Dark Passage

by Richard S. Wheeler

  She sensed the warriors were expecting her to feed them, but she scorned them. She chewed on the tough jerky and made do with that. She would be a warrior, not a camp follower.

  The men had changed. These were the same men who lounged in the village, smoking, gambling, hunting, laughing, enjoying their children, eyeing all the wives and single girls, giving gifts. But now they were all strangers. She had never been on the warpath before, and the change in them excited her. They were moody and silent. Above all, they communed with their spirit-helpers, with the One Above, with those things around them that would influence their fate. Some fasted. Some observed strange rituals, walking in a circle, or lifting a hand to the sliver of new moon, or chanting to the setting sun, or removing their medicine bundles, opening them, minutely examining the totemic items within before retying the bundles and hanging them at their breast. Most of them sang their own medicine songs, devised to inform the spirits, or plead, or boast, or recite honors, or repeat a vow.

  She watched, amazed at the transformation in these men. One thing she now knew: war was serious and these warriors took it seriously. Somehow all the war fever of the village had little to do with this, out upon the breast of the earth, where a warrior might fight and die.

  twenty—six

  Jim Beckwourth had ambitions, but not the ordinary kind. He didn’t mind money or comfort or power, but these were not what his soul yearned for. He could take or leave wealth, didn’t need to be a chief, and was as much at home out on the trail as in a comfortable warm lodge. Assorted wives and sweethearts were always welcome in his life, but he could manage without them if he had to.

  What James Pierson Beckwourth lusted for was legend. Somewhere along the way, he had discovered that a reputation was exactly what satisfied his yearnings. So he began creating one. He did not wish merely to have a great reputation as a mountain man or a Crow warrior. No, he wanted his reputation to transcend all those lesser things. It would not do merely to be known among the Crows as a fine warrior. He needed to impress his mountaineer friends that he was the best of the best at everything. The best hunter, best warrior, best womanizer, best child-begetter, best shot, best knife fighter, best scalper, best scholar, best tracker, best leader, best guide, best horseman, best dresser, best looker, and best storyteller and friend the West had ever seen. He modestly supposed he was not quite all of these things, but if he nurtured the legend a little, people would think he might be.

  Fame was, after all, a heady delight for a young man who had technically been born a slave, even though his father had raised him as a free man. Back east, such a person, even though he was only an eighth a man of color and looked entirely white, had little hope of winning any sort of reputation at all, except perhaps as some sort of rascal. But here in the free and wild wilderness, reputation was the narcotic that filled his veins with joy.

  A reputation took nurturing, pruning, and planning. It was not, after all, some weed that might grow and bloom all by itself. And so he had begun, way back in his fur brigade days, to let his colleagues know of his prowess at virtually everything, from reading and writing to shooting his Hawken. It required only a little embroidery, and he was always careful to stick closely to what everyone knew was true. He was not alone at this, either. Most of his campfire colleagues were past masters at the art of inflating their derring-do, especially when whiskey lubricated their tongues.

  James Beckwourth knew well enough that fame had to be accompanied by deeds, that while he could embroider, he could not defraud or he would lose the whole game. And so, among the Crows, he was always ready to lead horse-stealing parties, acts of war that won acclaim with minimal risk. It wasn’t hard to slip into a sleeping camp and make off with horses, or fire a few shots at awakening enemies, or even count coup. And that was what he was about on this adventure.

  It did not hurt to have not one but two women along vying for his attentions, the famous fighting woman Pine Leaf and beautiful Victoria, Many Quill Woman, who had learned plenty about war from Skye. Some of his Crow colleagues no doubt disapproved, but so what? The women only added to his luster.

  His objective this time was not to steal horses from the Piegans but to continue north to the Sweet Grass Hills and beyond to steal horses from the Bloods, the most formidable of all the enemies of the Absarokas. The Crows scarcely even respected the Piegans, especially the Little Robe band, which usually lived in a sort of unwritten truce with the Crows. But the Bloods, the Kainah, were a different matter. They were powerful, ruthless, daring, proud, colorful, and masters of mayhem. Counting coup against the Bloods was a dream that burned and smouldered in the soul of every Crow warrior. Let a Crow defeat a Blood and he would be great among his people, storied and feted, adored by the women, admired by every youth yearning to go to war.

  The Bloods, then. They roamed country a little north of the Piegans, but forayed south now and then to torment the Crows. Beckwourth intended to catch them at their spring hunting grounds around the Sweet Grass Hills, and if not there, then across the medicine line into British territory, which was home to them. This would be a long trip, with the possibility of a long retreat and a long pursuit if the angry Bloods came after them. But that only made the prospects more enticing and ensured the glory of all the Crows. They were strong enough to thwart the Bloods, especially with Beckwourth’s big Hawken that could deal death at a thousand yards, many flights of arrows distant.

  Day by day they rode north through an early May chill, ever watchful for the enemy. They cut the trail of war and hunting parties on two occasions, the hoofprints embedded in the moist soil of springtime. Later in the year, when the sun had hardened the earth, it would be far more difficult to read as much from the passage of horses. But with cunning and care they made their way north unmolested except by a two-day cold rain that caught them on grasslands far from firewood and shelter and numbed them into misery. They were traveling for war and had not brought their heavy robes. Little Tail, one of the finest men among them, soon took sick, fevered by disease, and discovered that his medicine had failed him. They left Little Tail in a hidden swale, where he would endure until the sickness passed. It was a bad omen, and many of the Crows ascribed it to the presence of women.

  Their passage took them across a vast and lonely prairie broken by occasional buttes and oddly formed hills. They reached the Missouri and tried two well-known fords before they found one that permitted passage. Even then they had to swim their horses through twenty yards of swift cold current, early spring runoff, and lost a horse in the process. Another bad omen. The shivering party gathered on the north bank, stripped off sopping leather clothing, built a miserable fire that threw no heat because of the wind, and tried to dry itself out. Some of Beckwourth’s warriors eyed the women sullenly but said nothing. If either of the women belonged in the hut of the time of the moon, then the whole party was in danger from evil medicine. Pine Leaf never fought during those times, so the warriors eyed Victoria with dark suspicion and avoided her.

  Beckwourth laughed. He believed in nothing, or almost nothing other than the explosive force of powder and the lethal effect of a lead ball. Victoria was an asset. She would hold the horses when the warriors crept on foot toward a Blood herd, and she could fight if she had to, using her own lighter bow and arrows. She had soldiered without complaint, making the brief camps comfortable.

  One day, from an observation point halfway up the side of a butte, they spotted a whole Blackfoot village on the move, the motion almost invisible against the shadows of puffball clouds plowing across the land. Closer inspection revealed vedettes far out from the main body, two of them passing under the butte. Beckwourth, as war leader, opted for concealment, though some among them would have liked to swarm down on the vedettes and take scalps. No one among them could say whether these were Piegans or Bloods, or less probably Gros Ventres, Crees, or Assiniboines.

  They pierced deeper into hostile country, their senses alert and nerves ajangle with the sudden flight
of any bird or the slightest shift of the silences. Far to the west the white spine of the Rocky Mountains formed a rampart. For all the members of the Blackfoot Federation, those mountains meant home.

  The next day they discovered a large herd of buffalo grazing in a shallow basin, and were just contemplating a feast of tongue and hump meat when the herd stirred. Something at its farther periphery agitated the black creatures, and the stirring spread into a sinuous movement, and then a slow trot, and finally a rush, as the huge animals began stampeding, their speed astonishing and improbable for such lumbering creatures. The source of all this soon became apparent. Blackfoot hunters were running the herd southward, darting among the great beasts on their swift buffalo ponies, drawing close enough to punch a lethal arrow into the heart-lung spot just behind the forelegs. Only the excitement of their hunt, and the mile distance, choked with buffalo, kept them from seeing the Crows.

  Beckwourth watched, delighted even though they would not make meat just then, knowing they had escaped detection. He drew his men into a shallow gulch just out of sight, prepared to fend off the warriors who would want to catch and kill the buffalo hunters, steal their ponies, count coup, and go home triumphant. It would be an easy victory—but not against the Bloods, if Beckwourth’s instincts were true. These hunters were Piegans, and they were probably tied to the passing village.

  “These dogs, these Piegans, are too easy,” he said, preempting the discussion. “They aren’t worth chasing. We will go for the Bloods, and we will return with more honors. What is a coup against a Piegan? Nothing. We will show the People how to make real coups.”

  “I will count coups against these,” said Sitting Man.

  “No, that would betray us to them.”

  “I will count coup. It is the way given me. I will take some scalps and their buffalo runners. I want a fast horse. This is my way.”

  Beckwourth didn’t like it. As war leader, he could forbid it—and face the consequences. Or permit it—and face the consequences. To prevent a warrior from acting upon his medicine was a grave matter, one that could sour the rest of the foray. But to give in might lead to discovery and defeat by overwhelming hordes of Blackfeet.

  “Go, then, Sitting Man,” Beckwourth said unhappily. “But they will follow your trail back to us.”

  Sitting Man didn’t wait. He climbed onto his pinto pony, made medicine a moment, singing his war songs, and rode south, a lone knight.

  Beckwourth had no choice other than to put distance between the war party and Sitting Man. The buffalo were long gone, and nothing but a swath of trampled, muddy grass told of their passage. He eyed the distant cloud-shadowed hills uneasily, saw nothing, and rode north as hard as the horses would move across soft and treacherous earth. He headed into the middle of the trampled area, hoping to conceal his party’s passage, and rode north, ever north, to the land of the Bloods.

  Far ahead, across a featureless plain, lay the Sweet Grass Hills, three great buttes rising over three thousand feet above the plains, the center butte much smaller than the massive ones east and west. Somewhere northwest of the hills, in the shadow of the Rockies, they would probably find Bloods—or Bloods would find them. But to get there they would cross a land without stories. Nothing ever happened there, nothing that could be told and retold. Nothing on that hollow plain spoke of time, or habitation, or events. So they would ride through a place without time.

  An eerie isolation surrounded the hills, which perhaps was why the Blackfeet thought they were the habitation of spirits. One could gaze upon the dark buttes and see the spirits congregated there, unhappy, fearsome, isolated, and maybe vengeful, too. Beckwourth didn’t like the looks of the hills, and neither did his warriors. The quest for glory had turned dark.

  twenty—seven

  Death wove a red thread through Skye’s every hour. Berger’s little post was subject to every whim of the Blackfeet. The Piegans suffered it simply because it was a convenient source of white men’s goods, much closer than the Hudson’s Bay posts far to the north.

  Not that the Piegans liked or trusted the Americans, with whom they had been at war ever since they had skirmished with Lewis and Clark. Many a warrior entered the cabin not so much to trade as to measure the heads of those within for the scalping knife. If the traders survived, it would be only because of Berger’s formidable presence. He refused to be intimidated. But as the scanty supply of trade goods dwindled, and the pile of robes, prime beaver pelts, and other skins mounted, the Blackfeet took more and more liberties, wandering behind the crude counter, daring Berger to cause trouble, pilfering whatever they could.

  Skye knew that he and Berger and the Creole, Arquette, wouldn’t last ten minutes in a fight. Not with scores of warriors lounging about ready to burn the rough cottonwood log cabin and fry its occupants. But peace held, perhaps because Berger assured the Blackfeet that the American Fur Company would build a larger post there and sell more goods for better prices than Hudson’s Bay. That slender thread was all that kept their topknots on their skulls. That and Berger’s fearless diplomacy.

  The little outpost did not deal in whiskey even though spirits were the most lucrative—if illegal—business of all. Berger knew full well what a jug of Indian whiskey—raw alcohol, river water, and a plug of tobacco or pepper for taste—would do to these tribesmen who weren’t accustomed to spirits. They were explosive enough sober; with drink in them they would pay no heed to tomorrow and butcher the hated Yanks just for the joy of it.

  At Fort Union an Indian could show up at a small window after dark, any night, and trade a pelt for a cup. But Fort Union could defend itself even from a mob of whiskey-crazed warriors on a drunk. Its stockade was all but impenetrable. So the only risk in the illegal liquor trade was discovery by the United States Indian commissioners.

  Skye yearned for a jug, but Berger kept not even a drop for his own use. Skye woke up each morning wondering if he would survive the day. His task was to cut firewood, which took him far from the post and subjected him to the whim of any Blackfoot who decided to kill him. Another of his tasks was to feed the horses any way he could, putting them out on the tender spring grasses and watching over them while they grazed, or cutting grass and bringing it to his animals, which were penned behind the cabin. He expected them to disappear at any moment, with the itch of any Blackfoot, but the theft didn’t happen. Still another was to hunt, because the post’s provisions had long since been exhausted. Berger traded goods for meat now and then, but the food supply had become precarious and monotonous.

  Blackfeet came and went. Some days a whole village would erect its lodges around the cabin; other days there wasn’t an Indian in sight and Skye could do his chores without the underlying terror that usually accompanied them. Skye was assigned the meanest and most dangerous tasks because he was junior, while Arquette sorted and pressed beaver and other furs into packs, and cooked as well. Berger lounged, traded, meandered among the Blackfeet making friends as much as possible. He did not neglect to hand out small gifts—a plug of tobacco here, a few beads there, a knife to a chief or headman.

  Skye tried to learn the tongue, but confused it with the Crow, and had trouble. Still, he figured every word he mastered was a word that might help him in a pinch. “Arrow” was aps’se. “Water” was oh kiu’. “Wind” was su po’. “Fire” was is’tsi. The Marias River, close at hand, was called Kaiyi Isisakta, which really meant “Bear River.” He mastered fifty, then a hundred words, but Berger never let him trade. That business was too delicate and the Blackfeet too unpredictable.

  So Skye headed out each morning with his packhorse, walking past the handsome lodges of these people while enduring their curious silences, chopped cottonwood limbs, bundled them on his pack saddle, and returned, amazed to be alive. He took his Hawken, but Berger instructed him not to use it except as a last resort. He was to stand firm, prevent theft of his horse if he could, show no sign of dread or fear if he could, and hasten back to the post.

  Then,
for a while, the Blackfeet vanished. They were off on raids, hunting, visiting relatives in other bands, marrying, making ready for the Sun Dance, which they held at the time of the summer solstice, going on vision quests, opening sacred medicine bundles—the beaver bundle was opened about this time each spring, Berger explained. That was fine with Skye. His sojourn at this vulnerable little outpost was coming to a close and he was still alive, to his astonishment.

  He debated whether to pull out, head across the opened passes, find Bridger and Fitzpatrick, report for work, confess his failure with the Crows. It was tempting, but the thought of Victoria stopped him cold. He was done with the mountains. Any hope of healing the hole in his heart lay in some Yank place like St. Louis or the mysterious cities to the east. No, he wouldn’t do that, nor would he betray McKenzie. He would not add that black mark to all the rest.

  More Piegans arrived, thirty lodges led by a burly old chief with five or six wives. Skye had never seen such tall, handsome Indians. They exuded pride, beauty, power, arrogance, assurance, and lordship over all this country. They drifted south during the brief summers, making trouble for their neighbors. Their lodges had been gaily decorated with moons and fallen stars painted around their bases, bright insignias suggesting clan and medicine painted on the sides. These people favored blues of all shades in their dress, beadwork, and even on the parfleches.

  Swiftly they traded prime beaver plews for Berger’s powder and lead, lance points, kettles, arrowheads, knives, and awls. By the middle of May they had reduced Berger’s stock of trade goods to a few items, mostly awls, flints, fire steels, knives, and beads, which made Berger uneasy. Empty shelves only tempted the Indians with visions of blood and fire. It was time to get out of there, build some bullboats and float the pelts down the Missouri to Fort Union on the crest of the spring runoff. Skye, with his horses, would take a load overland, a dangerous business for a sole white man during the high summer days when every warrior of the northern plains was out roving, looking for adventure and plunder and coups.