Charbonneau (31 page)

“Paump,” Running Stream began as she lay down beside him the next night, “I may not go to the Wind Rivers, and I don’t want to go on a fall hunt. I want to stay with my people. My time will be before winter.”

“You want to be near Crippled Hand?” Crippled Hand was the principal midwife of the tribe.

“Yes, and my father. He does not have many moons left.”

He held her for a moment. He was glad that she was with child again; he’d been afraid that the first child, born dead, had somehow damaged her insides.

“Sure,” he whispered, “we’ll travel with the Shoshones this fall and make winter camp with them.” He smiled at her. “And since it’s free, maybe we can get the tribe and half the Shoshone nation to come to rendezvous.”

She was convinced that their son had died because she had not stayed with her people; the old women of the tribe, who knew about such things, had not been there to isolate her from the men and sing their sacred songs and help with the delivery. This time she would get what she wanted. “Everything will be OK,” he said, and rolled onto his back.

“Maybe not,” she said. She put a hand on his shoulder. “The trapping will end soon. There are no more dollars in it. Is that not so?” He nodded. “You must make a choice. You must go back to the settlements, or go to California or Oregon, or live with the Shoshones, must you not?”

He was surprised that she spoke up like this. But then she had surprised him before. “I might keep trappin’. The dollars don’t matter.”

“It is finished, Paump. I do not want to go to live with the Frenchmen. I want to stay with my people on our land. I want for us to raise our son among the Shoshones and teach him as he should be taught.”

“I’ll think on it,” he said.

She knew the sign to quit. As he lay there, agitated now, and unable to sleep, he figured that she was probably right, all the way around. Still, he’d butt up against all that when the time came.

JULY, 1843: Paump did persuade a few Snakes to come to rendezvous—Bazel and his squaw and three teen-age children, Sacajawea, Mountain Ram and his older daughter Spotted Deer and her man, Big Belly, and two other lodges—a dozen and a half in all. He might have gotten more, but he had to tell them that not many trading goods would be there.

He was disappointed that the young chief of the entire Shoshone nation, Washakie, refused. Washakie seemed to Baptiste to have an inner calm and wisdom that set him apart, and he was a remarkable orator. The Shoshones had a well-earned reputation for unbroken peace with the white man—which was handy for the whites, since the Snakes controlled the area of the Oregon Trail from South Pass west far beyond Fort Hall. Washakie, who had become chief about the time the first emigrants started coming through, was a determined advocate of strong bonds of friendship with the white man.

Baptiste and Jim led the small band from Fort Bridger up the Siskadee to the mouth of the Big Sandy, a way up the creek, and then due north for East Fork. Old Pierre, back at the fort, had said rendezvous would be up at East Fork Lake.

Just above the mouth of Big Sandy, Baptiste saw a huge congregation of wagons a quarter mile ahead; the emigrants were making no preparations to move on. He wondered how far the stragglers were strung out behind them—clear to South Pass, probably.

Little Bear, Bazel’s teen-age son who fancied himself a warrior, gave his horse a kick and came past Jim and Baptiste; Mountain Ram was right behind him, the silver-haired old man waving his lance and shouting. It was the old trick of riding up on a party fast, as though you were going to attack, and stopping dead at the last minute to shake hands, clap backs, and laugh. All right, why not a little fun? Everyone except the two horses dragging travois galloped toward the wagons. Baptiste and Jim fired their Hawkens into the air.

A couple of men did reach toward their rifles, but there was no real chance of being misunderstood—there must have been four or five hundred whites to a band of less than twenty Indians, counting women and children.

“Mornin’,” the old fellow who walked out said to Jim. Baptiste laughed: He himself must look so Indian that the fellow took a black as the one who spoke English.

“Whar to?” asked Jim.

“Fort Bridger, Fort Hall, and then some to Oregon and some to Californy.”

“Zat is zee first fitting place,” Baptiste spoke up. “Oregon or Californy.”

“This country is God-forsaken,” the old man, looking around edgily.

“It’s quiet ahead,” Jim said, “no trouble nowhar. That Oregon does shine.”

“We air just passing by,” said Baptiste, and nudged his horse. No sense in palavering all day.

The next noon, just before they started up the West Fork of Big Sandy, Baptiste and Jim saw a half-dozen dark dots against a hill a mile off to the right: Buffalo.

“Damned emigrators is ridin’ right by ’em,” Jim said, “didn’t know what they was.”

“Let’s go,” Baptiste grinned. Some more robes and meat would be fine for rendezvous. “Mountain Ram,” he called, “we’ll catch up.”

“I said what would happen if you went foolin’ after them darn buffalo,” Eliza whined, “I surely said it.” Five-year-old Julie, on her lap, wailed louder. Rube Applegate, ignoring his wife, clucked at the oxen pointlessly.

Ike Reed flicked his roan a few yards ahead. He had sworn yesterday that if she started in again, he’s stuff her mouth with dust and cactus needles. His brother Frank eased up alongside him. “Well?” He meant what about moving on, leaving these bickering blunderers to muddle through, or not muddle through, on their own?

“Not yit. The train’ll wait up afore long.” Ike and Frank were eating the Applegate and the Olafsson’s grub in return for helping drag and push the wagons through the bad places. Ike figured they ought to stick with the job. Frank figured his brother just liked being picked on.

Ole Olafsson was dreaming on the seat of the front wagon. He had opted out of the quarrels among the Applegates and the nastiness between the Applegate and the Reed boys ever since the two wagons lost the train a week ago. His own wife, who had dysentery, spent most of the day lying in back with the children. He just tried to keep the oxen moving. He noticed more and more, though, that his mind floated away from this land of dust, buffalo grass, cactus, and dry washes to his childhood—to his sister’s wedding, to the first months of his marriage—to anywhere but where he was. He refused to quarrel. But he kept letting the oxen wander into the worst places, getting the wagon stuck, and then the Reed boys would curse him disgracefully. His only defense was staying eight thousand miles away.

“What the hail?” Ike yelled.

Ole snapped to. Goddamn: Injuns riding down on them hard—an old man waving a lance in front and two more right behind, all of them screeching. Ole looked quick at Ike and Frank, who were doing nothing on their skittish horses but looking edgy. That sight struck sheer panic through Ole. He had to do something. He lifted his cap-and-ball rifle off the seat, pointed it toward the old men, and jerked the trigger. The old man’s horse stumbled, and he pitched to the ground.

Oh shit, Ike thought, now it’s a fight. Two of the Injuns pulled up, but another came around them yelling and waving one hand. Ike leveled on the redskin, and noticed only as he pulled that it was a girl. She jerked backwards. Dee could shoot and hunt with anybody.

Bazel lifted Mountain Ram to his horse; the old man’s leg was bent funny. Spotted Deer helped Little Bear get Running Stream onto his pony; she was shot in the stomach. Big Belly fired once at the whites to cover the rescues—it was the only rifle the party had. He heard a ball whiz by him, and whooped when he realized it had missed. They turned their backs to ride away, pulling the travois, which slowed them down, but the whites didn’t shoot any more.

“Goddamn it, you bastard,” Frank yelled at Ole, “that warn’t no war party. You wanna get us all killed?”

“Ware was he wen he had to shoot?” Ole yelled back, pointing at Rube. With Eliza screaming and clinging to him, Rube hadn’t even managed to get his gun from behind him.

A few minutes later Ole heard gunfire somewhere off to the north. He was already driving the oxen in a cold fury; he drove them harder.

Baptiste and Jim made a long cut across where the trail should have been, but they didn’t find it. They had angled north to catch up with the band. Finally, they started backtracking toward where they had last seen the others. The horses were loaded with skins full of fresh meat.

The sounds of wails came to Baptiste’s ears across the scorched plains, faint and mournful, like the cries of doves. He sucked in his breath deeply as he let himself know what they were, and then gave Pilgrim a kick. Jim was already several strides ahead of him.

All he got from Little Bear’s babble was Mountain Ram and Running Stream, Mountain Ram and Running Stream. She was stretched out on a deerskin in the shade of one bank of the wash. Her knees were up and her legs spread wide. Blood had been scraped away from the dust between her legs, and scraps of human tissue were here and there. A long shudder started and convulsed his body. He cut it off. The bone-chill stayed.

He slipped one hand behind her head, and she opened her eyes. They were glazed, and he was not sure whether she recognized him. She looked old, incredibly old and haggard.

Sacajawea pointed, and he saw the wound. It was on the right side just below the ribs. No digging for it, no cauterizing, nothing to do. He crossed his legs and sat down, her head still cradled in his hand. She looked like she might be asleep.

“John, let’s go. They got to be the stupidest niggurs in the mountains, and murderin’ bastards asides.”

Baptiste cut him off with one hand. “Maybe later,” he said. Jim looked at him hard, then strode off toward his horse. Baptiste guessed that later the revenge would be over.

“You must not,” declared Bazel. “You must not. It was our mistake. A misunderstanding. Stupidity.”

“That kind of stupidity can get a man killed,” Jim said. “It damn well oughta get a man killed.” Big Belly, who had already promised to get the man who did it, was mounting up.

“Face-Always-Black,” called Little Bear, “let me go with you.”

“No,” Bazel said. “You may not go.”

“He’s old enough to larn,” Jim told Bazel.

“My son stays here. Mountain Ram would say you all stay here. Washakie would say the same.”

“Mountain Ram is a fevered old man with a broken leg. Washakie is a fool. So long, Bazel.”

They walked their horses slowly, since they would wait until dark to do the job.

Hy-ee-ah!

Hy-ee-ah!

I am a made-to-die.

Today is a good day to die.

Hy-ee-ah!

I am a made-to-die.

Today is a good day to die.

Jim shook his head. Big Belly had already told him that nothing could hurt him today. His magic had turned the ball fired at him by the gray-hatted Frenchman, and today it would turn all that might do harm. But he kept singing the damn song talking about dying. In Jim’s experience, lead had a way of cutting straight through magical words. He’d damn well shut Big Belly up before they got close.

“You sure you know what ones done the shooting?”

Big Belly nodded emphatically.

Hy-ee-ah!

Today I take many scalps.

Jim didn’t know what this crap about scalping was. He’d already told the crittur that they’d ease up in the dark, pick out the two who done the shootin’, kill ’em, and clear out before all the son of a bitches got to chasing.

They sat perfectly still in the sagebrush. They had waited twenty minutes, and Jim was willing to wait however long it took to get the best chance. He wanted them all sitting down around that pitiful little fire they were trying to make out of sagebrush. The men and boys kept wandering into the dark to get something more to burn, but it didn’t look like they would cross the little wash between them and Jim and Big Belly.

The damned Snake kept mouthing his prayers and fingering his piece of onyx and his antler tip. He wasn’t making any sound, but Jim was sure that his mouthing would somehow carry across the watch and spoil the job.

Finally they all settled down. One of the two young fellers, the one who was Jim’s, sat where Jim couldn’t get an angle at him. The red-headed niggur, the one that talked funny, leaned against a wagon wheel, an easy shot. Jim had picked the young feller for himself because he and the other carried pistols in their belts—them new Colt guns. The others didn’t bother.

They crawled around to where Jim could get a clean shot. “Wait till I shoot,” he told Big Belly.

He laid his pistol on the ground within easy reach and got up on one knee, to be sure of clearing the brush. He held his sights on the man’s chest and squeezed. The bastard flew backwards like a kicked can.

Bazel jumped up, whooped loudly, and snapped off a careless shot. The red-headed fellow just stood there, untouched. And the idiot was still standing there, like he was frozen. Jim stood up, leveled the pistol with both hands, and shot him center.

But Big Belly was already halfway into camp. Since he’d missed, he must mean to take the bastard with his knife. And then probably wait around to scalp him. Jim ran for his horse. He heard a pistol shot and Big Belly’s scream. He kept running. After a moment another shot and scream from Big Belly. Jim figured he might as well lead Big Belly’s horse back to camp.

Near sundown Running Stream seemed to get better. He had been wiping her face with a damp cloth; and the fever seemed to go down, and she stopped tossing and grimacing.

Her eyes lifted open, slowly, and this time she knew who he was. Her lips started to move. “Don’t talk,” he cut her off. “Rest.” She understood and said nothing, but she kept looking at him. Once in a while her eyes went blank, and he knew that she was unable to see from the pain. Every few minutes he gave her a sip of water.

He knew the change was coming; he could feel it in her body. “I’m cold,” she murmured. He put a finger on her lips while Sacajawea pulled a buffalo robe over her. She shivered for long minutes, holding his eyes with hers. Then her own eyes glazed. He waited for the pain to pass so that she could see again. After two or three minutes Sacajawea put a hand on his elbow. Running Stream was dead.