Beneath a Hunter's Moon

by Michael Zimmer

  He swayed dangerously above the jogging cow, unable to find her rhythm. His toes and arches ached where they dug at the buffalo’s sides. He might have whimpered if his throat hadn’t been so constricted. Yet the bison seemed oblivious to her new burden, jogging on as if he were nothing more than an oversize cowbird.

  Duprée’s ridiculing laughter was nearly Pike’s undoing. Looking up, he immediately lost his balance, and with a strangled yell he fell forward across the winter-furred hump of the next cow in.

  Draped over the cow’s back like a pair of saddlebags, Pike clawed at the woolly hide. Beneath the surface of the densely packed herd there moved the current of a world all its own—pumping shoulders, oscillating hoofs, the splash of snow pounded into slush. And through it all, a thick, dank odor that nearly suffocated him.

  Pike pushed and punched until he was able to wiggle back far enough to swing a leg over the cow. Lifting his face clear of the wet hide, he sucked in a lungful of frigid air.

  Hooting scornfully, Duprée stepped onto the next buffalo in, straddling its back in a crouch until he was sure of his equilibrium, then pushing on to the third.

  Pike watched in awe. Duprée’s movements looked as graceful as a house cat’s walking a back-yard fence. It reminded Pike of the Pembina hunters who had ridden out to meet him and Big John on the day they’d gone into Pembina Post to trade, the half-breeds standing nimbly upright atop their charging runners, as free as the wind itself. Above the reverberation of the herd, Pike heard Duprée’s taunting words.

  “You are clumsy, American. Like the bear, non?” Rising to his feet, Duprée eased onto the back of the next buffalo. “See? See how simple a thing this is for a bois brûle? I will cut your heart out while you sit there helpless as a newborn babe.” He raised his hand, the dagger flashing in the pale light. Then his lips peeled back in a snarl. “Now we settle this thing between us for good, eh?”

  Pike knew he’d never be a match for the agile half-breed. Not this way. He’d already lost his own knife when he fell across the second cow, although he doubted if he would have been able to do much with it, even if he’d managed to hang onto it. It was taking all his concentration just to keep his seat aboard the rough-gaited, oddly shaped bison. Meanwhile, Duprée was moving steadily closer, barely pausing as he eased from one animal to the next.

  “Maybe I eat you, too, eh, American? What do you think of that?” The Métis chortled. “Carve a piece off your ass, maybe? Arch, he was not so good as some. Not like a fat squaw whose flesh sizzles above the flame, but, sacre, if a man is hungry, he must eat, non?” He stepped onto the next animal and dropped to his familiar three-point stance of knee, the ball of his other foot, and one hand above the buffalo’s spine. Although he made it look easy, as he drew closer, Pike could see the strain in the half-breed’s face, the difficulty of matching the rocking cadence of the animal under him.

  Still, his progress amazed Pike. On the flat plain below, Duprée had fled like a frightened child. Here, he seemed immune to fear. He was also no more than four or five more buffalo from Pike’s side, although he would have to move forward now, as well as laterally.

  His breath dragging raw across his throat, Pike rose to his good knee, careful to keep a tight grip on the thick wool of the cow’s hump. Even then, he wasn’t sure what he was going to do. He knew only that he couldn’t just sit there like a lump of clay while Duprée skipped over and slit his throat.

  “Do not be in such a hurry, mon ami,” Duprée chided from behind him. “Death should never be rushed. It must be savored, like the squaw, or whiskey.”

  The herd seemed to be moving faster, and, when Pike looked up, he saw that the narrow valley was widening as it neared the top, those animals in the lead picking up speed as they fanned out. Without the density of the packed herd within the narrow confines of the ravine, Pike knew he wouldn’t stand a chance.

  Swallowing back his fear, he straightened slowly, allowing his hips to rock instinctively to the gait of the cow. He could hear Duprée calling to him, but paid no mind to what he was saying. He took a long, awkward step toward the outside buffalo, planting his foot solidly against her hip. Then he pushed away from the cow he had been riding to leap clumsily for the lowering bank.

  He landed in a heap on the side of the hill, crying out as his injured knee and bruised hip came into contact with the hard ground. The cow behind the one he’d jumped from lunged belligerently at him. It managed to hook the hem of his capote with one of her curved horns, and yanked him back toward the engulfing herd. But the heavy wool fabric ripped before she could pull him under, and Pike rolled free.

  On his hands and one knee, he scrambled higher up the bank, but, when he finally stopped and turned around, Duprée was gone. The Métis had disappeared without a trace, without even a sound of protest, while the flow of buffalo continued on without pause or swerve, spilling over the top of the rise like water over a falls.

  It was another thirty minutes before the last of the buffalo passed on by. When the valley was clear, Pike went back. Duprée’s remains weren’t hard to find. They lay near the center of the ravine-like vale, mangled beyond recognition save for the dagger, still looped around his shattered wrist. Pike stared for a long time before he finally turned away, limping back down the ravine. He recovered his own knife along the way, and soon afterward met the seal brown gelding in its hobbles, following hesitantly after the bison. He rode back to retrieve his rifle, then climbed the opposite hill to claim the powder horn Duprée had tossed aside with his fusil.

  He reloaded methodically, his movements slow but sure. He felt oddly disconcerted, as if his whole world had been jolted slightly off kilter. He’d felt this same way the day he’d abandoned François Rubiette, he recalled, wrung-out and dissatisfied, as if all he’d done still wasn’t enough.

  Tipping his head back, he stared into the swirling snow. The flakes were significantly smaller than earlier, feathering lightly on shifting breezes, though still accumulating. For a moment, listening to the gentle hiss of the snow as it struck his hat, he debated what he wanted to do, which way he wanted to go. Fort Clark lay to the southwest, an American Fur Company post where he would be known by name, if not by sight. He had credit built up with American Fur, enough to outfit himself back to the Rockies if that was where he wanted to go. And there was nothing to hold him here any longer. He knew the buffalo he’d harvested so far wouldn’t be enough to compensate McTavish for the bay, but he doubted if Big John would care. There were a few odds and ends of supplies that would have to be left behind, but nothing vital. Certainly nothing worth the long ride back. It would be a waste of time to return, he told himself. Pure foolishness. Yet he didn’t try to second guess his motives when he reined the brown in that direction. Some questions, he’d learned, were best left unasked.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  There was no discernible sunset that night. The light just faded and darkness closed in. With the exception of Quesnelle’s brother-in-law, Henri Duprée, the last of the hunters had returned at dusk, their expressions exhibiting the same incredulous shock Gabriel had witnessed on Big John’s face when he’d learned of Celine’s abduction.

  After slipping through the gap in the circled carts, most of the Métis had hurried off to their own lodges, needing to be with their own families for a while. Later, Gabriel knew, they would congregate at someone’s fire, their emotions oscillating between remorse and anger.

  The wounded, eight men and nearly twice that many women and children, were sheltered in teepees around the cordon. Three of the women and one of the men were injured seriously, but only Old Dan Keller’s youngest son William wasn’t expected to survive. William had taken an arrow in his lungs, and was slowly bleeding to death on the inside.

  The Sioux had exacted their toll for the stolen buffalo. For the bois brûles, the price had been tremendous.

  It had been Breland’s idea to move camp a few miles closer to the herds, and, although several of the party had object
ed on the grounds that not everyone was in, the vote had gone to Joseph. The Sioux had struck while they were packing their carts and harnessing the stock, appearing soundlessly out of the swirling storm.

  “Alec and I were in your lodge,” Gabriel had related to Big John that afternoon, after his return. “We did not think it wise to leave, but we knew we couldn’t stay if the others went.”

  “We did not even know the Sioux were nearby until we heard several shots,” Alec had added.

  * * * * *

  At first Gabriel had thought it was a hunter’s shot that cracked flatly across the camp, maybe taken at a wolf that had gotten too close to an ox. But when he heard Gavin McGillis’s panicky warning shout, he knew there was trouble. He grabbed his musket and ducked outside just as the Sioux breached the northern wall of carts.

  In the confusion of the next several minutes, it was difficult to tell just what was going on. Fusils roared in every direction, and the sharp ring of metal on metal—tomahawk against lance, sword against gun barrel—filled the air. Gabriel saw LaBarge’s woman, Elaine, empty a pistol at a Sioux. When the Sioux kicked his horse after her, Gabriel shouldered the Bess, tumbling the Indian from his pony’s back with a lucky shot. The Sioux immediately jumped up and leaped behind another warrior, and the two of them raced off.

  A quirt lashed the top of Gabriel’s shoulder—a coup struck—and he spun with the musket raised like a club, but the Sioux had already flown past.

  That was when Gabriel saw Celine, stumbling from between a pair of lodges like a lost child. He shouted for her to go back, but she didn’t hear him. He started toward her, reloading on the run.

  He saw the three Sioux at the same instant they spotted Celine, and in his heart he knew there wasn’t any way in the world he could stop all of them.

  Sprinting across the churned snow, he rammed the big .75-caliber musket ball home without taking his eyes off the trio of warriors racing their ponies toward Celine. He cried out in frustration, his legs pumping furiously, but he was too far away. The Sioux swept past the girl without even slowing down, and, when they passed, she was gone.

  Skidding to a halt, Gabriel threw the musket to his shoulder, but the big flint snapped down on an empty pan—a single, sterile click, just before the three Indians and their captive vanished into the falling snow…

  * * * * *

  “When I reloaded, there was another Indian firing his bow at Antoine Toussaint, so I shot him, too,” Alec was telling Big John proudly. “This was not Black Fish’s war party,” he’d added authoritatively, voicing what he’d already heard others claim. “There were not as many warriors, nor did they try to overwhelm the camp. They wanted only ponies and prisoners. One pass through, then they were gone.” He snapped his fingers. “Poof.”

  Gabriel had been staring at the southern section of carts where he’d last seen Celine. When Alec finished, he’d said: “We will go after them. We will get her back.”

  Big John had nodded stonily. “Aye, lad, we’ll go after ’em. By the Lord, we’ll follow ’em to hell and back if that’s what it takes.”

  * * * * *

  Now, with the snow stopped and full darkness upon them, Gabriel and Big John mounted their horses and rode to the center of camp. Although most of the men were already there, only a few were mounted. Charlo sat his white runner at the far edge of the crowd, but, when Big John rode up, he guided it around without comment to rein in beside his old friend. Pike also waited just outside the main body of bois brûles, holding the reins to the seal brown runner Michel Quesnelle had given him.

  Gabriel had viewed Michel’s body only briefly that afternoon, just before his parents wrapped him in a robe for burial. Michel had been shot in the chest, then crudely scalped. Seeing him like that, his face waxen, cheeks already sunken in, it had been as if a giant hand had reached inside Gabriel and squeezed out all of the air. Fogged in emotion, he’d mumbled his condolences to a numbed Nicolas and Rosanna, then stumbled away.

  It was at Joseph Breland’s fire that the hunters gathered. Stepping close to the flames, Breland tentatively opened the debate. “I think this thing must be said first, that the blame for what happened here today has to be placed at my feet, and mine alone. I took it upon myself to call for a vote to move camp. It was my…”

  “There’s no time for that,” Big John interrupted. “We’ve the women to think of now.”

  “Big John echoes my own thoughts,” Turcotte said. “Blame must wait for another time. Tonight we must finish burying our dead, then we should fortify the camp against further attacks. But I do not think a rescue party should go out until first light.”

  “First light be damned,” Big John growled. “We’ll be leavin’ within the hour, and trackin’ the bloody bastards through the night. We’ve lost enough time as it is.”

  Turcotte hesitated. “We cannot follow them after dark, Big John. In the morning, when the sun is full…”

  “No.” Charles Hallet pushed his way to the front of the crowd. “It’s true that there are clouds yet, but they are breaking up even as we speak. There will be a hunter’s moon tonight. When it rises, there will be enough light that we can track them. I intend to ride with Big John. Others may follow as they wish.”

  Noel Pouliot stepped forward, looking more haggard than even the Quesnelles. His voice quavered when he spoke. “We have to get my little girl back. Her…” He held up his arm, the same side as the one Emmaline had broken when she’d slipped on the ice. “It is not yet healed. She cannot…” His voice broke. “A slave works so hard.”

  “We will go after her,” Gabriel promised. “We will find her and bring her back. We will bring them all back.”

  “She cannot work until her arm is healed,” Pouliot insisted. “It will cripple her for life if she does.” He stopped, and Monique laid her hand gently upon her husband’s shoulder.

  “Then I will lead the party that goes after them,” Breland said.

  “No, ye won’t, Joseph,” Big John replied. “Nor will I sit here listenin’ to any more of ye talk.” His voice turned harsh, lifting toward the handful of stars just beginning to appear through the broken clouds. “I do not care to hear what Joseph Breland has to say on the matter, nor what any of the rest of ye think, for ’tis not ye families that’s been taken. I’ll be goin’ after ’em tonight, me and Gabriel and Charlo here, and Charles and Noel, if they wish. And any of the rest of ye that be of a mind to help. But no more talkin’.” His voice dropped almost to a whisper. “Do ye hear me, now? We’ll not be puttin’ this one to a vote.”

  Big John pulled his roan away from the crowd. Gabriel and Charlo followed, and Pike fell in behind them. A deathly silence dropped over those still standing at the fire. Then Hallet found his voice. Pushing through the crowd, he shouted: “Hold up, Big John, Gabriel! I have to saddle my horse.”

  * * * * *

  There were eighteen hunters assembled at the southern rim of the camp when the moon finally pulled free of the horizon and began its slow journey over the clouds. Big John felt a grudging satisfaction in the numbers. He had feared that most of them would be too chary of the Sioux returning to want to leave their families. He was embarrassed by his doubt, and by his earlier outburst at Breland’s fire. He should have known the Métis would not let down one of their own, no matter his blood.

  It was as Hallet had promised, a hunter’s moon glowing through the clouds, filling the eastern sky with a strange, filtered light. But it didn’t penetrate the clouds the way Big John had hoped it would. Instead, the prairie stretched away to the south, dim and indistinct, a grim, frozen landscape that seemed suddenly inhospitable.

  Big John would glance occasionally to the west, but the sky there had grown darker as the night progressed and more clouds rolled in. There was no hint of a break anywhere, nor even the faint light of a star any more, and the worry was that it would start snowing again before daybreak.

  “’Tis time we moved out,” Big John announced. He hadn’t bother
ed to dismount, and his impatience—with the light, the weather, the mixed-bloods, even with the roan—had been eating steadily at him ever since he’d ridden away from the council.

  “It will not be difficult to follow their trail,” Charlo promised him. “But we must not hurry, either. It would be even more disastrous to follow a hunter’s tracks to the buffalo than it would be to wait until morning to find the right trail.”

  Big John didn’t argue. Haste was important, but so was keeping their wits about them. Their task would be formidable enough as it was.

  “Ye’ll be doin’ the trackin’ for us, won’t ye?” Big John asked Charlo. Although he knew just about any of them could have followed the Indians’ trail, Big John wanted someone up front who could pick out the little nuances that might give them an edge when they caught up with the Sioux.

  “I will do my best,” Charlo replied. He looked at Gabriel. “You will ride with me, and hold my runner’s reins if the need arises for me to dismount.” When Gabriel nodded, the old Indian turned to the others. “You must all stay well behind Gabriel and myself, in case I have to backtrack. Is that understood?”

  “It’s understood,” Hallet said curtly. “Get on with it, man. We’ve talked too much already.”

  Charlo’s response was to guide silently his white runner through the carts. Free of the caravan, he kicked the horse into a lope. The others fell in about fifty yards behind.

  Charlo set a swift pace, paying little attention to the trail until they were several miles out. Coming to the top of a low rise, he called a halt, then leaned from the saddle to lift a bison’s severed head from the snow. Big John already knew that Charlo had followed the fleeing Sioux as far as he’d dared that afternoon, then marked the spot where he’d turned back with a cow’s head. He didn’t question how Charlo had led them here in the dark so unerringly. It was just part of the mystique that surrounded the old Indian.

  Although they were forced to slow down after that, they still made good time. A few miles farther on, Charlo again signaled a halt. Dismounting, he handed his reins to Gabriel, then ventured forward on foot. No one spoke as he knelt at various spots to examine the trail, occasionally stroking the snow’s surface or poking at it with his fingers. After several minutes, he returned to the white and motioned the others up. As they gathered around him, he said: “At this place another party has joined with the one we are following, and the trail grows much larger. Maybe seventy-five horses altogether, although not that many are ridden.”