Centennial (30 page)

Pasquinel and McKeag decided to winter at one of the loveliest spots in all America, that trim peninsula formed where the North Platte was joined by a dark, swift river sweeping in from the west. In later years it would be called after a French coureur de bois who had once trapped with Pasquinel, Jacques La Ramee. No finer river crossed the plains; deep and clean, the Laramie formed a haven for beaver. Wild turkey nested and deer came to feed. Ducks sought refuge, and elk. Buffalo used it as their water spot, and on dead branches, brown-gray hawks stood guard.

In that winter of 1800 the team acquired six bales of superior peltries and were about to head south when a band of Shoshone attacked. The Indians were driven off, but returned to lay siege. A desultory gunfight occurred, but nothing much would have happened except that one Shoshone dashed into camp, astonished McKeag by counting coup on him, and the Scotsman reached for his gun, whereupon the Indian struck him with a tomahawk, gashing his right shoulder.

The wound festered. McKeag became delirious, and any thought of his lugging bales east that June had to be abandoned.

In lucid moments, when McKeag comprehended the dangerous position in which he had placed his partner, he urged Pasquinel to move out: “Begone with you. I’m bound to die.” Pasquinel did not bother to answer. Grimly but with tenderness he tended his stricken partner.

The wound worsened. It became repulsive and threatened death; its smell contaminated the hut. In one of his lucid moments McKeag begged, “Cut it off.” Pasquinel replied, “If you had no arm, how would you fire a gun?”

By mid-July it appeared that McKeag was doomed; again he pleaded with Pasquinel to amputate the arm, and again the Frenchman refused. Instead, he took his ax, chopped a mass of fine wood and built a fire. When it crackled he plunged the ax in, allowing it to become red-hot. Without warning, he slammed the incandescent metal against the corrupt shoulder, pinning McKeag to the paillasse as he did so.

There was a stench of burning flesh, a sound of screaming. Pasquinel maintained pressure on the ax until he judged that he had done enough. This drastic treatment halted the corruption; it also permanently destroyed some of the muscles in McKeag’s right arm. Henceforth it would be cocked at the elbow. When he realized what Pasquinel had done, or rather not done, he ranted, “Why didn’t you cut it off altogether?” He lapsed into delirium and would probably have died had not Lame Beaver’s band of Arapaho wandered by on the prowl for buffalo.

When women from the camp saw McKeag’s condition they knew what had to be done, and they sent girls into the stream beds, looking for those plants which were effective in poultices, and soon the swelling subsided.

“Bad scar,” Blue Leaf told McKeag in Arapaho as she tended him.

“He’ll use his arm,” Pasquinel asserted when this was translated.

One morning while three Arapaho women were watching him—and thinking he was asleep—they began women’s talk about the various braves in camp, and in the robust manner of Indian women, who were never intimidated by their men, they began discussing the sexual equipment of the braves, pointing out any conspicuous deficiencies. Such talk disturbed McKeag, who had been reared in a strict Presbyterian home, and he became even more uncomfortable as the gossip grew rowdier, with even Lame Beaver’s capacity reviewed and found wanting.

At this point Blue Leaf came in and the women stopped their talking, but she could guess what the subject of their conversation had been. “This one speaks our language,” she reminded them, and the three watchers moved to the bed to see if McKeag was awake, and when they were satisfied that he was not, they resumed their chatter and one said that she had seen him when she bathed him and that he seemed even poorer than one of Our People. Blue Leaf silenced them and drove them from the lodge; then she roused McKeag to poultice his shoulder.

Among the Indian girls who gathered medicinal plants was Clay Basket, then eleven and promising to be as pretty as her mother. During the long afternoons she sat with McKeag, learning a little English. She warned him not to call her father chief, for he had never been one. She tried to explain why, but could not make herself clear. Instead, she fetched the buffalo hide which recounted his many coups, and there McKeag saw the Arapaho version of Lame Beaver’s invasion of their tipi two years before. Looking at the impressive record of Lame Beaver’s feats, he told Clay Basket, “Your father chief ... big chief,” and she was pleased.

It was now too late for the traders to return down the Platte, so they prepared to winter at the confluence, strengthening the walls of their hut and making pemmican. McKeag was too weak to hunt, nor was it known whether he would ever be able to fire a gun again, for his shoulder remained a gaping wound. He stayed in the lodge, doing what work he could and talking with Clay Basket about why the Cheyenne were trusted allies and the Comanche wicked enemies.

One afternoon Pasquinel returned with an antelope. He was in an evil mood and with a curse threw the animal at McKeag’s feet. Then he grabbed McKeag’s rifle and pointed to the stock that he had mended with buffalo hide.

“Goddamn! Same thing your shoulder!” He searched for English words, found none, and in frustration, resorted to a method of direct communication which shocked the Indian girl. Pulling his right arm far back, he struck McKeag in the wounded shoulder so forcefully that he knocked him down. Before McKeag could regain his feet, he struck him twice more, then thrust the gun at him, shouting, “Use it. Take gun. Goddamn, use it.” With that he shoved McKeag from the hut.

McKeag, followed by Clay Basket, walked to the banks of the river, and with considerable pain, placed the gunstock against his right shoulder, but he could not muster the strength to lift his hand to the trigger. Sweat stood on his forehead, and against his will, for he did not want an Indian child to see him cry, tears filled his eyes. “It’s too much,” he groaned.

He would have halted the experiment at that point, but Clay Basket now understood what Pasquinel intended. Either McKeag must learn to function again, or die during the winter. She forced him to lodge the rifle once more against his shoulder. Then taking his right hand in hers, she slowly raised his arm, breaking the scar tissue, until his hand touched the trigger. He bit his lip, held the hand there for some seconds, then let it fall.

Again and again Clay Basket lifted the hand easily into position, and when she was satisfied that McKeag could do this by himself, she took the rifle from him, swabbed it, poured in some powder and inserted a ball, as she had learned to do. Ramming the load home, she thrust the gun back into his hands and said, “Now.”

“I can’t,” McKeag protested, refusing to accept the gun.

“Now,” she cried.

She badgered him into taking the gun and raising it into firing position. Slowly she brought his right hand to the stock, placing his forefinger on the trigger. “Now,” she said softly.

Apprehensive of the pain that was about to strike him, McKeag could not pull the trigger. Clay Basket looked at him with pity, thinking of how her father had hung suspended by his breast for a whole day. When it was apparent that McKeag was not going to fire, she raised herself on her toes, placed her small finger over his and gave a powerful jerk backward.

With a shattering explosion the gun fired. She had poured enough powder to fill a cannon, and when Pasquinel rushed from the lodge. all he could see was a cloud of black smoke and McKeag on the ground.

His wound was opened by the recoil, but Blue Leaf stanched the flow of blood with wet leaves. A week later, when scar tissue had barely begun to form, Clay Basket had McKeag out again with the gun. ‘This time I load,’ he said, but when he actually held the stock against his shoulder, the pain was too much. So once again the girl slipped her finger over his and pulled the trigger. When he voluntarily reloaded and fired again, she was so proud of his courage, she shyly pressed her lips against his beard.

It was now time for the Arapaho to move on, to locate one more herd whose meat would sustain them through the winter. Lame Beaver came by to say farewell, and Blue Leaf, stately as a spruce, assured McKeag that his shoulder was now mended. Clay Basket, bright in beads, gently touched their faces and told them in English, “I know you come back.”

The snows came and winds swept down from the north. The river froze and even deer had trouble finding water. From aloft eagles inspected the camp, and the two men sat in their lodge and waited.

There were days, of course, when the winds ceased and the sun shone as if it were summer. Then the partners, naked to the waist, worked outdoors. In their lodges the beaver began to stir, as if this were spring, and elk grazed in the meadows.

But such interludes were followed by storms and temperatures thirty degrees below zero. For three weeks that February the men were snowed under: drifts came clear across their lodge, and like animals they had to burrow out. This caused no concern; they had a comfortable supply of meat and wood. For water they could melt snow—God knows, there was enough of it.

They had no books ... no loss ... neither could read. They had no work, no place to go, no problem but survival. So there, deep beneath the snow, they waited. For five hundred miles in any direction there were no white men, unless perhaps some stubborn voyageur from Detroit had holed up in some valley to the north, like them, awaiting spring.

Occasionally they talked, but mostly they sat in silence. Already they had six bales of beaver, worth at least $3600, plus prospects for six more during the coming season. They were rich men, if they could sneak the pelts back through the Indian country.

On the rare occasions when they did speak they used a strange language: French-Pawnee-English. McKeag’s native tongue was Gaelic, a poetic language spoken softly. When he uttered words it was with a certain shyness; Pasquinel was more glib. But even so, whole days passed with hardly a word being said.

Then the snowfall diminished and drifts began to melt. Mountain streams grew strong and the river became a torrent. Beaver in their lodges began to stir and moose dropped last year’s antlers. Buffalo pawed at the earth and wild turkeys came down from their winter roosts. During warm spells rattlesnakes emerged from deep rocky crevices. One day when the full wonder of spring was about them, Pasquinel said, “We trade six weeks, go home.”

As they were returning down the Missouri, along that endless east-west reach the river takes before it enters the Mississippi, their rhythmic paddling was interrupted by the appearance of a solitary man bringing a canoe upstream and shouting their names: “Pasquinel! McKeag! Great news for you.”

Sweating with nervousness, he pulled his canoe alongside theirs and introduced himself: “Joseph Bean, Kentucky.” His attention focused immediately on the bales, and he said, “What good luck I bring you. I act as agent for Hermann Bockweiss.” He stopped, as if this startling information carried its own interpretation.

“Qui est-il?” Pasquinel asked.

“Silversmith from Germany. Makes wonderful trinkets for the Indian trade.” Pasquinel shrugged his shoulders, and Bean continued frenetically: “Came to Saint Louis last January. Heard you were the best trader on the river. Says he will advance the money for your trips.”

Pasquinel replied brusquely, “No need. I work Dr. Guisbert.”

“Aha!” the American cried. “That’s just it! Dr. Guisbert ... his partner died and he moved to New Orleans for a rich life downriver.” He explained the new situation in Saint Louis: Pasquinel would deliver Guisbert’s pelts to the German, who would sell and send Dr. Guisbert ...

On and on Bean went, an irritating man, perspiring constantly, but so insistent that the traders had to consider this invitation. When they finally landed at Saint Louis they saw gleaming down at them from the shore the round, plump face of Hermann Bockweiss, silversmith, lately from Munich.

He occupied the house formerly owned by Dr. Guisbert, and in the rooms that had once been devoted to medicine he plied his delicate trade. Using silver imported from Germany and brought up the Mississippi from New Orleans, he fabricated not only the trinkets so loved by the Indians but also the ornate jewelry desired by women as far north as Detroit.

His own childlike enthusiasm enabled him to predict what gleaming device would catch an Indian’s fancy. It was he who invented the ear wheel for the squaws, dainty pendants enclosing tiny wheels which revolved, and silver-inlaid tomahawks for the braves. He offered a set of five half-moon pins for women and three wide bands for the upper arm of a man. His specialty was the fish-eyed brooch, an ordinary flat pin upon which he had deposited a score of small, glistening beads of silver; his most impressive item was the silver-chased peace pipe, a stunning affair adorned with pendants of multicolored beads.

At the same time this canny German realized that in the long run his profits would have to come from whatever trade he established with the local gentry, and he had real skill in combining the demands of French elegance with the sturdy approach to silver design he had learned in Bavaria. Indeed, a Bockweiss piece tended to become an heirloom, a subtle blending of two cultures.

His relationship with Pasquinel was interesting. Since Saint Louis still had fewer than a thousand inhabitants, there was no public hotel, and coureurs from the west had to find such lodging as they could in private homes. Most families did not care to board the filthy and profane men, but Bockweiss insisted that Pasquinel and McKeag accept his hospitality. He had two daughters, Lise, the strong-minded one, and Grete, the coquette, and he convinced himself that one day the coureurs would become his sons-in-law. Normally a father in Saint Louis would have preferred his daughters to marry more substantial types, say, established businessmen, but Bockweiss had not made the long journey from Munich to Saint Louis because he was cautious. He was a romantic who relished the idea of probing unsettled prairies and saw that McKeag and Pasquinel fitted the pattern of his new country. So the coureurs moved into rooms above the shop, and Bockweiss noticed with gratification that Lise was developing an interest in Pasquinel, while Grete confided that she thought McKeag congenial.