John Ermine of the Yellowstone (6 page)

They lifted him from his horse, and laid him on the ground, covered with many robes, while willing hands kneaded his marbled flesh. A fire was built beside him, and the old men marvelled and
talked. It was the time when the gray wolves changed their hunting-grounds. Many had seen it before. When they sought the lower country, many grasses ago, to get away from the snow, one had known
them to eat a Crow who happened in their way; this when he was a boy.

The wolves did not always act like this—not every snow. Sudden bad storms in the mountains had driven them out. The horse herds must be well looked after for a time, until the flood of
wolves had passed down the valley.

The tired ponies stood about on the plain with their heads down. They, too, had become exhausted by the all-night fight. The sun came back, warm and clear, to see a more cheerful scene than it
had left. Little Weasel spoke weakly to his father: “The Great Spirit came to me in the night, father—the cold wind whispered to me that White Weasel must always carry a hoof of the
white stallion in his medicine-bag. ‘It is the thing that will protect you,’ said the wind. The white stallion lies over there—cut down behind. Kill him, and give me one of his
rear hooves, father.”

Accordingly, the noble beast, the leader of the horses in battle, was relieved of what was, at best, useless suffering—sacrificed to the gods of men, whom he dreaded less than the
wolves—and his wolf-smashing hoof did useful things for many years afterward.

CHAPTER FOUR

C
ROOKED
-B
EAR

W
HITE
W
EASEL’S TOUGH BODY SOON
recovered from the freezing night’s battle between the animals. It had never been
shielded from the elements, and was meat fed. The horses ate grass, because their stomachs were so formed, but he and the wolves ate meat. They had the canines.

In justice to the wolves, it must be said that all three animals represented in the fight suffered in common; for if the boy had chilled veins, and the ponies torn flanks, many wolves were
stiffened out on the prairie with broken ribs, smashed joints or jaws, to die of hunger. Nature brings no soup or warmth to the creature she finds helpless.

The boy’s spiritual nature had been exalted by the knowledge that the Good God had not only held him in His saving arms during the long, cold, snarling night, but He had guaranteed his
continual protection and ultimate salvation. That is no small thing to any person, but to the wild man, ever in close communion with the passing of the flesh, to be on intimate terms with the
something more than human is a solace that dwellers in the quiescent towns are deadened to. The boy was not taught physical fear, but he was taught to stand in abject awe of things his people did
not understand, and, in consequence, he felt afraid in strange places and at inopportune times.

One evening, as the family to which White Weasel belonged sat about the blaze of the split sticks in their lodge, Fire-Bear, the medicine-man, entered, and sat down to smoke his talk with the
foster-father. Between the long puffs he said: “Crooked-Bear wants us to bring the white Absaroke to him. The hot winds have come down the valley, and the snow has gone, so we can go to the
mountains the next sun. Will you go with me and take the boy? The Absaroke must do as the Crooked-Bear says, brother, or who knows what may happen to us? The old man of the mountain is
strong.”

After blinking and smoking for a time the foster-father said: “The boy’s and Crooked-Bear’s skins are of the same color; they are both Sparrowhawks in their hearts. His heart
may be heavy out there alone in the mountains—he may want us to leave the boy by his fire. Ba-cher-hish-a would mourn if this were done. I fear to go, brother, but must if he ask it. We will
be ready when the morning comes.”

When the dark teeth of the eastern mountains bit into the gray of approaching day, the two old Indians and the boy were trotting along, one behind the other. The ponies slithered in the pools
and little rivulets left by the melted snow, but again taking the slow, steady, mountainous, stiff-legged, swinging lope across the dry plain, they ate the flat miles up, as only those born on the
desert know how to do.

The boy had often heard of the great Crow medicine-man up in the mountains near where the tribe hovered. He seldom came to their lodges, but the Indians frequently visited him. Weasel had never
seen him, for the boys of the camp were not permitted to go near the sacred places where the old man was found. He had requested this of the chiefs, and the Absaroke children drank the mystery and
fear of him with their mothers’ milk. He was one of the tribal institutions, a matter of course; and while his body was denied them, his advice controlled in the council-lodges. His were the
words from God.

Weasel was in the most tremendous frame of mind about this venture. He was divided between apprehension and acute curiosity. He had left his mother sobbing, and the drawn face of his father
served only to tighten his nerves. Why should the great man want to see White Weasel, who was only a herd-boy? Was it because his hair and his eyes were not the color of other boys’? He was
conscious of this difference. He knew the traders were often red and yellow like him, and not brown and black as the other people were. He did not understand the thing, however. No one had ever
said he was anything else than an Absaroke; he did not feel otherwise.

Approaching the mountains, the travellers found the snow again, and climbed more slowly along the game-trails. They had blinded their path by following up a brook which made its way down a
coulée. No one left the road to Crooked-Bear’s den open to the prowling enemy. That was always understood. Hours of slow winding took them high up on the mountains, the snow growing
deeper and less trodden by wild animals, until they were among the pines. Making their way over fallen logs, around jagged boulders, and through dense thickets, they suddenly dropped into a small
wooded valley, then up to the foot of the towering terraces of bare rock, checkered with snow, where nothing came in winter, not even the bighorns.

Soon Weasel could smell fire, then dogs barked in the woods up in front. Fire-Bear called loudly in deep, harsh Indian tones, and was answered by a man. Going forward, they came first to the
dogs—huge, bold creatures—bigger and different than any Weasel had ever seen. Then he made out the figure of a man, low in tone and softly massed against the snow, and beside him a
cabin made of logs set against the rock wall.

This was Crooked-Bear. Weasel’s mind had ceased to act; only his blue eyes opened in perfect circles, seemed awake in him, and they were fixed on the man. The big dogs approached him
without barking—a bad sign with dogs. Weasel’s mind did not concern itself with dogs. In response to strange words from the white medicine-man they drew away. Weasel sat on his pony
while the older men dismounted and greeted Crooked-Bear. They did not shake hands—only “hat-wearers” did that. Why should an Indian warrior lose the use of his right hand for even
an instant? His hand was only for his wife and children and his knife.

In response to the motion of his father’s hand, the boy slid off his pony. Taking him by the shoulder, the father drew him slowly toward Crooked-Bear until they were directly in each
other’s presence. Weasel’s eyes could open no farther. His whole training was that of an Indian. He would not have betrayed his feelings under any circumstances; he was also a boy, and
the occasion was to him so momentous that he was receiving impressions, not giving them. A great and abiding picture was fast etching itself on his brain; his spongelike child-mind drank up every
drop of the weird situation.

He had seen a few white men in his life. He had not forgotten Virginia City, though terror had robbed him of his powers of observation during that ordeal. He had seen the traders at the post; he
had seen the few white or half-white men who lived with his people, but they were not like this one.

The old man of the mountain was crooked as his name implied. He also suggested a bear. He looked rude even to the Indians. It seemed that Nature had laid her hands on his shoulder and telescoped
him together. He was humpbacked. His arms and legs were as other men’s are, though his shortened body made his hands fall to his knees.

He was dressed in Indian buckskin, greased to a shine and bronzed by smoke. He leaned on a long breech-loading rifle, and carried a huge knife and revolver in his belt. His hat was made of
wolfskin after the Indian fashion, from underneath which fell long brown hair, carefully combed, in profuse masses. Seen closely he was not old—merely past middle life. His strong features
were weather-stained and care-hardened. They were sculptured with many an insistent dig by Nature, the great artist; she had gouged deep under the brows; she had been lavish in the treatment of the
nose; she had cut the tiger lines fearlessly, but she had covered the mouth and lost the lower face in a bush of beard. More closely, the whole face was open, the eyes mild, and all about it was
reposeful—sad resolution dominated by a dome of brain. Weasel warmed under the gaze of the kind face—the eyes said nothing but good; they did more than that: they compelled him to step
forward toward the strange figure, who put his hand on Weasel’s shoulder and led him tenderly in the direction of the cabin door. Weasel had lost his fear and regained the use of his
mind.

As the men stooped almost on hands and knees to enter the den of Crooked-Bear, they were greeted by the acrid smell of smouldering ashes, and probably by other odors native to their noses.
Crooked-Bear stirred the ashes and laid split wood on them. It was pine which spat and broke out in a bright flame, painting the wild figures against the smoked logs and rock wall. It illumined a
buffalo-covered bunk, piles of
parflèche
full of dried meat, a saddle and pack panniers, cooking pots and pans on the hearth, all deeply sooted, a table and chair made with an axe,
and in one corner some shelves, equally rude, piled with brown and dirty books. Many small knick-knacks intruded their useful presence as one looked with more care, but the whole was the den of a
man of some remote century. The sabre-toothed tiger might snarl at the door but for the Sharp’s rifle standing in the corner; that alone made time and distance.

“Your ponies must starve tonight, brother,” spoke Crooked-Bear. “Go put them in my house where the horses live in summertime. It is cold up here in the mountains—we have
even no cottonwoods for them to eat. The bear and the wolves will not spring on them, though the big cats are about.” All this said the white man in the language of the Absaroke, though it
may be said it sounded strange in Weasel’s ear. When he spoke to the dogs, the boy could not understand at all.

While the Indians looked after their ponies, the white man roasted meat and boiled coffee. On their return, seeing him cooking, Fire-Bear said: “Brother, you should have a squaw to do
that. Why do you not take Be-Sha’s daughter? She has the blood of the yellow-eyes in her. She would make your fire burn.”

“Tut, tut,” he replied, “no woman would make my fire burn. My fire has gone out.” With a low laugh, Crooked-Bear added, “No woman would stay long up here, brothers;
she would soon run away.” Fire-Bear said nothing, for he did not understand. He himself would follow and beat the woman and make her come back, but he did not say so.