Cheyenne Winter (35 page)

Gillian nodded.

“Let the record show that the witness nodded affirmatively,” said Hiliodore. “Have you any evidence — any evidence at all — that this contraband was owned by my clients, or that they were aware of its presence?”

“Why, that boy, the Straus boy, he knew it. He told me he’d seen it after they left Westport, and added it to his own company copy.”

“He also told you he had thought it was vinegar and lamp oil, did he not?”

Gillian laughed pleasantly. “He wasn’t a very good liar. I can read faces, you know. I know the face of a sinner, sir, and this, this Straus — ”

“The lad isn’t here to defend himself, Mr. Gillian.”

The reverend didn’t like being interrupted. “Mr. Billedeaux,” he said, a weary patience in his tone. “We all know that anything boarded at Westport would be, ah, discovered by the regular inspectors at Fort Leavenworth. Therefore, the boy lied. These nefarious spirits would have been slid aboard at some place after Fort Leavenworth and before Bellevue.”

“Ah, reverend. More suppositions. Confine yourself to what you know, please.”

“I know that boy lied.”

Guy’s temper climbed and he squirmed on the hard wooden bench. But there was little he could do. Hiliodore was taking a beating  . . . and so was he.

The retired major, J. Broderick Eastwood, intervened. “The Leavenworth inspections are thorough, sirs. There’s no possibility that casks with such labels upon them would have escaped the attention of the army.”

But they had, thought Guy. The Leavenworth inspections were erratic; sometimes exhaustive, sometimes cursory.

Hiliodore smiled. “Thank you, sir. It’s something to consider. I’m sure whoever put those casks in the hold intended that they should be discovered at Leavenworth, just as you suggest.”

“That’s a fancy theory,” said Eastwood. A small titter rose in the overheated room. The coal stove spat.

“Ah, gentlemen, if it makes no sense for a fur company to slip contraband aboard below Leavenworth, then it makes no sense for a fur company to slip contraband aboard below the next inspection point at Bellevue.”

Gillian said, “The fur companies do as they will — a godless lot, making themselves lords of the wild. They buy and bribe their way — ”

“Are you suggesting, Mr. Gillian, that you are bribeable? Have you been approached?”

“They bribe the venal army at Leavenworth.”

Major J. Broderick Eastwood stiffened slightly.

“You didn’t answer my question, Mr. Gillian.”

“I serve a higher calling. Does that answer it?”

Hiliodore sighed. Guy sighed. It was going badly even though the reverend was an ass. He had hoped things would go better than this. The entire case, Hiliodore had told him, rested on the question of ownership of those casks. He couldn’t prove the company didn’t own them — but he felt that the Indian Bureau couldn’t prove the company did own them.

They sparred through the rest of the morning, making small points that would have no effect. Guy smelled doom in the air, along with the occasional whiff of coal smoke from the potbelly. They adjourned for lunch and resumed at two, with Captain Sire the next witness.

“Is it unusual,” Roscoe asked the captain, “for your ship’s cargo manifest to be drafted in more than one hand?”

“It’s commonplace.”

“Did this last entry in a different hand mean anything to you?”

“No. I didn’t see it, actually. My mate handles the cargo. He lets me know if we’re carrying hazardous substances. He told me about the casks of powder Dance, Fitzhugh and Straus had aboard. I made sure they were properly stowed and isolated.”

“Did your mate make that entry, perhaps?”

“No. It’s not his hand. He keeps our log on occasion and I’m familiar with his hand.”

“Whose hand wrote the rest of the manifest?”

“Young Mr. Straus. He gave me our copy and kept his own.”

“How do you know that?”

“He told me at Westport. He’d been made responsible for checking off the company cargo as it was boarded. And he gave our copy to me, and I gave it to my mate and had him check off the dunnage as it was boarded also.”

“Captain,” said David Mitchell. “I have a question.”

Here it comes, thought Guy. Mitchell alone among the commissioners knew enough about fur company practices to ask the right question: such as, did you take aboard contraband spirits above Bellevue? Captain Sire’s answer would destroy Guy — if he wasn’t already destroyed.

“Captain Sire, did you board any contraband, or suspect you did, at any place — a wooding lot for instance — between Leavenworth and Bellevue?”

Ah, Davey, ah, Davey,
Guy thought.

“None to my knowledge. I would have known about it, I’m sure. I believe Maxim Straus was correct when he told Mr. Gillian the casks had been boarded at Westport.”

Guy waited for Roscoe to ask the next question, but Roscoe was honking phlegm into his slimy handkerchief. Slowly, Guy eased into the hardwood bench.

“Somebody’s not telling the truth!” thundered Gillian from his spectator bench.

“Mr. Gillian — please. This may not be a courtroom but we shall have decorum,” said Roscoe.

“The reverend is suggesting I’m not telling the truth,” said Captain Sire. “I will stand on my statement. The casks in question were loaded at Westport.” The captain sat patiently in his chair, his natural authority speaking for him.

“Why there? If they’d only be discovered by the army at Leavenworth?” asked Mitchell.

Sire smiled. “I cannot guess at intentions, commissioner.”

Roscoe said, “The contraband was on board at Bellevue. There’s no dispute there, is there Captain Sire?”

“I saw the reverend pour clear fluid into the river, sir. It could have been water. I can say only that the casks were aboard, but I have no knowledge that they contained spirits. They didn’t contain whiskey, I’m sure of that.”

“Do you segregate cargo by owner?”

“As far as possible, sir. It makes unloading easier.”

“These casks were with other Rocky Mountain Company dunnage?”

“I have no idea.”

“Does cargo get mixed up?”

“Once in a while — when we shift it to get over a sandbar.”

“Have you encountered any sandbars below Bellevue?”

“None.”

“Then the cargo didn’t get mixed up.”

“I don’t know, sir. I didn’t enter the hold.”

“I’m trying to make the point, captain, that in all likelihood the contraband didn’t arrive there — In the Dance, Fitzhugh and Straus goods — accidentally.”

The hangman, Guy thought. Making a case.

“It’s unlikely, sir,” said Sire.

Hiliodore rose. “That is our contention, sir. No accident at all. The casks were planted in my client’s goods during the loading at Westport for nefarious and sinister reasons. To cost my clients their license.”

Philander P. Roscoe smiled slightly, a faint twitch in his cadaverous face that vanished instantly. “Come now, Mr. Billedeaux. We need more than theory and scapegoats. You must prove it.”

“Nay, sirs. It’s the opposite. We needn’t prove it. You need to prove that the contraband belonged to my clients. If you have the slightest doubts about it, you may not withdraw the license. The Constitution provides that the accused must be considered innocent until — ”

“We are quite familiar with it, counsel,” said Eastwood.

“Then you know the burden of proof’s on you. Have you heard a thing today tying the contraband to my client? Not a word! Have you found the link? Nothing! Can any of you say, within your esteemed selves, that you know for sure? Of course not! Would you deny a large and valued trading company its license on the most circumstantial and vague sort of evidence? Isn’t some competition against the Chouteau interests a good thing — for the tribes?”

“This is an Indian Bureau administrative hearing, counsel,” droned Roscoe. “Not a court. We adjudge the evidence before us on its merits. It’s within our power to weigh probabilities.”

Guy had heartened at Hiliodore’s sally, only to lose hope with Roscoe’s retort. Hiliodore’s main argument — that nothing the commissioners had heard tied the contraband to the company — had died in Roscoe’s reply.

That white-maned bulldog Billedeaux turned to new things. “Sirs, my client, Mr. Straus, believes the casks were planted by a certain Chouteau employee named Raul Raffin. This Raffin had nursed an ancient grudge against one of the partners, Robert Fitzhugh, over, ah, an affair of the heart. Mr. Straus went upriver at great expense last fall to get to the bottom of these matters, and learned that this Raffin had been on
The Trapper
and got off at Fort Pierre — deserted the company, rather. He was to continue on to Fort Union where he was engaged by Major Culbertson for a new three-year term with the company. My client tells me that this man now resides in a Cheyenne village and makes it his business to ruin the trade of Dance, Fitzhugh and Straus.”

“Theories again, counsel.” Eastwood said it and began reaming his nostril. He sounded skeptical and bored. The hearing had consumed a day, and had slid into tedium and triviality.

“Ah! Not theories. The finger points! We know a few things about him. He can read and write. He has kept ledgers at the posts. We are endeavoring to obtain a sample of his hand and believe that Major Culbertson will supply it. Now, sirs, what about this hand? Will it match the mysterious hand found at the bottom of Captain Sire’s cargo manifest? We believe it will. And we respectfully request that your decision be postponed until this vital piece of evidence is available to you. Only then will you be able to act with assurance.”

“And when would that be?” asked Roscoe.

“We don’t know. Before the end of this trading season surely.”

“We don’t know either — and we can’t postpone that long, especially for an ephemeral bit of handwriting that may or may not have anything to do with this case. No, counsel. I’m sure I speak for my colleagues when I say we can’t delay for anything like that.”

“Well now, whoa up, sir,” said David Mitchell. “If they can prove this Raffin planted those casks and added a line to the manifest in his own hand, I think that’s important. Let’s leave it this way: we’ll reopen it and reconsider if such evidence materializes. And make our present decision conditional.”

“It’s been a long day, Superintendent Mitchell,” Roscoe said.

Guy couldn’t make anything out of a reply like that.

Roscoe stood. “This concludes the hearing. My colleagues and I will weigh the material before us in the morning and make our decision known before noon tomorrow.”

Guy bundled into his buffalo greatcoat and pushed toward the double doors at the rear. Hiliodore caught up with him as they pierced into the wintry dusk of the riverfront.

“I don’t have a good feeling about it, Guy. Not when they ignore customary burden of proof. It’s up to them, not us.”

“You did what you could,” said Guy.

He slept soundly that night, much to his surprise. There was no suspense dogging him. At noon the next day he stood before the ravens once again.

“The Indian Bureau hereby withdraws the trading license of Dance, Fitzhugh and Straus effective at the end of the present trading season, July 1. The aforesaid shall abandon all trading with all tribes on or before that date. The superintendents find that the aforesaid company attempted to smuggle contraband spirits to its Yellowstone post, against U.S. codes prohibiting it.” Philander P. Roscoe droned on, reviewing the evidence or lack of it, dismissing the entire Raffin question as unsubstantiated, and reminding other fur companies that a similar fate awaited them if they debauched the tribes.

Hiliodore slumped.

Guy sighed. Old Cadet Chouteau had whipped him. Even now, Chouteau’s minions raced out of the hearing room with the news that would warm Cadet’s heart. . . . The commissioners had been right — but on the wrong evidence. The peculiarity of his position didn’t elude Guy. Perhaps he could return the favor to Cadet — one way or another.

Guy guessed he’d walk up the hill and tell Yvonne. She would start talking about selling the house.

Raffin sipped steadily and stared into the guttering flame. He sighed as if the world were weighting his shoulders. Fitzhugh watched and waited.

“I’ll let you live a while,” Raffin said. “You want some?”

Brokenleg shook his head. Raffin poured more from the jug and added a splash of water.

“In ancient days I come here to winter — I was a free trapper den. Like you,
mon ami.
And Chief White Wolf, he is my old ami. I help him sometimes. Powder and lead; I get it for him. I get a lodge, me and another Creole. And one day I see this
jeune fille
— this girl, and dere’s no one in this village like her. She’s almost skinny. She’s got shiny hair in braids and bright eyes and pouty lips. She’s maybe fourteen and stuck up. She don’t even look at me. Well, she looks at me but I’m just a white man. She’s a Suhtai, and looks down her petite nose at everyone, the rest of them Cheyenne included.

“Da next winter I go back and she’s still not taken but the boys, dey are playing the love flute outside her lodge. I think, I’ll make the bride offer to her pa, One Leg Eagle. But I’ll give her some foofaraw first so she likes me and says to her pa, take the fits. I do dat. I give her the red ribbons and the yeller ribbons, and she smiles and her eyes glow. I get her name this time: it’s Little Whirlwind, and dat’s a good name for her all right, only the whirlwind’s not so little. She’s a tempest. I am thinking, I give any bride-gift he wants and then the old medicine man give me the girl. I got a couple spare horses and a spare rifle for him, a Hawken with a flintlock.

“Den you ride in, you and Dance. And you see her, too, dis Cheyenne girl with sun streaming outa her eyes, dis little snot dat’s above everyone. Like some Indian princess. You ride in and I see her peeking at dat red hair of yours, peeking and pretending she don’t see it none and it don’t interest her.”

Raffin sighed and sipped a long draught. He wheezed. He hadn’t watered it much. “Whew!” he gasped. “Dis stuff. I drink dis stuff maybe one time a year.”