Beauty for Ashes (32 page)

“Now I begin to hear a big roar—the falls is coming. I got to get out! Drop my pistol, off with my leggings, and splash hard toward the far bank. There I flop out on the shore and am catchin' my breath when what do I smell? Griz breath. She's clambering right up next to me.

“I dive back in. No hope but one, I decide, and that the same as none. It's either Old Ephraim's teeth and claws or—the falls!

“Swoosh! Out over the edge I sail, all mixed up in water and sky at once, and breathin' both.

“Smack! I hit that pool at the bottom, and underwater I go, held down on slimy rocks in the pounding falls by a current that's stronger'n any bear in this world. How I got up to the surface I'll never know, and when I did, I still couldn't breathe. The smack skedaddled my breath far, far away.

“Then finally comes one breath, and while this child is just a gulpin' air, he looks up and sees, and sees…I couldn't believe my eyes. There was Madam Silvertip soaring over the edge of them falls, heading straight down on top of me.

“I made lickety-split for the bank. Things was looking bad, though. If that griz wanted me bad enough to come over them falls…”

He shook his head in hopelessness.

“On the bank I decided to make my stand once and for all. I took out my butcher knife” (here he set himself in a knife-fighting stance) “and faced my tormentor.

“Straight at me she comes, fast and fierce. Boys, I…”

He shook his head and shivered, like the memory still haunted him.

“What happened, Jim?” some eager soul would usually say. “What happened?”

“That bear, she killed me and et me.”

 

N
EW OUTFITS CAME
in, led by Provost, Weber, Sublette, and Fitzpatrick. Sam greeted old friends, and one man who seemed to be both friend and foe: Micajah. Sam shook his hand with a wary smile. Micajah pretended like he was about to use the grip to throw Sam over, but then he laughed and walked away.

As everyone got into camp, times got better. Ashley took the bungs out of more whiskey kegs. Trading got furious. Snake women got friendly. And the games got riotous. Every kind of physical competition, running, jumping, racing, wrestling, target shooting, and several kinds of card games. Anything one man could best another in and win a dollar.

Gideon started having fun at the shooting competitions. He couldn't hold a rifle—one hand was required for his crutch—but he was a first-rate shot with a pistol. Several times he challenged men with rifles to one-on-one shoots and beat them. Though Sam was worried that Gideon didn't have enough plews to get much more powder, he said nothing. These shoots were the first spark of life in his friend.

The evenings grew spirited, too. Fiddles came out, including Gideon's. Every kind of tune sashayed through the long twilights, and mountain men and Indian women stepped lively to the tunes. They drank many a toast to lift the merriment, and often as not headed for the willows to top it off with a little sport.

Sam noticed uneasily that Micajah got drunk every night. The giant knew that he was steady when sober, crazy when drunk. But he took a notion: In the mountains, he said, there wasn't enough whiskey for a man to be a drunk, so when the chance came, he might as well indulge freely. Twirling a slight Snake girl, Micajah saw Sam staring at him. “Oh, take it back to the States, Morgan,” he shouted. “You're worse'n a preacher.”

Later, spinning another girl, Micajah called, “Come on, Sam, kick up your heels. Get out here and have some fun.” He even brought the girl over and joined her hand to Sam's. But Sam felt a spasm of self-disgust. The hand wasn't Meadowlark's.

Sam wasn't ready for fun. He was stuck in what he couldn't forget. Sometimes he mulled on Blue Medicine Horse's death. Sometimes Third Wing's. Sometimes he couldn't help staring at Gideon, crippled, a fiddler who would never dance again. Every night, in the wee hours when the dark world hovered near, he thought bitterly of Meadowlark.

Meadowlark, wife of Red Roan.

He recalled, deliberately, movement by movement, what he and Meadowlark had done during their honeymoon in his tipi. Then he recounted the same movements, postures, caresses, smiles, joinings, and in place of himself he inserted the form of Red Roan.

He didn't like himself for that.

As he often did when he didn't like himself, he took Coy for a walk. Sometimes they talked, too. This time Sam didn't feel the need to say anything. By the brittle moonlight they walked up a hill overlooking the camp. The hill was steep and the climb a breath-stealer—somehow it felt right to do something hard.

From the top Sam looked out over rendezvous. The dark blobs were people, or bushes, depending on size, or trees. The shiny threads were creeks. The red-gold glows were campfires, probably with men sitting around them, sipping coffee and trading stories. Off to the left rose the tipis of the Shoshone camp. The low fires inside made the lodge covers glow, cones of light in the wilderness. It seemed a grand sight.

Sam sat and rubbed Coy's head for a long time. Men, women, and children were in those tipis. Families.

 

T
HE TALK ACROSS
the fires in the mornings was that General Ashley was leaving the business. He was selling out to a new firm, Smith, Jackson, and Sublette, made up of three top brigade leaders. In four years, Ashley had gone from deeply in debt to owner of a bonanza in furs, 12,000 pounds of peltries worth five dollars a pound, if he could get them safely to St. Louis. Now the General intended to spend some time in Missouri enjoying his wealth. He would bring supplies to rendezvous, but no more. Some men said he intended to run for governor. It was left to Jedediah Smith, David Jackson, and William Sublette to explore, trap, venture, struggle, and make or lose the next fortune in beaver pelts.

“Sam?” Gideon's voice. Sam was training Paladin, which took full concentration. “The cap'n requires your attention.” Diah was standing there waiting. An anarchist in spirit, Gideon always spoke titles like they were silly.

Sam put the mare on a lead and walked over to talk to his friend. Jedediah was all business. “I'm going out to the southwest, to look for beaver. You want to come?”

Sam considered his poverty.
But damn it, I like to be on my own
. Since he had only half an outfit, though, he might have to sign on with the new firm.

“We'll be a score of men. You're a good trapper.” Jedediah didn't use phrases like, “You know what way the stick floats.” He also didn't often say much that was personal, about himself or others. Sam supposed Diah's few words were a high compliment.

The offer had a lot behind it. Sam knew Jedediah had traveled northwest, clear to Flathead Post and back. He'd been straight west across the Snake River Plains, a starving country. Now southwest, searching for beaver, or maybe trying to fill in the blanks on his maps, or maybe just giving in to the urge to see new country, any new country, anywhere.

“I'll think on it.”

Jedediah turned, accepting that as answer enough for right now.

“What about the cripple?” said Gideon. “You have any job, it's a very humdinger for a cripple?”

Jedediah looked at Gideon, perched on a block of sandstone. “Poor Boy, my prayers are that you'll be fine. You'll ride into the next rendezvous. Maybe you'll even be wading into cold creeks again.”

“You Americans, you are sentimental,” said Gideon. But his tone was soft.

Sam led Paladin back into the training ring, musing. Diah's invitation was a surprise. Sam would listen to the camp talk. What did Diah really have in mind? It really might be new territory for the new firm to trap. To the northwest, Oregon was jointly held with the British, and the Hudson's Bay Company was doing all it could to keep the American fur hunters out. To the southwest a few miles was Mexican territory, and few beaver men hunted there.

But, then, Jedediah might be thinking of California. If he was, he wouldn't say so.

The world had heard report of the golden clime from the British and American sailors who visited those shores. The tales were glowing. Flowers bloomed and crops grew twelve months a year. The Indian and Mexican women were alluring. The country was beautiful, the mountains magnificent, the rivers mighty. Maybe a young, disenchanted, lonely American could start fresh in California.

 

O
N A DAY
just beyond the solstice, it is long twilight of summer evening. The sun drops behind western mountains, but its light lingers in the world, gentle as a lover's fingers stroking long hair. Snake women ghost through the camp. Some of them wear the finery their husbands have traded for, or they themselves have accepted graciously from trappers for their love.

Sam sits on a rock braiding a quirt from deer hide thongs. Paladin wouldn't take to a quirt, but Sam can trade it to some trappers for something he needs, like a patch knife. A fetching young woman walks past, smiles at Sam with a hint of coquetry, and hesitates. It's modest enough behavior, but for a Shoshone woman provocative.

Coy eyes her suspiciously. Sam strokes his head and watches the young woman walk on toward the circle where the fiddler is tuning up for the evening's fun. She's young enough to be unmarried, but old enough to have a husband. He'll probably never know. Since she's all dolled up, though, he knows how the evening will end for her. Not with him. He's not interested. He wishes he were.

Her scent wafts back to him on the evening breeze, and makes him miss Meadowlark even more.

Paladin whickers. Maybe Paladin wants to mate. If her time comes while they're at rendezvous, Sam will pick out the best stallion he sees and breed her.

This is his family, a horse and a coyote, missing a woman. Missing
the
woman.

The evening air seems special. The world pauses in a moment of perfection and holds its breath, forgetful of tomorrow. A mouth harp lifts a tune into this lucent tranquility. A moment later a fiddle joins it. The men will soon abandon their meals or games for dancing.

Gideon's voice clamors loud and jangly over the music.

Sam stands up and looks. A hundred yards away Gideon is pivoting around on his crutch and yelling at some irritant. Sam peers hard, and sees who the irritant seems to be—Micajah.

Quickly, Sam leads Paladin that way. Gideon's half crazy these days, and…. Yes, Gideon and Micajah swore eternal friendship at the last rendezvous, and they even included Sam—three-way eternal amity. Gideon and Micajah did it with the traditional rite of shooting the cups off each other's head. But Sam feels uneasy. Has Micajah really forgotten the fight at the Crow village, two falls out of three, when Gideon outwitted him? Has Micajah really forgotten the time in Evansville when he and his brother Elijah tried to rob Abby, Grumble, and Sam, and Elijah ended up dead?

When Sam gets there, maybe the shouting is over. Sam restakes Paladin. In front of a group of men, Micajah is circling Gideon, who pivots on his crutch. “You are right, I admit,” says Gideon in a placating tone. He holds a pistol out to Micajah. “You are right. You beat me.”

Micajah stops, looking at Gideon. His eyes are…calming down. He nods. He walks up and takes the offered pistol, then sticks it in Gideon's belt. “You done an honest mistake,” he says, and offers his hand. Gideon shakes it.

“Besides,” said Micajah, “I never forget.” He steps to one of the on-lookers and takes a whiskey jug. He takes a swig. “You, me, and Morgan—we are friends forever. I drink to it—the three of us, comrades.” He takes another swig.

Then he strides over to Gideon and offers the jug. “Come on out here, Sam,” calls Micajah, “and drink with us.”

Gideon swigs. Sam goes out, Coy following reluctantly. Handed the jug, Sam swigs.

“Sir Samuel Morgan,” Micajah cries, “it is time that you made the pledge of friendship yourself. This time
you
will shoot with me. Off my head you will shoot the cup of whiskey.”

Sam can't tell if Micajah is half-drunk or just acting that way.
Probably drunk by decision rather than inebriation,
he thinks. He looks at Gideon and shakes his head no.

“No,” shouts Gideon, “Sam is not that kind of man. Sir Samuel does not stoop to vulgar games.”

“Friendship,” cries Micajah. “We must renew our pledges of friendship.”

“We will, pledges of friendship. You and I will shoot, and Sam is included by…tradition.” Gideon grins crookedly at Sam. Sam thinks maybe he suspects trouble. But right now maybe Gideon welcomes trouble. Will he accept, with a Gallic shrug, a quick death?

“We will,” exults Micajah. “Friendship.”

Micajah struts off and takes a mock shooting position.

Sam mind screams at him,
You're only guessing.
Nevertheless, he says quietly to Gideon, “Don't do it.”

“It is well,” says the big Frenchy, and winks at him.

“Gideon…”

But Gideon walks away.
You crazy bastard…

“I show my complete trust in you,” cried Micajah, “by giving you the first shot. I insist that you, my friend, shoot first.” He takes a tin cup from one man, a whiskey jug from another, and fills the cup. Delicately, he sets it on his head. “Shoot the cup,” he says pointing. Then he puts his finger in the middle of his forehead and chuckles madly. “Not the flesh.”

Coy trots to the group of men near Micajah.
That's odd,
thinks Sam, but he follows.

Gideon pours powder into his pan. With an extravagantly careless gesture, he brings his pistol level and fires, Wham! The sound slaps Sam in the face.

The cup flies off Micajah's head. He licks whiskey off his face with mock lust.

Now Gideon puts a cup on his own head and takes a jaunty pose.

“No,” Sam mouths futilely.

Micajah wheels, plants his rifle butt between his feet, leans on the muzzle, and launches into oratory. “I first saw this feat performed,” he says, “by the mountaineer's only competitor as the greatest frontiersman, the keelboaters of the Ohio. Half-horse, half-alligators they call themselves, and by God they are. Those men eat ten Injuns for breakfast and use their bones for toothpicks. They shoot the cup to bond together, a way of saying, ‘We are brothers.'