“No tracks,” Ethan said when we gathered around the fire to eat. “Nobody’s been up here since last fall, by the look of things.”
“Do you think we lost the Shoshone?” I asked.
“No,” Ethan said.
“They’ll be some wrought up,” Stacy commented. “This is Crow country, and north and east of there you’ll find Sioux aplenty. Them Shoshone are feelin’ mighty skittish about now.”
“They ain’t alone,” Ethan commented dryly. “My scalp’s been itchin’.”
The night was bitter cold. There was no wind, not at first, but the branches creaked stiffly in the freezing air. We slept feet to the fire, and from time to time one of us arose to add fuel.
Of wood there was no shortage. The tumbled old gray bodies of the trees lay broken by the snows of many seasons, and there were broken branches for the fires of an army. Streams were born here, and when we broke the ice the water was clear, cold, and sweet. Those small streams seemed to flow from some ancient and hidden wells here at the crest of the world.
The tons of snow that lay all winter upon these high ridges melted into secret hiding under the slide rock; and now all summer it would be running in streams down the mountain to a thirsty bottomland. Here began the Little Big Horn, which ran down through the forest and out into the shallow valleys of Montana.
It was bitter cold when Short Bull awakened me. He squatted close while I tugged on my boots and shouldered into my heavy coat.
He looked at me, nursing his cup in his hands. “It is not a good night,” he said, “I do not like it.”
“Hear anything?”
“Nothing.” He filled my cup with coffee and handed it to me. “We must get off the mountain.”
“You think it will storm?”
“We must leave. The Old One is weak. It has been a ride.”
“A long ride.” I sipped my coffee, chewing on a strip of jerky. “He is a great man, the Old One.”
“There is death on the wind. I do not like it.”
A branch creaked in the cold, a faint wind stirred frozen particles of snow. I looked through the spruce at the icy dome of Bald Mountain.
“Short Bull? If the Old One goes, will you stay with us?”
He was silent for a long time. “I go back to my people. There are few left. I am needed.”
I added sticks to the fire, listening to the night. “He is a great man,” I repeated. “He has a home always among us.”
Wind guttered the fire. The wind was rising, and it would be cold upon the mountain.
“We will start early. In an hour we should be there, two hours at most. An hour or so there and we can be off the mountain by midday.”
Rummaging about I found a couple of spruce knots and added them to the fire. I finished my coffee and edged the pot a little closer to the coals.
Standing up then, I took my Henry and turned abruptly into the night, moving away from the fire. The stars were less clear than they had been. A sort of haze, scarcely to be seen, lay between us. I moved out, melded my body with the dark body of a spruce, and listened.
The wind was rising, the sound was a faint moaning in the thickness of the spruce. The skeleton arms of a dead one drooped a shaggy web of dead-brown needles, and the wind there made a different sound. I shifted my hands on the Henry, then tucked my right hand under my armpit, then my left.
The skin of my face was stiff from the cold. After a few minutes I went back to the fire and added fuel. All were asleep.
Prowling about among the spruce, I paused to listen. The mountainside below where we camped fell steeply away into a thicker stand of trees, and above where we were it thinned rapidly. Along a low ridge near us the trees were low, barbered by the wind until they resembled a trimmed hedge such as I had seen in the east.
For a moment, standing under one of the half-dead trees, I thought of going back and awakening them now, just to get a start. Or was it that? Was I not feeling what Short Bull felt? That there was death on the wind?
I shook myself, warmed my right hand again, and looked carefully around. The whiteness of the snow patches added to the light, and there were bare, black stretches and the trees. Above us loomed the bulk of Bald Mountain, stark and cold in the freezing air.
Nothing moved…nothing? My eyes shifted warily. No animal would be out, and what moved must move with the wind. It was not a night for an Indian attack, and yet…the Shoshone had a hatred for me, and he believed his medicine was strong.
Like a shadow I ghosted from the spruce to another, and then another, beginning a circle of our camp. A horse stamped restlessly, and they came suddenly from the night in a soundless rush.
Chapter 46
THEY CAME UP from the ground, ghostly and pale against the background of snow, trees, and rock, scarcely more than a mist of movement.
I fired my rifle from the hip, by instinct more than intent, and my shot seemed to strike and turn one of the attackers. My next shot knocked the legs from under another, but then they were too close, and I swung my clubbed rifle into the belly of the nearest.
He plunged face downward into the snow, but another closed in, cold steel winking in the starlight. Gripping my rifle by the barrel and the action in my two hands, I swung down and sidewise at the knife wrist, then brought the rifle to eye level and drove the butt against his skull. It struck with a solid thunk, and he fell beside me into the snow.
The Indian I had struck in the midriff was getting up, and I started to retreat when a sound from behind turned me, and I felt the brush of cold steel along my ribs as the turn saved me. Toppling back into the snow, I fell down the slope on the steep hill, and my attacker lit atop me. Lifting my legs high I turned a complete somersault, throwing him over me and down the slope beyond.
My rifle had been lost in the snow, but coming up I reached for my pistol. Something jerked at my sleeve, and a gun blossomed with fire. Crouching, I shot…too low. The bullet struck him in the groin, and he gave a queer, froglike leap, and as he landed his legs crumpled under him.
Pistol in hand I scrambled up the slope toward our camp by the fire, keeping low. I could hear the heavy thud of a buffalo gun and the hammer of a six-shooter and realized I had fallen out of the fight.
Pausing a moment to get my bearings, I felt the cold wind at my shirt collar, ripped open in the downhill tumble, and the wetness of melting snow against my cheek. My hand gripped my gun, and I wished I dared handle it without a glove.
A gun is an extension of the hand, but with a glove it becomes awkward and less easy to the feel. I hesitated, trying to judge my next move, for I dared not walk into an attacked camp where anything that moved would be sure to attract a bullet. They had no choice, with enemies all about.
Suddenly the shooting ceased. The heavy concussion of Follett’s buffalo gun first, then the others.
Killed? Or the attack broken off?
I stood still in the snow, perhaps thirty yards from our fire, but downslope and out of sight. Against the snow, as long as I did not move, I resembled a broken-off tree, of which there were a number. If I moved I might attract a shot.
Yet the night was still. My rifle…I would need that rifle.
Where had it fallen? I struck one man, then another, then was jumped from the side and fell…over there, to my left. It must be in the snow, which was close to a foot deep, and our struggling might have kicked snow over it.
My fingers were cold. A quiet lay across the face of the mountain. Above me the icy rocks of Bald Mountain were hard and black, brutal and bold against the sky. Moving my hands carefully against the darkness of my body, I shifted hands and now tucked my right hand under my arm.
Carefully, moving only my eyes, I surveyed the slope as far to the right and left as possible. The slope was snow-covered except in places sheltered by boulders, fallen trees, or clefts in the rock. It was a maze of deadfalls and the larger rock slabs that lay at the foot of the frost-created slide rock.
Sidestepping to my left, I
waited, but nothing happened. I stepped over again, then crouched behind a deadfall, scanning the snow for any gleam of metal that might be my rifle. It had been still more to the left, for I remembered my shoulders had struck only snow when I toppled back.
Where was the Indian who had pitched over my head? Down there in the trees, awaiting a shot? Or had they gone?
Their attack had been sudden, but complete surprise had failed, for my first shot must have warned the camp. Yet there had been two shots immediately upon the sound of my own, so someone by the fire must have seen them almost as soon as I had. It was growing paler around Bald Mountain; I could even see a little blue now.
Cold! It was bitter, bitter cold! The Shoshone must hate me very much or have amazing confidence in his medicine to attack on such a night.
The attackers must be gone. The Indian was ever a careful warrior, for brave as they were their people could not afford to lose warriors or their tribe would grow weak and small, unable to hunt or defend itself. It was their way to attack swiftly, and often if the advantage was lost to pull away and wait for another time. Yet crouching there in the snow, I waited while the sky brightened slowly and the shadows lost their war with the sun.
Atop Bald Mountain there was now a crescent of gold. I stood up and looked carefully around.
Walking to my left, scanning the snow with care, I found the place where my shoulders had struck, and just beyond it my rifle, fallen neatly into the snow with only a dusting of snow over it. Taking it up, I brushed off the snow, then tested the action, putting the ejected shell into my pocket.
From our camp I thought I heard a murmur of voices, and I shifted the rifle to my left hand, pulling the glove from my right hand and tucking it into my armpit to warm my chilled fingers.
The woods were still, and I looked up the slope toward camp. It should be safe to go in now, so I took one last look around. My eyes swept past the snow-laden spruce trees, over the fallen timber, and stopped.
He was standing there, not fifty feet off, and he was bringing the rifle to his shoulder as my eyes caught him. I had dropped my hand to button my coat, and as my eyes fastened upon him my hand was no more than an inch or two from my gun. I drew and fired in the same instant.
His gun stabbed flame, but I felt no shock and I fired again. He took a step back, slipped on the snow, and started to straighten up. I held my fire, waiting.
He started to lift a foot to get better footing, and then his legs folded under him and he went down. I waited while one might have counted four, then walked toward him, prepared to shoot at any movement. There was none.
He was lying on his side, but as I came near, in a futile attempt to get up, he slipped again and rolled over on his back.
Reaching down, I took the rifle from him and tossed it aside. He stared at me, his eyes alive with fury. From his actions or lack of them I decided my bullet must have touched his spinal cord, for he seemed to have lost the power to use his legs and at least one hand.
My bullet had gone through his body, my second shot a little lower, but well in the target area.
I knew he was dying and I spoke carefully, knowing he understood a little English. “I am sorry,” I said, “I was never your enemy.”
His eyes were black and hard, but at my words he seemed puzzled, and his lips fumbled for words that would not come. “It is a big country,” I said, “big enough for all of us. I wanted to be your friend.”
I thought he heard me, but I did not know. I squatted there beside him, reluctant to leave him alone. A cold wind rustled the spruces, a little snow blew from one, and a flake settled on his eyeball. The eye did not move or blink, and I knew the Shoshone was dead.
Slowly, I got to my feet, thumbed a couple of cartridges into my gun, and holstered it.
It was not until I started to button my coat that I noticed the holes. There were two of them through the left side of the coat about elbow high, and they were close together. Undoubtedly as I stood, my coat unfastened and my right hand under my left armpit and then dropping toward the holster, my coat must have hung loose, and he had shot where he believed my heart to be. Oddly enough, I remembered but one shot.
When I had scrambled up the slope for a few yards, I called out. “Ethan? Stacy?”
There was a moment of silence, then Ethan’s voice called out, “Ben? Is that you? Come on in!”
Short Bull was down. He was badly hit, I could see that. Uruwishi was tending him, soaking some dried herbs he carried with him to pack on the wound. Ethan had a bullet scratch along his jaw, and Stacy had a bloody bandage on his left arm.
“We was in a good spot,” Stacy was saying, “an’ Ben here gave us warnin’.”
“Somebody shot from camp,” I said, “somebody fired almost as soon as I did.”
Stacy pointed with his pipe stem at Uruwishi. “It was him. He was on one knee a-shootin’ when I come awake.”
“They’d rolled in snow,” I said, “and some of them wore fur…wolf skins, maybe. They were so white I could scarcely make them out.”
“You get any?” Stacy asked.
“One for sure,” I said, after a minute, “and maybe three, but probably not. I know I scratched a couple or came close enough to worry them.”
“I nailed one,” Stacy said. “He run right at me. I had nothin’ to do but squeeze ’er off.”
“How bad is Short Bull?”
Ethan shrugged. “The Old One is some kind of a medicine man and he’s fixin’ him up. In this here cold he’s apt not to get infection, an’ he’s a tough youngster.”
We built up the fire and shaped around to eat. I drank some coffee and felt a little better. We had seen no dead Indians…except for me, that is, and the Shoshone down the slope.
They carried off their dead when they could, but of course we might not have killed any. It is easy to believe you are doing better shooting than you are.
We cut poles for a travois for Short Bull, and when we rigged it we mounted up. Even at the slow pace we must now take we would be at the Medicine Wheel by noon.
“Ain’t human!” Stacy growled. “After all you done for him!”
“What is human, Stacy?” I asked mildly. “What we call human is what we believe to be right and sane, for in our world we have been brought up to believe certain things. We are apt to believe those things are human nature…whatever that is.
“Look at it from his standpoint. He took prisoners, and from the beginning of time as far as he is concerned the captor has the right to dispose of his prisoners, to kill them or enslave them.
“Our ancestors in Europe or Africa were doing the same thing for centuries. While he is arguing his case with the old men we come in, take his prisoners, then knock him out with a six-shooter in front of the very old men he is belittling.
“We disgraced him, dishonored him, and he must have revenge. We find him wounded. We bring him in, care for him, return him to his people.
“This to him was a triumph, for he believed his medicine was too strong for us or we would have killed him as he intended to kill me.
“To him our gifts were a cheap way to bribe him because we were afraid, and what we call gratitude had no place in his scheme of things. Nobody ever taught him to do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
We were riding out on a western spur of Medicine Mountain overlooking a vast sweep of the Big Horn Basin. The sun was warm, the sky clear, and before us was the Wheel.
It was almost round and seemed to be made of chunks of white limestone. At least seventy-five feet across and better than two hundred and fifty feet around. The stones were two to three feet above the thin grass of the ridge. In the center was a cairn of rocks perhaps a dozen feet across with an opening in one side, and from it radiated twenty-eight spokes, although there were scattered rocks that might once have been another spoke. Some of the rocks had been disarranged by frost or whatever.
It was high, barren, and the spur itself was cracked deeply in places, some of
the cracks being all of four feet wide and a hundred feet deep.
We all drew up and sat our horses in silence. The wind touched our faces and stirred the hair hanging by Uruwishi’s cheek.
We were white men, and we did not think with his thoughts, our blood did not run as his, nor did our memories stir with ancient secrets. These things were deep within him, deep in the flesh and bone of him, and yet as we sat with him I liked to think that we felt a little as he did.
Uruwishi did not stand alone upon this place. He stood with the spirits of all who had gone before.
“Many times!” he spoke suddenly. “Many times this place was shaped! Many times the wind, the snow, the ice…they have changed this place, they have made the stones move, but each time the stones have come back to their seats.
“There are places where a man can stand and be one with the Great Spirit, and this is such a place.
“This is a place to dream, a place to smoke, and a place to die!
“I am here! I, Uruwishi, have come!”
Slowly, weakly, the old man’s arms lifted to the sky. In a quavering voice he sang once more his death song, and then he said, “I go now to join my fathers, I go where age cannot come, where flowers do not wither, where fish leap like silver in the streams. I go where the buffalo go, where the warriors, my brothers, have gone before me!
“Do not think that I mourn! I have come to this place with men! I have shed the skin of the old chief and ridden again with the young braves!
“I am here! I have come to this place! I am Uruwishi!”
Slowly, his arms lowered, and he bent far forward. We ran to him, all of us, and eased his body to the ground. His tired hand gripped my arm. His eyes held mine. “You said ‘come ride with me,’ and I came. You saw not an old man, tired and weak. You saw beneath my skin, which the years have wrinkled and withered, you saw the young warrior that lives in my heart! You saw Uruwishi!”
He died there, under the blue sky, near to the place where the men who had no iron had built their shrine, but he did not die alone or unmourned.
Novel 1978 - Bendigo Shafter (v5.0) Page 35