A Devil’s bargain. Brokenleg stared into the flame, dizzy. A confession and some supporting documents. Enough to rescue the company — maybe. If the post on the Yellowstone remained. And his men were alive and trading.
“I oughta go on up there and have a look,” he muttered.
“No time, no time. Dose papers, you don’t get dem later. You come to do business tonight. I been waiting for weeks for dat. You do business tonight, or no business never.”
“Al right, Raffin. You git Dust Devil,” he said.
* * *
The one who spoke English smiled faintly at the sight of the engages sipping spirits. He surveyed the shelves of the trading room, finding them stacked with untraded merchandise. He wandered into the warehouse, discovering crates and barrels containing more trade goods along with a pile of robes, most of them baled. His two colleagues trailed along, plus Maxim. He walked into the yard and studied that, his gaze halting at the half-destroyed shed being used for firewood; at the gaunt, desperate horses with their heads hanging; at the well-pit with round cobbles rather than water at its bottom.
He turned to Maxim. “The men are having a final drink.”
“Yes. Some will leave. But I’m not surrendering. All this belongs to my family and our partners.”
The headman laughed softly. “Then you will die.”
“Maybe not. If your friend Julius Hervey wanted you to take the post by force and kill us, you would have done it long ago. But that would anger the grandfathers.”
The headman shrugged. “Maybe you will die of thirst or cold first.”
“Maybe. Maybe Brokenleg Fitzhugh will return with the Cheyenne first and drive you away.”
The headman shook his head. “No. Your men would stay and wait. But they are leaving. Only you will stay.”
They wandered back into the trading room where the engages sipped silently. Maxim turned to his guests. “I don’t know your names,” he said.
“I am in your tongue, Big Robber, chief of the Absarokas.”
It startled Maxim. Big Robber was a great chief of the Crows. The man before him looked formidable, a giant built of slabs of muscular flesh. He was a legendary chief who knew numerous white men. He had been friendly to them all, and a steady, thoughtful leader. It heartened Maxim slightly.
“This is Whistling Deer, head man of the Kit Fox Society, and Badger, a sacred man of our people.”
“I am Maxim Straus.”
“We know that.”
“Would you care for some spirits?”
“Surrender first, young one, and then we will have spirits.”
“Where’s Hervey?”
“He awaits word.”
He’s not here then, Maxim thought. “Samson, a gill for these friends if you please.”
“No, we will wait,” said Big Robber. “When you go away we will have a party.”
“I am not going — and I have a whole cask for your village.” He nodded to Trudeau, who vanished into the storeroom and returned hefting a heavy cask. Without being bidden to, Trudeau screwed a brass bung faucet into it while Big Robber watched, frowning.
“Not now,” said Big Robber peremptorily.
Samson Trudeau glanced at Maxim, who nodded slightly. The chief trader hefted the cask again and carried it past the three Crows and out the door. Big Robber watched Trudeau walk across the brilliant white flat, a thundercloud building in his face, but he did not prevent it. The other headmen watched sharply, saying nothing. Out at the edge of the village blanketed people flooded out to Trudeau. He set the cask into the snow, made some sign talk, and then walked slowly back, unmolested. At the village, people scattered toward the lodges to grab cups or drinking horns.
“It’s not cut. The little cask will make a grand party for your village, said Maxim, the Devil prompting him again.
Courvet handed each of the headmen a tin cup brimming with slightly cut spirits. They accepted. Big Robber grimaced slightly, a man tempted against his better judgment. Crow chiefs had always resisted the white man’s vice.
“It makes no difference,” he said at last. “You will surrender anyway.”
Out at the village a mob collected around the keg and some warrior splashed the spirits into cups. Women elbowed their way ahead of the men, and many got to the spirits first. One warrior guzzled, cried, and spat, dancing around, clutching at his throat. Whoops and howls echoed across the flats.
Swiftly the afternoon mellowed. The three Crow leaders sat down beside the engages and sipped. Big Robber told bawdy stories — the Crow were famous for them — translated, and enjoyed himself. Outside, Crows gathered into knots to talk and joke. Wintry air didn’t prevent them from having a party.
Maxim eyed them all soberly, pushing aside thoughts he didn’t want to think. At last he nodded to Trudeau, who had stopped sipping, and they gathered buckets and headed for the river. No one stopped them but many eyes watched. They replenished the water casks in the post, led the two desperate horses out to water and then let them graze on picket lines. They grabbed axes and cut firewood and hauled armloads of it into the post.
The pair labored steadily for two hours gathering water and firewood and then cottonwood bark as fodder for the starved horses. Several times grinning warriors approached, cup in hand, their faces friendly. But Maxim never slowed down; he was driven by some terrible force within himself to do what he could before the siege lowered over the post again.
“I think they are out of spirits,” said Samson. Off at the village some men had lifted the cask and tilted it to extract the last drop.
Without a word Maxim and Samson returned to the post, hefted another cask of two hundred proof spirits, and carried it out to the village. Happy crowds swarmed around them, laughing and pointing. They set it down beside the empty cask, drilled the bung faucet into it, and presented it to the Crows, who cheered. If Maxim could have spoken the tongue, he’d have made a speech.
“Bring the old cask,” he said to Trudeau. “We’ll fill it at the river.”
Together they filled the cask with water and hefted it into the post. Hunger weakened him but he ignored it. The sun shone over Fitzhugh’s Post for the smallest moment and he had much to do. He didn’t know how this would end: he only knew what he had to do.
The coy January sun was already sliding toward its hiding place when an old Crow woman approached the trading window carrying a split robe. She smiled and pushed it across. Within, the chiefs and engages watched cheerfully.
“She makes a trade,” said Big Robber. “Our friends will treat her good. Give much.”
Trudeau spotted it and dashed in. He examined the worn robe, which wasn’t worth much. Maxim watched, sudden hope swelling in him. “Give her a lot,” he whispered.
Trudeau gave the seamed old woman her heart’s desire: a yard of red trade cloth, a knife, and yellow ribbon. She beamed at him and at her chiefs, and limped off clutching her booty.
That’s when trading started in earnest. Maxim, almost speechless, found himself recording transactions in the ledger while Trudeau pulled good robes proffered by laughing Crows, mostly women, across the counter and pushed trade goods out the window.
“You make bigger than Fort Cass,” said Big Robber. “Now we are friends.”
Some shrewd young Crows began shoving meat across the window — even a rear quarter of an elk. Trudeau surrendered sixty loads for it. It took three unsteady engages to drag it out to the yard and hang it.
The trading — along with a lot of whooping and howling — lasted deep into the evening, done by lantern light. And when at last Trudeau and Maxim closed the trading window half the engages were asleep, along with Big Robber, Whistling Deer, and Badger. A hundred fifty-seven new robes lay in the warehouse — costly robes when the price of two precious barrels of spirits were added in. But cheap, all in all — considering what had happened. No engage had left or showed any sign of wanting to go. The post had a month’s supply of frozen meat hanging. Water brimmed from every
container.
Maxim gathered his horses and brought them in after a day of grazing. No Crow had molested them. Then, as the post quieted, and the hilarious village slid into sleep, he walked out into the yard and peered up at cold glaring stars, the eyes of God. And there, in the icy blackness, he let the thing he’d pushed aside all that strange day slide into his mind. He wept with a bitterness he’d never experienced in his young life. The Devil had won.
Twenty-Eight
* * *
Fitzhugh wanted a drink. He told himself if he didn’t have a drink first he couldn’t do it. But he had to do it, and there wasn’t a drop in the village. He’d crawled into One Leg Eagle’s lodge last night feeling like a burglar, but no one had noticed. He hadn’t slept much either in spite of all the spirits he’d downed in Raffin’s dubious company.
One thing haunted him: was it worth it? Ditching Dust Devil to save the company? Maybe save the company. Maybe those papers wouldn’t change the Indian Bureau’s mind. Maybe the Indian Bureau had been bought by Pierre Chouteau — who seemed to own everything else. Maybe that confession of Raffin’s was no confession at all. Maybe the hand wouldn’t match the hand on Captain Sire’s cargo manifest. Maybe those weren’t Chouteau’s private notes. Maybe Raffin was gulling him, toying with him . . . But as he lay in the midnight dark of the lodge, he knew Raffin’s papers were good. Raffin wanted Dust Devil badly enough to do it. And he still had some sort of future in the southwest, far away from the dominions of Chouteau and Company.
He didn’t even know how to do it. Divorce Indian-style was easy and common. All they did was pitch their spouse’s truck out of the lodge. That was the signal. No quarrels, no miserable harangues — usually — and no guilt. Even the Cheyenne, more puritanical than other tribes, didn’t take marriage as seriously as white men. Lots of women in this very village had been married to several husbands. And those husbands had traded them to others. And a lot of marriages were plural. White Wolf himself had three wives.
Brokenleg knew he had to do it somehow. And he knew Dust Devil would come clawing at him when he told her. He had to tell her. He couldn’t just pitch her stuff out of her parents’ lodge. It wasn’t his lodge and, anyway, her stuff was all mixed up with that of her sisters. And he somehow had to lead her over to Raffin and give her to him. Not until he did would Raffin hand over those papers.
His head ached. He spotted wintry stars through the smokehole and wished for spring. He wished for any time but tomorrow. Maybe it was all for nothing. Maybe he didn’t have a post up there on the Yellowstone. Maybe it was a burnt-out hulk. Raffin’s news had chilled him. All his men, Maxim, scattered or dead; all the trade goods and robes and furnishings in Julius Hervey’s hands. Why didn’t he just tell Raffin to go to hell?
He sighed, wide awake.
“Why don’t you sleep?” whispered Dust Devil.
“Leave me alone,” he muttered.
He thrashed and pummeled his robes. His leg hurt again and the hard ground rose up and smote him. “You’re keeping us awake!” she hissed.
He clambered up, found his beaver-skin cap and a robe, and crawled through the door into the night. A new moon made the snow glow slightly. He caught the scent of sour cottonwood smoke ebbing through the village. Not the slightest breeze drilled the cold air into him.
He pulled the robe tight around him. He wore it skin out, hair in, but it didn’t keep winter at bay very well. He had as much winter inside of himself as outside, and found himself wishing for summer. The heavens opened up to him and he sensed the distances above him. He wished he could be up there somewhere, peering down on all this, getting some perspective. From up there everything must look like the crawling of ants, and was even less important, he thought. What did he want? To rescue his partners, Jamie Dance and Guy Straus, and get rich trading for robes — or Little Whirlwind? She of the apricot flesh and scornful eye and Suhtai heart?
He reproached her in his heart. She hadn’t been much of a wife. She’d scorned him, mocked him, and insulted white men and other tribesmen from the start. She’d humbled him, demanded slaves and riches and he didn’t know what-all, nagging all the while. And hardly a tender moment between them. She’d told him he wasn’t half the man that any Tsistsista warrior was. She’d told him to count coup and make war — that’s what she wanted for a man.
“I’ll by god get shut of her,” he growled into the silence. “She was no damn good. I’ve got me three more, sweeter’n her, and not mean and clawin’ at my soul all the time. Even her pa and ma get mad at her for disdainin’ everyone and bein’ mean.”
But even as he said it, love clawed at him just as hard. That beautiful tempest of a woman was alive in every fiber, brimming with passion and joy and anger; seething with feeling, her life a rhapsody of being and doing.
“Ah, hell, they trade wives all the time. It don’t mean nothin’,” he grumbled. He knew he’d have no trouble with her family. It would be his perfect right to give her to Raffin. He wouldn’t have any trouble with anyone else, either. Most of the Creoles he knew made a “country marriage” as they called it, kept the Indian girls until they got tired of them, lodge-poled them and got another. No one would rebuke him — except himself.
“You’re mad at me,” said Dust Devil, startling him. She emerged from the darkness wearing her scarlet capote with the hood up, bewitching even in a bitter winter night. She was fully dressed, in her calf-high rabbit-trimmed winter moccasins and fringed doeskin shirt.
“Yeah I am,” he snarled.
“I can tell.”
“I’m divorcin’ you. Splittin’ the blankets.” She absorbed that a moment, then growled, some odd muttering down at the bottom of her throat, half laughter and half anger.
“Me and all my sisters?”
“Jist you.”
“You like them better than me.” It was a statement.
“They aren’t so proud.”
She laughed softly again, but it sounded odd, as if it really was a snarl. “You’re too smelly anyway. Tsistsista wash every day — even now.”
That relieved him. If she’d sobbed and begged to stay with him, his soul would have shattered like glass. He peered about him — how could he be doing this? Saying these things? He could stop — he could retreat. They hadn’t tumbled over the cliff — not yet.
“You takin’ it bad?”
She hissed. That’s all she did. He’d turned her into an enemy with a few words.
“I’m givin’ you to Raffin,” he snapped. But the words choked out.
She registered that a moment. “I am not free?”
“Naw.”
“I cannot go to a Tsistsista man now?”
“I told you. I’m givin’ you to Raul Raffin. He always wanted you from the time you were fourteen.”
“Maybe I don’t want him.”
“You’re Cheyenne. It ain’t yours to say.”
She hissed again and it sounded like river ice scraping against itself. “He has wounded eyes,” she muttered. “He looks like an elk that’s dying.”
“Well, he’s got you.”
She squinted at him in the dark. He saw that lovely flatplaned face framed by the red hood. Her eyes studied him, gleaning more understanding from the way he stood and gestured and grimaced than from his words. “He give you something for me,” she said. “Maybe the talking signs that tell the grandfathers about who put the spirits on the boat. Yes?”
“Yes. He’ll gimme that for you.”
“Ah! Like a bride price. Better than many horses and guns and blankets before your lodge! It’s a big gift, these papers. More than you gave my father for me!”
“Lots more. Raffin, he can’t work for Chouteau no more.”
“Is this the biggest gift any white man ever give for a woman?”
“Mebbeso. I don’t know.”
“Am I worth a lot of money?”
“Yeah. You’re worth mebbe fifty thousand dollars.”
“How much is that?”
“Ahhhhh!” Then she looked crestfallen. “But he takes me from here. Yes?”
“I don’t know. That’s up to him. He said maybe he’d go on down to the Bent’s Fort area — away from Chouteau.”
“Bent’s Fort? Ah. Charles Bent will be there with Owl Woman?”
“Her and all the southern Cheyenne, in and out o’ there all the time.”
“They have the four sacred arrows,” she said. “But not many Suhtai. Mostly Omissis.”
“Guess you’ll have to look down your nose at them, too.”
She smiled. “I like this. We will go to Raffin now? I like him better than you anyway.”
Suddenly it was reversed. He wanted to cry out to her, tell her he loved her, tell her she had been his princess — but he bit it off. Let’s go git him up. Git it over with,” he muttered, stunned by loss.
* * *
The lodge had chilled but One Leg Eagle scarcely seemed to notice. He sat before the dying coals, lost in another world. He had fed sweet grass to the waning fire and then dried sage leaves carefully hoarded from summer. Little Whirlwind had thrust herself into the pungent smoke until it clung to her and permeated her scarlet capote.
She sat across from him, waiting patiently. Her mother and sisters had discreetly vanished. Brokenleg had gone to check on his horses. She pulled her capote tighter to ward off the chill, and waited for her father to make his medicine. Was he not the greatest shaman of the Suhtai, and keeper of the Medicine Hat? She trusted him utterly.
Cheyenne Winter Page 29
