Raiding parties of Blackfeet were a growing problem. Armed by the Taipo—the white traders in the distant east—the Pa’kiani sought revenge for the many years that the Shoshoni had raided their lands and driven them all the way north and east across the Missouri River. Armed with aitta—the deadly guns traded by the Taipo—the Blackfeet had struck back. Repaid old atrocity with new.
Various bands of Blackfeet had driven the Shoshoni out of the prime buffalo grounds south of the Missouri and its headwaters. Over the last decades—and relentlessly—the Blackfeet had harried disorganized bands of Shoshoni back south into the basins around the Powder River’s Mountains—as the Shoshoni called them—as well as up into the high mountain fastness of the geyser lands.
Back when the Shoshoni had first chased the pedestrial Blackfeet north, they had done it by force of numbers, like a swarm, newly mounted on horses they’d obtained from the Spanish in the distant south. Ultimately the Blackfeet had captured horses of their own and learned the art of riding: the territorial war had stalemated.
Until the coming of the diseases, which had decimated the Shoshoni. And then the Blackfeet had gotten their desperate hands on the guns. Led by fierce chiefs, they’d not only reclaimed their old territory, but were pushing ever deeper into Shoshoni lands.
Nor was that the only threat. To the east—where the fleetly mounted Yamparika Shoshoni had chased the Dene’ peoples south and taken the western High Plains—newly arrived enemies including the Sa’idika, the “Dog Eaters” or Arapaho, the Pa’ganawoni, or Cheyenne, and the implacable Sioux had pushed west, invading the High Plains right up to the mountains.
Unlike their highly organized enemies, membership in the Shoshoni bands was fluid, sometimes depending on whim, and at other times on who was married to whom. Leadership of the highly mobile bands was, for the most part, consensual. Gray Bear had grown up with Red Feather and considered him his best friend as well as a good leader. When Red Feather suggested a hunt through the Powder River’s basin, Gray Bear had happily endorsed the idea.
The rest of the band agreed to accompany Red Feather based upon his reputation. Among the people, he was often referred to as taikwahni, the honorary title of leader. He knew where to find the bison, elk, deer, and low-country bighorn sheep that browsed the pine-studded ridges and grazed the grassy swales along the rivers. But this summer’s hunt was specifically targeted at buffalo calves. Not just for the tender and succulent meat, but, more specifically, for the thin hides, which could be processed into the finest of leather. These—once processed and tanned—would bring great value at the late summer trade fair to be held down on the Seedskedee, or Sage Grouse River, on the western side of the Wind River’s Mountains.
With the loss of so many prime buffalo grounds, the calf hides would be worth a small fortune in trade.
Gray Bear’s hope was to gain enough wealth that he could replace his prized bow—a beautiful weapon made of laminated sheep horn. Gray Bear’s had been irreparably broken when his horse fell on it last winter. Such a bow took nearly a year to build, and old Geyser Stand, the bow maker, was in the process of finishing several new ones. With a stack of soft buffalo calf hides, Gray Bear could make the trade.
Whether this was still a good idea, Gray Bear now wondered. Fingering his hastily crafted chokecherry-stave bow, he stood in the center of a small glade of cottonwoods nestled into the side of a ridge. Sheltered as it was from the prevailing winds, a better camp couldn’t be found for a half-day’s journey in any direction. A small spring created a little trickle of water in a willow-filled hollow. The grassy ridge and high points above allowed a good view of the Powder River to the west, and the Belle Fourche drainage to the east. Just to the south the land dropped away toward the Platte River Valley.
The problem was: someone had recently left this very camp.
Red Feathers stared thoughtfully at the stone-filled pile of ash where the fire had been; moccasins had beaten the grass around it flat. Freshly cut stems could be seen in the willows where someone had harvested pliable branches.
The rest of Red Feather’s band emerged from between the cottonwoods, sniffing as they did to take in the tangy scent of the previous occupant’s horse droppings. Piles of them remained where a picket had been set up between the trees along the north side of the camp.
Red Feather bent, touching the palm of his hand to the center of the stone-filled hearth. “Still faintly warm,” he said. He glanced at the amount of earth excavated from the pitlike hearth. “Given the depth of the pit, and how warm it still is, I’d say it’s two, maybe three days since they were here.”
“Pa’kiani,” Gray Bear decided as he stared around at the faint impressions moccasins had left around the damp ground beside the nearest seep. Someone had dug it out to create a small pool from which a man could kneel and drink. Impressions from knees and hands could be seen in the mud.
Red Moon Man—a tried hunter and warrior of twenty-six, and longtime friend—walked a circle around the central hearth, counting the flattened spots in the grass where beds had been laid. “I make it fourteen warriors. These other beds probably belonged to the three boys they brought along for horse handlers and camp tending.”
The rest of the people slowly filtered out of the trees, looking around warily; those who had them, clutched strung bows and arrows. The women grasped their chokecherry-wood digging sticks, muttering softly among themselves. Some of the horses whickered where the boys were holding them back beyond the cottonwoods.
Old Aspen Branch’s eyes narrowed, and her thin lips pursed as she shook her head and stared around the hollow.
Singing Lark, who had just turned fourteen, came trotting in from where she’d taken off to circle the camp. “Eighteen horses,” she declared, “All headed west toward the Gourd Buttes.”
“Smart of them,” Aspen Branch muttered, turning to look west, though she couldn’t see the two tall buttes that were hidden by the bulk of the ridge. “From the heights they’ll be able to watch the entire basin from the Powder River’s Mountains all the way across to the Black Hills.”
People listened to Aspen Branch. After bearing her last child, she had dedicated herself to the understanding of spirit power, or puha. Many said she could work magic, and called her waipepuhagant, or shaman woman. That she had asked to accompany them not only honored, but in many ways also frightened, Three Feathers and Gray Bear.
“So, what do we do?” Red Moon Man asked, his tattooed face now grim. “Head back south, stick to the low ground, and run for the high country?”
Three Feathers stared fixedly at the still-warm hearth, thinking out loud: “If we hook south around them, we can take the back trails into either the Powder or Owl Creek’s mountains. On the odd chance they cut our trail, come in pursuit, we can use the country against them. The guns don’t give them the advantage when we’re shooting down at them from the rocks in a narrow canyon. On the other hand . . .”
Three Feathers raised his eyes, looking off to the northeast, gaze following along the rumpled ridges and the darker green where vegetation-choked drainages led off toward the Belle Fourche. “The Pa’kiani are headed west. Obviously a raiding party. Fourteen warriors, three boys. From the Gourd Buttes, they could send small parties to scout different directions, cutting for sign.”
“Not to mention the view they have from the top of the buttes,” Gray Bear said thoughtfully.
“We’re not a war party,” Red Moon Man reminded. “We have eight hunters who can fight, and the rest of us are women, children, and elders. And we have fifty horses. Hard to hide the trail when it’s fifty horses. And we’re pulling travois.”
“Scatter into small bands,” Kestrel Wing suggested. The young man glanced unsurely at his new wife, Soft Dawn. She, in turn, was glancing uneasily toward the west, as if imagining the fourteen blood-drenched Blackfeet.
Old Aspen Branch worked her almost toothless jaws. “Break into smaller groups? Leave that many trails? That’s a sure way
to get at least some of us killed.”
“But most of the rest of us would make it.” Three Feathers massaged his chin as he thought.
“If they have sent scouts to the south, they’ve already cut our trail coming across from the south fork of the Powder River,” Gray Bear said uneasily. “Pa’kiani can read sign as well as we can. They’ll know who we are, how many of us there are, and that we’re a hunting party.”
Singing Lark had been listening; now the girl spoke up. “And if they come after us, they’ll know we found their camp here. As we know Pa’kiani, they know us. They will expect us to immediately flee for the Powder River’s Mountains.”
Half the time Gray Bear wondered if Singing Lark shouldn’t have been born a boy. She was tall for her fourteen years, lanky in the legs, but with broad shoulders; and she was unusually strong for a girl. She could pull a man’s bow, and wasn’t a half-bad shot with a heavy-shafted arrow.
Three Feathers glanced around at the cottonwoods, took in the little spring, and then looked up at the sky, as if for a sign. “Which direction is the last they’d expect us to go?”
“Northeast,” Gray Bear told him. “Toward the We’shobengar. That’s country that used to belong to the Denee before the Yamparika drove them and the Cut-hair people south.”
“If I were a Blackfeet war chief,” Three Feathers mused, “I would expect my prey to lay a trail in a direction they wanted me to follow. Then, once the trail was firmly established, they would do something to distract me. Make me lose the trail. Then they would double back, hoping I would keep going in the wrong direction.”
“Like Singing Lark says,” Aspen Branch declared, her old brown eyes like polished pebbles. “They’d expect us to run west to the mountains as fast as we can.”
“So we don’t run west,” Three Feathers continued. “I say we continue to head northeast, cut down to the Belle Fourche, and when we reach the stream, break into small groups. Travel in the stream bed, single file, for an entire day. They will expect us to slip away, one by one, and head west to a rendezvous before making a run for the mountains.”
“But we’ll keep heading northeast.” Gray Bear filled in the rest.
Three Feathers gave him a knowing wink. “And if we were to curve around the northern slopes of the Black Hills, we’d find plenty of buffalo.”
“A lot of those Sa’idika, dog-eating Arapaho have been hunting there,” Aspen Branch said sourly.
“Them and the Many-Colored-Arrow people,” Turns His Back said, referring to the Cheyenne.
“I heard the Dog Eaters were called south to trade with the Spanish,” Aspen Branch said. “That they had a new Taipo trader who wanted them to take their hides to the Great River. Maybe they went south to the Spanish, or east to the river? Left us a hole into which we can wander to hunt buffalo?”
Three Feathers kept glancing uncertainly to the west. And from the look in his eyes, Gray Bear knew his friend was picturing that war party of Pa’kiani.
Gray Bear looked around the group and said, “I say we go northeast, lose the Blackfeet, and hunt buffalo calves on the plains east of the Black Hills. A place no one would expect a party of Newe Shoshoni to be.”
“Yes,” Aspen Branch agreed. “That is the way to go.”
And who was going to argue with the waipepuhagant?
Landreville’s tavern was packed with the evening crowd when Charles Gratiot entered on his arthritic legs. He could see Bissonette in the far corner. The young man’s hunched posture, the way he stared into his ale, left no doubt but that Bissonette was a very unhappy fellow. Gratiot pushed his way through the press, wary of the nimble fingers of a pickpocket.
“What is this?” he asked, speaking French as he eased himself onto the bench.
Bissonette lifted cautious eyes. “I do not think this strange man is an agent for John Jacob Astor. I think he is a—how you say—imposter.” Bissonette leaned back and laced his fingers together on the table.
Gratiot frowned, the lines in his face etching deeply. “He seems to know much of Astor’s plans. He tells a very convincing story. Why do you say these things?”
“He told me today that he has never met Astor. Does this sound like the way Astor does business?” Bissonette raised his eyebrows. “Does he not oversee every aspect of his business ventures? Did he not do so with Wilson Price Hunt and Ramsey Crooks before they left for the Pacific last year?”
Charles Gratiot’s frown deepened. “He knows of the plans to expand and control the fur trade. About who would control the Upper Missouri if the Missouri Fur Company were to fail. He talks about the planned forts of the Pacific Fur Company. Perhaps he did not want you to ask foolish questions?”
“It is only when I ask questions that he becomes secretive,” Bissonette challenged, waving his hands for emphasis.
“Astor dealt with the Canadians at first,” Gratiot mused. “This man, he is a Scotsman. Perhaps he was recruited from among their ranks? Bissonette, because you do not like him, you have too many suspicions. Not all of a man’s dealings in life are with those whose company he chooses.”
“The British attacked Saint Louis during the American war of independence,” Bissonette reminded passionately. “There is war talk now. Perhaps he is a British spy? The man Dickson has had eyes for the American trade for many years now. Could this stranger be working for him?”
Gratiot shrugged. “Or, my young friend, he is just what he says he is, and the less you know, the safer he feels. To lose control of the Upper Missouri fur trade to John Jacob Astor would not be popular with many in Saint Louis. Eh?”
“I do not like him, Charles. He is not right somehow. He is . . . He seems less interested in the fur trade and Manuel Lisa than he is interested in an engage.”
Gratiot waved to get a drink. He remained silent and thoughtful as a mug of rum was placed before him. “What engage?”
Bissonette’s face twisted as a mark of his confusion. “A nobody. A man who has recently arrived in Saint Louis. This man has contracted with Manuel Lisa to go upriver. He is an odd one. He knows the land, yet he talks like none of the hunters. He says he has never been upriver. Not only that, but this man is already being followed by Baptiste Latoulipe. So why would the Scot be interested?”
Gratiot snorted his irritation. “Latoulipe is Lisa’s man. Why is Lisa having him followed?”
“I could not find that out.” Bissonette raised his palms in supplication. “Latoulipe and I do not talk. There is old blood between us. It goes back to Antoine’s death. But getting to the point, who is this strange man? I have asked around. No one knows him.”
“Perhaps this engage is a spy?” Gratiot wondered. “The Scotsman may know this.”
Bissonette sat silently, his scowl eloquent.
“So Lisa is having one of his men spy on an unassuming engage? And the Scot asks you to spy upon the same man? A man no one knows?” Gratiot’s mind raced. Intrigue in Saint Louis was nothing new, but with war looming on the horizon and fortunes to be made, or lost, it looked to be reaching new heights.
“He is called John Tylor. Other than that, no one knows anything about him.” Bissonette sucked at his mug of ale.
“You have told the Scotsman?” Gratiot asked.
“I thought I had better tell you first.”
“I appreciate that, my friend. I myself do not trust our new Scottish friend.” Gratiot wiped his chin. “I think . . . Yes. Report all you have found out about this John Tylor. We shall watch both the Scot and this mysterious Tylor. Circles are turning within circles, Louis. An incredible amount of wealth and power are at stake. With war, who may know what the future may bring? This will not only be a struggle among nations; we may be able to break the stranglehold of the Missouri Fur Company. If Lisa is destroyed, the river will be ripe for our picking.”
“And if the Scot is working against us?”
“I’m not sure yet that he is. Until that time, we play his game. Do not let him know that you suspe
ct him.” Gratiot winked at Bissonette. “It never hurts to watch the watcher, eh?”
“My friend, I hope you are right. Has he told you any of his plans? Is there anything to make you think he might work against us? That he is not who he says he is?”
“He told me that he needs to study Saint Louis and the problems of bringing in goods. He asked about the Spanish. About Santa Fe, and if goods could be had there. The man quizzed me about Christian Wilt and the goods he keeps in his warehouse. And only at the last does he ask which men in Saint Louis have capital to invest. We talked about shipping upriver from New Orleans. How the embargo has cut off all British goods from the north, and if there was a possible route for English-made goods from the Caribbean. He said he should have his information in the next couple of weeks.”
Bissonette grimaced and shook his hands impotently. “It ees that much longer I have to lead him around.”
“You would like to quit?”
“I shall never quit until I am dead or Manuel Lisa ees broken.”
“Then, perhaps, this Scotsman may be the answer to your prayers.”
“That or my death,” Bissonette replied darkly. “Just being in the man’s presence makes my skin crawl. He frightens me, Charles.”
“All the more reason for you to remain circumspect, Louis. And perhaps Astor had his reasons for sending such a man. Someone he can deny even having knowledge of. A man so cruel and heartless, he will hesitate at nothing to destroy Manuel Lisa and the Missouri Fur Company.”
CHAPTER SIX
* * *
The following morning, Bissonette met the Scotsman at the tavern where he had rented a room. They shared a table by the single window. The Scot had just finished a breakfast of pork and hominy. The man appeared happy when Bissonette told him of John Tylor. He smiled warmly, his eyes taking on an amicable gleam and slapped Louis on the back—almost sending him reeling.