The Owl Hunt (5 page)

Dirk saw disbelief in the faces around the trap, and knew the chief was making no progress. No one, not Washakie, not Dirk's father, not any Indian agent or government official, had succeeded in any of it.

Washakie saw how it was, even without hearing from any of the crowd.

“There are things to learn. We need to grow foods. We need to raise beef. That requires work and patience. We could do these things without help, if we try. We are a wise people, and we can do these things.”

The male Shoshones looked pained. Women's work. They would die first.

Washakie gauged the mood of his listeners very well. These people were not receptive to any arguments, nor did they believe the chief could accomplish anything.

Washakie stood quietly, and then addressed them in a new tone.

“Some of you are Dreamers. Come, tell me who you are. Are you a Dreamer, Walks at Night?”

The old headman stood straighter and met Washakie's powerful gaze with his own. “I am a Dreamer,” he said.

“And what did you dream? What did the spirits bring to you, old friend?”

“I am a follower of Owl. His dream is true.”

“Have you dreamed?”

“I listened to Owl, and his dream is good. It is what will be.”

“Ah, but you call yourself a Dreamer.”

“I hear the Dreamer, Grandfather.”

Washakie nodded, and turned to another, Mare. “My friend Mare, are you a Dreamer?”

Mare's gaze was hard. “Owl came to me. I dream. The Owl will glide over the white men and they will vanish.”

“How will they vanish?”

“The Owl will drive them away for all time.”

“And how will Owl do that?”

Mare slid into silence.

“Will the white man decide to go away, and turn his ponies east?”

More silence.

“Will Owl summon warriors to drive the white soldiers away with bullets and arrows?”

None in the crowd responded.

“Who among you are Dreamers?” Washakie asked.

The silence only deepened. Dirk could see that the tenuous peace between the chief and this crowd had vanished, and a certain defiance had risen in its place.

The chief waited. Time stretched thin.

Dirk wondered who would speak first, but the chief, easy in his authority, chose to talk.

“Very well. I have learned from your silence. You are not true Dreamers who have been visited by a spirit. You follow a young man whose vision you do not doubt. That is a courtesy among us: we never question the vision received by any of the People.

“I will tell you what will happen if you rise up against the white men. They will send more soldiers, and more and more. The Lakota and the Cheyenne defeated Custer at the Little Big Horn, and defeated our Shoshones and the Absaroka. But look at the result. Where are they now? They are being rounded up and put on reservations. If the mighty Lakota could not drive away the white men, why do you think you can?”

“We are Dreamers,” said Mare.

Washakie's reasoning wasn't getting anywhere with these angry men.

“If we die, then we will die bravely. If the People die, then the People die,” Mare continued. “For what life have the People now?”

Dirk knew enough to keep silent, though he wanted to respond. The People could have a good life if they changed their ways. They could have a good life even if the Yankee government never did another thing for them. But only if the People let go of their past.

“The People will have as good a life as they choose for themselves,” Washakie said.

Dirk thought it was a superb response.

“We will not turn ourselves into girls,” Walks at Night said.

That stirred a sharp response.

“Owl, Owl, Owl,” one chanted.

They took up the chorus. “Owl, Owl…”

Washakie raised a hand, an ancient gesture used by men given authority, but no one paid him heed. It dismayed Dirk. In all his time on the Wind River Reservation, he had never seen any Shoshone treat the chief with no respect. And that struck Dirk as somehow menacing.

Washakie knew it. He stood tall and quiet, letting his hawkish gaze survey each of these men, one by one by one. Something critical had passed here. Dirk could only sense its outlines, because he had been too far removed from his mother's people to grasp what was happening. But clearly, these men were throwing out the chief who had paved the way into reservation life.

They would not be girls.

They would not do women's work, and everything except warfare and hunting was the office of women. Everything that the Americans wanted them to become was a threat to their manhood.

And the odd thing was, Dirk thought, he empathized with them. It would take generations, not a few months or years, to transform them—if ever. People forced to let go of their deepest beliefs, passions, visions, habits, and comforts might choose to die because nothing would be left to them.

Victoria struggled to her feet. “Goddamn Snakes,” she said. “Owl will eat your heart out.”

She sat down painfully, her rheumatism tormenting her.

That stopped the guttural chanting, slowly.

“Go away from us, Absaroka woman. You are not welcome here,” Mare said.

“Go to hell, Snake,” she replied.

Dirk stared sharply at her.

“You mess with Owl, and Owl will eat your heart out, and then your brains and then your liver and then there ain't nothing left to eat.” She addressed Mare. “Where is the boy, the one who calls himself Owl now? He's a half-grown fool. I want to talk with him before he does any more foolishness.”

“The Dreamer? You will never know, Absaroka woman. And you, half-blood, will never know. And you—who is called chief by a few women—you will never know.”

That shocked Dirk. It was a calculated insult to the chief. It also shocked the rest. He saw men grimace.

“Send the young man to me,” Washakie replied, once again shrugging off the offenses against his person and office. “I wish to learn about his dream.”

In the ensuing silence Dirk saw no softening.

Washakie motioned, and Dirk hawed the dray horse forward, and along the river trail, but Washakie urged him to turn toward the agency. The chief sat in stony silence as the day waned. They would not reach the agency until long after the summer sun had fled.

“This is a good land,” Washakie said. “See how the peaks still are white even as summer dies. See how the forests rise up their slopes. See how clear and sweet is the water that tumbles down to the valley. See how the sun blesses the home of the People. I won't waver. Our friends the white men have given us a good place. It is up to the People to make it comfort us.

“If they follow the boy, they will lose this place, and maybe their lives.”

six

Sirius Van Horne yawned, his mouth a tunnel between orange muttonchops.

“Dirk, my boy, these are Shoshones, not Sioux. A few bad apples, so what? Who cares? Old Washakie's got the lid on ‘em and that's that.”

“They are dreaming, sir. Their sense of reality is altered.”

“Eh? You don't say. Bloody thundermugs, the whole lot.”

“Sir, they're on the brink of … madness. That's not the word. Purging their land. Purging their world. Purging their life, by any means.”

Van Horne smiled. “Very good, my boy. You did the right thing, letting me know. Now you get back to your books and chalkboard, and I'll deal with it.”

“Sir—I think you should take this seriously.”

“Why, boy, I am.”

Van Horne smiled toothily, waved a languid hand, and dismissed Dirk.

“Your safety is in your hands, sir.”

Van Horne chuckled. “It's never been in anyone else's hands, my boy.”

Dirk abandoned that, and headed into the bright morning, glad to get away from the stink. What was it about Van Horne? Did his flesh exude sour fumes?

The impersonal sun scoured the whole world and Dirk felt its heat upon him. Back in that agency office, Major Van Horne would be digging into his desk drawer for the first nip to smooth over the long day. It had been a comfortable office when Dirk's father occupied it, redolent of leather. But Van Horne's body exuded a sourness that permeated even the wallpaper.

Camp Brown stood nearby. In a few weeks it would be renamed Fort Washakie, the only military reservation to be named for an Indian. Dirk wondered whether to talk to the commanding officer, Captain Prescott Cinnabar. It was hard to say. Dirk had already done what might be required, which was to alert the Indian agent of trouble. But Major Van Horne had been so disinterested he had scarcely wanted an accounting, and was not even interested in the names of those who were dreaming. He didn't even express much interest in what was stirring this sudden turbulence on the Wind River Reservation.

Dirk decided he probably should take his news to the captain. The thought tore at him. He shared the distrust of the blue-bellies, just as his mother's people did. On the other hand, what the Dreamers were goading themselves into doing would be well classified as suicide. He decided to hike over there and see the commander.

It wasn't much of a fort and was staffed by two undermanned companies of mounted infantry, which devoted their time to patrolling the region, sleepy reconnoiters of sleepy trails more populated by game than by human passage. The post's principal occupation was subsisting itself. There were firewood details, hay details, garden details, kitchen details, slaughter details, carpentry and building details, and only occasionally did the infantry train for battle, usually by firing five rounds or doing drills. The monthly target practice was so rare that the crack of rifles startled the whole agency and set the crows to cawing.

A flag hung limply, and beneath it the regimental colors, on a staff before the whitewashed headquarters. Dirk thought that the limp flag reflected a limp life, served by enlistees and officers doing duty-time. No one thought of the place as home, least of all the six officers who whiled away their lives at an obscure army outpost.

Dirk barely knew Captain Cinnabar, even though the man had been posted to this remote camp for over a year. The camp boasted little social life, what with only six officers and two or three of those usually on leave. Only a few women endured life with their officers. Cinnabar's wife and daughter were sometimes among them, sometimes not. They lived in Galena, Illinois.

It was approaching noon, so the commander would be about, probably preparing for his afternoon siesta, which was a favorite occupation at this post in the summertime, shared by enlisted men and officers alike. Dirk climbed the three wooden steps to the veranda, and then clattered through a screen door and into the antechamber, occupied by a buck sergeant who was sweating in his buttoned-up blue blouse.

“He ain't in, Mr. Skye.”

“Where might I find him?”

“He's inspecting the outhouses and laundry. You need something?”

“No, but I want to talk to him.”

“If it can't wait, try him at his billet at noon.”

Dirk nodded, wandered the parade, watched a detail bucket water out to the potato patch, and then tried the commanding officer's quarters, knocking lightly.

Much to Dirk's astonishment, a young woman responded.

“Ah, do I have the right place? Is Captain Cinnabar here?”

“You probably have the right place. My father is half here and half somewhere else much of the time. You are—?”

“Dirk Skye, madam. I teach school.”

“Miss, not madam.”

She had the mournful face of a bloodhound, with soft eyes peering from heavy cheeks. A pear-shaped figure had been carefully swathed in a blousy dress. She noticed Dirk's glance and withstood it with dignity.

“Ah, you must be the captain's sister.”

“Daughter.” She eyed him. “I am Aphrodite Olive Cinnabar, but I prefer to be called Olive for obvious reasons. My parents thought they were doing me a favor.”

Dirk smiled. “I think they were doing you a great favor.”

Olive reddened but otherwise didn't yield to good humor.

“You wish to see my father? Is it about something urgent, that can't possibly wait until after lunch, or would you prefer to come back at a more civil hour?”

“Ah…” This was a new species of female for Dirk, and she would take some getting used to. “I'll come back at, say, two?”

“Who's that?” bawled a male voice from the parlor.

“It's the teacher,” Miss Cinnabar said.

“Oh, bloody hell, show him in and get up a sandwich for the fellow.”

“I've put the beef back into the springhouse.”

“Well fetch the fellow in, and fix him up.”

“Oh, Captain, I'll come back.”

Miss Cinnabar intervened. “Go in there and have your man-to-man. I'll do my duty in the kitchen.”

“Your duty, miss?”

“When among men, be a scullery maid.”

“Ah…”

Captain Cinnabar loomed suddenly at the door. As always, Dirk was first aware of the captain's vast soup-strainer mustache, which curled ornately around his mouth like shark's teeth.

Miss Cinnabar vanished, with a rush of limp gingham.

“Bloody woman. I brought her out here for a while. I get bloody tired of living in a house without a petticoat in it.”

“She's an asset to you, sir.”

“Asset is she? Asset? You have quaint notions.”

The captain led Dirk to a settee.

“Sit there and spill it, and don't mind if I gnaw on the sandwich while you jabber. I don't want the bread to dry out.”

Sitting there, Dirk wondered why he'd bothered to come. This was alien turf. Maybe he should go. But oddly, he wanted to experience more of Olive. There was little about her that he liked, neither her bloodhound face nor her strange demeanor, but at least she was interesting, and only a few years younger than he was.

“There's been some trouble among the People, sir.”