by Tony Masero
‘Gringo Wade’, it promised. ‘Protects and Saves the Homesteader’s Wife and Child’.
“Must be some other fellow with the same name,” Gringo surmised, a little surprised by the discovery. “’Cos it sure don’t look like me.”
He sat back on his haunches thinking over the discovery as he replaced the possessions into the satchel.
“Poor gal,” he muttered to himself. “Thinking that this Gringo fellow would come save her just like in the picture. Must have been a moment of great distress when she knew no help was coming.”
He felt a pang of sadness and then a tinge of guilt as if indeed he was to blame for not being there at the woman’s final hour.
Tenderly he laid out the woman and began to cover her as best he could with the trail dust, there were no rocks to hand so he could make no more than a peremptory grave. He stood over the poor covering when he had finished and looked down a moment in thought, then, removing his hat he offered a short prayer for the woman’s repose and when finished remounted his pony.
He decided it best to leave off following the Indians and return to the column to advise Le Touquet of his findings. With a rueful backward glance over his pony’s rump at the pitifully sad mound he set off.
Chapter Two
Le Touquet was afire at the news.
“Murdered, a white woman cut down in such a way! Her child stolen from her!” he roared. “Dastards! Damnable, it is damnable!”
As evening was setting in the company had made camp and the fire pits had been dug and lit by the time Gringo returned. Sentries had been posted and the smell of the evening meal was wafting on the air. The band was organized on the old brigade system that they all knew so well from their hunting days up in the beaver rich country of Oregon and the wild Rockies. In this military fashion the trappers were convened in different mess groups but all fell under the leadership of Le Touquet, who was considered ‘Boosway’ of the whole troop. ‘Boosway’ the men said, came from a French word, ‘Bourgeoisie’ and there were plenty of Frenchies amongst the troop to verify this.
As Gringo knew, they were a tough bunch of men who were used to hardship and fending for themselves when they hunted and trapped along the unmapped three thousand mile stretch of the Rockies. He had been told that there were nigh on a thousand men trapping up there in the heyday of the trade, less than a man every three miles standing in a straight line. That was before the fashion for beaver hats gave way to silk ones and now those old ways were hard to sustain with lines trapped out and less demand for the pelts.
The life bred hardy and independent souls and there were forty of them travelling with ‘Boosway’ Le Touquet. Those that heard his ravings were sympathetic to Le Touquet’s rage over the slaughtered innocents but they were more circumspect in their thinking as they had seen the like a million times before and knew that life rolled on and the incessant wave of settlers would not stop coming despite all the inherent danger.
“Come,” ordered Le Touquet when he saw Gringo unsaddling his pony. “Come with me, Mister Wade. We will share a bottle.”
Obediently Gringo followed Le Touquet into his tent. A panel sided canvas affair and large by other standards in the camp, the tent was equipped comfortably with a bed, folding chairs and a table.
The Boosway waved Gringo to one of the chairs and delved amongst his piles of rolled leather map cases for the liquor. He favored a strong brandy and once he cracked the dark bottle open Gringo knew he would not stop until it was empty.
Le Touquet lit an oil lamp he took down from the tent pole and placed on the table between them, then he poured two liberal glassfuls and brushing aside some half drawn topographical sketches, pushed one of them across the tabletop towards Gringo.
“Santé!” he cried, downing the glass in a swallow and pouring another before Gringo had even raised his own to his lips.
“Damn those red devils,” he growled. “Damn them to hell! They cannot get away with this, I will not allow it. They are like an infestation on this land and should be cleared away.” His mood swung to a tearful one as it was prone to do. “This poor baby girl,” he began, an emotional tear slipping from one brooding eye. “Fair haired and angel faced.” Gringo had shown him the doll and somehow in La Touquet’s mind the image of the doll had taken on little Lucy’s identity even though he had never seen her in the flesh. “Such innocent eyes and sweet lips,” his voice broke. “So vulnerable. Those animals will make a beast of burden of her, her frail shoulders will be worn down with hard labor. It is obscene.”
Gringo knew that what he said was probably true although he felt no need to display the excessive emotion that La Touquet was capable of at the child’s prospective fate.
“What do you plan?” he asked, taking a careful sip of his brandy.
“You tell me,” asked Le Touquet. “You know these people, you speak their language. Can we bring the child back from these savages. Save her and make them pay for their sin?”
Gringo nodded, his mind still recalling the book cover illustration and the guilty lack of duty it inspired in him. “Give me two good men and it will be done.”
“Three against ten?” La Touquet was doubtful.
“There is a man here amongst the forty. I have heard talk of him. I do not know him well, only by sight but they say he had a blood feud with the Apsaalooke that went on for five years. They killed his squaw woman and their child and he could not forget it until he had taken his revenge in Indian scalp locks. Such a man would approve of saving a child, I think.”
“My kind of man too,” La Touquet smiled approvingly. “Which one is he?”
“They call him Judas James.”
“Ah, I remember. J-J. He would carve his initials in his victims with a tomahawk, so they tell. A spit in the face of his foe, I liked that when I heard it.”
Gringo nodded. “With such a man I could take the ten Apache.” He was not a man given to hot air and he made the assurance as a statement of fact with no sense of bravado about it.
“And the third?”
“Allumette.”
“The fire lighter? But he is just a cook, a nobody.”
“No sir, Allumette has other skills. He is the best man I have seen with horse in this troop and besides, we will need a cook.”
Le Touquet poured himself another glass and sipped it pensively. “You do not drink, Mister Wade?”
“No, I do not. No offence, but I am not one overly partial to the taking of strong liquors.”
Le Touquet grimaced sourly at this but said nothing.
“However,” interrupted Gringo. “I am not adverse to a smoke on occasion and am tired of the Indian way of tobacco rolled in oak leaves, if you have a cigarillo.... perhaps?” He paused, with a questioning quirk of his eyebrows.
Le Touquet chuckled. “You know of my own predilection then?” He put his hand inside his jacket and pulled out a leather case and shook out a slender cheroot. “Here,” he said. “Take one. They are the best that Virginia can offer.”
As Gringo lent across the lamp chimney and drew the tobacco alight, Le Touquet watched him keenly.
“You are a good man, Gringo Wade. You know how to walk softly in the brigade and outside of it, your messmates all speak highly of you.”
Gringo frowned and lowered his eyes in silent embarrassment and then shaking his head he drew on the cheroot, savoring the refined flavor.
“There is something I would ask, Boosway,” he said finally.
With a jerk of his chin Le Touquet bid him go on.
“This,” said Gringo, reaching inside his shirt and pulling out the novella he had tucked in his pants top. “I found it on the woman, Mrs. Lawrence. What does it mean do you think?”
Le Touquet took the booklet and pursed his lip, studying the front cover. He took a sip of brandy and opened the page and began to read. He had not gone far inside the lurid novel when he burst out laughing. He laughed so hard that tears began to form in his eyes.
“Why,
my friend,” he choked. “You are famous. Your deeds inscribed in printed ink, it is a marvel. Gringo Wade, The Great Scout,” he collapsed in laughter again as Gringo watched him with a bemused look.
“But,” he faltered. “It is not me. I have never done any of this.”
“Aha!” cackled Le Touquet. “But it is written, so it must be true. Now you are a hero in the eyes of the world, whether you like it or not.”
“I do not understand. Who could have said these things?”
Le Touquet waved a dismissive hand. “Why worry, somebody has heard your name and made something of it. It is a frippery. Some fool writer needing to make a few dollars and creating this fiction from your name to do so, that is all.”
“But people will think that this is me, they will think I can save them like that poor woman must have. She carried this with her believing that I could do that for her and her baby,” he paused. “It makes me feel bad that a woman could be misled so.”
Le Touquet lowered his tone and sighed. “Set it aside, Mister Wade. What does it matter to us, we are here in the real world and they,” he waved a hand at the novella now resting on the table. “They live in this fantasy where there is always a hero to pull their irons from the fire.”
Gringo frowned and glowered at the booklet as if it had personally offended him.
“They should not have used my name,” he said.
“Bah!” snorted Le Touquet. “There are more important things than a sheet of paper and a few words that concern us now. The troop must continue on at a slow pace to allow the mapping out of the territory so you will be alone in this. You will take this Allumette and Judas James and save the child. Bring me the heads of the Apache. That will be something real. A concrete gesture that will demonstrate to the savages that we will not abide their wretched animal behavior. And, my friend, that will have much more significance than these few pages of fanciful ramblings.” Le Touquet paused thoughtfully for a moment. “There is something else,” he added.
He said it more seriously and Gringo looked up expectantly as he noticed the change in Le Touquet’s demeanor.
“I tell you this in confidence, Mister Wade. There is more to our mission here than you all have been led to believe. When you are out there I want you to take special note of all you see. Keep everything in mind, especially any Mexican military emplacements or troop movement you come across. I shall expect a full report on your return, is that clear?”
Gringo looked at him over the lamplight speculatively. “I did wonder what a body of mountain men from the high country were doing all the way down here, it didn’t make much sense I have to say.”
“I will explain, it matters little that you know now but it must go no further,” Le Touquet quickly poured and then threw back another brandy before he went on. “There are patriots at the head of our country who have not forgotten the Alamo and Goliad slaughter eight years ago, they know the power that the Generalissimo Santa Anna still holds as President and they watch Mexico carefully. Personally I despise the dictator and the fact that he was allowed to go free. There is no doubt he is an obsessive and will always be hungry for more power but the Mexican tyrant’s days are numbered and it is what follows him that concerns our leaders. We must be prepared. Our country faces a decisive election this coming November, whoever is in office will shape the future of the nation. It is likely that President Tyler will have to make way for either James Knox Polk or that appeasing Whig, Henry Clay.” he said the last with obvious disdain.
Gringo had never seen their leader so voluble or active in any overt way concerning politics, a subject in which he suddenly seemed to be remarkably well versed. His whole personality had altered from that of their volatile and moody Boosway to an intense and determined man, the fact surprised Gringo and he listened with interest as Le Touquet went on.
“I have been secretly commissioned by members of Polk’s party to undertake this foray in support of their faith in an expansionist policy. Polk will win. I am convinced of it. The people are behind his views on the annexation of the slavers in Texas and the acquisition from the British of the rest of Oregon Territory. But it is here that the true future exists for us, there is too much wealth here to allow it to slip through our fingers,” La Touquet slapped the table top with his open hand to impress the point. “There will be war with Mexico, Mister Wade. Not now, not yet, but mark my words it will be soon.”
Gringo squinted at the Frenchman through the miasma of smoke his cheroot raised between them.
“War?” he asked. “But what do we have to do with any of that?”
“We are the pathfinders, my friend. There was no way I could disguise my map making from the men, so I told you all it was a trade route we were researching and I allow a little trapping and hunting as we go along to keep up the pretense. Tell me though, where else could I find protection from such fine shots and hardy men outside of the army, whose presence would have given the whole game away. So I have my very own troopers, be that they are all dressed in buckskin instead of a uniform. You will understand, that in reality, we are preparing for a more aggressive result than pelts to trade. Yes, we are mapping but these routes are secret notifications for our military leaders of viable paths of access and where possible, a record of Mexicans fortifications and all the forces that we come across in their so called Nueva California.”
Gringo could see now that Le Touquet was a committed activist, a true believer in the expansion of new American territory at all costs and it did much to explain the passionate driving force behind his leadership.
“So, Mister Wade,” said Le Touquet. “You will observe and take note, as I have said?”
La Touquet looked at him, waiting for a response but Gringo said nothing, silently mulling over what he had been told. “Do you understand your instructions?” La Touquet pressed him, a touch severely.
The sharpness of the query brought Gringo’s head up. He nodded slowly. “I understand, Boosway.”
“Good, then get on with it,” he picked up the bottle in one hand and the booklet in the other. “Go on,” he grinned slyly. “I have some exciting reading to catch up on.”
**********
Allumette was singing to himself as he stirred a large pot when Gringo tapped him on the shoulder. It was an old French Canadian river man’s song, a task at which Allumette had served during his youth.
“V’lá l’ bon vent, V’lá l’joli vent,
V’lá l’bon vent mamie m’appelle
V’lá l’ bon vent, V’lá l’joli vent,
V’lá l’bon vent mamie m’ ....”
His voice was rich and melodic and he jumped slightly and stopped suddenly at Gringo’s touch, so lost was he in his devotion to the bubbling soup.
The little chef was a tubby, impish figure, not more that four foot four inches in height. He had served as a voyageur in earlier days and although one-eyed and somewhat myopic as a result was a well-liked and cheerful fellow who could sing as well as he cooked. Over his lost eye he wore a bandana angled across his head, to keep out the flies so he claimed, and above that he favored a tasseled woolen cap on his curly black hair. Around his middle he wore a cloth cummerbund that supported a pistol and skinning knife. Tucked into it was a loose white shirt with sleeves rolled up to expose black Omaha Indian tattoos which ran from elbow to wrist. On his round, open face was a constant look of innocence and above his upper lip he wore a spiked moustache that he waxed with daily vanity.
Normally he was a man of an easygoing nature who took intense interest in the food he prepared for the troop. His responsibilities extended only so far as the fundamentals such as the bread making and soup whilst the various messes trapped and filled their own pots with meat. Allumette though, would be called on to cook for special occasions and this was where his culinary skills shone to perfection. His preparation of wild turkey with chokeberry stuffing was memorable and for this he was given all deference, for, as Gringo knew, there is nothing like a mountain man
’s stomach to guide him in true respect.
But it was for his skill with horses that Gringo wanted him. The man had a natural ability to communicate with the beasts and it had been truly strange for Gringo to note the way the company’s ponies affectionately congregated around the little man as if he were some beacon of light to the equine world.
“Allumette,” said Gringo. “We have a job to do.”
“Ah, yes, that is as maybe,” said the Frenchman, not wanting to be interrupted. “But I have the soup here at a critical point.”
“The soup must wait. Collect your things, we go Indian hunting.”
“Oho,” sighed Allumette, without expression. “the Apache. It is for the child, I think.”
“You know then. Word travels fast in this camp. A pack animal, Allumette. Loaded and ready for travel. Pick the most sturdy.”
“How many days?” asked the chef.
Gringo shrugged. “As long as it takes to get her back.”
“Oh! I see,” grinned Allumette, who was sometimes given to an oblique and unnecessary philosophical turn of introspection. “It is an open ended encounter then, an obscure mission with a definite goal but no prospective end in sight. But, I do foresee there may be fatal endings for some unfortunates along the way, don’t you think?”
“Exactly,” agreed Gringo, even though he was not quite sure what the man was talking about.
Judas James was reading a small leather bound book and sucking on a clay pipe when Gringo found him. He sat in a shadowed corner off to one side of his messmates, the book angled to catch the firelight. He was a bearded, tall, broad shouldered man, massively built with long tangled hair and a haunted look about him, as if a darkness had taken residence in his soul and was not about to depart without a fight.
He glanced up as Gringo approached and the scout noticed that his eyes were a piercing blue, the color of ice water. They glowed with an almost ghostly light in the shadowed face.
