Читать книгу Folded Hills - Stewart Edward White - Страница 23

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They rode, Andy, Carmel, and the small Djo, to the Rivera hacienda for the feast of Santos Inocentes, leaving the baby, Amata. Ramón’s marriage to Conchita de la Cuesta was supposed to have steadied him to the point of responsibility; so that he was now in full charge of the activities of the hacienda, while Don Sylvestre took the ease he had earned, and surveyed with satisfaction the increase of his descendants. Ramón proved a vigorous and energetic executive, conducting affairs with a dash and enthusiasm and attention to detail astounding to all those who had known him. All were in exclamation over his zealous wisdom and piety. But Don Sylvestre smiled quietly to himself and took with him in his pleasure rides Ygnacio, the younger brother, whom he instructed. Andy was shrewd enough to notice this.

“Ramón has a wild hawk in his heart,” said Don Sylvestre. “The pot that boils fast is the soonest emptied.” He glanced from beneath his thick brows at his tall son-in-law. “The time will come for you also, hijo mío, for you, too, have the wild strain. When it flutters in your breast, go where it calls you. Do not resist. You will the sooner return.”

Andy laughed.

“I have plenty to keep me home,” said he comfortably.

“The hawk’s wings are folded and he sleeps,” said Don Sylvestre.

Andy laughed again. He could not conceive of completer satisfaction than his present life and responsibilities afforded him. He was busy from dawn until dark with his growing concerns, which never became routine. He grew closer and closer into the heart of his adopted people; Half those on the rancho were parientes in some sort of fashion which he never quite understood. The other half were devoted retainers of the sort that at last become identified by the family name. No one even remembered Panchito’s own name. If one wished to distinguish him from other Panchitos, one referred to him as the Riveras’ Panchito; or, later, as Don Largo’s Panchito. Andy gradually learned to move gracefully, in the spacious and leisurely courtesy that distinguished all intercourse even between the highest and lowest. But a few years ago he would have looked on it as foofaraw, and his ruthless directness would have squirmed uncomfortably in its presence. Now he was not even conscious of it. It had become his natural element. In outside manner and appearance he was at this time more Spanish than American, a strange contrast to the Andy of old mountain days.

There were many visitors to Folded Hills. Some of them were Americans, new-come to the region, and some of these Americans were stragglers from the fur country. Andy was always especially glad to see them, and kept them at the rancho as long as they would stay. Most of them did not stay very long. The foofaraw of which Andy had become unconscious made them just a little uneasy. It did not quite forfeit their respect, for the reputation of I-tam-api was still strong in the Indian country, but it did interpose a barrier and made them uncomfortable. So they escaped and drifted over to Natividad where Isaac Graham ran a still and clung sturdily to his rough and uncompromising Americanism, in which was the deliberate contempt of racial provincialism. There they were more at ease. They could chaw and drink, and the complaisant señoritas—who would not have rated that title to anyone else—did not skeer a man for fear he’d step a hole through somethin’. The majority did not stay even there very long. After a few months, or a season, they became restless and drifted back over the mountains or by way of Santa Fe to the growing excitements of the fur country. Most of them made these visits with at least a gesture of deference to authority. They applied for and received cartas de seguridad for a limited stay, a sort of passport, which they carried for protection in deerskin pouches inside of bladders thoroughly greased against the wet. These they were rarely called upon to show, for it was known that many neglected the formality, and at that time the easy-going authorities made no determined issue against the obviously transient.

Occasionally, however, someone of the genuine old-timers came along, men who had personal acquaintance with Andy on the plains or in the mountains. These men knew him too well to be influenced by mere surface foofaraw. They rode with him. He took them hunting in the mountains, where they sought the California grizzly—the “white bear”—then abundant. The deer did not interest them much. The country was all right; but it was, in their concealed opinion, not much of a country for a white man. No buffalo. Some day they’d be comin’ back, they veered abruptly and illogically.

In the evening they squatted with Andy beneath the big oak before the house and talked things over. Carmel tactfully left them alone together. Djo listened wide-eared as long as he was permitted to remain.

These sessions sat late. A little fire flickered beneath the tree. There were things to drink and meat to roast before the fire and chaw on. As the evening progressed, all constraint thawed. They talked in brief spurts, punctuated by ruminative silences.

The trade was shifting, changing in character. The old free trappers were about gone. The American Fur Company had things pretty much its own way: Sublette’s outfit had quit in ’34. But they were not alone in the field. Rivals constantly sprang up, like mushrooms; men who were of particularly adventurous or defiant spirit. They did not last long. The company bought them out, if they proved too annoying; or ran them out. If the new enterprise looked particularly promising, the company would sometimes buy it off before it even started. Everybody used liquor freely in the trade. It was now illegal even to take it into the Indian country. In this the little fellow distinctly had it over the company; for the company operated under government license which could be revoked. So they had to watch their step. The trading was all done from forts now. There were no more old-fashioned rendezvous. Why? The Injuns were bad. Why, Andy, you got no idee. It’s partly the likker; and partly they’re gittin’ skeered they’re a-goin’ to lose their kentry, white men’s gittin’ so thick!

“Yas,” drawled Bill Cummings, “and part that the pickin’s gittin’ better and better in the way of stealin’.”

For the wagons were moving, crawling over South Pass along the Oregon Trail following the tracks of Marcus Whitman; winding over the wastes of the Cimarron to Santa Fe. The pioneers to Oregon were as yet few; but along the southern route the commerce of the prairies had developed to a highly specialized affair, so that with the caravans dashing blades and their furbelowed ladies tooled blooded horses attached to stylish vehicles, the first genuine tourists to the Southwest. The caravans were splendid affairs, well organized and well equipped. They traveled in parallel columns.

“Thar’s the job that pays, eff’n you don’t mind herdin’ fools,” struck in John Dawson. “It pays you big—guidin’, I mean. A passel of the boys has gone in fer it, some of them stiddy on the rolls, and some, like Kit Carson, just now and agin. I tuk an outfit onct myself.”

“Tell Andy about the preacher, Jack,” suggested Cummings.

Dawson grinned.

“ ’T want nothin’,” he disclaimed. “You see, Andy, these yere wagon trains is different. You kain’t jist project out ’cross kentry the way we used to. Got to stick to wheel tracks—or where you kin make ’em—and you don’t know what real genuwine grief is until you go snakin’ bull-drawn wagons through a river or boggy kentry—or over rocks—or,” he concluded derisively, “anywhar else. The critters moves ’bout as fast as a foundered horny toad and just about as jerky. They’s always gittin’ sore feet or bellyache or somethin’. These dang wagons is always bustin’ a wheel or smashin’ a tongue or losin’ a tire or somethin’. And then the whole outfit has to squat till they fix things up. And they’s women; and squallin’ children. And——”

“How about the preacher?” Andy reminded.

“That’s right. Well, what I was aimin’ to git to you is that to git whar you’re goin’ afore winter ketches you, you got to start as soon as the ground hardens in the spring, and keep pushin’! And then mebbe you don’t git thar. This outfit I tuk had a preacher with it, and when it come Sunday and the boss yelled to ‘catch up,’ this feller just squatted and allowed it was sinful to travel on the Sabbath and he wasn’t a-goin’ to do it. We was right in the middle of a dry scrape and the critters hadn’t had a drap of water since yisterday, and wouldn’t git none till night—eff’n we was lucky. To stop whar we was—wall!” Dawson shrugged his shoulders.

“They argyed with this preacher, and they cussed at him, and they got mad with him. Mout as well argy with a mule. Some talked big about tyin’ him up and takin’ him along anyhow; and some talked bigger about leavin’ him, but the talk didn’t amount to much. We was right in the middle of Comanche kentry, and ye mout as well shoot him and be done with it as leave him. And somehow, him bein’ a preacher, everybody seemed to balk off from layin’ hands on him. When they all give it up, I tuk a hand. I fetched him.”

“How?” asked Andy, as he was expected to do.

“Oh, I tuk him off one side from the mad bunch, and I talked to him reasonable. I told him about how we’d all finish thar eff’n he didn’t shift his mind. Seems like he knew all that: but he stuck to it that he couldn’t travel on Sunday nohow.

“ ‘She’s a bad fix we’re in, dominie,’ sez I.

“ ‘The Lord has put us in this fix to test our obedience to His commands, to test our piety,’ sez he. He was a funny cuss. He talked at me loud, and free wide and handsome, like I was a whole camp meeting.

“ ‘Dominie,’ sez I, ‘mebbe it ain’t that. Mebbe He put us in this fix to test our common sense.’ And do you know, that got him. He come off’n the boil, and hitched up his bulls, and come along meek as a squaw. Funny critters. It’s like that all the time. Some folks don’t mind. Some of the boys is dry-nussin’ these outfits as a reg’lar business. It’s all right for them that likes it. Onct was enough fer me. But thar’s good pay in it, and a heap of fun eff’n you like Injun-fightin’. Andy, when it comes to bull trains the Injuns is bad. Why not?” concluded the trapper philosophically. “Lots of sculps, and bull meat, and vallyables, and the wagons makes ’em a grand fire, and eff’n the guide ain’t sabe every minute, that’s what happens.”

Still, Cummings put in, more and more of the mountain men were taking it up. The fur trade was no longer rightly such. Beaver had become secondary. The forts were bartering for wolf skins, and small stuff like mink and marten, and even buffalo and deer hides. The trade could be no longer an affair of individuals, unless one followed Jim Bridger’s example and built him a fort of his own. Andy inquired at last of the Blackfeet. Yes, they’d managed to open the trade there. A man named James Kip had started it. Pretty good trade. But some of the tribes, after holding aloof so long, had gone abruptly to the other extreme. They had become drunkards.

“Yo’ kin trade a man’s squaw away from him eff’n he wants likker,” said Bill.

These men had never had much use for the Blackfeet, but it was evident that they entertained a sentimental regret. It was only part and parcel of the old-timer’s nostalgia for the “good old days”; possibly a lingering respect for foemen who had been worthy of their metal. They and their kind alone retained the remnants of human friendly feeling for the Indian. The present type of plainsman looked upon the red man as completely alien. They used him, made their profit from him, despised him, fought him wherever they found him and whenever no reason of self-interest softened temporarily their policy. Indians were not people; they were a type of wild beast. Nobody made any serious effort to understand them.

“Now you take old Standin’ Hoss. You remember that Crow, Standin’ Hoss? I allus got on fine with him. One time when I was trappin’ over on the Little Fork I got stole blind of my hosses, only had two left. It made me kinda mad, but I was keerless like, and got what was comin’ to me. A’ter about two months I moseyed over to make a visit at Standin’ Hoss’s village, and dang if thar warn’t my hosses, big as life! I rubbed my eyes and took another look, fer me and the Crows had allus been good friends. I tackled Standin’ Hoss pronto.

“ ‘Ain’t them my hosses I see over thar?’ I asks him. He didn’t make no bones about it.

“ ‘Yes,’ sez he, ‘they’re yores. We stole them.’

“ ‘Why in blazes did you do that to me?’ sez I.

“ ‘We had been walking a long time,’ sez he. ‘We were tired of walking. If we had gone to your camp you would have given me tobacco, for I am your friend. But tobacco would not carry me. So I had to steal them. When I stole them they were very thin. Now they are fat. I have now plenty of horses. Take yours and as many more as you want.’

“Kin you beat that—excep’ from an Injun? He thought he was all right and friendly. So did I, becuz I knowed Injuns. But these new men on the plains would have been hostile, and probably started shootin’ or actin’ up or somethin’. It was aggravatin’. I had to cache my fur and go back a’ter it. But I knowed Injuns, so I let it go; and old Standin’ Hoss and I are still friends. But these fellers don’t know Injuns. And it’s gittin’ wuss fast.”

“They got a smoke boat comin’ up the Missouri now,” put in Dawson, “two-decker, name the Yallerstone. I don’t know how fur up she goes, but I’ve seen her as fur as Fort Union. She helped a lot to make the Injuns think Americans is better than Britishers. They ain’t got no steamboat!”

The old rivalry between the Hudson’s Bay Company and the Americans was still alive. Andy heard some familiar names, but some that were new to him. Jim Bridger had halfway joined up with the American Fur Company after the old Rocky Mountain disbanded; at least he was, in company with Vasquez, acting as professional hunter for some of the forts. Old Fitzpatrick—Bad Hand—was guiding: they say he sure makes the greenhorns toe a mark! Kit Carson had growed into quite a feller. He had become a great Injun man: spent a lot of time in Taos. Mackenzie? Mackenzie was out. Dawson and Cummings looked at one another and laughed.

“What’s the joke?” asked Andy. “I never cared much for Mackenzie; but he was a good company man.”

“I expect so,” admitted Bill reluctantly, “but I got no use for him. Too much foofaraw.”

“Wore a uniform all the time,” interpolated Jack.

“Hear what he said when somebody came in to report an Injun attack on one of his companies? ‘Any losses?’ he asks. The scout sez no, no men killed; but they had run off the hosses! ‘Damn the men!’ sez Mackenzie. ‘Eff’n the hosses had been saved, that would have amounted to somethin’!’ ”

“Funny thing, though,” submitted Jack, “a lot of his men swore by him.”

“Well, anyways,” Bill resumed, “he was an enterprising cuss. Bill Sublette and Bob Campbell was gittin’ likker by and up in the Injun kentry. It was easier fur them than fur the big company becuz they was movable and hadn’t no forts and such for the gov’ment to keep track of. Then Mackenzie had a bright idee. The law reads that you kain’t bring no likker into the Injun kentry: but, Mac thought, it didn’t say nothin’ against makin’ it thar. So he starts him a distillery at Fort Union. He was as tickled with it as a dog with two tails. Actually showed it to Wyeth and Cerré when they stopped thar on their way down river. Cerré was head man for this yere Captain Bonneville that sent Joe Walker out yere a few years ago. He tuk ’em around and showed ’em everything. You wouldn’t know Fort Union now, Andy.”

“I never did know it,” said Andy.

“Wall, she’s quite a place. Mackenzie started cornfields, and has milk and cheese, and makes wine. Then when Wyeth got down river he told about the distillery, and the gov’ment pounced on the company, and the company had to let Mackenzie out.”

“Why did Wyeth do that?”

“Don’no,” said Bill carelessly. “Some says becuz he was a blue nose—he come from New England, you know. Some sez he tried to buy some supplies and Mackenzie charged him four prices. Somethin’ like that.”

It occurred to none of the three that mere trade rivalry could be a sufficient motive. They shook their heads and dismissed Mackenzie from their minds.

But the mention of Fort Union set them off on another track. A curious new type of people came occasionally into the country and stopped generally at one of the company’s forts. They were queer people, having, as far as the mountain men could see, no sane excuse for existence, harmless enough, sometimes likable enough, but either childish or loco.

“They was two on ’em that put in their whole time shootin’ dicky birds with leety-bit fine shot. They wouldn’t even look up for a buffalo or an ellick or a deer or ary other thing worth while. A’ter the fust, they didn’t even bother with the good-size birds, but chased around lookin’ fer leetle ones.”

“What did they want of them; did they say?” asked Andy.

“They take their skins. And,” admitted Bill, “they shore were good at that; even hummin’ birds.”

“Foofaraw, for the women to wear on their hats?” suggested Andy.

Bill shook his head.

“No, they said they was jist collectin’. And they used to lie on their stummick and watch ’em by the hour.”

Bill and Jack, both, evidently looked upon these antics with contempt. Andy’s slightly wider contacts gave him a little better understanding; but not much better. Only when, in after years, he accidentally happened upon the works of Townsend and Nuttall did he fully appreciate what it was all about.

But the ornithologists were not the whole of it by any means. Others with strange and specialized interests came up river on the Yellowstone; men who drew pictures or grubbed around among rocks or—more understandably—came simply to shoot game. One year appeared a formidable expedition that combined everything. It had a man who drew pictures, mostly of Indians; it collected every bit of Indian junk it could lay its hands on; it snooped around in the most incomprehensible fashion; and it was mostly “Dutch,” with a feller who was some kind of a big bug bossing the show. So came to Andy the first rumors of the famous visit of Maximilian of Wied to the western plains, though he never did happen across the sumptuous illustrated volumes in which the prince recorded his experience. All these people lived in the company’s forts, and were well guarded, and taken out on a leash, as it were. They’d git gobbled and sculped in no time at all if they were to be allowed fifty miles from shelter.

“I tell you the Injuns is bad,” Cummings repeated, “and an outfit like that is easy pickin’s. Much as even a good mountain man kin do to git around hisself, let alone trail a lot of greenhorns with him.”

Wagon trains—that was a little different. At least they were numerous and armed; and a good man, who knew how to impose discipline, could get them through.

“At that there’s a many burned and massacreed,” remarked Bill. “Bad part is, they’s the women and the children.”

Nevertheless more and more were heading over through South Pass. The Oregon Trail was widening as the ruts grew deeper and had to be abandoned. What did the White Eagle—McLaughlin, the Hudson’s Bay factor up there in Oregon—think of this tide of immigration? The mountain men shook their heads: they did not know. There was some kind of a row on about it.

These bull-pushers were a dumb enough lot at taking care of themselves; but, the mountain men admitted, they could perform the impossible when it came to getting wheeled vehicles across country. Each had his experience to relate of ingenuity and dogged persistence in this respect. Rivers to cross; wagons let down steep banks by ropes; teams doubled or quadrupled; trees and brush cut and carried from great distances to assure footing, or to construct rafts; the wagons dismantled, their bodies caulked, covered with hides, and floated as boats, while the animals swam; three hours to pass an insignificant stream, two days or more a sizable river. And in the hills nothing stopped them finally. There was always a way. Sometimes the wagons were dismantled, carried piecemeal, reassembled. The animals were lowered by ropes. Sometimes they had to lighten up a lot. The Trail was slowly becoming landmarked by wagons that must be abandoned so that the remainder could be brought through. And superfluities brought by inexperience.

“I seen a pile of bacon and flour higher’n my head,” said Cummings. “Had a sign on her. ‘This is clean; help yourself.’ Injuns hadn’t touched her. Skeered of poison.”

Difficulties of water; difficulties with the cattle; unexpected and dismaying difficulties that a man would not naturally foresee. The arid heat shrunk the wagons so that the tires came off, the very spokes of the wheels dropped out.

“They fixed ’em,” said Cummings briefly. “Only thing was, it all made ’em jumpy. Git up a fight over nothin’ at all. They kain’t stand grief that way like a mountain man. If yo’re guidin’ ’em you got to watch every minute. They’re always wantin’ to split up. Sometimes they do. Then, ginerally, it’s all over. And when it comes to an Injun raid! ‘My gun’s got wet!’ ‘I done broke my ramrod!’ ‘I’ve spilled my caps all out!’ ‘Jehosaphat! I done got the ball in afore the powder!’ ‘Charge ’em boys!’ ‘Fire on ’em!’ ‘Reserve yore fire!’ ‘Yere, you take my gun; you can run her better’n I can!’ Sounds like a flock of geese. And run around, from one place to another whereever anybody thinks he sees an Injun. Eff’n it warn’t for a few cool old hands you kin pick out, the Injuns would run right over them. But Injuns is sabe that way, and know when somebody’s in charge.” He spat into the fire and filled his pipe. “Ary wagons got to Californy yet?” he queried.

“No; nor won’t unless they come from Oregon or Santa Fe,” said Andy.

“No? Why not?”

“No wheels will cross the Sierra,” said Andy.

“I bet you they do,” said Bill.

They fell silent, staring into the last embers of the fire. They glowed dull orange. Occasionally little flames leaped singly from the coals, as though to take a look, and dropped back again, satisfied. Overhead, in the branches of the oak trees, a bird muttered a sleepy twitter of protest against such late hours.

“Jim Bridger got that arrowhead dug out of the gristle of his back,” Bill remarked after a while. And then, after another long interval, “Preacher done it, name o’ Whitman.”