Ride the Moon Down

by Terry C. Johnston

  “Ain’t I purty, Scratch?”

  “So what’s this consarn ’bout you working for some trader?”

  “Name’s Tullock,” Beckwith explained. “Trapped way back of the early days, but now he’s gone to work for American Fur. Has his post down on the Yellowstone near the mouth of the Bighorn.”

  “You come here for him, did you?”

  Beckwith nodded. “Don’t do much trapping no more. Say, with you being so handy with this here band, you think you could get all the headmen and chiefs together round noon so I can tell ’em about the good prices Tullock’s gonna give ’em on their furs?”

  “You come to stir up some business for them American Fur men?”

  With a shrug Beckwith confessed, “Hell, coon—I’m an American Fur man my own self.”

  “Easier’n wading in cold streams, ain’t it?”

  “Got me a passel of Crow wives too,” and he grinned. “They been keeping this child’s pole stropped on winter nights! Why—I even go out to steal ponies and take scalps with the rest of ’em.”

  “Sounds to me Jim Beckwith’s took right to the blanket!”

  The mulatto smiled broadly, then asked, “Ain’t you, Scratch?”

  “Naw.”

  The skin between Beckwith’s eyebrows furrowed. “But ain’t that why you’re living here ’mong these’r Crow? Ain’t you got a mess of Crow wives fighting to climb on your wiping stick ever’ night?”

  “Just one, Jim,” he said. “And I ain’t gone to the blanket a’tall. Why, we’re fixing to light out for the high country ’nother day or so.”

  “Damn—finding you here, I just naturally had you figgered for making life easy after all them years you been scratchin’ round for beaver.”

  “Plain to see how you’re took to the Crow yourself.”

  “So a’fore you make for the hills, won’t you help me get these chiefs sat down for some palaver ’bout their furs and Fort Cass?”

  “I s’pose I could,” Titus agreed, seeing no harm.

  “There’s sure to be something in it for you, old friend,” and Beckwith took a step back, motioning to the packhorses being held by the Crow men who had accompanied him from the trading post.

  Turning to Yellow Belly and those leaders gathered behind him, Bass grandly slapped a hand on Beckwith’s shoulder. “The Medicine Calf speaks good white man talk to me, but he wants to speak from the heart as a Crow. He comes here asking for a council with the chiefs—to talk about bringing your furs to the white man’s post.”

  Later that evening when Titus returned from the afternoon conference where Beckwith passed out good things to eat, beads and tobacco, cloth and powder, Waits-by-the-Water asked him, “How long till the white men gather to trade their beaver?”

  “Not for more than three moons,” he said, settling back in the blankets and patting the robe beside him.

  As she slipped her dress over her head, Scratch felt his eagerness stir, sure to overwhelm him. Hungrily, he pulled her face down so he could kiss her mouth.

  “Good,” she sighed, nestling her head against his chest, curling up beside him to scratch the small patch of graying hair in the middle of his chest. “Then we have lots of time to lay our traps in all those streams flowing down from the foothills as we ride south for that great camp of the white men.”

  Stroking her fragrant hair for a few minutes as he stared into the distance, Titus finally answered, “Before we do, I think we ought go to the mouth of the Bighorn.”

  “Why should we go east, husband? Did the Medicine Calf tell you there were more beaver there than in the mountains south of us this spring?”

  “No,” Titus answered, brushing his fingers along the curve of her breast until he felt the nipple. His touch quickly made it rigid. “Some time back I heard talk of a new post on the Bighorn. I didn’t figure it for the truth, not this far south of the Missouri.”

  “Yes—some of our men learned of the new post a long time ago.”

  Bass could tell she was beginning to experience that tingle of excitement starting to spiderweb its way across her flesh as he continued to caress the engorged breast, to tantalize that hardened nipple. “Have any of your men gone there?”

  “Yes, a few. But the River Crow where Medicine Calf lives, they travel to this post to trade many times.”

  “If the trader has powder and guns to fight off the Blackfeet, then I’m sure the Crow will do a lot of trapping, will take all their furs there for even more powder and guns.”

  Her fingers tiptoed down his belly until she found his flesh and began to stroke it gently with her fingers. Bass wondered if she wanted him to grow as desperate for her as she must be for him.

  Waits said, “So like the River Crow you will take your furs to this trader on the Bighorn?”

  “I figure we’ll wait to trade until rendezvous,” he confessed as he felt his hardened flesh warm dramatically with her touch, “but I am still very curious to see for myself just how strong and powerful this fur company has become here in these mountains where once only the free men reigned.”

  “Why should this bother you, husband? You are not a man who goes where the company says, like this Medicine Calf.”

  “You know I never will be.”

  “Then you are a truly free man. And you should not let this trading post concern you.”

  “No,” he answered with a sudden gust of exuberant laughter, no longer able to endure the delicious anticipation. He rolled her over on her back and positioned himself between her legs. “I could never truly be a free man again—not when you hold my heart captive!”

  “If you’re a man what can keep them Crow busy with their hides,” the trader explained, “the job’s yours, Mr. Bass.”

  Scratch wagged his head. “Didn’t come for no job, but thankee all the same, Mr. Tullock. It’s been too many years since I last worked for anyone but my own self.” He peered around at the crates and canvas-wrapped bundles piled across the earthen floor. “’Sides, with you packing up your goods, I’d say you’re fixing to leave this country.”

  Great disappointment crossed Samuel Tullock’s long, overly thin face. “Could use you at the mouth of the Tongue.”

  “That where ol’ Astor got you headed?”

  “Astor don’t own American Fur Company no more,” Tullock groused.

  That surprised Bass. “If’n he don’t own it, who does?”

  “Goddamned Frenchmen down to St. Louie. Same ones what’ve give up on this post,” the trader grumbled as he snatched up his pipe and turned in search of his tobacco pouch. He found it, turned with a disapproving grunt. “They figger to pull back east a’ways, figger it’ll be better pickin’s there. I sure as hell don’t read it that way—what with that damned Beckwith gone to the blanket the way he done.”

  Watching the man light his pipe with a twig he held in the small stone fireplace, Bass asked, “I figgered Jim to be just what you needed: a man what them Crow adopted for one of their own, someone in the company’s pay too.”

  Tullock sputtered a derisive burst of laughter, spewing smoke from both nose and mouth. “Shit! May beso it worked at first when McKenzie heard Beckwith lived with them Crow and could get them Injuns to bring all their furs in to trade at the company posts. But things didn’t stay friendly for long.”

  “Friendly?”

  “Hell, the longer that Negra was living with the Crow, the more Crow he got! So busy playing warrior and Injun chief, he up and forgot he was working for the company what was paying him good money!” Tullock snorted. “Trouble was, ’stead of making them redskins work hard as a white man, Beckwith got lazy as them bastards when it comes to trapping plews!”

  “For the life of me,” Bass replied, “still can’t figger out how your bosses callate they can get as many plews from these red niggers as they can harvest from a brigade of white men.”

  “Oh, McKenzie and them St. Lou Frenchmen only making sure they cover all bets. ’Sides having the Crow and other tribes out t
rapping the country, the company booshways always gonna send out its own outfits.”

  “Sure as sun you can’t be no greenhorn,” Titus observed. “Beckwith said you laid a few traps in water your own self.”

  “Come north in twenty-six on the river—was hired on to work for McKenzie’s Upper Missouri Outfit. Pushed into the mountains with my brigade the following year,” the trader declared.

  “I was at that ronnyvoo in twenty-six.”

  “Didn’t see my first ronnyvoo till the next summer,” Tullock admitted. “That fall we was trapping up in the Snake River and Portneuf country. Just bumped into some Hudson’s Bay fellers under Ogden when winter blowed in early on and we got trapped. Started eating our dogs and horses. Damn, if that bastard Ogden didn’t do ever’thing he could to get our boys to come over to him with their pelts! Charged us double on his goods and only give us a poor price for our beaver. We tried twice to make it out on foot but was turned back. Son of a bitch Ogden wouldn’t even sell us no snowshoes. We’d had some snowshoes, we’d walked outta there!”

  “What come of your outfit?”

  “Weather finally opened up come late January, so we finally backtracked on down to Bear River after being holed up more’n two months—eating dog and horse. After a time we run across Campbell’s outfit headed north to trade with the Flathead for the spring. From him we got enough to get by till our summer train come out from St. Lou.”

  Bass gazed a moment at Waits-by-the-Water as she sat in the corner nursing Magpie. Then he asked, “This Fort Union that your booshway McKenzie built up at the mouth of the Yallerstone really all I heard folks say it is?”

  “It’s one fancy place, that’s for certain,” Tullock agreed, beaming. “But McKenzie ain’t there no longer. After all the liquor problems up there, his Frenchy bosses needed to get someone’s head on a platter, and it turned out to be McKenzie’s.”

  “What’s the trouble with liquor up there?”

  “Ain’t s’pose to be no liquor in Injun country—which reminds me,” the trader said as he turned aside and headed behind some crates where he held up a clay jug momentarily before he plopped it down and began scrounging for some tin cups.

  Bass snorted a great gust of laughter. “No liquor in Injun country! Damn if that ain’t some fool’s bald-face notion!”

  “No, it’s true,” Tullock protested, finding the cups with a noisy clatter, turning back to Bass. “Now, you understand what I’m offering you here ain’t liquor.”

  “That ain’t likker?”

  Clearing his throat, the trader explained, “Let’s just say this here don’t come from the company. Only be something between two friends.”

  Taking his cup and holding it out as Tullock began to pour, Scratch said, “Ain’t no liquor in Injun country! Damn—then what the hell Ashley and Billy Sublette been bringing to ronnyvoo all these years?”

  Tullock started laughing so hard he sloshed the whiskey and had to stop pouring till he composed himself. “That’s the biggest crock of shit the Injun department’s ever done out here! Astor was sore afraid of his competition that he got the Injun department to make that law what says no liquor can be transported to or made in Injun country!”

  “But you and me both know traders been bringing whiskey to ronnyvoo for years now!”

  “Damn right, Mr. Bass. But Sublette gets away with it because Astor’s law got a crack in it.”

  He took the cup from his lips to ask, “What crack?”

  “Law says a trader can bring whiskey into Injun country for his voyageurs—his boat crew.”

  Nearly spitting the whiskey he was savoring on his tongue, Bass shrieked in disbelief, “Sublette ain’t got no boat crew! Ain’t a Frenchy parley-voo come overland with him!”

  “Him and Campbell been smuggling whiskey to the upper river for years now, coming overland—bringing their liquor to both their posts to trade with the Injuns.”

  “Why didn’t McKenzie just do the same?”

  Tullock topped off his cup and sat atop a crate with a sigh. “Hard to smuggle whiskey upriver on them supply steamers, Mr. Bass. Government agents all flutter over the river while they ain’t keeping much watch for overland outfits.”

  “So how’d McKenzie get his head on the plate?”

  “I s’pose he figgered since he couldn’t sneak no whiskey up to Fort Union, leastways he’d make his own right there,” the trader explained. “Brought up the still on the supply steamer, and he grew his own grain at Union. His plan was working fine till word drifted back downriver. I allays figgered it was Sublette or Campbell stabbed McKenzie in the back that way.”

  “From all I learnt ’bout Sublette at ronnyvoo last summer, I’d say he’s one real oily nigger, the sort what’d cut you off at the knees just to get his hands on a few more beaver plews.”

  “Astor’s cut him a deal with Sublette and Campbell,” Tullock admitted. “Now the company has a year with no competition on the upper Missouri, while Sublette’s free to work the mountain trade alone.”

  “Jehoshaphat! That oughtta suit them two beaver thieves!” Bass exclaimed. “What’s to become of the trade now that Sublette drove Astor and McKenzie out of the business and got all the ronnyvoo trade to themselves, while the Frenchies gonna run their business right from their posts way up here on the rivers? Damn if the whole lot of you don’t got a free man hamstrung two ways of Sunday!”

  “Like I said, maybeso you should think about coming to work for me,” Tullock said, grinning wryly.

  Scratch held up his tin cup. “Like hell I will, Tullock. Your whiskey may be good, but Titus Bass ain’t never been a man to get cozy with honey-fugglers like Sublette or your parley-voo bosses.”

  “Face it: fellas like you gonna be doing business with Sublette, or you’re dealing with American Fur—one or the other,” the trader warned.

  “Maybe a nigger like me needs to take his pelts off down to Taos or Santy Fee.”

  “What?” roared Tullock. “And have them Mex’cans take half your plews for Mex’can taxes? You think you’re being savvy riding all the way down there to trade your furs off?”

  Shrugging, Titus asked, “What’s a man to do when you Americans is driving up the price of trade goods and stomping down what my pelts bring?”

  “I s’pose a man like you fights till he realizes he can’t fight no more.”

  Bass stared at his whiskey for some time, watching its pale amber color shimmer in the light of the three flickering oil lamps Tullock had lit. Then he looked at Waits, how she clutched their daughter across her lap as the child lay sleeping, her tummy warm and full.

  “Damn you all,” Scratch said with quiet dignity as he held up his cup in toast. “I may have to trade with your kind at ronnyvoo, but I don’t have to become one of you.”

  “True, not yet,” Tullock admitted. “There’s still some ol’ throwbacks like you around.”

  “Allays will be,” Bass claimed, taking another sip.

  “Maybe, maybe not,” the trader argued. “Look what happened to Rocky Mountain Fur.”

  Reluctantly, Titus had to agree. “Yeah, Sublette killed them too, didn’t he? Your booshways come in and scooped up the pieces.”

  “Fitzpatrick—and Bridger hisself working for the company!” Tullock bellowed. “Can you believe that’d ever come to pass?”

  “Why, I figger the company hamstrung Fitz and Gabe so bad, they was bamboozled into leading them company brigades. No matter, for them two niggers is still trapping beaver, by damned!”

  “So here’s to them niggers what’re hanging on to the mountain trade with their fingernails!” and Tullock raised his cup.

  Bass clinked his tin against the trader’s. “By bloody damn! Here’s to the sort what’ll never give up the high country. To hell with all your trading posts while there’s still flat-tails in the mountains!”

  * River Crow

  * Bighorn River

  9

  Waits-by-the-Water watched in rapt fascination as t
he blood oozed out of the wound in the trapper’s back where another white man delicately worked the point of his honed knife.

  Surely the one wielding that instrument must be some sort of shaman, if for no other reason than the trapper he was cutting on sat there so calmly, without the slightest movement nor flinch, as the bloody knife scraped deeper and deeper into his upper back. There must be some magic that kept this terrible, painful ordeal from hurting!

  From time to time she glanced up at her husband, to gauge his thoughts by the wondrous expression on his face as they stood among those hundreds of awestruck trappers and gaping Indians who stared transfixed, witnessing what truly had to be a powerful magic.

  “I’ve had arrows pushed and pounded right out of me,” Bass whispered to her as that bare-backed trapper wrapped his whitened knuckles around a tent pole two others held upright for him. “But I never have seen anything like what’s being done to of Gabe right now.”

  Waits repeated with growing proficiency in her English, “G-gabe?”

  “Bridger. Jim Bridger.”

  “Bri-ger,” she echoed, then asked him in her tongue, “You know Bri-ger?”

  “Known him a long time. Good a man as they come. The sort I’d want at my back in a hard scrape.”

  “Is this magic? This shaman cuts on Bri-ger and it doesn’t hurt?” she inquired, picking Magpie up from the ground to put the girl astraddle her hip.

  “Naw,” he answered. “Bridger’s just taking it bravely. Look there at his teeth—see how he’s biting down on a thick chunk of rawhide real hard.”

  “So the cutter is not a medicine man among the whites?”

  With a grin Titus brushed a little of Magpie’s brownish hair from the girl’s eyes. “Yes, the cutter’s a medicine man. A shaman who does his work with knives, sometimes mixing up potions to drink like a Crow medicine man will do.”

  Still confused, she asked, “No magic?”

  He chuckled softly as he took Magpie from her arms and hoisted the girl onto his shoulders where she settled high above the attentive crowd. “No magic. Just Bridger’s cast-iron will.”