A squeal of delight raised Ashworth’s gaze to the open space, where couples were lining up to dance. When he saw Nate King’s wife take King’s arm as daintily as any true lady, he didn’t snicker. It was beginning to dawn on him that there was much more to these people than he had ever imagined.
The music screeched in earnest and the couples swirled into motion. For a few moments Ashworth had the illusion of being at a grand ball in one of the swankest clubs in New York City. In his mind’s eye, he saw wealthy men attired in the finest of fashion whirling powdered, coiffured, pale-skinned beauties. Then he blinked, and before him were lusty men in greasy buckskins swinging raven-haired, bronzed savages in buckskins.
By rights, Ashworth told himself, he should find the scene highly amusing. Even contemptible. Yet it held an odd attraction he couldn’t explain—a certain quaint charm that stirred his soul in a manner it had never been stirred before.
For all their earthy habits, for all their gruff flaws the mountaineers and their women were really no different from the cream of society back east. Should he hold it against them that they were rough around the edges? No, he thought not. Rather, he admired them for their natural earthiness, for their total lack of pretense. They never pretended to be other than what they were. In that respect, they were more inherently honest than the high-society crowd Ashworth associated with back home.
A fiery tingling in Ashworth’s throat made him realize that he had taken another swallow from the jug without being aware of doing so. This one went down easier than the first, but it still moistened his eyes and made his insides feel as if they were about to explode. The taste was tart but pleasant.
Ashworth treated himself to a third gulp and a fourth. Before long, half the jug was gone, and he was stomping his feet to the music, as well as humming along. His head felt strangely light and airy, his thinking was clear.
Raising the jug, Ashworth kissed it. He had found a marvelous substitute for his prized Scotch. Perhaps, he mused, he could get one of the squaws to provide him with a steady supply. He’d pay handsomely.
Suddenly Ashworth sensed another person was close to him. He started on seeing Nate King, Henry Allen, and a mountaineer he didn’t know, as well as two Indian women. “My word!” he said, grinning. “You shouldn’t sneak up on someone like that!”
Nate King picked up the jug and shook it. He wasn’t surprised that their leader had indulged, just at the amount that Ashworth had downed. Half a jug was enough to put the average mountaineer flat on his back. “I’m sorry to bother you,” King said, “but Harvey has a proposition.”
“A what?” Ashworth said. It was a bit of a shock for him to discover that the music had stopped and everyone was helping himself to refreshments. Maybe he wasn’t as clearheaded as he liked to think.
The scarecrow of a trapper who had accompanied King cleared his throat. “An offer for you, Booshway—or actually, it’s my daughter who wants to do it, not me. I told her a refined man like yourself probably wouldn’t be interested, but she wouldn’t pay me no heed. You know how women are. When they take a notion into their heads, there isn’t a man alive who can change their minds. I never have figured out why our Maker made them that way, but there must be a purpose. If—”
Ashworth held up a hand to silence the man before Harvey talked him to death. “Pardon me, my good fellow. But could you get to the point?”
Harvey nodded. “Fair enough. Red Blanket wants to tickle your hump ribs in a way that won’t make you laugh.”
Ashworth felt certain that he was befuddled by their concoction. He had no idea at all what the man was talking about. “She wants to what?”
Henry Allen nodded at the entrance to Ashworth’s private quarters. “She wants to live in your lodge.”
“My what?” Ashworth said, beginning to comprehend, but convinced that they couldn’t possibly be saying what he thought they were saying.
Nate took it on himself to set the greenhorn straight. “Red Blanket wants to live with you, if you’ll have her.” He saw the New Yorker’s eyes widen in amazement, and he went on before the man made a comment that would bring the wrath of her people down on all their heads. “Hear us out,” he added quickly.
Too befuddled to collect his wits, Ashworth nodded. “Be my guest.”
“Red Blanket’s mother is a Flathead, and her people are a bit more”—Nate had to rack his brain for a delicate term—”forthright about these kinds of matters. If a woman takes a shine to a man, she isn’t always shy about letting him know. And Red Blanket has taken a fancy to you.”
Richard Ashworth looked at the jug. Was it possible, he asked himself, that he had passed out and was dreaming? He studied the young woman, who had a complexion as smooth as the most expensive china and black hair that would be the envy of any socially prominent woman he had ever met. She met his gaze with a frankness that was shocking, on one hand, and oddly stimulating, on the other.
“Don’t ask me why she likes you,” Nate went on. “She’s taken it in her head that you’re the man for her, and she’d be honored if you’d take her for your woman.”
“My word!” Ashworth exclaimed, at a loss to know the proper form of etiquette in such a situation.
Nate hunkered to look their leader in the eye. It was important that Ashworth understand what was at stake. “You can say no if you want to, just so long as you do it politely.” He stressed the last word and was relieved to see understanding blossom in the other man’s eyes. “Say the wrong thing and you’ll wind up insulting not only her and her mother, but the Flatheads as well. And since they go out of their way to be friendly to all whites, we like to return the favor. Savvy?”
“Yes,” Ashworth said, winking. He assumed that King was going into detail to spare his feelings, to let him know there was an easy way out.
Harvey stepped forward. “Then what will it be, Booshway? You could do a heap worse. We’ve raised Red Blanket proper, and she’s as decent a girl as you’re going to find anywhere. I’ve never let her sell herself to the men as some of the girls her age do just to get themselves a lot of foo-foraw.”
Ashworth squared his shoulders and elevated his chin to convey an impression of dignity. He planned to decline, to tell the upright father and the doting mother that, while he was as flattered as could be, he had his duty as leader to think of. He fully intended to say no. It was the word in his mind, the word his mouth was supposed to utter. Yet incredibly, he heard himself say, “I’ve be delighted to have the young woman move in with me.
Nate King figured that their leader was too drunk for his own good. “Are you sure it isn’t the firewater talking?” he asked, at the risk of offending Harvey.
Ashworth had a second chance. He opened his mouth to say that was exactly the case, that their peculiar liquor had rendered his mind virtually numb, that he wasn’t thinking straight. Instead he replied, “Nonsense. Have her move her things in whenever she wants.”
Red Blanket showed her fine white teeth. Her mother clasped her hands and smiled. Harvey stood straighter, saying, “However much you want to give will be fine by me. Like I told you, we’re not interested in gewgaws.”
Constantly being unable to make sense of what was being said vexed Ashworth. Just once, he wished, they would speak plain English. “I’m sorry—”
Nate again intervened. “It’s customary to give her folks something. The more you give, the more you honor them.”
A kernel of suspicion formed in Ashworth’s mind. Despite Harvey’s claims to the contrary, it was entirely possible that the trapper had offered his daughter just to increase his own worldly goods.
“A horse, a knife, some blankets—anything will do,” Nate elaborated.
Ashworth took a sip to stall so he could ponder. Placing the jug on the bench, he rose, fully expecting to keel over. But his legs worked well enough for him to shuffle to the doorway and beckon King. When Emilio Barzini made as if to follow them, he waved the Sicilian off. “No, no, just Mr. King and
myself, if you don’t mind.”
Nate had no idea what the man was up to. Telling Harvey to wait, he followed their leader in. The flickering glow from the fire outside enabled him to see the greenhorn stumble to a table and bend to fumble with a lantern.
“Close the door, would you?”
The Sicilian was framed in the entrance, and he did not appear happy. Nate, at a loss to know why, gripped the latch. “You heard the man,” he said, shutting the door almost in the giant’s face. Ashworth stepped to his cot, leaned down, and pulled his matched set of costly leather carrying cases out from under it. Patting them, he asked, “Do you know what’s in here?”
It was a mystery to Nate. He’d seen how Ashworth fawned over them and concluded they must contain Ashworth’s stock of Scotch. “No,” he responded.
Placing a finger to his lips, Ashworth said, “Shhh!” Then he snickered. “It’s a secret. Promise me that you won’t tell anyone.”
“You have my word,” Nate said, hoping the New Yorker wasn’t about to down a lot of Scotch on top of the rotgut he’d already consumed. The man would be sick for a month.
Ashworth fiddled with the clasp. Either his finger had changed to lead or the button was a lot harder to work than it ever had been. As last he got it open and flipped the flap back to expose his secret. “See this?”
Nate had to move closer. Where he thought there would be bottles of Scotch, he saw hundreds of dollars in coin and scrip. “Planning to start your own bank?” he joked.
“It’s all I have left in the world, all that remains of my initial capital,” Ashworth confided. “Six hundred eighty-seven dollars out of fifteen thousand. But if all goes well, in two years I’ll return to the States with over one hundred fifty thousand dollars’ worth of beaver pelts. Even allowing for the money I must repay the Brothers, plus interest, I’ll have more than enough to continue living in the style to which I have grown accustomed.” Finally, Nate had a clue to as to who the Brothers were. They had backed Ashworth’s venture. But right away he saw a major flaw in their enterprise, and he was about to reveal it when Ashworth nudged him.
“I brought you in here, King, because I value your advice. How much should I pay for the woman? A hundred dollars? Two hundred?”
“Ten should be enough.”
Ashworth arched a brow. “That’s all? But I thought the more I pay, the better.”
“She wants you, hoss, not your money. And you heard Harvey. He’s not looking to fleece you. Ten dollars will make him as happy as a lark.”
Ashworth counted out the right amount, then closed the case. “Now remember. This is our little secret.” Draping an arm over the mountain man’s broad shoulders, he steered Nate to the door. “I can’t thank you enough for having my best interests at heart, and I want you to know that I’ll never forget it.”
Not quite sure what the man meant, Nate smiled and said, “Any time.” In his experience, it was better to humor those who were liquor-soaked. As they stepped from the small room, the greenhorn clapped him on the back.
“Just think, my friend! We stand on the threshold of prosperity! Nothing can obstruct us now! Absolutely nothing.”
Nate could envision a few thousand obstructions, every one of them painted for war and thirsting for white blood. So far, their luck had held. But for how much longer? Time would tell.
Twenty
Trapping season commenced a week later. The mountaineers could hardly wait to lay their first traps. They reminded Nate King of racehorses straining at the bit to be off.
Three parties of ten men each were sent out to work the adjacent waterways. The men were advised to set up base camps, then work in pairs. Once a section had been trapped out, they were to proceed to the next. When they had as many plews as their pack animals could tote, they were to bring the bales to the fort.
Richard Ashworth was a nervous wreck until the first group came back. The success of his scheme to recoup the family fortune depended on the skill of the rough-and-tumble men he had reluctantly grown to admire. If they failed to live up to his expectations, he would be ruined financially. Not to mention having to answer to the Brothers for the loss of their investment.
Then a party of ten returned. When Ashworth set his eyes on the eight glorious bales of prime beaver hides they brought with them, he nearly cast off his usual reserve and whooped for joy. As it was, he crouched and ran a hand over the wonderfully smooth, soft fur, in a state of giddy rapture. When a shadow fell across him, he spoke without looking around.
“Look at them, Emilio! Your lords and masters would be immensely pleased if they were here right now.”
“Are you talking about the Brothers?” Nate King asked.
Surprised, Ashworth rose. He was so used to Emilio hovering over him like a mother hen that he’d taken it for granted the shadow was the Sicilian’s. “As a matter of fact, I am,” he admitted. “They sent Mr. Barzini along to look after their interests.”
The statement reminded Nate of the night of the frolic. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.”
“In what regard?” Ashworth asked, on the defensive. His arrangement with the Brothers was supposed to be a secret. And he was sensitive about being criticized. Yes, he had put his life and all his property at risk by going to the notorious pair for the capital he’d needed, but he’d done so only as a last resort. The banks had all refused to lend him a cent. And his so-called friends had turned their backs on him when he’d needed them the most.
“You mentioned something about wanting to earn one hundred fifty thousand dollars,” Nate brought up.
“That’s my goal, yes. Why?”
Nate put a hand on the bale and fingered the top hide. It was of excellent quality. “I just don’t want you to hold it against me if you don’t make that much. Some brigades haven’t made more than fifteen thousand a year.”
Momentary panic welled up in Ashworth but he suppressed it and said, “I’m not a complete incompetent, I’ll have you know. I did my homework, as it were, before I left New York. The brigades you mention were poorly organized and badly managed. Our brigade, on the other hand, is a model of precision. And thanks to your leadership, it is fifty times more efficient than any of those others.”
“Yes, but—”
“I’m not done,” Ashworth said. “Those other brigades worked streams and creeks that had been trapped many times before. We, however, are in virgin territory, trapping where no white men have ever been. You know as well as I do that it will increase our haul tenfold, if not more.”
“True, but—”
“I’m still not done. I happen to know for a fact that the brigade headed by Smith, Jackson, and Sublette earned over eighty-four thousand dollars some time back for a year’s worth of trapping.”
Nate waited for the greenhorn to go on. When Ashworth stood there swelled up like a rooster spoiling for a fight, he chose what he had to say carefully. “I’m not trying to rile you, Booshway. But that was when the beaver market was at its peak. Prices have dropped since—”
“Not all that much,” Ashworth said defensively.
Nate knew a lost cause when he saw one. The New Yorker had his mind made up and nothing was going to change it. “True. All I’m saying is you shouldn’t hold it against us if you don’t earn the full sum you want. To be honest, I think you’ll do right fine. One hundred thousand, at the very least.”
“You really think so?” Ashworth said, overjoyed. It was less than his goal, but still far more than he needed to repay the Brothers and have enough left over to last him for years. He walked off humming to himself.
Nate watched the man go, shaking his head. To think that he had once been a lot like Ashworth, so caught up in the quest for wealth that he’d never realized there was more to life than money and the things it could buy!
The mountains had set Nate straight. Or rather, the true nature of things had. Whereas in the city a person could get by with barely doing a lick of work and never having to lift
a finger to prepare his own food or make his own clothes, in the wild it was the opposite. If a person didn’t hunt, he starved. If he didn’t stitch clothing together, he went around buck naked. Every man and woman had to make do for himself or pay the ultimate price. Whenever a person got too big for his britches in the wilderness, reality up and slapped him across the face to jolt him back to a right frame of mind.
That point was brought home to Nate again several days later when he left with nine men to trap a stream northwest of the fort. Ashworth protested, saying that Nate’s rightful place was at the stockade. But Nate wasn’t about to be a coffee cooler while his men were out doing all the hard work. He had to do his fair share. So bright and early one morning he left at the head of a new group, his trusty Hawken in the crook of his left elbow, a parfleche filled with food, courtesy of Winona, slung over his back.
Nate was glad to get away from the fort and Ashworth for a spell. There were times when the greenhorn pestered him half to death with silly questions and worries.
Of late, though, a subtle change had come over their leader. Ever since taking up with Red Blanket, Ashworth had been much less prone to get agitated over trifles.
Nate put the Booshway out of his mind as he entered the thick forest and rode toward a craggy peak miles off that reared above the stream they sought. By the next day they had set up camp in a spacious clearing.
Game was everywhere. Deer that had never been hunted fearlessly watched them go about their business. Elk roamed the slopes above, coming down to the stream twice each day to drink. Temperamental mountain buffalo gave them a wide berth, and they did likewise. Birds sang constantly while flitting about in nearby trees. Chipmunks scampered every which way. Squirrels cursed them in squirrel talk from high branches.
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