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Obviously, they were a family on the move. I walked out from the willows
toward them, and they saw me at once, standing very still, all eyes on me. I
held my hand up in a sign of peace and spoke to them. "You have come far?"
The man hesitated, then spoke slowly. "Far."
They wore moccasins of elkskin blackened with smoke, with an ornamental seam
across the back and flaps turned outward. It was little enough I knew about
western Indians, but this I had learned from Butlin, that such moccasins were
worn by the Omaha.
I gestured toward the brush. "Many berries. Good." I rubbed my stomach and
grinned at them, showing the few I had in my hand.
The women had gone about making a fire. They had chosen a spot up a creek,
sheltered from the mainstream of the river by a clump of chokecherry brush.
The boy was a handsome lad, very quick. He kept watching me as I talked to
his father. I did not smoke, but I carried tobacco. I offered the man some. He
accepted it, and we sat down together.
"You hunt?" I asked.
He gestured upstream. "Much hunt. Buffalo. You see?"
"Not yet." I gestured toward the brush behind me. "My boat is there. Many
men. We look for a man." I described Charles, as he had been described to me.
"Maybe with bad man ... bad white man," I added.
He puffed on his pipe.
"Big serpent boat. You know?"
"Black," he said, "I know."
"You be careful," I suggested, "some good men, some bad men with it."
"Bad men," he looked at me gravely, but his eyes twinkled, "make big snake
work hard. Carry steamboat on back."
His own name, he told me, was Red Tail. They were going to visit an Indian
village that lay on a river I took to be the Kansas.
"Long time ago," he said, puffing on his pipe, "Omaha big people ... big
nation. Much sickness ... many attacks by the Sioux. We are few now. Maybe
ninety warriors.
"It is no longer as it was," he said, the words coining to him as he spoke,
"the old ways are gone. Young men no longer make arrows. Now guns."
"It is easier now, with the white man's pots? Easier to boil food? Easier to
hunt with his gun?" I asked.
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He looked at me. "Easy is not good," he said bluntly.
I got to my feet. "I go back to. my people, Red Tail." I held out my hand.
"May there always be meat in your lodge."
He chuckled and bade me go well.
He was still chuckling as he walked back to his family, but when near them,
he turned and called. "Old camp ... you go Bonhomme Island. Upstream. Some
days away. Plenty men come ... plenty gun. I think much trouble. Much
trouble."
Bonhomme Island. I had heard of it. Walking swiftly, I returned to the
keelboat. Rather, I returned to where I expected it to be.
It was gone.
CHAPTER 20
Gone!
I came out of the willows and looked around, unwilling to believe the boat
was not there. My tracks were still upon the sand and others as well.
There was scuffed sand ... running feet, no doubt. The line tying up the
keelboat had again been cut. A few feet of rope was still tied to the tree and
trailed off in the water.
A thought came to me. I ran back through the willows, slowing only when I
drew near the camp.
But they had heard me coming, and Red Tail and his son were on their feet.
It needed a solid half-hour of bargaining, and I was lucky at that, but I
traded Foulsham's pistol and my shirt for Red Tail's canoe.
He would, of course, make another one before leaving the spot, giving his son
a valuable lesson in the meantime. Once the trade was made, I wasted no time.
I had always been good with a canoe.
Now, my rifle close beside me, I started upstream, with swift, even strokes,
holding to the slack water close to the banks and studying the stream to avoid
the main current.
Somebody had captured the keelboat and all aboard. I had seen no blood, no
bodies.
I dipped the paddle deep and the canoe shot forward. With swift, sure
strokes, I took the canoe upstream at a rate that would have won many a race,
but I had always loved a canoe, and this one was light and finely made. Red
Tail was an artist, if the work was his.
Before the sun had set, I sighted it. The keelboat was a good mile ahead.
There was only a small breeze, just enough to keep it moving. The sun was
going down, but an hour of light remained, perhaps a bit more. Now the
keelboat was before me and my time would come.
The last light was slipping away, the banks were casting dark shadows, and
here and there a huge old tree leaned above the river like some monstrous
hand, waiting to grab whatever came near.
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I felt good. The paddling exhilarated me, and I was prepared for anything. My
coat had been left aboard the keelboat, and I had traded my shirt, so I was
naked to the waist. The night wind felt cool and good. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]