“Do these Hudson’s people have the authority to throw us out if they wish?” Porter inquired.
“They do. And they can refuse to sell us goods or trade things we need.”
“We have plenty of supplies left. Why not keep on going?”
“Because if your daughter’s party passed by, odds are they stopped. Maybe they mentioned where they were headed.”
Porter fidgeted in the saddle. “Very well. I leave this to your discretion.”
Shakespeare rode on ahead with Nate at his side. The gates to the fort were wide open, and a regular stream of Indians passed in and out. To the northwest lay a Nez Percé encampment totaling over two hundred lodges.
A lone sentry, the picture of boredom, stood atop the front wall. He straightened as the mountaineers drew rein below and stared at the column with open disgust. “Just what we need,” he declared. “More of you bleeding Yanks to raise our beaver.”
“Sorry to disillusion you, friend,” Shakespeare said, “but we’re not on trapping business.”
The sentry leaned low over the parapet and sniffed loudly. “Could have fooled me, friend,” he shot back, “unless you grease yourself with castoreum for the hell of it.”
It never ceased to amaze Nate that his friend could stay so calm when provoked. He had a sharp retort on his lips but McNair merely grinned and gave a little shrug.
“You’ve a keen nose, mister, and I trust your wits are just as keen. We’re acting as guides for a man trying to find his daughter. She came west to the Promised Land and hasn’t been seen since.”
The sentry gazed toward the column, eyes narrowing. “Your employer may be in for a letdown, mate. A heap of settlers have lost their hides on this trail, yet more keep coming every month.”
“Greener pastures. It will cure you or kill you every time.”
Chortling, the sentry beckoned. “Feel free, mister. And later, if I should see you at the sutler’s store, feel free to treat me to a whisky. The name is Pearson.”
“McNair,” Shakespeare said. “My friend is Nate King.”
Pearson gripped the edge of the wall. “Did you say McNair? Not Shakespeare McNair, who used to live with Two Humps’s tribe?”
“The same.”
“Hell, man. Two Humps claims the two of you explored every nook and cranny from Vancouver Island to San Diego.”
“Pretty near.” Shakespeare gazed into the fort. “Is he here now?”
“Just left. That’s his village yonder.”
Nodding, Shakespeare entered, drawing curious stares from HBC men and Nez Percé alike. His flowing white hair and beard were enough to warrant study, since few lived long enough in the wilderness to see their hair turn gray, let alone white.
“Who is Two Humps?” Nate asked.
“A chief. He and I were blood brothers back when the Oregon Country was a gleam in Thomas Jefferson’s eye. We traveled some, fought some, swam in the surf when we could. Later I’ll introduce you.”
A bustling commerce existed at the sutler’s store. HBC men were exchanging trade goods for hides at a wide table set up just inside. A long line of patient Nez Percé waited their turn, each bearing an armful of prime furs.
“Look at all them plews,” Nate said as he tied the stallion to a post. “Were they ours, we’d be millionaires like old John Jacob Astor.”
“And what would you do with so much money?”
“I’ve never given it much thought,” Nate admitted. “No one in my family has ever been rich, although my father came close. The Kings have always been content to live by the sweat of their brows, and when times are lean to make do as best we can.” He tucked his rifle in the crook of his elbow. “You might think this strange, but I’ve never had any great hankering for a lot of money.”
“Good thing you married a Shoshone,” Shakespeare quipped. “There are some white women who are as partial to dollars as they are to breathing. If one of them had sunk her hooks into you, she’d push and nag until you installed her in a nice mansion or dropped dead from too much work.”
Shakespeare headed for a short, squat building and rapped on the closed door. A guttural voice bid them enter.
Seated at a polished desk was a man in a suit, a quill pen poised in hand. His bulldog features were heightened by bushy sideburns running to his lower jaw, which clenched at the sight of the two trappers. Setting the pen down, he smoothed his jacket and said, “Americans, I’d wager. I’m Andrew Smythe-Barnes, in charge of this post.” McNair made the introductions and briefly explained their presence, concluding, “We’d like to make camp west of the fort while we ask around about a party of settlers who must have passed this way within, say, the past six months.”
“Permission granted. And it might interest you to learn that I keep a record of every group that stops,” Smythe-Barnes revealed. “Does Cyrus Porter know the name of the leader of these settlers?”
“I never thought to ask,” Shakespeare said. “Why not bring him around this evening? Say about six? I’d be honored if you gentlemen would join me and a few of my men for supper.”
Nate was surprised by the invite; Hudson’s Bay men were notoriously unfriendly to Americans. He wondered if Smythe-Barnes had an ulterior motive and mentioned as much once Shakespeare and he stood outside.
“Could be,” the mountain man said. “But more likely you’re seeing enemies behind every tree when there’s nothing but shadows.”
Porter, Clark, and Hughes waited at the head of the column. On hearing McNair’s report, Porter smiled. “Lord, it will be wonderful to sit at a table and eat like a civilized human being again. This Smythe-Barnes sounds like a true gentleman.”
“I can’t wait to have a drink,” Adam Clark said, then glanced at Porter to add icily, “that is, if it’s all right with you?”
“A few, yes,” Porter said. “Just don’t go overboard and get drunk like you did before we departed Hartford.”
“I wasn’t drunk,” Clark responded testily. “I was tipsy.”
“A delicate distinction,” Porter said. “When a man has had so much to drink that he can’t stand on his own two legs without help, then in my book he’s drunk.”
Nate made a show of surveying the mountains so as not to appear interested in their conversation, but he was. A drinking problem explained a lot about Clark’s behavior and attitude. It also compounded the potential problems awaiting them up the trail, since the hardest part of the journey still lay ahead.
Shakespeare was more interested in the reaction of Brett Hughes. The blond man put a hand over his face as if to stifle a yawn when actually he smirked in secret glee. Why the man would do such a thing, Shakespeare had no idea.
Clark slumped in the saddle, sulking like an oversized child. “Never fear, Cy. I will watch myself this evening so I don’t embarrass you,” he told Porter.
The whole group drifted toward the campsite. Brett Hughes moved his mount next to their leader and commented, “There are a few supplies we’re short on. Perhaps I’d better go into the fort now and buy what we need before the Nez Percé empty the sutler’s shelves.”
“An excellent suggestion,” Porter said. “Off with you. And if you need more money, you have only to let me know.”
Shakespeare saw the New Englander pat his coat as Hughes nodded and trotted off.
“I hope the supplies won’t be expensive,” Porter remarked. “I don’t have more than five thousand left, and it has to last me until I get home.”
Glancing back, Shakespeare observed Gaston and two other rivermen within earshot. “It’s not my business to tell another man how to run his own affairs,” he said quietly so they wouldn’t hear, “but I wouldn’t advertise the fact you’re carrying a lot of money, were I you.”
“I don’t see any reason to keep it a secret,” Porter said. “It’s not like there are footpads lurking behind every boulder.” He chortled. “Besides, money breeds influence. The more a man has, the more others look up to him.”
“
Money can also breed a knife in the ribs if the wrong parties learn you have it,” Shakespeare mentioned. “So don’t say I didn’t warn you if someone tries to separate you from your five thousand.”
Porter patted the twin pistols under his belt. “No one would dare. Appearances to the contrary, I’m a crack shot, Mr. McNair. Practiced weekly at my club in Hartford.”
“Shot at a lot of moving targets, did you? Bears and painters and varmints and such?”
“Don’t be silly, Mr. McNair,” Porter said. “We shot at clay targets on occasion. Most of the time we used stationary targets. What difference does it make?”
“A big one,” Shakespeare said. “Clay targets don’t duck and weave when you’re shooting at them. And they don’t shoot back.”
Camp was set up in short order. The rivermen erected a large red tent for the New Englanders and a score of Nez Percé children came to watch, giggling in fascination, a few making bold to rub their hands on the canvas.
Gaston was one of those putting the tent up. He glared at the youngsters, shooing them away when they came too close to suit him. And when one accidentally bumped into him, he spun, gripped the little boy’s shoulder, and barked, “Arretez! That will be enough, you brat! Run along to your squaw before I take my boot to your bottom!”
The boy grimaced in pain and went to run off but tripped over his own feet and sprawled in the dirt.
“Idiot!” Gaston snapped, drawing back a heavy foot.
Nate had witnessed the incident but had been too far off to get there sooner. He darted between the river rat and the child, his hands on his pistols. “That will be enough out of you,” he warned.
Gaston backed up a step, glowering. “Or what? You will beat me again? I think not, bastard. The last time you took me by surprise.”
Nate almost tore into the man but held himself in check.
“Or maybe you will ask your friend, LeBeau, to help you?” Gaston mocked him. “He thinks he is so high and mighty now because Porter picked him to be our patron!” He sneered. “Yet LeBeau does not speak English as good as I do!”
“It’s not LeBeau or me you have to worry about,” Nate said through clenched teeth, jabbing a thumb at the frightened boy. “It’s the men in his tribe. If they hear how you’ve mistreated him, they’re liable to want your hair.”
“You’re trying to scare me but it won’t work,” Gaston said. “All I did was squeeze his shoulder.”
“Even that’s too much,” Nate said. “Some tribes don’t believe in laying a finger on children, no matter how bad they misbehave.” He watched the young ones scurry away. “I knew a trapper once, name of Prost, who had gone on a visit to the Crows. He took a batch of hard candy for the sprouts. After he ran out, a boy kept pestering him for more, and he lost his temper and slapped the boy.”
“What happened?” Gaston asked, not sounding so sure of himself.
“We found Prost later, wandering the prairie. They’d taken all his fixings, stripped him buck naked, and cut off the hand he’d slapped the boy with.”
The riverman cocked an eye after the fleeing children. “Damn, King. I didn’t mean no harm. If the Nez Percé come after me, will you talk to them for me?”
“Why should I?” Nate retorted, turning to go.
“Because you may be a smelly, son of a whore trapper who doesn’t have the brains God gave a flea, but you’re not the kind of man who can stand still when someone else is being hurt without cause.”
Nate had pivoted at the insults, his fists rising. Then he saw that Gaston was smiling, if slightly. “Think you have me all figured out?”
“Oui. I’ve known men like McNair and you before. Men of honor. You have your own code that you live by. Believe it or not, so do I.”
Nate didn’t know whether to believe the boatman or not. For the moment he decided to give Gaston the benefit of the doubt, and said, “If they show up, I’ll see what I can do. But I’m not making any promises.”
Gaston grinned, albeit slyly. “Merci. I thank you.”
Walking off, Nate heard footsteps, and someone fell into step next to him.
“You handled that well, mon ami,” LeBeau said.
“Did I? We’ll see,” Nate said. “I might have been better off pounding some sense into his thick skull.”
A clatter of hooves foreshadowed the arrival of Brett Hughes, who galloped through the camp and reined up in a spray of dirt in front of Nate and LeBeau. “King, you’d best come quick!” he exclaimed. “Your wife needs you.”
“Winona?” Nate said, recollecting that the last time he had seen her was shortly before the two women took Zach into the fort to purchase a few articles.
“Some of those Hudson’s Bay crowd are giving her a hard time,” Hughes said. “They made some remarks that upset her, so she called them a few names and now they won’t let her leave. I came as fast as I could.”
“Get down,” Nate said.
“What?”
Unwilling to waste more time, Nate reached up and swung Hughes to the ground. The clerk went to protest but Nate ignored him, gave the horse a slap, and vaulted into the saddle on the fly. He thought he would have to go into the fort to find his wife, but she was just outside the gates, Zach and Blue Water Woman behind her, three HBC men in front, a crowd of Nez Percé watching. A heavy-set HBC man was poking Winona’s shoulder with a thick finger and leering at her, daring her, by his expression, to resist.
Nate hauled on the reins and leaped off the horse. In four bounds he was behind the trio of buckskin-clad troublemakers, who had heard him and started to turn. Like lightning he struck. His fist caught the man on the left in the pit of the stomach and staggered him. A jab sent the trapper on the right stumbling.
The man who had been poking Winona drew back a pudgy fist to strike, but Nate beat him to the punch in more ways than one, ramming a series of blows into the man’s face. Lips split and cartilage crunched. Furious, Nate waded into the retreating trapper, delivering punch after punch, showing no mercy, giving no quarter. Grunting, the man fell onto his backside and sat rigid in a benumbed stupor.
“Look out, Pa!” Zach shouted.
The trapper on the right had straightened, his hand sweeping to a flintlock on his right hip. The trapper on the left was going for a butcher knife.
Nate drew without realizing he’d done so, both pistols at once, the guns leveling of their own accord. The men froze when he pulled back the hammers.
“No, husband!” Winona cried, leaping to his side. She would not have minded if he shot all three, but she knew it would embroil him in a clash with the British authorities, and she didn’t want him jailed, however briefly.
In that suspended moment of time when the trio stared down the twin barrels of eternity, there was a flurry of movement in the fort, and the Nez Percé parted to allow Andrew Smythe-Barnes and several other of the Hudson’s Bay crowd through. All were armed, Smythe-Barnes with a fine shotgun.
“What have we here?” the head of the post demanded. “Having a bit of a row, are we?”
“This bleeding Yank started it, guv,” said the trapper with the knife. “He jumped us without cause.”
“You lie, white man,” Blue Water Woman said. “My friend and I were trying to leave but you would not let us. You insulted us, put your hands on my friend.”
Smythe-Barnes placed his own hands on his hips. “Is this true, Dinkus? Were you forward with these squaws?”
“As the Lord is my witness, no sir,” Dinkus said. “Just ask Rafe and Charlie, here. We was mindin’ our own business, true and proper.”
Nate took a half-step. “Like hell you were!”
“Here, here,” Smythe-Barnes said. “That will be quite enough of that, Mr. King. Put those guns away and conduct yourself in a civil fashion. I won’t tolerate ruffianism at my post, and I have a stout barred room waiting for anyone who won’t take me at my word.”
Reluctantly Nate complied, but he kept one hand on a pistol. He rested the other on his
wife’s shoulder and asked, “Are you all right?”
“Fine, husband. They did not harm us.” Winona deliberately chose not to relate the fleeting fear she had felt when the three men first blocked her path and suggested she entertain them in a back room, fear not for herself but for her son, who would have lashed out had she not stopped him.
“Since no one was gravely hurt, I see no need for a formal investigation,” Smythe-Barnes was saying. “Unless one or the other of you prefer to press formal charges? In that case I’ll have to take statements so I can call witnesses.”
Dinkus scratched his stubbly chin and drew a circle in the dirt with a toe. “No need to go to that much work, guv. We’ll chalk it up to a misunderstandin’ and let it go at that if the blooming Yank will do the same.”
“How about it, King?” Smythe-Barnes said.
“I’ll let it drop but I won’t forget,” Nate said. “And if there is a next time, I’ll let my flintlocks do my talking for me.”
“There’s no need for threats,” Smythe-Barnes said. “We’re all gentlemen here.”
“Are we?” Nate said, staring at the trio of company men.
Smythe-Barnes faced the crowd that had gathered. “Be about your business, people. The excitement is over. Just a minor disturbance is all it was.”
“Wrong,” Nate said, still so mad his temples pounded. He loved Winona more than life itself, and he’d be damned if he was going to let any man, white or red, lay a finger on her with impunity. “There’s one more thing, postmaster.”
“What might that be?”
“Don’t call my wife a squaw. Ever.” Nate looped an arm around Winona, took the reins to Hughes’s horse in hand, and marched toward camp. “Damned John Bulls! From now on you don’t go into the fort alone.”
Winona gave her man a hug, relieved he had showed when he did. Zach wouldn’t have been able to keep from interfering much longer, and then blood might have been shed. “How did you know?” she asked.
“Hughes fetched me.”
“That was nice of him,” Blue Water Woman said sourly, “since they were friends of his.”
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