Rendezvous (24 page)

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.

At last the river entered an intimate defile and he knew he was drawing close. He had set up his camp in such a place, out of the wind and hidden from view. He passed through the red willow brush and came upon the campsite so swiftly that he had not been cautious. But the Blackfeet had departed. A horse lay on bloody soil, brutally clawed and half-eaten. These were bloody grounds. The stink of terror reached his nostrils.

His hair prickled, and he squinted hard into the shadowed brush, fearing the wounded bear or even the Blackfeet. He saw nothing and heard only the beat of his racing heart. He began a systematic search, in wider and wider arcs, hunting for something, anything, he might use. But the gory site yielded nothing. He tried to fathom what had happened. As far as he could tell, they had not killed the bear. There was no carcass or entrails. But had the bear killed any of them? He found no evidence of it, but wished he could read sign as easily as the mountaineers.

He widened his search and came up with a broken arrow with a bloody metal point. He kept it. The sheet-metal point would make a tool. He studied the arrow, noting its fletching and the dyes that marked it. This was a Blackfoot arrow and he wanted to identify it, sear its markings into his mind. He found what appeared to be the bear's trail through broken willow brush, and the sight made him prickle. The beast was leaking blood when it retreated. He hoped his bear brother would heal. How odd and savage it was to call the murderous grizzly his brother.

He widened his search until he knew for certain that the Blackfoot war party had left him nothing. Despair seeped through him. He could no longer build a fire, sleep warm, trap animals, fish, drive an arrow into game, escape the rain or sun, repair his moccasins, or ride to safety on his horse. He choked back desperation, knowing that despair wouldn't help him. What would someone like Bridger or Fitzpatrick do? He gently probed the ashes of the fire, hoping to find a live ember, but he found only cold black disappointment.

Flies swarmed the carcass of the horse. Skye realized suddenly that he had a mountain of meat before him—if he had the courage to eat it raw. He wondered if he could slice it thin and jerk it in the sun a day or two. Wolves or coyotes or something else had gnawed out its belly and demolished a haunch. Feeling queasy, he set to work with his knife, slowly ripping and cutting hide back from a forequarter until he could saw at the flesh. This would be a long, miserable task. His new knife had already dulled, making the work all the harder. He squinted about nervously, worrying that the Blackfeet might return, or the maddened bear, but he discerned only the quiet of an August morning.

All that afternoon he sawed at the carcass, eating tiny, digestible slivers of raw horse meat. He could barely chew bite-sized pieces, but he managed to down thin wafers of flesh, and gradually his hunger eased. Green-bellied flies swarmed, making his task miserable. Once he found himself staring at a pair of coyotes. He rose, roared, and they fled.

Then he discovered the Blackfeet had left something after all: his belaying pin. They probably could see no use for it. He hefted the smooth hickory shaft and knew he had an effective club. It gladdened him. He returned to his butchering, determined to make enough meat to sustain him until—what? Until he got help? Until he was ready to go east again? He dreaded the answer. Late in the afternoon, he realized he couldn't stay at this place of carnage all night, fighting off wolves and bears, skunks, raccoons, mountain lions, badgers, and whatever else would compete for the flesh of the horse.

He eyed his fly-specked pile of meat dourly, wondering how to carry it with him. Then he knew. Horsehair. He examined the long tail of the horse, discovering three-foot strands of durable hair. For once he was glad he had been a seaman. Swiftly he sawed off a mass of hair and knotted the strands into a web. He worked furiously, unhappy with the crudity of his efforts but glad to see something useful take shape. An hour later he completed a horsehair web that would carry the meat and might be useful in the future. He loaded his meat into it and stood.

He was ready to leave—but where?

He had come to the most paralyzing juncture of his life.

East across the plains with only a butcher knife and his wits? Or retreat back to the Snake and hunt down Sublette's brigade? Or try to find the Kicked-in-the-Bellies, his little Victoria, and some sort of succor?

He started east. Boston. That was his objective, after all. But fifty yards down river he halted. There would be no help—but constant menace—for a
thousand miles.
He stood miserably, unsure of his course. And then he knew why he could not go east: even if he managed to find food, his moccasins would wear out. He would be forced to hike barefoot across merciless ground bristling with cactus, rock, sticks, debris. He needed a horse, weapon, spare leather, an awl, and thong to survive.

He retreated to the campsite and watched two ravens and a hawk flap away from the carcass. Had his dreams died here? No. He would go east when he could. For the moment, he needed the help of the mountaineers. He needed an outfit and that meant working for the brigade. Another year would slide by before he could pick up shattered dreams.

Reluctantly, hating every step, he headed upstream. Fate had decreed that he would not reach civilization this year. He had to find Sublette's brigade before he starved and before his sturdy Creole moccasins gave out. He hiked through dusk, retracing his route, splashing through icy rills and creeks because he could no longer ride a horse across them. In the last light he hunted for a place that might offer warmth, and found a spot. He settled at last against a south-facing rock that had absorbed the day's sunlight and now radiated it.

He cut tiny slivers of raw horse meat, chewed and swallowed them one by one, until he could no longer see. He unlaced his moccasins, hoping to dry them out, and settled down to wait for dawn. But a wind rose, whipping icy air through his buckskins, numbing his toes. And a light rain fell for a while, making him all the more miserable. If he didn't find shelter he'd die. He endured the stopped-clock night, working his arms and legs to drive away the numbness. Sleep eluded him. He was much too miserable. He heard the soft rustle of animals approaching and swiftly tied his net of horse meat high in a pine tree. Then he waited, his belaying pin in hand. But nothing happened.

Then, some time later, the cloud cover vanished and he beheld a sepulchral world lit by a pale moon. He would walk. Nothing else would do. He started up the gloomy river, stumbling through copses of pine and aspen, dropping into unexpected bogs, and sometimes pausing when a cloud bank obscured the pronged moon. A thousand desolating thoughts crowded his mind, but he furiously drove them back. He had not won his freedom only to surrender.