2

The Great Plains

The first part of Will’s journey west, on the recently built Union-Pacific Railroad, had led him into a strange new world far from his Virginia home. This land was so different from where he had grown up near rural Lynchburg just east of the Blue Ridge. Crossing the Great Plains, he had seen the landscape stretch outward in magnificent emptiness as far as the eye could see. At times the only feature was the thin thread of the railroad track, both before and behind, bisecting the unending sea of grass. And stretching out above were skies bigger and bluer than any Will had ever known down-home in Virginia’s land of woodsy hills and low-lying mists.

Lulled by the clacking of the wheels and the monotony, Will could not help but relive over and over again that awful week that led up to his fleeing Virginia. Then one afternoon, while caught up in an imagined argument with his father, he spied a dust cloud up ahead and to the left of the tracks. It was clearly moving toward the train.

“Stampede,” several passengers gasped in agreement as they crowded to the near side of the coach to watch. The cloud loomed larger. As it neared, he could see at its base a huge herd of dark brown beasts that looked like overgrown and thick-furred bulls with monstrous humps. They were buffalo and there were thousands of them. And they were running right toward the train. The locomotive lurched to a halt; the engineer leaned on the whistle. A shrill scream split the air.

Will turned to a soldier sitting across from him. “Why are they running toward us?”

“The sound of the train prob’ly panicked ’em,” the soldier said. “Once they get to stampedin’, the stupid animals just run, even toward what’s scarin’ ’em.”

As the herd thundered closer, Will was awestruck by the dusty beauty. For the first time, he felt he was actually in the fabled West.

The soldiers and some of the passengers took up shooting positions at the windows and from the platforms between cars. Will hunkered down in the seat, deafened by the sound of the approaching hoofbeats, frightened that his whole adventure might end right here in the wreckage of the train car trampled by the mighty beasts. That would just confirm his father had been right about his sinfulness and even God was out to get him.

“What’ll happen when they reach the train?” he yelled to the soldier who now aimed his rifle out the window.

“Just watch. They’ll flow right around us… like water.”

“Are we in danger?”

“Oh, no.” The soldier looked around with a warm but half-sniggering smile. “Less’n you get a fancy to climb down from the train ’n take a walk through the herd, farmboy.” He added that last appellation in a tone both condescending and solicitous.

“Guess that’s what I usta be,” Will said truthfully, glad, under the circumstances, to have the protection of the U.S. Cavalry. “Now I’m gonna be me an Indian Agent.”

The soldier guffawed as he turned back to the window. The herd was just starting to swerve outward to part around the train. The soldier drew a bead on one of the lead animals. He fired. The report rang out inside the car, even above the pounding of the hooves. The huge beast fell. The onslaught parted around the body but kept coming.

The buffalo streamed alongside the train now, their huge heads just outside the windows. More shots rang out.

“Why are you shooting them?” Will hollered.

“These devil cows are the Indians’ vittles, britches and tepees,” the soldier said. “Shootin’ buffalo is almost as good as shootin’ Injuns.”

Will understood. To the settlers moving west and to the workers building the railroads, the Indians were a terrible threat. He wondered if they would be a threat to him personally. I am, after all, headed right into their world. Would I have the courage to shoot an Indian myself?

Will hoped that would not be his job. He wasn’t going to be a soldier. He was only to be an apprentice to the Government Indian Agent and help the Indians find a place in the civilized world.

The soldier fired his rifle at a buffalo outside the window. The animal turned its head and looked directly into Will’s eyes as it fell.

Will knew he didn’t fit in the world of men like that soldier who only wanted to kill Indians. His soul trembled at the thought of the anger those men must hold in their hearts. He’d never felt he fit in any world.

By the time the shooting was over, a hundred dead or wounded animals lay in pools of blood soaking the dry prairie sod. The herd moved off into the distance oblivious, the dust churning into the sky above. With one last shriek of the whistle, the train started rolling again—slowly so that the cowcatcher at the front could push aside the great bodies that had fallen on the tracks.