Watching the man light his pipe with a twig he held in the small stone fireplace, Bass asked, “I figgered Jim to be just what you needed: a man what them Crow adopted for one of their own, someone in the company’s pay too.”
Tullock sputtered a derisive burst of laughter, spewing smoke from both nose and mouth. “Shit! May beso it worked at first when McKenzie heard Beckwith lived with them Crow and could get them Injuns to bring all their furs in to trade at the company posts. But things didn’t stay friendly for long.”
“Friendly?”
“Hell, the longer that Negra was living with the Crow, the more Crow he got! So busy playing warrior and Injun chief, he up and forgot he was working for the company what was paying him good money!” Tullock snorted. “Trouble was, ’stead of making them redskins work hard as a white man, Beckwith got lazy as them bastards when it comes to trapping plews!”
“For the life of me,” Bass replied, “still can’t figger out how your bosses callate they can get as many plews from these red niggers as they can harvest from a brigade of white men.”
“Oh, McKenzie and them St. Lou Frenchmen only making sure they cover all bets. ’Sides having the Crow and other tribes out trapping the country, the company booshways always gonna send out its own outfits.”
“Sure as sun you can’t be no greenhorn,” Titus observed. “Beckwith said you laid a few traps in water your own self.”
“Come north in twenty-six on the river—was hired on to work for McKenzie’s Upper Missouri Outfit. Pushed into the mountains with my brigade the following year,” the trader declared.
“I was at that ronnyvoo in twenty-six.”
“Didn’t see my first ronnyvoo till the next summer,” Tullock admitted. “That fall we was trapping up in the Snake River and Portneuf country. Just bumped into some Hudson’s Bay fellers under Ogden when winter blowed in early on and we got trapped. Started eating our dogs and horses. Damn, if that bastard Ogden didn’t do ever’thing he could to get our boys to come over to him with their pelts! Charged us double on his goods and only give us a poor price for our beaver. We tried twice to make it out on foot but was turned back. Son of a bitch Ogden wouldn’t even sell us no snowshoes. We’d had some snowshoes, we’d walked outta there!”
“What come of your outfit?”
“Weather finally opened up come late January, so we finally backtracked on down to Bear River after being holed up more’n two months—eating dog and horse. After a time we run across Campbell’s outfit headed north to trade with the Flathead for the spring. From him we got enough to get by till our summer train come out from St. Lou.”
Bass gazed a moment at Waits-by-the-Water as she sat in the corner nursing Magpie. Then he asked, “This Fort Union that your booshway McKenzie built up at the mouth of the Yallerstone really all I heard folks say it is?”
“It’s one fancy place, that’s for certain,” Tullock agreed, beaming. “But McKenzie ain’t there no longer. After all the liquor problems up there, his Frenchy bosses needed to get someone’s head on a platter, and it turned out to be McKenzie’s.”
“What’s the trouble with liquor up there?”
“Ain’t s’pose to be no liquor in Injun country—which reminds me,” the trader said as he turned aside and headed behind some crates where he held up a clay jug momentarily before he plopped it down and began scrounging for some tin cups.
Bass snorted a great gust of laughter. “No liquor in Injun country! Damn if that ain’t some fool’s bald-face notion!”
“No, it’s true,” Tullock protested, finding the cups with a noisy clatter, turning back to Bass. “Now, you understand what I’m offering you here ain’t liquor.”
“That ain’t likker?”
Clearing his throat, the trader explained, “Let’s just say this here don’t come from the company. Only be something between two friends.”
Taking his cup and holding it out as Tullock began to pour, Scratch said, “Ain’t no liquor in Injun country! Damn—then what the hell Ashley and Billy Sublette been bringing to ronnyvoo all these years?”
Tullock started laughing so hard he sloshed the whiskey and had to stop pouring till he composed himself. “That’s the biggest crock of shit the Injun department’s ever done out here! Astor was sore afraid of his competition that he got the Injun department to make that law what says no liquor can be transported to or made in Injun country!”
“But you and me both know traders been bringing whiskey to ronnyvoo for years now!”
“Damn right, Mr. Bass. But Sublette gets away with it because Astor’s law got a crack in it.”
He took the cup from his lips to ask, “What crack?”
“Law says a trader can bring whiskey into Injun country for his voyageurs—his boat crew.”
Nearly spitting the whiskey he was savoring on his tongue, Bass shrieked in disbelief, “Sublette ain’t got no boat crew! Ain’t a Frenchy parley-voo come overland with him!”
“Him and Campbell been smuggling whiskey to the upper river for years now, coming overland—bringing their liquor to both their posts to trade with the Injuns.”
“Why didn’t McKenzie just do the same?”
Tullock topped off his cup and sat atop a crate with a sigh. “Hard to smuggle whiskey upriver on them supply steamers, Mr. Bass. Government agents all flutter over the river while they ain’t keeping much watch for overland outfits.”
“So how’d McKenzie get his head on the plate?”
“I s’pose he figgered since he couldn’t sneak no whiskey up to Fort Union, leastways he’d make his own right there,” the trader explained. “Brought up the still on the supply steamer, and he grew his own grain at Union. His plan was working fine till word drifted back downriver. I allays figgered it was Sublette or Campbell stabbed McKenzie in the back that way.”
“From all I learnt ’bout Sublette at ronnyvoo last summer, I’d say he’s one real oily nigger, the sort what’d cut you off at the knees just to get his hands on a few more beaver plews.”
“Astor’s cut him a deal with Sublette and Campbell,” Tullock admitted. “Now the company has a year with no competition on the upper Missouri, while Sublette’s free to work the mountain trade alone.”
“Jehoshaphat! That oughtta suit them two beaver thieves!” Bass exclaimed. “What’s to become of the trade now that Sublette drove Astor and McKenzie out of the business and got all the ronnyvoo trade to themselves, while the Frenchies gonna run their business right from their posts way up here on the rivers? Damn if the whole lot of you don’t got a free man hamstrung two ways of Sunday!”
“Like I said, maybeso you should think about coming to work for me,” Tullock said, grinning wryly.
Scratch held up his tin cup. “Like hell I will, Tullock. Your whiskey may be good, but Titus Bass ain’t never been a man to get cozy with honey-fugglers like Sublette or your parley-voo bosses.”
“Face it: fellas like you gonna be doing business with Sublette, or you’re dealing with American Fur—one or the other,” the trader warned.
“Maybe a nigger like me needs to take his pelts off down to Taos or Santy Fee.”
“What?” roared Tullock. “And have them Mex’cans take half your plews for Mex’can taxes? You think you’re being savvy riding all the way down there to trade your furs off?”
Shrugging, Titus asked, “What’s a man to do when you Americans is driving up the price of trade goods and stomping down what my pelts bring?”
“I s’pose a man like you fights till he realizes he can’t fight no more.”
Bass stared at his whiskey for some time, watching its pale amber color shimmer in the light of the three flickering oil lamps Tullock had lit. Then he looked at Waits, how she clutched their daughter across her lap as the child lay sleeping, her tummy warm and full.