“Damn!” Lisa cursed vehemently. “By now we should have traded for twenty packs of beaver!” The pain in his eyes was almost physical as he scanned the empty shores.
But worse than the loss of trade, what if the absence of the Sioux was a sign that they’d left the river, that they’d taken their trade north and east? What if they’d all gone off to join the British?
It will not just be me who faces disaster, Lisa thought. They could well destroy the entire future for Americans.
That night McKeever motioned to Tylor. “Did’na ye think what might happen if the British scare kept Lisa from makin’ do wi’ trade?”
“I hadn’t given it much thought.”
“Should Lisa fail. And it appears he might. There might be a place fer a mon who knew the west when others come into the trade, now, laddie.”
“Perhaps—but who would follow?”
The freckle-faced Scotsman said, “N’er can tell, can ye.”
Tylor kept his face blank, pretended to shrug it off, and went on about his business.
Did McKeever really know who he was? Or was it that the man only suspected? Were he an agent for Jackson, Gregg, or Jefferson, he’d have already acted to take Tylor into custody. The reward alone was enough to set the man up for the rest of his life.
Could McKeever have been somehow responsible for Latoulipe’s death?
Tylor couldn’t get the question out of his mind.
So, if McKeever really knew who Tylor was, if he had killed Latoulipe to keep that secret, what in hell was the Scotsman’s game? Who was he working for? Astor? Perhaps the Spanish? Though he attacked it from all angles Tylor couldn’t ferret out an explanation.
Get out! A voice screamed in Tylor’s head. Get out now.
Tylor took in Manuel Lisa’s worry-lined face, reading every single fear that rode the man’s soul. Though the booshway sought to project a calm command, the threat of looming disaster was eating him alive on the inside.
That old failing, the sense of dog-true loyalty, had been reborn. Lisa had earned it through sheer competence, intelligence, and charisma. Tylor bit his lip, knowing he would stay—McKeever be damned.
After the long wait, on the 18th of July, three Sioux lodges were spotted on a bluff overlooking the river. The remaining swivel was fired and a cheer went up from the men. Downriver the hunters in the mackinaw could be seen paddling to rejoin the expedition. Lisa smiled as Polly and the little boat were run against the bank and tied off. At last he could get word of the Sioux and what prospects, if any, remained for trade.
Here, in this meeting, he would determine the Missouri Fur Company’s immediate survival or failure.
The band was under the nominal leadership of Pasu Ksapa or, as the French called him, Le Nez. Furs, hides, and three hundred pounds of meat came in trade. Best of all, Le Nez claimed that he knew nothing of British traders.
“Perhaps it is not so bleak,” Lisa said as Tylor walked past.
The trader had a smile on his weathered lips. “The western Sioux, at least, are happy with me. They are grateful that I left them a trader last year. Over to the east, Nicholas Boilvin has kept many of the eastern Sioux at Prairie du Chien from aligning with the British. We may yet have a chance, John Tylor.”
On the 20th—true to the promise of Le Nez—they met the Sioux chief who was called Sleeper, along with twenty warriors. Lisa palavered with them and ordered camp set up. The rest of the day was spent feasting and joking with the Sioux. Meanwhile, runners went in search of other chiefs who would meet the expedition farther upriver.
The following day, a large group of Sioux were seen riding along the shore, waving blankets, singing, and laughing. Again, the swivel was fired and Lisa found a sheltered landing on which he could beach the boats.
“For now we have nothing to trade,” the Sioux elder called Black Buffalo told the trader with a shrug. “It is summer, and our furs were traded earlier this year to your man, Bijou. It is no more than the way things are. We want you to know that this winter we will have much to trade. Our young men are going to raid the Crow and the other tribes to the west. We will steal their furs to add to our own. Meanwhile, our women will make many fine white robes since there are no finer hunters than Dakota. We will chase many beaver and shoot many deer. When the fall comes, we will have these things for you, our friends. That is all.”
The chief sat down to a chorus of nods.
Grinning from ear to ear Lisa stood and gave them a half hour oration on what wonderful friends the Sioux were. Over and over, he elaborated how happy the words of Black Buffalo made him. And that he would even now, in early summer, build them a small trading post on the spot. Then, when the Sioux had fur to trade, they would not have to lug it all over the country.
His dark eyes alight with excitement, Lisa added, “Since you like Bijou so much, I will leave the man to trade with you for the rest of the year.”
Bijou grinned, and the Sioux responded with calls of assent and happy nods.
The next day, Tylor and the rest were put to work on the new trading post: actually little more than a glorified log cabin. They felled timbers and fitted the notching. The Sioux, anxious to help, were underfoot all day long. They watched, with interest, how the white man’s lodge was put up.
At last, on the afternoon of the 24th, the roof was finished and Bijou began moving $4,087 worth of stock into the rude structure he would call home for another year.
Lisa gave Black Buffalo a present from the government in the hopes it would keep his loyalty. As the Polly was poled out into the current and headed north, Bijou, two hunters, and another two engages were left waving on the shore.
A third engage, Baptiste Alar, didn’t wave. He stood sullenly, glowering. Alar was being left behind. Dismissed, to find his own way back downriver. The patroon on the small boat had constantly complained about him. Lisa, too, had had enough of the man’s foul temper and lazy attitude. Consequently, the fellow was discharged, and Luttig smiled happily to himself as he scribbled “No Good” in his journal.
The lesson was sobering. A man who didn’t carry his weight and was “let go” found himself essentially on his own. And far, far from the friendly streets of Saint Louis.
Tylor, looking over the clerk’s shoulder, couldn’t help but note that the man had spelled Tylor with an o rather than an e—a fact that made it painfully clear that, disappear into the west, or not, a written record would be left behind. Here was yet another prickling source of unease to worry his fears in the darkest hours before dawn. What fit of lunacy had possessed him back in Saint Louis to have given the true spelling of his name? Had it been fatigue? Some exhaustion of the wits?
For some reason he hadn’t considered that his name would be made part of the written record. He had never documented the names of the men he hired for his own western travels. It had been a stupid mistake. How many others, just as potentially damning, had he made?
The wind being right, they set sail at the ungodly hour of four the next morning. Moonlight and false dawn gave just enough light for the bossman to peer ahead, searching for any disturbance on the silvered water that might indicate a hazard.
Tylor was half asleep on the cargo box when Lisa came up to stare out over the dark waters, searching for the telltale whirlpools and ripples that would mark a sawyer or snag.
“Looks like the Sioux are in pretty good shape,” Tylor said through a yawn.
“Indeed, John Tylor, I am very happy with the things Black Buffalo told me. Of all the tribes on the river, the Sioux are the most critical. As long as they are our friends, there will be no major trouble.”
“Looks like they haven’t been bothered much by the British in spite of Robert Dickson and his wives.”
“Now,” Lisa said softly, “let us hope that the Arickaree and the Gros Ventre have not been bothered so much either, eh? If I can hold the central river, I can hold the upper, too. The upper river tribes won’t take the chance that the Sioux could corner all
of the river’s trade. The mere threat of that is enough to keep the upper tribes neutral when it comes to the British, even if they don’t side with me.”
“Maybe,” Tylor grunted, rubbing a knuckle in his red-rimmed eyes.
“Maybe?” Lisa turned to give him a speculative stare.
“Uh-huh,” Tylor grunted. “You’re assuming that trade has to come up the river. I’d be a might nervous about what the British can send cross-country by way of the Nor’west Company. If the Rees, the Mandan, and the Gros Ventres figure they’ve got just as good a source of supply from the north? What do they care about the Sioux blocking access from the south?”
Lisa shook his head as Tylor spoke. “No, it is impossible. I know the country up there. There is no waterway that they could use to transport enough goods to satisfy the tribes. Even in the big canoe de’ maître they cannot move as many tons of trade. Not without a small army and many months of paddling and portaging.”
“Mr. Lisa, that may not matter for the short term. All the British have to do is give them enough fancy presents and make promises. They don’t have to actually bring in the goods. They only have to make the Indians think they can do it. Think it through, sir. For the moment, you’ve stabilized the river. You’ve done it by promising everyone equal access to trade. How much work, how many lies would it take to pull the scabs off old wounds and set each group up here at war with each other and you?”
After the talks with McKeever, Tylor’s mind was back in the game again. He was thinking with a clarity he’d lost over the years of despair.
“Not much,” Lisa agreed miserably. “Not much at all.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
* * *
“Leve! Leve! Leve!” Mayette’s voice boomed. The hated cry rent the still morning air.
Tylor pulled his head out from under his blanket and blinked owlish eyes into the night. He’d been in the middle of a pleasant dream in which he had once again been man about town in Washington. Dressed in fine clothes, he’d walked the streets with Hallie’s arm in his. As they strolled down Pennsylvania Avenue, he’d tipped his hat to the ladies and wished gentlemen a good day.
A far different world than the muggy, black world in which he awoke. The eastern horizon didn’t even demonstrate a hint of false dawn. Tylor rolled his blanket quickly and shuffled his way to the coffee pot. Pouring a steaming cup, he shivered while men mumbled to each other in the darkness as they attempted to organize themselves. Tylor could hear urine splashing on the ground as someone relieved himself at the edge of camp.
By three that morning they were on the river, taking advantage of a fair wind. Six of the Sioux were being carried upriver on their first boat ride. The expedition passed the mouth of the White River at two in the afternoon.
A tough sense of camaraderie, the like of which Tylor had never known, had grown between the men. A sense of shared pride filled them that they could work from before dawn until after dark. That the river, with all its perils, was theirs to master. That no challenge was too great, and that somewhere beyond fatigue and exhaustion lay another, untapped, source of energy, strength, and success.
That night Tylor ate a hearty dinner and fell into his blanket, heedless of the swirling cloud of mosquitos whining over his head. He was exhausted, and the sun was barely sunk below the western horizon.
By the 27th Lisa’s expedition established camp on the south end of Cedar Island.
Tylor, as usual, made himself a smoke, poured himself a tin cup of coffee, and found a comfortable spot on the sand with his back propped against a water-smoothed tree trunk. The monster had been deposited by some storm. Centering himself between two rounded knots made by missing branches, Tylor watched the sun set and listened to the soft strains of the boatmen’s songs: he pulled at his pipe as the colors changed in the sky over the rolling grasslands to the west.
The ragged and thin man who had slopped his way into Saint Louis in April had changed. His journey upriver a metaphor for both the land and the man. The soft, forested, and lushly green country had slowly given way to this hard, sun-baked, and windswept land of grass and broken uplands. The ragged man, too, had hardened. He’d thrown himself into the labor, pushed his body to its limits, and, in the process, been burned brown by the sun and toughened into the muscular, capable male who now sat in such peace.
The terrain was different here—ever changing as a man worked his way upriver. Those hardwoods they’d once depended upon had dwindled and disappeared; the forests had vanished into rolling prairie, and the prairie had given way to the long-grass plains extending beyond the river to the west. The protective security of woodland had metamorphosed into wide-open vistas where a man’s soul stood naked to the eye of God.
Tylor felt himself itching to go out there, beyond the river, to walk the endless ocean of grass.
Lisa wandered past, shaking his head, preoccupied with his own thoughts. He had been involved in a deep conversation with Luttig and Reuben Lewis all evening. From where Tylor sat, he had heard their voices rising and falling as they attempted to plan a strategy for the coming fall.
“Mr. Lisa,” Tylor gestured with his pipestem. “How far does the grass go before you hit the mountains?”
The bourgeois stopped, slightly off balance by the question. With his usual efficiency, Lisa reordered his thoughts and answered, “From here, it is perhaps three weeks hard travel to the black mountains the Sioux call Paha Sapa. West of that is another basin, then the Big Horn Mountains, then yet another basin and more mountains.”
“Sir, I am going to go see those mountains. I guess I’m tired of the river now. I can feel the calling in my bones. I want to wander around out there. When I do, Bourgeois, I just might not ever come back.”
The trader lowered himself next to Tylor, gave a wistful sigh, and leaned against the log. “I almost think you are serious.”
“I came out here to lose myself, and that is exactly what I’m about to do.” Seeing the look in Lisa’s eyes Tylor chuckled. “Relax, I won’t desert in the middle of the night. I signed on to get the boat upriver. I’ll do that.”
“I am happy to hear that. You have surprised me,” Lisa told him. “I wasn’t sure you’d make it past Bellefontaine.”
“I was just thinking the same thing myself.” Tylor paused. “Fall hunt is coming up. I hear tell that you’ve dispatched hunters all over the mountains. Andrew Henry spent quite a bit of time on the other side of the divide a couple of years back. I’d bet there’s land out there no white man’s ever seen. Reckon I’d like to go patter my flat feet through some of that country.”
“You are even starting to sound like a fur hunter.” An amused grin spread over Lisa’s lips. “Americans! You are just like the rest of them. Only the French may have the bug as bad, but I doubt it. The blood of Chouteau, Leclede, and the La Verendryes has weakened through time. What is it about you Americans?”
“What is it about you, sir? You were the first man to make anything of this river after Lewis and Clark came through. Their report is all over the United States, yet here you are; the only one who’s made hay out of it so far. What drove you to do it?”
The Spaniard turned sharp eyes on Tylor. “Because I am a trader, and it is the greatest challenge. I will build a monopoly to control commerce on the western frontier. It means wealth, fame, and fortune greater than any other man in Louisiana. Then one day I shall be the king of the Missouri and the west. Even Santa Fe. There will be no more powerful man this side of Saint Louis. That, Tylor, is my obsession.”
Yes, you are another Aaron Burr, after your own fashion.
But, unlike Burr, Manuel Lisa wasn’t just a dreamer; he had taken firm grasp of the bull’s horns and was wrestling the beast into subjection by brute force and cunning.
“I am honored to know you, sir.” Tylor toasted the trader with his tin cup of cooling coffee. “Knowing something about the dreams of empires, and the men who spin them, I suspect you will have that honor. At least for a w
hile.”
“What do you want, Tylor?”
“I have my own challenge. Can I survive out there—just me, my rifle, and my wits? Am I smart enough? Who knows? Maybe I really came out here to die. There’s times a man never knows what goes on in the bottom of his mind.”
“You will need supplies,” Lisa mused. “Powder, shot, tobacco, occasional trade goods, a knife every so often, a new gun when yours breaks. A man can’t completely cut the ties that bind him to civilization. For you, my friend, the worst fate I think you could suffer would be a loss of books.”
“Might as well trade with you. Lord knows it will even be worth it to pay mountain prices if I don’t have to go to Saint Louis.” He pulled at his beard and gave Lisa a wink. “That way you make a good profit out of me at the same time. Sort of scratches both backs at once.”
“Of all the men I have ever gone to the mountains with—you are among the most enigmatic. I know that you are leaving your past behind and yet, unlike most, you actually look forward to your fate.”
“Man does what he has to.” Tylor shifted uncomfortably. “It’s a measure of adaptability, Mr. Lisa. If a man’s not adaptable, he’s dead.”
“Speaking of adaptability, tell me about this Fenway McKeever. He seems to always go out of his way to speak with you.” Lisa was watching the river casually slide past.
Casual like a snake, Tylor thought to himself. “He bothers me. He’s sharper than he lets on for one thing. For another, he’s too smooth.”
“Do you believe that business about him being an old Indian trader?” Lisa asked as he picked up a little stick and began stripping the bark off with his thumbnail.
“No,” Tylor said shortly. “He doesn’t know enough about the trade. He makes a slip every now and then, and he doesn’t preoccupy himself with the things traders constantly worry about. He does know the frontier, though. Maybe not the far west, but he’s spent time on the edge. My guess is northern Canada.”
Flight of the Hawk: The River Page 18
