Pike’s brow was furrowed in thought as he left the fractured group. For the first time, it occurred to him that there might be worse storms brewing for the half-breeds than what Old Man Winter had planned for them. Maybe even worse than what the Métis themselves were aware of.
Chapter Nine
It wasn’t until they’d lined out toward Devil’s Lake, still four long days to the south, that Gabriel felt as if they were really on their way. He pointed Baldy across the rolling swells of tall-grass prairie, skirting the occasional mucky slough with its fringe of cat-tails and tough-bladed switch grass. The sun was a borderless bronze globe hanging in the sky, and hot across his shoulders, through the scratchy fabric of his trousers drawn tightly over his thighs. Only a light breeze stirred, and the dust churned up by the grinding wheels of the carts hung like a fog over the caravan.
Big John led today. Turcotte had dropped back to the rear of the column after leading on the first day. He would gradually work his way up through the ranks again, the same as everyone else and in spite of his position as captain of the train. A steady rotation of leaders was just one of many methods the bois brûles used to ensure equality within their tribe.
Isabella handled the canvas-hooped lead cart pulled by Solomon, the aging gelding both Gabriel and Alec had learned to ride on. The black mare, pulling one of the empty meat carts, followed, her lead rope fastened to an iron ring driven into the rear of the front cart’s bed. Celine managed the third cart, leading Alec’s pinto on a jawline bridle. Gabriel’s gaze lingered on her. They hadn’t spoken to one another since that night beside the Tongue, although he knew she often watched him from afar.
Gabriel wished he had someone to talk to about Celine. Big John would be impossible, of course, and Charlo seemed an unlikely candidate. Charlo had been married to a Chippewa woman once, but that had been a long time ago. The woman had since gone back to her people in the Turtle Mountains, taking their son with her. Sometimes Charlo went to the Turtle Mountains to trap or trade, but he never mentioned the woman or the child. On the buffalo ranges, he always hired a woman to drive his carts and make his pemmican, but to Gabriel’s knowledge it never went beyond that. This year he’d hired Jacques Leveille’s daughter Susanne to care for his meat and robes.
Susanne Leveille was no stranger to Gabriel, either, and he twisted in the saddle to stare back down the long line of carts until he spotted her lithe form, trudging steadily alongside Charlo’s dun ox. Jacques Leveille lived in St. Joseph, and Gabriel would go there whenever he could to visit and listen to Jacques’s fiddle, which he played with an expert hand. But mostly, he went to talk with Susanne, or just watch her as she worked around the cabin. She was a handsome woman, not much younger than himself, with flashing black eyes, a quick smile, and tumbling laughter. He had taken her on several cariole rides last winter, and thought only the ill luck of having adults show up on some odd mission had prevented them from making love in Jacques’s stable afterward.
A muscle in Gabriel’s cheek twitched as he considered that. He had been a fool around women so many times he was beginning to doubt his own judgment. He thought he was probably the only person in camp his age who was still a virgin. Both Michel Quesnelle and Duncan McKay had talked girls into the bushes that summer—or at least that was their claim—and both of them were quite a few months younger than he.
Shaking his head in frustration, Gabriel turned his attention away from the caravan. He could see Big John and Pike far in advance, their rifles ready. To the east and west, the flankers were little more than tiny specks against the vastness of the horizon. Long ago, the bois brûles had hunted buffalo alone or in small parties or family groups, but that had made them easy prey for the Sioux. Gabriel couldn’t remember who first suggested they organize their hunts into a communal enterprise, but he could recall vividly the excitement of that initial gathering. It was one of his earliest memories.
Nowadays, of course, a hunt might originate anywhere along the Red or Assiniboine Rivers and attract hundreds of participants, but Gabriel agreed with Big John about the bigger gatherings. It was better to stay small. Large enough to withstand a Sioux assault, but not so huge as to become bogged down in politics and discord. Sometimes he wondered if they weren’t reaching that limit themselves.
A murmur of alarm passed along the length of the caravan, reaching Gabriel in the lead. He glanced over his shoulder, then looked west across the rolling prairie to where Antoine Toussaint, one of the flankers, was pounding toward the cart train at a gallop. His fusil was raised above his head, and, as he drew closer, his cry came faintly to the watching bois brûles.
“Hiah! Hiah!”
The signal that Indians approached.
Gabriel whirled Baldy toward the caravan. Isabella was already pulling Solomon off the trail, quirting him into a clumsy trot. Others were doing the same, the whole line dissolving in a dust-roiling tempest that Gabriel knew would, within minutes, form a tight, defensive circle.
Only Celine struggled alone. The pinto Alec had hoped to run buffalo with was lunging against its lead rope, the empty meat cart it pulled bouncing crazily behind it. Alec was driving Gabriel’s single cart behind Celine—he’d refused to handle any of Big John’s stock this year—but, when the pinto dragged Celine away from the train, he ignored her frantic cries for help and lashed Gabriel’s ox after Isabella.
The pinto was trotting now, its neck bowed stiffly, chin tucked close to its chest. Its tongue protruded thickly from between its lips as it fought the rawhide bit behind its teeth. Celine was yanking on the pony’s head, but she wasn’t strong enough to stop it. At a gallop, Gabriel swung wide around the dust and confusion, pounding at Baldy’s ribs with his heels. The pinto reared and lunged, then lunged again. Celine screamed as several feet of rawhide burned through her hands, but she refused to let go. The pony was loping gracelessly now, its gait hampered by the struggling girl hanging on and the skidding, rattling cart.
Coming in from the offside, Gabriel leaned from the saddle, reaching under the pinto’s jaw to grab the lead rope close to the horse’s mouth. He jerked back savagely. The pinto shook its head, snorting and slamming its shoulder into Baldy. Gabriel grunted as the cart’s shaft banged into his shin, but he kept his hold on the rope. Celine was also pulling on the lead rope, and, between them, they brought the cantankerous horse to a trot, then finally to a choppy walk.
With the spotted horse under control, Celine let the rawhide fall from her hands. She turned them over slowly, sobbing as the red, broken flesh of her palms was exposed. Then she lifted her head and started deliberately for the pinto.
Gabriel knew what she had in mind. He had seen that same murderous look on Alec’s face too many times in the past. Perhaps it was justified, at least to an extent. The pinto was better trained than that, and had only taken advantage of Celine’s inexperience, but there wasn’t time for discipline. He could see the Indians now, still half a mile away, but coming fast.
“No!” Gabriel said. He pointed toward the Indians with his chin. “We must return to the carts while there is time. There is much to be done.”
Celine didn’t reply. She didn’t seem to have even heard him. She kept walking toward the spotted horse with her face twisted in rage, while Gabriel, still holding the lead rope, began to curve the animal away from her.
“Celine!” he called sharply over his shoulder. “Stop it! We must go back!”
The sudden drumming of hoofs caught his attention. Big John had already passed them on his way to the carts, but Pike was swerving toward them. He slowed as he approached, taking the situation in with a glance. Then he swung around the cart and caught Celine in the crook of his arm almost before she knew he was there.
Celine squawked as Pike pulled her effortlessly across his saddle. Gabriel saw the flash of a curled fist as she tried to strike him, but her position was too awkward, the bay too jumpy, for her to do any real harm. Pike slowed only long enough to shout: “Bring in that cart, boy! I’
ve got the girl.”
Celine’s fist bounced harmlessly off the American’s knee, and Pike grinned. Then he whipped the bay around and rode toward the caravan at a fast lope.
Gabriel followed at a trot, the empty cart rattling loudly behind the already skittish pinto. He felt vaguely cheated out of his rescue of Celine, although he was pretty sure she wouldn’t have shown him any gratitude. His only consolation was that it didn’t look like Pike was going to fare any better.
Approaching the caravan, Gabriel heard Pierre Campbell calling his name, and reined in that direction. The bois brûles had tightened their usual cordon by running the vehicles hub to hub rather than shafts to tailgate. Then they’d tipped them back to expose the underside of the beds to the outside world. The dumped loads were left where they spilled, although, if there was time later on, they would stuff them into the gaps between the carts for additional protection. Some of the women were already lashing the wheels together so that they couldn’t be roped and dragged away. Campbell tipped down one of his unbound carts and wheeled it out of the circle as Gabriel drew near.
“Leave your cart,” Campbell instructed. “Just bring the horses inside.”
Gabriel shook his head. “I will go with the others to face the Indians on the prairie,” he said.
“Then let me have your spotted pony.” Pierre glanced over his shoulder to where a large contingent of hunters was gathering on the west side of the train. “You’d better hurry, young one, or they’ll leave without you.”
Gabriel tossed him the rawhide lead rope, but, as he was reining away, he heard Susanne Leveille calling for him to wait. She darted through the gap where Campbell’s cart had stood, but slowed as she approached Baldy. Gabriel’s breath caught in his throat. She was beautiful, he thought. Firm and strong and brown-skinned, the sun setting off the auburn highlights in her hair. Coming up beside him, Susanne laid a hand on his knee, and not so long ago he would have thrilled at that, and his flesh would have quivered beneath her touch.
“Don’t go,” she said.
“I have to.”
“Someone must stay with the carts.”
“Pierre is here. So is Alec, and others.”
“Only a handful. Everyone wants to ride out to meet the Sioux.”
Gabriel glanced at the hunters gathering on the west side of the caravan. Most of the outriders—the flankers and point men and those who had brought up the rear—were already in, and he saw that Susanne was right. The majority of them were rallying around René and Big John. No more than a dozen remained inside the enclosure to help prepare its defenses.
“Maybe there won’t be a fight,” Gabriel said evasively. Since they’d started traveling in larger parties, they were often able to bluff their way past the Sioux, or purchase passage to the buffalo ranges and the rights to hunt there with trade goods. It all depended upon who they met, which individual band they had to treaty with.
“You are like all the men,” Susanne scolded him, although he noticed there was no heat in her words.
He smiled. “You liked that once.”
“I still do, but you do not notice any more. You have barely looked at me since we came in from Saint Joseph.”
He found her candidness unsettling, and instinctively sawed at Baldy’s reins to pull him away. Then he stilled the pony.
“There is no time for this,” he said. Campbell had already led the pinto inside the enclosure. Now he was returning for the cart he’d wheeled out of line to allow Gabriel to enter. “You’d better get inside,” he told her. “I will remind René that enough men must remain behind to protect the women and children.”
Susanne’s mouth leveled, and the laughter faded from her eyes. “Go then, before you miss the great battle.”
He hesitated, but could think of nothing more to say. Angrily he pulled Baldy around and kicked him in the ribs, riding off without a farewell.
When Gabriel rode up, René was barking commands like a battle-scarred general to the handful of men who had already volunteered to stay behind. The rest of them would ride out to meet the approaching Indians. They would create a buffer between the Sioux and the caravan, if such were needed.
To the west, Gabriel could see Antoine Toussaint’s partner, Little John McKay, riding toward them at an easy lope. Puffs of dust exploded from beneath his horse’s hoofs, but he didn’t look especially alarmed. Behind McKay, the Indians were slowing down and spreading out.
“Who are they?” Breland demanded of Toussaint, and Turcotte, wheeling away from the carts, added: “Sioux, Antoine? Are they Sioux?”
“Oui!” Toussaint cried, his eyes still wide with fear. “Les Sioux, for sure! They tried to scalp me and Little John!”
An uneasy muttering arose from the bois brûles, and their ponies shifted and danced under tight reins.
Then Big John’s voice lifted above the turmoil. “Tried to scalp ye, Antoine? From half a league away?”
“Oui, Big John, they did. They come from la coulée and tried to scalp us.”
“I don’t think so, old friend.” Big John nodded toward the prairie, where McKay had slowed to a trot to match the pace of the horsemen still several hundred yards behind him.
“They shoot their fusées at us, Big John. This I hear with my own ears!”
“At ye, Antoine, or into the air, proper-like, to show with empty guns that they mean us no harm?”
“When do the Sioux not mean us harm?” Turcotte exploded.
“When they be Chippewas, René,” Big John replied calmly, tipping his head toward the prairie once more.
Someone said—“Sacre bleu.”—with a great expulsion of air, and several of them laughed with the release of pent-up emotion.
Smiling, Charlo said: “There is one among us who would not easily see the difference between a Sioux and a Chippewa, eh, Big John?”
A few of the bois brûles looked at Pike and chuckled, but Joseph Breland’s features remained taut and unchanged. Forcing his horse to the center of the group, he said: “What Charlo says is true. The plains Chippewas have been our friends in the past, but maybe that is not so today. It would not be wise to relax our guard too soon.”
Big John was quick to agree. “Aye, Joseph, ’tis my thinkin’, too.” He glanced at Turcotte. “Well, René, should we be ridin’ out to meet ’em, before they get too close?”
Turcotte nodded and stood in his stirrups. He called out the names of a dozen men who he ordered to remain with the carts. “The rest of you will ride with me,” he added.
No one protested. There was a time to argue, to debate and vote and debate again, but there was also a time for a man to hold his tongue and do what he was told. It was why they elected one man as captain.
Reining away from the caravan, Turcotte started for the Chippewas at a determined jog. Those hunters not detailed to remain behind followed him closely. Gabriel found himself near the front of the pack, riding between Pike and Antoine Toussaint. The American sat his horse stiffly, scowling and tense, his rifle cradled in his left arm, ready to fire. Toussaint, meanwhile, seemed distracted. Gabriel knew he was embarrassed by mistakenly identifying the Chippewas as Sioux, and was no doubt anticipating a rough time of it at the hands of the more notorious ribbers once the situation had been dealt with. He was carrying his fusil in his right hand with the cock down, the frizzen open, its pan empty.
Gabriel had unslung his own musket as soon as he joined the main party of hunters. Now, riding toward the Chippewas, he ran his hand back and forth along the sun-warmed barrel, as if he could rub away some of his own anxiety along with the trail dust from the Brown Bess. He remembered the way he’d felt that night outside Charlo’s cabin, on their return from the prairies. He still didn’t want to fight the Chippewas if they didn’t have to.
In the past, members of the Turtle Mountain band had often accompanied the bois brûles on their semi-annual excursions for buffalo, adding their numbers to those of the Métis for the mutual protection of everyone. But it
would be different this year. Pike rode with them, a hunter for Big John and an accepted member of the caravan. His presence would put everyone in an awkward position with the Chippewas.
McKay had halted his horse about three hundred yards from the carts, then reined it around to face the full-bloods. The Chippewas had also stopped some distance away. As Turcotte slowed his horse alongside McKay’s, about a dozen Chippewa warriors broke away from the main bunch and started forward at a walk.
The bois brûles spread out in a ragged line, facing the afternoon sun. Pike brought his bay in beside Gabriel. “What do you think?” he asked, squinting into the glaring sun. “Eighty? Ninety?”
“It is hard to say,” Gabriel replied. Certainly there were more than their own forty-odd hunters, but he wasn’t sure there were twice that many. Then a grim smile wormed its way across his face, and he nodded toward the leader of the small party approaching them, a fat-bellied old man wearing scarlet leggings and a buckskin breechcloth. “Do you recognize the pony?” he asked.
Pike grunted sharply. “Yeah, it’s the buckskin the Indian McTavish shot was riding on the day they jumped me.”
“That is Tall Cloud who rides it. He is an uncle of the man Big John shot, and a minor chief. They say that one time, when he was younger, Tall Cloud killed four strong Sioux braves with just his knife. At least that is the story they tell.”
“He must’ve been skinnier in those days,” Pike observed. “He doesn’t look like he’d be limber enough today to dodge even one of them.”
René Turcotte made a small gesture that included Big John, Little John McKay, Toussaint, Charlo, and Joseph Breland. Those six rode forward to where Tall Cloud had halted his party halfway between the two groups. Gabriel wished he had been chosen to go along, but as it turned out, it wasn’t necessary. Tall Cloud had years of experience as an orator, and his voice carried clearly across the distance.
“Ho! McTavish! Ho! Turcotte! Ho! McKay!” He greeted the others similarly, his hands flashing in sign to accompany his words. It was common practice among a lot of the plains tribes, an acknowledgment that not everyone understood the languages being spoken.
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