Follow the Free Wind

by Leigh Brackett

  It was true that the prices of powder and lead, traps, tobacco, cloth, coffee, flour, and spirits had risen. The old man added a few more words. Baptiste smiled.

  “He says if he had the brains of a donkey he would be in that part of the fur trade where the money is, selling traps in exchange for furs instead of furs for traps.”

  “Well,” said Mose, “however it goes I reckon I’m bound to stay here. Been walking up and down the country so much my legs are stretched too long for the settlements. Why, do you know when I was in St. Louis this last time the General asked me to come to his house and danged if every time I started for it I didn’t find myself clear out on the other side of town ’fore I knew it? Only way I could hold myself down that short was to git right down on my marrow bones and crawl, and even then I overshot her three times.” He selected another piece of roast meat and settled himself comfortably. “Boys, did I ever tell you about how I found the Putrefied Forest? I was going along one day somewheres between the White Clay River and—”

  Jim had heard Mose’s story many times, about the putrefied trees all turned to stone, with a putrefied wind blowing through them and putrefied rabbits under them and putrefied birds in the branches singing putrefied songs. It was a good story. It was even partly true, at least about the trees. But he was suddenly not in the mood for any more stories, including his own. He got up, rising easily from the ground in one smooth movement.

  “Where you going?” asked Rich, behind Mose’s back.

  “Got a few more plews in my possibles. Reckon I’ll see if there’s any medicine water left in the General’s kegs.”

  He went into the lodge. He shared it with Rich and Grass, and such of Grass’s relatives as happened to be visiting. Actually he rarely slept there except in bad weather, preferring to roll up in his blankets under the trees. There were eight Indians inside now, all from the large band of Snakes camped in the valley, Grass’s people come in for the rendezvous.

  Jim’s winter outfit was wrapped and piled neatly, new traps to replace those lost, or broken, or stolen by Indians, enough powder and lead to last him until next rendezvous, a small hoard of luxuries like coffee and tobacco to last until they ran out. He had held back a few skins from the trading. He took them now and went out again, picking up his rifle not because he was likely to need it, but because he had got into the mountain habit of never leaving it farther away from him than he could leave his right hand. Men who did not learn this habit tended not to live long.

  Cache Valley, on the western flank of the Wasatches above the Great Salt Lake, was one of those garden spots provided by the Almighty so that man in the wilderness might not totally lose hope. It was sixty miles long and anywhere from ten to twenty miles wide, so there was plenty of room in it. It had water and grass, fuel, and shelter from the winds, so that it was a good place to camp both winter and summer. The trappers had wintered here, sitting out the long bitter days between the fall and spring hunts, when the streams were frozen and the passes blocked with snow.

  Now the willows were thick and rustling with summer. Everywhere in the dark there were fires, and nowhere in the dark was there any quiet. Ashley’s liquor barrels had been thoroughly broached. The valley rang with laughter, with roars and whoops and howlings. A bunch of men stood around two others who were wrestling on the ground, laying bets and yelling them on. The wrestling match might stay friendly or it might not. There had been half a dozen fights so far in the two days that had needed to be broken up before somebody got killed. No matter who else might be drunk, violent, or careless, Diah Smith was always there to handle things, and the odd part of it was that he could handle them. Diah didn’t do or say the things the other men did. He was never separated very far from his Bible. He talked like a preacher, and in some way he looked like one, too, in spite of his size and strength and the ugly scar he had across his head and face where a grizzly had torn his scalp off and Jim Clyman had stitched it on again, with the loose ear slightly askew. Perhaps it was his eyes. He always seemed to be looking somewhere far off, beyond the mountains, beyond anything you could see, and thinking of things that were private and important. But the men respected him. Nobody laughed at Diah’s piety and nobody made fun of him when he disapproved of brawling and profanity. He was a man, and they knew it. He was a great man, and they knew it. They allowed him the right to his peculiarities.

  Jim passed by the lodge where Diah Smith and Ashley and Sublette were concluding their arrangements. It was a time of breaking up, a time of change. Jim walked on. He wanted to think, but when he felt the edges of his thoughts they were painful and he pushed them away. A Cajun who had come a long way up the rivers from his native cane-brakes was playing Sault Crapaud on an old concertina. Two burly trappers whirled and pranced with their arms around each other until one of them tripped and they both went crashing into the fire, shooting up a fountain of sparks and ashes. Their comrades rolled on the ground howling with laughter while the two drunken men smoked and floundered. Beyond them a group of men were absorbed in playing the Indian hand game. They had their stakes piled on a blanket, things they had worked a year to buy. They did not look around even when the scorching drunks began to yell.

  The packs of furs, mostly beaver, that would go back to St. Louis with the General were stacked together in a clearing. The stack was still growing even though the first rush of trade was over. A few parties were late coming in, and there were the free trappers and the Indians. Word of the 1825 rendezvous had spread though the mountains. The Rocky Mountain Fur Company hoped to lure much of the free trade away from the distant forts, and now that the Platte route was a practical reality it looked to Jim as though they were likely to succeed. This rendezvous was many times bigger than the last. It was not going to make their fort-bound competitors happy.

  He had to stand in line at the keg. Pretty soon he realized Rich was behind him.

  “Thought you’d sworn off,” Jim said.

  “That was this morning.” Rich shook out a prime otter skin, smoothing the sleek fur. “Foolish-time only comes once a year and a man ought to enjoy it. Besides, I want to be around when the trouble starts.”

  “What trouble?”

  “The trouble you’re fixing to make.”

  “Me?”

  The line moved up.

  “You. Oh, I ain’t going to try and stop it, I just want to watch.”

  Jim told him where to go.

  Rich grinned. “I know the look in your eye. You’re feeling mean, and all you need is some of that chain lightning to kind of loose you up and let you go. I just want to see the fur fly.”

  The line moved again.

  Jim made his trade for a double measure. The clerk gave it to him. He poured it down and handed the dipper back. Instantly his insides were on fire and his ears rang. He walked away. Rich calmly paid down his otter skin, calmly drank, and followed him.

  Jim ignored him. He walked.

  Rich walked after him.

  Jim started through a little grove of trees. It was shadowy here and fairly private. He heard Rich padding behind him. He turned and made three long strides back and caught him.

  “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I do feel mean,” he said. “And if you don’t leave me alone it’ll be your fur that’s flying.”

  Rich made no move to push his hand away. He might have been unaware of it. He shook his head slowly from side to side, looking at Jim. “You’re the contrariest cuss. You’re not happy. What’s it take to make you happy? You were howling because you couldn’t be a man in St. Louis. You wanted to go west. Well, you’re west. You’re a man. What more do you want?”

  Jim couldn’t say what more he wanted. He dropped Rich and walked on.

  Behind him Rich said, “If you figure everybody ought to like you whether or no, you’re going to be a long time unhappy. All white men don’t like all other white men. Ain’t no man alive that everybody likes.”

  “I don’t give a damn who likes me or doesn’t like me.”


  “I’ll tell you something else,” Rich said. “A son-of-a-bitch is a son-of-a-bitch no matter if he’s black, white, red, or green.”

  Jim stopped and turned around. “Meaning I am one?”

  “Meaning you got what you came for. You’re free as the wind. Be glad of it, and stop looking for trouble.”

  The whisky burned in Jim. Rich’s face wavered, dim in the shadows of the grove.

  Rich said, “You think no mutton-eared lout of a kid has ever spoke out of turn before?”

  Jim thought he had forgotten the kid with the sneering voice. He had not.

  “And anyway,” Rich said, “those were some godawful big lies.”

  Jim hit him. Only it didn’t connect. Rich had doubled up and jumped forward like a buck deer with his head down. He butted Jim square in the wind and Jim sat down, his mouth opening and closing and nothing coming through it, in or out.

  “I taught you to trap and track and fight Indians,” Rich said conversationally, “and I taught you to load a rifle on the run and to shoot a bow straighter’n most Indians, but it’s only a fool teaches every trick he knows.” He leaned against a tree, waiting.

  Jim managed to suck in a ragged gasp of air. He got up on his knees, still gasping. Rich watched him. Finally he stood up. He stopped gasping and looked at Rich.

  “Good-bye, Rich,” he said.

  “Ah,” said Rich. “That’s what you’ve been studying up to do these last few days. Why?”

  “I don’t want anyone around me that knows me that good.”

  “You ain’t too hard to figure. Mostly.”

  “You taught me real good, Rich. Everything you said. I figure you and me are even.”

  “Maybe I don’t.”

  “I’m saying it. I’ll say something else, too. I can’t abide a man that gives me good advice.” He grinned. “I’m sorry I hit at you—and missed.”

  He walked on out of the grove. The heat was run out of him and he felt cold. He still felt as mean as ever but he no longer had any vague urge to do something about it. He had torn it up with Rich, that was done and he didn’t have to think about it any more. Up to now he had needed Rich to teach him, and he could say that Rich owed him that much and it sounded all right. But from now on it would be different. From now on it would be hanging on, and he was damned if he would hang on to any man.

  He hoped desperately that Rich in his shrewd piying mind hadn’t figured out what was really prodding him.

  It was a sore and shameful thing. It was a way for a child to feel and not a man. It enraged him. But he could not deny it.

  He was cutting loose from the only friend he had. He wasn’t sure he would ever have another.

  The night wind blew fresh and clean across the stars. Free as the wind, Rich had said. Well, that was true. Even white men were not as free as this in the cities and towns. That was something. Jim stood still in a dark place listening to the wind. The man-noises and the fires were remote and small. He felt his body, a whole and hardy island enclosing him from the world-sea, complete in itself, deep with strength. There were wells in that island he had only barely drawn on, sufficient for his needs. There were worse things than being alone. You could live with that. You could be alone and still be proud.

  He was saying good-bye to Rich because he chose to, but good-bye might be said for him any time by a Black-foot arrow or a falling horse. Friends died like other men. Even wives and children did not belong to you. In the end the only thing you could depend on, the only sure strength you had, was yourself, because that was the only thing that truly belonged to you as long as you lived.

  But the self that belonged to you had to be free while it lived, or it was nothing. And he was free.

  The wind blew and the stars burned bright in the clean sky. He sat down to watch them, his back against a rock that still gave off the day’s warmth into the summer night. After a while he slept.

  He was roused up sharply into a cool mountain dawn. A string of mules and horses went pounding past him, running hard. He jumped to his feet. Horses were stampeding through the camp. Beyond the willows he could see parts of the huge herd belonging to the Snakes, broken into bunches and running wildly. There was a bedlam of voices, a ragged crackling of shots, and from the Snake lodges a screaming and wailing of women.

  One word rose clear out of the confusion, repeated over and over. The word was “Blackfeet!”

  TEN

  Jim ran toward the shots and the shouting.

  Everywhere men were picking themselves up, shaking the heavy sleep out of their eyes, grabbing rifles, cursing the loose horses that bolted and trampled among them. This was an old Blackfoot trick, to throw the enemy off balance by stampeding his herd. It meant that this was no sneak raid by a handful of hungry young men after horses. This was a war party, a large one meaning real business. They were far south and west of the Blackfoot country, but there was more than enough plunder here to lure them across the northern passes. Jim wondered if there was any place out here that was really safe from the Blackfeet. Probably not this side of the Rio Bravo.

  The long mountain rifles began to crack, sharp and loud against the banging of the fusees. Jim found himself among the Snake lodges. Men, women, children, and dogs ran about. Picketed horses kicked and plunged. Balls from the Blackfoot smoothbores tore holes in lodge covers or plowed up dirt. Warriors were running with guns, with bows and quivers. Coming out between the lodges, Jim saw the Blackfeet. There were many of them, a hundred and fifty, two hundred, coming in a long ragged line. Puffs of smoke went up as they fired their fusees. They were painted for war, riding their best horses, the rich men in beautiful feather bonnets and fine war shirts, the poorer ones stripped to clout and moccasins, their personal war medicines bound in their hair or tied around their necks. Bright-painted shields caught the light. From time to time men would dash out from the line and race in close to the Snake camp, yelling and waving fresh scalps. Jim saw five of these, and three of them had belonged to women. Some small party had been out early digging roots or gathering wood, and the Blackfeet had caught them. Jim saw to his priming and fired.

  One of the scalp-wavers doubled over his horse and rode back to the line. The attack swept in with a scream and a thunder of hoofs, leaving a wall of dust behind it. But the Snakes were enraged by the sight of the scalps. Among the lodges the families of the slain slashed themselves and bled and cried for vengeance. The warriors harangued each other and sang their war songs. They stood their ground. Those who owned guns fired them, and when the Blackfeet came within arrowshot the air suddenly flickered with arrows thick as minnows in a stream. The Blackfeet began using their bows from horseback. Men of the Snake warrior societies mounted and rode out toward the enemy, weaving and bending in the saddle as their horses ran. The line broke up. There were swirls of individual fighting. A Blackfoot warrior rushed in and struck a lodge cover at the edge of the village, counting coup, and was killed as he rode away.

  The trappers’ rifles, with far greater range and accuracy than the trade guns the Indians used, were beginning to make things hot and uncomfortable among the Blackfeet. It became obvious to the leaders that this first charge was not going to carry the encampment. While Jim watched and fired, the Blackfoot war party dissolved and flowed away and was not. There were three Snakes dead on the field and some wounded. The Blackfeet carried their dead and wounded with them so it was hard to tell their losses, but the only scalp the Snakes had to show for the battle was the one belonging to the man who had counted coup on the lodge cover.

  Jim headed back toward Rich’s tipi. The Snake warriors were now doing the things they had had no time to do before, painting themselves and tying on their medicines, singing their ritual songs. Those who owned medicine bundles opened them and prayed. The picketed horses were being saddled. These were the best, the long-winded fast-running buffalo horses, the war mounts, kept close to prevent them from being run off or easily stolen. Here and there a man painted his horse wi
th symbols according to his dreams. In the trapper camp the men were making ready for war in their own way, cleaning rifles, eating, chasing horses, getting a tonic dram at the whisky barrel, laughing and cursing with a huge noise that shook the willows. Jim ran. The air was still cool on his face but the sun had a sting to it. He felt alive, sharp and tingling with life to his finger-ends, body and senses all tuned to perfect pitch. He was ravenously hungry.

  He could hear Grass wailing long before he reached the lodge. Rich was outside where their own two best horses were picketed, saddling up.

  “Some of her kin?” Jim asked.

  “No, she’s just being neighborly. Go on in, there’s some cold meat in the pot.”

  Jim ducked inside. In the semi-darkness Grass was sitting with her hair over her face, howling. She paid no attention to Jim. One strong shaft of light fell through the smoke hole. Jim found meat and wolfed it down, then replenished his ammunition and picked up bow case and quiver. They were very handsome ones that he had paid one of Grass’s many aunts to make for him. He went back outside and began to work with wiping stick and patches, cleaning his rifle.

  “Saddle up for me, will you?” he asked Rich.

  Rich grumbled but he started saddling Jim’s roan. It was a Snake horse, big-barreled and slender-footed, and its Shoshoni name meant simply Roan Horse. Roan Horse had heard the firing and smelled the powder smoke on the wind. He knew what was up and he was dancing with eagerness. Rich’s black-and-white paint was standing quieter with the saddle on him, but his one marled eye rolled wickedly. Jim looked at Rich as he worked. He was remembering last night, and he smiled.

  Rich said crossly, “What’re you grinning about?”

  “You’re my friend,” Jim said. “I love you.”

  He was free of Rich, free of all man and womankind, so now he could say that and mean it. He felt that he had stumbled upon a great secret. You had to be free of all dependency before you could truly be any man’s friend or any woman’s lover. He wanted to explain this to Rich, and then he realized that of course Rich knew it. For the first time he felt complete equality with Rich, an equality that had nothing to do with race or even with experience. For the first time he felt easy with him.