Downriver

by Richard S. Wheeler

  The riverboat was making good time this day, plowing the river under a cloudless blue bowl. She felt a change in the rhythm suddenly, a slowing of the engines, and saw the boat veer toward a patch of willows and alders and cottonwoods ahead. The master would stop for fuel. She had seen so many of these stops that she knew the drill: soon the bell would summon every able-bodied man to the boiler deck, and when the gangway was lowered, these men would fan out and begin sawing and chopping carrying wood. Soon there would be no trees left along the big river, because these men always killed several more for future use, by girdling them.

  She saw Skye present himself to the mate, who handed him a crosscut saw. Skye was always one of the first off the boat and last to return. No Name always joined him, his tail wagging slowly, eager for a run and a chance to wet a few trees. Skye worked hard. This was women’s work; no Absaroka man would stoop to such a thing, but that didn’t bother him. White men were different.

  The boat slid dose to the bank, bumped something and rocked in place while the deck crews shouted, threw hawsers over the rail, and slid the gangway outward. From where Victoria sat high above, she could see that this woodlot had been much depleted by other visits.

  She followed Skye until he vanished behind foliage, and then she studied the brooding slopes for danger, squinting as her gaze swept ridges and gulches, pausing at anything the slightest bit unusual or strange. But she saw no sign of trouble. She glanced forward toward the pilothouse and saw Bonfils there. The young man had ceased to go on the refueling trips, and Marsh said nothing. She wondered about it: was that an honor, not being asked to cut wood? Was Skye being dishonored? She could not know, but resolved to ask Skye about it.

  She loved the quiet, when the fireboat idled in the lapping waves and the steam made no thunder and the big paddle wheels did not rumble and slap and splash. This machine of the white men ate trees, and someday that would all come to a stop because there would be no more trees.

  It didn’t take long. The further they progressed into this trip, the faster were the woodcutting stops, as passengers acquired skills and organized themselves better. She watched the deck crews carry the fresh logs aboard and stack them neatly, within reach of the firebox. A bell summoned those on shore, and soon she saw Skye and No Name walk wearily to the deck. She was always careful about No Name, remembering how that dog had once followed a boat carrying Skye and Victoria for a long distance, never giving up. No Name was a spirit-dog, and he made Victoria feel chills sometimes when she gazed at the mangy creature.

  They progressed easily the rest of the afternoon. Skye clambered up to the highest deck and sat with the women, watching the shoreline slide by. They passed a woodlot where white men were sawing planks and others were cutting logs, and the mate, Trenholm, told them they would reach Fort Pierre in a little over an hour.

  It seemed a greener land than upriver; verdant grasses shivered in the breezes, and the hills weren’t so arid. Then, far ahead, she saw the thinnest veil of smoke, and in a bit, a distant palisade, the famous Fort Pierre, a rectangular stockade like the others she had seen, composed of pickets, a massive gate in front, and various buildings within. But this post was on a broad flat, and around the trading center rose more lodges than she could count; smoke-blackened buffalo-hide cones, one after another, a sea of bright-painted lodges built after the manner of the Lakota, with distant people running now to the riverbank to greet the fireboat.

  She saw a small puff from a corner bastion, heard the crack of a cannon, and knew the white men at the post were welcoming the fireboat. Another crack, and then the deck hands fired the little brass six-pounder on the foredeck in response. The penned horses stirred nervously. The fireboat slowed and shuddered as the big paddles stopped revolving and the boat slid quietly toward a muddy levee, where it would soon be tied to posts.

  She could not yet see individuals who were gathering and jostling at the riverbank, but she knew who they were: enemies of her people. These were Sioux, mostly the Dakota ones, Yanktons, Yanktonai, but also some Tetons, or Lakota. Many was the Lakota scalp dangling from an Absaroka lance! Lame Deer stared raptly at the gathering crowd of Sioux.

  Now a few of the post traders appeared, men in black suits and stiff white shirts, quieter than the frenzied Sioux but no less delighted to see the fireboat.

  A shrill blast of steam announced the arrival, and now every living person in the whole area was crowding the shore, cheering the boat as the pilot and the master and helmsman eased it home. Finally the deckmen tossed the hawsers to waiting hands on shore, and the boat slid to a halt.

  Aiee, she wondered whether she had the courage to walk down to the boiler deck and onto land, with so many Sioux waiting to separate her from her hair!

  Then the mate, Trenholm, appeared on the hurricane deck and addressed Lame Deer.

  “End of the ride,” he said. “Captain’s putting you off.”

  The woman stared.

  “Got your stuff on the deck. Bring the young ’uns. We’ll unload the nags in a bit.”

  The Cheyenne woman looked bewildered. “Is this the place of many houses called St. Louis?”

  “Nope, but this is as far as you go.”

  Victoria intervened. “She paid robes to go to St. Louis.”

  Trenholm laughed. “Off she goes! Come along now.”

  Slowly, Lame Deer gathered her little ones in hand and followed the mate to the companionway.

  sixteen

  Skye stood at the rail watching the hubbub. On shore, a crowd jostled and pushed. The arrival of a riverboat was a great event at Fort Pierre Chouteau. The Sioux added to the press of bodies, studying this amazing machine of the white men, their thoughts private and unfathomable. Skye thought them handsomely formed, and taller than most tribes. Most of the males wore only breechclouts that hot day, but many wore white men’s shirts and britches, and stovepipe hats. The calico-clad women stood back, knotted into clusters, holding their children close. Dogs circled crazily; No Name watched them from the deck, his neck hair bristling.

  When the deck crew finally slid the gangway to the levee and the boat was snubbed to massive posts set in the earth, a great traffic commenced on the gangway; passengers heading for land, and a few company clerks fighting the tide to reach Marsh, their hands clutching manifests and bills of lading. Skye thought he would wait. There would be time enough to roam the post, meet Laidlaw, its factor, and patrol the Sioux lodges to study the ways of these powerful people.

  Fort engagés were hurrying bales of buffalo robes, beaver pelts, and other furs to the bank. The Otter would carry a fortune in furs and hides back to St. Louis. On its upstream trip, it had dropped off a year’s supply of trade items and household goods for the post; now, en route to St. Louis, it would carry the annual returns, as the fur trade called the accumulated peltries.

  Deckmen opened the cargo hatch and several dropped below to begin the mighty business of storing tons of furs in the cramped hold and moving all the furs brought from Fort Union aft to make room for the new load. The boat drew four feet of water loaded; the hold was only five feet high, and a man had to stoop. Other deckmen swung a cargo boom toward shore, where a fort crew waited to load the bales of fur.

  Two deckmen were in the horse pen, sliding hackamores over the Cheyenne woman’s wild-eyed ponies, and that seemed odd to Skye. Maybe they would exercise all the horses, including those belonging to the Skyes. But they didn’t halter any other horses. He spotted Trenholm leading Lame Deer, the Cheyenne woman, and her children down the companionway. He was carrying her things; two parfleches, some blankets, and a canvas sack. Behind, a cabin boy was carrying her packsaddle.

  Was she getting off?

  He spotted Victoria, looking agitated, and he headed toward the companionway, curious about this turn of events.

  Lame Deer passed him, her face granitic and proud, but her eyes betrayed sorrow.

  “Say, mate, what is this?” Skye asked.

  The mate grinned. “Cap�
�ain’s putting her off. Don’t want some lice-bait squaw on board.”

  Victoria appeared at the foot of the stair. “He’s making her go!”

  “Why?”

  “He says he don’t want her.”

  The mate continued toward the gangway, passing the lounging firemen and stacks of cordwood.

  “You sure she isn’t just getting off because she wants to?”

  “I saw it. The big chief, he just tells the little chief to unload her.”

  “Is he giving her back her fare? The robes?”

  She shook her head angrily.

  He pushed into the crowd. Lame Deer was waiting near the gangway.

  “You getting off?” he asked.

  “He make me go.”

  “You want to go to St. Louis?”

  She nodded. She stood resolutely, tall and straight, her face blank and empty as an August sky.

  “Want me to talk to Marsh?”

  She stared silently, and now he saw an edge in her. The boy clung to her skirt; she held the girl on her hip.

  Skye did not understand any of this. “Don’t get off until I see about this,” he said.

  She looked fearfully at the mate, Trenholm, who was getting her horses readied to lead down the wobbly gangway.

  Skye vaulted up the companionway to the pilothouse, which was now jammed with company clerks in black suits. Marsh looked up, his face showing displeasure at the unauthorized presence of a passenger.

  “Why are you putting that woman off?” Skye asked.

  “Because I choose to,” Marsh snapped and returned to his examination of a paper the clerks had handed him.

  “You returning her fare?”

  Marsh, already choleric, exploded. “Get out!”

  “I said, you returning her St. Louis fare?”

  Marsh wheeled about and faced Skye. The captain was about the same height and build, and probably was just as hard as Skye.

  “This is my ship, Skye. I will do what I choose, when I choose, and for whatever reason I choose. Now get out.”

  Skye didn’t budge. “Not until this is settled. And it’s Mister Skye.”

  He wondered what it mattered to him. Why did he care about the Cheyenne woman? Was it because Trenholm had called her a louse-ridden squaw? Or was it simply his ancient hatred of injustice, a tidal wave of feeling that went straight back to the Royal Navy and the endless cruelties he had seen there. He remembered those naval officers, their arrogance and contempt, and with the memory came a hardening of his own. Damn the consequences. The heat rose in him, even as it filled the face of Marsh, who glared at him furiously.

  “You owe her a fare. Get those robes back to her, or let her stay,” Skye said quietly, an unmistakable menace in his voice. The pilot and helmsman stared. The fort’s clerks gaped.

  Marsh pointed. “Off,” he said. “You and your filthy squaw. Off my boat!”

  “Give the Cheyenne woman her fare back.”

  Marsh was totally unafraid, and Skye knew the man would fight, and fight brutally if it came to that. The master closed in, his fists balled, his hard gaze steady.

  The pilot and helmsman circled to either side, ready to help. A dead silence pervaded the pilothouse, a silence so profound that it seemed to blot the hubbub on the boiler deck and riverbank.

  Then all three leapt at Skye simultaneously. Skye didn’t fight back; there was no point in it. They escorted Skye to the companionway and pushed. Skye stumbled downward, caught a rail, and tripped down to the boiler deck.

  “Aiee!” Victoria cried. She had obviously seen at least some of it.

  “We’re getting off. Get the horses saddled. I’ll get our truck.”

  The second mate followed, ready to throw them off if they didn’t leave on their own. Above, Marsh watched from the pilothouse.

  Skye headed for the cabin, filled with regret. What had he done? Had he ruined his future with American Fur? Were his old feelings about injustice, feelings dating back to his slavery in the Royal Navy, still governing his conduct? Had he not grown since those youthful days?

  It was too late to have regrets. Marsh had ejected him from the Otter, and that was a captain’s absolute right. Marsh hated the Indian women. His boat was for whites, not redskins. But that puzzled Skye. There was something else at work here; something he didn’t know about; something connected to Lame Deer, or her husband, Simon MacLees. Marsh was a choleric man, but that explained nothing. A minor incident had exploded into something darker. Skye wondered whether he would ever know the answer.

  He stuffed their few possessions into Victoria’s handsomely dyed parfleches, checked to see if he had left anything in the gloomy little cubicle, and emerged on the boiler deck—right into Bonfils, who was lounging aft, watching the furious business of loading the packet.

  “Why, Skye, you leaving us?” the young man asked, delight in his eye.

  Skye ignored him.

  “Handsome ladies out there. I suppose I’ll go see what a few trinkets will purchase,” Bonfils said, following Skye past the firemen to the midships area where the gangway stretched to land. “You are abandoning us. Is it that you have given up your little, ah, quest to impress your magnificent virtues and skills upon my uncle Pierre?”

  Skye stared at the handsome brigade leader, and then returned to his business.

  It took a few minutes for Victoria to prepare the horses, and then they led the nervous, whinnying animals down the wobbling gangway and onto the levee, where scores of Sioux eyed them solemnly. Here they were safe; beyond the fort, Skye and Victoria would be fair game. No Name slunk along with them, his neck hair bristling.

  Skye stood at the levee, rein in hand, while Victoria finished loading the horses. He was looking for Lame Deer, who had vanished in the hurlyburly of the crowd.

  “You see the Cheyenne?” he asked Victoria.

  She squinted. “What for?”

  “Take to Saint Louis.”

  “You still going there?”

  He nodded, lifted his battered topper, and settled it on his long locks. “Got unfinished business there. And the least the company can do is get the Cheyenne woman there safely, long as she paid her fare.”

  “You still with the company?” Victoria’s gaze bore into him; she was confused.

  “Haven’t resigned,” he said. “Maybe I will in St. Louis.”

  “How we going?”

  “I’ve got a little credit. We didn’t have time at rendezvous to drink up the last of the salary.” He grinned. She grinned back.

  “Maybe they got some goddam whiskey here,” she said, cheer leaking into her hard glare like sun bursting into an overcast sky. “We got to find that Cheyenne. They treat her bad.”

  “Marsh doesn’t like Indians.”

  “Well, sonofabitch, I don’t like Marsh!”

  They found Lame Deer at the fort, her horse tied to a hitch rail, her children clutching her. She might be a trader’s wife, put a post of this size was plainly intimidating.

  Victoria approached. “Hey, you want to go to St. Louis? Place of many lodges?”

  Lame Deer looked uncertain. “My heart is two hearts now. My mind flies away from my spirit. My children weep.”

  “We’ll take you,” Victoria said.

  “Long walk. Marsh, the big chief, put us off too,” Skye said. “But we’re going to St. Louis.”

  Lame Deer studied Skye with knowing eyes, and a determined look in her soft young face. “I will put wings on my feet. I will walk and leave no footprints upon the meadows. I will walk beside the river, and the fish will play beside me. My feet will carry me to the end of the world, for there will I see Simon. He gives me a big heart. I will go with you.”

  seventeen

  Skye wasn’t very sure about what to do. Maybe he should just hightail it for the mountains, and see what came of that. But all his instincts told him to finish what he had started: he would submit himself to the directors of Pratte, Chouteau and Company and if they made him a trader to
the Crows, that’s what he would do.

  Marsh’s conduct puzzled him, but since he could not fathom it, he dismissed it. Marsh probably favored Bonfils, and this contretemps was as simple as that. The captain would tell Chouteau that he had been forced to put the disobedient Skye ashore, and that would be the end of the contest. A ship’ master was a law unto himself. There was little he could do to change that.

  He headed for the store, intending to provision, and glad he had not spent all his hard-won cash at rendezvous. He would have to provision for Lame Deer and her children too He had no great wish to take her to her wayward husband in St. Louis, and wished the woman would head back to her peo ple. But she was as determined as he was to reach St. Louis and so they would make common cause. The more he though of it, the better he liked the idea. If her arrival in St. Louis up set some powerful people, that was all the more reason to take her there.

  The trading store at Fort Pierre Chouteau stood just inside the big river gate, and was open for trade but largely empty because the throngs at the fort had clustered around the Otter to gape at its white enameled hull and cabins, its elaborate fretwork, its twin black chimneys, and all the wonders of civilization aboard. It seemed so improbable, this traveling city anchored in a wilderness; so defiant of nature and nature’s God, that he found his own gaze drawn to it over and over, a the crew walked its plank decks, and gangs lowered bales of fur into its smelly hold.

  He steered Victoria into the post and the trading room which was crammed with every imaginable item that might appeal to the Indian imagination. What he wanted mostly was staples: tea, powder, lead, percussion caps, and some canvas tenting for shelter, since he had left his lodge with Victoria’s people.

  The sole clerk on duty, a sallow Creole in a black suit, was: provisioning two Yank frontiersmen, one skinny, big-toothed and redheaded; the other short, stout, freckled, and jittery They both wore broad-brimmed, low-crowned gray felt hat that kept the fierce sun out of their faces. They were both armed with wicked-looking knives and other lethal accouterments, including horse pistols and boot knives.