Full dark, the companies disbursed to their respective camping areas. The night watch set, Thompson rested cross-legged by Upperdine’s fire. His father’s lush Kentucky, this stark plain, a journey between two worlds. What was before, what is now, just as sharp a contrast, he thought.
“Those men, that fell upon the Lights,” Thompson said.
Upperdine understood. “Border ruffians, from Missouri.”
“Why?”
“See the abolitionists as a threat. The large farms need labor. Slave labor.”
“Still, a severe judgment to inflict on the innocent.”
“Heard of Reverend Brown?”
“No.”
“Abolitionist, strong in his views as well. Preaches that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. Those are hard words. Hard actions on both sides.”
“They are,” Thompson said. “A harsh theology. But still you stood with these people.”
“This country tends to make equals of us all. But my sympathy is with my oath. I agreed to pilot these people and I kept my word.”
“That seems the honorable thing.”
“I don’t know about honor. That’s something for grander men than me to claim. I just kept my word.”
Night came on, and just as Thompson was about to retire to his bedroll, a sound came out of the darkness. Below, the silent river began to churn, a tumult of gurgling water and low-pitched animal mumblings.
“The river on the rise?” Thompson wondered aloud.
“No,” Upperdine answered. “Buffalo crossing.”
The commotion lasted into the night. Thompson walked to the crest of a sand hill, and peered into the murk but saw nothing except dark shadows the size of small wagons moving through frothing water that sparkled in the refracted moonlight. He returned to his bedroll and drifted off to the discordant melody of splashing hooves and sharp grunting, on and on.
The following morning, Thompson approached the bluff and looked out upon countless thousands of buffalo grazing on the far bank. The herd stretched from the water’s edge across the bottomland and up the low hills in the middle distance and over them out of sight. Animals rolled in the wallows, dust hovered above the herd like a talcum mist. Bulls pawed the earth and butted heads. A great caterwaul of lowing and snorting rose from the body and carried across the prairie. A chorus that mesmerized him: the sight and sound, the sheer numbers kept him rooted.
“Join us?” Upperdine approached from camp. “Hunting parties forming up.”
They set forth a straightforward plan. A group of riders from the larger company set out earlier that morning, crossing the ford and turning immediately southeast, away from the herd. They currently were circling back from far side of the hill opposite the ford, intent upon breaking out a small group of animals and stampeding them back across the river to the northern bank where the others waited. Thompson took Joseph with him and together with Upperdine they established position on a steep bank adjacent to the ford. “Beasts won’t be able to scale here, should be safe from trample,” Upperdine explained. Presently they noted a general commotion spreading among the near animals, and within minutes the riders crested the far ridge, scores of buffalo ahead of them, making for the river.
“Take a cow or a yearling,” Upperdine said. “Nearing the rut. A bull this time of year is strong-tasting and tough. Fighting and mating sheds all their fat.”
Joseph removed the Allen pistol from his belt. “I need rounds,” he said, holding the pistol toward Thompson. Thompson shook his head. “That will never do.” He passed his rifle to Joseph and showed him how to load and to ready. “Tight against your shoulder socket, cheek to stock. Too loose, you dislocate an arm, break a jaw.”
The first of the buffalo approached the near bank.
“Just sight down the barrel,” Thompson instructed. “We’re on high ground so aim a touch below where you want the ball to strike.”
“Below the hump, mid-shoulder,” Upperdine directed.
Thompson pointed out a young cow climbing from the shore onto the loose sand of the bank. “There.”
Joseph took aim and fired, staggering back a half-step with the kick of the discharge. Thompson saw the thump of impact in the animal’s midsection, a bit off the mark. It stumbled, and then walked on, but slowly. Thompson took the rifle and reloaded and handed it back to Joseph. “Once again, should do it.”
Joseph took the rifle and raised it, but rather than dispatch the wounded animal, he swung to a large bull lumbering up the bank and fired on it. The ball struck the bull’s foreleg, and it buckled but righted itself and turned back toward the river in a grotesque, three-legged hobble. Thompson grabbed the rifle from Joseph, again reloaded, and killed the young cow. His blood pumped in his temples, and then slowed. Joseph reached for the rifle but Thompson refused. “Meat enough,” he said.
Now he noticed the others firing as well. Dozens of men, scores of buffalo. All about, the sharp cracking of gunfire, the explosive plumes from the muskets, the acrid scent of powder, men shooting indiscriminately as quickly as they could reload. Many wounded animals moved haltingly back across the river to rejoin the larger herd. From Upperdine’s company, the prospectors and the merchant were not accomplished marksmen. The merchant fired his small-caliber belt revolver, a woefully inadequate weapon for killing buffalo, and he seemed intent on hitting as many of the creatures as he could, with little concern whether any of them actually fell. He shot at one and then turned his revolver on another. Downed animals were strewn across the ford, a low moaning, water running red, blood soaking into sand, more animals than an army could consume.
Thompson regarded Upperdine with bewilderment. Upperdine set the butt of his rifle onto the ground and gripped the barrel with two hands, rested against it. “I’ve seen it before, many times” he said. “Something about the animals brings out the blood lust in even the meekest of men.”
Thompson and Upperdine took the tongue and the hump ribs from the yearling and divided it between themselves and the Lights while the others continued sporadically shooting at the cripples. Thompson noted Joseph walking amidst the carnage, bending low to a downed buffalo, looking into its eye, poking, moving on.
That evening Thompson and Upperdine roasted the tongue and ate while listening to the wolves at the carcasses out beyond the reach of the campfire. With only five wagons, they could not form a proper corral, so they had arranged them in a semi-circle and picketed the livestock up tight to the wagons and closed the circle with scrub brush from the riverbank. It would not do to have the wolves harassing the oxen and mules. And Upperdine feared the downed bison might attract a plains grizzly in due time.
“Seems a waste, leaving all that meat,” Thompson said.
“Spoil long before we could finish it,” Upperdine said, cutting a slice from the tongue. “No time to jerk.” They sat by the fire and let it die down. Upperdine stood, stretched, and left for his wagon.
The next day, early, Upperdine led his party from the bluffs overlooking the ford of the Arkansas and rejoined the mountain route. The larger emigrant company was laying over for an additional day to graze the stock and to skin out a few of the buffalo for their hides, but Upperdine wished to push on. The season was growing late and they remained two weeks out from Bent’s Fort.
“Robes is no good this time of year, anyhows,” he’d explained when Joseph expressed disappointment at not taking a hide. “Need their full winter coats.”
Fortified by meat and by rest, they made decent time over firm trail. But the oxen began to show the wear of travel. Having lost weight, they tired sooner than during earlier stages of their journey. Two days past Chouteau’s Landing, they had to camp dry because the seasonal spring that Upperdine counted on for water had suffered from heat and drought and proved too alkaline for consumption.
The following morning as they were yoking the teams, Upperdine let drop his tow-line and walked to the rear of his wagon and rummaged through some sacks.
“A little. You have a need?”
“I do.” Upperdine found the sack he wanted and dug through the contents and brought out several strands of glass beads, a carved wooden horse, and a five-pound sack of coffee.
“For the Savages,” he added.
“What Savages?” Thompson asked, scanning the flat expanse. And suddenly before him rode a dozen or so Indians, appearing, like the first buffalo he’d seen, to have sprung full-fleshed from the prairie itself. Not there and then, there. The Welshman, Rice, pulled his fowling piece from the wagon but Upperdine motioned him to remain calm.
“What shall we do?” asked Thompson.
“Nothing. We welcome them and hope they do not decide to harass us. Show your weapons. Do not shoulder them, but let our friends know we are well armed.”
Thompson eased toward the Lights’ wagon as the Captain walked to the mounted Indians and began conversing and signing. He took up his long rifle and rested the butt plate on the ground. Both the lead Indian and Upperdine appeared serious and at times sounded strident. Arms in pantomime, language a mix of English and incoherent guttural sounds, exaggerated facial expressions. The ponies shuffled in the dirt and dust rose from their hooves. The Indians were tall to a man, light-skinned and had what Thompson thought of as European noses, sharp and prominent. They looked sturdy and well-muscled with clean-shaven faces and skin more deeply copper than red. All appeared completely at ease on horseback. Only the spokesman dismounted to confer with Upperdine. They were armed with bows and lances, knives and hatchets at their belts. Two carried muskets. He noticed a few youngsters among the band, probably no older than Joseph. They concerned him most. No scars, hot blood. He watched them closely. He also found himself hoping that Joseph had not managed to procure additional rounds for the pistol he’d refused to yield up.
After a time, Upperdine turned from the Indians and walked to his men.
“Trouble?” Pauperbaugh asked.
“It’s as I expected. They want tribute for the buffalo we’ve taken from them.”
“Nonsense,” Rice said. Upperdine ignored him.
“Thompson, I’ll take that tobacco now, if it suits you.”
“I will fetch it up.”
“And Mr. Pauperbaugh, I’ll trouble you for one bolt of that purple felt you are carrying.”
“If I must.”
“You must.” Upperdine turned to the Welshmen. “I’m afraid you don’t have much in your wagon that would appeal to them. But they trade up and down the trail, and a little currency would sit well with them.”
“I’m thinking my buckshot would sit as well,” said Rice.
“There are twelve of them, and all able to fire off four arrows to your one load. I do not believe they wish to harm us, or they would have done so. But do not doubt that they are capable of it.” Upperdine spat in the dust. “Now, gather me a few coins.”
Upperdine presented the Indians with his trinkets and the other ransom. The lead Indian placed the coins in a leather pouch hanging from his neck and fingered the calico but made no motion to gather up the goods. He stood silently, arms crossed at his chest.
“No more,” Upperdine said, crossing his arms as well.
The mounted Indians began slowly to space out their ponies in a row, facing the wagons. Thompson took a deep breath to steady his nerves and calculated his first target should a skirmish ensue. His positioning, how best to protect Hanna and Joseph. For several moments, no one spoke and no one moved. A snort from one of the ponies, a twitching tail. Then, to his left, Hanna Light climbed from her wagon, walked over to Upperdine and the Indian fixed in impasse, and placed the turquoise egg on top of the calico bolt. The Indian picked up the rock and turned it in his hand, held it up to the sun. He watched Hanna return to her wagon, and, pointing toward her, spoke with Upperdine.
“No,” Upperdine said, and re-crossed his arms, set his feet apart, a wall.
The Indian stood in place a short time longer and then put the turquoise rock into his purse with the coins and motioned to one of the young Indians to collect the tribute.
The mood between Upperdine and the Indians seemed to lighten almost instantly, with Upperdine uncrossing his arms and motioning with his hands, take, take. The lead Indian adorned himself with one of Upperdine’s bead necklaces, mounted, and led his men into the plains. The company watched until the ponies disappeared below a gradually sloping depression and up the far side, and down again. Captain Upperdine retrieved the tow-line and led his ox to the yoke. “Let’s not tarry,” he ordered.
They pushed the animals hard. They did not noon and they walked into the evening, covering eighteen miles, according to Upperdine’s calculation. When they stopped for the night, he ordered the men to pull the wagons close and directed that they sleep on the ground between the back wheels. As was becoming their habit, Thompson and Upperdine supped together. Thompson mulled the events of the day, the Indians, but more, of course, than that.
“So, she is aware?” Thompson said.
Upperdine understood his question. “I’d guess as much.”
“She observed your negotiations. She understood the stakes, and she acted.”
“Yes.”
“What does that mean?” Thompson asked.
Upperdine picked a piece of grizzle from his teeth. “I do not pretend to know.”
“Perhaps she is recovering her wits,” Thompson said. Then, after a pause, “Perhaps she never lost them to begin with.”
“Perhaps,” Upperdine said.
“Yet still she will not speak.” Thompson used a rib as a pointer. “I attempted to talk with her, and it seemed like that mania just came back down over her face, like a widow’s veil.”
“I ain’t a physician,” Upperdine said. “I got no answers.”
Thompson shook his head, questions still buzzing, and changed subjects.
“What are they like, the savages?”
“That’s like asking what’s a white man like. All sorts, like we got Irishmen and Welshmen and Englishmen. All different sorts.” They ate in silence, Upperdine chewing on his meat, and then he went on.
“Take your Cheyenne, kind of like royalty, tall and quiet and never shows you what he’s thinking. Crows, they like a good time. Seen a brave one time lift up his squaw’s skirt and just plant his corn, right out in the open. The Crows can steal a horse right out from under you and you don’t even realize it’s gone until your feet hit the ground.”
“Thieves,” Thompson said.
“But, they’re not too much for killing our kind,” Upperdine said. “Would rather keep us around to steal from. The Comanche, now that’s another story. Bandy and mean and got no use for whites. Think we’re disgusting creatures, all hairy and pale.” Upperdine laughed at his characterization.
“Who were they we met today?”
“Arapahoe.”
“They didn’t give us too much trouble.”
“Not today. But they call themselves the ‘bison path people.’ Them buffalo herds, that is their whole life out here, and I expect it makes them dead ripe nervous to see us laying waste to them.” Upperdine walked off into the night and Thompson could hear the stream of his piss, and then he returned. “Tell you this. They know how to make a living off them animals, food, shelter, clothing, everything. I once seen some winter-starved squaws drag a drowned buffalo calf from a tangle of deadfall in the river bend. I couldn’t figure what they was going to do with that beast, all swelled up and putrefied. They ate it. Raw.”
Thompson tossed the rib bone into the fire. “How do you know what to expect when they come up on you like today?”
“Don’t, and it don’t much matter. It’s a big land out here, and you ain’t likely to see the savage often, and only then when they want you to. And they won’t make theirselves known until they want something from you. Your life or a little sugar, hard to tell.” The Captain tossed a few dried chips on the embers, and spark
s danced from the flame.
“I once passed a evening with a nice enough Indian. Had a little whiskey, a pipe, I slept easy. That very same Indian and his boys come up on a Texan riding alone not two days later. They took his horse and drug the man back to their camp and slit open his stomach and let the dogs chew on his guts while the Texan watched. Just never know.”
Thompson spat into the dirt.
“That is inhuman.”
Upperdine stood.
“Careful to judge. I heard that the Texan’s kin came up on the Comanche camp when the men were out raiding. Laid waste, killed everyone in it. Mostly squaws and young ones. A few old men. One old boy skinned out a squaw’s female parts, hung them from his saddle horn.” Thompson looked up at Upperdine, dumbfounded. Upperdine started to his bedroll and then turned back.
“I know you are tore up over what happened with the Lights. Those men. But you got to face up to it. This land is wild yet. A hard place. No civilizing influence, and men forget themselves.” Upperdine left Thompson to his thoughts.
Thompson wrapped himself in his bedroll and watched as the fire went to cinder and darkness crept in around him, blinded him to the vast beyond, and centered him to his own consciousness. Sound only. His heartbeat. The soft breeze riffling the short grass, the gentle agitations that went unnoticed during the day. Coyotes sounded, and were silent. What’s to become of the Lights? Joseph, his instability and flashes of aggression so unlike the boy he knew a short month ago. Hanna, sweet, innocent, now damaged, perhaps beyond repair. Could she survive until returned to sanity, and to the states? The Indian had wanted to trade for her, of that he was certain. A man’s domain, this western territory. How to protect them, from others, from themselves?
Thompson peered into the darkness, and then, slowly, eyes adjusting to the night, he detected the outline of his foot, then the ghostly arc of the wagon canvas. He surveyed the dim world reappearing before him and thought, “This is my life. A shadow.” The long night ahead. The yawning emptiness within. He reclined onto his back and stared up into the band of stars crossing the universe.
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