The Owl Hunt (27 page)

“Why a mule? The things can't run fast,” Cinnabar said.

“It was given to me. The voice said, take the mule. It is the color of the sun, and I rode the sun to this place.”

The agent, Major Van Horne, chuckled. “All for show,” he said.

“I'll start my carpenters on the gallows,” the captain said. “Right here, in the commons, that'd be a good place.”

“Perfect place, Captain. Two days from now is Distribution Day, when they all come in for their monthly dole, courtesy of Uncle Sam. Now that's fitting, isn't it? We'll have us a hanging on Distribution Day.”

thirty-one

They summoned Dirk as translator. At ten sharp he made his way to the post, passing officers' quarters, each a whitewashed duplex with a broad porch. Old Glory flapped in the November wind, sometimes snapping hard.

There was no chamber at Fort Washakie to convene a trial except the mess, so the tribunal would meet there. Two guards outside the door in dress blues snapped to attention as he walked in. He was on time, but the last one.

Seated at a table were Captain Cinnabar, Lieutenant Keefer, and Lieutenant Wigglesworth, all spit and polish with their long mustachios combed and waxed. A porky recorder sat at one side, pen poised. Six armed guards watched the exits. The boy sat on a plain wooden chair, surrounded by dark space, awaiting his fate. He was dressed in the rags he had worn from the beginning.

Cinnabar rapped hard with a gavel. “This tribunal is called to order. We will try one Owl, formerly Waiting Wolf, a Shoshone. He is charged with insurrection against the government of the United States, attempted murder of American citizens Thaddeus and Amy Partridge, and theft of a mule from a United States citizen off the reservation. He is further charged with inciting to riot on the reservation, the theft of cattle off the reservation, illegal hunting by an Indian off the reservation, threatening the Indian agent with death, and threatening the chief of the Shoshone people with death. How does the defendant plead?”

Dirk translated.

“I plead whatever it is that is wanted from me.”

“You need to plead innocent or guilty.”

Owl smiled. “I will let them decide. I have no words for them.”

“He declines to plead, and says he will let you decide, sir.”

Cinnabar turned to the clerk. “Enter a plea of nolo contendere. He does not dispute the case against him nor does he plead guilty.”

The captain turned to the boy. “In that case we can find you guilty without contest.”

Owl shrugged.

“Before we sentence you, tell us in your own words about these events,” Cinnabar said.

To Dirk's surprise, Owl agreed to. He stood, and in his own reedy voice he told his story.

“Grandfathers, the People are starving. They were given a home, but they are prisoners in their home, and cannot even hunt beyond the invisible lines. I grieve for the People, for my mother and father and the children who go hungry. I grieve that the buffalo were taken away, and that we cannot hunt them. I grieve that we don't get good meat, as was promised us.”

Dirk translated that, even as the youth seemed almost to expand as he stood there in that austere room, surrounded by soldiers. His eyes lit as he began his next recitation.

“Grandfathers, on the day when moon darkened the sun, there came to me a vision, a gift from Owl, the creature we Shoshones know to be the worst of all creatures, a trickster that flies in the night. Grandfathers, Owl entered my heart and told me about good things that would lift the hearts of the People. It was time for us to dream of the good life to come, and he gave me a dance to dance, and told me to seek out Dreamers to dream the dream I was given, and so I did.

“Grandfather, we received good news. Someday, at a time still hidden, the white people would walk away from here, their hearts heavy, because this was not their home. And this would not be caused by fighting but because their hearts were heavy. We would not take up bows and arrows and guns and lances; we would wait for the white men's hearts to grow heavy, and then they would go away, and the buffalo would return, and we would have enough to eat, and all the world would be as it was.”

Dirk translated faithfully, yet feeling that he could not convey the joy and hope that underlay the boy's thoughts.

The tribunal listened impatiently. Cinnabar was steepling his fingers. Keefer was tapping his fingers on the tabletop.

But still the boy continued, his reedy voice somehow turning all this into a song.

“Grandfathers, we danced and waited in the mountains, but no vision came. I pleaded with the Gray Owl for a vision, for word when all these good things would happen, but Grandfathers, no vision came to me, and the Dreamers were growing unhappy with me. I told them I am not a leader, just a young man who was given a vision, and all I could do was wait, and cry for a vision.”

Dirk translated, but he could not manage to turn it into the song that was pouring from the boy's heart. His English made it all blocky and matter-of-fact, while the boy's words were flowing like a river of music.

“Grandfathers, then the word came to me, and I rejoiced to receive word from my spirit guide, and the word was that I must give myself to the soldiers, for only then, with my passage to the Long Walk, would the new world come. Then all things would be restored to the People, and the soldiers would pack up and walk away, and the men who herd cattle would go away, and the missionaries would go away, and the schoolteacher would go away, and all things would be as they were ordained from the beginning of the world. The People would have buffalo and elk and deer and antelope to eat, and a place to live beside the river.”

“Skye, tell him to hurry up. We don't need to listen to all this.”

“He was saying, Captain, that upon his death the vision would be fulfilled, and the white people would leave.”

“Yes, yes, but get on with it.”

“Grandfathers, once I heard the word, I began my long journey here, and urged the Dreamers to dance. And now the Dreamers know I am here, and they are dancing, and they know that the time has come, and that the moment I begin the Long Walk, the hearts of the white men will sicken and they will go away.”

“Skye, haven't we heard enough?”

Dirk turned to the boy. “He asks if they have heard enough.”

“I have said everything, Grandfathers.”

“Does he want to talk about attempting murder of the Partridges?”

“Grandfathers, it was not the shaman but the bad spirits he was forcing on us that I thought to destroy.”

The tribunal listened incredulously.

“This is nonsense. Has he anything else?”

“They say your talk makes no sense, Owl. Have you anything else?”

Owl's eyes glowed. “I am ready.”

“Ready for sentencing?”

“When Owl dies, that will be the time when the white men's hearts fail them and they will go away from our land.”

“He says that with his death the vision he had of white men leaving here will come to pass, sirs.”

“Eh! The boy believes that foolishness?” Cinnabar asked.

“With his life, sir,” Dirk said.

Keefer laughed, and the other officers smiled broadly.

“Anything else, boy?”

Owl stood tall, on his tiptoes, and lifted up his hands until his arms stretched high above him, as if in supplication.

That made the officers uncomfortable.

“Well, let's get on with it, gents. This fellow's not pleaded innocent, and we've heard him describe his role in plotting an insurrection, and he's admitted his attack on the Partridges, so what's there to discuss, eh?”

Cinnabar looked at each officer.

“I think we have a verdict, sir,” said Wigglesworth. “It hardly needs discussion.”

Cinnabar rapped his gavel. “Very well. Owl, you are sentenced to hang by the neck until dead for the crimes of insurrection against the government of the United States, and for attempted murder of white citizens of the aforementioned country. The sentence shall be executed at high noon, tomorrow.”

Dirk started to translate, but the boy waved him off with a small gesture.

“It is as I was told in the vision,” he said in English.

Dirk sprang forward. “Don't do this! This boy didn't start an insurrection! He never did. He didn't raise an army. He didn't question your authority. He didn't lead a mob. He didn't fight you. He didn't murder anyone, even if he started to.”

“Skye, you're out of order.”

The gavel cracked down.

“He's not guilty of these things. Show me his army! Show me his weapons! Show me!”

“Skye! Stop that.”

“This boy had a vision. He gave his vision to his people, which is their custom. You haven't proven a thing. You haven't proven that he stole anything, or hunted outside the reservation. You haven't proven anything. Reconsider. Or let him appeal.”

“I'm warning you, Skye! You are out of order.”

“Take this case to the Indian Bureau! Let them review it! Don't do this!”

Cinnabar's gavel cracked down like a gunshot, and it shattered.

“Guard, take this man from here.”

The guards sprang toward Dirk, who felt their hard hands clasp his arms.

“Any more from you, Skye, and I'll throw you in the brig.”

The guards dragged him away. He saw Owl watching him impassively, and understood what the boy was thinking: you cannot change what is to come, which is what was given to me in a vision.

They dragged him not only from the mess, but through the outside door and ejected him at the steps.

He watched the two bluecoats, both corporals, smile at him.

The flag was snapping and cracking like a Gatling gun in the stiff cold breeze.

He headed for the Wind River Agency office, off in the distance. Sirius Van Horne had not attended the proceedings, but maybe Van Horne could do something. The army was required to heed an agent in any emergency on the reservation. Maybe, maybe, the agent would listen.

He hurried into a bitter wind, walking across a commons where the post carpenters were building a gallows. They had the uprights and crossbeam in place, and were starting on a platform and trap. They seemed to be enjoying their work, in spite of the wind.

He bounded into the agency, knocked decorously on Van Horne's door, and was summoned in.

“You, is it?”

“I have an urgent request, sir.”

“For you, Skye, everything is urgent.”

“They've condemned the boy to hang tomorrow. For crimes he didn't commit. He never started an insurrection. That wasn't his intent. He was only waiting for his vision. His Dreamers were inviting the future to arrive. They danced to welcome the future.”

Van Horne sighed, as if he were dealing with a child. “That's nonsense. The boy is a subversive influence. He was bent on overthrowing me.”

“His vision is that when he dies, the whole thing will come true. The white men will pack up and leave because they don't believe in themselves.”

A malicious glint lit the agent's eyes.

“I suppose you believe that, too, Skye.”

“I believe that a lot of Shoshones believe it, and will see in the hanging the beginning of a new world.”

“I asked you if you believe it, I think.”

“No, I don't. But I see bloodshed and sorrow if you let that boy hang. I see my people suffering, dying, all because of an unjust sentence.”

“Oh, fiddlesticks, Skye. You're as silly as the redskins.”

“You have the power to stop it, sir. On the reservation, you have the power to override the army. Ask them to delay this. Ask them to submit the evidence for review. Ask your bureau to look at this first.”

“My oh my, Skye, and you half white, too,” Van Horne said. “I'm intending to let the army do exactly what it intends. And before a good crowd of Shoshones, too.”

thirty-two

A bitter wind sliced through the agency. Dust and grass and leaves fled before it, seeking refuge in calmer corners. The wind cracked and whipsawed Old Glory, and rattled windowpanes. The wind stabbed through the ill-clad Shoshones who had gathered at the warehouse for Distribution Day. The wind would whistle through their paltry allotment of flour and beans, small parcels that would stave off starvation yet one more month.

The wind hurried around the uprights of the gallows on the commons, but the structure did not quake before the arctic air. Its crossbeam rested solidly on its posts, and below, a hinged platform awaited its sole passenger. A manilla rope shuddered in the whipping air, and at its end was a curious noose, the rope snaked around and around and around, forming a perfect cylinder.

At the warehouse, clerks told the collecting Shoshones that distributions would begin after the sun had reached its zenith, and meanwhile the People should gather at the structure in the commons. The People surmised what they would witness, and gathered reluctantly, curious about the white men's ways to begin the Long Walk. Old and young collected, their backs to the wind, their shoulders hunched against the cold, their faces bleak. They watched impassively, having surrendered themselves to whatever fate was deemed proper for them by the white men. Younger men, lean and muscular, some wrapped in blankets, some in white men's jackets, gathered, too. Some carried a drum, scraped hide stretched tight over a wooden ring. Some mothers stared at the brooding uprights and platform, and chose to lead their children to a place in the lee of the wind and out of sight, where the little ones could settle on the clay and wait.

Old Glory cracked and barked in the wind, like a scolding father. Dirk waited bitterly, wondering whether he could endure the sight that would soon unfold. Victoria had squinted up at the gallows, smiled, and headed back to the warmth of the teacherage. At the opened doors of the warehouse, clerks leaned into the walls and watched. Dimly lit within were sacks and bags of provender, to be doled out to the people, a mark in a ledger for each Shoshone who claimed his food from the government. But on this Distribution Day, all of that was delayed.