Shortgrass Song Read online

  It took her several days to steel herself to the idea. She hid in the cottonwoods across the creek and watched Buffalo Head dig the ditch to his truck patch. She watched as he taught the boy how to play the instruments. She watched as he crawled on the ground among the wildflowers, picking up seeds.

  What made the spirits so cruel that they would require such a sacrifice of her to earn her own tribe?

  * * *

  A week after Ab left for Denver, Buster had Caleb working full days and enjoying his work, except when Matthew rode by to flaunt his saddle and the spotted mare he had taken from Pete.

  “How come your mother never let you work?” Buster asked one evening when he and Caleb were carrying their tools to the shed from the creek bottom. “You can pull your weight good as anybody.”

  Talk of his mother mustered a nameless guilt in Caleb. “She said I was too sickly.”

  “Sickly? With what?”

  “Consumption, asthma, flux.”

  Buster laughed. “Who told her you had all that?”

  “Some doctors.”

  Buster hung his shovel blade on a catch made of a forked pine branch. “I think them doctors wanted her to keep comin’ and spendin’ her money. She was a fine lady. Smart, too. But I think them doctors tricked her. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with you.”

  “Papa thinks there is.”

  “Well, when he gets back from the war and sees how straight and strong you are, he’s gonna change his mind for sure. Now, let’s play a few songs before I fix supper.”

  “Okay,” Caleb said, his eyes twinkling. He forced the vision of the falling ridge log aside and contemplated music.

  “You can play the fiddle today.”

  “I don’t know how to play the fiddle.” He balled his little fist up and punched Buster in the stomach playfully. He had become more familiar with Buster than he ever had been with his father, or even Matthew for that matter.

  “You mean I forgot to tell you? You play it just like a mandolin, except you use a bow, and you hold it under your chin. Shoot, you can halfway play it already and you just don’t know it.”

  “But it doesn’t have any frets!”

  “You don’t need frets. Your fingers know where they’re goin’ now without no frets.”

  “Really?”

  The moon was so full and the sky so clear that night that under them Buster could read the headlines of the Rocky Mountain News. He sat in the moonlight for a while and played the banjo, but he was tired, and soon crawled into the dugout to find his pallet. He was looking at the dark wedge of a mountain against the pale sky, thinking about building a flume so he could irrigate more than just bottom land, when a figure appeared outside.

  Buster tensed and propped himself up on his elbows. Snake Woman stepped into the dugout and became a silhouette against the open doorway. He saw both hands. She wasn’t carrying a knife, thank God. Or an ax. Did she have a weapon concealed?

  As if to answer his question, Snake Woman pulled her dress from her shoulders and let it fall to the floor. Buster was almost unconscious with disbelief. He said nothing. She wouldn’t have understood whatever he might have said anyway. He made no attempt to communicate with the sign language either. What was the point, in the dark? He just scooted across his blankets and backed away from her until he was against the cool dirt wall. She knelt beside him. He tried to get up, but she held him down by the shoulders. She was strong. Her hands moved down his body to the button of his pants.

  Buster didn’t know much about it, but it wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Master Hugh had sold most of the slave girls his age by the time he had had his first few experiences with them. None of them had ever come to him naked in the dark before.

  But Snake Woman’s carnal experiences far surpassed those of Buffalo Head. Her Comanche captors had often traded her services to bull whackers and mule skinners at Bent’s Fort for whiskey and tobacco.

  She mounted Buster as she would a horse, wedging her knee between him and the wall, pinning him against the floor with her hands on his chest. She felt hot as the coal in Old Dan Tucker’s shoe on top of him, and his urges took their courses in spite of his protestations. It didn’t take her long to get what she had come for, and then she rose in silence, slipped on her dress, and vanished without once looking back.

  The next morning Buster was still wondering why. Was it delayed gratitude for kicking Cheyenne Dutch over the creek bank? Was it his good looks? Did it really happen? Yep, it happened. The thought of that tongueless savage forcing herself on him tormented him all morning as he went about his chores. He supposed he should have fought harder and wondered why he hadn’t. Would she do it again? No, that was too terrible to consider. Or too much to hope for. He watched her all day. She did not so much as glance his way.

  That night Buster had almost fallen asleep when she appeared again. He resolved to run her off. It wasn’t proper for a woman to sneak in on a man like that. But this time she simply lay down beside him. She didn’t even touch him, yet he could feel the warmth of her body. He made the mistake of putting his hand on her, to push her away, he told himself. But his arms rebelled and pulled her under him instead.

  Five nights in a row she appeared and vanished. Buster was getting nervous. What would Mister Ab think? Or Miss Ella? If Matthew saw anything he would never let Buster forget it. Caleb would ask a lot of questions. What if she got pregnant? There would be no doubt of the baby’s lineage. He was pretty sure that he was the only black man between Denver and Santa Fe. He was going to have to drive her off. It was simple as that.

  The sixth night he sat outside the dugout instead of lying down inside. He intended to meet her standing up in the moonlight where she could see his hand signs. He stayed awake as long as he could, then fell asleep leaning against the creek bank. He woke shivering in the morning. Snake Woman had failed to appear.

  * * *

  With the next moon, a snow fell in the high country and dusted the mountains white like the rumps of Nez Perce horses. The nights came earlier, until they began catching Buster and Caleb playing songs on the brink of the creek bank.

  Buster was teaching Caleb a ballad one night when he was almost moved to tears to hear the boy’s little voice singing it. Caleb sang in a child’s voice, but in a voice that never wavered or missed a note. “Ben Bolt” almost always made tears well up in Buster’s eyes anyway. But now, when he thought of Miss Ella, and heard her son singing, it was all he could do to keep them from cascading down his cheeks.

  In the old churchyard in the valley, Ben Bolt,

  In a corner obscure and alone,

  They have fitted a slab of granite so gray,

  And sweet Alice lies under the stone.

  “That’s what they call waltz time,” Buster said, clearing his throat and rubbing a sleeve across his face. “One-two-three, one-two-three. You better get on to the house now. Time for bed. Bar the door and pull the strap in.”

  “Aw, can’t we just play one more?”

  “Oh, all right. Somethin’ lively, though.”

  “How about two?”

  Buster held Caleb to a single rendition of “Down in Alabam’” and then sent him to the cabin. He waited until he heard the door close and then climbed off the creek bank and into the dugout.

  * * *

  At dawn, Buster shuffled up from the cutbank and collected what eggs the hens had left in the converted milk wagon. He knocked on the cabin door until Pete, draped in a red wool blanket like an Indian, let him in. Matthew poked his head out of Ab’s bedroom, which he had taken over since his father’s departure.

  “Caleb up?” Buster asked.

  “He’s in there with Matthew,” Pete said.

  “No, he ain’t,” Matthew replied.

  “Well, he’s not in here with me.”

  Buster looked in both bedrooms for himself. Caleb was in neither. He went back outside and ran to the covered wagon. Snake Woman was gone. He ran to the shed built next to the corral. Soupy a
nd the spotted mare were gone.

  “Where is he?” Pete asked when Buster returned to the cabin.

  “Be quiet. Let me think.” He had waited to hear the door close the night before. He knew Caleb had made it inside. No one could have entered to take him away. It had to be Snake Woman. She had waited inside, grabbed Caleb, and stolen him.

  “Matthew,” Buster said. “Get Mister Ab’s rifle.”

  “Yes, sir!” Matthew said, with rare respect.

  “Pete, get you and your brother something to eat for dinner.”

  “What for?” Pete asked.

  “You gotta walk to Gribble’s place and stay there.”

  “Walk?”

  “Yes, boy, walk! The horses are gone! Snake Woman took Caleb off to the Indians!”

  Buster started Matthew and Pete up Monument Creek, then ran to his dugout for his things. He shoved his horse pistol under his belt and looped his powder flask and shot pouch over one shoulder. He rolled a blanket, wedged it under his arm. He filled a canteen and stowed some smoked venison in a piece of cloth. With a long stick he went looking for the cattle, cut two slow cows from the herd, and on foot drove them down the creek.

  He made Colorado City by noon. The ugly little town had started out as headquarters for some prospectors hoping to find gold on Pikes Peak. The prospects had failed to materialize, but the town had hung on as a trading post and way station for occasional supply trains coming up from New Mexico on the Fort Bridger Road. It was peopled by hardened souls, but Buster hoped the worst of them had gone off to fight in the war.

  He traded the two cows for a swayback sorrel horse, threw his blanket over the washboard ribs, and rode down the Fountain River. A grove of cottonwoods became his campground that night. He reached the Arkansas two hours into the next morning and turned east for Sand Creek, hoping to find Long Fingers there on his worthless reservation. The chief would know how to find Snake Woman.

  THIRTEEN

  Before, Caleb had thought he would never tire of riding horses. Now he was so saddle sore that he never wanted to hear another hoofbeat as long as he lived. Snake Woman had grabbed him in the cabin that first night, lifted his feet from the floor, and clamped her hand over his mouth. She had carried him outside and dragged him over the plains until they came to the horses, saddled and waiting. He hollered for Buster once when he got on Soupy, but Snake Woman pulled him off, threw him on the ground, and threatened to hit him.

  He lost track of the days. Snake Woman made him sleep on the ground with only his saddle blanket for cover. He drank mere swallows of water and ate only dried meat. He didn’t know which way they were going, but the mountains got farther away until they vanished altogether. He missed his instruments and worried that his fingertips would soften if he didn’t have them to play.

  They crossed a river, Snake Woman leading Soupy behind the spotted mare. The thought of being swept away in the cold water made Caleb hang on to the saddle horn with an eagle’s grip. He was glad his mother wasn’t there, for the sight of him crossing the river probably would have killed her. Then he remembered she was dead anyway.

  They crossed miles of grass and sand hills strewn with buffalo chips and buffalo skulls. Occasionally Snake Woman would get off the spotted mare and point the noses of several skulls in the direction she and Caleb were traveling.

  Once, in the distance against a hill, Caleb saw a huge blanket of darkness rolling over the grass. Then the blanket began to break up, and he knew it was a herd of buffalo, more animals than he had ever seen at one time.

  Three times they met Indians. Hunting parties with lances, bows, and rifles. Snake Woman made her signs at them and they pointed, giving her direction. One of the warriors frightened Caleb by poking him with the end of a bow, never smiling, never scowling, just staring with cold eyes and jabbing him hard with the bow.

  They crossed another river, then another, and another, until Caleb thought the whole world had turned to grass, rivers, and canyons. Then, just as he began to get used to riding day after day, he saw a range of mountains looming against the horizon. He hoped they were going home.

  But the next day he realized the mountains were not his own. They were not as huge or beautiful, but at least they were more interesting than the monotonous, rolling plains. They rose like tepees from the prairie. Buffalo and antelope skimmed broad carpets of tall grass stretching between them. He sensed Snake Woman’s excitement and knew his trip was almost over. He wondered how soon Buster would follow. He did not doubt the black man would come for him.

  * * *

  Snake Woman found Laughing Wolf’s camp at the place she remembered—a hundred lodges lining the creek that wound among the mountains. She asked to see Laughing Wolf, and the chief agreed to speak to her, mainly out of curiosity.

  He was a young chief, arrogant in deportment, with tinkling bits of metal tied all over his buckskins and moccasins. When Snake Woman entered the lodge, he demanded to know why she had returned. Had she offended Long Fingers by running away after Laughing Wolf had traded her for six hides and two blankets? And where had the white boy come from?

  Snake Woman told of the signs she had received from the spirit world. She had brought the Comanche two great warriors. The white boy came from fighting stock. His father was away right now with the blue coats, fighting the Texans. The child she carried inside her now was the son of Buffalo Head, a strong, black brave who drowned his captors and counted coup on the crazy white man called Cheyenne Dutch who thought he was a horse god.

  All of this bewildered Laughing Wolf. He gave Snake Woman and Caleb some buffalo meat to gnaw on while he conferred with the peace chief in his lodge. Caleb tore at the meat like a hungry dog, barely mindful of the Indian children who ran past him, shooting at him with imaginary bows.

  When the sun had moved well west in the sky, Laughing Wolf returned to talk to Snake Woman. “If you give birth to a black son,” he explained, “it will prove you are telling the truth about the spirits and the signs, and you may marry one of my warriors who will adopt the white boy and the black baby. If your child is not black, or if it is a girl, I will kill it and cook you and the white boy over the fire, or else the evil spirits will destroy us.”

  Snake Woman started singing her most joyous song—one given to her by a Comanche warrior who had once owned her. She left Caleb behind, and walked through the entire camp so all the members of the band would know how happy she was to be back among the proud Comanche.

  Caleb listened to the weird wailings of the tongueless Indian woman fade. He felt alone and scared, but he was still hungry. He spotted a hunk of buffalo meat broiling over a fire. Two women and several children were waiting for the meat to cook. Caleb looked all around. He wasn’t being guarded. It seemed he could move around the camp if he wished. He took a few cautious steps toward the cooking meat. No one objected. He walked closer. A boy about his size looked up as Caleb neared the fire. Before he knew what had happened, the little savage had leapt and knocked him down. He thought he would be scalped or tortured in one of the horrible ways Matthew had told him about.

  A scowling woman picked him up and pointed to the sun, then to his shadow on the ground, and explained with gestures that it was not allowed to let one’s shadow fall on meat that was cooking over the fire.

  The white boy nodded and sat to one side of the fire, fearful that another Indian was going to knock him down again if he broke some other strange rule. He wanted Buster to come and take him home. He wanted his mother to fret over him like she used to.

  “In the old churchyard in the valley, Ben Bolt.” He caught himself singing, under his breath, and glanced at the Indian woman who had taught him the rule about the shadow. Though she didn’t look at him, she smiled, and he figured singing was within the rules. “In a corner obscure and alone…”

  It made him feel better. The Indian boy was staring at him with his mouth open.

  “They have fitted a slab of granite so gray, and sweet Alice lies under the
stone.…”

  FOURTEEN

  Buster stopped at Bent’s Fort, a large thick-walled trading post with adobe parapets and cactus growing atop the walls to discourage intruders. An assistant to the Indian agent there told him he would find Long Fingers camped up Sand Creek.

  The Cheyenne-Arapaho Reservation impressed Buster as the most inhospitable land he had seen in the West. There was grass for the horses to eat but little else to help the Indians survive. He saw no game except for a few jackrabbits. Some large cottonwoods grew at a place called Big Timbers at the confluence of the Arkansas and Sand Creek, but otherwise the reservation seemed destitute of wood. Long Fingers’s camp wasn’t hard to find. A wisp of buffalo-chip smoke in the air gave it away.

  Most of the chief’s warriors were out scouring the plains for herds, but none large enough to warrant a hunting party had been located, and little meat hung in camp.

  “We will go to the mountains soon,” he told Buffalo Head. “We should have more meat, but we must go before it is too cold.”

  “If you help me find the boy, you can come get a cow any time your people get hungry,” Buster promised.

  Long Fingers sent every available warrior in camp to the surrounding tribes to ask about Snake Woman. As the buffalo hunters straggled in, he sent them, too, back to the plains and mountains to search for Caleb and his kidnapper.

  “I hope she does not go with the boy to the Utes,” he said. “They will never trade him back to us.”

  As the days passed, Buster grew more anxious about Caleb’s fate. The warriors were able to learn nothing from the nearest tribes. The Cheyenne, the Kiowas, the Apache, the Pawnee—none of them had seen or heard from Snake Woman. Buster knew the boy could be in Mexico by now. The poverty of the Indian camp depressed him, and each day brought him closer to disgrace and failure as Caleb’s protector.