Fair Land, Fair Land (30 page)

Summers translated for the chiefs. When he handed in
his old Hawken, the soldier looked at it and said, "By Cod, if
that ain't a relic. Shoot true?"

"
I been known to hit a few things."

"
What you doin' with these redskins?"

"
Me heap medicine man."

The trooper looked at him. "All right, I guess."

The weapons weren't much — a couple of muskets, one
spear, and bows and arrows tipped with metal. A poor lot, but right
for a peace party.

At another season the chiefs, at least, would have
worn feathered headdresses. Now they had blankets and pieces of fur
as coverings. They looked at one another before entering the
building, perhaps wishing they'd brought their war bonnets along,
hard to pack right though they were. They were led into a large room
with a desk and chairs in it.

A cast-iron fireplace tried to fight off the cold.
Two men sat behind the desk, and right behind them stood Lije.

"
By God, Lije!" Summers said, ignoring the
two men. Lije stood stiff as if trained to it until one of the men
said,

"
At ease."

They shook hands. Lije hurried to ask, "My
mother, my brother, how are they, my father?"

"
All fine. Fine and dandy."

One of the men had swung around. "Father?"

"
Most people have one, livin' or dead,"
Summers answered. "This here's my son."

The man swung back. The Indians were seating
themselves on the floor against the walls. Summers joined them. A
soldier was clearing the chairs away. Scattered in the room were half
a dozen others. Though told to be at ease, they stood pretty stiff.

One of the men behind the desk came to his feet. "The
meeting will come to order," he said. "I am General Sully,
superintendent of Indian affairs for the territory of Montana, and at
my side is United States Marshal William F. Wheeler."

Lije was translating what he said.

"
As I call out names will you please indicate
your presence? Our interpreter is Many Tongues, who knows English,
Blackfoot, Shoshone and, I understand, some Salish."

Sully was in a blue uniform with brass buttons and
gold braid on it and other trappings that meant something or other.
Wheeler had a star on his chest.

"
Now. Heavy Runner?"

Heavy Runner raised his hand.

"Little Wolf?"

Little Wolf signaled here.

"
Mountain Chief?"

The chiefs were silent, their eyes fixed straight
ahead.

"
Where is Mountain Chief?"

"
Sir," Lije said, "they do not know."

"
They haven't said anything."

"
Because they do not know, sir."

Sully said to Wheeler, "The man we wanted most.
Humph."

"
He and his killers."

Sully turned back. "All right. Big Leg?"

Big Leg was on hand.

"
You are all Piegans. Right?" He pointed.
"Then you. Gray Eyes, is it?"

The man answered in Blackfoot, and Lije translated,
"Gray Eyes of the Bloods."

"
My red brothers," Sully said, "we
come to talk to you. We come in peace, we come hoping peace, but,
peace or not, it is yours to say."

Lije was keeping up with him.

"
Last year, the year just closed, white men have
lost one hundred horses a month to Indian thieves. Fifty-six white
men have been killed. The latest was one you all know. Malcolm
Clarke. We tell you now, in friendship: no more stealing, no more
killing."

Wheeler interrupted to say, "And that's not
all."

The chiefs and their head men sat silent and
motionless, only their eyes moving, to the speaker, to the standing
soldiers, to one who put wood on the fire.

"
We know who killed Clarke," Sully went on.
"Mountain Chief's men, by name Pete Owl Child, Eagle Rib, Bear
Chief, Black Weasel and Black Bear. They must be turned over to us.
Do you understand?"

Now Heavy Runner said in his halting English, "My
friend. Indian name Bear Maker. He talk? Yes?"

"
We didn't come to hear arguments," Wheeler
said.

"
Where's the harm? All right, Bear Maker."

Summers got to his feet and walked, trying not to
limp, to face the two men. He must watch his words, speak as good
English as he could. He had had a mighty short time to review what he
knew, to sum up time and change, to talk to old men who knew some
things he didn't, to be sure of right.

"
For the record, your name?" Sully said.
For the first time Summers noticed a man in the corner was taking
notes.

"
Dick Summers." It took some doing but he
added, "sir."

"
Richard Summers?"

"
If you want it that way?"

Sully smiled. "You are something of a legend,
Mr. Summers."

"
Comes from living so long."

"
You have spent all your years in the west?"

"
Most of 'em." Again he added, "sir."

"
Would you care to tell us how old you are?"

Now Summers let himself smile. "As they say, too
old to suck, too tough to die. Make it seventy-odd. I'm not too
sure."

"
All the time with the red men?"

"
No, sir. Sometimes. Sometimes friend, sometimes
not."

"
I know all this, Dick," the general said,
letting his manner loosen. "The record doesn't."

"
It's all right."

"
So now we'll be glad to hear what you have to
say."

Summers took a breath. "It's all so one-sided."

"
One-sided?"

"
You know how many horses have been stolen, how
many white men have been killed and who killed Malcolm Clarke. I
don't deny any of that. Neither do the chiefs."

Lije was keeping right up with him.

"
But you don't know how many red men have been
killed. I doubt you know who killed Mountain Chief's brother right in
Fort Benton."

"
We think we're about to find the answer on the
last point," Wheeler put in.

"
It's like as if red lives don't count,"
Summers continued.

Sully nodded his head, not as if he much wanted to.

"
You want Clarke's killers turned over to you,
and, I would guess, all the stolen stock returned."

"
That's right."

"
That's right, sir, but it's wrong. It can't be
done. Think on it, General. Like you know, there's three divisions to
the Blackfoot nation — Piegan, Blood and Blackfoot proper. Each
division is divided into villages or bands under chiefs like you see
here. You ask one division or one band to take men or horses from
another, and you got civil war."

"
I doubt it will be that bad."

"
It won't be because they won't and can't do
it."

"
I honor your feelings, Dick, but we act under
orders."

"
Whose orders?"

"
Orders come from ranking officers under the
direction of Washington? ‘

There was an edge in Sully's tones now, and Summers
knew he had overstepped. "General, sir, would you listen to me
just a little while longer?"

The edge wore off fast. "Sure, Dick."

"
The government set aside lands for the
Blackfeet. I got it in mind that was the treaty of eighteen
fifty-five. The land stretched from the mountains, the continental
divide, clean to the Missouri and from the Canadian line to the Teton
or Sun River, I ain't sure which."

"
Go on."

"
If the land belongs to the Blackfeet, wouldn't
you think they would own what's underground, too, like the gold
they've minin' at Last Chance Gulch? Wouldn't you think the grass
belonged to the Indians and the soil and the things that grow on
both, like the buffalo the hide-hunters are killing off?"

"
Dick, those are such vexed questions, questions
of policy, of politics, of ownership, of human rights, red and white.
I'm a military man. I can't answer you."

"
No, sir. Neither can I, but I can sure
understand how the Indian feels. Wouldn't you, in his fix?"

"
Probably." Sully's smile seemed small and
sad. "Let's grant all you say is true. It is true, too, that
stock is stolen and men killed. Do you have a way out of that?"

"
I do, sir."

Wheeler said, "Oh, for Christ's sake!"

"
We might as well hear it."

"
Put an end to the whiskey trade, that's what.
I'm not speaking of honest whiskey. I'm speaking of the poison the
traders sell, all the way from Fort Benton to Fort McLeod. That's
what drives young Indians crazy. That's what makes them steal and
kill. And that's what's killing off twenty-five per cent of the
Blackfeet, men and some women, every year. Close that goddamn trail,
General. Close it and see."

Sully said "Hmm" through closed lips.

"
I reckon you never tasted it, and for sure you
better not. It's straight alcohol watered down some, colored and
flavored with black molasses and plugs of tobacco and fired up with
red pepper and capsicum. Jesus, that stuff, one teaspoon, would rot
out a wash boiler. Close the trail. Arrest the traders. Thank you,
General Sully. Thank you, Wheeler."

General Sully sighed and rose. "I have listened
and thank you. There is much to be said for your position, much right
in your words, but I do not make policy. I execute it."

He looked around at the chiefs. "The men who
murdered Malcolm Clarke must be surrendered to us. The stolen stock
must be returned. All that within the next two weeks. If it is not
done, we have no recourse but to declare a state of war with the
Blackfoot nation."

As they filed out, Summers halted and said to Lije,
"Don't be discouraged, son. You're on the right path."

"
I am sad."

"
You'll get over it, boy, and we might have done
some good today."

Once in a while a man had to lie.

38

LIJE SUMMERS stood back of a table at which seven
officers sat. He wasn't there to translate. He was there to see that
glasses were filled and to fetch a bottle when ordered. Squaw's work,
his mother would have called it. It wasn't his privilege to refuse,
though he could wonder why he was chosen rather than a striker or
two, those men who polished officers' boots, tended to their uniforms
and acted as personal servants. Perhaps the chore was too trifling.
Perhaps the major in charge wished to belittle him for his mixed
blood. These men weren't heavy drinkers, not when making plans, not
when they would ride on the warpath tomorrow, out from Fort Shaw.

A secret mission, a stealing out to kill Blackfeet, a
surprise attack aimed, so they said, at Mountain Chief s band,
meaning that circumstances were circumstances, and who could tell?
Who could tell about his mother and father and Nocansee and old Heavy
Runner?

A secret mission, just planned, and the fact leaked
out slowly while the men were held within the fort grounds and
threatened with court-martial if they revealed it.

He poured more whiskey into glasses.

Even so, he had tried. He had tried to sneak a horse
from the stables and ride out to give warning. But four men guarded
the horses and gates, and one of them asked, "What you doin'
here, Lije?"

"
Just looking. Thinking my horse needed
exercise."

"
Fat chance. Wait for a chinook. A horse gets
out of the stables, and it's my ass."

"
I was just thinking."

"
Sure. Wisht I was in your place and could go in
and get warm."

They had a big map on the table, their heads cocked
to see it by the light of an oil lamp. The head man — Major Baker,
sir, was his name — traced lines on the map and made crosses,
meaning stopping places, Lije reckoned. The major had a long, bearded
face and sloping shoulders and, it seemed like, the hint of the
killer in his eyes.

Brother Potter would have prayed for him, but Brother
Potter was dead, buried near a mining camp over west, which he was
going to visit when he fell from his horse, the life gone out of him
before he hit ground. Brother Potter would have prayed, but prayer
wouldn't reach this man. A bullet from a Hawken would.

The lamp on the table flickered to the officers'
breaths. There was another lamp in the room. Together they barely
held off the dark. Shadows played on the floor when the officers
moved. The major lifted his eyes from the map. "The Blackfeet
have played with us, making promises they never intended to keep.
This time we show them that we mean business. No prisoners, is that
understood?"

"
Women and children?" one of the men asked.

"
A few will be killed. That's inevitable. The
rest we turn loose after burning the lodges. Tell your men no mercy."