Powder River

by S. K. Salzer

  Lorna threw off the blanket, revealing her angry face and white-blond hair. “Me and Cal ain’t Indians, mister,” she said.

  Canton’s mouth dropped open. “Damn me, it’s the Dixon twins. What are you doing out here with this Indian? Where’s your father?”

  “My name is Billy Sun.” He spoke in a calm, measured voice. “The doctor asked me to take his children to Buffalo. He has gone to the Crow village because there is sickness. I am doing as he asked.”

  “Bill Sun?” Canton said. “Nelson Story’s man? Yes, I’ve heard of you; they say you got a gift for busting horses. I heard about that bunch from Red Wall country couple years back. First-rate cow ponies, the lot.”

  Billy leaned forward to stroke Sugarfoot’s neck. He called him that because of his sweet gait and disposition. “This buckskin was one of those. He can run all day, chase down a fast calf, and hold a nine-hundred-pound steer.”

  The tall man gave a short laugh. “He sure don’t look like much.” His eyes were dark and not friendly. They looked older than the rest of him. “Hell, he won’t stand twelve hands. Hard to believe a pony that small could hold a nine-hundred-pound steer.” He spat on the ground, a tobacco-brown glob that just missed Sugarfoot’s hoof. “But supposin’ he could do those things, what’s a Injun need with a pony like that anyhow? You think you’re a cowboy, chief?” His eyes moved to the string of bear claws Billy wore around his neck.

  “Shut up, Tom,” Canton said. He smiled at Billy, shaking his head. “Don’t mind him, he’s been working down in Arizona Territory, where they put no premium on manners. So, there’s sickness in the Crow village? What kind of sickness?”

  “He’s gone to find out. If he’s not back in three days, I’m supposed to ride to Fort McKinney for the surgeon.”

  Canton smoothed his mustache with his thumb and forefinger. “Tell you what, Bill—you don’t mind if I call you Bill, do you? Doesn’t seem right to call a grown man Billy.”

  “I don’t care what you call me.”

  Canton smiled. “So, how about this? Me and Tom, we’ll take these two back to Buffalo. You can turn around, go back, and help Dr. Dixon with your people. Wouldn’t you rather do that? Take care of your Indian people?”

  Before Billy could answer, Lorna kicked the mule forward till he stood even with Sugarfoot. “No,” she said. “Pa told Billy to take us. I heard him.” She turned to Billy. “I don’t want to go with them—especially him.” She pointed to Tom, who tipped his hat with a grin.

  “Now who ain’t got good manners?” he said.

  “No, she’s right,” Billy said. “I told the doctor I’d take his children to Buffalo, and I will.”

  Canton shrugged. “Suit yourself. I thought you’d want to be with your own kind, but maybe that don’t matter to you.”

  “Me and Cal, we’re Billy’s people, too,” Lorna said. “Ain’t that so, Cal?”

  Cal nodded. “That’s so.”

  “And if Billy wants to work as a cowboy, he can. There’s nothing wrong in it.” She looked directly at Tom as she said this. “Ain’t that so, Cal?”

  “Yes, that’s so.”

  Tom laughed. “That’s so, that’s so . . . you always say what she tells you, Cal?”

  “Leave them alone,” Canton said. “They’re children.”

  “The boy is.” Tom winked at Lorna. “Her, I’m not so sure about. How about it? You just a child, darlin’?”

  “Shut up.” Canton said. “All right, Bill, you go on ahead to Buffalo. I’ll stop by your place tomorrow or the next day, make sure you and these young people make it all right.”

  “We’ll make it,” Billy said. “Don’t trouble yourself.”

  “Oh, I think I will.” Canton took up the reins that had gone slack in his gloved hands. “There’s a low element about in these parts. Just yesterday a couple horse thieves made off with one of Lord Faucett’s riding horses, the one Lady Odalie likes to ride, and we can’t have that. No, sir. Lady Odalie, she is something special; she’s got to be happy. Anyhow, I got a pretty good idea where that horse is. In fact, that’s where me and Tom were headed when we run into you. You keep a sharp eye out, now Bill. Trash like that, there’s no telling what they’ll do.”

  Canton and Tom kicked their horses and were already past them when Lorna said, “And what’ll you do if you find them, Sheriff? Necktie party?”

  The two men reined in and turned in their saddles.

  “Frank, ain’t she just the sassiest little thing?” Tom said. “Sassy as she can be. Why, if I was your daddy, darlin’, I would put you right across my knee and—”

  Canton interrupted. “Why, I’ll bring them to justice, Miss Lorna, unless they give me some reason to do different. But I wonder . . .” he paused, a smile on his lips but not in his eyes, “what does a young lady like you know of such things?”

  Lorna’s eyes cut to Billy, who shook his head.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, dropping her eyes. “I didn’t mean nothing by it.”

  “I will accept your apology, Miss Dixon,” Canton said, “but be careful. A young lady could get herself in trouble, running her mouth like that.”

  The two men rode on, Tom’s laughter trailing behind them.

  Dixon

  He followed a narrow, winding path through a dark forest of pine, balsam, and hemlock. Years had passed since he last visited the Crow village, but Dixon recognized the trail. Nothing had changed. As Alice picked her way along the rocky path, Dixon remembered a summer day, long ago, when the Indians rode down the mountain with a friendship offering for the soldier fort. They brought painted bags full of sweet red berries, under a layer of damp cottonwood leaves to keep them cool and juicy. The men were handsome, with long, shining hair brushed up in showy pompadours, and the women confident and strong in their modest deerskin dresses. The government had treated these people shabbily, and his friend, Nelson Story, was complicit in this. Dixon should have called him out back in seventy-six when he first began to suspect Story was cheating the Crows on their rations. His clerks were counting the same bags of flour twice, filling meat barrels with viscera instead of edible pork, passing off underfed calves as mature cattle. Dixon discovered the truth of these allegations and, to his everlasting shame, did nothing. Eventually the army got wind of the fraud, but it did not bring charges or relieve Story of his contract. Dixon had no doubt money changed hands. Nelson Story always seemed to have plenty of that.

  As Dixon continued up the mountainside, the trees thinned out and stars appeared in the ebony sky. Again he thought of years gone by, of magical nights when the fort’s regimental band performed under the undulating Northern Lights. Rose was the wife of another man then, Mark Reynolds, an ambitious officer who put all things, even his marriage, second to his career. On those evenings, Dixon had watched her secretly, hungrily, hoping to catch her eye. They were dangerous times, and not only because of Red Cloud’s Sioux warriors. Dixon had never hated a man the way he hated Reynolds, and he had indulged in dark thoughts the night Reynolds had to go under his surgeon’s knife. How easy it would have been to let the knife slip, severing an artery, or to leave behind a tiny sliver of necrosed bone or bit of diseased tissue, something that would poison his rival slowly from within, so first the arm would rot and then the corpus entire. In the end, Dixon’s knife did not slip, no pathogen was left behind, but it was a close thing.

  Alice stumbled, so Dixon dismounted and led her the rest of the way. Despite the darkness he recognized landmarks, a mound of rocks to his left, to his right the music of a fast stream rushing over a bed of polished stone. Even on summer’s hottest day it was cool by the water, in the shade of the towering lodgepole pines. He once spent a lazy fall afternoon by that spring, lying on the springy, pine-scented forest floor, watching fugitive beams of yellow sunlight pierce the canopy. No Indians had been seen for a time, so Dixon had decided to spend an afternoon alone, away from the fort. It was very nearly his last. A Sioux on horseback came upon him, startling t
hem both. The two men simultaneously reached for their weapons as Dixon scrambled to his feet, but, in the end, there was no violence. Neither man had desire to harm the other. The Indian rode away, and Dixon returned to the fort and never spoke of it.

  He was nearing the home of the Many Lodges People. During his previous visits, he had heard the village before he saw it. The sounds were those of children playing and women laughing; a host of barking dogs would run out to challenge him. Tonight all was silence. He stepped on something soft and, instinctively, recoiled, startling Alice who shied and pulled on the reins. Dixon stroked her neck to calm her, then struck a match to examine the object on the path. It was a large rat, freshly dead, its body intact and unbloodied. He kicked it off the trail and moved on.

  He rounded the last curve and faced the clearing where the village stood. Only three lodges remained. The moonlight revealed dark, circular patches on the ground where other tepees had been, each with a cold, dark fire pit in its center. Dixon walked to the center of the clearing and turned a complete circle, searching for movement or any sign of life. There was nothing. He looked inside one of the standing lodges and found it empty, cleared of all belongings, as were the other two.

  Dixon stood inside the final lodge, head back to the spangle of stars visible through the smoke hole. What am I doing here? he asked himself. Why did I come? Billy told him the village might be abandoned. What do I do now—search the woods? He exited the lodge, feeling like an idiot, with an inflated notion of his own importance. Rose used to tease him about his tendency toward self-righteousness, calling him the “Great White Healer.”

  Alice bumped him with her nose. “All right,” he said, “I know what you want.” He removed her saddle and blanket and she dropped to her knees, then rolled onto her back and wriggled in the dirt, waving her legs like a happy puppy.

  Despite the wind, he got the tent up quickly and spread his bedroll over a mattress of green pine boughs. He got a fire going, but instead of cheering him it only made the tall, dark trees surrounding the abandoned village seem to close in. He sat before the flames, chewing elk jerky and, again, cursed himself for a fool. If he’d gone back to Buffalo with the twins and Billy, he could be sitting in his warm parlor right now, drinking a whiskey before enjoying a hot bath.

  Alice stayed nearby, cropping grass where she could find it. There was little forage because the forest floor was covered with a thick carpet of brown pine needles. Occasionally she would stop, lift her head, and sniff the air. Her ears were rabbity, moving in all directions. Ordinarily, Dixon would hobble her with ankle ropes, but tonight he didn’t think he’d have to. The mare, though perhaps a bit edgy, showed no signs of wanting to roam.

  As he stood to enter the tent for the night, Alice’s ears suddenly flattened and she raised a rear leg as if to kick. Like the horse, Dixon sniffed the air. There was an odd smell, a musty animal odor, combined with a corrupt sweetness, like rotting flowers.

  He and Alice stood frozen, waiting for something to appear. There was no sound of approaching footsteps, human or animal, only the crackling of the fire and the wind whispering through the trees. Dixon felt a tingling in every nerve, as if he stood in the wind that runs before the storm.

  But then, quickly as it came, the odor was gone and his sense of anticipation melted away. Alice lowered her head and went back to cropping grass, and Dixon, no longer sleepy, returned to his seat at the fire. Was something out there in the darkness, or had he let his imagination get the better of him? He shook his head, fished his fixings out of his kit, and rolled a cigarette. I must be more tired than I thought. He sat for another hour, smoked another cigarette, and crawled into the tent. When he stretched out on his blankets, the boughs beneath released a pleasant, piney scent. He fell at once into a dreamless sleep.

  He woke with a pounding heart and the sound of blood roaring in his ears. It was still dark. What woke him? Had he been dreaming? He sat up in his blankets and took a deep breath to steady his nerves. There it was again, the musty smell of animals and dead flowers, stronger than before.

  He crawled to the flap and threw it open. The fire was reduced to an orange mound of embers. Gradually, he became aware of a faint light on the far side of the camp, coming from inside one of the lodges. Dixon rubbed his eyes, mistrusting what they showed him. It must have been a firefly, he thought, or maybe a floating ember. But, no, it was not an illusion. Something glowed inside the tepee. The light flickered, like a campfire, and then grew stronger as he watched until the entire lodge was gleaming like a Japanese lantern.

  Dixon stepped out of the tent and looked for Alice. She was close by, still as a statue, also eyeing the glowing lodge. This was a strange business. He had checked each one and found them all empty. Could someone have returned to the village while he was sleeping? There was no other explanation.

  The night air was very cold. He returned to the tent for his gun and his coat, buttoning it as he walked toward the lodge. Dixon felt a sense of dread that grew stronger with each step. Who—or what—would he find in there? When he reached the door he paused. There was a sound within, a soft moaning, like a chant. It stopped.

  “Come in, Dixon.” It was a woman’s voice, not identifiable but still somehow familiar. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  He could think of but one woman who addressed him by his surname only. Dixon stooped to open the low flap and entered. An old Indian woman sat alone before a fire, wrapped in a red wool blanket. The animal smell was overpowering.

  “Biwi?” he said. “My God, is that you? I looked in here earlier . . . well, I’m glad to see you. I saw Billy Sun on the road this morning and he told me you were ill. He said there was sickness in the village and you were among the afflicted. I’ve come to see if I can help.”

  She motioned to a spot beside the fire and Dixon sat cross-legged on the ground. He felt peculiar and cotton-headed. Was he dreaming? He remembered a broken button, made of bone, in his coat pocket and felt for it with his ungloved hand, pressing the sharp end into the fleshy part of his left thumb. He felt pain. He was not dreaming.

  He studied the old woman’s face through the fire’s smoke. Her visage was not a happy one. It was Biwi, though her features were not quite as he remembered. The nose was longer and the mouth wider. The last time he saw her she had been a stout, powerful woman, but now her skin hung in loose folds, as if she had not eaten for a very long time. Well, he thought, perhaps she hadn’t. The village had fallen on hard times. But there was no denying the strangeness of her eyes, which appeared sunken, not as he had often seen in patients with fatigue or dehydration, but the orbs themselves had settled within the lids. He had seen this, too, many times, but only in those who were dead or dying.

  “I am glad you have come, Dixon,” she said. “I’m glad you heard my call.” Her voice was muffled, as if coming from a great distance.

  “Your call?” he said. “I don’t know what you mean. As I said, I saw Billy Sun on the Bozeman road. He said there was sickness, I thought maybe it was influenza, I thought I might be able to help. Where have the people gone?”

  Biwi rocked from side to side, eyes closed. She seemed not to be listening. “You and your family are in danger. Billy, too, Billy Sun most of all.”

  Dixon felt a cold wind on the back of his neck, as if someone had entered the tepee. He turned, but there was nothing. Once again he pressed the bone shard deep into his thumb.

  “It’s the child,” she said, “one I fed from my own breast. I saw at once, I thought I could turn the angry spirit toward the light, but no. It hurts me to say it, for I loved the child. I loved them both, but I failed. You must take care. You must send the child away.”

  “What are you talking about?” Dixon said. “Lorna is headstrong, I grant you, but she’s never done any harm, certainly not me or anyone in my family. She would never hurt Billy—I promise you that.”

  “You must do as I say, for your sake and the sake of your household. For Billy.”

&n
bsp; Dixon got to his feet. He was angry and impatient with this old woman and the strange smell was making him nauseous. He wished he had never come to this miserable place. “I won’t listen to this nonsense,” he said. “It’s cruel. Lorna loved you like a mother and this is how you repay her affection? I don’t understand any of this”—he waved his hand to include the lodge and abandoned village—“and I don’t understand the ignorant, primitive superstition that makes you turn on her. In the morning we can talk about your people, where they’ve gone and whether there’s anything I can do. But now, I’m going back to my tent to get some sleep. Good night!”

  Biwi called after him. “Be careful, Dixon. The child’s heart is black as the raven’s wing.”

  With a shake of his head, Dixon walked to the door. Before leaving, he turned to the old Indian woman. She was huddled over with the blanket pulled over her head, obscuring her features. He threw open the flap and stepped out into the cold night, grateful to be breathing clean air again, and covered the ground with long, angry strides. Before entering his tent, he glanced at Biwi’s lodge. It was dark.

  * * *

  When Dixon woke the sun was fully risen and shining brightly. He rarely slept past dawn. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. His head ached and he felt vaguely ill, as if he had drunk too much whiskey the night before. A few seconds passed before he recalled the glowing lodge and his interview with Biwi. He shook his head, trying to clear the fog. Had it really happened, or was it just the wandering of an overtired, perhaps fevered, mind?

  He stepped outside the tent, shielding his eyes against the glare. When they adjusted, he could not believe what they showed him. There had been a storm, a violent wind, during the night, though he had heard nothing. Branches were strewn about the deserted camp and the tepee where he had met with Biwi was partially dismantled and listing to one side. Clearly, it was not inhabited.