In the Shadow of the Hanging Tree Page 11

  His leg slowly healed, and Henry made himself as useful around the camp as he could. He felt strange not having a job to do, but impressed the Cheyenne with his willingness to work hard at whatever task he undertook. He earned some of his own respect with his skill at trapping small game. Henry had learned a unique snare design from John Brown that rarely failed to capture anything that wandered into it. With low food stores almost a constant, the extra game helped greatly.

  During his stay Henry also discovered both a knack, and an affinity for horses. He spent a great deal of time on the gray mare and would ride off by himself, sometimes for days at a time. The area surrounding the camp was virtually treeless for miles, and Henry never really got used to it. If there was anything he missed about Missouri, it was the trees. The closest thing to real woods was over forty miles away. So he’d ride to them. Occasionally Standing Elk or Spotted Paw—a young brave who Henry had befriended—would join him. Mostly though, he would go by himself. He enjoyed sitting alone and reading out of one of the books William Bent had given him. He read as much as he could, and always thought of Eliza when he did.

  That first winter Henry and Standing Elk could be seen together often; the great Cheyenne medicine man and the freed slave. Standing Elk taught Henry much herb lore, as well as how to make and use a bow, tan hides, and track animals. Walking Woman made Henry a fine doeskin tunic, fitting of a Cheyenne. Over time, Henry learned their language. Standing Elk, Spotted Paw and William Bent’s son Robert took time to instruct him. That, along with the simple day to day interactions, accelerated his learning.

  Henry taught Standing Elk more English as well, although Standing Elk took the instruction grudgingly. He referred to English as the language of lies and preferred not to speak it. Henry had the idea that Standing Elk knew more English than he let on, though. For Henry, understanding the language of the Cheyenne was easier by far than understanding the Cheyenne themselves. Their collective point of view was dramatically different than anything Henry was accustomed to. In the beginning this made it difficult for him to extract the meanings and intentions from the words that were spoken. The Cheyenne simply didn’t perceive the world like he did.

  “You carry a heavy heart,” Standing Elk said to Henry matter-of-factly one day when the two were walking by the small creek that ran by the camp. He spoke the language of the Cheyenne.

  It was late spring and the creek was high. The clear water babbled and gurgled over it’s bed of stones. Henry picked up a few off of the grassy bank and began tossing them thoughtfully into the fast moving water. In the eight months Henry had been with the Cheyenne, no one had inquired about his past. He figured this was Standing Elk’s polite way of asking.

  They sat together by the creek for the next several hours. Henry told his story the best he could; he left nothing out. He wept when he recounted finding Eliza dying in the brush, and couldn’t meet Standing Elk’s eyes when he told of how he stole the man’s belongings by the river, including the pistol he’d given Standing Elk. He used Standing Elk’s language as much as his still-limited understanding of it would allow. Learning single words and meanings had been easy. Learning how to string sounds together along with all of the other subtleties needed to make conversation was much more difficult. When he got stuck he used English words he knew Standing Elk understood.

  When Henry was finished, Standing Elk was silent for a long time. He stared across the creek at the horizon. The westering sun set the distant mountains ablaze with orange fire. Finally he spoke, in English. “We do not always see meanings for what is in our path. The white man makes…péósané…hate, grow in the hearts of all others he touches. I battle with this. I do not want this hate.

  The same hate is in your heart. We must defeat this hate.” He stood, looked down at Henry, and added in Cheyenne: “Now we smoke.”

  The Cheyenne didn’t include Henry in certain aspects of tribal living. He was excluded from many ceremonies, and all of the council meetings that Standing Elk attended in Black Kettle’s lodge. These meetings occasionally included leaders from other Indian tribes such as the Arapaho and Sioux. Other times, Standing Elk travelled with Black Kettle to Fort Wise, where councils were sometimes held with white leaders. It was once a trading post owned by William Bent, who leased it to the U.S. military the year before Henry’s arrival. The fort was located in the southeast of the Colorado Territory. The Cheyenne camp itself—the first of two camp locations Henry lived at during his time with the Cheyenne—was a day’s ride north of the fort. Henry accompanied them once, along with some others from the camp, but the trip wasn’t for a parley with the bluecoats. It was only to collect food and sundries that were promised to the Cheyenne in the Treaty of Fort Wise. When they arrived at the fort, less than half of what they were promised was awaiting them and the steers they were supposed to receive were scrawny and ill. Black Kettle wouldn’t take the sickly steers, and through an army interpreter admonished the bluecoat captain in charge of the allocation to eat them himself.

  The 1861 treaty, which Black Kettle and other chiefs signed early that year, relinquished all but a small portion of their previous lands to the U.S. government. Black Kettle had signed the treaty believing that his refusal would bring all out war between the Cheyenne and the bluecoats and, ultimately, the annihilation of his people. He believed the whites were too strong and numerous to be resisted, and that peace for his people could only be obtained through acquiescence. Other Indian chiefs refused to sign the treaty and ridiculed Black Kettle for being weak. Once, not long before Henry left the camp and began scouting and interpreting for the army, Standing Elk confided in Henry that he agreed with the other chiefs. Standing Elk never said that he thought Black Kettle was weak, though. Just wrong.

  Henry was allowed on a hunt during his first spring with the Cheyenne. His leg was completely healed, although he still walked

  with a limp. Some of the braves were reluctant to bring him along, but in the end respect for Standing Elk’s dream of Henry being sent to them by the Great Spirit won over, and he was included.

  As it was when Standing Elk found Henry lying in the Kansas scrub, the hunting party travelled well out of their treaty-designated hunting grounds. It wasn’t a calculated breach; the Cheyenne didn’t operate that way. It was simply go where the game was, or face the possibility of starvation. Unlike the hunt when Henry was found, however, this one went smoothly. They didn’t have to chase stolen horses over a hundred miles, and they didn’t return to camp with pemmican made from a few small deer and one unfortunate horse. This time they came across a small herd of buffalo on the second day out, about fifty miles from the Cheyenne camp. They killed several of the animals, and transported the meat back to camp on the same type of travois that they’d transported Henry on. Henry was only a spectator during that first hunt, but did his share of dressing the slaughtered animals. Two months later he was permitted to participate and even made a kill; one of only six on that particular hunt.

  4

  On one of his many solo outings to the woods, Henry was riding along the Arikaree River. He came across an old woman with her foot caught in a beaver trap. He’d heard her crying weakly as he passed not twenty feet away. He stopped the mare, dismounted, and limped back to where she was lying in some tall grass several feet from the river. The trap, which was old and caked with rust and dirt, was clamped firmly on the middle of her foot. Must have been here a long, long time, Henry thought, looking at the trap. Standing Elk once told him that the whites had killed off most of the beaver in the time when Standing Elk’s own father had still walked in this world.

  “I’m going to free you, Mother,” Henry said, kneeling by the woman. She was severely dehydrated, and alternated between weeping and mumbling nonsense in Cheyenne. He grasped the old trap and pulled it apart. The rusty trap squealed in protest and the woman let out a short but piercing scream before fainting. Henry examined her foot; it was swollen and misshapen, the area around where

 
the trap’s jaws had been was bruised to a near black. Henry guessed most of the bones in her foot were broken. He retrieved his canteen and a small scrap of cloth he used for washing and began to wet the woman’s sun-cracked lips and face. She awoke and whispered, “Néá’eše, néá’eše,” over and over.

  “You’re welcome, Mother,” Henry said.

  After gently picking her up and carrying her to the shade of a nearby tree, Henry began fashioning a travois much like the one he himself had been carried on the previous fall. Not knowing where she came from, only that she was Cheyenne, Henry decided to take her back to Black Kettle’s camp. Once there, Standing Elk and Walking Woman tended to her. At first Standing Elk thought she would die. He thought her wounds would poison her body. But she survived. A short time later she was using the very crutch Henry had used while his leg healed; Henry simply cut it shorter.

  It turned out she’d been with Black Kettle’s band previously. She departed with her son and thirty others after Black Kettle signed the Treaty of Fort Wise. Like many other Cheyenne, her son and a handful of braves were unhappy with Black Kettle for signing the treaty. They claimed that every time the whites made a new treaty, the Cheyenne and other tribes were forced to live and hunt only where the whites allowed them to. They also claimed the whites always made big promises but never kept them—a claim Henry had seen validated when the army shorted the Cheyennes’ rations and attempted to give Black Kettle sick beef.

  A few weeks prior to Henry finding her by the river, the woman’s son and several other men had joined with a band of Cheyenne warriors called Dog Men, who were bent on making war with the whites. That left the old woman alone with seven other women, five children, and two old men (her husband had been killed ten years before while on a buffalo hunt). Black Kettle finally sent some braves to bring them back to his camp where they could be looked after.

  5

  On a May morning in 1863, two years almost to the day before Henry would meet the newly commissioned Lieutenant John Elliot on a supply caravan headed for Fort Laramie, William Bent arrived at the camp looking for Henry.

  Henry was working on building a combination drying rack/meat smoker. It was trickier than it should have been because wood to use for framing was scarce. He’d managed to scrounge a few broken lodge poles, and was busy splitting them with a hammer and stone wedges when William and another man came up behind him.

  “You’re a clever man,” William said to Henry’s back.

  Henry straightened up and turned. “Thank you,” he said, glancing at the stranger in the army uniform. He waited for William to say more.

  “I have someone I’d like you to meet. His name’s Captain Fitchner; United States Calvary. He’s delivering a personal dispatch to Major Wynkoop. The Major’s on patrol somewhere up the Platte. The Captain needs a scout.”

  Henry looked at the Captain. “I’ve only been up that way once. You’re better off with someone else, a Pawnee, I reckon.” Henry suggested a Pawnee, knowing that none of the Cheyenne braves would accompany the bluecoat Captain.

  “I’m more interested in an interpreter than a scout. We should have no trouble locating Major Wynkoop. After delivering the dispatch I’ve been ordered to locate the Cheyenne chief Morning Star and discuss other matters with him. Mister Bent tells me you speak and understand their language.”

  Henry raised his eyebrows and shifted his gaze to William Bent, who cocked his head slightly toward the Captain as if to say: Talk to him, not me.

  Captain Fitchner pressed on: “The job pays five dollars a week,” he said proudly.

  Henry looked at the captain levelly, then let his eyes pass over the Indian camp and its seventy plus lodges with their conical tops pointing skyward. “I’m much obliged for the offer, Captain. I’ll have to think on it some.”

  The captain was visibly disappointed. “We’re heading out in two days.”

  “A couple hours should do it,” Henry said.

  “My men and I will wait just outside of camp for your decision.” He nodded at William Bent and walked away.

  “The captain was doubtful when I explained to him you were a negro,” Bent said.

  “I reckon he would be.”

  “Anyhow, when he came to me I thought you might be interested.”

  “I’m interested. I’ve been wondering for awhile if I shouldn’t be moving on, try to earn myself a living. I just—”

  “Need to talk with Standing Elk first?”

  Henry nodded.

  “Well, I’ll be at the fort. See me there before you leave, if you decide to do it. I have a few things I can outfit you with.”

  “I will. Thank you.”

  Henry watched William Bent walk off to where his horse was tied, shooing off some children who were admiring his saddle and rifle scabbard.

  He found Standing Elk mending a woman’s finger. She’d cut it deeply making deer hide thongs. Henry stood aside patiently while Standing Elk finished. When he was, Henry told him of the captain’s inquiry.

  “Perhaps this is your path,” he said in English—he spoke it more often since Henry had come to live with them. Sometimes Henry and Standing Elk would go back and forth between languages so seamlessly that neither of them noticed they were doing it.

  Standing Elk smiled vaguely. “Now your purpose for coming to us may be shown, though it’s curious that it should be through the white man.” Standing Elk reached out and gripped Henry’s upper arm. “Beware him. Few are good. They are possessed by their desires and will bite an open hand like a wounded dog. They value only these things on which they can place value.”

  “I have no trust in white men,” Henry said. “Except William Bent, I reckon.”

  Henry was up and on his way to the fort before the sun rose. Standing Elk, Walking Woman, Spotted Paw, and Black Kettle all visited Henry the previous night. They presented him with gifts: a fine beaded pipe with an elk horn bowl from Black Kettle, a pair of new moccasins from Standing Elk and Walking Woman, and a bone handled knife from Spotted Paw. This last meant a great deal to Henry, as he knew the knife was a prized possession to Spotted Paw. Henry wished he could tell Spotted Paw to keep his knife, but he’d lived with the Cheyenne long enough to know that if someone offered a gift, you accepted it.

  He rode the gray mare bareback; more because he’d become accustomed to it than to follow the Indian way. He’d buried the stolen saddle soon after his leg had healed enough to allow him to dig the hole. He knew he would never feel right using it. As he was putting it in the hole he noticed for the first time the man’s initials engraved on the skirt: A. Hoyt.

  Captain Fitchner wasn’t expecting him until the following morning, so Henry kept a leisurely pace. His intention was to camp about five miles north of the fort, and ride in at first light. He would see William Bent before departing with the soldiers.

  6

  William Bent was standing beside a loaded buckboard when Henry arrived at the fort. Henry dismounted and tied the mare to the wagon.

  “Morning, Henry,” William said, setting down the feedbag he was carrying and walking around the back of the wagon.

  “Morning,” Henry returned.

  William lifted the tarp covering the rear part of the wagon. Henry looked at the saddle and saddlebags, then at William Bent.

  “There’s a shirt—should fit you—tobacco, jerky, salt, and a few other essentials in the saddlebags.” Then he reached under the tarp and brought out a rifle.

  “And this,” he said, handing the rifle to Henry, “is a Spencer rifle. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? It’s a repeater. It takes cartridges—seven of them. Look, you load them right here.”

  He showed Henry how to load the Spencer.

  “I—” Henry began

  “These aren’t gifts…well, they’re mostly not. I billed the army for the saddle and saddlebags. Captain Fitchner wasn’t too happy about it, but interpreters come dear right now so I told him you’d have to have a proper saddle. It’s not new, but it’
s a good one. The saddlebags are new. My guess is the captain paid for them himself. Probably could have pushed them for higher wages if you weren’t a negro—no offense, you understand. The wages are damn good regardless. You can settle up with me for the essentials and the cartridges later. The rifle is yours.”

  Henry took back the rifle and held it at arm’s length, examining it. “This is really something. I’m indebted to you.”

  “No, you’re not. I haven’t had the time to know you, but Black Kettle, Standing Elk, and my boys speak well of you—the highest, as matter of fact—and I’ll feel better knowing someone is along who has the Cheyenne’s interests at heart. Living here has changed my views on more things than I can count…anyway, you enjoy that rifle.”

  Two hours later Henry departed with Captain Fitchner and twenty-seven Colorado volunteers. It was the first of several such expeditions for Henry between the spring of 1863, and the spring of 1865.

  Six

  1

  Clara entered the dimly lit mercantile with Randall right behind her. They’d just arrived in St. Joseph via riverboat and Clara was already anxious to find someone to take them to Fort Laramie. There was a bald man with thick, gray sideburns weighing slabs of bacon at the store’s counter. He looked up as Clara and Randall approached.

  “Excuse me,” Clara said. “We’re seeking transport to Fort Laramie.”

  The man looked past Clara to Randall with his eyebrows raised. Randall held his gaze briefly, then turned and walked back to the front of the store. They’d set their baggage on the porch, and he wanted to keep an eye on it. The store was located away from the bustling and somewhat desperate looking riverfront, but he didn’t want to take chances. He also knew that Clara preferred to handle things herself. The storekeeper, taking the hint, turned back to Clara.

  “None of the wagon trains will be leaving until the first week of May, provided the weather holds out. Have to wait for the grass to grow enough for the livestock, you see. You can wait and go along with someone then.” He recited this as if speaking to a child.