follow it generally westward. I cannot help but think that calling the Platte a river is a slur on rivers everywhere. That a waterway so shallow and sluggish and narrow should be designated as such amazes and amuses me. But it is water, and after nearly perishing from thirst before we reached it, I should be grateful and not carp.
But to the incident.
We had a fire going and our sixteen horses tethered in a string under guard. Our sleep was undisturbed until about an hour before dawn. Then the sentry, who happened to be young Billingsley, and who by his own admission was so tired he could scarcely keep his eyes open, heard a sound that brought his head up. Not a loud sound, by any means, but the suggestion of a stealthy tread. Since deer and other animals sometimes pass close by in the night, Billingsley did not think much of it and lowered his chin to his chest.
Then one of the horses nickered, and a second stamped, and Billingsley looked up again to find the entire string alert, with their heads high and their ears pricked. Clearly something was amiss for the entire string to be agitated. He moved toward them, cradling his rifle. He says that he thought they had caught the scent of a prowling bear or catamount, and he spoke softly to them to quiet them so they would not wake the rest of us.
One of the horses pulled at the picket rope. Billingsley started down the string, then stopped. He had spied what he described as strange shadow on the ground near the horse that stamped. He could not see it clearly enough to tell what it was. From its size, he judged it to be an animal, a coyote perhaps, or a fox, although why either would venture so near puzzled him.
Billingsley brought the stock of his rifle to his shoulder and took another step, and it was then that the mundane turned into the remarkable, for the shadow suddenly unfolded and swelled in size, taking on the dimensions of a man.
Billingsley was so startled, he was a few seconds collecting his wits. He was slow to recognize the half-naked form for what it was. But the long hair, the breechclout, the suggestion of paint on the angular face, could leave no doubt. The figure moved, and the glint of metal in its hand told Billingsley the whole story and shocked him out of his lethargy. With a holler of, “Indians! Indians!” he took a bead, but as quick as he was, our nocturnal visitor was faster. With a bound, the red man vanished into the greenery.
By then the rest of us were roused. I came out from under my blankets swiftly enough, but had to fumble about to find my pistol. I had not kept it close to me despite our scout’s repeated advice. Some of the others were likewise lax. It was the hand of Providence that we were not under attack, for we could not have rallied to defend ourselves in time to prevent our being massacred. But find the pistol I did, and I immediately rushed to Billingsley’s aid. He had run to the edge of the clearing but did not plunge into the woods after our visitor.
Augustus Trevor congratulated the young man on his caution. Trevor said that where there was one there were bound to be more, and if Billingsley had given chase, he might have run into the waiting arms of a war party and suffered torture and mutilation.
To his credit, young Billingsley made no pretensions to wisdom. He said it was fear, not caution, that brought him to a stop.
On examination, we found that the warrior had been in the act of cutting the horses free, with the intent of stealing them, when he was interrupted by Billingsley. The rope was, in fact, half severed. A few more seconds, and we might well have been stranded on foot—a calamity, Trevor states, of the highest order.
None of us were able to go back to sleep. More wood was thrown on the fire until the blaze cast light twice as far as before. A new batch of coffee was brewed, and until sunrise we sat drinking and watching, every man armed with all his weapons.
Life’s ironies are limitless. I had begun to question the widespread dread in which the red man is held. To hear some people talk, a hate-filled savage lurks behind every bush and tree. But for weeks now we had been crossing the land of the red man and not seen a trace of that race. Proof, to my mind, that the common fear of Indians is as exaggerated as it is misguided. Now this.
Perhaps I am the one who has been misguided. Perhaps the dangers are more real than I believed.
If so, what does that bode for the future?
Chapter Two
All right.
I admit it.
There is no “perhaps” about the dangers. There is no “perhaps” about the prospect of dying.
We have left the Platte behind. We followed it to where it forked. The north fork would have taken us toward South Pass and the Green River country, made famous by the exploits of those hardy souls who engaged in the fur trade until beaver went out of fashion. We took the south fork, for a few days, anyway, and then our scout said that we must strike straight off across the prairie to a trading post known as Bent’s Fort.
I cannot get over the vastness of this grassland. I have never been on board a ship in the middle of the ocean, but I have heard that it gives one a sense of the limitlessness of the briny deep. The same can be applied to the prairie. It seems to go on forever, a sea of grass without end. We who traverse it are but tiny specks adrift in its immensity.
Yesterday afternoon we passed close to mounds of earth pockmarked with burrows. A prairie dog town, Trevor said, and he advised us to give it a wide berth as many a horse has broken a leg by inadvertently stepping into one of the holes. We complied, but I had barely reined after him when there came a sound as of seeds being shaken in a dry gourd, and the next I knew, my mount whinnied and reared and it was all I could do to stay in the saddle.
Belatedly, I recognized the sound for what it was: the telltale warning of a rattlesnake. I glanced down and perceived sinuous movement, but then had my hands full regaining control of my steed. Trevor and the others rushed to my assistance. I am proud to say I did not need it, and with a few pats and soft-spoken words, my animal’s calm was restored.
As for the serpent, it slithered off into a prairie dog hole before anyone could shoot it. Trevor informed us that rattlesnakes are often found near prairie dog colonies, prairie dog litters being high on the snake’s list of delicacies.
Today dawned sunny and warm. By nine I was sweating; by noon I was sweltering. Nary a tree nor any other cover within sight and the temperature by our thermometer was one hundred and one.
About the middle of the afternoon a bank of dark clouds appeared to the north. Soon we saw the flash of lightning and a nebulous mist between the dark clouds and the ground that signified a deluge. A thunderhead, but as it was drifting from west to east and we were well to the south of it, we gave it no more thought than we had countless others.
Trevor turned to me and said, “You will be happy to hear that in three or four days we should reach Bent’s Fort.”
Welcome news, indeed. The trading post is the last bastion of civilization before the mountains. We intend to spend a week resting and recuperating, then purchase new provisions and strike off into unexplored territory.
Presently, a distant rumble fell on my ears. I equated it with thunder from the storm and rode blithely on until our scout suddenly drew rein and shifted in the saddle.
“What is the matter?” I asked, struck by what might be alarm on his face.
“I hope I am wrong,” he said. Rising in the stirrups, he peered intently to the north.
It occurs to me as I write this that I have not described him. Imagine rawhide made flesh. He has lived on the frontier most of his adult life, and the imprint of hardship and the elements are stamped on his rugged features. The one word I would choose for his character is
Anyway, we rode on, but we had only gone a short way when Trevor again drew rein. This time there was no doubt about his alarm, for the others saw it, too.
“What is it?” asked Wilson, our cook.
