Rendezvous (18 page)

It dawned on Skye that Bridger was piling one ridiculous tale on another just for Skye's benefit, though the homely fellow never looked him in the eye or acknowledged his presence. They were testing him in ways he could barely fathom. He laughed at Bridger's nonsense and Bridger grinned in return. They asked Skye nothing about himself, and he volunteered nothing, uncertain about all this. How many of these fierce men would be as fair-minded as Smith? One thing he knew: these Yanks didn't hold to formality and status. No one was looking down his nose at Skye.

He came across none of the Hudson's Bay observers that Smith thought would be snooping around. Not a one of these mountaineers spoke with the precise tongue of an Englishman. But maybe Smith had meant Canadians, both French and English stock. Of the French there were many, most with black beards and thick accents. He heard names that suggested Scotland, names that suggested Quebec and Montreal. These were the HBC men Smith had lured away from John McLoughlin at Fort Vancouver, men who had changed sides. Skye felt safe here, but he wasn't entirely sure of it.

As dusk approached, Skye thought perhaps this assemblage would sit down to dinner, as Englishmen would have. But nothing like that materialized. Men dipped their bowls into the steaming pots. If a pot emptied, whoever felt like it sawed at the fly-specked hanging meat and started more stew. He discovered that these quartered carcasses were buffalo, and that the choicest cuts were humpmeat or rib. The mountaineers fed themselves whenever they felt like eating, roasting the best meat and stewing the worst.

But in the midst of this chaos, he discovered care and precaution. That evening trappers collected the horses that had grazed all day out on the prairies, brought them close, and hobbled them in camp. This all might be midsummer's fun, but this camp had teeth, and it could defend itself in an instant. Skye saw the lesson in it and headed out to the fields to collect his brown mare. He caught it, brought it to his camp, and hobbled and picketed it close by.

He marveled. The Royal Navy had taught discipline; these children of the wilderness had that, and initiative as well. They prepared themselves for trouble without being asked. No man in command, not Jedediah Smith or Jackson or Sublette, or General Ashley, said so much as a word to any of them, and yet this festival camp would deal ruthlessly with any emergency.

The knowledge pleased Skye, almost as much as his keen observation of the underlying military genius in this ragtag army of trappers. He absorbed all he could of this odd gentry as he wended his solitary way through all their doings. With the advancing darkness, the trappers gathered into more intimate groups around low fires, mostly glowing coals that would silhouette no man and yet ward off the night chill. But there were gaps in the ranks. Men had vanished. He watched some of them take their leave, usually carrying their bedrolls and something else—a trinket or two, especially the round hand mirrors, or a hank of bright ribbon.

Skye felt the hot flood of his own needs, so recently awakened after the long drought in the Royal Navy. One by one the trappers slid into the night, heading for the Shoshone lodges. He chose not to try, and vaguely resented having to compete for Perrault's women, or any other women. This first night he would make friends and sample the spirits. He found a group of trappers sitting in a circle, most of them crosslegged or else simply squatting, a position they found comfortable, though it looked like torture to Skye. They were passing a jug around, and Skye knew he would have his chance for a swallow.

It was time to find out what these wild Yanks were like, and to sample some whiskey. He had rarely touched a drop of it in his cloistered life, but they wouldn't know that.

Chapter 23

Skye dreaded to open his eyes, but he knew he would have to sooner or later. His eyelids were all that protected him from the sunlight, which would lance into his throbbing head the instant he opened them and make matters worse.

Maybe if he lay quietly in his new blankets and refused to open his eyes for the entire day, the throbbing would depart from his head and the nausea from his tormented belly. He hazarded a small glimpse of the day and instantly shut his eyes again. It was as if he had been struck by lightning. He didn't want this day. He wanted to reel back time to the previous evening, before his first sip of that vile juice that swarmed down his gullet like a hundred hornets. He was feeling fine then. He doubted he would ever feel fine again. His new friends had ruined him.

He would have to get up and answer the call of nature. He couldn't escape that. Fiercely, he cast aside his new blankets and sat up, pushing down the gorge rising in his throat. Not far away, his fine friend Jim Beckwourth sat, grinning at him. Skye had made lots of friends last evening, but he couldn't remember the names of most of them. Fine old friends, the kind he had always wanted. They had passed him the jug and sat silently while he guzzled. He learned later it had been concocted just hours before from pure grain spirits, river water, a few plugs of tobacco, and some pepper for spice. Hooee!

He ignored Beckwourth and several other mountaineers who were gazing at him blankly, and crawled on all fours to some river brush, tottering like a cat with an arched back. He felt parched, and with every step he struggled to keep his belly from heaving. Last night he had taken sick, teetered from the dying campfire, and spewed out everything in his gut in one volcanic eruption. He was little better this morning. The sun crashed down on him, blinded him, and fried his brains.

He completed his ablutions, such as they were, and weaved back to his blankets, intending to collapse into them the rest of this July day. But his fine new pals would have none of that.

“Skye, if you don't get up, this child'll know you've gone beaver and we'll bury you,” said Arthur Black.

“By God, Skye, if we bury you, we'll bury the biggest nose in Creation,” said Beckwourth. “You have an Alps of a nose, a Stony Mountain nose. If all your appendages are the size of your nose, you're doomed to a life of pain and joy.”

“It's Mister Skye, mate.”

“Naw,” said old Gabe Bridger, another of his fine new chums. “Man calls himself mister and the first thing ye know, ee's a booshway. What be 'ee front name?”

“Barnaby.”

“No wonder 'ee got likkered up. This child never met a Barnaby thet didn't like to wet his dry with a snort or two. I known three Barnabys in my day, and you're jist like the rest.”

“I thought it was Boston, Boston Skye,” said Ferguson. “If it ain't, it should be.”

“I knew a Boston once, but he gone under over on the Sweetwater,” said Tom Virgin. “Hit's an unlucky name. It means manure in the Pawnee tongue.”

They were at him again. They were at him all last night. There had been five or six passing the jug at various times, and it hadn't taken long to discover he had sat down with the wrong crowd, the elite veterans of the wilderness, and they were going to let him know it. At first they'd simply eyed him, but then they kept pushing that jug in his direction and urging him to take a good lick. He took lots of good licks.

“He's not going to make it. Let 'im be,” said Virgin. “We'll put 'im in the river and float him down to the Salt Lake. That water's so briny it presarves carcasses. Skye, you get to be presarved forever in the mountains.”

“No saltier than the sea, I guess,” said Skye, and the men around him whickered.

“He'll be petrified salt. I seen an ol' coon turned into stone in six hour,” said Bridger. “Over in the Yellerstone. He fell into one of them boiling pots, and when we got 'im out, he was solid rock from all that mineral. You think old booshway Skye'd look good as a statue?”

“Say, Boston Skye, 'ee know what day this is? The fourth day of July. You know what that means.”

Skye shook his head. He hadn't the faintest idea.

“That means we catch a Brit, put 'im on a spit, and roast him to celebrate,” said Beckwourth.

“Hey, that's some! We got us a live Englishman for supper,” said Black. “This here's Independence Day.”

Skye was getting the idea. “It's my Independence Day, too,” he said quietly. “I'll join you, mates. I'm going to be an American like you. It's a country where a man can be a mister if he wants—and I want to. In England, the only misters are gentry and lords. A few months ago I made my own revolution.”

“Ain't that some,” said Virgin quietly. The mood changed swiftly.

Skye sat hunched and miserable, trying to ignore these fine friends and boon companions, but then Beckwourth brought him a mug of coffee, and he sipped the brew tentatively. He had rarely tasted it but he liked its aromatic, harsh flavor. They let him alone while he sipped. The coffee soon lifted his body out of its agony, and he opened his eyes again. His companions of the previous evening had mostly scattered but a few lolled about, repairing gear or whittling. Skye found an ancient pot over some coals and poured some more of the brew, feeling better as he stirred about.

Were these mountaineers like most Americans? Were Yanks mostly strange, hairy, slouchy creatures dressed in animal skins, with manners ruder than anything he'd seen among the limeys in the navy? Some, maybe, but not all. Smith wasn't like that. Tom Fitzpatrick had an Irish melody in his voice and good manners. Joe Lapointe talked a thickly accented English. Silas Gobel and Daniel Ferguson hadn't said much, unlike that blowhard Beckwourth, or that tale-teller Bridger.

Skye felt itchy and thin-skinned, and ready to show them a thing or two about a limey's bag of tricks. But they had drifted off, having wearied of their morning sport. They weren't a bad bunch but they had an edge, and they'd shown him he was a pork-eater. Skye pulled on his Creole moccasins and hunted around for a stewpot. Nothing much was cooking and he didn't feel like eating anyway so he abandoned the notion of breakfast.

The July heat boiled up and the sun was blistering the tawny earth on this July day. He needed to be alone. He jammed his topper down on his greasy locks and stalked to the riverbank, finding a trail along it that took him west onto lonely prairies where tall grasses danced in the bright winds. The more he walked, the more his legs behaved and the more energy he recovered. He slipped into a steady, long stride, the kind of stride that was the envy of any seaman confined to a teak deck. He stretched into a mile-eating gait, feeling the joyous and fertile earth under his soles. He felt a rush of dominion—he was a lord here, with no honorable sirs to stop him from walking any direction he chose to walk. Bit by bit, his body threw off the poisons of the previous night, and he felt himself again.

Then he beheld the girl. She sat on a boulder beside the river, watching him cautiously. He paused, studying this apparition. She didn't smile, nor did she reveal any emotion, neither fear nor friendship. She wore a plain buckskin dress over her slim figure. He thought she probably was no more than sixteen, if that, but how could one know? He smiled but she didn't. Perhaps he frightened her. He realized, as he stared, that she was uncommonly beautiful, with straight jet hair that shone in the white light, and delicate cheekbones and a fine, thin nose. She squinted at him, not quite suspiciously, but certainly with wariness. She wasn't Shoshone. He swiftly inventoried her dress and moccasins and face and knew she had been born to some other tribe, Crow perhaps.

Something about her stirred him. Maybe she was an Indian princess, a daughter of a chieftain, a haughty patrician among her people. She had the look, all-knowing, wise-eyed, strong-willed, swift to act and judge. He didn't know what to do, so he just stood there stupidly.

She looked so tender and young and virginal that he ached to get to know her. He wished he could just talk to this hauntingly lovely Indian girl.

He remembered a hand sign that Perrault had taught him. He would tell her that he was a friend. He lifted his right hand and held it, palm out, in front of his neck, his index and second finger pointing upward as high as his chin.

“Goddamn,” she said in a dusky voice.

Skye gawked.

“You lost your tongue?”

“Ah, I was just passing by—”

“You are a Goddamn from Grandfather's Land,” she said. “Across the waters. I have heard of you. You have the biggest nose ever seen. Now I have seen it. It is
big.
”

“You what?”

“Sit down, old coon.”

Gingerly, Skye lowered himself to the boulder and sat beside her. “You know my tongue,” he said.

“The Goddamns stayed with us last winter.”

“The who?”

“You hairy ones come, stay with Absaroka. We don't know your tribe until you tell us. Always, you call each other Goddamn, all the time, Goddamn, Goddamn, and then we know your tribe.”

“Oh,” said Skye, pondering that. “And they taught you English?”

“Taught me Goddamn. I know a little. American Goddamns, Canada Goddamns, same tongue.”

“Ah, what is Absaroka?”

“Blackbird. Crow, in your words. Raven. I see you at trading store, and then some more times. I am looking for you to see the big nose.”

“I don't know your name.”

She squinted at him and said something he couldn't decipher. “What you call you?” she asked.

“Ah, Barnaby Skye. Mister Skye.”

“Sonofabitch.”

“Ah, can you translate your name? Into, ah, Goddamn?”

“Many Quill Woman.”

The name seemed odd to Skye. How could he address this lissome girl as if she were a porcupine? “I think you're a princess,” he said.

“What's that?”

“Daughter of a king or a prince.”

“What's that?”

“Daughter of a chief.”

“Ah! My mother's brother is Arapooish, chief of Kicked-in-the-Bellies.”

“‘Kicked-in-the-Bellies'?”

“My people.”