“Easy now,” Big John cautioned. “It means nothing.”
But Gabriel’s heart was pounding. There was no light shining through the trees, not even the glimmer of lamplight peeking from between loose shutters, and the sky above the cabin was smokeless.
They fanned out as they crossed the meadow, keeping their horses on a tight rein. Gabriel’s eyes darted, his ears straining for any sound. The breeze had died at sunset and, without it, he could hear even the faint chatter of the river beyond the trees.
Baldy pushed forward with quick, mincing steps, pulling restively at the bit by tossing his jaw forward. Gabriel kept an eye on the piebald’s ears as they drew closer to the cabin, reading in the way they moved what the pony scented or heard. When Big John drew up about halfway across the meadow, Pike and Gabriel did the same. From here Gabriel could just make out the near wall of the cabin, its hewed logs a flat, dark plane.
“Look sharp there, lad,” Big John whispered. “Is that a shadow in yon corral, or one of Charlo’s oxen?”
Squinting in the murky light, Gabriel felt a surge of relief. “The black one,” he confirmed. “The one that was snake-bit last summer and nearly died.”
Big John lowered his rifle. “I believe ye be right, and we’re not likely to find a war party nearby that wouldn’t take time to slaughter the stock.”
“The Chippewas?” Pike asked.
“Sure, it crossed my mind. The lad’s, too, I’d wager. Them, or others.”
But now that all seemed right again, Gabriel felt a sudden, stubborn loyalty. “No,” he stated flatly. “Not Chippewas.”
“Ah, Gabriel, was it not Tall Cloud’s own nephew what tried to skewer Mister Pike here?”
“The Chippewas are not at war with us,” Gabriel said stoutly. “They are our friends.”
There was an edge to Big John’s reply. “The Métis are ye friends, Gabriel, not the Chippewas. Ye’ll be learnin’ that soon enough if it’s war they’re truly wantin’.”
Gabriel’s lips thinned, but he knew Big John was right. He was bois brûle, a half-blood—what the Canadian traders called Métis—and if it came to war he would fight as such. But the thought of it made him half sick. A lot of Chippewa blood ran through the bois brûles. War would be little more than an ugly, murderous feud within an extended family.
Impulsively he kicked at Baldy’s ribs, galloping recklessly into the cabin’s yard. He could make out the litter of wind-blown leaves piled against the threshold of the cabin’s door, and, in the corral, the snowy belly of the mostly black ox gliding toward him. But Charlo’s second ox, his old, brindled riding mare, and the white buffalo runner were nowhere to be seen.
Big John and Pike rode into the yard and dismounted. Big John let the roan’s reins trail on the ground, but Pike kept the bay close, using him as a shield between himself and the deeper darkness of the trees. Even in the shadows close to the cabin, Gabriel could see the disapproval on Big John’s face, and knew it was from the irresponsible way he’d come in, alone and fast. But Gabriel didn’t wait. Jerking the musket’s big cock back to full, he headed for the cabin’s door.
“Gabriel!” Big John spoke sharply.
“The white runner is gone,” Gabriel said over his shoulder. “So is the mare and the ox.”
“Only one ox is missin’, lad, and no sign of trouble that I’ve seen.”
Gabriel made a quick, dismissing gesture with his hand, then lifted the door’s wooden latch and shoved it open. Stepping forward, Big John clamped a hand over his shoulder and yanked him back.
“Don’t be outlinin’ yeself that way,” he grated. “Ye’re no a fool, Gabriel. Don’t be takin’ the chances of one.”
“You two’d best save your bickering for later,” Pike called. He was holding the bay close to the bit, facing the deepest shadows of the woods.
Gabriel felt a flash of shame, and his anger evaporated in an instant. He didn’t understand the hostility that could sweep over him without warning. At times it seemed that the whole world was changing, yet, when he looked closer, nothing seemed different.
Standing to one side, Big John lifted his voice. “Charlo! Are ye in there, man? ’Tis Big John McTavish and Gabriel.”
Only the murmur of the river answered, and Big John looked at Gabriel.
“He’s not here.”
“I think not, but ’twas smoke we saw, there’s no denyin’ that.”
“He’s not here,” Gabriel repeated, lowering his musket’s cock to the half position for safety. “I can feel the cabin’s emptiness.” Fingering his fire steel and a piece of char and flint from the quilled moose-hide pouch at his belt, he stepped inside, then felt his way across the room to the table where a stubby tallow candle always sat in the middle in a base of its own wax. It was short work to strike a flame, and the candle’s smoky light quickly nudged back the darkness, throwing his shadow boldly against wall and ceiling.
Charlo’s cabin was a simple one-room affair, cluttered with a thirty-plus-year collection of treasures strewn about in chaotic disarray. The furniture was heavy and crudely built but padded with robes for comfort. Hanks of glass trade beads in a wild assortment of colors decked the cabin’s walls from square iron nails, and empty rum kegs sprouted from the dirt floor like stumps. From the exposed beams overhead hung traps in a variety of sizes, from muskrat on up to beaver and wolves. Some of the traps were old and missing parts; others were new, still in their original packing grease. The yellow-toothed skulls of beavers, coyotes, and grizzly bears grinned a cold welcome from odd niches about the cabin, and against the rear wall, draped like bunting nearly from eave to eave, hung the twelve-foot-long hide of a rattlesnake Charlo had killed at Devil’s Lake many years before.
“Naught but our own nerves,” Big John stated with obvious relief, following Gabriel into the cabin. “I’m thinkin’ ’tis that business with Tall Cloud’s nephew that’s got us so spooked, lad.”
“Do you think the smoke we saw came from the river?”
“Aye, it’s possible. Charlo’s not a man to idle with his winter feed, and he’s a taste for smoked fish, though I’ve never understood it meself. Not with good red meat to be had for the butcherin’.”
As if his ebbing worry was some sort of cue, there arose a sudden and familiar sound, a mushrooming screech like a fine-toothed file being drawn across teeth. Exchanging a grin with Big John, Gabriel ducked through the door. He stopped abruptly at the sight of Pike.
The American was crouched near the corral with his rifle up but not yet shouldered, the muzzle pointed toward the still-expanding ululation that shrilled up the trail from the river. Pike had let go of the bay’s bit, but still clung to its reins. He was pulling the pony after him as he waddled quickly, comically, toward a stack of firewood piled near a corner of the corral.
Gabriel clamped down on the laughter that bubbled in his throat. From the far side of the corral, the screeching broke into a series of dull, heavy thumps, then rose swiftly once more, soaring among the brittle autumn leaves. Pike thought it was human, Gabriel guessed, a tortured scream begging for death. It would be an easy mistake to make for someone unfamiliar with the ways of the valley, and all the more so by the stealthy approach he and Big John had made on the cabin. But it was funny, too, and in Gabriel’s eyes it cut the American down to more tolerable dimensions.
Coming up behind Gabriel, Big John called: “’Tis only a cart, Mister Pike!”
“He thought it was a cry from hell,” Gabriel said, laughing.
There was movement behind the corral. Gabriel saw the ox first, heavy-horned and plodding, its dun hide freckled with gray. The two-wheeled cart was little more than a hulking mass behind it, flanked by a lanky figure toting a long-barreled fowler over one bony shoulder as comfortably as another man might carry a fishing pole. A pipe jutted from the corner of Charlo’s mouth, as familiar as the moccasins on his feet and the stout Hudson’s Bay dagger at his waist. His leathery face, deeply creviced by wind and age, was framed by
a mop of snow-white hair cut square at the shoulders.
Charlo was a tall man among a notably blunt people, a stranger from the East almost forty years before. Some said he was the first freeman to settle within the Hair Hills, no small feat in those bloody, hell-hoared years. Eventually he had become something of a trader as well, although it was never anything he was serious about. Mostly he was content to hunt and trap and fish, and twice each year he would travel to the buffalo ranges with the bois brûles. Were it not for supplies like powder and lead and tobacco, he might have stayed forever in the Hair Hills, and never come at all to the trading posts along the Red River.
Seeing the American and the way he held his rifle, Charlo paused at the edge of his yard. He gave Big John a questioning glance, then turned back to Pike. Speaking around his pipe, he said: “If it is my hide you seek, stranger, I am afraid you will find it is not worth much any more.”
Lowering his rifle, Pike turned away in disgust. Charlo clucked his tongue and the ox came on, plodding without guidance to the far side of the cabin. The excruciating caterwaul of the cart’s ungreased axle besieged them all the way.
The cart was a unique product of time and place, remarkably suited to the largely flat, treeless prairies and random marshes and woods characteristic of the Red River country. It was a relatively lightweight vehicle, all things considered. Made entirely of hardwood and rawhide, it had tall, outwardly dished wheels that made it nearly impossible to tip over even when descending riverbanks or crossing coulées. Its bed was roughly six feet long by four across, with slatted sideboards of cottonwood limbs that Big John once morosely confessed reminded him of the bars over the windows of the Montreal gaol.
As the cart shrieked past, Gabriel saw that it was carrying an oddly shaped cargo, and a second later he caught the unmistakable odor of moose.
“Here,” Charlo spoke to the ox as it passed beneath a horizontal limb protruding from a sturdy cottonwood beside his cabin. Rapping the animal’s springy ribs with his knuckles, he added: “Stop.”
Gabriel came over, and Charlo grinned. “Upriver I found this one. God-damned lucky, eh?” He took the pipe from his mouth and knocked the dottle from it with the palm of his hand before returning it to the straps of a beaded gage d’amour, the heart-shaped tobacco pouch he wore around his neck. Reaching through the cart’s slats, Gabriel buried his fingers in the dark, coarse shoulder hair. He pulled it out until it was stretched full-length, almost eight inches long, thick and winter prime. He said: “Isabella is wanting some moose hair for embroidery. She says she will dye it purple, for my jacket.”
“Isabella is a good woman, and I have no use for the hair,” Charlo said. “What you think she needs, you take.” He stepped away from the cart as Big John and Pike approached, silent save for the tiny, musical ching of the American’s spurs.
“So,” Charlo said, smiling. “The Sioux did not get your scalps this year again, eh? That is good.” He shook Big John’s hand, then Pike’s as introductions were made, nodding and smiling the whole time. It was a trader’s greeting, Gabriel realized, with everything exaggerated for the stranger’s benefit so that there would be no misunderstanding. To Big John, Charlo added: “You found more than buffalo on the plains this year.”
Big John chuckled. “There’s lots to be found out there, old friend, but this is a first for me.”
Charlo continued to smile as he pumped Pike’s hand again. “You will stay here this night, yes?”
“I’m riding with McTavish and the boy,” Pike replied stiffly. “If they’re of a mind to set a spell, that’ll suit me.”
“Good,” Charlo said, dropping his hand, his smile waning. “Good. I look forward to hearing your story.” He glanced at Gabriel and Big John. “We will unhitch and unsaddle and see to our stock before we talk, eh?”
“Where is the white runner?” Gabriel asked.
“He and the mare are on grass. They are near, I think.”
“’Tis thievin’ the lad’s thinkin’ of,” Big John said. “Some Turtle Mountain Chippewas tried to take Mister Pike’s scalp a ways back, but got only his ponies and packs.”
Charlo was silent for a moment. Finally he said: “The Chippewas tried to kill a stranger in their land, which is only natural. They will not come here.” He patted Big John’s shoulder. “We are friends with the Turtle Mountain band, you and I. Our ponies are safe.” He looked at Gabriel. “Come, young one, help me with this meat, then get your hair for Isabella.”
While Big John and Pike took the horses to the corral, Charlo and Gabriel ran an iron pole through the tendons of the moose’s hind legs, just behind its hocks. With home-made block and tackle, they hoisted the carcass from the cart’s bed until it hung free from the cottonwood’s strong limb. Charlo led the ox forward, and Gabriel unbuckled the harness and lifted it from her back. After easing the cart’s shafts to the ground, Charlo clucked softly and the ox moved away, swishing its tail vigorously. Charlo stared after her until she was swallowed by the darkness, then said, without turning around: “Did you find buffalo?”
“No. There was sign of a small herd at Rush Lake and the American says he saw a big bunch on the Mouse River, but Big John and I did not go that far.”
“That far,” Charlo repeated wonderingly. “And two years since I last saw a moose on the Pembina.”
Gabriel shrugged, even though he knew Charlo couldn’t see him. He was thinking that, all of a sudden, Charlo was sounding a lot like Big John.
Returning to the moose, Gabriel ran his hand along the gaunt flank, then down the spine. From its size he could tell it was young; from its lack of palmated antlers, he knew it was a cow. He moved his hand over the long, massive head, stopping when he came to the abrupt termination of hide, the cold gumminess of clotted blood. “You have already taken the nose,” he accused.
Charlo chuckled. “For breakfast this morning,” he confessed. “Had I known you would be here, I would have saved it. I remember nose is your favorite.”
“Of moose,” Gabriel said, “but it doesn’t matter. I shot a cabbri on the other side of Rush Lake. We have been eating well.”
“Good. Soon there will be buffalo. My belly is hungry for it.”
Charlo peeled the hide back from the moose’s shoulder. “Just enough for tonight,” he said, slicing into the meat with his dagger. “Tomorrow I will butcher it good, and we will take it with us when we go after buffalo.”
Thinking of the coming hunt brought a smile to Gabriel’s face. He was looking forward to it. Sometimes he wished they could leave the Red River Valley altogether, and just follow the herds. But, of course, that would be impossible. The Sioux, the Crees, the Assiniboines, and the Arikaras controlled the buffalo ranges west of the valley, and they would never permit such flagrant invasion of their lands. It was dangerous enough going in as they did now.
Charlo draped both backstraps over the cart’s tailgate, then wiped his knife’s blade clean against the hide. “Enough for tonight, I think.”
From the corral came the angry squeal of a horse, followed by Big John’s scolding shout.
“The roan,” Gabriel said, remembering what had happened the last time they’d penned Big John’s red stallion with the bay horse Pike was riding. By morning the bay had been soaked with sweat, wall-eyed with terror, half a dozen palm-size patches of hide nipped off by the roan’s huge, cream-colored teeth.
“Big John should tell that horse no,” Charlo said, sheathing his dagger. “Then he should explain it again with a piece of firewood. A man must always get a pony’s attention with something harder than its head.”
“Big John will take care of the roan,” Gabriel replied. “He will let the bay run loose tonight.”
“I think maybe Big John would do well to watch that roan horse closely.”
“Why?” Gabriel asked, puzzled.
“You watch, too, eh?” Charlo turned and smiled as if to lighten the tone of his words. “Maybe that will be enough.” Picking up a slab of meat in
each hand, he said: “Let’s go make a good supper, young one. Moose.” He smacked his lips. “God-damn, my belly rumbles for it.”
Chapter Three
Pike sat cross-legged on a folded piece of buffalo robe, his back to the log wall, a cup of bitter black tea cooling on the dirt floor at his side. In the fireplace the flames had dwindled to flickering yellow tongues, wrapped in jumping shadows. He was growing drowsy in the unaccustomed warmth of the cabin. The roasted moose and a soup made of peas and barley resided comfortably in his stomach. It had been a long time since he’d eaten such grub, and the taste of fresh vegetables and recently harvested grain lingered pleasantly.
Charlo sat against the wall next to the door, paring tobacco for his pipe from the unraveled tip of a five-pound carrot. Gabriel reclined beside him, half asleep, his own white dudeen pipe, its rim stained black, held loosely in one hand. McTavish sat on an empty rum keg, his eyelids drooping. They had eaten and smoked and talked well into the night, until an easy silence had overtaken them. Pike was seriously considering seeking out his bedroll when Charlo began to speak quietly, without looking up.
“They say that already some have come from the White Horse Plain and are camped across from Pembina Post. They say they will leave for the buffalo ranges within the week, and some already speak of Paget to lead.”
McTavish stirred, a frown creasing his forehead. “Within the week, ye say?”
“According to Quesnelle, whose sister has come down from the White Horse. He says Denning will travel with them this year, that he has already left Fort Douglas.”
McTavish snorted. “Aye, that sounds like Paget’s doin’, all right. Burdenin’ the whole of a hunt with a Black Robe.”
Gabriel pushed up straighter, looking at Big John. “We should have Father Denning bless our camp as well. For the good of the hunt and the safety of the bois brûles.”
“Aye, and let’s be shakin’ our wanbangos and tootin’ our eagle bone flutes while we’re at it,” McTavish replied peevishly.
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