Far as the Eye Can See

by Robert Bausch

  Bellows was under orders from a cavalry officer named Brisbin, who told him to go east until he found the Indians—Lakota, Cheyenne, Shoshone, he didn’t care. They was all occupying land that was no longer theirs and they was in violation of the treaty of 1865. General Gibbon, who was in command at Fort Ellis, wanted to know where the Indians was so he could take his army and go get them in the spring.

  I led the small detachment southeast, toward the two Bighorn rivers. We kept the mountains to our right and on the left was hills and valleys to beat all, and every now and then flat prairie as far as we could see. And everywhere snow with reeds of grass poking up like whiskers. We crossed frozen streams that still had water trickling under solid ice. I took them where I known the buffalo had been, or the elk. Traveling with Big Tree all those years, I learned about the movement of the herds and where to look for them. Once you found the herds, you found the Indians. It wasn’t too long before I found snow beaten down until the brown earth showed through. I followed what looked like a long, winding scar in the whiteness, and by the time we got into Wyoming Territorry, we seen where other prints scattered up near the trail, and then we found blood and the spare carcasses of killed game. After that, you’re only looking for smoke.

  Twice in our travels, we come upon a fair group of braves. When they spotted us they whooped and hollered a bit, but then, not being dressed for no battle, they skedaddled.

  “Man,” one of the young troops said. “This is going to be easy. They’re afraid of us.”

  “They ain’t afraid of nothing,” I said.

  “Really.”

  “There’s a reason they’re called braves. They believe a man is supposed to be brave and they learn to conquer fear pretty early in life. I don’t think they remember much about fear.”

  Bellows said, “When they’re ready to fight, they’ll fight.”

  “Do they know we’re looking for a fight?” the young trooper said.

  “I don’t expect they do,” I said.

  “I ain’t looking for a fight, neither,” Bellows said. He had a long, pointed nose and thick eyebrows. He was bald, and didn’t wear much more than a day or two’s growth of beard. It just looked like his face was dirty. He always had a fat jaw full of chewing tobacco that he’d spit, even in the cold. The black juice run down his chin and sometimes looked like a thin-cut goatee. I asked him how he avoided getting killed with Fetterman.

  He said, “That was the year after the war, not far from here.”

  “Where was you?” I asked.

  “I was on a steamboat up the Bighorn River, getting a bad tooth cut out, when Fetterman and his men got killed. That was the war with Red Cloud.” He told me Fetterman was lured by a small party of warriors away from Fort Phil Kearny, and when he was far enough out in the open, the Indians attacked. “His entire command was massacred. Eighty-one men fell upon by fifteen hundred Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapahos. That’s the only battle these Indians ever won against the U.S. Army. And it was right over yonder, a few days’ ride north and east of this very spot.”

  We was riding along the trail south of the Tongue River, bent over to keep our faces out of the cold wind. I looked back and seen the young troopers looking kind of dejected. I said, “I don’t think the young fellows in our little army like to hear you talk like that about a massacre.”

  “Those fellows want to be famous. They wish they was riding with the Seventh Cavalry and Custer.”

  “I heard tell of that general,” I said. “He’s a Indian fighter to beat all, ain’t he?”

  “He ain’t no general. He’s a bloody colonel. He was a brevetted general in the war. Folks do him a favor calling him ‘general.’ ”

  “I known a fellow who got a brevet rank. A Captain Cooney.”

  “U.S.?”

  “Confederate. He’s in a pine box right now, under a Conestoga wagon, waiting for spring so we can put him in the ground.”

  We rode along for a spell, then Bellows said, “What happened to him? Injuns?”

  “No, he got sick.”

  “There’s a million ways to die out here,” Bellows said.

  “I guess there is.”

  On our tenth day out, late in the afternoon, we finally come upon a small canyon between two high ridges of ground. A stream run through there in summer, but now it was a white ribbon that snaked its way out of the canyon and further up into the hills. Next to the stream, on the north side of it, was nineteen or twenty lodges, and about thirty horses tethered behind them. Smoke from their campfires rose up from the tops of the lodges into the white sky. Dogs barked. I didn’t see no people.

  “They might be having supper,” Bellows said. “Or they’re keeping warm.”

  “It ain’t like they didn’t want to be found,” I said. “If they known we was after them, we wouldn’t find them that easy.”

  The troopers behind us was real excited. The hardware in the bridles of the horses rattled and I heard several magazines click with new ammunition. I said, “Wasn’t we just supposed to find them? We ain’t just gonna ride down there and start shooting, are we?”

  “We’ll be ready,” Bellows said. “But I don’t want to shoot nobody. I think we can talk them into going with us.”

  “All the way back to Bozeman?”

  “No, we don’t need to do that. We’ll escort them to Fort Laramie. That’s only three or four days from here.”

  “I thought the order was to find out where they are. We done that.”

  “We are going to transport these Indians to Laramie. I hear there’s a Indian village there. It will save them. You don’t know what’s coming.”

  “You think they’ll go?”

  “I intend to ask them polite.”

  “I was at Summit Springs,” I said. “I seen how it can go. Them Indians was taking a nap and the cavalry just rode right down on them. I’d like it to be different here.”

  “Like I said, I don’t want to shoot nobody.”

  Bellows and me just rode down the hill and walked our horses steady into the middle of the half circle of lodges. We got to the center, and a tall brave poked hisself from a lodge to our right. Bellows raised his white-gloved hand and said, “How.”

  Then some other braves come out. They moved to our left and behind us, but nobody said nothing. The first Indian that come out raised his hand and then he motioned for us to dismount.

  We got down and handed the reins to the fellows standing around. It was a handsome bunch. They was Cheyenne and not from nowhere near Bozeman, so they wasn’t in violation of no treaty with the army up that way as far as I could see. The big fellow that first greeted us stood to the side of the entrance to his lodge and motioned for us to go in. It was warm inside, and there was lots of room. Drawings was painted on the walls, which reminded me of Morning Breeze. A hot fire blazed in the center. There was blankets all around, and two women and four children huddled in the back. It smelled like leather and smoke in there, close with sweat too.

  We removed our hats and took a seat by the fire and our host sat down across from us. He signed that we was welcome. To show he meant it, he offered us his pipe and some tobacco. We all smoked silently, sort of staring at each other, then two other braves come in. One of them was tall and wore a long red scarf around his neck. He carried a long spear with white feathers hanging off of it and I didn’t see how it wasn’t the same Indian I seen chasing after Big Tree that time when he rode in amongst them. I tried to remember his name. He had to be a Sioux, but those two tribes traveled together a lot, so it wasn’t no surprise. Our host wore a single white feather in his hair, and when everybody was seated, he spoke.

  “Netawnyay,” he said. “I am Saw-set.”

  Bellows and I nodded. Then Bellows told him our names. “You speak English?”

  “I can some,” Saw-set answered. He went on in Cheyenne, though. He signed that we were welcome again and wondered what we wanted.

  Bellows told him in English that the treaty his people signed
meant he must come with us to the Fort at Laramie.

  “I signed no treaty,” Saw-set said.

  “Your people signed a treaty that you have mostly honored until now. You know of the treaty.”

  “We hunt,” Saw-set said, speaking very clear English. He pointed to the tall Sioux with the red scarf. “This is White Dog.” That was it. White Dog. I wondered if he seen me close enough to remember. I caught him looking at me. Saw-set said, “His people hunt with us. We feed and put skins on the people. We have no idea of war against the whites.”

  White Dog said, “You make war on the people.”

  “No,” Bellows said. “I come to offer you a place to keep warm and to be fed during the cold winter.”

  “Are you not warm here?” Saw-set said. “There is plenty of game. We do not need your help, but we are grateful that you come to us and offer it.”

  Bellows looked down at his boots that was facing sole to sole in front of him. He had his hands on his knees. He rubbed his knees for a bit, then he said, “I am sorry, but you must go with us to Laramie.”

  It got quiet.

  The tobacco was good, and when it was near finished, the pipe come to me and I smoked some and then offered it like it was a infant to Saw-set. He took it and just as gently set it down next to him. Then he looked at us. I seen real sadness in his eyes. He said, “Saw-set mean War Eagle in English. If you will make war, we will fight.”

  The other braves got up and went out. Saw-set, or War Eagle, remained where he was seated for a while, watching us with those sad eyes. “You may go in peace,” he said. “But if you come back, it will be for fighting and not peace.”

  “I don’t want to fight nobody,” Bellows said. “We have many guns.”

  “You offer peace, then talk of guns,” War Eagle said.

  Bellows got to his feet. I looked up at him, then glanced back at War Eagle. He had no more to say. I known what was coming.

  Chapter 10

  It took us a while to get back to the men. We had to walk real slow, paying no attention to the warriors who was right behind us, watching everything we did. I felt sorry for Cricket, struggling to get up that snow-piled hill, with me a-pulling on her reins to hold her steady and at a walk. There was a huge commotion behind us, but we didn’t dare look back. The Indians had yipped and hollered all the way back down the hill. When we reached the men, Bellows commenced ordering them into position for a fight. He formed them up in a column of two, rifles held to the right shoulder with the leather sling strap around the arms and wrist. In less than fifteen minutes he had his troops ready to go down amongst them. He had his sword out glistening in the winter sun. He was a different man—like a boy made free of school.

  “You was hoping for this,” I said.

  “No,” he said, looking me sternly in the eyes. “I hoped we could avoid it. But I won’t sit around here wondering what to do. I have my orders.”

  “We was just supposed to locate them. Ain’t this for General Gibbon?”

  “Who knows where they’ll be when Gibbon comes this way? There ain’t that many of them. We’ll take care of this here and now.”

  “And you think you can just ride down there and round them up like they was sheep or something?”

  “Mr. Hale,” he said. “We may have to kill a few.”

  “And that will save them,” I said. I got up on Cricket and turned her away.

  “Where you going?”

  “I ain’t going to be no part of this.” I pulled back a little on Cricket’s reins and she turned back some, her head bobbing up and down, steam blowing from her nostrils. “This ain’t nothing but murder, Captain.”

  “You don’t respect them braves very much, do you?” he said. He sat atop his horse like a falcon on a fellow’s arm, ready to take flight. He held his sword up against his right shoulder. The blade gleamed. He turned the horse away from me and took his place in front of the men.

  “You’re going down there without me,” I said.

  “It ain’t no obligation on you,” he told me. Not one of his men even glanced my way. He smiled a bit. “You done what you had to do. You put us on them. Now I got to do what I been hired to do.”

  I almost told him that if I’d of known it would lead to this, I wouldn’t of done it. But I known it wasn’t true. I thought it might end up in a fight, and I signed on anyway. I needed the pay, and a fellow would have to be a durn fool not to know what would happen when troops went out to collect Indians off their own land and bring them into a fort to be fed like pet animals.

  “You just wait right here,” Bellows said. “We’ll be back directly.”

  He hollered the command, and his men went behind him at a gallop down the hill toward the Indian camp.

  I rode a little further down myself so I could see what happened. The women had already commenced taking down the lodges. A party of braves on horseback come out of the timber just to the left of where the camp was and started yipping and hollering as they galloped toward the column behind Bellows. I seen Bellows turn and fire his pistol, waving the sword now as he tried to get his men to turn and start firing. A few executed the right kind of cavalry move, I suppose, but once the arrows started flying, most of his men scattered and started running away from the charging Indians. Bellows run right at them, firing his pistol. He probably had no idea he was pretty much alone and there wasn’t nobody at all a-charging with him. He took a arrow in what looked like his neck and rolled back off his horse and landed on his side, the sword flying away from him. He must of been dead before he hit the ground because he didn’t move none once he settled. Another group of warriors come from the camp, riding across the stream in a single line, then scattering around the soldiers, who was still trying to figure out where to turn and what to do. It was a sorry thing to witness. The Indians chased after individuals, shooting arrows at them as they run, and when one fell, the other warriors circled him on their horses and shot arrow after arrow into the poor fellow. I think they got most of the men that rode down that hill. Without Bellows to lead them, they was as helpless as rats trapped in a dry well. A few got away. I seen them riding hard over the hills toward the Bighorn River. I figured they’d get lost and die if I didn’t go after them, so I turned Cricket toward the north to cut them off.

  I rode her pretty hard for a spell, but then I could tell Cricket was winded, so I stopped and let her walk a bit. I was in tall grass, still pretty high on the ridge that looked down at the Indian camp, about two miles upriver from it. Below me I seen three of Bellows’s troops dragging along on foot, their horses trailing behind them. I could see they’d run the animals into a white, foaming sweat, and there was no run left in them. You can do that to a horse—you run him too hard and keep him on it too long, and he’ll finally quit. Then it’s hard to get him to run again for a long time. If you do, he’ll flat-out die. Oh, you can kick one into a good gallop for a short while, but even with a solid whip, you ain’t gonna get one to run long.

  At first, when they seen me coming down the hill, they wasn’t sure what sort of foe I might be. I was in my leather jacket and buffalo robes, with only the hat on my head to tell them I was a white man. But then one of them recognized me.

  “Jesus,” he said. “The captain’s dead.”

  “I seen it,” I said.

  “Jake here is wounded.”

  Sure enough, the fellow behind him was sagging a little, and I could see he had a arrow sticking out of his side.

  I said. “I guess they outnumbered you.”

  “There was so many of them. And the arrows was everywhere.”

  “I see. But they had no guns, right?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I got to report all this back at Fort Ellis.”

  The third fellow, the youngest one there, said, “They had guns.”

  “Well, I watched it from up yonder,” I said. “At the top of the ridge where we was before you rode down amongst them. I can’t say I seen a single gun fired exce
pt for the captain’s pistol.”

  He hung his head down.

  Jake said, “Can you help us?”

  “That’s what I run down here for.”

  “I’m not doing so good here.” Jake tugged on the arrow a bit and gritted his teeth. “I got to get this thing out of me.”

  “Yes, you surely do,” I said. The youngest fellow was called Nate. He was from Illinois and he had red hair, and teeth that bent outward in the front like the cowcatcher on a train engine. His face was hairless, and from the way he was always looking at me, I’d say he did not like me very much at all. I probably wounded his dignity when I made that comment about the guns that didn’t get fired in his first great Indian battle.

  The first fellow, a tall, kind of craggy hillbilly from Georgia—too young to fight in the big war, but now glad to be in any kind of army—was called Daniel. He was Jake’s best friend, as they come to let me know. Jake, who had the arrow deep in his side, told me that Daniel would one day be a officer. “He can already speak some of them Indian languages.”

  I set Jake down against a small embankment. Nate and Daniel was watching back from where they come just in case the Indians was still following them. They had their carbines out now and aimed at the horizon behind us. I thought, God help the poor soul that comes over that hill. But nobody come. Those Indians was a long way gone in the other direction.

  Jake’s wound was worse than I thought it would be. At first glance, it looked like the arrow had passed through the side of his body where there ain’t that much in the way of internals, but it went in at more of a angle and pierced his lung. I could hear blood gurgling behind the wound. He didn’t know it yet, but once we pulled the thing out of there, he’d probably bleed to death pretty quick. I seen this kind of wound in the war. Even pouring a gallon of whiskey into it wouldn’t help it none.

  When I seen how bad it was, he was watching my face. “What?” he said. “Tell me.”