Little Big Man

At top of the rise, she pulled in on the rawhide bridle and waited for the three Cheyenne, who weren’t in no hurry, I’ll say that for them. Then we rode on down to the river, which was yellow and swollen from the spring rains, and swam the ponies across, I holding onto the tail of ours and spinning behind like a lure on a fishline.

CHAPTER 2 Boiled Dog

ON THE OTHER SIDE of the river, Caroline fetched me up on the pony’s rump again, and said in a new sappy, romantic way that would have been pathetic were I not numb from fear and now swamped with the muddy water of the Platte: “Maybe, Jack, I’m going to be an Indin princess in feathers and beads.”

I never had rode horse much before, and already it was beginning to get me in the crotch and hams from jolting up and slamming down at every stride; and if I dug my heels into the beast’s yellow haunches, he would blow out his belly and try to shiver his arse out from under mine. I had not made a friend in that animal, which was a pity being as he was my sole means of support in a vast and alien land populated by savages.

One of the latter came up alongside us at that moment, namely Old Lodge Skins himself, whom the river crossing had changed as to personality. I later found he had a special feeling about the Platte, regarding it as the southern boundary of his territory and when on the other side felt foolish and irresponsible, whereas when north of it came back to normal, whatever that was. Anyway, once he rode in out of the water, he gave us a stern look from under his hat, pointed back over a bony shoulder protruding from his blanket, as if to say “Get behind,” and trotted his animal up the bank.

We followed, our horse making the bluff in a couple of tries owing to his double load—not that I was that much extra weight, but rather because he never lost an opportunity to let me know I was an imposition.

Now when Indians travel, they go every which way according to their personal taste. Them two braves who had come with the chief didn’t cross at the same place as us. One rode down a hundred yards and swum his pony over, and the other went upstream for about a mile, then the river took a bend and he went around it out of sight. I guess he knew a better place. We didn’t see him again for an hour, until we come over a rise, and there he sat on the earth, his mount grazing nearby. Old Lodge Skins passed him without so much as a look, and the brave returned the compliment. The latter started singing, though, in an awful moaning fashion that we could hear for a long time thereafter, when so far off he looked like a tiny bush.

After I had lived some time with the Cheyenne and learned their peculiarities, I remembered that incident and realized that the fellow had been in a “mood.” Something had offended him—maybe the river crossing he used had turned out to be full of quicksand or a frog on the shore called him an insulting name—and he moped along full of depression, and deciding to die, he sat down and began to sing his death song. In the old days before the coming of the whites, other than in battle Indians never kicked off except from shame. But the white men brought a number of diseases—like smallpox, which wiped out the entire Mandan nation—and that took the point away from dying for moral reasons, so it was cut out for the most part, although some willful individuals like our friend might try upon occasion.

Apparently it didn’t work this time because I saw the same fellow next day in camp, where he was peering into a little trade mirror and plucking out facial hair with a bone tweezer. His vanity had got the upper hand, so he must have recovered by then.

The riding got somewhat easier because the chief proceeded in a slow walk and every half mile or so stopped altogether, turned to us, and made certain hand signals accompanied by noises in his heathen tongue—communications which Caroline interpreted as statements of admiration for herself and suchlike rot. Then he would stare sadly at us for a minute and head on.

Now I better explain part of the secret at this point, as long as you understand what neither Old Lodge Skins nor me got the hang of it until quite a spell afterward. As to Caroline, well, it’s useless to speculate about what she thought she knew or what she imagined, because they was always all mixed together.

The main thing was that the chief had not made a deal to buy me and Caroline back at the wagons. What he done instead was make a long statement on the massacre, excusing the Cheyenne from any responsibility for it; but to be decent, because he liked white men still at this time and he also figured to get blamed when the story reached the troops at Laramie, he brought them horses to pay for the men that were killed.