Cheyenne Winter (21 page)

This time Maxim didn’t reply immediately. A kingfisher slapped into the water and rose again with a silvery minnow. “If none of the other companies offered spirits — we’d have trade.”

“But that’s not the real world. That’s the ideal world, isn’t it?”

“That doesn’t excuse it!”

“No  . . . it doesn’t. But we live in an imperfect world.” Guy knew that young idealists never accepted that tack. There was only good and evil, right and wrong.”

“Don’t tell me it’s their own choice. They can’t deal with spirits. They’ve never had spirits. Not until traders came.”

“Well, son, what do you propose.”

“Nothing! Leave me along!”

“Do you want to go home?”

“Not with you!”

“If you stay here I trust you’ll earn your keep. A post can’t afford — ” Guy was going to say a parasite and troublemaker, but checked himself.

“I was hauled off the boat,” Maxim returned, a withering sound in his voice. “Dragged off. What choice had I? Like some prisoner.”

Guy was prepared for that one. “It might have been a mistake. Brokenleg has rough ways. On the other hand you haven’t reached your majority. He had a — a parental right.”

“I don’t want to stay here. I want nothing to do with the robe trade. I’ll go to St. Louis with you, but not home. It’s not my home anymore. Never!”

Tears laked from Maxim’s tortured face.

“Very well, son. We’ll go back together and — ”

“Don’t call me son!”

That hurt. Guy peered into the swift flow of the Bighorn, rushing by like the river of life. “Would you prefer to go down with the returns in the spring?”

“I don’t know.”

“Would you feel the same way if Brokenleg and I found who put those casks on
The Trapper
and freed the company of blame?”

“Yes.”

“Do you blame yourself? For not being alert when you checked inventory in the hold?”

“Yes.”

“Nobody blames you but yourself.”

“And the Indian Bureau! And the commissioner! They’ll put me in jail!”

“No. They might lift our license to trade with these tribes. Look, Maxim. I’m sorry as can be about this. I wish I’d given it more thought before we formed the buffalo robe company. We can’t get out easily. I have contracts with partners to honor. Shall I break my word?”

Maxim looked miserable again and studied the river sullenly, avoiding Guy’s eyes.

“Do you think your grandfather, father and I should not have capitalized the fur trade? Capitalized the Chouteaus? Did we stain ourselves by lending?”

“Yes!”

The violence of Maxim’s response told Guy a lot. He knew suddenly that reason and compromise would not do here; that his son would be estranged for as long as he failed to view the world with any charity or love or — sense of reality.

“All right.” Guy turned to walk back to the post. Maxim hung on there, preferring his own company. Guy knew he had lost a son. This business, this company, had cost him his own flesh and blood. The realization lay heavier in him with each step back to Fitzhugh’s Post. What would he tell Yvonne? She’d opposed it from the beginning, a cassandra who’d warned and begged. Guy felt a weariness in his bones, his soul. The company seemed doomed; his enormous investment lost; his youngest child harsh and unforgiving, believing his father to be  . . . not honorable. Guy twisted his bleak thoughts away and choked back his own pent-up love for the fine young man he’d sired and raised. He wondered if he’d ever see Maxim again.

He had to make some decisions and not least was whether to fold things up. This post had acquired few robes and was bleeding away his investment each day. American Fun had whipped him badly — he had to acknowledge it. He stared at the empty flats, devoid now even of the few Gros Ventre lodges that had been there the previous day. From a boatyard to the south came the ring of axes and mallets.

He found Brokenleg in the shadowed trading room. “I’m going to Fort Cass. I’d like you to accompany me.”

“It ain’t wise.”

“I wish to go anyway. Will you come? I’d like it, but I won’t press you.”

Fitzhugh muttered, his eyes blazing, his gaze piercing and retreating.

“I’ll make your decision for you. In the light of what happened last winter — when Hervey almost killed you — I’ll go alone.”

“It ain’t — ” Fitzhugh flopped an arm helplessly.

“It’s a risk I’ll bear, Brokenleg. I’m the managing partner. I wish to discuss their conduct with them. Hervey especially.”

“Your funeral,” Brokenleg retorted. “I’ll git your saddler for you. If you ain’t back by this evening I’m going after you — and all them in there.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Guy said.

Guy Straus sat his horse before Fort Cass wrestling with fear. The log palisade rose before him like a feudal castle possessed by a lord who knew no law but his own. Back in St. Louis they spoke of Julius Hervey with a certain quietness that suggested dread. The man who ran Fort Cass was a favorite of Pierre Chouteau even though he’d hurt American Fur badly at times. Some called Hervey mad but that wasn’t accurate at all. He’d simply turned wild, as wild as the sea of wilderness he lived in. Every restraint had vanished from his head.

When they spoke of Hervey back there at the Planters House, they spoke of horror, in whispered conversation. Odd how the very mention of the man had always changed the tone, how fur and robe men turned solemn, sipped hard at their bourbons, and wondered — but never out loud — why a man so murderous enjoyed Pierre
le cadet’s
patronage. Hadn’t he murdered more red men that one could count? Ruined trade with whole villages? Stolen the wives of engages and free trappers and dared them to take the women back? Those few who did try ended up feeding fish in the river, lying in shallow graves, or as cripples, deaf and blind. Hadn’t Hervey ruined every rival outfit by any means, ranging from theft and murder to bribery and stirring up tribal passions. Hervey sober was bad enough; Hervey drunk was a creature from Hell.

Only months ago Hervey had nearly stolen everything the Rocky Mountain Company brought up the river; nearly killed Brokenleg; and did steal Little Whirlwind, using her and abandoning her to a wintry doom. And now with the new year and new trading season, Hervey had been stirring up the tribes again, destroying the Rocky Mountain Company’s livestock.

The man had to be dealt with. Guy had a few weapons of his own, he thought grimly. The kind of weapons that could bring Julius Hervey to justice. Guy touched heels to his saddler and threaded his way through the vast Crow encampment surrounding Fort Cass. Whatever else Hervey had done, he’d succeeded in bringing almost the whole Crow nation to his trading window. One band after another came in to exchange beautifully tanned robes — none other were as fine as Crow robes — for all the foofaraw, whiskey and trade goods Pierre Chouteau and his cohorts had shipped upriver to entice red men.

The day was not peaceful. Black-bellied clouds scudded low, bringing sudden chill and stirring up blasts of wintry air, only to yield to sunlit moments when the fading summer sun warmed flesh and soul. The winds flapped the American Fur Company ensign above the gates. It fit Guy’s mood. He passed numerous women fleshing fresh hides staked to the earth, their labor patient and familiar so they could gossip with each other as they created the wealth that brought them ribbons or a good drunk.

He paused at the maw of the post feeling the heaviness of the silvery cottonwood logs that imprisoned all that lay within. The outer gates were open; the inner ones closed. But mysteriously they swung open as he rode close and he felt himself riding through a gullet and into the belly of the whale. Engages closed the giant gates behind him. Standing before him in the cluttered yard was a muscular, dark-haired man with a mocking look, and Guy knew at once he was seeing Hervey.

“You came to sell out,” Hervey said, without greeting or welcome.

Guy sighed and dismounted. He tied the saddler to a post. Then, as quietly as his roaring soul permitted, he turned to Hervey. “I am Guy Straus of St. Louis. I’m the senior partner in the new Rocky Mountain Company.”

“You were,” said Hervey, his eyes dancing. “Now you’re here.”

“You are the factor, Julius Hervey. We have business.”

“None that I know of.” Hervey nodded at an engage. The man untied Guy’s horse and led it toward a stock pen at the rear of the crowded yard.

“I’d just as soon you leave the saddler here,” Guy said.

“You won’t need it,” Hervey said. “You just sold it to us.”

Hervey’s taunt worried Guy. He peered about the small fort. Log rooms surrounded the yard. Beyond, the palisade towered over them. A brown mountain of graded and baled buffalo robes stood in an open warehouse. Several engages were grading and baling more at a press in the yard. The smell of manure, cooking meat, and human sweat lingered in the close confines. Cass was a rough place with none of the amenities of Union, or Clark, or Pierre.

“If you won’t invite me to your offices, I’ll invite myself,” Guy said. He’d spotted them next to the factor’s log quarters. He walked that direction until Hervey’s powerful hand caught Guy’s arm. Guy looked at that hand. It bore deep scars across its back where bone and muscle had been severed. But it seemed functional enough.

“Very well,” said Guy. “We’ll do our business here.”

Hervey laughed easily, his eyes mocking. “We have no business.” Hervey’s massive hand whirled Guy around as if he were a doll.

Guy was beginning to think Hervey was right: they had no business. “Then I will leave,” he said. “But not before cautioning you about certain conduct.”

Something wild, like twin blue flames, danced in Hervey’s eyes. Hervey’s wounded hands formed into giant fists which he lifted and clenched before Straus. “Fitzhugh should have killed me. See? My hands work.” Slowly he flexed his fingers, clamped and unclamped his fists, the hands Fitzhugh had slashed to bits while Hervey was strangling him last winter. “I can choke an animal better than ever.”

Guy felt a dread tighten in his chest but he pushed it aside. “You have caused us great loss. You set the Blackfeet on us — killed our oxen and stole our mules. I’ll bill Pierre Chouteau for it and for the wagon as well.”

Hervey smiled.

“Mister Hervey, there are limits. Even in the fur trade, there are limits. Even for you, there are limits. You are a long way from a court and a judge but that doesn’t mean you are exempt.”

“You lost.”

The response mystified Guy. “Mister Hervey. There are boundaries. Undercut us on prices if you will. Bribe chiefs and headmen. Race to get your resupply in first. Manipulate prices in the wholesale markets — in New York. Glut the market with robes to hurt us if you must. Pressure your suppliers if you please. I expect all that from a combine the size of American Fur. But there are lines, sir. I will draw lines and you will heed them: I will draw them at murder, theft, willful destruction, mayhem, inciting the tribes to violence. Those things will not be tolerated.”

“You forgot some. Getting you into license trouble by planting spirits. Getting some friendly ’Rapaho to steal robes and horses from Stiffleg. Capture. I favor capture myself. I capture everything I can lay my butchered hands on.” That blue flame danced in his eyes again. “It is profit.”

“Is Raul Raffin your man?”

“Who knows?”

“Every American Fur factor up the river said the company wasn’t involved. Only Raffin. Perhaps you and Raffin?”

Hervey nodded. “Me and Raffin.”

Guy decided it was time to go. And leave a gentle warning behind him: “I’ve drawn a line, Mr. Hervey. I am not without resources.” Hervey froze, looking amused. It was as if he was waiting for whatever would happen next. “I’ll be leaving now. Thank you for your hospitality, Mr. Hervey.”

Guy left the factor standing there in the windy yard, and hunted for his saddler. It’d vanished. He had the sinking feeling that the horse and saddle had been stolen, too. He found a gate leading to a pen and found a pair of burly Creoles guarding it. He tried to slide by only to have a muscular arm block his path.

“This too, then,” he muttered. The saddler had brought him clear from Bellevue. He turned toward that mocking figure standing in the yard. “I’ll be talking to Pierre Chouteau,” he said, heading for the towering plank gates. Two huge engages stood at them barring the way, their gaze upon Hervey. Neither Creole looked comfortable. He knew, suddenly, that his liberty had been taken from him and perhaps that would be only the beginning.

He spotted the door to the trading room and found another giant lounging before it. He pushed in anyway, only to find himself thrown back. He staggered and tumbled into the grime of the yard. He picked himself up and dusted off his black broadcloth coat and britches under Hervey’s amused gaze. His frock coat showed manure stains along the right sleeve.

“Come,” said Hervey. Guy paused, wondering, and then followed him toward a room with a door opening on the yard. An office? Hervey paused beside the open door. Beyond lay a naked log-walled cubicle with a clay floor and not a stick of furniture. It stank of urine. “I just bought you out,” said Hervey.

“No, that is not what you’ve done.”

The windowless room looked like a rat’s hole to Guy. He suddenly wondered what other mortals had been penned there, desperate and hungry or cold, awaiting the fate Hervey fashioned for them. A swift shove careened Guy into it, and the door slammed. Something metallic clicked. Small pricks of light worked through the planks of the door along with the glow of liberty at the transom and the threshold. He heard Hervey humming to himself outside. “Yankee Doodle.”

“Sign it over, Straus,” Hervey said. “Or don’t if you don’t want to. It makes no difference.” Nothing more.

Agony gripped Guy Straus. He peered about him in the dim light that leaked like quicksilver from the doorway. Massive log walls, uneven clay floor that reeked acrid odors. A ceiling of handsawed plank so low he could touch it, so oppressive it seemed to crush him. A storage room that had stored living mortals before.