“There’s one thing, Maxim. I am many years in the mountains and this I know. Indians don’t like sieges. They’re impatient. They love another kind of war — swift attack and ambush on horses. But they are not made for this, non. Maybe tomorrow they will pack up and leave.”
Maxim laughed bitterly, and yet Samson had given him a thread of hope. “Let’s try, Samson. Fitzhugh would try. We can tear down that shed for firewood. We can slaughter the mule for meat. And we can start on a well — if we can chop through the frozen ground.”
A wry twist of a smile built on Trudeau’s lips. “All because we hope to wear them out. Very well, young Monsieur Straus. We will do this.”
That gray morning, under Samson’s direction cold-numbed engages began chopping down the commodious shed in the yard, where harness and saddles and prairie hay and cottonwood fodder had been kept. It had a sod roof over logs, and would give them a lot of heat. Jeannot Provost and Gaspard Larue slaughtered the bleating mule, letting its hot blood gout from its throat. The engages watched hungrily. The rest tackled the new well. Lebrun and Grevy hacked at the frozen clay with axes and discovered the frost went down only a foot. The rest found shovels and spuds and began loosening and pulverizing the resisting clay. It gave them something to do and they became cheerful.
“We dig a grave for us all, oui?” joked Bercier.
Gallows humor.
Several times they spotted Crow warriors peering at them through the chinks in the stockade. Maxim clambered up to the shed roof where he could see out, and found the Crow camp in some sort of excitement, blanket-clad warriors eyeing the post. Some of them hastened north — to tell Hervey of these things: engages digging a well; a mule being cut into usable pieces before it froze solid; smoke from the post chimney.
They toiled all that brutal day, driving the six-foot diameter well down four feet, hoisting out rock and clay, and hammering one boulder to pieces. They devoured stringy mule meat as fast as it could be boiled and softened, and eyed the remaining horses expectantly. Night fell along with the temperatures, but still they hacked and chopped and snatched pitiful bits of icy clay out of the deepening hole. The starving horses nickered and bleated, wanting water and food. The anemic white moon quit them before midnight, and the engages piled angrily under their mountains of buffalo robes, shaking with cold.
At dawn the next morning Julius Hervey sat his dun horse before the post. “Little Straus,” he yelled.
No one had seen Hervey ride in. He was simply there as the day brightened, his breath pluming the hazy dawn. Maxim peered through a crack: Hervey waited alone. His Crow allies stayed well back — out of rifle range.
Maxim opened the door a bit, saying nothing. His scattergun felt comfortable in the crook of his arm.
“Ah, little Straus. You can leave safely, you know. On down the river.”
Maxim shook his head.
“You’ll die, little Straus.”
“And you’ll be out of American Fur — the scandal will be too much.”
“Where’s St. Louis did you say?”
“Then we’ll die.” Maxim didn’t feel like dying but he said it because Fitzhugh would say it.
“The Kicked-in-the-Bellies are great friends of mine, little Straus. They know where to trade.”
“I’m through talking,” Maxim said. Some fiery impulse flooded him. He lifted the fowling piece, aimed it, and squeezed the icy trigger. The explosion rocked the piece into his shoulder. Buckshot hit the dun, which screeched and began bucking. Hervey flew off, catapulted slowly to the frozen earth, bounced, tumbled, and lay still.
Maxim stared, shocked at his own act. Had he murdered a man?
Slowly, Hervey sat up, shaking his head, recovering his wind. The horse sagged to earth, its lifeblood spilling from a dozen holes in its chest and withers.
Julius Hervey stood, shakily, and the wild look in his eye terrorized Maxim.
“You’re dead little Straus,” was all he said.
Maxim slammed the post door, just as several lead balls from Hervey’s pepperbox smacked into it.
Twenty-Four
* * *
Something bright and predatory kindled in Raul Raffin’s eyes. Little Whirlwind noticed it as she settled herself in the woman’s place and undid her red capote. The heat felt delicious. Chief White Wolf waited patiently for her to settle herself. Unlike white men the People were never in a hurry.
“Our daughter of the village has returned to us,” he said at last. “Is your man with you?”
“He’s coming. I saw the village from the bluffs and put heels to my pony.”
“Is he alone, Little Whirlwind?”
She knew the question contained a lot of questions. “No, my chief. He brings his wives, my sisters, and a whole trading outfit — many pack loads — and two other white men to help.”
Raffin listened with bright curiosity and she saw something like triumph flare in his eyes, which left her uneasy. He’d said nothing and yet his eyes had spoken to her already: they roved over her face and figure, caressing her, possessing her. And they revealed amusement, too. She hadn’t liked him winters ago when he and Brokenleg both courted her, she liked him less now.
“They are coming, then. I’ll summon the wolves to help them.” He rose slowly and walked around the sacred altar and the central fire, which billowed smoke in his wake. He vanished into the twilight and she knew he would send the village police, the dog soldiers, out to escort Brokenleg.
“Ah, Little Whirlwind,” said Raffin. “I’ve waited for this moment.” He spoke in accented Cheyenne.
“You’ll have to keep on waiting.”
He laughed. “I will have you,” he said. “Stiffleg never was a match.”
She formed a sharp retort but White Wolf clambered through the oval entry and closed the door flap behind him. He settled against his reed backrest in the place reserved for him exactly opposite the lodge door. His rheumy eyes peered at each of them, as if he’d sensed that an exchange had occurred in his absence.
“My daughter, I will hold you only a moment. You are eager to fly to the lodge of One Leg Eagle and Antelope. They will welcome you with joy. Our village rejoices that you and the Badleg have come . . . ” He nodded toward the white man sitting in the place of honor. “You know this one, I am sure. We have welcomed him here many winters.”
“I do.”
“Tell me, will the Badleg and his men need a lodge?”
“I think they do, my chief. They have two little cloth tents that have no warmth in them.”
“It will be done, then. The widow, Makes the Doe Come, has a great warm lodge. I will invite her to stay here. She’ll be happy to have someone to talk to. My wives will make good company.”
“The white men will be grateful, my chief. They are called Abner Spoon and Zachary Constable.”
Raffin laughed shortly.
White Wolf turned to Raffin. “You know these men?”
“Ah, oui,” Raffin said, lapsing into French. “In the mountains.”
The chief said nothing for a moment, as was the way of the Tsistsista. Then he addressed Little Whirlwind. “Monsieur Raffin has heard that you and Badleg were coming to winter with us. He came this very day to tell me that those he is with, American Fur, will bring a trading outfit of their own to our village. He tells me they will offer us twice as much for a robe as Badleg. No matter what Badleg offers — they will double it. And the price of their trade goods will be exactly Badleg’s price. This he told me before Sun vanished. And I told him, yes, that is tempting and my People would benefit — for a winter. But it would but Badleg out of the trading business. And then American Fur would have no rivals and would make its prices high again. I told him that, and I also said that Badleg is an adopted son of this village, one of our People by ceremony.”
Raffin followed all that, the gleam never leaving his restless eyes. “I Know when I am defeated,” he said, but the way he said it made her wonder. A foreboding filled her. Would B
rokenleg trade all winter only to lose his robes and horses again — to that scheming treacherous Raffin?
“You took our robes and horses from us before,” she said. White Wolf raised his hand. “We will not hear such things,” he said sharply.
“The Arapaho dogs. He set the Arapaho on us.”
“Little Whirlwind. You have not lost your contempt of other Peoples,” said White Wolf. “Go now to visit your own lodge. I hear the People stirring anyway.”
Dismissed. She pulled her capote back on and crawled into the winter night just as her man and the long string of laden pack animals wended through the village, illumined by the amber glow of the warm lodges. Something joyous welled up in her. All her dreams had become real. Here she was in her own village, and here was her man bringing treasures to the People — fine rifles, blankets, axes, kettles, awls . . . everything the People could want for their comfort and safety. She looked for her sisters and didn’t see them. They’d gone to the lodge of her parents.
Brokenleg steered the great procession of horses straight toward the chief ’s lodge for the welcoming, even as blanket-clad Tsistsista People poured from the warm lodges to see this great even. “Hyar, Dust Devil,” he called, cheerily as he reined up. Breath plumed from his mouth and the horse’s nostrils in the deepening cold. She gathered her own pony and held its reins, postponing the moment when she would greet her parents because everything she was witnessing was so grand, and she was the sits-beside-him woman of this great trader. She felt the envious gaze of all the women in the village upon her.
She turned and discovered White Wolf emerging from the lodge, grasping a thick blanket tightly about him. And Raffin followed. They, too, would not miss such a sight.
Brokenleg staggered to the ground. He could never dismount the way others could because that stiffened leg prevented it. But he landed and stomped as he always did while Spoon and Constable herded the neighing pack animals into the open area before the chief ’s lodge. She caught the sour scent of cottonwood smoke on the air, and the scent of cooking — the meat of Pte, the sacred buffalo. The People hand found many this winter.
“Har, Chief White Wolf. I come. I got me an outfit.” He stopped suddenly, staring at the bearded white man standing beside the chief. “Unless you got other plans,” he added, tersely.
Her man had forgotten to speak in the tongue of the People, but White Wolf didn’t seem to mind.
“Son of the People, you are welcome. We will trade when Sun returns. We all welcome you to our fires. Our daughter of the village tells us that a lodge would be welcome and I have arranged it. If you need another I will arrange it. Winter Man bites at our cheeks and fingers and yours also. Let the People welcome you. Let the sons of the village help you unload your ponies, and the daughters of the village gather firewood and bring you buffalo tongue. Then, when you are settled, and before the horned moon rises, come smoke the sacred pipe and we will talk of things in council, with my headmen.”
“I got me a whole load, chief. Rifles and ball and powder; kettles and axes and knives and blankets . . . ”
“In the morning we will begin,” White Wolf said. He turned to Little Whirlwind. “My daughter, take your man to the lodge of Makes the Doe Come, and bring the widow here.”
She did as she was bid, leading her man down village streets through the concentric circles of glowing lodges, feeling the magic and goodness of this place of the People. The last of the daylight purpled the sky, silhouetting the forest of black lodge-poles above her. Her village was more beautiful in dusk than even the streets of St. Louis, where lanterns cast their amber glow from glassed windows.
A great crowd of the People followed, chattering and whispering and eyeing the packs on the horses, wondering what magic and medicine lay within each. And among them she spotted Raffin, striding wolfishly along, his brown eyes missing nothing. Fitzhugh spotted him, too, and watched coldly, the coldness in his eye something she had rarely seen in him.
They arrived at the lodge of Makes the Doe Come, and the young woman awaited them joyously. Her man had died a great death stealing horses from the Blackfeet dogs, and left her an eighteen-skin lodge and many good things. Soon she would be married, but she chose to grieve for a few moons more.
“I am honored to offer my lodge to the Son of our People,” she murmured shyly.
Fitzhugh thanked her and immediately presented her with some gifts — an awl and a knife and some red ribbon he’d stuck in his elk-skin coat. Then the widow, carrying a small bundle, hastened off to the comfort of the lodge of her chief.
Magically, many hands slid the heavy packs off horses and mules and led them off to the village herd where they’d make a good living gnawing at cottonwood brush and pawing up grass from under the thin shell of snow. Smiling women brought cooked tongue, the smell of it dizzy on the frosty air. Others carried whole bundles of good dry squaw wood. Pretty girls wrapped in blankets smiled at Spoon and Constable, and Little Whirlwind wished she could flirt, too. Maybe she would. Maybe she’d flirt with Raffin a little, just to make Brokenleg more ardent in the robes. She laughed softly.
“Hyar now, it beats Fitzhugh’s Post,” said Abner Spoon.
“I ain’t used to gittin’ waited on hand and foot,” said Zach.
A mountain of loaded packs rose before the lodge but she didn’t worry about their safety. Not the smallest thing belonging to a guest of the village was ever taken . . . But she saw Raffin studying that heap; the brightness of his eyes, and she worried.
She tugged at her man’s sleeve. “I think you should put the packs inside — if they’ll fit,” she said. He paused, seeing the solemnity of her face and the reason for it standing nearby, grinning.
He pulled loose of her and limped on over to Raffin until he stood before the Creole. The excited crowd quieted. “Raffin,” Brokenleg said in English. “This time, we’re going to settle some business.”
“No!” cried Little Whirlwind.
Her man turned to her, puzzled by her sharpness, and then she saw understanding in his eyes. He had not yet smoked the pipe with Chief White Wolf. He could not get into a murderous fight, or even some shouting, without disturbing the peace of this village. It would scandalize the Tsistsista and they might not trade with him.
Not now. Some other time.
He turned to Raffin. “We’ll settle it. You and me, we’re going to settle some scores. You’re workin’ for Chouteau, tryin’ to bust up my business. You put them ’Rapaho on me last summer. You came up on The Trapper a ways. Long enough to slide them kegs into our goods and food with Sire’s manifest. Lots o’ passengers then, lower river. Easy to keep outa my sight. You’re workin’ direct for Cadet, maybe Hervey, and the rest of them out at the posts don’t know nothin’. But I’m tellin’ you, Raffin. You ain’t workin’ any more. You touch this outfit and I’ll come after you. And so will these folk that want to trade. You touch our robes and I’ll come after you. You touch Little Whirlwind and you won’t live to tell it in the grog shops at St. Louis. I can’t make you leave this hyar village — it ain’t mine to make you. But I’ll be watchin’ and waitin’.”
“Ah, sad things happen, do they not, Stiffleg? You get caught with spirits and blame me! The Arapaho strike, and you blame me! Sad things. Maybe you’ll lose your whole outfit here — and blame me! Or your wife — and blame me!” Raffin laughed suddenly, a raucous, defiant laughter that announced that it was all a grand joke.
The people of the village could not follow the English but Little Whirlwind knew they understood most of it anyway, and she worried about the scandal. And Raffin’s threats. She wondered whether her man, or Raffin, would leave her village alive.
* * *
Raul Raffin floated around the trading lodge like a gray owl, missing nothing. Brokenleg wondered how the man could endure the cold. He had the feeling Raffin recorded each transaction, as if his brain was the company ledger. But Brokenleg didn’t have time to worry it. The trade went better than he had imagined and
he didn’t have a spare moment. The Cheyenne had an endless supply of robes and were hauling away everything he’d brought.
Patiently they queued to enter the trading lodge, bringing soft-tanned buffalo robes with them and leaving with Leman rifles, powder and shot, fine Witney blankets, knives, kettles, hatchets, or yards of trade cloth.
There wasn’t room in the lodge for the three tons of trade goods brought from Fitzhugh’s Post plus the growing pile of traded robes, plus a small display area, and room for Spoon and Constable to live, and room for one Cheyenne at a time to squat near the door and bargain. Brokenleg pitched his little tents and stored traded robes in them. He left the parfleches full of trade goods outside. But when a snowstorm dumped a foot and a half of soft powder on the village and the following chinook turned everything around his lodge into a mire, he knew he would need more shelter.
He traded a Leman rifle and sixty loads to a young widower for a good lodge, seventeen hides, and pitched it beside his trading lodge. After that he had room not only for the parfleches and panniers he’d packed, but for some robes which he stowed in a great circle inside, back from the smoke hole above. The new lodge had cost plenty — the rifle and loads had been worth twenty-five robes or so — but he had the warehouse he needed and room to trade and display goods in the other lodge.
December slid by, and with it Christmas. But he’d plumb forgotten about Christmas, and all that seemed strange to him anyway, like some distant echo from a forgotten past. They entered what these people called Ok sey e shi his, Hoop and Stick Game Moon, or January. They called February the Big Hoop and Stick Game Moon, and he didn’t know why. But he knew it’d turned bitter cold. Arctic aid eddied out of the north, biting the cheeks and fingers of anyone who dared step outside. Trading slowed. It was better to huddle around the lodge fires.
Still, the mountain of pungent robes grew in his warehouse lodge, and his trading outfit dwindled. He eyed the dark piles of robes and wondered whether his pack animals could carry them all back, or whether he’d have to rig travois. And he worried about Raffin. The man hung around the trading lodge, boldly watching, counting, poking his head into the warehouse lodge, and laughing every time Fitzhugh caught him. Raffin was waiting for something; waiting for trading to end. Waiting to pounce when Fitzhugh left the village with all his robes.
Cheyenne Winter Page 25
