Rendezvous (11 page)

When he returned to camp he discovered that the wolves had pilfered the leftover meat he had cut. Unthinkingly, he had stored it near the fire—and not far from his head. Some bold wolf had come within ten feet of him. That ruined his sleep for the night, and he sat at the fire, feeding dry wood into it now and then, his mind filled with images of wolf packs hamstringing their prey, clamping their long jaws over vulnerable throats, and ripping open bellies.

He stirred with the first grays of dawn, much more aware that wilderness was no Eden. He hiked to the place where his deer carcass lay—and found no sign of it. When at last he found the remains fifty yards distant—nothing but well-gnawed bones now—he knew a large animal had been at work, most likely a bear.

Skye had gotten only one meal out of an entire deer. That was something to think about. He glared into the surrounding brush, and discovered he wasn't alone, even in the dawn light. A wolf stood watching, shaggy and feral, waiting to attack the well-gnawed carcass for whatever last bit of meat remained. It edged silently into shadow, sat on its haunches, and watched him. Skye had enough of wolves. He strung his bow, nocked an arrow, aimed, and let fly. The wolf exploded into the air, howled, and ran away with an arrow poking from its side. Skye followed the trail of blood but never saw the animal again. He had lost an arrow. He wanted a good warm wolf skin, and the next wolf to cross his path would donate it. He hated the wolves for reasons he couldn't explain. The wolves had done nothing but be themselves and yet they prompted a dread and rage in him. The bear had been bad enough, the wolves worse.

The next two days he descended the east flanks of the Blue Mountains, following a cheerful creek that rushed down awesome canyons that boxed him into their bottoms. He was plunging into arid country again, filled with broken volcanic rock. Then one morning he reached a grassy flat and discovered it was where the creek debouched into a larger river. And it was also the site of a large Indian village consisting of conical lodges of animal skins, such as he had never before seen. He didn't know who these people were or what his fate might be, but he had been discovered by bold half-naked children, and there would be no escape.

Chapter 14

Skye set down his heavy burden and waited. Children swarmed him, excited and curious, the boys slim and naked, the girls in leather skirts. Then men ran up, the women holding back. The men carried lances, bows, and arrows. He saw no firearms. These people were short, stocky, golden-fleshed, and had coarse black hair worn long. They stood erect and alert and conveyed a certain dignity. They studied Skye with obvious curiosity. He yearned to greet them but felt helpless. He could not speak to them, nor even let them know his intentions were peaceful. He held out a hand, but no one took it. They seemed to be waiting, and sure enough, emerging from the village was a gray-haired elder wearing ceremonial robes. A headman or chief of some sort.

The village lay alongside the Snake River on a grassy flat, in a mountain bowl. Out on the pasture oddly marked horses grazed, their rumps spotted, as if their maker had splattered white paint over them. But some lighter-tinted horses carried black or brown spots, and sometimes the spots covered the whole torso. Hundreds of these strange creatures dotted this basin, giving Skye the idea that this tribe knew horses well.

The headman wore a bonnet of eagle feathers that stood vertically, and also a white-man's shirt cinched at the waist. He surveyed Skye with eyes that revealed neither hostility nor friendship, but did convey a profound authority. Skye desperately wished he knew the protocols for this sort of thing. All he could do was talk.

“I happened upon your village,” he said. “I don't know who you are. I'm heading east, toward the rendezvous of the Americans, and hope you can tell me how to get there.”

No one understood. Skye stared at blank faces.

Maybe a gift. Skye swiftly considered the few items in his warbag, wondering which one he could do without, and finally settled on the canister of tea that Ogden had given him—something he treasured, but something not essential for his survival. He dug into his kit, found the enameled canister, and presented it to the headman, who accepted it without quite knowing what it was. He opened the canister, saw the tea, sniffed it, puzzled.

“I'll show you how to make tea,” Skye said.

“Hudson Bayee,” the headman said.

“No, just a man passing through.”

Skye's shake of the head was understood, if not his words.

“Americeen?”

“Rendezvous.”

“Ah.” The headman had some inkling of something, and so did Skye.

The village men crowded around, examining the canister, admiring it more than what it contained. Women edged in now, peeking shyly at Skye, studying his gift to the headman. The ladies wore soft doeskin dresses, although a few were decked out in traders' calico, their dresses crudely cut but finely sewn.

The headman beckoned, and Skye picked up his kit and followed him into the village, which consisted of thirty or forty skin lodges, some brightly dyed with animal figures, all of them smoke-blackened at their apex. The village was redolent of salmon and meat and offal. The chief's lodge loomed larger than the others, and seemed to have more poles supporting it. Several handsome young women, apparently the headman's wives or daughters, stood about shyly. The headman spoke briefly to one, and she trotted away, vanishing among the lodges.

There they waited for what seemed a long time. Skye relaxed a little; no one had manhandled him or threatened his life. His gift had cemented his status as a guest—for the moment. The headman's woman reappeared, this time with an ancient white man in tow. The man seemed to be all or mostly blind, and stared out upon the world from milky eyes.

“Eh?
Bonjour,
” he muttered.

“Do you speak English?” Skye asked.

“Eh?”

Skye realized the old Creole was both blind and deaf. “English? Do you speak English?” he bellowed.

“Pierre Gallard, Nor' West,” the man said, and slid into French again.

“Hudson's Bay?” Skye bawled into the man's ear.

“Eh?
Non, non, Nord Ouest Compagnie.
”

Skye understood: the North West Company, once a bitter and violent rival of Hudson's Bay and now absorbed by it. A lovely young woman appeared beside the old man, and Skye realized she was his mate. She, it turned out, could communicate better than he.

“Nez Percés,” she said. “You Hudson's Bay.”

“No, madam, I'm alone. I want to go to the rendezvous.”

“Ah,
les Americains.
”

“Yes.”

Swiftly she translated all this to the headman and villagers. It took effort, but in time she and he had exchanged information. He was in a Nez Percé village that had come here to fish. She was the wife of the honored white man, Gallard, from Montreal, and cared for him now that he was old and helpless. Gallard despised the English, and Hudson's Bay Company, but not Americans. Last year's rendezvous, the first, was the talk of all the tribes.

Skye asked for directions, and after much consultation, she told him not to follow the Snake because it ran through a terrible canyon, but to go around to the south of it for many days, and then pick up the Snake again where it came out of the canyon and ran through plains. The more she murmured, the better Skye understood her French. He dredged up words and phrases from his childhood, and from his occasional shipboard reading.

The headman thrust the tea canister at her. She examined its contents, smiled.
“Thé,”
she said, and explained what it was to him. He nodded and spoke to her at length.

“You guest,” she said.
“Allez.”
He followed her to the chief's portal and started to leave.

“Wait. What is his name? Will he trade for horses?”

She stared blankly.

He pointed to himself. “I'm Skye. Skye.” Then he pointed at the chief.

“Ah! Skyeskye.” She smiled and pointed. “Hemene Moxmox.” Then she pointed at other leaders and village men: “Eapalekthiloom, Ealaot Wadass, Hematute Hikaith, Chelooyeen, Alikkees.” Skye couldn't even pronounce the names, much less repeat them.

Skye remembered the word for horse, and yelled it into the old man's ear.
“Cheval?”

Gallard nodded and said something to his wife. Skye dug into his warbag and produced his pea jacket, which he hoped to trade. She understood, and addressed her auditors at length. The headman took the blue woolen coat, examined it, tried it on—it was too long in the arms, but otherwise serviceable—and smiled. It would keep him warm next winter. And no one else in the village would have anything so magical. He talked at length with the Frenchman's woman, and then with his friends, and at last nodded. A nod, at least, seemed to be a universal sign that Skye took for a yes. He waited impatiently, hoping he had been understood, afraid that he had just given away his coat as another gift.

But the iron-haired headman spoke gently to two young men, and these trotted off toward the fields where the herd grazed. Then he nodded Skye into his lodge. Skye discovered surprising comfort within. Its skin sides had been rolled upward a foot or so from the ground so that the spring zephyrs might percolate through and up the smoke vent at the top. Decorated parfleches held this family's possessions. Pallets lined the periphery. A stone-lined firepit occupied the center, but the fire was out this warm day.

Skye's dignified host walked around the firepit and placed himself opposite the lodge door. He beckoned Skye to follow and seat himself next to the host. Others in the village followed, seating themselves in a preordained order.

The headman withdrew an ornate pipe with a red stone bowl and a long stem from a leather bag, tamped what appeared to be tobacco in it, and waited. A young man appeared at the lodge door, bearing a hot coal wrapped in a leaf. It was passed to the headman, and in due course he lifted it with bare fingers, lit his pipe, and sucked until the tobacco was fairly ablaze. Then he lifted the pipe with both hands, chanting something as he did, in each direction of the compass and to heaven and earth. Skye knew this was some sort of important ceremony, perhaps a blessing of his presence in this village, and waited quietly. These people were in no hurry, unlike Skye, who itched to look at horses and select one.

The headman drew smoke, exhaled, and passed the pipe to Skye, who assumed he should do the same. Skye completed the ritual and passed the pipe along. The pipe went the full circle, no Nez Percé saying anything, then went another round, as a great peace descended on this group. Skye felt the peace, felt himself relax, and joined the quietness of spirit that seemed to occupy the lodge. He knew that this, too, was a lesson. Perhaps this smoking of the pipe meant something to all these American tribes. He would find out. Hundreds of questions had arisen in the last weeks, and he yearned to find the answers to them. For now, he had only his wits, his powers of observation, and perhaps whatever could be conveyed to him by an old deaf Creole and his younger Nez Percé woman.

These tribesmen had stopped time. Until this moment, Skye's focus had been escape, survival, and the future. Now, in this breezy lodge, among these elders, he experienced only the moment, without thought of his bitter past or uncertain future. The headman talked a while, sometimes addressing Skyeskye, who grasped not a word, and then suddenly dismissed his guests with a gesture. One by one, the men stood and ducked out into the blazing sun. Skye followed. There, tied to a picket stake, stood two handsome ponies, each with the peculiar markings these people cherished, one white with black markings, the other brown with white splotches across its rump.

This was a critical moment in many ways. Skye had never before ridden a horse. He had seen horses, the big British kind, chestnut or bay or black, often in harness.

The headman was eyeing him, waiting for something. Skye looked desperately for the old Creole or his woman, and could not spot either of them in the quiet throng. He studied the animals, looking for flaws, but he could scarcely tell a bad horse from a good one, and wouldn't know a horse that misbehaved from an obedient and eager one. Each wore a leather bridle of Indian manufacture. Skye realized they had no iron bits, and surprised himself by understanding that these devices were hackamores, and they could be used to start, stop, and turn a horse as well as an English bit and bridle.

He turned to his host. “These are fine animals. I don't know a thing about them. I don't even know whether you mean for me to pick one, or keep both. I lack a saddle, and will learn to ride them as you do.”

The headman raised two fingers. “Skyeskye,” he said.

Skye nodded, the universal gesture of affirmation. “Thank you, Hemene Moxmox,” he said.

The chief nodded gravely. A small wave of his hand set one of the youths to demonstrate. The boy climbed easily over the back of the lighter pony, took the loop rein, and rode it in a loop. Skye watched intently. Then the youth rode the other in the same manner, and handed the reins of both to Skye. He took them as one would take the keys to a kingdom.

Chapter 15

Skye spent that night in the lodge of Hemene Moxmox. He didn't sleep well. Everything was so strange, not least of which was the intimate presence of the headman's wife and daughters, all of them crowded close. He heard movement in the night, breathing, snoring, people turning about. Someone left, and for a moment starlight appeared at the lodge door. Not even the crowded forecastle of the
Jaguar
was as packed and intimate as this.

But it was the presence of the women that troubled him. How did these people manage certain things? How could they all live through the nights without experiencing the stirrings that plagued Skye? A certain shyness tormented him as he lay there. He had suffered a living death in ships of war, and all the heat and need of youth had been ruthlessly suppressed. But now he lay within reach of several women, and his thoughts troubled and maddened him. He ached to leave the lodge.