The Holy Warrior (6 page)

Meanwhile, the darkness fell, and lanterns were lit, but the game went on. The tide turned, and Frenchie began raising the stakes recklessly. His winning streak allowed him to win back all the money he’d lost, and a good deal more besides. But Canby was a poor loser, and the higher the stack grew, the more he stared across at the halfbreed with undisguised hatred.

Finally, the largest pot of the game came, and it was obvious that Canby was sure to win it. He raised the stakes several times and then said, “Got you beat this time, breed!”

“Let’s see your money, Canby!” Frenchie demanded, shoving another stack of coins across the table. His small eyes gleamed as he added, “Now we see what kind of man you are!”

Canby stared at him, and then looked into the small leather bag he used for his money. “I can’t meet you—all I have is on the table. Wait...” He pulled a small pouch from his pocket, saying, “You’ll have to take these, breed.”

He handed the pouch to Frenchie, who unfolded the leather; two large white pearls rolled into his huge palm. Chris was impressed—but Frenchie wasn’t. “Me—I don’t want thees!”

“You have to take ’em!” Canby argued. “They’re worth fifty dollars!”

“Not to me.”

Chris spoke up. “Con, you know my father?”

Con stared at him, then nodded slowly. “Reckon so.”

“I want fifty dollars. I’ll pay it back if I live. If I don’t—tell him it’s what my funeral would have cost if I’d come home to die.”

Conrad smiled. “Reckon Mr. Winslow would stand to that.” He reached into his shirt and pulled out a bag. He struggled with the leather cord that held the mouth shut, but it was in a tight knot. “Blasted thing—does it every time!” he muttered. Drawing his knife, he cut the drawstring, putting the knife on the table beside his winnings. Extracting a few bills from the pouch, he handed them to Chris.

“I’ll buy the stones, Canby,” Chris offered.

“Done!” Canby grabbed the money, and Chris took the pearls from Doucett and placed them carefully in the pouch he’d taken from his pocket. Canby threw his leather cubes, and smiled at the result. “Beat that, breed!”

Doucett carelessly picked up the cubes, tossed them to the table contemptuously—and a strangled cry rose from Canby’s lips as he stared at the dice.

“Looks like you lost, Canby,” Con remarked quietly. He saw something in the man’s unwavering stare he didn’t like, so he said smoothly, “Fellers, let’s us be gittin’ to bed. We got to be outta here early in the morning.”

“Well, you got plenty of money for the trip,” Knox grinned as Frenchie raked the cash into his sack. With a short laugh, Knox rose to his feet, which were a bit unsteady from the whiskey. He looked at Canby and remembered the taunt the man had given him. “Looks like you’re the baby here, Canby. I never seen a man took so easy as—hey! Look out...!”

Even the quick-eyed Con was taken off guard. Maddened by his loss, Canby was driven over the edge by Knox’s needling.
He plunged his hand into his coat and pulled out a pistol. Doucett saw it and threw himself to the floor.

But Canby had other plans. The pistol lined up, and the click of the pistol being cocked hit the nerves of every man in the room. Knox was frozen in place, staring down the barrel of the gun, certain he was a dead man. Canby couldn’t miss—not at this range.

The shot never touched him. The pistol exploded, but the ball went into the ceiling as Canby fell backward, grabbing at the knife that was buried in his chest.

Laurence Conrad had seen many things in his lifetime, but nothing like this. He told Doucett later, “That Christmas Winslow—he’s like a cat! He seen that pistol come out, grabbed my Green River blade off the table and planted it smack in that feller’s middle! I was still standin’ there, tryin’ to move—and you was still wallowin’ under the table. I tell you, Frenchie, a strikin’ rattler is slow as mud next to that feller!”

The room exploded into a chorus of shouts. The innkeeper rushed over from behind the bar and bent over Canby, who had grown still. When the man looked up, his face was pale. “He’s dead. You fellers had best get outta here. He’s got friends over in the next town—and a bad pair of brothers. They’ll be comin’ for you.”

“Self-defense,” one man spoke up quickly.

“His brothers won’t buy that—and you know it, Griffin,” the innkeeper said. “They’re a rough bunch—set a store by family. Better git!”

“Come on.” Conrad reached down and calmly jerked the knife from Canby’s body, then pulled at Knox. They gathered their rifles and walked out of the tavern. When they were out of earshot, he said, “We gotta git you outta here, Chris!”

“Got nowhere to go—but you men don’t need to hang around.”

Knox protested, “I’m not leaving you—and that’s final!”

They argued with Chris, but he only replied wearily, “I can die here as well as anywhere.”

Finally Conrad said angrily, “Chris, you’re gonna have to git away! It’ll mean trouble for Rev. Greene if you stay.”

That caught Chris’s attention. “Hadn’t thought of that,” he admitted.

“Come home, Chris!” Knox pleaded. The violence of the scene had sobered him, and his eyes appealed more eloquently than words ever could.

“No, I’m not going home, and
that’s
final!”

Con stared at him intently, then spoke. “Well, that leaves it up to us, I reckon. We’ll load you in the wagon and take you up the Missouri. The Sioux will take care of you—and won’t charge a cent for the buryin’!”

Chris lifted his head and allowed his thoughts to wash over him. Even this prospect was better than the humiliation awaiting him at his father’s house. “I’m ready,” he murmured softly. “Let the mountains kill me!”

“Reckon that’s possible,” Con nodded. A hard light glinted in his eyes as he added, “We’re goin’ into country that the Injuns got all staked out. In ten or twenty years, mebbe, there’ll be a line of trappers in there, takin’ out the beaver. Right now, though, you won’t see a white face—and it’s a better’n even chance that you’ll lose your scalp.” He shrugged. “Always that way, I reckon. First come, first served—but in this case, it’s a heap more risky.”

“If you go—I’m going too!” Knox told Chris, and the stubborn set of his jaw warned the others that he could not be dissuaded. “You leave me, I’ll follow,” he stated flatly.

“No time for arguin’,” Conrad said abruptly. “Let’s git outta here quick. Frenchie, you git our goods together.”

Chris turned to Knox. “We’ll have to tell the Greenes.” The two hurried to the house. Dan was a light sleeper and came into the small room when the boys entered; his face tensed as Chris told him the story. Knox went to the loft to gather their things.

“You don’t have to go. The law’s on your side,” Dan said.

“From what I hear, these folks don’t wait for law.” Chris
lowered his voice so that his brother could not hear him. “I’m afraid for Knox, Dan. They’ll kill him if we don’t get away.”

“But his folks—”

“He won’t go up the river. I’ll tell the trappers to take him back home after I’m gone.”

Conflicting emotions flickered across Greene’s face. “Pretty sure you won’t make it, eh, Christmas?”

“No—but I want Knox out of this.” He squared his shoulders and said, “I want to see Missy.”

“Go on in. She’d never forgive me if I didn’t let you say goodbye to her.”

Chris went into the small room carrying a lamp, and at one touch the girl was wide-awake. “Don’t wake Asa up,” Christmas whispered.

“What’s the matter?”

“I—I can’t come to your birthday party, Missy, like I promised.”

“Why not, Christmas?”

“Have to go away on a trip—but I brought your pretty.” He set the lamp down and pulled the small leather pouch from his pocket. Removing one of the pearls, he held it out to her. She took it in her palm, and the yellow lamplight caught the stone, making it gleam like a living thing.

“Oh, Christmas! It’s so pretty!”

He watched her face, marveling at the fine structure of her bones and the quick intelligence in her eyes. “Your father will have it made into a ring or a necklace. I hope you think of me sometimes when you wear it.”

“Do you have to go?” she pleaded. “When will you come back, Christmas? And where are you going—is it a long way?”

“It’s a very long way—but I’ll be thinking of my nurse as I go, won’t I? Now, go to sleep.”

“Can I keep my pretty?”

“Sure.”

Holding the pearl tightly in one hand, she reached out with the other, beckoning him closer. He knelt beside her and she
put an arm around his neck. The touch of her lips was light as a feather on his cheek.

“It’s the best birthday pretty any girl ever got, Christmas!”

Feeling a lump rise to his throat, he got up and left quickly and found Knox standing ready with their gear. “The wagon’s here,” he stated.

“Preacher, I won’t try to thank you,” Chris said. “I sure wish I knew how.”

“I’ll be praying for you both,” Dan replied simply. “Don’t give up on God, Christmas. He’s not giving up on you.”

Dan’s promise to pray stuck in his mind as he and his brother left. Knox got on the horse that Frenchie was holding, and Chris climbed into the heavily loaded spring wagon Conrad had driven up to the steps of the cabin. As they pulled out of the yard, the trapper heard Chris say softly, “Now—let the mountains kill me!”

CHAPTER FOUR

SIOUX COUNTRY

“Guess if you ain’t died yet, we might as well haul you upriver and let the Sioux finish you off.”

Con gave a final jerk on a rawhide thong, grunting with satisfaction at the heavily loaded canoe. Stepping back to the small fire, he looked down at Chris, who was frying venison in a blackened skillet. “The good Lord must love sinners, Chris; thought you was a gone coon more’n once comin’ from Kaintuck.”

Chris glanced across the fire at the wiry trapper and grinned. “Guess you and Frenchie had more to do with that than the Lord, Con. I’d be underground by now if you two hadn’t piddled around and nursed me along.”

The trek from Kentucky to St. Louis could be made in a week of hard travel by most mountain men. But as soon as the party was out of the shadow of the Canby brothers, Con had said, “I ain’t feelin’ too pert, Frenchie. My constitution’s hurtin’ a little. Let’s slow down and hope it ain’t nothin’ fatal.”

“Where are you hurtin’, Con?” Knox had asked.

“Wal, now, I sorta feel bad all over more than I do in any partic’lar place—but if we jest take it easy, I reckon my juices will git all balanced agin. Time we git to the river I’ll be ready for trouble.”

His talk had not fooled anyone, Chris least of all. He realized that Con was deliberately slowing the pace so that Chris would survive. His plan had been successful. The warmth of spring had fallen across the land, and the fresh breezes
breathed new life into the sick man’s lungs. For the first few days, he sat in the wagon, but soon he was able to walk alongside or ride the fine horse that Frenchie had brought along. Game was plentiful, and Con had picked up a few tricks of cooking that stirred Chris’s appetite.

The trapper had brought down two mallards one evening, gutted the birds with a single slash of his knife, and plastered the carcasses with mud from the river’s edge. Scooping a hole in the sand beside the fire, he’d pushed the burning embers into the bottom of the hole, laid the clay-covered birds in, and finished filling the hole with sand and the remainder of the campfire.

Chris had dropped off to sleep; he’d been sleeping like a baby since he’d been on the trail. The fresh air and the warm sun put him out like a dead man, healing his body and resting his mind. Later Con woke him and offered him what looked like a melon; Chris was startled when he felt how hot it was, until he remembered. It was one of the birds. Gingerly rolling the clay ball about in his lap, he began cracking it with the hilt of the Green River knife he’d begun wearing. The clay broke off readily, the feathers adhering to each piece, so that presently there was exposed the smooth browned body of the roasted duck.

When he’d bitten into it, the abundant juices tasted so delicious that Chris had torn at the steaming carcass, working from one end of it to the other as if attacking corn on the cob. Con had grinned and said, “Reckon you’re gittin’ well, Chris. Yore natural selfish instincts are comin’ around. You didn’t even once ask if anybody else wanted a bite of that bird!”

That had been three weeks ago, Chris realized as he handed Con a rich steak of venison dripping with juice. He looked down the bank to where Frenchie and Knox were loading the last of the canoes with trading goods, bit off a chunk of steak, and added, “I thought I’d be dead by now and you could send Knox home from here.”

Knox and Frenchie came back, leaving the four Indians
they’d hired to paddle upriver, and the two finished off the meal. Fog was rolling off the river, and Chris peered through it, trying to see upstream as the two mountain men talked about the trip. Tribes, such as the Omahas, Poncas, Loups, Pawnees and Sauks, were named and discussed—which would be friendly or unfriendly, trustworthy or thieving, kind or murderous. Outlandish yet wonderful names of places fell from the trappers’ lips, inspiring the young men’s imaginations—Cheyenne River, Bad River, Grand Detour, Knife River. Knox drank in every word, interrupting once to ask, “How long before we get to Indian country, Con?”

“Oh, mebbe two-three weeks we might see a few Pawnees. Look, here’s the way our stick floats.” He picked up a piece of bark and traced the river in the sand, noting various posts and other rivers that flowed into the Missouri.

“First, we paddle up past the Cannonball to Fort Mandan; then, if we ain’t been drowned or taken a Pawnee arrow in our livers, we go past where the Knife River drops in. If we ain’t kilt by the time we git to where the Yellowstone heads in, we got to decide if we want to follow it or go on up the Missouri to the Milk—or mebbe even on to the Great Falls.” He dropped the bark and stood up. “But we got the first mile to go ’fore we git anywhere. Chris, you go with Frenchie. Knox, you do your best to keep from fallin’ outta that Crow’s canoe—name’s Bull Man. Let’s go to the mountains!”

They broke camp, and the four canoes, heavily laden with trade goods, drifted away from shore. Chris insisted on taking a paddle, but after an hour he was exhausted. “I feel like dead weight, Frenchie,” he groaned, looking at his blistered hands and gasping for breath. “You can’t paddle me all the way to the Yellowstone!”