Medicine Road (34 page)

"All right." Jesse's hurrying words cut the chief's
wickmunke dreaming short. "It's all there. We have
traded."

"Ni'inaei, good hunting." Watonga grinned, making rare use of an Arapaho phrase in place of the
generally spoken Sioux: "H'g'un."

With the courage shout, the fleeting grin died,
stillborn, leaving Black Coyote's face as blank as a
basalt rock. The obsidian glitter of his tiny eyes held
Jesse while a slow man might have counted five.
Then he was gone, his blue-roan gelding digging on
a dead gallop toward the waiting warriors.

"Leg it, Andy!" The mountain man's shout was
wasted back of the dust puffs already being sent up
by the wagon master's thudding boots. As the old
man looked back, Jesse waved him on. "Go on, leg
it! I'll get the boy."

Johnny, hearing the yell, scudded from the rocks,
heading for Jesse. The mountain man scooped him
up on the run, legged it for the cheering teamsters
as fast as his long shanks would churn. Johnny
O'Mara wasn't the only one to respond to Jesse's
shout. As the mountain man grabbed the boy and
ran for the muleskinners, a forlorn, dusk-gray ghost
tottered out of the rocks to follow along in a stumbling trot. Heyoka, the knock-kneed clown, wasn't
aiming to be left behind, not while she could still see
and had the breath left in her to go after that redhaired Wasicun.

By the time Jesse and Johnny reached the down
canon rocks, the Arapahoes had swarmed across the
meadow, surrounding the Pittsburgh and boosting
Watonga up onto the wagon box. And there, mounted
triumphantly on the driver's seat of Tokeya Sha's redwheeled goddam, all six feet three of him standing,
black and stark, against the white Osnaburg backdrop, Watonga, war chief of the Wind River Arapahoes, made his departing oration of acceptance.

Then, his faithful crowding the wagon hubs as
close as their scrawny ponies could jam, he seized
the unfamiliar wrap of the multiple reins, started
the Wasicun's fear gift uncertainly across the
meadow. His final, jeering shout at Jesse reminded
the cowardly mountain man that in the end it was
Watonga who had proved the better man, he, Black
Coyote, who was finally going to get what was rightly coming to him. Which he did. Six seconds
and one inch of fuse later.

The twenty-four kegs of powder made a nice salute
to the chief's phenomenal gift of prophecy. Choice
cuts of Choteau & Company mule, Indian pony, and
male Arapaho, mingled with a fine selection of oak
spokes, hickory whiffletrees, and drawn-iron wheel
rims. The clapping thunder of the explosion rocketed
back and forth between the narrow canon walls fit to
split a man's ear skins clean across.

Jesse shook his head to get the ringing out of it,
peered intently under the rolling cloud of powder
smoke. At first glance, he counted eight sprawling
braves who were already pounding their stiffening
rears up the misty trail to Wanagi Yata, another
limping three dozen who would carry pieces of
Pittsburgh and pepperings of Jesse Callahan's Du
Pont powder buried under their smoking hides for
all their days short of the place where the souls
gather. One membrous figure, tottering waveringly
toward the far edge of the meadow, brought a
strange leap to the watching mountain man's heart.
As will sometimes unaccountably happen with
those who are the very closest to the source of an explosion, Black Coyote had miraculously survived.
Blown sky high, dumped bare skin naked into the
spiny clutch of an early berry bush, the old warrior
had come out of it alive. His panicky braves, unfamiliar with gunpowder in larger quantities than
buffalo horns full were hustling him aboard a
squealing, wild-eyed pony, were cutting out of the
meadow for all they were worth, jamming and
packing the entrance of the up canon trail head.

Watching the rout, Jesse yelled along the line of head-drawing muleskinners. "Hold your fire, boys!
They've had it. No use kicking them when they're
done and down. Leave the buzzards go."

The last of the braves were crowding through the
far trail head, the still reeling Watonga supported
among them. The mountain man's rare grin cracked
the dirty granite of his jaw.

Sure, leave the red sons go. He had set out long
days ago to skin that arrogant scut of a Watonga,
true. But what with his Arapaho hide still smoking
from its twenty-four-keg gunpowder cure, and his
hog-size Indian ego blistered worse than a lapful of
hot grease, the haughty chief's peltry was hardly
worth the sweat it would take a man to peel it off of
him. Not to Jesse Callahan it wasn't, anyhow. Jesse
was a man who never messed with any skin that
wasn't plumb prime. Leastways, never killed for
one that wasn't.

It was a loud-talking band of Choteau & Company
muleskinners that rode the shadowed reaches of
Carson's Canon downtrail of Rockpile Meadow that
early fall evening. Heading them, pert as a peafowl,
astride a captured calico pony, rode young Johnny
O'Mara, proudly flanked by Morgan Bates and
Joplin Smith. The two muleskinners had their
horses trapped with feathered Arapaho headstalls,
their persons dripping buckskins and beadwork,
while behind them scarcely a man in the outfit
failed to sport some spoils of Jesse's hard-driven Indian trade. A horsehair-tasseled buffalo lance here.
A heron-plumed coup stick there. And, here and
there, a sprinkling of squat Arapaho war bows,
beautifully worked elk-hide quivers, tooled
parfleches, quilled moccasins, bear-claw necklaces,
buffalo-horn and half-kull headdresses, stone pipes,
handmade skinning knives, and scarlet three-point
Northwest blankets: together, the whole gaudy rag
tassel of peeled-off Plains Indian war dress that told the story of ten naked braves silent amid a lonely
pile of meadow rocks.

Behind Johnny and his jubilant escort, Jesse and
Andy Hobbs rode in wordless quiet. Glancing at his
companion, the old man marked the brooding,
narrow-eyed stare, the wide clamp of the Sioux
mouth, knew the gaunt mountain man was mindriding the back trail.

"You couldn't help it, Jesse." The words came as
soft as the touch of the weathered paw on his companion's knee. "You had to think of the kid, first."

"Sure," the answer came after a short silence, "I
reckon. But it shames me all the same, Andy. I feel
mortal bad about it, somehow."

"Ain't no call for you to feel thataway, young 'un.
They was hostile Injuns and trail raiders, to boot.
And any red bunch that works the Oregon Trail
knows what to expect when they wipe out a settler
band and carry off a young 'un."

Jesse nodded. "Yeah, Andy, I allow you're right.
Watonga sure knowed what he was asking for
when he hit them emigrants and hoisted Lacey's
kid. Not to mention what the squaw did to the
baby."

The wagon master lifted his hand from the
mountain man's knee, placed it gently on his
shoulder.

"Matter of fact, Jesse, I allow you done the whole
Medicine Road traffic a powerful turn. Jim Bridger
has had hisself twenty years' hard work building a
peaceful trade with Washakie and them friendly
Snakes of his'n. Him and the other traders sure
can't afford to have these here wild northern
cousins filtering down and getting the friendlies
riled up again. And you done put a sharp, hard stop to any such notions they might've had, with that
powder trade just now."

"By damn, I hope you're right, Andy. That was
strong medicine I dosed old Black Coyote with. I'd
feel a heap better to figure he had it coming to him
for more'n just what he done to us."

"Well, you just figure he had, son. He had, and
you can tie on it. And I'll tell you how it's going to be
now. Old Black Coyote, he's the big chief up north.
So when a dozen Missouri muleskinners and one
medium-size red-head mountain man can knock
the hides offen a hundred of his top warriors three
times, hand running, its going to shrink the size of
his teepee considerable. Time he gets home with
what's left of his tail tucked atween his legs, every
Arapaho north of the Platte is going to know there's
easier ways of making a living than working the old
Medicine Road. I allow it'll be a long, hot winter in
Montany before another Arapaho chief comes down
to raid the Californy traffic."

"Let's hope," said Jesse despondently. "This lying
and killing, red or white, don't add up to nothing
but more of the same."

"And another thing," Andy Hobbs worked
ahead, patiently ignoring the mountain man.
"You're square with Bridger on the powder. His
Snake wife there at the fort told me Gabe's done
changed his whole idee about battling Brigham for
the post. Says Gabe is aiming to winter in the hills,
hide out, and just leave Brigham and his Danites set
in the place till spring. Figures they'll come out
poorer by wintering through than by fighting. Naturally that's how come us to have all the Du Pont for
your swap."

"Well, that works out slicker 'n green boar grease, for me." Jesse got his grin back, gradually. "Happen
Gabe chooses to get generous, I can stand it. Though
I reckon what with losing the powder I won't get no
pay for my peltries."

"I allow you will," countered the old man quietly.
"Bridger's Snake woman said she could guarantee
that. She figures old Gabe'll be so plumb tickled to
hear about how you kept Brigham from getting his
saintly paws on all them supplies and turning that
powder over to the hostiles, he'll give you full price
for your skins and glad of the chance. You'll get your
thousand dollars, Jesse."

"Andy"-the mention of the money brought
other pictures than Jim Bridger and Brigham Young
to the mountain man's mind, the sudden eagerness
of his voice telling the nature of them-"how'd
Lacey come around about the little gal? And me,
and all? I had to smack her back there at Wild Hoss
Bend. She was clean outen her mind about losing
the baby, and I..."

"She's all right, son," the oldster interrupted
earnestly. "I talked her around to the idee the baby
was done for, anyways. I figure she really was, too.
Don't you?"

"Sure, Andy. She had the lung fever, fatal bad."

"Well, you got yourself a real woman. She'll do to
ride any river with."

"Yep!" The dark-faced trapper brightened. "She's
prime beaver. I can scarce wait to get to Gabe's to see
her. You know, Andy, we ain't rightly had a chance
to talk proper yet. I broached some purty big plans
about Californy, first off I met her. I sure hope she
ain't been scared offen them by all this crazy-head
shagging around after Injuns."

"She ain't, mister!" The old man wagged his head, satisfied now that he had the mountain man
eased out of his dour Sioux mood. "She's hotter'n a
four-peso Spanish pistol for anything that's spelled
Jesse Callahan. Including his addle-pate idees. And
more, too"-the wagon master played his hole card
craftily-"you ain't going to have to wait to get to
Gabe's to find it out, neither!"

As he spoke and before Jesse could reply, the
canon ahead flared out for its confluence with the
Medicine Road. The sloping decline of the canon
floor spread, wide and clear, in the late twilight, letting Jesse see the bright beacons of the cook fires in
the main trail ahead.

"That's our base camp, Jesse. Some of Gabe's
Snakes, with our spare stock and supplies. We
brung everything we might need to run you and the
boy clean to Californy. I allow you can see what else
we brung you!"

Jesse had dug his heels in before the wagon master finished talking. His mount shot up through
the loose-riding muleskinners, swung in between
Morgan Bates and Joplin, swerved up alongside
Johnny's spotted pony. He made a one-arm snatch
of the surprised boy, scooping him off the pony
and onto the pounding withers of his own mount,
all to the startling tune of a long-drawn Minniconjou yell.

Following his careening ride toward the base
camp, the laughing teamsters saw the tiny figure
waiting against the flare of the distant cook fires. It
was a long, dim way, but a man couldn't miss those
lines. Especially when what made them was running and waving right at him. There was something
about the way some women moved that would hit a
man's mind and jump his heart as long as his blood was pumping and as far as his eyes could reach.
And this was some woman!

"It's Mom! It's my mom!"

Johnny was laughing and crying and waving all at
the same time. The mountain man's response to the
boy's excitement was a sound precious few humans
had ever heard-Jesse Callahan laughing out loud.

"Hii-yeee-hahh! Shout it out, boy! It ain't your Aunt
Harriet!"

Seconds later, one indignant, borrowed Arapaho
horse was getting his haunch hide burned off on the
dry granite of the Medicine Road, and little Johnny
O'Mara was that wrapped up in a flying smother of
mother hugs and kisses he couldn't get his wind to
whistle. Jesse legged it slowly down off his earedback mount, stepped toward Lacey and the boy.