The Sundown Man

by Jory Sherman

  I sat there and pretended to drink when a bottle was handed to me. The men drank a lot, and one or two got up, staggered away, and vomited. Then they came back for more. Some began to brag about how brave they were, how many coups they had counted, how many men they had killed.

  I got up after a while, and nobody seemed to care. They were all busy drinking and bragging.

  I walked around, checked the pony herd to see which boys were guarding them. They paid me little mind, and I walked back to my teepee and sat outside as the shadows of afternoon grew long. I kept my eyes on Speckled Hawk, whose eyes had turned red and were beginning to glaze.

  Some of the women begged for whiskey, and One Dog let each of them drink some, whacking one on the butt as she trotted away, giggling to herself. The men got up, stretched, pissed, and sat down again to drink more whiskey. The women cooked the meat and made their husbands come and eat. As night fell, most of the men had eaten and then had gone back to drinking more whiskey. I ate and waited, watching.

  While the Indians were getting drunk, I gathered a few things and put them in a pouch with a sling. These were things I might need later on if I was able to run away without being shot dead. I got flint and steel, a burning glass, and some dried jerked elk meat. Some I stole from One Dog’s teepee. The jerky was in my own teepee, kept there by Blue Owl. I hid the pouch outside my teepee, under a loose flap of hide.

  Ormly had been right, I thought. This just might be my opportunity to escape from the Arapaho. When One Dog called me back over, I sat down, pretending to be a little drunk. He handed me a bottle and, again, I pretended to swallow a lot. I did get more than I wanted in my mouth, and then let it trickle down my throat very slowly. I pretended to get drunker. Gradually, I began to act like they did, muttering and mumbling, slurring my Arapaho words. One Dog smiled drunkenly at me.

  I didn’t think the whiskey would last long at the rate the men were consuming it. But they were not drinking so much as the evening wore on. A couple of men got up and went to their teepees, carrying their bottles with them. I heard them crash to their blankets and figured they had passed out.

  I kept my eyes on Speckled Hawk, who seemed to have an iron constitution. But the whiskey got to him too, and he arose and made several attempts to align himself up with his teepee. I knew that he was not married and lived alone. It took him a few seconds to navigate to his teepee, and a few more to overcome the perversity of an inanimate object, namely, the tent flap. Finally, he went inside and I heard him fall to his bed.

  One Dog hardly noticed me when he staggered to his feet. I helped him inside his teepee and helped him into his bed. He lay on his back, eyes closed, and began to snore loudly. I waited, holding my breath, my heart pounding. The little amount of whiskey I had consumed helped give me courage. But I was still afraid.

  I was going to make my move, but I knew that if I made even one small mistake, someone in the tribe would kill me and never even bat an eye.

  I got up and walked out into the night. Billions of stars twinkled overhead and the camp was quiet. Even the dogs were asleep. I took a deep breath to clear my head, and then started my stealthy walk toward the teepee of Speckled Hawk.

  I knew it would be dark inside and I would have to find his rifle by using my hands, careful not to awaken him.

  I would be as a blind man, not only tempting Fate, but trying to change my own.

  Fate was a hell of a thing to be thinking of at that time, but there it was. In my mind. Huge, formidable, dangerous.

  I listened outside the tent flap for a few minutes, then ducked down and stepped inside, into the darkness. Into the unknown.

  Eighteen

  Speckled Hawk was snoring, and I knew he was dead asleep as I crept inside his teepee. I did not know where he kept his flintlock rifle. The only light came from the stars shining through the smoke hole above me. The light was very faint and I could not make out objects. But I knew where Speckled Hawk was, and I moved around the wall of the teepee, groping ahead of me, feeling the ground with my moccasined feet.

  I made one circuit without finding what I was looking for. So I walked another circle, closer to the center. I stretched a foot out and felt before I made a step. Finally, I stubbed my toe on something hard. I reached down and picked it up. I felt it with my hands. It was a war club. I stuck it in my sash. I would need that when I went to get my pony out of the herd. If any of the boys were awake and challenged me, I would brain him to silence.

  Every small sound I made sent an alarm shooting through my senses. I took my time, feeling with my feet. I kept shortening my circles, careful not to disturb the sleeping man. On the last step of the final circuit, my toe touched something soft. I put my foot on it and it gave way, but there were hard things inside. I reached down and felt it with my hand. It was, I decided, Speckled Hawk’s hunting pouch, with powder, ball, mold, grease, and patches inside. I picked it up and slung it over my shoulder.

  But where in hell was his rifle?

  I had gone over every inch of the dirt floor of the teepee. Had I missed a spot? I didn’t think so. I got down on my hands and knees and started feeling around on top of the buffalo robe, on both sides of Speckled Hawk. Finally, as I was about to give up and brain the sleeping man so I could feel underneath the buffalo hide, I felt the stock of the rifle. The brass butt plate was cool to my touch. My heart leaped in my chest, or it felt like that, and I slid my hand along the stock until I felt the trigger guard and the lock. I gently picked up the rifle and scooted backward, away from the robe. I picked up the rifle, my heart pounding fast, barely able to breath.

  Then Speckled Hawk stopped snoring. My heart stopped too. I froze and waited, my hand gripping the handle of the war club. He turned over, and every nerve in my body jangled like a sack full of cowbells. I felt like screaming against the fear and the darkness.

  The snoring began again and I slipped outside the teepee, letting out a long sigh of relief.

  The rifle felt good in my hands. It had a long octagonal barrel and was heavy, but it gave me both comfort and courage to be holding it in my hand. I hefted it as if to make sure I still had it, then let it drop back down. I started toward my own teepee to pick up my pouch. A dog slunk past me and my heart skipped a beat. In the distance, a wolf howled. This was followed by a series of coyote yelps that ranged up and down the musical scale.

  As I was reaching down for my pouch, I heard the soft whisper of moccasins behind me. I felt a hand touch my back. The touch was gentle, but I knew it was a human hand.

  “Sundown,” she whispered.

  I picked up the pouch and stood up, turned around.

  “What do you do?” Blue Owl whispered.

  “I go.”

  “Come into the teepee with me.”

  She touched my arm, clasped it with gentle fingers, pleading for me to follow her.

  “Come,” she said, and I felt my will cave in, collapse inside me.

  I followed her into our teepee, mostly because I did not want to cause a ruckus outside.

  “Where do you go?” she asked, her voice still a soft whisper.

  “To the white man’s fort south of the two rivers.”

  “I go with you.”

  “No.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I am your wife.”

  She opened my hand and placed something in it, then closed it up again.

  “What did you put in my hand?”

  “Look,” she said.

  I opened my hand and looked.

  I could barely see what she had put there, but there was enough starlight from the smoke hole for me to see the objects. I felt them with my other hand to make sure.

  “Oh, Blue Owl,” I said.

  She had put the two unfinished rings in my hand. They were almost finished. They could be worn, though, as they were.

  “You make promise to Blue Owl,” she said.

  There was disappointment in her voice and it made me suddenly sad. I had promised. But I had not planned o
n taking Blue Owl with me. That would only anger One Dog more than my own escape would infuriate him.

  “You go with me?” I croaked, my throat so constricted I could barely get the words out past my lips.

  “Where Sundown goes, Blue Owl goes.”

  “There is much danger.”

  “I know. I go with you.”

  “Does your heart say this?”

  “My heart and my head, they say this.”

  I was touched. But I was also annoyed. I hadn’t planned for this. Now my escape was fraught with even more peril. I didn’t even know if she could ride a pony. Would I have to carry her on my little pony, slowing us down?

  “Can you ride a pony?” I asked.

  “I can ride the pony.”

  “You must be quiet.”

  “We go now?” she said.

  “Yes. Come.”

  “Wait,” she said. She took the rings out of my hand. She put the big one on my finger and the small one on hers. Then she walked over to a corner of the teepee and picked up something. I couldn’t see what it was until she came back with it. She slung a pouch over her shoulder.

  “I have food,” she said.

  We stole out of our teepee, went outside the camp circle, and headed toward the pony herd downriver, perhaps three or four hundred yards away.

  As we got closer to the ponies, we could hear them huffing as they grazed. I wondered if the flintlock was loaded as I looked for the boys on watch. But even if it was, I would only get one shot and we’d be caught. Still, I hoped it was loaded and that there was powder in the pan.

  Blue Owl had better eyesight in the dark than I did. She reached out an arm to stop me, then pointed to something dark on the ground. I looked at her and she made the sign for sleeping. I nodded and we went on, making little sound with our moccasins.

  Blue Owl stopped me again and pointed in another direction. Again, a black lumpy shape on the ground. Another boy, asleep.

  We got close to the herd. The ponies made no sound, but continued eating grass. Some lifted their heads to look at us. Blue Owl stopped again, reached inside the large pouch she had on her shoulder, and took out a bridle. I took my bridle out of my pouch. We grinned at each other in the dark.

  We separated to look for the ponies we wanted. I moved through the grazing herd, straining my eyes to pick out my own pony. Finally, I saw him, near the middle of the herd, and crept toward him, hoping he would not spook. He let me come up to him and I patted his neck, then slipped the bridle over his head, my heart pounding like a kettledrum.

  I untied the hobble around his forelegs, then climbed on his back. I hunched over so that I would not present my silhouette to anyone who might be watching. I looked around for Blue Owl, but didn’t see her.

  Slowly, I eased the pony through the herd, out to the very edge. I looked up at the stars, found the polestar in the Big Dipper, and then glanced at the river, shining silver in the moonlight.

  I had a plan to throw trackers off my trail, but we had to get well away from the Arapaho camp before it could be executed. I waited impatiently for Blue Owl, wondering if she was going to betray me and give the alarm that would foil my escape. I wasn’t very trusting at that moment. It was all looking too damned easy.

  Finally, I heard a faint sound and then saw a pony drifting my way. At first I thought it was just a lone pony moving slowly to a different grazing spot, hindered by its hobbles. I saw the darker shape clinging to its back and breathed in, grateful that she was not going to give us away.

  I pointed to the river and Blue Owl shook her head. She pointed away from the river, then signed for me to follow her. I felt that I had no choice, so I did what she asked.

  She rode away from the river, but headed southward. We both moved so slowly, I thought we’d never get away from the herd. I thought that at any moment one or both of those boys would wake up and start raising a ruckus.

  Coyotes yapped and sang somewhere out on the prairie, and the silence after their chorus died down was both a blessing and a curse.

  Sound carried a long way on such a clear night, and to me, the sound of the ponies’ hooves sounded like thunder, even though their footfalls with unshod hooves were soft and muffled. The river vanished and when I looked back, so had the horse herd. It seemed as if it had taken us hours to ride only a few yards. I expected a horde of Arapaho, drunken Arapaho at that, to come chasing after us, yelling war cries and murderous threats.

  We rode on, putting distance between us and the camp. I started ticking off time in my mind, white man’s time, and an hour went by. Then another. And I was lost. There were no landmarks, no river to guide me southward. I tilted my head and gazed up at the stars. They blurred from the sweat that had dripped into my eyes. I was wringing wet from perspiration, even though the evening was very cool. My nerves rippled like fingers plucking harp strings. How far had we come? Were we out of immediate danger? Thoughts skidded off my mind like water in a hot skillet.

  I wiped my eyes and looked up at the Big Dipper again. It seemed to me we were heading east as I checked every few minutes over the next hour of riding so slowly. It felt as if we were treading through quicksand.

  Blue Owl turned her pony to the west, angling away from our course, back toward the river.

  “Do you know where we are?” I asked her.

  “River close. We cross.”

  It was close. The South Platte rose up like a ribbon sprinkled with diamonds. I don’t know how Blue Owl knew where to go, but she did. We rode up to a shallow ford in a wide bend and trotted our ponies across. We let them drink on the other side, then continued southward.

  I began to relax.

  It looked as if we had made our escape. I murmured a silent prayer of thanks to the Great Spirit and to my own God, and all the gods of the Greeks.

  When we stopped, I checked my newly acquired flintlock. I ran the wiping stick down the barrel and listened to the thunk against a lead ball. I opened the frizzen and checked the pan, holding the rifle up and tilting it toward the feeble light from the moon. I thought I could see a faint patina of powder. So Speckled Hawk kept the rifle loaded and primed. Good man.

  We rode all night, crossed the river twice more at fords. I was amazed at Blue Owl’s strength and courage. She was leaving her own people to be with me and that made my heart swell with pride. I did not think, then, of the effect we’d have on the good white citizens of Fort Collins when we landed in their midst.

  Had I been able to look into the future, I just might have turned back right then and there.

  Nineteen

  Blue Owl and I were a tribe that night. A tribe of two.

  We rode into the pines and spruce and firs where we tried to take turns sleeping. One watching; one sleeping. It was cold and we were both afraid, so we rested and listened and watched.

  Perhaps each of us catnapped. We did not speak. I cut spruce boughs for shelter and warmth. We each drew these over us and huddled in the darkness, shivering, the ground so cold its chill seeped through our bodies. We dared not light a fire. We dared not lie down together for warmth, lest we fall asleep and risk the chance of someone creeping up on us in the night and capturing us. Or killing us as we slept.

  The antler bone felt odd on my finger. I worried it during the night, sliding it back and forth without taking it off. It was snug without being too tight, and I took pride in my craftmanship. It only needed a little smoothing on the inside and it would be perfect. I wondered if Blue Owl liked her ring and whether she was fiddling with hers as I was with mine.

  Many thoughts scrambled through my mind that long cold night. I was glad that I hadn’t had to kill either One Dog or Speckled Hawk. I had mixed feelings toward One Dog now that I was away from his eagle eye, his ever-present shadow. Were it not for the killing of my parents, I would probably have been good friends, not only with One Dog, but with all the people of the Arapaho. They had taught me much. I had learned a great deal from One Dog. The Arapaho, I decided that night, wer
e not a bad people. They just lived differently than the whites and they had their own peculiar sense of honor and integrity. They had a different view of life and death. They respected all life, but thought nothing of slaying an enemy and defiling a corpse. They had no reverence for any dead except their own. It was, I thought, a strange balance for such a simple people to keep. Yet, it was a kind of balance, one that I did not have.

  I still grieved for my folks. And I anguished over Kate, my only hold on my former life. I felt as if I had been on a strange adventure, an almost dreamlike journey, through several kinds of hell and a few moments, here and there, of almost idyllic existence. I had come to love and respect nature and the bounty of the land, along with its immensity and its unfathomable secrets.

  And now I was grown and kind of had a wife. I don’t know if I loved Blue Owl, truly loved her, as I would have loved a woman of my own kind. Perhaps I was resisting that kind of love. Yet, I cherished her. She was a gentle and sweet lover under the blanket. She gave me much pleasure in that way. But there was the language barrier between us. I could not deny that. I could speak her language fairly well, but she had little inkling of mine, and that was a wall that separated us on an intellectual level. I seldom, if ever, knew what she was really thinking.

  She had surprised me by wanting to run away with me. I gave her credit for that. Yet I knew she would have a difficult time in the white man’s world. She would not be accepted, at least not back home in Missouri. Most of the people I knew hated Indians, all Indians, and most had never even seen one. Prejudice was a word I knew, but had seldom heard, and I knew I didn’t much understand it. The red man was a hated race in my country. I knew that much. But I had found many similarities between the Arapaho and my own people. They had the same emotions, the same kinds of feelings for one another. They were human, like me. Their skins were different, but their insides were not much different from mine.

  Blue Owl and I left that place at dawn. The sun was just below the eastern horizon, and a pale cream was spreading over that part of the sky. Overhead, the stars were growing dimmer against a bowl of light blue as the blackness faded beyond the high, snowcapped peaks. We rode out, working our arms and legs to warm them up, get the blood circulating again. I followed Blue Owl along a narrow game trail that was filled with mule deer tracks heading in both directions. She seemed to know her way, and I was happy to know we were still heading south.