Dark Passage

by Richard S. Wheeler

  Skye said nothing. Around him, the Hudson’s Bay men made camp. They did a good job of it, settling down in a defensible place with shelter and firewood. He didn’t doubt that these engagés were fully the match of the Yank mountain men when it came to survival. He settled into the grass, grateful to have the burden lifted from him. He hurt as much as he had ever hurt. No one spoke to him, but the whole company eyed him from time to time, their thoughts private. He suspected that very few spoke English.

  In time he smelled roasting meat, and in a while they brought him some sizzling buffalo on a platter of bark. He would have to eat it with his fingers when it cooled enough. The scent of good meat made him dizzy. When at last he could handle the meat, he thought that it tasted better than anything he had ever eaten. He chewed mouthful after mouthful of the succulent steak, feeling the meat energize his wounded body and comfort him. They brought him more when he had downed the first helping, and he ate that, too, until he could not swallow another bite. The Indians had always said that buffalo meat gave them strength; they were right.

  After he had his fill, they trussed his ankles with thong, and then his wrists behind his back. He would sleep miserably, but they were taking no chances. They did toss a robe over him, and the warmth comforted him. Full darkness settled over the camp, until he could see nothing but the twinkling stars in the vast heaven above. He had vowed once that there would never be iron bars between him and the stars, and now that vow lingered in his mind as the camp lay quiet.

  He fought sleep because he needed to think. He might be a prisoner, but he had decisions to make, and his choice would be fateful.

  Victoria.

  She had seen him. She knew he had come. All that had passed between them had vanished in that terrible, beautiful moment. she knew what faithful love must be. He knew what it meant for her to renew her love. All of this lay beyond repentance and forgiveness, and in the realm where two souls meet and are inseparable to the end of time. Surely, surely, there must be a separate bower in heaven for true lovers. Maybe someday, beyond the beyond, he and Victoria would share that bower in the City of God.

  He had no regrets. She had cried out to him, and he had come. If it meant tossing aside his life, then that was his destiny. It had all been worth it, this sweet interlude, an unasked-for wilderness idyll so far from everything he had known as a child.

  He had a few options at that. He could refuse to take another step, refuse to participate in his imprisonment. If he chose not to walk, not to carry a burden, they could execute him, which he doubted they would do; flog him, which seemed quite possible, except that it would render him unfit to walk; bind and carry him on a packhorse, which was quite possible; or let him go, for want of means to take him to his destiny—which he deemed wildly improbable.

  He had another option: cooperate, walk, gain strength on the plentiful food, heal his body, and look out for a chance to escape. He had jumped ship with almost nothing; he could do it again during this high summer warmth and the forthcoming time of berries, fruit, and roots. The engagés were skilled wilderness men, but so was he after four years in these wilds He might outsmart them.

  He pondered both options as he lay there, trussed and uncomfortable. Walk or not walk. The decision was portentous. He was so young, yet he had always known he would give up that most precious of gifts, life itself, rather than submit to iron bars again.

  The rest came in a flood of understanding. He had man aged his escape from the Royal Navy only when he stopped resisting and seemed outwardly to cooperate. It had meant that he no longer was thrown into the ship’s brig whenever they came within sight of land. They let him stay in his own bunk because they had seen the change in him. The implication was clear: for the moment, he would cooperate with them, give them no reason to think he might be plotting his escape. He would be cheerful, humble, accepting of whatever they imposed on him. And when at last their vigilance lessened, then he would escape—or die.

  That was a somber thought, and he pushed it out of mind. He possessed the optimism of youth. He would find a way, and escape, just as he had done in the past. He felt sleep overwhelm him at last, but paused to ask his Maker for mercy and a way. Comforted, he drifted into a dreamless sleep.

  The next morning they fitted him with moccasins, fed him gruel swiftly boiled over a campfire, and loaded him with an impossible burden again. The moment it sagged from his shoulders, he hurt anew.

  “I can carry it, mates,” he said.

  No one replied. They had obviously been commanded not to traffic with the prisoner.

  Simpson inspected him minutely. “Well, Mister Skye, you’re going to walk another fifteen miles today. If you give us any cause, you may be certain blows will land on your head.”

  Skye nodded.

  “I’ll tell you something for your own profit. Behave yourself. Maybe you’ll have a future, eh?”

  Skye wondered what that meant. He remembered encountering the great Hudson’s Bay man Peter Skene Ogden years before, and how Ogden had tried to recruit him. Hudson’s Bay was as short of seasoned wilderness men as were the Yank fur companies. Skye suspected that Simpson’s desire to make pence and pound for his lords in London exceeded even his loyalty to the Crown. And that Skye’s cooperation might be the test.

  It was going to be a bloody hot day, judging from the way the heat built within an hour after they had started out. Skye’s back ached with the burden—he guessed sixty pounds—he bore. So heavy was his load that he stooped forward to balance it. He marveled that the voyageurs carried even more.

  He fell in beside the two English-speaking mountaineers, each of whom shouldered a load. Was this how HBC got its furs out of the American Northwest? No wonder they didn’t much bother with buffalo robes, preferring the more valuable beaver instead. They had to carry and portage and canoe everything from the Rocky Mountains clear to York Factory on Hudson’s Bay.

  He observed Simpson’s heavily loaded canoe far ahead, and began talking quietly to the silent men around him. He supposed that the better they knew him, simply as a fellow mortal, the less likely they would be to hurt him. So he began simply to tell his story, keeping his voice low and quiet. He swiftly described his youth in London, the press gang that changed his life, his years in the Royal Navy, and his desperate escape. He didn’t say much about his subsequent life with the Yank rivals of Hudson’s Bay. They would know it anyway, and he didn’t want to bring up a sore point. They listened silently, no one objecting, but no one giving any hint of sympathy either. And thus did a broiling day pass, and at the end Skye was never so glad to collapse into the grass and let his aching body find a moment of peace.

  The voyageurs beached their canoes in a deep canyon of the Belly that hid the river from the surrounding plains, and were eventually joined by the men on foot. They fed him well and bound him again that night, and he dozed fitfully until he was awakened by something, he knew not what. And then he knew: he smelled the foul exudations of a bear, and then felt the snout of the animal nudge his robe and sniff his head. His spirit-brother had come.

  forty—four

  Victoria fled deep into pine forest. The day was still young, and this thin arm of woods that followed a gulch was all that concealed her. She padded far beyond the woodcutters and continued up a forested slope far from a trail. There she found a viewpoint and waited. She could not move far until darkness cloaked her.

  For a while she saw no activity. Then four warriors rode casually north along the bank of the Belly River, on the trail taken by the Hudson’s Bay men. They acted as if they didn’t expect to find her going this way: why would an Absaroka woman go to the men from the grandfather’s land who were allied with the Siksika? No, they would look for her to the south, supposing she fled toward her people. Still, they were taking no chances, and these young warriors had been sent to guard the trail in this direction.

  They paused now and then, their senses keen, but they could not see her in her grassy bower, surrounded by pine,
sitting so still that not even the birds gave alarm. But now these four stood between her and the Hudson’s Bay men—and Skye. She settled into the thin grass, rubbing pine needles over her to subdue her own scent, and peering alertly in all directions, lest foot searchers came upon her.

  She eyed the powerful bow she had taken. It was fashioned from yew, a wood that grew far to the west, which meant her captor had traded for it. There were few good bow woods in the land of the Siksika or Crow. The Sioux got Osage orange from someplace far east and south, but the People of the northern plains and mountains were hard-put for good bows. She did not feel she had done anything wrong by taking it. Her captor had taken everything she possessed when he caught her, including her horse. Still, it was wrong for a woman to touch an instrument of war. A weapon had to be purified by a warrior, bathed in the smoke of sweetgrass and offered to the Ones Above before it would recover its power. But now she had touched it—and the arrows, too. She wondered if the bow’s power now belonged to her. She tried stringing it and found that her strength was barely enough. This was a bow for a strong warrior, not a woman. The long sinew, taken from the backbone of a buffalo, stretched taut and ready She nocked an arrow and waited, well armed against an enemy.

  But no one came. She thirsted but was far from the river. It didn’t matter. She could endure, and she wouldn’t move until night enfolded her.

  She had no plan, utterly no knowledge of how she might free Skye and how they might escape an intensive search by skilled men who could read sign as well as the People. But she would find a way and employ the night to conceal them. All doubt had vanished. She knew what she must do, and she would do it if she could. Her every thought was focused on freeing Skye and escaping. He might not want her, yet she would do it anyway. She would free him even if it meant that he would go east and never see her again.

  When dusk finally came, she edged down to the riverbank trail that the Hudson’s Bay men had taken, but stayed off it even though this caution slowed her passage. She was rewarded a while later by the dim sight of a warrior on horseback, sitting quietly, listening. He had heard her, and now moved slowly in her direction. She nocked an arrow, but settled silently into gloom beside some brush. He passed by without seeing her, never knowing that an arrow had pointed straight at his chest for a moment. She padded onward as the last light faded, and then stepped onto the trail, now lit only by starlight. She paced ahead, scarcely knowing where the trail took her, except that the North Star was on her left and as long as she followed the river, it would take her to Skye.

  Then, suddenly, she found herself in the midst of horsemen, Siksika who had been waiting for her. They sensed her just as she sensed them, and rode her down. She whirled, loosed the arrow at one, heard a muffled cry, and dodged off the trail through grass and then brush, making too much noise. She pulled another arrow from her quiver, nocked it, and waited, feeling her heart race. She heard male voices, the clop of unshod hooves, groaning, and then nothing. She squinted into the murk, trying to discern what lay out there. They had probably left one behind to catch her. She edged closer, this time taking care not to make noise, and did finally make out what she thought might be a Siksika standing near something that was probably his horse. He was as alert as she, and no doubt as well armed, but she couldn’t really tell. She chose to wait, and settled down right where she stood. Sometime he would leave, and then she would be free—perhaps.

  He guarded that place a long time, and she knew he was waiting for Mother Moon to come and shed her milky light so he could see again. Indeed, she saw a glow on the horizon where the moon would soon appear from behind the edge of the earth. She had little time. If there was one, there probably was another she didn’t know about. She dared not move, and simply sat quietly, not knowing what would come. When the three-quarter moon did appear, she saw the gray horse better than she saw the Siksika. The horse was staring at her, ears forward. That should tell a good warrior what he needed to know, but he was facing the other way.

  Time passed, and the warrior mounted his pony and rode toward the east, toward the Hudson’s Bay men. And another warrior joined him. She heard them talking, the two horses walking side by side. So the Siksika still lurked between her and Skye. They were following the trail, which lay clear now in the silver light. She watched them walk into the milkiness of the night, knowing what little chance a small lone woman had against them, even if she had a bow she could barely draw. They knew she was here and where she was going; they knew she had a bow and had hurt one of them. They would find her and kill her.

  Slowly she stood, peering sharply into the duskiest places. She was in a hilly country with grassed valleys and wooded slopes, and gulches choked with brush. The trail ran through open meadows. In the white light, she could not approach the horsemen without being seen.

  And yet … she would. She knew, suddenly, that she wanted those horses. One for her, one for Skye. And she would have to kill the Siksika to take them. And what chance had she? She flexed the bow, feeling its power, feeling it tug at her. She would try this thing, a frail woman against two powerful men. She pulled arrows from her quiver, wanting to touch them, invest her power in them also. She touched each arrow, making it hers, not her captor’s. Somehow this was important. She slid her hand along the thin shafts, one by one, feeling the deadly iron points, the feathers that had been bound with sinew to the shaft, and the little slots that took the sinew of the bowstring.

  She would do this thing! Her spirits soared. Some primeval power coursed through her, savage and wanton, hot and deadly. She had rarely felt this before; now she bathed herself in it. She might scalp these Siksika, a scalp from each, and let their spirits wander forever, without a spirit-home. She trotted after them, swiftly, deadly, silently, her moccasins somehow making no sound. She was a wolf trailing buffalo, a lioness gathering herself to outrun a deer and sink her teeth into its throat.

  She saw them ahead, leisurely walking their ponies, a gray and a darker one whose color she couldn’t make out. She would have to get close because she had little skill with this weapon. Close enough to drive an arrow into their backs. If she missed … what did it matter! It was a good night to die.

  She walked boldly, no cover concealing her, onward toward these friends of Grandfather of Wolves who sought her blood and her scalp. She was close enough to put an arrow into them, but not close enough to be sure. So she walked swiftly, gliding like a magpie, spirit-driven. She gained ground, and now she could make out that one was thin, one stocky. They wore leggings, but their backs were bare.

  Then one turned and saw her. He whirled, lifted his bow, loosed an arrow that seared her hair. He shouted as he turned his horse and pulled another arrow from his quiver. She pulled, feeling the terrible power of the bow, feeling her small hands wobble under such pressure, and loosed her arrow. It sailed home, burying itself in the warrior’s side. He cried, coughed, drew his war club, and came on, kicking his horse. Now at last the other Siksika bore down on her, tomahawk in hand. She yanked an arrow, fumbled with it, finally found the bowstring, nocked and shot, all in one desperate moment. It missed. They both were riding her down. She ran sideways, leftward, but the tomahawk warrior easily steered his horse at her. She reversed herself, darting to the right as the horse came upon her. It hit her, bowled her over—and the Siksika rode by, without a target. She hit the ground hard, her breath knocked from her.

  And then the other one rode her down, war club poised. But even as he approached, life fled him, and he tumbled to the ground almost at her side. He stared at her and then at nothing.

  The other turned his pony with a violent yank of the hackamore, and the horse skittered and danced a moment. Victoria found her bow, stood, reached to her quiver, and met his furious charge with a well-aimed arrow that struck him in his thigh. He howled, spasmed, whirled past her, and clutched his gouting wound. She stood, shaken, trembling. It wasn’t over. Blood boiled down his leg, dripped from his moccasin. His war club, its thong looped over
his wrist, dangled. He turned his horse again. She saw a knife glint in his hand. She stood her ground, armed herself again, and stepped behind the body of the Siksika, knowing the horse would not step over it. The warrior yanked his horse toward her, but it dodged the fallen warrior, and he never came within knife range. She let him pass and released another arrow, which hit him in the shoulder and spun him off the horse. He landed hard, with a sob, and scrambled to his feet, soaked in his own blood. His arm was paralyzed and he couldn’t hold his knife. He couldn’t walk on his ruined leg. He writhed, settled into the grass, and stared at her.

  She kept her distance, knowing how well he could lunge at her. Instead, she gathered the two frightened horses, quietly walking them down. She found the bloody knife glowing in the moonlight, and took it. She gathered the war club and bow and arrow of the dead Siksika, and found his sheathed knife as well.

  She eyed the dead one. He was not her captor. She pricked the knife into his skull and took a ritual scalp, just a little piece. Her war honor. She did not dare approach the live one, and no longer felt like killing him, so she ignored him. He would probably bleed to death. Swiftly she tied her kit onto the back of the smaller pony, noting that she had acquired various things that had been tied to their saddles. She would find out what she possessed later, when she had put a night and more between these warriors and herself.

  forty—five

  Skye had rarely felt so helpless. He lay within a buffalo robe, hands and feet trussed, unable to flee the huge animal that was blocking his sight of the stars. A snout pushed and probed, exuding foul odors, sniffing at him, at his ear, his beard. He felt a tongue rasp his forehead, felt teeth clamp his shoulder. He lay too frightened and paralyzed to move or shout.