Fair Land Fair Land - A B Guthrie

by A B Guthrie

  Old Charlie had been rubbed out by the Arapahoes a year later, and the traps would be long rusted now or lifted by other hands, and all that was left was the trapper's remembered words. Summers fell asleep hearing them.

  They ate a late and scanty breakfast and rode on until Summers spotted three bighorn sheep on a ridge above them. He slipped from his horse. They were almost within rifle shot. He sneaked closer, stooping for cover, and got a bead on the smallest one and fired. The target made one jump and began rolling down the hill toward him. For an instant the others stood, startled, and then ran from sight.

  When he got to the dead sheep, he found Higgins by his side. Together they dragged it to the trail, bled and gutted it.

  "Wisht I had a hunter's eye like you, Dick," Higgins said.

  "Good eatin', huh?"

  "Next to buffalo by my thinkin'."

  They started skinning, Summers telling Higgins, "See the wool don't touch the meat. Makes it taste sheepy."

  "So my grandmammy told me down on the farm."

  While he used his knife, Higgins asked, "You aim to look in on that squaw we heard tell of?"

  Summers shrugged. "You gettin' ideas?"

  "Curious is all."

  "There's two ways to figure her. Either the tribe kicked her out or she flew the coop."

  "Why would they kick her out?"

  Summers shrugged again. "Maybe she couldn't keep her skirt down. Indians are funny about that, some of them are. If the man of the lodge agrees to it, then his woman can lay with somebody else. If she sneaks off on her own and he finds out, then he bobs off the tip of her nose."

  "What if she does it again?"

  "I dunno. Maybe they turn her out on the prairie."

  Summers began wrapping the sheep carcass in a piece of canvas. He went on, "Maybe she was just too ornery. Wouldn't work, hands or tail either, though that strikes me unlikely."

  "Or maybe she just run off, things bein' not to her taste."

  "I reckon."

  They roped the canvased meat on a pack horse, leaving the entrails and head on the trail. Looking at them, Higgins said, "If that brute of a bear is on our tail, he'll have him a feast. Figure he is, Dick?"

  "Was you sick and hurt, wouldn't you follow the grub line?"

  Higgins looked again at what they were leaving. "Not to eat guts."

  They went down to the creek to wash their hands. Feather had leamed to stand when the reins were dropped. As they mounted, Higgins said, "My mind keeps goin' to that squaw."

  "She sees your pecker, she'll shoot it off."

  "She'll have to shoot fine."

  Well, Summers thought, kicking his horse, why not see her? They weren't pushing to get any place in particular. He doubted, though, that Higgins would get what he wanted, not from a squaw who had pointed a gun at a man who wanted the same thing.

  The sun moved in a sky that might never have known a cloud. The aspens glowed yellow but were dropping their leaves. Here and there chokecherries hung fat and black. The cottonwoods rose higher, naked as skeletons now. Here and there a dwarf pine hung to its hold on soil and rock. Except for the sounds of their gear there was silence around them, not an animal cry or a wing flutter. Overhead, an eagle soared, voiceless.

  Feather lifted his head, his nose quivering. Off to the right was the beginning of a gulch where aspens grew. Summers looked for smoke but saw none. Neither did his nose find it. But a horse knew what a man might not. Summers turned in his saddle. "Visitin' time a-comin'. Put on your good manners."

  They forded the creek and pushed through the growth that grew along it, and there, half-hidden, rose a tepee, and, in front of it, a woman who ran and picked up a gun. Behind her a child sat on a piece of old robe.

  Summers halted the string when he had ridden closer. He said, "How." The woman stood unmoving, both hands on the gun. Even at this distance he could see it was an old fusee, probably a Hudson's Bay musket. He couldn't guess at the age of the woman though she was probably pretty young. Even in her hide sack of a dress he could tell she hadn't grown fat and squatty, as squaws did often with age. Her eyes were big, not crowded by high cheekbones, and her face was thin, made that way by nature or hunger. And damned if the child behind her didn't have red hair.

  Summers dismounted slowly, propped his Hawken against a bush, and made the sign for peace, holding both hands in front of his body, the back of his left hand turned down.

  The woman stood and looked, unmoving.

  He didn't know the sign for meat, if there was one, and instead went to a pack horse and took the wrapped-up sheep. As he did, Higgins said softly, "She's like to shoot you."

  "Them old smooth bores ain't so scary."

  He carried the meat toward her and unwrapped it and stood, then closed his hand and brought it in front of his body, his forefinger pointing up in the sign for "come."

  She didn't come. She stayed where she was, looking at him puzzled and questioning, as if there were more to him if she could bring it to mind. Then she lowered the musket and said, "How."

  Summers carried the meat to her, saying over his shoulder,

  "You mind unpackiing the horses, Hig, and takin' 'em to grass? No bell on Feather. Just hobbles. This is Blackfoot country."

  She was Blackfoot herself, he felt sure. One thing, her moccasins didn't match. By the fire were a couple of knives and a kettle. Keeping the meat on the canvas, she carved off pieces, knowing how, and pitched them in the kettle. From a hide bucket she added water. The child behind her sniffed like an animal. He cocked an ear to listen. He might have been a fox. Summers saw then that he was blind.

  "Know white man's talk?" Summers asked as she worked. She studied what he had said, the knife uplifted, as if to find meaning in each word. Then with her free hand she brought her thumb against her forefinger until only a bit of it showed. That was the sign for "little."

  In Blackfoot, he guessed, she asked what he knew of her tongue, and he answered as she had.

  Higgins came from unpacking and loosing the horses. "Gettin' anywhere?"

  "Gettin' to a meal."

  "Her nose ain't been bobbed, anyhow. Jesus Christ, Dick, that young'n's blind."

  "I took notice."

  "How they make out, you reckon?"

  "Not too fat, I'm thinkin'. Likely she sets snares for rabbits and maybe grouse. Close up, she could kill a critter with that old musket."

  Summers started to make a fire, but the woman waved him away. All right. She was boss of her own household. The child set up a thin wail like a bird peep in the great silence. She quieted him with a pat on the head and a sound in her throat. He couldn't have been more than three years old and maybe not that.

  She had the fire going now. Young sheep didn't take long to cook.

  Summers sat back on the ground and with a twig from the fire lighted his pipe. The real warmth of the day was over. Shadows of the mountains were growing over the camp. Pretty soon the coyotes would tune up. The woman took something from a small leather sack and added it to the stew.

  They ate with knives and their fingers, spearing pieces of meat and letting them cool. When the piece was too big a mouthful, Summers used his knife to cut the bite off in front of his nose. He saw Higgins watching him. On a scrubbed stone the woman cut small chunks and fed them to the child. Between bites the woman said, "Plenty good." It was the first English she had spoken.

  After eating they washed their hands and mouths with water from the hide bucket. There was nothing to dry them on, nothing but the soft air and the breeze that had sprung up.

  Higgins said, "Ain't she got horses? I didn't see any."

  Catching her eye, Summers made the sign for horse and raised his eyebrows. She held up two fingers.

  "Yep," Summers said to Higgins. "Two. They're hid away somewhere."

  Night came on, and Summers rolled out his bed, not close to the tepee. Higgins did the same.

  There was wind in the mountains, wind in the high tree tops, but here they lay
snug, hearing the long voice of it. Sure enough, the coyotes started their hill-to-hill chorus, wind song and coyote song and silence hanging over them both. And who was this squaw, camping alone with her child? How come and why? It wasn't her looks that had set her apart from her tribe. That was for sure. Had she fled from it for reasons unknown? Would she go back? Would they, he and Higgins, stay around for a while? There were questions and questions and no answers that came to mind.

  Higgins said, "You reckon, Dick? You reckon now that we've got acquainted?"

  "This nigger wouldn't try it. Just go to sleep."

  He drowsed off seeing the woman, seeing her slim and big-eyed, her look puzzled, and seeing the blind child, too, the red-headed child. Some white man had got to her all right. The hoarse howls of wolves joined with the cries of coyotes.

  Higgins woke him up, Higgins breathing loud and shuffling again into his bed. As if to himself Higgins said, "I be good goddamned!"

  "Told you so."

  "I wasn't forcin' myself on her, Dick. You know I wouldn't.

  I just stood by the tepee flap and made what I thought was coaxin' sounds, and the flap flew open, and there was the damn musket pointed at my belly button and her holdin' it. So I made tracks."

  "I reckon you're wilted down."

  "Shrunk to nothin'."

  "So forget it and go back to sleep."

  Summers chuckled to himself. For no reason at all he felt pleased.

  14

  SUMMERS was ready with two pack horses when the slow sun came up. They had eaten at first light, and the woman had cleaned up afterward and had turned to scraping the sheep hide while the child sat sampling whatever smells the breeze brought. Now there was nothing for him to do but take off.

  Higgins stepped to his side. "Any orders for me, general?"

  Higgins was a knowing man. He understood without being told that Summers wanted to be alone for a while. Still, it seemed kind of unfair.

  "You could go down along the creek, I'm thinkin', and shoot some ducks. Ought to be some teal and mallard in the potholes. Bring back plenty meat, me."

  "You ain't talkin' to an Injun now."

  Summers smiled at him. "I aim to get us a buffalo. The woman will dry some of it and maybe make pemmican and have something to tide her over the winter." Summers mounted Feather and got the outfit moving.

  The night had brought frost, but it was melting now, and, touched by the sun, the tops of the grasses trembled with light. Tiny pieces of mirrors, Summers thought, each flashing a message if a man could read it.

  He rode down a long hill and up and down another, and the plains spread before him, sharp in the sun, and a butte rose and another, and a small bunch of antelope, taking silly fright, bucketed a few yards and stopped, their rumps showing white. Once antelopes were called goats, he remembered, which was a put-down on the breed. An antelope was pretty fair eating, what there was of it. He knew he could bring them within shooting distance. Just get away from the horses, lie down, hold the rifle up with a tatter of flag on it, and curiosity would do the rest.

  He went on, letting the air and the sky and the earth sink into him. It was more than the lungs that this country filled. It was the eye and the spirit and the whole of the body from topknot on down. How many times had he just sat and looked? How many times, seeing, had he felt part and partner of what he saw? Never enough times. Each time was a new time, born fresh from the old, close kin to it, showing likeness, but still new.

  He passed through a thin thicket. Off to his left was an old buffalo bull, its beard touching the ground. An old bull, standing alone, cast out from the herd, horned out by younger ones and left to remember the cows he had covered and wouldn't again. The bull raised its great head and stared at him, its eyes sullen and sad. Soon enough the wolves would disable it and, first thing, eat its balls off. Small loss, considering.

  He raised a hand and said to the bull, "Too bad, old-timer." He led the string on. It wasn't the blue meat of an old bull that he wanted to bring back to camp.

  Over a swell of land he saw what he wanted — a dozen or so buffalo in a hollow. They were the leavings of the great winter migration to the south, some of the few that voted to stick where they were. No bulls among them but one early-born calf, too young to show much of a hump. The bulls, along with the big herds, would come later and make thunder in the rutting season with their bawlings and pawings.

  Summers tied Feather to a clump of brush, not trusting him to stand ground-tied here. He pushed ahead, stooping, then crawling, until he was within range. He didn't shoot yet. He just lay there. Once he had found sport in killing things. That was when the world was young. Now he shot for the pot, or was about to. But men still hunted for sport. Men hunted for money. To hell with both kinds! The one right a man had was killing for food.

  A fly, on wing when it shouldn't be, touched his nose and buzzed on. A pattern of wild geese honked overhead. He listened to the lost, brave sound and his eye settled on a rattlesnake, soaking up the sun four or five jumps away. It was too dull to know it was there out of season. It just answered to warmth.

  It was time to shoot, he knew. He had even picked out the target — a young, fat cow. He listened to the fading calls of the geese and watched the snake and lay still.

  When the buffalo began to move off, he fired, and all the still day was shaken. The sound of the shot rolled through the hills and was thrown back by the mountains. The snake coiled and

  rattled.

  The cow fell over. The others smelled the blood, not understanding, and stood dumbly about until Summers rose to his feet. Then they galloped away.

  Summers recharged his rifle. That was the first rule of the country. Keep your gun loaded. Then he walked back and brought up the horses. He bled the cow. Skinning was a considerable job, best done, he thought, before he opened the carcass. He tied a rope to his saddle horn and used Feather to help pull off the hide. He cut through the belly tissue and raked out the entrails. With his knife and a small ax he quartered the meat, wrapped it, lashed it to the pack horses and started for camp.

  It had taken longer than he expected. The sun had begun to slant from the west. A gust of wind came at him, blowing sand with it, and he had to wipe grit from his eyes. There now was the tepee and the woman at the fire, Higgins standing nearby, the child sitting. At the creek he washed his hands and fore-arms, using sand for soap.

  At the camp the woman came up, expecting to unpack the horses. Summers gave her a look and said, "No." She went back to the fire.

  Higgins stepped close to help. He said, working with a rope, "That squaw is as queer as fur on a snake. Won't let a man do nothin', not even rustle up firewood. Wants to do it all by her damn self. What's the reason for that, Dick?"

  "Trainin'. Squaws for the camp work, men for the hunt."

  "Nice, if you like slaves. I got the best of her, though. I shot ten ducks and picked and cleaned them myself, out of her sight. She looked at me like I had two heads, both empty, but she's cookin' the birds now."

  They turned one pack horse loose and shooed it away. It was then that Feather nickered. It was then that the child cried a thin cry. Summers' eyes went from his work. Coming toward them, yon side of the fire, were four mounted Indians. He said, "Stay back, Hig. My move."

  He stepped toward the Indians. The campfire was between them. The woman had turned her back to attend to the child. Summers slanted his rifle against a bush and made the peace sign. He said, "How."

  They were young bucks, not feathered or painted, and Summers guessed they were out to steal horses, hoping maybe to spot a Crow camp. They jerked their horses to a stop and sat silent and unmoving. Summers said, "How," again.

  A tatter — ass bunch, Summers thought, tatter-ass but dangerous. Their saddles were wooden, hacked from tree trunks and cushioned by pieces of fur. Their bridles and bits were single-rein braided hide. Bows and arrows hung from the saddles and fastened to one was a heavy musket. It might be, it could be, an old Harper
's Ferry, brought west by the Iroquois or Delawares that Hudson's Bay had employed.

  Watching them, Summers almost wished that he had his rifle in hand.

  The lead man held a bow and arrow. He got off his horse and put them aside. The buck behind him dismounted, too. The others remained on their horses, probably told by word or sign to do so.

  The first man said, "How." The one behind him pushed for ward. He was a muscled young buck with the show, Summers thought, of the animal in him.

  The second man looked around and saw the woman, her back still turned. He strode forward and yanked her around and then slapped her face hard, saying something that sounded like "No Man Woman."

  On their own Summers' legs moved. Of itself his arm swung. His hand smacked against the Indian's cheek and knuckled it on its return. The Indian's face showed shock, then glowing anger. He ran to grab for Summers' rifle. Higgins stepped from behind a pack horse, the Kentucky steady in his hands. He said, "Hold it right there."

  The horses began rearing and plunging, their eyes white with fright. Before the Indian could clutch Summers' rifle, his mouth fell open.

  It wasn't Higgins or the Kentucky that did it. It was Old Ephraim, raising his great shape, standing as high as a mounted rider. Summers swiveled. The other Indians had clapped their hands over their mouths. The men on foot managed to catch and mount their horses. The four of them galloped away, their voices hoarse. Ephraim let himself down and went out of sight.

  Summers dropped to the ground and laughed.

  Higgins, stepping close, said, "Close shave, and you're gigglin'."

  "Old Ephraim, he won the war."

  "They scared mighty easy."

  "Not to their way of thinkin'. He was medicine, bad medicine, our medicine, standin' there tall with only one paw on him. Jesus!"

  Summers rose to his feet. The woman was at the fire again. Her face showed the mark of a hand. "Leave a front quarter on that pack horse, Hig," he said. "Ephraim has done sung enough for his supper."