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- has his orders to
do what he can to cripple 'em. An' in a place where there ain't no law,' he
concluded quietly, 'Do what you can takes on a whole new meanin'.'
    A
couple of Shoshone came to the counter next, joking in their own tongue and
smelling faintly of cheap whiskey, offering winter fox and wolf as well as
beaver in trade. Even the Indians allied with the enemies of the AFC, January
was aware, knew themselves to be outnumbered and outgunned, and therefore kept
the peace, not only with the whites, but with one another. On the plains they
were constantly at war, tribe against tribe, and in the course of the afternoon
January had learned that their tribal politics were inextricably tied up with
keeping on the good side of the trading companies. Without guns and powder,
each tribe knew its enemies would wipe it out.
    Even
so, looking out across the meadows in the clear gold crystal of the evening
light, January resolved to steer well clear of the pockmarked Iron Heart and
his Omahas.
    Campfires
were being built up. Men he'd been introduced to by Prideaux or Wallach in the
course of the long afternoon greeted him as they went past. Others he already
knew by sight: Edwin Titus, the AFC Financial Controller Shaw had spoken of,
frock-coated and prim, with eyes like chilled blue glass; red-haired Tom
Fitzpatrick, whose company the AFC had crushed two years before and who now
worked for them; fair-haired little Kit Carson. Engages - camp-setters - many
of them very young. These were often the sons of Indian women themselves from
an earlier generation of mountaineers, hired cheap to go out with the trappers,
to pitch camps, mind horses, flesh and stretch the skins when the trappers
brought them back to the brigade camps deep in the wilderness, hunt meat while
the trappers sought more valuable prey.
    'Could
Boden be passing himself as an engage?' January asked.
    'He
could.' Shaw stood and stretched his back with an audible popping of bones. 'Or
a trader; or a clerk with the AFC, if this Hepplewhite he was writin' to is of
their Congregation . . .'
    The
sun had slipped behind the low western peaks. Shadow began to fill the little
tent. Shaw started gathering up the tobacco and knives, the vermillion and
beads, from the blanket- draped trestles and stowing them in a lockbox, while
January untied the rolled-up side of the tent. 'He could be a clerk with
Hudson's Bay, or even - if he's real clever - that fool preacher that was
standin' outside Seaholly's shoutin' about how the whole passel of us was bound
for perdition an' brimstone. Or he could be passin' himself as a gentleman come
to the rendezvous for the huntin'. They got a Scottish nobleman that's stayin'
with the AFC - with his private gun-loader an'
horse- minder an' his personal artist to memorialize the trip for when he goes
back home.'
    'That's
a lot of money for a disguise.'
    'It
is to you an' me. But we got no idea who Boden's workin' for, nor how many are
in it with him. AFC's got their own store-bought Congressmen - one of whom ran
for President last year - so a murderer'd be picked up for small change. Good
thing I seen this Sir William Stewart in New Orleans over the winter or I might
shoot him from behind a tree just on the suspicion.' A trace of bitterness
flickered across Shaw's gargoyle face - a trace of self-contempt. 'Pretty much
the only thing Boden can't be passin' hisself off as is a
trapper.'
    'Do
we know he didn't do any trapping? You said yourself Tom didn't know anything about him—'
    'Nor
did he.' Shaw nodded at Robbie Prideaux and half a dozen mountaineer friends
gathered around his little campfire a dozen yards on the other side of the
path, ferocious-looking in blanket coats and bristling beards. 'But I'm
guessin' he could no more pass hisself off as a trapper than I could get up at
a Mardi Gras ball an' pass myself for a musician, just from talkin' to you.
First time somebody handed me a bassoon I 'd be a dead beaver.' He cracked
his knuckles.