Rendezvous

by Richard S. Wheeler

  Wasn’t this what he wanted? Wasn’t this the succor that he knew he needed? Skye heartened at his reception, and tried some English on them. “Well, mates, do ye speak my tongue? Can we talk?”

  They smiled blankly. One tried some hand signals that Skye took to be a means of communicating, but he could not make out the meaning. He thought he ought to give them something, anything, as a signal of his esteem. But he needed everything he possessed: he could not spare his awl or shoe leather or flint and striker or fishhook and line, or any of his ragged clothes. But yes, there was something he needed a little less than the rest: his coil of rope. This he extracted from his kit and offered to an older, wire-haired man whose bearing and dignity suggested he was the headman.

  The muscular older man hefted the line, uncoiled it, found it a worthy gift, and grinned. This, in turn, evoked a flood of gifts in return, much to Skye’s astonishment. The women hastened to their bark huts and returned bearing all sorts of things: a fine, tanned deerskin, a fringed leather shirt with dyed geometric designs on it, smoked salmon, and baked cakes made of some sort of meal. A bonanza. Skye bowed, expressed his thanks in English, and found himself being escorted to the center of the place where meals were cooking in big iron kettles that must have been gotten from Hudson’s Bay traders.

  That evening Skye feasted on all the fresh pink salmon he could eat, along with some sort of greens and meal-cakes. The women vied to please him, and he acknowledged each gift, each delicacy. A little boy edged close and finally ran a finger down Skye’s giant nose, and Skye knew what it was about him that fascinated these people. They had never seen a formidable nose before. Perhaps they thought big noses signified power or importance. That dusk the headmen shared a pipe with him and he was ushered into a bark-walled lodge and to a pallet. Luxury, he thought, a respite from starvation and loneliness. He did not even know the name of this river tribe, or their personal names, but they had welcomed him generously. A dozen people, grandparents, parents, large and small children, called that hut home but Skye didn’t feel crowded. Instead, he felt safe. He had not been in the bosom of a family since he was a boy, and now he lay in the close dark, aware of all those people, knowing he must never spin out his life alone.

  Chapter 8

  Skye pulled the elkskin shirt over his navy blouse and found that it fit well enough to use without alteration. It had a curious design, with leather fringes dangling from the arms. The skins had not been trimmed below the waist, and the fringes there hung unevenly, making an odd hemline around his thighs. It was well-used and soft, and permeated with tallow that would turn the rain. Bold zigzag designs in red and blue decorated the chest and back. He appreciated its warmth and knew a good leather shirt would be comfortable in the wilds, subduing the wind.

  The headman’s family stood around him, enjoying the spectacle. He prepared to leave but they insisted he breakfast with them, and once again he filled his belly, this time with some sort of fish cake that had berries in it.

  Even that early in the morning, many of the village’s young men were perched out on a rickety catwalk over the river, slender spears in hand, stabbing the occasional salmon that swam by. Skye watched, fascinated, believing he could fashion a spear out of his spare knife and a pole. If he found an abandoned fishery poking into the river, he would tarry there and try to spear salmon.

  Several of the village men carried bows and quivers full of arrows, and Skye ached to possess the weapon. He had never shot an arrow in his life but he didn’t doubt that necessity would teach him swiftly. He would learn well enough to kill game—or starve. Inspired to trade, he dug into his warbag and pulled out a treasured possession that he could nonetheless do without. He used his folding straight-edged razor now and then to keep his whiskers at bay. But now he needed a bow and arrows far more than a shaven face. He approached one of those who carried a bow, gestured toward it and the quiver, and then laid his shaving kit before him on the ground. He opened the razor and handed it to the man. The man gingerly ran a thumb over the blade and grinned. Skye’s shaving gear included a battered white mug, some soap, and a shaving brush, and with all these and some river water he shaved himself while the villagers crowded about.

  The man took the razor and handed Skye the quiver and bow. Skye rejoiced. With luck and some hunting skills, he might feed himself. He counted eleven arrows: enough to keep him fed.

  He turned to his host, wondering what to give the man for his hospitality, and finally decided he could surrender his woolen skullcap. He handed it to the headman, who grinned and put it on. A swift command sent his wife hurrying into the bark hut, and she returned with a beaver-felt top hat, a trade item from Hudson’s Bay. Much to Skye’s delight, it fit, perhaps too snugly but it would stretch with use. The brim would shade his chapped face and keep the rain off his neck.

  He ached to do more trading, especially for a horse, but he saw none. He doubted these fishing people had any. He knew what he would offer for one: his pea jacket. The new leather shirt would do for warmth, and summer was coming. After thanking his hosts with gestures he hoped would be understood, Skye departed eastward, enjoying his new wealth. He had a little antelope meat and some fresh fish—and a bow and arrows.

  He examined the arrows, curious about their manufacture. They had been made from reeds and had sheet-iron points bound to the shaft with sinew. The points were trade items from Hudson’s Bay. The bow had been fashioned of a blond wood that reminded him of yew, and was strung with animal gut. He would have to be careful with it because he lacked a spare string. As he walked, he nocked arrows and shot them ahead, getting the feel of the weapon. He collected the arrows as he passed by. He knew he had much to learn, and his efforts had been awkward. He didn’t even know how to hold the bow and arrow. But by the nooning, he was getting better.

  The country turned rugged again, and the river boiled between dark rock cliffs. The road veered sharply away from the Columbia and ascended a steep and much-used trail. Plainly these narrows blocked passage along the river and one had to detour around them. He could hear a faint roar as the Columbia bored through the gorge. When at last the trail took him back to water, he found himself in a land largely devoid of trees.

  That evening he counted the day a good one. He baited his hook and line, and then practiced with his bow and arrows, gaining skill through the dusk. No longer was he helpless. But skill with a bow wasn’t the same as being a hunter. He rarely even saw an animal. But as he penetrated these steppes day by day, he spotted distant herds of antelope, and once he saw wild horses. His first success with the bow was a humble one: he shot a raccoon. Greedily, he dressed the animal and then built a fire to cook it. The result was abominable, but the mouthfuls of soft meat helped sustain him. He counted it a milestone.

  He had better luck with his fishhook and line, occasionally netting a salmon that kept him fed for two days. The weather warmed, and his passage would have seemed idyllic but for his constant hunger. He was plagued by loneliness, too, and ached to talk with someone, anyone. How far to Fort Nez Perces? How far to the edge of the Oregon country? How far to the American settlements? North America was a vast continent, but he had hiked eastward for weeks on end. Surely he would arrive at the Atlantic side soon. Or would he?

  He was traversing a vast plain, broken by outcrops of dark volcanic rock and populated by horses that galloped madly away as he approached. He ached to capture one, but he knew little about them. He had never sat a horse.

  His boots fell apart, and he repaired them with his awl and some thong. His trousers wore to pieces, and he sewed the rents and patched them with sailcloth. All this time he saw no one, and his loneliness ate at his spirits. Was this all there was? Would he die some lonely death in these empty wilds? What good was freedom if it came to nothing? He talked to himself, talked to the prickly pear cactus, talked to the crows that gossiped about his passage. Some evenings caught him in places without firewood, but he had learned to cook all of any salmon he caught and could
make a meal of cold fish if he had to.

  Then one day he lost a hook and line. It snagged on something and his line snapped. Skye found himself holding a pole with a foot of string dangling from it. With no more line, he might well starve.

  He felt more and more oppressed as he considered the loss. He stood on the riverbank, drawn bow in hand, knowing the wealth of food that lay in those waters, maddened that he could capture none of it. He would have to turn himself into a hunter or starve. Immediately he hiked far away from the river, looking for game and finding none. When he returned at dusk, a terrible pessimism stole through him.

  Standing there beside the mighty Columbia River with all its unreachable food, he asked himself why he had been set on earth. He had suffered in the navy, and now he suffered more. Did some people’s lives simply take a wrong turn, never to be redeemed? Would he wander this wilderness until he died an early death? Would he be better off turning around, tracing his way back to Fort Vancouver, and turn himself over to John McLoughlin? It was tempting, if only because he would have companionship.

  In the past he had occasionally fallen into bouts of despair, especially when he was locked in ships’ brigs for weeks on end. He knew that there was only one cure for it: he had to drive the demon out of himself. He must never surrender to despair. He might now be in grave trouble, but he was not defeated. He reminded himself that he was alive and free. He had to help himself because no one else would. It was bootless to question the meaning of his existence, or why his had been a hard lot, or whether there was justice in the world. Such speculations never solved anything. He would keep on. He would suffer and starve if he must, but he would not quit and he would not surrender the liberty he had won at such terrible cost. With that resolve, and with a half-muttered prayer to the mysterious God who let him suffer so much, he started east once again.

  The next day he shot an antelope. He could not explain it. The handsome animal stood on a slight rise, watching him approach, probably a sentinel for the nearby herd. It should have fled, but it didn’t. Itchily, he nocked an arrow and eased closer, to perhaps thirty yards. A long shot for a novice with a bow. The antelope didn’t present much target, facing him almost squarely. But he drew, aimed, and loosed his fingers. The arrow whipped true and buried itself in the animal’s chest. The antelope took a few steps and collapsed.

  Exultantly, Skye raced to it and found it was dying. He retrieved his arrow, pulling gently until it came free. He was a long way from the river a longer way to firewood. In fact, he didn’t see a tree anywhere, but he knew a few grew near the water, often hidden from the prairies. The antelope was too heavy to carry and cumbersome to drag. Skye decided to lighten the load by gutting it, which took a while in hot sun. He didn’t really know what he was doing, and doubted that his kitchen knife was the ideal tool. The carcass was still too heavy, so Skye slowly cut off its head, having trouble with bone and cartilage. Now at last he felt he could hoist the carcass to one shoulder, his warbag over the other, and stagger back to the river.

  The half-mile trek exhausted him, but he reached the stony bank, washed the carcass and himself, and hunted for wood. He saw none. He stumbled a mile more along the river before he came to a crease in the land full of stumpy trees and brush, enough of it dead to give him what he needed. He exulted, and set to work at once, building a hot fire, butchering meat, and preparing for a feast.

  He ate a bellyful of the tender meat, and toiled relentlessly at butchering the rest of the animal. He meant to cut it into thin strips and dry it if he could. The sheer toil amazed him. He lacked so much as a hatchet and had to break dry limbs off trees with brute strength to keep the fire going. He had to saw the meat patiently, being careful not to cut himself. And then he had to rig a grid of green sticks upon which to dry and smoke the meat.

  Dusk arrived but he was scarcely aware of it because this bonanza of meat inspired unceasing labor. When he did look up at last, he discovered he wasn’t alone. Half a dozen white men in buckskins stared down at him, and even as he reacted, he saw dozens more, including Indian women, join them. They multiplied, more and more of them crowding the hilltop along with pack horses and mules.

  He had run into a fur brigade, but knew not whether it was British or Yank.

  He paused, wiped the sweat from his brow, lifted his top hat, and waited.

  Chapter 9

  Peter Skene Ogden saw at once that this was the fugitive sailor, Skye, although the man was wearing a fringed buckskin shirt and a battered topper. McLoughlin’s express, which Le Duc had delivered a few days before, warned that the Royal Navy considered this man a dangerous and incorrigible criminal.

  Ogden had kept the information to himself. He had a cynical streak, and nothing aroused his amused skepticism more than the posturing of the servants of the Crown, especially the dread lords of the Admiralty. Ogden also had his own designs, and perhaps Skye would fit into them. Nonetheless, the man bore watching.

  He hurried his trapping brigade down the long slope while Skye waited in the dusk, wary and silent. The man certainly fit McLoughlin’s sketchy description. The nose—my God, what a nose—identified him.

  “Ogden here. I don’t believe we’ve met,” he said.

  Skye paused, his gaze searching, and then seemed to come to some conclusion. “I’m Barnaby Skye, sir. Call me Mister Skye.”

  “Mister Skye it is, then.”

  The brigade swarmed around Skye, eyeing him curiously. Ogden had taken these thirty trappers and camp tenders, plus their Indian wives, out last fall, and now was returning to Fort Vancouver with the winter’s harvest of beaver pelts. They had trapped the Snake River country, garnering somewhat fewer than the three thousand pelts Hudson’s Bay needed to turn a profit.

  “I’ve some meat here,” Skye said. “Just cooking it up. Help yourself.”

  “That’s mighty kind. Fact is, we haven’t seen a four-footed beast in two days. We’re subsisting ourselves on salmon. All right, gents, divide it up.”

  An antelope wouldn’t go far among thirty-seven men and women, but the whole brigade would get a serving. Ogden examined Skye’s gear, finding only a bow and arrows. Offering that meat had meant sacrifice, which only heightened Ogden’s curiosity about this notorious man.

  “A man grows weary of salmon,” Skye said.

  “You heading somewhere, Skye? Any way I can help?”

  “It’s Mister Skye, sir. That title gives a common man dignity here in the New World. Any man can claim it, and I do. I’ve been known only by my last name since I was a lad of fourteen. I heard not even Barnaby, my Christian name, sir. Only Skye, as if a freeborn Englishman deserved nothing more.”

  “I share the sentiment. Call me Mr. Ogden,” the brigade leader said, enjoying himself and Skye. “You’re an Englishman. I’m a Canadian. We’re bound by the Crown, then.”

  Skye said nothing, his face hiding some interior world from Ogden. It wouldn’t do to push the man, Ogden thought. “We’ll make camp here, if you don’t mind. You’ve found the only firewood in miles, and there’s plenty of grass for these half-starved mounts. I’m taking a lot of beaver back to Fort Vancouver. We’ve been in the Snake River country. You heading that way or heading west?”

  “East, sir. Perhaps you can give me directions.”

  “Ah, directions to where?”

  “Boston, Mr. Ogden.”

  “Boston?”

  “It has a college I wish to attend, sir. Harvard. In a place called Cambridge. My schooling was interrupted long ago, and I wish to continue with it.”

  “But Boston’s on the Atlantic coast.”

  “It’s where I’m headed.”

  “Do you have any idea—no, obviously you don’t. We have some tea I’ve been hoarding. I’ll break it out. We’ll have a cup and talk, eh?”

  Skye smiled for the first time. “Tea. It’s been a long time since I’ve sipped it.”

  Ogden could hardly believe his ears. In the space of a minute or two, Skye had demolished th
e reputation that preceded him. College. Boston. Sharing the antelope. Politeness and courtesy. Insistence on a dignified title. Either Skye wasn’t the man the navy represented to McLoughlin, or else Skye was a master dissembler, capable of impressing people with the appearance of transparent honesty.

  The man wandered the camp, looking itchy and uneasy while Ogden’s brigade settled down for the night. He seemed a loner, unwilling to make friends with the voyageurs. But maybe that should be ascribed to his fugitive status.

  Ogden let Skye wander while he set some tea to brewing in a fire-blackened pot. His Creole free trappers required constant attention. If he wasn’t on hand to make sure the horses were hobbled and put out to graze, they might not be. If he wasn’t around to set a guard, no guard would be posted. He had learned to command his trapping brigade with good humor, some jawboning, and an occasional show of strength. He wasn’t a large man but he could mete out more than he took from any of them. HBC had entrusted him with its most important trapping brigade precisely because he was good with the men.

  The embarrassment of last season still aggrieved him. That was when the Americans had set up their rendezvous system and lured away twenty-three of Ogden’s trappers by offering much higher prices—eight times the HBC price—for beaver pelts, while selling them supplies at moderate cost right in the mountains, so that the trappers didn’t have to head back to a Hudson’s Bay post for equipment. It had been an ugly season that had come close to bloodshed. Ogden despised his deserters, abominated the shifty Americans, coldly refused to leave the territory the Yanks were calling their own, and met threat with threat. At the same time, he had swiftly informed his superiors that many more of HBC’s trappers would desert unless they were paid decent prices for their plews, as beaver pelts were called. The Creoles rightly protested that HBC had deliberately kept its trappers in bondage, working to pay off trading post debts that could never be repaid.