Stringer and the Lost Tribe

by Lou Cameron

  Nancy asked to be shown more local stonework. The Indians were willing to indulge her, although they found her enthusiasm for their hardware sort of confusing. She waved a stone-headed wood ax around in an almost threatening manner and proclaimed it a Neolithic war celt.

  Stringer glanced at Joe, who told the white girl, “No it’s not. It’s a plain old woman’s hatchet.”

  She protested that it still struck her as a prime example of Neolithic stone polishing. The old majapah asked Joe what all the fuss was about, and when Joe translated, their host spoke first to an old Yana woman and then said Nancy could have the fool thing if she admired it that much.

  Not to be outdone, the other women proceeded to fill a basket with other stoneware, some flaked and some polished smooth. A people who depended on stone for most of their tools weren’t all that picky about how they made them. Nancy was of course delighted, and lady enough to ask Joe what they wanted in return.

  Joe said, “They don’t want anything. Them’s gifts, not swaps. But if you want ’em to remember you fondly, that big red kerchief around your neck would do nicely. Hand it to the old man. He’ll work it out with his wives.”

  As Nancy untied her kerchief she asked if all the old women there were married to that one old man.

  Joe shook his head and said, “Two of ’em are widowed sisters. It ain’t easy, being a majapah. You’re expected to marry all the gals nobody else in the band is up to feeding.”

  Nancy said that reminded her of other misunderstood notions about tribal people and handed the printed calico kerchief to the majapah, who protested it was too great a gift but kept it anyway. Then there was an awkward silence.

  Stringer, seated nearest to the doorway, glanced outside and told Nancy, “It’s getting on toward sunset. If they wanted us to spend the night they’d have brought more blankets. Are you about ready to head for town now?”

  She sighed. “I suppose we should be getting back. But there’s so much for me to learn here. I’ve barely taken down four pages of their words, and I want to know so much more about them. Do you suppose they’d let us come back another day?”

  “Depends on how they feel about you. Can we promise ’em their dead will be left in peace from now on?”

  She started to nod. Then she said, “I can’t speak for Father, but I’m sure that when he gets back he’ll be very impressed by this basket of modern stonework that’s just like what we’ve been digging up. I wonder if any of these people would sit still for having their skull shapes measured.”

  Stringer laughed. “I’d wait until I got to know ’em a mite better. But making friends with ’em instead of riling ’em sounds like a good start. Meanwhile, let’s see if we can get you home before dark. You coming a ways, Joe?”

  The cowboy said, “No. You know the way. I have to help these people carry stuff home to their winter camp. They only gave you half a ton of their stuff.”

  Stringer picked up the basket, which weighed more like thirty pounds, and led Nancy back out to their ponies. He tied her specimens to the bare-wood tree of his Mex saddle while she put her notes away. Then they mounted up in the late-afternoon light to ride back the way they’d come. Nobody came out to wave them off.

  As they rode for Quicksilver in the gloaming light, Stringer got turned around more than once. But since he could tell north from south and downhill from up, he figured they had to be about halfway there by the time Nancy was wishing on the first star winking down from a lavender sky.

  They found—or stumbled upon—a trail that seemed to be headed the right way. Nancy rode forward to ride stirrup to stirrup with him. He didn’t mind that at all. But they’d only traveled that way a short while before Stringer heard a sinister whirring and stiff-armed the blonde off the far side of her pony as the arrow meant for her back grazed his sleeve to go on and thunk into an oak limb just ahead.

  Nancy wound up bawling most unladylike curses in a clump of poison oak on her side of the trail. Stringer had rolled off into deep ferns. The two ponies simply kept going, fast.

  The cover was better where he was. But Stringer crawled over to the girl, hauled her out of the poison oak, and got them both behind a mossy fallen log, his own .38 drawn as he peered in vain for something to aim it at. He couldn’t see more than a few yards into the poorly illuminated greenery all around them.

  Nancy sobbed, “Oh, whatever could have made those Yana turn on us?”

  “They didn’t. That wasn’t a Yana arrow. It wasn’t aimed so hot, either. I think they were supposed to get me with it.”

  She protested, “I thought you said those cowboys playing Indian with you were all dead.” Then she glanced over her shoulder at the arrow imbedded in the oak bark to add, ‘‘Hmm, that does look like a Paiute arrow.”

  He nodded, “Save for your old cook, there ain’t supposed to be many Paiute on this slope of the Sierra.”

  She swallowed and asked, “What are we ever to do? We’ve lost our mounts. We only have that one gun of yours to hold them off with, and it will soon be dark.”

  “I noticed. Since they want to play cowboys and Indians, I’d best go along with their fool game. Stay put. I’m not going far.”

  He didn’t. He just moved off to their right a few yards and fired three rounds straight up. Then he crab-crawled back to Nancy as leaves fluttered down and fusillade of gunshots peppered where he’d just been.

  As he reloaded next to Nancy, she asked him why on earth he’d done that. He explained, “They were trying to kill us quiet. I didn’t want to go along with that notion. Now just hush up and listen sharp.”

  They did, but it stayed breathlessly still all around them as the forest kept getting darker. Then, a million years later, the familiar voice of good old Joe Malliwah called out, “Hey, Stringer?”

  “Don’t answer!” Nancy begged. “What if he’s in on it?”

  “I’d be mighty surprised. I wouldn’t be here if Joe himself hadn’t sent for me. I fired that three-shot distress signal with an old Army man like Joe in mind.”

  Then he called out, “We’re over here, Joe. Can I take it you and your kin are the only ones still about?”

  The Indian cowboy called back, “You can now. Sign reads two men on steel-shod ponies, leaving in too much of a hurry for our Yana infantry to head off afoot. We recovered your mounts for you, though. They stopped off for some manzanita just a quarter mile downslope.”

  Stringer got up and helped Nancy to her feet as Joe approached them on his own scrub pony, leading the buckskin and Nancy’s bay. As Stringer helped the girl remount, he told Joe, “They were out to pin more trouble on your kin by pinning me, at least, with yet another arrow.”

  Joe nodded at the now almost invisible arrow imbedded in the nearby limb and said, “We found the murder weapon one of them mean-hearted saltu tossed away. Looks like Shasta workmanship. Not too new. One of the feather vanes on that Paiute arrow is missing. Sinew glue is like that once it dries out. I’d say some sneak has been at a museum or private collection of mixed hunting gear, made at different times by different nations.”

  Stringer forked aboard his own mount as he opined, “The mastermind must have a lot of old Indian gear to spare if they can afford to get rid of the evidence so freely before riding back to town.”

  Joe asked, “How do you know they’re working out of Quicksilver? Why not a hideout somewhere in these hills? My people find it easy to hide out up here, you know.”

  Stringer shook his head. “If they had a secret stronghold they wouldn’t have to keep throwing those bows away. Quicksilver is the only settlement for miles. I’m pretty sure the town law is being run on the level. So nobody would want to return from, say, a quail hunt waving an Indian bow about. Riding out, it would be easier. Nobody pays much attention to anyone riding out because they don’t expect them to, see?”

  Nancy repressed a shudder. “If what you say is true, those men who just attacked us will be in town as we ride in, and we don’t know who they are.”<
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  Stringer nodded. “That’s why you’re not about to live in that canvas tent, guarded by one old Paiute cook, before your menfolk get back from the county seat.” He turned to Joe. “It looks like your Yana kin will be having a houseguest overnight. Do you want to talk it over with ’em alone?”

  Jo said he’d better and suggested they meet him later at that same now-deserted wowi. Then he clucked to his own pony and did a vanishing act without asking Stringer if he thought he’d be able to find the place in the dark.

  Stringer could, but it wasn’t easy. As he helped Nancy down again he felt sticky poison-oak sap clinging to her britches. He tethered their ponies and led her inside the dark wowi. He struck a match and got a small fire going. Then he began to rummage along the brush walls as she protested she wasn’t cold and that the smoke hurt her eyes.

  Stringer said, “You’ll have more than itchy eyes come morning unless I find something to rub you down with. I happen to be immune to poison oak, which is just as well, when you consider the hills I grew up in. But not everyone is, and the Yana spend a good deal of time hiding in the stuff. So they carry lots of herbs about with ’em.”

  She blinked at him and asked, “Are you suggesting I let you rub herbs all over my naked flesh, sir?”

  He chuckled. “You could do it as well yourself, in the dark, and likely get us both in less trouble.”

  But he was still searching in vain when Joe Malliwah and a couple of Yana women joined them at last.

  Joe said, “The majapah is afraid to let a strange saltu woman know where his winter camp is, but he sends these girls with good blankets and food to make you both comfortable here for the night. Why are you sniffing like a dog on your hands and knees, Stringer?”

  Stringer explained about Nancy rolling in poison oak. As the Yana women hauled in the baskets and blankets of woven rabbit skins, Joe explained the problem to them in their own tongue. They both seemed to think it was pretty funny. But the older one produced a bundle of wilted weeds and handed it to Nancy.

  Joe told her, “This stuff is better than jewelweed. I don’t know what to call it in English. You have to rub it all over yourself and on your clothes before you put them back on. It’s a good thing you don’t have a toothache. Our medicine doesn’t do much for that. It’s a good thing we don’t eat many sweets.”

  Nancy looked embarrassed.

  Stringer told her, “Don’t worry. Joe and I were just leaving. By the time we get back you ought to be asleep as well as cured.”

  She wailed after them, demanding to know where on earth they were going. But Stringer didn’t like to lie, and the less she knew, the better.

  Joe waited until they were mounted up before he said, “I’m with you. But what’s the plan?”

  Stringer said, “Some son of a bitch wants to play cowboys and Indians. So let’s show him how the game can be played, damn it.”

  They left their ponies hidden a mile outside the mining town and moved in the rest of the way on foot. Most of the mining men and their dependents had turned in for the night by now, so they only had to avoid the lights around the saloon. By this time Joe understood Stringer’s plans, even though he didn’t care for them and kept saying Stringer was crazy.

  They infiltrated the crude industrial complex around the mercury mine’s adit. Stringer didn’t trust the powerfully built Indian to just knock the old night watchman out without busting his skull. So they fanned out, and when Joe called to the old man and got him to come out of his shed, Stringer was the one who smacked him with a sand-filled sock from his saddlebag. As Joe caught the old watchman’s falling form he grunted, “Hear me, I think he saw my face.”

  “Bueno. He’ll recall seeing an Indian just before the lights went out. Let’s get him over on the far side of the tailings heap, where he’ll be safer.”

  They did, leaving the watchman’s shotgun where it lay by the smelter doorway. As soon as they had the old man bedded down, Stringer told Joe, “I can handle the next part here alone You run up to the far end and go into your Sioux war dance. I’ll be waiting to hear some war whoops before I raise hell on my own.”

  Joe grumbled, “Damn it, I don’t know how to do war whoops. I come from a quiet breed of redskin.”

  Stringer insisted, “If I wanted total silence I’d never have asked you to tag along. Just pretend you once rode in Buffalo bill’s tent show. Half his wild Indians are white boys to begin with. You don’t have to sound authentic, just noisy, see?”

  Joe grinned wickedly and faded away in the darkness. Stringer moved to the dynamite shed, pried the padlock hasp from the wood with his pocket knife, and ducked in to get to work.

  He only had to cap and fuse one stick in each box he helped himself to. He lit no fuses until, way off in the distance, he heard Joe empty his six-gun at the stars and yodel like a Comanche with an awesome bellyache.

  That caused a heap of windows to light up indeed while the night owls from the saloon boiled out into the street to shout dumb things like, “Circle the wagons! Save your last two rounds for your woman and yourself!”

  By this time Stringer had lit his fuses and was headed for the hills at a dead run. He crashed into a wheelbarrow some fool had left in a mighty dumb place. As he sprang back up he heard someone shout, “They’re down thataways, too!”

  But he was out of range as wild shots commenced to search for his galloping hind end, and then the dynamite started to go off behind him, each thunderous explosion outlining his shadow ahead of him in sullen orange light. By now he was too far upslope to be made out as more than a running figure winking on and off, but make him out someone did.

  “Keep you heads down, boys!” the man shouted. “They’re around us on every damned slope!”

  So the victims of Stringer’s prank took cover and would only learn, after a long sleepless night, that the mine adit had been blasted shut and the smelter had been blasted just about flat by Indians, according to the old watchman, once he managed to stagger out of the ruins.

  Back on the ridge where they’d left their ponies, Joe said, “That was fun, But hear me, I thought the reason you came up here was to make them stop blaming bad things on my Yana kin.”

  As they mounted to ride off, Stringer explained, “I wasn’t getting anywhere just talking. Most of those miners sincerely believe they’ve been having Indian trouble. Partly because some of ’em know they should feel shitty about the way they’ve been raised to treat inconvenient Indians, but mostly because some sneaky bastard has been encouraging the myth with sneaky tricks. I told you neither the BIA nor the War Department thought there could be enough Indians around here to worry that much about.”

  Joe frowned thoughtfully. “They’re liable to take my kin more seriously now. But why did we just help the mastermind sell his story to the outside world? I thought he wasn’t on our side, damn it.”

  Stringer nodded grimly. “He’s only on his own side. if I understood his motives I’d have a better notion who he might be. But you have to eat the apple a bite at a time, Joe. I know the old majapah won’t like it, but once the BIA has him and his band on their books they’ll be a heap better off. It’s just too late in the game for any leftover bands to go on trying to live wild. They need an agent to stand up for them. You saw how they were treated when nobody felt they needed a hunting license to treat ’em like wild vermin.”

  Joe sighed and said, “If they were vermin, at least they were still free. My own band used to roam free. Hear me, I know what happens next. The BIA will want to issue them rations and make their children learn to read and write. Most of them will go along with it. My band did. The saltu ways are tempting. The women will get too lazy to leach acorn meal, once they learn to use white flour. Nobody on my reservation makes those rabbit-skin robes anymore. Wool blankets are too easy to buy, and that weaving was a lot of work. In just a few years the old ways will be gone for these Yana forever. The young men will wear jeans and punch cows, like me.”

  Stringer grimaced.
“You know you had a swell time with the Rough Riders down in Cuba, Joe. That’s the way history moves. Someday your grandchildren will look back on your cowboy occupation as a Shining Time. Such times just don’t last all that long for anybody.”

  Joe scowled. “Hear me, you are full of shit. Before you saltu came, ray people lived wild and free as soaring eagles. They had a good life. Nobody ever bothered them.”

  Stringer shook his head. “Bullshit yourself. The life they led tended to be short as well as free. There was more to eat out this way, but some tribes were already fighting over the best acorn groves. Oaks grow slower than populations. My own folks had a Shining Time, to hear old Scotch drunks moan about it. In the old country they got to play sad pipe music and have jolly clan battles until overpopulation and a primitive way of farming got them fighting more seriously over cows and oats for their hungry kids. Had we stayed as we were we’d have likely grown mighty miserable by now. But we were forced to change, and we did. So my grandfather wound up an American cattle baron instead of the barefoot Highland crofter he kept saying he could have been if it hadn’t been spoiled for him by the infernal English, and, hell, I got to go to Stanford and learn to play a typewriter instead of a bagpipe. So do you hear me bitching?”

  Joe insisted, “It’s not the same. You saltu never knew what it was like to live really close to nature.”

  Stringer sighed and said, “I wish you noble savages would pay attention. How do you think white cavemen lived? If they’d been having so much fun at it they’d never have bothered to invent civilization. It took us a hell of a long time, Joe. You and your folk don’t have near as much work cut out for you, and spare me the sad details of the fun we’ve stolen from you. I notice you light your smokes with matches instead of twirling a fire stick an hour or so. You’d be walking instead of riding right now if white men hadn’t brought the horse to this continent. I’ll allow there was a time, a mighty short time, when the Indian had things swell, roaming still empty range aboard a white man’s pony after buffalo he’d never been able to hunt on foot. But we live in a world that keeps changing, Joe. Instead of mooning about the fun your grandmother had chawing her man’s moccasins to keep ’em soft you ought to study on your granddaughter being a moving picture star or, hell, a ballerina, since you folk like to dance so much.”