Little Britches (10 page)

I wanted to show her that I could fall off on purpose without getting hurt, and that I was brave enough to do it with Fanny galloping. I thought maybe I could do the somersault trick so I'd come right up on my feet. It didn't work any good at all—There must have been a big old jack rabbit that I didn't see, sitting right at the edge of the sandy patch. I had Fanny going like sixty and had loosened up my knees, all ready to take my dive, when she set her feet and stopped dead still. I went off over her head a mile a minute. If I'd gone a couple of feet farther, I could have grabbed the old rabbit as he raced away.

It happened too fast for me to think anything about any fancy landing, and I made a perfect belly slide. It knocked the wind out of me for a second. When Grace got there I was all right, but I couldn't get any air into my lungs so I could say so. She dropped my dinner bucket and came screaming like she thought I was killed. I don't think Fanny liked her very well after the day before, and she shied away. I was afraid she might run home before I could get breath enough to yell "whoa" at her, but she didn't.

My dinner was a mess. Mother had put the baked beans in the bottom of the bucket, then put a saucer on top of them with my johnnycake and pie on it. When Grace dropped the bucket it all got mixed together—it was lemon pie, too. All the time I was eating, Grace kept telling me that it was her duty to tell Mother about my falling off Fanny. I begged her not to, because I knew Mother wouldn't let me ride any more if Grace ever did tell. At last she said she wouldn't squeal, even if it was going to hurt her conscience, but I'd have to help her get on so she could ride Fanny. She promised she wouldn't haul on the lines.

Grace got on all right, but I kept hold of the reins till I saw she was sitting right and had her knees squeezed in good and tight. Then I held Fanny's bridle and talked to her easy till Grace got the Lines wrapped around both hands. Grace was all right as long as I had hold, but when I let go she leaned forward and grabbed for Fanny's mane. The minute she leaned forward Fanny started to canter. Grace squealed, and I hollered after her to sit up straight and keep the reins tighter, but not to haul on them. She did sit up, but she hauled on the lines.

I don't know whether Fanny was trying to be mean, or Whether she didn't know what Grace wanted her to do—and I don't think Grace knew herself. Anyway, she started trotting right up the little valley. Grace went bouncing up and down on her back like a marble dropped on a stone walk. It wouldn't have been so bad if she had just come down in the same place every time, but sometimes she was clear up on Fanny's withers, and sometimes pretty near back to her tail. First she'd lose her balance one way, then she'd grab a handful of mane and pull herself half off the other side. Why she never fell clear off I'll never know, but she didn't. At last she got worked way up on Fanny's neck, and slipped over sideways so far that she was just hanging by her hands and one knee. Then Fanny stopped and let me catch up to them. Even at that, Grace yelled back to me when she got to the top of the hill with my dinner bucket, "I guess I showed you who could ride best. You fell off and I didn't."

Grace brought my dinner every noon, and she always had something hurting her conscience enough so that she'd have to tell Mother if I didn't let her ride Fanny. After a while I just let her do it anyway, and she got so she could do pretty well, but she was always a sissy, because when she found she was going to fall she'd grab Fanny around the neck. After a day or so Fanny'd stop as soon as Grace started hugging her.

I got so I could tumble into the sandy spot and hardly get hurt at all. And a few times I went clear over and came up on my feet like Hi. I didn't have any trouble with the cows after the first week. When June came, the days were hotter and I didn't have enough to do for it to be interesting any more. Mrs. Corcoran stopped hollering so much about my running the cows or bringing them in too early, but she still pinned my quarter into my blouse pocket every night, and I always took it out and put it in my overall pocket till I was nearly home.

WHEN I got in from herding one evening early in June, there were two scrawny, jug-headed buckskins tied to an old rickety spring wagon in our yard. I could see them from half a mile up the road, and came boiling home a lot faster than Father liked me to. Nobody was in sight, so we tore right for the barn. Fanny and I had a system at the barn. If I stayed on she had to go through the doorway slow or I'd get scraped off. But she always liked to pop right in quick, so I'd slide way back on her rump and slip off over her tail at the last second. I'd got so I could do it and land on my feet most every night—without spilling the can of milk I always brought from Aultland's.

I had to time it just right, and that night I was thinking so much about who might be in the house that I must have been a little careless. Anyway, I hadn't slid back far enough on Fanny's rump, so when I ooched to go off over her tail I didn't go all the way, and crashed into the header of the barn door. When I woke up I didn't have any idea where in the world I was for about a minute. I was lying on a pile of hay and an old man with a long white beard and a battered ten-gallon felt hat was looking down at me from squinty blue eyes that were sunk way back in his head. I shut my eyes again quick, and heard him say to somebody else, "Ain't hurt a bit, ain't hurt a bit. 'Fraid the little papoose mighta brained hisself."

I remembered what had happened then, and knew where I was. The first thing I thought about was the milk, because Mother had been giving me heck every time I spilled some of it, so I said, "Did I spill the milk?"

The old man laughed and laughed, then he said, "No Bucko, you didn't spill scarcely none of it. Two Dog ketched it soon as ever it lit."

I sat up then and looked around to see who Two Dog was. He was a wizened old, old Indian, and his face was so wrinkled it looked like a baked apple that's been left over till it's all dried out. His hair wasn't braided like the Indians I'd seen in books, but hung down in scraggly strings to his shoulders, and he had a faded derby hat balanced square on the top of his head. His coat was faded black, too, and the back of it was long and rounded, like the minister's back in East Rochester. He had on a tight pair of bright blue pants, and white moccasins with lots of red beads on them. He just looked at me without changing his face a bit. Then he grunted and went over and sat down with his back against the side of the barn.

I had just got on my feet when Father came out to see why I hadn't brought in the milk. I must have had quite a bump on my head, because it was the first thing he saw, and asked me what kind of tricks I'd been up to now. I didn't get a chance to tell him, because the old man with the whiskers told him first. He said, "Me and Two Dog was a-sittin' here agin the barn havin' a smoke when this little coyote come a-ridin' in. The mare spooked and hightailed into the barn like a scairt prairie dog into his hole. The papoose, he didn't have a chance and bunged his head agin the barn. Ain't hurt a mite, though; not a broke bone anywheres." He took hold of my arm and worked it up and down like a pump handle to show Father.

Father said for me to come to the house and get cleaned up for supper. On the way in he told me the old man was Mr. Thompson, and that he claimed to have had his camp site in 1840 right where our house was now. While I was getting washed I asked him about Two Dog, because he was the first Indian I had seen close to. Father said he didn't know much about him, but he had heard that he was a Blackfoot, and that he and Mr. Thompson had lived together up in the foothills since long before anybody could remember.

The house smelled awfully good. Father had killed one of the hens, and Mother had it cooking in the big iron pot. She was putting in the dumplings when she told us that Mr. Thompson and Two Dog were going to eat supper with us and stay all night. She said they might not eat just the way we did and she didn't want to catch one of us staring at them. Then she told Philip and me that she had fixed a shakedown in our room, and that they were going to sleep with us, and that she didn't want us to do any whispering after we went to bed because we might disturb our visitors.

Mother let me go out to call them when supper was ready, but Two Dog wouldn't come to the house. He was still sitting on the ground with his back against the barn. His eyes didn't move or blink, but looked off across our bean field as though he were watching something far away. Mr. Thompson said Two Dog wasn't used to houses and didn't like them, but he'd bring his supper out to him when we got done eating.

The way he ate, I don't think Mr. Thompson could have had a square meal in months. He just used his fork to push things on his knife, and he pushed them on clear up to the handle. Mr. Thompson kept telling Mother that he hadn't tasted such victuals since he was a little boy back in Missouri, and she kept asking him if he wouldn't have some more of everything. Every time she asked him he would pass his plate back and Father would scrape around in the nappy some more. I knew he was keeping one drumstick back for Two Dog, because he had only fished one out, and Philip got that.

When everything in sight was gone, Mr. Thompson tilted his chair back on its hind legs and wiped his whiskers with the corner of the tablecloth. Then he began telling us about the time he first made his camp right where we were sitting. I liked to hear him talk, but I was worried about Two Dog's supper, and asked Father if I could take it out to him. Father dished it up and Mother got me three biscuits and some mashed potatoes she'd been keeping hot on the stove.

I put the silverware and napkin in my overall pocket, so I'd have one hand for the plate and the other for the teacup. Two Dog hadn't moved an inch. He was still looking out across the bean field, but when I passed the plate out to him he looked up and his eyes smiled, but not his mouth. He took the plate with both hands and sat it down beside him, then reached them up for the cup. Instead of holding it by the handle, he took it like a bowl and tasted the tea. Then he looked up at me and said, "Shoog," but I didn't understand what he meant till he put one finger up above the cup and moved it around as if he were stirring.

I forgot all about his silverware and napkin, and ran to the house for the sugar bowl. When I got back he was still holding the cup like a squirrel holding an acorn, and looking across the bean field. There was about a cup of sugar in the bowl. He poured nearly a third of it into the tea and started to stir it with his fingers as soon as he had put the bowl down. Then I remembered the silverware and held it out to him. He looked at it a minute and then stirred the tea again with his finger. I didn't want to leave him and I didn't want to just stand there holding the napkin and silver, so I sat down beside him.

He finished all the tea first, then ate just the chicken leg off the plate. When it was gone, he took up the sugar bowl and poured a few grains into his cupped hand. He picked it out of his palm with his lips, like a horse picking the last few oats out of his feedbox. I don't know how long we sat there, but it was until long after the sun had gone down. Every ten or fifteen minutes Two Dog would pour a few more grains of sugar into his palm and pick it out with his lips. They were so dry they never made his hand sticky. He didn't say a word till the bowl was empty, and I didn't either. Once he put his hand over and let it drop on my knee; he lifted it slowly and let it drop twice more. When the bowl was empty he passed it to me and said, "Friend." That was all the conversation. I got up and went to the house with a lump in my throat and a big love in my heart for Two Dog.

When I came into the house, the supper dishes were done and all the children in bed, except Grace. Mother had the corn popper out and was popping corn over a hot fire. Mr. Thompson was still tilted back in his chair, but had swung it around and had his feet crossed on the window sill. He and Father were munching popcorn, but Grace was sitting with her eyes bugged out, and not even nibbling at the handful of popcorn she was holding. I sat down beside her and she leaned over close to my ear and whispered, "Oh, can he tell stories! He used to go hunting and fighting Indians with Kit Carson."

Mother had never let us sit up so late as we did that evening, and I had never seen anybody eat so much popcorn. Mr. Thompson seemed to have known every trapper and hunter who came west for beaver and buffalo skins. Between mouthfuls of popcorn, he told us about guiding wagon trains from Westport Landing to Oregon, and about going to rendezvous on the Green River with Kit Carson and Bent and Lucien Maxwell. Every once in a while he would stop and tell Mother that he hadn't had such a fine evening since he was a little boy in Missouri. Then he would eat more popcorn, and start all over again.

His last story was about a fight with the Blackfoot Indians. He told how the Indians set fire to the prairie clear around their wagon camp, and about his being the only white man to get out alive. The only reason he didn't get killed was that Two Dog was a chief's son. Mr. Thompson pulled him out from under his dead horse just before the fire reached him, and two young braves rode in through the flames to save them. He said that was why he and Two Dog were blood brothers. I didn't know what that meant, so he told me how they had cut themselves and placed the wounds against each other, so their blood would mix and make them brothers forever.

After that Mother made Grace and me get ready for bed. But while we were brushing our teeth, Mr. Thompson kept on telling Father about Two Dog. He said, "Old Two Dog, he's the cleverest man with horses ever you see. That old Injun, he can take a horse critter that's nine parts dead, and have him prancin' 'round like a colt in a couple days. And there ain't no horse so mean he can't handle him." I wanted to stay and hear more, but Father snapped his fingers.

I couldn't have gone to sleep when I got out to the bunkhouse if I'd wanted to, and I didn't want to. I thought maybe Mr. Thompson would tell another story when he came out to go to bed, or that when he was putting his nightshirt on I might be able to see some of the places where he had been shot. He came out just a little while after I was in bed, but all he said was, "Whoosh." And all he took off was his calfskin vest and his high-heeled boots, then he crawled in between the blankets with everything else on. I asked him if he wanted me to go out and call Two Dog to come to bed, but he said, "Old Two Dog, he ain't never slept in no house; he'd rather sleep right where he's at." In two minutes he was snoring so loud I couldn't go to sleep.