made Ben forget his anger. “Here now,” he commanded, prodding a leg with the butt of his gun, “you’ve rested enough. Get up.”
The silence in the forest lengthened, and for the first time it occurred to Ben they might not be alone. Perhaps the Indian was waiting for somebody. Ben darted quick glances over each shoulder, then turned back to find the boy watching him. Scowling, he jerked his thumb upward. This time the boy sat up cross-legged and stared at him. Satisfied he was making progress, Ben repeated his gesture, but his captive shook his head. “You will say I tried to steal your rifle, and I will be locked in a dirty jail.”
“Well, what did you expect?” Ben retorted. “I oughta say ‘better luck next time’ and let you go after you tried to kill me?”
There was no humour in the other boy’s smile. “If I had meant to kill you, you would not be speaking now.”
“You saying you didn’t try? I guess your gun just went off accidental like.”
“My shot was for a deer—an easy target until you came with more noise than a bear rolling downhill. Even so it is wounded.”
“Then why didn’t you follow the deer instead of jumping on me?”
A fleeting look of hopelessness crossed the Indian’s face before he muttered, “I have no more powder and shot.”
As he surveyed his captive, Ben thought he understood why losing the deer made him crazy enough to attack. Sun-browned skin outlined each rib and covered the boy’s arms as though there were nothing between it and bone. The skin stretched tightly over hollows under high cheekbones jutting beneath dark, deep-set eyes that glittered with anger now, as if they understood Ben’s unexpected flash of pity and rejected it.
Ben strode to his waiting horse and said gruffly, “Well, come on. You can’t shoot a deer and leave it to bleed to death.” When the boy hesitated, Ben grabbed the reins and started off in what he hoped was the right direction. Over his shoulder he called, “Come on!” Then he halted and turned. “Say, what’s your name, anyway? I like to know who I’m hunting with.”
Scrambling to his feet, the boy answered, “Red Eagle.”
“Come on then, Red Eagle. Which way do we find the deer?”
“I will get my horse” came the reply, and Red Eagle disappeared into the forest without a sound.
As Ben leaned against a tree and waited, a nagging uneasiness plagued him. It wasn’t the same worry that had knotted his stomach the day before when he left Gabriel’s Crossing for Fort Carlton. Then, certain his uncle must have returned to the fort, he had rehearsed over and over his explanation for taking his sister to Gabriel Dumont’s cabin. Even so, his uncle had been plenty mad until he learned Ben and Charity had had nothing to do with Dumont himself these past two months. That knowledge had caused Lawrence Clarke’s fury to be replaced by thoughtful contemplation as he rubbed the red tip of his long, thin nose and studied his nephew with pale blue eyes. Remembering now the relief he had felt when he thought his uncle’s anger had passed, Ben grimaced. He didn’t know then just what his uncle was planning.
Ben’s thoughts flew back to the present as the steady beat of hoofs reached his ears. In a moment Red Eagle was beside him, sliding off a weary dark brown horse. The Indian gestured over his shoulder. “A small stream runs down to the river. We will tie the horses there and follow the deer on foot.”
Under a mound of leaves and brush near where they tied the horses, Ben hid the old cap-and-ball musket Red Eagle carried, while the Indian moved through the trees and pointed at the ground. “Here,” he said.
Ben pushed aside a bramble of wild rosebushes and saw the telltale splatter of blood. Together they moved through the woods, Red Eagle leading.
It was late afternoon when they found the exhausted animal drinking from a brackish backwater, dried blood caked on one front leg. Ben felt a surge of excitement as he lifted his rifle. Glancing beside him, he saw the eagerness on his companion’s face. “Take it,” he whispered, abruptly thrusting the rifle into Red Eagle’s hands. “It’s your deer.”
The Enfield spoke once, and the buck dropped. “Good shot,” Ben said when they reached the animal. “Right behind the ear.”
Red Eagle dropped to his knees and whipped out a long knife from the sheath strapped to his deerskin leggings. Once, as he prepared the deer for travel, he sliced off a thin strip of meat and popped it into his mouth, chewing hungrily as he worked. His upward glance caught the disgust on Ben’s face, and he scowled. “It is not so easy to wait to cook meat when you have none for three months!”
Ben said nothing. He knew by heart Uncle Lawrence’s speech about the Indians being hungry because they expected to be fed instead of raising their food on land the government had been good enough to give them. Even his uncle had to admit, though, that some of the white men hired to teach the Indians how to farm weren’t very helpful.
Although he had been raised to accept the judgements of his elders as gospel, Ben had a vague feeling of embarrassment as he watched the scrawny figure work over the deer. Impulsively he reached inside his grey homespun shirt for a package wrapped in oiled paper and held it out. “Here,” he said. “If you still got an appetite, you’d do me a favour if you eat this.” When the boy hesitated, Ben added, “I already had my fill, and the woman who wrapped that up likely might think I’m sick if I bring it back.”
Ben had expected Red Eagle to wolf down the bannock and meat, but the boy chewed slowly, surveying Ben as he ate. Between bites he said, “You are far from Fort Carlton.”
Ben’s brow furrowed. “How’d you know I been at Fort Carlton?”
The reply was slow in coming. “Three months ago I took wolf skins to the fort to trade for flour. You are called Ben Muldoon, but in our camp you are known as Fire on Top.”
Ben was accustomed to comments about his unruly mop of bright red hair. It was too curly to trim neatly in the fashion of young men, so he was content to clip it off below his ears and let it blow freely. He grinned as he said, “That’s as good a name as any, I guess. But I don’t live at the fort anymore—at least for now. I’ve been staying at Gabriel’s Crossing for the past while. I rode to the fort today to see my uncle, and I’m on my way back.”
Red Eagle stared at Ben thoughtfully for a moment before he bent over the deer again. “So,” he said over his shoulder, “you share the cabin of Gabriel Dumont.”
Half wondering why he should bother to explain himself to an Indian, Ben said, “My sister got real sick at the fort, and some said I best take her to Madame Dumont. The Mounted Police took us over to the Crossing in a wagon a while back.”
Red Eagle nodded without turning around. “My people know of her also. She has healing hands.”
“I expect so,” Ben said, recalling the nights he had awakened to see the Métis woman dozing in a chair by his sister’s bed. “All I know is, Charity’s doing just fine now, but Madame Dumont says I shouldn’t take her back to the fort yet.” He half suspected she had become pretty fond of Charity and was making excuses to keep her as long as she could. He sighed. Truth to tell, Ben had hated having to tell his sister that their uncle might make them return to the fort when he got back from his trip to Winnipeg. At Gabriel’s Crossing Ben heard her laughter for the first time since their mother had died in 1882 almost two years ago.
Red Eagle
