A Long and Winding Road

by Win

  Tomás nodded.

  “Unless I make a move,” finished Old Bill.

  Tomás thought, I am smart, but he didn’t say it.

  In an hour both outfits were making camp. The leaders had smoked the pipe and made flowery declarations of friendship each knew was hypocritical. Then the Blackfeet chief said, “We want to trade.”

  The mountain men set up hard against a bluff. You never trusted Blackfeet, or even these Gros Ventres who lived with the Blackfeet. The camp was well away from the river, but better to have a dry tongue than a bloody head.

  Seeing the doubt on Tomás’s face, Old Bill said, “There be enough un us. They act like good little Indians.” His smile was ironic.

  “That’s what we hope,” said Baptiste. The Blackfeet warriors outnumbered the trappers at least five to one. But their guns were inferior fusils, and the trappers carried heavy-caliber mountain rifles.

  “They don’t have much taste for losing blood,” said Old Bill.

  Baptiste said smoothly, “That means they won’t attack unless they think they can surprise us, kill all of us, and take everything.”

  Old Bill said, “Your partner here know what way the stick floats.”

  Joaquin laughed like this was the funniest line he’d ever heard.

  Tomás and Baptiste set up camp. Joaquin puttered around half-assed, laid down, and passed out.

  On a word from Old Bill, Tomás and Baptiste drove the horses into a little side canyon and rope-corralled them. These two would have first watch on the herd tonight.

  Making the last tie, Tomás said, “Let’s ride over and see their camp.” He’d mostly trapped the southern mountains, and hadn’t gone far enough north to encounter Blackfeet before.

  On the way Baptiste told Tomás a little story. “When the Rees attacked Ashley’s men on that beach—”

  Tomás nodded. His father, or rather Sam Morgan, had been there. Fifteen mountain men died there.

  “—Right when the firing started,” Baptiste went on, “there were several trappers still in the Ree village, dallying with the women.”

  Tomás looked a challenge at him.

  Baptiste shrugged. “They died. Friendship, even love, they don’t fend off bullets. Our friend Joaquin would have been up there diddling himself to death.”

  But it wasn’t the Blackfeet women who caught Tomás’s eye. It was a certain medicine hat pony, one with markings almost identical to the mount Tomás sat on, Kallie. Staked next to a painted lodge, his white hind end gleaming in the afternoon sun, was his stolen gelding, Vici.

  “I got to get out of here,” Tomás said.

  Baptiste followed his eyes to Vici, looked at Kallie, and nodded. A warrior who saw the two mounts together might catch on.

  Back in the trapper camp Tomás steamed. Kallie was corralled with the other animals. He watched the Blackfeet crowd around the trade blankets. What am I going to do? How am I going to do it?

  He stood behind the trade blankets and watched Old Bill and the other trappers bargain. The women were trading buffalo robes for all the booty offered by manufacturers in the States and England. Blankets were welcome. Cloth was treasured. Bells and beads struck the feminine fancy.

  The men were less keen. They traded for tobacco, knives, powder, and lead. But they wanted American flintlocks, weapons with finely rifled bores. The trappers had none to trade.

  What am I going to do?

  The sun’s heat irritated Tomás. His uncertainty frustrated him. As soon as he started to simmer, he saw something that made him boil. A warrior rode Vici right up to the trade blankets, dismounted, and held the reins while he looked over the merchandise. Clearly he prized this horse. Instead of turning him out with the herd, he would stake him by the lodge. He would keep him at hand close all the time. Probably Vici was the fellow’s buffalo horse, and Tomás knew he was damned good at that. Or he was the bastard’s war horse.

  Tomás fumed. I know what, but I don’t know how.

  44

  Tomás watched the camp from the top of a big boulder against the rock wall above the Blackfeet camp. He was taking every precaution. He had waited a full day to slip away from Old Bill and Walkara’s outfit, even from Baptiste, and he took his time slipping upriver to catch the Blackfeet. You never knew, they might put out extra guards the first couple of nights away from the mountain men. Now Kallie was staked on some grass by a nameless creek more than a mile to the west, and Tomás was in position, flat and still.

  No risks, he reminded himself for the hundredth time, and mocked himself in his mind. How did you get this done without huge risks?

  The camp was going up in a huge circle on the west bank of the Siskadee, what they called the horns making the opening to the east. The lodges were a swarm of women setting up for the night. A melee of kids and dogs ran around in the middle of the circle. The men were attending to their horses, putting up tripods to hold their medicine bundles, or doing other small tasks. They all looked tired from the long day’s ride under a relentless sun.

  The horse herd was on good grass where the creek angled into the river. Even from here Tomás could see figures moving around, sentries on duty. He wished he had his dad’s—whoops, Sam Morgan’s—field glass. Then he could spy out everything better.

  Even with the naked eye, though, he could see what he really needed. Vici was staked next to a lodge on the north side of the circle. Since the lodge was near the horns, his owner was an important man. Not owner, thief.

  What else do I need to know? I have enough to act. Tomás liked action and despised hesitation.

  He slid down the back side of the boulder. The shadows in here were cool. He fished some jerked meat out of a pouch and chewed. He washed the meat down with a swig from his flask. He pictured the situation as clearly as he could. Vici would be next to that lodge until the camp moved out tomorrow morning, except for two times. The bastard who stole him would take him to the river to drink in the twilight, and again first thing in the morning.

  Maybe Tomás could figure where Vici would drink. The bank was too steep in some places, the water too swift in others. Maybe that will be my chance. And maybe I will kill the thief.

  Sam Morgan said killing was something you always regretted. But Tomás was finished with Sam Morgan’s advice. You hurt someone in my outfit, I smash your head.

  In the twilight Tomás floated down the Siskadee. He’d shoved a cottonwood off a sand bar, one with dead branches and leaves, and now drifted along behind it, feeling clever and sneaky.

  He had everything worked out. A long chance, maybe, but he liked it. Nabbing Vici by the river might be easier than cutting his rope next to the lodge.

  He carried his pistol high and dry behind the cottonwood foliage. He’d left his rifle concealed near Kallie, well up the creek. He felt mixed up about that. He hated to be without the gun, but firing a shot would draw a furious buzz of Blackfeet warriors around his head.

  Bobbing around the last curve, he saw the entire village spread out on the bank well ahead. It was a beautiful sight, truly, the lodge poles spiking up dark against the glowing western sky, mirror image triangles of the hide tipis below. Fires flickered in front of the lodges, cooking stews, now that the sun was down. Figures flitted across the circle. He reminded himself, At least a hundred of them would love to kill me.

  The root ball of the tree caught gently on a spit of sand that stretched out from the curve. The leafy top, where Tomás clung, began to swing out, rotating downstream of the ball. He let go and found his footing. Keeping close to the moving tree, body well down, pistol up, he beavered his way to the sand bar.

  The banks for the next couple of hundred paces were high, or at least tall enough to hide a man. Not until the creek flowed in would they drop. In a few places it would be easy to lead a horse down to the water. Tomás had picked out the one with quickest access from where Vici was staked.

  He waded carefully, one hand propped against the dirt, the current pushing against his legs
. The spring rise had undercut the bank here, and now, at low water, the roots of trees gnarled their way out of the slanted earth and into his face. They were a nuisance.

  Tomás had not realized that the river would make so much noise, sloshing against the cut bank. He would have to use his eyes, not his ears.

  There—that was the break in the bank he’d spotted. And he was lucky. A cedar clung to the bank on the upstream edge. He could hide in the cave made by its roots, half invisible.

  He slipped inside and squatted down in the water to wait, tomahawk in his hand. That would be the most useful weapon here. Spot your quarry, step out from the roots, and make one clean throw. At seven paces Tomás could clip the corner off a playing card. This was a good distance for him.

  He crouched down and waited. His butt got cold, so he stood up and bent level from the waist. He waited. He held on to a root with his left hand and waited. Waited. Waited. He hadn’t known he would feel so shut away down here—he could hear nothing, could see nothing but the small inlet in front of him.

  He also hadn’t realized he would be so cold. Wait, wait, wait…

  Vici’s muzzle was what he saw first, straining against the lead. He slurped up water greedily, like he’d been dry for days. The thief stepped alongside his neck on his upstream side and rubbed his mane, turning his back to his danger.

  Tomás grinned. It was good to see Vici, and this attack was beautiful.

  He stepped through the roots and cocked his arm.

  Vici raised his head, looked at Tomás, and gave a friendly whicker.

  The thief turned sideways, his eyes inquisitive.

  The tomahawk bit into his shoulder instead of his back.

  The son of bitch let out a whoop like a pack of coyotes and charged.

  A dozen, a score of war cries screeched up from the camp.

  Goddamn it.

  Tomás shot the ass. His chest bubbled red, and he fell backward into the water.

  Vici trotted upstream, coming to his friend.

  Tomás jumped onto him.

  A half dozen dark figures popped up on the bank.

  Tomás turned Vici toward the middle of Siskadee and slapped his behind.

  The gelding jumped forward. Tomás glanced back, saw a whir of something dark, looked back and…

  A stone war club hammered him in the forehead.

  He fell off Vici, backward into the dark water, and down, down, down.

  45

  His tongue was big and sticky in his mouth, like a slug. Probably I will choke on it. Tomás moaned.

  A voice threw words at him the way a boy hurls small rocks. If it was a human language, Tomás didn’t recognize it.

  He lifted his hand to point to his mouth, angled his head up to meet the finger, and growled at the pain.

  He had never felt anything like his damned head.

  The voice laughed a little.

  Carefully, gently, Tomás raised a hand to his head. Gingerly, he touched his hairline and felt something sticky. He looked at the fingers. A dark substance, probably his own blood, dark as his life was now.

  He turned his head.

  The pain was a muzzle blast.

  He let time pass. Then he cupped his hand and barely touched the area.

  There was a cannonball sticking out of his head.

  No, it had skin on it, and hair. From the size and shape he guessed it looked like an orange.

  He felt heat coming from his right side. He rolled that way. His head swam through a big rapid, flipped, and crashed.

  Later, whether seconds, minutes, or hours he didn’t know, Tomás woke up again. Now he felt the heat on his face.

  He made out the embers of a huge fire in front of him, and in the glow of the fire a man, probably the strange voice, probably a guard.

  The night was black. Tomás wondered how many hours he’d been out cold. He thought back to the river, remembered blearily, and got a vague picture of a club whacking him on the head.

  The guard reached forward, grabbed something on the ground, and pulled.

  Tomás’s neck bulged forward, and his head clang-clang-clanged.

  As he fell into a well of darkness, he heard the same laugh again.

  When he opened his eyes, he saw the guard still leering at him. Maybe I wasn’t out long that time.

  Now he saw it—a rope running from his neck to a tall, thick post.

  He put things together. Tonight the Blackfeet had built a fire as the center of their dance circle. They’d whooped their triumph over this enemy. Tomorrow they would tie him to the stake and build the fire around his feet.

  He’d heard plenty about it. Dying brave, the Indians called it. Show how much pain you can endure without complaining. Show how long you can last before you die. Sometimes, the stories said, a woman would come close, pick up a burning twig, sharpen the other end, and jab it hard into your flesh.

  Then he realized. Tie me to the post tomorrow? Hell, I’m already tied.

  The rope snaked away from his neck.

  They’ll shout and mock me as I die.

  Tomás shuddered. His thoughts were jerked meat, old, dry, and tough.

  He tested his hands. They were tied together at the front of his breechcloth. Maybe they’re still giving me a chance to piss.

  While he felt bitterness at this thought, he smiled wryly inside. You made a mistake.

  He wiggled, paying attention to his arms and legs. He was naked, except for the breechcloth.

  He trundled some more thoughts through his mind, and soon he resolved on something. We’re going to do this my way.

  He had one tiny advantage. His father, or rather Sam Morgan, kept a couple of blades on his person, hidden where enemies wouldn’t find them even if they stripped him. Surprising weapons in very surprising places. Sam didn’t tell anyone about them.

  In Santa Fe Tomás had a blacksmith hammer out concealed weapons for him. He wore his breechcloth on a rawhide rope as thick as his finger, and it tied in front. From one of the dangling ends of the rope hung a flat, short blade covered with rawhide, its lower half sharp as any knife. From the other end, also covered with rawhide, was a finger-length awl.

  These weapons fell beneath the flap of his breechcloth and outside the girdling part. No one knew about them, except his fa….

  Don’t lie to yourself. The words were lances. You can’t do much, not with this head. Hardly anything.

  He breathed the cool night air in and out.

  But I have a chance.

  Very slowly, he pushed his breechcloth aside. Very gently, he slipped the rawhide scabbard off the knife blade. With as little movement as possible, he sawed at the rope binding his hands beneath the breechcloth.

  He hesitated for a moment. He hated this. The situation was so… There was no give to this reality.

  I have a chance.

  Words in a strange language flew at him fast and furious. The guard stood and glared.

  Tomás pretended to try to push the inner part of his breechcloth aside.

  The guard laughed and sat back down.

  Tomás sawed a few more strokes, and the rope gave.

  The guard put predatory eyes on him.

  Tomás took out his thing, covering it with his hand, and pissed.

  The guard grunted.

  Tomás rolled over, away from the guard. His mind teetered like a boat on roiling waters.

  He waited, but the man said and did nothing. Amazing how much better my head feels.

  He untied the rope holding his breechcloth. With as little motion as possible, he seized the neck rope hard with one hand. With the other, in several fierce swipes, he cut it.

  Free.

  He lay perfectly still.

  He quivered.

  In his mind he tittered.

  Nothing solved yet.

  He put his mind to it. I need to get the bastard within reach.

  He made himself ready for the wooziness and rolled back toward the post, the fire, and the guard.r />
  He lay still for a moment to recover.

  Then he snapped words at the guard. “Hey, you, shit-eater, look at me.”

  The guard rose to his knees. If the man had no idea what Tomás was saying, he understood the tone perfectly.

  Pretending that his hands were still tied together, Tomás jerked his breechcloth away and exposed himself.

  This was a mortal insult.

  The guard jumped and threw himself headlong at his prisoner.

  Tomás braced his elbow on the ground. The guard’s body weight punched the awl deep into his gut.

  Tomás’s head flashed furious lights, and he blacked out.

  46

  Someone, something scraped on him.

  Breath flooded back into his lungs. How long was I breathing in itty-bitty pieces?

  “Let’s get out of here,” someone said.

  Arms pulled him up, someone shouldered him. A picture of an angel hovered in Tomás’s mind.

  “Damn glad you’re a shrimp.”

  An angel wouldn’t call me a shrimp, he thought, irritated. Whose voice?

  The Voice apparently didn’t give a damn about him. His head bumped on the angel’s back as they walked. It hurt like hell.

  Tomás dimly noticed the circle as they passed between lodges.

  His head banged. It was a drum, and this devil was beating it.

  Strong arms spun him—whoopsy-doo!—and he landed with a whumpf. He was belly down on a saddle.

  Quickly, a rope lashed around him several times and was hitched tight.

  “I don’t give a damn what happens, just stay on Vici.”

  Vici?

  In the edge of his eye he saw the angel or devil swing up into his own saddle.

  “How did you get Vici?”

  “He came to me.”

  “What angel or devil are you?”

  “Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau, at your service.”

  Tomás chewed on the jerked meat. He tried to crunch teeth onto flesh without moving his head. He felt like he’d been thrown off a mountain and landed on his skull.