by John Legg
“Ye boys did fine,” Squire told the men.
“Well, Ah think y’all shouldah shot that there one red-stick sumbitch,” Willis declared. “Hell, y’all could see how scared they was.”
“There be a heap of diff’rence ’tween bein’ scared and bein’ cautious. They ain’t the same,” Squire said.
“I must agree with Mr. Willis,” Strapp said huffily. “Those heathens must be taught a lesson. That was shown in the war with the British.”
“Ye fight in that war, William?”
“No, but I’ve talked to many who did. It’s the only thing those savages understand.”
“Ye e’er fight Injins?”
“No, but I’ve heard that the only thing Indians understand is the sword.”
“Ye seem to have done a heap of hearin’, William, and heap little of doin'”
“Well,” Strapp said stiffly, “from what I have seen, it would stand to reason that the sword is all they understand.”
“That be your thinkin’? Ye got a heap to learn, boy.” He turned back to Willis. “Them Pawnees weren’t scared of us.”
“Then why’n hell didn’t they just kill us?”
“Injins don’t like gettin’ killed anymore’n ye. They was outnumbered and outgunned. Now we might’ve put e’ery one of them coons under if’n we’d’ve fought ’em. But they was all prime warriors, and we’d’ve lost some of our own.”
“Y’all must be crazy to go givin’ ’em presents,” Willis argued.
“They be thinkin’ it only right that when we’re crossin’ their land, killin’ their buff’lo, drinkin’ their water and grazin’ our horses on their grass that we ought to be payin’ for the privilege. It only be fair, lad.”
“Humph,” Willis mumbled.
“We be out here for one reason,” Squire said for all to hear. “To trap beaver. Colonel Melton ain’t payin’ ye to fight Injins. Ye get killed, ye can’t be trappin’ no beaver.” He turned his horse and shouted back over his shoulder, “Let’s get. We’ve wasted more’n enough time.”
For the next few days, they rode across the wide, empty, dusty prairie, where each rolling hill seemed just like the last. There were few trees and they had to rely on buffalo chips for fuel. The men became bored and complained that the trail dust stung their eyes and made their mouths dry.
But it was Whitaker that Squire worried about. The young man had been improving steadily, but suddenly he took a turn for the worse. His temperature shot up, and sometimes he shook uncontrollably or called out in the delirium of the fever. None of the feeble medications they had with them worked, nor did some of the Indian remedies Squire tried. Whitaker moaned with every jolt of the travois as they moved along, trying to make as best time as they could.
In his few lucid moments, Whitaker would draw heavily on his religion, fully believing that this was all a test devised by the Lord to see if he was worthy of being given some higher purpose. And since their brief encounter with the Pawnees, he had fixated on that as being the higher purpose—converting the Indians. No, not converting, as he said more than once, just saving them, as he saw it. He felt that he had been cast into this devilish land as punishment for his transgressions, whatever they were. And in saving the Indians, he could save himself.
One time he told Squire, “The Bible says, ‘The spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted. ’ ” His eyes had burned with fervor.
Squire did everything he could to make the young man more comfortable. He kept the poultices wet and changed them frequently. And he strapped Whitaker into the travois as tightly as he could to keep the jarring to a minimum.
Remembering an old Ute remedy he dug up some yarrow root and one night applied the pungent mixture to Whitaker’s wounds. He freshened the poultice the next morning, but Whitaker groaned with fever until Squire ordered him dosed with enough laudanum to knock him out. Then they alternated heavy doses of whiskey and laudanum to keep Whitaker sedated.
It was two more days before the yarrow poultice seemed to have an effect. To everyone’s relief, Whitaker’s fever finally broke and he no longer screamed and groaned in the frenzy of delirium.
Squire smiled. He had not realized until now how much the tension had been increased by Whitaker’s troubles. Now that they seemed to be over, Squire could relax a little.
“Ye seem to be gettin’ better, lad,” he told Whitaker. “But ye was worrisome to us for a spell. ” He spread the last of the poultice on the wounds and by nightfall Whitaker was alert and able to eat a little.
“The Lord has taken me unto His own, Nathaniel,” Whitaker said, his eyes blazing with religious fanaticism. It worried Squire, who hoped that once the young man was recovered he would become more like the other men.
“Things are looking better, are they not, Nathaniel?” Melton asked the next morning across the fire.
“Aye, Colonel.” Squire was finally beginning to understand the strain of what Melton had been going through. The Colonel was responsible for nearly three dozen men, more than sixty horses, a number of mules and thousands of dollars in trade goods. He needed to bring in enough plews not only to recoup the money spent already, but also to provide his backers a substantial profit. Anything less would be failure.
Yet despite all that pressure, Melton had kept his spirits up, cheerfully talking to the men when they needed talking to; helping out wherever he could, doing whatever job needed doing, no matter how menial; and constantly questioning Squire on where they were headed, how they were to get there, what Indians they would encounter, what plants and animals would be along the way, what to expect when they got there and more. His curiosity was insatiable.
“Aye,” Squire said again. “Things be better. We be almost in the heart of buff’lo country now. We got us good water reg’lar, and plenty of forage. We’ve passed the worst of the quicksand, too. But we still have a heap of distance to be coverin’.”
“Are you expecting trouble?” Melton asked, his face showing worry.
“Always do. ’Tis why I still be alive when so many others are not.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“We be in Sioux country. Ye think them Pawnees was some fearsome, wait till ye be seein’ the Sioux.”
“You think they will give us any trouble?”
Squire shrugged. “Ain’t likely, but there always be a chance of it. I’ve parleyed with many of ’em, and e’en got me some Sioux friends I’d stake my life on. But there be a heap of Sioux bands. Ye kin be friends with one, and another’ll be tryin’ to raise your hair.
“It be a far piece to Ree country—’Rikaras some call ’em—but we still got a chance of runnin’ into them bastards. Might e’en run into Pawnees agin, or Crows, though Crows don’t usually come this far east. Others we might be encounterin’ are Kiowas, and the Cheyennes and ’Rapahos, both of who be allied to the Sioux.”
“What other dangers do we face?”
“More rough country, ’specially where the Platte forks. There be more quicksand, some stretches where there be no water fit to drink, no wood some places. And then we got the weather. Ye ne’er can be certain just what it’ll be like. Hell, it be like summer now, but last week we had a bit of snow, and ye ne’er can tell what next day’ll bring. I e’en seen big twisty funnels of wind that no man can stand up to.”
They had weathered the brief snow well, and though nights were chilly, Indian Summer was here, bringing warm, sunny days. The vaulting sky with its thin ribbons of high clouds seemed to spread far beyond the horizon.
Chapter Twenty-Two
A scream ripped through the camp.
“What’n hell,” Squire muttered as he leaped to his feet. He saw a small group of men nervously milling in a ragged circle. He burst through the ring of men and stopped short when he saw Shanks writhing on the ground. Slithering over the would-be trapper were three large rattlesnakes. Two more hissed only
a few feet away.
Shanks had been bitten on his hands, arms and legs. He was petrified, afraid that if he moved he would be bitten again.
“Merde,” Squire spat. He whipped off his shirt, exposing his brawny, scarred torso. He moved in and dangled the shirt.
A snake struck out, and as it sank its fangs into the shirt, Squire yanked hard and fast. The writhing snake fell to the ground, its fangs embedded in the fabric of the shirt. Four more times he lured the snakes, and as the snakes uncoiled, he and the others had an easy time of clubbing them.
Squire knelt over Shanks. The chubby, redheaded youth was a good worker and, once he had learned to leave off his proselytizing, well-liked by the other men. The young man’s right arm was so swollen already that it almost split the material of his shirt. His neck, just under the left ear, was swelling, as were several spots on his legs.
“Can you do anything for him?” Melton asked.
“Nay, Colonel. Not now. Had we been quicker, we might’ve been able to bleed him some to get the poison out. But it be too late for that now. He be on his own.”
The men built another travois of crooked cottonwood limbs and loaded the groaning, delirious Shanks onto it. The other men were subdued as they rode, each wondering whether he would be the next one singled out for death. Squire thought it strange that the only two men who had any real religion were the ones to get injured first.
The brigade, including Shanks, made it through the next day without mishap. The day after that, hopes were high among the men as they started out. The temperature was high, the sky blue, and there was only a mild breeze.
Then, a storm boiled suddenly down on them from the northwest. Icy wind sliced at them like a cold knife, and the sky darkened to a flat black. The temperature plummeted. Within minutes, the leaden sky opened and cold rain soaked them all. Just as suddenly, the rain changed to hail, pelting them with rattling ice grapeshot, some pieces the size of a small fist.
Squire pulled his thick buffalo robe over his shoulders. With the bobcat-skin hat he wore, its long fur dangling down his back and covering his neck, he was well protected.
Some of the others were not so fortunate, having chosen thinner cloaks and caps instead of wrapping themselves in one of the high-smelling robes they had been tanning. They grumbled as hail pounded their unprotected heads and as icy rain sluiced into their collars and down their backs. There was no shelter, no trees, no brush, nothing.
Bellows’s voice roared above the clatter of the hail and the hiss of the rain: “Some of you miserable, lice-infested bastards best get your asses back here and help me wit’ these animals. Better do it now, goddammit, or they’ll be off and runnin’.”
Some of the men raced back to help, fighting to keep the skittish animals from bolting.
They rode on, slogging through thick mud, slippery grass and crunching hail. The muck and water sucked at the horses’ hooves with every step. They had to fight their way across washes etched deep in the earth and now boiling with water.
The storm passed almost as quickly as it had come. With relief, the men watched the towering sunlit column of clouds flee to the east. The rain petered out and the temperature climbed, bringing with it a warm mugginess.
Squire watched as the others grumbled and swore at what they had just been through. He almost smiled. It was just another day of survival, he thought. It was simply one of the many things a man faced out here each and every day. One day it was the weather, the next snakes, or a bear, and the next some Indians half-froze to raise hair.
Squire scarcely gave such things a thought anymore. It was all just a part of life, and he accepted it.
It was late afternoon, but Squire pushed on, hoping to find firewood for their camp. They rode another two miles, but when Squire found nothing, he finally halted. “We’ll be campin’ here,” he said flatly.
It was a miserable camp, a mile east of the fork of the Plattes, amid the remains of long-ago Indian camps. The men griped about the saturated ground and the slimy mud. The only water they had was in the water sacks, or the muddy sludge that pooled in every depression. No wood and little other fuel existed, so they ate a cold supper of jerky and had to go without hot coffee to warm their bellies. Hunkering into damp, chilly bedrolls, the exhausted men turned in early for a night of restless, cold misery.
At dawn they found Shanks dead.
“Poor devil,” Melton said, staring down at the still, swollen body. “Will we bury him here?”
“Aye, Colonel.”
Three men broke out spades and started digging. It was not hard work, since the ground had been softened by the rains. When Shanks was buried, Melton spoke some words over the grave, but he kept them short because the men were cold and miserable.
“Nathaniel,” Whitaker said politely but firmly, as they made ready to leave, “I won’t ride in that contraption again.” He pointed to the travois.
“Ye ain’t strong enough to set a horse yet, lad.”
“I ain’t gonna ride in it. I was pelted in the face enough yesterday. And I don’t want to end up like Shanks. If I fall off my horse, you can pick me up and set me back on. Or leave me. If it happens enough times, I’ll either learn to stay put, or the good Lord will provide for me in some other manner. He has done so in His benevolent will, and He shall continue. He did not save me without reason, Mr. Squire. No. He has a purpose for me. I feel that. I know that. He has saved me from the ravages of that animal to give a purpose and meaning to my life. I will be set free to save the Red Injuns from their heathen, sinful ways and return them to the fold from which they strayed so long ago.” His eyes fairly burned. “I shall bring them into the glorious inheritance in the kingdom of heaven.”
Squire shook his head, knowing for certain that Whitaker was mad. “Ye can be ridin’, if’n ye think ye can manage,” he said in wonder.
“Indeed, I can, Nathaniel. For I have God to support me.”
A horse was brought, and Squire helped Whitaker mount. “Now listen to me, lad,” he said sternly. “God might be savin’ ye for some higher purpose, but I ain’t so certain he’s got the time nor the inclination to sit up there behind ye and hold ye on that horse. So’s if’n ye get to feelin’ poorly, I’ll be puttin’ ye back in the travois.”
“Fair enough, Nathaniel. But do not make fun of such things. And you would be wise to cease your endless blaspheming.”
“Let’s ride,” Squire growled, annoyed.
The autumn sun began to warm them as they rode out, still knocking caked mud from their clothes and possibles. Whitaker clung to the pommel of the saddle as they rode through increasingly rough land. The sand hills grew on their side of the North Platte, and the men struggled over or around them. Early in the day they crossed a waist-deep stream that ran over a quicksand bed. It was tricky, but they made it without loss of life or property.
They made a few miles by early afternoon. Whitaker managed to stay on his horse and, although fatigued, insisted on remaining in the saddle until they stopped.
“Our friend seems to be recovering,” Melton smiled after they made their camp that night. He sat with the others watching fresh buffalo hump sizzling over the fire.
“Aye, Colonel. Leastways his body is. Can’t be certain of sayin’ the same thing about his mind.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ain’t ye been listenin’ to him?”
“It is only the delirium. The fever.”
“Like hell. He be long past the fever. I were thinkin’ before that he’d leave off spoutin’ such wild nonsense about savin’ all the Injins’ souls and such. It be spooky, and I sure don’t take a shine to it at all.”
“Perhaps he’ll get better with time.”
“I be hopin’ so, Colonel. I be hopin’ so.”
The following day, about midmorning, Train raced toward the slow-moving caravan. Carpenter, Benji and Li’l Jim were right behind him. For some time, Squire had let the four, sometimes accompanied by one or another of the
young men, go on the daily hunts alone. They had shown themselves more than capable, and they had to be set free sometime. Besides, it eased Squire’s load a little. The four reined to a dust-raising stop next to Squire.
“We seen Injuns,” Train gasped. “They’re comin’ up from over thataway.” He pointed toward the north.
“How many?”
“Lots.”
“Nathaniel!” someone yelled.
Squire turned to see about twenty-five Indians cresting a bluff to the north at a dead run, their war cries splitting the air.
“Just be holdin’ steady, lads,” Squire called out. “They’ll not be harmin’ us this time. Let your weapons be, but keep a tight rein on all the horses.”
“They them Pawnees we seen before?” Benji asked, his face white with fear.
“Nay, lad, they be Sioux.”
The Indians raced forward, splitting like a wave to surround the caravan. They swirled around in a kaleidoscope of color and sound before hurrying away to regroup at a short distance. There they taunted the white men.
“Stand easy, boys,” Squire said. “I doubt they be meanin’ us any harm, but I expect they’d take a shine to bein’ able to run off with our horses.”
He kicked the big black horse forward until he sat alone in front of his men, halfway between them and the Sioux. He had dealt with these warriors before and recognized most of them. He knew that with his size and his massive horse, he would be recognized, too.
“Four Horses,” he called out to the tall, gaunt warrior who led the group. “Ye ’member me, don’t ye? I be Nathaniel Squire, who’s smoked in your village more’n one time. Ye were there, too, Broken Knife. And, ye, Otter Tail.”
