Rivers West (17 page)

He would, of course, make another one before leaving the spot, giving his son a valuable lesson in the meantime. Once the trade was made, I wasted no time. I had always been good with a canoe.

Now, my rifle close beside me, I started upstream, with swift, even strokes, holding to the slack water close to the banks and studying the stream to avoid the main current.

Somebody had captured the keelboat and all aboard. I had seen no blood, no bodies.

I dipped the paddle deep and the canoe shot forward. With swift, sure strokes, I took the canoe upstream at a rate that would have won many a race, but I had always loved a canoe, and this one was light and finely made. Red Tail was an artist, if the work was his.

Before the sun had set, I sighted it.

The keelboat was a good mile ahead. There was only a small breeze, just enough to keep it moving. The sun was going down, but an hour of light remained, perhaps a bit more. Now the keelboat was before me and my time would come.

The last light was slipping away, the banks were casting dark shadows, and here and there a huge old tree leaned above the river like some monstrous hand, waiting to grab whatever came near.

I felt good. The paddling exhilarated me, and I was prepared for anything. My coat had been left aboard the keelboat, and I had traded my shirt, so I was naked to the waist. The night wind felt cool and good.

I heard a peculiar sound. It was a dull murmur, a sound I could not place.

Rapids? A waterfall?

It dawned upon me suddenly. It was a steam engine, its sound merging with the churning of the waves.

Instantly, I dipped my paddle deep and turned toward the shadows of the shore. Narrowly missing a huge sawyer, I angled across the current, glimpsed a suddenly appearing sandbar, skirted it, then crossed over.

The sound was unmistakable now. The steamer was behind me, coming upstream. It must have detoured into a tributary. It would overtake and pass me within minutes. And ahead of me and them was the keelboat. The steamboat would overtake it before I could.

I reached the shadows of the bank, and, safely hidden behind overhanging branches, I watched the serpent ship come steaming up the river.

Huge, black, glistening with spray, its great flared nostrils puffing smoke and sparks, it charged ahead.

I wondered who was now aboard.

Lights gleamed from her portholes, baleful lights. After it passed, I moved out from the shore and started forward.

I rowed hard, dipping my paddle with a strength that carried me swiftly forward.

Under cover of darkness, I gained. Now I could see. They were not only side by side, they were in trouble. The keelboat seemed to be trapped, and the steamer, rushing up alongside, had run hard and fast aground.

I wondered if LeBrun, who knew the river as well as any man, had seen the steamboat coming and deliberately led it aground. I wondered if, indeed, he was a prisoner.

Gently, to make no sound, I inched closer, moving alongside a big old tree whose roots—a grotesque, spiderlike snarl of black tentacles—were above water. I could already hear voices. Moving my canoe alongside, I made it fast, tying a slipknot to aid in a hasty getaway.

Then I waited and listened.

Suddenly, a commanding voice, “Baker? Is Talon aboard there?”

“No, he's not. There's the peg-leg, LeBrun, and LeBrun's girl, but there's no Talon.”

“Just the three of them?”

“There's a Britisher…least he sounds it. Says his name is McQuarrie.”

“Ah?” There was cruel satisfaction in Macklem's tone. “So I've got another one of them, have I?”

That accounted for them all but Pinkney. There was no mention of him.

“Stand by then, Baker, and look sharp. As soon as we float this ship, we'll pick you all up. Get a line rigged to tie on. We'll tow you upstream.”

“With that stern wheel?”

“It will make no difference, man. We'll just run out a good line. Stand by now, and look sharp.”

Something stirred in the water near me. It was no time for shooting. I drew my knife and held it low, the cutting edge up.

The steamer's engines began to turn over, and the great stern wheel threshed powerfully at the water, in reverse. There was no movement.

My eyes waited for whatever it was that would now take place.

Suddenly, during a lull in the frantic efforts of the steamer to dislodge itself, a low voice spoke, “Talon? Is it you? Pinkney here.”

“Come in slow,” I said, “I've got knife enough to float your guts on the river.”

He came in slow, hands up, rifle aloft. It was him, all right. Nimbly, he got into the canoe, and I sheathed my blade.

“Well, there they are, lad,” he said, calling me lad, and him not more than four or five years older. “We've got our work laid out for us. What had you in mind?”

“To take the keelboat and the steamer.”

“We were captured. LeBrun took a rap on the skull. Later, when I saw it was no use, I ducked behind the cargo forward and when the chance came, went over the side.”

Softly I explained what Red Tail had told me about the camp on Bonhomme Island.

“I know it well,” Pinkney said.

He crowded close, whispering so softly his voice was almost lost in the rustle of water. “On the steamer? Is there anyone?”

“I can't be sure of any but Macklem. I hope there's Macaire, for he's a good man, the very best, in fact. And I hope there's a man aboard there as a hand name of Butlin.” I didn't mention Tabitha.

“You don't say? Old Calgary there? That shines. I know him…know him well. We trapped a winter together on Lake o' the Woods, far to the north. Sold our furs in Pittsburgh.”

“We've got to take the keelboat,” I whispered, “free McQuarrie, Jambe-de-Bois and LeBrun. Five is better than two.

“Let's go.” I was suddenly through talking. “Let's go now.”

He pulled the slipknot, I dug in the paddle, and we shot away from the snag and toward the keelboat. We had come close by when somebody aboard the keelboat saw us.

“Hey? Who's there?” he called.

He sputtered, then pitched from the keelboat into the water. There was a loud splash, and Otis Pinkney said, “Move in close to him, lad. I want to get my knife back.”

“Your knife? What—?”

“Not bad, for the distance and the dark,” Pinkney said complacently. “Of course, we were moving in on him all the while.”

We touched the side, and I took a turn around a kevel and threw a couple of quick half-hitches. Pinkney was already aboard, rifle in his hand, knife in his teeth.

I followed.

Two strange men came toward me. “Get below and turn 'em loose,” I said to Otis.

“What about you? There's two of them.”

“It's nowhere near enough,” I said, and moved in fast. I had it going for me, of course. They weren't expecting trouble until one of them saw the breadth of me, which wasn't like anyone aboard. He started to speak, and I swung the Pauly rifle butt around with my left hand. It caught him alongside the head with one solid
thunk
, and he hit the deck with another. The second man was no yellowbelly. He came at me.

He was already in close, so I brought my fist up in a good stiff uppercut and his head snapped back like it was on a hinge. I don't think he'd ever been hit that hard before. His feet left the deck, and he hit the boards in a sitting position.

It was no time for polite work, and at that moment I was impatient. I swung a neat kick to his chin and went on across him toward the others who were coming.

Somebody on the steamer yelled, “What's going on over there?”

Four men were coming at me, and I'd no time to reply. I wanted to save my shooting for later, so I put the rifle down on the deckhouse as I cleared it, heading for the bow and the four new men. I went in swinging and had the advantage of a good start. My first blow was a wild one that caught a man coming in. He grunted, and then I was right in the middle of the wildest fist-swinging brawl I'd found in a coon's age.

Only I had the advantage again. There were four of them, and they had to hunt a target and be careful not to hit each other. All I had to do was punch. I rolled my shoulders up near my chin and went in with short arm punches. Then, when somebody grabbed at my head, I took him by both legs and dumped him over my head.

I backhanded another with a blow that probably jarred his relatives wherever they were. Somebody clobbered me on the side of the head. I got my back into the V of the bow, and they closed in on me. I ducked a punch, hitting hard with my right into his belly. He gasped like he'd been hit with a bath of cold water, and I swung him across in front of me and struck past his head at an open face. An open face that now had fewer teeth. A body splashed in the water, and then another. After the fourth splash, I saw LeBrun with a hatchet, chopping at the line.

The hatchet cut through, and the keelboat slipped away. The tide was in. Somebody fired a musket from the steamboat.

“The hell with that!” It was Macklem shouting. “Sink 'em!”

And they had the cannon to do it.

“Get the sail up, damn it!” I yelled.

We saw the flash of the gun and heard its boom. We heard a shot splash aft of us. Then another flash, which hit a bulwark and threw splinters in every direction. Some small ones stung my face. Down on one knee behind the bulwark, I aimed a little higher than where the flash had come from and squeezed off my shot.

Somebody yelled, but the musket flared again. He must have had the match in his hand. Another shot struck us, but struck at an angle and glanced off into the night.

Suddenly, the steamer's engines began to pound, and her wheel threshed.

“If she gets loose,” it was McQuarrie beside me, “we're through. Macklem's got some crack gunners aboard there.”

We stood in silence, staring off in the dark. We all knew what it meant. With steam they were faster, they could outmaneuver us, and we'd be dead…all of us.

“We've got to go ashore,” I said. “We've got to leave the keelboat.”

“What's that?” LeBrun had come forward, leaving Yvette at the rudder. “Leave my boat?”

“We have no choice. They'll shell it to bits. We can strike out overland.”

“His men will track us down,” LeBrun objected. “We'd have small chance.”

“And no chance if we stay aboard,” I said.

He looked at me angrily. But it was not at me his anger was directed. It was the nature of things. He knew it had to be done.

“There's a creek,” he said. “It's shallow but partly hidden by an island…”

There was still an hour before dawn when we abandoned the keelboat.

Chapter 21

M
Y BLACK PANTS were shot, so I borrowed a pair from LeBrun, and a pair of elkhide moccasins. We took from the boat what we could.

We made a rowdy lot. Otis Pinkney became our leader. We followed—LeBrun and Yvette, then McQuarrie, Jambe-de-Bois, and myself.

Pinkney led the way up a bank through some cottonwoods and out across a small meadow. That he had a destination in mind was obvious. He traveled fast, rarely looking back.

When we had traveled for an hour, he paused in a grove of huge old cottonwoods on a small branch of the creek that ran down toward the Missouri. There were a few wild plums, which we all ate, and we drank from the stream. He led off again after only a few minutes, but at a somewhat slower pace, keeping the trees between us and the river.

We were headed for Bonhomme Island.

For three days we traveled steadily. Several times we saw buffalo, and on the second day I killed a cow and we divided the meat, after eating what we could. We all made fresh moccasins from the hide. The green hide would not last as long as seasoned hide, but all of us had worn out our foot gear.

“We're near,” Pinkney said on the fourth day. “From now on we take it easy. This here will be our last hot meal.”

Earlier that day, we had killed a buffalo calf, and now we broiled steaks and ate well. Otis and LeBrun ate the liver, heart, and lights, and split the bones for the marrow. There were a few berries still on the bushes, but the birds had most of them, and there were signs that a bear had been feasting on them also.

All of us were on edge. We figured to meet the steamboat at the camp on Bonhomme Island. Now that we were close, none of us had a very good idea of what we should do. If there were as many men as we'd heard, we would have no chance at capturing the fort.

“The thing to do first,” I said at last, “is capture the serpent.”

“Supposing your Miss Majoribanks isn't aboard?” LeBrun suggested.

The same thought worried me. I told them so. “We'll have to chance it,” I said. “We'll have to move in fast and quietly, take the boat, and then if Tabi…if Miss Majoribanks has been put ashore, we'll have to find her.” I didn't mention that I hoped she was still alive.

At dusk we moved out. Suddenly, Pinkney put a hand on my arm and pointed. Through the leaves and across the river, narrower here, we could see the fires, at least a dozen of them, with a few lodges scattered here and there. It was obvious enough from the size of the fires, this was a white man's camp, although Indians might be present.

I wiped my palms on my pants. My mouth felt suddenly dry. There might be between fifty and a hundred men down there; there might be more.

Then, against the sky, I could see the smoke that could only be rising from the steamboat.

We had reached our rendezvous at last. We had arrived at Bonhomme Island.

Along the shore there were willows. We moved in among them.

The great firebreather was there, her huge head looming above us, jaws open, eyes distended.

All of us could swim. Stepping into the water, I led the way. I swam to the side of the hull. Catching hold of the rail, I climbed aboard. All was quiet. Only aft could I hear the low murmur of voices. One by one the others climbed quietly aboard. Then I started aft.