Wilderness Double Edition 15, page 18
It jogged Zach’s memory. Years ago his father had clashed with the tribe over their practice of sacrificing maidens to the Morning Star. Pawnees prided themselves on being friendly to all whites, but among other tribes it was rumored they weren’t above slaying a white man if they thought they could get away with it.
What were Pawnees doing in St. Louis? was the big question—one Zach answered himself when he recalled that the United States government had set up something known as the Bureau of Indian Affairs there. Indians from all over were encouraged to bring their problems to the supervisor. William Clark, he of the famed Lewis and Clark expedition and an acquaintance of Zach’s father, had been the first to hold the post.
“See?” Lou was saying, nodding at the backs of the Pawnees. “Indians are common here. You have nothing to worry about.”
Entering the city proper was like entering a whole new world. The streets overflowed with people who always seemed to be in a hurry. Dogs, chickens, even pigs ran freely about. A riot of noise assaulted Zach’s ears. Foul odors assailed his nostrils. Accustomed as he was to the order and quiet of a Shoshone village, St. Louis was sheer and utter bedlam. His dun felt the same, because it shied every so often and had to be goaded on.
Louisa beamed at everyone and everything. A flood of fond recollections washed over her. Here was the kind of life she remembered! Always on the go! Always with something to do! It thrilled her no end.
Suddenly a wagon careened around a corner. “Out of the way!” bellowed the grizzled driver, cracking a whip above his team. Pedestrians and riders alike had to scatter or be bowled over.
Zach was one of them. “Look out!” he hollered to Lou while hauling on the reins to spur the dun to safety. Strangely enough, the wagon was empty. Zach could fathom no excuse for the driver’s rude behavior. Hardly anyone else gave the rig a second glance, as if it were an everyday occurrence to almost be run over.
Lou shook her fist and was about to cast aspersions on the driver’s mother when a sign ahead caught her interest. FOR LADIES ONLY, it read. Underneath was the tantalizing claim, CLOTHES FIT FOR A QUEEN, READY-MADE. Clucking to her mare, she threaded through the throng to a hitch rail.
Sighing, Zach dutifully trailed her and dismounted. Lou put her hands on his chest and kissed him lightly on the cheek.
“I won’t be long. Promise.”
“I’ll go with you,” Zach proposed.
“Silly goose. Can’t you read?” Lou pointed at the sign. “It’s for women only. Make yourself comfortable until I’m done.” She disappeared inside.
“As you wish,” Zach said. In the shade of an overhang he hunkered and draped his arms over his knees. He could squat like that for hours, as motionless as a rock, as he had demonstrated on countless hunts. To pass the time, Zach studied the passersby, a steady stream of humanity of all kinds. The well-to-do in their elaborate carriages. Beggars so poor their clothes were in tatters. Hawkish men who prowled in search of quarry. Women who wore their dresses too tight, their bodices cut too low.
There were also husbands and wives, and families with squealing kids. Lovers linked arm in arm. Youngsters in their teens, cavorting in packs. Six cavalrymen trotted by, led by a lieutenant whose uniform had been ironed to perfection and whose buttons shone like tiny suns.
To Zach it was fascinating. He would have been content to sit there for hours, but a small sign on an establishment across the street drew him to it as irresistibly as a flame drew a moth, trapper’s haven, it proclaimed. A tiny bell tinkled as Zach stepped into the musty interior. Traps of various manufacture hung from pegs. Rifles and pistols were on display. Virtually everything a trapper needed, fire steels and flint, axes, knives, ammunition, was on sale.
“Anyone here?” Zach ventured.
A curtain at the rear parted and out shambled an elderly man in buckskins. Hair as white as high-country snow hung in loose strands past his ears. Hobbling on a hickory walking stick, the old-timer said, “As I live and breathe, you’re part Shoshone, aren’t you, boy?”
Zach automatically bristled. Then he saw that the oldster was smiling and holding out a gnarled hand for him to shake. Zach did so, mentioning, “Shoshone on my mother’s side. My father is Nate King.”
“I’ll be! I met him at the rendezvous in Willow Valley back in the early twenties. Never got to know him well, but he had a solid reputation. I’m George Milhouse.” Milhouse had a firm grip for someone of his advanced years. “Have a seat, boy. Jaw a spell. It’s good for these old eyes to see a young coon like yourself.”
A couple of chairs were next to an unlit stove. To be sociable, Zach sank into one. He figured he had plenty of time to kill. From the way Lou talked on their journey, he got the impression she loved to shop as much as she loved being alive. She would be in the dress shop for an hour or two.
“Care for a cup of rotgut?” Milhouse asked. “I’ve got me a jug in the back. It’ll curl your toes.”
“I don’t drink.”
Milhouse cocked his head. “Never? That ain’t hardly natural. A man has to have a few vices. They put zest in our drab lives.” He eased into the other chair. “Let me guess. At your age I was mighty fond of the ladies. Couldn’t keep my hands off them. They must be your particular weakness too, eh?”
“No. I’m to be married soon,” Zach said.
“Oh, Lordy. Another poor soul doomed to a life of naggin’.” Milhouse extended his spindly legs. “Don’t get me wrong, youngster. Women are fine critters, but they do tend to weary a man. I know. I’ve been married four times.”
“For most folks once is enough.”
The old man’s eyes narrowed. “You aren’t one of those holier-than-thou fellers, are you? Granted, most only tie the knot once. But my first wife, a white gal, died giving birth to our baby. My second wife, a pretty Crow, was killed by the Blackfeet. My third, a Flathead, was bit by a rattler. And my fourth, a Bannock woman, died of smallpox.”
Zach felt sorry for the old-timer and remarked as much, adding, “You’ve had some mighty bad luck in your life.”
Milhouse laughed. “Hell, boy. Life is a string of bad luck broken now and again by a few spells where things go right.”
“There’s more to it than that.”
“When I was green behind the ears I thought so, too,” Milhouse said. “But the older a man gets, the more cynical he becomes. We can’t help it. Life pounds us into the ground a little more each and every day, until we’re buried up to our necks in grief, waitin’ for that final shovelful to put us out of our misery.”
Zach disagreed. “You’re not taking into account all the good things life has to offer.”
Placing an elbow on the chair arm and his chin in his hand, Milhouse said, “Ain’t you a caution? Filled with vinegar and vim. Positive you’ve got all the answers. I’m the one who should feel sorry for you. Fifty years from now, sonny, you’ll look back to this day and know I was right.”
“Never. My pa taught me each day is a gift we’re to make the most of. Fifty years from now, I hope to look back on a long, full life.”
Milhouse shrugged. “Whatever pleases you. We all have our delusions.” He straightened. “But enough jawin’ about wishful thinkin’. Tell me the latest news from the frontier. What are the Indians up to? Any at war? And most important of all, is it true that no more rendezvous will be held?”
“It’s true,” Zach confirmed. The last one had been about five years before on the Green River. By then the beaver trade had dwindled to a trickle. All because silk had replaced beaver as the fashion of choice in the States. Fickle whim had done what all the hostiles and wild beasts in the wilderness couldn’t.
“I’d heard as much,” Milhouse said. “But I’ve been hopin’ the market would go back to how it was. Those were grand days, boy. Livin’ as we pleased. Beholden to no one. Masters of our destiny, as it were.”
“You were a trapper once yourself, I take it?”
“For over ten years,” Milhouse revealed. “Until those mangy Piegans caught me in their territory. I was out early one morning checkin’ my line when those devils tried to sneak up on me. I dropped everything except my rifle and cut out through the woods. They gave chase, whoopin’ and a-hollerin’ like they do. But I was a lot more spry then than I am now. I’d have gotten clean away if not for an arrow that caught me in my left knee.” Milhouse scowled. “I managed to crawl under a deadfall and hid for over eight hours while those pesky varmints searched all around me. They knew I was there somewhere. Several times they poked into the deadfall but never spotted me.”
“And you say that you only have bad luck?” Zach commented.
The oldster chuckled. “Touché, as those Frenchies say. I lived, but my knee was ruined. My trappin’ days were over. So I came to St. Louis and set up this shop. For a while I did brisk business. Now, with the beaver trade pretty much dead, I barely get by.”
“People trap other animals.”
“That’s all that keeps food on my table. I’ve got traps for all kinds. And anything else a gent like yourself might need.” Milhouse’s gaze seemed to turned inward, and he said quietly, “I’ll end my days here, I reckon. They’ll bury me in a pauper’s plot, and that will be that.”
“Don’t you ever look at the bright side of things?”
“I did when I was twenty. Now that I’m pushin’ seventy, I can’t see the sun for the clouds. So my disposition suffers.” Milhouse shook himself. “But enough about me. I heard tell the Sioux tangled with the Crows last summer and killed a bunch.”
There were no newspapers on the frontier. The latest information spread by word of mouth, from traveler to traveler, from campfire to campfire, or at trading posts and forts. The Sioux raid was common knowledge. Zach shared what he had heard, imparting everything of consequence about the plains and mountain tribes and certain mountain men.
“So Bridger and Walker and some of the others are guidin’ settlers bound for California and the Oregon country?” Milhouse marveled. “I never thought they’d stoop so low. Oh, that I should live to see the day when seasoned coons like those two would help turn the wilds into farmland. It’s downright pitiful.”
“Times change. My pa says that one day there will be more homesteaders than frontiersmen.”
“I hope to hell I’m dead by then. It will be the end of an era. The end of a whole way of life. The end of freedom.”
“Aren’t you exaggerating?” Zach asked.
“Think so? Settlers lead to towns, and towns are run by politicians, and politicians pass laws that restrict our freedom. Happens every time.” Milhouse gripped his walking stick. “We’ve jawed so much my throat is dry. Sure I can’t interest you in something to drink? Water? Coffee?”
“No, I must go.” Zach had lost track of the time. “But maybe I’ll come back before we leave St. Louis and let you meet my wife.”
George Milhouse brightened. “Would you? That would warm my heart. I don’t have any kin left, and most of my friends are nothing but bones.” He shook Zach’s hand again, pumping warmly. “You’re welcome here anytime, son. Anytime at all.”
The brightness of the afternoon forced Zach to shield his eyes from the glare with his hand. Gazing across the street, he felt his pulse quicken. The dun and the mare were gone! Alarmed, he darted into the street without thinking and was nearly trampled by a pair of riders who lashed his ears with foul language. Skirting them, he paused to let a wagon rumble by, then bounded to the empty hitch rail.
Zach’s first thought was that someone must have stolen them. He scoured the street in both directions but saw no sign of either. Wondering if possibly Louisa had finished sooner than he counted on and gone in search of him, he hastened into the clothing store. Five women were browsing or gaily chatting among neatly arranged shelves and racks. Every last one immediately stopped what they were doing to stare.
“What on earth are you doing in here?” From around a tall rack of dresses walked a brunette in her thirties, elegantly dressed, her luxurious hair done up in a bun. She held a measuring tape and a piece of chalk.
“I’m hunting for my fiancée,” Zach said. “She came in here a while ago. Her name is Lou.”
“Your fiancée?” the brunette sniffed. “I don’t cater to squaws. Didn’t you see the sign?” She indicated a small one tacked up near the door: NO INDIANS ALLOWED.
“She’s white,” Zach said. “About my age. Louisa May Clark. You must remember her.”
“No one by that name has been here,” the woman stated coldly.
“But I saw her come in,” Zach said. “You couldn’t miss her. She was wearing buckskins.”
“And I tell you that no one answering that description has paid me a visit.” The brunette motioned. “Now, I’ll thank you to leave. You’re disturbing the other ladies.”
Zach would do no such thing. “Lou!” he shouted. “Where are you?” Some of the women tittered. When there was no reply, Zach stepped to the head of the next aisle. “Lou! Lou!”
Shaking the chalk at him, the brunette advanced. “That will be quite enough! You’re making a scene. Go now, or you’ll be sorry.”
“I’m not leaving until I find out where she is,” Zach declared. “Maybe someone else who works here remembers her.”
“I’m Sylvia Banner, and this is my establishment. I have no employees.” Banner put her hands on her hips and said quite loudly, “Now, for the last time, I’m asking you to go. Make a spectacle of yourself somewhere else.”
Zach started down the aisle. He would tear the store apart, if need be, to find a clue to Lou’s whereabouts. At that juncture a door on the left opened and in strode two big men in overalls, carrying clubs.
“About time,” Sylvia Banner said. “Were you two lummoxes sleeping again?”
“No, ma’am,” said an ox whose right cheek bore a zigzag scar. “We came as soon as we heard you.” His dull gaze shifted to Zach. “Is this vermin giving you grief? Say the word and Titus and me will bust up half the bones in his body.”
Some of the other women smiled at the prospect, but Banner shook her head. “Only if the savage won’t be reasonable. I don’t want blood splattered all over the clothes.” She wagged the tape measure. “So what will it be, young man? Will you leave quietly, or must I have you thrown out on your red ear?”
The man with the scar moved toward him but stopped dead when Zach raised the Hawken. “I just want to find my fiancée.”
“Then I suggest you look elsewhere. As you can see, she isn’t here.” Sylvia Banner seemed to soften. “Perhaps she did come in, as you claim. But if so, she didn’t stay long. And if I was busy with another customer, I might not have noticed.”
Her explanation was logical enough. Zach worried that he had blundered badly, that Lou had gone back out shortly after he stepped into Milhouse’s, and after waiting awhile, she had gone to look for him. She must be frantic, afraid something had happened to him. He lowered the rifle but didn’t take his eyes off the pair with the clubs. “I’ll go. I’m sorry for disturbing you.”
“No real harm done,” Banner said. “And if your fiancée does show up, I’ll make it a point to mention you stopped by.” She paused. “Where will you be? At the Indian agency? Or are you staying with friends?”
“We just arrived,” Zach said. “We don’t have a place to stay yet.” Backing out, he moved to the end of the boardwalk and pondered what to do. St. Louis was immense, covering many square miles. One person couldn’t possibly cover the entire city in less than a month. How was he to find her?
Zach needed advice. And the only individual he knew capable of giving it to him was the old trapper. Winding through the traffic, he barreled into the Trapper’s Haven and discovered Milhouse still in the chair by the stove, sipping on a silver flask.
“Well, well. Ain’t this a surprise. Miss my company already? Or did you think of something you need to buy?”
“I’ve lost my fiancée,” Zach said, and quickly related what had occurred. “I need to know how best to locate her.” A story his father liked to tell about an incident in New York City gave him an idea, and he asked, “Do they have constables here? My pa told me they help people in situations like this.”
Milhouse rose, capped the flask, and slid it into a pocket. “The mayor and the aldermen got around to organizin’ a police force back in ’39, as I recollect. It’s not much to speak of, though. Most of the constables are too lazy to give a damn. The rest are paid under the table to look the other way when crimes are committed.”
“So you’re saying it wouldn’t do any good?”
“Oh, if you had a hundred dollars or so you might get one or two to poke around and ask a few questions.”
“I only have ten,” Zach said. Lou was carrying most of their money, forty dollars they had been given by his parents as a gift. “But I’ll spend every penny if it will help.”
“It could.” The old trapper walked to the small window. His brow knitting, he scratched his chin and kept saying softly to himself, “I wonder. I wonder.”
“You wonder what?” Zach was impatient to do something. To do anything. He was plagued by the thought he might not be able to find Lou, that their separation might be permanent. Every minute they wasted was crucial.
A shaft of sunlight bathed George Milhouse, lending his pale features an even more ghostly aspect. “I’m wonderin’ about another young feller who rushed in here about seven or eight months ago. He’d lost his filly, too. Said she went into the dress shop and never came out. He contacted the constables, but they couldn’t find hide nor hair of that girl.”
“Did they tear the city up looking for her?”
“Not quite. Hell, son, folks disappear all the time. Runaways. Discontented wives and husbands. But for two young women to go missin’ in the same store is a mite odd, even by St. Louis standards.” Milhouse smacked his palm against his thigh. “And now that I think about it, there is that black van that rolls up behind the dress shop late at night on occasion. It must all be connected. I should have seen the truth sooner.”
