But swiftly, the experienced crew hacked and sawed the giant into usable pieces, most of them four-foot lengths that could be stuffed whole into the fireboxes under the twin boilers. A crew toted the heavy logs aboard, while the firemen arranged them into neat stacks adjacent to the maw of the hungry fireboxes.
The trunk of the giant cottonwood was so thick it was useless, so the crew reduced the limbs until there were no more, and then returned to their own felling, their glances sharp and unkind. If Bonfils had attempted to cover himself with glory this afternoon, he had failed.
Within an hour, the teeming crewmen had loaded all the wood aboard that the ship could hold. Skye stood, sweating, as he watched the last of the limbs and trunks go up the wobbly planks. Some short blasts of the whistle alerted those on land, including Victoria, who had returned to the riverbank. She and No Name boarded, the dog sniffing every stanchion and post. Skye reached over and petted the yellow dog, his boon companion along a thousand wild trails, and the dog licked his hand.
Silently, keeping her thoughts to herself, Victoria studied the ruin of that wooded notch in the bluff, the site of a tiny spring-fed creek, and then she wordlessly headed aft to the fantail, the place she had anointed for herself, even as Skye had chosen the prow. It was as if he loved the future, while she clung to the past. He didn’t doubt that this trip was a disturbing change in her life; she was witnessing great changes, and knew that these things would soon disrupt the ancient, timeless traditions of her people.
Two short blasts of the whistle. The deckmen loosened the hawsers and scrambled aboard even as deckhands slid the gangway past the coaming. The ship drifted free, soon was tugged by the current, and then Skye heard the great splash of the paddle wheels rumbling inside the wheelhouses and felt the vessel shudder.
Bonfils had vanished somewhere. Skye headed for the prow, where he hoped to cool off. But a deckman waylaid him.
“The master wishes to speak to you, sir.”
Skye clambered up the companionway to the pilothouse and found Marsh.
“Mister Skye,” Marsh said without preamble. “We think perhaps you lack experience felling firewood. You dropped a tree with a worthless trunk—much too large for us to use—and disrupted the work of a dozen men. Some judgment is involved in collecting the wood.”
Skye nodded.
“From now on, sir, please report to Haines when we fetch wood. He’s the one down there at the capstan. He’s a veteran riverman, and he will put you to more productive use.”
Skye started to salute, and then remembered he was not in the Royal Navy anymore. “As you wish, Captain,” he said, and retreated, his thoughts focused on that clever Bonfils and his schemes. Marsh’s opinion of Skye would count in St. Louis.
nine
So many were the mysteries of the white man that Victoria thought she could never fathom them all. The greatest of all mysteries was the absence of white women. Before she had boarded the fireboat, she thought maybe she would find white women on it, but that proved to be wrong.
That was puzzling, because Skye had told her that white women were frail and lived in houses. Here was a house on water, with rooms for frail women, but she saw none at all. Only men. Somewhere, there had to be white women, unless these white men sprang from the bosom of the earth, or were borne here by strange beasts who lived in the East. Were there such things as white children? She had never seen those, either. Aiee! What a strange tribe these pale men were!
She was determined to get to the bottom of this, and hoped that in this place of many houses, St. Louis, all might be revealed at last.
The fireboat wasn’t a mystery. That first day she had gingerly studied it; had seen how the roaring fire in the metal box had made steam, which was captured in a great iron kettle until it acquired great power, and she saw how this great power drove the paddles and made this fireboat go against the wind, against the current, against nature, wherever the white men made it go. That was no mystery at all.
But Captain Marsh was a mystery. The Big Chief of this fireboat wore a costume of dark blue, plainer than any other costume. He wore a small cap with a little beak on it, but that was dark blue also, and without honors. If he was the Big Chief, why did he wear no honors? Where were the marks that told the world that he was the Big Chief? No feathers or quills or beads or paint. No stripes or chevrons. He did wear a close-cropped brown beard, trimmed almost daily to the contours of his red face, she supposed. But he never painted his face and never carried a lance or shield or staff. He wore nothing around his neck; no bear claws like her man Skye; nor an amulet.
He should be acting like a chief; wearing eagle feathers, painting his face. He should begin each day as father sun climbs over the horizon by seeking his medicine from the sacred medicine-givers, and then exhorting the men under him, pacing back and forth, his oratory inspiring them to make this great steamboat go forth into the world. But he did none of these things.
And instead of inspiring his men to great efforts and feats, he said almost nothing, and with hard eyes, merely watched everyone from his aerie they called the pilothouse. If he was commanding, why didn’t he command? And yet, somehow, his will got done and that too was a mystery. How did those sailors know what to do when no one was telling them? Did white men have some secret sign language she didn’t know?
She had asked Skye this and he had laughed, and she had gotten angry at him. He explained that the men knew what to do without being told. But that didn’t explain the mystery. What made them do it if no one told them to?
She and No Name had padded about, learning everything they could about this strange boat. No one paid her the slightest heed, except Bonfils, who eyed her with frank admiration and invitation, as if he wanted to sample Skye’s woman! No, the machinery was no mystery. It was wondrous, but she understood it. She understood the speaking tube by which Marsh directed the engineers to do something. She understood the black metal chimneys that drew the smoke up. She understood the davits that raised or lowered the little yawl. She understood the six-pound brass swivel cannon that was like Skye’s rifle but bigger, and made much more noise. It could slay twenty men at once, and she feared it.
Once she understood, she stopped worrying so much. Magpie, her spirit helper, hopped along the riverbanks, or flew over, keeping an eye out. Her fears diminished, and now she began to enjoy the boat, and study the mysterious shores of the river, where unseen eyes studied the boat as it passed.
That evening Captain Marsh stopped at a long wooded island, which afforded fuel and protection from marauders. She knew exactly what to do. No sooner had the gangway been lowered than she took the haltered Skye horses out of their pen on the foredeck, and led them down to the island. They drank thirstily, and she could see the muscles of their necks working the water up their throats and into their bellies. There was plenty of good grass there, and no place for the horses to go, so she would let them graze all night if Captain Marsh permitted it.
These were good Crow ponies, selected with care by Skye and her family. The Crows were the finest horsemen of the northern plains, and these horses could carry Skye’s bulky body easily, and heavy packs as well. They weren’t the fastest horses in the great Crow herd, but they were chosen for a more valuable trait: endurance. They would continue onward, while fast horses faded. They could run away from trouble, and there were times when she and Skye had been grateful for their strength.
They had hooves of iron, and never grew footsore even on gravel and rock, unlike so many of the horses brought from the land of the white men. And they could make a living on almost anything green, and didn’t need all the grain and hay required by white men’s ponies. Good horses had saved their lives, and would again, which is why Skye and Victoria treated them well.
In the soft summer twilight, the crew and passengers cut firewood. Here were willows and cottonwoods, and a great heap of driftwood at the upper end of the island, awaiting the axe and saw. They made short work of the task. There would b
e ample wood to fire up the boilers the next morning.
And they could sleep this night without a guard, because the river protected them. Deep channels isolated the island from the sere and lonely plains beyond. She strolled the island, relishing the feel of soft, warm earth beneath her moccasins, rejoicing that she had survived this day upon the fireboat without mishap. Skye finished his woodcutting and joined her while the cooks prepared a meal.
“Marsh says we can hunt tomorrow, you and I; he’ll put us ashore with the horses, hour or two before they launch. Trick is to keep up. That boat’s traveling fast, downstream, we have to stay ahead of it. If we shoot a deer or a buffalo, we should try to drag it to the bank. They’ll see it and send a yawl for it. He said his hunter, Drouillard, hasn’t had luck. He has a crew to feed. Tomorrow he’ll put Drouillard on the left bank and we’ll take the right.”
“Ah, dammit Skye, I like that.”
“So will our animals,” he said. “No Name will get himself a run; the horses never did like that pen and all that noise.”
“We got damn good horses, Skye.”
He peered into a lavender twilight, pensively. “When I first came to this country, I didn’t know a good horse or a bad one, and didn’t care. Now I care more than anything else except for you and that worthless dog. Someday, I’d like to train up a colt my way, make him do what few horses do. Teach him how to make war, and when to run, and how to run. Get your brother and father to help me.”
“My brother can teach a horse those things.”
“Then we’ll give him a gift and have him start a colt for me when we get back.”
She loved those moments with Skye. They were bonded so closely that often they knew each other’s thoughts without speaking a word.
The next idyllic days, she and Skye hunted the right bank of the river, plunging into giant coulees, topping bluffs, poking into copses of willow or cottonwood, under a cloudless azure dome of heaven. No Name slithered ahead, pretending not to notice or care, but pointing at game, or stopping cold to signal his allies—no one would ever accuse No Name of being part of Skye’s family—of the presence of something or other nearby.
But hunting for a river packet proved frustrating. Twice they shot a buck and dragged it to shore, only to see the faint smoke of the vessel far downstream. Once they shot a pronghorn only to scare away several elk they hadn’t seen.
By nightfall of the first day of hunting they were thoroughly humiliated, and the thought of returning to the vessel empty handed gnawed on them. Then, No Name stiffened, and she saw a buffalo cow and calf watering in a slough back from the mighty river. Skye shot them both, the boom of his Hawken echoing hollowly in the silent wild. They approached the dying cow gingerly; buffalo were dangerous. But she was supine, and leaking blood from a chest wound into the waters of the slough, lying in a bed of crushed sedges. The calf had died instantly, and lay on muddy land.
They rode to the riverbank just in time to hail the boat, which was probing through the waning light as Marsh looked for a place to anchor and refuel.
The yawl showed up promptly, and a crew of six cook’s helpers and deckmen began butchering the massive buffalo while Skye and Victoria mounted to the ridge to keep watch. This was dangerous country, not a place to be caught off guard. The Otter slid as close as the channel allowed, and idled there at anchor in the purling purple waters, while the cook’s crew butchered, nipping and tugging back the bug-ridden hide, cutting the huge tongue out, and then sawing the tender flank meat, and the delicious hump ribs, the most succulent part of the bison. No Name sat patiently next to the butchering and was rewarded with offal, which he devoured gluttonously to the sound of boatmen’s laughter. From the hurricane deck, the tight-lipped Captain Marsh watched silently, and Victoria felt ill at ease whenever she glanced at that man.
“Ah, we’ll feast tonight!” bellowed a deckhand. “Fat cow! And it was them Skyes that finally brought in the meat!”
Victoria sat on her restless horse above, a lone mortal on a mournful sunset ridge, listening to them rejoice below, knowing that one buffalo and one calf wouldn’t feed the men on that boat more than a day. The fireboat slaughtered wood and buffalo. White men lived prodigiously.
“Cap’ain says there’s an anchorage mile down,” the cook yelled up at them.
Skye nodded.
But the next day, Marsh called off the hunt.
“We’ll reach the Minnetaree villages tomorrow,” he told them. “They like to trade for corn and vegetables, and they usually have plenty of meat, too.”
Victoria seethed with excitement. These people called themselves the Hidatsa, and they were ancient friends of the Absaroka, her people, and spoke a tongue so close they could understand one another. They lived in houses of mounded earth, and raised crops, and hunted buffalo, and were allied with the Mandans, just downstream.
“Is that not the people of Amalie, Bonfils’s woman?” she asked, knowing the answer but testing Skye.
“Believe it is,” Skye said neutrally.
“I wonder why he didn’t bring her here,” she said, wanting to gossip.
“We’ll know tomorrow,” he said. “Alexandre will be among his wife’s people. See his wife’s family.”
Victoria felt a chill creep through her.
ten
As the Otter rounded a bend, Alexandre Bonfils beheld the largest of the Hidatsa villages on the right bank of the Missouri. He had been there before; it was Amalie’s home. The arrival of the steamboat excited these bronzed agricultural people who mostly wore white men’s cloth, and they flocked to the riverbank. There would be fevered trading and excitement and dances to celebrate this wondrous event.
The river packet was too distant for him to make out faces; he would have to wait. Amalie’s large and powerful family and clan would be present, as would the man she had been married to before Alexandre wandered into the compound of earth-mound communal houses. That brainless hulking brute, a village soldier, would not welcome him. The thought evoked some merriment in him. He had pilfered her from him just for amusement. She had been a gorgeous young mademoiselle, sloe-eyed, of sinuous figure, with a bold gaze and a come-hither smile embedded in her coppery cheeks. He had known at a glance she was his for the taking.
But that had been the easiest part of it. Fending off the affronted husband, if indeed these savages actually married, proved to be more entertaining. The Hidatsa cuckold had not been content to fight alone, but had sent kin and clan after Alexandre, including Amalie’s brothers, one of whom had met his demise in a small hollow in the prairie, where Alexandre had ambushed him; the hunted stalking the hunter.
So this visit would be an adventure. He loved adventure and danger, and never felt fully alive unless he was walking the edge of some abyss. He provoked danger, sought it out like a lover, and toyed with it, which is why some of his more timid confreres in the fur business avoided his brigades, even though his luck held and always would because the advantage always fell to the audacious.
Little did Marsh know that there was bad blood between one of his passengers and these Minnetaree people, bad enough blood to evoke a pitched fight if it came to that, which Bonfils hoped would be plain to Marsh. He had plans and ambitions.
Alexandre was the last of seven children, of whom four still lived. His mother had cried, Enough! and taken refuge in a separate bedroom. From then on his father had seemed distant to the child, and was more and more absent from the white porticoed redbrick family manse on Rue Papin, for reasons unfathomable to one so young. His mama, Alexia, had indulged him wantonly, a fact he appreciated only because of the whining and pouting of his older. siblings, who had not seen their every whim gratified the way this youngest and last child was cosseted.
So he had grown up unchallenged and thus bored, and swiftly discovered that life in St. Louis, where he was a dauphin of the merchant class, awakened his senses only when he was doing something absolutely scandalous, such as seducing Creole virgins or in one case a
plain and swooning convent novitiate, or drinking absinthe in waterfront dens while fondling the lush hard breasts of serving girls, or copulating with languorous and gorgeous black slave women in the carriage houses of his Creole friends.
Now, as the boat slowed and the steersman eased it toward the right bank, he anticipated new amusements, and perhaps a chance to make impressions. He headed for the rail and stood prominently there, a dark, bright, insouciant figure who would galvanize attention on the shore, as soon as one or another of Amalie’s clan discovered him.
This early July day had scorched every scrap of moisture out of the close air; the heat bore down like rolling thunder over the dun earth-mound houses and the tawny fields of maize and squash and melons and tobacco. It raised mirages and made images waver drunkenly. The crowd of virtually naked brown males and bare-breasted brown-fleshed women rippled with excitement as the Otter hove to, and seamen cast anchor well out. Marsh had said he always traded well away from shore, for safety’s sake. There was little forty crewmen and a few passengers could do against four or five hundred visitors, if a showdown ever came. The dugout canoes of the village would ration visitors and impose some sort of control.
A shrill blast of the whistle paralyzed the Indians for a moment, and then they danced and jostled their way to the riverbank, a hideous gallimaufry of savages, many of them carrying woven baskets laden with maize and other grains and fruits. On board, the mate and a few sailors doubling as clerks were organizing a trading store, with blankets, bright bolts of cloth, packets of vermillion, sugar, knives, awls, axes and hatchets, beads strung in loops, and assorted smoothbore muskets and flintlock rifles for hunters, all of it jamming the foredeck near Skye’s horses.
A dozen dugouts, each hollowed from a giant cottonwood log, launched simultaneously, chocked with Hidatsi people, the men with pomaded hair rising high above their faces, the women with straight jet hair hanging loosely over golden shoulders.
Downriver Page 6
