by Earl Murray
The lance head pierced the warrior’s leg and penetrated his pony’s ribs. Horse and rider went down. The Arapaho rode past the Ute warrior, who was trying to rise, and slammed a war club into the side of his head. Then he quickly dismounted and with a brief stroke of his knife, cut across the front of the dying Ute’s forehead and ripped a chunk of hair and scalp free. He held the trophy up and screamed to the sky.
All the warriors from both sides rode forward to engage in battle. Men yelled and ponies screamed and the air quickly filled with dust. The chants of death songs began with the killing.
I saw a warrior with arrows in his back and side, struggling against a foe who was tearing at his scalp. I fired my Hawken at an Arapaho who rode up beside me and aimed an arrow at my chest. He fell backwards off his horse and lay still.
Through the dust and confusion I noticed that Kills It was circling the battlefield in an effort to reach me.
I rode toward him, fighting Arapahoes along the way. When I reached him, Kills It got down from his horse and challenged me hand-to-hand.
I dismounted and slapped Parker on the rump to send him off. Kills It tossed his shield aside and came at me with a large knife. I had nothing but the battleax, and instead of swinging it, I reached in quickly and touched him on the arm.
He knew that I had counted a great honor against him and yelled with rage. He charged me and thrust the knife toward my middle. I dodged sideways and touched him again.
I had intended to count coup four times, but Black Horse stepped in front of me and sought to prove himself. Kills It was waiting for him. When my half brother reached in with a stick to touch him, he felt the big knife’s blade slice deep into his abdomen.
Black Horse doubled over and fell to the ground, his blood staining the trampled grass.
Kills It turned to me and smiled. “Why don’t you try it again?”
“I’m content to see you go through life with the shame of my coups against you,” I said.
Kills It charged me, white-eyed as a rabid wolf. As he lunged, my ax caught him on the forearm, slicing the muscle to the bone. The knife fell to the ground and he picked it up with his other hand, his eyes still wild.
When he came again, his knife raised high, I buried the ax straight into his forehead, right between his eyes, and let him fall past me. He did not go to the ground and writhe in a death throe, but stayed on his hands and knees, trying to rise.
I had heard stories of warriors who refused to die, of men who had lain on the battlefield still breathing after legs and arms had been removed, once for a long while after the head was taken. I had thought the tales to be far-fetched. But I saw in Kills It the most startling demonstration of strength that anyone could imagine.
Warriors on both sides stopped their fighting to watch Kills It rise to his feet and face me, the ax protruding from his skull. He could stand but a short time before falling forward to the ground.
The Ute warriors cut off his fingers for trophies, and even before he was dead, one of them cut out his heart, to gain Kills It’s unusual medicine. They left me the scalp, but I didn’t want it. Instead, my father came forward and ripped it free, saying he would spit on it every time he thought about Black Horse, who now lay dead beside me.
Gabriella’s Journal
25 MAY 1846
The camp rejoiced in victory but grieved for the losses at the same time. Owen told me that forty-three young men had died and another fifteen were injured. The Arapaho had lost that many and more.
Men and women, both, went into mourning, cutting their hair and themselves with knives and awls. The keening was terrible and lasted until late afternoon, when the Scalp Dance began.
I watched while the warriors, Owen among them, circled a pole in the center of the village that had been adorned with scalps taken in battle that day. They sat and waited while painted women approached the pole and sang victory songs, then made room for a warrior on horseback who rode around the pole and told war stories.
I wondered why Bones Brandt wasn’t in attendance and went off to look for him. I found him down by the river, resting against a large cottonwood tree. He greeted me with a smile and asked me to sit down. While the drums beat and the dancing continued, we looked across to the mountains where thin clouds trailed into thin wisps above the peaks.
He said there was a time when he would sit with his wife and they would talk about the land—how it could be so beautiful yet so harsh, and so soft and gentle, like a mother who fed her child with tender care, and how she shuddered when warriors killed one another on battlefields and soaked the soil with blood. Then the wives and mothers would mix their tears with the blood and earth, and the sky would send lightning and rain, and the cycle would start all over again.
“I figure it will be that way till there’s no tomorrow,” he said, looking into the distance.
He rubbed his leg and moaned. It had swollen considerably, and even though he had changed the heavy herb compresses many times, they couldn’t stop the bleeding.
“Red Flower’s grandfather used to say that the mountains and sky are the only things that last,” he said. “I figure I saw this country at its best. Can’t complain.”
He said he had long since tired of telling people what things used to be like, but believed that I somehow knew.
“Otherwise you wouldn’t paint them pictures the way you do,” he said. “You can see what was in a man’s eyes when he was younger and you can get it through them paints you use. I ain’t never seen nothing like it.”
“Do you have anything that belonged to your wife?” I asked.
He took a large blue bead from a pouch that hung around his neck. It felt warm in my hand. I held it for a while and gave it back to him.
“I’ll be right back,” I promised.
When I arrived back from our tent, twilight was spreading across the mountain sky in scarlet ribbons. He took the painting and stared at it for a moment, in shock.
“That’s exactly how she looked,” he said softly. “That’s just how we both looked the day we was married.”
He handed me the bead and asked that I keep it.
“She would have given it to you herself, had she been here,” he said. “The way I figure it, she already knows you somehow.”
I left him beside the river, clutching the painting. He told me not to mind about him, that he would make it back to camp in due time.
“You get back to Owen,” he said. “He’s a good man.”
In fact Owen had come looking for me and I met him at the edge of camp. He said he thought it best if we went back and helped Bones get to his bedroll. When we reached him, his head had slumped forward and his hands had released the painting.
As the sky darkened, Owen dug a deep hole in the sand and we laid his friend to rest under the tree where he died. From the branches came the twitter of little birds, and as we finished we looked up to see a pair of chickadees flit off into the waning light.
THE BAYOU SALADE
Gabriella’s Journal
29 MAY 1846
Yesterday we packed the mules and saddled the horses without fanfare. Owen had stretched Kills It’s scalp across a small hoop to dry. I hate looking at it but he reminds me that we must keep it because should we meet any more Utes, or any of the tribes to the west, we will be welcomed as an ally.
Owen’s father didn’t even see us leave. He’s in mourning and has cut his hair and carved lines into his arms and legs with a knife. Some of the young warriors who watched Owen battle Kills It stood at a distance and watched us leave. Otherwise there was no good-bye as we renewed our journey towards Fort Laramie.
At the edge of camp, Owen took a last long look up the trail toward the Manitou, where smoke rose from the Arapaho campfires. He had thought about saying one last good-bye to Hawktail, but then realized he couldn’t do that. He had fought with the Ute against them, so we are now both considered mortal enemies.
Even Antelope would now turn his back on us. Es
pecially Owen. It’s as if the old friendship between them never existed. Though Kills It had caused the problem in the first place, Owen could have chosen not to fight. But then the Ute people would have had cause for mistrust.
I wish things could have been different, but it seems there’s no way to predict what will happen at any given time out here. The weather changes rapidly and the fortunes of travelers even quicker.
There are many good memories to treasure, along with the bad. I will always remember my friendship with Willow Bird and the many things she taught me. I saw her standing with the other Arapaho women just before the battle, urging the young warriors to be brave. I know she saw me as well and I wonder if her heart was just as heavy.
Though I might never see her or her people again, I have my sketchpads and watercolors to remember them. I have much to transpose that will stand as a testament to the things I saw and did while in the camps of the Arapaho and the Ute. I’m certain Owen has his past memories to deal with now as well.
I feel sorry for him. As a child he had never known his father properly, and now as an adult, it will never happen. The two men seem to have everything in common but no emotional bond. They have separated themselves from each other totally and there seems to be no foundation for a reconciliation.
Now he has to face the additional reality that he will likely never see his son again. I know that pains him deeply and sense that he doesn’t know how to talk about it. All he can say is that Hawktail has grown into a fine young man and that he will someday make his people very proud.
That evening we camped near a beautiful little stream called Plum Creek, at the headwaters of the South Platte River. Owen shot a small deer and we roasted the loin and back legs. He laid out the remainder of the meat on branches to dry.
We both fell sound asleep and didn’t awaken until late this morning. Owen was frying more meat when I decided to go for a walk.
The day was open and warm, the bees and butterflies filling a little meadow where the trail ran. I wondered what lay over the hill ahead and walked to the top. There, next to a wagon track, I discovered one of Edward Garr’s rifles, with his initials engraved on the stock.
The stock below the engraving was cracked and the hammer bent. I called Owen and he came running. He suggested that it had likely fallen under one of the carts. Edward was never one to have his guns repaired. He merely discarded them.
We looked down the hill from where the rifle lay and to my surprise I noticed remnants of tattered clothing strewn everywhere, along with the remains of three large trunks, each one smashed to pieces. I recognized one of the ripped dresses.
“This was Avis’s favorite dinner gown,” I said. “I can’t believe it. And look, some of Uncle Walter’s things.”
“Sir Edward must have grown tired of hauling their belongings,” Owen said.
Owen stood back while I walked through the scattered memories. Tears came as I relived that night in Edward’s tent. I turned to rejoin Owen and stumbled over a shoe. Regaining my balance, I noticed a white envelope lying in the grass. I picked it up and recognized my mother’s handwriting—a letter from home, addressed to me at the Planters’ Hotel in St. Louis.
The envelope had been opened. Curious, I took two separate letters out and read the first one:
3 MARCH 1846
My Dearest Gabriella,
I do hope this reaches you before your departure for the mountains. I have searched my soul since your leaving and have come to the conclusion that I have been wrong in keeping important information from you all of your life.
I do hope you’ll agree that I’ve tried to be the best mother I know how. I hope you also realize how very much I love you. I’ve always loved you as if you were my very own child. But, Gabriella, you are not.
You were given to us by a lady whom your father and I made agreement with to conceive for me, as I knew I could never have children. Your father also thought it prudent that you not know, as he has always felt unsettled over completing his end of the agreement.
Your true mother is a friend of mine from schooldays and resembles me in looks and attitudes. I had lost contact with her for many years.
Her name is Lucy James and she wrote me from Fort Vancouver, your very destination, where she is working as a nurse among the Indians. She had promised never to bring up the matter of our agreement but wrote that she wanted desperately to learn what she could about you, as she had been thinking a lot about her past of late.
Unfortunately, I kept the letter all this time without advising you. It is enclosed and you can see for yourself that what I’ve told you is true. I am so sorry that I waited so long.
This past winter I wrote Miss James back, telling her of your plans to travel with Edward to the Oregon territory and suggested that when you arrive, she ask you her questions in person.
Perhaps I’m presuming too much by believing you would even want to meet her. I hope you do. I do hope as well that you’ll forgive me for keeping this from you, and that nothing will change between us.
Please write me at your earliest convenience.
Take good care.
All my love,
Mother
I sank to my knees, gasping. Owen hurried over to me.
“Did someone die?” he asked.
“Yes,” I whispered. “My whole identity.”
“What are you talking about?”
I handed him the letter, and while he read, I looked over the second piece of correspondence. It had been four years since my real mother had written.
FORT VANCOUVER
BRITISH COLUMBIA
10 FEBRUARY 1842
Dear Ann,
It has taken me considerable time to muster the courage to approach you. I know that I promised you I would just go away and allow you and yours your lives. But believe me, I cannot leave it lie.
You see, I am haunted by a little face. These past years especially I often see her in my dreams and wonder what her life has been like. What did you name her? What does she like to do? Does she love the sea?
I am certain she has brought you much joy, and I am certainly glad for that. However, you must understand how driven I am to learn as much as possible about her. As I am presently working as a nurse among the native peoples here, I cannot help but wonder how my child has fared in life.
Would you do me the honor of corresponding with me about her?
Please forgive me for the intrusion, and I hope and pray that you see fit to tell me about the child, now certainly a lovely young woman.
Thanking you for your trouble, I am sincerely,
Lucy James
Putting the letter aside, I rose to my feet and began to wander around. I must have looked very dazed because Owen came after me and asked me if I was all right. He took me in his arms and told me that he would help me find her, if that’s what I wanted. I was too shocked at first to shed any tears, but later they came streaming down my face.
My anger at Avis and Edward for hiding the letter was soon overcome by a form of relief that is hard for me to understand. It’s as if a lot of questions I have always asked myself over the years have been answered.
But only partway. I still need to know why my real mother would agree to do such a thing. On some level I suppose I should be grateful that she did make the arrangement. I suspect it was for money, or for some kind of compensation that would simplify her life.
Owen and I walked and talked and he reminded me that whether or not I ever find her, I am my own person, and in his estimation, a special one. Perhaps his view is prejudiced. But I must say that there are times when he makes me feel entirely whole and fulfilled.
After I regained a sense of composure, we sat near the little stream and listened to the birds. Owen picked a handful of small purple daisies and handed them to me.
“For the most wonderful and talented lady I know,” he said.
I hugged him and wept again. So much had happened so quickly. I felt at once eager to
take off and hurry towards Oregon, and at the same time hesitant. Owen is right in advising me not to hold a great deal of hope of finding her. He says that there are a lot of Indian tribes along the northwest coast, and as the letter is four years old, any number of circumstances might have changed.
He confided to me that as a child he often wondered about his father, sometimes thinking that a true father would never go off and leave him. After much soul-searching he came to the conclusion that true family is not always formed of blood.
“I couldn’t understand why there was no man to call a father in my life,” he said. “When I got to the mountains, Bones Brandt gave me what I had been missing. It didn’t take long until I began to feel whole.”
“I always loved Mother and I know she cared a great deal for me,” I explained. “She must have wanted a child very badly to have made the arrangement she did.”
“Why didn’t they just adopt a child?” Owen asked.
“I don’t think they wanted anyone to know they couldn’t have children,” I said. “In the society where I was raised, people look for the smallest reasons to pass judgment.”
Owen asked me if I had ever wondered through the years about my identity. I knew what he meant. It’s a sixth sense about belonging somewhere other than where you are.
“Yes,” I said. “I can remember as a child and a young adult, sitting alone on the beach, gazing out across the Irish Sea. Somehow I felt drawn across, and though I never made it, I wonder now if my true mother is Irish.”
Owen chuckled. “If you turn out to be as Irish as me, look out, world.”
Gabriella’s Journal
20 JUNE 1846
I have nothing else on my mind now but reaching Fort Vancouver. Owen has taken a well-used trail across the mountains towards a post called Fort Hall, a major stop on the Oregon Trail. He believes we will arrive easily by late July, which will give us ample time to reach our destination before winter.