Morgan’s scowl deepened. “What I want him for is my business.” Then, realizing that he might need additional information from the two trappers, he grudgingly added, “No offense meant.”
“Why, ’Course not, stranger,” Buck returned, studying the man as he would a scorpion crossing his path. “A man’s business is his own.”
Morgan attempted to smile in an effort to put the trappers at ease. The strain on his facial muscles was obvious. “The storekeeper said two trappers came to the rendezvous this summer with a young boy, about thirteen or fourteen, but the boy went back to St. Louis.” Morgan paused, closely watching the eyes of the two men facing him. “His name’s Jim Tracey. He should have been back here by now. Have you seen him?”
Frank quickly answered, “Don’t recollect seeing anybody by that name. Do you, Buck?”
“Don’t recollect,” Buck replied.
“How about McCall?” Morgan asked.
“Nope,” Buck answered. “You lookin’ fer two boys?”
Morgan shook his head impatiently. “No, one boy—I just figured he might be using another name.” Realizing it might sound a little strange to them, he said, “Jim’s my nephew. I’m supposed to meet him out here.” He was attempting to maintain an innocent facade, but his impatience was beginning to split the seams of his demeanor.
Buck was confident he could tell a maverick when he saw one, and he didn’t like the look of this Easterner. Glancing at his partner, he saw a mirror image of his own thinking in Frank’s eyes. He wasn’t sure who this man really was, but he felt certain he was not the boy’s uncle. He didn’t feel obliged to tell Morgan anything at all, especially if he was in league with Joe La Porte.
“So you’re saying you haven’t seen the boy,” Morgan said, his dark eyes brooding under heavy eyebrows. “But Bridger’s clerk in there says he’s pretty sure you two had a boy with you at the rendezvous. How do you account for that?”
Buck’s eyes narrowed. “Mister, I don’t have to account fer nuthin’.” The two men stood glaring at each other for a long moment before Morgan Blunt abruptly turned on his heel and headed toward the Sioux camp.
“I don’t think he believes you, Buck,” Frank said with a quiet chuckle.
“He does seem to be in a bit of a huff, don’t he?” He pushed his hat back and thoughtfully scratched a shock of white hair. “Wonder why the likes of that coyote is lookin’ fer Jim?”
“He must have got hisself in some kind of trouble in St. Louis.”
Buck nodded his agreement. “Well, we ain’t seen him since he left to go back East, and that’s a fact. If he’s come back, I kinda figured he’d look us up.”
“Maybe so,” Frank sighed. “Well, we’re already two days behind Bridger. We’d best get these mules packed and head out.”
Morgan Blunt walked between the tipis, looking right and left, peering at the Sioux women busy at their cookfires. Most of the men were milling around the courtyard inside the fort, trying to trade skins for the many precious and exotic things the white man offered. Near the end of the row of lodges, he saw two Sioux men lolling drunkenly outside a tipi. LaPorte, he thought. If he ain’t in there, he’s been there. He walked brazenly up to the entrance flap.
“LaPorte!” he called. When there was no answer, he called out again.
From inside the tipi, the soft click of a hammer cocking could barely be heard. “Who the hell wants him?” a voice roared back.
“LaPorte!” Blunt called again. “Get your ass out here.”
There was a hasty rustling of buckskin shirt and trousers, and the soft murmur of a female voice. “Shut up!” Blunt heard the man say. Moments later, the flap was thrown aside and LaPorte plunged through the opening. The man was so massive it appeared to Blunt that the tipi was giving birth to him. “By God, this better be somethin’ damn important or I’m gonna have me a scalp!” His words rolled like thunder from his wide bushy head, causing the two drunken Indians to stagger to their feet, standing unsteadily for a brief moment before sagging back to the ground. LaPorte paid them no mind. His face, a mask of angry indignation, changed instantly when he recognized Morgan Blunt. Slowly, a sly smile crept through his heavy beard as he eyed his benefactor and partner in crime. “Well, now. Mr. Blunt.”
Morgan Blunt, operating from the strength that financial power afforded, was one of the few men who was not intimidated by Joe LaPorte. He knew that as long as he paid LaPorte handsomely to do his dirty work, the bear of a man was his to command. “Come on out here, LaPorte. I’ve got a job for you and that band of Blackfeet of yours.”
“Shhh,” LaPorte quickly responded, his finger over his lips. Looking from side to side to see if anyone had heard, he took Morgan’s arm and led him a few feet away from the tipi. “Don’t talk about that, Mr. Blunt,” he whispered. “I got me a little woman in there. If she finds out I run with the Blackfeet, she’d draw up like a persimmon—and most likely cut my throat to boot.” He led Morgan a few feet farther. “Blackfeet ain’t looked on too kindly around these parts.”
“All right, all right,” Blunt replied impatiently. “I’ve got a job for you, an important job.” When he was satisfied that he had the huge man’s attention, he continued. “This job can make you five hundred dollars if you do it right.” LaPorte’s eyes widened with the mention of such a princely sum. “All you have to do is find a fourteen-year-old boy and kill him.”
LaPorte wasn’t sure he had heard correctly. Five hundred dollars was a staggering amount of money just for killing one boy. “Five hundred dollars,” he said, punctuating the comment with a low whistle. “Who is he? What did he do?”
“He’s the boy you were supposed to take care of when you killed his father. You’ve already been paid to do the job, but you killed a half-breed boy instead.” Blunt let that sink in before he continued. When LaPorte started to complain that it was not his fault, Blunt cut him off. “Never mind about that. You got paid to do a job and you didn’t get it done. Now I’m giving you a chance to get it done right, and make yourself an extra five hundred to spend on your liquor and squaws.”
A contrite LaPorte stammered his appreciation. “I’ll sure get her done this time, Mr. Blunt. You can count on that.”
“And, mind you, I won’t tolerate any more mistakes. I want to see the boy’s head so that I know you’ve done the job.”
LaPorte grinned. “Yessir, don’t you worry. I’ll git him this time. Where do I start lookin’ for him?”
Morgan then related all he knew about the possible whereabouts of young Jim Tracey—his escape from St. Louis after “murdering” Tyler Blunt, and Morgan’s suspicion that he might now be using the name of McCall. “The little murderer had a taste for the frontier, and I know that he’s bound for this part of the country. If I was you, I’d keep an eye on those two buzzards over there.” He nodded toward the two trappers tending their mules some distance away. “The boy was running with them before. He might be planning to join up with them again.”
“You must want this boy bad.” LaPorte could plainly see the fire in Morgan’s eyes when he talked about the boy. “How did he kill your brother?”
“With a knife,” Morgan replied curtly. “But that’s not important—it was murder, and I want him dead, I don’t care how long it takes you. Find him!” Morgan held his temper in check, as he reminded LaPorte, “The sooner you find him, the sooner you get five hundred dollars.”
“I’ll find him.” LaPorte needed no further incentive. The thought of that much cash was enough to make his mouth water. There was very little cash money west of the Missouri. Most everything a man needed had to be bartered for. He would soon be a very rich man.
* * *
Frank took the lead as they set out that morning. His horse, a dirty buckskin he called Tater, always wanted to be out front anyway, so he usually gave in to the ornery beast and let Buck follow. It had been three days since they left Laramie, and Frank had a worrisome feeling that kept gnawing away at his brain. More th
an a hunch, it was a sense some mountain men develop after years spent in the high country. It was hard to explain, like the time near Popo Agie Creek when a band of twenty Blackfeet snuck up on him and Buck just before daylight. They hadn’t seen or heard anything, but they knew the Indians were there. And if they hadn’t relied on their instincts, their hair would most likely have been waving on some Blackfoot buck’s lance.
Frank had that same feeling now. Buck hadn’t made any mention of it so far, but Frank noticed that his partner had paused several times during the day to look over their back trail. He decided to wait until they stopped to eat and rest the mules before expressing his concerns to Buck. When they had reached a line of trees that bordered the North Platte, he signaled Buck to follow him down a draw that ended at the river’s edge.
Buck pulled up behind him and dismounted. Before Frank could comment, Buck asked the question, “When are we gonna git rid of whoever the hell’s been tailin’ us all the way from Laramie?”
“I was just about to ask you the same thing,” Frank replied.
The natural thought was the possibility that some other free trappers were dogging them to see where they planned to trap. Buck had not been shy about bragging about their harvest at the rendezvous, and it had not been an especially productive year for most of the trappers. While it might be mentioned that one intended to trap in a general area, a man never pinpointed exactly where he was going to set his traps. By this time, nearly every beaver stream in the Rockies was well known, and every trapper was searching to find that one river, that one valley, that no one had trapped yet. For that reason, Buck and Frank were not surprised that someone might be following them.
“Whadaya wanna do?” Buck asked. “Lose ’em now? Or wait fer ’em to catch up?”
“Well, I dang shore wanna lose ’em before we git to South Pass, but why don’t we just set here a while and see if they’ll come on in. We might can persuade ’em that it’d be unhealthy to follow us.”
“What if it’s a bunch of Injuns lookin’ to carve out our gizzards and steal our stock?”
Frank shook his head. “If it was a sizable bunch of Injuns, they’da already jumped us.”
While the pack animals pulled at the grass near the riverbank, the two trappers made themselves comfortable under the trees and waited, rifles ready, watching the trail they had just traveled. The afternoon wore on and still there was no sign of anyone.
“Well, hell, whoever it is ain’t coming in,” Buck finally decided. “And I ain’t aiming to set here all day.” There was never any doubt in his mind that his intuition had been right. “They’re figurin’ to follow us all the way to the other side of the pass. Beaver’s too scarce to be sharin’ our huntin’ grounds with anyone else.”
They started out again, this time heading up the shallow water for more than a mile before leaving the river and doubling back in a wide circle. Both men were convinced that they were being followed, and their plan was to come up behind their pursuers. After backtracking about two miles, they cut back to cross their original trail. A few minutes’ study of the tracks told them that what they had sensed was indeed fact. Two additional sets of hoofprints were intermingled with those of their own mules. “One man, leading a packhorse,” Frank stated, and Buck agreed.
Prodding their mules into a faster gait, they retraced their steps until they came to the spot in the river where they had waited. The stranger’s tracks followed theirs into the river. Keeping to the trees, they rode along the riverbank, their eyes alert, rifles in hand. When they approached the place where they had left the river, Buck suddenly signaled Frank to stop. A giant hulk of a man sat on his horse in the middle of the river, studying the tracks that led up from the water.
“LaPorte!” Frank muttered to himself.
Buck moved up quietly beside his partner. “What the hell does that coyote want with us?”
“Well, it ain’t likely he’s looking for beaver. That devil don’t trap anything except humans,” Frank replied. It had never been proven, but was widely suspected that the evil LaPorte came by the pelts he traded primarily by stealing and murdering the poor souls who had actually waded the icy streams. The issue to be decided now was whether it was best to face him down or try to lose him in the mountains.
“If LaPorte is trailing us, it ain’t fer no good reason,” Buck said. “I’d just as leave git to the bottom of it right now.”
Frank agreed that that might be best. They tied the pack mules in the trees and rode to intercept LaPorte when he came out of the water. The huge man was so absorbed in studying the bank for tracks that he didn’t notice the two trappers waiting for him until his horse climbed up from the water.
“Whoa!” he roared, startled by the sudden appearance of the two he had been tracking. Taken aback only briefly, he quickly recovered his customary smirk. “Well, if it ain’t Buck and Frank. Fancy running into you two varmints.”
“Fancy my ass,” Buck retorted. “You’ve been tailin’ us ever since we left Laramie.”
LaPorte snorted a laugh. “What the hell would anybody wanna tail you two birds for?”
“That’s what we aim to find out,” Frank answered. “I don’t see no traps on that packhorse. What do you want, LaPorte?”
LaPorte’s gaze shifted from Frank to Buck and back again. “Maybe I just wanna join up with you boys.”
“Wouldn’t that be precious?” Buck replied, his tone flat and sarcastic. “The answer to all my prayers.”
LaPorte’s brows knotted, his eyes narrowed, and he quickly tired of playing the word game. “I heared you boys take on a new partner now and again. Where is that young boy that was riding with you two at rendezvous? Is he gonna meet you someplace?”
Frank cocked his head to one side and squinted at the dangerous giant of a man. “Now that’s the second person that’s asked us about that young boy this week. We ain’t seen him since Green River. How come ever’body’s wantin’ him of a sudden?”
“Oh, I got a message for him. His daddy wants him,” LaPorte said, a wide smile across his face.
Frank didn’t blink. He wasn’t sure LaPorte had the mental acuity to deliver a pun. One thing he was sure of, though—LaPorte had no honest business with the boy. “That boy’s gone back East.”
LaPorte sneered at Frank. “Maybe he is—maybe he ain’t. I’ll find him if he’s west of the Missouri. I got friends that’ll help me find him. It’s dangerous country for a boy.” The sneer faded from his face. “It’s also dangerous country for two old coots like you two. You never can tell when a war party might strike your trail.”
“I’ve had about enough of you, LaPorte,” Frank said. “Now ’spose you just git your sorry ass out of here so my mules can git your smell outta their nostrils.”
A quick spark of rage flashed in LaPorte’s eye. He jerked the pistol from his belt and pointed it at Frank’s belly.
Buck had already sidestepped his horse around to a position behind LaPorte. “Wonder how big a hole this here buffaler gun would make at this close range,” Buck commented casually.
LaPorte froze. Slowly he withdrew the pistol and stuck it back in his belt. He didn’t utter a word. He didn’t have to—his face said it all. He had been bested this time, and he didn’t like it. Scowling darkly, he wheeled his horse and galloped away toward the north.
“Enjoyed the visit,” Buck called out after him. “Don’t be a stranger now.” To Frank, he said, “Goin’ back to his Blackfeet.”
Frank nodded soberly. He watched the departing man as he galloped out through the cottonwoods and disappeared over the top of the bluff. “I think we just made a bad mistake there—I’m thinkin’ you shoulda shot him. We’d best watch our backs.”
They decided it was best to stay right where they were for the rest of the day and make a show of setting up camp. It didn’t figure that LaPorte was going to give up on them just because they had confronted him. Evidently he had reason to believe they knew something about Jim. Well aware of
LaPorte’s capacity for dirty dealings, they decided the thing to do was sneak out after dark and try to lose him.
Their caution was unnecessary, for LaPorte had decided the two old trappers had no notion where the boy was. When he galloped away from the riverbank, he pointed his horse directly north, heading for Blackfoot country and his friend, Lame Fox. He was going to need some help if he was to earn his five hundred dollars, and Lame Fox could send out the word that he was looking for a white boy. It might be impossible to find one young boy, even a white one. An entire tribe would be hard to find in the territory west of the Missouri. He had told Morgan Blunt that it might take some time, but Blunt just ordered him to find the boy, no matter how long it took. Winter would be setting in before long, and LaPorte wanted to find Lame Fox’s camp before the first snows came. It was his intention to look for the boy at Fort Union, at the mouth of the Yellowstone, and at Fort Cass, at the mouth of the Bighorn. Both trading posts were places where a young man looking for a place to hide might show up.
Frank and Buck made their way through South Pass, then north to trap the western slopes of the Wind River Range. When winter set in, they would camp at the Forks of the Snake—or maybe join Bridger’s bunch on the Yellowstone. Though they kept a sharp eye for the likes of Joe LaPorte and hostile Indians, they saw no more of the loathsome Mr. LaPorte that fall.
* * *
The object of LaPorte’s search, young Trace McCall, was even then no more than fifty miles away as the hawk flies. His eyes trained on a thicket of scrub trees and brambles, he waited, not moving, as his friend Black Wing cupped his hands before his lips and expertly produced the mating call of a bull elk. They had left their ponies tied below and climbed high up through the mountain meadows, Black Wing calling out as they went. This late in the fall, the bulls were seeking out their mates, and soon the mountain air was filled with the bugling of the big beasts.
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