Читать книгу Canadian Adventurers and Explorers Bundle - John Wilson - Страница 28

A Peigan war chief knelt beside an earthen pit already dug atop a dry, grassy knoll, not far from Gady’s camp. His name was Kootanae Appee, meaning Kootenay Man. He had a high forehead, an aquiline nose, and dark eyes that defined a face both honest and fierce. He stood nearly six and a half feet tall. Lean and agile, he was built for fighting. But on this day his thoughts were far from fighting. He was seeking solitude to reconnect with his spirit. As was his custom, he had ridden far from his village and climbed a distant hill. Here, he would catch a hawk whose feathers would adorn his new headdress.

Using the age-old method, he lay face up in a pit dug like a shallow grave. He reached out for the stack of branches and laid them across the opening. Then he pulled dry grasses and leaves atop the branches, completely concealing his presence. Lastly, he placed a freshly killed rabbit, impaled on a stick, on top of the leaves and rested it just above his chest. When the shadow of the hawk appeared, Kotanae Appee would be very still. When the rabbit moved, he would reach out and grab the great one by both legs then beat the struggling predator against the ground until its vicious beak and talons were no threat. Meditating and softly chanting, he would lie patiently for many hours, until his feathered quarry descended.

There were few trees about, so David searched the grass for dried buffalo dung in place of firewood for their camp. He followed a trail of droppings to the base of a grassy knoll.

Above, a hawk circled excitedly in the blue sky, then descended, wings tucked, into a dive. David recognized the behaviour. He had seen these airborne predators hunting the prairie grasses for small game many times before. He waited expectantly for the hawk to sweep up again, carrying some luckless gopher or rabbit in its talons, but strangely, the bird never reappeared. David meandered back to camp, stooping occasionally to add another dried chip to his armload.

They had travelled twenty-four kilometres a day, giving the horses plenty of rest and time to graze the nutrient-rich grasses. They hunted, but game was unusually scarce and the men were hungry. Gady could not explain why there were no buffalo or elk.

Within a month the small trading party could see the glimmering white tips of the distant Rocky Mountain Range. As they trekked closer, the mountains rose into immense snow-topped masses, piercing the clouds and forming what David thought must be an impassable wall. A few kilometres beyond the Bow River they met the first Peigan people. Unknown to Gady or his men, scouts had been watching the traders for several days before they finally approached with a dozen warriors on horseback with their quivers full of arrows.

Fortunately, their welcome was friendly. They told Gady to camp where he stood and that they would return with fresh meat. “We must look a sight,” said Gady. “They know we haven’t eaten anything worth spit in weeks.” That evening the Peigan and Hudson’s Bay men feasted on fat cow buffalo and talked well into the night. The Peigan wanted news of other tribes – their numbers, was there disease? Were they at war? Gady told them all he knew, which wasn’t much.

In the following days the traders were taken to the Peigan’s main camp, where they traded ammunition and tobacco for choice fox and beaver skins. David was lodged in the tent of a grey-haired elder named Saukamappee. The old man was solemn, but mild-spoken. His tall frame was still strong and remarkably supple. Strangely, Saukamappee was pleased to hear the Hudson’s Bay men had found no game. “That means a plentiful winter,” he reasoned, “because the buffalo have stayed too long on the Missouri grass and will be hungry for new grass near our mountains.”

The old man was pleased even more when he found David could speak the language of the Cree. He asked David about his father and mother and their country. David explained he never knew his father, and that his mother had given him away to a school where he and other boys were raised to help navigate ships that crossed the great oceans, but he had instead been sent here to trade furs.

The old man nodded. “I am not a Peigan,” he said, smiling after a long silence, “but a Cree of the Pasquiaw River near what you call Cumberland House. I too, came here as a young man. I came with my people to help our friends, the Peigan, in war. My name, Saukamappee, means ‘young man.’ I have not returned to the country of my people since. It warms me to speak with you in the tongue of my mother, which I had almost forgotten.”

David told the old man what he knew about the Cree near Cumberland House. He mentioned the names of some of the elders there, but Saukamappee knew none of them. “I see I am now a stranger in the land of my father,” he said, and then began to tell David about his years with the Peigan. The old man was fond of speaking in his native language. Nearly every evening he related the events of his life to David.

“All these plains are now shared by three tribes,” he told his eager young audience. “The Peigan, the Blood, and the Blackfoot. We speak the same language and help each other in war. But it was not always so. In the past, this country belonged to the Kootenay in the north, to the Salish in the west, and to the Shoshoni and their allies in the south. They were many more than us, and they were our enemies, especially the Shoshoni, who would attack the small hunting camps of the Peigan, killing everyone. Then the Peigan sent messengers to my people asking for help, so I came with my father and twenty other Cree warriors to the Peigan. I was proud to be included in the great war tent when we feasted and made war speeches and danced. The Peigan were much pleased that we had guns from the white men.

“One day our scouts told us they had seen a large camp of the Shoshoni not far from us. They were many.” Saukamapee opened and closed the fingers of both hands, then held up one finger signifying that each finger was worth ten. He then slowly and sombrely stretched open both hands three times and one hand once. Three hundred and fifty. David nodded and waited intently for the old man to continue.

“When we went to fight them,” Saukamappee said gravely, “our war party stood opposite facing the enemy. The enemy danced and shouted war cries and then they crouched behind their large shields. We did the same, but we had fewer shields, so two warriors knelt behind one shield. Then the arrows came. Their bows were not as long as ours but were made of better wood, and their arrows shot between us and sometimes went right through our shields, wounding us. Our arrows did not pierce their shields, but stuck in them.

“We became afraid that we would lose and had fear they might bring horse warriors. Back then my people had never seen a horse but had heard how the Shoshoni could ride them swift as deer and how they used stone clubs to smash the heads of many warriors who could not run from them. But we were fortunate because they had no horses, and they had not yet traded with the white man so the Shoshoni and the Kootenay did not have guns.

“Our war chief told those of us with guns, of which I was one, to lay between our shields. We had ten guns and each of us had thirty balls and powder. The chief told us to shoot, but we said we must be closer, so we moved to where their arrows could easily kill us. But when a Shoshoni warrior stepped from behind his shield to fire his arrows, in the way they always do, we fired, and our bullets never missed.

“We killed and wounded many that way until they began to crawl away and hide from the guns. Our chief signalled and we ran after them, killing them before they could run away. We now wanted scalps to honour our battle. Some brave Shoshoni stayed and fought but there were five or six of us, all trying to get the scalp of one of them, and it was soon over and only a few scalps had been taken., Then some of our warriors began scalping the dead ones, but these scalps were poor trophies and had no value to me. Taking a scalp captures the soul of the enemy, but only for the one who kills him. So I took no scalps because I did not know which ones I had killed with my gun. I was unhappy because my wife’s father wanted scalps to honour his medicine bag and to give to his ancestors.

“After the victory feast the chief asked all the warriors to give their scalps as gifts to families who had lost relatives in the battle. Our people believed the souls of the slain enemies would then become slaves for our dead ones. But many warriors did not know what to do because the chief would not let scalps taken from the dead dishonour the families. In the end, he said they must give these scalps to us, the Cree, who had killed so many with guns and who had won the battle. I was given many scalps.

“After that I dressed in my finest leather and painted my face and body so that I would impress my wife and her father when I gave them my scalps. I rode many days to find them, but when I came to my people’s village they said my wife was no longer with them. She had taken another man before I was three moons gone and moved to another village with her family. My heart was swollen with anger and revenge but my Peigan friends said she was worthless and I would find a better wife with them. That was when I renounced my people and returned to live with the Peigan. The Peigan chief then honoured me with his eldest daughter for a wife. She has now grown old with me.

“The terror of that battle and our guns stopped the Shoshoni and Kootenay from attacking us. But we did not stop. We warred for many seasons and we killed as many of our enemies as we could find. Finally, we drove the evil ones, the Shoshoni, the Kootenay, and the Salish out of this land and across the mountains.” The old man paused and seemed to fight back tears as he summoned strength back to his voice. “But the killing brought an evil spirit to us, which entered the bodies of men, women, and children, killing everyone and destroying whole villages.”

Smallpox! David thought.

“After the great death everything changed,” said Saukamappee. “Now there were not enough people for our village. We believed the Great Spirit had forsaken us and was angry at the blood we had spilled on his land. So after that we killed only the men. The women and young ones were taken back to our village to live with us. Then our villages grew strong again. That is how we got this land.”

In mid-winter, a small war party of young men returned to camp after a long absence. They sang a war song of victory, and one came to the old man’s tent to pay his respects. After he left, Saukamappee told David the warriors had been gone for two months, and the famous war chief, Kootanae Appee, would arrive tomorrow with the main war party. They had gone far south to meet their enemy, the Black People (the name they gave the Spanish), and capture their horses. David asked about the battle and the old man smiled. “No battle. The Black People never fight. They always run away.”

He told David it was just as well for the Spanish because Kootanae Appee was a brilliant battle strategist, and it was he who had defeated all the other tribes and carried the Peigan to great heights of power. Saukamapee said the war chief was famous for snatching victory while retreating. Unlike war chiefs before him, who left warriors to fend for themselves, Kootanae Appee would organize strategic ambushes. His rearguard actions won him many victories and the devotion of his warriors.

The following day the tent flap swung open and Kootanae Appee entered Saukamapee’s lodgings. There was no ceremony between them. They were old friends and each held high status in his tribe. The old man presented David to the chief, but Kootanae Appee’s stone-faced stare gave no hint of friendliness. The war chief extended his left hand in greeting and David gave him his right in return. In doing so David had unknowingly challenged the chief to combat. The chief smiled, for he knew the contest would not be equal. Saukamapee intervened quickly. “Listen young man,” he scolded. “If one of our people offers you his left hand, you give him your left hand. The right hand is for fighting. It wields the spear, draws the bow, and pulls the trigger. It is the hand of death. The left hand is next to your heart, speaks truth and friendship, and is the hand of life. When you leave this place you will meet many who have never seen a white man. So remember your manners.”

They all sat. Kootanae Appee and Saukamapee talked for an hour before the chief left as unceremoniously as he had arrived. Afterward, Saukamapee told David he had recommended him into the chief’s protection and Kootanae Appee had agreed. “This is an honour,” he explained. “You have a great warrior’s guarantee to protect you in his territory.”

David was sorry to finally leave Saukamappee, but he needed to follow Gady and the others on their trading mission deeper into Peigan country. David remembered what the old Cree had taught him, and was able to accumulate a good number of valuable furs trading with the Peigan.

William Tomison raised his arms and smiled warmly as he greeted Gady, David, and the others as they returned to Manchester House. He already had news of their trading success and eagerly examined the bales of fresh pelts. “All prime. You’ll no find better than this,” he said, sucking air across his teeth and shaking his head in admiration at the quality of their furs. “Eighty skins, Davie. Well done, lad!” congratulated Tomison as he rummaged through David’s bales. David could not remember ever seeing Tomison so animated and wondered if the brigade leader was happier about the furs or the men returning.

When the river ice cleared, the brigade, laden with a small fortune in fur, left for the shores of Hudson Bay. David, thankful he had been left at the post until next summer, began helping with the upkeep of Manchester House. He cared for the company’s forty horses by giving them a small evening feed of oats and corralling them in for the night. When winter set in, collecting wood to keep the fire burning at the post was an endless duty.

On a bitterly cold morning two days before Christmas, David headed out, dragging a wood-sled behind him in the crusty snow. He trudged past some good fire logs and mentally noted their location. Get them on the way back, he thought, no use hauling them both ways. Finally, he stopped at a promising pile of fallen trees. They were down a steep bank. Carefully leaning his weight on a tree branch, he stepped over the edge. The branch snapped and he began to slide, almost playfully, until his leg became wedged under a fallen log. His leg was stuck but his momentum continued to propel him forward. He heard a sickening snap and felt searing pain pulse through him as his face hit the snow. He tried to get up, but a rush of pain and nausea overcame him, and he fainted into a nightmare of suffering. His leg was badly broken.

He regained consciousness to an acrid smell and opened his eyes to find a puddle of brown vomit melting the snow by his mouth. David tried to move, slowly pushing with his good leg, until the pain became too great. He waited, then pushed again, gradually working his way up the bank. The others wouldn’t notice him gone until dinner. By then it would be dark and too late to find him. David doubted he could survive through the frozen night. He pushed to the edges of pain, then with growing desperation, pushed harder into the very core of his pain, into the red blinding flashes that thundered through him. He pushed until he heard voices, felt hands lifting him, then darkness.

David awoke at Manchester House. The events of the previous day began to take shape in his mind as he found himself lying on a bed near the fire. He pulled back the stale buffalo robe covering his leg and surveyed the bindings that had been wrapped around it. The men at the post had done their best for him when they found him crawling, half conscious, toward the post. They knew vaguely how to bind his broken leg with a bandage and splint, but none had any medical training, and the injury was severe.

For months, David was unable to stand and was still unable to walk by spring thaw. Tomison was angry. If there had been a surgeon to set young Thompson’s leg, he would not have lost one of his best young prospects. The brigade leader went out of his way to speed David’s recovery, and any doubts that David had about Tomison’s sincerity vanished. The brigade leader showed him the kind of tenderness David thought a father might give a son, but in the end, Tomison was forced to send David downriver to Cumberland House.

Here David fared even worse. He was left in the care of the two men stationed at the now inactive depot. They had little understanding of nursing the ill, and soon David became weak and unable even to feed himself. He was emaciated and nearing death when a kind-hearted Cree woman took him into her care. Using fresh berries and healing herbs, she nursed him back to life. He was thankful to her for his restored health, but he still could not use his leg.

As the darkness of winter came again, David began to face his bleak future. With a bad leg, his only option was the dreary duty of a trading post clerk. He missed old Saukamappee, and he longed to ride back to the open plains and the Bow River and to feel again the prairie wind.