Boone's Lick

by Larry McMurtry

  “Listen to what?” Ma asked. “You better not try to talk me out of going to wherever Dick is—that’s the one reason I’ve dragged everybody all this way.”

  “That wasn’t my point, that’s another point,” Uncle Seth said. “This wagon has been about shook to pieces—we need to give it over to the care of a skilled blacksmith for a day or two, or one of these days the whole bottom will drop out and we’ll all be in a pickle.”

  “I wouldn’t mind resting for a day, but no longer,” Ma said. “If you do locate a blacksmith, instruct him to hurry—a day’s all I can allow him.”

  Captain Molesworth was soon back with two soldiers who took charge of our mules. Then he showed us where we would be staying—a big cabin with a loft just like ours at home. There was a good fireplace, but no fire in it yet.

  “Why, this is a palace—I’m surprised it’s vacant with so many people milling around in these parts,” Ma said.

  “Just vacant two days—a sad case—suicide,” the young officer said. “I guess some people find the winter glooms too hard to bear, around here.”

  “It was a woman, wasn’t it?” Ma asked, looking around the room.

  “Why yes—a young woman, married less than a year,” Captain Molesworth said. “How could you tell?”

  “It’s just a feeling I had,” Ma said.

  11

  TWO soldiers wheeled over a little cart stacked with firewood and we soon had a roaring fire going in our cabin. Nobody could find Charlie Seven Days—he had dropped off to visit with some of the Indians outside the fort—but Uncle Seth and Father Villy went off to pay their respects to General Slade. Captain Molesworth invited us all to partake of the officers’ mess, but Neva was the only one who went—Ma even found a ribbon to tie in her hair.

  I was hungry and would have liked to eat with the officers but once we were in our cabin, with the good fire going, a tiredness came over me like none I had ever felt before. I wanted food, but the thought of walking even two hundred yards to the mess hall seemed too much. I believe G.T. felt the same. Ma handed me a little piece of bear meat jerky, but when I put it in my mouth I found I was too tired to chew. Ma later claimed she had to yank the jerky out of my mouth to keep me from choking, and it was probably true. After so many weeks in the open, the warmth of the room put me right to sleep.

  When I woke the next morning bright sunlight was streaming in the windows of the cabin. Neva had come home at some point—she was dead to the world, with her feet nearly in the fire. I didn’t see Ma or G.T.—they were both early risers. The snow had stopped. When I looked out the windows I saw blue sky. The air outside was chilly.

  I supposed Ma and G.T. had probably walked off to the blacksmith’s; no doubt Ma wanted to give the man a few instructions and make sure he meant to have the work finished by the end of the day.

  It took my eyes a moment to adjust to the sharp sunlight. I thought I’d just explore the fort and maybe get a better look at some of the Indians camped around it. With the snow falling and all the smoke blowing around I hadn’t been able to see them well. It occurred to me that if I could locate the mess hall they might give me coffee and a biscuit—maybe even a little bacon.

  I had hardly gone ten steps when I spotted Ma, way up by the north wall of the stockade. She seemed to be talking to a plump young Indian woman who had a lodge of skins built against the poles of the stockade. A girl a little younger than Neva had a skin of some kind pegged out and was scraping it with a knife. The snow had mostly melted, but two little girls were toddling around in what was left of it—one of them was Marcy, who had long since got her walking legs under her and could be counted on to wander off just when it was most inconvenient to retrieve her.

  Ma motioned for me to come over. While I was walking across the wide quadrangle Ma squatted down on her haunches—she was watching the little Indian girl, who was just Marcy’s height. The young Indian woman seemed to be enjoying the sight of two toddlers, playing in the melting snow.

  “Come look at this fine little girl—she’s Sioux,” Ma said, still squatting.

  The child was a pert little creature, with bright black eyes. She and Marcy would stare at one another, solemn as judges, and then go dashing off to the nearest patch of snow.

  “What do you think, Shay?” Ma asked.

  Ma didn’t seem angry, as she watched the little girls. She just seemed kind of bemused.

  “They’re just the right age to be playmates,” I said.

  “I think they’re a little more than playmates,” Ma said. “Take a closer look.”

  It wasn’t easy to get a closer look, because the two little girls were rushing around, squealing and kicking up snow whenever they came to it, but when I got them stopped and looked at them close I saw what Ma was getting at. Except for the fact that the little Indian girl was copper colored and Marcy white, they did look like more than playmates. They looked like twins. What startled me most, once I stooped down to look, was that both girls had a deep dimple in their chins—the same as I had, and G.T., and Neva, and Pa.

  “That’s Dick’s dimple,” Ma said. “These little girls are half sisters, like me and Rosie. This is your father’s other family—or one of them—that we’ve come so far to meet.”

  It must have been true, because the young girl who was scraping the hide was using one of Pa’s old knives.

  “Oh, you oaf!” Neva said, when I woke her and told her the news.

  BOOK III

  The Holy

  Hills

  1

  THAT night it came another snow, a snow so thick and deep that it muffled the sounds of the fort. Even Ma, still eager to get north, saw there was no point in pushing off into it, though Father Villy and Charlie Seven Days did just that. Seeing them leave was almost as hard as watching Aunt Rosie sail on up the Missouri River at Omaha. I guess we all hoped they would travel on with us to Fort Phil Kearny, but that wasn’t the direction they wanted to go. Charlie Seven Days had to report to the Old Woman, whose son he couldn’t locate, and Father Villy still had it in his head to visit Siberia, which wasn’t in the direction we were going.

  “We’re grateful for your help in getting this far,” Ma said.

  Neva cried the most, when they left. She had enjoyed having Father Villy teach her those French songs.

  “Don’t stay long in the north,” Charlie said. He spoke a little sternly. “There will be trouble in the north.”

  “I second that opinion. Good-bye,” Father Villy said.

  With just a wave, they were gone.

  “People will come and go,” Uncle Seth said. I think he was just trying to get Ma to ease up on him a little. It turned out that Uncle Seth had known about Pa’s Indian family all along, but had never mentioned it, a fact that put Ma in a stiff mood with him, for a day or two.

  She was also annoyed with the blacksmith, an independent Yankee who refused to be hurried when it came to repairing our wagon.

  “I’ll fix what I can fix when I can fix it,” he said, and that was all he said.

  Neva and G.T. and I were glad enough not to have to rush right off from the fort. We liked watching the soldiers drill, and the Indians and trappers mill around. But the best part of our stay was getting to know Pa’s Indian family, which was just about a perfect match for his Missouri family—that is, us. Marcy got to play with her little toddling half sister, Meadow Mouse, and Neva learned to scrape hides with her half sister Lark Sings, and Ma visited with Pa’s Sioux wife, who was called Stones-in-the-Water. There was no language they both could talk in, but they seemed to enjoy just observing one another’s children and looking at one another’s things.

  It was not until the evening of the day of the big snow that G.T. and I discovered that we even had half brothers, nearly our own age—one was named Blue Crow and the other He Sleeps. It was Uncle Seth who explained the Sioux names to us. The two boys wanted to take us right out hunting, which Ma allowed, although I believe she was nervous about it. Of course, He
Sleeps and Blue Crow had fast horses and rode them at top speed, like those Bad Faces had ridden that day when Red Cloud made his long speech.

  G.T. and I only had our mules for mounts—we couldn’t really keep up, but the hunt turned out to be lucky anyway, and the wildest fun. He Sleeps spotted a big elk calf that had floundered into a deep snowdrift and worn itself out trying to escape. The calf was soon dispatched with hatchets, a bloody sight. Although G.T. and I hadn’t really killed the big calf we were allowed to take a share back to Ma.

  The fact that we all liked Pa’s Indian family didn’t make it any less a sore spot with Ma that Uncle Seth had never told her about it, even though He Sleeps was as old as me and Uncle Seth had known about Stones-in-the-Water all along.

  “I’m a rattler but not a tattler,” Uncle Seth said, in his own defense. “It is not my place to go blabbing about something that’s none of my business.”

  “I guess that means you think it’s right for a man to have two wives—is that so, Seth?” Ma asked.

  “Well, it’s the custom out here in the baldies,” Uncle Seth said.

  “Oh, I see,” Ma said—I was listening from the loft. “The custom—like handing out tobacco and coffee when some Indians come for a visit. I suppose you think handing out a woman is no different from handing out coffee.”

  “In patriarch times a man was allowed several wives, I believe,” Uncle Seth said calmly. “It’s in the Bible.”

  “What if I don’t want to go by the Bible?” Ma asked.

  This shook G.T., who was proud of the fact that he had been baptized in the Missouri River.

  “Everybody’s supposed to go by the Bible,” he yelled down. He was in the loft too. Neva was down by the fire, sitting with her new sister Lark Sings. They were playing with the porcupine quills.

  “I don’t need your opinion, G.T.,” Ma said. “Who told you to preach to your mother?”

  “You’ll go to hell for sure, if you don’t go by the Bible,” G.T. yelled. He had once heard a fiery preacher and had been worried about hellfire ever since.

  “What I want to know is, is this the limit of it, or has he got another family up there where he’s hauling wood?” Ma asked.

  “I’ve never been to Fort Phil Kearny, it was just built,” Uncle Seth said. “How would I know?”

  “You said the same thing in Omaha—but you did know!” Ma reminded him.

  “I don’t think Dick’s partial to sleeping alone in chilly weather,” Uncle Seth said, cautiously. He was nursing a bottle of whiskey that he had procured somewhere. While I was watching, Ma reached over and took his bottle—it surprised him. She took a big swig and spat it into the fireplace, which caused the flames to leap up. Then she took another long swig, and this one she didn’t spit out.

  “Do you love me, Seth?” Ma asked. “That’s my final question.”

  The question gave us all a start—Uncle Seth most of all.

  “Mary, all these young ones are listening,” he said.

  “Let ’em! My children are old enough to know the facts of life,” Ma said. “All except Marcy, and she’s asleep. Are you going to answer?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Yes, you’re going to answer—or yes, you love me?” Ma asked.

  “Both,” Uncle Seth replied.

  “All right—it’s not bold but I guess it’s an answer,” Ma said.

  “Mary Margaret, I’m too nervous to speak of such things in front of the children,” Uncle Seth said.

  It was easy to see that he was in a strain.

  Ma took another long swallow and handed him back the bottle.

  “We all have to live for ourselves—I want my children to hear that,” Ma said. “As for you, have another drink. If you get a little drunker, maybe you’ll feel a little bolder.”

  “Well, Dick is my brother,” Uncle Seth said.

  “I don’t care what he is,” Ma said. “We’ve lived this lie too long. I want it to end and I want it to end now!”

  Whether it ended or not I don’t know—I’m not even sure what the lie was. All I know is that the next morning Uncle Seth was out early, trying to get that independent Yankee blacksmith to hurry up with our wagon, so we could leave for the north.

  2

  THE big soft snow had nearly melted by the time we got our wagon back and got it loaded. Nearly every officer in the fort, including General Slade, came by to try and talk Ma out of traveling north—they made the journey seem like sure death for all of us—but they might as well have been talking to a stump.

  “Madam, there’s no call for this intrepidity,” General Slade said. “You might at least wait for Colonel Fetterman—he’s going that way soon to reinforce Colonel Carrington. He’ll be happy to escort you safely in.”

  “No, he wouldn’t be happy to escort me anywhere,” Ma said. “He’d be happier if he could just knock me in the head.”

  General Slade didn’t know that Ma and Colonel Fetterman had had a sharp exchange in the blacksmith’s shop the day before. Ma was harrying the blacksmith to finish up with our wagon when Colonel Fetterman rode in and demanded that his horse be shod immediately.

  “Just let me finish this little bit of work on the lady’s wagon,” the blacksmith said. Ma had been riding him all day—he was anxious to get rid of her, even if it meant sending her off to get scalped.

  “Damn the work and damn the lady,” Colonel Fetterman said. “I cannot fight wild savages on a lame horse, and this horse has been limping all morning due to improper shoes.”

  Colonel Fetterman didn’t know that Ma was there—she was behind the forge, standing in the shadow, and I was with her.

  The blacksmith tried to signal the colonel but the warning came too late.

  “You can damn me till you’re hoarse, Colonel, but I was here first and I mean to insist on service,” Ma said.

  Uncle Seth was some distance away, chatting with Captain Molesworth, but I guess he knew trouble was developing because he turned and came over to the blacksmith’s shop.

  Colonel Fetterman’s face turned dark when he saw Ma, but he didn’t withdraw his remark, or apologize for it either.

  “You’ve no business interfering with the needs of the army, and I’ll have no impertinent comments,” he said. “This is a military fort and if I was in command of it I’d have every last one of you damn settlers driven out of it. You belong outside the walls, with the trappers and the other riffraff.”

  He turned and glared at Uncle Seth, who stopped and stood his ground, but didn’t speak.

  I guess the blacksmith felt like he was between a rock and a hard place because he began to hammer as hard as he could on the rim he was fitting on one of our wagon wheels. He must have decided that his welfare depended on finishing our wagon in the next minute or two—any longer delay and either Ma or Colonel Fetterman would be sure to ride him hard.

  The big corporal named Ned, who had fallen down drunk the day we arrived, happened to be standing nearby, trying to comb some burrs out of his horse’s tail.

  “Damn you, if you won’t work I’ll have you jailed!” Colonel Fetterman said, to the blacksmith. “Get over here, Corporal, and take this man to jail. Then find someone competent to shoe my horse.”

  At this point Uncle Seth decided it might be well to try and change the subject.

  “Say, Colonel Fetterman, young John Molesworth here has been telling me what a hand you are to fight Indians.”

  Maybe Uncle Seth thought a little flattery would improve the man’s mood—but it didn’t.

  “Mind your own business, sir,” Colonel Fetterman said. “I have a matter of military discipline to attend to here—and it’s urgent.”

  Uncle Seth winked at Ma—the colonel didn’t see it.

  “All right, but I’m anxious to know your opinion of the Sioux as cavalrymen,” Uncle Seth said. “There’s some out here in the windies who rate them high. I’ve even heard one military man say that they’re the best light cavalry in the world—is that
your opinion?”

  The comment at least got the colonel’s attention.

  “Whoever said that was a goddamn fool,” Colonel Fetterman said. “A bunch of naked savages on horseback don’t amount to a cavalry. I could take eighty men and whip the whole Sioux nation—and I hope I get the chance.”

  “And I hope you don’t!” Ma said. It was plain the rude colonel had raised her temper pretty high.

  Colonel Fetterman’s face turned nearly purple—the fact that a woman would speak to him that way left him too annoyed to talk.

  “Mary . . .” Uncle Seth said. I believe he meant to caution her about speaking so sharply to Colonel Fetterman, but his warning came too late. The fat was in the fire.

  “Corporal, arrest this damn woman too, while you’re at it,” Colonel Fetterman said—he was practically spluttering, he was so angry.

  Ned, the big corporal, was still holding the curry comb he had been using to rake burrs out of his horse’s tail. I’m not sure he even realized he was supposed to arrest the blacksmith, but he did realize that it would be irregular if he had to arrest Ma.

  “What for, Colonel?” he asked.

  “For the use of treasonous language,” Colonel Fetterman said. I guess it was all he could come up with on the spur of the moment.

  Ma walked right up to him—for a moment I thought she might slap the colonel, but all she did was stare him down.

  “If a rude swaggerer like you was ever given the command of eighty men I have no doubt you’d promptly get them killed,” she said.

  Then she motioned for the blacksmith to get on with his work and walked away, grabbing Uncle Seth by the arm as she went.

  Colonel Fetterman just stood there, black with rage. Ned, the big corporal, didn’t move a muscle.

  Three days later, when we were slogging up the muddy plain, Colonel Fetterman and his relief troop passed us. There looked to be about eighty men in the command.

  “There goes that fellow who wanted to get you arrested for treason,” Uncle Seth said.