And I did. She was a smart girl, and since I was sleeping out most of the time, it was the simplest thing for her to slip over the tailboard in the small hours, creep into my little tent, and roger the middle watch away. We were very discreet – not more than twice a week, which was just as well, for she was an exhausting creature, probably because I was more than a mite infatuated with her. The plague was, it all had to be in the dark, and I do like to see the materials when I’m working; she had a skin like velvet, and poonts as firm as footballs with which she would play the most astonishing tricks; it was a deuced shame that we couldn’t risk a light.
But her most endearing trait was that while we performed, she would sing – in the softest of whispers, of course, with her mouth to my ear as we surged up and down. This was a new one to me, I’ll own: Lola and her hairbrush, Mrs Mandeville and her spurs, Ranavalona swinging uppercuts and right crosses – I’d experienced a variety of bizarre behaviour from females in the throes of passion. (My darling Elspeth, now, gossiped incessantly.) With Cleonie, it was singing; a lullaby to begin with, perhaps, followed by a waltz, and the “Marche Lorraine”, and finishing with the “Marseillaise” – or, if she was feeling mischievous, “Swanee River”.20 Thank God she didn’t know any Irish jigs.
She was an excellent conversationalist, by the way, and I learned things (in whispers) which explained a good deal. One was that the whores were by no means in mortal dread of Susie, who had never caned one of ’em in her life, for all her stern talk. (The one who’d been sold down-river had been a habitual thief.) Indeed, they held her in deep respect and affection, and I gathered that being bought for her bordello was a matter of close competition among the Orleans fancies, and about as difficult as getting into the Household Brigade. No, the one they were in terror of, apparently, was – me. “You look so fierce and stern,” Cleonie told me, “and talk so … so shortly to the other girls. Aphrodite says you used her most brutally. Me, I said, mais naturellement, how else would Master use an animal? – with females of refinement, I told her, he is of an exquisite gentleness and tender passion.” She sighed contentedly. “Ah, but they are jealous of me, those others – and yet they cannot hear enough about you. What? But of course I tell them! What would you? Scholars talk about books, bankers about money, soldiers about war – what else should our profession talk about?”
Never thought of that; still, even if she was delivering a series of lectures on Flashy et Ars Amatoria to her colleagues, I can say that I had an enchanting affair with Cleonie, grew extremely fond of her, and place her about seventh or eighth in my list of eligible females – which ain’t bad, out of several hundreds.
But it wasn’t all recreation along the Arkansas that year. I beguiled the long hours of trekking with Wootton, whose lore included a fair fluency in the Sioux language, and the Mexican savaneros21 who had charge of our mules, and naturally spoke Spanish. As I’ve already said, I’m a good linguist – Burton, who was no slouch himself, said that I could dip a toe in a language and walk away soaked – and since I had some Spanish already, I got pretty fluent. But Siouxan, although it’s a lovely, liquid language, is best learned from a native Indian, and Wootton taught me only a little. Thank heaven for the gift of tongues, for a few words can mean the difference between life and death – especially out West.
Of course, things were going far too well to last. Aside from our first alarming meeting with the Brulés, and the night scare with the Pawnees – which I slept through – we’d had nothing worse than broken axles by the time we got to Fort Mann, the new military post which lay in the middle of nowhere on the Arkansas, about half-way to Santa Fe by the shortest route. That was where the trouble started.
For the past week we had become aware of increasing numbers of Indians along our line of march. There had been, as Wootton predicted, villages of Cheyenne and Arapaho near the Great Bend, but they’d mostly been on the southern bank, and we had kept clear of them, although they were reputedly friendly. We would see parties of them on the skyline, and once we met a whole tribe on the move, heading south across our line of march. We halted to let them go by, a huge disorderly company, the men on horses, the women trudging along, all their gear dragged on the travois poles which churned up the dust in a choking cloud, a herd of mangy ponies behind being urged on by half-naked boys, and cur dogs yapping on the flanks. They were a poor, ugly-looking lot, and their rank stench carried a good half-mile.
There were more camped about Fort Mann, and Wootton went out to talk to them when we laagered. He came back looking grim, and took me aside; it seemed that the party he’d talked to were Cheyenne from a great camp some miles beyond the river; there was a terrible sickness among them, and they had come to the fort for help. But there was no doctor at the fort, and in despair they had asked Wootton, whom they knew, for assistance.
“We can’t do anything,” says I. “What, doctor a lot of sick Indians? We’ve nothing but jallup and sulphur, and it’d be poor business wasting it on a pack of savages. Anyway, God knows what foul infection they’ve got – it might be plague!”
“’Pears it’s a big gripe in their innards,” says he. “No festerin’ sores, nuthin’ thataway. But thar keelin’ over in windrows, the chief say. En he reckons we got med’cine men in our train who cud—”
“Who, in God’s name? Not our party of invalids? Christ, they couldn’t cure a chilblain – they can’t even look after themselves! They’ve been wheezing and hawking all the way from Council Grove!”
“Cheyenne don’t know that – but they see th’ gear en implements on the coaches. See them coons doctorin’ tharselves with them squirt-machines. They want ’em doctor thar people, too.”
“Well, tell ’em we can’t, dammit! We’ve got to get on; we can’t afford to mess with sick Indians!”
He gave me the full stare of those blue eyes. “Cap’n – we cain’t ’fford not to. See, hyar’s the way on’t. Cheyenne ’bout the only real friendlies on these yar Plains – ’thout them, ifn they die or go ’way, we get bad Injun trouble. That the best side on’t. At wust – we give ’em the go-by, they don’t fergit. Could be we even hev ’em ki-yickin’ roun’ our waggons wi’ paint on – en thar’s three thousand on ’em ’cross the river, en Osage an’ ’Rapaho ter boot. That a pow’ful heap o’ Injun, cap’n.”
“But we can’t help them! We’re not doctors, man!”
“They kin see us tryin’,” says he.
There was no arguing with him, and I’d have been a fool to try; he knew Indians and I didn’t. But I was adamant against going down to their camp, which would be reeking with their bloody germs – let them bring one of their sick to the far bank of the river, and if it would placate them for one of our invalids to look at him, or put up a prayer, or spray him with carbolic, or dance in cirles round him, so be it. But I told him to impress on them that we were not doctors, and could promise no cure.
“They best hyar it f’m you,” says he. “You big chief, wagon-captain.” And he was in dead earnest, too.
So now you see Big Chief Wagon-Captain, standing before a party of assorted nomads, palavering away with a few halting Sioux phrases, but Wootton translating most of the time, while I nodded, stern but compassionate. And I wasn’t acting, either; one look at this collection and I took Wootton’s point. They were the first Cheyenne I’d ever seen close to, and if the Brulé Sioux had been alarming, these would have put the fear of God up Wellington. On average, they were the biggest Indians I ever saw, as big as I am – great massive-shouldered brutes with long braided hair and faces like Roman senators, and even in their distress, proud as grandees. We went with them to the river bank, taking the Major commanding the fort in tow, and the most active and intelligent of our invalids – he was a hobbling idiot, but all for it; let him at the suffering heathen, and if it was asthma or bronchitis (which it plainly wasn’t) he’d have them skipping like goats in no time. Then we waited, and presently a travois was dragged up on the far bank, and Wootton and I and
the invalid, with the Cheyenne guiding the way, crossed the ford and mud-flats, and the invalid took a look at the young Indian who was lying twitching on the travois, feebly clutching at his midriff. Then he raised a scared face to me.
“I don’t know,” says he. “It looks as though he has food poisoning, but I fear … they had an epidemic back East, you know. Perhaps it’s … cholera.”
That was enough for me. I ordered the whole party back to our side of the river and told Wootton that right, reason or none, we weren’t meddling any further.
“Tell them it’s a sickness we know, but we can’t cure it. Tell them it’s … oh, Christ, tell ’em it’s from the Great Spirit or something! Tell them to get every well person away from their camp – that there’s nothing they can do. Tell ’em to go south, and to boil their water, and … and, I don’t know, Uncle Dick. There’s nothing we can do for them – except get as far away from them as we can.”
He told them, while I racked my brain for a suitable gesture. They heard him in silence, those half-dozen Cheyenne elders, their faces like stone, and then they looked at me, and I did my best to look full of manly sympathy, while I was thinking, Jesus, don’t let it spread to us, for I’d seen it in India, and I knew what it could do. And we had no doctors, and no medicines.
“I told ’em our hearts are on the ground,” says Wootton.
“Good for you,” says I, and then I faced them and spread my arms wide, palms up, and the only thing I could think of was “For what we are about to receive may the Lord make us truly thankful, for Christ’s sake, amen.” Well, their tribe was dying, so what the hell was there to say?22
It seemed to be the right thing. Their chief, a splendid old file with silver dollars in his braids, and a war-bonnet of feathers trailing to his heels, raised his head to me; he had a chin and nose like the prow of a cruiser, and furrows in his cheeks you could have planted crops in. Two great tears rolled down his cheeks, and then he lifted a hand in salute and turned away in silence, and the others with him. I heaved a great sigh of relief, and Wootton scratched his head and said:
“They satisfied, I rackon. We done the best thing.”
We hadn’t. Two days later, as we were rolling up to the crossing at Chouteau’s Island, four people in the caravan came down with cholera. Two of them were young men in the Pittsburgh Pirates company; a third was a woman among the emigrant families. The fourth was Wootton.
Chapter 6
I’m well aware that, as the poet says, every man’s death diminishes us; I would add only that some diminish us a damned sight more than others, and they’re usually the fellows we took for granted, without ever realising how desperately we depended on them. One moment they’re about, as merry as grigs, and all’s as well as could be, and the next they’ve rolled over and started drumming their heels. And it hits you like a thunderbolt: this ain’t any ordinary misfortune, it’s utter catastrophe. That’s when you learn the true meaning of grief – not for the dear departed, but for yourself.
Wootton didn’t actually depart, thank heaven, but I’ve never seen a human being so close to the edge. He hovered for three days, by which time he was wasted as a corpse, and as I gazed down at him shivering in his buffalo robe after he’d vomited out his innards for the twentieth time, it seemed he might as well have gone over, for all the use he would be to us. The spark was flickering so low that we didn’t dare even move him, and it would plainly be weeks before he could sit a pony, assuming he didn’t pop off in the meantime. And we daren’t wait; already we had barely enough grub to take us to Bent’s, or the big cache on the Cimarron; there wasn’t a sign of another caravan coming up behind, and to crown all, the game had vanished from the prairie, as it does, unaccountably, from time to time. We hadn’t seen a buffalo since Fort Mann.
But grub wasn’t the half of our misfortunes; the stark truth was that without Wootton we were lost souls, and the dread sank into me as I realised it.
Without him, we didn’t have a brain; we were lacking something even more vital than rations or ammunition: knowledge. Twice, for example, we might have had Indian mischief but for him; his presence had been enough to make the Brulés let us alone, and his wisdom had placated the Cheyenne when I might have turned ’em hostile. Without Wootton, we couldn’t even talk properly to Indians, for Grattan’s guards and the teamsters, who’d looked so useful back at Westport, were just gun-toters and mule-skinning louts with no more real understanding of the Plains than I had; Grattan himself had made the trip before, but under orders, not giving ’em, and with seasoned guides showing the way. Half a dozen times, when grazing had been bad, Wootton had known where to find it; without him, our beasts could perish because we wouldn’t know there was good grass just over the next hill. If we hit a two-day dust-storm and lost the trail; if we missed the springs on the south road; if we lost time in torrential rain; if hostiles crossed our path – Wootton could have found the trail again, wouldn’t have missed the springs, would have known where there was a cache, or the likelihood of game, would have sniffed the hostiles two days ahead and either avoided them or known how to manage them. There wasn’t a man in the caravan, now, who could do any of these things.
He had lucid moments, on the third day, though he was still in shocking pain and entirely feeble. He would hole up where he was, he whispered, but we must push on, and if he got better he would make after us. I told him the other sick would stay with him – for one thing, we daren’t risk infection by carrying them with us – and the stricken woman’s husband and brothers would take care of them. We would leave a wagon and beasts and sufficient food. I don’t know if he understood; he had only one thing in his mind, and croaked it out painfully, his skin waxen and his eyes like piss-holes in the snow.
“Make fer Bent’s … week, ten days mebbe. Don’t … take … Cimarron road … lose trail … You make Bent’s. St Vrain … see you … pretty good. ’Member … not Cimarron. Poor bull23 … thataways …” He closed his eyes for several minutes, and then looked at me again. “You git … train … through. You … wagon-cap’n …”
Then he lost consciousness, and began to babble – none of it more nonsensical than the last three words he’d said while fully conscious. Wagon-captain! And it was no consolation at all to look about me at our pathetic rabble of greenhorns and realise that there wasn’t another man as fit for the job. So I gave the order to yoke up and break out, and within the hour we were creaking on up the trail, and as I looked back at the great desolation behind us, and the tiny figures beside the sick wagon by the river’s edge, I felt such a chill loneliness and helplessness as I’ve seldom felt in my life.
Now you’ll understand that these were not emotions shared by my companions. None of them had seen as much of Wootton as I had, or appreciated how vitally we relied on him; Grattan probably knew how great a loss he was, but to the rest I had always been the wagon-captain, and they trusted me to see them through. That’s one of the disadvantages of being big and bluff and full of swagger – folk tend to believe you’re as good a man as you look. Mind you, I’ve been trading on it all my life, with some success, so I can’t complain, but there’s no denying that it can be an embarrassment sometimes, when you’re expected to live up to your appearance.
So there was nothing for it now but to play the commander to the hilt, and it was all the easier because most of them were in a great sweat to get on – the farther they could leave the cholera behind them, the better they’d like it. And it was simple enough so long as all went well; I had taken a good inventory of our supplies during the three days of waiting to see whether Wootton would live or die, and reckoned that by going to three-quarter rations we should make Bent’s Fort with a little to spare. By the map it couldn’t be much over 120 miles, and we couldn’t go adrift so long as we kept to the river … provided nothing unforeseen happened – such as the grazing disappearing, or a serious change in the weather, or further cases of cholera, or distemper among the animals. Or Indians.
Fo
r two days it went smooth as silk – indeed, we made better than the usual dozen to fifteen miles a day, partly because it never rained and the going was easy, partly because I pushed them on for all I was worth. I was never out of the saddle, from one end of the train to the other, badgering them to keep up, seeing to the welfare of the beasts, bullyragging the guards to keep their positions on the flanks – and all the time with my guts churning as I watched the skyline, dreading the sight of mounted figures, or the tiny dust-cloud far across the plain that would herald approaching enemies. Even at night I was on the prowl, in nervous terror as I stalked round the wagons – and keeping mighty close to them, you may be sure – before returning to my tent to rattle my fears away with Cleonie. She earned her com, no error – for there’s nothing like it for distracting the attention from other cares, you know; I even had a romp with Susie, for my comfort more than hers.
Aye, it went too well, for the rest of the train never noticed the difference of Wootton’s absence, and since it had been an easy passage from Council Grove, they never understood what a parlous state we would be in if anything untoward arose now. The only thing they had to grumble at was the shorter commons, and when we came to the Upper Crossing on the third day, the damfools were so drugged with their false sense of security that they made my reduction in rations an excuse for changing course. As though having to make do with an ounce or two less of corn and meat each day mattered a curse against the safety of the entire expedition. Yet that is what happened; on the fourth morning I was confronted by a deputation of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Their spokesman was a brash young card in a cutaway coat with his thumbs hooked in his galluses.
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