Buffalo Palace

by Terry C. Johnston

  “I sure as hell know my hair ain’t near as purty as yours be, Jim Beckwith,” Titus replied with a grin. “But I figger if’n I stay outta Blackfeet country, I’ll stand a damn good chance of keeping my hair locked on right where it is!”

  Back and forth for the better part of an hour a pair of Etienne Provost’s free trappers gambled with the two older Shoshone warriors, all four of them squatting on the dusty buffalo robe so well used it had places where the hair had been rubbed off right down to the smooth hide.

  Titus had watched men gamble with painted pasteboards before, sometimes throwing down their wagers on the strength of a particular hand, or no more than the fate held in a single card. From up the Ohio clear on down the Mississippi, he himself had watched the fever take hold of those who put their lives and fortunes into their varied games of chance. At times he had witnessed the sly work of those who dared not leave things to chance, but instead preferred offering sham games of skill and sleight of hand.

  As much as he had tried, not once in all those years had Bass been able to guess which shell the pea was hiding under. And those games of bones proved no better a tempt of Dame Fortune for Titus. He had no earthly clue to the mysteries of how those dice rolled this combination or that—and why some men came out winners while most walked away with pockets much, much emptier than when they had stepped forward to take their chance at bucking the tiger.

  But this here game was like nothing he had ever seen before.

  The white men sat across from their brown-skinned counterparts, about two feet of bare buffalo fur between them where they tossed the short pieces of carved bone. Each one of the half-dozen bones was different in shape, marked with altogether different drawings, slashes, lightning bolts, and the like, each of the symbols first carved into the bone’s surface, then filled with some dark, inky substance so that the scratchings stood out in bold relief against the yellowed surface of the old bone. Over the years of use each of the half-dozen had taken on a rich patina from much handling.

  First one side, then the other was awarded possession of the bones. When the two Shoshone held three bones apiece, it was up to the trappers to place their wager on the blanket between them. It might be as little as a few glass beads, or a single flint big enough for a man to clamp in the huge lock on his tradegun or even in starting a fire with a good steel. But as the hour wore on, the betting grew richer—as it ofttimes does when the gambler no longer plays with his head, but begins to wager what lays dear to his heart.

  Down came the skinning knife, its wood handle well oiled to a deeply burnished glow by the hand of the trapper now offering it.

  All around Bass white men and Shoshone alike muttered their comments that no longer was this to be a game of beads and powder, vermilion and shiny girlews. Now, with the wager of that knife, it had become a game of some worth.

  The two Shoshone looked at one another a long moment; then one shrugged and removed a strand of buffalo bones from around his neck. He laid it atop the knife and gazed at the white men to await their approval. Both nodded, accepting the wager, and the first warrior rubbed and clacked the magical bones within the hollow of his two hands, closing his eyes, raising his face to the sunny sky overhead, and chanting. His partner, the one who had offered his necklace, also chanted, but a different and discordant, off-key dirge that grew louder and louder until both Indians were nearly shouting their disparate songs.

  All the time the two trappers kept their eyes locked on the jumping, flashing, clacking hands with such intensity, trying their best to shut out the disquieting noise of the two gamesters.

  Then suddenly the hands flew open over the buffalo robe and the singing abruptly stopped as the bones tumbled across the fur. And four heads bent low to study the markings.

  “Goddammit!” cried one of the trappers in great disgust.

  The other just wagged his head dolefully in silence.

  The gleeful warrior picked up the knife and the necklace, glanced quickly at his companion, then flung the necklace back onto the buffalo robe.

  Asked one of the trappers, “Jamus, you got anything what you can lay down?”

  Into his shooting pouch Jamus stuffed his hand and came out with a long strip of blood-red trade ribbon, a woven cotton strip about an inch wide used to selvage the edge of garments to keep them from unraveling. This much-favored item of trade in the Indian country brought approving nods from the warriors, grunts from others gathered behind the players, and a squeal from at least one of the older women gathered nearby.

  “Well, goddammit?” the first trapper demanded caustically of his opponents. “What you boys gonna lay down for that?”

  Acting as if he did not know what to do about such a wager, one of the warriors turned to look over his shoulder at a woman nearby. Something unspoken passed between them. He turned back to look at his partner, then bent his head and pulled his shirt off, laying it neatly atop the pile.

  “Awright,” Jamus replied. “Now we got us a real game!”

  The second Shoshone began to rub and clack his three bones, singing the furthest thing from harmony with his partner as they shook and rubbed, clacked and waved the bones around and around until a man was driven nearly insane with the waiting.

  When they spilled onto the buffalo robe, four heads again dipped to inspect them. The silence of that breathless crowd was punctuated only by the firing of weapons nearby as men shot at a mark with their rifles—winning swallows of whiskey as the afternoon wore on.

  “By damn! We won, Jamus!” he hollered, slapping his partner on the back as they swept their winnings back toward their knees.

  “What you wanna bet now?”

  He didn’t have a ready answer for Jamus, not one near quick enough for the two warriors either.

  The older of the two Shoshone immediately snatched his tomahawk from his belt and laid it upon the bare hide between the players. Most of the crowd were stunned: many of the Shoshone clamped hands over their mouths while white trappers muttered their approval of such a fine wager. There the tomahawk lay for a long, breathless moment, its fancy oiled wood gleaming in the sun, the forged iron head inlaid with pewter rings, a pair of deer dewclaws suspended from a latigo strip knotted at the bottom of the handle.

  The anxious Shoshone grew impatient and soon made it plain the white men must wager or leave the game to others.

  “Jamus?”

  “I ain’t got nothing near that fine, Spivey.”

  Then the Shoshone shut off their conversation and pointed.

  “He wants our whiskey,” Spivey declared.

  “You figger he wants all of it?” Jamus demanded in a whisper, as if the Shoshone might understand their English.

  “Dip your cup in our kettle there and see if that’ll do for a wager.”

  Jamus did as was suggested, dipping his pint tin cup into the small kettle of throat-burning alcohol Ashley had brought to rendezvous, as promised the year before. Setting the dripping cup on the robe, they looked up to see the smiles crawl across the faces of the two Shoshone and knew they had themselves a wager.

  “Let’s play, boys!” Spivey whooped, scooping up three of the carved bones from the hide, beginning to rub and click them together inside his hands.

  The white men won that go-round, then sat there taking the time to swill that cup of whiskey in front of their opponents as if to rub in the spoils of victory. The shirtless Shoshone flung down another tomahawk. And this time he won. The pair of warriors savored the liquor from the cup, passing it back and forth as each man took small sips until the potent brew had disappeared and both had themselves a go at licking the inside of the tin.

  Again that second tomahawk was wagered, and again another cup of whiskey. More clacking, singing, chanting, and cursing to disconcert the other side before the bones were hurled down. One side always groaned in dismay, the other side celebrated by toasting to their success. On it went as the sun began to sink until suddenly the tides turned against the warriors and it s
eemed the Shoshone could not win a single play. Repeatedly the white men scooped up shirts and leggings, belts and moccasins, until there was little left but breechclouts for the warriors to wager.

  While the two trappers laughed at their own good fortune, the two Shoshone became more and more sullen, forced to listen to the muttered oaths from their kinsmen standing behind them as another cup of whiskey was set between the gamblers and the white trappers began to jostle and shake, weaving from side to side, laughing lustily in the face of the dour-eyed warriors with a new wager.

  Like a blur one of the warriors leaped up, lunging for his knife that now lay beside the trappers. It flashed in the afternoon light as the Shoshone pressed the blade suddenly against Spivey’s neck. All sound was sucked from the clamoring crowd, as if shut off by some magic.

  Eyes like saucers, Spivey peered cross-eyed down at the hand clutching the knife, squeaking, “J-jamus! Do something!”

  “An’ get your goddamned throat cut?”

  While he held the knife against the white man’s throat with one hand, the warrior peeled open Spivey’s fingers with the other, yanking from it the three bones. The other Shoshone retrieved the other bones from Jamus—then he reached down and took up the tin cup, bringing it to his lips to drink long and noisily—emptying the cup of every last drop.

  The warrior handed it to Jamus, motioning that he wanted more.

  “G-get it for him, goddammit!” Spivey squeaked. “Somebody, d-do something!”

  “Red son of a bitch’ll open your throat up,” another trapper said with resignation. “Ain’t a thing we can do for you then.”

  That second full cup of liquor was passed over to the warrior holding the knife on Spivey. While he pressed the blade into the taut, tanned flesh, he drank slow, his eyes widening as the burn began to turn his throat to fire. Just as he was finished, a loud voice bellowed.

  “What the hell’s going on here?”

  They all turned, trapper and Shoshone, to find Fitzpatrick and Bridger lurching to a stop.

  The warrior’s eyes went down to his cup, then to the knife, and back to his cup. He upended the cup at his lips, quickly licking at what ne knew would be those last few drops.

  “You boys gambling, are you?” Bridger demanded of the pair.

  “Things got real ugly, Fitz,” someone called out from the crowd.

  “I can see that plain as sun,” Fitzpatrick replied as he knelt near Spivey’s shoulder. “Jim—how ’bout you telling these here bucks to pull in their horns.”

  “I’ll give it a push, Fitz,” Bridger replied, then went on to speak what he could of the Shoshone tongue.

  But the warriors interrupted him, growing excited, and most of their spectators with them, chattering all at once until Bridger waved both arms and quieted them.

  Jim said, “These here bucks tell me you boys ain’t been all the fair with ’em—”

  “We’re gambling, for God’s sake, Bridger!” Jamus squawked.

  “There’s gambling,” Bridger said, scratching his chin, “and then there’s stealin’.”

  “We wasn’t stealing!” Spivey roared, red-faced, his eyes looking down at the knife held against his windpipe.

  “You so proud you wanna keep your liquor,” Bridger replied, “or you don’t mind getting your throat cut?”

  “J-just give ’im the likker, Bridger,” Spivey whined. “The likker … none of it’s wuth it.”

  Jim knelt at the shoulder of one of the Shoshone. “So what you two gonna do for these bucks you cheated?”

  Jamus’s eyes flashed up at young Bridgets. “I’ll give ’em what’s left of my likker.”

  “And?”

  Now Jamus’s face turned red. “Ain’t given ’em nothing else!”

  “Give ’em what they want, Jamus!” Spivey said, his eyes cross on the twitching hand that held the knife.

  “All of it, goddammit,” Jamus said grudgingly, his eyes filling with hate for Bridger as well as the Shoshone. “They can have all of it—that what you want, Spivey?”

  “Right! Just give it all to ’em and get this red nigger off me!”

  Rocking up on his knees slowly, Jamus shoved the Shoshone shirts and leggings, moccasins and tomahawks, knives and necklaces, back across the buffalo hide to the warriors.

  As he did, Bridger said something understood only by the Shoshone gathered in a hush at the buffalo robe. With a sigh the warrior with the knife leaned back, taking his weapon from the trapper’s neck. After stuffing his tomahawk back into his belt and rising, the warrior suddenly held out the knife, handle first, to Spivey, who continued to rub his throat, then check his fingers for sign of blood.

  “What the hell’s this for?” the trapper asked, his eyes going to Bridger’s face.

  “Says he’s giving you his knife,” Jim replied. “He riggers at least you won that fair and square.”

  Spivey wrenched it from the warrior before the two Shoshone gathered up their clothing from the buffalo robe and looked longingly at the small kettle of amber liquor—then turned away into the crowd of their own people.

  “Maybe next time you fellas won’t be so all-fired ready to get no Injuns drunk,” Bridger snorted as he stood, then with Fitzpatrick started away from the crowd.

  “C’mon,” Potts said to Bass.

  “Where’d you come from?” Titus asked of the man coming up to his elbow out of the milling group.

  “Been looking high and low for you,” Daniel explained. “Wan’cha have dinner over at our fire since’t we’ll be pulling away day after tomorrow.”

  “Ronnyvoo over?” They started away through the grove of cottonwood.

  “Ashley’s got him all the fur from his brigades, ’long with what he traded from Provost’s bunch.”

  “He’s got near all ours too,” Titus replied.

  “Best you get your outfit to be trading off any furs what you got left by tomorry morning, or the general likely won’t have no more goods for you. Then what will them plews be wuth?”

  Bass nodded. “Not much—when there ain’t no one else out here what wants beaver fur in trade.”

  “Ever you et painter, Scratch?”

  “P-painter?” Titus asked as they neared the fire where Fitzpatrick and Bridger’s brigade had been bedding down.

  “Sure. Painter,” Potts repeated. “Mountain cat. Some calls it a lion. But most of the fellas I know calls that mountain cat a painter.”

  “And you eat that lion?”

  Potts smacked his lips. “Some fine eatin’. C’mon—we’ll get some on the fire. One of the boys shot a pair this morning up torst the hills yonder.”

  That mountain lion was a treat to the pallet and a tongue grown used to elk and venison. Bass eagerly went back for more, eventually slicing himself a third helping of the roast and loin steaks. Later on Bud Tuttle showed up in time to squeeze himself down by Bass and Potts as one of Fitzpatrick’s men brought out his small concertina to the cheers and claps of all those Ashley men gathered at the fire.

  Pulling two short leather latches from the tiny pegs that held the instrument closed, the player was then able to slip his hands into leather straps on either side and began to wheeze some air in and out of the squeezebox until he suddenly began to stomp one leg lustily, his foot pounding the ground as he whirled round and round, wailing out the words to the rollicking song accompanied by his concertina’s wild strains.

  Many of the others noisily clapped in rhythm as a few leaped to their feet, bowed low to one another, then began to circle round this way and round that, arms locked and head thrown back, wailing and caterwauling worse than any wharfside alley filled with tomcats.

  “Man could grow used to this ever’ night, couldn’t he, Scratch?” Tuttle asked, jabbing an elbow into Bass’s ribs. “Music, likker, and the womens!”

  Scratch had almost forgotten about such seductive lures, doing his best to stay as far away as he could from the temptations of those young women and their flint-eyed menfolk downstream
in the Shoshone village.

  Titus looked off in the direction of the quartet’s camp. “Cooper and Hooks didn’t come with you?”

  Tuttle grinned as he clapped along with the wheezing squeezebox. “They daubin’ their stingers again.”

  “Hell, I should’a knowed,” Titus replied. “Likely them two’ll be daubin’ their stingers when Gabriel blows his goddamned horn!”

  “Maybe that, or Gabriel can find ’em laid out under a trader’s likker kegs!”

  A cloud quickly passed over Scratch’s face as the firelight flickered on the dancers all. “Silas didn’t go and drink up all our earnin’s, did he?”

  Tuttle bravely tried to maintain the smile, then admitted, “Ah, shit—Scratch. Him and Hooks been having themselves such a spree, they ain’t give a damn thought one to seeing that we’re outfitted for the coming winter.”

  “Where’s the plews?”

  Tuttle hemmed and hawed a moment, then answered.

  Bass demanded, “How many packs you figger we got left?”

  “Not near enough—”

  “All gone in likker?” he squeaked in disbelief.

  Dropping his head to look at his hands suddenly stilled even though the music, laughter, and merriment continued around them, Tuttle replied, “An’ foofaraw for the squaws.”

  “Damn him,” Bass muttered between clenched teeth. “Sort of a bitch beat me near to death an’ said I owed him my hides … so now he don’t even use them hides he stole from me to trade for what it is we really need!”

  “Trouble?” Jim Beckwith asked, curious when Bass’s voice grew louder in the midst of the revelry.

  Finally shaking his head, Titus answered, “No. No trouble, Jim.”

  As Beckwith turned back to clapping and stomping with the music, Titus grabbed Tuttle by his shirt. “Listen, Bud—we gotta be sure no more of them hides go to pay for geegaws and girlews so them two sonsabitches can stick some Injun gals with their peckers.”

  Turtle’s head bobbed, almost in time with his Adam’s apple.

  “You figger we can hide them plews somewhere’s till morning?” Titus inquired. “When we can get ’em traded off to Ashley?”