by Lucy Inglis
I nodded. You carried on speaking, to yourself as much as me.
‘We’re coming at them from three angles and we got a two-part plan. The first is to scatter the herd. The second is to drop as many of the hunters as possible. It ain’t going to be pretty, you know that, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I said, my voice as firm as I could make it.
‘And, worse comes to worst? If something happens to me, and getting away isn’t possible, you get near Rose and she’ll take care a-you. Lucky, the same. OK?’
‘Nothing’s going to happen to you, is it?’
‘Hope not, but when it’s your time, it’s your time.’
I shifted in the saddle, uneasy. The scout returned. They had found the wagons, which had halted – for reasons of surprise – some distance from the herd. There were three young men driving the wagons, but it looked as if they were preparing to follow the main hunting party. Rose favoured taking them out immediately, by stealth if possible, so as not to alert the main hunting party, who were half a mile further on, approaching the herd. As you relayed the information, I stared at her. She meant killing them. People were going to die.
Rose and two braves rode away. Soon afterwards, one of them returned. The men with the wagons were dead, two by Rose’s knife. We went forward; my hands were shaking and I wound them around the saddlehorn, holding tight even though I looked like a child on a seaside donkey. Arriving over the hill, I looked down on the scene before me. Three wagons, each drawn by two horses, stood below us. On the ground were three bodies, one at a distance – clearly he’d been trying to run. An arrow stuck from his body at an awkward angle. One of the braves was quieting the horses at the head of a wagon; Rose was stooping to pull an arrow from one of the bodies, tugging when it wouldn’t come easily. My stomach rebelled and I fought not to gag. As we approached, she knelt and took out her knife. Grasping a lock of hair at the crown of the man’s head, she slit a small disc of scalp from his head and pushed it into the bag at her waist. I swallowed a cry.
You held out a warning hand. ‘You wanted this. You. So you just sit there and you take it, Emily.’
Rose straightened, high cheekbones flushed. They remounted, taking their horses from the scout, and we continued, scout at the head. We were climbing steadily. To our right was a high ridge, another to our left, and a river meandered at the base of the valley.
Little did I know, the herd was just over the next rise. Suddenly there was the distant boom of a buffalo gun. Then the air rang with them. You cursed and jabbed a finger at the ground.
‘Wait here. Here! Not an inch in any direction, Emily, or I will tan your hide blue.’ Unshouldering your rifle, you clapped your heels to the red horse, a feral yell breaking from your throat. You and the braves soared over the hill in a phalanx of screaming, yelling warriors, guns and bows held aloft.
As you disappeared, my heart raced. The first of the buffalo were cresting the rise coming in the opposite direction and heading straight for us. You’d told me that the bulls weighed over a ton. Tara stood immobile, a teacup of courage, as they thundered towards us, ground shaking beneath them. I gripped the saddlehorn. Perhaps twenty, of all sizes, from vast adults to calves, streamed past in a sweating, snorting, stinking charge. I found I was gripping Tara’s mane, sweat prickling inside my shirt, as their hoof beats died away behind us.
Then I was sitting on Tara alone, in the middle of an empty hillside over which I could hear the racket of tribal war. Something screamed.
I squeezed Tara into a walk. We crested the rise seconds later and saw the battle spread out before us. Buffalo still fled in all directions, but centred below us was the most extraordinary scene. My eyes sought you. I didn’t know, at that time, that the rifle which never left your side held six shots in a revolving chamber, like a pistol with a long, wicked barrel. With it you were deadly: a fact the hunters quickly recognized, and you were soon the focus of their attention. All of them had been employed for their skill with a gun. There were almost twenty of them, armed with what you told me later were powerful Sharps rifles. In the dirt lay the bodies of at least seven buffalo. Men and horses clashed everywhere and I watched as the horses played as much a part in the battle as the men, ramming into their opponents, shoulder to shoulder – riding off, you told me later. You sat on the red horse, a short distance away, calmly reloading, lifting the weapon to your eye, taking shots as they came. But you did it totally exposed, as if inviting a bullet.
I wanted to shout to you, to urge you to seek some cover, but all I could do was watch. I saw you kill three of the hunters before one of them, breaking contact with a brave, galloped towards you. Instantly I regretted that I was there; had I not been, you would have been mounted on Tara. The young, nervy red horse shied violently as the other rode down on him, throwing your weight on to your weak leg. Both hands on the gun, you fell from the saddle, hitting the dirt, rifle discharging. The rider circled and returned. My heart was in my mouth: on the ground you were lame and slow.
Quite how what happened next came to pass I am still, all this time later, unsure.
Tara hurtled on to the plain, my face by her neck, legs tight, reins caught only by a thread. She knew what was required of her, always, and speared straight for the hunter’s large bay gelding. Her hooves darted into the dirt and we arrowed towards them just as you gained your feet and the hunter levelled his rifle at you. He had taken his time, gloating, halting his horse and preparing to shoot you from little over ten feet away as you stood and waited for it to come. What Tara did not have in weight, we made up for in speed, smashing into the gelding’s shoulder with a force that made my teeth rattle, bruising my right leg, flinging me against the saddlehorn and down over Tara’s flank.
I kept my seat only just, but I had been ready. Righting myself, I looked up at the hunter . . . Hart. His face was full of rage, rifle in the dirt. I felt winded from the impact and the saddlehorn in my stomach. Tara wheeled away instantly in a prancing gallop as I grasped the reins I’d dropped and urged her back around as you rescued your rifle. But I misjudged Tara’s line, wanting to come between Hart and you until you had time to get back in the saddle, and then the bay gelding was alongside us. Hart reached over and grabbed my long braid, yanking me towards him. Broaching the distance, he caught me and hauled me on to the pommel of his saddle. Using my body to shield his chest he turned. His horse halted, shifting restlessly on the spot. Tara skidded to a halt a few yards away, watching.
Hart was breathing hard, the rank stench of his breath against my cheek. ‘Go on, do it. You’ll blow a hole in her like a lead bucket.’
I squirmed, terrified, but he held me tightly. You lifted the gun to your eye.
Hart dragged a knife from his belt and put it to my throat. ‘Think you’re good enough?’
You said nothing, squinting down the barrel. I closed my eyes, feeling the blade press to my neck. There was a sting and blood trickled into the sweating hollow at the base of my throat. Around us, battle raged.
The gunshot reverberated across the plain.
Hart was thrown from the saddle, taking me with him. We hit the ground, hard, his body on top of mine, knocking every ounce of air from my lungs. He was heavy, stinking lumber. A moment later, you hauled him off and hurled me to the ground behind the warm bulk of a felled buffalo. Dropping to your knees, you pushed the rifle into my hands and opened the action.
‘Shake out the chamber. Reload from the left side of my belt. And stay low.’ Drawing your pistol from the right, you took aim at a hunter getting back on his horse near where Rose was wrestling on the ground with another.
Reaching around you, I pulled a bullet from your belt and stuck it in the chamber, then another. Then an incoming bullet met its mark. You spun, sitting down hard against the buffalo’s side, a bloody rip in the sleeve of your shirt.
‘Ow! Damnation!’
‘You’re shot!’ I cried in horror.
Scowling at me, you checked the rip, before turning an
d taking aim, quickly letting off a bullet that felled the guilty party. ‘Scratched,’ you corrected, as the man hit the dirt.
You swapped weapons with me, revolver chamber open and spinning, spent cartridges clinking on to the dirt. ‘Right side.’ I began to reload as you raised the rifle and took careful aim at the hunter locked in a deadly tussle with Two Tails, guns knocked aside and knives flashing. I felt you breathe in and hold it. Your finger tightened on the trigger, and with a thundering crack the hunter fell from the saddle. Two Tails looked up and saw you, raising his knife over his head in salute, before circling to find his son.
I do not know how long it was before the battle was over; the sun had moved. The buffalo were long gone, apart from the bodies in the dirt. Scattered amongst them were all seventeen hunters and six dead horses but, miraculously, no braves. Rose had three scalps in her bag and a deep cut on her arm. Lucky’s chest was bruised and scraped from a fall when his horse had been killed beneath him, but he remained as unperturbed as ever, and one of the braves was shot in the shoulder. Two Tails gave orders and two of the younger braves gathered up the hunters’ surviving horses, who had spread themselves across the plain. The scout, on the band’s fastest pony, disappeared over the rise.
‘What’s happening now?’ I asked you, feeling juddery and uncertain.
You holstered the pistol and shouldered the rifle. ‘The men will butcher the animals and the women will come for the meat.’
As you spoke, the buffalo that had sheltered us, face in the dirt and legs buckled beneath it, groaned. You crouched by its head as its wet nostrils flexed, blowing into the grass. Blood ran from a series of bullet wounds across its flank – so many of them had been sustained in protecting us.
‘Come here, English.’
I knelt by you as you pulled the knife from the sheath that hung by your shoulder. Rose appeared, hunched over one knee on the other side of the animal’s thick neck.
‘Give me your hand.’ You grabbed my wrist and folded my fingers around the haft of the knife, yours on top. Your free hand felt for the animal’s throat. I recoiled but you held me, hard, and stuck the buffalo straight in the jugular vein. Blood spurted, spraying my clothes, splattering your thigh. The animal groaned a long exhalation, blood bubbling through the wound around the knife still deep in its neck. Awareness faded from its large brown eye. You touched its head and said something I couldn’t understand as Rose leant forward and placed her hand in the gore and dragged her fingers down my face. I started back.
‘Let her do it, it’s tradition.’ You held my arms.
The air smelt of iron, salt and dung as we got to our feet. Two Tails approached, his thin face unreadable as he looked me up and down. His eyes flickered to the carnage around us, then back to me. Your hand rested at the base of my spine. A fly landed on the blood on my cheek, but I held his gaze. He looked at you and there was the slightest lift in his eyebrow. Then he said something and smiled. Raising his rifle above his head, he let out a pealing cry, echoed by the braves all around us as they worked. Finally the chief turned away and I could breathe again.
You looked down at my bloody face. ‘Jesus. Christ. Emily.’
‘What did I do wrong?’ Tara nudged my shoulder and I took her reins.
‘Nearly got yourself killed, that’s what.’
Behind you, two men hauled the liver out of the buffalo, up to their elbows in intestines. The others were working further afield on the other carcasses.
‘I’m fine,’ I said quietly, fiddling with Tara’s bridle, stroking her flat cheek.
The others, Rose included, were now busy hacking soft hunks off the quivering mass of liver and stuffing it into their mouths.
I shuddered. ‘Please tell me I don’t have to do that.’
Your bark of laughter filled the air, high up to where the scavengers were already circling.
By the time the women arrived, dragging sleds behind their ponies for the spoils, I was flagging and thirsty. Even some children helped, their dogs carting smaller sleds. I sat on the hillside, drinking from your canteen and watching. The corpses of the hunters were gathering flies. You limped up the slope and collapsed next to me on your elbows, bad leg stretched out.
I passed you the canteen. ‘Did we do the right thing?’
You took a drink and thought about it. ‘I don’t know, Em. Hart . . . I ain’t sorry that bastard is dead, nor most of the others, but those on the wagons were just men needing work, probably struggling after this last winter. Getting their throats cut out here for a few dollars.’ You lay back on the grass. ‘I’m sick to the back teeth of killing, that much I do know. And it’s like every time I come down off that mountain, I get my hands in the mire. Again.’ You held out a calloused, dusty hand, bloody palm up, to prove your point.
I looked at it, then placed my own on top of it, not meeting your look of surprise. ‘So what happens now?’
We gathered the horses. You caught Hart’s horse and handed her reins to me. ‘Take this one back into the village. Then it’s your coup.’
‘Coup? From the French?’
You nodded, then settled into the saddle of the red horse. As it turned out, he hadn’t fled far and had trailed back as we were getting ready to move out. ‘Getting the enemy’s horse, getting a scalp, engaging in battle and coming out the other side, they’re all coups. More coups you got, the more respect.’
‘How many have you got?’ I asked, intrigued.
‘My share.’
Riding back to the Blackfoot camp, we were accompanied by perhaps ten men, Rose and the wagons. My face felt by turns sticky and crackly. Dusk was falling and I had to catch myself awake like Tippet as a puppy, slumping over the saddlehorn then jerking upright, the reins of Hart’s horse clutched tightly in my hand.
Back at the camp, all was activity. You helped me down and we took Tara and the others to drink. I tugged off her saddle as she sucked at the river water. You slapped her sweat-stiff neck and talked to her. Her blanket was damp as I shook it out and rubbed her down, then I pressed my cheek against hers in gratitude, kissing her white and tan face. She huffed over my shoulder, muzzle dripping water down my back.
Next to us, you stripped to the waist and used your shirt to wash your dirty face and hands, wiping the back of your neck. You examined the blackened and bloody streak on your bicep.
‘Looks painful.’
‘Smarts some but ain’t nothing. Had worse.’
Clear Water appeared next to us with a wadded cloth and an earthenware pot of salve. She gave them to me with her kind smile, gesturing to your arm, and you thanked her.
I wet the cloth and took your elbow in my hand, fingers against the soft inside. It truly was only a graze cutting across the smooth curve of your bicep, with almost no blood lost at all; I applied the salve.
‘Well, Dr English, what do you think?’
I flushed, letting go and stepping back, embarrassed. ‘Should we bind it?’
‘Nah, let it dry. I’ll just try and keep it clean is all.’ You were already donning a fresh shirt from our pack.
The dark was deepening by the river and I jumped as we heard the first drums. The camp was littered with small bonfires – feux de joie, you called them – and a little distance from it, a larger one burnt fiercely. Over fire pits huge hunks of buffalo meat were roasting. The smell of the buffalo cooking filled the air and children sat at the edge of the light, eating fry-bread sopped in meat juices. Rose was sitting in a circle with the men. In groups around them the women gathered. I saw Clear Water, but she wasn’t looking at me.
We sat in the ring with the warriors, cross-legged. The brave to your left passed a canteen and you drank, sucking in a breath through your teeth and wiping your mouth on the back of your wrist. Handing it over, you coughed. I took a sip and almost choked then, still spluttering, offered it back to you.
‘No, no. Take another. A proper mouthful this time. Then pass it on.’
I steeled myself and took a gulp,
handing the canteen on to the brave next to me. Rose was laughing as I swiped my fingers across my lips and gasped, eyes watering.
My head was spinning with fatigue and hunger, and when you fetched a wooden platter of roasted meat and fried bread for us to share as the singing started, I was very grateful. Blackfoot music is unique, you explained, passing me a neat fold of soft, crispy-edged cornbread and meat. Beautiful, haunting loops of repeated phrases. I listened, fascinated. And I ate like a savage, with my hands and my teeth, face bloody, watching them whoop and holler and dance to the pounding of the drums.
It was always like this, you said, after a battle. I drank more water. And more firewater, offered to me by a drunk young brave and tipped over my upturned face when I couldn’t swallow any more, my throat like razors. You laughed as I spluttered. I watched Dog Child dancing with a girl, stamping around each other in circles, bells on their knees, as I sat cradled between your bent legs, feeling safe, protected from the strange world I had found myself in. And I liked lounging against you, after so many years sitting bolt upright and alone in my cages of whalebone and steel. Sometime later, the tiny son of Two Tails’s second wife crept up and touched me, leaving a long brown feather in my lap.
‘Coup-feather. For your first battle,’ you said.
I caught the leather lace around your neck and examined its ornaments. The feathers, the shell casings, a silver button and a regimental badge; the knife you never used.
‘These are your coups?’
‘Yeah, Emily. They’re my coups.’
I let the shell casings clink in my palm. ‘You didn’t tell me.’
You pushed my tangled and bedecked hair aside and spoke into my ear. ‘I told you if you moved one step on that hillside, I’d tan you blue.’
I watched the flames and the dancers, content and sleepy, liking the closeness of your voice. ‘I’ve been blue for days. And I saved your life.’