So he settled himself beside a fallen cottonwood, downwind of where he thought game might come to drink, and waited until twilight for game to come. He rested the heavy Sharps across the log, tried to make his bad leg comfortable, and eyed a place in the riverbank where he had seen the split hoofprints of deer. And then one did come; actually two, a doe and a newborn fawn still on her teat, a small spotted waif of a deer-child. The mother looked everywhere, her tail twitching, and then drifted toward the riverbank, across the sights of Skye’s Sharps.
But he did not shoot. He could not say why, except it had to do with his age and a reverence for new life. He watched the doe drink for a few moments, and then drift into shadow, the baby a few paces away, and then vanish into brush.
“Goddammit,” Victoria said. “I was afraid you’d shoot her.”
fifteen
Blue Dawn of the Shoshone People was a curiosity to every passing wagon company. The Big Road wasn’t crowded but she passed companies every little while. Most of them were entirely male, and they walked beside creaking wagons drawn by oxen. A few companies consisted of families, and these usually had wagons with the big sheets curving over the tops. Once in a while a single family traveled on its own, risking trouble but going at its own pace.
She rode beside the river the whites called the North Platte, with her two spare ponies behind her. Once in a while she shifted her high-cantle squaw saddle to another of the ponies, so that all bore her burden. The breeze-curried prairies stretched endlessly in all directions, and at some distant place they merged with the sky. Often they were rough and hilly, and in these places she feared trouble, apart from the eyes of other travelers.
She had evolved a way of dealing with these white people, and stuck with it. She never spoke English but only her own tongue, though she understood them well enough. She scarcely knew what to expect. The all-male companies sometimes eyed her in a way that worried her, their assessing gazes obvious. Other times, when westering families crowded around her, parents sharply warned their children to stay away from the filthy squaw.
“Don’t you get close to her, hear me? You’ll get nits.”
“Hey, Ma, a wild injun! You think she’ll kill us?”
“Diseased, that’s what. Look at her, dark and savage, them eyes full of fever.”
She pretended not to hear. It was safer. But sometimes men who knew a thing or two about sign language or Indians waylaid her.
“What tribe’s you, little lady?” an ex-Confederate soldier asked. He was still in his shabby grays, but the stripes had been ripped off from his arms. He was walking beside a mule-drawn wagon with half a dozen bearded young men.
She ignored him.
“You understood me well enough, I’m thinking. Was I to guess, I’d say Snakes. You a Snake?”
She saw he knew something, and finally nodded.
“You going somewheres?”
She shook her head.
“I’d say you’s going somewheres. We’re inviting you to dinner, little lady.”
She stared, and moved to go, touching her moccasins to her pony, but this one caught her hackamore.
“Such a rush,” he said, grinning. He had watery blue eyes and a gray slouch hat, and a hairy face. She read his intentions all too well.
There wasn’t much she could do with only a sheathed knife at her waist, and half a dozen of these rather young drifters eyeing her. For the moment she would stick with her silence. They caught her ponies, peered into the panniers, found the packet of letters, and read them.
“Looks like these are for some squaw man named Skye. But you ain’t Crow, far as I can see,” the blue-eyed one said. “You got you a man named Skye?”
She simply refused to acknowledge anything.
“You git yourself off that pony, sweetheart, and join up with us for some chow and we’ll pass a jug around after she gets dark,” he said. “Don’t pretend you can’t understand me. I read you mighty well, and I know damned well you’ve got every word I’m saying.”
She saw how it would go. Once they started drinking, it wouldn’t be long before they would have their way with her, and then maybe kill her.
“Miz Poontang, off that pony now,” one said.
“I do not know that word,” she replied.
He grinned. “Likely we’ll teach you.”
“I am on my way to St. Louis to see my son. He is in a school run by Jesuits.”
“Yeah, they got a school for breeds and bastards.”
“I don’t know those words.”
“Half-breeds, Miz Poontang, whelped by whites and colored.”
“I am very happy to go see my son.”
“Well, we’re right happy to spend a happy night in this happy place with a happy lady.”
“Please let go of the horse. I will go now.”
“Get down, little lady. We’re going to have us a party.”
The others were igniting a fire of kindling and buffalo chips. They looked as eager as this unkempt veteran in gray, but were leaving the matter to him. There was no one else in sight. They were a mile or two from the North Platte River, where she might escape in the underbrush, but here they were in open prairie.
“Guess I’ll have to help you down,” he said.
“I don’t know your name.”
“Johnny Reb,” he said.
In one fluid move, he slid an arm around her waist and lifted her down. He pushed her to the ground and held her there with a strength that surprised her.
“Got some ponies here,” he said to one of the others.
That one gathered the lead lines and led them into the twilight.
“Nice party, Miz Poontang. We got a little jug we’ve been saving, just for this heah evening.”
Once they began sampling the jug, she would be lost. The others looked uncommonly cheerful as they did their evening chores in a lingering twilight.
“My husband, Mister Skye, was with the Royal Navy. Then he was a big man with the American Fur Company. Then he was a guide.”
“Husband, is it. You mean he took up with you.”
“I was given by my family, the Shoshone way.”
The talky one grinned. “Sho’nuff,” he said. “What did the white man pay, eh?”
“He gave the gift of blankets and horses.”
“And you went off and whelped.”
Why did this man talk like this? As if it was all bad or wrong or cheap? Mary thought maybe she knew.
“Colonel Bullock took my son to St. Louis when he was eight,” she said. “I have been sad ever since then. Many winters have passed, and now I will see him. It is said he learns well, and knows words and numbers. I am very proud of him.”
“Breed,” her captor said. “Just a breed.”
“Our friend Colonel Bullock watches over us.”
Johnny Reb grinned. “Yank colonel, eh? That ain’t the way to make friends with me, Miz Poontang.”
“This man, he comes from a place called Virginia. He says it’s a very good place.”
“Likely story, squaw.”
The company had completed its evening chores and was gathering at the fire now, an eager anticipation flushing their faces. She thought she had sealed her own death, letting them know of her connections. They could not afford to let her go, now.
She studied everything in the twilight, noting where her ponies were picketed, where her packsaddle was, where they had put her halters and hackamore. Darkness would be her friend, if she survived that long. She eyed them coldly, a deep dread in her, but one mixed with resolve. She might never see her son, but some of them would never see another sunrise. She feared it had come to that.
Why did they dismiss her so? Her race, maybe. These were those who had black slaves, or at least fought on that side. Anyone colored like her could be beaten and used. They might do both, beat her and use her before they killed her. It would all be fueled by the fiery water in that crockery jug. Maybe if they had enough of it, they would fall senseless a
nd she could escape. But maybe they would force her to drink, hold her arms, pry open her mouth, and pour it into her. She had heard of such things.
She knew then what she would do.
“Hey, Johnny Reb. You want a party? Let’s party.”
He grinned at her. “We’ll take our time, Miz Poontang.”
“You got two jugs? Three jugs?”
“Just this one, sweetheart.”
“I’d like a jug all for me.”
The others were paying attention now, smiling. She wondered if they were going to eat, but no one was cooking anything. Apparently the evening’s entertainment trumped hunger. But the dark was the only friend she had.
“Hey, how about some eats, all right?”
“Who needs food?” Johnny Reb asked.
“I do. You keep me here, you feed me.”
“Nah, Miz Poontang, you don’t need a mouthful.”
“You make food. I make food.”
But she heard a cork squeal out of its socket and laughter. The plug was gone from the tan jug, and now the six men were all smiles. They settled into a small circle, legs the spokes in a wheel, as the night thickened. The smoky fire threw wavering orange light on them.
“Oh, it do smell like heaven,” one said.
“Want it neat, or cut?”
“What do ya take me for?” One of them lifted the jug and sipped.
“Ah!” he said, and laughed.
The jug went around. It came to her. She took a tiny sip.
“Oh, no, that ain’t how it’ll be, Poontang. Drink!”
She pretended. They watched hawkishly.
“You drink or we’ll pour it down you, bitch.”
She sipped slowly, not swallowing, and passed the jug along.
“Swallow, bitch!”
They were staring wolfishly at her now.
“Makes me sick,” she said, and spit it.
“Then get sick, squaw.”
But the jug had passed her by that time, and now the slugs going down male throats were longer and fiercer.
When the jug returned to her, Johnny Reb grabbed it, grabbed her, stuffed it into her lips, hurting her teeth, and poured hard. She gasped, coughed, and splattered whiskey over her heavy skirts.
“Drink!” he snarled.
He jammed the jug into her face and lifted it.
She clasped her hands around the jug to steady it, and then he let her hold the jug.
That was her moment. She lifted the jug upward, and then threw it with both hands into the smoldering fire. It shattered. The whiskey spread, and then flared in yellow flame.
“Goddamn bitch!” her captor cried, and threw her to the earth.
She rolled and sprang up, ran away from the flame, her heavy skirts slowing her progress.
He cursed, raced after her, grabbed her, and threw her down again.
She fought crazily, raking him with her fingernails, biting and writhing, but he caught her hair and yanked hard, throwing her head back with such violence that she felt something snap in her neck.
Then he was riffling her skirts, jamming them upward, his big chafed hands rough on her legs. She bit his arm, her teeth drawing salty blood, and he howled. She slammed a knee into him, catching his groin, and he howled again, his body folding. He let go of her, grabbing his crotch, and she rolled free. She didn’t wait, but staggered to her feet and plunged toward the mercy of dark, stumbling over prairie until she tumbled into a shallow depression, a foot or two deep, and there she threw herself to earth and stretched tight in the lee, where the bold orange light from the whiskey-fueled fire would not probe her. She scraped air into her lungs, quieted her gasping, and then forcibly stilled her body in the shallow safety of the gully.
“Goddamn squaw,” her captive yelled. “She’s out there.”
“Get the horses in,” someone said.
“Thieving redskin’ll steal’em.”
“What’d you give her the jug for, goddammit?”
“Oh, shut up, damn you.”
“A tin cup. Shove the tin cup of it down her throat.”
“Go to hell, Jackson.”
She heard someone come close, and this time she pulled her skinning knife from its waist sheath and waited. If it was to be blood and death this night, then she would give and take, even if she was one lone woman among hard young men.
“She ain’t far, and we got her nags,” someone said.
“I’ll kill her. Breaking that jug. Goddamn squaw.”
“Who cares about the jug? I was looking for some entertainment.”
“Who’d a thunk a squaw’d fight back? They just roll over.”
“You think she’ll give us trouble?”
“We’d best find her and shut her up for good.”
“Fat chance in the dark. She’s down to the river by now.”
“We’ll find her. Get the horses in, and if she comes for them, we’ve got her.”
Mary listened bitterly.
sixteen
The higher the half-moon rose, the more danger she was in. The shallow trough that protected her from firelight did not protect her from the cold white glare from the sky. The fire had died, and the men had fallen into their blankets. She peeked, and was disheartened by what she saw. Her packsaddle and saddle and horse tack had been placed close to the fire, within the circle of their bedrolls. Her ponies were picketed close. The chance of collecting her things and escaping in the white of the moon didn’t really exist. What’s more, one man was propped up against some harness, a rifle across his lap. She could not tell whether he was dozing, but he surely was a sentry.
She felt a moment of desolation, but quieted herself. All those years with Skye and Victoria had hardened her, given her a cast of mind that refused to surrender. She slowly raised her head again and studied the scene, thanking Mother Moon for giving her light. The high-walled wagon stood nearby, its tailgate down. Its mule team, six mules in all, were picketed some distance away. A saddle horse was tied to the wagon. On its back was a saddle. The men had a mule team plus one saddle horse, apparently kept ready to ride if trouble arose. She had seen this sort of thing before. The saddle would not be cinched.
She eyed her own saddle, with its bedroll, two blankets, rolled up and tied behind the cantle. But it and the packsaddle were within a few feet of three of the men. If she tried to lift either one, they would snare her.
She reluctantly gave up on that. They well knew she would be back and would try, so they made themselves ready for her. The same with her ponies. The picket pins were only a few feet from the men. If they caught her, who could say what they might do? These were the ones from the South, and what did they care about people whose flesh was darker? If they cared nothing for their black slaves, why would they care about her, with her copper flesh?
She eyed their saddle horse, which stood, head lowered, half asleep, one leg cocked. Would it startle if she approached? She saw no other choices. She crawled slowly along the trough in the earth, glad she was dark and was wearing a blue blouse and black skirt. She absorbed the light. She reached a place where the wagon cast a moon shadow. The horse was alert now, and she feared it might bolt. She stood slowly in the moon shadow, and the horse actually quieted. That was good. She took her time, studied the sleeping men, especially the one propped up on harness collars. Nothing changed.
She reached the horse, which turned and sniffed her. She ran a hand under its mane, and then under the surcingle, and found it loose, as she expected. Her fingers told her this was the type of girth with a buckle. She slowly tightened and buckled it. She located the reins, tied to a ring on the wagon. She might have an escape now if this horse didn’t give her away. She ghosted around to the tailgate, which was partially lit by the moon, and studied what lay within the wagon. Something white intrigued her and she tugged at something made of heavy fabric and discovered it was a poncho. That lifted her spirits. This time of year, a poncho was more valuable than a bedroll. She felt around, her fingers clasping o
n a small copper pot, and then on a cotton bag of something she thought was cornmeal. Food, a little kettle, a poncho. She laid the sack and the little pot in the poncho and rolled the poncho over them. She needed something to tie her kit together, and saw the heap of harness, with its lead lines. With her skinning knife she sawed some lines free, tied her bedroll kit together, and anchored it behind the cantle of the horse.
Someone stirred and she froze. A man rose, stared, headed toward the very trough that had hidden her, urinated, and returned to his bed, while she stood stock-still. These men were not caught in deep sleep, not with a white moon pouring light over them. She feared that they would follow her even though they would have three ponies in exchange for their saddle horse.
She waited until the camp quieted again, and then sawed through the tugs, the thick leather bands that collected the harness to the wagon. She could not get to her own hackamore to saw it in two, but she could cut the rest and give them a day or two of repairing. That would teach them to respect a woman of the Eastern Shoshones. She sat down and patiently cut here and there, her knife purring and muttering its way through leather until she was sure this company would not be moving soon. Her own ponies were staring at her, which was dangerous.
It was time to go. She paused in the moonshadow of the wagon, untied the saddle horse, which finally began sawing its head nervously, and then tugged. The horse followed along after a moment’s pause. She surveyed the country. If she headed straight east, she would be in sight a great distance, in this cold light. If she reached the woodlands along the Platte, she would swiftly vanish from view. She would walk north to the river, then, and hope they slept.
She took one last look at the camp. The man lying against the collars had sat up and was staring. She had apparently made enough noise to stir him out of his doze. She froze. He stood, alert, but not knowing where to look.
She had intended to lead the saddle horse away and mount it later, but now she tried to wait him out. The wagon was the one area he was not looking. He was eyeing the mules and her ponies, looking at the way their ears were cupped. Only then did he turn slowly toward the wagon. She stood in shadow, and was grateful she wore dark clothing. Still, he was not satisfied, and finally drifted toward the wagon. She knew she had only moments, so she put foot to stirrup and lifted herself onto the saddle, as the horse sidestepped nervously, unfamiliar with this rider.
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