The Shirt On His Back (13 page)

For all his
expressed grief at the foul mistrust he'd seen demonstrated that forenoon, Mick
Seaholly made no move to shift the venue of the boxing match. When January
returned to the liquor tent an hour later, he estimated that three-quarters of
the men in the camp - and three-quarters of the Indians in the valley - were on
hand to watch.

Deadfall trees
had been hauled from the river bank to make a rough border around the square
that Sir William paced off, the precise size of a London boxing-stage. While
the Scots nobleman was cutting the scratch lines for the combatants with his
knife in the dirt, January was offered so many drinks that if he'd accepted
them all he'd have had trouble identifying Wildman at ten paces.

'Keep a few.'
Hannibal stepped aside to let Mr Miller edge to the fore with his ever-present
sketchbook. 'If you get cut again we can use it to cleanse the wound.'

'My teachers
recommended spirits of wine to cleanse wounds,' returned January, stripping off
his shirt, 'not snake venom mixed with river water. Which way did you bet?'

'Benjamin!' The
fiddler clasped a hand to his breast. 'You wound me. You cut me to the heart.
Detrahit amicitiae maies- tatem suam, qui illam parat ad
bonos casus.
This is a boxing match, not an eye-gouging contest.' He
fished into the dripping gourd that Prideaux was holding for him and wound
strips of wet rawhide around January's hands, tucking the ends in tight.

'And if you
think anyone is going to lodge a protest with the Rules Committee and proclaim
me the winner if Manitou fouls me, I suggest you check the contents of that
fizz pop you've been drinking.'

Men came
streaming across from Seaholly's, where final bets were being laid. Charro
Morales brought in his horse to the edge of the crowd for a better view and
whooped, 'Free liquor tonight, if Wildman wins!' which set up a roaring cheer;
the two German noblemen who, like Stewart, had come to the rendezvous for
adventure and hunting, attempted to better their viewpoint by purchasing Jim
Bridger's front-row spot and were unceremoniously shoved to the farthest rear.

On the other
side of the boxing-stage men were shouting Wildman's name. The spectators
parted, to let January through, and January's eyes widened with shock.
Yesterday's bout had been so quick that he had not only missed seeing Wildman's
style of combat, but also by the time he'd reached the front of the crowd,
Manitou had already been putting on his shirt.

Now, for the
first time, January got a look at that scarred torso. He'd helped the Army
surgeons with the wounded after the Battle of Chalmette, and since he'd been in
the rendezvous camp he'd seen a surgeon's textbook of scars: tomahawk, skinning
knife, bear claw, broken branches ... the wicked Xs that told of snake-bite
poison far from other help. As a child, he'd seen what a five-tongued whip with
iron tied into its ends would leave of an 'uppity' slave's back.

He'd never seen
scars like Wildman's. Ever. Anywhere.

He couldn't even
imagine what had made them or how the man had survived whatever it was.

And that ripped
and mended hide covered muscle like hammered iron.

Manitou had
hacked off most of his long black hair for the fight - something he hadn't
bothered to do when facing off against Blankenship - as well as much of his
beard, both operations obviously performed with a bowie knife and no mirror. He
was clearly not a man who craved the glance of the Taos ladies. Beneath the
unbroken line of brow, those clear brown eyes had a curious focus to them,
distant, like a man striving to remember something long forgotten. January
hoped it was the rules of the ring.

'Gentlemen,'
declaimed Stewart, in a voice that could have been heard in St Louis, 'to your
scratch. The fight will proceed by London rules: holding and throwing are
allowable, but no gouging, no biting, no strangling, no foul blows. A man upon
his knees is considered down; the round is concluded with a man down; thirty
seconds to rest before returning to the scratch. Is this clear?'

January said,
'Yes, sir,' and Wildman grunted.

'No crowding the
contestants. No man to enter the stage except the fighters and their seconds.
Understood?'

Incoherent
yelling from all sides to get on with it. Men pressed up to the edges of the
stage, with more standing on the tree trunks to get a head over those in front
of them. A third ring of men on horses crowded behind them. Dust fogged the
air.
Rose will never forgive me if I get
my nose broken in the cause of getting friendly with a witness . . .

Mountaineers and
camp-setters passed the word to their Sioux and Flathead friends that this was
fighting as it was done in the country of the English King across the sea -
there wasn't an Indian alive who didn't relish a good fight. On the mountains
at the north end of the valley, thunder grumbled distantly, and wind blew
chilly across January's naked back, bearing the smell of coming storm.

Shaking hands
with his opponent was like grasping the paw of an animal.

'Gentlemen,'
called Stewart, 'begin!'

Wildman had a
stance that wouldn't have been out of place in Gentleman Jackson's boxing salon
in London and a punch that a grizzly would have envied. And he was - somewhat
to January's surprise - a clean fighter: trained, calculating, scientific,
with a precise sense of distance. January hadn't had a formal match since he'd
left Paris and had almost forgotten how much he'd enjoyed the sport.

They circled,
watching each other for an opening - the trapper was huge, and January guessed
he'd be fast. He knew already that he was going to lose, simply because his
opponent would outlast him. Aside from being ten years younger, Wildman was
someone who really
could
drag himself for eight days through the wilderness with two broken legs and
Indians on his trail, and when all was said and done, for all his size, January
was a forty-three-year-old piano-player.

And yet - as he
had never been able to explain, either to Rose or to the wife of his Paris
days, the beautiful Ayasha - there was great pleasure in fighting a man who
fought so well.

He knocked
Manitou down twice, and was himself downed, his opponent standing back, like a
polite bear, to let Shaw and Hannibal get him on his feet and back to the
scratch. They waded in again, hard straight punishing blows and the salt taste
of blood on his mouth. He felt his stamina flagging, and sparred for wind and
distance, but Manitou crowded him, forced him back toward the ring of spectators,
who fell away before them. They grappled, clinched, broke apart
— if I can get him down again . . .

They circled,
and January squinted against the westering sun—

And saw clearly
the bright bar of light that speared into Manitou's eyes.

Squaw wearing a
mirror
...
He reacted even as he thought this, saw his opponent flinch. His fist connected
with jawbone, a blow that came all the way through his back heel from the
earth—

Manitou's face
changed. He'd been fighting a well-trained beast. Now he suddenly faced the
wild one.

The trapper
bellowed something - January didn't hear what - and threw himself in,
disregarding January's blows and attempts to block, caught him by the throat
and hurled him aside as if he'd been a child, then kept on going into the audience.
Someone screamed, 'Get him off me! Get him—!' and January struck the ground,
tucking his head and curling his body to avoid being trampled. Spectators
surged over him, to stop the enraged man. January was kicked, stepped on - at
least four men tripped over him and a horse's hoof nicked his shoulder - and
when he sat up he couldn't see anything but a surging struggle enveloped in
dust, nor hear beyond a thunderous howl of rage.

Shaw and
Hannibal thrashed free of the crowd, dashed to his side. 'What the hell
happened?' January gasped. 'It looked like sunlight caught some squaw's mirror
and threw it in his
eyes—'

'That's what
happened, all right,' returned Shaw grimly, and helped him to sit. 'Only it was
Jed Blankenship holdin' the mirror.'

Of course it would
be.
So much for the possibility of getting Manitou to talk to
him - or even, now, of going out to that isolated campsite with a friendly
bottle some evening. Wearily, January said, 'God damn Jed Blankenship.' A dozen
yards away, men were hanging on to Wildman as if to a roped bull, and
Blankenship, wisely, was nowhere to be seen. 'That goddamned seventy-five
dollars - and now Manitou's going to think I was in on it.'

'I'd say there's
that possibility.' Shaw got him to his feet. January tried to turn his head,
winced at the pang in his muscles. 'Such bein' the case, it may be best you
make yourself scarce 'til he cools down . . . Which, Tom tells me, can take
years.'

'God damn Jed
Blankenship.'

Manitou's voice
rose above the din, a bull roar of insane rage, as they walked away up the path
for the camp.

Shaw stationed
himself outside Morning Star's lodge and spent the remainder of the afternoon
explaining over and over to what sounded to January like two-thirds of the
camp: 'No, we didn't have nuthin' to do with it . . . Hell, no, we didn't bet
on him! Friend or no friend, we ain't crazy! Ask anybody in the camp . . .'
Morning Star anointed January's bruises with a poultice of sagebrush and
mullein and brought him cold water from the river to soak his knuckles. A
little later, Gil Wallach brought the news that such had been the confusion
over who'd won and who'd lost that Mick Seaholly had disbarred Jed Blankenship
from the AFC liquor tent and all its various amenities. 'And God help slow
mares,' the trader added with a grin.

Veinte-y-Cinco
was already at the camp, watching over a flushed and fretful Pia. The girl had
a massive opium-headache and no very clear idea of what had happened to her: 'I
remember talking to Titus, but he wasn't there before. I was just talkin' to a
couple of his boys, outside Seaholly's—'

'Anyone buy you
a drink, honey?'

The girl moved
one thin shoulder, with an adolescent's impatience:
what a stupid question.
'No. You know
you told Mr Seaholly you'd kill him if he sold me liquor. We were drinking
coffee, is all.'

January had
tasted camp coffee. It could have been doctored with gunpowder, let alone
laudanum, without altering the taste. 'It could have been anyone,' he said
softly, when the girl had fallen asleep among the buffalo robes. 'Anyone Titus
paid off.'

Veinte-y-Cinco
cursed, quietly and without any real hope in her voice, then sat for a time
with her chin on her drawn-up knees, gazing into the swept stones of the lodge
fire-pit. 'But he's right,' she said after a time. 'That filth-eating— Titus is
right. What kind of mother am I, that I can't even keep my child from harm? I
brought her up here—'

'And she'd have
been safer back in Taos by herself?' Hannibal and Morning Star ducked through
the entry hole into the tent, carrying wood for that night's fire.

'I don't know—'
The woman looked aside, in grief that had long ago exhausted its lifetime
allotment of tears. 'I don't know what to do.' She made a move to rise. 'I got
to get back. Can she sleep here tonight?'

'You both can,'
said Morning Star. It was her lodge, after all.

'It's
coming on to rain,' added Hannibal. '
Numquam imprudentibus imber obfuit
. . .'

'Hoss!' yelled
Prideaux's voice from outside. 'Hoss, you got to come! You got to - where'd he
go? Hoss!' The red- haired trapper thrust his head through the entry hole.
'Hoss, this is it! It's startin' to rain, an' I just heard from that kid Poco -
that camp-setter of Blankenship's - that Beauty an' the Dutchman sneaked around
whilst everyone was at the fight an' bought up everythin' they'll need for a
year's trappin'! Salt, whetstones, lead . . . They're headin' out tonight, with
the rain to cover their tracks—'

January rolled
his eyes. 'Weren't they supposed to be heading out three nights ago? When everyone
went out and skulked around in the rain—'

'But tonight is
really it!' Prideaux was so excited he could barely get the words out. 'I went
out an' had a look at their camp an' that squaw of the Dutchman's is
takin' down her dry in' racks
!’

'When my mama
started takin' in her dryin' racks from the yard,' remarked Shaw, ducking into
the tent at Prideaux's heels, 'it generally meant there was rain comin' in, not
that she was gettin' ready to light outta there in secret.'

'But this's
their
secret beaver valley
!'
insisted Prideaux, as if the Kentuckian had somehow missed the critical
importance of that fact. 'You just wait 'til this child follows those boys to
their secret valley, an' comes back next rendezvous with beaver skins big as
buffalo hides! Wee-augh! How's your neck, hoss?' he asked in a more normal
tone.

'After today I
won't fear hangin'.'

'Well,' remarked
Hannibal to Veinte-y-Cinco, when Prideaux finally left - on the run - to gather
up what plunder he'd need to pursue Clarke and Groot into the hills, and the
first spatters of rain rattled on the lodge skins, 'you might as well make
yourself comfortable, m'am; it's not like there's going to be anything
happening at Seaholly's with half the camp out in the woods. Come,
amicus meus
,' he added,
turning to January as Morning Star knelt to kindle the fire, 'let's have some
stories. Tell us about the strangest person you ever met . . .'