned over to Bent to pay debts, and a mule, each rigged with a packsaddle.

  Then, while Skye hastily wrapped and balanced his loads among the animals, Stands Alone slowly walked to the heart of the plaza, her gaze soft upon them all. She had seen the hunters and trappers, and finally the whole post, contribute something to this venture, and now she passed through them, touching each, mumbling something in her own tongue that Skye knew was a thanksgiving. She paused long before Bent; he understood the woman’s Cheyenne, and nodded.

  Then the moment came.

  Skye nodded to Victoria, who grabbed the halter rope of one horse.

  “Thank you all,” he said. “With all these things, we’ll succeed.”

  “It’ll take more than things, Mister Skye,” William Bent said. “My wife’s people will remember.”

  Skye nodded. Nothing more needed saying. He beckoned to Standing Alone, who took up a halter rope, and he collected the other two, and they made their way out the gate and into the morning.

  It seemed oddly silent. No breeze hummed through grass. No crows gossiped. No sounds emerged from the great yellow fort. He led his bride, and Stands Alone, along the river trail west, scarcely knowing where to go.

  They reached a point where cottonwoods and a slope threatened to conceal Bent’s Fort, and paused to look back. Skye had an odd, hollow feeling as he stared at that solemn walled city, a strange island of safety and comfort in a wild land. Something about the place tugged him back even if he had not had the happiest sojourn there.

  He turned to Standing Alone, whose gaze was sharp upon the silent white man’s castle. But then she smiled, first at Victoria and then at Skye. Her few possessions had been heaped upon the old mule so she could walk beside them unburdened. But it was her face that caught his eye.

  She had come alive. The woman who had huddled at the gate, awaiting her loved ones, had seemed ancient, but this majestic woman standing proudly beside Skye and Victoria had shed thirty years overnight, and her strong-boned face was alive with hope.

  six

  Straight toward the Utes. Skye didn’t quite know what his hurry was. And yet he chafed at every delay, as if the children had been abducted four days ago instead of four years ago. But he knew why he hurried. Less for the Cheyenne woman’s sake than for theirs.

  Walking pained him. His ungainly gait, comfortable on the rolling teak deck of a man-o’-war, served him ill on land. The women walked easily, each leading horses, but he felt the hard clay hammer his feet and calves with every step.

  The Taos Trail took him where he wanted to go, straight up the Arkansas River. Mexico lay on one side; the United States of America on the other. He belonged to neither and probably would always be a man without a country, a friend of suffering people whoever they might be. For he had suffered, and knew how much any small kindness meant.

  The river coursed through rolling plains, short-grass country, dry all summer but verdant now with spring rains. At least the weather was bearable. Later on, this blistered and blistering land would be impassible from midafternoon until dusk, and one would be wise to shade up until the worst of the day had passed.

  Even so, the walking sweated him. He paused frequently and always with the same salutation:

  “You ladies will wish to rest,” he said, his courtliness concealing other motives.

  But Victoria only laughed as she watched him collapse into grass, undo his laced-up bullhide moccasins, and massage his white feet. She was more careful than he, scanning the distant vistas and studying the hilltops before she settled herself.

  Skye splashed river water on his face, and sometimes threw it down his shirt to cool off. But the heavy mountain rifle was always at his side, and even during his ablutions he was aware of everything: the gossip of the crows, the sudden silences, the flight of hawks, and subtle alterations of nature.

  He knew he was virtually helpless, alone with two women. The Comanches
would make quick sport of all three and so would the Jicarilla Apaches. The Utes themselves could go either direction depending on their mood. But his octagon-barreled rifle spoke with authority, especially when pointed casually at a headman.

  He chose his campsites carefully, sometimes half a mile off the trail, and in a hollow where they could scratch up a cook fire and not be seen. He didn’t want to meet anyone, not even friendly traders.

  During those first days, he quietly studied Standing Alone. She was a mystery to him. Questions teemed in his mind but he could not converse with her, and the finger signs were crude and unhelpful. What had impelled her to huddle through four travel seasons at the gate of Bent’s Fort waiting for children who would never return? Why couldn’t she simply surrender, grieve, and go on living? What did her tribe, her husband, her clan and parents think of this strange conduct?

  She had built a small wickiup downriver from the fort, and had repaired to that place many evenings to cleanse herself and do her toilet. The hut was known to all the tribes trading at the fort, and was sacrosanct. No one disturbed one item within it. But always, when daylight stirred and travelers arrived or departed, she could be found at her self-appointed post, wrapped in her blue blanket, watching them with a keen and searching eye.

  Sometimes she had cried out and leapt to her feet, run toward some youth or girl who looked like her own, only to wither back into inert sorrow. Most of the men at the post had seen her do that; they could only shake their heads. Some wondered whether she was mad, but Skye had never seen any suggestion of it. He had seen a determined mother, waiting for her children.

  But Victoria was making progress with the woman, and somehow they were conversing in simple terms. Standing Alone had absorbed many English words over those years, and while she could not put them together she had acquired some understanding. With fingers, a few words in common, much pointing, and sheer guesswork they were starting to talk.

  “Skye, dammit, you know she’s got a younger daughter?” Victoria asked, one late hour in the dark.

  “Daughter? Where?”

  “In her band. Aunts take care of her, like mothers.”

  “What do her relatives think of her?”