Two in the Field (51 page)

“Every canyon’s riddled with prospect holes and claim notices,” one of the goldbugs confided to me. “Men are layin’ up in there just waitin’ to haul out gold!”

“How good are those claims?” I said. “I mean, officially everything still belongs to the Indians. Don’t claims have to be printed up in a newspaper?”

“Ain’t none in the Hills,” came the answer. “We heard a legal recorder was in there for a spell.” He shrugged. “Don’t know if it’s so.”

So much of their information struck me as hype and rumor, shaped to a huge degree by gold fever.

“Okay, if somebody went in there, staked a claim, and the army took him out, what keeps it in his name?” I persisted. “And what if he doesn’t come back?”

“He loses it. You gotta ‘represent’ your claim. That is, work it enough to show active interest.”

“How much is that?”

“Oh, a little shovel work every month or so.” He grinned. “ ’Course, with the army driving the shovelers out, that rule’ll be relaxed even more.”

I began to see what McDermott was up to. With titles so precarious, he and LeCaron could strongarm whoever was there and stockpile claims to sell at sky-high prices in the spring. All they had to do was steer clear of the army. And us.

We’d been aware of thickening mists on the western horizon. On our ninth day those mists hardened into an ominous mass thrusting up from the plains—the Black Hills. Their darkness came from evergreen forests shagging the slopes, but from our distance it looked as if the land itself was black. A cloud mass hovered over the hills, and we watched it as we made our way across the prairie. By nightfall we’d forded the Belle Fourche and set up camp in a glen below Bear Butte, a thumblike granite upshoot that rose some twelve hundred feet above us.

The air was scented with pines and cedars, and the grass came up nearly to the horses’ bellies. A cold spring quenched our thirst and drew kit fox, muskrats and jackrabbits to the little stream flowing from it. The grass was tramped down in places by deer, and Goose pointed out grizzly turds that were old and dried. Mindful of my dream, I stared uneasily at them.

We were half a day’s journey from the Hills. A breeze came
up and whispered through the trees that night. I felt the same tugging sensation I’d first experienced outside Keokuk. It seemed to be tugging me now toward those dark landforms.

The goldbugs sat around the fire that night recounting every tall tale they’d heard about the Hills: mountains that shone like glass, so transparent you could see the sky right through them; a forest turned to rock where stone birds perched in stone trees and chirped petrified songs; a peak so steep that water falling down its face evaporated from friction heat. “There’s an echo canyon so big,” one claimed, “that if you yell at sundown, you’ll be waked eight hours later by your own yell comin’ back.”

Linc passed these on to Goose, who deadpanned, “Paha Sapa holds many spirits.”

“Will they help us find Tim?” said Cait.

The question was translated to Goose. Aware that it came from Cait, he ignored her, as usual. From the first, relations between them had been cool. Because of Goose’s powerful odor—Cait said he smelled like rancid grease, which was true enough—and his fondness for
tapi
, the bloody, dripping raw liver from game, and his habit of stretching long strips of meat from his hand to his mouth, then sawing off bite-sized lengths with his knife, she refused to eat near him.

Which was fine with Goose, who still expressed shock that she failed to prepare our food, failed to wait for us to finish our meals before feeding herself, and refused to walk and ride a respectable distance behind us. He thought it especially outrageous that Cait did not pack for everybody. And inconceivable that she didn’t warm my bed with her body.

On that last item I thought he had a point.

Goose told Linc that Cait had no horse value, which was how the Lakota priced most things: how many horses it would take to get them. A wife generally equaled one horse, which was also
the going rate for a shield or war bonnet. Would Cait care to know this? Linc asked facetiously. Probably not, I told him.

That night Goose sat facing the Hills, and we heard the soft sounds of his chanting. Afterward, when Linc gave him some tobacco, the Lakota offered the information that Crazy Horse had been born near Bear Butte, perhaps on the very creek where we were camped. He said it as if it carried great import. Linc waited for elaboration, but none came.

I heard lonely, unsettling, distant wails. Goose had told us that packs of gray wolves prowled the lower ranges of the Hills. On the plains we’d heard only coyotes. Now what were we getting ourselves into? I walked by Cait’s little tent to make sure she was all right. Like the rest of us, she was awake. She beckoned me to sit at the entrance and took my hand again.

“He’s in those hills, Samuel,” she said softly.

Together we listened to the wolves’ howls.

 TWENTY-SIX 

To our surprise, Goose refused to move on. He said he had to purify himself before entering the sacred Paha Sapa, and to do that he must climb to the top of Bear Butte, which he called
Mato Sapa
. Linc explained that the pinnacle served as an altar, a stepping stone to the stars and to the unknown. The Lakota people prayed there to attempt to penetrate veils of mystery and look beyond for prophecies and wisdom.

“A huge sleeping bear makes the sides glisten like silver,” Linc related. “Goose is going up there to listen to the bear and other spirits.”

I stared upward, mindful of my dream. In the early light, places on the stark shale slopes did seem to shine with preternatural brilliance.

“We can’t stop now,” Cait protested. “How long will he take?”

Linc told her that it generally required four days, but Goose would try to rush things.

“Let’s go ahead on our own,” she urged.

“Our chances are poor without him,” Linc said. “Part of what Goose is praying for is knowledge and power to help us find Tim.”

Cait looked at me.

I thought of Goose as I’d first seen him and as he was now. There had been notable changes. The Lakota had set about gathering inner strength; he’d become purposeful.

“He’s our best hope, Cait.”

We waited through a seemingly endless day. The goldbugs weren’t happy about the delay, either. Toward evening the temperature cooled, and one of them brought out a baseball. Using
a limb for a bat and flat stones for bases, we were soon engaged in a lively game of work-up.

Goose emerged from the edge of the trees and intoned,
“Tapa Wanka Yeyapi.”

“What the hell’s he jabbering about?” a goldbug demanded.

“Sacred tossing of the ball,” Linc said. “Very important to his people. He says we’re missing some vital things but he wants us to try it his way, to bring good medicine to the trip.”

“What’s missing?” I asked.

“The ball should be made of buffalo hide and hair,” Goose replied through Linc. “And the first throw should be made by a pure young girl, who represents the buffalo calf.”

“We don’t have either of those,” I agreed. “How about Cait throwing out the first pitch?”

Goose nixed it.

“He thinks it’s good we’re using four rocks, ’cause there are four parts to everything that grows: roots, stems, leaves, fruit.” Linc listened for a while, then went on. “And four kinds of breathing things: crawlers, flyers, four-legged walkers, two-legged walkers. And four elements above the world: sun, moon, sky, stars. And four periods of human life: babyhood, childhood, adulthood, old age. In fact—”

“Jesus, that’s enough!” blurted a goldbug. “Let’s do the damn thing!”

Unruffled, Goose stood about where the pitcher would be and motioned for us to reconfigure the bases. “A circle, not a square,” Linc instructed. “And he says it’s the ball that should travel around the stones—not us. And it goes the opposite of how we run ’em.”

Goose tossed the ball to the westernmost base, then counterclockwise to north, east, south.

“Throws like a dang girl,” a goldbug noted.

Which was true. But Goose did catch the ball deftly and send it accurately to the next base. At length he called us together and said we were all to attempt to catch his next toss. Among the Lakota, the ball represented the universe. The one catching it received a great blessing. He didn’t imagine it applied to us, but you never knew.

The goldbugs naturally figured it meant that whoever caught it would strike gold. Goose lofted the ball up. After a roughhouse struggle, with considerable piling on and elbow-throwing, the ball squirted free and rolled down a slope directly to Cait’s tent, before which she sat watching us. She calmly picked it up, rose to her feet, held it aloft for everybody to admire—Goose maintained his stoniest face—and then cranked up and threw it back for all the world like a Wrigley Field bleacherite. Her throw went higher than Goose’s. Another violent scrambled ensued, with the youngest goldbug finally squirming free with the ball.

“I’m a-gonna be rich,” he declared.

“If you ain’t dead in the attempt,” one of the sore losers declared, eyeing the dark lumps of the Hills, above which thunderheads loomed. “It don’t look friendly up there.”

Using strips of red trade cloth as ties, Goose fashioned a dome-shaped frame of saplings. Inside it he built a fire and heated limestone rocks. When the flames died and the rocks glowed, he stretched tarps over the frame and took canteens inside. Seeing Cait looking on, he waved his hand dismissively.

“Not for females,” Linc translated.

“Whoever thought it might be?” she responded tartly.

Goose asked Linc and me to join him. Fifteen minutes later, squatting naked inside, I seriously regretted having accepted. My eyes and sinuses and lungs were on fire and my skin was
scorched. I could scarcely breathe. Goose splashed more water on the stones. Steam billowed around us. The other two, sweating like crazy, acted as if nothing was wrong.

“If it’s more ’n you can stand,” Linc said with a sadistic chuckle, “Goose says to call out
Mitakuye oyasin.”

“What does that do?”

“It means ‘all my relatives’—it’s a respectful way for Goose to cool things down.