“We’ve been here long enough.”
Winona was about to stand when she heard the sound of a slap. Since to rise now would only subject Hestia to embarrassment, she stayed where she was.
“How dare you!” Cyrus Porter declared.
“I’ll thank you not to put your hands on me, father. If I want to go, I’ll go. You have no right to pull me back.”
“But all I want to do is talk,” Porter pleaded. “Is that a cardinal sin? For a man to want to have a few words with his only daughter?” He paused, and apparently Hestia didn’t leave. “I know that you haven’t thought much of me since your mother died, but I’ve tried my utmost to be the best parent I could be. I think I’ve proved my devotion by arranging this expedition to find you.”
When Hestia spoke, her voice reminded Winona of the icicles that sometimes hung from the roof of the cabin in the winter.
“I haven’t thought much of you since mother’s passing, father, because I blame you for her death. She would have lived a lot longer had you not neglected her so.”
“Neglected her?” Porter snorted. “Why, I gave her every luxury a woman could want. I bought her anything her heart desired whenever she wanted it. Tell me I didn’t. I defy you.”
“Money can’t love. She wanted you by her side, needed your companionship more than the rings and furs and lavish gifts. She died of a broken heart because you were never home. You cared more for your social clubs and business associates than you did for your own wife.”
“I did not,” Porter said, but his tone lacked conviction.
“As for the expedition,” Hestia went on, showing no mercy, “you came out here with the express purpose of taking me back to the States whether I wanted to go or not. You even had the audacity to bring that fool Adam in the hope I would take up with him and leave my poor Oliver.”
Porter tried to talk but was cut off.
“Don’t interrupt. You wanted to talk, well, I’m talking. And if you don’t like what you’re hearing, you have only yourself to blame.” Hestia took a breath. “You can’t seem to get it through your head that I am my own woman and always will be. I’m not like mother, willing to be bossed around and told how to live my life by someone who thinks he has the God-given right to lord it over everyone. I married Oliver because I loved him with all my heart. Now he’s dead and I have to take up the strands and go on. It’s not easy, but I’ll do it, father, because in one respect I am a lot like you. I can be just as hardheaded.” Again she paused. “I don’t know what my plans are yet, but I do know that once we’re back in the States— if I go back—we will part company for good. I like to think of you in your old age, sitting on a rocking chair in the parlor with no one around to comfort you, just sitting and staring at the walls as mother used to do.”
“You can be cruel when you want to, Hetty.”
“No crueler than you.”
Winona listened to footsteps drag into the night. She put a hand under her to stand, then froze on hearing a new sound, the soft, choking sobs of a young woman crying. Her keen ears picked up more footsteps, Porter coming back, she assumed, until a new voice proved her wrong.
“You be okay, petite?”
A sharp intake of breath greeted the question, followed by a breathless exclamation.
“You! At last! Where have you been? Didn’t you know I had recovered?”
“I knew,” LeBeau said.
“Then why haven’t you shown yourself until now?”
“The truth. I was afraid.”
“Of what, for land’s sake?”
“You, petite”
“Me?”
“That maybe you throw a stone, eh, and tell me to jump off one of these here cliffs. They say you remember everything. They say you were awake but not awake.” LeBeau’s voice dropped so low Winona could barely hear it. “I think maybe you think me an idiot. I think maybe you laugh.”
“Never,” Hestia said, somehow contriving to make the single word a declaration of abiding affection.
There were footsteps, the rustling of a dress.
“Why did you do that, petite?” LeBeau asked.
“I wanted to.”
“Your father, he’ll shoot me if he sees.”
“He tries, and I’ll shoot him.”
They laughed softly, and then Hestia turned serious.
“Yes, I know what you did. I laid there listening, night after night after night, as you held my hand and talked of anything and everything that came into your head. You poured your heart and soul out to me, Armand. And you kept saying that you knew I could hear you, knew I would understand. How did you know?”
“I—” LeBeau began, but stopped.
“I know this is crazy. I know you know little about me. But I would like you to learn more.” Hestia coughed. “You have to understand. Lying so helpless, with no way of communicating, ignored by everyone, many times I wanted to die. Then you came into my life, and you were kind and gentle and never once took advantage. Day after day I couldn’t wait for you to come to me, to hear you soothing me.” She paused. “You told me that you thought I was the most beautiful woman in all the world, and you prayed I would get better so you could court me. Were those lies, or did you mean it?”
“Every word.” LeBeau was having difficulty talking.
The next sounds Winona heard puzzled her a few moments, until the blonde woman moaned. Aware she must not let them discover her at any cost, she held Evelen close to her breast and gently rocked back and forth to lull her daughter to sleep and keep her from crying or making some other noise.
Later that night, after Winona told her husband, Nate draped an arm over her shoulder and commented, “We’d better keep our eyes on Porter. He won’t take kindly to Hetty taking a fancy to LeBeau.”
“What can he do?” Winona asked. “Hetty is a grown woman. She can do as she pleases, can she not?”
“I wish it were that simple,” Nate said. “Her father is the kind of man who doesn’t take failure well. He’ll find some way to break them apart. Mark my words.”
Cyrus Porter’s mood the next day bore Nate out. Porter was as foul-tempered as the storm clouds that had appeared to the northwest. He stalked around barking orders to the rivermen and Hughes as if they were his personal servants. Adam Clark also felt his wrath several times, but Clark’s only crime appeared to be that he was breathing.
Toward the middle of the morning the expedition got under way. Shakespeare wanted to stay longer to give Hestia Davin more time to recuperate, but she would not hear of it. Assuring him she was well enough to ride and badly needed the exercise, she convinced him to strike out for the Pacific.
The Chinooks gave them a fine send-off. Nate was almost sorry to go, he liked the peaceable tribe so much. He noticed Zach bidding farewell to a Chinook girl with tears in her eyes and reminded himself that before he knew it, his son would be a man.
Nate also noticed Hestia and LeBeau riding side by side; occasionally, hand in hand. They were in the full flush of first love, in their own little world, oblivious to all else. And being so, they were particularly vulnerable. Nate made it a point to keep a watch on her father as much as he could, but often his duties took him off scouting or hunting.
It proved fortunate the expedition wasn’t relying on boats or canoes. Shortly after leaving the village, they found that the Columbia narrowed, the rushing flow compressed into a forty-five-yard gap that extended for over a quarter of a mile. Beyond, the river widened to two hundred yards for a couple of miles, but then the current encountered a massive blockade of enormous rocks.
Farther on, the river was divided by two islands of sheer rock, the lower one situated in the very middle and creating rapids of the most hazardous order.
The fourth day out from the village, as the column passed high bluffs on their left, Nate spied numbers of Indians observing them from on high. He galloped ahead to where McNair rode with Chavez and pointed the watchers out.
“We spotted them tw
enty minutes ago, Horatio,” Shakespeare said. “Your brain has been dulled from too much easy living.”
“Are they Chinooks?”
“No. I can’t say as I’ve seen them before. Let’s hope they’re friendly, though. If they take to shoving some of those big boulders down on us, we’d lose a lot of horses and supplies. Not to mention a lot of lives.”
The threat so unsettled Nate that for the next two hours he could hardly stand to tear his gaze from the craggy bluffs. The Indians seemed content to shadow the expedition, but it prickled the short hairs at the nape of his neck to have them up there, peering down on him. It also gave him a crick in the neck before they finally vanished as mysteriously as they had appeared.
Not a day later they saw more Indians, this time across the river, fishing for salmon. The Indians panicked on seeing the whites and took to the forest as fast as their feet would fly. A few were brave enough to peek from behind trees, but none would answer no matter how loudly Shakespeare hailed them.
That evening the party camped on a level bench beside the roaring river. After supper Nate strolled with his son down to the water’s edge. Zach acted restless, fidgeting and gnawing on his lower lip as if he were practicing to be a beaver. As they stood thrilled by the gorgeous spectacle of the setting sun, he turned to his father and cleared his throat.
“Mind if I ask you a question, Pa?”
“When have I ever minded?”
Zach toyed with a pebble with his toe. “This is sort of a different kind of question. It’s hard for me to ask because you’ll think I’m being silly.”
“Your mother claims men are born silly,” Nate joked, “so you have no need to feel awkward.” He put a hand on the boy’s head. “Ask away.”
“What can you tell me about girls?” Zach blurted out. For days he had wrestled with whether to broach the subject or not, and now that he had he felt extremely ill at ease. His father had always been open to him in every regard, but there were some things that were hard to bring up.
Girls were one of them. They had never interested Zach much until the time he was a captive among the Blackfeet and met a certain young maiden who had taken a shine to him. But their friendship, as he preferred to think of it, hadn’t troubled him as much as a recent incident.
“Can you be a little more specific, son?” Nate requested. Several years ago he had sat the boy down and explained about men and women in embarrassing detail, so he was at a loss to understand his son’s quandary.
“Ever had one stick her tongue in your mouth?”
Nate pinched himself to keep from chuckling. Boys took such matters far too seriously, and he didn’t want to upset Zach. “Once or twice, I guess. Why? Has it happened to you?”
“Yes, sir. Back at the Chinook village. I made friends with a girl and we went walking the last night we were there.” Zach could hardly bring himself to go on, but he did. “We stopped to admire the stars, and she leaned over and kissed me plumb on the mouth. I was so shocked I kept it open, and the next thing I knew her tongue was wrestling with mine.”
“Did you like it?”
“At the time, I was shocked. No girl ever did that to me before. Now that I’ve had time to think about it, yes, I liked it a lot more than I’ve ever liked anything.”
Nate smiled and clapped the boy on the back. “It’s normal to like to kiss. People have been doing it since the Garden of Eden, and—”
At that juncture, shattering the quiet night, a shot rang out from the direction of the camp.
Twenty
“Stay close!” Nate King instructed his son, and sped off to investigate as a second shot punctured the crisp air. At that time of the day there was no reason for anyone to be firing a gun. Several possibilities occurred to him, none of them pleasant. Either a wild animal had invaded the camp, hostile Indians had shown, or one of the expedition members had fired at another.
A commotion was taking place. Nate saw everyone streaming toward the east side of the encampment and joined the flow, his son at his side. Winona and Blue Water Woman were twenty feet to the right, hurrying along.
In a shadowy nook where a large log lay, Armand LeBeau and Hestia Davin stood facing the murky forest. He had a smoking pistol in his right hand. She, distraught, was doing something to his left sleeve.
Shakespeare McNair and Two Humps were at the forefront of the company. The mountain man stopped and looked around, his Hawken leveled. “What was all the fuss about?” he asked them. “What did you shoot at?”
“Someone who shot at me,” LeBeau answered, turning. High on his left arm was a bullet hole from which blood trickled.
“Was it an Indian?” Nate queried, stopping beside his mentor.
Hestia answered. “We didn’t get a good look at him, but I don’t think so. He ran off,” she pointed, “that way.”
Shakespeare nudged Nate and Two Humps, and the three of them dashed into the darkening woods. They went twenty yards before pausing to scour the dense vegetation. Behind them brush crackled, and they were joined by Chavez.
“You left without me, amigos. My feelings are hurt.”
“It’s your fault,” Shakespeare said. “You’d be able to run a lot faster if you weren’t wearing spurs big enough to plow a field.” He motioned. “Spread out. It’s almost too dark to find tracks, but we might get lucky.”
They didn’t. Although they hunted for the better part of an hour, the four of them converged on the camp later without having found a trace of the person. LeBeau had been bandaged and was near the fire, surrounded by the women and Zach.
“Anything, Pa?”
“No,” Nate informed them. “Whoever was responsible planned it well.” He addressed the riverman. “How bad were you hit?”
“A flesh wound, mon ami,” LeBeau said. He was staring toward the spot a dozen yards away where the rest of the rivermen were seated in a cluster.
Hestia had her arm looped through his good one. “He was lucky. If he hadn’t moved just when he did, the ball would have gone through his chest instead.”
LeBeau shrugged. “It probably be an Indian, non?”
Nate said nothing, but he doubted it. Ammunition was hard for Indians to come by. A warrior wouldn’t waste a precious bullet unless there was plunder to be gained, or a scalp to be taken. And according to McNair, none of the tribes in the region took scalps.
“We’ll post extra men tonight,” Shakespeare said. “Just in case.”
The aroma of bubbling coffee drew Nate to the pot resting on red-hot coals. As he knelt to pour himself a cup, he glanced across the fire and saw Cyrus Porter over by the horses, staring in their direction. He couldn’t see Porter’s eyes, but the man’s grim countenance left no doubt as to his thoughts.
Nate wondered if Porter had been to blame. He tried to recall if he had seen their intrepid leader among those racing to the scene after the gunshot. Lacking proof, he shouldn’t say anything, but he resolved to watch Porter more diligently from then on.
The rest of the night passed uneventfully. At daylight a hasty breakfast was eaten, the packs were loaded, and the horses saddled.
Shakespeare was lifting his foot to a stirrup when a splashing noise caught his ear. Turning, he beheld three canoes bearing toward the thin strip of shore bordering the Columbia. They were filled with warriors. It took him a moment to identify them, and when he did, he shifted and called out, “On your guard, everyone! Trouble has come calling!”
The Indians were Kelawatsets. Of all the tribes in the plateau and coast region, they were the most outspoken in their dislike of whites. Shakespeare knew why.
About a decade ago a famed American trapper named Jedediah Smith had brought a large party into Kelawatset territory to trap. One day an axe turned up missing. The trappers blamed the Kelawatsets and demanded its return. When the Indians refused, the trappers tied up a chief and held him at the point of their flintlocks until the axe was produced.
Immediately upon returning to their village, the Kel
awatsets held a council, and the offended chief pushed to make war. He was overruled by a higher chief who liked the Americans and felt his fellows had brought the harsh treatment on themselves by stealing the axe. The high chief then went to visit the camp and while there took it into his head to mount a horse and ride around.
The Kelawatsets had never seen horses before Smith’s party appeared. They had been so astounded that many had run off in stark fear. Later the trappers had been amused to see some of the warriors walk up to their horses and speak to the animals in sign, fully expecting the horses to answer.
The chief who climbed on the horse that day had no intention of stealing it. He had seen the whites ride the magnificent animals and merely wanted to do the same. Yet no sooner had he climbed up than one of the trappers brandished a rifle and ordered him to get down or be shot.
Insulted, the high chief added his voice to that of the other one, and before long a band of over one hundred warriors showed up at the trappers’ camp.
It was fortunate for Jed Smith that he was gone that day, scouting, or he would have been slaughtered with those who had stayed behind. The Kelawatsets butchered every one, in their rage hacking some to bits with tomahawks.
There had been bad blood between the tribe and white men ever since—Americans in particular.
As the fifteen warriors stepped from their canoes, Shakespeare, with Nate, Zach and Chavez, advanced to meet them. He used sign, saying, “We greet our red brothers in peace.”
The warriors were a colorful bunch. Some wore red or blue blankets draped over their shoulders, others had on sailor jackets and pants, a few wore sailor caps. Eight of them carried rifles or pistols, the rest had war clubs, lances, and bows.
“What do you make of their garb?” Nate asked.
“Spoils taken from a ship they attacked at anchor,” Shakespeare guessed. “Coast tribes do it from time to time. They wipe out the sailors, loot the hold, and bum the ship so no one will be the wiser. Spread the word. These men are killers, and if we let down our guard for a minute, they’ll pounce.”
“Do it,” Nate directed Zach, and the boy spun and ran off.
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