The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (Arbor House Library of Contemporary Americana)

by Robert Lewis Taylor

  By and by they quit tormenting me, and everybody sat down around kettles to have breakfast. There must have been two hundred members to the tribe altogether. It was interesting to watch them. The way they worked it, each one had a knife and they dived in and speared a hunk of meat; then, holding it between their teeth, they sawed it off at the lips. It was a wonder they didn’t get cut.

  Sitting there, I got so hungry I couldn’t stand it, so I grabbed the elbow of the man that had nabbed me and made motions toward the kettle. At first I thought he was going to haul out his tomahawk—he didn’t change expression any more than a halloween mask—but suddenly he dipped into the pot and hauled out a leg bone. What it was a leg off of I have no idea. Nor do I have to this day; some kind of grouse, or hen, likely. He gave me a rickety knife with the handle knocked off one side, and I fell to work.

  Well, the pot didn’t look inviting, being all a-bubble with various pieces of meat—wildfowl, venison, woodchuck, dog, and the like—but I took a bite hoping I wouldn’t throw up. To my surprise it was as flavorsome a dish as ever I ate back home, and our old Clara was the best cook anywhere around. It was sweet meat, so tender it was falling off, and the soup was rich and full of strength.

  I finished the leg, then figured I would forage on my own; the meat had been tasty but scant. I stuck my knife in to fish for the thigh, but this time the crazy old fool cracked me over the head with the handle of a dog whip. My ears rang like church bells; for a second my vision was crossed like a cockeyed person’s. There wasn’t any figuring these Indians out. One minute they invited you to dine, and the next they hit you on the head for enjoying yourself. The blow kind of took the edge off my appetite. I started to get up, but they pushed me back down again.

  When breakfast was over, they gave me a pair of worn-out buckskin pants and made me help the women clean up, along with some other children. They were taking down wigwams and packing, ready to move, and I had a chance to study them, now that the sun was up and warming my bones. These people were dressed mainly in hides—deer hides, buffalo robes worn as capes, and such—but there was a good deal of store cloth, too: calico, cotton and denim. I wasn’t long finding out where this came from. Neither the men nor the women wore any of the headdresses that always appeared on Indian pictures back in Louisville. Mostly the squaws had a kind of buckskin bodice, not very tight, and attached to this was a skirt of the same material that hung to the knees. Some of the younger women were pretty, and wore leathern hose embroidered on the side with beads. These were laced to moccasins made out of the tougher parts of the skins. A few girls had on eardrops, and others wore rings stacked up in piles on their fingers. Before sunrise, both the men and the women had been wrapped around with snow-white blankets of wool.

  Even if I’d wanted to, I couldn’t help much with camp-breaking. Right after breakfast, the old man tied rawhide thongs between my ankles that gave me walking room but would have been as much help running as carrying a cannonball in your hip pocket. They cut in, too. I never saw such an unsociable fellow. Although I’d got over my fright a little—I was pretty sure they planned to burn me when the women started cooking—I still wasn’t entirely peaceful in my mind. Nobody seemed friendly, not even the children. There had been a couple of dozen campfires for the two hundred people, and back almost out of each firelight was a circle of skulking, patchy-furred dogs. And if somebody sawing off meat ran into a piece of bone, or a saddle horn or a belt buckle or something, and then threw it over their shoulder, didn’t those dogs pounce on it in a fury! But nobody paid them any attention.

  In an hour we were ready to travel. I wondered if they intended to leave me behind, but no, they brought over a foolish-looking man of about forty with a slack jaw and a nose that was mashed kind of flat and twisted to one side, like a rudder.

  “Anglish,” they said, and pointed to him with pride. He grinned and said, “Am spoke Anglish once prisoner for catch stealing. Many beatings.” Then he introduced himself by name, which was a number of sounds, very bothersome, that ended with oo-sah. He said the English of this was Afraid of His Horse, which appeared to me to give him a poor sort of reputation, but I didn’t say so.

  “What name to she?” he said, and after a second I figured he meant me.

  “Jaimie.”

  He made a ripping noise, together with some coughs and gurgles, and I learned afterwards it was his way of laughing.

  “If you don’t like it, you know what you can do,” I said, being fairly sure he couldn’t understand, whereupon he became fierce and pulled out a tomahawk which he laid against the middle of my forehead, the blade pressing into the skin.

  “How much peoples in wigwams with wheels?”

  It was plain enough he meant the wagon train, so I said, “Ten thousand,” hoping to discourage them.

  He struck me such a blow with the flat side of the tomahawk that I fell to the ground, stunned. When I got up he’d worked out figures in the dust that were amazingly close to our number. I made up my mind that a joky and carefree manner with these monsters was about the silliest thing a person could do. And I got a further idea of how free they were of ordinary feelings a few minutes later when we started to go.

  A wrinkled old woman commenced to howl and strike herself on the head and breast when the tribe took up a single-file away from camp, so I pumped Afraid of His Horse about her trouble. After some fits and starts, he got across the statement that she was “too much older,” and was being left behind. Later on, I found that nearly all these Indian tribes—Sioux, Crow, Bannock and Cheyenne included—disposed of their old folks when they got to be eighty. The unloading was done in various ways, none of them appetizing. The usual Pawnee system was to take the old person and set her, or him, in the center of a circle, and, covering her over with blankets, shoot arrows into her from all around the ring. After this the body was burned and the ashes strewn in the wind, which they called giving their soul back to the Great Spirit. But this particular bunch of loafers, being short of arrows, were too lazy to shoot them up on tomfoolery. I inquired why they couldn’t pull the arrows back out again, but they said this might be offensive to the spirits.

  So they bound her feet and hands and left her behind. “Much wolves get fat,” said Afraid, grinning, as if he’d like to view the festivities. I swore to myself I’d serve him the same if I ever got a chance; anyhow, the poor old lady could have done worse. Some of the tribes, bored for lack of amusement, dug holes for the elderly people and buried them alive, making jokes and having a good time as the dirt was thrown in.

  When we first took up the trail, I had hopes of hooking a knife and cutting my foot bonds, but they knocked this out in a hurry. These Indians had gone to seed, all right, but they were tricky, too, possibly because of early training. Right off, when we started, they cut a limb three feet long and placed it across my shoulders; then they tied my hands. Afterwards they unloosed my foot straps. That is, I was free to come and go as I pleased, but I didn’t feel encouraged to strike out across the prairie trussed up like a goose on a spit.

  I shuffled along, first with one group and another, looking them over for further reference. A man they said was a chief, though I couldn’t pronounce his name, neither did it seem to have any English equal, walked in front carrying a bundle of what I took to be sticks with wampum wrapped around. This was his sacred bundle of chieftainship, which made him the keeper of the people, as I understood it. After him came the “braves,” so to speak, and then the squaws driving horses pulling travois, some with papooses on their backs; then the children romping along. At the tail end were the dogs and the other livestock. A few braves were mounted, but most made their way on foot. All in all, it was about as ratty a procession as you’d see in a lifetime.

  Well, it wasn’t long before I figured out where they were heading. These people made their living by scavenging in the wake of wagon trains, picking up things thrown away. Taken all around, it was a low kind of calling, but it was rewarding, too. As my fathe
r stated in a letter, the emigrants all started off with more than they could haul, and the process of shucking down to weight commenced a short way out of Independence.

  We crawled along, an Indian village on the move, chief in front and everybody hopping from side to side seizing on valuables. It was pathetic but catching. I don’t know why, but found things are better than articles you acquire by honest effort; they’re more prized. If my hands hadn’t been laced up high, I could have collected enough to open a store. It wouldn’t have had any customers, though; there was enough on the ground for all.

  The farther we got, the slower we went, because of the load these vultures took on. And right here I want to say a word for that chief. I’ve written a lot about how reduced the Pawnees were, but I’d make a poor book if I didn’t give credit where it was due. This chief wasn’t any chief by accident. He was the sharpest-eyed fellow in the tribe; some said he was the fastest runner, too. And his age, as nearly as I got it, was fifty-seven. One reason I mention this is because he was the first man there to pounce on something of real value. We hadn’t filed out on the trail two minutes before he darted to one side and came up with the remainders of a very nice striped silk umbrella, with only a few rents of any size and a couple or three spokes sticking out. Moreover, he knew exactly what to do with it. The day had turned cloudy cool, but he got the umbrella up, after sticking himself in the eye with a spoke, and sailed up the road as pleased as a girl with her first party gown. Still and all, conditions weren’t perfect. The main trouble was, he had his chief’s bundle under one arm, and the umbrella kept folding up and hitting him over the head, so he stumbled and fell in the bushes now and then, since he was more or less proceeding blind, but he stuck to it like a man, weaving back and forth, flapping like a bird, and having a very painful time altogether. Everybody admired him, he had got so involved.

  Dead cattle were strewn along here thick enough to walk on like steppingstones. And we came to mounds of thrown-out beans and bacon and flour, and every utensil you could name, including pots and pans and a ten-gallon water cask. I wondered how much had come from our train, up there ahead, and how much from others. The first pile of bacon we came on, these potbellied Indians hove to and organized a feast. It wasn’t more than ten o’clock in the morning, but they dug in as if they hadn’t eaten for a week. The bacon was spoiled to the point where it was kind of slippery, and the stench would have frightened a polecat, but that made no difference to these fellows. They grabbed up pieces—soapy lumps, rather—and stuffed them in, and a good many ate the beans, entirely raw. I’ve seen some vomity sights among Indians since, particularly with the Utes, which live on a caterpillar mash, and the Diggers, which will eat anything as long as it’s filthy, but these Pawnees fighting the flies for that bacon topped everything.

  Once they were filled, they lolled awhile in the shade; then we went on again, picking up as before. The women were anxious to find cloth, and the men did a fair amount of arguing over harness. But they all decorated themselves in some way. I saw one woman wriggle into a copper band off a keg, to make a nice belt, though it seemed to pinch her and made her bulge out above and below, and the tallest brave of the bunch made a tolerably good pendant out of a teething ring. They were the simple-mindedest fools I ever met, and I swore I’d be rid of them soon. But it wasn’t so easy. Without seeming to, they watched me. By and by, this Afraid of His Horse, who I got chummy with when he wasn’t cuffing me, let out that they hoped to trade me for horses.

  “Don’t count on it,” I said, exasperated almost to death by the bugs that lit in places where I couldn’t get them with my hands tied. Nearly everybody else, except some of the nicer-looking women, had that rancid fat rubbed on, but I’d rather had the bugs any day.

  “Wagons people pay.”

  “I doubt it. They’re overstocked on boys, and horses are pretty scarce. You’re barking up the wrong tree.”

  “Four horses, possible with five.”

  “Not one red cent. If I know my father, he isn’t the kind to throw away money on a boy when he can buy a horse.”

  “Then maybe burned at stakes.”

  I changed my tune when he said this, but I was so cocksure, I thought he was bluffing. Later on I knew better. I never got used to the contrary ways of these Indians; their thinking was just the opposite of ours.

  For instance, when I had to go to the outhouse, they sent a young girl along as a sentinel. They said she was some kind of chief’s daughter, but that’s what Indians always say. Anyhow, this girl was called Pretty Walker, about two years younger than me, not ratty-looking like the others. I complained so much about being trussed up, they finally removed the harness and fixed my feet again. And this time I could take steps about a foot and a half long. I don’t know which was worse—having my hands up all day or crow-hopping along like a quail protecting its eggs. But as I said, this girl Pretty Walker left the trail with me when I had to go out, and we didn’t make it at all.

  I told her to stay behind a tree.

  She shook her head and pointed to my feet.

  “I couldn’t undo these thongs in a month of Sundays,” I told her.

  But it wasn’t any use; she couldn’t understand a word. No matter how clear I pronounced things, nor how loud I hollered, she never caught on. She was more than ordinarily thickheaded even for a Pawnee. What’s more, she had the audacity to throw some of that Indian talk, which sounded like cocking a rifle, at me. She was pretty brash; I’d like to have seen her taken down a peg.

  “You’ll have to shove along a way, otherwise we’re stuck,” I said, but she only smiled and said approximately, “Moo-wah-rick-tok-goo-sah,” which I took to mean, in a general sense, no.

  Finally, after a good deal of palavering, I got her to stand behind a tree, and then things went better. Afterwards, I found out that Indians nearly all set a pretty young girl to watch a prisoner like that, the idea being that the braves are too dignified and the squaws are too busy doing the braves’ work. Also, a young girl is supposed to kind of lure a prisoner from trying to escape, but I didn’t understand this part.

  Certainly it didn’t work with me. The minute I was behind my tree, I tackled those rawhide straps as fast as I could. It was no good. The skunks had tied them and wet them, so that they’d drawn up like fiddle strings.

  When I got back out, she smiled again—she had very nice white even teeth, so I imagined she was as much of a bore with the willow twig as Jenny was with the brush—and said on the order of “Na-noh-kik-tik-seh-goony-la.” Then I realized she was suggesting I’d tried to escape, after more or less giving my word. I turned red and got angry. It was exactly the style of these Indians; they wouldn’t trust their own mothers. It’s the way they’re taught; they haven’t got the morals of a coyote.

  That evening when we made camp, I struck up an acquaintance with a boy of my own age named, as they said, Shorter than the Crane. He was playing with a brown-and-white-spotted puppy and didn’t mind when I stopped to pet it. I had just finished hunting firewood with the women. Shorter seemed fond of the dog, and affectionate toward him, and I began to think a little better of the tribe, or at least the young ones. This pup was frisky and cute; he made me homesick for Sam. We threw some sticks, which he failed to bring back, and told him to sit up, which missed connections, and nudged him to shake hands, which he ignored, and then we tried to balance a piece of meat on his nose, but he ate it. He was a real nice pup, and could likely have been trained, if anybody had had thirty or forty years to lay aside for the job. Shorter had patience with his stupidness; he took him in his arms and cuddled him, and was as crazy about him as any boy with a dog.

  Then an old squaw who had got a fire going grunted something, and the boy stood up and took the pup and hung it over the flames, holding it by the tail. The puppy twisted and cried out, very shrill and piercing, while the boy and the squaw carried on a conversation. Then, when it was dead and all the hair burned off, they gutted it and put it in the pot with th
e other things for supper. Feeling uneasy in my stomach, I went over in the weeds for a while.

  It was all I needed. I made up my mind to get away that night if I had to murder everybody in the tribe, including Pretty Walker. These weren’t humans, they were monsters. When it came time to eat, I poked in the kettle, then fished out a bird—a quail or a partridge—and when nobody was watching, put it on a stick and roasted away the stew smell. I could have gone without eating if I’d wanted to, but I was hungry.

  Before the sun fell below the prairie horizon, both women and boys set fish traps—woven baskets—and night lines for catfish in a stream nearby. I went down and watched them, hoping somebody would lose his footing and start to drown, so I could throw them a rock. But I hadn’t any luck; they were as nimble-footed as a goat. They placed these woven baskets in little places below falls and the like, where leaping trout would fall back, as they do. Some of the boys fished with fiber lines and hooks of thorn or wishbone, using worms or bits of rag for bait. Under other conditions, I might have joined in, but I couldn’t see any fun to these people now. So after a while I went to bed, in the same wigwam with the old fellow that had caught me. I couldn’t exactly make out how I stood. I believed, now, that Afraid of His Horse was telling the truth about trading me for horses, but there was a question about who owned me, whether the first man or the tribe. Generally speaking, things like food and necessaries were shared, but they had private property, too. So I figured he might get his pick of the horses.

  The only thing you could recommend about this collection of camp-following hyenas was their tents, or wigwams. They were nearly eighteen feet high, shaped like a cone, twelve feet across at the bottom, and held upright by straight poles called lodge poles, which were drawn together at the top, leaving a hole for smoke to get through. Over the lodge poles they had tanned buffalo robes stitched together to form one big airtight skin. A fire was made on some raised ground in the center, and what smoke couldn’t get out swirled around and made things tough for the mosquitoes. It also made things tough for the sleepers, because if it was a windy day when the draft didn’t work, they lay on their robes and spent their time sneezing and coughing. What between the bugs singing in a rage for blood and the people suffocating, it made a very melodious night. Still and all, these wigwams were workable dwellings, roomy and rainproof, and if it wasn’t for the odorous nature of the residents, a person could live inside in comfort. They were pretty on the outside, too, some of them. A number of Indians that seemed to have more energy than the others had decorated the hides with paintings, very spidery and graceful, of hunting scenes—mounted braves shooting arrows into buffalo, deer running, and things like that. They were handsome, and would have made a nice decoration on the wall of a library or study back in Louisville.