Fair Land, Fair Land (31 page)

Authors: A. B. Guthrie Jr.

Tags: #Fiction, #Historical

The officers nodded.

A bullet, a war club, Lije thought, or a knife to
lift the major's scalp with. His kind of mercy turned on him. Major
Baker was going on. "No matter how well we know the plans, no
matter how many times we've studied them, it never hurts to review."
He took a sip of whiskey. "I swear this is the last time, so
bear with me, gentlemen."

All the men wore trim, dark blue coats with brass
buttons, and most of them, Lije knew or guessed, were captains. Maybe
one or two were lieutenants. He hadn't learned or tried to learn all
the signs that showed rank. It was enough to know an officer when he
saw one and to remember to "sir" him.

The major took another sip of whiskey and said, "I
hope there's no risk in riding during daylight tomorrow." He
looked around for agreement. "After that we go by night. By
nightfall tomorrow we should be at Priest's Butte. We must allow time
for the men to dismount and warm up, but still."

He turned to Lije. "Why Priest's Butte, do you
know?"

Lije said, making himself be polite, "The
Catholic priests tried to have a mission on the Teton close to the
butte. It didn't last. That was long ago. I know from my father."

"
He ought to know. Will we have clear going?"

"
Nothing in the way. Two lakes off the trail,
one small, one shallow, frozen over now, I think."

He had spoken the truth but not been of help. They
would find the way just as easily if he'd kept silent.

The major said to the officers, "We'll have our
own guides, of course, but I doubt anyone knows that Teton country
better than Many Tongues here. He's lived most of his life there,
where I understand his father took up with a Blackfoot squaw."

"
Not so," Lije broke in, not caring what
happened. "My mother is his wife. They are married for many
years by a Christian preacher."

"
Sir."

"
All right. Sir."

"
So be it. Now just answer my questions. Do you
know where Muddy Creek enters the Teton?"

"
Yes, sir."

"
How is it from Priest's Butte to that
junction?"

"
Some of the country is a little rough. That's
all."

"
Go on, on to the Marias."

"
I have never been there."

"
Sir."

"
You don't know where the villages are`? The
camps of Mountain Chief, Big Horn, Red Horn, Big Leg, Gray Eyes?"

Major Baker's eyes went from Lije to the officers.
"It doesn't matter too much. We'll find them and strike them
hard according to orders. Two hundred and eighty-seven men strong, or
close to it, counting those with the wagon train."

The eyes came back to Lije. "How long, how far
to the Marias?"

"T
hree sleeps, four, depending?

"
I plan to attack at dawn on the twenty-third,"
Major Baker told the officers. "If the weather is our enemy, it
is also our friend. Think of that other enemy, the Blackfeet, all
huddled in camp against the cold." He rubbed his hands. "Sitting
ducks."

He turned again to Lije. "You better be right,
saying you don't know where the villages are."

"
Camps move where game is, where wood is, where
grounds are clean," Lije answered. "My father is with Heavy
Runner. Heavy Runner keeps the peace. He is friendly. He has a
friendship paper."

"
Just answer my questions, will you? I know that
General Sully puts some trust in Heavy Runner." He spoke as if
he didn't himself or didn't care. "All the same, he's a
Blackfoot."

A man could stand so much and no more. Fire in the
head made him speak. "Just as you are a fucking fool officer."

For just a second Major Baker sat still while the
blood climbed through his beard to his forehead. Then he was on his
feet. So were the others.

"
Captain Ball," Major Baker said through
his teeth. "I want this man thrown in the guardhouse."

"
Yes, sir."

Captain Ball went to the door and called out. A
sergeant came in. Captain Ball said, "Put this man in the
guardhouse and keep him there."

"
For how long, sir?"

Major Baker said, "Forever."

Lije told him, "I'll see you in hell."

As he was led out, Major Baker was saying, "Sorry,
gentlemen. Ten o'clock in the morning then. Show the colors but only
at first."

Sure. Show the colors. Then sneak, then kill, then
show the colors again.

With a candle to light the way, a guard unlocked a
door, showed him through and led him to an empty cot. "Blankets
enough to keep you warm, maybe," the guard said. "Sweet
dreams." He could hear other men in the room, breathing deep,
stirring, snoring. One of them let a long fart. They were in for
nothing much — for fighting, for being absent without leave, for
getting drunk, for not being respectful.

Think happy, Lije told himself. Think happy if you
can. Better to think back at what was than ahead at what might be. I
pray thee, O Lord . . .

Brother Potter lay dead, and there was no shovel to
dig a grave with. Older Indians would have lashed the body to a stout
tree branch and left him to the storms and the winds and the birds.
Lije rode into the mining camp and hired a helper who had two
shovels. At four feet the man said, "That's enough." It
would be with the stones Lije would lay on the sod. The man rubbed
his hands. "You been through his pockets?"

"
Nobody touches them. Nobody."

"
All right. All right. But maybe he carried the
names of relatives, like brothers and sisters."

"
The whole world was his brothers and sisters."

The man looked at him queerly and said, "That's
a pile of kinfolks. Time to lower him, then`?"

Lije took Brother Potter's shoulders and his helper
the feet.

"
Hefty old devil, ain't he?" the man said.

Lije let himself down into the grave, careful not to
step on the body, taking with him a piece of canvas and Brother
Potter's Bible and hymn book. He laid the canvas over the old face
and placed the books over his heart. They put the sod over Brother
Potter, and the helper rode away, taking with him some gold dust that
Lije had carried ever since he left home. Keep them safe, O Lord, I
pray in Thy name.

He stood there and recited the Twenty-third Psalm,
Brother Potter's favorite, and then the Lord's Prayer. Afterward he
prayed to gods he didn't know, to the great god of sun and moon and
stream and earth and life. He led Brother Potter's old saddle horse
close to the grave. The Indians could be right. Maybe a man needed a
horse, a ghost horse, in the great and everlasting hunting grounds.
He shot the horse between the eyes. Then, being alone, he sat down
and cried.

Guard them and keep them, Lord, my God.

Brother Potter would have prayed for their souls, not
so much for their lives. They had traveled far, he and the old man,
to places east and west of the mountains, to towns and beginning
settlements, to mining camps and humble homes where sometimes a few
of the faithful gathered, and to everybody Brother Potter preached
his kind and forgiving religion. He never took up a collection, or
needed to. He accepted only a bit of the offerings, saying, "Build
a church. Build a house of God." At night, or whenever time
allowed, he taught Lije, using the Bible and hymnal, and simple
reading books and arithmetics that he begged or bought along the way.
Teaching must be hard work, but never once had Brother Potter raised
his voice except to sing the praises of Jesus.

Lord, let the major see the light, I pray thee.

Brother Potter was saying as he gave him a letter, "I
have taught you all I can, son and brother. Soon it is time that you
leave me. Take this letter to my friend, General De Trobriand at Fort
Shaw. He is or was the commanding officer of the district of Montana.
If he is not there, give it to the man in command."

So he came to Fort Shaw on the Sun or Medicine River
and, after only a few questions, was taken on as interpreter. Fort
Shaw was pleasant in those late summer days. Trees shaded some of the
buildings and walkways, and the wives of the officers, the few of
them that were there, went strolling in the soft afternoons, and the
troopers tried not to let hunger show in their faces. A man, taking a
walk, might laze by the officers' quarters, the barracks, the bakery,
the storehouse, the carpenter shop, the stables and granary. There
was a building for the post trader, and there was a sawmill. Except
for the presence of uniforms, a man could hardly believe that this
little settlement, without blockhouses or loopholes, was a fort. He
might think that peace had arrived.

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence
cometh my help.

The night crawled on, the long night of winter when
the sun went to bed early and got up late. A bugle sounded, and a
guard came in to say, "Get up, you bedbugs. Breakfast's comin',
late on account all the troops had to be fed."

One by one the men rose, groaning and stretching, and
filed though the door that another guard watched. In the gray of the
morning Lije stayed in his bunk. There was a window to look through
when things got started.

By and by, hearing sounds, he went to the window.
Watchers had ranked themselves in front of the fort. Beyond them were
the cavalrymen and the horses and the clouds of their breathing. And
farther beyond, the dead land stretched in frozen ridges and flats
with nothing more showing than skyline.

Major Baker, bulky in his buffalo coat, gave the
order to mount. The fort band played, drums thumping and rolling and
settling to the voices of horns.

The expedition rode off to the brave music, and a
breeze fluttered the colors above the mounted men whose furs and
blankets and robes dwarfed the horses.

There was room for a hand, a clenched hand, between
the bars on the window. He drove his fist through the glass.

39
IT WAS WARM in Heavy
Runner's lodge, warm when compared with the weather outside.

With his capote on Summers felt comfortable. A lively
fire burned. Heavy Runner's two wives sat cross-legged over at the
side while the men smoked.

Night was a good time to sit by the fire and speak
what came to mind. Every hour in this weather was a good time to stay
inside until hunger drove a man out, hoping for game.

Summers puffed and gazed around the lodge, not for
any real reason. It was the biggest lodge in the village, fitting for
a chief, and by day a man could see a fading picture of the great
white bear painted on the outside.

"
It is a time of great hunger," Heavy
Runner said.

"
You speak what I know."

"
The young ones dig for wild rats, and skunk, it
is eaten, too."

"
So I noticed."

"
Not one dog is left."

Summers let him go on. Indians liked to recite, no
matter if they said what everyone knew. By and by he would come
around to what he really wanted to talk about. It had been so now for
four or five nights, with Heavy Runner asking Summers to sit with him
while he worked his way around to his subject.

"Our young men, the good ones, hunt for the
buffalo and do not find him. Where are the buffalo, Bear Maker?"

"
Gone south or killed off, my friend."

"
We are a camp of old men and squaws and little
ones, and there is much sickness. Soon, maybe, we have to eat
horses." Heavy Runner made a sound in his throat. "So what
is here for anyone?"

With the main point reached, Summers said as he had
said before, "Those who killed Malcolm Clarke have not been
turned over, and no stolen horses."

"
My people did not kill him."

"
Horses?"

"
A few in our herd. I do not know how many. But
stealing horses, it is a game with us. It has always been so."

"
The white man thinks different."

"
How long since the white chiefs talked to us?"

"
You mark the suns and you know."

"
Maybe I forget. How many?"

"
Twenty-two suns by my count."

"
It is so. And how long did they give us?"

"
Fourteen. You know it."

"
So now it is seven and one suns more than the
day they say war."