Looks Over(Gives Light Series) (15 page)

The noon sun was small and feeble, the pearl-white sky heavy with winter.

I looked around the Cache Valley at hundreds of faces I had never seen before.  I huddled underneath my fleece jacket.  We were dressed in jeans and wool and fleece, in coats and winter hats, but the terrain was unchanged.  The land was timeless; it didn't care who stood on it, whether we were ourselves or our ancestors; we were all the same.

A stone monument rose from the ground, obelisk-shaped.  I was too far away to read the writing on the bronze plaque. 

Rafael stood at my left side and rubbed his arms vigorously.  I guess the wool jacket and the pendleton blanket weren't enough to warm him.

I threw my arm around Rafael and he melted into me.  His whole body was shivering.  I sympathized greatly.  In my entire life, I'd never visited any place as cold as this.

"There you are!" I heard Annie say.  She joined us, her voice little more than a whisper.  There seemed to be some kind of an unspoken rule about how loud we were allowed to talk--if at all.  Where was the commemoration speech?  Were we waiting for someone?

Annie grasped my right arm.  "I haven't seen you in two days!"

I smiled at her.  I knew what she meant.  It felt kind of like I'd been missing my left leg.

I craned my head and looked around the historic site.  It occurred to me for the first time that those people I didn't recognize were fellow Shoshone.  Shoshone who lived in Idaho and Utah and Wyoming.

The crowd parted.  Granny hobbled up to the stone monument.  I wondered whether I was supposed to follow her.  I started to, but Rafael held me back, his hand on my hip.

Granny turned around and faced us, her back to the stone monument.  I realized, with a jolt, that she was the speaker we had been waiting for.

"My great-grandmother," she said, "was a survivor of the Bear River Massacre.  When I was a girl, she told me her story.  She continued to tell us her story until the day of her death.  'Never forget your past,' she always said."

Granny cleared her throat, her hands folded, her face impassive.

"Chief Shoots Running was an intelligent leader," Granny said.  "In our language, we called him Washakie.  Shortly after the Pony Express War, Washakie had the great foresight to understand that if we continued our nomadic way of life, conflict with the white man would only escalate.  Washakie decided that we would get out of their way and make a permanent settlement for ourselves.  It was during that time that the majority of Shoshone followed Chief Washakie south.  We built our settlement on two major sites: Wind River to the east, and Bear River to the west. 

"In those days," Granny went on, "my great-grandmother was called Pretty Eyes.  She was a young woman of twelve winters.  She had yet to choose a husband.  She lived on Bear River with her mother and three little brothers, one of whom was an infant.  Her father was recently deceased.

"Today, one hundred and thirty-eight years ago, Pretty Eyes woke at dawn and lit a fire outside her wickiup to cook breakfast for her family.  She carried her little brother on her back in his cradleboard and his warm swaddling.  Suddenly the snowy ground shook beneath her moccasins.  And she looked to the hills--"

Granny turned and pointed at the low-lying hills in the distance.  I followed her gaze and swallowed, my throat scorched and dry.  The plains transformed in front of my eyes.  The stone monument was gone; and so were we.  The ground was covered in rolling snow and wooden wickiups, in men and women chipping at the frozen surface of the river to catch the fish underneath.  In Granny's place stood a little girl warmly dressed in sheepskin, worry on her face, her brother warbling on her back.

"And she saw horses stampeding on the hills, white soldiers sitting in their saddles.  The Mormons had decided they wanted Cache Valley for their own."

My heart was hammering.  I wasn't sure I wanted to hear the rest.  But I knew I had to.

"Pretty Eyes hastened into her home and woke her mother and her brothers.  'Mother,' she said, 'It's the white men.  What should we do?'  Her mother, who was called Red Summer, showed no fear.  'Run,' was all she said.

"They did not stop to collect their belongings.  Pretty Eyes, her mother, and her brothers ran from their wickiup as fast as they could.

"In running, they came upon the wickiup belonging to a boy named Burns Bright.  Burns Bright and Pretty Eyes were close friends.  Burns Bright was untying his horse from the post outside his house.  He unwrapped the warm winter blankets from around his mare.  'Climb on!' he yelled to Pretty Eyes.  'She will take you to the Eastern Shoshone on Wind River.  You must ask them to help us.'  Then he took up his battle axe and his bow and arrows and ran bravely to the hills.

"Rather than seize the chance to escape, Pretty Eyes and her mother helped the two oldest boys climb onto the mare's back.  The boys were crying.  'Ride east to safety,' said Red Summer.  'Chief Bear Hunter is out there with the Eastern Shoshone.  We'll meet you on Wind River.'

"An arrow streaked through the air and pierced the horse's flank.  The horse gave out a cry of pain and tumbled in the snow, the boys falling off of her back.  Pretty Eyes looked over her shoulder with alarm.  She saw only two things: the white men on horseback, rapidly approaching, and the snow stained and swimming with blood.

"What human being can outrun a horse?  'We won't make it,' Pretty Eyes said.  'We have to hide.'

"Burns Bright's wickiup suddenly smashed to the ground.  On its ruins stood three stallions, white men sitting on their backs.  My God, Pretty Eyes thought.  They're going to kill us!  A battle axe swung through the air.  The blade cleaved through Red Summer's head.  The little boys began to scream.  'Run!' Pretty Eyes yelled.  In their panic and pain, in their confusion, the brothers ran the wrong way.

" 'Not west!' Pretty Eyes yelled.  Still, she could not chase after them.  She had to run east and get help.  She ran as fast as her legs would take her--faster still--pain coursing through her lungs, pain stitching up her spine.  Mother, she thought, resisting her tears.  I must find Bear Hunter, she told herself.  Bear Hunter will save us.  I must run east.  The wickiups all around her were shattered.  The air was rent with screams so horrible, so raw, it seemed to her that they belonged not to humans, but to suffering beasts.  She smelled the fire and blood on the air, thick.  Snow began to fall anew.  The small baby on Pretty Eyes' back was screaming and crying.  Pretty Eyes saw a pile of twine on the ground and decided:  I will hide my little brother.  Even if they capture me, they can't harm him.  She unstrapped the cradleboard from her back and tucked the baby underneath the twine, hiding him from view.  Then she pulled his swaddling over his mouth to muffle his screams.

"Something hard and round punctured Pretty Eyes' lower leg.  Her knees buckled beneath her.  She fell to the wet snow.  She examined the wound in panic.  It was a bullet wound.  She knew of bullets only from the stories her late father had told her, about the war with the Pony Expressmen.

"Her blood swam red and black.  She forced herself to her feet, pain splintering through her leg.  She came face-to-face with the gunman himself, who sat astride a beautiful horse as white as the snow beneath them.  How cold the soldier's face was...  As cold as the snow itself.  As cold as the ice.  The ice!  The river was frozen!  I'll run across the river, Pretty Eyes thought.  The horses can't follow me there.  They're too heavy.  They'll fall through!

"Pretty Eyes adjusted her course and ran south to the river.  A second bullet pierced her.  This one struck her shoulderblade.  The pain was burning and sharp.  Still she ran.  Another bullet; again to her injured leg.  She could run no more.  She cried out, tears of frustration filling her eyes.  She fell to the harsh snow.

"The soldier on the beautiful white horse shouted something in English which Pretty Eyes did not understand.  He dismounted and approached her.  She clutched her leg in pain.  He descended on her and reached for her leg.  He's going to help me, she thought, incredulous.  He wrapped his hand around the bullet wound.  He crushed her leg in his hand.  She screamed and thrashed with pain.

"Two other soldiers had joined their friend.  They, too, dismounted from their horses.  They spoke to one another in English.  Pretty Eyes tried to crawl away.  The butt of a rifle crashed down on her arm, stunning her with pain, paralyzing her in place.

"The men rolled her onto her back.  They tore off her clothes and took turns with her on the snow, unmoved by her tears.  The snow warmed beneath her with her own blood.  Suddenly Pretty Eyes understood that these men were going to kill her when they were finished having fun.  Her life was of no value to them.  Why would they spare her?

"So clever was the girl that she opened her eyes and lay quite still, unmoving, unblinking.  She held her breath and feigned death from her injuries.  When the last of the soldiers had had his way with her, he laughed and slapped her cheek.  Altogether, the three of them mounted their horses and rode away.

"Snow fell upon her eyelashes and into her pretty eyes, blinding her.  Bare-breasted, bleeding, she bit the inside of her mouth to spread warmth to her frozen, tremulous lips.  She bit the inside of her mouth until she tasted blood.  She longed to close her burning eyes, she longed to seek shelter from the burning cold, but she knew she must lay very still in her bed of snow.  Her lungs ached with bursting pain, yet she drew only the shallowest of breaths.  She knew she must not visibly move lest the white men realize she was still alive.

"Finally Pretty Eyes could no longer hear the screams and battle cries of her kinsmen.  But whether they had been captured and subdued, or had managed to run east to Wind River, Pretty Eyes could not say.  Deeming it safe, she blinked the snow from her eyes.  Her whole body took up tremors only partially attributed to the cold.

"Numb, in every meaning of the word, Pretty Eyes rose sorely on weak and throbbing legs.  She arranged her clothing to the best of her ability so that she might preserve what remained of her modesty.  The wickiups were gone.  The horses were gone.  Her village was gone.

"Pretty Eyes saw fire to the immediate west, rising from a circle of covered wagons.  My brothers! she remembered.  Her brothers had run west.  The white men must have captured them.  With protesting limbs and newfound strength, Pretty Eyes started in the direction of the wagons.

"But no...what was all this carnage?  The ground was strewn with Indian bodies.  Not just the men.  Women, too, lay on the ground, shot to death, or else beaten to death.  So all-encompassing was the carnage that the snow was more red than white.  Pretty Eyes pressed her fist to her mouth to keep from crying out.  She knew them.  The men, the women--she knew them all.  She spotted a friend of hers named Silly Spirit, a woman eight months pregnant.  Not so anymore.  Silly Spirit lay on the ground with her eyes open.  Her stomach was cut open.  The little baby pulled from its mother's womb lay naked at her side, frozen to death in the snow.

"What was this?  This was not a battle.  This was a massacre.  Pretty Eyes walked in a stupefied anguish through the maze of the fallen.  Here was Burns Bright, her best friend, whose throat and chest were riddled with bullets.  His weapons were missing.  Here was an old man, cut open from chest to belly.  Surely this old man had done nothing to provoke the white men?  And there, by the river...  No.  Pretty Eyes ran, staggering, to the frozen river.  The riverbank was lined with the corpses of children.  It was there that she found her two brothers, their heads dashed open on the rocky ice.

"What was it that prevented Pretty Eyes from screaming her torment to the heavens?  Either it was shock, or else it was self-preservation.  She did not know which.  She stumbled to the cruel white canvases of the covered wagons.  She knelt in the unforgiving snow and gazed through the gap between the wagons.

"She saw the white men with their horses; and also with the Shoshone's horses, and the Shoshone's grain, and the Shoshone's weapons and elkskins and sheepskins, and any number of things which the white men had stolen from the Shoshone.  Anger pulsed and pounded throughout her body.  Her anger did not end there.  For there among the wagons was Chief Bear Hunter himself, the young man's arms and legs bound with biting rope.  The white men kicked him and laughed at him.  His face was bruised, a congealed mess, and his back ran red with blood where he had been whipped.  He did not flinch when the white men kicked him.  He did not start when they spat on him.  The white men sodomized him with their bayonets.  He did not scream.  His eyes met Pretty Eyes', but he did nothing to alert the white men to her presence.  Finally one of the frustrated soldiers ran his bayonet through Bear Hunter's ears.  Still he did not scream--not even in his dying moment.

"Pretty Eyes walked through the ruins of her village.  There was frost in her hair and on her skin, her lips and her teeth shuddering with cold.  Her mother was dead.  Her two young brothers were dead.  Her friends were dead and her prince was dead.  Only she remained.

"That was when she remembered her infant brother, wrapped in his warm swaddling, whom she had hidden beneath the twine.  Her heart started with one last hope.  She ran through the snow.  Her whole body ached and her lungs were empty and her legs were ready to give up, but she ran.  She ran, and she found the pile of twine, and she lifted it off of the ground.  And there lay her baby brother, pinned to the ground by a knife."

Granny momentarily paused her recount.  The imaginary village was gone.  I felt myself returned to my body at last.  Granny blinked; twin tears rolled down her face.  She wiped the tears away with the back of her veined hand.