Dark Passage

by Richard S. Wheeler

  Angrily she walked through the moonlight, confirming her darkest suspicions. The treacherous Pawnees, well known as the great thieves of the prairies, had stolen all the Skyes possessed—and five hundred dollars of trade goods.

  “Goddamn,” she said, hating to tell her man they had nothing.

  She stormed back to the lodge, finding Skye up, sitting in the deep dark.

  “Thieves!” she bawled.

  “Everything?”

  “Everything. Our horses.”

  “The trading packs?”

  “Gone.”

  Skye sighed, registering that. “Now I owe them five hundred more. Where’d they go? Could you make it out?”

  “Not enough light to see. But not long ago. I can still smell the dust.”

  Skye stalked the abandoned camp angrily, seeing for himself.

  “What are we going to do without ponies?” she asked.

  “We’ll walk,” he said.

  four

  We’ll carry what we can on our backs,” Skye said.

  “It isn’t so far. Ten sleeps to my people.”

  “That’s not where I’m going.”

  Victoria registered that and looked unhappy. “You will not catch them. They have many horses.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “You are alone; they are many.”

  “When I was a boy in the boat on the Big Water, I was alone. They would not even let me have my gruel—my food. So I fought them for it. They beat me, but then they let me eat. Maybe I will lose, but I must try. It’s a law of my life that I must try.”

  She nodded. “Maybe you will get everything back. Maybe you will die.”

  Skye surveyed the abandoned camp in the light of earliest dawn, before the sun rose. No trail led north. So the Pawnees had slipped away in the night, back from where they had come. South to the plains. Away from the Crows. All the talk about visiting the Crows was smoke.

  “Victoria,” he said, “I have to go after them, away from your people. You may as well go north. This is your country. You’d be safe enough. We can rig up a pack for you. Maybe I can make some meat for you to take with you. There’s berries, chokecherries …”

  It angered her. “Wherever you go, Skye, that’s where I go, dammit.”

  “You could visit your people. I’ll come later when I finish this.”

  “Maybe I wouldn’t see you. You and me, Skye. We will find the Pawnee thieves.”

  “It could be dangerous.”

  “You got bear medicine. Big, big medicine. Me, I got some medicine, too.” She grinned at him. The idea of a daring raid on their tormentors appealed to her.

  “I thought you wanted to get home to your people.”

  “I do. But goddamn, Skye, we’re gonna walk into the village with some war honors, Pawnee scalps. You, you’ll be a big man among us.”

  He shrugged. Being a big man had never appealed to him, nor had he ever sought status. Swiftly they inventoried their few possessions. They had the lodge, which they would have to cache and hope to recover later; two summer robes; the clothing on their backs; his rifle and powder horn and fixings; his sheathed knife; her bow and quiver of arrows; her flint and striker. They had what they needed.

  They found no place to hide the lodge, so they left it. But before doing so, Victoria hung a small medicine bundle from the lodgepoles, her amulets, some sage, some sweetgrass. The Peoples would leave it alone. They left the robes within; they were too heavy to carry. Then they headed south, back to the Owl Mountains. She carried only her quiver and bow; he cradled his Hawken in its fringed, quilled leather sheath, her gift to him.

  Hunger bit him. His stomach growled and complained, and he kept a sharp eye for anything they might eat. She walked wordlessly beside him, every step taking her away from her village and her dream of reunion.

  The day turned hot and they staggered through boiling air, crossed the Owls, and reached their base and the Wind River by nightfall. The trail of many horses led ever south, but they had not seen their quarry all day. The Pawnees could be twenty miles ahead for all Skye knew.

  They slaked their thirst, and Victoria managed to find some roots and berries. They had no pot but she roasted the roots—prairie turnips, he thought—over coals. That meager fare would have to suffice.

  That night, snugged close for warmth, she ran her small hands over his back. “You some hell of a sonofabitch man,” she said. He laughed. One thing a Crow woman loved was a good warrior.

  She laughed, too, oddly happy. He had come to understand something: she liked having him to herself and not sharing him with all the trappers and mountaineers. Now at last she had Skye without all the rest of it.

  He awoke in the night, responding to the rustling of some creature, but saw nothing. She lay beside him, awake. He judged that it might be two or three in the morning.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  “Damned spirits,” she muttered. “Bad place. Someone died here.”

  Hunger tortured him now; his belly howled. But he pushed that aside. They could gain hours on the Pawnee. If they were like other Plains people, they would be in no hurry to start in the morning. He and Victoria could be seven or eight hours closer by the time the Pawnees saddled up. But they would not be able to see the trail, and would have to trust that the Pawnees were heading toward their own country, having done all the mischief they could.

  He splashed icy water on his face, gasped, felt the water trickle through his beard, while she silently prepared herself for the day. Then he hoisted the heavy Hawken—the big mountain rifle had been built to withstand abuse, which is why the trappers loved them—and they started south again, with only the Wind River to guide them.

  Fool’s errand, that’s what it would come to, he thought. But it was something he had to do. Some things were iron rules inside of him, and this was one. Maybe he would fail, but they would not forget Mister Skye.

  The trail took them over the foothills of the Wind River Mountains, which lay in their path like giant tree roots. The slopes winded them, but at least they could make a living out of buffalo berries and the bitter chokecherries, though all the berries in the world wouldn’t do much for the gnawing in his gut.

  He pressed forward relentlessly, sometimes worrying whether his mate could maintain the pace. But she walked grimly beside him, her face a mask, enduring hardship in the way of her people. All that brutal day he pushed along the trail, knowing that they were gaining ground. The Pawnees were in no hurry, and their travel was leisurely. The horse manure was fresher, the evidence of passage—bent grass, sharp prints in sandy soil—more immediate.

  At dusk Skye and Victoria climbed an endless slope, topping it in the last light, a streak of blue behind the mountains signaling the death of a day. And below, a mile off, a fire. They stared at it, suddenly aware that decisions had to be made.

  “I guess we’ll walk in,” he said.

  “And die.”

  “Maybe not. I’ll keep my sheath on the rifle. You keep your bow on your back.”

  “Maybe they just kill us.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “But if we go in armed, we’ll face thirty or forty nocked arrows.”

  She muttered something to herself, and they started down the long slope, stumbling in darkness, not trying to conceal their presence. A few hundred yards from the fire, some of the Pawnee materialized, alert and ready to kill.

  “Well, we’re back, mates,” Skye said, forcing himself to sound cheerful. “Thought we’d join our good friends the Pawnees.”

  They didn’t understand a word, but that wouldn’t matter. Swiftly the warriors enveloped them, eyed their weapons, peered into the darkness looking for others, for ambush, for trouble. Over the fire, a deer haunch roasted, spitting fat into the flame. That was all Skye thought about. He headed straight for the haunch and sliced slivers of hot, roasting meat from it, wolfing some, handing some to Victoria.

  “How come you here?” asked Le Duc, the breed.

  Skye
ate. Filling his belly was the only business he wished to conduct. So he smiled, sliced more meat, fed Victoria, and continued to satisfy the howl of his stomach. Finally he wiped his mouth, sheathed his knife, and examined the Pawnees. Every horse had vanished. Whatever remained of the stolen packs and pack saddles had vanished.

  “Come to fetch our horses and packs,” he said to Le Duc. “I guess if you Pawnees are friends, you’ll return them, eh?”

  “What horses? I see nothing.”

  Skye lifted his topper and settled it again. “Well, this is some,” he said. “Let’s go ask the headman there. Go on, ask him.”

  Reluctantly, Le Duc spoke to the headman, and the headman replied.

  “He says we don’t have nothing.”

  Skye grinned. “Tell him he does not speak truly, and if he’s a friend of white men, he’d better try again.”

  Le Duc spoke again, and the headman’s response was stony silence. Pawnee warriors glared, and Skye noticed that some had bows in hand.

  “Tell him he’s no match for bear medicine,” Skye said, touching the magnificent bear claw necklace on his chest. “Tell him he can have this necklace if he’s telling the truth.”

  Victoria cussed at him.

  Le Duc tried again. “He says he’s telling the truth and give him de bear claws.”

  “Tell him that if he’s lying, the bear claws will kill him within one moon because he will not be worthy of such medicine.”

  “Sonofabitch,” Victoria said.

  The headman stood, undecided and unhappy, and then walked into the darkness without a word.

  Skye guessed he had just won, but wasn’t sure. “Le Duc, we’re fetching our horses and gear now. If you don’t give us our own back, we’ll take others. If we don’t get our gear back, we’ll take more horses.”

  Sullenly, the breed translated to the warriors, who stood stock-still. No one moved. Skye examined them alertly, knowing the moment of truth had arrived, and if he guessed wrong, he and his beloved might not walk away.

  “Take us to the herd,” he said.

  No one moved.

  “All right, we’ll find the horses ourselves. But first we’ll collect our gear.”

  He deliberately walked the periphery of the camp, where the firelight faded into night, and saw nothing at all. No one stopped him. He guessed that they were astonished that a lone man and woman would challenge thirty or forty able warriors. Wherever the gear was, he couldn’t find it.

  “What’re we gonna do, Skye?” Victoria asked.

  “I don’t know from one moment to the next.” He hiked back to the fire, which cast wavering orange light upon these powerful soldiers of the Pawnee tribe.

  He stood in the midst of them, his voice scornful and withering. “I thought we were friends. You told me you were coming to visit my wife’s people. Instead, you’re liars and thieves.” He spat on the ground. “That’s what, two-tongued, miserable, thieving curs. I’ll tell the Absarokas about the lying Pawnee. I’ll tell the Shoshones and Bannacks and Cheyenne. Let ’em know all about you.”

  They would translate his tone of voice, at least. But none moved.

  “Skye,” whispered Victoria. “Watch out.”

  Skye whirled as an arrow thudded at his feet.

  “Get out,” said Le Duc. “They say go.”

  So he had lost after all. He was jeopardizing Victoria as well as himself. Wordlessly, he stalked away, this time with a large escort of Pawnees, determined to see him far from their camp. They halted after ten minutes or so, muttering something at him that he took for a lethal threat.

  “Thanks for the meal, mates,” Skye said.

  He and Victoria hastened through the blackness, veering sharply left to dodge any treacherous arrow. But no one followed. He had failed. They would put up a massive guard this night and in the days to come.

  “They gonna talk about this a long time, Skye,” she said.

  “But we didn’t get anything back.”

  “Big medicine,” she said.

  But big medicine wouldn’t replace their losses.

  five

  The ignominy Skye knew he would face when he reached Victoria’s village didn’t make the hard walk any easier. He had dreamed of returning with all the ensigns of success: horses, packs, Victoria handsomely accoutered with every imaginable luxury—four-point blankets, pots, knives, awls, conchos for her belt, looking glasses, beads, and all the marvels that bespoke success and comfort. That and a trading outfit that would make him a treasured guest.

  Instead, he would walk into the village as a pauper. He would greet her parents as a pauper. He would try to compete against Beckwourth and the American Fur Company as a mendicant, with nothing to show for his four years in the mountains.

  But that was the future. Now, on the trail, survival occupied every moment. Victoria’s moccasins were wearing out. His shirt was rotting. They were never far from starvation. They were helpless against enemies, rain, cold, brutal heat. They trudged wearily back to the Popo Agie, the plains desolate now, the grass grazed to the roots from the time a thousand horses sojourned there during rendezvous. They trudged north along the Wind River, retracing their steps, the land dry and game scarce. They survived on a hare one day, a badger another, vile meat that gagged him.

  Victoria never complained. She not only radiated cheer—he ascribed that to the imminent visit with her family—but oddly, she seemed to love and admire him all the more, even in his defeat. He couldn’t understand it.

  They toiled over the arid, scowling Owl Mountains once again, and down to the hot spring nestled in the rough red-rock country. Their lodge had not been touched. The sacred bundle still hung from within. Victoria retrieved it, rejoiced in its medicine, and they settled into their home—for the night. She cut moccasin leather from one of the robes they had left there and sewed a new pair, awkwardly using his knife as an awl, cussing all the while. She cut a chunk of the summer robe to take with her, knowing that she would need to repair footgear again before they had walked ten sleeps to the Yellowstone—the Elk River, as her people called it.

  They stuck to the bottoms of the Big Horn River, working north through a harsh, naked land, and were rewarded with some game. Skye first surveyed the sage flats, saw nothing menacing, and risked a shot with the Hawken. The boom emptied into silence, and a yearling mule deer crumpled. That midafternoon they filled themselves with the dark, soft meat, which they roasted on green willow sticks, and ate again at dusk, and again in the sharply chill morning. Summer was waning. They would sleep cold before they reached her people.

  They traversed a depressing and monotonous basin, eating the venison, and then struck greener country east of the Beartooth Mountains. When they reached Clark’s Fork of the Yellowstone, Skye knew they weren’t far from Victoria’s band. He had been there before with one of the brigades, and knew the country. The closer they walked toward the Yellowstone, the more exuberant Victoria became, sometimes laughing or talking softly to herself in her own tongue—the words sweet and melodious, utterly different from her harsh English. She bloomed, laughed, found prairie turnips and other edible roots Skye couldn’t name, all the while helping him hunt and keep an eye out for trouble.

  But as her spirits soared, his sank. His leggings were in tatters, begrimed and falling apart, rotting day by day, his fringed coat foul with grease. He would arrive in her village half-naked, filthy, unkempt, and starved to a shadow. He looked at his grimed buckskins, his hands caked with dirt for want of soap other than the thick root of the yucca she dug and pulverized for him, his greasy boots, his worn calico shirt, and he beheld a vagabond who had never escaped his misfortune. He had dreamed of triumph, of walking proudly through the camp behind the town crier, showing them all that their Many Quill Woman had a man.

  Each day, the snowcapped blue peaks of the Beartooths loomed closer, while the Pryors vaulted smoothly upward in the east, and each night the cold crept deeper into their camp, forcing them to keep a fire going all
night because they had nothing else with which to protect themselves. But the storms held off. There were always blessings, and one of them was a dry August and September.

  The very hour they struck the stately Yellowstone, its icy waters braided by gravelly islands and its banks thick with cottonwoods, they discovered a distant party and hid on an island, unable to tell friend from foe. But they were not discovered. There would be traffic on that great artery, most of it unfriendly, and they would have to be much more careful.

  Here game abounded, and they shot what they needed, while Skye worried about his declining supply of powder and ball. His pig of lead, bullet mold, and spare powder had all fallen into the hands of the Pawnees. He might have to buy powder from Beckwourth and watch the man laugh at him.

  Still, it did no good to worry about the future. They were traversing grand country, the valley of the Yellowstone running here between tan sandstone cliffs, the bottoms green, the foothill slopes dotted with jackpine, the distant blue peaks noble and exhilarating. Already snow had crowned them, yet it was still summer in the river bottom.

  This was Absaroka, land of the Crows, and this would be his home, his refuge, for at least this winter, and maybe much longer. He realized that now Victoria was usually in front, ten or twenty paces ahead, whirling forward with a girlish joy at returning to her people. He rejoiced in her happiness, and yet it seemed to be saying that he wasn’t enough; life with him didn’t fulfill her. She needed her people even more. A worm of bitterness slid through him, but he dismissed it. He would not let some petty jealousy erode the bond that had transformed his life.

  The Crows, this season, were at the great bend of the Yellowstone, the very spot where, in early 1827, he had found Sublette and the trapping brigade that saved his life. The place was a favorite resort of the Crows, abounding in game and good grass, as well as a safe and defensible site. Then, one glowing September day, they forded the Shields River flowing in from the north, hiked west a few more miles, and spotted the drifting smoke of cookfires.