“So yore Teton friends could fill me with arrers?” I sneered. “I ain’t as big a fool as I looks.”
“No, that wouldn’t be possible,” agreed he, and I was so overcame with rage all I could do was gasp. Another instant and I would of had my knife in his guts, truce or no truce, but Fat Bear grabbed me and got me into his tipi. He had me set on a pile of buffler hides and one of his squaws brung me a pot of meat; but I was too mad to be hungry, so I only et four or five pounds of buffler liver.
Fat Bear sot down his trade musket, which he had stole from a Hudson Bay Company trapper, and said: “The council tonight is to decide whether or not the Arikaras shall take the warpath against the Big Knives. This Red-Coat, Sir Wilmot, says the Big White Chief over the water is whipping the Big White Father of the Big Knives, in the village called Washington.”
I was so stunned by this news I couldn’t say nothing. We hadn’t had no chance to git news about the war since we started up the river.
“Sir Wilmot wants the Sioux, Crows and Arikaras to join him in striking the American settlements down the river,” says Fat Bear. “The Crows believe the Big Knives are losing the war, and they’re wavering. If they go with the Sioux, I must go too; otherwise the Sioux will burn my village. I cannot exist without the aid of the Crows. The Red-Coat has a Soc medicine man, who will go into a medicine lodge tonight and talk with the Great Spirit. It is big medicine, such was never seen before on any village on the Missouri. The medicine man will tell the Crows and the Arikaras to go with the Sioux.”
“You mean this Englishman aims to lead a war-party down the river?” I says, plumb horrified.
“Clear to Saint Louis!” says Fat Bear. “He will wipe out all the Americans on the river!”
“He won’t neither,” says I with great passion, rising and drawing my knife. “I’ll go over to his lodge right now and cut his gizzard out!”
But Fat Bear grabbed me and hollered: “If you spill blood, no one will ever dare recognize a truce again! I cannot let you kill the Red-Coat!”
“But he’s plannin’ to kill everybody on the river, dern it!” I yelled. “What’m I goin’ to do?”
“You must get up in council and persuade the warriors not to go on the war-path,” says he.
“Good gosh,” I says, “I can’t make no speech.”
“The Red-Coat has a serpent’s tongue,” says Fat Bear, shaking his head. “If he had presents to give the chiefs, his cause would be as good as won. But his boat upset as he came along the river, and all his goods were lost. If you had presents to give to Spotted Hawk and Biting Horse—”
“You know I ain’t got no presents!” I roared, nigh out of my head. “What the hell am I goin’ to do?”
“I dunno,” says he, despairful. “Some white men pray when they’re in a pickle.”
“I’ll do it!” I says. “Git outa my way!” So I kneeled down on a stack of buffler robes, and I’d got as far as: “Now I lay me down to sleep—” when my knee nudged something under the hides that felt familiar. I reched down and yanked it out—and sure enough, it was a keg!
“Where’d you git this?” I yelped.
“I stole it out of the company’s storehouse the last time I was in Saint Louis,” he confessed, “but—”
“But nothin’!” exulted I. “I dunno how come you ain’t drunk it all up before now, but it’s my wampum! I ain’t goin’ to try to out-talk that lobster-back tonight. Soon’s the council’s open, I’ll git up kind of casual and say that the Red-Coat has got a empty bag of talk for ’em, with nothin’ to go with it, but the Big White Father at Washington has sent ’em a present. Then I’ll drag out the keg. T’aint much to divide up amongst so many, but the chiefs is what counts, and they’s enough licker to git them too drunk to know what Sir Wilmot and the medicine man says.”
“They know you didn’t bring anything into the village with you,” he says.
“So much the better,” I says. “I’ll tell ’em it’s wakan and I can perjuice whiskey out of the air.”
“They’ll want you to perjuice some more,” says he.
“I’ll tell ’em a evil spirit, in the shape of a skunk with a red coat on, is interferin’ with my magic powers,” I says, gitting brainier every minute. “That’ll make ’em mad at Sir Wilmot. Anyway, they won’t care where the licker come from. A few snorts and the Sioux will probably remember all the gredges they got agen the Socs and run ’em outa camp.”
“You’ll get us all killed,” says Fat Bear, mopping his brow. “But about that keg, I want to tell you—”
“You shet up about that keg,” I says sternly. “It warn’t yore keg in the first place. The fate of a nation is at stake, and you tries to quibble about a keg of licker! Git some stiffenin’ into yore laigs; what we does tonight may decide who owns this continent. If we puts it over it’ll be a big gain for the Americans.”
“And what’ll the Indians get out of it?” he ast.
“Don’t change the subjeck,” I says. “I see they’ve stacked buffler hides out at the council circle for the chiefs and guests to get on—and by the way, you be dern sure you gives me a higher stack to get on than Sir Wilmot gits. When nobody ain’t lookin’, you hide this keg clost to where I’m to set. If I had to send to yore lodge to git it, it’d take time and look fishy, too.”
“Well,” he begun reluctantly, but I flourished a fist under his nose and said with passion: “Dang it, do like I says! One more blat outa you and I busts the truce and yore snoot simultaneous!”
So he spread his hands kinda helpless, and said something about all white men being crazy, and anyway he reckoned he’d lived as long as the Great Spirit aimed for him to. But I give no heed, because I have not got no patience with them Injun superstitions. I started out of his lodge and dang near fell over one of them French trappers which they called Ondrey; t’other’n was named Franswaw.
“What the hell you doin’ here?” I demanded, but he merely give me a nasty look and snuck off. I started for the lodge where the Crows was, and the next man I met was old Shingis. I dunno what his real name is, we always call him old Shingis; I think he’s a Iowa or something. He’s so old he’s done forgot where he was born, and so ornery he jest lives around with first one tribe and then another till they git tired of him and kick him out.
He ast for some tobaccer and I give him a pipe-full, and then he squinted his eye at me and said: “The Red-Coat did not have to bring a man from the Mississippi to talk with Waukontonka. They say Shingis is heyoka. They say he is a friend of the Unktehi, the Evil Spirits.”
Well, nobody never said that but him, but that’s the way Injuns brag on theirselves; so I told him everybody knowed he was wakan, and went on to the lodge where the Crows was. Spotted Hawk ast me if it was the Red-Coats had burnt Washington and I told him not to believe everything a Red-Coat told him. Then I said: “Where’s this Red-Coat’s presents?”
Spotted Hawk made a wry face because that was a p’int which stuck in his mind, too, but he said: “The boat upset and the river took the gifts meant for the chiefs.”
“Then that means that the Unktehi air mad at him,” I says. “His medicine’s weak. Will you foller a man which his medicine is weak?”
“We will listen to what he has to say in council,” says Spotted Hawk, kind of uncertain, because a Injun is scairt of having anything to do with a man whose medicine is weak.
It was gitting dark by this time, and when I come out of the lodge I met Sir Wilmot, and he says: “Trying to traduce the Crows, eh? I’ll have the pleasure of watching