Читать книгу The Two Sams: Men of the West - F. M. Worden - Страница 10

Chapter 4

Death Comes Early

It took several days to reach the Choctaw Indian Agency. Jane and Walter welcomed them with open arms. Walter showed them a house they could have to live in, it was pretty run down. No one had lived in it for quite a few years. Liz told Sam they could have it in shape in no time. In the mean time Walter said they could bed down in a room in the house with them.

Sam and Liz had the house in good shape in a few days and moved in. The two boys soon had Indian children as play mates. Sam began his duties as a farm instructor to the Choctaws. The Indians were more than willing to learn the white mans ways.

Liz spent her time teaching the women cooking on a stove and sewing on a peddle machine. Most had never seen a stove, let alone cook on one and most of the women had never seen a sewing machine. Liz found the squaws ready and willing to learn, she also found they were smart and fun.

Sam’s help was teaching his charges ways of handling horses and mules and general farm duties. The farm work and harnessing of horses and mules was new to the Indians, farm work was not a natural thing for the men, most had always hunted, fished and play games with their horses, it took time. Most of the men finally took to farming, when the crops began to grow, the Indian farmers became proud of their labors.

The government gave each family livestock and farm equipment. Soon the white man started to trade the Indians out of this stock and equipment for just a few jugs of whiskey.

Walter and Sam had to devise a way to stop this practice. There was no law on the Choctaw at the time. Sam gave it all the attention he could. Liz told him she had the idea to brand, “I Don’t Trade” on the stock and all the wagons and farm equipment. If a white man had an IDT brand in his possession, it would have to be given back. This stopped the whites and their trading.

Whisky runners became a big problem. Sam and Walter punished the Indians who used the drink by keeping them locked up in the agency jail until they promised to quit.

As his two boys grew, Sam used them to help school the Indians in their way of working with horses, gentle and kind. Both Jack and young Sam became good hands with the horses and mules. Sam was proud of them both.

Young Sam made friends with many of the Indian children and became a fast friend of Charlie Bird. Charlie’s family lived near the agency. He had two brothers and two sisters. He was the youngest boy and wanted to live as the white men did. He was too young to know the old Choctaw’s ways. He taught young Sam his native tongue and Indian sign language. Sam would use this knowledge later many times in his future life.

Young Sam and Charlie helped Sam with the horses and mules. Both these boys became good hands for Sam. Jack preferred to work with Walter and the cattle. A mule had kicked him and he refused to work around them any longer.

Charlie Bird had two sisters. One was ten or so, the other older, maybe eighteen or nineteen, her name was Blue Bird a very handsome Indian Girl. She liked to come with Charlie to help with the horses. She was a good rider and took a liking too young Sam right away. Many times the three rode the wagon roads and trails of the Choctaw together.

One afternoon on the road above a creek the three stopped to watch a young Indian man and girl down in the bushes by the creek. Sam asked if they were fighting. Charlie and Blue both laughed and rode on.

Back at the corrals Sam asked again about the two they had seen by the creek. Blue told him they were making a papoose. “I’ll show you how it’s done if you want?” Sam didn’t know what to say. He let it pass. It was never mentioned again for a long time.

A fever came on the people of the Choctaw. Many people began to die of high temperatures. No doctor could break the fever or stop the dying. There seemed to be no cure.

Liz was the first to come down with it, then Sam. Both lay in an unconscious state for some time. Young Sam prayed to God to save his Ma and Pa. All to no avail, they both passed on the same night. Sam was heart broken. He loved them both so much. It was almost more than he could endure.

He cussed God for death of his folks. “I’ll never ask for any thing from God again,” he vowed. He came down with the fever a few days after his folks were buried. He lay unconscious for days, his body was burning with fever, he was expected to die at any time.

An old medicine man came to the agency. He said he was curing the people of the Choctaw, he could save this boy. Walter told him to try. The medicine man filled a horse trough with cold water and lifted Sam gently into the water, only his head remained above the surface. He then shook gourds and danced around the trough singing a chant. This went on for three days and three nights.

Sam slowly gained consciousness. Soon he picked himself out of the trough, the fever was broken. The medicine man said he had many people lay in the creeks in the cold water, he had saved them with his chants and dancing.

“The great sprit came and told me what I should do.” The old Indian believed he had cured the people.

The Choctaw returned to normal. The fever had lifted thru out the nation.

It took several weeks for Sam to regain his strength completely.

As the next years passed, Sam and Charlie trained many horses together. One afternoon Blue Bird came to the horse pens and asked to go with Sam for a ride along the creek trails. She asked Charlie not to go. “You stay at the pens,” she insisted.

Blue and Sam rode the trail by the creek. She asked if he was ready to see how to make a papoose? He laughed and told her he was ready for her to show him. She turned her horse into some willows along the creek bank, dismounted and began to disrobe. Her beautiful naked bronzed body lit a fire in Sam he had never encountered. She lay on the leaves and beckoned him to come to her. The sight of her slim bronzed naked body, her long black hair, braided in two strands pulled across her full rounded breasts, would invite the natural instinct in any young man. Sam slipped down beside her and kissed her full waiting lips. The two enjoyed each other for some time that afternoon. This was only the first of several afternoons they spent together down by the creek.

The word got around the agency like wild fire and soon Walter asked Sam about the rumor. “Was it true, was Blue Bird and you having girl boy relations by the creek?”

Sam told him that it was true. Walter was devastated and mad as a hornet. “You’ll have to leave the agency. The council and Chiefs are mad that you would take advantage of one of their young girls.”

Jane came in and said, “The Chief wants Sam whipped as no white boy can violate their women. Sam you will have to leave the agency.” She started to cry.

Walter told him he would have to leave. “Don’t you know Blue is a blabber mouth? She has told everyone on the Choctaw about your relations. You’re so dumb.”

That night Walter told Sam he must leave the very next morning. “I can’t promise your safety. I know your Pa and Ma would want you to go and make good at something. He talked of a gun maker in St Louis he had worked for. A Jake Hawkin. “He made the rifle your Pa treasured so much. You like guns, you might like to make them, I’ll have a letter for you to give him when you get there, we’ll give you twenty dollars and your Pa’s pistol, we’ll keep his rifle here, if you or Jack ever want it, it’ll be here.”

Sam packed his few belongings in a feed sack. Jane fixed a food sack and next morning, along with many tears, Jack, Jane and Walter bid young Sam goodbye. Sam started his journey to St Louis and into manhood, he would be sixteen years old his next birthday, in December. He would never see Jack his brother again who was killed at the battle of Shiloh, fighting for the Southern cause, nor would see his Aunt Jane or Uncle Walter again. They would both die at the agency.

He walked and hitched a few rides on freight wagons all the way to Ft Smith. There he got a job with a freight company hauling cotton bales to the Mississippi River for shipment north. His main job was to yoke the oxen team each morning and unyoke and tend to them as they grazed in the evening. There were seven teams he had to take care of.

At the Mississippi River they crossed on a ferry boat. The teamster paid him a five-dollar gold coin for his labor.

In Memphis Sam looked for his Grandpa Moore. He found him working on the docks. His Grandpa was delighted to see him. He knew both his daughter and Sam were gone. Jane had sent word the year before. The girl’s mother had also died and Grandpa Moore had remarried a lady twenty years his junior. Grandpa was sorry the way he had treated Sam’s Pa. “I wish I had that time to do over,” he told him. “Things might have turned out different. I want you to live with me and my wife.”

Sam’s Step Grandma didn’t cotton to him at all and she let him know in no uncertain terms. He wasn’t welcome to stay. She told him in private, “I don’t want any young-ns around. I ain’t gonna do for you.” She asks him not to tell his Grandpa her feelings. His staying might interfere with the relations with her and the old man. Sam told her he would leave.

“I’ll cause you no trouble,” he told her.

Sam told his Grandpa he would like to go on to St Louis. “I want-a learn about gun making like my Pa did.” He said nothing of his Grandpa’s wife’s feelings toward him.

His Grandpa saw it was no use trying to get him to stay. He told him he knew all the captains of river boats and could get him passage in a few days to go upriver, he did. On a livestock boat going north the next day captained by a Captain Black. Sam signed on to work as a stock feeder, A job he could do well.

Sam was on his way to St Louis. He had trouble with thieves on the boat and had to show them his pistol several times to keep them away from his sack of belongings.

When the docks of St Louis came in sight, Sam was ready to quit the river. He bid Captain Black goodbye and walked from the boat down the gang-plank to solid ground and up the street.

He was in awe of such a town, there were more people than he had ever seen before. Memphis was big but nothing like St Louis. There were carriages and buggies going ever where, wagons pulled by oxen teams moved thru the streets. Men on horse back seemed to be going in all directions. Sam was impressed with this gate way to the west. Now all he needed was to find the Hawkin gun shop.

He stopped the first man he met to ask for directions. Before he said anything, the man turned on him. “Get the hell away from me boy, I don’t give money to bums.”

This made Sam mad. “You son-of-a- bitch, I wouldn’t ask you for the time of day.”

The man shrugged his shoulders and walked away. The next person he met was a lady and before he could say a word she said, “Get away boy.”

He said to her, “Nice friendly town you got here.” He gave her a high sign and went on his way looking for the Hawkin gun shop.