The Story Catcher, page 4
Dawn and Shying Leaf and the other village maidens were busy too, where all could see. It was true they must not be away from the eyes of the old women of their lodges, must avoid any suspicion of wrongdoing, for that would bring bad face to their families and scare the buffaloes away, the buffaloes that came only where the women were virtuous. Besides, it was a pleasure to see the shining young faces, the grace and gaiety of the maidens among them. Sometimes there were shy glances toward the youths who managed to have tasks that kept them around the meat and hide work, particularly the tall, lean Cedar, a trickster. He sneaked away two big bundles of the meat right under the hands of the girls, and stood laughing at their astonishment and confusion. Lance laughed too, farther off, making pictures of the hunt and the killing of the Ree warrior behind the lodges. He kept near his little captive brother, who looked upon the joking with sober, uncomprehending eye, as the stranger without the gift of the language must.
Three days later Young Lance and Deer Foot were out on the edge of the White Earth River breaks watching a small buffalo herd far off on the high prairie northwest of the band of steep river bluffs. Cedar, with the fastest horse, had hurried back to make the riding circles on a ridge where the village scouts would see his signal, and know that buffaloes had been found, some buffaloes, as the narrowness of the circles would show, but enough to bring out some hunters. The small herd was in a good place, so good that with very great luck and a wind shift to the northwest, as could happen toward evening, they might make a little fire drive. The buffalo, weak-sighted, with a mat of wool over the poor eyes, but sharp-nosed, usually moved into the wind to detect any danger ahead. Smoke was such a danger, and a fire could turn the little herd and stampede it over the sheer bluffs into the White Earth valley far below. Even without a wind change the hunters could bring down a few fat cows for extra meat and robes.
Lance and Deer Foot stayed to keep the buffaloes in sight, even try to herd them a little if they started to move fast, get away. A sudden man-smell would send them running, but the young Indians could creep from downwind, perhaps with thick-needled pine branches held before them, moving just enough to disturb the poor eyes of the lead cows a little, make them uneasy and hesitant, turn their grazing sideways. The herd following would turn too, gradually curved back upon itself. Good herd watchers did this very skillfully, sometimes for days, but Lance hoped he would not need to try it and Deer Foot, as always, laughed at the idea. It was not until the work came that he was good.
The two young Indians had hidden their horses in the brush and with their bows slung to the quivers on their backs, they filled the apron flaps of their breechclouts with some drying wild plums still clinging to the naked thickets. Then they settled under a scrubby pine just below the highest crest, where they could watch the buffaloes back on the high prairie and look down over the bluffs to the wide river valley and to the horizon all around. Comfortable in the warming sun, they chewed the dried plum flesh from the pits and spit them at an ant hill nearby, sending the autumn-worried ants running. The youths were excited and hopeful. If they watched the herd well today, they might be asked to go out with the buffalo scouts for the next organized hunt. That was an honor to make one laugh with joy just to think of it, Deer Foot said, but then he sobered.
“Maybe you can go,” he said. “You have caught the eagle and killed the three buffaloes. Many big hunters have taken less. You can make the pictures of how the hunt was done. I will have to stay behind to care for my old grandmother.”
Young Lance made the sympathetic sound around the pits in his mouth and offered to look after the grandmother with Cedar the next time. He was examining the horizon under his shielding palm. Suddenly he stopped, spit out the pits and looked again. There was a movement on the bluffs across the valley, something among those pines that always looked like a standing row of warriors along the bluff top, blue-hazed and remote. Perhaps a scout for a Pawnee war party got careless or for some Crows who dared to come clear down into the southern Sioux country.
Deer Foot looked where Lance pointed. Yes, there was something, they agreed, but not an enemy, only a trader’s cart, clear against the whitish afternoon sky for a moment before it lurched from among the pines downward on this side, moving like some curious, awkward bug, to vanish in the haze that lay against the rocks and dark trees. Then there was another cart and another, all coming down.
Later the little string of Red River two-wheelers moved out upon the browning fall valley, the carts piled high with trade goods, the drivers sitting on top or walking beside the teams. Behind them came a herd of horses, at least six or seven times the count of the hands, sixty or seventy head, of many colors—acting very uneasy, trying to run, to escape the riders. Perhaps they could smell the water of White Earth River a mile or two ahead, but it seemed to be from up the valley, an alarming sight or sound. Abruptly the lead mares stopped, looking off that way, and then they started to run again, scared by something coming against the east wind. The cart drivers caught it too now, halting their teams, waving their arms toward the west. Lance put his ear to the ground and heard a faint rumbling of many hoofs—the noise of buffaloes running. It was not the small herd they were watching but another, a bigger one far up the valley, and only the east wind had kept the sound from their ears this long.
Then the first buffalo appeared around a far bend, only a dark speck coming fast, with more crowding behind and more, truly a good herd, massed and dark, the great heads lowered in a stampede that was sweeping down the broadening prairie upon the trader carts. Now the drivers realized their danger and began to yell, their voices in far echoes as they whipped their horses into a run to escape being cut to pieces by the sharp hoofs that no power could turn. The carts bounced and jumped and teetered over the rough prairie, the drivers off and running alongside as they dipped into the brush along the river, crossed in a wild spraying of water and up the near bank, just as the first of the thundering buffalo herd swept past, some with splash of river too, the rest on the dry bottoms beyond in noise and dust and shaking of earth.
The horse herd had scattered like snowbirds on a whirling wind, and turning, ran together again, starting back toward the south bluffs, necks reaching out in the hard run, manes and tails streaming, the lead mares heading them toward their accustomed range. Nothing could stop them now, not until they reached their home region down on the North Platte River toward the mouth of the Laramie.
Ordinarily, Lance and Deer Foot would have laughed at the flight, the riders spurring hopelessly to overtake the horse herd, but now they had other concerns. The far rumble and shake of the earth aroused the small bunch of buffaloes they had been watching until the hunters came. Here and there a cow looked up, then more, and suddenly every animal broke into a run, tail up, galloping eastward into the wind. They swept down a canyon behind the two watchers, dust rising to their horses that faunched in the brush and almost got away before Lance remembered them and ran to grab the rope of his excited buckskin.
The young Sioux were angry over their luck, and uneasy about the start of such a stampede on a drowsy, droning day when most creatures were eagerly feeding for the winter to come. They rode up behind the north bluffs of White Earth River, but cautiously, keeping out of sight, breaking every bend and rise on their bellies. Then from a high point they saw what looked like a substantial little butchering ground, dead buffaloes scattered over the prairie, with men working around the carcasses. Plainly this wasn’t a regular meat party, with as many women as men. The youths crept near enough to see the upspringing Crow roach of hair at the foreheads—Crows very far from home and throwing the meat on their pack horses as fast as it was skinned out.
Lance and Deer Foot looked at each other. Crow enemies calmly killing buffaloes here in the heart of the southern Sioux ranges! There were eight or ten men here and surely several scouts out. Even with the hunters who were coming, there would be no more than six or seven Sioux, counting the two bow-armed youths. The Crows would have wasted no powder in their kill but they were sure to have their usual guns along, probably ten or more against seven Sioux bows.
Silently Young Lance led the way down into a brushy draw, hoping no Crow scouts had seen them. Once away, the youths hurried their horses, anxious about this boldness of the enemy. By the time they passed their earlier watching place the canyons were filling with shadow, and still there was no sign of the Sioux hunters. Lance stopped his buckskin.
“It is bad. Perhaps enemies found our friend Cedar,” he said. “I must go back; I must keep a wolf’s eye on the Crows.”
“Alone?” Deer Foot protested. “Somebody must warn the people.”
“You go. I shall sneak back.”
“It is very dangerous for you alone. They may have seen us, have an ambush made,” Deer Foot said, still cautious, as was his nature.
“You will tell where I am, watching, following. You must tell all we have seen, and what must be done. Be careful, and you will be paraded around the village with the news of Crow scalps ready for the taking—a small party among our buffaloes.” Then Lance needed to say one more thing, speaking casually while he busied himself with the quiver on his back. “Look after the little Ree if I do not come home.”
Deer Foot bowed his head, as though the “Yes” were the most ordinary one. He rode away hiding the concern on his broad face, and disappeared into the brush and timber to make the hidden ride to the village.
When Lance got back to the Crow hunting ground, the cloud in the northwest was rising against the last light of day. He could see no movement except the shadowy slink of wolves and coyotes drawn by the blood and bones left behind, but shying from the man-smell still there or perhaps the men themselves. Lance moved all around the edge of the bluffs and finally down into the darkening valley, crawling through the grass like a snake, wetting his nostrils to catch any smell of hidden smoke. He stopped on a high place to search the darkness for any momentary point of light from a living coal. Now and then he laid his ear to the ground, but there was nothing except the uneven movement of a few feeding animals, perhaps elk. Later he heard the whistle of a lone bull elk, half-hearted, belated in season. Even the sage hens and the rabbits seemed to be gone, nothing rising to flee before the cautious Sioux moccasin.
When the clouded darkness finally shut out everything, Lance settled into a washout deep enough to shield his horse from sight if there should be a flash of fall lightning, the hoofs muffled by the soft sand underfoot. Several times during the night Lance stirred to look around for a sight or a smell of campfire, wishing he had the shirt with the eagle skin for the sharp eyes. Finally he awoke cold and stiff to the gray morning of a storm on the way. He went down to the place of the hunt, with the wolves standing off, waiting for him to go. He found a deep-hoofed trail of loaded pack horses going westward, probably toward Crow country up around the Yellowstone. But that was very far to pack meat. There must be a Crow camp nearer, maybe a large camp preparing an attack. This he must try to find and warn his people, help bring proper Oglala Sioux punishment upon these invaders.
But the small chunk of wasna Lance had carried was gone, and before he dared start the long and secret trailing he must get a little meat, particularly with the signs speaking loudly of a new snowstorm on the way. He managed to creep up on a young deer busily feeding, and put an arrow through the heart. He cut much of the meat into thickish slices for fast roasting, packed it on his horse in the hide and took up the Crow trail. He kept hidden as well as he could, grateful for the lowering clouds that ran along the ground and hid all farseeing. Even so, he knew his danger. That night he found a sheltering canyon but afraid to risk even a palmful of fire with its betraying smell of smoke carried on by the east wind, he dug into the warmish sand and curled up to sleep. Toward dawn he was awakened by the soft spatter of wet snow, his horse humped together, head down, rump turned into the wind. Without a robe except the green little deer hide, he could not wait out a storm or the afterward time until the snow gave up the hidden trail. This might not be before spring, and reluctantly Lance started home.
The wind rose with the day, driving the snow from the northwest until it was sharp as trader needles and shut out everything but the sting and cold. Twice it seemed to Lance he must camp, build himself a fire to dry out his worn old deerskin leggings, his thin buckskin shirt, both icy hard. Recalling how deep into the village the lone Ree warrior got before he was seen, Lance felt he must keep moving, warn the headmen as soon as he could. When he finally found the snow-locked circle of lodges he and his horse were ice-caked and barely moving, so stiff and frozen. He was lifted from the horse, stripped of the clothing, wrapped in a robe, wool side in, and taken to the council lodge to tell his urgent story while the frostbite was rubbed from his hands and feet.
Cedar? He was all right, had started back with the hunters. They ran into the buffalo stampeding, and shot meat so long as their arrows lasted.
Feather Woman, his second mother, came with hot mint tea and a lump of brown sugar to warm the shivering young Indian, and whispered to him that the little Ree had sneaked a look in at the lodge flap.
After Lance was done before the council he ate and slept. The next morning he discovered that the trader Frenchy, married to a Brule Sioux woman, had settled his carts and his tipi next to old Sun Shield’s lodge. Without the horse herd, he had given out owing sticks to those who wanted horses for the tanned and decorated robes, the sticks to be redeemed later. The carts had brought tobacco, coffee, sugar, hoop iron for arrow and spear points, lead and powder for the few who had guns, some knives, a bolt of fine dark-blue woolen cloth for new leggings and dresses, hawk bells, vermilion for the face, and a little finery for the women. Lance had some furs he had hoped to exchange for a few presents, but everything had been traded away, gone, even the bottle of whisky that was a special gift for the old chief and was doled out around the headmen, a small drink each. It warmed the heart, the trader said, although Good Axe refused his portion. The Axe had been in Bull Bear’s village the time a trader brought a keg of whisky there. Before the drunkenness was over, the chief was dead, shot down by a young Oglala warrior.
“It is a memory to shame the face for generations,” he reminded the council. “I will not see the blood of our young men heated so again.”
But one bottle for all the headmen could do no harm, the trader argued.
By this time the Frenchman’s carts were loaded high with robes, ready to start for the trading post on the Laramie River with the first thaw. When the wind dropped and the sun came out a messenger rode in with news that the horse herd had been rounded up at the Platte and headed for the Brule village.
“Why not here?” an angry Sun Shield warrior demanded.
But plainly it would be the Brules first now, for a husband belonged to the woman’s people and the trader already had the robes of the Oglalas. Perhaps because there was some resentment about this, the Frenchman started away as soon as possible with his wife, their two children, and Fast Bear, the woman’s father, all well mounted, followed by travois and pack horses. The Brule village was two, three days of snow travel away, and soon after they were gone, the scouts signaled Crow sign right in the region—Crows everywhere.
Good Axe, uneasy about his Brule relatives, sent Lance and several warriors to warn them of the skulking enemy. When the party reached the village they found no news of the trader and his family, or of the horse herd, also overdue.
The warriors and Young Lance were taken to the council lodge to tell the story of the Crows. At the first words the headmen sent for a war party to hunt Chief Fast Bear and his daughter and family. Before the men could start, there was a running through the snow-piled village and a shouting that some people were seen coming, some very poor people who had to travel afoot through the deep drifts. It seemed to be a white man followed by an Indian woman and children, with a crippled Indian hobbling along behind on a crutch.
The women hurried out to see and then back to their fires to prepare comfort and relief, murmuring their sympathy as they worked. A dozen strong young men whipped out to help bring the travelers into camp, Lance running too. Even from far off they could hear the woman singing a death song as she waded heavily through the snowbanks, a child on her back, another behind with the hobbling Indian. The white man breaking trail was Frenchy, the trader, his wife singing the thin keening song of one about to lose a loved and respected father—singing for the badly wounded and bleeding Fast Bear.
The rescuers helped them in, women coming to offer their fires, pulling off the snowy, frozen clothing. The Bear, with one legging stiff and red in frozen blood, was carried to the healer’s fire, where his wound would be bathed, the bullet drawn out, and the bleeding that had spotted the snow for miles stopped in time to save the man if possible. While the trader and his family were warmed and fed, the council and war chiefs listened to their story. The trader, long on the Plains, had seen no sign of anyone on all the glistening, snow-covered region, but the dawn after the horse herd reached them, the Crows struck, sweeping all the horses away, even those the family had ridden. They did not shoot at the white men but left the Bear wounded on the ground. The Frenchman ordered his herders to follow the Crow trail, but it would take time, for they were afoot.
There was great excitement in the Brule Sioux camp. It was not only very dangerous to have Crows so close around, but humiliating, particularly that they had dared attack a very well-known trader, one who dealt with all the tribes. In addition they had wounded the Bear, related to the white man by marriage, and a prominent Brule war chief. If he died, the war pipe would be carried around all the Plains Sioux for a tribe-wide attack on the enemy, to drive them out, destroy them forever.
