Buck stated simply, “I’m takin’ the woman.” He turned and started staggering back to Frank, towing the frightened woman in his wake.
“The hell you say!” Badeye roared and lunged to his feet. But he was a good deal drunker than he thought, having sat there drinking for several hours. He was too drunk to walk, in fact. Had he not stumbled into Buck and the woman, he would have surely gone down on his face. Having collided, the two woolly mountain men grappled drunkenly, each trying to throw the other to the ground. They would have both gone down, but for the woman holding both of them up.
There was a temporary pause in the drinking by the others around as everyone watched the comical performance of the two struggling trappers, who looked more like two grizzlies performing a mating ritual. What the fight lacked in fury, it made up for in sound. Both combatants grunted and strained, cursed and screeched—added to the high-pitched scolding from the woman—until a sizable crowd from outside was attracted to the contest.
“To the death!” Badeye exclaimed dramatically as the two parted for a new start, his knees wobbling uncertainly.
“To the death!” Buck echoed and swung his fist, trying to land a punch on Badeye’s jaw.
The blow missed Badeye but landed flush on the mouth of the Indian woman. There was not much force behind it, but enough to make her take a step backward and blink.
“Beg your pardon, ma’am,” Buck offered as politely as he could.
She put her hand to her lip and wiped the blood away. The blood served to infuriate her, and she hauled off and slapped Buck on the side of his head, sending him reeling across the tent and crashing into a table of card players. They cleared out of the way just in time to avoid becoming part of the show when Badeye dived on top of Buck.
On the floor now, the two struggled and wrestled for advantage. First Buck was on top, then Badeye. The Indian woman found a broom and proceeded to administer a steady drumbeat on whichever body was on top. And so it went, until everybody there wearied of the contest, especially the two principals. Finally Buck prevailed, being considerably bigger than Badeye. He managed to pin Badeye with his arms underneath him, holding him there by his knees. With one forearm pressing Badeye’s neck to the floor, Buck drew his skinning knife with his other hand. “Now, by God,” he said, while panting for breath.
That was when Frank stepped in. Up to that point, no one had been hurt, except for the woman, who had a split lip. Frank was sober enough to know that Buck would not ordinarily want to do any real harm to Badeye. Besides that, someone had told him during the fight that the woman was Badeye’s wife, and he knew Buck wasn’t aware of that. “Hold on a minute, partner,” Frank said and grabbed Buck’s wrist.
Buck jerked his head around, his face a mask of fury until he saw it was Frank. Then he grinned and said, “I’m gonna take the bastard’s scalp.” The statement caused a couple of Snake warriors seated at the edge of the tent to start “Ki-yi-ing.”
“Buck, you don’t wanna do that,” Frank insisted. “That would put a terrible hardship on ol’ Badeye. Besides, that there woman you’re fightin’ over is Badeye’s wife.”
“It is?” Buck seemed genuinely astonished.
“It is,” Frank confirmed. “Looks to me like you got the best of it, anyway. You don’t need to scalp him.” He looked down at Badeye. “You’ve had enough, ain’t you, Badeye?” Badeye, his one good eyeball frozen on the gleaming knife blade only inches from his forehead, nodded vigorously. “See there, Buck?” Frank went on. “It’s all over. You can let him up.”
Buck was uncertain. He had the upper hand and he was a little reluctant to relinquish it. But it was true that he was plum wore out from the exertion. “All right,” he said finally. “Maybe I won’t take his scalp.” He jerked his wrist out of Frank’s grasp and held the knife close under Badeye’s nose, turning the blade back and forth, taunting him. He wanted some trophy for his victory, and if he couldn’t take the scalp, he would take something else of importance. “You can keep your mangy scalp, but I’m taking this.” He jerked the eye patch off Badeye’s head and held it up, twirling it in the air. Badeye was too exhausted to protest. After some cajoling, Buck was persuaded to get off of Badeye, and Frank led him outside the tent, where they found Jim waiting for them.
“What was all the ruckus?” Jim asked.
“Nothing much. Buck was just trying to get married again.”
Frank helped a stumbling, muttering Buck remain upright while they headed for their camp. When they walked by the river, Frank pushed Buck in.
Just as it had the time before, the morning sun found Buck in a heap of misery. He claimed to be even sicker this time, and before the morning was many hours old, he had thrown up several times. Jim made him some strong coffee, and by the time the sun was halfway across the river valley, he was able to sit up and eat some boiled deer meat. When Frank returned from a little parley with Bill Sublette, Buck was resting on his saddle, examining his trophy.
“When you gonna give that thing back to Badeye? I seen him walking around with a rag tied around his head.” Frank helped himself to a cup of coffee and found a place to sit.
Buck continued to study the eye patch as if it had some mystical power. “I don’t know that I will,” he finally answered. “Did you say he was walkin’ around?” Frank nodded. “Damn,” Buck muttered. His attention back on the eye patch, he said, “You know, Frank, I know I was mighty drunk, and I don’t remember a helluva lot about last night. But one thing I do remember—when I took this here eye patch offen Badeye, there was a bright blue eyeball staring right at me.” When Frank showed no special interest in this profound discovery, Buck expounded. “I’m tellin’ you the truth! There wasn’t no empty hole there, like that half-breed over there at Laramie last year. You know, the one got his eye gouged out by that big feller, LaPorte?”
Frank glanced up when he realized Buck was waiting for some reaction to his statement. “Well, what about it?”
“I been thinkin’. Maybe ol’ Badeye’s bad eye ain’t bad a’tall.”
“Thunderation, Buck, what the hell would he wear the damn patch for if his eye was good? I swear, sometimes I think that damn whiskey’s done pickled your brain.”
Buck was not easily dissuaded. “Maybe ol’ Badeye’s smarter than you think. Maybe he’s been saving that one eye, keeping the sun out of it, protecting it, in case the other one goes bad.”
“Wagh,” Frank bellowed. He looked at Jim and shook his head, laughing. “I swear, Buck, even this here fourteen-year-old young’un knows better than that. Give the damn patch back to the man.”
Buck scratched his beard thoughtfully. “I think I’ll keep her a while yet. It might be a right smart thing to save one of my eyes with this thing.” He placed the patch over his left eye and tied the string behind his head.
Much to Frank’s disgust, Buck wore the eye patch for the rest of the day before finally admitting that it restricted his eyesight too severely. That evening he sent Jim to return his trophy. There was one positive result from Buck’s drinking sprees—Jim resolved to never take up the evil habit. He didn’t care for the prospect of the gut-wrenching sickness that Buck seemed doomed to suffer time and time again.
* * *
When all the trading was finally done, the rendezvous began to break up. There were still several hundred people camped by the river when Jim came to his two friends to tell them he was leaving.
“I reckon I’m gonna’ go back East to see my ma. Mr. Sublette said I could go with him to help with the mules.” He looked fondly at the two old trappers. “I reckon you know I’m much obliged to you for letting me tag along with you. I hope to see you again someday.”
“Why, shore you will, boy,” Buck said. “We can always use a partner as smart as you are. Can’t we, Frank?”
“That’s a fact. Take care of yourself, boy, and if you get back out this way, give us a holler.”
“I will,” he said and turned away, hurrying to join Sublette’
s party.
CHAPTER 4
It was late summer by the time Jim arrived in St. Louis. He had been gone a year, but so many things had happened that it seemed like much longer. During that year, St. Louis had changed into a bustling, boisterous town, still growing monthly. But it had not kept pace with the boy of fourteen who had seen things that most boys his age never see. He had trapped the icy mountain streams and lived under the stars. And he would never be the same, content no longer to be a part of the busy, noisy city that he had returned to.
Although he now felt hemmed in by the congestion of the town, he knew where his responsibilities lay, and he had resigned himself to staying here and helping his brother provide for their mother. Since his father was dead, Cameron was now the head of the family, but it was Jim’s duty to help him. Maybe he would seek a job in the freight yard with Cameron. Perhaps, with the sack of gold dust he was bringing, he and Cameron could start a nest egg that might one day grow to enable them to acquire the farm his father had always dreamed of. His own dreams of snow-capped mountains, clear mountain streams, and forests teeming with every kind of critter imaginable would have to wait.
These were the thoughts that filled Jim’s mind as he made his way down the dusty wagon trace toward the little settlement of Milltown. He had been walking for almost two hours when he rounded the curve a quarter of a mile above the house. He could see it now. At once, a feeling of dread descended upon his shoulders, and he pictured his mother’s face when he told her of his father’s death. It was going to be the hardest thing he ever had to do, harder even than burying his father. As much as he wanted to see his mother and brother, he wished now that he had stayed in the mountains. But that would have been even more cruel, letting them wonder what had happened to them. He had had no choice but to come home and take care of his mother.
Within a hundred yards of the house now, he strained to see if he might catch a glimpse of his mother. Cameron would be at work still. Cameron had been a bit lax in keeping up the outside of the place, he noticed. The little yard was filled with weeds, and the garden had grown knee-high in grass and thistle. This wasn’t like Cameron. Maybe he had been working long hours and could not take care of the place properly. Well, I’m home now. Together, we’ll get things back in shape.
Closing the last few yards, he jumped the ditch and started up the short path to the house. It was then that he suddenly sensed that things were not right. He could tell before reaching the door that there was no one home. The feeling was confirmed when he tried the latch and found it locked. He knocked on the door. “Ma,” he called out several times, but there was no answer. Odd, he thought, to find the door locked. It was never locked, not even when his mother walked to the store. They had never bothered because it was a simple task to open a window and enter as you please. Then he realized that the windows were all closed. On a day as warm as this one, surely one or two would be open.
He entered through a side window near the chimney. As he had expected, the air was hot and stale inside. The windows had been closed up for some time, by the look of things. Standing in the center of the front room, he looked around him. Nothing seemed to be missing. The table, the chairs, the sideboard, the rug his mother had hooked from rags, all there as he remembered. But where was his mother? He ran his finger across the corner of the table, leaving a trail in the dust. “Ma?” he called out again.
He walked through the kitchen and opened the back door, looking out toward the well. Like the front yard, everything was overgrown with weeds. There was little doubt that his mother and brother had gone, but where? He entered the little room off of the kitchen where he and Cameron slept. From the dust on the bedstead and small chest, it was obvious that Cameron had not been there for some time. The straw pallet that had been Jim’s bed was rolled up in a corner of the tiny room.
Finally he went into his mother and father’s bedroom. The room was dark and musty, the air heavy with the scent of dust and moldy clothes. He opened a window to let some fresh air in. It didn’t help. The room had been closed up for too long. Looking around, he discovered that his mother’s things were gone. His father’s were undisturbed.
Totally at a loss, he sat down on the bed and puzzled over his predicament. They had gone. That much was clear to him. Still, he thought, he could wait there just in case Cameron might show up, though he had a feeling he wouldn’t. He glanced out the window. The sun was getting pretty low in the trees. It was too late to look for his family today, even if he knew where to look. The only person he could think of who might be able to help was his mother’s friend Nettie Bowen. He decided to stay the night and go back up the road in the morning to the Bowens’ place.
Finding nothing to eat in the house, he supped on some dried buffalo jerky from his pack. He still carried his bow that Frank had made, but in this civilization there was nothing to hunt. Jerky would do, he thought. Still, some strong black coffee would sure have tasted fine. There was a candle on the mantel over the fireplace, but he didn’t bother to light it. The darkness suited him, and when the sun finally disappeared beyond the row of poplars behind the house, he unrolled his old pallet in the middle of the front room and went to sleep.
* * *
Accustomed to getting up before daybreak, he was somewhat surprised when he awoke to find the sun peeping through the front window. He half expected to find his mother there, but when he sat upright and looked around, he realized that he was still alone. He picked up his little pack of belongings and took one long look around the room before leaving. An object on the end of the mantel caught his eye, reminding him of something his father had repeated many times at the rough little cabin by their placer mine. Dang, I wish I hadn’t gone off and left my pipe. Jim smiled when he recalled it. And there it was—right where his father had left it. Jim stepped over to the mantel and picked up the pipe. His father had loved that pipe. He had carved it from a cherrywood limb, and he always claimed that there wasn’t a pipe made that smoked sweeter. Jim held the bowl up to his nose and sniffed the pungent aroma left by many hours of burning tobacco leaves. Then dropped it in his pocket and, taking one more quick glance around, went out the front door.
Retracing his steps of the day before, he walked back up the road toward Trotter’s Store. It was still early when he approached the homely little brown shingled cottage with rose bushes framing the front door. He was only halfway up the path when the door opened and Nettie Bowen stood gazing at him, her eyes squinting as if to improve her focus.
“For goodness’ sakes,” she exclaimed. “Jim Tracey, is that you?”
“How do, Mrs. Bowen. It’s me, all right.”
“Sweet Jesus! We heard you was dead, you and your pa too. And here you are, big as life. Praise the Lord!”
Jim was totally confused. As far as he knew, no one here could possibly know that his father had been killed. “No, ma’am, I ain’t dead. I don’t know who could have told you that.”
Suddenly a frown crossed Nettie’s face as a sobering thought came to her. “Your Pa—then he’s all right too?”
Jim shook his head slowly and dropped his chin. “No, ma’am. Pa’s dead.”
There was almost a hint of relief on Nettie’s face, which puzzled the boy. Her smile immediately returned. “Have you had any breakfast? You look like you ain’t had nothing to eat in a week. I declare, I saw you walk by the house yesterday and I didn’t even recognize you—dressed up like a wild Indian like that. Come on in the kitchen and I’ll fix you some breakfast.”
That sounded wonderful to Jim. But he said, “No, thank you, ma’am. I don’t want to trouble you.”
“Nonsense. Get yourself in this house. I bet you ain’t had a decent meal since you and your pa set out for that wilderness.” She stood back, holding the door open for him, and motioned him in.
Gratefully, Jim accepted. As hungry as he suddenly became when the prospect of eggs and hominy was suggested, he was still anxious to find out what had become of his family. “Mr
s. Bowen, I went down to the house, and there’s nobody there. Can you tell me where Ma and Cameron are?”
Turning a big iron skillet back and forth to spread the grease evenly, she cocked her head sharply and fixed him with a steady gaze. “You don’t know about your mama, do you, son?” She set the skillet aside on the corner of the stove and sat down at the table facing him. “And nobody’s told you about Cameron?” He shook his head no.
So, seated at the kitchen table, he listened, hardly able to believe what he was hearing. Nettie Bowen told him of his brother’s accidental death in the freight yard and of Hamilton Blunt’s generous gestures to help his mother. He listened in shocked silence as the numbing reality set in that he had lost his father and brother in that one tragic summer.
“Where’s Ma?” was his one simple question when she paused.
“She’s gone to stay at Hamilton Blunt’s big house. Truth of the matter, I ain’t seen her since Cameron’s funeral. But Mr. Trotter told me that Hamilton Blunt drove down to your house and took her home with him.” She got up to start his breakfast again. “You gonna be all right? I mean, if you feel like you wanna cry or something, there ain’t no shame in it.”
“I’m all right. I don’t cry,” he stated, staring unblinking at his folded hands on the table.
She broke four eggs into the skillet and stirred them up together. “Folks thought it was pretty decent of Mr. Blunt to take care of your ma, what with your pa getting killed—and Cameron—and you too, they thought.”
“Yessum, I reckon.” One thing still puzzled him, though. “Mrs. Bowen, how did they know my pa got killed? How could anybody know that?”
“I don’t know. When I talked to your mama at Cameron’s funeral, she didn’t know much about it herself. I think she said some scout or buffalo hunter, somebody like that, brought the word back.” She put on a bright smile for him. “Anyway, ain’t she gonna be overjoyed when she sees you?”
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