Within the hour, army teamsters had moved the few possessions of the Skyes into the agency house, even as Mary and Victoria wandered through the small frame building, noting its kitchen, parlor, two bedrooms each with two narrow cast-iron bedsteads, and outhouse out back.
Two young Shoshones appeared, one a deaf-mute girl named Keewa, who understood sign language, and her mate, going by the name of The Walker, a general factotum whose days were largely devoted to cutting firewood for the agency house as well as the agency offices.
Dirk watched his weary father stare at the object of his desire for many months, a bed with a mattress, a haven for his aching body. His mothers, by some agreement, took one of the bedrooms, leaving the other to Skye and Dirk. Skye settled in a chair; his face filled with pleasure. He had scarcely sat in a chair his entire adult life, and often squatted on his heels, in the fashion of the mountains, until age and stiffness kept him from it. But now his father settled in a Morris chair, and then
rose to try a horsehair settee, and then a straight-backed dining chair, all with such childlike joy that Dirk realized at last what pain meant to an old man, and how relief from pain could be a life goal and vision all in itself.
Skye even wandered to the two-hole outhouse, and settled on a seat in wonder, and then retreated to the warm agency residence. The mute girl followed anxiously, eager to please, and Dirk thought she might have been abused. Victoria watched her, and employed the ancient sign talk of the plains to tell the girl that she was welcome, all was well, and she was appreciated. She and her man had quarters at the back of the agency building, which they cleaned.
But something was gnawing at Dirk, and it had to do with this sudden luxury, while just beyond these walls his mother’s people, his own people, were struggling to stay warm and fed. But after a grateful tour of the premises, Skye asked how much wood there was.
Dirk hastened out to the woodlot, and found what he thought was two cords.
“Tomorrow, early, harness the team, load half of that wood in the agency wagon, and take it to our people.”
Somehow, Dirk’s anguish eased. This would be Skye’s first official act.
The whitewashed house was small, not grand, but it seemed a palace to the Skyes, especially that first night when each of them slept on a cotton-stuffed mattress in a warm house. True to his charge, Dirk arose before dawn, found the agency’s barn and harness and draft horses, and soon began loading wood, until he thought he had half of it.
When he returned to the house, he found all his parents were up and cheerful.
“How did you sleep, Papa?”
Skye yawned and smiled. “Maybe I’ll go back for another round,” he said.
His wives laughed.
“Goddamn white men need soft beds,” Victoria said. “So do old Absaroka women.”
They looked uncommonly cheerful while Mary brewed some coffee.
Dirk drove into a frosty dawn, crystal-white haze on top of a thin cover of snow, and made his way up the valley, the two draft animals exhaling steam. Dirk knew where to go: the isolated cabins dotting the great valley. But he found no one present at the first place, the stove cold; and the pattern repeated itself as he drove upriver. Then he discovered an encampment next to some woodlands, traditional lodges bleeding white smoke into a white sky, and he knew the people had solved their firewood troubles their own way, by returning to their traditional ways. Some lodges had been cut up to make moccasins and shirts and coats, but enough remained to shelter the Shoshones. He drove to the encampment and made a symbolic gift of a piece of dry wood to each household, including his uncle, The Runner, and in each case he told his people that his father would be their agent and this was his gift to them. This would be a good day, he thought. A very good day. The people, mostly wrapped in blankets or buffalo robes, smiled their greetings, and then set out to share the great news with all the rest. And so the trip to deliver firewood turned out to be an announcement.
His last call that morning was at Chief Washakie’s home. The youth carried the gift of wood to the door, but the chief was waiting for him.
“It is a fine morning, North Star. I have heard the good news,” Washakie said.
“Grandfather, it is my father’s wish that each Shoshone household receive the gift of firewood from him.”
“Ah, warmth. It is a fine gift. Warmth, North Star, is more of a gift than any other.”
Washakie took the firewood and hefted it, and smiled. “You will come in now,” he said.
North Star knew it was a command. He tied the harness lines to a post and entered. The chief motioned him to a seat, and vanished into the kitchen for a moment.
“The ladies will bring us tea,” he said.
North Star nodded, wondering what all this was about, as the chief settled himself on the horsehair sofa.
“It is a good thing, our friend Mister Skye becoming our agent. My heart is lifted up.”
“Mine too, Grandfather. There will be more food delivered on each allotment day.”
Washakie stared into the brightness of the winter’s day outside. “I despise allotments, North Star. They make beggars of us. We wait in line for handouts from the Yankee government. Do you know what I am saying?”
North Star did. The monthly dole of food had reduced this proud people to helplessness. Several times, North Star had watched his mother’s folk shuffle through the line, be checked off by officious bookkeepers, and then receive a little of this and that, and drift away to live out their lives without purpose.
“The Shoshone People are broken,” North Star said.
“I work ceaselessly for the day when there will be no allotments, and nothing is handed to my people,” Washakie said. “And I know what must come. We must have our own herds, and plow our own fields, and then we will have food enough. That is how your father’s people stay alive through the times
when there are no berries and roots to gather, and the times when there are no buffalo or deer or elk to be found.”
North Star sensed this was leading somewhere, and it would be best just to let the seamed old chief take the meeting wherever it would be taken. It didn’t take long.
“We need more than allotments; we need the wisdom of the white men. They are very wise. They live with grain stored against hunger, wood against the winter, and cattle that can be slaughtered as needed. They have commerce, in which those who have skills produce one thing, and those with different gifts produce another, and they use money to make trades. This is good.”
A girl returned bearing a tray with a teapot and cups. She was a beautiful girl, with blueberry eyes and jet hair and golden cheeks. She eyed North Star with demure curiosity, but he caught her glancing at him, and she caught his swift glances that absorbed everything about her. She wore a white velvet ribbon at the end of each of her two braids.
“North Star, this is my youngest daughter, whose name is Mona, and the reason I am keeping you here, even though I am sure you wish to return to your father and mothers, is to ask something of you.”
Mona passed steaming tea to each man, and shyly vanished into the rear of the little white house.
The chief lifted the teacup. “I will sip in honor of this day, and of our good fortune, and of the appointment of Mister Skye,” he said.
North Star followed the ritual, and smiled.
“It is my wish that all of my people be educated in all the mysteries of the white men. Some things about them are excellent. Some things make me wary, and some things worry me. But they are the future, and they have wonders we did
not know, guns and wheels and metal and marks on paper they can turn into words. It is my wish, North Star, that you will tutor us all, and especially my daughter Mona. And if you will set a time early each morning, I will have us all gathered here, in the parlor, and we will receive your instruction. I would like for us to learn something of each of the things you know. Would you do it?”
“Grandfather—”
“We will share some of our allotment with you.”
“But, Grandfather, I don’t know much. I didn’t finish the schooling. The blackrobes still had more to teach me.”
Washakie smiled slightly. “I thought you might at least teach what you know. It is more than we know. Mona is very eager to learn everything you might have to show her.”
“I would be pleased to teach her, Grandfather.”
“Ah, North Star, it is done, then. Now, we will be ready when the sun first shows himself, and we will learn from you. A little while each morning, if that is suitable.”
“It is, sir.”
The chief rose smoothly, and escorted North Star to the door.
The young man turned at the last, and saw Mona shyly peering from within.
“Grandfather, tell Mona I will be pleased to teach her everything I’ve been taught.”
“I thought you might, North Star.”
He untied the harness lines and returned to the agency with an empty wagon, the backs of his dray horses frosted, and after he had cared for the animals he entered their new house. And there, once again, was that Major Graves.
“Ah, young Mister Skye, this is fortunate. I came looking for you.”
Dirk stood uneasily, wondering what he had done wrong.
“It was the Quakers, the Society of Friends, that got it done,” Graves said.
Dirk had scarcely heard of them. Some sort of Pennsylvania society that was attempting to help western Indians cope with the tide of settlement. Dirk didn’t know what to say.
“The school, my boy, the school. Would you like to teach?”
“Teach? Teach who or what? Why do you think I’m qualified?”
“They have it from the Jesuits that you’d do just fine, and could teach the ABCs, writing, composition, arithmetic, including addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, and you’d be just fine with history, some geography, mechanics, religious instruction, and moral instruction.”
“But who?”
“These good people. Here at the agency, in the government schoolhouse.”
Dirk felt the weight of his youth on him. “I’m not sure I’m the one, sir.”
“Ah, young Mister Skye, do you want to? Would you like to see these people master the skills they’ll need in the future?”
Dirk stared out the window. A part of him said that he only wished the government would leave his mother’s people alone to continue as they always had. But another part of him knew the world would never be the same.
“Yes, sir, I would.”
“The Quakers can’t afford much. It’s all subscription for them, but they’ll pay twenty dollars a month, and of course the government will supply the schoolhouse and teacherage, and handle basic expenses.”
“But where are the slates, and primers, and all that?”
“Ah, a sticky business. My officer colleagues at Fort Laramie have rustled up some readers, a few slates and chalk, a few pencils and some paper. Enough to start. The Quakers are working on it, but it won’t be until spring before you’ll be adequately equipped.”
“You think a person my age would be accepted, sir?”
His mother replied at once. “North Star, you are a man.”
He had not thought of himself as a man, but now he would be stepping into a man’s job. He would need patience and courage and idealism. He would need to persuade young people his own age to come to his class, learn, and make use of what they learned. There would be immediate utility in it: they could make their grievances known. They could make sure whatever agent governed them was acting justly.
“Let’s go look at the goddamned place,” Victoria said.
They rose at once, wrapped shawls and robes about them, and hiked across a snowy reach to the school, where Skye let them in. This place was a single room, with a potbellied stove, student desks, windows out upon a snowy world, and little else. But it came alive, even as Dirk walked the creaking wood floors. It came alive with Shoshone faces, young and old, with the radiant heat of the stove, with pretty girls and seamed old men, with ponies tied to the hitchrail outside. He would give them what he could. He would try to teach a practical education, so they might operate businesses, raise meat and grains, supply wood, build roads, repair wagons, and all the rest.
“Major Graves, I will do this,” he said.
“The teacherage is yours if you want it.”
“Maybe someday. Just now, I want to help my parents.”
“Yes, helping Major Skye would be a welcome service,” Graves said.
“Major? Major?” Skye asked.
“A courtesy rank, sir. Indian agents are commonly called major.”
“Not I, Major Graves. I am Mister Skye. I have always been Mister Skye, a man without rank. To the day I die I will be Mister Skye.”