Buffalo Palace

by Terry C. Johnston

  Bass saw how the bowmen still kept a respectful distance from him, their eyes nonetheless fixed on him nearly all the time, most of those dark eyes filled with undisguised awe.

  “Mean to tell ye these here bucks is likely real scared of ye—that’s what it all tracks,” Hatcher explained. “From the looks of things, they prob’ly still good and scared of ye too.”

  “Don’t make them no never-mind if’n you and I both know you can’t get up on your feet and fight ’em off by hand, flat on your back the way you was,” Wood declared candidly.

  “That’s right,” Hatcher added. “To them, they just figger ye be a shaman what can use yer heap-powerful medicine right where ye was.”

  He had gone in search of the buffalo, and found them.

  Not once, but twice now. That first had been a journey that had brought him out of the old frontier of Kentucky, across the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, and to the realm of the buffalo at long, long last.

  Now he had pointed Hannah north, something in him praying, something in him trusting. Gone in search of the buffalo again.

  But this time Bass ended up with more than he ever could have dreamed. If it was true what Hatcher and the old men were saying, that white buffalo calf had come to him special. And in the end that sacred animal not only had just saved the Snake from their hunger, but had saved Scratch as well.

  That first time he went in search, Titus found the buffalo on the Great Plains just when his doubt had been at its deepest. And now he had found them again—and the white buffalo calf had come—just when his need was at its greatest. A need not just to rescue his body from dying of hunger … but to save his spirit and cause it to thrive.

  “That buck says he’s seen ye afore,” Hatcher told Bass as the trappers dragged the wounded man through the Shoshone village toward the stand of trees where the white men had erected their blanket and canvas shelters.

  Bass looked again at the young warrior, trying to remember where he had first seen the face. “When I laid eyes on him back there—I had me the same feeling,” Scratch admitted.

  Jack explained, “And he told me where it was: over to what them Ashley boys call the Willow Valley. Summer before last winter, he said it was. He told me he saw ye at the place where all the white men sing and dance together.”

  “Ronnyvoo.” Bass sighed with some fond remembrance.

  “Yeah—ronnyvoo, all right.” There was a look of immense and fond remembrance on Hatcher’s face too.

  The warrior walked right behind the travois where Titus lay, having taken it upon himself to follow close at hand with Hannah. Ever since the moment they had left the narrow valley where the white buffalo calf had been killed, the young Shoshone had been leading the mule behind his pony. Once the procession reached the outskirts of their village, however, all the men dismounted, leading their ponies and pack animals through the crowded camp on foot.

  Once the hunters had been spotted approaching from the distance, a long gauntlet had begun to form, two long rows of old people singing their prayers, men and women chanting their praises, children shrieking and whistling in joy. Not all that long after Rufus Graham’s band of hunters had returned to find the travois, word spread through the camp like a prairie fire. Just as soon as the spotters on the hill announced that they had seen the cavalcade coming, everyone had not only turned out to see for themselves that pale, curly hide of the sacred white buffalo calf, but jostled and shoved to get themselves a good look at the hairy white man with the powerful medicine who was responsible for bringing the sacred calf to the Shoshone people.

  Lying there in his travois as the village folk pressed in to take a close look at him, Titus saw how Hannah danced and bobbed, straining against the young warrior who acted as her handler. She hesitated, snorted, swung her rump about each time some of the crowd got too close. Then the villagers fell back from the excited animal.

  Maybe it was a good thing, after all, he thought as the Shoshone studied him in his passing, a good thing that Hannah did not particularly take to the smell of Indians. Just the way he’d heard some tell that Indian ponies didn’t take all that well to the scent of a white man.

  Far as he was concerned, Scratch really couldn’t smell a bit of difference. But, then, he figured, critters like horses and mules were just naturally born with better noses. Still, he had been around enough Indians himself, especially the squaws for long periods of time—sleeping, eating, coupling, arguing, and embracing—to say with some measured degree of certainty that neither the Ute nor the Crow smelled any different from any man Bass had bumped up against in all his wanderings.

  The same should hold true for these Snake, he thought. Truth be, except for the sometime stench of the bear grease gone rancid on their hair, the Indians he had come across were a lot cleaner folk than were any white trappers out here to the mountains. Simply put, while the Indians bathed in rivers during the warm seasons and endured steam baths in sweat lodges during the winter … why, most ary white men he’d met out here shunned scrubbing and water as if it were poison to the skin.

  Onto the framework lashed to the bottom of those two travois that Rufus Graham and the Shoshone hurried out to what the Indians were now calling “The White Buffalo Valley,” the hunters took the time to lay green buffalo hides they had just skinned off the dead animals left in the wake, of their successful hunt. On one of those hides would rest the white buffalo calf robe. On the other would rest the man responsible for bringing the buffalo to the Shoshone people.

  As these older tribal leaders were at their work in the valley, preparing for their triumphant return with the sacred skin, more and more people showed up as news of the hunters’ success spread through the village—many travois were needed to carry the butchered meat and tongues, to haul back to camp the heavy green hides that would be staked out on the ground, stretched and scraped, then tanned and smoked for lodge hides and warm bedding, protection against the winds that would howl with the coming of winter.

  As soon as they turned all those horses and drags around to begin their trip north from the valley, the long cavalcade had stretched out far behind. Scratch. But in front of him, leading them all, was the horse and its travois bearing the white calf hide. Ceremonially skinned by the old-man priests, the entire hide had been carefully removed, including that peeled from the skull, clear down to the nostrils, all the way back to most of the fur covering the four legs, complete with the tail.

  “Small as it was,” Hatcher had explained as he set off for the camp, riding beside Bass’s travois, “likely the calf was born this last spring’s drop. Mebbeso no more’n four months old.”

  “Just a babe,” Wood agreed from the far side of the travois.

  “But that calf being a cow makes for some strong medicine, Scratch,” Hatcher continued. “Means a special power been give to these people. Power not just to feed themselves on the buffler, but power for these people, to have many children—so the tribe grows strong.”

  Never had Titus seen such celebrating: not among the Ute nor among the Crow, even at the Boone County Longhunter Fair. At twilight, fires were lit in front of each lodge not long after hunters returned to the village. There the women and children sliced and roasted meat not just for their own family, but for any visitor who came by. There was singing, with and without the many drums that throbbed in every quarter of the village, pounding along, with the hundreds of feet that hammered the earth as evening swept the day aside and presaged the night.

  While the temperature continued to drop, Elbridge Gray and Isaac Simms dragged Bass’s travois over to one of the closest fires where the singing was the strongest. Here by the dancing, leaping flames Bass found it was warm, the chill air convincing him that summer must surely be dying, autumn on its way. Up there in the mountains the first snows would soon be falling, and with those first cold days the elk would begin to gather and bugle—always a sound that made his heart leap and the hair stand at the back of his neck. Then, as sure as sun, the cyc
le would turn a little more and the snows would begin their creep on down the mountainsides as the beaver repaired their lodges and prepared for their ponds to freeze over—each and every one of the big bucktoothed rats putting on an extra layer of fat beneath their sleek, shiny fur. Under those long guard hairs would lie the downy felt that protected the animal’s skin itself from the cold of water and wind. That sought-after beaver felt was highly coveted by hatters who constructed the fine waterproof “tiles,” those tall, stiff top hats for gentleman types back east of the Mississippi River.

  As he lay watching the joyous celebration there by the fire, the women brought him food. Not just the jerked, dried venison Hatcher’s men had given him earlier, but juicy, half-cooked pink meat kissed by the sizzling flames, every last chunk of it dripping grease and juice down his lips, into his beard, and onto his buckskin shirt as he ate, and ate, and ate. And sweet, cool water too. As much as he wanted, gulping huge drafts of it to wash down the meat until he found his belly full and warm, and his eyes grown heavy.

  Scratch would awaken from time to time that night and always find someone near: a Shoshone woman or two, along with at least one of Hatcher’s men—folks staying their vigil by his travois to bring him more to eat, more sweet water to drink, or a trapper to help him hobble off into the shadows so he could relieve himself.

  Always he would return to his blankets and sleep. No matter the singing and drums, no matter the dancing feet and the laughter in those happy voices. Bass slept. And ate. Then slept some more.

  Morning slipped up quiet and cold before the sun came to chase back the chill. Slowly, through slits, he found the gray light did not assault his eyes. No more the drums and dancing. No more laughter and singing. Here in that last cold hour before dawn, the Shoshone had gone off to their lodges and shelters—this village on the move, a migratory people who had been hunting the buffalo for hides and meat to hold back the hoary beast of winter.

  So still was the camp and the horseshoe of trees where the tribe had raised their lodges two days back that Bass easily heard the snore of more than one of the men bundled on the ground at the nearby fire. At least a dozen of them in all, wrapped in robes and blankets, their feet close to the coals like the spokes of a wheel. One—it looked to be Rufus Graham—lay sprawled flat on his back, wheezing like the bellow of a two-stack river steamboat, what with missing his four front teeth, both top and bottom. On either side of him lay Shoshone warriors wrapped up like woolly caterpillars in their furry buffalo robes, sleeping despite Graham’s noisy serenade. Beyond, over near one of the other trappers, lay a warrior curled in a tight ball, having nothing more than a heavy saddle blanket to cover himself from shoulder to hip.

  Bass sighed, closed his eyes, and went to press his cheek back against the thick fur of the stiffened green buffalo hide beneath him when he heard the quiet footsteps. Out of the murky gray of predawn shadows between the far lodges emerged a tall figure wrapped in a blanket coat, his hood pulled up so that it hid most of his face. A bundle of firewood he dropped beside the fire pit before he swept back the hood.

  Scratch recognized him as the young warrior who had followed him in yesterday’s procession, Hannah’s handler. As he watched the warrior at the fire, Bass figured it must have been a high honor to be near the white man who’d brought the white buffalo calf, an honor to be placed in charge of the white man’s mule too, Titus figured as he watched the warrior break off limbs and feed them to the glowing coals. A time or two the Shoshone bent over the coats, blew, and excited the new wood to burst into flame. When he had the fire beginning to climb, the young man rose, held his hands over the heat a moment, then turned his head.

  Finding Bass watching him, the Shoshone smiled and immediately came over to the travois, picking up a small skin pouch filled with water that lay nearby. This he offered to the white man. Bass took a swallow, finding the water some of the best he could remember ever tasting. Cold and sweet. Like that he remembered in the high country. So good on his tongue and the back of his throat that again he drank until he could drink no more. Letting his head plop back onto the buffalo hide, Bass sighed and found his eyes heavy again as he rested the water skin across his belly.

  In a matter of moments he opened his eyes again—the tap at his shoulder insistent.

  Beside him stood the young warrior, holding on to the bail of a small cast-iron pot. Within it lay chunks of pink meat cooked last night.

  Nodding his thanks, Bass gathered up a handful and brought one to his mouth. Although cold, the meat was tender, tasty. And exactly the sort of feed Titus figured he needed most to get back on his feet. Ain’t nothing like buffler, Isaac Washburn had told him what now seemed like so long ago. True enough—there wasn’t nothing like buffler, he’d found out for his own damn self, Bass thought as he chewed with nothing short of pure joy.

  Then he suddenly realized how poor his manners had been. Around a chunk of meat Titus mumbled, “Thankee, friend.”

  The warrior immediately squatted there at Scratch’s shoulder, patted himself on the chest and repeated the invocation, “Furrr-rend.”

  “Yes, you … friend.” As he watched the warrior take a piece of meat to chew on for himself, Bass swallowed his bite and said, “Me: Titus Bass.”

  His brow knitting with consternation, the warrior tried repeating that. “Ti … Ti …”

  “Yes. Ti—tus.”

  “Ti—tuzz.”

  “Good. Now say, Ti—tus Bass.”

  “Ti-tuzz Bezz.”

  “No,” Scratch corrected. “Ba. Ba. Bass.”

  “Ba-azz,” the Shoshone echoed, making two syllables out of the word.

  “You’ll make the circle,” Bass replied, grinning.

  “He won’t know what the hell y’ mean by that.”

  Scratch turned his head to find Hatcher propped on his elbow, then rising to a sitting position to pull his blanket over his shoulders.

  “He don’t know no American?”

  “No, he don’t savvy no American,” Jack answered, inching toward the fire pit’s warm glow. “But he’s a right smart fella. Chiefs oldest boy.”

  “Don’t say,” Bass replied, looking over the tall warrior’s face again, into those eyes.

  “Stick yer hand out to him.”

  “What? Why the hell I wanna—”

  “Y’ gone an’ tol’t him yer name,” Hatcher began. “I figger y’ ought’n least shake hands with him.”

  “Shake hands?”

  “It’s just ’bout that nigger’s favorite thing to do,” Jack explained. “He thinks its some punkins, the way white men shake hands one with t’other. G’won, stick yer goddamned paw out to him, Scratch.”

  A little warily, Bass held out his right hand, relieved to find that the arm and shoulder did not yelp in great pain as soon as the warrior seized the hand and began to shake it vigorously. They shook. And shook. Then shook some more.

  Finally Bass looked over at Hatcher. “H-how long this fella gonna shake my hand?”

  “I figger he’ll shake ’bout as long as yer gonna shake with him,” Jack answered. “Mebbeso, since he knows yer name, ye ought’n know his.”

  “All right, Jack,” Titus said as he began to slip his hand from the Shoshone’s grip. “You gonna tell me what be this here feller’s name?”

  “Titus Bass, meet your new friend,” Hatcher said, rubbing his hands together over the coals. “That there Snake goes by the name Slays in the Night.”

  21

  “Damn good thing it is too—ye starting to feel pert enough to try forking yer legs over a saddle, Scratch!” Jack Hatcher said cheerfully a few mornings later as he dragged his blanket over his back so he could hunker down near the flames he fed a few pieces of wood, then held both palms over. “Be getting time to head for the high country soon, that for sartin.”

  With each morning that the air became a little colder, Bass did feel a growing anxiety to be away and once more at that endeavor in the mountain valleys. Lying here so wear
y, beaten, and pummeled in body—still mightily hungering in spirit for those high and lonely places. “I … I’m looking forward to making that tramp, Jack.”

  “So ye figger to trap this fall, do ye?” Jack asked with a grin on his face where the stubbly beard was beginning to fill out.

  “I do.”

  But then again Scratch realized just how little he had to his name … which caused a little of the starch to seep right out of him. Embarrassed, he looked away from Jack, and instead stared at the fire. “Don’t have me much. What I do got, I know I’m no way near being fixed for high-country doings. After them ’Rapahos got off with nigh onto everything—ever since, I ain’t had me a chance to look at what I was left in Hannah’s packs.”

  “Stands to reason ye ain’t yet looked,” Hatcher commented. “Why, the way ye was hanging on to that mule for yer life. Eeegod, child—ye was just hanging on to life itself!”

  With a slight wag of his head, Bass sensed the sudden sting of loss and remorse pierce him. The loss not just of place and people left back east—but the great and weighty loss of friends, the loss of furs, and now the loss of most everything he’d worked so hard to call his own. “Shit, I don’t even know if I got traps, not what other truck I got in them packs—”

  “Ye ain’t poor, nigger!” Hatcher interrupted with a snort. “Why, ye got yerself half-a-dozen prime traps! Square-jawed they be: strong of spring and some handsome pan triggers, I might add. Some of the finest handiwork this nigger’s seen. Any man got hisself traps an’ truck like that gonna make it just fine. Where’d ye come on them traps?”

  “Made ’em my own self.”

  “Don’t say?” Jack commented with a little astonishment, then went back to stirring the fire with a limb. “Blacksmith?”

  Bass nodded. “Was for some winters. Livery, in St. Louie.”

  “When we gone through your truck—I see’d ye had you a little of this and a little of that too,” Jack added, turning again to eye Bass carefully. “Like I said, Scratch: a man ’thout much more in the way of mountain fixin’s might have him trouble making do on his own hook—”