by Dee Brown
Without thinking, Pleasant grasped for the dead man’s hair, started to cut into the scalp. He cursed himself softly, dropped the head, and turned the body over, reaching for the big jail key on the belt. After one quick glance up the deserted street, he put the key in the lock and swung the door open. “Swift Eagle! Opothle!” he called. Out of the blackness of the crowded jail came startled grunts and sounds of moving bodies. Swift Eagle’s face appeared, questioning, crying out Pleasant’s name.
“Shut up!” Pleasant whispered. “Where’s Young Opothle?”
Swift Eagle was dragging him by one arm.
“You two get around to the back quick. Horses there.” He looked at the other nine Cherokees circling in confusion on the wooden sidewalk. “Got no horses for you,” he said. “Scatter out for the woods. Go back to the Nation as fast as you can.”
He turned and dashed for the horses. The two boys were already mounted. He led the way slowly along the alley into a street, gradually increasing the gait. As soon as they were away from the buildings, they broke into a gallop and did not slow until the animals were blowing froth from their bits.
When they passed through a little town, starlit and quiet except for a dog barking in the distance, Pleasant noticed clothing left out overnight to dry on a line beside a big house. He turned his mount into the unfenced yard and jerked a shirt and a pair of pants from the line. Soon afterward they came to a bridge. He dismounted, removed his uniform, and put on the shirt and pants. They were too big for him, but he rolled up the sleeves and legs. Then he wrapped his uniform around a large stone and tossed it into the creek beneath the bridge.
“You quitting the Union army?” Young Opothle asked.
“Reckon so. This war is not for us of Creek Mary’s blood.” He climbed back in his saddle. “It’s a far piece to Fort Carrothers. Let’s ride.”
40
“IN ALL MY LIFE,” Dane said, “I never saw such wretched, such frazzled human beings as those three boys when they came riding into Fort Carrothers. We could not believe it was them, of course. For days we’d been mourning for Swift Eagle and Young Opothle, and heard nothing from Pleasant since he’d left us. Sweet Medicine Woman had cut her hair short and gashed blood from the calves of her legs in the Cheyenne way of mourning, but the grief in her face went quickly away after Swift Eagle returned. A few days later we celebrated again when Little Cloud surprised us by coming in on the stagecoach. We didn’t do much feasting, though, as food was scarce. All of us were starving for buffalo meat.
“The night after Little Cloud came back, Sweet Medicine Woman put Creek Mary’s Danish coin around her neck again, and she slept in my arms until long after the sun rose, never moaning in her sleep or rising to weep silently in the night as she had been doing.
“She was ready now to go south and join her father’s people, and Pleasant was eager to see Rising Fawn. I talked to Griffa about our going, and she said that with Bibbs and Young Opothle there, she could manage the trading post without our help. As we did not know where Big Star’s Cheyennes were camped for the summer, Swift Eagle and Pleasant began making long rides out to the south to see if they could find any Indians who might know where our people were, but it was as if the Plains had been swept clean of every living thing but Bluecoats. Late one day the boys came back to tell us that soldiers were building a new fort down on the South Fork. ‘They call it Fort Starke after a general got killed back east in the war,’ Pleasant said.
“ ‘How far from here?’ I asked him.
“He guessed about twenty miles.
“ ‘Why do they want a fort there?’ I wondered.
“ ‘To watch us hostile Indians,’ he said with a laugh, but we both knew he was speaking truth.
“Before we got our bundles ready to go, we had an unexpected visitor. One night long after dark I heard a horse snuffling just outside our tipi, and then a voice softly called Sweet Medicine Woman. I waked her and we went to the flap and looked out. “Who’s there?’ I asked.
“ ‘Yellow Hawk.’ He dismounted and Sweet Medicine Woman rushed to embrace the brother she had not seen for many moons.
“Yellow Hawk had come to bring news of the Cheyennes and to warn us not to try to cross the Plains in search of them. The soldiers, he said, had driven most of the Southern Cheyennes and Arapahos between Sand Creek and the Arkansas River, and threatened to fire upon them as hostiles if they were found outside that reservation. Because there were few buffalo in that country, Big Star and some other chiefs had gone to a new soldier fort on the Arkansas, Fort Lyon, and asked the Bluecoat chief there if they could go to the Hotoa or Smoking Land to hunt. The Bluecoat chief promised to obtain permission for them to hunt, but he had not yet done so.
“ ‘It is very hard for us,’ Yellow Hawk said. ‘Big Star has lost respect for the treaty and wants to flee to our cousins in the north, to the Powder River country, but we would have to hide from Bluecoat patrols all the way. I traveled here only by nights and had no trouble, but it would be difficult with travois and women and children.’
“Yellow Hawk stayed with us only a few days. Although I knew my family would have a hard time living at Fort Carrothers with so little to eat, after hearing his talk of the Cheyennes’ troubles I could see that they were in a much worse plight than we. Sweet Medicine Woman and my sons were disappointed—”
Dane stopped suddenly, raising up from his chair and squinting against the bright Montana sun pouring through the window. “Damn if that Crow boy is not bringing his wagon up here again. Somebody on the seat with him. Couldn’t be Mary Amayi this early.” He shaded his eyes. “Red Bird Woman! What does she want?”
He strode to the door and opened it with a sigh of impatience, and I followed at a discreet distance. The young Crow, John Bear-in-the-Water, turned the wagon expertly off the road, bringing it to a stop right in front of Dane’s doorway.
Red Bird Woman, her black hair only slightly streaked with gray, and braided at the sides, let herself down slowly from the seat with the aid of a long stick. She was wearing a spotted dress, full around her ample hips, and a blanket shawl. Her face was round and plump, without a wrinkle, her eyes wide open and smiling at Dane. “Where you been last two days?” she asked him.
“Watching the sun rise and set,” he said.
She saw me then, behind him, and nodded as if she understood. He introduced me, pronouncing my name with emphasis. “The gentleman who wanted me to tell him about my grandmother,” he explained.
“Dane talk about old grandmother a lot,” Red Bird Woman said. “She must’ve been something.”
“He told me about you, also,” I said.
Entering the cabin, she shook with quick laughter as she sat in one of the rocking chairs. “Don’t you believe nothing old Dane tell you.” Her wide eyes searched my face, dismissed me, and turned away. “You got coffee ready, Dane?”
He was already pouring her a cup. John Bear-in-the-Water crouched by the fireplace, warming his hands.
“I was going to tell about the day Flattery Jack Belcourt came to the trading post,” Dane said.
“That Belcourt was evil spirit,” she declared. The smile left her face. “I hope he went to white man’s hell.”
“On that same day,” Dane continued, “Major Easterwood also was there.”
“I don’t remember him,” Red Bird Woman said.
“No, you never knew the major. He was a Bluecoat, but a good Veheo. I owe my life to him. The day I first saw him, my daughter Susa and I had been out hunting rabbits. She must’ve been ten or eleven then, but a damn good shot. Hunted like a boy. We crossed the stream on our horses and stopped to watch Amayi painting our tipi—”
“That was Mary Amayi’s mother?” Red Bird Woman asked.
“Yes.” Dane frowned at the interruption. “Amayi could draw anything, symbols she was always drawing. But she sometimes asked Wewoka to help with the colors. Together they put all our family on the tipi cover—a yellow floating cloud for Little Cloud, a
great soaring eagle for Swift Eagle, a flying pony for Pleasant. Amayi drew the pony so that its tawny mane and blue eyes truly was Pleasant. He would sit on the ground and look up at the flying pony on the side of the tipi and shake his head in wonderment. For Susa she drew a prairie-dog, I suppose because Susa spent so much time at a nearby prairie-dog village watching the animals and making up stories about them. And for herself, Amayi drew a castilleja—the whites call them Indian paint brushes—splashes of bright red, high up on the tipi so that the blossoms looked like fire coming out of the smokehole.”
“What did she draw for you and Sweet Medicine Woman?” Red Bird Woman asked.
“Two sitting coyotes facing each other on opposite sides of the entrance flap.” Dane’s face creased in one of his tight-lipped smiles. “She knew what her parents were in the real world.”
“I remember that tipi,” Red Bird Woman said. “The Bluecoats burned it that winter we camped with Crazy Horse’s people on Powder River.”
“Yes. As I said, Amayi was painting one of her symbols on the tipi when Major Easterwood first came there from Denver. He was riding alone, saw us behind the trading post, and turned his horse toward us. His blue uniform was a warning of danger to me, and so I walked out in front of my young daughters, wondering what he wanted. He inquired politely if the trading post offered meals to travelers, and I told him we no longer did so because of the shortage of rations. He then asked if he might have a drink of fresh water.
“Major Easterwood was a tall sad-eyed man with a crooked white scar along his neck, and he limped painfully when he dismounted. I learned later that he was a professional soldier—went to West Point—had been badly shot up in some battle in Virginia and was sent out to Camp Weld at Denver for light duties while he recovered. He was such a kindly man that I invited him into the trading room, and talked Griffa out of a precious cup of coffee and some of her corn cakes for him. He was grateful and apologetic. Being an easterner, he said, he was not accustomed to the long distances on the Plains and had badly underestimated the time required to ride to Fort Starke.
“He wanted to talk, and after I told him I was Cherokee he questioned me for a time about my life. Then he sat silent, staring at the entrance door. ‘I am not looking forward to joining the Colorado Volunteers at Fort Starke,’ he said. I asked him why, but he just shook his head. I could see that he was very tired, and when he rested his head on the table, I asked if he would like to lie down. ‘No, thank you,’ he said. ‘I will be all right after a moment.’ However, he fell asleep. I went into the kitchen to tell Griffa to leave him be, and while I was there we heard a great clatter of horses’ hooves out front and the sound of heavy boots in the entrance.
“By the time I got into the trading room there must’ve been a dozen Bluecoat cavalrymen crowding in, several of them poking about among our scanty trade goods. Their leader, a big beefy man with colonels’ eagles on his shoulders, was standing facing Major Easterwood, who had been wakened by their noisy incoming.
“ ‘Where are you stationed, major,’ the colonel called out. At the sound of the big man’s voice, I knew who he was, although I had not seen him for more than twenty years. His scraggly beard and the tufts of once pink hair sprouting above his ears had turned gray, but his squinty eyes still glinted with the cunning of the evil spirit that he was.
“Major Easterwood told him he was on his way from Denver to Fort Starke. Flattery Jack pranced over to the table, removed a gauntlet, and offered his hand. ‘I’m Colonel Belcourt, in command at Fort Starke. You must be the officer sent down to look into our shortage of arms.’ Major Easterwood bowed without smiling.
“ ‘A man of your abilities will soon see that we’re in dire need of better rifles to deal with the hostile tribes,’ Belcourt said in that snakelike way of his that got him the nickname of Flattery Jack.
“ ‘I shall give the matter my earnest attention, sir,’ Major Easterwood said.
“ ‘I’ve taken on the duty of leading a patrol myself,’ Belcourt went on, ‘to clean out wandering bands of hostiles that threaten traveling civilians and Denver’s supplies from the east. Would you care to join us?’
“ ‘Thank you, sir, but I feel the need to rest myself and my mount,’ Major Easterwood replied politely. ‘I shall go directly on to the fort.’
“ ‘As you will, major. I look forward to your company tomorrow evening.’ Belcourt turned to face me for the first time, hatred rising in his eyes for my Indianness. ‘Where’s the trader?’ he demanded.
“ ‘I’m acting for the trader,’ I said.
“ ‘Who lives in that tipi back there?’
“ ‘My family and I,’ I replied.
“ ‘You’re Cheyenne?’
“ ‘My family is Cheyenne.’
“The little yellow points of light in his mean eyes kept studying my face. It was twenty years older than the face of the young man who had outsmarted him at Santa Fe, but he must have recognized something familiar in it. ‘I’ve seen you before,’ he said ‘and I don’t want to see you again. If you and your squaw and whatever papooses you may claim, and that tipi, are not cleared out of here by my next patrol, the tipi will be burned and all Cheyennes at this trading post put under arrest for transfer to the reservation below Sand Creek. Furthermore, if there is no white trader in charge here when I come again, the door of this trading post will be nailed shut. My authority is the Governor of this Territory, who has empowered me to drive all hostiles off these Plains. Do you understand? You speak as though you’d been schooled.’
“ ‘I understand,’ I said, trying to keep fear from my voice. It was not so much fear of Belcourt. He was a cowardly windbag, his evil akin to madness, but around him in the trading room the faces of his men, uncivilized, barely human, were all watching me, their eyes and mouths more brutish than those of carrion animals. They were the same faces I had seen as a youth in Georgia, the faces of the Pony Boys at New Echota and Okelogee empowered by another governor, a strain of human evil that has hunted my people across America and will not let us rest. No matter what barriers we may build against it, fear is always in us, especially when we stand as protectors of others. As Belcourt strode out the door, his men following, I fought against the fear in myself, remembering Creek Mary, who never ran from fear, and I promised her spirit that I would not run from it.
“No sooner had the cavalrymen gone away than Griffa, Sweet Medicine Woman, and Pleasant rushed into the trading room. They all had been in the kitchen listening, and each one began talking at the same time. Sweet Medicine Woman wanted to pack and start for Sand Creek, Griffa wondered if she could not leave the trading post in the care of Bibbs and Wewoka while she took her children back to Indian Territory, and Pleasant kept shouting that we should make a real fort of Fort Carrothers and defend ourselves.
“While we were chattering away, Major Easterwood was preparing to leave, expressing his thanks to us for our hospitality. I walked with him out the entrance.
“ ‘What are you going to do now?’ he asked.
“ ‘I don’t know,’ I said.
“ ‘Now you see why I have no taste for my assignment at Fort Starke. Since I’ve been at Denver I’ve heard much about this Colonel Belcourt and his volunteer soldiers. They are not soldiers, but bullies, scourings of the frontier, too cowardly to fight either for or against the Union. The decent people in Denver despise Belcourt, but he has power over the territorial governor and I’ve been sent down here to inspect the regiment’s arms and make recommendations. No matter what I recommend, Belcourt will get more arms. He has not yet many men under his command, but hundreds of riffraff in Denver will flock to Belcourt’s regiment when they see that President Lincoln is in earnest about enforcing the draft laws out here on the frontier. When that happens, God have pity on you and your people.’
“ They’ll war on us?’
“ ‘They’ll start an Indian war to keep from being ordered east to fight in a real war against the Confederates.’
“He touched my shoulder to say good-bye. ‘You have a few weeks at best,’ he said.”
41
NOT MANY HOURS AFTER Flattery Jack Belcourt and Major Easterwood departed from Fort Carrothers, leaving everyone there in a state of alarm, Lean Bear and Red Bird Woman materialized like ghosts out of the stream behind the trading post. Lean Bear had led several Dog Soldiers and their families from Sand Creek to the Cheyennes’ former winter camp at the Ghost Timbers, traveling by night as Yellow Hawk had done, using streams for pathways and avoiding soft ground so as to leave as few tracks as possible.
Other groups of Big Star’s Cheyennes were following them, a day or two apart, no more than eight or ten families together, in hopes that most of them could elude the Bluecoat patrols, their plan being to rendezvous at the Ghost Timbers. From there they would go north together through the dry sandhills, moving as rapidly as they could until they reached the sanctuary of the Powder River country.
“Big Star has thought of this for a long time,” Lean Bear said. “By going north we are turning against the treaty that old Wannesahta signed for the Cheyennes at Horse Creek. This troubles Big Star’s heart. He does not wish to break his word even though the Veheos have broken their word on the treaty twenty times over. Big Star has seen in a vision that we will all die of starvation if we stay below Sand Creek. No rain has fallen there through the summer moons. Even the rabbits have fled. We must break our word to survive.”
Because they had traveled without travois, the Dog Soldiers and their families at the Ghost Timbers had no shelter and very little food. “We left our tipis standing,” Lean Bear said. “The others are leaving theirs. With dragging travois we could not escape the Bluecoats, and besides they will see our tipis across Sand Creek and think we are still there.”
The Dog Soldiers had dug holes for concealment among the willows at the Timbers, covering them with limbs and brush, but as they dared not go out to hunt by daylight they would soon begin to hunger. “You must be very careful,” Dane warned him. “The Bluecoats have built a new fort on the South Fork less than half a day’s ride from the Timbers.”
