McKeever wrestled with the problem as their horses plodded ever west, following the ridges above the Moreau River. That was the best route. And if McKeever figured it correctly, Tylor would have headed for the Black Hills and the Arapaho. Lisa had men with the Arapaho: Champlain and Lafargue’s party had been hunting with them for a year now. It made the most sense that Tylor would seek them out for protection and companionship.
McKeever found himself awed by the immensity of the grassland. His early years in the north had been filled with birch forests, firs, willows, and aspen groves in a land of water, shallow and rocky soils, and clouds of hellacious black flies and mosquitoes. Travel was mostly by canoe, from post to post, as the vicious fur wars were fought between the Hudson’s Bay Company and its rivals. There he had developed his cunning, but in the end, had killed the wrong man. Escaping the consequences had led him to New York and Joshua Gregg. The east he understood: forests, rivers, those were his environments. A man could step off a trail and be hidden.
Out here?
He stood out in a universe of grassland and sky. Indeed, it had its ups and downs, hollows and distant rises, but everything looked the same. One rise was the exact repeat of the last, one drainage, brush-choked and shallow, but a perfect predictor of the next, right down to the bobbing heads of endless grass.
Over it all, the sky was without bounds. Not even on the ocean, with its waves of water, had the sky seemed so large, so encompassing as it did over these undulations of grass.
Makes a mon feel wee and weak.
The only thing that gave him hope was the river. An hour’s ride off to the south, the Moreau was his guide in a land without direction.
“Follow it west to the Black Hills.” That had been Wasichu’s suggestion. Without it, and but for sunrise, sunset, and shadow, McKeever would have had no clue as to which direction was which.
He squinted between his horse’s ears, past the packhorses with their load of trade. Centering his thoughts in the middle of Dawson McTavish’s back where the laddie rode up front, he had a feeling he should shoot the man square in the back. Be rid of whatever trouble he was sure to hatch. And McKeever would inherit that fine Philip Bond rifle as well as the man’s horse and saddle.
Aye, and ye can’t be killing every man who might be a problem, Fenway. There’d be none left.
Besides, this was the wilderness. Together they had three rifles and a young Santee with a bow. Hardly the makings of a mighty war party that would strike fear into the hearts of savage warriors. He needed McTavish’s rifle, his wilderness skills, and his understanding of Indians. Robert Dickson wouldn’t have appointed the lad to entice the Tetons to side with the British if he didn’t have some sort of talent. Not even because the boy was kin. Dickson was too pragmatic when it came to results.
The land might look flat, endless, and monotonous. Just about the time a man convinced himself that he was a mote under God’s eye, and alone in infinity, the error of his ways was made clear.
Dawson McTavish was leading the way up a long grassy incline, and just as he topped out and started down the other side, he came face-to-face with five mounted men on horseback headed east.
Neither side had any warning. Both parties topped the summit at the same moment, stopping short in surprise, each as unprepared as the other.
“Whoa!” McTavish cried, pulling his horse up, staring into a similarly alarmed Indian’s face. The man had been half asleep in the saddle, and now jerked upright. Behind him, the other four riders pulled up short. The horses were prancing, whickering.
“Tell ’em we be friends,” McKeever called. “You, Wasichu, ease forward. Tell ’em we’re not here to hurt ’em none.”
“Arapaho,” Wasichu called back, letting his horse walk forward. Everyone was milling, fighting to quiet their equally surprised mounts. Seemed that horses meeting strange horses were just as wary of each other as men.
McKeever wondered what trick of the wind had kept his mount from smelling the others.
The lead man—maybe in his thirties—had raised one hand, chattering away in some language McKeever had never heard. It might have been similar to one of the Algonquian tongues from back east.
McKeever urged his excited horse forward, pulling up beside McTavish, and smiling. “Greetings, to ye all! I’m Fenway Mc-Keever, in service t’ His Majesty King George. Bless ’is royal arse. We mean ye no harm.”
Wasichu was speaking slowly in Sioux, signing as he did.
The five Arapaho had stilled their horses, gotten themselves over their surprise, and were muttering softly among themselves. To date, none had pulled out their cased bows, but two had grabbed up their war clubs.
Wasichu called out something, bringing the Arapaho to attention. The leader, the older man, his face lined and already weathered like old walnut, asked something, making signs with his hand that McKeever had no clue about.
Wasichu said, “He wants to know what we want, and why we’re here.”
“Tell him we’re kidnapped,” McTavish muttered, shooting a sidelong look at McKeever.
“Ye’ll tell him no such thing,” McKeever growled, then lightened his tone, saying, “Tell him we’re in pursuit of a white man. One of Lisa’s. That he’s a killer and a thief who’s fleeing west. Brown hair, brown eyes, and beard. Carries an ugly rifle. A short one with a cutoff barrel.”
Wasichu translated, adding occasional words in Arapaho.
A young man on the right said something, the others listening and then nodding.
The lead Arapaho held up two fingers, then replied softly.
“They chased two white men, one short and brown. The other was tall. They had four horses, two packs. They killed four Arapaho and allied themselves with a party of Snakes. The smaller man had the ugly rifle.”
“Where’d they go?”
Wasichu translated. The Arapaho replied.
“He says they tracked the Snakes west for many days. The trail was difficult, but they worked it out. To their surprise, they found Blackfeet in the Shoshoni camp. They fought, had four men killed and another three wounded. They killed three of the Blackfeet and drove them off. They took what was left of the meat the Snakes had left drying and headed east. Most of his party took the wounded men to an Arapaho village east of the Black Hills on the White River. He and these four were headed back to their band on the Missouri where they want to trade.”
“What about the white men?”
Wasichu translated the answer: “They are with the Snakes. He says they worked out the tracks. The Snakes got away. Went west. After the fight with the Blackfeet he says the Arapaho had wounded to care for.”
“Sounds like your John Tylor’s managed to escape,” McTavish noted dryly. “Since he’s gone, maybe we can get back to what we’re supposed to be doing?”
McKeever ignored him. “Ask the Arapaho if they will take us back to this place. Tell him we’ve got trade. That we’ll give him one of the trade packs back there if he and his warriors will lead us to the white men.”
“What?” McTavish cried. “That’s not yours to . . .”
McKeever shifted his rifle, the muzzle pointed at the young man’s midriff. “Say another word, laddie, and yer guts is gonna be blown all over poor Joseph there. An’ ye better get it inta yer thick head that I work for Astor hisself. Yer on a company job, laddie. You’ll either sign on, or I’ll leave ye to rot in the grass here.”
McTavish swallowed hard.
The Arapaho had watched, missing nothing.
Wasichu gave them McKeever’s offer.
Heads nodded as they spoke, each man glancing speculatively at the packhorses.
“What’re they saying?” McKeever asked, barely above a whisper.
“Two want to go, two want to leave, one cannot decide,” Wasichu answered.
The leader considered, rocked his jaw, not staring at the packhorses like the others, but at McKeever. He seemed to be taking his measure. McKeever gave him a wicked grin in return.
The Arapaho laughed, a genuine appreciation behind his eyes. As he spoke, Wasichu translated. “He says his name is Stone Otter. He and two others will take your trade, and then he will lead you to the white man.”
“Tell him he will get the trade after he leads me to the white man. That the trade will ride along wi’ us ’til the deal be done. Then he can take it and go where he will.”
As Wasichu translated, the Arapaho continued whispering among themselves.
Stone Otter reached out with a hand, made a smoothing motion, and, looking McKeever in the eyes, said, “It is good.”
“That’s a deal,” McTavish needlessly said.
“Aye,” McKeever said happily. “Now, how about . . .”
Two of the Arapaho, most likely the dissenters, called something disagreeable, and kicked their horses off to the side. They didn’t look back as they cantered off toward the river.
“Guess they didn’t like the terms,” Joseph Aird noted where he leaned over his saddlebow.
“Lot of that going around these days.” McTavish gave Mc-Keever a hard look. “All right. I won’t try and stop you. That’s my word. Now point that rifle another direction.”
“Why, laddie, ye’ve a lick o’ sense in that cussed head o’ yern after all. See it through, and ye’ll come out of it all ahead. Me promise on that.”
Stone Otter barked some command, wheeled his tan horse around, and started back the way he’d come.
“You sure that old Stone Otter there is worth half the trade? That’s enough to buy the entire Teton Sioux nation.” McTavish was giving him that troubled look.
“Aye, especially if the mon can really track down John Tylor fer me. They’d o’ not made that claim if’n they couldn’t. There’s money to be made for all of us, laddie. As well as stopping Tylor in the process.”
And Stone Otter apparently had his own ax to grind with Tylor.
CHAPTER 25
The fire burned low; a small eye of redly glowing coals rendered down from a stack of buffalo chips. Singing Lark preferred dung fires since they didn’t smoke, didn’t flicker with dancing flames that could be seen across a distance.
Their camp lay in a copse of ponderosa, the pines whispering as night breezes blew through the long needles. On their picket, the horses shifted, standing hip shot, heads down. The temperature had dropped, a chill riding the wind.
Using a pointed stick, Singing Lark had excavated a body-long trench in the duff. Then she’d insisted that they build a shelter, a low-angled lean-to crafted out of pine branches, shocks of twisted grass, and sagebrush. Tylor had been surprised at how tightly she’d showed him the branches could be woven together.
In the distance a pack of coyotes yipped, cried, and squealed, while off to the west buffalo wolves howled in their eerie tremolo. Clouds obscured the frosting of stars that would have glowed from the soot-black heavens, this being the dark of the moon.
Beside Tylor, Singing Lark had just finished tending to her rifle. Now she laid it aside and pulled her knees up. She’d hung one of the hair-on buffalo hides over her shoulders, heedless of the brain matter, fat, and urine on the wet side. Propping her chin in a pensive manner, she stared into the coals.
Given the dropping temperature, Tylor suspected that it wasn’t going to be long before that curly-haired warmth overrode any concerns about a little odor.
“Should have cut tracks,” she told him in mixed English and Shoshoni. They were getting pretty good at patching together each other’s languages. “Gray Bear would have headed south. We follow Pretty River. Maybe he take Powder River.”
“Why the river?”
She gestured to the east. “We’shopengar. The Gourd Buttes. From the top a scout can see the entire basin. Anyone traveling on a ridge. But down low, no one can see.”
“Like the route you’ve taken us on,” he realized.
He glanced over at the meat where it lay protected by the second cow’s hide, most of it sun dried, the rest of it smoked. That had been Singing Lark’s doing. He’d have abandoned the fresh buffalo meat as a burden. She’d shown him how to thin-slice and smoke it over sagebrush fires at night. How to air-dry strips atop the packs during the day. The same thing with the quick-tan on the bison hides. It wasn’t pretty, but the skins were still mostly pliable.
He chuckled at himself.
“What?” she asked.
“I must seem simple to you.”
“Don’t know simple.”
“Not smart. Not capable. Like a child.”
She didn’t acknowledge it. Maybe to spare him the humiliation.
“I wouldn’t have known. I would have ridden right into those Blackfeet. Wouldn’t have had the first clue about how to hide a trail. You’ve kept us alive, kwee.”
“You are a warrior. Killed that Sa’idika. Struck coup on two more. You let me be me. You’re a good hunter. You and me, different but same.”
“Going to be cold tonight.”
“Takkapi.” Snow.
She’d taught him that word by mimicking flakes with her fingers, saying, “white,” and pretending to shiver.
“Hope that lodge is enough to keep us from freezing.”
“We sleep like this.” She crossed her index finger with her middle finger. “Close. Warm.”
“You sure. Being that close?”
“You afraid of yokog?”
“Not if it’s going to be that cold.”
They both laughed at that.
Tylor followed directions as he crawled into the shelter and lowered his body into the trench. Nor did he feel uneasy as she carefully settled the quick-tan hides, hair down on top of him. Like a snake, she wiggled in, slipped her body next to his, and fiddled with the final arrangement of the hides.
For a long time, Tylor lay there. Eyes closed he inhaled her scent: smoky, with a taint of horse, and a subtle fragrance that was all hers. Their shared warmth filled the robes. He carefully extended his arm to draw her close.
To his immense relief she didn’t tense, but snuggled herself against him, sighing with content.
It wasn’t his will, anything but. His body acted of its own. He tried to wiggle away as he felt himself stiffen.
She giggled, didn’t pull away. Said, “It’s a wean. They do that. Go to sleep.”
With that, she took a deep breath, exhaled in contentment, and began to breathe deeply.
Yes, sure. They do that. I am not James Sutherland. I will not be James Sutherland.
It took Tylor hours to drift off, and only then when a gentle rain finally lulled him to dreams of nubile young women and the possibilities of what they might share with a man.
CHAPTER 26
That first storm had left a couple of inches of snow. The one that followed, two days later, dropped almost six. Each time Singing Lark managed a different kind of shelter that, with the buffalo cow hides, allowed them to sleep warm and dry.
With the arrival of cold weather, Singing Lark had immediately changed her direction of travel, turning them west. Or as near to it as they could come. She would follow a drainage to its head, hurry them across the open summit, and into the head of another drainage on the other side. When that one began to veer in the wrong direction, she hustled them over the divide and into yet another drainage.
It was sinuous work, but that night they camped under a tilted sandstone outcrop that was barely wide enough for both of their bodies.
The following day they reached the Powder River, as Singing Lark called it. When they crossed the leaf-strewn floodplain they found tracks winding through the sagebrush just back from the cottonwoods. A lot of horses moving at a quick clip. Fresh in the still-muddy silt.
After studying them for a bit, Singing Lark told him, “Four tens of horses. Not long ago. Maybe a hand of time.”
“Ridden?”
“Yes. See how straight the track lines? Horses, left to themselves, go back and forth.” She made a sinuous motion with her hand. “Take their time. Some go here, som
e go there.”
“Headed north. Pa’kiani?”
She shrugged, worried eyes staring at the cottonwood-choked bottoms down which the horses had vanished. “Can’t tell, gwee. Crow horse? Arapaho horse? Blackfeet horse? All have the same shape feet, yes? Only men make different style of moccasins.”
Didn’t matter that they might have already passed. For all Tylor and Singing Lark knew, the riders could be waiting just on the other side of the trees, or someone might be following. Maybe to catch up with the rest.
Singing Lark pushed them forward mingling their tracks with the others, then after a couple hundred yards to confuse their trail, veered off onto the carpet of fallen cottonwood leaves. Winding through the gray trunks, she crossed to the river, splashing into the Powder. Tylor stared at the water as they crossed. The stuff looked opaque. Like light brown milk. He couldn’t see so much as an inch into the surface.
“What’s the plan?” he asked.
She jerked her head back. “Moving horses make tracks, gwee. We keep making tracks and someone will follow. We go to a place where we don’t make tracks.”
She took them into a small creek, then turned the horses upstream, splashing in the little brook and occasionally forcing their way through the overhanging brush until she encountered a low gravel bar. She dismounted, leading the horses, one by one, around the back side of the gravel bar, then up onto the bank. Tylor watched in amazement. From the stream, given the way Singing Lark threaded the horses around the gravel, not a single track could be seen.
From there, she led the way up out of the little valley, keeping to outcrops of sandstone, or following cobble surfaces, always places that the hooves wouldn’t disturb. Tylor challenged himself to pick the route, looking ahead, trying to anticipate where she’d take them. By afternoon, he was getting a feel for it. Starting to learn.
A couple of hours before sunset, she ground-reined her horse in the lee of a long ridge, its sides sagebrush-studded and dotted with juniper trees. The looming flanks of what she called “Powder River’s Mountains” rose in the west, the slopes timbered; high on the mountain, slabs of bedrock tilted at steep angles above rocky talus.
Flight of the Hawk: The Plains Page 12