The Shirt On His Back (19 page)

You know who it
was?' asked Frye, after he'd fired a | shot - the signal for Shaw's return -
and with a professional's swiftness reloaded his piece before removing the
waistcoat for closer inspection.

'Not the tiniest
hint.'

'I figured he
had to been a friend of that Englishman Stewart's. That's good silk, a dollar
an ell. My ma was a dressmaker,' he added, as if this unmanly piece of
knowledge needed explanation.

'So was my first
wife.' January turned the creased and water-faded fabric in his fingers,
examined the edges of the knife hole that had been ripped in the back.
'Anything in his pockets?'

'Just this.'
Frye held out a silver locket and, when January pressed open the delicate
catch, added a trifle wistfully, 'She's right pretty.'

She was indeed.
The miniature within had been painted on ivory, by an artist not quite skilled
enough to convey the girl's youth. Sixteen? Seventeen? Her mouth was a
childlike rosebud, but her light-brown hair was dressed high: January recalled
the style as being all the rage in Paris about ten years ago. So she was, at
least, old enough to be 'out'. Under a watch glass in the locket's lid, a curl
of hair that same light-brown color had been carefully preserved.

Frye brought up
his rifle at the sound of horses coming down to the bottomlands, then lowered
it as Shaw called out, 'Yo, Maestro?'

'All clear,
Lieutenant.' The use of Shaw's title was a signal. Had somebody been holding a
gun to his head, January would have called out,
All clear, Captain,
and Shaw would
have taken whatever steps he deemed necessary from there. He held out the vest
and the locket as Shaw dropped from the saddle.

'Well, Lordy
Lordy . . .'

'It's funny,'
mused Frye. 'My granny always said, if you went around stealing things from the
dead, they'd find a way to make sure you got caught for it. Hell, I've took
heaps of plunder from Injuns, and if God's keeping count of the horses and
saddle tack I took off dead Comanche and Mexicans, well, I can only hope
Granny'11 be praying for me when my account gets tallied. But you know, I sure
did feel queer, pullin' the weskit off that old man.'

But you did it
anyway.
January reflected that if you'd happened to have been soaked
by the rain, a silk under-layer between your new red calico shirt and your new
blue wool coat would have been extraordinarily welcome. Even if you did have to
rinse blood out of it before you put it on.

'When did you
find him?'

'Just before
sunup. You could see colors.'

'How was he
layin'?' asked Shaw.

'On his back.'

'On the ground?'

'Well, yeah. His
feet was pointing toward that deadfall tree, maybe two-three feet between his
toes and the fire pit.'

'Barefoot?'

Frye nodded. 'He
had splints on his left leg, like as if he'd broke it. Somebody'd tore the hem
of his shirt to tie 'em on with. Black gloves - a real gentleman, I thought,
which is why I thought he mighta been one of Stewart's friends. The fire'd
burned out, but somebody'd put wood by it for him. I thought he'd broke his leg
fallin' off a horse, and they'd put up a little shelter for him and gone back
to the camp for a litter. I sure wouldn't want to try to pack a wounded man
down out of these mountains and back to the settlements.'

January thought
about the steep trails beyond Fort Laramie, the gullies - climb down, climb up
- and the crossing of the Platte, the Sandy, the Popo Agie and a thousand
swollen creeks in-between.

'It wasn't
Indians, though, was it?'

January shook
his head. 'I don't think so, no.'

'Poor old
buzzard. I'm sorry I robbed him, now.'

'If'fn you
hadn't,' remarked Shaw, 'Indians might've, an' this locket'd be halfway to the
Columbia.' He turned it over in his long fingers. "Sides, we know the
Beauty got to him 'fore you did - we been trackin' him by his boots - which
means the odds is good that he got his coat an' his hat as well.'

'Do you know?'
said January suddenly. 'I think our friend was in mourning.'

'If you're goin'
by the color,' returned Shaw, 'it'd mean Edwin Titus an' half the traders in
the camp just lost their whole families.'

'Titus's
coat-buttons are steel.' January held up the weskit again. 'Look at these.
They're covered in the same silk, so they'll be black like the rest of the
garment. It's bombazine silk, too, that doesn't catch light. Mourning is mostly
what it's worn for. And expensive as it is, it's an old vest. Nobody does this
kind of lacing on the back anymore, or has lapels cut in a triple notch this
way—'

'Oh dearie
dear,' squeaked Frye, with upflung hands, 'don't
tell
me I must get
rid of all my old weskits before I go back to the States! Don't grieve a body
so!'

January grinned
and made a move as if to push the young trapper out of the shelter of the
cottonwoods and into the river. 'Don't
you
tell
me
your ma never
cut out a gentleman's vest. And look at how the silk's worn along the edge of
the collar. He's got to have bought this ten years ago. Now look at the way his
young lady is dressed. Those sleeves are just about ten years out of date -
so's her hair. My sister would throw herself in the river before she'd wear a
wired topknot like that. Doesn't it look to you,' he went on, 'like our young
lady died about ten years ago, which is when her - father, shall we say? -
outfitted himself all in black - rather expensively - and has remained so ever
since?'

'Hair's what
folks mostly take, goin' into mournin'.' Shaw rubbed his thumb at the silky
glitter of stubble on his jaw. 'An' that locket's plain enough to go with a
funeral rig . . . not that some of them ladies in New Orleans don't put on as
much of a dog biddin' their Dear Departed
adios
as they would
goin' to the Opera. I am most curious,' he added, 'as to what we'll find in the
coat.'

January glanced
at the angle of the sun. It stood only a few hand-breadths above the western
mountains: every sagebrush, every boulder, that lay beyond the cottonwoods
seemed edged in shadow, and coolness rose from the river. 'You're for going
after Clarke and Groot, then?'

'I
am
goin' after
'em,' said Shaw gently, 'yes. I need to find out who our friend really is, an'
I need to find out what he might be carryin' in his pockets, if anythin' - an'
most of all what he was doin' out here. If'fn you go back to the camp, Maestro
- an' I reckon if you follow the river you can make it there not more'n an hour
after dark - get Prideaux an' Stewart, an' see if you can find our friend's
camp, or any sign of where Manitou Wildman mighta got
to ...
I don't know
when I'll be back.'

'Well, hell.'
January reflected that it was probably too much to hope for that Shaw had
simply forgotten about the Blackfeet. 'Since Rose has probably already spent
that three hundred dollars you left with her, I guess I'm with you. Frye?'

'Thunderation,
no man's gonna say Bo Frye ever backed off a clear trail. I'm your huckleberry,
Shaw. Besides, I want in on that secret valley. They'll have to take me with
'em, or have me trumpetin' to the congregation which way they went.'

Morning Star
listened in silence as January reiterated in French all that had been said.

All she replied
was, 'They'll camp in Small Bear coulee.' Her moving hands translated the words
to Frye as she spoke. 'It is the closest place between here and the mountains
where they can water their animals, and there is no other they can reach by
dark.'

'You figure they
know someone's still after 'em?' Frye's question was answered within a
quarter-hour, when the hoof prints divided after another section where the
trail had been obliterated with blankets. Half went east, the other half
continued north.

'That'll be the
Beauty goin' east,' surmised Shaw, when both sets of continuing tracks had been
located - some hundred feet apart - and the pursuers reunited briefly to
reconnoiter. 'It's one horse an' a passel of mules, so my guess is, that's the
Dutchman with the camp-setters an' Fingers Woman turnin' north. There a stream
in Small Bear coulee, m'am?' And, when she nodded: 'Then they can follow the
stream to each other, an' head into the hills along its bed. You folks want to
take the main party, in case our boys split what they found on the old man?
I'll come on down the stream to meet you, if'fn I catch Clarke.'

'And what if
someone catches you?' asked January.

Shaw grinned and
swung into the yellow gelding's saddle. Then you'll hear me hollerin'.'