Beauty for Ashes (17 page)

While they ran, Sam stewed.

When his time came, Sam asked Blue Horse to hold Coy away, on an improvised leash. Sam lined up well to the outside. Micajah came right with him. Sam reined Paladin around to the inside. Micajah crowded in on him. As Sam tried to get back outside, Clyman got tired of waiting and sailed the hat into the air.

When it hit, Sam threw caution to the wind and slapped Paladin for a quick burst of speed. He got a lead and decided he would go hell for leather and keep it.

At the first crossing of the wash Paladin altered her pace a little to get ready for the plunge downward.

Wham!

A huge collision—the world lurched upside down. Paladin was above him. Where was Earth?…

Whumpf!
They hit on the slant of the cutback. Paladin tilted over him, and Sam felt the saddle horn gore deep into his stomach. Darkness, darkness. Sam accepted death.

Death was strange, dizzy, slowly spinning around. What death was, was…No air, a place without air. You waited a little, and then you died—no air at all, no air…

His chest heaved, and air gushed in. He lay there, accepting its sweetness. When he had drunk his fill, he opened his eyes.

Coy licked his face. Paladin stood looking down. Her reins tickled his ears. “Hello, friend,” he said.

Then he thought,
My champion was almost a killer. My killer.
This struck him as funny beyond anything that had ever been funny. Laughter shook him, he was like a leaf shaken on the frothing water of laughter.

Someone…His shoulders.

Suddenly he was sitting upright, held by Hannibal and Blue Horse. “I'm all right.” It came out as a squeak, so he said it again in a shadow of a voice. “I'm all right. I think. Maybe.”

“She rolled right over you,” said Hannibal.

Blue Horse lifted Sam's shirt up to his heart. A round spot just below his ribs dotted his flesh crimson and white. “The saddle horn got him right there,” Blue Horse.

“It's going to get purple,” said Hannibal.

“Let's get you on your feet,” said Blue Horse.

They did. Sam felt shaky as a one-year-old taking his first steps.

They boosted him out of the wash. His first sight back toward the starting line was Micajah finishing the race on Monster and waving his hat triumphantly.

Some of the trappers actually booed. Others cackled.

Sam toddled back, supported on both sides. Coy whined. Paladin followed calmly.

When they got back to the starting line and walked in front of the mounted Micajah, almost touching Monster's muzzle, Sam told Hannibal, “Get even for me.”

Micajah snickered.

 

W
HEN
H
ANNIBAL CAME
to the starting line, Ellie's saddle was gone. Hannibal would ride bareback, with just a rope of braided buffalo hide around Ellie, in front of where the saddle should sit.

He didn't look at anyone, not Sam, not Clyman, not Micajah. It was as though he were waiting alone.

Right off, Micajah started crowding Hannibal the same way he'd done to Sam. Looked like he was getting away with it too, staying with Hannibal wherever he went. When James Clyman cocked back the hand with the hat, they were far to the inside, Micajah bumping against Hannibal.

When the hat reached its zenith, Hannibal abruptly pivoted Ellie straight around and kicked. They passed so close the riders bumped stirrups as Ellie dashed to the outside.

The hat saucered to the ground. Hannibal reined Ellie to the left and charged for the first crossing.

Micajah chugged along behind, not taking the inside but straight at Hannibal.

Coy whined, and Sam caught his breath in fear of what would happen at the wash. At the edge Ellie suddenly wheeled to face Micajah, reared, and flailed his legs at Monster's face.

Monster reared and kicked.

Ellie, his feet back under him, made a quick move to the left, a quick one to the right, and crashed into Monster.

Horse and rider went tumbling. The lip of the wash gave away and they rolled down, six legs kicking the air.

Hannibal turned Ellie and bounded across the wash. Then Ellie began to run as only a splendid horse can run, smoothly, powerfully, freely.

At first Monster skittered away from Micajah. Finally the big man got hold of Monster's reins and heaved himself into the saddle. He stared at Hannibal and Ellie, already halfway around the course. He turned and walked Monster back to the starting line. Jeers greeted him. Coy howled triumphantly, and everyone laughed.

Hannibal approached the finish line. Some trappers began to cheer. Gradually Ellie slowed to a lope, and Hannibal stood on his back. It was beautiful, a man erect on horse's back, both moving together.

Now everyone cheered.

When Hannibal crossed the finish line, he jumped to the earth on Ellie's left side, holding the hide rope with his right hand. From the ground, he bounded cleanly over the horse, landed on the other side, and bounded back across.

After three or four jumps he sat on his back again and took the reins. He brought Ellie back to the starting and finishing place and grinned hugely at his admirers.

“W
HERE IN THE
hell,” said Sam, “did you learn that?”

Blue Horse, Flat Dog, Gideon, and Beckwourth were crowding as close as Sam, and as avid.

“I didn't tell you what I did when I ran off from Dartmouth,” said Hannibal. He led Ellie away with a grin. “I was very tired of studying Greek and learning about this war or that under Caesar. I wanted some fun. So I got a job at the circus.”

After a pause Blue Horse said, “What's a circus?”

“I'm not sure,” said Sam.

Hannibal set his victory tobacco on the bank and led Ellie into the river. He drank. “I worked for the John Bill Ricketts circus, the big one in Philadelphia.”

Everyone waited impatiently.

“In a circus a horse runs circles in a ring and the rider does tricks on his back.”

“Like we just saw,” said Sam.

“Yeah, and lots more. Jumping through a paper hoop, for instance. Someone holds up a big hoop, you ride toward it, dive through, and do a flip back onto the horse.”

The three innocents stared at each other.

“Make a hoop with your fingers,” Hannibal told Sam. He did. Hannibal made a horse and rider with his fingers, and showed how the rider did a somersault through the hoop.

Six eyes got as big as eyes get.

“How do you control the horses without reins?” said Blue Horse.

“They're trained to respond to your voice. We call them ‘liberty horses,' horses that run free without reins or saddles and do what you tell them.”

“You did this riding yourself?”

“I started taking care of the horses, though I didn't know a thing about horses. If you're an Indian, they think you're a horse man. Then I became a trainer, and finally got to do the riding. It was fun.”

“And you quit doing this?” said Sam.

“Everything wears out its welcome.”

Sam took several deep breaths. “Will you show me how?”

Hannibal smiled at him.

“Me too,” said Flat Dog.

“We've got time now,” said Blue Horse.

Hannibal regarded them all. “Sure, why not?”

 

G
IDEON JOINED IN
and they made a ring from ropes and stakes. “A ring,” Hannibal repeated. “Round pen training. Forty-two feet across, exactly forty-two.” No one knew why, but they built it.

Then Hannibal demonstrated a lot of tricks that could be done—not only standup bareback riding and jumping from one side of the horse to the other and back to a mounted position, but also doing somersaults to and from the back of the horse, and doing a handstand on its back. He also showed them how to make a horse do maneuvers by itself, guided by verbal commands or hand signals.

The three young horsemen watched mouths agape. Gideon gave them a smile and sat down to watch from the sidelines.

“What do you want to learn?” said Hannibal.

They hesitated.

“Come to think,” Hannibal went on, “let's figure that out after lunch.”

While they ate the buffalo stew that always simmered over the fire, and threw bits to Coy, the three students talked it over. None of them saw much advantage in knowing how to jump from one side of a horse to the other. Not much advantage in riding a horse standing up either, but they all wanted to learn it. “I'd love to parade through the village, the three of us,” said Blue Horse, “standing up on our horses.”

The main thing, they all agreed, was learning to command a horse when you weren't on its back. They didn't know exactly what they could use that for, but it looked very handy. They would also teach Paladin to come to Sam's whistle, which they knew was handy. “We'll be horse kings,” Sam cried.

They started that afternoon and spent the next week training their horses, then another week. And, as Hannibal said, training the riders. Coy, unfortunately, had to be tied off to one side.

First they taught the horses to respond to commands of voice and command. This was done in the round pen. The owner of the horse acted as trainer, giving the commands from the center. Gideon on the outside used a whip lightly to get the horse to go in the right direction. When the horse did the right thing, the trainer rewarded it with a handful of sugar.

Sam, Blue Horse, and Flat Dog took turns as trainer.

“We're not gonna have sugar for our coffee for a whole year,” said Sam in mock complaint.

They couldn't get any more because the general had packed up his caravan and headed for St. Louis. Jedediah Smith, his new partner, had gone with him, saying he'd be back in the mountains by winter. Jim Beckwourth had gone along.

Third Wing dead, Beckwourth gone. Sam missed them. He wouldn't see most of the other trappers until next year's rendezvous, set for the same time on Bear River, north and east of the Salt Lake.

Outfit by outfit, most of the trappers drifted toward wherever they planned to trap that autumn. They didn't hurry. There was plenty of time.

Sam, Hannibal, Gideon, and the two Crows stayed. Their training days ran long into the summer evenings. One night over a late supper Gideon asked, “What we gonna do this autumn?”

Sam looked around at his current outfit, three friends, himself, and Coy. Not a brigade you could take on a big trapping expedition.

He raised a questioning eyebrow at Hannibal. “I'll be going back to Taos.”

“Still maybe fifty men here,” said Gideon “We could hook up with someone.”

Sam shook his head. “I'm getting married. Soon.”

Gideon chewed on that. He knew it meant a raid on some tribe for that eight-horse bride price, and a return to Rides Twice's village.

“This child will go along. I guess we are free trappers, then.”

Sam smiled. His outfit for the raid and going back to the village would be Gideon, the two Crows, and himself. A small party, maybe not a safe one. But Sam felt daring.

“What's a free trapper?” asked Flat Dog. He was more forward than his brother.

“We aren't working for anybody,” said Sam.

“What's working for anybody?”

“Doing a job someone else wants us to do, and getting money in return.”

Flat Dog and Blue Horse gave each other odd smiles. “No Crow would do that,” Flat Dog said. His expression said it would be demeaning.

“What it means is, we're on our own,” said Gideon.

“For better or for worse,” put in Hannibal.

“Like us,” said Flat Dog, grinning.

“If we work our tails off,” said Sam, “we could go back to rendezvous with a lot of plews and be rich.”

Everyone mulled on that. Finally Blue Horse spoke up. “You want to be rich?”

“I want to get married. And stay in the village all fall and winter with my new wife.”

“We gonna trap in the spring?” said Gideon.

“I thought we'd trap the Wind Rivers, you and me, and Blue Horse and Flat Dog if they want. Fall and spring. We ought to do all right.”

Gideon nodded. It was his judgment, unspoken, that there was no point in speaking up against young love. “Free trapper,” he said. “An equal shot at being rich, broke, or dead.”

Everybody chuckled, but not much and not long.

 

T
HAT EVENING
H
ANNIBAL
suggested that he and Sam take a walk along the river. They stopped on the edge of the Henry's Fork, Coy at Sam's heels. Sam found a flat stone and skipped it across the slow-moving water, one, two, three skips.

“This has been a good time,” said Hannibal.

Sam nodded yes. The sun was nearly down now, near the rim of the western hills. The evening cool would be a relief. He hoped Hannibal wasn't going to wax philosophical.

“I want to show you a trick,” Hannibal said. They stood near some willows. It was a plant Sam had learned to love, the red branch with green, finger-shaped leaves. It grew along water courses in the West, and so was always a good sign for a man with a dry throat.

“Stand by that willow.” Sam did. “Now take out your knife and hold it at me. Pretend you've disarmed me and are holding me.”

Sam slipped his butcher knife out of his belt and it held it on the Delaware.

“Watch carefully.” Hannibal held out his hands to show that they were empty. Then he raised them and put them behind his head. “Remember, Indians will mostly accept this gesture. They've learned that it's the way white men surrender.” He grinned. “They like that.”

Hannibal's right hand slashed out near Sam's face.

A thin willow branch tilted. The top turned end over end as it tumbled to the ground.”

“What…?”

“That could have been your face.”

Hannibal did something with his hands and opened a palm to Sam.

There lay a piece of polished walnut, about four inches long and thick as a finger. On each end four rings were carved, and painted red, yellow, black, and white, the colors of the four directions. A hair ornament, Indian style.

“Take it.”

It was light, smooth, well-oiled.

“Open it.”

Now he saw the thinnest of lines in one of the rings. He pulled on the two ends, and the ornament came apart. One end was a wood sheath, the other a gleaming, wood-handled, double-edged blade an inch or two long.

“Feel it,” said Hannibal.

Very, very sharp.

“A knife I had a gunsmith make for me. I have two of them.” He rummaged in the pouch until he found a second one. “I'll give you that one.”

Sam was mesmerized by the little weapon.

“Keep it really sharp. That's what makes it work.”

Sam slid it apart and put it back together. It pleased him, and reminded him of Abby's hidden knife. Hers was the size of an emery board and looked like part of the hem of her dress.

“Here's what I do with it.” Hannibal turned his back to Sam. He slid his piece of wood into his thick, black braid, and adjusted it just so. It looked good as a hair ornament.

Now he slipped it out. Only the knife part came, the blade catching the light in the last of the sun. Hannibal made a pretend slash, and another willow stick flew off. “It makes a hell of a cut, lots of blood. But it's the shock of getting sliced right across the face, maybe the eyes, that makes it nasty.”

“I love it,” said Sam.

So they sat on some rocks and Hannibal let Sam learn to braid hair. He undid and then rebraided Hannibal's black thatch several times.

Coy got impatient and jumped into the river to play.

As Sam worked, Hannibal said, “Do us both a favor. Don't show any of your friends this knife trick. Or else these knives will be all over the mountains, and the Indians will learn the trick. And the whites and French-Canadians and Spaniards.”

“Not a word.”

After three learning sessions on Hannibal, Sam braided his own white hair. He inserted the walnut hair ornament and practiced sliding the blade out easily.

Finally he nodded several times. “It works,” Sam said.

“Keep it sharp,” said Hannibal.

“I guess I'll be braiding my hair every morning.”

Hannibal smiled, knowing what Sam was thinking. “Or find a woman to do it for you.”

 

T
HE NEXT MORNING
Sam spent teaching Coy to ride Paladin.

It was frustrating. Oh, the little coyote caught on quick enough. It was something else. When they stopped for lunch, Sam munched until he'd figured out what. He went and found Gideon, Blue Medicine Horse, and Flat Dog and told them all the same thing. “Let's go.”

By midafternoon, they set out for Powder River country. They had a pledge to steal those eight horses.