The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection

by George MacDonald Fraser

  “You have two tongues – you are not American, although you sat with the liars at White River. You are the Washechuska Wind Breaker, who sold my brother’s woman, Walking Willow, to the Navajo who shamed her. You are going to die – kakeshya!b” He launched into a description that can give me nightmares even now, and took another hack at me. “Spotted Tail! A woman and a coward! We’ll send him a gift of your –, since he seems to have lost his own!”

  The others howled with glee at that, and threw me on to the pony with more blows and taunts. And now I knew real fear, as I realised that I was tasting the temper of the hostile Sioux, the merciless desperate savages who stood beyond the law, who were not going to be rounded up on to the agencies, who loathed everything white and despised Spotted Tail as a traitor, and who were preparing, with all the hate and fury Custer could have wished, to meet whatever the Americans might send against them. One white captive wasn’t going to buy or bully his way out of their clutches; torturing him to death would be a momentary amusement on the way to better things.

  All day we rode south-west over the bare country east of the Big Horn; even allowing for my jaundiced eye, it was neither a grand nor memorable prospect, just endless low hills and ridges of yellow grass, with a few trees here and there, and the outline of mountains far in the distance. A few vivid pictures stay in mind: a buffalo skeleton picked clean in a gully, a hawk that lingered above us for hours in the blazing afternoon, a party of Sans Arc Sioux who crossed our trail and yelled exultant news of a great victory over the Grey Fox Crook to the south – not a word of Custer, though, which seemed odd, for he must be well up the Rosebud by now. Then on, over those endless sparse hollows and hills, with the grasses blowing in the wind, while my body ached with ill-usage and weariness, and my unaccustomed backside must have rivalled the setting sun. My thoughts – well, I don’t care to dwell on them; I remembered the fate of Gallantin’s scalp-hunters, and Sonsee-array laughing merrily over the details.

  We lay that night in a gully, and every joint in my ageing body was on fire when we rode on next morning. Ahead of us there were bluffs now, and in the gullies we met occasional parties of Indians, hunters and women with burdens, and a few boys running half-naked in the bright sunshine, playing with their bows, their voices piping in the clear air. I caught a glimpse of a river down below us to the left, and presently we reached the top of the bluffs, my guards were whooping and calling to each other in delight, and as my pony jolted to a halt I raised my tired head and saw such a sight as no white man had ever seen in the New World. I was the first, and only a few saw it later, and most of them didn’t see it for long.

  Directly below us the placid river wound in great loops between fine groves of trees in a broad valley bottom. On our side the valley was enclosed by the bluffs on which we stood, although to our right the bluffs became a ridge, running away for a couple of miles into the hazy distance. From the bluffs to the river the ground fell pretty steeply, but from the crest of the long ridge the slope was much more gentle, a few hundred yards of hillside down to the river with a few gullies and dry courses here and there. It’s like any other hillside, very peaceful and quite pretty, all clothed in pale yellow grass like thin short wheat, with a few bright flowers and thistles. All ordinary enough, but I suppose there are a few old Indians who think of it now as others may think of Waterloo or Hastings or Bannockburn. They call it the Greasy Grass.

  But I barely noticed it that morning, for on the opposite bank of the river was a spectacle to stop the breath. Anyone from my time has seen Indian villages – a few score lodges, sometimes a few hundred perhaps covering the space of a cricket field. But here in splendid panorama was a town of tipis that must have covered close on ten square miles; as far as I could see the bank was a forest of lodges, set in great tribal circles from the thick woods upstream to our left to the more open land farther down opposite the Greasy Grass slope, and from the groves by the water’s edge back to a low table-land in the distance, where a great pony herd grazed.

  It was the largest assembly of Red Indians in history,71 and while I couldn’t know that, I was sufficiently awestruck – were these the few dispersed bands of hostiles I’d heard lightly spoken of, the fag-end of the once-mighty Sioux confederacy which Terry and Gibbon had been afraid might melt away and escape; the thousand or two who weren’t worth bringing up the Gatlings for? I saw Custer’s face turned in impatience to Lonesome Charley Reynolds: “We are more than a match for them if they were all together.” Well, they were all together with a vengeance; there must be ten thousand of the red buggers down there if there was one – who the devil could they all be? I didn’t know, but all America knows now: Hunkpapa, Sans Arc, Brulé, Oglala, Minneconju, the whole great roll-call of the Dacotah nation, with Arapaho, Blackfeet, Stony, Shoshoni and other lesser detachments from half the tribes of the North Plains and Shining Mountains – and not forgetting my old acquaintances, the Cheyenne. Never forget the Cheyenne. But five or ten thousand, Charley, it made no difference – everyone knew they weren’t going to fight. Not they – not Sitting Bull or Crazy Horse or Two Moon or Brave Bear or Lame White Man or Bobtail Horse or White Bull or Calf or Roan Horse or a few thousand others. Especially not the ugly little gentleman whom I’d put up for membership of the United Service Club if I had my way, since he was the best soldier who ever wore paint and feathers, damn him. His name was Gall.

  Well, there they were, all nice and quiet in the morning sun, with the smoke haze hanging over the vast expanse of tipis, and the women and kids down at the water’s edge, washing or playing, but I didn’t have long to look at it, for Jacket led us on to a ravine that ran down from the bluffs opposite the centre of the great camp; only later did I learn that it’s called Medicine Tail Coulee, and that the river, which is hardly deep enough to drown in and half a stone’s throw across, was the Little Bighorn.

  The ford from the coulee to the camp was only a few inches of water above a stony bed; we splashed over and under the cotton-woods on the far bank, where women and children came running to see, but Jacket pushed ahead to the first line of tipis beyond a flat open space where fires burned and dogs prowled among the litter, and we dismounted before a big lodge with a few braves lounging outside. The stink of Indian and woodsmoke was strong inside as well as out; Jacket thrust me into the dim interior and cut my wrist cords, but only so that he could tie my numbed hands to the ends of a short wooden yoke which his pals laid across my shoulders. He thrust me down into the rubbish on the tipi floor and shouted, and a girl came in.

  “This one,” growls Jacket, “is a dirty lump of white buffalo dung who is to die by inches when the One-Who-Catches has seen him. Has he come yet?”

  “No, Jacket,” says the girl. “He was in the south, where the fighting was with the Grey Fox seven days ago. Perhaps he will come soon.”

  “Until he does, this one must speak to nobody. Take the gag from his mouth now and give him such scraps as the dogs have left. If he speaks,” says he, glaring at me, “I will cut off his lips.” And he drew his knife and threw it point first into the earth beside my foot. His pals crowed, and beyond them I could see curious faces peeping through the tipi flap, come to see the interesting foreigner, no doubt.

  The girl fetched a bowl of water and a platter of corn and meat, knelt by me, and removed the gag from my burning mouth. But for two or three short intervals, it had been there for the best part of thirty-six hours, and I couldn’t have spoken if my life depended on it; I gulped the water greedily as she put the bowl to my lips, and when Jacket growled to stop she went on pouring without so much as a glance at him, until I’d sucked the last drop dry. As she spooned the food into me I took a look at her, and noted dully that she was pretty enough for an Indian, with a wide mouth and tip-tilted nose which suggested that some Frog voyageur had wintered among the Sioux fifteen years back. She was very deft and dainty in her spooning, and Jacket got quite impatient, pushing her aside before I was finished and shoving the gag back as roughly
as he knew how. He bound it in place with a rawhide strip and soaked the knot, the vicious swine, just to make sure no one could untie it.

  “Keep him that way till I come again,” says he, and kicked me two or three times before swaggering out with his pals, leaving me in a state of collapse on the scabby buffalo rug against the tipi side. The girl collected her dishes and went out, without telling me to ring if I wanted anything.

  I was in despair – and rage at my own stupidity. In my folly, I had destroyed my best chance, by pitching my tale prematurely to Jacket, offering him bribes, urging acquaintance with Crazy Horse, and so on. I couldn’t have done worse, for Jacket, either out of brotherly affection for Cleonie, or for what she’d paid him, wanted me dead and damned, and was going to make good and sure that I had no second chance of stating my case to less partial Sioux who might have been disposed to listen. I was to be kept gagged and helpless until this mysterious person whom Jacket had mentioned – who was it, the One-Who-Catches? – came to have a look at me, and then presumably I’d be toted out to be strung up and played with for the amusement of the populace, none of whom would know who I was, or care, for that matter. God, that implacable bitch Cleonie-Candy had done for me with a vengeance – she and her stinking relatives.

  I lay palpitating in the dim lodge, wondering if when next they fed me I’d get a chance to yell for help – and what good it might do if I did – and what were the chances of Terry and Gibbon’s little army arriving, and what might happen then. This camp, after all, was their target, if they could find it – but they must, for their scouts would see its smoke ten miles away, and there was bound to be a parley, for neither side could take the risk of precipitate attack. And if they parleyed … I felt my hopes rise. When had Gibbon figured to come up with the hostiles? The twenty-sixth … I forced my numb mind to calculate the days since we’d left Rosebud – this must be the twenty-fourth! If I could stay alive for forty-eight hours, and Gibbon’s column got here, and I could get my mouth open to some half-friendly ear …

  The tipi flap parted, and the girl came in again. She glanced at me, and then began pottering with some utensils in a corner. I scrambled to my feet, with that damned yoke galling my neck, and as she looked round I ducked my head in the direction of the water-pitcher and tried to look appealing. She glanced towards the flap, and then back at me; I can’t say she looked sympathetic, for her face was strained and tired and her eyes empty, but after a moment she motioned me to sit down again, filled a bowl with water, and with some difficulty slipped free the rawhide strap that held the gag. She eased it out, and I gasped and sucked at that blessed water, easing the pain of my parched lips and tongue. I wished to God I looked more presentable, for now I saw she was decidedly comely, with her boyish figure in its dark green tunic, her slim hands and ankles, and that saucy little face that seemed so woebegone; given a shave and a comb and a change of linen I could have cheered her up in no time, but seeing my eyes on her she made a little sign for silence, glancing again towards the entrance. I spoke quietly; it came out in a croaking whisper.

  “What’s your name, kind girl with the pretty face?”

  She gasped in surprise at hearing Sioux. “Walking Blanket Woman,” says she, her eyes wide.

  “Oglala?” She nodded. “You know the Chief Tashunka Witko?” Again she nodded, and I could have kissed her as my spirits soared. “Listen, quickly. I am the Washechuska Wind Breaker, friend of your chief’s uncle, Sintay Galeska of the Burned Thighs. This evil man Jacket intends to kill me, although I am a friend to your people—”

  “Washechuska, what is that?” says she. “You are an Isantanka bad man, one of our enemies—”

  “No, no! My tongue’s straight! Go to your chief, quickly—”

  “Your tongue is double!” I was startled at her fierceness, and the flash of sudden anger in her eyes. “You have done great wrong – Jacket told me! All Isantanka white men are our enemies!” And before I knew it she had stuffed the gag back into my potato trap, and was hauling the rawhide up into place, while I tried to jerk my head free. But she was strong for all her daintiness, and cursed me something fearful, with little sobs among the swear-words.

  “I was a fool to pity you!” She gave the strip a final tug and then clouted me over the ear. She knelt in front of me, her little face grim as she choked back her tears. “Seven days ago your Isanhonska Long Knives killed my brother in the Grey Fox fight! That is the kind of friends your people are! I was a fool to give you water and let you open your snake’s mouth! Why should I be sorry for you!” And, damme, she clocked me again and flounced away, clattering her pots and wiping her eyes.

  Of all the infernal luck. Womanly sympathy one minute, and the next she was battering me because her ass of a brother had got himself killed against Crook. I struggled with my yoke and scrabbled my feet in what I hoped was a coaxing, reasonable way, but she never gave me another look, and presently went out again.

  Well, that was another hope dashed – temporarily. If I was patient, her natural kindness might revive, brother or no; my powers of persuasion with the female sex are considerable, and even with my scrubby chin and dishevelled locks and tattered clobber – the remains of full evening dress, God help us, in a Sioux tipi – I knew I could charm this little looker, if she’d only listen. Ain’t it odd? Twice in as many days I’d been prevented by speechlessness from exercising my arts on unfriendly females. It never rains but it pours.

  I thought I’d get another chance when they fed me again – but they didn’t. Jacket looked in once for a kick at me, but no suggestion of dinner, and I lay there miserably as evening came, and outside the drumming and chanting began – they were holding a scalp dance for the Rosebud fight, I believe, but I was barely conscious of the din, for despite the cramping agony of my yoke, and my other aches, I fell into an uneasy doze, half-filled with horrid pictures of one-eyed women and painted faces and captives bound to burning stakes who looked uncommon like me in Hussar uniform. A Saturday night it was, too.

  It was bird-song that woke me, and sunlight through the tipi flap catching the corner of my eye, which was drowsily pleasant for a moment, until a harsh voice jarred me back to my plight. There were half a dozen Indians in the tipi, looking down at me with stony indifference; the one who was talking was Jacket, and he seemed to be exhibiting me.

  “… when the One-Who-Catches has seen him, he will go to the fire. It is the wish of my brother’s wife, and mine, and our family’s!” He spoke as though challenging contradiction, but he didn’t get any. “Whoever he says he is, he deserves to die by kakeshya. Who says he is a friend of Spotted Tail’s, anyway?”

  “Who cares?” says another, a burly ruffian with his belly hanging over his waistband and shoulders like an ox. His face was huge and ugly, but not without a humour that I was in no state to appreciate. His leggings and jacket were red, and he carried a short war-bonnet in his hand. “Do what you like with him; he’s white,” says this callous brute. “Come on! Totanka Yotanka is back from the hill; he has been ‘seeing’.” He gave a grunting laugh. “Pity he can’t ‘see’ some buffalo.”

  If I’d known then that the speaker was Gall, the Hunkpapa chief I mentioned earlier, I might have been impressed, but probably not, for there was only one of the half-dozen who claimed attention. He alone had no war-bonnet or feathers, or anything but a coloured shirt; he was young and wiry, lean-faced and lank-haired and without paint – but with those eyes he didn’t need any. For a moment I wondered if he was blind, or in a trance, for he gazed straight ahead unseeing; I doubted if he even knew where he was. His shirt was blue-sleeved and gold-collared, with a great yellow band on which was a red disc, and its sleeves and shoulders were fringed with more scalps than I’d care to count. When Jacket tapped his arm, he turned those staring blank eyes on me,72 but without any change of expression: it made my skin crawl, and I was glad when they trooped out, Jacket taking another kick at me on the way – he liked kicking me, no error.

  I got no
breakfast that morning, either. Possibly on Jacket’s instructions, possibly because she was still peeved at me, Walking Blanket Woman didn’t look near for several hours, by which time I could hear all the bustle and stir of the great camp – voices and laughter and kids yelling and a bone-flute playing and dogs barking, and the smell of kettles, and me famished. Even when she arrived she was decidedly cool and wouldn’t remove my gag; it was only by piteous eye-rolling and head-ducking that I got her to relent sufficiently to pour water over my gagged mouth, so that I could obtain some refreshment. She raised no objection when I humped my yoke over to the flap, and took a cautious peep at the outside world.

  It must have been just after noon of Sunday, June 25th, 1876. I wondered if Elspeth was in church at Philadelphia, examining the hats and pretending attentive approval of the sermon. I could have wept at the thought, and how my foolish whore-mongering had brought me to this awful pass. God, what an idiot I’d been – and that bitch Candy would be bedding one of the stokers on the Far West, no doubt. Fine subjects for Sabbath meditation, you see – but they don’t matter; what I did and saw that afternoon are what matter, and I’ll relate it as clearly and truthfully as I can.

  All was calm in that part of the village between my tipi and the river. There was a fairish crowd of Indians doing what Indians usually do – squatting and loafing, scratching and gossiping in groups, some of the bucks painting, the women cooking at the fires, the kids scampering. There was a slow general drift upstream – that, I’m told, is where Sitting Bull’s camp circle of Hunkpapa was, with the other tribal groups strung out downstream, ending with the Cheyenne at the bottom limit, out of sight to my left as I peeped towards the river. Where exactly my tipi was I’ve never quite determined; all sorts of maps have been drawn of that camp, and I believe I must have been in a lodge of the Sans Arc circle, close by the river – but Walking Blanket Woman was an Oglala, so God knows. Certainly the ford was to my right front, perhaps a hundred yards off, and above the trees I had a fair view of Medicine Tail Coulee running up into the bluffs on the far shore.