by Mike Blakely
Just before I reached the entrance to the post, a boy darted across the road before me, then slid to a stop when he saw me coming. He hunkered behind a cottonwood stump, like a cat waiting for his prey. I grinned. He was dressed like a little Cheyenne boy, and he was carrying a practice bow with blunted arrows, with which Cheyenne boys learned to shoot. I figured him for no more than five or six years old.
Pretending I had not seen him, I rode on past the stump, though Major knew the boy was there, and he rolled a rattling warning from his nostrils as he cocked his head sideways at the hiding place. Suddenly, the boy jumped on top of the stump, causing Major to toss his tired head in alarm.
“Ve-ho-e!” he shouted—the Cheyenne term for “white man.” With that, he let fly one of his little blunt arrows that hit me in the cheek and drew blood. It came near putting my eye out. Before I knew it, he had popped Major in the head with another arrow, causing him to rear. Had he been less fatigued, he might have thrown me clean off. Another arrow thumped me in the head behind the ear, and another hit Major’s rump, making him kick and leap forward.
“Hena-ahne!” I shouted in Cheyenne. Enough! I wheeled Major and saw the boy standing in shock. He had not expected me to know a word of his language. He jumped from his stump and ran toward the hide lodges standing below the stone trading post, leaving his practice arrows on the field of battle.
I calmed my stock and rode on toward the stone building, rubbing my cheek and the back of my head. As I approached, I saw the familiar silhouette of William Bent walking out toward me, backlit by the flames from torches and cookfires. He carried a shotgun. He had heard the whistle from the guards below and was coming to greet the new arrival.
“Welcome,” he said, cradling the double-barrel across his forearm. “What’s your business?”
“Robes and ponies, mostly, William. It’s Orn’ry Greenwood.”
He stopped in his tracks, lowered the muzzle of the scattergun. “I might have known. Thought it was you by the cargo on your mules. But I didn’t want to offend some other whiskey peddler by calling him by your name.”
I laughed.
“Well, get down.”
As I dismounted, William shouted orders in Spanish, and men came to take my animals to feed and shelter. I knew they would be stripped of their burdens, rubbed dry, and fed, and this made me feel good. I patted Major on the rump as a Mexican trabajador led him away. I followed the gesture of William’s shotgun barrel and looked gratefully upon the flames that I knew would soon be warming me. We walked toward an opening in the stone wall—a portal that had not yet been framed for a wooden door. I paused before I followed William into the room, and turned to look at the post. The stone-walled buildings formed three sides of a square that backed up to the bluff to the north. The fourth side would remain open, facing the river valley to the south. It was a right smart trading post, and I admired William for its location and design. I turned back into the room and found a roaring fire awaiting me in a stone fireplace large enough to roast half a beef. I began shedding my outer garments as I walked toward the heat.
“What happened to your face?” William said. “Looks like you damn near jobbed your eye out.”
I touched my wound and saw blood on my fingers. I chuckled as I threw my coat and leggings on the floor, and told William of the Indian attack I had recently survived at the battle of the cottonwood stump. As he listened, his face darkened, and he stomped outside without a word when I finished the account. I regretted bringing it up now. I had thought he would find it amusing. I warmed myself by the fire for a few minutes, until William reappeared, dragging a boy by the arm. The boy was dressed like a Cheyenne child, but I saw the lighter skin and blue eyes of a half-breed now.
“Was this him?” William demanded.
I shrugged. “I can’t be sure, William. It was almost dark. There wasn’t any harm done, anyway.”
He turned and towered over the child. “I’ll ask you one more time, boy. Did you shoot that man in the face with your bow and arrows?”
The boy’s expression showed more anger than fear. He looked me right in the eye, then smiled wickedly at the wound he had made on my cheek. “Hehe-eh,” he said.
William shook the boy by the arm. “In English!”
“Yes.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Yes, sir.”
With that, William whipped off his belt and struck the boy five times across his rear end. “That’s for shooting arrows at your father’s friend.” He laid five more blows across the boy’s rump, bringing tears to his eyes. “That’s for lying to me about it down in the lodge. Now, get up to your room and go to bed!”
As the boy stormed out, I looked awkwardly at the floor.
“I’m sorry for the boy’s behavior, Mr. Greenwood,” the weary old trader said.
“No need to apologize. I thought it was funny at the time.”
“Well, I don’t think it’s funny. You have no idea what kind of mischief that boy can get into.”
“That’s little Charles?” I asked, remembering the toddler I had seen last time I visited William.
“Named after my dead brother. He’s got a ways to go before he makes a man like Charles, though.”
“Well, he’s just a boy,” I said. “You should have seen me at that age. I was a holy terror.” I noticed William scowling at the doorway through which little Charles had left. “Not that I could ever accomplish what your brother did.”
“Not many could. You and I both know that. Little Charlie is a half-breed, anyway, and I don’t see a half-breed coming to be a governor or anything like it. Folks wouldn’t have it. Guess I should have thought of that before I took myself a Cheyenne wife. I’ve brung five half-breed children into a world that’s got no use for them.”
“Where are the older children?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood.
“I took them all to Westport to put them in a proper school. I thought Charles just a little too young, so I kept him back here for another year or two. I never knew how much trouble the older ones kept him out of. Now, it’s just me and Yellow Woman, and she just lets him run afoul like the little half-breed that he is. I can’t build this place and look after him, too. He spends all his time down in the Cheyenne camp, listening to the older boys bad-mouth the white man. He’s turned into a little hellion, Mr. Greenwood.”
“Oh, he’ll outgrow it,” I said.
“I hope to God he does. It’s plain I can’t beat it out of him.”
The conversation lagged between us. The fire popped a small glowing ember out onto the hearth. I glanced at William’s face, haggard and drawn. I had seen him look this tired just once before—after the murder of his brother, Charles, the governor of the Territory of New Mexico.
“How’s trade?” I asked.
“The Indian trade has just about dried up. You’re the only trader still doin’ any good to speak of.”
“Why build this post if the trade’s dying?” I asked. “Why not turn to ranching like Kit and Lucien have done?”
“I’ve got my eye on a place I aim to ranch. That’ll come in time. For now, this place will serve as a warehouse for the annuities the government has promised the Indians. Buffalo has gotten so scarce the Cheyennes and Arapahos are starvin’ out there on the plains. Beaver Tom is gonna use this place as headquarters for his Indian agency. I’ve got to take care of my wife’s people as long as I can, Kid. I owe them that much.”
I nodded. “How about the freight business?”
“I got some pretty good government contracts to haul supplies from the states to the forts. Whatever space is left over in the wagons, I fill with my own merchandise for the stores in Santa Fe and Taos, so I do all right. If I was you, I’d worry more about myself. What do you aim to do when the Comanche trade falls through?”
The question somewhat startled me. Genius that I was, I had not admitted to myself that my commerce with the Comanches would someday come to an end. “You don’t think the Comanche trade
’s in trouble, do you?” I asked.
William must have thought I was an idiot. “In trouble? Hell, it’s doomed, Kid. You’d better start thinking about securing your own place to do a little farming and ranching when the Comanches are all killed by cholera and smallpox and bullets, or herded onto some sorry reservation. If I was you, I’d roll those whiskey barrels into the river and do what Kit and Lucien did. I’d herd some sheep to California and make enough to buy myself a spread.”
“I promised Burnt Belly I’d bring the whiskey to the Crossing on the Canadian before the next moon.”
“Don’t you want to see California? I hear it’s quite a place.”
“I’ve got a Comanche wife waiting for me.”
“Then quit her before you sire some half-breed son. What kind of a life do you think a child like that will have? Don’t you understand what’s happening?”
“I understand more than you think,” I said. “That’s why I like the Comanche trade.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I don’t understand it. Herding sheep to California—that’s simple. Maybe it’s a long hard trail, but it’s still a simple business. That would bore the tar out of me, William. Just like every other business I know of. It’s all too easy. You buy low and sell high. You cut costs, increase profits. Too easy. I wouldn’t last a week. But the Comanche trade …” I shook my head at the elusiveness of it all. “I have no idea which way it will turn from one second to the next.”
“More than likely it will involve the loss of your scalp. I can get you a piece of the Vigil–St. Vrain Land Grant, Kid. Enough to run a hundred head of cattle and some sheep to boot. I can get it for you and you can pay it off as you go.”
I stared at the bare floor of the empty room. This was a prospect to ponder. I tried to envision myself farming and ranching in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristos—roping yearlings, digging irrigation ditches, following a plow, building corrals. I could see myself doing it, all right, but not here. Beautiful though this place might be—where the mountains cast the rivers out onto the plains—my soul yearned for different soil. It was the Crossing on the Canadian River that longed to nourish me in life and cradle me in death. A magical valley in the midst of the vast plains where springs issued sparkles of water and stalks of grass reached skyward in legions innumerable. Where timber twined along the rivulets and game flocked as if mesmerized. Where bluffs and breaks ducked the hard winter winds, and shady trees softened the summer glare.
“I’ve got my eye on another place,” I admitted.
“Good for you. Where ’bouts?”
“The Crossing on the Canadian.”
William did not scoff, as I had expected. Instead, he considered the prospect realistically. “Well,” he said at last, “first there’s the Comanche problem.”
“That’s not a problem to me. I’m one of them now. I speak their language. I’m beginning to understand their customs. I’m making my own bow and arrows. As long as it’s Comanche soil, the Crossing is as good as mine, anyway.”
“It won’t be Comanche soil forever.”
“Maybe the government will make it a reservation for them.” William shook his head. “That won’t happen. The Crossing belongs to the state of Texas, not the federal government. The Texans hate the Comanches. They’ll kill every one or drive them clean out of the state. Even if they do set up some kind of state reservation, it won’t be on a piece of choice bottom land like the Crossing. When the Comanches are pushed off of it, you’ll have to buy it from the state. You can’t homestead it like federal land. Texas got to keep its own public land as part of the annexation agreement in forty-five. The only way to get it is to purchase it.”
“Then I’d better start saving my money,” I said.
“I’d tell you to buy it now, except that I know it hasn’t been surveyed yet. You’ll have to wait, but you’re in a good position to get it, if you’ve got the money saved up when the Comanches are pushed off. As soon as it’s surveyed, you ride to Austin and buy it. You’re one of the few white men that even knows that place exists, Mr. Greenwood, and I’d just as soon see you own it as anybody. It may take five years or twenty to solve the Comanche problem, but you’d best be ready when the time comes, if you want it.”
“I do,” I said. I wasn’t sure I wanted it that way, but some things were beyond my control. Talking with William Bent always seemed to help me find direction in my wanderings. I would possess the Crossing as a Comanche as long as I could—and help them hold it through all the diplomacy I could muster—as William had helped the Cheyennes hold on to the Arkansas Valley around Big Timbers for decades. But when the Comanches lost their hold on the Canadian, I would be prepared to buy the Crossing where the ruins of old Fort Adobe now languished. There, I would forever welcome visitations by any of my Comanche friends who might have survived the onslaught of the white man, but I had to wonder if any of them would survive at all.
Anyway, I was thinking way too far ahead. Right now my net worth consisted of a herd of Indian ponies, eight barrels of whiskey, and a few personal effects. I was a long way from becoming a land baron.
“If it doesn’t work out,” William said, “I can still get you a piece of the Vigil–St. Vrain Land Grant. Me and Charles both had an interest in it, and I know Charles would approve of your taking some of his.”
I nodded my gratitude. I might get scalped out there on the plains, but I would not die of starvation among my friends.
I STAYED WITH William for two days, helping him hang the heavy wooden doors his men had built for the many rooms that faced in toward the trading post’s courtyard. I was ready to get back to the Comanches with the whiskey, but knew I should rest my stock for a couple of days. Besides, I liked building things with my hands, and I felt good about spending the time with William.
On the third morning, I woke up early and donned my Indian attire—moccasins, leggings, and buckskin shirt. I parted my hair in the middle, Comanche style, and braided both sides. I stuck an eagle feather in the hair pulled tight at the back of my head, and wrapped a warm blanket about my shoulders. I packed my mules with help from the Mexican workers, and made ready to leave.
“I’ll follow tomorrow with the trade wagons,” William said. “I need to get away from here for a while.”
“I’ll tell the Comanches you’re coming. They’ll be honored.”
“Mind what Kit and John Hatcher taught you.”
“I’ll be careful. I’ll make cold camps all the way to the Canadian.”
We shook hands and I rode, trailing my mules. As I passed through the Cheyenne village, I happened to see little Charlie Bent running among the tipis ahead of me, his bow in hand. I began to fear a re-creation of his sneak attack of three days before. But when I came near to his hiding place behind a deer hide that was stretched upright on a platform, I caught his eye, and saw no arrow aiming my way. I attributed this at first to the thrashing his father had given him for the last attack. Then it dawned on me that perhaps he was letting me pass unmolested now because I wore the dress of an Indian.
“I’ll see you again, Charlie,” I said, stopping Major to speak with the boy.
He did not reply.
“Stavasevo-matse,” I said, repeating the farewell in Cheyenne.
“Stavasevo-matse.” The boy stepped out from behind the deerskin.
“Mind your mother and father.”
His boyish face looked far too serious. His reply came in Cheyenne: “I mind my mother.” Then he ran away.
Seven
After ten days of hard travel, I neared the Crossing on the Canadian River. The only humans I had seen during the trip were the members of a distant party of mounted Indians, whom I avoided. I had spent my nights in camp those ten days fastening iron arrow points and split turkey feathers onto my dogwood shafts with sinew stripped from the backstrap of a deer I had killed on the Arkansas. Now my bow and arrows were finished, and I looked forward to showing them to Burnt Belly for his app
roval, for I had given them a final straightening with the grooved rock the old shaman had loaned to me.
As I approached the canyon rim that would overlook the Comanche village, I arranged the bow and new arrows in the quiver slung across my back. Major knew we were close to home, and stepped lively as we approached the Canadian breaks. I made him stop at the rim, so I could take in the view and judge the attitude of things in camp.
I looked for my own lodge first, and saw it standing where it had been when I left, two moons ago. The pole had fallen off one of the wind flaps, and I wondered why Hidden Water hadn’t put it back. I was sure she hadn’t done much housekeeping since I had been gone. Still, thoughts of my reunion with her had begun to stir within, and I looked forward to this night in our lodge.
Scanning the area downstream, I noticed that the Nokonis had vanished. This did not surprise me. They had come this far north to hunt buffalo and trade with the Quahadis, but I knew they would be anxious to get back to their warmer ranges away down toward the Texas settlements.
I lingered on the rim for another minute or two, looking over the beautiful Canadian River Valley that widened here at the Crossing. Again, I felt overwhelmed by a sense of belonging. This place was home—a rich basin that collected water, sunshine, and fertile silt from past floods and converted them into graze for buffalo, browse for deer, and multitudinous varieties of seeds and fruits that fed still more species of animals. Here prairies intermingled with wooded draws, creating the edges of timber that provided habitat for thousands of wild turkeys. Here the beaver dams collected running water into pools that drew flocks of migrating ducks, geese, swans, cranes, and even pelicans. Fish darted in the streams, ranging from flashy perch no larger than a child’s hand to lumbering catfish the size of a grown man’s leg. Here, a man with wits and ammunition, or even a wooden club and a set of snares, could eat year-round.