Far as the Eye Can See

by Robert Bausch

  “What do you mean?”

  “I would not keep him if he didn’t want to stay.”

  “But you’re still sad.”

  “If it will make you happy, then I will say I’m sad.”

  This really takes me down. I don’t know what to say. She puts her head back on her arms. I sit there for a minute looking at her, thinking about what I give up to stay with her and the boy all this time while the weather warmed and spring commenced. But all I say is “It wouldn’t make me happy at all.”

  We don’t hear no more movements or see no more Indians for a while. It is already well into June. Little Fox is not coming back, and I decide we got to go on back to Bozeman anyway. I know Eveline is gone but I got to see for myself. I can leave Ink in Bozeman. She can go to Fort Ellis herself and start the rest of her life without me. She said that first day I met her that she wanted to go to Fort Buford because that was the last place she lived with her father. Maybe she’ll find some people at Fort Ellis that remember her.

  I tell Ink we are leaving when the sun goes down and she says nothing. She starts packing everything up.

  “I’ll go get the horses,” I say, but as I turn to do so, I hear horses coming. Ink stops what she’s doing and looks at me. I get down low and she does the same. I got my carbine off my shoulder and she has her pistol pointing back toward the noise. She lets out a little girlish sound in the back of her throat when Little Fox comes into view through the trees. He is mounted, leading our horses behind him.

  Ink almost runs to him. He dismounts and stands there looking up at her. She says something to him and he says, “Ha-ho.”

  Both of them look at me. “We got to get out of here,” I say. But I guess I’m smiling.

  “His family was not in the camp,” Ink whispers later as we ride along in the dark. We are next to a creek that runs west from the Rosebud. The Bighorn River should be right in front of us if we keep going.

  “So he’s come back to us,” I say.

  “I am his family now,” she says.

  “Of course. That’s what I meant.”

  Toward morning, Little Fox shoots a deer with his bow and we decide to camp for the day a little early.

  Ink guts the deer and cuts it up good and we cook it over a small buffalo chip fire. It makes more smoke than I would like, but we are hid away in a gulch that runs next to the creek and I don’t think no folks can see us unless they come down into the creek and ride up to us. After we eat the broiled meat, I settle back against my saddle and rest. I think to sleep soon. I watch Little Fox helping Ink tan the skin on the deer. He can creep through the brush as good as any Indian. It’s in his blood. I watch him and it gives me a start to think he will one day creep through leaves and brush so he can get close enough to kill a man. A chill goes through me.

  “He’ll grow up and be a killer just like the rest of us,” I say out loud. I do that now—just speak out at the air and all—and if Ink thinks to answer, she will.

  “Listen,” Ink says.

  “What?”

  “That sounded like a horn.”

  “I didn’t hear nothing.”

  “I think it is soldiers,” she says.

  “I shouldn’t of built that damned fire,” I say. “We better put it out.”

  “Is it soldiers?” Ink says.

  “If it’s somebody I know,” I say, “I’ll probably have to shoot the son of a bitch.”

  Chapter 27

  Before we know it, we are surrounded by commotion and noise. Horses and I don’t know how many folks move along on the ridge above the gorge in the creek where we are crouched. I can’t see nobody, but I hear a lot of shooting and Indian yipping and hollering. We cover the fire with a soaked piece of the skin from the deer and then lay down against the bank of the creek, and Ink holds on to Little Fox. He ain’t afraid, and he already knows not to make no movement that might give us away. We lay there listening and the water starts to rise at our feet. The horses are tethered downstream a ways, in a darkly shaded coulee surrounded by pine trees and thick brush. Anybody riding along the creek can see them, but the slope of the ground on our side of the creek, and the low-hanging branches of trees on the other bank, should conceal them from folks not trying to find them.

  I got my carbine and the Colt pistol. I huddle up next to Ink and watch the other bank. I can see the bank above us in the reflection of the water at our feet. I look for anything that moves. It seems like hours go by, but maybe it’s only a few minutes. The noise gradually moves away from us. Ink turns around and looks at me over the little guy’s dark head. I see fear in her eyes.

  “It’s probably the soldiers rounding up Indians,” I say. “They ain’t seen us.” The noise is in the distance now. There’s as much yelling as shooting. The firing is irregular, but once it gets going, it goes very thick, each quick pop of hundreds of guns echoing in the hills.

  “I ain’t heard noise like that since the war,” I say. “It’s a battle.”

  Ink says, “We have to move.”

  “It ain’t safe.”

  Little Fox looks up at me. His mouth is slightly open. He signs to me about going to get the horses. “We got to stay here for now,” I say.

  “Mo ache noch,” he says.

  “That means ‘horse,’ ” Ink says.

  “No,” I say. “Tell him we have to stay put. The sun’s got a long way to go before it’s down.”

  I wish I could make him understand that we are safest here, in this near cave over the creek that keeps us pretty much out of sight. Only folks on the opposite side of the creek might see us if they cut through considerable underbrush to get to the edge of the stream.

  And then I hear horses across from us on that other side behind the brush. A lot of horses. I turn and face whatever’s coming through the trees on that side. To our right, coming down out of the hills on that side, trampling through the brush, riding along at a trot, is more Indians than I ever seen at one time in my life. They just keep coming. Cheyenne, Arapaho, Sioux, Blackfeet. They ride together, they got paint on, and they mean business. Most have bows and arrows. I see a few spears and every now and then one of them carries a rifle. The go right by us, only a few yards away, and it takes a long time for all of them to cross the stream and head up the other side of the bank. They are so intent on where they are going, they don’t pay no attention to us at all.

  “Something really big is going on,” I say. “I have to see what it is.”

  “No,” Ink says.

  “Stay here,” I say. “Nobody seen us.” I give her the Colt pistol and sling the carbine over my shoulder. I’m wearing a leather vest, yellow leggings, and moccasins. I got long hair, and I realize even with red hair I might be mistaken for a Indian, so I use a piece of leather to tie my hair back. I’m wearing my army-issue hat. It’s blue with a black visor and crossed rifles in the front of it, but it sits low on my head.

  Ink says, “You look like a renegade.”

  “Well,” I say, “I guess that’s what I am.” I take the hat off and hand it to her. I smile, but she only looks away. “Just stay here,” I say. “I’ll be right back.” I start to move away and the little guy grabs my arm. His eyes freeze me for a second. Then he says, “Tosend aus tearth?”

  Ink says, “He wants to know where you’re going.”

  “I’ll be back.”

  Little Fox says something else I can’t hear. Ink says, “He told you to come back.”

  “I will,” I say to him. “Don’t fret.” I pat his head and he almost smiles.

  Ink puts her face against his head and watches me leave. The embankment is steeper than the one we come down to get here. I crawl up through wet clay, then prickly grass, until I reach the top. I lay on the ground at the base of a pine tree on the edge of a clearing and I see that the ground rises gradually in front of me. It’s covered in brush and green grass as it rises farther and farther. To my left the Indians scurry up the hill, moving pretty fast now. There’s a stand of trees ove
r there, and I see lots of blue uniforms on foot, moving in the underbrush, firing on the Indians in front of them. Those fellows are cut off from the group on my right, where the hill slopes down a bit, then rises again toward the Little Bighorn River. There’s another crest over there, and I realize it is beginning to thicken with blue uniforms. I’m close enough that I can aim my carbine and hit one or two of them. I see the flag, and their colors fall. Further over to my right, beginning to ascend the hill on horseback, more Indians ride, lunging and screaming, weapons held high over their heads. Then I see smoke in the air and hear more gunfire. Some of the soldiers move back and forth on horseback, waving bright weapons, and the ones on foot begin to form a circle at the crest of the hill across from me. Horses fall and more men dismount. Now the sound of the gunfire increases. I see puffs of smoke, then seconds later hear the report of the guns. The Indians on my left wheel to their right and ride in front of me toward the hill on the other side where the soldiers have gathered. They are yipping and hollering to beat all, and now they’re riding in big circles at the bottom of the hill, around the group of soldiers who kneel on the crest, firing their guns.

  I start to move back down toward the creek and Ink, but I see her coming up the other side of the coulee to my right. She’s got Little Fox with her and he’s got the horses. When she rides up to me she says, “We must go.”

  “Get back down there,” I say. “What’s got into you?”

  She has a look of panic on her face, and I see the boy, too, is terrified.

  I wanted her to go back, but now I think that is not such a good idea. I see more Indians coming from below us, running on foot from where the others had come. They will cross right next to us and on foot they won’t miss us. I walk over and get up on Cricket. I reach out to Ink and take her by the arm. I holler into her ear, “The safest thing to do is go on down this stream toward that fight and wait in the trees down yonder until it’s over.”

  She don’t say nothing. She sets there watching me, and I realize she’s going to do what I say. We ride along the creek and down the side of the hill until we reach the trees at the bottom. We have moved closer to what’s going on at the top of the hill on the other side of the trees. When we get to a place where I think it’s safe to tie the horses, I move on foot through the underbrush so I can get to where I can see everything. Ink and Little Fox follow me. His eyes are big and focused. In front of me I see a lot of horses and two young braves watching them. They ain’t much older than Little Fox. I move around to the left of them, holding my carbine ready if I have to use it. We get to where we can make out most of the ground before us, even in the smoke, and what I see don’t fully register right away. Near the bottom of the hill a horde of Indians on horseback ride back and forth shouting war cries and waving spears and rifles high over their heads. They’re too far away from the soldiers, so they can’t be hit with no bullets or do no business with their rifles or arrows. In front of them, though, further up, the hill is covered with Indians moving around mostly on foot, shooting toward a group of maybe two or three hundred blue-coated soldiers at the top. The fellows on foot, moving steadily up the hill, drop down in the sagebrush to put a arrow in their bow, stand up to shoot, run a few paces, and drop down again. Hundreds of them, all around the hill. The ground is littered with dead horses and dead soldiers and a few Indians. The noise is deafening and the smoke begins to thicken and makes it hard to see clearly. I don’t know how long we watch. The fight goes on for at least a hour, maybe more. The Indians keep coming, more and more of them getting down off horses and starting up the hill. Most firing arrows. Some with pistols and some more with rifles. I’m just beginning to think we should run away from here when I realize the Indians have stopped firing arrows. I don’t hear their guns, neither. A strange and eerie lull sweeps over the field like sudden weather, and through the blue smoke I see one of the soldiers put his pistol to his head and shoot hisself. The soldier next to him does the same. Then another one. The Indians watch in amazement. Their yipping quiets a little when they see what’s going on. One soldier after another, some of them right at the same time, shoots hisself in the head. Some of them shoot the fellow next to them, then theirselves. It don’t take long and they’re all dead. I don’t know how many of them was left before they started killing theirselves, but after fighting so long it was a wild thing to see.

  Ink looks at me when she realizes what they done. She says something I can’t hear in the noise of the Indian celebration, so I lean in close to her and put my ear in front of her mouth.

  “White men are crazy,” she says.

  “I’m white,” I say.

  Them Indians killed maybe fifty or sixty of them soldiers on that hill before the bluecoats started killing their own selves with their own guns. It is the damnedest thing I ever seen in my whole life, and that includes Stone Mountain and Chickamauga. It give me the most empty feeling, like ain’t nothing under my skin but air, and I can’t get enough of that to keep on living.

  Ink starts crying. Little Fox commences, too, but he don’t want to show it. “You both shut up,” I say. “We got to stay out of sight here and get the hell out when it’s dark.”

  There’s still a lot of smoke and the Indians carry on, doing a little scalping and celebrating up and down both sides of the hill. They ain’t paying much attention to what’s going on in the trees at the bottom of the hill. I get the horses and we start off on foot, leading them into a deep ravine that runs down into the Little Bighorn River. We tie the horses in the deepest part of the ravine, then hunker down under deep-green branches and underbrush that covers us pretty well. I let Little Fox keep watch first and try to get some sleep.

  I don’t know as I got much sleep, but Ink comes to me just as the dusk begins, and we start off again on foot, leading the horses. I’m in the lead with Ink behind me, and Little Fox in back with the horses behind him.

  On the other side of the river we see hundreds of horses and a few more braves watching over them. I don’t know if they see us or not. We head upstream toward the place where the Little Bighorn River meets the Bighorn River. We can hear more fighting on the other side of the hill, in the trees. We stay on foot most of that way until it is completely dark. When we get far enough north of the massacre, we mount up and ride along the Bighorn until we see the Yellowstone sparkling in the morning sun.

  We camp near the river and I sleep most of that morning. It’s early in the afternoon and strangely quiet when I wake up.

  “We made forty miles or more, last night,” I say.

  Ink don’t look at me. Little Fox sits facing her, eating what’s left of the deer meat.

  “We can travel in the daylight now, I expect.”

  “We can?”

  “I think we’ve left every Indian and soldier back at the Little Bighorn. Ain’t no army up this way. Nor Indians. They’re all down in the valley, killing each other.”

  That afternoon we cross the Yellowstone River and head west over some rough terrain. Traveling in the daytime, it’s easier to find the path, though. I don’t even think no more about who we might run into. The country is empty in front of us.

  When it starts to get dark, we stop. I let Ink set up camp, and I go off by myself to scout the territory and figure out what we might do in the morning.

  Chapter 28

  Now it’s me that don’t have nothing to say. Every day we ride along in silence. We’re headed for Bozeman. It’s almost July now. I run through my mind all the things Eveline would say to me and what I might say back. All I promised was I’d try to get back to her, and I did do that. She would of done the same thing if she found herself in my predicament. Anyway, I never told her I loved her nor nothing like that. We understood the both of us what might happen if things didn’t go like we planned. I expect she’s happy, headed on to Oregon with a fellow a lot better than me, and after a while I don’t feel so bad about all of it no more. I go through this progression of thinking most every day, and so by
dusk, when we stop to camp, I feel like I done my best and it’s okay. Only in the fresh evening sky, when light falls off the world, and we got to make camp and settle in for the night, I commence to get sad all over again.

  And still we ride in silence. The boy don’t know English, and when he speaks at all it’s in a language even Ink don’t fully understand, even though he has no trouble helping her figure out what he wants.

  We fight hot weather and scorching winds on some days, and in the night we rest under dry trees or as close to stones and boulders as we can get. The country rises and gets more and more rocky. We are near the Musselshell when I finally kill something larger than a groundhog. It’s a good-sized elk calf. And then one morning a week or so later a herd of buffalo wanders nearby and I kill one of them. They ain’t easy to kill, neither, not with a rifle like my carbine. But I fell one and then put a bullet in his brain to finish him off. We have plenty of meat and skins to boot. Ink wraps what we don’t eat in bloody bags of skin so it will keep. By the time we’re back near Bozeman, I’m ready for some kind of talk.

  “You know,” I say, “them fellows on that hill was just doing what they was told.”

  She says nothing. We sit by a fire, late in the evening, just before dark. The sky ain’t got much light left in it, and the moon gets brighter and higher. Little Fox is asleep on the ground next to Ink and she rubs his hair gently, staring at the fire. He sleeps most of the night now, and we both set our schedule from his waking and sleeping. We know when he wakes up we will start traveling again.

  I clear my throat to let Ink know I’m about to say something. She don’t look at me, but I go ahead anyway. “I remember when I went to work for the army, the talk was you didn’t want to be caught by no Indian. Save the last bullet for yourself. Them fellows heard about the mutilations,” I say. “Some may of seen it.”

  She lifts her hand from Little Fox’s head and lets it rest on her thigh. She’s got her legs crossed. She don’t look so scrawny no more because we been eating pretty good since we left the Missouri. Now when I look at her I can see how one day she will be a heavy, low-riding squaw. I don’t know, it’s a image I get suddenly sometimes. She’s half white, but she’s got a jaw that will be fat and round someday, and arms that will be heavy, and she’ll be worked to death from life on the plains. It ain’t no wonder she wanted to run away. She looks at me now and I see she’s thinking hard about something.