Rendezvous (30 page)

“They'll make a living on it,” Bridger said. “We call it mountain hay. Had me two plugs that got so fat on it I had ta prop up their bellies on a cart.”

Skye laughed. Old Gabe Bridger could never impart information without putting a twist on it.

Skye suspected his own mare was pregnant, which suited him fine. In his spare moments he haltered his rambunctious horse colt and began training it to lead and carry a small load. Occasionally he was given some free time, and then he hunted buffalo, which were plentiful in that vast basin. Bridger showed him how to creep in on them from downwind, and kill one with a single shot aimed just behind the forelegs. Thus did he contribute juicy humpmeat, tongue, and flank steaks to the brigade's cook pots. He also accumulated a few winter-thick hides, which he learned to stake to the ground and flesh and then soften and brain-tan into robes. He intended to sell them or trade them—anything to get out of debt and go east next summer.

It took days of miserable toil to flesh a buffalohide, and days more to rub brains into it and then soften it. But now he slept comfortably with good robes above and below him. He had a product the free trappers wanted and they bought his robes on tick. Skye discovered that a few buffalo robes draped over a framework of limbs could shelter storm-harassed trappers. And he turned one damaged robe into a wooly greatcoat, patiently lacing the parts together with thong.

Then, in December, the days turned warm again, even though the sun vanished in midafternoon. The weather amazed Skye. Just when he thought this country would be brutal it turned as mild as early autumn, and the whole brigade pulled off layers of clothing and stretched in the balmy air.

But William Sublette wasn't pleased. He called them together and issued a stern warning. “Bug's Boys'll roam for a week or two. I want the horses in camp every night. The camp tenders'll build a brush corral. I want the trappers to go out in parties of four, two armed and watching while the other two work. Maybe that'll bring less beaver, but it'll save lives. No man leaves camp alone, and no man goes unarmed.”

Skye listened soberly. His buffalo-hunting forays were at an end for the moment and his work redoubled with all the extra horse handling. That's how it went for a while until the day they found Polite Robiseau dead and scalped. He had left his colleagues a moment to use the bushes—and that was how they found him an hour later, his leggins down, his skullbone bare in the weak winter sun, an arrow protruding from his back.

His Creole trapping friends brought him to camp over the back of a horse, and they buried him under a cutbank because the ground remained frozen. No one said much of anything. The mountaineers' silence howled louder than words. His partners quietly divided his traps and gear, their faces inscrutable behind their thick beards, their eyes leaking grief.

But as soon as that was completed, Sublette and his veteran trappers wordlessly saddled their shaggy-haired horses, armed themselves, and rode out. Skye wasn't surprised. This platoon would strike back and hard if it could. He watched Bridger, Fitzpatrick, and the rest ride away, their heavy rifles in their laps, held in mittened hands. If it was war, they would take war to the Blackfeet.

In camp, Skye and the other tenders raised log and dirt and rock breastworks while they waited, and cleared away nearby brush that might conceal a warrior. No one spoke. The eight camp tenders had no leader, but every one of them was aware that menace lurked just beyond, perhaps in the pine forests, or high on the ridges. The Blackfeet were famous for their audacity. They were bold, daring, courageous, and skilled at surprise. Skye had heard plenty about them even in his short time with the brigade.

Skye eyed the camp tenders dourly. Four were Creole boys—Bouleau, Lapointe, Le Clerc, and Baptiste—perhaps fourteen or fifteen, new to the wilds. Then there was Scott, a sandy-haired ne'er-do-well, lazy and sullen, a runaway. He sat with his rifle in hand, doing little. Louis Pombert was an experienced Creole mountaineer who simply preferred camp duties, a good man who was building a log breastwork that would defend one flank. And also Manuel Estevan, a Mexican, good with horses, swiftly herding the animals into the camp and picketing them.

Skye did what he could, arranging the bales of beaver as a breastwork and adding saddles and gear—anything that would protect a man from an arrow. He'd been in battle, but he sensed the others hadn't. They toiled through the midmorning and then waited in a stretching silence for Sublette's force to return. The sight of the scalped Robiseau was heavy on his mind, the yellow skull bone and sliced flesh shocking to see.

The low December sun briefly topped the ridges and warmed the camp for a spell, making Skye sleepy. It seemed preternaturally quiet. A crow catapulted into the air and flapped away swiftly, electrifying Skye.

“They're on us, mates,” he said. “Over there.” He pointed across an innocuous expanse of snow-patched meadow.

“Who says?” asked Scott.

Skye didn't reply. He crept into the stronghold made of logs and beaver pelts and laid the heavy black barrel of his mountain rifle across it.

The Blackfeet came silently and in a rush, all on foot, about six or seven.

“Hey!” yelled Scott, diving for cover. Skye glanced at the fellow, who lay flat on the ground behind a log, his rifle useless unless he overcame his terror.

The rest of the men positioned themselves, rifles ready. “Watch our backs,” Skye yelled to Pombert. They were protected by a wide creek, but not much.

The first arrows struck from the rear, thudding close. Skye whirled. The ones out on the meadow were feinting; the main body of the Blackfeet lurked in the woods across the creek, well protected by trunk and limb and log. Still, any Blackfoot firing an arrow had to rise, aim, draw the bow, and shoot. There would be targets. Two arrows seared close, thudding into the pelts with sickening force that made Skye wince. He heard a rifle boom and saw a puff of smoke. Pombert, experienced mountaineer, was showing mettle.

Skye sighted down the barrel at a shadowy place he knew concealed a savage, and waited. A moment later he saw a flash of movement; the warrior rose and loosed an arrow. Skye caught him in his buckhorn sight and squeezed. Flint hit frizzen, the rifle whoomed, driving the butt into his shoulder. The Blackfoot cried and collapsed.

Skye ducked, poured powder, patched a ball, and jammed it home, and then poured powder into the pan and cocked his weapon, his heart wild in his chest. Around him he heard more booms, and more howls from the naked woods beyond the creek. The feinting warriors regrouped and howled from their side. Skye whirled. Someone had to keep them at bay or the camp would be overrun. They made a small target a hundred yards away, but Skye wanted to keep them far away. He settled his rifle on a bale of plews, picking a shadowy distant form, taking his time. An arrow thumped into the furs just beside him. He swallowed.

His shot sent another Blackfoot tumbling, and immediately the rest of the ones out on the meadow drew back. Skye found himself sweating, even in the December air. Sourly he measured a charge and poured it down the muzzle, drove a ball after it, picked at the fire-hole which had been fouled, and looked for another target. He heard five shots explode like firecrackers, and knew that the ones in the woods were rushing the camp and that at least five of seven rifles were empty. He whirled again, finding a dozen of the devils at the creek and more pouring up to it. Pombert shot a Blackfoot, but that didn't slow their wading through the icy creek. Skye waited a moment more, until the first reached midstream, and then he shot. The warrior dropped into the river and stained it red. The Blackfeet around him howled but didn't stop. Scott burrowed deeper behind his log. Enraged, Skye dashed over there, grabbed the loaded rifle, and shot a warrior who was running into camp with hatchet raised.

“Fight!” roared Skye.

Scott whined.

A horse took an arrow, screeched and bucked. Blood gouted from a wound in its ribs.

A volley from the Creole boys slowed the charge through the creek, but it was too late.

Chapter 39

Blackfeet were everywhere. Most of them went for the horses, which were hobbled and picketed.

Three came at Skye. He dropped his empty rifle, picked up his belaying pin, and bulled straight at them. He knew what to do at close quarters. Murderously he whacked aside a lance, smacked the forearm of a man drawing a bow, jabbed at another lunging at him with a tomahawk. Skye whirled, braining a warrior behind him. Something seared his arm, shooting wild pain into his skull.

He spun and dodged, never a static target, inflicting mayhem with his hickory club. He saw Pombert fighting for his life, swinging his rifle against a big warrior armed with a lance. Skye ran to Pombert's help, with his own assailants hot on his heels. He jammed his belaying pin into the giant warrior, toppling him, and spun to face his assailants again. But others were swarming in from the meadow and the creek. It would be over soon.

He heard a volley. A warrior staggered. Others howled, clasped flesh wounds. Then Skye got caught up in the infighting again. A knife sliced his ribs. Another volley, and the Blackfeet suddenly retreated, gathering their dead and wounded. Sublette and his veteran mountaineers rushed into camp and out the other side, chasing the Blackfeet into the creek. The mountaineers urged their horses through the creek and kept after the retreating Blackfeet. Skye heard howls and shots from the woods, but the wall of timber concealed those events from him. He was bleeding from half a dozen places that stung wickedly.

Scott stood up and grinned, unscathed.

Pombert was all right. The Creole boys forted up behind packsaddles and supplies were alive but several leaked blood. Skye armed his rifle, then pulled off his bloody leather shirt and began stanching blood with a rag. He had no bandaging. Vicious hurts tortured him.

“Monsieur Skye, let me do dat,” said Pombert. The veteran Creole swiftly cleaned and bandaged Skye's arm and then washed Skye's rib and shoulder wounds. “I will sew dis,” he said. “You hold rag tight.”

Pombert deftly threaded a needle from his kit and sewed Skye's rib wound together while Skye groaned at every prick. His side sheeted red, but the bleeding stopped when Pombert finished up. Skye's pulse slowly settled back to normal but he felt sick and feverish. He could barely breathe. One stocky young Blackfoot lay dead nearby, a hole in his bare brown chest, his sightless eyes malevolent. Skye had shot that one with Scott's rifle. The raiders had taken their wounded with them but Skye thought they had lost two dead and four or five injured, some of them gravely. That was a heavy loss for so small a party.

Scott loaded his rifle and grinned, as if to celebrate a victory. Skye stared blankly at the man and said nothing. Scott had been useless, and Skye made note of it without condemning. Some seamen in the Royal Navy ran rather than fought when it came to close-quarters fighting. Skye felt no moral outrage, only a sense that Scott would not be a man to partner with when it came to trapping.

Sublette's riders drifted back one by one. They splashed across the creek into camp and noted Skye lying shirtless in the cold with red-stained bandaging wrapped around his middle and his arm. Sublette dismounted and came to Skye.

“You all right old coon?”

“I will be.”

“Anyone else hurt?”

“Go ask them. Pombert is all right.”

“They steal any horses?”

“I don't know. Some of those devils went for the horses, but they were hobbled and picketed. Couldn't be stampeded.”

“We'll count. I don't think we lost any, except the one that took an arrow. I saw your mare and the colt. They're fine.”

“Good. What happened in the woods?”

“We chased 'em hard. They headed for the pass and we chased 'em up a way until they set up a defense up there. We know you did some damage. They were carrying three, four wounded, dead—who knows?”

“You got here just in time. Two minutes more and we'd have gone under.”

“I heard different, Skye. You were licking 'em.”

“It's Mister Skye, sir.”

“Yes, it's
Mister
Skye, old coon. And it'll never be anything else as long as free trappers are in the mountains.”

Sublette patted Skye's shoulder and hastened to discover what else was amiss in camp. Skye heard him talking to Pombert, Estevan, and the Creole youths, and then drifted into oblivion. Sublette helped him to shelter and threw a thick buffalo robe over him, which he welcomed.

He woke at dawn to fever, his forehead burning even as his limbs froze. He felt weak as a newborn and wondered how he would manage his camp duties. But he didn't have to, At first light Sublette was hunched over him. “You rest, Mister Skye. We're moving tomorrow.”

“I could use it, mate. Pretty sick.”

Sublette nodded and Skye burrowed deeper into his robe. But then Bridger was squatting beside him. “You'll be fine, old coon. Meat doesn't spile in the mountains.”

Skye hurt too much to laugh.

“I mind the time when I had an arrer in my arm, and I got Greenwood to pull her out. He had to dig out the point. It didn't infect because we were over six thousand feet. Below six thousand, everything mortifies.”

“We're below that here.”

Gabe Bridger whooped, stood, and vanished, only to be replaced by Fitzpatrick, who was running his hands over the belaying pin.

“Your club's ruined,” Tom said. “Lookit this.”

Skye squinted at the pin. Several deep gashes marred the hickory. A hatchet had chipped out a piece.

“That's probably how it was when I jumped ship.”

“No, it was plumb virgin until now. I'd never seen one and I looked it over back at rendezvous. These scars were made today. When you're up, I want a lesson with it.”

“Nothing to learn. They come at you, you hit and thrust and deflect. I didn't do it well or I'd not be sewed together now.”