The Shirt On His Back (21 page)

'Naw.' The
Beauty shrugged. 'They didn't fit him. The coat doesn't fit him, neither, but
he wanted somethin' out of it, an' he wouldn't listen to reason.'

'You tell my
partner how you come by those boots, Clarke,' said Shaw. 'I found it right
interestin'.'

As did January,
when the trapper related in an undervoice - because Shaw and Frye were still
listening for the slightest signs of trouble back down the trail that the
Blackfeet had taken - the events of three nights ago. 'We thought at first that
little speck of a fire mighta been somebody who'd been hurt,' explained Clarke.
'Or somebody who'd camped up, not realizin' how close he was to the rendezvous,
like Robbie Prideaux, that time he made his confession to one of his camp-
setters an' they both laid down in a blizzard, thinkin' they was
dyin' fifteen
feet from the gate of Fort Laramie one night. But there's this old man, layin'
in a shelter under a deadfall, with his hands folded on his breast an' his
throat cut from ear to ear. Stabbed in the back, too, though that didn't keep
Clem from takin' his coat. We figured he was that Indian agent Titus was
workin' himself up to a stroke over - no lookout of ours even if we
hadn't
been tryin' to
ease on out of the camp, quiet like. There's one thing I got no patience with,
it's Indian agents, pokin' around causin' trouble . . .'

'What time was
this?'

'First light.'

'Any sign of a
horse nearby?'

'We didn't see
any, but we didn't look. The rain had slowed us down, an' we knew we still had
a couple of those sneaky bastards on our tails, that's too dumb to find their
own beaver.' He glared pointedly at Boaz Frye.

'His clothes wet
or dry?'

'Damp,' said
Clarke. 'Like he'd got under shelter pretty quick after gettin' wet.'

'You have
trouble getting his boots off? Was that why you hauled him out of the shelter?'

'The left boot,
yeah. His leg was splinted up, and his foot was swole - Clem had to hold on to
his shoulders while I pulled at it. The old guy was dead,' he added
defensively. 'It's not like it hurt him or nuthin'.'

January
reflected that Jed Blankenship would have just cut off the swollen leg and
removed the foot the easy way.

'Swelled a
little or swelled a lot?'

The mountaineer
thought about it for a moment, his hand stroking the stock of his rifle, which
had been decorated with an elaborate design of brass nail-heads. 'A little, I'd
say. I mean, we got his boot off him—'

Shaw raised a
hand. All stopped, and on the morning air, above the animal smells of the empty
campsite before them, January smelled fresh smoke. Instinctively, the four men
spread out, moving in silence from tree to tree among the cut-down brush, the
dung and detritus that littered the edges of the creek where the tipis had been
set last night. Further ahead among the cottonwoods, January saw a flash of
movement and raised his gun. Beside a small fire two gourd bowls lay, and a tin
cup of water. Shaw stepped out of the trees, flanking the clearing. After a
moment, from the rocks nearer the creek, a man's hat was raised up on a rifle -
a reasonable precaution against trigger-happy intruders.

And the next
minute, Manitou Wildman - dressed, unruffled and quite clearly in perfectly
good health - stood up from among the rocks.

The words, 'Are
you all right?' came out of January's mouth even as he thought:
that's the stupidest question I've ever heard.

Wildman blinked
at him, like a man thrust suddenly into light from darkness. 'I'm well.'

Shaw lowered his
rifle. 'You didn't look so peart last night.'

The trapper
shook his head. His short-cropped hair, January noticed, was clean, new-washed,
still wet, and under his tan he was ghastly pale. His slow, mumbling voice had
a hoarse note to it, as if indeed his throat had been lacerated by screams.
'Nothing happened last night.'

'Here? This very
spot? The Blackfeet?'

'The Blackfeet
are my friends,' said Wildman. 'Silent Wolf is my brother.'

'Now, there's
been times I wanted to stick splinters under my brother's hide an' light 'em,'
said Shaw, 'but I don't recall as I ever actually done it—'

'Nothing
happened last night,' repeated Wildman.

Shaw, January
and young Mr Frye exchanged looks -
are we crazy?

The big trapper
seated himself cross-legged by the fire again, picked up one of the gourds and
sipped at the broth within. 'What are you doing here?' he asked, in a voice
that sounded more normal. 'It's miles from camp.'

'What are
you
doin' here?'
returned Shaw.

'Came to see my
brothers.' Manitou nodded in the direction of the stream, where two horses and
a mule were hobbled - Manitou's horses, January saw at a glance. Like himself,
the mountaineer was a big man and paid extra for the biggest horses in the
strings brought up from Missouri and New Mexico. 'Silent Wolf knows it'd be
madness to attack his enemies where the white men are in strength,' Manitou
went
on.
'But it's madness not to know what's going on. Sit.' He motioned to the ground
by the fire. 'There's more stew here than I can eat.'

After a moment's
hesitation - and another glance traded - the four trackers complied. In the
mountains, you didn't turn down stew, and after tracking from sunrise to
darkness yesterday January would have eaten raw buffalo with the hair on. Shaw
said, 'There was a man killed outside the camp three nights ago, a stranger—'

'I didn't do
it,' said Wildman quickly. 'I never saw the old man.' And then, '
Three
nights?'

'How'd you know
he was old?'

Hesitation.
Then, 'One of the camp-setters told me.'

January opened
his mouth to ask:
when? You
haven't been in camp since then
— and Shaw
elbowed him very gently in the back.

'He tell you the
body was nekkid when we found him? We been trackin' down bits an' pieces of his
plunder, tryin' to find out who he was an' what he was doin' out there. McLeod
an' that preacher Grey been claiming he was this Indian Agent Goodpastor, that
seems to have got hisself lost.'

Manitou's heavy
brow sank even lower over his eyes. 'No,' he said in his slow voice. 'No, I
didn't know ghouls had looted his body.' His glance swept over Frye's
waistcoat, and Clarke's boots, and spots of angry color began to spread like
wounds over the dark, taut skin of his cheekbones.

'Now, just a
goddam minute—' Clarke began, and Shaw held up his hand.

'That's by the
way,' he said. 'An' the old man was buried decent at the camp. Grey prayed over
him, for what good that's like to do - an' for a fact, he sure don't care now
who's wearin' his boots. This camp-setter you talked to wouldn'ta had some idea
who the old boy mighta been, would he?'

Manitou looked
aside. 'No.' He stood, his sudden movement reminding January of the grizzly
he'd seen on the other side of the creek last night, huge and far too close in
the moonlight, and went to pick up his saddle from the rocks where it lay.
'Maybe it was old Goodpastor.'

'If'fn it was,
he parked his camp an' his horses under a rock someplace. Care to come with us,
whilst we takes tea with the Dutchman an' sees if old Mr Incognito was carryin'
callin' cards in
his coat pocket?' Shaw collected bridle and apishamore, and followed.

'No,' Manitou
said. 'I been from my camp too long. Three days, you said?' He shook his head,
his heavy brow creasing, like a drunkard trying to reckon the days of a binge.
'Winter Moon,' he added, 'you need one of these girls -' he slapped the
shoulder of the taller of his two horses, a heavy-boned buckskin - "til
you get back to the camp? If Beauty'11 lend you a bridle off one of the mules .
. .'

'I appreciate
the offer,' said January. 'Thank you. We owe you some pemmican, by the way—'

'Surprised a
bear hadn't got it. You're welcome to it.'

'You stayin' at
the camp awhile?' asked Shaw more softly - perhaps to exclude, January thought,
Beauty Clarke and Boaz Frye, who had gone to check loads and cinches on
Clarke's mules. 'For a fact I been wantin' to speak with you 'bout what
happened down at Fort Ivy this winter, when Johnny Shaw was killed.'

Manitou paused
in the act of laying down the apishamore on his other horse, a cinder-gray
mare, and regarded Shaw with those deep-shadowed brown eyes. 'That'd be your
brother.'

'It would.'

'You look like
him.'

'I been told.'

'I wasn't in the
fort when it happened.' When Wildman swung the saddle into place January
noticed the catch in his movements, and the way he favored his left arm. Where
the worn elk-hide hunting-shirt fell away from Wildman's throat, he saw clotted
wounds. In places blood leaked through to stain the pale-gold hide. 'I was
camped about a mile off, in the woods.'

'Why?' asked
Shaw. 'From all Tom an' Beauty both say, it was snowin' billy-bejeezus an' cold
as brass underwear.'

'Too many
people. People—' Manitou readjusted the apishamore under the saddle, cinched
the whole arrangement tight. 'I ain't fit to be around people. Never have been.
Guess you know that,' he added, with a sudden shy grin that made his face look
suddenly human again. 'I get mad . . . Better I keep my distance. You think it
was Frank that did it? Tom's clerk?'

'It's who I'm up
here lookin' for.' Shaw folded his long arms. 'Though I'd appreciate you kept that
one silent as the grave. Why'd you think it might be him?'

'Man don't leave
a fort in the middle of winter like that, 'less he's flushed out. One mornin' -
before first light, durin' a break between storms, but more bad weather comin'
in, you could smell it - I saw him pass 'bout a half-mile from my camp. I only
knew him by that townsman's coat he wore: old, black wool with a fur collar.
Heard later he'd said he got spooked, the boy bein' killed by Blackfeet like
that. But I never saw no sign of Blackfeet. So I figured it was probably him.
Hard luck on Tom. I know he was crazy 'bout that boy. Yourself too, I guess.'

Shaw nodded,
without speaking.

'Why'd you think
he's comin' here?'

'Johnny found
letters of his, that sounded like there was gonna be some kind of trouble here
at the rendezvous.
Bad trouble,
he said.
Killin' trouble.
Then this old buffer shows up dead, that seems to just fallen outta the sky.
The name Hepplewhite mean anythin' to you?'

'Just the feller
who made the furniture.' Manitou took the empty stew-gourd Shaw held out to
him, knotted it in one of the saddle latigos, then swung himself up as lightly
as a schoolgirl. 'If Frank's come into this country,' he went on, looking down
at Shaw, 'likely your vengeance'll look after itself. Frank's a clerk. Got a
clerk's hands. Can't see him lastin'. You come here, you lay yourself in the
hand of God. He don't have far to look if he's after you.'

He leaned from
the saddle to rub the buckskin mare's face gently with his knuckles as January
readjusted the borrowed bridle around her head. 'Look after that lady for me,
Winter Moon. Anybody beat the crap outta Blankenship for that trick with the
mirror?'

'I heard Robbie
Prideaux beat the crap out of him for something,' replied January. 'It could
have been anything, given the number of things people have against that man.'

Wildman made a
growly sniff, as close as he ever got, January suspected, to laughter. 'Could
have, at that. He's another one the country'll get sooner or later. It was a
good fight,' he added. 'Been a long time since I followed ring rules. I enjoyed
it. You think twice about vengeance, Shaw.' He glanced back at Shaw beneath the
heavy shelf of his brow. 'It never ends well.'

'Nor does it,'
returned Shaw quietly. 'Yet I can't turn from my brother, nor my brother's
blood. An' there is no law here that'll touch the man who did it.'

'Nor bring your
brother back.' Wildman sat for a time, looking down into Shaw's pale eyes.
'Guess you're right at that. We do what we gotta. I see this Frank feller
around the camp, I'll let you know.' He touched his heels to the horse, started
to move away.