He eyed Victoria fondly. She was wiry and glowing, with raven hair and an unblinking direct gaze that sometimes unnerved others. She liked a good bout with the trade whiskey as much as he, and now he saw her grinning in anticipation. Only the dog, among the Skyes, scorned the annual bacchanal, and had taken to nipping and snarling at Skye whenever Skye had put away too much nectar, for which offense Skye bellowed at the dog and threw rocks at him.
The ranks of mountaineers were pretty depleted this time, but he saw Jim Bridger waiting patiently. Like everyone else, old Gabe, as he was called, worked for American Fur now. Chouteau’s outfit was the only sizable company left in the Rockies. And his friend Christopher Carson was on hand, out of the southern plains, to enjoy the party. Carson usually worked with the Bent Brothers, down on the Arkansas, but this time he had drifted north.
Then, suddenly, Drips was at his side again.
“They’ll be trading in a few minutes.” He nodded toward the Popo Agie. “You good for a little walk?”
Skye nodded unhappily, feeling deprived. The pair distanced themselves from the hubbub. No Name spotted them and followed, stalking them as if they were game, not the source of his meat and protection.
“You winter all right?” Drips asked.
“Had some scrapes with Bug’s Boys,” he said, alluding to the Blackfeet.
“Anyone go under?”
“No, we got out of there. But mostly we wandered up streams looking for beaver and finding nothing. Even the beaver dams have been pulled apart.”
“That’s what they expected in St. Louis. Maybe it’s a blessing.”
“Things pretty bad?” Skye asked.
“Yes and no. The beaver trade’s over. They’ve been wondering what to do. Pierre Chouteau thinks he might send an outfit one more year; there’s still some demand for beaver felt and trim on clothing. But mostly, he’s cutting back.” Drips eyed his old friend sharply. “They’re letting almost all the brigade leaders go, Mister Skye. Including you. They’ll send a small outfit next year, but only to trade with free trappers. No more company brigades. You’ll all be on your own if you want to stay out here. Myself, I’d think about doing something else.”
“That’s hard news. I don’t know what I’ll do.”
“Well, that’s why I’m pulling you over here for a little pow-wow. The company’s not getting out of the fur and hide business, but we’re shifting operations. We can sell every ermine and otter skin we can find, and there’s a market for deer and elk hides, and buffalo too.”
“Forget beaver, then?”
Drips smiled.
They had reached the riverbank. The icy snowmelt gurgled past them, crystal, sweet, and delicious. A fine cool breeze eddied through the verdant spring grasses, like a mysterious finger writing the future.
“The company has plans for you—if you’re interested.” He waited for an affirmation. Skye nodded.
“Tulloch is leaving Fort Cass. They’re looking for a replacement, a new trader for the post. You’re an obvious choice, with a Crow wife. That gives you some power within the tribe, and helps the company lock down the Crow trade.”
That interested Skye. Cass was a small log post, a satellite of Fort Union, located on the Yellowstone River at the confluence of the Big Horn. It did a modest trade with the Crows Victoria’s people. But the Crows weren’t ardent beaver trap pers and the post never did a large business.
“I might be,” he said.
“There’s a few hitches. One is that you’re not the only mar they’re considering. Bonfils is another contender. And he has relatives from one end of the company to the other. There’s an other factor, too, which Pierre Chouteau himself urged upor me, old friend. They don’t know you in St. Louis. You’re a shadowy Englishman to them, known only through reports from those of us who keep an eye on the mountain trade. You’d have to go to St. Louis, meet Chouteau and his colleagues, tell them how you’ll improve trade, and let them decide.”
“St. Louis? That’s a piece.”
“No, not so long. You’d go back on the Otter. It’s leaving just as fast as we can get these furs to Fort Union. The spring flood’s already peaking and there’s not a moment to waste.”
“When do you leave here?”
“Tomorrow at dawn.”
“Tomorrow! You just got here.”
“We’ll pack whatever furs we can for the riverboat. Fontenelle will haul the rest to Fort Union after the rendezvous.”
“Tomorrow!” Skye didn’t like that at all. He would miss the rendezvous. Miss the precious time with old friends. Miss the gargantuan drinking bout that would begin as soon as the traders could mix a kettle of whiskey.
“Bonfils will be on that boat,” Drips said. “If he goes and you don’t, you and the company will come to a parting of the ways. He’s bright, fluent in two or three Indian tongues, knows the business inside out, has a Hidatsa woman, and their tongue is almost the same as the Crows’. He’s junior to you by ten years, but he’s well connected—maybe too well connected, to put it politely.”
“Not even time for a drink,” Skye muttered. “A miserable bloody little drink.”
Drips grinned.
“Do I even stand a chance against him?”
“Certainly. Old Pierre Chouteau wants the best man, absolutely the best, and knows more about you than you might think.”
“How long in St. Louis?”
“One or two days. You’ll need to get a trader’s license from General Clark if you’re selected. Whoever they choose will start west at once. Reach Fort Cass before snow flies and relieve Tulloch. We’ll be sending the Otter back up the river as far as it can get in low water. Whoever gets that position at Cass will be on it, and then head west from Bellevue with a small pack train, out the Platte River.”
“Tomorrow!” Skye said. “I’d better talk to Victoria.”
“Tomorrow at dawn. We’re going to be weighing and baling furs this evening, writing chits the trappers can spend at the store, and we’ll pull out at first light, moving as fast as we can. Be ready, packed and saddled and fed.”
The whole business dizzied Skye.
“I’ll let you know,” he muttered, unable to absorb so much so fast.
Drips looked at him sharply. “One thing more. You may not want to be a trader. A man like you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just what I said. Think it over. And do it fast.”
“Would you explain yourself?”
“No, and forget that I even warned you. The company will require certain things of you. That’s all I can say. Some men there are who should not be traders for Pratte, Chouteau.”
Skye searched the face of the man, uneasily, but found only a mask.
Andy Drips slapped him on the back. “For my money, you’re the man they should turn into a trader.”
That left a lot unsaid.
three
Many Quill Woman heard that her man, Misted Skye, was looking for her, but she was in no hurry to respond. He probably wanted someone to roast some meat. He could easily cook his own, but mer liked to make women do it, and it didn’t matter whether they were men of the People, or white men. Usually, she didn’t mind, for that was what had been ordained from the beginning of the world, but at rendezvous things were different Skye could cook his own damned meat. She was occupied.
She usually spent rendezvous apart from him. All year she toiled at his side, making camp, dressing hides, sharing his hard life and dangers, along with the brigade of trappers. But by the time rendezvous rolled around, she was weary of white men, and yearned for time among her many friends who always came to the great trapper’s fair.
So she did not hurry. She had visited old friends in several Absaroka lodges this day, as well as fat grandmothers in a Shoshone lodge and some chunky Nez Perce women, and even visited with some treacherous and thieving Bannocks, who usually were at arrow’s point with the Crows. That had been an act of great charity and munificence on her pa
rt; normally, an Absaroka woman never conversed with such trash. But an iron law of peace prevailed at the white men’s fairs, and so it was that hostile tribes camped side by side, and even visited with one another, so she had deigned to talk briefly with a squat, ugly Bannock woman who was missing half her teeth.
She would talk to anyone at rendezvous. All except the Blackfeet. If Blackfeet had ridden to the banks of the Popo Agie at this time, much red blood would be lying on the green grasses.
Skye called her Victoria, after the princess, now queen, of his people across the sea. She did not know what that was all about, but being named for a great woman was surely an honor, and she loved her man for it. The more names one had, the more honor. They had an uneasy relationship, divided by all the things they didn’t grasp about each other, and the lives they came from. And yet, she counted herself the happiest and most fortunate of women, the envy of all her sisters among the Kicked-in-the-Belly band of the Crows.
Who else had such a man? Had not Barnaby Skye the biggest, most mountainous nose in the world? Was he not a mighty warrior, a prodigious eater, a man big across the chest and belly, though not very tall? Was he not a leader of his people? Did he not survive perils that would sink lesser men? Was he not more tender and kind and caring than any Crow man she knew? Did he not consult her and imbibe her wisdom?
Yes, she was fortunate, and she would eventually go to him and cook some meat … but not for a while, dammit. He deserved to wait. Rendezvous brought out the worst in him. Anyway, the traders were mixing up a great batch of whiskey, and everyone she knew was waiting eagerly to trade pelts for cups of the fiery brew that made a man or woman happy and mad, and took away the pains and sorrows of the world. Soon she, too, would bay at the moon, howl like a wolf, and laugh all night and rub her hand through Skye’s whiskers.
For an hour she resisted, even though the gossips told her that her man was wandering through the lodges, bellowing her name, seeking her company. She had laughed. Let him bark at her like a lonely coyote; this was her summer time with all her friends, her People, and women from other Peoples. This was the time to see all the new babies and sorrow that she had none and probably wouldn’t ever have any because this gift had just not come to them.
She loved Skye. He was in his mid-thirties, and in the prime of his life. His body had borne many wounds, and he had suffered from all the miseries that life brought; cold, star vation, sore bones and muscles, poor food, and great thirst Yet, she had never seen him healthier or stronger or more ir command of himself, of his men, or of life. A dozen winters now he had been in this country, and he bore the marks or this hard life upon every limb, and yet no warrior was stronger.
“Your man is calling again,” said Arrow, her brother testily. “Why do you defy him? You are a bad wife.”
She laughed. They were watching her to see if she would ignore her man, but she wouldn’t give them anything to gossip about. She rose quietly, crawled through the lodge door and beheld him three lodges away.
He looked troubled.
“Come. We have to talk privately, away from everyone,’ he said.
She followed, faintly annoyed but concerned.
“When will the traders open their store?” she asked.
“It’s open now.”
His tone of voice was brusque.
He led her to a fallen log, once a noble cottonwood but now the home of crawling things.
“This may be the last rendezvous; maybe one more next year. I’m out of work, Victoria.”
“Work? What is this? You don’t have to work. We will live with the People and be happy.”
“But there’s something new …”
She gathered her spirits together. Skye was acting very strange. Maybe he just needed his jug. He was always strange until he had a few drinks at rendezvous. He was known to be crazy in the days and hours before rendezvous.
“Maybe I can be the trader at Fort Cass,” he said.
“The trader? What happened to, what is his name, Tulloch?”
“He’s heading for the States. The position’s open. I’d be a trader, trading with your people, trying to keep all your Otter clan happy. I’m going to apply.”
“I would be close to my people!”
“Yes, always close. Not roaming all over the Rocky Mountains all year.”
“Aiee! This is good”
“I may not get the position, though. And even if it is given to me, I might not want it.”
She waited patiently for him to explain. He did try hard to explain all these things white men do, and how they think, but often it didn’t make sense. They had no gods and did not listen to the spirits. She would never understand the pale-eyes, and their ways. But that was all right. He was absolutely boneheaded when it came to understanding her people.
“There’s another candidate for the job, maybe more than that. We both know him. Alexandre Bonfils.”
“A boy,” she said.
“He’s done well, Victoria. His trappers brought back more fur this year than mine, and they got it up in the Blackfeet country without getting into trouble. I can’t say as much.”
“He was lucky. Good medicine. He make the beaver come to the traps, and he don’t get caught. But maybe his medicine won’t be so good next time”.
“He’s bold and young and intelligent; he may get that position. Having a Hidatsa woman who can talk your tongue helps, too.”
“He has many women, not just her. And he sells her to any trapper for a pelt or two. I would not want to be the woman of Bonfils.”
He smiled. She did love that smile, which wrinkled flesh around those buried blue eyes.
“Is it time to buy some whiskey?” she asked, hopefully.
He lifted that battered beaver hat scratched his long locks, and set it back again, “No, we’re not having any whiskey this year”
That jolted her. She thought he was crazy. He would have some credit at the store. They could have lots of whiskey at the rendezvous.
“You got some big reason, Skye?”
“We’re taking off at dawn for St. Louis. At least I am. They want to see me. The big chiefs, the owners, they’ve never met me, and they don’t want to put a man they don’t know in a position like that. Big doings. They want me to hear how they Operate.”
“St. Louis?”
“On the fireboat, the paddle wheeler at Fort Union. They need to take the returns downstream before the river drops. Andy Drips will collect and bale all the furs he can tonight, and start at dawn for Fort Union. With me. With us, if you want. If you’d rather stay with your people, you could—”
“St. Louis? The many-houses place?”
“Many houses, many stores, the big river.”
“And white women!”
He Laughed. The biggest mystery in her life was white women. For many years she had seen these white trappers, all of them without white women, and it puzzled her. She hadn’t the faintest idea where they were hidden, what they wore, or what they did, The white men said their women were back in the many-buildings places like St. Louis, and were too frail to come into the mountains like the men. They would not survive for long in lodges or in bad weather.
All of that astonished her. She thought that white women must be greatly inferior to any other kind, and had secretly nursed a great contempt for them. No wonder white men left them behind! They were a frail and miserable and pale sex, always dying and shivering and getting themselves buried.
“When are you coming back? she asked.
“Fast. The riverboat goes downstream much faster than upstream. We can be in St. Louis in a couple of weeks after we leave—ah, maybe fifteen or sixteen sleeps. We would spend only a day or two in St. Louis. Then we’d outfit and ride back. If we go light, maybe three moons. Back here before it gets cold.”
She squinted at him suspiciously. “Is this where the white women are?”
He laughed. “I imagine. I’ve never been to the States.”
“Will I see
what they wear?”
“You’ll see everything they wear. They all dress differently.”
“Will I have to ride on the fireboat? It is a beast.”
“Yes.”
“I could walk along the bank while you ride the boat.”
“No, it goes much too fast.”
“I don’t want to put my foot onto a boat with fire in its belly and steam coming out. Bad medicine.”
“That’s up to you, Victoria. It’s safe enough, but once in a while one does hit a snag and sinks. I have to go. I don’t want to. I was looking forward to rendezvous. Looking forward to … a jug or two—”
“Sonofabitch!” she yelled. “I can’t even see my friends!”
“You could winter with the Kicked-in-the-Belly people. Your mother and father would enjoy that.”
“And leave you all alone? Skye, dammit, I want to see these white men’s buildings worse than anything. I want to see your pale sickly women! I want to see where all these beaver furs go; where they all disappear to. I want to see where all this metal comes from, guns and powder. How do they make that? I want to see how they make blankets. Where does the wool come from? You tell me these things, but I have to see them.
“But most of all, Skye, I want to see the women. Goddamn, if I don’t go along, maybe you’ll throw me out of the lodge and marry one of your own kind.”
Skye began to laugh. She loved his laugh. It began deep in his belly, a great rumble that shook his barrel frame, and then slowly rose up his throat and burst upon the world like a grizzly dance or a wolf howl.
“We’ll take a few jugs and drink them on the fireboat,” he said at last.
four
Skye woke up in a foul temper. It was going to rain; he could smell it. It had rained all June. They would be traveling in an icy drizzle.
But that wasn’t the source of his ill humor. He had waited all year for rendezvous, waiting for fine times, big doings, roaring, ripping, hoorawing fun, belly-tickling yarns, and now he was cutting out before it started.
Downriver Page 2
