“Governor Simpson, I’m honored to meet you, sir,” Skye replied. “I’ve heard much about you.”
“And you, sir? Have I heard much about you?”
“No, you haven’t. I am Barnaby Skye.”
Simpson looked puzzled. “I know that name, yes. Somewhere, blast it. Well, come in and have tea. Yes, and the men’ll put the horses up, and you’ll tell us how a man like you rises like some wraith out of the wilderness and approaches a fire.”
“I’m on my way north, sir, to the Belly River, where I wish to do business with the Bloods.”
“What sort of business?”
“My wife is a captive. I wish to free her.”
“Your wife? A white woman?”
“No, she is a woman of the Crows, the Absaroka. And I intend to get her back.”
“You are an Englishman; quite plain in your speech. Yes, London. But not Billingsgate, not Cockney. What is it, then?”
“My father was a merchant, sir, import-export.”
“Well, that’s it, then. But you’re not one of our men.”
“No, sir. I’m not associated with any company at present, though I’ve trapped with a Yank brigade.”
“Damned near treason, Skye.”
“It’s Mister Skye, sir.”
“Mister Skye, is it? Now I remember. The Royal Navy. A damned deserter.” He thrust a finger at Skye. “Seize him!”
forty
So it wasn’t over.
Skye sprang toward Governor Simpson, wrestled the man around, and pressed his knife to the man’s throat. The Hudson’s Bay governor writhed until the keen edge of Skye’s knife drew blood.
“They’ll kill me, but you’ll die first,” Skye whispered.
“Don’t move, don’t move,” Simpson bellowed.
Skye hated this. He had no quarrel with valid authority, only with injustice. He might die in the next moments. That couldn’t be helped. He would not—ever—go back to England or spend his days in a dungeon. When he had finally escaped the Royal Navy, he vowed that no bars would ever come between his eyes and the heavens.
Around him, burly Hudson’s Bay men stood frozen, ready to spring at him. Skye was one against twelve or fifteen. More than that. Simpson didn’t beg, but stood composed, aware of the deadly blade pressing against his jugular.
“I will never be taken alive,” Skye announced to the men, who even now were edging around behind him, preparing to spring. “And if you attempt to kill me now, Simpson dies.”
They believed him. He could see their wariness in the flickering light. Yet he didn’t know how to escape. With one arm around the governor, and the other holding the knife to the man’s throat, he could not lead his horses away.
“For God’s sake, be careful,” Simpson said. It was a command to his men. The governor wasn’t pleading and hadn’t lost his composure. Skye admired him.
“I will make something clear,” said Skye. “I prefer death to capture. Remember that. Mr. Simpson is a good and honorable Englishman. Don’t cost him his life. He will have it if you heed me.”
He wrestled Simpson toward the edge of camp, where the firelight dimmed. Simpson walked readily. The bores of several Hudson’s Bay rifles followed. When he reached a place where some brush blocked the view, he steered the governor behind it.
“One man, bring me my horses,” he yelled.
They debated a moment in the light of the fire.
“Tell them, sir,” Skye said softly.
“Damned if I will.”
Skye pressed his keen blade into the flesh of the man’s neck. Simpson wilted.
“Bring his horses—you, McGill. Do it.”
A man led Skye’s black horse and the packhorse out of the firelight and brought them near.
“All right, go back,” said Skye. “If you value the governor’s life, don’t follow. Sit down at the fire. Everyone.”
Skye watched them reluctantly sit. He knew one or more lurked in the darkness, maybe even now circling around to pounce on him. He listened closely, hearing nothing.
Skye steered Simpson toward the horses. “Take the reins,” he told the governor.
Slowly, Skye steered the governor into the deeps of the night, following the lakeshore northward. Water glinted on his right. A quarter moon spread pale white light over the darkened landscape. Skye paused frequently, listened for sounds of pursuit. He heard none.
“Are we in British territory?” Skye asked the governor.
“Where Hudson’s Bay is, Britannia rules.”
“Where were you coming from and where are you going?”
“I am returning from Vancouver and stopped to see Fort Spokane.”
“And?”
“Up to the Saskatchewan River.”
“And then to York Factory?”
“How far are you taking me?”
“You won’t get lost. Not with that lakeshore guiding you back.”
“You’re an abomination before man and God.”
“Think what you will.”
“They should have thrown you into the sea.”
“Quiet now. You’re talking to give me away.”
“I’ll talk all I choose.”
“You don’t much care for your life, then.”
Skye released him, took the reins, and prodded the governor forward at knifepoint. They traversed another mile or so of lakefront. Then, as the shore curved east, Skye turned north. A grassy slope took them out of the lake basin and onto prairie. The whole bowl of heaven lay over them.
“I’ll let you go now,” Skye said. “Go down the slope to the lake and follow the shore. And don’t start yelling. As long as you are in my sight, you are not safe.”
“I’ll see you hanged, Skye.”
“Be gone now. Do not yell. I am armed and watching. Remember that.”
Sir George Simpson glared, whirled away, and marched off the ridge. Skye swiftly moved to his left and then swung north again. When he reached some brush he paused, mounted the black, and rode swiftly. He could scarcely imagine how he escaped. And he knew that at least some within Hudson’s Bay had not given up their effort to ship him back to London.
He cut westward, putting the North Star on his right. The maneuver wouldn’t long slow down an experienced mountain man, but Skye intended to do all he could to elude his followers. He rode swiftly through the night, intending to put distance and more distance between himself and Simpson.
He wondered what the Hudson’s Bay governor was doing so far south of the usual voyageur’s passage from Fort Vancouver to York Factory. But he didn’t have to wonder long. Simpson was probably offering weapons and ammunition to any who would make relentless war on the Yanks. Hudson’s Bay had been doing that ever since Ashley’s free trappers penetrated the mountains. The British didn’t want an American presence in the Oregon country, which ran from the Rockies to the Pacific and was under joint rule until a boundary could be established. Thus did Hudson’s Bay further the imperial designs of the Crown.
Skye sensed he wasn’t done with Simpson. The man might well show up at the Sun Dance. Where else could he stir up so many Blackfeet? If that was the case, Skye would be in even more jeopardy if he were to walk in to the great Blood tribal ceremony. If he intended to free Victoria, he would have to get in and get out before Simpson’s large party showed up. Skye wished he had kept quiet about his plans back in those amiable moments when he first encountered Simpson. But it was too late to repair the damage.
He swung north again and continued until he felt the horses tire. Not long before dawn he made a dry camp in a coulee, picketed the horses well below the skyline, and rolled into his robe. He made no fire and went hungry. After four years in the mountains, he was inured to starving. He didn’t sleep.
At first light, when the world was gray, he studied the surrounding country, which was open and grassy, and then collected his half-rested horses. He rode ever north, a solitary figure on a mission that seemed crazy. At every rise he paused to study h
is back trail, but saw nothing. The country began to change. Forest stretched along slopes, and the land seemed better watered. He supposed he was in British territory, but didn’t know. A boundary had never been surveyed.
That afternoon he struck a goodly river that ran in a shallow canyon. Its clear cold water had the lingering taste of snowmelt. It ran northeast. Skye believed it was the Belly and he was close to the Bloods, but he couldn’t be sure. From now on it would be guesswork. Very little the Piegans told him helped now, when one river seemed like another.
From a hilltop he studied the half-forested, half-grassed country. What he hoped to find was some distant buttes, the Belly Buttes—at whose feet the great Sun ceremony was even now proceeding. He saw nothing he could define as a butte or tableland, but maybe that was because he was too far west.
He sat his horse, examining a land so vast that a man could spend months mastering it. Somewhere, in some direction of the compass, was Victoria. He felt a helplessness once again. There were so many times, throughout his life, when he barely knew where to turn or what to do. He clambered off his horse and settled in the wind-rippled grass, letting himself absorb the country before him. He didn’t much believe in intuition, but he did believe that if he opened all his senses to the world around him, he might get information, see or hear or smell the things he would otherwise miss.
One of these was buffalo. Below him, in the boxed valley of this river, he spotted a dozen of the great black animals peacefully grazing. They reminded him that he was hungry and out of food. These looked larger and darker than any he had seen before, and he wondered whether they were the woods buffalo the trappers had spoken of, a shaggy northern version of the plains buffalo to the south. From his vantage point he watched the shadows of puffball clouds plow the earth, roll over forests, climb slopes and disappear. He felt, as he sometimes did, that he was not alone, that the strangeness of his life had some hidden purpose he might yet fathom when he was an old man.
Below, a small barren cow grazed. He would eat her tongue and regret leaving so much more. It had been a long time since he had tasted the splendid, firm meat of the bison. He let his horses graze a while more, suddenly in no hurry, and then rode down a game trail into the narrow canyon. The herd saw him descend the canyon wall and trotted downstream, tails lifted, wide-eyed. Skye slid his mountain rifle out of its fringed sheath, checked the priming, which was dry, and rode easily downriver, driving the herd before him.
Then the cow he had his eyes on stumbled and fell, and he beheld an arrow in her side and a swarm of Indians boiling out of the bankside willow brush.
forty—one
They saw him just as he saw them. They barely paused at the fallen buffalo cow, and rode instead toward Skye, fifteen, twenty of them, all armed, some with rifles, most with deadly bows and arrows.
Suddenly Skye became the hunted, along with the buffalo. The howl of the hunters told him that. Swiftly, Skye kicked his horses straight up the slope. He intended to top the rim of the river valley, which was his sole hope of escape. But his burdened horse and packhorse lost ground to the buffalo ponies of these warriors. He saw an arrow hiss by and knew he was within range. He huddled low over the saddle to make a smaller target and urged his black up the steep slope, which it devoured with great leaps that almost unseated him.
The Indians had the advantage of the angle, and drew closer as he scaled the grassy slope. Another arrow reached him, this one smacking into the kit behind his cantle. An arrow struck the black, and it screeched. Sky saw a line of blood where the arrow had plowed a trench along the croup. Not a fatal wound, but the black horse kicked and screeched and bucked itself over the rim of the valley, and for a few seconds Skye enjoyed a respite.
His nearest succor was a patch of pines half a mile distant. But the lumbering packhorse was slowing him. He let go. His life was worth more than his kit. The horse thundered along behind Skye anyway, not wanting to separate itself from its companion.
The hunters spilled onto the grassy plain and fired volleys of arrows. Skye heard the packhorse wheeze. It grunted and stumbled to the ground, three arrows in it, one through the neck, one in the ribs, and the third into the rump. Another volley of arrows hit his black, and one arrow pierced his leather shirt. He felt the black buckle under him, shudder, and cave in. Skye pulled loose just before it collapsed, and found himself flat on the grass, the wind knocked out of him. He tried to unsheath his rifle, but it lay under the weight of the flailing, dying horse.
So this was it.
Moments later they swarmed over him, a dozen—more, twenty—powerful, tall, golden-fleshed Blackfeet, Bloods probably. They studied him, saw he was alive, and crowded around, each counting coup. Blows rained down on him. They kicked and pummeled, jabbed with coup sticks, knocked him about. The blows came so fast and hard he had no place to escape, no way even to fight.
Then the blows stopped. They had all counted coup. He supposed they would kill him now; a coup against a live enemy was worth much more than a coup against a dead one. He tried to sit up, but a foot smashed him to the ground again. He rolled over, beheld a circle of them over him, lances poised for the kill. But a sharp command of a headman forestalled that—for the moment. Skye wished they would finish the job. From the ground he saw them pillage his kit. They ripped open the panniers on the packhorse and pulled out all the trading items he had planned to use to win Victoria: knives, awls, beads, pairs of blankets, powder, bars of lead, flints and steels, a bolt of tradecloth. These they examined, sometimes glancing at him. He lay still, awaiting his fate. The leader of this band of hunters signaled two of them to roll the dead black over. He wanted to free the rifle. Moments later he possessed the prize, a fine, octagon-barreled percussion lock and a fringed and beaded sheath. He held it high, sighted down it, aimed it at Skye, and laughed.
“Shoot, Bug’s Boy,” Skye said.
But the warrior didn’t. Instead he hefted the rifle, ripped Skye’s powder horns from his chest, and took Skye’s knife for good measure. The bear claw necklace caught his eye, and he examined it closely, plainly fascinated by the length of the dark claws. Now at last he examined Skye as a person, not just a white enemy. Then he said something Skye couldn’t translate. The headman yanked at the necklace, trying to pull it loose. Skye resisted.
“That’s mine; leave it alone, you devil,” he roared.
The headman yanked harder, so Skye smacked him with his fist.
Surprised, the headman reeled back, sprang to his feet, and pulled out his war club, a mean weapon composed of a shaped piece of rock bound by rawhide in the fork of a haft. The warrior slashed down sharply; Skye rolled, and the club grazed his ear. Skye kept on rolling, got to his feet, and rammed toward the warrior, who brought the club back and down, smashing hard into Skye’s shoulder. Skye went numb with shock. His shoulder felt as if it had been severed from his body. He pushed, and the warrior staggered back. Skye landed on him, but the tribesmen pulled him off, a dozen hands lifting him off the fallen chief by main force. They cast Skye into the dirt, where he lay panting, waiting …
When they turned to the chief to help him up Skye sprang again, his heart wild in him, his fists hammering at any flesh he could see—and he did not lack a target. Something berserk had loosed in him; his senses had become unmoored, and now he fought one and all, crazily, too powerful for any or several to grip him or topple him, though they tried. Then a sharp command stopped them, but not Skye. He was beyond stopping, and launched murderously after one, then another.
A blow to his head shot white through his brain, and then blackness. He knew nothing … .
He awakened now and then to the throb of a mighty headache, and knew from the pain that he lived. But he couldn’t think and didn’t understand what had happened. When he finally did come around, he felt only thirst and pain. He lay in a darkened place but couldn’t focus his eyes enough to know where he was. His body gave him no comfort, but in spite of raw hurt he drifted into oblivion again. The n
ext time he came to, he realized he was in a lodge. The poles at the smoke hole formed an apex. Blue sky lay beyond. The Bloods—if that was who they were—had taken him to this place. And spared him for reasons of their own. He knew their reasons, and wished they had killed him outright instead of the slow style they had in mind.
He heard a drumming and wasn’t sure whether it was his angry pulse or the beat of a ceremony. He decided it was a ceremony and that the Sun Dance was under way, or about to begin, or in a preliminary phase. He closed his eyes again; to see was to hurt. He discovered that he still possessed his bear claw necklace, powerful medicine to these people and any other tribe. It lay across his chest, hurting him. The brush of a feather would have hurt him just then.
This night they would hurt him more.
He dozed. He was conscious of people entering the lodge, poking him, talking over him. One lifted his bear claw necklace and then dropped it. Some woman lifted his head and gave him water. He drank greedily and slumped back to oblivion. Let them examine him all they would; his life was no longer his own, and he had surrendered it. Maybe, when he could form words better, he would pray for a good death. No one much thought of the importance of a good death, but any mountaineer did, and a plea for a good death lay in the heart of every man he had met in these wilds. There were so many deaths of the other kind.
He lay awake in the quiet of the empty lodge, studying what had been stored within. He needed the means of self-immolation, a way to a swift sure death, without the pain of what was in store for him. He saw nothing. His captors had been careful. He was not bound in any way, but his moccasins had been taken from him. Nothing more was needed to keep him there.
No one bothered to feed him, but he hurt too much to care. All the long day he heard in the distance the dancing of the Bloods. For four days they would honor the Sun, perform ritual acts of repentance and sacrifice and cleansing. They would dance on a bed of fragrant sagebrush, around a Sun pole with buffalo skulls at its base. They would whistle with bone flutes, compose prayers to the powerful Sun, pleading for peace, for fruitfulness, for increase, for victory at war, for blessings. And some would beg Sun for darker things: vengeance, fulfillment of a bloody vow, death upon enemies. These were the most sacred hours in the liturgy of the Blackfeet, more sacred even than the opening of the beaver bundle in the spring. During all this, his captors would ignore him and fulfill their obligations to Sun and to the tribe.
Dark Passage Page 24
