Griffen and Knorr jogged over.
“Are you all right?” the former inquired.
“We saw it take a bite out of you and feared you were a goner,” his partner added.
McNair touched his torn shirt. “Almost, but not quite.” He gazed into the distance and quoted, “To die, to sleep. To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause. There’s the respect that makes calamity of so long life. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, the oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely, the pangs of despised love, the law’s delay, the insolence of office, and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes, when he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin?”
“What?” Bob Knorr said.
“You must be feeling a mite better if you’re quoting that old book of yours,” Griffen remarked.
“That old book,” Shakespeare repeated with a tinge of melancholy. “Would that I still had it. My most prized possession, the immortal works of the Bard, gone forever, destroyed by one of Nature’s tantrums. I suppose there’s poetic irony in that, boys, but for the life of me I can’t appreciate it.”
“Is that why you’re so sad?” Lane Griffen said. “Didn’t we tell you?”
“Tell me what?” Shakespeare responded, hardly daring to believe the deduction Lane’s question inspired.
“I’ll show you.” Lane spun on a heel and sprinted to the canoes.
Bob Knorr hunkered down to examine McNair’s wounds. “The sooner we get you bandaged up, the less I’ll be worried about your innards oozing out if you make any sudden moves.” He glanced at the bear. “If we had the time, I’d take a couple days to skin that cuss and treat the hide so we could wrap you in it for the journey.”
“Blankets will do fine,” Shakespeare said, craning his neck in an effort to gaze past Knorr. He could hear Griffen running back but couldn’t see whatever the man was bringing.
“We found your guns,” Knorr mentioned offhandedly. “Your pistols were stuck under your belt. The Hawken was lying half in, half out of the river. I cleaned and oiled it myself. Wasn’t busted or anything.”
“I’m grateful,” Shakespeare said. Lane Griffen appeared, holding a waterlogged bundle, and Shakespeare felt the sort of constriction in his chest a man feels when setting eyes on a long lost lover after a lengthy absence. “William S.!” he said softly.
Griffen handed the bundle over. “Actually, if it’s poetic stuff you like, I’d say it’s pretty darned fitting for a man to be saved by his own book.”
“How’s that?” Shakespeare asked, not paying much attention as he swiftly unwrapped the heavy blanket stained by water marks.
“We wouldn’t have found you except for that bundle,” Lane explained. “We were paddling along when I saw it snagged on the limb of a partially submerged tree. Got me curious so we went over to investigate and as Bob was untangling the blanket we spotted you.” He paused. “It done saved your bacon, old coon.”
The blanket parted, and there it was, the leather cover slightly marred by new water marks. “William S.,” Shakespeare said again, and forgetting himself and his condition, he gave the book a gentle hug.
“Lordy,” Knorr said. “If you get this excited over books, you must be a regular hellion with the ladies.”
“It’s not just any book,” Shakespeare said, gingerly turning the pages. Only a third of them had been touched by the water, and although some lines had smeared, none were illegible. “It’s the sum and substance of what we are.”
“I have to differ,” Lane Griffen said. “Only the Good Book is all that, and more.”
“True as far as that goes,” Shakespeare said, tenderly running a finger along the edge of a page. “The Good Book tells us who we are and why we’re here and what we have to do if we want to go on living once we cast off this moral coil. Old William S., on the other hand, gives us a peek at what makes us tick. Read Hamlet sometime. Or Romeo and Juliet. You’ll understand then.”
“I’ve heard of that Hamlet feller,” Bob Knorr said. “Isn’t he the one who boiled a batch of witches in their own cauldron?”
“You’re thinking of Macbeth,” Shakespeare said dryly.
Griffen had turned to gaze inland. “Maybe this isn’t the best time to sit around chawing about books,” he reminded them. “There’s no telling who might have heard those shots. We are at the border of Blackfoot country, if you’ll recall.”
“I should have thought of that my own self,” Knorr said, rising. “Let’s forget the coffee and light a shuck before we have uninvited company.”
It took all of fifteen minutes. Shakespeare lay propped in the second canoe, swaddled in blankets, his precious book on his lap, while
Lane Griffen paddled strongly to take them out into deeper water. In the first canoe Bob Knorr glanced over a shoulder and waved cheerily.
‘‘Don’t you fret none, McNair,” Griffen said. “Once we hook up with our friends, Jacob will have you patched together good as new in no time. Might take a couple of hundred stitches, but he’s a real patient man.”
“I can hardly wait,” Shakespeare said. And, in truth, he couldn’t. The excitement and exertion had taken their toll, leaving him weak and flushed and feeling feverish. He tried not to dwell on the furrows in his flesh because every time he did he shuddered uncontrollably.
The gentle motion of the canoe lulled Shakespeare into drifting to sleep. He suffered disturbing dreams, all involving rampaging grizzlies tearing into his unprotected body, only snatches of which he remembered on awakening. Pushing up on an elbow, he scanned the tranquil stretch of river ahead.
Lane Griffen heard and looked back. “Figured you’d be out most of the day. It’s the middle of the morning now. How are you holding up?”
“I’ve felt better,” Shakespeare said. His fever had worsened while he slept and he felt as if he could fry eggs on his forehead. “Wish I could do my share of paddling.”
“Leave that to us,” Lane said. “We know you’d do the same on our behalf if things were reversed.” He dipped the paddle smoothly in a steady rhythm. “Folks need to look out for one another, just like the Good Book says. My pa made that clear to me before I was knee high to a grasshopper.” Lane grinned at the fond recollection. “Pa was a preacher man.”
“Surprised you didn’t follow in his footsteps,” Shakespeare mentioned.
“I was fixing to,” Lane responded. “Then I met me the finest woman this side of Creation. Abigail was her name, and she loved me as much as I loved her. So I decided having a family was more important than spreading the Word.”
“Where is your lady love now?”
The trapper broke his rhythm. “I wish to God I knew, McNair. Two years ago next month she disappeared.”
“Indians?”
“Piegans. I made the mistake of taking her into the mountains with me to trap. Everyone warned me not to do it but I was too pigheaded to listen. Thought I could handle anything that came along.” His voice wavered, acquiring a haunted aspect. “Why is it we think we’re invincible when we’re young?”
“For the same reason we think we know all there is to know and that no one can possibly teach us a thing about life,” Shakespeare said, making himself comfortable. “The way I see it, we’re always about twice as stupid as we think we are and four times as ignorant.”
“Ain’t it the truth.” Griffen stuck the paddle in the water and held it there, steering the canoe around a floating log. As he resumed trailing Knorr, he continued his account. “Things went really well for about a month. We made us a lean-to high in the pines where no one could find it and I’d go off most mornings to check my traps while she worked on the hides of the beaver raised the day before.” He looked skyward. “I tell you, McNair, it was heaven on earth.”
“True love always is.”
“Yep. Anyway, one afternoon I came back to the lean-to as usual
and she was gone, the lean-to smashed to bits. There were plenty of moccasin tracks, Piegan prints by the cut of the soles. They’d taken her north so I went after them hell bent to wipe the varmints out.”
“Did you ever catch up with them?” Shakespeare asked when the trapper’s voice trailed off.
“No.” The word was little more than a whisper. “I tried. Lord, how I tried. Hunted for months, until the first snow came. It was hopeless.” Griffen’s shoulders sagged. “Later I heard tell from a couple of voyageurs of a rumor about a white woman living with a band of Piegans up toward Canada. They had no notion of where the tribe could be found or I would have headed right out.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m about plumb out of hope,” Griffen confessed. “God knows what she’s gone through. Even if I find her, she might be too ashamed to want to come back. Sometimes that happens, I hear.”
Shakespeare was having a hard time keeping his eyes open. Sleepiness pervaded his body and his brow was hotter than ever. “If she loves you she’ll never give up hope,” he said, putting a forearm over his eyes. “You should do the same.”
“Easier said than done, McNair,” Griffen said. “Hope is a lot like faith. Both are precious commodities, and when we run out it’s not simple to stock up again.”
“Sure you haven’t been reading old William S.?”
“I don’t read anything anymore. Not even the Good Book.”
“You should—” Shakespeare began, and had no idea whether he finished the statement because the next thing he knew he was sitting up and the sun sat balanced on the western horizon like a red plate standing on edge and about to slip off the end of a table. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “Drifted off again.”
“In your shape I’d do the same,” Griffen said. “You’d be wise not to do much moving around until we get there.”
“When will you pull over for the night?” Shakespeare asked, relishing the idea of that cup of coffee the grizzly’s attack had denied him and a good night’s sleep beside a warm fire.
“We’re not. Bob and I stopped earlier while you were sleeping. We agreed to push on through the night.”
“Too dangerous,” Shakespeare advised. “By morning you’ll both be too tired to keep your eyes skinned for hostiles. And I certainly won’t be of much use.”
“It’s for your benefit that we’re doing it,” Griffen said. “We can reach Jacob that much sooner.”
“No. I won’t have you jeopardizing yourselves needlessly on my account.”
“You don’t have a say in the matter,” Griffen declared bluntly. “We already have our minds set, so that’s that.”
“Darned idiots,” Shakespeare groused, knowing full well he would be unable to dissuade them and admiring their grit despite his misgivings. Placing a hand behind his head, he surveyed the countryside.
The Yellowstone River ran straight for as far as the eye could see, a scenic blue ribbon in the midst of the vast green grassland. Cottonwoods and willows lined both banks, the branches of the willows hanging so low they seemed to touch their reflections on the surface. To the south grazed a small herd of buffalo. In the undergrowth on the south bank several deer stood watching the canoes glide past. Overhead a red hawk vented the unique screech of its kind. On the north bank sparrows and a jay frolicked. On the plain to the north nothing moved, not so much as a solitary antelope.
And to the north lay the heart of Blackfoot country. Shakespeare had no idea how many villages were spread out over the countless square miles encompassing their domain. A fair guess would be dozens. Like the Sioux farther south and the Comanches way down near Mexico, the Blackfeet were a powerful tribe whose power in part derived from their well-nigh limitless numbers. That, and their confederacy.
Some years ago the chiefs of three tribes—the Bloods, the Piegans, and the Blackfeet—had smoked the pipe and formed a loosely knit alliance that became known as the Blackfoot Confederacy since the Blackfeet were the guiding lights and the real power behind the league.
Now the Confederacy controlled an empire a third the size of the eastern United States. They terrorized trappers, drove out traders, and generally made life miserable for anyone who had the gall to set foot in their territory. No amount of palaver could change them. No amount of trade goods would sway their attitude. They were implacable.
Shakespeare knew them well. Perhaps too well. And he would not like to see the two young trappers fall into their clutches because of him. So he resolved to stay awake as long as he could to help them keep watch.
“Is it true what they say?” Lane Griffen asked conversationally. “That you were one of the first out here?”
“I was,” Shakespeare admitted.
“When was it? Shortly after Lewis and Clark went through?”
“Before them.”
Griffen nearly upended the canoe, he turned so swiftly. “You’re tickling my ribs, McNair. No whites had gone west of the Mississippi before ‘05. Everyone knows that for a fact.”
“Just like everyone once thought the world was flat, for a fact, and just like most folks in the States, even today, call the country west of the Mississippi the Great American Desert because they just know, for a fact, that nothing will grow here and it’s as dry and lifeless as the Sahara.”
“Point taken,” Griffen conceded. “So what was it like way back then?”
“Not much different than what you see around you,” Shakespeare reminisced. “There was more game. And there weren’t quite as many Indians, but all the tribes, even the Blackfeet, were friendly in those days—”
“They were?” Griffen asked in astonishment.
“None friendlier,” Shakespeare said. “About a half-dozen whites were living with different Blackfoot bands when Lewis got into his famous racket with a small bunch of Blackfeet trying to steal the guns of his party. Once the word spread that whites had killed Blackfeet, those whites living among them were told to pack up and ride out or be roasted over an open fire.” He ran a hand along his eyebrows, noting how hot his skin was to the touch. “Most of those men had Blackfoot wives. A few had small children. They didn’t like giving up their loved ones, but they liked the notion of dying even less. So they went.”
“The wives and children must have gone through sheer hell.”
Shakespeare swallowed, then licked his lips. “I would imagine so,” he said hoarsely.
Griffen suddenly stopped paddling and asked, half to himself, “Now what the dickens has him so excited?”
Bob Knorr had also ceased paddling and was jabbing a finger at the north side of the Yellowstone. Shakespeare twisted to see why and spotted riders out on the prairie, hastening toward the river. Toward them. And although the distance was a quarter of a mile or more, much too far for him to note details, he knew they were Blackfeet.
Chapter Thirteen
The Blackfeet Indians were human beings just like everyone else! In all the brief years of Zachary King’s existence, this was the most shocking insight to date. He would sit outside Bird Rattler’s lodge of an evening and gaze in bewilderment at the peaceful variety of activities taking place, activities just like those the Shoshones engaged in, and he would shake his head in amazement.
This third night of his stay in the village was typical. Not far off, at the edge of the prairie, a young warrior sang a love song, and although Zach didn’t know the Blackfoot tongue, he could guess at what the warrior was singing: a plea for a sweetheart to meet him outside the camp. Shoshone men did the same thing.
Already the night-singers were making their rounds, moving around the great circle of lodges, jingling bells and venting whoops as the mood struck them.
The lodges themselves were brightened by fires within, so that each lodge seemed to glow with a radiant inner light. Zach thought of them as oversized upright fireflies. The setting was serene, and it so reminded him of a typical Shoshone village that he became heartsick to see his own people again.
From certain lodges arose drummin
g and chanting. Special ceremonies and dances were taking place within, and they would carry on until late.
Outside a nearby lodge several warriors were doing a begging dance. As Bird Rattler had explained the dance to Zach the night before, custom called for the owner of the lodge to come out and give food to those doing it. The dance was not done because the warriors were so poor they had no food. Rather, they danced to test the generosity of the lodge owner.
Zach sighed sadly and gazed at a bright star all by itself on the northern horizon. He felt a lot like that star, all alone in the world with no one to confide in, no one to share his turmoil.
The flap of Bird Rattler’s teepee rustled and out came Elk At Dawn and his sister, Bluebird.
“Ho!” Elk At Dawn said aloud before reverting to sign language. “Why do you sit by yourself so much, Stalking Coyote, my brother to be? It is not good to be alone all the time.”
“Perhaps he misses his family,” Bluebird signed. Ever since Zach’s arrival she had taken a special interest in him. At mealtimes she took it on herself to fill his bowl and be sure he had seconds the instant he finished the first helping. She unrolled his bedding at night, rolled it in the morning. Her parents had been so amused by her antics they had nicknamed her, “Stalking Coyote’s Shadow.”
Zach didn’t know what to make of her attention. Deep down he had a suspicion but he refused to admit it to himself. Now, gazing on her smooth, lovely features and seeing the genuine warmth in her adoring eyes, he was tempted to take her aside and reveal the sorrow eating at his heart.
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