Rendezvous (26 page)

He was thirsty but he couldn't simply walk down to the water's edge and sip that fine, clear snowmelt. Hunger bit at him, too. He had gone through his smoked elk and camas bulbs and had been finding precious little to eat along the Madison River.

There was nothing to do but lie patiently in the sun-warmed juniper, enjoy its resinous scent, and wait until darkness liberated him. Fires flared along the riverbank, one by one, miraculously blooming to life and radiating orange light into the purple twilight. Below, the herders were driving a multicolored mass of horses out on the flats. Wary brown warriors in breechclouts hobbled or picketed their horses close to the campsite. Lodges rose here and there, first a cone of poles and suddenly an entire Indian home. He eyed the skies anxiously, looking for signs of bad weather, and found some. Towering gray thunderclouds loomed behind him, and more black-bellied clouds were gathering muscle off to the south. So the lodges were going up this night.

From his haven, he began to enjoy this spectacle. Something powerful radiated from this village. These people looked after themselves, each to his own comforts and lodging, without direction. The warrior society that had been appointed to guard this village was posting its men around the area, all of them on this side of the wide river, making a safe cocoon for the women, children, and old people within. Once in a while, the eddying winds brought him the smell of meat cooking, which maddened him and tempted him to stand, walk downslope to the village, and surrender to his fate among friends—or foes.

Thus did he struggle with himself for a half hour or so, until something shocked him out of his reveries. He heard voices, so close that the low exchange lifted the hair on the nape of his neck. Not thirty yards away, in an adjacent juniper thicket, lurked four dusky savages, wearing only breechclouts and moccasins—smoked black.

Blackfeet.

He flattened himself to the earth, grateful for his worn leather shirt, his dark hair and beard, his begrimed trousers. If he could scratch his way deeper into the earth he would have. His pulse catapulted. He felt sweat blossom from every pore in his body, and in moments he had drenched himself with it. He lay motionless, waiting for the crackle of brush that would signal his doom. Here would he die. Here would the scalping knife circle his forehead. Here would be his last memory—perhaps of the violent pop as his hair yanked free of his skull.

But after the first rush of terror, he peered about him, slowly surveying his lot. Four Blackfeet. Maybe others were somewhere upslope, horseholders over the ridge. This would be a horse-stealing party. Sometime in the night they would pad down the sagebrush-choked slope, slip past or kill the night herders, and drive away as many animals as possible, probably fleeing toward the Blackfoot stronghold to the north.

So the village below was probably Shoshone or Crow. Maybe he could find a haven there, slipping into the village after dark. Maybe he could warn them—if he could make himself understood. But what sort of reception would he meet? Likely killed on the spot, an intruder rising out of the night. And how could he escape the alert Blackfeet hidden barely thirty yards away? No. He could not move, not yet.

Skye lay motionless, grateful for the ebbing light that gradually cloaked him in blessed darkness. Only once in his life had he been so close to death, and that time a wandering bear saved him. It took sheer willpower to lie motionless, calm his body, steady his pulse, stop his rank sweating, and prepare himself. He had only his belaying pin and his new knife. The belaying pin would help him; the knife would not.

He had some serious thinking to do. Somewhere above him there would be youths holding the ponies while the warriors worked down to the village herd on foot. He wanted a horse. The Blackfeet owed him a horse, and he'd like two or three more for good measure. A few horses would solve most of his troubles, and if worse came to worse, his transportation was edible.

He ached to grab those horses. He wanted a bow and quiver, too. He could either slip away in the darkness and hope not to get caught in the maneuvering when it all blew up—or he could hunt the hunters. He swallowed, trying to draw moisture to his parched throat, knowing what he was going to do, and marveling at his folly.

The night deepened, save for a blue band of last light riding the western ridges. The stars emerged as if the night sky were shedding veils. He listened closely, hoping to discern whether other Blackfeet occupied other thickets. But he heard nothing save for the occasional gutturals of the warriors nearby. Slowly he rolled until he could stare upslope—snapping a twig as he did. But nothing happened. In the shadowy light he studied the black slope, wondering where the rest of the raiders lay waiting, and whether they could be taken unawares. His only advantage was that they wouldn't be expecting him; they would expect one of their own.

He strained his eyes and ears, trying to make sense of what lay around him, but couldn't. The darkness had deepened to pitch, and no moon illumined the night. Would these sharp-eyed savages strike in blackness so close they could not see their own hands? He would know, eventually.

His thirst became an agony, but he ruthlessly choked back the temptation to sneak away for a drink. This was his sole chance for a horse, for a weapon, for food and shelter, and he would take it. He had taken chances from the beginning, driven by his vision of liberty, a sunny uplands of owning his own destiny. He had slid into the icy Columbia from the H.M.S.
Jaguar,
walked into Indian villages, wrestled the wilderness and its wild inhabitants, walked past a grizzly that could have butchered him with one swipe of a paw, all for his freedom. Now he would risk his life again.

Blackness lay thick upon the land. The stars vanished under the giant storm clouds he had seen at dusk. Distant thunderheads flashed staccato white and purple, and sharp cold breezes nipped through his sanctuary, running icy fingers over his neck. He became aware, in the midst of all this, of a gradual increase in light. The gibbous moon had risen, shooting its glow in and around the storm clouds, rendering visible the murky flat far below.

Sure enough, the Blackfeet stirred. He heard them talk softly, and then creak out of their shelter, their movement veiled by wind and the distant rumble of thunder riding high peaks. There were six. Startled, he watched the enigmatic figures spread out and stalk downslope. Each carried a hackamore and reins of some sort.

He watched them descend, melding themselves into the tall sagebrush. He glanced sharply upslope, left and right, and then eased out of his thicket, his senses keen and sharp and clean. Off to the northeast, perhaps a quarter of a mile, was a saddle, probably a watercourse. The Blackfeet had come from there because it was the only place they could come from. He hurried upslope, angling north, taking advantage of the thick juniper as much as he could, wondering whether he was being observed from above. If so, he couldn't help it and would deal with it as best he could.

He paused occasionally to check on the progress of the horse thieves, but could no longer see them. The storms blotted up light again. He hurried upslope, his heart racing, pushing against sharp cold air. Then commotion rendered the night. Far below, a giant hand swept the herd into a gallop. Skye had no idea which way it was running, only that the thunder of many hooves ruptured the peace. He edged over the ridge and found dense aspen beyond.

And through the leaves, he discerned two Blackfeet and several horses.

Chapter 34

The tricky light gave Skye pause. Were there two or three? Did one hold a bow with a nocked arrow? Did the other hold the horses? He waited for the shifting clouds to reveal more, but time was running out. Down on the Madison River the rumble of hooves and the howls of Indians at war shattered the peace. Were the raiders coming here? Skye crouched deeper into the shade of the aspens, sorting it out.

A moment of moonlight gave him a glimpse of the valley before him. Both of the horse holders were mounted now, ready to flee along with the rest of the Blackfoot raiders. And the stolen herd was thundering closer, driven this way by the raiders. In a moment they would flood over the rim and through here. He waited witlessly, not knowing how to deal with this. If the raiders were coming this way, so would the village warriors in hot pursuit. Skye studied the terrain, looking for escape, but naked slopes hemmed this valley. He had best stick to the aspens. The raiders would drive their stolen herd up the valley and into the next drainage.

The first of the horses boiled over the saddle and he instantly flattened himself among the aspens, hoping the night would conceal him. A dozen horses, then another, twenty, thirty. He couldn't say. And herding them were the raiders, riding stolen animals they had bridled. The herd halted abruptly at the sight of the horse holders and their excited mounts, then milled and circled. The raiders shouted something, and the horse holders turned their mounts and led the herd down the long valley. Skye watched the Blackfeet race by and then waited for the village warriors to follow.

He almost missed the black horse, hovering in the darkness. Was it lame? Why didn't it run with the others? It whinnied sharply, and a moment later a wraith appeared at its flanks—a foal, born that spring. The mare nudged the foal furiously, wanting to catch up with the herd, but the foal didn't budge. Skye watched, mesmerized with possibility. The foal was limping. The mare wouldn't leave it. Maybe there was a chance.

Nervously, Skye eyed the skyline, expecting the village warriors to burst into view. The clouds obscured the moon again, plunging the whole tableau into murk. Maybe that was his chance. But what would he catch the mare with, and how would he hold it and ride it? He had only his belt. That would have to do. He eased toward the mare, which watched him alertly but didn't run because her foal couldn't. He talked softly, aware of the howls of war just over the saddle. He closed slowly, talking in a low voice, and then looped the belt over her neck, catching her even as the frightened foal limped away from him.

He was out in the open when the first of the defenders topped the saddle. He saw them, and then he didn't as the fickle light vanished again. He stood stock still; there was nothing else to do. The village warriors raced through one by one, their focus on the lost herd ahead and not upon Skye and a black mare off to one side, as inert as the trees and rocks.

Then no more came over the ridge and a quietness returned to the little mountain plateau. Slowly, Skye led the mare toward the aspen grove. The foal complained, but followed slowly, limping heavily. Skye drew the horses deep into the grove and quietly ran his hand over the mare, soothing the nervous animal. The mare pressed her nostrils into Skye and inhaled, gathering her own form of knowledge, and then nudged him.

Skye rejoiced, but he also puzzled over his dilemma. When would the foal be able to walk again? Was the mare broken to saddle or packsaddle? Without a hackamore or bridle or halter, how could he handle the mare or picket it at night? Would the pursuers return this way, or would they find another way back to their village?

He couldn't know.

He ransacked his memories of the Shoshone and Nez Percé he had seen. Some of them used the simplest imaginable means of steering or controlling their ponies. He recollected that many a child had looped a line over the nose of the horse, knotted it under the jaw, and used the two ends of the line for reins. That was all. He could do that. He could cut his remaining elkhide into strips and braid them into a crude bridle.

He ached to leave, but couldn't. He might have to suffer many more thirsty hours in this aspen grove before the village moved and before the injured foal was ready to travel, but the prize was worth it.

He had a horse—if he could keep it, and keep his hair.

One by one, he yanked the long fringes off the hem of his buckskin shirt and tied them into a short line that he anchored to the loop of belt around the mare's neck. And then he sat down to await events, holding her on a gossamer leather thread she could easy break. But she was content and let the foal suckle, and did not test his line. He sat through sharp cold, a few drops of rain, and deep silences. The riders did not return. The mare stood quietly.

With the first light, Skye studied the meadow and saw nothing at all but mist and grass and trees. He tied the mare to an aspen and slipped up to the saddle, where he beheld the village down on the Madison River. Guards circled the remaining horses. No one was packing: the village was awaiting the return of the pursuers. He returned to his own alpine meadow and discovered a nearby rill, where he drank greedily.

He thought of slaughtering the lame foal, and resisted the idea. He hunted the bottoms for something edible, finally settling on some miserable chokecherries. He plucked what he could, half afraid he would be spotted by returning riders, but no one came. He retreated to his aspens and gnawed at the bitter, mouthpuckering berries, barely able to endure them. They didn't alleviate his howling hunger. He bided his time by cutting elkhide thong and then braiding a three-strand line two yards long, and then tying it to the belt around the mare's neck. He had a stout lead rope, and a potential bridle.

At midmorning the mare seemed restless, so he cautiously led it out to graze. The foal barely limped now, and Skye hoped he could travel soon. He took the mare down to the rill, fearful of discovery. The mare drank, grazed, and stood quietly while the foal nudged her bag and drank his breakfast.

All that long day he lingered in the aspen grove, occasionally letting the mare foray to grass. Late in the afternoon he climbed to the saddle and discovered the village had left and was nowhere in sight. Joyously, he led his mare down to the campsite, looking for castoffs, lost items, food. He could almost feel the presence of the villagers there. Only a few hours earlier this place had been a nomadic home, filled with grandparents, children, men and women, chiefs, seers, revered oldsters, dogs, ponies. Now it was a naked flat.