Beauty for Ashes Read online

  Fitz’s listeners held their breath.

  “Glass glared at Bridger now, but his eyes lost their flame. ‘I can’t do it. You have nothing to fear from me. You’re free. On account of your youth, I forgive you.’”

  Whew! Sam felt damn glad he wasn’t Jim Bridger. Bridger was trapping with Captain Weber now, somewhere in the Siskadee country. And every man he traveled with, or ever would, knew he was a fellow who’d walk out on you when things got rough.

  “Still, there was that damned Fitzgerald, plenty old enough to know better. Fitzgerald had quit and had gone down to Fort Atkinson, and took Glass’s rifle with him. Quick as it began to thaw, Glass headed out. When he got to the fort, he found Fitzgerald had become a soldier, and the commander told him shooting up U.S. soldiers wasn’t permitted. Glass got his rifle back, turned Fitzgerald over to God and his own conscience, and headed for Santa Fe.

  “Now, lads, what do you think of that?”

  “Grit,” said Gideon.

  “Will to survive,” said Sam.

  “Mountain luck,” said Clyman.

  They regarded each other. The Irishman who left County Cavan to get away from the priests. The Virginian, the group’s elder. The French-Canadian, who knew death companionably. The mulatto, young and vigorously alive.

  The white-haired young man from Pennsylvania, far from home, was constantly learning, and it wasn’t comfortable.

  Chapter Three

  SAM FELT EDGY. A cold, restless wind flicked at his face. The mare fidgeted, pawed around like she wanted to get down off this sandstone outcropping, out of the wind. Coy mewled. Sam couldn’t tell what the coyote pup wanted.

  Sam looked around, west, north to the hills, east. Nothing. He’d come up from the south and seen nothing. His cheeks were getting leathery from the cold. The wind brought dust to his nose, plus alkali, sage, and the musky smell of buffalo.

  The alkali and sage reminded him, and he thought how glad he was to be back in the real West, where the plains began to break and jumble and lift toward the mountains, and where the buffalo lived. He decided to look a little harder for buffalo, and maybe ride a little further, on that faint hope.

  The brigade was hungry. They’d left Fort Atkinson on the Missouri River on the first day of November, headed for the Rocky Mountains on faith—had to be faith, because they didn’t have enough food or horses. General Ashley hoped to trade with the Pawnee Loups. Word at the fort was, these Pawnees were in an uproar. The general issued his orders anyway.

  Sam did his duty—went to Ashley and told about his run-in with the Loup Pawnees three months ago, how they caught him and intended to torture him, but a good fellow named Third Wing sneaked him out of camp. Sam had to add that, in stealing his rifle back, he killed a Pawnee guard. He didn’t say that the guard was the first man he ever killed. He told how the Pawnees searched the whole country for him, but he got away. How they probably still hated him.

  Ashley brushed the information aside. He was a man of firm purpose. He led the way west into the plains winter, counting on the Pawnee Loups.

  Now, nine days out, they were on starving times. On the second day a blizzard staggered them. On the fifth day another one blitzed them, a foot of Rocky Mountain snow.

  The Pawnees were not where Ashley expected, at the Loup River. A day went by while two of the leaders, Fitzpatrick and Clyman, searched for sign of them up the tributary. They saw nothing, no Indians and no buffalo.

  So some flour stirred into water was the daily ration of each of the twenty-five men. Half rations of food, or quarter, and double rations of cold and snow. In bitter weather a man needed more meat, and they had none. Which was why Sam was out here a couple of miles north of the river toward some hills, hunting.

  From the breakfast fire this morning, he thought he’d seen a lone beast. The brigade had no breakfast, just the warmth of some flames and coffee. No one else could see the buffalo. Odd, how men get down at the mouth and mutter in their beards when they’re cold and hungry, and say or do as little as possible.

  “Hunt it if you want to,” Fitzpatrick said, “and catch up tonight.”

  An hour later Sam couldn’t tell whether he’d seen a buffalo or mistaken these two scrubby trees for one. They stood behind each other on the rim of the sandstone in the right shape, if you stood at a certain angle. Maybe his hope shaped his eyesight. At night he was dreaming about food, sumptuous banquets of beef, chicken, ham, turkey, potatoes, garden vegetables, cheeses, bread, and butter, all spread out on a table before him. Not even buffalo and elk, which he preferred.

  From above Sam studied the earth of the plain. There were lots of buffalo pies and would be lots of hoofprints—this was buffalo country. But he feared he wouldn’t find any that looked fresh. He spoke to Coy. “Want to go a little further? Or turn around and catch up? A little further, and maybe…”

  A shot roared. The mare crow-hopped sideways, and Sam nearly lost his seat. Coy arched his back and bristled. Godamighty. Shots—Indians!

  Time to cache.

  The mare crow-hopped again, and this time came to a stop teetering on the rim. “Idjit,” he spat at her. She gave a whicker of protest.

  Damned animal. Sam wheeled her and let the critter pussy-foot down the outcropping, muttering curses at her slowness. This mare was no favorite of Sam’s. He wanted a horse that felt like a partner, the way Coy did. Gideon told him, though, “Don’t ever get attached to any horse, because that’s ze one ze Indians will run off.”

  Sam kicked her to a gallop and scurried down into a brushy draw. Whew. Now he was cached. Unless they saw him, he could sit this one out right here.

  An hour later Sam rode out of the draw on the south and started a wide circle to the west. Damn, I can never believe trouble is really trouble. “Coy, it has to be a buffalo—what else would anyone shoot at out here?”

  He put some words into the coyote pup’s mouth. “What if it’s a brigade member who’s followed to help us hunt?”

  Sam answered, “What if it’s a lone Indian I could take? Buffalo meat’s worth a risk, isn’t it?”

  He wanted to get a look into the next valley to the west, where the shot sounded like it came from. He made his way up another draw. At the last of the scrawny cedars, a hundred yards short of the lip of the hill, he tied his mount and walked on with Coy. The little coyote walked quieter than Sam anyway. He crawled to the summit and looked out from behind a rock.

  A fine sight! A cow lay crumpled in the middle of the little valley—

  Sam’s hair crinkled and his toenails curled backward.

  No one was gutting her out. Which meant…

  He jumped up and sprinted for his mare.

  Just before he got to the cedars—

  “Hi-ya-ya, hi-ya-ya!” Out of the draw came the cry and the Indian.

  Sam cursed out loud. The bastard was on Sam’s mare.

  I’m gonna be stuck on foot a long way out.

  Stuck, hell, once I’m on foot, these Indians will kill me.

  He dropped to sitting, propped his father’s rifle on one knee, and steadied. The riding figure bobbed up and down in front of Sam’s sight. I’ll shoot the damn mare, he thought with satisfaction. He held on the mare’s big hindquarters and fired.

  The Indian pitched to the ground roaring. The mare skittered off. Why doesn’t she act hurt?

  Sam drew his pistol and ran forward.

  The man scurried on hands and knees for his bow.

  Sam caught up and held his pistol two-handed, straight at the bastard’s face. The fellow was young, younger even than Sam’s nineteen.

  From hands and knees the Indian threw a sneer of hatred at him and lunged forward with a knife.

  Coy skittered away, barking.

  Sam shot the Indian in the thigh.

  First he reloaded the rifle, which he called The Celt, as fast as he could. This Indian had no rifle. Which meant he had a partner close by, the shooter. Sam looked around carefully.

  Coy snapped and
snapped, keeping the Indian busy. The Indian swiped at Coy with the knife. Sam jumped forward and clubbed the man with the butt of his pistol. He sagged to the ground.

  Sam breathed relief, and dragged him into the cedars. Where’s your damn partner?

  As the Indian regained consciousness, Sam checked him over. Pawnee, from the moccasins. Then he saw the blood on back of one leg. Hell, I shot you in the butt. He grinned.

  Sound of hoofs. Along the ridge of the hill, in the distance, a rider.

  Sam’s mare was standing in the open twenty yards away, grazing.

  Coy ran at the mare and herded her back to the cedars. Sam reloaded the pistol.

  The wounded man looked daggers at Sam again.

  Sam signed to him, ‘I come in friendship. I do not want to hurt you or your friend. I do not want your buffalo.’ Not that Sam had a chance at the meat with Pawnees around. ‘Signal your friend to get off his horse and I won’t shoot you or him.’

  The rider had stopped on top of the hill. Certainly he had seen the saddled mare. The rider had the high ground, but Sam had the cover.

  ‘Signal him to come closer,’ Sam signed.

  The Indian spat at Sam.

  Sam leapt on him and pricked the bastard’s throat with the tip of his butcher knife. “Now,” he shouted in English, though the Pawnee couldn’t understand him.

  Sam backed away, knife held forward, and signed awkwardly, ‘Tell him what I said now!’

  The Indian spat at him. Coy bit the Indian on the forearm, and the man howled. He tried to get to his knees.

  From six feet Sam lifted his pistol and shot the man’s ear off.

  The Indian screamed.

  The rider galloped down the hill.

  Sam jumped behind his hostage, lifted him, and catapulted him into a low cedar branch. The man crumpled across the branch.

  The rider charged.

  Sam lifted The Celt and shot the pony out from under him.

  The rider hurtled across the bunch grass, tumbling over and over.

  Sam reloaded The Celt.

  The rider didn’t move.

  Sam reloaded the pistol.

  The rider got to his feet woozily.

  Sam walked into the clear. Coy growled and kept the wounded Indian in the tree.

  The rider sank to one knee.

  Sam yelled, “Hau!” Most Indians would understand the greeting.

  The rider looked at him dizzily.

  Sam signed, ‘I do not want to kill you or your friend. Come closer.’

  The rider sank into the grass.

  Sam wondered how many Pawnees were around. If the young men had come out hunting, there could be two or a dozen.

  He didn’t intend to wait around to find out. He stepped into the cedars and took the mare’s reins. “At least you don’t run off,” he said to her. He was half tempted to take an Indian pony instead.

  Leading the mare, he walked toward the rider. Behind, he could hear Coy growling at the draped man. Sam picked up the dizzy one’s rifle, an old fusil. “Spoils of war,” he said with a grin.

  He swung up on the mare and clucked at Coy. “Let’s go. It’s a hell of a ride to camp.”

  Chapter Four

  “BREAKFAST,” SAID GIDEON in Frenchy style, “the best idea ze general has yet.”

  Sam and Beckwourth grinned around hump ribs. Sam was enjoying two of his favorite smells, broiled buffalo and burning sagebrush. It was enough to make him forget the campfire smoke that sometimes blew into his eyes.

  “I thought white folks never went hungry,” said Beckwourth.

  “Even I look like a cub,” said Gideon, who definitely was bear-sized.

  Sam looked at Beckwourth with a half smile. Compared with Gideon and Sam, who’d marched down this same river last summer, eating only occasionally, the mulatto didn’t know anything about hunger. And Gideon had a lot more dramatic hunger stories to tell, like the time he ate grasshoppers for a week.

  Sam threw his half-gnawed rib to Coy. The coyote had learned to wait patiently during meals, knowing Sam would feed him.

  “If your pup stay wit’ us, Towhead,” said Gideon mildly, “he maybe starve to death.”

  Sam frowned at the word “towhead.”

  “Hell,” put in Beckwourth, “when we was starvin’, he was feeding on deer mice and other little critters. He’ll live long enough to chew our bones.”

  They might have chuckled if they weren’t busy feeding.

  After a minute Sam said, “I told you to stop that Towhead bull.”

  “Oh, I forget,” said Gideon with a big smile.

  The brigade was done missing breakfasts, at least for a while. Maybe they were done with dying horses, too, and eating horseflesh.

  Three weeks out from Fort Atkinson the weather turned mild. One day they stumbled into a place on the river that was full of buffalo to hunt. Rushes lined the river, good feed for the gaunt horses. Paradise, Sam learned, depended on how painful your hell had been. The men spent several days gorging themselves.

  Further up river they came upon the Grand Pawnees, who were headed south to warmer climates. At least these Pawnees weren’t Sam’s personal enemies. He wondered whether the two young men he’d wounded back yonder were Grand or Loup Pawnees. The Grands didn’t say anything about the incident.

  ‘Stop here,’ the Indians signed, ‘or you will all die. On toward the mountains there’s not enough wood for fires ahead, and not enough feed for the horses.’

  Ashley ignored them and followed the westward compass in his mind.

  Finally, yesterday they came on the Pawnee Loups. That’s why Sam was nervous at breakfast this morning.

  Right then Ashley strode up, with Fitzpatrick and Clyman in file behind him. “Let’s go, Sam. We need to palaver with the Loups.”

  Sam looked wildly at Ashley. “These are the ones…”

  “Who are out for your hair, I know. Let’s go.”

  Since Sam had learned a good deal of Crow tongue last winter, and was quick and accurate with sign talk, the general had decided he had an aptitude for languages and appointed him interpreter.

  The argument was short, its conclusion predetermined.

  Beckwourth and Gideon asked to go along, and Ashley agreed. As they rode out, he called to Zacharias Ham, “No Indians in camp, for any reason.”

  They rode. Frosty horse breath swirled around Sam’s head. He began to think of what these Pawnees had once planned for him. The slowest possible torture until he died.

  “Sam, stop maundering.”

  Sam threw Ashley a look. You and your big words. You and your fancy ideas. You and your fixed notions.

  “You don’t hesitate with Indians, you don’t mollycoddle, you put everything right in front and show you’re not afraid.”

  But what if I am?

  Six horses jingle-jangled. Sam was taking the fusil, just in case.

  “Get your head clear for your job,” said Ashley. “Responsibility for the outcome is mine.”

  Sam bit his tongue and turned his head away. Yeah, if I lose my scalp, you’ll admit it was your fault.

  THERE WAS RAVEN, who still gave Sam nightmares. The chief had come to the edge of the village to greet the beaver men with the traditional sign for welcome. He was surrounded by Big Bellies. Third Wing wasn’t there.

  Raven was a short, chunky man with very dark skin, huge shoulders, and a beak nose. His head even seemed to have wings, for the hair pulled back above his ears flashed silver, like a raven’s wings struck by light. His eyes glittered with a blackness that brought up the word “evil.”

  Sam gave Raven the sign of friendship.

  The trappers dismounted and left Beckwourth with the mounts.

  Ashley treats Jim like a servant, thought Sam.

  “Holler if there’s trouble,” Ashley told Beckwourth.

  And Jim pretends not to notice.

  “I’ll stay wit’ him,” said Gideon.

  The big mulatto nodded. The whites had quickly lea
rned that the Indians interpreted his black skin as a sign of being warlike all the time. Which was handy.

  “Not that there’ll be anything you can do except holler,” muttered Sam.

  Ashley scalded him with a look, and Sam shut his mouth.

  The other four beaver men walked toward the council lodge with Raven, Sam and Ashley in front, Fitzpatrick and Clyman behind. No one needed to tell these old hands to keep their wits about them. The council lodge, at least, would be safe.

  The ceremonial pipe seemed to last forever, but there was no rushing it. The smoke wafting toward the top hole in the tipi, Sam understood, declared everyone’s friendly intentions. Sam would have felt more friendly had he not noticed a nasty glint of recognition in Raven’s eyes.

  When it was over, Sam made his way impatiently through the necessaries, translating into English as he signed. He greeted the respected Raven once more. The beaver men were passing through the country on the way to the mountains, and would like to make a gesture of thanks to the Pawnee people. Clyman stuck out the beautiful blanket in chief’s blue he carried and opened it to reveal half a dozen big twists of tobacco.

  Raven nodded his approval. Several of the Big Bellies smiled.

  Sam put the fusil next to the blanket. He signed, ‘I took this rifle from a young Pawnee who attacked me. I hope he and his friend got back to the village safely. I want him to have his rifle.’

  Raven looked at the Big Bellies. One of them nodded yes, said one word, and took the fusil.

  ‘Badger’s rifle,’ signed Raven. Then he added with an enigmatic smile, ‘You again.’

  Ashley gave Sam a nod of approval. Sam knew his policy, Be straight up front with Indians.

  ‘The beaver hunters would also like to trade with their friends the Pawnees,’ Sam signed. ‘We want horses and dried meat, and offer blankets, hatchets, knives, and cooking utensils in return.’

  ‘Whiskey?’ asked Raven with his fingers.