The Adventures of Silk and Shakespeare (4 page)

CHAPTER FIVE

here’s a young and sweating devil

—
Othello
, III.iv

Irish Tom Fitzpatrick had his dander up. That kid hadn’t reported in and was sitting at Louie’s mess like nothing had happened and was with that…damned stray dog

Things were going badly for Tom Fitzpatrick. His fledgling fur company was saddled with back-breaking debt. He hadn’t gotten to St. Louis in time to get his friends to freight supplies to rendezvous—they were committed to Santa Fe. The detour through Santa Fe had wasted over a month, and now he’d missed rendezvous completely. Worst of all, on the way to Santa Fe, Jedediah Smith, Fitz’s long-time friend, was murdered by Comanches.

Never a hail-fellow-well-met, Fitz was aggravated this evening by a sour stomach from weeks of jerky and beans and by this kid who went larking off on his own. When Fitz bestirred himself and walked toward Louie’s mess to give a few growls of reprimand, he was bilious.

“Well, Jones, fancy seeing you here,” Fitzpatrick called sarcastically across the fire.

“Went hunting, Cap’n,” Tal said cheerfully.

The devil take his cheeriness. “Now did you, lad? Is that why the spit is so heavy with roasts?” Naturally, there wasn’t any spit. After the usual beans, the boys were having a sociable pipe.

“They killed a griz, Cap’n,” mumbled someone. The newcomer, the stray called Shakespeare, was smiling like a dog wanting to be patted. Something had recently torn his ear off, he was pretty scratched, and his hair looked burnt. Some griz-slayer.

“Did
they
, now?” Cap’n cast a caustic eye on Shakespeare. “So where’s the meat?”

“Sp’iled on the way in, Cap’n.” Shakespeare’s voice was lachrymose.

Godawmighty. Holy Mother. “Jones, I’ll see at you my fire at dark. Your friend, too.”

Fitzpatrick walked away, nodding Louis along with him.

“You went off without leave,” Fitz snapped across the fire at Tal. “Why?”

“Get fresh meat for the men, sir.” Kid couldn’t look Fitz in the face. Fitz kept the two standing. Louis was squatted next to Fitz.

“Against orders. And no meat.”

“Yessir.” Eyes still cast down.

“I used up time, men, and horses trying to find you.”

“Yessir.”

“Aught to say for yourself?”

“Nossir.”

“Jones, maybe I shouldn’t have brought a youngster like you. You can’t take discipline.”

Tal’s eyes were anchored to his feet. He shifted his weight back and forth.

“You endangered the searchers.”

Tal didn’t respond.

“Jones, I’m talking to you. Do you understand what you did?”

“Endangered the searchers, sir.”

Fitzpatrick eyed him hard. Kid did look like he understood. “Instead I’m fining you the week’s pay.” Which was lenient.

“Yessir.”

“And, kid, galavanting around Injun country lonesome is the best way to get yourself dead.”

“Yessir.”

“Galavanting with a flaming silk hanky flying from your wiping stick, especially,” added Fitz. He gave Louie an exasperated look. The Frenchie smothered a grin.

Tal had nothing to say.

“Tal done good,” Shakespeare protested. “He…”

Fitz waved him quiet. The captain gazed into the fire a moment—he wasn’t the sort to twist his hands, or pull at his ears—then looked thoughtfully at Tal. He motioned the two of them to sit on a log.

Fitzpatrick looked at Tal Jones, just a boy, really, an orphan boy. Fitz made himself talk at the stray-dog giant.

“What’s your proper name, Shakespeare?”

“Ronald Smythe, rhymes with scythe,” murmured the giant like a big wind.

Fitz looked at Louie, and the old Frenchie shrugged.

“Wanting to come along?” Fitz asked.

Hairy looked at Tal, almost winked, and said, “Certainly.”

Fitz considered. “I don’t know you, Smythe, and neither does Louie.” Tal felt like the cap’n was going to add, “And I don’t like you,” but he didn’t.

“When we meet up with my partners, maybe someone will vouch for you. Meanwhile you can ride along. But you won’t be on payroll.” The captain let it sit a moment. “That’s all.”

Tal and Hairy started away.

“Oh, and Smythe,” Fitzpatrick added. Hairy stopped and turned back. “You’d best earn your grub in work. Which in your case will be plenty.”

“Yessir.”

CHAPTER SIX

Madness is the glory of this life

—
Timon of Athens
, I.ii

The next morning, amid heehawing mules and cursing teamsters, Fitzpatrick’s brigade started up the North Platte toward the Sweetwater River and the Shining Mountains, bolstered by the addition of Tal and Shakespeare, who were flying the blazon of the House of Jones.

It meant a couple of weeks of daylight-to-dusk swaying on top of Rosie, which Tal didn’t like. “Lad,” Hairy said cheerily, “this child’s gonna chat up the ladies.”

That’s what he did—walked that scrofulous pony alongside the travois that two squaws were escorting and played the gay rogue. He looked good in the role, laughing merrily, making eyes, and generally carrying on.

Both squaws seemed too well used to attract that sort of attention, Tal thought—well used by Louie, probably, who was keeping a proprietary eye on them. Hairy looked a little different himself, dwarfing his pint-sized, half-blind horse, his ear scratched down to a stub, his hair burned and scraggly, like a Lear who’d got too close to the lightning. But you’d never know he wasn’t a dashing Launcelot, the way he was carrying on.

After a while Hairy rode back and talked with Louie for a while, and Louie seemed to converse amiably enough. When Hairy came back, he had a mischievous smile, the sort that was beginning to seem worrisome. “Lad, tonight this child will initiate you into one of the mysteries of the muse.”

He spoke of the mysteries of the muse three or four times. When Tal asked what the devil he meant, Hairy fingered some of his raggedy hair and said, “We’ll repair my manhood.”

“Grease her good, lad, that’s the trick.”

Hairy was stretched out full length, his head propped on his saddle, and Tal was greasing the top of his balding head. Hairy watched in two small hand-held mirrors. Satisfied, he handed Tal the straight razor.

The men ten yards away at their coffee were affecting not to notice, but they were smirking.

Tal was dubious. The broken and burned hair did look pretty wretched. But shave the whole head? It came off easily enough, though not what Tal would have called close.

“Not there, lad, not that spot. Save that. I’ll show ye.” The spot was behind and above one ear, the thickest hair Hairy had left.

Before long Tal was finished. Not a bad job, altogether. Except for that one patch, which looked like an armpit. Tal tugged at it.

“No, lad,” resonated Hairy. He sat up off the saddle and felt of the patch and looked at it with his two mirrors. “Take a while to grow out, but when it does, this child will braid it and have a scalplock.

“Know why a scalplock is your manhood, lad?”

Tal knew he didn’t need to answer.

“On account of it gives the coon that scalps ye something to grip on to.” Hairy was smiling his ogre smile. “He slips his finger under the braid and just p-p-pops her off.” He was practically licking his lips.

Hairy started rummaging in a parfleche carrying case. “Now a
jefe grande
like this child don’t like to go around without plenty of hair to get hold of. Don’t want anyone to think he’s skittish about losing his scalp. Enough scalplock to braid by winter. Meantime…”

He held it up proudly. At first Tal thought it was a prime fur, so thick and fine and chestnut brown it was. Then he saw the luxuriant curls. A wig, almost shoulder length. Hairy pulled it onto his head and tugged till it looked just right in the mirror. Hairy intoned,

I am of Percy’s mind, the Hotspur of the West, he that kills me some six or seven dozen of Scots at a breakfast, washes his hands, and says to his wife, ‘Fie upon this quiet life!’

Hairy modelled it for Tal, turning his big head this way and that. Tal thought it handsome, adding a touch of gallant to Hairy’s natural fierce.

“And will ye dance with us, Ronald?” one of the boys called in an Irish lilt. They were ten steps away, lounging around a low cook fire.

Another one, his elbow against a wagon, mimicked in Pennsylvania Dutch, “Aye, and a kisch for two bitsch, mine beauty.”

Hairy sized him up for a moment, there off to the left of the others, then reached leisurely behind his belt and whipped his arm toward the mimicker.

The knife whacked into the wagon snug against the man’s elbow, its handle quivering.

“Ah, ye can keep the knife, lad,” rumbled Hairy. “It throws a mite low.” He smiled his ogre smile, huge and mean.

“You sumbitch,” the man snarled.

“Shut up, pantywaist.” The words came from the Irish lilter. Tal couldn’t figure it.

“Vas?” growled Pennsylvania Dutch.

Hairy was just grinning like a polecat.

“You dress like Little Lord Fauntleroy, and your sis does too,” sang Irish. Except that his mouth didn’t move, and he looked bewildered. Pennsylvania Dutch moved toward him, Hairy’s knife held low.

Hairy picked up the saddle and slipped off. Tal followed close behind.

Tal could hear the other men interfering, stopping the fight. “That’s a trick of Shakespeare’s,” someone hollered. “He didn’t insult ye, Dutch.”

Others were calling out words like “crazy” and “half-wit.”

“How’d you do it, Hairy?”

“A bit of the actor’s craft, lad.” He sang this sentence in an uncanny imitation of the Irish lilter—not just the accent, but voice itself. “Ve showed zem, didn’t ve?” This was Dutch, right down to the rasp. “Mimicry plus ventriloquism.” Tal noticed his mouth didn’t move at all. Incredible.

Hairy took Tal’s arm and kept him walking, on the quick.

“Wagh!” said Tal. That was the kind of crazy Tal liked.

Next morning Hairy brought it up to Tal. He’d been chatting up the two squaws for about an hour when he suddenly cantered back to Tal, his chestnut locks bouncing and a big smile on his face.

“The real statuesque one,” said Hairy, pointing. “Name is Iron Kettle.”

Bound to be trouble, thought Tal. “The bony one?” The older, homelier squaw who was always talking so fast with tongue and hands at once. “She belongs to Louie.”

“Naw, she don’t. I found out about her. She was sharing blankets with a coon back to Taos, been with him since last summer, and took a notion. Likely he lodgepoled her, or beat her when he was drunk, or some such.” Hairy’s British accent seemed to come and go more now.

“Anyhow, she left him and rode this way with Louie on account of he said the brigade might go on to the Stinking Water. Her people will be there in the fall. Maybe she wants her buck back. Or just wants home cooking.”

Tal regarded her. She looked old as river rock, and too worn for anyone to want, in his opinion.

“So what’s the object?”

“Hoss, this child ain’t whole-hog comfortable in this place.”

“And?”

“Her folks would think mighty well of the beavers what brought her home. Mighty well. Several horses well.”

It dawned on Tal. “You mean escort her?” He pondered it. It sounded appealing, but dangerous.

“Where’s the Stinking Water?”

“Well, hoss, ain’t so far. Over that divide to the north, and down the Big Horn.”

The country to the north was flat sagebrush plain, dry, hot, and hellish in August. Beyond it high peaks rose, some with eternal snow.

“How many sleeps?” Tal meant to be careful where he stepped.

“Not so many, lad. She’ll know. Iron Kettle will know. Not so many.”

Tal made a skeptical face. On second thought, it would be nuts to strike out alone. As Hairy was nuts, generally.

Besides…

“Naw, Hairy, I can’t.” He shook his head decisively. “I
got
to go to rendezvous. I got to find out…”

Shouts. Guns firing.

Somewhere ahead.

Tal pulled Rosie out and spotted Cap’n Fitz at the head of the column. Cap’n was holding up an arm, but taking no action.

Tal looked to his priming. He waited—and waiting hurt.

In two or three minutes men came sliding on horseback down the sand hills toward the brigade. They were whooping and shooting in the air. White men. Friends.

Quickly the word came back. Frapp’s brigade was just ahead. Rendezvous had come to them.

CHAPTER SEVEN

bewitched with the rogue’s company

—
Henry IV, Part 1
, II. ii

The partners, Fitzpatrick and Frapp, sat long and traded news. Fitz told why he had to go to Santa Fe and so was late. Frapp told about the difficult spring trapping season, about how he and Gabe and Milton and Gervais had struggled, about everyone waiting for Fitz to show up at rendezvous, and about hiring a medicine man to tell the partners where Fitz was.

Tom Fitzpatrick, Henry Fraeb (pronounced Frapp), Gabe Bridger, Milton Sublette, and Jean Gervais were the partners of Rocky Mountain Fur Company, which had bought out ’Diah Smith’s outfit.

Before long it was all over camp how Fitz was mad at the way his partners had squandered company money to find Fitzpatrick.

“You hired a what?” Fitz spat.

“A Crow man great of medicine,” answered Frapp. Frapp was a German, and sometimes his English was twisted. “When you ware late, ve vas werry vorried. ’Fraid maybe you ware gone under.”

“How many company horses did you pay for this nonsense?” Fitz himself was an unbeliever. It was his opinion and observation that those who subscribed to the Christian superstition slipped easily into Indian superstition.

“Yah, vell, this fellow he conjure much.”

All the mountain men knew how it worked. The old fellow would screech and dance and mesmerize himself with the beat of the drum until he passed out—that might take days—and then call his fevered dreams a vision. Some of the old hands told the newcomers this story with superior glances. It had worked, hadn’t it? Fitz’s lot had been on the wrong road.

While the partners made their plans, their men ate, smoked, and gossiped. Tal was excited by these fellows, these authentic men of the Shining Mountains in a fire-hardened brigade of several dozen, complete with Indian wives and children. Some of them looked half Indian themselves, dressed in breechcloths and leggings, shod in mocassins, their hair down past their shoulders. A tough lot, Tal thought, seasoned men of sanguine disposition, worthy to be among:

Scots, what hae wi’ Wallace bled,

Scots, wham Bruce has aften led,

Welcome to your gory bed,

Or to victorie.

Tal looked forward to hearing these men tell of titanic battles with Indians, of fierce struggles against the elements, of miracles and miseries, of comrades lost and saved. He longed to be one of these comrades himself, and felt pride in anticipation.

Over pemmican and coffee Louie announced the partners’ plan. There would be no rendezvous this year—it was too late. Frapp would turn back to the mountains with the supplies Cap’n Fitzpatrick had brought and distribute them as other brigades were encountered. Fitz would head to St. Louis now with last year’s peltries, sell them, and return to supply next year’s rendezvous.

Some of Fitzpatrick’s men would be hired for the mountains—some would go back—those wanting the mountains could talk to the clerk. “Meanwhile, for right now,” said Louie with a slow grin, “Cap’n Fitzpatrick is tapping a keg. Bring your cups.”

And the evening air filled with hurrahs.

“You’ll have to check with the cap’n,” said the clerk. “He listed ye bound back to the States.”

So Tal said he’d stroll through the cool night air and find Fitzpatrick. Hairy allowed that he’d get a cupful and keep Tal company. “Wagh, lad,” he said, “I’ll not sign on, though. This child means to stay a free trapper.”

“How’s that, Hairy?”

“Well, if’n ye sign on, they fit ye out with traps and other possibles and put ye on wages. That’s good, that’s real good,” Hairy said.

Tal prompted him. “What’s bad about it?”

“It’s a boon to ride in a troop, ’cause there be safety in numbers in Injun country. And ye learn the country that way, some,” Hairy allowed.

“Come on, Hairy.”

“Wagh! Lad, this child likes being his own man. A free trapper rides with the troop when he likes, rides as he will when he doesn’t. Sells his plews where he wants, and when. Traps when he pleases, dallies when he don’t. There be more things in the world, lad, than catching big, hairy water rats.” Hairy gave his fierce grin.

Tal figured he’d sign on anyway. “It’s good for newcomers,” Hairy agreed. “I’ll trail along with ye, unofficial, for the nonce.”

“Nay,” said Fitzpatrick. “It’s the States and no argument.” Even over the boisterousness of drinking men, the captain’s soft voice sounded authoritative.

Tal took a swig of whisky for show and looked across the fire at the two partners. “Captain,” said Tal in his firmest voice, “I have to go to rendezvous. That’s what I signed on for.”

“There’ll be no rendezvous this year.”

“To the mountains, then.”

“Why, Jones?”

Tal scuffed his feet. Hairy was hanging way back, sipping his whisky and watching. Frapp was watching too, curiously.

“Jones, I signed you on because Sublette said you were a hunter, young as you are. And it’s true, you got the gift. You can feed us going home.” Fitzpatrick kept shifting his eyes from Tal to Hairy, waiting for something.

“I got to go on, Cap’n.”

Fitzpatrick took a moment to light a pipe. “Better speak up, lad.”

“My dad ran off to the mountains, sir.”

“I heard.”

“I want to find him, sir.”

“David Dylan Jones, his name is. I checked it out. Came out with Sublette two years ago. The company doesn’t know where he is now, son. Probably went straight back. Like you.

“No, sir, he didn’t come back,” Tal said, making an effort to sound sure.

“What’s zis man look like?” put in Frapp.

Tal pictured his father the preacher, a willowy sort of man with buck teeth and a wonderful childish smile. He put words to the picture gingerly, trying to sound factual.

Fitz and Frapp nodded at each other.

“Man with a way with a story,” Frapp said.

Tal nodded, his throat lumping. Yes, Dad’s a miracle with a story.

“Likeable fellow, none so practical,” Frapp muttered to Fitzpatrick. “I remember him. Maybe he was the one with ’Diah who went…No, is probably wrong man.”

“He’s not with the company now,” said Fitzpatrick. “I checked. Likely he’s gone under or gone home,” said the captain bluntly. “And the Rocky Mountains are too big a haystack to rummage through, lad.”

Tal wasn’t hearing Fitzpatrick, he was hearing Dad, Dad sounding out the words of a hymn, looking shy and boyishly simple at the pulpit raising hosannas unto the Lord.

“I got to go, Cap’n.”

“And I can’t hire you on, son,” Fitzpatrick said regretfully. “You’re a good hand for a lad, but you’re still a lad. Can’t do it.”

“Shakespeare will see me through,” Tal said bravely.

“I will that, Tal Jones,” Hairy rumbled from behind.

“That doesn’t help, son,” said Fitzpatrick. “Makes it worse.” He hesitated. “Found out some about your friend this evening.”

“I remember zis fellow,” said Frapp, eyeing Hairy shrewdly. “Shakespeare. Come with Provo. Used to been actor.” Frapp shook his head, cocked an eye at Hairy, shook his head emphatically.

“Better speak out,” said Fitz.

“I hear he vorks alone on account of his partners ditched him. Acts too crazy. Ditched him for true. And…No damn good.”

Tal didn’t stop it. He felt unfaithful—unfaithful to Hairy, or to Dad. “Be particular,” said Fitzpatrick.

Hairy was glaring theatrically at Frapp.

Frapp made a little face. “He cleaned his partners out. Won it all at three-card monte. Then like fool shows them trick so they can cheat Injuns too. Is charlatan.”

Hairy turned conspicuously to stare off into space, his missing ear facing everyone. Tal could have hit him.

“That so, Hairy?” Tal rasped.

“Legerdemain, lad. Prestidigitation. One of the actor’s stocks in trade.”

“If you were going to stay in the mountains, Jones,” Fitzpatrick added gently, “you couldn’t choose…”

“He’s my
partner
,” Tal interrupted. It sounded like a dare.

All three heads jerked toward Tal. Silence.

“Jones,” said Fitz gently, “you’re a beginner.”

“He’s my partner,” Tal said, his words like a wall.

“Son,” began Fitz…

Tal lifted a hand at the cap’n. The hand was trembling.

“He’s my friend.”

Tal was tongue-tied. He felt words would come out sobs. “Know what he did up in the Hills?” Tal blurted. “A griz attacked him and he killed it with his tomahawk.” Now he was babbling. “See those scratches? Those are from the griz. Shakespeare stood up to it with just his ’hawk. And killed the sumbuck. I saw it.”

It was a child’s voice, pleading. He had to make them understand.

“When some Injuns were about to steal our horses, he burned them out and made them hightail it.”

Fitz and Frapp eyed each other.

“He’s my friend. My partner.” Said defiantly.

Fitz stood up. “I can’t do it, son,” said Fitz softly. “I’m sorry.”

Dismissed, Tal and Hairy walked slowly into the dark. Tal had never felt such a roil of…of everything, like all the songs he’d ever known jumbled and clashing. He blinked, and tears ran down his cheeks.

Hairy didn’t talk. Just looked down, as if moping. Walked right into a giant sagebrush. Fell down.

Tal smiled. He laughed a little, a teary laugh. He could hear Hairy’s big rumbling chuckle, too. Tal stuck a hand down. Hairy took it and pulled Tal down and rolled him over and held his shoulders to the ground, like when Jacob wrestled the angel. Tal could see Hairy’s teeth and eyes gleaming in the dark, inches away.

“Thanks, partner,” hissed Hairy.

“Anything for a partner, partner,” said Tal, faking wryness. He pushed. “Lemme up.”

Hairy jumped up and pulled Tal to his feet.

“I got an idea, partner,” Hairy whispered hugely.

“An idea?”