The Shirt On His Back Page 5

  Hannibal didn’t get wages – or indeed any payment at all – from the Ivy and Wallach Trading Company. ‘All right,’ he agreed. ‘I won’t do it again.’

  Morning Star and her sisters put up a lodge behind the Ivy and Wallach markee, Morning Star took over the cooking of the feast from the camp-setter Jorge (which was just as well, in January’s opinion), Robbie Prideaux and his friends invited themselves over with all the rest of the elk (sans entrails – January wanted to ask who had won the contest, but didn’t dare lest he be given more details than he wished to hear), and after supper Hannibal, to impress his new in-laws, played the violin. Mozart and O’Carolan, jigs and shanties and sentimental ballads. Some of the men got up in the firelight and danced, with the Taos girls who – hearing the music – walked up from Seaholly’s in their jingling poblana finery, or with each other in the time-honored frontier fashion, the ‘lady’ scrupulously marked with a red bandanna knotted around a hairy wrist. As the music flowed out like a shining rainbow over the meadows, January saw them gather in the darkness beyond the light of the fire, as Prideaux had predicted: traders and engagés from the Hudson’s Bay camp, independent trappers and representatives from half a dozen Indian tribes. Most who came hauled along contributions to the feast: grouse, pronghorns, a bighorn sheep . . .

  Most also brought liquor, and Hannibal smiled and shook his head; to the first of them, his new brother-in-law Chased By Bears, he explained, ‘The Sun spoke to me in a dream and told me that if I tasted firewater again, he would take my music away from me forever.’ Everyone seemed to accept this except yellow-bearded Jed Blankenship, who was stupendously drunk himself and was finally removed by Prideaux and Shaw for a non-consensual bath in the river. Manitou Wildman, also drunk, burst into bitter tears when Hannibal played ‘Für Elise’ and retired to the meadows to howl at the moon.

  Had they planned it, January reflected later, they could have found no better way of meeting two-thirds of the camp and bringing the Ivy and Wallach store into the mainstream of gossip for the remainder of the rendezvous.

  The bride herself was a little pocket-Venus, about twenty-two years old, with a round face, twinkling black eyes, and – like most Indian ladies – a repertoire of jokes that would put a preacher into seizure at forty paces. She was a better cook than Jorge (the same could also have been said of Robbie Prideaux’s dog) and murderously efficient at moccasin repair, no small boon given the quickness with which the soft leather footwear wore through. Before the end of the wedding festivities, she had bargained for Robbie Prideaux’s elk hide and the skin of the bighorn sheep that had been the contribution of Sir William Stewart – second son of the Laird of Grandtully and guest of the AFC – to the celebration; January came back from his morning bath in the river to find her fleshing and stretching them outside the lodge. ‘Why should you trade good beads to that woman with the Delawares who sews moccasins,’ she asked, ‘when I can make you better ones for nothing? But you also should have a wife, Winter Moon,’ she added gravely.

  ‘I do,’ replied January. ‘But she is back in the city of the white men on the Great River, being unable to come with us on account of being with child.’ Even speaking her name filled him with longing and with joy.

  ‘Rose.’ Morning Star gave him her beautiful smile. ‘Sun Mouse told me.’ Sun Mouse was her name for Hannibal – one which had been almost immediately picked up by every whore in the camp as well. ‘I meant, a wife for the rendezvous. I have two sisters—’

  ‘Tall Chief forbade more than one of our party to have a wife.’ The twin concepts of being faithful to a spouse a thousand miles away, should one possess such a thing, or of avoiding a massive dose of the clap by steering clear of Mick Seaholly’s girls, were so alien to almost everyone at the rendezvous that January didn’t waste his breath explaining them. Instead he spun Morning Star an elaborate tale of the shooting contest by which it was determined which of them would be permitted to marry, and how Sun Mouse had bested both himself and Tall Chief – Shaw – by putting sand in their powder.

  The Indian girl laughed with delight – January had known from childhood that the myth of the stoic, silent Indian was exactly that, a myth – and said, ‘To speak the truth, Winter Moon, I would have been happy with any of the three of you, though of course I will be a very good wife to Sun Mouse and never look at other men.’ She winked at him. ‘But I do have two sisters, should Tall Chief ever change his mind.’

  Given the number of knives, awls and blankets, and the amount of trade-vermillion the Sioux had walked off with last night, January didn’t think this at all likely, but he thanked her nevertheless. Even taking into account the cost of the lambskin condoms stocked in a discreet box at the back of the Ivy and Wallach tent – of which they had sold precisely one, to a trader named Sharpless from Missouri who had never been at the rendezvous before – and adding in the price Mick Seaholly charged for liquor, retail appeared to be more cost-effective in this area than wholesale.

  Hannibal emerged from the lodge shortly after that, greeted January sleepily in passing and went down to the river to bathe. When he returned, bringing a can of water to heat for shaving, he listened to January’s account of his conversation with Shaw the previous evening and nodded. ‘You speak like an ancient and most quiet watchman. It sounds as if the best we can do, given the circumstances, is turn ourselves into spies: find the men in camp that no one knows and no one can vouch for. Surely not so difficult—’

  ‘It will be if Boden’s in league with men who’ll vouch that he’s someone else,’ pointed out January. ‘If Hepplewhite, for instance, is working for the Hudson’s Bay Company, or the AFC—’

  ‘Too true. Secreta tagatur.’ The fiddler lifted the can of hot water from the fire – even in his worst days in New Orleans, January had never known his friend to be less than fastidious. ‘I suppose the first thing we ought to do is get on the good side of the trappers who were at Forty Ivy last winter: Manitou Wildman, Clemantius Groot, and Goshen Clarke.’

  ‘Wildman’s supposed to have a camp in the hill about three miles up Horse Creek.’ January dug in his pockets for his own razor. ‘Prideaux will know where to locate Groot and Clarke.’

  They found Robespierre Prideaux making bullets preparatory to going hunting as soon as his various friends either wakened in their blankets – their bodies strewed in the vicinity of the fire like battle dead – or staggered back from Seaholly’s. ‘In the mountains they are wise as wolves and savage as owls,’ said the mountaineer, shaking his head over them. ‘But thunder my dogs, in camp they are as sorry a parcel of tosspots as ever caused a mother to sink down into her grave with grief.’

  When January brought up the subject – casually, he thought – of Clarke and Groot, Prideaux’s blue eyes narrowed sharply, and his voice sank to a conspiratorial hush: ‘What have you heard, pilgrim?’

  January suppressed the urge to hastily disavow having heard anything, looked around him and whispered in turn, ‘What have you heard?’

  The mountaineer showed signs of a cautious rejoinder, and for an instant January thought the conversation would degenerate into mutually unintelligible hints, but after long thought, Prideaux seemed to conclude that attending Hannibal’s wedding had made him part of the Ivy and Wallach family. ‘Rumor is, hoss, that Beauty Clarke was seen buyin’ five shirts – five! – up at the HBC camp. An’ Clem Groot – I heard this for truth – bought ten trap-springs from that Mex trader Morales down the other side of the Company. An’ that can only mean they’re gettin’ ready to pull foot.’

  Dammit, thought January. He recalled Shaw’s remark yesterday about not wanting to track his quarry through a million square miles of mountains, with or without hostile Indians . . .

  But the mountaineer’s conspiratorial tone urged him to frown, as if putting pieces together, and counter with, ‘Already?’ It was a reasonable question: generally the rendezvous would last through July. In summer furs weren’t worth taking.

  ‘Listen t
o me, hoss,’ Prideaux whispered, though it was quite clear the Last Trump wouldn’t have waked any of the sleepers around them. ‘You throw in with me – and swear to speak to no one else of this –’ he glanced across at Hannibal, who raised his left hand in avowal and crossed his heart with his right – ‘an’ when they leave the camp, you an’ me, we’ll be right on their trail. You ain’t thinkin’ of goin’ for a trapper, are you, Sun Mouse?’

  Hannibal shook his head. ‘I’d never be back in time to open with the Opera in New Orleans,’ he said. ‘But you go on ahead, Benjamin—’

  ‘Once they’re in the high country,’ continued Prideaux, ‘we’ll show ourselves to ’em, an’ they’ll have to cut us in. Think of it! You seen them skins they was sellin’ day ’fore yesterday to John McLeod at the HBC! Waugh! Beaver as big as bears, an’ with fur as thick as bears! Beaver like ain’t been seen in this country for ten years, since it’s got so trapped over!’

  January snapped his fingers like a man enlightened. ‘They’ve got a secret valley!’

  ‘Hell, yes!’ cried Prideaux, utterly forgetting the need for secrecy. None of his companions stirred.

  Inwardly, January sighed. Through all of yesterday’s gossipy conversations across the counter of the store, the rumor of a Secret Beaver Valley had come and gone: an elusive Cloud Cuckooland where every stream swarmed with beaver, as all streams in this country had – the oldest trappers agreed – before the Company and the HBC and the now-defunct Rocky Mountain Company had sent in brigades in an attempt to run one another out of business by scooping all the furs for themselves.

  ‘Stands to reason they’ll be sneakin’ out of camp any night now.’ Prideaux sank his voice to a whisper again and glanced around as if he expected black-cloaked conspirators to be crouched behind every prairie-dog hill. ‘We gotta watch ’em, hoss. The Dutchman’s sly as they come, an’ that Cree wife of his knows this valley like I know the back of my hand. But when we catch ’em, we’ll tell ’em there’s plenty for the two of us an’ them, too – steal my horse if I ever seen two men trap seven packs in one season, like they did! We’ll be rich!’

  ‘Wonderful,’ sighed January as he and Hannibal made off across the meadow in the direction Prideaux pointed out to them (‘But not a word we guessed, now!’). ‘Secret valley or not, with half the camp breathing down their necks they’re not going to appreciate company—’

  So indeed it proved. After nearly tripping over Jed Blankenship – who had chosen to clean his rifle sitting on a slight rise of the ground that overlooked the Dutchman’s camp – January and Hannibal were greeted by Clemantius Groot’s wife Fingers Woman, with the news that no, she had no idea where her husband and his partner were . . . The Dutchman’s three camp-setters all shook their heads. Nor any idea when they’d be back. As they left the little cluster of shelters around Fingers Woman’s tipi, January could not but notice, some three-quarters of a mile away, among the thin timber on the hills that rose beyond Horse Creek, another couple of watchers, loafing on the creek bank with spyglasses . . .

  ‘What about Wildman?’ Hannibal shaded his eyes to scan the rough country west along the creek. Clouds had begun to build above the mountains to the north; the wind that rippled the prairie grass smelled of thunder. The Dutchman’s camp, set in the meadow nearly a mile from the river, was one of the furthest removed from the main rendezvous, and standing in the midst of that endless openness, January was conscious of just how defenseless he was. South and north, the valley floor was dotted with the white clusters of tipis that marked the Indian villages: Shoshone, Sioux, Cree, Snake, Flathead . . .

  And Omaha.

  ‘Let’s find out first,’ he said, ‘if Iron Heart and his men completely understand my intentions toward that girl yesterday. I don’t have my rifle with me, and I’d rather not discover suddenly that I should.’

  ‘He may be at Seaholly’s. Manitou, I mean, not Iron Heart.’

  ‘And if he’s not,’ said January, ‘since, as far as I know, Wildman doesn’t have a secret beaver valley, he probably will be later.’

  Mick Seaholly’s tent – the farthest north of the AFC encampment – was a fair-sized markee, with a trestle bar built across the long side that stood open to the path and an assortment of tree trunks on the ground before it for the accommodation of customers who wanted to have a seat while drinking. Two ash-filled pits announced the further amenities of campfires after dark, and across the trestle, January could see where rough tables had been constructed by nailing together slats from dismantled packing-crates, to accommodate games of monte, poker, and vingt-et-un, which Americans referred to as blackjack. At any time of the day or night the makeshift saloon was a center of activity: in front of it, on the other side of the trail, a well-trampled half-acre or so of the meadow served as a site for shooting contests and wrestling matches, while behind it, six rough shelters – barely more than sheets of canvas tacked over ridge poles – served the Taos girls as cribs.

  Seaholly, looking as usual like a debauched seraph, greeted them with a friendly query about what their poison might be and – much to January’s surprise – admitted his willingness to provide Hannibal with what was called fizz pop: vinegar and sugar mixed with water to which a small quantity of soda was added, to provide ‘kick’. ‘You’re not the only man in the mountains who’s taken the pledge,’ the barkeep said, regarding Hannibal with his strange blue eyes. ‘And you are welcome to as much of that revolting potion as you can drink, if you’ll grace my establishment with your fiddle of an evening. Yourself, sir?’ he added, turning to January, exactly as if there were drinking establishments anywhere in the length and breadth of the United States that would permit a black man to stand at the same counter as white ones.

  ‘A champagne cocktail,’ said January gravely, and Seaholly gave him a devil’s grin and the usual glass of watered-down forty-rod that everyone else got for the cost of a beaver pelt. There were traders who had better liquor – Charro Morales, just down the path from the AFC, supposedly had the finest in the camp, if anyone wanted to pay three plews a shot for it – but nobody had cheaper.

  ‘Tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi Silvestram tenui Musam meditaris avena,’ declared Hannibal, raising his glass. ‘You have a deal, sir. Perhaps you might assist us with a quest?’

  Seaholly allowed that Wildman, Groot, and Clarke had all been in his establishment earlier in the day and were likely to return: ‘Though if you – or Mr Wallach – have specific business to transact with Manitou I’d suggest a different venue. He comes here for a single purpose, when he comes, and pursues it single-mindedly, and I do not refer –’ he glanced down the bar at the whores Veinte-y-Cinco and La Princessa – ‘to the pleasures of congenial company. On the occasions when Wildman comes in to make a night of it, it’s best to catch him early.’

  A shooting contest was forming up on the other side of the path, and while Hannibal improved his acquaintance with the two ladies at the end of the bar, January crossed to observe. ‘Steal my mule, hoss, you can’t just stand there!’ protested Robbie Prideaux, and he offered January the loan of his own piece, a very handsome Lancaster. January had not been a bad shot before – given that no black man in the United States was permitted to own firearms – and had practiced every evening on the trail, and he felt that he didn’t acquit himself badly. He felt, moreover, that he deserved extra points for not shooting Jed Blankenship, when that gentleman trumpeted, ‘Not bad shootin’ for a nigger! Where’d you learn which end of the gun the bullet comes outta, boy?’

  ‘My daddy was Daniel Boone,’ January replied blandly. ‘You never heard how he was kidnapped by the Barbary Pirates, and rescued an African princess, before he got away by killing ten of the Sultan’s guards and building himself a raft of their dead bodies? The only reason my shooting isn’t better,’ he added modestly – because in fact he’d been outshot by all the trappers and most of the engagés at a hundred yards and considered himself lucky to have seen the playing-card target at two
hundred and fifty – ‘is that I was twelve years old before she sent me to America to learn from him, and he was old then, and his sight was failing. But I’m here to learn.’

  A number of the trappers had to cover their mouths to hide huge grins, but Jed – a fair-haired Missourian with an ingratiating manner when he was sober – looked like he believed every word.

  ‘The man’s an excrescence,’ muttered Sir William Stewart, when Blankenship made off across the path with his slender winnings – from bets on the other contestants as well as on himself – to do them gals a FAVOR!, as he loudly put it. ‘I can think of few civilized societies in which he’d be able to prosper as he does here. But I can only assume that the Laws of Nature will eventually deal with him as he deserves: as, indeed, they deal with every man in this land.’ The Scotsman studied January’s face for a moment, a slight frown pulling at his dark brows, while January – in company with two or three of the trappers – examined the new Manton rifle Stewart had been trying out.

  ‘Orleans Ballroom,’ said January, interpreting his glance.

  The tall man’s face broke into a smile. ‘Good heavens, the piano player! What on earth are you doing up here?’

  ‘Trying to keep my house,’ said January, and Stewart grimaced.

  ‘It is bleak down there, isn’t it? I thought to make a go of it as a cotton broker, but it’s hardly the year to try to start any business, is it?’ Camp rumor had it that the tall, commanding Scotsman was the heir to a title, a castle and considerable property in his homeland, but despite his blood horses, private loaders and pack-train of civilized amenities like brandied peaches and foie gras, Stewart was an unpretentious man who had won the respect of the trappers by his businesslike attitude and his willingness to do his share of the work on the trail.