Pike’s hands flashed, his pale eyes alit with excitement. Two came from the west, from the country of the Blackfeet. Henri Duprée and François Rubiette. I followed them.
No, the old man replied adamantly. It would be foolish to return. They did not come here.
Where? I followed them.
The old man thought a moment, then nodded grudgingly. Maybe. For the hunt. But not to White Horse Plain. Not to Fort Douglas. To the Hair Hills, maybe. But they were not here. He would know Henri. Henri was foolish, but also dangerous. Very dangerous. François he did not know, but who could say? They were not here, in this camp, unless they were hiding under buffalo robes. Maybe Saint Joseph. He thought Henri had a sister there. Maybe. Who could say?
Pike had nodded in gratitude. Taking a slim, half-pound bar of lead from his shooting bag, he’d placed it on the ground between them, a gift for the old man’s help, and his silence. He hadn’t questioned anyone else. This was their home, Henri’s, and maybe François’s, too. It wouldn’t do to tip them off that someone from the western country was asking about them.
Now, from the second floor of the windmill, Pike watched the approaching carts until the last of the light withdrew from the land, then made his way carefully to the small opening and climbed down. It was full dark inside the windmill, the open door in the opposite wall little more than a gray smudge, although there was a growing light spilling in through the east window from the half-breeds’ central fire. He started for the door, circling wide to avoid the machinery, then came to an abrupt halt. His hand flashed to his knife and his pulse quickened. He wasn’t alone in the room.
Dropping into a defensive half crouch, Pike silently pulled his knife. He turned the blade up, pressing his thumb firmly against the curled steel guard, ready to slash or stab. He sensed movement to his left and pivoted warily in that direction. A shadow detached itself from the wall and glided toward him. He caught the scent of wood smoke and clean sweat, tinged with an earthy aroma, a muskiness he identified as woman. The voice confirmed it.
“American?”
He straightened but didn’t resheath the knife. “You’ve found me.”
“Big John sends me. There is food at the lodge of Turcotte. He wishes for you to join him there.”
She came closer, the scuff of her shoes on the wooden floor as gentle as the patter of slow rain. He recognized her in the faint light coming through the window—Celine. He put his hand out as she narrowed the gap between them and rested it lightly on her arm. She shivered at his touch but didn’t stop, and Pike caught his breath as she came against him. Her arms circled his shoulders, then slid up around his neck. She pushed into him, arching herself into the curve of his body. Her breath was warm on his face, her lips moist and searching.
The passion of her kiss caught him off guard. The knife slipped from his fingers, thudding to the floor and bouncing away as he clamped both arms around her waist. He pulled her closer, feeling her thighs against his through the fabric of their clothes, her breasts mashed against his chest. She moaned low in her throat, a lusting sound but tinged with something else, too, and suddenly the pressure of her body against his lessened. She jerked her face away with a gasp, struggling in his arms, pummeling him with her fists until he stepped back in confusion.
Her breathing was loud in the still air, and she pressed the back of her hand to her mouth as if she’d been stung on the lip. She looked almost feral in the dim light, her black hair tousled, her eyes bright and challenging, but, when he reached for her a second time, she cried out and whirled away, fleeing through the door like a frightened doe.
Pike stood rigidly with his fists clenched at his sides, his heart pounding wildly. He felt half sick with the low-gut ache of repressed libido. Slowly he stooped and felt for his knife, mindlessly sheathing it as he hobbled to the door. He paused there, searching, but she was gone, with a hundred places to hide.
* * * * *
Dawn was a gray band of light above the eastern horizon when Gabriel came down to the open-faced shed the next morning. The dew was already whitening into frost, and in the corral the ponies’ breath expanded and withdrew vaporously in the smoky light, like curtains flapping out of distant windows, then immediately being sucked back inside.
Gabriel didn’t know what had awakened him. With all of the bois brûles camped nearby, it could have been just about anything, yet a nagging sense of foreboding had prevented him from going back to sleep. He had slipped out of bed and quietly dressed, then came down here with his sleeping robe under one arm, his musket carried in his free hand.
Settling down near a corner of the shed, he pulled the robe over his shoulders, then laid the musket across his lap. In spite of the crisp morning air, it wasn’t long before his head began to bob.
Gabriel and Charlo had come in from the Hair Hills just after dusk last night, bringing with them Charlo’s two carts and the butchered moose. Naturally everyone had been happy to see them, and had immediately extended invitations to sit and talk, to share in the food and the wine and the songs of the camp. And naturally they had. It had been well after midnight when Gabriel finally turned in, and, after nearly two weeks on the trail, he’d anticipated sleeping until the frost was burned off by the morning sun.
A horse snorted and Gabriel’s head jerked up. He glanced toward the sleeping camp but saw only the silhouette of teepees against the brightening sky, the occasional glimmer of a spark spiraling upward from last evening’s communal fire. The lodges themselves were still dark, although that wasn’t surprising. They had celebrated pretty late last night.
Gabriel’s gaze was still on the camp when a shadowy form stepped away from the far side of the shed. He caught the movement from the corner of his eye, but, when he swung his head in that direction, the ill-defined shape had already moved on.
In the corral the horses began to stir, lifting their heads toward the rear of the shed and blowing softly. Gabriel had to resist the urge to jump to his feet as a figure emerged from the shadows on the far side of the corral. He recognized the broad brim of the American’s old hat first, then the rocking, bowlegged gait of the trapper himself.
Coming around the corral, Pike dropped his saddle beside the gate, then leaned his rifle against a post. No more than twenty feet separated him from where Gabriel sat under his robe, but in the dim light Pike didn’t see him.
Some of the horses wandered up out of curiosity, the bay and Big John’s roan near the front. Gabriel’s eyes narrowed suspiciously when Pike lifted a buffalo-hair rope from the corral’s gate post. The American was just stepping through the rails when Gabriel shrugged free of his robe and stood up.
Cursing, Pike untangled himself from the rails and swung around to face him. “What the hell are you doing out here, boy?”
“I was wondering which one were you going to steal,” Gabriel said tautly.
Pike didn’t reply right away, and, for a moment, Gabriel wondered if he might actually try to jump him. Even with the Brown Bess held ready, he felt vaguely intimidated by the American’s posture, the lack of fear in his pale blue eyes. Then the moment passed and Pike let the rope hang slack at his side.
“When did you get in?”
“Last night,” Gabriel replied, taking a deep breath.
Pike nodded. “I saw a couple of carts from the windmill last night, just about dusk.”
“Charlo’s carts.”
Pike nodded a second time, glanced almost wistfully at the horses crowding the gate, then hung the buffalo-hair rope back over the post. Walking past Gabriel, he peered into the shed.
“Is this where you sleep?” he asked.
“No. I came out here only this morning.”
A wry smile crossed Pike’s face. “That’s the way the stick floats sometimes,” he said, then stepped deeper into the shed for a closer look at the bear-hide covering rigged to cottonwood bows over Gabriel’s cart. It was a sunshade of sorts, although considerably more than that to Gabriel.
“
Boy, that’s a grizzly bear’s hide!” Pike exclaimed, his head rearing back a little in surprise. “Where’d you get it?”
Feeling suddenly awkward, Gabriel said: “The mauvaises terres.”
“The badlands?”
“You know them?”
In his mind, Gabriel was picturing those near the Missouri River, the barren knobs and razor-back ridges, valleys that were little more than deep, broad coulées, twisting like nightmares. The bands of tinted earth—reds, blues, tans—that seemed too perfect to be real. They reminded him of the stories Big John used to tell of castles and dragons, and of a land where mountains could erupt in flames. Gabriel hadn’t been able to picture such a place until the first time he’d visited the badlands.
Pike was watching him quizzically. “Is that where you shot him?” he asked.
Gabriel was aware of a new respect in Pike’s voice, and couldn’t help wondering at his own reluctance to bask in it. He glanced at the hide. It was three years old now, patchy with bald spots that had appeared only recently, although it had been a summer hide to begin with, and the hair had never been thick or luxurious. Worthless, old Abrams, the Hudson’s Bay post factor, had gone so far as to suggest, but Gabriel knew its value. So did the rest of the bois brûles.
Apparently Pike also understood what it had taken for someone so young to harvest such a creature.
Impulsively Gabriel said: “Were you going to steal Big John’s roan?”
Pike’s expression went flat, and he started from the shed. Uncertainly Gabriel backed out of his way, though keeping the musket handy in front of him. In the east the sky was red with the coming sunrise, and he wondered suddenly why Pike had waited so long to slip away. If he had intended to steal a horse, it would have made more sense to leave last night, and that way have several hours on his pursuers before anyone noticed he was gone.
Changing the subject, Pike said: “Did you come through Saint Joseph yesterday?”
“Is that where you were going?”
“Just answer the damn’ question.”
Playing a hunch, Gabriel said: “Did you come here because of Henri Duprée?”
Pike stiffened, a quick, bright light flashing in his eyes. “What do you know about Duprée?” he demanded.
“I know he came back from the Qu’Appelle District a week ago, him and a man named François Rubiette. Before that, they were trading with the plains Crees in the Moose Mountains.”
Pike’s lip seemed to curl back in a snarl. “Is that what they said?”
“That is what I was told.” He paused. “You came here because of them, didn’t you?”
“Where are they now?”
“They are gone. They came to visit Duprée’s sister, who is married to Nicolas Quesnelle. Michel Quesnelle is my friend.”
His voice deepening into a growl, Pike repeated his question.
“They will hunt for Nicolas Quesnelle this year, as you hunt for Big John,” Gabriel replied. “Quesnelle will come in today, but Duprée and Rubiette have already left for the plains. They will look for the herds, as Big John and I did, and return only when they find them.”
Pike looked west toward the distant Hair Hills, and the anger seemed to drain from his face. “So this is where the bastards were headed all along,” he said softly. Then, with a short bark of laughter, he went to retrieve his saddle and rifle.
“Big John trusts you!” Gabriel called after him, but Pike didn’t reply. Picking up his gear, he turned toward the windmill, whistling cheerfully. Staring after him, Gabriel felt a chill trickle down his spine, like the path of melting snow.
Chapter Six
“He comes! The priest comes!”
The news sped through camp. Children ran among the skin lodges calling for their mothers. Women suspended their chores and shaded their eyes to look eastward into the morning sun. Men put aside their mending and repairs and ceased, for a moment, their animated conversations. As a group, the Métis began to converge on the Pembina road.
Celine paused outside the barn, a wooden pail with its meager tendering of milk dangling from one slender fist. Behind her, the Jersey cow chewed contentedly on a mouthful of wild hay, unaware that this would be her last milking. She was going dry, and would stay that way until she dropped another calf sometime next spring.
Were it not for the upcoming hunt, they might have kept her wet for another month or two, but Big John wanted everyone to go onto the buffalo ranges this year. With four men hunting, there would be a lot of work, and the women would be needed.
Big John’s casual attitude toward womanhood had been something of a shock to Celine after twelve years of living in the East. At the convent where she had been sent after her mother’s death, she had been taught that a woman’s place was at home, tending to the house and the simpler chores of the barn and garden—milking, carding wool, gathering eggs. Butchering was man’s work, much too strenuous for the average female.
It was different among the Métis, though. Here, at the very edge of the pays sauvage, dressing a carcass and caring for the meat and robes had always been a woman’s duty. It was something she could take pride in, a reflection of her abilities as a wife and care-giver.
The male’s place—after the never-ending responsibility of guarding his family against their many enemies—was to hunt, to provide those basics his woman needed to create the fine clothing and sturdy lodges, the pemmican and smoothly dressed robes that were the proof of her worth. When he had done this, when the horizons of their world were secure and he had furnished his woman and girl children with enough to keep them busy, he was free to sit with his friends and boast of his exploits, to exaggerate the speed and skill of his buffalo runners, the prowess of his sled dogs, and to keep the air above his head blue with tobacco smoke.
Such was the world of the Métis.
The pounding of hoofs interrupted Celine’s thoughts. She looked up as Gabriel galloped past on the black horse he called Baldy. As he passed close to where she stood, she saw his eyes flit toward her, then quickly shy away, as if even to acknowledge a woman was too humbling an experience for a male of his caliber. Like the others, she thought scornfully. Yet in her heart, she knew the truths that guided men, the desires that ultimately betrayed them. A smile tilted one corner of her mouth as she watched Gabriel race toward the half-breed village. He was so like Peter, she thought. So quiet and reserved among a normally loud and colorful people… so proud, yet so uncertain.
When she was sure he wouldn’t look back, Celine continued on to the cabin. Pausing at the open door, she wrinkled her nose in distaste to discover Isabella moving busily about the large room. She’d half hoped the old sow had scampered off to greet the priest with the rest of the red-skinned mongrels, but, of course, she hadn’t. She was hustling about the cabin as if looking forward to the Black Robe’s visit.
Standing at the cabin’s door, Celine wanted to laugh at the old squaw’s rushed preparations. The tart odor of freshly crushed buffalo berries already permeated the cabin, as if that alone could cover the stench of a frontier hovel, and a fresh stew of moose and vegetables was bubbling over a small flame in the stone fireplace. There were new candles in the sconces, and the blue-based glass lamp on the table had been topped off with a fresh dollop of pale yellow whale’s oil, its chimney scrubbed clean of soot.
Only the best for a servant of God, Celine thought acidly.
It had been no different at the convent.
Staring at the old hag’s broad backside, Celine pondered the Cree woman’s place in the cabin. She knew Isabella had given birth to Gabriel and Alec, although she hardly seemed like a mother to them. Once she had been the wife of Angus Gilray, a union sanctified by a Hudson’s Bay contract in lieu of a Catholic ceremony—at that time the missionaries had yet to penetrate the wilderness as far as the Red River Valley—but Angus was gone now, and Isabella’s relationship with Big John was a mystery to Celine.
Moving from fireplace to table, Isabella said: “Was there
much milk?”
“No.” Celine lifted the bucket away from her leg, swirling its contents contemplatively. “A couple of cups, no more.”
“Then what there is will be for the priest to drink. Cover it with burlap and put it in the glacière to cool.”
“There is no ice in the glacière.”
“It is still cool there. Go, and do not argue.”
Celine went, glad to be free of the old woman’s charge. Isabella hadn’t mentioned additional chores after placing the milk in the underground icehouse, and Celine had no intention of returning to ask for any.
The glacière was on the north side of the cabin, where its entrance would always be shaded. Celine pulled the wide, right-hand door up, then let it fall open with a bang. The steps leading into the cellar had been carved out of the earth, their edges worn away until they weren’t really steps at all, but a series of sloping platforms leading into darkness.
Celine paused with one foot on the top step, recalling the tiny, dank cells of the convent where she had lived, its shuttered windows and heavy doors bolted from outside. Stone walls and narrow passageways so poorly illuminated it was like walking through a cave to travel from one floor to the next. And the chill. That was what she remembered most vividly. Winter or summer, a never-ceasing bleakness that had penetrated all the way to her heart.
For a moment her confidence waned, and she swayed back from the black pit. Then, chiding herself for her fear, she quickly descended the steps. Stopping at the bottom, she instinctively crouched to make herself smaller, less vulnerable. She could feel the thin layer of mud and straw beneath her shoes, the glaciate dampness of melted ice against her cheeks. In late winter before the breakup, the people of the Tongue and Pembina regions would gather to cut ice from the rivers, squaring it into blocks with their saws and storing it on beds of straw in glacières throughout the valley, where it would last into July in a good year.
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