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

by Robert Lewis Taylor

  Then we heard Mrs. Kissel cry, “My babies! my babies!” and I almost sunk through the ground. All four of those children were in that wagon while we had dinner, with only the neighbor to check.

  She tried to charge into the middle of the smoke, but her husband grabbed her and held her, lifting her up, kicking, and turning her away from the ruins. It was enough to make you sick.

  Then I heard a man cry, “Doctor, over here, doctor!” and I scrambled my way through some people to where they had something laid out on the ground. It was a welcome sight, I can tell you. Propped up in a row, making a noise which came pretty close to drowning everything else out, were Deuteronomy, Leviticus, Micah and Lamentations, and sitting beside them on the grass, his head almost between his legs, as two women and a man tore away burning pieces of cloth, was Coulter.

  “He did it all himself,” one of the women called up to Mrs. Kissel. “He went after them, two at a time, and brought them out, and now look at him.”

  Coulter was a sight. Nearly all of his black hair had burned off, his forehead was cracked and purple, he hadn’t any more eyelashes than a snake, what little clothing was left still smoked, and his hands were dripping blood. I probably shouldn’t mention it, but his pants were so far gone that he was completely exposed, you might say. And with a man the size of Coulter, he was more exposed than most. But nobody appeared to mind or take any notice. Then a soldier from the Fort covered his lower half with a blanket.

  Mrs. Kissel knelt down amongst her brood and swept them all together at once, and Mr. Kissel leaned over beside Coulter.

  “Can you hear me, Coulter?”

  Coulter raised his head a little, trying to look up.

  “Is that you, Kissel?”

  Everything was quiet; the people wanted to hear what was said, but some of the women were taking on a little, and two or three men, including my father, blew their noses.

  “You’d better call the roll,” Coulter told him. “I think I counted four altogether.”

  “Coulter,” said Matt, “you’re more of a man than any ten in this train. The next one raises his voice or hand against you”—he turned and looked around slowly—“is going to have me to whip.”

  Coulter gave a dry kind of chuckle that ended in a cough; then he said, “I wouldn’t envy him, I sure wouldn’t.”

  My father and Dr. Merton walked forward now and took over. They, and others, picked Coulter up and made to carry him to the Brices’ wagon, but Captain Cooper stepped up and said, “I’d be pleased if you’d take him to my apartment.”

  I saw Jennie’s pale face watching as they carried him away. I figured maybe she thought she was even at last for all the rowing they had done; she always seemed to hate him so.

  When they were gone, we got the story. That neighbor woman, Mrs. Hughes, had looked into the wagon the second time when, on the way back to her own, she noticed two men, one old and lank and gray-haired, the other an oversized, red-faced hulk, picking their way up the train, inspecting the wagons as they went. She saw them particular, for they appeared shifty and spoke in low whispers.

  Ten minutes later, she heard a cry of “Fire! fire!” but when she and her husband and others went running, the Kissels’ wagon was already roaring.

  Coulter, horseback, arrived a few seconds later. He took the news on the run, then spun himself off the saddle and right through the burning canvas.

  Everybody stood talking, and one of the men who was so outspoken against him before, said, “It was the bravest act I ever witnessed. Speaking for myself, I’m mortal ashamed I backbit him to begin with. A man ort to withhold judgment till he’s sure.”

  That seemed to be the sentiment all around. There wasn’t any harm in these people; they were only average. Most of their bad thoughts came out of fear, and to tell the truth, that’s what causes most of the troubles in the world.

  It didn’t take long to figure that John and Shep had fired the wagon out of spite, because Captain Cooper had sent notice among the Indians that he wished to see them. Whether they knew about the children, nobody could say, but for my part, I imagined they had.

  But there was something else on my mind, and I had to work fast. My bag of gold coins, that I’d got when the man fell in the paddle wheel, several centuries ago, was in that wreckage, and I wanted it. In addition, we’d be needing it, now. Little bits of wood were still burning as I began sifting through them with a rake. One or two people asked what I was doing, so I said Mrs. Kissel had lost an old family heirloom, a cameo brooch, and wanted me to find it. When they offered to help, I said Mrs. Kissel had given me fifty cents for the job, so I’d better do it myself if it took all night. It almost did, too. The coins had turned black, but they weren’t melted; they were all in a little pile, under some barrel hoops. I fished them out, juggling them back and forth, because they were warm, and stuck them in my pocket. And when I stepped out, I saw that almost nobody had gone to bed. They were still standing around talking, women talking to women, and men to men, now and then breaking off to threaten various children that kept popping out of bed.

  The feeling ran pretty high. The same men that had been so hard against Coulter before were now itching to go after the new villains. They sent a deputation to Captain Cooper and demanded that he dispatch troops on a search. But Cooper said it would be unwise, because the Indians might boil up all around us. “Let things quieten down a little,” he said. “Then we’ll try to sneak them out on the sly.”

  The deputation came back, and everybody grumbled, and said it was a case of typical Army procrastination. Then one man said he’d be durned if he knew what he paid taxes for. “Here we set this Army up, living off the fat of the land, fresh meat every few days, flour once a month, and wine for company—all out of my pocket—and when an emergency arises, where are they? Nowhere. And what will they do? Nothing. For two cents I’d move to Mexico.”

  My father said it would be quite a loss, but he imagined the country could rise above it. Then he told me, “I’ll bet that fellow’s never paid a dime’s worth of taxes in his life. Whenever you hear somebody making any noise about his ‘rights,’ you can be sure he’s got a very thin claim on them. Moreover, if the Army called for volunteers in a crisis, our belligerent friend would vanish in a cloud of dust.”

  My father stayed with Coulter all the next day, and also treated the children, who had burns that weren’t very serious. Coulter was a different proposition. “He’ll be scarred,” my father said. “Eventually, it may clear up, but I’m afraid he’s bound to be marked, both face and hands.”

  Comparatively, this wasn’t bad news. For a while, there were doubts whether he’d live. He was burned bad. But they covered him over, head to foot, with an oily salve, and gave him morphine for the pain, which they said would come in about twenty-four hours.

  Po-Povi gathered some bark and soaked it in scalding water, and when my father and Dr. Merton started to throw it out, Coulter came to and objected. “It works, it works,” he said. “I’ve seen it myself.” Then he and the girl exchanged a few Indian sentences, and she took a rag and bathed him all over with the bark water. Anybody else might have been embarrassed, but she paid no more heed to his nakedness than if he’d been a horse. Before she was finished, Mrs. Kissel came in to help, sitting beside his bed all one night, but they wouldn’t admit Jennie because they said he was in a state of “intermittent excitation” and it wasn’t good for a girl of her years and position.

  “Tommyrot,” she snapped. “What do you think I married, a mummy?”

  But she didn’t get her way this time—Captain Cooper saw to that, and I couldn’t have been more pleased.

  She said, “Men are numbskulls—they’re nothing but children, full of vanity and self-worship. If they only knew how women laugh at them.”

  “Why don’t you get some of the stuff and go home and rub it on Mr. Brice,” I said.

  She boxed my jaws again; confound the girl, I couldn’t seem to learn how to duck on schedule. But
I left her as mad as a wasp, and that was worth something.

  The second morning after the burning, I was in the courtyard of the Fort, and a splendid big Indian came stalking along, followed by a train of girls and other braves. He was so outstanding, I asked who he was.

  “Black Poddee,” a loafer told me. “One of the big chiefs around this area—rich as Croesus.”

  The name rang a bell. It was unusual for an Indian, because they mainly depend for their names on some kind of description, like the activities of animals. Many Indian names are so forthright they never get into books. On the other hand, they don’t have any curse words; there isn’t anything in the Indians’ language like the profanity in ours. It’s a defect, and has slowed them up in dealing with the higher civilizations.

  But I remembered now. My father had told me about the young brave, back in Independence, who’d come up and given him a letter to deliver—pointing in a general direction toward the West. We had forgotten about it long since. But I knew where it was; it was in my father’s knapsack. The Kissels had lost their main plunder in the fire, but we’d all taken a few necessaries out of the wagon for camping, and my father and I’d put most of our truck in our tent.

  So I went back, curious, and fetched the letter for this chief, who was in the smithy buying iron for arrowheads. Metal was better than flint, which would break if it struck a rock, but iron could be used over and over.

  I stood in the doorway while a young Indian palavered with the blacksmith. This Black Poddee didn’t seem to speak English at all, or maybe he wouldn’t. Some were like that; they figured it was below their dignity.

  “Two robes,” said the blacksmith, seizing a maul and whacking a wagon tire that lay on the coals. When the sparks flew up in a shower, everybody jumped except the chief. “Two robes, take it or leave it,” continued the smith. “Take it for a bargain. Iron ain’t easy come by—it don’t grow on bushes.”

  This was a lie, of course. You could go out on the California-Oregon Trail and pick up enough iron in a day to shoe all the horses in Nebraska. But that hairy baboon of a blacksmith had a whole box of end bits he’d cut to the right size, and here was where the trouble lay. Indians didn’t have tools for cutting and sharpening.

  “Two robes. You want it? Tell you the candid truth,” said the blacksmith, “that box is spoke for. If I was to sell it, I’d be going back on my word. A very good Snake friend of mine—”

  The chief raised his hand in a gesture so grand and princely we could see he was tired of haggling. He made a sign to the young brave, who said, “Two robes.” They picked up the box, and I waited till the party was outside.

  “Mr. Black Poddee?” I said, with a kind of quaver in my voice. I was scared of this fellow. His face hadn’t any more give than one of the rock bluffs along the Platte.

  They stopped, and he turned slowly around to look me over. Then I hauled out the letter and addressed the interpreter.

  “Tell chief I have a letter. It was handed my father and me in Missouri.” I waved toward the east. “Many suns across the big river. Letter is for Black Poddee.”

  For a second the chief’s eyes blazed—I wondered if I’d made him angry—then he answered me himself.

  “Who has given letter?”

  “An Indian young man”—I made the sign of hand across the throat—“of the Sioux people.”

  When he reached out, I placed the letter in his palm. He opened it and read it through, without needing help. Then he smelled the paper, crinkled it to get the feel, and looked through it at the sun. After this curious business, he read it again. I watched him carefully; his face changed; it didn’t seem so rigid any longer. Finally he folded the letter and placed it in his shirt.

  I hoped he was pleased, but he had finished talking to me. Instead, he spoke to the interpreter, who turned and said:

  “You bring news of Black Poddee’s son, who is thought dead while the moving birds fly three times.”

  “I’m glad he’s alive,” I said. I couldn’t seem to think of anything smarter.

  The chief again spoke to the young man.

  “Black Poddee asks name of boy with yellow hair who has carried letter to Sioux lands.”

  “Jaimie.”

  “Black Poddee wish Jay-mee come to Sioux camp tonight when sun go behind mountains. He will send guide to wagon train.”

  I was embarrassed. I didn’t hanker to visit another Indian camp under any conditions. But I was afraid of hurting the chief’s feelings, so I gulped and said, “Yes, sir. I’ll be glad to—I mean I’ll ask my father.”

  This Black Poddee stared at me hard for a second, then they wheeled and walked off in their soft, graceful way toward the gate. Confound the luck, I thought, I’ve done it again. Everything I touch turns out to be trouble for the train.

  When I looked up my father, he was so busy with Coulter he didn’t rightly hear me.

  “Yes, yes, go ahead,” he said. “Do what you think best. Now run along and don’t bother me.”

  That was exactly what I wanted to hear. I’d cleared things, so nobody could say I’d gone without asking. Neither did anyone know I was going. It worked out fine. Honesty is the best policy; I’ve always found it so, but a person often forgets until it’s too late.

  Toward sundown, I began to get fidgety, wondering what I was in for. I recalled a mention of my yellow hair, and figured that these Sioux aimed to add it to their collection. Even so, I was stuck, as I already said. It was too late now. I’d given my word, so I just waited.

  About six, Mrs. Kissel and Jennie started the fire, and all our gang except my father, who was at Captain Cooper’s, were on hand to help. This included the children. Before, they’d been fed early and put to bed by dark; now there was only the one wagon left, and things weren’t quite as smooth. But nobody complained. When Mrs. Kissel said, “If you think it over, it wasn’t nothing but furniture,” her husband added, in a rare burst of speech, “If a man’s got an ax, he’s got furniture.” Then he added, as an afterthought, “And I’ve got an ax.” He was right about that. An ax in Mr. Kissel’s hands was like a thing alive. He handled it the way another man might handle a pocketknife.

  I sat in front of the fire, watching Po-Povi, who was handing things to Mrs. Kissel. Then, after a while, I looked over Mr. Kissel’s head, and a copper-colored fellow, naked to the waist, hair beautifully groomed and oiled, wearing a beaded headband that gave off glints in the firelight, was standing there with his arms folded, waiting.

  “Excuse me, I’ve got some business to transact,” I said, and got up to follow after the Indian. I saw Mr. Brice’s mouth drop open, and heard Mrs. Kissel’s “Land sakes alive!”, then we were swallowed up in the duskiness.

  This fellow was hard to follow. He blended in with the shadows. Besides, I’d been staring at the fire, so the dark looked blacker than it really was for a while.

  I yelled, “Hold up, will you?” a couple of times, and he waited, perfectly good-natured. After what seemed like forty-five minutes or so—we must have covered nearly two miles—we got to the Sioux village, which was spread out over several acres. Campfires were going every place I looked.

  The chief’s lodge was on a rise, with the others in a circle around it. In front, several burning flares were stuck in the ground, so that things were almost as bright as day. This wigwam of his, the biggest of the lot, had a high flag sticking up in the center, with bright colors and things drawn on it.

  Looking around, I saw that the whole tribe was out, dressed up, as handsome a bunch of people as you might see in any city back East. It looked like a celebration, and I didn’t feel comfortable; I’d seen how these things went in the Pawnee village. But I had very little time to worry, because my guide stopped before the gaudiest lodge and, pointing, said, “Black Poddee.”

  I stooped down and crawled in, and there sat this old chief, dressed up with a lot of feathers, with a pot on the fire, three wives behind him, and four dignitaries on either side. They were smoki
ng a pipe, and when I was seated, they passed it along to me. I took a couple of puffs and would have been perfectly happy to puff on, but they took it away and handed it to the next man. Then they offered me some hunks of meat from the pot, on a sliver of bark, and I wolfed them down fast, being hungry after an exciting day. It tasted like jerked beef, tender and good. I made up my mind that the whole style of Sioux was different from the Pawnees; these people were clean, they smelled clean, and their lodges were tidy. What’s more, they appeared friendly and courteous. Just the same, I’d heard how bloodthirsty the Sioux were, and I wondered if they were fattening me up before the feast started.

  After we ate, Black Poddee got up and led us outside, where we sat down in a row. Then some of the prettiest girls I ever saw came forward and did a dance, but it wasn’t anything special. They just padded around in a circle, chanting, with their hands clasped. And after this, some children set up targets and showed how they could shoot bows and arrows. They did it very well, getting eight or nine hits out of ten. Suddenly, they whisked the targets out of sight, everybody sat down, and things got deathly still. I said to myself, the main part of the show is about to commence, just like the Pawnees, and sure enough, Black Poddee rose up, pulled out a knife, and pointed it up at the heavens, while everybody gave a big shout.

  I was so scared I couldn’t get my legs in working order. I wanted to run but couldn’t. You could have heard my teeth chattering fifty feet away. The chief now reached down and drew me up to my feet. Very slowly, he raised his knife again, then he cut a slice across his own wrist. Before I knew it, he’d cut one across mine, too. For some reason, it didn’t hurt. Placing his cut wrist against mine, he said in a loud voice:

  “Now Yellow Hair is blood son of Black Poddee.”

  This was a very pleasant surprise. They weren’t going to kill me at all; he’d made me an honorary member of his family, entirely legal, with blood, and that wasn’t the end. When they’d put salve made of bark and buffalo marrow on my cut, he led out the handsomest spotted pony you ever saw, and handed me the reins, which were worked out of braided buckskin.