by Jake Logan
He nodded. Snow understood English. He didn’t have to tell her the story. She had her first lesson regarding prejudice among the white folks in the West. The women found two dresses in stock that she liked and that looked practical enough for her to wear. One was a blouse-and-split-skirt riding outfit, the other a long blue dress. The ladies promised to have them fitted for her in a day.
“Tomorrow evening about seven, can you come then?”
“Sure,” he said, and Snow agreed
“Use the back entrance tomorrow night. Slocum, I have seen many women naked before, but she is the most beautiful girl I can recall. She is lucky to have a protector like you to look out for her.”
“Thanks.”
They left, and the shop was reopened. Slocum went for some things Jasper needed at the larger store down the street.
A clerk on a broom, busy sweeping, quickly confronted him. “We do not allow any fucking Indians in here. Get her out of here right now.”
“Do you like living, boy?”
“Don’t threaten me.”
“Listen, wise mouth, she’s with me, and if you don’t like it, I’ll stick a gun barrel in your ass and blow the top of your head off. Now stand aside. I have business to conduct, and she stays.”
“What is happening here?” a smaller man wearing glasses asked, coming down the aisle.
“Mr. France, I told him he couldn’t bring her in, and he threatened my life.”
“Calm down, Johnny. We have a policy that no Aborigines are allowed in this store.”
“She isn’t that. Either you go back to the counter and fill my order or I’m skinning the hide off both of you.”
France swallowed. “What do you need?”
“Baking powder, salt, ten pounds of sugar, and a little peace and quiet from both of you.”
“Should I go get the marshal?” the boy asked his boss.
“It won’t be necessary. Find his items and they will leave.” The little man was near shaking at this point.
“You are damn right, and I won’t be back either.”
“I am sorry, sir, but I have to live here. If a lady customer comes in and discovers an Indian woman is in here, she won’t be back.”
“I’m sorry, too. I won’t buy my wagon supplies here either, before I leave.”
The boy came with the items, and Slocum reached in his pocket for money.
The man shook his head. “There is no charge for anything. Now, please leave before any of my customers come in and find her here.”
“Suit yourself. Come along, Snow. There are other businesses in Billings need our trade.”
Like a lady, she agreed, and heads high, they left the store.
He stopped on the porch and turned to her. “You see how they’d treat you in my world?”
“I do.”
“Good. Let’s go find a business that likes you and order what Jasper will need for us to head back.”
She agreed. They rode down the street to the next large store. He motioned for her to go with him. She slipped off her horse. “Why should I go?”
“If he don’t like Indians, I won’t trade with him.”
She giggled and shook her head. “They made you real mad.”
No sign on the door mentioned it, so he started down the aisle. A big man in back of the counter looked at them. He wore a fresh white apron and looked the size of a gorilla that Slocum had seen once in a circus back in St. Louis.
“Morning,” he said to Slocum, who nodded, and then he spoke to her in Sioux.
She shook her head, and he switched his greeting to Cheyenne. She returned his greeting.
“I think we can trade with him,” Slocum said to her.
He stuck out a huge hand. “Why’s that?”
“We got run out of a store down the street a few minutes ago, because of her.”
“Oh. Maine’s Mercantile?”
“Yes.”
“He’s a fussy old man. Me, I spent twenty years trapping up here and I knew them all. Folks don’t like Injuns can go down to Maine’s, but I’ve got better prices and I sell to anyone behaves their selves. I’m Big Jim Blazer.”
“Slocum’s my name, and I need some supplies to head the freight train back to Omaha. A barrel of flour, a barrel of oats.” His list went on and on. Blazer wrote them all down and thanked him.
“I can deliver this day after tomorrow.”
“Make it Friday. We load hides on Thursday.”
“It will be there mid-morning. Where are you located?”
“Half mile south of the ferry. You have the list and I’ll pay you then.”
“Anytime. That squaw needs anything, you tell her she’s welcome in my store.”
“Thank you, Jim Blazer,” she said.
“Oh, hell, she even speaks good English. You’re a treasure, missy. You’re a lucky man, Slocum. Ain’t many can talk the language that good. None of mine ever could.”
Slocum agreed, and with Snow carrying a sack of hard candy, they went back to the wagons. Most of the men were in town raising hell, knowing they had those stinking hides to load the next day.
When Slocum returned, several new faces were there waiting to ask him about a job. Some looked work-brittle to him; others were obvious drunks, others young boys. But from among them he hired three men who could harness a team with care and then drive them. He paid thirty and found, plus told them they were headed back to Omaha on Saturday. They were also to be back at the hide yard to help load the wagons early in the morning.
He wound up his hiring about suppertime and told the new men they could eat with the crew. At the setup, Snow brought him coffee after he filled his plate.
“Jasper laughed about the no Indian store.”
“It wasn’t funny in my book.” Slocum shook his head, but she made him smile in the end anyway.
There was plenty of slow-roasted beef or buffalo piled on his plate, plus some small new potatoes, and he smiled. He recalled eating those first small potatoes as a boy on his home place. Damn, that had been a long time ago. A long time since he’d even tried to garden.
“You found the men you needed today?”
“Yes, Omar is over there. Simon is around here—somewhere—he has a scar on his face, and Tremel is the tall one with the golden hair. They can hitch and drive teams, and that is what I need.”
She nodded, then asked, “How long to Fort Robinson?”
“A month. Why?”
“I just wondered.”
“I need to find your people before then.”
She nodded in agreement.
“Will there be people at Fort Laramie who know where your people are?”
“There might be.”
There were many hangers-on, the tame Indians that camped around the fort and lived on handouts and trading. The year before, somehow, they had learned about the massacre, even before the first army dispatch rider arrived at that outpost to wire Washington with the news about Custer’s demise. The Indians around the fort already knew what had happened and had fled, fearing reprisals against them. No one knew how they found out, but they knew about it and left, cautiously coming back only over time. After a year, the tame population in Indian Town was back to the same numbers as before the Little Big Horn.
Maybe Snow would find someone there who knew where her people had gone. He hoped they did better than that and found someone between Billings and northern Wyoming to get her safely home. Here he had this beautiful woman who filled his bed with her intent to please him and herself—and he needed to get her back to her own people. Tough deal. He already knew he’d miss her badly. So he better enjoy her body and ways while he still could.
That night in bed was even more spectacular than the one before. Their tryst reminded him of the fireworks at St. Louis the past Fourth of July,
when the sorrow of the Custer loss had about smothered the nation’s hundredth birthday. City officials had scheduled a great show and had fireworks on hand to set off on the shores of the big river. They decided, despite the nation’s deep grief, not to deprive the children of the show. The huge display of rockets sent falling stars and lit the sky in patriotic colors for an hour. In the end, it was like a good funeral oration that uplifted the hearts and spirits of all the people who watched.
Slocum felt equally enthused about Snow’s charm and exciting dedication to their lovemaking. Holding her smooth-skinned, muscular body tight to his own, he decided she was truly a star that had fallen into his arms. Damn, he loved her.
5
While they were crossing the Crow reservation, he made Snow ride in a wagon. He wanted no problem with a young Crow riding in and picking her off. Too much temptation there. Even wearing one of her new outfits, she still looked like a handsome Indian woman. The heavily loaded wagons lumbered along scented with the sour smell of the hides that caused a bitter taste in everyone’s mouth.
Whiskey became a high-priced luxury to use as mouthwash, between the men who had any to sell and those without who wanted it. The smell of the green hides permeated everything. Even begging squaws along the way, when they caught the scent, moved back farther from the road to proposition the drivers by exposing their breasts or raising their dresses to show their hairy counterparts. Even with the language difference, the passing drivers knew what the women offered. Their asses—in trade for money or whiskey.
When they camped at night, Slocum told the men he’d fire anyone who brought one of the squaws into the wagon circle. What they did out in the pines and sagebrush was their business, but none were to come inside the center.
He took Snow fishing away from the camp. They had cane poles and fresh red worms. The catgut line had a small lead weight tied on about eighteen inches above the baited iron hook on the end. The worm was cast upstream on about twenty feet of line and came downstream slowed by the weight. Trout were tempted to bite quickly, thinking the worm was free-floating from something the river had torn loose.
As their contest continued, lots of two- to four-pound trout were soon flopping on the bank. Then a big one took Snow’s hook, and Slocum had to quit fishing and catch her around the waist before she was pulled into the swift water as she fought the big fish.
“Can we catch him?’ she asked, with him holding her so she didn’t get caught in the current and swept away in her zeal to land the trout. When the fish came up out of the water fighting the hook in his jaw, she screamed.
“Oh, I want him so bad,” she cried. Her hands tightly gripped the pole, and the base of it stuck in her stomach as an anchor.
Slocum reached past her, still holding her waist with his other hand. He helped her hold the pole upright to keep the trout hooked. His hand could feel the muscled body of the large fish shaking his head “no” at her efforts.
By then, two teamsters had their shoes off and pants rolled up and were wading into the river to try to toss the fish on the bank. The trout came by, and Snow stalled him while one of the men threw him up on the bank. Others pounced on him, and she about collapsed with Slocum holding her up by her waist.
“Oh, thanks, all of you. He is huge.”
They all admired him and agreed.
“Enough fish,” Slocum said.
A little dazzled by the fight, she smiled. “The Crow have all the good land and big fish.”
“Maybe you should marry one.”
She made a bad face at him and shook her head.
Jasper, with his hands on his hips, studied the big fish when they laid him out on his fish board. “Why, little lady, you caught the fish of the year. He’s big as them salmon comes up the Columbia River by the millions every year. I never seen a trout this size before.”
The men ate him and the others in the fish fry that evening, and afterward many came by and told Snow she was the best fisherman they ever knew.
She beamed at them and shook her head. “It was only luck and you men with Slocum that saved me or he’d’ve drowned me.”
That brought a laugh or two.
That evening on the cot, Slocum swam up her stream and they had much fiery lovemaking before they finished and fell asleep with her firm butt planted against his ripcord belly.
Each day was like a page in a new book for him. Soon, the hide smell became less noticeable. Miles rolled by, and they were past the Crows and headed south to Fort Laramie. No Indians threatened them, and several oxen-powered freighters passed. He paused to discuss conditions before them with the head man and to pick up any news.
He learned the army was paying the Sioux back with bullets for the Little Big Horn, and Sitting Bull was already in Canada. It was dry across the Midwest, and many corn crops had failed in the summer heat. Leaving the higher elevation where the nights at least had been cool, Slocum knew the trek east from Laramie would be a hot one until fall slipped in place.
Over the next few days, unusually heavy rainstorms swept off the Big Horns. Creeks swelled into rivers, and the earth turned to miring mud that sucked their wagon wheels under. The animals were soon in full fatigue, so they camped at Buffalo, Wyoming, to rest and hoped for a break in the torrents of rain and hail that persisted each afternoon. Slocum bought some grain for the horses and mules to help them recover.
His men had little money left out of their Billings pay to enjoy the treats of the town, and besides, the downtown was separated by the flooding creek that bisected it. The rain pattern appeared to be locked in on the region. People coming in from the east said it was like that clear over to Deadwood. Everything was mired in mud. Slocum had been there once for a spring thaw and knew how desperate it became crossing streets on two-by-six springy boards and not falling off them into the muck.
He’d bought a large used tent for them all to eat and congregate under. The men kept the tie-down ropes tight, and it withstood some tough gusts of wind. The hail size was too small to damage it. The Dry House, they called it, grateful to have shelter, and with their fingers nearly wrinkled permanently, having a dry place was wonderful.
One of his men, Omar Cone, broke his arm handling his team in the stopover, and the town doctor reset it. Slocum hired a wiry boy of perhaps fifteen, named Erwin Lynch, to drive, and promised his mother he’d pay his stage fare back home from Fort Laramie. By then, Cone would be able to drive his own team. The freckle-faced boy was excited and quickly showed his skill when they hitched up and headed south. As a regular farm boy, this double team business was no problem for him, and he fell into the job like a grown man. They rolled south in a letup of the rain and wound their way toward Fort Laramie.
Slocum met an army lieutenant named Franklin on the road south of Buffalo, and they talked as the train passed by. He and his company of cavalry were looking for some renegades bothering settlers. The three Crow scouts eyed Snow sitting on her horse aside the passing train, but she ignored them.
“I haven’t heard of any Cheyenne in the Big Horns. I would suspect they are out on the prairie east of here gathering buffalo meat for winter. We haven’t found much sign of any. I think the ones who bothered the settlers were wanderers.”
Slocum agreed. “A month ago, Man of Pipes’s band attacked our train up by Winchester.”
Franklin nodded. “I think they were run down by the army and are being taken to the Indian Territory.”
“They were Man of Pipes’s people?”
“Yes.” Franklin swung his head at Snow. “She your captive?”
Slocum shook his head no and glanced over at Snow. No doubt, because of the noisy passing wagon train, she hadn’t heard Franklin’s words about her band being captured and moved. He thanked the man and rode over to join her.
He motioned for her to ride with him back to the front of the train. They short loped and arrived with Buste
r Johnson out front.
“What did he say?” she asked when they settled down, riding at the head of the train.
“He said he thought your band had been captured and they would be moved to the Indian Territory.”
“Man of Pipes’s people?”
“That’s what he said.”
She looked shaken by the news. “Where is this place?”
“Many miles south and east of here.”
“Does he speak the truth?”
“I can learn that at Fort Laramie.”
“What will they do at this new place?”
“Farm.”
She made a face. “My people are not farmers. They are warriors and buffalo hunters.”
“There isn’t room for them out here.”
She nodded, crestfallen. “The white chief has decided our fate?”
“Yes, be farmers or die. The Big Horn fight only quickened their process to put all Indians on reservations and make them farmers.”
“I was not there. I only heard stories from some of my band who fought there.”
“Was your man there?”
“Oh, yes. He said it was a great day for our people. The guns of the yellow legs were silenced, and they would no longer be able to fight us.”
“Did he not know they were only a small piece of the army?”
“I don’t think so. The men returning were so excited. They had stopped a large band of soldiers and silenced them.”
Slocum nodded. “We can learn the truth of this story at Laramie. But I have not heard or seen a sign of them since I kidnapped you.”
She nodded. “What is this place like where they will send us?”
“Hotter than the mountains you like.”
“There are no mountains there?”
“None.”
“Water?”
“More water, but no clear trout streams.”
She shook her head, tossing her thick braids. “Sounds like the hell in the preacher’s book.”
Slocum chuckled. “Well, you will see if it is like that when you get there, huh?”
She looked downcast.