Daughter of Middle Border

by Garland, Hamlin

  Our only means of reaching the Agency was a small rowboat which seemed a frail ferry even to me. How it appeared to Zulime, I dared not ask—but she unhesitatingly stepped in and took her seat beside me. I think she accepted it as a part of the strange and hardy world in which her husband was at home.

  We were both silent on that crossing, for our slender craft struggled anxiously with the boiling, silent, turbid current, and when we landed, the tense look on Zulime's face gave place to a smile.—Half an hour later we were sitting at supper in a fly-specked boarding house, surrounded by squaw-men and half-breed Sioux, who were enjoying the luxury of a white man's table as a part of their Fourth of July celebration. My artist wife was being educated swiftly!

  The tribe was again encamped in a wide circle just west of the Fort, precisely as when my brother and I had visited it three years before, while the store and the Agency swarmed with native men and women, many in mixed costume of cloth and skin. Zulime's artistic joy in them filled me with complacent satisfaction. I had the air of a showman rejoicing in his exhibition hall. With keen interest we watched the young warriors as they came whirling in on their swift ponies, each in his gayest garments, the tail of his horse decorated with rosettes and ribbons. Possessing the swiftness and the grace of Centaurs, coming and going like sudden whirlwinds, they were superb embodiments of a race which was passing. Some of the older men remembered me, and greeted me as one friendly to their cause—but for the most part the younger folk eyed us with indifference.

  That night a singular and savage change in the weather took place. The wind shifted to the southeast and took on the heat of a furnace. By ten o'clock next morning dirt was blowing in clouds and to walk the street was an ordeal. All day Zulime remained in her room virtually a prisoner. Night fell with the blast still roaring, and the dust rising from the river banks like smoke, presented a strange and sinister picture of wrath. It was as though the water, itself, had taken fire from the lightning which plunged in branching streams across the sky. Thunder muttered incessantly all through that singular and solemn night, a night which somehow foreshadowed the doom which was about to overtake the Sioux.

  The following day, however, was clear and cool, and we spent most of it in walking about the camp, visiting the teepees of which there were several hundreds set in a huge ellipse, all furnished in primitive fashion—some of them very neatly. Over four thousand Sioux were said to be in this circle, and their coming and going, their camp fires and feasting groups composed a scene well worth the long journey we had endured. Strange as this life seemed to my wife it was quite familiar to me. To me these people were not savages, they were folks—and in their festivity I perceived something of the spirit of a county fair in Wisconsin.

  Our guide about the camp, the half-breed son of a St. Louis trader, was a big, fine-featured, intelligent man of about my own age, whose pleasant lips, and deep brown eyes attracted me. He knew everybody, both white and red, and as soon as he understood my wish to write fairly of his people, he gave himself unreservedly to our service. Taking us from lodge to lodge, he introduced us to the men whose characters were of the most value in my study and told them of my wish to report them with sympathy and truth.

  One of the games that day was a rough, outdoor drama, in which mimic war parties sallied forth, scouts were captured and captives rescued in stirring pantomime.

  As I stood watching the play I observed that one man (no longer young) was serving as "the enemy," alternately captured or slain. His role was not only arduous—it was dangerous—dangerous and thankless, and as I saw him cheerfully volunteering to be "killed" I handed Primeau a dollar and said: "Give this to that old fellow, and tell him he should have many dollars for his hard, rough work."

  Primeau gave him the coin, but before he had time to know who gave it, he was called back into the field.

  At the Agency store I met a French-Canadian named Carignan who was a most valuable witness, for he had been among the red men for many years, first as a school teacher and later as trader. From him I secured much intimate history of the Sioux. He had known the Sitting Bull well, and gave me a very kindly account of him. "I taught the school in Rock Creek near the Sitting Bull's camp, and he was often at my table," he explained. "I saw no harm in him. I liked him and respected him. He was an Indian but he was a thinker."

  Vaguely holding in my brain a tale in which the Sitting Bull should be protagonist, I talked with many who had known him, and a few days later I accepted Primeau's invitation to visit the valley in which the chief had lived, and which was the scene of the Ghost Dance, and the place of the chief's death.

  I suggested to Zulime that she would be more comfortable at the Agency but she replied, "I'd rather go with you. I don't like being left here alone."

  "You'll find the ride tiresome and the lodging rough, I fear."

  "I don't care," she retorted firmly, "I'm going with you."

  Primeau was a very intelligent man and a good talker, and as we rode along he gave us in detail the history of the rise of the Ghost Dance, so far as the Sioux were concerned. "There was nothing war-like about it," he insisted. "It was a religious appeal. It was a prayer to the Great Spirit to take pity on the red man and bring back the world of the buffalo. They carried no weapons, in fact they carried nothing which the white man had brought to them. They even took the metal fringes off their shirts. They believed that if they gave up all signs of the whites the Great Spirit would turn his face upon them again."

  "Did Sitting Bull take part in this?" I asked.

  "He encouraged the meeting at his camp and gave his cattle to feed the people, but he was never able to dream like the rest. He never really believed in it. He wanted to but he couldn't. He was too deep a thinker. He often talked with me about it."

  At a point about twenty miles from The Fort, Primeau left us to visit a ranchman with whom he had some business and left us to drive on with a guide to his cattle-ranch where we were to stay all night.

  The ranch house turned out to be a rude low shack, and here Zulime had her first touch of genuine cowboy life. The foreman had not been expecting ladies for supper and the food he had prepared was of the usual camp sort. He explained that he and his men had finished their meal, and then, leading the way to the kitchen, showed us the food and said heartily, "Help yourself."

  On the back of the stove was a pot half filled with a mixture of boiled rice and prunes. In the oven was some soggy bread, and on the hearth some cold bacon. A can half filled with pale brown coffee added the finishing touch to a layout perfectly familiar to me. I thanked the cook and proceeded to dish out some of the rice whose grayish color aroused Zulime's distrust. She refused to even taste it. "It looks as if it were filled with dirt—or ashes."

  "That's its natural complexion," I explained. "This is the unpolished kind of rice. It is much more nutritious than the other kind."

  She could not eat any of the bread, and when she tried the coffee she was utterly discouraged. Nevertheless her kindliness of heart led her to conceal her disgust. She emptied her rice into the stove and threw her cup of coffee from the window in order that the cook might think that she had eaten her share of the supper.

  The foreman who came in a few minutes later to see that we were getting fed politely inquired, "Is there anything else I can get you, miss?"

  She really needed something to eat and yet she was puzzled to know what to ask for. At last, in the belief that she was asking for the simplest possible thing, she smiled sweetly and said, "I should like a glass of milk."

  The foreman permitted no expression of surprise or displeasure to cross his face, he merely turned to a tall young man in the doorway and quietly remarked, "Mell, the lady would like some milk."

  A glint of amusement was in the eyes of Mell, but he made no reply, just quietly "sifted out," and a few moments later, while the foreman was in the midst of a story, a most appalling tumult broke upon our ears. Calves bawled, bulls bellowed, galloping hooves thundered, men sho
uted and laughed—in a most amazing uproar.

  Rushing to the door in search of the cause of this clamor, I found it to be related to my wife's innocent request.

  Tied near the cabin was a leaping, blatting, badly frightened calf while inside the corral, a cow evidently its dam, was charging up and down the fence, her eyes literally blazing with fury, pursued by Mell on a swift pony, a rope swinging in his hand. On the top rails of the enclosure a row of delighted loafers laughed and cheered and shouted good advice to the roper.

  "What is he doing?" asked my amazed wife, as Mell brought the cow to earth in a cloud of dust.

  "Milking the cow," replied the boss with calmly hospitable inflection. "If you'll be patient jest a few minutes——"

  The insane animal, strong as a lioness, in some way freed herself from the rope and charged her enemy—Mell's pony fled. "O, don't let him hurt her," pleaded Zulime. "I don't want any milk. I didn't know you had to do that."

  "It's the only way to milk a range cow," I explained.

  "Don't worry, Miss," the foreman added reassuringly. "It's all in the day's work for Mell."

  Again the cow went to earth and Zulime, horrified at the sight, begged them to restore the calf to its dam. At last this was done, and a grateful peace settled over the scene.

  The cowboys were highly delighted and I was amused, but Zulime was too shocked to see any humor in Mell's defeat. "Do they really milk their cows in that way?" she asked me.

  "Yes, when they milk them at all," I replied, inwardly filled with laughter. "As a matter of fact they get all their cream out of cans. Milking that cow was a new departure for Mell, I think he was a little disappointed at not being allowed to go through with it."

  "I'm glad he didn't. I'll never mention milk again—in this country."

  We slept in the bed of our wagon-box that night while the crew rode away to fight a prairie fire. We heard them come quietly in toward dawn, and when we awoke and looked out of our cover we saw them lying all about us on the ground each rolled up in his tarpaulin like a boulder. Altogether it was a stirring glimpse of ranch life for my city-bred wife.

  Primeau's home ranch and store which we reached about eleven the next forenoon was an almost equally sorry place for a delicate woman, a sad spot in which to spend even a single night. Flies swarmed in the kitchen like bees, and the air of our bedroom was hot and stagnant, and mosquitoes made sleep impossible. Zulime became ill, and I bitterly regretted my action in bringing her into this God forsaken land. "We shall return at once to the fort," I promised her.

  It was an iron soil. The valley was a furnace, the sky a brazen shield. No green thing was in sight, and the curling leaves of the dying corn brought back to me those desolate days in Dakota when my mother tried so hard to maintain a garden. Deeply pitying the captive red hunters, who were expected to become farmers under these desolate conditions, I was able to understand how they had turned to the Great Spirit in a last despairing plea for pity and relief. "Think of this place in winter," I said to Zulime.

  One of the men whom Primeau especially wished me to meet was Slohan, the annalist of his tribe, one of the "Silent Eaters," a kind of bodyguard to Sitting Bull. "He lives only a few miles up the valley," Primeau explained, and so to find him we set off in a light wagon next morning drawn by a couple of fleet ponies.

  As we rode, Primeau told me more of "The Silent Eaters." "They were a small band of young warriors organized for defense and council, and were closely associated with Sitting Bull all his life. Slohan, the man we are to see to-day, is one of those who stood nearest the chief. No man living knows more about him. He can tell you just what you want to know."

  An hour later as we were riding along close to the bank of the creek, Primeau stopped his team. "There he is now!" he exclaimed.

  Looking where he pointed I discovered on a mound above the stream an old man sitting motionless as a statue, with bowed head, and lax hands. There was something strange, almost tragic in his attitude, and this impression deepened as we approached him.

  He was wrinkled with age and clad in ragged white man's clothing, but his profile was fine, fine as that of a Roman Senator, and the lines of his face were infinitely sad. In one fallen hand lay a coiled rope.

  He did not look up as we drew near, did not appear to hear Primeau's respectful greeting. Dejected, motionless, he endured the hot sunshine like an Oriental Yoghi or a man deadened by some narcotic drug.

  Gently, almost timidly, Primeau addressed him. "Slohan, this white man has come a long way to see you. He wishes to talk with you about the Sitting Bull and of the days of the buffalo."

  At last the old man turned and lifted his bloodshot eyes and uttered in a husky whisper, a few words which changed Primeau's whole expression. He drew back. "Come away!" he said to me.

  While we were walking toward our team he explained. "Slohan is mourning the death of his little grandson. Long time he has been there wailing. His voice is gone. He can cry no more. His heart is empty. He will not talk with us."

  What a revelation of the soul of a red warrior! Hopeless, tragic, inconsolable, he was the type of all paternity throughout the world.

  Primeau went on, "I told him of you and I think his mind is turned to other things. I asked him to come to see you this afternoon. Perhaps he will. Perhaps I have lifted his mind from his sorrow."

  All the way down the valley I pondered on the picture that grandsire had made there in the midst of that desolate valley.

  Primeau told me of his grandson. "He was a handsome little fellow. I can't blame the old man for weeping over his loss."

  Slohan was a redoubtable warrior. He had been the leader of Sitting Bull's bodyguard, he was accounted a savage, and yet for forty-eight hours he had been sitting ceaselessly mourning for a child, crying till his voice was only a husky whisper. Nothing that I had ever seen typed the bitterness of barbaric grief more powerfully than this bent and voiceless old man.

  * * *

  Late in the afternoon the mourner came in view, riding on a pony, without a saddle, his face still very sad, but not entirely despairing. His mind, in working backward to the splendid world of the past, the world in which his chief had played such heroic and stirring parts, his heart had been comforted—or at any rate lightened.

  Although clothed in the customary rags of the mourner, his hair was neatly brushed and braided, and he met my wife with gentle grace. There was something tragic in his dim glance, something admirable in his low words of greeting.

  We gave him food and drink, and then while we all sat on the earth in the scant shade thrown by Primeau's building, he began to talk, slowly, hesitantly of the part his chief had taken in the wars against the white man. He had the dignity and the eloquence of a fine New England judge. A notable sweetness and a lofty poetry were blended in his expression; and as he used the sign language in emphasizing his words (gestures finely expressive and nobly rhythmical) he became, to my perception, the native bard reciting the story of his clan. I was able to follow the broad lines of his discourse and when at the close of the afternoon he rose to go, I said to him, "I shall tell of the Sitting Bull as you have spoken," and we parted in the glow of mutual esteem.

  Zulime was feeling much better, and the air being cooler, I asked permission to stay another day, in order that I might meet Looking Stag, another of the warriors who had known the Sitting Bull.

  Looking Stag's home was a few miles down the valley, and we found him in his commodious lodge, entertaining a couple of headmen from Cheyenne River. He was seated on a low bed opposite the door, and his guests were placed on either hand of him. He glanced up at us, spoke a curt word to Primeau and went on with his story. His cold greeting, and the evident preoccupation of his manner made me feel like an intruder, which I was, and this feeling was deepened when I perceived that my guide was distinctly ill at ease. After all, he was only a half-breed trader, while these men were red chieftains.

  The Looking Stag was not contemptuous of me—he was mere
ly indifferent. Busied with honored guests he regarded the coming of a strange white man to his lodge as something of a nuisance. He went on cutting tobacco, and afterward ground it between his palms whilst his visitors talked on quite oblivious to me.

  Our host looked familiar, but as he was painted and wore a bonnet of eagle feathers I could not remember where I had seen him.

  At last, in a pause of the talk, Primeau said something to him which caused him to break into a smile and thrust his open hand toward me. "How! How! my friend," he called heartily.

  Then I recognized him. He was the man who had so unweariedly taken the part of "The Enemy" in the games at Standing Rock. Primeau had told him that I was the man who had given him the money, and he now accepted me as a friend.

  He then told his visitors the story of my gift and message. They also laughed and shook hands with me. Thereafter we were all on terms of high respect and mutual confidence. I put my questions freely and they replied with an air of candor.

  As they approached the Custer fight, however, they paused, pondered, checked up one another's statements, and at last produced what I believed to be the truth regarding the share in that battle—and the truth is incredible. They recreated the whole scene for me as Two Moons had done. They corroborated all that I had obtained from the northern Cheyennes.

  I forgot the plow and the reaper while sitting there in conference with those men for they were thinkers as well as warriors. Within the walls of that lodge they were not despised outcasts, they were leaders, councillors, men of weight. They had reëntered a world which caused their faces to shine just as my father's face shone when he told of Grant at Vicksburg or recounted the days of his youth on The Old Wisconse. For a little while I inhabited their world, and when I left them I carried with me a deepened sense of their essential manliness.

  Alas! Zulime was less enthusiastic. The flies, the heat, the dust, the bad food—so commonplace to me—were horrifying to her, and so for her sake I cut short my historical studies and hurried her back to the Fort, back to the wholesome fare of the officers' mess. With no consuming literary interest to sustain her she found even the Agency a weariness; and as the date for meeting my father was near, we took the stage back to Bismark, she with a sense of relief, I with a feeling of regret that I had not been able to push my investigations deeper. There was a big theme here, but I had small faith in my ability to handle it. It required an epic poet, rather than a realistic novelist.