Rendezvous

by Richard S. Wheeler

  Skye thought that the casualness of this caravan might not appeal to the lord generals or captains of the British army, who would have organized the company into formation and put vedettes out on the flanks. Perhaps Sublette would do that when they reached dangerous country, but Skye would be long gone. They would show him the path and send him on his way.

  Thirty-one men; that was the strength of this brigade. There were enough, they said, to hold off a whole village of Blackfeet. Those mountain rifles, accurately fired, would keep even a massed enemy at bay. There were no women in this brigade; Sublette had forbidden it.

  No one spoke. They had talked themselves hoarse in the rendezvous. That was the social time. This was the time to head leisurely north through shortening days and chill nights, mapping out beaver-rich creeks and rivers to trap later when the fur was prime. This was the time to enjoy summer warmth while it lasted in these northern climes, time to have fun, make buffalo meat and jerky, harvest strawberries and chokecherries and other wild fruit. Time to gird up for winter, fatten the horses, braid rawhide horse tack, tell tall stories. Skye had heard more than a few yarns, and realized that storytelling was one of the ways these men made time pass in a land without diversions or outside news. Adventure and utter boredom appeared equally in the lives of these mountaineers.

  For several days they wandered north until they struck the Snake, and then turned upstream, traversing a flat country but never out of sight of towering distant ranges. Sublette often rode with Skye, gradually extracting from him the whole of his life in the Royal Navy and much about his childhood as well.

  “I reckon an old coon like you’d think twice about returning to civilization, seeing as how you treasure your liberty,” Sublette said.

  “I treasure it. And I’m counting on your Yank government to protect it. But life is more than liberty. A man needs purpose and a dream, and my dream is to finish what I started and enter commerce.”

  Sublette didn’t say anything, and Skye knew that his own preferences didn’t sit well with these children of the wilds. The balmy days fled by one after another, hot midday, cool in the evenings, uneventful.

  The river hooked around to the east again, and then one evening Sublette told Skye that they had come to the parting.

  “Tomorrah we’ll take Henry’s Fork north and you’ll stay on the Snake a while more, but not as far as Davey Jackson’s Hole.”

  He stooped on bare earth and scraped a map with a stick. Skye had to find the route that had been traversed by the Astorians early in the century. If he found the right one, it would take him over a pass and down to the Seedskedee. And then he’d face a long stretch of waterless wasteland until he hit a small creek at the western foot of South Pass …

  Skye memorized the map in his head, knowing how hard it would be to translate to the real world what Sublette was scraping in the clay.

  That evening, while feasting on a buck mule deer that Emanuel Lazarus brought in, the talk turned distinctly odd.

  “Mr. Bridger,” said Beckwourth, “do you think Mr. Sublette’d give us a week off?”

  “No, Mr. Beckwourth, Mr. Ranne, and Mr. Fitzpatrick proposed it, while Mr. Reed, and Mr. Daw objected because they want to make the beaver come.”

  “A pity,” said Beckwourth. “How about you, Mister Skye?”

  “I’ll be taking my leave tomorrow, mates.”

  “Mates? Mates? What sort of word is that? Call us mister.”

  Skye smiled.

  “Time we elevated the manners around hyar,” Bridger said. “Now, you ain’t never to call me Gabe agin, though I’ll accept Blanket Jim at rendezvous. From now on it’s mister. High-toned, like Mister Skye hyar. Mr. Bridger, that’s me.”

  With that, they all pronounced themselves misters and said the brigade was mightily elevated by the courtesy.

  “Tell us again why y’ar Mister Skye,” Isaac Galbraith asked.

  “Because this is a new world,” Skye said, simply.

  “Yep, it’s that all right,” Beckwourth opined. “But mister ain’t enough. Call me chief. Call me headman. Call me Lord Beckwourth, or baron or viscount or duke.”

  Skye smiled.

  “Now, Mister Skye, old coon, onct ye get onto that Astorian patch, ye got to watch for the petryfied forest. Everything in her’s turned to rock,” said Mr. Bridger. “I saw me an elk turned solid rock there not long ago. And there’s a marble grizzly rearin’ up at the east end.”

  “And beyond the petryfied forest is the Amazons,” said Mr. Beckwourth. “Two hundred seventy beauteous Injun women who won’t let you pass until you pleasure ’em.”

  They managed all this until the fire died and the stars blanketed the sky, and Skye knew he had friends, and they were feeling loss at his departure. And he knew as well that he would feel a similar loss for these wild Yanks.

  The next morning, one with a chill on it, they rode an hour to the confluence of Henry’s Fork and the Snake, and there they parted. In the northeastern haze loomed a range topped by three spiky peaks.

  “Them’s the Tetons,” Sublette said. “Snake runs right under ’em on the east side, but you won’t go that far. All right, Mister Skye, keep your topknot on.”

  It was the mountaineers’ blessing.

  “Thank you, gentlemen. Keep your topknots on.”

  He rode away from them, a lone man in a wild, lonely land, with tears in his eyes.

  Chapter 30

  The Snake River divided itself around countless sandy islands and sparkled merrily through lush meadows or sudden patches of pine. It harbored along its banks more wildlife than Skye had ever seen, and in its transparent waters trout leapt and darted.

  He found himself riding through an Eden that would have been the envy of Adam and Eve. He had little trouble filling his demanding belly now that July was fading into August and every bush brimmed with red, black, and silvery berries. He scared up deer and martins and elk, and once a yawning brown bear. He watched bald eagles circle above him and redtailed hawks dive for their dinner. Sunlight glinted off the cold complex waters, dazzling his eye. The screech of meadowlarks, kildeer, and red-winged blackbirds gladdened his spirit and told him that all was well.

  The cheerful river ushered him across a golden plain and into somber mountains. Now the river pulsed through an intimate valley hemmed by vaulting pine-clad slopes, and Skye knew he must look for the vaguely described turnoff, Hoback River, that had been the route of John Jacob Astor’s party heading for the Pacific coast in 1811.

  He missed his companions, but the river had become his bosom friend, endlessly delightful to eye and soul. He was glad he had traveled a piece with Sublette’s brigade, not only because it had cemented friendships but also because he had absorbed the ways of the mountaineers, an eager acolyte in the liturgy of survival. Skye had absorbed their innate, unspoken caution. Even though they might be talking to each other or seeming to pay no attention to the terrain, in fact they were constantly scanning horizons, studying dark blank woods, places of trouble and surprise. Without a word being spoken by Sublette or anyone else, they paused at defiles or river passages or at any place hemmed by brush or forest, and one or another would circle around for a hard-eyed look. These children of the wilds would not be surprised if they could help it.

  He mastered their camp techniques, too. They grazed their animals until dusk and then hobbled and staked them close at hand. They built their small fires in hidden places, preferably under some branches that would dissipate the smoke. They scanned the heavens with knowing eyes, and prepared for a wet night if the omens told them to. They could thatch an effective shelter in a hurry, knew how to keep their spare clothing dry, and knew how to find dry tinder and build a fire where a drizzle wouldn’t snuff it. Whenever they had spare meat, they hung it high and away from their camp, or jerked it if they had time. Occasionally they heard wolves, and constantly enjoyed the night-gossip of the coyotes, and sometimes counted their silences more important than the night-talk.

&
nbsp; The wilderness and its omnipresent dangers had driven these men together; out in the wilds they were boon companions in a way that could not be replicated in the sullen cities. Skye had blotted up all of this during his brief sojourn with Sublette’s men. He missed them so much it surprised him, and to counter his bouts of loneliness he focused on his future, examining his dream, over and over.

  Boston was the great American seaport; there would be import and export businesses, very like his father’s. He would apply at once, knowing he could be useful. Those matters had been bred into his bones and he had heard his father’s talk at many a meal. He would clerk, and save his pence, and apply at the college. He would study political economy as his father had done, and English literature, as he wanted to do. Then, someday, with a bachelor degree in hand—albeit at a late age—he would start his own business, win a wife, start the Skye family, and settle into an abundant life.

  All these things he rehearsed and rehashed as he rode up the Snake, almost to prevent the bewitching river and the golden wilderness from seducing him. The Snake took him deeper into the mountains, and now he experienced sharply cooler weather, especially at dawn. Summer still reigned, but the higher he climbed the closer he peered into the future. He would have to hurry east. Sublette told him it would take three months to make St. Louis, and by then the nights would be cold.

  He almost missed the Hoback River, taking it for an inconsequential creek, but he spotted a prominent blaze in a tree. The mountaineers had left their own road map. He turned his lively horse eastward and rode through an intimate canyon that made him uneasy because he felt hemmed in, almost like being in a ship’s brig. He saw no sign of recent passage, though plenty of evidence that man and beast had come this way.

  He topped a somber alpine pass one day, and began descending into what he understood would be the drainage of the Seedskedee—he wondered about the origins of that name. Once he struck that clear, cold river he was to descend it until he reached arid plains. With a little luck he would find a trail that would take him across a waterless flat to Big Sandy Creek.

  He descended into an alpine valley where a river whirled through swampy flats. It wasn’t a welcoming land, and he hurried through it, wanting a dryer and more comfortable climate. Nature was fickle, joyous one moment and sullen the next. This was a valley choked with brush, a place where he could easily be surprised, and that made him itchy. He urged his reluctant horse across numerous creeks, around mocking bogs, and along the edge of fearsome dark pine forests. Moose lived there, and he saw one after another standing in bogs, eating what grew close to water. This was country where winter came early and stayed long, a land locked by snow most of the year.

  But the rushing Seedskedee gradually descended, often in a formidable canyon that made him feel imprisoned. One eve, just before the sun dropped below the western ridges, he located a good campsite on the river, a flat with tender grass, deadwood for fire, and some protection from the chafing winds. He slid off his brown horse and set his warbag and gear on the grass. He needed to stretch legs that had been imprisoned in the Nez Perce pad saddle too long. He wondered if he would ever get used to riding long distances.

  They materialized out of the brush and woods, silent brown forms, a dozen, fifteen, all mounted, some wearing vermilion streaked across their cheekbones, others painted with subtler earth-hues garnered from nature. His heart sank. He lacked even his bow and quiver. Every one of them wielded a weapon, mostly drawn bows, but two brandished flintlocks. One had a war hatchet while another carried an iron-tipped lance.

  Skye hunted his memory for the sign: friend.

  Right hand. Palm outward. Index and second finger pointing up.

  They stared. He tried peace.

  Clasped hands. Back of left hand down …

  Nothing. They eyed his horse, noted the gear on the ground, including Skye’s bow and quiver. They talked to each other. Skye hadn’t the faintest idea who they were or what might happen. A mountaineer might know, but not a British seaman. But then, suddenly, he had his answer: these warriors wore moccasins of smoked leather, almost black, something he had never seen before. Pieds Noirs, Blackfeet. His pulse raced. He sensed he was in mortal danger, maybe even moments from death. Six or eight nocked arrows pointed at him.

  One of the warriors, apparently their leader, grunted something to the rest. That one bore a terrible scar across his left cheek and the edge of his mouth and two other jagged scars on his powerful torso. He had seen war. Skye knew the signs.

  Two of them slid nimbly off their horses and walked straight toward Skye. But they didn’t touch him. Instead, one grabbed Skye’s horse. The other plucked up his warbag and quiver and bow.

  “Stop!” bellowed Skye.

  A fraction of a heartbeat later, he stared at an arrow driven into the soft earth between his legs. They were itching to kill him. He forced himself to calm down a little, but now his heart pounded crazily. Had he come all the way from the H.M.S. Jaguar to end up here, dying a lonely death in an empty land?

  “I want my goods back. Leave that horse. I’ve done you no harm, but I’ll fight if you want.” Bluster. He had learned to defend himself in the Royal Navy with bluster. If he hadn’t taken on the bullies, he would have starved to death or suffered abuse from his shipmates.

  He thrust a finger at the headman. “I’ll settle it with you,” he said. “Get off that horse and we’ll settle it.” He had brawled enough in the navy; he’d brawl here if he must.

  Something shifted in the brush behind him, a passing animal. The warriors stared into the thickets, seeing nothing. Skye ignored that, and walked furiously toward the headman, who sat his horse quietly, a deadly war ax in hand. One blow could cleave Skye’s skull. Skye pointed at the man and at the ground, inviting the headman to get down and fight. The man stared back with expressionless black eyes, a faint triumphant glitter finally rising in them. He spoke low, the sibilants hissing from his lips.

  Two of the warriors walked cautiously toward the red willow brush, and then one froze and barked something. In that moment, Skye was forgotten and a strange guttural grunt drifted from the brush. Skye stared, electrified by something he couldn’t quite name. Then he saw it: a huge humped brown bear, erect on its hind paws, its nose silvery with age, eight, nine feet high, a monster, its small eyes focusing here and there, its wet nostrils flared. Skye had the sense that this monster could land on all fours and murder half these warriors—or himself—before they could run ten yards.

  No one loosed an arrow, and Skye grasped why. An arrow might be little more than an irritant, something to turn this bear berserk. They all stood frozen, the warriors on foot and the rest on crazed horses that were becoming impossible to manage. Skye’s horse fought the line, shaking her head violently.

  In that frightful moment Skye did something he knew was terrible even to think about. He walked toward the bear, driving his limbs forward. The bear loomed higher and higher, awesome in height, its breath fouling the air, and Skye expected his life to end with a single swipe of a paw. Skye walked past the warriors on foot, closer and closer, his gaze and the grizzly’s gaze locked. He came within twenty feet, then ten, his vector taking him past, rather than toward, the monster. He could not say why he was throwing his life away, only that he saw it as a small, frightful chance to escape. But these warriors were Blackfeet who preyed on isolated white men, and he had no other choice. They watched, mesmerized.

  The bear snorted, the hairs at the nape of its neck erect. It snuffled and growled but stood as Skye walked past, its attention divided between Skye and the host of enemies before him. And then, suddenly, it shrieked. Skye had never heard a sound like it, and it drove shivers through him. The bear sprang, but not at Skye. It snarled toward the massed warriors, and Skye heard howling, the screech of horses, the thump of arrows finding their mark, and shouts of terror.

  He ran until his wind vanished from his lungs, and ran some more, and stumbled along the trail he had recently negotiated
, never looking back. And then, a half-mile distant—at least he thought it was that much—he did stare back, finding nothing. No bear, no Blackfeet. But that didn’t mean anything. In terror, he raced further up the Seedskedee, splashing through tributary creeks, running until he dropped and the night cloaked him.

  Chapter 31

  Bear medicine.

  The little Crow, Many Quill Woman, had discerned something Skye could barely fathom. The bear was his brother, his guide, his friend, his protector. She called it medicine. He tried to dismiss the savage superstition, but he couldn’t. He had walked right by that enraged grizzly and survived.

  The dawn chill numbed him. Gray mist blanketed the land, filtering the first light and rendering it pale and shadowless. He rose from moist ground, his body aching, yearning for a fire, warmth, food. But he had nothing.

  He tried to fathom where he was. Pines loomed in the mist. He was somewhere on the upper Seedskedee. He had run until he dropped, and didn’t know how far. A mile, maybe two. He stood, rubbed his aching legs and arms, and swung his arms to make heat in his body. He was ravenous. He had only the clothes on his back, his worn moccasins, and a sheathed knife at his waist. With that he must live—or die.

  He started down the river again, needing to search the place of ambush for his gear. Perhaps it was still there. The bear may have driven off the Blackfeet. He needed flint and steel, bow and quiver, ax and hatchet, his blanket, and his sailcloth poncho. But anything, anything at all, would help.

  The mist cleared as he hiked, but the relentless chill lingered. This was August and this was high country. Everything looked different in the morning light and he wondered if he would even recognize his campsite, which he had seen only in twilight. Wilderness was tricky and a man was hard put to say whether or not he had passed by.