The Owl Hunt

by Richard S. Wheeler

  “Neither am I.”

  “You been threatened by them Dreamers.”

  “They made a point of not killing me.”

  They watched the weary blue column ride over to the post and then vanish among the whitewashed buildings.

  “If you don’t go, North Star, they’ll think you’re a Dreamer.”

  “They know better.”

  She squinted up at him. “Wanna bet?”

  He didn’t want to bet. Imagined redskin threats were as real to white men as the genuine ones. And anyone with a drop of Indian blood might be suspect.

  “I don’t know what I’ll do,” he said. “Maybe join the Dreamers.”

  He surprised himself by saying it. Now, suddenly, his two bloods were warring again. There was something shouting in him that he didn’t want to admit. He was tired of the Yanks and their broken promises, their policy of slow starvation, their shrug-of-the-shoulders belief that Indians should either settle into European life and belief, or become extinct.

  “Maybe a few arrows through agency windows might improve things around here,” he muttered.

  But he knew they wouldn’t. A serious rebellion would mean more death and starvation for the Eastern Shoshones even though Chief Washakie was considered a tame Indian.

  Dirk watched the crowd dissipate. The Shoshone servants seemed to vanish into the ground, plainly fearful. Clerks whispered and went back to work. The Partridges headed back to their mission.

  Peace had returned to the agency—or had it? Sirius Van Horne vanished into his agency offices. No commotion rose from the post. The flag barely fluttered. The summer sun hovered in the west. Dirk’s schoolhouse remained empty. But peace was not in the air, and not in the advancing shadows. There were no thunderheads piling up in the sky.

  “You want to walk with me to the chief’s house, Crow Mother?”

  She shook her head. Often, at this hour, she trudged out to the cemetery to visit with Barnaby Skye and Blue Dawn. There was now a yearning in each of her visits. She talked to them daily, and for all he knew, their spirits talked to her. When the weather permitted it, she settled in the rough grasses beside them, and was content to be with them for a while. Sometimes Dirk went with her and felt some presence that made him uneasy.

  “I’ll see you later,” he said.

  She reached out to him and touched his arm, and then slowly retreated on her daily mission. The touch of her old hand, dry as parchment, felt like a good-bye kiss.

  He found Washakie himself sitting on his porch, and a motion from the chief steered Dirk to another chair.

  “I did not want to hear them,” Washakie said.

  “Then you knew what they would say.”

  Washakie smiled grimly. “Yes, and that is how they live and think. They speak with honeyed words, but I know them well enough.”

  “Then you know we’re in the middle of a rebellion, or so they say. They’ve sent to Laramie for more soldiers.”

  Washakie laughed softly. “I watched Captain Cinnabar return with his soldiers. I watched the crowd gather at the agency. I watched the captain and Major Van Horne. I thought maybe to walk over there to hear what they were saying and then I thought maybe I shouldn’t. Let them come to me if they have anything to say to me. Which they don’t. Major Van Horne, he says nothing to me. Does he tell me there is trouble? Does he ask me to call a council of the elders? To gather the headmen and talk this over? Does he ask me about the Dreamers? Does he propose going out to the People to talk, eh? No, I am chief of the Eastern Shoshones but I’m an Indian, and so he does not come here.”

  “Could you stop the Dreamers?”

  “I think you know the answer.”

  “Could a council of elders stop the Dreamers?”

  “A few of the elders are Dreamers. No, North Star. It is not in my power. The Dreamers have taken their own road. Come with me. We will have a talk with the Indian agent. I have been thinking about this.”

  Dirk and the chief walked quietly across the weedy fields to the agency, and found Van Horne stuffing papers into a small black safe painted with cherubs. A revolver lay on his desk.

  “You, is it?” he said, annoyed. “You’re lucky I didn’t shoot. We’re under siege and you walk in without knocking. What do you want?”

  “Ah, my esteemed friend Major Van Horne, agent to the Eastern Shoshones for the government of the United States of America. I, Chief Washakie, friend of the Great Fathers in Washington, have come to tell you that the Dreamers will not assault you this night.”

  Van Horne straightened up and stared. “You have some sort of moccasin telegraph telling you this?”

  “I know my people.”

  “Maybe that’s what they want you to say.”

  “I plan to sleep soundly in my own bed, Major.”

  “Well, of course, they wouldn’t touch you.”

  “And you could sleep just as soundly in your bed, Major. And so can the missionaries. And so can Mister Skye, here.”

  “You’ve been in touch with the Dreamers. Tonight’s not the night, eh?”

  “No, the Dreamers have said nothing to me. No Shoshone whispers in my ear. No elder visits me in the night. I hear nothing of their plans but I know something of their purposes. If you know the wisdom of the Owl, you know the Dreamers. The Owl is their night-bird.”

  “Hoodoo,” Van Horne said. “If you sleep well tonight, you can thank the patrols that the army’s putting out in the field.”

  “My good friend, Major Van Horne, that’s what I wish to see you about. When armed men make mistakes, innocent people die.”

  “Innocent people die? You call Dreamers innocent?”

  “It is very difficult for a blue-shirt patrol to shoot only at Dreamers, and not at hunters or root-gathering women, or boys cutting firewood, or women washing in the river, or old men sitting in front of their lodges.”

  “My old friend, Chief of all the Indians, are you suggesting that the army’s not competent?”

  “My fine and treasured friend Major Van Horne, who tells his red children all good things from the Great Fathers and is a friend of all the Shoshones, I say only that no one who lies in his bed in his own house this night is in peril, but many of my people are in great peril, because our friend and good father of the Shoshone people, Captain Cinnabar, has many in his command who would not know a Dreamer from a girl washing her hair beside a creek.”

  Van Horne laughed shortly, baring yellow teeth in the middle of orange whiskers. “My friend, Chief of all the Shoshones, you let us worry about that.”

  “My dear friend, Indian Agent Van Horne, that is exactly the problem. I remember that peaceful Cheyenne were butchered at Sand Creek, and a peaceful village of Blackfeet, suffering from smallpox, were slaughtered in their lodges on the Marias River not long ago.”

  “Chief Washakie, friend of the Great Fathers in Washington, I will take your concern to Captain Cinnabar, and ask him to make sure his soldiers shoot only at Dreamers.”

  “My friend, Major Van Horne, why shoot at Dreamers who have done you no harm? Have they killed? Have they stolen? Have they violated your women?”

  “Chief Washakie, my friend, who wisely leads his esteemed People, the Dreamers have threatened us all. A boy called Owl has made himself into an outlaw, and with each day he gathers an army together to drive white men away. It’s well known.”

  “Major Van Horne, who kindly protects his red children from white men seeking land and animals, let no red woman or man or child die this night, or any night.”

  Van Horne straightened up to his full height, until he was a formidable force standing behind his oaken desk.

  “If any person, red or white, perishes, it won’t be the fault of my army, Chief.”

  Washakie nodded tightly. The exchange could go no further.

  A certain fire built in the major’s ruddy complexion. “I take it you gentlemen and your families will enjoy the protection of the fort this night?”

  “My women
and I will stay in my house, Major,” Washakie said.

  The Indian agent turned to Dirk. “And you?”

  “There is little peril, sir.”

  Van Horne studied him. “Even though I have directed all salaried people to stay in the fort this night?”

  “We will stay at the teacherage, sir.”

  “I see,” said Sirius Van Horne. “I take it you don’t need the protection of the United States mounted rifles.”

  “No, sir,” Dirk said.

  twelve

  Victoria filled Dirk’s coffee cup as he settled at the kitchen table.

  “Goddamn Indians scalped us last night,” she said.

  “While I was asleep,” he added.

  “You get oatmeal today because you got white blood in you.”

  “What if I was all Indian, Grandmother?”

  “Buffalo balls,” she said.

  Dirk ate the gruel, not minding even if Victoria made a dry paste of it. She was grinning wickedly at him downing his white man food.

  “Beats buffalo hump, don’t it?” she asked.

  Nothing beat buffalo hump.

  He faced another boring day at the schoolhouse. It was anyone’s guess whether any Shoshone children would appear at the door. Even the girls staying with Chief Washakie weren’t showing up in the midst of this tension affecting the Wind River Reservation.

  But his intention to wander over to his empty schoolroom was trumped by the arrival of a messenger, Pontius, one of the clerks at the Indian agency.

  “Himself wants to see you, real quick,” Pontius said.

  “No students in sight anyway,” Dirk replied.

  Dirk left the dishes to his Crow mother and hiked across the grassy fields to the agency, on a peaceful August morning. Maybe not so peaceful. He saw armed sentries patrolling the outskirts of the whole Wind River Agency complex. Still, but for that, it was just another sleepy day in a remote Indian agency in western Wyoming Territory.

  He found Sirius Van Horne awaiting him, red in his eye, like the red of his hair.

  “Ah, there you are, Dirk. Sleep a heap?”

  “I did, sir.”

  “You’re still wearing your topknot. You can thank Cinnabar for that. He put two-man sentry patrols out all night.”

  “I’m sure they held off the hordes of savages, sir.”

  Van Horne cackled. He was plainly in a jolly mood. “Serves me right,” he said. “You know the hoodoo better than I do. I’d have sworn there’d be a few hundred howling savages swarming through here last night.”

  “You could listen to my Crow mother, sir. She has medicine powers.”

  “Hoodoo is all there is out here, Dirk. Now I’ve got a mission for you. I’m calling a council of the headmen.”

  “Then you’ll have the chief summon them?”

  “No, boy, you will. You’re going to lasso all the bastards and drag them bodily to the agency, where they will receive ‘the lecture.’ ”

  “ ‘The lecture’, sir?”

  “Damn right. They’re going to live peaceable or have their rations cut in half.”

  “Their rations are already half of what they need, Major.”

  “Damn right.”

  “Starving people could turn desperate.”

  “That’s right, my boy.”

  “Why send me?”

  “You speak their tongue. You’re the best Shoshone speaker around. And you’re paid by Uncle Sam—at least for now.”

  Dirk didn’t miss the nuance.

  “I’m sending a patrol with you to protect your ass.”

  “I’d prefer to go alone, sir. And a patrol wouldn’t protect me for a minute if it came to that.”

  “No, not alone. I’ll send Sergeant Muggins with you.”

  “I can’t imagine why, sir.”

  Van Horne smiled so widely all his yellow teeth came into view. “He speaka da tongue, right?”

  “I think I’ll take my Crow mother if she’s up to it.”

  “I like the old crone,” the Indian agent said. “If I get scalped, I hope she does it.” He laughed. “But no, I’m sending you on a double-time trip.”

  “Ah, when is this meeting? When do you want the headmen and elders?”

  “Just tell them to bust their asses. We’ll wait. We’re going to have us a little lay-down-the-law session about those Dreamers.”

  “You’re not having the chief invite them?”

  The major smiled. “This is my party. I’m running this little powwow. If Washakie calls them in, it’s his show.”

  “It would be a courtesy to include him.”

  “Schoolteacher, are you lecturing me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Van Horne pulled a cigar from the humidor and scratched a lucifer and puffed until the tobacco glowed. “He’s sulking in his house. That’s where I want him. I’m bypassing him. We’re going to have us a meeting with all the headmen, and he’s not invited.”

  “When?”

  Van Horne sucked hard, expelled a cloud of blue smoke, wheezed, and smiled. “Fort Laramie’s sending two companies. We can expect them in a week. You tell all those headmen to show up in a week. We’re going to have us a conference, you translating, with all the Shoshone subchiefs, and two hundred blue-bloused United States Mounted Infantry and Cavalry making a nice little circle.”

  “I will tell them what to expect.”

  “No, my boy, you’ll just tell them that their kind father, Indian Agent Van Horne, requires them to show up on the seventh sun. They’ve got fingers; they can count to ten.” He paused. “Sergeant Muggins, he’s the army’s interpreter, and he’ll stick to you like glue.”

  “And what will you tell them, Major?”

  “Bring in the Dreamers before anyone gets hurt. Bring in the Dreamers, the whole lot, and we’ll reward them.”

  “Reward them?”

  “We won’t cut their rations.” He pulled a turnip watch from its nest and studied it. “Muggins will be here in an hour. You’ll be ready then. You’ll have army mounts.”

  “I would suggest, Major, that you invite them yourself. I’ll go along as interpreter.”

  “Sonny boy, I’ve more important things to do.”

  The agent knocked some gray ash to the floor.

  “What will you do with the Dreamers, sir?”

  “That depends entirely on the Dreamers, Skye. But they can save their asses by taking a loyalty pledge and surrendering their arms.”

  “And if they won’t?”

  “The government has its ways, my young friend. Say, Skye, you do know who the headmen are, don’t you?”

  “Most of them.”

  “I want all of them. I’ll give you a list. You bring every last one of them in.”

  “If I can find them, Major.”

  “You’ll find them, my boy. That’s what schoolteachers are for.”

  “I’m a teacher. I’m not paid to run your errands. I’m supposed to open the schoolhouse every day and teach. That’s my job, sir.”

  “You’ll go because I’m telling you to go, and if you don’t go, you won’t end up teaching. You’re becoming a problem. You have no students. What would the bureau think of that?”

  The autocrat behind the desk was making himself very clear.

  Dirk left the agent’s office lost in melancholy. Everything was wrong. And he was to be the errand boy. His mother’s people were friends, not hostiles. If there was trouble now, it was largely because the government had reneged on most everything it promised. And he was being stuck with the job of bringing the headmen into the agency. He thought wildly about quitting on the spot. He was being used. He wasn’t teaching, and he was being paid to teach, not to be the emissary of the Viceroy Van Horne. Or the jailer for Prison Warden Van Horne. The command he would deliver to the headmen would insult them. The presence of two hundred soldiers surrounding the meeting would insult them all the more. Which was what the agent intended.

  The veneer was wearing thin. The Wind R
iver Reservation was papered over with a lie—that the Shoshones were a sovereign tribe, in permanent friendship with the Yanks, and that the tribe could live its own way on land guaranteed them by treaty. And not be punished by cutting rations. It all was official malarkey.

  Dourly, Dirk repaired to the teacherage, told Victoria he’d be gone a few days, put a kit together, and waited for Sergeant Muggins.

  Victoria hobbled up to him. “Make it work for the good of the People,” she said. “It is a chance for them to come in and tell the Indian agent a few things. He has eyes and ears but doesn’t see or hear.”

  He wondered about that. Van Horne seemed to know everything as fast as it happened, and it was rumored that he had a small army of paid snitches reporting everything, all for an extra pound of flour or an occasional sack of beans.

  “A column is coming over from Fort Laramie,” he said. “They’ll be here just in time for this little powwow.”

  Victoria laughed malevolently.

  Sergeant Muggins showed up with two saddle mounts and a loaded pack mule, and Dirk added his gear to the mule pack and climbed aboard.

  “You steer me,” Muggins said. “You know where all them outlaws is hid.”

  “No, Sergeant, I don’t. They’re scattered across a hundred fifty miles, and probably won’t be in sight when we ride in.”

  The sergeant was in uniform, with a nonmilitary lever-action repeating rifle in his saddle scabbard. He could spray a lot of bullets fast with that. He rode side by side with Dirk, tugging his pack mule behind.

  “You know where them headmen are?” the sergeant asked.

  “No, and at best we’ll find four or five. Right now, the Shoshones are scattered in small camps from the west end eastward to the Arapaho settlements. I’ve met most of the headmen, but there’s a dozen I don’t know and wouldn’t recognize.”

  “Why’d he send you, then?”

  “I’m half Shoshone. My father was an Englishman.”

  “You favor one side over the other?”

  “Well, Sergeant, whose side are you on?”

  The sergeant laughed. “Funny thing is, I’m favoring the Shoshones. They’ve been licking spit around here.”

  “You’re a speaker?”

  “Comanche, boy. I was stationed in Texas. I know Comanche real good, so I can understand some Shoshone if I try some. It ain’t that different.”