The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection

by George MacDonald Fraser

  Camp Robinson, where he was to meet the Sioux chiefs, was a fairly new military post out beyond the settlements, not far south of the Black Hills; close by it was the Red Cloud Agency where the old Oglala chief lived with his followers, and a day’s march away was Camp Sheridan, near the agency of Spotted Tail and his Brulés. These were the “peaceful” Sioux, who had come in to the agencies in return for annuities and other government benefits such as rations, clothes, weapons and schools; it was the fond hope that eventually they’d take to farming. Since they were well-behaved and powerful chiefs, the government chose to regard them as spokesmen for the whole Sioux nation, conveniently forgetting that most of the tribes were roaming wild in the Powder River country farther west, under the likes of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, “but if they are so intractable and foolish as not to meet us, on their own heads be it,” says Allison smugly. “We can talk only to those who will talk to us, and if the hostiles will not share our deliberations, they cannot complain if the treaty is not to their satisfaction. We can only reach it and trust that reason will prevail with them after the event.” An optimist, you see.

  Even before we set out, the omens were bad. The peaceful agency tribes were fractious because in the hard winter just past they’d been kept short of the necessaries government should have been providing – one of the reasons Spotted Tail had been east in June was to complain. In his absence his younger braves had worked themselves into a frenzy at the annual sun dance and gone off for a slap at the Black Hills miners (and at their old foes the Pawnees, just for devilment); there had been a nasty brush between the Brulés and Custer’s 7th Cavalry, and when Spotted Tail returned it had taken all his influence and skill to bring his bucks to heel.

  To show willing, Washington had held an inquiry on the agencies, and found the Indians’ complaints well grounded; they’d been swindled and deprived, but in spite of the findings no official or contractor was punished, although the agent at Red Cloud had been removed. So you can judge how content the agency Sioux were by the time our commission rolled out by rail and coach to Camp Robinson late that summer, Allison full of pomp and consequence, deep in discussions with his fellow-commissioners, while I lent an unofficial ear, and Elspeth in the hotel car cried out with excitement every time we passed a creek or a tree.

  She got something to marvel at, though, on the last stage into Camp Robinson. It’s far out on the prairie, nestling among pretty groves beneath a range of buttes, and in all directions the grassy plain was covered with Indian villages as far as you could see; every Sioux in America seemed to have converged on the fort, and as our coach lurched by with its escort of cavalry outriders, Elspeth was all eyes and ears while Collins, the secretary to the commission, pointed out the various tribes – Brulé, Sans Arc, Oglala, Minneconju, Hunk-papa, and the rest. Mostly they just stared as we went by, silent figures in their blankets by the tipis and smoky fires, but once a party of Cheyenne Dog Soldiers rode alongside us, and Elspeth fairly clapped her hands and squeaked to see them cantering so stately, stalwart warriors in braids and full paint, shaking their lances in salute and chanting: “How! Hi-yik-yik! How!”

  “Oh, brave!” cries she ecstatically. “How! How to you! Oh, Harry, how proud and splendid they look! Why, I declare they are so many Hiawathas! Ah, but how solemn they all look! I never saw so many melancholy faces – are they always so sad, Mr Collins?”

  I wasn’t feeling too brisk myself; I’d supposed we’d be meeting the chiefs and a few supporters, but there were thousands of Sioux here if there was one, and that’s a sight too many.

  “It takes three-quarters of the male population to make any agreement binding,” Collins told me, “so the more who attend the better. It’s what Red Cloud and Spotted Tail say that counts, of course, but we must have the democratic consent of the people, too.”

  “Is Allison intending to canvass that multitude?” says I, incredulous. “Dear God, does he know how long it takes an Indian to decide to get up in the morning?”

  The fort itself was a fairly spartan affair of wooden houses and barracks, but Anson Mills, the commandant from Camp Sheridan, was on hand with his wife to make us welcome, and Elspeth was far too excited to mind the absence of city comforts.

  The Mills gave a dinner of welcome that night, to which they had invited the chiefs for an informal foregathering; to my surprise Elspeth dressed in her plainest gown, without jewellery and her hair severely bunned, explaining to me that it would never do for her to outshine Mrs Mills, the hostess, “and anyway, I know you are sensible of our position, my dear, for we are not official here, and it does not do for us to put ourselves forward”. This was uncommon sense for her; she knew that I was really a camp-follower of the commission whom they might find useful, but I’d borne no part beyond listening to some of their discussions, answering a question or two from Allison, and talking a bit of shop with General Terry, the military representative. He was a tall, sprightly, courteous fellow who’d been a lawyer (Yale man, apparently) before the Civil War turned him into a soldier; I found him quick and a good deal more open-minded than most Yankee military chiefs. The other leading lights of the commission were Collins and a clergyman.

  The chiefs came to dinner in style, six of them all in buckskins and feathers, led by the famous Oglala, Red Cloud, a grim savage with a face you could have used to split kindling. Other names I remember were Standing Elk and White Thunder, and towering over the rest, splendid in snowy tunic and single eagle feather, the well-known Tableaux-fancier and patron of Loop burlesque theatres. His black eyes widened momentarily at sight of me; then he was bowing and growling to Elspeth, who gave him a limp hand and her coolest smile, which alarmed me more than if she’d languished at him.

  The dinner was a frost. From the first it was evident that the chiefs were thoroughly disgruntled, and at odds among themselves; I was seated between Red Cloud and Standing Elk, so that advantage could be taken of my linguistic genius; Red Cloud gave me one suspicious glare, and replied in monosyllables to the amiabilities and polite inquiries which Allison and the others addressed to him through me. You could feel the suspicion and hostility coming from them like a fog, and by the time desserts were served it was like being at a Welsh funeral. The chiefs were silent, Allison was aloof and huffy and the clergyman distressed, Mills was trying to look bland, and his wife, poor soul, was in a fearsome flutter, her hand shaking on the cloth in embarrassment. For once I thanked God for Elspeth’s artless prattle, directed ceaselessly at everyone in turn, and never taking silence for an answer. But only from Spotted Tail among the Indians did she get any response, and even that was formal courtesy; his mind was too busy elsewhere even for flirting.

  All the gloom didn’t prevent our guests from punishing the victuals like starving wolves, I may say; Red Cloud’s longest conversational flight was to remark that they were a sight better than the rubbish his people had been getting from the agency, which I translated to Mrs Mills as a compliment to the cook. And when we rose, White Thunder, who’d been even more voracious than the rest, went round the table scraping the contents of every plate into a bag; he was even lifting some of the spoons until Spotted Tail growled something at him which I didn’t catch. As they took their departure the Brulé chief seemed to stare particularly at me, so once they were out, and Allison was exploding in pique at what he called “their cross-grained and sullen demeanour, upon my word, like the spoiled children they are!”, I took a slow saunter out to the verandah. Sure enough, there was Spotted Tail, a huge pale figure in the summer dusk; his fellow-chiefs were already down on the parade, studiously looking the other way while the grooms brought their ponies. He didn’t beat about.

  “Why are you sitting with the Isantanka, Wind Breaker? What is this matter to do with the Wasetchuska Mother?”

  “Nothing,” says I. “I’m here because I know you and speak your tongue.”

  “They think I will listen to you? That you will grease their words so that I and my brothers will swallow
them easily?” He wasn’t the genial companion of Chicago now; his tone was on the brink of anger. I answered matter-of-fact.

  “They think that because I’m a soldier chief in my own country, I can help to open their minds fairly to you. And because I know something of you and your folk, I can open your minds fairly to them. I understand high matters, which an ordinary interpreter might not, and I will speak for both sides with a straight tongue.” He must know how much that mattered, and how many bitter misunderstandings had arisen through incompetent interpreters.

  He watched me slantendicular and then put back his head. “Wah-ah. Bes! Then tell them this for a beginning. Since I came from Washington I have been in the Black Hills. There is much gold there, and now I have seen it. So we will not give up the hills, and we will not allow them to be taken from us.”

  Well, that was damned blunt, before the talks had even started. No courteous preliminaries or hints or soundings; he’d never have said anything so flat to the commission, but he could drop it in my ear as an intermediary. It flitted across my mind – had wily Sam Grant foreseen something like this? Presumably it was what I was here for, and I felt a gratifying tingle at being on the inside of affairs (there’s an oily politician in the best of us, you see) and at the same time an apprehension as I realised that whatever I said might weigh heavy in the scale. God, what a chance for mischief! But I didn’t indulge it; I gave back bluntness for bluntness, because it seemed best.

  “The hills have been taken from you already, haven’t they?” says I. “You’ve seen how many miners are up there. And you’ve said yourself that the lance and hatchet of Spotted Tail can’t stop them.”

  I saw him stiffen, and then he says quietly: “There are other lances.”

  “Whose? Sitting Bull’s? My little horseman’s – Crazy Horse? That won’t answer, and you know it. Look here, Sintay Galeska, this is nothing to me,” says I, and it was true. For once in my life I had no axe to grind; I didn’t give a blue light who had the Black Hills, since there was nothing in it for me either way. Tell you the truth I was feeling a most unaccustomed thing, a glow of virtue, as well as the pleasure of observing a drama in which I had no personal stake. I didn’t have to be patient of diplomatic niceties. If Allison had known what I was about to say, he’d have had apoplexy; for that matter I don’t suppose Red Cloud and his boys would have cared for it either. But when all the pussy-footing and lying and hypocrisy don’t matter to you, you can go straight to business and enjoy yourself.

  “These talks are a sham,” I continued, “and you know it. The Black Hills are gone, and you’ll never get ’em back. This lot won’t leave you a rag to your back if you resist them. So isn’t it time to get the best bargain you can? And make those mad bastards up in Powder River country understand that they’d better settle for it, or they’ll get worse? I’m not saying it’s right or fair; that don’t count. I’m just saying it’s common sense. And you know it, too.”

  If it was straighter talk than he cared for, he still couldn’t deny it or say I spoke with a double tongue. He knew it was true.

  “They’ll pay, you know,” says I. “How much, I can’t tell you. Certainly not what the hills are worth in gold value – but then you wouldn’t expect ’em to, would you? No, you’ll just have—”

  “Ho-ho!” It came out in a bark, the warning-note of the Sioux when he’s heard something he doesn’t like. But his voice was quiet enough when he said: “You speak for the Isantanka; they seek to put fear into our hearts, so that we will be cowed into taking whatever they offer—”

  “Look,” says I, “if I was speaking for them, would I have admitted that they won’t pay what the hills are worth? No; I’d have told you the price they’ll offer is a fair one. I’m telling you the truth because I know you see it as clear as I do. Of course they’ll cheat you; they always have. Don’t you see – the Sioux aren’t going to win, either in a bargain or in a fight? So you must get as much as you can, while you can. Don’t let these talks fail; get the best price you can squeeze out of them, and try to get Sitting Bull and the other hostiles to like it. If you don’t, you’ll wind up poor or dead.”

  He studied me poker-faced, stroking one of his long braids, and I wondered if he was hating me and all that he thought I stood for – hating me all the more, perhaps, because I knew as well as he did the bitter truth he was facing, that he must twist the Yankee purse to the last dollar for his people’s sake, and that at the same time he would be betraying them and the ideals they held sacred. It’s a damnable thing, the pride of a nation, especially when it’s coupled with the kind of mystic frenzy that they had about their precious Black Hills. Or pretended they had. At last he says:

  “Will you tell the Isantanka all that has passed between you and me here?”

  “If you want me to,” says I. “But I think it better I should tell them that Chief Spotted Tail is worried because his fellow-chiefs don’t want to sell the hills. I’ll tell them they would be best advised to offer a good price, and to take into account what it would cost in white blood and white money if the Sioux were pushed into fighting because the price isn’t high enough.”

  “What price,” says he, “do you think would satisfy the Sioux?”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t care, and I won’t try to guess. That’s for you to decide. But I’d want it in gold, on the barrel-head, and I wouldn’t budge an inch for anything less. I wouldn’t hand over my guns, that’s certain.”

  It was then, I think, that he began to believe if not necessarily to trust me. As why shouldn’t he, since I’d been telling truth straighter than I could ever remember? At any rate, he finally nodded, and said he would wait and see what was said publicly tomorrow. Almost as an afterthought, as he was about to go, he says conversationally:

  “Why did your golden lady hide her beauty tonight? She wore no shining stones, and her milk-white flesh she covered in poor cloth. Have you been beating her, that she hides the bruises, or is she displeased and withdraws the loveliness that gives such joy to men?”

  I explained, pretty cool, that she had left her fine dresses back east, as being unsuitable for the frontier, and he gave one of his astonishing rumbles, like a bull in a brothel. “Then my heart is sad,” growls he, “for the more one sees of her the better. My heart sings when I look on her. She shines. I would like to see all of her shining! Yun! I would like to …” and to my rage and scandal he absolutely said it, smacking his lips, and me her husband, too. Mind you, I suppose it was meant as a compliment. “Joll-ee good! Han, hopa! Joll-ee good!” And he stalked off, leaving me dumbfounded.

  The commission were all attention when I reported what he’d said (about the Black Hills, I mean); my own side of the conversation I kept to myself. I said I believed he was ready to settle, if the bargain could be made to look respectable; he could probably sway Red Cloud, and between them they could surely convince three-quarters of the Indians who had come to listen. That would still leave the absent hostiles, but if the offer was good enough even they might find it hard to hold out.

  Terry and Collins looked pleased, but the clerical wallah made a lip. “However generous the offer, we are asking them to surrender land which they esteem holy. And while we may justly abhor their superstitious frenzy, I ask myself if they will abjure it for … well, pieces of silver.” He blinked earnestly and Allison gave a patronising smile.

  “With all respect, reverend, I’m not aware that their so-called religious fervour has any real spiritual depth. Their mode of life hardly suggests it, and I am not convinced that their concern for the Black Hills would be quite so great if there were no gold there. No, gentlemen,” says he complacently, “I’ve no doubt the Colonel is right, and that they will sell, and as to the price, we shall have to see. A savage whose notions of time and space are so peculiar that he cannot comprehend that a day’s journey on the railroad carries him farther than a day’s journey by pony, may have an equally eccentric view of real estate values. Pro pelle cutem I’m su
re they understand: a skin for the worth of a skin, but whether they encompass the higher finance we shall discover.”

  He did, too, the following day, when Spotted Tail got up in full council and blandly announced the price of the Black Hills: forty million dollars. I didn’t believe my ears, and watched with interest as I translated, for it’s not every day that you see a senatorial commission kicked in its collective belly. D’you know, they never blinked – and my suspicious hackles rose on the spot. There was a deal of huffing and consideration before Allison replied at judicious length, but all his palaver couldn’t conceal his point, which was that the government were prepared to offer only six million, and over several years at that. There was much nonsense about renting and leasing, in which Spotted Tail showed politely satirical interest, but now that he’d seen the dismal colour of their money it was so much waste of time; he concluded that they had best put it in writing, and stalked out. Red Cloud, by the way, hadn’t bothered to attend.

  Allison wasn’t disturbed; let him conduct matters privately with the chiefs, and they’d see reason, all right. For the life of me I’m not sure whether he believed it or not, but it was nothing to me, and while they all caballed for the next few days I indulged Elspeth by squiring her round the Indian encampments. Since sightseeing is to her what liquor is to a drunkard, she didn’t seem to notice the stink and squalor, but exclaimed at the variety and colour of the barbaric scene, took a heroic interest in the domestic arrangements, waxed sentimental at the docile resignation of the squaws pounding corn and cooking their abominable messes, became quite excited at the sight of the young bucks playing lacrosse, and went into ecstasies over “the bonny wee papooses”. For their part, the Sioux took an equal interest in her, and a curious procession we made as we strolled back to camp arm-in-arm with a gaggle of curious squaws and loafers and children at our heels, and one impudent urchin insisting on carrying Elspeth’s parasol.