by Judd Cole
That night, to reward them for their hard work earlier in avoiding the sawyer, he broke out rations of expensive Scotch whiskey. The Cheyennes refused their share, opting for rich white man’s coffee heavily sweetened with raw sugar.
There had not yet been contact with another Indian tribe. Slowly, as the summer days lengthened and the Wyoming sun’s heat grew warmer, they made their way north toward hostile Crow Indian country.
The Crow Nation was currently at war with all whites, the result of a cavalry massacre of one of their villages. Munro had no intention of trying to deal with them. Instead, his plan was to acquire land rights all around them, hemming them in. Then he would convince the Army to drive them south to Kiowa and Comanche country as they had once before.
Soon, as the Sioux Princess drew closer to the Yellowstone River, it reached a nearly impassable stretch of water.
At times the Tongue was so clogged with hidden boulders that several oars and poles were snapped. Gravel bars suddenly scraped against the hull with a grinding shriek, forcing the boat to a complete stop. One gravel bar was so long and wide that it took the crew hours to drag the boat free with the cordelles. Other times, thick and well-constructed beaver dams stretched across the entire width of the river, and had to be laboriously torn down after blowing them apart with the cannon.
Once, even Old Knobby was impressed into hard labor, tugging on the cordelles with the others until he coughed up phlegm. Then, ten sleeps after the Cheyennes had departed from their camp, the dreaded confrontation between Hays Jackson and Wolf Who Hunts Smiling took place.
The Sioux Princess had cleared a sharp dogleg bend only to encounter the white-churning waters of dangerous, rocky rapids. A narrow and relatively small channel of water skirted the rapids on one side. Only one bank was passable, and half the crew was tugging one cordelle, with the other half poling from the opposite side of the keelboat.
“Tack to starboard!” screamed Jackson. “Tack hard to starboard! Hurry, goddamnit! Heave into it!”
In his agitation he made the mistake of singling out Wolf Who Hunts Smiling, who had paused for a moment to get a better grip on his pole.
“Maybe you mistook me, whelp! I said heave!”
And then he brought his whip singing smartly across Wolf Who Hunts Smiling’s bare back.
The young Cheyenne brave held his face impassive. But his swift-as-minnow eyes blazed with murderous hatred. Quick as a wink, the hot-tempered Cheyenne threw down his pole, whirled around, and seized the knotted whip. One sharp tug, and Jackson was sprawled on the deck.
“You heathen sonofabitch!”
Jackson moved with surprising quickness for such a stout man. In a heartbeat his .36-caliber Paterson Colt pistol was in his hand. But just as quickly, Wolf Who Hunts Smiling’s bone-handle knife was raised overhead, ready to be thrown.
Munro happened to be on deck, worried by the rapids. They had not been marked on his navigation charts. As Touch the Sky and Little Horse leaped on their companion, Munro simultaneously caught Jackson’s arm.
“Let it alone,” he said sharply. “We don’t clear that rapids and quick, we’ll all be doing the hurt dance!”
Jackson glowered at Wolf Who Hunts Smiling. “Don’t miscalculate yourself, Innun. I’ve scalped better bucks ’n you!”
But Munro had already ordered the Cheyennes back to work. The horses and mules, upset by the turbulent pitching of the keelboat, had quickly become agitated. Old Knobby worked hard to calm and control them.
Again Etienne rallied the Creoles in rapid French. The boiling, churning waters tossed the boat around like a helpless cork in a child’s bath. Several crates lashed to the deck broke loose and tumbled into the river, and a buckskin pony leaped over the gunnel in panic.
With a sharp snap, Touch the Sky’s pole became wedged between two boulders and broke. At the same moment, one of the Creoles manning the cordelles slipped on the sharp bank and tumbled down into the water, injuring his left leg.
Seeing that the Nose Talker was in no immediate danger of drowning, Touch the Sky leaped into the river, fought his way up the bank, and gripped the thick cordelle in the voyageur’s place.
“Heave!” Jackson shouted, fear replacing the surliness in his tone. “Jesus God almighty, heave!”
For a moment the Sioux Princess balanced between sure destruction and uncertain salvation. Then, like a skittish pony making a sideways little skip, it literally bounced into the narrow, calmer channel.
The heavy boat missed crushing Touch the Sky to death only by inches. But the hapless crew member trapped in the river was not so lucky. His face draining white, he tried to scramble up out of harm’s way.
But he was too late. As Touch the Sky watched horrified, the injured Creole was instantly crushed to a human paste against the rocks.
Chapter Seven
The Sioux Princess survived the rapids with only a few rough gouges to her keel and the loss of some expendable trade goods. But Touch the Sky noticed a change occurring among many of the Creole voyageurs.
The loss of a fourth man on this godforsaken journey was bad enough. But the attitude of their white employers left them noticeably sullen. There was no attempt to recover and bury the remains, no pause for even the simplest of ceremonies. Their comrade’s death meant no more to Munro and Jackson than the slaughter of a rabbit.
The Cheyennes were sympathetic. Their tribe placed great importance on recovering the bodies of their dead and preparing them for the final journey. Although the Nose Talkers were an odd lot, and hostile toward the Indians, the three bucks couldn’t help feeling a certain brotherhood—were these dark-skinned men, who might have been mistaken for red men if they wore leggings and clouts, not despised by the whites?
On the day after the incident at the rapids, the Sioux Princess anchored early so Old Knobby could exercise the horses and graze them in the lush bunchgrass bordering the river.
As a gesture of sympathy toward the voyageurs, Touch the Sky shot a fat mule deer and dressed it out. Assisted by Little Horse, he carried it to the boatmen’s night camp and presented it to Etienne. They were limited to sign talk, but the Creole leader understood their purpose. He was not exactly friendly, and did not invite them to visit. But at least he was polite as he thanked them.
Wolf Who Hunts Smiling, however, scorned this gesture.
“These men live in cities and dress as whites,” he said when Touch the Sky and Little Horse returned to their camp. “A true Cheyenne does not hunt for lazy, fish-eating drunkards.”
The keelboat was visible in the grainy twilight behind them. Fires blazed from the voyageurs’ camp on the opposite bank of the river.
“When our chief crossed over,” countered Little Horse, automatically making the cut-off sign, “the Lakota Sioux presented our tribe with much antelope meat. It is the red man’s way to be generous in a time of sadness.”
“Perhaps,” said Wolf Who Hunts Smiling. “But the Lakota are our cousins. They raise their battle lances beside ours. Their enemies are our enemies.”
“I have ears for this,” said Touch the Sky. “But only think, the enemies of the Nose Talkers are also our enemies. Have you not seen how they are treated by the palefaces?”
“So you say, buck. But you too have accepted devil water from the hair-mouth whites, just as these nose-talking fish eaters do. I drink nothing of my enemy’s except their blood!”
Touch the Sky fell silent, an angry pulse throbbing in his temples. Wolf Who Hunts Smiling had scored a good hit. Once, at the trading post at Red Shale, Touch the Sky had drunk strong water with whites who worked for the whiskey trader Henri Lagace. But he had only been tricked into doing so in a desperate attempt to get them to listen to his pleas.
Little Horse could bear no more of this.
“Your tongue is bent double from foolish hatred and jealousy,” he said to Wolf Who Hunts Smiling. “You saw how Touch the Sky behaved when those same white dogs held him prisoner in their camp. Did he drink with t
hem then? No! He was prepared to ram an arrow down his own throat rather than cooperate with them.”
Wolf Who Hunts Smiling was silent at this. Perhaps he was also recalling the time when Touch the Sky, returning from his vision at Medicine Lake, had bravely saved him from Pawnee marauders—this in spite of the fact that Wolf Who Hunts Smiling had been sent by Black Elk to kill him.
“He was brave,” he finally conceded begrudgingly. “He is no coward, certainly. But he also disobeyed his war leader and caused the death of High Forehead by doing so.”
Little Horse was about to respond. But Touch the Sky laid a hand on his arm, quieting him. It was no use to argue further with Wolf Who Hunts Smiling. His mind was stubbornly set, and it was pointless to antagonize him further. Their survival on this dangerous journey would depend on cooperation.
The next day brought a brief respite for the crew. The river widened and deepened as it passed through a verdant valley of hip-deep buffalo grass. A gentle favoring breeze puffed out the square sail.
This gave Touch the Sky an opportunity to do what, so far, he had been too busy to accomplish very often—eavesdrop on the whites as they met in their cabin.
He sat on the plank deck, close enough to the cabin to hear the voices within. He was using a bone awl and buffalo-sinew thread to repair his badly torn moccasins. The cabin had only an open archway for an entrance. But the whites, unaware he knew even one word of English, ignored him as they would a camp dog.
Wes Munro was consulting a U.S. Army map.
“Dakota land,” he said to Hays Jackson, “doesn’t officially begin until we reach the Whistling Rock fork. So this is still open land. Better put a shack out just in case the Territorial Commission sends out an inspector.”
Jackson nodded and whistled to a few of the idling crew. The order was given, and the Sioux Princess was moored close to shore.
What followed next was something Touch the Sky had witnessed several times since the voyage began.
With Jackson bellowing out orders, a small wooden shack mounted on wheeled axles was lifted off the keelboat and set ashore. Old Knobby hitched up a team of horses to traces, and the shack was positioned well back from the water. Then the wheels were removed. Fresh white letters on the side of the new pine boards proclaimed THE OVERLAND COMPANY.
Other shacks like it were being knocked together daily by the crew. There was no attention to workmanship. Huge gaps were left between the boards, and they did not even include doors and windows. In addition to setting out the shacks, Jackson used a tomahawk to blaze traces in the area around them.
Touch the Sky had been burning with curiosity about these shacks. Now, as Knobby led his team back up the boarding ramp, the old hostler saw the question in the Cheyenne’s eyes.
Knobby glanced carefully around. Then, as he came abreast of the spot where Touch the Sky sat, he squatted as if to examine one of the horse’s fetlocks.
“This child has finally got it figgered,” he whispered quickly to his friend. “Them piss-ant shacks and the tomahawk claims is mainly to bolster the Overland Company’s claim that they’re ‘proving up’ gum’ment land betwixt the reservation lands. Gives ’em a legal claim to it later.”
Knobby rose, stiff kneecaps popping, and led the horses back to the shallow pen at the rear of the Sioux Princess. Now Touch the Sky listened intently as Jackson’s bullhorn voice spoke up.
“You know this Dakota chief?” he asked, his left eye twitching open and closed. “This here Chief Bull Hump?”
“I never palavered with him,” said Munro. “But I’ve heard talk of him.”
“Will he make medicine with us?”
Munro was silent for several heartbeats, carefully considering that question.
“From what I’ve heard, it’s not likely. He’ll hobnob with whites, but he won’t make medicine,” Munro finally replied. “But one way or another, there’s a wagon road going up. I’ve made plans. Old Bull Hump is going to join Smoke Rising in the Happy Hunting Ground.”
Jackson grinned. “That shines fine by me. Injuns are nits—and nits make lice.”
Now Touch the Sky felt his face drain cold as he finally grasped the gist of Munro’s scheme. The heart of the red nations was being stolen out from under the Indians to build a road for the whites!
Absorbed in what he had heard, eager to hear more, he was staring intently through the open doorway when Hays Jackson suddenly met his eye.
Hastily, the Cheyenne looked down and pretended to concentrate on repairing his elkskin moccasins.
But a little nubbin of doubt festered at the back of Jackson’s mind. This was several times now that he had caught the tall Cheyenne buck apparently listening.
It could just be curiosity, he told himself. The savage had probably never been around whites before.
Still... he sure’s hell acted guilty.
“Hey, you on the deck,” Jackson said to him quietly in English. “Look at me.”
But Touch the Sky, nervous sweat making the bone-sliver awl difficult to hold, refused to look up.
~*~
Old Knobby was worried.
He hadn’t heard the eerie sound in a long time—not since his fur-trapping days in the great mountains he still called the Stonies, though most now called them the Rockies. But he thought he had heard the sound again this morning, when he rolled out of his blankets just as dawn rimmed the eastern horizon in pink light.
The light, fluttering tweet of a bone whistle: the favorite signaling device of the dreaded Crow Crazy Dogs.
Knobby had known the Crow tribe as the Absaroka in the days when they still hunted in the Yellowstone Valley. But as they moved west, encountering more enemies, they became known simply as the Stub-hands. This was a reference to their custom of cutting off their fingers to mourn their dead. Knobby had seen Crow warriors with nothing left but a thumb and a trigger finger.
The Crows were the great thieves of the plains, roaming everywhere in search of booty. And Knobby knew that the Crow Crazy Dogs were the most feared Indian soldier society in the West because they were suicide warriors. Once they entered combat, they were bound by sacred oath—violation of which brought certain shame—to either win or die in the attempt. Joining the Crazy Dogs gave a Crow warrior a special, almost supernatural status—in the eyes of his tribe he was already dead.
Again Old Knobby heard the sound, even closer now: a low, hollow, fluting whistle almost like a whippoorwill. It came from a thicket about seventy yards back from the fog-shrouded river.
Knobby felt his bowels go loose and heavy as his nagging worry turned to sudden fear.
He looked at the one-pounder cannon mounted in the prow, debating. Normally it was fired only in farewells and salutes, though it could also be loaded with up to sixteen one-ounce musket balls. It made a hell of a roar, he knew, and would wake everyone instantly.
He was still debating when his favorite horse, a chestnut mare with a white sock on both forelegs, pricked her ears forward toward the thicket. Then Knobby knew for sure.
They were out there.
All hell’s soon gonna be a-poppin’, he told himself.
As usual, the cannon was loaded with powder, but no musket balls. The old-timer limped forward quickly, tugging at the rawhide drawstring of his possibles bag. He produced a sulphur match and lit it with his fingernail. He held it over the touch hole, and a booming report split the calm silence of dawn.
“What in tarnal hell?” Hays Jackson stumbled out of the cabin with his shirt-tails flapping. He clutched a cavalry carbine against his hairy belly. Munro emerged behind him, one of his dueling pistols in each hand.
The three Cheyennes were already racing toward the Sioux Princess, their loose black locks flying. The voyageurs, hung over as usual from a late night of revelry, were rising more slowly from their camp.
“You goddamn soft-brained old coot!” said Jackson to Knobby. “The hell are you doing?”
“Stow the chin music,” said Knobby grimly as the
three Cheyenne bucks raced up the boarding plank. “Best tell your crew to hump it. And break out the spare rifles for ’em. We got Innuns on the warpath.”
“Where, you stinking old goat?”
“Over yonder,” said Knobby, nodding toward the thicket.
The Crows, the element of surprise already ruined, had decided to attack immediately before the bulk of the crew could form up against them. As if timed for dramatic effect, they charged even as Knobby finished speaking.
With harsh, guttural barks, they streamed out of the thicket on the backs of painted ponies. There were at least two dozen of them. And Knobby knew for a fact now that they were indeed the feared suicide warriors: They wore horse tails gummed into their already long hair, making it trail down below their buttocks. This was the fashion preferred by the Crazy Dogs.
Little Horse too recognized the feared suicide warriors.
“Crazy Dogs!” he shouted to his companions as he raised his scattergun. “Now we are in for a battle, brothers!”
The attackers carried no rifles. But their fox-skin quivers were packed tight with new, fire-hardened arrows. They were also armed with their deadly skull-crackers, stone war clubs that could split an enemy’s head like a soft melon.
With the suddenness of a prairie storm, arrows began raining into the wooden keelboat all around them. Touch the Sky felt a harsh, fiercely hot stinging in the meat of his right thigh as a flint-tipped arrow found him. He could feel that it had not sunk deep. He ignored it, firing the Sharps and knocking a Crazy Dog off of his horse.
Another arrow found Hays Jackson’s right shoulder, and one pierced Old Knobby’s slouch beaver hat. But more Crazy Dogs in the first wave went down as they, or their horses, were dropped by the first volley of fire from the Sioux Princess.
However, there was no time to reload or insert fresh primer caps. The attackers were too close and advancing too swiftly. Already one warrior was charging up the boarding ramp. Touch the Sky drew his knife from its beaded sheath. In the same smooth movement that drew it, he brought his arm back and threw the knife hard into the warrior’s chest.
