From the cloth trader they went to the metal dealer. This man kept a neater cabin, with small sheets of iron, tin, and brass over to one side, and cast iron pots, pans, and griddles on the other. Again the lists were consulted where memories were shaky. Sheets of iron were purchased for the making of arrowheads, and the other metals were bought to make decorations or bells for whistler harnesses. George looked around, but aside from a skillet, he saw none of the special items he sought.
The young trader was next. The haggling over sugar and salt was perfunctory, prices having been well-established over the years, but when it came to the limited selection of beads, wire, and silver, it became fierce.
“He is crazy,” complained Long Jaw. “Six fox for two circles of silver. They are too small. I would not give him six rabbit pelts. Tell him, One Who Flies.”
George complied. “He would not give six rabbit skins for those.”
“I wouldn’t take them,” the trader said, cool and competent in this, his own realm of expertise.
George did not need to translate the trader’s words, but the young trader’s attitude irked him. Growing up on the frontier, George had had ample opportunity to learn a thing or two about haggling. He turned to Long Jaw. “How much would you give.”
“Three,” Long Jaw said.
“Fox?”
Yes, Long Jaw signed in confirmation.
“Two fox skins,” George said to the trader.
“Two!” The young trader laughed, holding up two fingers. “Two?”
Long Jaw tapped George on the shoulder. “I said three.”
“I know. I’m making a deal.”
But the trader had seen Long Jaw’s gestures. “He said three.”
“Yes, but I told him they’re not worth three.”
“You what?”
“Those tiny little things? They’re not worth three. Two, maybe...not three.”
“Not worth—” The young man gaped, finally flustered by George’s audacity. “Who the infernal devil do you think you are?”
George leaned close into the young trader’s stink. “I,” he said with an evil grin, “am the one translating your words.” He turned to Long Jaw. “Look insulted,” he said in the language of the People.
“What?”
“Make a face. Act like I’m telling you that he just insulted you.”
Long Jaw caught on. With great theatricality he pulled out his knife and raised it over his head. “I’ll kill you!” he shouted.
“Hold on, hold on,” George said placating. “Pretend it’s a smaller insult.”
Long Jaw put his knife away and simply glowered at the young trader.”
“And so,” George said in French, “I think perhaps you get my point, non?”
The trader curled his lip and sulked. He picked up the two silver circles. “Two fox,” he said.
“And those as well,” George said, pointing to two other silver disks.
“Are you—”
George half-turned back to Long Jaw. “What’s that you say?”
He could hear the man grind his teeth as he picked up two additional silver disks and handed them all over to George. “Two fox.”
George smiled. “Merci.” Then to Long Jaw he said, “One fox, and don’t look surprised.” Long Jaw did his best to comply. George took his friend’s pelt and took one of his own and handed them both to the trader. To Long Jaw he handed a pair of silver circles while he kept the other two for Mouse Road.
“I think we’re done here,” George said to the trader. “Many thanks.”
It was at the old trader’s shack that George finally saw what he was hoping to find. While Red Whistler was interpreting for the others in their purchases of knives and awls, George was looking at other, quite different items.
A barrel in a corner was filled with long hickory handles. On the floor next to it was a pile of pick- and mattock-heads. Leaning up against the barrel were several spades and shovels. There were some other tools nearby—hammers, hoes, wedges, and such—but they did not interest George. He took aside three of the pick-heads and began searching through the barrel until he found handles to fit them.
“Going to do some prospecting?”
George jumped at the sudden nearness of the trader. His question, too, set off alarm bells in George’s head. If this man guessed that there really was gold out in Cheyenne territory... But he was stuck. He’d already gathered up items that testified to his intention, and he wouldn’t dare use the gold itself to barter with.
George could think of only one thing to do.
“Prospecting?” he said with a wild-eyed grin. “You bet. Prospecting. That’s me.” He laughed in the old trader’s face. “Gonna find me the mother lode. You bet. So I need these.” He put the pick-heads in the trader’s arms. “And these.” He added the handles. “And some of these,” he said, picking up a pair of shovels. He saw an axe across the room and almost ran over to get it, but caught himself.
Act crazy, he told himself, but not too crazy.
“I need some other things, too, but—” He grimaced as if in pain. “—I can’t remember what they are. Ah! My list.” He dashed to the door. The other members of the trading party gave him odd looks but Long Jaw began to speak to them. By the time George returned with his list, the Indians all looked on him with a conspiratorial smirk.
“My list,” George said, showing the pelt to the old trader. “Ah, an axe, an axe, I need an axe, and a big one, not a hatchet.”
The trader was looking at George with an expression of mixed tolerance and skepticism. George wasn’t sure if his act was working, but he decided it was still his best bet.
“An axe,” the trader said. “How about that one?”
“Good, good.”
George kept up his quasi-maniacal glee and eventually the trader’s sidelong glances of incredulity waned. They gathered up all the tools, added a big knife for Picking Bones Woman, and topped it off with a straight razor and strop.
“Good,” George said. “All this. How much?”
He dickered shrewdly with the grizzled trader, just as he had with the others. He was sure that the four white men would compare experiences after the party had left, and George did not want any discrepancies in his abilities to tip his hand. They settled on a final price that left George with enough to trade for the corn he still needed. He gathered up his purchases in a clattering armload and headed for the open doorway.
An arm came down across the opening, hindering his exit.
“I’m on to you,” the trader whispered in English. “Those tramps,” he nodded toward the other traders’ shacks, “maybe you fooled them, but not me. You’ve found something out there, I’ll wager.”
George felt his heart begin to race.
“I’ve been a prospector, on and off, for thirty-five years. I can see it when a man’s had a taste of the real thing.” He put a hand on George’s shoulder. “But I’ll tell you what, friend. I’ll keep your secret. I’ll keep it, on one condition. You cut me in on the deal. I’ll get you the supplies you need—tools, wagons, even explosives if you want—and I’ll keep your secret, but you cut me in or on my next trip up north I’ll tell the whole town that Custer’s boy has found gold in Indian territory.”
George felt his mouth go dry. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t play old Vincent for a fool, boy. A crazy white man walks in with a bunch of Cheyenne warriors, but he can read and write and haggle like a horse trader and he wants to buy a razor? Tabarnaque. I am not an idiot. So, have we a deal?” He held out his hand.
“But I haven’t found anything.”
“Nothing big, perhaps, but yes, you have. And you’ll need more than three picks and two shovels when you make a strike. Any other trader with a brain will see through you just as I did, and he might not choose to offer you a deal. He might just follow you to your strike and kill you for it. So, those are your choices.”
“I don’t like those choic
es,” George said, all pretense gone.
“Quels dommages.” The trader said it without sympathy, but still held out the offered handshake.
Despite his disinclination, George clasped the trader’s hand. The old man smiled, revealing long, straight teeth.
“Vincent D’Avignon,” he said.
“George Custer, Jr.”
“A pleasure, George.”
The trading party left shortly thereafter, and all were impressed by George’s skill at bargaining. He did not tell them of the deal he had had to strike with Vincent D’Avignon, nor did he say much of anything during the journey home. He had already, he feared, said far too much.
Custer put the final flourish on his signature and laid down the pen. Samuel, his attaché, leaned in and rocked a blotter over the wet ink. Custer flipped the bill’s pages back to the beginning, closed the cover, and rose.
“Gentlemen, I give you The General Allotment Act of 1887.”
The senators and representatives applauded politely and though a few even said “Hear, hear!” the overall response was quite tepid. Custer looked at the collection of political power that filled the White House’s large oval library. Their dark frocks and dour expressions competed with the cheery white trim and yellow silk wallpaper. They were not affected by the warm sunlight of the late spring afternoon, nor by the southerly breeze that stirred the lace curtains on the curved-glass doors. Many of them, in fact, looked as if their heads ached, though Custer doubted it was from any early celebration. The bill’s passage had been rocky and contentious. Not even its sponsor looked happy.
“Senator Dawes,” Custer said as the staff brought in the obligatory drinks and canapés. “Surely you can summon some enthusiasm over the enactment of your bill?”
Dawes, a sharp-faced man with the intense gray-eyed Yankee gaze commonplace among New England reformers, took a cup and saucer of tea from Janie, the serving maid, and thanked her before turning to address his president.
“I regret to say, sir, that any enthusiasm I may own on the subject of this bill—which at one time was prodigious—has now been quite attenuated by the actions of my own Republican party.”
“Oh, not again,” said Greaves, a senator from Illinois. “We’ve heard it all before.”
“And yet I’ll say it once more,” Dawes replied, his Boston accent surfacing along with his ire. “The amendments you Westerners added have destroyed the spirit of this bill. It was supposed to help the Indian—”
“It allocates one hundred sixty acres of reservation land to every married adult male,” Greaves said. “Eighty acres to every unmarried male, just as you intended.”
Dawes sneered and looked down his nose at the Illinois senator. “But instead of holding the unallocated reservation lands in trust for future generations, it allows for the sale of that land to whites, just as you intended.”
Robert Matherly turned and smiled good-naturedly. “But if they’re not going to use it,” he began, as if it were the most obvious point.
The Massachusetts senator took a step toward the big man. “It is their land, Senator Matherly.”
“And if not allocated, according to your plan, it would lie fallow forever. Shouldn’t someone get some good of it?”
“The amendments abrogate this nation’s long-standing treaties with the Indians, sir. You and your fellows have advocated the misappropriation of millions of acres of Indian land. And you are using my bill to do it.”
“Gentlemen,” Custer said, stepping between the two and addressing the group as a whole. “I think we can safely say that I was wrong. There is still plenty of enthusiasm about this bill.”
Matherly and most of the others laughed and returned to their private conversations. Dawes, however, remained stiff and unmoved, face flushed and nostrils flaring with frustration.
“Senator,” Custer said. “The amendments were the only way to get your bill passed at all.”
“Yes, Mr. President,” Dawes said curtly. “I know. It is still, however, wrong. If you will excuse me, please?”
Custer nodded and Dawes turned away.
Samuel Prendergast, Custer’s personal attaché and long-time adviser, watched as Dawes handed his cup and saucer to Douglas and walked from the room. “I do feel for the man. He’s such an idealist.”
“Zealots always are,” Custer said. “But I do not believe he truly understands the thing he hopes to help. The Indian of the plains cannot be made into a corn farmer.”
“Then why not veto the bill?” Samuel asked.
Custer shrugged. “I could be wrong.”
Matherly came by again, picking up on the end of the conversation. “I actually think Dawes is right,” he said. “Naturally, there will be some individuals who will resist—there always are—but to use the senator’s own words, if we treat them like white men, they will behave like white men.”
“And what about the selling of reservation lands?” Samuel asked.
“It simply allows us to reclaim the unused acreage. Do you know how much land they have on those reservations?”
Samuel laughed bitterly. “Somewhat less than they had prior to our arrival on this continent, I’d guess. But what of all the land in the Unorganized Territory? Shouldn’t you start giving that away now, before we have reservations out there?”
Matherly looked thunderstruck. “Why I’ll be,” he said. “Mr. President, I do believe that Mr. Prendergast has hit upon a great idea.”
Samuel’s jaw dropped.
“If you want settlers for the Frontier,” Matherly said, “what better way to draw them out there than with the promise of free land?”
“Oh, dear Lord,” Samuel murmured. Custer bit back on his mirth as the senator plowed onward.
“We could have a lottery. Or just open up the border on a given day.” Matherly snapped two pudgy fingers. “We could coordinate it so that it coincided with the opening of the bridge across the Missouri! What an event!”
“Robert,” Custer said with a crafty smile. “I do think I may have underestimated you.”
“Why, thank you, Mr. President,” he said with a grin and a curt bow. “I take that as a compliment. And thank you, Mr. Prendergast, for the idea. But excuse me, won’t you? I’d like to have a little chat with some of my colleagues.” He turned and walked across the room, rubbing his hands together.
“I feel ill,” Samuel said.
“I should expect that you now know precisely how Senator Dawes feels,” Custer said.
“Do you think Matherly will do it?”
“I believe he will try,” Custer said, nodding. “Remind me to write to Herron. If Matherly moves ahead on this, I’m sure Herron and I will want to have a ‘little chat’ of our own.”
Chapter 5
Summer, A.D. 1887
Near the Sudden River
Alliance Territory
Storm Arriving lay with his hands behind his head, listening to the birds of dawn and staring up at the red-bellied clouds while he waited for the others of his patrol group to awaken. Mornings came early during the waning of Hatchling Moon, but he did not mind much.
Less time to spend staring at the stars, he thought to himself.
He had not slept well during his weeks on patrol. He had not thought it possible to have grown so quickly accustomed to the warm smoothness of his wife beside him at night, but he had and now, feeling keenly his separation from her, he spent most of his nights watching the moon and stars perform their slow dance overhead. But morning brought the music of killdeer and lark, and painted over the stars with a slow, patient palette of purple, blue, green, red, and pink.
Storm Arriving’s squad of Kit Fox soldiers had made camp in tall, golden grass and made no fire. He heard the deep breathing of men asleep as well as the rustle of others just now beginning to swim up from the depths of slumber. The whistlers, already awake, heard the sounds of their riders’ growing wakefulness. The beasts sang quietly to one another, anticipating the day’s activity.
Red Hat stretched and groaned as he came awake. He looked over and saw Storm Arriving staring at the sky.
“Another sleepless night?” he asked.
“I slept some,” Storm Arriving replied. “But then the moon rose and woke me.”
“How impolite,” Red Hat said and looked at the weather. “How long have these clouds been here?”
“A hand or two.”
A puff of breeze moved the grass. Red Hat sat up and sniffed the air. “Rain coming?”
“I think so,” Storm Arriving said. “Not soon, though. Late.”
One by one all the Kit Fox soldiers rose and got ready for the day’s ride. Storm Arriving ate a few bites of berry-and-dried-meat pemmican as he tied his rolled-up buffalo hide on the back of his crouching whistler.
The grass was higher than a man was tall, and the whole patrol—eight men and sixteen whistlers—were completely concealed. It meant, too, of course, that they were blind to oncoming trouble, but the breeze carried no hint of smoke and the whistlers, more attuned to scents of danger than any man, were calm.
When a gunshot cracked and echoed across the landscape, it surprised them all, man and whistler alike.
The two youngest members of the patrol leapt up on their whistlers’ backs, ready to attack.
“Lost Heart Wolf! Issues Forth!” Storm Arriving said in a harsh whisper. “Must you do everything wrong?”
The boys’ eager smiles evaporated. “But I heard...” Issues Forth began.
“And who do you think it is?”
“I—I do not know,” he said.
“Wouldn’t it be better to know who and how many before you ride off on the war path?”
Storm Arriving saw Red Hat raise an eyebrow at the severity of his reprimand. He took a deep breath and let it out through pursed lips.
“I know you are new to the Kit Fox society,” he said to the boys, “and that this is your first patrol. But I do not want to have to tell your mothers that you died out here because you didn’t think.”
The sudden wideness of the boys’ eyes made Red Hat laugh.
“Yes,” Red Hat said. “You can die out here. What did you think we were doing? Looking for a good place to fish?”
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