I set out across the windswept land west of the schoolhouse. There is no trail to follow, so I descend to where the Old Man River winds through a gulch of low bushes and snow-bound weeds. Miles later, I have not come across a single horse hoof or boot print, not a scrap of evidence to convince me I’m not the only living being in this corner of the world. I guess this is partly what keeps me close to the lively trickle of water beneath the ice.
It’s well past noon when I finally stumble across the first sign of habitation—a pony trail marked by day-old manure. Feeling a little less lonesome, I follow it, hoping it will eventually lead to the stopping house.
I have not gone far when I hear thrashing in the brush ahead of me. This is accompanied by the worn-out nicker of a hard-run horse. I skid down a bank and jump rocks to cross a shallow creek. It’s around the next bend that I find the sorrel mare. She’s still attached to her riggings, although there’s not a sign of the wagon she was pulling. She’s also managed to get herself all tangled up in the bushes and trees. It’s my guess she’s been snagged some time, because she’s worked herself into quite a snit, and the shrubs are trampled to bits from her thrashing around. But for the moment—perhaps sensing me—she is still.
I whistle softly. Despite being exhausted, she looks over to where I stand. Her eyes are frightened, but she doesn’t balk, and I can already tell she’s been given no reason not to trust humans. Cautiously, I come around to her left side. That’s when I see the good-sized welt across her flank. I suspect she somehow collided with the wagon she was hauling, bolted and broke free. However she received it, it’s a day or two old, swollen up and festering. It has to be causing her some amount of pain.
“Easy, girl,” I say. I begin to work the riggings free of the bushes, careful that she doesn’t feel the tug. She’s either an especially gentle creature or she’s got no fight left, because she cooperates. It doesn’t take me long to realize she’s so entangled it’s just about an impossible job to straighten it out. I’ll have to cut her free. I approach her, speaking low and kind. She snorts and shudders, but she allows me to get close enough to cut her harness with my buck knife. Suddenly aware of her freedom, she darts ahead along the trail. A hundred feet ahead, she stops; it seems she’s waiting for me to catch up. I take her by the reins and lead her to the creek, where she tucks in for a good long drink.
I do my best to wash the wound on her flank with cold snow from the edge of the creek, but it’s going to need a good cleaning with Epsom salts to get the festering under control. There’s no clue from the riggings where the horse might have come from. Once the mare has calmed down and cooled off, I lead her back along the trail.
She’s a good, obliging horse, and I’d ride her if it wasn’t for that nasty wound. But I have no idea how far we are from civilization, and I don’t want to aggravate it.
We have been walking for nearly an hour before we run into another living soul. It’s a small boy sitting on the railroad track. The moment he sees me, he shoots up and skitters down into the covert on the other side of the tracks. I scan the spot where he disappeared, picking out a pair of dark eyes staring up at me from the leafless bushes.
“Hello, mate,” I say. “Won’t you come out and talk to me? What are you doing all alone out here in the wilds?”
Realizing he is visible, the young Indian lad crawls from the bushes like a small animal. He is maybe eight or nine years old, spattered in mud and dressed in moccasins and animal hides.
“Some miles back I came across this injured horse. Maybe you can tell me who owns her?”
The boy shrugs. He thinks a moment before nodding.
“Good. Well, then, could you take me to where I might find him?”
He glances hesitantly over his shoulder.
“Do you speak English?”
Again, he nods.
“Well, where do you come from?”
“Down in that gully—in the trees,” he finally tells me.
“But we’re hiding.”
“Hiding from what?”
“The government.” He wanders over and runs his buckskin mitten along the flank of the sorrel mare.
“Your folks are hiding from the government too? Well, how about that, so am I.”
He looks up at me and grins. Clearly he likes the idea of coming across someone else who is hiding from the government. “Come on.” Waving for me to follow, he starts along the trail.
As we walk, he tells me his English name is Henry. His Pikani name translates to Little Crow, if I care to call him that. I then begin to wonder what I’ve got myself into. I suddenly realize I’m not all that enthusiastic about the idea of meeting a tribe of Indians, particularly all alone, miles away from the civilized world. I had often seen them in Macleod, but I’d never actually had the opportunity to talk to them. All I know is that Buck had warned me that Indians were a warring kind.
Little Crow leads me to a clearing in the woods, to a very old, ramshackle hut, a soddie that has become overgrown and matted by the summer sun. The hut is now crumbling under the weight of the melting snow. It strikes me that it must have been built and later abandoned by one of the first families to homestead in the North-West Territories, maybe fifteen years before. It is of very old construction, with strips of sod stacked and supported by poplar poles.
I follow Little Crow into the clearing, where a girl who looks to be about my own age sits by a fire, absorbed in quill work, singing quietly to herself. I can hardly believe my eyes at first, she seems so out of place. She’s just so pretty—it’s like stumbling across a rose blooming in a field of mud. She wears a buckskin dress, and her long black hair is gathered at her neck, which is decorated with a brightly beaded neckband. When she sees me standing next to Little Crow, she jumps up, knocking over the quills in her haste.
Little Crow introduces her as his sister, Maddie. For a moment, she stares at me with the same owl-like concern that I’d seen in Little Crow’s eyes. I guess she is wondering if I should be welcomed or turned away. She takes a few steps toward the soddie and speaks in her native tongue. A woman, who I guess to be Little Crow’s mother, appears in the doorway. She cradles an infant with cheeks as pudgy as two custards. A man steps past her out of the hut. He is a most imposing figure in his worn robe of buffalo hide. He says something sharply to Little Crow, who immediately runs to his parents. Not understanding a thing of what is happening, I think of running too—in the other direction.
Little Crow turns to me. “My father wants to know why you are here. I have told him you are not an enemy and that you are also hiding from the government. He wants to know what you have done that they are after you.”
I don’t see any point in explaining my whole wretched history, so I tell Little Crow to tell his parents the same thing I’d told Cyrus Jones. That it was a misunderstanding. That I’m accused of doing something I never did, and I have no authority to prove otherwise.
Little Crow’s parents listen with much attention. I don’t know how much they understand of what I’m saying, but I do believe they recognize my way of speaking as being of a foreign nature to Canada. This seems to interest them. Finally Little Crow’s father nods. That it’s a misunderstanding appears a satisfactory answer to him. I’m relieved. Little Crow’s father motions toward the horse.
“I’ve come to return this horse to its owner.”
Little Crow translates. His father turns, raises an arm and indicates a point farther west. I look past the fire to where the bush opens onto a broad plain. Half a dozen cream-colored tipis, smoke rising above them, sit clustered in the distance. Women work above the orange campfires as small children and dogs mill about the camp. I spot a corral built of brushwood some distance behind the lodges.
“We’ll take her to Willie Many Horses,” Little Crow explains.
With Little Crow at my side, we leave the bush and approach the camp. The women straighten from the fires or look up from the hides they are fleshing. The small children run to clutch their mothers about the legs. Their wide eyes are on me as we walk toward them.
Little Crow leads the sorrel mare. I follow behind, past animal skins staked on the ground and racks of drying meat, toward the brushwood fence. Willie Many Horses is pitching hay from a wagon into the corral. Little Crow speaks to him quickly. He doesn’t immediately react, so I tell him why I have come.
“Mr. Many Horses,” I begin, “I was just passing through and I stumbled on this mare in the bush. She was all tangled up in wagon riggings. Little Crow here says she might belong to you. She’s got a sorry wound across her flank. You’ll want to see to it right away so it doesn’t get any worse. I’d recommend cleaning it with salts and covering it in a clean plaster. Anyway, I’ve come to return her to you. I mean, if she’s yours.”
Willie Many Horses finally stops what he is doing. From where he stands on the haywagon, he looks down on us. He is a most striking individual, leaning on his pitchfork with his Stetson at a bit of a tilt. He wears beads and feathers laced in his long hair, and a number of amulets adorn his chest. His shirt is constructed of buckskin and ornamented with quills and tassels of weasel fur. He looks at the horse, but he still doesn’t answer. Instead, he returns to forking hay.
He isn’t the sort you’d want to badger, so I stand watching him for another minute, only because I don’t know what else to do. I decide I’d better ask someone else.
“What’s your name?” he asks at the moment I’m about to walk away. I’m surprised he speaks English.
“Charlie.”
“Who’s your employer?”
“I don’t have one. Well, not anymore I don’t.”
This finally prompts Willie Many Horses to lay his pitchfork aside. Pinning his Stetson to his head with his fingers so it doesn’t fly off, he jumps from the wagon. He stands before me, looking me over from head to toe. He then looks at the mare. She is nuzzling my hand. “How long have you been on your own?”
“About a week or so.”
I’m not sure why I’m being interrogated. All I want to know is if he owns the horse or not. Either he does or he doesn’t.
“Why did you leave?”
It’s becoming a common question. “It was the result of a misunderstanding. Look, Mr. Many Horses, if this is your animal, I wish you’d take her. Or even if she’s not, I’d appreciate you caring for her because I’m in no position to start asking around in search of her home. The fellow involved in the misunderstanding is going to be scouting around for me. I can’t risk running into him, I’m just about starved and I’d just as soon get on my way.”
I hear my own voice trail off. I hadn’t meant to go on the way I did. I realize I’m not only wretchedly hungry, but I’m awfully tired too. I’ll have to be more careful—start guarding myself against going completely barmy and slipping up.
Willie Many Horses doesn’t ask anything more. Instead, he inspects the sorrel mare. He takes the reins from my hand and leads her into the corral. Willie says something to Little Crow, who takes me by the arm and begins to steer me back to his family’s camp.
When we reach the soddie, Little Crow speaks to his mother, repeating some of what Willie Many Horses has said. She looks up from where she’s preparing a meal by the fire, smiles and motions for me to sit. Maddie passes me a bowl.
They feed me roasted deer meat, prairie turnip and tea to warm me up. Rosemary—that is Little Crow’s mother’s name—bounces the baby on her knee and watches me eat with fascination. After every few bites, she leans forward and pinches my cheek. It’s as if she thinks the food should be going straight to filling up the hollowness. When there appears to be no immediate improvement, she sits back, glances at the pudding-cheeked baby she jostles in her arms, frowns a little and pushes more food toward me until I can’t possibly pack another morsel into myself. By the end of dinner I am surprised my cheeks haven’t swelled right up simply from being pinched.
As we eat, I ask Little Crow why his family is living in the hut hidden in the bush, separate from the rest of the clan.
Maddie answers. And because it is in such a formal manner, I reason she and Little Crow must have learned to speak English from going to school.
“Mother and Father do not want Henry and me to leave the day school and go to the residential school off our reserve. Many children who have attended have become sick and died. They don’t want Henry and me to die too. We left my father’s family in the middle of the night because my parents received word a government official was coming to take Henry and me away.” With a sweep of her arm she takes in the broad plain. “This is my mother’s family. They are hiding us for now.”
It makes sense their parents don’t want them to go to school. Anyone with half a mind could figure that after many deaths it is only reasonable the school should be shut down and not reopened until the disease has run itself out. Even Albert Brooks in his worst state of drunkenness would not have put an infectious animal in with the rest of the herd. “How long have you been hiding here?” “Since November. After our cousins, who were at the school, both took sick and died. It was very cold when we left. We’re waiting for the weather to warm up before we make a more permanent home. And then there’s the baby. He was born when we first arrived, and both he and Mother were very weak for many weeks.”
I look at the baby swinging in his mother’s pouch. If he was as weak as Maddie says he was, Rosemary sure has done a fine job of plumping him up.
“What about you, Charlie? Tell us your story.”
I tell Maddie and her brother how I got to where I am. Little Crow can hardly believe I came to Canada all on my own, or that I have no kin. “Well, somewhere back in London I’ve got a brother and some sisters.”
“But not one in this country?” he asks.
“Not a one,” I say.
“Why’d you stay so long with the Brooks brothers?” Maddie asks me. “It seems to me you’d have been better off on your own.”
She had no idea how often I lay on my straw tick, tossing and turning this very thought around. I tell her about the stories I’d heard of boys running off and ending up dead.
“So what now, Charlie? Where are you off to?”
“I’m told there’s good money to be made working in the mines. I’m headed to the Crow’s Nest Pass.”
We play a game of shinny on the open plain. Little Crow is small and quick, and it’s nearly impossible to stop him once he has control of the ball. By the time the sun is about to set, he’s scored ten goals to our three. On the way back to the clearing, I rip my moccasin on a root. Maddie insists on sewing it up. I sit next to her by the fire, watching her wield the quill needle as easily as she handles a shinny stick. I’d taught myself to sew out of necessity, but I still never failed to stab myself every time I struggled to darn one of Buck’s socks.
When Maddie is done, she smiles and hands me the mended moccasin. It strikes me again how pretty she is, and I also think she is very kind to sew up the moccasin for no other reason than to mend it for me. I have an urge to hug her, but considering I’ve only known her for a few hours, I’m not sure how she’d take it. I’m pretty sure I know how her father would, however, and so I don’t.
I sleep that night in a corner of the hut on the softest, warmest bed of fur and hides. Before I leave, Rosemary loads me up with food that will keep: bannock and pemmican and dried saskatoons.
Little Crow and his father ask me to make a trip with them back to the corral. Willie Many Horses is already there, where he seems to be waiting for me. “I have a horse to give you, Charlie,” he says as I approach. “You will travel faster with a horse.”
I am so surprised I can’t think of what to say. I stand between Little Crow and Willie Many Horses, leaning on the top rail of the fence. Willie points out a half-dozen horses in the corral. “Any of those would be suitable for you.”
He owns at least forty: five palominos, a number of Arabians, seven handsome Appaloosas and some fine saddle horses. He even owns a couple of thoroughbreds. I am to pick the one I most fancy. I’m not sure why he is giving me a horse, but it’s mighty kind of him. When I ask, he tells me it’s a trade.
“But I have nothing to trade for it,” I tell him.
“You brought me the injured mare.”
I’m sure not used to getting the better part of any bargain—in this case, a horse for simply returning what Willie already owns. And if he doesn’t own her, he seems to know who does, so I don’t question or argue. Instead, I choose a quarter horse. A chestnut gelding.
“That one—he is a good one,” he assures me. “You won’t be disappointed with him. He’s a calm, gentle horse, confident on the trail. You’ll be glad of that when you’re traveling through the Rocky Mountains. About twelve years old I’d guess him to be.”
“You sure do own some fine animals.”
“I have an eye for horseflesh,” he says. “I have to. I have selective buyers. Now, I’ve got a bridle and a saddle here that’s yours too.”
It’s early afternoon by the time I say goodbye to Little Crow and his family. I have a difficult time saying goodbye to Maddie. She’s just stirred me up so I feel good inside. I thank Willie Many Horses for his generous gift.
It has warmed up considerably by the time I start out, and there is no call for me to wear my mackinaw. I tuck it between me and the saddle. The food I stow in what Willie called a parfleche—he’d hung the buckskin pouch from the saddle horn. He’d also given me instructions on how to get to Mabel Millard’s stopping house by following buffalo trails so that I could avoid the more well-used trails.
West Coast Cody—I call my horse that because that’s where we’re headed—is as easy a ride as Willie said he would be. He is surefooted, responsive and willing, and although he is only a horse, being on the run is now not nearly so lonesome.
The snow on the trail is melting quickly, but since Cody and I are the only traffic, it’s still in a passable state and there is little risk of getting stuck. We’ve been going along about an hour when something gets Cody jittery. He nickers and pulls back. At my coaxing, he continues along the trail, but he doesn’t like where we’re heading.
“Cody, what’s got into you, boy?”
I put it down to something he’s caught a whiff of in the air.