Cheyenne Winter (14 page)

Charbonne fixed him with a sharp stare, as if to say the question was an impertinence. But Guy never wavered. Long years in the financial world had hardened him to some things and honed his ability to pierce secrets. You didn’t lend money to men you didn’t trust — or men who weren’t candid.

“Sarpy, he would say that,” Marcel muttered. “What if it is not so? You are opposed to us,
oui?
Why should I say a thing? This is not a linen-covered table at the Planters House.”

Guy waited him out. Marcel hadn’t said no. Guy sensed the man had to grumble a while before he acceded. He let the bourgeois grow uncomfortable in the silence.

Charbonne lifted the empty snifter ritually, sucked at a final drop of cognac, and sighed. “Poudrier got off here. He’s working for me. So is Dorion. Raffin  . . . ”

“Raffin wasn’t supposed to get off here but he did. He is engaged at Fort Union, to Denig and Culbertson,
oui?”

“And — ”

“Raffin, he gets off — and disappears.”

Something pulsed in Guy. Raul Raffin.

“He disappears with a company horse. He signed a three-year engagement again.”

“Do you know which direction?”

Charbonne shrugged. “Not a trace. One morning he and a bay horse are gone.”

“Surely you inquired of his friends  . . . ”

“They knew nothing. At least they say they knew nothing. Treachery, Guy. He comes up the river with a new contract — and steals a horse.”

“Tell me, did Raffin know Brokenleg?”

“They tell me he did. They were trappers together.”

“Any reason for him to hate Brokenleg Fitzhugh?”

Charbonne sighed. “They both wanted Little Whirlwind once.”

Another jolt pulsed through Guy.

“Any idea why he might have sabotaged our cargo?”

Charbonne shook his head.

“Marcel, could you guess where he’s going?”

The bourgeois stared out the tiny window, one with rare glass in it. “This is where one would leave the
bateau
if one were going to the Cheyenne,” he said.

Brokenleg always had a sense of homecoming when he rode into the village of Whit Wolf. He’d wintered with the band a few times during his trapping days. His pa-in-law, One Leg Eagle, a great medicine man, and his ma-in-law, Antelope, lived here, their lodge always open to him, except for the taboo: he couldn’t say a word, not a blessed word, to Antelope. That was the Cheyenne way and maybe there was some sense in it.

He steered his team toward the chief’s lodge for a howdy — the ceremonies couldn’t be avoided; a chief’s welcome of a guest was a rule in any village. He didn’t mind. This time he’d brought a whole load of trade goods, and the way to get started with that was to dole out a gift or two to White Wolf and his headmen. Villagers gaped at the wagon. Most had never seen one before, although a few had rolled over the medicine trail along the Platte River. Children squealed. Women recognized Little Whirlwind and waved joyously, their hands an invitation for a visit. In a few hours, after a howdy with her family, she’d plumb disappear among those tawny cones of cowhide. Maybe by design, he thought darkly. She’d leave him with her sisters. It parched his throat to think on it, and he intended to wet it with some of those spirits he’d socked away in the wagon bed.

He found White Wolf waiting before his decorated lodge, in proper regalia, bonnet and feather-decked lance, a sort of crown and scepter of the Cheyenne. Fitzhugh clambered to earth, stomped life into his bum leg, and handed the lines to solemn brown boys.

“Ah, Badleg, and our own Little Whirlwind,” he said in Cheyenne lingo, which Fitzhugh grasped easily. “Come let us smoke.”

He saw his pa-in-law there, smiling happily. A throng crowded around the wagon and lodge, including a couple of white men. A black-bearded, barrel-shaped one look familiar, but the crowds blocked Fitzhugh’s view. The man didn’t seem eager to present himself. Creole, anyway, Fitzhugh thought.

“But what is this that you’ve brought? I have heard you shot a white buffalo. It blesses us, this sacred hide.”

“Back a way, up against the Bighorns.”

“Nothing could bring more joy to us.” The chief beckoned Brokenleg into the lodge, and several headmen ducked through the oval door and into the lodge, which had its cover rolled up a foot or so above the earth.

“Dust Devil, you mind diggin’ me some tobacca?” he said to her.

“I am Little Whirlwind,” she retorted in Cheyenne, but she ducked back under the sheet and presently returned with several dark twists, one for each headman. He snatched them and ducked inside, having a bad time with his bum leg, as he always did.

They smoked the chief ’s long-stemmed calumet quietly, saluting the four directions, the earth mother and the One Above, and eventually old White Wolf got around to welcoming him. The chief didn’t ask about the wagon. Politeness forbade it.

“We will give you a new name,” White Wolf announced suddenly. You are Man Who Brings the White Cow Hide to the People. Never has a white man done this. Hardly ever has a Tsistsista done this. It is a mark of a great warrior, one favored by Sweet Medicine himself. Ever more, you will be Man Who Brings the White Cow Hide to the People. I will have the crier announced it, and all in the village will be pleased.”

“I’m plumb grateful,” Brokenleg said, lapsing into his own tongue. Sort of, he thought. He thought he owned that piece of carpet, but apparently it wasn’t so.

“One Leg Eagle will follow the customs and we will give it to the sky spirits,” the chief continued. “This medicine is greater than the four arrows and the sacred hat.”

Brokenleg sat uncomfortably through the long oration, his bum leg poking clear to the cold fire pit. But at last it was his turn to orate a bit.

“I brought a wagonload of trade goods,” he announced. “We’ve built a post up on the Yellowstone — you know that — but we hardly see you there. I came to invite you to trade, just like family. I’m one of you; I’ll give good prices for robes, and offer my goods at a better price than any American Fur post.”

They smiled at that. He was one of them. But the chief raised a hand. “It is a long way there, Man Who Brings the White Cow Hide to the People. We went there in the Hoop and Stick Game Moon and saw your new post. And our enemies the Absaroka gather there. They are many. We wish you hadn’t gone there, but you told us the rivers and the fireboats made it so. We are strong and can always beat the Absaroka People — but there are many there  . . . many more than our village.”

“I’ll bring the goods here in wagons. The Piegans stole our oxen — but I got some horses. I’ll meet you two or three times a year on the Tongue, or better yet, the Little Bighorn. How about the Plum Moon, and then the Hard Face Moon, and then the Spring Moon? I’ll be there with wagons; you come with your good Tsistsista robes. You come halfways, and I come halfway.”

“It is a thing we will talk about in council.”

He knew they’d do it; the bonds he had forged with One Leg Eagle and his family made it necessary. No band lightly scorned an alliance with a trader who brought it rifles and knives and pots and powder and blankets.

Finally the chief arose, dismissing them, and Brokenleg limped out, feeling prickles in his bum leg. The chief followed, and then addressed the crowd outside. “Our friend has come to trade his medicine things for robes,” he said. “Our friend promises us the best prices for our robes and low prices for his things, as a friend must do. He has brought many good things.

Trade! Fitzhugh rejoiced. “I will visit my family and friends today, and tomorrow I will trade,” he said, surveying the crowd. His gaze caught that white man again, and suddenly he knew who it was. Raffin! The Creole trapper from the beaver days with a voice like splintered glass, a man who roared and walked like a black bear, the man he’d beaten for Dust Devil’s favors. And even as he stared, startled, at Raul Raffin, the Creole stared back, mockery in his eyes — along with a challenge of some sort. And Fitzhugh knew what that challenge would be  . . . But what was he doing here? The man was a veteran engage of American Fur, and far, far from any AFC post.

But One Leg Eagle had collected Brokenleg, along with Little Whirlwind, and was guiding them toward the lodge. In the swirl, Antelope joined them, and then Little Whirlwind’s shy sisters. He peered back and saw a swarm of giggling brown boys sitting on the wagon seat snapping lines over the backs of half-trained drays.

“Trust them,” said his pap, who himself eyed the rascals. “You go ahead; I’ll speak to the boys.”

A few moments later he returned, bearing the sacred white hide. His face glowed. “Only I can touch it. A Suhtai with medicine powers can. A warrior who has done great things can. I will make a sweet-grass prayer. Then Antelope will tan it in a certain way. Then we will give it to the sky spirits. You have brought me the greatest gift of all, and I have gifts to give in return.” He smiled, his gapped brown teeth showing.

Brokenleg hadn’t been aware of giving him the medicine robe, but he knew what was coming; Fate was closing in, like a tightening noose. Dust Devil grinned at him wickedly. How had he ever gotten into this? Some promise he didn’t remember making. Shooting a rare white cow. After that, everything had happened by itself. He eyed Little Whirlwind’s sisters furtively, measuring them like beef, for fat and carcass weight, thigh and breast. They looked smug. He could see it, that same blasted Suhtai arrogance, that same Dust-Devil smirky look. He could just git. He could git, ditch it all, hoss ’n beaver, before he was brought to medicine himself. He could lodgepole that wench; that’d do it. Lose him the Cheyenne trade, but git him outa this.

He studied them as they walked along beside him, pretendin’ shy when they were all bold as camp-robber jays. Sweet Smoke. Youngest of all, danged near Maxim’s age. Sweet Grass Smoke, he corrected himself. Lithe as a snake, her face a bright diamond, with eyes as saucy as a crow’s, and wearin’ more foofaraw than any decent woman oughter. But she sure was blossoming. Last year she was plumb skinny; now she got a curvy look to her and knew it, wigglin’ it all at him.

And Hide Skinning Woman. Plainer than her sisters, big flat nose, older’n Dust Devil, big across the bottom, looks like she could put up a lodge in two minutes. Mean, that’s what he saw in her eyes. She had badger eyes, cruel and predatory, and a mouth too wide, like she could suck blood. And that other, Elk Tail, Elk Tail. Now who’d want to marry some old Elk Tail? Who’d hitch up with Hide Skinning Woman? One step older’n Dust Devil, and mad at him, and her pa, for pulling Dust Devil out of the marryin’ order. She was a curvy one too — too curvy. Brokenleg began to have visions and sweats. Too curvy for her own good, with a little extry wiggle thrown in. Smoothest skin in the outfit, all dusky peaches, and a mean smile, like a triumphant smile, like she had him at last. She saw him staring furtively, and poked out a pink tongue.

They reached the lodge, where her brothers awaited, two mean-looking bare-chested muscle-bound stocky types with snakey eyes and scars, and bulgy arms and hands that looked like shotguns to a sooner groom. He couldn’t remember their names. Bear Guts or something. Enforcers, that’s what. Hangin’ around to git this affair done with.

Old One Leg Eagle, he spread the white hide out, wrestling the folds of the untanned pelt gently until it rested on the packed earth before the lodge, and then settled himself exactly behind the rump.

“Ah, my fine son, Man Who Brings White Cow Hide to the People, you have brought me the greatest gift of all. What would I want of rifles, of powder, of blankets, of lead, of pots and knives and awls and blankets, when you have brought me medicine itself? Ah, my own son and friend, I will give you my gifts and good wishes in return.” He smiled beatifically. Antelope beamed in a shy way. She was forbidden to look directly at Fitzhugh, and he wasn’t supposed to peek much at her. But his mam there was enjoying herself, for sure.

Dust Devil got smirky, and then turned solemn.

Brokenleg hunkered down inside of himself and waited.

Oh, Fitzhugh, what have you done? When you was borned, did your Scotch Presbyterian ma ever imagine you’d have four wives — all at once? How are you gonna support four? And if they have a passel of children how are you gonna support them? Maybe ten. Maybe twenty. And how’re you gonna take four wives back to St. Louis once a year? Company can’t buy all them tickets. And what’s ol’ Jamie Dance gonna say? Why, you’ve gone beaver, you’ve lifted the cache, you’ve lost your topknot. Then he’d heehaw all over the place. How come you’re tying a knot with three strangers. You don’t know even one of these dusky maidens.

It was all Dust Devil’s doings. She’d caught him in a weak moment. He shoulda called her bluff; let her pull out if she didn’t like it. Connivin’ woman. How’d she steer him to that white buffler? Her hoodoo spirits, that’s how. He shot him an ordinary buffler except it was white, and now he’s king o’ the heap. At least he didn’t have to lay out a mess o’ gifts to the old man — rifles, powder, and the like. Just a mangy old hide, not even tanned. Them Injuns are some peculiar types, all right. At least it saved him a mess o’ trade goods. He’d give her that. She must o’ had some way o’ making that white buffler come. Sendin’ up her spirit-medicine. Her Suhtai magic. Old man’s a shaman; the whole business was dreamed up over sweet-grass smoke and a pair o’ rattles made from gourds or buffler bull stones. And that durned Dust Devil, she knew it all along, and steered him into it like he was some buffler stampeded over some cliff.

Half the village had collected around the lodge, the creased old crones of the village beaming at him with toothy smiles, and the children right solemn, and the warriors and young man half-resentful and back a piece, not liking to see so many comely girls go to one white man. Fitzhugh peered about, wondering what came next. The ladies had vanished into the lodge, from whence occasional giggles and whispers erupted. How could a whole village be so quiet? Even the mutts quit snapping and snarling and grabbing jerky from the racks. Was there going to be some sorta ceremony? He’d never heard of any marriage ceremony. They just did ’er. Gal moved her stuff and parfleches and blankets on over to a new lodge.