Far as the Eye Can See

by Robert Bausch

  “I hope that does it,” I say. “I don’t have no more shirt left.”

  The whole time I was cutting on her, she didn’t make a sound. I watched her breathing and seen her heaving with the pain, felt her writhe under me, but in the end she just laid there and let it happen.

  “You did that pretty wonderful,” I say when it’s all over. “I don’t think I could take that kind of pain.”

  She don’t look at me. She’s still breathing like she just run for miles. Tears stream down the side of her face. If she ain’t a full-blooded Indian, she’s one hell of a half-breed. Dark as pitch, and strong and stubborn as a coyote.

  I sure don’t want her to suffer no more. It’s like we’re the last two people on earth, and I’m working like hell to keep it that way. At first all I wanted to do was get her to a place where I could leave her and she’d be okay. I owed that to her. But right now, after watching her while I carved up the better part of half her abdomen and she don’t even whimper a little bit, it seems like we might end up owing each other something more than a happy farewell when it comes right down to it.

  Chapter 20

  Ink’s been asleep about a hour or so now. I watch the sun fall out of the sky and think about how to get her up on a horse. It will be dark soon and we have to keep moving. After I cut on her I give her a little bit to eat and plenty of water. I think her fever is better, but I’m worried about how I’m going to get her up on Cricket. I want to ride all night. I can pretty much go right at the North Star. If Hump really is trailing her, we’d be walking right at him if we headed west even a little bit, but I have to do that to get back to the trail. I figure we’ll cross the trail just about the time the moon rises on the horizon, and then I’ll just follow it across the sky, staying out of the way of folks I might see. I’ll keep my eyes wide open and walk in front of Cricket so I can see both ways.

  I really can see in the dark. Everything looks bright to me—black and white—but bright anyway. Starlight is as good as moonlight to me. Even on a moonless, cloudy night, I can see better than most.

  When the sun’s final gleam sinks below the horizon, I feel the air getting colder. The rain brought clear, windless, cool air, and at night we’re going to need to keep warm, so it’s a good thing we’ll be moving. I gently wake Ink. “We got to get going,” I say. I help her up on her feet, then stand there looking into her eyes. “I think your fever’s gone.”

  “I am thirsty again.”

  I give her the canteen. “We’re going west, back to the trail,” I say. “Do you remember what I told you about where we’re going?”

  She nods, but I can see she don’t really know what I’m talking about. “When we get back to the trail, we’re heading north, through the valley to the Missouri.”

  “It is not too dangerous?”

  “It’s the safest way to go.”

  “What happens when we get to the river?”

  “I told you: we’ll stay alongside of it, heading east until we get to Fort Buford.”

  I go over and get Cricket all packed up and then I hoist Ink up on her. It takes some doing. I lift her under her arms and she throws her legs up as best she can. I know the pain almost crushes the air out of her, but we get her situated.

  “Where will you go then?” she says.

  “I got to get back to Bozeman before June,” I say. “So we have to move pretty steady and get where we’re going.”

  She wants to know why it’s so important for me to get back before June, so I tell her about Eveline.

  “You are betrothed,” she says. “And your woman will not wait for you?”

  “Hell, I don’t know,” I say. “I just know I promised I’d be back there in June, and I don’t want to lose her just because of all this business here.”

  She lets her head slump down a bit.

  “I guess if that’s what betrothment is, then I’m betrothed. So you’re running away from your husband, and I’m trying to get back to a future wife.”

  “I am sorry to be a burden.”

  “You ain’t no burden,” I say. “To tell the truth, after what I seen you can take, I admire you. It ain’t nothing to take you to Buford. I owe you that much. It ain’t far once we get to the Missouri. Then I’ll be on my way.”

  “I don’t know about Buford now,” she says. “When I was alone I wanted that. I know my father is not there.”

  “Well, that’s where we’re going. And then you’ll be safe.”

  She studies the blood that’s dried on her moccasins. I hand her the pistol again in its holster and attach it to the saddle horn in front of her so she can reach it. I don’t know why, but her silent expectations make me kind of sad.

  We move along pretty fast, traveling only at night. Within a week I know we are getting closer to the Missouri River. I think I can smell the grassland that drops down into the river valley. I’m still on foot, going as fast as I can walk. It ain’t much of a trail going north, but we find our way in the dark. Cricket’s still limping a bit, but she can clop along now without trying not to use her one foot. This part of the country is full of wide meadows and broad green pine forests. It rises and falls as we go along. We can see for miles in the starlight.

  One night early in our second week, I see the sloping hills that lead to the long descent to the river valley. “We’re getting close,” I say. “Maybe a day or two more and we should be there—at the river anyway.”

  Ink says nothing.

  About halfway through the night we come upon a herd of elk. I want so bad to shoot one of them.

  “Are you sure Hump is after you?” I say.

  Ink jumps awake. “What did you say?”

  “Sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know you was sleeping.”

  “I was not sleeping.”

  “Well, maybe if you tried to look more awake, I’d believe that.”

  She don’t say nothing. We start climbing a gentle slope. To our left is a great expanse of pine trees, and I worry about what might be in there watching us.

  “We’ll have plenty to eat tomorrow if I shoot one a them elk,” I say.

  “What if Hump is in those trees over there?”

  “How’d he know we was a coming this way? How’d he get ahead of us? It ain’t Hump I’m worried about in them trees.”

  We pass the elk. They stand there, gathered in the darkness like one beast, eating and watching us as we go by. Just looking at them makes me think of cooked meat and beer sloshing in a pail. I say, “What if he is in them trees. Why don’t he just come out and kill me? Take you back?”

  “You do not know him. You won’t see him until he is ready.”

  “Well, what the hell, then. I ought to go on back and shoot me one of them elks.” But I keep walking along in front of her, holding Cricket’s reins. “What is he? A ghost?”

  “He will want to kill you slow,” she says.

  “What would he do if I set you down right here and let him come take you back?”

  “You are a wasichu,” she says. “He’ll want to kill you.”

  “Damn,” I say. “What a place.”

  We go up the slope without saying no more. I listen to Cricket’s hooves trampling dry grass and clip-clopping on the hard ground like it was cobblestone. It’s the only sound in the still air. When the moon rises above the black trees to our left, I realize I can see my breath. We start down a long winding trail through dense trees into the valley. In the forest, on deep layers of pine needles, we don’t make a sound. We go slow now so I can be sure what’s around us. The moon is fractured and dances behind pine boughs. I don’t know if I ever been in a forest so empty of noise. Then a owl lets out a screech that like to empty my bowels. Ink starts laughing, fighting against the noise.

  “What?” I say.

  “You jumped high.”

  I don’t like her laughing. I think she shoulda kept that to herself, but I don’t say nothing. She’s tough, and she can speak English better than me, and even so, I think now mayb
e when we get to Fort Buford I’ll be kind of sad to leave her there. But then I tell myself I don’t need no judgment going with me everywhere I go.

  The owl screeches again. I want to get out of these trees. Then up ahead I see something glowing. I stop, hold Cricket’s head still and watch. Ink sees it too. “That’s a campfire,” I say.

  The thing about this country out here is that you never know when you’re going to have to go into battle. I roamed around enough to know anybody might want to kill you. Even folks that ain’t in the fix I’m in got to be wary of strangers. It’s one big, everlasting war—and the range of battles runs from man to man, all the way up to whole armies. The tribes want the wasichus to get out. The wasichus want to stay. The tribes want to ride and hunt wherever they please, and the wasichus want them to stay put. I met a guy at Fort Riley who called it “the War of the Northern Plains.” I thought I was free and done with war, and I end up in the most spacious war of all. And in country like this, you don’t know who your enemy might be. There ain’t no real order except, if you can, you got to survive. And when you’re in my kind of trouble you take no chances: you got to shoot first. It’s that god-damn simple.

  So I tie Cricket to a tree and lay Ink down in a little clearing with a soft pine needle floor. I leave her the pistol. Neither of us says a thing.

  I cock the carbine so it’s ready to fire, then start through the brush toward the glow in the distance. It seems far off, but as I creep toward it, the movement of the fire starts to make the shadows dance. It’s closer than I thought. I move real slow now—I don’t want to spook their animals if they’ve got them. I’m so keenly aware of everything around me, it feels like air is leaking from behind my eyes. If there ain’t too many of them I’m gonna shoot them all. I ain’t taking no chances.

  Then I hear the owl again, only it ain’t no owl. It’s a man, and when I get close enough to their campfire, I see why he’s screaming.

  Chapter 21

  It’s three braves. I think they might be Piegans or Flatheads. They got a Crow brave tied to the stump of a small pine tree. He’s sitting down with his legs splayed out in front of him and he’s naked. The three braves move around him like cats stalking a field mouse. They stop and start, crouch down, knives in their hands. In the firelight it looks like they are ghosts, dark shadows rising and falling out of the ground. The rope that binds the Crow brave is wrapped around his elbows and behind his back so that his forearms are free. He breathes really hard, his chest heaving, his abdomen sucking in and out. Then one of his captors moves down at him, lifts his forearm, and I see he’s already missing all but two fingers on his hand. He stares up at the shadow, and waits. His face is contorted but only in the struggle for air, until the shadow slices off another finger. His scream goes through me like some sort of icy blast of fear. I don’t know if I ever heard nothing so horrible, not even during the war. I heard men scream whose bowels was spread out in their laps, who was burning in a field that caught fire from all the shooting, and nobody made a noise like that poor Crow brave tied to that tree. And then I realize that his screaming ain’t only from pain. Hell, it may not be from pain at all. It’s from his warrior soul. A way of honoring his captors and showing his manhood. He stops just as suddenly as he started, then even in all his gasping for air, he closes his mouth, juts out his chin, and seems to say with his eyes, Go ahead. Do it again.

  And I think, My Lord, these folks are crazy.

  The dance continues in the firelight. I wait a while, waiting to see if there’s any more of them to contend with. I watch this fellow lose the last one of his fingers and then one of his toes. Each time he lets out that scream and then stares back in defiance. He is making what the Crow call a “strong passing.” I know I should just leave it, but I seen this kind of thing before, and now I ain’t about to let it go on. When I am sure it’s only them three, I kneel down real slow behind the trunk of a fallen tree and shoot the one closest to me. He drops into the fire, and the others whoop and scatter. I shoot the second one before he can get too far from the firelight, then turn and see that the third one is trying to get to the horses. I wait until I can get a good, clean shot at him. When he jumps up on one of the horses, I see his whole body like something painted on the night sky. He’s only twenty yards or so to my left, and when he starts to turn his horse away from me, I shoot him in the middle and he drops to the ground.

  The Crow tied to the tree sets there looking at me, waiting for his. I kick the one I shot first out of the fire. He’s burning and it smells awful, but I leave him there smoldering. I look into the eyes of the Crow brave. “You speak English?”

  He just stares at me. A lot of Crows can speak English, but the fact that this one can’t don’t make me think I’m dealing with any other kind of Indian. You can usually tell the difference between Indian tribes by the way they dress, but a Crow is defined for that near-perfect form. And they know they’re perfect. They carry themselves proudly and wear their hair in a high pompadour in front to accent their height.

  “English,” I say. I know he’s got a voice.

  I sign to him, pointing to my mouth. “Speak?” I say.

  He says, “Hin nay xaw eematchaw chik.” His black hair is soaked from sweat, and his deep-set eyes glare at me as though I just come up out of the fire. “Hin nay.”

  “I don’t know what you want.”

  “Xaw eem atchaw chik,” he says. “Ischee lak, ihchee lak bakaalah.”

  I can’t figure out what he wants. I sign that to him.

  I walk over to the second one I shot. He’s a Piegan Blackfoot. I got him in the side of the head, almost right through his ear. He’s still got the knife in his hand. I pry it from his fingers, then walk over to the one by the horses. He’s laying on his back, still alive, breathing fast, so I put the knife into him, just under the breastbone, and wait until the breathing stops.

  The Crow brave sits there staring at his fingerless hands, then he looks up at me and I think I can tell what he wants. He ain’t said no more. All I’ve heard from him is words I don’t know and those screams, but now his eyes gleaming in the dying firelight tell me his whole future. I motion for him to put his head down. “I don’t want you to see it coming,” I say. But he don’t understand me. He is so fiercely a man. He will face whatever might come, but I can’t act under the light of them eyes. He says again, “Ischee lak, ihchee lak huhkaalah.” He points to the dead one still smoldering by the fire. I think “huhkaalah” means “give me.”

  “I don’t understand you.” I say. I can’t remember one single Crow sentence I ever learned. He gestures with those fingerless hands, holds them up for me to see, then points as best he can to the first fellow I shot. The look on his face implores me. He holds his hands up again, lets them hang limply, then gestures toward the body. “Ischee lak, ihchee lak huhkaalah.” I wish I spoke his language. He is magnificent and I hate it that I can’t do what he’s asking me. I go to the body and lift one of its arms, and the Crow brave nods vigorously. He thinks I know what he’s saying. He looks down at the ropes tying him, struggles to break free. I take the hunting knife and cut the ropes, and he moves on the ground, scooting on his haunches, bracing himself with bleeding hands, over to the body. He slides his lower arm under one of the arms and lifts it until it is out away from the body. Then he puts his palm on the fingers of the dead Indian and looks up at me. “Hinne beewiawaak,” he says. He makes a cutting motion across the dead fingers with his hand. I kneel down and look into his eyes. I pick up the dead hand and point to the fingers. “This?” I say. He nods, relieved. I know what he wants. He crawls back to the tree and sits back against it. I kneel down and cut the fingers off the dead body. I do this to both hands. It’s ghastly. The worst thing I ever done. When I place them in his lap, the Crow raises his foot and looks at me. “I ain’t cutting off nobody’s toes,” I say. He will not look away from me and he don’t know what I said. He’s just waiting there for me to do what he wants. “All right,” I say
. “God damn it. All right.” I go back to the body and cut off the toes. It takes me a few minutes to get through the joints. Twice I lean out of the light and puke into the bushes. When it’s finally done, I put the toes on the ground next to the Crow brave.

  “Beech-i-lack,” he says.

  “Don’t mention it.”

  “Hilaake kammaashbimmaachik.”

  “I know ‘Beech-i-lack,’ ” I say. “You’re welcome.”

  “Hilaake kammaashbimmaachik.”

  “I don’t know what else you want,” I say.

  He looks directly into my eyes and then I do know what he wants. I remember that ‘bimmaachik’ means to die. “I can’t do it with you looking at me like that,” I say. His face is blank. He is not afraid, not sad. I don’t even think he’s in pain no more. I take some beads off a necklace on the body and place them in the Crow brave’s lap. He looks down at them, and I shoot him through the top of his skull. The shot lights his hair on fire and he twitches and writhes for a bit, then stops moving. Even with all the blood, his hair keeps burning. I take a scarf off the dead fellow that fell in the fire and swat at the flames in the Crow brave’s hair and it finally goes out. White smoke curls up from his dangling head and I can’t stand nothing no more. I’m sick knowing I will remember this forever.

  When I get back to Ink, with four horses, another pistol, three hunting knives, and a bow with a quiver full of arrows, she looks at me with a kind of wonder.

  “That wasn’t no owl,” I say. “It wasn’t Hump, neither.”

  She just stares at me.

  “I got you a pony you can ride that ain’t limping.”