Cut Hand

by Mark Wildyr

  “I will,” he announced confidently. “Tried to get the old man to take my furs, but he wanted horses.”

  Upon learning he owned a store of furs, I proposed we travel to Yawktown for supplies and then find the herd ourselves, adding, “You can have all we capture. I will leave Otter to tend the Mead.”

  “You would do that for me?” Lone Eagle eyed me a minute. “Yawktown. Hah! You just want to see that yellow-haired officer again. We watched you do it to him, you know. Otter and me watched from the bathing room.”

  “It’s ‘Otter and I.’ I hope you got an eyeful.”

  “I know your pipe’s bigger than his. He didn’t act like a win-tay.” He grinned and added, “Well, he did that night, anyway. Course, you don’t act like one either, but you are. Cut Hand really used to throw it to you. We listened at the door.”

  “Don’t be crude, Lone Eagle. What I am is my business.”

  HALFWAY TO Yawktown, we came across a patrol led by my friend. James reported no news of import except his unhappiness over the new command at Fort Yanube. He respected Major Jamieson but loathed and distrusted his new superior, Captain Smith, all of which he confided as we stood well apart from his troop. In this we agreed, although Jamieson did not stand quite so high in my estimation as in his.

  Lone Eagle asked a hundred frivolous and highly personal questions after the troop passed. When I had my fill, I kicked Long into a trot to shut him up, but Lone Eagle was having too much fun. His rich baritone rang over the countryside as he continued the tickling banter.

  Caleb Brown probably added a dollar’s value to the total of Lone Eagle’s packet because I brought him there. The youth wandered the store gaping like a country yokel, which in a way he was, but rediscovered his arrogant disdain before long. He insisted on walking around the town and chanced upon the gun shop. Lone Eagle must have handled every weapon in the place before bargaining for a better rifle and a scattergun such as both Cut and I owned. He ended up settling for a new repeater. After that we bought ropes for the making of a corral and departed civilization to take up our hunt.

  Once we crossed the Yanube on the bridge and headed south, the western edge of the Little Island range appeared in the distance. The recent snowmelt succored the grass so that it brushed our ponies’ bellies as we abandoned the rough road and cut cross-country. The horizon stretched to eternity. Only the hungry raptors soaring the blue sky above in search of prey—hawks and eagles—reminded us that despite the serenity, the desperate, deadly game of life went on unabated.

  We located the herd two days later. They were magnificent beasts likely descended from the first horses brought to this world by the Spaniard, Juan de Oñate, in the late 1500s. Led by a big, black, white-blazed stallion well experienced at avoiding hunters, they haunted the buffalo ground along the river south of the Little Islands. The animals enjoyed good pasturage, available water, and the wooded foothills for shelter.

  Despite his youth, Lone Eagle demonstrated the patience of a good hunter. We watched the herd for three suns to establish the rhythm of their days. The stallion spotted us, of course, but after a time grew accustomed to our presence. Once, a great lion came down from the hills and spooked the herd, but that was to our advantage. We watched where the big black led his harem. The next day Lone Eagle approached the herd, and the stallion took a second escape route.

  After two more days of quiet approaches, the horses finally repeated a pattern. We now knew the stud used three established escape routes. While the herd was down on the plains grazing, we constructed blind corrals to block each of the three paths along which the black led his mares when spooked.

  Yelling and waving our arms, we came at them from two different directions. The black’s head came up. He neighed a warning and was off. The wily stallion nearly out-coyoted us, heading in a new direction, but Lone Eagle managed to turn him toward one of the usual escape pathways. The black surprised us again, tearing right through our ropes and limping up the hill to freedom. A few of the mares managed to follow him before Lone Eagle blocked the gap with his pony, and I closed the rope gate at the rear.

  Our flimsy corral held more horses than we could handle, so the rest of the day was spent picking out the best. Mares that were too aggressive, we turned loose. Finally Lone Eagle had fourteen mares and immature stallions haltered and tied apart from the others. We then cut the ropes and hazed the balance of the horses up the hill, where the stud stamped the ground impatiently.

  We left for home each trailing seven horses. Three small colts followed their mothers. Figuring to put as much distance as possible between the herd and ourselves, we traveled until it was too dark to proceed safely. Still the stallion tried to raid us that night, but we rigged a stout picket line to hold the mares, and one of us stood guard. I came close to shooting the stone horse before he finally gave up and raced away. I will forever be grateful he still ran free.

  After the initial euphoria, during which I listened ten times to the story of a capture I participated in myself, Lone Eagle grew uncharacteristically quiet. That night after I rolled into my blanket while he took the first guard, he tarried at my side for a moment.

  “It’s like us and the white man. Those wild horses were living free until we came along and changed everything for them.”

  “Yes, that’s a good way to understand what’s happening.” As I realized Lone Eagle had matured into a discerning young man, I experienced a passing list for this handsome youth.

  “They’re going to make us live like them, like white people, aren’t they? What happens if we won’t?”

  “Then they will kill you.”

  “They can’t! We’re warriors. There are too many of us!”

  “The dragoons will come like grasshoppers. They will cover the land.”

  “Don’t talk like that! Why do you do it? You know it makes us sad.”

  “Because I want you to understand and survive.”

  “We will survive,” he said with all the confidence of inexperience as he glanced around the immense, moonlit plains, unable to imagine the truth of my words. As I examined the greatness of this land, I sheltered a small doubt myself.

  I lay in my blankets for a long time listening to Lone Eagle walk the perimeter of our small camp, talking softly to the horses as he passed them.

  The next morning we set off again, hugging the foothills and passing near the spot where I first laid eyes on Cut Hand. Three mounted Pipe Stem warriors picked up our trail as we neared the Yanube. Despite his objections, I insisted Lone Eagle go ahead of me, arguing that any ambush lay ahead, not behind. I wanted the men to see it was Teacher accompanying one of the Yanube. If Carcajou’s warrant of protection still held, perhaps they would leave us alone, although seventeen horses—nineteen counting our own mounts—were a tempting prize.

  The colts refused to enter the river when we reached a good walk across the Yanube. Lone Eagle roped two of the little beasts, dragging them protesting through the fast, shallow tide. The third evaded him, and since the Pipe Stem were drawing close, he abandoned it.

  Lone Eagle was no longer a pauper when we rode into the village. Cries of congratulations greeted us from all quarters. Even Cut Hand came to the horse pasture and pronounced the animals superb. Never one to waste such an endorsement, Lone Eagle promptly traded six of the animals for three riding ponies.

  Otter was glad to see me when I got back to Teacher’s Mead, peppering me with questions about the hunt while I bathed. As I dried off, it occurred to me that no back-east husband had seen his wife naked as often as these folks observed my bare bum, especially Otter. The People’s attitude toward the flesh seemed far healthier than that of my own countrymen.

  Lone Eagle came later that night, jubilant over his skill as a horse trader. Long after I retired to my bed, I heard the boys in the other room as Lone Eagle made a legend of our hunt and the daring and skill required to execute it.

  Chapter 17

  EMIGRANT TRAFFIC increased considerab
ly during the summer of 1837, driven by widespread unemployment back east. New York banks stopped making payments in specie because Old Hickory created too much credit, which resulted in inflation and speculation in western lands. Multitudes headed west in a desperate search for a better life. Martin Van Buren replaced Jackson, becoming our eighth president and the first to be born after the signing of the Declaration. At long last, the black slave situation intruded on our part of the world.

  Hastily summoned to the encampment, I found a huge Negro defiantly facing a crowd of curious Indians. Shirtless and gleaming like melted tar, the man’s back was lash-scarred, the mark of an obstreperous slave. The whites of his eyes showed when he spotted me. Be this help or horror, they mutely asked.

  Claiming his name was Hiram Moses, the near-giant resisted admitting he was an escaped slave until Cut, in his literate English, assured the man we had no intention of turning him over to the authorities. Hope flared briefly until I explained how often the dragoons scouted this particular country.

  Hiram Moses overnighted at the Mead, where he was an object of fascination to Otter. My young friend watched closely to see if black soot washed from the man’s skin in the bath. Otter knew better. He had read all the books in my poor library, but the reading and the seeing are two different things.

  Hiram objected to taking his meal at the table with Otter and Lone Eagle and me, claiming he would be more comfortable in the barn or on the porch. I decried his decision even though I fathomed he was reacting to a lifelong habit of subservience to the white man. No doubt had I not been present, he would have willingly sat at the table with my two Yanube friends. Eventually I relented and allowed him to carry his plate to the barn. Otter, still fascinated by this black stranger, joined him. The limits of Lone Eagle’s curiosity had been reached, and he ate at his usual place at the kitchen table. He left immediately after devouring the last crumb on his tin.

  In like fashion, Hiram would not sleep in the house that night, which might prove fortuitous should any dragoons show up at the Mead. I attended him as he settled his great bulk on hay in our loft. Otter’s curiosity deserted him at that point, and he announced he would rest in his bunk in the western porthern. He asked a few questions upon our return to the house.

  “Have you seen anyone like him before?”

  “What do mean ‘like him’?” I asked.

  “You know. Black like that.”

  “Many. I saw many when I was back east.”

  “Where do they come from?”

  So we spent the remainder of the evening seated at the eating table while I provided Otter facts he already knew from his reading of books but was struggling to place into context in the reality of the thing. He finished the long discussion with a final question.

  “Are… are they human?”

  “What is your guess as to the answer?” I gave his question back to him.

  “I guess so. I mean, he looks like us… but he doesn’t either.”

  “Am I human?” I asked.

  Otter snickered. “Of course you’re human.”

  I spread my hands. “Why? I’m not the same color as you. I’m different, am I not?”

  That brought an outright laugh. “You’re different all right. But… but….”

  I waited him out as he struggled to express himself.

  “But you don’t look like an animal,” he finished.

  “I am an animal. So are you. So are all human beings.”

  “I know that, but you know what I mean.”

  I forced the issue. “Not unless you express it, I don’t.”

  “He sorta looks like pictures in some of those books. Of animals, not humans.”

  “Otter, there are people who deny that Indians are human. And by Indians they mean Yanube and Sioux and Comanche—all of the People. I believe they are wrong. So, too, are they wrong when they claim black Negroes are not human. He thinks, acts, walks, talks, feels love and pain and everything you feel.”

  “Dogs feel pain and love and eat and sleep like we do too.”

  “Yes, but they do not talk—not in the manner of men—nor think. Humans reason in ways far beyond other animals. He is able to plan things, use his hands and mind to create tools and other useful items. And this, in my opinion gives him a soul. And a soul is both a blessing and a curse.”

  “How so?” Otter leaned forward over the table, intent on my answer, his young face frowning in concentration.

  “It is the soul that makes man—reasoning, rational man—act fairly toward his fellow humans and other animals as well. And it is the soul that is forfeit should he ignore the lessons of his God. So let me ask you your own question. Is he human?”

  Without hesitation, Otter replied, “Yes.”

  “Good. I agree. Now let’s go to bed.”

  The following morning I was generous with my provisions in outfitting the escaped Mississippi slave, gifting him with a sturdy pony and one of the older percussion rifles in my stock. As he prepared to take his leave, I offered a few copper and silver coins. The man accepted them eagerly and then raised his weapon against me, demanding the remainder of my currency.

  “I sorry, Mista Billy. Ya been good ta this old field hand, but I runnin’ fer ma life. I kilt ma overseer when he hurt ma woman. I needs all I kin git.”

  “Mr. Moses, the first thing you must learn is to prime your weapon,” I lied, praying he was unfamiliar with long guns. “The second is to be grateful for what help you are offered.”

  The powerful man gave his rifle a confused look. “I kin still take ya,” he warned, raising the barrel like a club.

  “Yes. And you will find a hundred Indians on your back ready to tear you apart. It’s not the men you need fear as much as the women. They’ll flail you alive inch by inch.” I built upon the fiction read in some of my books. I never saw these Yanube women perform any such acts, although Morning Mist leapt to mind with the words. “Take what you are offered and go. You’ll find no more welcome here.”

  Defeated, the big Negro reclaimed his impressive dignity. “I hopes ya never finds yaself no slave, Mista Billy. It eat out the decent in a man. Lord Jehovah, forgive me!”

  “Doubtless he will,” I replied. “Your best direction is north to Canada.”

  I never learned what happened to the unfortunate man.

  NUMEROUS MOUNTED patrols from both Fort Ramson and Fort Yanube agitated the Indians, drawing delegations from the Sioux and the Pipe Stem seeking counsel. Cut Hand and Carcajou finally sat on the same blanket to make medicine, smoking a ritual pipe before chewing the matter of the Long Knives thoroughly and digesting nothing. Cut Hand harangued his people to refrain from joining other bands in raiding or harassing white settlers. The Pipe Stem sachem listened to the exchange without comment but later confided he would take the same position with his own young bloods.

  The Americans did not make the Indians’ decision easy. Rumors of gold on the upper Yanube drew hundreds of opportunists before being quickly proved false. Even then, scores of ox-drawn freight trains bearing homesteaders continued to roll into the tribes’ territories.

  Then the inevitable occurred. Lone Eagle came for me midmorning. Two wagons of settlers passing some miles south of the river had been attacked. Out-parties, drawn by the smoke, spotted the burning wagons from afar and reported that the military had arrived with Indian scouts from foreign tribes.

  The affair was no concern of the Yanube—except Buffalo Shoulder had not returned from visiting a passing party of eastern Sioux. Cut Hand, with me at his side, observed from a distance as the troops rode up into the Little Island Mountains. Worried, he sent messengers to the village for more warriors. Distant gunfire reached our ears in the afternoon. We waited all day on a rise as our numbers slowly grew. There was no attempt to hide our field camp that night. Fires fed by buffalo chips signaled our presence for anyone to see. There was much sour talk around the tiospaye. Hotheads agitated to ride down and lay in ambush at the edge of the foothills. It wa
s an ugly scene, one I feared would get out of hand. I accompanied Cut in numerous rounds of the camp as he tried to talk the anger and fear out into the open and dispose of it. Few got much sleep in the dark hours.

  The next day the troops filed down from the mountains. Upon confronting such a large party of Indians, the commander of the outnumbered dragoons formed his men boot-to-boot in a skirmish line. Even from this distance, we could see the troops held four mounted prisoners.

  “I pray he is dead,” Cut muttered in a voice meant for my ears only. He glanced at the warriors, who formed their own skirmish line. “I don’t know if I can control them if he isn’t.”

  “Do you want me to go meet them?”

  “No. I want you to go with me.” He beckoned Bear Paw and Lone Eagle forward. I followed the three warriors down the slope. The line of troops halted and sat waiting. To my horror, the officer in charge was Captain Smith.

  “Mr. Strobaw,” the officer said with a casual salute. “What is your business here?”

  “I am here with the misco of the Yanube. He has come to see the situation for himself since these are his grounds.”

  Smith turned in the saddle and gestured to his prisoners. “Are these his, as well? These fellas some of your redskins, Mr. Strobaw? Or his?”

  I refused to take umbrage at his tone. “No, they are Sioux, probably Santee pushed from the east.” I pointed with my chin, Indian fashion. “Except for that one. He is a Yanube visiting the Sioux. Buffalo Shoulder is a good man.”

  “A good man, eh? Do good men murder innocent white men and women? Two men, two women, and three children. All dead, all crowned.”

  “The Yanube do not scalp,” I said quickly.

  “No, and they don’t raid settlers, neither,” Smith answered with a sour swipe.

  “We need to speak to him.”

  Smith paused before giving his permission. But it was not I who nosed his pony to Buffalo Shoulder’s mount. It was his leader, Cut Hand. The captain and I halted a pace or two behind. I stood ready to translate for Smith.