Far as the Eye Can See (8 page)

Inside the tepee, we all sat in a big semicircle, and the old man lit this long pipe with beads and feathers a-hanging off of it. He passed it to his right and each brave puffed a bit, then passed it to the next until it reached Theo, who sat across from me, all the way on the other side of the half circle. Theo puffed, then passed it back toward the chief. When it got to him, he puffed it again, then passed it to his left and eventually it got around to me. I held it briefly, wondering at the sweet aroma. It was tobacco, but there was something else in it too. I puffed gently, inhaled it, and then passed the pipe back. The smoke was hot and almost made me cough. If I believed in a God, I’d of been praying very hard not to cough. But then one of the braves on my right coughed a bit and nobody seemed to notice. When the pipe was finished, Twines His Horse’s Tail spoke.

Big Tree looked gravely at General Cooney and me. “Women are grieving today,” he said. “They are cutting off their own fingers in their grief.”

Twines His Horse’s Tail waited for Big Tree to tell us what he said, then went on. “The dead man had many fathers. Many mothers,” Big Tree said.

Cooney looked puzzled but said nothing. I looked at Theo. He never took his eyes off the chief.

The chief glared at me when I turned back to him. I said nothing and there was a long pause that I thought I might of caused. But then I realized that the chief was waiting to see what Cooney had to say. Big Tree said to him, “What do you say?”

“I made a mistake,” Cooney said, his voice shaking. He really did feel it, I think. “I am sorry.”

Big Tree spoke those words in Crow and the chief nodded.

“What do you offer?” Big Tree said.

Cooney said, “I have two horses.”

Big Tree said that in Crow.

There was no response. It was quiet for a long time, then Cooney realized he had to say more. “I have a Springfield rifle, and two Confederate pistols.”

When Big Tree spoke, Twines His Horse’s Tail said something emphatically, but his face was not angry. It was stern, maybe, but not angry.

“He says to keep your pistols,” Big Tree said. “He will take the horses and the rifle.”

There were nods and stern frowns all around. I know there was grieving somewhere in that camp but I didn’t hear none. When we all of us stood up, the braves didn’t want to look nobody in the eye. They kept their heads down and bowed out of the tepee, but I think they was proud of their leader and glad of the outcome.

As we got ready to depart, Theo said something to Twines His Horse’s Tail. They spoke quietly for a while, then shook hands. Theo come up behind me as we walked back to the circle of wagons outside the fort. “I think I know what happened to Preston,” he said.

I stopped, but he got up to me and said, “Keep walking.”

When we got back to our camp, I went with Theo to get water. We walked in silence down to the riverbank, each carrying two buckets. We filled them both with water. We started back up the bank, and still Theo said nothing. I had my carbine slung over my shoulder but it kept slipping down because of the two heavy buckets I was hauling. I had to keep stopping and putting the thing back in place.

Finally I put the buckets down. Theo said, “Put the sling over your head and carry the rifle across your back.”

I’d already had that idea and was in the process of doing just that. “I don’t generally like it this way,” I said. “I can’t get it in hand and ready to shoot very fast if I got to pull it up over my head.”

“I reckon you’d ought to’ve had enough of shooting fast.”

“It wasn’t me,” I said.

“You won’t need the gun here.” He set his buckets down and waited for me.

When I had the rifle in place and was ready to start again, I said, “What’d you find out about Preston?”

“I just traded two army mules to Twines His Horse’s Tail for his wagon.”

“That was Preston’s wagon?”

He nodded.

“How do you know that?”

“Didn’t you see the back wheel? It was missing a spoke. I used a axe handle to repair it.”

“It was the same one?”

“Unmistakable.”

“So the Crow killed him?”

“No. I don’t think so. Like I said, they’re on our side. But Twines His Horse’s Tail may know what happened.” He leaned down and picked his buckets up again and so did I. With the rifle across my back, it was easier. When we got back to camp and handed the water over to the women, Theo invited me to set a spell by his wagon. Nobody else was there except me and him. He said he’d take the two mules over to the chief in the morning and then he’d find out what happened.

“Maybe he knows what happened to Joe Crane too,” I said.

Theo had a pipe of his own and he filled it with tobacco and lit it. He offered me some of it but I didn’t want it. He puffed awhile, watching the sun get swallowed by a great white mountain of a cloud.

“I think we’ll start out again in the next day or so,” he said.

“What did the old chief mean, the dead brave had many fathers and mothers?”

He shrugged. “The Indians don’t keep their children like we do. They adopt.”

“Adopt?”

“Young’uns are the business of the whole tribe,” he said. “A young boy or girl can be taken on by grandparents or interested neighbors. Hell, among them folks almost every adoption is welcomed. The children live where it is most convenient for the tribe. And for the young folks. A couple only married for a year or two needs their privacy. So the children are adopted and taken care of. Later in life, that same couple will adopt and take care of a young’un. It might be their grandson or their closest neighbor’s boy or girl. Things get took care of and it ain’t done with no lawyers nor clergy, neither.”

“That’s sort of how it worked in my family,” I said. “I was raised by my aunt.”

He nodded.

“She was pretty indifferent to me.”

“It ain’t that way with Indians. Each one of them feels and acts like a child’s parent. A kid is pretty lucky to be born among them folks.”

“I guess so.”

“And when one of them dies, he is grieved by all of his parents. The women will mutilate themselves. Cut off digits and such.”

“Jesus Christ,” I said.

“Maybe physical pain helps them forget the other kind.”

“All through the war,” I said, “the one thing I known for sure was that if I died, nobody would grieve a lick.”

“Well. That may be a lucky way to go through this here business.”

“As you say.”

He smiled. “In the end, ain’t none of us nothing but alone. And nobody gets out of here alive, neither.”

“I know,” I said. “I know that.”

The next day Theo found out what happened to Preston. He’d gone as far as Fort Sully in the Dakota Territory, near the Cheyenne River Agency. He was so close he could almost see the Black Hills. Then he got in a fight with one of the Sioux scouts over a horse. Roman Turley ordered him to give one of his horses to this Indian named Small Knife. Preston said he wouldn’t do it. Twines His Horse’s Tail did not know why Preston owed the Sioux brave a horse, but whatever it was, Preston took the horse and his wagon and lit out for the southern trail, back toward where he come. He may of wanted to join up with our train again. “He almost made it,” Theo said.

“Small Knife caught up with him?”

“No. Turley sent three of his new recruits after him.”

“Why?”

“Probably to keep the peace,” Theo said. “Folks don’t like it when a Indian kills a white man, it don’t matter what for. So Turley would’ve made sure white men took care of it. We may never know why Preston owed that fellow a horse. But it was the three who went after him that hung him up for a horse thief and then set fire to him.”

“Big Tree was right. He said it was white men.”

“The chief said one of them was just a kid.”

“How’s he know that?”

“They traded him the wagon for two horses, some buffalo meat, and a few skins.”

I shook my head.

“Chief said the small young one wore a white hat with dark eagle feathers in the brim and had a white pony. He did all the talking and the others followed him around. He said he must have good medicine.”

“Well, whoever they was, they was murderers.”

“I expect they thought it was justice. Seeing as how Preston run off with that horse.”

“But if he was ordered to give it up, that ain’t really stealing, is it? He disobeyed a order, is all.”

Theo puffed on his pipe and stared off at the white clouds. “It don’t matter what you call it, now, does it? Preston’s paid for it, whatever it was.” It was early morning, but the sky was magnificent with all that mixture of clouds like white cliffs and mountains and the dark blue behind them. “I traded Twines His Horse’s Tail a pistol and a mule for that old wagon and I’ll let you have it if you trade me that repeater of yours.”

“I’d rather have the rifle, thank you.”

He tried to talk me into it. Finally I agreed that he could have it if something happened to me. I signed a piece of paper that said as much and he give it to his wife, then told me the wagon was mine. The next day I bought two horses from the army—used my last ten dollars—and hitched them to the wagon. I tied Cricket to the back of it.

We was getting ready to embark again. Some of the river Crows was going to ride along with us for a spell. They known we was headed into Sioux country and the Crow wanted to steal horses from the Sioux—their worst enemy. In fact, Theo told me that the word “Sioux” means “Enemy.” The Sioux call themselves Lakota or Dakota. There’s a lot of them—a lot more than the Crow—and they roam all around this part of the country, making war on just about everybody they please. Red Top was a Wahpekute Dakota, and all the trouble in Minnesota Territory, Iowa, and the plains was blamed on him. Theo said, “He ain’t never had more than twenty or thirty braves with him, but he can fight like Sheridan or Forrest, and it would take a Sheridan or Forrest to run him down.”

“I hope we don’t run into him.”

“The army will ride with us for a spell—until we get to Fort Wallace. Then we’re going to turn north a bit, cross the Republican River, and head for Fort Sedgwick.”

“Where we going after that?”

“Bozeman, Montana Territory—Fort Ellis.”

“Think we’ll make Bozeman before winter?”

“Absolutely. We’ll be there by August, the latest.”

“With or without trouble?”

“Oh,” Theo said. “There’s always some kind of trouble.”

Chapter 4

We traveled a long way with the army right next to us, or never further than a couple miles away. The country was teeming with game. We killed deer, elk, rabbit, buffalo, and every kind of fowl. Big Tree killed a cougar, skinned it, and ate it, and nobody wanted no part of that meat. He offered it too. I was beginning to see that he wasn’t a parsimonious fellow.

We seen things I didn’t think was possible. One day a great big bald eagle swooped down and picked up a small dog. It carried the thing high up to its nest on the top of a slim, craggy rock formation which was flat on the top. Theo said that normally a eagle would fly up way in the sky and drop small prey like that to kill it, then they’d sweep down, pick it up, and carry it to the nest to eat. But this eagle took it all the way up to the top of that rock, and never dropped it. The great bird set the dog down in the nest and the damn pup stood there and wagged its tail, looking down at us, and eventually it commenced whimpering to beat all. We stopped the train to watch it. The eagle flew around over its head like some kind of winged death. And the dog started howling finally. We had no time to wait long enough to see what happened to it, but I couldn’t help but think that maybe we’re all a little bit like that dog. We occupy our little space of earth and wait for the damn bird to strike.

We seen a tornado drop down out of the sky like a twisting snake and rake the whole world for as far as we could see. It moved away from us, but the rain it sent back our way was sharp as coffin nails, and you had to lean down to let it bang against your hat or you’d come away with skin cut just as bad as if a warrior sliced at you with a hunting knife.

We seen a three-legged wild pig chase down a groundhog and kill it with one powerful bite. The pig seemed to yell something to us when it was done. Like it wanted us to come on over and see what he might do with that snout on one of us. Theo said, “There’s a reason the Cheyenne call them things devil dogs.”

We continued north and west, and left the army behind when we crossed the Republican River in Nebraska. In a few days we was into Colorado Territory, headed to Fort Sedgwick. By the time we got there I was feeling pretty well at home in the big West. I known what I was doing. Big Tree showed me how to clean the meat off a buffalo, then wrap it in the skin and make a big package that we could carry along with us. We did the same thing to most everything we killed except for the fowl. Them we pulled the feathers, gutted, and hung up on thongs to dry a little before we cooked them up the same day. The wrapped meat would last a long time. Wrapped up in the bloody skin and hung up on poles to dry out, it tasted fresh even several days after we killed it.