Boone's Lick (24 page)

“Who mentioned going back?” Ma asked. “We might be planning to go north and strike gold, for all you know.”

“I doubt you'll strike gold but you might strike the Cheyenne,” Pa said. “Hurry it up, Sherman.”

Of course, G.T. and I were eager to go with Pa, and Ma didn't forbid it, though I don't think she was too keen on the prospect.

“You wouldn't be trying to steal my boys, would you, Dick?” she asked, when we were dragging our big gray coats over to the wood wagon. If the blizzard came we meant to be prepared.

“Just for the day, Mary Margaret,” Pa said. “We've got a wood train to fill before that blizzard arrives. There's no reason to let two big strapping boys sit idle, that I can see.”

Ma looked a little stiff, but she raised no objections.

“I hate to leave my puppy,” G.T. said, as we were hurrying over to the wood wagons. But he didn't say it loud enough for Pa to hear.

YOU
boys are lucky, that mother of yours has got snap!” Pa said, as he led the wood train northeast of the fort, toward the thick forests that covered the mountains.

I thought the remark odd—after all, he was the man who had been married to Ma for sixteen years—it wasn't as if she were a distant cousin, or just some stranger he had met in passing. Why would Pa talk about Ma as if she were just someone he admired, in a distant way?

I didn't know—I still don't—because we arrived at our place of work and had to jump out and start unloading the saws and axes. It was plain from all the stumps and wood chips all over the place that the woodchoppers had been working on the clump of trees for several days.

After watching us try to use axes for a few minutes, Pa changed his mind and assigned us to the big crosscut saw.

“You're way off in your skills with the axe,” Pa said. “Seth ought to be ashamed of himself, for not teaching you better. You're either going to cut your own foot off, or one of somebody else's, which won't do. Try the saw. It will spare the company a lost foot or two.”

I was chastened, and so was G.T. We had fancied ourselves the equal of any man, when it came to chopping firewood, but watching the other woodcutters soon put an end to that illusion. All the other woodcutters were faster and more accurate—of course, they used axes all day every day, while all we did was break up a little firewood for the campfire, when there was wood to be had.

Cold as it was, working with a crosscut saw on long lengths of pine log soon warmed both of us up. Before long we were down to our shirtsleeves, and were even thinking of taking off our shirts, as several of the woodchoppers had done. I don't know about G.T., but I was soon thinking thoughts that weren't entirely loyal to Ma, such as, why
not
live with Pa? The country was glorious—just being out in it was exciting, with the plains so vast and the mountains so high and adventure to be met with, every day.

Nothing of the sort could be said about Boone's Lick, or anywhere around it. There were no grizzly bears and no Indians—it had been a while since G.T. had even trapped a good mess of crawdads.

If we stayed and became woodcutters, like Pa, I
had no doubt we'd soon get the hang of the axes. And when there was no work to do, think of the hunting. We might find a place where there was still buffalo. We might slay a grizzly bear.

“Stay in rhythm, boys,” Pa instructed. “Just be easy and stay in rhythm. Don't pull against one another.”

He grabbed my end of the crosscut saw and was just demonstrating the proper pull when we all heard a
ti-yiing
from the west and looked around to see about fifty Indians charging across the plain toward us.

“Whoa! Turn these wagons,” Pa yelled—I have never seen men move quicker to obey an order. In two minutes the men had four of the wagons turned to form a square, with the other two outside it, to serve as bulwarks. There was already a fair amount of wood in the wagons, enough to provide some cover. I guess there were about twenty of us, all told, on the woodchopping detail—though the Indians had us outnumbered, we all had rifles. The situation didn't look hopeless.

Pa, though, seemed to take a cautious view. He was huddled down with a lanky old woodsman named Sam, the only man sawing who wore buckskin clothes.

“I expect they're just funning,” Sam said.

The Indians had slowed up a little, but were still
ti-yiing.

“I hope so,” Pa said. “It's too late to try and make for the fort.”

“Oh, let's just shoot 'em,” G.T. said.

“That might work if we had adequate ammunition,” Pa said.

“Don't we?” I asked. I only had five shells myself but I figured Pa would have plenty.

Pa shook his head.

“The goddamn stingy army,” he said. “We don't have much ammunition—the whole fort don't have much, for that matter.”

All of a sudden a weak feeling came over me, much like the one that had come over me the day the grizzly bear charged. What had happened to the dead miners might be about to happen to us. Missouri began to look a lot better to me, crawdads or no crawdads.

“Don't shoot, they may be funning!” Pa yelled, but despite Pa's clear instructions the woodchoppers soon began to fire at the Indians, who were riding around us in a big circle, still
ti-yiing.

“Stop shooting, damnit! They're still out of range,” Pa yelled again.

I guess he was right. The Indians looked close, like the grizzly bear had looked big, but they weren't close—unless the woodcutters were all bad shots. Not a single Indian fell, or even ducked. A few of them had guns and popped at us a few times—four or five others, showing off, I guess, raced into bow-and-arrow range and let fly. Most of the arrows just thunked into the wood wagons, though one axman got hit in the leg.

“We're in plain sight of the fort,” Sam observed. “I expect they'll send out a relief force, if these boys will just be patient.”

Neither Sam nor Pa had fired a shot, or even raised their guns.

“I wish I had a spyglass—damn it, why did I come off without one!” Pa said. He wasn't paying the whooping, yipping Indians much mind. Instead he seemed to be trying to see into the forests.

“You think there's more?” Sam asked.

“There could be,” Pa said. “There could be lots more.”

“Doubt it,” Sam said. “The Sioux will rarely hold an ambush. The Cheyenne either—their young braves get too impatient to be in on the fight.”

“We could try for the fort,” Sam suggested, after a while.

“They'd be on us like weasels on a squirrel,” Pa said. “We're safest right where we are.”

Just then it began to cloud over—I thought of Uncle Seth and his beliefs about bad things happening in cloudy weather.

The Indians who were harassing us began to yell even louder and to make insulting gestures—two or three of the woodchoppers continued to pop at them, but so far we hadn't hit a single one.

“I hope that relief Sam was talking about gets here pretty soon,” G.T. said.

It was a comfort that we could see the fort—the back side of it, anyway—but from where we crouched, behind our wagons, it looked about fifty miles distant. What if everyone was in the mess hall, eating porridge with molasses, and hadn't noticed that we were under attack? Maybe they were
all so busy eating and cussing that they hadn't even heard the shooting.

“This is the last time I ever come woodcutting with only four shells for my gun,” Pa said. “If the damn army can't spare us no more ammunition than that, I believe I'll just stay in.”

By then most of the woodcutters had shot up all their ammunition, and yet no Indians were dead. The woodcutters stood holding their useless rifles—they all looked scared.

Then six or seven more Indians came loping into the valley from the far end. They
ti-yied
a little, but they didn't join the party that had us trapped. They were nearly naked, and all painted up, but they seemed in an idle mood. One got off and examined one of his horse's hooves. The others rode off and left him. The Indian with the sore-footed horse gathered up a few sticks and began to build a little fire.

“Sam, I'm getting a bad suspicion,” Pa said. “You know how sometimes you can kind of
feel
Indians, if there's a bunch of them around close?”

Sam just nodded his head.

“I'm feeling Indians,” Pa said. “I'm feeling
lots
of Indians! Damn, I regret not bringing my spyglass!”

Just then we heard a bugle, though we could see no soldiers. There was a kind of ridge between us and the troops—it was called Lodgepole Ridge, though I didn't know that until much later.

As soon as they heard the bugle about half the Indians that had been circling us pulled off and
went over to the little group that had just loped into the valley.

The warrior with the sore-footed horse was all by himself, warming himself by his little fire.

Then the cavalry began to pour over the little ridge, with a bugler and a flag and Colonel Fetterman in the lead—I recognized him by his white gloves.

“The goddamn fool, don't he see that it's a trap!” Pa yelled.

I thought he'd be happy that relief was finally coming, but he wasn't happy. He began to jump up and down on the wagon, waving his arms and yelling for the soldiers to go back.

Of course, they were a mile or two away—they couldn't hear him. Even if they had, it's not likely Colonel Fetterman would pay much attention to a woodcutter.

The six or seven Indians who had just loped up the valley took fright when they saw the cavalry—they hit out across the valley for the nearest trees.

Only the lone Indian with the sore-footed horse didn't seem concerned. He scattered his little fire and hopped on his horse, watching the soldiers for a minute before he went trotting off.

“Decoys! Decoys! That's all they are,” Pa said, jumping off the wagon. “Hasn't the damn fool been in the army long enough to learn about decoys?”

“Hey, what's the army doing?” G.T. asked. “They're supposed to rescue us.”

That had been my opinion too—and even the
opinion of the Indians who were harassing us—the minute they saw the cavalry most of them began to peel off toward the woods.

Maybe Colonel Fetterman
had
meant to rescue us, when he left the fort, but the sight of those decoy Indians swayed his judgment. The cavalrymen had been moving along at a slow gallop, but then the bugler blew the charge. I guess the colonel thought he could cut those few Indians off before they reached the woods.

In a minute the cavalry was in full charge, headed for the Indian with the sore-footed horse—only his horse made a quick recovery and was soon outrunning the soldiers.

“The oldest trick, the wounded bird,” Pa said.

The cavalry was deep in the valley now, but they weren't catching the Indians, who were on fine quick horses.

“Look, Sam,” Pa said.

“Oh, Lord,” Sam said.

“Oh, dern,” G.T. said.

The woods on every side began to boil with movement—I wasn't sure what was happening, at first. There was so much snow kicked into the air that I thought it might mean some kind of avalanche, caused by a buffalo herd that had decided to pass through.

But it was all Indians, hundreds of Indians, maybe thousands, and the war cries they screamed as they plunged into battle nearly scared my scalp off, and G.T.'s too. In nightmares I still hear those war cries today.

In a minute the Indians had closed around the cavalrymen—the few cavalrymen who tried to retreat were quickly cut down. There were so many arrows in the air that they made a cloud. I even saw a crow fall—it had just been flying low over the valley and suddenly found itself stuck with arrows.

“We better go, while they're busy,” Pa said, crawling up on the wagon seat.

“Oh, they don't want
us,”
Sam said.

That seemed to be true—the Indians who had been circling us pulled away to join the general battle; guns were popping all over the valley, arrows and lances skewered men on the run, while others got hacked down with hatchets.

“No, they don't want us, but the frenzy's on them,” Pa said. “They might not be able to stop killing. Some of the young warriors might want a few more easy scalps.”

Most of the woodchoppers were like frozen men, staring at what was happening in the valley below. The cavalry had long since been scattered into many groups, pockets of five or six men, all fighting for their lives and losing—falling.

Even Sam seemed frozen by the spectacle.

“I would never have expected Indians to hold an ambush this well,” he said.

“Well, they're learning,” Pa said. “Come on, boys—whip up! Now's our chance, if we've got a chance.”

The woodchoppers came unfrozen and we began a wild race for the fort. I suppose the Indians might have loped over and killed us, if they'd noticed: our
mules weren't capable of much speed. But there were some hardy soldiers in that troop of cavalry—a few of them forted up behind a little bump of rocks and put up stiff resistance. The Indians were ten deep around them, so it was hopeless, but while they were firing their last bullets or taking their last whacks with their sabers we flailed our team and rumbled back across that ridge, only to meet Ma and Uncle Seth, plunging along in the other direction.

Pa pulled up and stopped them, while the other wood wagons raced on to the fort.

“Stop, goddamnit! It's a massacre—are you crazy?” Pa yelled.

“No, but I've come for my boys, that you ought never to have taken off,” Ma said.

“They're
my
boys too—I guess I'm allowed one day with them, even if it is a perilous day,” Pa said.

“Quiet down, you two!” Uncle Seth said sharply. “This is no time for a family quarrel—it looks like the massacre's over.”