by Win
“Mi, mi,” said Azul, reaching for the kaleidoscope.
Sam took it and held it against Azul’s eye. “Estupendo!”
Esperanza seized it back and looked. “Papá, I want it. Can I have it, can I? For my own”
“This one is mine. I’ll get you one.”
“I want it,” said Azul.
Sam put the boy on his lap and watched Esperanza playing with the kaleidoscope. “I want it,” he said again. At least Esperanza wouldn’t decide to use it as a hammer.
Sam breathed in and out. He was headed for Crow country, going with his daughter back to her people. Half of him was glad. Half of him thought he’d get his hide shot full of holes. He and Flat Dog had a plan, and his experience told him that plans make a lot of sense until you meet your foe.
I want a pipe.
They would make a big party going to Crow country, Campbell’s party and Fitzpatrick’s united. Stewart, the British captain, said he would tail along with Fitzpatrick. Altogether it made a fine escort for Sam, Flat Dog, and the other Crows going home.
On the Big Horn the Crows would veer away from the trappers. They would rejoin their tribe for the great autumn buffalo hunt, all the villages together. After this huge event, the village of Rides Twice, with Flat Dog and his family, would drag their travois a dozen or so sleeps back to the high mountain valley where they wintered. The people had made this summer-winter pattern since before the memories of the grandfathers of the oldest men, the Crow way of living. Esperanza walked that same road.
She saw a mountain jay light on a limb. Quickly, she put the kaleidoscope down in the dust, walked over to the jay, and chirped at it. She didn’t yet didn’t distinguish between one bird song and another. Sam rescued the kaleidoscope.
He knew intimately the places the village lived. During his first mountain winter with them in the high valley of the Wind River, he met Meadowlark. At their autumn camp he held his sun dance and saw beyond. Where they circled their lodges for summer camp, he brought Esperanza back to the tribe and, challenged, he fought and killed the chief’s son, Red Roan.
These places were in his bones. These people were his adopted people. He was a member of a warrior society, the Kit Foxes.
But this village was the one place he could not go.
When Esperanza, the family, and the rest of Rides Twice’s people left for their winter camp, Sam would probably have his pipe. But he wouldn’t have Esperanza or Tomás. And he might be dead.
33
An outfit of Crows on the trail: Eight or ten Crow families rode along the Little Big Horn River, the women sitting on their high-backed saddles, children bareback on their ponies, other ponies dragging the travois that bore the lodge cover, blankets, robes, and the rest of the families’ belongings.
Flanking the women and children were the warriors, the big-bellied grandfathers, the watchful fathers, the active young men. They were alert, for they were the guardians.
Among them were Sam Morgan and the young Peanut Head. Sam didn’t know why the devil Peanut Head didn’t take Fitzpatrick’s high wages, as others did. And Tomás did, Sam supposed. He didn’t even know what brigade his son went with. Every partisan said, “Not me.”
Peanut Head had told Sam, “I want to spend some time in a real Indian village and go on a real Indian buffalo hunt.”
“You’re acting like a pork-eater,” said Flat Dog mockingly. “Go for the money.”
“What’s a pork-eater?” said Peanut Head, proving he was one.
“The Frenchies started it,” said Sam. “Way I heard it, they had canoemen that took the supplies out to the forts every spring, and then paddled back to Montreal. Along the way they fed these paddlers gruel with some pork in it. The actual traders, the ones who stayed out in Indian country, took to calling them pork-eaters, because they didn’t live off the land.”
Peanut Head nodded. Sam wondered if he could even tell the difference between poor bull and fat cow.
“I wish Baptiste had come with us,” said Peanut Head.
“He’s taking the money,” said Flat Dog, chuckling. Actually, in the chaos of departure, they didn’t know who Baptiste went with either.
Right now Sam sat on Paladin next to Flat Dog and his paint. Sometimes Sam watched his daughter instead of the countryside. She had the superb balance that comes readily only to those who ride from the time they can toddle.
Coy trotted alongside Sam, his tongue dangling. The August afternoon was hot. Dogs looped their tails down and hung their heads. The sun pounded the energy out of man and woman, child and beast.
But the travelers were eager. Tomorrow they would join a village of their people where two creeks flowed into the river from opposite sides, a place the Crows called Lodge Grass. It would be good to see relatives and catch up on the news—this group had been gone from home for three moons. Their ponies’ hoofs tapped out, ‘Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.’
A few days ago these Crows left behind an outfit of trappers higher into the mountains. Now the fur men poked along in the same afternoon heat and on the same trail.
Here where the Little Big Horn River was still girlish, lean Tom Fitzpatrick of the ruined hand rode out in front of his men. High in the Big Horn Mountains they had stopped to do business, men riding up the river’s tributaries in pairs, setting their traps and bait sticks in the shallow water as the sun rose, retrieving drowned rodents as it set. The women of the outfit scraped the fat off the hides, stretched them on willow hoops, and lashed them into packs for the mules. That gave an initial education in the routine of a beaver outfit to the new hands, who included Captain Stewart, the veteran of Waterloo.
Then Fitz had brought his men out of the mountains to seek the Crow camp at Lodge Grass and trade.
He was all eyes and ears, and he spoke to no one as he led the way. He watched the river for anything that might be a sign of danger. Was a duck scared up? Perhaps by an enemy. Did the berry bushes thrash about? Did they even stir? Maybe a grizzly feeding. Did antelope suddenly run off? Something jumped them up. Was there movement on any sage-topped hillock or ridge? Not every Indian in Crow country was a Crow.
Yes, this river, and the Big Horn Mountains and Pryor Mountains behind them and to their left, were presumably safe, its inhabitants friends. Yes, this party was big enough to fight off most enemies. And a man who took that for granted was looking to have coyotes sing over his bones.
Behind Fitz traipsed the women and children of four of the trappers. A Shoshone wife carried an infant in the cradleboard on her back. A Ute woman kept her eye on a boy and a girl of four and six. A middle-aged Cree, mate to her French-Canadian husband for two decades, thought forward to the winter, when she would not have to travel. The fourth woman was the beautiful young Shoshone who traded away both her clothing and her virtue at rendezvous. Now she was a new bride, belonging to a young Virginian who was shy, slow of speech, and wearing a dazed smile of satisfaction.
With him at the rear were the other mountain men, a ruffian crew if ever there was one. Captain Stewart rode off to one side, avoiding the dust of the outfit. Stewart was mounted handsomely and carried a Manton rifle that was the envy of even the best hunter in the Rocky Mountains. He was remembering Europe, cities, music, the theatre—things as alien to the Rocky Mountains as elephants.
About thirty other trappers trekked along with Stewart, French-Canadians, Delawares, Mexicans, one free man of color, and about half white American backwoodsmen from the States.
Ironically, the ones with the strongest claim to civilization, aside from Stewart, were the Mexicans. Taos and Santa Fe had great churches, commerce, and priests who taught people to read and appreciate some of the finer things of life.
The backwoods of America featured no such amenities. There men grew up wild and fed themselves with the rifle as often as the plow. As mountain men, they grew even wilder. Soon the first missionaries would come to the west, take one look at the beaver hunters, and move on quickly to preaching Christ to t
he Indians. The mountain men, they would tell their mission board back in the States, were beyond redemption—more savage than even the savages.
Where a nameless creek flowed into the Little Big Horn, Fitz lifted a hand and without a word called a halt to the day’s travel. Here the four women put up their travel tipis. The men rope-corralled the horses and laid out their bedrolls. They fed on elk meat, freshly shot in these mountains. And their dreams were of the Crow women in the camp at Lodge Grass, for Crow women had a lust for beaver men unmatched in the mountains.
34
An outfit of Crows on the trail: Eight or ten Crow families rode along the Little Big Horn River, the women sitting on their high-backed saddles, children bareback on their ponies, other ponies dragging the travois that bore the lodge cover, blankets, robes, and the rest of the families’ belongings.
Flanking the women and children were the warriors, the big-bellied grandfathers, the watchful fathers, the active young men. They were alert, for they were the guardians.
Among them were Sam Morgan and the young Peanut Head. Sam didn’t know why the devil Peanut Head didn’t take Fitzpatrick’s high wages, as others did. And Tomás did, Sam supposed. He didn’t even know what brigade his son went with. Every partisan said, “Not me.”
Peanut Head had told Sam, “I want to spend some time in a real Indian village and go on a real Indian buffalo hunt.”
“You’re acting like a pork-eater,” said Flat Dog mockingly. “Go for the money.”
“What’s a pork-eater?” said Peanut Head, proving he was one.
“The Frenchies started it,” said Sam. “Way I heard it, they had canoemen that took the supplies out to the forts every spring, and then paddled back to Montreal. Along the way they fed these paddlers gruel with some pork in it. The actual traders, the ones who stayed out in Indian country, took to calling them pork-eaters, because they didn’t live off the land.”
Peanut Head nodded. Sam wondered if he could even tell the difference between poor bull and fat cow.
“I wish Baptiste had come with us,” said Peanut Head.
“He’s taking the money,” said Flat Dog, chuckling. Actually, in the chaos of departure, they didn’t know who Baptiste went with either.
Right now Sam sat on Paladin next to Flat Dog and his paint. Sometimes Sam watched his daughter instead of the countryside. She had the superb balance that comes readily only to those who ride from the time they can toddle.
Coy trotted alongside Sam, his tongue dangling. The August afternoon was hot. Dogs looped their tails down and hung their heads. The sun pounded the energy out of man and woman, child and beast.
But the travelers were eager. Tomorrow they would join a village of their people where two creeks flowed into the river from opposite sides, a place the Crows called Lodge Grass. It would be good to see relatives and catch up on the news—this group had been gone from home for three moons. Their ponies’ hoofs tapped out, ‘Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.’
A few days ago these Crows left behind an outfit of trappers higher into the mountains. Now the fur men poked along in the same afternoon heat and on the same trail.
Here where the Little Big Horn River was still girlish, lean Tom Fitzpatrick of the ruined hand rode out in front of his men. High in the Big Horn Mountains they had stopped to do business, men riding up the river’s tributaries in pairs, setting their traps and bait sticks in the shallow water as the sun rose, retrieving drowned rodents as it set. The women of the outfit scraped the fat off the hides, stretched them on willow hoops, and lashed them into packs for the mules. That gave an initial education in the routine of a beaver outfit to the new hands, who included Captain Stewart, the veteran of Waterloo.
Then Fitz had brought his men out of the mountains to seek the Crow camp at Lodge Grass and trade.
He was all eyes and ears, and he spoke to no one as he led the way. He watched the river for anything that might be a sign of danger. Was a duck scared up? Perhaps by an enemy. Did the berry bushes thrash about? Did they even stir? Maybe a grizzly feeding. Did antelope suddenly run off? Something jumped them up. Was there movement on any sage-topped hillock or ridge? Not every Indian in Crow country was a Crow.
Yes, this river, and the Big Horn Mountains and Pryor Mountains behind them and to their left, were presumably safe, its inhabitants friends. Yes, this party was big enough to fight off most enemies. And a man who took that for granted was looking to have coyotes sing over his bones.
Behind Fitz traipsed the women and children of four of the trappers. A Shoshone wife carried an infant in the cradleboard on her back. A Ute woman kept her eye on a boy and a girl of four and six. A middle-aged Cree, mate to her French-Canadian husband for two decades, thought forward to the winter, when she would not have to travel. The fourth woman was the beautiful young Shoshone who traded away both her clothing and her virtue at rendezvous. Now she was a new bride, belonging to a young Virginian who was shy, slow of speech, and wearing a dazed smile of satisfaction.
With him at the rear were the other mountain men, a ruffian crew if ever there was one. Captain Stewart rode off to one side, avoiding the dust of the outfit. Stewart was mounted handsomely and carried a Manton rifle that was the envy of even the best hunter in the Rocky Mountains. He was remembering Europe, cities, music, the theatre—things as alien to the Rocky Mountains as elephants.
About thirty other trappers trekked along with Stewart, French-Canadians, Delawares, Mexicans, one free man of color, and about half white American backwoodsmen from the States.
Ironically, the ones with the strongest claim to civilization, aside from Stewart, were the Mexicans. Taos and Santa Fe had great churches, commerce, and priests who taught people to read and appreciate some of the finer things of life.
The backwoods of America featured no such amenities. There men grew up wild and fed themselves with the rifle as often as the plow. As mountain men, they grew even wilder. Soon the first missionaries would come to the west, take one look at the beaver hunters, and move on quickly to preaching Christ to the Indians. The mountain men, they would tell their mission board back in the States, were beyond redemption—more savage than even the savages.
Where a nameless creek flowed into the Little Big Horn, Fitz lifted a hand and without a word called a halt to the day’s travel. Here the four women put up their travel tipis. The men rope-corralled the horses and laid out their bedrolls. They fed on elk meat, freshly shot in these mountains. And their dreams were of the Crow women in the camp at Lodge Grass, for Crow women had a lust for beaver men unmatched in the mountains.
35
While Sam, Flat Dog, and Bell Rock were out hunting, Tom Fitzpatrick brought his brigade to the forks of the creeks at the place called Lodge Grass. While he set up his camp, an old friend rode in with greetings, Jim Beckwourth. This husky mulatto and Fitz went back to the earliest days of the Ashley-Henry men, the great days of exploration of the mountains, making friends with tribes, and figuring out the entire business. They had ridden hundreds of hard miles together, and saved each other’s ass more than once.
Fitz was glad big Jim happened to be there. Tomorrow Fitz would ride into the village to pay his respects to the chief of the village, Plays with His Face. Beckwourth would help things go easier. The brigade leader and Plays with His Face would express their happiness at seeing each other again. They would smoke the sacred pipe. Fitzpatrick would make the villagers some gifts, tobacco, and lots of the foofuraw that so much pleased the women, bells, ribbons, vermilion, and many beads, especially those the color of a robin’s egg, called Crow blue. Then they would trade news: Perhaps the Crows had attempted a peace treaty with the Blackfeet (though it would mean nothing). Young Crow warriors had made a splendid horse raid against the Headcutters (Sioux). And on and on.
Normally, Fitzpatrick would tell Plays with His Face something else important, that he and the other leaders of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company were the true friends of the Crow people, and not those other wh
ite men, the ones who stamped AMF on their furs. Fitzpatrick and his fellow chiefs would give the Crows the best deals on merchandise, and act the part of friends in every way. But since Jim mentioned that he was now working for AFC, Fitz wouldn’t speak these words right in front of his old friend. Both he and Beckwourth had lived among the Crows from the early days, and it wouldn’t do for them to quarrel now.
All this would open the door to the trading that would occupy the rest of tomorrow and more. The Crows would want to exchange the fine work their women did—excellent moccasins, beautifully tanned buffalo robes, and the prized pelts known as Crow beaver—for blankets, knives, awls, pots, wool strouding, a few guns, a little whiskey…
Departing the next morning, he put the camp in charge of the officer who had distinguished himself against Napoleon at Waterloo. “If Crows come to camp,” said Fitz, “treat them as welcome guests.”
The Crows came to camp, and how—four or five score of them, all full of cheer. They told stories of the last year’s heroics, or fun, or silliness, to their comrades the beaver men. They laughed, they slapped backs, they did what old friends do when they meet after long absence.
While the young Crow men socialized, an older man named Bugling Elk regaled the British gentleman with stories in good, broken English. These tales were lollapaloozas. When his little niece got lost, he had been told by a bird exactly where she was, and saved her life. When the people were hungry, he had put his head to the ground and detected a herd of buffalo two sleeps away. And he fought with Head Cutters who outnumbered him five to one, whipped them soundly, and came home with four scalps.
Stewart must have enjoyed this story-telling. He did, however, follow procedure. He kept several men on guard. Bugling Elk even teased him about it—why do you act this way among friends? A routine precaution, explained Stewart.
Suddenly, rifles, pistols, war clubs, tomahawks, bows and arrows, filled every red hand. Every guard had a knife at his neck, and was obliged to surrender his flint locker. Bugling Elk’s smile, still in Stewart’s face, took on a demonic edge.