North Star

by Richard S. Wheeler

  He saw her then, shouted, and she kicked the horse hard. It bolted toward the river. She heard another shout, and a blast, and felt her horse react to something, even as something stung her arm. A fowling piece. The horse pitched and then settled into a hard run, but she had no trouble hanging on. It leaped the trough that had sheltered her and thundered hard toward the loose-knit cottonwoods ahead. She heard a few more cracks, rifles now, and some distant shouts, and then she fled into the moon-dappled shade of wide-spaced cottonwoods and willows, their leaves throwing darkness here and there. She reached the North Platte suddenly, pushed through thick brush, felt her horse sink in muck, remembered that this wide, shallow river sucked horses and people to their doom, and yanked the horse sharply right. It floundered a moment, gathered itself, and plunged out of the sucking sand onto firmer ground. She halted, and it stood trembling, its breathing harsh and desperate. She itched to move, but knew she was a long way from the men, and let the horse regain its composure. Then she steered the horse free of the band of brush and into the moonlit woods. She paused, looking for the men, and heard distant shouts and curses as they discovered the extent that she had immobilized them.

  She thought she was free, and steered the horse quietly downriver, but then she saw that one had saddled her pony and was trotting hard toward her. The others had caught her other ponies and were obviously rigging makeshift tack.

  She kept her horse at a walk, but steered him into deeper woods, until the horse was slowed by fallen limbs and brush, and then let the animal pick its way. This was noisy. The horse was snapping limbs, lurching through brush, and advertising itself. The other rider gained ground over open grassland and eventually passed her, which troubled her. Now one of the others was coming her way also, having rigged some sort of bridle for one of her ponies. Something glinted in the man’s hand.

  So it was not over. Still, she had shadow; the others had moonlight and open meadow. The second one rode by, and now two were downriver from her. They would wait for her. They knew she had gone into the bankside band of willows and cottonwoods, where she would be slowed. They had sprung a trap that might not catch her in its jaws until daylight. Still, she had shadow. She slowed her horse and let it pick its way quietly. Through the leaves she saw the two riders far ahead of her, still out on the open meadow.

  She thought she must say good-bye to her boy, The Star That Never Moves, fifteen winters of age, and say good-bye to Skye, and to Victoria, his older wife, and then say good-bye to life, for these men with guns would end it. They were in a rage, and they were good horsemen, probably former cavalrymen, and they would know how to run her down.

  It was best to give her horse a free rein, so she did. This horse had a bit in its mouth, and was easy to guide, but she stopped guiding it entirely. She touched her moccasins to its flanks. It veered a little and drifted along a narrow trail where it made no noise at all, maybe a trail used by deer or elk, or even the great brown bear, but a trail even so, and she let the horse go where it would, even when the trail turned toward the wide, shallow, treacherous river that white men called a mile wide and an inch deep.

  The trail ended at water’s edge, but not far out lay a large island, mostly covered with brush, but with a few gauzy trees. She slid off her horse, untied her moccasins, lifted her skirts, and stepped in, probing one step at a time for quicksand. But she was walking on gravel, and slowly made her way out, tugging the horse behind her. The water never reached her knees. But she was wading under an open sky, where the moonglow made her visible to anyone on any shore. Still she continued, step by step, and then slowly climbed onto the island and led the horse through thickets and onto a grassy patch well hidden from both shores.

  It would do. She quietly unsaddled the horse and let it graze.

  Mosquitoes hummed, but she had a partial remedy. She untied the poncho and slid it over her black braids, and swiftly felt its protective comfort. She undid her braids and let her hair fall loose.

  “Ah sure don’t know where that little bitch got,” someone said.

  She peered discreetly at the near shore, but saw no one.

  “Find her. She got mah horse and saddle, goddammit.”

  “We got three of hers.”

  “Never no mind that. I don’t much care how many ponies and saddles and what-all; I just ain’t of a mind to let some redskin git away with this.”

  “Looks like she did.”

  She could see them now, back from the water’s edge, studying the shoreline. She hoped her new horse wouldn’t whinny. After some peering around, they gave up and crashed their way through the belt of trees and she heard no more.

  For them, it was the principle of the thing. Three horses, a packsaddle and riding saddle, and a pile of gear weren’t a good trade for what she got because she was a Shoshone, because they intended to use and kill her and keep everything she had, and keep their own stock too.

  She turned quietly back to the center of her island, her small refuge in a moon-whited river. She wondered if she would recognize her half-white son if ever she found him in this place called St. Louis, or whether she would like or trust him if she did find him.

  seventeen

  Victoria heard the cattle first, a great lowing and bawling just around a bend, and didn’t know what to make of it. Then riders appeared, white men with broad felt hats, dressed in a fashion she had never seen, with leather chaps and neck scarves. She stopped at once. These men were well armed, and she wished to be careful. Skye pulled up and watched as the herd, which numbered many hundreds of long-horned cattle, bawled and bleated its way west, guided by numerous riders who walked quietly ahead, behind, and on the flanks of the herd.

  Two of them rode toward the Skyes, who waited quietly in the broad valley of the Yellowstone. The riders were wary, with carbines across their knees, but the Skyes gave them no reason to be alarmed.

  Eventually the pair, both bearded young men in broad-brimmed hats with creased crowns, reined up before the Skyes. Victoria didn’t like the looks of them.

  “Howdy,” said one.

  “Good afternoon, sir,” said Skye.

  “You injuns?”

  “I’m Barnaby Skye, sir, and this is my wife Victoria.”

  “Injuns, then. What tribe?”

  Victoria wondered how these white men could mistake Skye for one of the native people. He was weathered to a chestnut color but hadn’t the face or bones of her people.

  “I am Mister Skye, sir, from London, and this is my wife of many years, of the Absaroka People.” There was an edge in his voice.

  “Just checking. We like to know who we’re dealin’ with.”

  “So it appears. And who are you?”

  “Harbinger’s the last name, Slocum’s the first. Texas born and bred.”

  “Your men, they’re Texans?”

  “What else?”

  “You’re running true to form,” Skye said. “And where are you headed with all those animals?”

  “The big bend of the Yellowstone, Skye. That’s good country. This heah’s the second herd; I ramrod for Nelson Story. He brought the first bunch up in ‘sixty-six, right through the injun wars, and pastured it in the Gallatin Valley.”

  “It’s Mister Skye, sir. I prefer to be addressed in that fashion.”

  “It don’t make no never mind to me, Mister Skye. I’ll call you whatever you want. We’ll have you just sit heah until them cattle trail by, so you don’t booger them.”

  The herd was drawing close now, with a slobbering wide-horned multicolored bull leading the whole parade. Other of these Texans were drawing close as well.

  “In fact, Mrs. Skye and I were thinking of settling on the bend of the Yellowstone, sir. Maybe we’ll be neighbors.”

  “No, Mister Skye, we ain’t gonna be neighbors. Nelson Story’s done took it, all that country.”

  “By what right?”

  “By the law of armed force is how. Any questions?”

  “By land-office claim?”
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  “I don’t suppose it matters none to a Londoner. But no, we’ll take the land and keep it. We got there fust. There ain’t no land office within hundreds of miles, but we don’t need one. There’s land, lots of land. There’s twenty-four of us, all Texas men, and that’s all we need to hold it. That was enough to get us past the goddamn Sioux. They didn’t want no fight with Texans with repeater carbines. The redskins ain’t so strong, anyway. Degenerates, ain’t gonna be around much longer.”

  “The army found them invincible, sir.”

  “Yank army. Rebs would’ve walked through them savages. We drove these here animals a thousand miles, and we’re going to sell beef to the mining towns.”

  “On the Bozeman Trail? The closed trail?”

  “The same. Not one sonofabitching white man on it. Good grass all the way.”

  “And no Sioux?”

  “None as wanted to test our repeaters.”

  “You came without army protection, then?”

  “Now, Skye, why would Texicans want protection from a Yank army? Know what we saw? Lot of ash, where them Yankee forts got burned down by Red Cloud.”

  “You are brave men,” Skye said.

  The herd flowed by them now, and several more Texans drifted by, curious about the Skyes but staying close to the skinny red, brindle, black, gray, and multicolored cattle that seemed to be all rib and no meat.

  “And what’s your business, Skye?”

  Skye stared long and hard. “Just passing through,” he said softly.

  “It figgers. I knew it when I saw you. A squaw man, looks like. Well, we got some ambition heah. We got white-man plans, and we’re going to make our way.”

  Victoria listened with growing irritation. “Sonsofbitches,” she said.

  Harbinger grinned, revealing gapped teeth. “This heah squaw talks my language,” he said.

  The cattle flowed by endlessly, strangely disturbing Victoria. These were white men’s meat animal and intended to replace the buffalo that had fed and clothed and sheltered her people for as long as her people could remember. Hundreds of cattle, more than she could count, slobbering, skinny, wild of eye, mean-spirited. She found herself hating these animals, which had none of the courage and dignity of her brothers the buffalo.

  More riders passed, eyeing them curiously but continuing to flank the herd. Men in red shirts, gray shirts, tan shirts. Men without women, young and bearded and bristling with weapons, six-guns at their waists, carbines in sheaths or on hand, looking ready to shoot anything that moved.

  And now they were simply taking away the land, claiming it for themselves, and holding it by force. She marveled. She marveled that they could tell Skye to settle elsewhere, to go away, because they would not let him settle there, in the place he had dreamed of for many years.

  Long ago, Skye would have put up a fight. But now, he sat his pony, his lame leg dangling out of the stirrup, his eyes sunken and his hair gray, and she knew there was no fight in him, at least not that kind of fight.

  “We’ll be seeing you, Mister Harbinger,” Skye said.

  “I don’t suppose so,” the man replied, and turned toward his herd. “Nice to pass the time with you all.”

  Skye and Victoria watched the last of the riders, the drag, trot by. The air and the ground quieted. But no bird flew or sang.

  “There was enough land for everyone once,” Skye said.

  Victoria slid into a crabby mood. She didn’t know what to say. These things unsettled her. Everything was changing, and too damn fast. Nothing but a faint dust in the air remained of the herd, that and a few green cow flops that sat moistly in the peaceful light. She hated the sight of the cow pies, hated them for what they meant. Cow pies instead of buffalo chips. Great herds of stupid animals, surrounded by men with guns, taking away land for their own use.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” she said.

  They resumed their ride downstream, but somehow the world seemed violated. It wasn’t just the cow flops lying moist everywhere. It was something else, more subtle, as if nature had retreated and now this was simply ranching country. Victoria couldn’t quite fathom why the very land had changed, but it had.

  They camped at one of the favorite places of her people, where the Stillwater River tumbled out of the mountains and emptied into the Yellowstone. Now the river was flush with snowmelt, and it proved difficult for the horses to negotiate, with water hammering at their bellies. But in time they reached the east bank, picketed their ponies, built a fire, and cooked antelope steaks. June rains threatened, but the Skyes had no lodge and the best they could do, if showers started, would be to burrow into the woods.

  That’s when three large ox-drawn wagons arrived, each the property of a westering family. In minutes the area was chock-full of people, including women and children. They didn’t see the Skyes at first, and began the many twilight tasks that occupied any wagon company. They unyoked the oxen, picketed horses, collected wood, started water boiling, spread bedrolls, all before they discovered the Skyes, off a quarter of a mile.

  Then the men of the company descended on them, most of them armed with rifles or scatter guns.

  “Good evening, gents,” said Skye.

  The men collected around the Skyes, studying them, eyeing Victoria, noting her Indian features.

  “I’m a goddamn Absaroka,” she said.

  “Barnaby Skye here, and you?”

  “Oliver Skaggs,” said one. “She safe to be around?”

  “No, I’ll cut your heart out in the middle of the night,” Victoria said.

  No one laughed.

  “I’m Mister Skye’s sits-beside-him wife. He got another, Mary, she’s a Snake. She’s a lot prettier than me, and keeps him happy.”

  This wrought a deeper silence.

  “She’s off ahead of us. Otherwise you’d get to meet the whole family.”

  Skye’s eyes glinted at Victoria, telling her to shut up, but she wasn’t in the mood for it.

  “Where’s your tent?” asked one of the scowling men.

  “Who the hell needs one?” Victoria said.

  “How do you protect yourself from prying eyes?” asked Skaggs.

  “Nighttime, that’s all we need. We pull off our stuff and howl at the moon and dance around nakkid.”

  Skye sighed. Victoria was on a tear, and she wasn’t going to slow down for him.

  “We have some antelope we’d be pleased to share. Shot it this morning. Would you join us?” Skye asked.

  “Any more of you hidden around here?”

  “Just us.”

  Victoria could see women and children boiling toward them, and then an odd thing happened. Several of the men swiftly corralled them and kept them perhaps fifty yards distant. She saw much gesticulating and waving of arms.

  “We’ll stay with our own mess,” one said.

  “You people heading west?” Skye asked.

  “Gallatin Valley.”

  “You came over the Bozeman Road?”

  “Oh, no, not with the Sioux there. It’s closed. We came up Jim Bridger’s road, and a poor road it was too. A wagon near tipped over,” said Skaggs. “But there were no redskins, thank the Good Lord.”

  “The Gallatin Valley’s a good place,” Skye said. “You going to farm?”

  “We’re merchants and farmers. We’ve got seed potatoes. Got orchard stock. We’ve got a lumber man with a small mill. But we hear there’s Indian trouble.”

  “Goddamn Blackfeet,” said Victoria. “Scaring the hell out of everyone. Bloodthirsty bastards.”

  They stood about silently, absorbing that. Behind them, where the bonneted women and a dozen children of all descriptions were halted, there was a great deal of talking, and then one of the bearded men approached.

  “Skye, would you mind camping somewhere else? You and your squaw’s upsetting our folk. Scaring the children.”

  “I guess a man and wife can camp where they choose. Free country,” Skye said. “You’re free to move s
omewhere yourself.”

  “I guess I shouldn’t have put it as a question, Skye. We’re not asking you, we’re telling you.”

  “And if we choose to stay here?”

  “Someone might get hurt, and it ain’t gonna be us.”

  Victoria wondered if her old man would do what he might have done long ago, but he didn’t. He arose slowly, balancing on his game leg, using his Sharps as a crutch.

  “Did you bring some spades?” Skye asked. “Start digging our grave. We’re not moving an inch. The only direction you’ll move us is six feet down.”

  Victoria listened to the bark in his voice, and thrilled to it.

  “We’ll haul you off on a wagon, then,” one said.

  Skye ignored him and lumbered painfully toward the children clinging to their mothers a few yards distant.

  “Hey, where you going?” Skaggs yelled.

  “I thought to get me a little girl and boil her up.”

  The women shrieked.

  Skye continued to limp toward the children.

  Then Skaggs laughed. The other men laughed, uneasily. Some mothers looked flustered, ready to bolt.

  Skye reached a woman whose son had buried his face in her skirts.

  Slowly he leaned over, even as the men of the company hastened to surround him.

  “Hello, young man,” Skye said. “I’m Barnaby Skye. Who are you?”

  The boy eyed him suspiciously.

  “Your folks heading west? There’s good farm land there.”

  The little boy tugged himself tighter to his mother.

  “I was here before there were a hundred white men in the whole western mountains. Now I live the way the Indians do, and I have an Indian wife. That’s her, over there. She’s a Crow, and very pretty, and I love her just the way your mother and father love each other.”