Bendigo Shafter (1979) (3 page)

Everything was buried deep in drifted snow, the smaller bushes looking like snow-covered hummocks of earth or rock. If we found those youngsters it would be a miracle.

The cold was intense. Here or there the snow had heaped itself over a fallen tree or some rocks to form a hollow where an animal or child might have curled up, so we dared pass none of them. Once, slipping on an icy log hidden beneath the snow, I had a bad fall.

When I got up I saw Ethan squatted on his heels, studying something.

It was a rabbit snare, rigged at the opening of a run. The snow around the snare was disturbed and there were flecks of blood, most of them partly covered by snow. Ethan put a finger on the thickest spot of blood, and it smeared slightly under pressure. Almost frozen, but not quite.

Indians, he said.

We felt a chill beyond that of the cold. Within the hour, no doubt much less than that, an Indian had taken a rabbit from that snare and killed it. He must have been inspecting his snares at the same time that the children were along the creek.

Webb was a hard man, but he had a child of his own, and he knew these children. Injuns! he said. Injuns got them.

The tracks that might have told us more lay under the new fallen snow, and the storm was growing worse. It was only by chance that we had found the snare, for in a few minutes it would have been covered.

We had thought to find the children before they could freeze, perhaps huddled somewhere out of the wind waiting for us.

We were armed with pistols, but wary of freezing our hands, had carried no rifles.

Yet we could not abandon the search. The Indians might not have known they were there, and hearing the Indians, the children might have hidden themselves well. So we continued to search every clump of bushes, around the roots of blow-downs, under the hanging, snow-laden branches of the spruce, but we no longer expected to find them.

By the time the others came floundering toward us we had given up hope. Bunched together in the partial shelter of thick trees, stamping our feet and beating our hands against the cold, we listened to them, who had had no more luck than we.

Neely Stuart complained, putting the blame on Ethan, but the scout ignored him. From the look on his face I knew he was considering the Indians. Given knowledge of the country and the ways of redskins, a man might guess how far they had gone and where they might be camped.

Bad off as those youngsters might be, I almost wished my sister Lorna was with them instead of Mae. Lorna was pretty, too, prettier than Mae, but Lorna was like Cain in some ways, a cool-thinking girl. If anybody could have found a way out, Lorna could.

There was nothing to do but go back home. There was a chance they had found their way back, but nobody would have bet on it. Ethan fell in beside me as we started back. He had faced directly away from that dump of trees, taken the wind at a certain angle on his face, and led off. It was the only guide in a storm like that, and although the wind might shift it wasn't likely to shift that much at this stage of the storm.

Bendigo, are you. game to take a chance? I've a notion where those Indians might be.

Just the two of us?

We'd not make it out and back tonight. Are you with me?

To my dying day I shall remember that blizzard. Ethan moved up to Cain, who had taken over breaking trail. Hold across the wind, he advised. Let it take you on the left eye and nose, like. You'll reach sight of the valley in a few minutes. Once over that low ridge, hold along the edge of the trees above Mrs. Macken's and you'll make it.

Cain stopped. He turned his broad back square to the wind and looked at Ethan. What about you?

Bendigo an' me, we've an idea. If worst comes to worst well just dig a hole in the snow and sit it out. A man can wait out a storm if he doesn't exhaust himself first.

We faced into the storm and plodded away, leaning against the wind. Darkness had come upon us, and the wind blew a full gale, cutting at our exposed brows like knives. It seemed an age before we climbed a knoll and stumbled into a thick stand of aspen where we stopped to catch our breath.

The day we fetched up to this place, Ethan explained, I spotted the sign of eight to ten Indians with their travois, lodges, and goods. Not wanting to frighten the women-folks I said nothing. Maybe they were passing through, but that snare was reset, so I figure they're close by.

It was almost still inside the aspen grove. The slim trunks stood so close they formed a barrier against the wind.

The best place for those Indians to wait out a storm is in the hollow right below this hill, so we're a-goin' down there.

Cold or not, I loosened the buttons on my coat and laid a hand to that old pistol of mine. Never in my born days had I drawn against any man, and I had no mind to unless the need was great.

You keep that handy. An Indian respects strength but mighty little else.

We went down the hill through the deepening snow, smelling smoke on the wind, and sure enough, the lodges were there, three of them, covered with snow except around the smoke hole at the top where the warmth had melted the snow away.

We listened outside each lodge until we heard Mae speak and some arguing among the Indians. Ethan lifted the flap and went in, with me right behind him.

A small fire burned in the center of the tent, and the air was stifling hot and smoky after the cold outside. Right off I spotted Mae and the youngsters beside her. They seemed unhurt, only scared.

There were five buck Indians in there. One young brave was on his feet arguing, and he was mad as all get-out.

The others were older, and the one at whom the buck seemed to be pointing his words was oldest of all. Now that one might be old, but his eyes were clear, and it seemed to me I saw a gleam of malice in those eyes, like maybe he didn't like that young buck too much.

Talk broke off when we came in, and the young brave put a hand to his tomahawk. The next thing I knew he was looking into the business end of my six-shooter.

Now he was no more surprised than I, for I'd no thought of drawing that gun. It just fetched out when the need came, and young as that warrior was, he knew what that gun meant, and he let go of his tomahawk like it was red hot. Ethan Sackett, he started talking to that old Indian in Shoshone. After a minute he stopped talking, and the old man spoke. Ethan interpreted for me out of the side of his mouth. The young buck wants to keep Mae and kill the young uns, but the old man doesn't like it. He says the Shoshone are friends to the white man. He's right about that, but there's more to this argument than a body can see at first glimpse. I think the old man wants to take that young buck down a peg. Gettin' too big for his britches.

My eyes had never left that young warrior. He was mad as a trapped catamount and ready to pitch in and go to fighting.

Tell them we are friends, Ethan, and tell them to come when the snow leaves and trade with us. Tell them to bring their furs, hides, or whatever. And thank them for saving the young ones from the snow. Tell them when they come in the spring we will have presents for them. Sackett, he talked for a while, but before the old man could reply that young buck busted in with a furious harangue, gesturing now and again toward the other lodges, like he was about to go for help.

We'd best take the youngsters and light out, I suggested. This shapes up to trouble.

Ethan never turned his head. Mae, get up and come over here and bring the young uns with you.

When that young buck saw what was happening he started to yell, and I belted him in the stomach with my fist. When he doubled over I sledged him across the skull with my gun barrel.

Not one of the others so much as moved, but the old man said something I didn't catch. They didn't seem much upset by what had happened.

Ethan took out his tobacco sack and passed it to the old man, with a gesture implying it was to be shared with the others. Me, I took out my Shafter-made axe, the best there is, and handed it to the old man.

Friend, I said. Then indicating the axe I said, It is a medicine axe, made from iron from the skies.

The youngsters first, Ethan said, then you.

I'm holding the gun. You go ahead of me.

We floundered through the snow, which was growing deeper by the moment, and made slow time until we got to the crest of the ridge. My heart was pumping heavily when we topped out, and far off, behind us, we heard shouts.

Ethan led the way, but not toward home. With the youngsters to see to we were in no shape to tackle a trip home through the night and the storm. So Ethan took us into a hollow downwind of the Indians. It was a place gouged out by the fall of two pines whose roots had torn up great masses of earth that clung to a frozen spider web of roots.

When Ethan waded into the hollow he was shoulder-deep, but he floundered around, tramping down the snow. When I saw what he was about, I helped. We tramped down an area five or six feet across, but with snow walls five feet high facing the triangle made by the roots, it was all of eight feet high.

Scooping out a hollow big enough for the kids in one snow wall, I packed the snow tight with my hands.

Ethan found some heavy, broken limbs with which he made a platform for our fire, then he dug under the fallen trees for broken twigs and bark. Soon we had a small fire going, using the mass of earth and roots for a reflector.

We broke off evergreen branches and made a roof across the corner of our hole, and with the falling snow to cover it we soon had a snug snowhouse.

We were much too close to the Shoshone camp, and it was a worrisome thing to be without rifles. We had six-shooters, and each of us carried a spare loaded cylinder to be slipped into place if we emptied our guns.

Ann fell asleep in my arms, and Mae put her head on my shoulder, snuggling closer, I thought, than need be. Ethan fixed a bough bed for Lenny Sampson, and he was off to sleep, a mighty tired little boy.

Ethan looked across the fire at me. We got us a family, Bendigo. Likely the only one I'll ever have.

You've got no kin?

He added sticks to the fire. I've kin-folk aplenty, although I don't recall seeing any of them for years. One was a mountain man like me, a Sackett from the Cumberland River country of Tennessee. Ran into him at a rendezvous on the Green.

I don't lack for kin-folk. There's Sacketts all over Tennessee and Carolina, but I lacked somebody of my very own. When I was shy of fourteen my pa was killed by Comanches on the Santa Fe Trail. Since then I've fetched up and down the country from Missouri to the shores of the western sea, but I hunger for a place of my own and somebody to do for.

Cain's daughter Ann had gone right off to sleep like Lenny, but that Mae was making me nervous, acting like she was asleep but snuggling like she was about to crawl into my lap. If Ethan noticed he paid it no mind.

Folks thought Ethan had eyes for the Widow Macken, and it needed no thinking to guess why. She was a mighty pretty woman and some years shy of thirty. Taller than most, with dark hair and gray eyes, she had skin that was clear and smooth.

Little things never disturbed her very much, and she had a quick, easy smile that pleasured a man. Along with it she had an honest, straightforward, no-nonsense way of looking at things.

She was one of us, but she held to herself, going her own way with quiet assurance. She was the real leader among us.

Riding with Ethan one time, I had said as much. Yes and no, he'd said. Mrs. Macken is a thinking woman who knows her mind, but you watch and listen, Bendigo. You'll see she starts things. She opens the ball but nothing moves unless Cain says so.

Now I hadn't noticed that before, but when he said it I knew at once it was the truth. Cain was not a talking man, preferring to work with his hands, and he was sure and cunning at his craft. Perhaps because of that he was a thinking man, for working with the hands helps a man to consider. Cain was never stirred by passing waves of excitement, never took off on tangents. His judgments were arrived at quickly enough, and he was wrong as rarely as any man I knew. I had learned something about my own brother, and from a stranger.

A woman needs a man, Bendigo, even a woman like Ruth Macken. No woman, however strong, should have to stand alone. Believe me, she's a stronger woman because Cain is there and she knows he's there.

As I sat there in the cold, my face roasting, my back half frozen, trying to keep those youngsters warm and feeding sticks into the fire, I thought about the men of our town.

John Sampson, who came from the same town as Ruth Macken, had probably undergone the greatest change. As he gathered respect for his abilities, he also added a dignity, or perhaps we had only then begun to notice it.

As some men quailed beneath the awfulness of sky and plain, he grew taller, and his eyes held on the far horizon. Far as the eye could reach and day after day, there was nothing. We traveled seven, eight, maybe on a good day as much as twelve miles. A time or two we camped within sight of our last night's camp, but to John Sampson it was more than a journey, it was a rebirth.

I thought of the men with whom we shared the town and wondered if the town would change them as much as the plains had, for even then I had become aware that it is not streets and buildings that make a town, but men and women. I began to be glad we had John Sampson, Ruth Macken, and my brother Cain, and to wonder if I had it in me to meet the demands the town would make.