Sundance 17, p.3
Sundance 17, page 3
“Okay,” Sundance said. “Let’s say the Carcajou makes a killing in furs this winter. What does he do with them? Where does he sell them?”
“I think what happened to you this evening should answer that. Sundance, I’m convinced the Carcajou, or the man behind him, is an American. He’ll take a half million in furs and smuggle them into Alaska, then bring them down here to Seattle.”
“Then I’d better start here in Seattle. Cut the head off the snake and the rest will die.”
“You can’t,” MacDougal said. “You’ll have to start up Storm River and work backwards. You’ve got to bring in some of the Carcajou’s pirate trappers. Prove to the Indians and the half-breeds that it’s not evil spirits, just a plot cooked up by humans. Then they’ll go back out on their traplines again. That’s the first priority. To get them trapping and bringing their furs to the Storm River post. Besides, you’ve killed two men here in Seattle. You get tangled up with the police, you may never get loose. But once you’ve got evidence on the Carcajou and his operation down here below the line, you’ll have the full weight of Hudson’s Bay and the Northwest Territories behind you, and then you can handle the Seattle end.”
Sundance considered this and nodded. “That makes sense. I’ve got a horse to see to boarding through the winter, and then we’ll head for the Storm River Post together. How do we get there?”
MacDougal’s mouth twisted. “It won’t be easy. Storm River’s way to hell-and-gone, cut off from everything, the roughest country in the Northwest Territories. But, by God, it’s the finest, too! Anyhow, we’ll take a steamer from here to Vancouver tomorrow, and a riverboat on up the Fraser to a place called Wildcat. By canoe, then, up Fat Man Creek to a place called Ninety Mile, where there’s a settlement and one of our smaller posts. If there’s enough snow by then, we take a dog team, and if there ain’t, we’ll ride in to the Storm River post. Anyhow, once we get off the riverboat, we got a good three hundred miles of travelin’.”
“Then we’d best get moving,” Sundance said.
“Right, by God!” MacDougal’s eyes met his. “And, Jim ... by Spring, I want the hide of a carcajou.”
Sundance grinned coldly. “You’ll have it, Sam. Or else he’ll have mine.”
Chapter Three
MacDougal knew a livery stable owner and outfitter in Seattle whom he swore by. Sundance appraised the man, then, satisfied, paid board for Eagle, his Appaloosa stallion, six months in advance, laying down strict instructions about feed and exercise. He took an hour to make the one-man horse understand it must obey the hostler, and to get the two of them acquainted, and he left the man one of his buckskin shirts; the lingering scent of its master would reassure the spotted stud. An hour later, they were on a rusty steamer pulling out for the North.
In the little cabin he and Sundance shared, MacDougal spread out a much-worn map. “Most of this I drew myself,” he said. “Never been much surveyed up yonder, but I know my territory like the back of my hand. Now, the only way trapping works in Canada, each man has got his own area. And it’s registered with us and the government just like a mining claim might be. You see, I got the various areas marked off here. Pine Valley, Mean Creek, so on. And these I got a big X drawn in. Those are the ones whose owners have either been killed or cleared out, the ones that’re vacant right now.”
“All right,” Sundance said. “I’ve never been up there in that country, so while we’re on this boat, you’re gonna tell me all about it. Every creek, every mountain range. That’ll save some time.”
“Right.” And patiently, carefully, MacDougal began to do that, while Sundance listened intently. Bit by bit, like the pieces of a puzzle joining to form a whole, he formed a picture of the Storm River country in his mind.
It was a vast basin, hemmed in by towering mountains, drained by swift, brawling creeks, thickly wooded with spruce and fir and cedar, cut up by ridges and smaller mountain chains, studded with lakes and beaver ponds. To a man who loved the woods and lonesome places, it was enough to make the mouth water. “It’s hard country, but once you know how to live in it, the finest God ever made,” MacDougal said. “Right now it’s fur country, Sundance. Someday, though, the loggers’ll come in. After that, a hundred years from now, it’ll be ranchland. There’s plenty of good graze already up there for cattle, and come a day when the Canadian Pacific gets spur lines north and there’s a market and a place to ship from, the stockmen will come in. But right now it’s only trappers and, in the summer a few prospectors. And game! I’ve been runnin’ that territory for the Company for nigh twenty years now, and I’ve made sure it didn’t get trapped or hunted out. It’s all still there: every kind of fur, mink, marten, muskrat, lynx, fisher, fox, and especially beaver. And—” his eyes glinted “—there’s another thing, too. The foxes up there, they run to a black and silver strain. Do you know what that means?”
Sundance said, “Last time I heard, a good silver fox pelt was worth anywhere from a thousand to two thousand dollars.”
“Right! A silver fox is nothin’ but a freak, a sport. A red fox that for some reason’s born with black fur, tipped with silver. Out of every ten thousand foxes trapped, maybe' one’ll be a silver. But for some reason, up in the Storm River country, they’re more frequent. Last year, we had fourteen silvers! And every one a prime fur! The breeding stock’s building up, I think a real race of silver fox is beginnin’ to develop up there on Storm River. If I’m right, another two years, three years, we might double, triple our catch of silvers. And you know what that means to the Indians. Any trapper that catches a silver fox, he’s fixed for two years, hell, he’s rich!”
Sundance nodded.
“What scares the hell out of me is that if this Carcajou buzzard’s outfit comes in there, they’ll trap out the whole bloodline of silvers, and all the careful nursin’ of ’em we’ve done’ll go for nothin’. Same thing’s true of fisher sable. Sable coats are big right now, and Storm River breeds the biggest, blackest fishers of any place in Canada. The Carcajou’ll wipe them out, too, and what’s been providin’ a good livin’ for whole families and bands of Indians will be gone. And they’ll drift down to the settlements, get caught by the whiskey peddlers, come down with all the white man’s diseases, and ...” He spread his hands. “So it’s not just Hudson’s Bay’s money. It’s the living of the Indians on Storm River, too, their whole future.” He paused. “Now, as I was saying, this valley here …”
~*~
Vancouver was a new town, booming, the Pacific terminus of the new Canadian Pacific railroad. It was raining when the ship docked, but it was nearly always raining in Vancouver, which like Washington and Oregon west of the Cascades was warmed by the Japanese current. “Looks like we’ll make it to Storm River before freeze-up,” MacDougal said, pleased. “Good. Quicker we get there, quicker you can go to work.”
Sundance didn’t answer. His eyes were searching the wharf below, on which there was plenty of activity. By now, the Carcajou, or his go-between in Seattle, would know his two gunmen were dead. And while it was unlikely that he could have gotten word of that here ahead of the ship itself, Sundance took no chances. MacDougal would be known, and the reason for his trip outside, and if the Carcajou also had connections in Vancouver, they might not wait for orders before making another try.
But he saw nothing suspicious, and their gear was unloaded, transferred to the shallow-draft paddlewheel riverboat without incident. MacDougal stared at the two buffalo hide parfleches, panniers that were part of Sundance’s outfit. One was about three feet long, cylindrical, the other disc-shaped and about six inches thick. “What you got in there?”
“The long one’s my bow and a quiver full of arrows. The other one’s my warshield. Plus some other stuff.”
“Indian stuff,” MacDougal said, looking at him strangely. “Right? I guess you’ve got a medicine bag, pipe, maybe warbonnet in there?”
Sundance nodded. “I’m as much Cheyenne as white,” he said. “Anyhow, I need the bow and arrows. A bow makes no noise, no flame, no smoke, when it kills. There’s times when it comes in handy.”
MacDougal grinned. “Fine. Before you’re through, I hope you put enough arrows in him to turn that damned wolverine into a porcupine.”
Born in the Rocky Mountains, the Fraser River ran northwest, made a sharp turn, flowed almost due south from the heart of British Columbia, the enormous province that was Canada’s flank on the Pacific Ocean, to Vancouver. The little steamer worked gallantly upstream through the rain along a narrow valley. At noon of the second day, it pulled in at a rickety landing. The valley had pinched in even more, and here there was a cluster of log cabins. “Wildcat,” MacDougal said. “Far as she goes when the river’s at this stage. We’ve got a small trading post here, and this is where I left my outfit when I came out. Now we head up Fat Man Creek by canoe, after we get you fixed up. There’s an old Indian woman here makes the finest parkas in the territory. You’ll need one, and some other gear, before we get to where we’re going.”
~*~
They were still close enough to the coast so that these were totem pole Indians, and the magnificently carved wooden columns rose before three or four of the houses here. They stowed their gear at the Hudson’s Bay post, a solidly built log structure, had cups of hot tea, MacDougal pointing out that no whiskey was allowed on Company property, either for the employees or for trading to the Indians, and then Sundance was led to a small cabin on the outskirts of the village. The old woman was bent and wrinkled, but her eyes were bright, her smile merry, as MacDougal introduced Sundance in faltering Cree. She laughed and MacDougal stared when Sundance spoke to her in her own dialect, for it turned out that she was Salish, a tribe with offshoots as far south as Montana and Idaho. Within a couple of hours, he had been outfitted in a fine wolf skin parka, lined around the face with wolverine fur, which would not frost up from a man’s breath; wolf skin pants, and warm, light mukluks to replace his unlined plains moccasins. As they left, after sharing more tea with her, MacDougal asked admiringly: “Jim, just how many Injun dialects do you speak?”
Sundance shrugged. “Never counted up. More’n a dozen, anyhow. Every time we stayed with a tribe for any length of time, my dad made damned sure I learned the language. Plus French, not the fancy kind, but the kind the half-breeds use up on the Red River. ‘Coyote French,’ they call it.”
“Well, as long as you got Cree, English and coyote French, you can get along with the Storm River Indians. There’s maybe half a dozen bands, eight, ten families to a band, and each band calls itself a different tribe and has a different dialect. But they all know Cree and some English or French. Now, we’ll get up a load of supplies and strike out this afternoon upriver by canoe.” He shook his head. “Wish we had another man. I came down in a three-man canoe with an Injun that’s got a sick brother here in Wildcat. He’s stayin’ over. And it’s a hard push for two men in a big canoe back up the Fraser against the current. Maybe I can pick up another Indian here.”
Sundance said, “Be damn sure it’s somebody you can trust.”
“I don’t know these people. I’ll get the trader here to recommend a man.”
But Harrison, the man in charge of the Wildcat post for Hudson’s Bay, shook his head. “Gonna be hard to find a good man to go back upriver with you. Most of ’em already outfitted and out on their traplines. What’s left are waitin’ around for Sammy Mean Dog to die—he’s related to half the Indians in the district, and a big medicine man. There’ll be some doin’s when he kicks off. Rest of the bucks hangin’ around here aren’t worth powder and shot to blow ’em to perdition. I—” He broke off as the door of the big storeroom swung open. Sundance and MacDougal turned as it slammed shut and a voice like rolling thunder blared: “Hell’s bells and little fishes! Sam MacDougal! Sam, you old moose, how the hell you doin’?”
MacDougal’s weathered face lit with pleasure. “Bert! Bert Leroux!” He strode across the room, and the two men shook hands, pounded each other on the back in the excitement of reunion.
Sundance’s eyes raked over the newcomer. Leroux was in his early forties, a great, slope-shouldered giant of a man with a head like a big, round rock, sparkling blue eyes, a grin from ear to ear. A full six and a half feet tall in his hobnailed boots, he seemed to fill the room with strength and force. “By damn!” he roared. “Sam, how long’s it been? A good five years, anyhow! Not since I gave up tradin’ and went to prospectin’! This calls for a drink!”
“Bert, you know better’n that. Not a drop of booze in Wildcat!”
Leroux’s laugh was deep. “There is now! I just come down from Kamloops, and I got a quart of rye out yonder in my canoe’ll lift your scalp clean off your head.” He saw Sundance. “You, too, stranger. You’re included!” MacDougal remembered the half-breed then. “Bert Leroux, Jim Sundance. Jim’s signed on with the Company and we’re headed up to Storm River.”
“Good!” Leroux shook Sundance’s hand. “Used to be a Company man myself, Sam’s assistant up yonder at Storm River, until I got smart, went in business for myself. No more furs or tradin’ for me—gold dust, placer minin’, that’s my game. Got me a claim that’s really payin’ off! Work in the summer, take out enough to raise hell outside all winter! But I’ll tell you a secret! I do git kinda homesick for the Company sometimes! Anyhow, fer this mean ole coot here.” He clapped MacDougal on the shoulder. Then he went to the stove, snatched up the big teapot, which was brimming full. “Back in a minute and we’ll have a cuppa tea!”
When he’d gone out, MacDougal grinned. “Same old Bert. Best man I ever had work for me. And guts! He’d tackle a buzz saw or a grizzly bear without his gloves on if either one got in his way. He saved my life once in a blizzard up in the Chilcotin. Had a sprained ankle, couldn’t snowshoe, he lugged me on his back seven miles to shelter. I wish to hell—” He broke off as Leroux returned with the teapot.
“What Hudson’s Bay don’t know won’t hurt ’em,” Leroux said and poured steaming cups all around that were rank with the smell of whiskey. “Here’s to a good season and prime pelts, Sam.” They drank.
MacDougal smacked his lips. “Bert, where you bound for?”
“Down to Vancouver. Then maybe out to Seattle. Quick as I get me a new canoe. I smashed hell outa mine comin’ down the creek. Rockfall off a cliff made a whole new set of rapids.”
“How’d you like to take a little trip up to Storm River? Sundance and I got a three-man canoe and a big load, and we can’t find an extra hand. We could save some time if you’d help us out, and I’d give you a new chance up there and you could be back down here in two, three days, travelin’ with the current.”
Leroux frowned. “Well, Sam, you know I’d like to. But it’d throw me durn near two weeks behind. I want to get out before the freeze-up.”
“You’ll have time before the freeze-up,” MacDougal said. “And I’ll make it worth your while. Besides—” He took Leroux’s arm, pulled him over into a corner. For two or three minutes, he spoke uninterruptedly, and Leroux’s face darkened. A couple of minutes more and after asking questions and getting answers, he nodded. “All right, Sam, you got a deal. When we startin’?”
“About two hours.”
“That’s what I like about you, ole hoss! You don’t waste time. Okay, lemme unload my gear and then we’ll load yours!” He grinned at Sundance. “Jim, I’m goin’ north with you.” His grin went away and he lowered his voice, with a glance at the post trader, who was busy in a corner. “Sam told me about this goddamn Carcajou. That’s what decided me. I figure Sam can use an extra gun on the trip to Storm River. He and me been friends too long for me to turn him down in a deal like this. Anybody takes a crack at Sam MacDougal on the way up yonder, he’s got to get Bert Leroux first! Okay?”
“Sure,” Sundance said. “The more paddles, the easier it goes. And the more guns, the safer we are. Glad to have you.” But as Leroux strode away to unload his own canoe, Sundance’s eyes followed him thoughtfully. Instinctively, he liked the big man, and MacDougal’s judgment had to be trusted. All the same, until he knew Leroux better, he would watch him. But then, in a situation like this, he’d have watched his own grandmother if she had volunteered to make the Storm River trip with them.
~*~
It was a fine, big country, Sundance thought, as they worked their way up the Fraser that afternoon. The canoe was huge, built of varnished cedar strips, heavily laden, the current opposing them was strong, and Sundance saw why MacDougal had insisted on a third man. Even with all three paddling, progress was not swift. MacDougal had the bow, Leroux the stern, and Sundance was a-amidships. It had been years since he’d handled a canoe, but in his time he had been an expert, and it all came back as soon as he was kneeling in the' craft. His arms worked mechanically, and with the trader and the miner steering the craft, his eyes were free to sweep the banks along the river. A long barreled Winchester rifle leaned against the duffle stowed in front of him, within inches of his hand. '
Presently they turned into the mouth of the smaller, swifter Fat Man Creek. Sheer wooded banks loomed on either side of them, and rugged crags above those. Leroux was like a steam engine in the stern, tireless, strokes biting deep, powerfully. None of the men spoke or sang; all three were totally alert. But Sundance saw nothing suspicious; in fact, he relaxed slightly. Game was plentiful; once a moose splashed out of the shallows, and another time, rounding a bend, they surprised a fat sow grizzly, feasting a final time on fish before going into hibernation. Twice, mink slipped off rocks as they approached, sleek, slender creatures with, glistening pelts. If humans had been abroad along the banks, they, would not have seen all that wildlife.
