Mrs Elton in Amercia

by Diana Birchall

  CHAPTER TEN

  Mr. Elton spent the winter making plans for his work with the Indians; Blackfeet, Mandan and Comanche had villages in this ` part of eastern Kansas, and he was certain of having much influence, and converting many souls. With those Blackfeet and Mandan who approached the fort in twos and threes, hoping for a trade, or a meal, Mr. Elton did indeed make some impression. They were willing enough to listen to his stories about the white man's god for hours, by a warm fire in the fort, and it mattered not that they did not understand one word in forty. "Great Talk-Man," they called him, and even those whites who remained, the garrison soldiers, some French traders, and the Englishmen, liked to listen, as other forms of entertainment were few enough.

  It was a peaceful time. Supplies held out, and sickness did not attack the little settlement. Mrs. Elton learnt to fashion clothing out of buckskin and beaver, and she spent half of each morning instructing her daughters, while Philip Augustus followed the French traders about, listening to their stories about hunting.

  "I told you the children would learn French," said Mr. Elton triumphantly, but Mrs. Elton only shook her head. "With what an accent!"

  It was in April, when the ground was still wet with melting snow, that the Comanches came.

  The settlers in the fort could hear them from a long way off, the drumming sound of many horses thundering, and white-faced they made their preparations, dividing up the arms. French Pierre, climbing up to the lookout-hole, cried out, the note of terror clear in his voice. "Here they come. Mon Dieu! There are hundreds of them!"

  There was nothing to be done. The defense of the fort did not last half an hour. The soldiers stationed themselves in the yard to shoot at the Indians as they circled the fort; a few of the riders fell, but the yard was quickly filled with a whirlwind of murderous activity. Hundreds of Comanche, armed with fourteen-foot lances, bows and arrows, stormed the fort, and they were more than a match for men whose clumsy rifles had to be continually reloaded, when there was no time to reload. It was a scene of confusion and unimaginable gore, as men were clubbed, speared, scalped, and in moments, piles of settlers and soldiers alike lay dead. Mrs. Elton was struck by a hard blow on the head that stunned her, and she was barely aware of being pulled somewhere by the hair, little Gussie yanked from her arms.

  "You woman, you watch!" a Comanche brave intoned in her dazed ear, holding her head, and with horror that she could hardly comprehend, she witnessed the sight of her husband being scalped before her eyes. "Good God save yourself, Augusta, and the children," was the last cry she heard. Young Philip Augustus launched himself toward his father and was swept aside with a blow. Mrs. Elton was pulled up behind a brave on a horse, and was carried away as the fort burned behind her; then she fell unconscious, and knew no more.

  When she awoke she was in a tipi, and her clothes had been stripped from her body; she was wrapped in skins. Her head hurt brutally and throbbed to the horrible rhythm of the wild singing and tomtoms outside. She managed to half sit up, and saw that her son lay nearby, still unconscious, and Selina was there too, cowering under a blanket. Mrs. Elton weakly held out her hands and the child crept toward her.

  "Father," she whispered.

  "Yes - I know."

  They cried silently together. At last Mrs. Elton sat up. "It all happened so fast, Selina! Only think. He could not have felt much, or for long; it was over in an instant."

  "Do you truly think so?"

  "Yes, it was mercifully quick. We must never think of it. We must be strong. But Gussie, Gussie too! She is not here? You have not seen her?"

  Selina shook her head, tears in her eyes, and the two were quiet.

  Philip Augustus moaned, and rolled over. Mrs. Elton looked about the tipi and found a waterskin, patted some water on his face, then held it to his lips. They clung together for how long they never knew, listening to the warlike sound of drums outside, until someone parted the opening of the tipi, and entered. The three on the floor stiffened in fright. It was a Comanche woman, carrying a pan of cornbread, which she slapped down before them, then retreated. Mrs. Elton and her son and daughter ate ravenously, then, from sheer exhaustion and grief, they slept.

  When they woke the sun was streaming in, and the Indian woman entered again and motioned for them to get up and come outside. They were led before a broad, muscled and tall Comanche warrior in buckskin, his face elaborately tattooed, his ears pierced, his hair greased and tied with brushes made of porcupine quills. His scalp was painted with clay, and ornamented with buffalo horns.

  "Ee-wunee-keem," he grunted.

  The Indian woman said to Mrs. Elton, "He say come here."

  "No," she said firmly.

  The woman took a plaited thong and wrapped it about her arms, so hard it hurt. She jerked the thong, and Mrs. Elton fell to her knees in the dirt. She stood up with difficulty.

  By gestures, the warrior gave her to understand that she was to be his woman. She spat on the ground. Seeing a piece of bone lying in the dust, she stooped, and even though her two arms were bound together, she lifted the bone and flung it in the warrior's face. It rebounded against his nose, harmlessly, and he stared at her in surprise. The woman made a startled noise and backed away.

  The warrior made a contemptuous gesture and said something in the Comanche tongue, and turned away.

  The woman told her, with some relish, "He say you devil woman. Not be his wife, too much trouble. You work for me, be my slave."

  Mrs. Elton looked unconcerned. "Very well. I shall help with your work. That is fair. What must we do first?"

  "You and girl - plenty to do. What I say. Sewing, cooking, taking down the tents, putting up. Make moccasins - grind corn - you see. But the boy, he cannot stay with you. Must live with the braves."

  There did not seem any objection to make, so Mrs. Elton nodded once, and followed the woman back to the tipi.

  All that long summer, Mrs. Elton and Selina worked harder than they ever would have believed it was possible to work. They were treated as slaves, sometimes kicked and shouted at, but no further attempts were made to force Mrs. Elton to be a warrior's wife. Some of the younger braves looked at young Selina speculatively, but Mrs. Elton kept her close by her side at all times.

  The braves also watched Philip Augustus closely, to see if he showed signs of wanting to avenge his father's death; but the lad was of a peaceable disposition, and inclined to accept the situation as it was. He soon made friends among other boys his age, and by the end of the summer had slid into their ways and teachings.

  The Comanche were, above all things, great horsemen. Their herd was vast, for they were highly skilled at lassoing wild horses with strips of buffalo hide, and they kept hundreds of the animals at their different water holes. Each brave owned many horses, and they spent much of their time practising, so that every man could perform the most daring tricks: dropping his body down the side of his horse while charging, dangling by the heel while full armed with bow and lance.

  The women supported their men by doing all the work in camp. Mrs. Elton saw little of her son, and only from a distance; he looked as much like an Indian as any of the boys, and was always on a horse. They might have lived in different worlds. Mrs. Elton was the lowest of the women, and did whatever anyone else wanted her to do; she spent many hours performing the worst work of the camp, scraping smelly buffalo skins with a bone scraper, then pressing a paste of animal offal, grease and water into the skins and pulling and stretching them for days on end, to tan them. She helped in the making of clothes - the buckskin breechclouts, the deerskin leggings, and bear robes, until she thought she never in her life would get the smell of dead animal skins out of her nostrils. It was the women, too, who tore down the camp whenever the tribe or some part of the tribe moved, as happened frequently; and then the tipis had to be set up all over again in the new location. Mrs. Elton got so she could put up a heavy buffalo-skin tipi herself in a quarter of an hour.

  Grey Owl, the old woman who gave
her most of her orders, made her life as miserable as possible, with many kicks and barked-out words. One morning, when Mrs. Elton had been scraping skins for five hours, with nothing to eat, Grey Owl refused to give her food, and struck her a blow across the shoulders with a club, for daring to ask. It was bad enough that she was hungry, but little Selina sat beside her, thin and crying silently from hunger too, and suddenly Mrs. Elton would bear no more. She rose up, grabbed the club, and beat the woman to the ground. For the rest of the day she sat shaking, and every time an Indian approached she feared being beaten or killed; but oddly, there seemed to be more respect for her after this. Oriah, the brave who had wanted to take her for his wife, and was one of the highest-ranking men in the tribe, made a point of walking past her tipi and said, "Humph, you Warrior Squaw," in a manner faintly approving.

  That was her name, Warrior Squaw; and from this time things grew easier for Mrs. Elton and Selina. They were now treated as equals with the other women, and as their skills improved - Selina was quite an adept at weaving with porcupine-quills - they were accepted still more fully and given less onerous work to do. Mrs. Elton did not know it but part of the reason for their rise in status was owing to Philip Augustus's skill with bow and arrow; he was considered one of the ablest young men, and had been initiated into manhood and given the name Bright Feather.

  It was during Mrs. Elton's third summer with the Indians that a party of white men rode boldly into the Comanche village. This showed considerable courage, but there were only three riders, so they could present little threat, and they were not molested. The braves Oriah and Horned Owl, and Chief Silver Buffalo, indicated that they would receive the visitors formally. Women were excluded from the council, of course, but the talking went on for many hours, and Mrs. Elton helped in the preparations for a banquet, which included dishes such as pemmican, berries and nuts pounded and roasted in intestines, and a complicated tripe dish.

  She was curious as to who the white men were and what they could want, but she had no idea that their visit had anything to do with herself, until a brave came to summon her from her tent. She and Selina followed him to the fire. She glanced first at the rows of young braves seated behind the chiefs in their most formal regalia, and was surprised to see that Bright Feather was not seated in his usual place among the youths, but in an unprecedented spot for so young a man, directly beside the chief himself.

  Mrs. Elton now looked carefully at the visitors. They were like any white men found so far west, dark brown in colour from head to foot, from the caked-in dirt, and dressed in buckskins like any man, white or Indian. Two were French trappers, and Mrs. Elton suddenly started: she knew them! They were French Jean and French Pierre, who had been on the keelboat with the Eltons three years ago. The third man was older, and bald, and was looking at her penetratingly, as if he could not believe what he was seeing.

  Then Mrs. Elton knew. It was her husband! Philip not dead at all! Rapidly she remembered that she had been told that people did not always die from scalping: but what on earth - She could have screamed with the shock and joy, but three years among the Indians had given her a training in how to behave as a squaw that did not falter, even though Selina, by her side, gripped her hand as hard as she could.

  "Approach, Warrior Squaw and her chicken."

  As Mrs. Elton numbly obeyed, it flashed through her mind to wonder just how she and Selina must appear to Mr. Elton. They wore long, one-piece dresses of buckskin and moccasins on their feet; their hair fell down their backs and was held with leather thongs. Selina had grown tall, and they were both deeply tanned; Mrs. Elton's muscles had hardened, and she knew her appearance must be as altered, and she as difficult to recognize, as he was.

  "Warrior Squaw, this visitor tells us you are his woman. Is it true?"

  She spoke up clearly. "It is true. He is my husband, and Bright Feather and Little Chicken are his children."

  "Warrior Squaw, we have no quarrel with these people. We will treat them as honoured guests. We acknowledge your husband, and you may take him to your tent."

  Mrs. Elton did not know how she reached her husband's side, nor how they walked to the tipi together, but as soon as they were inside they clasped each other in a close embrace, and laughed and cried. She was the first to recover.

  "Oh, my caro sposo, how can you be alive? I saw - we saw - " and her voice trembled.

  "Yes, I was knocked down and hit hard on the head, and then, scalped," he said, his voice trembling. "I was left for dead, but I did not die; and the trappers, who were away from the fort at the time of the massacre, returned and found me. I had lost a great deal of blood, but they kindly nursed me back to health, and I have lived and travelled with them all this time. But Augusta - we did not know where you were taken. Have you been - are you - ?"

  He could say no more. "No," she said proudly, "Oriah tried to take me as his wife, but I refused, and Selina and I have not been harmed."

  "Thank God," he breathed, "thank God. You do not know the fears I have endured, for you all. But you are well and Philip Augustus too - a veritable young Indian, he appears!"

  They laughed a little together. Then Augusta said softly, "Our Gussie, you know, was killed in the massacre."

  "I know," he replied, "there was nothing French Pierre or Jean could do for her. So many died."

  "And you have lived with them - ?"

  "I have been searching for you all this time, Augusta. Pierre and Jean move around a great deal, in their trapping, and I have been helping them; I could do no less, you know, they have been so good. And everywhere we have gone we have looked for the Comanche - but the tribe is so scattered, so fast moving."

  "Yes, we are known as Centaurs of the Prairie," said Augusta proudly.

  "We!" he said, amused, and continued, "The different groups of Comanche can only be approached with caution, for it is never known which are on the warpath, or what will set them off. The government is attempting to remove them, you know, and they are determined to fight back; that is why they attacked the fort that day, in revenge for these removals. There are thousands of Comanche - it was always uncertain that we ever could find your encampment."

  "I did not know."

  "It has been a weary search; we have been in Kansas and Texas, and were moving north, as the trappers are returning to Montreal. Your tribe is very far north for Comanche - we never expected to find any here. This is Dakota country; did you know?"

  "They do not tell the squaws much," she returned dryly.

  "Augusta, do you suppose - will they permit you to leave with me? Otherwise we must return with soldiers, but we would wish to avoid this if possible."

  "I think they will. We have served them well, done much work these three years. Can we - Philip, do you think there is any way in which we might hope to return together to civilized country?"

  "I do not even know where that is," he said bitterly, "and I have nothing to help us get there; I am still without a great deal of strength. The best we can hope for, I think, is to accompany the Frenchmen north, and make our way back to civilized lands in the course of time."

  "Oh, if only we can!" she said fervently.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Mr. and Mrs. Elton placed their request before the elders of the Comanche tribe, and after a day and a night of deliberations, ` their wish was granted: Warrior Squaw had served the tribe well, and might have her freedom. As her lawful husband was arrived, it was agreed that the Great Spirit meant it should be so. Her daughter might go with her, but Bright Feather - after all the training he had been given, and the promise he showed of becoming a great brave, the Comanche were inclined to keep him. However, they acknowledged his duty to his own White Father, and assured him it would be his own free choice.

  The young man himself was divided in his feelings. "Might not I remain for some time longer?" he asked his father. "Of course I want to be with you and Mamma, but I am Comanche, now, too. And Great Silver Buffalo has said he says that I might become a great
chief myself, one day. Already only Antelope Boy and Swift Arrow can shoot an antelope at greater distance, and there are ever so many more riding tricks for me to learn - I know there are."

  "My boy," said Mr. Elton gently, "it is once for all. If you remain with the Indians, you will in all probability never see your parents or your real country again. You may feel that you belong with the Comanches; but the fact is that their future is dark and uncertain. The Americans will persevere in the clearances - they must prevail in the end, it is impossible that it should be otherwise. The Comanche will be killed off, those that survive the epidemics, which are already making great depredations among all the tribes."

  "Then I ought to stay and help them," the boy said stoutly.

  "If you feel that you owe them your loyalty. But you owe your own people loyalty too, and remember that these Comanche are the same that killed your little sister."

  "And scalped your father," Mrs. Elton put in dryly.

  "It was because the Americans would kill them - that was the reason."

  "That is true enough. You must decide; you are only fifteen, Philip Augustus, but you have proved yourself a man, and I would not wish to make it a matter of obedience. There is another thing to consider, as well. We have a long and arduous journey ahead of us, travelling east with the trappers. Your family may need you, to help us return to the civilized places where your mother, and sister, and I, truly do belong."

  "Yes," the boy said slowly, "if you need me, I will come with you. Please do not think - of course I shall, if you wish it. But, Papa, you came out into these wild countries yourself, to convert the Indians. Are you to give up your mission? "