Victoria shrugged. “It’s her way. She has chosen a way, and they got no more say in it.”
“But her husband—”
“Dog Soldier.” She spat it out. The hated Dog Soldiers of the Cheyenne were deadly, lived for war, and bullied others.
“Why are there no more children?”
“She wears the rope.”
That was a cord worn between the legs and around the thighs by Cheyenne women to announce and protect their virginity if they were unmarried girls, or to signal their wish to avoid mating, if married. Men usually honored it when girls were wearing it; husbands sometimes did not. Skye knew of no other tribe with a tradition like that.
“For four years?”
Victoria nodded. “Me, you never get me to wear some rope,” she snapped.
Skye responded with an arm around her shoulders and she nestled into his chest. “What does her man think about that?”
“He don’t question her medicine. She got it from somewhere, and she live by it. He got other wives now. Pretty lucky, eh? There’s something else she don’t tell me. She’s big stuff in that band. She got big powers. She can make a bird fall out of the sky. Maybe someday she will say what her medicine is.”
“If we find her children are dead, then what?”
Victoria sighed. “How the hell should I know. I’m some dumb Absaroka, not some beautiful Cheyenne saint that blinks her eyes and talks you into getting her children for her.”
Skye sensed something in that; maybe envy. Was Victoria envious of the grieving mother, Standing Alone, who had somehow gotten a white man to hunt for her lost children?
“Don’t,” he said, roughly.
She turned silent, and the moment passed.
Standing Alone always unrolled her robes a little distant from them, as much to preserve her own privacy as to give them theirs. She was as solitary as her name.
She had been an able and willing travel companion, wordlessly helping Victoria with everything from building a fire to butchering an antelope. She knew her way around horses even though Victoria sniffed at that for a while. Crows considered themselves the best horsemen of the North, and no mere Cheyenne woman could possibly possess the fund of horse-knowing that Victoria possessed. But Skye knew differently. This Cheyenne woman knew horses from the hooves up, and understood their natures, too. And she handled the balky mule in a ruthless way that revealed deep familiarity with the most obstreperous of four-foots.
The enigma of Standing Alone remained on his mind as he took the women farther and farther west. What had led her to pick an obscure white man to find her children? What did she expect if she found one or both? The children would scarcely recognize her now. What manner of medicine had she bestowed on him? Sometimes her gaze was miles away from anywhere; as if she had a world into which no other mortal was permitted. Madness?
They traveled twelve or fifteen miles each day along the river, mostly in utter solitude. A few sharp showers were all that marred the exodus, but mostly they trudged through long silences keeping their thoughts to themselves. The world was vast. In the southern and western distances, snowy mountains lifted from horizons, but a day’s travel scarcely brought them any closer.
Skye himself was holding up the progress. The women and pack horses could have walked twenty miles easily, but Skye’s legs and feet rebelled, and he needed to pause for rest every little while, rub his feet and doctor his blisters, while the women grinned.
They pierced, at last, into a sunny flat where Fountain Creek tumbled into the Arkansas. It had always been a favorite trading place among the tribes; a place that looked eastward over the plains, but backed against isolated ranges of the Rockies. And it was here that they discovered in the distance a crude cottonwood log trading post, brand-new, with a few bearded white men lounging in the shade of its broad veranda. Who were they? Small-time traders and renegades, doing a lively business with the surrounding tribes, including the Utes?
Skye stood at some distance, assessing the quiet, sunlit place, which had no name that he knew of, though he knew that traders and Indians had rendezvoused there. Such places could bring swift and brutal grief to a man, and even worse to a woman. Victoria and Standing Alone pulled up beside him to study this new phenomenon, a white men’s building where there had not been one only weeks before by all accounts of travelers.
“I’ll go in; you wait,” he said to Victoria.
“Alone? Hell no,” she said, drawing her bow and quiver from the back of a horse.
“Easy pickings for them,” he said, eyeing the pack horses, the mule, and the women.
Victoria glared, and he knew he had offended her. Victoria would never be easy pickings for anyone.
They walked slowly in, across a barren flat denuded of grass by livestock, and knew that they were being watched. But Skye saw no steel poking from shuttered windows. And the three white men on the rude veranda made no move.
They proceeded through afternoon sunlight toward the porch, but saw no sign of activity from the lounging men shaded up there.
“Hello the fort,” Skye cried.
“Well, are you all coming in or pickin’ a fight?” someone yelled back.
“Coming in,” Skye yelled.
He nodded to the women and walked forward, and saw no sign of trouble. One of the men on the veranda did bestir himself, and stood up.
“You looking to trade?” he asked.
“Might be. Looking for some information, too.”
“We got both, and they all got a price,” the gent said.
Skye looked him over: rail thin, black bearded, squinty, and probably a man with a past, judging by the wariness he showed. These men were armed with horse pistols and had a military bearing, though they wore no uniform. They also were barbered and clean, with trimmed beards, a great rarity in the wilds.
He had reached the veranda, studying them all, and decided there would be no trouble. Not at least for a while.
“I’m Mister Skye,” he said. “My wife, Victoria, and our friend Standing Alone. Maybe you could tell us how to find the Utes.”
The man laughed. “You all don’t need to do that; the Utes will find you.”
“And separate you from them delicious horses and wimmin,” added another of the loungers.
“And likely sell the whole lot of you down deep in old Mexico, Sah,” added still another, a rotund gent with a goatee, muttonchops, a wide straw planter’s hat, and a sweat-stained white shirt.
“Skye, is it?” said the thin one. “I know the moniker. Working for Bent?”
A sudden wariness stretched through the shaded veranda. Skye understood it. These were the opposition; small-time traders wanting to horn in on William Bent’s empire.
“Quit ’em,” said Skye. “Good people, but I’m on my own.”
That’s when the big-lipped hairy monkey swung down from the rafters, jumped on the fat one’s shoulder, and started chattering.
seven
Victoria shrieked.
“Aiee!” she cried, and whipped behind her horses.
Never had she seen such a thing. It sat there, grinning at her, picking its nose, a Little Person crouched on the sweating fat man, its tail curling lazily around his neck.
A person from the other world. A person long gone, come back to this world to haunt her. Truly, she was seeing the dead. It was a perfect Little Person, with wide-set, bright eyes, little hands that picked at its reddish-gray fur, long skinny limbs, and that strange hairy tail that had wrapped itself around log rafters to enable it to float in the sky.
She covered her eyes with her hands, and furtively squinted at it through her fingers.
Standing Alone had retreated behind her horses too, punched backward by an invisible hand, and now looked as if she were preparing for her own death. Or maybe, yes! She was seeing her own dead son come back from the other side. Never had Victoria seen such a haunted look upon a woman’s face.
Skye grinned. “Where’d you get him?”
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The fat man chucked his hand under the bewhiskered chin of the little monkey and scratched. “Panama,” he said.
She did not know this place, Panama, but it must be a vast distance away, and in some other world.
“First one I’ve seen on this continent,” Skye said.
“He’s my helper,” the fat man said. “Can’t get along without him. He fetches wood, entertains the savages, and can even make war.”
Aiee! A real Little Person. The Absaroka had always known about the Little People, the secret ones who could help them or cause them big trouble, purely on whim. She had never seen one of the Little People but now she was staring at the very first.
“Saw a lot of ’em when I was in the navy,” Skye said.
“Along the coast of Africa and Asia. They hardly let me off the ships, but still I saw a few. Rhesus, gibbons, apes, lots of ’em. Never expected to see one here. This one’s South American, then.”
“Spider,” said the fat man. “Central America. Some have more hair.”
Victoria listened carefully, her hand on her skinning knife. If this Little Person came too close, she would dispatch it.
Skye lifted his battered topper. “I didn’t catch your name, sir,” he said, offering a hand. But it was the Little Person who took it and shook it cheerfully. Aiee! Her man was a friend of this Little Person. Maybe she should flee to her people before worse happened.
“I’m called the Colonel,” the man said.
“Colonel?”
“Call me that; it’ll do. The Colonel, Sah, rules all things including Shine. That’s the name of this business associate of mine, Shine.”
“The monkey’s called Shine?”
“No other. I first named him Cayenne, after the robust pepper, but no one called him that. He became Shine, but he’s no less spicy. He’s uncommonly smart. Wiggle your finger and call him.”
Skye lifted his thick hand and wiggled a finger. The monkey gathered itself and leaped gracefully, settling on Skye’s shoulder. It reached for Skye’s black top hat and stole it, turning it around in its little hands, then biting the rim and spitting.
“Guess it tastes bad,” the Colonel said.
Victoria squinted at this apparition. Never in all her years with Skye did she suspect him of truckling to such evil. Maybe she should nock an arrow and kill that thing.
“Colonel, this is my wife, Victoria, and yonder is our friend Standing Alone of the Cheyenne People,” Skye said.
The fat man stared right at Victoria, much to her horror, and didn’t even avert his bright blue eyes. He doffed his fine straw Panama, and settled it.
“It’s my great pleasure, and indeed an honor,” he said. She nodded curtly.
“Mister Skye,” she said, “we go now.”
Skye studied her. The Little Person on his shoulder grinned and patted Skye and tugged Skye’s earlobe.
“Victoria, this is a monkey from South America. There are many types. This type lives in the trees. His long tail is like a spare hand or arm. They are friendly little fellows and often mimic mortals.”
The thing leered at her.
She had nothing to say to that. Plainly he had a Little Person on his shoulder, and this was an evil unspeakable. But she saw Standing Alone eyeing the monkey with curiosity. Aiee, what would a stupid Cheyenne woman know about Little People? She felt a flood of scorn for such an ignorant tribe.
Skye saw he had made no dent in Victoria’s fears, so he turned to the Colonel.
“Shine is your servant, I gather?”
“He is, Sah. I need one because of my girth. I weigh twenty stone, as you can see, and I would not trade an ounce of it. Twice I have been pierced by arrows, but my avoirdupois is my shield, and neither arrow reached my vitals. It’s the perfect means of survival in Indian country.”
Victoria was fascinated. She had never seen anyone so fat. How could he even bend over, or lift himself off the ground, or dress himself?
The Little Person dropped off of Skye and bounded to the top of Victoria’s packhorse, chattering cheerfully as it began undoing the pack.
“Aiee! Stop him!” she cried, reaching for her skinning knife.
“Shine, conduct yourself in a gentlemanly manner,” the Colonel said sternly.
The Little Person rested on his haunches atop the horse, sucking his odd-shaped right thumb. Victoria loosed her knife just in case. But Standing Alone was grinning.
“I will answer your questions before you ask them, Mister Skye. You, by the way, are known to us all as a brave-hearted man of the wilds. I am, Sah, a trader by profession, owner of Childress and McIntyre, Outfitters—we’re from the Republic of Texas—and my current project is to supply the Utes with whatever they desire from my stores, while I in turn rake in valuable robes, hides, peltries, and leathers, which in turn I sell here and there or ship downriver.”
“The Utes?” Skye asked. “Here?”
“These gents take care of our store. I travel by myself, preferring the open road.”
“Alone, in Ute country?”
“Sah, I am never alone with Shine at my side. I have a cart rigged with a seat and storage for my merchandise. We are welcomed everywhere, and my friends the Utes will come from great distances to befriend Shine.”
The Little Person held out a hand to Victoria, who shrank from it.
“You … Lakota!” she cried, hoping to offend the beast. She would never touch such an abomination. It would destroy her medicine. Let him hold his paw out forever; nothing would alter the stony resolution of her heart.
Shine grinned, sighed, and jumped straight at Victoria.
“Aieee!” she howled, contorting herself in such a way that the Little Person could gain no purchase on her, and landed in the grass.
Standing Alone smirked.
Victoria was angry. She tried to kick the Little Person but it scampered toward Skye and with one bound landed on Skye’s shoulder, where it turned and chattered meanly at Victoria, and ended up spitting and clacking its teeth.
“I go back to Yellowstone River now,” Victoria said. “Absaroka country.”
Skye started laughing. Her man, laughing at her. Nothing like this had ever befouled their marriage.
“Madam will come to enjoy Shine; nary a soul does he fail to win to his bosom,” the Colonel said.
That was pretty fancy talk. Sometimes Skye talked like that, instead of like the trappers and mountain men.
“As it happens, Mister Skye, Shine is my manservant. If I say build a fire, he gathers the wood for me, lays up the sticks, ignites some kindling with a flint and striker, fetches a kettle, and prepares my repast.”
This time Skye was silent, but plainly he was wondering whether there was a scintilla of truth in it. The Little Person was playing with Skye’s medicine pouch, the very one given him by Standing Alone. Victoria recoiled at the very sight of it.
“He is also my counselor, Mister Skye. If something goes amiss, I listen to the monkey.”
“And what if he’s wrong, Colonel?”
“The monkey accepts blame without cavil.”
Skye laughed. “One more question, Colonel. How do the tribes respond to Shine?”
Victoria listened closely. If the scheming, forked-tongue Utes liked that thing, then it would be clear that they are even more evil than she imagined.
“They enjoy him,” the Colonel said. “Shine is my passport.
When fat Colonel Childress and Shine the spider monkey show up, they welcome us with a feast, and Shine entertains them deep into the night. They call him The Thief, because he pilfers anything he can put his hands on. He jumps from shoulder to shoulder, pats them all for anything he can extract, and then races off to a tree, chittering and chattering and laughing.”
Victoria squinted at Shine, having learned of some new reasons to despise the monkey.
Standing Alone studied the monkey silently, and the men, no doubt comprehending very little, and Victoria thought the woman was fortunate to be s
o ignorant of such an evil, ill-mannered animal.
Then Shine glided off his perch atop the packhorse, and landed at Victoria’s feet, hugging her high moccasins.
“See, madam, he likes you,” the Colonel said.
“Aiee! I am attacked!”
The monkey scurried off while the men laughed. Let them laugh! They would suffer if they knew this thing was a Little Person, bent on making trouble. Victoria smoothed her skirts and calmed her ruffled composure.
“Mister Skye, let us go,” she said.
But her man shook his head gently. “I was thinking maybe the Colonel and his monkey might be the perfect passport to the Utes and the Mexicans,” he said softly. He turned to the fat man. “Your name is Childress, sir?”
“Jean Lafitte Childress, of Galveston Bay, Republic of Texas. I come from a long line of privateers and soldiers of fortune.”
“I hear London in your voice.”
“London? London? No, but I did spend a year at a seminary in Canterbury before choosing a vocation as a privateer.”
“What brings you here, then?”
“I am seeking my fortune, Sah.”
“This is not your usual line of work,” Skye said. Victoria heard the skepticism in his voice.
The Colonel sighed. “I am the black sheep of my family, Mr. Skye. I might have enjoyed a perfectly respectable career flying the Jolly Roger, but the sea terrifies me, death curdles my blood, my nature is gentle and romantic, and I have had to make a living on my own terms, much to the despair of my family.”
Skye laughed. Victoria wondered what was so damned funny.
“Perhaps you’re the man we want to talk to, Colonel Childress. Ah, where does the title come from?”
“To confess my private intentions, Sah: it is my purpose to detach a vast portion of this wild land from Mexico and set up an empire from here to the Pacific, the empire of Childress, devoted to the nurture of the humble, the weak, the needful, the oppressed, and of course to advance my own fortune. My men share my ideals, and call me ‘Colonel’ as a courtesy.”
Skye laughed softly, and again Victoria wondered what the hell she was missing.
“A filibuster,” Skye said.
The Colonel looked pained. “You make it sound so crass, sir. In fact, I am at the service of large and noble ideals.”
The Deliverance Page 4
