Rivers West (11 page)

“What do you know of my class?”

He waved a hand. “It is obvious. You are a gentleman, a man of culture and background. It is in your bearing, your style, your manner of speech. You are most certainly of French ancestry, but not completely so.”

“Not completely so,” I agreed. “And you, Colonel Macklem? What is your ancestry? Your breeding? I do not find it so obvious.”

He looked up suddenly, and the glance he shot at me was not pleasant. I had touched a nerve, a point of extreme sensitivity. It was a thing to remember.

“Does it matter?” He stood up suddenly, so suddenly that I took an involuntary step backward. It irritated me, for he noticed and was amused. “What matters is that we must have you with us. What inducement can I offer? A chance to trade for furs? To look for gold? To become suddenly rich in some other way? You seem to be a fighting man—”

“I?”

“You.” He looked across the table at me. “We understand each other, you and I. We are both men of the world. To the west there are vast lands, free for the taking. There are estates to be had more vast than anything the feudal lords of Europe could dream of.”

He looked at me.

“To build a boat is all very well, but to own a thousand square miles…every inch of it yours…that is something! Fortunes await the strong, and land is there for the taking.”

“One day I shall go west but when I go it will be to trade, not to conquer.”

He shrugged. “As you will.”

His face was half in shadow now. “I think you are a fool,” he said abruptly.

For the first time, I thought him a little uneasy.

“Goodbye then.” He held out his hand. I almost took it, but I should have had to shift the gun to my left hand.

“Goodbye, and my best wishes to Miss Majoribanks. By the way,” I said casually, “did you know that Simon Tate rode east with a message from her?”

He froze. “Tate? Who is Simon Tate?”

“He owns the inn where we met. He is quite influential in a political way. He rode off in great haste.”

Macklem left and closed the door behind him. I barred the door and went back to bed. Yet for several hours, I remained awake.

I dozed.

There was a quick rap on the door. I got up and unbarred it.

Jambe-de-Bois was there in his greasy cloak, his long hair straggling about his face, his eyes wild.

“They've gone! You let them go!”

Swiftly, I turned to the window. It was dawn. Where the steamboat had been, there was nothing. The dockside was empty, and on the river there was no trail of smoke.

Something sank within me. They were gone.
She
was gone.

Chapter 13

Y
OU DO NOT know him! He is a devil that Macklem! A devil!”

I had never seen him so disturbed.

“What could I do? I went to her, and she would not listen. He was here last night, and—”

“Macklem was
here
? To see you? Oh, my friend!”

When I told him what Macklem had wanted, he nodded his head. “Of course! He has her, her boat, and he has Macaire. Once he gets you, the slate will be clean.”

“What slate? What are you talking about?”

“Who can connect him with Foulsham? You. Who is going west after Charles Majoribanks? His sister. If Charles does not escape, the sister does not get back. Macaire, in whom she has confided, does not get back. And then if Macklem gets you—”

Irritably, I brushed it off. “You assume too much. We suspect much, but we know nothing at all. I cannot for certain connect him with the murder of Foulsham. He was in the vicinity, but so was I. And so were you.”

Jambe turned abruptly. “He did not remember me,” he muttered. “Or if he remembered, he didn't care! What could I do? Of what could I accuse him without in turn accusing myself?”

“Let's have some food,” I said, “some coffee, at least.”

We went downstairs and sat at a table in the corner from which both the doors to the street and the kitchen were visible.

Jambe placed his scarred fingers on the edge of the table, and I looked searchingly into his eyes. “You know this man, Jambe-de-Bois. What is it you know?”

“Too much!” he said. “He is a fiend! I am a bad man,
mon ami
, but I am not an evil one!”

“There is a difference?” I asked ironically.

He nodded seriously. “Much difference! Much! Sometimes one is bad. One steals, one kills when fighting, one takes a ship here and there, but what one does is done in heat, it is done sword in hand against other swords, pistol against pistol, fist against fist. You are a fighting man. You understand this?”

I nodded.

“I am bad,
mon ami
, but I am not evil! I am a thief. But never have I killed just to be killing! Never have I held in contempt a human life! Never have I tortured, never have I abused the helpless!

“I am not evil as Macklem is evil! He is cold, vicious, without heart or scruple. He kills to be killing, with no anger but only contempt. He despises men, and despises women even more. The girl…Miss Majoribanks. He hates her most of all!

“Yes, I know him. But I do not think he now knows me. At first…well, I was afraid. I, who have feared nothing, fear him.

“But I was younger then, without this beard and this gold ring in my ear, with two strong legs.

“He has been what he is from a very young child. He was so in the slums, yet his beauty of body won him attention. He was given a chance. He was taken into a wealthy home and educated, yet when the time came he tortured and killed his benefactors. He escaped to sea. He betrayed his ship, stole the money, went ashore, and took a new name.

“He has betrayed, defiled, ruined, and always with an easy smile—with laughter even. And many times he has been on the verge of great wealth, but always something defeated him.

“We came ashore on an island in the eastern waters, came ashore with treasure for each of us to share. Four of us to bury it, and Macklem brought a lunch and several bottles of wine.

“We drank the wine. I drank little because it was food I wanted. I stole meat from the basket, and when I thought I'd been seen, I threw it quickly down. Later, where the basket had been, I saw a rat…a dying rat, kicking its life out…poisoned.

“Turning, I ran back down the beach. All were drinking, most were drunk. When I shouted at them, Macklem turned deliberately and lifted a pistol to shoot me.

“Oh, I was young then. I had two strong legs, and I turned and dove into the brush. The bullet cut a leaf above my head.

“I ran and ran…he did not follow. Behind me I could hear the screams of the other two men, dying. He had poisoned them both.

“For three days, guarding our boat for himself, he hunted me. Twice, knowing I would be hungry, he left poisoned food upon the beach. Traps. The rats and gulls died, but not I. Finally, he left.”

“And the treasure?”

“He was no fool. He took it with him.”

It was a terrible story.

“After seven long months I was picked up. Since then I have heard of him often. Several times I have seen him, though he does not recognize me. I have searched for him, followed him, waiting for the moment when I might see him die.”

“Yes, Jambe, I understand,” I said.

“But he does not die. With any weapon he is a master. I have never seen his equal. Believe me,
mon ami
, do not provoke him. He will kill you.”

“I am not so sure.”

“You may be sure. And this is the man with whom you have left Miss Majoribanks. This is the man!”

“By steamboat it is thirty-five days to St. Louis. Say he cuts the time to thirty.”

“So?”

“Overland, with horses, say it is six hundred miles. With average luck, twenty-five days, with the best of luck and fresh horses along the way—good horses—perhaps ten, fifteen days.”

His fingers gripped my wrist. “You mean it? You will go?”

As we ate I considered all aspects of the journey before us. We must cross at least six hundred miles of rough country, and the distance was only a guess.

Much would depend upon my horses, the weather, stream crossings, and the fortunes of the day. If we were lucky, we could do it with time to spare.

I placed gold coins on the table. “Buy food. The simpler the better. We will want coffee and what can be easily packed and prepared. I must see Mr. Dill.”

Dill was in his office, and I wasted no time, nor did I keep anything to myself. He was a solid citizen, a respected, worthy man, and I told him exactly what the problem was, even about Macklem and what Jambe-de-Bois had told me.

“Go,” Dill said, “and luck to you.” He got to his feet. “This is my country, too, young man, and much of our future depends on the development of the Louisiana Territory.

“I've dozens of horses, and you'll need strong stock.” He stepped to the door of his office and motioned to a clerk. “John, go to the stables and have Joel put lead ropes on Sam and Dave. Mr. Talon here will take them.”

By mid-afternoon we were across the river and headed west. I was glad. The fever of the West was again upon me.

Yet what Dill had said remained in my mind. He had said this was his country, too. Was it mine? By birth I was a Canadian, but now I was here, and was this not my country also?

Traveling was no new thing for me. On the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec where I was born there was not much work. My family owned much land there, but to work as a shipwright demanded long trips. Several times I had been down the coast to the towns of Maine. I had worked in Nova Scotia. My first trip to Toronto had been with my father and uncle while I was a very young boy. We had worked all summer at Lachine, near Montreal, building several
bateaux
. These were forty feet long, eight feet wide, with almost vertical sides and a blunt bow and stern. We built the sides of fir, the bottom of oak. These boats were occasionally sailed, more often rowed or poled, and when close in shore, pulled by men walking in shallow water, near the shore. Later we helped build one of the first Durham boats to be used in Canada. These were eighty to ninety feet overall with a beam of ten feet, and were usually sailed or rowed. They could carry thirty-five to forty tons of freight downstream, eight to ten tons upstream. Both types of boat were much used on lakes and rivers in Canada.

My father had helped to build the
Toronto Yacht
, working on it in 1798 and 1799 for several months. In its time she was the sleekest, fastest craft on the lakes, and when she was wrecked in 1812 he had been very unhappy.

He was a man proud of his work, taking great care in the shaping of every timber, and every craft built by his hands always remained in his heart. He had come home to Percé, disappointed and angry. He had been asked to work on a twenty-two-gun ship being built, but after seeing the design he refused.

“They are fools!” he told my mother. “Fools! She will never stand a rough sea. They do not know the lakes, these men. They think we have a lot of mill-ponds here. And the timber! Much of it is not seasoned, but they will go ahead.”

“And we needed the money,” my mother said.

“Aye!” he muttered gloomily, “but I will have no part in a thing badly built. Men will die because of it, but regardless of that, a man does not waste the trees it took God centuries to grow in building something of no account.

“Remember that, my boy,” he rested his hand on my shoulder. “The wood with which we work has strength, it has beauty, it has resilience! If it is treated well, it will last many, many years! If you build, build well. No job must be slackly done, no good material used badly. There is beauty in building, but build to last, so that generations yet to come will see the pride with which you worked.

“There are proud ones who look with disdain upon a man who works with his hands. Do not do so. It is not every man who can shape a timber or build a bridge or ship. Work with honor, my son, and build with beauty and strength.”

We brought our
bateau
down from Lachine on that first trip and tied up at Allan's Wharf, which some people were beginning to call Merchant's Wharf, at the foot of Frederick Street.

It was always a good day when my father reached Toronto for at some time during his stay he would enjoy a drink with Dr. Baldwin, an Irishman who knew much of building, and he often came to watch when my father was building a squared-log house. Such houses demanded the master craftsman, for each log must be precisely squared and shaped. My father was such a man.

We rode until sundown, then changed horses and rode on until midnight. We camped in a forest of towering trees, gathering broken branches for fuel, and at daybreak we were off again. At noon we switched horses again. As evening came on we stopped in a meadow, watered and curried our horses, then turned them loose to graze.

The roads and trails were dry, the weather cool. We had no trouble. Several times we stopped at lonely farmhouses and once at an inn in the village.

For seven days we rode hard, stopping now and again to sleep and rest the horses, eating when we could find the time. We came on the morning of the eighth day into a little hollow where a small stream ran southwestward through a meadow. It was an area where the forest was thinning out, the big trees growing fewer and fewer.

Jambe-de-Bois pulled up beside me, easing himself in the saddle. “Stoppin'?”

“For a piece of time. We could all do with rest.”

He was as ready as I was, and we rode through the water of the creek into a small grove along its edge. Hidden by brush and the overhang of the trees, we swung down, stripped the gear from our horses, and picketed them behind the trees in a corner of the meadow.

Jambe-de-Bois stretched out on a grassy slope in the shade of an elm, and I walked off a bit, picking a few berries left on the bushes. Doing so, I drew near our trail, although I was concealed from it by thick brush.