Beneath a Hunter's Moon

by Michael Zimmer

  “Sacre démon,” Gabriel said hollowly. Then he dived into the tiny crater next to Quesnelle and slid the Brown Bess across the little mound of dirt in front of him. While the Sioux were still at the far end of his musket’s range, he pulled Quesnelle’s trade gun up beside him and checked its priming. To his left, one position over from the pit he had occupied earlier, Big John’s double rifle cracked once, then a second time. With each sharp report, a Yankton pony went down, effectively taking out of the action the tiny figure crouched atop it.

  As the Sioux came within the shorter range of the bois brûles’ fusils, the half-bloods added their own ragged fire to the struggle. Gabriel saw a warrior knocked from his pony. Another jerked and dropped his bow, then reined away, shaking his hand as if it had been stung. Snugging the Bess to his shoulder, he picked out a target and squeezed the trigger, tumbling a brave from the back of a leggy buckskin. Then, as the brave he’d knocked from the saddle jumped to his feet and raced away, Gabriel dropped the musket and shouldered Quesnelle’s fusil. But by the time he brought the tiny, turtle-shaped brass front sight in line with the brave’s shoulders, the Indian was out of range. Before he could locate a new mark, the Métis’ fire abruptly intensified, and the Sioux charge crumbled. Whipping their ponies around, the Indians galloped back the way they had come, retrieving as many of their wounded along the way as they could.

  The beaten warriors congregated around those who had sat out the fight. After a couple of minutes of heated conversation, Black Fish raised his lance and the Sioux quieted. Wheeling his horse, the chief rode toward the horizon where the Sioux had first appeared. Most of his followers went with him. Perhaps two dozen held back, but then, one by one or in pairs, they began riding after the larger party. Within twenty minutes the field was empty save for a clutter of dead horses and the bodies of three fallen warriors the Sioux had been unable to recover.

  Rising slowly to his knees, Gabriel stared uncertainly after the retreating Sioux. At his side, Nicolas Quesnelle lifted his head and rasped—“God damn.”—in disbelief.

  * * * * *

  Night seemed to fall without warning. At dusk, the bois brûles who had manned the pits during the day returned to the shelter of their carts where they wouldn’t be as exposed to arrows arched in from the darkened plains, or skulking warriors creeping up on their bellies. Almost everyone remained tautly on guard. Even though an attack after dark was unlikely, they had fought Indians long enough to know that anything was possible. And no one believed the Yanktons had pulled out for good.

  The livestock was as restless as the night the buffalo had nearly overrun them. The oxen were spooked by the smell of blood—three of their own numbers had been crippled by arrows, and Patterson’s roan steer had been killed by a roundball—and the horses were agitated by the gunfire and the chaos of the humans. Added to that now were the heart-rending wails of several women, mourning the death of Little John McKay.

  Although a number of men had received minor wounds, Little John was the caravan’s only casualty. He had been one of the flankers to the south when the Sioux attacked, and the iron-tipped shaft of an arrow had pierced his back just below his shoulder blade on the ride in, puncturing a lung. Little John had clung stubbornly to life throughout the afternoon, with his wife Eva and all but his eldest son Duncan at his side. He’d died just before sunset, drowning in his own blood.

  Duncan McKay was Gabriel’s age, and he and Gabriel and Michel Quesnelle had been good friends before the events of the past few weeks had come between them. It was Michel who’d helped Duncan rescue Little John from the prairie before the Sioux could reach him. In spite of Duncan’s desire to remain with his father, he had dutifully returned to his post beside Michel. They had fought on the east side of the caravan that afternoon, and neither of them was aware until day’s end that Michel’s father had also been shot.

  It was after dark when Michel came looking for Gabriel who was sitting in the deepest shadows of an upturned cart. Gabriel saw him approaching but didn’t call out. It was the glow of Gabriel’s pipe that ultimately betrayed his position.

  Michel squatted several feet away, as if wary of coming closer. “I was told of what you did for my father,” he said. “I was told also that you stayed at his side, even when the Sioux charged.”

  “It was nothing your father would not have done for me, or any other bois brûle.”

  “That is true, but I was not sure you would have done the same. My thoughts are confused when I think of you, Gabriel. After leaving me on the prairie without a horse, I have begun to wonder if you are even bois brûle any more.”

  “For what you said that day I should have killed you,” Gabriel replied flatly.

  Michel was quiet a moment, then he stood. “I do not understand you, Gabriel Gilray, but I think maybe you saved my father’s life today, and for that I wish to repay you. A knife from Hudson’s Bay. I will bring it in the morning.”

  “I do not need another knife from Hudson’s Bay,” Gabriel said. “Bring the American a horse if you wish to repay me. He needs a pony if he is ever to return to his cursed mountains. Is your father’s life worth a pony, Michel?”

  Michel stiffened. “Yes, my father is worth a thousand ponies. I will see that the American gets one.”

  Gabriel felt a moment’s shame for his anger, but bull-headedly refused to back away from his demand. “Good,” he said. “I will be a satisfied man when Pike is gone.”

  “Will you?” Michel asked, then walked away without waiting for an answer.

  Gabriel stared after him until he was swallowed by shadows, then he tipped his head back against the cart’s rough bed and closed his eyes. He felt torn between sorrow and anger and a child’s helpless frustration, yet he thought Michel had a point when he’d questioned whether Pike’s leaving would be enough.

  “Gabriel?”

  He opened his eyes. Celine stood before him, the pale light of the rising moon casting her in an odd glow that sent a shiver down his spine. He set his pipe aside and got to his feet, bumping his shoulder on the rim of the cart’s wheel as he did. “Celine?”

  She came to him and put her hands on his chest, leaning forward until her forehead rested under his chin. “I’ve been so worried,” she said, barely above a whisper. “So many were injured, and poor John McKay. Oh, Gabriel, what must his family feel? How can they bear the loss?” Cautiously he put his hands around her waist. Tipping her head back, she said: “You do not hate me, do you? After today, I don’t think I could stand it if you did. Please, Gabriel, you must tell me you don’t hate me.”

  Mutely he shook his head.

  “I have been so foolish,” she murmured. “I have done such terrible things that I thought surely you must.”

  “I…” he began.

  “Hush.” She leaned close again, putting her arms around him. “It does not matter. I’ve been so frightened, Gabriel. You don’t know how many times I’ve wished to come to you, how much I yearned to be alone with you. The American terrifies me. I fear each night that he will kidnap me, drag me away to some dreadful hovel in the mountains. That is his desire, you know? He has told me so, and that night… the night the buffalo came… I thought surely he would do it then. Oui, I think he might have, if you had not been there to stop him.”

  “He will never take you away,” Gabriel said tautly. “Not as long as I am alive.” His arms tightened around her, and—sacre bleu—she was pushing against him, rubbing her thighs across his, mashing her breasts to his chest. Her fingers dug at his spine, pulling him closer. He wanted to laugh because he knew she was just playing with him, but it didn’t matter. Crazily he said: “I will kill him first.”

  “Will you, Gabriel? Will you promise me that you will kill Pike before you let him take me away?”

  Gabriel nodded, his voice trembling. “I promise.”

  * * * * *

  Pike sat with his back to a pile of untanned hides, the bottle of bourbon he’d purchased at Pembina sitting beside him
, open. Pain gnawed at his side and hip like half-starved wolves, and his knee was swollen and hot to the touch. He was gimped-up for fair, he thought, and knew it would be a long, sleepless night if he couldn’t drink enough to deaden the pain.

  The half-breeds hadn’t built any fires because of the possibility of Sioux snipers, but even without them, a man could get around. The stars were bright and the moon had come up fat as a tick, though still somewhat lopsided. There were a few people wandering about, but not many. Save for the posted guards, most of the half-breeds had returned to their own carts, staying close to their families. Pike figured the keening of McKay’s widow, daughters, and sisters had a lot to do with that. His death was a stiff reminder to them all of the fragility of human life.

  Pike heard the low rumble of Big John McTavish’s voice from down the line. A few minutes later, the raw-boned Scotsman came into view against the star mist, shoulders sloped in weariness.

  “Mister Pike? Is that yeself I see there?”

  “It is,” Pike replied, somewhat surprised by the thickness of his tongue. From the pain, he’d assumed the liquor hadn’t taken any effect yet. “Sit down, old man.”

  McTavish made himself comfortable at Pike’s side. “’Tis that bourbon I’m smellin’?” he asked, sniffing the air.

  Pike held the bottle toward him, sloshing it a little. “What’s left of it. Help yourself.”

  McTavish accepted, tipping it to his lips and drinking deeply. When he finished, he handed it back, then settled against the cart’s bed as if he planned to stay a while.

  “Isabella says ye took a bad one across ye ribs.”

  “I’ve been banged up worse than this.”

  “And ye hip?”

  “I’ll be ready to…” He let the words trail off when he remembered that he’d lost the bay.

  “I’ve talked to Hallet. He says he has a spare pony he’d make ye the loan of for the rest of the hunt. ’Twill be a small fee, ye understand, but likely no more than a robe or two, or some meat. Another good hunt and ye’ll have it all paid off, and like as not enough to buy ye another. Charles wasn’t wantin’ to part with this one, but ye’ll have ye pick of horses back at the settlement. Especially with winter comin’ on.”

  Pike’s lips thinned. Just one more god damned debt, he thought sourly, and not a thing he could do about it, either—short of theft. He took a swig out of the bottle and handed it to McTavish.

  McTavish drank and belched, then said: “I shouldn’t be drinkin’ with me belly empty like it is and the Sioux likely to come visitin’ again with the mornin’s first light.”

  “Have some jerky,” Pike said, fumbling in his saddlebags for a strip of dried meat he’d stolen off a stage days earlier.

  McTavish shook his head. “I don’t think I could stomach the likes of that,” he admitted. “I could never understand an American’s passion for something that tastes like bark, and fair looks like it, too.”

  Pike laughed. “That’s bold talk from a man who’s ate moose nose. Jerky’s all I’ve got, and a heap better than crickets, which I’ve ate when starving times were upon me. Best wrestle some down, amigo, if you aim to drink much tonight.”

  Sighing, McTavish returned the bottle. “’Tis with regret that I do this, Mister Pike, though maybe we’ll share us a mug of something better back to the settlements. But for now, I’d best keep me head clear and tight, and not spinnin’ around like a child’s whirligig.”

  Pike laughed at the image, discovering, as the bourbon’s warmth began to spread throughout his body, that a lot of things were looking funnier.

  The liquor seemed to be having the opposite effect on McTavish, though. With just a few swallows, he had begun to turn morose. Lifting his face to the sound of Eva McKay’s grief, he snorted. “Listen to her, Mister Pike. A Catholic, she calls herself, but are those the tears of a papist? No, ’tis an Assiniboine’s cry, that, and an Assiniboine’s heart what’s breakin’ tonight.”

  “Her husband’s death wasn’t your fault.”

  “No, it wasn’t, but ’tis faith I’m speakin’ of now. I asked the good Father Denning once just why it was he could believe so strongly in the words of men he didn’t know or ever would, and he said to me… ‘I read the Bible, Mister McTavish, and I believe.’ ’Twas all the man said, too, and if smugness were a sin, he would’ve damned himself for all eternity right then and there. ‘I read the Bible, and I believe.’ As if any Protestant cannot say the same, and with the same heart-deep conviction. And do ye think, Mister Pike, do ye truly think any of ’em believe any stronger in their God than the redskin does in Man Above or the Great Spirit or Manitou, or a hundred other names for a hundred other gods?

  “I’m not knockin’ another’s religion, mind ye, but I’m sayin’ don’t try to convert others to what ye don’t rightly understand yeself, and cannot understand, bein’ only human, with a human’s weaknesses and blindnesses inherited into ye. Don’t be so damn’ righteous as to believe only ye own religion can be the one true religion when all ye have to go on is what some man ye’ve never met has writ himself, and maybe no more knowin’ of the subject than ye or me. That’s all I’m sayin’. If ye want to believe it, then do, and with me blessin’ if such would make ye happy, or without if ye don’t need it. But don’t say me own beliefs are wrong. By the Lord, man, don’t tell me that.”

  He paused, then waved his hand in a manner that included the whole camp. “Aye, Mister Pike, Catholics all, and Protestants, too, but come the Northern Lights all a-glowin’ and dancin’ and lightin’ up the darkest sky until the hounds see fit to bay, and ye can hear ’em up and down the valley shootin’ off their fusils to keep ’em at bay, for ’tis evil spirits the Northern Lights are, and taught that by their mas and pas from a thousand years past. Maybe taught that before Christ died on a cross, then raised up afterward, or maybe not, because who’s to know for certain when the story’s been taken from a book that’s been translated a hundred times over the centuries? Who’s ever to know when ye haven’t seen it yeself, or at least talked to men who have, and them ones ye can trust proper-like, and not some salesman out toutin’ his own brand of faith like it was a new carriage with shiny wheels?”

  Pike kept quiet, waiting it out. After a time, McTavish hiccuped and said: “Well, sure, look who’s preachin’ now, eh? I suppose ’tis a thing that grates, though, and I won’t deny that, but still…” He fell silent, ducking his head.

  Gently Pike said: “I figure the Sioux’ll come back at first light. Best be getting some sleep. Tomorrow could be a long day.”

  McTavish stirred as if to rise, but didn’t. In a low voice, he said: “They were better off before we came, Mister Pike. The Assiniboines and Crees and them. Any man with a half-blind eye can see that. But we came anyway, traders and missionaries and such, and offered ’em our geegaws and bright cloth, and, maybe worst of all, our Christian gods. And when none of that caught their fancy, we turned ’em into drunkards and whores, no better than ourselves right here.”

  “That seems a mite harsh,” Pike said mildly.

  “Is it? I say a man can only be proud of what he’s accomplished among the savages if he doesn’t look too closely at what they were before we came.” He heaved a shuddering sigh, then shook his head. “Well, ’tis enough blubberin’ for one night, wouldn’t ye say?” He stood and pulled the collar of his duffel coat tighter around his neck. “Good night to ye, Mister Pike,” he said sadly, then shuffled away like a stoved-up old man, a gait Pike had never seen him use before. He watched until the darkness took him, then gently corked the bottle and put it away.

  * * * * *

  Pike came up with a start, reaching immediately for his rifle. He relaxed only when he saw the half-breed who had shaken him awake sitting back on his heels with a grin. “You should have told me you wanted to get drunk last night, American. I would have helped good, eh?”

  “What the hell do you want?” Pike growled, rubbing the scum feel from his lips with the back of his
hand. His tongue felt like a half-dead fish, flopping loosely in his mouth. Its taste was worse.

  “Look to the east, mon friend. See? The sun, she awakens. Soon they will come, them devil Sioux.” He hefted a shortened trade gun to draw attention to it; his grin broadened. “We’ll give ’em hell again, eh?”

  Pike grunted noncommittally and pushed his robe back, but, when he tried to sit up, the pain in his hip and knee and side was like multiple hammers clubbing him back. He clenched his teeth to keep from crying out, but couldn’t stop from writhing as the muscles over his ribs mutinied. He’d drawn himself into a fetal position in his sleep and lay curled that way now, his side muscles twitching warningly.

  The half-breed chuckled with compassion. “The wounds, they do not wake up so fast as the body, eh? Go slowly, mon ami. We must be limber to fight the Sioux, no?”

  “Don’t worry,” Pike managed, although he kept his face turned to the curly hair of his robe. “When the fighting starts, I’ll be there.”

  “Oui, this I already know. I saw you fight yesterday. You come when you are ready, American, and if you want some breakfast, ask for Pierre. He will feed you good, eh?” The half-breed gave his shoulder a quick, friendly pat, then moved on down the line.

  When he was alone, Pike cautiously unfolded his legs, then worked on straightening his torso. He could feel Isabella’s stitches stretching reluctantly, the old blood cracking and flaking away, a trickle of fresh blood taking its place. He used his rifle to help him stand, then hobbled painfully over to where he’d fought the day before.

  Charlo was already there, his pipe clamped between his teeth, a column of blue smoke curling past his squinting left eye. He nodded as Pike came up. “All quiet so far.”

  Leaning against a cart, Pike peered out at the prairie. The view beyond thirty yards or so was indistinct, a lead-colored barrier behind which might have lurked death and destruction, or nothing more gruesome than another chilly, sunny day.

  “Be light enough in another twenty minutes,” Charlo predicted. “We will know then, damn’ sure.”