Читать книгу Opening the West With Lewis and Clark - Edwin L. Sabin - Страница 9

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“They are many,” reported Shon-go-ton-go, or Big Horse, sub-chief of the Otoes.

“How many?” asked We-ah-rush-hah, or Little Thief, the head chief.

“As many,” replied Big Horse, “as five times the fingers on two hands.”

“Wah!” gravely grunted the circle, where the chiefs and warriors squatted in their blankets and buffalo robes.

For August, the Ripe Corn month, of 1804, had arrived to the Oto Indians’ country in present Nebraska beyond the Missouri River; but now at their buffalo-hunt camp north of the River Platte the chiefs of the combined Oto and Missouri nations sat in solemn council instead of chasing the buffalo.

Through a long time, or since the month when the buffalo begin to shed, the air had been full of rumors. Five moons back, when the cottonwood buds first swelled, down at the big white village of “San Loui’” there had been a ceremony by which, according to the best word, all this vast land watered by the Missouri River had changed white fathers. The Spanish father’s flag had been hauled down, and a different flag had been raised. Indians had been there and had seen; yes, Shawnees, Saukies, Delawares, Osages—they had been there, and had seen. The Spanish governor, whose name was Delassus, had made a speech, to the white people. He had said:

PROCLAMATION

March 9, 1804.

Inhabitants of Upper Louisiana:

By the King’s command, I am about to deliver up this post and its dependences!

The flag under which you have been protected for a period of nearly thirty-six years is to be withdrawn. From this moment you are released from the oath of fidelity you took to support it.

The speech was hard to understand, but there it was, tacked up on the white man’s talking paper. Moreover, the good governor had made a talk for the Indians also, his red children. He had said:

Your old fathers, the Spaniard and the Frenchman, who grasp by the hand your new father, the head chief of the United States, by an act of their good will, and in virtue of their last treaty, have delivered up to them all these lands. They will keep and defend them, and protect all the white and red skins who live thereon.

For several days we have fired off cannon shots to announce to all the nations that your father, the Spaniard, is going, his heart happy to know that you will be protected and sustained by your new father, and that the smoke of the powder may ascend to the Master of Life, praying him to shower on you all a happy destiny and prosperity in always living in good union with the whites.

Up the great river and into the west, by traders and runners had come the tidings.

Who were these United States? What kind of a man was the new white father? He was sending a party of his warriors, bearing presents and peace talk. They already had ascended the big river, past the mouth of the Platte. They had dispatched messengers to the Otoes and the Missouris, asking them to come in to council. But the Otoes and Missouris had left their village where they lived with their friends the Pawnees, in order to hunt the buffalo before gathering their corn, and only by accident had the invitation reached them.

Then Shon-go-ton-go and We-the-a and Shos-gus-can and others had gone; and had returned safe and satisfied. They had returned laden with gifts—paint and armlets and powder, and medals curiously figured, hung around their necks by the two white chiefs themselves. They had hastened to seek out We-ah-rush-hah, the head chief, in his camp, and report.

The white chiefs were waiting to treat with him, as was proper, and they had sent to him a bright colored flag, and ornaments, and a medal.

“What do the white chiefs want?” queried We-ah-rush-hah.

“They say that the new white father will be generous with the Otoes and Missouris, and wishes us to be at peace with our enemies.”

“Will he protect us from those robbers, the Omahas?”

“He wishes us to make peace with the Omahas. The United States would go with us to the Omahas, but we told them we were afraid. We are poor and weak and the Omahas would kill us.”

“Good,” approved We-ah-rush-hah.

“There are two of the white chiefs,” added We-the-a, or Hospitable One, the Missouri chief. “They wear long knives by their sides. Their hair is of strange color. The hair of one is yellow like ripe corn; the hair of the other is red as pipe-stone. The Red Head is big and pleasant; the yellow-haired one is slim and very straight, and when he speaks he does not smile. Yes, the Red Head is a buffalo, but the other is an elk.”

“They have three boats,” added Shos-gus-can, or White Horse, who was an Oto. “One boat is larger than any boat of any trader. It has a gun that talks in thunder. Of the other boats, one is painted white, one is painted red. The chiefs are dressed in long blue shirts that glitter with shining metal. The party are strong in arms. They have much guns, and powder and lead, and much medicine. They have a gun that shoots with air, and shoots many times. It is great medicine. They have a man all black like a buffalo in fall, with very white teeth and short black hair, curly like a buffalo’s. He is great medicine. They carry a white flag with blue and red borders. Red, white and blue are their medicine colors. The flag is their peace sign. There are French with them, from below, and another, a trader from the Sioux. They received us under a white lodge, and have named the place the Council-bluffs. They must be of a great nation.”

“I will go and see these United States, and talk with them,” announced Little Thief, majestically. “Their presents have been good, their words sound good. It is unwise to refuse gifts laid upon the prairie. If indeed we have a new father for all the Indians, maybe by listening to his chiefs we can get more from him than we did from our Spanish father. I will go and talk, at the burnt Omaha village. Let the four white men who have come with gifts and a message, seeking brothers-who-have-run-away, be well treated, so that we shall be well treated also.”

Then the council broke up.

On the outskirts, a boy, Little White Osage, had listened with all his ears. The affair was very interesting. A hot desire filled his heart to go, himself, and see these United States warriors, with their painted boats and their marvelous guns and their black medicine-man and their two chiefs whose hair was different, like his own hair.

His own hair was brown and fine instead of being black and coarse, and his eyes were blue instead of black, and his skin, even in its tan, was light instead of dark. Sometimes he was puzzled to remember just how he had come among the Otoes. He did not always feel like an Indian. To be sure, he had been bought from the Osages by the Otoes; but away, ’way back there had been a woman, a light-haired, soft-skinned woman, among the Osages, who had kissed him and hugged him and had taught him a language that he well-nigh had forgotten.

Occasionally one of those strange words rose to his lips, but he rarely used it, because the Osages, and now the Otoes, did not wish him to use it.

The Otoes called him Little White Osage, as a kind of slur. Nobody kissed him and hugged him, but in their ill-natured moments the Oto squaws beat him, and the children teased him. The squaws never beat the other boys. Antoine, the French trader, was kinder to him. But Antoine had married an Oto woman, and all his children were dark and Indian.

“At the burnt Omaha village,” had said Chief Little Thief.

Little White Osage knew where this was. The United States chiefs, by their messengers, had invited Little Thief to meet them at the principal Omaha Indian village, so that peace might be made between the Omahas and the Otoes. But the village had been smitten by a sickness—the smallpox, old Antoine had named it, and the frightened Omahas had burned their lodges and had fled, such as were able. Only the site of the village remained, and its graves.

It would be of no use to try to go with the chief’s party. They would not want boys, and especially a boy who was not like other Indian boys, and bore a name of the hated Osages. Therefore, this night, in the dusk, he slipped from under his thin blanket in the skin lodge, where slumbered old Antoine and family, and scuttled, bending low, out into the prairie.

He would have sought the four white men who had come from the United States chiefs’ camp, but they had left, looking for two other men who had strayed. And besides, he didn’t feel certain that they would help him.

The prairie was thick with high grasses, and with bushes whereon berries were ripening; he wore only a cloth about his waist, on his feet moccasins, but he did not mind, for his skin was tough. He carried his bow, of the yellow osage wood, and slung under his left arm his badger-hide quiver containing blunt reed arrows.

The damp night air was heavy with smoke, for the prairies had been fired in order to drive out the game. Now and then he startled some animal. Eyes glowed at him, and disappeared, and a shadowy form loped away. That was a wolf. He was not afraid of any cowardly wolf. Larger forms bolted, with snorts. They were antelope. To a tremendous snort a much larger form bounded from his path. That was an elk. But he hastened on at a trot and fast walk, alert and excited, his nostrils and eyes and ears wide, while he ever kept the North Star before him on his left.

It seemed long ere in the east, whither he was hurrying, the stars were paling. On his swift young legs he had covered many miles. None of the Oto or Missouri boys could have done better, but he simply had to rest. The dawn brightened; he should eat and hide himself and sleep. So he paused, to make plans.

“Wah!” And “Hoorah!” “Hoorah!” was one of those strange words which would rise to his lips. Far before him, although not more than three or four hours’ travel, was a low line of trees marking the course of the big river. He took a step; from a clump of brush leaped a rabbit—and stopped to squat. Instantly Little White Osage had strung bow, fitted arrow, and shot. The arrow thudded, the rabbit scarcely kicked. Picking him up, Little White Osage trotted on, his breakfast in hand.

Now he smelled smoke stronger, and scouting about he cautiously approached a smouldering camp-fire. Omahas? But he espied nobody moving, or lying down. It was an old camp-fire. Around it he discovered in the dust that had been stirred up, the prints of boots. The white men had been here—perhaps the messengers to the camp of Little Thief. Good! He might cook his rabbit; and sitting, he did cook it after he had built the fire into more heat. He ate. Then he curled in the grass, like a brown rabbit himself, and slept.

When he wakened, the sun was high. He stretched; peered, to be safe; drank from a nearby creek, and set forward again. Nearer he drew to the big river, and nearer; and he had to move more carefully lest the Omahas should be lurking at their village, and sight him. The Omahas would be glad to capture anybody from the Otoes. There was no peace between the two peoples.

The ruined village lay lifeless and black, with its graves on the hill above it. He circled the village, and found a spot whence he could gaze down.

The broad big river flowed evenly between its low banks; curving amidst the willows and cottonwoods and sand-bars, it was the highway for the great white village of “San Loui’,” at its mouth many days to the south. It led also up into the country of the Mandans and the fierce Sioux, in the unknown north. And yonder, on a sand sprit above the mouth of the Omaha Creek, was the white chiefs’ camp!

With his sharp eyes Little White Osage eagerly surveyed. Three boats there were, just as said by Shos-gus-can: one painted white, and one painted red, and one very large, fastened in the shallows. On the sand were kettles, over fires, and many men moving about, or lying under a canopy; and a red, white and blue flag flying in the breeze.

A party were leaving the camp, and coming toward him. They could not see him—he was too cleverly hidden in the bushes, above. Wading through the grasses waist high they made for the creek and halted where the beavers had dammed it into a pond. These were white men, surely. They numbered the fingers on two hands, and three more fingers. They carried guns, and a net of branches and twigs; and one, a tall straight man, wore at his side a long knife in a sheath which flashed. He had on his head a queer three-cornered covering. He was the leader, for when he spoke and pointed, the other men jumped to obey.

They walked into the water, to net fish. They hauled and tugged and plashed and laughed and shouted; and when they emerged upon the bank again their net was so heavy that the leader sprang to help them. He tossed aside his head covering. His hair was bright like ripe corn. One of the two chiefs, he!

What a lot of fish they brought out! Hundreds of them sparkled in the sun. This sport continued until near sunset, when the men all went away, to eat and sleep.

At dusk Little White Osage stole down to the creek. Some of the fish were scattered about, but they were stiff and dull; he could not eat them without cooking them and he was afraid to risk a fire. So he gathered mussels and clams, and these were pretty good, raw.

That night the camp-fires of the “’Nited States” warriors blazed on the beach at the river; in the grasses of a hollow above the creek Little White Osage finally slept.

Therefore another morning dawned and found him still here, waiting to see what the new whites would do next. But he must not be caught by Chief Little Thief and old Antoine, or they would punish him.

The United States were eating. Almost could he smell the meat on the fires. After eating, the camp busied itself in many ways. Some of the men again walked up the creek. Others raised a pole, or mast, on the largest boat. Others swam and frolicked in the river. Evidently the camp was staying for the arrival of We-ah-rush-hah.

But that meat! The thought of it made the mouth of Little White Osage to water. Well, he must go and find something and cook it where he would be safe, and then return to those women and children who did not like him. He had seen the “’Nited States,” and their chief with the yellow hair. Maybe he had seen the red-hair chief, too.

He crept on hands and knees, until he might trudge boldly, aiming northward so as not to meet with Little Thief. When after a time he looked back, toward the river, he saw a great smoke rising. The United States had set the prairie afire!

Hah! That they had! Had they known that he was watching them, and had that made them angry? The smoke increased rapidly—broadened and billowed. The prairie breeze puffed full and strong from the southeast, and the pungent odor of burning grasses swept across his quivering nostrils. The fire was pursuing him. It had cut off any retreat to the big river waters; it was swifter than an antelope, on his trail. Very cunning and cruel were those “’Nited States” men.

Through the tall dry grasses strained Little White Osage, seeking refuge. He sobbed in his husky throat. If he might but reach that line of sand hills, yonder, they would break the wall of fire and save him. It was such a big fire to send after such a small boy. Now the sun was veiled by the scudding smoke, and the wind blew acrid and hot. Before him fled animals—racing antelope and bounding elk, galloping wolves and darting birds. They were fast; but he—alas, he was too slow, and he was weak and tired. Was he to be burned? He threw aside his quiver, and next his bow. They felt so heavy.

The fire was close. He could hear the crackle and the popping as it devoured everything. The sand hills were mocking him; they seemed to sneak backward as he toiled forward. Suddenly, panting and stumbling, he burst into a little clearing, where the grasses were short. In the midst of the clearing lay the carcass of a buffalo bull.

With dimmed staring eyes Little White Osage, casting wildly about for shelter, saw. He saw the carcass, partially cut up; the meat had been piled on the hide, as if the hunters had left, to get it another time; and on the meat was planted a ramrod or wiping-stick, with a coat hung on it, to keep off the wolves. But nobody was here.

Not in vain had Little White Osage been trained to look out for himself. Now he knew what he could do. He staggered for the meat-pile; frantically tore it away, but not to eat it. He barely could lift the great hide, but lift it he did; wriggled underneath, drew it over him, and crouched there, gasping.

Crackle, pop, roar—and the wall of fire charged the clearing, dashed into it, licked hotly across it, and snatched at the robe. He felt the robe shrivel and writhe, and smelled the stench of sizzling flesh and hair. He could scarcely breathe. Over him the buffalo hide was scorching through and through. How the fire roared, how the wind blew; but neither fire nor wind could get at him through that tough, inch-thick canopy. Almost smothered by heat and smoke, Little White Osage cringed, waiting. He was a wee bit afraid.

Soon he knew that the fire had passed. He ventured to raise an edge of the hide and peek from under. Smoke wafted into his face and choked him. Black lay the cindered land around; the fire was surging on to the west, where the sand hills would stop it, but it had mowed a path too hot to walk on, yet. He must stay awhile.

He reached out a hand and dragged to him a piece of the charred bloody buffalo meat, and nibbled at it. Over him the buffalo hide had stiffened, to form a pup-tent; and really he was not so very uncomfortable. He ate, and stretching the best that he might, pillowed his face on his bended arm. Next, he was asleep—tired Little White Osage.

He slept with an ear open, for voices and tread of feet aroused him. People were coming. He craned his neck to peer about—and ducked further inside, like a turtle inside its shell.

Two persons had arrived in the clearing. They were walking straight toward him. They were white men. They were some of those United States warriors!

A moment more, and a heavy foot kicked the hide—thump!—and hands ruthlessly overthrew it. Exposed, Little White Osage sprang erect, gained his feet at a bound, stood bravely facing the two warriors of the “’Nited States.” He would not show them that he feared.

“B’gorry,” exclaimed a voice, “here’s a quare pea in a pod!”