Little Big Man

by Thomas Berger

  Then I looked ahead, where some fifty riders had come into view on the northward bluffs: Indians, and nobody had to tell me they was Cheyenne. Little Gus saw them the next minute and begun to burble happily, clapping his small hands, and as I was giving him back to his Ma, they rode down upon us.

  Well, we shortly gained the crest of the slope, moving thence onto the rolling prairie, and started to run through the clear winter’s afternoon, the chill air streaming through the side curtains. I fetched out my pistol, but the range was still too great. The idiot riding guard up top, however, immediately went all to pieces and commenced to discharge his shotgun to no purpose, for the closest Indian was not within the quarter-mile, and when they finally come in near enough for the scatter-weapon, he had run out of shells.

  Now the reason for a shotgun was that except by chance no man would ever hit a target with rifle or revolver from a moving stagecoach, for not only was he being flung about but so was his target. You can get some idea of the situation by throwing a dried pea at a jumping grasshopper while you are running at top speed. The only advantage was that the Indians did not find it no easier to pick off anybody in a coach. So long as we kept rolling the day was far from lost. Our animals wasn’t fresh, but on the other hand that in itself meant the next station, where they would be changed, was within five-six mile.

  But I hadn’t reckoned on our fellow passengers. There was three, one a breezy type of drummer who had been with us since Colorado City and all along had been trying to peddle stuff to everybody else. He had a trunk strapped up top, but carried a little case on his lap and it is amazing the junk he could produce from it. Then there was a solid-built rancher of about fifty, who kept trying to get a conversation going on Chivington’s victory and “whether it really had taken care of the Indian problem.” Finally, at the last station a right mean-looking customer had got on without a word for nobody, and shoving the drummer out of the back right corner, sunk into it and shifted the butt of the big Colt’s in his waistband so that he could take it after anybody who breathed in his direction. I tell you I wouldn’t have suffered the son of a bitch to have dealt with me like that, but then he hadn’t, so I never did nothing, for I wasn’t related to the drummer.

  Now we was under attack, though, I was grateful for the presence of this mean fellow. What with that panicky guard on top and the drummer who was unarmed and that rancher, by the name of Perch, who suggested we should stop and try to buy off the Cheyenne—for it turned out he had bought some land once from the friendly Osage and believed on that basis that every Indian had his price—in view of such companions, I took a quick liking to the other man, who I am going to call Black for the color of his big mustache, because I never did find out his name. He was real cool, just set there facing forward, never even looking back at our pursuers, in fact, but his pistol butt, shiny from use, stuck up ready when it’d be needed.

  This latter appeared to be the case sooner than I had figured. We run for maybe half a mile along open prairie, keeping our distance, but then the Cheyenne ponies commenced rapidly to gain. I was facing backwards, in the front left corner of the coach, and when the leading Indian got within a hundred yards I leaned out and fired at him, for while there had been no point to wasting shell like the guard had, it was wise now that the range had shortened to let them know we was capable.

  I come nowhere near that brave, but he swerved and rode to the other side of the coach. I says to Black: “You try him now, partner.” But he responded in no fashion, just kept looking ahead real mean. And I thought, if we get out of this I’m going to see about you, boy, but there wasn’t no time for suchlike now, so I let it go, and anyway the little drummer was jerking at my sleeve.

  He says: “I got a combination gun oil and solvent right here what will take the lead fouling out’n any barrel.” He pulls a little bottle from his case of wares and tells me to go ahead, take a sample cleaning with it free of charge, and if I liked it he would make me a good price on a pint.

  You see what use my companions proved. I struck the bottle from his hand and the cork come out, with the contents spilling on Perch’s boots, where I swear it immediately ate through the end of his toe, being pure acid I reckon, and he quick had to pull off the left one and pitch it out the window.

  Well sir, what do you know but when the closest Indians come upon that boot, two of them reined in and dismounted to study it. That give me an idea, so I clumb outside, with one foot in the window, which ain’t easy when a coach is running full tilt, and hailed the fellows outside. The driver didn’t have no time to gab, and that guard put his shotgun on me as my head come level of the roof and I figure he would of blown my face off were it not he had spent his shells. He thought I was an Indian.

  It took a while and a good bit of breath to be heard above his hysterics and the rush of the wind, but finally I got my plan across to him, and he crept back to where the baggage was strapped, opened it piece by piece, and begun flinging out the clothes and such therefrom. That drummer’s trunk yielded the greatest variety: coats and suits and collars, bolts of cloth that rolled out in the wind and went sweeping back—one of them lashed across an Indian, streaming out on both sides, and he swathed the ends around him on the gallop, but then didn’t have the nerve to keep on but stopped to get out his mirror. Well, the trunk had mirrors, too, but they broke in glitters as they struck the ground and so did the bottles of hair oil, but the tin dishes didn’t, and when a Cheyenne would reach one, he’d halt and pick it up, but that ain’t nothing to the effect created when the ladies’ hats went sailing back. Them and the contents of our carpet bag which was opened next, is what ended that phase of the pursuit. When last I saw, before the coach dipped into descending ground, two Cheyenne was quarreling over Olga’s ribbon-trimmed drawers, stretched from one horse to the other, and a half-dozen of them had got into the hats, which was all trimmed with furbelows and flounces.

  Then a wheel come off the stage and we tore up two hundred yards of prairie before the animals could be halted, for that team was tired but panicky, and as soon as the driver unhitched them they run off, harnessed together.

  The driver and me had some confab as to whether we should stand where we was or hike for it. We was located on the upland above the river, for the bottom had been too soft as this point to bear a vehicle. Across the Arkansas, very shallow in winter and thinly crusted with ice, lay a stretch of sand hills where we might be able to hold out till the failure of schedule was noted and troops come out from Fort Larned, though that might take a time for nobody got worried them days when a stage was up to a day late.

  One thing sure, the Cheyenne would not be permanently distracted by them new possessions of theirs. They’d come along directly, though being we was in a shallow valley below them they would not yet have seen our accident.

  Nobody was damaged in the wreck, for the coach didn’t roll over, and maybe the slight shaking-up done some good to our little party, at least for Perch and the drummer, jostled them into reality so to speak. And Olga herself seemed less worried than when it had looked like we was getting away. Everybody piled out and I had had the talk with the driver, when I noticed that Black had not clumb from the coach, so I looked within, it leaning crazy, and there he was still in his corner, staring straight ahead out of that mean face, only his eyes was now filmed like a scummy pond. So I waved my hand in front of them without effect, and took the Colt’s off of him and got the ammunition from his pocket and searched a little for his papers but couldn’t waste much time at it and never found none.

  I reckon he had died of heart failure sometime back, whether from fright or not nobody could say, and I didn’t mention it to them others at that moment, for we was soon wading the Arkansas, getting our feet wet with chill water and no means of drying them, because at first we didn’t dare to light a fire and then, when discovered, was too busy with other matters. It was shortly after getting into the sand hills on the south shore that we saw the Cheyenne clear the rise and ride
down upon the abandoned stage, which they figured was still occupied, and circled it and whooped at it, and then they got down and pulled Black’s body out, stripped him, throwed a lariat over his head and pulled him around the prairie back of a pony until he come apart. But I reckon he was beyond caring.

  A good many of them was dressed in particles of female clothing: fancy hats, as I have said, and some corset covers, and the brave what finally won Olga’s drawers had ripped them in two and wore each leg as a sleeve. The tin plates they had punctured with knives and run red ribbons through, tying them on their animals to clatter. Some was wound in yardgoods. Not all the hair-tonic bottles had busted, for I saw certain Indians drinking from them, and asked the drummer as to the contents. Since he couldn’t sell them now, he told the truth for once: nought but colored water, and I says thank God for that.

  Then they saw our trail across the river. We had thrown a line of defense along the highest sand hill, with Olga, Gus, and the drummer, who wasn’t yellow but rather unarmed, down behind it. The driver had him a carbine and the guard luckily carried a pair of revolvers besides that useless shotgun. I give my pocket Remington to Perch and used the big Colt’s I took off Black. The Cheyenne possessed only two-three rifles, probably in bad condition. If we organized our volleys for greatest effect, at a distance beyond arrow range, the Human Beings might take discouragement from it.

  So to each of our boys I give a specific target among the leading riders as their animals crunched through the ice-rim of the stream, stepping gingerly there so as not to cut their feet, and then as they reached the free water and kicked into the gallop, we fired.

  I wasn’t familiar with my weapon, so shot too high and clipped the white end-plume off a brave’s head-feather. But with my tiny pistol and sheer luck, Perch hit a horse’s knee, likely chipping rather than breaking the bone, but it pitched its rider splashing, and in avoidance two more braves collided, and our driver splintered the bow in the hand of one and he dropped it as if hot.

  This was enough to slow that flank of the charge and disaffect the general spirit, but two Indians was out for coup, so would have come on into the mouth of a cannon. Well, our driver was reloading our only long-range weapon, the guard was firing wild after his habit, and Perch had no more luck.

  Twice I missed clean, by when the braves, keeping lateral of each other, one on a galloping pinto and one a black, splashing through the shallow Arkansas, was at a range of seventy yards and proceeding strong. I had my belly in the sand and my chin, too, and a few grains had got into my mouth and felt like little pimples under the tongue. The fellow on the paint commenced to howl his victory song, and I of course understood it and felt right strange, knowing he was in the Cheyenne frenzy and wouldn’t be stopped short of being blasted out of life.

  Forty yards, and my target had now cleared the water and was quirting his animal up our sand slope. I then missed with my last round, but the driver had got his carbine loaded now and with it hit the Cheyenne dead in the midsection, a fine, difficult shot even so close, and over the pony’s tail he went in a flutter of the flounces on the lady’s hat he wore but which I had not marked till then, tumbling almost back to the river, losing the hat, losing his song, and never got up though he was still alive at twilight when it had got so quiet we could hear his gasping breath.

  I don’t recall what become of the other: turned back, maybe, his medicine gone bad. There was two more charges before twilight and in these the whole bunch participated. There are more pleasant experiences than lying on cold sand with fifty screaming Cheyenne heading towards you. But we turned them back, wounding a few in the process, though the second time before retiring they got Perch in the shoulder with an arrow.

  As the sun fell the Indians lined the other bank, no longer yelling taunts or waving spears; they was bored with that aspect of the quarrel so far as that day went. We could expect a resumption by first light, next morning. Meanwhile they stared quietly across, and then some started fires as the light waned, for it was right cold and getting more so. Then they all wrapped themselves in blankets and ate pemmican from their rawhide parfleches.

  There we sat as darkness worked in and the wind rose, and it grew too cold to snow. Perch had got his shoulder wound and his foot was froze on account of having to discard one boot and then wade the river. I reckoned he’d lose that hoof, but at the moment he refused crude surgery, claiming the pain was equalized to a standoff by that from his shoulder. He was a tougher old bird than I had took him for.

  The driver had brung along a big canteen, so we had sufficient water at least for the night. But no grub. Nor could we make a fire with nought to burn in them barren hills of sand. However, everybody wore their heavy winter clothes, and the hollow behind our ridge was protection against the wind and so we all went down into it after the dark become impenetrable, taking turns as single sentry up top.

  I have mentioned that Olga calmed down soon as the wheel come off the stage and our situation turned critical. She continued in that wise, and bandaged Perch’s shoulder with strips off her petticoat and tried to chafe the blood back into his frozen foot. And that guard, skinny, long-nosed, nervous fellow who fired wild and in between the charges he jerked and sniffed and scratched his body like he was lousy, well, when he come into the hollow Olga went and wiped his forehead which despite the cold was welling sweat, and then he says God bless you, missus, and goes to sleep directly like a child.

  I mean to say she was a good woman and a useful one. And little Gus, when the guns popped the first time, delighting him marvelous, he wanted to fire one himself and towards that end crawled up the embankment but Olga caught him. Then he lost interest in the conflict and played by himself in the hollow, making cunning little scratches in the sand. I was right proud of them two and also concerned for them, and decided if I was to save their lives I must take a chance.

  I aimed to go for Larned, a trip of maybe forty mile, but within the next ten of it there was a stage station where, unless the Cheyenne had wiped it out, I could get me a horse. I had ought to be back with the Army by nightfall the following day. Our people could hold out that long, for sure.

  The others agreed with this, though that plucky little drummer wanted to go instead, for he claimed to be useless as a fighter, and the driver wanted the guard to go, on the same ground, but I knew I had the best experience for it and held out.

  I shook hands all around and then kissed Olga. Little Gus was sleeping in her arms, and I didn’t want to wake him up, so just pressed my lips to his chubby cheek, then pulled the wool cap closer around it though he felt warm as a glowing coal in the chill night, sturdy lad that he was.

  “You’ll be all right, my girl,” I says to Olga.

  “Ay vait here,” says she, patting the sand, and I believed her for she was right substantial, so it was in nothing like a hopeless mood that I give my weapons to the drummer and set forth through the utter dark, wading to the north shore down about a mile, then pulling on my boots and hiking it to the stage station. Where all was well, except that coming in the middle of the night like that I nearly got myself shot. There was only three fellows there, not enough to take back and drive off fifty Cheyenne and anyway one was dead drunk and the others so yellow when they heard hostiles was near, they run into a dugout in the ground and pulled sod over themselves, but I obtained a horse, nearly killed it riding to the fort, presented my story to the commanding officer, he mounted a column without too much delay, I took a fresh animal, and back we rode. Made good time, too, for the Army.

  It was an hour before sunset when we topped a swell of ground that, with borrowed field glasses, give me a view on our abandoned stagecoach. The Cheyenne was gone from around it. Nor could I see anyone across on the sand hills, but they would be lying low over there, for at our distance we could not have been distinguished by them from more Indians.

  That’s what I kept telling myself, anyway, as we trotted nearer, and then I broke for the far shore, lashing the tired cava
lry mount through the soft bottomland that had thawed in the day’s sun, and into the water, and as he floundered with exhaustion gaining the opposite bank, I leaped from him and run, hallooing, up the bluff.

  The first I come upon was the drummer. A procession of ants had already reached his eyes though he couldn’t have been dead above a few hours. Three arrows was in him, and his head naked and raw. Nearby lay the driver in a similar situation, his right hand also gone; for he was a good shot, and the Cheyenne had so acknowledged that fact.

  The guard was badly sliced, but Perch not at all, he with the bandaged shoulder and frozen foot being spoiled, so to speak, for trophy-taking, and bald besides.

  They had somehow been overrun. The driver might have got rubbed out, and then the rest of them went to pieces. I don’t know. I was fair numb as I descended into the hollow, but no Olga and no little Gus did I find there. Nor any place else in that region. The Cheyenne had carried off my family.

  CHAPTER 15 Union Pacific

  I AIN’T GOING into the details of the hopeless trailing we did next day, for after their fashion the Cheyenne broke into many little elements and there was no way of knowing which included Olga and Gus. It was just as well, for had we got close with the troops, them Indians would likely have killed my wife and child out of pure spite.

  As it stood, they might offer them for ransom sometime later on. If the Cheyenne hadn’t killed them at the Arkansas, they weren’t about to do it after they had gone to the trouble of kidnaping. I was fairly sure of that, though you can’t count on a savage to have his practical interest constantly in mind. If they got beat in some encounter with the whites, or if some brave got drunk—Well, there wasn’t any future in speculations of that type, which left me with nothing to do.

  At the time, I only thought: Them bastards have my wife and kid. I reckon I might even have held a grudge against Old Lodge Skins, were he not up on the Powder River.