Naturally I did my best to wriggle out of it next day, since the artful baggage had taken such unfair advantage of me, first provoking my jealousy and then my ardour, stirring her rump before the mirror – did I think she was hopa, forsooth – and extracting a half-promise when she had me in extremis. And she called me designing! And all because she had taken a passion for that damned Sioux, what with his feral charm and her nursery dreams of noble savages, forgotten while she’d had the social circus of Boston to distract her butterfly brain. They had revived under his smouldering regard, and I guessed she was having delicious shivers at the thought of him sweeping her off at his saddlebow and having his wicked will of her by the shores of Gitchee-Gummee. She’d been just the same with that fat greaser Suleiman Usman, who had filled her head with twaddle about being his White Jungle Queen – well, I wasn’t risking that again. The trouble with Elspeth, you see, is that while I doubt if she really wants to be abducted and ravished by hairy primitives – well, not exactly – she’s such a congenital flirt that she sometimes gets more than she bargains for.
So I wasn’t going to have her making a Western jaunt an excuse for renewing fond acquaintance with Master Spotted Tail, who’d have her in the bushes quicker than knife. But when I said that on reflection I’d decided that a trip West would be too taxing for her, there were tears and sobs of “But you promised …”, so in the end I gave way, secretly determining that whatever route we took would run well clear of his agency. Given that, I didn’t mind indulging her girlish fantasies with a brief tour of the wilds in a transcontinental Pullman; she could have her fill of Vast Plains and Brooding Forests from the window of a private hotel car, and never mind Chinga-chgook; we might stop off at some tame Indian village (one sniff of that would cure her notions), and perhaps a cattle-ranch or gold-mine. It could all be done in luxurious comfort and perfect safety.
You see, it was all changed since my early days. The map was being filled in; the great wilderness had its railroads and stage lines now, its forts and town and ranches and mines. It was still wild, in parts – some of it even virtually unexplored – but there wasn’t a true frontier any more, in the sense of a north-south line dividing civilization from outer darkness.
If you look at the map you’ll see what I mean. The train and the steamboat had forged the links across the continent and up and down, leaving only the spaces in between. The most important of these, for my story, was the great stretch of the High Plains in what is now Montana, Wyoming, and the Dacotahs; to east and north it was bounded by the Missouri river, along which the steamboats carried the Western traffic to the foot of the Rockies, and to the south by the railroad from Omaha to Cheyenne and the Great Salt Lake. These were the arteries of civilisation, along which you could travel as swiftly and safely (with luck, anyway) as from London to Aberdeen.
It was the land they enclosed that was the trouble, for while the boats and trains might run round its limits, there wasn’t much going through it, not in a hurry. This was the last stamping-ground of the Sioux, the biggest and toughest Indian confederacy in North America, a greater thorn in Washington’s side than even my old friends the Apaches of the south-west. Fifty thousand Sioux, Sherman had reckoned, and their allies the Northern Cheyenne, first cousins to those stone-faced giants I’d met on the Arkansas. In those days the Sioux had been lords of the prairie from the Santa Fe Trail to the British border, from Kansas to the Rockies, tolerating the wagon-trains (give or take a raid now and then) and rubbing along quietly enough with the few troops that the Americans sent into the West.
All that had changed. The ever-advancing settlements, the bypassing of their country by rail and river, had forced the Plains Tribes back from the limits of civilisation around them, into their heartland, bewildered and angry. They’d broken out in Minnesota in ’62, and been put down; when the government tried to put the Bozeman Road slap through their territory, Red Cloud had taken the war-path and fought them to a standstill; but although the road was given up and the forts abolished, their victory probably did the Sioux more harm than good, since it convinced the wilder spirits that the Yanks could be stopped by force. They didn’t see it was a struggle they must lose in the end, and so for twenty-five years the scrappy, unorganised warfare had smouldered on, with every now and then a real dust-up to stoke the growing hatred and mistrust on both sides. Crazy Horse had hammered Fetterman, Spotted Tail and Co. had lifted eighty cavalry scalps almost in Laramie’s backyard; on the American side the Cromwellian lunatic Chivington had butchered the Arapaho and Cheyenne at Sand Creek, and Custer on the Washita had descended on Black Kettle’s village with his flutes tootling Garryowen and left more than a hundred corpses in the snow. These were the solo pieces, so to speak, but always there was the accompaniment of burned settlements, derailed trains, and ambushed wagons, and punitive expeditions, dispossessions, and tribal evictions.
Naturally, each side blamed the other for bad faith and treachery and refusal to see reason – the Indian version of Washita, for example, was that Custer wantonly attacked a peaceful village, but one of his troopers told me he’d seen freshly-taken white scalps in the Indian lodges. Choose who you will to believe.
The wiser Sioux leaders, like Spotted Tail and Red Cloud, saw how it must end and made peace, but that solved nothing while the real Ishmaels like Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse remained beyond the pale. And even the treaty Indians broke out from time to time, for the agents who were meant to supply them cheated them blind as often as not, Washington neglected them, and life on a reservation or agency was a poor thing compared to roaming their ancestral plains and robbing when they felt like it.
By 1875, though, it looked as though the thing must peter out at last; hunters and sportsmen had swept the buffalo off the prairie at a rate of a million a year, until they were all but extinct – and the Indian without buffalo is worse off than the Irish without the potato, for it’s clothing and lodging to him as well as food. Plainly even the wildest hostiles would have to chuck it and settle down soon; the discovery of gold in the Black Hills, which would inevitably mean the loss to the tribes of yet another stretch of territory, must only hasten the process, for it would leave them little except the barely-explored fastness south of the Yellowstone called the Powder River country, and with game so scarce they would have to call it a day or starve. That was the general view, so far as I could gather, and with it went the opinion that I’d heard from Sheridan: however it ended, there wouldn’t be a war. An ugly incident or two here and there, perhaps – regrettable, but probably inevitable with such people – but no real trouble. No, sir.
Which was most comforting to me, as I considered how to satisfy my darling’s hunger to see the Wild West; yes, the railroad would carry us well clear of the dangerous Sioux country – and Spotted Tail, incidentally. But before we set out, we must journey to Washington, for Elspeth’s social navvying in Boston had secured us an invitation to visit the capital – Washington in summer, God help me – and my lady was confident that we would be summoned to the White House, “for the President is your old comrade-in-arms, and it would be very curious if he were to overlook the presence of such a distinguished visitor as a Knight of the Bath”. I told her she didn’t know Sam Grant. As it turned out, her ignorance was nothing compared with mine.
Washington, a dismal swamp at the best of times, was sweaty and feverish, and so were its inhabitants, with Grant’s presidency soon to enter its final year and the whole foul political crew in a ferment of caballing and mischief. Any gang of politicos is like the eighth circle of Hell, but the American breed is specially awful because they take it seriously and believe it matters; wherever you went, to dinner or an excursion or to pay a call, or even take a stroll, you were deafened with their infernal prosing – I daren’t go to the privy without making sure some seedy heeler wasn’t lying in wait to get me to join a caucus. For being British didn’t help – they would just check an instant, beady eyes uncertain, and then demand to know what London would think of Hayes or Tilden, and how was the Turkish crisis going? (This at a time when Grace was making triple centuries in England, and I not there.)56
We met Grant, though, and a portentous encounter it proved. It was at some dinner given by a Senator, and Burden, the military attaché from our Embassy, whom I knew slightly, was there. Grant was the same burly, surly bargee I remembered, more like a city storekeeper than the first-rate soldier he’d been and the disillusioned President he was. He looked dead tired, but the glances he shot from under those knit brows were still sharp; he gave a wary start at sight of me – it’s remarkable how many people do – and then asked guardedly how I did. I truckled in my manly way, while he watched me as though he thought I was there to pinch the silver.
“You look pretty well,” says he grudgingly, and I told him so did he.
“No I don’t,” he snapped. “No man could look well who has endured the Presidency.”
I said something soothing about the cares of state. “Not a bit of it,” barks he. “It’s this infernal hand-shaking. Do you realise how frequently the office demands that the incumbent’s fingers shall be mauled and his arm jerked from its socket? No human constitution can stand it, I tell you! Pump-pump-pump, it’s all they damned well do. Ought to be abolished.” Still happy old Sam, I could see. He growled and asked cautiously if I was staying long, and when I told him of our projected trip across the Plains he chewed his beard moodily and said I was lucky, at least the damned Indians didn’t shake hands.57
Our appetites sharpened by these brilliant exchanges, we went in to dinner, which was foul, what with their political gas and heavy food. Between them they must have numbed my brain, and by damnable chance it was before the ladies had withdrawn that a Senator of unusual stupidity and flatulence, called Allison, happened to mention his impending departure for the West, whither he was bound with a government commission to treat with the Indians about the Black Hills. I didn’t pay much heed, until a phrase he used touched a chord in my memory, and I made an unguarded remark – my only excuse is that I was trying to escape the egregious stream of chatter from the Congressional harpy seated next to me.
“I make no doubt that our negotiations will have reached a fruitful conclusion by October, Mr President,” Allison was saying ponderously, “and that we shall be enabled to proceed to formal treaty no later than November – or, as I believe our Indian friends so picturesquely describe it, ‘The Moon When the Horns are Broken Off’.” He chuckled facetiously, and as my neighbour drew breath for another spate of drivel, I hastily addressed Allison without thinking.
“That’s correct only if you’re talking to a Santee Sioux, Senator,” says I, and I swear for once I wasn’t trying to be smart. “If he happens to be a Teton Sioux, then ‘The Moon When the Horns are Broken Off’ is December.”
One of those remarks, I agree, which will stop any conversation in its tracks. Allison stared, and a silence fell, broken by Grant’s rasping question. “What’s that, Flashman? Do you happen to be an authority on the Indian calendar?”
Before I could turn the question, the prattling dunder-head I married was interposing brightly. “Oh, but Harry knows ever so much about Red Indians, Mr President! He travelled extensively among them in his youth, you know, and became thoroughly acquainted with many of their prominent men. Why, only lately, in Chicago, we met a most unusual person, a chief among the Stews, wasn’t he Harry? – anyway, a most imposing figure, although quite unpredictable, a Mr Spotted Tail, and what do you think? He and Harry proved to be old friends from the past, and it was the most amusing thing to hear them conversing at dinner in those outlandish sounds, and moving their hands in those graceful signs – oh, Harry, do show them!” How I’ve kept my hands from her throat for seventy years, God knows.
“Spotted Tail?” says Allison. “Why, that’s a singular thing – of course, he recently returned from Washington. I take it to be the same man – the leader of the Brulé Siouxes? Well, he is to be a principal spokesman for the Indians at our conference.”
“You speak Siouxan?” says Grant to me, quite sharp.
“My husband speaks many languages,” says Elspeth proudly, smiling at me. “Don’t you, my love? Why, it can make me quite dizzy to hear him—”
“I never knew you’d been out West,” says Grant, frowning. “How did you come to know Spotted Tail?”
There was nothing for it but to tell him, as briefly as I could, and for once I didn’t make a modest-brag about it; I could have kicked Elspeth’s dainty backside, for I suspected no good would come of this. They were all attention – you don’t meet many dinner guests, I suppose, who’ve commanded a wagon-train and learned the lingo from Wootton and Carson, and they probably didn’t believe half of it.
“Quite remarkable,” says Grant. “You don’t happen to know Spotted Tail’s nephew – Chief Crazy Horse?”
Any damage had been done by now, so I couldn’t resist the temptation of saying that I’d put him on his first pony. (That I’m sure they disbelieved. Odd, ain’t it?) I added that since he’d been only six years old I could hardly claim to know him well. Grant only grunted, and no more was said until the women had taken themselves off and the cigars were going. Then:
“You said you and Lady Flashman were going West, didn’t you?”
“Purely for pleasure,” says I.
“Uh-huh.” He chewed his cigar a moment. “I doubt if anyone on Senator Allison’s commission knows Spotted Tail all that well. I’ve met him a few times … shrewd fellow. Terry’s your military representative, isn’t he?” he asked Allison. “He doesn’t know Indians at close quarters, exactly – and I’m positive he doesn’t speak Siouxan.” He studied me in a damned disconcerting way. “You wouldn’t care to lend Allison your assistance, I suppose? It wouldn’t take you much out of your way.”
“Mr President,” says I hurriedly, “I’m hardly an authority on the Indian question, and since I’m not an American citizen—”
“I’m not suggesting you serve on the commission,” growls he. “But I know something about your gifts of persuasion and negotiation, don’t I? – and if Allison’s going to get anywhere in this infernal business, it’s going to take a power of informal and delicate dealing. He’ll need all the help he can get, and while he’ll have no lack of expert counsel, it can’t hurt to have the added assistance of a soldier of rank and diplomatic experience—” sardonic little bastard! “—who not only knows Indians, especially Spotted Tail himself, but can also understand what the other side is saying before the interpreters frazzle it up. You concur, Senator?”
“Why, indeed, Mr President,” says Allison gravely. “I’m persuaded that Colonel Flashman’s ah … unusual qualifications would be … ah, invaluable.” I guessed he didn’t care much for it. “If he can be prevailed upon, that is, to assist informally …”
“I’m sure he can,” says Grant firmly. “As to being a British citizen, it’s nothing to the point,” he went on to me. “It didn’t matter in the war, did it? Besides, I’m sure Burden here will agree,” and he nodded to our Embassy wallah, “that an Indian solution is almost as much in England’s interest as in ours. The Sioux could be a damned nuisance in Canada – they don’t respect national boundaries, those fellows – so I don’t doubt Her Majesty would be happy to lend us your friendly assistance.”
Burden didn’t hesitate, rot him. “I think I can say that we should welcome the opportunity of having Sir Harry Flashman accompany the commission as an observer, Mr President,” says he carefully. “As you point out, our respective interests converge in this matter.”
“I’m glad to hear you say so,” says Grant. “Well, Flashman?”
That was Grant all over. It was a tiny thing; my presence could hardly weigh in the balance – but Sam as a commander had never neglected the least possible advantage, and even one more voice in Spotted Tail’s ear might conceivably help. I didn’t know then, I confess, just how damned important Spotted Tail was. Grant was looking at me, lighting another cigar.
“What d’you say? No Medal of Honour in it this time, I’m afraid, but I’d esteem it a personal favour.”
I knew who else would, too – I could hear her in the distant drawing-room, regaling the other ladies with “Caller Herrin’” at the piano. Let me decline – and how the devil could I refuse Grant a personal favour? – and I’d never hear the end of it. What, deny her the chance to languish at “Mr Spotted Tail”? Well, perhaps when she saw him in his “natural surroundings” she’d be less enthusiastic for noble savages. Aye, perhaps. I’d watch the red bastard like a hawk.
“Happy to be of service, Mr President,” says I.
As it turned out, I wasn’t – of service, I mean – but I take no blame for that. Solomon himself couldn’t have saved the Camp Robinson discussions with the Sioux from being a fiasco, not unless he’d gagged Allison to begin with. There is some natural law that ensures that whenever civilisation talks to the heathen, it is through the person of the most obstinate, short-sighted, arrogant, tactless clown available. You recall McNaghten at Kabul, perhaps? Well, Allison could have been his prize pupil.
To his blinkered eyes the problem looked simple enough. Despite General Crook’s efforts (and having heard him in Chicago I didn’t imagine they’d been too strenuous) white miners had continued to pour into the Black Hills that summer; gold camps like Custer City already had populations of thousands, and more arriving daily. The Sioux, rightly viewing this as a shameless violation of their treaty, were getting angrier and uglier by the minute. So, faced on one hand by a possible Sioux rising, and on the other by the fait accompli of the mining camps, Washington reached the conclusion you’d expect: treaty or no, the Sioux would have to give way. Allison’s task was to persuade them to surrender the hills in return for compensation, and that, to him, meant fixing a price and telling ’em to take it or leave it. He didn’t doubt they would take it; after all, he was a Senator, and they were a parcel of silly savages who couldn’t read and write; he would lecture them, and they would be astonished at his eloquence, pocket the cash without argument, and go away. It didn’t seem to weigh with him that to the Sioux the Black Hills were rather like Mecca to the Muslims, or that having no comprehension of land ownership, the idea of selling them was as ludicrous as selling the wind or the sky. Nor did he suspect that, even if their religious and philosophic scruples could be overcome, their notions of price and value had developed since the days of beads and looking-glasses.
Camp Robinson, where he was to meet the Sioux chiefs, was a fairly new military post out beyond the settlements, not far south of the Black Hills; close by it was the Red Cloud Agency where the old Oglala chief lived with his followers, and a day’s march away was Camp Sheridan, near the agency of Spotted Tail and his Brulés. These were the “peaceful” Sioux, who had come in to the agencies in return for annuities and other government benefits such as rations, clothes, weapons and schools; it was the fond hope that eventually they’d take to farming. Since they were well-behaved and powerful chiefs, the government chose to regard them as spokesmen for the whole Sioux nation, conveniently forgetting that most of the tribes were roaming wild in the Powder River country farther west, under the likes of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, “but if they are so intractable and foolish as not to meet us, on their own heads be it,” says Allison smugly. “We can talk only to those who will talk to us, and if the hostiles will not share our deliberations, they cannot complain if the treaty is not to their satisfaction. We can only reach it and trust that reason will prevail with them after the event.” An optimist, you see.
Even before we set out, the omens were bad. The peaceful agency tribes were fractious because in the hard winter just past they’d been kept short of the necessaries government should have been providing – one of the reasons Spotted Tail had been east in June was to complain. In his absence his younger braves had worked themselves into a frenzy at the annual sun dance and gone off for a slap at the Black Hills miners (and at their old foes the Pawnees, just for devilment); there had been a nasty brush between the Brulés and Custer’s 7th Cavalry, and when Spotted Tail returned it had taken all his influence and skill to bring his bucks to heel.
To show willing, Washington had held an inquiry on the agencies, and found the Indians’ complaints well grounded; they’d been swindled and deprived, but in spite of the findings no official or contractor was punished, although the agent at Red Cloud had been removed. So you can judge how content the agency Sioux were by the time our commission rolled out by rail and coach to Camp Robinson late that summer, Allison full of pomp and consequence, deep in discussions with his fellow-commissioners, while I lent an unofficial ear, and Elspeth in the hotel car cried out with excitement every time we passed a creek or a tree.
She got something to marvel at, though, on the last stage into Camp Robinson. It’s far out on the prairie, nestling among pretty groves beneath a range of buttes, and in all directions the grassy plain was covered with Indian villages as far as you could see; every Sioux in America seemed to have converged on the fort, and as our coach lurched by with its escort of cavalry outriders, Elspeth was all eyes and ears while Collins, the secretary to the commission, pointed out the various tribes – Brulé, Sans Arc, Oglala, Minneconju, Hunk-papa, and the rest. Mostly they just stared as we went by, silent figures in their blankets by the tipis and smoky fires, but once a party of Cheyenne Dog Soldiers rode alongside us, and Elspeth fairly clapped her hands and squeaked to see them cantering so stately, stalwart warriors in braids and full paint, shaking their lances in salute and chanting: “How! Hi-yik-yik! How!”
“Oh, brave!” cries she ecstatically. “How! How to you! Oh, Harry, how proud and splendid they look! Why, I declare they are so many Hiawathas! Ah, but how solemn they all look! I never saw so many melancholy faces – are they always so sad, Mr Collins?”
I wasn’t feeling too brisk myself; I’d supposed we’d be meeting the chiefs and a few supporters, but there were thousands of Sioux here if there was one, and that’s a sight too many.
“It takes three-quarters of the male population to make any agreement binding,” Collins told me, “so the more who attend the better. It’s what Red Cloud and Spotted Tail say that counts, of course, but we must have the democratic consent of the people, too.”
“Is Allison intending to canvass that multitude?” says I, incredulous. “Dear God, does he know how long it takes an Indian to decide to get up in the morning?”
The fort itself was a fairly spartan affair of wooden houses and barracks, but Anson Mills, the commandant from Camp Sheridan, was on hand with his wife to make us welcome, and Elspeth was far too excited to mind the absence of city comforts.
The Mills gave a dinner of welcome that night, to which they had invited the chiefs for an informal foregathering; to my surprise Elspeth dressed in her plainest gown, without jewellery and her hair severely bunned, explaining to me that it would never do for her to outshine Mrs Mills, the hostess, “and anyway, I know you are sensible of our position, my dear, for we are not official here, and it does not do for us to put ourselves forward”. This was uncommon sense for her; she knew that I was really a camp-follower of the commission whom they might find useful, but I’d borne no part beyond listening to some of their discussions, answering a question or two from Allison, and talking a bit of shop with General Terry, the military representative. He was a tall, sprightly, courteous fellow who’d been a lawyer (Yale man, apparently) before the Civil War turned him into a soldier; I found him quick and a good deal more open-minded than most Yankee military chiefs. The other leading lights of the commission were Collins and a clergyman.
The chiefs came to dinner in style, six of them all in buckskins and feathers, led by the famous Oglala, Red Cloud, a grim savage with a face you could have used to split kindling. Other names I remember were Standing Elk and White Thunder, and towering over the rest, splendid in snowy tunic and single eagle feather, the well-known Tableaux-fancier and patron of Loop burlesque theatres. His black eyes widened momentarily at sight of me; then he was bowing and growling to Elspeth, who gave him a limp hand and her coolest smile, which alarmed me more than if she’d languished at him.
The dinner was a frost. From the first it was evident that the chiefs were thoroughly disgruntled, and at odds among themselves; I was seated between Red Cloud and Standing Elk, so that advantage could be taken of my linguistic genius; Red Cloud gave me one suspicious glare, and replied in monosyllables to the amiabilities and polite inquiries which Allison and the others addressed to him through me. You could feel the suspicion and hostility coming from them like a fog, and by the time desserts were served it was like being at a Welsh funeral. The chiefs were silent, Allison was aloof and huffy and the clergyman distressed, Mills was trying to look bland, and his wife, poor soul, was in a fearsome flutter, her hand shaking on the cloth in embarrassment. For once I thanked God for Elspeth’s artless prattle, directed ceaselessly at everyone in turn, and never taking silence for an answer. But only from Spotted Tail among the Indians did she get any response, and even that was formal courtesy; his mind was too busy elsewhere even for flirting.
All the gloom didn’t prevent our guests from punishing the victuals like starving wolves, I may say; Red Cloud’s longest conversational flight was to remark that they were a sight better than the rubbish his people had been getting from the agency, which I translated to Mrs Mills as a compliment to the cook. And when we rose, White Thunder, who’d been even more voracious than the rest, went round the table scraping the contents of every plate into a bag; he was even lifting some of the spoons until Spotted Tail growled something at him which I didn’t catch. As they took their departure the Brulé chief seemed to stare particularly at me, so once they were out, and Allison was exploding in pique at what he called “their cross-grained and sullen demeanour, upon my word, like the spoiled children they are!”, I took a slow saunter out to the verandah. Sure enough, there was Spotted Tail, a huge pale figure in the summer dusk; his fellow-chiefs were already down on the parade, studiously looking the other way while the grooms brought their ponies. He didn’t beat about.
“Why are you sitting with the Isantanka, Wind Breaker? What is this matter to do with the Wasetchuska Mother?”
“Nothing,” says I. “I’m here because I know you and speak your tongue.”
“They think I will listen to you? That you will grease their words so that I and my brothers will swallow them easily?” He wasn’t the genial companion of Chicago now; his tone was on the brink of anger. I answered matter-of-fact.
“They think that because I’m a soldier chief in my own country, I can help to open their minds fairly to you. And because I know something of you and your folk, I can open your minds fairly to them. I understand high matters, which an ordinary interpreter might not, and I will speak for both sides with a straight tongue.” He must know how much that mattered, and how many bitter misunderstandings had arisen through incompetent interpreters.
He watched me slantendicular and then put back his head. “Wah-ah. Bes! Then tell them this for a beginning. Since I came from Washington I have been in the Black Hills. There is much gold there, and now I have seen it. So we will not give up the hills, and we will not allow them to be taken from us.”
Well, that was damned blunt, before the talks had even started. No courteous preliminaries or hints or soundings; he’d never have said anything so flat to the commission, but he could drop it in my ear as an intermediary. It flitted across my mind – had wily Sam Grant foreseen something like this? Presumably it was what I was here for, and I felt a gratifying tingle at being on the inside of affairs (there’s an oily politician in the best of us, you see) and at the same time an apprehension as I realised that whatever I said might weigh heavy in the scale. God, what a chance for mischief! But I didn’t indulge it; I gave back bluntness for bluntness, because it seemed best.
“The hills have been taken from you already, haven’t they?” says I. “You’ve seen how many miners are up there. And you’ve said yourself that the lance and hatchet of Spotted Tail can’t stop them.”
I saw him stiffen, and then he says quietly: “There are other lances.”
“Whose? Sitting Bull’s? My little horseman’s – Crazy Horse? That won’t answer, and you know it. Look here, Sintay Galeska, this is nothing to me,” says I, and it was true. For once in my life I had no axe to grind; I didn’t give a blue light who had the Black Hills, since there was nothing in it for me either way. Tell you the truth I was feeling a most unaccustomed thing, a glow of virtue, as well as the pleasure of observing a drama in which I had no personal stake. I didn’t have to be patient of diplomatic niceties. If Allison had known what I was about to say, he’d have had apoplexy; for that matter I don’t suppose Red Cloud and his boys would have cared for it either. But when all the pussy-footing and lying and hypocrisy don’t matter to you, you can go straight to business and enjoy yourself.
“These talks are a sham,” I continued, “and you know it. The Black Hills are gone, and you’ll never get ’em back. This lot won’t leave you a rag to your back if you resist them. So isn’t it time to get the best bargain you can? And make those mad bastards up in Powder River country understand that they’d better settle for it, or they’ll get worse? I’m not saying it’s right or fair; that don’t count. I’m just saying it’s common sense. And you know it, too.”
If it was straighter talk than he cared for, he still couldn’t deny it or say I spoke with a double tongue. He knew it was true.
“They’ll pay, you know,” says I. “How much, I can’t tell you. Certainly not what the hills are worth in gold value – but then you wouldn’t expect ’em to, would you? No, you’ll just have—”
“Ho-ho!” It came out in a bark, the warning-note of the Sioux when he’s heard something he doesn’t like. But his voice was quiet enough when he said: “You speak for the Isantanka; they seek to put fear into our hearts, so that we will be cowed into taking whatever they offer—”
“Look,” says I, “if I was speaking for them, would I have admitted that they won’t pay what the hills are worth? No; I’d have told you the price they’ll offer is a fair one. I’m telling you the truth because I know you see it as clear as I do. Of course they’ll cheat you; they always have. Don’t you see – the Sioux aren’t going to win, either in a bargain or in a fight? So you must get as much as you can, while you can. Don’t let these talks fail; get the best price you can squeeze out of them, and try to get Sitting Bull and the other hostiles to like it. If you don’t, you’ll wind up poor or dead.”
He studied me poker-faced, stroking one of his long braids, and I wondered if he was hating me and all that he thought I stood for – hating me all the more, perhaps, because I knew as well as he did the bitter truth he was facing, that he must twist the Yankee purse to the last dollar for his people’s sake, and that at the same time he would be betraying them and the ideals they held sacred. It’s a damnable thing, the pride of a nation, especially when it’s coupled with the kind of mystic frenzy that they had about their precious Black Hills. Or pretended they had. At last he says:
“Will you tell the Isantanka all that has passed between you and me here?”
“If you want me to,” says I. “But I think it better I should tell them that Chief Spotted Tail is worried because his fellow-chiefs don’t want to sell the hills. I’ll tell them they would be best advised to offer a good price, and to take into account what it would cost in white blood and white money if the Sioux were pushed into fighting because the price isn’t high enough.”
“What price,” says he, “do you think would satisfy the Sioux?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care, and I won’t try to guess. That’s for you to decide. But I’d want it in gold, on the barrel-head, and I wouldn’t budge an inch for anything less. I wouldn’t hand over my guns, that’s certain.”
It was then, I think, that he began to believe if not necessarily to trust me. As why shouldn’t he, since I’d been telling truth straighter than I could ever remember? At any rate, he finally nodded, and said he would wait and see what was said publicly tomorrow. Almost as an afterthought, as he was about to go, he says conversationally:
“Why did your golden lady hide her beauty tonight? She wore no shining stones, and her milk-white flesh she covered in poor cloth. Have you been beating her, that she hides the bruises, or is she displeased and withdraws the loveliness that gives such joy to men?”
I explained, pretty cool, that she had left her fine dresses back east, as being unsuitable for the frontier, and he gave one of his astonishing rumbles, like a bull in a brothel. “Then my heart is sad,” growls he, “for the more one sees of her the better. My heart sings when I look on her. She shines. I would like to see all of her shining! Yun! I would like to …” and to my rage and scandal he absolutely said it, smacking his lips, and me her husband, too. Mind you, I suppose it was meant as a compliment. “Joll-ee good! Han, hopa! Joll-ee good!” And he stalked off, leaving me dumbfounded.
The commission were all attention when I reported what he’d said (about the Black Hills, I mean); my own side of the conversation I kept to myself. I said I believed he was ready to settle, if the bargain could be made to look respectable; he could probably sway Red Cloud, and between them they could surely convince three-quarters of the Indians who had come to listen. That would still leave the absent hostiles, but if the offer was good enough even they might find it hard to hold out.
Terry and Collins looked pleased, but the clerical wallah made a lip. “However generous the offer, we are asking them to surrender land which they esteem holy. And while we may justly abhor their superstitious frenzy, I ask myself if they will abjure it for … well, pieces of silver.” He blinked earnestly and Allison gave a patronising smile.
“With all respect, reverend, I’m not aware that their so-called religious fervour has any real spiritual depth. Their mode of life hardly suggests it, and I am not convinced that their concern for the Black Hills would be quite so great if there were no gold there. No, gentlemen,” says he complacently, “I’ve no doubt the Colonel is right, and that they will sell, and as to the price, we shall have to see. A savage whose notions of time and space are so peculiar that he cannot comprehend that a day’s journey on the railroad carries him farther than a day’s journey by pony, may have an equally eccentric view of real estate values. Pro pelle cutem I’m sure they understand: a skin for the worth of a skin, but whether they encompass the higher finance we shall discover.”
He did, too, the following day, when Spotted Tail got up in full council and blandly announced the price of the Black Hills: forty million dollars. I didn’t believe my ears, and watched with interest as I translated, for it’s not every day that you see a senatorial commission kicked in its collective belly. D’you know, they never blinked – and my suspicious hackles rose on the spot. There was a deal of huffing and consideration before Allison replied at judicious length, but all his palaver couldn’t conceal his point, which was that the government were prepared to offer only six million, and over several years at that. There was much nonsense about renting and leasing, in which Spotted Tail showed politely satirical interest, but now that he’d seen the dismal colour of their money it was so much waste of time; he concluded that they had best put it in writing, and stalked out. Red Cloud, by the way, hadn’t bothered to attend.
Allison wasn’t disturbed; let him conduct matters privately with the chiefs, and they’d see reason, all right. For the life of me I’m not sure whether he believed it or not, but it was nothing to me, and while they all caballed for the next few days I indulged Elspeth by squiring her round the Indian encampments. Since sightseeing is to her what liquor is to a drunkard, she didn’t seem to notice the stink and squalor, but exclaimed at the variety and colour of the barbaric scene, took a heroic interest in the domestic arrangements, waxed sentimental at the docile resignation of the squaws pounding corn and cooking their abominable messes, became quite excited at the sight of the young bucks playing lacrosse, and went into ecstasies over “the bonny wee papooses”. For their part, the Sioux took an equal interest in her, and a curious procession we made as we strolled back to camp arm-in-arm with a gaggle of curious squaws and loafers and children at our heels, and one impudent urchin insisting on carrying Elspeth’s parasol.
One day we spent at Camp Sheridan, driving across at Spotted Tail’s invitation; he sent Standing Bear, the young brave we’d met in Chicago, to escort us, and I noted with a jaundiced eye that here was another gallant from the same school as his chief. Not only was he as handsome a redskin as ever I saw, three inches over six feet and built like an acrobat, his attentions to Elspeth were of the most courtly, and I knew from the way he held himself as he rode alongside that he fancied himself most damnably, all noble profile and grave immobility.
Spotted Tail welcomed us outside the fine frame house which the army had set aside for his use at Camp Sheridan, but after showing us round its empty rooms with a proprietorial pride, he explained gravely that he didn’t live here, but in a tipi close by. The advantage of this was that when the tipi got foul he could move it to a clean stretch of ground some yards away (like the Mad Hatter at the tea-party), a thing he could hardly have done with a two-storey house. What, clean the floors? He shook his head; his squaws wouldn’t know how.
To Elspeth’s delight he invited us to sit by him at his levee, where he heard complaints, settled disputes, and dispensed hospitality out of the extra rations the agency allowed him for the purpose. When we dined, though, it was on the traditional Plains Indians fricassee from the communal pot; Elspeth picked away, smiling gamely, and I hadn’t the heart to tell her it was mostly boiled dog. She didn’t flirt with him more than outrageous, and he was on his best dignified behaviour. When I asked him how the treaty talks were going, he simply shrugged, and I wondered was he preparing to concede and look pleasant.
Yes, says Allison when I tackled him later, it was all as good as settled. He was preparing the commission’s formal offer, to be delivered before the assembled tribes, and he had every confidence that Red Cloud and Spotted Tail would accept it, six million and all. Well, thinks I, I’ll believe it when I hear it.
Sure enough, it was on the morning of the assembly that we got the first whiff of mischief. At Red Cloud’s request the meeting was to take place out on the open prairie, some miles from the fort, where the Indian thousands could congregate conveniently, and we had already piled into the ambulance, with Anson Mills’s two cavalry troops flank and rear, and Elspeth and Mrs Mills waving from the verandah, when there was a shout from across the parade, and here came a party of mounted Indians, armed and in full paint, cantering two and two and led by a stalwart Oglala, Young-Man-Afraid-of-His-Horses, whom I’d seen in Red Cloud’s entourage. As he rode up to Anson Mills, I noticed young Standing Bear in war-bonnet and leggings, with lance and carbine, at the head of one of the lines; I beckoned him to the tailboard and asked him what was up.
“How,” says he. “Chief Sintay Galeska sends word that you and the Isantanka chiefs should stay in the soldiers’ camp today.”
“What’s that? But we have to go out to the meeting.”
“He thinks it better you should talk here than there.”
I didn’t like the sound of this, and neither did the others when I told them. We asked why, and Standing Bear shook his handsome head and said it was the chief’s advice, that was all; he added that if we insisted on going, he and Young-Man-Afraid had been ordered to ride with the cavalry as an additional escort.
That was enough for me. Didn’t I remember riding out from the cantonments on just such an occasion to parley with Akbar Khan? I said as much to Terry, who agreed it was disquieting, the perceptive chap. “But we cannot stay in camp,” says he. “Why, we should lose face.”
I observed that it might be preferable to losing our hair, but he pooh-poohed that, and Allison, after some waffling, backed him up. “It is a strange message, to be sure,” says he doubtfully, “but if Chief Spotted Tail were uneasy I am persuaded he would have come himself. In any event, not to keep the meeting would show a lack of faith which would be fatal to our whole negotiation. No, we must go – why, what harm can come to a government commission?”
I could have told him and added that he could go without Flashy, for one. But it wouldn’t have done, in front of Yankees, and with Elspeth watching, so I kept uneasily mum, and presently we were jolting out of camp, with the fat clergyman beside me sweating and twitching; I noticed Collins’s hand stray under his jacket, and wished I’d thought to come heeled myself.
My nerves were not steadied by the sight that greeted us at the little grove which was the meeting place. Every Sioux in the world seemed to be there; beyond the tarpaulin canopy where we were to sit they squatted in row on endless row, brown painted faces grim and unmoving, warbonnets and eagle feathers stirring in the breeze; every knoll and slope for a quarter of a mile was covered with them. The whole vast concourse was deathly silent; there wasn’t a cough or grunt, let alone a welcoming “How!” from all those thousands; as we took our seats the only sounds were the flapping of the canopy overhead, the stamp and jingle of Mills’s troopers, and the nervous rumblings of one set of bowels at least.
Mills ranged his troopers in line either side of our seats, while Young-Man-Afraid and Standing Bear sat their ponies out to the left, their mounted braves behind them, facing the great mass of waiting Sioux; I noticed Standing Bear make a little sign to Spotted Tail, who was seated with Red Cloud and the other chiefs in the front rank of our audience. Spotted Tail caught my eye and nodded, presumably in reassurance, which I needed, rather; sitting on my ridiculous camp-stool on the flank of the commission, looking at that mob, reminded me of being in the platform party on Speech Day when you’ve forgotten your address about Duty and Playing the Game, and the audience are already starting to snigger and pick their noses. Only this crowd weren’t sniggering.
Allison got to his feet and cleared his throat, shooting nervous glances at the silent red assembly twenty yards off, and at that moment I noticed movement on the outer wings of the crowd. Mounted warriors were cantering in towards us, either side; they swept wide to outflank the canopy, and trotted in behind Mills’s two lines of troopers. I screwed round to watch, my hair on end, as the two long files of painted braves, lances and guns at the ready, took station behind our cavalry – by God, they were marking ’em, man for man! Ten feet behind each trooper there was now a mounted Sioux, and there was no doubting the menacing significance of that. Allison stammered over the first few words of his address, and ploughed on, and I was preparing to translate aloud when a harsh voice cut in before me – a half-breed among the Indians was translating. So they’d brought their own interpreter with them; that might be significant, too.
There was a flurry of hooves to the left; Young-Man-Afraid and Standing Bear were moving their riders – in behind the lines of Sioux who were marking our troopers, so that they in turn were covered man for man! It was like some huge game of human chess, and damned unnerving if you were in the middle of the board; now there were three lines of silent horsemen either side of us, and the Sioux riders were neatly sandwiched in the middle; they didn’t like it, and turned muttering in their saddles. Standing Bear grinned and made a derisive gesture at them, and then edged his pony close to where I was sitting. I felt a sudden warm surge of relief; with that hawk profile and lance at rest against his muscular arm, he looked a confident likely lad to have at your elbow. Terry, beside me, glanced round coolly at the troopers and the Indians and whispered: “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”q John Charity Spring would have been all for him.
Allison was in full spate now, and my fears returned as I realised that what he was saying wasn’t even tactful, let alone conciliatory. Instead of arguing persuasively that white occupation of the Black Hills would really be in the Sioux’s interest, since they could make a thumping profit out of it, or something of that sort, he was taking a most minatory line, like Arnold lecturing the fags. The government must control the hills, and that was that; compensation would be paid, and if it became necessary to occupy more land in the Powder River country, a price would be settled for that too. I listened appalled; if the fool had wanted to put their backs up, he couldn’t have done it better – and not for the first time the suspicion crossed my mind: were they trying to provoke the Indians, to ensure that no treaty was reached, so that they’d have an excuse for disciplining ’em once for all? If so, he’d picked a bloody clever time to light the train, hadn’t he, with several thousand Sioux getting shorter-tempered by the minute? For they were stirring now, and angry grunts and shouts of “Ho-ho!” were coming from around the arena; Allison raised his voice stubbornly, I heard the figure of six million mentioned again, and then he turned and plumped down in his seat, red-faced with oratory and determination.
One thing was clear: he hadn’t made it any easier for Red Cloud and Spotted Tail to accept with dignity. Red Cloud was getting to his feet, his face a grim mask; as he raised a hand to the assembly and faced the commission, silence fell again; he pushed back the trailing gorgeous wings of his war-bonnet and fixed us with his gleaming black eyes.
No one will ever know what he was going to say, for at that moment there was an outcry from the back of the crowd, and it was like some huge brown page turning as every head went round to look. There was a thunder of hooves in the distance, and through a gap in the low hills to the right came pouring a bright cavalcade of Indians, armed riders who whooped and yikked as they galloped towards us; the whole assembly was on its feet shouting, as they swept up to the clear space on our right flank, a surging, feathered horde two hundred strong, milling and waving their clubs and lances while one of their number trotted his pony forward in front of the commission.
He was a sight to take the eye even in that wild gathering, a lithe, brilliant figure who carried himself like an emperor. He was naked except for a short war-bonnet and breechclout, his face and chest glistening with ochre and vermilion, at his waist were strapped two long-barrelled Colts, a stone axe hung from his decorated saddle-blanket, and he carried a feathered lance. Standing Bear stirred and grunted as I looked anxious inquiry.
“Little Big Man,” says he. “The right arm of Tashunka Witko Crazy Horse,” and I began to sweat in earnest. These must be Oglala Bad Faces, the wildest of the wild bands from the Powder. The hostiles had come to the council at last.
I gabbled it in a whisper to Terry and Allison; the stout cleric goggled and Collins’s hand twitched again at his lapel. We waited breathless while Little Big Man checked his pony close by Red Cloud; he looked all round the assembly and then deliberately wheeled his pony so that his back was to us. I can still see that slim painted body and feathered head, the lance upraised; then he hurled it quivering into the turf at Red Cloud’s feet and his voice rang out:
“I will kill the first Lacotah chief who talks of selling the Black Hills!”
There was uproar, and I had to shout my translation in Terry’s ear. Mills was barking to his troopers to hold their line, but Young-Man-Afraid and half a dozen of his braves were round Little Big Man in a second, hustling him back towards his fellows, all yelling at once; the assembly were in tumult, but they weren’t breaking ranks, thank God; Spotted Tail was on his feet, arms raised, bellowing for order. Standing Bear tugged at my sleeve, and as I turned to follow his pointing finger I swore in amazement.
Behind where we sat was the ambulance, its horses cropping quietly at the grass and its driver standing on his box to watch the confusion – and cantering out of the trees towards the ambulance, a solitary rider, daintily side-saddle, waving her crop gaily as she saw me. I was out from under the canopy like a startled stoat, running towards her in rage and alarm; what the hell was she doing, I shouted, as I grasped her bridle.
“Why, I have come to see the great pow-wow!” cries the blonde lunatic. “My, what a splendid sight! What are they calling out for? Oh, see, there is Mr Spotted Tail! But I declare, Harry, I never knew there were so many—”
“Damn your folly, you should be in the camp, you – you mindless biddy!” I reached up and swung her by main force from the saddle.
“Harry, what are you doing? Oh, be careful – my dress! Whatever are you so agitated for? – and you must not curse in that dreadful way! Gracious me, I have only come to see the sight, and I think it was mean of you not to have brought me anyway – oh, look, look at those ones there with the horns and teeth on their heads – are they not grotesque? And the horsemen yonder – was ever anything so grand? Such colours – oh, I would not have missed it for anything!”
I was almost gibbering as I bundled her into the ambulance. “Get in there and sit still! For God’s sake, woman, don’t you know that this is dangerous? No, I cannot explain – sit there, and wait till I come, blast it! Keep her ladyship there!” I snarled at the startled driver, and ran back, followed by female bleats.
The space before the canopy was alive with jostling, shouting Indians; the vortex was the group round Little Big Man, arguing fiercely; the commission were on their feet, nonplussed, and Mills was whispering urgently to Terry. The great assembly was dissolving, some milling down towards us, others mounting their ponies. I saw weapons brandished as the whooping and yelling grew louder; here was Spotted Tail, his huge buckskinned figure thrusting through the throng as he shouted to Young-Man-Afraid; now he was under the canopy, addressing Mills.
“Put them into the ambulance, now! Away, at once, and make for the camp!”
Allison, mouth open, was about to deliver himself, but Spotted Tail seized his arm and almost ran him to the ambulance, while the troopers closed round us, keeping back the shouting crowd of Sioux riders. There was an undignified scramble into the ambulance, the clergyman dropping his spectacles and Allison his papers; you could feel the panic starting to spread like a wave; oh, Jesus, any minute now and the devils would be breaking loose; it was on a knife-edge – and Standing Bear was pushing me, not towards the ambulance, but to a riderless pony. That suited me: if hell was going to pop, I’d sooner take my chance in the saddle than in a crowded, lumbering wagon that would be the focus for their fury. Christ, Elspeth was in the ambulance!
There was nothing to be done about that; with Standing Bear knee to knee I urged my beast up against the canvas cover as the ambulance rolled away. We were surrounded by a phalanx of Mills’s bluecoats, with Young-Man-Afraid and his braves among them. Thank God Mills was cool, and every sabre was in its sheath. All round was a disordered, threatening mob of Indians, yelling taunts, but the ambulance was moving well now, its horses at the trot; it trundled under the trees and out on to the trail to camp, towards the big buttes, and I swallowed my fear and looked about me.
The prairie either side was thick with mounted braves, whooping and singing; I caught some of the words, about how they would make the Powder Country tremble beneath any invader, so that his bowels would loosen with fear; the lightning about the Black Hills would flash and blind him. The more din they made, the better I liked it, for it sounded like drunken exultation; they were seeing the Isantanka chiefs scuttling for safety, and with luck that would content them. But a false move by Mills or his men, an accidental shot on either side, or a spurt of blood-lust in just one of that galloping host, and in a twinkling it would be massacre.
We were running briskly for the camp now, and Mills’s men were in good order around us. Beyond them I watched the Sioux; there was one evil son-of-a-bitch in a horned headdress flourishing a hatchet and proposing that they should kill all the white men and burn their lodges; suddenly he wheeled between the troopers and rode screeching for the ambulance – and I saw one of the coolest, smartest tricks I remember. Standing Bear raced forward to head him off, and I yelped with terror, for I knew if he cut him down the whole mob would pour in on us. But as he came up beside the whooping Sioux, he simply reached out and caught the other’s wrist, laughing.
“D’you want to kill something, great warrior?” he shouted. “Very good, kill away! See that colt yonder – let’s see if you can kill that!”
There was a colt running loose among the riders; the fellow in the homed cap looked at it, rolled his eyes at Standing Bear, and with a great howl galloped away, drawing his pistol, letting fly at the colt. There were excited hoots as others took off after him. Standing Bear shrugged and shook his head as he fell back alongside me; I was cold with sweat, for I knew that only his quick thinking had saved us.58
The Sioux fell away after that, and we rolled on to the camp in safety, Mills sensibly holding one troop behind as rearguard while the other took the ambulance ahead. I stayed with him, since it always looks well to come in with the last detachment, scowling back towards the danger; it was safe enough now, and I knew that Elspeth was all right with the commission. Mills was thorough; he pulled up a mile from camp and we waited an hour while Young-Man-Afraid’s chaps scouted back; they reported that the Sioux were dispersing to their tipis, and Little Big Man’s hostiles had withdrawn. All was quiet after the sudden brief excitement, but I guessed it had been a damned near thing.
I finally rode in with the troop, rehearsing the rebuke I would visit on my half-witted wife. Of all the cake-headed tricks, riding out alone to watch the great pow-wow, indeed! Even she ought to have known that although it had been quiet enough about camp, it was folly for a woman to ride alone in wild country; if the meeting had boiled into real violence it would have been all up with her.
She wasn’t in our quarters, Mrs Mills hadn’t seen her, and I was making for Terry’s billet to inquire when I saw the ambulance driver, a bog Irish private, puffing his cutty by the stables. I hailed him, and he stared like a baffled baboon.
“Her leddyship, sorr? Now, an’ Oi hivn’t seen hem nor hair of her since ye putt her in me cart.”
“You mean since you brought her back?”
“Oi didn’t bring her back,” says he, and the icy shock stopped me in my tracks. “Shure an’ didn’t she hop out agin to see the show, jest after ye’d sated her down? I thought she was wid yourself, Colonel sorr, or the t’other gintlemen—”
“You bloody fool!” I was absolutely swaying. “D’you mean she’s still back yonder?”
He gabbled at me, and then I was running for the stables in such panic as even I have seldom known. She was out there, among that savage, wicked horde – Christ, what might not happen in their present mood? The thoughtless, blind, stupid little – and on my unbelieving ears fell a sound that brought me whirling round with such a flood of relief that I almost cried out.
“Harry! Harry, dearest! Coo-ee!”
She was riding across the parade, touching her pony to hasten it to me, smiling brilliantly and not a thing out of place except her hat, which she had taken off so that her hair blew free about her face. I stood shaking with reaction as she slipped from the saddle and pecked me on the cheek. Instinctively I clamped her to me, shuddering.
“Why did you all hurry away so quickly? I thought I had been quite deserted,” cries she laughing, and then opening her eyes wide in mock alarm. “All alone and defenceless among wild Indians! It gave me quite a start, I can tell you!”
“You … you got out of the ambulance … after I told you—”
“Well, I should just think so! I wanted to see what was happening. Was it not thrilling? All of them running to and fro, and making those whooping cries and shaking their feathers? Why were they in such a commotion? I hoped,” she added wistfully, “that they might do a war dance, or some such thing, but they didn’t – and then I noticed that you were all gone, and I was quite alone. I called out after the ambulance, but no one heard me.”
“Elspeth,” says I weakly. “You must never, never do such a thing again. You might have been killed … when I found you weren’t here, I—”
“Why, my love, you are all a-tremble! You haven’t been fretting about me, surely? I was perfectly well, you know, for when a number of them saw me and brought their ponies about me, grunting in that strange way, and of course I couldn’t make it out, I was not in the least alarmed … well, not more than a wee bit …”
She wouldn’t be, either. I’ve known brave folk in my time: Broad-foot and Gordon, Brooke and Garibaldi, aye, and Custer, but for cold courage Elspeth, Lady Flashman, née Morrison, could match them all together. I could picture her in her flowered green riding dress and ribboned straw hat, perfectly composed while a score of painted savages ringed her, glowering. I choked as I held her, and asked what had happened.
“Well, one of them, very fierce-looking – he had two pistols and was painted all red and yellow—” for God’s sake, it must have been Little Big Man himself “—he came and snapped at me, shaking his fist; he sounded most irritable. I said ‘Good morning’, and he shouted at me, but presently he got down and was quite civil.”
“Why on earth—”
“I smiled at him,” says she, as though that explained it – which it probably did.
“—and he made the others stand back, and then he nodded at me, rather abruptly, and conducted me to Mr Spotted Tail. Then, of course, everything was right as could be.”
My alarm, my agonised relief, my sudden welling of affection, died in an instant. I swung round on her, but she was prattling on, one hand round my waist while she tidied her hair with the other.
“And he seemed so glad to see me, and tried to speak in English – ever so badly, and made us both laugh! Then he sent the others away, and managed to tell me that there had been some confusion, and we should wait a little and he would have sent me back to the camp. So that was all right, you see, and I’m sorry if it caused you any anxiety, dear one, but there was no occasion.”
Wasn’t there, though? She’d been with Spotted Tail an hour and better, with the others away, and not a civilised soul in sight … I knew what he was, the horny savage, and that she’d been pouting and ogling at him … All my old, well-founded suspicions came racing back – that first day, thirty-odd years ago, when she swore she was in the Park, and wasn’t, and frolicking half-naked with Cardigan while I lay blotto in the wardrobe, and cuddling with that fat snake Usman, and … oh, heaven knew how many others. I fought for speech.
“What did he do with … I mean, what did you … I mean … dammit, what happened?”
“Oh, he showed me to such a pretty little grove, with a tent, where I should be comfortable while he went to business with his friends. But presently he came back and we chatted ever so comfortably. Well,” she laughed gaily, “he tried to chat, but it was so difficult, with his funny English – why, almost all he knows is ‘Joll-ee good!’”
Was she taunting me with mock-innocent hints, the damned minx? I can never tell, you see. I craned my neck as we walked – hell’s teeth, there was loose grass sticking to the back of her gown, almost to the collar – there was even a shred in her hair! D’you get that with chatting? I gave a muffled curse and ground my teeth, and was about to explode in righteous accusation when she glanced up at me with those wondrous blue eyes, and for the hundredth time I knew that no one who could smile with that child-like simplicity could possibly be false … could she? And the fact that she’d patently been rolling in grass, positively wallowing in the stuff with her hair down? Eh? And Spotted Tail had had the cheek to tell me he was slavering for her … and they’d been alone for an hour in such a pretty little grove … Jesus, it must be the talk of the tipis by now!
“And then, after a little while, he bade me good-bye ever so courteously, and two of his young men conducted me home.”
What the devil was I to say? I’d no positive evidence (just plain certainty), and if I accused her, or even voiced suspicion, there would be indignation and floods of tears and reproach … I’d been through it all before. Was I misjudging her by my own rotten standards? No, I wasn’t either – I knew she was a trollop, and her wide-eyed girlishness was a deliberate mockery. Wasn’t it? No, blast it, it wouldn’t do, I’d have it out here and now—”
“Oh, please, Harry, don’t look so angry! I did not mean to cause you distress. Were you truly anxious for me?”
“Elspeth,” I began thunderously.
“Oh, you were anxious, and I am a thoughtless wretch! And I am selfish, too, because I cannot be altogether sorry since it has shown me yet again how you care for me. Say you are not angry?” And she gave me a little squeeze as we walked along.
“Elspeth,” says I. “Now … I … ah …” And, as always, I thought what the devil, if I’m wrong, and have been misjudging her all these years, and she’s as chaste as morning dew – so much the better. If she’s not – and I’ll be bound she’s not – what’s an Indian more or less?
“I am truly penitent, you see, and it was perfectly all right, because Mr Spotted Tail took such excellent care of me. Was it not fortunate that he was there, in your absence?” She laughed and sighed happily. “‘Joll-ee good!’”
q Who shall guard the guardians?