Caspion & the White Buffalo
Page 42
“Moneva!” his spirit cry, “Mon…!”—but the torrid shock of the bullet tearing through his throat choked off her name in his last breath. He hunched forward clutching the reins, the ground undulant like a wind-risen sea. A war club struck his head a fatal blow. He pitched back and fell, death-stunned and trembling—the Tasoom drawn off by the tidal pull of a thousand beasts thundering underground.
The shadow cast over the dying gaze belonged to Sweet Medicine.
“This one I knew,” he said, holding his brethren at bay; “His hair-shirt was sown by one of the People. We called him the Spirit Hunter. His medicine was strong. Today he rode unarmed and wished to die. Leave him to the wind and grasses. Let Ho’ne bear his scalp away, Okoka take his eyes. Let us honor he who rode like our Comanche brothers.”
One took the knife; another caught the horse. And they left the body lay as Sweet Medicine bade them.
Epilogue
A week following his tragic vision of Golgotha, Muldarrin resigned from the Army, troubled by his perceived failure of a friend, however foredoomed. Nor had he stomach for the coming war. Returning East, he became a professor of the classics. Annually his students noted how he reserved an especial fervor for Jason and the Golden Fleece, ever plumbing its depths to reclaim a sense of wonder and youth, of love and quest—of something forever lost, too precious to forget, impossible to retrieve.
Lieutenant Hastings survived his wound and served with distinction during the conflict soon waged on the South Plains. Following which he too resigned, called to a higher duty derived from his experience—hands bloodied and heart wiser, he sought a truth more personal and enduring, and devoted the rest of his life to the service of the conquered people, becoming a passionate advocate for just treatment of the Indian.
And Alice made good her escape. On the second day north of Dodge, she and Hans met with a wayfaring pilgrim, a circuit rider of haunted mien; but he could read the Bible as good as any and blessed their union. So she arrived in Lebanon, Georgiana Mustrieg, an honest woman; she’d even acquired a slight accent, though more Slavic than German. Reticent, austere, a picture of virtue whom none would suspect. And dutifully, but sadly, she parted with Hesta—bequeathed with heirloom of robe, rattle, and madstone—and delivered her to Luther and Martha.
Though not entirely, for she and Hans settled quietly nearby and began to build, ambitious as Luther. After all, she was a woman of means; and oddly enough she took to the land so barren beneath the mirrored sky—called to the challenge of drawing forth its essence, like water harnessed to nourish their dreams, of claiming and one day marking its purpose, of working hand and will to create an identity of person and place.
And her dream came true in part, the one harbored by Alice, for she eventually taught young girls, and boys as well, at the country school later attended by Hesta and little James. Reserved, strict, proficient; though naturally she had favorites, particularly fond of Luther’s children. Hesta she groomed with profound warmth and care and helped form an exquisite jewel—and never let her forget her mother’s name, taught her to write it with loving hand. And she continued her own writing—tales of violent and seductive whim, which certain journals were eager to publish. She went by the pen-name: “Ross Blythe”—she thought it distinctly snide and wicked.
While Georgiana remained faithful to Hans to the end of their days, she bore him no children; it would have ruined her figure. There were rumors of an abortion, but nothing came of it; such tales were often told of childless women. She ignored all. The gossip was belied by her fidelity to teaching. And no one questioned why she cried that day two years later when an eager boy barked out the news of Hickok’s death: “Shot down in Deadwood! Shot ’em in the back!” Surely, the very violence of the deed would shock one of her quiet refinement. Thus she remained above reproach—so stunningly prim, decorous, and stately diminutive in her old age.
Afterword
A chapter of CASPION & the White Buffalo (“The Great Bull”) appeared in the literary journal First Intensity – Winter 1996. The following article, from the Topeka State Journal, August 4, 1897, depicts the event that inspired the novel.
THREE WHITE BUFFALO
Old Kansas Hunter Tells of Them
One in the State House
New York, Aug. 4 — “In living twenty years in the Plains country beyond the Missouri in the time when herds of buffalo covered the prairie, I never saw a white buffalo,” said Martin Wringsby, formerly a Kansas hunter and ranchman, “But it is certain that three skins at least of this rare animal were in existence at a time subsequent to 1866.
“The best known is the stuffed skin of the white buffalo cow that stood in the museum of the state house at Topeka, Kan., in 1881, and is probably still in existence in care of the state. The second was carried at the saddle of Roman Nose, the Cheyenne chief, who led the grand charge against Capt. “Sandy” Forsythe’s band of scouts in the memorable fight on the Arikaree branch of the Republican River in 1867, in which the chief was killed. The third, taken in 1871, was for five years in the possession of the hunter, James Caspion, who killed the buffalo that originally wore it. Of where it went after he disposed of it, I have not the least idea.
“Caspion was one of a party of three hunters who with a wagon train and saddle horses went, in October 1871, out on the plains of western Kansas to hunt buffalo. On October 12 Caspion, with Sam Tillman, started out on horseback in the morning to look for buffalo, leaving the third man to follow along in the wagon. In order to bring a greater range of the country into view the two horsemen separated, always keeping in sight of each other. Late in the afternoon, riding up the slope of a long ridge of rolling prairie and looking over the crest Caspion saw ahead of him twenty-five miles away a range of steep bluffs. Between him and the bluffs, the nearest buffalo being within long rifle range, was the great southern herd, which every summer fed northward from Texas and New Mexico, remaining in Kansas and Colorado until the storms of the winter drove them south again. There were tens of thousands of the beasts in view, as Caspion said, but what particularly caught his eye was a milk-white buffalo feeding among the others at the distance of a mile away. Its whiteness contrasting strangely with the dun tints of the beasts around it.
“Having signaled to Tillman on the ridge behind him to come up, he dismounted and lay watching the herd over the summit, trying to think of some way by which he and his partner could get possession of the white buffalo’s skin. When at last he turned around to look for Tillman, it was to see him riding for life back over the route they had come, with fifty Cheyenne warriors after him. The chase was a short one. A shot crippled Tillman’s horse, and the Indians closed about him. The hunter emptied two saddles before the firing stopped. Then with Tillman’s scalp borne aloft on a lance the Indians turned and came for Caspion. He had to run for it, and as he could not ride to right or left without giving the Indians the advantage of cutting him off, he put his horse ahead straight for the buffalo herd.
“This naturally started a stampede. Caspion was well among the buffalo before the unwieldy beasts knew what had happened and got fairly to running. Then his horse was carried away in the rush, and the last thing the hunter saw, before the dust shut everything from view, was the Cheyenne coming over the crest of the hill he had just left. After this it was all crowding, jostling, and smother as his horse was hurried along in the press, and after darkness fell the buffalo still were going. At last he could tell by the ‘feel’ of the ground that they had come to a very rough and hilly country — the bluffs in fact that he had seen in the afternoon. The herd, unable to scale the bluffs, had to divide, most of the buffalo turning to the left, but some of them following the valley between the eminences. Caspion’s horse was forced by the buffalo into one of these valleys and carried along with the column that crowded the narrow defile. It was not so dusty there as it had been in the open plain, and presently when the valley widened, letting in the light of the moon, he saw ahead of him the white buffalo. The
y came to a place where a deep ravine, worn by water, cut close to the side of the bluff. The buffalo that were nearest the hillside kept their footing. The others were crowded off into the ravine, and Caspion could hear them falling to the bottom. The horse passed the place safely, and as the valley widened beyond he took this chance to rein his horse away from the buffalo and got from among them. Finding a safe nook among the rocks, he turned in there and passed the rest of the night, with the buffalo pounding past him for hours as he rolled himself in his blanket.
“In the morning light only two or three straggling buffalo were to be seen in the valley. But looking over the edge of the ravine, Caspion saw scores of buffalo lying at the bottom killed or too badly hurt to get away. Against the bank was leaning the white buffalo, a young bull with his leg broken. The hunter climbed down into the gulch, shot the bull with his pistol, and took its skin. Having secured the tongue and a cut of meat from the haunch to serve as provisions, Caspion rode along the valley until he came to where it opened out on the plain to the south. Five miles away was the main herd of buffalo which the band of Cheyenne was just attacking, riding in upon it from three sides. Coming toward them from the eastward were the Cheyenne women on ponies drawing poles behind them on which to pack meat and pemmican, showing that the band was not a war party, but was out on an autumnal hunt. The Indians had killed Tillman and chased Caspion simply because they happened to run across them, and the chance to kill a white man was too good to miss. They were busy now, and Caspion, circling widely to the north, rode back to where the wagon was, without molestation, though it took him all day to do it. The body of Tillman was found and buried. Then the two surviving hunters, turned to the north, continued to hunt until they had a load of buffalo skins to take back to the settlements with them.
“Caspion kept the white buffalo skin five years, believing that its possession brought good fortune. He sold it at last for $100 while on a spree at Fort Lyon. The same year he was killed by Comanche in New Mexico.”