“A man like you could do well at my post. Travelers are hungry for the type of information you possess.”
Glass shook his head.
“Truly, mon ami. Why don’t you lay up for the winter? I’ll hire you on.”
Kiowa would gladly have paid, just for the company.
Glass shook his head again, more firmly this time. “I have my own affairs to attend.”
“Bit of a silly venture, isn’t it? For a man of your skills? Traipsing across Louisiana in the dead of winter. Chase down your betrayers in the spring, if you’re still inclined.”
The warmth of the earlier conversation seemed to drain from the room, as if a door had been opened on a frigid winter day. Glass’s eyes flashed and Kiowa regretted immediately his comment.
“It’s not an issue on which I asked your counsel.”
“No, monsieur. No, it was not.”
There remained barely two hours before sunlight when Glass, exhausted, finally climbed up the ladder to the loft. Still, the anticipation of debarkation allowed him little sleep.
* * *
Glass awoke to a potpourri of shouted obscenities. One of the speakers was a man, screaming in French. Glass did not understand the individual words, but context made their general meaning clear.
The speaker was “La Vierge” Cattoire, having just been rudely roused from the depths of a drunken slumber by his brother Dominique. Weary of his sibling’s antics and unable to awaken him with the standard kick in the ribs, Dominique tried another tactic: He made water on his brother’s face. It was this act of considerable disrespect that triggered the rantings from La Vierge. Dominique’s actions also angered the squaw with whom La Vierge had spent the night. She tolerated many forms of indecency in her teepee. Some she even encouraged. But Dominique’s indiscriminate pissing had soiled her best blanket, and that made her mad. She yelled with the piercing screech of an offended magpie.
By the time Glass emerged from the cabin, the yelling match had degenerated into a fistfight. Like an ancient Greek wrestler, La Vierge stood facing his brother without a stitch of clothing. La Vierge had the advantage of size over his elder brother, but he bore the disadvantage of three consecutive days of heavy drinking, not to mention a rather abrupt and distasteful awakening. His vision had not cleared and his balance was off, though these handicaps did not temper his willingness to engage. Familiar with La Vierge’s fighting style, Dominique stood firm, waiting for the inevitable attack. With a guttural roar, La Vierge lowered his head and barreled forward.
La Vierge put the full momentum of his charge behind the looping swing he aimed at his brother’s head. Had he connected, he might well have planted Dominique’s nose in the back of his brain. As it was, Dominique parried casually to the side.
Missing his target completely, La Vierge’s swing threw him completely off balance. Dominique kicked him hard across the back of his knees, sweeping his feet from under him. La Vierge landed square on his back, knocking the wind from his lungs. He writhed pathetically for a moment, gasping for air. As soon as he could breathe again, he resumed his swearing and struggled for his feet. Dominique kicked him hard in the solar plexus, returning La Vierge to his quest for air.
“I told you to be ready, you miserable pinhead! We leave in half an hour.” To underscore his point, Dominique kicked La Vierge in the mouth, splitting his upper and lower lips.
The fight over, the assembled crowd broke up. Glass walked down to the river. Langevin’s bâtard floated at the dock, the swift current of the Missouri tugging against its mooring rope. As its name implied, the bâtard lay between the normal sizes of voyageur cargo canoes. Though smaller than the big canots de maître, the bâtard was sizable, almost thirty feet in length.
With the downstream current of the Missouri to propel them, Langevin and Professeur had been able to steer the bâtard by themselves, along with a full load of furs obtained in trade with the Mandans. Fully loaded, the bâtard would have required ten men to paddle upstream. Langevin’s cargo would be light—a few gifts to bestow upon the Mandan and Arikara. Still, with only four men to paddle, their progress would be arduous.
Toussaint Charbonneau sat atop a barrel on the dock, casually eating an apple, while Professeur loaded the canoe under Langevin’s supervision. To distribute the weight of their cargo, they laid two long poles on the floor of the canoe from bow to stern. On these poles Professeur placed the cargo, neatly arranged in four small bales. Professeur appeared to speak no French (at times, the Scotsman appeared to speak no English). Langevin compensated for Professeur’s lack of comprehension by speaking more loudly. The increased volume aided Professeur very little, though Langevin’s constant gesticulating provided a wealth of clues.
Professeur’s blind eye contributed to his dim appearance. He lost the eye in a Montreal saloon, when a notorious brawler named “Oyster Joe” nearly shucked it from the Scotsman’s skull. Professeur had managed to pop the eye back in place, but it no longer functioned. The unblinking orb was fixed permanently at a skewed angle, as if watching for an attack from his flank. Professeur had never gotten around to making a patch.
There was little fanfare to their departure. Dominique and La Vierge arrived at the dock, each with a rifle and a small bag of possessions. La Vierge squinted at the glare of the morning sun on the river. Mud caked his long hair, and blood from the split lips painted his chin and the front of his blouse. Still, he hopped spryly into bowsman’s position at the front of the bâtard, and a glint filled his eyes that had nothing to do with the angle of the sun. Dominique took the position of the steersman in the stern. La Vierge said something and both brothers laughed.
Langevin and Professeur sat next to each other in the wide middle of the canoe, each paddling to one side. One cargo bale sat before them, one behind. Charbonneau and Glass arranged themselves around the cargo, with Charbonneau toward the bow and Glass toward the stern.
The four voyageurs picked up their paddles, bringing the bow into the swift current. They dug deep and the bâtard moved upstream.
La Vierge began to sing as he paddled, and the voyageurs joined in:
Le laboureur aime sa charrue,
Le chasseur son fusil, son chien;
Le musicien aime sa musique;
Moi, mon canot—c’est mon bien!
His cart is beloved of the ploughman,
The hunter loves his gun, his hound;
The musician is a music lover;
To my canoe I’m bound!
“Bon voyage, mes amis!” yelled Kiowa. “Don’t lay up with the Mandans!” Glass turned to look behind him. He stared for a moment at Kiowa Brazeau, standing and waving from the dock at his little fort. Then Glass turned to look upriver and did not look back.