Boone's Lick (20 page)

G.T. and I only had our mules for mounts—we couldn't really keep up, but the hunt turned out to be lucky anyway, and the wildest fun. He Sleeps spotted a big elk calf that had floundered into a deep snowdrift and worn itself out trying to escape. The calf was soon dispatched with hatchets, a bloody sight. Although G.T. and I hadn't really killed the big calf we were allowed to take a share back to Ma.

The fact that we all liked Pa's Indian family didn't make it any less a sore spot with Ma that Uncle Seth had never told her about it, even though He Sleeps was as old as me and Uncle Seth had known about Stones-in-the-Water all along.

“I'm a rattler but not a tattler,” Uncle Seth said, in his own defense. “It is not my place to go blabbing about something that's none of my business.”

“I guess that means you think it's right for a man to have two wives—is that so, Seth?” Ma asked.

“Well, it's the custom out here in the baldies,” Uncle Seth said.

“Oh, I see,” Ma said—I was listening from the loft. “The custom—like handing out tobacco and coffee when some Indians come for a visit. I suppose you think handing out a woman is no different from handing out coffee.”

“In patriarch times a man was allowed several wives, I believe,” Uncle Seth said calmly. “It's in the Bible.”

“What if I don't want to go by the Bible?” Ma asked.

This shook G.T., who was proud of the fact that he had been baptized in the Missouri River.

“Everybody's supposed to go by the Bible,” he yelled down. He was in the loft too. Neva was down by the fire, sitting with her new sister Lark Sings. They were playing with the porcupine quills.

“I don't need your opinion, G.T.,” Ma said. “Who told you to preach to your mother?”

“You'll go to hell for sure, if you don't go by the Bible,” G.T. yelled. He had once heard a fiery preacher and had been worried about hellfire ever since.

“What I want to know is, is this the limit of it, or has he got another family up there where he's hauling wood?” Ma asked.

“I've never been to Fort Phil Kearny, it was just built,” Uncle Seth said. “How would I know?”

“You said the same thing in Omaha—but you
did
know!” Ma reminded him.

“I don't think Dick's partial to sleeping alone in
chilly weather,” Uncle Seth said, cautiously. He was nursing a bottle of whiskey that he had procured somewhere. While I was watching, Ma reached over and took his bottle—it surprised him. She took a big swig and spat it into the fireplace, which caused the flames to leap up. Then she took another long swig, and this one she didn't spit out.

“Do you love me, Seth?” Ma asked. “That's my final question.”

The question gave us all a start—Uncle Seth most of all.

“Mary, all these young ones are listening,” he said.

“Let 'em! My children are old enough to know the facts of life,” Ma said. “All except Marcy, and she's asleep. Are you going to answer?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Yes, you're going to answer—or yes, you love me?” Ma asked.

“Both,” Uncle Seth replied.

“All right—it's not bold but I guess it's an answer,” Ma said.

“Mary Margaret, I'm too nervous to speak of such things in front of the children,” Uncle Seth said.

It was easy to see that he was in a strain.

Ma took another long swallow and handed him back the bottle.

“We all have to live for ourselves—I want my children to hear that,” Ma said. “As for you, have another drink. If you get a little drunker, maybe you'll feel a little bolder.”

“Well, Dick
is
my brother,” Uncle Seth said.

“I don't care what he is,” Ma said. “We've lived this lie too long. I want it to end and I want it to end now!”

Whether it ended or not I don't know—I'm not even sure what the lie was. All I know is that the next morning Uncle Seth was out early, trying to get that independent Yankee blacksmith to hurry up with our wagon, so we could leave for the north.

T
HE
big soft snow had nearly melted by the time we got our wagon back and got it loaded. Nearly every officer in the fort, including General Slade, came by to try and talk Ma out of traveling north—they made the journey seem like sure death for all of us—but they might as well have been talking to a stump.

“Madam, there's no call for this intrepidity,” General Slade said. “You might at least wait for Colonel Fetterman—he's going that way soon to reinforce Colonel Carrington. He'll be happy to escort you safely in.”

“No, he wouldn't be happy to escort me anywhere,” Ma said. “He'd be happier if he could just knock me in the head.”

General Slade didn't know that Ma and Colonel
Fetterman had had a sharp exchange in the blacksmith's shop the day before. Ma was harrying the blacksmith to finish up with our wagon when Colonel Fetterman rode in and demanded that his horse be shod immediately.

“Just let me finish this little bit of work on the lady's wagon,” the blacksmith said. Ma had been riding him all day—he was anxious to get rid of her, even if it meant sending her off to get scalped.

“Damn the work and damn the lady,” Colonel Fetterman said. “I cannot fight wild savages on a lame horse, and this horse has been limping all morning due to improper shoes.”

Colonel Fetterman didn't know that Ma was there—she was behind the forge, standing in the shadow, and I was with her.

The blacksmith tried to signal the colonel but the warning came too late.

“You can damn me till you're hoarse, Colonel, but I was here first and I mean to insist on service,” Ma said.

Uncle Seth was some distance away, chatting with Captain Molesworth, but I guess he knew trouble was developing because he turned and came over to the blacksmith's shop.

Colonel Fetterman's face turned dark when he saw Ma, but he didn't withdraw his remark, or apologize for it either.

“You've no business interfering with the needs of the army, and I'll have no impertinent comments,” he said. “This is a military fort and if I was in command of it I'd have every last one of you damn
settlers driven out of it. You belong outside the walls, with the trappers and the other riffraff.”

He turned and glared at Uncle Seth, who stopped and stood his ground, but didn't speak.

I guess the blacksmith felt like he was between a rock and a hard place because he began to hammer as hard as he could on the rim he was fitting on one of our wagon wheels. He must have decided that his welfare depended on finishing our wagon in the next minute or two—any longer delay and either Ma or Colonel Fetterman would be sure to ride him hard.

The big corporal named Ned, who had fallen down drunk the day we arrived, happened to be standing nearby, trying to comb some burrs out of his horse's tail.

“Damn you, if you won't work I'll have you jailed!” Colonel Fetterman said, to the blacksmith. “Get over here, Corporal, and take this man to jail. Then find someone competent to shoe my horse.”

At this point Uncle Seth decided it might be well to try and change the subject.

“Say, Colonel Fetterman, young John Molesworth here has been telling me what a hand you are to fight Indians.”

Maybe Uncle Seth thought a little flattery would improve the man's mood—but it didn't.

“Mind your own business, sir,” Colonel Fetterman said. “I have a matter of military discipline to attend to here—and it's urgent.”

Uncle Seth winked at Ma—the colonel didn't see it.

“All right, but I'm anxious to know your opinion of the Sioux as cavalrymen,” Uncle Seth said. “There's some out here in the windies who rate them high. I've even heard one military man say that they're the best light cavalry in the world—is that your opinion?”

The comment at least got the colonel's attention.

“Whoever said that was a goddamn fool,” Colonel Fetterman said. “A bunch of naked savages on horseback don't amount to a cavalry. I could take eighty men and whip the whole Sioux nation—and I hope I get the chance.”

“And I hope you don't!” Ma said. It was plain the rude colonel had raised her temper pretty high.

Colonel Fetterman's face turned nearly purple—the fact that a woman would speak to him that way left him too annoyed to talk.

“Mary . . .” Uncle Seth said. I believe he meant to caution her about speaking so sharply to Colonel Fetterman, but his warning came too late. The fat was in the fire.

“Corporal, arrest this damn woman too, while you're at it,” Colonel Fetterman said—he was practically spluttering, he was so angry.

Ned, the big corporal, was still holding the curry comb he had been using to rake burrs out of his horse's tail. I'm not sure he even realized he was supposed to arrest the blacksmith, but he did realize that it would be irregular if he had to arrest Ma.

“What for, Colonel?” he asked.

“For the use of treasonous language,” Colonel
Fetterman said. I guess it was all he could come up with on the spur of the moment.

Ma walked right up to him—for a moment I thought she might slap the colonel, but all she did was stare him down.

“If a rude swaggerer like you was ever given the command of eighty men I have no doubt you'd promptly get them killed,” she said.

Then she motioned for the blacksmith to get on with his work and walked away, grabbing Uncle Seth by the arm as she went.

Colonel Fetterman just stood there, black with rage. Ned, the big corporal, didn't move a muscle.

Three days later, when we were slogging up the muddy plain, Colonel Fetterman and his relief troop passed us. There looked to be about eighty men in the command.

“There goes that fellow who wanted to get you arrested for treason,” Uncle Seth said.

“Yes—I have no doubt he would have had me shot, if it had been his say,” Ma said.

She had changed her attitude and was letting Uncle Seth drive the mules.

I guess all the soldiers knew Colonel Fetterman was mad at Ma, because the troop passed us at a gallop and not a single soldier waved or looked our way.

O
UR
first night out from Fort Laramie we got a big surprise—just at dusk, as we were building our campfire, we heard horses coming and our two half brothers, Blue Crow and He Sleeps, came racing into camp. He Sleeps had snuck up on a fat goose, on some little skim of a prairie pond, and they brought it to us as a going-away present.

We were all glad to see them, even Ma. The goose was mighty tasty, and the boys spent the evening trying to improve our command of sign language—or at least, Neva's command. She had already learned it and could make her fingers fly when talking to Blue Crow, the more talkative of our half brothers. G.T., though, had no skill with his hands—Blue Crow laughed until he cried at G.T.'s
attempts to use a few simple signs. He Sleeps was the more solemn of the two—he was in awe of Ma and behaved very politely in her company.

“I don't need to learn sign language, I'm a Baptist anyway,” G.T. said, when we got tickled at his crude efforts.

“Maybe so, but where you're going the Baptists have kind of thinned out,” Uncle Seth said.

Despite the chill, we were all glad to be out of the fort. Some of the soldiers were civil, but some weren't. He Sleeps caught a tiny little field mouse and taught us a game involving three cups. The field mouse was under one of them: the point of the game was to guess which cup hid the mouse. He Sleeps moved the cups so fast the confused little mouse didn't have time to run. Neva beat both He Sleeps and Blue Crow, which didn't please them, particularly. When G.T. tried it he got so annoyed at guessing wrong that he finally knocked over the cups and let the mouse get away.

Ma didn't play—she liked watching the two Indian boys.

“That boy's got more than Dick's dimple, he's got his mischief, too,” she said, referring to Blue Crow.

He Sleeps and Blue Crow rode with us for most of a fine bright morning—we were soon in higher country, though the big mountains were still just shadows in the far distance. Then the two boys turned their horses and went racing back toward Fort Laramie. Neva liked both of them—I believe she enjoyed having two new brothers to pester. She
signed for a while, trying to get them to come north with us, but they just shook their heads. He Sleeps even made us a little speech—it may have been a warning.

“I believe he's of the same opinion as Red Cloud,” Uncle Seth commented. “The one thing folks agree about is that there's going to be trouble at them new forts.”

“There sure is, and I'm going to make some of it myself, once I find Dick,” Ma said.

That afternoon we started an antelope and G.T. shot it—it was the biggest thrill of his life, up to that time.

“It was just that critter's bad luck that he ran into a Baptist,” Uncle Seth said.

One thing Neva and G.T. and I talked about a lot, when we were off to ourselves, was Pa's other family. We wanted to know the same thing Ma wanted to know: if he had one extra family, what if he had more? Maybe he had two or three.

“Or eight,” G.T. said.

“Not eight, you oaf!” Neva said. “Nobody could have eight families. There wouldn't be time.”

“I wish there
was
eight and I wish you belonged to another one, not this one,” G.T. said. He had about all he could take of Neva.

“I believe I'll start one with Bill Hickok when we get back,” Neva said. She never tired of reminding us that Mr. Hickok had bought her two beefsteaks in one night.

I didn't think Pa had eight families, but I did ponder the whole business, as we made our way
north, toward the high mountains. Sometimes I got to feeling real uneasy, at the thought of what Ma might be planning, once she found Pa. I knew she wouldn't have traveled so far, through all the dangers, if she didn't have something serious on her mind. But the only person I could have asked about it, other than Ma herself, was Uncle Seth, and he wasn't as available for questions as he had been in the past.