Far as the Eye Can See (15 page)

I couldn’t see nothing for the sheets of rain. Water dripped out of the tree above us onto our backs. It dripped pretty steadily off the brim of my hat. Big Tree was as silent as ever, just watching in front of us. When I thought of Morning Breeze, I looked over there in the gulch and seen her crouching down next to one of the mules, holding on to the tether for dear life. It was hard to find her at first because she was covered in that buffalo robe and hunched down so close to the animals, she just looked like one of them.

Big Tree noticed me looking over there at her. I said, “She ain’t my wife. Not among my people.”

He didn’t say nothing, but I heard a sound come from deep in his throat.

“It ain’t nothing to me,” I said.

Well, we laid there half a day or so and never seen no Indians. The rain begun to settle into something that felt permanent, like it would just drip like that steady, all the rest of time. There wasn’t no wind nor nothing, just the rain.

“Are you sure you seen her people a-coming?” I said.

Big Tree didn’t look at me. He got to his feet and crouching under the branches, started back down to where we’d left the animals. I followed him, but I wondered what the hell he was thinking; it even occurred to me that he made the whole thing up about the Sioux because he was embarrassed about me waking up too soon and finding him with Morning Breeze.

But I was wrong about that. We rode on, wet and miserable, for most of the rest of that day. We had to ride back out of the ravine the way we gone into it, then skirt around it to the east for a hour or so before we could make for the trees. The rain finally quit, but it was still no sun, soggy, and cold. We rode in silence except for the constant breathing and coughing of the animals. Their breath and ours sent vapors in front of us as we moved along. I don’t know if I’ve ever been so cold, even with one of them buffalo robes over my head and shoulders. Big Tree never put nothing on himself. He was half naked, with just his warrior’s vest, his leather breeches, and that huge buffalo hat with the two black horns curling over his head. I couldn’t wait to stop somewhere under them trees and build a fire.

We rode a long way, and just when we was leaving a long stretch of flat ground crowded with small black bushes and a few rocks, I seen the Sioux to our left, coming down from the far hills. They rode along in the same direction we was going for a while, then disappeared behind the rise. There was maybe twenty of them. If they started riding hard behind that hill, we’d have no time to do much of anything but take them on from horseback. Big Tree turned his horse and at a gallop rode back toward me. I pulled up on Cricket and turned her to the side a bit, and Big Tree come up on my right and grabbed my carbine right out of my hands.

“Go into the trees,” he said.

I hollered for him to stop, but he never even looked back at me. He turned his horse and galloped off toward where we last seen them Indians. His pack animals stayed put, so I went and got the rope that held them and started for the trees as fast as I could. It was a shocker to see them Sioux coming along like that—like they was a-stalking us. I guess I was wrong not to believe Big Tree from the beginning. My suspicion got the better of me. Morning Breeze and me made it to the trees and rode up into the thickest part of them until we could see down below to where Big Tree was. It took a while but then I seen him, sitting up high on his horse and moving at a walk up along the side of the hill the Sioux was coming down. By that time he was behind them and down the hill a ways. They didn’t see him. They worked to hold their animals back, as the horses now scuffled down the hill, curling their front legs and turning their bodies to the side a bit as they pranced down. The hill was slick and it was real work for them folks to keep from slipping and falling. Some of them Indian horses did fall, but they rolled right back up with their rider still in place, both of them covered in mud. Big Tree was about thirty feet from them when he started running at them, this time firing my carbine. I seen two braves fall from their horses after the first two shots. They never seen him or known he was back there even when his horse begun thumping after them. I seen the other braves twisting their horses around. Then all hell broke loose.

“God save us,” I said to nobody in particular, even though Morning Breeze looked at me as if she understood. I thought I was going to see Big Tree get slaughtered. I wasn’t even thinking about the fact that he had my gun and I’d lose that too.

It was hard to see in the misty damp air, but he rode right into them fellows, firing my carbine the whole time, and it seemed like every time he fired it one of them Indians dropped off his horse. There was six or seven of them on the ground when Big Tree got through the whole bunch, wheeled his horse around, and started back in. He come at them from the side, so they was just getting their horses swung around when he wheeled his and started back in amongst them. He held the gun up against his shoulder and fired it with one hand. It was strange to see the smoke and fire come from the end of the gun, and hear nothing at all for a few seconds, and then the sound it made. I could barely hear the Indians a screaming their war whoops. Big Tree got four more of them, then swung down the hill away from them. He got to the bottom of the hill, turned his horse around, and started back up, but now the others was a-running from him. They had all they wanted of him. I don’t think one of them even fired a shot from a gun. They may not of had guns. But it wasn’t enough firepower in wood arrows or knives to face that Evans repeater in the hands of a crazy man the size of Big Tree, a-riding and shooting like a one-man army. He didn’t chase them long up that hill. Their horses dug in deep in mud and started sliding back down toward him, but he’d already turned and started over the barren ground to where we waited for him. The Indians that was fleeing up the side a that hill stopped finally and watched Big Tree as he rode over to the edge of the trees and disappeared in the forest. They was waving lances with spears high in the air and singing as loud as they could. One of them, a tall fellow with a red sash around his neck and a long feathered lance, started after Big Tree, hollering “Yip, yip, yip.” Big Tree didn’t even look back at him. The brave stopped short and his horse reared up into the air. He raised the lance high, still hollering. The others seemed to be singing with him.

“They praise him,” I said to Morning Breeze. “Right?”

She didn’t understand. I tried to sign to her that Big Tree was some kind of big deal now among her people. “Like king,” I said. “Like God among the Sioux.”

I looked back to the battleground and seen the Sioux coming back down to their dead and wounded. Big Tree was deep in the trees to our left, and I sent Morning Breeze to go get him. I tied all the pack animals up and started to set up a camp.

Big Tree come in riding that big horse, towering over me. He had Morning Breeze on the back of the animal. I pointed to the clear sight I had through the trees. “We watched you,” I said. “You had good medicine.” The hot, heavy breathing and huffing of that horse steamed the air.

He handed me the carbine. “This good medicine.”

“You’re giving it back to me?”

He nodded.

I slung it over my shoulder. It was still warm from firing. I was glad to have it against my side as we set up camp.

That night, under a clear sky and a bright moon that scuttled high over the black trees and scattered a frozen kind of light over our camp, I sat right close to a hot fire and reloaded the Evans repeater. There was eighteen rounds left in the magazine.

“How many left?” he wanted to know.

“You fired sixteen shots,” I said.

It was quiet for a spell. I was finally warm and dry—at least in the front—and the crackling fire made me a little sleepy. Morning Breeze had worked hard setting up my tent, but now she sat in front of Big Tree’s lodge. It took her a long time to settle there, and I watched her the whole time. It looked like she was getting down into ice-cold water, but she only wanted me to know what I already guessed.

“You can sit closer to the fire if you want,” I said. I signed for her to join us, but she only bowed her head and stayed put.

I finished loading my carbine and set it down next to me. Big Tree sat on the other side of the fire looking at me with no expression on his face. Finally I said, “How many you kill?”

“I shoot plenty,” he said.

“Think they’ll come back?”

“No.”

He stared at the fire. His bronze skin glistened in the light and I could see his breath. It seemed clear to me what I had to do. I couldn’t stay with them no more. I realized I was miserable now and embarrassed and feeling like I didn’t belong there. Winter was coming and we was a long way from Bozeman, but that’s where I figured I should go, so I told him.

“Why?” he said.

“It seems like the next thing we should do. I’m done with this here.” I meant our trapping adventure, but he took it to mean something a lot more.

“I just want to go on back very soon,” I said. “I don’t want to spend another winter out here.” There was no way I could make my departure about anything else but what he and Morning Breeze had done, but I wanted to.

He looked at Morning Breeze, who lowered her head. Then he picked up a stick and stuck the end of it in the fire.

“Beech-i-lack,” I said. “You probably saved us from that Sioux war party.”

He said nothing.

“Was it her people?” I pointed to Morning Breeze.

“It was Sioux. Some were among her people.”

“I saw a fellow with a long spear and a lot of eagle feathers dangling from the end of it. He wore a red sash around his neck. Was that Red Top?”’

“Red Top is old man. That was White Dog.”

“How do you know about him?”

“I know.”

“He was singing pretty loud when you was done.”

“He want me to come back. Fight him.”

“He’ll be out to get you now.” I pointed to Morning Breeze. “Probably any other time she’d be grieving some of them folks you killed.”

He looked at me briefly, a smile slowly beginning to grow on his face. “We should not let woman come between brothers,” he said.

I only stared at him, nodding my head like a fool. Then I picked up my carbine, strode over to my tent, and crawled inside. I let the flap down once I was in there. It was my way of letting him know that I was okay with the new situation between us. To tell you the truth, I was kind of glad not to have to worry about Morning Breeze no more. I was glad to be shed of her. That’s what I kept telling myself anyway.

Part Three

Eveline

1875–76

Chapter 8

A few weeks after Big Tree’s battle with the Sioux, I left him and Morning Breeze and went out on my own. Big Tree said he was going to the Cheyenne River country to find his fathers, and of course Morning Breeze was going with him. I was headed west, maybe toward Bozeman, and I planned to enjoy the time alone and go on a long hunt. I took my own horses, but I traded the two pack mules to Big Tree for some hides and a skin packed with buffalo and deer meat. He also give me some tobacco and a small pipe to smoke it. I thought it was a fine gift, because he give it to me after we done our trade. It was his way of saying good-bye, or maybe he wanted to apologize for Morning Breeze. I thanked him and got on my way. I can’t say I was brokehearted about Morning Breeze. I thought about her some—I admit it. I missed the friendly way she greeted me of a morning. You get to like having smiles to look at and sometimes to offer up. I don’t like talking about it. Morning Breeze wasn’t just a help to me. I’ll say that, and no more.

I seen no one for the most of that trip. I found all kinds of game on the hunt. I didn’t shoot no buffalo, but I got a antelope late one day—and there was always wildfowl and small game, rabbits and groundhogs and such. I never went hungry and I’d learned from Big Tree how to clean, cook, and eat almost any kind of meat. By now it was late fall and the weather was turning, so I finally set my sights on Bozeman. Once I made up my mind I was going there, it took eleven days of steady riding, the last few days in wind and cold rain. I’d lost the touch of putting my tent up with any sort of speed, and begun to hate doing all that work by myself. I talked to no one, not even Cricket. The first human beings I seen was just outside Bozeman, a lone wagon heading along the trail in front of me. I didn’t want to catch up with it, to tell you the truth, but I did. The thing was being pulled by one ox, its head bowed heavy, bobbing up and down as it walked, breath a puffing from its nostrils. It was tired and cross and was still dripping water even though the rain had stopped finally. The sky was still bruised and surly looking.

My hair hung down over my shoulders and I had a thick beard, so that I don’t reckon a body could see much of my face. I took off my hat because it was two women a-setting on the wagon. “Afternoon,” I said. It was the first time I looked at Eveline and her sister. They didn’t want to speak much. They granted me the afternoon, then stared straight ahead. I rode along next to them for a spell, not saying nothing. When I put my hat back on and started to scoot Cricket on ahead, one of them said, “Are you a mountain man?”

I pulled Cricket back a little. “No,” I said. “If I have a name at all by this time, I’m just a squaw man.”