"The Utes pulled off, taking their horses along. Eight of their braves left alive followed to try to steal the horses back. Since then, they've had one antelope, wild onions, and that's about all." "Last full moon?" Ebitt muttered.
"That's close on to three weeks." Soon we had found a camping place in a hollow near a slough. Within minutes the Indians were roasting the meat; some of them eating it raw. They were an attractive people, with strongly cut, regular features and fine physiques.
True to my nature I had taken the time to study what was known about the western Indians as well as the country itself. Much was supposition, but James Mooney had gathered for the Bureau of Ethnology estimates on the various tribes.
In 1780 the Cheyennes numbered about thirtyfive hundred... which would figure out to some seven or eight hundred warriors, although it might be much less.
I said as much to Talley. "That could be right," he commented, "although you rarely see many in a bunch.
The country won't support them, so they split up into small bands like this.
"That's why they keep moving. The game drifts away from their villages and soon they've collected all the roots, seeds, and berries there are to be had. We feed several hundred people on land that will support maybe one Indian family." "Talley," I suggested, "these Indians need help, and we can use the company. Why don't we stay with them if they're going our way?" "All right," Talley said. "I figure it was that same party who attacked us who stole their horses. There aren't apt to be two bands of Utes this far from their home country." The warrior had come over to where we sat our horses, Shanagan with him. "He's worried," Davy said. "His folks should have been back." "Tell him his people need meat. We will stay until his young men return if they move west with us." Davy's fingers grew busy, and the reply came quickly, on the brave's eloquent fingers.
"They're going west, and he thanks you." What would my friend Timothy Dwight think of me now? Riding west with a band of Indians?
Remembering the man, and what he knew of me, I smiled, for he would not have been surprised. The others, perhaps, but not Dwight.
CHAPTER 6
When we had come upon the Cheyennes, they hoped to kill a buffalo to relieve their hunger while on the march. Now with the fresh meat we provided, they were prepared to continue their move to the west.
The travois that had been drawn by a squaw was now hitched to one of our packhorses.
Davy Shanagan and the brave, whose name was Buffalo Dog, rode together, carrying on a conversation in sign talk with a word thrown in here or there. Listening to their conversation and to the other Indians, I soon picked up several words of the Cheyenne language.
One of the old men knew of a camping place, and keeping scouts out to warn of danger, we moved toward it. After a while, Shanagan joined me at the point. "They're ridin' to join their people," he said. "There's a plenty of Cheyennes up yonder. These Injuns figure to take after the Utes. Get their ponies back." "Let's stay out of it. No use to make more enemies than we have." "Now that may not be just that easy," Shanagan said. "They'll be wanting our help." The Cheyennes preferred a camp on the open prairie but not too far from woods. The old man's choice was a good one, and just before sundown Cusbe Ebitt killed a buffalo cow. We gave most of the meat to the Indians.
Shanagan explained that the Cheyennes were convinced by my clothing that I was a great chief.
"Let 'em think it," he added. "It makes us big men in their eyes. Prestige... that's the key word with Injuns." We made our own camp closer to the woods than the Cheyennes, but within a hundred yards of them. Firewood was plentiful and the stand of trees offered some shelter from the increasing wind. Moreover we liked the background of trees against which our bodies merged and blended. Our fire we placed in a hollow behind the stump of a broken-off tree where it was perfectly masked.
After collecting sufficient fuel for the night to come and the preparation of supper and breakfast, I moved to the point of the woods overlooking the plains. The position provided an excellent view in all directions, and sitting down just inside the belt of trees, I gave some thought to the situation.
The government of the Spanish colonies was a jealous one, permitting no trade with anyone but the Indians, and guarding against trespass. Captain Fernandez, as a diligent soldier, would have orders to resist any encroachment upon what was believed to be Spanish territory. From him, we could expect nothing but trouble.
Since I'd joined the mountain men, no plan of action had been discussed. We were riding toward the western mountains for a season of trapping and exploration. If all went as we hoped, we would find a favorable location and build winter quarters before snow fell, and if our trapping was successful, we could expect to return to Saint Louis in the spring with a bundle of furs.
Riding in company with the Cheyennes, who by virtue of our contribution of meat accepted us as part of their group, we could avoid trouble with at least one tribe of Indians. If a large party of Cheyennes were waiting ahead of us, we might easily have been ambushed because any unattached party was fair game, but now that we had joined this group, we would be accepted.
Faint sounds from the camps behind me only served to emphasize the stillness of the plain before me. The sun was gone but light remained, and a sky shot with crimson arrows from beyond the horizon.
Shadows gathered in the hollows among the low hills... a wind stirred the grass, then the trees... there had been a lull, a moment of stillness. In the east there was a mutter of thunder ... still far off.
For the first time, I found myself wondering what I had done. Behind me lay the career I might have had, a career as a teacher, an author... perhaps even in politics, for my friends were well situated in all these areas.
Few men had better educations, few had read so widely in so many fields, and now I had left it all behind. With the sudden death of my wife and son, my life had begun to seem empty and pointless. I had come west on impulse, and what lay behind it I did not know. Was it a secret desire to die? Had I come west for that?
Or to lose myself in a land far from all I knew, from old memories and old associations?
Rising, I walked back to the fire.
Talley was squatted beside the coals roasting a chunk of beef, and the smell was good. Kemble was cleaning his weapon, giving it all the care a mother would give a child.
Ebitt came up to the fire, carrying some knots and large fragments broken from a stump.
"Are you from Boston, Scholar?" "From Virginia, and then Carolina. When the war ended, we moved near Boston. We lived in the country not too far out." We talked campfire talk while the coffee came to a boil and the meat roasted. Meanwhile we ate wild onions dug from the prairie soil.
"My family worked with iron," Ebitt said.
"I had no taste for it then, but one day I'll go back." He looked up at me. "We did ornamental ironwork. Pa considered himself an artist." "Some of them were," I said. "I have seen the screen in the cathedral at Nancy, done by Jean Lamour, and the staircase in the town hall.
beautiful work. And there was always Malagoli of Modena." Ebitt lowered his chunk of meat, looking up at me. "Were your people in iron, too? I've heard my father talk of such men. They were the masters!" "You're a smith, then?" I asked him.
He lifted his hands to me. They were square, powerful hands. "Iron is in the blood. Once a man has worked with it, it never leaves him.