Wind Walker (66 page)

Flea came up to stand beside his father. Scratch put his arm around the taller fourteen-year-old’s shoulder and continued. “Pull the old loads from the barrels of your weapons and charge them with fresh powder. While there are not many of us, nowhere near as many as there will be of our enemies as we ride down into their gaping jaws, remember that we have far, far more medicine irons than do the Sioux, the Cheyenne, or the Arapaho. Your trade with the white man, with trusted men like Round Iron, who has married into your tribe like me, has assured that your men have always had more firearms, powder, and lead to protect your people and the land of Absaroka too.”

The first of the younger chiefs growled with agreement, a few of them yipping in excitement as his words worked up their martial feelings.

“We have more guns, my friends,” he reminded them again. “So do not be afraid. But—even more than the guns we can use to fight these enemies, who we will soon see face-to-face—know that the Apsaluuke have stronger hearts than these enemies, who will tremble when they finally see,
for the first time, you warriors and fighting men who carry the scars of many battles against the mighty Blackfoot!”

Beside him Flea shouted with the older men, all of whom raised their muskets and flintlock rifles, shook their powerful war totems, and pounded on their shields, invoking their magic and the mystery of the spirits who watched over those who rode into battle, those men who put their bodies between those of their people and the weapons of their enemies. Gooseflesh rose along Bass’s arms, and the hair stood at the back of his neck as the three dozen surged forward as one, sharing this brotherhood one last moment before they rode on down this trail into the unknown.

Below them now at the bottom of that wide, verdant valley where Horse Creek flowed from the south into the North Platte, camp sentinels—both red and white—spotted the newcomers drawing up at the top of the low rise and looking down upon the treaty grounds, where tens of thousands of horses and more than two thousand lodges dotted the grassy bottomland. The horns of every camp crescent pointed east, one lodge circle after another of those browned buffalo-hide cones teeming with horsemen, women, and children at play in the summer sun of that late afternoon.
^*
From the very tips of the lodgepoles fluttered long cloth streamers of varied colors, along with a few black scalp locks. As the Crow delegation watched from the knoll, activity began in the soldier camp—easy to spot by its orderly corral of wagons, fancy Dearborn carriages, and dirty canvas A tents, each with its single upright pole arranged in company row after company row, squared to their sense of worldly order while the world of the Indians was lived inside a hoop.

Titus thought on that as their horses blew atop the hill and Waits-by-the-Water brought her horse to a halt beside his. Brooding how the Indian lived his life in a circle, while most everything in the white man’s world was made with straight lines, angles, corners, and squares—whether it was the long rows a farmer like Roman Burwell was likely scratching out
of the earth of Oregon Territory, or the angularity of the log house Row and Amanda would have raised for their children that first autumn in the valley of the Willamette, south of the Columbia River. There were no corners in a lodge. Besides those hours spent working at Bridge’s forge, or standing inside a trade room at Bents’ big lodge on the Arkansas, or back at Fort John on the North Platte, even down south to Taos at Josiah’s store, or in the Paddock home, Scratch could not remember feeling all that comfortable inside a squared-off building with its walls, corners, and no-nonsense roof too. To his way of thinking, the best home had neither walls to support a roof, nor a roof to rest upon its walls.

“See how they’re sending out a proper escort for us!” Meldrum announced in English above the hubbub of chatter, then turned and told the chiefs that they were about to be welcomed by that small squad of a dozen soldiers splashing across the knee-high Platte and lurching onto the north bank, where they set off at a lope toward the newcomers.

“What are these men?” Pretty On Top asked as he reined his horse around the front of the group so he could stop and await the escort detail between the two white men.

“They are fighters like your men, warriors for the white man’s people back east,” Scratch explained.

The chief measured him with his eyes, then asked, “These white warriors, they do not fight for you and Round Iron?”

“Not for me,” Titus said. “Maybe they help out the fur traders, but I don’t think they’re here to fight against the Crow.”

“How is it they all wear the same coats?” asked Stiff Arm.

“Maybe it’s easier to see one another when they are in a battle,” Scratch advised.

“Our fighting men dress the way their medicine tells them,” Three Irons said with disdain for the approaching soldiers. “They do not wear another man’s medicine.”

“These fighting men do not have their own medicine,” Bass explained. “They take their orders from their leader, and they do what he tells them.”

Stiff Arm wagged his head and said, “How can a man fight like that, following the will of another man?”

“Maybe that is why the soldiers will always have a hard time if they ever have to fight a band of warriors!” Titus cheered. “These soldiers will stand around waiting for their leader to tell them what to do while warriors ride right through them!”

“Are you white men?” called out one of the soldiers as they slowed, drawing near.

Meldrum looked Bass up and down, then regarded himself, dressed in canvas drop-front britches, a calico drop-shoulder shirt, and some moccasins beaded by his Crow wife. The trader sang out, “I’m a white man, for certain … but, I don’t rightly know that this nigger with me is a white man anymore!”

The soldiers came near enough that the leader with a lot of gold braid looped on his upper arms signaled the rest to stop. Then the leader glared at Bass and stated, “You look to be a white man to me.”

“Shit, son—I been working a lot of seasons so I don’t look like a white man no more.”

Rather than responding to the old trapper, the soldier quickly looked over the group and asked Meldrum, “Are you more Shoshone come in for the peace talks?”

“These here ain’t Shoshone,” the trader snapped. “You got Snakes down there in that camp too?”

“Yes.” The soldier wiped some sweat off his bare chin. “A band of them came in a few days back, under an old fur trapper, Colonel Bridger.”

“Jim Bridger?” Bass squealed in delight.

“If I remember correctly, that’s his name, yes. If you aren’t more Shoshone, who are you two and what tribe are these men representing?”

“These here the finest fighters in the northern mountains, my good man,” Scratch announced. “They’re Crow.”

“C-Crow?”

“That’s what he said,” Meldrum reiterated.

Turning to the trader, the soldier said, “We didn’t think any Crow were coming. No representatives had shown up when we opened the councils—”

Meldrum grumped, “Any of you folks know just how far it is from Fort Laramie up to Crow country on the goddamned Yellowstone?”

Blinking in embarrassment as he absorbed the strident words, the soldier said, “Mr. Fitzpatrick had all but given up hope that a Crow delegation would make the journey.”

“Where’s Broken Hand?” Scratch asked. “I wanna see that ol’ whitehead for myself.”

“Y-you know Mr. Fitzpatrick?”

He looked at the soldier. “We both do. Fitz was a friend of ours from the beaver days. A glory time. Now we hear Tom’s the Injun agent for these here western tribes. That really be the certain of it, son?”

“It is, sir. He sent out the invitations to the bands to join us at Laramie,” the soldier said, “but the feeding grounds near Fort Laramie were soon depleted and the whole council was moved here to Horse Creek five days ago.”

Bass inquired, “That when you start palaverin’ with the tribes?”

“No—not until two days ago,” he explained, his bare upper lip glistening with sweat. “This is the third day of the ceremonial talks.”

Rocking back in his saddle with a sigh, Titus said, “Good thing we ain’t too late, Robert.”

“No,” the soldier answered, “not too late at all.”

“Maybeso we ought’n ride on down there to find ol’ Fitz hisself an’ ask him where’s a spot we can camp these here Crow,” Bass suggested.

Clearing his throat, the soldier asked with a nervous rise to his voice, “These Crow you’re with—they friendly with the Sioux or Cheyenne?”

“Hell no, they ain’t!” Meldrum roared.

“There’s plenty of bad blood atween the Crow and them tribes down there,” Titus added.

Wiping the sweat from his upper lip, the soldier said,
“Then I suggest you wait here until I can ride down to find out from Mr. Fitzpatrick where he and Superintendent Mitchell want to camp your delegation—”

“I’m comin’ with you, son.”

The soldier was opening his mouth in protest when Bass turned aside and spoke in Crow to his wife. “I won’t be long. Going with these riders to see an old friend from the trapper days—he’s the one called this meeting … and he’s the one who will tell us where he thinks we should camp, here in the lap of such a strong enemy.”

The instant Bass finished talking to his wife, the soldier said, “I’d prefer you wait here with the rest of your delegation while I—”

He harrumphed, “I ain’t a Crow, which means none of them Sioux or Cheyenne gonna try to take what I got left of my hair.”

“But, mister,” the young officer said, then cleared his throat before continuing, “you don’t understand everything going—”

“Unnerstand what?”

“Understand that the situation here is a bit tense,” the soldier explained. “On their way to Fort Laramie, Colonel Bridger’s Shoshone delegation was attacked by the Cheyenne and two of the Shoshone delegates were killed.”

“Thankee for spellin’ that out for me—but I ain’t an Injun gonna be run off by no Sioux or Cheyenne,” he said with a firm set to his jaw. “Besides, I got friends down there in that camp: Agent Fitzpatrick and Colonel Bridger both. I’m fixin’ to go see where these fellers lay that my Crow friends should set up our camp.”

Tapping his heels into his pony’s flanks, Titus set off on down the long, grassy slope, moving past the soldier detail. In a handful of seconds he heard the soldier growl the order for his men to about-face and follow him after the old man. It wasn’t long before he heard the officer set his horse into a lope. He caught up to the old trapper, coming alongside as Scratch approached the outskirts of the largest and most extensive village.

“I suggest that you cross the Platte here, mister. This is the Sioux village, here on the north side of the river. Just past the end of the Sioux camp stands the Cheyenne, then the Arapaho villages, on this north bank too.”

“Whose tents are those?” he asked, pointing across to the south side of the Platte, where more than a dozen wall tents stood in the V formed by the river and its junction with Horse Creek flowing in from the south.

“They are for Superintendent Mitchell and his peace commissioners.”

Titus reined his pony to the right and entered the shallow river. “Then what’s all them tents over there?”

“Across Horse Creek?” the soldier asked, pointing ahead. “That’s the army’s camp.”

“An’ them lodges near ’em?”

“The Shoshone—Colonel Bridger was asked to camp them near us for their protection.”

As his pony carried him onto the south bank of the Platte, Scratch reined to the left. “That be where I wanna go. I figger I’ll find Bridger with his Snakes.”

The soldier didn’t utter another word until their horses were crossing Horse Creek. “But you do realize the treaty grounds are across the stream too? The Sioux and Cheyenne, they’re holding talks with Fitzpatrick and the commissioners at this moment.”

“Then Fitzpatrick’s campin’ here with the soldiers too?”

“No, he and his interpreters have their shelters pitched farther upstream,” the soldier explained, pointing off to their right, up Horse Creek.

“I’ll g’won over to these here talks with you an’ see if I can spot Fitzpatrick or Bridger.”

Leaving the escort detail behind at the edge of the wagon corral with Meldrum and the Crow delegates, the old trapper and the young soldier ended up being momentarily stopped by the first row of pickets, dragoons who were posted at an outer ring around the treaty grounds, then halted a second time by an inner ring of guards too, as the horsemen neared the huge canvas awnings erected for shade. Despite the glaring
intensity of the late-summer sun, the Indian delegates sat outside in the heat during the long speeches and wrangling. Only the white men sat beneath the awnings, stewing in their heavy wool uniforms, continually fanning themselves with their hats or folded papers.

Bass and the soldier dismounted several yards back from the massive crowd of Indians, then handed their horses’ reins to a hairy-faced guard before they walked around the throng, finally spotting Fitzpatrick’s long white mane. The agent sat in the midst of a mass of pale-skinned easterners. At his knee two dark-skinned interpreters squatted on a buffalo robe, speaking from time to time, their hands flying in the broad gestures of sign language.

“He looks a mite busy right now, don’t he?” Titus remarked. “Can you tell me where them Shoshone are in this bunch?”

“I can’t say I recognize one Indian from another, mister,” the soldier apologized.

“There he is! I see ’im!” Titus yipped with excitement, stepping away to his right around the throng toward the large band of warriors and chiefs who sat off by themselves, nearest the commissioners’ awning.

Once he got up behind the Snake delegates, Scratch whispered, “Gabe!”

Bridger turned, bringing a flat hand under his hat brim to shade his eyes while he studied the caller. His face immediately lit up and he scrambled to his feet, waving Titus to come his way. The instant Bass had threaded his way through the Shoshone, the trader looped his arms around him and exclaimed, “Scratch, you ol’ buzzard! It’s been three winters already! Damn me if I didn’t think you’d gone under for sure up in Crow country!”