by Sadie Conall
Three
“I don’t think you should go,” Wesa'shangke said, his voice raised. “Not if the Mandan have had smallpox.”
The men were sitting in a circle around the fire inside the larger of the two teepees. Madeleine, the girls and Harry sat behind them, their belongings piled in a careful heap opposite. They had just feasted on a meal of fresh bread, berries, wild turnips, carrots and woodchucks.
After leaving the fur trappers behind, they had turned north and ridden on for another two hours before dark storm clouds gathering overhead forced them to stop. When they came to a large clearing the men had ridden off to hunt, leaving the women to raise the larger of the two teepees and build a fire. They hadn’t bothered raising the smaller teepee, for they would stay here just for the night.
As they sat on their furs, warm and dry as the rain outside battered the hide walls of the teepee, Wesa'shangke argued that the very reason they had come north instead of returning to the Wazhazhe people was because of the outbreak of the pox there. And no-one could deny him this truth. For a long moment there was silence and then a girl’s voice spoke out, timid yet clear and everyone turned to look at Wannge’e in astonishment.
“She might still be alive,” she said, before looking across at Te’tukhe.
Everyone saw the challenge in the girl’s eyes. And it was then, in that moment when Wannge’e dared to speak and interrupt the men that they all saw what it was about this young girl that held Te’tukhe’s interest. Very few people ever dared to challenge Te’tukhe, yet this fifteen-year-old girl had done just that in front of everyone, with a strength and defiance in her face.
Yet Madeleine saw something else in the soft light of the fire and it startled her. For there was a bloom about the girl, a blossoming, a fullness in her face and in her body and as Wannge’e held Te’tukhe’s gaze, Madeleine had a sudden uneasy feeling, wondering how she could have missed this. But she would not interfere. Just as Paddake’e and Ese-ggwe’na’a had not interfered in the early days of her relationship with Ryder, even though they had watched Madeleine and Ryder stumble during those long-ago winter months as they fell in love. For Wannge’e and Te’tukhe must find their own way. And Te’tukhe would either make a commitment to the girl or the love affair would run its course and he would leave with his brother and cousin for the Comanche, while Wannge’e carried on west with Madeleine and Ryder to the Snake River Plain.
But no-one would judge them for it, for life was tough out here in the wild. People lived life to the fullest, taking chances and opportunities where they found them, regardless of the risks involved.
A deathly silence filled the teepee, until at last Ryder spoke. “I hope she is alive. As for the pox being in this territory, I feel it unlikely, for a large group of men would never build a fort near a village suffering from the disease. However, I do think you’re right Wesa'shangke. We’re risking everything to rescue this girl and her daughter, yet we don’t know if they’re even at the Mandan, let alone both alive,” he paused to look at Te’tukhe. “Therefore, I suggest you continue to the Hŭŋkpapĥa as planned, for there’s little point in all of us heading north to the Mandan. Esa-mogo'ne’ and I can go on alone and follow everyone to Allard’s cabin as soon as we can. With good news, I hope.”
Again, there was silence, then Te’tukhe spoke. “You forget one thing,” he said, his voice hard. “I speak the Sioux dialect fluently. You and Esa-mogo'ne’ do not. Nor do you know the Plains sign talk well enough to barter a trade as important as this girl’s freedom. And the Mandan aren’t fools,” he glanced at his brother and cousin. “I say you ride on ahead to the Hŭŋkpapĥa with the girls and Deide’wesa'. You’ll be taking it at a walk anyway, with the packhorses and travois and the boy. But before we separate, we should ride for Munier’s trading post. It’s on our way and we’ll get news there about what’s happening in the north.”
Wesa'shangke and Aishi-waahni’ voiced their agreement on this and Madeleine nodded, eager to trade for more tobacco.
“Very well,” Ryder said. “We head north as planned, but with a stopover at Munier’s trading post.”
in the wild: March 1805
We could smell the trading post well before we saw it, the strong scent of wood smoke and hickory mixed with the rank scent of animal blood and offal, followed by men’s voices and their laughter, drifting to us through the trees and disturbing the quiet of the forest. And then suddenly it was there, a large wooden structure that reared like some colossal within a large clearing on the banks of the Niobrara river.
We had come through this way in the summer of 1800 on our way from the Snake River Plain to St Louis but somehow, on our journey on these rivers, we had missed this trading post. I would have been grateful for it, for the chance to trade for tobacco alone.
Several dozen canoes lay beached below us on the bank, but it was the cabin built of wooden logs hewn from local pine by an axe which held our interest, for such a building was a rare thing to see out here in the wild. A wide boardwalk had been set down out the front of the cabin to try and stop mud from entering the building and here some thirty men, women and children were gathered, the men holding muskets and leather bags of shot and powder. Another dozen men stood off to one side and from their speech and dress we recognized them as French, Spanish, English, Portuguese, Americans and halfbloods. Some had been soldiers and still wore their uniforms, soiled and worn with wear, while others were fur trappers.
But before we came out of the trees and into full view of them all, Wesa'shangke and Aishi-waahni’ agreed to stay with the horses and took the packhorses and travois and our belongings back under cover of the trees to the southwest side of the building to a small clearing. And as I kicked my horse on to follow Ryder and the Bannock girls, holding Harry close to me, his eyes wide with astonishment at all this activity, Te’tukhe suddenly turned and warned us to cover our heads with blankets. He was well advised to do so, for as we rode out from under cover of the trees and into the large clearing before the cabin, every man, woman and child turned to look at us, curious of us as we were of them.
We dismounted close to the boardwalk. Te’tukhe offered to stay with the horses and talk to the local men and get news of what was happening up north. The girls, Harry and I followed Ryder inside. When he opened the cabin door I pulled back a little for it reeked of smoke, both from the fire blazing in the massive hearth on the far side of the room to the overwhelming scent of tobacco smoke, caused by the group of men who stood off to one side of the room smoking pipes. They were eight of them and most of them were halfbloods, all good-looking men with hard features, their clothes and jewellery giving them away as men who lived between two cultures. And like the people outside, all of them turned to look at us as we entered the room.
I felt uneasy at all this male attention for it was obvious that most of these men had been in the wild for some time. I recognized the desire in their eyes as they looked at me and the girls and saw the unruly growth of beard on their faces and the raw smell of their bodies and clothes. I moved my head a little to bring the blanket further around my face and saw Poongatse and Wannge’e do the same, instinctively, even as I sensed their fear. Harry was silent as he walked beside Poongatse holding her hand, looking around in astonishment at the goods on display.
“Bonjour Monsieur,” an elderly man called out to Ryder, ignoring me and the girls for we had no value here, unless Ryder were to offer us as a trade. We turned and in the smoky gloom of the cabin we saw an elderly man standing behind a counter, which was nothing more than a long rough plank of wood. He was tall, although not as tall as Ryder, and lean and hard-muscled with an energy that filled the room but as I looked into his eyes, I knew I wouldn’t want to cross this man.
“What can I do for you?” he said to Ryder, speaking in French, yet I couldn’t place his accent. He could have been from France. But then I realized his accent was mixed with the vowels of the Sioux dialect, for he spoke it fluently.
“We
come to trade tobacco if you have any,” Ryder answered him, also replying in French.
Manier nodded, grinning broadly and revealing bad teeth, most of them stained and ruined from years of chewing tobacco. “You and everyone else, monsieur. Word has spread that I’ve just returned from St Louis and not only have I got bushels of tobacco to trade, but I’ve got flour and coffee and English beans. Although I’ve hardly got any muskets or powder and shot left. Just traded almost all of it with local tribes. But I’ve got shelves of their good quality furs and buckskin hides, baskets of beans, squash and melon. And I’ve still got a few good knives left, along with some moccasins and fur coats. Here, take a look, the best you’ll find in the territory.”
The girls and I followed behind Ryder as we made our way to the other side of the store. Shelves behind the counter and to the left of it lay heavy with baskets of fresh vegetables, furs, hides, moccasins, fur hats and coats along with bags of muslin full of dried goods brought up from St Louis. I could smell the coffee beans and tobacco. But I suddenly wished Manier also traded in cocoa. But he didn’t, for Ryder asked, knowing that chocolate was my preferred drink having grown up with it in Paris as a child.
Poongatse and Wannge’e were drawn to the buckskin and I saw them reach out to touch the material, all cured to a high standard and I resolved to buy some. We all needed new clothes, for my spare pair of buckskin pants and shirt had been left stained by the blood of a man I had no care to remember. Along with his friends, he had attacked us last year while we were travelling alone, long before Te’tukhe met up with us and well before we were reunited with Ryder and Wesa'shangke and Aishi-waahni’.
We had some American dollars and French francs to trade for this bounty, which Ryder and I had discussed before we got here. It was money I had left over after purchasing my supplies in St Louis in August of last year, before leaving for the Wazhazhe. But never in my wildest dreams had I ever expected to spend the remainder of it in the company of Ryder.
We decided on several lengths of buckskin, a bag of beans which were unlike the green beans grown by local tribes, a bag of coffee, flour to make biscuits, both luxuries and desired only by Ryder and myself for his brothers, the Bannock girls and Aishi-waahni’ had no liking for such things and tobacco, the leaves fresh and of high grade.
“It’s getting late out there,” Manier said as he bagged our goods up, as he bit into the coins to make sure they were real, surprised and grateful to receive payment in French francs and American dollars for they would come in useful when he returned to St Louis. He glanced at me and Harry and the girls as we stepped forward to help Ryder carry our purchases back to our camp. “They can sleep upstairs, if they have a care,” he said to Ryder, nodding towards us. “Sometimes women prefer to sleep indoors if there are large groups of men camping outside. Although most of the people you saw outside were a large family of Winnebago, stopping by in their canoes to trade for shot and powder and tobacco, but they’ll be well gone before the night comes. And those gents over by the fireplace will be away in the morning. Although I insist the men sleep outside. I got enough to worry about without finding a knife in my belly while I sleep, for some of those old soldiers have a grouch about not getting paid, although what’s happened between France and Spain and America is done and ain’t none of my business. Can’t change it. Although I wish they’d kept this territory the way it was. There was nothing wrong with it. I liked it just fine. Anyway, your women and the boy are welcome to sleep upstairs. It’s only me and my own woman down here and we sleep in a small alcove out back. And if men have their women sleeping upstairs I’ve found it’s also safer for me and I get a good night’s sleep, for the men usually keep guard outside.”
I glanced across at the steep wooden ladder which reached up to the loft above us. It was a huge space, looming over half the floor area of where we were standing and I imagined a dozen or more could sleep up there quite comfortably. Although the smoky room was unpleasant. If there was no window up there to let in fresh air, I would prefer to take my chances and sleep outdoors, or raise the teepee. But the heat from the fire across the room was appealing and as I looked down at Harry I knew it would be quieter upstairs for him, with so many men camped outside.
I glanced back at Poongatse who stood behind me and saw the silent appeal in her lovely eyes. She too would prefer to sleep indoors. Wannge’e however, clearly wanted to stay with Te’tukhe. I looked up at Ryder and spoke softly to him in his own guttural Ugákhpa dialect. I doubted any man in that room heard me, or thought me European, but on one of those scores, I was wrong.
“I’m happy to stay if the loft has a shutter that opens, so we can get in some fresh air,” I said.
Ryder asked Manier for me, who confirmed it did, just as a man stepped away from the group on the other side of the room and approached us. We all turned to him, curious and instantly alert, yet he smiled as he looked at Ryder. I felt nothing threatening about him. He owned a strong face, his hair cut blunt and worn short to his shoulders but plaited tightly on one side of his face. He wore a feather tightly woven within the back of his hair and silver hoops through one ear and buckskin clothing as we did, but he also wore a woollen vest over his buckskin shirt, the silver buttons a striking contract to his buckskin. And it was obvious that like Ryder and his brothers and Aishi-waahni’, this man was a halfblood.
“I heard your woman speak in the dialect of the Dhegiha Sioux,” he said, speaking fluently in Ryder’s own dialect. “Yet you are not Ponca. Kansa perhaps, or Wazhazhe? Or Omaha or Ugákhpa?”
Ryder looked at him, curious, but said nothing.
The man laughed. “Forgive me for intruding but I’m from the Ponca tribe, although my father was a Spaniard. I still live with the Ponca when I’m not in the wild trapping furs and I’m here with friends, all trappers. We’ve come here to get supplies before heading back out, aim to leave in the next few days. You’re welcome to join us if you will and give us news of what you know.”
Ryder nodded. “They call me Mi'wasa,” he said, replying in the same Dhegiha Sioux dialect. “My mother was Ugákhpa, but I grew up with the Wazhazhe people. We’ve come from the south, from St Louis, although we heard the Arikara and Mandan are facing war. Heard it from a group of fur trappers coming down from the north. Also heard a rumour the pox is travelling up the Missouri again. You heard anything about that?”
The Ponca shook his head, even as Manier leaned over the counter towards then, on hearing the word pox.
“What’s this about the pox?” he asked in rapid French, his eyes reflecting the fear everyone had of this disease.
Ryder turned to him and spoke in French. “You would know monsieur, if you’d recently come up from St Louis, you would have heard if the pox was on the move up the Missouri.”
I turned as the men on the other side of the room stepped forward. Everyone wanted to hear this news.
Manier shook his head. “Never saw no pox when I was travelling north so I reckon that’s a rumour, just to scare folk.”
Ryder nodded. “Glad to hear it,” he said and turned back to the Ponca. “Let me get my women and son settled and I’ll join you.”
The Ponca nodded and moved back with the men to the warmth of the fire. We left the store, carrying our newly purchased provisions and found Te’tukhe outside talking to a small group of men from the Two Kettle nation. He bid them farewell to walk with us, pulling the horses behind him. We passed the Winnebago family just below us on the bank, the women and children already settled in the canoes along with their newly traded tobacco, powder and shot. And then the men were pushing the vessels out into the river before leaping aboard, their movements agile and graceful, paddling away downriver, moving in silence, only the dip of their paddles in the water a sign they were there at all and then they were gone.
We wound our way through the trees towards the camp raised by Wesa'shangke and Aishi-waahni’. They had already set down stones around a firepit and had a fire going, but hadn’t bot
hered raising the teepees although it was warm enough with no sign of rain. All our belongings were hidden under the sailcloths out of sight beneath the trees and we quickly added our purchases to the pile, taking what we needed for the night before returning to the trading post. Ryder and Te’tukhe came with us, helping to carry our furs and blankets upstairs along with wrappings of dried meat and chokeberry cakes.
I was pleasantly surprised by our sleeping quarters and for the moment, we were the only ones there. The ceiling was low, without enough room for me to stand but I didn’t care about that. I went across to the large window on the far wall and released the wooden latch to open the heavy wooden shutter in a bid to air the room of the thick pall of smoke. There was no glass in the window, that was a luxury unheard of this far west, yet the heavy shutter kept the room dry and warm.
“Sleep well,” Ryder said, kissing me lightly on the lips and then he was following Te’tukhe down the ladder. He paused to invite the men standing around the hearth to join them at their camp. I watched as they all left together, knowing Ryder did this to get the men and their heavy pipe smoke out of the store.
As the afternoon drew down into evening, we were aware of Manier and his wife, a Winnebaggo woman, moving about downstairs and the muffled sound of their conversation, yet I found this a comfort. And later, when she offered us each a wooden bowl of succotash, a meal of beans and corn which had been boiled together, we took it with gratitude, in exchange for a few more French francs.