CHAPTER TWO
A Crow
village on the Meeteetsee River, Wyoming
Territory
It was just after sunup and Running Elk
left his tipi to walk out onto an overlook where he could view the
mountains around him. Though it was late spring, the higher peaks
were still covered with snow. Interspersed with the snow-covered
peaks were the slab-sided cliffs rising a thousand feet or more
into the sky. At the lower ranges were the sage-covered mountains
that lay in ridges and rolls, marked here and there by patches of
light and shadow from the early morning sun. On the lower
elevations of the treeless mountains, elk were
grazing.
Down in the valley he could see,
sparkling silver in the sun, the Meeteetsee River. Alongside the
river was a small herd of antelope, and sneaking up on them, a wolf
was hunting his morning meal.
Today, Gray Antelope and Howling Wolf
were going hunting. Running Elk would have gone with them had they
asked, but they did not. He had not been hunting since returning
from the white man’s school, and he missed it, but he knew it was
not his place to invite himself.
When Running Elk was back East
attending Carlisle Indian School, they changed his name from
Running Elk to Steve Barr, and they told him and the other students
that the Indian ways were bad. They said he must get civilized and
be like the white man. While he was there he wore white man’s
clothes, cut his hair as a white man, ate white man’s food, went to
the white man’s church, and spoke the language of the white man. If
any of the students were ever overheard speaking their native
tongue, they were severely punished.
The books Running Elk learned to read
told how bad the Indians had been to the white men. They made no
distinctions among the Indians as to what tribes were friendly and
supportive of the white man and what tribes were enemies. Running
Elk was Absaroka. The Absaroka were called Crow by the white man,
and though most of the Crow were in Montana, many had settled in
the Big Horn Basin just outside the newly designated Yellowstone
National Park. The Crow were a Siouan language tribe, but they
maintained an identity beyond that of the Hunkpapa, Lakota, Oglala,
Mineconjou, Brule, Blackfeet, and Cheyenne, who were their
traditional enemies. Because of this natural enmity, the Crow had
been allies with the U.S. Army during their fight with the
Sioux.
Running Elk had been gone for four
years, and when he first returned to his tribal home, he was
treated as a stranger because of the ways and habits he had
acquired while away. It took a while for the rest of the tribe to
accept him, but Quiet Stream had greeted him warmly from the first
day he was back. Quiet Stream was a young woman who had caught
Running Elk’s eye even before he left for school. Now he was
thinking about marrying her, but in order to do so, he would have
to present gifts that would satisfy her father, Stone Eagle, and
convince him that he was worthy of his daughter.
“Could it be that the others are right,
and you have lost your Indian ways? Had you not gone to the white
man’s school I would not have been able to sneak up on
you.”
Turning toward the sound of the voice,
Running Elk saw Quiet Stream, smiling at the trick she had just
played on him.
“You did not sneak up on me. I heard
you.”
“Oh? And has the white man also taught
you to lie?”
Running Elk laughed. “You are right, I
did not hear you. But that is because you cross the ground like a
butterfly.”
“Ah ha, another lie you learned from
the white man,” Quiet Stream said. “But this lie, I
like.”
Running Elk saw Grey Antelope and
Howling Wolf mount their horses as they left for their hunting
trip. Quiet Stream read, in his eyes, his disappointment at not
having been invited to go with them.
“You should have gone with them,” Quiet
Stream said.
“No.”
“Do you not wish to hunt with Running
Elk and Grey Antelope? I think you do. I think I can see this in
your face.”
“They did not ask me.”
“Perhaps they did not know you wished
to go. You should have asked them.”
“One should be invited, one should not
ask,” Running Elk said.
“Have you not asked my father for me?”
Quiet Stream asked. “Or has only White Bull asked?”
“White Bull has asked?” Running Elk
replied, surprised by Quiet Stream’s announcement.
“Last night, he came to our tipi and
asked my father if he could marry me.”
“What did Big Hand say?”
“He said another has asked, and that he
must think on this.”
“What do you say?” Running Elk
asked.
“It is you I prefer,” Quiet Stream
said. She smiled. “And I will say this to my father. Do not worry,
he will listen to me.”
White Bull and Running Elk were
friends, and had been friends since both were young, but Running
Elk had gone to the white man’s school and White Bull had not. It
wasn’t a matter of Running Elk choosing to go; in fact, he had had
no choice in the matter at all. He had been chosen by the Indian
agent and told that he would go.
Since Running Elk had returned, the
relationship between him and his old friend had changed. There was
no animosity between them, but neither was there the closeness
there once was. And now, with both young men interested in the same
woman, the situation could only worsen.
Grand
Central Terminal, New York
Buffalo Bill was in the main concourse
surrounded by a dozen or more newspaper reporters and
photographers. Falcon was several feet away, standing with Andrew
and Rosanna, both of whom had come to see him off on his
trip.
“I see that Mr. Cody is surrounded by
his adoring press,” Andrew said.
Rosanna laughed. “My, brother, do I
detect a twinge of jealousy?”
“Jealousy?”
“The press is around Mr. Cody, but not
around you?”
“You know better than that, Rosanna. I
abhor the press.”
“I know, dear. So I wouldn’t call
attention to it if I were you. No doubt they would be over here as
well, if they knew that you were here.”
“If they knew that we were here,” Andrew said, emphasizing the “we.” “For
they would not come to see me, alone.”
“They are calling our train,” Falcon
said.
Just inside the gate leading to track
number thirty-one, a man appeared with a megaphone. Holding the
megaphone to his mouth he called out loudly, his words clearly
audible.
“Train for Philadelphia, Harrisburg,
Cleveland, and Chicago, now boarding on track thirty-one! All
passengers proceed to the train now!”
Rosanna hugged Falcon. “You are the
only one in the family who ever comes to see us,” she said. “Is it
any wonder that you are my favorite brother?”
“He’s your favorite brother?” Andrew
said. “What about me?”
“Oh, don’t be silly, Andrew. Falcon is
my brother, you are my twin. And you are my favorite
twin.”
“All right then, that’s better, that’s
. . . ,” he paused, realizing then what she had said. Falcon and
Rosanna both laughed, then Andrew laughed with them. He reached out
to take Falcon’s hand.
“I agree with her,” he said. “You are
also my favorite brother.”
As Falcon and Cody started toward the
gate, Falcon heard one of the reporters behind him call
out.
“Hey! Look there! Aren’t those the
MacCallisters? Yes, that’s Andrew and Rosanna, the famous
actors.”
“What are you two doing here?” another
asked and, glancing back over his shoulder, Falcon saw that the
entire press corps had hurried to their side. He saw, too, that his
siblings were handling it with their usual aplomb.
“It’s Buffalo Bill Cody!” a passenger
said as Falcon and Cody stepped into the palace car of the train.
Almost instantly the other passengers crowded around him and,
obligingly, Cody began signing autographs. Smiling and shaking his
head, Falcon found a seat at the rear of the car and watched with
bemusement.
“Do you know Buffalo Bill?” one of the
other passengers asked Falcon.
“Yes.”
“Is he a real man of the West? Or is he
merely a showman?”
“Trust me, Buffalo Bill is a real man
of the West,” Falcon said. “He was a Pony Express rider, a buffalo
hunter, a soldier, and a scout for the U.S. Cavalry. He is also a
recipient of the Medal of Honor.”
“I thought that was all hokum, just to
promote his show,” the passenger said.
“It isn’t hokum,” Falcon said. “And
I’ll correct something else you said. He isn’t merely a showman; he is a showman of the first
order.”
“Is that so? Maybe I have made a
mistake in my judgment of him,” the passenger said. “I wonder if I
could get his autograph. For my children, of course.”
“Of course,” Falcon said. “If you ask
for it, I am sure he will give you his autograph. I have found him
to be most generous in such things.”
That night, as Falcon lay in his berth,
feeling the gentle rocking motion of the train and hearing the
sound of steel wheels rolling on steel track, he recalled the last
time he had been with Buffalo Bill. The memory was so strong and so
real that he didn’t know if it was a memory or a
dream.
It was a time before the Buffalo Bill
Wild West Exhibition, when he was still known as Bill Cody. Falcon
had been wandering through the West with no particular reason or
destination when he found himself in Hayes City, Kansas. He met
Bill Cody in the saloon, and because Cody had once ridden with the
Pony Express, as had a close friend of Falcon’s, the two discovered
a mutual connection.
The two men were enjoying each other’s
company, exchanging stories and gossip, when they learned that a
local rancher and his wife had been killed and their
eighteen-year-old daughter raped, leaving a soulscarred shell of
the vibrant young girl she had been.
The man who had perpetrated the crime
was Drew Lightfoot, a well known desperado who had boasted that he
would never be taken alive. Already a wanted robber and murderer,
Lightfoot had committed crimes against one of the leading families
of the county, and the reward for his apprehension had doubled. He
was now worth two thousand dollars, dead or alive.
“And he says he’ll never be taken
alive?” Falcon asked the man who had brought the news to the
saloon.
“That’s what he says, all
right.”
Falcon finished his beer, then stood
up.
“Where are you going?” Cody
asked.
“I’m going to see what I can do about
granting that fella’s wish that he not be taken alive,” Falcon
said.
Cody stood up as well. “Do you want
company?” he asked.
“A good friend is always welcome
company,” Falcon replied.
Soon after they got onto Lightfoot’s
trail, they learned that he wasn’t traveling alone, but had five
others with him, and was riding as the head of a gang of robbers
and cutthroats. If that made Lightfoot more formidable, it also
made him easier to track, for the Lightfoot gang was leaving a path
of murder and robbery all across western Kansas and eastern
Colorado.
They caught up with him in Puxico,
Colorado. Passed up by the railroads, Puxico wasn’t even on most
maps. Falcon surveyed the town as he rode in. He had seen hundreds
of towns like this one, a street faced by falsefronted shanties, a
few sod buildings, and even a handful of tents, straggling along
for nearly a quarter of a mile. Then, just as abruptly as the town
started, it quit.
In the winter and spring the single
street would be a muddy mire, worked by horses’ hooves and mixed
with their droppings, so that it became a stinking, sucking pool of
ooze. In the summer it was baked hard as a rock. It was summer now,
early afternoon, and the sun was yellow and hot.
The saloon wasn’t hard to find. It was
the biggest and grandest building in the entire town, and Cody
pointed to it.
“I’d say our best bet would be to start
there,” Cody said.
“I’d say you are right.”
Loosening their pistols in their
holsters, the two men walked inside.
Anytime Falcon entered a strange saloon
he was on the alert. As he surveyed the place, he did so with such
calmness that the average person would think it no more than a
glance of idle curiosity. In reality it was a very thorough
appraisal of the room. He checked out who was armed, what type of
weapons they were carrying, and whether they were wearing their
guns in a way that showed they knew how to use them. There were
five men sitting together in the back of the room, and they were
surveying Falcon and Cody as carefully as Falcon was surveying
them. Falcon knew it wasn’t idle curiosity that had drawn their
attention, and he was certain they were the men he and Cody were
after.
“Cody,” he said quietly.
“I see them,” Cody answered just as
quietly.
The bartender stood at the end of the
bar, wiping used glasses with his stained apron, then setting them
among the unused glasses. When he saw Falcon and Cody step up to
the bar, he moved down toward them.
“Two beers,” Falcon said.
The bartender had seen the way Falcon
and Cody had examined the five men in the back, and he had seen the
way the five men had studied them. He poured the drinks with
shaking hands, and Falcon knew that they had found their
men.
“Do you know why we are here?” Falcon
asked quietly.
“I reckon I do,” the bartender replied,
his voice strained with fear.
“I’m told there are six of them. I see
only five sitting back there.”
The bartender raised his head and
looked toward the stairs at the back of the room, but he said
nothing.
“Would the one upstairs be Lightfoot?”
Falcon asked.
Again, the bartender said nothing, but
he answered in the affirmative with a slight nod of his
head.
“Thanks,” Falcon said. He finished the
drink then looked toward the flight of wooden stairs that led
upstairs to an enclosed loft.
“You go after him,” Cody said. “I’ll
take care of these galoots.”
“All right.”
Falcon pulled his gun as he started up
the stairs. The five in the back, seeing that, stood up as one,
pulling their pistols as they did so.
“Hold it!” Cody called, pointing his
gun at the five. “Drop your guns, all of you!”
“The hell you say!” one of the five men
shouted, and they turned toward Cody.
Seeing that Cody was now in danger,
Falcon called to them from the stairs. “Do what he says!” Falcon
shouted.
One of the five men fired toward Cody
and another fired toward Falcon. Even though the five men
outnumbered Falcon and Cody, they were at a disadvantage because
they were bunched into one big target, whereas their targets were
separated.
Guns roared as they all began firing.
Smoke billowed from the barrels of the guns, filling the saloon
with a thick, acrid cloud. When the smoke moved away, the five were
lying on the floor. Then, from the room at the head of the stairs,
Lightfoot emerged, gun in hand. He fired at Falcon, and a hole the
size of a man’s thumb and the height of a man’s chest appeared in
the wall right beside Falcon as the heavy .44 caliber slug tore
into the wood.
Both Falcon and Cody returned fire at
the same time and Lightfoot, struck by two bullets, tumbled over
the banister and, turning in midair, landed on his back on the very
table around which his five confederates had been
sitting.
An unexpected roughness in the track
jarred Falcon from his sleep and he lay in his berth for a moment,
halfway between dream and wake as the scenes of that event, so long
ago, gradually faded away. He heard the sound of the train whistle
as he drifted back to sleep.