Part 26 (1/2)

There were eight or ten of them squatted around in the Fort Hall yard, outside the dried-mud building that Captain Grant used for office and home. The yard was in shadow, for the sun had fallen below the walls of the fort, and the beginning feel of night was in the air.

Captain Grant was the only one who stood. Seen from the ground, he looked even bigger than he was. He had England written all over him. He brushed his beard with his hand. ”The Hudson's Bay Company never has tried to get a wagon train through,” he answered.

”Why not?” Gorham asked.

Captain Grant shrugged, putting into the movement more than tongue could say.

Evans asked himself whether he was ready to dislike the man just because he was British. He had been good enough to the train, good enough to be better than you might expect from a d.a.m.n Britisher. He had welcomed the company and traded with it -and made himself some money, which, still, was what he was in business for. You could buy flour from him, brought by boat and horse from the Oregon settlements, at twenty dollars a hundred, or horses at from fifteen to twenty-five each. Ifyou didn't have money, he would take your sore-footed oxen and allow five up to twelve dollars for them. Good man or bad, though, he was British and so didn't want Americans taking over Oregon. That stood to reason. What he had to say about the trail ahead had to be taken with salt.

”Some of you'll git through, and maybe some wagons,” the old man said and took the pipe from his mouth and looked around. ”Ain't likely the whole kit and b'ilm' of you will, but some will, an' have a heap of fun.”

”How?” Tadlock asked.

”Why, to look back on. Starvin' an' thirstin' and nigh drownin' makes rich rememberin', if so be it you live to remember.”

”We done all right so far,” Evans put in.

”Sh.o.r.e you did, boy. Done smart, this n.i.g.g.e.r says. Ain't quite the whisker of August, and here ye be.”

”Well?”

”More this n.i.g.g.e.r thinks to it,” Greenwood said, and stopped while his old lips kept his pipe alive, ”more he almost wishes he was trailin' along. Californy way is too by-jesus tame. Nothin' the whole length of her to test a man. Nothin' to remember 'cept easy goin'.”

He had smoked his pipe down, and now he tilted the ash from it and packed in more tobacco so's to smoke it back up without having to relight. ”Shorter, too, to Californy, but this n.i.g.g.e.r's got to point that way. Said I would an' I by-jesus will.”

Summers had been sitting quiet, the lines of inside smiling at the corners of his mouth. He said, ”This child's been yan side of the Big Salt Sea, with the Diggers. Seems like it sticks in mind.”

”Sure enough?” Greenwood answered as if he didn't understand.

The look of thinking ahead was on Patch's sharp face. ”What did you say they raised in California?”

”Nothin'. Nothin' 'cept what's sot in the ground and whatever chews on gra.s.s. She's a soft country, she is, and so G.o.ddam sunny a man wonders ain't there ever no weather there. It ain't like Oregon thataway.”

”Let's talk straight,” Tadlock said, hitching forward on the ground. ”Why do you think we can't make it to the Willamette?”

Old Greenwood spread his hands. ”Did this n.i.g.g.e.r say that, now? Said some of you would. Sh.o.r.e. There's the Snake to ford twice, 'less you cross it here at Hall an' run into h.e.l.l's trouble like Wyeth done, d.i.c.k, in 'thirty-four or sometime, an' the Snake ain't no p.i.s.s-piddle of a river even if you might think so, seein' it from here, but you'll git over, most o' you, and maybe some wagons. An', oh, man, but it'll be fun. Do' know as I would try the wagons, though. There's plenty wagons for sale at Oregon City, I reckon. What you say, Cap'n?”

”I'd leave the wagons here.”

”Ain't wagons gone through before?” Gorham asked.

Greenwood answered, ”Some.”

”Tell us some more of your fun,” Tadlock said.

”Ain't so much more, but d.a.m.n me fer a liar if fer days you don't roll along her rim and no drink for man or brute, and there she flows, so G.o.ddam far and steep below you couldn't leg it down and back from sunup to sundown.”

In the thinking quiet Evans smelled the smoke of dying cook fires inside the buildings flanked around. The fires would he dying at camp, too, which was pitched south and west of the fort about a mile, and Rebecca would have the plates and kettles cleaned, for the camp had eaten early, and Brownie would he watching out against the friendly, thieving Snakes. There were other smells here, the smells of smoked meat and fish and hides and tobacco, the sour aftersmell of Indians, the smell of bucket of milk that a half-breed carried by. The milk put him in mind of Independence and home and the cowshed and the Missouri flowing not so far away. He said, ”We know somep'n about rivers.”

”Sh.o.r.e, boy,” old Greenwood answered. ”The Missouri or the Mississippi, I'm thinkin'. Nice water. Come to think on it, what you aim to do with your cattle?”

”Take 'em along.”

”Oh! An' then after the Snake, or Lewis River like sometimes we call it, you come to its pappy, an' there's more fun. You kin say you seen the chutes and falls of her and the black, by-jesus rocks smotherin' in foam. It's a sight, I tells you. Wuth seein'.”

Evans let his gaze go from man to man, wondering if they felt like him, wary of this grandpa of the mountains but still fazed by the word of trials ahead. The company just yesterday had finished a toilsome stretch, through the black rocks and black dust this side the Bear, and had come down into the valley and seen water and woods and gra.s.s and bobolinks and killdeers, and he didn't guess anyone wanted to move again, much less tackle what Greenwood was putting into words.

”I reckon you all know Meek,” Evans said. ”He swears he's learnt a better way to Oregon. Up the Malheur River. Said it 'ud save a hundred and fifty miles and more.”

Captain Grant nodded. ”Steve Meek. He broke with the train he was piloting and hurried here to talk himself into another. I wonder that you didn't see him when he pa.s.sed you. What did you tell him?”

”Told him we had Summers.”

Captain Grant said, ”Right. I wouldn't care to try that trail, would you, Summers?”

d.i.c.k just shook his head.

Greenwood started up his song again. ”You got such a smart start, maybe you'll git to the Willamette afore snow flies. Could be you will. Course, you'll have rain, one day on another, fer the rainy season's nigh here. What was it you said you aimed to do with the cattle?”

”Take 'em.”

”Oh! They's a pa.s.sel o' Injuns 'twixt here and there, an' I hear they've blacked their faces agin white parties, but fisheatin' Injuns ain't much, like Summers'll tell you. They ain't likely to cause much harm.”

Mack raised his eyes from the ground, which he had been worrying with one finger. ”We got by the p.a.w.nees and Sioux.”

”Sh.o.r.e. Sh.o.r.e.”

Evans was glad when Summers spoke. It was only Summer who knew Oregon and so could speak against the man, an when he didn't it was as if he couldn't because the said words were truer and wiser than he could say himself. Summers asked, ”Who's payin' you, Caleb?”

”Now as fer fevers,” Greenwood said, giving Summers just the corner of his eye, ”there's some as hold there's fever on the lower river, an' this n.i.g.g.e.r 'lows there's some but not as much as claimed. There ain't that much, or I don't know white from Injun. You say you aimed to take your cattle along, Evans?”

Captain Grant had gone inside. He came out with a jug and cups. It was good whisky, better than old Hitchc.o.c.k sold at his store back in Independence. The captain pa.s.sed it with a manner. You had to say the British had manners, if you liked manners.

Evans didn't know how McBee had kept quiet so long, unless i t was because of Tadlock. He rolled a swallow of whisky uround in his mouth and gulped it down and spoke up. ”'Y G.o.d,” he said with the bright look of a man expecting a second to his motion, ”I didn't set out for the West hopin' to live hard. I done lived hard enough already.”

”Aw, don't let this n.i.g.g.e.r scare you off,” Greenwood told him. ”You ain't got more'n eight hundred miles or so to go. Could be you'll do smart.” He emptied his cup with a throwhack of his head. ”An' then you can say you seen all them dead Injuns down from the Dalles, too. Man, it's a sight to see! Dead'uns floatin' on rafts an' laid in pens an' all, along with little scare-devils. You'll never set your eye on more good Injiins than right there.”

Tadlock asked, ”Was there a fight?”

”Not as fur as this n.i.g.g.e.r knows. They just up and die, reckon. Eh, Cap'n?”

Grant had seated himself with the rest. He nodded his big, British head. ”Starvation and fevers, I suppose. I never stopped to think. At any rate it wasn't a fight.”

”As fer cattle,” Greenwood went on, ”you can d.i.c.ker fer 'em when you git there. There's a heap of cattle bein' drove from Californy to Oregon.”

There was sorrow on Brother Weatherby's face, sorrow, Evans guessed, from the cursing that he heard. He guessed, too, that it was more to get G.o.d into the open than to argue with Greenwood that he said, ”We're in the Lord's hands, remember.”