The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection

by George MacDonald Fraser

  I turned to see what had astonished him, and understood. My dear wife, who is nothing if not patient, was waiting on a couch by the dining-room doors, fanning herself idly, and innocently ignoring the admiring glances of gentlemen passing through. She was wearing something blue from Paris, as I recall, which left her mostly bare to the waist, and to impress the colonials she had decorated her upper works with the diamond necklace presented to her by the Grand Duke Alexis, a lecherous Russian lout of our acquaintance. I’m proud to say that she was a sight to gladden the heart; Spotted Tail was grunting deep and pointing like a gun-dog.

  “Hopa! Ees,j hopa!k That,” says he reverently, “is a woman!”

  “I believe you’re right,” says I. “My wife, don’t you know? Come along. My dear, may I present an old associate, Mr Spotted Tail, of the Sioux. Not the Berkshire Sioux, you understand, the Brulés … my wife, Lady Flashman.” He took her hand like a stricken grandee, bowing over it from his imposing height until his braids met. He implanted a smacking kiss you could have heard in Baltimore on her glove, murmuring: “Oh, lady, so pleased, so beautiful, just bully!” and his black eyes positively burned as he straightened up. “Wihopawinl – wah! Hopa! Hopa!” My fair one gave him her most wide-eyed, guileless smile, which I knew for a sure sign that she was willing to be dragged into the long grass at a moment’s notice, and said in her shyest little voice that she was enchanted. He shot his cuff, thrust out an arm like a tree-trunk, delicately placed her glove on it, and stalked with her into the dining-room, crying “Bes!”m for the head-waiter. I followed on, marvelling; I wouldn’t have missed this for the salvation of mankind.

  He even had a table reserved, with his followers already installed: a couple of young braves dressed civilized like himself, and a third with a coloured blanket over his shoulders, so it was hard to tell whether he was in faultless dinner rig underneath or not – he wore no shoes, though. But what took me aback was that there were two squaws (both wives of the chief’s) in fringed tunics, the whole party seated poker-faced at a large round table, heedless of the whisperings and amused glances of the civilised folk at neighbouring tables.

  There were only two spare seats, so Spotted Tail simply heaved the blanket-clad chap to the floor, seated Elspeth next to himself with great ceremony, waved me to a seat on his other hand, pushed the menu aside, and barked: “Horse’s doovers!” These proved to be hors d’oeuvres, and when he had gallantly helped Elspeth by jabbing a huge finger at each plate in turn and grunting “Huh?”, he took the entire tray before himself and engulfed the lot in about two minutes – using a knife and fork, if you’ll believe it.

  I suppose I ate, but I confess I was too fascinated to pay much heed. It was startling enough that a great hotel admitted Indians, until I realised that they were used to these occasional delegations passing to and from Washington, and not only tolerated them but made much of them for policy’s sake; also, they were a rare show for the other diners. I overheard covert whispers: “Why, they eat just like civilised people!” and “Isn’t that chief a card, though? Wouldn’t think to look at him he’s taken a hundred scalps, would you?” and “Well, they sure don’t look like savage Sie-oxes to me – I think it’s a great sell!” Drop in on them sometime in their dining-room and you’ll learn different, thinks I to myself.

  But it was true: bar the outlandish contrast of the men’s braids and painted faces to their formal suits, and the women’s colourful buckskins, they weren’t at all unlike the other diners. Better-mannered, perhaps; they used the cutlery properly, didn’t gorge or belch (thinking back to Mangas Colorado, or Spotted Tail himself tearing a bloody buffalo hump in his fingers, I could only wonder), sat with perfect composure waiting for the courses, and preserved almost total silence during the meal. Ne’er mind what they looked like, they had dignity by the bucket.53 They didn’t stink, either, which astonished me – Spotted Tail, next to me, had evidently discovered cologne among other wonders of civilisation.

  Unlike his fellows, he talked, so far as anyone can, to Elspeth. Another woman might have been bemused or shocked at finding herself dining with a painted savage, but my darling has never had but one rule: if it is male, between fourteen and eighty, and isn’t hump-backed or cross-eyed, charm it – which oddly enough she contrives to do by chattering incessantly and looking intent. Well, it means the chap can devote himself to looking at her, which Spotted Tail did most ardently; I realised with a qualm that with the paint and blood absent, he was a deuced fine-looking man, far handsomer even than most Sioux, and although he couldn’t understand one word in twenty of what she said he nodded and smiled most appreciatively. Once I heard him say: “You, lady, you not Washechuska … Eengleesh? Hopidan!n You … Scot-teesh? Scotch – ah!” He considered this, and when the waiter presently whispered to her; “French mustard, ma’am? English mustard?”, Spotted Tail threw back his great Sioux head, glared, and demanded: “For love-lee lady … why no Scotch mustard?”

  That sent her into trills of laughter, and Spotted Tail beamed and patted her arm; aye, thinks I, we must look out here. The young squaw beyond Elspeth evidently thought so too, for with an artless curiosity she leaned forward and began to finger Elspeth’s necklace and earrings, murmuring with admiration. Women being what they are, in a moment they were comparing beads and materials; Spotted Tail sighed and turned to me, so I asked him what had become of his small nephew, the Fair-Haired Boy. He sat back in astonishment.

  “Little Curly? You don’t know? Inyun!” He shook his head at my ignorance. “The whole world knows him! He is a big Indian – maybe biggest war chief of all. He has great medicine, and his word runs from the Pahasappa to the Big Horn hills, all through Powder River country. His lance touches the clouds, that little horseman of yours. You haven’t heard of Tashunka Witko of the Oglala?” He repeated it in English. “Crazy Horse.”

  I said I’d heard his name for the first time that afternoon – and recalled in wonder the laughing mite I’d carried on my saddle. Well, I’d said in jest that he’d be a great man some day; now, I said, the Isantanka chiefs spoke of him as a maverick, the most hostile of Indians.54

  “Ho-ho!” cries Spotted Tail angrily, which is the Sioux equivalent of “Damn their eyes!” or strong disapproval. “Hiya!o He is a wild warrior – he counted coup on Fetterman and whipped the Long Knives at Lodge Trail Ridge. He is a fighter who hates Americans and has taken many soldier scalps, and they fear him because he makes no treaties and fights for his land and people. But his heart is good and his tongue is straight. Hiya! I am proud of Little Curly, as a kinsman and a Lacotah.p Wah!”

  “But you don’t fight the Americans any more; you make treaties for the Burned Thighs, I suppose, since you live on an agency. You even go softly to talk to the Great Father in his tipi,” says I, to bait him, but he just gave me a long slow smile.

  “Look you, Wind Breaker, I have seen fifty winters and three. My war-shirt bears more scalps of Pawnee and Crow and Shoshoni and Isantanka soldiers than any other in the Sioux nation. Four times I counted coup on Long Knives in the fight of Bear-That-Scatters under Fort Laramie. Is it enough? It is enough. I have seen the white man’s world now, the fire-canoes and iron horses, the great tipis that touch the clouds, the lodge where fair young maidens guard the Great Father’s gold, the cities where the people are like ants.” He grinned in embarrassment. “Once I thought they sent the same white people after us from city to city, to make us think they were more numerous than they are; now I know that in New York every day more people come from far lands than would make up the whole Lacotah nation. Can Spotted Tail’s lance and hatchet hold back all these? No. They fill the land, they sweep away the buffalo, they plant seed on the prairie where I ran as a young boy, they make roads and railways over the hunting-grounds. Now they will take the Black Hills, the Pahasappa, and there will be no free land left to the Indian.” He broke off to roar “Joll-ee good! Pudden!” as the waiter set about a gallon of ice-cream before him, which he sank as smart as you lik
e and waved for a second helping.

  “No, we cannot stop it,” he went on. “To fight is useless. This I know, and make the best terms I can for my own folk, because I see beyond these winters to the time when all the land is the white man’s, and my children must be part of it or wither to nothing. Now others do not see as I do: Crazy Horse and Little Big Man, Black Moon, Gall, and Sitting Bull, perhaps old Red Cloud. They would fight to the last tuft of buffalo grass. They are wrong, and if they go out to battle with the Long Knives I will stay in my lodge, not because my heart is weak but because I am wise. But my heart is Lacotah,” and he put back his great head and I saw the gleam in the black eyes, “and for those that take the last war-path I shall say: Heya-kie, it is a good day to die.”

  He said it matter-of-fact, without bluster or self-pity, and there’s no doubt he was right – but then, he was probably the greatest of the Sioux leaders, certainly the cleverest – and as he’d pointed out, quite the most distinguished in war. If the Sioux had heeded him, they’d have been a sight better off today.55

  After dinner he insisted that we accompany him to the theatre, taking Elspeth’s hand and positively pleading with her through me as interpreter. I translated those compliments which were fit for her ears, with the result that presently we were bowling off in a cab, with Spotted Tail up beside the driver in a tile hat, roaring at him to go faster. The squaws and blanket chap were left behind, and Elspeth and I shared the inside of the cab with the other two, fine young bucks named Jack Moccasin and Young Frank Standing Bear, who sat with their arms folded in grave silence. Elspeth confided to me that Standing Bear was quite distinguished-looking, and had an air of true nobility.

  I might have guessed what entertainment Spotted Tail favoured. It proved to be the lowest kind of music-hall down in the Loop district – what they call burlesque nowadays – with sawdust on the floor, a great bar down one side of the hall doing a roaring trade, pit and gallery crowded with raucous toughs and their flash tarts, an atmosphere blue with smoke and a programme to match. Capital stuff altogether, comedians in loud coats and red noses singing filthy songs, and fat-thighed sluts in spangles and feathers shaking their bums at the orchestra. Elspeth, wearing her most fatuously ingenuous expression, affected not to understand a word – only I knew, when the chief buffoon regaled us with jokes that would have shocked a drunk marine, that behind her fan she was struggling to contain an un-Presbyterian mirth which was in danger of bursting her stays. During the Tableaux (“Scenes from the Sultan’s Seraglio,” “Forbidden Paris,” and “The African Slave Girl’s Dream of Innocence”) she fanned herself languidly and examined the chandelier. Spotted Tail sat wooden-faced and motionless during most of the show, except for a deep internal growling throughout the Tableaux, but when the conjurer came on he bellowed approval, winded me with an elbow in the ribs, and fairly pounded his fists at every trick. Each vanishing card, emergent rabbit, and multiplying handkerchief was greeted with roars of “Inyun! Hoecah! Hopidan! Wah!”, and when the buxom assistant finally stepped unharmed from a casket that had been thrust through with swords and riddled with pistol balls, the great chief of the Brulé Sioux arose from his seat, arms aloft, and bawled his applause to the ceiling.

  That conjurer, he told me as we left the theatre, was the greatest medicine man in the world. Wah! he was gifted beyond all other mortals; the Great Father himself was a child beside him – indeed, why was that medicine man not made President? So flown was Spotted Tail that he banished Jack Moccasin to the box of the cab on the way home, so that he could sit with us and describe each trick in awestruck detail – at least, he described it to me and Young Frank Standing Bear, while Elspeth listened in polite incomprehension. For the rest, said Spotted Tail, it had been a pretty rotten show – except for the Tableaux; there had been one girl with red hair whom he would have gladly taken to his tipi, and the black beauties in the Slave’s Dream had reminded him of the girls he had seen in my wagons back in ’49 – I hadn’t guessed, had I, he added with a sly grin, that he and his braves had stalked our caravan for two days in the hope of stealing one, but Blue-Eye Wootton had been too watchful. Heh-heh!

  I was thankful that Elspeth didn’t understand Siouxan; so far as she knew I’d crossed the Plains with a company of farmers and Baptists who said prayers night and morning. I was also pleased to learn that Spotted Tail was leaving next day; I didn’t tell Elspeth that he had compared her favourably, and in indelicate detail, with the female performers at the theatre, but there was no mistaking the enthusiasm with which he pressed her hand on parting – or the fact that the vain little baggage went slightly pink, lowering her eyes demurely and positively purring. The deuce with this, thinks I, there’ll be no more noble savages on this trip. And then:

  “Harry,” says she, when we were in our room, “what does hopa mean?”

  “Beautiful,” says I, middling sour. “And wihopawin, in case you didn’t catch it, is a woman of surpassing loveliness.”

  “Gracious me, the things men say! Can you unhook me at the back, dearest? Well, I must say I think it was rather forward of your Mr Spotted Tail to pay me such compliments, although I’ve no doubt he meant no disrespect. He’s very gallant, for a barbarian, don’t you think? Quite distingué, really – although his taste in entertainment is shockingly low.”

  “He’s distingué, all right,” says I, unhooking moodily. “Mostly for murder and robbery with violence. He’s killed more men than the cholera. Women, too, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  “Thank you so much, my love. Oh, such relief! But, you know, Harry, while I allow that it is highly distasteful, I don’t see that it truly signifies if he has killed people or not. So have you – I’ve seen you – and so have any number of our military acquaintances, why, probably even that nice American general with the large beard whom we met today—”

  “Crook,” says I, reclining wearily.

  “Yes, well, I daresay that in the course of his duties General Crook may well have taken human life … although he has such kind eyes … Harry,” says she earnestly, surveying herself in the delectable buff before the pier glass, turning this way and that with her hands on her hips, “do you think I’m hopa?”

  “Come over here,” says I, taking notice, “and I’ll show you.”

  “I believe I have increased slightly about the hips, and … elsewhere. Do you think it can be a consequence of the American cuisine – these rich puddings –”

  “Don’t talk about ’em, just bring ’em here, there’s a girl. And if you want to lose weight, you know – a foolish whim, in my view – I can give you a capital massage, like the Turkish bath people. Here, I’ll show you!”

  “Do you think it would be efficacious? If so, I should be most obliged to you, Harry, for I have read that it is beneficial, and I think I should not care to be too plump … Oh, you designing wretch! What deceit! No, now, desist this minute, for I see you are not really interested in reducing me at all—”

  “Ain’t I though? Come along, now, nothing like healthy exercise!”

  “Exercise indeed! You are a shameless monster, to beguile me so … and at my age too! It is too bad, and you are a wicked tease … but … I’m gratified if you think I’m hopa. Mm-mh! … what was the other word … wippo-something?”

  “Wihopawin – and no error! My God! Just shut up, will you?”

  “They are such musical words – gently, dearest – are they not? They make me think of the brooding solitude of deep eternal forests, with stately Chingachgook beside the council fire … the fragrance of the peace-pipe and the cry of the elk among snow-clad peaks … Harry, my sweet, you are so vigorous that I am quite breathless, and fear for my digestion, perhaps if I go on top? … Well, now that we have met Mr Spotted Tail and his friends I am more resolved than ever to see the native Indians in their natural surroundings, just like the ‘Deerslayer’ and …”

  “Could we leave Fenimore Cooper for the moment, you babbling beauty?” says I, gasping as we changed over. “O
h! Ah! Elspeth, I love you, you adorable houri! Please, for heaven’s sake—”

  “… to observe them with their papooses and wigwams I’m sure would be highly edifying and instructive, for I believe they have many singular customs and ceremonies not to be seen elsewhere,” continued the lovely idiot, squirming in a way that any respectable matron would have forgotten years before, “and I am certain that Mr Tail would render us … yes, my hero, in a moment … every assistance, and it would be such a romantic journey, which you know so well, and it would be so selfish of you not to take me … and you are not selfish, I’m sure … I hope not … are you, Harry …?”

  “No! Oh, God! Anything! I’ll … I’ll think about it! Please …!”

  “Oh, thank you, kindest of husbands! Dear me, I believe I am about to swoon … now, when I count to three … one … two … you will take me, dearest Harry, won’t you? … two-and-a-half …”

  As I said before, it was all her fault.

  * * *

  a Englishman. Inyun and hoecah are exclamations of surprise and disbelief.

  b Yes?

  c Incredible!

  d Stop!

  e Regret.

  f Americans.

  g An exclamation of pain.

  h Long Knives (cavalry soldiers).

  i Alas!

  j A strong affirmative.

  k Beautiful! See also Note 52.