Young kit carson, p.9
Young Kit Carson, page 9
Her voice deepened.
“Look at me, Kit! Is it such a terrible thing I offer you? I have humiliated myself—I, for whom many men have offered fortunes! This is the last time, I warn you. That girl is nothing; you do not love her, but I do love you. First I wanted you for the head, now it is for the heart. First because you were Kit Carson, Little Chief, a man to be of use to us. Now it is different—”
Carson straightened up, flushed, angry, awkward and embarrassed before such words as these.
“Enough!” he said harshly. “I'm going back.”
“You don't mean that; you’re angry. If we did go back, you’d die. I could not help you. I am Go Everywhere Woman; a Blackfoot lodge is mine whenever I want it; but Plenty Eagle is stronger now. That medicine of his gives him command.”
“Medicine?” said Carson. “That bead pouch at his throat?”
“Yes. He listens to it. His men believe in it. Why not? No bullet touches him. This medicine makes him bold, domineering, obstinate. Are my words nothing to you?”
“No more than you yourself are.” said Carson bluntly. The sun was up; Plenty Eagle would be furious over the escape of his captive, his proposal unspoken. Somewhere was Jim Bridger, perhaps alarmed, perhaps planning rescue.
“Do you stay here or ride with me?” he went on.
The girl flushed.
“You don't dare leave me. Do you know where we are? No, but I do. If you backtrack, you’ll die sure. You won't be able to find your own party. I was angry at you before, yes; I have been very angry at you. I was still angry when I called to bring you out of the canyon. I wanted them to kill you.”
Carson started. Here was confessions, straight talk; she met his eyes squarely, her face filled with emotion.
“You? You did that?” he questioned. Then Stephens must have got away!”
“Yes. And when I saw you, I was sorry. I could not let you die, Kit. I managed everything. Listen! I’ll show you the way out of here, into the Hudson’s Bay country. The Blackfeet will get that big medicine now—you heard the vision of the medicine man? Captain Bridger and his men will surely be killed. The Blackfeet are too strong, too many for them. When the White Beaver passes the mountains—what? For you, safety. I can make you safe.”
The woman was at her schemes again. For a moment Carson had felt shaken by her appeal, by her vivid emotion.
“There’s a heap you can't do, or Plenty Eagle either,” he said, and stepped toward the grazing horse. The warriors would be riding hard; time was short. “Last word. Do you come with me, or stay here?”
Her eyes flashed. “You ride where?”
“To find Bridger. Later on I’ll find your father and Plenty Eagle.”
“And the Arapahoe girl, eh? So that’s your answer? Very well; it’s ended. I know where your Blanket Chief and his men are camped. I can take you there: but it’s not the camp you think about. It’s a new camp, near a lake.”
Carson caught at the word, remembering Laforay’s vision. Likely enough. Jim Bridger might have moved on toward the brigade rendezvous.
“How d'you know that?” he shot out.
“I'm Go Everywhere Woman; I know everything,” she said, with a little disdainful smile. “Besides, it is the medicine talk.”
She turned toward the horse and mounted with swift agility. Carson mounted in front of her once again. The sun was warming and drying him; the back-trail was clear.
“Our trail forks at Bridger’s camp,” he said curtly. She made no comment. She had learned her lesson, he thought with some relief.
“Straight through the pass yonder, and then turn north,” she directed.
She sat with easy poise, with an occasional steadying touch of her hand. Now and again she gave a word as to their course. In the night they had ridden as one! Here they rode as two. He was about to be rid of her, he reflected; and he was heartily glad.
At last they were riding down a windswept valley, where the long grasses bowed and the aspens twinkled, while barren dun hills bit into the near horizon on either hand.
She spoke quickly, eagerly: “You’ll see the lake soon. The camp lies around the last shoulder on the right.”
Chapter XII
SUDDENLY into the open before he Saw it, Carson threw the horse upon its haunches.
Camp, eh? Two-score peaked lodges clustered on a feeder to the lake, scarce beyond hailing distance. Other lodges beyond, the murmurs of a big Indian village borne to him. Blackfeet lodges!
“This is the camp I promised!” Her exultant words sounded at his ear. “You’ll find the Arapahoe girl here if you Wait. Plenty Eagle’s village—”
His arm swept out, thrust her away, sent her rolling on the ground. Her voice came with shrill fury:
“Now I’ll see you killed, you fool!”
Riders were behind him, sweeping out and around. Blackfeet were racing from either side; warriors a-horse were bursting from the trees. Only the narrowing way to the lake itself was open.
One warrior swerved in to front him in his very course. Carson dropped rein and brought up his rifle. He fired. The warrior lurched from his horse to sprawl on the ground. Carson sent his horse springing across the man’s body. Hammering on down the narrowing path to the lake, through angry yells and the bark of guns, he put the animal into the water. They gained swimming depth, while around them bullet and shaft flicked and sprayed the surface.
Carson slid off the horse. Animal’s tail in one hand, rifle held high in the other, he followed in the wake of his mount.
The horse at length found footing, and Carson scrambled into the saddle and rode splashing through the fringe of ooze and rushes, shaking not so much with a chill as with a hearty laugh. Man, horse and rifle—here he was, and not dead yet!
Firmer ground now. He was tilting the powder-horn for a reload, when he froze with a chill indeed. He heard the warning hiss. He looked into the black levelled rifles and the blacker eyes behind them. Three warriors, waiting here like snakes at the water’s edge. A tired mount and gun unprimed; three rifles covering him.
The waiting Blackfeet grinned as Carson signed surrender.
They took his reins, took his rifle and all else, and rode with him around the lake shore. Hardest to bear was the sight of the woman standing there, poised, intent, watching him with eyes aflame, utter vindictive hatred in every line of her.
He was hustled along, pulled off the horse, shoved into a lodge. Outside came bursts of voices, a scuffle; then the flap was thrown aside. A figure was pitched in to land sprawling.
A white man, begrimed, half stripped of his buckskins, buffeted and bleeding, but whole. He scrambled to his feet.
Carson stared into the pallid face, the dilated eyes, of young Stephens.
The vision of Bridger riding the rescue trail was snuffed like a doused ember.
“You, Kit!” panted the boy. “They got both of us!”
“Who brought you in?” Carson asked.
“It was a chief. Plenty Eagle.”
Carson drew a deep breath.
“How about that big red Frenchman of the Hudson’s Bay—Shunan? And a ’Rapahoe girl? Were they in the party?”
“I don't know the difference between Injun women, but there was no white man. You mean the one you had a fight with at rendezvous? No. He wasn't there at all.”
Had Shunan set off with Singing Bird, then? The trail had forked, in such case. There went Shunan with Singing Bird; here stayed Plenty Eagle. And here sat Kit Carson, powerless as a trapped beaver.
Outside sounded a quick hard step. The entrance flap was thrown aside, and an Indian stooped through. It was Plenty Eagle. He stood for a moment, straight and silent, with eyes gripped on Carson and no heed for the boy.
“So! You thought to run away with Go Everywhere Woman, but she was too smart for you. My young men were too smart for you. It is a pity you killed one of them; now they are very angry. You see how strong my medicine is. What have you to say?”
Carson made a careless gesture.
“I? But you have come here to do the talking. Do it.”
“Not now; you shall live a little while.” Plenty Eagle looked at Stephens and uttered a grunt. “If Little Chief dies, it is as a man; but this man whose heart is like water shall amuse the women. Tomorrow.”
He turned and went out.
THE lodge interior was dark now. The flickering beams of a large fire played upon the hide walls. A drum began to beat with hollow, measured notes.
“Going to have a dance, Stephens.”
“A dance? Is that all?”
Yells and whoops resounded, thud of moccasined feet, a chorused chant, the thumps of knobbed drumstick upon hide drumhead. The dance was in progress. A swift hand flung the lodge-flap aside. By this mute invitation they could view the scene through the triangle of the lodge’s entrance—a dubious favor, intended not to please but to intimidate.
Carson felt young Stephens trembling at his elbow, heard the quick breathing that fanned his cheek. The sight was enough to daunt any heart. An inner circle of painted figures was cavorting around the fire; the outer circle of massed squatting figures, intent of gaze, swayed in unison with the chant and the pounding feet. Carson had not guessed that the village was so large. The assemblage, fantastically shadowed, was beyond his count.
By the paint, the gestures, the tense excitement, this was a war dance of selected young warriors. Carson glimpsed Plenty Eagle, seated a little in the clear. He searched in vain for the red visage of Shunan.
After a time the ever-quickening circle broke in a final flourish of knife, gun, bow and tomahawk. There was a single closing volley of yells. Streaming with sweat, the warrior dancers darted about. An instant of suspense, and then she came—Go Everywhere Woman, Shunan’s daughter. She came once more as White Beaver woman, springing through the seated circle, the old medicine man at her heels.
“Kit, look!” gasped Stephens. “A woman; a girl—what a lovely thing she is! She must be the one I heard Laforay talk about.”
The medicine drum struck up. The withered ancient pranced and intoned, stooping, rising, eyes shut and headgear bobbing. As in the lodge outside Bent’s Fort, the girl tinkled her moccasin bells in a dance, slow, graceful, undulating.
As she danced, she sang. The drumbeats, the intonation, merged into the lilting chant with the White Beaver refrain: “When the White Beaver crosses the mountains!” The words took on a savage, frenzied tempo, and swept the rapt audience until all the surrounding night rocked to the wild rhythm. The girl was moving faster; the chant surged into a barbaric crescendo.
Carson abruptly reached out and jerked the flap over the entrance again.
“Seen enough, heard enough,” he said. “We’ll sleep and let ’em yell.
Morning came at last, announcing fortune and death at balance. Stephens roused from a sleep of exhaustion; he had dreamed of the stake and torture, he muttered.
The mounting sun had warmed the lodge when Plenty Eagle suddenly appeared, stood for searching survey, then gave the order as he turned.
“We will talk outside, where the sky will hear us.”
Beckoning to Stephens, Carson followed the chief outside. They sat in the sun before the lodge entrance.
Carson’s eyes flickered about. The village was fully astir.
“I want you to listen well, Little Chief.” Plenty Eagle was speaking, direct and brusque, as one who forbade argument. “You look behind, you see death. You look before and around, you see death. There is one little thing that will hide you from death as a shield hides from the arrow. It is the medicine skin.”
“What?” Carson made gesture.
“Your captain, the Blanket Chief, has the medicine skin. You will send to him, tell him to bring the medicine skin. Tell him that when he puts it in my hands, you shall go out to him free. You will take the Arapahoe girl when you go. Tell the Blanket Chief that if he does as I say, he can hunt here until winter comes. It will be the last hunt for him and for all Americans. If he does not do as I say, you will die here, and the Blackfeet will kill him and all his men,”
“The Arapahoe girl? Singing Bird? You have her here?”
“Yes. I give her to you.”
“But she is with Shunan,” said Carson. “Sun Buffalo.”
“That red dog with a loud bark?” The lips of the chief curved in disdain and amusement. “You think she is for him? So did he. He has gone to the fort on the Snake; he expects to get her. He is a fool.”
One thought volleyed through Carson’s brain: Shunan had gone to Fort Hall on the Snake—as good as dead, then! Brave Elk of the Arapahoes would surely find him.
Carson answered: “You tell me to send word to the Blanket Chief. I cannot do that. I do not know where to find him.”
“I do. I know everything.” With boasting word, Plenty Eagle touched the beaded sack hanging at his throat. “My medicine tells me. He is camped on the Yellowstone. I will show the trail for your words to follow.”
“A man will take the message?”
“No, you will put sign on paper for the Blanket Chief to read. It will be taken to him. It will be true sign; I will ask Go Everywhere Woman to read it before it leaves here.”
Carson grunted. “If I refuse, you would kill the two of us, eh?”
Plenty Eagle’s gaze touched on Stephens with contempt.
“Not that one; weasel heart. But you—that will be good to watch. The death-song of Little Chief will make my warriors strong to die when their turn comes. Now answer me.”
“Kill me, and the Blanket Chief will burn you up. Your village will have only women crying in the ashes.”
“Little Chief talks big, like a thorn under a finger nail. What does that cow calf say?”
“Asking what you’re talking about.”
“Tell him.”
“I will not. Your words are nothing. I have forgotten them.”
Plenty Eagle grunted, then lifted a shout.
Carson flung a swift warning at young Stephens.
“Keep your head. Pay no attention to anything they say to you.”
He saw the boy turn, startled and intent; he looked too, and saw Marie coming across the open. Plenty Eagle shot swift words at her.
“This man whom the Cheyennes call Little Chief forgets what I say. The other one wants to know. You will tell him. These are the words he must take to the Blanket Chief.”
Stephens to Bridger, eh? So that was it. Plenty Eagle repeated the terms; the girl was passing the words on, Carson interrupted furiously:
“Don't you carry such a message. I’ve refused to send it.”
“They mean I'm to go and leave you here?” queried Stephens, wide-eyed.
“That’s not the question. They want a certain beaver pelt. They want Bridger to fetch it here. No! Then the terror would cut loose.”
Stephens looked at the stony-faced chief, faltered, looked up at the girl, and took heart.
“I’ll not go without Carson. We’re together, and I’ll stay with him.”
He still missed the main argument, but his words had come doggedly.
“Good lad!” Carson approved. “Leave the game to Bridger. He won't get any say-so from us—and no Blackfeet will risk hair there.”
Marie laughed a little, looking down at him. Her eyes were flaming with hate of him. She spoke softly.
“I might take the message myself, Kit.”
“Bridger would want better sign than your say-so,” he retorted.
Swift of eye and instinct, the chieftain seemed to know already how things drifted. He spoke sharply, grimly:
“The cow calf will not go? Very well. Tell him they shall go together before the sun is higher by a palm, but they shall go in fire. If he wants to live and wants Little Chief to live, he has just one thing to do.”
“Don't you believe their lies, Stephens,” Carson warned.
Marie laughed again, repeated the words, and added: “The warriors who took you are eager to burn you. They’re making ready a stake now, and a long chain so that you can run around the stake while the first fires roast you. You would be very foolish not to trust Plenty Eagle. He is the head chief. You can help your friend by going; you can save his life. Never mind if he is angry. He will be glad later.”
Young Stephens whitened and broke into convulsive grimaces.
“I’ll go,” he cried out, and turned. “Kit, you understand? It’s for both of us. I’ll do anything. I can't stand it! You’ll get free too. Why should we stand the torture for the sake of a beaver pelt? It’s insane! I’ll go, yes.”
Plenty Eagle grinned briefly.
“Tell the Blanket Chief these words. I give him one sunrise. If he does not hand me the medicine skin by the time the sun is highest, Little Chief dies. Then we come and take the White Beaver medicine from him.” He leaned forward to Stephens with ferocious glare and pointed finger. The finger stabbed, described a rapid circle around his feather crown. Stephens shrank back, comprehending the gesture.
Marie was translating to the boy; but careless of her ears, Carson made one last desperate try.
“Save your own life, then, and welcome. But tell Bridger to keep away from here. Tell him this village is too big for him! Remember, he’s got only 25 men. Don't let him—”
Plenty Eagle’s arm swept out. His hand slapped Carson across the lips.
“Shut up! Your words are crooked. Go inside. You reek in the sun like a rotten dog. Go!”
Carson rose and went into the lodge. The woman’s level voice struck him in the back with words of hatred.
“I hope Bridger does keep away. The medicine skin will wait for us on the Yellowstone, and I hope to see you killed. The girl will see, too. And my father will laugh when your scalp is danced and she is in his lodge!”
Carson let the flap fall behind him.
He sat down, his lips stinging. This composure, this self-control, was a thing of the hardest.
A blow, with eyes to see it! He could picture Jim Bridger in such case, knife out, fist out, foot out, at any cost … but he, Kit Carson, had controlled himself. Wrong, perhaps. Now he was branded in all redskin eyes, branded for life, until such time as the scalp of Plenty Eagle swung at his belt. Better to have lashed out hotly and forced death to take him and Stephens both in that moment. Better a dozen things, perhaps … Or perhaps not.
