Where the Lost Wander(48)
The dun whinnies, stamps, and tosses his head, but the sorrel mare dips her head in search of something to eat, confirming Black Paint’s words.
“How did this happen?” I ask Naomi, grunting at her below my breath.
“She’s Black Paint’s sister.” Naomi points at the woman standing in the doorway of the lodge watching the drama unfold. The woman nods and smiles. “Ma wanted to do some of her own trading and thought maybe, with white husbands, these women would be able to communicate with us.”
I stare at Naomi, waiting for the rest of the tale.
“I think she sent word, because not long after we stopped to visit with her and the other women, the Dakotah chief and several others arrived with a stack of skins for me to paint. They left before you got here, but by then, there was a crowd. It was Wyatt’s idea to get the looking glass. Her husband, the man in the coonskin cap, told me Black Paint would come back with the horse. I made sure I had plenty to give him in exchange.”
I can only shake my head in wonder. “What are you going to do with two horses?”
“Give them to you.” She shrugs. “I don’t figure they’ll be much harder to look after than your mules. I wouldn’t mind riding one, now and again, if they’re gentle.”
“How did he know you wanted the dun?” I ask, stunned. The selection couldn’t have been an accident.
“I drew him a picture.” She smiles, weary but triumphant, and Wyatt just laughs.
10
INDEPENDENCE ROCK
NAOMI
After Fort Laramie, we stay on the north bank road, though the guidebooks we bought for fifty cents in St. Joseph don’t follow that route. It’s a new road, Mr. Abbott says, and much better than the old. Mr. Abbott says the “old way” means crossing the Platte twice more—at Laramie and Deer Creek—and lining the pockets of the ferrymen who make money off travelers that don’t know any better. None of us want to ford the Platte again, especially not twice, so we let Mr. Abbott lead the way into uncharted territory.
The land is changing. Gone are the flats and sandstone castles. Instead we veer north, away from the river, to avoid canyons that can’t be crossed and make a slow ascent out of the river bottoms and up into hills thick with cedars and pine. It’s a sight looking back. It’s a wonder looking ahead. I’ve never seen mountains. Not like these. Mr. Abbott points out Laramie Peak, a huge dark pyramid with its head in the clouds, a trail of peaks behind it.
“Those are the Black Hills,” Abbott says, but they’re bigger than any hill I’ve ever seen. He says we won’t cross them but will move along beside them, though when we descend into the valleys, we hardly notice them anymore. The grass is sparse here and abundant there, and John is kept busy herding Kettle and his mules from atop the dun, who hasn’t grown accustomed to Dame’s saddle. John rides him more each day; he grumbles that it’s like bumping down a rocky bluff on his backside after riding Samson, whose tread is as long and smooth as John himself. But the dun’s a beauty, and he likes to run. John says the Dakotah must have hunted buffalo with him because he thinks everything is a race. He bolts forward every now and then, taking John for a good ride. He talks to the dun in Pawnee, the hitches and coos no different to me than the speech of the squaws who liked my pictures, and I know he is pleased with the horse.
The sorrel is sweet and doesn’t mind a rider, though John seems to have a chip on his shoulder where she’s concerned. I don’t think he likes that Black Paint gave her to me. I’ve started calling her Red Paint with great affection just to tease him. I’ve named our new goat Gert. She’s as mild mannered as the sorrel, and the horses and mules do well in her company, even allowing her to ride across the saddle when she can’t keep up. Her milk has been a godsend, and Wolfe begins to settle better at night, his belly fuller. I still use him as an excuse to visit John, though we do not stay as long, and I’ve managed not to fall asleep in the grass again with Wolfe in my arms.
We pass great rounded columns and soaring sugar-covered mounds of gray rock, but instead of the expanse of the prairie, they are encircled by silver streams and pine and cedar green. The air is different. It’s thin, and some people get dizzy. Others go a little mad. Maybe it’s that gold fever people speak of. Whole wagon trains veer off the trail to start digging when they hear the rumors of rich gold mines at the mouth of a creek on the south side road. A few in our company want to take a day to check it out, maybe do some digging, but leveler heads prevail.
We’ve passed a few go-backs and two men who are heading back to Fort Laramie with a third man who is trussed and tied on the back of his horse. They tell Abbott that the man went crazy and killed his brother-in-law and his sister, and they’re taking him to Fort Laramie to stand trial. Seems the man got tired of them telling him what to do and just shot them dead. Some in the company wanted to hang him and be done with it, but a few folks thought he was justified. The men say he’s lucky to get a trial. One man stabbed another in a train three days ahead of ours, leaving his wife a widow and his child fatherless. The company hanged the man from a tree. Most likely we’ll pass the site of the hanging in a day or two.
We camp at some springs where the water shoots straight out from the rocks, so clear and cold and sweet we don’t want to leave. That is, until Homer Bingham finds a sheet of paper nailed to a tree describing the murder of a man, woman, and child whose bodies were found beneath some wild rosebushes nearby, their throats slit from ear to ear. We can see the fresh, rounded graves covered with rocks so the wolves can’t get at them. The burial is marked with a piece of driftwood that simply says, MAN, WOMAN, BOY.