“Shad!” he said sharply. “Shad!”
Others had seen it too as Sweete came awake, rolling onto his hands and knees, blinking his bleary eyes.
“Lookee there,” Bass instructed.
Up and down the riverbank in the dim light other trappers were peering closely at the sandbar, trying their best to make out what the shift in shadows and the rustle of willow meant. A mourning cry grew louder and louder. That wailing was like a gritty mouthful of cold sand lying in his belly—something he knew he was bound to bring up sooner or later.
A rustle came from the brush near his end of the island, and an old woman parted the bushes to step into the open as dawn’s light swelled around them that summer morning. The front of her dress smeared with blood, the ancient one clutched a long pipe in both frail hands. Raising it to the river bank above her where the white men huddled in the brush holding siege on her people, the old woman called out in a reedy voice.
“What she saying?” a man yelled.
“That’s Snake,” Scratch answered. “I catch some of it.”
“But she ain’t a Snake,” Ebbert grunted.
“I s’pose she Aggers some of us’ll know some Snake,” Bass said.
“All of you!” Meek hollered. “Keep quiet so us what knows Snake can figger out what that ol’ woman’s saying!”
“You heard him!” Bridger ordered. “Hush!”
Moments later Joe explained, “She’s telling us we’ve killed all their warriors. But the bullets keep killing.”
“We ain’t killed all their men!” Rube Herring snorted. “Some of ’em must’ve run off!”
Waiting a moment while she repeated the next part to be certain what she said, Meek continued. “Now she’s asking if we wanna kill the women too.”
“Maybe we oughtta kill ’em all,” Robert Newell suggested.
But his best friend, Joe Meek, grabbed Newell’s arm and snarled, “Don’t you see? That’d make us no better’n them nigger dogs to kill a woman the way they done!”
“Hold on, Joe!” Bass ordered. “Listen: the ol’ woman’s saying if we wanna smoke with women to make peace, she has a pipe and some tobaccy too.”
Meek stood, disappointment graying his face. “If’n there ain’t a man left in there—I s’pose I done all I come to do, boys. Time for this child to mosey on back to camp.”
Up and down that west bank close to a hundred trappers slowly emerged from the brush, starting for their horses they had tied here and there within the deserted Bannock camp they had plundered during the days of siege.
Scratch walked over and grabbed hold of Meek’s elbow. “I figger it’s time to think ’bout putting your woman to rest, Joe. You need any help—count on me.”
Not uttering another word, Meek laid a hand on Scratch’s shoulder for a moment, then turned away, climbed atop his horse, and rode off alone.
“Every man finds his own way to heal a broke heart,” Scratch declared several days later when he overheard a few men at the trader’s tent talking about the way Meek had chosen to mourn the loss of Umentucken, his Mountain Lamb. “Ain’t for me to say he shouldn’t climb right back in the saddle again. Ain’t for none of us to say he ain’t grieving in his own way.”
Just that morning, only one day after Tom Fitzpatrick brought in the caravan that had embarked for rendezvous from Westport, Joe had loaded up a horse with finery and ridden right over to the Nez Perce camp where he had taken a shine to a pretty young woman. Not long after her father had approved of the marriage, Meek was back in the company camp with his new wife, celebrating his good fortune that he wouldn’t remain lonely for long at all.
After weeks of horse racing, gambling at cards or a game of hand, not to mention endless hours of yarning while they waited beneath the shady trees for the long-overdue trader, it damn near brought tears to Bass’s eyes to see how small Fitzpatrick’s pack train was as it descended off the bluffs and made its way down to the junction of Horse Creek and the Green. No more than twenty small two-wheeled carts pulled by mules, tended by some forty- five men trudging along on both sides of the procession.
“Poor doin’s,” Titus muttered as Fitzpatrick escorted Sir William Drummond Stewart west for another rendezvous. “Poor damned digger doin’s.”
Maybe the trade would hold for another year or so. If only long enough that the fur business could get itself straightened out back east and folks found out that those new silk hats couldn’t hold a candle to prime beaver felt. Beaver was bound to rise. All the old hivernants were saying it. Sure as hell, beaver was bound to rise.
Just like the goddamned prices the company was charging for what little they sent west with Fitzpatrick.
“Two dollar a pint for sugar!” Scratch roared at the red-faced clerk. “How much your coffee?”
“Same—two dollars.”
“Damn,” he grumbled in disgust.
Blankets were going for twenty dollars while a common cotton shirt cost a man five. Tobacco was damned pricey at two dollars a pound, but the toll on whiskey hadn’t gone up over the last few summers: holding at four dollars the pint. He figured those parley-voo traders were pretty savvy about that: hold down the cost of liquor and most men simply wouldn’t mind all that much if the price of everything else climbed sky-high.
What kept Scratch from throwing up his hands at those mountain-high prices and refusing to trade for anything at all was the fact that the company offered five dollars a pound for prime pelts, four dollars for poorer plews. That meant his Musselshell beaver brought him top dollar at the trading tent that afternoon when he brought his family along to look over the beads and rings, ribbon and hawksbells.
While Waits-by-the-Water picked through the merchandise to find herself a new brass kettle, Scratch stood at the other end of the long counter with Magpie as the girl chose several hanks of new ribbon to wrap up her brown braids, along with a new handkerchief of black silk to tie around her head the way her father tied a faded blue bandanna around his.
Then she spotted the tray of shiny, multicolored beads.
“Popo! Look!”
With the way she gushed and stuck out her hands to touch the beads in each compartment, Bass knew he was already in trouble.
“Purty, ain’t they?” he asked.
She gazed up at him a moment, imitating the word, “Pur-r-r-ty.”
“That’s right. I s’pose you want some too.”
“Yes,” and she nodded emphatically. But when she dug her fingers in and pulled out a handful of the deep cobalt-blue beads, along with some of the oxblood variety with their narrow white centers, Magpie surprised him by saying in Crow, “For you, popo—these so pretty on your ears.”
“On my ears?” he repeated, confused a moment.
Reaching up to tug on the tail of his shirt, Magpie pulled him down far enough that she tapped the small hoops of brass wire he wore through both earlobes. “Beads hang there.”
He straightened, smiling. “Damn fine idee, little’un. Put some purties on my hangy-downs.”
Turning back to the tray, Scratch scooped up a big handful of the Russian blues and the white-hearts, laying them atop several yards of calico he was buying for Waits-by-the-Water. Next he picked out several dozen brass tacks for decoration and some tiny brass nails to make repairs to saddles, packs, and other equipment. Then he took Magpie over to stand before the tray containing the tiny hawksbells and large coils of brass wire.
Picking up one of the bells, he shook it in front of her. “Want some?”
Grinning hugely, Magpie snatched the bell from him, holding it forth to shake it herself. “Two?”
“I said you could have some. How many?”
For a long moment she stared down at her tiny hands, then handed him the bell and held both hands before her, all the chubby fingers extended.
“Ten?”
“Ten,” she repeated that English word with certainty. “If that don’t beat all,” Shad Sweete chirped as he
