It can’t be! Nate’s mind shrieked. He walked for over ten yards without saying a word as he tried to cope with the staggering revelation. His fondness for Shakespeare went beyond simple friendship. In many respects as a wise mentor, a dependable partner, and a caring companion Shakespeare was more like a second father than a friend. He would be hard pressed to decide which man meant more to him, Shakespeare or his father.
His relationship with his domineering father, who had always been too busy with work to spend much time with their family, had been strained for years prior to his departure for St. Louis. The two had become virtual strangers. Except for a few polite words at meals and greetings every now and then, they had rarely spoken to one another.
How different things were with Shakespeare. McNair was someone he could talk to about anything. More importantly, Shakespeare accepted him as a man and never attempted to dictate how he should live his life.
“Care to fill me in?” Nate asked at length.
“If you insist,” Shakespeare said, “but it galls me to discuss a personal problem with another gent, even if he is the best damn pard I ever had, and that includes your Uncle Zeke. God rest his soul.”
A peculiar lump formed in Nate’s throat and he coughed lightly.
“Six months or so ago was when it first began,” Shakespeare reiterated. “I’d wake up in the morning all stiff in my joints and it would be hard to even lift my arms. And the condition kept getting worse and worse as the weeks passed. I tried everything I could think of. Used Indian medicine, used remedies I’d heard about from many different folks I’d met through the years, and even went off by myself and dug a sweat hole. Sat in it three days running and didn’t feel a bit better when I rode back to my cabin.”
Nate had seen such sweat holes before. They were frequently resorted to by mountaineers who had spine or muscle complaints and wanted a reliable cure.
The afflicted usually dug a round hole about three or four feet deep and three feet in diameter. Then a fire was made in the middle of the hole and kept blazing until the earth in the hole was hot to the touch. After the fire was extinguished, a seat or log was placed in the hole and the person stripped down as far as was necessary and put a container of water near the seat. The next to last step entailed covering the hole with blankets or heavy hides.
There the afflicted would sit, dashing water on the sides and bottom, while great waves of heat radiated from all sides and caused the sweat to run in rivers. The person stayed under the robes for as long as he could stand it, then emerged and took a dip in a cold stream or spring.
After repeated treatments of alternating hot and cold, most people recovered from their ailments. Few were ever so bothered again. Many trappers swore by sweat holes and would use no other cure.
“I knew I was in trouble when the sweat hole didn’t work,” Shakespeare was saying. “So I went to talk to a Flathead medicine man who is a good friend of mine and asked his advice. He supplied herbs even I didn’t know of and I tried them too.”
“No luck?”
“None. Then, one day, a few trappers I know stopped by my cabin. They had a bottle of whiskey along and offered to share a drink. Although I don’t make it a habit to drink now like I did in my younger days, I obliged them.”
“The whiskey made you feel better?”
Shakespeare nodded. “Damned if it didn’t. When I woke up the next morning my body wasn’t as sore as it usually became. They’d left the unfinished bottle with me, so that evening I drank more right before I turned in. And guess what? The next morning my joints hardly hurt at all.”
“So you’ve been drinking regularly ever since,” Nate said.
“Every night, leastwise. I bought a couple of bottles from old Pete Jaconetty. He always has a case of the stuff stored in his cabin. But now I’m running low and I need more.”
“Which you plan to buy at the Rendezvous.”
“Exactly,” Shakespeare said, and scowled. “One other thing, though. As the weeks have gone by, the whiskey is helping less and less. I don’t know why, but I’m starting to ache like the dickens again in the morning, and sometimes in the middle of the day.”
They walked in silence for a spell. Nate put himself in Shakespeare’s place and felt overwhelming sympathy. It must be extremely frustrating for the aged mountain man to be so impaired. Shakespeare had always been a robust man with boundless energy. This had to be affecting his spirit as much as his body. “Why don’t you go to St. Louis and see a doctor there?”
“I thought about it. But to tell you the truth, I’ve never been fond of doctors of our race. They’re always too ready to pour their drugs down your throat or cut into you with their little knives. Give me an Indian medicine man any day. They use natural remedies and they let a man keep his blood.”
“What choice do you have? You might die if you don’t go.”
“Then I die.”
“Just like that?”
“We all owe God a death,” Shakespeare said, repeating the quote he’d used in the cabin.
“Maybe so, but I never took you for a quitter. If a man is still breathing, he has hope. Until they plant him in the ground and throw dirt on his face he should fight for his life with all the means at his disposal.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You’re still a young man.”
“What difference does that make?”
“Sometimes older folks see things differently. Sometimes they just grow tired of living.”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“Am I? Imagine a woman who has been married for forty or fifty years. Suddenly her husband dies and she’s left all alone in this hard world. She lives on a while but the loneliness eats at her soul and she gets to thinking about joining her husband in death. So she walks off into the forest without food or water, picks a spot under a tree, and sits there until she’s too weak to go anywhere and she slowly passes away.”
“You knew a woman who did that?”
“My mother.”
Again they hiked without speaking, Nate disturbed beyond measure. There must be something he could say or do to convince his friend to go to St. Louis.
“She’s not the only one I know of,” Shakespeare said after a while. “I’ve known whites and Indians who did the same thing or close to it. One old Sioux brave got so tired of hobbling around camp using a crutch to get by that he simply took off all his weapons and went out across the prairie until he encountered a grizzly bear.”
Nate bowed his head. The old warrior must have been incredibly courageous to do such a thing. Could Shakespeare be right? Was he incapable of understanding? After all, he was young and healthy and vibrant with life. He had no true idea of what it must be like to be ill for months or years on end or to have his body betray him by becoming progressively weaker with age. And although there had been times when he had been alone, he’d never experienced the abject loneliness such as Shakespeare’s mother had known.
“It’s not that I want to die,” the mountain man remarked wistfully. “I was looking forward to a long life with Blue Water Woman.”
“Then go to St. Louis and be examined by a physician,” Nate urged.
“I’d rather not.”
“What harm can it do?”
“No.”
“You’re being stubborn,” Nate said in exasperation.
“You’re absolutely right. I’ve been a mule-headed cuss all of my born days and I’m too old to change now. So forget about St. Louis.”
“You might find a cure.”
“Drop the subject.”
“But”
“Drop it, I say!” Shakespeare snapped.
Startled, Nate faced forward. His friend had never spoken to him so sternly before and it shocked him. There had been a tinge of something else in Shakespeare’s tone, an indefinable quality that if he didn’t know better might have been a trace of fear. But such a notion was ridiculous. Shakespeare wasn’t afraid of anything on God’s green earth.
After a spell Shakespeare cleared his throat. “Sorry, Nate. There was no call for me to lash out at you like I did. I appreciate your concern.”
Nate had a thought. Perhaps Shakespeare was leery of traveling such a great distance because he might perish along the way. The prospect of becoming too weak to travel and lying helpless on the prairie while hostiles or wild beasts closed in would dissuade any man. “I’d even go with you,” he volunteered. “I’d like to see how much St. Louis has grown since I was there last.”
“I’m not going and that’s final.”
“We could take our wives and Zach with us,” Nate said, trying one last tack.
Shakespeare grunted in disapproval. “And you have the gall to call me stubborn! When you sink your teeth into something you don’t let go come hell or high water.” He chuckled. “You would have made a dandy wolverine.”
For the next mile neither man spoke.
Nate’s mind raced as he tried to think of a means to help his mentor. There must be something he could do. Some of Winona’s people were well versed in the healing arts and might be able to help. So might medicine men from other friendly tribes such as the Crows or the Pawnees. Shakespeare was partial to the Flatheads but they weren’t the only tribe who boasted skilled healers.
Nate ceased his contemplation to survey the ground ahead, recalling landmarks he’d passed
during his mad run to the cabin. Instead of sticking to the trail he’d simply made a frantic beeline, and he recollected passing a certain boulder with a jagged upper rim shortly after stashing his makeshift pack. Once he located the boulder, finding the right tree would be child’s play.
It took several minutes until the boulder appeared.
Nate lifted an arm and pointed, about to make mention of the fact to Shakespeare, when from up ahead there arose a series of feral growls and snarls. Instantly he crouched, the Hawken in both hands, and peered through the vegetation to try and glimpse the animals responsible.
“Wolves,” Shakespeare whispered, down on one knee.
“They must have found the cache!” Nate exclaimed softly, and rose without thinking. After all the trouble he had gone to in obtaining the bear meat, he wasn’t about to stand idly by and let a pack of wolves consume it. He dashed forward, treading as lightly as possible, angry but not foolhardy.
Wolves rarely attacked humans. Quite often they would gather in the darkness around a flickering campfire and gaze in curious wonder at the men who had made it. Frequently they would sit there and howl as if they might be trying to converse in their eerie, primitive fashion. Only when they were rabid or starved were they dangerous, as Nate had found out some years ago when he’d nearly been slain by a small pack.
A thicket reared between him and the tree where the bear meat was cached. Stepping on the balls of his feet, he glided soundlessly to the right until he could view the tree and the snarling wolves.
There were seven, all told, five adults and two young ones. Their coats were gray, their sleek bodies rippling with muscles as they padded in circles around the trunk of the pine. The meat rested securely in a fork over eight feet above the ground, and now and again one of the adults would take a flying leap and try to snare the bear hide in its teeth. So far they had failed, but several times the largest of the pack came close enough to snip off fragments of bear hair.
Nate squatted and debated. Given time the wolves would drift elsewhere if they couldn’t get the meat. But knowing their vaunted persistence, he realized hours might elapse before they admitted defeat, hours he was not willing to waste in waiting.
He could see what had attracted them. Blood had dripped out of the hide, trickled down the trunk, and formed a tiny puddle at the base of the tree. No doubt the wolves had caught the airborne scent of the blood and come to investigate. A wry grin curled his lips. At least he should be thankful a grizzly hadn’t picked up the scent.
His thumb resting on the hammer, he held still and watched. The leader of the pack was a huge brute, about the same size as Samson, in the prime of its life. He didn’t want to shoot it if he could avoid such an eventuality since he had an aversion to killing any game unless he needed food or a hide. He could always sew together a wolf skin cap from the pelt, but he already owned a few hats and had no desire for a new one, even if the wolf skin variety was quite the fashion rage among the trapping fraternity.
Perhaps he could scare them off. Wolves, like most wild creatures, possessed an instinctive wariness of humans. Even grizzlies, on occasion, would wheel and flee at the sight of a human, although such timidity was the exception rather than the rule.
Girding himself, Nate stood and advanced a few strides. Immediately the wolves froze in their tracks and glanced at him. Not one displayed the slightest fear. He waved the rifle at them and yelled, thinking the sound of his voice would rout them. “Go! Get lost! That’s my meat and you’re not going to have it!”
Instead of fleeing, the huge male snarled and sprang.