by A B Guthrie
He poured more whiskey into glasses.
Even so, he had tried. He had tried to sneak a horse from the stables and ride out to give warning. But four men guarded the horses and gates, and one of them asked, "What you doin' here, Lije?"
"Just looking. Thinking my horse needed exercise."
"Fat chance. Wait for a chinook. A horse gets out of the stables, and it's my ass."
"I was just thinking."
"Sure. Wisht I was in your place and could go in and get warm."
They had a big map on the table, their heads cocked to see it by the light of an oil lamp. The head man — Major Baker, sir, was his name — traced lines on the map and made crosses, meaning stopping places, Lije reckoned. The major had a long, bearded face and sloping shoulders and, it seemed like, the hint of the killer in his eyes.
Brother Potter would have prayed for him, but Brother Potter was dead, buried near a mining camp over west, which he was going to visit when he fell from his horse, the life gone out of him before he hit ground. Brother Potter would have prayed, but prayer wouldn't reach this man. A bullet from a Hawken would.
The lamp on the table flickered to the officers' breaths. There was another lamp in the room. Together they barely held off the dark. Shadows played on the floor when the officers moved. The major lifted his eyes from the map. "The Blackfeet have played with us, making promises they never intended to keep. This time we show them that we mean business. No prisoners, is that understood?"
"Women and children?" one of the men asked.
"A few will be killed. That's inevitable. The rest we turn loose after burning the lodges. Tell your men no mercy."
The officers nodded.
A bullet, a war club, Lije thought, or a knife to lift the major's scalp with. His kind of mercy turned on him. Major Baker was going on. "No matter how well we know the plans, no matter how many times we've studied them, it never hurts to review." He took a sip of whiskey. "I swear this is the last time, so bear with me, gentlemen."
All the men wore trim, dark blue coats with brass buttons, and most of them, Lije knew or guessed, were captains. Maybe one or two were lieutenants. He hadn't learned or tried to learn all the signs that showed rank. It was enough to know an officer when he saw one and to remember to "sir" him.
The major took another sip of whiskey and said, "I hope there's no risk in riding during daylight tomorrow." He looked around for agreement. "After that we go by night. By nightfall tomorrow we should be at Priest's Butte. We must allow time for the men to dismount and warm up, but still."
He turned to Lije. "Why Priest's Butte, do you know?"
Lije said, making himself be polite, "The Catholic priests tried to have a mission on the Teton close to the butte. It didn't last. That was long ago. I know from my father."
"He ought to know. Will we have clear going?"
"Nothing in the way. Two lakes off the trail, one small, one shallow, frozen over now, I think."
He had spoken the truth but not been of help. They would find the way just as easily if he'd kept silent.
The major said to the officers, "We'll have our own guides, of course, but I doubt anyone knows that Teton country better than Many Tongues here. He's lived most of his life there, where I understand his father took up with a Blackfoot squaw."
"Not so," Lije broke in, not caring what happened. "My mother is his wife. They are married for many years by a Christian preacher."
"Sir."
"All right. Sir."
"So be it. Now just answer my questions. Do you know where Muddy Creek enters the Teton?"
"Yes, sir."
"How is it from Priest's Butte to that junction?"
"Some of the country is a little rough. That's all."
"Go on, on to the Marias."
"I have never been there."
"Sir."
"Sir."
"You don't know where the villages are`? The camps of Mountain Chief, Big Horn, Red Horn, Big Leg, Gray Eyes?"
Major Baker's eyes went from Lije to the officers. "It doesn't matter too much. We'll find them and strike them hard according to orders. Two hundred and eighty-seven men strong, or close to it, counting those with the wagon train."
The eyes came back to Lije. "How long, how far to the Marias?"
"Three sleeps, four, depending?
"I plan to attack at dawn on the twenty-third," Major Baker told the officers. "If the weather is our enemy, it is also our friend. Think of that other enemy, the Blackfeet, all huddled in camp against the cold." He rubbed his hands. "Sitting ducks."
He turned again to Lije. "You better be right, saying you don't know where the villages are."
"Camps move where game is, where wood is, where grounds are clean," Lije answered. "My father is with Heavy Runner. Heavy Runner keeps the peace. He is friendly. He has a friendship paper."
"Just answer my questions, will you? I know that General Sully puts some trust in Heavy Runner." He spoke as if he didn't himself or didn't care. "All the same, he's a Blackfoot."
A man could stand so much and no more. Fire in the head made him speak. "Just as you are a fucking fool officer."
For just a second Major Baker sat still while the blood climbed through his beard to his forehead. Then he was on his feet. So were the others.
"Captain Ball," Major Baker said through his teeth. "I want this man thrown in the guardhouse."
"Yes, sir."
Captain Ball went to the door and called out. A sergeant came in. Captain Ball said, "Put this man in the guardhouse and keep him there."
"For how long, sir?"
Major Baker said, "Forever."
Lije told him, "I'll see you in hell."
As he was led out, Major Baker was saying, "Sorry, gentlemen. Ten o'clock in the morning then. Show the colors but only at first."
Sure. Show the colors. Then sneak, then kill, then show the colors again.
With a candle to light the way, a guard unlocked a door, showed him through and led him to an empty cot. "Blankets enough to keep you warm, maybe," the guard said. "Sweet dreams." He could hear other men in the room, breathing deep, stirring, snoring. One of them let a long fart. They were in for nothing much — for fighting, for being absent without leave, for getting drunk, for not being respectful.
Think happy, Lije told himself. Think happy if you can. Better to think back at what was than ahead at what might be. I pray thee, O Lord . . .
Brother Potter lay dead, and there was no shovel to dig a grave with. Older Indians would have lashed the body to a stout tree branch and left him to the storms and the winds and the birds. Lije rode into the mining camp and hired a helper who had two shovels. At four feet the man said, "That's enough." It would be with the stones Lije would lay on the sod. The man rubbed his hands. "You been through his pockets?"
"Nobody touches them. Nobody."
"All right. All right. But maybe he carried the names of relatives, like brothers and sisters."
"The whole world was his brothers and sisters."
The man looked at him queerly and said, "That's a pile of kinfolks. Time to lower him, then`?"
Lije took Brother Potter's shoulders and his helper the feet.
"Hefty old devil, ain't he?" the man said.
Lije let himself down into the grave, careful not to step on the body, taking with him a piece of canvas and Brother Potter's Bible and hymn book. He laid the canvas over the old face and placed the books over his heart. They put the sod over Brother Potter, and the helper rode away, taking with him some gold dust that Lije had carried ever since he left home. Keep them safe, O Lord, I pray in Thy name.
He stood there and recited the Twenty-third Psalm, Brother Potter's favorite, and then the Lord's Prayer. Afterward he prayed to gods he didn't know, to the great god of sun and moon and stream and earth and life. He led Brother Potter's old saddle horse close to the grave. The Indians could be right. Maybe a man needed a horse, a ghost horse, in the great and everlasting hunting grou
nds. He shot the horse between the eyes. Then, being alone, he sat down and cried.
Guard them and keep them, Lord, my God.
Brother Potter would have prayed for their souls, not so much for their lives. They had traveled far, he and the old man, to places east and west of the mountains, to towns and beginning settlements, to mining camps and humble homes where sometimes a few of the faithful gathered, and to everybody Brother Potter preached his kind and forgiving religion. He never took up a collection, or needed to. He accepted only a bit of the offerings, saying, "Build a church. Build a house of God." At night, or whenever time allowed, he taught Lije, using the Bible and hymnal, and simple reading books and arithmetics that he begged or bought along the way. Teaching must be hard work, but never once had Brother Potter raised his voice except to sing the praises of Jesus.
Lord, let the major see the light, I pray thee.
Brother Potter was saying as he gave him a letter, "I have taught you all I can, son and brother. Soon it is time that you leave me. Take this letter to my friend, General De Trobriand at Fort Shaw. He is or was the commanding officer of the district of Montana. If he is not there, give it to the man in command."
So he came to Fort Shaw on the Sun or Medicine River and, after only a few questions, was taken on as interpreter. Fort Shaw was pleasant in those late summer days. Trees shaded some of the buildings and walkways, and the wives of the officers, the few of them that were there, went strolling in the soft afternoons, and the troopers tried not to let hunger show in their faces. A man, taking a walk, might laze by the officers' quarters, the barracks, the bakery, the storehouse, the carpenter shop, the stables and granary. There was a building for the post trader, and there was a sawmill. Except for the presence of uniforms, a man could hardly believe that this little settlement, without blockhouses or loopholes, was a fort. He might think that peace had arrived.
I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.
The night crawled on, the long night of winter when the sun went to bed early and got up late. A bugle sounded, and a guard came in to say, "Get up, you bedbugs. Breakfast's comin', late on account all the troops had to be fed."
One by one the men rose, groaning and stretching, and filed though the door that another guard watched. In the gray of the morning Lije stayed in his bunk. There was a window to look through when things got started.
By and by, hearing sounds, he went to the window. Watchers had ranked themselves in front of the fort. Beyond them were the cavalrymen and the horses and the clouds of their breathing. And farther beyond, the dead land stretched in frozen ridges and flats with nothing more showing than skyline.
Major Baker, bulky in his buffalo coat, gave the order to mount. The fort band played, drums thumping and rolling and settling to the voices of horns.
The expedition rode off to the brave music, and a breeze fluttered the colors above the mounted men whose furs and blankets and robes dwarfed the horses.
There was room for a hand, a clenched hand, between the bars on the window. He drove his fist through the glass.
39
IT WAS WARM in Heavy Runner's lodge, warm when compared with the weather outside.
With his capote on Summers felt comfortable. A lively fire burned. Heavy Runner's two wives sat cross-legged over at the side while the men smoked.
Night was a good time to sit by the fire and speak what came to mind. Every hour in this weather was a good time to stay inside until hunger drove a man out, hoping for game.
Summers puffed and gazed around the lodge, not for any real reason. It was the biggest lodge in the village, fitting for a chief, and by day a man could see a fading picture of the great white bear painted on the outside.
"It is a time of great hunger," Heavy Runner said.
"You speak what I know."
"The young ones dig for wild rats, and skunk, it is eaten, too."
"So I noticed."
"Not one dog is left."
Summers let him go on. Indians liked to recite, no matter if they said what everyone knew. By and by he would come around to what he really wanted to talk about. It had been so now for four or five nights, with Heavy Runner asking Summers to sit with him while he worked his way around to his subject.
"Our young men, the good ones, hunt for the buffalo and do not find him. Where are the buffalo, Bear Maker?"
"Gone south or killed off, my friend."
"We are a camp of old men and squaws and little ones, and there is much sickness. Soon, maybe, we have to eat horses." Heavy Runner made a sound in his throat. "So what is here for anyone?"
With the main point reached, Summers said as he had said before, "Those who killed Malcolm Clarke have not been turned over, and no stolen horses."
"My people did not kill him."
"Horses?"
"A few in our herd. I do not know how many. But stealing horses, it is a game with us. It has always been so."
"The white man thinks different."
"How long since the white chiefs talked to us?"
"You mark the suns and you know."
"Maybe I forget. How many?"
"Twenty-two suns by my count."
"It is so. And how long did they give us?"
"Fourteen. You know it."
"So now it is seven and one suns more than the day they say war."
"Right. Eight suns late in giving over killers and horses."
"I think they not come. War, it is foolish talk."
"It takes time to fix up a war party."
"Maybe so. But they will not fight us, Bear Maker. They trust us. I have the friendship paper."
"I hope so."
"You do not believe?"
"I do not know. I have seen things go wrong before, friends killing friends."
Heavy Runner looked into distance, as if he too had seen mix-ups. "That is truth, but I do not think so this time."
Summers rose, favoring his leg. "We will talk again, my brother."
The air grasped at his lungs when he stepped outside. A skim of snow, fallen during the day, cried underfoot. The northern lights rose and fell and rose and wavered through the frost of his breath. What did coyotes cry for?
Teal Eye was waiting for him, sitting by the side of the fire. Nocansee had his face turned toward it as if he could see.
"What does Heavy Runner say?" Teal Eye asked.
"Nothing new."
"Every night he wants to talk to you, and every day nothing happens."
"He is afraid and wants not to be. He thinks he sees soldiers coming, then tells himself no."
"He is an old woman. He could move camp across the Medicine Line."
"No use, it is said. It is agreed the soldiers could cross the line. General Sully said so."
"What do you think? Tell me," Teal Eye asked.
"Not to worry. If soldiers come, I reckon they won't bother us.
"You speak soft for me."
"Now. Now. You asked, and I told you."
Nocansee said, "I feel things wrong."
"A good rest, and you'll feel different. Let's all get to bed."
He went to sleep thinking of good buffalo meat and happy camps and old days on the beavered streams.
A shout woke him up, the end of a shout. It sounded like "Wrong camp."
He scrambled to the flap of the tepee and looked out into the gray dawn. Heavy Runner was trotting out there, waving his friendship paper. He jerked to a halt and turned and fell as a shot sounded. His paper fluttered away.
Figures sprouted up along the high rim of the river. Fire flashed along it, and powder smoke puffed up to the crack of rifles. Voices cried out in the tepees, voices of alarm, fear and pain. A child screamed. A bullet tore a hole in Summers' lodge.
"Down!" he shouted. "Down, both of you!"
He crawled back. At the rear of the tepee he strained to lift up the hide. "Get out, Teal Eye."
She didn't move. He saw eyes wide with fear, not for herself.
She said, "But you?"
"I"m white. You love me, you go."
"Nocansee?"
"Goddamnit, go, woman! Stick to the river bank. Stick to the brush. Take the horse. Find Lije."
Nocansee said, "My mother, please go."
Summers threw a blanket over her shoulders, then another. He pushed her through the hole. Above all the noise he heard the faint rustle of her clothing against the brush. Summers saw that his rifle was loaded and hid it under the robe that he sat on. A soldier poked his head in the tepee and strained to see.
"What the hell, a white man."
"Yep."
The soldier's eyes found Nocansee. "There's one that ain't."
"He's blind."
"Why waste a bullet?" The soldier reversed his carbine and swung. The butt of it crushed Nocansee's skull. He went over without a sound.
The soldier stepped back. He started to change his hold on the rifle. Summers shot him in the head just above the eyes.
The soldier fell backward, half in and half out of the tepee. His carbine skittered ahead of him.
No time to reload. Christ, for a repeater. Maybe he could make it to the soldier's carbine.
A voice outside said, "Good God, one of our men dead."
A head appeared.
Summers said, "He killed my blind son."
The soldier stepped in and fired. The bullet caught Summers high in the chest. It knocked him back. The second shot went in his belly.
A second soldier came in. "I got me a turncoat son of a bitch," the first one said. "Killed his own kind."
"Finish him off."
"He's dyin'. Let him die miserable, long and miserable."
They went out.
He didn't hurt, not much, not more than a man could stand. The firing had died down to a shot now and then. There was the sound of crashing and the smell of burned things, and he knew the soldiers were yanking the tepees down over the live fires and the dead bodies. Over all the sounds rose the wailing of squaws and the crying of children and the voices of soldiers proud of themselves.
One of the soldiers shouted out, "Jesus Christ, smallpox. Let's get the hell out." Pretty soon there was no sound at all except the keening of squaws and the hard pound of hooves.
