Daniel made Little Knife understand that he could have a powwow with the chief of all the soldiers and they talked about that business between them. By the time they was done, a few of the braves had come back from hunting and crowded around to see the white man with the silver hair. I looked for White Dog, or for any of them wearing a red bandana, which told me they was originally with Red Top. They was all young and dark and silent as cats as they moved around us and stared with blazing black eyes. I felt like a field mouse trapped in a corncrib. Then I seen one of them moving among the people, talking in a low voice to the younger braves. Daniel didn’t seem to notice him, but I never took my eyes off him. He was stirring things up, I could see that.
Little Knife finished what he had to say and raised his hand to Daniel, and he did the same.
“Start backing out of here,” Daniel said. He was being very cautious, so I known he could hear some of what that rabble-rouser was saying.
I pulled back on Cricket, and she bowed her head at first, then made a loud shudder from her nose and bobbed her head up and down furiously, but she backed up like I wanted her to, one step at a time. Daniel’s horse was so well trained, he hardly moved his head at all. He just took backward steps easy and slow, with no display of indignity or reluctance.
We got clear of the camp and turned our mounts and headed back toward the column. About halfway there, Daniel told me he was going on without me. “I want you to stay here and take good cover.”
“I’ll make sure they don’t get off nowhere without us knowing it,” I said.
“They won’t be going anywhere,” he said. “I’ve arranged a powwow.”
I said nothing, and he stared off up the trail behind us for a spell. Then he said, “I didn’t like what that one hothead was saying.”
“I figured it wasn’t no good.”
“I don’t think he wants to negotiate with anybody. He kept talking about ‘white devils.’ ”
I said nothing. We both set there looking at the horizon.
“Well,” I said finally. “What’s next?”
“You better stay here, off the trail and out of sight. If you see Little Knife coming, you can just take your time getting back to the column. But if you spot any of them renegades striking out on their own, come a-running so we can send a detachment to meet them on good ground.”
I saluted him, and he turned and went on. I rode up to the top of a little ridge, where there was a small stand of timber, and disappeared in amongst them. I set up camp on a fine bed of pine needles and waited to watch the trail for a while. It was still pretty cold, but I didn’t think it was safe to build a fire or even set up the tent, so I hunkered down under a couple of thick buffalo robes and smoked my pipe. I was sure hungry. All I had was some dried venison. It was good enough to make my mouth water and my stomach howl for something else. It chewed like the billet strap on a saddle, and had as much flavor.
About a hour later, I seen them coming. They was a long way off, a small party. Six braves on horseback.
I got up slowly. I figured it had to be Little Knife and his folks coming to negotiate. It was such a small party, it couldn’t be nothing else. It took me a while to get the robes put away and tied to the back of my saddle in the pack, but the whole time I worked, I watched them coming along. They was moving at a pretty good clip. I seen them go down in a bit of a gulch and disappear for a spell, but then they come back up out of it and they was even closer. Something happened to my heart when I seen White Dog, with that red cloth around his neck, riding along in the lead. The five other braves rode a little behind him, three to his right and two to his left. They made a formation like birds on the wing, with White Dog out front.
This was a damn war party, moving fast and with a purpose. I figured maybe they was headed to find me and Daniel and kill us if they could. What I done next come as a surprise to me. I known and felt the rage—Big Tree laying there with all that wood in him—and not just what he looked like but what it sounded like to break off them arrows I couldn’t pull out. Every hour since, I dreamed of having White Dog in my sights. It seemed like my whole life up to that time—everything else I remembered—just went away. I wasn’t no veteran of the War of the Rebellion, I wasn’t a fur trapper or a mountain man, a scout for the U.S. Army, or even Eveline’s man. It ain’t possible to tell how empty everything in my mind was except for one thing. And I don’t believe I was thinking at all for what happened next.
I tied Cricket to one of the trees and moved over to the edge of the timber where I could see better. I had my carbine, fully loaded. White Dog rode high on his horse, like every Indian I ever seen did. He looked like he was the top half of the horse. His horse seemed to prance.
I laid down on the ground at the top of the ridge, set the barrel of my carbine on the edge of a small boulder to steady it, aimed very carefully at the middle of White Dog’s chest, and fired. He fell backward off his horse. The others scattered a bit until they seen my smoke and where the shot come from. I fired again and hit one of the others, then fired once more and got a horse. White Dog’s horse run with his tail between his legs like a scared dog. I heard one of the braves a-yipping and hollering, and then I seen White Dog get up and try to get on one of the other horses. I shot that horse, then hit White Dog again. He fell down. Two of the braves was now charging up the hill. I let them come for a spell, then shot both of them as high in the chest as my sights would allow. White Dog was dead, one other brave was wounded and running around after his horse, and two others was on the ground in front of me, also dead. I seen the last two a-setting there, holding their horses steady and watching for me. One of them had a carbine, and he aimed it my way and fired. I didn’t feel no wind nor nothing from it, so he missed a long way over my head. I shot him before he could fire another shot. He held on to his horse for a while as it run away, but then he fell off. The other helped the wounded fellow that was chasing his horse, and both of them disappeared behind a clump of trees on my side of the gulch.
It took me longer to tell of it than for it to happen.
I stayed where I was for a while, watching for the two braves that got away from me. They come into sight a little ways beyond where the others was. I seen the one run to catch his horse, which galloped in my direction. The fellow was behind the animal, so I couldn’t get a clear shot. His horse come to a stop a few yards away from me and the brave come up from behind him and grabbed the tail. He swung up onto his mount, then turned and looked at me. I raised my rifle, and he just sat there, staring—like he was waiting for it. I could see he known who I was. His eyes registered the shock and it stopped me. I didn’t fire at him. He rode over to where the other fellow was and I seen him point and say something. Then they galloped off back where they come from. I watched them go, noticed the little cloud of dust their horses raised as they disappeared into the gulch again and then come up on the other side and kept on getting smaller and smaller in the dull light. I waited a little longer just to make sure there wasn’t no movement. Then I got up and, while there was still some sunlight, walked over to the two dead Indians who was laying in front of me. I didn’t recognize the first one. I got him in the neck and he laid there staring up at the darkening sky, like he was searching for the first star. “I wish you didn’t rush at me like that,” I said. The other one was hit just below the right eye. That whole side of his face was a mess, but I seen it was Little Knife I killed. He had a white truce flag tied to the sash around his waist.
I squatted down next to his body. I couldn’t believe it. White Dog was riding with them, but this was the peace party after all. And I known right then that I had to get out of that country. As far away as I could. I had done the one thing that made a man a total renegade and outcast: I’d attacked a peace party. Daniel known he left me here, and that Sioux brave recognized me, so now the army would be after me and so would every Indian. It didn’t matter that it was a mistake or that I really believed those folks was intent on no good. It didn’t
matter what I thought at all. Now everybody would want to kill me.
I stood up walked down the hill to where White Dog’s body lay twisted in the grass where he fell. I felt my head begin to spin a bit. The dizziness turned something in my heart that felt like a stab of fear, and to forestall it I started howling, high and loud, at the gray sky. I wailed and yipped like a Indian, staring up at the thickening stars and the rising moon.
When I couldn’t yell no longer, I sat down again. A few birds flown overhead and I seen their shadows cross over the glistening stones that was once White Dog’s eyes. I didn’t know what I might do or where I’d go. Then I thought of Eveline. My Eveline. I couldn’t go directly west. The whole army was a-coming that way. But I had to get back to her. She would understand. When I remembered her—when I seen her eyes in my memory—it like to made me cry. I ain’t ashamed of it. I howled again, only this time I was shouting her name. I figured I’d go northeast toward the Missouri River, then turn west once I was well beyond the Yellowstone country. I intended to take Eveline out of that part of the world. I didn’t know where I was going for sure; maybe all the way to Oregon.
I had to keep a eye out for folks in front of me or behind me or to either side. I had to steer clear of every living soul all the way back to Bozeman. It was me and Cricket and only the gear I had tied to the back of my saddle. I needed to kill something pretty quick so I could eat. The winter was dying, sure enough, and it would be spring before long.
I was north of the Yellowstone River, and well south of the Missouri. I rode most of the day in the wide country along the Yellowstone valley, looking all the time for any sign of human life. I looked for any kind of timber so I could ride in shadow and out of sight.
The whole time I was hunting for game. Near nightfall, with no luck and nothing to eat, I pitched my tent and made camp a few paces from the Yellowstone River, back among the trees and underbrush where I could tie Cricket and keep her out of sight. I hunched in the tent under the buffalo robes and slept with the moist night air dripping out of my hair and down my face. I did not hear a single thing except the murmuring water and the toads singing to beat all.
In the morning, going further up the trail, I seen a lot of smoke up ahead of me. I turned north, toward a high ridge that looked out over the whole country. Cricket climbed steadily up a rocky slope, and sometime during that climb she come up lame. I didn’t notice it right away because near the top I got down on foot and she walked behind me. When I could see the broad land before me—when I could see as far as any human eye can ever see—I realized I had gone around one of the biggest encampments of Indians I ever seen. Maybe a hundred tepees, and smoke curling from every one of them.
I had no way of knowing if those fellows in the peace party who got away was in amongst them, so I couldn’t trust my luck enough to let them see me. I watched them for a spell, then walked due north along the ridge with Cricket behind me. I known from what I seen on top of that ridge that I wasn’t never going to find no stand of pines, and I’d have to eat nothing but bitterroot and dried venison for the next few days because I wasn’t going to be firing no gun where any of them Indians could hear it. What’s worse, Colonel Brisbin told me that Benteen was coming up from the south, and Custer was coming from the east into this country to meet up with Gibbon. I felt trapped. And all I wanted to do was get back to Eveline.
The ground started to break downward on the north side and I got up on Cricket and tried to sidle down onto more level ground. That’s when I noticed she was lame. I didn’t say nothing out loud, but she could tell I was feeling like the unluckiest bastard in the world. She looked so ashamed of herself.
Near the bottom of the ridge I found a trail that headed due west, so I got on it and walked into a stiff breeze. I was walking that a way for two days, and then I run into Ink and shot her.
Part Four
Ink
1876
Chapter 18
When I shot Ink she was scared to death, her heart beating like a drum. Now she’s asleep and the sky is turning purple. Wind begins to move through the bushes and rocks. Cricket frets and turns around her tether, stamping and shuttering.
I take the opportunity to move Ink to the lee of the boulder, where she’ll at least be able to keep her head dry. She don’t even stir. It’s like dragging a small stump across the ground. I push the saddle way back under the base of the stone, set the stirrup up so she can have something to rest her head on. The wind is strong enough now that trying to pitch the tent would be foolish. I check to be sure she ain’t bleeding no more, then I scrunch up under the stone with her, holding the rifle across my lap. The pistol digs into my abdomen, but I leave it there so it will remain dry when the rain comes.
The wind whistles in the bushes and dry branches. Ink opens her eyes and looks at me with a fierce expression. I don’t think she knows who I am just yet. Then she remembers.
“Did you shoot me?”
“Yeah, I did. I’m sorry about it.”
“My stomach is on fire.”
“It will be for a while,” I say. “Pray that lasts a bit, because once it starts itching, you’ll wish you had the pain again.”
“Am I bleeding?”
“I just checked it. It’s fine.”
“I am hungry.”
“Once this rain passes,” I say, “I’ll set us up for the night.”
“You got food?”
I reach into my saddlebag stuffed next to the saddle and get her another piece of raw sowbelly. “Chew on this awhile. It’ll settle the hunger some.”
She gives me a look.
“You already eat what’s left of yours. It’s all I got now, unless you want some hardtack.”
“I don’t want more of this,” she says. But she gnaws on it for a spell. Cold wind gusts in circles around us, then the rain starts. Big, heavy drops at first that raise little puffs of dust on the ground when they hit. But then it comes down like something poured from a railroad water tank, so hard you can’t believe it’s only drops of water. It falls like curtains, one wave after another, and before a minute passes, both Ink and me are soaked through. But it don’t matter: it’s cool rain that washes the air and makes you forget sweat and exhaustion.
The rain begins to form little streams and pools and it splashes around us. I move to cover the stock on my carbine. I think to bury it under my shirt, but that’s sopping wet, so I end up laying it down behind the saddle. I have to move Ink’s head and force her to expose more of herself to the rain.
“You don’t care if I get wet,” she says.
“It’s cool rain. It will feel good and you could use the cleanup.” I make some room for the rifle behind the saddle, then push it back again so she can put her head down. “That gun cost me near a month’s wages, and it ain’t no good to get it wet. Especially the metal parts.”
I settle on the ground next to her with my head on my pack roll. She’s on her back, but she’s got her head turned my way, watching me.
I stare into her eyes for a while, see how long it will take her to look away. She lets it last just long enough, but then she looks up to the rock above her head. I close my eyes and try to drift off. It ain’t easy with the rain. She makes a little sound in her throat and I say, “You all right?” I keep my eyes closed.
“I have to sleep.”
“I guess we both do.”
“If my husband finds us, he will kill you.”
“I expect,” I say. “Wouldn’t be the first to try it.”
She’s quiet for a while, and I think that she must of fallen asleep finally; but when I open my eyes to look, she’s staring at me again. “I am so cold,” she says.
“Where’d you learn to speak American?” I say.
“I went to Catholic school in St. Louis until I was ten. And it is not ‘American.’ It is English.”
“Ain’t it the same thing?”
“I don’t think it is.”
“Well, look at you now. All the way
out here, and the bride of a Indian. Ain’t no need for English with them folks, is there?”
“I am cold,” she says again.
“Well, Jesus,” I say. I turn over and get a blanket out of my roll. “This here will be wet as hell in five minutes, and heavy too.” It takes a little effort to get it out, but when I do, she reaches for it.
“Wait a minute,” I say.
“Just put it up here, under my head,” she says. “I don’t want it to get wet.”
I stuff it up behind her head so it’s on top of the saddle and balled up around her head and face. She actually smiles at me. “That feels warm,” she says.
“I’m glad of it. When the rain stops, you can use it to cover up and keep from freezing to death.” I see her lower teeth chattering. “I’m sorry,” I say. “By Jesus, I’m sorry.”
She don’t say nothing.
It’s quiet for what seems like a long time, and when I look over at her she’s got her eyes closed. The high cheekbones look bronze in the returning sunlight. Her eyebrows are dark and thick over her eyes. They stretch over her nose a bit and meet in the middle, but they’re real thin there so you’d hardly notice it. Everything about her is dark. The eyes when they’re open look fierce—like she’s made up her mind to hurt you and is just about to launch whatever it is that will do it. Her thin pink lips curve a little downward in the middle, and she’s got a small dent in her chin. She’s right nice to look at.
Not that I’m interested. Except for my aunt in Pittsburgh, the women on the wagon train coming out here, and Morning Breeze—which don’t really count, since she forsaken me and went with another—I don’t have what you’d call wide experience with the opposite sex. I ain’t talking about amorous time with women—I tried a few of the whores in Petersburg after the war; I mean I just never had much to do with women, ever, until I met Eveline. I intend to keep my promise and get back before June. I still got time to do it. I know Christine is a-telling Eveline right now that I ain’t coming back. It’s already almost April, and the closer I get to June, the more I worry about Eveline doing exactly what she said she would do: she will go on west with her sister and forget about me. She’ll just assume I was lying when I said I’d come back, or I went and got myself killed. And she don’t even know how much I come to feel about her.
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