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

by Robert Lewis Taylor

  “The sand in places has been very loose, and often blazing-hot. The wheels now are apt to sink in as far as eighteen inches, making such a dire pull for the poor, exhausted, uncomplaining oxen that we are, again, discussing the common alternative of ‘packing’, that is, shifting our cargoes as well as feasible to the backs of mules and continuing our journey on foot. Coulter himself mentioned this only yesterday, and I foresee that a crisis in our resolution may develop at Fort Laramie, a more or less civilized outpost some miles distant on the trail. The wagon wheels, being constantly immersed in hot sand, are taking punishment of the most damaging kind. The felloes and naves shrink, the tyres loosen, and the spokes rattle like a bag of bones. For a while we were able to cure this by wedging and submerging them in water, but they are now far advanced on the road to disintegration.”

  We reached Fort Laramie several days after this last entry, and found some excitement. Camped on the plain all around were upwards of three thousand Sioux, their horses staked out grazing, and about six hundred lodges sticking up like a harvest of tied-together corn shocks. It was a sight to behold. But before we got to them, we went by Fort Bernard, which wasn’t any more than a lopsided building made out of crude logs with holes punched in them to shoot through. Nearby, as Coulter rode up, followed by the first wagons of the train, stood a drove of mules tended by some Mexican Indians that kept saluting us by flashing the sun off a broken piece of looking glass. It was annoying; I could see Coulter trying to hang on to his temper. For once, he did it tolerably well.

  We stopped there only a few minutes, while some of the men talked about mules to a Mr. Richard, who was the principal of the post, as they called it. He was a big, red-faced man with white hair, not overly clean, not what you’d call sober, either, although the sun was perfectly high overhead. He invited us all to stay the night, meaning to sleep in our tents as usual, I judged. You couldn’t have herded all those people into the Fort without a very rackety jamboree, and one of the men of the train, a crude fool that cracked the rawest sort of jokes whenever anybody got near enough to listen, which was seldom, said, “I wouldn’t care to take the chancet My ol’ woman ain’t no rose, but she’s all I’ve got, and if we was to bundle in that cubbyhole she might scoot into the wrong bag by mistake. Could be I’d wake up brother-in-law to a Navahoo.”

  This was certainly a poor joke, and three or four people told him so, said it was “indelicate,” but it didn’t faze him any. He bit off a chew of tobacco and had a very good time laughing; then he left, saying he was going back to tell his old woman, because he knew she’d enjoy it, too.

  We moved on to Laramie, where the members of the train wanted to lay in supplies, those that could afford them, and make plans about what to do from here. A celebration was concluding when we pulled up; the Sioux had been doing a war dance inside. Somebody said the big encampment was because these Indians were planning to attack the Snakes and Crows, who were their natural enemies. They spilled out of the adobe gate in whooping bunches, shaking tomahawks and having a merry old time, and it wasn’t long before we saw they were mainly drunk. The women, too. These women were throwing themselves around in any old way, shaking their hips, and making gestures at our men in what several people said were “disgusting,” and “indecent” attitudes.

  They weren’t any bad-looking women, either. A light copper color, some rouged on their cheeks, and dressed very rich, many of them, with buckskin worked up somehow so as to make it a creamy white, wonderfully soft, and with shirt, pantaloons and moccasins decorated all around with porcelain beads of many colors. How these last shone and sparkled. Jennie said they were brazen hussies, and Po-Povi, walking beside me, seemed nervous at so many of her kind; she wouldn’t look at them at all.

  Well, one of these women—not more than a girl—came up suddenly and flung her arms around Brice, who couldn’t have been more surprised if she’d peeled off her clothes, and Jennie cracked her smartly over the head with a skin reticule full of knickknacks. It was a beautiful lick. That girl’s eyes actually crossed—she was right in front of me and I saw them—and her legs wobbled her all around in a circle. I noticed Coulter move his right hand easily toward his revolver, but nothing came of it. The braves thought it was a prime good joke; they almost died laughing, the way a drunk’s apt to. Several of them walked forward, in mock interest and sympathy, to feel of the girl’s bump, but once they’d touched it, they collapsed with hilarity. This was just the kind of fun they liked. If the girl’s neck had been busted, they would have declared a national holiday and feasted for a week.

  Still and all, these braves made a fine appearance: big men, fierce and proud. Later on, somebody in the Fort said there were eight to ten thousand Sioux altogether, of all nations. They claimed lands that extended over hundreds of thousands of square miles, but a lot of others claimed them, too, so there was always fighting. But the Sioux generally got the best of it, except when they found themselves odds-even against the Crows. The Crows were the toughest fighters anywhere, and the cruelest, if you want to except the Blackfeet, who were born with the outlook of a mountain lion and got steadily worse as they grew older. Among other things the Sioux claimed was this Fort Laramie, so the white men that ran it, called the American Fur Company, let them go right ahead. It didn’t bother anybody to be claimed; it didn’t cost anything; and it made the Sioux look better to other tribes. The only objections the Indians ever had around the Fort were to the crops that people occasionally set out. For some reason, these Sioux were powerful down on farming. They were buffalo hunters and didn’t cotton to agriculture. So once in a while, to keep their hand in, and make their claim more valid, a bunch rode down and scattered the crops. In that way, they could maintain friendly relations and not have to massacre anybody; they’d showed who was boss. What’s more, they kept a handy place to buy whiskey, this way, and sometimes muskets and rifles. But only a few braves that I saw had guns; most were armed with knives and tomahawks, bows and arrows, and such.

  The Fort itself was made out of the meanest kind of adobe, or sun-dried brick, undecorated, formed in what they call a military quadrangle, the walls having watch towers on the corners, and the gate protected by two brass swivel cannons. Along one side of the court, built into the walls, were offices and storerooms and mechanical shops, like a smithy, and against the opposite wall was the main building. The whole enclosure took up about three quarters of an acre. A few raggedy soldiers lounged here and there, with more Mexicans and Indians, a handful of traders, and trappers, the remnants of wagon trains that hadn’t made it, and altogether the scene wasn’t by any means one to perk up your spirits.

  Well, while my father and some others went over to pay their respects to a Captain Cooper, and to the head of the Fur Company, a man named Monseer Burdeau, we loafed around and took in the sights. A few of our people bought things, but it wasn’t easy because the prices were so high. Coffee, sugar and tobacco were a dollar a pound, flour was fifty cents a pint, and they claimed whiskey was a dollar a pint, but I didn’t price it. Coulter rode his horse in to get the forward off-hoof shod, and did considerable grumbling at the blacksmith, which seemed like a poor idea because this fellow was about as broad as Mr. Kissel, though shorter, and had arms like young oak trees. He was wearing a pair of hide pants, a jersey, and a leather apron all marked up with burns, from flying sparks. His naked arms and shoulders were covered with red fur as thick as an ape’s, but he hadn’t a hair on his head. Perfectly bald and shiny, not even a fringe around the edge. It often works that way, I’ve noticed. Remove the clothes off an entirely bald man and you’ll find that, in the line of growing hair, his strength was laid out elsewhere. On the other hand, I never saw a bald Indian or one with any hair to speak of except on his head; they’ve struck a nice balance that way, and seem advanced over the whites.

  We had come abreast the little shop, noisy and jammed, where they sold whiskey, when out rolled two or three Indians and a couple of white men, and I opened my mouth, becau
se they were John and Shep, but Shep stepped up to Coulter, as brash as you please, and sung out, very sneery:

  “Well, if ain’t my old friend and neighbor, Buck Coulter!”

  I’d never seen Coulter look so. He looked sick. But he stood his ground, though not with any feist in him, while Jennie and Po-Povi and I and some others sort of washed back to give them room. All right, Mr. Baggott, I thought, this is where you get what’s coming. There won’t be enough left to shovel up and carry outside for the coyotes.

  “Now what might you be doing out here?” said Baggott. “Come to try your hand with a bow and arrer?” This seemed to strike him as funny, for he gave a rude laugh before going on. “What’s the dodge, Buck?”

  “No dodge,” replied Coulter very low, glancing around uneasily, as if he’d prefer to conduct this conversation in private.

  None of us could believe it.

  “Speak up, Buck. You don’t act very friendly to your old boyhood chum. It ain’t genteel. Cat got your tongue?”

  Coulter took off his hat and wiped his forehead with his sleeve.

  “Let’s get a drink.”

  “I don’t like to drink when I’ve got to face a party all the time. It’s galling to the nerves.”

  Coulter started to turn away, but Shep called out, “Don’t tell me you’ve got yourself a train, Buck. Have you writ home lately? Maybe you ought to tell these people about your brother. Where you going, Buck? Why, I’ve never seed you so jumpy.”

  He bellowed out his laugh as Coulter lurched past us and, shouldering aside some Indians, through the gate. I felt so low I could have crawled off and cried. I noticed that those of our men who were nearby looked grim and shook their heads. I reckon we’d come to think of Coulter as a kind of hero, no matter how raspy he was, and now he’d turned tail before a drunken bully like the meanest sneak and coward.

  I could see tears in Jennie’s eyes; then Shep saw her, too. He took in the rest of us for the first time. A little of his bluster faded off—you couldn’t deny that, but he cried, “Well, what are you aiming to do? You won’t find any law out here.”

  Jennie blazed right out: “Wait and see, you bloodthirsty beast. We’ll have you tarred and feathered and ridden out of this Fort. Doctor! Doctor!” and taking Po-Povi’s hand, she started running toward the offices across the court.

  “Come on, you noisy blabbermouth,” said John, speaking up at last. He took Shep by the arm and dragged him aside, but before they left he wheeled back to me.

  “Look here, boy, I wouldn’t advise you to make trouble, you hear? It might be onhealthy.”

  I’d be a liar if I said they didn’t scare me; I’d seen them do murder, and a poor, young wife and her husband laid out on the ground with their guts out; but I had my slingshot with me, and lots of people were about. What’s more, I hated those monsters more than I ever hated anybody before. I almost got insane with it when I saw them, and didn’t altogether make sense.

  “Shut up,” I yelled. “I’ll do what I please, you dirty scum. My father and Buck Coulter’ll see you hung before we leave here.” And then I did something I’d never seen anybody do, except the Pawnees. It just seemed to come natural. I stepped forward and spit in John’s face. It refreshed me a good deal.

  “Why, you damned imp—” he broke out, reaching toward his belt, but I jumped back and yanked out my slingshot and fitted a smooth round rock to it that I’d been saving in my pocket, and hit him, thud, directly over the right eye. The rock hung there a second, then dropped. He fell forward on his face in the dust like an old tobacco shed crashing down.

  I didn’t wait around any longer, then. I took to my heels as fast as I could go, and a minute later found where my father and the others were. I was shaking all over and had flecks of saliva, dry and cottony, in the corners of my mouth. It was the first time in my life I’d ever tried to kill somebody, and I didn’t feel so good.

  Two or three of our men that were right behind me started telling about it, and between them and me, and Jennie raising the roof, there was a rumpus in that office, you bet. Everybody was shouting at once, and crying, some of the women, and asking questions, but above it all that Captain Cooper, a tall, thin, gray-eyed man with a very sallow face—no red in it anywhere—raised his voice, perfectly steady and firm, and folks calmed down a little. Some people can do that as natural as breathing; you can’t learn it; it’s born in them. A nearsighted idiot could have spotted this Captain Cooper for a leader a mile off. His manner wasn’t stern, but you wouldn’t have taken any more liberties with him than you would with a loaded rifle.

  “It’s a ticklish situation,” he said, after my father had snatched down a musket from a rack and shoved it over to Kissel. “There isn’t any civil law here, neither is the Fort to say under outright military rule. What’s more, we’re surrounded by thousands of Sioux warriors that let renegade carrion, like Baggott and Murrel, live among them peaceably—in effect under their protection. I assure you of my sincere desire to help, but we must proceed with extreme caution.”

  My father wrote down in his Journals what Captain Cooper said, which was that “the Rocky Mountains have their white as well as their copper-colored population. I would estimate the former as from five hundred to a thousand, scattered among the Indians, and inhabiting, temporarily, the various trading posts of the fur companies. Adventure, romance, avarice, misanthropy, and sometimes social outlawry play their part in enticing or driving these persons into this savage wilderness. After taking up their abode here, they rarely return to civilized life for long. They usually contract ties with the Indians that are sufficiently strong to induce their return, if they occasionally visit the settlements. Many have Indian wives and large families. Polygamy is not uncommon. They conform to savage customs, and on account of their superior intelligence have much influence over the Indians, frequently directing their movements and policy in peace and war.”

  “Captain,” cried my father when he’d finished, “something’s got to be done! We can’t let those scoundrels get off scot-free. Why, they barricaded up the entire family of this child here”—he laid his hand on Jennie’s shoulder—“and burned them alive in a cabin.”

  “Sir, we’ll do our best. If we can persuade them from the hands of the Sioux without a commotion, I’ll return them to St. Louis under guard, no matter what the legality of it. That much I promise. Mr. Chouteau’s reputation is well known out here, and his correspondent, Bridger, is a personal friend of mine.”

  Well, we all agreed that this was as handsome as anyone could wish, so we trailed back to our wagons, with some of us, including my father and the Kissels and Coe and the Brices, accepting an invitation to dinner that evening in the Fort. On the way, we talked about Coulter’s odd actions, but nobody could think of anything handy to say. It cast a damper over us all.

  When we reached the train, people were standing around in little knots and clusters, and sure enough, they were discussing the trouble, too. Coulter was nowhere to be seen. The general opinion, as people got the whole story, was that he had neglected to do his duty in protecting the train. I heard some angry mutters about throwing him out, and there were others that wanted to haul him before a “summary court.”

  My father and Mr. Coe soothed them down for now, but there was a lot of determination to bring matters to a head. I can tell you truly, I wasn’t much looking forward to tomorrow.

  Toward twilight, the Kissels bundled the children in their wagon and made arrangements with neighbors to check them once in a while. Then we went to the Fort and had dinner. Mr. Cooper was there, and Monseer Burdeau, and other gentlemen of the American Fur Company. It was mannery and elegant, with wine that had been carted clear across the plains. I’d a had a glass except that Jennie reached over and took it away. It wasn’t her wine, it wasn’t her dinner, it was none of her business in any way, but she had to shove her nose in just the same. Marriage didn’t seem to have straightened her out.

  “Your boy, ma’am?” inquire
d one of the guests, a man wearing a frilly white shirt with sideburns, and Jennie answered back, very tart, “No, I didn’t have any babies when I was seven, thank you for asking.”

  The food was an improvement over what we’d been eating, but it was cooked pretty careless, not like Mrs. Kissel’s, which had flavor. No matter what she cooked, it had flavor. She could have made a stew out of cactus and rocks, and nobody would have had any grounds for complaint. Still, she never seemed satisfied; nothing turned out right, according to her. The bread generally had a “sad streak,” things fell that were supposed to rise; if she reached for the salt, it turned out to be sugar; and she never really got a good “do” on anything, to hear her tell it.

  My father stated that this was the usual dissatisfaction of the artist. “It takes two men to paint a picture,” he said. “One to do the job, and another to stop him when it’s finished. My advice to you is, if Mrs. Kissel gives evidence of satisfaction, sprint, don’t walk, for the stomach pills.”

  Anyhow, here tonight we had boiled corned beef, cold biscuits, fresh buffalo meat, venison, salt beef, and milk. It was a regular feast, because they’d got in some flour, after being without it for upwards of six weeks.

  “We eat what we can get,” said Captain Cooper. “After a while it doesn’t seem to make much diff—What’s that?”

  All of us heard it—a whoop from outside somewhere, more of a scream than a shout. The men scrambled up, some taking the pains to excuse themselves, and we ran out. The night was coal-black, but in the direction of our wagons the sky was aglow with red. It was scary-looking; fire always is. It’s a sight I’ll never get used to. It knots up your stomach.

  When we reached the gate, we could see greasy yellow smoke boiling against the red, and outside, we heard a babble of people yelling and running, wagons being moved, horses rearing and neighing, and men bawling directions.

  By the time we got there it was over. Nothing remained of Kissel’s wagon but a skeleton, where the iron parts held it together. The furnishings and household truck were no more than pieces of char, black and ruined.