Also by George MacDonald Fraser in Pan Books
The Flashman Papers
Flashman
Royal Flash
Flash for Freedom!
Flashman at the Charge
Flashman in the Great Game ,,',,;
Flashman's Lady . ; ,>,
Short Stories ' ' '"' '
The General Danced at Dawn . ,^
McAuslan in the Rough >' ) ..,
The Steel Bonnets:
The Story of the Anglo-Scottish ^
Border Reivers   '" ^
Mr American
Flashman and
the Redskins
From the Flashman Papers, 1849-50 and 187576
Edited and arranged by George MacDonald Fraser
Pan Books
in association with Collins
First published in 1982 by William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd
This edition published 1983 by Pan Books Ltd,
Cavaye Place. London SW10 9PG '
in association with William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd
 George MacDonald Fraser 1982
ISBN 0 330 28004 X , ,
Phototypeset by Input Typesetting Ltd
Primed in Canada This
book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or
otherwise, be lent. re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the
publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which
it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being
imposed on the subsequent purchaser
For
IcimanipiWihopawin
"Travels-Beautiful-Woman"
from Bent's and the Santa Fe Trail
to the Black Hills
Explanatory Note :
A singular feature of the Flashman Papers, the memoirs of the
notorious bully of Tom Brown's Schooldays, which were discovered
in a Leicestershire saleroom in 1966, is that their author wrote them
in self-contained instalments, describing his background and setting
'y ^B the scene anew each time. This has been of great assistance to me in
editing the Papers entrusted to me by Mr Paget Morrison of Durban,
Flashman's closest legitimate relative; it has meant that as I opened
each new packet of manuscript I could expect the contents to be a
complete and self-explanatory book, needing only a brief preface and
foot-notes. Six volumes have followed this pattern.
The seventh volume has proved to be an exception; it follows
chronologically (to the very minute) on to the third packet,* with only
the briefest preamble by its aged author. I have therefore felt it
necessary to append a resume of the third packet at the end of this
note, so that new readers will understand the events leading up to
Flashman's seventh adventure.
It was obvious from the early Papers that Flashman, in the intervals
of his distinguished and scandalous service in the British Army, visited
America more than once; this seventh volume is his Western odyssey.
__ I believe it is unique. Others may have taken part in both the '49 gold
usa . f^< rush and the Battle of the Little Bighorn, but they have not left
records of these events, nor did they have Flashman's close, if
reluctant, acquaintance with three of the most famous Indian chiefs,
as well as with leading American soldiers, frontiersman, and statesmen
of the time, of whom he has left vivid and, it may be, revealing
portraits.
As with his previous memoirs, I believe his truthfulness is not in
question. As students of those volumes will be aware, his personal ^ ';' | " il" - character was deplorable, his conduct abandoned, and his talent for
mischief apparently inexhaustible; indeed, his one redeeming feature
was his unblushing veracity as a memorialist. As I hope the footnotes
and appendices will show, I have been at pains to check his statements
wherever possible, and I am indebted to librarians, custodians, and".<| Vis^r' many members of the great and kindly American public at Santa Fe, 3
'Published in 1971 under the title Flash for Freedom! xi
INTRODUCTION
In May, 1848, Flashman was forced to flee England after a card
scandal, and sailed for Africa on the Balliol College, a ship owned by
;his father-in-law, John Morrison of Paisley, and commanded by ^Captain John Charity Spring, M.A., late Fellow of Oriel College.
:0nly too late did Flashman discover that the ship was an illegal
Slave-trader and her captain, despite his academic antecedents, a
homicidal eccentric. After taking aboard a cargo of slaves in Dahomey,
the Balliol College crossed the Atlantic, but was captured by
the American Navy; Flashman managed to escape in New Orleans,
and took temporary refuge in a bawdy-house whose proprietress, a
susceptible English matron named Susan Willinck, was captivated by
his picaresque charm.
Thereafter Flashman spent several eventful months in the Mississippi
Valley, frequently in headlong flight. For a time he impersonated
(among many other figures) a Royal Navy officer; he was also a
reluctant agent of the Underground Railroad which smuggled escaped
slaves to Canada, but unfortunately the fugitive entrusted to
his care was recognised by a vindictive planter named Omohundro,
and Flashman abandoned his charge and beat a hasty retreat over the
rail of a steamboat. He next obtained employment, as a plantation
slave-driver, but lost his position on being found in compromising
circumstances with his master's wife. He subsequently stole a beautiful
octoroon slave, Cassy, sold her under a false name, assisted her
subsequent evasion, and with the proceeds of the sale fled with her
across the ice-floes of the Ohio river, pursued by slave-catchers who
shot him in the buttock; however, he succeeded in effecting his
escape, and Cassy's, with the timely assistance of the then Congressman
Abraham Lincoln.
With charges of slave-trading, slave-stealing, false pretences, and
even murder hanging over his head, Flashman was now anxious to
return to England. Instead, mischance brought him again to New
Orleans, and he was driven in desperation to seek the help of his
former commander. Captain Spring, who had been cleared of slavetrading
by a corrupt American court and was about to sail. Flashman,
who throughout his misfortunes had clung tenaciously to certain
documents from the Balliol College--documents proving the ship's
slaving activities with which Flashman had hoped to blackmail his
detested father-in-law--now offered them as the price of his passage
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' I never did learn to speak Apache properly. Mind
you, it ain't easy, mainly because the red brutes seldom stand still
long enough--and if you've any sense, you don't either, or you're
liable to find yourself studying their system of vowel pronunciation
(which is unique, by the way) while hanging head-down over a slow
fire or riding for dear life across the Jomada del Muerto with them
howling at your heels and trying to stick lances in your liver. Both of
which predicaments I've experienced in my time, and you may keep
'em.
Still, it's odd that I never got my tongue round it, for apart from
fleeing and fornication, slinging the bat* is my strongest suit; well, I
speak nine languages better than the natives, and can rub along in
another dozen or so. And I knew the 'Paches well enough. God help
me; I was even married to one for a spell, banns, beads, buffalo-dance
and all, and a spanking little wild beast she was, too, with her peachbrown
satin skin and hot black eyes, and those white doeskin leggings
up to her thighs with the tiny silver bells all down the sides ... I can
close my eyes and hear them tinkling yet, sixty years after, and feel
the pine-needles under my knees, and smell the wood smoke mingling
with the musky perfume of her hair and the scent of the wild flowers
outside her bower. . .the soft lips teasing my ear, murmuring "Make
my bells ring again, pinda-lickoyee^: . ." Aye, me, it's a long time
ago. But that's the way to learn a language, if you like, in between the
sighs and squeals, and if it didn't happen in this case the reason is that
my buxom savage was not only a great chiefs daughter but Mexican
hidalga on her mother's side, and inclined to put on airs something
peculiar, such as speaking only Spanish in preference to the tribal
dialect of the common herd. They can be just as pert and hoitytoity
in a Mimbreno wickiup as they can in a Belgravia drawing-room,
believe me. Fortunately, there's a cure.
But that's beside the point for the moment. Even if my Apache
never progressed far beyond "Nuetsche-shee, eetzan", which may be
loosely translated as "Come here, girl", and is all you need to know
(apart from a few fawning protestations of friendship and whines for
mercy, and much good they'll do you), I still recognise the diabolical
1^'! -;<-- "-50) '^
*Speaking the local language (Brit. Army slang). tLiterally, "white-eye"; a white man.
lingo when I hear it. That guttural, hissing mumble, with alHts "Tz"
and "zl" and "it" noises, like a drunk Scotch-Jew having trouble with
his false teeth, is something you don't forget in a hurry. So when I
heard it in the Travellers' a few weeks ago, and had mastered an
instinctive impulse to dive for the door bawling " 'Pash! Ride for it,
you fellows, and save your hair!", I took stock, and saw that it was
coming in a great spate from a pasty-looking specimen with a lordly
academic voice and some three-ha'penny order on his shirt front, who
was enthralling a group of toadies in a corner of the smoking-room. I
demanded to know what the devil he meant by it, and he turned out
to be some distinguished anthropologist or other who had been
lecturing to the Royal Geographic on North American Indians.
"And what d'you know about them, apart from that beastly
chatter?" says I, pretty warm, for he had given me quite a start, and I
could see at a glance that he was one of these snoopopathic meddlers
who strut about with a fly-whisk and notebook, prodding lies out of
the niggers and over-tipping the dragoman on college funds. He
looked taken aback, until they told him who I was, and that I had a
fair acquaintance with North American Indians myself, to say nothing
of other various aborigines; at that he gave me a distant flabby hand,
and condescended to ask me an uneasy question or two about my^ American travels. I told him I'd been out with Terry and Custer '76--and that was as far as I got before he said: "Oh, indeed?" down$|
his nose, damned chilly, showed me his shoulder, and began the most''
infernal prose you ever heard to the rest of the company, all about the
Yankees' barbarous treatment of the Plains tribes after the Uprising,||
and their iniquitous Indian policy in general, the abominations of the
reservation system, and the cruelties practised in the name of civilisation
on helpless nomads who desired only to be left alone to pursue
their traditional way of life as peaceful herdsmen, fostering their
simple culture, honouring their ancient gods, and generally prancing ||
about like fauns in Arcady. Mercifully, I hadn't had dinner. |J
"Noble savages, eh?" says I, when he'd paused for breath, and he ||
gave me a look full of sentimental spite.
"I might call them that," snaps he. "Do I take it that you would
disagree?"
"Depends which ones you're talking about," says I. "Now, Spotted
Tail was a gentleman. Chico Velasquez, on the other hand, was an
evil vicious brute. But you probably never met either of 'em. Care for
a brandy,then?"
He went pink. "I thank you, no. By gentleman, I suppose," he
went on, bristling, "you mean one who has despaired to the point of
submission, while brute would no doubt describe any sturdy indepen-
dent patriot who resisted the injustice of an alien rule, or revolted
against broken treaties--"
"If sturdy independence consists of cutting off women's fingers and
fringing your buckskins with them, then Chico was a patriot, no
error," says I. "Mind you, that was the soft end of his behaviour.
Hey, waiter, another one, and keep your thumb out of it, d'ye hear?"
My new acquaintance was going still pinker, and taking in breath;
he wasn't used to the argumentwn ad Chico Velasquez, and it was
plainly getting his goat, as I intended it should.
"Barbarism is to be expected from a barbarian--especially when
he has been provoked beyond endurance!" He snorted and sneered.
"Really, sir--will you seriously compare errant brutality committed by this. . . this Velasquez, as you call him--who by his name I take it
sprang from that unhappy Pueblo stock who had been brutalised by
centuries of Spanish atrocity--will you compare it, I say, with a
calculated policy of suppression--nay, extermination--devised by a
modem, Christian government? You talk of an Indian's savagery?
Yet you boast acquaintance with General Custer, and doubtless you
have heard of Chivington? Sand Creek, sir! Wounded Knee! Washita!
Ah, you see," cries he in triumph, "I can quote your own lexicon to
you! In face of that, will you dare condone Washington's treatment of
the American Indian?"
"I don't condone it," says I, holding my temper. "And I don't
condemn it, either. It happened, just as the tide comes in, and since I
saw it happen, I know better than to jump to the damfool sentimental
conclusions that are fashionable in college cloisters, let me tell
you--" ";!
There were cries of protest, and my anthropologist began to
gobble. "Fashionable indeed! Have you read Mrs Jackson,' sir? Are
you ignorant of the miserable condition to which a proud and worthy
people have been reduced? Since you served in the Sioux campaign,
you cannot be unaware of the callous and vindictive zeal with which it
and subsequent expeditions were conducted! Against a resistless foe!
Can you defend the extirpation of the Modocs, or the Apaches, or a
dozen others I could mention? For shame, sir!" He was getting the bit
between his teeth now, and I was wanning just a trifle myself. "And
all this at a time when the resources of a vast modem state might have
been employed in a policy of humanity, restraint, and enlightenment!
But no--all the dark old prejudices and hatreds must be given full
and fearful rein, and the despised 'hostile' annihilated or reduced to
virtual serfdom." He gestured contemptuously. "And all you can say
is that 'it happened'. Tush, sir! So might Pilate have said: 'It happened'."
He was pleased with that, so he enlarged on it. "The Procurator
19
ofJudea would have made a fit aide-de-camp to your General Terry,
I daresay. I wish you a very good night. General Flashman."
Which would have enabled him to stalk off with the honours, but I
don't abandon an argument when reasoned persuasion may prevail.
"Now see here, you mealy little pimp!" says I. "I've had just about a bellyful of your pious hypocritical maundering. Take a look at this!"
And while he gobbled again, and his sycophants uttered shocked
cries, I dropped my head and pulled apart my top hair for his
inspection. "See that bald patch? That, my industrious researcher,
was done by a Brule scalping knife, in the hand of a peaceful
herdsman, to a man who'd done his damnedest to see that the Brules
and everyone else in the Dacotah nation got a fair shake." Which was
a gross exaggeration, but never mind that. "So much for humanity
and restraint. . ."
"Good God!" cries he, blenching. "Very well, sir--you may flaunt
a wound. It does not prove your case. Rather, it explains your
partiality--"
"It proves that at least I know what I'm talking about! Which
is more than you can say. As to Custer, he's receipted and filed for
the idiot he was, and for Chivington, he was a murderous maniac,
and what's worse, an amateur. But if you think they were a whit
more guilty than your darling redskins, you're an even bigger bloody
fool than you look. What bleating breast-beaters like you can'tp" comprehend," I went on at the top of my voice, while the toadies
pawed at me and yapped for the porters, "is that when selfish
frightened men--in other words, any men, red or white, civilised or
savage--come face to face in the middle of a wilderness that both of
'em want, the Lord alone knows why, then war breaks out, and the
weaker goes under. Policies don't matter a spent piss--it's the men in g-,
fear and rage and uncertainty watching the woods and skyline, d'you ||
see, you purblind bookworm, you! And you burble about enlightenment,
by God--" n,
"Catch hold of his other arm, Fred!" says the porter, heaving away. I? "Come along now, general, if you please."
"--try to enlighten a Cumanche war party, why don't you? Suggest:
humanity and restraint to the Jicarillas who carved up Mrs White and
her baby on Rock Creek! Have you ever seen a Del Norte rancho
after the Mimbrenos have left their calling cards? No, not you, you 
plush-bottomed bastard, you! All right, steward, I'm going, damn
you. . . but let me tell you," I concluded, and I dare say I may have
shaken my finger at the academic squirt, who had got behind a chair
and was looking ready to bolt, "that I've a damned sight more use for
the Indian than you have--as much as I have for the rest of humanity,
20
at all events--and I don't make 'em an excuse for parading my own
virtue while not caring a fig for them, as you do, so there! I know your
sort! Broken treaties, you vain blot--why, Chico Velasquez wouldn't
have recognised a treaty if he'd fallen over it in the dark. . ." But by
that time I was out in Pall Mall, addressing the vault of heaven.
"Who the hell ever said the Washington government was Christian,
anyway?" I demanded, but the porter said he really couldn't say, and
did I want a cab?
You may wonder that I got in such a taking over one pompous
windbag spouting claptrap; usually I just sit and sneer when the
know-alls start prating on behalf of the poor oppressed heathen,
sticking a barb in 'em as opportunity serves--why, I've absolutely heard 'em lauding the sepoy mutineers as. honest patriots, and I
haven't even bothered to break wind by way of dissent. I know the
heathen, and their oppressors, pretty well, you see, and the folly of
sitting smug in judgment years after, stuffed with piety and ignorance
and book-learned bias. Humanity is beastly and stupid, aye, and
helpless, and there's an end to it. And that's as true for Crazy Horse
as it was for Custer--and they're both long gone, thank God. But I
draw the line at the likes of my anthropological half-truther; oh,
there's a deal in what he says, right enough--but it's only one side of
the tale, and when I hear it puffed out with all that righteous certainty,
as though every white man was a villain and every redskin a saint, and
the fools swallow it and feel suitably guilty . . . well, it can get my
goat, especially if I've got a drink in me and my kidneys are creaking.
So I'm slung out of the Travellers' for ungentlemanly conduct. Much
I care; I wasn't a member, anyway.
A waste of good passion, of course. The thing is, I suppose, that
while I spent most of my time in the West skulking and running and
praying to God I'd come out with a whole skin, I have a strange
sentiment for the place, even now. That may surprise you, if you
know my history--old Flashy, the decorated hero and cowardly venal
scoundrel who never had a decent feeling in all his scandalous,
lecherous life. Aye, but there's a reason, as you shall see.
Besides, when you've seen the West almost from the beginning, as
I did--trader, wagon-captain, bounty-hunter, irregular soldier, whoremaster,
gambler, scout, Indian fighter (well, being armed in the
presence of the enemy qualifies you, even if you don't tarry long),
and reluctant deputy marshal to J. B. Hickok, Esq., no less--you're
bound to retain an interest, even in your eighty-ninth year.2 And it
takes just a little thing--a drift of wood smoke, a certain sunset, the
taste of maple syrup on a pancake, or a few words of Apache spoken
unexpected--and I can see the wagons creaking down to the Arkansas
21
aSi^
crossing, and the piano stuck fast on a mudbank, with everyone
laughing while Susie played "Banjo on my knee" . . . Old Glory
fluttering above the gate at Bent's ... the hideous zeep of Navajo
war-arrows through canvas . . . the great bison herds in the distance
spreading like oil on the yellow plain . . . the crash and stamp of
fandango with the poblanas' heels clicking and their silk skirts whirling
above their knees . . . the bearded faces of Gallantin's riders in the
fire glow . . . the air like nectar when we rode in the spring from the
high glory of Eagle Nest, up under the towering white peaks to Fort
St Vrain and Laramie . . . the incredible stink of those dark dripping
forms in the Apache sweatbath at Santa Rita ... the great scarred
Cheyenne braves with their slanting feathers, riding stately, like kings
to council . . . the round firm flesh beneath my hands in the Gila
forest, the sweet sullen lips whispering. . . "Make my bells ring again
. . ." oh, yes indeed, ma'am. . .and the nightmarethe screams and
shots and war-whoops as Gall's Hunkpapa horde came surging
through the dust, and George Custer squatting on his heels, his
cropped head in his hands as he coughed out his life, and the redand-yellow
devil's face screaming at me from beneath the buffaloscalp helmet as the hatchet drove down at my brow. . .
"Well, boys, they killed me," as Wild Bill used to sayonly it
wasn't permanent, and today I sit at home in Berkeley Square staring
out at the trees beyond the railings in the rain, damning the cramp in
my penhand and remembering where it all began, on a street in New
Orleans in 1849, with your humble obedient trotting anxiously at the
heels of John Charity Spring, M.A., Oriel man, slaver, and homicidal
lunatic, who was stamping his way down to the quay in a fury, jacket
buttoned tight and hat jammed down, alternately blaspheming and
quoting Horace... s"^
"I should have dropped you overboard off Finisterre!" snarls he.
"It would have been the price of you, by God! Aye, well, I missed my
chancequandoque bonus dormitat Homems.*" He wheeled on me
suddenly, and those dreadful pale eyes would have frozen brandy.
"But Homer won't nod again, Mister Flashman, and you can lay to
that. One false step out of you this trip, and you'll wish the Amazons
had got you!"
"Captain," says I earnestly, "I'm as anxious to get out of this as you
areand you've said it yourself, how can I play you false?"
"If I knew that I'd be as dirty a little Judas as you are." He
considered me balefully. "The more I think of it, the more I like the
*Even good Homer nods sometimes (i.e., even the cleverest can make
mistakes).
22
notion of having those papers of Comber's before we go a step
farther."
Now, those papers--which implicated both Spring himself and my
miserly Scotch father-in-law up to their necks in the illegal slave
trade--were the only card in my hand. Once Spring had them, he
could drop me overboard indeed. Terrified as I was, I shook my head,
and he showed his teeth in a sneering grin.
"What are you scared of, you worm? I've said I'll carry you home,
and I keep my word. By God," he growled, and the scar on his brow
started to swell crimson, a sure sign that he was preparing to howl at
the moon, "will you dare say I don't, you quaking offal? Will you?
No, you'd better not! Why, you fool--I'll have 'em within five minutes
of your setting foot on my deck, in any event. Because you're carrying
them, aren't you? You wouldn't dare leave 'em out of your sight. I
know you." He grinned again, nastily. "Omnia mea mecumporto* is
your style. Where are they--in your coat-lining or under your bootsole?
It
was no consolation that they were in neither, but sewn in the
waistband of my pants. He had me, and if I didn't want to be
abandoned there and then to the mercy of the Yankee law--which
was after me for murder, slave-stealing, impersonating a Naval
officer, false pretences, theft of a wagon and horses, perjury, and
issuing false bills of sale (Christ, just about everything except bigamy)--I
had no choice but to fork out and hope to heaven he'd keep
faith with me. He saw it in my face and sneered.
"As I thought. You're as easy to read as an open book--and a vile
publication, too. We'll have them now, if you please." He jerked his
thumb at a tavern across the street. "Come on!"
"Captain--for God's sake let it wait till we're aboard! The Yankee
Navy traps'll be scouring the town for me by now. . . please. Captain,
I swear you'll have 'em--"
"Do as you're damned well told!" he rasped, and seizing my arm in
an iron hand he almost ran me into the pub, and thrust me into a corner seat farthest from the bar; it was middling dim, with only one
or two swells lounging at the tables, and a few of the merchant and
trader sort talking at the bar, but just the kind of respectable ken that
my legal and Navy acquaintances might frequent. I pointed this out,
whining.
"Five minutes more or less won't hurt you," says Spring, "and
they'll satisfy me whether or not you're breaking the habit of a lifetime
by telling the truth for once." So while he bawled for juleps and
"I carry all my things with me.
23
kicked the black waiter for being dilatoryI wished to God he
wouldn't attract attention with his high table mannersI kept my
back to the room and began surreptitiously picking stitches out of my
flies with a penknife.
He drummed impatiently, growling, while I got the packet out
that precious sheaf of flimsy, closely-written papers that Comber had
died forand he pawed through it, grinding his teeth as he read.
"That ingrate sanctimonious reptile! He should have lingered for a
year! I was like a father to the bastard, and see how he repaid my
benevolence, by Godskulking and spying like a rat at a scuttle! But
you're all alike, you shabby-genteel vermin! Aye, Master Comber,
Phaedrus limned your epitaph: saepe intereunt aliis meditantes necem*, and serve the bastard right!" He stuffed the papers into his
pocket, drank, and brooded at me with that crazy glint in his eyes that
I remembered so well from the Balliol College. "And youyou held
on to themwhy? To steer me into Execution Dock, you"
"Never!" I protested. "Why, if I'd wanted to I could have done it
back in the courtbut I didn't, did I?"
"And put your own foul neck in a noose? Not you." He gave his
barking laugh. "No . . . I'll make a shrewd guess that you were
keeping 'em to squeeze an income out of that Scotch miser Momsonthat
was it, wasn't it?" Mad he might be, but his wits were sharp
enough. "Filial piety, you leper! Well, if that was your game, you're
out of luck. He's deadand certainly damned. I had word from our
New York agent three weeks ago. That takes you flat aback, doesn't
it, my bucko?"
And it did, but only for a moment. For if I couldn't turn the screw
on a corpsewell, I didn't need to, did I? The little villain's fortune
would descend to his daughters, of whom my lovely simpleton wife
Elspeth was the favouriteby George, I was rich! He'd been worth a
cool two million, they reckoned, and at least a quarter would come to
her, and me ... unless the wily old skinflint had cooked up some
legal flummery to keep my paws off it, as he'd done these ten years
past. But he couldn'tElspeth must inherit, and I could twist her
round my little finger . . . couldn't I? She'd always doted on me,
although I had a suspicion that she sampled the marriage mutton
elsewhere when my back was turnedI couldn't be sure, though, and
anyway, an occasional unwifely romp was no great matter, while
she'd been dependent on Papa. But- now, when she was rolling in
blunt, she might be off whoring with all hands and the cook, and too
much of that might well damp her ardour for an absent husband. Who
'Those who plot the destruction of others often destroy themselves.
24
could say how she would greet the returning Odysseus, now that she
was filthy rich and spoiled for choice? That apart, if I knew my fair
feather-brain, she'd be spending the dibs--my dibs--like a drunk
duke on his birthday. The sooner I was home the better--but
Momson kicking the bucket was capital news, just the same.
Spring was watching me as he watched the weather, shrewd and
sour, and knowing what a stickler he could be for proper form,
murderous pirate though he was, I tried to put on a solemn front, and
muttered about this unexpected blow, shocking calamity, irreplaceable
loss, and all the rest of it.
"I can see that," he scoffed. "Stricken with grief, I daresay. I know
the signs--a face like a Tyneside winter and a damned inheriting
gleam in your eye. Bah, why don't you blubber, you hypocritical pup? Nulli jactantius moerent, quam qui loetantur*, or to give Tacitus a free
translation, you're reckoning up the bloody dollars already! Well, you
haven't got 'em yet, cully, and if you want to see London Bridge
again--" and he bared his teeth at me "--you'll tread mighty delicate,
like Agag, and keep on the weather side of John Charity Spring."
"What d'you mean? I've given you the papers--you're bound to
see me safe--"
"Oh, I'll do that, never fear." There was a cunning shift in those
awful empty eyes. "Me duce tutus eris^, and d'ye know why? Because
when you reach England, and you and the rest of Morrison's carrion
brood have got your claws on his fortune, you'll discover that you need an experienced director for his extensive maritime concerns--
lawful and otherwise." He grinned at me triumphantly. "You'll pay
through the nose for him, too, but you'll be getting a safe, scholarly
man of affairs who'll not only manage a fleet, but can be trusted to see
that no indiscreet inquiries are ever directed at your recent American
activities, or the fact that your signature as supercargo is to be found
on the articles of a slave-trader--"
"Christ, look who's talking!" I exclaimed. "I was shanghaied,
kidnapped--and what about you--"
"Damn your eyes, will you take that tone with me?" he roared,
and a few heads at the nearest table turned, so he dropped his voice to
its normal snarl. "English law holds no terrors for me; I'll be in Brest
or Calais, taking my money in francs and guilders. Thanks to those
misbegotten scum of ushers at Oxford, who cast me into the gutter
out of spite, who robbed me of dignity and the fruits of scholarship
None mourn with more affectation of sorrow than those who are inwardly
rejoiced. tWith me for your leader you will be safe.--Ovid. ;;;
. . /'His scar was crimsoning agan, as it always did when Oxford was
mentioned; Oriel had kicked him out, you see, no doubt for purloining
the College plate or strangling the Dean, but he always claimed it
was academic jealousy. He writhed and growled and settled down.
"England holds nothing for me now. But your whole future lies
there--and there'll be damned little future if the truth about this past
year comes out. The Army? Disgrace. Your newfound fortune?
Ruin. You might even swing," says he, smacking his lips. "And your
lady wife would certainly find the social entree more difficult to come
by. On which score," he added malevolently, "I wonder how she
would take the news that her husband is a whoremongering rake who
covered everything that moved aboard the Balliol College. By and
large, mutual discretion will be in both our interests, don't you
think?"
And the evil lunatic grinned at me sardonically and drained his
glass. "We'll have leisure to discuss business on the voyage home--
and to resume your classical education, whose interruption by those
meddling Yankee Navy bastards I'm sure you deplore as much as I
do. Hiatus yalde dcflendus*, as I seem to remember telling you
before. Now get that drink into you and we'll be off."
As I've said, he was really mad. If he thought he could blackmail
me with his ridiculous threats--and him a discredited don turned
pirate who'd be clapped into Bedlam as soon as he opened his mouth
in civilised company--he was well out of court. But I knew better
than to say so, just then; raving or not, he was my one hope of getting
out of that beastly country. And if I had to endure his interminable
proses about Horace and Ovid all across the Atlantic, so be it; I drank
up meekly, pushed back my chair, turned to the room--and walked
slap into a nightmare.
It was the most ordinary, trivial thing, and it changed the course of
my life, as such things do. Perhaps it killed Custer; I don't know. As
I took my first step from the table a tall man standing at the bar roared
with laughter, and stepped back, just catching me with his shoulder.
Another instant and I'd have been past him, unseen--but he jostled
me, and turned to apologise.
"Your pardon, suh," says he, and then his eyes met mine, and
stared, and for full three seconds we stood frozen in mutual recognition.
For I knew that face: the coarse whiskers, the scarred cheek,
the prominent nose and chin, and the close-set eyes. I knew it before
I remembered his name: Peter Omohundro.
*A want greatly to be deplored.
26
& You all know these embarrassing little encounters,
of course--the man you've borrowed money off, or the chap
whose wife has flirted with you, or the people whose invitation you've
forgotten, or the vulgarian who accosts you in public. Omohundro
wasn't quite like these, exactly--the last time we'd met I'd been
stealing one of his slaves, and shots had been flying, and he'd been
roaring after me with murder in his eye, while I'd been striking out for
the Mississippi shore. But the principle was the same, and so, I natter
myself, was my immediate behaviour.
I closed my mouth, murmured an apology, nodded offhand, and
made to pass on. I've known it work, but not with this indelicate
bastard. He let out an appalling oath and seized my collar with both
hands.
"Prescott!" he bawled. "By God--Prescott!"
"I beg your pardon, sir," says I, damned stiff. "I haven't the honour
of your acquaintance."
"Haven't you, though, you nigger-stealin' son-of-a-bitch! I sure as
hell got the honour o' yores! Jim--git a constable--quick, dammit!
Why, you thievin' varmint!" And while they gaped in astonishment,
he thrust me by main strength against the wall, pinning me there and
roaring to his friends.
"It's Prescott--Underground Railroader that stole away George
Randolph on the Sultana last year! Hold still, goddam you! It's him, I
say! Here, Will, ketch hold t'other arm--now, you dog, you, hold
still there!"
"You're wrong!" I cried. "I'm someone else--you've got the wrong
man, I say! My name's not Prescott! Get your confounded hands off
me!"
"He's English!" bawled Omohundro. "You all hear that? The
bastard's English, an' so was Prescott! Well, you dam' slave-stealer, I
got you fast, and you're goin' to jail till I can get you 'dentified, and
then by golly they gonna hang you!" ' : %y-
As luck had it, there weren't above a dozen men in the place, and
while those who'd been with Omohundro crowded round, the others
stared but kept their distance. They were a fairly genteel bunch,
and Omohundro and I were both big strapping fellows, which can't
have encouraged them to interfere. The man addressed as Jim was
hanging irresolute halfway to the door, and Will, a burly buffer in a
27
beard and stove-pipe hat, while he laid a hand on my arm, wasn't too
sure.
"Hold on a shake, Pete," says he. "You certain this is the feller?"
"Course I'm sartin, you dummy! Jim, will you git the goddam
constable? He's Prescott, I tell you, an' he stole the nigger Randolphgot
him clear to Canada, too!"
At this two of the others were convinced, and came to lend a hand,
seizing my wrists while Omohundro took a breather and stepped
back, glowering at me. "I'd know the sneakin' blackguard anywherean'
his dadblasted fancy accent"
"It's a lie!" I protested. "A fearful mistake, gentlemen, I assure
you . . . the fellow's drunk ... I never saw him in my lifeor his
beastly nigger! Let me loose, I say!"
"Drunk, am I?" shouts Omohundro, shaking his fist. "Why, you
brass-bollocked impident hawg, you!"
"Tarnation, shet up, can't ye?" cries Will, plainly bewildered.
"Why, he sure don't talk like a slave-stealer, an' that's a factbut,
see here, mister, jes' you rest easy, we git this business looked to.
And you hold off, Pete; Jim can git the constable while we study this
thing. You, sun!" This was to Spring, who hadn't moved a muscle,
and was standing four-square, his hands jammed in his pockets,
watching like a lynx. "You was settin' with this fellercan you vouch
for him, suh?"
They all looked to Spring, who glanced at me bleakly and then
away. "I never set eyes on him before," says he deliberately. "He
came to my table uninvited and begged for drink." And on that he
turned towards the door, the perfidious wretch, while I was stricken
speechless, not only at the brute's brazen treachery, but at his folly.
For:
"But you was talkin' with him a good ten minutes," says Will,
frowning. "Talkin' an' laughin'why, I seen you my own self."
"They come in together," says another voice. "Arm in arm, too,"
and at this Omohundro moved nimbly into Spring's path.
"Now, jes' you hold on there, mister!" cries he suspiciously. "You
English, too, ain't you? An' you settin' all cosy-like with this 'bolitionist
skunk Prescott'cos I swear on a ton o' Bibles, Will, that Prescott
agin' the wall there. I reckon we keep a grip o' both o' you, till the
constable come."
"Stand out of my way," growls Spring, and although he didn't raise
his voice, it rasped like a file. Will gave back a step.
"You min' your mouth!" says Omohundro, and braced himself.
"Mebbe you clear, maybe you ain't, but I wamin' youdon' stir
another step. You gonna stay hereso now!"
I wouldn't feel sorry for Omohundro at any time, least of all with
two of his bullies pinioning me and blowing baccy juice in my face,
but I confess to a momentary pang just then, as though he'd passed
port to the right. For giving orders to J. C. Spring is simply one of the
things that are never done; you'd be better teasing a mating gorilla.
For a moment he stood motionless, while the scar on his brow turned
purple, and that unholy mad spark came into his eyes. His hands
came slowly from his pockets, clenched.
"You infernal Yankee pipsqueak!" says he. "Stand aside or, by
heaven, it will be the worse for you!"
"Yankee?" roars Omohundro. "Why, you goddam" But before
his fist was half-raised. Spring was on him. I'd seen it before, of
course, when he'd almost battered a great hulking seaman to death
aboard ship; I'd been in the way of his fist myself, and it had been like
being hit with a hammer. You'd barely credit it; here was this soberlooking,
middle-aged bargee, with the grey streaks in his trim beard
and the solid spread to his middle, burly but by no means tall, as
proper a citizen as ever spouted Catullus or graced a corporation
and suddenly it was Attila gone berserk. One short step he took, and
sank his fists left and right in Omohundro's midriff; the planter
squawked like a burst football, and went flying over a table, but
before he had even reached the ground. Spring had seized the
dumfounded Will by the collar and hurled him with sickening force
against the wall.
"And be damned to all of you!" roars he, jerking down his hatbrim,
which was unwise, for it gave the fellow Jim time to wallop him
with a chair. Spring turned bellowing, but before Jim could reap the
consequences of his folly, one of the coves holding me had let loose,
and collared Spring from behind. If I'd been wise I'd have stayed still,
but with only one captor I tried to struggle free, and he and! went
down wrestling together; he wasn't my weight, and after some noisy
panting and clawing I got atop of him and pounded him till he
hollered. Given time, I'd have enjoyed myself for a minute or two
pulping his figurehead, but night was top of the menu just then, so I
rolled off him and came up looking frantically for the best way to bolt.
Hell's delight was taking place a yard away; Omohundro was on his
feet again, clutching his bellywhich must have been made of castironand
retching for breath; the fellow Will was on the floor but
had a hold on Spring's ankle, which I thought uncommon game of
him, while my other captor had Spring round the neck. Even as I
looked. Spring sent him flying and turned to stamp on Will's face
those evenings in the Oriel combination room weren't wasted, thinks
Iand then a willowy cove among the onlookers took a hand,
2Q
shrieking in French and trying to brain my gallant captain with an
ebony cane.
Spring grabbed it and jerked--and the cane came away in his hand,
leaving the Frog holding two feet of naked, glittering steel, which he
flourished feebly, with Gallic squeals. Poor fool, there was a sudden
flurry, the snap of a breaking bone, the Frog was screaming on the
floor, and Spring had the sword-stick in his hand. I heard Omohundro's
shout as he flung himself at Spring, hauling a pistol from beneath
his coat; Spring leaped to meet him, bawling "Habet!"--and, by
God, he had. Before my horrified gaze Omohundro was swaying on
tiptoe, staring down at that awful steel that transfixed him; he flopped
to his knees, the pistol clattering to the floor, and fell forward on his
face with a dreadful groan.
There was a dead silence, broken only by the scraping of Omohundro's
nails at the boards--and presently by a wild scramble of feet as
one of the principal parties withdrew from the scene. If there's one
thing I know, it's when to leave; I was over the counter and through
the door behind it like a shot, into a store-room with an open window,
and then tearing pell-mell up an alley, blind to all but the need to
escape.
How far I ran, I don't know, doubling through alleys, over fences,
across backyards, stopping only when I was utterly blown and there was no sound of pursuit behind. By the grace of God it was coming on
to evening, and the light was fading fast; I staggered into an empty
lane and panted my soul out, and then I took stock.
That was escape to England dished, anyway; Spring's passage out
was going to be at the end of a rope, and unless I shifted I'd be
dancing alongside him. Once the traps had me the whole business of
the slavers Cassy had killed would be laid at my door--hadn't I seen
the reward bill naming me murderer?--and the Randolph affair and
Omohundro would be a mere side-dish. I had to fly--but where?
There wasn't a safe hole for me in the whole damned U.S.A.; I forced
down my panic, and tried to think. I couldn't run, I had to hide, but
there was nowhere--wait, though, there might be. Susie Willinck had
sheltered me before, when she'd thought I was .an American Navy
deserter--but would she do it now, when they were after me for the
capital act? But / hadn't killed Omohundro--she needn't even know
about him, or Spring. And she'd been besotted with me, the fond old
strumpet, piping her eye when I left her--aye, a little touch of Harry
in the night and she'd be ready to hide me till the next election.
But the fix was, I'd no notion of where in New Orleans I might be,
or where Susie's place lay, except that it was in the Vieux Carre. I
daren't strike off at random, with the Navy's bulldogs--and the civil
30
police, too, by nowon the lookout for me. So I set off cautiously,
keeping to the alleys, until I came on an old nigger sitting on a
doorstep, and he put me on the right road.
The Vieux Carre, you must know, is the old French heart of New
Orleans, and one gigantic fleshpotfine houses and walks, excellent
eating-places and gardens, brilliantly lit by night, with music and
gaiety and colour everywhere, and every second establishment a
knocking-shop. Susie's bawdy-house was among the finest in New
Orleans, standing in its own tree-shaded grounds, which suited me,
for I intended to sneak in through the shrubbery and seek out my
protectress with the least possible ado. Keeping away from the main
streets, I found my way to that very side-alley where months earlier
the Underground Railroad boys had got the drop on me; it was empty
now, and the side-gate was open, so I slipped in and went to ground
in the bushes where I could watch the front of the house. It was then
I realised that something was far amiss.
It was one of these massive French colonial mansions, all fancy
ironwork and balustrades and slatted screens, just as I remembered
it, but what was missing now was signs of lifereal life, at any rate.
The great front door and windows should have been wide to the warm
night, with nigger music and laughter pouring out, and the chandeliers
a-glitter, and the half-naked yellow tarts strutting in the big hall, or
taking their ease on the verandah like tawny cats on the chaiselongues,
their eyes glowing like fireflies out of the shadows. There
should have been dancing and merriment and drunken dandies taking
their pick of the languid beauties, with the upper storeys shaking to
the exertions of happy fomicators. Insteadsilence. The great door
was fast, and while there were lights at several of the shuttered
windows, it was plain that if this was still a brothel, it must be run by
the Band of Hope. -^ w"
A chill came over me that was not of the night air. All of a sudden
the dark garden was eerie and full of dread. Faint music came from
another house beyond the trees; a carriage clopped past the distant
gates; overhead a nightbird moaned dolefully; I could hear my own
knees creaking as I crouched there, scratching the newly-healed
bullet-wound in my backside and wondering what the deuce was
wrong. Could Susie have gone away? Terror came over me like a cold
drench, for I had no other hope.
"Oh, Christ!" I whispered half-aloud. "She must be here!"
"Who must be?" grated a voice at my ear, a hand like a vice
clamped on my neck, and with a yap of utter horror I found myself
staring into the livid, bearded face of John Charity Spring.
"Shut your trap or I'll shut it forever!" he hissed. "Now thenwhat
house is that, and why wereyou creeping to it? Quickand keep
your voice down!"
He needn't have fretted; he shock of that awful moment had
almost carried me off, and fo a spell I couldn't find my voice at all.
He shook me, growling, whilel absorbed the dreadful realisation that
he must have been dogging ne all the wayfirst in my headlong
flight, then on the streets, uneen. It was horrifying, the thought of
that maniac prowling and vatching my every move, but not as
horrifying as his presence nov, those pale eyes glaring round as he
scanned the house and garder. And knowing him, I answered to the
point, in a hoarse croak.
"It ... it belongs to a fnnd ... of mine. A ... an Englishwoman.
But I don't know. . .if she's there now." ;
"Then we'll find out," says Ie. "Is she safe?"
"I... I don't know. She. ..she took me in once before ..."
"What is shea whore?"
"No... yes... she owns tie placeor did."
"A bawd, eh?" says he, an< bared his teeth. "Trust you to make
for a brothel. Plurafaciunt honines e consuetudine, quam e ratione*,
you dirty little rip. Now then, &e here. Thanks to you, I'm in a plight;
can I lie up in that ken for a spsll? And I'm asking your opinion, not
your bloody permission."
My answer was true enougl. "I don't know. Christ, you killed a
man back thereshe may. . .may not..."
"Self-defence!" snarls he. "lut we agree, a New Orleans jury may
take a less enlightened view. Now thenthis strumpet . . . she's
English, you say. Good-nature]? Tolerant? A woman of sense?"
"Why. . . why, yes... she'; a decent sort. . ."I sought for words
to describe Susie. "She's a Coccney... a common woman, but"
"She must be, if she took yoiin," says this charmer. "And we have
no course but to try. Now then," and he tightened his grip until I
thought my neck would break, 'see here. If I go under, you go under
with me, d'ye see? So this bith had better harbour us, for if she
doesn't. . ." He shook me, gr<wling like a mastiff. "So you'd better
persuade her. And mind what Seneca says: Qui timide rogat, docet
negare." - -- ^
"Eh?" , . '.,.  '^
"Jesus, did Arnold teach yoi nothing? Who asks in fear is asking
for a refusal. Rightmarch!"
I remember thinking as I tapped on the front door, with him at my
elbow, brushing his hat on his skeve: how many poor devils have ever
*Men do more from habit than frm reason.
32
had a mad murderer teaching 'em Latin in the environs of a leapingacademy
in the middle of the night--and why me, of all men? Then
the door opened, and an ancient nigger porter stuck his head out, and
I asked for the lady of the house.
"Miz Willinck, suh? Ah sorry, suh, Miz Willinck gbin' 'way."
"She isn't here?"
"Oh, no, suh--she here--but she goin' 'way pooty soon. Our ;:,a 'stablishment, suh, is closed, pummanent. But if you goin' next doah, tH to Miz Rivers, she be 'commodatin' you gennamen--"
Spring elbowed me aside. "Go and tell your mistress that two
English gentlemen wish to see her at her earliest convenience," says
he, damned formal. "And present our compliments and our apologies
for intruding upon her at this untimely hour." As the darkie goggled
and tottered away, Spring rounded on me. "You're in my company,"
he snaps, "so mind your bloody manners."
I was looking about me, astonished. The spacious hall was
shrouded in dust-sheets, packages were stacked everywhere, bound
and labelled as for a journey; it looked like a wholesale flitting. Then
from the landing I heard a female voice, shrill and puzzled, and the
nigger butler came shambling into view, followed by a stately figure
that I knew well, clad in a fine embroidered silk dressing-gown.
As always, she was garnished like Pompadour, her hennaed hair
piled high above that plump handsome face, jewels glistening in her
ears and at her wrists and on that splendid bosom that I remembered
so fondly; even in my anxious state, it did me good just to watch 'em
bounce as she swayed down the stairs--as usual in the evening, she
plainly had a pint or two of port inside her. She descended grand as a
duchess, peering towards us in the hall's dim light, and then she
checked with a sudden scream of "Beauchamp!" and came hurrying
down the last few steps and across the hall, her face alight.
"Beauchamp! You've come back! Well, I never! Wherever 'ave
you been, you rascal! I declare--let's 'ave a look at you!"
For a moment I was taken aback, until I recalled that she knew me
as Beauchamp Millward Comber--God knew how many names I'd
passed under in America: Arnold, Prescott, Fitzsomethingor-other.
But at least she was glad to see me, glowing like Soul's Awakening
and holding out her hands; I believed I'd have been enveloped if she
hadn't checked modestly at the sight of Spring, who was bowing stiffly
from the waist with his hat across his guts.
"Susie," says I, "this is my ... my friend. Captain John Charity
Spring."
"Ow, indeed," says she, and beamed at him, up and down, and
blow me if he didn't take her hand and bow over it. "Most honoured
33 /to make your acquaintance, marm," says he. "Your humble
obedient."
"I never!" says Susie, and gave him a roving look. "A distinguished
pleasure, I'm sure. Oh, stuff, Beauchampd'you think I'm goin' to
do the polite with you, too? Come 'ere, an' give us a kiss!'"
Which I did, and a hearty slobber she made of it, while Spring
looked on, wearing what for him passed as an indulgent smile. "An'
wherever 'ave you been, then?^thought you was back in England
months ago, an' me wishin' I was there an* all! Now, come up, both of
you, an' tell me wot brings you backmy, I almost 'ad apoplexy,
seeing you sudden like that..." And then she stopped, uncertain,
and the laughter went out of her fine green eyes, as she looked quickly
from one to other of us. She might be soft where well-set-up men
were concerned, but she was no fool, and had a nose for mischief that
a peeler would have envied.
"Wot's the matter?" she said sharply. Then: "It's troubleam I
right?"
"Susie," says I, "it's as bad as can be." ",;
She said nothing for a moment, and when she did it was to tell the
butler, Brutus, to bar the door and admit no one without her leave.
-Then she led the way up to her private room and asked me, quite
composed, what was up.
It was only when I began to tell it that the enormity of what I was
saying, and the risk I was running in saying it, came home to me. I
confined it to the events of that day, saying nothing of my own
adventures since I'd last seen herall she had known of me then was
that I was an Englishman running from the Yankee Navy, a yam I'd
spun on the spur of the moment. As I talked, she sat upright on her
chair in the silk-hung salon, her jolly, handsome face serious for once,
and Spring was mum beside me on the couch, holding his hat on his
knees, prim as a banker, although I could feel the crouched force in
him. I prayed Susie would play up, because God knew what the
lunatic would do if she decided to shop us. I needn't have worried;
when I'd done, she sat for a moment, fingering the tassels on her
gaudy bedgown, and then says:
"No one knows you're 'ere? Well, then, we can take our time, an'
not do anythin' sudden or stupid." She took a long thoughtful look at
Spring. "You're Spring the slaver, aren't you?" Oh, Moses, I thought,
that's torn it, but he said he was, and she nodded.
"I've bought some of your Havana fancies," says she. "Prime gels,
good quality." Then she rang for her butler, and ordered up food and
wine, and in the silence that followed Spring suddenly spoke up.
"Madam," says he, "our fate is in your hands," which seemed
damned obvious to me, but Susie just nodded again and sat back,
toying with her long earring.
"An' you say it was self-defence? 'E barred your way, an' there was
a ruckus, an' 'e drew a pistol on you?" Spring said that was it exactly,
and she pulled a face. i
"Much good that'd do you in court. I daresay 'is pals would tell a
different tale... if they're anythin' like 'e was. Oh, I've 'ad 'im 'ere,
this Omo'undro, but not above once, I can tell you. Nasty brute."
She wrinkled her nose in distaste. "What they call a floggin' cully
not that 'e was alone in that, but 'e was a real vile 'un, know wot I
mean? Near killed one o' my gels, an' I showed him the door. So I
shan't weep for 'im. An' if it was 'ow you say it wasan' I'll know
that inside the hour, though I believe youthen you can stay 'ere till
the row dies down, or" and she seemed to glance quickly at me,
and I'll swear she went a shade pinker "we can think o' somethin'
else. There's only me an' the gels and the servants, so all's bowmon.
We don't 'ave no customers these days."
At that moment Brutus brought in a tray, and Susie went to see
rooms prepared for us. When we were alone Spring slapped his fist in
triumph and made for the victuals.
"Safe as the Bank. We could not have fallen better."
Well, I thought so, too, but I couldn't see why he was so sure and
trusting, and said so; after all, he didn't know her.
"Do I not?" scoffs he. "As to trust, she'll be no better than any
other tearsheetwe notice she don't bilk at abetting manslaughter
when it suits her whim. No, FlashmanI see our security in that full
lip and gooseberry eye, which tell me she's a sensualist, a voluptuary,
a profligate wanton," growls he, tearing a chicken leg in his teeth, "a
great licentious fleshtrap! That's why I'll sleep soundand you
won't."
"How d'you mean?"
"She can't betray me without betraying you, blockhead!" He
grinned at me savagely. "And we know she won't do that, don't we?
Whatshe never took her eyes off you! She's infatuated, the poor
bitch. I supposed you stallioned her out of her wits last time. Aye,
well, you'd best fortify yourself, for soevit amor ferri*, or I'm no
judge; the lady is working up an appetite this minute, and for our
safety's sake you'd best satisfy it."
Well, I knew that, but if I hadn't, our hostess's behaviour might
have given me a hint, just. When she came back, having plainly
repainted, she was flushed and breathless, which I guessed was the
*The passions are in arms.Virgil.
35
result of having laced herself into a fancy corset under her gown--
that told me what was on her mind, all right; I knew her style. It was
in her restless eye, too, and the cheerful way she chattered when she
obviously couldn't wait to be alone with me. Spring presently begged
to be excused, and bowed solemnly over her hand again, thanking
her for her kindness and loyalty to two distressed fellow-countrymen;
when Brutus had led him off, Susie remarked that he was a real gent
and a regular caution, but there was something hard and spooky
about him that made her all a-tremble.
"But then, I can say the exact same about you, lovey, can't I?" she
chuckled, and plunged at me, with one hand in my curls and the other
fondling elsewhere. "Ooh, my stars! Give it here! Ah, you 'aven't
changed, 'ave you--an', oh, but I've missed you so, you great lovely
villain!" Shrinking little violet, you see; she munched away at my lips
with that big red mouth, panting names in my ear that I blush to think
of; it made me feel right at home, though, the artful way she got every
stitch off me without apparently taking her tongue out of my throat
once. I've known greater beauties, and a few that were just as partial
to pork, but none more skilled at stoking what Arnold called the
deadly fires of lust; when she knelt above me on the couch and licked
her lips, with one silken knee caressing me to distraction while she
slowly scooped those wondrous poonts out of her corset and smothered
me with 'em--well, I didn't mind a bit.
"I'll distress you, my fellow-countryman," says she, all husky-like.
"I'm goin' to tease you an' squeeze you an' eat you alive, an' by the
time I've done, if the coppers come for you, you'll just 'ave to 'ide,
'cos you won't be fit to run a step!"
I believed her, for I'd enjoyed her attentions for five solid days last
time, and she'd damned near killed me. She was one of those greedy
animals who can never have enough--rather like me, only worse--
and she went to work now like Messalina drunk on hasheesh. About
two hours it took, as near as I could judge, before she gave a last
wailing sigh and rolled off on to the floor, where she lay moaning that
never, never, never had she known the like, and never could again.
That was her usual form; any moment and she would start to weep--
sure enough, I heard a great sniff, and presently a blubber, and then
the gurgle as she consoled herself with a large port.
As a rule I'd have sunk into a ruined sleep; for one thing, a bout
with La Willinck would have unmanned Goliath. But after a while,
pondering Spring's advice, I began to wonder if it mightn't be politic
to give her another run--proof of boundless devotion, I mean to say;
she'd be flattered sweet. It must have been my weeks of abstinence,
or else I was flown with relief at the end of a deuced difficult day, but
when I turned over and watched her repair her paint at the glass, all
bare and bouncy in her fine clocked stockings--d'you know, it began
to seem a not half bad notion for its own sake? And when she
stretched, and began to powder her tits with a rabbit's foot--I hopped
out on the instant and gnppled her, while she squealed in alarm, no,
no, Beauchamp, she couldn't, not again, honest, and you can't mean
it, you wicked beast, not yet, please, but I was adamant, if you know
what I mean, and bulled her all over the shop until she pleaded with
me to leave off--which ty that time, of course, meant pray continue.
I can't think where I got the energy, for I'd never have thought to
be still up in arms when Susie, of all women, was hollering uncle,
but there it was--and I truly believe it was the cause of all that
followed.
When we'd done, and she'd had a restorative draught of gin, with
her head on the fender, heaving her breath back, she looked up at me
with eyes that were moist once they'd stopped rolling, and whimpers:
"Oh, Gawd--why did you 'ave to come back? Jus' when I was
gettin' over you, too." And she started to snuffle again.
"Sorry I did, are you?" says I, tweaking her rump.
"Bloomin' well you know I'm not!" shs mumps. "More fool me. I knew I was gettin' a sight too fond of you, last year. . .but. . .but it
was on'y when you'd gone that I... that I. . ." Here she began to
bawl in earnest, and it took several great sighs of gin to set her right.
"An' then . . . when I saw you in the 'all tonight, I felt. . . such a joy
... an' I... Oh, it's ridiklus, at my age, carryin' on like a sixtecnyear-old!"

"I doubt if any sixteen-year-old knows how to carry on like that,"
says I, and she gulped and giggled and slapped me, and then came
over all maudlin again.
"Wot I mean is... like I once said . .''." I know you're jus' like the
rest of 'em, an' all you want is a good bang, an' I'm just an old ... a
middle-aged fool, to feel for you the way I do . . . 'cos I know full well
you don't love me ... not the way I... I..." She was blubbering
like the Ouse in spate by now, tears forty per cent proof. "Oh ... if
I thought you liked rogerin' me, even, more than . . . than others
. . ."She looked at me with her lip quivering and those big green eyes
a-swim. "Say that you .. . you really like it ... with me ... more
. . . don't you? Honest, when I caught you lookin' at me in the mirror
. . . you looked as though you . . . well, cared for me."
Tight as Dick's hatband, of course, but it proved how right I'd been
to give her an encore. If a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing well,
and if Susie wants to go with you a mile, gallop with her twain. I
improved the shining hour by telling her I was mad for her, and had
:"- - 37
never known a ride to compare--which wasn't all that much of a lie--
and murmured particulars until she quite cheered up again, kissed me
long and fondly, and said I was a dear bonny boy. I told her that I'd
been itching for her all these months, but at that she gave me a quizzy
look. .
"I bet you didn't itch long," says she, sniffing. "Not with all them
saucy black tails about. Gammon!"
"One or two," says I, for I know how to play my hand. "For want
of better. And don't tell me," I added, with a sniff of my own, "that
some lucky men haven't been playing hopscotch with you."
Do you know, she absolutely blushed, and cried no such thing, the
very idea! But I could see she was pleased, so I gave her a slantendicular
look, and said, not even one? at which she blushed even pinker,
and wriggled, and said, well, it wasn't her fault, was it, if some very
valued and important clients insisted on the personal attention of
Madame? Oh, says I, and who might they be?
"Never you mind, sauce-box!" giggles she, tossing her head, so I
kept mum till she turned to look at me, and then I frowned and asked,
quite hard: ..y ,w- :.
"Who, Susie?" i;^ ,;..,; '
She blinked, and slowly all the playfulness went out of that plump,
pretty face. '"Ere," says she, uncertain. "Why you lookin' at me like
that? You're not ... not cross, are you? I thought you was just
funnin' me . . ."
I said nothing, but gave an angry little shrug, looking quickly away,
and she gasped in bewilderment and caught my arm.
'"Ere! Beauchamp! You mean . . . you mind? But I ... I ...
lovey, I never knew . . . 'Ere, wot's the matter--?"
"No matter at all," says I, very cool, and set my jaw tight. "You're
right--it's no concern of mine." But I bit my Up and looked stuffed
and all Prince Albert, and when I made to get up she took fright in
earnest, throwing her arms round my neck and crying that she'd never
dreamed I would care, and then starting to blubber bucketsful,
sobbing that she'd never thought to see me again, or she'd never have
... but it was nothing, honest, ow. Gawd, please, Beauchamp--just
one or two occasional, like this rich ole Creole planter who paid a
hundred dollars to take a bath with her, but she'd have flung the ole
goat's money in his face if she'd known that I ... and if I'd heard
gossip about her and Count Vaudrian, it was bleedin' lies, 'cos it
wasn't him, it was only his fourteen-year-old nephew that the Count
had engaged her to give lessons to ...
If I'd played her along I daresay I could have got enough bizarre
material for a book, but I didn't want to push my little charade of
jealousy too far. I'd tickled the old trollop's vanity, fed her infatuation
for me, scared her horrid, and discovered what a stout leash I'd got
her on--and had the capital fun of watching her grovel and squirm. It
was time to be magnanimous and soulful, so I gave her bouncers a
forgiving squeeze at last, and she near swooned with relief.
"It was jus' business, Beauchamp--not like with you--oh, never
like with you! If I'd known you was comin' back, an' that you cared'." That was the great thing, apparently, she was full of it. '"Cos, you really care.^don't you? Oh, say you do, darlin'--an' please, you're not
angry with me no more?"
That was my cue to change from stem sorrow to fond devotion, as
though I couldn't help myself. "Oh, Susie, my sweet," says I, giving
her bum a fervent clutch, "as if I could ever be angry with you!" This,
and a glass of gin, fully restored her, and she basked in the sunshine
of her lover's favour and said I was the dearest, kindest big ram,
honest I was.
Her talk of business, though, had reminded me of something that
had slipped my mind during all our frenzied exertions; as we climbed
into her four-poster presently, I asked why the place was closed up
and under dust-sheets.
"Course--I never told you! You 'aven't given me much chance,
'ave you, you great bully?" She snuggled up contentedly. "Well--I'm
leavin' Orleans next week, for good, an' what d'you think of that?
Fact is, trade's gone down that bad, what with my partikler market being ' overcrowded, and half the menfolk off to the gold diggin's to try
their luck--why, we're lucky to get any young customers nowadays.
So I thinks, Susie my gel, you'd better try California yourself, an' do
a little diggin' of your own, an' if you can't make a bigger fortune than
any prospector, you're not the woman--" g';;
"Hold on, though--what'll you do in California?"
"Why, what I've always done--manage an establishment for the
recreation of affluent gentlemen! Don't you see--there must be a
million hearty young chaps out there already, workin' like blacks, the
lucky ones with pockets full of gold dust, an' never a sporty female to
bless themselves with, 'cept for common drabs. Well, where there's
muck, there's money--an' you can bet that in a year or two Sacramento
an' San Francisco are goin' to make Orleans look like the
parish pump. It may be rough livin' just now, but before long they're
goin' to want all the luxuries of London an' Paris out there--an'
they'll be able to pay for 'em, too! Wines, fashions, theatres, the best
restaurants, the smartest salons, the richest shops--an' the crackiest
whores. Mark my words, whoever gets there first, with the quality ^merchandise, can make a million, easy."
fe' " ' , 39
It sounded reasonable, I said, but a bit wild to establish a place like
hers, and she chuckled confidently.
"I'm goin' ready-made, don't you fret. I've got a place marked
down in Sacramento, through an agent, an' I'm movin' the whole kit
caboodle up the river to Westport next Monday--fumishin's, crockery,
my cellar an' silver... an' the livestock, which is the main thing.
I've got twenty o' the primest yellow gels under this roof right now, all
experienced an' broke in--so don't you start walkin' in your sleep,
will you, you scoundrel? 'Ere, let's 'ave a look at you--"
"But hold on--how are you going to get there?" says I, cuddling
obediently.
"Why, up to Westport an' across by carriage to--where is it?--
Santa Fe, an' then to San Diego. It only takes a few weeks, an' there's
thousands goin' every day, in carts an' wagons an' on horseback--
even on foot. You can go round by sea, but it's no quicker or cheaper
in the end, an' I don't want my delicate young ladies gettin' seasick,
do I?"
"Isn't it dangerous? I mean, Indians and ruffians and so on?"
"Not if you've got guards, an' proper guides. That's all arranged,
don't you see, an' I 'aven't stinted, neither. I'm a business woman, in
case you 'adn't noticed, an' I know it pays to pay for the best. That's
why I'll 'ave the finest slap-up bagnio on the west coast goin' full
steam before the year's out--an' I'll still have a tidy parcel over in the
bank. If you got money, you can't 'elp makin' more, provided you
use common sense."
From what I knew of her she had plenty of that--except where
active young men were concerned--and she was a deuced competent
manager. But if she had her future planned, I hadn't; I remarked that
it didn't leave much time to arrange my safe passage--and Spring's,
for what that was worth--out of New Orleans.
"Don't you worry about that," says she, comfortably. "I've been
thinkin' about it, an' when we see what kind of a hue an' cry there is in
the town tomorrow, we can decide what's best. You're safe 'ere
meantime--an' snug an' warm an' cosy," she added, "so let's 'ave
another chorus o' John Peel, shall we?"
You can guess that I was sufficiently pale and wan next morning to
satisfy Spring that he could continue to rest easy chez Willinck. One
look at me, and at Susie languid and yawning, and he gave me a sour
grin and muttered: "Christ, non equidem invideo, miror magis*" which if you ask me was just plain jealousy, and if I'd known enough
'Indeed, I don't envy--I am rather inclined to wonder.--Virgil.
40
Latin myself I'd have retorted, ""Ver non semper viret*, eh? Too bad,"
which would have had the virtue of being witty, although he'd
probably not have appreciated it.
Pleasantries would have been out of season, anyway, for the news
was bad. Susie had had inquiries made in town, and reported that
Omohundro's death was causing a fine stir, there was a great manhunt
afoot, and our descriptions were posted at every corner. There was no quick way out of New Orleans, that was certain, and when I
reminded Susie that something would have to be done in the next few
days, she just patted my hand and said she would manage, never fear.
Spring said nothing, but watched us with those pale eyes.
You may think it's just nuts, being confined to a brothel for four
solid days--which we were--but when you can't get at the tarts, and
a mad murderer is biting his nails and muttering dirty remarks from
Ovid, and the law may thunder at the door any minute, it can be
damned eerie. There we were in that great echoing mansion, not able
to stir outside for fear someone would see us from the road, or to
leave our rooms, hardly, for although the sluts' quarters were in a
side-wing, they were about the place most of the time, and Susie said
it would be risky to let them see us--or me to see them, she probably thought. Not that I'd have had the inclination to do more than wave
at them; when you have to pile in to Mrs Willinck every night, other
women take on a pale, spectral appearance, and you start to think that there's something to be said for monasteries after all.
Not that I minded that part of it at all; she was an uncommon
inventive amorist, and when you've been chief stud and bath attendant
to Queen Ranavalona of Madagascar, with the threat of boiling
alive or impalement hanging over you if you fail to satisfy the
customer, then keeping'pace even with Susie is gammon and peas.
She seemed to thrive on it--but it was an odd thing--even when we
were in the throes, I'd a notion that her mind was on more than
passing joys, if you follow me; she was thinking at the same time,
which wasn't like her. I'd catch her watching me, too, with what I can
only call an anxious expression--if I'd guessed what it was, I'd have
been anxious myself.
It was the fourth evening when I found out. We were in her salon
before supper, and I'd reminded her yet again that New Orleans was
still as unsafe for me as ever, and her own departure up-river a scant
couple of days away. What, says I, am I to do when you're gone? She
was brushing her hair before her mirror, and she stopped and looked
at my reflection in the glass. .;:.;,
'The spring does not always nourish. ' i', '
"Why don't you come with me to California?" says she, rather
breathless, and started brushing her hair again. "You could get a ship
from San Francisco... if you wanted."
It took my breath away. I'd been racking my brains about getting
out of the States, but it had never crossed my mind to think beyond
New Orleans or the eastern ports--all my fleeing, you'll understand,
had been done in the direction of the Northern states; west had never
occurred to me. Well, God knows how many thousand miles it was
. . . but, by George, it wasn't as far-fetched as it sounded. You may
not agree--but you haven't been on the run from slave-catchers and
abolitionists and Navy traps and outraged husbands and Congressman
Lincoln, damn his eyes, with a gallows waiting if they catch you. I was
in that state of funk where any loophole looks fine--and when I came
to weigh it, travelling incog in Susie's caravan looked a sight safer
than anything else. The trip up-river would be the risky part; once
west of the Mississippi I'd be clear. . . I'd be in San Francisco in three
months, perhaps . . .
"Would you take me?" was the first thing that came to my tongue,
before I'd given more than a couple of seconds' thought to the thing,
and her brush clattered on the table and she was staring at me with a
light in her eyes that made my blood run cold.
"Would I take you?" says she. " 'Course I'd take you! I ... I
didn't know if... if you'd want to come, though. But it's the safest
way, Beauchamp--I know it is!" She had turned from her mirror,
and she seemed to be gasping for breath, and laughing at the same
time. "You . . . you wouldn't mind ... I mean, being' with me for--
for a bit longer?" Her bosom was heaving fit to overbalance her, and
her mouth was trembling. "I mean. . . you ain't tired of me, or. . .1
mean--you care about me enough to ... well, to keep me company
to California?" God help me, that was the phrase she used. "You
do care about me--don't you? You said you did--an' I think you
do. . ."
Mechanically I said that of course I cared about her; a fearful
suspicion was forming in my mind, and sure enough, her next words
confirmed it.
"I dunno if you . . . like me as much as I--oh, you can't, I know
you can't!" She was crying now, and trying to smile at the same time,
dabbing at her eyes. "I can't help it--I know I'm just a fool, but I love
you--an' I'd do anythin' to make you love me, too! An' I'd do
anythin' to keep you with me... an' I thought--well, I thought that
if we went together, an' all that--when we got to California, you
might not want to catch a ship at San Francisco, d'you see?" She
looked at me with a truly terrifying yearning; I'd seen nothing like
it since the doctors were putting the strait-jacket on my guvnor
and whisking the brandy beyond his reach. "An' we could . . .
stay together always. Could you . . . would you marry me. Beauchamp?"
:.--^ ' !: ."-1> ^.
'y ^.-a-a Tgft"* '[ ^-'. . ;'. .
..v.;,-..- ' "-.^l %,,'"g^i^K;;-.'^.
. ..Vfi.]^. V^f , tR!?.1 ;.,;
If half the art of survival is running, the other half
is keeping a straight face. I can't count the number of times my fate
has depended on my response to some unexpected and abominable
proposal--like the night Yakub Beg suggested I join a suicidal
attempt to scupper some Russian ammunition ships, or Sapten's jolly
notion about swimming naked into a Gothic castle full of Bismarck's
thugs, or Brooke's command to me to lead a charge against a head-|;:Hi
hunters' stockade. Jesu, the times that we have seen. (Queer, though,'"'
the one that lives in memory is from my days as a snivelling fag at
Rugby when Bully Dawson was tossing the new bugs in blankets, and
grabbed me, gloating, and I just hopped on to the blanket, cool as.
you please for all my bowels were heaving in panic, and the brute was
so put out that he turfed me off in fury, as I'd guessed he would, and
I was spared the anguish of being tossed while the other fags were put
through it, howling.)
At all events--and young folk with their way to make in the world
should mark this--you must never suppose that a poker face is
sufficient. That shows you're thinking, and sbmetimes the appearance
of thought ain't called for. It would have been fatal now, with Susie;
I had to show willing quick, but not too much--if I cried aloud for joy
and swept her into my arms, she'd smell a large whiskered rat. It all
went through my mind in an instant, more or less as follows: 1, I'm
married already; 2, she don't know that; 3, if I don't accept there's a
distinct risk she'll show me the door, although she might not; 4, if she
does, I'll get hung; 5, on balance, best to cast myself gratefully at her
feet for the moment, and think about it afterwards.
All in a split second, as I say--just time for me to stare uncomprehending
for two heart-beats, and then let a great light of joy dawn in
my eyes for an instant, gradually fading to a kind of ruptured awe as
I took a hesitant step forward, dropped on one knee beside her, took
her hand gently, and said in husky disbelief:
- 43
"Susie ... do you really mean that?"
Whatever she'd expected, it hadn't been that--she was watchinj me like a hawk, between hope and mistrust. She knew me," you see
and what a damned scoundrel I was--at the same time, she wa;
bursting to believe that I cared for her, and I knew just how to trade on that. Before she could reply, I smiled, and shook my head sadly
and said very manly:
"Dear Susie, you're wrong, you know. I ain't worth it."
She thought different, of course, and said so, and a pretty littk
debate ensued, in which I was slightly hampered by the fact that sh(
had clamped my face between her udders and was ecstatically contra
dieting me at the top of her voice; I acted up with nice calculation, a;
though masking gallons of ardour beneath honest doubt--I didn'
know, I said, because no woman had ever--well, honoured me witt true love before, and rake that I'd been, I'd grown to care for her toe much to let her do something she might repent. . . you may imagm(
this punctuated by loving babble from her until the point where i
thought, now for the coup de grace, and with a muffled, despairing groan of "Ah, my darling!" as though I couldn't contain myself an] longer, gave her the business for all I was worth on top of hei
dressing-stool. God knows how it stood the strain, for we must hav<
scaled twenty-two stone between us, easy.
Even when it was done, I still did a deal of head-shaking, ai
unworthy soul torn between self-knowledge and the dawning horx
that the love of a good woman might be just what he needed. I didn'i
do it too strong; I didn't need to; she was over the main hurdle anc
ready to convince herself against all reason. That's what love does to
you, I suppose, although I don't speak from personal experience.
"I know I'm foolish," says she, all earnest and sentimental, "an
that you're the kind of rascal that could break my 'eart . . . but I'l
take my chance o' that. I reckon you like me, an' I 'ope you'll like m< more. Love grows," says the demented biddy, "an' while I'm forty- two--" she was pushing fifty, I may say "-- an' a bit older than you
that don't 'ave to signify. An' I reckon--please don't mind me sayin
this, dearest--that even at worst, you might settle for me being' well' off, which I am, an' able to give you a comfortable life, as well as al
the love that's in me. It's no use sayin' practical things don't matter
'cos they do--an' I wouldn't expect you to have me if I was penniless
But you know me, an' that when I say I can make a million, its a fact
You can be a rich man, with me, an' ave' everythin' you could wisi
for, an' if you was to say 'aye' on those terms, I'd understand. But 1 reckon--" she couldn't keep the tears back, as she held my chin anc
stroked my whiskers and I looked like Galahad on his vigil "-- i
reckon you care for me enough, anyway--an' we can be happy
together."
I knew better than to be fervent. I just nodded, and ran a pin from
her dressing-table into my leg surreptitiously to start a tear. "Thank
you, Susie," says I quietly and kissed her gently. "Now don't cry. I
don't know about love, but I know ..." I took a fairish sigh "... I
know that I can't say no."< "'''
That was the God's truth, too, as I explained to Spring half an hour
- later, for while he wasn't the man you'd seek out to discuss your
affairs of the heart, it was our necks that were concerned here, and he
had to be kept au fait. He gaped at me like a landed shark. " "But
you're married!" cries he.
"Tut-tut," says I, "not so loud. She doesn't know that."
He glared horribly. "It's bigamy! Lord God Almighty, have you no
respect for the sacraments?"
"To be sure--which is why I don't intend our union to last any
farther than California, when I'll--"
"I won't have it!" snarls he, and that wild glitter came into his pale
eyes. "Is there no indecency beneath you? Have you no fear of God,?^ you animal? Will you fly in the face of His sacred law, damn your18 ) <i eyes?"
I might have expected this, when I came to think of it. Not the least
of Captain Spring's eccentricities was that while he'd got crimes on his
conscience that Nero would have bilked at, he was a fanatic for the
proprieties, like Sunday observance and afternoon tea--he'd drop
manacled niggers overboard at a sight of the white duster, but he was
a stickler when it came to lining out the hymns while his equally
demented wife pumped her accordion and his crew of brigands sang
"Let us with a gladsome mind". All the result of boning up the
Thirty-nine Articles, I don't doubt. "^
"What else could I do?" I pleaded, while he swore and stamped ; tl about the room, snarling about blasphemy and the corruption of the
II; 'public school system. "The old faggot as good as promised that if I
didn't take her, she'd whistle up the pigs3. Don't you see--if I jolly
her along, it's a safe passage out, and then, goodbye Mrs Willinck. Or
Comber, as the case may be. But if I jilt her, it's both our necks!" I
near as told him I'd done it before, with Duchess Irma in Strackenz,
but from the look of him he'd have burst a blood vessel, with luck.
"Why in God's name did I ever ship you aboard the College?" cries
he, clenching his hands in fury. "You're a walking mass of decay, porcus ex grege diabolic" But he wasn't too far gone to see reason,
*A swine from the devil's herd. -
K K^ as
and calmed down eventually. "Well," says he, giving me his most
baleful glower, "if your forehead is brazen enough for thisGod
have mercy on your soul. Which he won't. Bah! Why the hell should
II I care? I can say with Ovid, video meliora proboque,' deteriora
sequor}. Now, get out of my sight!"
I He'd given me a scare, though, I can tell you. Even now, I couldn't
|| be sure that some quirk of that diseased mind wouldn't make him
|j| blurt out to Susie that her intended was already a husband and father.
} I So I was doubly uneasy, and puzzled, when Susie bade the pair of us
that night to a supper party a trois in her salonwe'd had our meals
[ on trays in our rooms since our arrival, and besides, I knew Susie's
first good opinion of Spring had worn thin. I'd given her a fair notion
of the kind of swine he was, and since he could never conceal his
delightful nature for long, she'd been able to judge for herself.
"A small celebration," was how she described it when we sat down
in her salon. "I daresay, captain, that Beauchamp 'as given you our
happy news." And she beamed on me; she was dressed to her peak,
which was dazzlingly vulgar, but I have to say that she didn't look a
year more than her pretended age, and deuced handsome. To my
relief. Spring played up, and pledged her happiness; he didn't include
me, and he wasn't quite Pickwick, yet, but at least his tone was civil
and he didn't smash the crockery.
Mind you, I've been at dinners I've enjoyed more. Susie, for once,
seemed nervous, which I put down to girlish excitement; she prattled
about slave prices, and the cost of high-bred yellows, and how the
Cuban market was sky-high these days, and the delicacy of octoroon
fancies, who didn't seem to be able to stand the pace in her trade at
all; Spring answered her, more or less, and they had a brief discussion
on the breeding of sturdier stock by mating black Africans with
mulattos, which is a capital topic over the pudding. But by and by he
said less and less, and that none too clearly; I was just beginning to
wonder if the drink had got to him for once when he suddenly gave a
great sigh, and a staring yawn, caught at his chair arms as though to
rise, and then fell face foremost into the blancmange.
Susie glanced at me, lifting a warning finger. Then she got up,
pulled his face out of the mess, and pushed up one eyelid. He was
slumped like a sawdust doll, his face purple.
"That's all right," says she. "Brutus!" And before my astonished
eyes the butler went out, and presently in came two likely big coves in
reefer jackets. At a nod from Susie, they hefted Spring out of his
chair, and without a word bore him from the room. Susie sauntered
back to her place, took a sip of wine, and smiled at my amazement.
"Well," says she, "we wouldn't 'ave wanted 'im along on our
'oneymoon, would we?"
For a moment I was appalled. "You're not letting the bogies have
him? He'll peach! For God's sake, Susie, he'll" "If he does any
peachin', it'll be in Cape Town," says she. "You don't think I'd be as
silly as that, do youor serve 'im such a mean turn?" She laughed
and patted my hand. "'E don't deserve thatanyone who put out
Peter Omo'undro's light must 'ave some good in 'im. Anyway, if it
wasn't for the likes o' your Captain Spring, where'd I get my wenches?
But I didn't fancy 'im above 'alf, from the firstmostly 'cos 'e didn't
mean you no good. I seen 'im watchin' you, an' mutterin' 'is Italian or
wotever it was. So," says she lightly, "I just passed the word to some
good friends 'o mineyou need 'em in my business, believe mean'
by the time 'e wakes up 'e'll 'ave the prospect of a nice long voyage to
cure 'is poor achin' 'ead. Well, don't looked so shocked, dearie'e's
not the first to be shanghaied from this 'ouse, I can tell you!"
Well, it was capitalin its way, but it was also food for thought.
Offhand, I couldn't think of a better place for J. C. Spring than a
long-hauler bound for South Africa, with a bucko mate kicking his
arse while he holystoned the deck (although knowing the bastard, by
the time they made Table Bay he would probably be the mate, if not
more). He'd have been better fed to the fish, of course, but we must
just take what benevolent Providence sends us, and be thankful. On
the other hand, it was a mite disturbing to discover that my bride-tobe was a lady of such ruthless resource. There she was, all pink and
plump and pretty, selecting a grape, dusting it with sherbert, and
popping it into my mouth with a fond smirk and a loving kiss that was
like being hit in the face by a handful of liverand not two minutes
earlier she'd had a dinner guest trepanned before he'd even had his
coffee. It occurred to me that severing our marriage tie in California
would call for tactful management; hell hath no fury, and so forth,
and I didn't want to find myself bound for Sydney on a hellship, or
dropped into Frisco Bay with my legs broken.
No, it bore thinking on. I'd always known that although Susie was
a perfect fool for any chap with a big knocker, she was also a woman
of charactershe managed her slave-whores with a rod of iron,
kindly enough but standing no nonsense, and the cool way she'd
taken Omohundro's demise, and seen Spring outward bound with a
bellyful of puggle just because he was in the way, showed that she
could be even harder than I'd have believed. But I was committed
47
now--it was California or bust with a vengeance, and the only safe
way when all was said. If I played my cards cleverly, I might ever
come out with a neat profit which should see me home in style, then
to enjoy the fruits of the late unlamented Mormon's labours. Witl1 luck I'd be back with my loving Elspeth after a total absence of about eighteen months--just nice time for the Bryant scandal to have diec
down. And there was no possibility that Susie would ever be able to
trace her absconding spouse; she knew I was English, but nothinj
more, for Spring had naturally backed up my imposture as Beau
champ Millward Comber. I was clear there.
So now, once I'd put behind me the uncomfortable recollection o
Spring with his beard soaked in custard being whisked off by thf
crimps, I gave my full attention to my betrothed, congratulating he] on the smart way she'd recruited him back to the merchant marine
and regarding her with an admiration and respect which were by n<
means assumed.
"You're sure you don't mind?" says she. "I know it was a bi
sudden-like, but I couldn't 'ave abided 'avin' 'im along, with that ugl:
phiz of 'is, an' those awful creepy eyes. Fair gave me the shakes. An
Jake an' Captain Roger, they'll see 'im well away, an' never a wor<
about it. An' we can be just the two of us, can't we?" She subsided 01
to my lap, slipped her arms round my neck, pecked me gently on thi
lips, and gazed adoringly into my eyes. "Ow, Beachy, I'm that 'app
with you! Now, 'ave you 'ad enough to eat? Wouldn't fancy a mio
piece of fruit for dessert? I think you would," she giggles, and sh
took a peach, teased me with it, and then pushed it down the fron.t o
her dress between her breasts. "Go on, now--eat it all up, like a gcxn boy." , ..<;'.
We started up-river two days later, and if you haven't seen a baw(
house flitting you've missed an unusual sight. The entire contentss i
the house were shipped down to the levee on about a dozen carts, san
then Susie's twenty sluts were paraded with their baggage in the rnal
under the stem eye of their mistress. I hadn't been invited to be; o
hand, but I watched through the crack of the salon door, and ;yo
never saw anything so pretty. They were all dressed in the rnio;
modest of crinolines, with their bonnets tied under their chins, likte
Sunday school treat, chattering away and only falling silent .an
bobbing a respectful curtsey as Susie came opposite each one, chesci ing her name and that she'd got all her possessions.
"Claudia . . . got your portmanteau an' your bandbox? . . . gyoo
. . . brushed your teeth,'ave you? Very well. . . let's see, Marie ..
are those your best gloves? No, I'll lay they're not, so just you change
'em this minuteno, not your black velvet ones, you goose, you're
goin' on a steamboat! Now, then, deonie ... oh, I declare white
does suit you best of anythin'. . . why, you look proper virginal. . .
wot are you nowthirty dollars, isn't it? Well, I must be goin' simple,
you're a fifty if ever I saw one. Ne'er mind . . . no. Aphrodite, you
don't wear your bonnet on the back of your 'ead... I know it shows
you off, but that's not what we want, dear, is it? You're a young lady
on your travels, not summat in a shop window . . . that's better . . .
stand up straight, Stephanie, there's nothin' becomes a female less
than a slouch . . . Josephine, your dress is too short by a mile, you'll
lengthen it the minute we're aboard. Don't pout at me, miss, your
ankles won't get fat just 'cos they're covered. Now, then, shoulders
back, all of you, duck your heads just a little, hands folded, that's
right. . . eyes down . . . very pretty indeed. Good."
She walked back along the line, well satisfied, and then addressed
them.
"Now, I want you gels to pay careful heed to me. On the boat, and
indeed all the way to California, you'll behave yourselves like young
ladiesan' I mean real ladies, not the kind of young ladies we talk
about 'ere for the benefit of gentlemen, you hear? You'll go always
two an' two, an' you will not encourage or countenance the attention
of any men you chance to meetan' there'll be plenty of 'em, so take
care. You won't heed any man if he addresses you, you won't talk to
'em, you won't look at 'em. Is that clear?"
"Yes, Miz Susie, ma'am." It was like a chorus of singing birds, soft
and clear.
"Nor you won't stand nor look nor even think so's to attract a man's
attention. You know what I mean. An' bear in mind, I've forgotten
more about takin' a man's eye than you'll ever know, an' if I catch
you at it, it's six of the cane, so there! You're not workin' till we get to
California, none of youan' you're not flirtin' private, neither.
Well?" ,
"Yes, Miz Susie, ma'am," very subdued this time. "., - ;,
"Now, you're all good gels, I know that. It's why you're 'ere."
Susie smiled as she looked along the line, for all the world like a head
mistress at prize-giving. "An' I'm pleased an' proud of all of you. But
none of you've been outside Awlins in your livesyes, Medea, I
know you an' Eugenic bin to 'Avana, but you didn't get outdoors
much, did you? But where you're goin' now is very different, an' I
daresay there'll be trials an' temptations along the way. Well, you
must just bear with 'em an' resist 'em, an' I promise you thiswhen
^ get to California you'll 'ave nothin' but the best gentlemen to
49
accommodate, an' if you're good an' o well, I'll see each one of you
settled comfortable for life, an' you krbw I mean it." She paused and
drew herself up. "But any saucy missihat's wilful or disobedient or won't be told . . . I'll sell 'er down th river quicker than look--an' you know I mean that, too. Some o you remember Poppaea, do
you?--well, that contrary piece is being whipped to hoe cotton on the
Tombigbee this very minute, an' ruin' he day. So take heed." W
"Yes, Miz Susie, ma'am," in a whis|er, with one little sob. "& "Well, we'll say no more about that. . . now, don't cry, Marie--I
know you're a good gel, dear." Susi; clapped her hands sharply.
"Into the carriages with you--don't nn, an' don't chatter, an' Brutus'll
see your bags on to the wagon."
No doubt it was the vision of all that enchanting tail lined up in the
hall below that had drawn me throughthe salon door during Susie's
address; one of the sluts, Aphrodite, ] think, a jet-black houri with
sinful eyes, had caught sight of me anj nudged her neighbour, and
they had both looked away and tried lot to giggle; it wouldn't do to
draw back, so I sauntered down the styrs and Susie saw me just as
she was dismissing them.
"Wait, gels!" She beamed and held from a hand to me. "You should
know--this is your new master ... or will be very soon. Make your
curtsies to Mister Beauchamp Comber gels--there, that's elegant!"
As she passed her arm through mine i nodded offhand and said,
"Ladies" as twenty bonneted heads (lucked in my direction, and
twenty graceful figures bobbed--by George, I daren't stare or I'd
have started to drool. Every colour froin ebony and coffee brown to
cream and all but pure white--and every size and shape: tall and
petite, statuesque and slender, lissom and plump, and all of 'em fit to
illustrate the Arabian Nights. They fliittered out, whispering, and
Susie squeezed my hand.
"Ain't they sweet, though? That's our fortune, my love."
One of them lingered a moment, telling Brutus to mind how he
carried her parrot's cage "--for he does Not like to be shaken, do you,
my little pet-pigeon?" She had a soft Creole accent, well-spoken, and
just the way she posed, tapping the cage, and the little limp gesture
she made to Brutus, told me that she }vas showing off for the new
boss: she was a creamy high-yaller, all in snowy crinoline, with her
bonnet far enough back to show an unusual coiffure, sleek black and
parted in the centre; a face like a wayward saint, but with a slow,
soft-footed walk to the door that spoke ^ rare conceit.
"M'm," says Susie. "That's Cleonie--.if she 'adn't turned back I'd
ha' thought she was sickenin' for somethin'. I may 'ave to think about
takin' the cane to 'er--yet you can't blan-ie 'er for doin' wot makes 'er
50
valuable, can you? Know wot she can make for us in a year?--fifteen
thousand dollars an' more--an' that's workin' 'er easy. Now then
..." She pecked me and winked. "Let's be off--we don't want to
keep a very important gentleman waitin', do we?"
Who that gentleman was I discovered when we boarded the Choctaw Queen at the levee just as dusk was falling--for we'd agreed
I must run no risk of being recognised, and that I'd keep out of public
view in daylight until we reached Westport. Susie had bespoken the
entire texas deck on the steamboat, which was one of the smaller
stem-wheelers, and when we'd made our way through the bustling
waterfront and its confusion of cargo and passengers milling under
the flares (me with my collar well up and my hat pulled down), up the
gangway past the saluting conductor, to the texas and its little private
saloon--there in the sudden light of chandeliers was a table spread
with crystal and silver, and nigger waiters in livery, and a band of
fiddlers scraping away, and the big red-faced skipper himself, all
consequence and whiskers, bowing over Susie's hand and clasping
mine heartily, while a little clergyman bustled up, solemnly a-smirk,
and a couple of sober coves behind looked wise and made play with
pens and certificates.
"Well, now, that's just fine!" cries the skipper. "Welcome 'board,
Miz Willinck, ma'am, an' you too, sun, kindly welcome! All ready,
ma'am, as you see--Revn'd Hootkins, an' heah Mistah Grace the
magistrate, an' clerk an' all!" He waved a great hand, and I realised
that the crafty bitch had brought me up to scratch all unawares--she
was smiling at me, wide-eyed and eager, and the skipper was clapping
my back, and the magistrate inquiring that I was Beauchamp Comber,
bachelor of sound mind and good standing, wasn't that so, while the
clerk scribbled away and blotted the page in haste, and had to start
again, and we both wrote our names, Susie's hand shaking as she held
the quill--and then we stood side by side while the little sky-pilot
rumbled his book and cleared his throat and said shet the doah, there,
an' keep them fiddlers quiet, till we do this thing solemn an' fittin',
now then . . . Susan Willinck, widder ... an' Bo-chump, how you
say that? Bee-chum, that a fact? ... we being' gathered in the sight o'
God an' these heah witnesses . . . holy matrimony . . . procreation,
yeah, well. . . long as ye both shall live . . . you got the ring, suh?
. . . you hain't? . . . lady has the ring, well, that's a new one, but pass
it over to him, anyhow, an' you, suh, lay a-holt the bride's hand, that's
it now.. .
I heard the bells boom over Strackenz Cathedral, and smelt the
musk of incense, and felt the weight of the crown jewels and Irma's
hand cold in mine . . . and then it was Elspeth's warm and holding
suffeeshent carriages for the au;nts and cousins tiey could dam w
walk taste the weddin' breakfast. and I was at he peephole look' down on Ranavalona's massive black nakedness while her handm? dens administered the ceremoi'L'al bath--not the there'd been an''
. '---- --"""'.y, in ks
way, to my union with that ghastly nigger mon;ter . . . Irma's face
turning, icy and proud, her lips 0'arely brushing ny cheek. . . Elspeth
glowingly lovely, golden curls a-mder her bridal veil, red lips open
under mine . . . that mad black female gorilla g-unting as she flung i off her robe and grabbed my essentials . . . : don't know what
conjured up these visions of my previous nuptias, really; I suppose
I'm just a sentimental chap at bottom. And now it was Susie's plump
face upturned to mine, and the; fiddlers were st-iking up while the |
skipper and magistrate applauded and cried congratulations, the I
nigger waiters passed the plate's with mirthful beams, with corks I
popping and Susie squealing with laughter as the skipper gallantly
claimed the privilege of kissing the bride, and tie little clergyman
said, well, just a touch o' the rye, thank'ee, no, tiothin' with it, an'
keep it comin'. . .
But what I remember best is not that brief unexpected ceremony,
or the obligatory ecstatic thrashings on the bed of our plushy-gilt
stateroom under the picture of Pan leering down appropriately while
fleshy nymphs sported about him? r Susie's imprisoning embrace as
she murmured drowsily: "Mrs Comber . . . Mrs Beauchamp Millward
Comber," over and over--none of these things. What I remember
is slipping out when she was asleep, to stand by the breezy texas
rail in the velvet dark and smoke a cheroot, looking out over the oily
waters as we ploughed up past Batn Rouge. The great stem wheel
was nickering like a magic lantern in the starshine; far over on the ,
east shore were the town lights, and from the main saloon on the J boiler deck beneath me came the sound of muffled music and
laughter; I paced astern and looked down at the uncovered main
deck--and that's what I can see and hear now, clear across the years, as
though it were last night.
From rail to rail the great deck ^ss packed with gear and people,
all shadowy under the flares like one of those Dutch night paintings:
here a couple of darkies crooning softly as they squatted in the
scuppers, there a couple of drummers comparing carpetbags, yonder
some rivermen lounging at the gangway and telling stretchers--but;
they were just the few. The many, and there were hundreds of them,
were either groups of young men who gossipped eagerly and laughted;
1
- too loud, or obvious families--Ma wrapped in her shawl beside ""'Inldren huddled in sleep among the bales and bundles and tied the ons- Pa sitting silent, deep in thought, or rummaging for the
I^ndredth time through the family goods, or listening doubtfully near
. Qonps of the noisy single men. Nothing out of the way--except
, a strange, nervous excitement that rose from that crowded deck
...  electric wave; even I sensed it, without understanding, for I
didn't know then that these ordinary folk were anything but--that
they were the emigrants, the vanguard of that huge tide that would
nour into the wilderness and make America, the fearful, hopeful,
ignorant ones who were going to look for El Dorado and couldn't for
the life of them have told you why, exactly, except that Pa was restless
and Jack and Jim were full of ginger. And Ma was tired--but they
were all going to see the elephant.
He was crowded two deep along the port rail, was Pa, soberly
looking west as though trying to see across the thousands of miles to
where he hoped they were going, wondering what it would be like,
and why hadn't he stayed in Pittsburgh? The single fellows had no
such doubts (much); beneath me a bunch in slouch hats and jeans
were passing the jug around boisterously, and one with a melodeon
was striking up:
Oh, say, have ye got a drink of rum?
Doodah,doodah!
I'd give ye a taste if I had some,
|h Doo-doodah-day! '^i-if.' and his mates clapped and stamped as they roared the chorus:
For it's--blow, bully-boys, blow!
For Califomeyeo!
S There's plenty of gold as I've been told
On the banks of the Sacramento!
You never hear it now, except maybe on a sailing ship when she's
upping anchor, and I doubt if it would have the same note of reckless
hope that I heard off Baton Rouge--it wasn't too well received then,
either, with cries of shet-up-cain't-ye? from the sleepers, and damnyer-eyes-I-reckon-we-kin-sing-if-we-want-to
from the optimists, and
then a baby began to wail, and they piped down, laughing and
grumbling. But whenever I remember it, I have an odd thought: I
never suspected that night that I--or Susie and the sluts, for that
matter--had the least thing in common with those folk down on the
main deck, but in fact we all belonged to a damned exclusive company
without knowing it, with a title that's a piece of folklore nowadays.
Millions came after, but we were the Forty-Miners.
That claim to immortality lay ahead in the unseen future; as I
53
pitched my cheroot into the river I was reflecting that wherever the
rest might be going, I was bound for home, admittedly the long way
about, and they could keep Califomeye-o for me. If there were
pickings to be got along the way, especially from the overfed trollop
snoring and sated in the stateroom, so much the better; she owed me
something for the amount of tup I'd given her, and no doubt would
give her again before the journey's end. There were worse ways of
crossing Americaor so I thought in my innocence. If I'd had any
sense I'd have followed my cheroot and taken my chance among the
enemies hunting me along the Mississippi valley.
s a. Fifteen dollars a bottle they were charging for
claret at the Planters' Hotel in St Louis that year, and it was like
drinking swamp-water when the mules have been by; I've tasted |
better in a London ladies' club. But you daren't drink anything else ;
because of the cholera; the good folk of St Louis were keeling over f
like flies, the whole town stank of camphor and burning bitumen, you |
could even find bodies lying in the street, and the only place more jg
crowded than the Planters' must have been the cemeterywhich was I?
probably as comfortable. |
It wasn't only the plague that worried me, either; St Louis was the t,
town where a few weeks earlier they'd been posting rewards of a
hundred dollars for my apprehension, describing me to a T and
warning the citizenry that I had Genteel Manners and spoke with a
Foreign Accent, damn their impudence. But the Choctaw Queen
went no farther, and we had to wait a day for a vessel to carry us up
the Missouri to Westport, so there was nothing for it but to venture
ashore, which I managed in safety by purchasing one of the new
"genuine cholera masks, guaranteed to prevent infection" for two
bits, and sneaking into the Planters' looking like a road-agent. ;
There I had further proof, if I'd needed it, of my newwife's strength
of character, and also of the length of her purse. Would you believe
itshe had bespoken half a dozen rooms, and when the manager
discovered that four of them were to be occupied by twenty nigger
wenches, he had the conniptions; by thunder, he'd swim in blood
before any black slaves stank up his rooms, no matter their airs and i
refinements. Unfortunately for him, Susie had the girls settled in and
their doorkeys in her reticule before he realised it; he and she had a
fine set-to in our parlour, while I kept safely out of view in the
bedroom, and she told him that since her "young ladies" were on no
account going to be herded in the pens with fieldhands and such trash,
nor in quarantine neither, he'd better put a hundred dollars in his
pocket and forget it. I'd have let 'em go to the pens myself, but it was
her money, and after some hem-haw he took it, and retired with a
grovelling request that the "young ladies" keep to their rooms, for his
reputation's sake.
But what with the din of the overcrowded hotel, the stink of sulphur
smouldering in the fireplace, and the fear that some sharp might
discover Mr Comber was the notorious slave-stealer Tom Arnold, I
was mightily relieved when we boarded the Missouri packet next
evening, and I felt it safe to drop my cholera mask over the sidethe
passengers included sufficient tall dark strangers with every kind of
accent, whether their manners were genteel or not. She was a smaller
and much dirtier vessel than the Choctaw Queen, and the girls had to
make do in steerage among all the roughs and roustabouts and
gamblers and frontier riff-raff; Susie just singled out the four biggest
and ugliest and paid them handsomely to keep the wenches safe in a
comerwhich to my astonishment they did, for four days up to
Kanzas Landing. The first drunk who tried to paw a crinoline was
tipped over the side without ceremony, and thegamblers haw-hawed
and laid bets whether he'd float or sink. After that our Magdalenes
were left alone, but they had a miserable passage of it, even under the
lean-to which the toughs rigged up to keep out the fog and drizzle,
and they were a doleful and bedraggled jam of tarts by the time we
tied up. Susie and I shared a cramped and stuffy saloon on the texas
with about seventeen snoring merchants and dowagers with bad
breath, but for once I didn't mind the lack of privacy; I needed the
rest.
They tell me that Kansas City nowadays covers the whole section,
but in those days the landing and Westport and Independence were
separated by woodland and meadow. And I wonder if today's city
contains more people than were crowded along the ten miles from
Independence to the river when I first saw it in '49: there were
thousands of them, in tents and lean-tos and houses and log shacks
and under the trees and in the few taverns and lodging-places; they
were in the stables and sheds and shops and storehouses, a great
swarming hive of humanity of every kind you can imaginewell, I
remember the Singapore river in the earlies, and it was nothing to
Westport-Independence. The whole stretch was jammed with wagons
55
and carts and carriages, churning the spaces between the buildings
into a sea of mud after the recent rain, and through it went the mules
and oxen and horses, with the steam rising from them and the stench
of hides and dung and smoke filling the air--but even that was nothing
to the noise.
Every other building seemed to be a forge or a stable or a
warehouse, a-clang with hundreds of hammers and the rasp of saws
and the crack of axes and the creak of wheels and the thump and
scrape of boxes and bales being loaded or unloaded; teamsters
snapped their whips with a "Way-hay, whoa!", foremen bellowed,
children shrilled, the voices of thousands of men and women blended
with it all in a great eager busy din that echoed among the buildings
and floated off to be lost in the surrounding forest.
I daresay it was nothing to what it must have looked like a year or
two later, when the gold-fever was at its height and half Europe came
pouring to America in search of fortune. But in that spring every
human specimen in North America seemed to have assembled at
Kanzas Landing for the great trek west--labourers white and black
and olive, bronzed hunters and pale clerks, sober emigrants and
raffish adventurers, harassed women with aprons and baskets prodding
at vegetables set out before the store-fronts and slapping the
children who bawled round their skirts; red-faced traders in stovepipe
hats and thumbs hooked in fancy weskits, spitting juice; soldiers
in long boots and blue breeches, their sabres on the table among the
beer-mugs; Mexicans in scrapes and huge-brimmed sombreros leading
a file of mules; farmers in straw hats and faded overalls; skinners
with coiled whips, lounging on their rigs; bearded ruffians in greasy
buckskins bright with beadwork, two-foot Bowies gleaming on their
hips, chattering through their noses in a language which I recognised
to my amazement as Scotch Gaelic; bright-eyed harpies watchful in
shack doorways; Spanish riders in ponchos and feathered bonnets,
their sashes stuffed with flintlock pistols; a party of Indians beneath
the trees, faces grotesquely painted, hatchets at their belts and lances
stacked; silent plainsmen in fur caps and long fringed skirts, carrying
buffalo guns and powder horns; a coach guard with two six-shooters
at his hips, two five-shooters in his waistband, a slung revolving rifle,
a broadsword, and a knife in his boot--oh, and he was gnawing a
toothpick, too; an incredibly lean and ancient hunter, white-bearded
to the waist, dressed in ragged deerskin and billycock hat, his "naildriver"
rifle across the crupper of his mule, staring ahead like a fakir
in a trance as he rode slowly up the street, his slovenly Indian squaw
at his stirrup, through the crowds of loafers and porters and barefoot
boys scuffing under the wagons, the swaggering French voyageurs,
gaudy and noisy, the drummers and. counter-jumpers and sharp-faced
Yankees, planters and crooks and rivennen, trappers and miners and
plain honest folk wondering how they'd strayed into this Babel--and
those are only the ones I noticed in the first mile or so.
But soft! who is this stalwart figure with the dashing whiskers so admirably
set off by his wideawake hat and fringed deerskin shirt, a
new patent Colt repeater strapped to his manly rump, his well-turned
shanks encased in new boots which are pinching the bejeezus out of
him? Can it be other than Arapaho Harry, scourge of the plains?--
that alert and smouldering eye must oft have hardened at the sound
of the shrill war-whoop, or narrowed behind the sights as he nailed
the rampant grizzly--now it is soft and genial as he chivvies the dusky
whores into the back of the cart, an indulgent smile playing across his
noble features. Mark the grace with which he vaults nimbly into the
driver's seat beside the bedizened trot in the feathered bonnet--his ,
aunt, doubtless--and with an expert chuck on the reins sets the team
in motion and bogs the whole contraption axeldeep in the gumbo.
The whores squeak in alarm, the aunt--his wife, you say?--rails and
adjusts her finery, but the gallant frontiersman, unperturbed save for
a blistering oath which mantles the cheeks of his fair companions in
blushes, is equal to the emergency; for two bits he gets a gang of
loafers to haul them out. The western journey is not without its trials;
it is going to be a long trek to California.
But at least it looked as though we were going to make it in some
style. Once we'd got the rig out of the stew, and rattled through
Westport and the great sea of emigrant tents and wagons to Independence--which
was a pretty little place then with a couple of spires and
a town hall with a belfry, of which the inhabitants were immensely
proud--we were greeted by the celebrated Colonel Owens, a breezy
old file with check trousers full of belly and a knowing eye; he was the
leading merchant, and had been commissioned to outfit Susie's
caravan. He and the boys made us welcome at the store, pressed
sherry cobblers on me, bowed and leered gallantly at Susie, and
assured us that a trip across the plains was a glorified picnic.
"You'll find, ma'am," says the Colonel, ankle cocked and cigar aflourish,
"that everything's in real prime train. Indeedy--your health,
sir. Yes, ma'am, six Pittsburgh wagons, spanking new, thirty yoke of
good oxen, a dozen mules, and a real bang-up travelling carriage--
the very best Hiram Young4 can furnish, patent springs, handpainted,
cushioned seats, watertight for fording streams, seats half a
dozen comfortable. Fact is," with a broad wink, "it's one of the new
57
mail company coaches, but Hiram procured it as a personal favour.
Indeedy--you won't find a more elegant conveyance outside Boston--am
I right, boys?"
The boys agreed that he was, and added in hushed tones that the
mail company intended to charge $250 a head for the three-week
non-stop run to Santa Fe, and how about that?
"We're goin' to take three months," says Susie, "an' ten cents a
pound for freight is quite dear enough, thank you. To say nothin' of
fifty dollars a month for guards an' drivers, who'll eat like wolves if I
know anythin'."
"Well, now, ma'am, I see you've a proper head for business,"
chuckles the Colonel. "An' a real pretty head it is, too, if I may say.
But good men don't come cheap--eh, boys?" ^s,
The boys swore it was true; why, a good stockman could make two
hundred a week, without going west of Big Blue.
"I'm not hirin' stockmen," snaps Susie. "I'm payin' high for reliable
men who can look after theirselves, and me."
"And you shall have the best, ma'am!" cries the Colonel. "Say, I
like your style, though! Your health again, Mr Comber! Indeedy--
eight outriders, each with a revolving rifle and a brace of patent
pistols--why, that's a hundred shots without reloading! A regiment
couldn't afford better protection! A regiment, did I say? Why, three
of these men rode with Keamy in the Mexican War--seasoned
veterans, ma'am, every one. Isn't that so, boys?" . .5'
The boys couldn't fault him; dogged if they knew how the Army
would have managed without those three. I remarked that so much
firepower was impressive, and seemed to argue necessity--I'd been
noting a bill on the store wall advertising: w $ ^ Ho! Hist! Attention! "
Califomians! Why not take, among other necessaries, your own .
monuments and tombstones? A great saving can be effected by
having their inscriptions cut in New York beforehand!!!5
The Colonel looked serious and called for more cobblers. "Indian
depredations this past ten years, sir, have been serious and multiplying,"
says he solemnly. "Indeedy--red sons-o'-bitches wherever
you look--oh, beg pardon, ma'am, that runaway tongue of mine!
However, with such vast convoys of emigrants now moving west, I
foresee no cause for apprehension. Safety in numbers, Mr Comber,
hey? Besides, the tribes are unusually peaceful at present--eh, boys?"
The boys couldn't remember such tranquility; it was Sunday afternoon
the whole way to the Rockies, with all the Indians retired or
gone into farming or catching the cholera. (That last was true enough,
by the way.)
Susie inquired about a guide, reminding the Colonel she had asked
for the best, and he smacked his thigh and beamed. "Now, ma'am,
you can set your mind to rest thereyes, indeedy, I reckon you can,
just about," and the boys grinned approval without even being asked.
"Is it Mr Williams?" says Susie. "I was told to ask for him, special."
"Well, now ma'am, I'm afraid Old Bill doesn't come out of the
mountains much, these days." The boys confirmed that indeed Old
Bill was out west with Fremont. "No, I'm afraid Fitzpatrick and
Beckwourth aren't available, eitherbut they're no loss, believe me,
when you see who I've engagedsubject to his meeting you and
agreeing to take the command, of course." And he nodded to one of
^e boys, who went out on the stoop and bawled: "Richey!"
"Command!" says Susie, bridling. "Any commandin' that's to be
done, my 'usband'll do!" Which gave me a nasty start, I can tell you.
"He's in charge of our caravan, and the guide'll take 'is pay an' do
what he's told! The idea!"
The Colonel looked at the boys, and the boys looked at the
Colonel, and they all looked at me. "Well, now, ma'am," says Owens
doubtfully, "I'm sure Mr Comber is a gentleman of great ability,
but"
'"E's an' officer of the Royal Navy," snaps Susie, "an' quite
accustomed to commandaren't you, my love?"
I agreed, but remarked that leading a caravan must be specialised
work, and doubtless there were many better qualified than I ...
which was stark truth, apart from which I'd no wish to be badgering
roughriders and arguing with drunk teamsters when I could be rolling
in a hand-painted, watertight coach. Seeing my diffidence, she
rounded on me, demanding if I was going to take orders from some
grubby little carter? I said, well, ah ... while the Colonel called
loudly for cobblers and the boys looked tactfully at the ceiling, and
just then a burly scarecrow came into the storeor rather, he seemed
to drift in, silently, and the Colonel introduced him as Mr Wootton,
our guide.
I heard Susie sniff in astonishmentwell, he was grubby, no error,
and hadn't shaved in a while, and his clothes looked as though he'd
taken them off a dead buckskin man and then slept in them for a year.
He seemed diffident, too, fiddling with his hat and looking at the
floor. When the Colonel told him about my commanding the caravan
he thought for a bit, and then said in a gentle, husky voice: "Gennelman bin wagon-captain afore?"
No, said the Colonel, and the boys looked askance and coughed.
The clodpole scratched his head and asks:
"Gennelman bin in Injun country?"
: 59
No, they said, I hadn't. He stood a full minute, still not looking up,
and then says:
"Gennelman got no 'sperience?" j
At this one of the boys laughed, and Isensed Susie ready to burst
and I was about fed up being ridiculed by these blasted chawbacons.
God knows I didn't want to command her caravan, but enough's
enough.
"I've had some experience, Mr Wootton," says I. "I was once an
army chief of staff" Sergeant-General to the ni^ger rabble of
Madagascar, but there you are "and have known service in India,
Afghanistan, and Borneo. But I've no special dssire"
At this Wootton lifted his unkempt head and locked at ms, and I
stopped dead. He was a ragged nobocywith eyes like clear blue
lights, straight and steady. Then he glanced awayand I thought,
don't let this one go. It may be a picnic on the plains, but you'll be
none the worse with him along.
"My dear," says I to Susie, "perhaps you and the Colonel will
excuse Mr Wootton and myself." I went out, and presently Wootton
drifts on to the stoop, not looking at me. "Mr. Wootton," says I,
"my wife wants me to command the caravan, and what she wants she
gets. Now, I'm not your Old Bill Williams, but I'm not a greenhorn,
exactly. I don't mind being called wagon-captainbut you're the
guide, and what you say goes. You can say it to me, quietly, and I'll
say it to everyone else, and you'll get an extra hundred a month. What
d'yousay?" ... fil
It was her money, after all. He said nothing, so I went on:
"If you're concerned that your friends'll think poorly of you for
serving under a tenderfoot. .-." At this he turned the blue eyes on
me, and kept them there. Deuced uncomfortable. Still he was silent,
but presently looked about, as though considering, and then says
after a while:
"Gotta study, I reckon. Care to likker with me?"
I accepted, and he led the way to where a couple of mules were
tethered, watching me sidelong as I mounted. Well, I'd forgotten
more about backing a beast than he'd ever know, so I was all right
there; we cantered down the street, and out through the tents and
wagons towards Westport, and presently came to a big lodge with
"Last Chance" painted in gold leaf on its signboard, which was doing
a roaring trade. Richey got a jug, and we rode off towards some trees,
and all the time he was deep in thought, occasionally glancing at me
but not saying a word. I didn't mind; it was a warm day, I was
enjoying the ride, and there was plenty to seeover by the wood
some hunters were popping their rifles at an invisible target; when we
got closer I saw they were "driving the nail", which is shooting from fifty paces or so at a broad-headed nail stuck in a tree, the aim being
to drive it full into the wood, which with a ball the size of a small pea
is fancy shooting anywhere.
Richey gave a grunt when he saw them, and we rode near to where
a group of them were standing near the nail-tree, whooping and catcalling
at every shot. Richey dismounted.
"Kindly cyare to set a whiles?" says he, and indicated a tree-stump
with all the grace of a Versailles courtier; he even put the jug down
beside it. So I sat, and waited, and took a pull at the jug, which was
first-run rum, and no mistake, while Richey went over and talked to
the hunters--fellows in moccasins and fringed tunics, for the most
part, burned brown and bearded all over. It was only when some of
them turned to look at me, and chortled in their barbarous "plug-aplew"
dialect which is barely recognisable as English, that I realised
the brute was absolutely consulting them--about me, if you please!
Well, by God, I wasn't having that, and I was on the point of storming
off when the group came over, all a-grin--and by George, didn't they
stink, just! I was on my feet, ready to leave--and then I stopped,
thunderstruck. For the first of them, a tall grizzled mountaineer, in a
waterproof hat and leggings, was wearing an undoubted Life Guards
tunic, threadbare but well-kept. I blinked: yes, it was Tin Belly gear,
no error. ^
"Hooraw, hoss, howyar!" cries this apparition. "'!x"
"Where the devil did you get that coat?" says I.
"You're English," says he, grinning. "Waal, I tell ye--this yar
garmint wuz give me by one o' your folks. Scotch feller--sure 'nuff
baronite, which is kind of a lord, don't ye know? Name o' Stooart.
Say, wasn't he the prime coon, though? He could ha' druv thet nail
thar with his eyes shut." He considered me, scratching his chin, and I
found myself wishing my buckskin coat wasn't so infernally new.
"Richey hyar sez he's onsartin if you'll make a wagon-captain."
"Is he, by God? Well, you can tell Richey--"
"Mister," says he, "you know this?" And he held up a short stick
of what looked like twisted leather.
"Certainly. It's cured beef--biltong. Now what--"
"Don't mind me, hoss," says he, and winked like a ten-year-old as
he stepped closer. "We're a-humourin' ole Richey thar. Now then--
how long a hobble you put on a pony?"
I almost told him to go to the devil, but he winked again, and I'll
say it for him, he was a hard man to refuse. Besides, what was I to do?
If I'd turned my back on that group of bearded grinning mountebanks
they'd have split their sides laughing.
^ ... 61
No, they said, I hadn't. He stolen minute, still not looking up,
and then says: l
"Gennelman got no 'sperience1 '
At this one of the boys laughed,,,,) j sensed Susie ready to burst.
and I was about fed up being ridity by these blasted chawbacons.
God knows I didn't want to co^^ her caravan, but enough's
enough.
"I've had some experience. Mutton," says I. "I was once an
army chief of staff" Sergeant(^eral to the nigger rabble of
Madagascar, but there you are "^ have known service in India,
Afghanistan, and Borneo. But I
n special desire"
At this Wootton lifted his unkt^ head and locked at me, and I
stopped dead. He was a ragged ^bodywith eyes like clear blue
lights, straight and steady. Thenngianced awayand I thought,
don't let this one go. It may be a,^ on the plains, but you'll be
none the worse with him along.
"My dear," says I to Susie, "^aps you and the Colonel will
excuse Mr Wootton and myself, "i^nt out, and presently Wootton
drifts on to the stoop, not looking ^g. "Mr. Wootton," says I,
"my wife wants me to command tlitaravan, and what she wants she
gets. Now, I'm not your Old Bill ^ams, but I'm not a greenhorn,
exactly. I don't mind being ca&ijyagon-captainbut you're the
guide, and what you say goes. Yc^ gay it to me, quietly, and I'll
'say it to everyone else, and you'll ^ extra hundred a month. What
id'you say?"
It was her money, after all. He ^ nothing, so I went on:
"If you're concerned that yourinends'll think poorly of you for
serving under a tenderfoot. ..." ^^15 he turned the blue eyes on
me, and kept them there. Deuced uncomfortable. Still he was silent,
but presently looked about, as t^gh considering, and then says
after a while: ;;:,,
"Gotta study, I reckon. Care to^er with me?"
I accepted, and he led the wa^o where a couple of mules were
tethered, watching me sidelong ^ mounted. Well, I'd forgotten
more about backing a beast than^ gver know, so I was all right
there; we cantered down the stre^ and out through the tents and
wagons towards Westport, and pagntly came to a big lodge with
"Last Chance" painted in gold leaf,,, ^ signboard, which was doing
a roaring trade. Richey got a jug, aim^g rode off towards some trees,
and all the time he was deep in th^ occasionally glancing at me
but not saying a word. I didn't ^ ji was a warm day, I was
enjoying the ride, and there waspignty to seeover by the wood
some hunters were popping their ri^ at an invisible target; when we
60
R<
got closer I saw they were "driving the nail", which is shooting from
fifty paces or so at a broad-headed nail stuck in a tree, the aim being
to drive it full into the wood, which with a ball the size of a small pea
is fancy shooting anywhere.
Richey gave a grunt when he saw them, and we rode near to where
a group of them were standing near the nail-tree, whooping and catcalling
at every shot. Richey dismounted.
"Kindly cyare to set a whiles?" says he, and indicated a tree-stump
with all the grace of a Versailles courtier; he even put the jug down
beside it. So I sat, and waited, and took a pull at the jug, which was
first-run rum, and no mistake, while Richey went over and talked to
the hunters--fellows in moccasins and fringed tunics, for the most
part, burned brown and bearded all over. It was only when some of
them turned to look at me, and chortled in their barbarous "plug-aplew"
dialect which is barely recognisable as English, that I realised
the brute was absolutely consulting them--about me, if you please!
Well, by God, I wasn't having that, and I was on the point of storming
off when the group came over, all a-grin--and by George, didn't they
stink, just! I was on my feet, ready to leave--and then I stopped,
thunderstruck. For the first of them, a tall grizzled mountaineer, in a
waterproof hat and leggings, was wearing an undoubted Life Guards
tunic, threadbare but well-kept. I blinked: yes, it was Tin Belly gear,
no error.
"Hooraw, hoss, howyar!" cries this apparition. ' - ^
"Where the devil did you get that coat?" says I.
"You're English," says he, grinning. "Waal, I tell ye--this yar
garmint wuz give me by one o' your folks. Scotch feller--sure 'nuff
baronite, which is kind of a lord, don't ye know? Name o' Stooart.
Say, wasn't he the prime coon, though? He could ha' druv thet nail
thar with his eyes shut." He considered me, scratching his chin, and I
found myself wishing my buckskin coat wasn't so infernally new.
"Richey hyar sez he's onsartin if you'll make a wagon-captain."
"Is he, by God? Well, you can tell Richey--"
"Mister," says he, "you know this?" And he held up a short stick
of what looked like twisted leather.
"Certainly. It's cured beef--biltong. Now what--"
"Don't mind me, hoss," says he, and winked like a ten-year-old as
he stepped closer. "We're a-humourin' ole Richey thar. Now then--
how long a hobble you put on a pony?" '- "'
I almost told him to go to the devil, but he winked again, and I'll
say it for him, he was a hard man to refuse. Besides, what was I to do?
If I'd turned my back on that group of bearded grinning mountebanks
they'd have split their sides laughing. ' :'
61
"That idepends on the pony," says I. "And the grazing, and how far
you've ridden, and where you are, and how much sense you've got.
Two feet. perhaps . . . three."
He cached with laughter and slapped his thigh, and the buckskin
men haw-hawed and looked at Richey, who was standing head down,
listening. My interrogator said:
"Hyar's a catechism, sure 'nuff," and he was so pleased with
himself, and so plainly intent on making game of Richey that I
decided P enter into the spirit of the thing. "Next question, please,"
says I, and he clapped his hands.
"Now, let's calkerlate. Haw, hyar's a good 'un! Hyar's a night
camp; I'l" a gyuard. What you spose I'm a-doin'?" He looked at a
bush abo^t twenty yards away, walked a few paces aside, and looked
at it agaP> then came back to me. "Actin' pee-koolyar, boss--you
reckon?''
"No sieh thing. You're taking a sight on that bush. You'll take a
sight on ill the bushes. After dark, if a bush isn't where it should be,
you'll fin o" " Because it'll be an Indian, won't it?" We'd done the
same thiig in Afghanistan; any fool of a soldier knows the dodge.
"Wan!' shouts he, delighted, and thumped Richey on the back.
"Thar, b>yee! This chile hyar'U tickle ye, see ifm he doan't. Now,
whut?"
Riche'was watching me in silence, very thoughtful. Presently he
nodded/lowly, while the buckskin men nudged each other and my
questionT beamed his satisfaction. Then Richey tapped my pistol bun, ancpulling a scrap of cloth from his pocket, drifted over to the
tree and'egan to snag it on the half-driven nail. My tall companion
chuckledand shook his head; well, I saw what was wanted, and I
thought > blazes with it. I'd taken as much examination from these
clowns al wanted, so I decided to put Master Richey in his place.
The t^ Ghap had a knife in his waistband, and without by your
leave I picked it out. It was a Green River, which is the best knife in
the wort. and just the article to practise the trick that Ilderim Khan
had taugt me, with infinite patience, on the Kabul Road almost ten
years be're. As Richey adjusted his target, I threw the knife overhand;
meye was well out, for I was nowhere near the mark, but I
damned ear took his ear off. He looked at the blade quivering in the
trunk bede his face, while the tall buffoon cackled with laughter,
and the'u^skin men doubled up and haw-hawed--if I'd put it
through ie back of his head, I daresay that would have been a real joke.
Richepulled the knife free, while his pals rolled about, and drifted
over to e- He looked at me for a moment with those steady blue
eyes, glanced at the tall chap,6 and then said in that gentle husky
voice:
"I'm Uncle Dick. An extra hunnerd, ye said--cap'n?"
The men hoorawed and shouted, "Good ole Virginny! How's yer
ha'r, Dick?" I nodded and said I would see him at sunrise, sharp,
bade them a courteous good-day and rode back to Independence
without more ado--I know when to play the man of few words
myself, you see. But I didn't delude myself that I had proved my
fitness to be a wagon-captain, or any rot of that sort; all I had shown,
through the eccentric good office of our friend in the Tin-Belly coat,
was that I wasn't a know-nothing, and Wootton could take service
under me without losing face. They were an odd lot, those frontiersmen,
simple and shrewd enough, and as easy--and as difficult--to
impose upon as children are. But I was glad Wootton would be our
guide; being a true-bred rascal and coward myself, I know a good '
man when I see one--and he was the best.7 -.. yww- -i.A , .;- , Jl^fc
We started west three days later, but I am not going to take up your
time with wordy descriptions of the journey, which you can get from
Parkman or Gregg if you want them--or from volume II of my own
great work. Dawns and Departures of a Soldier's Life, although it
ain't worth the price, in my opinion, and all the good scandal about
D'lsraeli and Lady Cardigan is in the third volume, anyway.
But what I shall try to do, looking back in a way that Parkman and
the others didn't, is to try to tell you what it meant to "go West" in the
earlies8--and that was something none of us understood at the time,
or the chances are we'd never have gone. You look at a map of
America nowadays, and there she is, civilised (give or take the
population) from sea to sea; you can board a train in New York City
and get off in Frisco without ever stepping outside, let alone get your
feet wet; you can even do what I've done--look out from your
Pullman on the Atchison Topeka as you cross Walnut Creek, and see
the very ruts your wagon made fifty years before, and pass through
great cities that were baldhead prairie the first time you went by, and
vast wheatfields where you remember the buffalo herds two miles
from wing to wing. Why, I had coffee on a verandah in a little town in
Colorado just last year--fine place, church with a steeple, schoolhouse,
grain warehouse, and even a motor car at the front gate. First
time I saw that place it consisted of a burning wagon. Its population
was a scalped family.
Now, you must look at the map of America. See the Mississippi
63
River, and just left of it, Kansas City? West of that, in '49, there
was--nothing. And it was an unknown nothing, that's the point. You
can say now that ahead of the Forty-Niners stretched more than two
thousand miles of empty prairie and forest and mountain and great
rivers--but we didn't know that, in so many words. Oh, everyone
knew that the Rockies were a thousand miles off, and the general lie
of the country--but take a look at what is now North Texas and
Oklahoma. In '49, it was believed that there was a vast range of
mountains there, blocking the way west, when it fact the whole stretch
is as flat as your hat. Somewhere around the same region, it was
believed, was "the great American Desert"--which didn't exist. Oh,
there's desert, plenty of it, farther west; nobody knew much about
that either. ;
I say it was unknown; certainly, the mountain men and hunters had
walked over plenty of it; that crazy bastard Fremont was exploring
away in a great frenzy and getting thoroughly lost by all accounts. But
when you consider, that in '49 it was less that 60 years since some
crazy Scotch trapper9 had crossed North America/or the first time-- well, you will understand that its geography was not entirely familiar,
west of the Miss'.
Look at the map again--and remember that beyond Westport
there was no such thing as a road. There were two trails, to all intents,
and they were just wagon-tracks--the Santa Fe and the Oregon. You
didn't think of roads then; you thought of rivers, and passes. Arkansas,
Cimarron, Del Norte, Platte, Picketwire, Colorado, Canadian--
those were the magic river names; Glorieta, Raton, South Pass--
those were the passes. There were no settlements worth a dam,
even--Santa Fe was a town, sure enough, if you ever got there, and
after that you had nothing until San Diego and Frisco and the rest of
the cities of the west coast. But in between, the best you could hope
for were a few scattered forts and trading posts: Bent's, Taos,
Laramie, Bridger, St Vrain, and a few more. Hell's bells, I rode
across Denver when the damned place wasn't even there.
No, it was the unknown then, to us at least; millions of square miles
of emptiness which would have been hard enough to cross even if it
had truly been empty, what with dust-storms, drought, floods, fire,
mountains, snow-drifts that could be seventy feet deep, cyclones, and
the like. But it wasn't empty, of course; there were several thousand
well-established inhabitants--named Cheyenne, Kiowa, Ute, Sioux,
Navajo, Pawnee, Shoshoni, Blackfeet, Cumanche . . . and Apache.
Especially, Apache. But even they were hardly even names to us, and
the belief--I give you only my own impression--in the East was that
their nuisance had been greatly exaggerated. %
So you see, we started in fairly blissful ignorance, but before we do,
take one last look at the map before Professor Rashy endeth the
lesson. See the Arkansas river and the Rockies? Until the 1840s, they
had been virtually the western and south-western limits of the U.S.A.;
then came the war with Mexico, and the Yankees won the whole
shooting-match that they own today. So when we jumped off for
California, we were heading into country three-quarters of which had
been Mexican until a few months before, and still was in everything
but name.10 Some of it was called Indian Territory, and that was no
lie, either.
That was what lay ahead of us, gullible asses that we were, and if
you think it was tough you should have seen the Comber caravan
loading up in the meadow at Westport. I've squared away, and ridden
herd upon, most kind of convoys in my time, but shipping a brothel
was a new one on me. Visiting 'em in situ, you don't realise how
elaborately furnished they are; when I saw the pile of gear that had
come ashore off the steamboat, I didn't credit it; a stevedore would
have taken to drink. , ?'";
For one thing, the sluts all had their dressing-tables and mirrors
and wardrobes, stuffed with silks and satins and gowns and underclothes
and hats and stockings and shoes and garters and ribbons and
jewellery and cosmetics and wigs and masks and gloves and God
knows what beside--there were several enormous chests which Susie
called "equipment", and which, if they'd burst open in public, would
have led to the intervention of the police. Gauzy trousers and silk
whips were the least of it; there was even a red plush swing and an
"electrical mattress", so help me.
"Susie," says I, "I ain't old enough to take responsibility for this
cargo. Dear God, Caligula wouldn't know what to do with it! You've
had some damned odd customers in Orleans, haven't you?"
"We won't be able to buy it in Sacramento," says she.
"You couldn't buy it in Babylon!" says I. "See here; two of the
wagons must be given over to food--we need enough flour, tea, dried
fruit, beans, corn, sugar, and all the rest of it to feed forty folk for
three months--at this rate we'll finish up eating lace drawers and frilly
corsets!" She told me not to be indelicate, and it would all have to go
aboard; she wasn't running an establishment that wasn't altogether
np-top. So in went the fancy bed-linen and tasselled curtains and ^rpets and chairs and chaise-longues and hip-baths, and the piano ^th candlesticks and a case of music--oh, yes, and four chandeliers an" crystal lampshades and incense and bath salts and perfumes and
snuff and cigars and forty cases of burgundy (I told the demented 'tch it wouldn't travel) and oil paintings of an indecent nature in gilt
ftS
frames and sealed boxes of cheese and rahat lak j _ 3-^ j
pomade, and to crown all, a box of opium--with (-'lermie's carrot in ^ its cage to top everything off. In the end we hac, ^ y^ ^ g^^ wagons.
"It's worth it," says Susie to my protests. "1^ ^ investment,
darlin', an' we'll reap the benefit, you'll see."
"Provided the goldfields are manned entirely . decadent Frog
poets, we'll make a bloody fortune," says I. "Thi^ ^ ^ ^an't
have to go through Customs."
The whores were another anxiety, for whilfg ^yg ^ ^g^i
thoroughly chastened, and kept them dressed lik<g rarity girls, they
wouldn't have fooled an infant. They were all coloi , 'j stunners
and they didn't walk, or even sit, like nuns, exact;, y . * i.ad .
look at the stately black Aphrodite, regarding hers(^ ^ g hand-mirror
while the pert creamy Claudia dressed her hair, or j^ y^ perched languidly on a box, contemplating her shapely little f^with satisfaction,
or Medea and Cleonie sauntering among th^ wildflowers with
their parasols, or the voluptuous Eugenic recli^ ^ ^ ^ sultry-eyed and toying with her fan--no, you cou^ ^ ^ weren't
choir-girls. I took one look at the score of drive,^ ^ ^ ^at
Owens had hired for us, and concluded that we'(^ u hgen 3 sight
safer carrying gold bullion.
They were decent men enough, as hard cases, u ir * them
bearded buckskineers, a few in faded Army of,  ' ._.,  ,.,,,n , , , , , ., , . >iues, ana an wen
mounted and armed to the teeth with revolving .-^s ^ rifles.
Their top spark was a rangy, well-knit Ulsterman w^ ^^ whiskers
and a soft-spoken honeycomb voice; his name, he^ ^formed me was
Grattan Nugent-Hare, "with the hyphen, sir--whil^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 3 _ose,
don't ye know, but I'm attached to it." There was ,^ ^ ^^ ^ ^ yg sleeve where chevrons had been; when he disrnoi ^ t. ^^ ^ 3 seal sliding off a rock. Gentleman-ranker, thinks /, 1,00.1^ gentry,
village school, seen inside Dublin Castle, no doubts'. ,B^ ^^ ^ 3 commission. A very easy, likely lad, with a lazy smi^ ^ ^ ^^g nose.
"You were with Keamy," says I. "And before t . p,,
"Tenth Hussars," says he, and I couldn't help e^^'mmg. "Chainy
Tenth!" at which he opened his sleepy eyes a little ^ ^^ t could have
bitten my fool tongue out.
"Why, so it was. And you're a naval gentlernai^ ^ ^ ^ Mr
Comber--your pardon. . . captain, I should say.', ' nodded amiably.
"Well, well--d'ye know, I'd ha' put you ^ ^^ ^ ^yalry
yourself, by the set of the whiskers? I'd ha' been ac , . _gyg though.
right enough."
It gave me a turn; this was a sharp one. The last .. i wanted ju51 66 I , K^
then was an old British Army acquaintancebut I'd never known the
Tenth except by name, which was a relief.
"And how far west did you go with Keamy?" I asked.
"Gila River, thereabout. . . that was after Santa Fe, d'ye see? So
it's not new country to me, altogether. But I apprehend you're all the
way for Californiawith the ladies." And he glanced past me to
where Susie was chivvying the tarts out of sight into the wagons. He
grinned. "My stars, but they're as bonny as fluffy little doe rabbits on
the green, so they are." ' ;'.
"And that's the way they'll stay, Mr Nugent-Hare"
"Call me Grattan," says he, and grinned as he patted his pony's
muzzle. "I'm up the road ahead of you, Mr Comber. You were about
to say, I think, that after a few weeks those boys of mine might feel
the fever, and those charming little maidsifye'1.1 forgive the term
would prove a temptation? Not at all, at all. They'll be as safe as if
they were in St Ursula's." He tilted his hat back, not smiling now.
"Believe me, if I didn't know how to manage rascals like theseI
wouldn't be here, would I now?"
He was a cocksure one, thisbut probably, I reflected, not without
cause; the Army had left its stamp on him, all right. I reminded him
that military discipline was one thing, and these were civilians, out on
the plains.
He laughed pleasantly. "Military discipline be damned," says he.
"It's simple as shelling peas. If one of 'em so much as tips his tile to
your young ladies, I'll blow the bastard's head off. And now, sir ...
the order of march . . . what would ye say to a point rider, a
rearguard, two to a flank, and myself riding loose? If that would be
agreeable . . . And you'll be riding herd yourself? Quite so ..."
If his nose hadn't been quite so long, and his smile so open, it would
have been a pleasure to do business with him. Still, he knew his work,
and he was being well paid; captain or no captain, it struck me I might
spend most of the trip lounging in the carriage after all.
However, when the great moment of starting came I was in the
saddle, in full buckskin fig, for one has to show willing. With Wootton
"lent alongside, I led the way down the meadow and into the trees,
"id after us trundled the carriage, with Susie fanning herself like
Ueopatra, and her nigger maid and cook perched behind, and then
"e eight big schooners, flanked by Nugent-Hare's riders; their canvas
wverswere rolled up like furled sails in the spring sunshine, with the
"s sitting primly two by two; in the rear came the mules, with a
"Pie of Mexican savaneros, the three-hundred-pound loads piled
"credibly high and swaying perilously. It was a well-rutted trail, and
e schooners rolled now and then, which caused some flutter and
fn
squeak among the girls, but I noticed that the guards--*-who might
have taken the opportunity to render gallant assistance--barely
glanced in their direction; perhaps Grattan was as strong a straw-boss
as he made out, after all.
Once through the timber, we came out on the prairie itself, all
bright with with the early summer flowers, and I galloped ahead to a
little hillock for a look-see. That's a moment I remember still: behind
lay the woods with the smoke haze rising from Westport; left and
right, and as far ahead as the eye could see, was limitless rolling plain,
dotted with clumps of oaks and bushes, the grass blowing gently in
the breeze, and fleecy clouds against a blue sky that seemed to stretch
forever. Below, the wagons crawled along the trail, its furrows
running clear and straight to the far horizon, where you could just see
the last wagon of the caravan ahead. And I absolutely laughed
aloud--why, I can't tell, except that in that moment I felt free and
contented and full of hope, with my spirits bubbling as high as they've
ever done in my life. Others, I know, have felt the same thing about
starting on the trail west; there's an exhilaration, a sense of leaving
the old, ugly world behind, and that there's something splendid
waiting for you to go and find it, far out yonder. I wonder if I'd feel it
now, or if it happens only when you're young, and have no thought
for the ill things that may lie along the way.
For it's an illusion, you know--the start of the trail. Those first ten
days lull you to sleep, as you roll gently down over that changeless
plain, through the well-used camp-places to Council Grove, which is
the great assembly point where little caravans like ours form themselves
into regular wagon-trains for the long haul to the mountains--
there! I'm writing in the present tense, as though it were all in front of
me again. Well, it ain't, thank God.
But it soon becomes dull; the only notable thing happened about
the third day, when we came to a little stream and copse where there
was a fairish assembly of wagons, and the trail divided--our fork
continuing south-west, while the northern trail branched up towards
the Kanzas River, and then to the North Platte, and eventually to
Oregon. As we were breaking camp, with several other Californiabound
parties, the Oregon folk were already setting out, and there
was great badinage and cheering and singing as they got under way.
They were a serious lot, those Oregoners, being mostly farm folk
intent on honest work--not like us California scamps off to the goldfields.
We were a raffish crew, but they were sober men and grim
women, with never a tin pan or a rope out of place, everything lashed
down hard and the kids peeping solemnly over the tailboards. They
had an American flag on their lead wagon, and their captain was a
bearded Nemesis in a tail coat, his harsh voice echoing down the
mule-lines: "One train, are ye set? Two train, are ye set?" and every arriero sang out in turn, "All set! All set!", which was the signal to go,
for you don't loaf about with a laden mule, and you don't stop for a
noon halt, either, or the brute will never start off again. So now it was
"All set!" and the whips cracked and the skinners yelled and the
wheels groaned, and the great train rolled away and the mules
plodded forward with their bells jingling, and all the California people
yelled and waved their hats and hurrawed and fluttered their handkerchieves
and cried: "Good luck! Oregon or bust! Take care, and
God bless you!" and the like, and the Oregon folk waved back and
began to sing a song that I've forgotten now, except that it went to the
tune of "Greensleeves" and was all about how the Lord would have a
land of milk and honey flowing for His children, over there--and the
women from the California wagons began to cry, and some of them
hurried after the Oregoners, with their aprons kilted up, offering 'em
last gifts of pies and cakes, and the children went scampering along
after the wagons, whooping and cheering, except for the little ones,
who stood with their fingers in their mouths staring at an old minister
who sat astride a mule beside the trail and blessed the Oregon people,
with his Bible held above his head. And the caravan wound over the
ridge and out of sight, and there was a sudden stillness in the campsite
under the trees, and then someone said, well, better git started
ourselves; come on, mother. . .
And they cheered up, for they were a jolly, carefree lot that went
to California that year, with their wagons piled any old how with all
sorts of rubbish that they thought might prove useful at the diggings,
like patent tents and mackintosh boats ("Gold-seekers, take heed!
Our rubber boats and shelters are unsurpassed!! You cannot face the
chill of the gold rivers without a rubber suit!!!") and water-purifiers
and amazingly-fangled machinery for washing gold dust. And they
didn't sing any hymns about milk and honey and Canaan, either; no,
sir, it was a very different anthem, plunked out on a banjo by a young
chap in a striped vest, with his girl dancing impromptu on a packing- case, and everyone thumping the tailboards--I daresay you know the
tune well enough, although it was new then, but I'll be bound you don't know the words the Forty-Niners sang:
I'll scrape the mountains clean, my boys,
I'll drain the rivers dry,
A pocketful of rocks bring home, y Susannah, don't you cry! ::.:..:
Oh, Califomey! ;
That's the land for me, ' '
?
s,- I'm off to Sacramento -- r"
, . With my wash-bowl on my knee! ,-
<.o:': ;^>; (omnes, fortissimo) i-Mse *'.
Oh, Susannah, don't you cry for me, " i I'm off to Sacramento i ;.,. With my wash-bowl on my knee! i;
It was a raucous, ranting thing, but when I hear it now in imagin
ation it's just a ghostly drift down the wind, fading into a whisper. Bui
it was hearty enough then, and we sang it all the way down to Counci
Grove.
I promised not to do a Gregg or Parkman, but I ought to tell yoi
something of how we travelled." When we camped at night, we se
guards; Wootton insisted, but I was all for it anyway, for you must dc
things right from the start. Susie and I slept in the carriage, which was as comfortable as Owens had promised, and the tarts slept in two o;
the wagons close at hand. The drivers and guards had a couple o
tents, although some preferred to class down in the open. At breakfas' and supper, and at the noon halt-, Susie and I were waited on by hei
nigger servant, the tarts ate in their own wagons, and the guard;
messed at a discreet distance--oh, we were a proper little democracy
I can tell you. I suggested that we might have Grattan over for suppci one night, since he was a bit of a gentleman, or had been, but Susif
wouldn't hear of it.
"They're our work-folk," says she, holding a chicken leg with hei
pinkie cocked, and guzzling down the burgundy (now I saw why we'
brought such an unconscionable lot of it). "If we encourage familiar
ity, they'll just presume, an' you know where that leads--you finist
up 'avin' to call in the militia to put 'em in their place, like New York.12 Anyway, that Nugent-Thingummy looks a right sly smart
aleck to me; whatever 'e may say about lookin' after my wenches, an
keepin' them randy guards at arm's length, I'm glad I've got Mark
an' Stephanie on the cue vee."
"What's this?" says I, for I took a fatherly interest in the welfare o
our fair charges.
"Marie an' Stephanie," says Susie, "would rat on their own moth
ers, an' the other little trollops know it. So there'll be no 'anky
panky--or if there is, I'll soon 'ear of it. An' Gawd 'elp the backslider
she won't be able to sit down between 'ere an' Sacramento, I promis<
you that."
So two of the tarts were Susie's pet spies, were they? That wa
useful to know--and lucky I'd found out before I'd done anythinj
indiscreet. I could foresee circumstances where that knowledge migh
be useful.
One acquaintance that I did cultivate, though, on the quiet trek to
Council Grove, was Uncle Dick Wootton. He was a strange case;
after our first meeting he'd hardly said a word to me for days, and I
wondered was he sulking, but I soon discovered it was just a pensive
shyness; he kept very much to himself with new acquaintances,
although he could be genial and even garrulous when he got to know
you. He was younger that I'd thought, and quite presentable when
he'd shaved. However, down to Council Grove he had no proper
dudes anyway; Grattaa and I set the guards, and halts and starts.
seemed to determine themselves; when anything out of the ways
happened, like a river-crossing, the teamsters and guards saw to it,
and since there were good fords and the weather was dry, all went
smoothly enough.
So Wootton had no guiding to do, and he spent the time riding far
out to flank, or some way ahead; he had a habit of vanishing for hours
at a time, and once or twice I know he slipped out of camp at dusb
only to reappear at dawn. He ate all on his own, looking out across'
the prairie with his back to camp; sometimes he would sit on a hill for
hours at a time, looking about him, or wander silent round the
wagons, checking a wheel or examining the mule-loads. I would catch
his eye on me, occasionally, but he would turn aside and go off again,
humming quietly to himself, for another prowl over the prairie.
Then one day just after a noon-halt he trotted up to me and said:
"Burner, cap'n", and I rode out with him a couple of miles to where
a small herd of the beasts were grazingthe first I'd ever seen. I was
for taking a shot at once, but he bade me hold on. a'<p
"Got to pick a tender cow. Bull meat tough enough to build a
shack, this time o' summer. Now, see thar; you take a sight a half
finger width down from the hump, an' a finger from the nose, or she'll
cairry your lead away for ye. Gotta hit hyart or lungs. Now, cap'n;
you blaze away."
So I did, and the cow took off like a rocket, and ran quarter of a
mile before she suddenly tumbled over, stone dead. "Gone under,"
says Wootton. "You shoot sweet", and as he skinned the hump very
expertly, and removed the choicest meat, he explained to me that a
buffalo was damnably hard to kill, unless you hit it in a vital spot; I .
gathered I had gone up in his estimation.
I thought we would drag the carcase back to the caravan, but he
shook his head, and set to roasting hump steaks over a fire. I've never
tested meat like that first buffalo-hump; there's no beef to compare to
it, and you can eat it without bread or vegetable, so delicious it is.
Wootton also removed the intestines, and to my disgust grilled them
gently by pulling them through the embers, whereafter he swallowed
s- 71
them in a great long string, like some huge piece of spaghetti. ]
watched him in horroror rather, I didn't watch him, for I couldn'i
bear the grisly spectacle. Instead, I turned my head aside, and saw
something infinitely worse.
Not twenty yards away, on the lip of a little grassy ridge looking
down on the hollow where we'd built our fire, three Indians wen
sitting their ponies, watching us. I hadn't heard them or had the leasi
intimation of their approach; suddenly, there they wereand ]
realised that the wretched dirty creatures I'd seen at Westport, anc
scavenging round our train on the way down, were mere cartoon
These were the real thing, and my heart froze. The foremost was
naked to the waist, with braided hair hanging to his belt, and wha'
looked like a tail of coonskin round his brows; the face beneath it wa;
a nightmare of hooked nose and rat-trap mouth crossed by stripes o;
yellow paint. There were painted signs on his naked chest, and hi;
only clothing was a white breech-clout and fringed leggings that can-it
to his knees. He had a rifle across his saddle and carried a long lana
tufted with buffalo hairat least, I hoped it was buffalo hair. Th<
other two were no better; they had feathers in their hair, and theh
faces were painted half red and white; they carried bows and hatchets
and like their leader they were big, active, vicious-looking sons-of
bitches. But what truly scared me stiff was their sudden apparition
and the silent dreadful menace in the still figures as they watched.
I suppose it took me a couple of seconds to recoverbut as m






made a noise between a snarl and a belch which I took for civility. ^hile he and Wootton talked, I studied the other two--if I'd known
that the red dots on their feathers signified enemies killed, and the
notches stood for cut throats, I'd have been even uneasier than I was.
For that matter. Spotted Tail himself had five eagle feathers slanted
through his pigtail; each one, I learned later, stood for a scalp taken."
Wootton was plainly asking questions, and the Indian answered
with his slow grunts, accompanied by much deliberate gesture--
mighty graceful it was, too, and expressive. Even I could tell when he
was talking of buffalo, just by the rippling motion of his hand, so like
a bison herd seen from far off; a gesture which I noticed he repeated
more than once was a quick cutting motion with his right fingers
across his left wrist, which I later learned meant "Cheyenne", whose
nickname is "Cut Arms".14 Then Wootton invited them to join him in
his awful mess of buffalo guts, and much to the amusement of the
othertwo, he and Spotted Tail had a nauseating contest in which each took an end of an immensely long intestine and gobbled away to see
who could down the most of it. The Indian won--I spare you a close
description, observing only that they swallowed whole, without chewing,
and Spotted Tail, by suddenly jerking his head back, regained a
fair amount that Wootton had already eaten!'5
There being no dessert, I gave each of the three a cigar, at
Wootton's prompting. They ate them, and presently went off, taking
the remains of our buffalo carcase without a by-your-leave; I've never
been happier to get rid of dinner guests, and said so.
"I seen thar sign last night, an' figgered they'd show today. Huntin'
party--fust time I ever see Brules east o' the Neosho," says Wootton.
"In course, they dog the buffler--but since they say tharselves that
thar's heap big herds all along th'Arkansas, my guess is thar takin' a
lick at the Pawnees. That a powerful lather o' vermillion thar wearin',
fer hunters--an' I read sign o' fifty ponies last evenin'. Yup. I rackon
thar be a few Pawnees talkin' to th'old gennelman 'fore long."
Which meant the Pawnees would be dead and in hell. But were the
Sioux liable to attack us? Wootton considered this long enough to
give me the shudders.
"Cain't say, prezackly. Spotted Tail has a straight tongue; then
agin, Sioux kin be mean varmints--'thout I wuz here, they'd ha' had
yore hoss an' traps for sho', mebbe yore ha'r, too. But I guess tha'r
Peaceable 'miff. Uh-huh. Mebbe."
Now, this had me in a rare sweat. I don't suppose until that day I'd
given Indians a thought, not seriously--it had been such a pleasant
jaunt so far, and everyone in Westport had been so jolly and ^fident, and we still weren't more than a few days away from
I
civilisation, with its steamboats and stores and soldiers. And then,
suddenly, those three painted devils had been there--and they were
the peaceable ones, Wootton reckoned--and there were, a thousand miles of wilderness between us and Santa Fe, crawling with tribes of
the dangerous bastards who might be anything but peaceable. Stories
and rumours and tall tales--you can take those with a pinch of salt,
and remind yourself that your caravan is well-armed and guarded.
And then you see the living peril, in its hideous paint and feathers,
and your dozen rifles and revolvers and eight frail wagons seem like a
cork bobbing out on a raging ocean.
So I put it to him straight--what were our chances of winning as far
as Santa Fe without serious . . . interference? Not that it could make
a dam' bit of difference to me now--I was launched, and I daren't
have headed back to be hunted in the Mississippi valley. He scratched
his head, and asked me if I had my map.
"Look thar," says he. "Clar across to th'Arkansas we kin rest
pretty easy--Spotted Tail sez thar plenty Cheyenne an' 'Rapaho
lodges at Great Bend, an' thar not hostile, fer sartin. But he talk of
Navajo, Cumanche, Kiowa war-parties in the Cimarron country to
th' west--sez thar be 'Pashes up as fur as th' Canadian, an Utes on the
Picketwire. Even talk o' Bent an' St Vrain leavin' the Big Lodge. I
b'leeve thet when I see it. But it's all onsartin; we cain't tell hyar."
Jesus, thinks I, so much for our picnic on the Plains. But he cheered
me up by remarking that Spotted Tail might be lying, it being well
known that no Indian told the truth unless he couldn't avoid it;16 also,
we would be part of a much larger caravan from Council Grove
onwards, and too powerful for any but a very large and reckless war
party.
"We see when we git ter the sojers' new place, at Fort Mann. Then
we tek a sniff at the wind, an' decide whether we go across the
Cimarron Road ter Sand Crik an' th' Canadian, or cairry on west fer
Bent's and down th' Ra-tone." He raised the blue eyes and suddenly
smiled. "Made the trip ter Santy Fee more times'n he recollects, this
chile has. An' ev'y time he got thar--an' cum back. If he cain't make
it agin this time, cap'n, he kin slide!"17 / ^w;^
~ - .. . ^T-'^ "1*^
74
J
,;g'..;".^^'-.' '"- :i-^f^'f. '; <^v -'. ' ' i^*;,1'^ .;' : (IfclSri ^1;.";; yaf k-W-aSy., r'i^ W
K&.Si*-. There were three caravans waiting when we
reached Council Grove, which proved to be simply a wood with a few
shacks and a stable for the new stagecoach line. One of the caravans
was a twenty-wagon affair of young fellows. Eastern clerks and
labourers, calling themselves the Pittsburgh Pirates; another was a
train of some thirty mules and half a dozen emigrant families, also
bound for the diggings; the third--and you may not believe this, but
it's gospel true--consisted of two ancient travelling carriages and a
dozen middle-aged and elderly valetudinarians from Cincinnati who
were making a trip across the Plains/or their health. They had weak
chests, and the pure air of the prairies would do them good, they said,
clinging to their hot water bottles and mufflers and throat sprays as
they said it.18 Well, thinks I, captaining a brothel on wheels may be
eccentric, but this beats all. j . evd w }
Wootton thought that among us we made a pretty fair train--not as
many guns as he would have liked, for the young fellows had set off in
the crazy, thoughtless spirit that so many seemed to be possessed by
in '49, and had only about a score of weapons among them, and the emigrant families, although well-armed and with four guards, were
few in numbers. The invalids had one fat drunkard of a driver with a
flintlock musket; if attacked, they presumably intended to beat off the enemy by hurling steam kettles and medicine bottles at them. Our
own caravan had more firepower and discipline and general good
order than all the rest put together, so they hailed us as they might
salvation--and elected me captain of the whole frightful mess. My
own fault for being so damned dashing in my buckskin shirt and
whiskers, no doubt; look the part, and you'll be cast in it. I demurred,
modestly, but there was no competition, and one of the Pittsburgh
Pirates settled the thing by haranguing his fellows from a tailboard, "ying that weren't they in luck, just, for here was Captain Comber, by cracky, who'd commanded a battleship in Her Majesty's English
Navy, and fought the Ayrabs in India, and was just the man whose
unrivalled experience and cool judgment would get everyone safe to
California, wasn't that so? So I was elected by acclamation--none of
your undignified running for office19--and I read them a stem lecture
about trail discipline and obeying orders and digging latrines and
keeping up and all the rest of it, and they shook their heads because Aey could see I was just the man for the job.
7S
Susie, of course, was well-pleased; it was fitting, she said. Wootton
knew perfectly well that he was going to see the caravan through
anyway, and Grattan and our crew were all for it, since'it meant we
could take the van, and wouldn't have to eat the others' dust. So that
was how we headed into the blue, Flashy's caravan of whores and
optimists and bronchial patients and frontiersmen and plain honestto-goodness
fortune-seekersI don't say we were a typical wagontrain
of '49, but I shouldn't be surprised.
Now, I promised to skip the tedious bits, so I'll say only of the
prairie trek in general that it takes more weeks than I can remember,
is damnably dull, and falls into two distinct parts in my memorythe
first bit, when you haven't reached the Arkansas River, and just
trudge on, fifteen miles a day or thereabouts, over a sea of grass and
bushes and prairie weeds, and the second bit, when you have reached
the Arkansas, and trudge on exactly as before, the only difference
being that now you have one of the ugliest rivers in the world on your
left flank, broad and muddy and sluggish. Mind you, it's a welcome
sight, in a dry summer, and you're thankful to stay close by it; thirst
and hunger have probably killed more emigrants than any other
cause.
There's little to enliven the journey, though. River-crossings are
said to be the worst part, but with the water low in the creeks we had
little trouble; apart from that we sighted occasional Indian bands, and
a few of them approached us in search of whatever they could mooch;
there were a couple of scares when they tried to run off our beasts,
but Grattan's fellows shot a couple of themPawnees, according to
Woottonand I began to feel that perhaps my earlier fears were
groundless. Once the mail-coach passed us, bound for Santa Fe, and
a troop of dragoons came by from Fort Mann, which was being built
at that time; for the rest, the most interesting thing was the litter of
gear from trains that had passed ahead of usit was like all the leftluggage
offices in the world strewn out for hundreds of miles. Broken
wagons, traces, wheels, bones of dead beasts, household gear and
empty bottles were the least of it; I also remember a printing-press, a
ship's figurehead of a crowned mermaid, a grand piano (that was the
one stuck on a mudbank at the Middle Crossings, which Susie played
to the delight of the company, who held an impromptu bam-dance on
the bank), a kilt, and twelve identical plaster statues of the Venus de
Milo. You think I'm making it up?check the diaries and journals of
the folk who crossed the Plains, and you'll see that this isn't the half of
it.
But it was always too hot or too wet or too dusty or too cold
(especially at nights), and before long I was heartily sick of it. I rode a
pood deal of the time, but often I would sit in the carriage with Susie,
and her chatter drove me to distraction. Not that she moped, or was
ill-tempered; in fact, the old trot was too damned bright and breezy
for me, and I longed for Sacramento and good-bye, my dear. And in
one respect, she didn't travel well; we beat the mattress regularly as
far as Council Grove and a bit beyond, but after that her appetite for
Adam's Arsenal seemed to jade a trifle; nothing was said, but what
she didn't demand she didn't get, and when I took to sleeping
outside--for the coach could be damned stuffy--she raised no objection,
and that became my general rule. I gave her a gallop every so
often, to keep her in trim, but as you will readily believe, my thoughts
had long since turned elsewhere--viz., to the splendid selection of
fresh black batter that was going to waste in our two lead wagons.
Indeed, I'd thought of little else since we left Orleans; the question
was how to come at it.
You've learned enough of our travel arrangements to see how
difficult it was; indeed, if I had to choose the most inconvenient place
I've ever struck for conducting an illicit amour in privacy and comfort,
a prairie wagon-train would come second on my list, no question. An
elephant howdah during a tiger-hunt is middling tough; centre stage
during amateur theatricals would probably strike you as out of court
altogether, in Gloucestershire, anyway, but it's astonishing what you
can do in a pantomime horse. No, the one that licked me was a
lifeboat--after a shipwreck, that is. But a wagon-train ain't easy;
however, when you've committed the capital act, as I have, in the
middle of a battle with Borneo head-hunters, you learn to have faith
in your star, and persevere until you win through.
My first chance came by pure luck, somewhere between Council
Grove and the Little Arkansas. We'd made an evening halt and
laagered, as usual, and I had v/andered cut a little piece for a smoke
in the dusk, when who should come tripping across the meadow but
Aphrodite, humming to herself, as usual--she was the big shiny black
one who'd spotted me that day back in New Orleans; I'd thought then
that she was one of those to whom business is always a pleasure, and
I was right. What she was doing so far from the wagons unchaperoned
by one of her sisters in shame, I didn't inquire; you don't look a gift
horse in the mouth, or a gift mare, either.
She stopped short at sight of me, and I saw the eyes widen in that
fine ebony face; she glanced quickly towards the distant wagons,
where the fires were flickering, and then stood head dowrf, shooting lie little glances sidelong, scared at first, and then smoky, as she
realised that, however terrible Susie might be, it might be no bad ^g to satisfy the lovelight in Massa's eye. I nodded to a dry buffalo
B& 77
^ome nearby bushes, and withut a word she began to wallow ""^^ict strings, very slow, biting helip and shaking out her
undo her bon*^ sauntered down into the waow, and when I came
hair. Then sh^er, pushed me off, playful-lie, murmuring: "Wait,
ravening after ^, y^ ^ ^^  ^ j ^ ^^ ^ slipped off
Mistah aeacb7^^j y^g ^^ ^^s on his, turning this way and
her dress and^ ^g over her shoulder. She wasvell-named Aphrodite,
that, and P011-^ black, tapering legs and ronded rump and lissom
with those ^-^a. she turned to face me, wngling her torso-^ell,
waist, and ^^ked at a pumpkin since whout thinking: buffalo
I've never lo*^ (gg^ g^e ^ad, too, gleaming i that dusky face--and
wallow. Pretty (q use them. I drew her dow and we went to work
she knew ho^ ^yg ^g nibbled and bit at mr ears and chin and lips,
sidestroke-lik^ ddering like the expert trollc, she was; I remember
gasping and ^ g ggyg ^er final practised hesve and sob, Susie was
thinking, as S^ nineteen like this we'll b<able to buy California
nght:wthan ^o; maybe I'U stay about for .while.
er a ^ear j much the whore for me, thoigh; once was enough,
" e ^as t~yte shot me a few soulful-sullentooks in the weeks that
and although ^^ ^ ^ gg^ p^ ( j^^n indiscriminate rake,
followed, I di ^ ^g interested in a woman in. way that is not merely
you see, I hk& ^^ ^y^ fascinations in her wit) each encounter, those
carnal, to nno ^^ indefinable qualities like the shape of her
enchanting, P^g studied the other nineteen, as opportunity served,
tits. An<l ha ^traction against that, considenig such vital matters as
T^5 o^ be liable to run ^^^"gtc Susie, and which were ^ M^05 ^a^1651' ^ f0^^ '"yTmn^ an<* ^e returning invariably
probabl-y the ^lectable person. There wasn't one among 'em that
to the same ^med the head of the most jided roue--trust Susie
wouldn t have g ^gg ^ ^ ^y ^^y ^^ brought me back for
forthat^-buttP^ing, and that was Cleonie.
a twentieth li<^ ^ ^ ^y^ ^ ^ ^y ^ ^^ ^ ^^
^or^netiv^ paU's daughter and Cassyand Lakshmibai. and
Keppel and others that I could name, had i--it's the thing which,
perhapsi three ^^^ ^ ^^ ^ ^ g Woman dominion over
allied w^th a^tries. (Thank God my Elspetti never had the latter
Kings and co ^ ^yg married me, for on<t thing But Elspeth is
qualities; she^^ays will be.)
differerst, ano^ ^ 3 lady--and if you think a whore can't be that,
Also,, Cleo g^g ^^ educated--conveni-bred, possibly--and you rc ^"^nglish and better French, her manners were impeccaspoKe
perfec ^ beautiful as only a high-bred octoroon fancy can
ble, ancd she, ^ehead like St Cerilia and a body that would have
oc^ iVii^j'i fl i*p i
brought a stone idol howling off its pedestal. Altogether fetching--
and intelligent enough to be persuadable, in case she had any doubts
about accommodating de massa wid de muffstash on his face. But I
would have to go to work subtly and delicately; Spring's pal Agag
would have nothing on me.
So I bided my time, and established a habit of occasionally talking,
offhand, to various of the tarts, in full view of everyone, so that if I
were seen having a few words with Cleonie, no one would think it out
of the way. I did it pretty stiff and formal, very much the Master, and
even remarked to Susie how this one or that was looking, and how
Oaudia would be the better of a tonic, or Eugenie was eating too
much. She didn't seem to mind; in fact, I gathered she was pleased
that I was taking a proprietorial interest in the livestock. Then I
waited until one noon halt, when Cleonie went down to the river by
herself--she was perhaps the least gregarious of them all, which was
all to the good--and loafed along to where she was breaking twigs
and tossing them idly into the stream.
When she saw me she straightened up and dropped me a little
curtsey, preparing to withdraw. We were screened by the bushes, so
I took her by the arm as she went past; she gave a little start, and then
turned that lovely nun's face towards me, without fear, or any
emotion at all that I could see. I took her gently by the two braids of
hair that depended from that oddly attractive centre parting, and
kissed her on the lips. She didn't move, so I kept my mouth there and
slipped a hand on to her breast, to give her the idea. Then I stepped
back, to gauge her reaction; she stood looking at me, one slim hand
up to her lips where mine had been, and then turned her head in that
languid duchess fashion and said the last thing I'd have expected.
"And Aphrodite?"
I almost jumped out of my skin. I gargled some intelligent inquiry,
and she smiled and looked up at me from under her lids.
"Has Master tired of her? She will be disappointed. She--" ;
"Aphrodite," says I, distraught, "had better shut her big black gob,
hadn't she? What's she been saying, the lying slut?"
"Why, that Master took her, and made much of her." '''
"Christ! Look here--do Marie and Stephanie know?"
"We all know--that is, if Aphrodite is to be believed." She gave The an inquiring look, still with that tiny smile. "I, myself, would have "ought she was rather . . . black . . . and heavy, for Master's taste. But some men prefer it, I know." She gave a little shrug. "Others
" She left it there, waiting.
I was taken all aback, but one thing was foremost. "What about Stephanie and Marie? I thought--"
79
"That tey were Mistress's sneaks?" She nodded. "They are ...
little tell-t.es! And if it had been anyone but Master, they would have
told her rint away. But they would not readily offend ypu. . . none
of us woui," and she lowered her lids; her lips quivered in amusement.
"Stt)hanie is very jealous--even more than the rest of us. ..
if that is pteible." And she gave me a look that was pure whore; by
George, lingled as if I'd been stung. "But I should not stay here,"
and she w^ making past me when I caught her arm again.
"Now lok here, Cleonie," says I. "You're a good girl, I see. . .so
at the eveiing halt, you. follow me down to the river--carefully,
mind--an< we'll. . . have a little talk. And you tell the others that
. . . that ifmyone blabs, it will be the worse for them, d'you hear?" I
almost adc;d the threat I'd prepared in case she'd been difficult: that
if she didn play pretty I'd tell Susie she'd made advances to me. But
I guessed i wasn't necessary.
"Yes, Mater Beauchamp," says she, very demure, and turned her
head langudly. "And Aphrodite?"
"The he| with Aphrodite!" says I, and took hold of her, nuzzling.
She gave aittle laugh and whispered: "She smells so! Does she not?"
And then she slipped out of my grasp and was away.
Well, hee was capital news, and no mistake. Jealous of Aphrodite,
were they? And why not, the dear creatures? Mark you, while I've
never beer modest about my naanly charms, I could see now what it
was: they were a sight more concerned to be in my good books than in
Susie's--bting green wenches, they supposed that I would be calling
the tune h^iceforth, and no doubt they figured it was worth the risk
of her dispfeasure to keep in with me. That was all they knew. In the
meantime. Miss Cleonie was obviously more than willing, and they'd
never dareto peach ... on that score, would it be a good notion to
scare 'em sbk by telling Susie that Aphrodite had tried to seduce me?
Susie woul<| flog the arse off her, which would be fine encouragement
pour les au:res to keep their traps shut. On t'other hand. Aphrodite
would certiinly tell the truth of it, and Susie just might believe her; it
would sow a seed for sure. No, best leave it, and make hay with my
high-yaller fancy while the sun shone.
And I di<l. she was a smart girl, and since I was sleeping out most
of the time, jt was the simplest thing for her to slip over the tailboard
in the small hours, creep into my little tent, and roger the middle
watch awaWe were very discreet--not more than twice a week,
which was just as well, for she was an exhausting creature, probably
because I was more than a mite infatuated with her. The plague was,
it all had be in the dark, and I do like to see the materials when I'm working; she had a skin like velvet, and poonts as firm as footballs
with which she would play the most astonishing tricks; it was a deuced
shame that we couldn't risk a light.
But her most endearing trait was that while we performed, she
would singin the softest of whispers, of course, with her mouth to
ay ear as we surged up and down. This was a new one to me, PU own:
Lola and her hairbrush, Mrs Mandeville and her spurs, Ranavalona
swinging uppercuts and right crossesI'd experienced a variety of
bizarre behaviour from females in the throes of passion. (My darling
Elspeth, now, gossipped incessantly.) With Cleonie, it was singing; a
lullaby to begin with, perhaps, followed by a waltz, and the "Marche
Lorraine", and finishing with the "Marsellaise"or, if she was feeling
mischievous, "Swanee River".20 Thank God she didn't know any
Irish jigs.
She was an excellent conversationalist, by the way, and I learned
things (in whispers) which explained a good deal. One was that the
whores were by no means in mortal dread of Susie, who had never
caned one of 'em in her life, for all her stem talk. (The one who'd
been sold down-river had been a habitual thief.) Indeed, they held
her in deep respect and affection, and I gathered that being bought
for her bordello was a matter of close competition among the Orleans
fancies, and about as difficult as getting into the Household Brigade.
No, the one they were in tenor of, apparently, wasme. "You look
so fierce and stem," Cleonie told me, "and talk so ... so shortly to
the other girls. Aphrodite says you used her most brutally. Me, I said,
mais naturellement, how else would Master use an animal?with
females of refinement, I told her, he is of an exquisite gentleness and
tender passion." She sighed contentedly. "Ah, but they are jealous of
me, those othersand yet they cannot hear enough about you.
What? But of course I tell them! What would you? Scholars talk
about books, bankers about money, soldiers about warwhat else
should our profession talk about?"
Never thought of that; still, even if she was delivering a series of
lectures on Flashy et Ars Amatoria to her colleagues, I can say that I
had an enchanting affair with Cleonie, grew extremely fond of her,
and place her about seventh or eighth in my list of eligible females
which ain't bad, out of several hundreds.
But it wasn't all recreation along the Arkansas that year. I beguiled
Bie long hours of trekking with Wootton, whose lore included a fair
fluency in the Sioux language, and the Mexican savaneros21 who had
charge of our mules, and naturally spoke Spanish. As I've already
^d, I'm a good linguistBurton, who was no slouch himself, said
"lat I could dip a toe in a language and walk away soakedand since
* had some Spanish already, I got pretty fluent. But Siouxan, although
81
a lovely, liquid language, is best learned from a native Indian, and
especially out West.
^"rse, things were going far too well to last. Aside from our
^"""which I slept through--we'd had nothing worse than
to Santa Fe by (he shortest route. That was where the trouble started.
or the past week we had become aware of increasing numbers of
lndinc ni-, -. - - _ .-- --.
*6 uui uik }jl iiicu^ii. 111^1^ iiau u^di, aa ttuuuuii
predicted, villages of Cheyenne and Arapaho near the Great Bend,
heading south across our line of march. We halted to let them go by,
urg on ^ half-naked boys, and cur dogs yapping on the flanks.
' "I'- < poor, ugly-looking lot, and their rank stench earned a
good half-mile
ere ^re more camped about Fort Mann, and Wootton went
o talk to them when we laagered. He came back looking grim,
-->. aside; ii seemeu inai me pany ne a laiKeo to were enne from a great camp some miles beyond the river; there was
ole sickness among them, and they had come to the fort for
help. But th-_ " ', , . ,
 ---"'i, wnum nicy micw, uji assisiamc.
we can't do anything," says I. "What, doctor a lot of sick Indians?
i f rt^ ll on a P3^ ^ savages. Anyway, God knows what foul
mrecnon they've got--it might be plague!"
..ears ltls a big gripe in thar innards," says he. "No festerin' sores,
uinin thataway. But thar keelin' over in windrows, the chief say. En
he rackonsu^ -__-_- .____._ ,_ ',  '
tl-vi,, . - 6"l IllCU lailC IIICH 111 UUI II dill WHO LUU----
,, ,0' in God's name? Not our party of invalids? Christ, they
Th ' t ^ure a chillblain--they can't even lc)ok after themselves!
G e^ ^T, n wheezing and hawking all the way from Council
evenne don't know that--but they see th' gear en implements
on the coaches. See them coons doctorin' tharselves wi' them squirtmachines.
They want 'em doctor thar people, too."
"Well, tell 'em we can't, dammit! We've got to get on; we can't
afford to mess with sick Indians!"
He gave me the full stare of those blue eyes. "Cap'n--we cain't
'fford not to. See, hyar's the way on't. Cheyenne 'bout the only real friendlies on these yar Plains--'thout them, ifn they die or go 'way,
we get bad Injun trouble. That the best side on't. At wust--we give
'em the go-by, they don't fergit. Could be we even hev 'em kiyickin'
roun' our wagons wi' paint on--en thar's three thousand on 'em 'cross
the river, en Osage an' 'Rapaho ter boot. That a pow'ful heap o'
Injun, cap'n."
"But we can't help them! We're not doctors, man!"
"They kin see us tryin} " says he.
There was no arguing with him, and I'd have been a fool to try; he
knew Indians and I didn't. But I was adamant against going down to
their camp, which would be reeking with their bloody germs--let
them bring one of their sick to the far bank of the river, and if it would
placate them for one of our invalids to look at him, or put up a prayer,
or spray him with carbolic, or dance in circles round him, so be it. But
I told him to impress on them that we were not doctors, and could
promise no cure.
"They best hyar it fm you," says he. "You big chief, wagon- captain." And he was in dead earnest, too.
So now you see Big Chief Wagon-Captain, standing before a party
of assorted nomads, palavering away with a few halting Sioux phrases,
but Wootton translating most of the time, while I nodded, stem but
compassionate. And I wasn't acting, either; one look at this collection
and I took Wootton's point. They were the first Cheyenne I'd ever
seen close to, and if the Brule Sioux had been alarming, these would
have put the fear of God up Wellington. On average, they were the
biggest Indians I ever saw, as big as I am--great massive-shouldered
brutes with long braided hair and faces like Roman senators, and
even in their distress, proud as grandees. We went with them to the
river bank, taking the Major commanding the fort in tow, and the
most active and intelligent of our invalids--he was a hobbling idiot,
but all for it; let him at the suffering heathen, and if it was asthma or
bronchitis (which it plainly wasn't) he'd have them skipping like goats m no time. Then we waited, and presently a travois was dragged up
" the far bank, and Wootton and I and the invalid, with the pheyenne guiding the way, crossed the ford and mud-flats, and the "valid took a look at the young Indian who was lying twitching on the
travels, feebly clutching at his midriff. Then he raised a scared face to
me.
"I don't know," says he. "It looks as though he has food poisoning,
but I fear. . .they had an epidemic back East, you know. Perhaps it's
. . . cholera."
That was enough for me. I ordered the whole party back to our side
of the river and told Wootton that right, reason or none, we weren't
meddling any further.
"Tell them it's a sickness we know, but we can't cure it. Tell them
it's . . .oh, Christ, tell 'em it's from the Great Spirit or something!
Tell them to get every well person away from their camp--that there's
nothing they can do. Tell 'em to go south, and to boil their water, and
. . . and, I don't know. Uncle Dick. There's nothing we can do for
them--except get as far away from them as we can."
He told them, while I racked my brain for a suitable gesture. They
heard him in silence, those half-dozen Cheyenne elders, their faces
like stone, and then they looked at me, and I did my best to look full
of manly sympathy, while I was thinking, Jesus, don't let it spread to
us, for I'd seen it in India, and I knew what it could do. And we had
no doctors, and no medicines, w'
"I told 'em our hearts are on the ground," says Wootton.
- "Good for you," says I, and then I faced them and spread my arms
wide, palms up, and the only thing I could think of was "For what we
are about to receive may the Lord make us truly thankful, for Christ's
sake, amen." Well, their tribe was dying, so what the hell was there to
say?"
It seemed to be the right thing. Their chief, a splendid old file with
silver dollars in his braids, and a war-bonnet of feathers trailing to his
heels, raised his head to me; he had a chin and nose like the prow of a
cruiser, and furrows in his cheeks you could have planted crops in.
Two great tears rolled down his cheeks, and then he lifted a hand in
salute and turned away in silence, and the others with him. I heaved
a great sigh of relief, and Wootton scratched his head and said: , _
"They satisfied, I rackon. We done the best thing." >.We
hadn't. Two days later, as we were rolling up to the crossing at
Chouteau's Island, four people in the caravan came down with
cholera. .Two of them were young men in the Pittsburgh Pirates
company; a third was a woman among the emigrant families. The
fourth was Wootton. 'ry'WfS^s^ ;: (Wt.'-^iT'.-i' ^
'.''Sj.fft^V hias -'. - .......f^'4'"' /i' "' ...^'.
".. !;; '' -' "N :?<i^'
V^SiuS^ WAS ^ ^ ~
g^R;' F^-'^...- '" "... " .-.'---- ,.^,^"
ip--:- 'sri' ; . <r '..
^ I'm well aware that, as the poet says, every man's
death diminishes us; I would add only that some diminish us a damned
sight more than others, and they're usually the fellows we took for
granted, without ever realising how desperately we depended on
them. One moment they're about, as merry as grigs, and all's as well
as could be, and the next they've rolled over and started drumming
their heels. And it hits you like a thunderbolt: this ain't any ordinary
misfortune, it's utter catastrophe. That's when you learn the true
meaning of grief--not for the dear departed, but for yourself.
Wootton didn't actually depart, thank heaven, but I've never seen
a human being so close to the edge. He hovered for three days, by
which time he was wasted as a corpse, and as I gazed down at him
shivering in his buffalo robe after he'd vomited out his innards for the
twentieth time, it seemed he might as well have gone over, for all the
use he would be to us. The spark was nickering so low that we didn't
dare even move him, and it would plainly be weeks before he could
sit a pony, assuming he didn't pop off in the meantime. And we
daren't wait; already we had barely enough grub to take us to Bent's,
or the big cache on the Cimarron; there wasn't a sign of another
caravan coming up behind, and to crown all, the game had vanished
from the prairie, as it does, unaccountably, from time to time. We
hadn't seen a buffalo since Fort Mann.
But grub wasn't the half of our misfortunes; the stark truth was that
without Wootton we were lost souls, and the dread sank into me as I
realised it.
Without him, we didn't have a brain; we were lacking something
even more vital than rations or ammunition: knowledge. Twice, for
example, we might have had Indian mischief but for him; his presence
had been enough to make the Brules let us alone, and his wisdom had
placated the Cheyenne when I might have turned 'em hostile. Without
Wootton, we couldn't even talk properly to Indians, for Grattan's
guards and the teamsters, who'd looked so useful back at Westport,
were just gun-toters and mule-skinning louts with no more real understanding of the Plains than I had; Grattan himself had made the ^P before, but under orders, not giving 'em, and with seasoned
guides showing the way. Half a dozen times, when grazing had been
bad, Wootton had known where to find it; without him, our beasts
could perish because we wouldn't know there was good grass just
85
over the next hill. If we hit a two-day dust-storm and lost the trail-
we missed the springs on the south road; if we lost time in torrent'f
rain; ifhostiles crossed our path--Wootton could have found the tr i again, wouldn't have missed the springs, would have known whp
there was a cache, or the likelihood of game, would have sniffed th
hostiles two days ahead and either avoided them or known how n
manage them. There wasn't a man in the caravan, now, who could do
any of these things.
a it was all the easier because most of them were in a great hilt Fro set on--the farther they could leave the cholera behind swea the better they'd like it. And it was simple enough so long as all them> gd. i had taken a good inventory of our supplies during the wen davs' of waiting to see whether Wootton would live or die, and
ironed that by going to three-quarter rations we should make ^nt's Fort with a little to spare. By the map it couldn't be much over
iM miles, and we couldn't go adrift so long as we kept to the river
provided nothing unforeseen happened--such as the grazing
disappearing, or a serious change in the weather, or further cases of
cholera, or distemper among the animals. Or Indians.
For two days it went smooth as silk--indeed, we made better than
He had lucid moments, on the third day, though he was still jg
shocking pain and entirely feeble. He would hole up where he was
he whispered, but we must push on, and if he got better he would .11, i. make after us. I told him the other sick would stay with him--for one For two days it went smooth as silk--indeed, we made better wan
thing, we daren't risk infection by carrying them with us--and the *^he usual dozen to fifteen miles a day, partly because it never rained stricken woman's husband and brothers would take care of them. We
would leave a wagon and beasts and sufficient food. I don't know if he
understood; he had only one thing in his mind, and croaked it out
painfully, his skin waxen and his eyes like piss-holes in the snow.
and the going was easy, partly because I pushed them on for all I was
worth. I was never out of the saddle, from one end of the train to the
other, badgering them to keep up, seeing to the welfare of the beasts,
bullyragging the guards to keep their positions on the flanks--and all
the time with my guts churning as I watched the skyline, dreading the
sight of mounted figures, or the tiny dust-cloud far across the plain
that would herald approaching enemies. Even at night I was on the
prowl, in nervous terror as I stalked round the wagons--and keeping
mighty close to them, you may be sure--before returning to my tent
to rattle my fears away with Cleonie. She earned her corn, no error--
for there's nothing like it for distracting the attention from other
cares, you know; I even had a romp with Susie, for my comfort more
than hers.
Aye, it went too well, for the rest of the train never noticed the
difference of Wootton's absence, and since it had been an easy
passage from Council Grove, they never understood what a parlous
state we would be in if anything untoward arose now. The only thing
they had to grumble at was the shorter commons, and when we came
to the Upper Crossing on the third day, the damfools were so drugged
with their false sense of security that they made my reduction in
rations an excuse for changing course. As though having to make do
with an ounce or two less of corn and meat each day mattered a curse
against the safety of the entire expedition. Yet that is what happened;
n the fourth morning I was confronted by a deputation of the
Pittsburgh Pirates. Their spokesman was a brash young card in a cutaway
coat with his thumbs hooked in his galluses.
'See here, captain," says he, "it's near a hundred miles to Bent's
Fort--why, that's another week with empty bellies! Now, we know Aat if we cross the river on the Cimarron road, there's the big cache Aat Mr Wootton spoke of--and it's less than thirty miles away. Well,
87
"Make fer Bent's . . . week, ten days mebbe. Don't. . . take . ..
Cimarron road . . . lose trail. . . You make Bent's. St Vrain ... see
you . . . pretty good. 'Member . . . not Cimarron. Poor bull23 . ..
thataways ..." He closed his eyes for several minutes, and then
looked at me again. "You git ... train . . . through. You . ..
wagon-cap'n..."
Then he lost consciousness, and began to babble--none of it more
nonsensical than the last three words he'd said while fully conscious.
Wagon-captain! And it was no consolation at all to look about me at
our pathetic rabble of greenhorns and realise that there wasn't
another man as fit for the job. So I gave the order to yoke up and
break out, and within the hour we were creaking on up the trail, and
as I looked back at the great desolation behind us, and the tiny figures
beside the sick wagon by the river's edge, I felt such a chill loneliness
and helplessness as I've seldom felt in my life.
Now you'll understand that these were not emotions shared by my
companions. None of them had seen as much of Wootton as I had, or
appreciated how vitally we relied on him; Grattan probably knew
how great a loss he was, but to the rest I had always been the wagon- ,
captain, and they trusted me to see them through. That's one of the |
disadvantages of being big and bluff and full of swagger--folk tend to
believe you're as good a man as you look. Mind you, I've been trading
on it all my life, with some success, so I can't complain, but there's no
denying that it can be an embarrassment sometimes, when you're
expected to live up to your appearance.
So there was nothing for it now but to play the commander to the
86
me and the boys are for heading for it; it'll mean only two more days
of going short, and then we can replenish with all the grub we wanf And everyone knows it's the short way to Santa Fe--what d'you say
captain?" , , , 
"I say we're going to Bent's." -.ws^;.^. sr^ y-^
"Why so? What's the point in five days o' discomfort?" 'a,
"You am'* in discomfort," says I. "And your bellies aren't empty--" but they would be if we went the Cimarron road. We're going to
Bent's as agreed; for one thing, it's safer."
"Who says that, now?" cries this barrack-room lawyer, and his
mates muttered and swore; other folk began to cluster round, and 1 saw I must scotch this matter on the spot.
"I say it, and I'll tell you why. If we were fool enough to leave the
river, we could be astray in no time. It's desert over yonder, and if
you lose the trail you'll die miserably--"
"Ain't no reason ter lose the trail," cries a voice, and to my fury I
saw it was one of Grattan's guards, a buckskinned brute called Skate.
"I bin thataways on the cut-off; trail's as plain as yer hand." At which
the Pittsburgh oafs hurrahed and clamoured at me.
"We're going to Bent's!" I barked, and they gave back. "Now,
mark this--suppose the trail was as good as this fellow says--which I
doubt--does anyone know where Wootton's cache is? No, and you'd
never find it; they don't make 'em with finger-posts, you know. And
if you did, you'd discover it contained precious little but jerked meat
and beans--well, if that's your notion of all the grub you want, it ain't
mine. At Bent's you'll find every luxury you can imagine, as good as
St Louis." They still looked surly, so I capped the argument. "There's
also more likelihood of encountering hostile tribes along the Cimarron.
That's why Wootton insisted we make for Bent's--so you can
yoke up and prepare to break out."
"Not so fast, there!" says the cutaway coat. "We got a word to say
to that, if you please--"
I turned my back. "Mr Nugent-Hare, you can saddle up," I was
saying, when Skate pushed forward.
"This ain't good enough fer me!" cries he. "You don't know a dam'
thing more'n we do, mister. Fact, yore jest a tenderfoot, when all's
said--"
"What's this, Mr Nugent-Hare?" cries I. "Have you no control of
your rascals?"
"Easy, now, captain," says he, pulling his long Irish nose. "You'll
mind I said we weren't in the army."
"I say we take a vote!" bawls Skate, and I noted that most of the
guards were at back of him. "We all got a say hyar, jest as much as
lugh-an'-mighty lime-juice sailor--oh, beg pardon, Captain Com- i'i" And the scoundrel leered and swept off his cap in an elaborate
bow' the Pittsburgh clowns held on to each other, guffawing. "En I
kin tell yuh," continued Skate, "thet Dick Wootton wuz jest as
consarned 'bout Ute war-parties up on the Picketwire, as 'bout any
other Injuns by Cimarron. Well, Picketwire's nigh on Bent's, ain't it?
So I'm fer the cut-off, en I say let's see a show o' hands!"
Of course the Pirates yelled acclaim, sticking both hands up, and
Skate glared round at his mates until most of them followed suit.
Grattan turned aside, whistling softly between his teeth; the fathers
of the emigrant families were looking troubled, and our invalids were
looking scared. I know I was red in the face with rage, but I was
holding it in while I considered quickly what to do--I was long past
the age when I thought I could bluster my way out of a position like
this. In the background I saw Susie looking towards me; behind her
the sluts were already seated in the wagons. I shook my head
imperceptibly at Susie; the last thing I wanted was her railing at the
mutineers.
The Pittsburgh Pirates made up about half our population, so a
bare majority was voting for Cimarron. This wasn't enough for Skate.
"Come on, you farmers!" roars he. "You gonna let milord hyar tell
you whut you kin en cairft do? Let's see yer hands up!"
A number of them complied, and the cutaway coat darted about,
counting, and turned beaming on me. "I reckon we got a democratic
majority, captain! Hooraw, boys! Ho for Cimarron!" And they all
cheered like anything, and as it died down they looked at me.
"By allmeans," says I, very cool. "Good day to you." And I turned
away to tighten the girths on my pony. They stared in silence. Then:
"What you mean?" cries Skate. "We got a majority! Caravan goes
to Cimarron, then!"
"It's going to Bent's," says I, quietly. "At least, the part of it that I
command does. Any deserters--" I tugged at a strap "--can go to
Cimarron, or to hell, as they please."
I was counting on my composure to swing them round, you see;
they were used to me as wagon-captain, and I reckoned if I played sx^ and business-like it would sway them. And indeed, a great ^abble broke out at once; Skate looked as though he was ready to do "'urder, but even some of the Pirates looked doubtful and fell to ^Tangling among themselves. And I believe all would have been well if Susie, who was fairly bursting with fury, hadn't cut loose at them, Fusing Skate in Aldgate language, and even turning on the sober
emigrants, insisting that they obey me.
"You're bound on oath!" she shrilled. "Why, I'll have the law on
K. 89 i
you--you treacherous scallawags, you! You'll do as you're bidden, so
there!"
I could have kicked her fat satin backside; it was the worst line she
could have taken. The leader of the emigrant families, who'd been
muttering about how the wagon-captain was the boss, wasn't he, went
dark crimson at Susie's railing, and drew himself up. He was a fine
respectable-looking elder and his beard fairly bristled at her.
"Ain't no boor-mistress gonna order me aroun'!" says he, and
stalked off; most of the emigrants reluctantly followed him, and the
Pittsburgh boys hoorawed anew, and began to make for their wagons.
So you see the wagon-captain with his bluff called--and not a thing to
be done about it.
One thing I knew, I was not crossing the river. I could see
Wootton's face now. "Not Cimarron . . . poor bull." The thought of
that desert, and losing the trail, was enough for me. It was all very
well for Skate and his pals: if they got lost, they could in desperation ride back to the Arkansas for water, and struggle down to Fort
Mann--but the folk in the wagons would be done for. And our own
little party was in an appalling fix; we had our eight wagons and the
carriage, with their drivers, but we faced a week's trip to Bent's without guards. If we met marauding Indians... we would have my
guns and those of the teamsters and savaneros.
But I was wrong--we also had the invalids. They approached
me with some hesitation and said they would prefer to continue to
Bent's; the air on the north bank of the river was purer, they were
sure of that--and they didn't approve of Skate and those Pittsburgh
rapscallions, no, indeed. "We, sir, have some notions of loyalty and
good behaviour, I hope," says the one whose diagnosis of the
Cheyenne had proved so accurate. His pals cried bravo and hear,
hear! and flourished their sprays and steam-kettles in approval; deal
God, thinks I, whores and invalids; at least they were both well- disciplined.
"I'd better see to the rations, or friend Skate'U be leaving us the scrapings of the barrel," says Nugent-Hare.
"You're not going with them?" says I, astonished.
"Why would I do that?" says he. "I hired for the trip to California,
and I keep my engagements." D'ye know, even then, when I should;
have been grateful at the thought of another good pair of hands, I
didn't believe a word of it. "Besides," says he, with a gallant inclination
to Susie, who was now standing alarmed and woebegone,
"Grattan's never the boy to desert a lady in time of trouble, so he's
not." And he sauntered off, humming, while my fond spouse assailed me with lamentations and self-reproaches--for she was sharp enougt
gee that her folly had tipped the balance. If I'd had less on my mind
I'd probably have given vent to my feelings, full tilt; as it was I just
told her, pretty short, to get into the coach and make sure Skate's bullies didn't try to run off any of our crinoline herd.
There was a pretty debate going on round our supply-wagons;
Skate was claiming that he and his mates were entitled to food since
they had been part of our caravan; Grattan was taking the line that
when they stopped working for us, they stopped eating, and if they
tried to pilfer he'd drop the first man in his tracks. He pushed back his
coat and hooked a thumb in his belt beside his Colt as he said it; Skate
bawled and gnashed a bit, but gave way, and I judged the time right
to remind the emigrants that if any wished to change their mind,
they'd be welcome. None did, and I believe it was simply that they
clung to the larger party, and to the firepower of Skate's fellows.
They were just starting to struggle over the crossing when our
depleted party rolled off up the Arkansas, and I scouted to a ridge to
see what lay ahead. As usual, it was just rolling plain as far as you
could see, with the muddy line of the Arkansas and its fringe of
cottonwoods and willows; nothing moved out on that vastness, not
even a bird; I sat with my heart sinking as our little train passed me
and pitched and rolled slowly down the slope; Susie's carriage with its
skinner, and the servants perched behind; the four wagons whose
oxen had been exchanged for mules, and the other four with the cattle
teams, all with their drivers. The covers were up on the trulls' wagons,
and there they were in their bonnets against the early sun, sitting
demurely side by side. The Cincinnati Health Improvement Society
came last in their two carriages, with their paraphernalia on top; you
could hear them comparing symptoms at a quarter of a mile.
We made four days up the river without seeing a living thing, and I
couldn't believe our luck; then it rained, such blinding sheets of water
as you've never seen, sending cataracts across the trail and turning it
into a hideous, glue-like mud from which one wagon had to be ^gged free by the teams of four others. We took to what higher
ground there was, and pushed on through a day that was as dark as "te evening, with great blue forks of lightning flickering round the "Of and thunder booming incessantly overhead. It died away at "ightfall, and we made camp in a little hollow near the water's edge ^d dried out. After the raging of the storm everything fell deathly ^i we even talked in undertones, and you could real a great
Ppression weighing down on you, as though the air itself was heavy. 1 was dank and drear, without wind, a silence so absolute that you ^"Id almost listen to it. - ;;. :.
Grattan and I were having a last smoke by the fire, our spirits in our
boots, when he came suddenly to his feet and stood, head cocked
while I whinnied in alarm and demanded to know what the devil he
was doing. For answer he upended the cooking pot on to the fire with
a great hiss and sputter of sparks and steam, and then he was running from wagon to wagon calling softly; "Lights out! Lights out!" while I
gave birth and glared about me. Here he was back, dropping a hand
on my shoulder, and stifling my inquiries with: "Quiet! Listen!"
I did, and there wasn't a damned thing except my own belly
rumbling. I strained my ears . . . and then I heard it, so soft that it
was hardly a noise at all, more a vibration on the night air. My flesh
prickled at the thought of horsemen--no, it might be buffalo on the
move . . . too regular for that. . . and then my mouth went dry as I
realised what it must be. Somewhere, out in that enveloping blackness,
there was a soft, steady sound of drums. ,,; a
"Jesus!" I breathed, ate" |
"I doubt it," whispered Grattan. "Say Lucifer, and ye'll be nearer
the mark."
He jerked his head, and before I knew what I was properly doing I
was following him up the slope to the west of our hollow; there was a
little thicket of bushes, and we crawled under it and wormed our way
forward until we could part the grass on the crest and see ahead. It
was black as the earl of hell's weskit, but there, miles ahead in the
distance, were five or six flaring points of light--Indian campfires,
without a doubt, along the river bank. Which meant, when you
thought about it, that they lay slap on our line of march.
We watched for several minutes in silence, and then I said, in a
hoarse croak: "Maybe they'll be friendlies." Grattan said nothing,
which was in itself an adequate answer.
You may guess how much we slept that night. Grattan and I were
on the watch as dawn broke, when their fires had disappeared with
the light and instead we could see columns of smoke, perhaps five
miles away, along the river; it looked like a mighty camp to me, but at
such a distance you couldn't tell.
There was no question of our stirring, of course. We must just lie
up and hope they would move, and sure enough, about noon we
realised that the dark strip which had been the camp was shifting--
down-river, in our direction. Grattan cursed beneath his breath, but
there was nothing for it but to lie there and watch the long column
snaking inexorably towards us past the cottonwood groves. It wasn't
more than a mile away, and I was all but soiling myself in fear, when
the head of the column veered away from the river, and I recollected
with a surge of hope that our hollow lay in a wide bow of the river; if
they held their march along the bowstring, they might pass us by,
damnably close, but unless one of them scouted the bank they would
never realise we were there.
We scurried down and had the teamsters stand by their beasts,
enjoining utter silence; my chief anxiety was the invalids, who were
such a feckless lot that they might easily blunder about and make a
noise, so I ordered them into their carriages with instructions to sit
stilt. Th^ Grattan and I wormed back to the crest, and took a look.
That was a horrible sight, I can tell you. The head of the column
wasn't above three hundred yards away, moving slowly past our
hiding-place. There was a great murmur rising from it, but not much
dust after the rain, and we had a clear view. There were warriors
riding in front, some with braided hair and coloured blankets round
their shoulders, others with the lower part of their skulls shaved and
top-knots that bristled up, whether of hair or feathers I couldn't tell.
Then came what was either a chief or a medicine man, almost naked,
on a horse caparisoned in coloured cloth to the ground; he carried a
great staff like a shepherd's crook, ribboned and feathered, and
behind walked two men carrying little tom-toms that they beat in a
throbbing rhythm. Then more warriors, with feathers in their hair,
some in blankets, others bare except for breech-clouts or leggings; all
were garishly paintedred, black and white as I recall. Almost all
were mounted on mustangs, but behind came the usual disorderly
mess of travois and draught animals and walking families and cattle
and dogs and general Indian foulness and confusion. Then the
rearguard, after what seemed an interminable wait; more mounted
warriors, with bows and lances, and as they drew level with us I found
myself starting to breathe again: we were going to escape.
Whether that thought travelled through the air, I don't know, but
suddenly one of the riders wheeled away from the others and put his
pony to the gentle slope running up to our position. He came at a trot,
straight for us, and we watched, frozen. Then Grattan's hand came
out from under his body, and I saw he had his Bowie turned in his fist;
I clapped a hand over it, and he turned to stare at me: his eyes were
wid, and I though, by gum. Flashy, you ain't the only nervous one on
the Plains this day. I shook my head; if the savage saw us, we must try
to talk our way outnot that there'd be much hope of that, from
what we'd seen.
The Indian came breasting up the hill, checked, and looked back
the way they had come, towards the camp-ground, and I realised he
^ss taking a last look-see. He wasn't twenty yards away, close enough
to make out every hideous detail of the buffalo-hom headdress,
^broidered breech clout, beaded garters wound round his legs
above the moccasins, the oiled and muscular limbs. He had a lance, a
little round shield on his arm, and a war-club hung from his belt. H.
sat at gaze a full minute, and then rode slowly along just beneath our hide, with never an upward glance; he paused, leaning down to clear
a tangle of weed from his foot--and in the hollow behind us some
fool dropped a vessel with a resounding clatter.
The Indian's head lifted, the painted face staring directly at our
bush; he straightened in his seat, head turning from side to side like a
questing dog's. He looked after his party, then back towards us. Go
away, you awful red bastard, go away, I was screaming inwardly, it's
only a kettle or a piss-pot dropped by those infernal hypochondriacs- Christ, it's a wonder you can't hear the buggers wheezing ... and
then he trotted down (he hill after the retreating column.
We waited until ^he last of them were well out on the plain and
vanishing into the haze before we even stirred--and then I made the
terrifying discovery that while Grattan and I had been lying too scared
to breathe, and Susie had been sitting tight-lipped in her coach with
her eyes shut, three of the sluts--Cleonie, black Aphrodite, and
another--had crawled up to a point on the crest to watch the passing
show! Giggling and sizing up the bucks, I don't doubt; how they
hadn't been spotted...
We moved out in some haste. You ain't seen galloping oxen?
Within the hour we had passed through the appalling filth and litter of
the deserted Indian camp, and it seemed reasonable to hope that a
band of such size would be the only one in the vicinity. I asked
Grattan who they were; he thought, from the bright-coloured blankets
and the buffalo-scalp cap, that they might be Cumanches, but
wasn't sure--I may tell you now, from a fairish experience of Indians,
that they're a sight harder to identify by appearance than, say, Zulu
regiments or civilised soldiers; they ain't consistent in their dress or
ornament. I remember Charley Reynolds, who was as good a scout as
ever lived, telling me how he'd marked down a band as Arapaho by
an arrow they'd fired at him--he found out later they'd been Oglala
Sioux, and the arrow had been pinched from a Crow. That by the
way; Grattan didn't cheer me up much by remarking that the Cu- manche are cannibals.
We pushed on, and towards evening I smelled smoke. We went to
ground at once, and camped without fires, and in the morning moved
ahead cautiously until we caught the scent of charred wood. Sure
enough, there it was, a little way off the trail--the blackened shell of a wagon, with little drifts of smoke still coming from it. There were
three white corpses sprawled among the wreck, two men and a
woman; all had been shot with arrows, scalped, and foully mutilated.
Grattan went round the wagon, and cursed; I went to look and wished
94 1
r hadn't. On the other side were two more bodies, a man's and a
voung girl's, though it wasn't easy to tell; they had been spreadeagled 'd fires lit on top of them. If that Indian in the buffalo cap had ridden
 few yards farther, we would have been served the same way.
We buried them in a cold sweat, and pressed on quickly; oddly
enough, though, the knowledge of our escape raised our spirits, and
it was with cries and hurrahs that afternoon that we passed the mouth
of the Picketwire,24 which joins the Arkansas about fifteen miles
below Bent's. One or two of the savaneros were uneasy that there
was still no sign of civilised life so close to the fort; there were
normally bands of trappers and traders to be seen, and friendly
Indians camped on the Picketwire, they said. But Grattan pointed
out that with so large a band of hostiles on the prowl, the normal
traffic wasn't to be expected; they'd be staying snug behind the wall at
Bent's.
We were all eager to see this famous citadel of the plains, and in
camp that night Grattan entertained Susie with a recital of its wonders;
to hear him it was like finding Piccadilly in the middle of the
Sahara.
"You'll be wonderstruck, ma'am," laughs he. "You haven't seen a
building worth the name since we left Westport, have you? Well,
tomorrow, after a thousand miles of desolation, you'll see a veritable
castle on the prairie, with towers and ramparts--oh, and shops, too!
It's a fact, and all as busy as Stephen's Green. This time tomorrow
you'll be watching the captain here playing skittle pool in the billiard
room, with a wee man in a white coat skipping in with refreshment,
and you'll sleep on a down mattress after a hot bath and the best
dinner west of St Louis, so you will."
We were off at dawn of a brisk, bright day with the breeze fluttering
the cottonwoods as we rolled along by the river at our best pace. We
nooned without incident; just an hour or two, thinks I, and we'll be
through this horror and can lie up until other trains appear, and then
head for Santa Fe in safety, with some other idiot riding wagon-boss.
We were all in spirits; Susie was laughing and listening to Grattan as
he rode by the carriage, the tarts had their wagon-covers up and were shattering like magpies in the sunshine, and even the invalids had
Perked up and were telling each other that this was more bracing than ^aine, by George; I caught Cleonie's demure glance as I rode by her ^gon, and reflected that Bent's must be big enough to find a more ^rofortable private nook than a prairie tent. And then I saw the
smoke.
It was a single puff, above the gentle crest to our right, floating up ^to the clear sky, and while I was still gaping in consternation, there
95
they were--four mounted Indians on the skyline, trotting down the
slope towards us. Grattan swore softly and shaded his eyes, and then
swung to the coach driver.
"Keep going--brisk, but not too fast! Easy, now, captain--that
smoke means there'll be others coming lickety-split; you'll note we're
only worth a single puff, bad cess to 'em!25 So we must keep 'em at a
distance till we get within cry of Bent's; it can't be above a couple of
miles now!" . /
My instinct was to turn and ride for it, but he'was right. The four
Indians were coming on at a brisk canter now, so with Grattan leading
we rode out to head them away, me with my sweat flowing freely--
the sight of those oily copper forms, the painted faces, the feathers,
and the practised ease with which they managed ponies and lances,
would have turned your stomach. They rode along easily, edging only
gradually closer.
"They won't show fight till the regiment arrives," says Grattan.
"Watch in case they try to side-slip us and scare the wagon-beasts--
ah, you bastard, that's the trick! See, captain!"
Sure enough, they had their blankets ready in their hands; their
leader, riding parallel with us about twenty yards off, raised his and
shouted "Tread!", which I took to mean "trade"--a likely story.
"Give 'em a hail," says Grattan, so I shouted "Bugger off!" and
made gestures of dismissal. The brave shouted something back, in
apparent disappointment, turned his pony slightly aside--and then
without warning wheeled sharply and, with his mates following suit as
smart as guardsmen, made a dart across our rear towards the wagon- train.
"Donnybrook!" yells Grattan, and I heard his Colt bang at my
elbow. An Indian twisted and fell shrieking, and as the leader's horse
sped past me I gave it a barrel in the neck--in a melee you shoot at
what you're sure to hit--and then my heels went in and my head
down as I thundered for the wagons, .]
The two remaining braves were making for the rear wagon, swooping
in, flapping their blankets at the beasts. I roared to the teamsters
to whip up; they shouted and swung their snakes, and the wagons
lurched and bounced in the ruts as the beasts surged forward. Grattat
fired and missed one of the Indians; a teamster, reins in his teeth, M fly a shot that went nowhere, and then the two had wheeled past us
and were racing out and away.
I galloped up the train, all eyes to see where the next danger W coming from. By God, I didn't have to look far--on the crest to out
right there was a round score of the brutes, swerving down towards
us. They were perhaps two furlongs off, for the crest had swung awa?
96 -| 1
f(om the river, which was inclining in a big loop to the left, so that as
(jie wagons veered to follow its course, they were also turning away from our pursuers. But in less than three minutes they would close
tfae gap with the lumbering train.
Ahead of me, Grattan was swinging himself from his saddle over
the tailboard of a wagon, and farther ahead the savaneros of the mule-train were doing likewise, their mules running free. In among
niem came the two braves with blankets, screeching and trying to
drive the leaderless brutes in among the wagons; Grattan's rifle
boomed and one of the braves went down; the other tried to throw
himself at one of the wagon-teams, but must have missed his hold, for
as I galloped by he was losing an argument with a wagon-wheel, and
being deuced noisy about it. ;< . ,, ;
The savaneros were firing now; Grattan yelled to me, pointing
forward, and I was in solid agreement, for up yonder somewhere was
Bent's, and I didn't mind a bit if I was first past the post. Half a dozen
revolving rifles were letting go as I thundered up the train, which is
just the kind of broadside you need when twenty painted devils are
closing in; they weren't more than two hundred paces off our rear
flank now, whooping like be-damned and firing as they came. I was
abreast the leading wagon, with only the two invalid carriages and
Susie's coach leaping along ahead; at my elbow the sluts were
squealing and cowering behind the wagon-side; I saw a shaft quivering
in the timber, and another hissed over my head; it's time to get off
this pony and under cover, thinks I--and in that moment the brute
stumbled, and I had only a split second to kick my feet clear and roll
before she went headlong.
It's odd, what sticks in your mind. There was a grey-bearded face
peering from the window of the nearest carriage, absolutely adjusting
its spectacles--then earth and sky whirled crazily as I hit the ground
with a bone-shaking crash. I hadn't time to wonder if aught was
broken; I grabbed at a trailing rope as a wagon-wheel whirled by close
to my face, and managed to get the bight round my elbow; it was
almost dislocated as I was hauled half-upright, clawing for a hold.
Female voices screamed as I was dragged staggering along, hands
clutched at my arms and collar, and I was pulled bodily against the
tailboard with my legs going like pistons in midair.
K I've a soft spot for harlots, d'you wonder? Somehow they kept me ^oft long enough to get an arm round a stanchion and a leg over
the tailboard. I gathered my strength to heave, and the whole pack of "lern screamed in unison and fell back in a panic of crinoline as an wdian leaped from nowhere, hatchet in hand, and clung to the ""board not a yard away. ai S
97
I may forget that painted, fe feathered face and screaming mouth on,
of these days, but I doubt it. I I was hanging helpless, the prairie flyalong two yards below, as he ^ ^"S "P the hatchetand then there
were squeals of rage, and blac^ Aphrodite was thrashing at him with
a parasol. God bless her. H ^"S like a !eech with one hand
stubbornly determined to dis"^"11'0^1 me witn the other, but the
clever, beautiful, resourceful"1 P"' of African womanhood aban.
doned edge for point, and gS^e hlm the ferrule in the groin; he
shrieked and tumbled off unde^ the hooves of the team behind, and I
hauled myself inboard and loo^^ abmt to see what fresh horror was
offering itself.
It was a battle royal. The li^dians were strung out along the train,
firing bows and pieces, and th^ savoneros were giving 'em volley for
volley. But some of the bolder "Pints, like the chap who'd experienced
Aphrodite's caress, were ridir1^in '""""g the wagons, sliding down
the offside of their ponies for p Flection, trying to get close enough to
scupper our teams. I saw men" and Ponies 8 dow"; an arrow zipped
into the furled canvas overh'head, and when I emerged from the
trollops for another peep, the^ was a wi(:ked "ttle red bastard in a
war-bonnet alongside the lead'1 mule oftbe ^gon behind, driving his
lance into its flank. The poor b?"^ screamed and went down, bringing
the others with him in a kick^tan^ the wagon lurched crazily,
hung for a sickening mornen"1' and then crashed down, scattering
cases of claret all over the trf'"1- Then ow own wigon bucked Uke
fury, and I was thrown headlo/8 and fetched up against the sideboard
with all the breath driven out (of '"e-
I scrambled up, and if it isn'l ""e damned thing it's another. There
was an Indian on our driver's'seat now' disputing the reins with the
teamster; the reins fell free as fhey grappled, and it was a stone
certainty that we'd be over in'two seconds if steps were not taken. I
never join in unless I must, b'"1 now there was nothing for it but to
fight my way through a press o^hystencal whores, of whom there now
seemed to be about fifty, roll1"^ un^rfoot, striking out blindly, or
swooning in my path. I lurchel" met the frontboard and got a fist into
the Indian's braids and haule^' the teamster slashed at him with a
Bowie, and as he dropped a^V- howling, I grabbed the reins and
flung my weight on to steady t^ t'1'""-Jhe teamster took holdand
I looked ahead and almost los1 "V balance in sheer astonishment.
We were on open plain, witP the three carriages flying along before
us, and beyond them was one of the most beautiful and unbelievable
sights I ever beheld. It was a c^e. Jist as Grattan had said, with two
great round towers, massive ^alls of ^at looked like brown stone,
and a beetling gatewaywith 'he Stars and Stripes fluttering in the
-geze. I yelled with joy and amazement as we lumbered down
towards it, and then became aware that the shots and yells were dying ay/sy behind; I looked back, and there were five wagons spread out
-cross the plain--which meant that two were goners--and in their
-ygjie the Indians were slackening in their pursuit, waving their capons and whooping. I could see some of them clustered round the recked wagon, no doubt preparing to sample the claret as soon as
the chief had swilled the first glassful round his palate.
Susie's carriage was 'making for the open gateway, and as the
jgvalids' vehicles slowed my teamster reined in almost to a walk. I
jumped down, watching the remaining wagons trundling in; one had
smoke rising from its smouldering canvas; another was rolling drunkenly
with a displaced axle, but at least they were safe, and Grattan
and two of the savaneros were on foot, rifles at the ready, acting as a
rearguard.
The carriages were inside, and as the first wagon followed with its
wailing occupants--all but Aphrodite, who was thrashing the tailboard
with the remains of her gamp, in a fine berserk fury still--I
hurried through the gates. I had a fleeting impression of a great
courtyard surrounded by two storeys of buildings, and then I was up
a flight of steps to the parapet above the main gate. Just beneath me
the last four wagons were crowded in about the gateway; Grattan, his
rifle cradled, gave me a wave. Beyond lay the empty plain for quarter
of a mile to the bend of the river, where about a dozen Indians were
milling to and fro, but making no move towards the fort; behind them
I could see the wrecked wagon beside the cottonwoods fringing the
river--and then I sank down, in nervous exhaustion, by the wall; my
shoulder was skinned and throbbing from my tumble; there was
caked blood on the back of my hand; God knew whose it was.
Feet were running up the steps, and Grattan appeared, his faced
grimed and grinning. "Will ye have nuts or a cigar, sir?" says he, and
I hauled myself up. Beneath us I could hear the great gates being
hauled to, and the savaneros1 and teamsters' voices raised in oaths of
relief; down in the courtyard the wagons were any old how, and the
beasts were braying and roaring, with the wails of the sluts added to
the din; the invalids were climbing out, shaken and bewildered; I saw
Susie with her face pale and her hair awry. Then Grattan says: "Jesus
Christ!", and I saw he was staring round in wonder; I stared too--at
the crowded courtyard and our dazed following, at the huddle of
wagons and beasts, at the silent buildings, the great round towers, the
broad upper walks and parapets, at Old Glory over our heads. And I
realised why Grattan, that soft-spoken man, had blasphemed.
There wasn't a soul in Bent's Fort but ourselves, ft.,
99
I know now, of course, why it was so--that William
Bent was crazy, and had abandoned his wonderful fortress to
fate and the death-watch beetle, or whatever bugs they have out
there--but at the time it was a mystery beyond belief. Here we were,
winded and terrified after a chase by those infernal savages, home by
the skin of our teeth--and the place that should have been swarming
with people was empty, but with its flag flying and not a chair out of
place. For while the teamsters and savaneros mounted guard and saw
to the beasts, and the rest occupied the ground-floor rooms and
prepared food and tended our two or three injured, Grattan and I went over the whole place from attic to cellar. And there wasn't so
much as a mouse. - : ': It was an incredible citadel, though, deserted as it was. fe I suppose it would be about a hundred paces square, but I can't be
sure from memory, with adobe walls twenty feet high and stout
enough to resist a battering-ram. There were two huge towers, like
martellos, at opposite corners; against the north wall were two storeys
of buildings, with fine cool rooms, and opposite them, across the
square, a shaded arcade of shops and trade-rooms; inside the gatewall
were chambers for guards and servants, with stoves and fireplaces,
and on the west end were a cooper's and joiner's shops, a
forge, and storehouses. The roofs of all these buildings formed broad
walks running inside the upper ramparts; on this level, at the west
end, there was even a little house with a porch, for the commandant,
and a billiard-room, dammit--which Gratton had sworn to, and I
hadn't believed--with the pills still lying on the baize. I was so
astounded that I picked up a cue and slapped the red away--and not
ten minutes earlier I'd been hanging upside down from a wagon tail
trying to avoid being tomahawked!
"I don't believe this bloody place," says I, while Grattan replaced
the balls and blazed away (he made nothing of it). "Where the dooce
have they gone?" For that was the eerie thing--the only thing absent
was the people themselves. Wherever we went all was in order: a
dining-room, with oak furniture and a linen cloth on the table, presses
bursting with china and glass, a wine-cooler with bottles of '42
Burgundy, captain's biscuits in a barrel, a piece of cheese kicking up
a hell of a row in the sideboard, and a portrait of Andrew Jackson on
the wall. .S?;
It was the same in the shops--the blacksmith's tools were there,
and the carpenter's gear; the trade-rooms were stuffed with pelts,
buffalo robes, blankets, axes, nails, candles. God knows what--as I
five, there was even sealing-wax and writing paper. The storerooms
had provisions for an army, and hogsheads oFwine and spirits; in the
sleeping-quarters some of the beds were made, there was a posy of
withered flowers in a vase on the commandant's desk, and a neatlytorn
newspaper in the privy.
"Whoever it was," says Grattan, "cleared out in a hell of a hurry."
"But why haven't the Indians looted the place?"
"They don't know," says he. "Chances are that Bent--or St Vrain,
or whoever was here--left within the last couple of days . . . don't ask
me why. The Injuns can't know that; I daresay the crowd that chased
us are the only ones hereabouts, and new arrivals at that. If they'd
known it was deserted, they'd never have left off chasing us."
That was reasonable, but provoked a disquieting thought. "D'you
suppose . . . they'll come back? The Indians, I mean."
"Depends," says he. "There weren't above thirty of the dear
fellows, and we sank nigh on a dozen of those. Maybe more'll come
in, maybe not. One thing's certain; with our drivers and savaneros we
muster about fifteen rifles--and it would take fifty to make this place
good against an attack. So we'd best hope that our red friends don't
receive any reinforcements."
That had me flying up the ramparts again, to make sure the guards
were en the look-out. The Indians were still in view, over by the
cottonwoods, but no new members so far as I could see. There was a
moon due that night, so they couldn't surprise us after dark. I took
stock; at least we were inside, and the chances were that a caravan, or
a party of traders, would heave in sight before enough Indians arrived
to make the place too hot to hold. An unfortunate choice of expression,
that, as you'll come to appreciate, b-w, '
In the meantime, we were in residence, and once I'd heard Susie's
exclamations of pleasure at the amenities, and the enthusiasm of the
trollops as they settled themselves into quarters, and started washing
their clothes and chattering in the well-stocked kitchen where our
black cook had pans on the boil, I began to feel better. We didn't make use of the big corral outside the walls, but stabled the beasts in
a wagon park off the main square; the teamsters had their own fires
going in no time, and were breaking out supplies from the storerooms;
there was laughter and singing, and the great empty place
echoed with our noise; the invalids took the air on the walls, and one
four-eyed idiot even proposed an evening stroll down to the river; I
dissuaded him by pointing out that the locals might be taking their
101
1k at the same time. D'you know, he hadn't thought
been just
of the tans to wait on us, and some tolerable port
and a decent cig
only midd^S Ep - -. ...i-iou/a
. rttive po^LJ1 L11^ "*"*-^ Tw"- -./ --..^ to the piai ^^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ snng ^ jolly to see Susie
^.".^^Lav in_th^dim candle-light, with one fine tit peeping out
among theu^^ ^ partners/celebrating the first civilised bed we'd ^IT^ince the Planter's Hotel, if you like. It was comforting
aloft, and the l content. ^ ^ ^^ ^^ ^ ^^ monung'; and there must
h h ^ a trip in from somewhere during the night, for I counted
have bee ^ ^ scoundrels circling their ponies just out of range,
^abOYfi^Srf 1 , . ---- . i---- j ^L-taina I had pMerv vaarp man nn
n,i,,,ri_i,,,o ana V"tM"6"f """"""--- -
^,-, A'4 rampart above the gate; with the revolving rifles and sh-
they assei"010 "' y^"' ""--""- --
arked to Grattan, and he went off to the armoury in one of the
corner to^" w see what was available.
t the" the^ was a shout; the Indians had decided to warm us up
a 1'rt^e T^Y <harged in' wel1 spread out like good light cavalry, ._ .^ ^,.,a.fesv shoK and^rrpws,^ut^plainly bent on testing our fire.
dismount^
howled,"

about tos"1- - --
makinef01'th(' coraers of the fort. We let fly just the same, <"- ^
- -^.^jhrfie-auarters of our force around the other rampa^'
-- i-m at >
^for tM ^"1"
-ted three-qu,
even sp^"" l'""' ----- ^ .
distance.anc* a ""effy' useless little fight ensued, the Indians i
in and out, our fellows blazing away from cover and knocking one or
two over, while the chief circled with a group of followers, for all the
world like a general with his staff, looking to spot the best place for a
concerted rush. I was taking my time with a Colt rifle, trying long pots
at him and damning the sights, when Grattan was at my elbow again.
Just at that moment a fire-arrow came whistling over and stuck
smouldering in the parapet behind us; a teamster stamped it out, but
it gave point to what Grattan had to say.
"Are ye ready for bad news?" says^ie, and for all he tried to keep
the jaunty note in his voice, there was a wild glint in his eye. "Because
I'm the one that's got it, bigod! That armoury in the nor'-west tower,
there--aye, well, some clever feller has laid a powder-train to the
magazine, and there's enough loose powder lying about to give an
artilleryman the trots--with a burned-out slow fuse in the middle of
it! Not only that, in the opposite tower there's eighty kegs of the stuff,
and another train to them'. Which means," says he, and the sweat on
his face wasn't from heat or exertion, "that whoever abandoned this
fort intended to blow it sky-high, and would ha' done, but for that
faulty fuse!" By this time, you will understand, I had left off shooting
and was giving the man my most earnest attention, palsied with fright.
"You follow me, captain?" says he. "We're Sitting in the middle of
a powder-keg, and one spark'll blow the whole place to kingdom. ;,
come!" r
Now you may not be aware, gentle reader, in these civilised days of manufactured cartridges and cased shells, precisely what a powdertrain
was. Skilful sappers used to make them by piercing large 'bridges with a bodkin, and carrying the cartridge rapidly away so ^y^ that the powder trickled out in a stream no thicker than a pencil lead, ' ^hich they ran to the charge to be detonated--in the case of Bent's w', I gathered, several tons of high explosive, with a similar Infection in the opposite tower, just for luck. At the start of the
Pwder-train you placed a slow-burning fuse, to enable you to get
JM the skyline before November the Fifth. Such a train is hard to
, even by daylight, since it is just a thin line of dust, and Grattan
trai ^rely glanced into the towers, and hadn't been looking for
soa v or se powder, anyway. But there they were, waiting for a
---and hostile Indians had just started shooting fire-arrows at us. know '^vnat ^ you advise?" or words to that effect, and he didn't
rotten so we ^a^ a ^ne^ discussion, the fruit of which was one of the
the ^,,, ( as ^'ve ever heard. My own first thought was to get over -s^ hand ih' wlt^ the ^PP" Arkansas Hairdressers' Association on ':t:
^uld -a wouldn t answer, and when Grattan proposed that the sluts
to work carefully to sweep up the powder-trains, I was fool
im
enough to agree. He must have been as panic-fevered as I was, for h
had six of them lined up at the north-west tower before the suicid, folly of it came liome to me. Loose powder is as vicious an article a
the plague germ; the friction of a foot can set it off, and the thought c
those handless larlots scraping among it brought me down from th
parapet like a stung ferret.
"It won't do!" I bawled. "Water! From the well! Can you douse
the trains?"
"If I could, there's still the magazine, and another pile of keg
yonder big enough to blow us to Mexico!" says Grattan. "We'll nevei
soak them all," aid at that moment another fire-arrow came wingim into the square and stuck blazing in Susie's coach. Cleonie screamed
and the girls beat it out with cloths; I absolutely tore my hair in feai
and consternation.
"Get the invalids!" I shouted. "Buckets of water! Post the dodder
ing buggers about the place with as many buckets as you can find- the girls can make a chain from the well! We'll need 'em on the parapets, too--lurry, for Christ's sake! And make sure the towel
doors are fast, and soaked in water!" B*>;
:-, It was the only thing to be done; the invalids and girls must dousf "every burning irissile the moment it struck; the mines were in stout- walled buildings, and short of a general fire they'd be harmles enough. Once we had beaten off our feathered friends we could set to
work cautiously to remove the trains and kegs--in the meantime, ii
was back to the wall and try to sicken our attackers.
They were still full of sin and impudence, though, and had mountec
a determined rush against the west wall from the corral, but thf savaneros had made cool practice, and there were half a dozer painted corpses under the wall to prove it. Our fellows had discoverec that the best field of fire was from the towers, which projectec sufficiently to enfilade two walls at once. We had thinned our attackers
out a little, anyway, and no others had appeared; all told then
were perhaps fifty, mostly on the north side, where there were n(
battlements but only upper bedrooms with flat unparapeted roofs. S(
far I don't believe we'd taken even a flesh-wound on our side.
Suddenly they charged, again, and the llth Hussars couldn't hav<
done it better. They came singly and in little packs, all along the nortt
and east sides, converging at the last minute at the north-east angle
where there were windows in the upper floor and our range was thf
greatest. We blazed down the wall for dear life, some ofthesavanero:
exposing themselves recklessly, for if just one of the bastards go'
inside we might well be done for; we hadn't the men to go huntini
through the fort. They surged under the wall, scrambling up on then
nonies' backs and leaping for the sill; we were firing into the brown "d doing fearful execution, but a Colt revolving rifle takes time to reload, and if they hadn't desisted when they did, I believe they might
have got a man in. They rode off, howling, leaving dead and dying
under the wall, and then screams of alarm from the courtyard brought
us round to meet an even deadlier menace.
While we were engaged on the wall, a few fire-arrows had come
over and been promptly stifled by the invalids, who were in tremendous
trim, bawling orders to each other and striding about like Nelson
on the quarterdeck. But bowmen firing from behind the corral had
nut a couple of burning shafts into the roof of the stable against the
west wall; it was wattle and went up like a muslin curtain with a great
whoosh! It only burned for a few minutes, but sparks must have
reached the roof of the billiard-room, for presently it began to flame,
and the invalids had to beat a retreat, roaring for more water.
If the Indians had come in then, in one spot, neck or nothing, we'd
have been done for. But they circled at a distance still, yelling,
apparently content to let the fire do the work for a while. Which
meant that we had a respite, and I was able to gibber in futile anguish.
The girls at the well were running with buckets for the west steps, but
I could see with half an eye that the billiard room was beyond hope,
and from that the fire must spread across the whole west end of the
fort, consuming the beams on which the adobe was plastered, raging
out of control--until it reached the north-west tower with its tons of
powder. That explosion would set the whole place alight, and the
other tower would go up as well--but we'd be past caring by then.
We'd all be blown to atoms or roasted in the burning ruins.
At such times, when hope is dead and there's nowhere to hide, it's
astonishing how the mind clears, and you see with an icy brilliance of
logic that there's nothing for it but to run like hell. Fortunately,
another man who'd considered that possibility, about ten minutes
before I had, was Grattan Nugent-Hare, late of the Chainy Tenth and
U.S. Dragoons. In the brief space between organising the bucket
brigade, and the Indians' attack on the north-east angle, he had been
sending down every other savanero and teamster to put to the mule
teams on the three coaches, and on a couple of the wagons in the little
Park behind the shops on the southern side. When I came bounding
down from the north-west tower he met me at the steps, and nodded at the blaze that was spreading across the west roof; the heat was like a furnace.
"We'll have to break out!" he shouted. "We've maybe got ten
""lutes before yon tower goes up. If we throw open the gates we can
"ake a run for it with the wagons!" - ins
"Where the hell to?" I demanded.
"The river--it's barely a furlong from the south wall. If we can get
the coaches and a couple of wagons that far we can corral and hold
them off! It's that or be blown to blazes!"
Now, beastly funk I may be, but show me the ghost of a loophole
and I can think as smart as the next man--and be through it first, too
jib with luck. The three coaches were hitched up in the square, and a
teamster was leading a wagon-team from the park. Black smoke was
swirling across from the west side, and the beasts shied and bellowed
with fear. From the two towers a couple of savaneros were firing
occasional shots; evidently the Indians were still content to hold off.
Grattan's voice was hoarse.
"The women in the three coaches, with the three best drivers, and
1] a rifleman to each coach--aye, and the invalids with a few revolvers.
That'll leave six or seven of us to man the south-east tower and cover
'em as they drive for the river. If a savage gets within touch of them,
we should be ashamed of our shooting!"
"What then?"
"When they've made the river, we'll break out with a couple of
wagons. The redskins'll be ready, but there ain't above fifty of 'em.
With luck we'll maul 'em bad enough to leave us alone!"
You may imagine this conversation punctuated by the crackle of
burning timber, wenches wailing and coughing, shots banging overhead,
and the bespectacled invalid coming to attention crying: "We
are at your disposal, sir! Cincinnati shall not fail! Name our task and
it shall be done, yea, even unto the end!" I gave him a revolver and
shoved him into the first coach, along with a brave but tearful Susie,
who gave me a hasty slobber, and four terrified prostitutes. Grattan
||1|| l'i1 } made for the gates while the coach-drivers hustled the other tarts and ' ' invalids into their vehicles, packing them like herring. I took a quick
glance at the west wall; the blacksmith's shop was ablaze now, and
the flames were licking towards the catwalk leading to the northwest
tower--dear God, would the heat set off the loose powder even
before the flames got close? I went up the steps to the southeast
tower four at a time. "
Outside the fort our attackers were still keeping their distance. most of them on the north side, which was all to the good. I looked
across to the north-west tower; there were two savaneros there, and I
waved them across--if any Indian wanted to attack through the firs that was now shooting above the west wall, good luck to him. Down
in the courtyard the drivers were in their places; a teamster with a
rifle was at a window of the first coach; on the second, a savanero was
sitting on the roof reloading his Colt. :sS
With all the din I never heard the gates open; suddenly the lead
(jnver was yahooing and whipping up, and we rushed to the parapet
of the tower, rifles at the ready. As we looked down, the first coach shot out and wheeled right for the river, and a tremendous yell burst
from the startled Indians, who came tearing in at the unexpected
sally. Then the second coach, and we were firing as fast as we could,
picking our men pretty neatly, I like to think. The main pursuit had to
come close to the gate wall, and we fairly shot them flat; they must
have lost a dozen riders in their first mad rush, and the three coaches
were careering down for the river, with the redsticks yelling in fury,
circling out to get at them, losing distance in their attempt to get away
from our fire.
The first coach reached the river and wheeled among the cottonwoods,
and then the second, lurching and boundng on the rough
prairie, lost a wheel with about twenty yards to go, but the driver
must have cut the traces, for the mules ran loose, and there wasn't an
Indian close enough, thanks to our shooting and the rifle in the first
coach, to do any damage as the girls and their guard scrambled out
and reached the safety of the trees. The third coach, with its savanero performing like Deadwood Dick, came to rest beside the first one,
and a tremendous cheer broke from our bastion. Grattan was down
in the courtyard, yelling to us, and our fellows fairly tumbled down
the steps to the wagons. I took a shot of the eye around; the Indians
had pulled off on the east side, milling about two hundred yards or so
from the fort gate; on the south side, between the fort and the coaches
at the river, there wasn't a savage to be seen. ; i ';<;& '.
"Come on!" bawls Grattan; he and the fellows were piling into the
two wagons, preparing to make the run.
"Out you go!" roars the gallant Flashy. "I'll cover you!" '
He stared, but didn't hesitate above a secbnd. He sprang up beside the teamster, and the wagon lumbered into the gateway.
Now, you may be staring, too. For you will have concluded that it
ain't quite my style to be the last man out of the beleaguered garrison, snd right you are. But if I have to fly from a fight, I prefer to do it my
own way--and for the past five minutes at least I'd been reflecting Aat my way was certainly not in one of those crazy wagons. As I saw
it, there were at least forty Indians out yonder, and they weren't going
to be taken by surprise a second time. Those wagons were going to
have their beasts hamstrung before they got near the river, and then
rt would be every man for himself on foot. Odds on a man from the ^gons getting to the river? About evens--and that ain't good enough ^en there's a safer way out.
One thing was certain, you see; with all the fun and frolic to the
south and east of the fort, there wouldn't be a brave left on the north
side. And during our defence of the walls I'd noticed an interestin. thing--whenever an Indian fell, more often than not his pony stayed
by the body. Now, that's nothing new, as any cavalryman knows. why, at Balaclava, in the hell of that Russian battery, I recall at leag
two of our mounts nuzzling at fallen troopers, and these redskins and
their horses are close as lovers. After the attack on the northeast
angle, there had been three or four ponies standing, heads hanging and lost, beside the Indian dead at the foot of the wall, and I was certain sure they'd still be there. I could drop from a window on the
north side, climb aboard, and be off and away round the fort, coming
down to the carriages at the river by the west side, while Grattan and
the lads occupied the Indians to the east, and stopped any arrows that
might be going.
One last glance to be sure the north-west tower was still unscathed
and as the second wagon surged out of the gate and the Indian yelling
redoubled, I was scuttling nimbly along the east parapet above the
gateway and into the end upper-storey room on the north wall. I sped
across to the window and took a cautious peep--not a soul in sight as
far as the eye could see, and there below, beside the tangle of red
corpses, were two Indian ponies! Your luck's in again, old Flash,
thinks I, chuckling as I gripped the frame to climb--and the room was
shuddering like a match-box in a giant's hand, a most appalling blast
of thunder filled my ears, the floor gave way beneath me, and I was
falling, falling through dense clouds of dust or smoke, crashing down
with a shock that drove the breath out of me, and with a ghastly pain
stabbing through my left ankle.
I believe it was that pain that kept me conscious. I was in clouds of
swirling dust, choking as I tried to scramble on all fours; for seconds I
was too dizzy to see, and then there was light before me from an open
doorway, and I lunged towards it. I knew I must be in the groundfloor
room; above me the ceiling had gone, and there were beams and
broken timbers all about me. I reached the doorway and fell through
it.
To my right the west end of the fort was an inferno. I knew the
magazine had gone, and most of the north-west angle with it, but the
northern rooms were blazing too, and the thatched arcade across the
square was beginning to bum. The gate wall was unscathed, but there
were eighty kegs of powder in the tower at the far end of it, and with
flaming wreckage all over the courtyard they might blow any instant.
I plunged forward and fell with the sickening pain in my ankle, but I
crawled feebly on, through the fiery reek, coughing and swearing and,
I don't doubt, praying; the roar of burning seemed to be everywhere,
108 1
, pot twenty yards ahead was the yawning gateway, if I could only
crrarnble to it before the mine went up, and'didn't lose consciousness
on the way. <H
I learned something that day. If you've a sprained or broken leg,
and want to make haste, don't crawl--roll. Your leg will give you gip
at every turn, especially if your way is strewn with flaming rubble, but
if you're lucky, you'll get there. I don't know how long it took;
nerhaps a minute, though it seemed an eternity, through which I
babbled in terror and shrieked with agony. My clothes were smouldering,
but now I could see, with my eyes streaming, through the gateway to the prairie beyond. I half-got to my feet and fairly threw
myself under the arch, rolling for dear life; I remember a massive iron
hinge at which I clutched, dragging myself along by sheer main force
of my arms, and rolled again; I must be beyond the gates, but even
then I struggled ahead, my face in the dust, inching on to try to escape
the horror behind me.
Perhaps I fainted, more than once; I can't tell. I thought I heard a
muffled crash from behind, but I didn't mind it. I dug in my fingernails
and pulled, and pulled, until I could no more. I rested my face
on one side, and above the scrubby grass in my line of sight there
were the legs of a pony, and I hardly had time to think, oh, dear Jesus,
the Indians! when a hand took me by the shoulder and rolled me over,
and I was blinking up into a monstrously-bearded face under a fur
cap, and I pawed feebly at a fringed buckskin shirt that was slick with
wear, and then the beard split into a huge grin of white teeth, and a
voice said:
"Waal, ole hoss, what fettle? How your symptoms segashooatin'?
Say, ifh thar wuz jest a spoonful o' gravy to go with ye, I rackon yore
baked jest 'bout good enough to eat!" bi.'. ';
;/.. ,,. It's a curious distinction, on which I have dined
out in Yankee clubs more than once, that I was the last man in Bent's
Fort, for it's never been rebuilt, and when I saw it a few years ago it ^as just a heap of ruins, with the white wolves prowling through it. "hat caused me to reflect, though, on the damnable unfairness of
things, was that I could have been last out in perfect safety, if I hadn't
K, ' ' ' 109
been so set on preserving myly own skin. There's a moral there, ( suppose, but not one I've ever f paid the least heed to.
What had happened was thi^iis. Just as the second wagon emerged,
and the Indians were preparingng to give it toco, who should heave in
view down the trail but a pararty of Mountain Men, drawn by the
smoke and sound of general up^proar. T^Y tlon't stand on ceremony,
those fellows; one swift surveyey and they were charging in like the
Heavy Brigade, and since ther^re were two score of them, the Indians
had lost no time in making tracPcks, leaving a fair few of their number
on the grass. So our chaps in tt- the wagons, whom I'd supposed were
going to likely death or capture, had enjoyed a grandstand seat in
perfect safety, while poor old p Flashy had been browning nicely, and
damned lucky not to be overdor0"0-
Mind you, there were compeP^sations. As the one serious casualty
on our side--for it's a remarkab3!^ thing that out of all who'd been in
the fort, only one of the savanerfros had taken an arrow in the leg, and
Claudia had broken her wrist wfwhen the second carriage foundered--
I was the centre of attention. S Susie, who had borne up like Grace
Darling all through, went into ft floot^ at the sight of my poor singed
carcase, and the invalids bustle^d about with hot fomentations and
bread poultices and sound advice"^ which I daresay would have carried
me off if the Mountain Men P hadn't patiently lifted them aside,
bandaged my sprained ankle, a and soothed my burns with a most
disgusting mixture of herbs and fct bear's grease.
The most signal behaviour, ththough, had been Cleonie's. She had
gone into hysterics when I was^ borne down to the carriages, still
smoking gently, and had had to b'be restrained from flinging herself on
me. Well, I hadn't known the wcwench cared that much; it wasn't like
the cool Cleonie's style at all, and"'1 gave me some pause. Susie seemed
too distraught about me to notice this signal display of concern for
Massa by his handmaiden, whicl'ch was just as well. My burns were
trivial enough, by the way, but m^ ankle kept me coach-bound for a
fortnight, by which time we werere o" ou1" ^y agsin-
With the Mountain Men was or0"'1 Fitzpatrick, who was a big man in
those parts,26 and on his advice we^ waited until a caravan arrived from
the east, which he and the Mountptain Men J0'"^ for Santa Fe. There
was every kind of Indian trouble'^ to the south, apparently, but in a
train that was eventually a hundred wagons strong we had no fears.
We learned from Fitzpatrick that ft the big tribe of Indians we had seen
on our way to Bent's were Cumananches, who were celebrated both as
bitter enemies of the Cheyenne a and for their medical skill; whether
they were out to take their foes at ft a disadvantage or study the cholera
epidemic was a moot point. The fe^llows who had besieged us at Bent's
110
^re a mixed band of Utes (who hated everybody), and Chief Dog jtiowas (who were reckoned friendly but had not been able to resist
ac temptation of our small caravan). But from now on, whenever
Indians were mentioned, we began to hear a new and ominous name:
'pashes; even the sound of it was vicious, and the Mountain Men
would growl and shake their heads.
I didn't care if I never saw a red hide again, but in fact Fitzpatrick
swore that we'd been lucky. We'd lost three teamsters and two
wagons on the mad career into Bent's, but nothing except a little gear
in the destruction of the fort itself. By a freak of the explosion the
south wall had collapsed, exposing the wagon park, and the Mountain
Men and savaneros had taken advantage of a change in the wind to
haul our last four wagons clear. So apart from one load of claret and
another of food, our goods were fairly intact, much to Susie's relief.
But Bent's was a sorry sight. The explosion had razed a third of it,
and the fire eventually destroyed the rest, including the southeast
tower and its powder-kegs, which oddly enough never blew up, but
burned like an enormous rornan candle that I'm told was seen by the
soldiers at Fort Mann, more than 150 miles away. The Mountain Men
were fearfully cut up about it; to them it was as great a thing as the
destruction of St Paul's or the Tower would be to us; perhaps even
greater.271 remember three of them talking softly near the coach at
sundown, the night before we pulled out for Santa Fe, smoking their
pipes as they watched the ruins silhouetted against the purple sky as
the last of the light faded.
'"Member when I fust see Bent's--cummin' down wi' the Green
River boys fm South Park nigh on fifteen years ago. Didn't rightly
b'lieve my eyes--'speckled a giant ter cum out on't hollerin' 'Feefye-fo!'
Didn't think nuthin' cud tumble it down." %>?.?
"Goin' ter be right lonely, 'thout th' Big Lodge." '"- ""
"Lonely? Why, ye jackass, how you talk! How kin ye be lonely fer
a placed Lonely is fer folks." ?
A long pause. "Mebbe so. All this coon know, ifn you scrapin' fer
beaver on th' Powder, or bogged in a Blackfeet village in the Tetons
come winter, you kin git right desolated--jes' a-wishin' you could
walk in under thet gate, see St Vrain en Maxwell laughin' on th'
verandie en smokin' them big seegurs, en th' Little White Man hisself
a-settin' by th' hide-press countin' the pelts jealous-like, or Ole Bill
cussin' en yarnin' wi' th' smith."
"Or feel the taste o' Black Sue's punkin pie, ye mean!"
"Shore 'nuff. This chile cud swaller a burner bull, horns, tail, en "lout, en still hev room fer thet pie."
"Thet's whut I'm a-sayin', though--tain't th' place yore hankerin'
111
fer--it's the folks. En the pie, seemin'ly. Waal, th' folks is still around
ain't they?"
"Rackon. Howsumever they cain't cum t' Bent's no more, cuy
tain't hyar. En ... they won't be, seems like, 'thout Bent's."
"In course they will, ye dumed ole fool! They be until they die leastways. Cain't be any longer'n thet!"
"They cud be," insists the Prairie Plato, "if Big Lodge wuz. Now it
gone, an' soon nobody 'member it--like not many 'member th' ole
Rondayvoos up on th' Green en Big Horn, back afore th' Santy Fee
traders cum."
"Why, I 'member those! Whut special 'bout them?" J
"Nuthin'--'ceptin' they ain't, nowadays. En this ole boss kin git
lonely fer them, too. Thet's my p'int." a
"I rackon you cud git lonely fer th' ole price o' beaver!" J
"Kin thet, en hev done since '36." They all laughed. "Git lonely fer
all th' things thet's a-changin'. Why, it gittin' so a cuss cain't walk fifty
mile 'thout seem' a sojer or a himmigrant. But makes me feel right
skeery hyaraways--" tapping his breast "--ter think o' Big Lodge
gone. Place en folks. Seems it wuz kind o'. . . like home."
"Home! Why, yore home wuz in Kaintuck'--till you bust the
minister's winder en had ter vamoose! Since when home's bin wharever
ye found a fat squaw en a good fire!"
"Them's th' places I used ter start yeamin' fer Bent's!" cries the old
chap. "Thet proves it! Thet's my p'int! Thet's why I'm grievin' ter see
it all broke down like thet."
"Waal, so'm I. But the way you talk, you'd ha' bin happier im Big
Lodge'd never bin builded in the fust place."
"No! Don't ye see? Then, why--there'd be nuthin' to ... to
remember not to fergit!"
The grass was beginning to brown when our reinforced train rolled
down the Timpas towards the distant mountains. It was a shame that
our invalids, having had as much of the West's health-giving properties
as they could stand, had turned back from Bent's, for there's no
air in the world as invigorating as New Mexico's. We journeyed across
prairie bright with flowers, and it was bliss to lie in the coach watching
the girls running and laughing among them like muslin butterflies,
gathering them in great armfuls and filling our coach with their
fragrance. Even when we began to climb into the craggy forest hills
that lead up to the Raton Pass, and the going got slower, the land was
still beautiful, with its winding wooded valleys; there's a fine toll road
now, I believe, but in my time there was hardly a visible trail, and
once or twice the wagons had to be carried bodily over rocky barriers.
Then it was prairie again, to the heel of the Sangre de Cristo
untains, and since all this had recently been Mexican territory,
here were more olive faces than white in the little settlements, and
hat unwashed languor inseperable from dagoes began to pervade the
crene. There were other branches of the trail now, and other caravans
_ere commonplace; at Wagon Mound, a great grassy bottom surrounded
by trees, we found more than three hundred vehicles assembled,
some of which had come down the Cimarron route--and with
them, hollow-cheeked from illness but laconic as ever, was Wootton.
He bad forced himself into the saddle and come on a week behind us,
but a friendly Indian had misled him into thinking our whole train had
crossed the river to the cut-off. He had followed and made a dreadful
discovery: our deserters had lost the trail, sure enough, and split into
two parties after a violent quarrel; Wootton came on one group, more
' dead than alive, and had brought them safe to the Candian river, but
the other party, including Skate and many of the Pittsburgh Pirates,
had been less lucky. '"Pasties catched 'em on th' Cimarron. Burner
hunter seen the wagons all burned, our folks massacred."
; It was a sobering reminder of what might lie over the next hill, but
it would have taken every Indian in America to make an impression
on the vast stream of wagons and immigrants now converging below
Wagon Mound. It was an endless procession, and at Las Vegas* we
met some of the trains which had been pouring across the southern
plains all summer from Fort Smith. Spirits were sky-high now as we
passed over rolling downland covered with trees and bushes and
dwarf cedars sprung from earth that was red and rich, and one
afternoon there was a great whooping and cheering as we sighted
conical hills ahead, and the cry of "Santy Fee! Santy Fee!" reechoed
along the line. Sure enough, as we passed the great scrubby cones,
there lay a vast plain, and before it, the little city that was the first in
all western America, built by the conquistadores, and God bless 'em,
says I. There are bigger, finer, richer towns in the world, but precious
few that so many weary folk have been so glad to see.
On Wootton's advice we camped near the soldiers' fort on the
slope just north of the city, and that evening Susie and I drove in to
take a long slant at the place, for we must break our journey here and
take order for the final stage to the coast.
It was like Calcutta in fair week. The town itself was no size at all,
some adobe houses and one or two fairly decent courtyards all
grouped round a fine plaza containing the governor's palace, which ^os a long, low colonnaded building, and the bishop's house, and ttozens of stores and posadas. But to get to this you had to pass
Not to be confused with the better-known Las Vegas, Nevada.
113
fer--it's the folks. En the pie, seemin'ly. Waal, th' folks is still around,
ain't they?"
"Rackon. Howsumever they cain't cum t' Bent's no more, cuz
tain't hyar. En ... they won't be, seems like, 'thout Bent's."
"In course they will, ye dumed ole fool! They be until they die, leastways. Cain't be any longer'n thet!"
"They cud be," insists the Prairie Plato, "if Big Lodge wuz. Now it
gone, an' soon nobody 'member it--like not many 'member th' ole
Rondayvoos up on th' Green en Big Horn, back afore th' Santy Fee
traders cum."
"Why, I 'member those! Whut special 'bout them?"
"Nuthin'--'ceptin' they ain't, nowadays. En this ole hoss kin git
lonely fer them, too. Thefs my p'int."
"I rackon you cud git lonely fer th' ole price o' beaver!"
"Kin thet, en hev done since '36." They all laughed. "Git lonely fer
all th' things thet's a-changin'. Why, it-gittin' so a cuss cain't walk fifty
mile 'thout seem' a sojer or a himmigrant. But makes me feel right
skeery hyaraways--" tapping his breast "--ter think o' Big Lodge
gone. Place en folks. Seems it wuz kind o'. . . like home."
"Home! Why, yore home wuz in Kaintuck'--till you bust the
minister's winder en had ter vamoose! Since when home's bin wharever
ye found a fat squaw en a good fire!"
"Them's th' places I used ter start yeamin' fer Bent's!" cries the old
chap. "Thet proves it! Thet's my p'int! Thet's why I'm grievin' ter see
it all broke down like thet."
"Waal, so'm I. But the way you talk, you'd ha' bin happier im Big
Lodge'd never bin builded in the fust place."
"No! Don't ye see? Then, why--there'd be nuthin' to ... to
remember not to fergit!"
The grass was beginning to brown when our reinforced train rolled
down the Timpas towards the distant mountains. It was a shame that
our invalids, having had as much of the West's health-giving properties
as they could stand, had turned back from Bent's, for there's no
air in the world as invigorating as New Mexico's. We journeyed across
prairie bright with flowers, and it was bliss to lie in the coach watching
the girls running and laughing among them like muslin butterflies,
gathering them in great armfuls and filling our coach with their
fragrance. Even when we began to climb into the craggy forest hills
that lead up to the Raton Pass, and the going got slower, the land was
still beautiful, with its winding wooded valleys; there's a fine toll road
now, I believe, but in my time there was hardly a visible trail, and
once or twice the wagons had to be carried bodily over rocky barriers.
Then it was prairie again, to the heel of the Sangre de Cristo
112
gitnintains, and since all this had recently been Mexican territory,
there were more olive faces than white in the little settlements, and
that unwashed languor inseperable from dagoes began to pervade the gcene. There were other branches of the trail now, and other caravans were commonplace; at Wagon Mound, a great grassy bottom surfounded
by trees, we found more than three hundred vehicles assembled,
some of which had come down the Cimarron route--and with
them, hollow-cheeked from illness but laconic as ever, was Wootton.
He had forced himself into the saddle and come on a week behind us,
but a friendly Indian had misled him into thinking our whole train had
crossed the river to the cut-off. He had followed and made a dreadful
discovery: our deserters had lost the trail, sure enough, and split into
two parties after a violent quarrel; Wootton came on one group, more
dead than alive, and had brought them safe to the Candian river, but
the other party, including Skate and many of the Pittsburgh Pirates,
had been less lucky. "'Pashes catched 'em on th' Cimarron. Burner
hunter seen the wagons all burned, our folks massacred." :
It was a sobering reminder of what might lie over the next hill, but
it would have taken every Indian in America to make an impression
on the vast stream of wagons and immigrants now converging below
Wagon Mound. It was an endless procession, and at Las Vegas* we
met some of the trains which had been pouring across the southern
plains all summer from Fort Smith. Spirits were sky-high now as we
passed over rolling downland covered with trees and bushes and
dwarf cedars sprung from earth that was red and rich, and one
afternoon there was a great whooping and cheering as we sighted
conical hills ahead, and the cry of "Santy Fee! Santy Fee!" reechoed
along the line. Sure enough, as we passed the great scrubby cones,
there lay a vast plain, and before it, the little city that was the first in
all western America, built by the conquistadores, and God bless 'em,
says I. There are bigger, finer, richer towns in the world, but precious
few that so many weary folk have been so glad to see.
On Wootton's advice we camped near the soldiers' fort on the
slope just north of the city, and that evening Susie and I drove in to
take a long slant at the place, for we must break our journey here and
take order for the final stage to the coast.
It was like Calcutta in fair week. The town itself was no size at all,
some adobe houses and one or two fairly decent courtyards all
grouped round a fine plaza containing the governor's palace, which
was a long, low colonnaded building, and the bishop's house, and
dozens of stores and posadas. But to get to this you had to pass
*Not to be confused with the better-known Las Vegas, Nevada.
113
through a positive forest of wagons and shanties and huts, and the
paths through, like the streets of the town itself, were swarming wi(|i
people. We were told that the usual population was about a thousand
in the fall of '49 I'd wager it was ten times that, most of then
emigrants who, for one reason or another, found themselves stranded
in the place, with no notion of how they were going to get out.
The truth was, they couldn't afford it. They had swallowed the gold
bait back east, listened to the rosy lies of those who made a forturit
from outfitting and transporting them, and then discovered after a
journey far slower and longer and more expensive than they'c
expected (five hundred miles to Santa Fe, the Fort Smith sharps hac
told them; it was eight hundred) that they were out of cash, out 01
provisions, and out of luck. What little money they had left wa<
swallowed by prices that were plain foolishflour at $1 for ter
pounds, sugar at 25 cents a pound, corn at $2.50 a bushel, firewood a'
25 centseven grass was being offered in the streets by peasant
hawkers at 20 cents the bunch, for there wasn't a mouthful of grazinj
for miles, and something like 6000 cattle to feed.
So the poor emigrants were reduced to selling even their rigs to bu]
food and shelterand lo! a wagon that had cost them $200 now
brought $50 if they were lucky, their horses and oxen they couk
hardly give away, and the household goods and mining gear the;
offered in desperation fetched only cents. Many were plain destitute
unable to go forward or backfor now they learned that it wouk
take another six months at least to California, that the routes (whict
no one was clear about) lay through terrible desert alive with hostiles
and that no military escorts could be provided.
This alarming news we learned from an earnest young subaltern o
dragoons called Harrison with whom we dined in the best of th<
plaza's restaurantsfor with the press of customers it was six to <
small table even there, and a handsome bribe to thejefe at that.
"I doubt if one in ten of these poor souls will ever see California,'
says he. "Even if they had the money, and sure guides on good, well
guarded trails, it would be bad enough; as it is. . ."He shrugged, anc
recommended wine of El Paso (which was excellent), and a fricassef
offender buffalo hump with fiery peppers, called chile Colorado (als<
first-rate, if your belly happens to be lined with copper; if I'd eaten i
at Bent's Fort I could have blown the place up without gunpowder)
I asked him why no escorts, when the town was filled with soldiers
and he laughed.
"You hardly saw an Indian south of the Raton, I'll be bound? No
because the trails were full. Well, in Santa Fe you're living in ai
armed camp, with hostiles all around youCumanches and Kiowa
E
to'the east, Utes to the north, Navajos to the west, and--worst of ^t--Apaches to the south. The reason we can't spare a single sabre for escort is that we're never done just holding the brutes at bay,
protecting the Del Norte settlements, and punishing their raids--
wten we can find 'em. Yesterday I came back from the Galinas,
where we lost two troopers in a skirmish with the Black Legs; in three hours' time I'll be riding out again with fifty men because there's word
of a big band of Mescaleros coming up the Pecos. No, sir--there isn't much time for escorts."
"Well!" says Susie. "That's fine, I must say! An' wots's the... the
government doin' about it, may I ask?"
Harrison shook his head. "If by the government, ma'am, you mean
the governor. Colonel Washington--well, he came back to town
yesterday, having spent five weeks chasing Navajos.28 With four
hundred infantry and troops of artillery. That's what the government
spends its time doing, in these parts."
As Susie had said, this was fine. "Some trains must be reaching
California, surely?" says I.
"Oh, certainly, they have been. Those that are large, and wellarmed,
and properly planned; why, this summer they've been pouring
down the Del Norte in thousands, floating across the Rio Grande on
rafts and flatboats, taking any route west they can find--and getting
there, I don't doubt. But there's no question Indian trouble's becoming
worse, and I wouldn't advise anyone right now to try any but
two roads: Keamy's trail down to Socorro and west, but . . ."he
glanced at Susie "... that's a man's road, if you'll forgive my saying
so, ma'am. The other is down the Del Norte valley beyond Socorro to
Donna Ana, and west to the Gila and San Diego. It's a long, hard
haul, and I'd hate for my family to have to travel it. But if you
provision for the desert, and arm for the Indians, and don't mind heat
and dust, you'll get there."
Susie wondered, thoughtfully, if it wasn't possible to hire a military
escort, and Harrison smiled patiently.
"One escort did go out last month, to convoy the new Collector of
San Francisco--but even he had to wait quite a time. I'm sorry, Mrs
Comber, there just aren't enough soldiers to go around."
The truth was, it became plain, that in taking over the vast Mexican
territory, the Yanks had bitten off more than they could comfortably
chew, and like all governments, were trying to run things at the
cheapest rate--which was why this lad at table with us had lines on his
face that shouldn't have been there for another twenty years, and was
punishing the El Paso vintage as though it were water, without visible effect. Far from pacifying the land, American occupation had made it
1 115
worse, especially now that the great immigrant incursiions}v
making the redskins sit up and take notice--not that thesy need"!
much encouragement. They had been ripping the country to shreds
for centuries during the Spanish and Mexican rules, murd<ering aim
plundering at will, exacting blackmail, inflicting frightful toartures on
prisoners, carrying off the peons as slaves and concubines,, breakin
treaties when it suited, and the dagoes had been powerlesss to ston
them.
They'd tried military action, and been cut to bits; theey'd paid
danegeld without avail. Some Mexican officials had even bueen hand
in glove with the tribes, abetting their raids, and the Mexicarn government
had become callous about atrocities it couldn't preventt anyway.
The war with America had made matters worse; with th(e land in
confusion, the Indians had had a field day, and now when America
couldn't, or wouldn't, put in enough troops, the Indians trealted them
with contempt, and became more insolent than ever. In effcect, they
ruled New Mexico except for the civilised strip down the Deel Norte, which they ravaged systematically, just as much as it would Ibear." It
was enough, says Harrison, almost to make him sympathise with the
old Mexican proyecto de guerra. . ,,. . . u
"What's that?" says I. "War project?" ') 4
"So they called it--a polite name for scalp-hunting. Bac:k in the
'30s, the Chihuahua Mexicans were so hard-pressed they paid a
bounty for Apache scalps--$100 for a brave, $50 for a female . . ." he
grimaced ". . . and $25 for a child. I'm afraid there was no) lack of
degenerates eager to earn the blood-money. The worst was a fellowcountryman
of yours, I regret to say--a scoundrel called Johnsson who
wiped out one of the few peaceful Apache bands and sold theiir scalps
to the Mexicans. Some say it was his massacre that turned the
Apaches from regarding white men as allies against Mexico, and
made them our bitterest enemies. I doubt it, personally;; in my
experience Apaches are the most evil, inhuman creatures on earth--
if their hostility to Americans is recent, it's because their acquaintance
with us barely goes back a generation. The truth is they hate all
mankind. In any event, the scalp bounty brought the foulest kind of
white cut-throat to this country; they're still here, living by murder
and banditry--and in Mexico, which doesn't make our work any
easier. No--I couldn't countenance a revival of the proyecto under
American law30 . . . but when I think of the horrors I've seen
perpetrated by these red savages--"
He'd been talking grim-lipped, staring at his glass, a young man
riding his hobby-horse as only a young man can, but now he broke off
in confusion, and blushed his apologies to Susie for offending her ears
tb such talk. "What must you think of me?" he stammered.
,-Tnexcusable. . .do beg pardon--gracious, is that the time? "He was just a boy, when all was said, bowing over her hand, and courteously disputing the bill with me. "You are too kind, sir," says he, all West
point. "When I return I shall insist on repaying your most enjoyable
hospitality. Sir--Mrs Comber." If you return, thinks I; I'd seen too
iany gallant pups just like him, on the Afghan frontier, and I'd no
doubt the Mescaleros, whoever they might be, were just as adroit at
subaltern-eating as the Afridis.
"Isn't he the sweetest little thing?" says Susie, looking after him
with dewy-eyed lust. "Honest, sometimes I wish I was just startin' in
at the game again. I wouldn't charge 'im a cent." Fine talk before her
lawful wedded, you'll agree; Master Harrison wasn't the only one
who'd been overdoing the El Paso. "Let's 'ave a look at the town, then."
So we took a turn through the bustling, excited streets in the
mellow dusk, admiring the magnificent New Mexican sunset and the
colourful crowds in the Plaza. Every posada and place of amusement
seemed to be at full steam, and packed with pleasure-seekers, for it
was abundantly evident that if many of the immigrants out in the
wagons and shanties were on their beam-ends, there was a multitude
in Santa Pe with money to bum. I'd seen nothing like it since New
Orleans; the booze was flowing like buttermilk, there was laughter
and music wherever you turned, and enough gold and silver and
jewellery in sight to start a Mint. The fashions were brilliant, in the
Spanish style: tall caballeros in fancy shirts and bright mangos', their
flared calzonero pantaloons slashed from hip to ankle and held with
silver buttons, purest clenched between their teeth and embroidered
sombreros hanging from their shoulders by silver cords; they sauntered
arrogantly by, or lounged on the corners with the gaudy poblanat wenches, or watched as the slim senoritas of the better class
swirled past on high Spanish heels, their silks of every colour dazzling
in the lamplight. By jove, it was the place for wanton black eyes and
sleek black hair and creamy skin and heady perfume, wasn't it,
though, with a great flirting of silken ankles and gracefully-held fans
and fringed rebosos^--not a buckskin man, or Yankee trader, or
vaquero but had a slender hand on his arm, and a pretty dark head
nestling against his shoulder as he strode, or reeled, from posada to
'Mexican cloak.
tCigars.
tWorking-class beauty.
Fringed scarf worn round the head.
H ' 117
dance-hall, roaring and singing as he went. There were plenty of
wealthy Americans of good class, local ranchers and merchants, as
well as Mountain Men, trappers, and miners from the Albuquerque
diggings, all getting rid of their pelf as though it was Judgement Day
tomorrow; noisy, insistent peasant men and women who hawked
Indian trinkets or shrilled and quarrelled round the lighted booths;
young emigrant men who still had some cash left and were eager for
the flesh-potsand in the shadows, the beggars and leperos, squatting
against the walls, and the Indians. Not just your verminous Indies
manzos*, but tall, silent figures in their blankets and scrapes, own
brothers to the fighting braves we'd seen on the prairies, who simply
watched with blank faces, or passed without word or glance through
the boisterous throng.
We looked in at a fandango, one of the famous public dances held
in the sola, or ballroom, at one side of the Plazait was simply a great
hall, bare as a riding school, with benches against either wall, one side
for men, t'other for women, and a dais at one end for the musicians,
a demented group of grinning greasers who thrashed away on bandolins,
guitars, tambourines and drums. It was mostly that gay, heady
Spanish stuff, which I like; I'm not a dancer, much, but I love to watch
experts at work, especially female ones, and the sight of those brighteyed,
laughing poblanas, in their polka jackets and short skirts,
whirling as they stamped and clattered their heels, would have done
you good to see. They wheeled, graceful as gulls, whoever their
partnerselegant, hatchet-faced dagoes in mangos, red-faced sports'
sodden on Taos whisky or vino, bearded miners in slouch hats and
red shirts, or great clumsy buckskin brigadeers who whooped and
yelled and capered like Indians. It says a lot for the bandor the
liquorthat there was a Latin sarabando in progress at one end of the
hall while an obstreperous bunch of trappers were performing a
Virginia reel at the other, to the satisfaction of all. But even the
drunkest gave room when a fat little chap in belled sleeves and sasli
took the floor with a tall, crazy-eyed virago in a scarlet silk manga and
flounced skirt; they weren't the bonniest couple there (her moustache
was a shade thinner than mine), but she clacked her castanets and
surged like a stately galleon, and the little chap, perspiring buckets,
clapped and twirled and fairly rattled round her; as the pace increased,
everyone yelled and stamped, "Viva! Vaya! Ole! Hoe en toe, little
greaser! Hooraw, bella manola! Bueno!" and when they danced side
by side from one end of the long sala to the other, both bolt upright
and progressing at a snail's pace although their heels drummed the
*Tame Indians, as opposed to'bravos'. _ -..;< |,
118 "'
floor too fast for the eye to follow, and concluded with a great flourish
and stamp, the roof was like to come off. They bowed, panting, to the
storm of applause, and the spectators showered them with gold and
giver and even jewels: I saw one beauty undo her earrings and toss
them, crying "Brava!", on to the boards, and the stout ranchero with her flung his diamond pin.
"Well, now," says Susie, tapping my arm, "let's see what else
they do for recreation," and we visited one of the many gaminghouses
off the Plaza, where the punters crowded round tables heavy
with doubloons, pesos, and dollars, staking on faro, vingt-et-un and
every other fool's game you could think of. I'd gathered Santa Fe
was an extravagant, wide-open community, but even I was astonished
at the amounts I saw change hands that night; the gamblers
of Santa Fe, whether they were drunk traders, flash greasers,
desperate immigrants, cold-eyed swells with pistols prominently
displayed in their waistbands, or even the couple of tonsured
priests who had an apparently bottomless satchel of coin and crossed
themselves before every cast of the dice, were evidently no pikers.
They were artfully encouraged by the croupiers, many of whom
were Mexican belles in low-cut bodices who took care to bend low
over the table when gathering in the stakes, which always makes the
loss seem lighter. Presiding was the celebrated Dona Tules, a Juno
with long dark-red hair and splendid shoulders who smoked a
dgarro and lounged among the tables with a court of admirers in
tow. 
"Cheap an' showy," sniffs Susie, "an' her paddin' shows, too. Well;
that only leaves one other entertainment, doesn't it?" So to my
embarrassment we sought out the best bordello in town.
"You want me to go in?" says I, taken aback. "What, you're
coming, too? Here, they'll charge me corkage!" But she told me not
to be lewd, and shoved me inside. It was a poor enough place, with a
slatternly madame who eyed Susie suspiciously, but drummed up her
tarts on request, and an indifferent lot they were.
"I see," says Susie. "No, thank you, dear, the gentleman's not
stayin'; 'e's a clergyman, seem' the world."
When we were back in the coach and rolling out to camp, she said
suddenly: "Well, that settles it! They can keep Sacramento--for the
present, anyway. Why, there's more loose money an' good custom in
this town than ever I hoped to see in California--an' I'm about sick of
wagons an' Indians an' travellin', aren't you? A million, did I say?
With gels like ours, an' the kind o' style we can show 'em, it'll be like
pickin' it off the trees. I think we'll just settle down for a spell," says
she to my consternation; she patted my knee with a plump hand and
119
settled back contentedly, "I think we're goin' to like Santa Fe,
dearie." ^i <.''
,^- .a.,;^...,,.,,^ ^
? :-i,Kit''"-.<^S'^?ff;S^". ^ .J
' 'S3t " There was No sense in arguing, so I didn't; for one
thing, I had no wish to plunge ahead into the kind of horror we'd
experienced on the plains, and the prospect of a brief rest in Santa Fe
was welcome. On the other hand, I'd no wish to linger in America,
and was determined to get out of Susie's fond embrace as soon as the
chance arose. One pressing need would be money; like so many of
my women (including my dear Elspeth, I regret to say), she seemed
devilish reluctant to let me get my paws on the purse-strings--they're
a mean sex, you know. So I had to take stock, and see what offered,
while pretending a great interest in the establishment of our brothel.
Susie got her eye on a likely place just off the Plaza, a fine, onestorey
house with plenty of rooms and a good-sized courtyard, all
enclosed by high adobe walls. It belonged to the church, so she paid a
rare price, "but never fear," says she, "we'll make four hundred per
cent on this when we come to sell." Then she hired labour to make it.
habitable, engaged servants and porters, and furnished it with the
gear from New Orleans which had survived our journey. My respect
for her increased when I saw all the stuffs, carpets, curtains, china and
crockery, tables, chairs and beds--including the famous "electrical
mattress", too--and realised that she'd never have come by anything
half so fine west of St Louis; up went the mirrors, chandeliers, and
pictures, and out came the girls' assorted finery; Susie saw to the very
last detail of their personal apartments, and to the appointment of the
public rooms, which included a large reception chamber where the
wenches could be on view between engagements, so to speak, flirting
with the customers while they made their selections; a buffet, and a
gaming-room which I undertook to supervise--for there's no call, you
know, for a man about the bawdy-house, apart from the porterbullies,
and I didn't care to be seen as a mere jack-gagger;* also it
occurred to me that I'd be able to accumulate some private funds,
with careful management. - .[:, : -^: W'.^.'s^,
fh pounds ..''a'-;! " ' I. ^.i't'^i ''rfn
*0ne who lives off immoral earnings. a|fe : t
120 , 1
We opened for business, with Susie dressed like a dog's dinner
queening it in the hall, her cashier in an office to one side, and a
broken-down medico in a little room on the other--"for the only
tluBg they're goin' to leave here is cash," says she, "an' if they don't
lihe being' looked at by the pox-spotter, they can take themselves off,
doable-quick." The girls were all got up in their most alluring finery,
lounging artlessly in the reception on their couches under the shaded
lanps, while Flashy, resplendent in new coat and pants and silk
cravat, shuffled the decks in the gaming-room and waited for the
gulls--and I'm here to tell you that I did a damned thin trade. You
see, they could gamble anywhere in Santa Fe, but they couldn't
fornicate in the style to which Susie's charmers quickly accustomed
them; it was like a madhouse out yonder for a couple of hours, until
she closed the doors, having made appointments for clients who kept
us busy until four in the morning, and when I joined her at dawn and
saw the pile of rhino on her office table--well, there was a cool four
thousand dollars if there was a cent. "Mind you, I won't 'ave the gels
workin' at this pace other nights," says she. "It's important to make a
good impression at first; the word'll spread, an' we'll attract good
custom, but then we can pick an' choose the real genteel--an' put the
prices up. I'm not 'avin' those dirty buckskin brutes in 'ere again,
though; they're just savages! Pore little Marie 'ad to call the porters
twice, she was that terrified, an' Jeanette might 'ave been 'urt bad if
she 'adn't 'ad 'er pistol 'andy."
I saw there was more to this business than I'd imagined--but, by
George, wasn't it a paying spec, though? Better than stock-jobbing or
Army contracts, and just as respectable, really.
We throve astonishingly in that first week, just as Susie had
predicted; our fame spread, and the dago quality began to come in,
not-only from Santa Fe but from the valley below Albuquerque even,
and the rancherias in the country round. We had a rare platoon of
bullies on the gate, and took no riff-raff; even so, there was no lack of
customers, and since they weren't the kind to haggle, she was able to
exact prices that she confessed she wouldn't have dreamed of charging
in Orleans. Oh, she knew her business; taste and refinement, says
she, are what we're after, and she got it; I've known rowdier
drawing-rooms in Belgravia. The tarts seemed to thrive on it, too;
you've never seen such airs.
One thing that alarmed us both, though, was the amount of cash
that piled up in Susie's strong-box in that first week; it would have
given you the frights anywhere, never mind in a town awash with
sharps and slicks who'd have cut a throat for twenty cents. In New
Orleans she'd have banked it, but here there wasn't a strong-room
H". . '121
worth the name. iFrust Susie, though: in no time she'd reached an
arrangement with ione of the governor's aides, and every second o, third day the box w'as hefted across the Plaza by a couple of bluecoah
and the blunt stow<ed under military guard at headquarters--I fan^ the aide's fee was free use of Eugenic every Friday, but I'm n certain; Susie was (dose about business arrangements. But she con. fided that she still wasn't happy about keeping large sums on the
premises between times, and perhaps we ought to hire a reliable, guard. I remarked (that I was on hand, and she went slightly pink and
said, yes, love, but ]I couldn't be awake all the time, could I? ,-s "I was thinkin' wiC might employ Nugent-Hare," she added. --
I didn't care for (this. He and Uncle Dick Wootton had been paid
off with the arrieros and teamsters on Susie's resolve to settle in Santa
Fe, but while Wootfto" had gone off with a hunting party, the bold |
Grattan was still at?out the town. I was against taking him back, I
said; I didn't care fo"" him. ^ni ",
" 'E's been a loya'l servant to us, you can't deny! Wot's wrong with
'im, then?"
"He's Irish, and |n's nose is too long. And I've never trusted him
above half." |
"Not trust 'im--'(pos 'is nose is too long? Wotever d'you mean?"
Suddenly she burst out laughing, catching my hand. " 'Ere, I do
believe you're jealouis! Why, you silly big thing--come 'ere! You are,
aren't you?" She wa^ bubbling with delight at the idea, and kissed me
warmly. "As if I could ever think of anyone but you!" She was all
sentimental in a mon"ent, her arms round my neck. "Oh, Beachie, I
do love you so! Now,, then, let's chase them blue-devils away . . ."
The result was thait Grattan was sought out and offered the post of
chief of the knocking;-shop police, which he accepted, pulling his long
nose and bland as ye1" please. I was surprised--because while I'll do
anything, myself, he didn't strike me as the sort who'd lower himself
to being a whore's ruffian, which is what it amounted to. We
discovered why he'd been so ready, two days later, when the son-ofa-bitch
slipped his caple with two thousand dollars, which fortunately
was all that had been ?n the office desk. Susie was distraught, damning
his eyes and bewailing her foolishness in not heeding me; I was quite
pleased myself, and cPmforted her by saying we'd have the scoundrel
by the heels in no tim'e, but at this she clutched my hand and begged
me not to.
"Why the hell not? " cries I, dumfounded.
"Oh, it wouldn't d<o! Honest, I know it wouldn't! Let the thievin'
little bastard go, an' g(3od riddance! Ow, the swine, if I could lay 'ands
on 'im! No, no, darlir1'. let it be! It'll be cheaper in the long run--it
122
oets a place like ours such a bad name, you see, if there's any -motion with the law! Really, it does--I know! Anyway, Gawd
mows where he's gene by this! No, please, Beachie love--take my ^rdon it! Let it go!"
"Two thousand dollars? Damned if I do!"
"Oh, darlin', I know--but it ain't worth it! We'd lose by it in the
end! Please--I know it's my fault, an' I should 'ave listened to you an'
not trusted the long red snake that 'e is! But I'm soft an' silly--please,
let it alone for my sake?"
; She was so insistent that in the end I shrugged it away--it wasn't
' my pelf, anyway. But I kept my thoughts to myself, and she calmed
down presently and promised that we would make it back a hundredfold
in no time at all.
Which I could well believe, seeing how business was in the second
week. Our clients were more numerous than ever, and their enthusiasm
showed itself in an entirely unexpected way--to me, at any rate,
although Susie said it had been common enough in New Orleans, and
was regarded as a great compliment to the establishment. For now we
began to receive repeated offers from the wealthier patrons who:
] wanted to buy one or other of the girls outright; I recall one enor'
mously fat greaser with an oiled moustache and rings sparkling on his
pudgy hands, sweating all over his lecherous moon face as he made
Susie a bid for Marie--she was the delicate little mulatto with soulful
eyes whose prime trick, I gathered, was to burst into tears beforehand.
"She ees so frail and sweet, like a fresh flower!" cries this disgusting
bag of lard. "She must be mine--the price, I do not care! Name eet,
and I pay. Only I must have her for my own, to protect and cherish;
she consumes me, the little helado negro
Susie smiled and shook her head. "But I couldn't do that, Senor
Cascara de los Pantalunas, even for you! Why, I'd soon 'ave no gels
left, an' then where'd I be? They're not for sale--" :..%
"But I must have her! I weel care for her like . . . like my most
precious brood mare! She shall have an apartment in my hacienda,
with perfumed crystals for her bath, and bon-bons, and a silk coverlet,
and a pet dog from Chihuahua--"
"I'm shore she would," says Susie firmly, " 'cos you're a real
gentleman, I know--but there's the law, too, isn't there? This ain't
slave territory, an' I'd be in a real fix if word got out." ;- .; ;'
"Ah, the Americano law! Who cares? Would eet be known--who
should hear of it?" He grimaced like a sow in labour, and wheedled
horrid. "Are there not t'ousands of slaves? What are the peons, but
chattels? Do not los Indies own many slaves, stolen and bought, and
what does the law know about them? Pleez, Mees' Comber, I beg of
123
you. . . free, four t'cusan' dollar, even--what you will, por Dios! so
I may possess my pure, my delirious angelic Marie!"
But she wouldn't have it for all his groans and entreaties, and he
went off lamentinj to console himself on rented terms with his little
black ice-cream, as hs'd called her. Susie sent all other would-be
buyers the same road, including one I'd not have credited if I hadn't
been present as translator. Believe it or not, he was a priest! Aye,
from the mission just up the Santa Fe Trail, a spruce little runt of
impeccable address who came in secrecy after dark, rnd hastened to
explain that he wasn't a customer, personally, but acting on behalf of
an important client.
"He has heard, as who has not, of the beauty and refinement of the
young ladies who are . . . ah, under the senora's care," says he, and
from his very smoothness I scented a wrong 'un from the start. "I
must make it clear immediately that my patron's intentions are of the
most honourable, otherwise it is unthinkable that I should act as his
intermediary. But he is of consequence, and wishes to take the young
lady to wife. He understands the senora's position, and is prepared to
pay substantial ah. . .compensation."
When I'd recovered, and translated for Susie, she was so took
aback that she didn't offer her usual polite refusal, but asked who the
patron was, and which gal did he want, for Gawd's sake? I passed it
back, and the Pimping Padre shook his head.
"I should not divulge his name. As to his his choice ... he knows
of your ladies only by report, and is indifferent. He would prefer,
however, that she is not too black." -
Susie, hearing this, said she was prepared to wager it was his bloody
bishop; staunch Church of England, was Susie. "Tell 'im we regret
our gals ain't for sale, wotever name 'e gives it," says she. "Compensation,
indeed. An' marriage! A likely tale!"
He was a persistent little terrier, though, and urged the importance
of his patron, the unspecified amount he would cough up, and as a
last resort, the desirability of giving a poor whore the chance to go
straight in wedlock--he didn't put it like that, quite. Susie shook her
head grimly, and repeated her line about the law being the law, and
the girls not being in the market anyway. He took himself off pokerfaced,
and Susie was remarking that it was all this celibacy that made
'em randy as stoats, when I voiced a doubt that had occurred to me
before.
"Hold on," says I. "If it's true what you've been telling them... is
this free territory? Because, if it is, what's to hinder one of the girls
from marrying a suitor--or little Marie going off with old Pantalunas
or whatever he's called? I mean, maybe they'd rather jolly a single
party, with all home comforts as wives or mistresses, than be thumped
by four different randies every night. And if slave law don't run here--why, the whole pack of 'em could walk out and leave you flat!"
"You think I'm simple, don't you?" says she. "Why, I knew all o'
that afore I left Orleans. Leave me flat? Why should they do that--
and where'd they go, silly little sluts that don't know nothink except
'ow to prop a man up? Trust 'emselves to some oily villain like ole
Cascara-chops, who'd turn 'em out as soon as 'e'd tired of 'em? That
much they do know, now. An' they 'aven't the wit to work their own
lay, unprotected--they wouldn't last a week. Wi' me, they're welloff,
well-fed, an' I treat 'em fair; they're never driven or ill-used, an'
they know that when they're past their prime I'll see 'em set up
proper--yes, or married, to some steady feller that / approve of. 'Ow
many 'ores d'you know, in England, wi' prospects as good as my gels?
That's another thing; they are my gels, an' they'd not leave me--no,
not for twenty Pantalunasses. You see, law or no law, they're still
slaves, in 'ere," and she tapped her forehead. "An' I'm Miz Susie, an'
always will be."31
Well, she was the best judge, but I had doubts. I could think of one
at least of her houris who was not a silly little slut, and who could see
horizons wider than those visible in the ceiling mirrors of Susie's
private salons. One Cleonie,to wit, who'd been more passionately
attentive to me than ever since our arrival in Santa Fe. There was a
little summer-house hidden deep in the pines near the back gate, and
when occasion offered she and I would repair to it for field exercises;
since I was preparing to bid Susie adieu I didn't heed the risk, but Qeonie's eagerness astonished me. I'd have thought she'd have
enough of men to sicken her, but apparently not. I discovered why
one afternoon when everyone else was at siesta, and I was sitting
meditating in the dim, stuffy little summer-house with Cleonie astride
my lap going like a drunk jockey and humming "II etait une bergere";
when she'd panted her soul out, and I'd got a cheroot going, she
suddenly says: ,...-; ;.y?K, .,,".'.
"How much do you love me, cheri?" ..c'^^s A -: i;
I told her, oceans, and hadn't I just proved it, but she kept asking me, teasing at me with her lips, her eyes alight in the shadows, so I
reassured her that she was the only girl for me, no error. She
considered a moment, with a little smile.
"You do not love Miz Susie. And soon you will be leaving her, will
you not?"
I started so hard I nearly unseated her, and she gave a little laugh
and kissed me again. "There is no need to be alarmed. Only I know
it--and that because I had a Haitian mother, and we can see. I see it
fc 125
in the way you look at her--just as I see what is in your eyes when you
look at me--aahh!" And she shivered against me. "Why should you
love her--she is fat and old, and I am young and beautiful, n'est-ce
pas?"
If when you're fifty you can light my fire half as well as Susie can,
thinks I, you'll be doing damned well, my conceited little fancy--but
of course I told her different; she'd given me a turn with her prophecy,
and I guessed what was coming next.
"When you go," she whispers, "why do you not take me with you?
Where will you go--Mexico? We could be very happy in Mexico--
for a while. I could make money for us there, and on the way, with
you to protect me. If you love me as you say you do--why do we not
go together?"
"Who says I'm going, though? I haven't--and if Miz Susie heard
one word of this, and what you've said about her--well, I'd think
caning was the least you could expect; she'd sell you down the river,
my girl."
"Pouf! She cannot sell me--this is free soil! You think we don't
know--and that she has said as much, to those who came to buy us?
Oh, yes, we know that, too--already black Aphrodite is listening to
that fat man--what is his name. Pantaloon? He who wished to buy
Marie, only Marie is silly and timid. Aphrodite is not timid--she is of
a force, as I am, even if she is black and rank and lacks education. I
think she will go."
So much for loyalty to the dear old brothel, thinks I. "What about
the others?"
She shrugged. "Stupid little 'ores, what do they know? They would
be lost without the fat Miz Susie to waddle after them like a foolish
old hen." She giggled and arched that superb body. "I shall go,
whether she like or not. With you--because even if you do not love
me as you say, you enjoy me ... and I enjoy you as I have never
enjoyed any man before. So I think we will march well together. . .
to Mexico, hein? And there, if you please, I shall make an establishment,
even as Fat Susie has done--or, if I wish, I may find a wealthy
man and marry him. When will you go?"
It wasn't such a bad notion, when I thought of it--not unlike my
flight with Cassy along the Mississippi. But this one, while she might
lack Cassy's iron will and resource--and I wouldn't have bet on that--
had advantages Cassy had lacked. She was educated, highly intelligent,
a linguist, a lady when she chose, and was ready to work her
passage--that would see me right for cash, which had been vexing
me. And she could keep me warm at nights, too, even better than
Cassy, who'd been a cool fish when all was said. And when we
126
(jecamped, dear Susie could do nothing about it; Cleonie was free as
air. We could travel by easy stages down the Del Norte valley, which
was safe enough, to El Paso, and once in Mexico I could let her make Sufficient to buy me a passage to England. I couldn't see a hole in it,
and I was chafing to be away.
The long and short of it was that we discussed it until the end of the
siesta, and I couldn't for the life of me see why it shouldn't be put in
train at once. She was a smart wench, and had it well figured out; I
must procure a couple of mounts for the journey, which could be
done in the morning, and assemble what packages we needed; I had
enough ready money for that, and she had almost a hundred dollars
of her own--tippique from satisfied customers in Orleans and here in
Sante Fe--so we should be all right to begin with. I must conceal our
packages in the summer-house, and tomorrow night, when the frenzy
was at its customary height, we'd foregather at midnight by the back
gate and be off. There was no reason, really, why we shouldn't have
bowled off publicly, but the less pother the better. I'm always ready,
as a rule, to turn the knife in anyone's wound, but I had a soft spot for
Susie--and recollections of the brisk way she'd corrected John Charity
Spring's exercises for him. I'd no wish to have the porters setting
about me on behalf of a woman scorned.
Next day I bought a very pretty Arab gelding for myself, and a
mule for Cleonie, left them in a livery stable south of the Plaza, and
busied myself for the rest of the day with the final arrangements; by
late afternoon I had our packages stowed in the summer-house, along
with my rifle and six-shooter. Then, for old times sake, I surprised
Susie at her toilet, and let her work her evil will of me as we'd used to
in Orleans; she blubbered, even, afterwards, and my last memory is
of her sitting there in her corset, sighing heavily and exclaiming at her
reflection, with her glass of port beside her. I'll have a drink in the
Cider Cellars for you, thinks I, and closed the door.
It was a slow night in the gaming-room, but all hands to the pumps
in the bedrooms by the sound of it; at a few minutes to twelve I got up
and sauntered through the grounds to the summer-house, and for
some reason my heart was beating fifty to the dozen. I got my hat,
and slipped my revolver into its holster; there was a rustle through the
pines and the patter of feet, and Cleonie was beside me, a cloak over
her head, held at her throat, her eyes shining in that lovely face pale
in the darkness. She threw her arms round me, fairly sobbing with
excitement, and I kissed her with some ardour and gave them a loving
squeeze--goodness, it was all there, though, and as I'd done at every
assignation with her, I shivered in anticipation.
From the distant house came the strains of music, and the faint
: . 127
li
sound of laughter; I cautioned her to wait and slipped out through the |
back gate to see that all was clear. It was an alley leading at one end to |
a street which ran to the Plaza; up there were lights and folk and
traffic passing by, but down here all was in dark shadow. Something
rustled under the wall behind me, and I whirled and froze in my
tracks, my hand fumbling for the butt of my pistol but checked by
sheer terror as a figure moved out from the wall, lean and lithe as a
catand I gasped as the light fell on the tight-stretched skin of a
painted face, with eyes like coals, and above, the double feathers of a
Navajo Indian.
Before I could move there were two others, twin spectres on either
side of me, naked to the waist, but I hadn't had time even to think of
screaming when a voice whispered behind me, and I turned with a
sob of relief to see the little priest. He held out a leather satchel to
me.
"Two thousand dollars, as agreed. Where is she?"
I was so stricken I could only nod at the gate, and then I found my
voice: "Indians, for Christ's sake!"
 "Did you not say this afternoon that men would be needed to carry
her off in silence?" He gestured to the Navajos, and they slipped
silently through the gate; there was a muffled gasp, and a small clatter
as though a chair had been disturbed, and then they were in the alley
again, one of them carrying Cleonie's squirming figure over his
shoulder while a second brave held her ankles and the leader kept a
heavy blanket close-wrapped round her head. He grunted at the
priest, and the three melted noiselessly into the dark while I held the
wall and babbled at the priest.
"My God, those brutes gave me a turn! I thought you'd bring your
own people..."
"I told you today, since you insisted, that my patron was Jose
Cuchillo BlancoJose White Knife. What more natural than that he
should send his own bravos to take her? Whydoes the sight of them
alarm you, on her behalf? Let me point out that you have had several
hours to reflect on it, and on her fate as the wife of a Navajo chief."
"I wasn't expecting those painted horrors to be lurking in the dark,
that's all!" says I, pretty warm. "Look here, thoughwill he really
marry her, d'you think?"
"After their fashion. Does it matter? For two thousand dollars;
perhaps you should count them. Oh, and the receipt, if you please."
So help me the little bastard had a document, and a pencil. "In case
the sale should ever be questioned. It is improbable; the wife of White
Knife is not likely to be seen in Santa Fe againor indeed,
anywhere." '.. ;, ; ,
Iscribbled a signature: B. M. Comber, R.N., retired. "Well, now,
padre, I hope he takes decent care of her, that's all. I mean. it's only
because you're a man of the cloth. . . Tell me," says I, for I was agog
with curiosity, "I didn't care to ask earlier ... but ain't it a trifle out
of the way for a priest to be procuring women for savages'?"
He folded the receipt. "We have many missions in the Del Norte
valley; many villages whose people look to us for help. Cuchillo
Blanco knows this--how should he not, he whose bands have left red : bloody ruin in the settlements these years past? He comes to Santa
Fe; he hears of the beautiful white women whose bodies are for sale;
he desires white women--"
"Now, I told you--she ain't white, strictly speaking. Part Frog, part
nigger--"
"She will be white to him. However ... he fears that there will be
reluctance to sell to an Indian, so he sends word to us: buy me such a
woman, and the missions and settlements will be spared ... for a
season. Shall I hesitate to buy him a woman who gives herself to
anyone for hire, when by doing so I can save the lives--perhaps the
souls--of scores of men, women, and children? If it is a sin, I shall
answer to God for it." I saw his eyes glitter in the dark. "And you,
, senor, with your two thousand dollars. How will you answer to God
" for this--what souls will you tell Him that you have saved?"
"You never know, padre," says I. "Maybe she'll convert your
Navajo chief to Christianity." .':.;;
I picked up my gear from the summer-house when he'd gone, and
went quickly down through the crowded Plaza to the livery stable,
where I slung my few traps over the mule, stowed the heavy purse of
eagles in my money-belt, and rode out on the Albuquerque trail. I
won't say I didn't regret Cleonie's absence--clever lass, fine mount,
charming conversationalist, but too saucy by half, and she'd never
have earned us two thousand dollars between Santa Fe and El Paso,
not in a month of Sundays. <;I"j ;,;
 " ' "".. "" " ' "." '"
for:> A'- -^ * ;
From Santa Fe to Algodones on the river the trail was dotted that
night with emigrant camp-fires, and I passed their clusters of wagons as I rode, first through cultivated land and then through scrubby mesa. The Del Norte was smaller than I expected--you think of the
Rio Grande as something huge, to compare with the Mississippi,
which it may be farther down for all I know; this wasn't much larger
than the Thames, muddy brown and flowing between banks of
cottonwood, with ugly black crags looming up away on the southern
129
horizon. I pushed on through the next night to Albuquerque, a bi
village swollen by the caravans and by the huts of the Mexican and
American miners who worked the nearby gold-field.
Here I sold the mule, and considered crossing to the west bank.
There were wagons and tents clustered all round the ford, and crowds
of people making tremendous work of floating their vehicles and
goods across on rafts and flatboats; the river hereabouts was quite
swift, and about a quarter of a mile across through sandbars and
quicksands. I watched one schooner being poled precariously across
the currents, and then the whole thing pitched slowly into the river,
while fellows roared and struggled in the water and hauled on lines
and got in each other's way, and all was confusion. The west bank
seemed no better than the east, anyway, so I held on south along the
wagon-road, where there was plenty of traffic in both directions.
That was when I discovered a new pleasure in liferiding in the
American west. I'd spent enough time in the saddle on the plains, you
might think, but this was different; here I was alone, and could take
my own time. In other parts of the world one always seems to be in a
great hurry, tearing from one spot to the other at a gallop, but out
yonder, perhaps because distances are so great, time don't seem to
matter; you can jog along, breathing fresh air and enjoying the
scenery and your own thoughts about women and home and hunting
and booze and money and what may lie over the next hill. It's easy
and pleasant and first-rate in every way, and at night you can build
your own fire and roll up in a blanket, or join some other fellows who
are sure to make you welcome, and share a meal with you and a yarn
over coffee or something sensible from a flask. This is in settled
country, you understand.
The Del Norte seemed to be settled enough, for all Harrison's
alarming talk, and if it ain't the finest scenery in the continent it was
new to me. It's not a valley as we in England know the word: the river
runs through its cottonwood fringe past numerous Mexican villages
full of stray dogs and loafers in sombreros, all of 'em either asleep or
(kg^, preparing to lie down. Someone must work the place, though, for
li-ftS there are plenty of cultivated fields beyond the cottonwoods, with
here and there a rancheria or hacienda, some of them quite fine, and
beyond them again the scrubby plain stretching away on either side,
with a dark barrier of mountains to the east, and little else to take the
eye except one great black wedge of rock to the left which I had in
view all through one day's ride. Not Buckinghamshire, but it'll do;
any landscape without Indians suited me just them.
Six days down from Santa Fe I came to the ford at Socorro, where
there was a fair concourse of emigrants. A few miles farther down,
I the Del Norte makes a great belly to the west, and it seemed to me
N from the map that time could be saved by making due south away
11 from the river and behind the Cristobal mountains to rejoin it at
_| Donna Ana. I mentioned this to a Dragoon despatch rider with whom
H I breakfasted at Socorro, and he shook hands solemnly and said
should he write to my family?
"You take that road if you've a mind to," says he facetiously. "It's
I got this to be said for it, it's nice and flat. Other'n that, I'd think hard
I before I'd recommend it. Course, m'ebbe you like the notion of a
'" hundred and twenty-five miles of rock and sand and dust and dead
bones--plenty of them along the old wagon trail. No water, though,
unless you happen to find a rain pool at the Laguna or Point of
Rocks--which you won't, this time of year. But you won't mind,
because the Apaches'11 have skinned you by then, anyway, or rather,
they won't, because before that you'll have died of thirst. That," says
this wag, "is why it's called the Jornada del Muerto--the Dead Man's
Journey. There's only one way across it--and that's to fill your mount
with water till he leaks, take at least two canteens, start at three in the
morning, and go like hell. Because if you don't make it in under
twenty-four hours . . . you don't make it. Staying with the river, are } you? That's your sort, old fellow--good day to you."32
So I crossed the river, like most of the emigrants, and kept to the
trail along its west bank; some of them struck out due west. God
knows where to. There was less traffic now, and by the time I came to
Fra Cristobal I was riding more or less alone. I passed the occasional
hamlet and small party of emigrants, but by afternoon of the second
day after leaving Socorro it was becoming damned bleak; I pushed on
with a great sinister black rock looming across the river to my left,
scrubby bushes and hills to the right, and devil a sign of life ahead.
For the first time since Santa Fe I began to feel a chill down my
spine; the priest's tales of savage bands who roamed this country filled "ly mind, with visions of ravaged villages and burned-out wagons; I began to fancy hidden watchers among the rocks and bushes, and ^enever a fragment of tumbleweed rolled across my path I had the "apours. Far off a prairie dog yowled, and the wind made a ghostly "istle through the cottonwoods. Dusk came down, my spirits sank ^ith it, and then it was dark, and the chill of the night air sank into my ^nes.
There was nothing for it but to stop where I was, curl up under a
"ush, and wait for morning. Not for the life of me was I going to light a "re in that desolation--and on the heels of the thought I caught a
8'unpse, far off through the gloom, of what might have been a spark 01 light. I gulped, and slowly went on, leading my horse; the chances
were that it was emigrants or hunters?-". then ag^". perhaps not. If was a light, sure enough; a camp-fire, and a big on e. I stood irresolute,
and then from the dark ahead a voice made me leap three feet.
"Ola! Que quiere usted? Quien es usted? "
I fairly shuddered with relief. "Amiga! No tiros' Soy forasteror
A shape loomed up a few yards ahead, and I saw it was a Mexican
in a poncho, rifle at the ready. "Venga" says he, so I came forward,
and he fell in behind as I led my horse into a clearing under the
cottonwoods, where the great fire blazed, with v^"31 looked like an
antelope roasting over it. There were groups of men ^eated around
smaller fires, some of whom glanced in my direction--buckskin
hunters, Mexicans, two or three Indians in shirts. Dut mostly rough
traders or hunters, so far as I could see. Close by tl^ main fire stood
a group of three, headed by a burly fellow with feathers in his hat and
two pistols belted over his frock-coat; when he turned I saw he had a
forked beard and a great red birth-mark over half hK face--a Sunday
school-teacher, devil a doubt.
"Who've you?" grunts he, in English, and for some reason or other
I replied: "Flashman--I'm an Englishman. Going to El Paso."
The cold eyes surveyed me indifferently. "You're late on the road.
There's mole in the pan, there--'less you want to ^ait for the buck."
And he turned back to the fire, ignoring my thanks.
I hitched my horse with the others, got out my dixie, and was
helping myself to stew and tortillas when one of his companions, a tall
Mexican in a serape, says: "You go alone to El Paso? It s not safe,
amigo; there are Mescaleros in the Jornada, and Jicanlla bands
between here and Donna Ana."
"Which way are you going yourselves, then?" says I, and the Mex
hesitated and shrugged. Fork-Beard turned for another look at me.
"Chihuahua," says he. "In a week, maybe. Doin' us some huntin'
in the Heeley forest. You want to ride with us?" He paused, and then. added: "My name's Gallantin--John Gallantin." 3
It meant nothing to me, but I had a notion it was supposed to. They
were watching me warily, and I had to remind myself that in this
country men seldom took each other on easy trust. They were a rough
crew, but that in itself was not out of the way; they seemed friendly
disposed, and if there were Apaches on the loose, as the Mexican
said, I'd be a sight safer along with this well-heeled party, even if it
took a few days longer.
The Mexican laughed, and winked at me. "Safer to arrive--how
you say?--than not get there?" '
That wink gave me a momentary qualm for the cargo of dollars in
132
money-belt, but I was in no case to refuse. "Much obliged to you, L(r Gallantin; I'll ride along with you."*
He nodded, and asked had I plenty of charges for my revolver and
C&lt rifle, whereafter I sat down by one of the smaller fires and gave
my attention to the grub, taking stock of the company as I ate. No,
they were more like hunters than bandits, at that; some sober citizens
among 'em, mostly American, although as much Spanish as English was being spoken. But it was English, with a nice soft brogue, that
broke in upon my thoughts.
."I'd ha' sworn the last time I saw you the name was Comber.
Flashman, is it? And where have I heard that before, now?" says
Grattan Nugent-Hare. . i- ..--- * -..-.- .
sWi ^W^fr' -.'.i; v r;
'' v^vk.^' ' x-iOTt ^:;;'; .-s'-fr 1 ." /"s
f.'-ilr,"' ..tsrie-' "-'-,&-<? rf - ' scia---^ ^:,'-> ya:..i^:
lllfe-1 ww...-^'--' -^..,-. -------'-,:., a,a
^1;-:-.',. ate.; ^ iii-tf w^,
y^ij IIStx Since I had my mouth full, it wouldn't have done
to speak, but for a moment I had difficulty swallowing. There he
stood, large as life, pulling at his nose, and then he snapped his
fingers.
"Eleventh Hussars! That duel ... at Canterbury, was it? And
then Afghanistan, seven-eight years back. You're that Flashman?"
My indiscretion could hardly matter down here, so I admitted it,
and he gave that slow foxy grin, but with a harder eye than I
remembered; there was nothing lazy about the set of him, either.
"Well, well . . . wonders never cease. Didn't I know ye were
cavalry? Travelling incog, too. And what might you be doing down Was way, so far from Santa Fe--not looking for me, I hope?"
Until that moment I'd absolutely forgotten that this rascal had two Aousand of my--well, of Susie's--dollars in his poke. Plainly, this tailed for tact.
"Far from it," says I. "Have you spent it yet?"
He took a sharp breath, and his hand moved on his belt. "Let's say '^s cached in a safe place," says he softly. "And there it'll stay. But ye
haven't answered my question: what's your purpose here? Don't tell "^ ye've left that old strumpet?"
"What's it to you if I have?"
133
-^'Faith, ye might have given me waminng, and I'd ha' stayed on, so
I would." The grin was decidedly unpleasisant now. "She'll be needing
a man about the place."
I chewed, and looked him up and dowwn, but said nothing, which
stung as it was meant to. He gave a bark c of a laugh. "Aye, look how
ye like," says he. "It's not that kind of Iclook she'd be giving me, at
all--or did, while I rogcred her fat boOttom off all the way from
Council Grove. Didn't guess that, did yopu?--while you were taking
the tail of every black wench in sight, mciore shame to you!" He sat
down beside me, well pleased with what h he supposed was his bombshell.
"Fair mortified at your infidelity, scso she was--and her such a
fine, hearty woman. Ah, well, she paid you)u back by making a cuckold
of you."
I'd never liked or trusted friend Grattaiw above half even when he
was being civil; now I found him downright detestable. Not, oddly
enough, because he'd kept Susie warm--frfor I didn't doubt his story,
and it didn't diminish my affection for hher a bit. The randy trot,
paying me back in my own coin! And why 1' not?--she'd always known
well enough that I was like the tobyman wtvho couldn't be satisfied by
one woman any more than a miser could bby one guinea, and that I'd
stray sooner rather than later. She was anaiother of the same herself.
And it was gratifying to realise that she'd t been prepared to keep me
-on, knowing I was unfaithful, and never sasay a word; quite a compliment.
Dear Susie. . . no, my dislike ofGra'attan was for his own sweet
sake, nothing else.
"Ye don't seem to mind?", says he.
"Why should I? She's a lustful bitch, andd has to have somebody. I
daresay she preferred you to one of the teairmsters. Not much, though,
or she'd have given you for the asking whihat you had to steal in the
end. I think," says I, rising, "I'll have some e coffee."
He was on his feet when I came back, bu'ut the foxy grin was absent
and the voice less soft than usual. "I don't't care for the word 'steal',
d'ye know? Especially from a man that's s ashamed to use his own
name."
"Then stay out of his way," says I, sippinpg. "He can stand it."
"Can he so? Well, and he'd better sta;ay out of mine," says he
nastily. "And if he has any clever ideas abou'ut a certain sum of money,
he'd best forget 'em, d'ye see? I've seen y<you in action, my Afghan
hero, and I'm not a bit impressed." He tappped his Colt butt.
I weighed him up. "Tell me, Grattan," sasays I. "Did Susie ever cry
over you?" <(
"What's that? Why the devil should she?'?" asks he suspiciously.
"Why, indeed?" says I, and ignored himn, and after a moment h.
swaggered off, but continued to keep an eye on me. He couldn't
believe my arrival had nothing to do with his theft, and certainly it as an odd chance that had brought us together again; no doubt he
too was on the run for Mexico. I'd have set his doubts at rest if he'd
been less offensive about Susie, but he'd proved himself a cheap creature,
without style. Chainy Tenth, what would you? I kept my eye on
trim, too, and when we bedded down I changed my place after an
hour--and in the morning saw that so had he.
We were away before dawn, and I saw that the group was about
forty strong and well able to look after itself, riding two and two, with
point and flank scouts. In the afternoon Gallantin sent two Indians
ahead to find a camp-site; they came back at the gallop, and conferred
with Gallantin and the tall Mexican, constantly pointing ahead; I was
too far back to hear, but the way the word '"Pash!" rippled down the
column, and men began to look to their priming and tighten their
girths, said all that was necessary. We went on at the canter, until we
smelled smoke, and then in a big clearing among the woods we came
on a burning hacienda, a splendid place it must have been, but now a
blackened ruin with the flames still licking on its charred walls, and a
dense pall of smoke overhead.
There were bodies huddled about the place, and a few slaughtered
beasts, but no one gave them even a look; the party scattered on
Gallantin's orders, hunting among the outbuildings and stables, and
the Indians circled about the limits, their eyes on the ground. Presently
there were shouts, and I went with three or four others to where
a couple of our buckskin men were kneeling beside a trough, supporting
the body of a small, white-haired woman; they'd found her
crouched under a blanket in an outhouse, but even when they'd given
her water, she could only gaze about in a stupified way--and then she
began to sing, in an awful cracked voice, and laughed crazily, so they
laid her down on the blanket and resumed their search.
I went with the tall Mexican--and found more than I wanted to.
Behind the hacienda were other smaller houses, all of them smouldering
wrecks, and among them more bodies, scalped and mutilated.
They were all peons, so far as I could bear to look at them, with flies buzzing thick about them; the Mexican stooped over one.
"Dead less than an hour," says he. "A few minutes earlier, by the uts of God, and we would have had them!" He grimaced. "See
there."
I looked, and stood horrified. Only a few yards away, by a high adobe wall, was a row of trees, and from their branches hung at least a dozen bodies, naked, and so hideously mutilated that your first "lought was of carcases slung in a butcher's shop, streaked with
135
blood. They were all hung by the heels, about a foot above the
ground, and beneath each one a fire was still smouldering, directly
under the heads--if you can call 'em heads after they've burst open
"They stayed long enough fer fun, anyway,*' says one of the
buckskin men, and spat. Then he turned away vvitfli a shrug, and said
something to his partner, and they both laughed.
That was the most horrible thing of all--not the hanging bodies or
the scalped corpses, or the vile stench, but the fact that none of
Gallantin's followers paid the slightest heed. No one bothered with a
body, except the Mexican when he pronounced on the dead peon; for
the rest they just hunted among the ruins, and w hatever they were
bent on, it had nothing to do with the two score oa" more poor devils
who'd been murdered and tortured in that ghas-tly shambles. I've
served with some hard cases, but never with any who didn't betray
horror or disgust or pity or at least interest at such "beastly sights. But
not this bunch of ruffians.
Then there was a yell from the other side of nhe hacienda, and
everyone gathered where Gallantin and the Indians were examining
a ball of horse dung in the dust. There was a great buzz of talk as an
Indian and a bearded trapper poked and sniffed, arad then the trapper
cries: "Gramma!" and held up a peck of ordure for inspection. I
didn't know then that these Indians and frontiersn-aen could tell from
the age and composition of droppings just whee a horse has come
from, and who owns it, and what his grandfather had for luncheon
two weeks ago, damned near. (Maize seeds in the; crap mean Mexicans,
and barley Americans, in case you're interested.)
Another Indian was crawling about, examining the ground, and
presently comes up to Gallantin and says; "MimbrKno."
"Copper Mines band, for sure," says Gallantin. '"How many?" The
Indian opened and closed his hands nine times, rapidly. "Ninety
ponies, eh? Maybe two hours off by now, but I doubt it. Headin'
west. Hey, Dario--that smoke t'other day. Could be a camp, huh?
Ninety ponies, could be a couple o' hundred 'Pash.."
"That's forty, fifty thousand dollars," says someone, and there
were yells and laughs and cries of hooraw, boys., while they brandished
their pieces and slapped each other on the brack, sa"^
"Hey, Jack--that's better'n beaver, I rackon!'* &&
"Better'n a plug a plew o' black fox, ye mean!" $ )
"That's your style! Mimbreno ha'r's the prime cr-op this year!"
I'm not hearing right, thinks I, or else they're crazy. I couldn't
make out why they were suddenly in such spirits; -what was there in
this ghastly place to be satisfied about, let alone delighted? And I
wasn't alone, as it turned out; Ilario, the tall Mexican roared to us all
136
to saddle up, and when we came back to the group about Gallantin,
all became suddenly, and shockingly, clear.
Two fellows, one a plain, bearded emigrant sort whom I'd noted as
a sober file the previous night, and the other a youngster of about
twenty, were in hot argument with Gallantin; I came in towards the
finish, when the sober chap was shaking his fist and crying, no,
damned if he would, so there. Gallantin, hunched in his saddle,
glared at him in fury and flung out a hand to point at the burned-out
hacienda.
"Don't you give a dam 'bout that, then? You don't car' that them
red snakes butcher an' bum our folks? You one o' these bastard
Injun-lovers, seem-like! Hey, boys; hyar's a feller sweet on th'
Pashes!" i
There was a growl from the assembled riders, but the sober card
shouted above it. "I give a damn, too! But I ain't no scalp hunter!* There's a law fer them redsticks, an' I rackon th' Army can deal with
'em--" This was drowned in a roar of derision, Gallantin's eye rolled
with rage, and he fairly spat his reply.
"Th'Army, by Christ! A sight o' good th'Army done this place!
You ain't no scalp-hunter, says you! Then what the hell you jine wi'
usfer?"
"We didn't know what you wuz!" cries the youth.
"You thunk we wuz some ole ladies' knittin' party, by the holy?"
"Come on, Lafe," says the sober card in disgust. "Let 'em git their
blood-money ifn they wants." He swung into his saddle, and the
young fellow followed suit. "Scalp-hunters!" growls the. other, and
swung his mount away.
"Whar th' hell you think you goin'?" bawls Gallantin, in a huge
fury.
"Away from you," snaps the youth, and followed his partner.
"Come back hyar! You ain't goin' ter put the sojers after us, by
God!" And he would have spurred after them, I believe, but Ilario
snapped his fingers at one of the Indians, and quicker than light the
brute whipped out his hatchet, and flung it after the departing pair. It
hit the youth square in the back with a sickening smack; he screamed,
and pitched from the saddle with that awful thing buried in his spine,
and as his partner wheeled Ilario shot him twice. The sober chap
rolled slowly past his horse's head and fell beside the other; his horse whinnied and bolted; Ilario spun the smoking pistol in his hand, and
Gallantin cursed horribly at the two fallen men. The youth was
flopping about, with awful gasps, then he was still. No one moved.
"They'd ha' put the sojers on us," says Gallantin. "Waal, thar they
be! Any other chile o' thar mind?"
137
I knew one who wasnot to notice, though, and if any others
shared my doubts they kept quiet about it. It had happened with such
fell speed, and now it was done there was only stony indifference on
the bearded, savage faces of the band. Not all were indifferent,
though; the Indian retrieved his hatchet, and called an inquiry to
Ilario, who nodded. The Indian drew his knife, stooped over the
youth, grunted with disgust, and stepped instead to the corpse of the
older man. He knelt, seized the hair, made one swift circle with his
point, and dragged off the scalp with brutal force. He stuffed the
awful bloody thing into his belt, and then one of the hunters, a huge,
pock-marked ruffian, slipped from his saddle.
"This coon don't see three hunner' dollars goin' ter waste!" cries
he, and no one said a word while he scalped the dead youth. "Rackon
it's good as Mimbreno ha'r, boys!" He grinned round, bloody knife in
one hand and dripping scalp in the other.
"Good as squaw's ha'r, mebbe," cries another. "Kinder fine. Bill!"
A few of the others laughed, and I noticed Grattan was wearing that
foxy half-grin as he sat and tugged at his long nose. Myself, I reflected
that here was another good anecdote for the next church social, and
studied to look unconcerned. What else was there to do?
For like it or not, I was fairly stuck, and while I had much food for
thought as we headed westward into the evening sun, there could be
only one conclusion. Here I was, by the most awful freak of chance,
among a band of those scalp-hunters of whom young Harrison had
spoken, but whom I had supposed no longer existed now that
American law governed the land; it was flattery of a kind, I supposed,
that Gallantin had looked me over and thought me worth recruiting
I recalled our brief conversation of last night, and the way he had
spoken his name; he wasn't to know that he was addressing perhaps
the one man in New Mexico to whom it meant nothing. I'd ride along
with him, I'd said in my innocence, and there was nothing else for it.
Even without the fearful example of those two scalped deserters, I'd
never have dared to quit, in a countryside alive apparently with the
kind of fiends who had wrought the destruction of the hacienda. It
was an irony that I was too terrified to appreciate, that my one hope
lay in the company of these foul brutes who were carrying me mile by
mile closer to battle, murder, and sudden death which I could only
hope would not be mine.
We rode the sun down, and pushed on into steep country of hills
covered with pine and cedar, with only the briefest of halts while
Gallantin and Ilario conversed with our Indians. Mile after mile we
went, through that fragrant maze, and the order came back to eat
from our saddle-bags as we rode, for Gallantin had the scent and
knew exactly where he wanted to go. God knows how many miles it
was, or how he and the others were so sure of the way; I can nightforay
as well as most by the stars, but in those dense bottoms and
ravines, or along those precipitous hillsides, thick with trees, I lost all
sense of direction. But I know we rode fourteen hours from the
hacienda, and I was beginning to believe my Arab must founder
under me when a halt was called.
But even then it was only to take to the woods on foot, groping
through the night with your hand at one man's belt while another held
you behind, trying for dear life not to thrash about like a mad bear in
a cane-break, gripping your rifle and gritting your teeth against the
pain of saddle-sore buttocks. I became aware that the sky was getting
lighter, and Ilario, who led my line, urged us on with whispers; once
he stopped and pointed, and over the bushy ridge ahead was a dim
reddish glow that was not of the dawn. Oh, Jesus, thinks I, now for it,
as we pressed forward slowly up the slope, testing each step before we
took it, no longer in touch but each for himself with Ilario ahead.
Then it was down on our bellies and crawl; the dark was thin enough
to see the man either side and Ilario in front, as he motioned us
forward. We reached the summit of the ridge, and lay screened
among the bushes, drenched in sweat and like to dropbut in no
danger, I assure you, of dozing off.
To explain, as I understood the thing later: Gallantin had identified
the marauders as Mimbreno Apaches of the Santa Rita Copper
Mines, which lay some distance to the south. He had suspected the
presence of a camp of them in this fastness of the Gila forest, a sort of
temporary base to which this particular band had moved, no doubt
for game; Apaches, you must know, are almost entirely nomadic, and
will move on after a week or a few months, as they feel inclined. They
build no permanent houses; their home, as they say, is their fireplace.
Gallantin had further calculated that after their successful attack on
the hacienda, they would return to camp, there to whoop it up in
celebration and gorge and booze on tizwin and cactus-juice, and keep
the girls in stitches with accounts of how their flayed victims had
wriggled over the fires. By dawn he reckoned they would be well
underand here it was dawn, the rays striking down through the
trees into the little valley, and on the heights about Gallantin and Co.
were ready to go into business. (I wondered if Lieutenant Harrison
knew that the going rate for Apache hair was now $300 a pelt. Better
than beaver, indeed.)
Beneath us was a narrow, rocky defile, with a brook running
through it, broadening into a goodish stream at a point where the
defile itself opened out briefly into a level space of about an acre
before it closed again to a rocky gorge. On the level space was the
Indian village, and behind it rocks rose almost sheer for seventy feet
to a forested lip. On our side, the slope down was steep, and studded
with bushes; the ends of the defile were thick-wooded clefts. A
splendid lurking-place, in fact, provided it was never found; Gallantin
had found it, and so it had become a death-trap. If the Apaches had
posted sentries, I suppose they had been dealt with--but I doubt if
they had. Flown with triumph, confident of their remote security,
they wouldn't see the need.
I half-expected that we would rush the place at dawn (and wasn't
relishing a melee in the valley-bottom) and indeed that is what would
have happened if the village had been in an open place with avenues
of escape. What I had overlooked was that this wasn't a military or
punitive expedition: it was hunting. The one aim was to kill the quarry
and take its pelt, at sixty quid the time. If your game can scatter, you
must pounce and take it by surprise; when it's fish in a barrel, your
best road is to sit safe on the edge and destroy it at leisure. (I tried to
explain this once in an article to The Field entitled "The Human
Quarry as Big Game, and the Case for and against Preserving", in
which I laboured the point that to scalp-hunters the Apaches were no
different from bear or wolf or antelope--of course they hated the
brutes, but they ain't too sweet on wolf or lion, either, and a hunter's
hate tends to be in proportion to his fear of the quarry. Oh, there
were some to whom the lust of slaughter was sweeter than the scalp- price--folk who'd had families murdered and tortured and enslaved
by these savages, or those, like myself that day, who perfectly enjoyed
paying back what had been done at the hacienda--but for most it was
a matter of business and profit. I cited the case I've described to you
in which the hunters scalped two of their own kind, and pointed out
that there were those in New Mexico at that time who claimed that
Gallantin's practice of selling any hair he could get--Mexican, American,
friendly Indian, and the like--was ethically unsound; it gave
scalp-hunting a bad name, they said. The Field didn't print my piece;
limited interest, you may say, but I hold that it's a matter worth
serious discussion, and would have provoked a fine correspondence.)
So we waited, as the light grew until we could easily see the sprawl
of wickiups on the level ground beyond the stream--they're big skin
igloos with willow frames, perhaps twenty feet across, and can hold a
family with ease, with a hole on top to let out smoke and stink. The
whole place was filthy with refuse, and a few curs were prowling
among it; here and there a human being was to be seen--a couple of
braves sprawled and presumably drunk in the open; an old woman
kindling a fire; a boy playing at the stream. Down near the gorge end
140
was a rough corral in which were about a hundred ponies. Ilario
passed whispered word of the range: a hundred and twenty yards. I
looked to my caps, eased out my pistol, and examined my revolving
rifle, head well down in the rough grass of the crest. There were about
fifteen of us spread along it, five yards apart; the remainder of our
band were evenly divided among the trees at either end of the defile.
Nothing could get in or out. Nothing did.
The place began to stir, and I got my first look at the famous
Apaches--the Sheeshinday, "Men of the Woods", or as they are
widely and simply known, "the enemy". I'd had an impression that
they were small, but not so. These, being Mimbreno of the Copper
Mines, were not among the largest; even so, they were sturdy, wellmade
brutes, ugly as sin, and lithe and easy in their movements. Their
hair was long and undressed, and while some wore it bound in a scarf,
most were bare-headed except for a brow-circlet; a few were in shirts
and leggings, many wore only the breech-clout. The women, in
tunics, were buxom peasants--no tall, willowy jungle princesses here;
their voices, shrill and sharp, floated across the stream as they fetched
water or busied themselves at the fires, with the kidneys and kedgeree,
no doubt. A few braves sauntered down to the corral, others sat
outside the wickiups to yawn and gossip, and one or two began to
paint, an operation which seemed to call for much care, and criticism
from bystanders.
There must have been more than a hundred and fifty in view when
one fellow in fringed leggings and a blanket stood forth and told the
others to fall in, at which most of the men drifted in his direction tolisten--the
hunter next to me snapped his fingers softly and nodded,
cocking his piece; I passed the signal on, and lay with my heart.
thumping. At a whispered word I pushed the rifle cautiously forward,
covering a stout savage on the edge of the main group, my foresight
just above his rump; I won't pretend I had a vision of those bodies
at the hacienda, or any nonsense of that sort--he was a target, and
any soldier, from the saintly Gordon downwards, would tell you the
same . . . crack!
The shot came from the gorge, and the whole rim of the valley
exploded in fire and smoke. I squeezed off, and saw my savage leap
and topple sideways; around him they were falling, and the whole
camp boiled with dust and re-echoed with screams and the boom of
shots as we poured our fire into them point-blank; I missed a tall
fellow, but spun another round as he bolted towards the corral, and
then I was firing steadily into the brown.
It was deadlier than a Galling, for here each man was a marksman,
and there were forty of us with six-shot rifles, except for one or two
141
long-gun eccentrics who never missed anyway. a Sharp's fires six to
the minute, and a Colt rifle considerably faster. Within two minutes
there wasn't a live male Indian to be seen, and thie ground was littered
with bodies, none of 'em wounded, for any that kicked became
instantly the target for half a dozen rifles. Aboulf a dozen had reached
the corral, and came out like bats along the stream, but they got no
distance; a few more dashed frantically throufch the water towards
our position, and were cut down before they'y got half way up the
hill. The slaughter was all but complete.
; There remained the wickiups, and now our <own Indians emerged
at either end of the defile, with burning arr<ows which they shot
methodically into the skins. There were shrieks from within as the
lodges began to burn, and out dashed the feimales, with here and
there a brave among them; the men were pickey off while the women
screamed and nulled about like ants; one or twog may have been hit as
they ran blindly among the flaming wickiups, o>r cowered at the foot
of the cliff behind. Round the lip of the valley hmng a great wreath of
powder smoke as our fire ceased; now there was no sound except the
dry crackle of the burning wickiups, and the m^uted wails of terrified
women and children.
Parties of hunters broke from the trees at eitther end of the defile,
and Ilario stood up and waved us down the him. }ve went quiet and
careful, without whoop or halloo, because thereg had been no victory,
and hunters don't yell and caper when they've downed their quarry.
There were one or two shots, as victims were m^ade certain, and a few
shouted commands; for the rest we splashed iin silence through the
stream to the corpse-strewn camp, where Gallaantin was waiting.
Guards were posted on the women and hors^es, and then out came
the knives as they prepared to do what they ha<id come to do. I shan't
horrify you with more detail than I must, but on<ie or two points should
be recorded for history's sake. One was made; by a buckskin hunter
who was divesting a corpse of all the skin and 1 hair above its ears, at
which his mate, neatly removing the top-knol)t from another head,
remarked that the first chap was being unnecessarily thorough, surely,
to which the buckskin man replied that the (Chihuahua authorities
liked to see a full scalp.
"Ye see, some sonsabitches," says he as hhe panted and sawed
away, "has bin takin' we scalps offn wun haid,.' so the Mexes is grown
chary o' leede scalps. Yew want yore full mo^ney, yew tek th' hull
shebang! Come hup, ye bastard! Thar, now!"
Another thing I noted was that all scalps wennt into a common pile,
which a popular novelist would no doubt describe as "reeking"---
heaven knows why. They don't reek; en masse; they look like a cheap
and greasy black rug. Gallantin stood by and kept careful count as
they were salted; there were a-hundred and twenty-eight all told.
You may wonder if I took a scalp. The answer is no. For one thing,
I wouldn't touch an Indian's hair on a bet, and for another, it's a
skilled job. It did cross my mind, though, as something to have done, if you follow me--as I wrote for The Field, it's a nice point which
trophy on your wall does you greater credit, the head of a pretty,
gentle impala, or a switch of hair marked "Mimbreno Apache, Gila
forest, '49". I even wandered across the stream to one of the bodies
that had fallen on the hillside, and considered it a moment, and then
came away quickly. He must have been all of eight years old.
That was the point at which I was sickened, I confess--by that and
the cold, brisk efficiency with which the scalpers worked. There were
a few crazy ones who obviously enjoyed it--I was intrigued to see
Grattan red to the wrists, with a wild look in his eye--but for most of
them it was no more than chopping wood. And if you cry out on
them, as you should--well, be thankful that you weren't born along
the Del Norte, and the matter never arose for you.
As for the massacre itself, I've been on t'other end too often to
worry overmuch. The scalping was beastly, but I couldn't regret the i dead Apaches, any more than Nana's people regretted us at Cawn- i
pore. And if you've marched in the Kabul retreat, or fled from
Isandhlwana, or scaled the Alma--well, the sight of six score Indians
piled up without any tops to their heads may not be pretty, but when
you reflect on what deserving cases they were, you don't waste much
pity on them.
I won't say I was at my cheeriest, though, or that I ate much at
noon, and I was quite happy to be one of a party that Galantin sent
out to circle the valley for Indian sign. There wasn't any--which is the
worst sign of all, let me tell you--and we caitae back at evening to find
the camp cleared up, with a great fire going, and the real devil's work
about to begin.
You will remember that the women had been rounded up, more or
less unharmed, and if I'd thought about them at all I dare say I'd have
concluded that they would be spared, give or take a quiet rape or so.
h fact, I discovered that the habit of Gallantin's gang of charmers was to while away the night with them, and then slaughter and scalp
them the next day--along with the children. If you doubt me, consult Mr Dunn's scholarly work*, among a score of others, and note that ^Qproyecto made distinctions of age and sex only by price.
I was eating my stew like a good lad, and washing it down with
*J. P. Dunn's famous Massacres of the Mountains, 1886.
143
more corn beer than was good for me, when Ilario came over to
where I and a couple of others were sitting; he carried a leather bag
which he shook and proffered; not thinking, I reached in like the
others, and came out with a white pebble; theirs were black, at which
they cussed roundly, and Ilario grinned and jerked his thumb.
"Felicitaciones, amigo! You first!" cries he, and wondering I fol.
lowed him over to where the main party were seated round the great
fire, with Gallantin in the place of honour; three hunters were ranged
before him, grins on their ugly faces as their mates chaffed them and
they answered with lewd boasts and gestures. Then I saw the four
Indian women off to one side, and understood; presumably they were
the pick of the crop, for all were young, and presentable as squaws
can be in dirty buckskin and an agony of fear.
"He the last?" cries Gallantin, and if you had seen that blotched,
fork-bearded face, and the crowd leering and haw-hawing either side
of him, you'd ask no better models for Satan and his infernal crew.
They'd been brisk and disciplined enough in action, but now they'd
been at the tizwin and cactus juice, and the true beastliness was on the
surface as they waited eager for their sport.
"Now, then, Ilario, look alive!" shouts Gallantin, and Dario faced
us with his back to the squaws. "Who shall have her?" Gallantin was
pointing at one of the girls, unseen by Ilario, who grinned and kept
everyone in suspense before indicating a squat, bearded fellow next
to me.
The brute whooped and rushed to grab his prizeand to my disgust
he set about her then and there, in front of everyone! How they yelled
and cheered, those charmers; I can see their bestial, grinning faces
still, and the bearded man on top of the struggling squaw, his backside
going like a fiddler's elbow. Gallantin yelled above the din for the
second girl, and again Ilario named a man; this one at least had the
decency to haul her away, half-fainting as she was, to some private
place, pursued by the groans of that mob of devils. Then it was the
third girl, and this time Dario pointed to me.
"Goddam!" yelled the ape beside me. "I wanted that 'un!" and
they cat-called with delight at his disappointment. "Hooraw, Jem
don't ye wish ye cud! Haw-haw, she's yore sort, though." And as he
made off with the last wench, they egged me on to be at the third one.
"Go on, hosslay aboard! Whuthe's th' Englishman? I say, ole
feller, give 'er th' Union Jack, haw-haw!"
If she'd been Cleopatra, I wouldn't have wanted her, not then. I'd
never felt less like venery in my life, not in that ghastly place, after the
sights I'd seen, and with that obscene mob about me; even apart from
that, she did not prepossesswhich shows how wrong you can be. As
} looked across at her, I saw only an Indian girl in a grubby fringed
tunic, with long braids of hair round a chubby, dust-stained face; the
only thing different about her was that where the others had cowered
and trembled, she was straight as a ramrod and looked dead ahead; if she was frightened, it didn't show.
"Go on!" roars Gallantin. "What ails ye, man? Go git 'er!" And he
seized her by the shoulder and thrust her forward at my feet. Nice
point of etiquette--I didn't know what to do, in that company, as
they roared drunken encouragement and vile instruction, and the
bearded man and his victim heaved and gasped on the ground a
couple of yards away. Turned on my heel, possibly, or said "Your
bird"; my girl scrambled to her feet, eyes wide now and fists clenched,
and for no good reason that I can think of, I shook my head at her as
I stood irresolute. The mob bayed and bellowed, and then a wellknown
voice sang out:
"He can't! The great soft Limey bugger! Well, here's one'U deputise
for him, so he will!" And Grattan Nugent-Hare stood forth, a
trifle unsteady on his feet, flushed with tizwin, and a triumphant sneer
on his face as he reached for the girl.
Now, I ain't proud, and I'll run from a fight as fast as any; if it had
been another man I don't doubt I'd have swallowed the insult and
slunk off. But this was the detestable Grattan, who'd bulled Susie
unbeknownst, and had a nasty long nose, and gave himself airs--and
was three parts foxed, anyway, by the look of him. He was unprepared,
too, as he grabbed the girl by the wrist--and my temper boiled
over. I lashed out with all my strength and caught him full in the face;
he went back like a stone from a sling, into the circle of watchers, who
whooped with glee--and then he was on his feet like a cat, his nose
spurting blood, mad rage in his eyes and a hatchet in his hand.
There wasn't time to run. I ducked his murderous stroke and
sprang away, and Gallantin yelled: "Hyar, boyee!", jerked out his
Bowie, and flipped it towards me. I fumbled and grabbed it, diving
aside as Grattan swiped at me again. His hatchet head nicked the very
edge of my left hand, and enraged by pain and terror, I hacked at his
face; a Bowie is not a knife, by the way, but a two-foot pointed
cleaver, and if I'd got home it would have been brains for supper, but
he caught my wrist. In a frenzy of panic I flung my weight at him and
down we went. Flashy on top, but drunk or not, he was agile as a
lizard and wriggled out from under, letting drive with that razor-sharp
axe as we regained our feet. It whisked so close above my head I
believe it touched my hair, but before he could swing again I had my
left hand on his throat and would have been well set to disembowel
him if he hadn't seized my wrist again. I was bellowing with rage and
145
1
funk, throwing up my left elbow to hamper his axe-hand; strong as he
may have been, he was no match for Flash in brute coward strength
and I bore him back in a great staggering run and with one ahnighty
heave pitched him headlong into the fire.
There was a terrific yell from the onlookers as he rolled out, sparks
flying and his shirt smouldering. I'd have run then, but seeing him
helpless I leaped on him, stabbing the earth by mistake in my
eagerness. He hacked and clawed, and as we grappled on our knees I
butted him hard in the face; it jolted him sideways, but he surged up
at me again, axe raised, and I just managed to block his arm as he let
drive. The jar of our forearms knocked me back; he hurled himself
on top of me, and gave a horrible shriek of agony; his face was only
inches from mine, mouth wide and eyes glaring--and then I felt his
body go limp and realised that my right hand was being drenched with
something warm. It was gripping the Bowie, and the blade had
impaled Nugent-Hare as he fell on me.
I flung him off, and as I scrambled up he rolled over and lay with
the hilt protruding from his midriff. For a moment I was rooted with
shock; there lay the corpse, and just beyond it was the bearded fellow
still on top of his squaw, his eyes round in fear and amazement. That was how quickly it had happened: a mere few seconds of fevered
hacking and struggling, with no respite for truce or flight, and
Nugent-Hare was in a pool of blood, his eyes sightless in the fireglare,
with that awful thing in his body.
There was dead silence as I stood in a daze, my right hand dripping
blood. I stared round at the faces--astonished, curious, frozen in
grins, or just plain interested. Gallantin came forward, stooped, and
there was an involuntary gasp from the watchers as he retrieved the
knife. He glanced from me to the girl, who stood petrified, her hands
to her mouth. Gallantin nodded, 's
"Waal, boss," says he to me, conversational-like, "I reckon you
earned her for the night."
That was all. No outcry, no protest, no other observation even. By
their lights it had been fair, and that was that. (I put it to a good silk,
years later, and he said a civilised court would have given me two
years for manslaughter.) At the time, I was numb; he wasn't the first
I'd killed hand-to-hand, by any means--there'd been Iqbal's nigger at
Mogala, a Hova guard in Madagascar, and dear old de Gautet dipping
his toe in the water at the Jotunschlucht, but they'd been with my
eyes open, so to speak, not in a mad, sudden brawl that was over_
thank God, before it had well begun. -. ,. ;;?;,' '|
Stupified as I was, some instinct must have told me not to refuse
Gallantin's invitation a second time--it's a good rule, as I hope I've
Ji
demonstrated, that when scalp-hunters offer you a squaw, you should I take her away quick and quiet, and if you don't fancy her, then teach j (,er the two times table, or "Tintem Abbey", or how to tie a
H sheepshank. I think I may have taken her wrist, and no doubt my
aspect conquered resistance, for next thing I knew I was leaning
against a tree in the grove beyond the corral, being sick, while she
stood like a graven image and watched me. When I'd recovered I sat
down and looked at her, not carnally you understand, but bemused1
like. It was middling dim, away from the fires, and I beckoned her so
that I could see her face; she came, and I examined her.
She was plump-cheeked, as I've said, and under the grime by no
means ill-favoured. Rather a hooked little nose, small sullen mouth,
and slanted eyes under a broad brow; she didn't smell unpleasant,
either, although her tunic was filthy and torn. What was under it
looked passable enough, too, but I was too shaken and fagged out to
care. She looked down at me wide-eyed, but not fearful--and then
| she did an extraordinary thing. She suddenly dropped to her knees,
" took one of my hands between both of hers, stared at me closely, and
. said: "Gradai."
I I was quite taken aback. "Entiende EspanolT', and she nodded
and said: "Si." Then after a moment she looked back towards the
firelight and shivered, and when she turned her face again there were
tears in her eyes and her mouth was open and tremulous. "Muchas
| gracias she sobbed, and dropped her head on my knees and clung
i! to my legs and had a fine bawl to herself.
Well, one likes to be appreciated, so I patted her head and
murmured some commonplace, at which she raised her face and
looked at me dumbly; then she heaved a great sniffing sigh, but rather
spoiled the effect by turning aside to spit copiously. She mopped at
her tears, and continued to watch me, very grave, so to cheer her up
I tapped her cheek and gave her the polite smile I reserve for females
on whom I have no designs. She smiled back timidly, showing rather
pretty teeth; it occurred to me that when washed and combed and
stripped she'd be perfectly presentable, and since I was feeling rather Bore settled now I placed a hand gently on her shoulder. Her eyes
widened a fraction, but no more, so I gave her my impish grin and Yery slowly slid my hand inside her tunic neck, so that she had every
Pportunity to start or shudder. She didn't; her eyes were as solemn te ever, but her lips parted on a little gasp, and she kneeled upright as 1 took hold--by Jove, it was Al material, and quite restored me. I ^ueezed and stroked her lightly, asking myself was she all for it or merely steeling herself for the inevitable; I do prefer 'em willing, so I "ssed her lightly and asked: "Con su permisoT'
. 147
She started at that, quite bewildered for a moment; then her eyes
lowered, and I'll swear she stifled a smile, for she glanced at me
sidelong and gave that little lift of the chin that's the coquette's salute
from Tunbridge Wells to Pago Pago, as she murmured: "Qwio quiera
usted."
I pulled her on to my knee,, and kissed her properlyand if you've
been told that Indians don't know how, it's a lie. And I was just
slipping her tunic from her shoulders when an odd movement in the
distant firelight caught my eye through the thin branches which partly
shielded us.
A man appeared to be dancing beside the fireand then I saw it
was not a dance but an agonised stagger, as he clutched at something
protruding from his neck. His scream echoed through the trees, to be
drowned in a crash of gunfire and whistle of shafts, figures leaped up
around the fire, men shouted and ran and fell in confusion, and my
pearl of the forest was hurled aside as I sprang to my feet. From the
woods all about sounded blood-freezing whoops, shots boomed and
echoed along the valley, bodies were rushing through the thickets.
All this in a second; I could see Gallantin by the fire, rifle raised, and
then he and the whole scene before me slowly turned upside down
and slid from view; my body shook and a numbness in my head
turned to a blinding pain as I fell forward into darkness.
. -.sSiU . .-" 'WW
'"' There's no question that a public school education
is an advantage. It may not make you a scholar or a gentleman or a
Christian, but it does teach you to survive and prosperand one
other invaluable thing: style. I've noted that Grattan-Hare didn't
have it, and you know what happened to him. I, on the other hand,
have always had style by the cart-load, and it saved my life in the Gila
forest in '49, no error.
Thus: any other of Gallantin's band, given possession of my
Apache lass, would have gone at her bull at a gate. I, once I'd decided
on reflection that I might as well rattle her as not, set about it with a
deal of finessechiefly, I admit, because it's better sport that way.
But I knew how to go about it, that's the point, patiently and smoothly
and with. . .style. - j
148
1 You must understand the effect of this, of Flashy imposing his
itinning ways on that fortunate native wench. There she was, a
helpless prisoner in the hands of the most abominable ruffians in
North America, who had butchered her menfolk before her eyes and yere about to subject her to repeated rape, possible torture, and
certain death. Up jumps this strapping chap with splendid whiskers,
who not only kills out of hand the cad who is molesting her, but
thereafter treats her kindly, pets her patiently, and absolutely asks
permission to squeeze her boobies. She is astonished, nay gratified,
and, since she's a randly little minx at bottom, ready to succumb with
pleasure. All thanks to style, as inculcated by Dr Arnold, though I
wouldn't expect him to claim credit for it.
And mark the sequel. When other of her tribesmen, having got
wind of the massacre, attack the scalp-hunters by night, she is alarmed
for her protector. If he joins in the scrap--the last thing I'd have
done, but she wasn't to know that--harm may come to him, so being
a lass of spirit she ensures his neutrality by clouting him behind the
ear with a rock. Then, when her tribesmen have wiped out or
captured most of the marauders (Gallantin and a few others alone
escaped)33 she is at pains to preserve her saviour from the general
vengeance. Had he been a man without style, she'd have been the
first to set about him with a red-hot knife.
Mind you, luck was on my side, too. Had she been any common
Indian wench, it would have been Flashy, b. 1822, d. 1849, R.I.P.
and not even a line in the Gazette, for her rescuers wouldn't have
heeded her for an instant; I'd liave been just another white scalp- hunter on whom to practise their abominations. But since she happened
to be Sonsee-array, the MomingStarTakesAway-CloudsWoman,
fourth and dearest daughter of Mangas Colorado, the
great Red Sleeves, chief of the Mimbreno, lord of the Gila, and
scourge of plain, forest and mountain from the Llanos Estacados to Ae Big-Canyon-Dug-by-God, and since she was also famous for having more beads and trinkets than any other female since time began, and for never having worked in her young life--well, even a Bronco brave with blood in his eye takes notice, and decides to
humour her.
So they contented themselves with stripping and hanging my "nconscious carcase upside down from the cottonwoods, along with "lose of a dozen other scalp-hunters who'd been unlucky enough to
survive the attack. They then built fires under us in the approved 'ashion, but at Sonsee-array's insistence refrained from lighting mine ""til she had stated her case to the great man. Meanwhile they ^guiled the time by slowly removing the skins from my fellow149
unfortunates, a process in which she and the other squaws gleefully
joined. Mercifully, I was dead to the world.
When I came to I was blind, with a thunderstorm drumming in my
skull, and my whole body in torment; to make matters worse, a voice
nearby was alternately babbling for mercy in Spanish and screeching
in agonythat, though I didn't know it, was Ilario being flayed alive
on the next tree. The screams died away to a whimper, with an awful
distant chorus of cries and groans and hellish laughter; closer at hand
voices were talking in a mixture of Spanish and some language I didn't
understand.
I struggled to force my eyes open, trying to get to my feet but not
able to find ground anywherethat's what it's like to come awake
when you're hanging upside down. I was floating, it seemed, while
my feet were being torn away; then nay eyes opened, I could smell
smoke and blood, and before me were human figures the wrong way
upand then I realised where I was, and the ghastly sight of those
bodies at the hacienda flashed across my mind, and I tried to scream,
but couldn't.
"Porque no?" were the first words I made out. "Why not?", in a
double bass croak so deep it was difficult to believe it came from a
human being (I'm not so sure, from my later acquaintance with him,
that it did). A woman's voice answered, high and fierce, mostly in
Spanish, but there were men's voices trying to interrupt her, and in
shouting them down she sometimes lapsed into the unknown tongue
which I guessed must be Apache.
"Because he was good to me! When the others, like that dog-dirt
there" there was a horrid smack, and yells of laughter as she took a
swipe at the unhappy Ilario "would have raped and killed mehe
fought for me, and slew a man, and used me gently! Are you all deaf?
He is not evil, like these others!"
"He has white eyes!" shouts some curmudgeon. "Why should he
be spared?"
"Because I say so! Because he saved me while you cowards were
asleep, or hiding, or... or defecating under a bush! / say he shall not
die! I ask my father for his life! And his eyes are not whitethey are
dark!"
"He is pinda-Kckoyeethe enemy! He is Americano, scalp-taker,
butcher of children! Look at the bodies of our people, mutilated by
these beasts"
?. "He did not do itif he had, why should he help me?"
-. "Huh!" sulkily, and knowing grunts. "All men help you} Evil me0
(I Bftlllll as well as goodyou know the art of getting help."
i IBt'M "Liar! pig! Bastard! ^ylum? of rotte" buffalo dung"
"Basta1.'" It was the bass voice again. "If he doesn't die, what will you do with him? Make him a slave?"
That seemed to be a facer for her; she wasn't sure, and there were
sceptical grunts and sneers, which drove her wild. In a passion she
cried that she was a chiefs daughter and would please herself. The
sense of the meeting seemed to be, oh, hoity-toity miss, and the
leader of the opposition said no doubt she would want to marry the
white-eyed villain . . . you understand that I give you the gist of the conversation, so well as I heard and understood it.
"And if I chose to, what then?" cries madam. "He is braver and
more beautiful than any of you! You stink! Black Knife stinks! El diico stinks! The Yawner stinks! And you, Vasco--you stink worst
of all!"
"Do we all stink, then, except this creature? Does your own father
stink?" The bass voice sounded closer, and through blurred eyes I
made out two massive legs beneath a hide kilt, and huge booted feet.
"He is big, even for an Americano. Big as a Striped Arrow*."
"Not as big as you, father," says she, sweet and tactful. "Nor as
strong. But he is bigger and stronger and fiercer and faster and
prettier than Vasco. But then--a Digger's arse is prettier than that!"
I must have fainted, for that's all I remember until a strange period
of half-consciousness in which I was aware of women's voices muttering,
and hands working on my body with what I suppose was grease
or ointment, and being given a drink, and the pain ebbing from my
head. At one time I was in a wickiup, and a dirty old crone was
spooning some mush of meat and corn into me; again, I was being
carried on a stretcher, with open sky and branches passing overhead.
But it was all confused with evil dreams of hanging upside down
among flames, and then I was plunged head-foremost into the icy
depths under Jotunberg with Rudi Stamberg's wild laugh ringing in my ears. Women's faces swam up through the water towards me--
Elspeth blonde and lovely and smiling, Lola sleepy-eyed with lips
pursed in mockery, Cleonie pale and beautiful and very close as she
hummed softly: "Oh-ho-ho, avec mes sabots!", and as her mouth
closed on mine it was Susie who teased and fondled and smothered ne in flesh, which would have been capital if we had not been "pside-down with fellows arguing in Spanish, among them Arnold ^ho said that all scalp-hunters at Rugby knew perfectly well that a
gerundive was a passive adjective, and Charity Spring shouted that
"we was one who didn't, this graceless son-of-a-bitch hung by the "eels with his fat whore, and he must die, at which Arnold shook his
*Cheyenne.
151
head and his voice echoed far away: "I fear, captain, that we have
failed. . .".and Susie's plump, jolly face receded, her skin darkened,
the bright green eyes dissolved into new eyes, that were black in
shadow and cinnamon as the light caught them, set between slanting
lids that were almost Oriental. Lovely eyes, like dark liquid jewels
that moved slowly and intently, absorbing whalt they saw; whoever
you are, I thought, you don't need to talk ...
. . .the chubby-faced Indian girl stood above nne, looking solemnly
down; I was lying in a wickiup, under a blanke't, and the horror of
memory rushed back and hit me in the ribs withi a boot belonging to
one of the ugliest devils I've ever seen, who snau-Ied as he kicked: a
young Apache in hide kilt and leggings, with a dlirty jacket about his
shoulders and a band round the lank hair that fraimed a face from the
Chamber of Horrors. Even for an Apache it was, wicked--coal-black
vicious eyes, hook nose, a mouth that was just a cruel slit and wasn't
improved when he laughed with a great gape thait showed all his ugly
teeth. %<!
"Get up, perro} Dog! Gringo! PindalickoyeeV"
If you'd told me then that this monster would (one day be the most
dreaded hostile Indian who ever was, terror of hialf a continent--I'd
have believed you; if you'd told me he would b)e my closest Indian
friend--I wouldn't. Yet both were true. and sttill are; he's an old,
done man nowadays, and when we met last yeair I had to help him
about, but mothers still frighten their children with his name along
the Del Norte, and as for friendship, I suppose (one scoundrel takes
to another, and we're the only ones left over from that time, anyway.
But at our first meeting he scared the innards out of me, and
I was deuced glad when the girl cried out beforre he could kick me
again. :'1, f''';;'& r-
"Stop, Yawner! Don't touch him!" ' -->
"Why not? It feels good," snarls my beauty, with another great
gape, but he left off and stepped back, which wass a double relief, for
he stank like a goat in an organ-loft. I thought I'd I best obey nevertheless,
and struggled up, weak and dizzy as I was, fear I realised that any
hope I might have in my fearful plight depended on this girl I'd rescued ... it must have been she who had spokesn up for me when I
was hanging helpless . . . now she was intercediing again, and with
authority. Decidedly she deserved all the fawnimg courtesy I could
show her. So I struggled painfully upright, gasping with my aches and
holding unsteadily to the blanket for modesty's saike while I muttered
obsequiously, muchas, muchas gracias, senoirita. The Yawner
growled like an angry dog, but she nodded and ccontinued to inspect
me in silence for several minutes, those splenditd eyes curious and
152 |
speculating, as though I were something in a shop and she was trying
to make up her mind. I stood unsteady and sweating, trying to look
amiable, and took stock of her in turn. ':;'
Seen in daylight, she wasn't unattractive. The chubby face, how
that it was washed and polished, was round and firm as a ripe apple,
with sulky, provocative lips. In figure she was sturdy rather than slim,
a muscular little half-pint under her puppy-fat, for she couldn't have
been over sixteen. She was royally dressed by Apache standards, in a' S fine beaded doeskin tunic, fringed below the knee, which must have;
taken a dozen squaws a week to chew; her moccasins had bright
H geometric patterns, a lace scarf was bound about her brows, and there
II was enough silver and beadwork round her neck to start a bazaar.
Sfi She was utter Indian, but there was a cool, almost damn-you air that
didn't sort with the busty little figure and savage finery, an impersonal
poise in the way she looked me up and down that would have suited a
hacienda better than a wickiup--if I'd known that her mother was
pure Spanish hidalga with a name three feet long, I might have
understood. ,
Suddenly she frowned. "You have much ugly hair on your face.
Will you cut it off?"
Startled, I said I would, certainly, ma'am, and the Yawner spat and
muttered that given his way he'd cut off more than that; he was giving
blood-chilling particulars, but she snapped him into silence, took a
last long look at me from those slanted pools, and then asked with
perfect composure: .w ' ':
"Do you like me, pindalickoyee'!"
Now, I hadn't more than a half-notion of what this queer inspection
was about, but it was a stone certainty that this young lady's good
opinion was all that stood between me and a frightful death. Ignoring
the Yawner's snort at her question, I fairly babbled my admiration,
leering eagerly no doubt, and she clapped her hands.
"Bueno cries she, and laughed, with a triumphant toss of her
head at the Yawner, accompanied by a gesture and an Apache word
which I doubt was ladylike. She gave me one last hot appraising stare
before sweeping out, and the Yawner let go a great fart by way of
comment, and jerked his thumb at my clothes, which had been
thrown in a corner. He watched malevolently as I pulled on shirt and
Pants and struggled with my boots; I ached with stiffness, but my (lizziness was passing, and I ventured to ask him who the senorita Bight be. He grunted as though he grudged the words.
"Sonsee-array. Child of the Red Sleeves."
"Who's he?" . ;
His black eyes stared with disbelief and mistrust. "What kind of
: 153
pinda-lickoyee are you? You don't know of Mangas Colorado? Bah!
You're a liar!" . g
"Never heard of him. What does his daughter want with me?" J|
"That is for her to say." He gave another of his gapes of laughter.
"Huh! You should have dropped your blanket, white-eye! Vaya
And he shoved me out of the wickiup.
There was a motley crowd of women and children outside in the
brilliant sunlight, and they set up a great yell of execration at sight of
me, waving sticks and spitting, but the Yawner drew a sling from his
belt and lashed at them with the thongs to make way. I followed him
through the cluster of wickiups and across a level space towards a few
ruined buildings and a great crumbling triangular fort before which
another crowd was assembled. How far we were from the valley of
the massacre I couldn't tell; this was quite different country, with low
scrubby hills round the sandy flat, and one great hill looming over the
scene; it looked like a permanent camp.34
There must have been a couple of hundred Apaches grouped in a
great half-circle before the fort, and if you think you've seen ugly
customers in Africa or Asia, believe me, there are worse. I've seen
Fly River head-hunters who ain't exactly Oscar Wilde, and not many
understudies for Irving among the Uzbeks and Udloko Zulusbut
they're merely awful to look at. For an ugliness that comes from the
soul, and envelops the stranger in a wave of menace and evil cruelty,
commend me to a gathering of Gila Apaches. Or rather, don't. To
have those vicious eyes turned on you from those flat, spiteful brute
faces, is to know what hate truly means; you'll never wonder again
why other Indians call them simply "the enemy".
They watched me come in silence, until the Yawner stopped me
before a group seated under the fort wall. There were six of them,
presumably elders, since in contrast to the crowd they all wore shirts
and kilts and leather caps or scarves. But there was only one of them
to look at. :;"
He might have been fifty, and was undoubtedly the biggest man
I've ever seen. I'm two inches over six feet, and he topped me by half
a head, but it was his sheer bulk that took your breath away. From
shoulder to shoulder he was three and a half feet wideand I know
that because I once saw him hold a cavalry sabre horizontal across his
chest, and it didn't protrude either side. His arms were as thick as my
legs, and bulged under his deerskin shirt; the knees beneath his kilt
were like milestones. His head was to scale, and hideous, with black
snake eyes that bored out from beneath the brim of his flat hat with its
eagle feather. I've felt my bowels dissolve in the presence of a few
ogres in my time, but none more awe-inspiring than this celebrated
154  1
Mangas Colorado; he was truly terrific. He surveyed me for a moment, and glanced aside, and I saw that my girl and two other
young females were there, kneeling on a spread blanket before the
crowd. She was looking bothered but determined.
Now, what I didn't know was that a heated debate had been in
progress, the subject being: what shall we do with old Flashy? The
overwhelming opinion had been that I should be slung up by the heels
forthwith and given the skin treatment I'd have had days ago but for
the unseemly intervention of young Sonsee-array; the only dissenting
voices had been those of the lady herself, her girl-friends (who being
common women counted for nothing), and her doting father (who
being Mangas Colorado counted for everything). But it was widely
recognised that he was only humouring her because he was a fond old
widower with three married daughters, and she was all he had left,' presumably, to fetch his slippers, preside at tea, and torture visitors;
his indulgence had limits, however, and he had told her pretty sharp
that it was high time she stated her intentions where this pinda- '
lickoyee was concerned. Was it true that she wanted to marry the
brute, foreign white-eye and scalp-hunter that he was? (Cries of "No,
no!" and "Shame!") Let him remind her that she had turned down
half the eligible bachelors in the tribe. . . however, if this gringo was
what she wanted, let her say so, and Mangas would either give his
blessing or signal the band to strike up the eottonwood polka. (Hear,
hear, and sustained applause.)
At this point Sonsee-array, accompanied by the Yawner in case the
prisoner proved violent, had flounced off for a final look at me, which
I have described. She had then gone back to Papa and announced ,
that she wanted to marry the boy. (Sensation.) Friends and relatives
had now urged the unsuitability of the match; Sonsee-array had
retorted that there were precedents for marrying pindalickoyee, including her own father, and it was untrue, as certain disappointed
suitors (cries of "Oh!" and "Name them!") had urged, that her intended was a scalp-hunting enemy; her good friend Alopay, daughter
of Nopposo and wife to the celebrated Yawner, had been a captive With her and could testify that the adored object had taken no scalps.
(Uproar, stilled by the arrival of the body in the case, with the Yawner
at his elbow.)
If I'd known all this, and the interesting facts that Indians have no
colour bar and that Apache girls are given a pretty free choice of
husbands, I might have breathed easier, but I doubt it; no one was sver easy in the presence of Red Sleeves. He glared at me like a constipated basilisk, and the organ bass croaked in Spanish.
"What's your name, Americano?" :, fees; y
"Flashman. I'm not Americano. Inglese."
"Flaz'man? Inglese?" The black eyes nickered. "Then why are you
not in the Snow Woman's country? Why here?"
It took me a moment to figure that the Snow Woman must be our
gracious Queen, so called doubtless in allusion to Canada. I've heard
Indians call her some odd names: Great Woman, Great White
Mother, Grandmother latterly, and even the Old Woman of General
Grant, by certain Sioux who held that she and Grant were man and
wife, but she'd shown him the door, which I rather liked.
I said I was here as a trader, and there was an angry roar. Mangas
Colorado leaned forward. "You trade in Mimbreno scalps to the
Mexicanos!" he croaked.
"That's not true!" I said, as bold as I dared. "I was a prisoner of the
villains who attacked your people. I took no scalps."
Although this, unknown to me, had been vouched for by Sonseearray
and her girl-friends, the mob still hooted disbelief; Mangas
stilled them with a raised hand and rasped:
"Scalp-hunter or not, you were with the enemy. Why should you
live?"
A damned nasty question coming from a face like that, but before
I could think of several good answers, my little Pocohontas was on
her feet, fists clenched and eyes blazing, like a puppy snapping at a
mastiff.
"Because he is my chosen man! Because he fought for me, and
saved me, and was kind to me!" She looked from her father to me,
and there were absolute tears on her cheeks. "Because he is a man
after my father's heart, and I will have him or no one!"
Well, this was news to me, of course, although her conduct in the
wickiup had suggested that she had some such arrangement in mind.
And if it seemed short notice for so much enthusiasm on her part,
well, I had protected her, in a wayand there seemed to be a
movement for marrying Flashy among North American women that
year, anyway. Hope surged up in meto be checked as dear old Dad
climbed to his enormous feet and lumbered forward for a closer look
at me. It was like being approached by one of those Easter Island
stone faces; he loomed over me, and his breath was like old boots
burning. Fine bloodshot eyes he had, too.
"What do you say,pinda-ftcfcoyee?" says he, and there was baleful
suspicion in every line of that horrible face. "You have known her but
a few hours; what can she be to you?"
If he'd been a civilised prospective father-in-law, I dare say I'd have
hemmed and hawed, lyrical-like, and referred him to my banker; as it
was, a wrong wordor too fulsome a protestation of devotionand
156
it would be under the greenwood tree who loves to swing with me. So
I forced myself to look manly and simple, with a steady glance at
Sonsee-array, and answered by adapting into Spanish a phrase that
Dick Wootton had used to the Cheyenne.
"My heart is in the sky when I look at her," says I, and she fairly
shrieked with delight and beat her little fists on her knees, while the
crowd rumbled and Mangas never blinked an eyelid.
"So you say." It was like gravel under a door. "But what do we
know of you, save that you are pinda-lickoyeel How do we know you
are a fit man for her?"
There didn't seem much point in telling him I'd been to Rugby
under Arnold, or that I'd taken five wickets for 12 against the England
XI, so I pitched on what I hoped would be a popular line by telling
him I'd served with the Snow Woman's soldiers in lands far away, and
had counted coup against Utes and Kiowas (which was true, even if I
hadn't wanted to). He listened, and Sonsee-array preened at the
silent crowd, and then one young buck, naked except for boots and
breech-clout, but with silver ornaments slung round his neck, swaggered
forward and began a harangue in Apache. I was to learn that
this was Vasco, the jilted admirer on whose appearance and aroma
Sonsee-array had commented; by tribal standards he was wealthy (six
horses, a dozen slaves, that sort of thing), and quite the leading light.
I suppose he was sick as mud that a despised white-eye looked like
succeeding where he had failed, and while I understood no word, it
was obvious he wasn't appearing as prisoner's friend; when he'd done
bawling the odds he hurled his hatchet into the ground at my feet.
There was no doubt what that meant, in any language; the crowd fell
silent as death, and every eye was on me.
Now, you know what I think of mortal combat. I've run from more
than I can count, and lived never to regret it, and this lean ten stone of
quivering, fighting fury, obviously nimble as a weasel and built like a
champion middleweight, was the last man I wanted to try conclusions
with--well, I'd been ill. But with Mangas's blood-flecked eyes on me,
I could guess what refusal would mean--no, this was a case for
Judicious bluff with my heart pounding under a bold front. So I
glanced at the axe, at the furious Vasco, at Mangas, and shrugged.
"Must I?" says I. "I've killed a better man than this for her already.
And afterwards--how many others do I have to kill?"
There was a creaking snort from behind me: the Yawner was
laughing--I wasn't to know that her disappointed beaux had been kgion. There were a few grins even among the crowd, but not from "ly lady; she was forward in a trice, demanding to know who was 'asco to put in his oar, and why should I, who had counted coup and
killed for her, be at the trouble of chastising an upstart who had barely
made his fourth war-party?35 She fairlly shrieked and spat at him, and
the mob buzzed--by no means umsympathetically, I noted; the
Yawner grunted that any fool could (fight, and a few heads nodded in
agreement. The Apaches, you see, being matchless warriors, tend to
take courage for granted, especially im big, burly fellows who look as
much like a Tartar as I do (more fool tthey), and weren't impressed by
Vasco's challenge; rather bad form in a jealous lover, they thought it,
But Mangas's snake eyes never left imy face, and I realised in chill
horror that I must go on bluffing, and quickly--and run the risk that
my bluff would be called, if the plam that was forming in my mind
went adrift. So before anyone else could speak I picked up the
hatchet, looked at it, and says to Manfgas, very offhand: m
"Do I have choice of weapons?" m
This brought more hubbub, with Sonsee-array protesting, Vasco
yelling savage agreement, and the imob roaring eagerly. Mangas
nodded, so I asked for a lance and my pony.
It was a desperate, horrible gamble--but I knew that if it came to a
fight in the end, it was my only hope. I was still shaky from my illness,
and even at my best I couldn't have lived with Vasco in a contest with
knives or hatchets. But I was a trained lancer, and guessed that he
wasn't--they use 'em overhead, two-handed, and have no notion of
proper management. But with luck amd good acting, it need never
come to that; by playing the cool, professional hand, I could win
without a battle.
While they were getting the lanoes and ponies, and a frantic
Sonsee-array was shrilly damning Daiddy's eyes for permitting this
criminal folly, and he was growling thiat she'd brought it on herself,
and the commonalty were settling down to enjoy the show, I turned
to the Yawner and asked him quietly if ]he could find me three wooden
pegs, about so by so. He stared at m<e, but went off, and presently
they brought out my little Arab, apparently none the worse for having
been in their hands, and a lance. It was shorter and lighter than
cavalry issue, but with a sharp well-set head. Vasco was already
aboard a pony, shaking a lance in the aiir and yelling to the crowd--no
doubt assuring them what mincemeat he was going to make of the pinda-lickoyee. They yelled and cheened, and he whooped and cantered
about, hurling abuse in my directtion.
I didn't heed him. I busied myself tallking to the Arab, petting him ' and blowing in his nostrils for luck, andl threw away the Indian saddle i
they had given him; without stirrups, II knew I'd be safer bareback. |
His bridle, which was the merest cnnde strap, would just have to
serve. I took my time, and ignored the impatience of the crowd, while }
158
Mangas stood brooding and silent--and here came the Yawner, with
three pegs in his hand.
| I took them, and without a word or a look walked away and set
them in the ground, about twenty paces apart, while the mob stared
and shouted in astonishment, and Vasco trotted up, screaming at me.
Still I paid no attention, but walked back to my pony, picked up the
lance, turned to Mangas, and spoke my piece so that everyone should 1 hear; while I was quaking inwardly, I nattered myself I'd kept a
steady, careless front; I looked him in the eye, and hoped to God I
was right, and that they'd never heard of tent-pegging.
"I don't want to fight your brave, Mangas Colorado," says I,
"because he's a young man and a fool, and I'll prove nothing by
killing him that I haven't proved already, in defence of your daughter.
But if you say I must kill him. . . then I will. First, though, I'm going
to show you something--and when you've seen it, you can tell me
whether I need to kill him or not."
Then I turned away, and damnably stiff and bruised as I was,
I vaulted on to the Arab's back. I trotted him about for a moment or
two, plucked the lance from the Yawner's hand, and cantered away
, fifty yards or so before turning to come in on the pegs at a gallop. My
I heart was in my mouth, for while I'd been a dab hand in India, I knew
I must be rusty as the deuce from lack of practice, to say nothing of
my cracked head and groggy condition--and if I failed or made a fool
of myself, I was a dead man.
But it was neck or nothing now--there were the pegs, tiny white
studs on the red earth, with the squat colossal form of Mangas close
by them, Sonsee-array just behind him, and the watching multitude
beyond. The Arab's hooves were drumming like pistons as I bore in,
bringing down the point to cover the first peg as it rushed towards me
. . I leaned out and down and prayed--and my point missed it by a
whisker, but here was the second almost under our hooves, and this
time I made no mistake; the bright steel cut into the peg like cheese
and I wheeled away in a great circle, the spitted peg flourished high
for all to see. What a howl went up as I cantered towards Mangas
Colorado, dipped my point in salute, and stuck the spiked butt of the
lance in the earth before him. I was a trifle breathless, but nodded sool as I knew how. '.:'
"Now I'll fight your brave, Mangas Colorado, if you say so," I told
him. "But before I do--let me see that he's a worthy opponent. There sre the little pegs--let him try."
Not a muscle moved in that awful lined face, while there was uproar "from the watchers; Vasco curvetted about, howling and shaking his
lance--protesting, I dare say, that pig-sticking wasn't his game.
L < 150
iwf-, . uy
11
Sonsee-array screamed abuse at him, with obscene gestures, the
Yawner gaped with laughter till his jaw cracked--and Mangas Colorado's
snake eyes went from me to the spitted peg and back again
Then, after what seemed an age, he glanced at Vasco, grunted, and
jerked his thumb at the remaining pegs. The assembly bayed approval,
Sonsee-array jumped with glee, and I settled back to enjoy
the fun.
It was better than I could have hoped for. Tent-pegging ain't as
hard as it looks, but you have to know the knack, and it was quite
beyond Vasco. He ran half a dozen courses and ;missed by a mile
every time, to renewed catcalls which made him so wild that at the
last try he speared the ground, snapped the shaft, and came out of the
saddle like a hot rivet. His pals screeched for joy and even the women
hooted, and he fairly capered with rage, which made them laugh all
the more.
That was what I'd been after from the start--to make him look so
ridiculous that his challenge to a man who was obviously more expert
than he would be scoffed out of court. It had worked; even Mangas's
mouth twitched in a hideous grin, while the Yawner gaped and
slapped his thighs. Vasco stamped and screamed in rage--and then
his eye lighted on me; he shook his fist, sprang to his; pony's back, and made straight for me, yelling bloody murder, drawing his hatchet as
he came.
It was so sudden that he nearly had me. One moment I was sitting
my pony at rest, the next Vasco was charging in, hurling the tomahawk
ahead of him. His aim was wild, but the whirling haft of the
weapon hit my Arab on the muzzle, and as I tried to turn him to avoid
being ridden down he reared with the pain, and I came to earth with
sickening force. For two or three seconds I lay jarred out of my wits,
as Vasco swept past, reined his mustang back on iits haunches, and
snatched the lance that I had left upright in the ground. Sprawled and
helpless as his beast reared almost on top of me, its hooves flailing, I
tried to roll away; he raised the lance to let drive, screaming his hate;
I heard Sonsee-array's shriek and Mangas's bass belllow of rage--and
something cracked like a whip, there was a hiss in the air overhead, a
sickening thud, and Vasco's head snapped back as though he had
been shot, the lance dropping from his hands. As he toppled from the
saddle I had a glimpse of that contorted face, with a bloody hole
where one eye should have been--and here was the Yawner, coiling
up the thongs of the sling that had driven a pellet into Vasco's brain.
There was an instant's hush, and then uproar, with everyone
surging forward for a look, and Vasco's pals to the fore, clamouring
at Mangas for vengeance on the Yawner, who spat and sneered, with
160
one hand on his knife. "The pinda-lickoyee was in my charge!" he
snarled. "He was ready to fight--but this coward would have killed
him unarmed!" Which I thought damned sound, and Mangas evidently
agreed, for he quieted them with a tremendous bellow, stooped
over the corpse, and then told them to take it away.
"The Yawner was right," growls he. "This one died like a fool and
no warrior." His glance seemed to challenge that ring of savage faces,
but none dared dissent, and while Vasco's remains were removed,
the great ghoul turned his attention back to me for a long moment,
and then snapped to Sonsee-array, who came quickly forward to his
ride. He rumbled at her in Apache, indicating me, and she bowed her
head submissively; for an awful moment my heart stopped, and then
he beckoned me forward, favoured me with another gargoyle stare--
and reached out to lay his hand on my shoulder.
It was like being tapped with a pitchfork, but I didn't mind that; I
could have cried with sheer relief. Sonsee-array was beside me, her
hand slipping into mine, the sullen faces round us were indifferent
rather than hostile, the Yawner shrugged--and Mangas Colorado
gave us a final curt nod and stalked away. Just the same, I couldn't
help thinking that old Morrison hadn't been such a bad father-in-law.
^fs ^,f	: -	1:' ;;>-.:? .i ;'yi>j<
Possibly because I've spent so much time as the
unwilling guest of various barbarians around the world, I've learned
to mistrust romances in which the white hero wins the awestruck
regard of the silly savages by sporting a monocle or predicting a
convenient eclipse, whereafter they worship him as a god, or make
him a blood brother, and in no time he's teaching 'em close order drill
and crop rotation and generally running the whole show. In my
experience, they know all about eclipses, and a monocle isn't likely to
impress an aborigine who wears a bone through his nose.36 So don't
imagine that my tent-pegging had impressed the Apaches overmuch;
it hadn't. I was alive because Sonsee-array fancied me and was
grateful--and also because she was just the kind of minx to enjoy
flouting tribal convention by marrying a foreigner. I'd come creditably
"t of the Vasco business--nobody mourned him, apparently--and Mangas had given me the nod, so that was that. But no one made me
161
a blood brother, thank God, or I'd probably have caught hydrophobia,
and as for worship--nobody gets that from those fellows.
They were prepared to accept me, but not with open arms, and I
was in no doubt th^t my life still hung by a hair, on Sonsee-array's
whim and Mangas's indulgence. So I must try to shut my mind to the
hideous pickle i was in, recover from the shock to my nervous system,
and play up to them for all I was worth while I found out where the
devil I was, where safety lay, and plotted my escape. If I'd known that
it would take me six months, I believe I'd have died of despair. In the
meantime, it was some slight reassurance to find that however unreal
and terrifying my plight might seem to me, the tribe were ready to
take it for granted, and even be quite hospitable about it, white-eye
though I was.
For example, the Yawner made me free of the family pot and a
blanket in the wickiup which he shared with his wife Alopay, their
infant, and her relatives; it stank like the nation and was foul, but
Alopay was a buxom, handsome wench who was prepared to treat
me kindly for Sonsee-array's sake, and the Yawner himself was more
friendly now that he'd saved my life--have you noticed, the man who
does a good turn is often more inclined to be amiable than the chap
who's received it? He'd evidently been appointed my bear-leader
because although he wasn't 'a true Mimbreno, he was related to
Mangas, and trusted by the chief; he was as much jailer as mentor,
which was one reason it took me such a deuce of a time to get out of
Apacheria.
Having taken me on, though, he was prepared to make a go of it,
and that same evening he inducted me into a peculiar Apache
institution which, while revolting, is about the most clubbable function
I've ever struck. After we had supped, he took me along to a
singular adobe building near the fort, like a great beehive with a tiny
door in one side; there were about forty male Apaches there, all stark
naked, laughing and chattering, with Mangas among them. No one
gave me a second glance, so I followed the Yawner's example and
stripped, and then we crawled inside, one after the other, into the
most foetid, suffocating heat I'd ever experienced.
It was black as Egypt's night, and I had to creep over nude bodies
that grunted and heaved and snarled what I imagine was "Mind
where you're putting your feet, damn you!"; I was choking with the
stench and dripping with sweat as I flopped on that pile of humanity,
and more crowded in on top until I was jammed in the middle of a
great heap of gasping, writhing Apaches; I felt I must faint with the
pressure and atrocious heat and stink. I could barely breathe, and
then it seemed that warm oil was being poured over us from above--
162
but it was simply reeking sweat, trickling down from the mass of
bodies overhead.
They loved it; I could hear them chuckling and sighing in that
dreadful sodden oven that was boiling us alive; I hadn't even breath
enough to protest; it was as much as I could do to keep my face clear
of the rank body beneath me and drag in great laboured gasps of what
I suppose was air. For half an hour we lay in that choking blackness,
drenched and boiled to the point of collapse, and then they began to
crawl out again, and I dragged my stupefied body into the open more
dead than alive.
That was my introduction to the Apache sweatbath," one of the
roost nauseating experiences of my lifeand an hour later, I don't
know when I've felt so splendidly refreshed. But what astonished me
most, when it sank in, was how they had included me in the party as a
matter of course; I felt almost as though I'd been elected to the
Apache Clubwhich in other respects proved to be about as civilised
as White's, with fewer bores than the Reform, and a kitchen slightly
better than the Athenaeum's.
I had a further taste of Apache culture on the following day, when
with the rest of the community I attended the great wailing funeral
procession for the deceased Vasco, and for the victims of Gallantin's
massacre, whose bodies had been brought down from the valley in
the hills. That was a spooky business, for there were two or three of
my own bagging on those litters, each corpse with its face painted and
scalp replaced (I wondered who'd matched 'em all up) and its
weapons carried before. They buried them under rock piles near the
big hill they call Ben Moor (and that gave me a jolt, if you like, for
you know what big hill is in GaelicBen Mhor. God knows if there's
a tribe of Scotch Apaches; I shouldn't be surprisedthose tartan
buggers get everywhere). They lit purification fires after the burial,
and marked'the place with a cross, if you please, which I suppose they
learned from the dagoes.
Speaking of scalps, I discovered that the Mimbrenos had no special
zeal for tonsuring their enemies, but they brought back a few from
those of Gallantin's band they'd killed, and the women dressed and
stretched them on little frames, to brighten up the parlour, I dare say.
One scalp was pale and sandy, and I guessed it was Nugent-Hare's.
Meanwhile, no time was lost in bringing me up to scratch. After the
funeral, the Yawner told me I must take my pony to Sonsee-array's
wickiup and leave it thereso I did, watched by the whole village,
and madam ignored it. "What now?" says I, and he explained that
when she fed and watered the beast and returned it, I had been
formally accepted. She wouldn't do it at once, for that would show
163
unmaidenly eagerness, but possibly on the second or third day; if she
delayed to the fourth day, she was a proper little tease.
D'you know, the saucy bitch waited until the fourth evening?--and
a fine lather I was in by then, for fear she'd changed her mind, in
which case God knows what might have happened to me. But just
before dusk there was a great laughter and commotion, and through
the wickiups she came, astride my Arab, looking as proud and pleased
as Punch, with a crowd of squaws and children in tow, and even a few menfolk. She was in full fig of beaded tunic and lace scarf, but now
she was also wearing the long white leggings with tiny silver bells
down the seams, which showed she was marriageable; she dropped
the Arab's bridle into my hand with a most condescending smile,
everyone cheered and stamped, and for the first time I found Apache
faces grinning at me, which is a frightening sight.
There was even more grinning later, for Mangas held an enormous jollification on com-beer and pine-bark spirit and a fearsome cactus
tipple called mescal; they don't mind mixing their drinks, those
fellows, and got beastly foxed, although I went as easy as I could.
Mangas punished the tizwin something fearful, and presently, when
the others had toppled sideways or were hiccoughing against each
other telling obscene Apache stories, he jerked his head at me,
collared a flask, and led the way, stumbling and cursing freely, to the
old ruined fort. He took a long pull at the flask, swayed a bit, and
belched horribly; aha, thinks I, now for the fatherly talk and a broad
hint about letting the bride get some sleep on honeymoon. But it
wasn't that; what followed was one of the strangest conversations I've
ever had in my life, and I set it down because it was my introduction
to that queer mixture of logic and lunacy that is typical of Indian
thought. The fact that we were both tight as tadpoles made it all the
more revealing, really, and if he had some wild notions, he was still a
damned shrewd file, the Red Sleeves. What with the booze and his
guttural Spanish, he wasn't always easy to follow, but I record him
fairly; I can still see that shambling bulk, his blanket hitched close
against the night cold, like an unsteady Sphinx in the moonlight,
clutching his bottle, and croaking basso profundo:
Mangos: The Mexicanos built this fort when they still had chiefs
over the great water. The Americanos build many such . . . is it true
that even Santa Fe is a mere wickiup beside the towns of the pindalickoyee where the sun rises?
Flashy: Indeed, yes. In my country are towns so great that a man
can hardly walk through them between sunrise and sunset. You ought
to see St Paul's,.
Mangos: You're lying, of course. You boast as young men do, and
you're drunk. But tbepinda-lickoyee people are many in number--as
many as the trees in the Gila forest, I'm told.
Flashy: Oh, indubitably. Perfect swarms of them.
Mangos: Perhaps ten thousand?
Flashy (unaware that ten thousand is as far as an Apache can count,
but not disposed to argue): Ah . . . yes, just about.
Mangos: Huh! And now, since the Americanos beat the Mexicanos
in war, many of these white-eyes have come through our country,
going to a place where they seek the pesh klitso*, the oro-hay. Their
pony soldiers say that all this country is now Americano, because they
took it from the Mexicanos. But the Mexicanos never had it, so how
can it be taken from them?
Flashy: Eh? Ah, well. . . politics ain't my line, you know. But the
Mexicanos claimed this land, so I suppose the Americanos--
Mangos (fortissimo): It was never Mexicano land! We let them dig
here, at Santa Rita, for the kla-klitso*, until they turned on us
treacherously, and we destroyed them--ah, that was a rare slaughter!
And we let them live on the Del Nort.e, where we raid and bum them
as we please! Soft, fat, stupid Mexicano pigs! What rule had they over
us or the land? None! And now the Americanos treat the land as
though it were theirs--because they fought a little war in Mexico!
Huh! They say--a chief of their pony soldiers told me this--that we
must obey them, and heed their law! , ,.,
Flashy: Did he, though? Impudent bastard! u:
Mangos: He came to me after we Mimbreno rode a raid into
Sonora with Hashkeela of the Coyoteros, who is husband to my
second daughter--she is not so fair as Sonsee-array, by the way. You
like Sonsee-array, don't you, pinda-lickoyee Flaz'man? You truly
love my little gazelle? :..
Flashy: Mad about her ... I can't wait.
Mangos (with a great sigh and belch): It is good. She is a delightful
child--wilful, but of a spirit! That is from me; her beauty is her
mother's--she was a Mexicano lady, you understand, taken on a raid
into Coahuila, ah! so many years ago! I saw her among the captives,
lovely as a frightened deer, and I thought: that is my woman, now and
forever. I forgot the loot, the cattle, even the killing--only one
thought possessed me, in that moment-- Flashy:
I know what you mean.
Mangos: I took her! I shall never forget it. Uuurrgh! Then we rode
*Gold; literally "yellow iron".
'Presumably copper, since this was mined at Santa Rita. Kla-klitso. literally, s "night-iron".
165
home. Already I had two wives of our people; their families were
enraged that I brought a new foreign wifeI had to fight my
brothers-in-law, naked, knife to knife! I defied the lawfor her! I
ripped out their bowelsfor her! I tore out their hearts with my
fingersfor her! I was red to the shoulders with their blood! Do they
not call me the Red SleevesMangas Colorado? Uuurrghh!
Flashy (faintly): Absolutely! Bravo, Mangasmay I call you
Mangas?
Mangos: When my little dove, my dear Sonsee-array, told me how
you had fought for herhow you sank your knife in the belly of the
pinda-lickoyee scalp-hunter, and tore and twisted his vitals, and drank
his bloodI thought, there is one with the spirit of Mangas Colorado!
(Gripping my shoulder, tears in his eyes.) Did you not exult as the
steel went homefor her? ;;4';- "iK1
Flashy: By George, yes! That'll teach you, I thought l.
Mangas: But you did not take his heart or scalp? '
Flashy: Well, no ... I was thinking about looking after her, you
see, and w^
Mangos: And afterwards;. . you did not uuurrghh! with her?
Flashy (quite shocked): Heavens, no! Oh, I mean, I was in a perfect
sweat for her, of coursebut she was tired, don't you know . . . and
. . . and distressed, naturally . . .
Mangos (doubtfully): Her mother was tired and distressedbut I
had only one thought. . . (Shakes head) But you pinda-lickoyee have
different natures, I know . . . you are colder S s
Flashy: Northern climate.
Mangos (taking another swig): What was I saying when you began
to talk of women? Ah, yes ... my raid with Hashkeela six moons
ago, when we slaughtered in Sonora, and took much loot and many
slaves. And afterwards this Americano foolthis pony soldier
came and told me it was wrong! He told me, Mangas Colorado, that
it was wrong!
Flashy: He never!
Mangos: "Why, fool," I told him, "these Mexicanos are your
enemieshave you not fought them?" "Yes," says he, "but now they
have yielded under our protection, at peace. So we cannot suffer
them to be raided." "Look, fool," I told him, "when you fought
them, did you ask our permission?" "No," says he. "Then why should
we ask yours?" I said.
Flashy: Dam' good!
Mangos: It was then he said it was his law, and we must heed it. I
said: "We Mimbreno do not ask you to obey our law; why, then, do
you ask us to obey yours?" He could not answer except to say that it
166
was his great chiefs word. and we must--which is no reason. Now,
was he a fool, or did he speak with a double tongue? You are pindalickoyee, you know their minds. Tell me.
Flashy: May I borrow your flask? Thanks. Well. you see, he was
just saying what his great chief told him to say--obeying orders.
That's how they work, you know. ?
Mangos: Then he and his chief are fools. If I gave such an order to
an Apache, without good reason, he would laugh at me.
Flashy: I'll bet he wouldn't.
Mangos: Huh? ;>/; --;iy2
Flashy: Sorry. Wind.
Mangos: Why should the Americanos try to force their law on us?
They cannot want our country; it has little oro-hay, and the rocks and
desert are no good for their farmers. Why can they not leave us
alone? We never harmed them until they harmed us--why should we,
with the Mexicanos to live off? At first I thought it was because they
feared us, the warrior Apache, and would have us quiet. But other
tribes--Arapaho, Cheyenne, Shoshoni--have been quiet, and still
the pinda-lickoyee force law on them. Why? , ,;
Flashy: I don't know, Mangas Colorado. .ws.
Mangos: You know. So do I. It is because their spirit tells them to
spread their law to all people, and they believe their spirit is better
than ours. Whoever believes that is wrong and foolish. It is such a
spirit as was in the world in the beginning, when it was rich and
wicked, and God destroyed it with a great flood. But when He saw
that the trees and birds and hills and great plains had perished with
the people. His heart was on the ground, and He made it anew. And
He made the Apache His people, and gave us His way, which is our
way.
Flashy: Mmh, yes. I see. But (greatly daring) He made the pindalickoyee, too, didn't he?
Mangos: Yes, but He made them fools, to be destroyed. He gave
them their evil spirit, so that they should blunder among us--perhaps
He designed them for our prey. I do not know. But we shall destroy
them, if they come against us, the whole race of pinda-lickoyee, even
all ten thousand. They do not know how to fight--they ride or walk in
little lines, and we draw them into the rocks and they die at our
leisure. They are no match for us. (Suddenly) Why were you among
the Americanos?
Flashy (taken aback): I... told you ... I was a trader ... I ...
Mangos (grinning sly and wicked): An Inglese trader--among the
Americanos? Strange ... for you hate each other, because you once
ruled their land, and they were your slaves, and rose against you, and
& 167
you have fought wars against them. This I know--for are there not
still chiefs among the Dacotah of the north who carry peshklitso pictures of the Snow Woman's ancestors, given to their fathers long
ago, when your people ruled?* Huh! I think you were among the
Americanos because you had angered the Snow Woman, and she
drove you out, because she saw the spirit of the snake in your eyes,
and knew that you do not speak with a straight tongue. (Fixes terrified
Flashy with a glare, then shrugs) It does not matter; sometimes I have
a forked tongue myself. Only remember--when you speak to
Sonsee-array, let it be with a straight tongue.
Flashy (petrified): Rather!
Mangos: Ugh. Good. You will be wise to do so, for I have favoured
you, and you will be one of the people, and your heart will be opened.
When we fight the Americanos, you will be glad, for you are their
enemy as we are. Perhaps one day I shall send you to the Snow
Woman, even as the pinda-lickoyee of Texas sent messengers to her,
with offers of friendship. Fear not--the anger she bears you will go
Out of her heart when she knows you come from Mangas Colorado,
''huh? '.ws v'-'a" ,^Flashy:
Oh, like a shot. She'll be delighted. ;;Vj ^,vrt
Mangos: She must be a strange woman, to rule over men. Is she as
beautiful as Sonsee-array?
Flashy (tactfully): Oh, dear me, no! About the same build, but
nothing like as pretty. No woman is.
We were sitting among the ruins by now, and at this point he
toppled slowly backwards and lay with his huge legs in the air, singing
plaintively. God, he was drunk! But I must have been drunker, for
presently he carried me home in one hand (I weighed about fourteen
stone then) and dropped me into my wickiup--through the roof, not
the door, unfortunately. But if my final memories of that celebration
was confused, I'm clear about what he said earlier, and if it sounds
like drunkard's babble, just remark some of the things that supposedly
simple savage knew--along with all his fanciful notions.
He'd heard of Spanish and British colonial rule, and of the American
wars of '76 and 1812; he'd even somehow got wind of Britain's
negotiations with the old Texas Republic before it joined the States in
'46. At the same time he'd no idea of what Spain or Britain or the
United States or even Texas really were--dammit, he thought the
whole white race was only ten thousand strong, and obviously imagined
Queen Victoria living in a wickiup somewhere over the hills.
He probably thought the American troops he'd seen were some sort
of tribal war party whom the 'Pash could wipe up whenever they
chose. And yet, he could already read with uncanny wisdom the
168
minds of a white race he hardly knew. "Their spirit tells them to
spread their law. . . they believe their spirit is better than ours." Poor
old Red Sleeves; wasn't he right, just?
No, he wasn't an ordinary man.391 knew him over several months,
and can say he had the highest type of that lurid Indian mind which
can put the civilised logician to shame, yet whose very simplicity of
wisdom has been the redskin's downfall. He was a fine psychologist
you'll note he had weighed me for a rascal and fugitive on short
acquaintancean astute politician, and a bloody, cruel, treacherous
barbarian who'd have been a disgrace to the Stone Age. If that seems
contradictorywell, Indians are contrary critters, and Apaches more
than most. Mangas Colorado taught me that, and gave me my first
insight into the Indian mind, which is such a singular mechanism, and
so at odds with ours, that I must try to tell you about it here.
Speaking of Apaches in particular, you must understand that to
them deceit is a virtue, lying a fine art, theft and murder a way of life,
and torture a delightful recreation. Aha, says you, here's old Flashy
airing his prejudices, repeating ancient lies. By no meansI'm telling
you what I learned at first handand remember, I'm a villain myself,
who knows the real article when he sees it, and the 'Pash are the only
folk I've struck who truly believe that villainy is admirable; they
haven't been brought up, you see, in a Christian religion that makes
much of conscience and guilt. They reverence what we think of as
evil; the bigger a rascal a man is, the more they respect him, which is
why the likes of Mangaswhose duplicity and cunning were far more
valued in the tribe than his fighting skilland the Yawner, became
great among them. This twisted morality is almost impossible for
white folk to understand; they look for excuses, and say the poor
savage don't know right from wrong. Jack Cremony40 had the best
answer to that: if you think an Apache can't tell right from wrong
wrong him, and see what happens.
At the same time these Apaches, of whom there may be a few
thousands at most,41 who live in some of the poorest land in the world,
in the most primitive state, who are savage by nature, foul in habit,
degraded of appearance (although some of their women are deuced
handsome), who are backward and inferior in every outward respect,
are nevertheless the most arrogant and self-satisfied people on God's
earth. Their conceit makes the Chinese look modest; they don't
merely pretend or think they're superiorthey know it, like Lord
Cardigan. The hatred which they feel towards all other folk springs
from no sense of jealousy or fear or unworthiness; on the contrary,
they truly despise white civilisation and want none of it, because they
know absolutely that their own prehistoric ways are better. They hold
I 169
the world in contempt, as prey to be lived off. (In some respects, you
see, they're not unlike Britons or Americans.)
Now, this ingrained redskin conceit (for other tribes had it, too, if
not as extremely as the Tash) is something the American government
has never understood, and probably never will, and it's been at the
root of the whole Indian question. I don't blame Washingtonwhat
civilised white, with his electric and gas light and huge cities and flying
machines and centuries of art and literature and progress, could
believe that this smelly, wicked, illiterate savage who looks like a
cross between a Mongol and an ape absolutely thinks he is superior to
them? It ffies in the face of civilised reasonbut not of Indian reason.
They know they're betterand no demonstration or comparison will
change their minds, you see, because their whole system of thought
and philosophy is upside down from ours. You could take my old pal
the Yawner and show him Paris or London, and it still wouldn't
convince him. He'd say: "Huh, you can build great things and we
cannotbut are they worth building? You can flybut who needs tony? I'd rather have my wickiup." And it wouldn't be sour grapes
the proud, stubborn, dear old bastard would rather have that.
wretched, stinking, flea-ridden hovellord, I itch just to think of it
(but I've been less hospitably used, mind you, and felt less honoured,
in some ducal mansions).
You see, it's been the great illusion of our civilisation that when the
poor heathen saw our steamships and elections and drains and bottled
beer, he'd realise what a benighted ass he'd been and come into the
fold. But he don't. Oh, he'll take what he fancies, and can use (cheap
booze and rifles, for example), but not on that account will he think
we're better. He knows different. '- . ;M-'
You begin to understand, perhaps, the impossibility of red man
and white man ever understanding each othernot that it would have
made a damned bit of difference if they had, or altered the Yankees'
Indian policy, except possibly in the direction of wiping up such
intractable bastards even faster than they did. They knew they were
going to have to dispossess the redskins, but being good Christian
humbugs they kept trying to bully and cajole them into accepting the
theft gracefullywhich ain't quite the best position from which to
make treaties with unreliable savages who are accustomed to rob
rather than be robbed, and who don't understand what government
and responsibility and authority mean, anyway. You can't treat
sensibly with a chief whose braves don't feel obliged to obey him;
contrariwise, if you're an Indian (worse luck) there's no point in
treating with a government which is eventually going to pinch your
hunting-grounds to accommodate the white migration it can't control.
170
And it doesn't help when the two sides regard each other respectively
as greedy, brutal white thieves and beastly, treacherous red vermin.
I'm not saying either was wrong.
The Indian's tragedy was that being a spoiled and arrogant savage
who wouldn't lie down, and a brave and expert fighter who happened
to be quite useless at war, he could only be suppressed with a brutality
that often matched his own. It was the reservation or the grave; there
was no other way.
My little anthropologist would say it was all the white man's fault
for intruding; no doubt, but by that logic Ur of the Chaldees would be
a damned crowded place by now. ;',; ;; .!' yc 'ff;-.,;;";;^. :;;, ' .;? All:;
j|/ ,. . , . * .,- y"" :-. ' -'"l",,--,.Igli'^il^'
^s^';.^-1;. 3;%i ?;- ^i;^ .- sy^'.
The morning after Mangas's tizwin party I was rousted out at dawn by
a foul-tempered Yawner, who took me miles off into the hills, both
with our heads splitting, to prepare for my honeymoon. We must find
a pretty, secluded spot, he snarled, and build a bower for my bride's
reception; we lit on a little pine grove by a brook, and there we built
a wickiup--or rather, he did, while I got in the way and made helpful
suggestions, and he damned the day he'd ever seen me--and stored it
with food and blankets and cooking gear. When it was done he glared
at it, and then muttered that it would be none the worse for a bit of
garden; he'd made one for Alopay, apparently, and she'd thought
highly of it.
So now I sweated, carefully transplanting flowers from the surrounding
woods, while the Yawner squinted and frowned and stood
back considering; when I'd bedded them around the wickiup to his
satisfaction, he came to give them a final pat and smooth, growling at
me to go easy with the water. We got it loofcihg mighty pretty between
us, and when I said Sonsee-array would be'sure to like it, he shrugged
and grunted, and we found ourselves grinning at each other across
the flower-bed--odd, that's how I remember him, not as the old man
I saw last year, but as the ugly, bow-legged young brave, all Apache
from boots to headband, so serious as he arranged the blooms just so,
cleaning the earth from his knife and looking sour and pleased among
his flowers. A strange memory, in the light of history--but then he's
still the Yawner to me, for all that the world has learned to call him
Geronimo.42
The wedding took place two days later, on the open space before
the old fort at Santa Rita, and if my memories of the ceremony itself
are fairly vague, it's perhaps because the preliminaries were so
singular. A great fire was lit before the old fort, and while the tribe
171
watched from a distance, all the virgins trooped out giggling in their
best dresses and sat round it in a great circle. Then the drummers
started as darkness fell, and presently out shuffled the dancers, young
bucks and boys, dressed in the most fantastic costumes, capering
about the flames--the only time, by the way, that I've ever seen
Indians dancing round a fire in the approved style. First came the
spirit seekers, in coloured kilts with Aztec patterns and the long
Apache leggings; they were all masked, and on their heads they bore
peculiar frames decorated with coloured points and feathers and
half-moons which swayed as they danced and chanted. They were
fully-armed, and shook their stone-clubs and lances to drive away
devils while they asked God (Montezuma, I believe) for a blessing on
Sonsee-array and, presumably, me.
It was a slow, rhythmic, rather graceful dance, except for the little
boys, whose task seemed to be to mock and tease the older men,
which they did with great glee, to the delight of all. Then the
drumming changed, to a more hollow, urgent note, and all the girls
jumped up in mock terror, staring about, and cowering as out of the
darkness raced the buffalo-dancers, in coloured, fearsome masks
surmounted by animal heads--scalps of bison and wolf and deer and
mountain-lion. As they leaped and whooped about the fire, all the
virgins screamed and ran for their lives, but after a while, as the
drumming grew faster and faster, they began to drift timidly back,
until they too were joining in the dance, circling and shuffling among
the buffalo-men in the fire-glow. All very proper, mind you, no
lascivious nonsense or anything like that.
Then the drums stopped abruptly, the dance ceased, and the first
spirit-dancer took his stance before the fire and began to chant. The
Yawner tapped me on the shoulder--I was in my buckskins, by the
way, with a garland round my neck--and he and another young brave
called Quick Killer conducted me forward to stand before the spiritchief.
We waited while he droned away, and presently out of the
darkness comes Mangas, leading Sonsee-array in a beautiful long
white robe, all quilled and beaded, with her hair in two braids to her
waist. She stood silent by me, and Mangas by the spirit-chief, whose
headdress barely topped the Mimbreno giant. Silence fell . . . and
here's a strange thing. You know how my imagination works, and
how at the hitching-rail with Susie I reviewed my past alliances--
Elspeth and Irma and Madam Baboon of Madagascar . . . well, this
time I had no such visions. It may be that having Mangas Colorado I'll looming over you, looking like something off the gutters at Notre
Dame, concentrates the mind wonderfully; but also, it didn't seem to
be a very religious ceremony, somehow, and I didn't seem to have
much part of it. What was said was in Apache, with no responses or
anything for poor old Flash, although Sonsee-array answered three or
four times when the spirit-chief addressed her, as did the Yawner,
grunting at my elbow. I suppose he was my proxy, since I didn't speak
the lingo, and while it's a nice thought in old age that Geronimo was
your best manwell. these was something dashed perfunctory about
the whole thing. I don't even know at what point we became man and
wife; no clasp of hands, or exchange of tokens, or embracing the
bride, just a final wail from the spirit-chief and a great yell from the
assembly, and then off to the wedding-feast.
There, I admit, they do it in style. That feast lasted three days, all
round the fire, stuffing down the sweet roasted agave leaves from the
mescal-pits, and baked meats, corn bread, chile, pumpkins and all
the rest, with vast quantities of a special wedding brew to wash it
down. And d'you know, they don't let you near your bride in all that
timewe sat on opposite sides of the fire. in a great circle of relatives
and friends with the lesser mortals pressed behind (I suppose we must
have left off feasting from time to time to sleep or relieve ourselves,
but I swear I don't remember it) and she never looked in my direction
once! Myself, I think they're damned cunning, the Apaches; you may
know that in Turkey at wedding feasts they have a plump and
voluptuous female who writhes about half-naked in front of the
groom to put him in trim for the wedding-night; it's my belief that the
Mimbreno are far subtler than that. Maybe there's something in the
drink, maybe it's the repetition of the dancing that goes on during the
feast, with those bucks in their animal heads chasing (but never
catching) the young females, who flee continually (but never quite
out of reach); perhaps it's just the three days' delay in getting down to
businesswhatever it may be, I found myself eyeing that white figure
through the flames, and starting to sweat something frightsome.
I know she was no great beautynot to compare with Elspeth or
Lola or Cleonie or the Silk One or Susie or Narreeman or Fetnab or
Lakshmibai or Lily Langtry or Valla or Cassy or Irma or the Empress
Tzu'si or that big German wench off the Haymarket whose name
escapes me (by Jove, I can't complain, at the end of the day, can I?)
but by the time the third evening was reached if you had asked me my
carnal ideal of womanhood I'd have described it as just over five feet
(all, sturdy and nimble, wearing a beaded tunic and white doeskin
leggings, with a round chubby face. sulky lips, and great slanting
black eyes that looked everywhere but at me. God, but she was
pleased with herself, that smug, dumpy, nose-in-the-air wench, and I
a.- :, yy- ^
must have been about to burst when the Yawner tapped me on the
shoulder and jerked his head, and when I got up and panted my way
out of the firelight, no one paid the least notice.
Possibly I was drunk with liquor as well as lust, for I .don't
remember much except riding into the night with the Yawner alongside
and the shadowy form of Quick Killer ahead; the nightwind did
nothing to cool my ardour either, for it seemed to grow with each
passing mile through the wooded hills, and by the time we dismounted,
and they and the ponies had faded tactfully into the
darkness, I could have tackled the entire fair sex--provided they were
all short and muscular and apple-cheeked. Through the trees I could
see the twinkle of a fire. and I blundered towards it, disrobing
unsteadily and staggering as I got my pants off, and there was the
little wickiup, and no doubt the flowers were flapping about somewhere,
but I didn't pause to look.
She was reclining on a blanket at the door of the wickiup, on one
elbow, that sturdy little brown body a-gleam in the fireglow as though
it had been oiled, and not a stitch on except for the patterned headband
above the cinammon eyes that gleamed like hot coals, and the
tight white leggings that came up to her hips. She didn't smile, either;
just gave me that sullen stare and stretched one leg while she stroked
a hand down the seam of tiny bells, making them tinkle softly. My
stars, I thought, it's been worth it, coming to America--and that's
when I remember the pine-needles under my knees, and the smell of
wood-smoke and musk, and deliberately taking my time as I stroked
and squeezed every inch of that hard, supple young body, for I was
damned if I was going to give her the satisfaction of having me roar all
over her like a wild bull. I'd been teased and sweated by her and her
blasted tribal rituals too long for that, so I held off and played with
her until the sulky pout left her lips, and those glorious eyes opened
wide as she forgot she was an Apache princess and became my
trembling captive of the scalp-hunters' camp again, and she began to
gasp and squirm and reach out for me, with little moans of querido and hoarse Apache endearments which I'm sure from her actions
were highly indelicate--and she suddenly flung herself up at me,
grappling like a wrestler, and positively yowled as she clung with her
arms round my neck and her bells pealing all over the place.
"Now, that's a good little Indian maid," says I, and stopped her
entreaties with my mouth, while I went to work in earnest, but very
slowly, Susie-fashion, which was a marvel of delightful self-restraint,
and I'm sure did her a power of good. For as the warm dawn came
up, and I was drowsing happily under the blanket and deciding there
were worse places to be than the Gila forest, there were those little
174
tips at my ear, and those hard breasts against me, and the tiny
whisper: "Make my bells ring again, pinda-lickoyee." So we rang the
changes for breakfast. "
' t?'.< There's nothing like teaching a new bride old
tricks, and by the time our forest idyll was over I natter myself
Sonsee-array was a happier and wiser woman. Ten days was enough
of it, though, for she was an avid little beast who preferred quantity to
quality--unlike Elspeth, for example, whose beguiling innocence
masked the most lecherously inventive mind of the last century, and
whose conduct on our honeymoon would have caused the good
citizens of nearby Troon to burn her at the stake, if they'd known.
No, young Sonsee-array was more like Duchess Irma, who on
discovering a good thing couldn't get enough of it, but where rogering
had melted Irma's imperious nature to the point where she was
prepared to await her lord's pleasure, my spirited Apache knew no
such restraint. When she wanted her bells rung, she said so--she was
tough, too, and discovered a great fondness for committing the capital
act standing up under a waterfall in our stream; no wonder I've got
rheumatism today, but it's worth it for the memory of that wet brown
body lying back in my supporting arms while the water cascaded
down over her upturned face, with me grinding away up to my knees
in the shallows.
For the rest, she was an affectionate, cheerful little soul, so long as
she got her own way--for she was damnably spoiled, and immensely
vain of her Spanish blood, regarding the true-bred Mimbrenos with
great condescension, even her terrible father. I remember the contempt
with which she spoke of his habit of calling her by the pet-name
of Takes-Away-Clouds-Woman, which she said was just what you
might expect of a sentimental old savage, instead of by her proper
name. Morning Star, which she thought much more fitting for an
Apache princess.
"But it suits you," says I, stroking away at her leggings. "You take
away my clouds, I can tell you. Besides, I like your fanciful Indian
names--what's mine, by the way, apart from white-eye?"
"Don't you know? Why, ever since you rode with your lance at the
;., 175
pegs, everyone calls you by a fine name: White-RiderGoesSo-FastHeDestroystheWindwithHis-Speed."

It sounded not bad, if a bit of a mouthful. "They can't call me all
that every time," says I.
"Of course not, foolish one--they shorten it. He-Who-Breaksthe-Wind,
or just Wind Breaker." She was in dead earnest, too.
"Why, don't you like it?"
"Couldn't be better," says I. Just my luck to get one of their names
that contracts to something frightful when translated. I knew an
Ogiala once whose full name was Brave-PursuesEnemies-SoFierce.lyHeHasNoTimeToChangeHisClothes---that
came out
as Stinking Drawers, and I can give you chapter and verse if you
doubt it. I said I'd rather she chose me a pet name.
"Let me think," says she, nestling. "A name. . . you should win it
by some great and wonderful deed." She giggled, and her hand
strayed mischievously. "I know ... it should be Man-Who-RingsHerBellsMakesHerHeart-Melt."
Her mouth trembled and her
lids narrowed. "Ah, yes . . .! Win your new name . . . please . . .
now. Wind Breaker!" I reckon I did, too, so far as she was concerned--but
the Yawner was still calling me Wind Breaker last year,
damn him.
Sonsee-array and I returned to the Copper Mines just as the
community was moving into winter quarters in the hills, and if you
wonder why I hadn't taken advantage of our solitary state on honeymoon
to make a break for freedom--well, I still didn't know where I
was, even, and although we'd been undisturbed, I'd had a shrewd
idea that the Yawner and Quick Killer were never far away. Now, to
make matters worse, the tribe moved about thirty miles southwest,
farther than ever from the Del Norte and safety, into a mountainous
forest where if I'd been fool enough to run I'd have been lost and
recaptured in no time.
So there was nothing for it but to settle down, with a heavy heart,
and wait through those awful months, telling myself that the chance
of escape must come in the spring. When I thought back to the snug
billet I'd abandoned at Susie's in Santa Fe, and the foul luck that had
led me to Gallantin and this nightmare, I could have wept--but at
least I was still whole, and no worse off than I'd been in Madagascar,
and I'd got out of that, in the end. Now, as then, I forced myself to
remember that there was a world outside this stinking collection of
native huts and neolithic brutes, a world with Elspeth in it, and white
faces, and beds and houses and clean linen and honest food and drink
and civilised whores. I must just wait and watch, keep my Arab up to
strength, learn everything I could, and when the time came, ride like
the devil, leaving the latest Mrs Flashman and her charming relatives
forever.
The more I saw of them that winter, the more I grew to detest
them; in case you suppose from the recent tender passages that marriage and kinship had made me at all "soft" on Apaches, let me
put you right. I became fairly well acquinted with Mangas Colorado,
perforce, and quite friendly with the Yawner, while Sonsee-array was
a charming and energetic bedmate--but they were monsters, all of
them, and I include my dear little wife. Loving and even captivating
she could be, with her pretty ways and fluent Spanish and a few
civilised habits (like washing regularly) picked up from her unfortunate
mother, but at heart she was as vicious and degraded an Apache
as any of them. I shan't forget the night when she was snuggled up
telling me Indian legends, like The Boy Who Could Not Go West,
and some reference to a villain's sticky end reminded her of the fate
of those members of Gallantin's band who'd been taken prisoner.
There'd been fifteen of them, and the Mimbreno Ladies Sewing
Circle had held a contest to see who could keep a victim alive longest
under torture; the other women's patients, Sonsee-array told me
proudly, had all expired after a few hours, but she had kept that poor
devil Ilario lingering in unspeakable agony for two solid days--she
described it in gruesome detail, chuckling drowsily, while I lay
listening with the sweat icy on my skin. Having known Narreeman
and good Queen Ranavalona and Gezo's Amazons, I had no illusions
about the fair sex's talent for tickling up the helpless male--but this
was the sv/eet child of sixteen v/hom I'd married and sported with in
sylvan glades like Phyllis and Corydon! I tupped^er with no great
ardour that night, I can tell you. ,>.;*
But it was of a piece with all that I knew, and was still to learn that
winter, of the Apache: they truly enjoy cruelty, for its own sake--and
incidentally, they are a living contradiction of the old fable (although
it happens to be true in my own case) that a bully who delights in
inflicting pain is invariably a coward. For if they have a virtue--in
most folk's eyes, anyway--it is courage; you never saw a scared
Apache yet. It's been their downfall; unlike the other tribes, they
never knew when to quit against the pony soldiers; my old pal Yawner
fought on until there was only a tattered remnant of his band left to be
herded on to the reservation (which, be it noted, was more mercy
than ever he'd shown to a beaten foe; if Apache custom had been
applied to the 'Pash, there wouldn't be one left).
They knew how to fight, too, after their fashion, far better than the
Plains Tribes; given numbers, they might be holding out in Arizona
yet, for bar the Pathans they were the best guerrillas ever I saw. They
177
train their boys from infancy in every art of woodcraft and ambush
and decoy (and theft), which is the way they love to make war, rather
than in open battle. That winter in the Gila hills I saw lads of six and
seven made to run up and down mountains, lie doggo for hours,
spend nights half-naked in the snow, track each other through the
brush, run off horses, and exercise constantly with club and knife, axe
and lance, sling and bow. Damned good they are, too, but best of
allthey could vanish into thin air.
The Yawner himself showed me this, one day when I'd admired his
skill in stalking a deer; he said it was nothing, and if I wanted to see
how good he was, let me turn my back and count my fingers ten times.
So I did, and when I looked round the little bastard had simply
disappearedthis on a bare plain without a scrap of cover for half a
mile. He absolutely wasn't thereuntil he stood up at my elbow, with
his huge gaping grin, and showed me the shallow trench he had
scraped in silence and in less than two minutes, within a few yards of
me; he'd pulled tufts of grass and earth over his body, and although
I'd looked directly at the spot, I'd seen nothing. No one ever believes
that story, but I've watched as many as twenty 'Pash at a time vanish
in that way, and there are U.S. Army scouts who'll vouch for it.43 It's
one of the first lessons they teach their boys; it was after seeing it that
I began to suspect that they might give the Yanks a run for their
moneyand they did, didn't they?
Apart from these warlike activities, I learned many curious things
about them that wintertheir love of sports, such as running and
swimming, horse-racing, and shooting or throwing lances at rolling
hoops; the women have a game much like hockey, at which Sonseearray
excelled, but the great pastime is dice, for all Apaches are
inveterate gamblers. They're also highly superstitiousan Apache
will never speak his name (I'm told the Chiricahua never speak to
their mothers-in-law, either, sensible chaps), or hunt a bear, and they
think rattlesnakes are inhabited by lost souls; they regard fish as
unclean meat, never drink milk, can't multiply or dividealthough
some of them can count higher than any other Indians I metand
speak a language which I never mastered. That was partly because
most of them spoke Spanish, more or less, but also because it's
damned complicated, with five times as many vowel sounds as we
have, and the 'Pash, unlike most Indians, are the worst mutterers you
ever heard, and nineteen to the dozen at that." But the main reason
I never learned Apache was that I disliked them and everything about
them too much to want to.
From all this you'll gather that it was a damned long winter, and
made no easier by the fact that a male Apache does nothing in all that
178
time except a little light hunting; for the rest he loafs, e^ sleeps
drinks, and thinks up devilment for the spring, so that in addition to
being miserable and fearful, I was also bored--when you firy yourself
glad even ofMangas Colorado to talk to, by God you're in ^ ^ way.
The only worthwhile amusement was teaching Sonsee-^gy new
positions--for there was no question of so much as looking ^ another
female, even if I'd dared or wanted to; they're fearfully t^ against
adultery, you see, and punish it by clipping the errant fence's nose
off--what they do to the man I was careful not to inquire.
E But one thing that interminable season of waiting cer^nlv ^ accomplish: they got used to me, and by the time the snow-^gK^ ;n
the lower valleys I doubt if it occurred even to the shrewd, suspicious
Mangas that I might be preparing to slip my cable. I'd beer) ^ model
if reserved, son-in-law, Sonsee-array was clearly infatuated ^ gj^ what pinda-lickoyee, honoured by admission to the Mimbreno ^nd carriage
to the Morning Star, would be so half-witted as to wan^ (q return
to his own people? At any rate, when the first big war-Hg^y was
formed to open the season with a descent on the Del No^g ^ was
simply assumed that I would take my part; Mangas even returned to
me the revolver I'd lost when I was captured, and Sor^gg.^gy
herself painted the white stripe across my nose from ear to g^. g^d
gloated at the thought of the booty I'd bring home: jew^ng was
what she wanted, but silk or lace would be acceptable, t^y g^^ 3
couple of Mexican boys as domestic slaves--I can't thinly why gne
didn't ask for girls.
"And some new bells, for my moccasins," says she, with ^g gjyw
pouting smile that was the only thing that had made life endurable
through that awful winter. "To make her heart melt." D'yo^ know it
was ridiculous, but as I took my arm from round her waist, mounted
the Arab, and looked down into those lovely cinnamon eye^ f^ what
I hoped to God would be the last time, I felt a pang? There ^ere great
tears in them, and I don't care--it may be as hellish a pla^ gg ^g^ camp was, with those painted ape-men jabbering as th^y swung
aboard their ponies, the women clustered round the hovels^ (ne place
foul and stinking with the winter's filth, the dogs yapping Bimong the
piles of refuse, the acrid smoke of the morning fires catching ^ ypm.
throat, and the horror of that captivity burned into your ^nd but
when your woman sees you away, and cries over your depa^^tm-e and
reaches up to catch your hand and press it to her cheek, and(yoy'ioo^
back and see the little white figure among the pines, wavin^g yyy pyt t sight. . . well, I thought, I've ridden worse, waterfalls o, ^ 3^
Ae next buck that gets you is going to be a lucky man, for you're the
best-trained red romp in North America.
179
train their boys from infancy in every art of woodcraft and
and decoy (and theft), which is the way they love to make wa m ;
than in open battle. That winter in the Gila hills I saw lads Jf ratller
seven made to run up and down mountains, lie doggo for h an(*
spend nights half-naked in the snow, track each other throu h T'
brush, run off horses, and exercise constantly with club and knife
and lance, sling and bow. Damned good they are, too, but besi*^
allthey could vanish into thin air.
The Yawner himself showed me this, one day when I'd admired h'
skill in stalking a deer; he said it was nothing, and if I wanted to see
how good he was, let me turn my back and count my fingers ten times
So I did, and when I looked round the little bastard had simdv
disappearedthis on a bare plain without a scrap of cover for half a
mile. He absolutely wasn't thereuntil he stood up at my elbow, with
his huge gaping grin, and showed me the shallow trench he had
scraped in silence and in less than two minutes, within a few yards of
me; he'd pulled tufts of grass and earth over his body, and although
I'd looked directly at the spot, I'd seen nothing. No one ever believes
that story, but I've watched as many as twenty 'Pash at a time vanish
in that way, and there are U.S. Army scouts who'll vouch for it.43 It's
one of the first lessons they teach their boys; it was after seeing it that
I began to suspect that they might give the Yanks a run for their
moneyand they did, didn't they?
Apart from these warlike activities, I learned many curious things
about them that wintertheir love of sports, such as running and
swimming, horse-racing, and shooting or throwing lances at rolling
hoops; the women have a game much like hockey, at which Sonsee'array
excelled, but the great pastime is dice, for all Apaches are
inveterate gamblers. They're also highly superstitiousan Apache
'will never speak his name (I'm told the Chiricahua never speak to
their mothers-in-law, either, sensible chaps), or hunt a bear, and they
think rattlesnakes are inhabited by lost souls; they regard fish as
unclean meat, never drink milk, can't multiply or dividealthough
.some of them can count higher than any other Indians I met-an
speak a language which I never mastered. That was partly because
most of them spoke Spanish, more or less, but also because ^
damned complicated, with five times as many vowel sounds as
have, and the 'Pash, unlike most Indians, are the worstmutterersy
ever heard, and nineteen to the dozen at that." But the main reaw
I never learned Apache was that I disliked them and everything a
them too much to want to. . ^
From all this you'll gather that it was a damned long wntr,^^
made no easier by the fact that a male Apache does nothing in
cent a little light hunting; for the rest he loafs, eats, sleeps,
Kand thinks up devilment for the spring, so that in addition to
miserable and fearful, I was also bored--when you find yourself
d even ofMangas Colorado to talk to, by God you're in a bad way. v3 ^]y worthwhile amusement was teaching Sonsee-array new
.. g_for there was no question of so much as looking at another
P. gygn if I'd dared or wanted to; they're fearfully hot against ^ultery, you see, and punish it by clipping the errant female's nose
off--what they do to the man I was careful not to inquire.
But one thing that interminable season of waiting certainly did
accomplish: they got used to me, and by the time the snow melted in
the lower valleys I doubt if it occurred even to the shrewd, suspicious
Mangas that I might be preparing to slip my cable. I'd been a model,
if reserved, son-in-law, Sonsee-array was clearly infatuated, and what pinda-lickoyee, honoured by admission to the Mimbreno and marriage
to the Morning Star, would be so half-witted as to want to return
to his own people? At any rate, when the first big war-party was
formed to open the season with a descent on the Del Norte, it was
simply assumed that I would take my part; Mangas even returned to
me the revolver I'd lost when I was captured, and Sonsee-array
herself painted the white stripe across my nose from ear to ear and
gloated at the thought of the booty I'd bring home: jewellery was
what she wanted, but silk or lace would be acceptable, too, and a
couple of Mexican boys as domestic slaves--I can't think why she
didn't ask for girls.
"And some new bells, for my moccasins," says she, with that slow
pouting smile that was the only thing that had made life endurable
through that awful winter. "To make her heart melt." D'you know, it
was ridiculous, but as I took my arm from round her waist, mounted
the Arab, and looked down into those lovely cinnamon eyes for what moped to God would be the last time, I felt a pang? There were great "ms in them, and I don't care--it may be as hellish a place as that ^"ip was, with those painted ape-men jabbering as they swung
ooard their ponies, the women clustered round the hovels, the place
Diltef ^"^"g with the winter's filth, the dogs yapping among the
throat refuse> the acrid smoke of the morning fires catching at your
, and the horror of that captivity burned into your mind, but
^hJ0111^woman sees y0" away, and cries over your departure, and
back ^"P to catch y0" hand and press it to her cheek, and you look
of sight see ^ ^e ^ite figure among the pines, waving you out
the next h ^e11' ^ ^""S111' ^ we "oden worse, waterfalls or not, and
^-trai1!? that gets you is S0"^ to be a lucky man, for you're the ""ed red romp in North America.
There were perhaps a hundred of us setting out from the hiji camp
that day, including all the principal men of the tribe, Mangas himself,
Delgadito, Black Knife, Iron Eyes, Ponce, the Yawner, and Quick
Killer; every horse in the valley had been pressed into service, for the
Apaches were by no means so flush of horse-flesh then as they became
later, and about a quarter of our command were afoot. The medicine
men inspected us to make sure we had our talismans and medicine
cords, and that the younger fellows had their scratching-tubes; then
they threw pollen at the sun, chanting, and off we went, in five groups
as we left the hills, which is the Apache style on the warpath, the
separate bands scouring the country and converging on the main
objective.45 My heart leaped as I heard Mangas shouting in their
dialect to the infantry groups as they branched off north-east across
the plain, and I caught the name "Fra Cristobal". For that lay north
on the Del Norte, not far south of Socorro, and if I couldn't win to
safety between here and there--well, there would be something far
wrong. Needless to say, there was.
From the hills our five groups fanned out across the mesa which
stretched away endlessly towards the east; I was in the centre group,
with Mangas and Delgadito; I wasn't sorry that the Yawner and
Quick Killer went with one of the south-east bands. for they were the
last chaps I wanted on my tail when the time came to cut stick. We
rode due east, with the sun like a pale luminous ball in the misty
morning, and made good time at a brisk trot; we must have covered
forty miles that first day, and I was pleased that my Arab showed no
signs of fatigue. We saw not a living soul on the plain, but in mid- afternoon I had the shock of my life, for ahead of us on the horizon
there came into view the outline of what could only be a city, and such
a city as I couldn't believe existed in this wilderness. Great buildings
reared up out of the mesa in symmetrical array; brown adobe by the
look of them, but far larger than anything even in Santa Fe. It was
bewildering, but my companions paid no heed to it, riding on in their
usual sullen silence on either side of me, and it was only when we got
to within a mile or so that I realised these weren't buildings at all, but
enormous square and oblong rocks, for all the world as though some
giant had set them down like a child's building bricks in the middle of
nowhere. We passed within half a mile of them, and they looked so
neatly arranged, and reminded me so much of an enormous Stonehenge,
that I suppose they must be the work of some savage sunworshippers,
though how they transported those massive stones I
couldn't image."*
We camped that night in a shallow river-bottom filled with cottonwoods,
and rode on next day through broken country which began to
180 , . jj
incline slowly downwards; my excitement rose, for I guessed we must
be approaching the Del Norte valley. Sure enough, in the late
afternoon we came out of low hills, and there below us in the fading
Bght of sunset lay the familiar fringe of cottonwoods, with here and
there a gleam of water amongst them, and low scraggy bluffs beyond.
Just over the river smoke was rising from a fair-sized village, all
peaceful in the last rays of the afternoon sun. As we dismounted, my
heart was thumping fit to burst as I realised that if this was our quarry,
I'd never get a better chance to break.
We were in a little gully, and while we stripped off our shirts and
oiled ourselves, and renewed our paintit's mad, isn't it, a civilised
white man decorating himself like a savage, but after six months
among these beasts I never thought twice about itMangas told
Delgadito what was to be done. We would ford the river with the last
of the light, descend on the village, bum and pillage it, especially of
any horses and mules it might contain, and withdraw to our present
position for the night; we didn't want prisoners, since tomorrow we
would be riding north, wiping up any small settlements that lay in our
path along the river, making for the rendezvous where we would meet
the walking bands.
Mangas was not to lead us against the village in person. In many
ways he was a man after my own heart, for he never ventured his skin
unless he had to, but no one thought twice about it, his valour was so
well-establishedand how many civilised generals do you know who
scrimmage alongside their soldiery? While Delgadito, a slim, evilfaced
villain who looked more Spaniard than Apache, gave us our
tactical directions, Mangas loafed among us inspecting; I can still see
that huge, stooped untidy figure in the gloaming as he stopped before
me, the black eyes glinting beneath his hat-brim, and feel his coarse
thumb as he wiped a smear of paint from my cheek and patted my
shoulder, and smell the rank odour that I associate forever with the
word Apache.
"Softly across the ford. then scatter and ride straight in," growls
Delgadito. "First kill, then plunder, then bumall except Iron Eyes,
Wind Breaker, and Cavallo, who ride round for the far side and
secure the corral." Very neat and professional, thinks I. "Right,
Mimbreno? Let's go!"
I've ridden in some odd company in my timeLight Brigade at
Balaclava, IIderim's Pathan irregulars, Yakub Beg's Khokand horde
under Fort Raim, to say nothing of Custer and that maniac J. E. B.
Stuartbut that descent of the Apaches across the Del Norte must
have been the strangest of all. Picture if you will that score of
Primitives with their painted faces and head-bands and ragged kilts
181
and boots, fairly bristling with lances and hatchets, and in their midst
the tall figure of the English gentlemen, flower of the llth Hussars,
with the white stripe across his face, his hair rank to his shoulders, his
buckskins stinking to rival the Fleet Ditch, lance in fist and knife on
hipyou'd never think he'd played at Lord's or chatted with the
Queen or been rebuked by Dr Arnold for dirty finger-nails (well, yes,
you might) or been congratulated by my Lord Cardigan on his
brilliant turnout. "Haw-Haw, Fwashman wides uncommon well,
don't he, Jones?"and there was his pride and joy, as foul an
aborigine as any of them, picking his way through the shallows and
sand-flats, and breaking with a whoop and a scream as the first yell of
alarm rose from the village, the shots rang out, and the savage band
charged into the mass of huts with Delgadito at their head.
I swerved after Iron Eyes under the cottonwoods behind the
villageand my eyes were already straining ahead towards the low
bluffs beyond. If I could drop out of sight in the confusion, and make
my way through the dusk, it might be hours before they realised I'd
gone, and by that time I'd be flying north along the east bank of the
t)el Norteby God, and I wouldn't stop till I reached Socorro at
least . . .
There was a shriek from my left; Cavallo had reined up and was
letting fly with his bow at an elderly Mexican who had emerged from
one of the huts and was standing flat-footed as the arrow took him in
JM| the chest; he toppled back, clawing at it, and a woman ran to him
from the doorway, an infant clasped on her hip. She stopped with an
unearthly scream at the sight of Cavallo, and the evil bastard whooped
with glee and rode her down; he leaned from the saddle to seize her
by the hair and slashed her across the throat with his knife, and as the
infant rolled free from the dying woman's grasp, he let her go and
turned the bloody knife in his hand, managing his mount to get a clear
throw at the helpless, squalling little bundle. Without thinking I
jerked out my Colt and let blaze at him; the knife fell as he reeled in
the saddle; he was staring at me in blank astonishment as he clutched
his belly, and I thrust my pistol towards his ugly painted face and blew
it to pieces.
It was all over in a second, and I was staring round in alarm for Iron
Eyes, but he had vanished into the shadows ahead; my shots would
be lost in the hideous uproar from beyond the huts, where those
fiends were at their red work; shrieks of agony mingled with the
whoops and reports, and a ruddy glare from a lighted thatch was
already rising to light the shadows around me. I wheeled my Arab
and urged her into the concealment of the bushes beyond the cottonwoodsin
the nick of time, for here were two Mexicans appearing
I
from between the huts, one of them crying out in horror as he saw the
slain woman, the other letting fly with his ancient musket at Iron
Eyes, who came at the gallop out of the dark. The shot missed him,
and the Mexican went down before his lance thrust; as the second
dago rose from the woman's corpse and hurled himself at Iron Eyes,
I thought, now's your time, my boy, while they're well occupied. In
all that melee, no one was going to miss old Flashy for the moment; I
slid from the saddle, took the Arab's nose, and led her through the
bushes to the far side, where I remounted and made haste towards a.;gully
that opened in the bluff not a furlong away. n
The bushes and trees screened me behind; over my shoulder II
could see the glow of burning buildings, and envisage the horror that
was taking place, but as I gained the gully the awful din of conflict was
i cut off, and I was coursing up the narrow ravine towards the dimly--
seen mesa ahead. Five minutes and I was out on the flat, but there-'
were bluffs ahead, and I veered off eastward, since to flank them on
the river side might bring me too close for comfort to the eyes of my
comrades.
I was free! After six months with those hellish brutes I was riding
clear, and within a daytwo days at mostof safety among my own
kind. However fast Mangas and his mob of friends moved up the west
bank, I must be flying ahead of them; I could have yelled with delight
as I pressed ahead at a steady hand gallop, feeling the game little
Arab surge along beneath me. Dark was coming down, and stars
were showing clear in the purple vault overhead, but I was determined
to put a good twenty miles between me and possible pursuit before I
halted. They must miss me by tomorrow, and knowing their skill in
tracking, I didn't doubt that they would pick up the Arab's trail
eventually, but by then I would have a day's law of them; I might
even have found a large enough settlement to count myself safe.
I took a sight on the North Star as I rode; so long as I made straight
for it I should do well enough, and be able to turn in towards the river
when I felt it safe to do so. It was too dark to see much on either side,
but the going was hard and level, and I trusted the Arab's footwork.
I was still trembling from the shock and elation of escape, and my
mouth was dry, so I took a swig from the little canteen at my beltI
must make for water as soon as it was light, but I had some jerked
beef in my pouch, and the Arab would be well enough with rough
grazing.
For two hours I rode steadily on, and then slowed as the moon
rose, to take my bearings. To my right was nothing; on the left a range
of hills rose in the distance, which gave me a jar for a momentthe
river ought to be that way, surely . . . but perhaps those hills lay
183
beyond it; that must be the explanation. . .it was impossible to judge
distance in that uncertain light. But as the moon came up I was able to
see as clear as day, and what I saw puzzled me. Instead of the usual
rough mesa, I was on a dead flat plain, with a few sparse bushes here
and there; the ground, when I tested it, was more like sandy rock
than the usual crumbly red earth of the Del Norte valley.
Off to my right a prairie dog howled dismally; it had turned bitterly
cold, and I unstrapped my blanket before riding on, my spirits
unaccountably lower than they had been. I couldn't figure where I
was at allbut so long as I kept north I must be all right. It looked a
fairly waterless desolation, though, and when I saw a point of rocks
tl) off to my left I made for it, in the hope of finding a stream, but no
luck. The rocks were spooky in the moon shadows, and looked a
likely lurking-place for snakes or poisonous lizards, so I turned away
sharp, and to my relief found myself on a well-defined wagon road
leading dead north. There were distinct ruts, and I pushed on in
better heart, hoping to come on to less desolate country soon; but as
I rode I realised that the scant bushes on either side had petered out,
and there wasn't a sign of growth or grass as far as I could see in the
silvery radiance. Even the occasional yelp of the coyote was absent
now. I halted and listened. Nothing but an immense, empty silence
surrounded me, and an icy fear that was not of the freezing night took
hold of me. This was not canny; it was as though I were in some dead
worldand at that moment the Arab's hoof struck something that
rang sharp and hollow. It wasn't a rock, so I climbed down and groped
under her hooves; my hand fell on a light, hollow object, I picked it
upand screamed an oath as it fell from my shaking hand. Grinning
up at me from the white floor of the desert was a human skull.
I squatted there trembling, and in sudden revulsion kicked the
ghastly thing aside. It rattled off the road, and came to rest beside a
pile of white sticks which I realised with a thrill of horror was the
skeleton of some large beastan ox or a horse which must have died
beside the wagon-tracks. As I stared fearfully ahead I saw in the
fading moonlight that there were other similar piles here and there
. . . skeletons of men and animals beside a deserted road in the
middle of a great waterless plain of rock and sand. It rushed in on me
with frightening certainty; I knew where I was, all right. There was
only one place in the whole of this cursed land of New Mexico that it
could beby some dreadful mischance I had strayed into the Jomada
del Muertothe terrible Journey of the Dead Man.
For a moment panic seized me, and then I took hold, and tried to
remember what the soldier had said that morning south of Socorro:
"A hundred and twenty-five miles of rock and sand ... no water,
unless you happen to find a rain pool. . . only one way acrossfill
your mount with water, take at least two canteens, start at three in the
morning and go like hell, because if you don't make it in twenty-four.
hours, you don't make it." ;
I was in the saddle before I had finished recollecting, for my one
hope was to push on at my uttermost speed while the cool night
lasted. How far had I come? Perhaps twenty milesone hundred to
go ... but unless I found water I was a dead man. Could the Arabt
carry my weight for another five hourssay, thirty miles, which;"
would see me almost halfway on my journey? If he could, and I found
water atwhere was it? Laguna?we should get through, but if I
pushed him too hard, and he foundered . . . But I daren't dawdle
now. I paused long enough to pour the last couple of inches of water
from my canteen over his tongue, and then pressed ahead through
the freezing night, while the moon sank and I was riding almost blind
with no sound but the echoing hoofbeats over that trackless plain,'
and the Pole Star over the Arab's ears. ''
By resting at intervals, I kept him going for close to six hours, and
then gave him two hours with my blanket over him to keep out the
chillhis health was a damned sight more important than mine just
then. The cold was sharp enough to be truly painful, and we were
beginning to suffer damnably from thirst; the poor brute nuzzled and
snuffled at me, trying to bite the canteen; I led him ahead for a while,
and suddenly he began to chafe and heave, neighing feverishly, and
knowing the signs I mounted and let him have his head. He fairly flew
along, for the best part of another hour; I felt that we were descending
a slight incline, and as the first dawn came over the Jomada I saw
ahead through the mist the undoubted glitter of water pools. My
tongue was too dry to holla for joy; I fairly flung out of the saddle and
threw myself face down at the first pooland to my horror the Arab
sped on, clattering through the mist, while I sank down between
consternation and thirstthirst won, I thrust my face into the pool
and started back with a croak of horror. It was pure brine.
If I have grey hairs, is it any wonder? If I have any hair at all, it'sa
miracle, for I swear that in that dreadful moment I started tearing at
the stuff, staggering to my feet, ploughing ahead, trying to rave to the
bloody pony to stop, wherever he was, and unable to produce more
than a rasping sob from my parched throat. I ran in blind panic,
stumbling through the mist, knowing that I was a dying man already,
without water, without a horse, and lost in that arid desert; twice I fell
on the sandy rock, and twice I rose, blubbering, but at my third
collapse I simply lay and pounded the ground with my fists until they
^re raw, and I could only writhe and whimper in despair.
KT . ' 185
Something touched the back of my neck--something wet and cold,
and I rolled over with a gasp of fear to find the Arab nuzzling at me.
By God, his muzzle was soaking! I stared ahead--there were other
pools--one of them must be fresh, then! I lurched up and ran to the
nearest, but the clever little brute trotted on to stand by a farther
pool, so I followed, and a moment later I was face down in clear,
delicious water, letting it pour until it almost choked me, rolling in the
stuff while the little Arab came for another swig, dipping daintily like
the gentlemen he was. I fairly hugged him, and then saw to it that he
drank until he was fit to burst.
We rested for a couple of hours, and I wished to God I had just one
good waterskin instead of the pathetic little pottle at my belt. Such as
it was, I filled it, and we rode up out of that long shallow depression in
the warm dawn; ahead stretched that fearful desert, with never a
scrub or vestige of grass on it. To the right lay grim barren mountains,
with rocky spurs running down to the plain, and to my left front more
hills in the far distance--surely they must be the Cristobal range by
the Del None? I pointed the Arab's head towards them; if we pushed
on hard now, we might reach them even through the worst heat of the
day. We set off at a gallop, I turned in the saddle for a last look-see
behind--and reined in, staring back in consternation.
Far off on the south-western horizon a little column of dust was
rising... ten miles? Fifteen? However far, it meant only one thing:
horsemen. And the only horsemen who would be riding north in the
Jomada del Muerto must be Apaches.
They had spotted my trail, then, within a few hours of my evasion,
for I didn't doubt for a moment that it was Mangas's band, h^ellbent
to avenge the mortal insult dealt to their chief and his daughter, their
raiding forgotten for the moment. Well, they could ride themselves
blue in the face, for there wasn't one of their cattle fit to live in a race
with my little Arab . . . provided he didn't go lame, or founder in the
heat, or step on a loose stone. . .
I watched the cloud grow imperceptibly larger, and turned the
Arab away from the Cristobal hills, heading just east of north to give
them a direct stem chase in which they would have no chance to head
me off. Time enough, when I'd distanced them, to make for the Del
Norte.
For four hours we went at the run, while I watched the pursuing
dust-cloud dwindle and finally vanish, but not on that account did I
slacken our pace, for I knew they were still there, reading my trail,
and it was only when the heat of the day began to scorch us
unbearably, and I became aware that I was almost dead from sheer
186
weariness and hunger and thirst, that I drew rein at the first grass that
we had sighted since entering that hellish plain. It was poor fodder,
but the little Arab fairly laid his lugs back, and didn't I envy him?
I gave him the last of the water, telling myself that we must come
On a stream in an hour or two, for the Jomada desert was petering out
into mesa studded with sage and greasewood, and there were dimlyseen
hills on the northern horizon; I trotted on, turning at every mile
to stare through the shimmering heat haze southwards, but there was
no movement in that burning emptiness. Then it began to blow from
the west, a fierce, hot wind that grew to a furnace heat, sending the
tumbleweed boundng by and whirling up sand-spouts twenty feet
high; we staggered on through that blinding, stinging hail for more
than an hour in an agony of thirst and exhaustion, and just when I was
beginning to despair of ever reaching water, we came on a wide
river-bed with a little trickle coursing through its bottom. In the duststorm
I'd have passed it by, but the little Arab nosed it out, whinnying
with excitement, and in a moment we were both gulping down that
cool delicious nectar, wallowing in it to our hearts' content.
You mayn't think it's possible to get drunk on water, but you'd be
wrong, for I reckon that's just what I did, gorging myself with it to the
point where my brain became ruddled, so that in my lassitude
common sense and caution took wing, and I crawled under the lee of
the bank out of the wind, and lapsed into a sodden sleep.
The Arab saved me. I came to wondering where the devil I might
be, and what the noise was; recollection returned as I gazed round the
empty river bottom. The wind had dropped, but it must have been
only a lull in the storm, for the sky was grey and lowering, and there
was that uncanny stillness that you can almost feel. The Arab neighed
again, stamping excitedly, and I was just scrambling to my feet when
from far away down the water-course came a faint answering whinny.
I threw myself at the Arab's head, clamping his nostrils and hugging
his muzzle; I strained my ears, and sure enough, from somewhere
beyond the bend of the dry bed came the sound of hooves. With an
oath I seized the bridle and stumbled up towards the lip of the bank,
heedless of the clatter of stones; we gained the flat, but it was empty
both sidesnothing but low scrub and rank grass, with rising ground
, a mile or two ahead, and tree-clad foothills beyond.
| All this in a glimpse as I swung into the saddle, dug in my heels and
went hell-for-leatherand only in the nick of time. Three strides
we'd taken when something whizzed like a huge hornet overhead,
there was a blood-chilling shriek from behind, and as I turned my
head, there they were, surging over the Up of the bank a hundred
FS" " '" ' 187
yards to my left--a dozen of those dreided figures with their scarved
heads and flying hair, bows and lanies flourished, whooping like
fiends as they bore after me.
Another half-minute in the river-botom and they'd have had me--
even now, as I put my head down anc the Arab went like a rat up a
drainpipe, it was going to be a damied close thing. A sling-stone
buzzed past me (someone less skilled ban the Yawner, thank God),
but we were flying now, and in a ninute we were out of range,
drumming across the mesa with that cbrus of savage yells waking the
echoes behind. I stole another glaree; there were four of them
bunched together, close enough for m< to make out Iron Eyes at their
head, and the rest strung out behind they screamed and urged on
their ponies, but they'd been riding continuously, I guessed, for
hours, while the Arab was fresh as pailt; barring a slip, we must draw
steadily away from them--I forced nyself to keep my eyes forrard,
intent on the ground ten yards in frontofthe Arab's ears; I picked my
course through the low bushes, watcling the forested gullies of the
foothills coming closer, stealing anothir backward look--they were a
furlong adrift now. That was the monent when the bridle snapped.
One moment it was whole, the nixt it was trailing loose in my
hands. I believe I screamed aloud, anc then I had my fists wrapped in
the Arab's mane, holding on for diar life, crouching down as a
gunshot cracked out behind--there was precious little chance they'd
hit me, but now as I raised my head, ai infinitely worse peril loomed
before me. Out on the flat I had litte to fear, but once into those
rocky ravines and forested slopes my Arab's speed would count for nothing; I must keep to the open, for ny life--but even as I prepared
to swerve I saw to my horror that alreidy I'd come too far; there were
tongues of forest reaching down to tin plain on both my flanks, I was
heading into the mouth of a valley, itwas too late to turn aside, and
nothing for it but to race deeper intc the trap, with the triumphant
screams of the Apaches rising behind me.
Sobbing with panic, I thundered en, past rocky gullies on either
side, past birch and pine thickets, tie walls of the valley steadily
closing in, and my Arab forced to sleeken pace on the rough going.
Shots cracked behind me, I heard the deadly swish of an arrow; my
pony was stumbling among the loos; stones, I jerked my revolver
loose and glanced back--Jesus! the leider was a bare fifty yards away,
quirting his mustang like fury, with another three strung out behind
him. The Arab gathered himself andcleared a stream, slithering on
that infernal shale as he landed; sometow he kept his balance, I urged
him on--
A numbing pain shot through m) right shoulder and something
struck me a glancing blow on the face; I glimpsed a feathered shaft
spinning away as we blundered through a screen of low bushes; I
reeled in my saddle, dizzy with pain, as we raced between low red
bluffs topped with thick forest, round a bend in the valley, out on to a
broad expanse of loose stones bordering a shallow streamand
beyond reared a great tangle of rock and forest with no way through.
The Arab slid and stumbled helplessly on the stones, I knew the
Apache must be right on my heels, his war-screech rang in my ears, I
was losing my hold, slipping sideways with one arm useless, and in
that awful instant I had a glimpse of a man in buckskin standing on a
rock not twenty yards ahead, in the act of whipping a musket to his
shoulder. A puff of smoke, the crash of a shot, and I was pitching
headlong into the stream.
I came out of it like a leaping salmon, floundering round to face the
Apachehis riderless mustang was clattering away, and the Indian
himself was writhing on the stones in his death agony; I saw him heave
and shudder into stillnessbut when I looked round the buckskin
man was no longer there. The rock was empty, there wasn't a sign of
life among the trees and bushes fringing the gullyhad I dreamed
him? No, there was a wisp of smoke in the still air, there was the dead
Apacheand round the bend, whooping in hellish triumph at sight of
me, came Iron Eyes with two other screaming devils hard on his
heels. He flung himself from his pony and raced towards the stream,
lance in hand.
Instinctively I pawed at my holstermy revolver was gone! I
scrambled wildly up the far bank, clawing my way towards the bushes,
and fell headlong; Iron Eyes was yelling with glee as he reached the
stream...
"Don't stir a finger," said a quiet voice from nowhere. "Just rest
right there."
There was no time to be amazedfor the painted red devil was
bounding over the stream, brandishing his lance. 1l>y
"Ah-hee, pinda-lickoyee dasaygo! Dee-da tutsan'."* he screeched,
and paused for an instant to gloat as I sprawled helpless, his head
thrown back in cruel gleesomething nickered in the air between us,
he gave a choking gasp and staggered back into the water, dropping
the lance and plucking at the horn-handled knife protruding from
beneath his chin. The two other braves, halfway to the stream,
checked appalled as he flopped into the shallows, bleeding his life
outand to add to our amazement, shots were ringing out in a volley
from beyond the bend in the valley, shouts of command were mingling
"'White-eyed man, you are about to die!" ^ ^C ..:"; ^
yards to my lefta dozen of those dreaded figures with their scarved
heads and flying hair, bows and lances flourished, whooping like
fiends as they bore after me.
Another half-minute in the river-bottom and they'd have had me
even now, as I put my head down and the Arab went like a rat up a
drainpipe, it was going to be a damned close thing. A sling-stone
buzzed past me (someone less skilled than the Yawner, thank God),
but we were flying now, and in a minute we were out of range,
drumming across the mesa with that chorus of savage yells waking the
echoes behind. I stole another glance; there were four of them
bunched together, close enough for me to make out Iron Eyes at their
head, and the rest strung out behind; they screamed and urged on
their ponies, but they'd been riding continuously, I guessed, for
hours, while the Arab was fresh as paint; barring a slip, we must draw
steadily away from themI forced myself to keep my eyes forrard,
intent on the ground ten yards in front of the Arab's ears; I picked my
course through the low bushes, watching the forested gullies of the
foothills coming closer, stealing another backward lookthey were a
furlong adrift now. That was the moment when the bridle snapped.
One moment it was whole, the next it was trailing loose in my
hands. I believe I screamed aloud, and then I had my fists wrapped in
the Arab's mane, holding on for dear life, crouching down as a
gunshot cracked out behindthere was precious little chance they'd
hit me, but now as I raised my head, an infinitely worse peril loomed
before me. Out on the flat I had little to fear, but once into those
rocky ravines and forested slopes my Arab's speed would count for
nothing; I must keep to the open, for my lifebut even as I prepared
to swerve I saw to my horror that already I'd come too far; there were
tongues of forest reaching down to the plain on both my flanks, I was
heading into the mouth of a valley, it was too late to turn aside, and
nothing for it but to race deeper into the trap, with the triumphant
screams of the Apaches rising behind me.
Sobbing with panic, I thundered on, past rocky gullies on either
side, past birch and pine thickets, the walls of the valley steadily
closing in, and my Arab forced to slacken pace on the rough going.
Shots cracked behind me, I heard the deadly swish of an arrow; my
pony was stumbling among the loose stones, I jerked my revolver
loose and glanced backJesus! the leader was a bare fifty yards away,
quirting his mustang like fury, with another three strung out behind
him. The Arab gathered himself and cleared a stream, slithering on
that infernal shale as he landed; somehow he kept his balance, I urged
him on
A numbing pain shot through my right shoulder and something
iruck me a glancing blow on the face; I glimpsed a feathered shaft
|spinning away as we blundered through a screen of low bushes; I jreeled in my saddle, dizzy with pain, as we raced between low red
bluffs topped with thick forest, round a bend in the valley, out on to a
n-oad expanse of loose stones bordering a shallow stream--and
)eyond reared a great tangle of rock and forest with no way through.
The Arab slid and stumbled helplessly on the stones, I knew the
Apache must be right on my heels, his war-screech rang in my ears, I
|was losing my hold, slipping sideways with one arm useless, and in
that awful instant I had a glimpse of a man in buckskin standing on a
rock not twenty yards ahead, in the act of whipping a musket to his
shoulder. A puff of smoke, the crash of a shot, and I was pitching
headlong into the stream. ;
I came out of it like a leaping salmon, floundering round to face the
Apache--his riderless mustang was clattering away, and the Indian
himself was writhing on the stones in his death agony; I saw him heave
and shudder into stillness--but when I looked round the buckskin
man was no longer there. The rock was empty, there wasn't a sign of
life among the trees and bushes fringing the gully--had I dreamed
him? No, there was a wisp of smoke in the still air, there was the dead
Apache--and round the bend, whooping in hellish triumph at sight of
me, came Iron Eyes with two other screaming devils hard on his
heels. He flung himself from his pony and raced towards the stream,
lance in hand.
Instinctively I pawed at my holster--my revolver was gone! I
scrambled wildly up the far bank, clawing my way towards the bushes,
and fell headlong; Iron Eyes was yelling with glee as he reached the
stream... ,
"Don't stir a finger," said a quiet voice from nowhere. "Just rest
right there."
There was no time to be amazed--for the painted red devil was
bounding over the stream, brandishing his lance.
"Ah-hee, pinda-lickoyee dasaygo! Dee-da tatsan* he screeched,
and paused for an instant to gloat as I sprawled helpless, his head
thrown back in cruel glee--something flickered in the air between us,
he gave a choking gasp and staggered back into the water, dropping
the lance and plucking at the horn-handled knife protruding from
beneath his chin. The two other braves, halfway to the stream,
checked appalled as he flopped into the shallows, bleeding his life
out--and to add to our amazement, shots were ringing out in a volley
from beyond the bend in the valley, shouts of command were mingling
K ^White-eyed man, you are about to die!" i^N -N'-.'w |%a
BS?'- . , -. . , :,',.i-"-..;?
K .. ISO
with war-whoops, and on my disbelieving ears fell the undoubted
clarion note of a bugle.
If I was stricken dumb, the Apaches weren't; they yelled with race
or fear, and whirled about like victims in blind man's buff in search of
the unseen attacker--and it was uncanny, for one moment the trees
to my left had been empty, and then there was a small, sturdy man in
faded yellow buckskin standing out in the open, leisurely almost, with
a hatchet in his hand and an expression of mild interest on his placid,
clean-shaven face.
He glanced at me, and then said something quietly in Apache, and
the two braves gaped and then screamed defiance. The small chap
shook his head and pointed down the valley; there was another
crashing volley, followed by screams and the neighing of horses and
the crack of single shots; even in my pain and bewilderment I
concluded that some stout lads were decreasing the Mimbreno population
most handily--and the nearest Apache rolled his eyes, yelled
bloody murder, and he and his mate came at me like tigers, hatchets
foremost. ,;.;, y^tl
I never saw the buckskin man move, but suddenly he was in their
path and the murderous axe-heads clanged as they struck and parried
and struck again faster than the eye could follow. I looked to see him
cut down in seconds by those agile fighting demons, but if they were
fast as cats the little chap was like quicksilver, cutting, ducking,
leaping aside, darting in again as though he were on springs--I've
seen men of their hands, but never one to cap him for speed, and he
wasn't just holding his ground, but driving them back, his hatchet
everywhere at once like polished lightning, and the two of them
desperately trying to fend him off. Suddenly he sprang back, lowered
his hatchet, and addressed them again in Apache--and now came
pounding of feet, American voices hollering, and round the bend in
the valley men in stained blue coats and dragoon hats were running
towards us, led by a big black-whiskered cove in plaid trousers and
feathered hat, brandishing a revolver.
One Apache made a bound for the forest and was cut down by a
volley from the dragoons; the other hurled himself again at the
buckskin man and was met by a cut that sent him reeling back with a
gashed shoulder; the whiskered man's revolver boomed, the savage
dropped--and to my amazement the small buckskin man shook his
head and frowned.
"There was no necessity to shoot him," says he, in that same gentle
voice that had spoken to me from thin air. "I had hoped to talk to
him."
"Did you now?" roars Whiskers; he was a great, red-faced jollylooking file. "Listen here, Nestor--you were talking to him just fine,
in the language he understood best." He surveyed the four dead
Indians in and around the stream. "Fact, you seem to have been
having one hell of a conversation." He caught sight of me. "Who in
the name of God Almighty is that?"
"Fellow they were chasing," says the buckskin man.
"I'll be damned! Why, he's got Injun paint on his face! And a
damned Apache-looking haircut, too!"
"He's white, though. Hair on his chin. Wounded, too."
I was glad someone had mentioned that, for my arm was running
like a tap, and if there's one thing that makes me giddy it's the sight of
my own blood. What with that, the pain of my wound, the terror of
the chase and of the bloody slaughter I had witnessed, I was about all
in, but now they were all round me, grimed white faces staring
curiosity and concern as they gave me Christian spirits--first down
my throat, then on my wound, which made me yelp--and patched
me up, asking no questions. A trooper gave me some beef and hardtack,
and I munched weakly, marvelling at the miracle that had
brought them to my rescue--especially the supernatural appearance
of the gently-spoken little fighting fury in buckskin; there he was now,
squatted by the stream, carefully washing and drying the knife that
had felled Iron Eyes.
It was the big jolly chap, whose name was Maxwell, who explained
what had happened; they had been lying in wait for some Jicarilla
horse-thieves who were believed to be making south for the Jomada,
when they had seen me coming lickety-split with the Mimbrenos
behind me. The little buckskin man, Nestor, knowing the ground,
had guessed precisely where my flight must end, and while the soldiers
had neatly ambushed the main body of my pursuers, that buckskin
angel had just been in time to deal with the vanguard--one musketshot,
and then his knife and hatchet against three Bronco braves; God
forbid, I remember thinking, that I should ever get on his wrong side.
But I was taking it in like a man in a dream, hardly able to believe
that I was here, safe at last, among friends, and the vile ordeal of
months, my escape and flight, the final horror of Iron Eyes rushing to
finish me--they were all past, and I was safe, and absolutely crying
with relief and shock--not sobbing, you understand, but just with
tears rolling down my cheeks.
"Easy does it, now," says Maxwell. "We'll get those wet duds off
you, and you can sleep a piece, and then we'll hear your side of it--
and, say, if you feel like trading in that pony of yours, maybe we can
talk about that, too. . ."
He was smiling, but suddenly I couldn't keep my eyes open; great
B ' . 191
waves of dizziness were engulfing me, my shoulder was throbbing lik(
an engine, and I knew I was going to chalk out. The small buckskir
man had come to stand beside Maxwell, looking down at me with th<
same mild concern he'd shown when he was facing the Apaches; I'c
never seen such gentle eyesalmost like a woman's. Perhaps I wa;
wandering in my mind; I know as I looked at that placid, kindly face
I mumbled something, and Maxwell caught it, and his laughter was
the last thing I heard before I slid under.
"Magician, you say?" The cheery red face winked and faded
"Mister, you ain't the first that's said that. . ."
Maxwell claimed later that the arrow whic
wounded me must have been poisoned, and indeed there are som
who say that the Tashes doctor their shafts with rattlesnake venor
and putrid meat and the like. I don't believe it myself; I never hear
of it among the Mimbreno, and besides, any arrow which has beer
handled by an Apache, or even been within a mile of him, doesn't
need poisoning. No, I reckon they were just good old-fashionec
wickiup germs that got into rny system through that shoulder wound
and blew my arm up to twice its normal size, so that I babbled ir
delirium all the way to Las Vegas. ?*il
Why they took me there, instead of to Santa Fe which was only hal
the distance, remains a mystery. Apparently I started to rave and tun
purple a few hours after my rescue, and since Maxwell, havin;
whetted his appetite on the Mimbrenos, was still keen to come t(
grips with his Jicarilla horse-thieves, I was placed in the care of <
 couple of troopers with orders to get me to a medico with all speed
I they carted me off on a litter borne by friendly Indians (I wouldn'
have thought there were any in that neck of the woods, but there yoi
are), and Las Vegas was where they finished up, with the patien
singing "The Saucy Arethusa" and crying out for women, so they tel
me. There, presently, I awoke, in Barclay's fort, as weak as a mott
I and fit for nothing but gruel.
II I wasn't sorry to be there, though. In Santa Fe I might easily havf
'I had an embarassing encounter with my last wife but one, and for al
I knew that greasy little Jesuit might have blown the gaff about my
selling Cleonie to the Navajos. So I was content to recuperate under
the care of Alick Barclay, a cheery Scot (which is almost as rare as a
friendly Indian), and reflect on the sober fact that during eighteen
.months in the United States of America I had been laid out four
times, married twice, shot twice (both from behind), blown up, ^ chased for my life more often that I cared to remember, met some of"
the most appalling people, and. . .dammit, it wasn't worth it; sooner
or later this bloody country was going to prove fatal. I was still stuck
in the middle of it, no nearer to home than when I started, and the
prospect of a safe passage out distinctly bleak. And all because I'd
squeezed Fanny Duberly's tits at Roundway Down and played vingtet-un
for ha'pennies with the likes of D'lsraeli. But it was all part of
the great web of destiny, every bit of it, as you'll see; God moves in a
mysterious way, and I just wish He wouldn't insist on carting me
along with Him.
I'd been at Las Vegas a week when Maxwell rolled up, in great
fettle; they'd not only intercepted the Jicarillas and killed five of them,
but had also recovered the stolen horses, and he was now on his way
back to his place at Rayado, up by Taos. He pooh-poohed my thanks
jovially--I was sitting up in my cot in Barclay's back-parlour looking
pale and interesting--and was all agog to know who I was, for there
hadn't been time to introduce myself before I'd keeled over, and how
I'd come to be booming up from the Jomada with paint on my face
and a war-party at my heels. I was just preparing to launch into a
carefully-prepared tale, leaving out such uncomfortable details as
scalp-hunting and being Mangas Colorado's son-in-law, when who
should slip in but the small man in buckskin.
You'll think me fanciful, but on the spot I decided that the yam I'd
been about to spin had better be more truthful than not. I can lie to
anyone, pretty well, and usually do, but there are some birds it's
safest not to try to deceive--as often as not they're stainless characters
who could have been thorough-paced rascals if only they'd felt
inclined, and consequently can spot villainy a mile off: Lincoln was
like that, and Chinese Gordon, and my late Lord Wellington. And
this quiet, harmless-looking little frontiersman. I don't know what it
was about him; he was the most unobtrusive, diffident cove in the
world, but there was something in the patient, gentle eyes that told
you lying would be a waste of time, for this was not an ordinary man. You may say that having already seen him at his business, I knew how
deceptive were his soft voice and modest bearing; well, I sensed the
hidden force of him now, even before I'd made the faux-pas of
r 193
^
addressing him as Mr Nestor--which was the name I'd heard in th<
valley--and Maxwell had slapped his thigh in merriment and intro
duced him: Christopher Carson.
I stared just the same, for I don't suppose there was a more famou;
man in America at that time. Everyone had heard of Kit Carson, th< foremost guide, scout, and Indian fighter on the frontier, the "Napo
leon of the Plains"--and most folk from first seeing him found it hard t(
believe that this shy, unassuming Kittle fellow was the great hen
they'd been told about. I didn't--and my instinct told me to stick t(
the plain truth, -iw.:; oj;;i,i
It was as well I did, too. I told them my real name, since it was on(
I hadn't used in America (except among the 'Pash) and that I'd beei on my way to Mexico when I'd falllen in with Gallantin and founc myself in a scalp-hunting raid before I knew it; I made no bones abou
how Sonsee-array had protected me,, or how I'd absconded at the firs
opportunity--Maxwell whistled and exclaimed as though he didn'
believe half of it, but when I'd done Carson nodded thoughtfully an(
says:
"Figures. Heard there was an Emglish scalp-hunter wintering wit! the Mimbreno, married to Red SUeeves' girl--thought it was jus
Injun talk till you rode up that valley with paint on your face. Then
knew you must be the man." The mild eyes considered me. "Yo were right to make tracks. I wouldln't care to have Mangas for m;
father-in-law."
I cried amen to that, inwardly thanking God that I hadn't straye< from the 'truth--plainly this little wiseacre had his finger on man;
unseen pulses. "But I hope, gentlemen," says I, "that I've made i
plain that I'm no scalp-hunter, nor ever have been." , .,-. r;;^ 
Maxwell laughed and shrugged itt aside as of no consequence, bu
Carson thought for a moment (whiich was a great habit of his) anc then said simply: "You must ha' maide it plain to Mangas Colorado,'
as though that were the real point--which it was, when you came t(
think about it.
Still, says Maxwell judicially, I'd! be best advised, the way thing
had fallen out, not to venture down the Del Norte again for a spell; i
I was looking for a port of embarkaition, why not San Francisco, an<
he'd give me any help he could alonjg the way--d'you know, I suspec
he absolutely felt he owed me somiething for having put him in thi
way of Apaches to slaughter, but I: may have been underestimatinj
his natural generosity. He was one of your self-made, cheery, open
handed sorts, and obviously a person of immense consequence ii
these pans, so when he talked of (finding me a place on one of th<
Rocky Mountain caravans, or with a party of good Mountain Mei
travelling to California, I was all for it. Carson, who'd been sitting
silent, spoke up again, diffident as always.
"I'll be going north in a week or two. If you're ready to travel then,
you're kindly welcome to ride along."
"There you are!" cries Maxwell jovially. "That's better than a
railroad train to San Francisco, if there was such a thing!" I protested
that Carson had done so much for me already that I didn't like to
trespass further on his favour; he said, on the contrary, he'd be
obligedwhich struck me as excessive politeness until he added, with
one of his rare smiles (for he rarely grinned above a glimmer, and I
never heard him laugh aloud): "Mangas Colorado's a powerful big
Injun, and I don't know that much about him. I'd value your
opinion."
So that was how I came to ride north with Kit Carson in the spring
of '50, whereby I came safe to England eventuallyand into such
deadly peril, years later, as I've seldom faced in my life. But that was
something I couldn't foresee, thank God, when a week later we made
the two-day ride north to Rayado, a pleasant little valley in the hills
where Maxwell and Carson had made their homes. They were an
oddly-assorted pair, those twoMaxwell, the jovial companion,
frontier aristocrat, and shrewd speculator who saw where the real
wealth of the west was to be found, and built his modest farm at
Rayado into the largest private estate in the history of the whole wide
world; and Carson, the little gentle whirlwind whose eyes were
forever straying to the crest of the next hill, who loved the wild like a
poet, and asked no greater possession than a few acres for his beasts
and a modest house for his wife and son. Between ourselves, I didn't
care for him all that much; for one thing, he had greatness, in his way,
and I don't cotton to that; for another, although he was always
amiable and considerate, I guessed he was leery of me. He knew a
rogue when he saw oneand we rogues know when we've been seen.
For all that, he couldn't have been more hospitable. We were two
or three weeks at his house, which was like a tiny Bent's Fort,
completely walled in round a central garden and courtyard, but with
pleasant rooms comfortably furnished with a great profusion of
buffalo rugs and Spanish furniture. His wife, Josefa, was a remarkably
handsome Mexican lady of family, and his baby son, Charlie, was a
seasoned ruffian of twelve months who took to me at once, as children
usually do, recognising in me a nature as unscrupulous as their own. I
played "This is the way the fanner rides", and "Roundabout mouse"
with the little monster until we were both dizzy, knowing that this was
the best way to win his parents' good opinion, and Carson was
obviously well pleased.
B- .. 195
; It was a wonderful restoration after all I'd been through, for the
grub was the finest, the air was good, and Maxwell, who had a mucl- larger house close by, with a large staff of servants, had us ovei
frequently to dinner. He was a splendid host, with a fund of stories and good talk, in which Josefa and I joined, while Kit would sil
quietly, listening with that faint smile, and only occasionally answering
a question, always to the point. I doubt if that man ever said ar,
unnecessary word.
He was sensitive, though, in ways you'd never have suspected. One night I remember he produced a tattered novelette and showed it to
me--and if anyone tells you he was illiterate, it isn't true. Whether he
could write, I don't know, but he read from that novel--and it was about himself, full of lurid adventures in which he triumphed ovei hordes of savages, killed grizzly bears with his Bowie, and hac
hairbreadth escapes from forest fires and blizzards and heaven knows what. I asked, was any of it true, and he said: "Bits of it, but just b accident. I never met the fellow who wrote it."
I imagined his reading it was just a brag, to show how famous he was, but then he told me where he'd come by the book. The previous autumn, he'd been one of a rescue party chasing a band of Jicarillas
who had wiped out a small caravan and carried off a Mrs White anc
her baby; Carson's folk hadn't been able to save her life, or the
baby's, although they'd hammered the redsticks handsomely, anc
afterwards, in the dead woman's effects, he had come across the
novelette. It troubled him.
"If she had read this book," says he very seriously, "with all these
tall tales about me, then when she was carried off and knew I was
coming in pursuit, her hopes must have been high that I woulc
perform some miracle and rescue her and her child. Would you think
that?" sj^.
I said I supposed she might. What then?
"I failed her," says he, and there were absolute tears in his eyes,
"She trusted in me. How bitter her disappointment must have been.
My heart is on the ground when I think of that poor lady and her little
one, praying for a rescue that I was powerless to perform."
That was the way he talked, I may say, when he was in what he
thought of as educated company. Well, I supposed I was meant to
console him, but damned if I knew what to say; I racked my brains trying to think what some true-blue hypocrite like Arnold would have
coughed up, and was inspired.
"You didn't write that book. Kit," says ministering angel Flashy,
"so t'wasn't your fault if she had false hopes. And if she did--well, as one who's been in mortal danger of popping his clogs before now, 1
can tell you it's a sight better to hope you're going to escape than to know you're going to die." Which is very true, by the way. "Why, a
few years ago, my wife was kidnapped by beastly Borneo pirates, and
she said later that she was kept alive by her belief that I would save
her."
s "And you did?" says he, very attentive.
I The temptation to make a brave tale of it was strong, but once
again, with those gentle eyes on me, I found myself telling the truth--
much more of this little bastard's company and I'd finish up a
Christian. "Ah . . . well, yes, in a manner of speaking. I got her out
of it, all right. . . but to be fair, she saved us both, in the end." I told
him briefly how we'd hidden in that garden in Antananarivo, and
Elspeth hadn't so much as squeaked when a searcher's boot had
cracked her finger.*
He shook his head in admiration, and says: "Your wife's a gallant
lady. I'd admire to meet her." There was a questioning look in his
eyes which I thought odd, and slightly uncomfortable, so I changed
the subject.
"Anyway, the point about Mrs White is that it's better to die in
hope than in despair, don't you see?"
He considered this for about five minutes, and then said: "Perhaps
so. It's kind of you to say that. Thank you." Another pause. "Is your
wife back in England?"
I said she was, and he nodded and gave me that mild, direct look
that I was beginning to find decidedly uncomfortable. "Then we must
see you get safe back to her soon," says he. "She will be grieving at
your absence."
I wasn't so sure of that myself, but I was mighty glad when in the
first week of May--on my twenty-eighth birthday, in fact--we fared
north out of Rayado: Carson, a hunter named Goodwin, myself, and
a few Mexican arrieros to manage the herd of mules that my companions
were taking up to Fort Laramie to sell to the immigrant
caravans; from there, Goodwin was heading for California, so I would
be sure of a safe convoy to the coast.
That journey north took the best part of a month, for it's all of five
hundred miles to Laramie, even as Carson rode--which was almost
as straight as the crow flies--up through the Sangre de Cristo by
Pike's peak and the South Park, over the high plains to Fort St Vrain,
and through the Wyoming Black Hills to Laramie on the North
Platte. It was one of the most splendid trips I ever made, for the
scenery is lovely beyond description: I think of that marvellous
'See Flashman's Lady
fastness they call the Eagle's Nest, like a great bowl on the roof of the
world, where the air is so clear and pure you want to drink it; the
great silent forests, the towering white ramparts of the Rockies far
away to the west, the prairie flowers in vast carpets of colour as far as
the eye could see, the silver cascades in the deep woods--it was a wild
and wondrous land then, untouched by civilisation, a splendid silent
solitude that seemed to go on forever.
Best of all, it was safe--not because there weren't savage tribes and
dangerous beasts, but because of the small, stocky figure riding ahead
in his faded yellow fringed shirt and fur cap, apparently drinking in
the view, but in fact recognising every tuft and tree and mountain
peak, sniffing the wind, noting each track and trace and sign; and at
nightfall, strolling out of sight and circling the camp before returning,
with a placid nod, to settle into his blanket. It occurred to me then
that I'd sooner have Carson by himself in this country than the entire
Household Brigade; he knew it all, you see, and even asleep he was a
more alert sentry than you or I wide awake. I remember one night
round the fire, he suddenly lifted his head and remarked that we'd see
buffalo tomorrow; we did; and again, riding up a forest trail, he
paused and observed that Caleb was up ahead--sure enough, a mile farther on, we spotted an enormous grizzly ambling off among the
thickets. How he sensed these things he didn't seem to know himself;
he could foretell weather accurately for two days beforehand, and
absolutely smell a human presence up to about fifty yards.47
You may ask if a month in the wilds with that great scout taught me
much of woodcraft and mountain lore; I can reply with confidence
that by the time we reached Fort Laramie, I could deduce by the sight
of a broken twig that someone had stepped on it, and when I saw a
great pile of dung on the prairie I knew at once that a buffalo had let
drive. Beyond that, my ability to read sign was limited, but by talking
with Carson and a Sans Arc guide who rode with us, I polished up my
Siouxan and became quite fluent, and few of my languages have
proved more vital than that one, for it was the lingua franca from
Mexico to Canada, and from the Missouri to the Divide, and is so
beautiful that I even continued to study it in England. And I guess he
taught me a lot about the West without my realising it, for his
knowledge was profound, although with remarkable areas of ignorance
about the world outside: he had no idea where Japan was, and
he'd never heard of Mohammed or geometry; on the other hand, he
startled me by quoting at length a poem by some Scotch pessimist,
part of which was absolutely in Latin;48 he'd learned it as a child. I
guess that like Sherlock Holmes he knew what he needed to know; he
fairly turned me inside out on Mangas Colarado and the Mimbreno,
for although he already knew plenty about Apaches, he was avid for
any scrap, however trivial, that might add to this store; he even sought
my opinion on such minutiae as their consumption otmescal, and the
possible meaning of the masks worn in the wedding dance; I had to
repeat, three or four times, the conversation with Mangas which I've
recorded earlier in this memoir, and he would smile and nod
agreement.
"Smart Injun," was his verdict. "Sees a long way, and clear. They'll
go, as the buffalo go, which it will, with all the new folks coming west.
I won't grieve too much for the Tash; they have bad hearts, and I
wouldn't trust a one of 'em. Or the Utes. But I can be right sorry for
the Plains folk; the world will eat them up. Not in my time, though."
I observed that the land was so vast, and the Indians so few, that
even when it was settled there must surely be abundant space for the
tribes; he smiled and shook his head, and said something which has
stayed in my head ever since, for it was the plain truth years ahead of
its time.
"An Injun needs a powerful heap of room to live in. More than a
million white folks." '''
In later years I heard many, soldiers mostly, say that Kit Carsori
was "soft" on Indians, and it's true, although he probably killed more
of them than the cholera, in self-defence or in retribution for raid and
murder. The truth is that like most Mountain Men, he was soft on
everyone, if dealing amiably and fairly can be called soft; he knew
that even the Plains tribes were dishonest and cruel and perverse, just
as children are, and so he regarded them, watchfully but with a good
deal more affection than they deserved, for my-money.
There was no question that they liked him, and those who didn't
still admired and respected him. We must have encountered a score
of different bands on their spring hunts, and as we drew closer to Fort
Laramie their villages and travelling camps became more frequent,
for the fort was the very hub of the Plains and Rockies, as Bent's had
been farther south, a great station for the immigrant trains, and the
market where the northern tribes brought their robes and pelts to
trade for civilised goods and booze.
I thought I'd seen Plains Indians on the way out from Independence,
but they were nothing to the numbers and variety we encountered
now; I carry in my mind a series of brilliant pictures from that
time--a band of Pawnee hunters, bare-chested and with long
trouser-like leggings of blue or red, their skulls shaved bald save for
the bristling fringe of scalp-lock like a cock's comb; Crows in gaudy
shirts with war-bonnets so long they trailed to their ponies' flanks; an
Arapaho medicine man, his hair woven in fantastic plaits that stuck
199
out from his head like horns, his arms bleeding with self-inflicte
wounds as he walked in a trance, followed by a group waving Ion
beribboned sticks as they chanted an incantation; Blackfeet warnoi
with lances strung with coloured feathers, little targes on their arms
skin caps on their heads, and as many as twenty strings of bead's abou'
their necks, for all the world like hawk-nosed dowagers sporting thei]
pearls; Shoshoni, whom I remember for their ugly faces, and thei;
great bearskin robes with the muzzles still attached as hoods; Foxes
with huge beaded earrings and weird designs painted on their back;
and breasts; and everywhere, it seemed, swarms of Sioux in all thei
various clans, which Carson seemed to recognise at sight; one bi;
band of them rode with us for the best part of a day, and a nervou;
business I found it, with as many as a hundred of the tall, copper
coloured brutes surrounding us, their faces streaked with paint be
neath the short-feathered crowns, stripped to their breech-clouts ii
the sweltering summer sun, guns at their saddle-bows and lances a
rest; they bore a name which was to become fearsome on the Nortt Plains: Oglala. But best of all I have a memory of a long line o
braves, wrapped in blankets, feathers slanting down from their Ion;
braided hair, riding slowly along a skyline at sunset, looking neithe]
right nor left, dignified as grandees on their way to audience at the
Escurial--my old acquaintances, the Cheyenne.
None of 'em offered us the slightest offence--though whethe;
they'd have been as amiable if Carson hadn't been along, I don't can
to think, for I gathered from him that there was a great disconten
beginning to brew among them. They'd been trading about Laramk
for years, peaceful enough, but after the cholera of the previou;
summer, which they blamed, rightly enough, on the immigrants, the were casting dark looks at the trains that came pouring westward ir
this summer of '50. Before 1849 there had been wagons enough 01
the trails, but nothing to the multitude that now followed the gok
strike. I've been told that more than 100,000 pioneers crossed the
plains in '50; from what I saw myself at Lai-amie and westward it wa
just a continuous procession--and I would say that was the year th<
Plains tribes realised for the first time that here was the rising of ;
white tide that was going to engulf their land--and their life.
You see, before '49, if you were a Cro}y or an Arapaho or i
Cheyenne, you might sit on a ridge and watch the schooners craw
across the empty prairie, one at a time, perhaps only a solitary train ii
a week. You might trade with it, or take a slap at it for devilment, t(
run off a few horses, but mostly you'd leave it alone, since it was doin;
no harm, apart from reducing the grazing along the North Platte o:
the Arkansas, and thinning the game a little. But the Indian just ha<
to turn his back and ride a few miles to be in clear country which the
caravans never touched, the bison herds ran free, and game
abounded. There was still plenty for everyone.
It was different after '49. A hundred thousand folk need a power of
meat and wood and fodder; they must forage wide on either side of
the trail, in what to them is virgin country, and wreak havoc among
the buffalo and smaller game; they must strip the grazing to its roots
and it ain't in human nature for them to think, in all that vastness,
what it may mean for those few figures sitting on the ridge over
yonder (who are thieving, dangerous rascals anyway). But if you are
those figures, Crow or Arapaho or Cheyenne, watching the torrent
that was once a trickle, seeing it despoil the Plains on which you
depend for life, and guess that it's going to get bigger by the year, and
that what was once a novelty is now a menacewhat d'you do?
Precisely what the squire in his Leicestershire acres, or his New
England meadow, would do if crowds of noisy, selfish foreigners
began to trek through ruining the place. Remonstrateand when
that don't work, because the intruders can't see what da-n^e they're
doing, and don't care anywaywhat d'you do then? I'll tell you;
Leicestershire squire. New England farmer, Cheyenne Dog-Soldier
or Kiowa Horse-Cap, you see that there's only one thing for it: you
put your paint on.
But in that summer of '50 the tribes were still just at the fretting
stage, wondering if they might not have to do something serious about
this invasion eventually; when they hammered a caravan occasionally,
it was more for fun that policy. As I've said, they were friendly
enough to our party, and the last day before we reached Laramie a
party of Sioux even invited us to share the feast they were jnaking
after a successful buffalo hunt; we'd passed them in the morning as
they were skinning the carcases and lighting their fires, and Carson,
who stopped off to talk with them, came up presently and says with
his quiet smile:
"Injun back there claims to recognise you. Says you shared a hump
with him last summer over to Council Grove, and he'd like to repay
the hospitality. Spotted Tailknow him?"
I remembered that evil-looking trio who had made themselves free
of our meat the day I'd shot my first buffalo with Wootton. With
Carson on hand I didn't mind renewing the acquaintance, and sure
enough it was the same six-foot handsome spectre with the coonskin
headgear, bloody to the elbows among the slaughtered game but
grinning all over his wicked hawk face; he shook my hand and
growled greetings, and presently we sat round, our half-dozen among
twenty.Bails warriors, gorging ourselves on the freshly-roasted meat.
_ fe1-'.";  ,201
I sat by Spotted Tail, exchanging civilities in my newly-acquired
Siouxan--Wootton had never named me to him, evidently, and I was
ill-advised enough to tell him my Apache handle of Wind Breaker,
which he said solemnly was a brave and creditable one. I expressed
my appreciation of the grub in Sioux and English, and since it was a
new phrase to him he took pains to repeat it several times, croaking
with laughter: "Joll-ee good! Joll-ee good!"
He had his nephew with him on the hunt, a pale, bright-eyed skinny
little shaver who couldn't have been above five or six years old, and
was unique among all the Indians I ever saw, for his hair was almost
fair. He sat very quiet among the feasters, and looked askance
whenever anyone caught his eye. I found him watching me once and
winked at him; he started like a rabbit, but a minute later our eyes
met and he tried to wink back, shyly, but couldn't close one eye
without shutting the other, and when I laughed and winked again he
giggled and covered his face. Spotted Tail growled at him to be still
and mind what he was about, and the child whispered something
which made his neighbours roar with laughter, at which Spotted Tail
snapped at him threateningly. I asked what the boy had said, and
Spotted Tail told me, glowering at the infant:
"Forgive the impudence of my sister's graceless son. He asks if the
big white man is sick, that he cannot keep one eye open."
"Tell him that winking is a great medicine," says I, "which will be
useful to him when he grows older and meets girls, and if he can learn
how to do it I'll give him a ride on my pony."
They all guffawed again at this, and some of the Brule braves called
out to the boy, making fun of him--but when we came to take our
leave, bursting with buffalo meat, there the little devil was, standing
at my pony's head, with one eye clamped desperately shut and the
other one watering with his effort to keep it open. Spotted Tail would
have cuffed him, for while they are uncommonly indulgent of children,
they have a fine sense of courtesy to guests, but I picked him up
and planted him on my saddle, and the little tyke sat there like a pea
on a drum, scared stiff but determined not to show it. I led him about
a little, and he clung tight, squeaking with excitement to go faster, so
I swung up behind and gave him a canter; I can still hear his shrill
laughter, and see his fair hair blowing as we swept along. When he
was all out of breath I passed him down to Spotted Tail and asked his
name; Spotted Tail tossed him in the air and caught him, squealing.
"Little Curly White Hair," says he, slapping the infant's rump.
"Well, he'll be a great horseman and warrior some day," says I,
and as we took our leave the imp perched on his uncle's shoulder and
waved after us, his little voice piping in the wind. ; 
;1 "You made a friend there," says Carson. ,
"Who, the kid?" > .
"No, Spotted Tail. He values that boy--the father's a big medicine
man among the Oglala. Come to that, Spotted Tail's a pretty big man
among the Brule, in all the Sioux councils. Handy friend to have, if
ever you chance back this way."
Since I had no intention of ever setting foot in that awful wilderness
again, I didn't pay much mind--but of course he was right, as
usual. If I hadn't pleased Spotted Tail that day, by playing with the
kid . . . who knows? I might have been spared a heap of trouble--
or I might be dead by now. You can never tell where small boys are
concerned; they may grow up to be your best friend--and your worst
enemy.
We came to Fort Laramie next day, through a sea of prairie
schooners and immigrant tents and Army horse lines and Indian
lodges, all clustered for a couple of miles round the great adobe
stockade by the Platte;49 there were caravans coming in and caravans
leaving, traders white and Indian hawking their wares, dragoons
drilling beneath the walls, and such a Babel as I hadn't seen since
Santa Fe or Independence. When word spread that Carson had
arrived, there was such a press of folk to see the great man that it was
only with difficulty that we got our mules to the corral, and while
Goodwin began the bargaining with teamsters from the trains. Kit
and I went off to the post kitchen, ostensibly to see about grub, but in
fact so that Carson could get out of the public eye--he hated to be
stared at, especially because, as he told me in a rare burst of
confidence, people were so disappointed because he wasn't twenty
feet tall.
We had an amusing illustration of that as we sat outside the kitchen,
drinking coffee and talking to one or two of Carson's mountain
acquaintances; there was a great press of folk about, and through
them comes this big, grizzled Arkansas hayseed, bawling:
"I hear Kit Carson's hereabouts! Lemme see him--I want to shake
his hand! I do that! Whar's he at, then?"
I heard Carson sigh, as someone pointed him out, and then the
hayseed comes stumping across, frowning, and stands in front of him,
scratching his head in bewilderment. ,.;;,; ^ p "Mister," says he, doubtfully. "You Kit Carson?" a*- Carson looked up at him with his customary mild expression and
nodded. The hayseed stared dumbfounded.
"The Kit Carson? The ... the scout, an' all?"
Kit just looked at him, embarrassed, almost apologetic in fact, and
the hayseed shook his head.
. . . 203
"I don't believe it! You . . . you ain't tellin' me yore him! No,
mister--you ain't Kit Carson for me!"
Kit sighed again, and then glanced at me. Now, while he was in his
usual old buckskins, I was in the full prairie fig that Maxwell had given
me, fringed beaded jacket and breeches and wideawake hat, with a
Colt on my rump and a Bowie in my boot, and as you know I'm six
feet odd and stalwart with it; you never saw such an image of a prairie
hero in your life. Carson smiled, looked at the Arkansas boy, and
gave an almost imperceptible nod in my direction. The hayseed swung
round to me, and a huge beam of joy broke over his ruddy countenance
as he looked me up and down.
"Now, that's more like it!" cries he, and I found my hand crushed
in his huge grip. "Say, have I bin waitin' to see you. Kit! My, wait till
I tell the folks 'bout this--why, sir, it's an honner! 'Deed it is! Kit
Carson! So, now--thank'ee kindly, an' God bless you!"
There were absolute tears in the great clown's eyes as he turned
away, glanced at Carson, growls: "Kit Carson? Huh!", tipped his hat
to me with another broad grin, and strode off. The mountain boys
held on to each other laughing, and I wasn't any too pleased, but
Carson gave me his slantendicular smile and shrugged. "You look a
heap more like me than I do. Harry," says he. He was right of course;
I did.
I'd no cause to complain, though, of the pains he took to secure me
a safe passage to the coast: Goodwin was travelling up to the
Yellowstone before heading west, but knowing I wanted to lose no
time, Carson put it about that a friend of his wanted to work his way
to the coast as a hunter--and such was the magic of his name that the
wagon-captains whose trains were resting at Laramie fairly fought for
my services. Fifty dollars a month, I was offered, and all found, which
was no small thing since the cash I'd raised on Cleonie had vanished
mysteriously among the Apaches, and I hadn't a bean towards my
sea-passage. Carson chose a big, well-found train of sixty schooners,
and put in a special word for me.
"Harry Flashman's a good man on the trail," says he. "Been down
among the 'Pash, and in the British Army. Good shot." The wagoncaptain
damned near pumped my hand off, and I heard him bragging
to his mates that he'd got "one o' Kit Carson's boys".
Now, when I added this to all the favours Carson had done me, I
found it middling odd. Granted he was a generpus, open-handed ass
who'd rather do anyone a good turn than not; still, I guessed for all
his kindness that he'd never cottoned to me, let alone liked me, so
why was he being so deuced considerate?
I'm always leery of favours which I don't deserve, so when Carson
left Laramie a day or so before my caravan was due to start, I rode
out a few miles with him on his way, and fished for an explanation at
parting. I thanked him again for saving my life, entertaining me at
Ray ado, convoying me north, and recommending me, and hinted
that on that last score at least he'd been saying more than he really
knew.
"No," says he, after some reflection. "I saw you shoot pretty good
on the way north. You ride like a Cumanche, too."
"Even so," says I, "you've been more than generous--to a complete
stranger."
He went into another of his pensive broods, his eyes on the trail
ahead where his arrieros were riding down to the woods; we were^;
alone on the little ridge. At last he says: 7
"You're going back to your wife in England. That lady in Santa
Fe--she wouldn't be your wife."
I nearly fell out of my saddle. How the hell had he heard about
Susie? I gaped at him, and regained my wits. "Good lord, no! That's, a ... a woman I met in the East--we were companions, don't you;
know ... er ... who . . . told you about her?"
"Dick Wootton," says he, perfectly mild. "I saw him in Santa Fe
after we picked you up--while you were sick, at Vegas. He chanced
to mention how he'd come west with an English fellow named
Comber, last summer; from Dick's description, this fellow sounded
pretty like you. So I was astonished when I saw you at Vegas and you
told me you were called Flashman. Different name, you see."
"Ah . . . well, you see ... it's a long story--"
"I'm not asking," says he gently, still looking down the trail. "Just
telling. Dick told me this Comber fellow ran away from his wife--that
was what Dick called her--in Santa Fe. But I didn't mention you to
Dick. Not my business."
"Well, by Jove, Kit, I'm most obliged to you--but honestly, I can:. explain--" -y'
"Don't have to." He frowned at the distance, and sighed. "Dick
said he figured--I'm telling you just what he said--that this fellow
Comber might be on the run; Dick had a feeling there was a price on
his head back east, maybe. Wasn't sure, of course . . . just a feeling,
you understand." i ,
My blood was suddenly frozen, and my laugh must have sounded
like a death-knell. "Good God!" cries I. "What an extraordinary
notion, to be sure! Why should he think... I mean. . . whoever this
chap was . . . well, there are other Englishmen ..." It was no use: I
tailed off lamely as the mild eyes turned to consider me, and his voice ^ quiet as ever. .^,,
205,
"Dick told me this Comber was a good wagon-captain. . . kind of
green, in some ways, but he got the train through. Spoke'with a
straight tongue to the sick Cheyenne, too. Did pretty well at Bent's
when the Big Lodge blew up." He paused. "Dick said, whatever this
Comber was, or had done... he liked him." Another long pause. "I
value Dick's opinion."
I've had some strange testimonials in my time, including the
Victoria Cross, a pardon from Abraham Lincoln, Sale's ludicrous
report from Jallalabad, Wellington's handshake, the thanks of Parliament,
a pat on the back from Rajah Brooke, and ecstatic sobs from
all sorts of women--but I'm rather partial to the memory of Kit
Carson telling me what a white man I was. God, he was gullible--no,
he wasn't either, for he'd figured me for a scoundrel, right enough;
his only mistake was in accepting the simpleton Wootton's estimate
that I was a brave scoundrel. That was enough for little Kit; it didn't
matter what else I'd done. . . running out on women, using assumed
names, committing God knew what crimes back East. I'd got the train
through.
It's a remarkable thing (and I've traded on it all my life) that a
single redeeming quality in a black sheep wins greater esteem than all
the virtues in honest men--especially if the quality is courage. I'm
lucky, because while I don't have it, I look as though I do, and worthy
souls like Carson and Wootton never suspect that I'm running around
with my bowels squirting, ready to decamp, squeal, or betray as
occasion demands. And in their kindly ignorance, they give me a
helping hand, as Carson had done--he'd also given me a damned
nasty start for a moment; my nerves were still tingling.
"Ah, well," says I, trying to sound hearty. "He's a good chap, is
Uncle Dick."
"Wah!" says he, and had another consider to himself. "Safe home,
then." A final pause. "If you chance back thisaway, give me a hollo."
"I shan't be coming back," says I, and by George, I meant it.
He nodded, lifted a hand slightly, and turned his pony down the
trail. I watched him out of sight, the small buckskin figure fading into
the trees, and while I felt nothing but relief at the time (for the Kit
Carsons of this world and I don't ride easy together) what sticks in my
mind now is how easy and natural it was to part and go your ways on
the old frontier, without ceremony or farewell. It was almost a
superstition, I suppose: no one ever said goodbye.
Two days later our caravan started west for the South Pass, and I rode
206
out that morning in a great contentment, as though I were coming to
the end of a long trek--which was odd, with more than a thousand
miles of prairie and salt desert and Rocky Mountain to cross to the
coast, and long sea-leagues beyond that to England. But you know
how it is--sometimes you know that a chapter is closing, as surely as
though you were shutting a door behind you. As I swung aboard the
little Arab, and heard the cry of "All set!" echoing down the wagon
line, and heard the whips crack and the teamsters yell and the wheels
groan forward--I knew I was nearing the end of that frightful journey
which had begun when John Charity Spring strode into my hotel
room at Poole and started raving in Latin; a journey that had carried
me to the wilds of Dahomey and skirmishes with great black-titled
females, through chases and sea-battles to New Orleans and desperate
flights and escapes on the Mississippi, from brothels to plantations
to slave-marts to that homely front-hall where I'd quaked and bled
while an ugly, gangling young lawyer stuck his chin out and braved
my ruffianly pursuers; and since then I'd rogered my way ouf of the
law's clutches, across the prairies to the terrors of Bent's Fort and the
Del Norte and the Dead Man's Journey . . . but it was all past and
done with, and soon I would be taking ship for home. And Elspeth
and soft beds and green fields and strolls down the Haymarket and
white whores for a change and cricket and rides in the Park and
hunting and decent cigars and conversation and everything that makes
life worth living. By gum, I'd earned it.
And as for their damned redskins and prairie wagons and buckskins
and bear's grease and painted faces and buffalo grass and sweat-baths
and plug-a-plew and war-whoops and Mountain Men--well, they
could keep'em all for me.
They did.
207
I
THE SEVENTY-SIXER
It's only when you've grown old that you begin to
see that life doesn't run in a straight line; that you can never be sure a
chapter is finished, and that half a century may lie between cause and
final effect. Why, I met Lola Montez and Bismarck in '42, bedding"
one and belittling t'other, and thought that was thatand five years
later they popped up to give me the scare of my life. And I thought I'd*
seen the last of Tiger Jack Moran after Rorke's Driftbut, damme,"
he came back to haunt my old age and almost had me indicted for
murder. No, you never can tell when the past is going to catch up,
especially a past as dirty as mine. A
So it was with the old West. I left it on a summer's day in '50,'
vowing never to return, and twenty-five years later, when the old
memories had faded, back it came with a vengeanceand that word
is well-chosen, as you'll see.
I blame Elspeth entirely. Having the brain of a backward hen, it
had taken her until middle age to discover the delights of luxurious
globe-trotting, and since by then old Morrison's ill-gotten pile had
swollen prodigiously, she was able to indulge her wanderlust to the
full. As often as not I went along, for after thirty years of travelling
rough I didn't mind being wafted about in style, from steamer
stateroom to hotel Pullman, and stopping at the best pubs on the way;
another reason was that I didn't trust the little trollop an inch, for
Elspeth at fifty was every bit as beddable as she'd been at sixteen, and
had lost none of her ardour. The Bond Street salons and swarms of
effete Frog hairdressers kept that corn-gold hair as lustrous as ever,
her milky-pink complexion bloomed like a country girl's, and if she'd
added a stone to her figure it was all to the good and well-placed. In
fact, she continued to draw men like flies to a jam-pot, and while in
thirty years I'd never absolutely caught her inflagrante, there were a
dozen at least I suspected her of slapping the mattress with, including
that pop-eyed lecher Cardigan and H.R.H. Bertie the Bounder. So I
wasn't having her panting with Alpine guides and sweaty gondoliers
while I idled at home on half-pay; I preferred to keep her in trim
myself and discourage foreign attentions. I loved her, you see.
Most of her jaunts were close to home, at firstBlack Forest,
Pyrenees, Italian lakes, the Holy Land and Pyramids, and endless
piles of Greek rubble dignified by antiquity, for which she had a
remarkable appetite, sketching away execrably under a parasol and
- ' 211
misquoting Byron while her maid scampered back to the hotel fo
fresh crayons and I loafed impatiently, wishing I might slip down t(
the native quarter for some vicious amusement among the local wild
life. And then one winter's day early in '75 she remarked idly that I'<
never shown her North America.
"Neither I have," says I. "Well, there's a lot of it, you know
Difficult to take in, and it's a long way."
"I should so love to visit it," says she, with that faraway imbecili
expression that comes of studying engravings in the Illustrate! London News, "to venture forth into the New World with its scenii
grandeurs and huntsmen in picturesque garb, and the unspoile<
savages and the cowboys with their coyotes and lariats," she babble< on, sighing, "and the Tremont Hotel of Boston is said to be quiti superior, while the Society of New England is reputed most select
and there are all those battle-fields with peculiar names where yoi were so brave which I long to have you show me. The price of passagi is also extremely reasonable and--"
"Hold on, though," says I, for I could see the cricket seasol
vanishing. "It's farther than you've ventured before, you know--
except for Singapore and Borneo--and you didn't care for that. 0 Madagascar. Well, America's pretty wild, too."
"Why, I cared extremely for Borneo and Madagascar, Harry! The
voyage was ever so jolly, and the climate agreed with me perfectly."
"And being kidnapped by pirates, and chased for our lives b:
enormous niggers--you enjoyed those, did you?"
"Some of the people were disagreeable, true, but others were mos
amiable," says she, and I knew from her complacent sigh that she wa
fondly recalling all the randy villains who'd ogled her in her sarong
"Besides," she went on, glowing, "that was an adventure--do yo know, I never was so happy as when we fled through the forest, yoi
and I--and you fought for me, and were so strong, and took sucl
good care of me, and . . . and ..." Her great blue eyes filled will
tears, and she pressed my hand, and I felt a sudden odd yearning fo
her, which was rapidly dispelled as she went on: "In any event
America cannot be as barbarous as Madagascar, and since you havi
the acquaintance of the President and other persons of consequence
we are sure to have the entree, especially with our money. Oh, Harry
my heart is set on it, and it will be such fun! Please say you'll taki
me!"
Since she had already bought the tickets, that was how we came t<
be at Phil Sheridan's wedding in Chicago a few months later, an(
there, with a startling coincidence, began the bewildering chain o
events which completed the story that I have told you in this memoi
so far. (At least, I hope to God it's complete at last.) Not all that
happened in '49 has a bearing on what I'm about to tell, for life's like
that, but much of it did. I can safely say that had it not been for my
odyssey which began in Orleans and ended at Fort Laramie in '50, the
history of the West would have been different. George Custer might
still be boring 'cm stiff at the Century Club, Reno wouldn't have
drunk himself to death, a host of Indians and cavalrymen would
probably have lived longer, and I'd have been spared a supreme
terror as well as a ... no, I shan't call it a heartbreak, for my old
pump is too calloused an article to break. But it can feel a twist, even
now, when I look back and see that lone rider silhouetted against the
skyline at sunset, with the faint eerie whistle of Garryowen drifting
down the wind, and when I had rubbed the mist from my eyes, it was
gone.
It was sheer chance we were at Sheridan's wedding. Despite my
loved one's expressed enthusiasm for scenic grandeur and huntsmen
in picturesque garb, she'd been content to spend the first months
poodle-faking with the smart set in Boston and New York, wallowing
at the Tremont and Delmonico's, and spending money like a rajah in
Mayfair. Society, or what passes for it over there, had naturally
opened its arms to the beauteous Lady Flashman and her distinguished
husband, and we might have been racing and dining and
water-partying yet if Little Phil hadn't got word of my presence, and
insisted that we come to Chicago to see him jump off the cart-tail. I'd
known him for a good sort in the Civil War, and met him again during
the Franco-Prussian nonsense, so to Chicago we went.
I must digress briefly to remind you of the vast change that twenty-;
five years had wrought in my own fortunes. Back in '49, though a
popular hero in England, I'd been a nameless fugitive in the States;
now, in 1875,1 was Sir Harry Flashman, V.C., K.C.B., with all the
supposed heroics of the Crimea, Mutiny, and China behind me, to
say nothing of distinguished service to the Union in the Civil War. No
one had been too clear what that service was, since it had seen me
engaged on both sides, but I'd come out of it with their Medal of
Honour and immense, if mysterious, credit, and the only man who
knew the whole truth had got a bullet in the back at Ford's Theatre,'
so he wasn't telling. Neither was I--although I will some day, all'
about Jeb Stuart, and Libby Prison, and my mission for Lincoln (God
rest him for a genial blackmailer), and my renewed bouts with the
elfin Mrs Mandeville, among others. But that ain't to the point just
now; all that signifies is that I'd gained the acquaintance of such
notables as Grant (now President) and Sherman and Sheridan--as
well as such lesser lights as young Custer, whom I'd met briefly and
213
informally, and Wild Bill Hickok, whom I'd known well (but the stor
of my deputy marshal's badge must wait for another day, too):
So now you see Flashy in his splendid prime at fifty-three, distin' guished foreign visitor, old comrade and respected military man, witt just a touch of grey in the whiskers but no belly to speak of, straight a;
a lance and a picture of cavalier gallantry as I stoop to salute th<
blushing cheek of the new Mrs Sheridan at the wedding reception ir
her father's garden." Little Phil, grinning all over and still looking a;
though he'd fallen in the river and let his uniform dry on him, led m<
off to talk to Sherman, whom I'd known for a competent savage, an(
the buffoon Pope, whose career had consisted of losing battles anc claiming he'd won. They were with a big, abrupt cove, whiskered lik<
a Junker, named Crook.
"And how the thunder do I keep 'em out of the Black Hills?" h<
was demanding. "There are ten thousand miners there already
hungry for gold, and I'm meant to say, 'Now, boys, you just leave the nuggets be, and run along home directly.' They'll listen, won't they?'
he snorted, and then Sheridan was presenting me. I expressed interes
in what Crook had been saying, and was enlightened.
It seemed that a few years earlier Washington had made a treat;
with the Sioux Indians granting them permanent possession of thf
Black Hills of Dacotah, which the Sioux regarded as their Valhalla
no white settlers were to come in without Sioux permission, but nov
that gold had been found in the hills (by a scientific expedition sen
out under Custer, in fact) the miners were swarming in, the redskim
were protesting, and Crook had been toldto get the intruders out
P-d-q- w. ^::^ i-ytj; I-'
"You may imagine, sir," he told me sourly, "how a hard-cast
prospector will respond when I tell him that he, a free-born American
can't go where he damned well pleases on American soil. Evien if I d< persuade or drive him out, he'll slip back in again. Can't blaime him
sir; the gold's there, and you can't keep a dog from its dinner."
"Treaty or no treaty," says Pope solemnly.
"Treaty, nothing!" snaps Sherman; he was the same ugly, black
avised bargee who you remember observed that war is hell, :and thei
proved it; I was interested to see that ten years hadn't mellowed him
"That's all I hear from the soapy politicians and Bible-punchinj hypocrites in Washington, and the virtuous old women whio get u] funds for the relief of our 'red brothers'--how our wicked govemmen
violates treaties! But not a word about Indian violations, no, sirree
We guaranteed 'em the Black Hills, sure--and they guaranteed us t(
keep the peace. How do they keep their bargain?--by ripping up thi
tracks, scalping settlers, and tearing six kinds of hell out of each other
after every sun dance! How many of 'em have settled on the reservations,
tell me that!"
Pope wagged his fat head and said he understood that some
thousands had come in to the agencies, and settled down quietly.
"You don't say!" cries Sherman scornfully. "Seen the Indian Office
figures, have you? Out of fifty-three thousand Sioux, forty-six thousand are 'wild and scarcely tractable'--those are the very words, sir.
Oh, they'll come in to the agencies, and collect the provisions we're
fool enough to hand out to them, and the clothes and blankets and
rifles--you bet they'll have the rifles! For hunting, naturally." He
prepared to spit, and remembered he was at a wedding. "Hunting
white settlers and soldiers, I dare say. Know how many thousands of
new rifles--Winchester and Remington repeaters, too--were shipped
up the Missouri by Indian traders last year? How many million
cartridges? No, you don't know, because Washington daren't say.
And the benevolent government permits it, to hostiles who've no
least notion of settling on reservations, or turning to farming, or
accepting the education offered 'em by a bunch of old women in pants
back East who'd never dare put their noses west of St Louis. Is it any
wonder the Sioux think we're soft, and grow more insolent by the
day?" He let out a great snort of disgust. "Oh, the hell with it, I need
a drink."51
He stumped off, and Crook shook his head. "He's right on one
thing: it makes no sense to arm the tribes while we keep our own
troops short of proper equipment. Someone is going to have to pay
for that policy sooner or later, I fear--probably someone in a blue
coat earning $13 a month to guard his country's frontier."
It sounded very much like the usual soldiers' talk about politicians--except
that Sherman and Sheridan at least weren't usual soldiers.
Sherman was commander-in-chiefofthe U.S. Army, and Little
Phil commanded the Missouri Division, which meant the whole Plains
country to the Rockies. I didn't doubt they were well informed on the
Indian question, and I knew the government was notoriously corrupt
and inefficient, although Grant himself was said to be straight enough.
Innocently I said I supposed the business of supplying the Indians was
a very lucrative one; Pope choked on his drink, Sheridan shot me a
glance, but Crook looked me straight in the eye.
"That's the devil of it--a trader can get $100 in buffalo skins for
ne repeater, and twenty cents a cartridge. But that's small beer to "^ profits of contractors who supply the agencies with rotten meat
and mouldy flour, or agents who cook their books and grow fat at the
Indians' expense."
Come now, George," cries Pope, "not all agents are rascals."
215
"No, some of 'em are just incompetent," says Crook. "Either way,
the Indian goes hungry, so I guess I can't blame him if he prefers not
to rely on the agencies--except for weapons."
"Forty-six thousand hostiles, well-armed?" says I. "That's about
twice the size of the U.S. Army, isn't it?"
"Gentlemen, we have a British spy in our midst!" says Sheridan,
laughing. "Yes, that's about right--but not all of those Indians are
truly hostile, whatever Sherman thinks. Only a handful, in fact. The
rest simply don't want to live on agencies and reservations. The few
real wild spirits--Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, and the like--don't
amount to more than a few thousand braves. There's no danger of a
general outbreak, if that's what you're thinking. No danger of that at &&"
And now came Elspeth tripping radiantly to reprove me for not
presenting the famous General Crook--of whom she'd never heard,
of course, but the little flirt knew a fine figure of a man when she saw
one. So now Crook beamed and made a chest and bowed and called
her "my lady" and absolutely behaved like a faithful sheepdog while
I admired her performance with a jaundiced eye, and the talk
murmured on under the trees in the drowsy summer afternoon; I did
the polite with the prettiest bridesmaid at the punchbowl, and forgot
all about Indians.
It came back a few hours later, though, when the coincidence
happened. Until Sheridan's wedding I hadn't thought about redskins
for years, and now, the very same day, the old West laid its horny
hand softly on my shoulder for the second time.
Elspeth and I were going in to dinner at the Grand Pacific, and I
had turned into their big public lavatory to comb my whiskers or
adjust my galluses; I was barely aware of a largish man who was
examining his chin closely in a mirror and grunting to himself, and I
was just buttoning up and preparing to leave when the humming
ended in a rasping growl of surprise.
"Inyuni Joll-ee good! Washechuska* Wind Breaker! Hoecahl"51
I bore up sharp, for I don't suppose I'd heard Siouxan spoken in
more than twenty years--and then I stood amazed. My companion
had turned from the mirror, tweezers in hand, and was regarding me
in delighted surprise. I gaped, for I couldn't credit it; there stood a
figure in evening trousers and coat, starched front and all--and above
it the bronzed hawk face of a full-blooded Plains Indian brave, with a
streak of paint just below the parting of his glossy black hair, which
hung to his waist in long braided tails, one adorned with a red eagle's
"Englishman. Inyun and hoecah are exclamations of surprise and disbelief.
216
feather. Well, I'd known American hotels were odd, but this beat all.
The apparition advanced, beaming.
"You remember? At Fort Laramie, the year after the Great
Sickness? You, me, Carson the Thrower-of-Ropes? HanT'*
Suddenly the years fell away, and I was back in the hollow where
Wootton and I skinned the buffalo, and that awful visitation ... the
painted face with the coonskin hanging from its cap. . . and the feast
with the Brule at Laramie . . . "joll-ee good! joll-ee good!" . . . and
the same black devil's eyes glinting at me. By some freak of memory
it was his Indian name that I remembered first. 5..,. ' .'
"Sintay Galeska! Good God, can it be you?" ;..m' .. *
He nodded vigorously. "The Spotted Tail. Hinteh,^ how long has it
been? You have grown well, Wind Breaker--with a little frost in your
hair." He pointed to the grey in my whiskers, chuckling.
I was still taken all aback--as you would be if you'd met the King of
the Cannibal Isles rushing naked round the South Seas, and twenty
years later he tooled up to you in the Savoy in full evening fig, and
began assailing you in broken English and a native tongue you'd all
but forgotten. Why, the last time I'd seen him he'd been in breechclout
and war-bonnet, all smeared with buffalo blood. . . now he was
rumbling on in Sioux, and I was struggling to identify those sonorous
vowels, dredging words from the back of my mind.
"Hold on a moment. . . er, anoptah}^ You're Spotted Tail, the
Brule? The . . . the killer of Pawnees?" And instinctively my hand
went up to crook a finger at my brow, which is sign-talk for Pawnee,
the V/olf-Folk--heaven knew where that memory had come from,
after so long. He crowed approvingly, nodding. "But... but what
the devil are you doing. . . here, I mean?"
"Here? Grand Pacific?" He shrugged massively. "It not so good.
Palmer House better--bully girl-servants, joll-ee pretty. But got no
rooms, so my people and I come here. Huh!" .;*,
This was a ridiculous dream, obviously. "I mean, what are you
doing... far from your lodge? In the city--in those clothes?"
"Ho!" I could have sworn his eyes twinkled. "The white man's
robes, very proper. I have been to the tipi of the Great Father in
Washington. For pow-wow on high matters. Now we return to the
place of my people--at my agency, the agency of Spotted Tail, on the
White River. Two suns, in the iron horse. How-howl Wait." And he
thrust his great head at the mirror again, breathed gustily, tweaked a
*Yes? A., ,,^ ^ ';f tincredible! ,,,-J: -/; .,.'.:
tStop! ' -,-;' ,"
217
hair from his chin, and pocketed his tweezers. As he straightened his
coat I saw with alarm that he had a revolver in his arm-pit and a
scalping-knife in an embroidered scabbard thrust in his pants
waistband.
"How} We eat now, together. Horse's dbovers and large snow
puddings that make the tongue dead. Joll-ee good!" He grinned again
and laid a huge paw on my shoulder. "My heart is as the lark to see
again a friend from my youth, who remembers the time when the
buffalo covered the plains like a blanket. Hunhe Come to grub!"
Still recovering as I was, I was suspecting that Mr Spotted Tail,
chief of the Brule Sioux, was something of a joker. My gift of language
has always been good enough to enable me to turn my mind instantly
to any tongue I've ever learned, no matter how long ago, so that
within a minute of our meeting I was thinking in Siouxan. And while
I knew how picturesque it was, with its splendid metaphors, I sensed
that he was using them ironically as often as not. He didn't have to
talk to me about "the tipi of the Great Father", or "snow puddings
that make the tongue dead"; he could just as easily have said "White
House" or "ice-cream"--he knew the names of Chicago's hotels well
enough, and had a smattering of English. But he was smart as paint,
and I guessed it suited him to play the romantic stage-Indian when he
came east on the "iron horse" to "powwow".
But I couldn't get over our strange meeting, and as we walked to
the dining-room I demanded to know what he'd been doing, and
where he'd learned English--not that he had much.
"In prison," says he calmly. "At Fort Leavenworth, after we slew
Grattan's pony-soldiers and the Isantanka^ put me in irons. Yunit And when the great pow-wows began between my people and the
chiefs of the Isanhanska,^ they took us to Washington to talk of
treaties. Heh-heh\} How they bit through our ears! Now I live at the
agency with my people, the Burned Thighs, and they try to make us
scratch the ground with iron spikes." He shook with laughter. "And
you. Wind Breaker? You have been beyond the big water all these
years among the Washechuska7 Tell me of. . ." He stopped abruptly,
staring, and then like a big cat slid aside behind a potted palm, peering
ahead over its fronds. "Hinte! Hoecah! Wah
I turned to see what had astonished him, and understood. My dear
Regret.
tAmericans.
tAn exclamation of pain.
Long Knives (cavalry soldiers). ;
||Alas!
218
wife, who is nothing if not patient, was waiting on a couch by the
dining-room doqrs, fanning herself idly, and innocently ignoring the
admiring glances of gentlemen passing through. She was wearing
something blue from Paris, as I recall, which left her mostly bare to
the waist, and to impress the colonials she had decorated her upper
works with the diamond necklace presented to her by the Grand
Duke Alexis, a lecherous Russian lout of our acquaintance. I'm proud
to say that she was a sight to gladden the heart; Spotted Tail was
grunting deep and pointing like a gun-dog. ^
"HopaEes, * hopa^ That," says he reverently, "is a woman!" :;
"I believe you're right," says I. "My wife, don't you know? Come
along. My dear, may I present an old associate, Mr Spotted Tail, of
the Sioux. Not the Berkshire Sioux, you understand, the Brules . . .
my wife. Lady Hashman."
He took her hand like a stricken grandee, bowing over it from his
imposing height until his braids met. He implanted a smacking kiss
you could have heard in Baltimore on her glove, murmuring: "Oh,
lady, so pleased, so beautiful, just bully!" and his black eyes positively
burned as he straightened up. "Wihopawin^--waV. Hopa! HopaF My fair one gave him her most wide-eyed, guileless smile, which I
knew for a sure sign that she was willing to be dragged into the long
grass at a moment's notice, and said in her shyest little voice that she
was enchanted. He shot his cuff, thrust out an arm like a tree-trunk,
delicately placed her g)ove on it, and stalked with her into the diningroom,
crying "bct!" for the head-waiter. I followed on, marvelling;
I wouldn't have missed this for the salvation of mankind. >,,^;
He even had a table reserved, with his followers already installed:
a couple of young braves dressed civilised like himself, and a third
with a coloured blanket over his shoulders, so it was hard to tell
whether he was in faultless dinner rig underneath or not--he wore no
shoes, though. But what took me aback was that there were two
squaws (both wives of the chiefs) in fringed tunics, the whole party
seated poker-faced at a large round table, heedless of the whisperings
and amused glances of the civilised folk at neighbouring tables.
There were only two spare seats, so Spotted Tail simply heaved the
blanket-clad chap to the floor, seated Elspeth next to himself with great ceremony, waved me to a seat on his other hand, pushed the menu aside, and barked: "Horse's doovers!" These proved to be hors
A strong affirmative. ' i ;'-";.. -i-,-"' - ^-'s ,;>' beautiful! See also Note 52. ; '4s '; s^fi tBeautiful woman. ^Attention!
^ . , . 219
d'oeuvres, and when he had gallantly helped Elspeth by jabbing a
huge finger at each plate in turn and grunting "Huh?", he took the
entire tray before himself and engulfed the lot in about two minutes-- using a knife and fork, if you'll believe it.
I suppose I ate, but I confess I was too fascinated to pay much heed. It was startling enough that a great hotel admitted Indians, until I
realised that they were used to these occasional delegations passing to
and from Washington, and not only tolerated them but made much of
them for policy's sake; also, they were a raree show for the other
diners. I overheard covert whispers: "Why, they eat just like civilised
people!" and "Isn't that chief a card, though? Wouldn't think to look
at him he's taken a hundred scalps, would you?" and "Well, they sure
don't look like savage Sie-oxes to me--I think it's a great sell!" Drop
in on them sometime in their dining-room and you'll learn different,
thinks I to myself.
But it was true: bar the outlandish contrast of the men's braids and
painted faces to their formal suits, and the women's colourful buckskins,
they weren't at all unlike the other diners. Better-mannered,
perhaps; they used the cutlery properly, didn't gorge or belch (thinking
back to Mangas Colorado, or Spotted Tail himself tearing a
bloody buffalo hump in his fingers, I could only wonder), sat with
perfect composure waiting for the courses, and preserved almost total
silence during the meal. Ne'er mind what they looked like, they had
dignity by the bucket.53 They didn't stink, either, which astonished
me--Spotted Tail, next to me, had evidently discovered cologne
among other wonders of civilisation.
Unlike his fellows, he talked, so far as anyone can, to Elspeth.
Another woman might have been bemused or shocked at finding
herself dining with a painted savage, but my darling has never had but
one rule: if it is male, between fourteen and eighty, and isn't humpbacked
or cross-eyed, charm it--which oddly enough she contrives to
do by chattering incessantly and looking intent. Well, it means the
chap can devote himself to looking at her, which Spotted Tail did
most ardently; I realised with a qualm that with the paint and blood
absent, he was a deuced fine-looking man, far handsomer even than
most Sioux, and although he couldn't understand one word in twenty
of what she said he nodded and smiled most appreciatively. Once I
heard him say: "You, lady, you not Washechuska . . . Eengleesh? Hopidan You . . . Scot-teesh? Scotch--ah!" He considered this,
and when the waiter presently whispered to her, "French mustard,
ma'am? English mustard?". Spotted Tail threw back his great Sioux
'Exclamation of amazement.
220
head, glared, and demanded: "For love-lee lady . . . why no Scotch
mustard?"
That sent her into trills of laughter, and Spotted Tail beamed and
patted her arm; aye, thinks I, we must look out here. The young
squaw beyond Elspeth evidently thought so too, for with an artless
curiosity she leaned forward and began to finger Elspeth's necklace
and earrings, murmuring with admiration. Women being what they
are, in a moment they were comparing beads and materials; Spotted
Tail sighed and turned to me, so I asked him what had become of his
small nephew, the Fair-Haired Boy. He sat back in astonishment.
"Little Curly? You don't know? Inyun He shook his head at my
ignorance. "The whole world knows him! He is a big Indianmaybe
biggest war chief of all. He has great medicine, and his word runs
from the Pahasappa to the Big Horn hills, all through Powder River
country. His lance touches the clouds, that little horseman of yours.
You haven't heard of Tashunka Witko of the Oglala?" He repeated it
in English. "Crazy Horse."
I said I'd heard his name for the first time that afternoonand
recalled in wonder the laughing mite I'd carried on my saddle. Well,
I'd said in jest that he'd be a great man some day; now, I said, the
Isantanka chiefs spoke of him as a maverick, the most hostile of
Indians.54
"Ho-ho!" cries Spotted Tail angrily, which is the Sioux equivalent
of "Damn their eyes!" or strong disapproval. "Hiyal* He is a wild
warriorhe counted coup on Fetterman and whipped the Long
Knives at Lodge Trail Ridge. He is a fighter who hates Americans
and has taken many soldier scalps, and they fear him because he
makes no treaties and fights for his land and people. But his heart is
good and his tongue is straight. Hiya} I am proud of Little Curly, as a
kinsman and a Lacotah.f Wah
"But you don't fight the Americans any more; you make treaties
for the Burned Thighs, I suppose, since you live on an agency. You
even go softly to talk to the Great Father in his tipi," says I, to bait
him, but he just gave me a long slow smile.
"Look you, Wind Breaker, I have seen fifty winters and three. My
war-shirt bears more scalps of Pawnee and Crow and Shoshoni and
Isantanka soldiers than any other in the Sioux nation. Four times I
counted coup on Long Knives in the Fight of Bear-That-Scatters
under Fort Laramie. Is it enough? It is enough. I have seen the white
man's world now, the fire-canoes and iron horses, the great tipis that
No!
tSioux.
221
touch the clouds, the lodge where fair young maidens guard the Great
Father's gold, the cities where the people are like ants." He grinned
in embarrassment. "Once I thought they sent the same white people
after us from city to city, to make us think they were more numerous
than they are; now I know that in New York every day more people
come from far lands than would make up the whole Lacotah nation.
Can Spotted Tail's lance and hatchet hold back all these? No. They
fill the land, they sweep away the buffalo, they plant seed' on the
prairie where I ran as a young boy, they make roads and railways over
the hunting-grounds. Now they will take the Black Hills, the Pahasappa, and there will be no free land left to the Indian." He broke off
to roar "Joll-ee good! Pudden!" as the waiter set about a gallon of
ice-cream before him, which he sank as smart as you like and waved
for a second helping.
"No, we cannot stop it," he went on. "To fight is useless. This I
know, and make the best terms I can for my own folk, because I see
beyond these winters to the time when all the land is the white man's,
and my children must be part of it or wither to nothing. Now others
do not see as I do: Crazy Horse and Little Big Man, Black Moon,
Gall, and Sitting Bull, perhaps old Red Cloud. They would fight to
the last tuft of buffalo grass. They are wrong, and if they go out to
battle with the Long Knives I will stay in my lodge, not because my
heart is weak but because I am wise. But my heart is Lacotah," and
he put back his great head and I saw the gleam in the black eyes, "and
for those that take the last war-path I shall say: Heya-kie, it is a good
day to die."
He said it matter-of-fact, without bluster or self-pity, and there's no
doubt he was right--but then, he was probably the greatest of the
Sioux leaders, certainly the cleverest--and as he'd pointed out, quite
the most distinguished in war. If the Sioux had heeded him, they'd
have been a sight better off today.55
After dinner he insisted that we accompany him to the theatre,
taking Elspeth's hand and positively pleading with her through me as
interpreter. I translated those compliments which were fit for her
ears, with the result that presently we were bowling off in a cab, with
Spotted Tail up beside the driver in a tile hat, roaring at him to go
faster. The squaws and blanket chap were left behind, and Elspeth
and I shared the inside of the cab with the other two, fine young bucks
named Jack Moccasin and Young Frank Standing Bear, who sat with
their arms folded in grave silence. Elspeth confided to me that
Standing Bear was quite distingutshed-looUng, and had an air of true
nobility.
I might have guessed what entertainment Spotted Tail favoured. It
222
proved to be the lowest kind of music-hall down in the Loop district--
what they call burlesque nowadays--with sawdust on the floor, a
n-eat bar down one side of the hall doing a roaring trade, pit and
gallery crowded with raucous toughs and their flash tarts, an atmosphere
blue with smoke and a programme to match. Capital stuff
altogether, comedians in loud coats and red noses singing filthy songs,
and fat-thighed sluts in spangles and feathers shaking their burns at
the orchestra. Elspeth, wearing her most fatuously ingenuous expression,
affected not to understand a word--only I knew, when the chief
buffoon regaled us with jokes that would have shocked a drunk
marine, that behind her fan she was struggling to contain an unPresbyterian
mirth which was in danger of bursting her stays. During
the Tableaux ("Scenes from the Sultan's Seraglio," "Forbidden
Paris," and "The African Slave Girl's Dream of Innocence") she
fanned herself languidly and examined the chandelier. Spotted Tail
sat wooden-faced and motionless during most of the show, except for
a deep internal growling throughout the Tableaux, but when the
conjurer came on he bellowed approval, winded me with an elbow in
the ribs, and fairly pounded his fists at every trick. Each vanishing
card, emergent rabbit, and multiplying handkerchief was greeted with
roars of "Inyun! Hoecah! Hopidan! WahF', and when the buxom
assistant finally stepped unharmed from a casket that had been thrust
through with swords and riddled with pistol balls, the great chief of
the Brul6 Sioux arose from his seat, arms aloft, and bawled his
applause to the ceiling.
That conjurer, he told me as we left the theatre, was the greatest
medicine man in the world. Wah} he was gifted beyond all other
mortals; the Great Father himself was a child beside him--indeed,
why was that medicine man not made President? So flown was
Spotted Tail that he banished Jack Moccasin to the box of the cab on
the way home, so that he could sit with us and describe each trick in
awestruck detail--at least, he described it to me and Young Frank
Standing Bear, while Elspeth listened in polite incomprehension. For
the rest, said Spotted Tail, it had been a pretty rotten show--except
for the Tableaux; there had been one girl with red hair whom he
would have gladly taken to his tipi, and the black beauties in the
Slave's Dream had reminded him of the girls he had seen in my
wagons back in '49--I hadn't guessed, had I, he added with a sly grin,
that he and his braves had stalked our caravan for two days in the
hope of stealing one, but Blue-Eye Wootton had been too watchful.
Heh.hehi
I was thankful that Elspeth didn't understand Siouxan; so far as she
knew I'd crossed the Plains with a company of farmers and Baptists
223
who said prayers night and morning. I was also pleased to learn that
Spotted Tail was leaving next day; I didn't tell Elspeth that he had
compared her favourably, and in indelicate detail, with the female
performers at the theatre, but there was no mistaking the enthusiasm
with which he pressed her hand on parting--or the fact that the vain
little baggage went slightly pink, lowering her eyes demurely and
positively purring. The deuce with this, thinks I, there'll be no more
noble savages on this trip. And then:
"Harry," says she, when we were in our room, "what does hopa mean?"
"Beautiful," says I, middling sour. "And wihopawin, in case you
didn't catch it, is a woman of surpassing loveliness."
"Gracious me, the things men say! Can you unhook me at the
back, dearest? Well, I must say I think it was rather forward of your
Mr Spotted Tail to pay me such compliments, although I've no doubt
he meant no disrespect. He's very gallant, for a barbarian, don't you
think? Quite distingue, really--although his taste in entertainment is shockingly low."
"He's distingue, all right," says I, unhooking moodily. "Mostly for
murder and robbery with violence. He's killed more men than the
cholera. Women, too, I shouldn't wonder."
"Thank you so much, my love. Oh, such relief! But, you know,
Harry, while I allow that it is highly distasteful, I don't see that it truly
signifies if he has killed people or not. So have you--I've seen you--
and so have any number of our military acquaintances, why, probably
even that nice American general with the large beard whom we met
today--" ' ' "a
"Crook," says I, reclining wearily. ' '; ' " ' "Yes, well, I daresay that in the course of his duties General Crook
may well have taken human life . . . although he has such kind eyes
. . . Harry," says she earnestly, surveying herself in the delectable
buff before the pier glass, turning this way and that with her hands on
her hips, "do you think I'm hopa?" ^
"Come over here," says I, taking notice, "and I'll show you."
"I believe I have increased slightly about the hips, and . . . elsewhere.
Do you think it can be a consequence of the American
cuisine--these rich puddings--"
"Don't talk about 'em, just bring 'em here, there's a girl. And if
you want to lose weight, you know--a foolish whim, in my view--I
can give you a capital massage, like the Turkish bath people. Here,
I'll show you!"
"Do you think it would be efficacious? If so, I should be most
obliged to you. Harry, for I have read that it is beneficial, and I think
224
I should not care to be too plump . . . Oh, you designing wretch!
What deceit! No, now, desist this minute, for I see you are not really
interested in reducing me at all--"
"Ain't I though? Come along, now, nothing like healthy exercise!"
"Exercise indeed! You are a shameless monster, to beguile me so
and at my age too! It is too bad, and you are a wicked tease . . .
but. . .I'm gratified if you think I'm Aopa.Mm-mh!. .. what was the
other word... wippo-something?" 1;<3 "Wihopawin--and no error! My God! Just shut up, will you?"
"They are such musical words--gently, dearest--are they not?
They make me think of the brooding solitude of deep eternal forests,
with stately Chingachgook beside the council fire. . . the fragrance of
the peace-pipe and the cry of the elk among snow-clad peaks . . ;
Harry, my sweet, you are so vigorous that I am quite breathless, and
fear for my digestion, perhaps if I go on top?. . . Well, now that we
have met Mr Spotted Tail and his friends I am more resolved than
ever to see the native Indians in their natural surroundings, just like
the 'Deerslayer' and . . ."
"Could we leave Fenimore Cooper for the moment, you babbling
beauty?" says I, gasping as we changed over. "Oh! Ah! Elspeth, I
love you, you adorable houri! Please, for heaven's sake--"
". . . to observe them with their papooses and wigwams I'm sure
would be highly edifying and instructive, for I believe they have many
singular customs and ceremonies not to be seen elsewhere," continued
the lovely idiot, squirming in a way that any respectable matron
would have forgotten years before, "and I am certain that Mr Tail
would render us... yes, my hero, in a moment. . . every assistance,
and it would be such a romantic journey, which you know so well,
and it would be so selfish of you not to take me ... and you are not
selfish, I'm sure ... I hope not... are you. Harry. . .?"
"No! Oh, God! Anything! I'll. . . I'll think about it! Please . . .!"
"Oh, thank you, kindest of husbands! Dear me, I believe I am
about to swoon . . . now, when I count to three . . . one . . . two
. . you will take me, dearest Harry, won't you?. . . two-anda-half
As I said before, it was all her fault.
K- '
fe- .
225
Naturally I did my best to wriggle out of it next
day, since the artful baggage had taken such unfair advantage of me,
first provoking my jealousy and then my ardour, stirring her rump
before the mirror--did I think she was hopa, forsooth--and extracting
a half-promise when she had me in extremis. And she called me designing! And all because she had taken a passion for that damned
Sioux, what with his feral charm and her nursery dreams of noble
savages, forgotten while she'd had the social circus of Boston to
distract her butterfly brain. They had revived under his smouldering
regard, and I guessed she was having delicious shivers at the thought
of him sweeping her off at his saddlebow and having his wicked wilt of
her by the shores of Gitchee-Gummee. She'd been just the same with
that fat greaser Suleiman Usman, who had filled her head with
twaddle about being his White Jungle Queen--well, I wasn't risking
that again. The trouble with Elspeth, you see, is that while I doubt if
she really wants to be abducted and ravished by hairy primitives--
well, not exactly--she's such a congenital flirt that she sometimes gets
more than she bargains for.
So I wasn't going to have her making a Western jaunt an excuse for
renewing fond acquaintance with Master Spotted Tail, who'd have
her in the bushes quicker than knife. But when I said that on reflection
I'd decided that a trip West would be too taxing for her, there were
tears and sobs of "But you promised . . .", so in the end I gave way,
secretly determining that whatever route we took would run well
clear of his agency. Given that, I didn't mind indulging her girlish
fantasies with a brief tour of the wilds in a transcontinental Pullman;
she could have her fill of Vast Plains and Brooding Forests from the
window of a private hotel car, and never mind Chingachgook; we
might stop off at some tame Indian village (one sniff of that would
cure her notions), and perhaps a cattle-ranch or gold-mine. It could
all be done in luxurious comfort and perfect safety.
You see, it was all changed since my early days. The map was being
filled in; the great wilderness had its railroads and stage lines now, its
forts and towns and ranches and mines. It was still wild, in parts--
some of it even virtually unexplored--but there wasn't a true frontier
any more, in the sense of a north-south line dividing civilisation from
outer darkness.
If you look at the map you'll see what I mean. The train and the
226
steamboat had forged the links across the continent and up and down,
leaving only the spaces in between. The most important of these, for
rnv story, was the great stretch of the High Plains in what is now
Montana, Wyoming, and the Dacotahs; to east and north it was
bounded by the Missouri river, along which the steamboats carried
the Western traffic to the foot of the Rockies, and to the south by the
railroad from Omaha to Cheyenne and the Great Salt Lake. These
were the arteries of civilisation, along which you could travel as swiftly
and safely (with luck, anyway) as from London to Aberdeen.
It was the land they enclosed that was the trouble, for while the
boats and trains might run round its limits, there wasn't much going
through it, not in a hurry. This was the last stamping-ground of the
Sioux, the biggest and toughest Indian confederacy in North America,
a greater thorn in Washington's side than even my old friends the
Apaches of the south-west. Fifty thousand Sioux, Sherman had
reckoned, and their allies the Northern Cheyenne, first cousins to
those stone-faced giants I'd met on the Arkansas. In those days the
Sioux had been lords of the prairie from the Santa Fe Trail to the
British border, from Kansas to the Rockies, tolerating the wagontrains
(give or take a raid now and then) and rubbing along quietly
enough with the few troops that the Americans sent into the West.'
All that had changed. The ever-advancing settlements, the bypassing
of their country by rail and river, had forced the Plains Tribes
back from the limits of civilisation around them, into their heartland,
bewildered and angry. They'd broken out in Minnesota in '62, and
been put down; when the government tried to put the Bozeman Road
slap through their territory, Red Cloud had taken the war-path and
fought them to a standstill; but although the road was given up and
the forts abolished, their victory probably did the Sioux more harm
than good, since it convinced the wilder spirits that the Yanks could
be stopped by force. They didn't see it was a struggle they must lose in
the end, and so for twenty-five years the scrappy, unorganised warfare
had smouldered on, with every now and then a real dust-up to stoke
the growing hatred and mistrust on both sides. Crazy Horse had
hammered Fetterman, Spotted Tail and Co. had lifted eighty cavalry
scalps almost in Laramie's backyard; on the American side the
Cromwellian lunatic Chivington had butchered the Arapaho and
Cheyenne at Sand Creek, and Custer on the Washita had descended
on Black Kettle's village with his flutes tootling Garryowen and left more than a hundred corpses in the snow. These were the solo pieces,
so to speak, but always there was the accompaniment of burned
settlements, derailed trains, and ambushed wagons, and punitive
expeditions, dispossessions, and tribal evictions.
227
Naturally, each side blamed the other for bad faith and treachery ' and refusal to see reason--the Indian version of Washita, for example,
was that Custer wantonly attacked a peaceful village, but one of
his troopers told me he'd seen freshly-taken white scalps in the Indian
lodges. Choose who you will to believe.
The wiser Sioux leaders, like Spotted Tail and Red Cloud, saw how
it must end and made peace, but that solved nothing while the real
Ishmaels like Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse remained beyond the pale.
And even the treaty Indians broke out from time to time, for the
agents who were meant to supply them cheated them blind as often as
not, Washington neglected them, and life on a reservation or agency
was a poor thing compared to roaming their ancestral plains and
robbing when they felt like it.
By 1875, though, it looked as though the thing must peter out at
last; hunters and sportsmen had swept the buffalo off the prairie at a
rate of a million a year, until they were all but extinct--and the Indian
without buffalo is worse off than the Irish without the potato, for it's
clothing and lodging to him as well as food. Plainly even the wildest
hostiles would have to chuck it and settle down soon; the discovery of
gold in the Black Hills, which would inevitably mean the loss to the
tribes of yet another stretch of territory, must only hasten the process,
for it would leave them little except the barely-explored fastness south
of the Yellowstone called the Power River country, and with game so
scarce they would have to call it a day or starve. That was the general
view, so far as I could gather, and with it went the opinion that I'd
heard from Sheridan: however it ended, there wouldn't be a war. An
ugly incident or two here and there, perhaps--regrettable, but probably
inevitable with such people--but no real trouble. No, sir.
Which was most comforting to me, as I considered how to satisfy
my darling's hunger to see the Wild West; yes, the railroad would
carry us well clear of the dangerous Sioux country--and Spotted Tail,
incidentally. But before we set out, we must journey to Washington,
for Elspeth's social nawying in Boston had secured us an invitation to
visit the capital--Washington in summer. God help me--and my lady
was confident that we would be summoned to the White House, "for
the President is your old comrade-in-arms, and it would be very
curious if he were to overlook the presence of such a distinguished visitor as a Knight of the Bath". I told her she didn't know Sam
Grant. As it turned out, her ignorance was nothing compared with
mine.
Washington, a dismal swamp at the best of times, was sweaty and
feverish, and so were its inhabitants, with Grant's presidency soon to
enter its final year and the whole foul political crew in a ferment of
228
caballing and mischief. Any gang of politicks ;s ^ the eighth circle
of Hell, but the American breed is specially awful because they take
it seriously and believe it matters; wherever you went, to dinner or an
excursion or to pay a call, or even take a ^roll, you were deafened
with their infernal prosing--I daren't go to ^e privy without making
sure some seedy heeler wasn't lying in wait t^ g^ me to join a caucus.
For being British didn't help--they would ju,^ check an instant, beady
eyes uncertain, and then demand to know ^,hat London would think
of Hayes or Tilden, and how was the Turkissh crisis going? (This at a
time when Grace was making triple century jn England, and I not
there.)56
We met Grant, though, and a portentoiiis encounter it proved. It
was at some dinner given by a Senator, a^d Burden, the military
attache from our Embassy, whom I knew sightly, was there. Grant
was the same burly, surly bargee I remeiiobered, more like a city
storekeeper than the first-rate soldier he'd b^gn and the disillusioned
President he was. He looked dead tired, but: (he glances he shot from
under those knit brows were still sharp; he g^yg a ^ary start at sight of
me--it's remarkable how many people do--^nd then asked guardedly
how I did. I truckled in my manly way, ^nile he watched me as
though he thought I was there to pinch the ^ver.
"You look pretty well," says he grudging^ and I told him so did
he.
"No I don't," he snapped. "No man c^uld look well who has
endured the Presidency."
I said something soothing about the cares d^f state. "Not a bit of it "
barks he. "It's this infernal hand-shaking. )qq you realise how frequently the office demands that the incumbent's fingers shall be
mauled and his arm jerked from its socket? n(, human constitution
can stand it, I tell you! Pump-pump-pump, ^'s all they damned well
do. Ought to be abolished". Still happy oha Sam, I could see. He
growled and asked cautiously if I was staying long, and when I told
him of our projected trip across the Plaii^ he chewed his beard
moodily and said I was lucky, at least the damned Indians didn't
shake hands.57
Our appetites sharpened by these brillianit exchanges, we went in
to dinner, which was foul, what with their political gas and heavy
food. Between them they must have nursed my brain, and by
damnable chance it was before the ladies, had withdrawn that a
Senator of unusual stupidity and flatulence, c^ied Allison, happened
to mention his impending departure for th^ ^est whither he was
bound with a government commission to trea^ with the Indians about
the Black Hills. I didn't pay much heed, - ^ntil a phrase he used
229
touched a chord in my memory, and I made an unguarded remark--
my only excuse is that I was trying to escape the egregious stream of
chatter from the Congressional harpy seated next to me.
"I make no doubt that our negotiations wil! have reached a fruitful
conclusion by October, Mr President," Allison was saying ponderously,
"and that we shall be enabled to proceed to formal treaty no
later than November--or, as I believe our Indian friends so picturesquely
describe it, 'The Moon When the Horns are Broken Off."
He chuckled facetiously, and as my neighbour drew breath for
another spate of drivel, I hastily addressed Allison without thinking.
"That's correct only if you're talking to a Santee Sioux, Senator,"
says I, and I swear for once I wasn't trying to be smart. "If he happens
to be a Teton Sioux, then 'The Moon When the Horns are Broken
Off is December."
One of those remarks, I agree, which will stop any conversation in
its tracks. Allison stared, and a silence fell, broken by Grant's rasping
question. "What's that, Flashman? Do you happen to be an authority
on the Indian calendar?"
Before I could turn the question, the prattling dunderhead I
married was interposing brightly. "Oh, but Harry knows ever so
much about Red Indians, Mr President! He travelled extensively
anong them in his youth, you know, and became thoroughly acquainted with many of their prominent men. Why, only lately, in
Chicago^ we met.a mQfS.jfnwualjyysPSt,^, ahififcl'aniuii^tne'^ten
wasn't he Harry?--anyway, a most imposing figure, although quite unpredictable, a Mr Spotted Tail, and what do you think? He and
Harry proved to be old friends from the past, and it was the most amusing thing to hear them conversing at dinner in those outlandish sounds, and moving their hands in those graceful signs--oh. Harry,
do show them!" How I've kept my hands from her throat for seventy
years. God knows. : ;
"Spotted Tail?" says Allison. "Why, that's a singular thing--of
course, he recently returned from Washington. I take it to be the
same man--the leader of the Brule Si-ouxes? Well, he is to be a
principal spokesman for the Indians at our conference."
.., "You speak Siouxan?" says Grant to me, quite sharp. |
^a?^"^^'^^^^6^1^'^1^^ 10 SSr^ew you'd been out V/e^t," says Grant, fro^ng. "Ho.
did you come to know Spotted Tail? ^ ^ There wasnothingforitbutotellh^bn^^ ^ ^
once I didn't make a modest-brag about it, i
Elspeth's dainty backside, for I suspected no good would come of
this. They were all attention--you don't meet many dinner guests, I
suppose, who've commanded a wagon-train and learned the lingo
from Wootton and Carson, and they probably didn't believe half of
it,
"Quite remarkable," says Grant. "You don't happen to know
Spotted Tail's nephew--Chief Crazy Horse?"
Any damage had been done by now, so I couldn't resist the
temptation of saying that I'd put him on his first pony. (That I'm sure they disbelieved. Odd, ain't it?) I added that since he'd been only six
years old I could hardly claim to know him well. Grant only grunted,
and no more was said until the women had taken themselves off and
the cigars were going. Then:
"You said you and Lady Flashman were going West, didn't you?"
"Purely for pleasure," says I.
"Uh-huh." He chewed his cigar a moment. "I doubt if anyone on Senator Allison's commission knows Spotted Tail all that well. I've
met him a few times . . . shrewd fellow. Terry's your military representative,
isn't he?" he-asked Allison. "He doesn't know Indians at
close quarters, exactly--and I'm positive he doesn't speak Siouxan."
He studied me in a damned disconcerting way. "You wouldn't care to
lend Allison your assistance, I suppose? It wouldn't take you much
out of your way."
MMMrPresident," says I hurriedly, "I'm hardly an authority on the
Indian question, and since I'm not an American citizen--"
"I'm not suggesting you serve on the commission," growls he. "But
I know something about your gifts of persuasion and negotiation, .
don't I?--and if Allison's going to get anywhere in this infernal
business, it's going to take a power of informal and delicate dealing.
He'll need all the help he can get, and while he'll have no lack of
expert counsel, it can't hurt to have the added assistance of a soldier
of rank and diplomatic experience--" sardonic little bastard!"--who
not only knows Indians, especially Spotted Tail himself, but can also
Ederstand what the other side is saying before the interpreters frazzle
ip. You concur. Senator?"
"Why, indeed, Mr Pre&ideoA" <sw ^-^"i.assi^'"'1"'""'----^,^^^^^^^._--^_^,geal>e
dion l.-mc much for it. " t",
So our Embassy wallah, "that an Indian solution >s almost as much m
" England's interest as in ours. The Sioux could be a damned nuisance
in Canada--they don't respect national boundaries, those fellows-^ so I don't doubt Her Majesty would be happy to lend us your friendly
assistance."
1
Id 
hell
Burden didn't hesitate, rot him. "I think I can say that we should
welcome the opportunity of having Colonel Flashman accompany the
commission as an observer, Mr President," says he carefully. "As you ; point out, our respective interests converge in this matter.''
"I'm glad to hear you say so," says Grant. "Well, Flashman?"
That was Grant all over. It was a tiny thing; my presence could
hardly weigh in the balance--but Sam as a commander had never
neglected the least possible advantage, and even one more voice in
Spotted Tail's ear might conceivably help. I didn't know then, I
' confess, just how damned important Spotted Tail was. Grant was
looking at me, lighting another cigar.
"What d'you say? No Medal of Honour in it this time, I'm afraid,
but I'd esteem it a personal favour."
I knew who else would, too--I could hear her in the distant
drawing-room, regaling the other ladies with "Caller Herrin' " at the
piano. Let me decline--and how the devil could I refuse Grant a j personal favour?--and I'd never hear the end of it. What, deny her |
the chance to languish at "Mr Spotted Tail"? Well, perhaps when she
saw him in his "natural surroundings" she'd be less enthusiastic for
noble savages. Aye, perhaps. I'd watch the red bastard like a hawk.
"Happy to be of service, Mr President," says I.
inSy" i|, i&ii-^as ^^Sfi ^.'i'"
BiNii..,..;^,., . .<*->.%-;!-' *  * wAN^iMrifIS'. ".' ';:
i-*^";-'^"; : '^'ay1 ffl'WfB.KHN -l^rtl^'..
As it turned out, I wasn't--of service, I mean--but I take no blame
for that. Solomon himself couldn't have saved the Camp Robinson
discussions with the Sioux from being a fiasco, not unless he'd gagged
Allison to begin with. There is some natural law that ensures that
whenever civilisation talks to the heathen, it is through the person of
the most obstinate, short-sighted, arrogant, tactless clown available.
You recall McNaghten at Kabul, perhaps? Well, Allison could have
been his prize pupil.
To his blinkered eyes the problem looked simple enough. Despite
.General Crook's efforts (and having heard him in Chicago I didn't
imagine they'd been too strenous) white miners had continued to
pour into the Black Hills that summer; gold camps like Custer City
already had populations of thousands, and more arriving daily. The
Sioux, rightly viewing this as a shameless violation of their treaty,
were getting angrier and uglier by the minute. So, faced on one hand^
232
by a possible Sioux rising, and on the other by the fait accompli of the
mining camps, Washington reached the conclusion you'd expect:
treaty or no, the Sioux would have to give way. Allison's task was to
persuade them to surrender the hills in return for compensation, and
that, to him, meant fixing a price and telling 'em to take it or leave it.
He didn't doubt they would take it; after all, he was a Senator, and
they were a parcel of silly savages who couldn't read and write; he
would lecture them, and they would be astonished at his eloquence,
pocket the cash without argument, and go away. It didn't seem to
weigh with him that to the Sioux the Black Hills were rather like
Mecca' to the Muslims, or that having no comprehension of land
ownership, the idea of selling them was as ludicrous as selling the
wind or the sky. Nor did he suspect that, even if their religious and
philosophic scruples could be overcome, their notions of price and
value-had developed since the days of beads and looking-glasses.
Camp Robinson, where he was to meet the Sioux chiefs, was a
fairly new military post out beyond the settlements, not far south of
the Black Hills; close by-it was the Red Cloud Agency where the old
Oglala chief lived with his followers, and a day's march away was
Camp Sheridan, near the agency of Spotted Tail and his Brules.
These were the "peaceful" Sioux, who had come in to the agencies in
return for annuities and other government benefits such as rations,
clothes, weapons and schools; it was the fond hope that eventually
they'd take to farming. Since they were well-behaved and powerful
chiefs, the government chose to regard them as spokesmen for the
whole Sioux nation, conveniently forgetting that most of the tribes
were roaming wild in the Powder River country farther west, under
the likes of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, "but if they are so intractable
and foolish as not to meet us, on their own heads be it," says Allison
smugly. "We can talk only to those who will talk to us, and if the
hostiles will not share our deliberations, they cannot complain if the
treaty is not to their satisfaction. We can only reach it and trust that
reason will prevail with them after the event." An optimist, you see.
Even before we set out, the omens were bad. The peaceful agency
tribes were fractious because in the hard winter just past they'd been
kept short of the necessaries government should have been providing--one
of the reasons Spotted Tail had been east in June was to
complain. In his absence his younger braves had worked themselves
into a frenzy at the annual sun dance and gone off for a slap at the
Black Hills miners (and at their old foes the Pawnees, just for rievilment); there had been a nasty brush between the Brules and
Custer's 7th Cavalry, and when Spotted Tail returned it had taken all "is influence and skill to bring his bucks to heel.
... 233
To show willing, Washington had held an inquiry on the agencies
and found the Indians' complaints well grounded; they'd been swm. died and deprived, but in spite of the findings no official or contractor
was punished, although the agent at Red Cloud had been removed.
So you can judge how content the agency Sioux were by the time our
commission rolled out by rail and coach to Camp Robinson late that
summer, Allison full of pomp and consequence, deep in discussions
with his fellow-commissioners, while I lent an unofficial ear, and
Elspeth in the hotel car cried out with excitement every time we
passed a creek or a tree.
She got something to marvel at, though, on the last stage into
Camp Robinson. It's far out on the prairie, nestling among pretty
groves beneath a range of buttes, and in all directions the grassy plain
was covered with Indian villages as far as you could see; every Sioux
in America seemed to have converged on the fort, and as our coach
lurched by with its escort of cavalry outriders, Elspeth was all eyes
and ears while Collins, the secretary to the commission, pointed out
the various tribes--Brule, Sans Arc, Oglala, Minneconju, Hunkpapa,
and the rest. Mostly they just stared as we went by, silent figures in
their blankets by the tipis and smoky fires, but once a party of
Cheyenne Dog Soldiers rode alongside us, and Elspeth fairly clapped
her hands and squeaked to see them cantering so stately, stalwart
warriors in braids and full paint, shaking their lances in salute and
chanting: "How! Hi-yik-yik! How!"
"Oh, brave!" cries she ecstatically. "How! How to you! Oh, Harry,
how proud and splendid they look! Why, I declare they arc so many
Hiawathas! Ah, but how solemn they all look! I never saw so many
melancholy faces--are they always so sad, Mr Collins?"
I wasn't feeling too brisk myself; I'd supposed we'd be meeting the I chiefs and a few supporters, but there were thousands of Sioux here if ' there was one, and that's a sight too many.
; "It takes three-quarters of the male population to make any
agreement binding," Collins told me, "so the more who attend the
better. It's what Red Cloud and Spotted Tail say that counts, of
course, but we must have the democratic consent of the people, too."
"Is Allison intending to canvass that multitude?" says I, incredulous.
"Dear God, does he know how long it takes an Indian to decide
to get up in the morning?"
The fort itself was a fairly spartan affair of wooden houses and
barracks, but Anson Mills, the commandant from Camp Sheridan,
was on hand with his wife to make us welcome, and Elspeth was far
too exdted to mind the absence of city comforts.
The Mills gave a dinner of welcome that night, to which they had

234
J

nvited the chiefs for an informal foregathering; to my surprise
Elspeth dressed in her plainest gown, without jewellery and her hair
severely bunned, explaining to me that it would never do for her to
outshine Mrs Mills, the hostess, "and anyway, I know you are sensible
of our position, my dear, for we are not official here, and it does not ao for us to put ourselves forward". This was uncommon sense for
her" she knew that I was really a camp-follower of the commission
whom they might find useful, but I'd borne no part beyond listening
to some of their discussions, answering a question or two from
Allison, and talking a bit of shop with General Terry, the military
representative. He was a tall, sprightly, courteous fellow who'd been
a lawyer (Yale man, apparently) before the Civil War turned him into
a soldier; I found him quick and a good deal more open-minded than
most Yankee military chiefs. The other leading lights of the commision
were Collins and a clergyman.
The chiefs came to dinner in style, six of them all in buckskins and
feathers, led by the famous Oglala, Red Cloud, a grim savage with a face you could have used to split kindling. Other names I remember
were Standing Elk and White Thunder, and towering over the rest,
splendid in snowy tunic and single eagle feather, the well-known
Tableaux-fancier and patron of Loop burlesque theatres. His black
eyes widened momentarily at sight of me; then he was bowing and
growling to Elspeth, who gave him a limp hand and her coolest smile,
which alarmed me more than if she'd languished at him.
The dinner was a frost. From the first it was evident that the chiefs
were thoroughly disgruntled, and at odds among themselves; I was
seated between Red Cloud and Standing Elk, so that advantage could
be taken of my linguistic genius; Red Cloud gave me one suspicious
glare, and replied in monosyllables to the amiabilities and polite
inquiries which Allison and the others addressed to him through me.
You could feel the suspicion and hostility coming from them like a
fog, and by the time desserts were served it was like being at a Welsh
funeral. The chiefs were silent, Allison was aloof and huffy and the
clergyman distressed. Mills was trying to look bland, and his wife,
poor soul, was in a fearsome flutter, her hand shaking on the cloth in
embarrassment. For once I thanked God for Elspeth's artless prattle,
directed ceaselessly at everyone in turn, and never taking silence for
an answer. But only from Spotted Tail among the Indians did she get sny response, and even that was formal courtesy; his mind was too
busy elsewhere even for flirting.
All the gloom didn't prevent our guests from punishing the victuals
like starving wolves, I may say; Red Cloud's longest conversational flight was to remark that they were a sight better than the rubbish his
235
people had been getting from the agency, which I translated to Mrs
Mills as a compliment to the cook. And when we rose. White
Thunder, who'd been even more voracious than the rest, went round
the table scraping the contents of every plate into a bag; he was even
lifting some of the spoons until Spotted Tail growled something at
him which I didn't catch. As they took their departure the Brule chief
seemed to stare particularly at me, so once they were out,, and Allison
was exploding in pique at what he called "their cross-grained and
sullen demeanour, upon my word, like the spoiled children they
are!", I took a slow saunter out to the verandah. Sure enough, there
was Spotted Tail, a huge pale figure in the summer dusk; his fellowchiefs
were already down on the parade, studiously looking the other
way while the grooms brought their ponies. He didn't beat about.
"Why are you sitting with the Isantanka, Wind Breaker? What is
this matter to do with the Wasetchuska Mother?"
"Nothing," says I. "I'm here because I know you and speak your
tongue."
"They think I will listen to you? That you will grease their words so
that I and my brothers will swallow them easily?" He wasn't the
genial companion of Chicago now; his tone was on the brink of anger.
I answered matter-of-fact.
"They think that because I'm a soldier chief in my own country, I
can help to open their minds fairly to you. And because I know
something of you and your folk, I can open your minds fairly to them.
I understand high matters, which an ordinary interpreter might not,
and I will speak for both sides with a straight tongue." He must know
how much that mattered, and how many bitter misunderstandings
had arisen through incompetent interpreters.
He watched me slantendicular and then put back his head. "Wahah. Best Then tell them this for a beginning. Since I came from
Washington I have been in the Black Hills. There is much gold there,
and now I have seen it. So we will not give up the hills, and we will not
allow them to be taken from us." .
Well, that was damned blunt, before the talks had even started. No
courteous preliminaries or hints or soundings; he'd never have said
anything so flat to the commission, but he could drop it in my ear as
an intermediary. It flitted across my mindhad wily Sam Grant
foreseen something like this? Presumably it was what I was here for,
and I felt a gratifying tingle at being on the inside of affairs (there's an
oily politician in the best of us, you see) and at the same time an
apprehension as I realised that whatever I said might weigh heavy in
the scale. God, what a chance for mischief! But I didn't indulge it;^
gave back bluntness for bluntness, because it seemed best.
236
"The hills have been taken from you already, haven't they?" says
r "You've seen how many miners are up there. And you've said
yourself that the lance and hatchet of Spotted Tail can't stop them."
I saw him stiffen, and then he says quietly: "There are other
lances."
"Whose? Sitting Bull's? My little horseman'sCrazy Horse? That
won't answer, and you know it. Look here, Sintay Galeska, this is
nothing to me," says I, and it was true. For once in my life I had no
axe to grind; I didn't give a blue light who had the Black Hills, since
there was nothing in it for me either way. Tell you the truth I was
feeling a most unaccustomed thing, a glow of virtue, as well as the
pleasure of observing a drama in which I had no personal stake. I
didn't have to be patient of diplomatic niceties. If Allison had known
what I was about to say, he'd have had apoplexy; for that matter I
don't suppose Red Cloud and his boys would have cared for it either.
But when all the pussy-footing and lying and hypocrisy don't matter
to you, you can go straight to business and enjoy yourself.
"These talks are a sham," I continued, "and you know it. The
Black Hills are gone, and you'll never get 'em back. This lot won't
leave you a rag to your back if you resist them. So isn't it time to get
the best bargain you can? And make those mad bastards up in Powder
River country understand that they'd better settle for it, or they'll get
worse? I'm not saying it's right or fair; that don't count. I'm just
saying it's common sense. And you know it, too."
If it was straighter talk than he cared for, he still couldn't deny it or
say I spoke with a double tongue. He knew it was true.
"They'll pay, you know," says I. "How much, I can't tell you.
Certainly not what the hills are worth in gold valuebut then you
wouldn't expect 'em to, would you? No, you'll just have"
"Ho-ho!" It came out in a bark, the warning-note of the Sioux
when he's heard something he doesn't like. But his voice was quiet
enough when he said: "You speak for the Isantanka; they seek to put
fear into our hearts, so that we will be cowed into taking whatever
they offer"
"Look," says I, "if I was speaking for them, would I have admitted
that they won't pay what the hills are worth? No; I'd have told you the
price they'll offer is a fair one. I'm telling you the truth because I
know you see it as clear as I do. Of course they'll cheat you; they
always have. Don't you seethe Sioux aren't going to win, either in
a bargain or in a fight? So you must just get as much as you can, while
you can. Don't let these talks fail; get the best price you can squeeze
out of them, and try to get Sitting Bull and the other hostiles to like it.
M you don't, you'll wind up poor or dead." s;:w, :.,.
237
He studied me poker-faced, stroking one of his long braids, and I
wondered if he was hating me and all that he thought I stood for
hating me all the more, perhaps, because I knew as well as he did the
bitter truth he was facing, that he must twist the Yankee purse to the
last dollar for his people's sake, and that at the same time he would be
betraying them and the ideals they held sacred. It's a damnable thing
the pride of a nation, especially when it's coupled with the kind of
mystic frenzy that they had about their precious Black' Hills. Or
pretended they had. At last he says:
"Will you tell the Isantanka all that has passed between you and me
here?"
"If you want me to," says I. "But I think it better I should tell them
that Chief Spotted Tail is worried because his fellow-chiefs don't want
to sell the hills. I'll tell them they would be best advised to offer a
good price, and to take into account what it would cost in white blood
and white money if the Sioux were pushed into fighting because the
price isn't high enough."
"What price," says he, "do you think would satisfy the Sioux?"
"I don't know, and I don't care, and I won't try to guess. That's for
you to decide. But I'd want it in gold, on the barrel-head, and I
wouldn't budge an inch for anything less. I wouldn't hand over my
guns, that's certain."
It was then, I think, that he began to believe if not necessarily to
trust me. As why shouldn't he, since I'd been telling truth straighter
than I could ever remember? At any rate, he finally nodded, and said
he would wait and see what was said publicly tomorrow. Almost as an
afterthought, as he was about to go, he says conversationally:
"Why did your golden lady hide her beauty tonight? She wore no
shining stones, and her milk-white flesh she covered in poor cloth.
Have you been beating her, that she hides the bruises, or is she
displeased and withdraws the loveliness that gives such joy to men?"
I explained, pretty cool, that she had left her fine dresses back east,
as being unsuitable for the frontier, and he gave one of his astonishing
rumbles, like a bull in a brothel. "Then my heart is sad," growls he,
"for the more one sees of her the better. My heart sings when I look
on her. She shines. I would like to see all of her shining! Yun! I would
like to. . ."and to my rage and scandal he absolutely said it, smacking
his lips, and me her husband, too. Mind you, I suppose it was meant
as a compliment. "Joll-ee good! Han, hopa! Joll-ee good!" And he
stalked off, leaving me dumbfounded.
The commission were all attention when I reported what he'd said
(about the Black Hills, I mean); my own side of the conversation I
kept to myself. I said I believed he was ready to settle, if the bargain
could be made to look respectable; he could probably sway Red
Cloud, and between them they could surely convince three-quarters
of the Indians who had come to listen. That would still leave the
absent hostiles, but if the offer was good enough even they might find
it hard to hold out.
Terry and Collins looked pleased, but the clerical wallah made a
Kn. "However generous the offer, we are asking them to surrender
land which they esteem holy. And while we may justly abhor their
superstitious frenzy, I ask myself if they will abjure it for ... well,
nieces of silver." He blinked earnestly and AUison gave a patronising
smile.
"With all respect, reverend, I'm not aware that their so-called
religious fervour has any real spiritual depth. Their mode of life
hardly suggests it, and I am not convinced that their concern for the
Black Hills would be quite so great if there were no gold there. No,
gentlemen," says he complacently, "I've no doubt the Colonel is
right, and that they will sell, and as to the price, we shall have to see.
A savage whose notions of time and space are so peculiar that he
cannot comprehend that a day's journey on the railroad carries him
farther than a day's journey by pony, may have an equally eccentric
view of real estate values. Propelle cutem I'm sure they understand:
a skin for the worth of a skin, but whether they encompass the higher
finance we shall discover."
He did, too, the following day, when Spotted Tail got up in full
council and blandly announced the price of the Black Hills: forty
million dollars. I didn't believe my ears, and watched with interest as
I translated, for it's not every day that you see a senatorial commission
kicked in its collective belly. D'you know, they never blinkedand
my suspicious hackles rose on the spot. There was a deal of huffing
and consideration before Allison replied at judicious length, but all
his palaver couldn't conceal his point, which was that the government
were prepared to offer only six million, and over several years at that.
There was much nonsense about renting and leasing, in which Spotted
Tail showed politely satirical interest, but now that he'd seen the
dismal colour of their money it was so much waste of time; he
concluded that they had best put it in writing, and stalked out. Red
Cloud, by the way, hadn't bothered to attend.
Allison wasn't disturbed; let him conduct matters privately with the
chiefs, and they'd see reason, all right. For the life of me I'm not sure
whether he believed it or not, but it was nothing to me, and while they
all caballed for the next few days I indulged Elspeth by squiring her
round the Indian encampments. Since sightseeing is to her what
liquor is to a drunkard, she didn't seem to notice the stink and
239
squalor, but exclaimed at the variety and colour of the barbaric scene, took a heroic interest in the domestic arrangements, waxed sentimental
at the docile resignation of the squaws pounding corn and cooking
their abominable messes, became quite excited at the sight of the
young bucks playing lacrosse, and went into ecstasies over "the bonny
wee papooses". For their part, the Sioux took an equal Interest in
her, and a curious procession we made as we strolled back to camp
arm-in-arm with a gaggle of curious squaws and loafers and children
at our heels, and one impudent urchin insisting on carrying Elspeth's parasol.
One day we spent at Camp Sheridan, driving across at Spotted
Tail's invitation; he sent Standing Bear, the young brave we'd met in
Chicago/to escort us, and I noted with a jaundiced eye that here was
another gallant from the same school as his chief. Not only was he as
handsome a redskin as ever I saw, three inches over six feet and built
like an acrobat, his attentions to Elspeth were of the most courtly,
and I knew from the way he held himself as he rode alongside that he
fancied himself most damnably, all noble profile and grave
immobility.
Spotted Tail welcomed us outside the fine frame house which the
army had set aside for his use at Camp Sheridan, but after showing us
round its empty rooms with a proprietorial pride, he explained gravely
that he didn't live here, but in a tipi close by. The advantage of this
was that when the tipi got foul he could move it to a clean stretch of
ground some yards away (like the Mad Hatter at the tea-party), a
thing he could hardly have done with a two-storey house. What, clean
the floors? He shook his head; his squaws wouldn't know how.
To Elspeth's delight he invited us to sit by him at his levee, where
he heard complaints, settled disputes, and dispensed hospitality out
of the extra rations the agency allowed him for the purpose. When we
dined, though, it was on the traditional Plains Indians fricassee from
the communal pot; Elspeth picked away, smiling gamely, and I hadn't
the heart to tell her it was mostly boiled dog. She didn't flirt with him
more than outrageous, and he was on his best dignified behaviour.
When I asked him how the treaty talks were going, he simply
shrugged, and I wondered was he preparing to concede and look
pleasant.
Yes, says Allison when I tackled him later, it was all as good as
settled. He was preparing the commission's formal offer, to be
delivered before the assembled tribes, and he had every confidence
that Red Cloud and Spotted Tail would accept it, six million and all.
Well, thinks I, I'll believe it when I hear it.
Sure enough, it was on the morning of the assembly that we got the
240 I
fust whiff of mischief. At Red Cloud's request the meeting was to
take place out on the open prairie, some miles from the fort, where
the Indian thousands could congregate conveniently, and we had
already piled into the ambulance, with Anson Mills's two cavalry
troops flank and rear, and Elspeth and Mrs Mills waving from the
verandah, when there was a shout from across the parade, and here
came a party of mounted Indians, armed and in full paint, cantering
two and two and led by a stalwart Oglala, Young-ManAfraid-ofHis-Horses,
whom I'd seen in Red Cloud's entourage. As he rode up
to Anson Mills, I noticed young Standing Bear in war-bonnet and
leggings, with lance and carbine, at the head of one of the lines; I
beckoned him to the tailboard and asked him what was up.
"How," says he. "Chief Sintay Galeska sends word that you and
the Isantanka chiefs should stay in the soldiers' camp today." '?
"What's that? But we have to go out to the meeting." '' *
"He thinks it better you should talk here than there."
I didn't like the sound of this, and neither did the others when I told
them. We asked why, and Standing Bear shook his handsome head
and said it was the chiefs advice, that was all; he added that if we
insisted on going, he and Young-Man-Afraid had been ordered to
ride with the cavalry as an additional escort.
That was enough for me. Didn't I remember riding out from the
cantonments on just such an occasion to parley with Akbar Khan? I
said as much to Terry, who agreed it was disquieting, the perceptive
chap. "But we cannot stay in camp," says he. "Why, we should lose
face."
I observed that it might be preferable to losing our hair, but he
pooh-poohed that, and Allison, after some waffling, backed him up.
"It is a strange message, to be sure," says he doubtfully, "but if Chief
Spotted Tail were uneasy I am persuaded he would have come
himself. In any event, not to keep the meeting would show a lack of
faith which would be fatal to our whole negotiation. No, we must
go--why, what harm can come to a government commission?"
I could have told him, and added that he could go without Flashy,
for one. But it wouldn't have done, in front of Yankees, and with
Elspeth watching, so I kept uneasily mum, and presently we were
jolting out of camp, with the fat clergyman beside me sweating and
twitching; I noticed Collins's hand stray under his jacket, and wished
I'd thought to come heeled myself. : ,;.
My nerves were not steadied by the sight that greeted us at the little
grove which was the meeting place. Every Sioux in the world seemed
to be there; beyond the tarpaulin canopy where we were to sit they ^uatted in row on endless row, brown painted faces grim and
241
unmoving, war-bonnets and eagle feathers stirring in the breezeevery knoll and slope for a quarter of a mile was covered with them.
The whole vast concourse was deathly silent; there wasn't a cough or
grunt, let alone a welcoming "How!" from all those thousands; as we
took our seats the only sounds were the flapping of the canopy
overhead, the stamp and jingle of Mills's troopers, and the nervous
rumblings of one set of bowels at least. - ^ ?;
Mills ranged his troopers in line either side of our seats, while
Young-Man-Afraid and Standing Bear sat their ponies out to the left,
their mounted braves behind them, facing the great mass of waiting
Sioux; I noticed Standing Bear make a little sign to Spotted Tail, who
was seated with Red Cloud and the other chiefs in the front rank of
our audience. Spotted Tail caught my eye and nodded, presumably in
reassurance, which I needed, rather; sitting on my ridiculous campstool on the flank of the commission, looking at that mob, reminded
me of being in the platform party on Speech Day when you've
forgotten your address about Duty and Playing the Game, and the
audience are already starting to snigger and pick their noses. Only
this crowd weren't sniggering.
Allison got to his feet and cleared his throat, shooting nervous
glances at the silent red assembly twenty yards off, and at that
moment I noticed movement on the outer wings of the crowd.
Mounted warriors were cantering in towards us, either side; they
swept wide to outflank the canopy, and trotted in behind Mills's two
lines of troopers. I screwed round to watch, my hair on end, as the
two long files of painted braves, lances and guns at the ready, took
station behind our cavalryby God, they were marking 'em, man for
man! Ten feet behind each trooper there was now a mounted Sioux,
and there was no doubting the menacing significance of that. Allison
stammered over the first few words of his address, and ploughed on,
and I was preparing to translate aloud when a harsh voice cut in
before mea half-breed among the Indians was translating. So they'd
brought their own interpreter with them; that might be significant,
too.
There was a flurry of hooves to the left; Young-Man-Afraid and
Standing Bear were moving their ridersin behind the lines of Sioux
who were marking our troopers, so that they in turn were covered
man for man! It was like some huge game of human chess, and
damned unnerving if you were in the middle of the board; now there
were three lines of silent horsemen either side of us, and the Sioux
riders were neatly sandwiched in the middle; they didn't like it, and
turned muttering in their saddles. Standing Bear grinned and made a
derisive gesture at them, and then edged his pony close to where I
was sitting. I felt a sudden warm surge of relief; with that hawk profile
and lance at rest against his muscular arm, he looked a confident
likely lad to have at your elbow. Terry, beside me, glanced round
coolly at the troopers and the Indians and whispered: "Quis custodiet
mos custodes?"* John Charity Spring would have been all for him.
Allison was in full spate now, and my fears returned as I realised
that what he was saying wasn't even tactful, let alone conciliatory.
Instead of arguing persuasively that white occupation of the Black
Hills would really be in the Sioux's interest, since they could make a
thumping profit out of it, or something of that sort, he was taking a
most minatory line, like Arnold lecturing the fags. The government
must control the hills, and that was that; compensation would be paid,
and if it became necessary to occupy more land in the Powder River
country, a price would be settled for that too. I listened appalled; if
the fool had wanted to put their backs up, he couldn't have done it
betterand not for the first time the suspicion crossed my mind: were
they trying to provoke the Indians, to ensure that no treaty was
reached, so that they'd have an excuse for disciplining 'em once for
all? If so, he'd picked a bloody clever time to light the train, hadn't
he, with several thousand Sioux getting shorter-tempered by the
minute? For they were stirring now, and angry grunts and shouts of
"Ho-hot" were coming from around the arena; Allison raised his
voice stubbornly, I heard the figure of six million mentioned again,
and then he turned and plumped down in his seat, red-faced with
oratory and determination.
One thing was clear: he hadn't made it any easier for Red Cloud
and Spotted Tail to accept with dignity. Red Cloud was getting to his
feet, his face a grim mask; as he raised a hand to the assembly and
faced the commission, silence fell again; he pushed back the trailing
gorgeous wings of his war-bonnet and fixed us with his gleaming black
eyes.
No one will ever know what he was going to say, for at that moment
there was an outcry from the back of the crowd, and it was like some
huge brown page turning as every head went round to look. There
was a thunder of hooves in the distance, and through a gap in the low
hills to the right came pouring a bright cavalcade of Indians, armed
nders who whooped and yikked as they galloped towards us; the
whole assembly was on its feet shouting, as they swept up to the clear
space on our right flank, a surging, feathered horde two hundred
strong, milling and waving their clubs and lances while one of their
number trotted his pony forward in front of the commission.
Who shall guard the guardians?
243
He was a sight to take the eye even in that wild gathering, a lithe,
brilliant figure who carried himself like an emperor. He was naked
except for a short war-bonnet and breech-clout, his face and chest
glistening with ochre and vermillion, at his waist were strapped two
long-barrelled Colts, a stone axe hung from his decorated saddleblanket,
and he carried a feathered lance. Standing Bear stirred and
grunted as I looked anxious inquiry.
"Little Big Man," says he. "The right arm of Tashunka Witko
Crazy Horse," and I began to sweat in earnest. These must be Oglala
Bad Faces, the wildest of the wild bands from the Powder. The
hostiles had come to the council at last.
I gabbled it in a whisper to Terry and Allison; the stout cleric
goggled and Collins's hand twitched again at his lapel. We waited
breathless while Little Big Man checked his pony close by Red Cloud;
he looked all round the assembly and then deliberately wheeled his
pony so that his back was to us. I can still see that slim painted body
and feathered head, the lance upraised; then he hurled it quivering
into the turf at Red Cloud's feet and his voice rang out:
)1 "I will kill the first Lacotah chief who talks of selling the Black
^Hills!"
There was uproar, and I had to shout my translation in Terry's ear.
Mills was barking to his troopers to hold their line, but Young-ManAfraid
and half a dozen of his braves were round Little Big Man in a
second, hustling him back towards his fellows, all yelling at once; the
assembly were in tumult, but they weren't breaking ranks, thank
God; Spotted Tail was on his feet, arms raised, bellowing for order.
Standing Bear tugged at my sleeve, and as I turned to follow his
pointing finger I swore in amazement.
Behind where we sat was the ambulance, its horses cropping quietly
at the grass and its driver standing on his box to watch the confusion
and cantering out of the trees towards the ambulance, a solitary rider,
daintily side-saddle, waving her crop gaily as she saw me. I was out
from under the canopy like a startled stoat, running towards her in
rage and alarm; what the hell was she doing, I shouted, as I grasped
her bridle.
"Why, I have come to see the great pow-wow!" cries the blonde
lunatic. "My, what a splendid sight! What are they calling out for?
Oh, see, there is Mr Spotted Tail! But I declare. Harry, I never knew
there were so many"
"Damn your folly, you should be in the camp, youyou mindless
biddy!" I reached up and swung her by main force from the saddle.
"Harry, what are you doing? Oh, be carefulmy dress! Whatever
are you so agitated for?and you must not curse in that dreadful way!
244
Gracious me, I have only come to see the sight, and I think it was mean of you not to have brought me anyway--oh, look, look at those
ones there with the horns and teeth on their heads--are they not
grotesque? And the horsemen yonder--was ever anything so grand?
Such colours--oh, I would not have missed it for anything!"
I was almost gibbering as I bundled her into the ambulance. "Get
in there and sit still! For God's sake, woman, don't you know that this
is dangerous? No, I cannot explain--sit there, and wait till I come,
blast it! Keep her ladyship there!" I snarled at the startled driver, and
ran back, followed by female bleats.
The space before the canopy was alive with jostling, shouting
Indians; the vortex was the group round Little Big Man, arguing
fiercely; the commission were on their feet, nonplussed, and Mills was
whispering urgently to Terry. The great assembly was dissolving,
some milling down towards us, others mounting their ponies. I saw
weapons brandished as the whooping and yelling grew louder; here
was Spotted Tail, his huge buckskinned figure thrusting through the
throng as he shouted to Young-Man-Afraid; now he was under the
canopy, addressing Mills.
"Put them into the ambulance, now! Away, at once, and make for
the camp!"
Allison, mouth open, was about to deliver himself, but Spotted
Tail seized his arm and almost ran him to the ambulance, while the
troopers closed round us, keeping back the shouting crowd of Sioux
riders. There was an undignified scramble into the ambulance, the
clergyman dropping his spectacles and Allison his papers; you could
feel the panic starting to spread like a wave; oh, Jesus, any minute
now and the devils would be breaking loose; it was on a knife-edge--
and Standing Bear was pushing me, not towards the ambulance, but
to a riderless pony. That suited me: if hell was going to pop, I'd sooner
take my chance in the saddle than in a crowded, lumbering wagon
that would be the focus for their fury. Christ, Elspeth was in the
ambulance!
There was nothing to be done about that; with Standing Bear knee
to knee I urged my beast up against the canvas cover as the ambulance
rolled away. We were surrounded by a phalanx of Mills's bluecoats,
with Young-Man-Afraid and his braves among them. Thank God
Mills was cool, and every sabre was in its sheath. All round was a
disordered, threatening mob of Indians, yelling taunts, but the ambulance
was moving well now, its horses at the trot; it trundled under
the trees and out on to the trail to camp, towards the big buttes, and
I swallowed my fear and looked about me.
The prairie either side was thick with mounted braves, whooping
245
and singing; I caught some of the words, about how they would make
the Powder Country tremble beneath any invader, so that his bowels
would loosen with fear; the lightning about the Black Hills would
flash and blind him. The more din they made, the better I liked it, for
it sounded like drunken exultation; they were seeing the Isantanka chiefs scuttling for safety, and with luck that would content them. But
a false move by Mills or his men, an accidental shot on either side, or
a spurt of blood-lust in just one of that galloping host,'and in a
twinkling it would be massacre.
We were running briskly for the camp now, and Mills's men were
in good order around us. Beyond them I watched the Sioux; there
was one evil son-of-a-bitch in a homed headdress flourishing a hatchet
and proposing that they should kill all the white men and bum their
lodges; suddenly he wheeled between the troopers and rode screeching
for the ambulance--and I saw one of the coolest, smartest tricks I
remember. Standing Bear raced forward to head him off, and I yelped
with terror, for I knew if he cut him down the whole mob would pour '
in on us. But as he came up beside the whooping Sioux, he simply
reached out and caught the other's wrist, laughing.
"D'you want to kill something, great warrior?" he shouted. "Very
good, kill away! See that colt yonder--let's see if you can kill that!"
There was a colt running loose among the riders; the fellow in the
homed cap looked at it, rolled his eyes at Standing Bear, and with a
great howl galloped away, drawing his pistol, letting fly at the colt.
There were excited hoots as others took. off after him. Standing Bear
shrugged and shook his head as he fell back alongside me; I was cold
with sweat, for I knew that only his quick thinking had saved us.58
The Sioux fell away after that, and we rolled on to the camp in
safety. Mills sensibly holding one troop behind as rearguard while the
other took the ambulance ahead. I stayed with him, since it always
looks well to come in with the last detachment, scowling back towards
the danger; it was safe enough now, and I knew that Elspeth was all
right with the commission. Mills was thorough; he pulled up a mile
from camp and we waited an hour while Young-Man-Afraid's chaps
scouted back; they reported that the Sioux were dispersing to their
tipis, and Little Big Man's hostiles had withdrawn. All was quiet after
the sudden brief excitement, but I guessed it had been a damned near
thing. '^ W^ ^ |
I finally rode in with the troop, rehearsing the rebuke I would visit
on my half-witted wife. Of all the cake-headed tricks, riding out alone
to watch the great pow-wow, indeed! Even she ought to have known
that although it had been quiet enough about camp, it was folly for a
woman to ride alone in wild country; if the meeting had boiled ^o
real violence it would have been all up with her.
She wasn't in our quarters, Mrs Mills hadn't seen her, and ) vfls making for Terry's billet to inquire when I saw the ambulance d^,
a bog Irish private, puffing his cutty by the stables. I hailed him, ^d
he stared like a baffled baboon.
"Her leddyship, sorr? Now, an' Oi hivn't seen hem nor hair ofyir
since ye putt her in me cart."
"You mean since you brought her back?" '-^';
"Oi didn't bring her back," says he, and the icy shock stopper rile
in my tracks. "Shure an* didn't she hop out agin to see the show, .ai after ye'd sated her down? I thought she was wid yourself, Co^rtfel
son", or the t'other gintlemen--"
"You bloody fool!" I was absolutely swaying. "D'you mean sy's
still back yonder?"
He gabbled at me, and then I was running for the stables in si^h
panic as even I have seldom known. She was out there, among y^t
savage, wicked horde--Christ, what might not happen in their pre^t
mood? The thoughtless, blind, stupid little--and on my unbelievmig
ears fell a sound that brought me whirling round with such a noo<j f
relief that I almost cried out. f ^ ^
"Harry! Harry, dearest! Coo-ee!"
She was riding across the parade, touching her pony to hasten b
me, smiling brilliantly and not a thing out of place except her w,
which she had taken off so that her hair blew free about her fa<^ I
stood shaking with reaction as she slipped from the saddle and peeled
me on the cheek. Instinctively I clamped her to me, shuddering.
"Why did you all hurry away so quickly? I thought I had been qiwjile
deserted," cries she laughing, and then opening her eyes wid& : n
mock alarm. "All alone and defenceless among wild Indians! It g^e
me quite a start, I can tell you!"
"You . . . you got out of the ambulance . . . after I told you--'
"Well, I should just think so! I wanted to see what was happeni^.
Was it not thrilling? All of them running to and fro, and making tho*ie
whooping cries and shaking their feathers? Why were they in such a
commotion? I hoped," she added wistfully, "that they might do a^ir
dance, or some such thing, but they didn't--and then I noticed t^t
you were all gone, and I was quite alone. I called out after tjrfe
ambulance, but no one heard me." 
"Elspeth," says I weakly. "You must never, never do such a th^g
again. You might have been killed . . . when I found you wersn/'t
here, I--"
W
and singing; I caught some of the words, about how they would make
the Powder Country tremble beneath any invader, so that his bowels
would loosen with fear; the lightning about the Black Hills would
flash and blind him. The more din they made, the better I liked it, for
it sounded like drunken exultation; they were seeing the Isantanka chiefs scuttling for safety, and with luck that would content them. But
a false move by Mills or his men, an accidental shot on either side, or
a spun of blood-lust in just one of that galloping host, and in a
twinkling it would be massacre.
We were running briskly for the camp now, and Mills's men were
in good order around us. Beyond them I watched the Sioux; there
was one evi! son-of-a-bitch in a homed headdress flourishing a hatchet
and proposing that they should kill all the white men and bum their
lodges; suddenly he wheeled between the troopers and rode screeching
for the ambulance--and I saw one of the coolest, smartest tricks I
remember. Standing Bear raced forward to head him off, and I yelped
with terror, for I knew if he cut him down the whole mob would pour
in on us. But as he came up beside the whooping Sioux, he simply
reached out and caught the other's wrist, laughing.
"D'you want to kill something, great warrior?" he shouted. "Very
i'lllllllli go0^, kill away! See that colt yonder--let's see if you can kill that!"
There was a colt running loose among the riders; the fellow in the
homed cap looked at it, rolled his eyes at Standing Bear, and with a
great howl galloped away, drawing his pistol, letting fly at the colt.
There were excited hoots as others took. off after him. Standing Bear
shrugged and shook his head as he fell back alongside me; I was cold with sweat, for I knew that only his quick thinking had saved us.58
The Sioux fell away after that, and we rolled on to the camp in
safety, Mills sensibly holding one troop behind as rearguard while the
other took the ambulance ahead. I stayed with him, since it always
looks well to come in with the last detachment, scowling back towards
the danger; it was safe enough now, and I knew that Elspeth was all
right with the commission. Mills was thorough; he pulled up a mile
from camp and we waited an hour while Young-Man-Afraid's chaps
scouted back; they reported that the Sioux were dispersing to their
tipis, and Little Big Man's hostiles had withdrawn. All was quiet after
the sudden brief excitement, but I guessed it had been a damned near
thing. . ,svs '.A; tttitf."-
I finally rode in with the troop, rehearsing the rebuke I would visit
on my half-witted wife. Of all the cake-headed tricks, riding out alone
to watch the great pow-wow, indeed! Even she ought to have known
that although it had been quiet enough about camp, it was folly for a
woman to ride alone in wild country; if the meeting had boiled into
real violence it would have been all up with her.
She wasn't in our quarters, Mrs Mills hadn't seen her, and I was
making for Terry's billet to inquire when I saw the ambulance driver,
a bog Irish private, puffing his cutty by the stables. I hailed him, and
he stared like a baffled baboon.
"Her leddyship, sorr? Now, an' Oi hivn't seen hem nor hair of her
since ye putt her in me cart."
"You mean since you brought her back?"
"Oi didn't bring her back," says he, and the icy shock stopped me
in my tracks. "Shure an' didn't she hop out agin to see the show, jest
after ye'd sated her down? I thought she was wid yourself. Colonel
sorr, or the t'other gintlemen--"
"You bloody fool!" I was absolutely swaying. "D'you mean she's
still back yonder?"
He gabbled at me, and then I was running for the stables in such
panic as even I have seldom known. She was out there, among that
savage, wicked horde--Christ, what might not happen in their present
mood? The thoughtless, blind, stupid little--and on my unbelieving
ears fell a sound that brought me whirling round with such a flood of
relief that I almost cried out. i.:-- k -^ ^
"Harry! Harry, dearest! Coo-ee!" ',;v- She
was riding across the parade, touching her pony to hasten it to
me, smiling brilliantly and not a thing out of place except her hat,
which she had taken off so that her hair blew free about her face. I
stood shaking with reaction as she slipped from the saddle and pecked
me on the cheek. Instinctively I clamped her to me, shuddering.
"Why did you all hurry away so quickly? I thought I had been quite
deserted," cries she laughing, and then opening her eyes wide in
mock alarm. "All alone and defenceless among wild Indians! It gave
me quite a start, I can tell you!" %
"You . . . you got out of the ambulance. . . after I told you--"
"Well, I should just think so! I wanted to see what was happening.
Was it not thrilling? All of them running to and fro, and making those
whooping cries and shaking their feathers? Why were they in such a
commotion? I hoped," she added wistfully, "that they might do a war
dance, or some such thing, but they didn't--and then I noticed that
you were all gone, and I was quite alone. I called out after the
ambulance, but no one heard me."
"Elspeth," says I weakly. "You must never, never do such a thing
again. You might have been killed . . . when I found you weren't
here, I--"
^ ... ... . .247
"Why, my love, you are all a-tremble! You haven't been fretting about me, surely? I was perfectly well, you know, for when a numbel
; of them saw me and brought their ponies about me, grunting in thai
| strange way, and of course I couldn't make it out, I was not in ttu
least alarmed . . . well, not more than a wee bit..."
She wouldn't be, either. I've known brave folk in my time: Broad' foot and Gordon, Brooke and Garibaldi, aye, and Custer, but foi
cold courage Elspeth, Lady Flashman, nee Morrison, could mate
them all together. I could picture her in her flowered green ridin^ 1,1 Ij dress and ribboned straw hat, perfectly composed while a score o:
I painted savages ringed her, glowering. I choked as I held her, anc
asked what had happened. ;- k ,1 "Well, one of them, very fierce-looking--he had two pistols anc I 11 was painted all red and yellow--" for God's sake, it must have beer
Little Big Man himself "--he came and snapped at me, shaking hi;
fist; he sounded most irritable. I said 'Good morning', and he shoutec
|| at me, but presently he got down and was quite civil." ,. -. g;
"Why on earth--" ..!'.:....- fr
I I "I smiled at him," says she, as though that explained it--which i
II probably did.
I "--anc*ne "^^ me others stand back, and then he nodded at me
rather abruptly, and conducted me to Mr Spotted Tail. Then, o'
I course, everything was right as could be." '
My alarm, my agonised relief, my sudden welling of affection, diec in an instant. I swung round on her, but she was prattling on, on< I hand round my waist while she tidied her hair with the other.
||l "And he seemed so glad to see me, and tried to speak in English--
III ever so badly, and made us both laugh! Then he sent the others away
and managed to tell me that there had been some confusion, andwi
should wait a little and he would have me sent back to the camp. Si
||| that was all right, you see, and I'm sorry if it caused you any anxiety
dear one, but there was no occasion."
Wasn't there, though? She'd been with Spotted Tail an hour am
better, with the others away, and not a civilised soul in sight. . .
knew what he was, the horny savage, and that she'd been pouting an<
"I ogling at him ... All my old, well-founded suspicions came racin;
back--that first day, thirty-odd years ago, when she swore she was ir
j the Park, and wasn't, and frolicking half-naked with Cardigan while'.
II lay blotto in the wardrobe, and cuddling with that fat snake Usman
I and. . . oh, heaven knew how many others. I fought for speech.
I "What did he do with ... I mean, what did you . . I mean . .
j|,; dammit, what happened?"
I'lil "Oh, he showed me to such a pretty little grove, with a tent, when
K
1 should be comfortable while he went to business with his friends.
But presently he came back and we chatted ever so comfortably.
Well," she laughed gaily, "he tried to chat, but it was so difficult, with
his funny English--why, almost all he knows is 'Joll-ee good!' "
Was she taunting me with mock-innocent hints, the damned minx?
I can never tell, you see. I craned my neck as we walked--hell's teeth,
there was loose grass sticking to the back of her gown, almost to the
collar--there was even a shred in her hair! D'you get that with
chatting? I gave a muffled curse and ground my teeth, and was about
to explode in righteous accusation when she glanced up at me with
those wondrous blue eyes, and for the hundredth time I knew that no
one who could smile with that child-like simplicity could possibly be
false . . . could she? And the fact that she'd patently been rolling in
grass, positively wallowing in the stuff with her hair down? Eh? And
Spotted Tail had had the cheek to tell me he was slavering for her
. . . and they'd been alone for an hour in such a pretty little grove
. . . Jesus, it must be the talk of the tipis by now!
"And then, after a little while, he bade me good-bye ever so
courteously, and two of his young men conducted me home."
What the devil was I to say? I'd no positive evidence (just plain
certainty), and if I accused her, or even voiced suspicion, there would
be indignation and floods of tears and reproach... I'd been through
it all before. Was I misjudging her by my own rotten standards? No,
I wasn't either--I knew she was a trollop, and her wide-eyed girlishness
was a deliberate mockery. Wasn't it? No, blast it, it wouldn't do,
I'd have it out here and now--"
"Oh, please, Harry, don't look so angry! I did not mean to cause
you distress. Were you truly anxious for me?" "-s w"'1 '; :M
"Elspeth," I began thunderously. '
"Oh, you were anxious, and I am a thoughtless wretch! And I am selfish, too, because I cannot be altogether sorry since it has shown
me yet again how you care for me. Say you are not angry?" And she
gave me a little squeeze as we walked along.
"Elspeth," says I. "Now ... I ... ah ..." And, as always, I
thought what the devil, if I'm wrong, and have been misjudging her
all these years, and she's as chaste as morning dew--so much the
better. If she's not--and I'll be bound she's not--what's an Indian
more or less? ?;;:
"I am truly penitent, you see, and it was perfectly all right, because
Mr Spotted Tail took such excellent care of me. Was it not fortunate
that he was there, in your absence?" She laughed and sighed happily.
"'Joll-ee good!'" ^,
K " ' ' 249
If, as I strongly suspect, that turbulent afternoon's work was a pleasant consummation for Lady Flashman and Chiel
Spotted Tail, it wasn't for anyone else. The Black Hills treaty died
then and there, slain by Senator Allison and Little Big Man. There followed another meeting at Camp Robinson--which I didn't attenc
because I'd have exploded in his presence--at which Spotted Tai
announced the Sioux's formal rejection of the offer; Allison wamec
him that the government would go ahead anyway, and fix the price ai
six million without agreement, but the most they could get from hirr
was a promise to send word of the offer to Sitting Bull and Craq Horse, and if they accepted it then he and Red Cloud would give ii
their blessing. Which was so much eyewash, since everyone knew the
hostiles wouldn't accept. Standing Bear was to be the ambassador to
the hostile chiefs, since he was apparently a protege of Sitting Bull's and well thought of by him.
"So nothing remains," says Allison resentfully afterwards, "but foi
this commission to bear the bitter fruit of failure back to Washington
All your care and arduous labour, gentlemen, for which I thank you
have been in vain." He was fuming with inward rage at being rebuffec
by mere aborigines, and him a Senator, too; for the first and only time
I saw his pompous mask drop. "These red rascals," he burst out
"who wax fat on government bounty, have set us at defiance- defiance, I say! Well, the sooner they're whipped into line, by cracky
the better!"
I've wondered since how much either side really wanted a treaty. 1
believe Red Cloud and Spotted Tail were ready for any terms thai
even looked honourable, and if Allison had been more tactful anc
offered a half-decent price, they might have won over enough Siou?
to make the opposition of the hostile chiefs unimportant. I don't
know. What I can say is that the Indians went away from Camp
Robinson in bitter fury, and while Allison was personally piqued I'rr
not certain he was altogether surprised, or that Washington mindec
too much. I've wondered even if the commission wasn't simply i means of proving how stubborn the Indians were, and putting 'em ir
the wrong; perhaps of testing their mettle, too. If so, it failec
disastrously, for it led Washington and the Army to draw a fatall)
wrong conclusion: after Camp Robinson it became accepted gospe
that whatever happened, the Sioux wouldn't fight. I confess, having
seen the way they didn't cut loose at the grove, it was a conclusion I
shared.
So now, with all the treaty nonsense out of the way, the government
set about bringing them to heel, ordering them to come in to the
agencies before February of 1876. The message didn't reach them all
until Christmas, which meant it was next to impossible for them to
comply, with the Powder country deep in snow. Shades of old
Macaulay's Glencoe, if you like--an ultimatum to wild tribes delivered
late and in dead of winter, culminating in massacre. Whether the
intentions of the U.S. Government were any more honourable than
William Ill's I can't say, but they achieved the same result, in a way.
However, I wasn't giving much thought to Indians that winter.
Elspeth and I had concluded our western tour with a rail journey
through the Rockies, a week's hunting in Colorado, and then back to
New York before the snow. I received a handsome testimonial from
the Indian Bureau, and notes from Grant and Fish* thanking me for
my services, which I thought pretty civil since the whole thing had
been a fiasco--only a cynic like me would wonder if that's why they
thanked me. In any event, I was ready to wend our way home to
England, and we would have done if it hadn't been for the blasted
Centennial.
1876 being the hundredth anniversary of the glorious moment
when the Yankee colonists exchanged a government of incompetent
British scoundrels for one of ambitious American sharps, it had been
decided to celebrate with a grand exposition at Philadelphia--you
know the sort of thing, a great emporium crammed with engines and
cocoa and ghastly bric-a-brac which the niggers have no further use
for, all embellished with flags and vulgar statuary. Our princely
muffin the late Albert had set the tone with the Crystal Palace
jamboree of 1851, since when you hadn't been able to stir abroad
without tripping over Palaces of Industry and Oriental Pavilions, and
now the Yankees were taking it up on the grand scale. Elspeth was all
for it; she suffered from the common Scotch mania for improvement
and progress through machinery and tracts, and had been on one of
the Crystal Palace ladies' committees, so when she fell in with a gaggle
of females who were arranging the women's pavilion at Philadelphia,
it was just nuts to her. She was in the thick of their councils in no
time--republican women, you know, love a Lady to distraction--and
there could be no question of our going home until after the opening
in May.
I didn't mind too much, since New York was jolly enough, and
^Hamilton Fish, Secretary of State. :' '':^.} ..,;& fj''4
251
Elspeth was happy to divide her time between Park Avenue anc
Philadelphia, where preparations were in full cry, with Chinks am
dagoes hammering away, for the whole world was exhibiting it
Brummagem rubbish, and great halls were being built to house it.
even attended one of Elspeth's committee teas, and as a traveller o
vast experience my views were ardently sought by the organism;
trots; I assured them that they must insist on the Turks bringing i
troupe of their famous contortionist dancers, a sorority akin to thi
ancient Vestal Virgins; the religious and cultural significance of thei:
muscular movements was of singular interest, I said, and could no
fail to edify the masses.59
Mostly, though, we were in and about the smart set, and New Yorl
-society being as small as such worlds are, the encounter which I hac
just after Christmas was probably inevitable. It happened in one o
those infernal patent circular hotel doors; I was going in as anothe:
chap was coming out, and he halted halfway, staring at me througl
t;the glass. Then he tried to reverse, which can't be done, and then h<
thrust ahead at such a rate that I was carried past and finished when
he had been, and he tried to reverse again. I rapped my cane on th<
glass.
"Open the damned door, sir!" cries I. "It's not a merry-go-round.'
He laughed, and round we went again. I stood in the lobby as h<
stumbled out, grinning, a tall, lean cove with a moustache and goate<
and a rakish air that I didn't fancy above half.
"I don't believe it!" cries he eagerly. "Aren't you Flashman?"
"So I am," says I warily, wondering if he was married. "Why?"
"Well, you can't have forgotten me!" says he, piqued-like. "It isn'
;every day, surely, that you almost chop a fellow's head off!"
; It was the voice, full of sharp conceit, that I remembered, not th<
face. "Custer! George Custer. Well, I'll be damned!"
"Whatever brings you to New York?" cries he, pumping my fist
|"Why, it must be ten yearssay, though, more than that since ou:
^encounter at Audie! But this is quite capital, old fellow! I should haw
known those whiskers anywherethe very picture of a dashin;
hussar, eh? What's your rank now?"
"Colonel," says I, and since it seemed a deuced odd question
though typical of him, I added: "What's yours?"
"Ha! Well may you ask!" says he. "Half-colonel, and on sufferanc<
at that. But with your opportunities, which we are denied, I'd hav<
thought you'd have your brigade at the least, by now. But there,'
cries he bitterly, "you're a fighting soldier, so you'd be the last they'c
promote. All services are alike, my boy."
Here was one with a bee in his bonnet, I saw, and could guess why
In the war, you see, he'd been the boy general--I'm not sure he
wasn't the youngest in the Union Army--but like all the others he'd
had to come down the ladder after the peace, and like a fool he was
letting it rankle. I'd heard talk of him in the West, of course, for he'd
been active against the Indians, and that he'd come under a cloud for
dabbling in politics. Grant, they said, detested him.
"But see here," he went on, "I've been itching to see you for ever
so long, and wishing I'd looked you out after the war. You see, I
never knew then, that you'd been in the Light Brigade!" I was
mystified. "Balaclava! The noble Six Hundred!" cries he, and shot if
he wasn't regarding me with admiration. "But I hadn't the least
notion, you see! Well, that's something I shall want to hear all about,
I can tell you, now that chance has brought us together again." ;4;
"Ah, well, yes," says I uncertainly. "I see . . ." "^
"Look here," says he, sporting his ticker, "it's the most confounded
bore, but I have to call on my publisher ... oh, yes, I'm more of a
writer than a fighter these days, thanks to the Stuffed Gods of
Washington." He grimaced and took my hand again. "But you'll dine
with me, this evening? Is your wife in New York? Capital! Then we'd
better say Delmonico's--Libby will be head over heels to meet you,
and we'll make a party. Fight our battles o'er again, eh? First-rate!"
I wasn't sure it was, as I watched him striding off through the falling
snow. Aside from the Audie skirmish, Appomattox, and an exchange
of courtesies in Washington, I'd hardly known him except by reputation
as a reckless firebrand who absolutely enjoyed warfare, and
would have been better suited to the Age of Chivalry, when he'd have
broken the Holy Grail in his hurry to get at it. And while I'd met
scores of old acquaintances in America, for some reason running into
Custer recalled my meeting with Spotted Tail, with its uncomfortable
consequences. ; ;:< . :;
We dined at Delmonico's, though, with him and wife, a bonny,
prim woman who worshipped him, and his brother Tom, a handsomer
edition of the Custer family who got on famously with Elspeth, each
being an accomplished flirt. Custer was all high spirits and presented
me to his wife with:
"Now, here, Libby, is the English gentleman who almost made a
widow of you before you were married. What d'you think of that? Sir
Harry Flashman, Victoria Cross and Knight of the Bath--" he'd been
at the List, by the sound of it "--also formerly of the Army of the
Confederacy, with whom I crossed sabres at Audie, didn't I, old
fellow?" The truth of it was that he'd been laying about him like a
drunk Cossack among our Johnnie cavalry, and I'd taken one cut at
him in self-defence as I fled for safety to the rebel lines, but if he
Of 253
wanted to remember it as a knightly tourney, let him. "Ah, brave
days!" cries he, clapping me on the shoulder, and over the soup he
regaled us with sentimental fustian about the brotherhood of the
sword, now sheathed in respect and good fellowship.
He was all enthusiasm for Balaclava, demanding the most precise
account, and vowing over and over that he wished he'd been there,
which shows you he should have been in some sort of institution.
Though when I think of it, the Charge was ready-made for the likes of
him; he and Lew Nolan would have made a pair. When I'd done, he
shook his head wistfully, sighed, regarded his glass (lemonade, if you
please), and murmured:
II '"When shall their glory fade?' C'Stait magnifique}--and never
II I mind what some fool of a Frenchman said about it's not being war!
I What does he think war is, without loyalty and heroism and the
challenge of impossible'odds? And you," says he, fixing me with a
misty eye, "were there. D'you know, I have one of your old troopers
IB in my 7th Cavalry? You know him, my dear--Butler. Splendid
soldier, best sergeant I've got. Well, sir," he smiled nobly at me and
lllllll illlll lifted his glass, "I've waited a long time to propose this toast--the
| Light Brigade!" ' v^. a;1. | . I nodded modestly, and remarked that the last time" I'd heard it
IDIil I Illlll drunk had been by Liprandi's Russian staff after Balaclava, and d'you
know, Custer absolutely blubbed on the spot. On lemonade, too. I'll "Ah, but you British are lucky!" cries he, after he'd mopped
| himself and they'd brought him a fresh salad. "When I reflect on the
| contrasting prospects of an aspiring English subaltern and his Ameri|
- can cousin, my heart could break. For the one--Africa, India, the
| I Orient--why, half the world's his oyster, where he can look forward
to active service, advancement, glory! For the other, he'\ be lucky if
he sees a skirmish against Indians--and precious thanks he'll get for
that!--and thirty years of weary drudgery in some desert outpost
where he can expect to end his days as a forgotten captain entering
returns."
"Come now," says I, "there's plenty of drudgery in our outposts,
too. As to glory--you've had the biggest war since the Peninsula, and
no man came out of it with brighter laurels than you did." Which was
true, although I was saying it to sweeten Libby Custer, who'd shown
III | no marked enthusiasm for me on hearing how I'd almost cut off her
hero in his prime. She beamed at me now, and laid a fond hand on
Custer's arm.
"That is true, Autie," says she, and he gave her a noble sigh.
"And where has it led me, my dear? Fort Abe Lincoln, to be sure,
in; | under the displeasure of my chiefs. Compare my position with Sir
Harry's splendid recordIndian Mutiny, Crimea, Afghanistan,
China, the lord knows where else, and our own war besides. Why, his
Queen has knighted him! Don't think, old fellow," says he, earnestly,
"that I grudge you the honours you've won. But I envy youyour
past, aye, and your future."
"Luck of the service," says I, and because I was bored with his
croaking I added: "Anyway, I've never been a general, and I've got
only one American Medal of Honour, you know."
This was Flashy at his most artistic, you'll agree, when I tell you
that I knew perfectly well that Custer had no Medal of Honour, but
his brother Tom had two. I guessed nothing would gall him more than
having to correct my apparent mistake, which he did, stiffly, while
Tom studied the cutlery and I was all apologies, feigning
embarrassment.
"They send 'em up with the rations, anyway," says I, lamely, and
Elspeth, who is the most well-meaning pourer of oil on troubled
flames I know, launched into a denunciation of the way Jealous
Authority invariably overlooked the Claims of the Most Deserving,
"for my own gallant countrymen. Lord Clyde and Sir Hugh Rose,
were never awarded the Victoria Cross, you know, and I believe
there were letters in the Herald and Scotsman about it, and Harry was
only given his at the last minute, isn't that so, my love? And I am
sure. General Custer," went on the amazing little blatherskite with
awestruck admiration, "that if you knew the esteem in which your
name and fame are held in military circles outside America, you
would not exchange it for anything."
Not a word of truth in it, but d'you know, Custer blossomed like a
flower; he had an astonishing vanity, and his carping about his lot had
more of honest fury than self-pity in it. He knew he was a good
soldierand he was, you know, when he was in his right mind. I've
seen more horse-soldiering than most, and if my life depended on
how a mounted brigade was handled, I'd as soon see George Custer
in command as anyone I know. His critics, who never saw him at
Gettysburg and Yellow Tavern, base their case on one piece of arrant
folly and bad luck, when he let his ambition get the better of him. But
he was good, and felt with some justice that the knives had been out
for him. I reflected, watching him that night, how the best soldiers in
wa! are so often ill-suited to peacetime service; he'd been a damned
Pest, they said, at West Point, and since the war he'd been collecting
"o end of black marksthere was one ugly tale of his leaving a
"ctachment to its fate on the frontier, and another of his shooting
"biters; he'd been court-martialled and suspended, and only rein^ted
because Sheridan knew there wasn't an Indian fighter to touch
255
him. Certainly he hadn't reached the heights he thought he'd de
served, thanks to his own orneriness, bad luck, and the malignan
Stuffed Gods of Washington, as he called them.
The discontent showed, too. He was still in his middle thirties, an<
I swear without vanity he looked as old as I did at fifty-three. On<
reason I'd been slow to recognise him was that the brilliant youn;
cavalier I'd seen bearing down on us at Audie, long gold curl;
streaming from beneath his ridiculous ribboned straw hat, ha<
changed into a worn, restless, middle-aged man with an almos
feverish glint in his eye; his skin was dry, the hair was lank and faded
and the tendons in his neck stuck out when he leaned forward ii
animated talk. I wonderedand I ain't being clever afterwardshov
long he would last.
We saw a good deal of the Custers that winter, for although hi
wasn't the kind I'm used to seek outbeing Puritan straight, n<
booze, baccy, or naughty cuss-words, and full of soldier talkit'!
difficult to resist a man who treats you as though you were a militar
oracle, and can't get enough of your conversation. He was begia
mowed by my reputation, you see, not knowing it was a fraud, an(
had a great thirst for my campaign yams. He'd read the first volum<
of my Dawns and Departures, and was full of it; I must read his owi
memoirs of the frontier which he was preparing for the press. So
did, and said it was the finest thing I'd struck, beat Xenophon into <
cocket hat; the blighter fairly glowed.
Our womenfolk dealt well, too, and Tom was a cheery soul wh(
kept Elspeth amused with his jokes (I'd run the rule over him an(
decided he was harmless). So we five dined frequently, and visitec
the theatre, of which Custer was a great patron; he was a friend o
Barrett the actor, who was butchering Shakespeare at Booth's, anc
would sit with his eyes glued to the stage muttering "Friends, Romans
countrymen" under his breath.
That should have made me leery; I'm all for a decent play myself
but when you see someone transported from reality by them, watcl
out. I shan't easily forget the night we saw some sentimental abomin
ation about a soldier going off to the wars; when the moment cam*
when his wife buckled on his sword for him, I heard sniffing an(
supposed it was Libby or Elspeth piping her eye. Then the snif
became a baritone groan, and when I looked, so help me it was Custel
himself, with his hand to his brow, bedewing his britches with mani]
tears. Libby and Elspeth began to bawl, too, possibly in sympathy
and had to be helped out, and they all had a fine caterwaul in thf
corridor, with Libby holding Custer's arm and whispering, "Oh
Autie, it makes me so fearful for you!" Deuced ominous, you rna;
think, and a waste of five circle tickets to boot. At least with Spotted
Tail you got your money's worth.
It was in February that Custer announced that he and Libby would
have to leave New York for Fort Lincoln, the outpost far up the
Missouri where his regiment was quartered; when I observed that I
didn't see how he could even exerdse cavalry until the snow got
properly away, he admitted flat out that they were going because they
couldn't afford to stay in New York any longer: his pockets were to
let. Since I knew it would give offence, I toyed with the idea of inviting
them to stay with us, but thought better of it; he might have accepted.
"The sooner I am back the better, in any event," says he. "I must
be thoroughly prepared for the spring; I must be. It may be the last
chance, you see." I noticed he was looking more on edge than usual,
so I asked him, last chance of what? We were in the Century Club, as
I remember; he took a turn up and down, and then sat abruptly,
facing me.
"The last chance I'll ever see of a campaign," says he, and
drummed his fingers on his knee. "The fact is that once this question
of the hostile Sioux is settled, as it must be this year, there's going to
be precious little left for the U.S. Army to docertainly nothing that
could be dignified by the name of 'campaign'. The Sioux," says he
grimly, "are the last worthwhile enemy we've gotunlike you we
don't have an empire full of obliging foes, alas! It follows that any
senior officer aspiring to general rank had better make his name while
the fighting lasts" da'i
"Hold hard, though," says I. "It's common knowledge that the
Sioux won't fight, isn't it? Why, the Indian Office was quoted in the
papers t'other day, doubting if five hundred hostile Indians would
ever be gathered together in America again."
"They'll fight all right!" cries he. "They're bound to. You haven't
heard the latest news: Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull have defied the
government's ultimatum to come in to the agencies by the end of
Januarythere are thousands of 'em camped up on the Powder this
minute who'll never come in! That's tantamount to a declaration of
warand when that war begins this spring I and the 7th Cavalry are
8ing to be in the van, my boy! Which means that the Stuffed Gods of
Washington, who have done me down at every turn and would dearly
love to retire me to Camp Goodbye to count horseshoes, will have to
think again!" He grinned as though he could taste triumph already.
Yes, sirthe American people will be reminded that George A.
Oister is too good a bargain to be put on the back shelf. My one
fervent prayer," added this pious vampire fiercely, "is that Crazy
torse doesn't catch any fatal illness before the spring grass grows."
II.  257
"You're sure he'll fight, then?" : 3?^ K
"If he don't, he's not the man I think he is. By gad," cries he with
unusual fervour, "I would, if it was my land and buffalo! So would
you." He smiled at me, knowing-like, and then glanced about conspiratorially,
lowering his voice. "In fact, when we ride west in May,
I'll be taking whoever I choose in my command party, and if some
distinguished visiting officer cared to accompany me as a guest, why
..." He winked, an appalling sight since his eye was bright with
excitement. "What about it? Fancy a slap at the redskins, do you?
Heaven knows you must have soldiered against everyone else!"
That's the trouble with my derring-do reputation--bloodthirsty
asses like Custer think I can't wait to cry "Ha-ha!" among the
trumpets. I'd as soon have walked naked to Africa to join the Foreign
Legion. But you have to play up; I made my eyes gleam and chewed
my lip like a man sore tempted.
"Get thee behind me, Custer," I chuckled, and ruefully shook my
head. "No-o ... I doubt if Horse Guards would approve of my
chasing Indians--not that I'd care a button for that, but. . . Dammit,
I'd give a leg to go along with you--"  , , . .;......,. .%a("Well then?" cries he, all a-quiver. y.A-a'^ iyw.':. ;
"But there's the old girl, you see. She's waved me off to war so
many times, brave little soul. . . oh, I can leave her when duty calls,
but..." I sighed, manly wistful. "But not for fun, George, d'you
see? Decent of you to ask, though." & $^ s"
"I understand," says he solemnly. "Yes, our women have the
harder part, do they not?" I could have told him they didn't; Elspeth
had led a life of reckless and probably wanton pleasure while I was
being chased half round the world by homicidal niggers. "Well," says
he, "if you should change your mind, just remember, there's always a
good horse and a good gun--aye, and a good friend--waiting for you
at Fort Lincoln." He shook my hand.
"George," says I earnestly, "I shan't forget that." I don't forget
holes in the road or places I owe money, either.
"God bless you, old fellow," says he, and off he went, much to my
relief, for he'd given me a turn by suggesting active service, the
dangerous, inconsiderate bastard. Tain't lucky. I hoped I'd seen the
last of him, but several weeks later, sometime in April, when Elspeth
was off in the final throes of her Philadelphia preparations, I came
home one night to find a note asking me to call on him at the
Brevoort. I'd supposed him far out on the prairie, inspecting ammunition
and fly-buttons, and here was his card with the remarkable
scrawl: "If ever I needed a friend, it is now! Don't fail me!!"
Plainly he was in a fine state of frenzy, so I tooled round to the
grevoort next morning, anticipating sport, only to find he was at his
publisher's. Aha, thinks I, that's it: they've thrown him and his beastly
book into the gutter, or want him to pay for the illustrations; still,
Custer as an unhinged author might be diverting, so I waited, and
presently he arrived like a whirlwind, crying out at sight of me and
bustling me to his room. I asked if they'd set his book in Norwegian
by mistake, and he stared at me; he looked fit for murder.
"Nothing to do with my book! I merely saw my publisher in
passing--indeed, I'm only in New York because if I had stayed in that
... that sink of conspiracy in Washington a moment longer, I believe
I'd have run mad!"
"What's the row in Washington? I thought you were out in Fort
Lincoln.'^
"So I was, and so I should be! It's a conspiracy, I tell you! A foul,
despicable plot by that scoundrel who masquerades as President--"
"Sam Grant? Come now, George," says I, "he's a surly brute, we
agree, and his taste in cigars is awful--but he ain't a plotter."
"What do you know about it?" snaps he. "Oh, forgive me, old
friend! I am so distraught by this--this web they've spun about
me--"
"What web? Now look here, you take a deep breath, or put your
head in the basin there, and tell it plain, will you?"
He let out a great heaving sigh, and suddenly smiled and clasped
my hand. Gad, he was a dramatic creature, though. "Good old
Flash!" he cries. "The imperturbable Englishman. You're right, I
must take hold. Well, then . . ."
He'd been at Fort Lincoln, preparing for his precious Sioux campaign,
when he'd suddenly been summoned to Washington to give
evidence against Belknap, the Secretary for War, no less, who was in
a great scandal because of bribes his wife was said to have taken from
some post trader or Indian agent (I wasn't clear on the details).
Custer, not wanting to leave his regiment so soon before taking the
field, had asked to be excused, but the jacks-in-office had insisted, so
off he'd gone and given his evidence which, by his account, wasn't
worth a snuff anyway. The mischief was that Belknap was a great
crony of Grant's, and Grant was furious at Custer for having given
evidence at all.
The whole thing stank of politics, and I guessed I wasn't hearing "? half of it. All the world knew Grant's administration was rotten to ttle core, and I'd heard hints that Custer himself had political smbitions of no mean order. But what mattered just then was that
he'd put Grant in a towering rage.60
'He means to break me!" cries Custer. "I know his vindictive
spirit. By his orders I am kept in Washington, like a dog on a lead, a
a time when my regiment needs me as never before! It's my belie
I Grant intends I shall not return to the West--that his jealous spite i
| such that he will deny me the chance to take the field! You doubt it'
You don't know Washington, that's plain, or the toads and curs tha
infest it! As though I cared a rap for Belknap and his dirty dealings'. I
Grant would see me I would tell him so--that all I want is to do m;
duty in the field! But he refuses me an audience!"
I let him rave, and then asked what he wanted of me. He spui round like a jack-inthe-box.
"You know Grant," says he fiercely. "He respects you, and he i
|1||| bound to listen to you! You are his old friend and comrade--if yoi
111 were to "^ nlm to ^et me 8' ^e Gould not ignore it. Will you? Yoi
know what this campaign means to me!"
III! I didn't know whether to laugh more at his brazen cheek or his foil;
in supposing that Grant would pay the least heed to me. I started t< say so, but he brushed it violently aside.
II liilill "Grant will listen to you, I say! Don't you see, you must cam
weight? You're neutral, and free of all political interest--and yoi
,,,,,,,,,i,, have the seal of the greatest American who ever lived! Didn't Lincoli
I'll saw: 'when au other trusts fai1' turn to Flashman'? Besides, Gran1
I appointed you to the Indian Commission, didn't he? He cannot refusf 1 I you a hearing. You must speak up for me. If you don't, I can't thint
who will--and I'll be finished, on the brink of glorious success!"
"But look here," says I, "there are far better advocates, you know
I I Sherman, and Sheridan, your friends--"
"Sheridan's in Chicago. Sherman? I don't for the life of me know
II where he stands. By heaven, if Robert Lee were alive, I'd ask him-- | he'd stand up for me!" He stood working his fists, his face desperate
i "You're my best hope--my only one! I beg of you not to fail me!"
||| I The man was plainly barmy. If I carried weight in Washington i
II was news to me, and bearding Sam Grant on this crackpot's behal
wasn't my idea of a jolly afternoon. On the other hand, it wa;
III nattering to be asked, and it might be fun to help stir up what soundec II |j| like an uncommon dirty kettle of fish . . . and to see what effect m
unorthodox approach might have on Grant--not for Custer's sake
but for my own private amusement. I was at a loose end in New York
B||| I anyway. So I hemmed a bit, and finally said, very well, I'd come t(
Illjl Washington to oblige him, not that it would do the least good, min<
|!| "You are the noblest soul alive!" cries he, with tears in his eyes
.( I and swept me down to luncheon, during which he talked like i ijiljl Galling about what I should say to Grant, and his own sterling
qualities, and the iniquities of the administration. Not that I heeded much of it--my attention had been caught elsewhere.
It was her voice at first, high and sharp and Yankee, at the diningroom
door: "Yep. A table by the window. Oh-kay." And then her
figure, as she rustled smartly past in the waiter's wake; fashionable
women in the '70s dressed so tight they could barely sit down," and
hers was the perfect hourglass shape--a waist I could gladly have
spanned with my two hands, but for her upper and lower works you'd
have needed the help of the lifeboat crew. Unusually tall, close on six
feet from the feathered cap on her piled blue-black hair to the modish
calf-boots, and a most arresting profile as she turned to take her seat.
Commanding was the word for the straight nose and brow and the
full, almost fleshy, mouth and chin, but the complexion was that
dusky rose high colour you see on beautiful Italians, and I felt the
steam rise under my collar as I drank her in. Then she turned her face
hill to the room--and arresting wasn't the word.
Her right eye was covered with a patch of embroidered purple silk
with a ribbon across brow and temple, matching her dress. Don't
misunderstand me; I don't fancy 'em one-legged or hunch-backed or
with six toes, and after the first shock you realised that the patch was
of no more account than an earring or beauty spot; nothing could
distract from the magnetic beauty of that full-lipped arrogant face
with its superb colouring--indeed, the incongruous note was her
harsh nasal voice carrying sharply as she gave her order: "Mahk turrel
soup, feelay Brev'urt medium rayr. Old Injun pudding. Spa warrer.
Yep." Well, she probably needed plenty of nourishment to keep that
Amazonian figure up to the mark. Italian-American, probably; the
ripe splendour of the Mediterranean with the brash hardness of the
Yankee. Ripe was the word, too; sheUbe about forty, which made
that slim waist all the more remarkable--Lord God, what must she
look like stripped? And in that happy contemplation I forgot her
eye-patch altogether, which just shows you. My last glimpse of her as
we left the dining-room, she was smoking a long cigarette and trickling
the smoke from her shapely nostrils as she sat boldly erect scanning
the room with her cool dark eye. Ah, well, thinks I regretfully, ships
that pass, and don't even speak each other, never mind boarding.
From that exotic vision to the surly bearded presence of Ulysses S.
Grant was a most damnable translation, I can tell you. I had endured
Custer's rantings on the way down--release from Washinton and
return to his command were what I was expected to achieve--and
while it seemed to me that my uncalled-for Limey interference could only make matters worse, well, I didn't mind that. I was quite ^joying the prospect of playing bluff, honest Harry at the White
House, creating what mischief I could. When Ingalls, the
Quartermaster-General, heard what we'd come for, he said bluntly
that Grant would have me kicked into the street, and I said I'd take
my chance of that, and would he kindly send in my card? He clucked
like an old hen, but presently I was ushered into the big airy room,
and Grant was shaking hands with fair cordiality for him. He thanked
me again for Camp Robinson, inquired after Elspeth, snarled at the
thought that he was going to have to open the Philadelphia exhibition,
and asked what he could do for me. Knowing my man, I went straight
in. !';,'^ wss<"f'^" ' ssff.-K'.-' '.
. "Custer, Mr President."  ' ''  ;-"^"->111"  ^sfv^ '
"What's that?" His cordiality vanished, and his burly shoulders
stiffened. "Has he been at you?" ^i- '
"He asked me to see you, since he can't. As a friend of his"
"Have you come here to intercede for him? Is that it?" _, ,
"I don't know, sir," says I. "Is intercession necessary?" @b |
He took a breath, and his jaw came out like a cannon. "Now see
here, Flashmanthe affairs of Colonel Custer with this office are no
concern of yours, and I am astonished, sir, and most displeased, that
you should presume to intrude in them. Poking your goddam nose
I will hear no representations from you, sir! As an officer of a ...
another country, you should know very well that you have no standing
in this. Confound it! None whatsoever. I am gravely angered, sir!"
I let him boil. "May I remind you with the greatest respect, Mr
President," says I gently, "that I hold the rank of major, retired,
United States Army, and also the Congressional Medal of Honour?
If those do not entitle me to address the Commander-in-Chief on
behalf of a brother-officerthen, sir, I can only offer my profound
apologies for having disturbed you, and bid you a very good day."
I stood up as I said it, perfectly composed, bowed slightly, and
turned towards the door. If the little bugger had let me go I was
prepared to turn on the threshold and roar in a voice they could hear
in Maryland: "I deeply regret, sir, that I have found here only the
President of the United States; I had hoped to find Ulysses S. Grant!"
But I knew Sam; before I'd gone two steps he barked: ?..
"Come back here!" So I did, while he stood hunched, glowering a1
me. "Very goodmajor," says he at last. "Let's have it."
"Thank'ee, General." I knew my line now, I thought. "It's liks
this, sir: Custer believes, justly or not, that he has been denied a fair
hearing. He also believes he's being held in Washington to prevent
his taking part in the campaign."
I paused, and he looked at me flint-faced. "Well, sir?" ?;"?
"If that's true. General, I'd say he's entitled to know why, and tha1
he's sufficiently senior to hear it from you in person. That's all, Mr
president."
The brevity of it startled him, as I'd known it would. He stuck
forward his bullet head, frowning. "That's all you have to say? No
other. . . plea on his behalf?" ? ;;!
"Not my biznay, sir. There may be political reasons I don't know
about. And I'm no longer your military adviser."
"You never were!" he barked. "Not that that ever stopped you
from advancing your opinions." He stumped to the windows and
peered out, growling; apparently he didn't care for the view. "Oh,
come on!" he snapped suddenly. "You don't fool me! What have you
got to say for this damned jackanapes? I may tell you," he faced
round abruptly, "that I've already had appeals from Sherman and
Phil Sheridan, urging his professional competence, distinguished
service, and all the rest of it. They also conceded, what they couldn't
dam' well dsny," he added with satisfaction, "that he's a meddlesome
mountebsnk who's too big for his britches, and gave me sentimental
slop about the shame of not allowing him to ride forth at the head of
his regiment. Well, sir, they failed to convince me." He eyed me
almost triumphantly. "I am not inclined, either on professional or
personal grounds, to entrust Colonel George A. Custer with an
important command. Wellmajor?"
I couldn't credit he hadn't been swayed, at least a little, by Sherman
and Sheridan, otherwise he wouldn't be wasting time talking to me.
My guess was they'd pushed him to the edge, and another touch
would do it, if properly applied.
"Well, Mr President," says I, "I've no doubt you're right."
"Damned right I'm right." He frowned. "What's that mean? Don't
you agree with Sherman and Sheridan?"
"Well, sir," says I doubtfully, "I gather you don't agree with them
yourself. . ."
"What I agree or don't agree with is not to the point," says he
testily. "You're here to badger me on this fellow's behalf, aren't you?
Well, get on with it! I'm listening."
"Mr President, I submitted only that if he's to lose his command he
should be told so, and not kept kicking his heels in your anteroom"
"I'm not seeing him, so now! And that's flat!"
"Well, beyond that, sir, it's not for me to press my views."
"That's a day I'll live to see!" scoffs he. "I know youyou're like
au the rest. You think I'm being unjust, don't you? That I'm putting
I^rsonal and political considerationsof which, by the way, you
wow nothingabove the good of the service? You want to tell me
^eorge Custer's the finest thing since Murat"
263
f5 "Hardly that, sir," says I, and quietly gave him both barrels. "I
wouldn't give him charge of an escort, myself."
I'm possibly the only man who's ever seen Ulysses S. Grant with
his eyes wide open. His mouth, too.
"The hell you say! What are you talking about--escort? What's the
matter with you?" He stared at me, suspiciously. "I thought you were
a friend of his?"
"Indeed, sir. I hope that wouldn't prejudice me, though."
"Prejudice?" V.z looked nonplussed. "Now see here, let's get this
straight. I'm not denying that Custer's a competent cavalry commander--"

"Jeb Stuart gave him the right about at Yellow Tavern," I mused,
"But then, Stuart was exceptional, we know--"
"The hell with Stuart! What's that to the matter? I don't understand
you, Flashman. I am not disputing Custer's professional merits,
within limits. I'm aware of them--no man better. . . Escort, indeed!
What did you mean by that, sir?"
"Well, perhaps that was coming it a bit raw," I admitted. "I've
always thought, though, that George was a trifle excitable . ..
headstrong, you know. . . inclined to play to the gallery. . ."
"He's given proof enough of that!" says Grant warmly. "Which is
one reason I intend to send out a man who won't use the campaign as
an excuse for gallivanting theatrically to impress the public for his own
ambitious reasons."
"Ah, well, that's not my province, you see. I can only talk as a
soldier, Mr President, and if I have . . . well, any reservations about
old George--I daresay that having come up with the Light Brigade
and Jeb Stuart I tend to--"
"You and Jeb Stuart! 'Jine the cavalree!'" He snorted and gave me
another of his suspicious squints. "See here--have you got it in for
Custer?" ^.^.^i
"Certainly not, sir!" I was bluff indignation at once, and tried a
contemptuous snort of my own. "And I'm absolutely not one of those
cheap fogies who can't forget he came foot of the class at West
Point--" %sS rtr/i .^
"I should hope not! We know what that's worth." He shook his
head and glowered a bit. "I came twenty-first out of thirty-nine, myself. Yeah. First in horsemanship, though."
"I never knew that," says I, all interest. ? ,;^ f; ^
"Yes, sir." He looked me up and down with a sdiir grin. "Y0" dandy boys with lancer figures think you're the only ones can rid6' don't you?" He hesitated, but being Sam, not for long. "Care for3 drink?" ,;- -1 ; ^' N--11 ,
He poured them out, and we imbibed, and after he'd got the taste
of it and ruminated, he came back to the matter in hand, shaking his
bead. "No, I'd be the last man to belittle Custer as a soldier. Escort!
I like that! But as to seeing him--no, Flashman, I can't do it. Twould
only make bad worse. I know what you mean about excitable, you
see. Impassioned appeals to me as an old brother-in-arms--I won't
have that." He gulped his drink and sighed. "I don't know. We'll say
no more about it, then."
Taking this for dismissal, I was ready to be off, well satisfied with
having thoroughly muddied the waters, and-he saw me to the door,
affably enough. Then a thought seemed to strike him, and he coughed
.uncertainly, glancing at me sidelong. Suddenly he came out with it,
peering under his brows, fc ?;;i
"Tell me ... something I've often wondered, but never cared to
ask. Would you be . . ...that is, were you . . . the Flashman in Tom
Brown's Schooldays'!" ti's?
I'm used to it by now, and vary my reply according to the inquirer.
"Oh, yes, don't you know," says I. "That's me."
"Oh." He blinked. "Yes, I see ... well." He didn't know which
way to look. "Uh-huh. But. . . was it true? What he says, I mean
. ..about you?"
I considered this. "Oh, yes, I'd say so. Every word of it. "I chuckled
reminiscently. "Great days they were."
He scratched his beard and muttered, "I'll be damned!" and then
shook my hand, rather uncomfortably, and stumped off, with an
anxious glance or two over his shoulder.621 strolled out, and Custer
leaped from ambush, demanding news.
"He thinks you're a damned good cavalryman," says I, "but he
won't see you." .' ;,;- -aw
"But my reinstatement? I may leave Washington?" ;i :-'^w' rs/ !;:'
"No go there, either, I'm afraid. He don't hold it against you that
you came last at the Point, by the way." sps,
"What?" He was fairly hopping. "You . . . you could not move
him at all? He concedes me nothing? In heaven's name, what did you
say? Didn't you urge my--" m:,
"Now, calm yourself. I've done you a better day's work than you
know, if I'm any judge. Sherman and Sheridan have been at him, too.
So just rest easy, and it'll come right, you'll see."
"How can I rest easy? If you have failed me... oh, you must have bungled it!" cries this grateful specimen. "Ah, this is too much! The
wrrupt, mean-spirited villain! I am to be kept like a lackey at his (loo^, am I? Well, if he thinks that, he doesn't know his man! I defy "im!" gKi, , %-;, fc-.-i- fte." :'.
: 265
And he stormed off in a passion, vowing to catch the next train
west, and Grant could make of it what he liked. I ambled back to the
hotel, whistling, and found a note at the porter's cabin; Grant wanting
me to autograph his copy of Tom Brown, no doubt. But it wasn't. A
very clerkly hand:
"The Directors of the Upper Missouri Development Corporation
present their compliments to Sir Harry Flashman, etc., and request
the privilege of a conference in Room 26/28 of this hotel at 3 o'clock,
to discuss a Proposal which they are confident will be of mutual
advantage."
I'd had 'em before, at home, fly-by-night company sharps hoping
to enlist a well-known public man (if you'll forgive me) in some
swindle or other, and prepared to grease the palm according. I'd not
have thought I was prominent enough over here, though, and was
about to crumple it up when I noted that these merchants were at
least flush enough to engage a suite of rooms. No harm in investigating,
so at the appointed hour I rapped the timber of Number 26, and
was admitted by a sober nondescript who conducted me to the inner
door and said the company president was expecting me.
I went in, and the company president rose from behind a desk
covered with papers and held out a hand in welcome. The company
president was wearing crimson velvet today, and as before, the
eyepatch and ribbon were to match. ,.-..,. ..,.,...
"Good of you to be so prompt, Sir Harry." Her handshake was firm
and brisk, like her voice. "Yep. Pray be seated. A cigarette?" She
had one smoking in a copper tray, and while I lighted another she sat
down with a graceful rustle and appraised me with that single dark
eye. "Forgive me. I'd expected you to be older. Yep. The letters after
your name, and all." xPi apa i ^H
If there's one thing I can tolerate it's a voluptuous beauty who
expected me to be older. I was still recovering from my surprise, and
blessing my luck. At point-blank she was even more overpowering
than I'd have imagined; the elegant severity of the dress which
covered her from ankle to chin emphasised her figure in a most
distracting way. It was abundantly plain that her shape was her own,
and certainly no corset--they were thrusting across the desk of their
own free will, and the temptation to seize one and cry "How's that?"
was strong. No encouragement, though, from that commandingly
handsome dark face with the crimson strip cutting obliquely across
brow and cheek; the fleshy mouth and chin were all business, and the
smile coldly formal. The high colour of her skin, I noticed, was
artfully applied, but she wore no perfume or jewellery, and her hands
were strong and capable. In a word, she looked like a belly-dancer
who's gone in for banking.
I said I believed I'd seen her lunching at the Brevoort, in New
York, and she nodded curtly and disposed of it in her harsh nasal
voice.
"Yep, correct. You were engaged, so I didn't intrude. I meant to
speak with you later, but they said you'd left for Washington. I had
business here, so I figured to kill two birds with one stone. Oh-kay,"
she drawled, and folded her hands on the table. "Business. I understand
you have the acquaintance of Chancellor Prince von Bismarck."
That was a facer. For one thing, "acquaintance" wasn't how I'd
have described that German ruffian who'd dragged me into his
diabolical Strackenz plot and tried to murder me*, and how did
she--
"You allude to him in your book--" She tapped a volume on the
table "--in a way that suggests you've met him. Dawns and Departures. Most interesting. I take it you do know him?"
"Fairly well," says I, on my guard. "At one time we were ... ah,
close associates. Haven't seen him for some years, though." Twentyeight,
to be exact. I'd kept count, thankfully.
"That's very good. Yep. The Upper Missouri Development Corporation,
of which I am president and principal shareholder--pardon
me, is something amusing you?" Her single eye was like a flint. "Perhaps you think it's unusual for a woman to be head of a large
corporation?"
In fact I'd been musing cheerfully on the words "upper" and
"development", but I couldn't tell her that. "No, I was remembering
how I introduced Prince Bismarck to boxing--I do beg your pardon.
As to your position, I know several ladies who preside over quite
large enterprises, including the Queens of England and Madagascar,
the Empress of China, and the late Ranee of an Indian kingdom. You
remind me other very much; she was extraordinarily beautiful."
She didn't bat an eyelid. "Our company," she went straight on, "owns extensive lands on the Missouri river--it mayn't be familiar to
you? Oh-kay--the area in question is located around a steamboat
landing recently renamed Bismarck, after your friend the Chancellor, although I guess he doesn't know it."63 She drew on her cigarette.
"We intend to take advannage of that coincidence to attract German
'See Royal Hash. '--^~	.--	3;!/
267
settlers and financial interests to the region. Yep. Vast sums will be
involved, and a personal endorsement--maybe even a visit--by the
German Chancellor would be invaluable to us. Oh-kay?"
"My dear lady! You don't expect Bismarck to come to America?
He's fairly well occupied, you know."
"Obviously that's highly unlikely." She said it dismissively. "But
an endorsement--even an expression of interest and good will on his
part--is certainly not. Naturally we'll canvass the German government.
But a personal approach, from one who knows him well, would
be far more likely to enlist his personal sympathy, wouldn't you say?
Just his signature, on a letter approving the plan, would be worth
many thousands of dollars to us."
"You're suggesting," says I, "that I should ask Otto Bismarck to
give his blessing to your scheme?"
"Yep. Corr-ect." ^y
Well, I'd heard of Yankee enterprise, but this beat the band. Mind
you, it wasn't crazy. A respectable scheme, brought to Bismarck's
attention, might well win a kind word from him, and trust the
Americans to know how to turn that sort of thing into hard cash. The
beautiful thought was Flashy writing: "My dear Otto, I wonder if you
remember the jolly times we had in Schonhausen with Rudi and the
rats, when you made me impersonate that poxy prince . . ." Could I
blackmail him, perhaps? Perish the thought. But I could smell profit
in her scheme, money and ... I was watching her inhale deeply. By
Jove, yes, money was the least of it. She stroked her cheek with the
hand holding the cigarette and watched me speculatively. Was there
a glimmer of more than commercial interest in that fine dark eye?
We'd see.
"I'd have to know a good deal about your scheme before--"
"Yep. We'd want you to visit the town of Bismarck, as well as
examining our plans in detail. A few weeks would--"
"Bismarck!" I exclaimed. "Wait--isn't that the place--yes, on the
Missouri--close by an army post called Fort Abraham Lincoln? Why,
it's right out on the frontier!"
"Corr-ect. Why, d'you know it?"
"No, but a friend of mine--in fact,.the man you saw lunching with
me at the Brevoort--commands at Fort Lincoln. Well, that's an
extraordinary thing! Why, I was with him only today--"
"Is that so? I was about to say that when you'd been shown the
area, and had the plans explained, you would be able to write Prince
Bismarck--or visit him if you thought it advisable. The corporation
would meet all expenses, naturally, in addition to--"
"Who'd show me the area? Yourself, personally?"
"in addition to a fee of fifteen thousand dollars. Yep." She
crushed out her cigarette. "Myself. Personally."
"In that case," says I gallantly, "I should find it impossible to
refuse." She looked at me woodenly and put another cigarette
between her full lips, lighting it herself before I could bound to assist.
"Of course," says I, "I can't promise that Bismarck will"
"We would pay five thousand of the fee on despatch of your
personal letter to the Chancellor, drafted in consultation with us,"
says she crisply, and blew out her match. "The balance would be
dependent on his replyfive thousand if he replies but declines, ten
thousand if he approves. According to the warmth of that approval, a
bonus might be paid."
A business-like bitch if ever there was one; cold as a dead Eskimo,
rapping out her terms and looking like the Borgias' governess. I told
her ifall sounded perfectly satisfactory. . ts,
"Oh-kay." She struck a bell on her desk, and spoke past me as the
door opened. "Reserve a first-class sleeping berth for Sir Harry
nashman,V.C.,K.C.B., to Bismarck and return." The door closed.
"There's a hotel there, but I wouldn't put a dawg in ft. Can you
arrange to stay with your military friend? If not, we'll rent the best
rooms available. You can? Oh-kay."
She put down her cigarette, rose, and went to an escritoire against
the wall. I watched the tall, shapely figure lustfully, considering the
curls that nestled around her ears, and the entrancing profile under
the lustrous piled hair. It's my experience that a woman with a shape
like that will invariably use it for the purpose which Nature intended.
She might be a proper little Scrooge, with her cold efficiency and
twanging voice and impersonal stare, but she didn't dress in that style,
and paint in that artful way, to help balance the books. If I couldn't
charm her supine, it was time to retire. As I got up she turned and
came towards me with that smooth stride, holding out an envelope
towards me.
"It's the corporation's policy," says she, "to pay a retainer in
advance." At a yard's distance I realised she was barely three inches
shorter than I.
"Quite unnecessary, my dear," says I pleasantly. "By the way, you
still have the advantage of me. Miss... or Mrs . . .?"
"Candy. Mrs Arthur B. Candy." She continued to hold out the
envelope. "We'd prefer that you took it."
"And I'd prefer that I didn't. Arthur," says I, "has a sweet tooth,"
2nd before she could stir I had my hands on that willowy waist. She
quiveredand stood still. I drew her swiftly against me, mouth to
^outh, feeling the glorious benefits and working to get her lips apart;
, 269
I suddenly they opened, her tongue flickered against mine, she writhec I against me for five delicious seconds, and as I changed my grip to th
j half-Flashman--one hand on her right tit, t'other clasping her Ie
buttock, and stand back, referee--she slipped smoothly from m
embrace.
| "Yep," says she, and without the least appearance of hurry she wa
I I behind her desk again, seating herself and making a minute adjust
ment to her eyepatch ribbon. "Arthur Candy", she went on calmly
"never existed. But in working hours, the initial B. stands fo
business." Her hand rested beside her bell, "Oh-kay?"
| "Business is so fatiguing, you know. Don't you think you ought h I lie down? All work and no play--"
I "I have a full sked-yool for the next ten days," she went on briskly
consulting her calendar. "Yep. I intend to be in Bismarck around th< third week of May. That gives you ample time to travel out at you:
convenience. When I arrive I'll check with Coulson's, the steamboa
people, and we can meet at their office."
"I've a much better notion. Suppose we travel out together?"
"That's quite impossible, I'm afraid. I have appointments."
"I'm sure you have," says I, sitting on the corner of her desk a li
Rudi Starnberg, although I don't recall his knocking a tray of pins to
the floor. "But, d'you know, Mrs Candy, there's a good deal I ough
to know about your corporation beforehand, I think. After all--"
|| "You can check with the New York City Bank as to our standing
I if that bothers you. And there's the retainer." She gestured with hei
cigarette. I picked up the envelope--a sheaf of greenbacks, ii
H | hundreds--and dropped it back on her desk.
|| "The only thing that bothers me, as you are well aware," says I, "i;
the corporation president. Will she do me the honour of dining wit! me this evening? Please?" ' *
"Thank you, Sir Harry, but I'm engaged this evening."
"Tomorrow, then?" i
"Tomorrow I leave for Cincinnati." She stood up and held out hei
hand. "May I say on behalf of the corporation that we're both pleasec III and honoured that you are joining us in this enterprise?" She said i
with calm formality, eye steady, the full mouth firm and expressionless.
"Also that I am wearing a boot with a sharp toe and a pointec
 heel, and I'd like my hand back. Thank you." She struck the bell, anf her bloody watchdog appeared. "I'll probably arrive at Bismarck bl
steamboat--the corporation has an interest in the company, so if youl
friend can put you up till then, perhaps we can arrange accommo
dation aboard afterwards." Her smile was admirably polite an(
I impersonal. "They're extremely comfortable, and it will be so mud
pleasanter if we travel by water. Easier to see the country, too. Yep.
You're sure you won't take the retainer? Oh-kay. Good afternoon,
Sir Harry."
And there I was in the corridor, considering various things. Chiefly,
that I admired Mrs Candy's stylethe hard, no-nonsense aloofness,
punctuated by a brief impassioned lechery, was one I'd encountered
occasionally, but I'd never known it better done. Why, though? Her
proposal was rum, but plausibleeven reasonable. There'd been a
cool thou. at least in that envelope, and my sensitive nose hadn't
smelled swindleit would have been all the way to the sofa and break
the springs if she was crooked, which was one reason I'd tested her
with a grapple. No, my guess was that she was a lusty bundle who
kept a tight rein on her appetite during office hours, just as she'd said,
but would let rip once the shop was shut. For the rest, her scheme
made sense: Otto's blessing would be worth a fortune to her (not that
she'd ever get it through me), and even if I didn't make more than the
first payment out of it, playing with the corporation president on a
steamboat cruise would be ample compensationfor her, too, lucky
Mrs Candy. And Elspeth would be fast in Philadelphia for another
month anyway.
The one fishbone in my throat was the queer chance that I'd be
going to Bismarck, next door to George Custer's fort. It's the son of
coincidence I don't trust an inch, but I was damned if I could see a
catch. He'd sworn he was going to defy Grant and leave town
tomorrow, so why shouldn't I go west with him?I might even
pretend that I was taking him up on his invitation to join his ghastly
campaign, supposing the silly ass was allowed to have one. It might be
an amusing trip to Bismarck with him, too . . .
By God, but it was all suspiciously pat! The wild notion that Custer
had set Mrs Candy on to lure me west so that he could drag me along
in pursuit of the Sioux crossed my mind, and I found I was grinning.
No, that didn't answernot having seen the exotic Mrs Candy. Not
puritan George.
The rail trip west was a fine mixture of boredom
^d high diversion. Custer was in a hysteric turmoil, what between his
vs.- 271
rage at Grant and his own recklessness in leaving Washington without
permission. He was like a small boy smashing his toys in a bawling
tantrum while watching with fearful fascination to see what Papa will
do. He was all over me again, excusing his ill-temper at the White
House as mere frenzy of disappointment; I was the truest of friends,
rallying to his side when all others had forsaken him, I was a tower of
strength and comfort--what, I would come west with him, even? Oh,
this was nobility! Enobarbus couldn't have done better. Let him wring
my hand again.
"As for that rattlesnake Grant," cries he, as we climbed aboard at
the depot, me chivvying the porter and Custer waving his cane with
his hat on three hairs, "let him prevent me if he dares! I have a voice,
and the public have ears. Conductor, I am General George A. Custer
and I have reservations. We'll see if his spite outruns his sense of selfpreservation.
First in horesmanship, does he say? A fine crowd of
cripples they must have had at the Point that year!"
S I had two days of this, all the way to Chicago; he was like a pea on
a drum one minute and gnawing his knuckles in silent gloom the next.
The Stuffed Gods would get him if they could, he was sure of it, and
became almost lachrymose; then he would brighten as he recalled the
news that only a few weeks back General Crook, making the first
tentative move against the Sioux hostiles from the south, had blundered
into the camp of Crazy Horse himself, and after a mismanaged
action which accomplished nothing but the destruction of the Indians'
tipis, with scant loss on either side, had retired discomfited to Fort
Fetterman.
"Imagine it!" gloats Custer, bright with scorn. "The arch-hostile in
their grasp, and they let him slip! They bum a few lodges, kill an old
squaw and a couple of children, capture the Indians' ponies--which
they promptly lose again next day--and Crook counts it a victory. Ye
gods, it doth amaze me! Crazy Horse must be helpless with laughter.
And Grant thinks he can do without me on the frontier?" He laughed
bitterly. "Crook--because he's scrambled after a few Apache renegades
they think he's an Indian fighter. Well, he knows now what
real hostiles are! Perhaps our perspicacious President does, too, and
will have to swallow his gall and put me back where I belong."
I asked him mildly how he'd set about it, and he scowled. "Even if
Grant sees sense, I'll still not have full command--no, that's for your
genteel friend General Terry, who has never fought an Indian in his
life--an impressive qualification, is it not?" He waved a dismissive
hand. "Fortunately, the dispositions are so simple a child could direct
them--Terry and I will march to the Yellowstone and strike into the
Powder country from the north; old Gibbon's infantry column will
advance from the west; and Crook, supposing he had collected
himself before Christmas, will come up from the south--all converging,
you see, so that Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull and all their hands
will be ringed in, at bay." He smiled complacently, and winked. "And
I, bien entendu, have charge of the cavalry, who move rather faster
than anyone else." Then his face fell again. "Unless that rascal in
Washington hobbles me at the last. But he can't, Flashman, I tell you!
He can't!"
But he could. There was an embarrassed staff-walloper on the
platform at Chicago to convoy our hero to General Sheridan forthwith,
and from little Phil we learned that Shennan had sent word that
the Sioux expedition was definitely to proceed without Custer. The
resultant explosion of grief and rage shook the furniture, with me
tactfully silent and enjoying every minute of it, and Sheridan looking
more like an unhappy tramp than ever. Custer went wild; as heaven
was his witness, he'd call Grant out, or sue him, or have him
impeached, and in the meantime he was going on to Fort Lincoln if
he had to swim through blood all the way. Sheridan observed bluntly
that he could go to hell if he wanted, but if he hoped to see service
on the way, he'd better think of a means of making his peace with
Grant. ^ . ' &H '^f^
"HoWcan I" bawls Custer, "when he will not see me?" '
"Neither would I, in your present condition," says Sheridan. "I tell
you straight, you'd better take hold, and stop acting like some
damned opera singer. You're your own worst enemy, George. I'll
telegraph Shennan again, but you'd better put your case to Terry,
and if he wants you badly enough, maybe Grant'11 listen."
Custer rolled an eye at me, as much as to say: "You see how I am
used!", and I shepherded him on to the train to St Paul, all agog for
Act II. It was like East Lynn overplayed, for Custer had apparently
decided that the best way to approach the mild and courtly Terry was
as a good man wronged; it would have broken your heart to see him
clasping Terry's hand, tears in his eyes, swearing that if he were not
permitted "to hazard myself in honour's cause, at the head of the
regiment which has followed me so faithfully and far", it would bring
down his grey hairs in sorrow to the knacker's yard, and there'd be
nothing for it but to clap a pistol in his mouth and call in the
decorators. He described, with outflung arm, how I had abased Myself to Grant on his behalf, "beseeching" if you please, and when
he actually went down on the carpet and fairly grovelled, Terry didn't
know where to look.
"Do you think he'll do himself a mischief?" Terry asked me when ^e suppliant had retired, and I said, on the whole, no, but if he didn't
1, 273
get his way. Grant would be well advised to stayout of Ford's Theatn
if Custer was in town.
"It is deeply distressing," says Terry. "I wish he wouldn't take 01
so; it isn't becoming. You've seen Grant, though--what d'you think'
Will he be swayed if I speak on Custer's behalf?"
"If you don't, you'll be about the only man in the Army wh< hasn't," says I. "But you'll carry more weight than all the rest--it'
your expedition, and I'd hate to be the Commander-in-Chief wh< denied you your choice of senior men. Suppose he refused to give yoi Custer, and the expedition went wrong--say the cavalry were mis
managed by his replacement? The Democrats could make hay o
that, I should think. No, if you ask for Custer, Sam daren't risk <
refusal." And to increase the fun I added: "Custer knows it, too."
He stiffened at that. "I'll not be made a cat's paw!" Then h< frowned. "Is it true, d'you think, that Custer has ... hopes of higl
office? I've heard rumours ..."
"That he'd take a stab at the White House? Shouldn't wonder--
you Americans have a habit of promoting your military heroes
haven't you? Washington, Jackson, Grant--back home we did it will
Wellington, and bloody near had a revolution. Before my time, o
course. However, that don't help you. The point is: d'you want Cuslei
along?"
"It is difficult not to be moved by his plea," he mused; he was <
proper soft head prefect, this one. "And if this unhappy Belknaj business had not arisen, there'd have been no question of Custer''
removal. No--I believe it would lie heavy on my conscience if I didn'
exert myself on his behalf."
Conscience, you see? Note that; it's a bigger foe of mankind thar
gunpowder.
Between us we concocted an appeal to Grant--me suggesting the more abject and crawling phrases which I knew would drive Custer to
apoplexy, and Terry striking them out. Then I took it to Custer for hi;
signature; he tore his hair and swore he'd die before he'd "truckle t(
that miscreant Grant".
"You put your John Hancock on that, my boy," says I, "or it's a) up with you. Let me tell you, it would have been a sight more humiliating for you if Terry had had the writing of it; I had the deuce of a job persuading him to appeal to Grant at all. If you refuse this
I'll not answer for the consequences: Terry's about ready to wash hi'
hands of you."
"You can't mean it?" cries he in panic, and scribbled his signature
insisting that I was his truest friend, etc. It went over the wire, anc
with Terry and Sherman and Sheridan and Uncle Tom Cobleigh anc
ajl besieging him. Grant finally gave way, and the word came back:
Custer could go with his regiment. Why, God knows; if I'd been in
Grant's shoes I'd have cashiered the bastard, just for spite.
Custer's behaviour after this was a revelation, even to me. I guess
he remembered what an ass he'd made of himself to Terry, for he
thanked him pretty curtly, and when we were on the train to Bismarck
he confided to me that Terry would have been a fool to act otherwise.
"There would have been mutiny in the 7th if I had not been restored,"
says he smugly. "Then where would Lawyer Terry have
been? If he's done anyone a kindness, it is himself, not me." And
he'd been weeping on the fellow's boot-laces, so help me. I was
beginning to wonder if Custer wasn't perhaps some by-blow of the Bashman family.
This suspicion was dispelled when we reached Fort Lincoln, about
a week after leaving Washington, for I hadn't been at the place a day
before I realised that Custer lacked one quality which I and my
kindred have by the bucket: popularity. I don't know how much his
troopers cared for him, but his officers clearly disliked him. I don't
say it was on professional grounds; I believe most of them respected
him as a soldier, but as a man they'd have had a hard job tolerating
him. This was a new slant to me; you see, he'd toadied me on account
of my fame and success, and ever since the Belknap business he'd
been in such a high-flown state that his character couldn't be judged;
now, in his own mess, I saw the fellow's bounce and arrogance in full
flight, and knew that whatever else it might be, the 7th wasn't a happy
ship.
His senior officers, you see, were fellows of long service and good
name who'd held higher ranks in the war than they did now, and it's
no fun for a good man who's been a colonel, and knows how a colonel
should behave, to take snuff from a demoted general. His top major,
Reno, who seemed a dapper, quiet, clever sort of chap, concealed
any animosity he may have felt, but the dominant spirit in the mess, a
big burly bargee with prematurely white hair and a schoolboy's eyes
and grin, called Benteen, seemed ready to lock homs with Custer as
soon as look at him. I saw it within a minute of meeting him: he
pumped my hand jovially and wanted to talk cricket with me--which
I thought deuced strange in an American, but it seemed he'd played
as a boy and was a keen hand." Custer listened with a jaundiced air as
we discussed those mysteries which are Greek to the uninitiated, and
finally observed that it sounded a dull enough pastime, at which
Benteen says: "Well, then, colonel, what game shall we talk about? Kiss-in-the-ring or blind man's buff?" and Custer gave him a glare aa^ took me off to meet Keogh, a jolly black Irishman who had family
1 275
connections with the British Army--and that didn't suit Custer either
evidently; I was his lion, I suppose, and to be welcomed as such
Again, there was Moylan, up from the ranks and with sergeant's mes;
written all over him, which didn't stop Custer from mentioning thi
fact in presenting me.
Then there was a large Custer faction at the fort: his brother Tom
whom I knew, and another brother, Boston, who was a civilian bu
had some commissary post or other, and Calhoun, Custer's brother
in-law, who seemed a good sort--but in my experience, let too mud
family into a regiment and you let in trouble; it must make for a hous< divided. Don't mistake me: I don't blame the unhappy officers' mes
for what happened later, any more than I blame the Balaclava fiasco on the fact that Lucan and Cardigan detested each other. Boti
disasters would have happened if Custer's 7th had been all loving an< loyal, and Lucan and Cardigan sworn chums. I'm just reporting wha
I saw.
The fort itself was a dismal enough place, on flat land west of th<
river, with baldhead prairie stretching away forever and coyote
waking the dead at night. Bismarck, an ugly settlement where thi
Northern Pacific railroad stopped, was about four miles down on the
east bank; I took a prowl through it, and thanked God I wasn't stayin;
there, for while it was bustling enough and like to spread and prosper
it was still rough and ready, with streets awash with mud and slush
touts and roughs and sharps abounding, and the grog-shops an< whore-houses open day and night. I hired a trap and drove out o
town, and whiiff I'm no farmer, it looked to me as though the Uppe:
Missouri Corporation might be on a good thing--rail and rive
convenient, good soil by the millions of empty acres, and nothin;
missing except thousands of contented kraut-eaters to be enslaved t(
the company store.
Not'the kind of spot that would hold me for long, though, and i
was only the thought of the delectable Mrs Candy that made life a
Fort Lincoln tolerable in the two weeks I was there--gad, th<
discomforts I'll endure for the sake of a fresh skirt. But I was lookinj
forward to this one with unusual zest; your melting ones ain't in i
with the cool teasers when it comes to the bit. In the meantime, Libb;
Custer and the other wives were at pains to make me at home
Benteen scented my soldier's interest and showed me about the post
and I formed my impression of this famous 7th Cavalry of which n(
doubt you've heard so much. i as'w ^,
For the time and the place they weren't bad--not to compare witt Johnny Reb cavalry or Cardigan's Lights or Scarlett's Heavies or the
Union horse in the Civil War, or Sikhs or Punjabis either, but ther
; were all soldiers at war, most of the time, and the 7th weren't.
I've heard tell since that they were the finest unit of horse in the
American Army at the time, and it may be so; I've also heard that
they were a drunken, brutal parcel of rascals and drunkards and misfits, and that's a downright lie. They had their bad hats, but no more than any other regiment. They were hellish young, though; I
watched Calhoun's troop at exercise, smart enough and rode well,
but so many fresh faces I never did see. I've been told since that a
third of 'em had never faced an enemy. That's nothing: I doubt if one
man in ten of the Light Brigade had heard a shot in anger before we
landed in Calamity Bay, and they proved themselves the best that
ever rode to battle anywhere. The 7th Cavalry would have been as
crack a regiment as you could wish, given a campaign to teach them
their trade. They were good boys, and let nobody tell you different.
And Jeb Stuart or Cromwell himself couldn't have done a whit better
than they did when the time came.
I have to give Custer the credit for that. In the ten days at the fort
he drove them hard, and his officers likewise. If there was a loose
shoe or a galled back or a trooper who didn't know his flank man, it
wasn't the colonel's fault. He fussed over that regiment like a boy
with a new bride; he couldn't do enough for it, or let it alone. At the
same time he was deep in discussion with Terry, who was now on
hand; there was great heave and ho everywhere, with inspections and
issue of rations and farriers and armourers going demented and
messengers flying and the telegraph office open night and day; how
the dickens Custer had energy enough for his evening's jollity I can't
fathom.
For he was like a schoolboy on holiday as the time to march drew
near, even behaving affably to Benteen and Moylan, holding parties
at his house, getting up impromptu theatricals one night, I remember,
in which I had to play Judge Puffenstuff in a comic breach of promise
suit, holding all the prettiest young wives in contempt for giggling and
sentencing Tom Custer to transportation for flirting. There were
charades and games every evening, and much singing round the
piano--I can see it so plain still; little Reed, who was Custer's
nephew, turning the sheets for Libby, and Terry with his eyes shut,
rendering "My Old Kentucky Home" and "My love is like a red, red
rose" in his fine tenor, and Custer bright-eyed as he leaned on a chair,
smiling fondly at Libby, and her quick loving glance at him from the music, and Keogh quite overcome with sentiment and drink, muttering
"Oh, Jayzus, Ginneral, it's a darlin' gift of song, a darlin' gift",
and the young folk holding hands while the firelight nickered on the
wooden walls and the buffalo head over the mantel. And then
277
Calhoun taps his foot, and Libby laughec rousing chord, and they all brisked up, anc
off in his cracked baritone until the rafters r
the glasses swung in rhythm as they roared i
: We'll beat the bailiffs out of 1
',.:.. '^ we>n make the mayor and sl'
' We are the boys no man dare
' .. "'- ' if he regards a whole skin!
, ,' In place of spa we'll drink do
,^ And pay no reckoning on the
" , No man for debt shall go to j;
While he can Garryowen hai
They didn't notice I wasn't singing; I w<
nants of the Light Brigade in that grisly
croaking out those self-same words in then
done what no horse-soldiers had ever done
pale fierce faces and the horrid wounds, t we'd come through, and the ghastly cost--<
lucky song to sing, that's all.
Custer couldn't get enough of it; I remem
last night before Terry's force marched ou<
study to say good-night. He was packing his
Napier's Peninsular War, among other thinj
to me in high fettle:
"I can't prevail on you to ride along with
and Autie Reed, you know, and the news
civilians. Your Bismarck bagmen can wait
I'd told him about the Upper Missouri off;
and without mentioning the sex of the coq and he wouldn't have liked it, and word mig
ears.
"Stop teasing a fellow, George," says I, be there like a shot if '(weren't for the bettel
want a real cavalryman along; I'd just show
"Oho! Sauce!" cries he merrily. "I wa thought you'd be useful for remounts."
"Much more of that, and I'll offer my s
says I. "Get a bit of own back for Yorkto'
Hearty stuff, you see, and delighted him no
"I'll look for you in the first war-party!" (
.all solemn. "Seriously, though--I can't thai
don't know what turned Grant, but. . . wi
better man to speak up for me, I know that." He clasped my hand
with manly fervour. "I only wish I could repay you."
"Well, now, if you should see Little Big Man, kick his backside for
me."
"I'll do better than that!" cries he as I went out. "I'll fetch you his
scalp!""
I felt duty bound to crawl out and see them off in the morning, raw
and misty as it was; there's no sight more inspiring or heartwarming
than troops marching out to battle when you ain't going with them.
Custer was prancing about at the head of the 7th as they marched past
by column of platoons, with the garrison kids stumping alongside
playing soldiers; the troopers dismounted for farewells at the married
lines, and then the embracing and boo-hooing was broken by the roar
of commands, Libby and her sister, who were riding out the first few
miles, took post beside Custer, Terry and his staff assumed expressions
of resolution, the word was "Mount!" and "Forward-o!", and
as Reno and Benteen led off in double column we had another burst
of Carry'owen and Yellow Ribbon.
They looked well as they trotted by, the harness jingling, each blue
rider with his brace of pistols and carbine--no sabres, I noticed--the
guidons fluttering and everyone waving to them; the band crashed
into The Girl I Left Behind Me, which was the signal for more female
caterwauling, drowned by the prompt action of the distinguishedlooking
British civilian with the fine whiskers, standing erect by the
main gate, who raised his hat and called for three rousing cheers and
a tiger for these gallant fellows. Everyone hurrahed, and out they
rode to the empty plain, the Ree scouts in their blankets and feathers
trotting alongside, and then three companies of infantry, the platoon
of Gatling guns, the wagons and mules churning up the dust, the
piping of the music fading into the distance, the rising sun glinting
here and there on the far column lining across the prairie, and in Fort
Lincoln the silent crowd who had watched 'em go dispersed in little
knots about the barracks, with only a murmur and shuffle in the
stillness of the morning. ;,; :'
The next ten days were hellish. I was staying in the Custer house,
and Libby and Margaret went about like two of the Three Fates, pale
and listless with thoughts about their absent men; once I surprised
Libby in Custer's study, her head on his desk beside his portrait,
sobbing her heart out, but I managed to retreat unobserved. Much of
this and I'd have taken to drink, and still no word from that elegant
slut Candy--had if been some elaborate hoax, I wondered, and took
to going down to the Bismarck wharf each day for news of the boats.
You may say, come now. Flash, what's all this bother about one
279
skirt--you've known a few in your time, we believe, and must have
learned by now that they're all the same in the dark, surely? True
enough, says I, as a rule--but every so often a real prime one comes
by, like Lola or Cassy or Cleonie or the Empress Tzu'hsi or Lily
Langtry, and nothing else will do. It's a pure passion, you know, just
like the moon-struck youth who can't eat or sleep for dreaming about
his sweetheart; the only real difference is that while his bliss is to bask
calf-like in her fond regard, I want to roger her red in the face. D'you
see? Anyway, call me susceptible if you will, but after three weeks of
Fort Lincoln I hungered for the president of the Upper Missouri
Development Corporation as the zealot yearns for paradise.
She came at last on the 27th, on the heels of a telegraph: "Arriving
Far West steamer. Kindly meet. Candy." I was on hand as the stemwheeler
edged into the wharf with her whistle screaming, and there
on the top deck was the tall figure, one elegant gloved hand on the
rail, her face shaded by a broad feathered hat. The lines came ashore,
the wheel churned to a stop, and I shouldered through the press as
the plank came down and mounted the ladder to where she stood
with a steel-eyed grey-moustached bird in a pilot cap. She was in
bronze today, with tippet and feather and eyepatch according; she
greeted me with her slight impersonal smile and the same cold
Yankee rasp.
"Good morning. Captain Marsh--Sir Harry Flashman. The captain
has been good enough to reserve you a forward cabin, away from
the wheel. I hope that's convenient. Yep. Have you brought your
bags? No? Perhaps, captain, they can be brought abroad." Her cool
eye turned back to me. "We have a great deal to discuss before we
sail, so the less time we lose the better. I've set out my papers in the
forward part of the main saloon, captain; I'd be obliged if you'd give
orders that we're not to be disturbed. Oh-kay. This way. Sir Harry,
please."
These steamboat skippers take sass from no one, and I was
intrigued that Marsh smiled politely and retired. Mrs Candy swept
into the long main saloon, which was empty, and led the way to the
forrard end, behind a partition curtain, where a large map and
notebooks lay ready spread on the table. She shrugged aside her
tippet with her back to me, removed her hat, and peeled off her
gloves in a careful way that deserved musical accompaniment. I eyed
the trim waist and swan-like neck and licked my lips.
"I hope your stay hasn't been dull," says she indifferently, without
glancing round. "You'll have seen the town and country around, I
guess. Yep. As you'll see on the map here, the sections we're chiefly
interested in. . ." ;;.:: -: "i^. "-. .______________
I stepped close behind her, took a breast in either hand and
squeezed ardently.
". . .lie mostly on the south bank of the river between here and
Fort Buford, in Dacotah Territory. We don't control it all yet, but
discussions with the government are going ahead ..."
I fondled greedily and they quivered like jellies, but her voice
tlidn't.'fae . ^1! i;'; '." :. '"
"... and after we've settled our differences with the Northern
Pacific, we should have acquired the choicest areas north of their
railroad, which will be pushed clear across to the Yellowstone in the
next year or two. Oh-kay. In the meantime..."  sl
I was nuzzling her neck now and rolling 'em to and fro.
"... the steamer will take us upriver; it's under charter to the
Army at present, carrying stores for this expedition of theirs, but I've
arranged with Coulson's directors for us to travel aboard as there's
plenty of cabin space ..."
Keeping one hand at work, I slipped the other to her waist and
turned her round. ;,4"
"... and in a few days you'll be able to see all you need of the
country and decide what to write to Prince Bismarck. Oh-kay."
The dark eye was cool as a fish's back, and the full mouth steady.
She might have been addressing her shareholderswhich in a sense
she was.
"Damn the country, damn Bismarck, and damn you," says I,
taking hold of both of 'em again.
"Why damn me. Sir Harry? The way you carry on" she glanced
down at my clutching hands "I thought you liked me." She turned
her head, took a cigarette from the table, and put it between her lips.
"Go right ahead if you want to," she added, as she struck a match and
brought it up between my hands to light the cigarette, rock steady. "I
don't mind; you do it very well, but then I guess you've had a lot of
practice. Yep." She blew smoke carefully to one side. "So have I."
"But you're much to cool to show it, eh?" says I, stroking artfully.
"Whatever for? I'm doing fine right here ... a little more on the
left, would you? Yeh-ep." She inhaled rather sharply on her infernal
fag. "Oh-kay. I think that's enough for now, though, don't you?
These windows have no curtains, in case you didn't notice." Before I
knew it she had slipped her bosom aside and stepped neatly round the
table. "I hope you were paying some attention to what I was showing
you on the map" ^^
"Come here, you exquisite president," saysT>(yrly hoarse, but she
moved a chair deftly between us, holding me at bay.
"No. Let's get it straight. . . Colonel. I guess we can stop being
B 281
formal and drop that silly 'sir'? Yep. What I said about B for
businessthat's a fact. I've broken my rule twice now with youfirst
time to sweeten you, just now because if I hadn't you'd have got
powerful, and I'd have had to bust your toe"
"Gammon! You enjoyed every minute of it!"
"I'm the corporation president. Oh-kay. But I don't break my rule
againand neither do you. Business hours, we do business, because
I've got a heap of money tied up in this thing, and that comes first
and anybody forgets itthe depot's right down the road. Yep. Out of
business hours, we do . . . what we please. Oh-kay."
She moved the chair back to the table and stood straight, not
haughty or insolent but matter-of-fact and composed. I clapped
politely and grinned at her. . 
"And what pleases madam the president?" : ': J
She drew impatiently on her cigarette. "This is wasting time. Ohkay.
I like business and I like money, but I didn't come all this way to
Ishow you the Dacotah Territory; I coulda sent a hired hand to do
that. When this Bismarck project came up, and someone mentioned
your name, I didn't know you from Adam, but you sounded like what
we needed. Business, oh-kay? Then when I saw you at the Brev'urt,"
she tapped ash from her cigarette and considered me, "I thought
exactly what you thought when you saw me. Yep." She turned away
to seat herself at the table and began to look through her papers, 'if
"Indeed? And what did I think, pray?" *
She leaned forward to study the map. "You thought, that's a real
bully looker with a patch over her eye; I'd sure like to put her to bed."
She indicated the chair opposite. "Let's get to work, shall we?"
It's one of the secrets of my success with women that however
contrary, cool, chilly or downright perverse their airs, I'll always
humour 'emwhen it's worth it. It just maddens them, for one thing.
All her tough efficient front didn't fool me; she was on heat most of
the time, I should judge, and while she'd probably had more men
than Messalina, she was terrified for fear that her allure would fail her
(the eyepatch troubled her, no doubt)so being female, she had to
pretend to be all self-assurance and keep your distance, my lad, till I
say jump. Kindly old Dr Flashy knows the symptomsand the cure.
So now I let her rattle on about surveys and options and mortgages
and share issues and grants, admiring her profile and waiting for
business to close down for the day.
We were interrupted at luncheon by the arrival on board of Libby
Custer and the garrison wivesLibby knew, of course, that I was
going off on private business, but when she saw the shape that
business took, she sucked in her breath mighty sharp. I learned later
J
that Libby's purpose aboard was to coax Marsh to take her upriver so
that she could be reunited with her loving husband when Far West reached the expedition's supply camp on the Yellowstone; Marsh
wouldn't have it, though, pointing out that his boat was in Army
service now, and couldn't take passengers. What about this Candy
woman, says Libby, and Marsh had told her that was different
altogether, since he'd had explicit instructions from his owners. So
poor Libby went ashore in some huff, having bidden me a distinctly
chill farewell.
What interested me was the pull that La Candy obviously had; I
quizzed Marsh gently about it, and he said he guessed she drew a
powerful lot of water in the commercial world, being on very close
terms with at least one of his directors. How close, he added drily, he
couldn't say.
We sailed upriver next day after one of the most damnably frustrating
nights of my life. Having been held at a distance by my delectable
associate all day, I was nicely on the boil by bedtime--and stab me if
the Far West didn't continue loading the whole night, which meant
that the forward saloon beyond the curtain became an orderly room
for military clerks and the like, and since our cabins opened on to it,
there was no opportunity for me to creep in next door. I lay grinding
my teeth and listening to the thump of bales and porters hollering, in
the knowledge that all that fine flesh was lying neglected a mere three
feet away through my cabin wall. Next morning she was all business
with a B again, and we spent ever such jolly hours on deck as the Far
West thrashed upstream, and she pointed out interesting lumps of
prairie which we identified on the map. But at least we now had the
boat pretty well to ourselves; Marsh and his officers berthed aft, as
did the only other passenger, a young journalist who was going up to
report the campaign.
I dutifully kept my hands to myself all day--not without effort,
when we bent together over the map and it was all within temptingly
easy reach; it was almost enough to make me risk a broken toe. I
knew she was getting feverish, too, by the way she drew breath and
kept moving her hand on her hip. Good business, thinks I, let the
randy baggage sweat, but I was taken aback when she shut her
notebook abruptly, glanced at the little gold watch pinned to her riress, and announced:
"Six o'clock. Yep. That'll do for today."
I remarked carelessly that it was an hour till dinner, and she stood "P and crushed out her cigarette. She was wearing her crimson rig, ^th the velvet eyepatch, and seemed to breathe a little unsteadily as ^e said in her nasal drawl: <
283
"I'm not hungry. Are you?"
"Marsh and the others may think it odd if we don't put in ai
appearance."
"Who cares what they think--they're the help," says she curtly
"Oh-kay . . . my cabin or yours?"
I've had some coy invitations in my time, but gallant as ever
begged her to state her preference.
"Yours," says she, and waited to be ushered in. As she passed m< I slipped a finger on her pulse; the patient was satisfactorily agitated
I asked didn't she want to change into something less formal, and shf moistened her full lips and took a deep breath.
"No," says she, "I want to watch you watching me while I undress.'
And a very artistic work she made of it, too, spinning it out ovei
half an hour, a lace and a button at a time, never taking her dark ey(
off me as I sat entranced--and not once did she fumble or show th< least loss of composure, although I knew she was inwardly a-tremblf with excitement as she gratified herself by making us both wait;
"You've done this before," says I, in a nonchalant croak. 'A
"Yep." *>'"?!.'
"Tell me, Mrs Candy," I asked. "Do you ever smile?" "w "
She made a minute adjustment at the mirror to her red velve
eyepatch, which now constituted her entire clothing, and turned t(
face me.
"This is no laughing matter,"'says she, and I shan't attempt t(
describe the impression she made as she stood there, drawn up to he;
full magnificent height, one hand poised lightly on that incredibh
slender waist, the other at her side. I gloated all over her for a ful
minute; I've seen as fine, but never better, and my ears were fairb
roaring with the tightness of my collar as I got to my feet--whereupor
she sat down on her stool, crossed her legs, lighted a cigarette, inhalec
luxuriously, and leaned an elbow on her dressing-table.
"Oh-kay," says she briskly. "Your turn."
In justice I must record that when Mrs Arthur Candy, president o
the Upper Missouri Development Corporation, finally applied hersel
to the task at hand, she more than lived up to anticipation. Mind you
she continued to take her time; Susie Willinck I had always suppose! to be the arch-protractor of the capital act, but she was grease< lightning to this one. It must have been another hour befo.s
persuaded her on to the bed--she was too tall to manhandle easily
you see--and even then she went to work with a slow deliberatiol
which would have induced dementia if she hadn't been so wonder- ously good at it so often. It was a pale ghost named Flashman who
eventually waved her a feeble good-night as she carefully gathered up her attire and departed, with a whispered "Yep. Oh-kay" as the door
dosed.
I wondered weakly if I'd ever know the like. Yes, a thousand times,
but surely never with such a cool unhurried efficiency. It became clear
why she wouldn't play during the day--there'd never have been a
stroke of work done, and she'd have had a corpse on her hands by
tea-time. Well, it promised to be a most satisfactory cruise, and with
the distant throb of the paddle-wheel to lull me I was drifting off to
sleep when another noise, muffled but closer at hand, began to pull
me slowly back to consciousness. I listened drowsily, the hairs on my
neck beginning to rise--but no, I must be mistaken. It must be some
murmur of the boat, and not what I'd thought it was at first: the
sound, faintly through the panels from Mrs Candy's cabin, of deep
sobbing, tg^ ^.s^ss^; 1^
P- KS, ','?'. ",SjfS& 'S.i '"1 ?':.' '  . .y&i:tSG.i-ff^,n)!ij3V: .ii- 'iyjffi'3t 3
R^-fea"- ::''?-".-11 ""!^,.^.^.M-':ss;;;"?MI:''''i"'h'<i" '"*s?^.
^ S* -iKi.' " 'I ^ ,;;!; kWfr',";^'^. -y 4:.. ^ ^ ^-31 -^.,
j^AA'IBi S$fc ";: '':, ? -W^ 1'?^ ';.< ' .-K>to%
^.f-^MUttsft'.-'^a^'.tci^;;-^^;!!^ ^,;^:^^ ''S^^
f??'av..^R^l^i;^.iM<^,!;:rl;.<te?^a^^ ^x^st
u- A ..n^.r^'tiiss^.s'.tt'^s?' ' t^,'.:; milter?; :>rfas^% ' ^ ^^.ai3
W "^K j^|j
-< ' If you care to examine the log of the Far West you
will find an exact account of her voyagings on the Missouri and
Yellowstone in the days that followed, but for my purpose the barest
facts will do. A glance at the map will show you how it was--she was
bringing the forage and gear for Terry's column which had struck due
west from Fort Lincoln across the Dacotah Territory for the mouth of
the Powder River; advancing to meet them from the west along the
Yellowstone were old Gibbon and his walkaheaps, and they were to
join forces and push down into the wild country between the Big
Horn and the Powder to find the hostile bands who were in there
somewhere--no one had much notion where, for it was territory that
only a few bold scouts and trappers had ever penetrated. Crook with
a third column was traipsing about somewhere to the south, out of
touch with Terry, but as Custer had told me, the hostiles would be
effectively hemmed in by the three forces.
Now you'll wonder if I was wise to be fornicating carelessly on a
boat that was going so near to the scene of operations, but it didn't
took like that at all from the warm embrace of Mrs Candy, or from
1 285
the hurricane deck of the Far West as she thrashed up the Missouri v Fort Buford, and then into the beautiful grove-lined valley of th' Yellowstone. For one thing there wasn't going to be any fightin,
worth the name beyond a skirmish or two if some of the hostile band
proved recalcitrant, and that would be far to the south of th
Yellowstone, with a large and efficient army in between. In fact, (I
was quite jolly to be on the fringe of the action, so to speak, in the
perfect safety of a comfortable steamboat, where one could loaf and stuff and yam with Marsh and the boys, and gorge oneself with Cand)
after dark, if you'll pardon the pun, and lie snug and cosy listening to
the churning of the great wheel. The Yellowstone is one of the finesi
river valleys I know, with its woodlands and islands and quiet inleti
and clear rippling waters; sometimes you might think yourself on the Thames--and an hour later you're steaming between grand red bluff;
as unlike England as anything could be.
It was a prime holiday altogether, and the president of the corpora' tion improved with every performance, although she still remained as impersonal as ever during the day. I'd supposed that after Fort Buford
she might unbend a little; after-all, by then I'd absorbed all there was
to know of her Bismarck scheme, and seen the kind of country to tx
settled; I'd even drafted (with a straight face) a letter to Ottc
explaining the thing and inviting his approval--God alone knew whal
he'd make of it if it ever reached him, with my monicker on it. Run
Candy commended it briskly and said she'd submit it to her directors,
and I thought, first-rate, now we can get to know each other socially as well as carnally. But not a bit of it; it was still B for business froir
breakfast till dinner, with her making notes and sketches of the
Yellowstone country like a good little land speculator, and anyone seeing us on deck or in the saloon would have taken us for fellow- passengers who were formally polite and no more.
I didn't much mind; there was even a strange excitement in knowing that this sharp, no-nonsense Yankee business-woman, all efficiency and assurance, could turn into the most wanton of concubines wher
the blinds were drawn. I say concubine because she was by no means a lover; she'd talk civilly enough, without much interest, betweer
bouts, but there was none of the intimacy you find in a mistress 01
even a high-quality whore. How much she enjoyed our couplings was hard to say; how much does a hopeless drunkard enjoy drinking^ There was a hungry compulsion that drove her, always in that intense
deliberate way, like an inexorable beautiful machine. Ideal from m
point of view, but then I'm a sensual brute, and I dare say if she'c
been warm or loving I'd have tired of her sooner; as it was the cole
passion with which she gave and took her pleasure demanded nothing
but stamina.
With the other men on board she was politely discouraging; one or
two of the Army officers whom we took aboard for short stages were
disposed to be gallant, and short shrift she gave thenone, I'm sure,
had her heel stamped on his instep, for I saw him follow her on to the
foredeck one evening, only to return red-faced and hobbling visibly.
Marsh and his mate, Campbell, must have known how it stood with
Candy and me, but tactfully said nothing. Marsh was a splendid sort,
a capital pilot and skipper and tough as they came, I guessed, but with
a fund of yams and partial to a convivial glass or a hand at euchre.
It was about ten days out of Bismarck that we came to the Powder
mouth, where a great military camp was taking shape. With the
arrival of Terry's advance guard, and Gibbon only a few days' march
away, there was tremendous work and bustle; the Far West was back
and forth ferrying troops and stores and equipment; her steerage was
a bedlam of men and gear, while our deck was invaded by all manner
of staff-wallopers in search of comfort; Terry held his meetings in the
saloon; messengers went galloping pell-mell along the banks; a forest
of tents and lean-tos sprang up in the meadows; the woods rang and
hummed with the noise of men and horses, rumours of Indian
movement far to the south were discussed and as quickly discounted;
no one knew what the blazes was happeningindeed, it was like the
beginning of any campaign I'd ever seen.'7
Terry seemed pleased, if surprised, to see me, and preserved his
amiable urbanity when I presented him to Mrs Candy; his staff men
eyed her with lascivious respect and me with envy. Marsh had
explained our presence, and since Far West could carry far more
passengers than there were staff, no objections could be raised.
Indeed, Terry made no bones about talking shop with me; we'd got
on well at Camp Robinson, and I sensed that he was anxious about
his new responsibilities; he'd never campaigned against Indians, and
regarding me as an authority on the Sioux, poor soul, and knowing
I'd swelled powder on the frontier, he canvassed me in his quiet,
cautious way. Not about his duties, you understand, but on whether
Spotted Tail might have talked sense to the hostiles during the winter,
and the possibility of defections to the agencies. Something else was
troubling him, too.
"George Custer hasn't shaved since we left Abe Lincoln," he
confided. "A small thing enough, but it worries me. I've never known
him so melancholy and restless. I begin to wonder if I was wise in
Orging Grant to let him come." - .,..,..
_- ^ 287
"Nerves," says I. "Get the doctor to give him a purge. George is
like a cat on hot bricks about this campaign, and a fortnight's trekking
over empty prairie won't have improved his temper. Give him work
and you'll see a difference."
He made a lip. "I've a notion, between ourselves, that secretly he
resents my authority. I only hope he'll behave sensibly and not. . .
not imagine he can be a law unto himself, d'you know?"
I asked what he'd heard, and he said nothing, really, beyond a
feeling that Custer regarded Terry's job as the transport and supply of
the 7th Cavalry, who could be left to take care of the soldiering on
their own. I assured Terry that all cavalry commanders talked that
way, and cited my old bete noire Cardigan, who had resented the least interference from his superiors.
"He was the man who led your light cavalry at Balaclava, wasn't
he?" says Terry thoughtfully, and after that he seemed rather withdrawn,
and presently went to bed with a hot toddy.
I raised an eyebrow myself when the boy general arrived a few days
later, all brave in fringed buckskin and red scarf over his uniform, but
with a face like a two-day corpse. He came striding up the gangplank
barking orders to his galloper, slapping his gloves impatiently against
his legs, brightened momentarily at sight of me, and went straight into
a nervous fret because Libby wasn't aboard.
"Why didn't you bring her?" he demanded pettishly. "Who said
she should not come?" He was bright-eyed with strain and hollowcheeked
under his four-week beard; his hair had been close-cropped
and he looked even leaner and more worn than in Washington. "It's
too bad! As if I hadn't had checks enough!" I told him Terry was in
the saloon, and he snorted and strode off to berate Marsh for leaving
Libby behind.
From then on the Far West was like a hotel-cumorderly-room.
Staff men were working in the saloon all day, and several chaps from
the 7th, including Tom and Boston Custer, as well as Terry's party,
occupied berths. Mrs Candy kept a good deal to her cabin, but I had
to endure any number of digs and sallies from the fellows; I told 'em
they were a young Army yet, and hadn't learned about campaign
equipment. Her presence gave Custer another excuse to abuse Marsh
over Libby; he didn't berth aboard, but had his tent pitched on the
bank. "Our buckskin Achilles," grunts Benteen, grinning at me over
his pipe.
Now, as the expedition moved leisurely up the Yellowstone, I was
enjoying life hugely. I could watch the martial activity ashore, hobnob
with the boys in the saloon, play poker in the evenings, drink hearty,
pile into Mrs Candy by night (Terry, bless him, allowed no late
carousing, and all were snug down by midnight), listen to the professional
gossip--and reflect contentedly that for once it was nothing to
do with me. When the columns swung south into the blue, I'd be left
safely behind to loaf and roger in these idyllic surroundings. I can't
recall when I've been in better fettle.
For now the grip was coming as the columns converged. At the mouth of the Tongue we halted, under the high bluffs to the north,
with the troops camped on an old toronto* on the south bank, where
there were many Sioux burial platforms, mostly broken and derelict,
but some quite new, and the troops thought it great sport to scatter
them to bits. I remarked in Terry's hearing that it was bad medicine--
for one thing, his Ree and Crow scouts wouldn't like it--and he
ordered it stopped. If you wonder why I put in my oar, I'll answer that
I've soldiered far and hard enough to learn one invariable rule,
superstition or not: never monkey with the local gods. It don't pay.
And now the expedition began to buzz with definite news at last of
hostiles far to the south. Reno had been off on a scout, and had found
an abandoned camp .ground where there had been several hundred
tipis, as well as a heavy trail heading west towards the Big Horn
Mountains. Custer was in great excitement at this. "The hunt is up!"
says he, and was off with the 7th to meet Reno at the Rosebud mouth. Far West was there ahead of him, and I was on the hurricane deck,
watching his long blue column jingling down under the trees to
bivouac, when I found Mrs Candy at my elbow. Making chat, I asked
her what she thought of Custer.
"They say he has good political connections," says she indifferently.
"Yep. I wouldn't do business with him."
"Oh? Why ever not?" if
"In business you have to be able to rely on people--not to say trust
them, just to know how they'll act. Oh-kay. I wouldn't rely on him.
He's crazy."
"Good Lord, what makes you say that?"
"He likes killing Indians, doesn't he?" She shrugged. "That's what
I hear. I suppose he means to kill a lot of them, up there." She
gestured idly towards the low brown bluffs to the south. Her costume
today was of some pale material, and the eyepatch contrasted vividly ^th that rich dusky-rose complexion which had taken on a most becoming tint from the Yellowstone sunshine.
'.: ^ ...... . ;-'
*By this word Hashman presumably means an Indian meeting-place. The Mea is now the site of Miles City, Montana.
', 289
'".i I said, well, he was a soldierso was I, forjthat matter, and she
turned her cold appraising eye on me. ; >
"Killing for a living. Yep. I suppose your conscience gets used to
;A >
It. I..-*..!.. ~ ' . Wt- I
"Just as it does in business, I imagine." &;*!;  ,i'<.* '
"Business? It depends what kind of deals you make. Yep." And as
bustle broke out below, with bugles sounding and Marsh bawling
orders to warp the Far West to the south bank, she turned away in
bored fashion and went down to her cabin.
That was June 21, and in the evening Terry issued marching orders
to his commanders at one of the strangest staff conferences ever I
saw. Since it was a vital moment in the Sioux campaign, and every
survivor has recorded his recollections of itnot just who said what,
but who understood what, or didn't, or sneezed, or scratched his
backsideI must do the same. For I was there, as who the devil
wasn't, except perhaps the ship's cook and the cat; when Terry
summoned the senior men, the journalist fellow stood his ground in
the saloon, and Mrs Candy continued to leaf idly through a magazine
in her seat at the forrard end, within easy earshot, so I found myself a
lounging place against the bulkhead where I could overlook the map
on the main table, 'if
Terry, spruce and affable, sat in the centre, smiling round with his
short-sighted blue eyes; beside him was Gibbon, fine-featured and
trim-beardedI found myself thinking how many eminent soldiers
are strikingly handsome men, as who should know better than I?
Custer sat at one end of the table, gloomy and watchful, his fingers
drumming softly. Others present were Marsh and Campbell of the
ship, Reno, young Bradley the scout officer, old Grasshopper Jim
Brisbin of the 2nd Cavalry, Lonesome Charley Reynolds, Custer's
chief scout, with his arm in a sling, and a dozen or so others I've
forgotten. A steward was serving coffee, and I recall Terry remarking
how he'd tried to give up sugar, but couldn't, and his spoon tinkling in
the cup as we waited.
"Well, gentlemen," says he, "tomorrow we take the field in
earnest. Major Reno and Mr Bradley have carried out separate
reconnaissances, and we have reason to believe that hostile bands
have moved west to cross Rosebud creek in the direction of the Big
Horn hills. The best estimate suggests that not more than eight
hundred or a thousand braves are to be reckoned with; perhaps three
thousand Indians all told. Now, we dispose above a thousand cavalry
and six hundred infantry, in addition to General Crook's force of
thirteen hundred to the south, so"
"Pardon, general." It was young Bradley, a keen-looking hand.
290
"Those three thousand hostiles--aren't those agency figures calculated
during the winter?"
Terry said, yes, but they could be relied on. Bradley feared they
might be low, since many Indians might have left the agencies with
(he arrival of spring. "I've seen sign of about two-three thousand
myself up there, you see sir," says he apologetically, "and I doubt if
they're the only hostiles in the Powder River country."
"Me likewise, gen'l." This was Reynolds, Custer's scout, an
innocent-looking youth who was talked of as a latter-day Carson.
"Agency figures don't signify. There could be twice their reck'nin' up
yonder, easy."
"Well, they are the only figures we have to go on." says Terry.
"Shall we say possibly five thousand? It won't hurt to err on the safe
side."
"Five thousand braves," insists Reynolds. "Ne'er mind women and
young."
"You don't know that," says Gibbon.
"I don't not know it. Colonel," says Reynolds doggedly, and there
were chuckles. Custer spoke up sharply.
"Five thousand or ten, Charley, it makes no difference, since they
will be in divers bands, and we are more than a match for them if they
were all together."
With that settled, Terry went on to say that he and Gibbon would
march up the Big Horn to intercept the Indian force whose trail Reno
had seen heading that way; with Crook advancing from the south, the
hostiles would be caught front and rear. Meanwhile, Custer and his
cavalry would have passed up the Rosebud to cut off the hostiles if
they tried to slip out of the trap. Q.E.D. and any questions?
"Where's Crook?" asks someone.
"So far as we know," answers Terry, "somewhere in the region of
the headwaters of Rosebud creek or Little Bighorn River. Which,
unfortunately," he added, peering at the map, "are not clearly
indicated here. About there, wouldn't you say, Brisbin?" Grasshopper
Jim nodded and made vague crosses on the map, and everyone
took a squint. "His exact position is not of too much import,"
continued Terry, "since he too has his scouts and will be closing on
the same quarry as ourselves."
(What none of us knew, of course, was that while Crook was
indeed around the head of the Rosebud, he wasn't feeling too happy
about it, since four days earlier Crazy Horse had bushwhacked him and fought him to a standstill. But why should any of us suspect such
a thing? These were the Indians who weren't going to fight, you'll
remember.)
I:!, ' ' 291
"Ideally our force and General Crook's would converge on the
hostiles simultaneously," says Terry, "but in the absence of conimunications,
that is too much to hope for."
Custer lifted his head. "I'm to prevent any escape of hostiles to the
east, sir." His voice was casual. "If they're around the Big Horn, it's
certain my cavalry will be there before Colonel Gibbon's infantry
,,
Terry nodded, lifting a finger. "Precisely. I was coming to that. If
you find the Indian trail leading towards the Big Horn, you should
pass it by and go south towards the Big Horn itself; thus you will be in
position south of the hostiles while Colonel Gibbon approaches from
the north, and it should be possible for you to act together. It may be
that you will encounter Crook en routeso much the better. But in
any event our endeavour must be to act in concert so far as can be. It
may prove impossible, since our objective is not a fixed onewe can't
be certain where the hostiles will be found."
One thing was clear: Terry wanted no action against the Sioux until
Gibbon was in position. But equally clearly, he had to allow his
commanders some discretion, since in such an uncertain operation no
one could foresee what emergencies (or opportunities) might arise.
Everyone in the cabin understood thatbut there was one man there
with a special interest in forcing Terry to say it aloud.
"If I encounter hostiles," says Custer slowly, "before Colonel
Gibbon has come up. . ."He left it there, leaning forward as though
to examine the map, and it seemed to me he was avoiding Terry's eye
and waiting for him to complete the sentence. And Terry, will-he,
nill-he, spoke the fatal words, so amiably, so reasonably. I think back
to that momentCuster apparently intent on the map. Gibbon halfturned
towards Terry, who was sitting back in his chair, choosing his
wordsand compare it with another moment: Lucan's face red with
indignation under Causeway Heights, and Lew Nolan fairly bouncing
in his saddle with impatience. "There, my lord, are the guns! There's
your enemy!" There had been fury and passion, here was calm and
polite discussionbut they both led to the same end, bloody
catastrophe.
"You must use your own judgement, of course," says Terry,
nodding. "It's not possible to give definite instructions, but you know
my intentions; conform to them unless you see sufficient reason to
depart from them."
In other words, please yourself. That's what Terry was sayingwhat he was bound to sayand Custer could throw it in the teeth of
any court-martial. Terry was having to trust to Custer's common
sense, and he knew as well as I did what a questionable commodity
that might be. But he couldn't put that into words; a Sam Grant or a
Colin Campbell could have said, "See here, Custer, you know what I
wantand I know what you want, and how you'll interpret my orders
to suit yourself, and claim afterwards I justified you. Very good, we
understand each otherand if you play the fool, by God I'll break
you!" But Terry, the gentle, kindly Terry, couldn't say thatand
really, was there the need? It was just a simple operation against a
few hostile bands, after all.
Custer said nothing more; he'd got what he wanted, and now he
was studiously watching Brisbin pushing pins into the map to mark
the Rosebud route and joining them with a blue pencil. Gibbon, with
a glance at Custer, said something about there being no need for a
precipitate attackunless it was necessary, of course, and Terry
interrupted.
"I hope there will be no need of any such thing as an attack. Our
object is to bring these people under control to the agenciesto
capture, not to conquer." Custer was sketching idly with a pencil
now, chin in hand, but he roused himself when Gibbon offered to
tend him some troops of the 2nd Cavalry.
"Thank you. Colonel, but any force of hostiles that is too big for
the 7th will be too big for the 7th and four troops," which was as silly
a remark as I've ever heard. No, he didn't want the Gatlings, either,
since they might impede his march. Terry didn't press him; I guessed
the last thing he wanted was Custer loose about the place with
machine-guns.
There was more talk, but that in essence was the famous Far West
conference, and no one was in much doubt what it amounted to. I
heard young Bradley's aside as the senior men departed: "Well, guess
who's going to get there first and win the laurels. Who, the 7th
Cavalry? No, you don't say!"68
My own view, confirmed when I loafed out on deck and heard
Custer down at his tent, firing off orders to his troop commanders and
sounding deuced peevish about it: "... I tell you, Moylan, I know
better than you what a pack mule can carry, and I'll have fifteen days'
rations and 50 reserve rounds per carbine. Yes, in addition to the
hundred rounds for each man, and 25 for the pistols, mind. . . Well,
Captain Benteen, you are responsible for your own company; the
extra forage is only a suggestion. But remember that we may have to
follw the trail for two weeks, no matter how far it takes us, so you'd
better take extra salt. We may have to live on horse meat before we're
I saw him stamp into his tent as the others dismissed, and mooched I down for a look-see. He was alone, chewing at a pen, but at sight of '
me he grinned, i
"Well, are you coming along after all?" His eyes were exultant
now. "This is going to be a 7th Cavalry battle, my boy! Callings,
indeed! I have more respect for Crazy Horse than that, Fhope!" j
I declined again, and he teased me, but in a nervous, restless way
that showed his mind was anywhere but here. I knew he'd held
himself in at the conference, but now that the rein was off there was
an almost furtive quality about his excitement. It wasn't quite canny,
and presently I wished him luck, and left him calling high-pitched for
Keogh and Yates almost before I was out of the tent. Back on board
there was a great poker school under way in the saloon, which lasted
until daybreak, so I made the most of the fellows' company while they
were still there (and picked up a copper or two), neglecting Mrs
Candy with the thought that there would be ample time for her in the
quiet days ahead, j
Custer was off at first light, the long blue and brown squadrons
moving slowly out of bivouac in the misty dawn. The Rosebud is little
more than a brook where it joins the Yellowstone, running between
green banks with a hedgerow down one side--again I could have
imagined it was an English meadow as the troops wheeled up the little
stream. Custer, fussing over the pack-train, paused to shake Terry's
hand and receive a clap on the back from Gibbon, who told him to
mind and leave some redskins for the rest of the column. "Don't be
too greedy, George!" cries he, and Custer snapped a reply at him and
rode off. I heard Terry say something about eagerness, and Gibbon
shrugged and said: "At that, we'd look regular fools if they were to
escape after all this. Three columns to round up a few stray Sioux and
Cheyenne!"
That was their preoccupation, you se--not Custer, but the possibility
that the expedition might wear itself out chasing hostiles who
wouldn't fight or surrender, but simply melt away into the desolation
of the Big Horn.
Far West was to move down to the Big Horn mouth now, to ferry
Gibbon's infantry across, and it would be the following night that we
moored in a wooded reach, under the loom of a huge bluff that reared
up along the southern shore." It was a perfect balmy evening, the
boat was quiet now with only Terry's staff men aboard, and I was
smoking a cheroot at the maindeck rail, considering what drill I'd go
through with Mrs Candy that night, when here she came from the
saloon, very stately in her crimson, with a white silk scarf over her
head and shoulders. We talked idly about the possibility that Marsh
294 ; ; ; . . ^- J
x S^^K1?-^^^^
would be taking Far West back east for fresh supplies shortly, and I found myself regretting that soon our business-honeymoon would be over.
I'm like that, you see; I get fond of women, and while I'd been
happy just to stallion away by night and be spared any cloying
intimacy during the day, still it's plesant when a tough piece like
this one begins to show interest in your more spiritual qualities. For
in the past day or so it had seemed to me that Mrs Candy had been
thawing a little; she'd been readier to talk about matters other than
business--the weather, for example, and she'd even asked me a question
or two about England. Now, at the rail, she admired the rising moon with modified rapture ("That's beautiful. Yep"), drew my
attention to what she called the trees and all, and took me quite aback
by laying a hand on my arm. I thought she was indicating that it was
time for another protracted thrash in my cabin, but she sighed and
said:
"It's such a lovely night, I guess I'd like a stroll. Oh-kay?"
We descended to the steerage and the main plank to the bank,
where the crew had set up a temporary forge, now deserted, and
presently we were pacing slowly under the trees, and I was describing
nights in India and China, while she murmured an occasional "Mmh?"
or "Don't say?", leaning easily on my arm; it was quite delightful.
The air was warm, the groves were dim in shadow, with moonlight in
the glades, and the river lapped gently at the reeds. We walked a
furlong or so, and paused under the spreading branches; I looked at
her face framed in the white scarf, the dark line of the patch across
her eye, and for the first time felt a tremor of pity for that disfigurement.
She was such a magnificent creature, it was a damned shame,
and I took her in my arms and kissed her fondly out of sheer
affection--well, for a moment, anyway, before my better nature
prevailed and I began to grapple her bottom. She fended me off
gently, and slipped the scarf from her head, swinging it in her hand as
we walked on.
"You're a strange man," says she, which is a sure sign that they
want something. "You've been so many places, seen so many things.
Yep. Lots of women in your life, I guess."
Modestly I admitted that I had seldom been solitary for long, and
said that I supposed neither had she.
"Sure. I've known a lot of men. Too many." She shrugged. "Guess
I'll go on knowing a lot more. Too many more. Yep." I said she didn't
sound overjoyed at the prospect.
"Why should I? Men are trash, pretty much. Yep. All they want is
to use women in bed." She paced slowly, glancing up at the purple
sky. "And money. Women and money, and they spend them both as
selfishly as they know how. Oh-kay."
"Well, thank-ee, ma'am. Women have purer motives, I suppose?"
"Some women--sometimes. Some women are soft, and fool themselves
that one of these days they'll meet a man who doesn't just want
to spend them. They're wrong." She stopped, and to my astonishment
I saw there was a tear coursing down from her left eye. Suddenly I
remembered the sound of sobbing from her cabin the first night, and
caught her hand.
"Heaven's above! Whatever's the matter?"
"It's nothing." She pulled her hand free and turned sharply to face
me. "You're not any different, are you?"
"What's wrong? Good Lord, look here, if I've misunderstood--"
"Oh, no," says she, composing herself. "You've understood, all
right. You understood from the minute I walked by at the Brev'urt.
Yep. You understood: 'Gee, that's worth mounting. Yes, sir, that's
prime--I could use that.' "
"Of course I did," I agreed, slightly bewildered. "So did you, didn't
you?"
She ignored the question. "That's the way you always look at
women, isn't it? The face--is it beautiful? If it's disfigured--does that
matter? The rest--the waist and hips and breasts and legs--they're
what matter, isn't that so? Oh-kay. And will she? And if she does,
what will it cost me? Can I get it for free? What's it worth?"
The contempt in her tone nettled and amazed me--and I thought
she'd been melting. "Well, since I've just had dinner, I'd rather you
didn't tell me how a lecherous female assesses her lovers, but my
experience leads me to believe it's in exactly the same way! In your
own case, your interest in me hasn't been precisely sentimental--"
"How would you know?"
This was too much. "Oh, come now! You haven't been a charming
little ray of sunshine, exactly, have you? Provided I kept you happy in
the night watches--which from your conduct I believe I did. . . What
the devil," I demanded, "is all this about? Am I at fault because I
haven't serenaded under your porthole, or given proofs of undying
devotion? Don't tell me that you . . . well, that wasn't part of our
bargain, surely?" She
was looking askance, and dammit, there were the tears again;
she was absolutely weeping--and from under her patch, too. Interesting,
that. But God help me if I understand women. "Mind you," I
lied, consoling-like; "I won't say I haven't. . ."But she lifted a hand.
"No. Don't give me that. Oh-kay." She took a deep breath.
"You're certainly right. Yep. I'm being a fool." vs.
296
rd not have believed itnot of her. The most unlikely females
have g0116 nioony over me, but I'd never have credited that this one
had any thought beyond pork and beans. God knew, she hadn't let
onuntil now, anyway, if that's what she was doing. . .
"Most of all I'm a fool for wasting time," she said quietly. "I never
thought I wouldnot with you. But just for a moment there I felt a
grief . .  that I had thought long dead. A grief for someone else,
someone I loved dearly, long ago. Oh, yes, I've been in love. But it
ended ... on just such a night as this, warm and soft and beautiful
*
The hairs prickled on my neck suddenly. This wasn't Mrs Candy
talking; the voice, as well as the words, were different. The nasal
Yankee twang had disappeared.
". , . a night when I was happier than I had ever been, because the
man I loved had promised to take me out of slavery, and I was
hastening to him, with joy in my heart, in a garden in Santa Fe. . ." "
For several heart-beats it meant nothing, and then it hit me like a;
blow. But whereas I'd have acted instantly at a physical assault
B ^probably by flight), the implication of what she said, when I grasped
t, so shocked my mind that I stood numb, incapable of movement
even when she lifted the scarf abruptly and I saw that she was looking
beyond me, and heard the rush of running feet suddenly upon me,
and knew that here was terrible, deadly danger. By then it was too :
late.
Sinewy hands were at my throat and wrists, rank greased bodies
were all about me, nightmare painted faces glared in the moonlight,
and as I stretched my mouth to scream a handful of cloth was thrust
into it and a binder whipped round my face. I heaved in panic,
choking on my buried scream, as rawhide bit into my wrists; it was
done in a twinkling and I was helpless, held by a half-naked brave on
either side while two others, steel in their hands, hovered alertmy
eyes rolled in terror back to her, not believing this monstrous,
impossible thing, because it was. . . impossible.
She had not moved. She stood tall and straight in the moonlight,
Ae scarf at her side; then she reached up and took the patch from her
^ce, and I saw that the eye beneath it was sound and bright. She
eupped it a moment with her hand, and then she shook her head and
^e a step closer, her face almost against mine.
"Yes, look well," she said. "Cleonie."
She was lying, she must be; it could not be true. deonie was ...
^here, after twenty-five years? And she had been middling tall, and
slender, while this woman was near six feet and statuesque, and had
s bold, full face with heavy lips and chinand Cleonie had been a
illl . 297
negress! I stared, refusing to believe, while the bright dark eyes bored
into mine, and then I caught beneath the full flesh of middle age a
fleeting glimpse of the sweet nun-like face of long ago; saw how the
dusky high colour might be no more than cosmetic covering on a skin
that time had darkened from the pale cream of the octoroon; how
that damnable patch had disguised the shape of her face . . . but the
voice, the manner, the whole being of the woman was so utterly
unlike the girl I had . . . had . . . And as the memory of what I had
done rushed back, she whispered softly: "En passant par la Lorraine,
avec mes sabots . . .", and the bile of terror came up behind my gag.
"You recognise me now? The girl you were going to take to
Mexico? I probably had no need of this" and she held up the patch.
"After all, what should a woman look like who has endured twentyfive years of slavery in the hands of the Navajo? She should be dead
unless she's unlucky enough to be alive, when she should be a
wrinkled, withered hag, a verminous shell of a living thing" her
voice was choking "a poor mad ghost crippled by beatings and
starvation and terror of the hell she has been through!" Her eyes were
blazing like coals, and her hand came up, nails crooked as though to
rake my face; there were tears running down her cheeks again, tears
of rage and hate. "You bastard! You filthy, degraded, cowardly, evil,
cruel, cruel. . . cruel. . . cruel. . .!" It wailed away in a shuddering
gasp, and her clawed hand went over her own face to stifle the great
sobs that shook her. The fit passed, and she wiped her cheeks and
ilifted her face again. "That is what she should look like," she
whispered. "An old, miserable skeleton. Not at all like the splendid
Mrs Candy! No, if you ever gave a thought to what Cleonie must have
become, you couldn't have imagined anything like Mrs Candy. And
you would hardly recognise in her the child of eighteen you sold for
two thousand dollars to the priest of Santa Fe."
So he'd blabbed, the lousy little Judas! I might have knownbut
.no, it was impossible, it was a nightmare. This could not be... must
not be, Cleonie. . .
"But I had to be sure. Oh, I had to be sure! So. . ."She slipped the
eyepatch on again. "Mrs Candy, you see. And Mr Comberthat was
the name, was it not? How often I wonderedwaited and hated, and
wonderedwhat had become of him. And after twenty-five years I
learned that he was Sir Harry Flashman, English gentleman. I didn't
believe it... until I came to New York to see for myself. Then 1
knew ... for you haven't changed, no, no! Still the same handsome.
arrogant, swaggering foulness who used me and lied to me and
betrayed me... You haven't changed. But then, you haven't been a
prisoner of savages, a tortured, degraded slave. Not yet."
298 ; i
;0ne of the Sioux grunted, pointing--there, through the trees were
the steamboat lights, and a distant voice, and I couldn't utter a sound!
She spoke again, in fluent Siouxan.
"No danger. No one saw us. No one will see me go back."
,1 writhed in their grip, trying to plead with my eyes, to beg her to
remove that beastly gag so that I could explain--Christ, I'd swear
troth out of America, if only she'd let me--she must! I bulged my
eyes in dumb entreaty, and she shook her head.
"No. I have the truth, you see. And nothing you could say could
alter it. We both know how you betrayed and sold a girl who loved
and trusted you--oh, yes, she loved you! If she had not--" her eye
was fierce with angry tears again, and her voice trembled "--it would
not have hurt ... so much. And I could never have hated as I do
now, if I had not. . . loved, once, you see." She steadied and went oh :
("I could have had you killed in New York, for fifty dollars. But it
would have been too easy. Yep." The vibrant Creole voice which had
whispered like velvet and shaken with passion, was gone, and in its
place the nasal Yankee of Mrs Candy, cold and flat as a mortuary
slab, and all the more frightening because it was without emotion.
She might have been discussing some new sexual activity, or the
Bismarck project--Jesus, Bismarck and the letter and the corporation
... my brain whirled with it all, and her voice cut through it like a
knife.
"I'm not going to waste time. Just enough to let you know how I
come to be here--so that when I go back to the boat, and you go ...
where you're going, you'll be able to appreciate the justice of it. Ohkay."
She broke abruptly into Siouxan. " Set his back against that
tree. The light on his face."
They threw me brutally against the tree and held me. She came in
front of me, and I began to blubber in panic, for in that merciless
beautiful face I could see Narreeman in the dungeon, Ranavalona
staring down from her balcony, the Amazon women when they
caught that poor bastard on the Dahomey creek . . . oh. God, was ^ going to set about me? I couldn't bear it, I'd go mad . . .
"You needn't cry yet," said the passionless voice. "Later. Listen.
You sold me to a Navajo animal. I'll not describe what he did to me. I'll just say you're the only man I've hated more. For two years I
belonged to him, and if I hadn't been a trained whore, knowing how ^graded men can be, I'd have gone mad or killed myself. Then he ^d, and I was sold to Ute slavers," who took me north--and amused ^einselves with me on the way--and sold me among the Blackfeet. TTtere I went through another hell, until the Cheyenne raided our
299
village, and I was taken as part of the loot, and sold to the Sioux in ttia
Black Hills country. Oh-kay."
I was in such a drench of fear that I couldn't think af much, but n
did occur to me that she hadn't had a much worse tine of it than in
Susie's brothel, surely. It wasn't as if she'd been kidnapped from a
convent. She leaned closer.
"Do you know what I found among the Sioux? No, how should
you? I found kindness. I don't say they're any better than Navajo or
Ute or Blackfeetonly that the man who bought me was a man, who
was good to me, and cared for me, and treated me as m honourable
woman. Even you may understand what that means. I was twentyone,
and had been used and abused and beaten and raped by
hundreds of menwhite, Spanish, Mexican, Indianand a Sioux
savage who lived in a filthy tent and could eat raw meathe treated
me like an honourable woman. He wouldn't have understood the I
word, and I doubt if you do, but to him I was a lady. Yep. His name
was Broken-Moon-Goes-Alone. I was his faithful wife for two years,
although I didn't love him. And when I asked him to let me go back
to what I called 'my own people', he agreed. That was the kind of
man he was: he knew I wasn't happy, so he took me to Fort Laramie,
and sold some robes for fifty dollarsand gave it all to me. All he said
was: 'If you come back some day. Walking Willow, my tipi and my
heart will both be open.' I never went back as his wife, but I visited
some, till he died. And, as you see, I have good friends among the
Sioux." So these smelly swine gripping me were presumably her
bloody cousins-in-law.
"Oh-kay. Then I started in where I'd have started in Mexico if you
hadn't betrayed me. I whoredand as no one knows better than you,
I'm good at it. I had my own stable before I was thirty, and by the
time the war ended I owned the biggest brothel in Denver. Yep, I still
do, and have shares in several other businesses, some of them
respectable. But they don't include the Upper Missouri Corporationthat
was invented for your benefit. Oh, there's a genuine
Bismarck scheme, yep, but I have no part in it. But I knew that this
..." She placed her hands on her hips and swayed her body slightly
"... would be the real bait to get Mr Comber where I've been
wanting him for the past twenty-five years."
She replaced her scarf round her head, and glanced aside to the
distant lights of the Far Westso close, but for me it might as well
have been in New Zealand. Couldn't any of the fools aboard her see,
or guess, or intervene to save me from whatever horror was in store?
For it was coming now, and I'd have no chance to plead or lie or
aovel; she was determined not to give me the chance, the callous, Cold-blooded slut.
"You sold me to the Indians," she said quietly. "You did the
foulest, cruellest thing--for two thousand dollars. I'm not getting a
cent for you, but I wouldn't take a million to spare you one instant of
what's going to happen to you. You sent me to death, or a lifetime of
suffering, and it wasn't your fault I survived. So now you go the way
I went. These savages are my friends, and they know the wrong you
did me. You know what they do to white men prisoners at the best of
times, and with your friend General Custer preparing to butcher
them, the times couldn't be much worse. Oh-kay. Your suffering
won't last as long as mine did, but I'm sure it'll seem a lot longer. I
hope so."
I was struggling frantically, with those painted devils hanging on to me, but she seemed not to notice. She drew her scarf closer about her
shoulders, and shivered a little, looking towards the boat. Her voice
sounded tired.
"I'm going back to the boat now. They'll miss you tomorrow, and
111 insist on a search, but Captain Marsh won't dare neglect his duty
to the expedition for long. And I'll be able to sleep alone again. When
I was a young girl, new in the trade, I sometimes used to cry out
against God: 'Was this what You made me for? Is this what You
meant for me. God?' At its worst it was better than the last few
weeks, when I played the whore to get you here." She glanced at me
incuriously. "Strange to think I once did it for love... the only man
I ever loved. You shouldn't have done that to me in Santa Fe."
She turned and walked away beneath the trees, the tall graceful
figure receding quickly into the shadows. The Sioux dragged me away
from the tree and ran me into the woods, away from the river. &'
;,'Ste';%5 .^'-Siss'Si Q"% ;"0 ''' ' I .^W.S ^f^i,,
' ll?..-.^3-''" ;: i-.^.jb.s" iiaA a-s'.A '".if:.. . , .-tap, .^..Si-Wfc..
? ' ' ^' . . ". - ' ' '.-'1"",
IPi1-' ' "-' ;<-'<' MMIS ' ' "'''
,^5.- -.'yi^ .. .... i still say that if it hadn't been for that damned
gag, I'd have been back on the Far West before midnight, rogering
her speechless. And she knew it, too, and must have arranged for my
abductors to muzzle me first go off, so that I'd never get a word in
edgeways to sweetheart her. You see, however much they loathe you,
301
whatever you've done, the old spark never quite dies--why, for all
her hate, she'd blubbered at the mere recollection of our youthful
passion, and for all she said, our weeks on the boat could only have
reminded her of what she'd been missing. No, she knew damned well
that if once she listened to my blandishments she'd be rolling over
with her paws in the air, so like old Queen Bess with the much.
maligned Essex chap, she daren't take the risk. Pity, but there it was.
But I confess these speculations weren't in my mind just then, as
they dragged me through the dark woods, hammering me when I
stumbled, and thrust me astride a pony. Then it was off up a gentle
slope, with those four monsters round me; I was near suffocating with
the gag, which didn't assist thought as I tried to grapple with the
impossibility of what had happened.
Yet I knew it wasn't impossible. Mrs Candy was Cleonie, come
back like Nemesis; once the patch was off, and she'd whispered that
snatch of her French riding song, in her old voice, I'd have known her
beyond doubt. I couldn't marvel at not recognising her earlier, even
at the closest quarters; she'd grown, for one thing, filled out admirably,
and the brash, hard Mrs Candy was as different from the dovelike
Creole as could be, in speech and manner--aye, and nature. I
suppose that's what twenty-five years of being bulled by redskins and
whoring on the frontier and acquiring bordellos does to you. Not
surprising, really. Even so, she'd played it brilliantly, hadn't she just?
Keeping me at arm's length, the Bismarck nonsense, galloping me
westward to the very spot where she could deal me out poetic justice,
the spiteful bitch. What simpler than to send word to her Sioux friends
(doubtless with a handsome fee) and have them scout the boat along
the Yellowstone, ready at her signal to pounce on the unsuspecting
victim and shanghai him into the hills to stick burning splinters in his
tenderer parts? Neat, but not gaudy--simplicity itself compared to
some of the plots that have been hatched all over me by the likes of
Lola and Lincoln and Otto Bismarck and Ignatieff and. . . God, I've
had some rotten luck.
What I couldn't fathom, though, was how the devil she'd discovered
that the much-respected Flashy of '76 was the long-lost B. M.
Comber of '49. She'd heard, she said--but from whom? Who was
there still who'd known me as Comber in the earlies, had recognised
me now, and tipped her the wink? Spotted Tail--why, he'd never
heard the name Comber in his life; I'd been Wind Breaker to him from '50, and what should he and Mrs Candy know of each other?
Susie, Maxwell, Wootton and the like I could dismiss; I hadn't seen
them or they me in quarter of a century, supposing they were still
alive. Carson was dead; no one in the Army knew about Comber.
Lincoln was dead. But I was a fool to be thinking of folk / remembered--there
must be hundreds I'd forgotten who might still remember
me, and seeing Flashy promenading down Broadway would
exclaim "Comber, bigod!" Old Navy men, perhaps a returned emigrant
from the wagon train, a Cincinnati invalid, someone out west,
like a Laramie hunter or trader. Susie's whores, by thunder! They'd
know me, and if Cleonie was anything to go by, the graduates of Mrs
Willinck's academy might be running half the knocking-shops in
America by now--aye, and corresponding with the other old girls,
devil a doubt. . . "Dearest Cleonie, you'll never guess who called in
for a rattle at our shop the other day! Twas such a start! Tall, English, distinguished, fine whiskers . . . give up?" How many of the bawdyhouses
I'd frequented had black madames? Difficult ... but that
would be it, like as not.
These were random thoughts, you understand, floating up through^ stupefied terror from time to time. The point was that four damnably
hostile Sioux were bearing me into the wilderness with murderous,,,
intent, and if there was one thing I'd learned in a lifetime of hellishly
"fixes, it was the need to thrust panic aside and keep cool if there was
to be the slimmest chance of winning clear.
Once we had skirted the high bluff and reached the rough upland,
they headed south-west by the stars. It might be they'd go a safefJM distance and then set to roasting me over a slow fire, but I doubted it;
they were riding steady, so it looked like a longish trek across the" northern Powder country towards the Big Horn Mountains; that was
where the Sioux were mostly hanging their hats these days. Somewhere
far off to my left, up the Rosebud, Custer would be starting his
long swing south and west to roughly the same destination. I was
pinning no hopes on him, though--the last man you want riding to
the rescue is G.A.C., for there'll be blood on the carpet for certain,
and the more I thought, the more my hope grew of emerging from .
this pickle peaceful-like. After all, Mrs Candy wasn't the only one with chums among the Sioux--I spoke the lingo, I could cite Spotted Tail
as a bosom pal, and even if he was far away there must be hostiles
who'd remember me from Camp Robinson and who might think twice about dismembering a U.S. treaty commissioner just to please
the former squaw of Broken-Moon-Goes-Alone. Certainly they'd not
be well disposed to anyone white just now, and given a prisoner
they're more likely to take a long thoughtful look at his innards than
not. But again, I might buy my way clear, or get a chance to play my
real trump card--somewhere up ahead, and the nearest thing to God between Canada and the Platte, was Tashunka Witko Crazy Horse,
and while I hadn't seen him since he was six, he wouldn't let them
303
snip pieces off a man who'd practically dandled him on his knee
surely? '
I put these points to my captors at our dawn halt, when they had to
remove my gag to let me drink and eat some jerked meat and corn. mush; I suggested that the cleverest thing they could do would be to
return me to the fire-canoe on the Yellowstone, where I'd see they got safe-conduct and all the dollars they wanted from Many-Stars. Soldier Terry.
They listened in ominous silence, four grim blanketed figures witt the paint smeared and faded on their ugly faces, and not a flicker o]
expression except pure malice. Then their leader, one Jacket, startec
to lambast me with his quirt, and the others joined in with sticks anc
feet, thrashing me until I yelled for mercy, and didn't get it. Wher
they were tired, and I was black and blue, Jacket stuffed the gag bad
brutally, kicked me again for luck, and stooped pver me, his evi
grinning face next to mine. "3 ;> ..w rtt"^
"You have two tongues--y6u are not American, although you sa
with the liars at White River. You are the Washechuska Wim
Breaker, who sold my brother's woman. Walking Willow, to th< Navajo who shamed her. You are going to die--kakeshyal*" H(
launched into a description that can give me nightmares even now
and took another hack at me. "Spotted Tail! A woman and a coward
We'll send him a gift of your --, since he seems to have lost his own!'
The others howled with glee at that, and threw me on to the pon;
with more blows and taunts. And now I knew real fear, as I realise<
that I was tasting the temper of the hostile Sioux, the merciles
desperate savages who stood beyond the law, who were not going t<
be rounded up on to the agencies, who loathed everything white ani
despised Spotted Tail as a traitor, and who were preparing, with al
the hate and fury Custer could have wished, to meet whatever thi
Americans might send against them. One white captive wasn't goin, to buy or bully his way out of their clutches; torturing him to deati
would be a momentary amusement on the way to better things.
All day we rode south-west over the bare country east of the Bi, Horn; even allowing for my jaundiced eye, it was neither a grand no
memorable prospect, just endless low hills and ridges of yellow grass
with a few trees here and there, and the outline of mountains far ii
the distance. A few vivid pictures stay in my mind: a buffalo skeletoi picked clean in a gully, a hawk that lingered above us for hours in th
blazing afternoon, a party of Sans Arc Sioux who crossed our tra;
and yelled exultant news of a great victory over the Grey Fox Crool
.j^.^aeas ColoA .-->.
Ag southnot a word of Custer, though, which seemed odd, for
he must be well up the Rosebud by now. Then on, over those endless
,narse hollows and hills, with the grasses blowing in the wind, while
', body ached with ill-usage and weariness, and my unaccustomed
backside must have rivalled the setting sun. My thoughtswell, I
(jon't care to dwell on them; I remembered the fate of Gallantin's
scalp-hunters, and Sonsee-array laughing merrily over the details.
We lay that night in a gully, and every joint in my ageing body was
on fire when we rode on next morning. Ahead of us there were bluffs
now, and in the gullies we met occasional parties of Indians, hunters
and women with burdens, and a few boys running half-naked in the
bright sunshine, playing with their bows, their voices piping in the
clear air. I caught a glimpse of a river down below us to the left, and
presently we reached the top of the bluffs, my guards were whooping
and calling to each other in delight, and as my pony jolted to a halt I
raised my tired head and saw such a sight as no white man had ever
seen in the New World. I was the first, and only a few saw it later, and
most of them didn't see it for long.
Directly below us the placid river wound in great loops between
fine groves of trees in a broad valley bottom. On our side the valley
was enclosed by the bluffs on which we stood, although to our right
the bluffs became a ridge, running away for a couple of miles into the
hazy distance. From the bluffs to the river the ground fell pretty
steeply, but from the crest of the long ridge the slope was much more
gentle, a few hundred yards of hillside down to the river with a few
gullies and dry courses here and there. It's like any other hillside, very
peaceful and quite pretty, all clothed in pale yellow grass like thin
short wheat, with a few bright flowers and thistles. All ordinary
enough, but I suppose there are a few old Indians who think of it now
as others may think of Waterloo or Hastings or Banhockbum. They
call it the Greasy Grass.
But I barely noticed it that morning, for on the opposite bank of
the river was a spectacle to stop the breath. Anyone from my time has
seen Indian villagesa few score lodges, sometimes a few hundred
perhaps covering the space of a cricket field. But here in splendid
panorama was a town of tipis that must have covered close on ten
square miles; as far as I could see the bank was a forest of lodges, set
in great tribal circles from the thick woods upstream to our left to the
more open land farther down opposite the Greasy Grass slope, and
from the groves by the water's edge back to a low table-land in the
distance, where a great pony herd grazed.
It was the largest assembly of Red Indians in history,71 and while I
couldn't know that, I was sufficiently awestruckwere these the few
i 305
dispersed bands of hostiles I'd heard lightly spoken of, the fag-end of
the once-mighty Sioux confederacy which Terry and Gibbon had
been afraid might melt away and escape, the thousand or two who
weren't worth bringing up the Catlings for? I saw Custer's face turned
in impatience to Lonesome Charley Reynolds: "We are more than a
match for them if they were all together." Well, they were all together
with a vengeance; there must be ten thousand of the red buggers
down there if there was one--who the devil could they all be? I didn't
, } I j know, but all America knows now: Hunkpapa, Sans Arc, Brule,
I jj Oglala, Minneconju, the whole great roll-call of the Dacotah nation,
| |j| with Arapaho, Blackfeet, Stony, Shoshoni and other lesser detach-
i i ^1 ments from half the tribes of the North Plains and Shining Moun-
81 ' ji tains--and not forgetting my old acquaintances, the Cheyenne. Never '}' I i forget the Cheyenne. But five or ten thousand, Charley, it made no
difference--everyone knew they weren't going to fight. Not they--
not Sitting Bull or Crazy Horse or Two Moon or Brave Bear or Lame
White Man or Bobtail Horse or White Bull or Calf or Roan Horse or
a few thousand others. Especially not the ugly little gentleman whom
J I'd put up for membership of the United Service Club if I had my
mafia way, since he was the best soldier who ever wore paint and feathers,
IS damn him. His name was Gall.
B^l^^^^^^^ Well, there they were, all nice and quiet in the morning sun, with
II 'iffl ^^^^^^ the ^f^c naze hanging over the vast expanse of tipis, and the women ^^^^^^^^^^' and kids down at the water's edge, washing or playing, but I didn't 1 have long to look at it, for Jacket led us on to a ravine that ran down
from the bluffs opposite the centre of the great camp; only later did I
I llj learn that it's called Medicine Tail Coulee, and that the river, which is vlu hardly deep enough to drown m,and half a stone's throw across, was
j the Little Bighorn, -fe ?.
': The ford from the coulee to the camp was only a few inches of
| water above a stony bed; we splashed over and under the cottonwoods
j on the far bank, where women and children came running to see, but
Jacket pushed ahead to the first line of tipis beyond a flat open space
where fires burned and dogs prowled among the litter, and we
j dismounted before a big lodge with a few braves lounging outside.
The stink of Indian and woodsmoke was strong inside as well as out;
Jacket thrust me into the dim interior and cut my wrist cords, but only
so that he could tie my numbed hands to the ends of a short wooden
yoke which his pals laid across my shoulders. He thrust me down into
the rubbish on the tipi floor and shouted, and a girl came in.
"This one," growls Jacket, "is a dirty lump of white buffalo dung
who is to die by inches when the One-Who-Catches has seen him.  ' Has he come yet?" .,
"No, Jacket," says the girl. "He was in the south, where the
fighting was with the Grey Fox seven days ago. Perhaps he will come
soon." : 'A'- . Vfl ' &
"Until he does, this one must speak to nobody. Take the gag from his mouth now and give him such scraps as the dogs have left. If he
speaks," says he, glaring at me, "I will cut off his lips." And he drew
his knife and threw it point first into the earth beside my foot. His pals
crowed, and beyond them I could see curious faces peeping through
I the tipi flap, come to see the interesting foreigner, no doubt.
| The girl fetched a bowl of water and a platter of corn and meat,
knelt by me, and removed the gag from my burning mouth. But for
two or three short intervals, it had been there for the best part of
thirty-six hours, and I couldn't have spoken if my life depended on it;
I gulped the water greedily as she put the bowl to my lips, and when
| Jacket growled to stop she went on pouring without so much as a
glance at him, until I'd sucked the last drop dry. As she spooned the food into me I took a look at her, and noted dully that she was pretty
enough for an Indian, with a wide mouth and tip-tilted nose which
suggested that some Frog voyageur had wintered among the Sioux
fifteen years back. She was very deft and dainty in her spooning, and
Jacket got quite impatient, pushing her aside before I was finished
and shoving the gag back as roughly as he knew how. He bound it in
place with a rawhide strip and soaked the knot, the vicious swine, just
to make sure no one could untie it.
"Keep him that way till I come again," says he, and kicked me two
or three times before swaggering out with his pals, leaving me in a
state of collapse on the scabby buffalo rug against the tipi side. The
girl collected her dishes and went out, without telling me to ring if I
wanted anything. * -vv. s's;i|A%'
I was in despair--and rage at my own stupidity. In my folly, I had
destroyed my best chance, by pitching my tale prematurely to Jacket,
offering him bribes, urging acquaintance with Crazy Horse, and so
on. I couldn't have done worse, for Jacket, either out of brotherly
affection for deonie, or for what she'd paid him, wanted me dead
and damned, and was going to make good and sure that I had no
second chance of stating my case to less partial Sioux who might have
been disposed to listen. I was to be kept gagged and helpless until this
mysterious person whom Jacket had mentioned--who was it, the
One-Who-Catches?--came to have a look at me, and then presumably
I'd be toted out to be strung up and played with for the
amusement of the populace, none of whom would know who I was,
or care, for that matter. God, that implacable bitch deonie-Candy
_haddone for me with a vengeance--she and her stinking relatives.
II ' , 307
I fay palpitating in the dim lodge, wondering if when next they fed
me I'd get a chance to yell for help--and what good it might do if i
did--and what were the chances of Terry and Gibbon's little armv
arriving, and what might happen then. This camp, after all, was their
target, if they could find it--but they must, for their scouts would
see its smoke ten miles away, and there was bound to be a parley for neither side could take the risk of precipitate attack. And if
they parleyed ... I felt my hopes rise. When had Gibbon figured
to come up with the hostiles? The twenty-sixth... I forced my numb
mind to calculate the days since we'd left Rosebud--this must be
the twenty-fourth! If I could stay alive for forty-eight hours, and
Gibbon's column got here, and I could get my mouth open to some
half-friendly ear...
The tipi flap parted, and the girl came in again. She glanced at me,
and then began pottering with some utensils in a corner. I scrambled
to my feet, with that damned yoke galling my neck, and as she looked
round I ducked my head in the direction of the water-pitcher and tried
to look appealing. She glanced towards the flap, and then back at me;
I can't say she looked sympathetic, for her face was strained and tired
and her eyes empty, but after a moment she motioned me to sit down
again, filled a bowl with water, and with some difficulty slipped free
the rawhide strap that held the gag. She eased it out, and I gasped and
sucked at that blessed water, easing the pain of my parched lips and tongue. I wished to God I looked more presentable, for now I saw
she was decidedly comely, with her boyish figure in its dark green
tunic, her slim hands and ankles, and that saucy little face that seemed
so woebegone; given a shave and a comb and a change of linen I could
have cheered her up in no time, but seeing my eyes on her she made
a little sign for silence, glancing again towards the entrance. I spoke
quietly; it came out in a croaking whisper. ,. ; -; / a
"What's your name, kind girl with the pretty face?" ;; , .y ' ""m
She gasped in surprise at hearing Sioux. "Walking Blanket Woman,"
says she, her eyes wide.
"Oglala?" She nodded. "You know the Chief Tashunka Witko?"
Again she nodded, and I could have kissed her as my spirits soared.
"Listen, quickly. I am the Washechuska Wind Breaker, friend of your
chiefs uncle, Sintay Galeska of the Burned Thighs. This evil man
Jacket intends to kill me, although I am a friend to your people--"
"Washechuska, what is that?" says she. "You are an Isantanka bad
man, one of our enemies--"
"No, no! My tongue's straight! Go to your chief, quickly--"
"Your tongue is double!" I was startled at her fierceness, and the
flash of sudden anger in her eyes. "You have done great wrong--
lacket told me! All Isantanka white men are our enemies!" And before I knew it she had stuffed the gag back into my potato trap, and was hauling the rawhide up into place, while I tried to jerk my head
free. But she was strong for all her daintiness, and cursed me
something fearful, with little sobs among the swearwords.
"I was a fool to pity you!" She gave the strip a final tug and then
clouted me over the ear. She knelt in front of me, her little face grim
as she choked back her tears. "Seven days ago your Isanhonska Long
Knives killed my brother in the Grey Fox fight! That is the kind of
friends your people are! I was a fool to give you water and let you
open your snake's mouth! Why should I be sorry for you!" And,
damme, she clocked me again and flounced away, clattering her pots
and wiping her eyes.
Of all the infernal luck. Womanly sympathy one minute, and the
gext she was battering me because her ass of a brother had got himself
killed against Crook. I struggled with my yoke and scrabbled my feet
in what I hoped was a coaxing, reasonable way, but she never gave
me another look, and presently went out again.
Well, that was another hope dashed--temporarily. If I was patient,
her natural kindness might revive, brother or no; my powers of
persuasion with the female sex are considerable, and even with my
scrubby chin and dishevelled locks and tattered clobber--the remains
of full evening dress. God help us, in a Sioux tipi--I knew I could
charm this little looker, if she'd only listen. Ain't it odd? Twice in as
many days I'd been prevented by speechlessness from exercising my
arts on unfriendly females. It never rains but it pours.
I thought I'd get another chance when they fed me again--but they
didn't. Jacket looked in once for a kick at me, but no suggestion of
dinner, and I lay there miserably as evening came, and outside the
drumming and chanting began--they were holding a scalp dance for
the Rosebud fight, I believe, but I was barely conscious of the din, for
despite the cramping agony of my yoke, and my other aches, I fell
into an uneasy doze, half-filled with horrid pictures of one-eyed
women and painted faces and captives bound to burning stakes who looked uncommon like me in Hussar uniform. A Saturday night it
was, too. i
It was bird-song that woke me, and sunlight through the tipi flap
catching the corner of my eye, which was drowsily pleasant for a
moment, until a harsh voice jarred me back to my plight. There were
half a dozen Indians in the tipi, looking down at me with stony
indifference; the one who was talking was Jacket, and he seemed to
be exhibiting me.
". . . when the One-Who-Catches has seen him, he will go to the
309
fire. It is the wish of my brother's wife, and mine, and our family's!"
He spoke as though challenging contradiction, but he didn't get any.
"Whoever he says he is, he deserves to die bykakeshya. Who says he
is a friend of Spotted Tail's, anyway?" ?;3.< ; ' ;
"Who cares?" says another, a burly ruffian with his belly hanging
over his waistband and shoulders like an ox. His face was huge and
ugly, but not without a humour that I was in no state to appreciate.
His leggings and jacket were red, and he carried a short war-bonnet
in his hand. "Do what you like with him; he's white," says this callous
brute. "Come on! Totanka Yotanka is back from the hill; he has been
'seeing'." He gave a grunting laugh. "Pity he can't 'see' some
buffalo."
If I'd known then that the speaker was Gall, the Hunkpapa chief I
mentioned earlier, I might have been impressed, but probably not,
for there was only one of the half-dozen who claimed attention. He
alone had no war-bonnet or feathers, or anything but a coloured shirt;
he was young and wiry, lean-faced and lank-haired and without
paint--but with those eyes he didn't need any. For a moment I
wondered if he was blind, or in a trance, for he gazed straight ahead
unseeing; I doubted if he even knew where he was. His shirt was
blue-sleeved and gold-collared, with a great yellow band on which
was a red disc, and its sleeves and shoulders were fringed with more
scalps than I'd care to count. When Jacket tapped his arm, he turned
those staring blank eyes on me,72 but without any change of expression;
it made my skin crawl, and I was glad when they trooped out,
Jacket taking another kick at me on the way--he liked kicking me, no
error.
I got no breakfast that morning, either. Possibly on Jacket's
instructions, possibly because she was still peeved at me. Walking
Blanket Woman didn't look near for several hours, by which time I
could hear all the bustle and stir of the great camp--voices and
laughter and kids yelling and a bone-flute playing and dogs barking,
and the smell of kettles, and me famished. Even when she arrived she
was decidedly cool and wouldn't remove my gag; it was only by
piteous eye-rolling and head-ducking that I got her to relent sufficiently
to pour water over my gagged mouth, so that I could obtain
some refreshment. She raised no objection when I humped my yoke
over to the flap, and took a cautious peep at the outside world.
It must have been just after noon of Sunday, June 25th, 1876. I
wondered if Elspeth was in church at Philadelphia, examining the
hats and pretending attentive approval of the sermon. I could have
wept at the thought, and how my foolish whore-mongering had brought me to this awful pass. God, what an idiot I'd been--and that
310 as-a >- t^'gas OalnroA. .bitch
Candy would be bedding one of the stokers on the Far West, no
doubt. Fine subjects for Sabbath meditation, you see--but they don't
manor; what I did and saw that afternoon are what matter, and I'll
relate it as clearly and truthfully as I can.
All was calm in that part of the village between my tipi and the
river. There was a fairish crowd of Indians doing what Indians usually
do--squatting and loafing, scratching and gossiping in groups, some
of the bucks painting, the women cooking at the fires, the kids
scampering. There was a slow general drift upstream--that, I'm told,
is where Sitting Bull's camp circle of Hunkpapa was, with the other
tribal groups strung out downstream, ending with the Cheyenne at
the bottom limit, out of sight to my left as I peeped towards the river.
Where exactly my tipi was I've never quite determined; all sorts of
maps have been drawn of that camp, and I believe I must have been
in a lodge of the Sans Arc circle, close by the river--but Walking
Blanket Woman was an Oglala, so God knows. Certainly the ford
was to my right front, perhaps a hundred yards off, and above the
trees I had a fair view of Medicine Tail Coulee running up into the
bluffs on the far shore.
Walking Blanket Woman spoke suddenly at my elbow. "Take a
good look, white-face," says she, pretty sullen. "Soon they will be
looking atyoM. The One-Who-Catches will come today, and you will
be burned. Maybe other white snakes will be burned, too, if they
come any closer."
And off she went, clattering her pots, leaving me to wonder what
the devil she meant. Had Terry's force been sighted, perhaps? If
Gibbon had force-marched, he could be here today. Custer and his
blasted 7th must be roaming off in the blue somewhere, or he'd have
been here already. If only I could ask questions! ,  -.'
|F" . ' ' ' "
a; The hawk stoops, but in the grass 'J' ' i" '^'.'y'
^ The rabbit does not lift his head. |^'''?'% He runs but does not see. The hunter ' "<l't!i Waits, and the quarry is unaware. ^' They come, they come! from the rising sun.
Will any meet them, the hunter with his bow
and long lance? lt"
It was an old man singing in a high, keening wail, as he shuffled by,
lace upturned and eyes closed, dirty white hair hanging over his
blanket. He had a pot from which he dabbed vermilion on his cheeks n spots as he sang; then from a medicine bag he shook dust on the ground either side. The people fell silent, watching him; even the kids
stopped their row.
311
Who are the braves with high hearts? J
Who sings? Who sings his death-song? g Is it the young hunter, shading his eyes as he looks to the east?
But the sun is high now; it shines on both the hawk and the j quarry. . j
The thin voice died away, and a great stillness seemed to have
fallen on the camp. I ain't being fanciful; it was like the silence after
the last hymn in church. Out in the heat haze they were standing in
silent groups--women, children, braves in their blankets or breechclouts,
some with their faces half-painted; they were looking upstream
through the trees, but at nothing that I could see. Over the river the
bluffs were empty, except for a few children playing on the Greasy
Grass slope to the left; the woods around us were quiet, and no birds
sang now. A dog yelped in the distance, a few ponies under the care
of a stripling snuffled and stamped, the crackle of a fire fifty yards
away was audible, and the soft murmur of the Little Bighorn meandering
through its fringe ofcottonwoods. I'll never forget that silence,
as though a storm were coming, yet the sky was clear midsummer
blue, with the least fleecy drift of high clouds.
Somewhere on the right, away towards the Hunkpapa circle, there
was a soft mutter of sound, a rustle as of distant voices growing, and
then a shout, and then more shouting, and the low throb of a drum.
People began to move up that way, the braves first, the women more
slowly, calling their children to them; voices were raised in question
now, feet moved more quickly, stirring the dust. The hum of distant
voices was a clamour, rippling down towards us as the word passed, |
indistinct but of growing urgency; crouched under my yoke just inside 1 the tipi, I wondered what on earth it could be; Walking Blanket
Woman pushed past me--and then from the trees up to the right
there was a scatter of people, and I heard the yell:
"Pony-soldiers! Long Knives coming. Run, run quickly! Ponysoldiers!"
In
a moment it was chaos. They ran like startled ants, braves
shouting, women screaming, children rolling underfoot, all in utter
disorder, while the yells from upstream increased, and then came the
distant crack of a shot, and then a fusilade, and then the running rattle
of irregular firing, and to my disbelieving ears, the faint note of a
bugle, sounding the charge! At this the panic redoubled, they nulled
everywhere, with some of the braves yelling to try to restore order,
and the mob of women and children surging past downstream. The
men were trying to herd them away, and at the same time shouting to
each other, and with mothers crying for their children and vice versa,
-j the wiser heads trying to give directions, it was bedlam. The crash
f distant firing was continuous now, and to my right I could hear the
a/hoops and war-cries of men running to join the fight, wherever it
ylSS.
One thing was sureit wasn't Gibbon. If he came at all it would be
from my left, downstream; this was all up at the southern end of the
valley'an(* ^y were pony-soldiers. Christ, it could only be Custer!
And seven hundred strong, against this enormous mass of hostiles!
Noit might be Crook, hitting back after his reverse at the Rosebud;
that was far more likely, and he had twice as many men as Custer.
perhaps it was both of them, two thousand sabres; the Sioux would
have their hands full if that were so.
(It wasn't, of course. It was Reno, obeying orders, coming full tilt
towards the Hunkpapa circle along the bank with a hundred-odd
riders. And I called Raglan a fool!)
Across my front braves were hurrying upstream. One young buck
was strapping on two six-guns as he ran, and a girl hurried after him
with his eagle feather; he was shouting as she thrust it through his
braid, and then he was away, and she standing on tiptoe with her
knuckles to her mouth; two more braves I saw tumbling out of a tipi,
one with a lance and his face painted half-red, half-black, and an old
man and old woman hobbling behind them, the old fellow with an
ancient musket which he was calling to the boys to take, but they
never heard, and he stood there holding it forlornly; another old
woman hurried by with a small boy, the bundle she was carrying burst
open, and they both paused to scrabble in the dust until the kid
shrieked and pulled the old girl aside as a thunder of hooves came
from my left, and out from beneath the trees came as fine a sight (I
speak as a cavalryman, you understand) as one could wisha horde
of feathered, painted braves, lances and rifles a-flourish, whooping
like bedamned. Brules and Minneconju, I think, but I'm no expert,
and then there was another yell somewhere behind my tipi, and by
humping out for a look I could see another mob of feathered friends
making for the river, tooOglala, I fancy, and everywhere there
were braves on foot, with bows and rifles and hatchets and clubs,
racing towards the sound of the firing, which was growing fiercer but,
I thought, no nearer.
The Brule riders were thundering by before me, shrieking their
"Kye-kye-kye-yik!" and "Hoo'hay!", and if ever you hear that from
a Sioux, get the hell out of his way, because he isn't asking you the
time. The only worse noise he makes is "Hoon!" which is the
^uivalent of the Zulu "s'jee!" and signifies that he's sticking steel
313
into someone. Out before my tipi was the old singer, waving his arms
and bawling:
"Go! Go, Lacotahs! It's a good day to die!"
VK There's a kindred spirit, thinks Ihe wasn't going. But the rest of
JJMJ them were, by gum, horse, foot, guns, bows, and every damned
i^lS j thingthese were the Sioux who weren't going to fight, you recall.
They vanished among the trees upstream, and the women and kid;
were away down in t'other direction by nowwhich left the world to
sunlight and to me, more or less. Suddenly there was hardly a soul in
sight between me and the river; a few stragglers, one or two old mea,
the ancient singer who had stopped encouraging the lads and was
making tracks to his tipi. Upstream the firing was banging away as
loud as everbut I didn't care for it. The boys in blue were making
no headway at all; if anything, the crash of musketry was receding,
which was damned discouraging.
Now, two things I must make clear. First, that I had not merely
been viewing the stirring scene, but considering keenly which way
salvation lay, and deciding to lie low. I was wearing four feet of timber
across my neck, you see, with my hands bound to it, to say nothing of
being painfully gagged, and while my feet were free, I felt I'd be a
trifle conspicuous if I lit out from coverand where to, anyway?
Secondly, my memory, while acute for what I hear and see and feel in
&IliJIJI ^le ^eat ^ battle, is usually at fault where time is concerned. I'm not
alone in thatany soldier will tell you that five minutes fighting cat
seem like an hour, or t'other way round. From the sound of the first
shot I would guess that perhaps twenty minutes had passed, and now
the sound of firing was decidedly fainter, when across the clearing
Walking Blanket Woman came runningshe'd pushed past me and
disappeared, you remember, and here she was again, excited as all
get-out.
"They are killing your pony-soldiers! Ai-ee!" cries the bloodthirsty
biddy. "They are driving them back on the river! Everywhere they
kill them! Ees} Soon all will be dead!"
She was rummaging in a corner of the tipi, and damme if she didn't
come up with a most ugly-looking hatchet and a long thin knife, which
she tested on the ball of her thumb, grunting with satisfaction. Plainly
she was going to join in the fun, no doubt to avenge her brotherand
then she stopped and looked at me, and the light of battle died out 01
the saucy little face, and I could read her thoughts as clear as if she"
riHIl ^ken.
"Drat!" she was thinking. "There's this great idiot to look after'
and me all over of a heat to help cut up the remains! How tiresofflOh, well, someone's got to mind the shop, I supposehold on'
though! If I 'look after' him permamyjy, so to speak, I can go with a
clear conscience... on the other taan, Jacket will be sannoyed if he's
cheated of his little kakeshya--h^i't seen a goceod flaying and
dismembering for ages myself, for }y. matter. But Dl would like to
join the fun up yonder..."
It was such a winsome little face, t<y but as the expr-ressions chased
one another across it my gorge rose, he was eyeing same doubtfully,
thoughtfully, angrily, determinedly^nd I was about to bolt headlong,
yoke or not, when above the dj^nt din of firings came another
sound, so faint that for an instant I ((mght it was iniL^gination, and
yet it was quite close at hand, acros,s Mt river.
She heard it too, and we both stooqj iock-still, strain-dng our ears. It
was just the tiniest murmur at first, ^ then the drift -as of a musical
pipe, far, far away. And while I'm v^ll aware that It--ie 7th Cavalry
band was not present at Little Bighctvi I know what I heard, and all
I can say is that some trooper had a pe^y whistle, and "was blowing it.
For there was no doubt--somewhei^eyond the rivesr, on the high
i bluffs a bare half-mile away, was souring the music oef Garryowen.
Walking Blanket Woman was bes^je me in an insacant. We both
stood staring over the trees. The bl^s were empty----and then on
their crest there was a movement, aiyil another a littl-e behind, and
then another, tiny objects just abovie^ie skyline, slow-:iy coming into
view--horsemen, and one of the foremost carrying -a guidon, and
then a file of troopers, and I could iMike out the shapes of fatigue
hats--ten, twenty, thirty riders, an<i s they rode at the walk, the
piping was clear now, and I found the i^rds running through my head
that the 8th Hussars had sung on the n^y to Alma:
ps^; ;:^ -,,v I |.^;, Our hearts so stout have^t us fame, .' -> i:6'
"'" For soon 'tis known from ,vhence we cam-e, ^ f" ;i Where'er we go they dre^ the name <,;^
b^, Of Garryowen in glory. ^ ^ Kv. : . - '' The piping stopped, and I heard the ^shout of command faint over Ae trees. They had halted, and in the,(little knot of men round the guidon I caught a glint--fieldglasses, sleeping the valtey. Custer had ^me to Little Bighorn.
Perhaps I'm a better soldier than I c^re to think, for I know what I
thought in that moment. My first concern should have- been how thet;A "lazes to get across to them, but possibly because it webs a long, steep ^y, and there was a young lady beside me at least toying with the ""tion of putting her knife-point to a^f ear and pushing, it seemed ^demic. And the instinctive order that)! I would have hollered across
s- K: ' US
Of' ii-' I K" iB!..'
that river was: "Retire! And don't tarry on the way! Get out, y"" bloody fool, and get out fast while there's still time!"
He'd not have listened, though. Even as I watched I saw a tiny figure with hand raised, and a moment later the faint call of
"Forward-o!" and they were coming on along the bluffs, and wheelinn down into the coulee, and beyond the bluffs to their left was a sputter
of shooting, and down the steep came a handful of Sioux at the run
and after them a party of Ree scouts, little puffs of smoke jetting after
the fugitives. There were yells of alarm from far up the river, closer
than the distant popping of the first fight, which had faded into the
distance.
A bugle sounded on the bluffs, and the first troop was coming down
the coulee--greys, and I thought I could make out Smith at their
head. Had lunch with your wife and Libby Custer on the Far West recently, was the ridiculous thought that went through my mind. And
behind them there came a sorrel troop--why, that would be Tom
Custer, who'd wept at that ghastly play in New York. And there, by
God, at the head of the column, was the great man himself; I could
see the flash of the red scarf on his breast--and I almost burst my gag,
willing him to stop and turn, for he was doing a Cardigan if ever a
man did, and he couldn't see it. The clamour in the trees upsteam was
rising now; I thought I could hear pony hooves, and from the left,
along the water's edge, came a mounted brave, yelling in alarm,
waving his rifle above his head, and after him two more--Cheyenne,
as I live, all a-bristle with eagle feathers and white bars of paint.
The girl gasped beside me, and I turned to look at her, and she at
me. And what I tell you is strictest true: I looked at her, with a
question in my eyes--Flashy's eyes, you know, and I put every ounce
of noble mute appeal into 'em that I knew how, and that's considerable.
God knows I'd been looking at women all my life, ardent, loving,
lustful, worshipful, respectful, mocking, charming, and gallant as
gadfrey, and while I've had a few clips on the ear and knees in the
crotch, more often than not it has worked. I looked at her now, giving
her the full benefit, the sweet little soul--and like all the rest, she
succumbed. As I say, it's true, and here I am, and I can't explain it--
perhaps it's the whiskers, or the six feet two and broad shoulders, or
just my style. But she looked at me, and her lids lowered, and she
glanced across the river where the troopers were riding down the
coulee, and then back at me--this girl whose brother had been killed
by my people only a few days back. I can't describe the look in her
eyes--frowning, reluctant, hesitant, almost resigned; she couldn't
help herself, you see, the dear child. Then she sighed, lifted the
knife--and cut the thongs securing my hands to the yoke.
, "Go on, then," says she. "You poor old man."
Well, I couldn't reply with my mouth full of gag, and by the time
rd torn it out she had gone, running off to the right with her hatchet
lid knife. God bless her.73 And I was cool enough to drain a bowl of
water and chafe my wrists while I took in the lie of the land, because
jf l was to win across to Custer in safety it was going to be a damned
gear-run thing, and I must settle my plan in shaved seconds and then
go bull at a gate.
To the right my girl was nearing the trees, and there were a few
Indians in sight, but a hell of a lot more behind by the sound of it, no
doubt streaming down from the first fight to give the boy general a
welcome. Three Cheyenne had appeared from the leftand knowing
them, I doubted if they'd be the only ones. By God, Custer had
picked a rare spot to make his entry. The three Cheyenne were close
to the bank, perhaps fifty yards away on my left front, arguing busily
with a couple of Indians on foot; they were pointing up towards the
ford and doubtless remarking that the pony-soldiers would shortly be
crossing it and charging through the heart of the village. At that
moment, out from between the tipis on my right came the old singer,
leading a pony and yelling his head off.
"Go! Go, Lacotahs! See where the Long Knives come! The sun is
on the hawk and the quarry! Hoo'hay! It's a good day to die!"
If I'd been the Cheyenne I'd have spat in his eyefor one thing,
they weren't Lacotahs, and no doubt sensitive. But now was my
moment. I looked across the river; the 7th were fairly pouring down
the coulee, so far as I could see, for the farther they got down, the
more they were obscured by the trees on the banks. The bugle was
shrilling, shots were cracking on my side of the river, the three
Cheyenne were apparently fed up with arguing, for they were skirting
up towards the fordand my ancient with his led pony was hobbling
in their direction, shouting to the two dismounted chaps to take his
steed and good luck, boys. I took a deep breath and ran.
The old fool never knew I was there until I was on the pony's back.
It might have been ten seconds, probably less, but time for me to
realise that I was in such poor trim, what with my ordeal, aching
limbs, too much tuck, booze, and cigars, and general evil living, that
if he and I had run a race, the old bugger would have won, by yards.
But he was looking ahead, yelling:
"Here! Calf, Bobtail Horse! Mad Wolf! Here's a pony! Climb
aboard, one of you fellows, and smite the white-faces, and my blessing
go with you!" Or words to that effect.
I hauled myself on to the beast, grabbed the mane, and dug in my
^IsJ know people were running somewhere to my right, the
B 317
Cheyenne were trotting purposefully towards the ford, shots were
flying all along the river banks--and dead ahead of me, under the
cottonwoods, was the ford leading to the coulee. Behind me the
dotard was yelling:
"Go on, Lacotah! Here is a brave heart! See how he flies to meet
the Long Knives!"
Apparently under the impression that I was one of the lads. The
three Cheyenne were moving well, too--four of us going hell-for.
leather, more or less in line abreast, three in paint and feathers
waving lances and guns, and one in white tie and tails, somewhat out
of crease. Possibly they, too, thought that I belonged to the elect, for
they didn't so much as spare me a glance as we converged on the ford.
They were three good men, those--again I speak objectively--for
they were going bald-headed against half a regiment, and they knew
it. If the Indians put up statues, I reckon those three Cheyenne would
be prime candidates, for if anyone turned the tide of Greasy Grass,
they did. Mind you, I'm not saying that if Custer had got across the
ford, he'd have had the battle won; I doubt it myself. He'd have got
cut up either side, I reckon. But the first nails in his coffin were Roan
Horse, Calf, and Bobtail Horse--and possibly my humble self--for it
was our appearance at the ford, I think, that checked his advance. I
don't know--except that when my pony hit the shallows, with the
three Cheyenne close behind, I lifted up mine eyes to the hills and
saw to my amazement that the troopers in the coulee were dismounting
and letting fly with their carbines. Whether the three Cheyenne
stopped or came on,741 don't know, for I wasn't looking; there were
shots buzzing like bees overhead as I scrambled up the bank--and
not twenty yards away a Ree scout and a trooper were covering me
with their carbines, and I was bawling: / 'J
"Don't shoot! It's me! I'm white! Hold your fire!" m
One did, t'other didn't, but he missed, thank God, and I was
careering over the flat to the mouth of the coulee, hands raised and
holding on with my aching knees, yelling to them not to shoot for any
favour, and a knot of bewildered men were standing at gaze. There
was E Troop's guidon, and as I half-fell from my pony, there was
Custer himself, all red scarf and campaign hat, carbine in hand. Fora
second he stared speechless, as well he might; then he said "Good
God!" quite distinctly, and I replied at the top of my voice:
"Get out of it! Get out--now! Up to the top and ride for it!" f
Somehow he found his tongue, and as God's my witness the next
thing he said was: "You're wearing evening clothes!" and looked
beyond me across the river, doubtless to see if other dinner guests
were arriving. "How in--"
318
I seized him by the arm, preparing to yell some more until common
gense told me tliat calm would serve better.
"George," says I, "you must get out quickly, you know. Now!
Mount 'em up and retire, as fast as you can! Back up this draw and on
K, the bluffs"
"What d'you mean?" cries he. "Retire? And where in creation
liave you come from? How the deuce"
"Doesn't matter! I tell you, get this command away from here or
you're all dead men! Look, George, there are more Indians than
you've ever seen over yonder; they're beating the tar out of someone
upriver, and they'll do the same for you if you stay here!"
"Why, that's Reno!" cries he. "Have you seen him?"
"No, for Christ's sake! I haven't been within a mile of him, but it's
my belief he's beat! George, listen to me! You must get out now!"
Tom Custer was at my elbow. "How many hostiles over yonder?"
snaps he.
"Thousands! Sioux, Cheyenne, God knows how many! Lord
above, man, can't you see the size of the village?" And in fury I
turned to looksure enough, they were swarming up to the ford from
both directions, mounted Cheyenne among the trees downriver, now
hidden, now in sight, like trout darting through weed, but coming by
hundreds, and from the trees upstream a steady rattle of musketry
was coming; balls were whizzing overhead and whining up the coulee;
there were shouts of command to open fire coming from above us.
"Mount!" roars Custer. "SmithE Troop! Prepare to advance!
Tom, with your troop, sir!" He turned to. bellow up the coulee.
"Captain Yates, we're going across! Bugler, sound!" He swung
himself into his saddle, and behind was the creak and jingle and
shouting as the troopers took their beasts from the holders, and a
scout appeared at Custer's side, pointing across the river.
"He's right. Colonel! Didn't I saywe go in there, we don't come
out!"75
It must have been obvious to anyone who wasn't stark mad. But
Custer was red in the face and roaring; he swung his hat and yelled at
me.
"Come on. Flash! Forward the Light Brigade, hey? Didn't I know
you'd be in at the death?"
"Whose bloody death, you infernal idiot?" I yelled back, and
grabbed at his leg. "George, for God's sake"
"What are you about, sir?" cries he angrily. "I'll" And at that
moment he jerked back in his saddle, and I saw the splash of crimson
n his sleeve even as his horse surged past me. He didn't tumblehe
was too good a horseman for thatbut he reined in, and at that
319
moment one of the Ree scouts close by spun round and fell, blood
spouting from his neck. Shots were kicking up the dust all about us a
horse screamed and went down, thrashing--by George, that had
been a regular volley, at least thirty rifles together, which you don't
expect from savages; across the river a perfect mob of them was
closing on their ford, halting to bring up their pieces and bows for
another fusilade, a scarlet-clad figure ahead of them, arms raised, to
give the word. I flung myself flat as shots and arrows whizzed past
and came up to see Custer standing in his stirrups, blood running over
his right hand.
"FTroop! Covering fire! Tom! Smith! Move out with your troops!"
Thank God he'd seen sense; he was pointing up the.hillside, away
from the bluffs. "Retire out of range! Bugler, up to Captain Keogh,
and I'll be obliged if he and Mr Calhoun will hold the crest yonder~
you see it, on the top, there?--with their troops! Go!" He urged his
beast up the coulee. "Yates, sweep that bank yonder!" He pointed
across the water, but already Yates's troop was blazing away, and
Smith and Tom Custer were urging their men over the northern bank
of the coulee, upwards towards the Greasy Grass slope that lay
between the crest and the river. I was among them, clawing my way
up the coulee side on to the rough hilly ground in the middle of a
hastening crowd of troopers, a few mounted, but mostly leading their
beasts. I swung myself aboard one of the led ponies, arguing blasphemously
with its owner as we jogged over the hillside; shots were
still buzzing past, and here was another draw across our front over
which we scrambled. Drawing rein as the bugle blared again, I had a
moment to collect myself and look round.
A bare hundred yards away, at the foot of the slope, the trees were
alive with hostiles, firing raggedly up at us. There were three troops
on the slope round about where I was; when I looked up the hill,
there were I and L Troops skirmishing out in good order. Custer was
sliding down from his pony, using one hand and his teeth to tie a
handkercheif round his grazed wrist; I ran to him and jerked the ends
tight.
"Good man!" he gasped, and looked about. I don't know if he saw
what I already knew, although it was too late now. Take a squint at
my map and you'll see it. He'd come the wrong way.
I ain't being clever, but if he'd done what I'd told him he might
have saved most of his command--by withdrawing straight up Medicine
Tail Coulee and making a stand on the high bluffs, where five
troops could have held off an army. Or, if he'd retired flat out,
Calhoun and Keogh could certainly have saved their troops. By
Iff	.;.
(Oiling across to the Greasy Grass slope he'd put his command out in
(de open, where the redsticks could skirmish up over good broken ,rti)und and our only hope was to achieve the hill at the far end of the gjst and make good a position there. And we might have done it,
too, if tnat red-jacketed bastard Gall hadn't been an Indian in a
naflion'--that is, an Indian with an eye for ground like Wellington.
The little swine saw at once how we'd blundered, and exactly what he
mast do.
It's a simple, tactical thing, and for those of you who ain't sure what
turning a flank means, it's a fair example. See on the map--we had to
make for the hill marked X, with half the Sioux nation coming up
from the ford at our heels. If they'd simply pursued us straight, we'd
likely have reached it, but Gall saw that the crest between the bluffs
and the hill was all-important, and as soon as we were out on the
Greasy Grass slope he had his warriors pouring up the second coulee
in droves, nicely under cover until they could get high enough up to
emerge all along the line of the second coulee, especially at the crest
itself, where they could hit at I and L troops, and be well above
Caster's three other troops making for the hill. Smart Indian, fighting
the white man in the white man's way, and with overwhelming
strength to make a go of it. In the meantime his skirmishers coming
up on us from the river were pressing us too hard to give Custer time
to regroup for any kind of counter-stroke. He couldn't charge downhill,
for even if he'd scattered our pursuers he'd have been stopped by
the river with Keogh's folk stranded; all he could do was retire to the
hill with Keogh falling back the same way.
Our fellows were all dismounted, in three main groups across the
slope, leading their horses and firing down at the Indians, who were
swarming up through the folds and gullies, blazing away as they came.
Curiously, I don't think we'd lost many men yet, but now troopers
began to fall as the slugs and arrows came whistling out of the blue.
And I saw the first example of something that was to happen horrid
frequent on that slope in the next fifteen minutes--a trooper kneeling
with his reins over his arm, raving obscenely as he dug frenziedly with
his knife at a spent case jammed in his carbine. That's what happens:
some factory expert don't test a weapon properly, and you pay for it
out on the hill when the rim shears off and your gun's useless.
"Tell Smith to close up with E Troop!" yells Custer, and I saw the
hostiles were up with Smith fifty yards below us in a murderous
struggle of pistols and lances, hatchets and carbine butts. To our own
front they were surging up, ducking and firing, and we were retreat- "ig, firing back; I stumbled over a little gully through a clump of
_ 321
thistles, fell on my faceheard the rattle within a foot of my ear, and
there was a snake gliding under my nose into the dusty grass; I never
even thought about him.
"Give me a gun, for pity's sake!" I yelped, and Custer flung away
hjs jammed carbine and threw me one of his Bulldog repeaters while
be drew the other for himself. Christ, they were a bare ten yards off,
shrieking painted faces and feathered heads racing towards me; I
 fired and one fell sprawling at my feet, guns were blasting all about
me, Custer (he was cool, say that for him) was firing with one hand
while with his wounded one he was thrusting a packet of cartridges at
me. I saw the lens of his field-glasses splinter as a shot hit them; there
were a dozen of us clawing our way backwards up out of a gully, firing
frantically at the red mob pouring down the other bank. We broke
and ran, in a confusion of yelling swearing men and rearing horses;
below on the slope a body of kneeling troopers with their sorrels
behind themTom Custer's peoplewere firing revolver volleys at
our pursuers, and behind me as I flew were shrieks of agony blending
with the war-whoops.
| "Steady!" roars Custer. There he was, shoving rounds into his
Bulldog and firing coolly, picking his men while the arrows whizzed
round him. "Fall back in order! Close on C Troop!" Beside him a
trooper with the guidon staggered, an arrow between his shoulders;
Custer wrenched the staff from him and plunged uphill; I scrambled
up beside him, swearing pathetically as I fumbled shells into my
revolverand for a moment the firing died, and Yates was beside
me, yelling something I couldn't hear as I staggered to my feet.
We were in a long gully running from the hill-top to the trees far
down by the river. The slopes below me were littered with bodies
the blue of troopers among the Indians, and lower still Indian
attackers were bounding up the gully sides. The remnant of Smith's
troop was reeling up the gully, turning and firing, loose horses among
them, redskins racing in to grapple at close quarters. I heard the
Rashman's map (opposite) of Little Bighorn is erratic in details - the course of
the river, and the placing of the various tribal camp circles - but agrees with
most authorities in showing Custer's advance along the bluffs, down Medicine
Tail Coulee to a point near the ford, and then north up the Greasy Grass slope
ul an attempt to reach the hill marked X, where the remnants of his force were
blight between the Indian charge from Gall's Gully and the encircling
"tovement of Crazy Horse's cavalry. The underlined names (e.g. CUSTER)
show where the various troops died with their commanders.
323
i hideous "Hoon! Hoon!" as the clubs and hatchets swung and the
knives went home, and the crash of Army pistols firing pointblank.
Around me were what was left of Yates's troop, staggering figures
streaked with dust and blood; just down the slope Tom Custer's
fellows were at grips with a horde of painted, shrieking braves
slashing and clubbing at each other hand to hand. I struggled out of
the gully; in its bed a trooper was lying, screaming and plucking feebly
at a lance buried in his side, two Indians dead beside him and a third
still kicking. I looked back across the gully--and saw the final Death
bearing down upon us.
Across the upper slopes of the Greasy Grass they came, hundreds
of running, painted figures, and on a pony among them that crimson
leader, waving them on for the kill. Tom Custer's tattered remnant
was breaking clear of a tangled melee of blue-shirted and red half
naked fighters who still hacked and stabbed and shot at each other;
somewhere on the crest I knew Keogh's people must be struggling
with the right wing of that Indian charge sweeping across the slope. In
less than a minute they would be on us; I turned sobbing to run for the
hill-top, a bare hundred yards away--and even in that moment it
' crossed my mind: we've come a long way damned fast, for I'd no
notion it was so close. We must have retreated a good mile from the
ford where I'd ridden across with the Cheyenne just a moment ago.
Custer was on his feet, reloading, looking this way and that; his hat
was gone, his hand was caked dried blood. There were about forty
troopers round him, firing past me down the hill. As I came up to
them an arrow-shower fell among us; there were screams and groans
and raging blasphemy; Yates was on the ground, trying to staunch
blood pumping from a wound in his thigh--artery gone, I saw. Custer
bent over him.
"I'm sorry, old fellow," I heard him say. "I'm sorry. God bless all
of you, and have you in His keeping."
There was a slow moment--one of those which you get in terrible
times, as at the Balaclava battery, when everything seemed to happen
at slow march, and the details are as clear and inevitable as day. Even
the shots seemed slower and far-off. I saw Yates fall back, and put up
a hand to his eyes like a man who's tired and ready for bed; Custer
straightened up, breathing noisily, and cocked his Bulldog, and I
thought, you don't need to do that, it's British-made and fires at one
pressure; a trooper was crying out: "Oh, no, no, no, it's a damned
shame!"; and the F Troop guidon fell over on a wounded sergeant,
and he pawed at it, wondering what it was, and frowned, and tried to
push its butt into the ground. On the crest behind them I saw a sudden
tumult of movement, and thought, ah yes, those are mounted Sioux--
IIB 324 '11
tiy Jove, there are plenty of them, and tearing down like those
Russians at Campbell's Highlanders. Lot of war-bonnets and lanceheads,
and how hot the sun is, and me with no hat. Elspeth would have sent me indoors for one. Elspeth . . .
"Hoo'hay, Lacotah! It's a good day to die! Kyeeekye!"
"You bloody liars!" I screamed, and all was fast and furious again,
with a hellish din of drumming hooves and screams and war-whoops
and shots crashing like a dozen Gatlings all together, the mounted
horde charging on one side, and as I wheeled to flee, the solid mass of
red devils on foot racing in like mad things, clubs and knives raised,
and before I knew it they were among us, and I went down in an
inferno of dust and stamping feet and slashing weapons, with stinking
bodies on top of me, and my right hand pumping the Bulldog trigger
while I gibbered in expectation of the agony of my death-stroke. A
moccasined foot smashed into my ribs, I rolled away and fired at a
painted face--and it vanished, but whether I hit it or not God knows,
for directly behind it Custer was falling, on hands and knees, and
whether I'd hit him. God knows again. He rocked back on his heels,
blood coming out of his mouth, and toppled over,76 and I scrambled
up and away, cannoning into a red body, hurling my empty Bulldog
at a leaping Indian and closing with him; he had a sabre, of all things,
and I closed my teeth in his wrist and heard him shriek as I got my
hand on the hilt, and began laying about me blindly. Indians and
troopers were struggling all around me, a lance brushed before my
face, I was aware of a rearing horse and its Indian rider grabbing for
his club; I slashed him across the thigh and he pitched screaming from
the saddle; I hurled myself at the beast's head and was dragged
through the mass of yelling, stabbing, struggling men. Two clear yards
and I hauled myself across its back, righting myself as an Indian
stumbled under its hooves, and then I was urging the pony up and
away from that horror, over grassy ground that was carpeted with still
and writhing bodies, and beyond it little knots of men fighting,
soldiers with clubbed carbines being overwhelmed by waves of
Sioux--but there was a guidon, and a little cluster of blue shirts that
still fired steadily. I rode for them roaring for help, and they scrambled
aside to let me through, and I tumbled out of the saddle into Keogh's
arms. ' ;,';
"Where's the General?" he yelled, and I could only shake my head
and point dumbly towards the carnage behind me--but it wasn't "isible, and I saw that somehow I'd ridden over the crest, on the far Made from the river, and the crest itself was alive with Indians firing at "s, rushing closer and firing again. Keogh yelled above the din:
"Sergeant Butler!" A ragged blue figure was beside him, gold
325
chevrons smeared with blood and dust. "Ride out! See if you can find
Major Reno! Tell him we're hemmed in and the General's dead!"
He shoved hard at Butler, who turned and slapped the neck of a
bay horse that was lying among the troopers; it came up, whinnying,
at his touch, and as Butler grabbed the reins he came face to face with
me, and he must have seen me at Fort Lincoln, for he said:
"'Allo then. Colonel! Long way from 'Orse Guards, ain't we,
though?" Then he was up and away, head down, going hell for leather
at the advancing Sioux," and thinks I, by God, it's that or nothing,
and scrambled on my own beast as the red tide flooded in amongst us.
It was like Scarlett's charge, a mass of men close-packed, contorted
faces, white and red, all about me, carrying me and the horse whether
we would or no, and there was no time to think or do anything but
swing my sabre at every eagle feather in sight, screaming wildly as the
mass of men disintegrated and I dug in my heels and went in blind
panic. As I fled I lifted my head and gazed on such a scene as even I
can hardly match from all my memories of bloody catastrophe.
Until this moment, you'll agree, I'd had little time for careful
thought or action. From the moment I'd crossed the ford and tried to
reason with Custer, it had been one shot-torn nightmare of struggle
up the slope away from those hordes of red fiends, followed by the
chaos when our retreat had been caught in the death-grip between
Gall's charge and the mounted assault (led, I'm told, by Crazy Horse
in person) over the very hill to which we'd been struggling for safety.
 Now, with Keogh's troop being engulfed behind me, I was recrossing
"the crest overlooking the whole Greasy Grass slope to the river at its
foot; I wasn't there above an instant, but I'll never forget it.
Below me the hillside was covered with dead and dying, and with
little clusters where shots still rang outa few desperate wretches
taking as many Sioux with them as they could. There were hundreds
of figures running, riding, and some just walking, across the slope,
and they were all Indians. Most of them were hurrying across my
front to the struggle still boiling just below the hilltop where Custer's
group were dying. There may have been a score of them, I can't tell,
standing and lying and sprawling in a disordered mass, the pistols and
carbines cracking while the mounted wave of war-bonnets and eagle
feathers rode round and through and over them, the clubs and lances
rising and falling to the-yells of "Hoon! Hoon!" while Gall's footmen
grappled and stabbed and scalped at close quarters. There was no
guidon flying, no ring of blue shoulder to shoulder, no buckskin figure
with flowing locks and sabre (he was one of the still forms in that
crawling melee); no, there was just a great hideous scrimmage of
bodies, like a Big Side maul when the ball's well hiddenonly here it
was not "Off your side!" but "Hoon!" and the crash of shots and flash
p steel. That was how the 7th Cavalry ended. Bayete 7th Cavalry.
Elsewhere it was already over. Far down to my left a mob of
Indians were shooting and stabbing and mutilating over a long cluster
of blue formsthat would be Calhoun's troop. Straight ahead below
me, to the right of the long gully, the cavalry dead lay thick where
Yates and Tom Custer and Smith had died with their troopsbut far
down there was still a group mounted on sorrels, and I could see the
puffs of smoke from their pistols.
All this I took in during one long horrified secondit couldn't have
been longer or I wouldn't be here. I doubt if I even checked stride, for
one glance behind showed a dozen mounted braves and a score
running, and they all had Flashy in their sights. To the left and below
the slope was thick with the bloodthirsty bastardsall you can do is
see where the enemy are thinnest and go like hell. I swerved right in
full career, for there was a break of perhaps ten yards in the mob
surging up to join in the massacre of Custer's party. I went for it,
sabre aloft, bawling: "I surrender! Don't shoot! I'm not an American!
I'm British! Christ, I ain't even in uniform, blast you!", and if anyone
had shown the least inclination to say: "Hold on, Lacotahs! Let's hear
what he has to say", I might have checked and hoped. But all I got
was, a whizzing of arrows and balls as I tore through the gap, rode
down two braves who sprang to bar my path, cut at and missed a
mounted fellow with a club, and then I was thundering down the right
side of the gully towards the group on their sorrelsand they weren't
there! Nothing but bloody Indians hacking and stabbing and snatching
at riderless beasts. I tried to swerve, aware of a mounted lancer
coming up on my flank, a painted face beneath a buffalo helmet; he
veered in behind me, I screamed as in imagination I felt the steel
pierdng my back, hands were clutching at my legs, painted faces
leaping at my pony's head, my sabre was gone, an arrow zipped
across the front of my coat, something caught the pony a blow near
"ly right kneeand then I was through the press,78 only a few Indians
running across my front, when an arrow struck with a sickening thud
"ito the pony's neck. As it reared I went headlong, rolling down a
little gully side and fetching up against a dead cavalryman with his
body torn open, half-disembowelled.
I lay sprawled on my back as two of those screaming brutes came
leaping over the bank. They collided with each other and went down,
^d behind them the buffalo-cap lancer was sliding from his saddle,
jumping over the other two, swinging up his hatchet. His left hand
^ at my throat, the frightful painted face was screaming a foot from
"""e. "Hoon!" he yelled, and his hatchet flashed downinto the
1:' , 327
's I B'H ground beside my head. His breath was stinking against my face as he
iiiffiH snarled: 
"Lie still! Lie still! Don't move, whatever happens!"
Up went his hatchetand again it missed my face by a whisker
and his left hand must have been busy with the dead trooper's innards'
for a bloody mess was thrust into my face, and then he had a knife in
IHBI nls nan(^lt flashed before my eyes, there was a blinding pain on top
of my skull, but I was too choked with horror, physical horror, to
scream, and then he was on his feet, yelling exultantly: ^
"Another of them! Kye-ee! Go find your own, Lacotahs!" 
I didn't see this, blinded with pain and human offal as I was, but I
heard it. I lay frozen while they snarled at each other. There was
blood running into my eyes, my scalp was a fire of agonyoh, I knew
what had been done to me, all right. But why hadn't he killed me?
"Just lie still. I'm robbing your corpse," growled a voice close to
my ear, and his hands were delving into my pockets, tearing at my
coat, dragging my shirt half over my bloodied facethe laundry
would certainly refuse my linen after today. Who the hell was he? I
wanted to shriek with pain and fear, but had just wit enough not to.
"Easy does it," muttered the voice. "Scalping ain't fatal; it's just a
nick. Have you any other wound? If you haven't, and understand
what I'm saying, move the little finger of your right hand the least bit
. . . good . . . and don't move another musclethere are six of 'em
within twenty yards, and I'm just muttering curses to myself, but if
you start thrashing about, they may be curious. Lie still ... lie
still..."
I lay still. By God, I lay still, with my head splitting, while he
emptied my pockets and suddenly shouted: .
"Get away, you Minneconju thief! This one's mine!" 
"That's not a pony-soldier!" snarled another voice. "What's that
shining thing you've got?"
"Something too good for you, scabby-head!" cries my boy. "This is
a white man's dicky-thing. Seeit has a little splinter that moves
round. Oh, you can have it if you likebut I'll keep his dollars!"
"It's alive, the dicky-thing!" cries the other. "See, it does move!
Hinteh1. Hiya, what do I want with it? Give me the dollars, eh, Brule
go on!" ;<t
I heard a jingle of coins, and someone shuffling away, and all
around me, through the waves of pain and fear, I could hear a
ceaseless chorus of groans and screams and exultant yells, and one
|1 awful bubbling high-pitched shriek of agonysome poor bastard
lijj hadn't been killed outright. Occasional shots, wailing voices raised io
]' chants, and all about my head flies buzzing, crawling on my head; *
^
was matted with blood and stifling with filth, and the sun's heat was unbearable--but I lay still.
"He's gone," growled my unseen preserver. "Didn't want your watch--lie still, you fool!"
For I had jerked automatically as it dawned on me--to the Minneconju
he'd spoken Siouxan, but all the words he'd addressed to me
had been in EnglishGood English, too, with a soft, husky American
accent. There it was again: "Keep lying still. I'm going to sit up on the
bank above you and sing a song of triumph. For the destruction of all
the pony-soldiers, d'you see? Right. . . there's no one here but us
chickens at present, but it won't get dark for another four hours, I
guess. Then we'll get you away. Can you play possum that long?
Move your pinky if you can . . . that's the ticket. Now, take it easy."
I was past wondering; I didn't care. I was alive, with a friend close
by, whoever he might be. For the rest, I still hadn't taken in the horror
of it. Half a regiment of U.S. cavalry had been massacred, wiped out,
in barely quarter of an hour.79 Custer was dead. They were all dead.
Except me.
"Don't go to sleep," said the voice. "And don't get delirious, or I'll
dot you a good one. Right, listen to this."
And he began to chant in Siouxan, about how he had slain six
pony-soldiers that day, including a Washechuska English soldier-chief
with a watch from Bond Street which was still going and the time was
ten past five. Which beggared imagination, if you like. Then he went
on about what a great warrior he was, and how many times he had
counted coup, and I lay there with the flies eating me alive. Ne'er
mind, worse things can happen.
I must have slept, in spite of his instruction, or more likely it was a
long faint, for suddenly I was cold, and an arm was round my
shoulders, easing me up, and water was being dashed in my face and
a cloth was sponging away the caked blood. A bowl was held to my
parched mouth, and the American voice was whispering:
Gently, now. . . a sip at a time. Good. Now lie still a while till I get
you smartened up."
I gulped it down, ice-cold, and managed to get my gummed eyelids
pened. It was was dusk, with stars beginning to show, and a chill ^d blowing; beside me knelt the fellow in the buffalo-helmet, a
fearsome sight and no prettier when he grinned, which he did when I soaked for information who he might be.
'Let's say a resurrectionist. Can you walk? All right, I'll carry you a Piece, but then you'll have to sit a pony. First of all, let's get you 'foking like one of the winning team."
He dragged off my clothes, and somehow got me into a buckskin
329
shirt and leggings. My head was aching fit to split, and wasn't
improved when he insisted on putting his buffalo-cap on it. In the din,
light I saw his long hair hung to his shoulders, and his face was bright
with paint; American or half-breed, he'd taken pains with his make.
up.
"Now, listen close," says he. "There are still braves and women
around, collecting the dead." Sure enough, the evening was being
broken b/the high-pitched keening of the death-songs; against the
night sky I could see figures moving to and fro, and there were pin.
points of torch-light all over the slope. "All right, we're going
downstream, to a ford farther along; that way we can skirt the village,
and I'll get you to a place where you can lie up a spell. Hoo'hay, let's
go."
I could just stumble, with him holding me. Then there was a pony,
and he was helping me up; I reeled in the seat, with his arm about me,
but although my head was bursting with pain I managed to balance,
just. Then we moved slowly forward through the gathering night,
down a slope and under cottonwoods; I could hear the river bubbling
near. But I was like a man in a dream; time meant nothing, and I was
only now and then aware that I was still astride a pony, that it was
splashing through water, that we were mounting a slope. Twice I was
falling from my seat when he caught me and held me upright. How
long we rode I can't tell. I remember a moon in the sky, and a hand
on my shoulder, and then I know I was lying down, and a deep voice
was speaking in Siouxan, from very far away.
"... put the grease on his head, and if it becomes angry send for
me. No one will come, but if they do, and they are of our people, tell
them he is to stay here. Tell them that this is my word. Tell them the
One-Who-Catches has spoken . . .">"'< *"
l"^ : i fw,
When you're past the fifty mark, you don't mend
as quickly as you used to. For one thing, you don't want to; where
once on a day you couldn't wait to be off your sick-bed and rampaging
about, you're now content to lie still and let any handy ministering
angels do their stuff. When I was a brat of a boy I went through hot
hell"1 Afghanistan, had a fort collapse on me, and broke my thigh--
nd a few weeks later I was fit enough to gallop an Afghan wench .vittfmy leg in a splint and old Avitabile egging me on, and get beastly
drunk afterwards. Not at fifty-three; if they'd paraded the Folies
Bergere past me a month after Little Bighorn I'd have asked for bread
and milk instead, and damned little of that in case it over-exdted me.
I was in a delirium for the best pan of a fortnight, they tell me, and
near carried off by what sounds to have been pneumonia. When I
came to, I was weak as a rat, and only able to move sufficiently to
gulp down small mouthfuls of blood soup, which is capital stuff for a
convalescent, but hard to come by unless you have a supply of fresh
buffalo meat to hand. Apparently my hosts did--or I should say host,
for there was only one of him, most of the time. ;.<
He was a 'breed called Joe Bright Deer, so he told me--and that
was about all I could get out of him, at least where my miraculous
rescue was concerned. Who the man was who'd pretended to kill me,
and had genuinely scalped me (although pretty superfidally, presumably
to add verisimilitude for the benefit of Sioux bystanders), and
had brought me here--wherever here was--he simply would not say,
except that it hadn't been him. I pestered him about the last thing I
remembered, asking who the One-Who-Catches might be, and he
said that the One-Who-Catches had seen me, and would come again,
possibly. In the meantime I could shut up, and have some more blood
soup.
This took place in a cave, which was a fairly comfortable spot as
caves go, with all the gear of a Mountain Man, buffalo robes,
rawhide-and-wood furniture, and a good fire going. As I mended, Joe
Bright Deer let me go as far as the cave-mouth for exercise, and I
could see we were in hill country, with a good deal of conifer forest;
somewhere in the Big Horn Mountains, I guessed. Outside the cave
he wouldn't let me go, and since I was still fairly weak I didn't argue.
Something told me I would find out all I wanted to know, if I sat tight
long enough; in the meantime Joe was ready to talk about one subject
in which I was tolerably interested, and that was the massacre I had
survived.
Yes, Custer was dead, and every man who'd been on that slope with him. It seemed that he had gone up the Rosebud, but instead of
skirting the Indian camp to the south, as Terry had instructed, had
decided to take a slap at it himself, and to blazes with waiting for
Gibbon. He'd split his force, sending Reno to charge into the camp With about 120 men from the south, while Custer himself took five ^oops round the flank to fall on the other end of the village. Well, I ^ew what had come of that, none better; in the meantime, Reno had
P- 331
By,!. J->i
managed to withdraw and hold out on a bluff until Terry and Gibbon
arrived a day later. The Sioux, meanwhile, had decamped.
Everyone has had their say on this famous fiasco, and if you wain
ti Ijgj i  mine, it's this. Custer was going to win an astonishing victory and
refurbish his famevery well. But having sent in Renoa piece of
arrant folly unless he was totally ignorant of the Indian strengthhe
then compounded his lunacy by launching his own attack even after
he knew full well what that strength was. I saw that village from the
bluffs, just as he did, and I'd not have attacked it with anything short
of two regiments. It was just too damned big, and patently contained
several thousand of the orneriest Indians in America. There are those
who say Reno should have pushed harder, and others who say Custer
could have charged through and met up with Renoall my eye. He
had one chance, and that was to hightail it the minute he got a good
look at the village. But by then he'd put Reno in the stew, and hadto
go ahead. Mind you, George was such a fool of an optimist, and so
obsessed with victory, that I daresay even at the ford he was still
believing he had a chance. But the moment he was out on the slope
he was done for, and he must have known it.
I'll say two other things. If the 7th had had decent carbines, they
might have sickened the Sioux and been able to hole up on the hill, as
Reno did. And that was Custer's fault, too. He should have tested
those pieces before he went near the Powder countrytested 'em
until they were red-hot, and he'd have seen them jam. T'other thing
Reno deserved the clean bill he got from the court-martial. I didn't
know him, much, but Napoleon himself couldn't have done any
I BBIII better. If Custer had done half as well, there'd be a few old troopers
still telling stretchers about how they survived the struggle up Greasy
Grass hill. ;: ^
Well, I've told you what I know about Custer, and you may judge
for yourselves. He wasn't a bad soldier, though. Most commanders
make a few mistakes, and no one hears about them. He made three in
turnsending in Reno, going in himself, and coming out the wrong
way too late. As a result, he lost a pretty bloody skirmishit wasn't a
battle, reallybut it shocked America, and he'll never live it down.
For his trooperswell, if any of 'em ran, they didn't catch up with
me. For the Siouxit was their great day, for all it took thousands of
them to knock over a few score. Gall gave them a victory, and Crazy
Horse made siccar, as my wife would say. *
But that's by the way. A historic catastrophe it may have been, but
to me it was the penultimate link in my American story, which was
*See Appendix B: The Battle of the Little Bighorn. 1
,ow drawing to a close twenty-six years after John Charity Spring had
brought me over the Middle Passage. You may think it was the
strangest of all my storiesbut, d'you know, as I come to its final
,,ages it seems perfectly logical; inevitable, almost. I might have
laiown how it would be.
I'd enjoyed Joe's hospitality for the best part of a month, and was
nearly whole again and feeling restless, and one evening as we were
having a pipe at the fire, suddenly there was an Indian in the caveinouth;
I hadn't heard him come, but there he was, a splendid figure
in black fringed leggings, with paint on his chest but none on his face,
eagle feathers in his braids, and a pistol on his hip. He watched us in
i silence for a minute, and nodded to Joe. I'd seen him before, I knew,
but it took me a moment to place him.
"One-Who-Catches," says Joe.
"No, he isn't, either!" I exclaimed. "I know youyou're Young'
Frank Standing Bear! I met you in Chicago with Spotted Tailand
then you and Young-Man-Afraid rode herd on us at Camp Robinson!"
I regarded him in amazement. "Is Spotted Tail here?"
He shook his head. "The chief sits with his people at White River."
"But... he sent you? To me?"
He said nothing, and I stared from him to Joe in bewilderment.
"But. . . what's all this nonsense about One-Who-Catches? If you're
I him, then I've been hearing about you ever since I was kidnapped by
Jacket and taken to the lodges of the Sioux! What d'you want with
a me?" Another thought struck me. "And where's the man who
1 brought me away from the Custer fight?" ,
| He still said nothing, and then with one of those slow, graceful
j hand-motions he signalled Joe to leave the cave. He gestured me to
I sit, and sank down cross-legged opposite me, his hands on his knees.
(There wasn't a nicker of expression on the hawk face as the dark eyes.
studied me carefully; he seemed to be absorbing every hair of me,
very thoughtful, and I didn't care for it a bit. Finally he says:
| "I am Standing Bear, the grown-man name given me by the
a Hunkpapa Sioux. But as a child among the Brules I was called the
? One-Who-Catches, the Clutcher, the Grabber, because I was greedy,
Bud took what I wished." He said it without amusement. "The name
Frank was given me by my parents, Broken-Moon-Goes-Alone and
^wife the black white woman. Walking Willow."
The sonorous drone of the Siouxan words, the liquid movements of
hi8 hands as he followed the names in sign-language, lulled the
"caning away from me for a moment. Then it struck home, and my
hand began to tremble on my knee, even before he said the next
^rds, his dark eyes intent on me.
333
"You knew my mother many years ago as day-o-nee, a slave-ari |
You know her now as Mees-ez Can-dee." ' I
"I don't believe you!" It was wrenched out of me. "Your tongue is
forked! You're a Brule--a full-blood Sioux if ever I saw one! You
can't tell me you're her child! I don't believe it!"
"You sold her among the Navajo. How should I know that, if no;
from her? And why should she tell it to anyone but her own son, so
that he might one day avenge her on the man who traded her for two
thousand dollars?" It was as flat and emotionless as Mrs Candy
herself; his fingers flicked like pistons as he spelled out the sum,
"When I was a child, she told me how in the year of the great
Cheyenne sickness, she had been in a wagon-train of black slavewomen
commanded by a man Comba, who betrayed and sold her to
the Navajo at Santa Fe. Last year in Chicago, when Sintay Galeska
Spotted Tail took us to the house-of-makes-plays-and-songs, he spoke
to you of the days when you were young men, and how you had led a
caravan of black slave-girls--also in the year of the great Cheyenne
sickness. Then I knew that you, the Washechuska soldier-chief, were
also Comba."
"Those black girls we watched tonight! Ees, they were as pretty as
the black ones in your wagons. Wind. Breaker! You remember them--
the year the Cut-Arms were sick! Hunhe, what little beauties those
were!"
I could see Spotted Tail's grinning face in the cab as we came back
from the theatre--and all I'd been thankful for was that Elspeth
didn't understand a word of it! This one had understood, though, and
had kept the same stone face he was keeping now. But he'd passed
the word to his mother in her Denver whorehouse that "Comba" was
back. And she'd done the rest...
My mind whirled as I took it in. A chance in a million, that Standing
Bear had been present at Chicago to hear Spotted Tail's randy
recollections of twenty-five years before--but the rest of it fitted like
an old shoe. I found myself staring at him--could he be the child of a
Sioux and an octoroon? Yes; Cleonie herself had hardly been black
to speak of--dammit, in her Mrs Candy guise I'd thought she was
Italian. And she'd married this Broken-Bollocks fellow around '53,
by her own account--well, Standing Bear was certainly somewhere in
his early to middle twenties... oh, Christ, and he'd been treasuring
up vengeance against me all these years. And now he had me.
"Now, look here, Standing Bear," says I. "I believe you. Your
tongue is straight. But your mother is quite mistaken, you know--as
I could have explained to her if she'd only let me. Good God above,
/ didn't sell her--I loved her truly and dearly, and was all set to take her to Mexico, but this wicked old woman who owned her, she sold
your mother behind my back!" I shook my fist and went red in the
face. "That spiteful old buffalo cow! I could have murdered her! To sell that dear, lovely girl whom I worshipped and hoped to marry--"
"Did the priest of Santa Fe speak with a forked tongue?" asks he
qirietly. "Why should he?"
"All priests speak with forked tongues," says I earnestly. "Every
damned one of 'em. The snake-that-rattles speaks straighter--"
>*And the wicked old woman?" The dark eyes were cold as ice.
"When I was a little boy, my mother left the lodges of the Sioux--and
went back to Santa Fe, and saw the wicked old woman. Meesez
Soo-zee. The wicked old woman was kind to her, and helped
her ..." He leaned forward a little, and the words dropped like
tombstones. "The wicked old woman told my mother how you had
betrayed many women, and had stolen money, and done murder, and
had a bad heart." His head shook, slowly. "Your tongue is forked.
You know it. I know it. You sold my mother to the Navajo."
Oh, well, that disposed of that--worth a try, though. In the same
steady voice he went on:
"When my mother learned from me last year that you had returned
again from the Land of the Grandmother, she sought you out and
trapped you, as one does the coyote, and had you taken on the
Yellowstone by Jacket, brother of Broken-Moon-Goes-Alone, and
he brought you prisoner to the Sioux lodges for delivery to me, so
that you might die by kakeshya as my mother willed. I was away on
the Rosebud, having fought the Grey Fox Crook, and I came back to
Little Bighorn even as Yellow Hair's soldiers attacked. How you
came to be in that battle I do not know, but I saw you there, and I
saved you. I threw dust in the eyes of my brothers." He reached
forward to point at my head. "I even took your scalp--a little--to
deceive them. So that in their fighting-madness they should not kill
you quickly. So that I should have you."
In the face of that awful implacable regard, the voice without
emotion, I could say nothing--I could think plenty, though, and it ^s all dreadful. I'd been preserved from that carnage, so that I
should suffer the unspeakable worse fate designed by that malignant
slut Cleonie-Candy, a fate that this remorseless savage would take delight in inflicting. Better if I'd died with Custer, or blown my brains "ut. . . but wait, there was something here that made no sense--
"But . . . but he--you--the man who rescued me! He--he spoke English! Like an American!"
. 335
"And how the devil else should I speak it? I didn't lhave the
advantage of a Rugby education, you know. Harvard had to be good
enough for me."
I can't begin to describe the effect of hearing that pleasant, half.
amused, half-impatient American voice issuing from the copper-red
hawk face with its feathered braids; it was like having a Chinese
mandarin suddenly bursting into "Boiled Beef and Carrots". B literally
couldn't believe my ears; from the sonorous rolling tones oftlhe Sioux
he had slipped straight into the clipped voice of a well-educated
civilised man, without a muscle altering in his face. It was stilll a Brule
Sioux who sat regarding me stonily--until suddenly he blurst out
laughing, with his head thrown back, and then came abruptlly to his
feet, like a great cat uncoiling itself, and stood grinning fierceily down
at me, his hands on his hips. No Indian in creation ever stood like
MB I ^lat--^ut ^e ^^"'tan Indian any longer. Oh, it was still an Bndian's
face and body--but the voice, the expression, the gestures, the whole
style of him. . . was of a white man.
"That's right--stare all you want to!" cries he. "Have a good look!
By God, it would serve you right if I went through with it! If I carried
out her wishes to the last burning inch! It would have served you right
if I'd let them cut you up with Custer! I nearly did." He stood niodding
grimly down at me; the grin had narrowed to a tight-lipped simile. "I
nearly did. But it wouldn't have done. Would it?"
I'm not often at a loss for words, but now I sat dumb, understtanding
nothing, while my heart began to thump like a trip-hammerr. I felt
weak, and though I opened my mouth once or twice, no wordis came
out. I could only stare at the tall painted savage with his braiids and
bucksins, the Burned Thigh brave with his hawk face and red skin.
fi Illlll Then I managed to ask:
"Why didn't you?" ; k
He moved slowly to stand in front of me. "You know why,," says
he. "You must know why." Suddenly he sank down swiftlly in a
crouch before me so that his face was on a level with mine, no more
than a foot away. He was grinning again, but there was an odd )<ook in
the dark eyes--mockery, and wariness, and something I couldn't
read. "You didn't know my mother when ;>he went to you as Mrs
Candy. Why should you, after twenty-five years? But this is different.
Look at my face--as I've looked at yours. As I looked at it in Chicago
and at Camp Robinson, and here tonight. Even if I hadni't my
mother's word for it, just looking would be enough for me. But D have
her word, too--that I was born in a Navajo village of New Mexdco in
spring of the year 1850." ||
It was as though I was hypnotised. It was nonsense, of courses, but
I looked anyway, and began to tremble again. ^ I did know the
face. I understood why he had drawn my ey^ ^om the first, in
Chicago, and again at Camp Robinson, and why K felt that strange
comfort when he'd ranged up beside me on that rir-trigger day of
the council with the agency Sioux. Oh, yes, I kn^the face; I'd seen
it most days of my life. The bold dark eyes with ^ slightly hooded
lids, the aquiline nose when he turned in profile! know my own
side-view better than most, you see, because of'^e weeks I spent
comparing it with Carl Gustafs picture in the trip^ mirror at Schonhausen).
Even the full mouth and the heavy jaw., he was a damned
good-looking young devil, though, wasn't he, this landing Bear? But
I couldn't take it in--I'd been too numbed by this ;?rt of shock, lately
. . . Mrs Candy was Cleonie . . . this was her son . and now I was. being expected to believe. . .
"Oh, come along, you silly old bastard!" cries ^impatiently--an<^ I knew it was true beyond a doubt. It would have c^en a son of mine ^ at a moment like this, to talk to his father that^iy. But ... no, n;
couldn't be true, although I knew it was. I searche/'for contradiction^
"You said ... you said this Sioux fellow. . . n^t's his name? Yoi^ said he was your father."
"That was Standing Bear who said that," sg^ he in Siouxan, "Standing Bear the Brule, the One-Who-Catchey to whom Broken^ Moon-Goes-Alone was as a father." He broke ;ito English again, "But I'm also Frank Grouard--or, properly sprung, Frank Flashy man, son of Cleonie the slave-girl and the Englistin ^a" whc) w[d her a^ Santa Fe."
"Grue-what?" says I, for no particular reason,
"Grouard. French--it was her father's name^he gave it to me.' He was watching me intently, with amusement ^'nd that other glin^ that I couldn't pin down. "Comes as a surprise, do^5 it? From a11 rv^ heard about you--from Susie Willinck, too-Q'' don't see why ^^;
should. You must have more bastards than Solomon." I don't shoc^ easy, but that was like a blow in the face, coniiKi'g rrom him. "Anq
there's no miracle about it, you know. You anditiyC'ther--" It shockeq me, too, to hear him call her that, in that fashion^ like a civilised so^ "--you were lovers in the summer and autumi ;of '49, and while ^ can't prove my birthday, she's sure of it. Thtj Navajo don't kee^y
parish records, either, but there are respectable citizens of Santa F^ including one notary public, who'll testify that wliy^n she arrived ther^ in '55,1 had the appearance of a well-grown five-tg/sar-old. Well," say^ he, and grinned triumphantly. "How d'ye do . Papa?"
It's not easy, you know. He was right enoi^o--I daresay I hav^ by-blows all over the shop (India, mostly, ^d there's a Coui^
I 33^
Pencherjevsky in Russia whose paternity don't bear close scrutiny)
and one of 'em was sure to come home to roost in the end. It takes the
wind out of your sails, though, when he turns up as a Sioux brave with
a Boston accent. For I was in no doubt now, you see--somehow it
was less of a shock than "Mrs Candy" had given me, or the news that
he was her son; it was almost as though I'd been expecting it. You
may say he could have been the child of one of Susie's customers at
Santa Fe, but I knew he wasn't. It was not a question of Cleonie's
word, or his, or even the physical resemblance--which, in an instant,
I'd recognised far more easily than Mrs Candy's to Cleonie. I simply knew; it was there, in him, his being and bearing and manner and
. . . style. When he was being white, that is.
He was still squatting on his heels before me, watching me with
that odd calculating grin, waiting. I don't know what I felt at all, but I
know what I did.
"Well," says I, and put out my right hand warily. "How d'ye do
. . . son?" ,|
I don't know what he made of it, either. He took my hand, firm
enough for a moment, but the shine in his eyes could have been
anything--surprise, pleasure, emotion, amusement, anger, hatred
even, but my guess is it was pure devilment. The young bastard (and
I use the term with feeling) had had me on toast, sitting there solemnly
playing his noble savage, keeping the old man agog, enjoying watching
me squirm while he scared the hell out of me, turning the knife of
fear and bewilderment in my innards, and keeping the really juicy
surprise to the end. Oh, he'd had the time of his life. Good actor,
too--aye, it all fitted, the skill in histrionics and dissimulation, the
delight in twisting the victim's tail, the mockery, the cool damn-you
cut of his jib, the callous way he talked of things other youngsters
would have been ashamed of. Oh, he was Flashy's boy, no error--
even if I hadn't sold his mama down the river, there'd have been no
touching reunion between father and son. We ain't cut out for
affection, much, our lot.
But that's not to say we aren't curious, and now that our formal
introduction had taken place, so to speak, we compared notes, mostly
his. He was itching to tell it, of course, knowing it must make my flesh
creep, which was just nuts to him, being a Flashman--and the shock
of that realisation .still sinking in, was enough to render me silent and
attentive; if the 7th Cavalry had attacked our cave I doubt if I'd have
noticed.
It was a remarkable tale, although not unique: scores of folk in the
old West grew up half-civilised, half-Indian, as he had done. So far
back as he could remember, he'd been Sioux of the Sioux till he was
five, and when Cleonie had gone back to whoring ii -nta Fe and
Albuquerque, Susie Willinck had looked after hiri) ^hich was a
queer stan, if you like), but he'd pined for the old li&^ ?d had been ^such a handful that they'd let him go back to Brok^toon-GoesBAlone,
who had died when Frank was about ten. The^leonie had
put him to school, properly, at El Paso, and sent hi.^ Ast when he
was thirteen, for by then she was well in the chips ^enver, and
could afford'him the best education going. He'd d(^uncommon
well, and had gone on to Harvard, where he'd im^ed a talent
for languages--which didn't surprise me--and thei^o Cleome's
fury, had simply upped and gone back to the tribe, ^f three solid
years.
All this, in the most matter-of-fact, offhand style', inning against
the table, arms folded on his painted chest, one foo( ^-egantly over
the other---a stance I recognised only too well. He'd nown whose
son he was, from infancy, and how his mother earner (ir keep, too.
It was plainly all one to him; he seemed to have strara^f little feeling
for her, although he had gathered that it was only by miracle that
she'd kept him alive when he was born among the N^ijo. And had
done damned well by him since, it struck me.
"And you've been with the Sioux--you, an educai^nan--for the
past three years?" I asked incredulously. I was stil; rying to hold
them together in my mind--the Lacotah warrior ^'d ridden to
Little Bighorn and the young student who must ha^/ dined at the
Oyster House and probably taken tea at Louisburg Sni'are.
"Not altogether," says he carelessly. "I tired of it^l think. It was
more home than anywhere, but ... I'm two peopjjh you see"--
echoing the thought in my own mind. "Anyway, I '^ime in' to the
agency early last year--it was curiosity, mostly, I guess; That was only
a few months before we met in Chicago. Being a B^6,1 drifted to
Spotted Tail--I'm a full-blood Sioux to him, by the^ay; he doesn't
even know I speak English. I've found it best to kee^my two selves
separate--mother and you are the only ones who've iver seen both
of me. But Spotted Tail found me useful, and it was a ark going with
him to Washington." He grinned at me. "Wasn't; t, just? Here,
though--my stepmother's a beauty, ain't she? Well (:', not my stepmother,
I suppose--but whatever she is. She and Spotted Tail got on
pretty well, I thought."
I didn't ponder on that, but asked why, if he'd con-it jj n to an agency,
he now appeared to be living among the hostiles.
He smiled like a cat that's been in the birdcage, "y^h, that! Being
on the agency was a bore, so after your commission i^ide such a hash
of the Camp Robinson treaty, I slipped across to Fo^-t Fetterman as
339
Frank Grouard and hired myself to Crook as a scout. * Been with him on and off ever since--I scouted for him on the Rosebud last month,
you know; damnedest mess you ever saw." He laughed, and it was
positively eerie to see that cruel, handsome face between the Indian
braids crease into the knowing chuckle of a white man. "But the
advantage is, I can slide out to the other side whenever I choose. It
was because I was with Crook that I wasn't at Little Bighorn to receive
you with due ceremony. As soon as I could get away from him, on
the pretext of a long scout, I changed into Standing Bear again,
and arrived in time for the fun of Greasy Grass. Lucky for you,
wasn't it?"
Now, no one in his right mind would have believed this fantastic
history--unless, of course, he had himself been a German prince and
a Pathan badmash and a Dahomey slaver and an Apache brave and a
Madagascar Sergeant-General, among other things, during his checkered
career. So I believed him, and so can you, and for once you
don't have to take my word for it, since much of what I've told you
here about Frank Flashman, alias Grouard, alias Standing Bear, alias
One-Who-Catches, alias the Grabber, is already public knowledge.
"I've a notion that Crook's people are getting wary of me, though,"
he went on coolly. "Not the Sioux--they know I scout for the Army,
and think it a great jest. I suppose that shows which side I'm on,
doesn't it?"
That was the question which brought us back to the vital matter
which had been uppermost in my mind while I listened to his
remarkable recital. As he lounged forward and tossed some chips on
the fire I asked:
"If that's the case--then, what now?"
He squatted easily, blowing on the embers, and glanced up at me
with his insolent smile.
"I'm not going to do you in. Papa, if that's what you mean."
"Ah. Well, I'm pleased to hear it. But I thought that was ... the
object of all this."
"Mother's notion, not mine," says he. "When I told her in Denver
last year that I'd seen you in Chicago, she . . ." He paused. "I
wondered if she'd gone a little mad. I'd always known that it was one
of her fondest dreams that some day I'd be the one to pay you out for
what you had done to her--sometimes I used to think it was the only
use she had for me. Anyway, when I went to see her, she was like a
crazy woman. She was always hard--cruel, even, but I'd never seen
*See Appendix A: The Mysterious Lives of Frank Grouard (185&1905).^
340 ' . i;- .
So much hate and spite in anyone--and I've lived half my life among
the Sioux." He looked up at me curiously. "What was she like . . .
when you first knew her?"
"Beautiful. Angelic, almost--to look at. Oh, but charming, bewitching,
clever--quite calculating. Immensely vain."
He nodded cheerfully. "You're a yard-wide son-of-a-bitch, aren't' you. Papa? Did you love her--at all?"
"No. I liked her, though." ..:- "But
you liked two thousand dollars better. Well," says this dutiful
child, "I don't know that I liked her even that much. Certainly not
enough, when I was little, to hate you the way she wanted me to. Why
should I? You'd done nothing to me--hell, I didn't even know you!
And Susie Willinck liked you."
"Good God!"
"Oh, sure. Susie used to laugh about you, and make you sound a
jolly person. 'Proper young scamp, your old man was,' she used to
say, and tell me I was another, a chip off the old block." He laughed,
shaking his head. "I really liked Susie." -,-w
"So did I. Ah ... how is she, d'you know?" 'i "a
"She died four years back. She'd gotten married--" He stood up
from the fire with his tongue in his cheek,"--again."
"I'm sorry--that she's dead, I mean." I was, too. I thought of that
handsome happy face, the wanton lip and gaudy dresses, and . . .
aye, well. Dear old Susie.
"Anyway, when I saw mother in Denver, it never even crossed her
mind that I might not share her feelings about you. Later, when she'd laid her plans, and sent word--and two thousand dollars, you'll be
interested to know--to Jacket and his people, she also sent word to
me. I was to be the instrument of vengeance, if you please, and reveal
my identity in your last painful moments." He shook his head in
cynical wonder. "Honour bright, that's what she wanted. She's a
Creole, all right--very passionate and dramatic, and a shade meaner
than a sick grizzly." He shrugged. "Well, then I knew she was crazy,
and I wanted none of it. One reason I joined up with Crook was to be
out of the way. Not that I bore you any good will," he added
pleasantly, "and I won't say I'd have shed many tears if I'd arrived on
Greasy Grass an hour later--but as it is. . ."
I was beginning to like this lad. "What'U your mother say?" I
wondered.
"She won't know. She'll think you died in the fight. Not quite as
fancy as she'd have liked, but I guess she'll be satisfied. How come
you got into the battle, anyway--didn't Jacket have you hogtied?"
" '' 341
I told him about Walking Blanket Woman, and he raised an
eyebrow and looked at me for the first time with what might have
been some respect, but probably wasn't. Yes, decidedly he had style,
and watching him in the firelight it sent a tremor through me yet
again to think that this splendid brave, with his paint and feathers so
at odds with his nil admirari airs and crooked smile, was . . . who he
was.
"You got me out, though," says I. "Why. . . Frank?"
He considered me with what I can describe only as impudent
gravity. "Well, it seemed a sensible thing to do, on the spur of the
moment. I had joined in, like a good little Sioux, hunting Long
Knives--and suddenly there you were. Now that was a miracle, if you
like, spotting you in all that--it was when we closed on the ridge, and
that sergeant broke out, and you rode down the hill, so I followed
on--you can ride some, though, can't you? I thought you were going
to win clear, but I kept up, and when you went down ..." He
shrugged, and seeing me intent on him, grinned in pure mockery.
"Well, now--what would you have done. . . if it had been your own
dear Papa?"
I would get no change out of this one. So I must just play him at his
own game--my own game. It took me a moment, so as not to choke
or waver, but I managed it.
"Ah, well, now," says I, looking doubtful. "That's another matter,
you see. You didn't know my guv'nor--your grandfather. You might
have thought twice about him, you know." I nodded amiably, like the
proud father I was. "Anyway. . . thank'ee, my boy."
"Filial duty, Papa," says he. "I wonder if Joe Bright Deer has
anything for supper?" - . %a
^s '*
*  . i
,t:, 'w - ; :n '.. : ' J
It isn't every day you find a son, and if you ask me what I thought
about it, I can't rightly tell you. It was just damned odd, that's all. I'd
found myself stunned and disbelieving and convinced beyond doubt,
all in a few moments, and after that, well, there he was--a walking
contradiction, to be sure, but real for all that. I'd been shocked,
almost repelled, by him, once or twice; I'd liked him, once or twice,
and admired him, but mostly I'd just wondered at him. It was so
strange to meet and talk to ... me, if you follow. He acted like me,
he thought like me, and take the paint and braids off him, and by God
he looked like me: even the red skin was just weather, and I've been
darker myself out east. If there was a difference, it was that I
suspected (after Greasy Grass) he was brave, poor lad. I think he
probably was; got that from Cleonie's side, no doubt. As to his deep
nature, though, I can't tell; I doubt if he was as big a blackguard as I
am, but then he was only half my age. And being so like me, he
undoubtedly had the gift of concealing his character.
We set out from the cave two days later, the two of us. As Frank
put it, having come this far he might as well see me to one of the
Black Hills settlements, whence I could travel east; from the cave in
the Big Horn foothills it was close on a week's ride. Crook was chasing
hostiles somewhere, and Frank figured they'd be rounded up before
winter, unless they made for the British border, which seemed likely.
The Custer fiasco had evidently scared the Indians more than the
Army, for they knew what the harvest would be, and the whisper was
that only Crazy Horse was likely to fight it out. In the meantime, we
went warily, Frank in his paint and me in buckskin, so that we'd be
ready for either side.
It was a strange trip, that, across the High Plains; it has a sense of
dreaming, as I look back on it. Considering our histories, our somewhat
irregular kinship, how we'd met, and the initial difficulties of
getting acquainted--which we'd managed pretty well, I thought, in
our fashion--it was astonishing how easy we dealt. We were still
taking stock, the first day or so at the cave--I'd catch him glancing
sidelong as though to say, this big file with the whiskers, that's the
guv'nor. God help us, and I'd think, well, I'll be damned, that's young
Flashy. I probably found it odder than he did, since he'd known about
my existence, at least, for more than twenty years. Yet sometimes it
seemed as though we'd known each other all that time--and when we
rode out it was a growing wonder and delight to see him, such a tall
brave, so sure and easy, straight as a lance, and rode like a Cossack. I
didn't look better myself at his age, by George I didn't.
We talked all the time, from sun-up till the fire burned low and the
white wolves howled, and the days flew past. I can't think of all we
said, but I know one of his first questions was whether he had any
step-brothers or sisters, and I told him about my son Harry, the curate
(now a bishop, and a praying one at that, heaven help the Church),
and my daughter Jo, who was then eighteen and my alternate joy and
despair--joy because she was as beautiful as a Flashy-Elspeth child
could be, and despair for the same reason, young men being what
they are. And one of my first questions was about his alter ego, Frank
Grouard, and what did he purport to be, to Crook and other white
folk.
"Back east I was French-American," says he, "but there were
some Boston mamas who didn't care for that. So nowadays, when I ^t my hair and put on a coat, I'm a Kanaka, son of a white father and
Polynesian mother, born in the South Seas and brought to the States
343
by Mormons, which is very respectable, and no one knows what a
Kanaka is, anyway."
"They'll never swallow that," says I, "and the Boston mamas won't
fancy Polynesian a bit, you know."
"They'll swallow it easier than if I tell 'em I'm half English soldier
half Haitian-French freed slave," says he smartly. "As to Boston, it's
what the daughters fancy that matters, not the mamas." I warmed to
the lad more and more.
He, in turn, betrayed a flattering interest in me. Once he'd discovered
that Flashy was the Saxon in the woodpile, he'd read up about
me what little he could, and now asked many questions; I dare say he
learned more about me in a week than anyone else has in a lifetime; I
recall he was curious to know how I'd come by the nom de guerre of
Beauchamp Millward Comber, so I told him--most of it. But I
remember far better what he told me: about his childhood among the
Sioux, about Broken-Moon-Goes-Alone, who seemed a decent, dull
sort; about his days at Harvard; about what it had been like to be an
Indian among white boys and men, and a white man among Indians
(of which I knew something myself); about books he'd read, and
music he liked, and plays he'd seen, all that kind of thing. But always
he returned to the West, and talk of the tribes and hunters and the
hills and the great plains, and I noted a strange thing. We spoke
English all the time, in the same bantering, half-serious way that
comes natural to me, and obviously came as easily to him, with wry
comments and understatements--but when he talked about the West,
it was in pretty plain English, with a phrase of Sioux here and there,
and sometimes lapsing into the language altogether. I knew there was
something there I couldn't touch, for it goes beyond blood, to country
and the place where you were little. And when he talked of them
there was something growing in my mind, but I didn't like to speak of
it, for fear.
Until the last evening, when we'd ridden south and east all day
towards the dark outline which is the Black Hills of Dacotah, the
slopes of dark conifer which were so still and mysterious in those days.
We rode into a long reach of prairie with tongues of woodland on
either hand, in the summer gloaming, and Frank was whistling Garryowen, which might be odd in a Brule warrior, but not in the
American son of an English soldier. I was just casting about for a
snug corner to camp when he reins up, and says:
"Well, d'you know, I think I should turn around here."
"What's that? Why, we're just going to camp! And what about
Deadwood tomorrow? Good Lord, you can't just pop off now--it's
far too late, for one thing, and we've had no supper."
344 -- ;
'' t *
"Well, I shan't be coming into Deadwood, anyway," says he. "I
doubt if they're welcoming Sioux just now."
, "Nonsense! Put your braids under your hat, if you like--or better still, cut 'em off--and who'll know the difference? A suit of buckskins--"

"No, I'd best be going now." ^
"But, dammit all, we haven't had any time to ... well, to say
goodbye, and so forth. And there are things I want to ask you, Frank,
you know. Rather important things--"
"I know," says he. "Better not, really."
"You don't know what they are, yet! Now, see here, let's light a
fire, and have some grub, and a smoke, and talk things over . . ."
And I stopped, because in the dusk I could see he was shaking his
head with the two eagle feathers, and when I reined closer I saw that
half-smile with the look that I hadn't been able to fathom that first
night in the cave.
"We'd better say goodbye now. Papa," says he.
I took hold of his rein, "Now, hold on, Frank," says I, and ordered
my thoughts. "It's like this. I don't think we should say goodbye at
all, d'you know what I mean? I think . . . look, I want you to come
back with me." There, it was out now. "Back east, and then perhaps
back to England. I... well, here's the way of it--there are things I
can do for you, Frank; things that no one out here can do, if you
understand me. Now, for example, if you wanted, I could get you
into the Army. The British Army--or the American, if you'd rather.
I know people, you see--like the President, and the Queen, you
know. Well, you could make a simply splendid career as a soldier---"
"Fighting the Sioux for Uncle Sam?" says he lightly. "Or a halfcaste
officer in one of your exclusive cavalry regiments?"
"Half-caste be damned! You look no more like a half-caste than I
do--and even if you did, it makes no odds. But it wouldn't have to be
the Army, if you didn't care for it. Why, you could go to Oxford--or
back to Harvard, perhaps--work at the languages, go into the
diplomatic! Or anything you fancy--it would be nuts to a chap like
you! I've got some standing, you see--and money." Elspeth's, but
what the devil. "I want to help you... to get on, you know."
He touched his pony's mane. "Why? D'you think you owe it to
me?"
"Yes, but that's not why} You saved my life, and I can't pay that
back, but it ain't for that--"
"Is it because of what you did to my mother?"
"Good God, no! Look, my lad, I'll tell you something about me,
which you may well have gathered already. I don't know what
. . ' 345
conscience means--or rather, I do, but I haven't got one, and I don't
give a damn! Your mother--I played her a damned shabby trick, and
we both know it. She tried to play me an even shabbier one in
return--and it's only the grace of God and you that she didn't
succeed. But it's nothing to do with any of that. You're my son." I
found I was grinning hugely, with a great lump in my throat. "Such a
son. And--there you are."
The light was fading fast, but I heard him chuckle. "Serve you right
if I took you up on it. But it wouldn't do."
"In God's name, why not? If you didn't like it, you could chuck it,
couldn't you? Look, my boy, you simply have to say what you'd like
to do best--and we'll do it. Or rather, you will, and I'll help any way
a father can--I mean, I know what strings to pull, and corners to cut,
and palms to grease--and backs to stab--"
"D'you mean it? What I'd like to do best?" s.
"Absolutely! Anything at all."
"Well, Papa," says he, "the thing I'd like best is to ride back over
the ridge there."
I sat for quite a little while after he'd said that, and then I said: "I
see."
"No, you don't, either," says he dryly. "It's nothing to do with my
mother--or with you. I said I didn't care for her much--don't care for
anyone, specially. Except old Susie, bless her black heart. She was
the nearest thing to a mother I've had. And God knows why, but I've
no remarkable objection to my father." He laughed at me. "D'you
know, after Greasy Grass, when I went down and the Sioux were
breaking camp, I was wishing I could lay claim to you publicly.
There were only two warriors they were talking about--apart from
themselves, naturally: the soldier with the three stripes, and the
rider with the long knife on the sorrel horse. What d'you think of
that, now?"
God, the irony of it. And if I'd said I was screaming scared, neither
he nor the Sioux would have listened for a second. The same old deception, the same old false appearance--but I was glad he believed
it.
"So it's nothing personal, you see," says he, and turned his face to
the Western sky, where the flame and gold and pale blue were fading
as the day died. "It's just that over there is where I live."
"But Frank," says I, earnest and a shade hoarse. "Frank, boy,
what's over there? Crook won't need scouts much longer, and you
ain't going to rot on an agency, and there's nothing yonder you can do
as Frank Grouard that you can't do far better and bigger--and
richer--out in the wide world! Truly, you don't belong here, even if
you think you do. You're half me and half your mother, and we ain't
Westerners"
"But I am," says he. "I'm not English or French or black. Or
American. I'm Sioux."
I can see that stark profile now, the raised head with the feathers
behind it, outlined dark against the evening light, and remember how
my heart sank, and the emptiness within me as I made my last throw.
"You're nothing of the damned sort! There ain't a drop of Indian
in you, whatever you feel . . . because of how you grew up. That's
naturalbut it'll pass, you know. And if you was Sioux to the
backbone, don't you see?the life you've talked about so much, this
past week . . . well, in a few years it will have gone." I was leaning
forward in my saddle, positively pleading at the dark figure. "Believe
me, boy, I saw this country when hardly an axe or a wheel had been
laid on it. I rode with Carson from Taos to Laramie, and we never
saw a house or a wagon or crossed a road or a rail the whole damned
way! That was the year you were bornjust yesterday! How long
d'you think it'll take before it's all gonevanished? Greasy Grass was
the last kick of a dying buffalothe Black Hills have gone, the
Powder will follow, there'll be no more free plains any more, no
game, no spring hunt, no . . ."
My voice trailed away, and I shivered in the cool night wind. He
took up his reins.
"I know." His head was turned towards me, and I saw the crooked
grin in the shadow. "I was at Greasy Grass, too, you know. And I'm
gladfor your sake. But not just for your sake. Not by a damned
sight."
Before I knew it he'd wheeled his pony and was off up the
darkening slope, the hooves hollow on the turf.
"Frank!" I roared.
He checked at the crest and looked back. I felt such a desolation,
then, but I couldn't move after him, or say what I wanted to say, with
all the sudden pain and regret for lost years, and what had come of
them. I called up to him. -0: ;;.
"I'm sorry, son, about it all." ;;?;; '^
"Well, I'm not!" he called back, and laughed, and suddenly lifted
his arms wide, either side. "Look, Papa!" He laughed again, and then
he had ridden over the skyline and was gone.
I sat and looked at the empty ridge for a while, and then rode on,
feeling pretty blue. I'd only known him a week, and he was a Sioux
Indian to all intents, and when you thought of all the bother there had
been about him, with every Deadly Sin, I suppose, for his godparents
  . but if you could have seen him! By jove, he looked well.
a 347
Still, it was quite a relief. Paternal piety's all very well, but it would
have been a damned nuisance if he'd taken me up. I'd meant what I'd
said, mind you, about starting him right and seeing him get on, but
now he was gone and I could look at the thing cold, it was just as well.
He'd probably have been a tricky, troublesome beggar, and Elspeth
would have asked the most awkward questions, and once he'd cut his
braids and put on a decent suit, the likeness would have been there
for all the world . . . quite. I came all over of a sweat at the thought.
Yes, undoubtedly it was just as well. Yet sometimes I hear that laugh
still, and see that splendid figure on the ridge, arms raised, and I can
feel such a pang for that son.
But life ain't a bed of roses, and you must just pluck the thorns out
of your rump and get on. :;,!,;
I was in cheery fettle next day as I rode over the last winding miles of
hill trail into Deadwood town. It was a regular antheap all the way in,
with the miners crawling over the tree-clad slopes, and the ceaseless
thump of picks and scrape of shovels and ring of axes, and ramshackle
huts and shanties and sluice-boxes everywhere, with dirty bearded
fellows in slouch hats and galluses cussing and burrowing, and claim
signs all alongSweetheart Mine, Crossbone Diggings, Damyereyes
Gulch, and the like.
The town itself was bedlam; it was only four months old then, and
wasn't much but a single street of log and frame buildings running the
whole winding length of that narrow ravine, which can't have been
more than a couple of furlongs wide from one steep forest slope to the
other. But they'd lost no time: already they had a mayor and
corporation, and a Grand Central Hotel, and a bath-house and stores
and theatres and saloons and gaming-houses and dance-halls, with
clerks and barbers and harlots and shopmen and traders and drink
enough to float a ship, and everyone beavering away like billy-o and
doing a roaring trade. "Boom!" they called it, and just to see it sent
your spirits sky-high, it was so busy and jolly and full of fun, for
everyone was riding high and spending free and about to make a
fortune.
As I rode through the dust of the bustling street, the music was
tinkling in the honky-tonks, the stores and saloons were full, the
roughs and tarts chaffed at the swing-doors, and the sober citizens
hurried by rosy with prosperity and optimism. They say you couldn't
get a seat in the church of a Sunday, either, and "Greenland's Icy
Mountains" and "Oh, Susanna!" were sung with toleration and good
will next door to each other, and now and then somebody got shot,
but in the main everyone was happy."
There wasn't a dollar in sight, thoughjust gold-dust. It changed
hands in little pokes; even at the bars they were paying for drinks with
pinches, and there wasn't a counter or barrel-head in town without its
scales and weights. Dust bought everything, and I had none, or a
dollar either; I strode into the hotel and slapped down the gold hunter
which the Minneconju had turned his nose up at, and the burly
Teuton behind the desk looked at it, and me in my beard and
buckskins, and sniffed suspiciously.
"Vare you git dat, den?"
Taking me for a road agent, you see, so I pointed out the inscription
and assured him in my best Pall Mall drawl that I was the party
referred to. He mumped a bit, but grudgingly allowed me thirty
dollars on it, and I signed the register and ten minutes later was sound
asleep in a hot tub, and all the grime and aches oozed away from me,
and with them the turbulent memories of the Far West and Mrs
Candy's patched eye, and Jacket and his braves, and the stinking
stuffiness of the tipi, and Walking Blanket Woman with her knife at
my cords, and the horrible bloody riot on that yellow hillside . . .
copper bodies bounding up the slope. . . screams and shots and flash
of steel... the rattler in the grass. . . Custer tossing me the Bulldog
..." 'allo, then, Colonel. Long way from 'Orse Guards". . . the
sorrel bounding beneath me... that painted face under the buffalocap . . . "Lie still, whatever happens!". . . the grave and handsome
face splitting into its crooked grin . . . "How d'ye doPapa?" . . .
his hand in mine . . . Frank. . . Frank. . .
I woke up in the cold water, shivering, while someone pounded on
the door and shouted was I going to stay in there the whole damned
night?
A good steak put me to rights, and I was sitting bone-tired and
content in their noisy dining-parlour, debating whether to buy a
brandy at their crazy prices, and thinking happily that I'd be back in
Philadelphia with Elspeth before the week was out, when someone
swung my gold hunter on its chain before my eyes, and I stared up at
a man I hadn't seen in ten years. Tall chap in a broadcloth coat and
fancy weskit, long hair and even longer moustaches carefully combed,
smiling down at me while he swung the watch; he burst out laughing
as I jumped up and pumped his hand, and then we roared and
exclaimed and slapped each other on the back and called for
drink, and then we sat down and grinned at each other across the
table.
y; ' " 349
^
"Well, Harry, my boy!" cries he. "And what the eternal hell are
you doing here! I thought you were dead or in England or in jail!"
"Well, James," says I, "you weren't far wrong on the first two
counts, but I ain't been in jail lately." ;
"I'll be damned!" he beamed, and pushed over the watch. "I just '
saw our good mine host fretting over this at the counter, wondering if
it was brass after all, and when I took a squintwhy, there it was 'Sir
Harry Flashman' as ever was!" He slapped the table. "Old fellow,
you look just fine!"
"So do you, and see how you like it! Here, thoughhe gave me
thirty dollars on this watch, you know."
"Thirty? Why, the goddam German vulture pried fifty out of me!
Say, I'll just have his fat hide for that"
"Sit down, James," says I. "I'll send you a hundred for it when I get
back east."
"You're going east? Why, you've just arrived! And where the hell
have you been, and how are you, and what's your news, and damn
your eyes, and so's your old man, and have a drink!" So we drank,
and he swore again, laughing, and said I was a sight for sore eyes, and
what the blazes brought me to Deadwood?
"It's a long, long story," says I, and he cried, well, we had all night,
hadn't we, and shouted to the waiter for a full bottle, and keep 'em
coming. "No, by thunder, we'll have champagne!" cries he. "If I'm
drinking with a baronet, I want the best!" 
"I'm not a baronet, I'm a knight." :/ w I
"That's right, I forgot. A knight of the water closetall right, the
goddam bath!" roars he. "A long, dark, dirty knight! Now thenfire
away!"
So I talked, and we drank, and I talked, and we drank, and I
talkedbecause for some reason I was perfectly ready to tell the
whole thing, from the beginning, when I'd knocked Bryant downstairs
at Cleeve, to the moment when I rode into Deadwood. Deuced
indiscreet, probably, but I was careless with content, and he was an
old friend and a good egg, and I felt the better for the telling. He
whistled and guffawed and exiaimed here and there, but mostly he
just sat quiet, with those strangely melancholy eyes watching me, and
the waiters kept it coming into the small hours, and steered other
patrons clear of us, and roused the cook to bring us ham and eggs at
four in the morningnothing too good, you see, for Wild Bill Hickok
and his guest.
When I'd done, he sat and stared and shook his head. "Flashy,"
says he, "I heard a few, but that beats all. I'd say you were the
goddamnedst liar, but. . . here, let's see your head." He peered at
I
the newly-healed wound on my scalp, and swore again. "Holy smoke,
that's an Arapaho haircut, sure enough! Your own boy? By damn,
that's thorough! That's . . . hell, I don't know what! And you were
with Custerno fooling?in that massacre?"
"Don't spread it about," I begged. "I want to go home, nice and
easy, and no questions, and have a good long rest. So forget itand
what are you doing, anyhow? Last I heard, you were in the theatre,
withCody."
So he told me what he'd been up toon the stage, and here and
there, a little peace-officering, a little gambling, drifting a good deal.
But now he was married, with a wife back east, and he was in
Deadwood to make a pile so that they could settle down. Mining or
gambling, I asked, and he grinned ruefully and pulled back his coat,
and I saw the two long repeaters reversed in the silk sash at his waist.
"If the cards don't start running smarterand unless I can rustle
up enough energy to try the diggingsI'll most likely have to put on
a badge again." ^
Well, that was money for nothing, to him. He was the finest and.
fastest shot with a revolver I've ever seen (though I'd have paid
money to see him from a safe distance against Jack Sebastian Moran).
He wouldn't have to do a stroke as marshal; his name was enough.
But he didn't look too content at the prospect; studying him, I saw
he'd put on a touch of puffy weight over the years, and wondered if
booze and loafing were closing in. He confessed that his eyes weren't
what they had been, and he was ready to call it a day if he could take
a small pile east from Deadwood.81
"I'll give it a few more weeks," says he, "and make tracks before
fall. Hey, Tom, what's the date?" The waiter said it was August first
if we were still in last night, but August second if we reckoned it was
this morning. By jove, another couple of months and Elspeth would
notice there was someone missing; I asked the waiter when the stage
left for Cheyenne.
"You're not going out today?" grumbles Hickok. "Hell's bells, we
haven't but had a drink yet! What's your hurry?" He wagged a finger.
, "You've been racketing around too much, that's your trouble; you're
I plumb excited and can't settle. Now, what you need is a good sleep,
and a mighty breakfast in the evening, and then get tighter'n Dick's
hatband, and there's the crackiest couple of little gals at the Bella
Union, and we'll peel the roof off of this town"
"And your father a clergyman, too," says I. "I'm sorry, James, but
I'm all set. Look, why not come down to Cheyenne with me, and
we'll ring the firebells before I catch the train east?"
But he wouldn't have it, the lazy devil, and we strolled out on to
351
the*porch of the hotel to look at the stars and see that the drunks were
lying straight in the gutters. It was just coming to dawn, and I was
dead beat.
"Too late to go to bed now," says Hickok.
I snatched a few hours' sleep, though, and piled down to the stage
office just in time to catch the southbound. There was the usual crowd
of roustabouts and loafers and boys to see the little coach pull out,
piled high with boxes and bundles. There were only three other inside
passengers, an elderly couple and a sleek little whisky drummer in
check pants and mutton-chops; they were already in their places, and
the driver was bawling: "All aboard! All aboard for Custer City,
Camp Robinson, Laramie, an' Chey-enne!" as I ran down the sidestreet,
with the kids whooping encouragement, and scrambled in. We
set off north, and the little drummer explained that we would circle
the block and then head south out of town.
"Goods to pick up at Finnegan's and Number Ten," he explained;
we took on a case of his samples at Finnegan's, and rolled down the
broad main street, which was busy with wagons and riders, to the
Number Ten Saloon. Hickok had said it was a haunt of his; sure
enough, he was taking a breather on the boardwalk as we pulled up;
he had his coat off and his two guns in full view.
"Still time to come along, James!" I cried from the window, but he
shook his head as he came across to shake hands.
"I've got Skipper Massey inside there," says he, "and I'm going to
bluff, raise and call him from Hell to Houston--I beg your pardon, ma'am. Forgive my thoughtless speech," he added, raising his hat to
the old lady. Very particular that way, was J. B. Hickok.
Much good it did her, for now the driver discovered a lynchpin
sprung, and his language poisoned the air. A boy was sent scurrying
for a replacement and a hammer, and Hickok winked at me and
called, "Don't take any wooden nickels, Flashy," as he sauntered
back into the Number Ten. The driver thrust a crimson face in at the
window, saying just ten minutes, folks, and we'll be on our way, and
we sat patiently in the Deadwood stage watching the world go by.
"Beg pardon, sir," says the whisky drummer, leaning forward.
"Did I detect a British accent?"
I said coolly that I believed it was.
"Well, that's delightful, sir!" He raised his tile and extended a paw.
"Charmed to make your acquaintance, indeed! My name is Hoskins,
sir, at your service . . ." He rummaged and thrust a card at me.
"Traveller in fine wines, cordials, leecures, and high-class spirits." He
beamed, and I thought, oh God, please let him get off at Custer City;
it was hot, and I was dog-tired, and wanted peace.
"May I say welcome, sir, to the Great American West? Ah, you've
been here before. Well, I trust your present trip is as enjoyable as the
previous one."
(The seventh packet of the Flashman Papers ends here, without
further comment or elaboration from its author, on August 2,1876,
the day on which Wild Bill Hickok was shot dead in the Number Ten
Saloon, Deadwood.)
APPENDIX A:
The Mysterious Lives of Frank Grouard
(18501905)
The most remarkable thing about Flashman's claim to be the father
of Frank Grouard Standing Bear, the famous scout and mysterious
figure of the American West, is how well it fits the known facts. That
he should have had a son by Cleonie, and that son should have grown
up among Indians, is in no way surprising, given the circumstances of
Flashman's relations with Cleonie. Their child was not unique in this
way; half-breed children raised as tribesmen were common enough
(Custer himself is supposed to have had a son by a Cheyenne woman,
although in the light of Custer's character this may be thought
unlikely). Nor was it unknown for a man to be able to pass equally
well as Indian or white; apart from Flashman himself, there are plenty
of witnesses to testify that Frank Grouard did it, with a success that
still baffles historians as much as it did his contemporaries. Or one
might cite the case of James Beckworth, the mulatto who became an
Indian chief, returned to the white side of the frontier, and then took
to the wilds again.
However, to Grouard. There is no doubt that he scouted for Crook
in the 1876 campaign, and was regarded as the best frontiersman with
the American Army. But who exactly he was, or where he came
from, was less certain, and the subject of much controversy. Some
thought he was white, others that he was Indian; another theory was
that he was half-Indian, half-Negro (which is interesting); yet another
that he was the son of a French Creole (more interesting still).
Grouard himself, after having refused many offers from journalists
for his life-story, and having lost all his records in a fire at his home,
finally dictated his story entirely from memory in 1891, to a newspaperman
named de Barthe. It was a most curious tale.
Grouard said he was born at Paumotu, in the Friendly Islands, in
1850, the son of an American Mormon missionary and a Polynesian
woman, that he was brought to the U.S. when he was two, lived with
a family named Pratt in Utah, and ran away at 15. He became a
teamster and mail-carrier, and was captured by Sioux in 1869. He was
so dark that the Indians took him for one of themselves, and spared
him; the name of Standing Bear was given him by Sitting Bull
personally, because Grouard had been wearing a bearskin coat when
captured. He was with the Sioux for six years, was a special favourite
of Sitting Bull's, and knew Crazy Horse well. He became, naturally,
fluent in Siouxan.
In the spring of 1875, Grouard derided to leave the Sioux. He came
in to the Red Cloud Agency and (his own words) "stayed until the
commissioners came to make the Black Hills treaty". He does not say
that he went to Washington with Spotted Tail, but there is no reason
why he should not have done so. After the failure of the treaty, he
was sent as an ambassador on behalf of the whites to Sitting Bull and
Crazy Horse, who rejected peace offers (and there are those who say
they did this at Grouard's suggestion, and that his loyalties lay with
the Sioux). In any event, Grouard says that he returned to the Red
Cloud Agency, derided to become white, and enlisted with Crook.
This he certainly did, and scouted for him in the March campaign on
the Powder, and later on the Rosebud; it is worth noting that one of
his fellow-scouts at this time became suspicious, and told Crook he
suspected Grouard of plotting to lead the command to destruction.
So much for Grouard's own story thus far. His movements as a
scout for Crook are sometimes well-documented, at other times not
so. After the Rosebud battle (June 17) he appears to have been in
and out of Crook's camp; he was certainly not with Crook on June 25
(the day of Little Bighorn) or for two days thereafter. When he did
return to Crook it was with the news of Custer's disaster. For the next
few weeks Grouard's movements are accounted for, but towards the
end of July he fades away again.
Now, all this fits exactly with Flashman--but there is more. According
to de Barthe, Grouard's biographer, a story was current that
Grouard had joined in the attack on Custer's force at Little Bighorn,
but not with the intention of defeating Custer; on the contrary,
Grouard had supposedly been trying to lure the Sioux to destruction
against what he hoped was a superior American force, but the plan
miscarried and the Sioux won.
At this point the imagination begins to reel slightly--but it is
interesting that a rumour was going about that Frank Grouard, scout
to Crook, had fought with the Indians at Little Bighorn.
On balance, Flashman's story of Grouard's early life is more
plausible than the one Grouard told himself to de Barthe, and all the
mystery and confusion surrounding Grouard in the '76 campaign go
to support Flashman rather than not. After '76, Grouard scouted in
government service, and Bourke and Finerty, reliable sources, agree
with Crook that as a woodsman he stood alone. But no one was ever
sure what to believe about him; the Dictionary of American Biography notes of his life-story that it is "fact. . . liberally intermixed with
highly-wrought fiction".
355
Flashman students may be interested to know what Grouard
looked like, in the light of Flashman's description. He was six feet
tall, swarthily handsome, weighed about sixteen stone, had a large
head with black hair, large expressive eyes, prominent cheekbones, a
kindly humorous mouth, firm chin, and large nose (See J. de Barthe,
Life and Aventures of Frank Grouard, ed. Edgar I. Stewart, 1958;
Finerty; Bourke; J. P. Beckworth, My Life and Adventures, 1856;
Dictionary of American Biography.APPENDIX B: ^ ,
The Battle of the Little Bighorn ':
Perhaps the reason why so much has been written about this famous
action is that no one is sure what happened; there is nothing like
ignorance for fuelling argument. Because until now there has been no
account from a white survivor of the Custer part of the fight, the
speculators have had a free rein, and what one eminent writer has
called the Great American Faker and the Great American Liar have
flourished. This is the more extraordinary when one considers that
Little Bighorn was not (except to the participants and their families)
an important battle; it settled nothing, it changed nothing; it was, as
Flashman says, not really a battle at all, but a big skirmish.
And yet, Little Bighorn has an aura of its own. It is impossible to
stand on the Monument hill, looking down towards the pretty river
among the trees, or walk across the ridges and gullies of Greasy Grass
slope, with the little white markers scattered here and there, showing
where the men of the 7th Cavalry died, or look up from the foot of
the hill at the silently eloquent cluster of stones where the last stand
was made, or the distant ridge where Butler's marker stands solitary
it is impossible to look at all this, and listen to the river and grass
blowing, without being deeply moved. Few battlefields are more
haunted; perhaps this is because one can stand on it and (this is rare
on old battlefields) see what happened, if not how. However they
came, on whatever course, is unimportant; any soldier or civilian can
envisage the retreat from the river and coulee to the ridge and hill, for
here there are no complex manoeuvres or great distances to confuse
the visitorjust a picture of two hundred men in blue shirts and a few
in buckskin fighting their way across a sloping field, pursued and
outflanked by overwhelming numbers of an enemy determined to
fight them in their own way, man to man and hand to hand. Purists
and propagandists alike dispute over terms needlessly; in the English
language, it was indeed a massacre.
Flashman's account, in fact, is not one for the controversialists.
Apart from his eyewitness detail, he does not help much to clear up
the questions (most of them fairly trivial) which have raised such heat
and fury over the past century. The Great Reno Debate is not affected
m any matter of fact; only in his opinion does he touch on it, and
supports the majority view.
What did happen, then, at Little Bighorn? So far as one can see,
357
after studying as much of the evidence as one can reasonably digest,
Custer split his command into three as he approached the (roughly)
southern end of the valley where the Indian camp lay; he sent Benteen
to the left, went himself along the right flank of the valley, and
ordered Reno to charge into the valley itself; the idea was that while
Reno was attacking (and possibly sweeping through) the camp from
end to end, Custer would fall on it at a convenient point from the
right flank, or possibly rear. A reasonable plan, in view of Custer's
previous experience; reasonable, that is, on the assumption that he
did not know the Indian strength.
Reno did not get far; he was checked, and eventually, with Benteen
who had come up, established a position on the bluffs where they
held out until the Indians withdrew. Custer, meanwhile, had seen the
camp from above the valley, and determined to attack it. Here we
enter the realm of uncertainty; looking from the bluffs today, and
knowing how big the camp was, it strikes one that Custer was
ambitious; his scout Boyer certainly thought so: "If we go in there, we
won't come out", and a pretty little quarrel ensued before Custer
followed his own judgment and went down towards the ford. How far
he got, we do not know; the precise movements of his five troops, we
do not know. These things do not really matter; we know where they
ended up. In the event, Custer obviously mismanaged his last action;
how far it was his fault--for not having got better information of the
Indian strength, for failing to assess it properly when the village was
in sight, for exceeding the spirit if not the letter of Terry's orders--
these are things we cannot fairly judge, without knowing what was in
Custer's mind. And that we can only guess at. It looks as though he
was unjustifiably reckless in deciding to go in with his five troops; with
hindsight we know he was. But how it looked to him from the bluffs?
He was there, and we were not.
Looked at from the Indian side, it was a competently, even
brilliantly handled action. For a people unused to war or battle in the
conventional sense, the Sioux and Cheyenne fought Greasy Grass in
a manner which would have been approved by any sound military
theorist. They turned back the initial attack, held it, saw the danger
on their own flank, and enveloped this in turn. Reviewing it from
their side (and this is personal opinion) it seems to me that Flashman
is right to give the main credit to Gall, although Crazy Horse's circular
movement was an inspired use of cavalry. Gall as the anvil and Crazy
Horse as the hammer is a fair simile--but it was an extremely mobile
anvil.
One other point it seems fair to make. Reno came under heavy and
unjustified criticism, initially from Custer's hero-worshipping bio-
grapher Whittaker, later from others, He was subsequently cleared
officially. And barely a week after the battle, four-fifths of the
surviving rank and file of the 7th Cavalry petitioned Congress asking
that Reno be promoted to fill the dead Custer's place. After that,
what do critics matter?
The number of books and articles on Little Bighorn is literally
uncountable. Those against which I have checked Flashman's story,
not only of the battle, but of related subjects, number close on a
hundred, so I am listing here those which readers may find of
particular interest. Foremost must be a work which, though outstanding,
is curiously hard to come by: Fred Dustin's The Custer Tragedy (1939); it and those two splendid works by Colonel W. A. Graham, The Glister Myth (1943) and The Story of the Little Bighorn (1926),
are the three books which no one interested in the battle can do
without. The research of these two authors has been prodigious;
Colonel Graham's collection of letters, memoirs, and interviews, and
Dustin's great bibliography, have been immensely helpful. Here, for
example, one finds Gall's account of the battle, given to General
Godfrey in curiously touching circumstances, as the two old enemies
walked over the battlefield ten years later; here, too, Mrs Spotted
Horn Bull's story, and Two Moon's, and Benteen's lively reminiscences,
and Wooden Leg's story, and the Crow scouts', and the
arguments of survivors and critics. Also: Whittaker, Custer's Life; E.
S. Godfrey, General G.A. Custer an4 the Battle of the Little Bighorn, 1921; Bourke, On the Border with Crook; Miller, Custer's Fall;
Vestal, Sitting Bull, 1972; E. I. Stewart, Ouster's Luck, 1955; Miles, Personal Recollections; Dunn, Massacres; Finerty, Warpath and Bivouac; Hanson, Missouri; De Land's Sioux Wars; Custer's My Life, and Mrs Custer's Boots and Saddles and Following the Guidon; P. R,
Trobriand, Army Life in Dakota, 1941; 0. G. Libby, Ankara Narrative
of the Campaign of June 1876, 1920; P. Lowe, Five Years a
Dragoon, 1926; A. F. Mulford, Fighting Indians in the U.S. 7th
Cavalry, 1879; Mrs 0. B. Boyd, Cavalry Life in Tent and Field. But
there are many others, and among them I should mention the late
William Smith of Regina, Saskatchewan, former scout for the Northwest
(later Royal Canadian) Mounted Police, who served in the
Indian wars, and whom I interviewed more than 30 years ago. And
for those who want to know something of Little Bighorn that cannot
be got from books, let them travel up the Yellowstone valley, past the
Powder and Tongue to the mouth of Rosebud Creek, and then take
the Lame Deer road, past the great modem mining works whid
Custer and Crazy Horse never dreamed of, and follow the Rosebud
35S
K: NOTES ^- ,,
1. Helen Hunt Jackson, author of A Century a/Dishonour, a champion of
Indian rights, and a severe critic of American Indian policy, [p. 19]
2. From this, and other internal evidence, it appears that this packet of the
memoirs was written in 1909 and 1910. lp21]
3. Pigs, i.e., police. An interesting example of how slang and cant repeat
themselves across the centuries. The term is commonly thought of as a
product of the 1960-70s, chiefly among protest groups; in fact it was
current even before Flashman's time, but seems to have vanished from
the vulgar vocabulary for over a hundred years, [p-45]
4. Hiram Young, a black, was the foremost wagon-maker and expert on
prairie conveyances in Independence; Colonel Owens was one of the
leading citizens. The stage run to Santa Fe began about this time, so it is
quite possible that one of their new coaches was privately purchased for
Susie's caravan, no doubt at a high price, for they were as luxurious as
Owens described them. But travelling by them on the express run was
anything but comfortable: Colonel Henry Inman, in The Old Santa Fe
Trail (1896) writes with feeling of the non-stop journey, with horses
changed every ten miles to keep up the high speed--this was at a later
date, when the less troubled state of the plains enabled way-stations to be
set up, and the journey from Westport to Santa Fe could be made in two
weeks, weather and Indians permitting. The equipment of four revolvers
and a repeating rifle, mentioned by Flashman, was standard for a stageline
guard, [p-57]
5. The bill in Colonel Owens' store was evidently a version of an advertisement
which appeared in the New York Herald in December, 1848,
advising emigrants on equipment for the gold-fields, including
tombstones, [p-58]
6. Throughout Flashman's memoirs he never fails, when opportunity arises,
to 'name-drop', and it is remarkable that he seems to have been unaware
of the probable identity of the frontiersman in the Life Guards coat who
examined him on Wootton's behalf. For it is almost certain that this was
the celebrated scout Jim Bridger. At least we know that Bridger received
from his friend Sir William Drummond Stewart, the sportsman and
traveller, a gift of a Life Guards cuirass and helmet--there exists a sketch
of Bridger wearing them. It seems reasonable that he may have received
a coat as well, and still had it in 1849. Whether he was at Westport in late
May or early June of 1849 cannot be established; it is said that he bought
land there in 1848 and spent the-next winter at the western fort which bore
his name. But his movements in the months thereafter are uncertain;
about mid-June, 1849, he was apparently at Fort Bridger, for an emigrant
named William Kelly records in his journal that he met the great scout
there; it is possible that Bridger had been east in Westport earlier.
Certainly Flashman's description of a tall, good-humoured, kind and
patient man fits Bridger, so we may assume that Flashman met one of the
legendary men of the West without knowing it. (See G. M. Dodge, James
Bridger, 1905; J. Cecil Alter, James Bridger, 1925, and M. R. Porter and
0. Davenport, Scotsman in Buckskins, 1963.) [p-63]
7. Flashman's judgment was entirely sound. Although less famous than the
Carsons and Bridgers, Richens Lacy Wootton, familiarly known as "Uncle
Dick", was unsurpassed among the trappers, scouts, and Indian
fighters of his day. He spent a lifetime on the plains and in the mountains,
and probably no one was more expert as a guide on the Santa Fe Trail. A
genial, slightly eccentric character, he eventually conceived the idea of
establishing a toll-gate on the Trail, where it crossed the Raton Pass on
the Colorado-New Mexico border. He pioneered a road across the
summit, and although he had occasional difficulties persuading travellers
that a toll was reasonable ("with the Indians, I didn't care to have any
controversy . . . whenever they came along, the toll-gate went up, and
any other little thing I could do to hurry them on was done promptly and
cheerfully") he seems to have made it pay. He lived to a great age, and is
commemorated on a tablet set in the rock where the modem highway
crosses the Raton summit. (See Inman, and Uncle Dick Wootton, by H.
L. Conard, 1890.) [p.63]
8. "The earlies". So many correspondents have asked about Flashman's use
of this expression in previous Papers that it seems worth a note. The only
other literary allusion to it that I know is in Ethelreda Lewis's Trader
Horn, where it signifies the 1870s on the Ivory Coast; my own father used
it in talking about the history of settlement in East Africa, and it seems to
have meant "early pioneer days", and been one of these pieces of Imperial
slang which have long gone out of fashion. Flashman's use of it invariably
refers to the first half of the last century, usually the 1840s. [p.63]
9. A rather cavalier description of one of the giants of New World exploration,
Sir Alexander MacKenzie (1755-1820), who completed the first
crossing of mainland North America in 1793. But what Flashman has to
say of the misconceptions existing about the American West even in the
middle of the last century, is true enough. Captain (later General) R. B.
Marey of the U.S. Army, who escorted emigrants from Fort Smith on the
lower Arkansas to Santa Fe in 1849, wrote in his report that he had been
given a "quite erroneous" notion of the country beforehand. "The best
maps I could find" showed the great mountains and desert to which
Flashman refers--in fact, they were not there, and Marcy remarked that
he had never seen country where wagons could move so easily. (See
Marcy's Report on the Southern Route, in vol XIV, 1849-50, Senate
Documents, 1st Session, 31st Congress.)
As to what Flashman says of the unknown nature of the trans-Mississippi
country in general, he can hardly be faulted. The Santa Fe and
Oregon routes were already well-trodden, and trappers and traders from
MacKenzie and Lewis and dark onwards had penetrated to the remotest
parts of the continent; American armies had marched south to Mexico
and west to the Pacific via the southern routes; but to the emigrant for all
practical purposes it was terra incognita. The editor has two maps, made
by geographers of the highest repute between 1845 and 1853; they are by
no means entirely reliable for the western territories; even Johnson and
Ward's American Atlas of 1866 has a strange look beside the work of
modern cartographers, and all three maps give a most striking impression
of the emptiness of the country, with their vast white spaces marked only
by rivers and mountains, and here and there a fort or settlement. But
then, it is difficult to grasp how suddenly western America happened. It is
trite to say that in fifty years it was transformed from a wilderness into a
settled countryside; consider rather that an infant could cross the plains by
wagon train in the gold rush, and live to watch a programme about it on
television; and somehow even that is not quite as sad as old Bronco
Charlie Miller driving past filling-stations and movie theatres where once
he had ridden for the Pony Express, [p.64]
10. Flashman's brief resume of the Mexican-American war ahd the boundary
changes needs a little enlargement. Until 1845, the U.S. western frontier
ran (see map in end-papers) up the Sabine and Red Rivers bordering
Texas, and then due north to the Arkansas, which it followed to the
Rocky Mountains. Here the Continental Divide became the frontier up to
the Canadian border at the 49th parallel.
In 1845 Texas was annexed, and in the following year Oregon became
fully American by agreement with Britain. Following the Mexican War
(1846-1848), Mexico ceded to the U.S. all territory north of the Rio
Grande and Gila Rivers. This to all intents and purposes established the
mainland frontiers of the U.S. as they are today; the only major change
took place in 1853 when, by the Gadsden Purchase, the U.S. obtained the
area between the Gila and the modem Mexican frontier. So in Flashman's
time the Rio Grande and the Gila were the effective boundaries, for what
this was worth; American administration of the ceded areas had barely
begun, the frontiers were still uncertain, and it was not until the Boundary
Commissions had completed their surveys in the early 1850s that the limits
were determined. And, as he rightly says. New Mexico was still entirely
Mexican in character, [p.65]
11. There are many authorities for the conduct of wagon-trains, and prairie
pioneering in general; most of them are infinitely more detailed than
Flashman, but his descriptions are well supported by other early writers.
His account of Westport-Independence is highly accurate, down to such
details as the cost of wagons and supplies, the pay of guards and riders,
and the appearance of the varied multitude that thronged it in the spring
and summer of 1849; the only point on which he seems slightly hazy is the
internal geography of the area which later became Kansas City, and he
was overcharged for claret at St Louis. On the details of travel, too, he is
sound in his description of caravan order and discipline, equipment,
mule-loading, guard-setting, and the like. The best-known authority is
Francis Parkman's The Oregon Trail, 1847, but others include Marcy's
The Prairie Traveller, 1863; Josiah Gregg's Commerce of the Prairies,
1848; J. J. Webb's Adventures in the Santa Fe Trade, 1844-47, ed. Ralph
P. Bieber; Lewis H. Garrard, Wah-to-Yah and the Taos Trail, 1850; and a
363
personal favourite, G. F. Ruxton's Adventures in New Mexico and in the
Rocky Mountains, 1847. Colonel Inman is excellent on the outfitting and
equipment of trains on the Santa Fe route, [p-70]
12. This cryptic remark must surely refer to the calling out of the militia in
New York in May, 1849, to suppress rioting which followed the appearance
of the actor Macready in Macbeth at the Astor Theatre--hardly the
kind of social unrest Susie can have had in mind where the wagon guards
were concerned, but her arch-conservative mind may have seen a parallel.
The riots were extremely violent, twenty people being killed when the
militia opened fire on a crowd. (See M. Minigerode, The Fabulous Forties, 1924.) ' [p.70]
13. Among the Sioux, of whom the Brule or Sichangu (Burned Thighs) were
an important sect, the wearing and arrangement of head feathers were
highly significant. An eagle feather denoted a scalp taken, a red-dotted
feather an enemy killed (if the feather was notched, the enemy's throat
had been cut). Since much importance was attached to counting coup
(touching, but not necessarily killing, an enemy), feathers could also
indicate the order in which a brave had laid hands on an enemy's body--
notches on one side of a feather showed that he had been the third to
touch the body; notches on both sides, the fourth; a stripped quill with a
tuft, the fifth. A feather split down the quill indicated a wound stripe, as
" did a red hand symbol on a brave's robe; a black hand symbol stood for an ; enemy killed. Spotted Tail, the Brule whom Flashman met (see also Note
55), was said to have counted coup 26 times; rumour also credited him
with a hundred scalps, but this seems rather high, even for one of the
greatest warriors of the Sioux nation. His name, originally Jumping
Buffalo, is said to have been changed when, as a child, he was given a
racoon tail by a white trapper, and attached it to his headdress; certainly
: he was wearing such a tail in the 1850s. (See Spotted Tail's Folk, a history
S of the Brule Sioux, by George E. Hyde, 1961; Handbook of American
Indians, by F. W. Hodge, 2 vols 1907-10, and the great encyclopedia of
the Indian people, H. R. Schoolcraft's Historical and Statistical Information
Respecting. . . Indian Tribes of the U.S, 6 vols, 1851-60. Also Letters
and Notes on the Manners and Customs and Conditions of the North
American Indians, 1841, by George Catlin, the most famous illustrator of
Indians; his work has run to many editions, and is essential for anyone
who wants to know what the early Indians looked like; Our Wild Indians, R. I. Dodge, 1883; The Indian Races of North and South America, C. Brownell, 1857.) A minor point of interest is what Spotted Tail was doing
so far east at this time; certainly the Sioux were hunting Pawnees that
summer, and may have come as far as the Neosho. [p-73]
14. Sign language, so essential among nomadic tribesmen with no universal
tongue, was perhaps more developed among North American Indians
than among any other people. Nor was it a crude business of a few basic
signs, but a highly-sophisticated visual system, in which the "speaker"
could communicate quickly quite complicated facts and ideas. Some signs
are probably well-known from the cinema--the flat hand, palm down,
moved from the heart to the front, signifying "good", for instance; but a
better idea of how much could be expressed in a simple gesture may be
obtained from the following: the right hand, pointing forward with the
edge down, meant a horse; if the thumb was raised, this signified a horse
with a rider; a bay horse was indicated by touching the cheek, a black
horse by indicating a black object nearby; a horse grazing was shown by
dipping the fingers of the hand and moving them from side to side.
Combine them all in one quick movement--and many authorities mention
the speed and grace with which signs were exchanged--and you have a
bay horse grazing, with or without a rider, in a split second, probably less
time than it would take to say the same thing.(See G. Mallery, Sign
Language Among the N. American Indians, 1st American Report, U.S.
Bureau of Ethnology, 1879-80; Schoolcraft, Hodge.) Flashman mentions
the Cheyenne sign; among others he must have seen that day would be
the sign for Sioux (a throat-cutting motion); Pawnee (fingers cocked at the
head to denote "Wolf People"); Arapaho (nose pinched--they were
known as the Smellers); and Cumanche, the Snakes (waving motion of
the hand). (See Marcy, 30 Years of Army Life on the Border, 1886.) [p.73]
Ruxton gives a colourful description of a similar eating competition in his Adventures, [p'73]
The image and reputation of the American Indian have changed greatly in
the last few decades; from being the cruel and treacherous villain of the
Western scene, he has become its patriotic hero. Pendulums of fashionable
thought have a tendency to swing violently, and it would be as wrong
to discount the opinions of Wootton and his contemporaries as it would
be to accept them without question. Undoubtedly the frontiersmen
distrusted, and usually disliked, Indians: Kit Carson, who was more
enlightened than most, is recorded as saying simply: "I wouldn't trust a
one of them"; Jim Bridger spoke of "the mean and wicked Sioux", and
Jim Baker, a sober and respected Mountain Man, gave the following
opinion to R. B. Marcy:
"They are the most onsartenest varmints in creation, and I reckon tha'r
not moren half human. You never see a human, arter you'd fed and treat
him to the best fixins in your lodge, jes turn round and steal all your
horses, or any other thing he could lay his hands on. No, not adzackly. He
would feel kinder grateful, and ask you to spread a blanket in his lodge if
you ever passed that-a-way. But the Injun don't care shucks for you.
Tain't no use to talk about honour with them. They ain't got no such
thing. They mean varmints, and won't never behave themselves unless
you give 'em an out-and-out licking. They can't understand white folks
ways, and they won't learn 'em. If you treat 'em decent, they think you
afeard."
An expert opinion--and what the Indians thought of Baker and his
fellow-frontiersmen would be equally illuminating. We know what later
Indian chiefs thought of the American Army and government, not without
cause. Baker was probably right, in that Indian morals and sense of
honour were different from those of the whites, and it was perhaps as
difficult for a Sioux to understand white ideas of the inviolability of
365
property as it was for a white man to appreciate, say, the point ofcountinj
coup on an enemy in battle, but not killing him. Best to say, along witt Flashman, that the two sides had very different notions of proper behav
iour, and leave it at that. But Wootton was right in one thing: it was no
wise for a traveller to be off his guard, even with apparently friendh Indians; there is plenty of evidence that they were, to say the least
unpredictable--rather like Scottish Highlanders, in a way. (See Marey Thirty Years.) [p.74
17. "He kin slide!" in this context means "then there must be somethinj wrong with him!" and is an example of what Flashman calls the "plug-a
plew" talk of the Mountain Men, from their catch-phrase referring to th<
poor price of skins (a plug of tobacco for a pelt). Readers of frontie;
travellers such as Ruxton, Marcy, Garrard, and Parkman, and of contem
porary novelists like Mayne Reid and Ballantyne, will be familiar with thf dialect; apart from its many cant phrases, it had its peculiarities o:
pronunciation--principally the reduction of the "ai" and "ee" vowels t(
"ah", as in bar (bear), thar (there) hyar (here), and har (hair). Presumabi]
it was an exaggerated form of the dialects of the Border states whenc<
came many of the Mountain Men; as with nearly all American dialect
,  one can trace it back to its East Anglian-Puritan-West Country origins, t( 9; iwhich the accents and vocabularies of Northern England, Scotland, an(
Ulster contributed in due course. To an outsider it must have soundec
barbarous, and one suspects that the Mountain Men rather enjoyed usin;
it for effect, and that most of them could speak good formal English wnei
they chose, in whatever accent. Uncouth they might be in many ways, bu
recorded examples of their speech show a respect for grammar anc construction, and purity of expression, that put most modern American;
and Britons to shame. In addition, many were skilled linguists, at leas
acquainted with Spanish and French as well as with Indial
languages, [p.74
18. Invalids travelling the Plains for their health were not as rare as Flashrnai
imagined; even in the early days the air of Colorado and New Mexici drew chest-sufferers west. A. B. Guthrie, Jr, notes in a recent edition o Wah-to-Yah that Garrard may have made his trip because of a weal i constitution, [p-75
19. It has been suggested that this expression originated in the wagon-trains
where the captain (or as he was later sometimes called, the major) wa
elected by vote of all the men present, candidates standing apart and thei:
';*; supporters tailing on behind them, the supposition being that as his "tail'
grew a candidate had to run ahead to give it room. However this may be
the emigrant companies were frequently known by their captain's name
as well as by more picturesque designation; on May 26,1849, there arrive! in Santa Fe the Black River Company, the Western Rovers, and the New
York Knickerbockers. (See Marcy and the Gold-Seekers, by Grant Fore
man, 1931, an excellent work containing extracts from Marcy's report anc writings, and from the letters of Forty-Niners.) [p-75
20. Flashman's memory is playing him false. Whatever musical accompani
ment Cleonie provided, it was certainly not "Swanee River"--bette:
known as "Old Folks at Home"--since Stephen Foster did not write it
until two years later; probably he is confusing it with some equally slow
and melancholy song, perhaps a spiritual. His earlier mention of "Oh
Susannah!", also by Foster, is correct; it was published in 1848, and taken
up. almost as a signature tune by the Forty-Niners, who parodied it with
various verses, including those quoted by Flashman. [p-81]
21. Flashman uses arriero (mule-packer) and savanero (night-herder) indiscriminately
when referring to his mule-men, [p-81]
22. The cholera epidemic of 1849 bore most severely on the Southern
Cheyenne, who probably contracted it from an emigrant train on the
Oregon Trail. About half the tribe died. (See David Lavender, Bent's
Fort, 1954, and H. H. Bancroft's History of Nevada, Colorado, and
Wyoming, 1889, volume XX in that great scholar's series on the Western
States. Like Schoolcraft, Hodge, Parkman, and Catlin, his work is indispensable
to anyone studying the history of the Far West.) [p-84]
23. "Poor bull" meant hard times, inferior eating--from the fact that bull
buffalo meat was less appetising than cow meat, especially when the bull
was in poor condition. "Fat cow", in Plains parlance, meant living off the
best. [p.86]
24. The modem visitor to the Upper Arkansas, hearing talk of the "Picketwire"
river, will search the map for it in vain. The early Spaniards called
it Las Animas, but after the death of unshriven pioneers in the area, it was
aptly renamed El Purgatorio. Voyageurs translated this into the French
Purgatoire, which the sturdy Anglo-Saxon Americans insisted (and still
do) on rendering as Pickctwire, pace the cartographers, who retain the
French spelling, [p.95]
25. Indian smoke-signalling was a code--a single puff meant that a party of
strangers had been sighted; two puffs, that they were well-armed and able
to resist attack. Nugent-Hare deduced correctly that the single puff,
informing nearby tribesmen that the caravan was present but not formidable,
would shortly bring down an attack. His immediate concern was to
prevent the Indian scouts getting close enough to frighten the draught
animals and so delay the train while the main attack assembled, [p.96]
26. Presumably Tom Fitzpatrick, a noted frontiersman who was Indian agent
for the country between the Arkansas and Platte rivers, [p. 110]
27. Bent's Fort, the "Big Lodge", perhaps the most famous outpost in the
American West, was founded by the three partners of Bent, St Vrain and
Company--William and Charles Bent and Cerain St Vrain--in 1833-4, to
take advantage of the trade opening up between the United States and
Mexico along the Santa Fe Trail. It was the hub of the trail, and of the southern plains and Rockies, the great way station of the Santa Fe traders,
Mountain Men, hunters, and Indians of the region, for William Bent, the
"Little White Man", was a firm friend of the tribes, and married a
Cheyenne wife. For well over a decade the fort nourished, and at its peak
was as Flashman describes it--a great citadel on the prairie, with its fine
rooms, stores, shops, smithy, wagon-park, billiard-room, and the rest;
every Westerner of note was familiar with them. With the decline of the
Santa Fe trade, the growing emigrant invasion, and the Mexican War, the
367
prosperity of the fort declined, and after the death of his brother Charles,
lulled in the Pueblo-Mexican rising at Taos in 1847, William abandoned I the fort in August, 1849. Thereby hangs a mystery, although it may be
thought now that Flashman's account has solved it at last.
It is supposed that William Bent, disappointed in his efforts to sell the
fort to the U.S. Army for a good enough price, destroyed it by placing
explosive charges and setting the place alight on August 21,1849, having
first removed all its supplies (pace Flashman). Another theory, generally
discounted now, is that the fort was destroyed by Indians: Bancroft, in his Colorado (1889), refers to the destruction of Roubideau's Fort on the
Green River and adds: "Bent's Fort was also captured subsequently and
; the inmates slaughtered. The absence of the owners alone prevented their
-> sharing the fate of their employees." Flashman has the virtue of agreeing
with both theories, up to a point; his story is certainly consistent with the
view that Bent mined the fort with explosives and than withdrew (although
how Flashman's caravan did not encounter him on his way down the
Arkansas to Big Timbers is a mystery), and with the tradition of Indian
attack, but not capture and slaughter. (The definitive work is Lavender's
scholarly history [see Note 22] which rejects the Indian destruction story
of Bancroft and others. See also Garrard; Ruxton; Life of George Bent (William's son) by George E. Hyde, 1967; and the U.S. National Park
Service pamphlet. Bent's Old Fort, which provides an excellent plan and
description of the buildings.)
There is, fortunately, a happy ending to the tragic story of Bent's.
Recently it has been rebuilt at the original site, and restored to its old
glory in appearance at least. Every detail, down to the trade goods and
tools in the stores and shops--even the early Victorian billiard table--has
been painstakingly recreated; it is a reconstruction which no enthusiast for
the old West should miss. (p. 111]
28. We can be grateful for a passing reference which definitely establishes a
date. Colonel Washington's punitive expedition, which included Pueblo
and Mexican militia, left Santa Fe on August 16 and returned on September
26, so Flashman and Susie arrived in the city on September 27.
Lieutenant Harrison is one of the officers mentioned in Major Steen's
subsequent operations against the Apaches, [p. 115]
29. Conditions in New Mexico were as Harrison said. The Indian agent at
Santa Fe at this time, J. S. Calhoun, wrote in the week of Flashman's
arrival that Apache, Navajo, and Cumanche raids were happening daily,
and that it was unsafe to travel ten miles; four days later he was noting that
the Indian trouble had increased and that "this whole country requires a
thorough purging". He urged a policy of "enlightenment and restraint
... at the point of the bayonet". (See Calhoun, Official Correspondence, 1915, edited by A. H. Abel. For conditions in Santa Fe and the territory,
see Foreman; Webb; Inman; Marcy; Bancroft, Arizona and New Mexico, 1889; W. W. H. Davis, El Gringo, or New Mexico and her People, 1857.
Also Lockwood and Cremony, see Note 30.) [p. 116]
30. The payment of scalp-bounty dates back at least to colonial times, a fact
which some Indian apologists have been quick to seize on as proof that
368
had been abolished) to American military government (Se. n h } ' [Pl5
32 T^Jomada del Muerto was one of the most feared journeys in Norti
America in Flashman's time, and is no picnic today, with its unpromisini
grit road which, on some maps only, is shown running between Sai
Mardal and Hatch. The editor has experience only of its southern end
and recommends a vehicle more robust than the average car; he is no
aware whether the northern end of the road even exists. Mayne Reid an(
Ruxton testify to the Jomada's dangers in the 1840s, as does the intrepi(
Cremony, who rode it several times--on one occasion covering the last 7(
miles "at a run", pursued by Apaches. The modern traveller may reflec
that the Jomada's name, so apt in the early days, was also horribi;
prophetic: if Ruxton and Reid and Cremony had been able to make th<
Dead Man's Journey exactly a century later, they would have seen on it
eastern horizon the mushroom cloud of the first atomic bomb test. [p. 131
33. Sut not for long. Gallantin (also known as Glanton) had driven a thrivinj trade in scalps sold to the Chihuahua authorities, who were much puzzlec that in spite of all his efforts. Apache raids seemed to be increasing, witi
Mexicans and friendly Indians being scalped in large numbers. Eventual!;
it dawned On them that Gallantin himself was responsible, and was sellinj
these "innocent" scalps as well as Apache ones. Gallantin was forced t(
flee in 1851, taking about two thousand stolen sheep with him through th<
Gila River country; here he was met by Yuma Indians whose chief Naket Horse protested friendship and, at the first opportunity, wiped ou
Gallantin and his entire party. (See Dunn, Cremony, Bancroft.) [p. 149
34. The Copper Mines of Santa Rita, once the stronghold of Mangas Colorado and the Mimbreno Apache, and scene of the infamous Johnson massacre
would not be recognised by Rashman today. The triangular presidio ant buildings of the Mexican occupation have gone, and in their place is i
man-made excavation almost a mile across, showing strata of remarkable varied colours, for the copper which the Spaniards first sought centime'
ago is still being mined by modem commercial methods. ' [p. 154
35. Among the Apache it was customary for young men to accompany foul
war-parties in subordinate positions, as look-outs and auxiliaries, befon
they were considered fully-fledged warriors. (See Note 45.) [p.158
36. The reference to King Solomon's Mines is obvious; Captain Good's monocle and the prediction of the eclipse are justly famous. But ton;
before Rider Haggard wrote his story. Captain Cremony (see Note 40, had described how a similar prediction was used to impose on th<
Apaches. While it is a device that could well occur to an imaginative writer, the possibility remains that Haggard had read Cremony, anc
borrowed a factual incident for fiction, [p. 161
37. The ta-u-chi or sweatbath of the Apaches was normally a great tent 0]
blankets, in which heated rocks were placed; the bathers then packec
inside in large numbers, and when they were near suffocation, emergec
for a cold plunge. (See J. G. Bourke, An Apache Campaign in the Siem Madre, 1886). [p. 163:
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72. There can be no doubt that this Indian was Crazy Horse. While the one unauthenticated photograph of him is too vague for comparison. Flash- man's description tallies fairly well with others, and the design of th<
medicine shirt puts the wearer's identity beyond question; it correspond!
exactly with the shirt belonging to Crazy Horse which was presented b)
Little Big Man to Captain John G. Bourke of the 3rd Cavalry, the well- known Indian authority and historian. (See Bourke, Medicine' Men.) [p.310
73. Walking Blanket Woman, the Oglala girl, fought at Little Bighorn. Shf
rode in full war-dress, carrying the war-staff which her brother had borne on the Rosebud. (See Ouster's Fall, by David Humphreys Miller
1957.) (p.317
74. This passage substantiates one of the most cherished traditions of Link
Bighorn: that four Cheyenne warriors--Bobtail Horse, Calf, Roan Horse
and one unidentified brave--advanced to the river alone to oppose Custer's five troops. Some versions say they took cover behind a ridge
and were joined by a party of Sioux, who helped them to check Custer'!
advance by rifle fire. One theory is that Custer, unable to believe that foul
men would ride out against him unsupported, halted and dismountec
because he expected a large force to be following the four. It is fairl
certain that Custer did halt and dismount, for whatever reason, and there
are those who believe that if he had continued to advance he would hav(
won across the ford and possibly overrun the village before Crazy Horse and Gall, who had been fighting Reno upstream, had regrouped. Again
some versions have Custer actually reaching the river before being forcec
back; one belief is that he himself was killed there. These are matters o]
controversy; the one thing that now appears to have been settled is the identity of the fourth mysterious Cheyenne, [p.318
75. This sounds like Boyer, one of the scouts, repeating the warning which he . had given to Custer when the Indian camp was first sighted, [p.319
76. This clarifies, if it does not settle, one of the controversies of Little Bighorn--where and how Custer himself died. Indian accounts of hi;
death have been so varied as to be almost useless; he has been killed b^ many different hands, in several places, including the ford at the very star
of the battle. If that were true, then his body must have been carriec
almost a mile to where it was found on the site of the "Last Stand" on the
slope below the present Monument, which seems highly unlikely. Flash
man's account suggests that he died on the spot where his body was found
and indeed where the greatest concentration of 7th Cavalry appear to
have been lulled in the final desperate struggle, with the remnants o:
Yates's, Tom Custer's, and Smith's three troops scattered down the aorti side of the long gully below. It is worth noting, though, that Flashman's recollections are (not unreasonably) somewhat confused; in what he call!
the "slow moment" he saw Yates and Custer together; in the hand-to- hand combat that followed, the fight must have surged some distance
uphill to the point where Custer died, since Custer's body and Yates'!
were found about three hundred yards apart. One point at least may be
IB ' ^
'. ;. regarded as settled; however he died, Custer did not commit
suicide, [p-325]
77. Sergeant Butler's body was discovered, alone and surrounded by spent
cartridges, more than a mile from his own troop's last stand. This has been
i one of the mysteries of Little Bighorn. The explanation that he had been
despatched, when all was obviously lost, to carry word of the disaster if
not to get help, is one that must have occurred even without Flashman's
corroboration. Butler was, after all, a trusted and experienced soldier,
and no one in the regiment would have been more likely to win through,
a point acknowledged by the Sioux themselves. Sitting Bull, Gall, and
...nia many others paid tribute to the courage with which the 7th Cavalry fought
its last action, and singled out some for special mention, but above all the
rest they praised "the soldier with braid on his arms" as the bravest man at
Greasy Grass, (p.326]
78. Flashman's ride clean 'across the battlefield, from the point where Keogh's ^ troop fell until he must have been close to the river, might seem improbable
if it were not corroborated by an unimpeachable source of which
Flashman himself was probably never aware. In a magazine article
published in 1898, the Cheyenne chief Two Moon, who played a leading
part in the battle, and is regarded as one of the most reliable Indian
witnesses, had this to say of the final moments of the struggle:
"One man rides up and down the line--all the time shouting. He
rode a sorrel horse ... I don't know who he was. He was a very
brave man ... (a) bunch of men, maybe some forty, started towards
the river. The man on the sorrel horse led them, shouting all the time.
He wore buckskin shirt and had long black hair and moustache. He
fought hard with a big knife ..." "%%'
^S? ? Except for the buckskin shirt (and Two Moon admits that the soldiers
were white with dust, which might easily have misled him) this description
fits Flashman exactly, even to the sound effects. And historians have been
at a loss to identify the black-moustached rider until now, since his
| appearance does not tally with that of any known officer of the 7th. One
' : , theory is that he was a scout, and De Land considers the possibility that it
was Boyer, but dismisses it on the ground that Boyer was clean-shaven. It
is also worth noting Two Moon's statement that the man "fought hard
with a big knife", by which he probably meant a sabre (the chief Gall also
confirmed that one of the white men definitely used a sabre). Since the 7th
Cavalry carried no sabres in the battle, but we know that at least one
Sioux warrior did (having captured it from Crook's forces on the Rosebud),
and since Flashman describes how he took a sabre from a Sioux, it
| seems safe to say that the identity of the mysterious rider with the black
moustache has at last been established. As to the only other inconsistency
between the versions of Flashman and Two Moon--that the moustached
rider was at the head of a bunch of fugitives--nothing in Flashman's
writing has ever suggested that, in the heat of flight, he paid much
attention to any other unfortunates behind him. [p.327]
I - - ''i 381
"edcoats, 1642-1902, 1970; Walter Wood, The Romance of Regimental 'arches, 1932.) [p278]
s a guide to the character and psychological condition of George
.rmstrong Custer (1839-76), Flashman's account of him is interesting md, in the light of published information, convincing. Custer was only 37;
ie had served with distinction in the Civil War, achieved general rank when he was 23, had ten horses shot under him, and was spectacular in an
ige which did not lack for heroes. After the war his career was less happy;
is impulsive temper led to his court martial and suspension in 1867, and
Ithough Sheridan had him reinstated, his name was not free from
ontroversy even in victory, as when he defeated Black Kettle's Cheyenne
n the Washita. That he was in an excitable state in the winter of 18756,
nd regarded the coming campaign as a last chance for distinction (and
ossible political advancement), as Flashman suggests, seems highly
robable. The last-minute check received when Grant almost removed
im from the expedition can have done nothing for his stability; as one
.minent commentator puts it, Custer took the field "smarting".
Flashman's record of Custer during the vital months before the cam- >aign, while more personal than any other, accords with known facts. The
;eneral, a teetotal non-smoker who never swore, was highly emotional
md easily moved to tears; the story of his weeping at the play Ours, at
iVallaek's Theatre, is authentic, and he was known to choke when reading iloud some moving passage; he liked party games and amateur theatricals,
md would sometimes lie on a bearskin rug listening to Swiss zither music
ilayed by a soldier of the 7th. He was an energetic writer and avid reader, British military history being one of his favourite studies. Unpopular with
iis officers (Benteen seems particularly to have detested him), he obviously
had an engaging personality when he chose; secretive in planning, accasionally devious, proud to a fault, he could be embarrassingly open:
Flashman was only one of the friends to whom he confessed his penury in ^ew York. He appears to have been close to desperation during the Srant-BeIknap episode, whose course Flashman charts fairly accurately, ilthough in much greater detail than has been available hitherto. From all
his Custer may appear, to say the least, eccentric. If so, it should be
emembered that he was not alone in his time; he was a Victorian man of
>ction, and a not untypical one, and as a soldier he should not be judged .olely by his last campaign or the events that led up to it. (See Whittaker;
3unn; Boots and Saddles, 1885, and Following the Guidon, 1890, by Mrs
E. B. Custer, his widow; My Life on the Plains, by George A. Custer, 1876; and works cited later in these Notes and Appendix B.) [P-279] For a detailed account of Far West's voyage up the Missouri and Yellowitone
rivers, including the movements of the military forces, see J. M.
-lanson, The Conquest of the Missouri, 1909. (p-287]
["here is no doubt that Terry wanted a combined operation (this was
vlarsh's opinion) but that he could not lay down hard and fast restrictions
m Custer. It has to be remembered that a principal concern was to prevent the Sioux escaping, and a strict prohibition on independent action
night have resulted in Custer's standing helplessly watching the hostiles
1876, at Fail-mount Park, by President Grant. The foreign contributions
included a belly-dancer from Tunisia, but it is unlikely that she was sponsored by the ladies' committee, whose work was on an altogether
more serious level. (See Frank Leslie's Illustrated Historical Register of the
Centennial Exposition, reproduced in 1974 with an introduction by Ri- shard Kenin.) [p.252] This gossipy summary of the Belknap case is true enough in its essentials,
but what is still not clear is Custer's motive in giving evidence at the time.
He did have high political ambitions, and the corruption of the administration
was no doubt a tempting target. But he was probably sincere in not
wanting to leave his command to testify in person, for purely military
reasons--and possibly also because he feared the consequences of embarrassing
Grant at that particular moment. It was, perhaps, a question of
timing--and Custer's sense of timing could be deplorably bad. (For details af Custer's correspondence with the Clymer committee, who summoned
him to Washington, see A Complete Life of General George Armstrong
Custer, by Frederic Whittaker, 1876; Dunn.) [p-259]
right waists were a fashionable joke at this time. Punch has a cartoon of
three ladies who have dressed for the evening on the understanding that
they will not even have to climb the stairs, [p-261]
President Grant was an admirer of Tom Brown's Schooldays and its
Hithor, Thomas Hughes, the Radical M.P. and social reformer, who (like Ilis book) became extremely popular in the United States--Hughes even helped to found a model community in Tennessee, which was christened
Rugby, after his old school. During Grant's visit to England in 1877,
Hughes proposed the former President's health at a private dinner at the
Crystal Palace; Grant had been told that a speech from him was not ixpected, but he insisted on rising to express his gratification at hearing
'my health proposed in such kind words by Tom Brown of Rugby". (See Fhayer.) [p.265]
rhe name of Edwinton Landing was in fact changed to Bismarck in the dope that the German Chancellor might encourage financial help to the Northern Pacific railway, which was in difficulties, [p-267]
Captain Bcnteen's famous holograph letter about Little Bighorn does, in
act, contain an incidental reference to cricket, but Flashman's is the only svidence that he was an enthusiast, [p275] Garryowen, the stirring march forever associated with Custer's 7th Cavilry,
dates from the late eighteenth century, when it was a drinking song
rf rich young roisterers in Limerick. It attained immediate popularity in
;he British Army and was played throughout the Napoleonic Wars, aecoming the regimental march of the 18th Foot (The Royal Irish
Regiment), and was a favourite in the Crimea; Fanny Duberly mentions it
n connection with the Connaught Rangers (Devil's Own), and the 8th
[Irish) Hussars who were part of the Light Brigade. When it crossed the Atlantic is uncertain, but it was known during the Civil War, and quite
wobably caught Custer's fancy at that time, despite the traditions that it
was introduced later to the 7th either by the Irish Captain Keogh or the
English Sergeant Butler. (See Lewis Winstock, Songs and Musk of the
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Jbviously Mangas Colorado had heard of the brass badges given by the I British to friendly chiefs in the colonial days--a practice carried on in many parts of the world under the Empire. It is said that Sitting Bull
limself possessed a badge of King George III, possibly inherited from an
mcestor, and that when the Sioux sought refuge in Canada after Little
3ighom, he displayed it to Inspector Walsh of the North-west Mounted
?ouce, exclaiming: "We are British Indians! Why did you give the country
o the Americans?" fn ifigl Mangas (or Mangus) Colorado (18037-1863), leader of the Santa Rita copper Mines band of the Mimbreno Apaches, was one of the great Indian chiefs, certainly the most gifted of his nation, although less famous
han his successors. Originally named Dasodaha (He-OnlySits-There),
ie is supposed to have won the title of Red Sleeves by stealing a red shirt
Tom a party of Americans; only Flashman suggests that it was in reference
;o his duel with his brothers-in-law--an encounter mentioned by Crenony.
Although he was unusually large and powerful, there is some
mcertainty as to how tall he was; some sources suggest as much as six feet ;ix
or seven, but Cremony, who knew him well a year or two after
Flashman, settles for six feet, and John C. Reid, another eyewitness, limply says "Very large, powerful mould, villainous face" (Reid's Tramp,
v/ John C. Reid, 1858). What is not in dispute is Mangas's intelligence
md political ability; Cremony, although he despised his character and loted that he was not remarkable for personal bravery, thought him arilliant, statesmanlike, and influential beyond any other Indian of his ,
:ime. As leader of the Mimbreno, Mangas showed great skill in unifying
;he Apache people, partly through marriage alliances; three of his daugh- ^
;ers by the beautiful Mexican lady became wives of the Coyotero, "j Chiricahua, and White Mountains clans; one of his sons-in-law was the f
xlebrated Cochise. Of the fourth daughter, Sonsee-array (the Morning (!< Star), there is no historical trace; since she did not marry an Apache chief, &
ike her sisters, she presumably had no political importance, j
While Mangas's character may well have been as deplorable as Cre- I mony suggests, in justice to the chief he appears to have been initially J
(veil-disposed to the Americans, at least until the Johnson massacre of
1837. For this he took a swift and terrible revenge, killing various bands of '
American trappers, ambushing coirvoys to Santa Rita, and finally wiping
ut almost all the Copper Mines settlers when they tried to escape to Mexico. Thereafter he established himself at Santa Rita, offered help to
3eneral Keamy in the Mexican War (see W. H. Emory, Notes of a Military Reconnaissance, 1848), and had friendly relations with Commisioner
Bartlett of the U.S. Boundary Commission, although they had
xxasional disputes over the status of Mexican captives in Apache hands.
this time (less than two years after Flashman met him) Mangas suffered
n indignity which turned him bitterly against the white intruders--he was let upon and brutally flogged by a party of American miners, whether on
luspicion of treachery or out of malice is not clear. Thereafter he waged occasional war against Americans and Mexicans alike, until 1863, when
