The Deliverance

by Richard S. Wheeler

  ten

  Jo Skye’s discerning eye, the Colonel’s equipage was as bizarre as the man. His men loaded a scarlet enameled cart with trade items and then backed a huge draft horse between the hardwood shafts and hitched it.

  “A Clydesdale,” Childress said. “Brown or black, blaze nose, stockings, and a spray of hair around the fetlocks.”

  “I wouldn’t know one from another,” Skye replied.

  “Came out with traders, but draft animals don’t do on the Santa Fe Trail; trader sold his six-hitch in Santa Fe, and I bought a pair.”

  “And the cart?”

  “Best carriage for overland travel. Goes where wagons can’t.”

  This one was fitted with a bench, though most carts had no seating at all; their drivers walked beside the horse or mule.

  Most startling of all was a familiar insignia enameled on the side of the cart. It was a Jolly Roger, white skull and crossbones on a black field. It gave Skye the chills. All his years in the navy, he had heard forecastle stories about the outlaws of the sea.

  “I’m an old, watersoaked pirate,” the Colonel explained. “Hard to get rid of old habits.” “So it seems.”

  “Some take the Jolly Roger for a pirate’s death’s head, but they’re wrong,” he said. “It is a signal that quarter will be given if there is no resistance. That’s my motto. I give the redskins quarter if they don’t resist.”

  “Who would resist, and why, Colonel?”

  The fat man smiled and let the question hang. When all was ready, he slapped the lines over the back of the draft horse. From the shade of the veranda, his ruffians watched lazily. He had given them no instructions; not even a time when he expected to return. Skye could not even discern which of them was in charge.

  Skye had a thousand doubts, but after all, this fat entrepreneur was going only to hunt down some Utes, and do some translating.

  They departed in a cloud of dust, the colonel and his cart leading, followed by the Skyes and Standing Alone, all mounted now on sturdy nags, and trailing the packhorses. The little monkey sat calmly on the Clydesdale’s withers, but occasionally bounded back to perch on the Colonel’s shoulder.

  They crossed the frothing Arkansas River at a hard-rock ford and headed into Mexico along a dusty trail, through arid slopes and building heat. Skye often rode beside the Colonel, wanting to talk to the man as well as observe him. The trader was so bizarre and unpredictable that Skye felt an urgent need to fathom the man and foresee trouble.

  “Where are we going?” Skye asked.

  “San Luis valley. That’s home to one band of Utes, the Capotes. Pestiferous lot. They should be boiled in oil. Probably the child thieves you’re after.”

  “Bright red wagon with a Jolly Roger. You want to be seen.”

  “I never hide. It says the Fat Trader is coming. The trader can be seen twenty miles away.”

  “What do the Utes see in the Jolly Roger?”

  “They see their own death if they harm me. That is what it tells them.”

  “You told them that?”

  “Their own shamans did, after studying the device.”

  “That’s what you intended?”

  The colonel grinned from under his straw Panama. “We are safe, and you can thank my hard calculation, my understanding of savages, the bright red cart, the monkey, and the ensign, which I had painted onto my cart in Santa Fe by a devout and grandfatherly monk who relished the task. I told him I was a Lafitte by marriage and I could cut his heart out if he refused, and he told me he would have the priest perform an exorcism after he had finished the artwork.”

  The trader was already sweating. Skye imagined that by the time the midday heat built, Childress’s flowing clothes would be soaked. He sat upon the red bench, his flesh bobbing with every lurch, growing stains under his armpits.

  “Did you cut his heart out?”

  “Only in my dreams, Skye.”

  Skye eyed the monkey, who leered insolently. Shine was calculating evil. Skye’s gray horse laid its ears back and pitched slightly. The horse had been unruly from the start, and didn’t like walking beside the cart, didn’t like that monkey, and probably had it in for the Clydesdale as well. Skye had learned to deal gently with horseflesh, so he did nothing. The horse would settle down eventually. The reddish-gray monkey clacked teeth and tugged its ear.

  “What happens when we meet other bands? Apaches, Paiutes? Comanches?”

  “I am known, Sah, in this region quite as well as you are known among the border fraternity.”

  “Indians roam, Childress.”

  “And so do reputations, Mister Skye.”

  They toiled southwest through the cool spring morning, passing into rougher and higher country. The gray sagebrush gave way to juniper, and ahead Skye could see slopes dotted with piñon pine. The well-used trail took them through long gulches, some of which showed signs of running snowmelt not long before.

  The Sangre de Cristo pass lay ahead, and if the grade was no worse than this, the Clydesdale might yet pull that mountain of flesh and loaded cart over the top and down the other side. Skye watched the hardwood shafts closely, saw them flex at every pothole and bump, and wondered what Childress would do if one snapped.

  As the sun neared Zenith, Childress pointed to an island of bright green ahead.

  “A pool. We’ll refresh. I always stop there.”

  Skye discovered a pool, all right, far below the trail, in a narrow gulch. Cattails surrounded it; birds flitted close to it, and numerous narrow animal trails descended to it.

  “We’ll rest the nags,” Childress said.

  Skye nodded and dismounted, ready to help Childress unhook the harness from the shafts, but the fat man shooed him off. Laboriously, he clambered to earth and sighed. He lumbered forward, released the harness, and handed the lines to Shine.

  “Water,” Childress commanded

  Shine sprang forward and led the draft horse out of the shafts and down the steep path to the pond.

  Skye stared. The fifteen-hundred-pound draft horse placidly followed the monkey to water, shambling down the steep slope while the little monkey tugged him onward, chittering at the horse.

  “Sonofabitch,” Victoria snarled. “Little Person.”

  To her this was further proof that the thing Skye called monkey was one of the tribe of small people known only to the Absaroka. But Skye just shook his head.

  Shine led the Clydesdale not only to water, but also to succulent grasses that lay just below the pond, and there the giant horse munched contentedly while the monkey hung on to the lines.

  Standing Alone laughed, enchanted with the sight.

  “I am beginning to see the utility of that little rascal,” Skye said to Childress.

  “You’ve seen only the beginning. He’s a phenomenon. And I’ve been training him for six years.”

  In due course, without any instruction from Childress, the monkey led the gentle draft horse upslope, and backed him between the shafts, and Childress hooked up.

  Skye thought surely a man so enormous would want to chow down, but Childress seemed content as he stepped into the creaking cart and settled himself on the red seat. Shine handed him the lines.

  The women had completed their ablutions and the cavalcade started down the trail once again. This time Shine nestled in Childress’s lap and went to sleep.

  The day passed uneventfully except for a chafing wind. They encountered no one, but that was the usual in these wilds. Twilight caught them well upslope, in scattered piñon woods, with plenty of parks to graze the horses. A rivulet splashed its way toward the dusty plains far below.

  “We shall halt here in this demiparadise,” Childress announced. “Here we shall be provisioned, the horses succored, and all of us hydrated.”

  Judging from the sopping black stains on Childress’s clothing, Skye supposed he needed hydrating worst of all.

  Once again the monkey turned itself into manservant for the gargantuan trader. Little Shine l
ed the huge draft horse to the runnel, let it drink, and brought it back for Childress to halter. The giant horse drifted off, snapping at good grasses with each step, belching and farting in horse heaven.

  “You gonna picket him?” Skye asked.

  The response was a withering stare.

  Skye’s women prepared a camp and set off to gather deadwood, but Shine had already beat them to it, and was heaping it at the feet of his master.

  Skye wasn’t sure who was master; monkey or man, but it made no difference. They each had a high order of intelligence, but so did many madmen.

  Skye knew he would sleep well that night. He was saddle sore and weary, but the sweet smell of piñon pine floated through the evening breezes; the air was fresh and gentle; the clouds promised no rain but a good sunset, and all in all, they were off to a hopeful start. The only unhappy person in the party was Victoria, who was locked in mortal terror of Shine.

  eleven

  Four days later they reached the summit of Sangre de Cristo pass, a grassy plateau, and there ran smack into Utes. A dozen warriors, brightly dressed with all their war honors on display, raced their fleet mounts straight toward the red cart, whooping ever closer.

  Skye slipped his rifle from its beaded sheath, checked to see whether a cap was on the nipple, and waited for whatever came.

  “It’s the Capotes,” Childress proclaimed as the advance guard hurried forth and surrounded Skye and his women. He lifted his broad-brimmed straw hat and waved them on, with a gallant and cavalier swoop.

  All but two or three of these bronze, lean, bare-chested warriors were young and ready for anything. But Skye saw no nocked bows, and their war clubs hung from saddles. He slipped the rifle back into its nest. Shine fairly bounced and somersaulted on the back of the draft horse, chittering and yammering at the Utes, who pointed and laughed. They were all familiar with the monkey. Shine, not the trader, was the cynosure.

  Skye saw Victoria ease back on her horse. Her skirts were hiked high, baring slim brown legs. Standing Alone rode in the same fashion, but she was not relaxed and her gaze was somber and piercing as she looked over these rawboned warriors. Something malign rose from within the Cheyenne woman.

  Childress immediately plunged into intense talk with a graying warrior, probably a subchief, and for once Skye regretted having a translator present because there was no finger talk he could read. The crafty Utes spoke a Shoshonean tongue, similar to that of the Comanches and Shoshones, and Skye wished he might understand.

  The likelihood of trouble seemed remote, but with these Utes one could not know. He saw no easy escape. The open plateau offered no concealment, no help. He would have to wait and see how things went.

  At last Childress turned to his fellow travelers.

  “They’re heading out to the plains on a big spring buffalo hunt. They’re hungry. Whole band’s following, every last one. Back a way is Chief Tamuche and the rest of them.”

  Skye nodded. “What have you told them?”

  “I’m trading; you’re with me. That’s all.”

  “Do they know what we’re about?”

  “No.”

  “Would they recognize Standing Alone?”

  Childress shrugged. “This woman, Skye, looks two decades younger than the one huddled at the gate of Bent’s Fort. I saw her there last summer.”

  “Please tell Standing Alone all this.”

  Childress switched to the Cheyenne tongue, which he spoke hesitantly, and Standing Alone absorbed his news without a flicker of emotion. Several of the warriors listened intently, barely controlling their restless horses, and Skye suspected that some of them understood Cheyenne, and maybe English.

  Skye didn’t like it. He lifted his hands to draw attention to them, and addressed the older one who bore the scars of war upon his torso, Skye’s fingers and palms and wrists and elbows spelled out messages.

  Friend, peace, who are you?

  The warrior pointed at himself. “Degadito,” he said aloud. Chief, friend, buffalo hunter. You trade? Hungry. Who are you?

  Skye replied. Maybe, few things. Looking for lost people.

  Ah, looking for people. The subchieftain nodded.

  Skye made the sign for the heavens, and pointed at himself.

  “Ah! Skye!” the headman said. The name was obviously known. Skye marveled that his name was so well known from tribe to tribe and band to band. The warrior studied him, examined Victoria, and then gazed at the beautiful Cheyenne woman, registering curiosity in his face.

  The rest of the village rounded a copse of pine, and rode majestically forward. Now other warriors and headmen raced ahead, the red cart galvanizing them all. Soon Childress’s wagon was surrounded, ten deep, and Shine put on a show, swinging gayly from horse to cart to the ground, where he shook hands with squealing children. Soon the women were crowding close, wanting to see Shine. He obliged them by tugging at skirts and grinning broadly.

  Skye saw the value of the monkey who entertained these Utes but was looking for other things: children who looked Cheyenne, or any other color or race or breed, and there were plenty of them to consider. The Utes seemed even more varied in racial composition than most tribes, and Skye thought he saw Hispanic and other European blood in the younger ones. The men were lean; the women stocky.

  Standing Alone, too, was studying the Utes from the back of her horse. Here was an entire village on the road, the lodges loaded onto travois, households bundled onto the backs of burros and mules and horses, and even a few oxen. There was no place to hide a child.

  The Ute women were smiling, poking fingers at the monkey, and obviously having a grand time, while Childress continued a conversation with the Utes. But Standing Alone was sliding off her horse. She handed the rein to Victoria, who was muttering things, and then Standing Alone walked slowly through the throng, her piercing gaze resting on each young man and woman, missing not one young person. Her back was arched and she walked proudly, as if to say that she was a Cheyenne woman and not afraid. Once she cried out, only to turn away after staring at a girl.

  All this suited Skye fine; Standing Alone could examine the entire band without making her purpose known. In a settled village, with lodges erected and life within them hidden, it would be much harder.

  Victoria edged her shaggy horse closer to Skye. “We damn well got big luck this time,” she said. “They don’t know her. We don’t have to say.”

  Skye nodded, lifted his top hat, and settled it.

  Tamuche had dismounted and sent a boy to summon them; he wanted to be introduced. Childress did the honors, hastening across the flat with Shine riding his shoulder. Skye and his women followed. Tamuche stood on his tiptoes, erect; wiry, intense, dark as mahogany. Some black chin whiskers curled around his jaw, his eyes glowed like agates, and his demeanor was a studied indifference, a theatrical yawn. Tamuche plainly considered it beneath him to be impressed. The chief and headmen and shamans looked Skye over, nodded, and talked among themselves. Eventually, they turned to Childress.

  “We’ll have a fiesta,” the Colonel said. “They want to trade with me and have a big Bear Dance in your honor. They got them a gander at that grizzly bear-claw necklace around your neck, Sah, and think that’s big medicine. There’s a spring around the bend, and that’s where they’ll break out the champagne and caviar.”

  “I’m agreeable,” Skye said.

  “They’re inclined toward anything bearish, Mister Skye. They have an affinity for bears, and think of themselves as bear people. Their Bear Dance is mighty medicine. So you’re being highly honored. They look upon you as a good omen; a bear-claw man like you, can only mean a good hunt.”

  “Sonofabitch,” said Victoria.

  “Your wife expresses herself poignantly, Mister Skye. I am at a loss when it comes to matching her elocution.”

  Victoria laughed. Skye could read her mind. If she was lucky, she might even get some hooch this dance night under the stars.

  Childress continued: “I’ll
tell them about our new store and hand out a few trinkets; I’ll remind them they’ll be passing it en route to the buffalo grounds. And I’ll probably sell some iron arrow points, and some powder, perhaps, but not a dozen of them have muskets. This outfit’s low on food, too.”

  That all seemed just fine to Skye. He wanted to observe the Utes; watch them trade, study their physiognomy, and maybe learn how to approach them about the children—and stay out of trouble.

  The Utes retreated to the small spring that dribbled icy water into a green pool with no outlet, while Childress drove his red rig there. Soon the squaws had some fires lit and the warriors were watering the ponies at the small spring. When Shine led the big draft horse to the spring, the warriors parted at once to observe this amazing thing, twenty pounds of monkey leading fifteen hundred pounds of horse.

  No meat. The Utes didn’t have any, which was why they were en route to buffalo country. The squaws stood about, waiting for some provisions from the traders, but Skye had none to spare and Childress wasn’t carrying much. It was going to be a hungry night.

  The Utes had a small herd, heavily guarded by the boys, and Skye looked them over carefully, unsure of what a Cheyenne boy would look like. But Standing Alone had already done that, walking imperiously among the laughing and joking Utes, her face a mask but her will and determination springing from every step.

  The fat trader opened his store with a majestic flourish and gymnastic entertainment from Shine, who plucked up awls and blue beads and arrowheads and flasks of powder and held them up, clacking and dancing before the studious Utes. Soon the cart contained some heavy buffalo robes and a few glistening beaver pelts, and the Indians were busy ogling their ribbons and beads.

  Some cooking smells drifted on the breeze, along with piñon pine smoke, the sweetest aroma Skye had ever smelled, and in time he realized they were boiling a few dogs. He would gladly have rolled up in his blankets by then, but the night’s festivities were just beginning. Chief Tamuche invited the Colonel’s party to sit beside him, smoke the pipe as twilight thickened, and then see the great Dance of the Bears.