The Shirt On His Back (17 page)

Even before the
procession left camp, Edwin Titus dispatched Tom Fitzpatrick with ten men, to
ride post-haste down the river and meet and escort the missing Indian Agent to
the rendezvous if he was delayed, or to find him if he was lost. Bets were
taken at Seaholly's - according to Pia they ran five to two in favor of the
deceased actually being Goodpastor - and Hannibal played a Mozart requiem,
after which every man in the camp, with the exception of January and Shaw,
repaired to Seaholly's for the wake.

'Bridger tell
you last night 'bout the winter of . . . musta been '31 or '32?' said Shaw, in
response to January's question as to his opinion on the matter. They crossed
Horse Creek at the same spot they had the previous morning - deadfall pine
athwart the stream bed marked the best ford - and climbed the ridge beyond; the
stream was much lower than it had been yesterday, but just as cold.

'Was that the
winter Bridger was working for Rocky Mountain Fur?'

'It was - 'fore
the AFC strangled 'em out of business.' Shaw leaned forward in the saddle as
the horses scrambled up the trail. He kept one rifle in hand and the other
scabbarded on the saddle, and had added a US Army pistol to his armory and a
second bowie-knife stuck in his moccasin top - an uncomfortable reminder of the
fact that whoever had murdered either Johnny Shaw, or poor old Senex Incognito
or both, they weren't the only killers abroad in these high, empty-seeming
lands.

'RMF brigades
would go into a territory, and AFC had orders to follow 'em in an' trap the
streams bare 'fore Bridger an' his men - Tom Fitzpatrick was one of 'em, then,
too - could get enough plews to make back what their company was payin' 'em,'
went on Shaw. 'They did this for a month or two, then Bridger got fed up with
it - an' fedder up of the

AFC tellin' the
local tribes that if they did business with the RMF, they could forget AFC
goods forever. Finally, Bridger turns around an' heads straight into Blackfoot
country, knowin' the AFC boys would
have
to follow an'
knowin' what'd happen to 'em when they did. Bridger an' his boys was in danger
too, but they was in smaller groups, they was the first ones in, an' Bridger
figured they had a better chance. An' he was right. Bridger an' his men got
through pretty clear. AFC lost some men, some of who died pretty badly. Bridger
knowed that would happen. That's the kind of fightin' we're lookin' at. The men
we're dealin' with.'

January was
silent. He now had a pretty good idea of what the pelts stacked in the AFC
storage tents would bring when Titus got them to St Louis, and what the Company
paid the trappers for them, even
before
the trappers were docked Company prices for liquor and powder and salt. Britain
and the US were fighting over profits well equivalent to a silver lode.

'So, would Titus
egg on a pack of Crows to kill an Indian Agent that was like to get questions
asked in Congress about sellin' liquor?' Shaw shrugged and swung down from his
horse as they neared the clearing where the old man had lain. 'Beats hell outta
me. Would Congress
believe
it's the kind of thing the AFC would do an' start an investigation? I would.
Well, consarn,' he added, scanning the ground around the clearing and its
shelter. 'I knew this would happen whilst we was keepin' an eye on the viewin'
of the corpse.'

'Every man in
the camp hiked up here to have a look at the shelter?'

The Kentuckian
straightened up and surveyed the clearing around him. Even so inexpert a
tracker as January could tell that the place had been well and truly visited.
'If I'd been the Blackfeet,' sighed Shaw, I'd'a just put up an ambush here by
the trail. Coulda picked off every man in the camp that way.'

'Except you and
me and our deceased friend, now in his honored grave.' January took the reins
of Shaw's horse as Shaw began slowly circling the clearing afoot, more often
crouched than straight, examining the ground, the trees, the scrubby thickets
of huckleberry around the bases of the pines. January glanced at him every few
seconds, but his attention remained on the woods around them: on the chittering
of squirrels and the hidden rustle of foxes in the juniper thickets; on the
voices of larks, the squabbling of jaybirds. Sounds that would cease, he knew,
if someone were coming behind them.

In just such a
fashion, he reflected, were Hannibal, and Veinte-y-Cinco, and Pia, pursuing
their own investigations at Seaholly's, listening for gossip, words, chance
remarks . . . Anything out of place.

Out of place
like an old man's naked body - like a pair of expensive black kid gloves.

Shaw said, with
a note of satisfaction in his voice, An' here we are.'

January followed
his gaze and saw the bright orangey-yellow scar of a fresh bullet-mark high on
a scraggy-barked fir.

Branches didn't
even start on the trunk until some twenty- five feet from the ground. January
set his own rifle and one of Shaw's where he could grasp them in seconds,
leaned on the tree and gave his hand for his companion's moccasined foot.

'Looks to have
been a wild shot.' Shaw prized the bullet loose with his knife, dropped lightly
off January's shoulders with the deformed wad of lead in his hand. 'Pistol,' he
added, and held it up for January to see. 'Fifty caliber. Johnny's was a fifty,
an' it wasn't on his body.'

He pocketed the
bullet, resumed his search of the trees while January went back to watching for
danger. After a time he asked, 'Was there a reason Johnny didn't stay with you
in New Orleans, and came west with Tom? Other than wanting to be kidnapped by
the Indians like Uncle Naboth?'

'He hated bugs,'
replied Shaw simply - as good a reason as January had ever heard for staying
out of New Orleans. 'An' he missed the mountains. He was only twelve,' the
Kentuckian went on quietly, 'when the three of us come to New Orleans. I'd been
down the river twice before. But it was Tom's first trip, an' Johnny's, an' him
wild to come an' see the elephant an' hear the lion roar. Probably saved his
life, an' Tom's too, when the fever come through at home. I don't think Tom
ever got over it.' His hand brushed the bark of another tree, and he added, 'No
second ball, far as I can see. Since Mr Incognito didn't have it in his hide,
there's a chance Wildman took it, which might account for him not bein' at his
camp.'

'Wouldn't
account for his horses being gone.' January nudged his own mount along after
Shaw as Shaw made his way from the clearing upslope to the top of the ridge.
'And I didn't see any birds circling when we were coming up toward the hills.'

Our mama an 'OUR
wives,
Shaw had said, when he'd spoken of his brother: it was the
first time January had ever heard his friend mention that he might have once
been married.
When the fever
came through at home . . .

Tom
wasn 't the only one, who never got over it
.

'Don't smell any
smoke,' remarked Shaw. 'You?'

January shook
his head. 'Did Tom meet Gil Wallach in New Orleans?'

'Gil Wallach was
still trappin' back in '29. But the Chouteau Brothers, that just about runs the
fur business outta St Louis, come down to New Orleans pretty regular, an' Tom
hooked up with them on the business side - Tom was always the businessman, of
the three of us.' He knelt, probing at a tangle of hemlock. 'He clerked a spell
at Laramie, but it wasn't long 'fore he was the bourgeois of a post. Johnny
went with him.'

And
you didn't,
thought January.
You stayed alone, in New Orleans
. . .

'An' about,'
Shaw added, straightening up, 'goddam time.'

In one hand he
held a straight stick some two and a half feet long, cut on both ends with a
fresh knife-gash and trimmed of branches. Under its rough bark was snagged a
single long, white thread.

'The splint?'
January reined in close to see. 'That Poco found on the dead man's leg?'

'One of 'em. I
ain't seen anythin' resemblin' a rag hereabouts. That shelter's tied together
with rawhide strips—'

'Now we just
need to find someone in the camp who carries those in his pockets.' Every
trapper, camp-setter and Indian from the Rio Grande to the Columbia generally
had strips of rawhide about his person, for the thousand uses of the camp and
the hunt: tying carcasses to saddles, or float-sticks to mark traps, repairing
moccasins or rigging makeshift hobbles . . .

'Well, who we
wouldn't find with 'em might be our friend with the banknotes an' that German
silver pocket-watch. I don't reckon there's much Mrs Sefton would miss when it
comes to viewin' the scene of a disappearin', but let's go have a look at what
there is to see.'