Porter and Clark watched for awhile. Clark turned several shades of green and hurried elsewhere. Porter, though, was intrigued by every little detail and took a turn skinning a small doe.
That night, after the camp quieted and guards had been posted, Shakespeare walked hand in hand with Blue Water Woman to a flat boulder a hundred feet distant. In silence they gazed on the celestial spectacle for a while.
Blue Water Woman stroked her husband’s temple, then commented, “I am worried, husband.”
“No need to be.”
“You are a poor liar. I saw how that man looked at you. He will make trouble.”
“And I’ll deal with it when the times comes.”
“I should have shot him. Nate had the right idea.”
Shakespeare draped a hand on her shoulders. “Never realized how blamed bloodthirsty the two of you are. Maybe you should switch tribes, become a Blackfoot.”
“Why must you always joke at times like this?”
“What else would you have me do?” Shakespeare smiled. “If people gnashed their teeth and pulled out their hair every time life dealt them a bad hand, most folks would be bald and toothless by the time they’re forty.” He leaned back and quoted, “Let me play the fool. With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.”
“You are hopeless.”
“O speak again, bright angel! For thou art as glorious to this night, being over my head, as is a winged messenger of heaven unto the white-upturned wondering eyes of mortals that fall back to gaze on him, when he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds and sails upon the bosom of the air.”
Blue Water Woman folded his fingers in hers. “That one is easy. You’ve read the play to me a hundred times.”
“Try this one,” Shakespeare said, and quoted once more, “All is whole. Not one word more of the consumed time. Let’s take the instant by the forward top. For we are old, and on our quickest decrees the inaudible and noiseless foot of Time Steals ere we can affect them.”
“I don’t know.”
“All’s Well That Ends Well.”
“And all your clever words will not stop me from worrying. As you have pointed out, you’re not a young man. Gaston is.”
“Fiddle-faddle. I’d like to get my hands on the author of the lie that once you pass fifty your life is over. I’m more than a match for that dunderhead.”
“He has friends.”
“I have my trained tiger.”
“Nate?”
“Do you know anyone else who will beat a man to a pulp for looking at me crossways?”
“You cannot fault him for loving you as much as he does.”
“Hush, woman. It’s not seemly to speak of another trapper that way. Someone might hear and start nasty rumors.”
“Joke, joke, joke.”
“I really must give you more English lessons. You’re not supposed to say the same word three times.”
Her light laughter was carried by the cool breeze to the ears of the nearest sentry and beyond to the lean-to where a robust young man rolled onto his back and propped his head on his hand.
“What is bothering you tonight?” Winona asked sleepily. “You toss more than Zach does.”
“I have a sour feeling, is all.”
“It comes of eating three helpings at supper.”
“Not that kind of feeling. I think we’re in for some hard times, real hard times, and I wish I hadn’t brought you along.”
“You worry too much.”
“About the three of you, yes. Zach and you and Evelyn are all that matter to me.”
“What about Shakespeare and Blue Water Woman?” Winona interrupted. “I should think they matter after the many winters they have been our best friends.”
Nate shifted once more so they were eye to eye, or almost, since hers were closed. “Of course they do. But not the same way.” He paused. “Family is special. When a man truly loves a woman, she means more to him than life itself. He’d do anything, defy anyone, to make her happy. Her welfare is all he cares about. Which is why I won’t let anything happen to you if I can help it.”
Nate gently touched her cheek. “You had no notion of the difference you made in this coon’s life. Before meeting you I sort of rambled through life doing what I pleased and not accomplishing a thing. You gave me purpose, brought me out of myself so that I try to be better than I’d be otherwise. Thanks to you, I found meaning. Some say only oafs fall in love. If so, I’m glad to be the biggest oaf this side of the Divide.”
Nate waited for her reply, but all he received was the caress of her breath on his face as she breathed in the rhythm of deep sleep. Smiling, he kissed her forehead and snuggled against her warm body. “Serves me right,” he muttered. “No wonder some men would rather talk to their horse than their wife.”
Soon Nate drifted off. It seemed he had hardly closed his eyes when the crack of a shot snapped him awake and he sat bolt upright, his hand automatically sliding to the Hawken.
The camp was in turmoil. Horses whinnied. Men ran toward the string and shouted back and forth.
Winona and Zach also sat up, rifles in hand.
“Stay put,” Nate said. “I’ll see what all the fuss is about.” He spotted McNair running toward the horses and fell into step beside him. “Maybe hostiles heard those shots after all.”
“We’ll soon know.”
Cyrus Porter stood at the center of a ring of onlookers, brusquely interrogating a riverman. “—see anything, anything at all?”
“No, Monsieur ,” the river rat said. His accent was thick, but he spoke English a bit more fluently than LeBeau. “I looked and looked but it ran away too fast. And my eyes are not so good in the dark.”
Shakespeare stepped forward. “What’s all the ruckus about? What got the horses so agitated?”
“Tell him,” Porter commanded.
The swarthy riverman glanced nervously at the benighted terrain. “I was on guard duty when the horses, they began stomping and prancing. I came right over and heard something off in the woods, something big.”
“How do you know?” Shakespeare asked.
“I heard branches break, Monsieur, and much grunir, much growling.” The man imitated the sounds he’d heard, a guttural rumbling that might have been a big cat or a bear. “When I got close to the trees, it stopped. I heard it run off with much noise.”
“You did well,” Porter complimented him. “Evidently you scared off whatever it was.”
The men moved among the horses, calming the animals. Several made bold to go a short way into the woods and returned to report they had seen nothing. Porter dismissed everyone but added two more guards, who were instructed to stay close to the string at all times.
“What do you think?” Nate asked as he walked to the lean-to with his mentor.
“Damned odd that a painter or a grizzly would make so much noise. Growling, yes, but breaking limbs and such?” Shakespeare surveyed the trees. “I’m going to search for sign come sunup.”
“You’ll have company.”
The camp was barely astir when the two trappers stealthily stalked among the pines, their moccasins soundless on the thick carpet of needles. They found where the three men had entered and surmised that they’d gone twenty feet before turning around.
“Mighty brave of them to go this far,” Shakespeare joked.
“They would have gone farther, but they forgot to take a torch.”
Spreading out, they hunted in an ever wider pattern. Nate was the first to see the figure squatting by a log. He raised his rifle, then saw who it was. “Chavez?”
“I have found something,” the tracker said.
In the soft soil at the base of the log was a print, a human footprint, the impression undeniably that of a boot such as the rivermen wore. The man had jumped over the log when running off, leaving deep prints on both sides.
“Let’s see where the trail leads,” Shakespeare suggested.
The footprints curved in a wide loop that brought
them into the camp from the east, at a place where the shadows had been darkest during the night. Here they lost the tracks among the slew of jumbled prints already made by their party. “What do you make of it?” Nate asked.
“One of us made the noise,” Chavez answered. “Perhaps as a prank of some sort.”
“A damn stupid one if that’s the case,” Shakespeare said.
The trapper shrugged. “I was curious. Now I know.” He ambled toward the fire.
Shakespeare stepped to the river so no one would overhear. “Prank, my ass! Someone tried to scare the horses off but got cold feet when he thought the guard might take a shot at him.”
“Who would be that dumb?” Nate asked skeptically.
“Don’t put anything past this outfit. If brains were gold they’d all be paupers,” Shakespeare groused.
“Chavez is a good man. LeBeau too.”
“Do you buy that line about Chavez just being curious?”
“What else would he have been doing there?”
“Maybe he planned to erase the tracks but we showed and spoiled it. He had to show us or we would have been suspicious.”
Nate shook his head. “I’ve ridden with the man for days. He’s the one I trust the most.”
“Don’t trust any of them,” Shakespeare advised. “Not yet, anyhow. Somebody is up to no good, and until we discover who, and why, we have to keep one eye on our backs every minute of the day or someone is liable to stick a knife into us when we’re not looking.”
Nate had never known his friend to be wrong. Never, ever. Which added weight to his premonition and promised to turn their Pacific odyssey into an ordeal none of them might survive.
Seven
Young Zachary King was in his element. Born and bred to the wild, the boy could never get enough of the majestic mountains, the pristine valleys, the myriad of animal life. Nature was not only his passion, it was his school, and he was an apt and enthusiastic pupil. In keeping with his inquisitive nature, Zach loved to explore. New Territory always presented a feast of new sights and experiences on which he happily gorged.
The journey to the Oregon Country was heaven on earth. Zach got to see uncharted regions practically daily, and along the way encountered more wildlife than he’d ordinarily come across in a month.
The leg of the trek from Ham’s Fork to a huge lake was no exception. Across a high range of hills they traveled, always bearing to the northwest. Herds of buffalo grazed unconcerned along the bottoms. Elk and deer showed no fear, and in fact were so ridiculously easy to kill that the rivermen seldom had to go more than a few hundred feet from camp to bring down all the game needed.
There were moments the boy would never forget, such as the rare spectacle of a pair of playful otters frolicking in a river, their sleek bodies cleaving the water like living arrows. Zach rode closer for a better look, and the otters promptly stopped cavorting to boldly return his delighted stare. One then snorted and both swam downriver, twisting and spinning in a dazzling acrobatic display.
Another scene Zach would never forget was that of the buffalo kill. At the base of a sheer cliff overlooking the river lay hundreds of mangled carcasses. The stench was almost enough to make Zach sick. Covering his mouth and nose with a hand, he goaded his reluctant paint nearer so he could study the skeletal rib cages and other bones jutting from the surface. A flock of buzzards were gorging on the grisly remains, and at his approach the ungainly scavengers took to the air with a loud flapping of their large wings.
Zach didn’t need to ask about the cause of the mass death. He knew how Indians sometimes drove whole herds over precipices, accomplishing in an hour a job that would otherwise require many weeks of patient stalking. He did inquire if there was any way to determine the tribe responsible, and his father waded in the reddish-brown water, searched for a while, and came out holding part of an arrow. From the markings, the Crows had been the culprits.
An event the boy found noteworthy but which none of the adults gave more than idle notice to was the discovery of a den of young wolves. The pups barked at Zach when he walked up to the opening, then retreated uttering frightened yips. He tried to coax one out, but the bravest of the litter would only crawl close to his fingertips, sniff a few times, then scoot back into the shadows.
The pups reminded Zach of the wolf he once befriended, which had long since left him for the company of its own kind. Periodically Blaze returned for short spells and they would romp around the cabin and tussle as in days of yore. But the wolf always drifted away after awhile, leaving Zach sadder for the reunion.
Convinced those in the den were never coming out, Zach straightened and was surprised to see his father a few yards off, watching him. “A wolf litter, Pa,” he disclosed cheerfully.
“Don’t get any notions, son,” Nate advised. “Were not about to wet-nurse a pup all the way to the Pacific and back.”
“I know better than that,” Zach assured him.
“When I was your age, I didn’t,” Nate said, and rode on.
Little else of interest took place until they reached a lake approximately sixty miles in circumference with an outlet into a river on its north side.
“Is this the Great Salt Lake, Pa?” Zach inquired, thinking he had at last set eyes on the unique body of water he’d heard so much about from various trappers.
“No,” Nate said. “The Great Salt Lake is even bigger.” He gestured at the glassy surface. “Some call this Snake Lake. Some know it as Sweet Lake. Myself, I say it’s Black Bear Lake.”
The expedition camped along the eastern shore that night. Zach spent a restful hour skipping flat stones, then went for a short walk. After so many hours spent in the saddle, he was restless, anxious to let off some of the boundless energy boys his age possessed.
As Zach walked, he daydreamed. Of the many pleasant minutes spent curled up in front of a cozy fire in the King cabin. Of the many hours his father had patiently spent teaching him the art of survival. Of the many days spent among his mother’s people, the Shoshones, and the kindness of his kin.
Absorbed by memories, Zach walked to the top of a knoll and started down before he spied the conical structures several hundred feet distant. Stopping in midstride, he saw a tendril of smoke curling skyward.
Only three tribes were partial to making cone-shaped forts of stacked poles, and they all belonged to the Blackfoot Confederacy. The thought sent Zach racing back to camp. He wanted to shout an alarm but feared being heard by the war party. Dashing to where his father and Shakespeare were seated, he sagged to one knee and coughed out, “Trouble, Pa. Big trouble.”
“What has you so flustered?” Nate asked, rising.
Zach explained. He stood aside as all the men gathered together and a plan of action was debated. His mother, he noted, frowned when it was decided that Nate would lead half the rivermen directly into the Blackfoot camp.
“Is that wise?” Cyrus Porter asked. “From what I’ve heard, these Blackfeet are regular barbarians when their dander is up.”
“I’m not scared,” Adam Clark boasted.
“You should be, greenhorn,” Shakespeare said. “A ten-year-old Blackfoot could whip you without working up a sweat.” He regarded the deepening twilight. “We were lucky in finding them before they found us. Now we can wipe them out first.”
“You’re taking a lot for granted,” Porter said. “Perhaps violence is unnecessary. We’ll send an emissary, offer them a few trinkets to demonstrate we come in peace.”
“A fine idea,” Shakespeare said. “Just be sure whoever you pick as your emissary has his last will and testament made out, because we won’t be seeing him again.”
“They’d murder a man without provocation?”
“What you call murder, they call counting coup, and there’s nothing Blackfeet love more than counting coup on white men,” Shakespeare said. “In their eyes, each and every one of us is a bitter enemy to be slain on sight.”
“But that’s patently ridiculous!” Po
rter said. “We’ve never done them any wrong.”
“Won’t make no nevermind to them,” Nate spoke up. “They got into a racket with Meriwether Lewis once, and ever since whites have been unwelcome in their country.”
“Meriwether Lewis?” Porter repeated. “Why, that must have been thirty years ago! And they’ve held a grudge all this time?”
“You’ve got to understand how these Indians think,” Shakespeare said. “Some trappers like to say the Blackfeet are no account any ways you lay your sight, but that just isn’t so. They live for war, and they’re not fussy about who they make war on. Whether it’s trappers, Sioux, Shoshones, Flatheads, or any other tribe, it doesn’t make a lick of difference. They’ve been fighters for as long as any of them can remember, and I suspect they’ll go on fighting until there isn’t a single one left alive.”
“You almost sound sorry that could happen,” Adam Clark said.
“I am,” Shakespeare confessed. “The Blackfeet are a fine tribe. I should know. I lived among them awhile, back in the days before Meriwether Lewis soured them on our kind.”
Zach didn’t mention that he also knew the tribe extremely well, thanks to a short time spent among them as a captive. He’d been treated kindly, allowed to roam as he pleased, and one of the more prominent warriors had offered to adopt him. The stay had left him with fond memories of the Blackfeet. He’d made up his mind never to do them a wrong if he could help it. Consequently, he advanced and tapped on his father’s elbow. “What is it, son? We’re sort of busy.”
“You’ll spare them if you can, won’t you, Pa?”
Nate looked down, pursed his lips. “It means that much to you, does it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll do what I can. But don’t expect miracles. They’re liable to open fire as soon as they set eyes on us.”
“I know you’ll do your best.”
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