The Seekers (63 page)

Toward the end of his term, his jailer announced a visitor.

Jared glanced toward the wooden door and his mouth dropped open. Huge and formidable-looking in buckskin leggings and a fringed blouse decorated with beads and quillwork, there stood the Tennessean who had all but destroyed Mrs. Cato’s parlor. A long white feather stuck up from the back of the man’s head.

From outside the cell, he said, “Mr. Kent, ain’t it?” He sounded far less truculent than when Jared had first seen him.

Jared laid the fob on his pallet, stood up. “Yes.”

“I’ll trouble you for the musket,” the jailer said.

“Christ, you think I’m gonna shoot him?” the Tennessean grumbled.

“Hand it over or stay out.”

Reluctantly the man surrendered his short-barreled gun. It was decorated with a curious piece of metal-work: a fork-tongued sea serpent with curling tail, all done in bronze and screwed to the wood just beneath the lock. The big man shook a cautionary finger. “That’s a genuine North West trade musket. I’ve had it nine years. Handle it real gingerly or I’ll handle you so’s you won’t get over it.”

The Tennessean ducked his head and entered the cell. The jailer, noticeably pale, closed the door.

Jared guessed his visitor to be thirty-five or forty years old. He had high cheekbones, tanned skin heavily marked with lines, eyes whose dark color and deep sockets lent him an air of melancholy now that he was sober.

He acted ill at ease. When he spoke again, his tone was surprisingly gentle. “I come to pay some overdue thanks, Mr. Kent. I owe you a hell of a lot.”

Jared shrugged. “I don’t recall you owe me a thing.”

“Oh yes, I do. The night you shot that man, I was crazy drunk. I didn’t mean to harm nobody, mind you—I was just havin’ a frolic—but Mrs. Cato, that old whore—she’d have hauled me up before the law for certain if you hadn’t been around. You kind of took her mind off me. Not completely, o’ course. To cover the damage I done, she made me pay half my profit from winterin’ last year. That put me way behind in makin’ up my assortment.”

“Your what?”

“Assortment.”

“You’ve lost me, Mr.—”

“Weatherby. Elijah Weatherby.”

Unconsciously, he stroked his shoulder-length gray hair before extending his hand. The hair glistened with some kind of grease. Jared shook reluctantly. Weatherby’s palm was slick. But his grip was strong.

“An assortment’s what you take to trade when you’re spendin’ the winter amongst the Injuns.” Weatherby perched on the stool Jared had vacated, all but hiding it with his huge frame. “Red men’ll trade prime pelts for the damnedest trifles. Don’t sound sensible, but it’s so. They don’t have any trifles, y’see, but they can get hold of a heap of furs. Supply ’n demand is what the Chouteaus call it. I used to work for them, but now I’m a free trader—got my license from the governor an’ all—and I still sell my bales to the Chouteaus every spring—” He massaged his jawbone, leaving a greasy residue. “I’m puttin’ my assortment together right now. Spendin’ every last penny I got, too. Only thing I won’t take along is the trade whiskey they make up special at the distilleries here in town.”

Jared started to insert a question about why he was being told all this, but Weatherby simply kept talking, perhaps out of nervousness.

“I ain’t a man of outstandin’ morals, Mr. Kent. But I don’t hold with poisoning people. Trade whiskey’s nothin’ more than river water with some plugs of tobacco and pieces of soap thrown in. Oh, and some red pepper an’ dead leaves to darken it up proper. A whole barrel of that slop gets cut with just two gallons of alcohol an’ two gallons of strychnine—”

“Strychnine’s a poison!”

“That’s what I said, ain’t it? The strychnine makes up for the scant amount of alcohol. The braves want to get drunk on
somethin’.
Also, they don’t consider it good whiskey ’less they have a healthy puke after drinkin’ some. The tobacco takes care of the puke.”

Weatherby noticed Jared’s puzzled stare. He grinned in a shamefaced way. “I guess I’m ramblin’—”

“It’s pleasant to have a visitor after being cooped up alone for a couple of months, Mr. Weatherby. But I can’t see that what you’re saying has anything to do with me.”

“Well, yes, it does. How much longer you gonna be in here?”

“Another couple of weeks. Why?”

“Mm. That’d work out just fine.”

“What are you talking about?”

Weatherby reached to the back of his head, plucked the white bird feather from his hair and began to twirl it in his fingers. Jared thought the feather was an affectation, like the man’s flamboyantly beaded shirt. He learned later it was the fur trade’s universal symbol of wintering. Less hardy men only ventured into the Indian lands from the spring to the autumn. The feather thus became a badge of stamina and status.

“Roundabout,” Weatherby resumed, “I heard the story of what that man called Black done with your little cousin—”

“Sold her to some trappers going up to the Sioux tribes, he said. I almost don’t believe it.”

“I believe it. There’s nothin’ a Mandan chief prizes so much as a woman with white skin. Same goes for the dog soldiers out amongst the Tetons.”

“What in God’s name are dog soldiers?”

“A special bunch of young braves picked to take charge of a buffla hunt. They’re mean as sin—an’ when you consider that the Teton Sioux are already about the wickedest of all the Dakota Injuns, you got a fair idea of what a dog soldier’s like. Compared to one o’ them, a Mandan Sioux’s an old woman.”

“So you’re telling me there’s a ready market for my cousin.”

“Afraid so. That ain’t what fetched me here, though. I—well, what I wondered—y’see, it’s like this,” he said with an explosion of breath. “I lost my last partner this past February. A Frenchman, Marcel was his name. He got all messed up with a buffla dance. That’s where a whole lot of Injuns and mebbe some real important visitors sit in a circle in a lodge. The old men make big drum medicine. Then their young wives come up behind the circle bare-ass naked except for a buffla robe. Each wife picks a man—not her own, y’understand—and goes outside with him, an’ right there in the snow they make the two-backed beast—with everybody’s one hunnerd percent approval.”

“That’s incredible.”

“The truth! I been in the snow myself. Seen a dozen, two dozen couples humpin’ away not six feet apart. It’s part of the religion. ’Sposed to attract the herds in winter time. Get ’em to come close enough to the village so the braves can ride out an’ lay in some meat. Well, the point is, my partner Marcel, he took a fancy to the squaw that picked him out. So he’s livin’ with the Mandans now, sort of a second husband to this young woman. I ain’t found anybody but rum-sots to replace him—”

Weatherby raised a hand quickly. “Don’t get me wrong. I drink some myself.”

Jared almost smiled. “I know.”

“But I only do it when I’m in town and havin’ a frolic. To get right to it”—Jared fervently wished he would—“I need a partner for
this
winter. I’m goin’ back up toward the Sioux villages. You look like a sober, steady sort, and you ain’t yella—that’s plain from what happened at Mrs. Cato’s. If you was of a mind to go with me, mebbe we could hunt for your cousin—”

He left the last words hanging, his tone punctuating them as a question.

“I expect my cousin’s dead.”

Weatherby frowned. “Well, by God. You mean you give up on her?”

“Don’t you think I should?”

“I dunno about should. I didn’t ’spect you
would.
” He rubbed his chin. The melancholy cast of his expression started resentment simmering in Jared.

Weatherby clucked his tongue. “Yeah, I had you pegged for a different sort. I mean, you stepped up to the mark pretty smart at Mrs. Cato’s. Plugged that bastard cool an’ clean right while he was aimin’ square at you.” The trapper slitted his eyes. “How old are you, boy?”

“Sixteen.”

“Plenty old enough for me to teach you the trade. Where you hail from?”

“Boston. Look, Mr. Weatherby—”

“Boston! Ain’t that way up by the Atlantic Ocean someplace?”

“Yes, it is. I—”

“An’ you come all the way out here with that little girl?”

“Actually she was stolen in Tennessee. We were heading south.”

“Godamighty! You musta rode a thousand miles or more.”

“I guess. We walked a good part of it.”

“I sure wouldn’t have any doubts about takin’ on a youngster who could do that,” Weatherby declared.

“Thanks, but I’m not interested.”

“I sort o’ got that idea. Appears I made a mistake—”

The big man rose, jamming the feather in his hair. “You goin’ back east when you get out?”

“I can’t go back east.”

“Why not?”

“Because—because the law wants me.”

“Thievin’?”

“Something else.”

“Murder?”

Jared didn’t answer.

Weatherby’s reaction was unexpected and puzzling. First he shrugged. Then, with a remote look, he said, “Hell, I done a lot worse than that.”

“I didn’t say I’d—”

“Yes you did—by not sayin’ anything.”

“And you’ve done worse?”

“I sure have.”

“For instance?”

“Well, for one thing, I left a woman and four young’uns in Tennessee. I come out here eleven years ago. I couldn’t stand farmin’ fifty acres month in, month out. Got so bad I couldn’t sleep nights, thinkin’ how I had to escape. It was like hands on my neck, stranglin’ hands, that feeling. I was locked up on fifty acres and I’d see the same sights all my days—well, I begged my wife to come along. She said no. So one night I—just left. I ain’t proud of it. But I had to do it or I would have died.”

Strangely moved by the hoarseness of Weatherby’s voice, Jared found his own softening. “That’s still not as bad as killing a man. And I’ve botched up a whole lot of other—”

“I ain’t finished.” Weatherby stared at him. “You know what a windigo is, boy?”

“No.”

“Big medicine with the Injuns. Scares hell out of ’em. I’m carryin’ that name now.”

Some remembered agony shone in his eyes. Suddenly he glanced away.

“What I’m sayin’ to you is, the country west of here forgives just about anything a man wants or needs to have forgiven. I heard a preacher say once that God forgives His wayward children, so maybe God’s part of the prairies an’ rivers, because a man can sure find a mighty lot of forgiveness—”

“Mr. Weatherby, I’m leaving St. Louis—”

“I know that! It’s no secret Clark ordered you to hightail it.”

“I expect to head south, where I was going when Blackthorn stole my cousin. New Orleans—”

“Down where it’s soft an’ easy, huh?”

“Listen, I’m not asking advice from you or anyone!” He was angered by the Tennessean’s contemptuous stare. “My mother was butchered by Indians in Ohio. My father failed when he farmed there—”

Weatherby shrugged. “So?”

“What the hell do you mean—
so?
”

“So what’s your point, is what I’d like to know.”

Jared flushed. “If it’s any of your business.”

Weatherby blinked, then said in the mildest of voices, “Well, fuck you for a snotty pup,” and started out.

Ashamed, Jared exclaimed, “Weatherby—”

The tall trapper turned back.

“Yeah?”

“Look, I—I’m sorry for that remark. I do appreciate your asking me to throw in with you. But there are—quite a few reasons why I can’t.”

Weatherby studied the boy. Crooked an index finger and scratched his upper lip. Finally said quietly, “You want to talk about any of ’em?”

Jared was stunned. “Why should you be interested?”

“Oh, I dunno—” The man’s deep-hued cheeks actually turned darker, the equivalent of a blush. “Mebbe because I never quite got used to bein’ without sons an’ daughters. I don’t feel natural ’less I’m worryin’ about young’uns. Told you I had four in Tennessee—an’ I must have sired me three times that many off all the squaws I hung out with over the years. Seems to me like we’re kind of a pair, Kent. You got nobody real close an’ neither have I—”

He searched Jared’s eyes a moment. Then: “I ain’t so good with fancy phrases, but I got a feelin’ soon after I come in here that you’re hurtin’ pretty bad over some-thin’. It’s a lot better to speak it out than to drown it with whiskey like I’m in the habit of doin’.”

Oddly touched, Jared said, “You read me pretty well, Mr. Weatherby.” He lifted a hand toward the stool. “I’d be pleased if you kept me company a while longer.”

The trapper bobbed his head and resumed his seat. “All righty, get it off your chest.”

Jared looked at the wall as he started to talk. “The plain truth is, I’m scared of this country.”

“Scared! Why on earth—?”

“I told you. My father tried farming, Indians killed my mother—the west destroyed both of them. I—”

He turned and gazed straight at the older man, pent-up tension draining away. It was a relief just to be able to share the torment with someone.

“I’ve made a lot of the mistakes my parents did. My father and mother weren’t tough enough to beat this country, and I don’t think I am either.”

Weatherby digested that for a moment. Then he inclined his head very slightly to one side and puckered his lips to express his doubt.

“I’d say you’re crazy.”

“What?”

“You heard. Crazy. I don’t know what your pa was like, but I know this. There ain’t one man in fifty in St. Louis—no, nor west of here, neither—that could travel a thousand miles haulin’ a little girl like you done an’ live to tell of it. ’Specially at sixteen. Most of ’em would have quit ’fore they got halfway.”

Perplexed, Jared shook his head. “I didn’t think it was anything special. We had to do it—”

“You just take my word, boy. Unless your pa was a hell of a lot bigger an’ better man than it sounds like, you got him beat a mile.”

Jared scrutinized Weatherby, trying to decide whether the trapper was flattering him. He saw nothing in the man’s demeanor to indicate that was the case. Yet he couldn’t quite believe what Weatherby said—

The older man sensed the boy’s doubt. “You think I’m funnin’ you. Tell you what. When you get out, you haul yourself down to Manuel Lisa’s warehouse, or the one the Chouteaus run. You tell any trapper you bump into that you walked all the way from the Atlantic to St. Lou’ by way of Tennessee. Tell ’em you tracked the man who stole your cousin, an’ killed him instead o’ lettin’ him kill you. You’ll see how fast you get work. Why, you’ll have so many offers, your head’ll whirl!”