woven cotton strip about an inch wide used to selvage the edge of garments to keep them from unraveling. This much-favored item of trade in the Indian country brought approving nods from the warriors, grunts from others gathered behind the players, and a squeal from at least one of the older women gathered nearby.
“Well, goddammit?” the first trapper demanded caustically of his opponents. “What you boys gonna lay down for that?”
Acting as if he did not know what to do about such a wager, one of the warriors turned to look over his shoulder at a woman nearby. Something unspoken passed between them. He turned back to look at his partner, then bent his head and pulled his shirt off, laying it neatly atop the pile.
“Awright,” Jamus replied. “Now we got us a real game!”
The second Shoshone began to rub and clack his three bones, singing the furthest thing from harmony with his partner as they shook and rubbed, clacked and waved the bones around and around until a man was driven nearly insane with the waiting.
When they spilled onto the buffalo robe, four heads again dipped to inspect them. The silence of that breathless crowd was punctuated only by the firing of weapons nearby as men shot at a mark with their rifles— winning swallows of whiskey as the afternoon wore on.
“By damn! We won, Jamus!” he hollered, slapping his partner on the back as they swept their winnings back toward their knees.
“What you wanna bet now?”
He didn’t have a ready answer for Jamus, not one near quick enough for the two warriors either.
The older of the two Shoshone immediately snatched his tomahawk from his belt and laid it upon the bare hide between the players. Most of the crowd were stunned: many of the Shoshone clamped hands over their mouths while white trappers muttered their approval of such a fine wager. There the tomahawk lay for a long, breathless moment, its fancy oiled wood gleaming in the sun, the forged iron head inlaid with pewter rings, a pair of deer dewclaws suspended from a latigo strip knotted at the bottom of the handle.
The anxious Shoshone grew impatient and soon made it plain the white men must wager or leave the game to others.
“Jamus?”
“I ain’t got nothing near that fine, Spivey.”
Then the Shoshone shut off their conversation and pointed.
“He wants our whiskey,” Spivey declared.
“You figger he wants all of it?” Jamus demanded in a whisper, as if the Shoshone might understand their English.
“Dip your cup in our kettle there and see if that’ll do for a wager.”
Jamus did as was suggested, dipping his pint tin cup into the small kettle of throat-burning alcohol Ashley had brought to rendezvous, as promised the year before. Setting the dripping cup on the robe, they looked up to see the smiles crawl across the faces of the two Shoshone and knew they had themselves a wager.
“Let’s play, boys!” Spivey whooped, scooping up three of the carved bones from the hide, beginning to rub and click them together inside his hands.
The white men won that go-round, then sat there taking the time to swill that cup of whiskey in front of their opponents as if to rub in the spoils of victory. The shirtless Shoshone flung down another tomahawk. And this time he won. The pair of warriors savored the liquor from the cup, passing it back and forth as each man took small sips until the potent brew had disappeared and both had themselves a go at licking the inside of the tin.
Again that second tomahawk was wagered, and again another cup of whiskey. More clacking, singing, chanting, and cursing to disconcert the other side before the bones were hurled down. One side always groaned in dismay, the other side celebrated by toasting to their success. On it went as the sun began to sink until suddenly the tides turned against the warriors and it seemed the Shoshone could not win a single play. Repeatedly the white men scooped up shirts and leggings, belts and moccasins, until there was little left but breechclouts for the warriors to wager.
While the two trappers laughed at their own good fortune, the two Shoshone became more and more sullen, forced to listen to the muttered oaths from their kinsmen standing behind them as another cup of whiskey was set between the gamblers and the white trappers began to jostle and shake, weaving from side to side, laughing lustily in the face of the dour-eyed warriors with a new wager.
Like a blur one of the warriors leaped up, lunging for his knife that now lay beside the trappers. It flashed in the afternoon light as the Shoshone pressed the blade suddenly against Spivey’s neck. All sound was sucked from the clamoring crowd, as if shut off by some magic.
Eyes like saucers, Spivey peered cross-eyed down at the hand clutching the knife, squeaking, “J-jamus! Do something!”
“An’ get your goddamned throat cut?”
While he held the knife against the white man’s throat with one hand, the warrior peeled open Spivey’s fingers with the other, yanking from it the three bones. The other Shoshone retrieved the other bones from Jamus —then he reached down and took up the tin cup, bringing it to his lips to drink long and noisily—emptying the cup of every last drop.
The warrior handed it to Jamus, motioning that he wanted more.
“G-get it for him, goddammit!” Spivey squeaked. “Somebody, d-do something!”
“Red son of a bitch’ll open your throat up,” another trapper said with resignation. “Ain’t a thing we can do for you then.”
That second full cup of liquor was passed over to the warrior holding the knife on Spivey. While he pressed the blade into the taut, tanned flesh, he drank slow, his eyes widening as the burn began to turn his throat to fire. Just as he was finished, a loud voice bellowed.
“What the hell’s going on here?”
They all turned, trapper and Shoshone, to find Fitzpatrick and Bridger lurching to a stop.
The warrior’s eyes went down to his cup, then to the knife, and back to his cup. He upended the cup at his lips, quickly licking at what ne knew would be those last few drops.
“You boys gambling, are you?” Bridger demanded of the pair.
“Things got real ugly, Fitz,” someone called out from the crowd.
“I can see that plain as sun,” Fitzpatrick replied as he knelt near Spivey’s shoulder. “Jim—how ’bout you telling these here bucks to pull in their horns.”
“I’ll give it a push, Fitz,” Bridger replied, then went on to speak what he could of the Shoshone tongue.
But the warriors interrupted him, growing excited, and most of their spectators with them, chattering all at once until Bridger waved both arms and quieted them.
Jim said, “These here bucks tell me you boys ain’t been all the fair with ’em—”
“We’re gambling, for God’s sake, Bridger!” Jamus squawked.
“There’s gambling,” Bridger said, scratching his chin, “and then there’s stealin’.”
“We wasn’t stealing!” Spivey roared, red-faced, his eyes looking down at the knife held against his windpipe.
“You so proud you wanna keep your liquor,” Bridger replied, “or you don’t mind getting your throat cut?”
“J-just give ’im the likker, Bridger,” Spivey whined. “The likker … none of it’s wuth it.”
Jim knelt at the shoulder of one of the Shoshone. “So what you two gonna do for these bucks you cheated?”
Jamus’s eyes flashed up at young Bridgets. “I’ll give ’em what’s left of my likker.”
“And?”
Now Jamus’s face turned red. “Ain’t given ’em nothing else!”
“Give ’em what they want, Jamus!” Spivey said, his eyes cross on the twitching hand that held the knife.
“All of it, goddammit,” Jamus said grudgingly, his eyes filling with hate for Bridger as well as the Shoshone. “They can have all of it—that what you want, Spivey?”
“Right! Just give it all to ’em and get this red nigger off me!”
Rocking up on his knees slowly, Jamus shoved the Shoshone shirts and leggings, moccasins and tomahawks, knives and necklaces, back across the buffalo hide to the warriors.
As he did, Bridger said something understood only by the Shoshone gathered in a hush at the buffalo robe.
