Cheyenne Winter (9 page)

“Whoa up,” he said to his men. He clambered off the keelboat and approached the chief, trying to remember enough Crow to address the man.

“Chief Big Robber,” he began, supplementing his words with finger-sign. “Have a little ride on the boat — you and whoever you want. We’ll give you some good things, powder and ball, ribbons, an awl. Bring your friends.”

Big Robber consulted with half a dozen people around him, grinned, and walked up the plank, leading a pack of warriors. No woman braved the vessel but a couple of little Crow boys did, squealing with delight as they examined it.

He heard Dust Devil’s muttering from the porthole, a steady stream of soft Cheyenne invective. She hated Crows. It didn’t matter. He had safe passage now; a chief, some headmen and warriors, all dressed in festival clothing for the trading, richly beaded and quilled elkskins, headbands, moccasins.

“We want the firewater now,” Big Robber signaled.

“I’ll pour some in a bit, friend,” Brokenleg replied.

His men let the boat drift free and then began poling it forward, foot by foot, under the impotent guns of Fort Cass. Along the shore, Crow women and children kept apace, laughing and waving. Slowly, the keelboat pushed forward, rocking and faltering in the channel current while engages raised sweat jabbing their poles into the riverbed. The chief and headmen watched thoughtfully — to their way of thinking, it was all woman’s work.

Fitzhugh didn’t even bother to keep an eye on the bastion. They were safe. A single shot from that cannon would ruin Cass’s Crow trade and give it all to Fitzhugh’s Post. Painfully, the lumbering keelboat slid past the fort and into the broad sweep of gray water that marked the confluence of the Bighorn River. Behind, he heard Julius Hervey’s wild laughter rolling down to them from the bastion high above. Fitzhugh squinted up at him. That one enjoyed the deadly game no matter whether he was winner or loser. That’s what made him deadlier than a rattler. He loved the murder itself — even his own. Big Robber heard that maniac laughter, too, and watched Hervey thoughtfully.

A while later, when they were well up the Bighorn river, Brokenleg steered the keelboat to shore to debark his guests — and offer them a few trading trinkets and a small jug, which he hoped he could locate in the jumble of casks and crates below.

They were half an hour’s walk from Fort Cass and an equal distance from Fitzhugh’s own post. He thought of sending Maxim into the hold to find things, but he knew better. Instead, he sent Trudeau and Larue. “Bring plenty o’ stuff,” he said. “Make this a little celebration.”

While he waited, he addressed the Crows. “My chiefs, we will be trading tomorrow. Our prices will be better than those at Fort Cass. We esteem your trade. Bring your people, and we will treat you well indeed, with many gifts.”

Big Robber nodded, saying nothing.

When Trudeau and Larue finally emerged laden with gewgaws, Fitzhugh solemnly gifted each man, not forgetting the little boys. An awl, a Wilson butcher knife for each. A one-pound bar of St. Louis shot tower lead, and a cup-measure of powder wrapped in paper for the chief and headmen. The Crows accepted the gifts as their due.

“We want the crazy-water,” said big Robber.

“You come trade, bring robes, and we’ll have us a party,” Fitzhugh replied. “Lots of the crazy-water when you bring the robes. We’ll buy every robe you have. Good Crow robes. You make the best robes.”

From down in the hold, Dust Devil snorted.

Big Robber scowled, plainly unhappy. “Maybe not. Maybe not,” he muttered. “No robes. No trade.”

“You come on over tomorrow after we get the stuff on the shelves, and we’ll have us a big trade,” Fitzhugh insisted. “Lots o’ gifts. We” mix up a pot o’ firewater and ladle her out fast as you git hyar.” He’d lapsed into English but they understood anyway, not entirely happy with their gifts. But none of them ever was, he thought.

He left the Crows there, staring at him noncommittally. He hoped they’d trade. At least they’d gotten him and the keelboat past the fangs of Fort Cass. They knew it, too. They’d watched the men up in the bastion thoughtfully all the while the keelboat inched by. They’d know exactly why they’d been invited for a ride. The gifts weren’t exactly gifts; they were payment.

His men grew excited as they neared the small trading house called Fitzhugh’s Post, and poled furiously up the Bighorn through a somnolent noon, ignoring the rising heat. And then, at last, the Rocky Mountain Company post on the east bank of the river hove into view, a post built with blood and sweat and impossible labor deep into the winter, against all odds. They cheered. They sang French boatmen’s songs. They whistled. And from the post, Fitzhugh’s remaining men boiled out — Spoon and Constable and all the rest, fired their pieces and danced around, hoorawing and bellowing like madmen. There wasn’t a lodge in sight: every Indian in the area had gone to Cass, which had been resupplied weeks earlier. At Fitzhugh’s Post the shelves were empty and forlorn. But soon that’d change.

“A keelboat!” yelled Constable. “We was lookin’ for the wagons. Ol’ Straus, he dig into his pockets?”

“We stole her,” Fitzhugh yelled, as he edged the keelboat into the bank. “And you can bet they’ll try to steal her back!”

Guy Straus wrestled a heavy haversack down the stage and set it on the ground of Bellevue, deep in Indian Territory. Behind him, his guide, Ambrose Chatillon, toted saddles and packs while deckmen freed four horses from their pen at the bow and led them off the
St. Peter
. The packet had made his last run as far as Bellevue on an Indian Bureau contract to supply the agency there. This was as far as Guy could go the easy way; the rest would be grueling for a soft, middle-aged man.

But this is where he would have debarked anyway. And the reason stood before him in the obese person of the Reverend Mr. Foster Gillian, Indian Agent and divine of the Congregational Church. The man stood there, his mournful eyes surveying the debarking passengers from behind heavy jowls and thick muttonchops of graying hair. He wore a black broadcloth suit polished in the seat and elbows from heavy use. Guy recognized the man at once, as much from his expression of pained authority as from his dyspeptic bearing. The man peered at the world with the eyes of the moralist discovering sin everywhere.

Guy knew he was about to present himself as the principal sinner. He also knew that he’d easily acquire the information he wanted: Gillian would burp it out as a matter of superior wisdom. But that could wait. Behind him, his wiry guide tied the packhorses and saddled them, sliding Guy’s heavy sack into one pannier of a packsaddle and a sack of equal weight, bearing rations, into the other. The other packhorse would carry more supplies, ammunition, and a small tent. Time was of the essence and he hoped to be off within the hour — if Gillian would consent to interview him at once.

The Indian Agent leaned into a gnarled black walking stick, watching deckmen hoist goods from the hold and swing them ashore where his own men loaded them into drays for the steep climb to the post. Around them all hundreds of Omahas and Otos, largely dressed in white men’s clothing, watched thoughtfully.

“Mr. Gillian?” he asked.

The agent turned and studied Guy.

“I’m Guy Straus of St. Louis. A senior partner of the Rocky Mountain Company.”

Recognition and something else filled the face of the agent. He peered more closely now, surveying Straus with squinting eyes. Guy knew what he would see: a man of medium height with wiry blond hair going gray, and brown eyes; a man with a square clean-shaven face, a little soft and overweight, dressed in good cottons and woolens for a plunge into the wilderness.

“I don’t suppose I have anything to say to you — or your kind.”

Guy had been expecting that, too, and ignored it. “I’d like to ask a few questions about what happened here.”

Gillian looked testy. “This is an impossible time. Surely you don’t expect me to talk now when we have this unloading to attend to.”

“I believe it’s attending to itself, sir. I have only a few questions. I wish to know exactly what happened.”

“You’ll have to wait. See me in a week after we have these goods inventoried and distributed to my, ah, charges.”

“I can’t wait a week.”

“A pity. I must be about my Christian duty now.”

Guy stood in the midday sun, a swirl of activity around him, pondering. “We’ll wait,” he said. “I trust you’ll put me up?”

“Put you up?”

“Yes. I’ll wait the week. We’ll walk up the hill and unload the horses. Perhaps Mrs. Gillian will show us to our quarters.”

The Reverend Gillian’s face flushed. Guy knew exactly what the man was thinking. Wilderness posts were always hospitable to everyone. Bellevue was also an American Fur Company trading post and there would be no way the reverend could prevent Guy from staying.

“I won’t have time in a week. Not ever for the likes of you.”

“I’ll wait,” said Guy, amiably. “I’d like to see how a post operates; meet your Otos and Omahas; talk to the Chouteau men.”

“Now see here, Straus. I’m the Indian Agent. I won’t have you meddling with my charges. They’re like children, you know, easily twisted — ”

“Oh, I’ll only ask a few questions.”

“I forbid it. I’ll report everything.”

“You already have. In a public document. Accusing my company of certain violations. I suppose I’ll have to tell David Mitchell that you wouldn’t let me inquire about matters in my defense. I think, sir, he might just call you to St. Louis to answer there — if you don’t wish to answer here. Which will it be?” Guy spoke gently but with a certain authority that came from a lifetime of managing a financial enterprise.

The reverend steamed, flushed, paled, and stabbed his walking stick into the clay. And said nothing though orotund words formed and retreated from his quivering lips.

Guy knew at once that he’d won the day. “Mr. Gillian: was there cargo for other companies aboard
The Trapper?”

“Certainly.” The minister’s voice had a crackling quality.

“Indeed. And was some of it unloaded here at Bellevue?”

“Certainly.”

“Along with passengers. Mr. Gillian, who got off?”

“How would I know?”

“I thought you might. Some Chouteau people no doubt.”

“I haven’t the foggiest. Deck passengers.” Gillian was sounding testy.

“Where was the other cargo destined, sir?”

“I wouldn’t remember. See here, Straus — ”

Guy smiled gently. “We’ll be done swiftly if you cooperate. If not — it’ll take a while, and that’d be a pity.” He knew he was in command. “How did you determine that the spirits were a part of my company’s shipment?”

“Why — the casks were on the Dance, Fitzhugh, and Straus shipping manifest given me by Captain Sire.”

“In a different hand?”

“I didn’t notice.”

“A different hand, sir. In fact we had no spirits aboard.” The reverend snorted and then cackled. “I must say,” he wheezed, “I’d expected bald canards. Everyone knows how the companies trade. AFC too. Even here behind my back. Drunken Indians in my chapel, my school, my offices. Come now, Straus. You people do anything for money and don’t scruple about it.”

Guy ignored that. “Your report says you opened the casks with a bung starter and sniffed. What did you sniff?”

“Spirits!”

“What does two hundred proof grain alcohol smell like, sir?”

“Like whiskey.”

“May I report your observations to David Mitchell?”

The man turned wary. “What are you driving at?”

“Pure grain spirits have little smell. What did you do with the evidence?”

“Why — everyone saw what I did.”

“You had it poured into the river.”

This time the reverend refused to reply.

“What color was the fluid you poured out?”

“Why — clear. Almost like water.”

“What color is whiskey?”

“How should I know? I never imbibe. Amber, I suppose.”

“Did you keep the casks?”

He nodded.

“May I see them?”

“No you may not. They’re locked.”

“They are evidence for my defense. The bills of lading — ”

“For your defense? Are you mad?”

“For my defense. They were labeled. I wish to see the labels, study the hand. I wish to see what else I can learn — the cooperage, for instance.”

“Technicalities! Nonsense! Obfuscation! You’ll obscure the truth with smoke. No, I  . . . will  . . . not  . . . show  . . . them.” He emphasized each word with a pause.

Guy sighed, amiably. “I’ll have to inform the commissioner, of course — being denied the right to examine the evidence.”

By now Gillian was puffing up like an adder. “I told you I would not — and I won’t.”

“What if you’re wrong — what if we hadn’t a drop of spirits in our cargo?”

“Are you done?”

“Almost. Let’s agree about this interview — for the commissioner’s sake, eh? You did not notice whether Captain Sire’s manifests were all done in the same hand. You smelled whiskey in the casks. You poured out a clear white fluid. There was cargo for other companies aboard. You denied me permission to examine the casks. You did not notice who got off here. Agreed?”

Gillian glared. “The devil knows how to lie, sir.”

“But never a clergyman. You’ll tell Mitchell we agree on this of course.”

Foster Gillian nodded.

Guy smiled broadly. “Very well, reverend. I know I can count on you.”

He left the reverend stewing, and wandered over to his guide. “Ambrose, I have one more small task and then we’ll be off. I wish to pay my respects to Peter Sarpy up at the post.”

Chatillon smiled. “No need. He’s over there.”

Over there indeed stood the veteran trader, AFC veteran, and factor of this trading post — a man Guy had met several times at the Planters House. Sarpy was a relative of the Chouteaus and a company man; one of the best and most levelheaded men in the robe trade. He was, moreover, a man of some integrity. He would have had no part of planting casks in Guy’s cargo. He was vulnerable himself — all fur men were. And if he had gotten wind of anything he would have gladly and indignantly shared them with Guy — the brotherhood of traders being more important than company lines. Guy approached, wondering if Sarpy might hold the key.