Cut Hand Read online

  “I have been living on their fringe for the past two years without molestation. A few come by the Mead now and again, but since I do not stock strong drink, they are mostly interested in ammunition for their weapons. How often do you intend to patrol my particular sector? Should I alter my goods to accommodate your troops?”

  “They want for little except the strong drink you mentioned.”

  “And that I will not handle. In my mind, it is too dangerous. Raids have been made on arsenals and whiskey barrels. I want none of it.”

  “You are a wise man, sir. May I ask if you are tarrying long in town? Captain Jamieson or Major Wallston might wish to host you a dinner.”

  “I take it this Major Wallston is the commandant at the fort?” At his nod, I continued. “Unfortunately, I am leaving tomorrow after my business is done. Perhaps another time. Tell me, do I detect the soft tones of Virginia in your speech?”

  “I was raised on a plantation a few miles downriver from General Washington’s Mount Vernon. I should say President Washington, but to my family he was General for so long that we still err in assigning him that station.”

  “May I ask what called you to the military, or is it a family tradition?” He appeared to flush somewhat at the question.

  “No, a personal decision,” he replied as Caleb Brown joined us. Since they were acquainted, Lieutenant Morrow remained with us for a brief while longer. When he departed, Mr. Brown and I discussed prices and politics until it was time to retire.

  The following morning I was at the bank when it opened and was frankly surprised at the weight of the count the banker gave me. Some of the bills I thought paltry were pennyworth, while some I prized were severely deducted. I took a portion of the funds in coin and deposited the remainder, carefully explaining that upon withdrawal I would accept no bills of currency issued by the bank itself. Some banks had overextended their credit, resulting in losses. Banker Crozier, a hunched, spare man who looked to be cast from the standard mold of his profession, assured me my requirement was not a problem.

  After filling most of my needs from Caleb Brown’s wares, I set about shopping elsewhere. A three-footed, long-handled griddle for pancakes and a sheet-iron roasting kitchen completed my equipment for fireplace cooking. A small wheel with a foot treadle for spinning went into the load. I eyed a simple loom fit only for creating a plain over-and-under weave called tabby, but decided I could construct one myself. Four lanterns and a flaxseed press proved irresistible as I pictured Cut and me reading and writing well into the night.

  The gunsmith was well-stocked, and I was delighted to purchase six percussion weapons and a supply of cartridges. Two handguns and a heavy gauged shotgun rounded out my purchases there.

  To my surprise, the tailor was a Jew. I had encountered a number of them while hesitating in New York City to debate the course of my future, but none since. Abraham Kranzmeier was a bearded, pleasant man with a heavy European accent that fell soothingly on the ear. His son, however, possessed the sharp tongue of a harpy. Several bolts of middling cloth and a hunting frock were his contribution.

  At each establishment, I introduced myself and spent a few moments discussing the weather and the Indian situation. As a final order of business, I made a courtesy call on the fort to take the measure of this Major Wallston.

  He received me cordially in his office, a place no bigger than my fronting room and probably a bit ruder in construction. In fact, I did not find the fort to be a first-rate effort, although the men marching or performing calisthenics appeared a cut above their environment, and the post’s horseflesh looked well-tended.

  Elijah Wallston, Major, United States Dragoons, was a man beyond his prime but still capable of field life. Once past the pleasantries, he reverted to type and put hard questions to me regarding the situation in my part of the country in a manner that demanded cooperation. I gave it to him, declaring the Yanube peaceable, but like all the tribes possessed of a few hotheads. I admitted they were as perplexed over the army as was the army over them.

  I considered confessing the fate of the two man-stealers but withheld that information as one man—together with horses and wares—had been hidden beneath the ground at my insistence. The other felon was swept away in the Yanube’s spring runoff and never seen again. Fearful some of the young bucks who thought my caution foolish would excavate the two buffalo guns, Cut and I rendered them useless by dropping stones weighing at least a quintal squarely atop them.

  When asked about the Sioux, I allowed Wallston to conclude they were waiting and watching like everyone else. I learned a split about the strength of the fort and its armaments. I also gleaned there was a new redoubt on the lower Yanube a hundred miles southeast of Yellow Puma’s encampment. When the major escorted me outside his headquarters, I glimpsed a brace of wheel-mounted field pieces. I also spied Lieutenant Morrow bawling out a platoon and managing not to sound like an underclassman announcing commencement.

  Tardy in my departure, I resisted the urge to remain another day and sent my team down the rough road to the east, following my earlier ruts across the flat country. Night overcame me almost before the wagon was out of Yawktown’s lantern glow. I drifted off to sleep beneath the Conestoga, missing my beloved mightily. An hour later, something woke me.

  “Cut? Cut Hand, is that you?” I demanded. “Where are you?”

  “Here, wife” came the soft reply. He lay behind me. How he managed to come up on me in the dark, put Arrow to pasture, and slip into my blanket without alerting me was one of the things that made Cut Hand who he was.

  “Only one sleep in the white man’s town, and already your senses are dulled. What if I had been Carcajou?”

  “Then one of us would have died.” I turned and reached for him.

  “Unfortunately it would have been you. How did you know it was me?”

  “I knew you’d skulk off in the distance like some mangy dog.”

  “A dog is a noble animal. He does much work for us,” he replied.

  “All right, I surrender. You’d find something noble about anything I name you. But you know what I mean. Kiss me.”

  “It will take more than a kiss to forgive your insults.”

  “Here I am. Take what you want.”

  He did—with unusual gusto, which told me he had feared for my safety.

  THE COUNCIL convened upon our return to hear my report. Cut and I presented Yellow Puma and Spotted Hawk with new percussion rifles. I carefully explained that the two hundred or so troopers at Fort Yanube were armed with weapons like these. They were good horseback rifles, short, yet with sufficient caliber to knock a man from the saddle or a buffalo from the herd. One so armed could fire two times while warriors with inferior arms shot once, as it needed no spark to set off the priming. The simple drop of a hammer accomplished that trick.

  The men around the fire examined the rifles and talked animatedly among themselves. I followed with the news of the four field pieces and once again explained how they could heave shells that destroyed everything within the span of two tipis. News of a second fort down river brought exclamations of alarm, none more vocal than Lodge Pole’s.

  When I finished, Yellow Puma rose unsteadily to his feet. “My people, I have led you for these many years. For the most part, we have lived in peace, excepting our skirmishes with the Pipe Stem, and neither is set upon destroying the other. Each has his place.

  “We know Teacher as one who speaks the truth, even when it is painful. Now, I will put questions and beg he hold to his usual custom. You have told us of your people’s prowess as warriors. We understand their greed for land and gold and furs. Now tell us something of your way of life.”

  I held my tongue for some time, trying to glean what he was seeking. “If there were Americans in the same number as my fingers and thumbs standing before us, all of one hand and the thumb and forefinger of the other would be farmers living on their land and plowing fields and raising foodstuffs to feed their own families with a s
urplus to trade for things they need. The remaining fingers of the second hand would be merchants and gunsmiths and fabricators and bankers to handle the coins others use to pay for their goods. And they would be military men such as you have seen with your own eyes.

  “Americans possess a will of such stubborn strength, no one has yet been able to stand against them. Seen as individuals, they are not always notable. The preacher who yelled at you last summer was a subject of derision. Put him with ten others, and he becomes a different person. The traders, Hatcher and Rickles, were impressive men, but with ten others, they will stop a buffalo stampede.

  “The white man lives under a written code of law that all may read and understand.” I stretched the truth to make a point. “Every child grows up knowing if he steals or kills, the force of those laws will crush him. But above all else, the white man is human. He is able to do great things, but he is also capable of great errors. His code promises justice to every man, but because men administer this code, there are injustices at times. To some, the red man’s word is not as good as the white man’s. Nor is the black man’s, nor the Jew’s, nor the yellow man’s. This is where the human fails the code.

  “Let me tell it to you this way. If a white family traveling through the land of the Sioux was slain, the American dragoons would punish the Sioux. They would not punish the Sioux who did the killing, but all the Sioux because of what some did. Hear me! Should your leaders decide on peace but some of the young bloods take up the hatchet, the punishment will be administered to the entire tiospaye. This is the truth… the plumb truth!” With this, I sat down.

  There was absolute silence until Lodge Pole shouted from the other side of the fire, “This is not just!”

  “No.” Cut’s low voice held a growl. “Nor has Teacher declared it so, merely the truth. Now I tell you this. After the winter snows come and go, I will travel to this fort up the Yanube to see the army leader. Teacher has told me he seems a hard man but one who lives by his rules. I will hear his words and see if I draw the same measure. While I trust Teacher with my life, one of us who must live under this justice-that-is-not-justice must judge the matter for himself.”

  Yellow Puma struggled to his feet. “My son has spoken his aim, and I approve. But all should know my heart. Yellow Puma will be a peace chief until he is given reason to turn to war. My paint will not be red until the white man smears it upon me himself. I ask my young men to leave their knives in the tipi. When the Blue Coats come again, they will be welcome until they make themselves outcast by their own actions. We need not like them, but we must respect them as human beings and men of power. That is all I have to say.”

  On the way home, I reviewed all that happened. Was I stirring up these people for nothing? The dragoons had molested not a single Yanube. No white men appeared in the village to make trouble or seek advantage over these folk. Still, I knew what would come. The People must be prepared. I glanced at Cut riding at my side.

  “I am afraid, my love. Afraid I’m frightening people needlessly.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “Already I understand what is to come better than before you spoke. If you had not given your counsel, I would be waving my rifle and screaming that no one rides through these lands without our permission. I would be one of those firebrands you fear so much.”

  “You should understand this as well.” I sighed. “When you look at a Welshman or a German or a Jew, you see a white man. When a white man looks at a Sioux or a Yanube or a Mandan, he sees an Indian. If the Sioux anger him, he will make little distinction when seeking his revenge. That is why your thinking is right. You should talk to the major and let him see you as an individual rather than a race. He must understand the Yanube are not the Sioux.”

  We dismounted and scratched South’s ears before putting away the ponies. I paused on the stoop before blurting, “I’m going with you, Cut. To the fort, I mean.”

  “I hope so!” he exclaimed.

  Chapter 10

  TATANKA WAS late coming in ’34. The Yanube elders were fretting over their winter supplies when Lone Eagle and two other youngsters raced into camp with news the great bison had finally been spotted. The herd seemed thinner, and the slaughter was not so great this hunt. Although Cut said that happened from time to time, I could not help but wonder if my prediction was already coming true. Likely this was not the case as the white men were not yet so numerous on the plains. Whatever the reason, the kill was sufficient for the coming winter. Once the carcasses were harvested, Cut and I participated in a Buffalo Dance and a feast of fresh meat at the tiospaye that night. The drums threatened to undo all my work as the hotheads fired up on home brew.

  Too sated to make the trip back to the Mead, we slept in the bachelors’ tipi. Nonetheless, Cut managed to vent the pent-up need generated by the kill. He lowered my britches and molded himself to me beneath the covers, moving so gently I did not believe he could achieve a climax. He proved me wrong. He suppressed a groan by biting my shoulder.

  We took our share of the buffalo to the Mead, and I was salting and smoking meat when West let me know someone was coming. Up to my armpits in gore, I looked up to find Splitlip Rumquiller waddling to meet me. I was never happier to see a rough, bearded face. He ignored the blood and gave me a bear hug.

  Cut let out a cry of welcome and stepped off the stoop to join us.

  “That there arse of yours still looks mighty good to these old eyes,” the frontiersman said, stepping back to look at me.

  “Better watch out, Cut Hand understands every word you say now.”

  “Hah!” Cut exclaimed. After receiving his own greeting, he added, “If I was going to share, it would be with my friend, Splitrum. But I’m not going to share.”

  “Don’t blame you none. Damnation! Cain’t decide which one of you’s the purtiest!”

  Split accepted our invitation to spend a few days and settled in easily. He was horseback but said he had a few stores back in Fort Ramson, the new military post a hundred miles to the east. He was Indian trading but got a hankering to see Cut Hand and his country wife, so he came to chew the dog. He brought tidings that Wild Red Greavy was dead, killed in a fight in a particularly nasty ordinary better than a year back. They’d partnered, but Red was too fond of drink and women to be trustworthy, so Split pulled it and went off on his own. He latched on to a button down in Spanish Territory, and when the mists cleared from his mind, Split learned he’d married a Crow woman stolen by the Apache. Too much trouble for the pleasure she gave, he agitated her until she got mad enough to divorce him.

  The old mountain man gave us other news, most of it somber. Trouble with the Santee frightened the Minnesota Territory to the point where the army was called out. So many of the Indian nations were on the move west, it was possible trouble might come from that source rather than the Americans or the local Indians. A scheme to pry Tejas—they called it Texas nowadays—away from the Mexicans and admit it to the union spurred fresh talk of a war south of the border. Riots over whether new territories would be admitted to the union as slave or free splintered the national psyche. Somebody named Joseph Smith claimed to have found and translated some golden tablets into something called the Book of Mormon, upon which he founded a church. Smith declared the Lord Jesus had visited the New World and ministered to the natives. Some suspicion as to their morals attached to these Mormons, since they were said to marry multiple wives. Cut demanded to know the sin in that.

  Split was genuinely impressed by the relationship Cut and I enjoyed. He satisfied himself Cut wore the britches, but also concluded I didn’t act the usual win-tay. Before unrolling his blankets on one of the two beds for guests in the east fronting room, he looked Cut squarely in the eye.

  “Er the two of you likely to be having at it in there?”

  “Likely,” Cut answered before I could say otherwise.

  “Shore hope all the excitement ain’t too much for my old heart!”

  That night, Cut rogered me with all th
e enthusiasm of a raw youth demonstrating his prowess to his first doxy.

  The Yanube gave Splitrum a reception deserving of his reputation. The old man demonstrated a rough frontier courtesy born of long experience. When he seemed disposed to give straight answers to sensitive questions, I went down to the river in search of Butterfly so Yellow Puma could compare our information without the embarrassment of doing it in front of me.

  Later in the evening, while Cut was in the bathing room, Split looked at me with concern. “That Yella Puma’s a sick man, Billy.”

  Before he left the next morning, Split let us know a detachment of troops was scheduled to leave Fort Ramson next spring on transfer to Fort Yanube. They’d likely follow the river and come through us or at least close by.

  EXACTLY A sennight after Split left, there was a ruckus at the south end of the meadow. I looked out the door at the same time Cut walked stiff-legged up beside the stoop. Carcajou and two others stood waiting patiently.

  “Get in the house,” Cut snarled at me.

  “Cut, don’t—”

  “Go in the house, wife.” He deliberately put me in my place. Normally he used the term fondly. This time it wounded. Nonetheless, I obeyed because I wanted to arm myself. Cut had nothing except a skinning knife.

  As there were three of the Pipe Stem, I grabbed three rifles and stood in the shadow of the doorway, cradling one of the weapons for easy use.

  The Pipe Stem moved not a muscle as Cut approached. Pride and love and fear battled for ascendancy in my heart as I watched my mate calmly face his enemy. I could hear nothing from where I stood but observed much agitated head shaking. Finally, Cut turned his back on them and returned to the porch.

  “Teacher,” he called. I stepped out onto the stoop. “Carcajou wants to talk to you. He has heard Splitrum was here.”

  “You can tell him what Split said as well as I can.”