Twelve
For the first four days, unable to walk, Art crawled. He stayed by the river so he could be close to a source of water. It was already September, he calculated, and winter would come sooner than any man liked in this high country. Just as Bodie had told him so many years ago. He crawled, not knowing where he was going. He had to keep moving, somehow to get back to the fort or to find some other human being—anyone.
He had heard some of the remarkable survival stories of other men who had been lost in the wilderness with no weapon, no food, no one else. He had been a man of the mountains himself for a dozen years, through every season, every condition of nature. He was determined that he too would survive.
He ate berries and nuts that he found close to the water’s edge, and he crawled on, sleeping at night, moving during the daylight hours. Luckily, he still had his clothes and his knife. And Dog. So he felt he wasn’t totally alone.
His fever lingered for several days, but slowly receded, lessening with each slow, agonizing mile and each troubled night of sleep. The nights were getting cold.
One day he rested on a flat, open table away from the river, during the afternoon, with the sun warming his face. He dozed off for a few minutes, then awoke with a start. He noticed that Dog was silent, staring at something. Looking about five yards ahead, in the direction that he was moving, Art saw a rattlesnake coiled, sunning itself. He could have sworn the snake was looking at him too.
When he moved slightly to sit up, the snake’s tail rose and rattled. It was on the alert and preparing to strike. Art moved his hand imperceptibly, feeling the dry grass, groping for something he could use as a weapon. He found a rock about the size of his own fist.
The rock felt hot from sitting in the sun. Art’s hand closed around it. The snake rattled, raised and lowered its head. Art gripped the rock.
He tried to measure the distance and figure out how much time he would have when the snake moved to strike. Best to try when the snake was still coiled, which made a better target.
Holding his breath, he squeezed the rock and in a quick blur of motion flung it at the rattlesnake. He hit it, and the rock smashed the snake’s head into the earth. Art forced himself halfway upright and half-crawled, half-walked over to the snake. It was still moving. He took his knife and quickly sliced the reptile’s head off, then cut the body in half
He was so starved that he started chewing on the snake, biting off a piece, chewing the innards and spitting out the skin. Then he bit off another piece and ate it. He didn’t even think of the foul taste and the idea of eating a raw, bloody snake. He was so hungry he would have eaten anything that wouldn’t poison him.
From that point he could walk, though slowly and with great pain. He cut a tall stick to use as a sort of crutch. He continued, day after day, to keep to the river, and he found edible roots that he could dig with the knife and stones. The water of the river brought new life into him, and even though he was incredibly sore from his injuries, he bathed in its cold current and washed away blood and ache and trail dirt. He lay out naked in the sun to dry and drink in the healing warmth and rays of the sun.
Dog stuck with him each painful step of the way. Day in and day out, the faithful beast was there. Dog was able to capture a stray rabbit or squirrel for himself, and sometimes ate the food that Art dug from the earth.
Art tried to keep track of the days, repeating the count to himself each morning and night: six days, ten days, fifteen days.... He headed toward the east and south as the great river wound its way through the badlands.
“Well, Dog,” he said aloud one day, “where do you think we are? Any hope we’ll find the fort or any human being soon?”
The animal looked up at the young mountain man, cocking its head and growling with impatience.
“All right, boy, if that’s the way you feel about it. I was just asking a question. Don’t bite my head off, now.”
Art laughed. He couldn’t remember the last time he had laughed. He lifted his head and felt the sun strike his face full on, and he breathed in the high plains air and swung his arms around. He realized that he wasn’t in constant pain anymore. Oh, sure, there were pains and aches and bones still mending, and he depended a lot on his walking stick-crutch. But for a few minutes he felt better, felt that he might survive after all.
He thought about his men. Wondered where they were and what they were doing. McDill, no doubt, had taken over the leadership of the party—which he had felt was his all along. He vaguely remembered when McDill had returned to the camp to check on him. He felt then that he was going to die, but Dog had warned the man off, probably saved Art’s life. McDill had taken Art’s horse and rifle and canteen. He had left him there to die.
Art wasn’t angry at McDill, but he knew that he would probably have to kill him when they next met—if they ever met.
Three weeks into his arduous trek, the mountain man awoke one morning to the sound of something moving on the earth. He felt it first, then heard it: far away but getting closer. What the hell? Then he knew—it was a herd of buffalo moving across the land, probably approaching the river to ford.
The herd must be late in leaving the high plains for the lusher, taller grasses south of the Upper Missouri and the warmer hills and valleys of the lower country. Art looked around for Dog, didn’t see him. The wolf-dog had heard the same thing he had and gone in search of the herd.
It took him two hours to walk about a mile through a densely treed area above the river and into an open hilly stretch. Clouds streamed across the sky, sometimes blotting out the sun and taking away the shadows from the land. He climbed a low hill, and when he got to the top he could see for several miles, and there, like a sea, was the wandering herd of buffalo.
He saw Dog, who stood like the wolf he was, salivating at the sight of enough meat for a thousand lifetimes.
If only he had his favorite Hawken, he could take down one of the huge beasts and have real food for the first time in weeks, and a buffalo-skin blanket for the increasingly cold nights! His body was still mending, and he could walk better and better each day, but he certainly couldn’t run—yet. So there was no way he could hunt on foot.
The vast herd was moving south, rumbling over the brown-green grass of the low rolling hills. He couldn’t even imagine how many there were. He followed Dog, who trotted closer to the moving mass of brown and black animals.
Dog’s hunting instincts took over. Art watched with fascination as the wolf-dog got closer and closer to the western edge of the herd and watched, inspected the passing animals for potential targets. Dog would pause, run alongside the herd for about a hundred yards, circle back and look, then run again. The larger animals ignored the comparatively small beast who yipped and howled at them.
In the middle distance, about a half mile away, Art could see a pack of wolves out in the open, circling, trying to identify a likely victim, just as Dog was. Then Dog saw them too, some of his own kind.
He ran in their direction, barking and howling. The pack ignored the newcomer, sticking together tightly. Dog retreated, ran back toward Art, even wagged his tail, which was unusual for the mongrel.
“All right, boy,” Art said. “We’ll stay clear of them and they’ll stay out of our way.” He began hiking to the north, the direction from where the herd was coming. He kept the same wide distance between the wolf pack and himself, not wanting them to sniff him out as a potential meal himself.
Dog went about his business, plunging back into the fringes of the advancing herd of bison. It didn’t take him long to cut out a youngster and turn him around and separate him from the rest of the herd. The calf was confused, scared, and it started to run away from Dog, to the west. Art moved after it. He knew Dog could take the calf down, but he didn’t want to lose it to the wolf pack, who hadn’t yet culled a calf or an injured adult for themselves.
The calf ran in crazy circles, and Dog pushed it farther away from the herd, over a low hill into a narrow ravine. Soon it could not see the herd at all, and bellowed like a wounded pig. Dog closed in. Art watched the whole thing happen. He drew his knife as he walked closer to the buffalo.
Even though it was a calf, the animal must have weighed more than four or five hundred pounds. It was unsteady on its legs in unfamiliar territory. It was scared of Dog and frightened to be apart from its family for the first time ever. It would be the last time too.
Dog attacked, leaping at the hapless calf’s legs. It tripped and fell, breaking a spindly leg. It bleated in pain. Dog attacked again, this time going for the animal’s throat. He tore into it viciously, immediately drawing blood. The buffalo calf tried to fight off the wolf-dog, but the harder it fought the worse it got—Dog held onto his prey, digging his teeth deeper into the poor calf’s flesh.
Art hobbled closer, approaching with his knife drawn. He waited for his chance as the two animals struggled, then fell onto the calf and plunged the knife into its heart. He rolled off the big body as blood leaked out, soaking the earth.
Art heard the wolves approach from behind him. He swung around, holding his walking stick and knife. “Yah, yah, yah!” he challenged. Dog turned too and growled, his mouth dripping with blood and saliva.
The wolves—there were seven or eight of them—looked at these two creatures protecting their kill. Certainly they outnumbered the man and his dog, and might be able to fight them, but something about the threatening noises and movements of the two made them pause and back away. Then the pack leader turned and trotted off toward the buffalo herd, and the others followed.
“That’s the way to do it, Dog,” Art said.
Dog growled in agreement, then turned back to the kill. The young buffalo lay there like a small mountain, and Art set to work immediately dressing out the carcass as best he could by himself with a single knife. Dog patrolled the immediate area to make sure that none of the wolves came back to try again to claim the kill.
He wasn’t finished by nightfall, so he and Dog slept right there at the site. The next morning he rigged a very primitive travois to carry away some meat and skin to a camp by the river. There he made a fire for the first time in weeks and cooked some of the meat for himself. Dog ate his supper raw, burped, and lay down for a nap.
Art ate his fill, then scraped the hide and washed it in the river and set it out, pegging it to the ground to dry. He felt better than he had since his encounter with the grizzly, finally healing and regaining some strength.
For the next few days he traveled with the travois, dragging it behind him, eating the meat each night for supper. He worked on the buffalo skin to soften it in order to make a blanket. The nights were fast getting colder, and he did not know how far he was from any human contact or civilization.
As the days passed, he resolved that he was going to catch up to his men—one way or another—to reclaim leadership of the expedition. He would have quite a story to tell Mr. Ashley—and Jennie—when they all returned to St. Louis.
* * *
The Blackfoot village had mourned their dead from the ill-fated attack led by Wak Tha Go against Art’s exploratory party. Now, nearly two moons later, the people were restless for revenge. They had lost sons and brothers, and they had trusted the hotheaded war chief to bring them victory and count many coups against the white invaders. It had not happened.
Those who had returned alive had advocated another attack on the whites, with more men from the village. They were bitterly angry that Artoor had slain their leader, Wak Tha Go. They knew he had done it because he had left his hat pinned to the great warrior’s chest in a gesture of defiance, like counting coup on the dead man. But he had not scalped the war chief, which surprised them.
They had also lost their great elder, Running Elk, who had died before the war party went out to fight the trappers led by Artoor.
The men sat around the council fire and smoked, talking about their village’s misfortune and what could be done about it.
“We must bring war to the whites again,” said Brown Owl, one of the younger men who had ridden with Wak Tha Go. He had lost a brother in the battle.
An elder named Buffalo Standing in the River, who was a respected nephew of Running Elk, said, “We cannot afford to lose any more of our young men. It is not our task alone, but for all red brothers to take up their war clubs against Artoor’s men.”
“But he has made peace with some of the others, like the Arikira,” Brown Owl reminded the council.
“White man’s peace.” Buffalo Standing spat onto the earth in front of himself. “The word of such men is worthless. They know only war and destruction.”
“It is true, Grandfather,” another of the younger men said. “This is why our people will not make peace. But we must not sit here and moan like women. We must make another war party and seek out these white killes.”
Others murmured agreement, and some spoke in favor of forming another war party. Brown Owl, though he was young, had earned the respect of the other men of his village. He joined the debate, speaking with confidence.
“I saw Artoor and the others with my own eyes. I shot arrows at them and I believe I wounded one of them. Even though we lost one battle, we must fight another. Then another after that, if necessary.”
“Young men fight. Old men talk,” Buffalo Standing said, nodding in agreement with what Brown Owl said, puffing on the long-stemmed pipe.
“Then let us prepare to fight,” Brown Owl declared. He counted about ten warriors among the men around the council fire. “We will hold a war council tomorrow and make our plans.”
“It is good,” another of the elders said.
The men of the council whooped and cheered at Brown Owl’s words. They looked at this very young man with new eyes, with new respect. He would make a good war chief for their people.
But Brown Owl was frustrated after the council ended, and instead of going to his own lodge and the arms of his wife, he walked alone outside the village. He climbed the tall, one-hundred-foot bluff above the Yellowstone River from where he could look down on the village of his birth. It was past sundown and the moon, a shimmering crescent, had risen in the blue-black sky.
The land stretched out beneath him, the vast country that lay between the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers, where his people had lived and hunted for generations. And they had fought wars there too, against many enemies, to defend what was to them sacred ground.
The young warrior thought back on the events of the past two months, beginning with a similar council discussion when Wak Tha Go urged them to go to war against Artoor. Then the death of Running Elk, who took with him some of the soul of his people and left an emptiness in the village with his passing. Then the war party itself, the attack on the island where the trappers fought back against Wak Tha Go’s men, Brown Owl among them.
Wak Tha Go had been stunned, unhappy at the turn of events, and must have thought that the Great Spirit had abandoned him. In fact, Wak Tha Go himself did not survive that night. He had been killed and humiliated that very night. It was tragic that the war chief had not died in battle, but in his sleep. Stories would be told for many generations in the future of the defeat of Wak Tha Go.
Perhaps it was time for a new war chief to lead the people’s best fighters against the whites....
As he was thinking these thoughts, Brown Owl felt the presence of another, which was surprising because no one had walked with him to this place—nor had he seen anyone following him. He could see everything from this vantage point. He turned and saw, in the white-silver moonlight, an old man.
He had not heard the man approach, and wondered how he could have climbed the hill. He also wondered who this man was, for it was not a man of his village. Or was it?
The old man sat cross-legged on the ground, wearing a red shirt, trimmed in yellow. This was a ceremonial shirt, not the kind of clothing a man wore ordinarily. Also, the man’s knife, bow and quiver of arrows, war club, and pipe all lay on the earth beside him.
“Who are you? How did you get here?” Brown Owl asked.
The old man said nothing.
“You are not of my village. Where did you come from?”
Again no answer.
“Why do you say nothing? Why do you follow me?”
The old man remained silent, but more than silent, eerily still, as if dead. But he wasn’t dead, or else how could he have gotten here?
“Speak to me, Grandfather,” the younger man insisted.
The elder man’s eyes were wide open and staring, black discs that were the opposite of the bright moon.
“And why are you wearing such good clothes and carrying your weapons and your pipe?” Brown Owl asked.
“I was dressed this way by the women,” the old man said finally, breaking his silence. “The women of the village.”
“What village?”
The strange old man turned and pointed over the side of the tall bluff toward Brown Owl’s own village.
“How can this be?”
“What is past cannot be changed. What is future can be chosen, until there is no more future. Until death.”
Brown Owl was confused and scared, and angry that this man should disturb his prayers with his nonsense. It was the way of old people, sometimes. Their minds wandered to many places and they did not make sense. He would have to help this man climb back down the side of the rise. But who was he?
“You speak of the future and of death.”
“What else is there to speak of?”
“I have seen death.”
“So have I, Brown Owl.”
“You know my name.”
“I know many names.”
“Do you know the name of Wak Tha Go?”
“Yes, it is right you should ask about this man. I spoke to him before he led you into battle against the man named Artoor.”
“He did not tell me of this conversation.”
“He kept many things in his heart. He chose the way of war, the way of revenge against one man—a white man.”
“Artoor killed him,” Brown Owl said.
“I told him that Artoor would not be killed.”
“How could you know this?”
“I know many things. I know things that are true. This I tell you: The one called Artoor will one day come to our village.”
“How can this be? And why do you say ‘our’ village?”
The old man remained sitting, but his voice became stronger and more animated as he spoke. “I was born in this village and ended my life in this place. The women of the village took care of me. I married a girl of the village.”
“But who are you then?”
“You know my name well, but I cannot speak it, for it is no longer my name,” the man said mysteriously.
Brown Owl might have seen something of battle, but he was still young and naive, and he could not figure out what the old man was trying to tell him.
“Speak to me, Grandfather, of what you said to Wak Tha Go.”
“Yes, it is good that I should tell you. Know this—Ar—toor will not be killed. The people may capture him, but he will gain his freedom through his tongue, which will speak without ceasing from sun to sun.”
“This sounds crazy. Why can we not kill Artoor?”
“Because he is a great man, and the Spirit who creates all men does not want Artoor to die. He has another name for Artoor.”
“What is this name?”
“It is a name that white men and Indians alike will call him. It is the name Preacher.”
“That is very strange,” Brown Owl said.
“Not as strange as other things that will happen to the people. You are young and will live long to see many things change, many things pass from the earth. You will speak to Artoor with your own tongue and listen to him with your own ears.”
“I intend to kill Artoor, to avenge what he has done to my people.”
“This white man seeks the way of peace. But his people and our people will not know peace.”
“What are these riddles that you speak, Grandfather? I do not understand.”
“You will seek the white trapper, Artoor, and you will find him. Then you will know why I speak of these things.”
Brown Owl turned to gaze down upon the sleeping village below. Many fires had burned out, and there was darkness in all but a very few tepees. It was time for the people to rest. Suddenly he felt tired, ready to go to his wife and sleep in his own bedroll.
“Grandfather, I—” He turned to speak to the old man again, but he was gone. There was no one sitting there, no war club or arrows or pipe. Where had he gone?
The young warrior ran down the side of the hill and ran toward his lodge. When he hurried past the tepee that had been Running Elk’s, he realized who the old man was. A chill of fear and elation ran up his spine. He would tell no one of this vision that he had received.
* * *
It rained, hard and cold, for three days straight. Art sought shelter in a stand of trees near a sheltering bluff. He used the young buffalo skin as a makeshift tent to stay at least partially dry.
He had no more meat from the kill, but continued to subsist on roots and small game that Dog shared with him. It was a way to survive, but he didn’t know how much longer he could exist in this way.
It was good to stay in one place for a few days. His arm and ribs had nearly healed. His beard was long and scraggly from lack of a razor, and his hair was long enough to have to pull back and tie with a thong made from the buffalo hide. He kept his knife sharpened and clean, free of rust or any blemish.
On the first day after the rain had stopped, about six weeks after his ugly confrontation with the grizzly, Art awoke to Dog’s growling, snarling alarm. He got to his feet as quickly as he could, pulled down the buffalo skin lean-to, and erased traces of his campsite as best he could. Then he hid among the trees and waited.
Within a few minutes he saw a group of Indians approaching, armed and on horseback.
He counted ten, and he was sure they were Blackfeet. Although he couldn’t be sure, he thought that some of them had been in the war party that had attacked his men on the island in the river.
Dog was nowhere in sight. He had run off to scout the oncoming party, and he was probably behind them by now, sniffing them out and trying to determine their intention. Art knew from looking at them what their intention was: to find and kill any white man, himself included. Especially him.
He held in his breathing in order to keep perfectly still, but there was little chance that the Indians would not spot his camp, if they were a serious search-and-fight party, as he suspected.
The leader was a young man, of average height but broad in the shoulders, bare-chested, the customary eagle feather in his scalp lock. He signaled for two of his men to scout the immediate area. He must have sensed the presence of someone by the way he looked around, his own nostrils flaring, his eyes sharp and penetrating.
The young war chief spoke in quiet tones to his men. Two more split off and rode to the rear, another two forward to the bank of the river. Now it was clear. They weren’t going anywhere until they found what they were looking for—Art.
He had to decide what to do—hunker down in hiding or show himself and face the consequences. He hated the idea of them flushing him out like a timid rabbit, so he decided to come out and face them like a man.
He knew a smattering of several Indian languages, including Blackfoot, so he called out. “I am here,” he said in their tongue. “I am here. I come out.”
The Indians, especially the leader, stopped and looked.
From the thicket of trees and underbrush, Art walked forward, carrying the folded-up buffalo-calf skin. He kept his gaze locked on the leader of the party, who sat his horse proudly. He was sure this had been one of the attackers of the trappers’ party.
“I am here,” Art repeated. He stood in the clearing and threw the buffalo skin down on the ground.
“Yes, you are here,” Brown Owl said. He called out to the others, the scouts who had split off from the main party. He stared at the mountain man, who looked haggard and worn with the scraggly beard and long, unkempt hair. Something had happened to this man, he realized.
Then he said, “You are Artoor.”
Art nodded. “Yes, I am Art.”
In his own language, the Indian said, “I am Brown Owl of the people you call Blackfoot. You are our prisoner now.”
Art understood some of what the man said, figured he had given his own name as Brown Owl and confirmed that he was a Blackfoot. Then he tried something, using sign language as well as speech. He said, “You and I have met before—in battle.”
“Yes, I was with Wak Tha Go when we fought you. You killed Wak Tha Go.”
So that was the name of the war chief whom he had killed. There would be no peace until these men had avenged their leader, and Art’s chances of surviving that were nonexistent. He knew that. He wondered where Dog had gone, but figured that the animal was watching from a safe spot. No reason to show himself and get killed. Dog was one smart wolf-dog.
Speaking quickly, Brown Owl ordered one of his men to tie Art’s hands behind his back.
“You will be our prisoner. We are not far from my village, and we will take you there to face the judgment of my people for what you have done.”
Art was pretty sure he understood what the man was saying. He said, “I have done nothing. I want peace with your people.”
“Yes, you talk of peace. You even make peace with some of the Indian tribes. But one day you will break the peace. It is the way of the white man who speaks like a god-spirit, then acts like a devil.”
The mountain man knew he could not argue with the Indian, and he knew that the man was right in some respects. He thought of McDill and others like him who only wanted to give the Indians drink and addle their minds and kill them off. Art, on the other hand, truly believed that they could live together in the mountain country, that trappers could coexist with hunters and Indians of all tribes.
But too many promises and treaties had been broken over the years for Indians such as Brown Owl to believe a white man.
After a while, they began the ride back to their village. Art was neck-tethered to one of the horses, and had to trot to keep up with the pace. After only a mile or so he was exhausted, ready to drop. His injuries began to ache again, and he grew incredibly thirsty. Once in a while the leader would look back at him to see if he was keeping up with the war party. At one point Art stumbled and nearly fell. The leader, Brown Owl, ordered them to slow down slightly. He could tell that Art had been injured somehow, and felt some pity for the white man.
They were only a few miles from the village, so they made it there by about noon.
A couple of scouts had ridden ahead to alert the people that a prisoner was coming. So, the entire village turned out to see Art, the famous “Artoor” they had heard so much about. They jeered at him and threw stones. Dogs in the village barked at him and bit him in the legs.
He could barely breathe, and he was dizzy from thirst and hunger. He was nearly crippled from the run, and wondered whether he had re-broken any bones. His ribs burned with pain. As he ran along the dusty path through the middle of the village, he gagged and nearly retched his guts out.
Finally, the party stopped in the center of the village, near the place where the council fire was held. Brown Owl dismounted and came around to Art, took the tether from the rider, and did not remove it from the white man’s neck. Art’s hands were still tied securely behind his back.
“Artoor, you will not be ill treated before you are judged by the council of the people. Come, you will go to my lodge and my wife will feed you. You will rest before tonight when the council fire is lit.”
Art said nothing, but followed Brown Owl to his tepee. There a woman, the war chief’s wife, fed him a stew and gave him water. He had never tasted anything so good in his entire life, though he didn’t even know what it was—and didn’t want to know for fear it might be dog meat.
He tried to say thank you to Brown Owl and his wife, but they ignored him. She had prepared a resting place for him and, after he had drunk some more water, Art collapsed onto the skins and fell asleep immediately.
Brown Owl tied the neck-tether to a lodge pole. He said to his wife, “This is the man who killed Wak Tha Go. Now he will meet the judgment of the people and lose his own life.”
“It is good, my husband,” the woman said. “I am proud of you for having captured this man.”
Brown Owl wanted to tell her about the dream-vision of Running Elk, how he had seen and spoken to the dead man the night before. But he held his tongue. She would not understand, or perhaps she would not believe him. It was something a man should keep in his own heart and not share with a woman.
Instead, he said, “Today I have become a war chief of my people. I have led the warriors and we have captured a prisoner. This day will be remembered for a long time to come.”
“Yes, and I will always remember how my husband was a big man. I will take him to my bed tonight and show him that he is very important and loved by his people.”
Brown Owl looked forward to this night, of all nights, with great anticipation.