Fair Land, Fair Land (16 page)

Teal Eye said, "Higgins, he will be coming back.
He will fight the big wind."

"
In his face all the way, if it travels that
far. All the way from the fort."

He could picture Higgins, slumped low in the saddle,
turning his head to catch his breath, and the horses with heads down,
hating to face into the wind. Higgins had volunteered to see Brother
Potter safe to the fort.

He went out of the tepee and caught up and saddled a
horse and rode it across the frothy water and up on the benchlands.
Give him a piece of canvas, he thought, and he and the horse could
sail. It wasn't that he considered Higgins in danger. Higgins would
make out all right. It was just that he would like to see him. It was
just that he wanted to make sure. Horses could turn ornery, and
badger holes could break legs.

The buffalo were returning from the south. He could
make out four herds of them, sidewise to the wind, separate and
mingling, then separating again as the leaders went their own ways. A
world full of buffalo, but, even so, fewer than the bullets that
would be fired. His horse flushed up a killdeer that fluttered
briefly, sounding its two-toned cry, and ran off to the side on its
thin, stilt legs. It was a wonder that all the birds, big and little,
ground feeders and flycatchers, hadn't been swept from earth and sky
and carried across the Missouri and way the hell beyond. He couldn't
make out the figures of Higgins and the two horses though he willed
his eyes to see over the lip of ground and sky. All he could see were
buffalo and last year's grass thrashing.

He turned back, heading into the wind, and kicked his
balky horse. The wind pushed at them like a hard, cold hand. It tore
at his buckskins, swept his hair back, drove dust into his eyes and
trapped the air in his lungs. Get along, horse. It ain't that far.

He got back to the tepees and unsaddled and went
inside. To Teal Eye's asking look, he said, "Couldn't spot him,
but he's on the way. Don't worry."

"
I not worry about that. Not much."

"
What then?"

"
Not the wind. He needs a good woman. Not right,
it is, for him to have not."

He smiled at her and put a hand on her head. She had
a queer way of putting words, but it was something, how she had
learned white man's talk. Nocansee spoke it, too, and Blackfoot to
boot.

"
Not everybody can be so lucky as me," he
told Teal Eye, still smiling.

Now Nocansee spoke. "He will come when?"

"
Sundown, I'm bettin'."

"
I feel him gone."

"
Yep. But just wait. Hey, the wind"s easin'
off."

The wind had slowed to a breeze, and smoke from the
fire, over which Teal Eye had put a pot, rose straight through the
smoke hole. That was the way in this breezy country, Summers thought.
Some still days but mostly with the air moving soft and then, ever so
often, a wind that tormented a man and made life hard for things
trying to grow.

An hour or so later a voice called, "Anybody
home?"

They went out, all of them, to greet Higgins. He
looked like something the wind had had fun with before it passed on.
The horses had stems of dead grass in their manes. "I'm a mite
tattered," he said, "but Preacher Potter's all right, safe
back at the fort."

"
If you was any thicker with dust, I'd take you
for sandstone," Summers told him. "Here. I'll see to the
horses. You go down the river a ways and take off the top layer."

They ate and afterward sat outside on robes, the boys
nearby, in the hour of no wind. More often than not, Summers thought,
this was the way of it. Whether the day was windy or breezy or not, a
time of stillness, of quiet, came soon after sundown. It was as if
the day begged pardon for being so rough.

"
I swear," Higgins said, "them
young'ns have growed just while I been gone."

"The boys sat beside Teal Eye, Lije quiet and
safe between Nocansee's legs. With them that was usual.

Teal Eye had been waiting her time. Now she said to
Higgins, "A good woman. That is it. A good woman you need."

"
Truer words never came out of a mouth."

"
We find you a woman."

"
Now, lookee here. I ain't goin' to team up with
just anybody. Not me. You got your mind on some Blackfoot girl you
knowed from before?" Higgins sucked at his pipe.

Summers shook his head. "Nope. Not that."

"
Why not? You done fine your own self."

"
That was special." Summers nodded his head
in agreement. "No Blackfoot for you, though."

"Why not?"

"
Too close to home. Marry a Blackfoot woman and
you marry into the tribe. All her relatives and friends will come
visitin'. That's nice up to a point. Kind of fambly-like. But after a
week of feedin' and entertainin' company, you End the doin's
tiresome. You want "em to be gone. But there'll come more kin
and friends, eatin' your meat and all, makin' an Indian camp out of
what we got. It's the way they think. What one's got, all's got. It's
fair to say they'd treat you good if you visited them."

"
Where's Teal Eye's kin, then?"

"They stay away," Teal Eye answered.

"
Here's the how of it," Summers added. "All
right I tell, Teal Eye?"

"Tell."

"
When Teal Eye's white man killed his friend and
took off, more'n a few bucks wanted her for their third or second or
even their first wife. That didn't set good with her. She hit 'em and
clawed 'em and fought 'em off and kept runnin' away. Finally they
gave up and kind of outlawed her."

"
Me, I have no people," Teal Eye said.

"
Now whoa there. You got the boys and me and
Hig. Ain't we people?"

She reached out to hold his hand. "My people,"
she said.

"
So, barrin' the Blackfeet, where do we look?"
Higgins asked.

"
Away somewheres," Summers said. "I
got me an idea. The Shoshones, now, they's lighter-hearted and merry
and the women fair to the eye. I know 'em, some of 'em.'"

"
Might not be for me."

"Might not, but I'm bettin' against it."

"
How far? How many sleeps?" Higgins asked.

Summers shook his head. "It's a fair piece."

Teal Eye got to her feet. "We go then? Sunup
come?" Summers felt a growing excitement in her.

"
That might be pushin' things," he
answered.

"
You got a program? Somethin' else on your
mind?" Higgins asked.

"
I ain't sure."

"
I wouldn't want to throw you off your stride,"
Higgins told him.

That was like Higgins, Summers thought. Always to put
himself second. Like as not he knew what was in Summers' head. Find
Boone Caudill — and then? Speak his piece and ride away? Make sense
and right out of old wrongs? Why the damn itch?

Teal Eye said, "We go. Please, we go."

It struck him that she had been stuck here too long.
She had taken care of the babies, done the cooking, kept the tepees
clean and worked at what she shouldn't have but insisted on in spite
of all orders. She might as well have been a damn slave. She needed
to see folks. She needed change.

Put first things first, he told himself. Put Teal Eye
first. He rose to his feet. "Two sunups, and we break camp."
Teal Eye clapped and ran to hug him. "Two sunups, and we go see
can we find Higgins a wife."
 

21

SUMMERS led away. Behind him came three pack horses,
then Higgins with two, Teal Eye and the boys. He had mounted the boys
on a gentle horse and, for lack of a saddle, had rigged a surcingle,
with handholds, out of rope and a strip of hide. Lije rode in front
of Nocansee, who held to the surcingle with one hand and the small
boy with the other.

They sure-God were safe enough. Both had been around
horses and, as if to make up for his blindness, Nocansee had a great
sense of balance. There were pack horses enough, more than enough, so
that each was lightly loaded.

They splashed across the Teton near camp and set off
down the wide valley. Light was flushing up from the eastern sky, and
the meadowlarks, wakened, sang from the grasses. A good morning to
set out. A good time to go before rain and the June rise of the
rivers. Buffalo tramped along, going north, their hides rough with
shedding hair. Calves trailed along, and wolves trailed behind,
looking for a sick animal, or weakling, or for a chance at a cow
giving birth.

Summers breathed deep, smelling buffalo and grass dew
and horses and high-country air. These made a man..These kept him
alive.

In country like this he had traveled with Jim Deakins
and Caudill, and Deakins was full of funny questions about the why of
things, about God's purposes and the end of it all. For him the end
of it had come with a bullet.

He looked behind him to make sure of things and got a
smile from Teal Eye. They would have to cross the Teton again and
make for a saddle between a couple of buttes. The buttes stood ragged
and bright, catching the first rays of the sun. He would steer clear
of the mountains, much as he could, riding to the east of them, in
time coming onto the Oregon Trail, which wouldn't be busy yet. Then
on to White Hawk's band of Shoshones. He hoped White Hawk was still
alive.

Boone Caudill, damn it and damn him. A good friend up
to a point, but a friend only up to a point was no friend at all. The
far side of the Teton was rattlesnake country, and he called back to
those behind him, "Horses might shy. Be ready! Snakes around
here."

But it wasn't until they came to the saddle between
the two buttes that they saw any snakes and then only a couple.
Likely the weather was a mite cold for them yet.

They pressed on, veering east. Before sundown Summers
decided to make camp close by a little gulch where spring water
flowed. It was time. Teal Eye and the boys had begun to look peaked
and were probably sore in their seats.

Dismounting, Summers said to Higgins, "Only risk
here is snakes."

"Not wild-ass buffalo?"

"
Nope."

Teal Eye was already off her horse and was helping
the boys down. All of them would sleep under the sky tonight.

Summers and Higgins unloaded the pack horses and led
them and the saddle stock down to drink. "Strange country to
them," Summers said. "Better hobble "em all."

Before they settled down, Summers walked circles
around the camping place, making sure about snakes. Teal Eye had a
fire going and meat in a pot.

Higgins said, "Not an Injun so far, and nary a
hide-hunter."

"
Poor season for hides," Summers told him.
"Old hair sheddin' off and the new not full-growed. Still, some
will hunt."

"
Where to tomorrow?"

"Across the Medicine, then across the Missouri."

"
Every once in a while," Higgins said,
gazing through the dusk and back to the mountains where the sun still
lay on the peaks, "I think God was in a big way when he made
this country."

It was something Jim
Deakins might have said.

* * *

The Missouri lay behind them, the Missouri and the
Yellowstone and the Big Horn. Behind them were buttes and rolling
plains and dry country thick with cactus. And here, on this sultry
day, came the great migration of the buffalo. Here they were, hump
after hump, horned heads and dull eyes. They came scattered and in
close bunches, all moving north, and were slow to give way to the
horses. They were like barnyard stock, Summers thought as his party
rode south against the drift. It was as if their aim to move on had
driven fear off. Summers watched for dust. Even on spring turf a
running herd would kick up a plume of it. Let a lightning bolt strike
among them, or a few get startled over whatever, and the fun would
start. There would be lowing and bawlings and the thunder of hoofs,
and a man caught in the middle had best find a hole or a pole, or
shoot enough animals to make a wall to lie behind.

He turned. Behind to his left rose a height of land
crowned by a butte. "Keep your eye peeled, Hig," he said.
"They get to runnin', and we'll all be pemmican."

Higgins grinned his crooked grin. "Without
chokecherries to sweeten it."

Then, maybe half a mile ahead, Summers saw the first
wave of dust. He saw animals bunching as they started to run, and
those in front taking fright.

"
Quick|" he called back, gesturing with an
arm. "Turn back. Run with the herd. Slant off to the butte."
He wrenched his horse around. "Turn, damn it!"

Teal Eye caught on, then Nocansee. Already Higgins
had made his move. Summers dropped the pack rope. Let the pack horses
take care of themselves. He moved up, said "Hang on," and
with his rein ends lashed the horse that carried the boys.

The buffalo were all running now, ahead of them, at
the sides and behind. "Slant off. Slant off, Teal Eye!" He
smacked her horse.