Chapter Twenty-four
Breckinridge barely had time to dodge the half-full whiskey bottle that came flying at his head. He caught a glimpse of the flowery design on the label as it went past him. Then it shattered against the wall behind him, spraying glass across the floor and leaving a wet blotch of dripping whiskey on the wallpaper.
“So you’re going to leave me, are you?” Sierra screeched at him. “After all we’ve meant to each other?”
Breckinridge stretched out his hands toward her and said, “Now hold on a minute. It ain’t like there was ever anything serious goin’ on between us—”
Sierra exclaimed, “Oh!” and started looking around for something else to throw. Breckinridge hoped it wouldn’t occur to her to grab the chamber pot.
Even though he knew it might just make things worse, he went on, “I mean, you never stopped goin’ with other fellas and takin’ their money to, well, you know . . .”
“That’s my job, you idiot!” She glared darkly at him, her breasts heaving with emotion under the thin dress she wore. Mad or not, Breckinridge thought she was more beautiful than he had ever seen her. “None of those men meant anything to me! I never charged you, did I?”
“Well, not after that first time . . .”
She came at him, fingers hooking into talons, evidently intent on clawing his eyes out. Breckinridge caught hold of her wrists before she could reach his face. She started kicking at his shin, but in a soft slipper, her foot didn’t do any damage through his thick, high-topped moccasins. Breck barely felt the kicks.
“Dadgum it!” he burst out. He had thought Sierra might be a little upset when he told her he was leaving for the Rockies, but he never expected such a violent reaction. She knew he had been talking right along about making such a trip, and she had known why he was going to meet Tom Lang and Colonel Baxter.
But clearly, knowing something and accepting it were two different things where Sierra was concerned.
He pulled her closer, then risked letting go of her wrists. He bent, wrapped his arms around her waist, and lifted her off the floor. That wasn’t quite as easy as it looked. Sierra was lushly built and had a good amount of meat on her bones, something that Breckinridge had never complained about before. But with his great strength, he was able to pick her up, take two strides that brought him to the bed, and dump her on the mattress, where she bounced a little.
Breckinridge was ready to try to hold her down on the bed and talk some sense into her, but she surprised him again, this time by rolling onto her side and starting to cry. She put her hands over her face and wailed and sobbed, and he was left staring at her, dumbfounded as to what he should do next.
After a while he eased a hip onto the bed next to her, put a hand on her shoulder, and said, “Sierra, honey, I sure never meant to upset you like this—”
She jerked away from him and said between ragged sobs, “Just . . . just leave me alone! If you’re going to . . . to abandon me . . . why don’t you just go ahead and go?!”
“Well . . . the expedition’s not leavin’ for a couple of days yet . . .”
Sierra’s wails grew louder, but then she pressed her face into the pillow and that muffled the cries somewhat.
Breckinridge wondered if there would ever come a time when he understood women. He wasn’t going to count on it.
* * *
Eventually, Sierra settled down. She wasn’t happy that Breckinridge was leaving St. Louis, but she seemed to accept the fact. She even went out of her way to make sure his last couple of days in town were as pleasant as possible. They seldom left her room in the boardinghouse.
Breckinridge had to get out some, though. Even though Colonel Baxter was outfitting the expedition and furnishing most of the supplies, there were some things Breck wanted to pick up for himself, such as extra powder and shot. He didn’t want to take a chance on running out of ammunition at the worst possible time, like in the middle of a fight with hostile Indians.
On the night before he left, he used the rest of his money to take Sierra out to eat in one of the nicest restaurants in St. Louis. It was nice compared to their usual haunts, anyway, and certainly Breckinridge had never seen tables donned with linen cloths or candles that burned in crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. He knew that some of the other customers gave him and Sierra funny looks, as if thinking they didn’t belong here.
Well, they were right about that, Breckinridge thought . . . not that he gave a damn.
“Thank you for bringing me here, Breckinridge,” she said. She looked lovely in her nicest gown with its bits of lace at the throat and sleeves. “I never thought to set foot in a place such as this.”
“You deserve it,” he told her. “You’re as fine a lady as any of the other gals in here.”
“We both know that is not true . . . but thank you for saying it, anyway,” she said with a smile. “You are a sweet boy. I will miss you when you’re gone.”
“I’ll miss you, too.”
“But you will come back to me.”
“I’ll do my best,” he said. “You can’t never tell what’s gonna happen out there in the wilderness.”
“I know. There are wild animals. Savage Indians. So many dangers of all sorts.”
He grinned and said, “Yeah, but I’m pretty good at takin’ care of myself.”
“I know. Can I ask you to be careful?”
“Why, sure. I’ll do my very best to come back with a whole hide. You can count on that.”
When they got back to her room, she made sure his last night in St. Louis was one to remember for a long time. Maybe always. When Breckinridge finally went to sleep, he fell into a deep, dreamless slumber.
Sierra was gone when he woke up in the morning. He figured at first she had just stepped out for something, until he spotted the note leaning against the cold candle on the night table. He picked it up and read the message she had written on it.
Breckinridge,
I cannot bear to say good-bye to you. I know it is foolish for a woman such as myself to feel this way, but you have brought something into my life I have never before known. I have feelings for you the likes of which I have never experienced. And so I cannot face the pain of our parting. Please do not search for me. I know St. Louis better than you. You will not find me. Just go with your friends and know that you take my heart with you. You can restore it to me when you return.
Sierra
“Well, hell,” Breckinridge muttered as he lowered the paper. He would have liked a chance to say so long to her. On the other hand, it was unlikely they could have come up with a better farewell than the one they’d had the night before. So maybe it was better this way, he thought with a sigh.
He dressed, gathered his gear, and headed for the docks. The Baxter expedition would be leaving from there.
When he reached his destination, he saw a dozen canoes lined up in the river, next to one of the docks. Men were loading supplies into them as Colonel Baxter stood there supervising. The colonel wore buckskins, but they were a lot fancier than any Breckinridge had ever seen before, covered with fringe and beaded decorations. Baxter also wore a broad-brimmed brown hat with an eagle feather sticking up from its band.
Breckinridge didn’t see Morgan Baxter at first, and he hoped that meant the young man had decided not to come along. But then he spotted Morgan walking along the street from the other direction, talking to Tom Lang as the two of them approached the docks. At least Morgan was dressed in good quality workingman’s clothes, not like the resplendent outfit his father sported.
Tom Lang saw Breckinridge and raised a hand in greeting. Colonel Baxter noticed him, too, and said, “Ah, there you are, Wallace. I was beginning to think perhaps you had reconsidered your decision to accompany us.”
“Nope, I’m here and rarin’ to go,” Breckinridge said, although that was overstating the case a little. A part of him still wished he had set out for the mountains on his own.
But he had agreed to this deal, and now he was bound to make the best of it.
Tom Lang said, “How about you comin’ along in my canoe, Breck? I’ll be out front, so you might not want to be there. We’ll be the first ones into any trouble.”
“That sounds mighty fine to me,” Breckinridge said, then glanced at Baxter and added, “If that’s all right with the colonel. He’s in charge.”
Baxter waved a hand and said, “Of course, of course. That’s fine. I, of course, will be in one of the middle canoes so that I’ll have a good vantage point of the entire party.”
And so that there would be men all around him to protect him if they were attacked, Breckinridge thought, but he kept that to himself. He supposed Baxter had earned that much, since it was his money funding the whole expedition.
Breckinridge stowed his gear in the lead canoe. The canoe at the back end of the line was packed full of supplies and attached by a rope to the craft in front of it, and more supplies were spread out through the other canoes.
The group’s imminent departure had drawn some interest from the people working on the docks and also the men who frequented the nearby taverns. A crowd had gathered to watch. Breckinridge scanned the faces, thinking that maybe Sierra had changed her mind and might show up to say good-bye to him.
He saw no sign of her, though, and that came as no surprise. Once she made up her mind about something, she was too strong willed to change it.
Tom Lang was already in the canoe. He held up a hand to Breckinridge to help steady him as Breck stepped into the canoe. This was his first time in one of the lightweight craft, and balancing himself wasn’t easy.
“Careful there,” Tom said with a grin under his bushy white beard. “Big fella like you, step down too hard and your foot’s liable to go right through the bottom.”
Cautiously, Breckinridge lowered himself onto the middle of the three seats.
“Can’t put you in the back or the front,” Tom said. “You’d weigh down either end too much and maybe capsize us. We got to spread out that weight.”
“All right, I think I’m set,” Breckinridge said. He picked up a paddle. “I’ve never used one of these things before. Hope it don’t take me too long to get the hang of it.”
“Just watch me,” Tom advised. “Do what I do, and you’ll be fine.”
Within a short time, all thirty-three men in the group had climbed into the canoes. Men on the dock untied the lines holding the canoes. Breckinridge and the others began working the craft away from the dock and out into the river. He followed Tom Lang’s suggestion and watched the old scout closely, trying to imitate all his actions with the paddle. With Breck’s natural athletic ability, he soon began to feel comfortable in the canoe.
“You’re gettin’ it,” Tom told him. “Just like I thought you would.”
From behind them, Colonel Baxter called in a booming voice, “Off to the mountains, men! Let the great adventure commence!”
Tom glanced over his shoulder at Breckinridge, grinned again, and said quietly, “He’s a stuffed shirt, but he ain’t a bad sort for all of that.”
Their canoe took the lead as Breckinridge, Tom, and the third man, a stolid gent named Akins, paddled steadily and smoothly. Breck looked over his shoulder and saw the way the canoes were arranged. Two of the craft traveled side by side about twenty yards behind the lead canoe. Next came three abreast, with Colonel Baxter in the middle one. Morgan was in the canoe flanking his father’s canoe to the right. Two more pairs followed, and finally came a single canoe towing the one loaded with supplies. Breck wondered if they would follow that same pattern all the way up the river.
He knew from his time on the Sophie just how strong the Mississippi’s current was, but the canoes were light enough to skim along the top of the water without encountering too much resistance. Paddling upstream was actually easier than he had thought it would be. He soon fell into a rhythm and knew he could keep this up tirelessly for a long time.
After a while they came to the place where the Missouri River flowed into the Mississippi. The Big Muddy joining the Father of Waters, Breckinridge thought. He had never seen anything quite so impressive. He was sure the Rocky Mountains would be even more so, once he got to them, but for now Breck was content to gawk at the junction of the two mighty streams, the biggest rivers on the entire continent.
With Tom Lang setting the pace, the lead canoe veered into the waters of the Missouri. As Breckinridge paddled, he asked, “Do we follow this river all the way to the mountains?”
“That’s right, son,” Tom said. “You can’t hardly get lost. All you got to do is follow the river.”
* * *
Breckinridge had no idea what was a good distance to cover in one day, but Tom Lang seemed pleased with their progress when they camped that night. As the men set up tents, Tom told Breckinridge that he could bunk in with him.
While two members of the party were cooking supper, Tom went to Baxter and said, “Colonel, we’ll need to post sentries tonight. Since we have plenty of men, I’d suggest three at a time on two-hour shifts.”
Morgan was standing nearby, as was Breckinridge. Before the colonel could answer, Morgan said, “Why in the world do we need guards? We just left St. Louis earlier today. Surely there aren’t any hostile Indians this close!”
“Probably not, but I don’t rightly feel like bettin’ my hair on it.” Tom nodded toward Breckinridge and went on, “Breck and I can tell you how the Injuns can jump you when you ain’t expectin’ it. That happened to us last year, didn’t it?”
Breckinridge nodded solemnly, remembering how his friend Lieutenant Mallory had died during that battle.
“Not only that,” Tom continued, “but you got a whole canoe full o’ supplies, and that might be a temptin’ target for fellas who ain’t too particular how they outfit themselves for a trappin’ trip.”
Colonel Baxter frowned and asked, “You’re saying we might be set upon by thieves?”
“It could happen. Again, we’re probably too close to the settlement for that . . . but you never know.”
Baxter rubbed his chin as he deliberated. Glaring, Morgan said, “Really, Father, are you going to listen to this man? You’re in command of this expedition, not him.”
“That’s true, but Mr. Lang has a great deal more practical experience than I do,” the colonel said. “If he thinks it’s wise to post sentries, then I suppose that’s what we should do. You’ll see to it, Tom?”
“Sure, Colonel. Be happy to.”
Breckinridge could tell that Morgan was upset with his father’s decision. The matter was a minor one, piddling, really, but Morgan didn’t like the way Baxter had paid no attention to his opinion.
Breckinridge saw the way Morgan looked at Tom Lang, and he knew that rightly or wrongly, the old scout had made an enemy tonight.
* * *
That wasn’t the end of the friction between Morgan Baxter and Tom Lang. Over the next few weeks, as the members of the expedition paddled steadily up the Missouri River, Morgan seized every opportunity he could find to undermine Tom’s advice to the colonel.
Some of that hostility was directed toward Breckinridge as well, since he and Tom were friends. Morgan made jeering comments about Breck’s size and intelligence, suggesting that the two were in inverse proportion. Breck wasn’t sure what that meant, exactly, but he knew Morgan was calling him dumb.
He kept a tight rein on his temper, but he was afraid it was only a matter of time until real trouble erupted between him and Morgan. Tom Lang was old enough to let the veiled—and not so veiled—insults roll off his back, but Breckinridge had more trouble following the scout’s lead. Anger and resentment festered inside Breckinridge.
Luckily the group didn’t run into any other problems. The only Indians they encountered proved to be peaceful, and they didn’t even see any other white men. Storms rolled in and dumped some chilly spring rain on them for a couple of days, but the trappers were able to push on through the bad weather.
They passed the Kansas River, the Platte River, the Niobrara, Tom Lang pointing out each of them in turn. One day, after the storms had all cleared up and left the air crystal clear, Tom leveled a finger toward the west and said, “Breck, you see that dark line, way over yonder on the horizon?”
Breckinridge peered over the seemingly endless plains and said, “Reckon I do. What is it?”
“Those are the Black Hills,” Tom explained. “Sacred ground to the Sioux. They call ’em the Paha Sapa and believe that the spirits live there.”
“Are we goin’ there?” Breckinridge asked.
“Naw, no real reason to. Trappin’ ain’t bad, from what I hear, but you run too big a risk of gettin’ the redskins all het up if you go in there. Trust me, there ain’t nothin’ in the Black Hills worth gettin’ yourself killed over. Where we’re goin’ is a lot better.”
They pushed on, each day much like all the others that had preceded it. Tom had studied a map along with Colonel Baxter, pointing out various landmarks on it and explaining where they were going, and Breckinridge had taken advantage of the opportunity to look over Tom’s shoulder during the discussion. He knew they would follow the Missouri to the mouth of the Yellowstone River, then veer southwest on the Yellowstone across another stretch of plains and finally to the mountains.
Breckinridge was ready to be there.
All the men had bushy beards now except Colonel Baxter and Morgan. They shaved every day, using a looking glass they had brought along. Breckinridge thought that was sort of a waste of time. Besides, most of the mornings were still pretty chilly, and a beard felt good. But whatever the Baxters wanted to do was really none of his business, he supposed.
He tried to avoid Morgan as much as possible, since the man clearly didn’t like him, but one morning not long before dawn when Breckinridge walked from camp down to the river, carrying a bucket, Morgan was there shaving, wearing his trousers and a pair of long underwear. The suspenders attached to the trousers were let down.
Morgan was trying to hold the looking glass with one hand and shave with the other, since there were no trees or any other place to hang the glass. He was having trouble since he didn’t have a free hand to pull the skin of his throat tight. He looked around, saw Breckinridge, and snapped, “Here, Wallace, put down that bucket and hold this glass for me while I shave.”
The imperious tone of command in Morgan’s voice rubbed Breckinridge the wrong way. It reminded him too much of the way Richard Aylesworth talked to those he considered his inferiors, which was just about everybody but especially Breck.
“Akins sent me to get some water for the coffeepot,” Breckinridge said, not bothering to keep the surly tone out of his own voice. “You’ll have to manage your own self.”
Morgan lowered the mirror and the razor and scowled at Breckinridge.
“Blast it, I’m the second-in-command of this expedition,” he said. “I gave you an order, Wallace, and I expect you to obey it.”
“If it was somethin’ to do with the expedition, I might do what you say.” Might was as far as Breckinridge would allow. “But I ain’t your personal manservant, Baxter, and I don’t have to help you shave.”
“That’s Lieutenant Baxter.”
Breckinridge thought about John Francis Mallory, a good man who’d actually earned the right to use that rank. As far as he could tell, Morgan was just calling himself a lieutenant with no real basis in fact.
This whole thing was stupid and a waste of time as far as Breckinridge was concerned. He said, “I’ve got real work to do,” and started to turn away.
“By God, I won’t stand for such disrespect!”
Breckinridge heard Morgan moving and glanced back to see the young man striding toward him and swinging his right hand as if he intended to slap Breck with it.
Then the light from the cooking fire that was already burning reflected off the blade in Morgan’s hand, and Breckinridge realized what was about to happen here.
Morgan was trying to slash him with that razor!