Rivers West (15 page)

“Huh! You do not look so bad awake,” he said. “What are you?”

I rolled onto my elbow. “A hungry man wanting a meal. I am also a man who was banged on the head. It still aches.”

He chuckled. “You have some stitches. My daughter, she sews well, huh?”

“She stitched up my head?”

“What would you have us do? Leave flesh and hair hanging over your ears? But no…it was not so bad. But some stitches were needed. They will come out some day. Do not worry.”

“How far are we from St. Louis?”

He shrugged. “Far is a question always? How far? On foot? By keelboat? By horse? And how much of a hurry is it?”

“I left some people there, and I want to pick up some guns.”

“You are in no shape to ride. Even if you had a horse.”

“I have horses in St. Louis.”

He shrugged. “Maybe you have a castle on the moon. Both of them are far away, and I am not going back to St. Louis.”

“You are not one of Choteau's people?”

“I? I am my own people. We have this boat, Yvette and I. It is our boat. We have some traps. We catch a few fish. We pick berries along the river, and we know where they grow. Sometimes we shoot a buffalo or an antelope or deer. We sell our furs. We are nobody's people.”

“Yvette. It is a pretty name.”

“It is. It was her mother's name, God rest her soul. But do not you throw sheep's eyes at my daughter. She is my crew. Without her, I am nothing. Without her, I am an old man with an empty boat.”

“You are far from old.”

“Now I am young. The day she leaves me, that little one, I am old. I shall be old upon the minute.”

He walked in and sat down opposite me. He was nearly as broad as he was tall, with wide, thick shoulders and no fat. He had square, powerful hands.

“You tell me now, while she is busy. What was it about?”

“They were trying to kill me. Not to rob me, to kill me.”

He brushed that away. “Certainly. I could see.”

“There is a steamboat on the river, a steamboat that looks like a great black serpent.”

“I have seen it.”

“It is owned by a girl, a very lovely girl named Tabitha Majoribanks. She has come west looking for her brother, Charles. She has for captain a man named Macklem. It was his men who attacked me.”

“She does not like you, this woman?”

“It is not the woman. It is Macklem, and a man named Torville. They are very dangerous men. Macklem gathers other men somewhere up the Missouri, and he has been talking to Indians. He wishes to take the Louisiana Territory…all of it.”

He took out his pipe and began to tamp tobacco into the bowl. He paused. “He would take it, huh? He has something to do, that one.”

“Nevertheless, he will try.”

He looked at me thoughtfully. “You are in love with this woman?”

“No!” I spoke quickly, perhaps too quickly, for he looked amused. “I would help her find her brother, but also it is to defeat this man that I am here.”

“Macklem?”

“Macklem, yes, and Torville, too.” I spread my hands. “I work with timber, you see? I am a man who likes order.”

“You have met this Torville?”

“No.”

“Then I have the advantage. I know him.” He put the pipe in his mouth and touched a match to it. “I also know young Charles. A good boy…a very good boy.”

Chapter 18

W
E TALKED THE day away and into the dark hours. Yvette fed us, then made coffee, and made coffee again. LeBrun, who was her father, was an easy man. He was quick to see, to understand.

He had met Torville on his first journey into the Mississippi Valley—and did not like him. He had also met Charles Majoribanks on the scientific expedition. They had made room for him. After all, he was a fine botanist, and that such an aide could be had for nothing was unbelievable.

Charles had made friends. “The Indians liked him.” LeBrun explained. “He was often among them, learning from them, for they know much about plants.”

“Where is he now?”

“Who knows? He disappeared. He went up the river and vanished.” He paused, lighting his pipe again. “We go to find him.”

Slowly, I eased to my feet and attempted to stand up. Yvette watched anxiously; her father simply watched. He knew what I was feeling, knew that a man has things to be done that cannot be done lying on his back in bed.

Shakily, I got to my feet, my head spinning. I tried a step, staggered, caught myself as Yvette started quickly forward, and then slowly sat down again.

“You need rest!” she protested.

“You've been looking for Charles,” I said. “Why?”

Yvette flushed a little, then put her chin up. “We like him.”

“It is reason enough,” I said. “And nothing else?”

“What more is necessary?” LeBrun asked. “He came to us one time, and we ate together, we talked, and he was a good companion. He talked of flowers and trees and things of which I had not dreamed, of how the value of the soil may be judged by the plants that grow upon it.”

“He liked my cooking, too,” Yvette said.

“I've no doubt that was not all he liked. Even a botanist can have eyes for more than plants.”

She blushed. “He was a nice man, a gentleman.”

“You have no horse?” I asked LeBrun.

“What need have I for a horse? When I hunt, I do so afoot or from the boat. You would be surprised how often we find our game while it is swimming—or drinking.”

“I must have a horse. I must go first to St. Louis to my friends and to get my outfit. I shall need a horse.”

“Well,” LeBrun rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “There's some Indians over east of here a mite. They're good folks, mostly, and we set well with them. Might make us a trade.”

“Trade? What have I to trade?”

“You got your clothes,” he said, “and you've got a mighty fine pistol. And a knife like I never seen.”

“I can trade the clothes, but not the pistol, and especially not the knife. It has been in my family for two hundred years.”

It was pleasant here, but I was suddenly very tired. I lay back on the bunk and looked up at the deck overhead. Too bad they had to use nails. Those were good timbers, well cut and trimmed, they could have…

When I awakened, it was dark and still. I lay very quiet, suddenly alert and listening. There was no sound but a faint creaking of timbers.

It was too silent.

No breathing came from the opposite bed, now hidden behind a curtain. Very gently, I eased back the blankets and put my feet on the floor, feeling for my moccasins. One hand reached for the pistol, drawing it near. Stepping into my pants, I drew them up, drawing my belt tight, listening all the while.

Still no sound but the faint lap of water. There was a vague sense of movement…was the keelboat moving? I moved to the steps that led to the deck, if such it could be called.

A keelboat of the smaller size, which this was, was usually about forty feet along and eight or nine feet wide, with both bow and stern pointed. The deckhouse occupied more than half the length, with a steering pulpit aft and seats forward for oarsmen. One square sail was mounted on a mast above the forward part of the deckhouse.

Along each side was a cleated walk used by polers in working the boat upstream. Obviously, with only Yvette and himself aboard, LeBrun must depend on the sail for going upstream, the current when going down.

Stepping out on the narrow, cleated walk, I crouched to keep my head below the level of the deckhouse. For a moment, I held perfectly still, listening.

The water rippled, the sensation of movement was more pronounced. We were adrift.

I looked aft toward the steering pulpit where LeBrun should be. No figure loomed against the night.

Very cautiously, I worked my way aft, crouching when I reached the after end of the deckhouse. The small deck in the stern was empty.

Keeping low behind the bulwarks, I reached the rudder. The proper steering position was from the pulpit, but I'd no intention of skylining myself up there, so I raised a hand to the handle and gently centered it.

Where were LeBrun and Yvette? And who had set the boat adrift?

There was no doubt in my mind that it had been deliberately set adrift, but why I could not guess.

Indians? I doubted it.

Had Macklem and his crowd caught up with me? Where were LeBrun and Yvette?

Keeping my left hand on the rudder, I managed to keep the boat away from the banks. From my crouching position, or even standing and merging my body with the rudderpost, I could not see the river ahead.

I prayed that the river was free from obstructions.

There had to be a reason for setting the boat adrift. Had LeBrun and Yvette gone ashore for some reason?

The more questions I asked myself the less I knew the answers.

I crawled into the pulpit, where I could at least see the river ahead and get a better grip on the rudder. For a moment I gripped it, expecting a bullet at any instant. None came.

I guided the boat closer to the bank, watching for a place where I might run it in close and tie up. At all costs, I must get back to St. Louis.

The river took a slight bend. I headed in close to the bank, grounded the bow, then leaped ashore with the line. I took a quick turn around a sturdy tree, then another turn and a half-hitch, then still another.

The boat secured, I went off into the woods.

I reached a path. For a moment I stopped and listened, then I stepped into the path and walked away from the river, moving carefully in the moonlight. When I had walked no more than two hundred yards, I heard a faint sound.

I dropped to one knee near a bush.

At the same moment I knew that I was not alone. Not more than six feet away, I could faintly see the outline of a head and the whiteness of a face. A man was crouched and waiting.

Whoever he was, he had not heard me come, nor had he any idea of my presence. Suddenly a voice said, “Newt? You hear something a moment ago?”

“Ssh!”

“Newt, I—”

“Ssh, damn it! They're coming.”

The second man, whoever he was, must be not more than six feet away.

Then, I saw the second man. He was right in front of me, facing away.

Rising up only slightly, I took a careful step forward. The night was cool, still. I could see him more clearly now. I put my hand on the cold barrel of my pistol, chilling it.

Then I heard the murmur of other voices, talking very low. Yvette and LeBrun! My fingers cold from the gun barrel, I reached out suddenly and touched the bare neck of the man before me.

He leaped like a startled rabbit. “A-a-agh!” he gave out with a choking scream and smashed backward with his gun butt. It missed, but the man ran into the brush.

Newt came out of hiding and onto the path. I had dropped down again, and Newt could see nothing.

He swore viciously under his breath and turned square around to start back. “Looking for something, Newt?” I asked very softly.

He had nerve, I'll give him credit. I was up again. He leaped right at me. I'd no desire to shoot, not knowing where LeBrun and Yvette might be hiding, so I stiff-armed him in the face with the butt of my palm, then clubbed my pistol barrel over his skull. He dropped in his tracks.

Squatting beside him, I took his gun and knife. The gun I slid behind my belt, the knife I tossed into the brush, and then I felt around for his rifle, sure there would be one. The moment I put my hand on it, I knew from the shape and weight that it was a trade musket of the kind sold to the Indians.

I stood up. “It is all right,” I said quietly. “One's down and the other one's still running.”

Yvette and LeBrun came along the trail then, and I stepped out where they could see me. “They cut the boat loose,” I said, “but I tied her up downstream a ways. Shall we get along down there?”

“What about him? Is he dead?”

“Doubt it. He's too hardheaded. But let's take him along. Maybe he can tell us something.”

LeBrun caught the unconscious man by the scruff of the neck and jerked him erect. The fellow moved, seemed to come conscious.

“Walk!” LeBrun commanded. “Or
I'll
hit you!”

The man stumbled along, gradually gaining more command of his feet. When we were aboard the keelboat, we took in the line and drifted downstream almost a mile, then tied up again.

With heavy canvas curtains over the portholes, LeBrun lighted a lamp.

The man was a stranger, a surly-looking fellow with a streak of blood from a broken scalp to add to the dirt and whiskers on his face.

“Your friend's still running,” I said, grinning at him. “I just touched him on the back of the neck with a cold hand. Jumped right out of his skin.”

“Yeller!” The bewhiskered man sneered. “Yeller clean through. I told Baker he was no good.”

Baker. That was one name.

“What do you want
them
for?” I asked, gesturing toward LeBrun and Yvette.

“None of your damn business!” he snapped, and I slapped him across the mouth.

Like I've said, I've a heavy hand. It smashed his head around on his neck and jolted him to his heels, although to my notion, it had not been a hard slap.

“I don't like that sort of talk,” I said mildly.

Yvette had started forward, and she was staring at me wide eyed.

“I like the kind of talk with information,” I said calmly. “I want to know who everybody is, where everybody is, and what they're planning to do.”

He started to make an angry reply, and I half lifted my hand. He shrank away, and I could see he had no particular taste for it. “Do you no good,” he said. “He'll kill you anyway. Them too. That's what he told me. ‘Kill 'em,' says he, ‘I don't want to be bothered.'

“‘What about the girl?' I says, and him, he just shrugs. ‘Just so she doesn't talk,' he says.”