The Second Western Megapack Page 8

  “And what’ll the Indians get out of it?” he ast.

  “Don’t change the subjeck,” I says. “I see they’ve stacked buffler hides out at the council circle for the chiefs and guests to get on—and by the way, you be dern sure you gives me a higher stack to get on than Sir Wilmot gits. When nobody ain’t lookin’, you hide this keg clost to where I’m to set. If I had to send to yore lodge to git it, it’d take time and look fishy, too.”

  “Well,” he begun reluctantly, but I flourished a fist under his nose and said with passion: “Dang it, do like I says! One more blat outa you and I busts the truce and yore snoot simultaneous!”

  So he spread his hands kinda helpless, and said something about all white men being crazy, and anyway he reckoned he’d lived as long as the Great Spirit aimed for him to. But I give no heed, because I have not got no patience with them Injun superstitions. I started out of his lodge and dang near fell over one of them French trappers which they called Ondrey; t’other’n was named Franswaw.

  “What the hell you doin’ here?” I demanded, but he merely give me a nasty look and snuck off. I started for the lodge where the Crows was, and the next man I met was old Shingis. I dunno what his real name is, we always call him old Shingis; I think he’s a Iowa or something. He’s so old he’s done forgot where he was born, and so ornery he jest lives around with first one tribe and then another till they git tired of him and kick him out.

  He ast for some tobaccer and I give him a pipe-full, and then he squinted his eye at me and said: “The Red-Coat did not have to bring a man from the Mississippi to talk with Waukontonka. They say Shingis is heyoka. They say he is a friend of the Unktehi, the Evil Spirits.”

  Well, nobody never said that but him, but that’s the way Injuns brag on theirselves; so I told him everybody knowed he was wakan, and went on to the lodge where the Crows was. Spotted Hawk ast me if it was the Red-Coats had burnt Washington and I told him not to believe everything a Red-Coat told him. Then I said: “Where’s this Red-Coat’s presents?”

  Spotted Hawk made a wry face because that was a p’int which stuck in his mind, too, but he said: “The boat upset and the river took the gifts meant for the chiefs.”

  “Then that means that the Unktehi air mad at him,” I says. “His medicine’s weak. Will you foller a man which his medicine is weak?”

  “We will listen to what he has to say in council,” says Spotted Hawk, kind of uncertain, because a Injun is scairt of having anything to do with a man whose medicine is weak.

  It was gitting dark by this time, and when I come out of the lodge I met Sir Wilmot, and he says: “Trying to traduce the Crows, eh? I’ll have the pleasure of watching my Sioux friends roast you yet! Wait till Striped Thunder talks to them from the medicine lodge tonight.”

  “He who laughs last is a stitch in time,” I replied with dignerty, so tickled inside about the way I was going to put it over him I was reconciled to not cutting his throat. I then went on, ignoring his loud, rude laughter. Jest wait! thunk I, jest wait! Brains always wins in the end.

  I passed by the place where the buffler hides had been piled in a circle, in front of a small tipi made out of white buffler skins. Nobody come nigh that place till the powwow opened, because it was wakan, as the Sioux say, meaning magic. But all of a sudden I seen old Shingis scooting through the tipis clostest to the circle, making a arful face. He grabbed a water bucket made out of a buffler’s stummick, and drunk about a gallon, then he shook his fists and talked to hisself energetic. I said: “Is my red brother’s heart pained?”

  “#%&*@!” says old Shingis. “There is a man of black heart in this village! Let him beware! Shingis is the friend of the Unktehi!”

  Then he lit out like a man with a purpose, and I went on to Fat Bear’s lodge. He was squatting on his robes looking at hisself in a mirrer he stole from the Northwest Fur Company three seasons ago.

  “What you doin’?” I ast, reching into the meat pot.

  “Trying to imagine how I’ll look after I’m scalped,” says he. “For the last time, that keg—”

  “Air you tryin’ to bring that subjeck up agen?” I says, rising in wrath; and jest then a brave come to the door to say that everybody was ready to go set in council.

  “See?” whispers Fat Bear to me. “I’m not even boss in my own village when Spotted Hawk and Biting Horse are here! They give the orders!”

  We went to the powwow circle, which they had to hold outside because they warn’t a lodge big enough to hold all of ’em. The Arikaras sot on one side, the Crows on the other and the Sioux on the other. I sot beside Fat Bear, and Sir Wilmot and his Socs and Frenchmen sot opposite us. The medicine man sot cross-legged, with a heavy wolf-robe over his shoulders—though it was hot enough to fry a aig, even after the sun had went down. But that’s the way a heyoka man does. If it’d been snowing, likely he’d of went naked. The women and chillern got up on top of the lodges to watch us, and I whispered and ast Fat Bear where the keg was. He said under the robes right behind me. He then started humming his death-song under his breath.

  I begun feeling for it, but before I found it, Sir Wilmot riz and said: “I will not worry my red brothers with empty words! Let the Big Knives sing like mosquitos in the ears of the people! The Master of Life shall speak through the lips of Striped Thunder. As for me, I bring no words, but a present to make your hearts glad!”

  And I’m a Choctaw if he didn’t rech down under a pile of robes and drag out Fat Bear’s keg! I like to keeled over and I hear Fat Bear grunt like he’d been kicked in the belly. I seen Ondrey leering at me, and I instantly knowed he’d overheard us talking and had stole it out from amongst the hides after Fat Bear put it there for me. The way the braves’ eyes glistened I knowed the Red-Coats had won, and I was licked.

  Well, I war so knocked all of a heap, all I could think of was to out with my knife and git as many as I could before they got me. I aimed to git Sir Wilmot, anyway; they warn’t enough men in the world to keep me from gutting him before I died. A Bearfield on his last rampage is wuss’n a cornered painter. You remember great-uncle Esau Bearfield. When the Creeks finally downed him, they warn’t enough of ’em left alive in that war party to sculp him, and he was eighty-seven.

  I reched for my knife, but jest then Sir Wilmot says: “Presently the milk of the Red-Coats will make the hearts of the warriors sing. But now is the time for the manifestations of the Great Spirit, whom the Sioux call Waukontonka, and other tribes other names, but he is the Master of Life for all. Let him speak through the lips of Striped Thunder.”

  So I thought I’d wait till everybody was watching the medicine lodge before I made my break. Striped Thunder went into the lodge and closed the flap, and the Socs lit fires in front of it and started dancing back and forth in front of ’em singing:

  “Oh, Master of Life, enter the white skin lodge!

  Possess him who sits within!

  Speak through his mouth!”

  I ain’t going to mention what they throwed on the fires, but they smoked something fierce so you couldn’t even see the lodge, and the Socs dancing back and forth looked like black ghosts. Then all to wunst they sounded a yell inside the lodge and a commotion like men fighting. The Injuns looked like they was about ready to rise up and go yonder in a hurry, but Sir Wilmot said: “Do not fear! The messenger of the Master of Life contends with the Unktehi for possession of the medicine man’s body! Soon the good spirit will prevail and we will open the lodge and hear the words of Waukontonka!”

  Well, hell, I knowed Striped Thunder wouldn’t say nothing but jest what Sir Wilmot had told him to say; but them fool Injuns would believe they was gitting the straight goods from the Great Spirit hisself.

  Things got quiet in the lodge and the smoke died down, and Sir Wilmot says: “Thy children await, O Waukontonka.” He opened the door, and I’m a Dutchman if they was anything in that lodge but a striped polecat!

  He waltzed out with his tail h’isted over his back and them Injuns let o
ut one arful yell and fell over backwards; and then they riz up and stampeded—Crows, Arikaras, Sioux, Socs and all, howling: “The Unktehi have prevailed! They have turned Striped Thunder into an evil beast!”

  They didn’t stop to open the gate. The Sioux clumb the stockade and the Crows busted right through it. I seen old Biting Hoss and Spotted Hawk leading the stampede, and I knowed the great Western Injun Confederation was busted all to hell. The women and chillern was right behind the braves, and in sight of fifteen seconds the only Injun in sight was Fat Bear.

  Sir Wilmot jest stood there like he’d been putrified into rock, but Franswaw he run around behind the lodge and let out a squall. “Somebody’s slit the back wall!” he howled. “Here’s Striped Thunder lying behind the lodge with a knot on his head the size of a egg! Somebody crawled in and knocked him senseless and dragged him out while the smoke rolled!”

  “The same man left the skunk!” frothed Sir Wilmot. “You Yankee dog, you’re responsible for this!”

  “Who you callin’ a Yankee?” I roared, whipping out my knife.

  “Remember the truce!” squalled Fat Bear, but Sir Wilmot was too crazy mad to remember anything. I parried his sword with my knife as he lunged, and grabbed his arm, and I reckon that was when he got his elber dislocated. Anyway he give a maddened yell and tried to draw a pistol with his good hand; so I hit him in the mouth with my fist, and that’s when he lost them seven teeth he’s so bitter about. Whilst he was still addled, I taken his pistol away from him and throwed him over the stockade. I got a idee his fractured skull was caused by him hitting his head on a stump outside. Meanwhile Ondrey and Franswaw was hacking at me with their knives, so I taken ’em by their necks and beat their fool heads together till they was limp, and then I throwed ’em over the stockade after Sir Wilmot.

  “And I reckon that settles that!” I panted. “I dunno how this all come about, but you can call up yore women and chillern and tell ’em they’re now citizens of the United States of America, by golly!”

  I then picked up the keg, because I was hot and thirsty, but Fat Bear says: “Wait! Don’t drink that! I—”

  “Shet up!” I roared. “After all I’ve did for the nation tonight, I deserves a dram! Shame on you to begredge a old friend—”

  I taken a big gulp—and then I give a maddened beller and throwed that keg as far as I could heave it, and run for water. I drunk about three gallons, and when I could breathe again I got a club and started after Fat Bear, who clumb up on top of a lodge.

  “Come down!” I requested with passion. “Come down whilst I beats yore brains out! Whyn’t you tell me what was in that keg?”

  “I tried to,” says he, “but you wouldn’t listen. I thought it was whiskey when I stole it, or I wouldn’t have taken it. I talked to Shingis while you were hunting the water bucket, jest now. It was him that put the skunk in the medicine lodge. He saw Ondrey hide the keg on Sir Wilmot’s side of the council circle; he sneaked a drink out of it, and that’s why he did what he did. It was for revenge. The onreasonable old buzzard thought Sir Wilmot was tryin’ to pizen him.”

  So that’s the way it was. Anyway, I’m quitting my job as soon as I git back to Saint Louis. It’s bad enuff when folks gits too hifaluting to use candles, and has got to have oil lamps in a trading post. But I’ll be derned if I’ll work for a outfit which puts the whale-oil for their lamps in the same kind of kegs they puts their whiskey.

  Your respeckful son,

  Boone Bearfield.

  THE AFFAIR AT GROVER STATION, by Willa Cather

  I heard this story sitting on the rear platform of an accommodation freight that crawled along through the brown, sun-dried wilderness between Grover Station and Cheyenne. The narrator was “Terrapin” Rodgers who had been a classmate of mine at Princeton, and who was then cashier in the B—— railroad office at Cheyenne. Rodgers was an Albany boy, but after his father failed in business, his uncle got “Terrapin” a position on a western railroad, and he left college and disappeared completely from our little world, and it was not until I was sent West, by the University with a party of geologists who were digging for fossils in the region about Sterling, Colorado, that I saw him again. On this particular occasion Rodgers had been down at Sterling to spend Sunday with me, and I accompanied him when he returned to Cheyenne.

  When the train pulled out of Grover Station, we were sitting smoking on the rear platform, watching the pale yellow disk of the moon that was just rising and that drenched the naked, gray plains in a soft lemon-colored light. The telegraph poles scored the sky like a musical staff as they flashed by, and the stars, seen between the wires, looked like the notes of some erratic symphony. The stillness of the night and the loneliness and barrenness of the plains were conducive to an uncanny train of thought. We had just left Grover Station behind us, and the murder of the station agent at Grover, which had occurred the previous winter, was still the subject of much conjecturing and theorizing all along that line of railroad. Rodgers had been an intimate friend of the murdered agent, and it was said that he knew more about the affair than any other living man, but with that peculiar reticence which at college had won him the sobriquet “Terrapin,” he had kept what he knew to himself, and even the most accomplished reporter on the New York Journal, who had traveled halfway across the continent for the express purpose of pumping Rodgers, had given him up as impossible. But I had known Rodgers a long time, and since I had been grubbing in the chalk about Sterling, we had fallen into a habit of exchanging confidences, for it is good to see an old face in a strange land. So, as the little red station house at Grover faded into the distance, I asked him point blank what he knew about the murder of Lawrence O’Toole. Rodgers took a long pull at his black briar pipe as he answered me.

  “Well, yes, I could tell you something about it, but the question is how much you’d believe, and whether you could restrain yourself from reporting it to the Society for Psychical Research. I never told the story but once, and then it was to the Division Superintendent, and when I finished the old gentleman asked if I were a drinking man, and remarking that a fertile imagination was not a desirable quality in a railroad employee, said it would be just as well if the story went no further. You see it’s a gruesome tale, and someway we don’t like to be reminded that there are more things in heaven and earth than our systems of philosophy can grapple with. However, I should rather like to tell the story to a man who would look at it objectively and leave it in the domain of pure incident where it belongs. It would unburden my mind, and I’d like to get a scientific man’s opinion on the yarn. But I suppose I’d better begin at the beginning, with the dance which preceded the tragedy, just as such things follow each other in a play. I notice that Destiny, who is a good deal of an artist in her way, frequently falls back upon that elementary principle of contrast to make things interesting for us.

  “It was the thirty-first of December, the morning of the incoming Governor’s inaugural ball, and I got down to the office early, for I had a heavy day’s work ahead of me, and I was going to the dance and wanted to close up by six o’clock. I had scarcely unlocked the door when I heard someone calling Cheyenne on the wire, and hurried over to the instrument to see what was wanted. It was Lawrence O’Toole, at Grover, and he said he was coming up for the ball on the extra, due in Cheyenne at nine o’clock that night. He wanted me to go up to see Miss Masterson and ask her if she could go with him. He had had some trouble in getting leave of absence, as the last regular train for Cheyenne then left Grover at 5:45 in the afternoon, and as there was an eastbound going through Grover at 7:30. The dispatcher didn’t want him away, in case there should be orders for the 7:30 train. So Larry had made no arrangement with Miss Masterson, as he was uncertain about getting up until he was notified about the extra.

  “I telephoned Miss Masterson and delivered Larry’s message. She replied that she had made an arrangement to go to the dance with Mr. Freymark, but added laughingly that no other arrangement held when Larry could co
me.

  “About noon Freymark dropped in at the office, and I suspected he’d got his time from Miss Masterson. While he was hanging around, Larry called me up to tell me that Helen’s flowers would be up from Denver on the Union Pacific passenger at five, and he asked me to have them sent up to her promptly and to call for her that evening in case the extra should be late. Freymark, of course, listened to the message, and when the sounder stopped, he smiled in a slow, disagreeable way, and saying, ‘Thank you. That’s all I wanted to know,’ left the office.

  “Lawrence O’Toole had been my predecessor in the cashier’s office at Cheyenne, and he needs a little explanation now that he is under ground, though when he was in the world of living men, he explained himself better than any man I have ever met, East or West. I’ve knocked about a good deal since I cut loose from Princeton, and I’ve found that there are a great many good fellows in the world, but I’ve not found many better than Larry. I think I can say, without stretching a point, that he was the most popular man on the Division. He had a faculty of making everyone like him that amounted to a sort of genius. When he first went to working on the road, he was the agent’s assistant down at Sterling, a mere kid fresh from Ireland, without a dollar in his pocket, and no sort of backing in the world but his quick wit and handsome face. It was a face that served him as a sight draft, good in all banks.

  “Freymark was cashier at the Cheyenne office then, but he had been up to some dirty work with the company, and when it fell in the line of Larry’s duty to expose him, he did so without hesitating. Eventually Freymark was discharged, and Larry was made cashier in his place. There was, after that, naturally, little love lost between them, and to make matters worse, Helen Masterson took a fancy to Larry, and Freymark had begun to consider himself pretty solid in that direction. I doubt whether Miss Masterson ever really liked the blackguard, but he was a queer fish, and she was a queer girl and she found him interesting.