Rendezvous

by Richard S. Wheeler

  He led a rawboned pack horse and a spare riding mount. The three beasts of burden would give him speed and enable him to catch up with the sailor, if indeed the man had wandered up this bank. Perhaps the honor of capture would befall Pierre Trintignon, himself a wily French-Canadian like Antoine.

  For two cheerful days Le Duc hastened eastward, and then, suddenly, he came upon a beached pirogue lying on a bank above a Klikikat fishery. It had been drawn up a gravel beach and its paddles rested in its belly. Ah! It all came clear to Antoine Le Duc. The sailor was either a fool or excessively scrupulous. The man should have pushed the dugout into the river after the crossing, and thus make his passage invisible. That made him a fool. Or else the fugitive had beached the boat so that it might be recovered by the Klikikats, and thus salve his conscience. That made him a fool also, but a fool with honor. Le Duc decided he liked his quarry. A pressed seaman who would desert the Royal Navy and plunge unarmed into the wilderness was a man after Le Duc’s heart.

  After that, Le Duc rode leisurely eastward through the deep canyon of the Cascades, where the Columbia breached a mighty mountain range. He saw no sign of his quarry on the rainwashed and sun-dried trail, but that didn’t matter. Would such a man suddenly abandon his sustenance from the river and head over the mountains? Anyone experienced in the wilderness, like himself, knew that mortals, like any other animal, would go where passage would be easy and life could be sustained.

  Soon, he found ample evidence of Skye’s journey. The ashes of cookfires, a fishhead—so the man had hook and line—and a place where the sailor had hacked off a tree limb and whittled it into something. And bootprints, too. He was getting close. The man was eating cattail roots, leaving the fronds in heaps. Alors, a clever one. Le Duc knew that the Indians used the roots as an emergency food, and it was clear the sailor was answering the rumble of his belly in just such a way. It was worthy of respect.

  Then one dusk Le Duc passed Skye. The man’s bootprints vanished up a coulee and did not return. So, the sailor was up there, well off the trail, imagining himself well concealed from pursuers. Le Duc smiled and continued onward. Let Skye discover him ahead, a lone voyageur roasting meat, the smoke of the burning fat drifting with the evening breezes. Skye’s belly would lead him straight to the cookfire and then the fun would begin.

  Le Duc wished to leave no hoofprints, so he led his horses well off the river road, an easy thing to do now that the river rolled through prairies, and headed upstream all that day. He found an antelope, shot it with one ball, and took the carcass with him. Antelope steaks would whet the appetite of a starving man.

  He returned to the river road and made camp at an amiable place he knew, where a copse of trees supplied firewood, the prairie grasses would sustain his horses, and an arrangement of rock would keep the wind off the cookfire. An admirable place, where one could observe river traffic. He settled himself comfortably, hobbled the horses and put them on grass, hung the antelope, gutted it expertly, and hacked off some good flank steaks. Ah, the smell of meat. What the deserter would give for a bellyful.

  He built a cheerful fire and let it burn low and hot before he spitted the meat and roasted it. The shadows were long and the sun was dropping, but Skye did not appear. Very well, then. The man would come at dusk, as cautious as a ferret. But Skye did not appear at dusk, either. Uneasily, Le Duc gathered the horses and tied them in camp where the desperado could not steal them. At full dark, Skye had not come in, but Le Duc sensed he was being observed, a sense well known to any voyageur. Ah, this Skye, an admirable rogue.

  “Monsieur, I am a child of the wilderness, and I know you are out there, whoever you may be. One feels these things,” he said conversationally. “I will take your silence for a hostile act, and prepare myself. If you mean no harm, come share the meat—I have more than enough—and smoke a pipe. I’m Antoine Le Duc, a Canadian trapper.”

  Le Duc listened intently. He heard movement but no one responded. No doubt Skye was taking a closer look. “Very well, you are as silent as an owl. That means you are no ami, oui? It is time for me to put out the fire and then you will not have the advantage.”

  “I’ll smoke the pipe.” The voice rose from the east. Skye had circled clear around the camp. Le Duc’s respect increased.

  “Alors, come have le tabac,” he said. “And an antelope hangs. Meat is plentiful.”

  The man emerging from the darkness was exactly as McLoughlin described him: medium height, stocky, powerful—and with a nose. Mon Dieu! Le nez magnifique! Never had Le Duc seen a nose so noble.

  “Bien, bien, I am Le Duc. And you?”

  The man hesitated. “I’m Skye. If you’re looking for me, say so. If not, I’ll share the camp.”

  “Why would I be looking for you, monsieur?”

  “I thought you might be. I was a pressed seaman with the Royal Navy until I jumped ship a fortnight ago. If you intend to capture me, be about it. I’ve put everything on the table, and that’s the way I deal with people. Well?”

  “Formidable!” Le Duc said. “Let me start some meat. We’ll need some more wood.”

  “No, you answer the question first. The meat can wait. Are you looking for me?”

  “I am always looking for friends.”

  The seaman stared. “You’ve dodged my question. You’re looking for me. I won’t be taken alive. If you doubt it, try it.” He turned away and walked back into the night.

  “Mon ami, wait.”

  But Skye didn’t. He vanished into blackness. Le Duc had to admire the hungry man’s will. He could have feasted, but he treasured his liberty more. Surprised, Le Duc admitted he had lost the first round. This Skye was a man.

  Le Duc sprang up and trotted into the darkness, in Skye’s general direction. “Monsieur Skye. You are a discerning man. Oui, I am from Fort Vancouver. I was sent to find you. McLoughlin, the factor, sent me. Now come share the meat. You are starving. We will talk, oui?”

  This met with such a silence that Le Duc wondered whether he had been heard. But at last Skye responded in that booming voice of his. “That’s better. Now say the rest—that you intend to take me in.”

  “It is so.”

  “Now I’ll repeat what I said. You won’t succeed unless you kill me first. My freedom is worth my life. Go ahead and put it to the test.”

  He reappeared out of the gloom, squinted at Le Duc in the faint light of the distant fire, and walked to the camp. The man deliberately, carelessly turned his back and set a seabag or some sort of kit on the ground. The act tempted Le Duc to draw his dragoon pistol from his belt, but he didn’t. Let him eat and talk, and then he would decide. Skye divested himself of his gear, including a hand-hewn lance, but he kept a single item at hand, a hardwood club with an odd flare in its middle.

  “That’s a belaying pin,” Skye said. “Hardwood. Used to belay ship’s lines. Anchor the lines. It’s a weapon you’ll be testing shortly, I suppose. But I’ll eat first.”

  Le Duc sawed meat from the hanging antelope and set it cooking, and then, gauging his man, cut more. Skye looked ready for two or three servings. Le Duc added some wrinkled potatoes he had collected from the post’s root cellar.

  Skye didn’t devour the food as Le Duc expected, but ate slowly, savoring it all. Le Duc studied his man all the while. Skye had strong, bony features, big hands, and an unexpected youthfulness. Le Duc had expected an older man, but this one was barely into his twenties, with a somber, silent nature that probably concealed a great deal of passion.

  Le Duc pulled out his clay pipe and filled it, tamped it, lit it, drew and exhaled an aromatic smoke, and asked Skye if he wanted a pipeful. Skye shook his head.

  “What are they saying about me?” Skye asked abruptly.

  “I will tell you that after you tell me your story.”

  Skye hesitated. He seemed to hesitate in all his decisions, something that Le Duc filed away as valuable information. Then Skye described a life, in terms so stark and simple that it took only minutes. A fo
urteen-year-old boy destined to enter his father’s mercantile business, pressed into the Royal Navy off the streets of London. A sullen powder monkey who never surrendered, fought his superiors, tried to regain his liberty, suffered years in iron cages, all the while trapped in vessels of war that took him to Africa and the Kaffir wars, and the Bay of Bengal and the uprisings on the Irrawaddy. A rebel who was watched, who rarely put his feet on land, and whose hope of freedom withered—until now.

  “Now tell me what they say about me,” Skye said.

  “Incorrigible, a criminal, a degenerate. Catch Skye and return him to London for court martial. There is a reward for you. Five pounds—alive, nothing dead.”

  “Then no one will claim it,” Skye said.

  “I could shoot you.”

  “Go ahead and try. I’m going to walk away. You’ll have your chance.”

  “Ah, monsieur, it’s simpler to wound, simpler to wrestle you into submission.”

  “If you can,” Skye said. “I expect you’ll try.” He stood suddenly, the belaying pin in hand.

  The challenge had to be met. Le Duc’s pride was at stake. Not for nothing had Le Duc made himself king of the voyageurs, the right-hand man of the factor, the brawler who could bring anyone in HBC to his knees. Grinning, he sprang up and circled Skye.

  “Monsieur, my soul awaits this moment of truth. Now we shall see. Now I’ll pound you into dust and carry you back upon my spare horse.”

  Le Duc sprang joyously, intending to plant a boot in Skye’s groin and end the matter in an instant. Instead, Skye’s club hit his chest like a ramrod, staggering him and driving breath out of him. When the voyageur tried to yank the belaying pin from Skye’s hands, the slippery hardwood offered no grip. He barged into Skye, but the club caught his knee, sending howling pain up his leg. Le Duc gasped. He had never experienced such agony. Next the club rapped his head until his ears rang and slammed into his right arm, rendering it useless. A beast!

  It had taken only a moment. Skye stood unscathed, Le Duc’s body howled pain. Not a drop of blood had been spilled.

  “Take me if you can,” said Skye, who was scarcely even breathing hard. “I’m not going back alive.”

  “Mon Dieu,” Le Duc muttered, massaging his useless arm, rubbing his hurting kneecap, and wondering whether his aching ribs had been broken. His breath returned in gusts. “C’est magnifique. Sacrebleu! A thing to remember. A story for the campfires. You are one of us. A man of the wilderness. A grizzly bear. Come to the fire and we shall pour some spirits I took the precaution of carrying with me for medicinal purposes, and I will tell you what fate awaits you.”

  Chapter 7

  Skye lifted the flask, swallowed some awful concoction that burned his gullet, and spit it out, gasping for air.

  “What is that?” he cried, his eyes leaking.

  “Ah, Monsieur Skye, it is the elixir that lubricates the fur trade. Indian whiskey.”

  “It’s the bloodiest vile stuff I’ve ever tasted. Have you some rum?”

  “Ah, non, no one but John McLoughlin possesses any grog worthy of the name. But this is a noble drink, oui? Formidable. Pure grain spirits, with a dash of the Columbia River and a plug of tobacco for taste. Ah … one little drink and my right arm will work again, my headache will vanish, my ribs will repair themselves, and my knee will stop letting me know its displeasure. Two little drinks and I am the master of men.”

  Skye sipped again, wiped away the tears, and tackled another dose while a second meal of antelope haunch sizzled over the cheerful fire.

  “All right, Le Duc, what’s my fate?” he asked.

  “Your commodore wishes for your safe return, and has persuaded our factor, the White Eagle, as the giant is called—the resemblance is pronounced—to reel you in like a fat salmon. Little did he know you can’t be reeled, monsieur. In my saddlebags are letters to the factors at the posts—McTavish at Fort Nez Perces, Ross at Flathead House on the Clark fork of the Columbia, and another to Peter Ogden, who’s leading a trapping brigade south of the Snake—which is on your route if you choose to escape His Royal Majesty’s empire.”

  “I didn’t know this was settled country.”

  “It is not. A few trading posts to get furs from the Indians, nothing more. A few brigades cleaning off beaver before the Yanks flood in. You’ll reach Fort Nez Perces in a week or so. It’s at the confluence of the Columbia and Snake. A formidable man, McTavish. He will shoot you if it pleases him. He is a cold, mean Scot, without the warmth and humanity of a Frenchman. Me, I would spare your life; a man deserves his liberty if he wants it more than life. But McTavish, he is a political animal, and will make meat of you if it pleases the company.”

  “I’ll dodge the post.”

  “Mais oui, go around it. He will have the express I am delivering and will be looking for you. And so will all the Indians he trades with.”

  Skye sipped the fiery brew and contemplated that. “I knew Hudson’s Bay would throw out a net.”

  He pulled the sizzling meat off the spit, let it cool, and then began gnawing on it while Le Duc drank and coughed and drank more.

  “I’m getting my courage back, Skye. Whiskey courage. Soon I will try you again. Voila! I can move my right arm again. Next time, it won’t be so easy for you. I shall be wary of the belaying pin. And you’ll be sotted on this poison, an easy target.”

  “If you whip me, you still won’t take me back alive,” Skye said, gnawing meat.

  “I will whip you. No man defeats Antoine Le Duc more than once or for long. I will show you what a man is.”

  Skye said nothing. He hadn’t escaped a brutal life just to get into a contest of manhood with this voyageur. The more Le Duc drank, the more he was nerving himself to try Skye again—maybe with fatal results for either of them. Skye swallowed back the instinct to prove he was a match for any Hudson’s Bay man—his pride was at stake—and considered.

  He knew, somehow, that this was a defining moment in his life. He could guzzle more of that noxious brew, keeping pace with the voyageur, and then find out which of them ruled the roost. Or he could reach for better things. He had his liberty—if he could keep it.

  He was still young, and probably much more serious than most his age. Years of oppression had left their mark on his moods. In all his years in the navy, he had fought when forced to fight, just to assert his right to a life, or to get food, or to stop the harassment of some petty lord of the ’tween decks. But not because he enjoyed hurting others, or lording over them, or playing cock of the walk. He would have preferred to read a book.

  Quietly he arose, ignored Le Duc’s taunts, and sawed more meat from the hanging carcass. He didn’t stop at one serving, but cut all he could—enough to last two or three days if possible. Le Duc drank, swore gallic oaths, and gathered his courage to provoke another brawl, but it didn’t matter. Skye loaded the meat into his seabag, stowed his cape and other gear, gathered up his rude lance, and walked into the darkness.

  “Skye, merde! Halt or I’ll shoot.”

  Skye ignored the man and hastened into the blackness, veering to the right. He had told the voyageur his freedom meant more than life, and now he was being put to the test. Live free or die. He walked quietly, awaiting his fate.

  “Va t’en au diable,” the man cried.

  The crack of the musket didn’t startle Skye, nor did its ball strike him. The shot was bravado, fired into the air. He slid into the void of night and circled back, keeping an eye on the distant pinprick of fire until he was well west of the campsite, and then he rolled up in his sailcloth. Let Le Duc sober up and ride ahead in the morning. There would probably be meat left over to cook and eat, and Skye was in no hurry.

  It began to rain in the night, and Skye spent the last miserable hours before a gloomy dawn huddled under his sailcloth and feeling cold. He thought he was about half a mile inland from the river, but this was open prairie and if he rose and walked he would be visible. So he waited while the gray day brightened slightly
. He could not see Le Duc or his horses, but still he waited. Let the man go ahead and warn the HBC. Skye would bide his time.

  At last, he trudged down to the campsite and found no one there. The carcass was gone. Le Duc, with his wilderness instincts, knew exactly what Skye would do. The meat was probably feeding the fish in the river. Skye sighed. He liked the Canadian and knew the Canadian liked him, and knew Le Duc would redouble his efforts to bring the deserter to his knees.

  Skye edged back from the river and hiked eastward once again, solitary but safe, his energies focused on preserving his freedom and renewing his life. The prints of horses preceded him. If they veered off the trace, he would be watchful. But he suspected that Le Duc would hurry to Fort Nez Perces and elsewhere, delivering his expresses, and never say a word about encountering the fugitive himself.

  The evening with Le Duc had been rewarding. He now knew that HBC was looking for him, and he knew what lay ahead. He knew there was a reward for anyone who brought him in alive. That was all important, potentially lifesaving knowledge.

  He hiked through a silent land and came late in the afternoon to a cold river rushing out of the south. He knew he would have to swim it. Unhappily, he doffed his clothing, stuffed it into his seabag along with his belaying pin, and wobbled into the water, feeling it stab his feet and ankles and then suddenly his thighs. The thunderous cold smacked him but there was no help for it. He swam furiously, feeling the icy water sap his energy and swirl him toward the Columbia, but at last, exhausted, he crawled up the far side, stubbing toes on rock, and dressed. He was chilled to the marrow and needed a fire.

  He trotted eastward, trying to warm his numb body, and largely succeeded. But late that afternoon he rounded a bend and came upon an Indian fishery and village. Short, golden-fleshed people swarmed around him, looking him over, their countenances cheerful. Skye eyed them uneasily, wondering if they were measuring him for a reward from Hudson’s Bay. But the men of the village didn’t seem hostile. They crowded about, eyeing his warbag, his crude lance, and his clothing. The women smiled and studied him when they thought he wasn’t aware. The naked children stared politely.