Downriver

by Richard S. Wheeler

  “All right, Leblanc, bring ’er out to the flatboat,” the redhead said. A heap of goods, ranging from flour sacks to tins of sugar, lay on the rude counter.

  “Oui, monsieur,” the clerk said.

  Skye waited to see what sort of payment would be required, but the man offered nothing, and no bill was laid before him by the clerk. Probably Company men, requisitioning goods, Skye thought.

  The redhead turned around, studied Skye a moment, and unwound himself, his gait so langorous and catlike that he exuded sheer menace. Skye supposed that the Yank frontiersman in the blue chambray shirt had won a few scrapes. The other, whose step was oddly swift for one with rolls of fat rolling off his jaw and belly, was no less a menace. The pair weren’t ones to trust.

  The clerk summoned a breed boy to tote the mound of goods out the door, and turned to Skye.

  “Sir?” he said.

  “I’m provisioning,” Skye said. “Now first, how many leagues is it to St. Louis?”

  “By land or water?”

  “Land.”

  “You’re not on the riverboat?”

  “We just got off it.”

  The man blinked. “A great oddity, sir. You will need cash to provision.”

  “Got it. Company credit, on paper.”

  “But they put you off the boat?”

  “How many miles?” Skye asked, an edge in his voice this time.

  “Ah, four hundred and some—”

  “That far?”

  “In leagues, monsieur.”

  “A thousand two hundred miles, then?”

  “Ah, oui … one thousand and three hundred, more or less.’

  “Twenty days on a flatboat,” said a voice behind him. Skye turned and discovered the redhead, lounging at the door. The man had been listening.

  “We’re traveling by horse.”

  “Mighty strange thing to do with a river to float you there in comfort.”

  Skye nodded. How he traveled was not the stranger’s business. He would need provisions for seven or eight weeks for his entire party. He hoped to supply much of his provender with his heavy, octagon-barreled mountain rifle. Buffalo deer, antelope, maybe some elk … .

  Skye turned to the clerk. “You have any mules or packhorses for sale?”

  “Ah, no, only mustangs. Subdued horses are scarce here and valuable. They are hard to keep; hay, feed, and there is always the, ah, shall we say embezzlements of the Indians … .”

  That was bad news. Skye needed two more pack animals. St. Louis was a long way.

  The redhead was grinning. “You want a ride, easy trip, you got a ride. Me and my partner got us a mackinaw.”

  Skye turned. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Red Gill; him out there, he’s Shorty Ballard.”

  “And what is your business?”

  “Independent company out of St. Louis.”

  “What are you carrying in your mackinaw?”

  “Some hides, tallow, buffalo tongues …”

  “What did you bring upriver?”

  Gill grinned, revealing gaps where incisors should have been. “Oh, I reckon a few tradegoods for the Opposition, but not on that there mackinaw. We bought that boat at Fort Clark from the Chouteau interests.”

  Something didn’t sound right. “You running an account here, I see.”

  Red Gill grinned. “We’re teamsters. We brought some stuff by packtrain, and now we’re taking some robes back by water. There’s just two of us, and that ain’t enough to man a flatboat proper, much less fight Injuns. You come along, and we won’t charge ye but a little.”

  It was a temptation. Thirteen hundred miles of horseback would be an ordeal, and without pack horses and supplies, it would be reckless.

  “I’m Mister Skye,” he said. He motioned them out the door and into the hot July sun. “Maybe you can persuade me,” he added.

  “Show you,” Gill said, motioning Skye. Ahead, a breed boy and Shorty were toting sacks down to the riverbank, where a small mackinaw was anchored well downstream from the riverboat.

  Skye had never been on one. He found himself boarding a scow made of thick handsawn planks still oozing sap, with a beveled prow and a squared off stern. A rudder on a long tiller dangled from the rear. Amidships was a cargo box, and behind it a small cabin with plank walls and a doorless entry at the rear. For a roof, a chunk of old, tallowed buffalo-hide lodgecover stretched over curved ribs. The mackinaw was perhaps forty feet long, with a beam of twelve, and it rode lightly in the water, drawing scarcely even a foot though it was loaded.

  This was a one-way craft, to be sold for scrap at its destination. There were oar sockets forward, and various poles and oars lying on the planking. There was one oddity: a glorious bouquet of prairie asters, red mallow, and prairie evening primrose poked from a holder in the prow, a rainbow-bright and startling gaud upon a utilitarian scow.

  “It beats riding,” Gill said. “Have a lookaround.”

  The craft was sturdy enough; that didn’t worry Skye. The nature of the company was what troubled him.

  “I think we’ll take our horses,” he said, watching Shorty and the breed boy stuff a sack of corn, a cask of flour, a keg of tallow, some salt and sugar and pepper and mustard into the rude cargo box.

  Skye edged toward the box and discovered it was full of packs of buffalo hides, and some casks.

  Red shrugged. “We’re just a pair of entrepreneurs out of Saint Louie,” he said. “We’ve had our fun; Yankton women and all. Delivered upriver, and going back now.”

  “Delivered what, and to whom?”

  Gill laughed until he wheezed, and Skye watched the adam’s apple bob in his skinny throat. “You sure are choosy,’ he said. “Them squaws, they’ll be safe with us, and the little ones too.”

  “The Cheyenne woman is returning to her husband,” Skye said carefully.

  “Oh, who’s that?”

  “A trader,” Skye said.

  “Well, we’re pulling out in a little bit. You want a ride, we’ll charge you ten apiece; the wimmin cook and take care of things; you help pole and row and steer, and if there’s a fracas, have that piece ready to help. We got a little protection here,” he said, waving at the plank-walled cabin. Several rifle ports had been shopped into its sides.

  Skye laughed shortly. “Not much protection for the man on the tiller,” he said.

  Gill laughed. “It’s been thought of.”

  “It’s not Indians I’m worried about.”

  Gill straightened, fire blazing in his blue eyes. “Well, then, you just go get yourself to hell on a horse,” he snarled. “We offered you a cheap ride if’n you share the load, and that’s all I’m going to say. If we ain’t for you, quit palavering and wasting our time. We got to make St. Louis with these hides or we don’t make a profit.”

  Skye refused to budge. “You have an account with Pratte and Chouteau?”

  Red Gill turned wary. “No, not as I know.”

  “How was all this truck paid for?”

  “They owed us, and that’s the last damned question I’ll answer.”

  Skye pondered it. “I’ll talk to the women and let you know. We have to provision, too.”

  “You got an account?”

  “Brigade leader with the company.”

  “Mister Skye, is it? I heard of you. Now I got a question for you. How come you ain’t on that riverboat?”

  Skye smiled.

  Gill waited, cheerfully, until it was plain to him he would get no answer. Then, “I got me a one gallon jug in there, and it ain’t mountain whiskey either; it’s good Kentuck I been presarving.”

  Barnaby Skye felt his resolve sliding from under him, and headed for the women to talk things over. Captain Gill—the name fit perfectly—had made a proposition he couldn’t turn down.

  eighteen

  Benton Marsh was worried. His hold was crammed with furs, and an additional nine packs had been stuffed into the women’s cabin. He had a full complement of passengers, too,
mostly Creole engagés who were returning to St. Louis after fulfilling their contracts with the company.

  The Otter was drawing a full four feet of water, and that spelled trouble this late in the season. Worse, he would be loading forty cords of wood at Farm Island, just downstream; wood cut for his use by the post because there was so little of it in this area.

  Once he left the island, he would be overloaded, though that burden would lessen as fast as the wood was burned. Within an hour after the Fort Pierre returns, as the company called its fur harvest, had been stowed away and the ship properly balanced, he was sailing toward the island for the fuel.

  He was an irritable, irascible man, and his worries didn’t improve his disposition as he stood in the pilothouse watching his pilot and helmsman ease the ship into the glittering river. Nor was it improved by the presence of the well-connected Alexandre Bonfils, whose professed goal was to become a trader, but whose constant presence in the pilothouse suggested that he might have other motives. Was he Pierre Chouteau’s eyes and ears?

  Marsh held his temper, but just barely.

  The vessel moved sluggishly into the channel, leaving the post behind. There were no visible snags or bars ahead, no sharp bends to whirl the boat toward shore, and Marsh relaxed.

  “There,” he said, pointing at a rude levee at Farm Island.

  The helmsman was already steering in that direction.

  “How many new passengers?” Bonfils asked, peering at the motley crowd on the boiler deck.

  “Twenty-seven,” Marsh said, wondering why he answered; indeed, wondering why he permitted this scion of the owning families to be there. But he knew why.

  “Minus a few.” Bonfils laughed. “Thank you for the great favor.”

  Marsh stared coldly.

  Bonfils met the gaze. “Skye and his squaw, left behind. That eliminates the only real problem I face. He’s formidable in his way, but of course has his little difficulties.”

  “What difficulties?”

  “He’s a deserter from the Royal Navy and makes no bones about it. Ah, mon ami, I think that is a black mark upon him.”

  “It doesn’t improve his chances,” Marsh replied curtly.

  The pilot pulled the bell cord, and soon the rumble of the paddle wheels lessened and the rattle of popping steam from the escapement died. The vessel slowed, drifted toward the woodlot, while Trenholm readied the deck crew and instructed the passengers, who were about to perform their first wood duty.

  The fort’s engagés had stacked the four-foot cordwood in orderly piles next to the landing, and in short order the crew and passengers were hauling it aboard and noisily stacking it on the foredeck under the direction of the burly firemen who could each lift an entire four-foot log and jam it into the inferno.

  As usual, Bonfils had escaped the task by standing there in the pilothouse like some laird. Marsh was tempted to direct the young man to go to work, but bit back the command. He seethed at his own frustration; why couldn’t he summon the courage to put this dubious princeling to work like ordinary mortals?

  The task was going smoothly but would require two hours, even with so many hands. It took two passengers to lift a single four-foot log aboard. Marsh didn’t much care for this softer upriver fuel, mostly cottonwood, willow, box elder, and even driftwood, though the driftwood didn’t burn well and had to be mixed with other wood or burned with resin. Occasionally he burned some ponderosa pine, which worked better.

  It took twice as much upriver wood to feed his boilers than the better hardwoods downstream, such as the solid, heavy, oak and hickory and walnut and maple. No one had found coal. In three or four years, every tree here on Farm Island would be gone, and then what?

  It was during this fuel stop that the pilot spotted the mackinaw bobbing up from behind, and pointed at it. Marsh picked up his spyglass to see who it was; he knew most of the rivermen.

  This one was newly made of raw wood; maybe at the Navy Yard north of Fort Pierre; its planks not yet weathered. It had the usual cargo box amidships, and a rude cabin. He focused on the man at the tiller, and knew him: Shorty Ballard. Red Gill and Ballard were teamsters and boatmen licensed by General Clark to transport goods in the Indian country. They supplied the Opposition, and as far as Marsh knew, had no connection to Pratte, Chouteau and Company. But they had never lacked cash, which they spent unwisely in St. Louis, and there had always been question marks surrounding them.

  His glass then revealed some unpleasant news: the Cheyenne woman was en route to St. Louis after all, and the Skyes as well, and even their damned dog. The Skyes must have sold their horses for passage, because there were no beasts of burden aboard.

  They were continuing downriver!

  So his efforts to protect his daughter and wife might well come to naught after all. There might be a scandal. MacLees might find his future clouded and his marriage in distress.

  Irritably he glassed the whole flatboat, wondering what was in the cargo box, and wondering whether he ought to overtake the craft downstream, bring it to heel, examine the box, and confiscate the goods if there was the slightest sign of illegality. Maybe he could stop them all in their tracks. Not for nothing did he have a six-pounder and a large crew.

  He’d see. Meanwhile, he’d arrive in St. Louis a week or ten days ahead of the flatboat and would have time to warn MacLees, and influence Chouteau. It would be tricky, but it would protect the company. And protect Sarah Lansing.

  The flatboat drifted by, riding a relentless current that averaged seven or eight miles an hour, and its passengers waved lazily. They would be a half hour downstream before the Otter was ready to go. But there were ways …

  “There go your passengers,” Bonfils said.

  Marsh grunted.

  When the wooding was done, Marsh set out again, pushing hard through the midday heat until he sighted the flatboat a couple of miles ahead. The Otter would overtake the flatboat in an hour, about four in the afternoon. He knew all about flatboats. They could make excellent time going downriver, and could more easily travel at night because they drew so little water they didn’t need to stick to the channels. Many a flatboat had been navigated by moonlight on the shoulders of the mighty river. Neither did a flatboat have to make wood stops.

  He eyed Bonfils irritably. “Perhaps you wish to retire from the pilothouse for a time?”

  “No, this is the place to be,” Bonfils said. “Best perch on the boat.”

  “You may take our leave,” Marsh said directly.

  Bonfils looked startled, and then cloudy, as if this was something to remember and make use of in the future. Nonetheless, he retreated to the hurricane deck and down the companionway, his brow furrowed.

  Marsh turned to his pilot, Lamar DeWayne. “Give that flatboat as much grief as you can.”

  The pilot stared a moment. The helmsman turned to peer at the master. The command jeopardized DeWayne’s federal pilot license.

  “We are far from St. Louis. I don’t wish for you to swamp the flatboat. Just brush it and make sure it’s caught in our wake.”

  DeWayne reddened. “Why?”

  “Because I told you to.”

  Marsh could see the pilot wondering whether to obey, or whether to face the master’s wrath and ability to make his life miserable.

  “I don’t suppose you would supply me with a reason,” the pilot said.

  “Smugglers and rivals.”

  “If they’re smugglers let’s pull them over and have a look.”

  “I am considering it.”

  “Weren’t those our passengers on it?”

  “Yes, unfortunately.”

  “Is this connected to them?”

  Marsh exploded. “Do it or give me the helm.”

  DeWayne glowered and ordered the helmsman to ease to the right edge of the channel, where the flatboat was proceeding. Unfortunately the channel was plenty wide there; the episode could not be dismissed as an unfortunate navigational problem.

  “Add steam
,” Marsh said.

  DeWayne clanged bells. Moments later the chimneys billowed black smoke and the thunder of the paddle wheels noticeably quickened. The current gave them seven miles an hour; the thrashing wheels doubled that. That speed would be safe enough until they reached the bight a mile ahead where the channel cut to the right bank and then swung hard left.

  “Slow as soon as you pass the flatboat,” he said.

  DeWayne nodded.

  They gained on the flatboat, loomed behind it. Shorty Ballard peered behind him and eased toward the right bank. The helmsman followed, closing on the flatboat.

  Now the people on the flatboat leapt up in alarm, and Ballard yanked the tiller hard heading for shore. Skye had removed his topper and was waving hard at them, even as his squaw was shepherding the Cheyenne woman and her brats to the right side of the flatboat.

  The Otter overtook the flatboat and the helmsman spun his wheel until the steamboat was veering back to the channel. The flatboat rocked violently, toppling its passengers and taking water. Ballard was thrown into the river, and Marsh watched him surface, shout, and start swimming. Gill threw him a line, Ballard caught it and crawled back, hand over hand, to the pitching flatboat.

  “Make a log entry, DeWayne. ‘Collision with flatboat in channel narrowly averted by skillful maneuvering of the Otter.’”

  “Write it yourself,” DeWayne retorted.

  nineteen

  Skye picked himself up from the slimy floorboards, found his top hat, and stuffed it over his stringy hair. Murky water sloshed about, floating debris with it. His britches were soaked on one side.

  He checked Victoria. She was sitting with splayed legs, her skirts in a pool of filthy water, a sober expression on her features. He offered his big rough hand and helped her up. Water dripped from her fringed buckskins. No Name peered at him inquisitively and with some vast resignation.

  Gill was helping Shorty over the transom. Water was rivering from the helmsman’s blue chambray shirt, and it plastered his dark hair to his skull. With a grunt, Shorty landed in the slop, cursing violently, fulminating great oaths against the pilot, helmsman, captain, company, and all steamboats in general.