Rendezvous (15 page)

And the nights … He eyed the two sisters, who grinned back at him, conspirators at taking turns. He needed to think about that. His shipmates would have boasted about it, but something in it troubled him. He didn't know these women. This most intimate act had been with strangers who couldn't speak his tongue. Something was missing.

He pulled his buckskin shirt over his head, found his topper and jammed it over his unruly hair, scratched at his luxurious beard, and thought he had failed his hosts this night. He knew nothing about the warfare of the savages and knew he had better learn fast. This was not the civilized world, with constables and sheriffs. He realized he had been lucky to come two or three hundred miles without being murdered or robbed. Whatever else this night and this loss of a valuable horse had accomplished, it taught him a hard lesson.

This morning the Shoshones were in a different mood. Those who brought the horses back were honored. They paraded through the village receiving their praise, which others were eager to offer. But even though Skye couldn't understand a word, he could sense the change. No longer was this a romp toward the rendezvous, but a solemn procession, with grim-faced young men, bristling with weapons—bows, quivers, lances, clubs, hatchets, knives—flanking the women and children and elders.

Skye walked along with Perrault's women, who were quiet this morning, but then old Perrault joined him, riding beside Skye as he walked ever southward.

“Ah, damn dem
Pieds Noirs.
Dey get eleven horse—dey get away. Dey get you horse, eh? You get another. Lots of horse. Go steal one. Dey get you horse, you go take another horse from dem. We gonna get even someday, soon as we trade for powder, fusil, lots balls. Den we steal fifty horse and kill a few of dem devils. Dey got lots of Nor' West fusils, guns dey get from the
Anglais.
But we get rifles at rendezvous, eh? You come along, we go take ten horse for every one dey get.”

“Are they the worst tribe?”

“Oui,
du nord.
Dey strong, much bigger den Snakes. Dey pick on us, Crows, Flatheads, Assiniboine, Gros Ventres, all dem. You kill a
Pied Noir
and six more grow in his place.”

“The men are all painted up. What does that mean?”

“It means lots of things. Dem that paints is ready for war. Dey all got their private medicine, lightning, stars, like dat. Good paint, make 'em strong.”

“How do they make that bright red?”

“Dat's vermilion. Dey get that from traders. The rest dey get from plants and rocks an' mix wid grease.”

“If they come again, I'll fight.”

“Ah, you get yourself kill. You get a good rifle at rendezvous—mountain gun like a Hawken—and den fight.”

Skye didn't reply. In the right circumstances, he could do more with a belaying pin than a firearm. He couldn't afford the mountain rifle, and anyway, he was bound for the east coast and the Yankees.

“How long to the rendezvous?”

Perrault shrugged. “Maybe a few days. Who know?” He eyed Skye. “How come you walking? Go put your stuff on my woman's travois.”

“Travois? My stuff?”

“Won't hurt nothing.”

Skye didn't need a second invitation. He waited for the women to pull up. Perrault barked a command, and even before Skye could loosen his load, the women were pulling off Skye's packsaddle and heaping his stuff on top of their folded lodgeskins. Skye watched long enough to see that his things were securely tied down, and then put his saddle on the brown, glad to ride again.

“Now mebbe you give old Perrault a few whiskey at the rendezvous, eh?”

“If I can,” Skye replied.

The days passed uneventfully, but Skye used every moment to learn what he could, often consulting with Perrault. He studied the buffalohide lodges and admired their utility. They could easily be erected in minutes, were light and portable, were designed to handle a fire within and contain its heat, and could be made comfortable any season of the year.

He had never seen a buffalo, and itched to see the awesome black herds Perrault told him about. At first Skye scoffed; there could not be so many buffalo. But when he considered the number of hides in just one small eleven-pole lodge, he reconsidered. There were thousands of hides in this village.

He discovered that virtually every part of the buffalo could be put to use: its bones became tools, ladles, kitchen implements. Its hide could become a warm winter robe, and its meat could feed a lodge for many days. Its fat and meat mixed with berries could make pemmican, and the thick breast hide of the bulls could be turned into a war shield strong enough to deflect an arrow or spear or even a musket ball. He could make good moccasin soles from bullhide, and he could dry the sinew layered along the spinal cord into usable thread or a bowstring. He could stuff buffalo hair into a pillow or saddle pad, turn the scrotum into a rattle or a purse, or tan the soft hide of an unborn calf into a pouch.

He discovered that hunting these beasts was a great enterprise and sport, and that a fast and fearless pony, trained to draw close enough so its rider could drive an arrow into the heart-lung area just behind the front legs, was a prized possession and a source of wealth and food. He absorbed Perrault's vast buffalo lore, and realized that these tribes could scarcely exist without the animal, which was why the buffalo was greatly honored among them. Not even the salmon was prized so much as the buffalo.

At first he studied the practical, lifesaving, and useful things he found among these people: he studied war clubs, flint arrowheads, the traders' iron arrowheads, the way bows were made, and the wood used in them. He watched how the Shoshone made fires, what they used for tinder, and how they preserved a live coal long enough to start the next fire. He watched two women flesh a deer hide with scrapers made of bone and a bit of iron. He studied the roots and plants the women plucked and dug and used in their stews, the yamp and sego lily and camas, and the digging tools they used to wrench bulbs from stubborn soil.

He learned something about the medicinal herbs these people used, such as dogwood and yarrow for fevers, and the various stalks and leaves that would yield a dye, such as alder and bloodroot. He pestered Perrault endlessly, until the old Iroquois breed laughed or growled at him, but Skye knew that he had to learn, and fast, to survive, and that this tribe could teach him much of what he needed to know.

All these arts and crafts came naturally to a people who planted nothing but hunted and fished and gathered nature's own bounty. He knew if he could master even the half of what these people knew, he would improve his chance to survive his long journey across the continent.

He discovered that these people had religious and spiritual traditions that conformed to their way of life, but he could grasp little of them. He saw no sign of organized religion, but he discerned that each person had his own religion—Perrault called it medicine, an odd but fitting word—his own spiritual helpers, his own protectors and mentors. Some wore small totems, or little bags suspended from the neck; others wore amulets, often a small carved turtle of wood or bone. These things interested him less than the ones that he could employ to survive in the wilds, but he was curious about them. Perrault was little help on that score, and shrugged off Skye's endless questions, sometimes turning surly when Skye pushed too hard.

“You crazy,” he snarled. “Damn! You owe me whiskey.”

Perrault did tell him about one useful thing: the tribes could communicate with a hand language. Skye vowed to learn all he could; then, at least, he would have some way to communicate with these people. Maybe someone at the rendezvous could help him learn the sign language.

They emerged from the valley into a broad hazy land, with foothills rising to the east and arid drainages to the west.

“Pretty damn soon, now, Skye—ah, damn,
Mister
Skye. You be crazy.”

Then one morning Skye sensed an excitement in camp. The Shoshones astonished him with their festival dress. The women decked themselves in quilled or beaded buckskins or flannel; the men wore all their war honors. A barbarous beauty pervaded the whole village, along with an expectation that Skye could feel as well as see in eager, joyous faces.

They paraded that grand July day, their horses mincing and dancing, their exodus orderly and spirited. Skye felt something mad and wild clear to his bones, and rode eagerly, scarcely able to believe the transformation around him. He didn't need to be told: today they would arrive at the rendezvous.

They turned east along a sluggish river, and followed it into a wide valley with grassy plains. It seemed a barren place to Skye, almost treeless except along the river. But a haze of blue smoke hung over this place, and the rolling grasslands were dotted with horses of all descriptions and colors. Lodges clustered near the river, intermixed with brush arbors that supplied shade. Skye could see two or three white men's tents of canvas, rectangular and angular compared to the conical skin lodges. As the Shoshones approached, they began to sing and dance. The warriors strung their bows and withdrew arrows from their quivers. Was this going to be a battle? Skye watched nervously, wondering what all this was about. And then, in one wild swoop, the Shoshones dashed madly into the rendezvous, a mock attack that was met by mock resistance from other Indians, and by white men who discharged their rifles into the skies and howled right along with the Shoshones. Then the Shoshones paraded through the whole vast encampment, whooping, displaying their gauds and war honors, strutting, whirling their horses.

Skye rode among them, astonished at all this, astonished at the odd-looking white men, most of them dressed in peculiar costumes, part European but largely adapted from the tribes around them. They sported beards as luxurious as Skye's. Some wore necklaces of bone, which won Skye's curiosity.

Perrault rode beside Skye. “Dem's Crows. Dey got here before us,” he said. “Dat's de rendezvous, and now de fun start. Pretty soon dey all come sniffing around. Den dey give ribbons and looking glasses and calico and needles and knives an' stuff for my women and me. You get me jug of whiskey, and den you get one woman or the other any time.” He slapped his bony knee and howled like a wolf.

Skye stared. Perrault was selling his women.

Chapter 20

Jedediah Smith dreamed of two things, adventure and wealth. A fortune would assuage the yearnings of his Calvinist soul and prove his worth before God and man. Adventure would test his mettle and make life sharp and exhilarating.

There in Cache Valley that July of 1826 he saw a way to have both. While the free trappers with Ashley and Smith's fur company began their rendezvous frolic, he was busy forming a new company to buy out General Ashley, who had at last made a fortune in beaver plews, and wanted to escape the fur trade before some new disaster laid him low.

The new partners and Ashley had been dickering all morning in their buffalo-skin lodge, but they weren't far from agreement. The lodge cover had been rolled up two or three feet, letting the playful breezes sweep in. That cooled the occupants and let them keep an eye on the glistening prairies just outside, where veteran trappers were sucking trade whiskey from Ashley's store after a year's parch, and swapping elaborate lies.

On hand also were Davey Jackson and Bill Sublette, experienced mountaineers and participants in the great Ashley-Henry venture that had probed up the Missouri River in search of a fortune in beaver pelts. There had been much to negotiate, but now an agreement was in sight, forged by Ashley and the new company of Smith, Jackson, and Sublette. The idea was simple, even if the details were complex. The new booshways, as the free trappers called them, were buying out Ashley, and would pay him with beaver pelts the following year. If they sent Ashley an express asking for more supplies, he would deliver them to this rendezvous site next July and return to the States with the pelts.

Smith knew Ashley was getting the best of the deal: the real profits in the fur trade went to its suppliers, who charged several times St. Louis prices to bring the goods a thousand dangerous miles to the Stony Mountains. But Smith didn't expect the new partnership to suffer: in Jackson and Sublette he had two masters, canny veterans who would lead trapping parties to the beaver in the fall, winter, and spring when the pelts were prime, and harvest the wealth of the wilderness. They would do, along with a handful of brilliant mountaineers, such as Bridger, Harris, and Fitzpatrick.

The partners and Ashley broke for the nooning and meandered out of the lodge into the brilliant sun. Before them lay a vast undulating prairie with enough grasses on it to keep horses fat during the entire rendezvous. The Wasatch Mountains rose to the east, their lower slopes dry and barren. Far to the southwest lay the Great Salt Lake, guarding a hostile desert beyond. Closer at hand, an emerald band of trees and brush lined the river, supplying firewood, game, and shelter to the great trapper's fair.

The event had barely begun and would last five or six weeks, until the wildmen of the mountains had squandered their last plew and the booshways were organizing and outfitting their brigades. Jed Smith—they called him Diah—was not one of those wildmen, and had blown nothing on trade whiskey—actually, pure grain alcohol seasoned with tobacco and spices and diluted with river water. He was one of them and yet he wasn't, a man apart, a man who daily read his King James Bible and sought the blessings of God upon his endeavors. And yet he was a man born to lead, born to adventure, and withal, tougher and more sagacious about wilderness than any of the others. The trappers trusted him more than any other brigade leader, knowing he would get them through. He understood the revelries and the animal hungers that fueled them so far from civilization, and never intervened or criticized, although he kept apart. The trappers, in turn, understood that about him and accepted his leadership without cavil, a bond built on mutual respect.