Cut Hand Read online

  I died one of my “little deaths” as my spouse rode away the next morning. While waiting for Yellow Puma to send for me, I wandered the camp. Butterfly, washing clothes at the river, paused long enough to visit and cast long looks to the northwest, although I knew not whether they were for her brother or for Badger. I teased her a little about the young warrior, but she did not respond as I expected. She merely gave me a long, level look and walked away.

  Spotted Hawk was in his lodge and picked my brains more thoroughly about the army situation. It was flattering to have this wizened man give my opinions such import. Wisdom comes with age, and my twenty and three years were far too few to merit much.

  The summons from Yellow Puma came when the sun was at its zenith. We ate in isolation on the north side of the lodge, although Bright Dove and Butterfly took a meal in their own space, occasionally rising to serve some new morsel, always moving sunwise, or as I termed it, clockwise, the direction of all traffic in tipis.

  Yellow Puma laid aside his bowl. “Your words at council last night were hard to hear. They do not bode well for the People. But I believe them to be true.”

  “The tribes have a difficult time ahead of them. Some will not survive what comes.”

  “The People must survive. My young men would like to take to the hatchet and chase the soldiers away when they come back.”

  “That would not be wise, but young men often are not. That is why the gray hairs lead the tiospaye. I am no smarter than the next man, but neither am I less knowing than a child. I tell you the history of what happened where I was born. And from this history I can see the repetitions as they occur. I know what is going to happen, but not when nor the exact manner.”

  “If you held my responsibilities, what would you do?” he asked.

  “Urge my young men to keep their tomahawks dry. There will come a time when there is killing enough to sate any bloodlust. Keep that time as far in the future as possible. If the weight you bear were mine, the Americans would know me as a peace chief. One day their military will fight among themselves over black slaves, but that might be many, many snows from now. If you can hold the peace until that time, who knows what will happen after that?”

  “It will not be easy. Each man is free to do as he wishes. I can control my young men only so long as they believe what I am doing is right. If I do the wrong thing, this tiospaye will melt like snow before the sun, each man taking his family to another fire.”

  I looked at him and noted how heavily this thing was weighing on him. “Is that not better than leading each man to his death? But these soldiers have not yet challenged the People in any meaningful way. You should be able to hold your hotheads for the present.”

  “Yes,” he agreed. “We have time.”

  I was shocked to realize our conversation had tired Yellow Puma. Was he more ill than he appeared? Although I longed to ask, that would be impertinent. I posed another question in its stead. “When do you expect Cut Hand back?”

  “Perhaps not for a phase of the moon,” he replied.

  With a sudden emptiness in my gut, I spoke. “If you have no further need of me, I will return to our home.”

  “Take Little Eagle and Otter with you in case you need to send a message.”

  Before I could rise, he stayed me with a hand on my shoulder and inquired as to my contentment with life among the Yanube and with his son. It was unlike this man to pry into personal matters, so I replied carefully.

  “He has been good to me, and I believe I have been good for him.”

  “He seems satisfied,” Yellow Puma said. “I set my heart against your union until Cut Hand married and sired children, but you have been good for him. My son is more serious and grows in wisdom each season. He is a contented man.”

  Uncertain how to reply, I resorted to their term of universal meaning. “Hah!” Then I retreated outside, my cheeks burning with pride.

  AT SIXTEEN, Little Eagle was so full of himself he was a burr in the bum. With his dangerous, demanding Crying-for-a-Vision quest behind him, he claimed his man’s name. He was now Lone Eagle. Making matters worse in my eyes, the budding warrior fed his growing confidence by counting coup on a recent horse raid. Even so, when the immature side of him surfaced, he reverted to the fetching youngster of two years past. Yet, thanks to Lodge Pole’s sly squib last autumn, I was vaguely uncomfortable alone with Lone Eagle in my own home. The same, of course, could be said of Otter’s presence, although he was merely a child. Still, to my white man’s mind, a claim of debauching a child would be an even riper scandal to propound were I set upon the ruination of another man.

  It was Lone Eagle’s arrogance that eventually led my mind away from such nonsense. In Cut’s absence, he cast himself as my guardian and expected me to defer to him. When I did not, he grew sullen. We reached a tacit truce after three days. I went no farther than the barn or the horse enclosure without informing him, and he stopped trying to control my every movement.

  After reporting to the council on his and Lodge Pole’s contentious talks with the Pipe Stem, Bear Paw came to the Mead to fill me in. Their efforts yielded little. The other band had been loath to discuss matters with a Yanube.

  Hard on the heels of his departure, the dogs commenced to raise a ruckus. I stepped onto the porch to find Carcajou on the path at the south edge of the meadow. He lifted a hand, palm outward in the universal sign of peace—showing that he held no weapon. Afraid Lone Eagle might level a rifle at the man from the cover of the house, I called the boys outside. Giving the signal to the dog, I signed Carcajou to approach. When he was near enough to hear, I turned to the house.

  “Lone Eagle, go to the village and tell Yellow Puma the son of Great Bull has come to confer with me following his talk with our emissaries.” I delivered these instructions in argot so Carcajou could understand.

  “I am needed here,” the youth said airily. “Send Otter.”

  “You are needed as a messenger. Do not be impertinent! Do your duty. Tell Yellow Puma the Pipe Stem wish to hear my words for themselves.”

  Carcajou nodded, apparently realizing I was getting rid of a hothead. Grudgingly the hothead took his departure.

  “Otter,” I said to the youngster who stood with a wry, knowing smile on his face, “I will call you if I need a message sent.” Unlike his companion, this rum boy minded. He turned and went inside the house.

  “We will talk where the sun can warm us,” I said, pointing to a place some distance from the porch. “But first, can I offer food or drink?”

  “Nothing,” he said, retreating to a spot of his choosing, not mine. Always the courteous host, I followed and took my seat in the grass opposite him.

  “You have frightened the Yanube children out of their wits. Is this why you came? To scare them off their land.”

  “If you believed that, you would not be here, Carcajou. You have seen the soldiers who came uninvited. You have observed more American wagons this past season than ever before. The Pipe Stem are as good at reading signs as anyone. Go to the Sioux for their opinion. Go to the Mandan. Go to the Sauk. They are the last to feel the white soldier’s boot on their necks.”

  “I am here, so I will listen.”

  I repeated everything I had seen and heard. During the telling, Lone Eagle and Bear Paw appeared on the hill to the east. Two of Carcajou’s warriors materialized out of the line of trees to the south. Both parties waited warily.

  When I finished, he fixed his immense eyes on my left ear lobe. “Win-tay, your words are sincere, but I will reserve what I believe. Even so, I will relay them to my father. Perhaps we will go to the Seven Council Fires for their counsel in the matter.” He gazed over my shoulder for a full minute. “You are different, Teacher. I don’t know how, but you are.”

  “I am a friend to any man who shows me friendship. I prefer efficient peace to wasteful war. In this country, that makes me different.”

  “Do you find yourself drawn to me, as I do to you?” he asked bluntly a
s we rose and shook hands, Indian-style. Then he turned and proudly strode away.

  Chapter 9

  CUT ARRIVED at the Mead ten days later, well ahead of my expectations. Once he bathed and ate, he told me what he learned. By virtue of numbers and ferocity and military prowess, the Sioux dominated these plains. They were a large nation of seven divisions speaking three dialects—Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota. The Teton, a Lakota-speaking tribe, claimed its own sub-branches, among them, the Oglala, Hunkpapa, and Siconjou. While the whites used Sioux as overarching names for these proud people, they referred to themselves as the Seven Council Fires. As was true of most tribes, they did not speak with one voice.

  Cut and Badger visited several different fires and found the Sioux no better prepared to deal with the situation than the Yanube. The round bellies, while cautious, were agitated by the white man’s incursion and the westward push of the Nakota-speakers—sometimes called the Yankton or Yanktonai—who were being displaced by European settlers. The hotheads howled to take up the hatchet, and Cut’s greatest fear was these agitators would go out, taking the Yanube high bloods with them. He understood perfectly that unless all the nations rose at once in a unified front, to take up the tomahawk was worse than futile—it was suicidal.

  “And,” he concluded, “there isn’t a leader to bring them together.” Cut leveled a look at me. “You are a white man, Billy. Why do you give us counsel?”

  “Not because I wish harm to befall my own kind. There is no danger the Yanube or Sioux will defeat my people. In a battle, maybe. In a hundred, perhaps. But in the end, those who resist will be overrun. I merely want the Yanube to have the life they love for as long as possible.”

  He fingered the rose knops I gathered to brighten the rude table where we sat. “Your words are little comfort but true, I think. Even about the buffalo?”

  “Even about the buffalo,” I agreed sadly. “But that time is not yet come.”

  “I am tired,” he sighed. “Come to bed so we can make love to one another’s bodies and minds and spirits.”

  He covered me with a yearning that tore my heart from my breast. Then he made love to my mind and spirit by tolling the things that drew him to me. When he finished, I moved my lips to his well-formed lobe and recited my litany to him. His lids drew heavy, and I allowed him to slumber while I wept unmanly tears into his hair.

  Both of us were in a better mood on the morrow. As was his custom, he walked every inch of our merestead, seeing for himself the condition of the animals and the fields that provided us with foods not native to these plains. It was near unto noon before he spoke the words I had been thinking since last eve.

  “Teacher, would it be of value for you to visit a white settlement and listen to those you meet?”

  “Yes, I believe that would be profitable,” I admitted.

  “Good. Then we will leave tomorrow.”

  “I must do this thing alone if people are to speak plainly to me, Cut.”

  “I cannot allow it. I will be dead until you return.” He frowned.

  “No. You will go on living and care for this place. You might even do some unmanly chores, since we have no true woman to carry that load.”

  “We could get one,” he said quickly. He was merely tickling—I think.

  “From what I hear, the Yanube believe Dark Warrior is worn out on the backside of the Red Win-tay, so no woman will have you… unless you have in mind one of those old crones who have lost both husband and children.”

  “Hah!” he cried. “I could show you!”

  “You better not!” I snapped. “Dark Warrior is mine. I only lend him to you so you can pass water.”

  He laughed. “Once again, I believe you.”

  It was my turn to frown. I could not undertake a venture like this with a secret between us. “Cut, I want to tell you something, but first give me your solemn oath not to act on it.” He tried to squirm out of such a vum but in the end gave it. “While you were gone, Carcajou came to the Mead.” Feeling a modicum of shame, I told him the whole of it from our first meeting to our last.

  Anger flushed my spouse’s features. Frustration followed closely since I had bound him with an oath. The gold in his strange eyes glowed as if lit by an internal furnace. “Perhaps Lodge Pole is a better judge of people than I am!” The profane words struck my ears like a physical blow. He looked as if he wished to reclaim them yet was unable to contain the next ones, albeit they came out in a less accusing tone. “Does he have reason to want you?”

  “I have admitted the attraction, husband. But I swear by all that is holy to me, I gave him no reason to understand I was interested.”

  His ire lasted the remainder of the afternoon, but when we rode to the village to inform Yellow Puma of our intent, he allowed our legs to touch occasionally. Once home again, he thrummed me so thoroughly, his clemency was obvious.

  I drove the wagon into the village the next morning with a bum that complained of every jolt and a pipe sore to the touch. Nonetheless, I hummed “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” a tune not ordinarily on the lips of a good Tory lad. With the Yanube’s furs and what I took from our stores, the Conestoga carried a respectable load. Lone Eagle and Otter agreed to tend our stock while Cut accompanied me part of the way. Fifty miles in a loaded wagon translated into three good days of travel when most of the journey had to be made over game trails.

  Cut tied Arrow to the tailgate and shared the wagon’s bench with me. We spoke very little, but his presence was welcome. He left me the third morning with firm instructions not to drink too much or trust too much. To my surprise, I was reluctant to enter a town peopled by my own kind, a measure of the comfort I took from my adopted aboriginals.

  A sizeable settlement with the unfortunate name of Yawktown had grown up around Fort Yanube. Despite my earlier reservations, my excitement began to mount. There was a sawmill, a general store, a livery, several saloons, a doctor’s office, a barbery, a frippery for used garments, and even a bank! Thinking of the sheaf of currency in my boodle, I stopped there after making arrangements to board the team at the livery stable.

  The banker was flustered over the variety of medium I presented: red, green, blue, yellow, foreign, domestic, continental currency, even a few bank bills. The man shook his head and said it would take some time to calculate values. I agreed to leave the paper and return the next morning.

  The banker informed me the general store did some trading, so I gave the place a try. I was suspicious of the merchant’s squint but in time discovered it to be an eye condition, not a statement of character. Caleb Brown was a southerner who had grown distressed with conditions in Southampton County, Virginia, and moved his family west on the heels of Nat Turner’s Insurrection in August 1831. Brown shared my conviction that warfare over the slave question lay ahead. Cautious about stating his own position, he merely ventured that the economics of slave labor were becoming questionable.

  The mercantiler accompanied me to the livery to look over my goods. The sheer size of the load unsettled him a bit, but in the end he made a bid, which was neither overcast nor so low as to be scandalous. Relieved of the responsibility of the People’s furs, I trusted him to make payment the following morning.

  All of my gold and most of my silver remained hidden at the Mead, since such coins are specie in any man’s book and were an invitation to be knocked in the head and abandoned in some alley for their gain. But I had brought a little of the silver and all of the copper to finance this venture. Reckoning there was sufficient for a room and a meal, I proceeded to the Rainbow House, an inn and eatery, as well as a drinking establishment. No ordinary, the Rainbow was quite a respectable place. After a decent meal, I drifted into the common room, which resounded with the noise of revelers, many in uniform, as was expected at an army post.

  “Good evening, Mr. Strobaw.”

  I turned to face the blond-headed officer who accompanied Captain Jamieson down the Yanube a month back. “Good evening, Lieutenant Morrow.”
/>   “May I stand you a drink?”

  “If I may return the compliment.” I trailed him to a table in the far corner of the room, where the commotion of other men’s conversations was less diverting.

  “Your trading post is quite interesting.” He raised his glass after a florid Irishman filled our order with the house ale, which turned out to be a dark and strong potion. “It seemed almost a blockhouse.”

  “When I first arrived in the country, the idea of defense was appealing. There has been only one assault, but it was rather half-hearted.” Realizing I was giving information rather than gathering it, I added, “Tell me, sir, what is the news from back home?”

  “Not much,” he said wryly. “You knew, of course, that President Jackson has been reelected?” I nodded. “Remains to be seen what this new Democratic Party will do for us, but Old Hickory’s intentions are well-known. My friends tell me Congress will establish a Department of Indian Affairs this year to be responsible for overseeing the resettlement and welfare of the tribes.”

  That was sour news indeed. “Providing it is funded,” I probed.

  “I am informed it will be. Jackson is determined on removing the remaining Indians west of the Mississippi. There is already a territory set up for them where they will doubtless be better off.”

  “Better off being evicted from their homes? Deprived of their way of life? Separated from their means of existence? I seriously doubt that, Lieutenant.”

  “They will be provided subsistence… at least in the beginning.”

  Declining to state my opinion of such subsistence, I asked about our Indians. “How will the Bureau interface with them?”

  “That is not clear. There will be some displacement, I’m sure. There are too many settlers moving west to leave things completely undisturbed.”

  “What is your unit’s mission?”

  “To keep the peace and provide security for routes to the west. Frankly, our biggest worry in this immediate area is the Sioux. They seem powerful and obstreperous Indians.”