Far as the Eye Can See (10 page)

Theo and I never even moved from the top of the rise. We watched the whole thing without saying nothing. When it was over and the Indians was all lined up, and the women busy taking down the lodges and packing up their belongings and their dead and wounded, Theo said, “Back east they’ll call this ‘the Battle of Summit Springs.’ ”

“Some battle,” I said. The whole thing lasted maybe fifteen minutes, but it took several hours to get the whole village rounded up. I could hear women wailing the whole time. It almost sounded like singing.

A week after Summit Springs, we headed west with the wagons. I rode Cricket out in front of the first wagon with Big Tree. I had plenty of chance to study the landscape and learn about the country from what I could see, because Big Tree didn’t say much. For a hundred miles he scanned the horizon in front of us and scarcely let out a sound. He sneezed once, and it seemed to shock him. He looked at me and I smiled, but he said nothing. I said, “Bless you.”

He frowned.

“That means God should protect you from whatever spirits you just got shed of,” I said.

He understood that, or seemed to. He nodded his head slightly. I think he believed it was a spirit he expelled, too, but I wouldn’t testify to it.

Theo gradually depended more and more on me. We’d sit up at night and study where we was headed, what we’d face in the way of rivers, forests, mountains, and valleys. He taught me the country I couldn’t yet see. All that time, I never once understood that was happening: that he was teaching me. It just seemed like talk even when he unfolded maps and pointed things out.

We led our train all the way to Bozeman. There was a little settlement there, and Fort Ellis and lots of people. Indians, Canadians, even some Mexicans. It was where everybody took off from on the trip to Oregon or northern California. I thought Theo would take the train the rest of the way, but once we got to Bozeman, he didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry.

We camped outside the settlement for two days, and finally on the morning of the third day I walked over to his wagon. He was setting in front of a fire that his wife tended, smoking a stumpy pipe, watching his brood play in the dirt with a few of the Indian children. They was chasing after a jackrabbit leg that still had the fur on it. They each had a small lariat and the game seemed to be trying to catch the leg with the lariat and keep it from the others. They kicked the leg, and threw their ropes at it, but they couldn’t touch it with their hands. Theo’s wife looked up when she seen me and give a sort of half wave of her hand. “It’s Bobby,” she said.

Theo didn’t even look my way. He patted the ground next to him as a way of telling me to sit down.

I set there watching the children too. Theo’s wife offered me a cup of coffee and I took it. “Thank you kindly,” I said.

She smiled at me and went back to tending the fire. Theo studied the bowl he was smoking, tamped the tobacco down with his forefinger, then put the pipe back in his mouth. It was cool and breezy, and white clouds bunched up in the east like a city you might see from the prow of a ship. The sky was deep blue against the white clouds.

“I like this country,” he said finally. “These hills. It’s a good place to raise horses.”

“What about the rest of these folks?”

“It’s a good place to raise kids too.”

“No, I mean the train.”

“It’s already three weeks into August,” he said. “Too late in the year to head for California now. They’d never make it before winter, so they’ll stay here until spring. They got plenty of time to find somebody to take them.”

I said nothing.

After a long time he said, “I expect you might take them.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Of course you can. You are able.”

“I don’t want to.”

“What will you do?” Theo said.

“I don’t know. I guess I’ll stay here awhile.” I didn’t want to go to California no more. Leading that train out the rest of the way was the furthest thing from my mind. I didn’t say nothing to Theo about it, but there was no way in hell I’d try to do that. “I like it here too,” I said.

He nodded, still puffing on his pipe.

“You know,” I said, “maybe I’ll do some trapping.”

“There’s lots of folks doing that south and east of here. In the Musselshell country. I think Big Tree’s going down there to trap a few beaver. You can catch on with him.”

“Maybe I’ll just go by myself,” I said.

“You could do that too.”

“Even if I was with Big Tree, it’d feel like I was by myself.”

“Well, he knows what he’s doing. He’ll be glad to have you along, I expect.”

I didn’t want to go on with the train, but it was kind of upsetting to be suddenly cut loose from it. I had no idea what I wanted now that the whole future was sort of thrust on me. I mean, Theo deciding to stay in Bozeman left me wondering what the hell I was doing all the way out there. When I set out from St. Louis, I had this foggy dream about destiny and finding good land and being somebody, but the last thing I wanted was to try and settle on a piece of ground in this place all by myself. I had nothing to buy land with anyway, and I could see Theo didn’t want me hanging around, depending on him none. He was done with me and I known it from that minute a-setting by the fire while he puffed on his pipe.

Not long after that day I said my good-byes to Theo and his wife. It turned out that Big Tree
was
going to the Musselshell River country, south and east of Bozeman, to do some trapping. So I decided to throw in with him. I bought a bunch of traps and other things I’d need and made sure to thank Theo for all he taught me. The wife told me to take care of myself and it seemed as if she really meant it, although she never said a word to me the whole time I rode with them.

I traded Preston’s wagon for two mules and fifty dollars. I bought twenty feet of trapline and a few pelt packs. I figured I made out pretty good even though the wagon was the biggest thing I ever owned and I known I’d miss it when it rained or snowed.

Part Two

Big Tree

1870–75

Chapter 5

Around Bozeman there was a lot of Indians: Crow and Northern Cheyenne, Sioux, including Uncpapas, Miniconjous, Lakota, and Dakota. There was also Shoshone, and Piegan Blackfeet. Tribes like Pawnee and Nez Perce even showed up from time to time. Each had their own kinds of battle; they stole horses from each other regularly. The Crow especially fought a ongoing battle against the other tribes because they was outnumbered by all of them. They was always at trying to outwit the Sioux even though they had inner-marriages and families that crossed from one to the other tribe without much bitterness at all. They was hard to figure; they even worked together sometimes, hunting buffalo or fighting the Blackfeet. But they never forgot that they was always enemies. The Crow had to steal horses from the Sioux and Cheyenne just to ensure their own survival, and that’s also why they stayed pretty close to the settlement and white folks. To get at the Crow, sometimes a fairly large war party would raid near the settlement; and if it was more than the army could handle, it would be up to the militia to chase them off or even capture some of them if possible.

Me and Big Tree had just set out for the Musselshell country, and was only about five or six miles from Bozeman, when a column of militia come upon us. We seen the dust they raised long before they come over the rise to our left and stopped for a second looking down on us.

No one in the militia ever looked very much like what I would call a good man. They was dirty, and had a look of bitter reproof in their eyes. They rode into a camp like they was chased there, jumped off their mounts, and went right for the water, or the whiskey. They was always looking for renegades or Indians that might be a irritation to the army. Like I said, the army didn’t like them much but they always claimed to be a big help keeping the peace and all. They rode in packs, like wolves—twelve or twenty or so in a pack. You didn’t look at them if you could help it because sometimes they’d take that for a throw down on them—a challenge. You had to ignore them unless they said words to you, especially if you was a Indian.

Now we had my two pack mules, and Big Tree had a mule of his own. I rode Cricket and Big Tree was on the same big horse he rode on the trail coming out here. We kept on heading south and east on the trail and then the militia galloped down the hill until they was right up next to us. They sort of fanned out around us as we moved along until finally we stopped. The man in front was a short, barrel-chested, ugly fellow with white hair and beard. He wore earrings and had trinkets dangling in his long hair, so I figured he was a Frenchman. The rest looked just as ugly. There was about twelve or thirteen of them.

“What do you think you’re doing?” the Frenchman said to Big Tree.

Big Tree just stared at him. Sitting upright on his horse, his mane of black hair brushed high, he towered over the white-haired Frenchman. In fact, he towered over all of them. I was positioned a little bit behind Big Tree, and the way he looked rising out of the crowd like a statue in the middle of a fountain was almost comical.

“We’re going to do some trapping,” I said to nobody in particular.

“I’m talking to this big ape,” the Frenchman said.

“He don’t say much,” I said. “Maybe it’d be better if you just talked to me.”

We all sort of stared at each other.

“It might be wise not to call this fellow ape, neither,” I said.

A few of the horses made some noise. I looked at the other men, who by now had pretty much surrounded us. One fellow was pulling back some of the covering on my pack mule.

“Leave that alone,” I said.

“What you got here?”

“Traps and such.”

“You got any pelts?”

“We’re just going to get some,” I said.

Big Tree’s horse backed up a bit, bobbed his head up and down and shuddered loudly. Big Tree settled him. Then he said, “We will go now. On our way.”

But he didn’t move. Then I noticed that kid Treat from Fort Riley. The one that bragged he could shoot a gun and wanted to fight Indians. Next to him was Joe Crane. Treat wore a white hat with black eagle feathers, and he was setting on a white Indian pony. He had a Spencer rifle with a feather attached to the end of the barrel. He wore a light buckskin jacket and high-topped leather moccasins. All I seen on Joe Crane was Preston’s hat.

“Well, if it ain’t a small world,” I said.

Treat looked at me.

Joe Crane said, “Well, I’ll be hornswoggled. If it ain’t Bobby Hale.”

“I seen you somewhere before,” Treat said.

I didn’t think it wise to ask what happened to Preston. I couldn’t take my eyes off his hat, though. It still had the feather.

Treat said he remembered me. “You was at Fort Riley. Where’s the rest of your train?”

“They’re at Bozeman. Ain’t going on until next spring.”

“What’re you doing with this half-breed.”

“He ain’t no half-breed,” I said. “He’s Crow.”

“He’s a renegade,” the Frenchman said.

Big Tree moved his horse up closer to the Frenchman, then he reached down with his left hand and placed it around the fellow’s throat. “We go now,” he said.

The Frenchman was not struggling at all. It was clear that Big Tree had his hand wrapped completely around his neck—his fingers may of touched in the back—but he was not squeezing. It looked like if he did squeeze, most of what was in the Frenchman’s head would fly out of his eyes. I was worried Big Tree’s horse would spook and pull him away with that grip still in place. The Frenchman only looked at him. “We go now,” Big Tree said again.

It was probably only a few seconds, but it seemed like eternity. Big Tree still had the grip on the Frenchman’s neck, and the Frenchman just kept glaring at him, even with his chin all bunched up above the meat of Big Tree’s dark brown hand.

Finally Treat said, “Where’d you get them mules? They look like army.”

“They are,” I said. “I traded a Conestoga wagon for them. I got the receipt right here.” I took it out of my vest pocket and put it in his outstretched hand. The Frenchman said, “Treat?” He still kept his gaze on Big Tree. Treat held the receipt up so the Frenchman could see it. “I can’t read this,” he said. “Is it a receipt?”

The Frenchman tried to nod his head. Then he said, “It’s real.”

Treat waved the receipt for me to take it back. Big Tree finally removed his hand and sat back in his saddle. “We go now,” he said.

Treat had his Spencer raised, not aiming it, but ready to.

The Frenchman said, “Shoot the bloody bastard.”

“No,” Treat said. “You let him grab you like that. I’m of a mind that it was your fault.”

The Frenchman rubbed his neck. He still didn’t take his eyes away from Big Tree.

“You go on,” Treat said to me.

We started moving and the others got out of the way. I nodded to Treat as we went by. He looked like a kind of viper to me. His dark brown, seedlike eyes followed us as we moved and his head didn’t turn even a little bit. I wondered what had happened to him out here in less than a year to make him so cross looking and wore-out. I also wondered what he could of done to get folks like Joe Crane, folks twice his age, to follow him and take his orders. He didn’t look so young no more even though he wasn’t even eighteen, unless he had a birthday since I seen him last. I was sure he’d already killed his share of folks. Women and children too. I was also sure he let us go because Joe Crane known me; in a odd kind of way I felt grateful to him and I was for sure thinking Big Tree ought to of taken note. In my mind it was already a good thing he let me come along with him. I guess it was a few hours later when it hit me that I should of had the courage to ask Joe Crane what happened to Preston. I was kicking myself good for not having the spittle for it.