Pike leaned forward to ease some of the weight from his skinny buttocks, and the bay snorted and danced to one side, skittish under the added burden of a young white-tail draped behind the saddle. Pike had shot the buck that morning, after spooking it from a little strip of trees within the hills.
“They’re stopping early today,” he said, jutting his chin toward the camp.
“It is best that we camp here, where the grass is good and the country open,” Gabriel replied. “There is no other place for so many bois brûles between here and the prairies.”
Pike’s gaze ran north along the line of brown hills. The broad coulées and narrow valleys fingering down from the hills were tinted scarlet with autumn scrub, and the sky was patchy with small, high-floating clouds. The breeze blew crisp and clean from the west. He glanced over his shoulder to the draw that wound into the hills behind them, the broken ground flanking it. Quietly Gabriel said: “I feel it, too. We are not alone.”
“Sioux?”
Gabriel shook his head but didn’t look around. “I don’t think so.” He was watching his horse, waiting for some sign that they were being stalked. Yet the stocky gelding seemed unconcerned as he stretched his neck for another bite of grass. Pulling the black’s head up, Gabriel said: “They are not near.”
“They’re near enough,” Pike replied brusquely. He swung a leg over his saddle horn and dropped to the ground, then moved back along his horse as if to check the bindings holding the deer in place. Under the broad brim of his hat his eyes strayed up the draw, then rose slowly from there to travel the hills to the south. Nothing stirred that couldn’t be accounted for by the wind, but the feeling of being watched remained strong.
“Maybe Sioux,” Gabriel said uncertainly.
“Or Chippewas.”
“Or bois brûle hunters,” the boy added dourly. “It would make a good story for someone to tell at the fire tonight.”
A red-winged blackbird took flight from a clump of bushes about seventy-five yards away. With a curse, Pike yanked the bay around until it stood broadside to the coulée, then slid his rifle across the saddle. He thumbed the cock back to full even as he snugged the butt to his shoulder. Several yards away, Gabriel did the same. Then they stood silently, waiting tensely until laughter followed the blackbird out of the brush, and a voice called: “Do not shoot, Gabriel! You would not sleep well tonight if you killed a friend.”
“Sacre,” Gabriel muttered, then raised his voice. “Maybe Lizette would comfort me and help me to sleep.”
More laughter tumbled from the thicket, and the voice replied: “This is true, my young friend, if it is truly sleep that you crave.”
Pike swore and lowered the cock to half notch.
“It is Charles Hallet,” Gabriel said. “He and Baptiste LaBarge escorted Father Denning back to Paget’s caravan.”
Pike saw movement among the bushes. A second later, Hallet scooted free and stood up. He laughed again as he brushed the dust and twigs from his clothing. Baptiste LaBarge appeared from behind a shoulder of the ridge one hundred yards beyond him, leading Hallet’s pony behind his own. His face was split by a broad grin.
“Funny, eh?” Gabriel called.
“Could have been,” LaBarge acknowledged.
Hallet climbed up the side of the draw to meet LaBarge, and the two of them rode forward together. “We must be getting old, Baptiste,” Hallet noted as they drew near. “Once I would have been able to slip up on this one and tip him out of his saddle before he knew I was there.”
“Older and slower,” LaBarge agreed. “While the young ones grow quicker and sharper.” He eyed the deer behind Pike’s saddle and nodded approvingly. “A fine buck, Mister Pike. This meat will be welcomed.”
Pike ignored the compliment, glowering at Hallet. “Been more than one man to go under to that kind of foolishness,” he said shortly.
“Oui,” LaBarge agreed. “I told him that myself, but he does not always listen to my wisdom.”
“Well, sometimes I do, Baptiste, if there is not too much hot wind blowing off the prairie to confuse me,” Hallet replied soberly.
“We were beginning to wonder if you two had become lost,” Gabriel said.
“No, not lost,” LaBarge said. “The Pembina hunters were already past Charlo’s cabin before we caught up with them.”
“They did not stop at Saint Joseph?”
Hallet shook his head. “I’m afraid not, Gabriel. They camped that first night at Bear Springs, instead, well inside the Hair Hills.”
“Then the Ridge Trail is theirs?”
“So it would seem, but going farther onto the prairies won’t be so bad. Too many people use the Ridge Trail, anyway, and the game there is about shot out. I’d prefer the prairies myself.”
“It is slower, though,” Gabriel said. “Timber is scarce and the coulées are not already cut down for our carts to pass.”
“Ho, listen to this one!” LaBarge exclaimed. “Who is in such a hurry, eh? What is there to go home to except a long winter?”
“Better to be home in winter than a month on the prairie yet,” Gabriel replied.
“That’s true,” Hallet conceded. “But it isn’t for us to decide. We’ll hold a council tonight and vote on a route.”
“Oui.” LaBarge looked at Pike. “A vote, eh, mon ami des montagnes?”
“That’s not for me to say. I just hunt for McTavish.”
“Then you’re a hunter,” Hallet replied solemnly. “You shall have a hunter’s vote.”
“Oui. It is fair,” LaBarge agreed. “A hunter must have a hunter’s voice.”
Pike shrugged stiffly, still unable to let go of the anger he felt toward Hallet. He knew he was too edgy, but he couldn’t seem to help it. It hadn’t always been this way. He could remember a time when he might have tried the same trick himself, but that person was gone, and Pike didn’t know if he would ever come back.
LaBarge kicked his horse forward, forcing it past Gabriel and Pike. “Good,” he said, espying the camp far below. “Maybe my old woman will have meat on the fire. I am hungry.” He started down the steep slope at an angle, his horse tucking its butt low to the ground for balance, but Hallet held back. “Ride with us,” he offered.
“Not yet,” Gabriel said. “We will go a little farther to see what else the brush hides.”
Hallet nodded, glanced at Pike, then looked back at Gabriel.
“It’s good that you knew I was there,” he said seriously. “Maybe next time it won’t be a bois brûle.” Reining his pony around, he started after LaBarge.
* * * * *
It was twilight when Pike and Gabriel returned to the Métis camp. Pike dropped his saddle beside one of McTavish’s meat carts, then leaned his rifle against the wheel. The bay, already staked out on its picket rope, tore hungrily at the short, dry grass. From the Hair Hills, coyotes yammered and yipped, garnering a response from a pack of dogs on the other side of the cordon.
Unsheathing his knife, Pike squatted next to the white-tailed buck, but, before he could make his first cut, McTavish emerged from the shadows. A look of pleasure crossed his face when he saw the deer.
“Well done, Mister Pike,” he said, halting across from the carcass and lifting its hip with his toe. “Small, but winter sleek. He’ll be well received by the young ones.”
Pike looked up incredulously. “You intend to share this?”
“Aye, with ye leave, I do. ’Tis the only meat brought in today, and the wee ones aren’t as used to empty bellies as those of us who have gone hungry before. Charlo’s moose is naught but a memory now, though there’s pemmican for the adults and Isabella’s boilin’ up a kettle of rubaboo for after the council.”
Pike shook his head, disgruntled but silent. Standing, he sheathed his knife. “It’s your deer, I reckon, but them that eats it can skin the damned thing for themselves.”
“Aye to that,” McTavish agreed. Swiveling at the waist, he called to the next fire. “Hannah Keller! Would ye be
so kind, lass, as to see to the deer that Mister Pike brought in, and that ’tis shared equally among those that need it most?”
“Oui, Big John.” She came immediately, a big-boned, handsome young woman, carrying a knife and whetstone. A second woman followed, older and stockier, her flesh turned nearly to leather by weather and age.
“Missus Keller, and Missus Quesnelle, have ye met Mister Pike yet, late of the Rocky Mountains?”
Hannah Keller glanced shyly at Pike, nodded quickly, then lowered her eyes. The older woman, Rosanna Quesnelle, held Pike’s gaze.
“Rosanna’s brother is also recently returned from yon mountains,” McTavish continued innocently. “Perhaps ye knew him? Henri Duprée?”
“Never met him,” Pike returned flatly.
“Ah, well, maybe ye will. Henri and another will be huntin’ for Rosanna’s husband this year, as ye hunt for me.”
Slowly Pike pulled his gaze away from Rosanna Quesnelle and let it come to rest on McTavish. “Could be,” he said softly.
“Ce qui sera, sera, eh?” Big John replied inscrutably. Turning to Hannah Keller, he added: “My thanks for ye help, lass. I’ll expect ye to keep the liver for yeself. Will ye do that?”
“Yes, thank you, Big John.” Hannah Keller’s eyes came up and a smile flashed across her face. Then, drawing her knife, she knelt next to the deer. Silently Rosanna stooped to help her.
“Will ye be joinin’ us at the council fire, Mister Pike?”
They were moving away from the women now, leaving behind the quick, scratching sounds of their knives. Pike picked up his rifle as they passed the cart, uneasy without it even here.
“Charles and Baptiste already told ye that Paget’s bunch beat us to the Ridge Trail. We’ll need to decide on a different route now.”
“Seems like the captain of the train ought to make that decision,” Pike said.
“’Twould make things easier, to be sure, but such is not the way of the valley, nor of the bois brûles. Comes bad trouble and a need to act quickly, then René’s word will be law, but not on the larger matters.” He glanced at Pike. “’Tis true democracy I’m speakin’ of, Mister Pike, and there’s not much we won’t be votin’ on. Likely ye’ll be sick of it by the time we get back.”
Pike shrugged indifferently. It didn’t matter to him one way or the other where they went or how they got there, as long as Henri Duprée and François Rubiette were waiting at the end of the trail. “Let’s go see what they want to do,” he said.
* * * * *
The few men who had remained seated now stood. Silence gripped the council. Everyone watched René Turcotte expectantly, but Turcotte refused to be goaded. He stood before the fire, his red tuque looking as dark as kidney’s blood in the flickering firelight. Doubt clouded his features. It was obvious he wasn’t sure what to do, and he stole a furtive glance at McTavish, as if searching for some hint of guidance.
Joseph Breland faced him across the fire. He was a man of medium height, with thick, curly hair that seemed to fly wildly in the slightest breeze whenever it was uncapped. His eyes, green as emeralds, stood out sharply against the dusky hue of his face. Other than for his hair and eyes, Breland was typically Métis, right down to his fiery temper. He was leaning forward now with his fists clenched—frozen, as they all were, by the sudden flare-up of animosity.
It was LaBarge who broke the strained silence. “What does it matter? René captains.”
“René?” Breland scoffed openly, looking at McTavish.
“Oui, Joseph,” LaBarge said. “It was decided.”
Breland let his arms flap out, then down. He was giving in, Pike saw, but not necessarily surrendering.
Jacques Leveille said: “I have crossed the prairie many times alone, or with only a few others. As you have, Joseph.”
“Such travel is the fancy of fools,” Breland replied. “Two men are not enough. Not when the caravans have already started for the plains. We will find their bones on the prairie, quilled like the porcupine’s back with Sioux arrows.” His angry gaze swept the men surrounding Turcotte. “The Sioux know our ways. They will be watching.”
“It would save time,” Turcotte ventured diffidently.
“Time? Who worries about time?” Breland’s eyes returned to McTavish.
Turcotte also glanced at Big John, then quickly away. Pike silently cursed the man’s timidity. It had been Turcotte’s proposal to send a couple of men ahead to scout for the herds, but it was McTavish who argued loudest for it now.
There was a certain logic to the idea, Pike thought, especially considering the caravan’s lumbering pace. And certainly it had been done before. Duprée and Rubiette were out there somewhere now, and Big John and Gabriel had been on a scout when Pike stumbled into their breakfast camp on a dying horse. But Breland wasn’t being an old woman when he argued against it, either. It was one thing for a couple of men to slip quietly onto the Sioux hunting grounds. It would be another for them to leave something as loud and colorful as the half-breeds’ caravan, already penetrating Sioux lands.
Yet for all the arguments about sending out an advance party, Pike knew there was more going on here than a simple difference of opinion. If he had been blind to the politics of the camp before, he was beginning to grasp it now. There was a division here that hinged upon factors other than those of old—Catholic versus Protestant, Hudson’s Bay against the North West Company, the French-speaking Pembina hunters over those of the Tongue River. This was contention closer to home, and, somehow, McTavish was in the middle of it. For a moment or two, Pike began to wonder how, to become genuinely interested. Then Nicolas Quesnelle said—“What of Henri?”—and Pike grew stiff, his fingers tightening on his rifle.
“Oui,” another added. “He is already on the prairie, non?”
“And where would that be?” McTavish asked Nicolas.
“At Lac du Diable,” Quesnelle replied. “He and François Rubiette will wait for us there, after they find le bison.”
“I don’t know your brother-in-law,” Hallet said cautiously, “nor do I wish to insult him. But I don’t think I want to go all the way to Devil’s Lake unless I’m sure the person will be there. What if he has already decided to go on to the American forts on the Missouri River? Or offers to lead Paget to the buffalo, instead of us?”
“He would not do that. He is family.”
“Almost all of us have family among the Pembina hunters,” Hallet said.
“Besides, we have not decided to go to Devil’s Lake,” Breland reminded them.
“What does it matter?” queried a voice from the rear of the crowd. “We always go to Lac du Diable.”
“We do not always do what we always do,” Breland countered. “This year, some of us want to send scouts out ahead to amuse the Sioux, eh, Big John?”
“No, Joseph, to guide us around ’em, and to the herds.”
“But it is always best that we go to Devil’s Lake first,” Noel Pouliot said, and several others murmured agreement.
“Then we will vote on Devil’s Lake,” Turcotte said, grasping for anything now to draw the argument away from the subject of scouts. “All in favor of going to Devil’s Lake first, let it be known.”
Assent rippled through the crowd. Only a few—McTavish, Hallet, Gabriel, and old Charlo among them—remained silent.
“Good,” Turcotte said with obvious relief. “To Devil’s Lake then.” He glanced almost apologetically at McTavish. “Maybe we can consider sending men ahead from there, eh, Big John?”
McTavish shrugged, and his gaze slid to Breland. “Well, then to Clootie’s swimmin’ hole it’ll be. We’ll see if Paget’s hunters have left us wood to burn or game to hunt. Does that suit ye, Joseph?”
Breland shook his head. “It does not matter whether it suits me, Big John. It has been decided fairly, by vote.”
“It is best that we go to Devil’s Lake first, though,” Pouliot muttered, so softly Pike doubted if those to the rear of the crowd even heard h
im. “It is the way we have always done it.” McTavish laughed under his breath and turned away. To a man, the Métis watched him leave, watched his broad shoulders fade into the shadows.
“Sacre,” Leveille whispered. “He worries too much, that one.”
“Big John worries about what is important,” Gabriel said. “In his heart, he is bois brûle.”
“Big John is a good man,” Breland said to Gabriel. “But he is not bois brûle.”
“I don’t know, Joseph, I think maybe he is,” Charlo said, pushing through the crowd to face Breland across the fire. “I think maybe he was Métis a long time before you were, eh?” He looked around at the others. “You remember the Pemmican Wars between Hudson’s Bay and the North West? You remember who defended the mixed-bloods against even old MacGillivray? No? Then I will tell you. It was Big John McTavish.” He turned back to Breland, but continued to speak to all of them. “Have you ever wondered why Big John never factored his own post, Joseph, when we all know he should have? It is because he always sided with us, the children of the land. The Chippewas and Assiniboines and Crees. And, yes, even the Sioux, who he has killed and who have tried to kill him. All are his friends. He has never deserted them, never deserted us. No matter what policy the company adopted, Big John’s heart always remained true to the bois brûle.”
“The North West Company is a long time gone,” Breland reminded the old Indian.
Charlo’s features registered disgust. “Only to the children,” he said contemptuously. “Only to those who would forget the past to benefit their own future.” With a slashing motion of his hand, he turned away, forcing a path through the crowd. Gabriel followed rigidly, looking neither right nor left.
Slowly the others began to break apart as well, drifting back to their fires and their suppers. Only a few remained, gathering around Joseph Breland like bees to pollen, talking in hushed tones.
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