The Shirt On His Back (26 page)

'I'm not sure.'
January knelt in a corner of the shelter, opened the little satchel of
medicines he'd brought from New Orleans. Beneath the packets of powdered willow
bark and ipecac that his sister Olympe had made up for him, the so-called
'Indian tobacco' - which wasn't tobacco at all - to treat laryngitis and
asthma, the little phials of tincture of opium and camphor, the rolled-up kit
of his surgical implements, he found the other thing Rose had sent with him
besides the little notebook: a powerful round-lensed magnifier.

From outside the
tent he heard Morales call out as he came near the ring of stakes, was there
anything you boys need, and what'd Mary want? January didn't hear what his
young companion replied. He carried the hat back to the entrance of the shelter
where the eastern light was strong and - against the sun-bleached canvas -
examined again with the magnifying lens the hairs that he'd taken from its
lining.

Two of them were
obviously Mary's, thickly curling and springy, bright with henna for most of
their length and the girl's native, mahogany-tinted black for the last
half-inch.

And one was
fine-textured, black for most of its three-inch length, and for that last inch
or so, light brown, like the hair of the girl Mina in her silver locket.

Boden came in
with one of the tribes?' Hannibal pulled on his shirt, still damp from his swim
downriver to the island, then quickly huddled back to the fire inside the
'plague tent'. Outside, Frye stood guard - or rather sat casually by the fire,
ready to call out a greeting loud enough to be heard within the tent, should
anyone come along the path from the rendezvous side of the island.

The discovery of
the dyed hair within the hat had the effect on January of a sound in the night:
a prickly watchfulness, a profound sense of nearby threat. He was more aware
than ever that he was going to need friends within the camp who had freedom of
action - neither kept within the quarantine line by their sworn word, nor
expelled from the camp for breaking it.

'He
has
to have come in
with one of the tribes,' said January. 'The hair in that hat - the hair that
wasn't Irish Mary's - was brown that had been dyed black. So that hat wasn't
old Klaus's. The only reason I can think of for anyone to dye his hair black
would be to pass as an Indian or a Mexican, and no
blankitte
in this part of
the world would do that voluntarily. It looks to me as if Boden was with his
father at the shelter at some point in the night, and their hats got switched.'

'Then he would
have been the one who splinted his father's leg -' Hannibal frowned as he tied
his moccasins, mentally aligning the probable course of the night's events -
'and made the fire and the shelter. Which would mean that Manitou came later,
beat him and killed him . . . But why would Boden have left him alone there? If
they were at the rendezvous at all, they'd have to have known Manitou was
camped close by:

'And why would
Manitou have beaten him that way, if his leg was already broken?' Anger flared
like a hot coal in January's chest: anger at himself, for he had liked the big
trapper. 'I can see hurting him in a fight to get a gun away from him, but if
he was hurt already, lying in the shelter helpless—'

'He was
enraged,' pointed out Hannibal. 'Mad-dog mad. Mary heard him shouting.'

'And where was
Boden during all this? And afterward, why didn't he return to the old man,
knowing he was unable to help himself?'

'Could Manitou
have killed
him
?'

'And not
remember it?' January frowned. 'It's possible . . . But no one in the camp is
missing.'

'Except Shaw,'
said Hannibal, rather grimly. 'And Asa Goodpastor. Unless letting himself be
taken by the Blackfeet and tortured is some insane kind of penance.' The
fiddler shook out his vest - a little damp, but the tight covering of waxed canvas
in which he'd rolled his clothing for his downriver swim had worked well. 'One
of my tutors when I was a lad was a little crazy that way. Not that he'd have
beaten up an injured old man, but he'd sneak off into the village every couple
of months, get well and truly hammered and roger himself speechless with the
local commodity, a young lady named Peg Drowe . . . Perfectly understandable
behavior. But old Venables would lock himself up in his room afterwards and cut
his arms and legs with a sharpened letter-opener, a fact we only learned one
night when he tripped on the stairway - perfectly sober, I might add - and
knocked himself senseless. When he was carried up to his bed and undressed, he
was found to be covered with scars, all precisely spaced, as if he'd used a
ruler as well as the letter opener.' Hannibal shook his head, as if after
decades he was still puzzling it over.

'He could recite
the whole of Hesiod's
Theogony
off the top of his head -
 -
Homer and the entire Bible as well. Astonishing. Poor Peg was mortified when
she learned about it. Personally, I never found rogering her worth so much as a
bitten hangnail.' He glanced sharply up at January, added, 'Well, we knew Boden
had to be one of the traders, didn't we? It's not such an unusual style of hat
- Edwin Titus wears one, and John McLeod, and others - but that narrows it to
one of the new men.'

'Wynne, or
Gonzales,' said January. 'Morales too - and what's the name of that fellow from
Missouri?'

'Sharpless?'

January nodded.
'Do this for me, would you?' he began, and broke off as the rear wall of the
shelter rippled, lifted about six inches, and Morning Star slithered through.

'Manitou is
gone,' she said softly and wrung the river water out of her braids. Her
deerskin dress, like Hannibal's coat and weskit, was damp from being carried
across rolled tight in a piece of oiled deer-hide. 'I reached his camp, and
there was nothing there. Even the fire pit was filled in and hidden, as if he
were in enemy country.'

January cursed
in Arabic. 'Can your brothers track him?' he asked. 'I think he's the man Boden
and his father were seeking, for killing Boden's sister. This wouldn't be any
of our business, except for what Boden seems to think his vengeance entitles
him to do: kill those who get in his way, or - it seems - kill some or all of
the men in this camp in order to kill his man among them. Hannibal,' he added,
'can you get a description from Wallach of the horses Boden took from the fort
last winter? He'll have known someone at the rendezvous might recognize them,
so he couldn't bring them into the main camp. But I'm guessing that whichever
Indian tribe he came most of the way with, you'll find the horses there.'

'Crazy Bear
killed the daughter of the old man?' asked Morning Star worriedly. 'The girl
whose picture Sun Mouse showed me in the locket?'

'We think so,
yes.'

'And the old man
as well, when he was crippled and helpless?'

'It looks that
way. I want to speak with him again,' January said, 'and ask him about Boden.
Who he is, what he's capable of and what he might be up to. The laws of the
United States can't touch Manitou here: he should have nothing to fear in
talking to me. But the people he killed were innocent, as Tall Chief's brother
was innocent when Boden killed him, only to hide what he's doing in his pursuit
of Manitou.'

'If the laws of
your country cannot punish him -' Morning Star's brow puckered - 'why would he
lie and say he had not killed the old man? Crazy Bear has a thunder spirit that
comes on him sometimes when he is angry, but he does not lie.' She shook her
head. 'I will learn about the horses for you,' she went on. 'And I will ask
Chased By Bears and Little Fish if they would seek him. But Manitou is not an
easy man to find, if he does not wish it. And he can be dangerous to approach.'

'They don't have
to approach him. Just let me know where he is.'

The young woman
considered the matter for a time, sitting with her knees drawn up to her
breast, her bare toes making small patterns in the dust of the shelter floor. 'I
will ask,' she said again. 'But they may say, as I do, that these are other
men's vengeances and have nothing to do with us. The more I hear of this, the
less honorable it seems, for anyone who touches the matter. You should leave
it.' She looked across at Hannibal. 'Both of you should leave it, husband.
There will be no good in it for you.'

'A man doesn't
leave his brother,' said January. 'And Tall Chief is my brother. And Boden
killed his.'

Morning Star
sighed and shook her head. 'I will ask,' she said. 'But this marrying of white
men is more complicated than I thought.'