The Big Sky (12 page)

The cook struck steel to flint. After a little a feather of smoke arose, fell back, and arose again, shifting in the eddy of the wind. "Plenty food, Pambrun," Jourdonnais ordered, "and coffee again. The night will be long."

Jim sat down and rubbed his aching shoulder. Boone came over and let himself down beside him. Jim chewed on a stick. Out of the side of it he said, "My shoulder'll be wore to a nub, come morning. By littles the damn pole is pushing it clean away."

Three of the Frenchmen, sitting cross-legged, were singing. Jim guessed it was a dirty song. They made mouths over it and their eyes rolled. Two others wrestled on the bank, tumbling over and over and laughing as they tumbled.

"Mules," Jim said. "Just mules. Git 'em out of harness and they roll and heehaw." He looked at Boone. "You got a misery, Boone?"

Boone's gaze went to his face and then to the ground, and it was a little while before he answered. "Just a bellyache, I reckon," he said, but Jim knew it wasn't. Boone got up and went toward the fire, walking stooped at the middle.

Jourdonnais was going from man to man, his forefinger hooked through the handle of a jug. He held it up for Jim. "A drink?" The liquor was like a flame in the mouth, like a fire in the windpipe, like a hot coal in the belly.

"Much obliged."

"Good," said Jourdonnais, of his alcohol and water. "Good whisky."

Pambrun beat a pan with a long-handled spoon. The songs broke off, the wrestling ceased, the men came to their feet and all pushed forward. It was beans again, and lyed corn, and pork strong with salt. In Kentucky people would be looking ahead to wild greens cooked with hog jowl and corn bread and maybe young onions and buttermilk cool from the spring. Jim heaped his plate and sat down against a tree, smiling to himself at Labadie, who was squatted at the water's edge washing his face and hands. For God's sake, who cared about a dirty face?

Summers was talking out of a full mouth. A couple of little pieces of food fell out with his words. "I be dogged! I will, now. Just one deer so fur and a taste of turkey." He shook his head. "Settlers are doin' for 'em." Way early every morning, while darkness still lay on the river and woods, Summers slipped out of his bed and went ahead to hunt, meeting them later on the bank or hanging his game on a limb where they couldn't miss it and going ahead to hunt some more.

As the men finished their meal they took their plates over to Pambrun and went back and lay down, or sat, leaning forward, and pulled deep at their pipes. Jourdonnais had piled a plate to the brim. He slid a spoon in at the side and started to the keelboat. As the sun sank the wind died. It was just a whisper overhead now, a fretwork on the water, a breath on the fire, and after a while it was nothing at all. Leaning against his tree, Jim wondered what had happened to it. Was it still tearing on east of them, rolling the dead grass of last year, bending the trees and whining? Did it leave an emptiness where it came from? He let his back slide from the tree and put his elbow under his head.

It was dark when he woke up. He lay motionless and chilled, feeling the stiff ache of his shoulder, seeing the moon ride low and red in the east. Jourdonnais and Summers were seated near him, smoking.

"Pole or line?" asked Jourdonnais. "What you think?"

"You know the river."

"Non. Not the east bank."

"I reckon not. Everyone puts in at Leavenworth."

"Oui."

"Look open, from the west side?"

Jourdonnais shrugged. "Some trees, brush, sand. You know."

"We ought to warp 'er, maybe. It would be quieter."

Jourdonnais thought it over. "Good," he said, blowing out a mouth of smoke.

"We could go across, maybe under sail." Summers put his head up, feeling for the wind. "Little breeze is beginning to stir, and it's right. Then we pole her along, close as we dast, and tie up, and send the men up with the cordelle."

"Good!" said Jourdonnais again. His head moved. "The moon, she's right. They never see us in the shadow."

"They better not."

Jim caught the faint shine of Jourdonnais' teeth. "Goodbye the alcohol. Goodbye the permit."

"Goodbye us. It'll take Teal Eye and strong water and a heap of luck to set us right with the
Pied Noir
."

Jourdonnais put his palm to the ground and lifted himself up. "It is time." He went from man to man, waking each quietly, as if already the need for silence was on them.

The breeze along the river was soft, hardly filling the sail. Jourdonnais sent the men to the oars. The boat went into the current gently. The water slid under her, shining dimly. The west shore pulled away, standing sharp in the moonlight. Over there a man could almost see to sight a rifle. The east bank climbed above them, climbed to the moon and beyond it, taking them into its shadow. Jourdonnais had the sail hauled down. "Quiet," he said. "Quiet now, all. No song, no curse. Quiet." He moved among them. "To the
passe avant. A bas les perches
." He was on the cargo box, with the rudder making his boat keep to the shore, his face thrust forward.

The boat swam ahead, noiseless except for the careful scuff of leather on the walkway. The crew acted without directions, putting shoulders to poles, feeling for the cleats with their feet, straining at knee and thigh until the first of them, arrived at the end of the
passe avant
, stood straight, and, seeing him, the others all swung about and trooped back and turned again and reset their poles, slipping them into the water. The dark bank moved by them, its trees and undergrowth, its ledges and sand coming out of the darkness and showing themselves and falling into the darkness astern. The water murmured against the boat. Farther out, beyond the line of shadow, it was a wrinkled glimmer under the moon.

Ahead of them and high on the far shore the moon picked out a huddle of buildings. When he lifted his pole and turned and walked back toward the bow, Jim could make out doorways and windows like eye sockets and the dark strokes of sidewalls. From one window a light gleamed like a caught star.

Jourdonnais and Romaine were bringing her in again. Romaine was a shapeless movement in the dark as he went over the side. The men leaned against the cargo box, breathing deep. "The
cordelle
," said Jourdonnais, low-voiced, as he let himself down among them. "Come." He went forward. "Summers?"

The hunter's buckskins set him off from the rest. "Git the
cordelle
," he muttered, "and follow close after me." They strained at the heavy coil of line and lifted it to the gunwale. "Watch now." He gave a hand in getting it ashore.

Summers had cat eyes. He never stumbled, never seemed at a loss for a way, never lunged as branches caught him. The others struggled after him, drawing the heavy line along, cursing in whispers as switches slapped them. He kept them close to the bank, avoiding the trees that arose on their right. "Careful," he warned, turning. "We got to wade." His feet went into the water like an animal's, sure and quiet.

They were upstream from the huddled buildings, as far above as the boat was below. "All right." Summers took the end of the line and tied it around the heavy trunk of a tree, testing the knot after he had made it. "Back, now, and quiet." He led the way and stood aside when they came to the boat and then followed the others aboard.

"Take the line," said Jourdonnais. He carried the slack loop of it past the bow, along the walkway next to the shore. The men took it in until it went taut. "All right." Romaine untied her and came aboard and, straining mightily with his pole, worked her nose out from the bank. The men set themselves and began to pull, the line passing from one pair of hands to another. This way was quieter. Only the smothered grunts of the crew sounded, and the whisper of the waves along the boat and the sound of the line working in the brush up the shore. Jim heaved on the line, relieved to have the pole's knob out of his shoulder. This, he thought, was like the whale swallowing the line, and keeping on swallowing it until it had brought itself to the bank.

Romaine grunted at his pole, forcing the boat out into the river, testing the depth after each push. Once they heard sand running along the keel, and the pullers halted at Jourdonnais' hiss, while Romaine felt for the bar. He waved them on and they pulled again and the boat moved, still working out of the shallows until the
Mandan
was on the very edge of the shadow of the hills. The high cluster of buildings floated downstream, floated by slow inches until it stood over them. Jim felt a breeze along his cheek. It had veered around and was coming from the east. From the quiet huddle of the buildings a dog began to bark, furiously, as if set on waking folks to things their own senses didn't tell them. "Steady," said Jourdonnais. The dog must be running up and down along the bank, the way his barking sounded. Jim strained his eyes to see. A door opened in the building in which the light shone, and the light ran out in a yellow mist. Jourdonnais whispered "Wait!" and the men stopped heaving and the boat lay dead in the outer shadow of the bank. Jim made his breath come easy. He felt, rather than saw, the man standing outside the door, looking down across the river, standing there quiet and watchful, prying at the night with his eyes while the dog tried to tell him what he knew.

Summers squatted in the bow. He cupped his two hands over his mouth. Jim's hackles raised as he heard the howl, starting low and rising -the wild, lonely cry of a wolf, challenging the dog and the night. It might have come from upstream or downstream, from near or far, from anywhere or everywhere. The dog went into a regular fit. His barking ran up and down the shore, carrying clear and sharp across the quiet water in the air that had gone still again. They heard a man's voice. The barking ended in a sudden, surprised yelp. A door slammed, putting out the yellow mist. Jim breathed. Jourdonnais murmured "Pull!" The boat began to move again.

When they came to the end of the line Summers got out and untied it, and the crew went to the poles again, still working quietly. The patch of buildings on the other shore moved downstream and lost itself.

The moon was nearly overhead when they pulled the Mandan in on the eastern bank. "Mon Dieu, what a wolf!" chuckled Jourdonnais. "What a howl! Summers, you are crossed with the bitch wolf." His hands were busy with the lashings on the cargo box.

Summers went ashore and came back to report. "Nigh perfect. There's a good bunch of willows. Here, you."

The alcohol gurgled in its short flag kegs as Jourdonnais lifted it from the cargo box. He brought the kegs over the side, to the men who stood in the water and waded ashore with their loads to the willows where Summers waited. When they were done Jourdonnais brushed his hands together. Jim came back aboard with Summers. "Shipshape," Summers said. "You left some?"
Jourdonnais began lashing down the canvas. "
Oui
. Enough. What the permit allow."

"Enough," supplied Summers, "to keep the damn agent from gettin' suspicious?"

"
Oui
. A little more than what the permit allow, so the Mandan do not appear too pure, like the lily." He chuckled.

"It leaves a hole in the cargo."

"I fix it in the morning so no one would know."

Summers said, "You, Deakins, and you, Caudill, you stay with me. Get a rifle. We're the guard." He put some blankets under his arm. "Pambrun, give us a pot. We'll have empty paunches afore you get back, I'm thinking."

Jourdonnais had the canvas tied down. "We get back about sundown," he said. "Ready."

Jim went over the side of the
Mandan
after Summers and Boone. They stood on the shore, watching the keelboat swing around, seeing the shadows creep over it as it moved with the current.

Jim said, "What-?" and let his voice trail off.

"Jourdonnais'll drop downstream fur as a day's journey up. Tomorrow he'll put in at the fort, show his trader's permit and git his cargo inspected, aimin' to git here just afore dark. We'll load up, come night, and be all set to go next morning. Slick."
They moved off toward the willows. "How much whisky you allowed?" Boone asked.

"Gill a day for each boatman, but for four months only. The big outfits do a sight better. This nigger's knowed land brigades to git a gill a day for a whole year for each man, makin' out they was boatmen, and of course not a boatman in the lot, as everybody knowed." He walked on. "'Course, the crew does git some of it."

They dropped their blankets near the willows, and set down the pot and can Pambrun had given them. "Might as well sleep," Summers said. "It's a long pull to the Blackfoot Nation. First, though, we'll make a little fire and dry out."
 
 

The
Mandan
was making time. The wind stayed at her stern, a gusty, notionable wind, but good enough to keep her moving. With all twenty oars working, the boat slid along. The voyageurs sang to the stroke, sang sounds that Boone had come to know by heart though he did not know their meaning.

Sometimes Jourdonnais, at the steersman's post on the cargo box, joined them, singing in a big, hoarse voice. Romaine stood in the bow, watching the river, his long pole held level in his hands. Now and then he turned and grinned, looking back towards Jourdonnais.

The sky was blue, bluer than in Kentucky, and patched here and there with slow white clouds. The sun looked down from it, bright as could be. Painter lay on deck in the sunshine, his green eyes half open, flexing his claws once in a while as if to keep in practice. The trees along the banks of the river were bright green with leaves still curled from the bud.

Boone pulled to the time, laying the long blade far back and pulling it through, trying for the easy skill of the Creoles. The Missouri wasn't made for a white man, not the way it was for the French. They were like ducks, or like beavers, sure and happy on the water and clumsy and halfscared off it. Jourdonnais wouldn't have taken him and Jim on, Boone reckoned, except he couldn't find a full crew of Creoles.