Shortgrass Song Page 8

  * * *

  Matthew and Pete galloped their spotted horses to the lean-to shed built of leftover logs, to tell Buster about the Indians.

  “Hey, Buffalo Head,” Matthew said, “here come your Indians.”

  “My name is Buster Thompson, not Buffalo Head,” he said sternly.

  “It’s Buffalo Head. I heard ’em call you that.”

  Matthew had taken a mean streak since his mother’s death. Buster suspected the streak had been there all along, but that Ella had merely constrained it.

  “Mama said to call him Mr. Thompson,” Pete said.

  “She’s dead.”

  “Just call me Buster. That’s fine with me. But I don’t much like bein’ called Buffalo Head.”

  “You gonna get you another squaw from those Indians?” Matthew asked.

  “She’s not Buster’s,” Peter said. “She just lives here.”

  “He bought her.”

  “You can’t buy people,” Pete said. “Anyway, what would he want her for?”

  “To do what Cheyenne Dutch did to her.”

  “What did he do?” Caleb asked. He had been happily handing Buster his tools from the wooden crate.

  “Nothin’!” Buster said. “Now, Matthew, if you don’t stop talkin’ about things like that, I’m gonna have to tell your papa!”

  “I don’t care.” He kicked Pard in the ribs and loped to the cabin.

  “What did he do to her?” Caleb asked again.

  “Nothin’. Just scared her, that’s all. She did worse to him with that ax. Now, come on, let’s go wait for Long Fingers.”

  Pete walked the mare beside Buster and Caleb as they went back to the cabin.

  “Let me ride Crazy with you,” Caleb said.

  Pete hesitated, looked toward the cabin, reined Crazy to a standstill to let Caleb get on. Then he changed his mind. “No, Papa will beat my tail end if I let you. Sometime when he’s not around I’ll let you ride old Soupy if Buster won’t tell.”

  “I don’t know nothin’ about ridin’ no horses,” Buster said.

  “We’ll wait till Matthew’s not here, either. He’ll tell if he sees you ridin’ with me.”

  “He’s always here,” Caleb complained. “Just let me ride with you past the wheat. Then I’ll get off. Nobody’s watchin’.”

  Pete looked at the cabin again. “All right. Hurry up while Papa’s lookin’ at Long Fingers. Come on. Buster, help him get on.”

  “I told you I don’t know nothin’ about it.” Buster walked on alone.

  Pete pulled Caleb up behind him. Caleb kicked Crazy in the flank several times on the way up, but she stood calmly. She in no way deserved the name Cheyenne Dutch had unknowingly christened her with.

  The view from Crazy’s back reminded Caleb of the way things looked from the bald hill across the creek. He could see over the roof of the lean-to shed. He could look down on the top of Buster’s head. The edge of the wheat field was too near, his ride too short. “Make her run,” he said.

  “No, get down,” Pete ordered.

  “Just a little farther.”

  “Caleb, get down. Papa’s gonna see. Get down!”

  He swung his elbow around and knocked his brother off, but Caleb caught Pete’s shirt to break his fall. He landed on his feet and fell back into the corner of the wheat field.

  “Thanks a lot,” Caleb said sarcastically.

  Pete shrugged as he kicked the mare. “I told you to get down.”

  Buster laughed, pulled Caleb up, and went on with the boys to the cabin.

  ELEVEN

  Long Fingers rode at the head of his band. Behind him trailed his warriors. Then came the women and children and old folks, and the horses hauling the lodge poles and all the camp equipage. Some boys were driving two Holcomb yearlings. The nomads dragged a cloud of dust behind them as they filed past the Holcomb cabin to their campground downstream.

  Snake Woman went across the creek to gather wood when she saw them coming. She had no further use for Long Fingers. She had spent the winter interpreting her signs from the spirit world and was waiting for the proper time to act upon them. The Arapaho didn’t fit into her interpretations.

  The chief stopped at the cabin as his people passed by. “Holcomb,” he said. “I find your cows again.”

  “Take them,” Ab said. “The boys can’t rope them anyhow.”

  Matthew blushed with shame.

  The chief ordered his men to drive the cattle to camp. “Big lodge,” he said, looking at the cabin. “You make it better than they make at Cherry Creek. It will last a long time and you will not cut any more trees. At Cherry Creek their lodges fall apart, so they cut more trees all the time. They cut trees and carry them into the holes where they dig up the gold. It is no good to camp there anymore.”

  “You can look inside if you want to,” Buster suggested, proud of his workmanship.

  Long Fingers swung his leg over his mount’s withers and landed flat-footed on the ground. He followed Buster into the cabin, carefully inspecting the ridge log overhead. He had heard about Ella. After touring the cabin and pushing on the walls, he went back outside and studied the Nez Perce horses. “You trade with Cheyenne Dutch,” he said.

  “No,” Ab explained, “he went crazy here last summer and left them. Tried to get the Snake Woman, but Buster stopped him.”

  Long Fingers scowled. “He does not go crazy. It is a trick with him.”

  “I guess Ella was right,” Ab said vacantly. “We should have shot him when we had the chance.”

  “Yes, your wife was smart about people,” Long Fingers said, looking at the grave with the cut flowers on it. “Her heart was good. Next time you see Cheyenne Dutch, you shoot him, like she tells you.”

  Buster sat down on the porch and motioned for the chief to join him. “Where’s Kicking Dog?” he asked. “I didn’t see him.”

  The chief threw a blanket from his shoulders to the cabin porch and sat on it. “Kicking Dog is not Arapaho anymore. The Arapaho are friends to the white people. Kicking Dog takes some young braves to join the Kiowas. They attack the wagons south on the Arkansas River.”

  “Why did he run off with them?” Buster asked.

  “The Indian agents trick us, Buffalo Head. They bring a new treaty and tell us to sign. We all sign. All Arapaho and Cheyenne chiefs. They tell us we will get a new reservation on the Republican River with buffalo to hunt. They tell us they will teach us how to make a ranch. We do not read, but we believe them, so we sign the paper. Then they send us to Sand Creek and tell us this is what we sign for. No buffalo, no cattle, no trees. We cannot live there. Kicking Dog and some other young ones go to join the Kiowa—very mad.”

  Ab saw a sudden vision of Caleb dying in an Indian attack. “What if they come around here?” he asked.

  “Kiowa stay south,” Long Fingers said. “I will tell you if they come north.”

  “What if you don’t know about it?”

  “I am Arapaho. The Arapaho nation is the mother of all tribes. A mother knows where her children go. We have traders with all the tribes, so we know where they go. If Kicking Dog brings the Kiowa, I will send one of my boys to tell you. Buffalo Head knows the hand talk. I will send one of my boys to tell Gribble, too.”

  “Who?” Ab said.

  “You have a neighbor now.” He pointed north. “Twenty-two miles. Gribble makes a ranch there on Plum Creek. He did not know about you, but I tell him. He will come here maybe so tomorrow to see your cows.”

  “Well, what do you know,” Buster said. “This country might settle up after all.”

  Long Fingers put his fingers into a fold of his deerskin shirt and had his harmonica in his hand as a magician would produce a dove. “Yes,” he said. “It will settle with white people. So I play the white music.” He blew into the harp. “Let me hear this little one play this time, Buffalo Head.”

  Caleb saw the huge red man pointing at him. He took half a step behind Pete. How did the chief know he played anything?
Matthew said the Indians had magic powers. Caleb thought it was true with Long Fingers.

  “Boys, go get us our instruments,” Buster said.

  “Okay, Buffalo Head.” Matthew hooted and led his brothers at a sprint to Buster’s dugout.

  They played “Camptown Races,” of course. And Buster fiddled “Listen to the Mockingbird” as Caleb tried to keep up on the mandolin and Long Fingers droned on the harmonica. The chief’s favorite verse came from “Old Dan Tucker:”

  Old Dan Tucker and I got drunk,

  He fell in the fire and kicked up a chunk,

  The charcoal got inside his shoe,

  Lord bless you, honey, how the ashes flew!

  Ab knew Ella would not have approved of such lyrics at her home. But it was time to let Buster make those decisions. He would have his say soon enough.

  * * *

  Horace Gribble showed up about dinnertime the next day. He rode a fine Kentucky stud and carried a Remington revolver under his belt. His face was tanned, smooth with the bloom of youth, and bulging with tobacco. He made himself right at home—took his saddle off and threw it over a porch rail, poured a bucket of drinking water over his head, spit tobacco juice on the steps. Matthew admired him immediately.

  “I’m alone for now,” he said in answer to Ab’s inquiries. “But I got two brothers comin’. Hank and Bill. They’re bringin’ the cows from Kentucky.”

  “How many?” Ab asked.

  “Couple of hundred head. I thought I’d jiggle on down here and see how y’all do your ranchin’ before they show up. How come you ain’t got no fences up, yet?”

  “We have a corral,” Buster said, somewhat offended, “and a rail fence around the crops.”

  Gribble fanned himself with his hat and squinted at the black man. “How come you fence in your crops?”

  “We ain’t fencin’ ’em in, we’re fencin’ the cows out.”

  “That’s backwards,” Gribble declared. “I aim to fence my cows in.”

  Buster waited for Ab to set the newcomer straight, but, as he seemed removed from the conversation, Buster had to do it himself. “They’ll eat all the grass if you fence ’em in,” Buster explained.

  “I reckon that’s what makes ’em into beef, ain’t it? Grass grows back anyhow.”

  “It don’t grow here like it does in Kentucky. Don’t rain enough. You’ll have to build twelve miles of fence to feed that many cows. What do you plan to fence with?”

  “I’m gonna go up in them mountains and split me a mess of rails.”

  “The Indians won’t like you choppin’ that many trees,” Buster warned.

  “I don’t give a damn what an Indian likes. They gave up all this land in that last treaty they signed. I reckon I’ll chop what I want.”

  “It’s better just to let your cows run loose,” Ab said, turning his eyes from the flower garden, “and round them up every now and then. The wolves and mountain lions will get some, but they’ll find plenty of grass, and you won’t have to build any fences.”

  “How in the hell am I supposed to know what land is mine if I don’t fence it?” Horace demanded.

  “Where’d you settle?” Ab asked.

  “Up on the head of Plum Creek.”

  “Well, then, all the grass from there to the divide with Monument Creek is yours. Everything on this side of the divide is ours. There’s plenty of room for two herds.”

  Horace rolled a wad of chewing tobacco around in his mouth for a while. “What if I catch your cows on my side of the divide?”

  “Just run them back on our side. We’ll do the same for you. I guess the boys are going to have to learn to rope and brand so we can keep our cows separate. Buster’s made us a brand. Looks like a bull’s-eye.”

  Horace thought a moment, then grinned. “I didn’t really want to split all them rails anyhow,” he said. “Just brand ’em and leave ’em run loose? I reckon I can learn a new kind of cow raisin’ if that’s all there is to it.”

  Buster got up and said he was about to cook dinner, and invited Horace Gribble to stay and eat.

  “I won’t turn my back on cookin’,” he said, reaching into the pocket of his saddlebag. “While you cook, Holcomb here can read the paper. I brought a copy of the Rocky Mountain News with me. I figured you’d want to read about the battle.”

  Ab and Buster looked at each other. “What battle?” Ab said.

  “You haven’t heard?”

  “Heard what?”

  “My God, y’all have been out of the way too long. Haven’t you heard about the battle of Fort Sumter?”

  They shook their heads. “Where’s that?” Buster asked.

  “Where?” Horace started laughing. “South Carolina. The Confederates attacked it. The war’s on, boys!”

  “Between the states?”

  “Yep. North again’ South.”

  “If there’s a war on,” Ab said, sitting forward on his bench, “why aren’t you back there fighting in it?”

  Gribble let his chaw fall onto the dirt beside the porch. “Fight, hell.” he said. “I ain’t mad at nobody. What do you think I come away out here for?”

  * * *

  Ab’s course became clear to him over the next several months. Speculation held that the war would spread west from the states and infest the territories. The Federals would probably blockade the entire Dixie Coast to cut off the sale of Confederate cotton. The secessionists would counter by trying to capture New Mexico Territory and California so they could ship their cotton out through the Pacific ports. The Texans would be coming up the Rio Grande to take Santa Fe. They might even come as far as Denver to claim the gold fields. There were already a good many southern men in Denver.

  By May there was talk of raising a volunteer regiment to fight the Confederates. By July thousands of Texans were poised on the southern border of New Mexico, ready to strike. By August, the First Regiment of Colorado Volunteers was drilling near Denver. Colorado Territory had been formed from the western reaches of what previously had been the Kansas Territory.

  It was all working out pretty well for Ab. He wanted to beat Caleb to joining Ella without disgracing the Holcomb name, and war seemed the perfect opportunity. He thought of the glory he would bring on his boys when he threw himself into the forefront of some battle. Buster would sing songs about the way he died leading a charge against a whole battalion of mounted Texans. That was the best part: fighting the Texans! They would name a fort after him.

  In September he decided to ride to Denver and join the First. He got up early one morning, saddled Pard, and called Buster and the boys out after breakfast.

  “I’m going to fight the Texans,” he said, strapping his old Walker Colt around his waist.

  Matthew beamed with pride. Pete wrinkled his nose and squinted. Caleb silently contemplated all the horses he would ride while his father was away.

  “What about the boys?” Buster said.

  “You take care of them. I want Matthew and Pete to look after the cows. See that they learn how to rope. If Caleb ever gets his strength back, you can put him to farming with you. Farming ought to be good enough for him. It was good enough for me.”

  Caleb’s hopes sank. He wanted to ride the horses and chase the cows, not drag in the dust wake of a plow stock.

  “You boys go on to work now. I want to talk to Buster.”

  “I get to ride Crazy!” Matthew said as he and Pete ran for the corral.

  “She’s mine! You have to ride Soupy!”

  “I’m biggest,” Matthew argued.

  Caleb stood in front of the cabin, not having any work to run to.

  “Caleb,” Buster said, “you can carry my spade and pick on down to the creek. I’m gonna dig some more on the irrigation ditch today.”

  When Caleb had walked beyond earshot, Ab looked at Ella’s grave. “Keep some flowers cut for her, Buster.” He cinched the saddle tight around the spotted gelding’s barrel. “And keep that flower garden growing.” He put his foot in the stirr
up and climbed up to the saddle. “She told me just after that log crushed her that I had better not let Caleb die. I promised her I’d look after him. I’m trusting you to keep my word for me.”

  Buster said nothing. He never understood all the concern over Caleb.

  “One more thing,” Ab said, reaching into his pocket. “This is Caleb’s pocketknife. Give it to him when you judge he’s old enough to use it safely.”

  Buster took the knife and nodded. Ab turned the Nez Perce gelding up Monument Creek for Denver, looking one last time over the grave of his wife. He expected never to return.

  Buster shook his head in consternation and trudged down to the creek. He found Caleb digging ineffectually, standing on the spade.

  “What did he want to tell you?” the boy asked.

  “Here.” He put the pocketknife in the little hand. “He told me to give you this.”

  TWELVE

  Snake Woman hated everything about living the way of white people. She hated the wagon she slept in, its hollow sound and cold iron fittings. She hated the buckets she carried water in and the wounded ground she emptied them on. She hated the oldest boy, who leered at her from the back of the spotted mare.

  Most of all, she hated Buffalo Head. Actually, she despised all grown men, but none did she loathe more than Buffalo Head—the one who had brought her to live with the whites; the one who had told her to sleep in the wagon; the one who had made her teach him the hand language.

  Yet, in the signs from the spirit world, the gods had told her how she must use Buffalo Head, and she found the thought repulsive. She tried to interpret the signs differently, but they fit together in just one way. The shooting star had shown her the way to the Comanche. Buffalo Head had counted coup on Cheyenne Dutch. The oxen had killed the crazy white woman. And now, a dream of two warriors, one white and one black, both wearing the dress of the Comanche, had wakened her under the canopy of the wagon she hated so much. It could mean only one thing.