I BELIEVE DANE WAS secretly pleased that I missed my train. He told me there would be an eastbound passenger express sometime later in the night, but that train never stopped at Dundee. To calm my distress, he took me into a tiny room off the kitchen, his granddaughter Amayi’s room, and showed me a comfortable couch that she used when visiting overnight. He made it quite clear that I would be a welcome guest while awaiting the passage of another twenty-four hours, and so I became secretly pleased that I had missed the train. Before we went to bed he told me of the magic and wonder of the American West when he first came to it as a journeying Indian from the East.
“I soon found out that Mr. Samuel Lykins meant it when he said he was going to disguise me as a Mexican. On the day before his wagon train left Independence, he took me to his storehouse and gave me a pair of ridiculous pantaloons. The outer seams of the legs were split open and lined with buttons for fastening. With these I was to wear a fancy-colored shirt and vest, a tall peaked straw hat covered with oilcloth, and a serape. Eventually I grew fond of the serape, a Mexican blanket with a hole for putting one’s head through. It was made of wool so well woven and twisted that it shed water, and I have worn serapes ever since.
“Dressed in what then seemed to me an outlandish costume, I was ashamed to show myself to the other drivers until I noticed that four or five of them wore similar clothing. As a disguise for me, however, it was a failure. The real Mexicans quickly discovered that I knew no Spanish, and as soon as the white drivers heard me speak, they became suspicious. But by this time they had all accepted me as a fellow driver, and none of them gave me any trouble. Perhaps Mr. Lykins knew it would work out that way.
“Twenty wagons made up the train, most of them being considerably larger than the two that Jotham and I had sold to Mr. Lykins. Unlike some of the other Santa Fe traders, Lykins used no oxen, believing that mules were faster and more dependable, and as I was to find out, mules sold for a much greater profit than did oxen in Santa Fe. The wagon that I drove carried supplies for the journey—about fifty pounds of flour, fifty pounds of bacon, ten pounds of coffee, and twenty pounds of sugar for each man, as well as a few bags of grain for the mules. Each of us was also provided with a frying pan, kettle, coffeepot, tin cup, and butcher knife. We were supposed to do our own cooking at the night camps, and we gradually formed partnerships of two to four men, taking turns at preparing supper and breakfast. What fresh meat we had was furnished by Mr. Lykins, who rode about a mile ahead of the train, but never was out of sight of it. Every day or so he would bring in choice cuts of antelope or buffalo that he killed. In the supply wagon was a barrel of onions that we used to flavor the meat.
“After nine or ten days of traveling, we left woods and hills behind us and entered the treeless plains. Having spent all my life surrounded by forests and mountains, this was a strange experience for me. At first the grass was tall and green, always waving in the constant wind, the land rolling as I have been told the waves of the salt ocean roll. After a few more days, the grass became much shorter and finer, a sort of grayish green. Mr. Lykins called it buffalo grass, and the herds of that remarkable animal that we now saw on either side of us often darkened the horizon. Sometimes far off we sighted Indians hunting on horseback. One of the drivers said they were wild Cheyennes and Arapahos, and I wished them to come nearer the train so that I might see these distant kinsmen of mine, but they never approached us.
“Soon the land became perfectly level, not even a hillock, so that the wagons seemed to grow larger and larger against the flatness. Because of the long hard days, I slept every night without dreaming, but my waking hours became dreamlike. Nothing seemed real to me, the immensity of the sky, the encircling treeless earth that seemed to be spinning around us. It was magical, and I wondered if all life was not a dream, dreamed by some Great Spirit who had formed us and the limitless land we moved across.
“From the talk of my companions I learned that we were taking the long trail to Santa Fe, by Bent’s Fort, a route that was a hundred miles longer than by the Cimarron Trail. Mr. Lykins was to deliver a shipment of goods to the fort, which I soon discovered was the main trading place for tribes of the Southern Plains. I made no count of the days, but I think we must have traveled for about two moons before the fort came in view. Even at a distance, the place looked solid, unconquerable, its adobe walls six feet thick and three times as high as a tall man. Rising above the walls at opposite corners were two rounded towers called bastions.
“But not until many moons later was I to see the inside of Bent’s Fort. When our wagons approached to within about half a mile of the walls, a white man waiting beside the trail in front of a buffalo-skin tipi stopped Mr. Lykins and informed him of an outbreak of smallpox in the fort. The white man was William Bent himself, and he had brought his Cheyenne wife and young children outside the walls in hopes of escaping the disease raging inside his fort.
“Following Mr. Lykins’s directions, the drivers of the wagons containing the goods for Mr. Bent cut them out of the train while the rest of us formed our wagons into a circle nearby the trail. By the time we got our teams unharnessed, watered at the river, and fed with a little grain, it was dark. The drivers had been looking forward to a night or two of festivities inside the fort, and they tried to make up for the disappointment by playing cards by candlelight most of the night. Next morning when I awoke, I noticed three wagons about a hundred paces east of our circle. They had not been there when I went to sleep.
“Except for tending my mules, I had no duties that day. After Mr. Lykins oversaw the unloading of his Bent’s Fort wagons into a corral shed outside the fort, he rode off with William Bent, leaving the train in charge of one of the older drivers, a tall red-haired Kentuckian named George Gant. While we were drinking coffee, Gant remarked that Mr. Lykins had gone out to a nearby Arapaho camp, hoping to arrange a trade for buffalo hides so that he could fill the wagons emptied at the fort. ‘The goin’ price for buffaler hides here is three dollars,’ Gant said. ‘In Santa Fe they’ll bring six or more. And by tradin’ gunpowder and sugar and tobacco instead of coin, there’s still more profit to be made.’
“That afternoon, while I was lying in the shade under my wagon, I saw a streamer of dust far out on the plain. After a few minutes I knew they were mounted Indians, six of them, each with a led pony loaded down with what at first sight I thought to be deerskins. They were buffalo hides of course, and the Indians were heading straight for the three wagons that had arrived during the night.
“Being most curious, as I have said, to see my wild kinsmen close up, I wasted no time walking over to the other wagons, arriving only a minute or so after the Cheyennes—for that was their tribe. Instead of seeing a band of fierce-faced savages, as I had been led to believe, I saw six young men of about my age, laughing and chattering gaily in a tongue that I then did not understand. Some wore long red breechcloths, others buckskin trousers; some wore bright-colored cloth trade shirts, others nothing more than rawhide bands around their chests. They looked much healthier, more muscular and vigorous than my own half-starved people back in Indian Territory. Their skins were also darker because so much of their lives was spent under the sun.
“Their leader appeared to be no more than a year or so older than I. He was the first to dismount, dropping easily off his spotted pony and approaching the nearest of the wagons, his handsome face thrown back, showing large white teeth in a wide smile. He wore two feathers in his curly unplaited hair and a shiny silver band around one arm. He pointed to the fort and then pecked at his face with the tip of a finger. The white man at the wagon said: ‘Smallpox, yes. Fort closed. Trade here.’
“ ‘Ese-von,’ the young Cheyenne said, making rapid signs toward the ponies loaded with buffalo hides. ‘Na-ox-to-va.’ Although I did not know it then, he had told the white man he wanted to trade buffalo skins for goods. For the first time I took a good look at the white trader, and I did not like what I saw. He was a giant in size, big-chested, big-paunched, scraggly-bearded, and balding with tufts of pinkish hair growing out above his ears. His eyes squinted to tiny points of light, greedy like the eyes of a thieving carrion animal. He had already slung a steelyard on a pole, and with his huge fat hands motioned the Cheyennes to bring up their buffalo skins.
“First he would count out ten skins for one of his drivers to load in a wagon, and then he would make a great pretense of weighing on the steelyard whatever goods were wanted in trade. I soon saw that he was giving the Cheyennes about a dollar value for skins worth three dollars and then cheating them on the weights of the sugar and flour and other trade goods. I remembered Grandmother Mary’s bitter anger over the way her people had been tricked by traders for deerskins, and right in front of my eyes the same thing was happening to the Cheyennes for their buffalo skins. Well, I could not stand there and watch the young men being swindled without doing something about it. But what was I to do, not knowing a word of their language?
“I simply walked over to the young Cheyenne, pointed to the cheating trader, and held up one finger. Then I pointed across the way to our wagon circle and held up three fingers. He did not understand at first. His constant smile turned to a frown. He pointed his finger at me. ‘Mex-i-can?’ he asked. I shook my head. ‘Tsalagi, Cherokee,’ I said. ‘Ya!’ he cried, turning to his companions. ‘Sanaki.’ That’s the Cheyenne word for Cherokee, I learned later. I was making progress, so I held up one finger again, pointing to the big trader, whose mean little eyes were now fixed on me. ‘No-ka,’ the Cheyenne said, holding up one of his fingers. Again I indicated our wagons and held up three fingers, motioning to the buffalo skins that had not yet been traded. ‘Na-a,’ he said, showing three fingers. He nodded. Now he understood, and his smile quickly returned. He spoke rapidly to his companions as he mounted his spotted pony.
“The big trader roared at me: ‘You son of a bitch Mex, or whatever you are! You can’t steal away my buffalo skins!’
“ ‘You’ve been doing the stealing,’ I said, and I think my unexpected use of clear English unsettled him for a moment. Anyway the young Cheyenne on the spotted horse reached a hand down for me. I leaped up behind him and we filed off toward Mr. Lykins’s wagons, all the Cheyennes turning to laugh at the big trader, who was shaking his fist and threatening me with a violent death.
“What I had failed to take into account was that George Gant had no authority to trade. He also told me that I had made a dangerous enemy. ‘That’s Flattery Jack Belcourt over there, one of the meanest bastards in the Santa Fe trade,’ he said. ‘A scoundrel and a horse thief. As soon shoot you in the back as spit. He won’t rest easy till he evens the score with you, amigo.’
“Gant looked at the buffalo hides and said they were of good quality, but we would have to wait for Mr. Lykins to return. This was a great embarrassment to me. I had some difficulty in explaining the situation to the Cheyennes, but I think they finally understood. Gant made some coffee for them, sweetening it thickly with sugar, and while we waited I had an opportunity to get better acquainted with the Cheyennes. The young leader told me that his name was E-o-ve-a-no, repeating it several times and then surprising me by saying it in English: Yellow Hawk. Then I repeated my name for him until he could say it quite plainly. He knew very few English words, however, and we were still struggling to understand each other when Mr. Lykins and William Bent returned.
“Bent knew the young Cheyennes, and when he found out that I had stopped them from being cheated by Flattery Jack, he came over and thanked me. He also warned me to be careful. ‘A malicious man, that Flattery Jack,’ he said. ‘I don’t allow him to trade in my fort.’
“Mr. Lykins traded for the remaining buffalo hides, giving Yellow Hawk and his friends four or five times more goods than they would have got from Belcourt. When they rode off with their led ponies loaded with bags, Yellow Hawk turned in my direction, coming so close that he was able to lean down and give me a stinging slap on the back. ‘Damn plenty rascal,’ he said, pointing toward Belcourt’s wagons. He turned then, raised his hand in farewell, and cried out: ‘Dane!’
“ ‘E-o-ve-a-no!’ I yelled back at him.
“Well, the next morning we spent overhauling the wagons, tightening braces, setting the iron tires, greasing axles, whatever needed to be done. That afternoon the Arapahos came in with their buffalo skins, and after the trading was finished, Mr. Lykins informed us that we would be starting for Santa Fe at daylight.
“When we moved out, my wagon was about midway of the train, and at our first road halt, the drivers in the rear passed up the word that Flattery Jack Belcourt’s wagons were following behind us. Mr. Lykins, being out ahead on his horse, did not learn of this until our nooning stop, and I could see then that he was more than annoyed at having the rascally trader close on our rear.
“That night when we formed our circle for camp, he cautioned all of us to sleep with one eye open in case Belcourt and his hirelings tried to steal some of our merchandise. At most night stops, however, Belcourt camped his three wagons some distance from us, and it was George Gant’s opinion that Flattery Jack was keeping close to our train because he was afraid of Apaches. ‘Soon’s we get through the Ratons,’ Gant said, ‘we’ll be in Apache country, and Apaches ain’t afraid to take on as few as three wagons. Old Flattery Jack wants our protection.’
“I’d never heard of the Apaches, but I was as curious about them as I had been about Cheyennes and Arapahos. When I asked Gant what Apaches were like, he said they were the fiercest of all the tribes. Looking my Mexican clothes up and down, he added: ‘Ain’t nothin’ Apaches like better’n roastin’ a Mex over a bed of coals, amigo.’ Gant was always talking like that. I’ve known Apaches in my time, and found them to be like all people, some good, some bad.
“In the Ratons the trail became very rough and steep, much worse than the passage we Cherokees made over the Cumberlands in Tennessee. For the heavier wagons we sometimes had to use ropes, every driver pulling along with the mules. After we crossed through the pass, I thought surely we had left Belcourt far behind, but one night when we camped alongside a stream called the Ocate, his three wagons appeared out of the dusk, halting not far from us.
“Next day they followed us very closely, Belcourt riding out in front on his gray horse. Once he ventured alongside our train. I was made suddenly aware of his presence when he called out to me: ‘Smart Mex-Indian, how’d you like your cods cut out?’ His eyes looked at me with the bad blood of a mean snake, and then he wheeled his horse, waiting for his wagons to come up to him.
“Three or four days after that we camped beside the stone and adobe ruins of what had once been a large town. George Gant said the people who had lived there were Pueblos who revolted against the rule of the Spaniards, and so many were killed that the few survivors fled to join another town. For the first time that evening I learned that we were no longer in the United States but were in a foreign land ruled by Mexicans.
“Before we bedded down that night, Mr. Lykins came to each driver and warned us he would wake us before daybreak and that we must eat cold rations for breakfast. He wanted an early start so that we might bring the wagons into Santa Fe before sundown the next day. No one grumbled about that, each of us being eager for the end of the journey. I especially wished to see, at last, our destination, the city of Santa Fe that I had heard so much about during my long dreamlike passage toward the sun.
“Next day we kept the mules moving steadily, shortening our rest stops and nooning for only a few minutes. The trail was the easiest we had traveled since leaving Bent’s Fort and we had no trouble with wagons or teams until late in the afternoon. As fate willed it, the bad luck was mine. The rear wheel on the right side of my wagon began whining, and after the many days I’d spent driving I knew the axle would soon wear the hub into a wobble if I did not get some grease into it. I yelled out the signal for a halt, and the wagons began slowing for a stop.
“As usual my wagon was about midway of the train, and before I could get the wagon jack and lever into place, Mr. Lykins came riding back at a trot. He dismounted and satisfied himself from the smell of heat in the hub that it needed grease. ‘Pull off here to the side of the trail before you raise that wheel,’ he said. ‘That’ll let the wagons behind you keep rolling. I want to beat sundown into Santa Fe. You’ll have to catch up as best you can.’
“I did as he said, working the jack and then slapping on grease, and some tar for good measure, all as fast as I could. I made certain the linchpin was tight, and then lowered the jack down. By this time the last wagon in line had passed me and was almost out of sight.
“I had just got into the seat and was hawing the mules back into the trail when Belcourt’s lead wagon came rattling alongside, blocking my way. As I pulled back on the lines to avoid a collision, Belcourt appeared on his horse from around the other side of his wagon. He waved his driver to a stop, and yelled across at me: ‘Get your damn mule team out of my way, Mex-Indian!’
“I didn’t say anything. The mules were excited by the presence of the other team, and it was all I could do to hold them steady. Belcourt eased his horse around between the wagons so that there was little more than the width of my seat between us. ‘Sam Lykins run his train off and left you, eh?’ he said, peering under the canvas. ‘Nothing of account left in your wagon, I see. You wasn’t worth waiting for.’
“That thought had already occurred to me. Mine was the supply wagon, and we had used up almost everything in it. If the wagon had been full of necklaces, mirrors, whiskey, leather, tools, nails, guns, and ammunition like the others, I knew Lykins would not have moved the train without it. I was beginning to lose my good opinion of him, but right at that moment my attention was on Flattery Jack Belcourt, who had a score to settle with me.
“He was rubbing his bearded chin with one of his gauntlets; they had big white stars on the flaring cuffs. His eyes squinted to those yellow specks of light that made him look like an animal searching for prey. Suddenly, his eyes opened wide, not looking at me, but beyond me, just as I heard the clatter of hooves against rock. ‘Apaches!’ he shouted. I saw them then, on three wiry mustangs trotting out of a cleft concealed by gnarled and stunted pines. ‘Get the wagons moving!’ Belcourt screamed, but he was too late. The Apaches were already in the trail, their ponies spread out across it, facing us, four riders on three ponies. One of them was a young woman. Her moccasined feet were bound to each other with a rawhide lariat beneath the pony’s belly. Her wrists, resting on the pommel of a crude Spanish saddle, were also bound. She was wearing a tan buckskin vest tight around her breasts and a short buckskin skirt. Her eyes had fear in them. The man behind her on the mustang wore a faded red turban quite similar to those I had seen old Cherokees wear. The other two men had forehead bands of purple around their long dusty hair. All three were naked except for dirty breechclouts, and boot moccasins that reached almost to their knees. They were thin-bodied and sinewy like their mounts.
“Belcourt had jerked his rifle into position and I heard the click of a hammer from the right side of my wagon. One of his drivers had come up from the rear and was using my wagon for cover, leaving me a fine target in case there was any shooting. I had no arms of any kind. However, the Apache with the faded turban was clasping his hands in front of him in a peace sign.
“ ‘We could kill ’em all,’ Belcourt muttered, and moved his horse forward a few paces. The Apache was making other signs; it was plain to me that he wanted to trade.
“ ‘Show me what you have,’ Belcourt called out. ‘Show me.’
“The Apache held up some kind of jewelry, turquoise I think, but Belcourt shook his head, motioning then toward the young woman. Balancing his rifle across his saddle, Belcourt made a quick sign for copulating. The Apache nodded his head, laughing, and started his horse forward. ‘Hold up!’ Belcourt shouted at him, bringing his rifle back to the ready. The young woman’s fingers were trembling against the saddle pommel.
“ ‘He wants tobacco,’ Belcourt said to the driver crouching on the right side of my wagon. ‘Bring me five twists, but stay ready. I don’t put any trust in that son of a bitch.’
“After the driver brought the tobacco, Belcourt held up three twists. The Apache shook his head and made the sign for drinking. Belcourt held up four twists. No, the Apache wanted whiskey.
“ ‘Give me the bottle under the seat,’ Belcourt said to the driver in the forward wagon. ‘It’s half-full.’ He showed the bottle to the Apache, who nodded, but held up four fingers for the four twists of tobacco. He slid off his pony, unfastened the rawhide lariat from around the young woman’s legs, and helped her to the ground. He started to tie the lariat to his saddle, but Belcourt called to him: ‘I need the riata. Five tobacco twists and the bottle for the female Indian and the riata.’
“Belcourt dismounted, keeping his rifle steady, tossed the tobacco twists out in the trail and rolled the bottle after them. The Apache looped the lariat around the young woman’s neck, led her up to the objects he had traded her for, and shoved her in the direction of Belcourt. Then without wasted motion he collected his tobacco and whiskey, and as quickly as they had come the Apaches rode away to the south, vanishing almost at once in that wasteland of sage and scrub cedars.
“By this time Belcourt had seized the young woman, making her sit while he tied her ankles tightly together. The driver on the right side of my wagon went out to help him. The two men whispered together for a moment, laughing as they lifted the young woman and carried her to the rear of the first wagon. I could hear the thump of her body striking the wagon bed; they had thrown her inside. Both men laughed again. I thought they were laughing about the young woman, but I soon found out they were not, at least not entirely.
“ ‘Move it out!’ Belcourt shouted to the driver of the first wagon. ‘Sun’s going down and it’s a far piece to Santa Fe.’ To my surprise and relief he trotted his horse off in the lead. I wondered if the excitement of trading for the young Indian woman had put me out of his mind.
“As soon as his last wagon passed, I cracked my whip over the mules and started the wagon into the trail. It had not rolled ten paces when the rear right end collapsed with a crash, frightening the mules so that I had to put all my weight on the lines to keep them from dragging the axle. I tied the lines and leaped out; the wheel lay on the ground still spinning. I could not find the linchpin, and I knew that this had something to do with what Belcourt and his driver were whispering and laughing about. The driver must have removed the linchpin while my attention was fixed upon the Apaches.
“Luckily there was a spare pin among the supplies. I soon had the axle jacked up and the wheel fastened back in place. Just as I finished, I heard hoofbeats coming down the trail ahead. Certain that it must be Belcourt returning, and being unarmed, I was on the point of making a dash for that crevice in the rocks where the Apaches had appeared from. But then I saw the horseman was Mr. Lykins.
“He wanted to know the reason for my delay, and I told him what had happened. ‘You’re lucky Flattery Jack did no worse to you than that,’ he said. He slid his carbine out of its bucket and handed it to me, remarking that with Belcourt’s wagons between me and the train I might need a weapon before I reached Santa Fe.
My faith in Mr. Lykins was immediately restored. After giving me directions for reaching the wagon yard at Santa Fe, he wished me good luck and went loping back along the trail.
“Maybe Belcourt decided he’d settled accounts with me, or maybe he was in a hurry to get to Santa Fe with his pretty young woman. Anyway he gave me no more trouble that day. The sun was setting as I rolled down a long hill past a cornfield and over a bridge into the squares of Santa Fe. When I entered the plaza a soft gray light was falling over the town, and I could hear many voices everywhere speaking words I did not understand. A church bell began ringing, the clear sound startling me with its music. At the end of the plaza I turned left as Mr. Lykins had instructed me, and then I saw the wagon yard, twice as large as any I had seen in Independence.
“I had no trouble finding the train. The other drivers were still tending their mules, and Mr. Lykins was waiting for me. When I handed him his carbine he gave me a coin. ‘This is against your pay, which you will receive after I’ve completed my business tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Now find George Gant and see about guard duty.’
“We had to stand guard on the wagons through the night, half of us until midnight, the other half from midnight until next daylight. Gant told me I was to start at midnight. ‘The first guards are around the corner getting some food in a cantina,’ Gant said. ‘Soon as they come back the rest of you go eat. That Mexican money Mr. Lykins gave you is for food, not drink. Soon as you eat, come back and bed down under your wagon. If you’re not there when I come for you at midnight you’ll receive no pay tomorrow, amigo.’
“By the time I unharnessed, watered, and picketed my mules, the first guards were back. I was hungry all right, but I had something else pressing on my thoughts. I slipped away in the dark, circling around the big yard searching for three wagons. I found them in deep shadows lined up end to end alongside the stone wall of a stable. Not a sound came from them. I crouched low, my nostrils filled with the scent of hay and horse manure. Then I saw a faint flare of light under the forward wagon. One of the drivers was smoking. As there was no talking, I guessed he was the only guard. I moved across to the end wagon, rose up, and pulled back the canvas. It was packed solid with barrels. With all the stealth that Grandmother Mary had taught me in stalking a deer, I crept to the next wagon. The canvas hung loose; it was partly empty. I swung up like a cat. The darkness inside was almost solid. I heard a faint whimper, the sound of a cornered animal, and I knew she was there.
“At that moment I had the feeling that I could accomplish anything. Nothing could stop me or harm me because I had powers greater than those of other human beings. You have felt that way, have you not? More recently than I, I’m certain, you being much younger, although maybe age has nothing to do with the losing of it. We lose that feeling of power when we become shields for other human beings and start fearing risks.
“On that night I was willing to chance anything. Not wanting her to cry out, I whispered all the words I knew for ‘friend,’ including the Spanish amigo I’d learned from George Gant. She did not respond, and it was too dark for her to see any signs I might make. The only word I could think of was Sanaki, the Cheyenne word for Cherokee, and to my astonishment she repeated it. Then I touched her very gently, took out my knife, and cut the rawhide from her ankles and wrists. Because I wanted Belcourt to believe she had escaped by herself, I stuffed the cut lariat inside my shirt. While I was doing this, she tried to stand, but she was very unsteady on her feet.
“I led her back to the tailgate and helped her out as noiselessly as possible. We crawled on hands and knees until we were almost to my wagon at the end of the row. One of our guards was pacing back and forth. When he made his turn away from us, I lifted her inside. There was enough light from the starry sky for her to see me bring my closed right hand down in a sign for her to stay there. Then I put my fingers to my mouth and pointed toward the plaza, and she must have understood that I would try to bring her food. Anyway she smiled for the first time.
“In the cantina round the corner, the Mexican coin that Mr. Lykins had given me bought hardly enough food for one strong man—six very thin corn cakes that they called tortillas, and two large bites of chopped meat mixed with hot peppers that had been cooked inside a covering of thick mush. With the help of a Mexican who understood English—and who was puzzled that I wore the clothing of his country but could not speak its language—I explained to the cook that I must take the food and some water to a sick friend. He wrapped the food in a napkin and gave me a jug of water, but only after making me swear to his Dios that I would return the jug and napkin within the hour.
“When I went back to my wagon the guard challenged me. I called out my name and told him I would soon be going to bed under the wagon. I climbed inside, but the young woman was not there. I looked out, sick at heart because I thought she had run away. A few paces off in the shadows of some weeds growing along the rail fence of an empty corral, I heard a slight rustling. A moment later she appeared, moving like a silent spirit toward me. I reached out my hands and lifted her inside. She had gone to relieve herself.
“She drank the water as though it was the most delicious liquid on earth, sighing after each long swallow. Then we sat far back in the wagon, treasuring every morsel of the shared food. After we had eaten, she put a hand against my cheek very lightly, but when I tried to embrace her, she drew quickly away from me.
“How I wished that I could make her understand my thoughts with words! I was thinking of this, of the importance of words, when the sounds of an angry voice broke the stillness. It came from across the wagon yard, and most certainly was Flattery Jack Belcourt’s drunk and angry bellow. There was no doubt in my mind as to the cause of his outburst.
“Indicating to the young woman that she should make no sound or movement, I unrolled a piece of canvas and threw it over her. Then I took my serape, jumped out of the wagon, and rolled up on the straw beneath, pretending to be asleep. The footsteps of the nearest guard clumped back and forth, and then, as I expected, came the solid tread of Belcourt, his slurred voice calling out: ‘Seen anything of a runaway Injun gal?’
“ ‘Seen nobody,’ the guard replied.
“ ‘I’ll have a look around your wagons,’ Belcourt said. He squatted, and through my half-closed eyes I could see him rocking drunkenly on his bootheels as he peered at me. ‘Who’s that under there?’ he asked.
“ ‘One of the drivers,’ the guard said. ‘I told you no strangers been around here. Every wagon’s guarded.’
“Belcourt wanted to look inside the wagons, but the guard refused him. ‘Where’s Lykins?’ Belcourt demanded.
“ ‘Not here,’ the guard said. ‘Most likely gone to bed. You know every wagon is sealed till tradin’ time tomorrow. You come back then.’
“Belcourt swore, but he turned his back and marched off, swaying, and talking to himself. I lay there wide awake, wondering what I was going to do about that young woman just above me in the wagon. If she remained there until daylight, Belcourt or somebody else was certain to see her. I thought of going to George Gant and asking his help, but I knew he would do nothing without Mr. Lykins’s approval. I had to find Mr. Lykins, and find him before sunup.
“So there was nothing to be done but go in search of him. On one side of the plaza I had noticed a large adobe inn, and there I went through the thinning crowds of the late evening. The clerk at the desk frowned at me. I guess I did look out of place in that fine inn, my hair uncut for many days, my Mexican clothes greasy from wear and travel. ‘I’m one of Mr. Lykins’s drivers,’ I said, and was relieved to hear the clerk reply in English: ‘Mr. Samuel Lykins?’
“I nodded, and told him some urgent business had come up. The clerk scratched at his ear. ‘Mr. Lykins dined here this evening,’ he offered, frowning at me again. Suddenly he turned and trotted over to a gray-haired man seated in a big chair. They both looked at me, whispering together, and I wondered if they were going to order me out of their fine inn. But the clerk returned to inform me that Mr. Lykins was occupying the house of another trader, Mr. Felix Aubry’s house, only a few steps from the corner of the plaza.
“Thanking the clerk, off I went and found the house, and was glad to see candlelight in one of the curtained windows. At the doorstep, however, my courage almost failed me. I hesitated, fearing that Lykins would turn me away, order me to return the young woman to Belcourt, and bother him no more. I rapped on the door panel.
“When he opened the door, Mr. Lykins was holding a candle, and he was quite surprised to see me there. ‘Something wrong at the wagons?’ he asked quickly.
“ ‘Not with your wagons, sir,’ I answered, ‘but I do need your help badly.’
“ ‘You have got yourself into trouble in Santa Fe so quickly?’ He was plainly annoyed with me. ‘Couldn’t Gant help you?’ His hand was on the door as if he meant to close it, but he must have seen the despair in my face. ‘Oh, come on in,’ he said.
“The room he led me into was very small and simply furnished, one small table, two high-backed leather chairs, a painting of a horse on the wall. Scattered over the table were long sheets of paper covered with numbers, reminding me of Uncle Opothle and Okelogee. Mr. Lykins motioned me to a chair, but I remained standing until I told him everything I had done that evening. Seated by the table, he listened without the slightest change of expression.
“ ‘I want nothing to do with wild Indians,’ he said then, ‘and I’m beginning to wonder about you civilized Cherokees. Wild Indians are much trouble. And their females are more trouble.’ His fingers tapped softly on the tabletop. That dreamer’s look came into his eyes, and he went on as though he was thinking out loud: ‘Yet there would be some satisfaction for me in confounding Flattery Jack Belcourt. He’ll undersell me tomorrow, force me to trade some of my merchandise at less than cost, because half his stuff is stolen. We honest traders know Belcourt’s ways, but there’s little we’ve been able to do about him.’ His lips twisted in a faint smile. ‘Can you get that Indian woman here, to this house, without being noticed?’
“I assured him that I could.
“ ‘Bring her here, then,’ he said. ‘By God, what a story this will be for me to tell Felix Aubry when next I see him. I, sharing his house with a wild Indian woman!’
“Well, I brought the young woman to the house, and Mr. Lykins discovered right away that she was Cheyenne. In his years of trading he had acquired a few words of Plains Indian languages and he knew more of their signs than I did. Her name was Mae-ve-kse-a. ‘That’s Red Bird Woman,’ Mr. Lykins said, with a glance at me. ‘Not Red Bird. She’s a married woman.’
“The Apaches had captured Red Bird Woman somewhere along a stream called the Nako southeast of Bent’s Fork. With several other young women of their buffalo camp, she had gone out to pick wild berries. The Apaches had surprised them, but while they were capturing Red Bird Woman the others managed to escape. Mr. Lykins asked her a number of questions in which the word Nako was used several times. He seemed quite interested in her replies, but not until he showed Red Bird Woman to her room for the night and then was bidding me good night did he tell me what he learned from her.
“We were standing in his doorway and I was thanking him for helping me out of my difficulty. ‘What do you propose that we do with your Cheyenne beauty?’ he asked me.
“ ‘I’d like to take her back to her people,’ I replied.
“He smiled, shaking his head. ‘You might spend a lifetime doing that. Her people are Southern Cheyennes, of which there are dozens of separate small bands. They move constantly, following the buffalo herds.’
“ ‘She would know where they travel.’ I was in no mood to be denied my dreams.
“ ‘You are a romantic,’ he said. I did not know the meaning of the word then, but I suppose he was right. On that night, as I have said, I felt that nothing was impossible, that I could achieve whatever I desired, with Red Bird Woman riding at my side. What did I care if she had another man? What did it matter? I already knew from the gleam in her eyes when she looked at me that she recognized me as a man of magical powers. Or so I imagined.
“ ‘She could be useful to me,’ Mr. Lykins said. ‘We traders have heard of a trail the Apaches use on their horse raids against the Comanches. Some say three days shorter than the Cimarron route. I tried to scout it years ago, alone. Failed to find a single water source. Had I not been fortunate enough to kill an antelope and drink its blood, I should have died of thirst. This Red Bird Woman was brought out on that trail, stopping at springs and water holes. She could be a useful guide if I decide to return that way. Good night.’
“He had said nothing about me accompanying him and Red Bird Woman, and during the next two or three days I found myself growing jealous of Mr. Samuel Lykins. She had to remain in his house day and night. Even though Flattery Jack Belcourt apparently gave up the search for her after the second day, he was always watchful around the wagon yard, and whenever he saw me he gave me a hateful scowl, knowing that I was the only one outside his own men who might have helped her escape.
“Every evening after dark at the time of the ringing of the church bells, I visited her and Mr. Lykins, and on each visit it seemed that more and more of the admiration for me that I had seen in her face that first night was being divided between me and the trader who had provided her with a refuge. After he paid me, I spent a good part of the money on clothing, discarding all my shabby Mexican garb except the serape for a leather hunting shirt, leather-seated jean trousers, and a pair of fancy boots. She silently approved of my new costume, but I was disappointed that she said nothing, even though I would not then have understood her Cheyenne words. You can see what a young fool I was, as full of myself as a mating prairie cock.
“One evening I went there to dinner, at Mr. Lykins’s invitation, and after he gave me a cigar he told me quietly that we would be leaving Santa Fe before daylight the following morning. He had sold half his wagons and mules, and George Gant and the other drivers would be returning to Independence with the remainder. I was to accompany him and Red Bird Woman over the Apache trail to the Nako, that is, if I was willing to risk the dangers. If I had wanted to conceal my joy I could not have done so. I fairly leaped out of my chair, shaking the dishes on the table, and offered him my hand in thanks.
“We were out of Santa Fe, traveling on the trail toward the deserted town of the Pueblos when the sun rose in our faces. Each of us had a good horse, and in addition Mr. Lykins brought along two led mules loaded with supplies that included several leather-covered water jars. My main duty was to keep the mules moving as fast as the horses, not an easy task by any means. When we reached the place in the trail where I had stopped my wagon and the Apaches had appeared, Red Bird Woman led us through the pine-screened rock cleft and down a winding passage so narrow in places that I was forced to dismount and lead my mules single file. For a while, then, we followed the level floor of a dry stream, the sand hard-packed, so that we could move at a more rapid gait. Yet during most of the afternoon we wound slowly up and down through wastelands of rock.
“That evening when we camped, Mr. Lykins remarked that we had been skirting the wagon trail most of the day and could have traveled considerably farther on it in a day, but he wanted Red Bird Woman to follow the landmarks by which she had been brought south. Early the next day she turned us toward the east, following a small stream until we crossed the wagon trail at a place where our train had camped one night.
“Each day after that we continued toward the rising sun, and each day the Apache trail became easier, the land flattening. The sparse vegetation had a gray look, the earth was dry, and the sun burned with the strength of fire. I thought to myself that the year would be in the Drying-Up Moon if we were back in the old Cherokee Nation. From Red Bird Woman I was learning Cheyenne words and signs so that we could make ourselves understood to one another. When I asked her what moon it was, she looked puzzled, then laughed and said that in her country it must be the Moon When the Plums Turn Red and that she would be happier if she were there. I told her that I was homesick for my country, too, but that I could never return because the land had been taken from my people. She could not understand this. How could land be taken away? Did the white men take away the sky, also?
“She constantly surprised me with her ability to follow the trail over stones or through thick grass where I could see no sign of passage. One afternoon while we were crossing an immense plain, emptier and more level than any I had seen on the way to Fort Bent, the sky suddenly darkened behind us. I thought the wind was bringing rain. Instead we were struck by a wall of sand that stung my face, the fine dust penetrating eyes and nostrils. After the wind passed, the trail we had been following was no longer there, and with the sun still high in the sky I was uncertain of the four directions. Red Bird Woman reined in her horse, turning slowly in her saddle, and then pointed toward the horizon. There I saw the faintest outline of a reddish rock. Had she not directed our eyes toward the rounded knob, I am certain that neither Mr. Lykins nor I would have noticed it on that vast expanse.
“ ‘That’s north,’ Mr. Lykins said. ‘If you came from there.’ She bowed her head and indicated by signs that she had come from that direction. Mr. Lykins dismounted, took a stick from one of the mule packs, and drove it into the ground. Then he scribbled something on a piece of notepaper, thrust it inside an empty bottle, and placed the bottle upside-down on the top of the stick. ‘Direction marker,’ he said. ‘In case I pass the word to my trader friends that I’ve found a better route. The Cimarron Trail is not far to our south. This may be the shortcut I’ve been looking for.’
“Well, as it turned out, the almost invisible trail that Red Bird Woman led us over soon afterward came to be known as the Lykins Cutoff. Two or three times a day Mr. Lykins stopped and posted a stick-and-bottle marker. As hot and dry as it was, we never needed any of the water in those leather-covered jars the mules had hauled all the way from Santa Fe. It seemed that whenever we and our animals grew thirsty, Red Bird Woman always brought us to a spring or a little hidden creek. Mr. Lykins constantly expressed his surprise and gratification. ‘There’s more water, more wood, and more grass on this trail,’ he said, ‘than on the Cimarron route.’
“About noon one day she sighted the Nako, crying out with joy, and whipping her horse into a fast run. We followed her to a low ridge covered with briers above the stream bank. It was the place where the passing Apaches had captured her. With one hand she shaded her eyes, gazing far across the shallow Nako to an abandoned campsite.
“ ‘They’ve gone, yes,’ Mr. Lykins said. ‘Her people have moved on, following the buffalo herds. North, south, east, or west? What do you propose to do with her now, my romantic young friend?’
“ ‘Help her find her people,’ I replied.
“ ‘And her man. He may try to kill you if you find him.’
“ ‘For bringing her back to him?’
“ ‘If he thinks you’ve slept with her. Wild Indians. They’re unpredictable. I don’t understand them.’ He looked at Red Bird Woman. She had dismounted and was standing beside the horse, her shoulders drooping, a figure of despondency.
“ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘if we follow along the Nako we can reach the Arkansas before dark, ford it there, and take the trail east for Independence.’
“ ‘I’m staying with her,’ I said.
“ ‘All right.’ He dismounted and walked over to the mules, unfastened two of the water jars, a pack of foodstuffs, and his spare carbine, and brought them over to me. He pushed a handful of paper cartridges and balls into one of my shirt pockets. ‘You’ll need my two horses,’ he said as he climbed back into his saddle. ‘But I’m taking my mules with me. Good luck.’ He started off without another word, but as he swung around a bend in the Nako he turned and shouted back to me: ‘If you find what you’re looking for, remember those horses are mine. You’d damn well better bring them on to me at Independence. My carbine, too.’ That was Mr. Samuel Lykins. He was more like a wild Indian at heart than any white man I ever knew.”
Dane stood up and stretched his arms. “By God, I am sleepy.” He stamped his feet and went over to the fireplace to warm his backside. “The Old West, it was a place of wondrous happenings, a place of magic. Sometimes what seemed real was not real. Maybe it was all a dream.” He scratched his buttocks and yawned. “I’d best get to bed before the coyotes come and start telling me about their dreams.”
“Wait a minute,” I protested. “Did Red Bird Woman find her people?”