Текст книги "Mountain Man"

Автор книги: Vardis Fisher

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They had known that this girl was a whiteman’s wife. They had known that she was alone, a thousand miles from her people and a long way from her man. She never had a chance to defend herself. There she sat, a baby in her, sewing on a shirt for her man or her child, or looking into the west for sign of her man; and without a moment of warning they had chopped her down. And there she had lain in the yard, dead, with her babydying inside her—there for the wolves and the magpies and ravens.

He paused there, wondering if he had said enough. There was more that he had wanted to say—to say that in the holy book it said that vengeance was God’s, but that in this case it was Sam Minard’s; to say that he intended to make war, singlehanded and alone, against the whole skulking cowardly Crow nation; to say, "From where I now stand until the day I die I swear upon the bones of my slain wife and child that I will kill every Crow warrior that crosses my path! "

That was it. That was what he had wanted to say. Was there something else? There had been words from Job, that his father had read at breakfast one morning—that his eyes did shine, and were like the eyes of the morning, or something like that. He had intended to shake his clenched fist at the Crow nation and hurl into the listening night such words of power and fury as would make the peaks tremble. But after coming to the flowers and remembering the flower-hours, and her eyes and smile, a gentleness of the morning or of heaven had touched him; and so be stood on the crag, his face to the morning sky, and became aware of himself as a man who had sworn a terrible oath of vengeance. Never had he really hated any man, or wished to kill any man, but this had been forced on him, and only the coward would blanch from it and turn back. The eyes of the morning, that was all he would need, and a little help from devine justice in the right places. And so he stood, the male on the mountain peak, making his vow of vengeance; and eight hundred miles north the female knelt in her tiny graveyard, before the angelic faces of her slain ones, and uttered a prayer to the same Father.

The sun was an hour high and the atmosphere a pale golden above the white when Sam turned down the mountain. He had gathered a whole armful of the lovely alpine lilies. On his way down he tried to lay his plans. He would take his pelts to Bridger and pay for the things he had bought; and the remainder he would take to the Laramie post, for that was close to Crow country. He would buy a faster horse if there was one, for there would be times when he would ride for his life. He would buy another Bowie, for there might be times in close fighting when he would need to lay their bellies open, right and left. He knew well that as soon as he had killed a few Crows every warrior in the nation would dedicate himself to his death. He would need a few of the toughest hides to make moccasins for his horse, to be put on when he approached an enemy camp; and he would need twice as much powder and ball as he had ever bought before.

As he went down the mountain flank he came to other flowers, creamy white with yellow centers, that he thought almost as lovely as the lilies. To make a basket he stripped off his leather shirt, and inside this he carried a bushel of flowers. On returning to his hidden beasts he took the bundle from behind the saddle, opened it, and literally wrapped and smothered the bones in flowers. The hair on the nape of the skull he kissed. Then, tenderly, with large clumsy hands, he folded bones and flowers within the blanket and made the bundle secure behind his saddle. During these moments he was thinking not of Loretto but of Milton Sublette, who in a fight with the half-breed John Gray had been stabbed so mortally that his associates, thinking he would die, had left him in the care of Joe Meek. Milton had got well and soon thereafter he and Joe had fallen into the hands of a party of hostile Indians. They would have been killed but for a chief and his lovely daughter, who in the dark of night had helped them to escape. Smitten by the girl. Milton not long thereafter had married her. Leaving her in the mountains, as Sam had left Lotus, Milton had gone east on a business trip and had died on his return journey; and within a year or two his wife was shot down by the  Bannock Indians. This Indian girl, Meek had said, was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. But not, Sam told himself, as beautiful as Lotus.

While riding northwest to the Bridger post Sam decided that if he were to live another year, much less five or ten, he would do well to map a plan of attack. This thought led him to a long and careful appraisal of the nature of his enemies. There were some curious advantages on his side. The whiteman was far more adult than the redman, who, in fact, was only a child in his emotions—impulsive, hotheaded, and by turns craven or reckless. The whiteman, faced with danger, decided instantly and acted swiftly; the redman was in some measure inhibited by his burden of superstitions, and had to wait on medicine men and propitious signs. The whiteman had no boss, no chief. The redman was the servile creature of ritual and ceremonial—he spent a part of his life in such monkey business as touching the earth with the bowl of his pipe and then turning the stem upwards to invoke medicine magic. Even so, the redman thought the whiteman as brainless and vacant as the fool hen, as slow as the turtle, and as gullible as the antelope. Why, he asked, did the whiteman put the centers of logs in his fires, instead of the ends? Look! There they were, hours later, with the centers burned out and the ends lying on either side of a dying fire. It was true, Sam had decided, that the whiteman was buffalo-witted in some ways.

Well, one fact to keep in mind was this, that if sixty redmen faced an enemy every single one of them would figure that if one and only one of his party was killed he would be the dead man. If two were killed, or three or five, he would be one of them. It was for this reason that the warriors of most tribes would turn and run after one or two or three had been killed. The whiteman, on the other hand, figured that if only one of sixty were to die the odds were fifty-nine to one in his favor. He was likely to think the odds greater than that, for the reason that he did not look on himself as an average fighter.

On arriving at Bridger’s post Sam was so sunk in brooding and plotting that he carried a part of his pelts in, asked for a reckoning, and turned to leave. Jim’s strange eyes had been studying him. Jim called out, "I doan see hide ner hair yer wife."

Sam turned. "She’s dead."

"How thet happen?" asked Jim, showing no astonishment.

"Crows."

Jim took a few moments to consider that and then followed Sam outside. "Sartinly not the Crows, Sam." Bridger had in mind that Beckwourth and Rose had been Crow chiefs, and that a number of the free trappers had taken Crow women. His eyes said he didn’t think the Crows had done it.

"The Crows," Sam said, cinching up his packs.

"I jist can’t believe it. Did ye find plenty sign?"

"Plenty."

To change the subject Jim said, "Black Harris wuz here. Says a million Mormons is comin through this summer. All back there on Misery Bottoms gitting their wagons ready."

Sam was no longer interested in Mormons and Brigham Young and his wives.

"'Heerd anuther thing," said Jim, trying to get Sam to talk.

"Lot of the boys are meetin up at Laramie bout now. They might know if the Crows done it. There’s Powder River Charley—"

Sam said, "For what I have coming give me credit. Watch your topknot, Jim."

"Jist a minute," said Jim. He walked over to Sam and looked at Sam’s eyes. "Yer kinda young. Ye intend ter go inter the Crow country?"

"Right through the middle of it," Sam said.

"I wooden do that, Sam. Ye intend ta fight the hull nation?"

"The hull nation."

Jim was still looking at Sam’s eyes. He put forth a gnarled hand and said, "I reckon, then, I best give ye a handshake, fer I doan spect I’ll see ye agin."

"I figger you will," Sam said, and clasped the hand.

From Bridger’s on Black’s Fork he rode east and north to Green River; then east and north to South Pass, the Sweetwater, and the Oregon Trail, which he followed east to the Laramie post, where he would trade for supplies and, if lucky, a fast horse. On this long ride he tried to lighten his mood by singing songs, but the only one that would rise from his depths was "Sorrow, Sorrow, Stay.” He couldn’t sing "To Ce1ia" any more, or "When Laura Smiles" or a dozen others, for there rose before him the picture of his girl-wife on that long sweet journey south, and he would reach behind him to touch the blanket that enfolded the bones and flowers.

A few of the free trappers were at the post; after their long lonely winter they were eager to swap talk but Sam did not want to talk. Lost-Skelp Dan came over to him. Dan was a big man; he stood a good six feet two in moccasins and weighed two hundred and twenty. He had large full pale-blue eyes that were cold and mean but that had a light touch of warmth when he looked at Sam. Dan had heard that Sam’s wife had been killed, though how he had heard it Sam was never to know, for no rider had passed him on the Trail.

Dan wanted to express sympathy but he was clumsy and tactless. He did manage to say at last, "Sam, ever need any help, jist holler."

"Thanks,” Sam said. He would never holler. What he wondered was whether Crows at this post had talked about the death of Lotus.

Mick Boone was there and Mick had also heard about it. All the trappers knew that Mick had one of the fastest horses in the West, a big strong bay with the lines of a racer. Mick first asked Sam if he would join him in a drink. Sam thanked him and said he never drank. "Bad habit," Mick said, and put on the queer smile he had when self-conscious. It took him a few moments to get the words out. He said he figgered as how Sam might like to use his bay for a while.

Sam looked into Mick’s brown eyes and said, "I couldn’t take your bay."

"Not a thing to stop you," Mick said. "If ya aim to ride plum through Crow country—and I figger ya do—you’ll need a fast horse or ya might never reach the other side."

"You might be right," Sam said.

"I’1l change the saddles," Mick said.

So Mick took the stud and Sam set off on the big bay. The news would spread fast that the Crows had killed Sam Minard’s wife and unborn child, and that after declaring war on the whole nation Sam was showing what kind of business he meant by riding clear across, it, alone. When he rode away into the north Sam was not thinking of that. He was again thinking of the nature of his enemies. The vast plains-and-mountains area, which they claimed as their own and fought to hold, lay chiefly upon the southern drainage of the Yellowstone—upon its tributaries, the Bighorns, the Rosebud and the Powder and the Tongue. The heart of the Crows was the valley of the Bighorns, though they claimed the lands lying in all directions from these rivers, to a considerable distance. Sam had heard it said by some of the older trappers that the Crows had the finest bodies of all the redmen; that they were the handsomest; and the ablest hunters; and the most expert thieves; and that of all the red warriors they were the deadliest shots with the whiteman’s weapons. The American Fur Company had built four, the Missouri Fur Company two posts solely for their convenience in

trading.

It saddened Sam to think that these people had made him their enemy, for he had been a little enchanted by them. Four hundred Crow lodges on the move was a remarkable spectacle in rhythm and color—the warriors in their richly ornamented robes, with floating and flowing fringes and feathers and headpieces; and with the principal squaws in really elegant mantles and cloaks of birdskins, spangled over with beads. Standing upon the mother’s backs were a hundred papooses, in cradles as richly ornamented as the mothers’ garments, the children swathed tight but standing, their bright black eyes expressing joy in life. Behind the procession or ahead of it or on its flanks were hundreds of ponies under huge burdens, as well as hundreds of dogs so covered over with camp litter that almost no part of them was visible. From a distance it looked as if a prairie of brilliant colors was flowing in a gentle wind.

Well, it was by their own cowardice and brutality that Sam Minard was their enemy now. Mick, like Bridger, had acted as if he doubted that the Crows had done it. But Sam knew the print of the Crow moccasin. The Cheyennes, Arapahoes, and Comanches all had an inside straight edge on their cowskin moccasins, and the point so turned as to give the wearer the appearance of being pigeon-toed. The Pawnee moccasin looked for all the world as if the Indian had placed his foot in the center of a piece of buckskin and then pulled all the edges to the top of the foot, in front of the ankle, with the rear part brought up behind the leg and tied round with leather string. The Crow moccasin, like their clothing, was so expertly tanned and made that its print was skin-smooth in every part of it, with no sign of the little bulges and irregular seams that marked most of the others. He had examined with the utmost care a dozen footprints. To one who had made a study of the prints of different tribes the Crow print was as plain and as unlike any other as their manner of cutting their hair—the Cheyennes and Eutaws wore their hair in long loose locks, cut off close above the brows so that vision would not be obscured. The Pawnees and Kansas shaved the front and back, leaving only a topknot at the crown, which was so stiff with grease and grime that it stood up straight and barely wavered in a wind. The Blackfeet usually confined their hair in two long braids; the Crows, more artistic in hairdress than any of the others, arranged their hair to harmonize with their elaborate and colorful headdress.

Maybe Mick and Jim hadn’t made a study of footprints. Maybe they didn’t know that the Crows were more nomadic than any other tribe. It was not unusual for these skulking thieves to be seen a thousand miles from their central village, for with their faster horses they could easily outrun their pursuers. Most of the red people occupied settlements that were more or less fixed, in the center of which might be a big lodge of buffalo skins painted red and tattooed with the secret and magic totems of the tribe. Not far from this central station there might be a scalp pole, from which the scalps, some dried and shrunken, some still wet and bloody, flapped in the winds. The scalp pole was the visible measure of a nation’s heroism. Near it was another pole from which hung the medicine bags with their strange and potent contents. Sam, like most of the mountain men, had made a study of totems, because from the nature of the totem could be inferred the character of the people—the eagle, wolf, bear, fox, serpent, wolverine, hawk—though Sam had concluded that the choice of totem was largely determined by the kind of country the tribe occupied. The skins of totems were often to be seen stuffed and set up in conspicuous places for worship. All the tribes Sam had visited seemed to be, in the way of small children, fond of strong bright colors, particularly red, yellow, vermilion, and blue. Sometimes for black as a medicine color they used the scraped-off powder of charred wood, mixed with gunpowder, if they had it. Whitemen had laughed themselves into exhaustion when told the story of the brave who smeared his entire body with gunpowder and moved close to a fire and exploded. This was the same reckless warrior who had eaten buffalo tongue at a time when it was taboo to him, and had so paralyzed the whole village with terror that to save his people and himself he had thrust and pulled his tongue out so far that the roots of it were almost in the front of his mouth. At the same time he had bellowed with such rage and pawed the earth into such dust clouds, as he snorted and heaved, that he had cast off the malevolent spell and returned his people to safety and calm.

Few things had more astonished Sam and the other trappers, or brought from them more vigorous expressions of contempt, than the redman’s fanatical devotion to a mysterious and intricate system of ceremonial and magic. The Indian’s world was so overrun by evil spirits and wicked powers that there were times when he was immobilized: he could not shoot a rabbit or make a fire or put on his war paint without first engaging in his mystical and propitiating grunts and gestures. There was his pipe, which he passed in solemn supplication to all the directions and to every conceivable thing, including sun, moon, winds, and sky. He had many symbols attached to his lodges, utensils, and war tools. No hunting party, no war party, no journey could be undertaken, no lodge could be built or buffalo robe made, and no planting could be strewn in its furrows or harvest gathered, without first going through his interminable childish rituals. This gave to enemies an advantage they were quick to seize; now and then a band of warriors was attacked when by magic and conjuration and thaumaturgy it was simply helpless and useless and not able to fight.

Sam was thinking that now and then he might catch a few of them without their medicine bags, and find it as easy to knock them over as to knock over fool hens. His grief was so hot and his hatred so black that he did not care if when he fell on them they were not prepared to fight; he intended to shoot them and knife them and knock their heads off, as undisturbed by their cries as a wolf seizing a rabbit. Looking round him at the miracle of spring, listening to the arias of bluebird and meadow lark, gathering early flowers to press into the blanket, and thinking, over and over, of the joy with which he had looked forward to riding north with his wife, he actually turned pale with suppressed furies, and promised himself that a dozen scalps would dangle from his saddlebags within a month. To show his contempt the might even collect, and display, an assortment of their medicine bundles, such as the stuffed heads of wolves, or the skin, claws, teeth, and feathers of various birds and beasts, whose virtues the absurd creatures believed they had assimilated. Still, Windy Bill had said that they were no  more ridiculous than those white people who partook of different sacraments.

Above all, Sam wanted them to know who was about to strike, when they heard his cry; who had killed a warrior, when they found the flesh and bones. So he decided, while riding  along, to leave his mark on every dead brave—a mark that the whole Crow nation would recognize as his mark. The whole nation would also know his battle cry. He wished he had a trumpet. If only he could drive the whole damned Crow people into mourning or lunacy! That would be a sight to ennoble the heart, equal to Napoleon and his ragged army hurled back from Moscow. A Crow when mourning and lamenting a slain or mortally wounded warrior hacked at nearly all parts of his body, and sometimes cut off one or more fingers: what gouts of blood he would make flow! In what rivers of blood he would avenge his wife and child! How the men, women, and children, the whole nation, all of them, would set up a wild dismal howling and quavering and shrieking that would curdle the blood of a loon or a wolf. If ten braves came forth to take him, as a war party had once gone forth to take a Blackfeet chief, with none and nothing ever returning except the moccasin-carrying pack-dogs, what an infernal sky-filling bedlam of rage and frustration the Crow nation would be! It overjoyed him to think of it. It would be like the time Jim Clyman told of—of a camp gone wild and stark mad with woe after looking on a scene of slaughter: how the women and children had torn at their flesh and screamed, with all around them the frenzied howling of dogs, the insane neighing and braying of horses and mules, the mournful hooting of owls, and over it all the horrible sickening stench of grief and sweat and dung and warm blood and mingled coyote and dog odors.

The Crow war whoop, "Hooo-ki-hi/" that had raised the hair on Sioux, Blackfeet, and Cheyenne and made the gooseflesh swarm down their backs would be stilled in a lot of throats. A lot of braves now strutting in their gaudy war paints and battle dress would count coup no more. Coup, which in this land was pronounced coo, in the French way, was the highest heroism an Indian warrior could aspire to: to count coup he had to strike an enemy with his quirt or bow or knife or coup stick before he attacked him; or he had to take from the enemy all his weapons; or he had to slip up afoot and steal the horse of an enemy tied to his own lodge. There were a lot of ways to touch coup, all of them devised to show more than ordinary courage. After a warrior had counted coup he had the right to wear an eagle feather in his hair, and another thereafter for each coup he made. If he were so clumsy or frightened while attempting a coup that he received a wound he had to wear a feather painted red. Sam had seen a Crow chief with seven feathers in his hair. Against one of such valor he doubted that he would ever have a chance; to bring him down the nation would send only the young warriots who were the bravest, fleetest, and deadliest, or the most adept in stratagems, such as tracking and ambush.

Let them come, the cowardly unspeakable murderers of a lone woman and her unborn child! Let the chief send those who were battle-hardened; who had waged war against the Lacota or Sioux, the Striped-Feather-Arrows or Cheyennes, the Tattooed-Breasts or Arapahoes. Let them all come! Let even the Pine-Leafs come! A legend said that Pine-Leaf when only twelve years old lost a brother in battle, and thereupon vowed that she would never marry or do a woman’s work until she had killed a hundred of the enemy. Sam did not know if she had killed any or what had become of her; or indeed if such a girl had lived. And there was the squaw named She-could-be-dead, whose man had been slain; she then became as crazy as two wildcats with their tails tied together: mounting a pony and armed only with bow and arrows and knife, she had gone forth alone against the Cheyennes. Nobody seemed to know what became of her, but in legends there she was, riding—riding—riding forever, at great speed across the plains and ravines, her bronzed face smeared with red ochre, her arrows, tipped with lightning, dashing into the foe’s breast. Sam had heard at least a dozen stories of the furious intrepid assaults of red women whose men had been killed. Now and then, a tale said, one of them returned from the warpath, her face as black as night as a sign that she had triumphed over the enemy. His weeks with Lotus had acquainted him with the spirit and daring of the Indian girl.

He wished, while riding along and making plans, or pausing to target-shoot with his revolvers, that he had a good knowledge of the Crow tongue, so that he could hurl abominable and shocking insults at the moment of striking. Powder River Charley spoke the language as well (he said) as the Crows themselves; he liked to make fun of them by translating what he had heard them say: "In the mornin this ole woman her garden when she come and to it got was all pulled up. This ole woman it was. What I wonder is this, come and to it got was all pulled up. What I wonder is this, said she. All the time critters none whatever git to me truly, this what is it that me has got to? The tracks small were they when looked at them she. Bad critters thought she bad. This ole woman this night she laid down she prayed. When mornin come then the garden in she hid. Them there bad men them she wanted to ketch. Time passed. Passed more time. Moon come, moon sick, moon gone. This which she hid in the garden what she took back this ole woman there was nuthin there was nuthin. This ole woman over there food she puts away in holler tree. Then come time this ole woman was not there she wherever she went to. In the garden always there is none no none. The food she stored in the holler tree its eater did she kill? Doggone don’t ask me."

Charley would sit by a camphre and suck at his pipe and roll his pale eyes from face to face; and say, "There that and this here wind comes on him it falls it kills him. When close to it he run and came. When fast he went he was under it fast when this wind it come crashed was he." That, he said, was word-by-word translation of Crow talk. He would knock his pipe out, refill it, and say, "Now over there ten sleeps some bad ones there are. Sleep they do not. Hate you they do kill you they will skelp you ghosts like these warriors are slinkin no sound to make none there their knifes they take out all aroun your neck off they chop ole woman runnin she comes but save you she cannot her head chopped off it will be."

"Doan they never stop fer a breath?"

"They never seem to. They talk like children talk. And let me tell you, don’t never call them Crows. They think you call them that because the Crows they steal from bird nests and they say they never steal not ever never."

"They’re doggone 1iars," someone said.

"The Apsahrokee, that’s what they are. The Sparrowhawk people."

From Charley and others Sam had picked up a few words and phrases. Xatsi-sa, which he pronounced Zat-see-saw, meant, "Do not move." Di-wap-e-wima-tsiky, which he rendered as Di-wappi-wimmi-tesicky, meant, "I will kill you." Riding along, he recalled that phrase and strove to master it and fix it in mind. But what he needed was words of insult and contumely, that would freeze their marrow and glaze their blood. He now rememered Bi-i-kya-waku, which meant, "I will look out for me"; and Dara-ke-da-raxta?—"Don’t you know your own child?" Then there came from one of Charley’s garrulous evenings K-ari-c, meaning, "Old women." Charley had called it Ka-ree-cee, or something like that. He would hurl it at them. He would crush the bones in their necks, drive his knife into their livers, and kick them so hard in their spines that their heads would fall backwards and across their rumps. If only he could call them sick cowardly old women crawling in the sagebrush!

The redmen had a child’s fondness for insulting words. Sam had heard the story of Jess Danvers who, with his five or six free trappers, was crossing the plains from one river to the next when suddenly, with no warning at all, his party was surrounded by Sioux warriors crawling toward them sagebrush by sagebrush. The Indians were less than two hundred yards from Jess when a chief stood up and, making a sign of peace, approached Jess and his men. As he drew near he made more signs of peace and told Danvers that he and his men, the long-knives, had been burning the wood off Sioux land and killing their game and eating their grass. The old rascal, stuffed full of guile, said he knew that Jess had come to pay for these things—with his horses, weapons, tobacco—with everything that he and his men had. He was Chief Fierce Bear, whose tongue was short but whose lance was long; he preferred to speak with his weapons rather than jabber like a woman. With hostile gestures he again said that the long-knives had robbed his people blind and would now pay with their horses, weapons, tobacco, everything they had. If they were not paid at once his braves would get blood in their eyes and he’d not be able to control them. In that case they would take not only the horses, weapons, tobacco, and all the clothing but they would take their scalps and possibly their lives.

By this time Danvers was so choked with rage that he could barely speak. He said, in signs and words, and with furious gestures, that his heart was big and the hearts of his men were big, but not toward those who threatened while pretending to be friends. If they were to give their horses and weapons it would be to brave men, and not to a band of cowardly limping bent-over squaws, crawling on their bellies like snakes in the sagebrush. He and his men were not French engagés, or toothless old women eating bugs, or sick dogs and coyotes, but fearless warriors with rifles that never missed fire and knives that were always driven straight through the heart. The creatures yonder in the sagebrush, crawling on their bellies and with sand in their eyes, looked to him like sick old women hunting les bois de vache. Waugh!

Chief Fierce Bear then took his turn at insults. He said that Danvers and his men had killed so much of the game, cropped so much of the forage, and burned so much of the wood on Sioux land that the children were so hungry and feeble they could not stand; the women shook with moans and laments all day; and not five horses in the whole nation could rise to their feet. He and his warriors had loved peace; they had never killed a man; but if he and his braves were to be treated as if they were sick coyotes, and if they were to be robbed, it would be by brave fighters and not by coughing and sneezing palefaces. He and the men with him were the bravest on earth; they had only scorn for long rifles and knives in the hands of womanish creatures who had turned pale the first time they faced a foe and had never got their color back. He would say again, and for the last time, that the blood in his men was hot and their honor was crying for vengeance. The horses, weapons, tobacco, all these were to be delivered at once.

According to the tale told by trappers, Danvers and the chief swapped insults for an hour or more, and then, backing off, each returned to his men. The battle commenced at once. Danvers was shot through the lungs and suffered so from hemmorhage that he could only stagger around, unable to use his weapons or to speak, able only to stand helpless while he exploded torrents of blood from his mouth and nostrils. Only one whiteman escaped to tell the story.