“Twenty-five. Six years away… You know that I can’t wait that long. I barely have enough funds to pay my current bills. What would I do for six years?”
“You would have to be most frugal, my dear.”
“Frugal? Penniless is more the correct word.”
“Yes, well…”
“Benjamin, this carriage that you would hire for me”—Katrina returned her glance toward her solicitor—“would it see me all the way to the Northwest Territory?”
“Well, no, there are no roads that travel that distance, but it would take you to St. Louis, and from there, I could arrange your passage aboard a steamboat to Fort Union in the Northwest Territory. And there you would meet with your uncle.”
“I see. Whatever, do you suppose, possessed my father and uncle to become traders?”
“Hmmm… What did you say, Katrina?”
“Traders.” Katrina glanced away. “It’s a savage and uncivilized life that they chose for themselves, wasn’t it? Trading European goods for the furs of the Indians. Why do you think they chose it?”
“Perhaps for the adventure. Mayhap for the money. They did accumulate quite a fortune for themselves…and for you, my dear. Might I remind you that all the wealth and enjoyment that you have possessed thus far in your life has come down to you from the richness of that trade?”
“Yes,” Katrina said on a heavy breath, “all my enjoyment.” Then, lowering her voice, she whispered, “And all my sorrow.”
“Pardon?”
Katrina didn’t answer.
Instead, she raised her chin, and asked, “Is that all, then? I have only to go there and meet my uncle and then I might have—”
“And your
fiancé.”
“Excuse me?”
Benjamin Lloyd cleared his throat. “Didn’t I mention that to you?”
“No, you did not.”
“Oh, yes, well, your uncle here stipulates that he must meet and,” Benjamin Lloyd lowered his voice, speaking quickly, “…and approve of said fiancé before the distribution of—”
“Meet? Approve?”
“Yes, well…”
Katrina leaned over the desk. “What further madness is this?”
Benjamin Lloyd fingered his collar. He leaned backwards. “I was certain I had told you that. I was… Why, here it is. This document says”—he shook out a piece of paper—“when the party of the first—your uncle—shall meet and approve of matrimonial choice of said ward—that is you—any hitherto obligation of said ward will be discharged and the distribution of funds shall commence—”
“He wants to meet my fiancé?”
“Yes, I—”
“Why does he want to…? This makes little, if any sense at all. First, he asks me to place myself in danger to go and meet him, and now he is demanding to approve of my fiancé?”
“In danger, my dear? I’m not sure I would use those terms to…”
Katrina no longer listened to the lawyer’s ramblings. No, she had already lifted the hem of her pink satinet dress, stepped away from her chair, and begun to pace beside the solicitor’s desk.
She stopped suddenly, interrupting the lawyer, as she said, “Well, I am certain of it now. My uncle hates me.”
“Katrina…”
“It’s the only possible explanation. Perhaps my uncle hated my father, as well as me, and it is only in this way that the awful man can seek full revenge.” Katrina hurriedly dropped the hem of her skirt and turned around, stepping briskly to her solicitor’s desk, the bustle under her skirts swaying with her movement.
Benjamin Lloyd, however, watching her, did nothing more than swallow noisily.
“Well, at least I understand my uncle, now,” she said. “He hates me, has hated me all my life, and this is his way of getting back at me.”
“Katrina, I’m not sure that I—”
“I always wondered why my only living relative never came to see me, why all the nannies and servants…”
“Now, Katrina, I don’t see that this makes any difference to what is being asked now. The servants and the maids, the—”
“Don’t you?” Katrina interrupted, turning away and presenting her back to the spectacled solicitor. Briefly she glanced into a corner of the room. A moment passed. Another. At last, though, she took a deep breath and, pivoting to confront her lawyer, looked directly at him. “You’re probably right, Benjamin. None of the past matters anymore.”
“Please, my dear, I know that this is all so unexpected. Naturally you are upset and—”
“I will go.”
“Now, now. Don’t make too hasty a decision. It’s best to think it over carefully before… You will?”
“Yes, I will. My uncle wants to see me. I will go. He never came here to see me, but I will go to him. Besides, what choice do I have? If I don’t do this, I will lose all reputation here, what with no more available funds to draw from.” She turned so that the pink bonnet she wore did not obstruct her view of the solicitor. “My uncle has played an excellent game with me, I think. A game of chess, if you will. He has laid siege to my queen for the moment. Do you know that? I thought to marry in order to avoid my uncle and draw upon the rest of my inheritance without ever a word to him. I thought I had placed my uncle’s king in checkmate. Now I see that I had a more worthy opponent than I had at first envisioned.”
“Katrina, what
are
you saying? You might be taking this too much to heart. Perhaps, my dear, it would be best not to judge your uncle until—”
“He will not win, though.”
“Katrina, I don’t think that…”
But Benjamin Lloyd might as well have remained silent. Katrina had already collected her purse and umbrella, marched to the room’s door and flung it open before she turned back toward him. Her lips parted for a moment, as though she might say something further, but with a definite shake of her head, she merely stated, “Good day, Benjamin.”
With that said, she delayed no longer. Picking up the front of her dress, she swept through the door, her head held in a stiff, defiant angle.
And there was no one, not a single person at this moment, who would have interfered with her without cost.
At least no one in New York City.
Pikuni Camp of Blackfeet
Northwest Territory
Spring 1833
“She comes.”
White Eagle, who had been paying more attention to stoking the fire than to his friend, suddenly glanced up.
“Tahkaa?”
“Who?” The fair-headed man stared at his Indian companion, the two men sitting comfortably within White Eagle’s lodge. The look in the older man’s eyes was rich with affection. “My niece comes,” the old trader responded after several moments. “My brother’s daughter, Shines Like Moonlight, is finally arriving home…and after all these years.” The older man sighed.
“Naapiaakii waitaaat?”
“Yes, she is coming here to visit, and please, White Eagle,
mopbete,
behave. Speak English. If you won’t use the language that I’ve taught you, what good was my effort?”
“Aa,
it does me well in trade, my friend,” White Eagle said, beaming a lopsided smile at the old trader. “That is enough. Your language is not as pretty as mine.”
“Yes, well…that may be. But I can very well see that my language helps you in trade. You have much wealth here to prove that.” The older gentleman uncrossed his legs and leaned forward. “No longer can these traders lie to you or take advantage of you. And this, because you now speak their tongue.” The trader chuckled. “Why, I guess you could just as easily curse these new Americans in English as well as in Blackfeet.”
“Do you forget,” White Eagle voiced, “that the language of my people has no curse words?”
“No, son, I don’t. But sometime I will have to teach you how and why the white man swears…or rather makes an exaggeration.”
“An exaggeration, a curse? Or do you not mean a lie?”
“No, my friend, not really. It’s called stretching the truth. An exaggeration is something the white man says more for the effect of saying it than for its truthfulness.”
“Haiya,
is that why the white man lies and tries to cheat us—for an effect?”
“No, friend, it’s done more because—” The elder man glanced up at his young comrade. White Eagle grinned, the expression on his face widening into a broad smile. “You make a jest at me. There’s no need for me to explain this to you, is there?”
White Eagle just smirked, his smile showing straight, white teeth.
“You did that well, my friend. I forget sometimes how quick you are to understand. Still, I’m certain that your learning the English language has helped you to trade better.”
“Yes, old friend, it has. That and recognizing that the Big Knives, the ones you call the Americans, have never been known to speak with a straight tongue. Realizing this has saved me from making many bad decisions.”
The old trader nodded.
“My people used to refuse to barter with these Americans. Always before did we travel to the north. Those men at the Hudson Bay Company we understood. But now these Big Knives, the Americans, come into our country, and try to tell us that they are here for our own good. And each time these men come, they bring whiskey, and you know that the weaker spirits in our tribe cannot resist the white-man’s-water.
This whiskey drives many of our people crazy, and always something bad happens.”
“Yes, White Eagle, what you say is so. It also makes it harder for free trappers, like myself, to trade. True, the free trapper is not dependent on ‘the company’ and the H.B.C., but since we free trappers carry little whiskey, we can hardly compete.”
White Eagle nodded. “And now these Big Knives have built a new post on
Kaiyi Isisakta
or the Bear River and my people are anxious to barter again. It seems that my kinsmen forget the Big Knives’ tricks from the past. I fear my people will sell themselves to these liars for the simple price of a few pretty beads and crazy-water. It was better when we burned down their fort last year. But these
naapia’pii,
these white men, keep coming back no matter that we drive them from our land time and again.”
“Aa,
yes,” said the older man. “And they’ll keep returning, too. There are so many of them.”
“So you tell me, old man, so you tell me, but I have yet to see very many of them.”
“You will,” the older man responded, shrugging. “You will.” And with this said, the fair-headed trader leaned back against the willow backrest. “Do you remember my niece, friend?”
“How could I not?”
The white man chuckled. “No, I don’t suppose that you could forget her. She was only what, the last time you saw her? Five years of age? And you could not have been more than—”
“Eight winters.”
“Yes, eight winters. Now, I remember it. If I recall correctly, you seemed to have loved Shines Like Moonlight as much as I did.”
The blond man suddenly sat forward. “I have much to thank you for, my friend, very much, indeed.”
White Eagle said nothing, merely shrugged.
“But I am going to ask even more of you.”
This declaration had White Eagle glancing up.
“Here,” the older man shoved a piece of paper toward the Indian. “Read this.”
White Eagle glanced over the paper, his gaze scanning the contents of the white man’s words. That this fur trader had dared to teach a young boy how to read so many years ago had stood in good stead for the Indian, not only to help White Eagle and his family, but for the whole of his tribe, the Pikuni band of Blackfeet. White Eagle had soon come to learn that many times the words written on the papers of the white man were different from the pledges that the
naapia’pii
spoke, and this, more than anything, had helped his tribe in trade.
White Eagle suddenly caught his breath as he read. He frowned, his only other reaction.
“I want you to go and fetch her for me, friend. I cannot make the journey to Fort Union this time of year, not when the trade here at Fort McKenzie is going so well.”
White Eagle didn’t acknowledge the words, didn’t move at all; he stared at his friend.
The elder man, his glance steady, pushed his point. “She is your responsibility, after all.”
White Eagle frowned, his brows drawn. “The man who wrote this says that he expects you, her uncle, to meet her at this Fort Union. This post is a good distance from us.”
“Yes, I know, but I think you had best go to greet her, not me.”
Again, White Eagle said nothing, although his displeasure became more pronounced.
The old man said quietly, “She belongs to you.”
White Eagle could barely contain his glower. “Why do you say this?”
“You know why.”
Jerking his head to the left, White Eagle countered, “Do you mean because I saved her life all those summers ago?” He shrugged. “I have rescued others since that time, and the fate of these other people did not fall to me.”
“Yes, I know, but there was always something special between you and the child. Besides, her father asked you, as well as me, to watch over her.”
“She was only five winters old and I was—”
“Eight years. Yes, so you have told me. Still, there was… I can’t go and meet her, my friend. You know what your people will think of me if I suddenly leave this trade to travel a great distance to seek out a woman, even if she is my niece and I haven’t seen her for many years. I would be laughed out of this country.”