The Shirt On His Back - By Barbara Hambly Page 0,18
thing we ought to do is get on the good side of the trappers who were at Forty Ivy last winter: Manitou Wildman, Clemantius Groot, and Goshen Clarke.'
'Wildman's supposed to have a camp in the hill about three miles up Horse Creek.' January dug in his pockets for his own razor. 'Prideaux will know where to locate Groot and Clarke.'
They found Robespierre Prideaux making bullets preparatory to going hunting as soon as his various friends either wakened in their blankets - their bodies strewed in the vicinity of the fire like battle dead - or staggered back from Seaholly's. 'In the mountains they are wise as wolves and savage as owls,' said the mountaineer, shaking his head over them. 'But thunder my dogs, in camp they are as sorry a parcel of tosspots as ever caused a mother to sink down into her grave with grief.'
When January brought up the subject - casually, he thought - of Clarke and Groot, Prideaux's blue eyes narrowed sharply, and his voice sank to a conspiratorial hush: 'What have you heard, pilgrim?'
January suppressed the urge to hastily disavow having heard anything, looked around him and whispered in turn, 'What have you heard?'
The mountaineer showed signs of a cautious rejoinder, and for an instant January thought the conversation would degenerate into mutually unintelligible hints, but after long thought, Prideaux seemed to conclude that attending Hannibal's wedding had made him part of the Ivy and Wallach family. 'Rumor is, hoss, that Beauty Clarke was seen buyin' five shirts –five! - up at the HBC camp. An' Clem Groot - I heard this for truth - bought ten trap-springs from that Mex trader Morales down the other side of the Company. An' that can only mean they're gettin' ready to pull foot.'
Dammit, thought January. He recalled Shaw's remark yesterday about not wanting to track his quarry through a million square miles of mountains, with or without hostile Indians . . .
But the mountaineer's conspiratorial tone urged him to frown, as if putting pieces together, and counter with, 'Already?' It was a reasonable question: generally the rendezvous would last through July. In summer furs weren't worth taking.
'Listen to me, hoss,' Prideaux whispered, though it was quite clear the Last Trump wouldn't have waked any of the sleepers around them. 'You throw in with me - and swear to speak to no one else of this -' he glanced across at Hannibal, who raised his left hand in avowal and crossed his heart with his right - 'an' when they leave the camp, you an' me, we'll be right on their trail. You ain't thinkin' of goin' for a trapper, are you, Sun Mouse?'
Hannibal shook his head. 'I'd never be back in time to open with the Opera in New Orleans,' he said. 'But you go on ahead, Benjamin—'
'Once they're in the high country,' continued Prideaux, 'we'll show ourselves to 'em, an' they'll have to cut us in. Think of it! You seen them skins they was sellin' day 'fore yesterday to John McLeod at the HBC! Waugh! Beaver as big as bears, an' with fur as thick as bears! Beaver like ain't been seen in this country for ten years, since it's got so trapped over!'
January snapped his fingers like a man enlightened. 'They've got a secret valley!'
'Hell, yes!' cried Prideaux, utterly forgetting the need for secrecy. None of his companions stirred.
Inwardly, January sighed. Through all of yesterday's gossipy conversations across the counter of the store, the rumor of a Secret Beaver Valley had come and gone: an elusive Cloud Cuckooland where every stream swarmed with beaver, as all streams in this country had - the oldest trappers agreed - before the Company and the HBC and the now-defunct Rocky Mountain Company had sent in brigades in an attempt to run one another out of business by scooping all the furs for themselves.
'Stands to reason they'll be sneakin' out of camp any night now.' Prideaux sank his voice to a whisper again and glanced around as if he expected black-cloaked conspirators to be crouched behind every prairie-dog hill. 'We gotta watch 'em, hoss. The Dutchman's sly as they come, an' that Cree wife of his knows this valley like I know the back of my hand. But when we catch 'em, we'll tell 'em there's plenty for the two of us an' them, too - steal my horse if I ever seen two men trap seven packs in one season, like they did! We'll be rich!'