In the Shadow of the Hills

by Madeline Baker

  IN THE SHADOW OF THE HILLS

  Madeline Baker

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Prologue

  You may have heard of me, John Jacob McKenna. I had quite a reputation as a fast gun back in the early part of the 1870’s. I killed Red Wade and Curly Jack Turner, and a score of other men whose names and faces I can’t recall.

  Some folks wonder how I sleep nights, what with all those dead men on my conscience, but none of them ever caused me a moment’s regret. Red Wade was nothing but a greedy s.o.b. who wanted to own all of Southern Arizona, and Curly Jack Turner was just plain no good. As for the others, most were just ambitious kids out to make a name for themselves. Only I got the big name, and all they got was dead.

  Of course, that’s all behind me now, and I’m back where I began. Sitting here, watching the sun rise above Mo’ohta-vo’honaaeva, the sacred Black Hills of the Cheyenne, my mind goes back in time, back to the beginning....

  Chapter 1

  I was born in the shadow of the Black Hills early in the summer of 1849. My father was Sun Seeker, a Cheyenne war chief. My mother was Katherine McKenna, a white woman my father had taken in a raid and kept as his captive.

  Other women in similar circumstances had learned to embrace the Indian way of life. A few women even learned to love the men who had captured them. But not my mother. She hated the Cheyenne way of life and she hated my father, and her hatred made her cold and bitter towards everyone, including me.

  Contrary to my father’s wishes, my mother insisted I learn to speak English. Whenever we were alone in our lodge, she refused to speak to me, or even acknowledge my presence, unless I spoke to her in her native tongue.

  “Someday we’ll get out of here,” she vowed again and again. “I pray to God it will be soon!”

  “Get out of here?” I repeated, puzzled. “Where would we go?”

  “Back to civilization,” Katherine answered emphatically. “Where men wear suits and cravats instead of war paint and feathers. Where people sleep in four-poster beds and bathe in tubs with hot water and soap.”

  She clasped her hands to her breast and her dove gray eyes took on a dreamy, faraway quality.

  “Oh, for a hot bath in a real tub with lilac-scented soap and a soft Turkish towel to dry off with. And what I wouldn’t give to sleep in a real bed again, with clean sheets and soft wool blankets and a feather pillow.”

  Her eyes fairly glowed and her voice took on a wistful note as she murmured, “You’ll love it back east. We’ll have fresh milk every day, and French pastries and chocolate.” She glanced down at her doeskin tunic and grimaced. “And we’ll wear real clothes instead of these dreadful skins.”

  She smiled, her expression melancholy. “And we’ll have roast beef and lamb chops and fried chicken and dumplings. And presents at Christmas, and birthday parties, and...”

  Her voice trailed off as she looked at me sharply and without affection.

  “I only hope I can get you away from him before it’s too late,” she said curtly. “Before he turns you into a complete savage.”

  Abruptly, she broke into tears.

  Startled, I stared at her without speaking. I had never seen her weep before, and I did not understand her tears.

  I did not understand her words, either. Not then.

  * * *

  Looking back, I can think of no better place for a child to grow up than in the middle of a big, boisterous Cheyenne village. We boys spent our days pretending to be warriors. Imitating our fathers, we spent countless hours stalking imaginary game, swimming, wrestling, or racing our sleek paint ponies across the vast sunlit plains of the Dakotas.

  Nights, with our bellies full of roast venison or rich red buffalo meat, we sat around the campfire, listening in spellbound fascination as the real warriors related exciting, heart-stirring tales of courage and cunning.

  Nowhere in all the world could there be found better horsemen than the Cheyenne. No warrior was braver, or more fierce. Counting coup on a living enemy was the most courageous act of all, as it demanded more skill and daring to touch your enemy with your lance than to kill him from a distance. The bravest thing of all was to ride into battle carrying only your courage and a coup stick.

  The Cheyenne counted coup on an enemy three times, no more. The first man to count coup would cry, “Ah haih’!” - I am the first.

  I looked forward to the time when I would be allowed to go to war, when I could count coup on an enemy warrior, or ride against our ancient enemies, the Crow, and steal their horses.

  My father was one of the bravest, most respected men in our tribe. Much to my mother’s chagrin, I yearned to be just like him.

  Time passed swiftly and peacefully in those golden days. We moved our camp twice each year, following the buffalo in the summer and the sun in the winter.

  My favorite camp was in the shadow of the Black Hills where I had been born. The grass was always thick and rich, the game plentiful, the water sweet and cold.

  And always I could see the mountains. There was something mystical about their timbered hills that touched a chord deep within me even then, and I longed for the day when I would be worthy to climb one of Mo’ohta-honaaeva’s lofty peaks and seek a warrior’s vision.

  But that day was far in the future.

  * * *

  I guess I was nine or ten the day a wizened old trader wandered into our village leading a lop-eared gray mule. The man, who was short and skinny and clad in an odd assortment of furs and skins, resembled a pile of cast-off clothing. When he swept off his tall beaver hat, I was astonished to see that he was completely bald. Upon seeing his shiny pate, several little girls ran screaming for their mothers, certain that the old man had been scalped alive.

  A dozen armed dog soldiers quickly surrounded the stranger, but there was no fear in the vehoe’s weathered face, or in his rheumy blue eyes.

  “M’name’s Rusty Johnson,” he said in a voice as rough as tree bark. “I’ve come to trade sugar and coffee and cloth for robes and such. Are my red brothers interested?”

  They were, indeed! Besides the items he had mentioned, Rusty Johnson had a few cast iron pots, a dozen or so kitchen knives, and a wide assortment of the trinkets and colored beads that were so dear to the hearts of our women.

  With the speed of long practice, Rusty Johnson unpacked his mule and spread his goods out on a couple of trade blankets, keeping up a running dialogue as he did so.

  “Looks like we’re gonna have a nice long summer...hey, there, boy, don’t creep up behind Old Jenny like that, or you’ll wind up on your rump clear across the camp.... Yes, ma’am, I do have a bolt of red cloth in here somewheres...Sorry, old son, I ain’t packin’ any firewater this trip...”

  Men and women alike gathered in the center of camp, swarming around Rusty Johnson like bears around a honey tree, each holding what they wanted in one hand, and what they hoped to trade for it in the other. Johnson knew better than to rush the Cheyenne, and the bartering took up the whole day, and the better part of the night.

  Johnson was loading up his scrawny mule with hides and furs when my mother approached him.


  “Mister Johnson, could you help me, please?”

  “Be glad to, ma’am,” the trader answered politely. “But, as you can see, they plumb cleaned me out. Maybe next time.”

  “I don’t wish to purchase anything.”

  “No? Wal, then, what can I do fer ya?”

  “I want you to get me out of here,” Katherine said urgently.

  Rusty Johnson threw a quick look over his shoulder, as if he were afraid someone might be spying on him.

  “You a prisoner?” he asked in a hushed tone.

  “Yes.”

  “Wal, I ain’t lookin’ fer no trouble with the Injuns, ma’am,” he said, backing away a little. “I jest come to trade a mite before I head back to Yeller Springs.”

  My mother’s voice took on a note of pleading. “Please, Mr. Johnson, my father will make it worth your trouble if you get me and my son away from here. Won’t you please help us?”

  Rusty Johnson scratched the back of his neck. “Your daddy a wealthy man, is he?”

  “You could say that,” Katherine replied dryly. “Last I knew, he was worth over two million dollars.”

  “No shit! Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am,” he apologized quickly. “How much to you reckon your pappy would pay to get you back?”

  “Whatever you ask of him.”

  The prospect of being filthy rich put a wicked sparkle in the old man’s faded blue eyes. I expected the two of them to make some sort of plan to meet later, but apparently Rusty Johnson knew he’d never make it out of camp alive if he tried to sneak my mother out. Instead, he went off lickety split to hunt up my father.

  I trailed the old man from a distance, curious to see what he would do next.

  My father was sitting cross-legged before our lodge, carefully painting the shaft of a flint-tipped war arrow. He looked up as the white man approached.

  The vehoe skipped the usual amenities and got right to the point.

  “I’d like to buy that pretty yeller-haired gal of yourn,” Johnson said bluntly. “What would you take fer her?”

  “A new rifle and a hundred rounds of ammunition,” my father replied without hesitation.

  “Sounds fair,” the old trader agreed. “And jest to keep her from grievin’, I’ll throw in another hunnerd rounds fer her cub.”

  “No,” my father said. “The boy stays.”

  Johnson dug a flea out from under his armpit and crushed it between two dirty fingernails.

  “Ain’t fittin’ to take a kid from his maw,” he remarked with casual unconcern.

  My father rose smoothly to his feet, his expression as hard and cold as winter ice as he regarded the other man.

  “You may take the woman or not, as you please,” my father said flatly. “But the boy stays.”

  I guess keeping his scalp, bald as it was, meant more to Rusty Johnson than a pile of money because he trotted back to my mother and told her the bad news.

  “I was afraid he would say that,” Katherine murmured sadly. “Thank you for trying.”

  There were tears in my mother’s eyes as she made her way to our lodge, and I knew she was deeply disappointed that Sun Seeker would not let me go. Truth be told, I was more than a little surprised that Katherine didn’t leave when she had the chance.

  From that day forward, my father never sought my mother’s bed again. Being a virile, healthy male, he simply took himself another wife.

  For some reason that I could not fathom at the time, this infuriated my mother. Usually close-mouthed and sullen, Katherine grew more and more outspoken in her hatred for the Cheyenne in general and for my father in particular.

  When Sun Seeker could no longer stand the rough side of her tongue, he threatened to sell her to the Pawnee. My father did not make idle threats and thereafter, my mother wisely curbed her shrewish tongue, at least in my father’s presence.

  My father’s new wife was a rather plain, plump young woman, but my father loved her dearly. And no wonder. Unlike my mother, Quiet Antelope, for that was her name, was submissive and soft-spoken, even-tempered at all times. I never heard her raise her voice in anger; never heard any but the sweetest words pass her lips, yet she possessed great inner strength. Women had great influence among the Cheyenne. There had been women chiefs, and women who had possessed remarkable powers. Often, women had the final say in camp affairs. Women often went to war with their husbands, sometimes to fight, sometimes to cook and look after the horses. One woman had ridden into battle with her brother. When his horse went down, she stayed beside her brother, fighting off the enemy, until help came. Though Quiet Antelope was soft-spoken, I knew she would not hesitate to defend my father or me if the need arose.

  She was a favorite with all the children in our village, and there were always three or four little ones hanging around our lodge vying for her attention.

  As the years passed, Quiet Antelope proved to be barren, but my father took no other wife.

  It was Quiet Antelope who filled our lodge with laughter. It was to Quiet Antelope that I took my first big kill; Quiet Antelope who painstakingly skinned the shaggy buffalo calf and made me a fine fur robe from the hide. I often pretended she was my mother, for I loved her dearly.

  Unlike Katherine, who was invariably cold and withdrawn, Quiet Antelope was not afraid to express her feelings. Always, she had a smile for me, a kind word, a warm heartfelt embrace. She laughed when I hid a frog in her blankets. She cried with me when my favorite pony broke its leg and had to be destroyed.

  My mother seemed to grow more and more bitter with each passing day. The whole tribe knew Sun Seeker shunned her bed and that she was, in fact, no more than a slave in his lodge. Katherine McKenna was a proud woman and her reduced status in my father’s household weighed heavily on her mind. I knew she was relieved that my father avoided her bed and yet, perversely, his lack of attention pricked her vanity.

  Of course, I didn’t fully realize the cause of the underlying currents that ran through our lodge at the time. I knew only that my mother was a cold, grim-faced woman who disliked everyone around her, including her only child, whereas Quiet Antelope was unfailingly kind and cheerful.

  * * *

  From the time a boy was born, it was expected that he would be a warrior. Cheyenne boys did not cry in public, nor did they show pain or fear. From early childhood, all games, all actions, all thoughts were with but one goal in mind: to become a warrior.

  There were many warrior societies: the Hotamitaniu, or Dog Soldiers, who policed the village and enforced its laws; the Mahohewas, or Red Shields, a group made up of mostly elderly men; the Wohksehhetaniu, or Fox Soldiers; the Himoweyuhkis, or Elk-Horn Scrapers.

  When a boy turned thirteen, he could elect to join one of the soldier societies. Sons usually joined the same society as their father. The Kit Fox Soldiers always claimed to be superior to the others.

  From the time we could walk, we boys spent long hours pretending to be warriors. We hunted squirrels and rabbits with small bows and arrows. We ran for miles across the sun-bleached prairie, swam in icy mountain lakes, wrestled like bear cubs in the high meadows. And when we turned twelve, the seasoned warriors took us in hand and it was no longer play, but serious business, a matter of survival.

  We were taught the proper way to take a scalp, the rules for counting coup, how to read the tracks of man and beast, how to bring down a buffalo bull with a single, well-placed arrow or lance, how to interpret the signs of the sun, the moon, the stars, and the seasons, how to cover a trail, how to build and maintain a smokeless fire, how to survive off the land.

  We learned the correct way to make a good strong bow, to fletch arrows that would fly straight and true; the ritual for blessing a war shield, how to defend ourselves with knife and lance and war club.

  And when we had mastered the use of these traditional weapons, we learned to use the white man’s fire sticks. Rifles were rare and highly prized by the Cheyenne, and every warrior desired to own one.

  Treasured as these weapo
ns were, I much preferred the bow. By day, arrows made no noise to give away your position; by night, there was no telltale muzzle flash to disclose your whereabouts to the enemy. A good warrior could unleash six arrows as quickly and accurately as a good marksman could fire six rounds from a Winchester.

  Being a full-fledged warrior of the Cheyenne Nation did not come easy. There were many tests to prove a boy’s courage and skill. There were hunting skills to be mastered, traditions to be learned, rites and ceremonies to be completed. Becoming a warrior was an honor that carried a great deal of responsibility. Warriors protected the village from attack, provided meat for the tribe, policed the village, enforced the laws, punished the guilty, trained the fledgling braves. A warrior was courageous in battle, impassive under torture, respectful to his elders, brave in the face of death.

  As in any community, there were those who did not fit in. When I was growing up, there were two boys who shunned hunting and fighting, preferring to stay home with the women. There was no shame attached to these boys, but they never became warriors.

  Foot races were popular among the Cheyenne, especially among the boys, though girls and adults of both sexes raced, too.

  I particularly remember one race that took place the summer I was thirteen. A dozen or so of us boys stood on the line, waiting for the signal to begin, while our fathers and a number of other warriors wagered heavily on who would win the race. The people loved to gamble, and many a horse or blanket changed hands on the outcome of races and other contests. Naturally, each father backed his own son. It was to be a long race, five miles over broken ground.

  Finally, all bets were made and the starter raised his hand to signal the race was about to begin. When we were set, he dropped his hand and we were off.

  The first half-mile was over flat ground and we ran in a loose group. But as the terrain grew rougher, littered with fallen trees and boulders, a few of the boys began to fall behind.

  A low hill loomed ahead, thick with brush, but I ran straight on, hurdling the lower bushes, skirting those too big to jump. My best friend, Little Tree, was right behind me. A tall thin boy known as Crow Killer, was close on our heels. The rest of the boys were strung out behind us.