The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (Arbor House Library of Contemporary Americana) (24 page)

In the twilight, I stepped out for air, to witness the emigrants standing in little groups, with that air of hushed and reverent yet interested expectancy that one usually notes in the closing chapter of a life. I have watched crowds on the banks of drownings, at scenes of horrible injury, at explosions of human violence that left an inert shape on the floor; it is hard to define what is writ in the faces of the spectators—pity, surely, and yet a morbid curiosity about the hypnotic secret of death, and, I believe, embarrassment. It repels and attracts us alike. Our menfolk were silent; the women in their sunbonnets whispered together, the children romped heedless and undisturbed. To be sure, one thrust his head under the tent once and inquired of Coulter—“What’s the matter, mister, is he mad? Will he bite you?”

Kennedy’s breathing became increasingly difficult in the late evening.
This together with insane excitement while threshing in our grip—screaming, spitting and, finally, snapping, giving forth doglike howls that chilled the blood—marked the last hours of the victim. When he showed signs of tetanic spasm, as well as the emission of a visceral secretion that he seemed to dread swallowing, I became prepared for the end. There is no way to describe the awfulness of his suffering. Coulter at length sprang up from the cot, as shaken as I have seen him, and with a savage oath drew his revolver.

“Give him something to knock him out or by God I’ll end his troubles with a bullet in the head.”

I had previously tried a sedation of morphine, which had failed utterly in its purpose; now prepared a second and more substantial dose. It was all in vain. With a howling scream that must have startled the wildlife miles away in the bush, Kennedy sat bolt upright, breaking the hold of Coe and Matt Kissel, and expired in a foaming paroxysm. It might be said that he choked to death on his own spittle.

When he fell back, we noted with a thrill of horror that his wide-opened eyes stared with a look of animal frenzy—his face held more a wolf’s aspect than a man’s.

It was some time before any one of us four could regain composure. I think that Coulter, in his crude way, summed up the general feeling when he said, turning aside abruptly, “The meanest skunk alive don’t deserve to die that bad.”

So, Melissa, I have been obliged to recount a tragedy of the trail, the terrible reward of one hopeful who will never see any gold fields but those he mentioned in his letter. His memorial lies before me as I write. It was broken off in the middle of a sentence: “I meet the end that God has ordained for me cheerfully and willingly, knowing that there is a divine pattern that shapes our ends; I cannot tell you, dearest wife—”

What he could not tell, we shall only be able to surmise. But I have a fancy that she knows. The rest of us now must push forward and be of stout heart. And, indeed, so must you, my faithful consort. All will eventuate for the best (as stated earlier).

Your harried but sanguine husband
,
S
ARDIUS
M
C
P
HEETERS
(M.D.)

The Indian girl was with them when they came to take me back. It was all I could do to look at her, but she didn’t seem put out at all. She said my name the same way, and then smiled, so innocent and happy I almost forgave her. Then I thought, maybe she did it because I was maybe going away off and wouldn’t see her any more. That must be it. Right away, I felt better, and even gave her a sort of grin when she looked up, starry-eyed as a baby.

The men threatened me with tomahawks and made a number of references to burning, that I had come to recognize in Pawnee, but otherwise did me no mischief. I judged they had been given orders about the horse trading, and had decided not to damage a valuable piece of merchandise, which would be the same as damaging the horses themselves.

Back at camp, it was easy to see some kind of preparations were afoot. They were getting ready for a feast. The braves had put on new paint, and some of the women were spruced up, even having washed their hands and feet in the stream. Scarcely anybody paid me any attention. I didn’t see Afraid of His Horse anywhere, and Sick from Blackberries, when I walked up to our lodge, only grunted and looked the other direction. That didn’t bother me any; I didn’t like him, either.

All over camp there was the kind of holiday air you get at a church social, where everybody brings a basket full of good things to eat and they set up long tables end to end on the lawn in the summer and the congregation goes at it together, diving into each other’s contributions—fried chicken and devil’s food cake and potato
salad and watermelon and lemonade in an open-end keg with smooth cakes of ice, maybe twenty-five or fifty pounds, floating inside, and the women making compliments about each other’s
cooking
, but running down their own, you know, while you can hardly stand up for the children whooping across the lawn and crawling under tables. It made me sick to think about.

Well, these Indians were getting ready for a basket dinner, too, but it wasn’t the same kind. Toward noon there was a hullabaloo of people running and pointing, and sure enough, over the hill here came another such bunch as I was with, and in the front right behind the chief were two white men, and they were John and Shep.

I almost sank through the ground. It was all up with me now, because if the Indians didn’t tomahawk me, Shep would be certain to shoot me, to settle old scores. But they rode on into camp, and when they saw me, Shep sang out:

“Well, as I live and breathe! If it ain’t our old friend that we owe so much.”

“You’ve come to a pretty pass, boy,” said John, looking down from his horse, thoughtful and grave, and to prove it he added a scriptural verse that was aimed to cover the case: “ ‘How sharper than a serpent’s tooth is an ungrateful child.’ ”

“How do you do, you’re keeping well, I hope,” I said, as fresh as I was able, what with my heart going the way it was. To tell you the truth, I was so tired of trouble and downcast from Pretty Walker’s treachery, I’d as soon they got it over; I was that reduced.

“We’ll tend to your case later,” said Shep.

They turned away with some of the leading men, and it was then I saw the reason for all this hilarity. On the end of some ropes, behind horses, they had three other captives, all Indians, and they were scalped. The raw, red, dripping tops of their heads was more than a body could stomach, but I couldn’t keep my eyes off them, somehow. These men were Crows, I found out later, the worst enemies the Pawnees had, and the fiercest fighters of any western tribe. How these mangy dogs of mine managed to capture them I don’t know—took them asleep while apart from the tribe, I reckoned.
Anyhow, all three were conscious and seemed perfectly resigned to what was going to happen.

The capture was such a big event to the Pawnees that two or three branches of the thieving tribe had gathered to make merry. They had an entertainment arranged in two parts, but I didn’t find out the second part till evening.

I should say that I was now shackled hand and foot and couldn’t have run off if they’d pointed out the direction and given me a going-away present. As soon as I was safely trussed up, Particular as to the Time of Day and the ones I had fooled came up and spent a while slapping me and pushing me over. Then they turned to the principal show, which was being arranged by the men.

First off, three stakes were set up in the center of our clearing, and dry brush, but not very much, was placed around each. Then the prisoners were gagged and bound and withes fastened around their waists and under their arms. In that way, they were tied to the stakes.

When everything was ready, the squaws rushed up with torches of dug-up fat wood and lit the twigs. I wondered why there was such a scarce amount of brush, but they had a good and typical reason. These poor devils weren’t going to be killed right out but would be roasted to death slowly, so as to cook the flesh for eating and save the muscles for bows.

I can see that scene now, when the troubles of our journey are behind us. The captives weren’t able to scream because of the gags, but low moans could be heard, piteous and eerie, and they strained against the withes until their veins stood out like cords. It was heart-rending, but I still couldn’t seem to look away. I put a cloth to my nose, but it didn’t work; that stink of burning flesh was everywhere—I smelled it later that night on my clothes when I went to bed, cooked into the cloth, like something oily and rotten.

How could anybody that called himself a human watch a scene like that with enjoyment? But as the smoke rose up, and the moans and threshing around increased, the braves undertook a jerky dance, with war whoops and brandishing of weapons, and there began such
a general uproar that it echoed over the prairie like the Judgment Day. I never heard anything like it for pure outright lunacy. And the children joined in, too. It was one of the happiest games they’d ever played; they laughed and shouted every time a particularly pitiful moan stood out above the others.

I thought to myself, I’ll bet that girl draws the line at this kind of thing. Even if she turned me in, she was good fun when we ran away, and her smiling in the rain was something I liked to think about. I looked all around, then saw her sitting cross-legged on the ground not far from the stakes, leaning forward, with her mouth slightly ajar. When my eye caught her, she wetted her lips with her tongue, and her eyes got a little glaze to them, very strange. She seemed in a trance, almost; with her arms hugged close around her breast and the upper part of her swaying back and forth like a snake that’s raised its head to watch something in the bush.

I closed my eyes, sick all over again. When I opened them up Shep had slouched away from the circle of dancers, bending low to kneel down beside her. He whispered something in her ear. She came out of her trance with a shake and grabbed his arm suddenly, as if she had seen him before and was glad to find him there. He whispered something, and they got up together, then walked very quickly to her wigwam and disappeared through the flap.

I thought about snatching a brand from the fire, then running over and flinging it inside, but the dance stopped and everybody rushed forward to the stakes—the poor wretches twisting in the bonds had finally died.

I didn’t join in the feast that followed. Unnoticed, I crept into Sick’s wigwam and after a long time fell into a shallow doze. But the shrieks, and the stamping, and the cries of the happy children outside kept sifting through; I didn’t sleep much, but woke up, wet all over with sweat, three or four times.

That night they had the main entertainment, and they made me come out to watch. The festivities got started sometime before dark and lasted two or three hours. There had been a strong tribe of Indians called the Mandans ten or fifteen years before, as I learned
a long time afterward, but they’d been weakened and nearly wiped out in fights with the Crows, Cheyenne, Sioux and Blackfeet. Along the way, though, they had developed some very fine customs, everybody said so, even their enemies, and these Pawnees had picked up a few. What we had now was one of the meanest, the “ordeal of manhood,” as they said, known as O-Kee-Wah.

The tribe took seats on the ground before a long, stout log they had slung across two crotched upright poles about eight feet high. Shep and John were there, on either side of the chiefs, and the doctors, or medicine men, were dressed up with wolf heads and jewels and feathers and things to rattle in their hands, and seemed prosperous, as if they’d established a very good practice, with customers that paid up on schedule. They were fussing around, making signs in the air, hissing, and going through a lot of ridiculous contortions, and pretty soon the braves led out two boys of our tribe, fourteen or so years old. I knew one of them well enough—his name was Buffalo Horn. Along with some others, he had offered me a drink at a water hole once but it turned out to be alkali and near about burned my mouth out. The second one I’d seen around but didn’t know well, thanks to goodness.

Right now these fellows didn’t seem so brash; it appeared to me they weren’t looking forward to O-Kee-Wah of the Mandans. Well, once the boys reached the center, the braves took up a kind of chant, while the medicine men hopped around and yowled with about the poorest bedside manner ever developed, then, when the noise died down, the chiefs got immediately to business. They stripped those poor youngsters clear naked and laid them on the ground, after which the medicine men knelt down with sharp knives and cut long deep incisions in the upper chest muscles on the right side, down far enough to expose the tendons.

Nothing was done to kill the pain or make it easier—no whiskey, no powders, nothing. One of the boys started to whimper but there was such a grumble from several braves that he stopped. They both looked like death all the same. Their bodies turned rigid, their eyes rolled up, and their fingers clenched the grass.

Bad as this was, it was only the beginning. You might have thought they had showed manhood enough for a few years, but the real test hadn’t come yet. In a few minutes, after recovering a little, they were given something to drink out of a gourd and then propped upright, bleeding like pigs, and supported by braves on either side.

When the next part came, I closed my eyes tight and tried to remember something pleasant to blot it out. Mumbling, making signs in the air, and twisting around, the medicine men came forward and, holding some thongs, probed deep down inside the wounds, pulled up a big tendon on each, and tied them to thongs. A noisy shout went up as the boys were hauled up and suspended from the log, dangling, you see, from their own chest muscles. Both were still conscious but they appeared to be dying; their tongues, black and swoll-up, stuck out to the side like somebody that’s been hung. But the medicine men daubed powder from a long-handled brush on the wounds, and where blood was gushing a minute before, everything now dried up and stopped. It was uncanny.

Those boys weren’t out of the woods yet, though. One of them cried out, then bit it off quick at the chorus of growls. The other, Buffalo Horn, fainted in a minute or so, his nose began to bleed, and they cut him down. His partner hung on a few moments longer; he was the winner, then. Both had showed manhood, the braves said, but Buffalo Horn, fainting first, hadn’t shown quite as much as the other fellow.