Blood on the Divide (9 page)

Rimrock and Caleb shook their heads. Preacher's face was a real study.

“Oh,” Carl said. “Mayhaps you be right. I never thought of that.”

“What else in the way of important events has you got to tell us?” Caleb asked.

“They left the post about a week 'fore I did. They ought to be along in about ten days. Oh, Preacher. I do recall one of them females' names. Drum, it was. Betina Drum.”

It took the men about fifteen minutes to calm Preacher down. They were all pretty good cussers, but after listening to Preacher unload, they all had to admit that he could probably outcuss anyone they had ever been around. Preacher stomped around the camp, kicking this and that and hollering and running off any animal within a five-mile radius who wasn't picketed. He did make an exception for a small band of friendly Shoshoni who had silently walked their ponies up on a ridge above the camp and sat listening to their old friend Preacher rant and rave.

“I ought to throw you in the damn river!” Preacher told a startled Carl Lippett.

“Me? What'd I do, Preacher? Now you just calm down. Me and water don't get along.”

That was the wrong thing to say but spoken at just the right time. Preacher scratched at a flea bite and glanced at Rimrock, who smiled and looked at Windy, who grinned and winked at Caleb, who had a wicked look in his eyes.

Preacher said, “You got airy soap in your possibles bag, Rimrock?”

“Brand new bar I bought up north. Strong soap hand made by some movers.”

“I seen him buy it,” Windy said. “It's strong all right. Man can get clean just by standin' near it.” Windy scratched at a bite. “Carl, you got en-tarly too many varmits on you. I'll fetch the soap.”

Carl began looking wildly around him for a way out. There was none. The men had him blocked. Carl spotted the Shoshoni warriors on the ridge and yelled for them to help him. They laughed and pointed at him.

“Weasel Tail!” Preacher shouted. “Keep an eye out for us, will you?”

“You have your fun, Preacher,” Weasel Tail shouted. “We watch good.”

“Now lookie here, boys,” Carl protested. “I had me a right good wash back some months ago. That'll do me for the rest of the summer.”

“Now!” Preacher yelled, and the men grabbed him, one to each arm and leg. They carried him squalling to the river. They all piled into the water.

The Shoshoni were laughing and pointing. They would have stories to tell when they returned to their village.

“Goddamnit!” Carl roared. “Unhand me, you heathens! Too much water ain't good for a body. Rots the skin.”

Carl was dunked into the water several times and Rimrock lathered his long hair with the strong lye soap. Fleas were leaping and hopping for their lives by the hundreds. If they could shriek, they would have been doing that, too. But since those bathing Carl had just about as much soap on them as did Carl, the fleas were exiting the other mountain men as fast as they landed on them. Articles of clothing were tossed on the bank and soon the men were all as naked as the day they came into this world. Tell the truth, they all needed a good scrubbing, and they got it, in addition to some black eyes, busted lips, and various other contusions and abrasions from Carl's fists.

“Halp!” Carl hollered.

Windy jammed a fistful of suds into his mouth and that closed that.

For the mountain men, it would have been a terribly inopportune time for a band of outlaws or renegade Indians to come along. But Weasel Tail was a mighty war chief of the Shoshoni, and it would take a large band to attack him.

But they were lucky, for the Shoshoni were enjoying the show and more than happy to guard over the rambunctious and frolicking men of the mountains.

The men finally decided that Carl was clean enough – probably the cleanest he'd been in years – and allowed him to exit the water, which he did with great haste, running around the camp drying himself off and cussing the other men.

“I'll probably die of phew-moanee!” he hollered at them, frantically looking around for his clothing. “Where's my damn clothes?” He had not noticed when Preacher tossed all their clothing into the river. Windy grabbed them and commenced washing.

“I got 'em!” Windy hollered. “I'll get the varmits out of them, too.” He waved at the Shoshoni and they waved back. “Look at Weasel Tail, Preacher. He's gettin' a real laugh out of all this.”

Preacher waved at the five Shoshoni and motioned for them to come on down, pointing at the coffee pot and making the sign for eat. They did not need a second invitation. While the mountain men were drying off and dressing in spare clothing – except for Carl; he didn't have any spares and Caleb loaned him some britches and a shirt – the Shoshoni dismounted and sat around the fire, waiting patiently for their hosts to join them. To eat and drink first would not be at all polite. They ignored the rantings and ravings of Carl.

Over coffee and venison steaks, the men ate in silence – no talking until the food was gone. Finally, Weasel Tail belched and spoke. “You all look very hard for something, Preacher. What is it you seek?”

“Band of no-good white men. The Pardees.”

“They live in caves in the mountains. Just across the Wind River.” He pointed and that little worrisome thing that had popped into Preacher's mind was now clear. He knew now the general area of the Pardee gang. “But the way is guarded. Two men with rifles could hold back an army.”

“How many ways in and out?” Rimrock asked.

“I do not know. It is a bad place and Indians do not go there.”

No one asked why. That would not be polite. Probably something terrible had happened there, perhaps centuries back, and the story was passed down through the generations by the keepers of those things.

“I have to tell you that more whites are coming,” Preacher said.

“From out of the fort to the east. Yes. We know. They won't be bothered by my tribe. I cannot speak for the Sioux or the Cheyenne.” He spat on the ground. “Who would want to?” The Shoshoni were bitter enemies of the Sioux and the Cheyenne, and didn't have a whole lot of love for the Crow, either, since neither the Sioux or the Crow would admit that any other Indian tribe had the right to exist anywhere.

“Red Hand?” Preacher asked.

“Red Hand will die if he attempts to fight us. So he does not. I do not know where he is.”

Preacher figured Weasel Tail was lying about that. But he didn't push the issue. Preacher waited, sensing something else was on the subchiefs mind and that he would get to it in his own good time. Preacher took out tobacco and they all smoked.

“There will be no stopping the whites, will there, Preacher?” Weasel Tail asked.

“No. If all the tribes in the West came together, you would only stop them for a little while.” Preacher wasn't sure about that, either, but he figured he'd better plant some doubt in the brave's mind. And his remark would be repeated, he knew that.

“What is it like where you came from, Preacher?”

“I couldn't tell you now,” Preacher admitted. “I been out here since I was just a boy. I ain't never been back. I had a person tell me last year that they got great iron steam engines that run on steel tracks. They're all over the place. Call them trains. Some folks say that they'll be out here 'fore long.”

“Trains,” Weasel Tail repeated. “What do these trains do?”

“Carry goods and people, I reckon. Be a right interestin' sight to see, I 'pose. Some folks back East even got toilets in their houses.”

“Inside the lodge?” Weasel Tail was appalled.

“Yep. 'Fraid so.”

Weasel Tail shook his head at the thought. “That would not be a good thing. I cannot imagine why people would want such a thing.”

“Me neither.”

“What are you going to do now, Preacher? You did not trap this season.”

“I don't know,” he admitted.

“You could come live with us,” Weasel Tail suggested, his face brightening. “Preacher is always welcome in our lodges. Why not? You are a great hunter and provider and my village has some fine-looking young women and you could choose one and she would make you a good partner. Your way of life is almost gone, Preacher, and ...” His voice trailed off and he sighed his frustration. “I mask my own fears, Preacher. I am afraid I will live to see the end of my own way of life. The whites just keep pushing westward and bringing sicknesses that we have never known before and do not have the power to combat. Many tribes have been nearly wiped out. Tamsuky of the Cayuse is already making talk against the Bible shouter Whitman west of us. The Cheyenne and Ute and Arapaho and Sioux and Blackfoot say we must fight to keep the whites out. I do not want to fight the whites.”

“We would rather be friends,” a young warrior said. “But it is hard to be friends with whites who come now. They are not like you men. They are fearful people and they leave great mounds of stinking garbage behind them when the wagons leave.”

Preacher knew that to be fact. He'd personally seen it. He nodded his head in agreement. “The Nes Percé?”

Weasel Tail met his eyes. “They are as we. They do not wish to fight the whites. But a fight is coming, Preacher. If the advancing whites do not respect our land, and our way of life, and you know they will not, there will be war.”

Preacher was a simple man; he did not have the words to be profound, even though he was considered fairly well educated among his peers, being able to read and write and do sums. He could but shake his head in agreement, for he knew the words of Weasel Tail to be true. Already, many of the tribes along the West Coast had been wiped out, had succumbed to sickness, or, for the most part, had been tamed. But Preacher, despite his gripings about the steadily growing numbers of people moving west, knew that many of the folks back East who moaned about the plight of the Noble Red Man did not know all the truth. The truth was that the whites were not stealing the land from the Indians, for the Indians didn't own it. Most did not believe that anyone could really
own
part of the earth. They could not comprehend that. And the Indians were not poor, simple savages. They certainly could be savage – to the white man's way of thinking – but on the plus side, many Indian tribes had very complex societies and laws and rules.

“I don't know what to say to you, Weasel Tail,” Preacher replied. “I ain't no educated man, but I know that what you say is true. You and us here, we think alike on most things. That's why we can get along. We respect your way of life and don't try to change it. But these new folks comin' out ...” He sighed, wishing he could tell the Indian about how the movers felt. But to tell the truth, he didn't understand them either. “Yeah, you gonna have to change, Weasel Tail. They gonna make you change – or kill you.”

Preacher had heard the stories about the Fox and the Sauk, and how back in '32 a warrior named Black Hawk tried to lead about a thousand of his people back to their homelands, part of which included western Illinois. His original intent had been peaceful, not warlike. Black Hawk and his followers just wanted to go home. What they got was slaughtered as they fled, trying to swim across the Mississippi River back into Iowa.

“Now Preacher is sad,” Weasel Tail said.

“Yeah, I reckon I is. Farms and factories now are where the Ojibwa, Menominee, Iowa, Winnebago, Ottawa, and Potawatomi once lived. And that ain't altogether right.”

“What is a factory, Preacher?” a brave asked.

“Well, it's a place where people work to make things. Sort of like when your women all gather to sew together skins for a tipi.”

“Ahh! And then when what they make is made, they go back to ... what?”

“Well, they ship them goods out and then they start all over makin' more goods.”

“Why?”

“So's the people ... ah, so's other people don't have to make the goods that are made in the factory.”

Weasel Tail sighed and shook his head. “These other people, what do they do that makes them so important that other people must do their work for them?”

Preacher smiled. “Well, it ain't that they's so important. It's just that the people in the factory makes things for the people in the other factory ... sort of.”

“Ayee!” Weasel Tail cried. “My head is reeling from confusion. Let me see if I understand all this. When both factories have finished making whatever it is they make, they all get together and trade, correct?”

“Not exactly,” Preacher said – his own head was beginning to reel from confusion. “You see, white people use money. You've all seen the metal coins. Well, they have value to white people. So they give the coins for the goods that are made in the factories.”

“There is more than one or two factories?”

“Oh, yeah. Hundreds of 'em.”

The Indians looked at one another. Weasel Tail said, “There are not that many things that have to be made.”

“There is in the white man's world.”

“What makes these co-ins worth something?” another brave asked.

“Well, I ain't real sure about that,” Preacher admitted. “But it boils down to gold and silver is valuable.”

“To who?”

“The white man.”

“Why?”

“I ... don't know. It just is.”

Weasel Tail picked up a rock. “Could this be as valuable as gold or silver?”

“If enough people thought so, yeah.”

“So if enough people thought this rock was the worth of twelve horses, and I had twelve horses, they would give me this rock for the horses?”

“Yeah ... that's about it, I reckon.”

“What would I do with the rock?”

“You could use it to buy more horses from another person.”

“There is no one in my tribe that stupid.”

“Yeah ... well, you do have a point. I think.”

“Will we have to use these co-ins you speak of?” a Shoshoni asked.