By noon they sighted the little post below the Arikara village. The post—such as it was—where Papin had spent the winter, consisted of a cottonwood-log cabin, its roof made of split cedar, all covered with a foot of earth upon which grass had grown. A couple of rickety corrals stood out back along with an outhouse, a couple of lean-tos, and a fur press. The ground around the dingy buildings had been beaten bare.
A cry went up from the crew. The men bounded ashore and went about tying the boat off under Lisa’s direction. An almost festival mood penetrated the party.
“Tonight, we play with the Ree women!” LaChappelle hooted with a leering grin. “A handful of foofaraw, and they are ours!”
“Oui,” François agreed. “Tonight there will be much whiskey, too! There is nothing to lower the price for a woman like a good tin of whiskey!”
“Think of the feast tonight,” Kenton called. “We will eat like kings!”
“Don’t get your hopes up any too quickly,” Tylor suggested dully as he looked at the high bluff, topped as it was by the post-walled Arikara village. The palisade gates were wide open and pouring Indians like a kicked anthill. In all, some twelve hundred Arikara and their assorted allies came flooding down the slope to meet them, and it was apparent their mood was rotten.
“Sacre’, they never before have come to greet us like this,” LaChappelle mumbled.
Tylor experienced something crawly in his gut. Maybe McKeever wouldn’t have the last move after all.
“Mr. Lisa,” Tylor called. “How many Indians do you make that out to be?”
The trader looked grim, fists knotted at his side. “I’d say the entire village. This does not look good. Lecompt, bring me a horse from the hunters’ herd. I shall ride out to meet them at the post. The rest of you, if this goes poorly, be ready. Patroon, do not hesitate to cast off and save the boats if it looks like you will be swarmed.”
Having strained his ankle earlier, Lisa hobbled to the horse that was led down to the river. Taking a regal seat, the trader rode up to the post to meet the Arikara. Gifts were dispensed, and even though some of the leading Arikara were evidently pleased, Tylor could feel the hostility building.
Within a half hour, the women and children had completely withdrawn from the post grounds, and Lisa returned to the boat to find some lunch. He looked at the anxious faces of the men and shrugged.
“It doesn’t look too good, does it?” Tylor asked from where he lingered to one side.
“No, it really does not,” Lisa admitted. “I am going to go up to the village with Gareau and have council with the chiefs. I want you to stay here with the men. In case this does not turn out well, I would like to have someone here who can speak the language. You may have to barter for their lives. Do not let me down.”
“I think I already have, Mr. Lisa,” he whispered to the retreating back of the man McKeever was asking him to betray. Lisa, Lewis, Gareau, and some others mounted the hunters’ horses and rode slowly up the bluff trail toward the distant village.
Tylor glanced from the corner of his eyes; McKeever was sitting on the passé avant, legs dangling over the side as he honed the blade of his knife to a fine edge.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
* * *
Tylor sat on the cargo box with his rifle in hand. The hours dragged with no activity seen from behind the palisaded Ree village. Was Manuel Lisa alive or dead? Looking at the faces around him, he could see worry, fear, determination, and apathy. So much now hung in the balance.
What of himself? What indeed? Here, John Tylor, traitor, might die.
He grinned at the macabre irony, because he actually experienced a bit of relief. This might well be the end. No mourning. No one to mark his passing. In far-off North Carolina, Joshua Gregg would never know he had been robbed of vengeance by a Ree arrow.
Tylor chuckled out loud.
“I enjoy a man who meets death with a laugh,” McKeever told him from where he lounged next to his Nor’west gun.
“We’re not dead yet,” Tylor muttered with dusgust.
“Then why the laugh?”
“Oh, I was just thinking of Joshua. If the Rees wipe us out, he’ll be cheated.”
McKeever nodded to himself. “And that’s what amuses you, laddie? Would it give ye any great pleasure to ha’ cheated him in the end?”
Tylor took a deep breath and searched himself. Would it?
Dead was dead. The lungs quit expanding and contracting, the heart ceased to pulse, the brain drifted off to who knew where. In the end, there was no anger, no malice, only the crossing of that strange threshold.
“Ever thought of going back?” McKeever’s voice intruded.
“Nope. What’s behind is gone. I never want to leave the frontier again.” Tylor shrugged. “Is that music to your ears, given what you want me to do?”
“Aye, laddie. ’Tis not so bad, whot I’ve in mind. And not wi’out rewards of its own.”
“It is the Bourgeois!” A cry from Mayette stopped the question on Tylor’s lips.
They looked up to see Lisa riding out from the palisade gate; the Arikara were crowding out behind him. Despite the distance, the crowd didn’t look hostile. Small knots of Indians broke off and gathered to talk among themselves. Tylor could see no haranguing by the chiefs to indicate a building war-frenzy.
As the cavalcade wound closer it was apparent that—for the time being—peace was to rule. At Papin’s post, even more presents were handed out, and a guard was posted to keep the Rees from pilfering everything they could lay their hands on.
The word passed quickly among the engages: Lisa had passified the chiefs. More than a little anger had been displayed in the council, since several of the chiefs hadn’t received their presents at the right time. The bourgeois had, indeed, informed them he would move the post upriver despite their protest. At their heated protest, he had politetly replied that the Sioux were just downriver, and while Manuel Lisa would pull his boats upriver every year, in the future they might only travel as far as the Sioux. The Arikara hadn’t liked it, but, given the alternatives, they had agreed in the end. After all, when it came to the realities of geography, the Sioux held the trump card.
One chief had suggested that it would be unfortunate if Lisa’s insistence to move the post so angered the Arikara that they’d lose control, kill the trader, and swarm his boats. To which Lisa had replied that it would indeed be unfortunate, because while the Arikara would capture all of this year’s trade, upon hearing of the deed, no Missouri Fur Company boats would ever travel this far upriver again.
Essentially, the long-term survival of the Arikara depended upon Manuel Lisa’s good will. And the Rees knew it.
The next morning, the boats pulled out from shore and resumed the ascent. It turned into a parade. The major chiefs and their men trooped along the shore, pointing out places where they wanted Papin’s new post built.
At each of their suggestions, Lisa would look over the land and find some fault that would make the location impossible. This would inevitably be followed by complaints from the chiefs, and protestations by Lisa, through Gareau. Ultimately—twelve miles above the village—a site was found that was satisfactory to the trader, if not completely to the Arikara.
“We build here,” Lisa called, hands on hips, decision made.
Tylor was put to work cutting and ferrying lumber across the river for the new post. The structure, of notched and stacked cottonwood logs, was built on a prairie bluff that had good visibility. The bottoms were filled with good timber for winter, and on the opposite shore the floodplain was heavily wooded.
Tylor’s zest for the work was gone. To what purpose would the buildings be with the goods on the bottom of the Missouri? For he still hadn’t figured a way of stopping McKeever. The best solution would have been to simply disclose McKeever’s plan to Lisa. But that would have meant a confrontation and revelation of his identity. And, though Tylor liked and respected the trader, how many times had he heard the man say, “I have no morality
beyond profit!”
Once accused, McKeever would make a point of that two thousand dollar reward back in the states. Tylor had to face it; he wasn’t sure that being in Lisa’s place, he wouldn’t send a known traitor back to face the music. Especially during a time of war when two thousand dollars offset many of the losses the Missouri Fur Company was taking in diminished trade.
“Johnny,” McKeever was lost in thought as he took a rope over his shoulder and threw his weight against one of the logs. “Tell me how ye come to be Joshua’s enemy.”
Struggling, the two men pulled the heavy cottonwood log along the ground.
“We were just different. Circumstances turned us against each other. When we were boys, we started out the best of friends. His father’s plantation adjoined ours just across the North Carolina line. There were debts. My father took it over for money owed.”
Fenway McKeever nodded. “Go on.”
“After that, things were strained between us. Once, coming home from school, he tripped me, and I fell in the mud. When I got up, I had a piece of brick in my hand. So I threw it at him. Broke his nose right smart when it hit him. Scarred him for life.
“Joshua’s father—already fuming because he’d lost his land—took offense. That led to a duel. My father shot Joshua’s dead. So Joshua thinks of me, is reminded of me, every time he looks in a mirror and sees that nose.”
“Aye, it marked him good, laddie.”
“Ran into Joshua again years later. He has a sharp mind—had recovered financially. Turned out we loved the same girl. She married me. Politically, we were opposites. He was a good friend of Alexander Hamilton’s before Burr killed him. I ran with Aaron. Joshua worked for General Wilkinson. Wilkinson betrayed the conspiracy. Gregg caught me in Nashville and handed me over to Jackson to hang. I escaped and came west.”
McKeever smiled, eyes lighting as they pulled the heavy log down to where LaChappelle was lashing a raft of them together to be floated across the river. “Well, laddie, don’t fret aboot it. If ye can serve me as well as ye served Aaron Burr, I’ll take good care o’ ye. Aye, real good care.” McKeever laughed from deep in his chest as he turned and moved away on feet as agile as cougar’s.
Aaron Burr, however, wasn’t a self-deluded fool like you are, Fenway.
Tylor’s gut sank as he watched that broad back retreating. It didn’t matter that McKeever was self-deluded. The man believed he was going to be the king of the Missouri. Tylor had to figure a way out. But how?
Tylor cursed and slogged back to where they were thinning young cottonwoods. Taking up an ax he sank the bit into the bark and began felling another of the straightest of the trees.
“Damned if you will, Fenway!” he gritted through clenched teeth as the chips flew. “Damned if I’ll ever feel that way again! I—I’ll die first. And I’ll take you with me!”
Baptiste would understand. To hell with the letters downriver. Some things a man had to do if he was to keep his self respect. God alone knew, he’d lost it after the arrest. Had found it again on the river, in the work. Tylor sniffed at tears of frustration as they blurred his vision. He’d finished running and hiding.
“By the blood in my veins, Baptiste, I’ll make it even. Somehow. Someway.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
* * *
“Tylor?” Mayette prodded Tylor out of his blankets. “The bourgeois wishes to see you.”
Tylor blinked, rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, and yawned as he staggered to his feet. The camp was dark, crickets singing, the distant hoot of an owl audible across the distance. Not knowing the cause for his summons, he grabbed up his possibles, and climbed to his feet. Following Mayette he wound around sleeping figures in the dark camp; then he ducked through the small door in Lisa’s newly constructed quarters to find the trader and a tall stranger sitting at the rough-hewn wooden table. Three candles provided the room’s only illumination where they stood in tin holders.
Mayette simply nodded and ducked out, closing the door behind him.
“Hello, Tylor,” Lisa greeted, his voice reserved and possessed of a subtle yet threatening tone. “I would like you to meet Will Cunningham. He has just arrived all the way from Saint Louis. My friend, William Clark, has sent him many miles to see me. And, much to my surprise, you as well.”
Tylor stood uncertainly, his hat in his hands, as he shifted his glance between the men. Lisa was watching him with the intensity of a hungry predator. Cunningham’s eyes were measuring, curious, and firm. Here was a man who’d seen it all. They were strong eyes, gray, backed by a keen mind.
Tylor’s bowels experienced that tickle of unease, but he forced himself to meet Cunningham’s strength with his own. Even gave the man a nod, before he asked, “What’s this all about, Mr. Lisa?”
Lisa gestured helplessly. “I now know who you are, and what you have been, John Tylor. You were Aaron Burr’s agent in the west. The pathfinder for his treason. You did the scouting, made the contacts among the disaffected Spanish in Texas and New Mexico.”
Tylor couldn’t help it, the irony of it sent a soft chuckle past his lips.
“I asked William Clark to investigate you. You see, I leave no stone unturned.” Lisa’s eyes were glinting daggers as they bored into Tylor’s. “I have learned that there is a reward for your capture. Two thousand dollars. I am told that Andrew Jackson will throw in another thousand to the man who brings you his head.”
“And don’t forget Joshua Gregg, he’ll ante up as well.” Tylor took a deep breath and pulled a chair out from the table. He reached into his possibles and pulled out McKeever’s flask of whiskey. Filling the glasses on the table with what remained, he nodded, adding, “To your health, gentlemen.”
Lisa’s eyes hadn’t left his. The glasses remained untouched.
Tylor’s lips curled wryly. “McKeever knows, too. He’s Joshua Gregg’s agent on the river. Wants me to help wreck your operation up here in return for silence . . . and my life.” He met the trader’s burning black eyes. “I’m sorry to have brought all of this down on you. It wasn’t my plan at all.”
“What are you doing here, Tylor?” Lisa countered.
In spite of his pounding heart, Tylor forced himself to concentrate. Lisa was fishing. For what? With a slight smile he shook his head, then it came to him. “Once a spy, always a spy. Is that it, Manuel? I’ve told you already. I’m not working for anyone. After what I went through for Aaron Burr . . . ? Well, I quit.”
The men waited. Tylor could see their skepticism.
“That conspiracy cost me . . . well, it cost me everything. I lost my property and destroyed the reputation of three generations of Tylors. I lost my standing in Washington. Lost my honor. And it cost me the love of my wife. She threw me out of the house my grandfather built.” A pause. “Joshua Gregg lives in it now.”
He felt his passion rise as he looked into Lisa’s implacable eyes. “Oh, to be sure, I escaped the military. Escaped the trial, the public humiliation and hanging. I’ve wondered if I did myself any favors. Death? Well . . . it would have been easier. And, prison? Oh God, the rats . . .”
He closed his eyes and shook his head to rid himself of the terror.
Lisa asked, “And now I am to believe—”
“Think, sir. Put yourself in my place. Think what it would mean to you if you had been jailed. Spit upon in the streets. Watched your plans for a better life shattered like dropped glass and turned to dust. Your friends have betrayed you. You run like a dog, trying to find enough food to fill your belly, enough shelter to keep from freezing. Friends? None. Family? They despise my name.”
“So why did you come west?”
Cunningham was watching from the side, a twitch of his mustache and beard betraying each shift of his lips.
“I lived in fear that someone would recognize me, know who I was. The fear becomes a living thing. Gnaws your guts. You don’t sleep at night for fear you will awaken in a dark, rat-filled hole. Surrounded b
y guards whose fingers stay on their triggers, praying I’d make a false move.”
Tylor took a sip of the whiskey. “That really is good stuff. Don’t let it go to waste.”
“You haven’t answered my question,” Lisa reminded, unmoved.
“I’m a prideful man, sir. What happened . . . What they did to me. I was a broken, craven creature back in the east. Jackson’s ‘hole’ had gutted me. Deadened my soul. I came west to find myself again. And, on the river . . . in the work, I did. Can you understand?” Tylor’s fist clenched around the whiskey glass until the tendons stood from the flesh.
In the silence, the candle flames barely wavered as Tylor met Lisa’s steely eyes. The moments dragged on. Lisa never dropped his gaze from Tylor’s.
With the power of the blood in his veins, Tylor added, “I won’t play the game again. Not for you. Not for McKeever. Not for anybody. If you’re going to collect that two thousand, I understand. But kill me first, damn it, ’cause I’m not going back alive.”
A smile grew crookedly on Lisa’s lips. “I believe you, John Tylor.”
The trader raised the whiskey to his lips. Sipped. He shot a sidelong glance at Cunningham. “I have no idea where Tylor found this. But it is excellent. Will, take a taste.”
“It’s McKeever’s,” Tylor told them. “I think it was supposed to be a bribe, but done in a most clumsy way.”
“A most interesting fellow, this McKeever. An agent for a man I’ve never heard of.” Lisa tapped his fingers on the side of the glass. “But not as interesting as you, Tylor. Not by a half. Andrew Jackson demands that Clark hang you—and to send your head to him as proof.”
“Then you’d best be about it.”
Lisa ignored Tylor’s outburst. “That said, we have a few other problems to solve. I find myself in a curious position, particularly given the current political situation. There are other factors at work here. Complications, if you will.”
“McKeever? If I didn’t help him? Well, he left letters with Gratiot condemning me.” Tylor fingered his glass, rotating it in the candlelight. “He wants to sink your boats. Figures that he can step into your shoes. Be the big man on the river after you’re gone. The man’s a deluded lunatic, but that doesn’t make him any less dangerous.”