Caspion & the White Buffalo

by Melvin Litton

  While the endless stream of buffalo roared on, Caspion continued working over the black dappled coat, brushing out the mane and tail, at last rubbing down the shoulders and legs with liniment, massaging till his arms began to cramp. Finished, he gave Two-Jacks a handful of grain from a sack kept tied back of the saddle. With the horse safely hobbled and left to nibble on the buffalo grass thereby, Caspion laid out his bedroll. As he crawled between the blankets and pulled the tarp over his head, his last thought was that he owed Luther a letter. Then the image of the white flashed before his eyes and the thundering hooves fell to a distant murmur. He slept.

  III. The Kill

  Anxious for his morning lump of sugar, Two-Jacks nudged the tarp and pulled it off the sleeping form. Caspion sat up in a flood of light that was as welcome as a breath of air to a drowning man, yet so thirsty he’d have gladly traded that breath for a drink of water. Easing Two-Jacks’ nose aside, Caspion slowly gained his feet, stiff and saddle-sore.

  He rubbed his hand across the gnaw in his stomach, felt the ragged scar of an old wound and smiled at the notion of his backbone poking through. Thought also of eating some pemmican, but it would only aggravate his thirst. Man and horse had to forgo food until they found water. And the only water likely available thereabout was sealed in the paunches of the buffalo fallen in the ravine.

  “Sorry Ol’ Jack,” Caspion said, patting the great muscled neck, smoothing the forelock, “no sugar this morning. No sugar, no coffee, no bacon…”—he grimaced, remembering poor Sam. “Best feast on our good fortune of being alive.”

  The horse blanket hadn’t dried overnight, so Caspion used the spare from his bedroll, first placing a gunny sack of loose weave next to the skin to better absorb the moisture and prevent scalding, a trick he’d learned off an outfitter working the Oregon Trail. Saddled and bridled, equipment in order, he took the reins and led Two-Jacks into the open valley. They walked; he needed to stretch his legs and the horse had earned a rest. The trail torn by the stampede led like a long wound away to the west.

  A quarter mile east three buffalo stood at the edge of the ravine like dazed survivors in the aftermath of a battle, gazing upon the tangled limbs and torsos in the mass grave below. Caspion found a shallow wash that descended to the narrow dry bed, bone-dry since summer, the powdery dust drifting about hooves and boots as they walked along. The horse shied at the sight of a rattler’s shed skin—Caspion stamped the remnant into the dust to Two-Jacks’ apparent relief.

  Around the bend lay scores of dead and dying buffalo, the largest stand Caspion had ever witnessed. And not a shot fired; all forced off the fifty-foot precipice, making for a natural buffalo pound, or piskun, the Indians’ main method of hunting before acquiring the horse. A half-dozen skinners with freight wagons could have turned a tidy profit from a day’s work. But others would claim the easy pickings. Wolves and ravens had already gathered and were staying close, though wary, eager to feed on the broken and stunned bodies, for these predators preferred the living flesh. Buzzards hovered in the distance.

  Leaning against the far bank, watching as man and horse approached, stood the white buffalo; its right foreleg broken pitifully, bone and flesh exposed at the knee. A young bull, maybe two years old, not so large as a grand monarch, but altogether the most magnificent animal Caspion had ever seen. The morning breeze caught the sun-lit ringlets of the long-haired mop that covered its head and shoulders. The white of myth and legend, like something dreamed then you awaken to behold the dream.

  In a hush of reverence Caspion slid the Henry from its scabbard and quietly advanced upon the gift, the offering, like the girl’s virginity taken in his youth, her cream-sweet flesh and silk-blonde hair, her winsome musk and heat, given with the implicit promise of a sacred trust, which he in the former case was in no way prepared to fulfill. And what was he prepared for now? Aware of the keen eye following him, of what did it speak? A latent presence, not of animal or man, but something glimpsed in a rare moment of passion or in the gaze of a dying soul. Mindful of its suffering and beauty and desiring its pelage as much as any woman he’d ever held, Caspion raised the rifle and fired. The white folded upon its legs, remaining upright in death as blood flowed from the eye’s dark cavity where an instant before a mystery had reigned.

  The report echoed down the ravine. Ravens fluttered and lit again; wolves paused for a moment, silent, then hungrily fed. The hunter unsheathed his knife and hastened to his task.

  By mid-morning with the hide bundled behind the saddle, Caspion led Two-Jacks out of the ravine and mounted up. The buzzards that had camped patiently on the overhanging cliffs descended. Ground shadows from the large black wings swept over man and horse as they rode at an easy gallop up through the narrow pass where they had come. Both now watered, fortified for the return journey; Caspion had maneuvered Two-Jacks into drinking the greenish gruel of the paunch by transferring it first to his hat. The hat would need washing before he wore it again; and he too itched for a good bath after skinning out the white.

  He’d worked feverishly, dressing the hide with care, removing extraneous meat and fat before packing the heart, tongue, and a cut of hump inside, saving these delicacies for his evening meal. In the emptied bladder now tied opposite the grain sack, he placed the brains, liver, and a portion of belly fat; these steeped with Indian soapweed made an ideal mixture for tanning robes—a skill he’d acquired from the Pawnee while hunting along the Platte in previous years. Though Crow women were the reputed experts, many knew the process which Caspion learned out of a natural curiosity and with an eye towards a future need. He had long desired a winter robe and favored the notion of fashioning his own. Yet he’d never imagined possessing a white, let alone a madstone from the sacred beast. This last item, found in the stomach, was an egg-shaped calcified hairball, highly prized for its medicinal qualities—thought to cure snakebite and wounds from rabid skunks among other infections, its curative powers of particular potency if taken from a white. Caspion for his own part put little stock in such remedies, but he trusted surgeons even less, so with a soldier’s wry superstition he pocketed the stone. Besides, there were always fools eager to pay good money for a relic.

  Upon reaching the break in the hills, they followed the trail along the base of the dividing promontory out into the broad valley. In the distance east the Cheyenne were hunting remnants of the herd that had returned to graze. With due caution Caspion urged Two-Jacks away from the scene, skirting northwest towards a faint declivity that cut across the plain.

  Mid-day found them at the edge of a spring-fed pool watched over by a lone cottonwood. Its bright-yellow foliage sang in the warm breeze, reflecting gently upon the wind-brushed water rippled but moments before by departing geese roused from their restful haven by the arrival of man and horse, their wedged flight now banking west to continue on their journey south. Two-Jacks leaned through the Indian grass and willow brush that lined the bank, pressed his nose to the water and sipped long draughts of sweet refreshment. Caspion, too, bellied forth and drank the gruel taste from his mouth.

  Fully sated, he brushed his teeth with salt and soda then fetched a cake of lye soap from his saddlebag and pulled off his boots. He always took soap along, for though he bathed irregularly, when the opportunity arose, he dove for it. As he did now, plunging in head first, clothes and all. He surfaced with a loud gasp, for the water was frigid. He washed vigorously, thoroughly sudsing self and clothes, then thrashed about to rinse, submerged once more and headed for shore, urged on by an uncertain chill, or presence. Caspion’s occasional phobia of water, particularly isolated pools, derived from Luther’s concern for his safety as a child—warning the fearless one away from dangerous waters with tales of the beautiful Nix who would lure him into the depths to drown. In the child’s mind the image merged with his mother’s spirit. Now grown, he plunged and dared the spirit forth but always retreated as it neared.

  On the bank Caspion undressed and laid his clothes over a willow limb to
dry. He slapped and rubbed his goose-bumped flesh, dancing on the matted grass before Two-Jacks who looked on in sober puzzlement, dubious of his master’s antics, the pale skin with a red scar slashed across the abdomen like Adam might have worn after God tore the rib to fashion Eve. Caspion, now warmed, stretched out on a fallen trunk, freely exposed to the sun and air. Water glistened, dripping from his hair and mustache. Butterflies and bees fluttered and hummed in colorful profusion, the harvest of nectar nearly complete. A blue-winged dragonfly hovered at the water’s edge then darted away. Caspion turned his face to the sun and closed his eyes…saw its white glory blaze yellow, changing to red then a dream-flushed blue. After dozing for a spell, he stood and worked into his clothes; though still damp they’d dry from his body heat and the long ride ahead.

  Taking vantage of the terrain wherever possible to stay from view, he continued across the valley. By mid-afternoon he rode into the escarpment that bordered north, returning to where he’d first seen the white. And there at the base of the slope he found Tillman’s remains. Three vultures, caught ravishing the corpse, pulled back their ugly heads and made their awkward lurch into the sky. Man and horse reluctantly approached. Death-flatus wheezed from the fly-blown flesh. The body lay completely stripped and mutilated: an arrow jabbed through each eye, nose and ears cut off, genitals stuffed in the mouth. Disemboweled and scalped.

  Caspion stayed upwind, working on his hands and knees, using his knife to dig a rude grave. His only hope was that his friend had died before much of what was evident had occurred. Sam had always refused to carry a “bite”—a shell loaded with cyanide and bitten by hunters in lieu of falling into hostile hands.

  “I say it an’ I swear,” he’d answer each time the matter was broached, “as I fear the Lord, I’ll not tempt damnation with self-murder. Them Injuns can flay my hide ’n douse me with salt a’fore I tempt hellfire…”—on that point he remained adamant and refused all argument, even Caspion’s sweet reason.

  “Sam, at the hand of heathens, surely the good Lord will turn a blind eye?”

  “No, Jim, as Christ hisself did suffer, I’ll not chance it.”

  Though ten years older, Sam looked up to Caspion, faithfully dependent on the younger man’s worldliness and advice for the most part, for he was a bit slow-witted, something of a pious fool, generous and trusting to a fault, always had been. But he was honest, durable, and had a good heart—which was the truest measure of a man. Both veterans, they’d traveled west together, partnered off and on for five years. They worked intermittently for the U.P. from ’66 through ’68, hunting meat for the crews towards the end, though most of the trade was already under contract to Cody among others. Later, they cut firewood to fodder the Iron Horse and to warm cavalry troops in their winter forts, idly awaiting the next letter, routine patrol, or putative campaign. And eventually, with the railroads and a few settlements established, they began hunting more and more, as opportunity and season favored, mostly in the winter, they and hundreds like them, filling boxcars and freight wagons with salted tongues, smoke-cured humps, and frozen carcasses headed for various markets back East. And Sam, never ‘so wise as the chicken that only cackles when it lays its egg,’ at the beginning of each hunt swore that this time out he was bound to make his stake, return to Iowa and buy that farm. The sad thing was that this season would have seen his dream doubled, for lately hides were in demand. At last there was real money to be made.

  But the only sod ever busted out for Sam Tillman would be his grave. Caspion rolled the body in a blanket and eased it in the hole, quickly covered all with dirt and stamped it down. Using his sleeping tarp for a makeshift stoneboat, he made several trips to the crest of the ridge, returning with stones till the grave was well-protected from scavengers. Finished, Caspion stood by, head bent, hands folded, while the oft-echoed phrase came to mind: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow…”—but the words wouldn’t pass his lips. Instead he hummed a bugle song, Butterfield’s Lullaby, later known as Taps. His voice, a fine clear baritone, broke before he finished; he stood in that deep silence. After a time he wiped his eyes and mounted up.

  Long shadows lay upon the land as the sun knelt west. Caspion rode northeast towards the buffalo-wallow camp to check the fate of the mule and wagon. The Evening Star soon saddled the horizon and shortly the heavens glowed. The Milky Way swept the sky with its rain of stars—what the Cheyenne called the Hanging Road, the path journeyed by all worthy souls to the afterlife…to Seyan.

  IV. Counting Coup

  They dropped much fat on the path that day. For the hunt most warriors still preferred the bow and lance to the fire-stick, riding a trained buffalo horse, closing fast on the right hand side of the prey, leaning low and striking through the ribs just back of the foreleg for a clean kill. Should they miss the heart, they always struck the lungs and the beast fell after running no more than a bow-shot.

  Running Hawk hunted with a lance and rode his favorite horse, Storm Cloud, named for the white coat contrasting with his black legs, mane, and tail. But when an old bull charged, attempting to gore his horse, Running Hawk fired the revolver he’d received from Black Hand in trade for the scalp he’d given the Chief to honor him as leader of the war party. With the danger came the opportunity to test the power and accuracy of his new weapon; the enraged bull dropped in its tracks. Usually they killed no bulls past two years of age, preferring the cows for their softer hides and more flavorful juicy meat.

  The chase stretched over many miles. In the wake of the kill the women quickly skinned the fallen, butchered out the carcasses, and packed fresh hides and meat on travois for the journey back to camp. Truly a fine hunt, the drying racks would be full with meat and robes plentiful for winter. But Running Hawk grew disheartened as the sun sank towards the western rim; throughout the hunt he’d searched in vain for the Sacred White. The previous day, watching the Veho escape into the herd, he glimpsed something he’d only seen in a vision; and from long winters around the fires, embedded in his earliest memories were the stories and legends, but no one had seen or killed a white in their band since his grandfather, Singing Wolf, who was said to have gained great medicine from its possession. And as piety dictates, Singing Wolf had surrendered the robe to the elements during a blizzard of the fourth winter thereafter.

  His own father, Antlers Held High, was also an esteemed warrior, acclaimed for his virtue—took no virile pleasure with his wife for seven years following Running Hawk’s birth, for it was believed that abstinence would endow their son with greater power and strength. To all eyes Running Hawk was proof to his parents’ faith; he possessed great stature and strength, a swift fierce courage, and was handsome in the Cheyenne manner; moreover, he was pure in heart—for only they were granted a vision. And he refused to take a wife until he fulfilled the promise of that vision; a self-mastery apparent in word and deed. He’d vowed the sun dance upon the death of his father three winters before at the hands of the Pawnee.

  In a desperate fight Antlers Held High had tied his rope to a stake, chanted his death song and died alone fighting the enemy while his outnumbered companions escaped with the stolen ponies. Fallen on the down-slope of the third hill of life, never to reach the fourth where his courage and wisdom would have placed him in high honor—yet the highest honor was a glorious death. So Running Hawk sang of his father’s brave deed and vowed the Sun Dance. The following spring, after a purifying fast, with a rawhide rope skewered to his chest and extended to the ceremonial pole, he danced captive to the Great Spirit Father, Heammawihio, chanting and pulling away in agony throughout the day and night, till by dawn of the second day his flesh tore free and he fell in a trance, entering the vision that gained him his name—saw a winged man running through an infinite white space as four eagles fixed their talons to his trailing hair. After scalping the Veho hunter, Running Hawk now wore three of the four feathers prophesied; and though the remainder of the vision proved difficult to interpret, the old spirit men ag
reed that his fate was somehow linked with a Sacred White.

  Casting his eyes over the broad plain of the valley, he surrendered for now his hope of gaining the white. Perhaps he’d been deceived by his own longing and the white, like so much in this world, was merely an illusion. But was the Trickster again at play? The scout squinted towards the north above the sharp bluff where the dead Veho lay. No, he was not deceived, he clearly saw three vultures circling in the sky—still circling, for he had noted them earlier. And since all the predators in the region were following the hunt, the only presence that could account for the riddle of why they refrained from feeding was that of man. Had the Veho who rode like a Comanche survived? Then returned? Doubtful; surely his mangled remains were among the many littering the valley. But other Vehos may have found the corpse, perhaps were observing their hunt that very moment, waiting for the People to leave the valley so they could begin their shameless slaughter—always greedy, leaving no honey in the hive. Many of the Veho enemy now hunted their land, each season edging closer to the Swift Fox River.