Empire. According to Gordy, Burr was pursued by government agents who ran him to earth here and killed him—'
'And then erected a comfortable shelter out of the rain and left a fire to warm his corpse?'
The fiddler shrugged.’ ... I don't suppose we could prove it isn't Burr.' He poured himself tea from the tin camp-kettle that Morning Star had hung on a green-stick tripod above the fire, grimaced at the taste. Among his young wife's many accomplishments, tea-making was signally lacking. 'The fire, of course, was to destroy all record of Burr's nefarious plots, plus any proof of his identity. And how much money did our third Vice President have there in his pocket when he was killed?'
'Five thousand dollars, always supposing the Bank of New York, the Bank of Pennsylvania, the Germantown and Lancaster Citizens' Bank, Wesley's Private Bank of Manhattan, the Ohio and Albany Commercial Bank, and about ten other such establishments are still in business. We can discount the two thousand here from the Bank of Louisiana—'
'Proving conclusively that it was Burr.' Hannibal shook his head. 'So many secret papers in his pockets, they didn't need the banknotes to start the fire. It explains why they stripped him, too, of course. There's coffee here, too, amicus meus—'
Veinte-y-Cinco rose, and Shaw set aside the saddle-worn black trousers, the plain German silver watch that he'd been studying, and walked her down the path to Seaholly's, with the matter-of-fact obligingness of a man walking any woman to her work after dark. When he returned he was accompanied by Kit Carson and Jim Bridger, who accepted the invitation to stay and dine.
'I think I got 'em all,' said Bridger, tearing - with perfect politeness - the elk meat from the rib he held. 'All but that child Frye - he come in? No? An' not even a footprint at Wildman's camp.'
'No sign of any other camp?'
'Plenty sign.' Carson tugged a corner of his light-brown mustache, vexed. 'Hell, we had half the rendezvous stampedin' across those hills lookin' for Beauty and the Dutchman. The rain washed out pretty much everythin' but droppings. Didn't see nothing clustered together, like you'd have if anyone had put down for any length of time.'
'How far'd you go?'
'Maybe four miles back along the creek, 'bout two miles over the ridge.'
'Cross the river?'
Carson shook his head. 'I was huntin' for Wildman, not our friend's camp.' He nodded toward the gaily-striped blanket walls of the makeshift morgue. 'Damnedest thing I ever saw,' he added - which, January reflected, coming from Carson, was saying a great deal. 'Old buffer's got to have a camp someplace, and folks looking for him - 'less they're all of 'em croaked. They would be, if they were across the river and ran into the Blackfeet. You folks need help keepin' our friend from havin' dinner guests tonight?'
'It'd be a help, yes, thank you,' said Shaw. 'I 'predate it.'
Curious, January reflected, that Senex Incognito, as Stewart had dubbed him, was almost universally referred to as 'our friend,' though in life he might easily have been plotting trouble - killin' bad - serious enough, perhaps, to endanger every man in the camp. Death - and the savage manner of his death - had brought out the ready friendliness of the trappers, the willingness to speak of him as a friend and to sit up all night to keep vermin from eating his corpse.
Already, January could hear furtive rustlings in the brush of the bottomlands below the camp. He hoped the only things drawn to the smell of the corpse would be foxes and coyote.
If it's a bear, he thought, he can have him . . .
'That boy Poco was right, though,' went on Shaw after a time. 'The old man got no more need of his body now than he has of those britches Poco borrowed. Still, it's a lonesome business, watchin' alone.'
So they split the watches, two and two, through the night in the time-honored way: Shaw and Prideaux, January and Jim Bridger, Hannibal and Kit Carson, LeBel and Clopard. At one point on January's vigil something quite large snuffled at the other side of the blanket wall, but evidently the scents of men and fire were enough to convince it - or them - to stay away. Certainly, the conversation with Jim Bridger - about beaver and bears and navigation in the wilderness, about white and Indian medicine, about slavery and Andrew Jackson and the kind of men who chose to leave the