One week after they arrived at the rendezvous, a large, powerfully built man rode into the upper end of the camp. His face hidden behind a bushy black beard that was crusted in places with dried tobacco spray, he dwarfed the small Indian pony he rode. His eyes darted from side to side as he made his way through the groups of old Indians sitting under the trees, smoking their pipes. He leered at the women busily scraping hides or carrying wood. The people he passed returned his gaze with notable lack of welcome. For, in truth, this man had no friends in this camp of trappers.
From their campfire near the bend in the river, Frank spotted the latecomer to the rendezvous. “LaPorte,” he mumbled.
Hearing him, Buck roused himself from his position stretched out under a tree and sat up to see for himself. After a moment, he said, “It’s him, all right.” He glanced over at Trace, who was a dozen yards away, kneeling by the water with a fishing line he had rigged up. “Trace,” Buck called, “come on over here a minute.” When Trace looked around, Buck motioned with his hand.
He tied his line to a tree root and walked over to the fire. Buck pointed to the dark figure making his way along the riverbank, weaving through the campfires of Indians and trappers. “You recognize that man?”
Trace stared hard at the man pointed out. “No, never saw him before.”
“That’s Joe LaPorte, the thievin’ bastard that’s been askin’ about you.”
Trace studied the huge man carefully.
Frank chimed in. “That there’s Blunt’s man—does all his dirty work for him, I reckon. There ain’t a meaner man in these mountains. He’d just as soon kill ya as look atcha.”
“Well, how come somebody doesn’t stop him?” Trace wondered.
“Cause so far, nobody’s caught him at his devilry, but everybody knows he’s a lowdown murderer, him and his Blackfoot gang. Trace, you’d best just lay low and stay away from that man.”
It was too late, for LaPorte’s dark, ferretlike eyes had already lit upon the tall young man in the new buckskins, and his steely gaze riveted upon the three men. Ahh, Ransom and Brown, he thought to himself and smiled. So the damned Crows didn’t get you after all. He was especially interested in the young stranger with them. It was hard to say at that distance, but he would bet that he was around eighteen years of age, and that would make him about right.
LaPorte’s heartbeat quickened with the thought that his persistence might have finally paid off. Years had passed with no sign of the Tracey boy, but LaPorte knew he would eventually show up. He was ready to collect on the five hundred dollars Morgan Blunt had promised—especially now, since his former Blackfoot allies had said they were done with him. Lame Fox had lost too many of his warriors in the ill-fated attack on the two white trappers and had barely escaped the Crow war party. He and LaPorte parted company the morning after their flight from Red Blanket’s warriors. Lame Fox led what was left of his war party back north of the Yellowstone to lick his wounds. Things didn’t look too promising for LaPorte after that. But now maybe his luck was changing—five hundred dollars’ worth of change.
“Uh-oh,” Buck muttered, “he’s coming this way.” He motioned for Trace to stay back. “You just sit back there and let me do the talkin’.” Frank moved over away from the fire so he could have a clear field of vision. Trace complied with Buck’s instructions, but he felt no fear of the huge man.
“Well, if it ain’t Mr. Brown and Mr. Ransom,” LaPorte said as he pulled his pony up before them, his voice laden with sarcasm. “Heard you boys had a little trouble over near Wind River.”
“That so?” Buck asked. “Now I wonder who told you that.”
“Word gits around,” LaPorte replied, his gaze searching past the two old trappers to the young man behind them.
“What the hell do you want, LaPorte?” Frank demanded.
“Why, I was just being neighborly.” His evil grin was a thin disguise for the contempt in his heart. “I just stopped to see how you boys was doin’.” His gaze suddenly remained locked on the boy. “And what might your name be?”
“His name might be President Van Buren, but it ain’t none of your business, now is it?”
Trace saw the cold spark in LaPorte’s eye when the big man shifted his gaze back to Buck. “Don’t push your luck with me, old man. I just might decide to eat your gizzard.” The two locked eyeballs for a long moment before LaPorte, noticing that Frank’s hand rested on his pistol, slowly smiled. “I don’t know why you boys is so unfriendly.” He backed his horse away, watching them closely as he did. “I’ll be seeing you,” he said as he turned back toward the main camp. There was a sly gleam in his eye as he gave Trace one last look.
“Damn,” Buck said, when LaPorte had disappeared behind one of the Snake lodges, “why ain’t somebody done shot that man?” He turned to face Trace. “Don’t ever turn your back when that varmint’s around. I don’t like the way he was eyeballin’ you.”
Trace could not deny feeling a quickening of his blood when LaPorte had leered down at him with dark eyes that seemed to penetrate his very soul. If there was such a thing as an evil spirit, and Trace believed that there was, then he was halfway convinced that he had just met the evil one’s messenger. LaPorte was massive, powerfully built with thick neck and shoulder muscles like a bull buffalo. Trace, though young in years, was confident in his own strength and ability, and he would cower before no man or beast. Still, he would take Buck’s advice and avoid LaPorte if possible. Buffalo Shield had taught him that though a man might not fear the great grizzly, he would be foolish to fight him hand to hand.
Several hundred yards away in the Snake camp, Joe LaPorte sat in a circle of braves, watching with an amused smile as they drank from a jug of whiskey the big man had brought. Married to a Blackfoot woman, LaPorte had very little use for the Snakes. And had they known of his alliance with their enemies, the hated Blackfeet, they might have been at his throat instead of gulping the evil firewater he offered.
While his newly made friends finished off the jug of Morgan Blunt’s cheapest whiskey, LaPorte’s eyes were occupied with the comings and goings of the young Snake girls in the camp. One side of his mouth curled into a lopsided grin as he thought of the money he had in his pockets—courtesy of the young couple in the covered wagon who had had the misfortune to cross paths with LaPorte and his Blackfoot savages. That money could buy him a lot in this camp, and his grin broadened when he thought about the young man who had finally showed up after four long years, and all the money that would come when LaPorte delivered his head to St. Louis.
CHAPTER 11
“Boy! Have you done took leave of your senses?” Buck was fairly flabbergasted, standing on the riverbank above the young man in the water. “Ain’t no tellin’ what kind of sickness you can catch, jumpin’ in that river buck nekkid.”
Trace laughed and continued splashing around in the clear cool water. “I ain’t naked. I got on my breechclout.”
“Same as being nekkid,” Buck insisted. “Jumpin’ in the river without his clothes on’ll weaken a man fer shore.”
“Hell, Buck, you spend half your life wading around in beaver streams,” Trace said.
“Not without my britches on, I don’t. You better come on outta there and get some clothes on.”
Trace laughed again and waded toward the sandy bank. “I was just taking a little bath. Don’t you ever feel like you need to clean up?”
“Lord no. It’s a dangerous thing to expose your skin to the elements, unless you’re a damn Injun—they don’t know no better.” He handed Trace his shirt and stepped back to give him room to scramble up the bank.
Slipping the buckskin shirt over his head, Trace said, “You ought to try it once in a while, Buck. It’ll make you feel like new.”
“I swear,” Buck scoffed, “you picked up some mighty queer notions livin’ with them Crows.” He was about to continue his lecture when he was distracted by something behind the boy. “Well, lookee here,” he murmured.
; Trace turned to see a young Indian girl approaching them. She looked to be no more than sixteen or seventeen. Trace found himself staring in admiration at the girl’s graceful yet purposeful stride as she made her way around the hummocks and gullies by the riverbank. It appeared that she was heading straight for them. Trace pulled his moccasins on, never taking his eyes off the approaching girl. “Snake,” he heard Buck say, though he was not really listening. He was captivated by her simple elegance, mesmerized by the way the fringes on her buckskin dress gently swayed back and forth in rhythm with her step.
“Well, good morning, missy,” Buck said when the girl walked right up to them and stopped. “What can we do for a fine-lookin’ lady like yourself?” When she responded with no more than a quizzical expression, he spoke to her in her own tongue.
Though able to converse fluently in the Crow dialect, Trace knew only a few words of the Snake language, so he could not follow the conversation. Already enamored with the girl’s large dark eyes and the smooth cheekbones that reminded him of golden velvet, he was impatient to know the purpose of her visit. “What’s she saying, Buck?”
Buck spoke to her again before answering Trace. When she responded, he laughed and turned to Trace. “I think she must be a little tetched in the head,” he teased. “Maybe I best send her on back where she come from.”
“Why?” Trace demanded, his eyes never leaving the girl, who was gazing intently at him now and smiling.
“Because she said she come to see you,” Buck replied, grinning from ear to ear. “Said she’d been a’watching you.”
“Me?” Trace choked out, and before he could ask more, the girl said something else, diverting Buck’s attention.
Buck listened, smiling broadly at the Snake maiden, then translated. “She says you’re a fine-lookin’ young man, so I reckon the poor girl’s eyesight’s gone bad on her, too.” He was thoroughly enjoying Trace’s discomfort. “She said to tell you to meet her in the trees behind that knoll over yonder when the moon gets up.”
“Why?” Trace blurted out, that being all he could think of to say at the moment, while his entire being was still captivated by the sweetest face he had ever seen.
Buck burst into laughter. “Why the hell do you think? I swear, I didn’t think I was gonna have to learn you ever’thing.” He glanced back at the girl—she was laughing too. “To talk is what she says. When the moon comes up, she’ll be waiting. Don’t want her pap to see her running off to meet you in the daylight.” He waited for Trace’s reply. When Trace seemed unable to speak for a moment, Buck asked him, “Well, are you aimin’ to meet her?”
Trace nodded vigorously, then stammered, “Damn right.”
Buck grinned his approval and looked at the girl. She smiled and nodded. The rendezvous confirmed, she favored Trace with a warm smile, turned on her heel and departed. The old man and the boy watched in fascination as she retraced her steps, the little fringes on her dress swaying to and fro.
Trace was thunderstruck. How could she have been watching him? He had certainly not been aware of it. And why had he been so dumbfounded by the mere appearance of a girl? There were many young girls in Red Blanket’s village, and he had enjoyed idle flirtations with a couple. But none had rendered him simpleminded and foolish as this young Snake maiden had. “Dang,” he sputtered, “I don’t know more than two or three words of Snake. There ain’t gonna be much talking.”
Buck chuckled, “I reckon ‘yes’ is the only word you’ll need.”
The rest of that day passed slowly. Trace tried to entertain himself by sauntering through the rows of traders’ tents, watching the last of the bargaining between the traders and the trappers and Indians. He also caught sight of LaPorte as the sinister giant entered a saloon tent near the far end of the encampment. Trace carefully avoided that tent, but he roamed the rest of the camp as he pleased, determined not to cower behind Buck and Frank. He had found it necessary to get away from his two older partners anyway, to avoid the incessant teasing. Thoughts of the girl filled his mind all afternoon, and he soon came to believe that night would never come. But finally, and mercifully, the sun dropped below the hills in the west as the cookfires began to glow.
Trace ate, although he had very little appetite. His stomach had suddenly become nervous and not at all receptive to salt pork and pan bread. It didn’t help to meet the mischievous eyes and innocent grins of Buck and Frank every time he glanced up at them.
“You know, Frank,” Buck began, “the last time I seen anything that nervous was that time above Three Forks when we come up on that rabbit that hopped over that dead log and found hisself settin’ next to a rattlesnake. You remember that?”
“Uh-huh,” Frank replied nonchalantly. “I remember. As I recollect, we et rabbit and rattlesnake for supper that night.” He reached for the coffee kettle and swished the grounds around before pouring himself a cup. “’Course, ol’ Trace here, he’s done been bit by something a sight more deadly than a rattlesnake. He’s got a right to be nervous.”
“And it’s a helluva lot more deadly when you ain’t ever been bit before,” Buck added, causing both men to chuckle.
Trace flushed, thankful that it was getting too dark for it to be noticed. “You two old fools don’t know whether I been bit before or not.” He got to his feet.
“I got better things to do than set around here listening to you two jawing and emptying that jug.”
“I’m shore of that,” Buck chided, still laughing. “The moon’ll be up in about half an hour. You better be gittin’ your weapon primed.” He took another long pull from the jug.
He left the two of them still cackling over their bawdy jokes and walked by the campfires of the few trappers who had also situated themselves at the lower end of the great encampment. He nodded to an occasional trapper as he passed small groups of old-timers, swapping tales around the fire. Their bellies were full, their pipes lit, and the air was filled with the odors of roasted meat and strong tobacco. Off toward the center of the camp, the sound of singing and muffled laughter carried on the gentle evening breeze. Soon he was beyond the last campfire and striding across the grass of the valley floor.
After a few minutes’ walking, he had left the camp behind him. He stopped to look at the moon, large and yellow, rising over the hills behind him, and he realized he was trembling with an anticipation he had never felt before. Suddenly he felt foolish. What the hell am I doing out here? he thought. Acting like a lovesick prairie dog, sniffing after some sassy little tail. He almost decided to turn around, thinking of the aloof posture he and Black Wing had strived to maintain before the young Crow girls. Then he thought again of the Snake girl’s little fringes swaying as she walked. What the hell! That would really give Buck and Frank something to jape me about if I turned tail and ran.
A few minutes more and he was approaching the slopes of the low hills and the clump of trees that had been pointed out by the girl. The shadows were deep under the tall pines, a cloak that forbade the bright moonlight’s entry. What if I’m the butt of a big joke, he wondered, and she ain’t even here? What if she—and Buck—are setting behind one of those trees, laughing their heads off? He entered the quiet darkness of the shadows.
“Jim Tracey.” It was a man’s voice. He spun around, barely in time to see a giant shadow lunging toward him. Too late to dodge his assailant, Trace dropped to one knee and tried to brace himself. He caught a brief glint of moonlight reflected in a shiny knife blade as it flashed over his head. A fraction of a second later, he was bowled over by the impact of the man’s heavy body. Over and over they rolled, down the slope. Trace fought desperately to keep the knife blade from finding purchase in his stomach as they struggled and cursed. From the crushing weight of the big man’s body and the stench of his breath, Trace knew it could only be LaPorte. The momentum of their desperate struggle carried them down until they crashed against the trunk of a large pine, causing them to disengage.
Trace scrambled to his feet and drew his
own knife from his belt. His assailant was equally as fast in recovering from their tumble and was soon upon him again, charging like an enraged buffalo. Trace easily avoided the big man, stepping aside and administering a slashing blow as LaPorte’s huge body surged past. LaPorte roared—in anger more than pain, for the blow had not been a serious one.
LaPorte was too big and powerful, and Trace knew that his best chance was to stay on his feet. He could not afford to let the bigger man wrestle him to the ground, so he waited while LaPorte paused to catch his breath. LaPorte, laboring from exertion, was nevertheless confident of his physical dominance over his young opponent. The boy was tall and muscular, but he had not filled out as yet. In spite of the blood running down his arm, he was enjoying the slaughter he was about to complete as he stood facing Trace.
“Your name’s Jim Tracey, ain’t it?” LaPorte growled between gulps of air. “You little whelp. Your hide’s worth five hundred dollars to me. You might as well tell me your name. You don’t wanna go to hell with a lie on your lips, do you, boy?”
“You can go to hell,” Trace replied, slowly shifting his weight from one foot to the other, his knife ready to strike.
LaPorte wanted him in close, where he could use the advantage of his strength and size. “Come on, boy, fight like a real man.” Trace continued to bide his time. “You know, I was s’posed to take care of you four years ago, when me and my boys killed your pa. Them Blackfoot, they had a time with your old man’s body, but it was my shot what brung him down.”
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