North Star

by Richard S. Wheeler

  At the river she cut the roots into small chunks, then mashed these between two rocks, dropped them into her copper kettle, and added water. She manipulated the pulped pieces and soon had foaming suds filling her kettle, a rich lather to wash with.

  She shed her clothing in the hushed bower, and stepped into the flowing water. She was tall and bronze and thin, and the years did not yet show in her, except for the beginnings of gray in her hair. She undid her braids, letting her rich jet hair fall free, and then knelt in the purling water and let her hair float in the stream. The water wasn’t cold, as it once was tumbling out of the mountains. Here it was mild and slightly opaque, carrying a little silt on its way to the distant sea. She sudsed her hair with the lather from the yucca roots, which she called amole, and felt the lather cleanse her hair until it felt silky. Then she rinsed it in the gentle flow of the river and washed her body with the amole. She ran rough willow bark over her flesh, abrading it gently until it tingled. She knelt in the shallow water, rinsing herself and then letting the river strain through her hair one last time. She finally felt chilled, though the sun warmed her in this quiet glade.

  But she was not done. She immersed her clothing, piece by piece, in the river, washed them with the yucca lather, and then twisted the water out of each piece. Then she spread her skirts and blouse on the grasses, and began the long wait for the sun to dry them.

  She led the horse into the river and washed it carefully, sudsing away the mud until its coppery coat shone. It was a good horse and it stood patiently while she cleansed it. She combed its mane and tail with her fingers, plucking thorns and debris from the horse hair. She rinsed it with kettles of water, and let the horse shake water off its back with several violent convulsions of its flesh. Then she led it back to grass and picketed it once again.

  She spread the poncho on the grasses and lay down upon it, letting Father Sun finish her cleansing. She loved the warmth of the sun on her tawny flesh, and for the first time in many moons she felt utterly clean. She wished for sweet-grass, so she might bathe in its smoke and might take onto her body the scent of the sacred. But she was far from the places she knew and the herbs and grasses she knew. White men called this place the territory of Nebraska, but she knew no more than that. She spent much of that day lying in the sun, screened from the Big Road by a band of forest, waiting for her clothing to dry.

  There were no mosquitoes there, at least not yet. With evening, things would be different. She dressed late in the afternoon, eyed her contented horse, and decided to ride a while. Her son was calling her. In some mystic way, she could hear him within her heart, calling for her to come to this place called St. Louis, where he resided with the blackrobes called Jesuits.

  She dressed in slightly damp clothes and found her way back to the Big Road, heading east once again. The road was empty, and that pleased her. It felt good to be washed and clean. The horse was well rested and set an eager pace. This night she would be that much closer to the big city, and that much closer to her son.

  She passed an encampment of several wagons and could see various men at their evening chores. Some were gathered at a cook fire. She saw no women, and thought it would not be a good place to stop, so she rode onward, but then they were shouting and mounting their horses and coming after her.

  “Hold up there,” one yelled.

  She dreaded it and kept on walking her horse.

  A shot from a revolver changed her mind. She reined in the horse and waited, while half a dozen bearded white men swiftly overtook her and surrounded her.

  “That’s her! That’s the nag!” one said.

  “What is it you wish?” she asked, not concealing her knowledge of their tongue.

  “Stolen horse, chestnut like this, proper shod, and taken by a squaw!”

  She addressed an older one, with massive shoulders and a hard look in his eye. “This is my horse.”

  “No it ain’t, woman. We’re taking it. Feller came by yesterday, said look out for just such as you. Said’twas his saddle and tack too.”

  “Did he tell you he took three of mine, and all I possessed?”

  “Likely story. Squaw story, you ask me.”

  “Did they tell you they tried to force themselves on me, and I barely escaped? Do you approve of violating a woman?”

  “I ain’t here to argue that. I’m here to get that horse and send it forward. Them fellows are ten, twelve miles west and we’re going to take this nag to’em.”

  “Did they tell you they planned to kill me after they had used me?”

  The bull-shouldered one only smiled. “You’d better fetch yourself off that nag, or we’ll pull you down, and maybe you’ll get used after all.”

  He had ahold of her rein. The others crowded close, eyeing her.

  “I’m on my way to visit my son in St. Louis,” she said. “He’s in school there.”

  “Sure you are,” one said. “More likely you’re just findin’ ways to make a nickel along the road.”

  “Would you speak of your own mother in that way?”

  “Where’d you learn English so good, eh?”

  “I am a Shoshone. My husband was born in London and has been in the fur and robe trade all his life. We live in the territory of Montana.”

  “Stealing horses from white men, I imagine. West’s full of renegades, and more’n half are hitched up to squaws.” He paused. “Off!”

  She saw how it would go, and slid off. She started to untie her kit, the cornmeal and cook pot wrapped in the poncho, when he snarled at her to leave it alone.

  “I wish to have what is mine.”

  “That fellow, Willis, he said the horse and every damned thing on it was took.”

  She saw half a dozen men looking for an excuse, and quietly subsided. With luck, maybe she could walk into the thickening dark with the clothing on her back.

  twenty

  Darkness cloaked Mary. Or maybe it was the indifference of those men that really cloaked her. Once they took the horse, they didn’t seem to care much. She slipped beyond the campfire light and no one stayed her. The river would be to the north, so she studied the heavens and found the Star That Never Moves, and walked that way. This was an inky night, and she scarcely knew where she was walking. She dropped into a slough, pulled her wet moccasins from the muck, and worked around it. She didn’t know she had reached the wooded bottoms of the river until she ran into a limb, which knocked her flat.

  She stood, waited, saw vague limbs lacing the starlit sky, and knew she was close. It was time to sit. The men wouldn’t find her. She felt about, and then settled against a tree trunk and waited. It didn’t take long for a slim moon to rise, and with that lantern casting its ghostly light, she made her way through a thickening forest, then canebrakes and sedges, and then a spit of sand surrounded by wavering water.

  She settled there, and took stock. She was an Indian woman alone, with no food or weapons, save for her skinning knife, no shelter, no horse, and no friends. This was country where one could run into Peoples from many tribes, or white men, or the bluecoat army, or bears or wolves or coyotes. It was also a long way from the place called St. Louis, where she would see her son, if they would let her. She wasn’t sure she would be allowed to see him.

  She might keep from starving if she stayed close to the river. The Oregon Trail often ran a mile or two away from the river, working in straight lines rather than following the meandering bank. But the Big Road was too perilous for a lone woman of the People, and the river offered a chance to find food. The river was full of the fish with whiskers, which she despised but maybe they would keep her alive.

  She thought about turning back, making her way to Fort Laramie and then to her people, but without food or a horse that would be even harder than continuing downriver. She might perish. A woman alone might die apart, trapped or destroyed or captured or sickened. The bitter reality was that she was caught. Maybe she should sing her death songs, and lie down and let the spirit fly away. Maybe she c
ould send a spirit messenger to Skye, the man who filled her heart with tenderness every moment she was with him, and tell him she was going to fly away to the Long Walk.

  She found the sand dry and soft, and lay down for a rest, cradled in the softness of a quiet June night. She drifted off, and the night was quiet, and then light was in her face, and a man was nudging her with his boot, and she looked up into the face of a young hard stranger with angry eyes.

  She clawed her way up, not wanting him to look down on her.

  He was not alone. Two others stood back. The one who had nudged her was clean-shaven, with a revolver at his waist, and he had a flair for dressing. He wore a blue shirt and black vest and a flat-crowned hat. The others were dark and had ill-kempt beards, and heavy bandoliers laden with copper cartridges. Still more lined their belts. Each carried a repeating rifle. She had never seen men so heavily armed.

  “What do you suppose she’s doing here?”

  “Don’t rightly know. No horse, no nothing. Not a kit or a bag. Just one lone squaw.”

  “Think she talks English?”

  “Hey, you.” She was being addressed by the shaven one. “You speaka da English?”

  She elected to hide her knowledge. It might save her life. It also might give her a clue of her fate.

  She stared blankly at him.

  “Hey, Kid, she can cook. We need a cook.”

  “Yeah,” the Kid said. “She can cook and we can figure out what to do with her.”

  He prodded her forward. A camp came into view, and in it were several more young men, all busy with camp chores.

  “Looks like we got us a squaw,” said the Kid.

  “Well, hell, ain’t that nice,” one replied.

  He addressed her. “Go make johnnycakes.” He pointed. She stared. “Hey, squaw, cornmeal and grease, and water, and fry’em up.” He pantomimed.

  “I will,” she said.

  “Ah! I thought so. Where you come from?”

  “I am Shoshone, Snake, going to St. Louis to see my son. He’s in school.”

  “Goddamn educated injun,” a bearded one said.

  “You with anyone?”

  She debated what to say, and opted to tell her story. “I lost everything. I had my ponies and my saddles and things, but white men stole them and were going to use me and kill me. Twice this happened.”

  The one called Kid yawned, and motioned for her to get to work. The men were hungry. Now they collected, eyeing her as hungrily as the others. Maybe she was in even worse trouble than before. She knelt, stirred cornmeal into mush, added grease to the hot fry pan and the meal, and began forming patties with her hands.

  “Thought you’d know how,” the Kid said.

  She started the johnnycakes frying, and hunted for a spatula to turn them. She found none.

  “I would like something to eat,” she said. “I have nothing.”

  “Why should I feed you?” the Kid asked.

  “Why should I cook for you?” she retorted, and started to walk away.

  “Ah! I like that. A real bitch squaw! You eat, woman. What’s your handle?”

  “I do not know this word.”

  “Name.”

  “My husband calls me Mary.”

  “Where’s he?” But before she could reply, a motion from the Kid sent a couple of men out to guard the perimeter. “Around here?”

  “Yellowstone River,” she said.

  “You want to stick with us? You get fed.”

  She returned to the fire, found a knife stuck in the sand, and flipped the cakes while they watched. She eyed the knife, eyed them, and slowly plunged it back into the sand. Kid did not ignore the gesture.

  “Sweetheart, that knife was a little test. You don’t know bad when you see bad. I’m bad. I’m badder than bad. I’d cut you to ribbons if I feel like it. All these gents are badder than you ever saw or ever will see.”

  She shrugged.

  “I’m the Choctaw Kid,” he said. “That’s my business. Being bad. Ain’t no sin on earth I ain’t done a hundred times.”

  She gazed up at him, finding cruelty in his face. He was a breed himself; she could see that.

  “Why did you go bad?” she asked.

  “No reason except I feel like it. There’s posters in every burg around here. I’m wanted by a dozen lawmen. Army wants me. Over to Fort Kearney, they have a reward for me, dead or alive.”

  “I don’t know what bad is. Shoshones don’t have bad.”

  “Don’t hand me that. You get a killer, what do you do with him?”

  “He’s got to pay the family of the dead. Or else they get to kill him.”

  “That the law?”

  “We don’t have laws. Only white men have laws. We have justice. Someone hurts you, you get revenge. It all works out.”

  “This lady, she’s got no laws!” the Choctaw Kid said.

  “All right,” she said, pointing to the black fry pan.

  These men scooped up the cakes on their knife blades and took them off to cool. She started some more cakes while the rest watched her closely. She did not know how this would end, or whether she would ever see her son. Probably they would take her with them, and her only escape would be death in some lonely place.

  The Kid ate his in a moment and waited for another.

  “What do these men look like? That took your horses?” he asked.

  “Bearded men, in gray, with a mule wagon.”

  “Saw them pass,” he said. “The other bunch must be the ones around here last night.”

  She nodded.

  “Maybe we’ll kill’em. Kill’em real slow and long.”

  She averted her gaze.

  “Would you like that?”

  “It’s not for you to do,” she said.

  He smiled darkly. “We do what we feel like doing. And these wouldn’t be the first I’ve killed. And won’t be the last.”

  “And then the army will kill you.”

  He shrugged. “Not many in my line of work live long.” “Then why do you do it?”

  “Lady, you ask too many questions. Now git them fry cakes done. I do whatever I feel like doing, and if I feel like killing a few, I’ll do it.”

  “What are your bloods?”

  “Half and half, and it makes me crazy. Don’t never trust a breed.”

  “I do not know Choctaw.”

  “Now you do. My ma, she was Chocktaw. My pa, he was Dutch. Don’t never marry Dutch to any injun because it’ll come bad.”

  She fed them a second fry pan of johnnycakes, and waited. But he signaled her to scrub out the pan and clean up. The men left her one, which she ate quietly. It tasted oddly delicious.

  “What’s your son?” Kid asked.

  “His name is North Star in my tongue, Dirk in yours. He is a grown man now. The blackrobes have him. I want to see him. I haven’t seen my boy in many winters. Maybe he will not know me.”

  “He’ll know you. If he don’t like his Snake ma, I’ll kill him,” the Kid said.

  That shot a chill through her.

  “Religion ruined everyone,” he said. “Plumb ruined me. I almost was good until I got smart.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Rob and ruin until I die.”

  She stared. He meant it. He had worked out his future, knew it wouldn’t last long, and wouldn’t change a particle of it.

  “We’re tired of this here Oregon road. We’re heading for the Union Pacific next. Them rails down on the Platte, below here. We’re going to cut wires and clean out trains like you never saw, until we got the whole cavalry on our ass.”

  “Why?”

  He eyed her. “I’ll tell you why. Someday you’ll tell people you met the Choctaw Kid. You tell’em and they won’t believe it. You tell’em what the Kid did. Promise me that?”

  “What the Kid did?”

  “The Choctaw Kid. Not any kid, the Choctaw Kid.”

  “If you want to be known, why not be bad in St. Louis?”


  “Don’t ask stupid questions,” he said.

  “Here, no one knows you’re bad,” she added. “Maybe you not bad.”

  He turned to the ones with the bandoliers. “Fix her up. Two horses and a kit.”

  “For me?”

  “Mary, we’re going to get ourselves two horses for every one we give you. That’s what’s going to happen this day.”

  Men headed for the picketed horses, selected two small ones, saddled and bridled a bay, collected a big buckskin, haltered the big horse and added a blanket and packsaddle, and then strapped on panniers. Into these they added a kit. Bedroll, fry pan, pot, a bag of cornmeal, another of rolled oats, and various other things she could not see.

  The Kid led the bay mare to her. “Up,” he said. “I’ll look to your stirrups.”

  But the stirrups were fine. She sat, amazed.

  “These here got no brand, and no one knows where they come from. But I’m gonna write out a bill, just because you’re a redskin and they’ll be picking on you.”

  He dug into a saddlebag, found a pencil and a sheet of paper, and wrote on it.

  “What does it say?” she asked.

  “It says I, Harry Kidder, sold you two nags. Sold to Mary of the Shoshones for consideration of twenty-five dollars of service, June twenty-five, eighteen and seventy.”

  “And you signed it?”

  “I did. Show it to your son.” He handed her the paper. She slipped it into the pannier.

  It was true. There were no brands or marks on these ponies that she could see; not even an ear notch. They had come out of nowhere.

  “They’re not shod, and you’ll want to go easy on rock.”

  “You are a good man,” she said.

  His face darkened, and she thought she had made a fatal mistake.

  “Go!” he snarled.

  She touched her moccasins to the flanks of the bay mare, found her responsive, and slowly made her way downriver. Behind her, the bad men watched.

  twenty-one

  His old black top hat flew off his head even before he heard the distant crack. From ancient habit, Skye dove off his horse, feeling pain shoot through his bum leg as he landed. He snatched his old Sharps from its sheath as he went.