by Twain, Mark
“Dead?” I says; “if you mean Peggy, she’s not dead.”
He whirls on me like a wild-cat, and shouts:
“Not dead! Take it back, take it back, or I’ll strangle you! How do you know?”
His fingers was working, and so I stepped back a little out of reach, and then says:
“I know she ain’t, because I see the Injuns drag her away; and they didn’t strike her nor offer to hurt her.”
Well, he only just groaned; and waved out his hands, and fetched them together on top of his head. Then he says:
“You staggered me, and for a minute I believed you, and it made me most a lunatic. But it’s all right—she had the dirk. Poor child, poor thing—if I had only been here!”
I just had it on my tongue’s end to tell him she let Blue Fox have the dirk for a while and I didn’t know whether he give it back to her or not—but I didn’t say it. Some kind of instinct told me to keep it to myself, I didn’t know why. But this fellow was the quickest devil you ever see. He see me hesitate, and he darted a look at me and bored into me like he was trying to see what it was I was keeping back in my mind. But I held my face quiet, and never let on. So then he looked considerable easier, but not entirely easy, and says:
“She had a dirk—didn’t you see her have a dirk?”
“Yes,” I says.
“Well, then, it’s all right. She didn’t lose it, nor give it away, nor anything, did she? She had it with her when they carried her away, didn’t she?”
Of course I didn’t know whether she did or not, but I said yes, because it seemed the thing to say.
“You are sure?” he says.
“Yes, perfectly sure,” I says, “I ain’t guessing, I know she had it with her.”
He looked very grateful, then, and drawed a long sigh, and says:
“Ah, the poor child, poor friendless little thing—thank God she’s dead.”
I couldn’t make out why he wanted her to be dead, nor how he could seem to be so thankful for it. As for me, I hoped she wasn’t, and I hoped we would find her, yet, and get her and Flaxy away from the Injuns alive and well, too, and I warn’t going to let myself be discouraged out of that thought, either. We started for the Injun camp; and when Tom was on ahead a piece, I up and asked Brace if he actually hoped Peggy was dead; and if he did, why he did. He explained it to me, and then it was all clear.
When we got to the camp, we looked at the bodies a minute, and then Brace said we would bury them presently, but he wanted to look around and make some inquiries, first. So he turned over the ashes of the fire, examining them careful, and examining any little thing he found amongst them, and the tracks, and any little rag or such like matter that was laying around, and pulled out one of the arrows, and examined that, and talked to himself all the time, saying “Sioux—yes, Sioux, that’s plain”—and other remarks like that. I got to wandering around, too, and once when I was a step or two away from him, lo and behold, I found Peggy’s little dirk-knife on the ground! It just took my breath, and I reckon I made a kind of a start, for it attracted his attention, and he asked me if I had found something, and I said yes, and dropped on my knees so that the knife was under my leg; and when he was coming, I let some moccasin beads drop on the ground that I had found before, and pretended to be looking at them; and he come and took them up, and whilst he was turning them over in his hand examining them, I slipped the dirk into my pocket; and presently, as soon as it was dark, I slipped out of our camp and carried it away off about a quarter of a mile and throwed it amongst the grass. But I warn’t satisfied; it seemed to me that it would be just like that fellow to stumble on it and find it, he was so sharp. I didn’t even dast to bury it, I was so afraid he’d find it. So at last I took and cut a little hole and shoved it in betwixt the linings of my jacket, and then I was satisfied. I was glad I thought of that, for it was like having a keepsake from Peggy, and something to remember her by, always as long as I lived.
Chapter 5
THAT NIGHT, in camp, after we had buried the bodies, we set around and talked, and me and Tom told Brace all about how we come to be there, on account of Tom wanting us to go with him and hunt up some Injuns and live with them a while, and Brace said it was just like boys the world over, and just the same way it was with him when he was a boy; and as we talked along, you could see he warmed to us because we thought so much of Peggy and told him so many things she done and said, and how she looked. And now and then, as we spoke of the Injuns, a most wicked look would settle into his face, but at these times he never said nothing.
There was some things which he was a good deal puzzled about; and now and then he would bust into the middle of the talk with a remark that showed us his mind had been wandering to them things. Once he says:
“I wonder what the nation put ’em on the war path. It was perfectly peaceable on the Plains a little while back, or I wouldn’t a had the folks start, of course. And I wonder if it’s general war, or only some little private thing.”
Of course we couldn’t tell him, and so had to let him puzzle along. Another time, he busted in and says:
“It’s the puzzlingest thing!—there’s features about it that I can’t seem to make head nor tail of, no way. I can understand why they fooled around here three or four days, because there warn’t no hurry; they knowed they had from here to Oregon to do the job in, and besides, an Injun is patient; he’d ruther wait a month till he can make sure of his game without any risk to his own skin than attempt it sooner where there’s the least risk. I can understand why they planned a buffalo hunt that would separate all the whites from each other and make the mastering of them easy and certain, because five warriors, nor yet fifteen, won’t tackle five men and two boys, even by surprise when they’re asleep at dawn, when there’s a safer way. Yes, I can understand all that—it’s Injun, and easy. But the thing that gits me, is, what made them throw over the buffalo plan and act in such a hurry at last—for they did act in a hurry. You see, an Injun don’t kill a whole gang, that way, right out and out, unless he is mighty mad or in a desperate hurry. After they had got the young men safe out of the way, they would have saved at least the old man for the torture. It clear beats me, I can’t understand it.”
For the minute, I couldn’t help him out any; I couldn’t think of anything to make them in a hurry. But Tom he remembered about me telling the Injuns the Millses was expecting seven friends, and they looked off and see Peggy and Flaxy on the watch-out for them. So Brace says:
“That’s all right, then; I understand it, now. That’s Injun—that would make ’em drop the buffalo business and hurry up things. I know why they didn’t kill the nigger, and why they haven’t killed him yet, and ain’t going to, nor hurt him; and now if I only knowed whether this is general war or only a little private spurt, I would be satisfied and not bother any more. But—well, hang it, let it go, there ain’t any way to find out.”
So we dropped back on the details again, and by and by I was telling how Man-afraid-of-his-Mother-in-law streaked his face all over with blood after he killed Mr. Mills, and then—
“Why, he done that for war paint!” says Brace Johnson, excited; “warn’t he in war-outfit before?—warn’t they all painted?”
“All but him,” I says. “He never wore paint nor danced with the rest in the war dance.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that before; it explains everything.”
“I did tell you,” I says, “but you warn’t listening.”
“It’s all right, now, boys,” he says, “and I’m glad it’s the way it is, for I wasn’t feeling willing to let you go along with me, because I didn’t know but all the Injuns was after the whites, and it was a general war, and so it would be bad business to let you get into it, and we couldn’t dare to travel except by night, anyway. But you are all right, now, and can shove out with me in the morning, for this is nothing but a little private grudge, and like as not this is the end of it. You see, some white man has killed a relation of that I
njun, and so he has hunted up some whites to retaliate on. It wouldn’t be the proper thing for him to ever appear in war fixings again till he had killed a white man and wiped out that score. He was in disgrace till he had done that; so he didn’t lose any time about piling on something that would answer for war paint; and I reckon he got off a few war-whoops, too, as soon as he could, to exercise his throat and get the taste of it in his mouth again. They’re probably satisfied, now, and there won’t be any more trouble.”
So poor Peggy guessed right; that Injun was “in mourning;” he had “lost a friend;” but it turns out that he knowed better how to comfort himself than she could do it for him.
We had breakfast just at dawn in the morning, and then rushed our arrangements through. We took provisions and such like things as we couldn’t get along without, and packed them on one of the mules, and cachéd the rest of Brace’s truck—that is, buried it—and then Brace struck the Injun trail and we all rode away, westward. Me and Tom couldn’t have kept it; we would have lost it every little while; but it warn’t any trouble to Brace, he dashed right along like it was painted on the ground before him, or paved.
He was so sure Peggy had killed herself, that I reckoned he would be looking out for her body, but he never seemed to. It was so strange that by and by I got into a regular sweat to find out why; and so at last I hinted something about it. But he said no, the Injuns would travel the first twenty-four hours without stopping, and then they would think they was far enough ahead of the Millses’ seven friends to be safe for a while—so then they would go into camp; and there’s where we’d find the body. I asked him how far they would go in that time, and he says:
“The whole outfit was fresh and well fed up, and they had the extra horses and mules besides. They’d go as much as eighty miles—maybe a hundred.”
He seemed to be thinking about Peggy all the time, and never about anything else or anybody else. So I chanced a question, and says:
“What’ll the Injuns do with Flaxy?”
“Poor little chap, she’s all right, they won’t hurt her. No hurry about her—we’ll get her from them by and by. They’re fond of children, and so they’ll keep her or sell her; but whatever band gets her, she’ll be the pet of that whole band, and they’ll dress her fine and take good care of her. She’ll be the only white child the most of the band ever saw, and the biggest curiosity they ever struck in their lives. But they’ll see ’em oftener, by and by, if the whites ever get started to emigrating to Oregon, and I reckon they will.”
It didn’t ever seem to strike him that Peggy wouldn’t kill herself whilst Flaxy was a prisoner, but it did me. I had my doubts; sometimes I believed she would, sometimes I reckoned she wouldn’t.
We nooned an hour, and then went on, and about the middle of the afternoon Brace seen some Injuns away off, but we couldn’t see them. We could see some little specks, that was all; but he said he could see them well enough, and it was Injuns; but they warn’t going our way, and didn’t make us any bother, and pretty soon they was out of sight. We made about forty or fifty miles that day, and went into camp.
Well, late the next day, the trail pointed for a creek and some bushes on its bank about a quarter of a mile away or more, and Brace stopped his horse and told us to ride on and see if it was the camp; and said if it was, to look around and find the body; and told us to bury it, and be tender with it, and do it as good as we could, and then come to him a mile further down the creek, where he would make camp—just come there, and only tell him his orders was obeyed, and stop at that, and not tell him how she looked, nor what the camp was like, nor anything; and then he rode off on a walk, with his head down on his bosom, and took the pack mule with him.
It was the Injun camp, and the body warn’t there, nor any sign of it, just as I expected. Tom was for running and telling him, and cheering him up. But I knowed better. I says:
“No, the thing has turned out just right. We’ll stay here about long enough to dig a grave with bowie knives, and then we’ll go and tell him we buried her.”
Tom says:
“That’s mysterious, and crooked, and good, and I like that much about it; but hang it there ain’t any sense in it, nor any advantage to anybody in it, and I ain’t willing to it.”
So it looked like I’d got to tell him why I reckoned it would be better, all around, for Brace to think we found her and buried her, and at last I come out with it, and then Tom was satisfied; and when we had staid there three or four hours, and all through the long twilight till it was plumb dark, we rode down to Brace’s camp, and he was setting by his fire with his head down, again, and we only just said, “It’s all over—and done right,” and laid down like we wanted to rest; and he only says, in that deep voice of his’n, “God be good to you, boys, for your kindness,” and kind of stroked us on the head with his hand, and that was all that anybody said.
Chapter 6
AFTER ABOUT four days, we begun to catch up on the Injuns. The trail got fresher and fresher. They warn’t afraid, now, and warn’t traveling fast, but we had kept up a pretty good lick all the time. At last one day we struck a camp of theirs where they had been only a few hours before, for the embers was still hot. Brace said we would go very careful, now, and not get in sight of them but keep them just a safe distance ahead. Tom said maybe we might slip up on them in the night, now, and steal Jim and Flaxy away; but he said no, he had other fish to fry, first, and besides it wouldn’t win, anyway.
Me and Tom wondered what his other fish was; and pretty soon we dropped behind and got to talking about it. We couldn’t make nothing out of it for certain, but we reckoned he was meaning to get even with the Injuns and kill some of them before he took any risks about other things. I remembered he said we would get Flaxy “by and by,” and said there warn’t no hurry about it. But then for all he talked so bitter about Injuns, it didn’t look as if he could actually kill one, for he was the gentlest, kindest-heartedest grown person I ever see.
We killed considerable game, these days; and about this time here comes an antelope scampering towards us. He was a real pretty little creature. He stops, about thirty yards off, and sets up his head, and arches up his neck, and goes to gazing at us out of his bright eyes as innocent as a baby. Brace fetches his gun up to his shoulder, but waited and waited, and so the antelope capered off, zig-zagging first to one side and then t’other, awful graceful, and then stretches straight away across the prairie swift as the wind, and Brace took his gun down. In a little while here comes the antelope back again, and stopped a hundred yards off, and stood still, gazing at us same as before, and wondering who we was and if we was friendly, I reckon. Brace fetches up his gun twice, and then the third time; and this time he fired, and the little fellow tumbled. Me and Tom was starting for him, seeing Brace didn’t. But Brace says:
“Better wait a minute, boys, you don’t know the antelope. Let him die, first. Because if that little trusting, harmless thing looks up in your face with its grieved eyes when it’s dying, you’ll never forget it. When I’m out of meat, I kill them, but I don’t go around them till they’re dead, since the first one.”
Tom give me a look, and I give Tom a look, as much as to say, “his fish ain’t revenge, that’s certain, and so what the mischief is it?”
According to my notions, Brace Johnson was a beautiful man. He was more than six foot tall, I reckon, and had broad shoulders, and he was as straight as a jackstaff, and built as trim as a racehorse. He had the steadiest eye you ever see, and a handsome face, and his hair hung all down his back, and how he ever could keep his outfit so clean and nice, I never could tell, but he did. His buckskin suit looked always like it was new, and it was all hung with fringes, and had a star as big as a plate between the shoulders of his coat, made of beads of all kinds of colors, and had beads on his moccasins, and a hat as broad as a barrel-head, and he never looked so fine and grand as he did a-horseback; and a horse couldn’t any more throw him than he could throw the saddle, for when
it come to riding, he could lay over anything outside the circus. And as for strength, I never see a man that was any more than half as strong as what he was, and a most lightning marksman with a gun or a bow or a pistol. He had two long-barreled ones in his holsters, and could shoot a pipe out of your mouth, most any distance, every time, if you wanted him to. It didn’t seem as if he ever got tired, though he stood most of the watch every night himself, and let me and Tom sleep. We was always glad, for his sake, when a very dark night come, because then we all slept all night and didn’t stand any watch; for Brace said Injuns ain’t likely to try to steal your horses on such nights, because if you woke up and managed to kill them and they died in the dark, it was their notion and belief that it would always be dark to them in the Happy Hunting Grounds all through eternity, and so you don’t often hear of Injuns attacking in the night, they do it just at dawn; and when they do ever chance it in the night, it’s only moonlight ones, not dark ones.
He didn’t talk very much; and when he talked about Injuns, he talked the same as if he was talking about animals; he didn’t seem to have much idea that they was men. But he had some of their ways, himself, on account of being so long amongst them; and moreover he had their religion. And one of the things that puzzled him was how such animals ever struck such a sensible religion. He said the Injuns hadn’t only but two Gods, a good one and a bad one, and they never paid no attention to the good one, nor ever prayed to him or worried about him at all, but only tried their level best to flatter up the bad god and keep on the good side of him; because the good one loved them and wouldn’t ever think of doing them any harm, and so there warn’t any occasion to be bothering him with prayers and things, because he was always doing the very best he could for them, anyway, and prayers couldn’t better it; but all the trouble come from the bad god, who was setting up nights to think up ways to bring them bad luck and bust up all their plans, and never fooled away a chance to do them all the harm he could; and so the sensible thing was to keep praying and fussing around him all the time, and get him to let up. Brace thought more of the Great Spirit than he did of his own mother, but he never fretted about him. He said his mother wouldn’t hurt him, would she?—well then, the Great Spirit wouldn’t, that was sure.
