The Tears of God

Chapter Two

The tapestry of life in the wilderness was woven of strands of both serenity and savagery. Times without counting Nate’s life had hung in the balance. It might be hostiles, it might be a marauding griz, it might be Nature’s tantrums or a menace as commonplace as a rattlesnake. It had happened so often in the past that when it happened in the present, he was seldom prone to panic. He felt fear, yes. He felt anxiety. But panic hardly ever.

Nate didn’t panic now. He met the gaze of the warrior with the arrow pointed at him. Ever so slowly, he raised his right hand, empty, as high as his neck. Then he slowly closed it, held his first two fingers straight up, and brought his hand in front of his face. It was sign language for “friend.”

The warrior studied Nate as if trying to decide whether to believe him. Lowering the bow, the man eased up on the string, raised his right hand, and mimicked Nate. He said something in a tongue Nate was unfamiliar with.

Shakespeare let out a long breath of relief. “Thank goodness. They thought we might be scalp hunters.”

“You speak their language?” Nate marveled. He had lost count of how many his friend knew. As one of the first white men to roam the vast lands west of the Mississippi, McNair had run into more tribes than practically any other white man alive.

“Barely at all,” Shakespeare responded. “But I know the tribe. They’re called the Pend d’Oreilles. They come from up near where my wife’s tribe lives, the Flatheads.”

“That’s a far piece.” Nate saw that the other warriors were lowering their bows and noted that each kept his arrow nocked to the string.

“They only get down this way once a year or so,” Shakespeare said.

“What are they doing here?”

“What else? They’ve come to trade at Bent’s.” Shakespeare resorted to sign language, and the warrior who had pointed his bow at Nate replied in kind.

Nate knew sign as well as his friend did. He translated the answer out loud, “They have come for guns and steel knives if they can get them, and have brought furs and shells to trade.” It was always the way, Nate reflected. Contact with whites stirred a desire for the white man’s weapons. Bows and lances weren’t enough when warriors had seen what guns could do. “Why in the world did they think we were scalp hunters?”

Shakespeare posed the question in sign. The answer provoked a frown. “You just saw. He says they met some Crows who warned them there are scalp men hereabouts.”

“That’s ridiculous.” Nate was aware that lifting hair had been a common practice back East, but that was long ago.

“They say the Crows heard it from the Cheyenne who heard it from a band of Pawnees.”

Nate scratched his chin. “What do you make of it? Do you believe them?”

Shakespeare nodded at the Pend d’Oreilles. “They believe it and that’s what counts.”

The leader went on at some length.

“He’s sorry for disturbing us,” Nate translated. “That’s awful decent of him. But that business about scalp hunters is far-fetched.”

The leader let out a sharp cry. It wasn’t a war whoop; it was a signal to the rest of his party. Out of the trees filed eight more warriors leading their horses and pack animals.

Nate was doubly glad he hadn’t tried to fight his way out. He’d be bristling with arrows right about now. “Do we offer to ride with them or go on alone?”

Shakespeare put the question to them in sign. The leader answered that they would be happy to have the two white men ride with them.

Although Nate couldn’t recall hearing tell of any instance where the Pend d’Oreilles killed whites, he wasn’t entirely comfortable riding at the head of the band with all those bows at his back. He kept shifting and looking back.

Finally Shakespeare chuckled and said, “You’ll give yourself a crick in the neck if you keep doing that.”

“Do you trust them not to kill us if they have the chance?”

“Lordy, you have a suspicious nature.”

“I just like to breathe.”

“They could have done it back there at the creek if they wanted.”

“That doesn’t mean they might not try now.”

“ ‘By my troth,’ ” Shakespeare resorted to the Bard, “ ‘a man can die but once. We owe God a death. I’ll ne’er bear a base mind, an’t it be my destiny.’ ”

“You’re saying I worry too much.”

Beaming, Shakespeare bent toward Nate and clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re learning, Horatio. There’s hope for you yet.”

To Nate’s considerable relief, the Pend d’Oreilles didn’t badger them with questions about white ways. Some tribes would. To them the white man was a perplexing mystery. The things most Indians held dear, the white man didn’t. The things that white men held dear, the Indians couldn’t understand. Especially the whites’ lust for money and desire to possess land was another. Many tribes, like his adopted people the Shoshones, considered the land as there for all to use, humans as well as wildlife. The concept of owning it was added proof that whites had their heads in a whirl.

The two hours seemed a lot longer, but at last the winding Arkansas River came into view. The high adobe walls of Bent’s Fort were bathed in the afternoon sun. Nothing short of a cannon could break those walls down. They were impervious to lances and arrows and immune to fire. Small wonder that hostiles seldom attacked.

Nate had been here often. He was always impressed by its size: almost one hundred and eighty feet from front to back and nearly one hundred and forty feet from side to side.

The Pend d’Oreilles drew rein a hundred yards out. Indians were permitted into the post only at certain times and kept under close watch. Whites could enter any time but first had to go up to a gate in the south wall and wait while they were scrutinized through a porthole. The Bent brothers and their partner, Ceran St. Vrain, took every precaution.

No sooner did Nate come to a stop than the porthole opened and a voice thick with a brogue declared, “As I live and breathe, it’s Nate King, himself.” The bar on the inside rasped and the gate was hauled open, revealing a young man with a bristly red beard and a knot of red hair.

“It’s been a while, Finnan,” Nate greeted him.

“That it has,” the Irishman agreed, all smiles. “I haven’t set eyes on you since you had your dispute with that horrible Jackson fellow and blew out his wick.”

Nate didn’t need the reminder.

Finnan flashed his teeth at McNair. “And who might this ancient gentleman with all the wrinkles be?”

Shakespeare’s head snapped up. “Who are you calling ancient, you danged infant?”

“Here, now. Don’t take that tone. I was being friendly, is all.”

“I’ll friendly you,” Shakespeare said, and launched into another quote. “ ‘I find the ass in compound with the major part of your syllables.’ ”

“Huh?” Finnan said.

“ ‘Peas and beans are as dank here as a dog, and that is the best way to give poor Jade the bots.’ ”

“Huh?” Finnan said again.

“ ‘Zounds. I was never so bethumped with words since I first called my father’s brother dad.’ ”

“What language is that you’re speaking, old man? It sounds like English and yet it’s not.”

“ ‘You are duller than a great thaw.’ ”

“I understood that one, I think,” Finnan declared, “and if I understood it correctly, I resent it.” He glanced at Nate. “Is your friend drunk? Is that it?”

Nate was shaking with suppressed mirth. “Finnan, allow me to introduce my best friend in all creation. You are talking to none other than Shakespeare McNair.”

“The saints preserve us!” the younger man blurted, and stepped to the mare. “I’ve heard so much about you, sir. You’re as famous as Jim Bridger and Joseph Walker. It’s an honor to finally meet you.”

Shakespeare had raised a hand and was about to deliver another bombastic quote. “It is, is it?”

“Yes, indeed. They say you were the first white man to ever set foot in the Rocky Mountains.”

“Not quite, but I was a close second. Or possibly third.”

“May I shake your hand? I can’t wait to tell everyone. I can hardly believe my luck.”

“There’s hope for you, after all,” Shakespeare said, and leaning down, he offered his hand. “But take heed, boy. When you meet a person my age, the last thing you want to do is remind him of his years.”

“Oh, I understand, sir. I’m sorry I did that. It’s just that I’ve never met anyone as old as you before.”

Nate snorted.

“ ‘This is the very coinage of your brain,’ ” Shakespeare said with a sigh.

“Huh?”

“Nothing. Stand aside so we can enter. I feel myself in serious need of hard liquor.” Shakespeare gigged the mare and rode through the gate, casting a dark glance at Nate. “One word of this to my wife and I’ll have your guts for garters.”

“Now, now,” Nate responded. “She is entitled to laugh the same as the rest of us.”

Raising his face to the heavens, Shakespeare declared, “ ‘There’s many a man that hath more hair than wit.’ Was that a jest on your part or do you just like hair?”

Nate went to follow him.

“Does he always talk like that?” Finnan asked.

“There are days when I think he must have talked like that in the cradle,” Nate said, and tapped his heels to the bay. Nothing much had changed since he last visited Bent’s. The post was quieter than normal, in part because no wagon trains were there.

Nate crossed the compound and drew rein next to McNair in front of the trading room just as the door opened.

“As I live and breathe, Nate and Shakespeare. I’ve missed you, my friends.” Ceran St. Vrain emerged, his aristocratic features lit by a warm smile. He was dressed in the best of fashion, his hair neatly slicked, his boots polished.

“Ceran de Hault de Lassus de St. Vrain,” Shakespeare said. “It is a joy for this old coon to set eyes on you again.”

St. Vrain chuckled. “McNair, you are the only person alive who ever uses my full name, and how in the world you remember it is beyond me.”

“His memory is formidable,” Nate praised his friend. He had long been astounded by Shakespeare’s ability to quote the Bard at will.

The three shook, and Ceran said, “How is it you’re here? You can’t be out of supplies so soon.”

Nate’s good humor evaporated like fresh rainwater under a hot sun. “I’m looking for my daughter.”

“Evelyn? Yes, she was here some weeks ago with that family of Indians from the East you let settle in your valley. I’m afraid my memory isn’t the equal of McNair’s. What are they called again?”

“Nansusequas,” Nate answered. “Wakumassee is the father. From what I gather, he took them off to hunt buffalo.” Nate wished he had been home when they decided to go, but he’d been in St. Louis having his rifle repaired by the Hawken brothers.

“I seem to remember your daughter telling me that.” Ceran stopped. “They haven’t returned?”

“No.” The simple word tore at Nate’s heartstrings like his keen-edged bowie. “They’ve been gone much too long.”

“We’ll find them, Horatio,” Shakespeare vowed. “If we have to scour the prairie from end to end, we’ll find them.”

Nate refused to delude himself. The plains were vast beyond measure, stretching countless leagues from Canada to Mexico and from the Mississippi to the Rockies. Granted, he doubted that Evelyn and Waku had gone that far, but the task was still daunting. “Have you heard anything?” he asked St. Vrain. “Has anyone seen them? Has there been any word at all?”

“Would that there had.” Ceran’s broad brow furrowed. “I’ll be more than happy to organize a dozen men to go with you. You can cover that much more ground in much less time.”

Nate was tempted. Time was crucial. The longer it took, the less the odds of finding them. “Have there been any reports of the Blackfeet down this way? Or have the Sioux been on the prowl?”

“The Sioux are always on the prowl,” Ceran said, and caught himself. “But no, nothing recent. The Sioux are staying up in their Black Hills, and the Blackfeet haven’t sent a war party this far south since last summer.”

“When you talked to her, did she happen to mention which way they were headed?” Nate asked.

“East, as I recall. I reminded her that most of the buffalo are to the south, but she was confident they…” Ceran gave a slight start and visibly blanched. “Oh, my word.”

“What?”

“I just remembered.”

“What?” In his excitement, Nate gripped St. Vrain’s arms. “Don’t keep me in suspense.”

Ceran swallowed and forced a smile. “Calm down. As you say, it’s a vast prairie. It’s unlikely they ran into them.”

“Ran into who?”

“There’s been word,” Ceran began, “of trouble to the east. The first accounts were sketchy. I thought it couldn’t be true, but then other reports reached my attention.”

Nate was practically beside himself. “Reports of what?”

“Of a band of white scalp hunters who have been killing and scalping every Indian they come across.”

“God, no,” Nate said. It was true, then. And it meant his friends the Nansusequas—and his daughter—were in deadly danger.