There was conversation and laughing often, but Clay had no notion what was being said. Several times he was certain some of the talking was about him because of the way everyone looked his way. Once, Badger looked directly at him and nodded his head as if to let him know something significant had been said. But when Clay started to question him, Badger held up his hand to silence him. Clay then realized that only one man spoke at a time, and all others listened until he was finished. It was decidedly different from a group of soldiers around a fire with everyone talking at once. There was a certain dignity about it that Clay couldn’t help but admire. When the last pipe was smoked, three in all, Crow Fighter announced the end of the feast, and everyone got up and filed out of the lodge.
Once outside, Clay was quick to press Badger and Pete for anything that had been said about the whereabouts of Bloody Axe’s winter camp. “Well,” Badger began. “There’s definite sign, all right. Didn’t none of ’em know for sure where Bloody Axe went this year. One feller, though, the one with the scar across his face, he said he visited Bloody Axe’s camp this past summer. He seen the white woman, said she belonged to a buck called Black Elk. Can’t say for certain she’s your sister, but chances are she is.”
The very words sent an icy chill through the length of Clay’s spinal cord, and he felt the muscles in his forearms tighten. Black Elk, the savage that had haunted his imagination now had a name. Trying not to show the tension in his brain, Clay asked in a calm voice, “Do you have any idea where to look for my sister?”
“Well . . .” Badger hesitated. “I do and I don’t.” He scratched his beard while he thought about it. “Accordin’ to Crow Fighter, Bloody Axe favors a camp in the foothills of the Rockies, usually not too far from the Milk River.”
“Then I reckon we’d better get started,” Clay said.
“Hold on a minute,” Badger warned. “That’s a lot of territory. He could be anywhere along the east slope of the Rockies. There’s hundreds of little creeks and valleys where he could camp in that country. In the first place, it’s nigh on to ten or twelve days’ ride from here. And that’s just to git someplace where we can start lookin’. And I don’t like the looks of this weather. I feel a real spell of winter coming on.” He rubbed his shoulder as if to confirm his joints’ agreement with the forecast.
Clay gazed thoughtfully into the old trapper’s eyes, evaluating his opinions. He wasn’t sure he was ready to rely upon Badger’s signals from his aching joints. The way he saw it, the weather might turn bad, and it might not. And with thoughts of Martha waiting for him to come, he decided he’d prefer to gamble on the chance that the weather would not worsen. The decision made, he said, “I’m going on. You can stay here with Pete if you want. But maybe you can tell me how to get there.”
Badger just shook his head, exasperated. He glanced at Pete, looking for confirmation, then back at his young friend. “Clay, I reckon I know how anxious you are to find your sister, but it don’t make a lot of sense for you to set out on your own in country you ain’t never seen before—especially if a hard winter hits all of a sudden. There ain’t nuthin like a hard winter snow on the plains. Snow up to your horse’s belly, sky solid gray, wind sharp enough to cut leather—a day or two of that and you likely wouldn’t know east from west, north from south.” He paused to judge the effect of his words on the determined young man. He could see right away that Clay was not swayed. “Another thing, son, don’t be fooled by all this fofurraw here. These Injuns might seem friendly enough right now, but I swear to you it’s only ’cause Pete’s with us. Blackfeet ain’t never got along with no white men ’cept the Hudson’s Bay people—like Pete. The best piece of advice I can give you is to wait out the winter. Then, if your sister’s still alive, we’ll find her.”
Clay didn’t say anything for a long moment. It was obvious that he was weighing the advice just offered. Finally he spoke. “I’m much obliged for your concern, but I guess I’ll still be going.”
“Damnation!” Badger cursed. “If you ain’t the hardheadedest damn pilgrim I’ve ever seen.” He looked at Pete, who was shaking his head in disbelief. “I reckon we’re settin’ out for the mountains in the morning.”
“Clay, wake up.”
Clay felt Badger’s hand on his shoulder, and he was immediately alert. Bolting upright, he reached for his rifle. “What is it?” he whispered, looking right and left in the black night, ready to defend himself.
“Shhh . . .” Badger commanded in a voice barely above a whisper. “Git your possibles together and saddle your horse while I start loadin’ the packhorses.”
Fully alert now, Clay threw his robe back and got to his feet. Looking around him again, he realized that it was still in the middle of the night. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “What’s going on?” He could see no sign of trouble from any direction. The Blackfoot camp was still asleep. Not a sound could be heard from across the river.
Badger continued drawing up the straps on his packhorse while he explained his strange behavior. “I wanna git a good start outta here before them bucks know we’re gone. That whole camp is packin’ up in the morning and pullin’ out—Pete with ’em. You and me is headin’ north and west, all by our lonesomes. And take my word for it, partner, the only reason we was tolerated was because we was friends of Pete’s. Come mornin’, we’ll just be two white men in Blackfoot country.”
Clay found it hard to believe there could be any threat from the people who had been so gracious the day before, and he said as much. “Damn, Badger, surely you don’t believe these people would harm us. We smoked with them yesterday, shared their food. Why, I don’t doubt the honor of Black Shirt or Crow Fighter for a minute.”
“It ain’t them I’m worried about,” Badger replied impatiently, as he finished securing his packs. “I expect you’re dead right about them. If we stayed with them, we’d most likely be all right. But we ain’t staying with them. You’re dead set on headin’ out alone, and that’s mighty temptin’ to some of them younger bucks. Repeatin’ rifles, like that Winchester of your’n, ain’t that easy to come by. So if you don’t mind, I’d a’heap druther have a few hours’ head start on any of ’em that might have ideas about trailin’ us. With this snow on the ground, there ain’t no way we can hide our trail, so outrunnin’ ’em is the only choice we got.”
Clay didn’t argue further. He got his things together, and while the Blackfoot village slept on through the cold night, the two white men led their horses quietly down the river several hundred yards before crossing over and striking out for the distant mountains. Clay felt a little regret for not having an opportunity to say good-bye to Pete, and to thank the old man for helping him search for Martha. But Badger assured him that Pete would understand their midnight departure—he had even advised it. “At least the old fart will spend his last days with his wife’s people,” Badger said. “It’s a sight better than waitin’ to die in that damn run-down shack back at Fort Union.”
Later that morning, the sun broke through for a little while. It was a welcome sight to Clay at first, but after no more than an hour, he began to wish it would go away again. The brilliant glare of sunlight upon the endless sea of stark white snow threatened to blind him. In desperation, he pulled his fur hat down on his eyebrows and wrapped his extra shirt around his face, leaving no more than a slit to peer through. He still could not help closing his eyes for long periods at a time, trusting Badger’s lead as he followed blindly behind him.
The discomfort was eased somewhat soon after midday, for apparently the sun had merely popped in to say good-bye for a period that was to last for several days. Clay began to respect the ability of Badger’s joints to predict the weather when the sky turned again to slate, and the wind switched, bringing chilly air from the north. Taking shelter in a coulee deep enough to get the horses out of the wind, they stopped to build a small fire to make some coffee. It was the first time they had stopped since stealing out of the Blackfoot camp.
Craw
ling back up to the rim of the coulee, Clay looked back over the endless white plain behind them. There was no sign of anyone trailing them. Feeling their early departure had successfully discouraged pursuit by any of Black Shirt’s hot-blooded young warriors, they took a little extra time to eat and rest the horses. Before pushing on across the silent white prairie, Badger mixed some ashes with a little grease, making a black paste. “Here,” he said, “rub this under your eyes. It’ll help with the glare off of the snow.”
For the next two days they continued on a westerly course across lonely prairies seemingly devoid of any other living thing. The whiteness of the gentle snowfall blending into the milky clouds made Clay sometimes feel he and his horses were suspended between earth and sky. Bundled against the freezing snow, he sat in the saddle all day, his joints stiff and cold, blindly following the ghostly figure of Badger several yards ahead. After only the first day, he had realized the truth of Badger’s warning that he could not start out after Bloody Axe’s camp alone. For, in fact, he could not tell which direction they were riding in—there was no sun, no stars at night. He could only hope that Badger knew where he was going.
On the third morning, the clouds darkened and the constant wind increased in velocity until it became an unending howl. They had barely gotten underway when it began to snow again. Soon it became painfully evident to Clay that to go on made no sense. In the swirling snow, they could have passed within twenty yards of Bloody Axe’s village and never have known it. So when Badger called a halt to rest the horses, Clay was not surprised to hear his guide declare it folly to continue.
“Son,” Badger began, “I know you got your mind set on finding your sister, but the weather’s turned on us. You couldn’t find a bull buffalo in a tipi in this kind of weather, and it’s only gonna git worse. I’m gittin’ a mite worried about the horses. I’m thinkin’ this winter’s gonna be a hard one. We ain’t seen hide nor hair of nothin’ to hunt in three days. That tells me that all the animals has sensed the hard winter, and they’ve already headed for shelter. I’m afraid we’re gonna have to go to shelter, too.” He looked expectantly at Clay, waiting for his objections.
Clay nodded slowly, as if considering what his partner was telling him, then replied. “You’re right, I am anxious to find Martha. But I know enough to call it quits when we can’t see two feet in front of us. What do you think we oughta do?”
Relieved to see that his young friend was going to be reasonable about their situation, Badger said, “Well, we can’t stay in this open country, that’s for sure. We’ve got to get to some real shelter. The closest place I know of is Fort Benton. If we head south from here, we ought to strike the Marias in a day or two. We can follow it down to the Missouri. Fort Benton ain’t no more’n a half a day or so from there.”
Clay solemnly nodded. It was not necessary for Badger to spell it out that this was not just a temporary delay. Clay had heard enough about winter on the high plains to know that the search was over until spring. He couldn’t help but feel a sinking sensation in his heart, as he clenched his teeth against the disappointment and frustration, but he knew there was nothing more he could do. He had prepared himself to fight Indians if they tried to stand in his way, but there wasn’t much he could do against the weather. Climbing up into the saddle once again, he followed Badger out of the coulee where they had taken shelter, his horse stepping heavily through snow already a foot deep.
It took about a half day longer than Badger had estimated to reach the Marias River because of the constant snowfall. After an icy crossing, they started out in a southeasterly direction until they again struck the river on its southern leg. From this point, Badger deemed it best to follow the Marias south to its confluence with the Missouri. Although it appeared that they had ridden out of the heavy snowstorm that had slowed them for the past few days, there was still a fair amount of snow on the ground before them. The journey was made a good deal easier by following the river, for the trees along the banks offered sheltered campsites at night.
During the hard ride, Clay became concerned about the condition of his horses. They looked thin and trail-worn, although they never faltered as they made their way, surefooted and steady, around the gullies and ridges. Badger assured him that the horses were tough enough. They were Indian ponies and accustomed to the hardships of the prairie winter. “Now that there fancy red horse of your’n, he might not have cared for this weather too much. We mighta had to carry him on one of the packhorses.”
It was late afternoon on the fourth day after first striking the Marias when the two half-frozen riders sighted the structures that made up the town of Fort Benton. Although a bustling little town on the Missouri during the warm months of the year, it now rose above the prairie as a bleak, almost lifeless collection of buildings around the fort on this cold snowy day. It was difficult to imagine this sleepy town as the busy port it became during the summer, when steamboats pulled up to the levees, unloading the supplies into the freight wagons that would deliver them throughout the territory.
When they had huddled before their campfire the night before, Badger had talked about the old days at Fort Benton, when beaver pelts were the trapper’s bread and butter. “Hell,” he recalled. “Beaver played out. Now it’s buffalo hides. Them big ol’ steamboats come all the way from St. Louis, loaded with ever’thing you can think of and go back loaded with hides.”
“What about the Blackfeet?” Clay wondered, knowing the fierce tribe’s dislike for the white man. “Wasn’t there trouble with them?”
“Well, sure—some—but it was the Blackfeet that asked the American Fur Company to build a trading post there in the first place. Hell, they git along with white men when white men got somethin’ they need.”
Clay thought about Badger’s comments of the night before as they now rode toward the solid adobe walls of the fort. It might have been built as a trading post to trade with the Indians, but it also looked to be formidable enough to withstand any attack. Walls, fourteen feet high, connected all the buildings inside the compound, and it was further protected by two blockhouses at odd corners of the fort, giving the defenders a clear line of fire in any direction. Clay figured the presence of the fort more or less guaranteed the peaceful existence of the town that had sprung up around it.
“Well, I’ll be . . .” Johnny MacGruder uttered when the two trail-worn travelers stepped into the trade store. “Badger, is that you?”
Badger was stopped in his tracks. Taken by surprise, he looked hard at the man behind the high wooden counter while he shucked his heavy buffalo coat. Then recognizing an old friend, his whiskered face broke into a wide smile. “Johnny MacGruder,” he announced. “If you ain’t a sight for sore eyes. I swear, I almost didn’t know who you was.” The two friends grasped hands and pounded each other on the back, laughing joyously. “What the hell are you doin’ behind that counter?” Badger asked. Then, not waiting for an answer, he said, “Looks like you fattened up a little since the last time I saw you.”
Johnny laughed. “Hell, I been eatin’ regular since I quit tryin’ to make a livin’ offen animal hides.” Looking beyond Badger, he cocked an eye at Clay. “Who’s this here young grizzly?”
“Clay Culver, Mr. MacGruder,” Clay volunteered, and stepped forward to offer his hand.
MacGruder stepped back in mock surprise, then took Clay’s hand and shook it enthusiastically. “Damn, a talkin’ grizzly.” Then he laughed good naturedly.
The man’s reaction left Clay slightly baffled. Badger seemed to enjoy the joke as well, joining in the laughter. He might have seen the humor in MacGruder’s comments had he been able to see himself in a mirror. Taller than the average man, Clay was indeed a formidable figure with his heavy buffalo robe draped across wide shoulders, and a full crop of whiskers bristling out from under a foxskin cap.
“This here’s a friend of mine,” Badger told MacGruder. “We sorta found ourselves out in the middle of the prairie when the winter come in kind of sudde
n-like. So I says to Clay, let’s ride on down to Fort Benton and visit my old friend Johnny MacGruder.”
Johnny grinned, a twinkle in his eye, as he looked from Badger to Clay, then back at Badger. “You lyin’ ol’ buzzard—you didn’t have no idea I was here.”
Badger laughed. “You’re right about that. Hell, I thought you was dead. The last I heard of you, you was hightailin’ it outta that camp above Horse Creek on the Green River with some little Snake gal’s papa on your trail.” Badger laughed again as he thought about it. “I see you got away, though.”
Johnny scratched his head thoughtfully, a wry grin still in place. “Well, I reckon you could say that. Ol’ Many Horses caught up with me before I could clear the valley. Reckon it was the best thing coulda happened to me. I’d probably still be with that little gal if she hadn’t run off with another feller.” He winked at Clay and added, “I didn’t learn my lesson, though. I hitched up with another one right after I come here—a Blackfoot woman.”
“Well, I’ll be . . .” Badger exclaimed, shaking his head. “So you’re a squaw man, too.”
Johnny looked surprised. “Don’t tell me you took a wife.”
“Sure did—a little Lakota gal—and she’s a dandy. Ain’t she, Clay?”
Clay smiled and nodded. “She sure is. She’s a fine woman.”
Clay stood by while the two old friends relived some past times spent in the mountains and brought each other up to date on the present. Badger explained why he and Clay came to be looking for a place to hole up until spring, instead of sitting by the fire with Gray Bird in Little Hawk’s camp.
“Stole your sister, huh?” Johnny sympathized. “Well, I reckon Badger’s told you the straight of it. You’d not likely find Bloody Axe now that the snows have come.” He raised his eyebrows slightly as he fixed Clay with an unblinking stare. “It ain’t gonna be easy to find that renegade come spring. I can’t say that I know much about that particular band of Blackfoot—only what I hear from some of the Injuns that come in here to trade. But from what I hear, his people keep pretty much to theirselves and don’t have much to do with white folks if they can help it. He ain’t one to take to the reservation. Bloody Axe stays pretty far to the north, especially since the army sent soldiers to set up a camp on the Judith this past summer. My woman might be able to find out a little more for you, but I don’t know if I’d git my hopes up too much, young fellow.”
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