Mountain Man - Vardis Fisher Page 14

  Well, one fact to keep in mind was this, that if sixty redmen faced an enemy every single one of them would figure that if one and only one of his party was killed he would be the dead man. If two were killed, or three or five, he would be one of them. It was for this reason that the warriors of most tribes would turn and run after one or two or three had been killed. The whiteman, on the other hand, figured that if only one of sixty were to die the odds were fifty-nine to one in his favor. He was likely to think the odds greater than that, for the reason that he did not look on himself as an average fighter.

  On arriving at Bridger’s post Sam was so sunk in brooding and plotting that he carried a part of his pelts in, asked for a reckoning, and turned to leave. Jim’s strange eyes had been studying him. Jim called out, “I doan see hide ner hair yer wife.”

  Sam turned. “She’s dead.”

  “How thet happen?” asked Jim, showing no astonishment.

  “Crows.”

  Jim took a few moments to consider that and then followed Sam outside. “Sartinly not the Crows, Sam.” Bridger had in mind that Beckwourth and Rose had been Crow chiefs, and that a number of the free trappers had taken Crow women. His eyes said he didn’t think the Crows had done it.

  “The Crows,” Sam said, cinching up his packs.

  “I jist can’t believe it. Did ye find plenty sign?”

  “Plenty.”

  To change the subject Jim said, “Black Harris wuz here. Says a million Mormons is comin through this summer. All back there on Misery Bottoms gitting their wagons ready.”

  Sam was no longer interested in Mormons and Brigham Young and his wives.

  “‘Heerd anuther thing,” said Jim, trying to get Sam to talk.

  “Lot of the boys are meetin up at Laramie bout now. They might know if the Crows done it. There’s Powder River Charley—”

  Sam said, “For what I have coming give me credit. Watch your topknot, Jim.”

  “Jist a minute,” said Jim. He walked over to Sam and looked at Sam’s eyes. “Yer kinda young. Ye intend ter go inter the Crow country?”

  “Right through the middle of it,” Sam said.

  “I wooden do that, Sam. Ye intend ta fight the hull nation?”

  “The hull nation.”

  Jim was still looking at Sam’s eyes. He put forth a gnarled hand and said, “I reckon, then, I best give ye a handshake, fer I doan spect I’ll see ye agin.”

  “I figger you will,” Sam said, and clasped the hand.

  From Bridger’s on Black’s Fork he rode east and north to Green River; then east and north to South Pass, the Sweetwater, and the Oregon Trail, which he followed east to the Laramie post, where he would trade for supplies and, if lucky, a fast horse. On this long ride he tried to lighten his mood by singing songs, but the only one that would rise from his depths was “Sorrow, Sorrow, Stay.” He couldn’t sing “To Ce1ia” any more, or “When Laura Smiles” or a dozen others, for there rose before him the picture of his girl-wife on that long sweet journey south, and he would reach behind him to touch the blanket that enfolded the bones and flowers.

  A few of the free trappers were at the post; after their long lonely winter they were eager to swap talk but Sam did not want to talk. Lost-Skelp Dan came over to him. Dan was a big man; he stood a good six feet two in moccasins and weighed two hundred and twenty. He had large full pale-blue eyes that were cold and mean but that had a light touch of warmth when he looked at Sam. Dan had heard that Sam’s wife had been killed, though how he had heard it Sam was never to know, for no rider had passed him on the Trail.

  Dan wanted to express sympathy but he was clumsy and tactless. He did manage to say at last, “Sam, ever need any help, jist holler.”

  “Thanks,” Sam said. He would never holler. What he wondered was whether Crows at this post had talked about the death of Lotus.

  Mick Boone was there and Mick had also heard about it. All the trappers knew that Mick had one of the fastest horses in the West, a big strong bay with the lines of a racer. Mick first asked Sam if he would join him in a drink. Sam thanked him and said he never drank. “Bad habit,” Mick said, and put on the queer smile he had when self-conscious. It took him a few moments to get the words out. He said he figgered as how Sam might like to use his bay for a while.

  Sam looked into Mick’s brown eyes and said, “I couldn’t take your bay.”

  “Not a thing to stop you,” Mick said. “If ya aim to ride plum through Crow country—and I figger ya do—you’ll need a fast horse or ya might never reach the other side.”

  “You might be right,” Sam said.

  “I’1l change the saddles,” Mick said.

  So Mick took the stud and Sam set off on the big bay. The news would spread fast that the Crows had killed Sam Minard’s wife and unborn child, and that after declaring war on the whole nation Sam was showing what kind of business he meant by riding clear across, it, alone. When he rode away into the north Sam was not thinking of that. He was again thinking of the nature of his enemies. The vast plains-and-mountains area, which they claimed as their own and fought to hold, lay chiefly upon the southern drainage of the Yellowstone—upon its tributaries, the Bighorns, the Rosebud and the Powder and the Tongue. The heart of the Crows was the valley of the Bighorns, though they claimed the lands lying in all directions from these rivers, to a considerable distance. Sam had heard it said by some of the older trappers that the Crows had the finest bodies of all the redmen; that they were the handsomest; and the ablest hunters; and the most expert thieves; and that of all the red warriors they were the deadliest shots with the whiteman’s weapons. The American Fur Company had built four, the Missouri Fur Company two posts solely for their convenience in

  trading.

  It saddened Sam to think that these people had made him their enemy, for he had been a little enchanted by them. Four hundred Crow lodges on the move was a remarkable spectacle in rhythm and color—the warriors in their richly ornamented robes, with floating and flowing fringes and feathers and headpieces; and with the principal squaws in really elegant mantles and cloaks of birdskins, spangled over with beads. Standing upon the mother’s backs were a hundred papooses, in cradles as richly ornamented as the mothers’ garments, the children swathed tight but standing, their bright black eyes expressing joy in life. Behind the procession or ahead of it or on its flanks were hundreds of ponies under huge burdens, as well as hundreds of dogs so covered over with camp litter that almost no part of them was visible. From a distance it looked as if a prairie of brilliant colors was flowing in a gentle wind.

  Well, it was by their own cowardice and brutality that Sam Minard was their enemy now. Mick, like Bridger, had acted as if he doubted that the Crows had done it. But Sam knew the print of the Crow moccasin. The Cheyennes, Arapahoes, and Comanches all had an inside straight edge on their cowskin moccasins, and the point so turned as to give the wearer the appearance of being pigeon-toed. The Pawnee moccasin looked for all the world as if the Indian had placed his foot in the center of a piece of buckskin and then pulled all the edges to the top of the foot, in front of the ankle, with the rear part brought up behind the leg and tied round with leather string. The Crow moccasin, like their clothing, was so expertly tanned and made that its print was skin-smooth in every part of it, with no sign of the little bulges and irregular seams that marked most of the others. He had examined with the utmost care a dozen footprints. To one who had made a study of the prints of different tribes the Crow print was as plain and as unlike any other as their manner of cutting their hair—the Cheyennes and Eutaws wore their hair in long loose locks, cut off close above the brows so that vision would not be obscured. The Pawnees and Kansas shaved the front and back, leaving only a topknot at the crown, which was so stiff with grease and grime that it stood up straight and barely wavered in a wind. The Blackfeet usually confined their hair in two long braids; the Crows, more artistic in hairdress than any of the others, arranged their hair to harmonize with their elaborate and colorfu
l headdress.

  Maybe Mick and Jim hadn’t made a study of footprints. Maybe they didn’t know that the Crows were more nomadic than any other tribe. It was not unusual for these skulking thieves to be seen a thousand miles from their central village, for with their faster horses they could easily outrun their pursuers. Most of the red people occupied settlements that were more or less fixed, in the center of which might be a big lodge of buffalo skins painted red and tattooed with the secret and magic totems of the tribe. Not far from this central station there might be a scalp pole, from which the scalps, some dried and shrunken, some still wet and bloody, flapped in the winds. The scalp pole was the visible measure of a nation’s heroism. Near it was another pole from which hung the medicine bags with their strange and potent contents. Sam, like most of the mountain men, had made a study of totems, because from the nature of the totem could be inferred the character of the people—the eagle, wolf, bear, fox, serpent, wolverine, hawk—though Sam had concluded that the choice of totem was largely determined by the kind of country the tribe occupied. The skins of totems were often to be seen stuffed and set up in conspicuous places for worship. All the tribes Sam had visited seemed to be, in the way of small children, fond of strong bright colors, particularly red, yellow, vermilion, and blue. Sometimes for black as a medicine color they used the scraped-off powder of charred wood, mixed with gunpowder, if they had it. Whitemen had laughed themselves into exhaustion when told the story of the brave who smeared his entire body with gunpowder and moved close to a fire and exploded. This was the same reckless warrior who had eaten buffalo tongue at a time when it was taboo to him, and had so paralyzed the whole village with terror that to save his people and himself he had thrust and pulled his tongue out so far that the roots of it were almost in the front of his mouth. At the same time he had bellowed with such rage and pawed the earth into such dust clouds, as he snorted and heaved, that he had cast off the malevolent spell and returned his people to safety and calm.

  Few things had more astonished Sam and the other trappers, or brought from them more vigorous expressions of contempt, than the redman’s fanatical devotion to a mysterious and intricate system of ceremonial and magic. The Indian’s world was so overrun by evil spirits and wicked powers that there were times when he was immobilized: he could not shoot a rabbit or make a fire or put on his war paint without first engaging in his mystical and propitiating grunts and gestures. There was his pipe, which he passed in solemn supplication to all the directions and to every conceivable thing, including sun, moon, winds, and sky. He had many symbols attached to his lodges, utensils, and war tools. No hunting party, no war party, no journey could be undertaken, no lodge could be built or buffalo robe made, and no planting could be strewn in its furrows or harvest gathered, without first going through his interminable childish rituals. This gave to enemies an advantage they were quick to seize; now and then a band of warriors was attacked when by magic and conjuration and thaumaturgy it was simply helpless and useless and not able to fight.

  Sam was thinking that now and then he might catch a few of them without their medicine bags, and find it as easy to knock them over as to knock over fool hens. His grief was so hot and his hatred so black that he did not care if when he fell on them they were not prepared to fight; he intended to shoot them and knife them and knock their heads off, as undisturbed by their cries as a wolf seizing a rabbit. Looking round him at the miracle of spring, listening to the arias of bluebird and meadow lark, gathering early flowers to press into the blanket, and thinking, over and over, of the joy with which he had looked forward to riding north with his wife, he actually turned pale with suppressed furies, and promised himself that a dozen scalps would dangle from his saddlebags within a month. To show his contempt the might even collect, and display, an assortment of their medicine bundles, such as the stuffed heads of wolves, or the skin, claws, teeth, and feathers of various birds and beasts, whose virtues the absurd creatures believed they had assimilated. Still, Windy Bill had said that they were no more ridiculous than those white people who partook of different sacraments.

  Above all, Sam wanted them to know who was about to strike, when they heard his cry; who had killed a warrior, when they found the flesh and bones. So he decided, while riding along, to leave his mark on every dead brave—a mark that the whole Crow nation would recognize as his mark. The whole nation would also know his battle cry. He wished he had a trumpet. If only he could drive the whole damned Crow people into mourning or lunacy! That would be a sight to ennoble the heart, equal to Napoleon and his ragged army hurled back from Moscow. A Crow when mourning and lamenting a slain or mortally wounded warrior hacked at nearly all parts of his body, and sometimes cut off one or more fingers: what gouts of blood he would make flow! In what rivers of blood he would avenge his wife and child! How the men, women, and children, the whole nation, all of them, would set up a wild dismal howling and quavering and shrieking that would curdle the blood of a loon or a wolf. If ten braves came forth to take him, as a war party had once gone forth to take a Blackfeet chief, with none and nothing ever returning except the moccasin-carrying pack-dogs, what an infernal sky-filling bedlam of rage and frustration the Crow nation would be! It overjoyed him to think of it. It would be like the time Jim Clyman told of—of a camp gone wild and stark mad with woe after looking on a scene of slaughter: how the women and children had torn at their flesh and screamed, with all around them the frenzied howling of dogs, the insane neighing and braying of horses and mules, the mournful hooting of owls, and over it all the horrible sickening stench of grief and sweat and dung and warm blood and mingled coyote and dog odors.

  The Crow war whoop, “Hooo-ki-hi/” that had raised the hair on Sioux, Blackfeet, and Cheyenne and made the gooseflesh swarm down their backs would be stilled in a lot of throats. A lot of braves now strutting in their gaudy war paints and battle dress would count coup no more. Coup, which in this land was pronounced coo, in the French way, was the highest heroism an Indian warrior could aspire to: to count coup he had to strike an enemy with his quirt or bow or knife or coup stick before he attacked him; or he had to take from the enemy all his weapons; or he had to slip up afoot and steal the horse of an enemy tied to his own lodge. There were a lot of ways to touch coup, all of them devised to show more than ordinary courage. After a warrior had counted coup he had the right to wear an eagle feather in his hair, and another thereafter for each coup he made. If he were so clumsy or frightened while attempting a coup that he received a wound he had to wear a feather painted red. Sam had seen a Crow chief with seven feathers in his hair. Against one of such valor he doubted that he would ever have a chance; to bring him down the nation would send only the young warriots who were the bravest, fleetest, and deadliest, or the most adept in stratagems, such as tracking and ambush.

  Let them come, the cowardly unspeakable murderers of a lone woman and her unborn child! Let the chief send those who were battle-hardened; who had waged war against the Lacota or Sioux, the Striped-Feather-Arrows or Cheyennes, the Tattooed-Breasts or Arapahoes. Let them all come! Let even the Pine-Leafs come! A legend said that Pine-Leaf when only twelve years old lost a brother in battle, and thereupon vowed that she would never marry or do a woman’s work until she had killed a hundred of the enemy. Sam did not know if she had killed any or what had become of her; or indeed if such a girl had lived. And there was the squaw named She-could-be-dead, whose man had been slain; she then became as crazy as two wildcats with their tails tied together: mounting a pony and armed only with bow and arrows and knife, she had gone forth alone against the Cheyennes. Nobody seemed to know what became of her, but in legends there she was, riding—riding—riding forever, at great speed across the plains and ravines, her bronzed face smeared with red ochre, her arrows, tipped with lightning, dashing into the foe’s breast. Sam had heard at least a dozen stories of the furious intrepid assaults of red women whose men had been killed. Now and then, a tale said, one of them returned from the warpath, her f
ace as black as night as a sign that she had triumphed over the enemy. His weeks with Lotus had acquainted him with the spirit and daring of the Indian girl.

  He wished, while riding along and making plans, or pausing to target-shoot with his revolvers, that he had a good knowledge of the Crow tongue, so that he could hurl abominable and shocking insults at the moment of striking. Powder River Charley spoke the language as well (he said) as the Crows themselves; he liked to make fun of them by translating what he had heard them say: “In the mornin this ole woman her garden when she come and to it got was all pulled up. This ole woman it was. What I wonder is this, come and to it got was all pulled up. What I wonder is this, said she. All the time critters none whatever git to me truly, this what is it that me has got to? The tracks small were they when looked at them she. Bad critters thought she bad. This ole woman this night she laid down she prayed. When mornin come then the garden in she hid. Them there bad men them she wanted to ketch. Time passed. Passed more time. Moon come, moon sick, moon gone. This which she hid in the garden what she took back this ole woman there was nuthin there was nuthin. This ole woman over there food she puts away in holler tree. Then come time this ole woman was not there she wherever she went to. In the garden always there is none no none. The food she stored in the holler tree its eater did she kill? Doggone don’t ask me.”