Rendezvous (12 page)

Dawn crept in, but no one arose. He had already learned that these people weren't in a hurry and didn't count hours. They would arise whenever the spirit moved them. But Skye, restless and eager to be off, couldn't endure his buffalo robe pallet any longer, and slipped into the hushed morning. He wanted to be on his way; if he missed the rendezvous of the Americans, he didn't know how he might survive.

His horses had been returned to pasture by the headman's youngest son so they could graze and water through the night. A few horses stood beside the lodges of their masters, ever ready for trouble or use. Skye settled quietly in the brown grass beside the lodge, absorbing the village. He felt at peace there even though it was as strange a place as he'd ever visited.

He wasn't entirely alone. Here and there an old woman stirred, or someone headed to a brushy area. He supposed a village would have to move frequently to keep from fouling itself. But here there was land in such plenitude that moving from one locale to another offered infinite possibilities. A few dogs prowled, but these seemed to be the only night guard the village had. Most of the skin lodges had been erected in a large ring with a commons in the center. But here and there were other lodges situated without rhyme or reason.

He explored quietly, not wanting to disturb the dogs or the sleeping villagers. One lodge was empty, its door flap open. Smaller lodges, well back from the main circle, seemed to be occupied by single young men or the very old. Another, almost a hut, set well back from the village, puzzled him. Was it a place of banishment or taboo?

He studied everything around him, marveling at the uses of wood and bone and leather. Some of the ponies were hobbled, and he studied these devices, shaped like a figure eight, which caught the forelegs of the animals and prevented them from all but the smallest steps. He would need two, and if he couldn't trade for them he would have to manufacture them. Most of the horses were tied with braided leather cord—something he could weave himself. He had braided a lot of rope for the Royal Navy. Most of the horses were ridden bareback, but he saw numerous saddles, too, ranging from simple pads to elaborate seats with high cantles and pommels. Where could he get one for himself? And a packsaddle for his spare?

The curs sniffed him and growled, threatening to awaken the village, so he returned to the lodge of Hemene Moxmox and waited outside its door, absorbing the redolence of an Indian village. The sun was well up before anyone stirred, and then almost by unspoken command they all were up and bustling about. The headman's daughters appeared one by one and headed for the river and their morning ablutions.

Bit by bit, blue smoke layered the village as one woman after another stirred up coals and added firewood. They were taking their time about all this, too, and Skye realized it would be midmorning before he could leave. He decided to put the time to good use, and wandered freely, studying the manufacture of everything: saddles and tack, backrests, woven reed mats, buffalo robes, fish and meat drying racks, rawhide pouches used to carry goods, a packsaddle that looked rather like a sawbuck. A partly butchered deer hung high above the reach of dogs, but the birds—especially a bold iridescent black-and-white type—were feasting.

The headman's women fed him some sort of fish cakes, no doubt salmon, on smooth slabs of bark, something to eat with his fingers. The cakes had an odd, nutty flavor, and he guessed the flour in them had been made from some pulverized root or another. Hemene Moxmox stirred about, occasionally eyeing Skye, but not trying to breach the barrier of tongue that kept them from conveying their thoughts to each other. It seemed best to Skye just to wait; events would take their course, and meanwhile he was studying everything in the village and learning swiftly.

When the time came, Hemene Moxmox's son brought Skye's ponies to him, and now a moment of truth arrived. He packed his warbag, gathered up his belaying pin and seine and sailcloth, and stared helplessly at the animals. A crowd had gathered, and while they were outwardly impassive, there were glints of amusement on those brown faces.

Skye approached Hemene Moxmox. “Though you can't understand me, I want to thank you for your hospitality. I hope it's understood just by this talk.”

The headman nodded solemnly.

Inspiration struck Skye. He had one more thing to give the headman—his big, bulky seine net. He hadn't used it for a while, and with a horse to help him go after game, he could well part with it. He handed it to the headman, after rolling it open a way. It had been made of traders' cord, patiently tied together by one of the fishing tribes, and had small lead weights along its bottom edge. “This is for you, sir,” he said.

The chief received the gift happily, his eyes alive with delight. He unrolled it, found it to be a majestic length and height, and spoke rapidly to several youths around him, who scattered into the crowd. The whole village, it seemed, had come to see Skye off.

Earlier, Skye had observed the youth swing gracefully over the bare back of the brown pony and ride him. The boy had done it in two stages, first up on the back in precarious balance, and then a leg over the croup. Skye set down his truck and gathered the rein. Then he leapt. The horse sidled away and Skye crashed into the earth. The crowd stared politely. Skye picked himself up and tried again. This time he catapulted clear over the pony's back, and tumbled to the earth again. No one laughed, and Skye fathomed that would be impolite—at least until the village guest was safely out of sight.

Ruefully, Skye eyed the crowd, knowing what they thought of his riding abilities. But then Moxmox clapped his hands. The youths appeared at once, each bearing things, which they laid before Skye. One was a small pad saddle with bentwood stirrups and a leather cinch. Another brought some sort of saddle blanket made of soft hide. Another brought hobbles and braided halters and lead ropes to Skye. And the last gift was a packsaddle and an ancient pelt for it. Swiftly the youths saddled the two ponies. Skye stuffed the hobbles and spare line in his warbag and tied it on the packsaddle.

Then they helped Skye up on the brown horse. It skittered sideways, almost toppling him, but he managed to stay aboard. Now at last the villagers grinned, some making odd clucking sounds while others simply cheered.

“Thank you, friends,” he said, lifting his topper to them.

“Skyeskye,” they replied.

The horse alarmed him with every step, but he resolutely steered it away from the village and onto a trail they pointed out to him, and in minutes he was riding alone, wondering how to manage horses, fearing a runaway, fearing they would stop dead or bolt back. But they didn't. They plodded steadily in a direction that took him away from the Snake. He realized he now had not only his own life and water and provender to worry about, but also those of his creatures. It would be entirely up to him to find grass and water, to rest them and keep them from injury, to examine their hooves and brush their backs. It was up to him to keep them from wandering or being stolen. To stay on board when they became excited or began to pitch him off. To track them down when they ran off. To catch them when they didn't wish to be caught. He vowed he would learn.

Every day was going to give him forced lessons in horsemanship, and he wondered if he would be up to the test. He rode quietly that sunny morning through a brown land of vast slopes and isolated green oases, always pausing at water. He soon ached in the saddle, and knew that these first days were going to be lived out in hellish pain.

But he was free. And he now had a mobility he never dreamed he might possess. He no longer struggled with his heavy kit, which rode easily on the animal behind him. Hesitantly, he kicked his pony into a trot. It danced along easily, jarring him with every step until he jerked the hackamore hard, and the horse settled into a lazy walk again. Next time, when he got his nerve up, he would try a canter. But for now he was more than content just to get to know his animals and master something about staying on a horse. He
had
to stay on; he doubted he would ever catch them again if he fell off. He studied his low rawhide saddle and found he could grip it if he had to, and vowed then and there to cling to it with an iron hand if he must.

He endured the pain until he could sit no more, and then slid off and walked, leading the animals and working the knots out of his legs and thighs. He marveled. Here he was, a British sailor who'd scarcely set foot on land since boyhood, leading two obedient horses as if he knew what he was doing.

He spent the rest of that day walking and riding, and in spite of his clumsiness he traveled many miles into dryer and harsher country. He had seen no one all day, but that didn't mean he was safe. A lone man with horses would be an invitation to trouble. But he would give trouble as well as get it if it came to that. He was learning, and the more he learned, the safer Barnaby Skye, formerly of the Royal Navy, would be.

Chapter 16

Skye pondered his fate as he made his solitary way eastward along a trail he hoped would take him back to the Snake River. He knew what he had been; he didn't know what he would become. He was still young, but unsure of himself. Why was Barnaby Skye set upon this earth? He could have answered that not long ago, but now he didn't know.

His solitude troubled him. For years he had been stripped of his own will. The presence of other mortals around him had largely meant slavery, with only glimmerings of friendship from a few sympathetic shipmates. Now he was alone, free, sovereign, untroubled by the will of others—and desperately lonely. He needed friends, but had none.

The wilderness he saw about him, the vaulting slopes, the hot sun, a land scarred with angry black rock, made him pensive. Mostly it seemed benign but he knew that was an illusion, and every little while something happened to confirm it. Once his horse bolted, almost unseating him, when a rattlesnake coiled upward. On another occasion he ran into a bull moose with humped shoulders, and whirled his horses away when it lowered its great rack and pawed the earth.

He could not afford mistakes, and when they did happen, he knew he must learn from them and never need another lesson. Once, when he failed to hobble a horse properly, it dodged him until he walked it down. On another occasion the brown horse yanked a picket pin loose and drifted away. He learned from those episodes that the horses stuck together. He could ride one and the other would follow, helter-skelter. But he knew that if both horses got loose, he would be in trouble.

He learned watchfulness from his horses. When they stopped suddenly, their ears perked, their gaze focused on something, he knew he should be looking that way, too. Once they halted in brushy cover, and he was just about to urge them out of it when he spotted an Indian party in the distance. A dozen males, armed for war and painted in grotesque fashion, topped a distant rise and continued at an oblique angle. Skye's spotted horses had kept him from being discovered.

He had little difficulty feeding himself. He continued to harvest the bulbs of the blue flower and reduce them to starchy food. Each evening he staked and baited his trap a quarter of a mile from his camp, and often he caught something in it, a mink or weasel or chuck or raccoon. He butchered these into tasteless meat, and tried to preserve and flesh the better furs, especially the mink. He spent his evenings at that task, clumsily scraping with his dull knives, and then with a sharp piece of glassy volcanic rock.

He shot bobbing mallards or canvasbacks regularly, but they took a long time to clean and gut and cook. A pot of boiling water would have helped him pull the feathers, but he had only his large tin cup for a pot. Still, he occupied himself during the long spring twilights by preparing bits of food while he watched his horses graze.

The horses fascinated him. He needed to know all there was to know about them. They were shy, easily frightened animals, whose instinct was to flee rather than fight because they had few weapons other than teeth and hooves. One was sullen and did not like to carry him. That one became the packhorse, but he determined to ride it now and then because there would be times when he would have to. The other one, the brown mare, accepted him without sulking, but wasn't obedient or didn't understand what he wanted. He didn't know how to discipline her and decided just to be patient until he knew.

One day he struck a great river that had to be the Snake. It ran in a trench cut in volcanic rock, across a dreary plain with distant peaks in sight. A well-used trace ran along its south bank. He rode eastward through vast silences, acutely aware of his loneliness but not melancholic about it. He had too much to celebrate. He was free!

May passed into June. He was sure of that, though he had lost track of the days. He had a month or so to find the Americans, and not the faintest idea how to do it. If he did not find them, he would push ahead anyway. Somewhere, far to the east and across a continent, the Americans had forged a civilization out of the wilderness. He would find it.

He added an otter pelt to his growing collection of furs. If worse came to worse, he would have enough pelts to fashion into winter gear with the coming of the cold.

Twice he forded formidable streams flowing out of the south. There were well-beaten trails on both sides of each river. The Snake itself ran through an astonishing black canyon with walls so vertical that they denied him access to its water. From then on, he took every opportunity to work his way down to the river with his horses. Eventually the canyon played out and the river returned to the level of the plains. And still he saw no Shoshones—or anyone else.

The river swept to the northeast, and Skye sensed it would lead him away from the rendezvous. All he knew was that the trapper's fair would be well south of the Snake country. And then one day he did find a whole congregation of Indians on the move, perhaps even a village. He drew up his horses and waited while the vanguard approached. Then he lifted his hand in what he hoped was a friendly manner.