Carrington: A Novel of the West

By Michael Straight

EIGHTY-ONE MEN under the command of Lt.-Col. W. J. Fetterman were ambushed by the Sioux in northern Wyoming on December 21, 1866. Not one survived to tell their story. Old army records prove that Fetterman, a Civil War hero, was acting in defiance of explicit orders, given by his commanding officer, Col. Henry Carrington. Yet Carrington, the senior officer of the regiment, was held responsible for the disaster. In all our history there have been only two battles comparable to it: the Alamo and Custer’s Last Stand.

The events of the Fetterman Massacre provide the framework for Michael Straight’s deeply moving personal story of Carrington the man, whose whole life reaches its climax in the inevitable catastrophe. Harassed by the Sioux, accused of cowardice by his officers, unsupported by his friends and even his own wife, he nonetheless sees clearly what he must do. In essence, Carrington’s tragedy is that of a man whose virtues, in time of stress, become his flaws.

Michael Straight captures the very smell of battle in many scenes of Indian fighting, but it is his insight into the lives of the men (and women) of a tormented battalion on a hazardous frontier which makes Carrington a novel to set beside those of A. B. Guthrie and Walter Van Tilburg Clark on the narrow shelf of first-rate novels of the West.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Borodino Books
• Release date: Jan 12, 2017
• ISBN: 9781787209107

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Text originally published in 1960 under the same title.

© Borodino Books 2017, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

CARRINGTON

A NOVEL OF THE WEST

BY

MICHAEL STRAIGHT

Tragedy is an imitation, not of men as such but of an action; for life is expressed through action and its end is a way of action rather than a moral attitude.

ARISTOTLE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 4

AUTHOR’S NOTE 6

STORY, WYOMING 7

PART ONE 9

1—OLD FORT KEARNEY, NEBRASKA, May 18, 1866 10

2—OLD FORT KEARNEY, May 18 17

3—OLD FORT KEARNEY, May 18 26

4—ON THE OLD CALIFORNIA ROAD, May 19 30

5—NEAR PLUM CREEK, May 20 40

6—EAST OF JACK MORROW’S, May 25 47

7—EAST OF JACK MORROW’S, May 25 50

8—NEAR O’FALLON’S RANCH, May 29 57

9—JULESBURG, June 1 62

10—ON THE NORTH BANK OF THE PLATTE, June 3 70

11—FORT MITCHELL, Jane 10 73

12—FORT LARAMIE, June 13 76

PART TWO 87

13—ON THE BOZEMAN TRAIL, June 17–My 13 88

14—BY THE LITTLE PINEY, July 14 91

15—BY THE LITTLE PINEY, July 16 93

16—ON THE BOZEMAN TRAIL, July 18-21 105

17—BY CRAZY WOMAN’S CROSSING, July 21 109

18—BY CRAZY WOMAN’S CROSSING, July 21 115

19—BY CRAZY WOMAN’S CROSSING, July 21 118

20—BY THE LITTLE PINEY, July 27 123

21—FORT PHIL KEARNY, July 27 127

22—ON PILOT HILL, July 27 128

23—FORT PHIL KEARNY, July 30 132

24—FORT PHIL KEARNY, August 28 138

25—FORT PHIL KEARNY, August 28 143

26—FORT PHIL KEARNY, August 29 149

27—UNDER CLOUD PEAK, August 30 150

28—FORT PHIL KEARNY, September 5 156

29—FORT PHIL KEARNY, September 5 159

30—FORT PHIL KEARNY, September 17 163

31—FORT PHIL KEARNY, September 20 168

32—FORT PHIL KEARNY, September 20 174

33—FORT PHIL KEARNY, September 23 176

34—FORT PHIL KEARNY, September 27 181

35—FORT PHIL KEARNY, October 31 196

PART THREE 200

36—FORT PHIL KEARNY, November 1 200

37—FORT PHIL KEARNY, November 10 204

38—FORT PHIL KEARNY, November 29 207

39—FORT PHIL KEARNY, December 6 214

40—FORT PHIL KEARNY, December 9 222

41—FORT PHIL KEARNY, December 10 224

42—FORT PHIL KEARNY, December 18 230

43—FORT PHIL KEARNY, December 21 233

44—FORT PHIL KEARNY, December 22 239

45—FORT LARAMIE, December 25 245

46—FORT PHIL KEARNY, January 25, 1867 246

47—SHERIDAN, WYOMING, July 3, 1908 248

A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR 251

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 252

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The events traced in these pages occurred in 1866; the characters were living then; the Orders, the dispatches, some of the speeches, and most of the letters are reproduced from the originals in the National Archives and the Indian Bureau of the Department of Interior.

The dispatches of Colonel H. B. Carrington are the primary source of the story. Further sources include: Absaraka, by Margaret Carrington; Army Life on the Plains, by Frances Carrington; the testimony taken by a Commission of Inquiry appointed by President Johnson; the records of the 40th Congress and the 50th Congress; the Carrington papers in the Yale University Library; the letters of Sam Gibson to Grace Hebard, in the Hebard Collection of the University of Wyoming; the dispatches of Ridgway Glover to The Philadelphia Photographer; an address by General W. H. Bisbee to the Order of Indian Wars; and an unpublished manuscript of General Frederick Phisterer, made available through the courtesy of his granddaughters.

These narratives form the outline of the story which follows. Nonetheless, it is written to be read as fiction rather than as history. For the author has not halted at the boundary of recorded events in the manner of the historian. The historian, Henry James wrote, has to say firmly to his fancy: so far thou shalt go and no further. Conrad concluded: Fiction is nearer truth.

STORY, WYOMING

On a grainfield, golden beneath the fir and snow of the Big Horns, stands the ruin of a frontier fort. Its stockade of logs sways in places, in others lies charred on the ground. The iron skeleton of a sawmill rusts among its timbers; its square nails turn up underfoot. All other traces of the fort have been erased by years of plowing; all relics of the garrison lie deeply interred. Even the log cabin built for a caretaker’s use is abandoned now and open to the wind and the rain. A cracked lavatory seat serves as a welcome mat in its doorway; splinters of glass from shattered windows glint on the bare floor; a broken stove swings creaking in the bedroom; there is no other sound. A dank mattress houses families of field mice through the winter. In summer they venture out on the parade ground, where meadow larks nest and the wild flax matches the sky.

Here, in July 1866, a single battalion of infantry established an outpost of the United States. Here the women of the garrison strolled on August evenings learning scenes from Shakespeare and in December watched the long wagon train return with their dead.

Today a four-lane highway cuts through the foothills, still scarred by wagon wheels. Racing along it, from the Black Hills to the Yellowstone, the traveler passes unaware of the old fort. But one mile northward a sign warns of a Historic Landmark on the ridge ahead. It is Lodge Trail Ridge: the highway slashes through it and descends along a north-running spur. There in the shadow of the ridge is the Landmark: an umber-colored finger thrust upward from gray boulders.

A pitted road leads up to the monument. The traveler parks; he steps out; he senses the wind that blows forever on the ridge. He picks his way among empty bottles, sandwich paper, comic sections from old Sunday newspapers. Leaning against the iron railing that surrounds the monument, he studies the bronze plaque fashioned in the form of a shield.

On this field on the

21st day of December

1866 three

Commissioned officers

and seventy six privates

of the 18th U.S. Infantry

and the 2nd U.S. Cavalry and

four civilians under the

command of Captain Brevet

Lieut. Col. Wm. J Fetterman

were killed by an overwhelming

force of Sioux under the

command of Red Cloud. There

were no survivors.

No survivors. No one to tell what happened, then. The traveler glances upward and along the ridge. This officer, this Fetterman, must have come down from way up there. Why, if he was so outnumbered, did he lead his men down here where they could be surrounded? Why...The traveler shakes his head; he drives on. Between the rocks and the wind the stubborn question lingers:

Why?

PART ONE

1—OLD FORT KEARNEY, NEBRASKA, May 18, 1866

The battalion was a unit of the regular Army. It tramped with the volunteer regiments from Vicksburg to Atlanta. And when at the war’s end the volunteers headed for their homes, it tramped on, toward the Indian frontier. It made its way in winter to Fort Kearney, Nebraska. There, in March, its new Orders came:

Second Battalion, Eighteenth U.S. Infantry under Colonel Carrington will move immediately; two companies relieving the garrison at Reno Station; four companies establishing a new post on or near the Piney Fork of Powder River; two companies establishing a further outpost at or near the mouth of Rotten Grass Creek. Troops will proceed immediately so as to be able to move from Laramie on first grass. James Bridger will be employed as guide.

Troops will proceed immediately.... The ground was frozen; equipment was lacking; stores were low; many men were still disabled from the winter journey. Yet the Colonel was fired by the splendor of his assignment—his first command in the field. He took immediately to mean as soon as possible; he worked day and night, racing against the turn of the earth.

In mid-May the first grass thrust its blades up through the crust and into the white light of the Nebraska spring. So the day came for the battalion to march on westward. The Colonel rode out with a guard of honor to greet the commander of the Western armies, come from Washington to bid old comrades Godspeed. On the parade ground of the fort the troops assembled to stand final review.

The wind, their worst enemy through the winter, surrendered on that morning. The old frame buildings of the fort looked less dilapidated in the spring shine. Stretching and sighing, stiff after months in quarters, the veterans of the Second Battalion stood at ease. The lieutenant detailed to lead the review stood motionless in front of the formation. To its right the twenty musicians of the regimental band licked the mouthpieces of their silver horns. Beyond the band the women clustered, their parasols folded, their poke bonnets tilted forward. At the edge of the parade ground a group of teamsters and laundresses and unassigned soldiers looked on. Off by itself an odd object maneuvered on five spindly legs: a photographer half hidden behind his camera, his arms circling like claws from beneath its black hood.

At the sharp sounds of cavalry the lieutenant pivoted, glanced down the ranks, and shouted. The men stiffened at attention. The bandleader’s baton rose, whirled, and plunged; the horns blasted the mild morning. Flanked by aides in gold brocade and followed by the battalion’s mounted infantry, two familiar figures rode onto the parade ground: Carrington, seated in the overly rigid posture of the staff officer, and lithe beside him the leader whom each soldier loved above all men: William Tecumseh Sherman.

To the center of the stage, where all watched and none stirred, the two officers rode. Lightly Carrington dismounted from his gray thoroughbred. From the broad back of his Army mount, Sherman slid to the ground. He brushed the dust from baggy trousers; he nodded, and stood as the lieutenant presented the battalion.

As the muskets came chattering down, Sherman started forward. He strode toward the right end of the line, passing the light blue guidon with its eight battle stars, and picking up the lieutenant on his way. Hard after him Carrington and his adjutant followed, alert for the slightest fault in the ceremony. Sherman, in contrast, took it all for granted, ignoring the aging rifles, the frayed uniforms, the cracked boots, as he ignored the shabbiness of his own blue cloak and black slouch hat and the gray bristles in his rusty beard. He scanned each man, and each encountered the fierce eyes searching out companions of the war.

Tenth down the line stood a lean, disfigured veteran, the bulb of his nose sliced off, his lip split, his front teeth gone, his chin parted by a rubbery scar. Sherman stopped before him.

Saber?

Kennesaw Mountain.

Phisterer, the adjutant, stepped forward. Private Asa Griffin, Second Battalion veteran.

The battalion is proud of him, Carrington said.

Sherman nodded. You’ve earned your retirement, Griffin. Why don’t you retire?

I’ll die in uniform. Got nowhere else to die, Uncle Billy.

Carrington winced at the familiarity. Phisterer, the adjutant, moved to reprimand Griffin. Alter Säufer! He must again have hidden a bottle in the barracks! But Sherman laid a hand on the veteran’s bony shoulder. You make it easier for me to stay, Griffin, now that two thirds of my men are taken from me.

Twelve men farther down, the lieutenant quickened his step. But Sherman halted before a shifty face.

The bummer! Tastiest pig in all Georgia you brought to my mess below Atlanta!

Ah, General—never would have led us to Atlanta if we hadn’t been there before you!

Near Rough and Ready...

And well named it was, O’Gara cried. Me diving for the shoat, and him squealing, and the old lady beating me about the ears with her cane. God knows which of the three of us made the worst noise!

Rough and Ready...And what was the name of that station up the line?

Love’n Joy! The men around chuckled at the bitter memory.

The band sidled into an insipid waltz. Sherman, still smiling, walked on to the next company, where a tall black-bearded sergeant stood.

Gideon Bowers of E Company, Carrington said. They come no finer.

Sherman noted the bright medals. The Eighteenth earned its decorations he said, above all, in the Atlanta campaign. Who was commanding there? he demanded of Carrington.

Bisbee, the lieutenant, stepped forward. Lieutenant-Colonel Fetterman was in command, sir. No braver officer...

Sherman nodded, twelve hundred miles away. Thomas crossed the Flint, he said, and the Eighteenth Infantry formed the spearhead of our salient. The Second Battalion dug its earthworks in the night, right under Hood’s batteries-And Atlanta was ours the next day when he could not force the Second to retreat....

Fetterman never would retreat! Bisbee cried. Not at Atlanta; not even at Stone’s River!

He was a fighter, Bowers said. The men hope he’ll rejoin the battalion.

Sherman turned upon him. The battalion is in good hands, Sergeant. Depend upon it. And, he added, Colonel Carrington can depend in turn upon you to make fighting soldiers out of your recruits.

There was a long silence, broken only by the band ambling on through the waltz.

God willing, Carrington remarked, we shall be guarding a peaceful frontier. He waited.

We have done our share of fighting, said Sherman at last. And I trust that we have earned eternal rest. But, Colonel, if I am called on in the hereafter to do battle with the devil himself, I shall ask no more than to be given men like Sergeant Bowers to stand with me—and forty-eight hours to reconnoiter the ground.

Carrington nodded; he had no interest in this endless reminiscing of the closed fraternity of Civil War veterans. The future mattered to him. There were routes to be considered when the review was over, requisitions to be approved, chains of command to be established, and, above all, Spencer rifles to be obtained in place of these miserable Springfields. He led Sherman rapidly around the ranks of men and back to the center of the line. There Bisbee pivoted to face the battalion and commanded: Pass in review! The troops swung right, the baton whirled again, the horns sounded: Bring the good old bugle, boys! We’ll sing another song.

Sherman watched the veterans march past. They have seen great days, Colonel, he said. Guard them well.

As if each man were my own son!

"No. Not as your son, Colonel. No man save Abraham can be called on to sacrifice his own son. But there are times when you cannot count the cost among your men.

At those times, Sherman added, next to cowardice and indecision, pity is the fault most to be feared in a commander.

Pity! Carrington was shocked.

Yes. I have in mind the commander who identifies himself too far with his men; who permits himself to be overcome by the pain and the hardship that war imposes upon the soldier.

I understand. In war as in politics, Carrington remembered, the lost moment never returns.

Of course you do. Sherman looked back beyond the cottonwoods, where the last of the companies swung from sight. You can be proud of them, Colonel, and they of you. He laid a rough hand on the golden crescent of Carrington’s epaulet. I envy you, Colonel. You march in the front rank of the nation. I watch you and I fall behind.

As Sherman walked off, he passed the camera. From beneath its black cloak the photographer emerged, lanky, unsmiling. You move too fast for my wet plate, he said.

Mr. Ridgway Glover, Carrington said, "citizen correspondent for Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly."

Sherman frowned. He loathed all correspondents. Blabbermouths, sentimentalists, parading their noble ideals and then running for cover when their ideals are put to the test. I have no interest in posing for Mr. Leslie, he said.

The photographer smiled in an insolent way, and Sherman noted with distaste the fellow’s eccentric dress and shock of sandy hair. Why do you permit him to tag along? he demanded.

He carries papers from the Smithsonian, Carrington said. They expect him to send back the first photographs of Red Cloud and the Sioux.

But you said Frank Leslie—

The photographer interrupted. My wet plates he cried, They’re drying out! Scooping up his belongings, he tottered away.

Nearby, the civilians waited. As Sherman moved over to them a tall woman, Margaret Carrington, came forward. Beautiful once, he thought; a little bony now, but still a fine strong face. And beyond her the lieutenants’ wives, fluttering. Kiss her and I get to kiss them all. He stepped forward and scrubbed her outstretched cheek. An old soldier’s privilege, Self-conscious, she pulled back, but he held her wrists.

Your house burned down yesterday?

God spared the Colonel and our sons.

You lost a great deal?

One half of all we possessed.

I’m sorry.

Please don’t be. Now at last I can load our wagons.

Breathless, the other ladies waited. The Colonel’s wife brought each one forward, by rank. Sherman kissed them all. His warmth in turn released long-held anxieties.

No, he answered. No, I have heard nothing about an epidemic of cholera at Fort Sedgwick....No, I do not look for any fighting. If I thought that there would be fighting along the Bozeman Trail, then I would not let you go. The purpose of this expedition is peaceful, he added. The greatest hardship the men must surmount is loneliness. That is why I have wished you to go.

Around the hoop of Mrs. Carrington’s skirt appeared a boy in a round straw boater, tight jacket, and bow tie.

Mother, how long is Fred going to ride Calico?

Hush, Harry! Captain Brown is riding in the escort for General Sherman.

I know, but...

At the whisper of his name, Sherman turned and bent down, pleased. You’re Harry.

The boy nodded, eyes wide, lips tight and turned down at each corner.

You’re nine.

Another nod.

She gripped the boy’s arm. Well? Answer General Sherman!

Yes, sir

You’re the only one?

No, sir. Jimmy’s hiding behind Mother. He’s shy.

But you’re not shy?

No, sir, and I want my pony back.

A cavalryman. Sherman smiled and started to rise, but the boy gripped his sleeve.

Bet I can fire an arrow farther’n you!

Harry! But before she could stop him the boy rushed around his mother and returned with a bow and quiver held by the invisible Jimmy. He slumped to the earth, doubled up his knees, bent the bow out with high button boots, and fired an arrow over the cottonwoods. He looked up, beaming.

Sherman grinned. You win.

The Indian boys taught me! They’re my friends!

Sherman fished a medal from his pocket. He bent down and pinned it on the boy’s jacket. At once Jimmy was standing beside him.

I can fire like the Indians, too!

You’re Jimmy!

Solemnly the boy nodded.

Are there any more of you?

Four.

Are they hiding? Why don’t they come out?

They’re in the ground.

In the sky, Harry corrected.

In the ground. I seen them.

I saw them, Margaret managed to whisper. We wanted the boys to know that they would not come back.

Sherman’s world narrowed to the image of his own dead son. I understand, he said. He stood up, blinking and wondering what to say next. But a resonant voice spoke for him.

Judge Kinney, sir. J. Fitch Kinney, sutler to the Carrington expedition.

Sherman turned; he saw a short, heavy-set man with a large head, a flat nose, eyes hard above the pouches, a sensual mouth, and gray goat’s beard; a self-assured man thrusting out his hand, a plump, pink hand, and saying: Honored to shake your hand, sir. Used to be in Congress. Know your brother John, the Senator, like my own.

Sherman looked at the judge with distaste. Next to journalists, he loathed sutlers—draining the miserable pittance of the soldiers off in rotten liquor, profiteering out of war. He said: If all the men who know my brother like their own would vote for him, he’d be President by now.

And a fine President he would make, sir; much better than that monkey we have in the White House today. Gripping Sherman’s elbow, Kinney led him beyond the group. I understand, General, that you’re going to Laramie to talk peace with the red man.

Then you are wrong. I’m riding East tomorrow.

My mistake. And yet I’m sure you are well informed on the negotiations. If I may say so, I have a rather large stake in the outcome.

So does every man here.

I hear the draft treaty grants the red man’s claim to the Big Horn country.

"Their claim? Their title to that country was reaffirmed by treaty only last year!"

The treaty was not ratified by the Congress.

It was signed by representatives of the President!

A scrap of paper. Oh, I respect your sense of loyalty! Kinney cried. I share it! No one regrets more than I that Congress has not seen fit to extinguish the Indian title to the Big Horn country before encouraging the white man to settle there.

No—to pass through it, on one road, to be opened by Colonel Carrington with the sanction of the Indians.

As you will. And yet, General, Kinney continued, still gripping Sherman’s elbow, "you and I know that we are paying subservience to a dying race.

Ah, my dear sir, he said, waving his free arm westward, you need but turn your eyes to the great West! The ax of the pioneer rings across the plains to the Pacific; the pick of the miner sounds in every mountain as he unearths our precious metals from their timeless repose. The buffalo tumbles before the accurate rifle of the hunter; the whistle of the locomotive penetrates with ominous portent into the remote fastness of the Indian village. Already the Indian is forced back to his last, best hunting ground beneath the Big Horns. And now he must surrender that to enterprise, to civilization, to Christianity. He has no choice.

Perhaps not; but the Indian does not know it.

He will, sir, when the Carrington expedition marches to the Powder River! He will yield then or be vanquished in war!

We are not at war with the Indians.

But wars, if I may say so, have a way of starting up when the Army arrives.

You are mistaken. Civilians start wars. Soldiers merely fight them.

No doubt; and yet, like the Indians, the Army has no choice. You travel the new road in the wake of the miner, the emigrant with his wife and children. They commit their property, their lives to the frontier in the solemn expectation that they will be protected. And you are solemnly required to provide that protection.

Congress has ordered the Army to guard the Bozeman Trail, Sherman said. The Army obeys the Congress.

Of course! And civilization will prevail! The emigrant will move in blessed safety! The railroads will bind the land with iron arms! The soil, under the hand of industry, will produce its fruit! And the red man will submit to progress! Why, sir, once taught to fear God and respect the white man, the Indian will soon knuckle under.

So would the devil. Sherman strode off to where an aide held his horse. He mounted, and the crowd cheered. Sherman waved his hat in salute. Carrington nodded at his side. The Colonel’s wife looked on, smiling. This, she thought, is the moment he has longed for; he is leading his troops, in the field, at last.

2—OLD FORT KEARNEY, May 18

At midnight the gray frame buildings of Fort Kearney leaned like shipwrecks against the sky. In all the fort three lights burned on: one in the guardhouse; one in the bachelor officers’ quarters, where Phisterer worked to complete his records; a third close by, where Fred Brown, the regimental quartermaster, urged his good friends, red and white, to finish up one more bottle in honor of the regiment’s impending departure from this stinking hole.

The bottle resisted him. Unnh! Can’t twist it. Dammit! Brown swore. Why is it Kinney screws the tops of his bottles on so tight? And why is it, he added, ‘that every time I try to unscrew a bottle top I grind my teeth? Unnh! If I live five years longer I won’t have any teeth left!"

Drink enough whisky, Ten Eyck said, and you won’t miss your teeth. Here, he added, let me have it! With a wrench of heavy hands he tore the top of the bottle off and handed it back to Brown. One thing I’m good for, he muttered, and he settled back.

And a very important thing Brown cried. He stood over Ten Eyck, holding the bottle. Truly Rural! he demanded.

Troola roora

Bravo! Brown filled Ten Eyck’s glass and moved on. Glover?

The photographer shook his head.

No offense to your Quaker principles. John?

From the dark corner, his lair, Lieutenant Adair looked out. You know I can’t.

Ah, stop it, or you’ll have us all imagining we’re ill. Brown leaned on the doorway and bawled down the corridor: "Phisterer!" He waited, listening.

What about our visitor? Ten Eyck said. He motioned toward an aged Pawnee.

Fort Kearney’s leading citizen? Yes, indeed! Brown cried. But no cheap whisky for one so distinguished! Only the very finest for him—and for his wives! Here, he cried, unscrewing the outlet of a lighted spirit lamp, two tumblers full of the finest spirits—and a dash of whisky for color. For you, he said to the old chief, for you and you, to the squaws. You ate my chow. A whole hog’s guts, he explained, turning to Ten Eyck. Now, dammit, drink my liquor!

Thank you.

Not at all. Tapping his glass against the Indian’s, Brown cried: How!

The chief nodded, and drained his glass.

Bravo! Stepping behind the chief, Brown pried the old man’s shoulders back and posed beside him. Here, Glover! Here’s a photograph for you! The original American! The noble savage! The ideal hero of your beloved Fenimore Cooper. Chinka, Chinka...

Chinqashqook.

Chinqash...Never could pronounce it and never wanted to, by God! Well, here he is—Chief Chinka himself! He struck the chief on his shoulder.

The Indian muttered: Thank you.

You’re welcome! You and those revolting old bags you dragged up here with you to feast on my good food. Stuffing it into their guts like pigs. Old Chief, old man, he said, putting his arm around the Indian’s neck and speaking low, you deserve better.

Thank you.

Don’t thank me, you red-skinned bastard! Oh, stop sweating! Brown cried, seeing Glover’s frown. He doesn’t understand a word! Some half-breed in Doby Town taught him to say thank you every time he sold him his rotgut at ten times the proper price. Isn’t that right?

The old chief nodded.

Look! Brown cried. I’ll prove it to you. Sweeping his arm out, he bowed low before the chieftain. "If you ate a human heart for breakfast, you thieving old villain, and if you want another now, then answer thank you."

The old chief looked at him as a dog would, puzzled, and anxious to do the right thing.

Well? Brown demanded.

Thank you.

There! You see?

Maybe he did eat a heart for breakfast.

More likely he’s lying, Ten Eyck said.

Lying? We’ll fix that! Brown cried. He seized the chief’s right hand and raised it. You swear not to tell the truth and nothing like the truth so help you grog?

The chief nodded; Brown dropped the arm. Bottle in hand, he lumbered to the door. "Phisterer! Goddammit, Frederick, there’s free whisky here!" He stood, his heavy head cocked for a rustle of papers, the scraping of a pen.

In fascination and sorrow Glover studied the chieftain: hair black with gray strands, pleated in greasy coils; forehead low; no ridge above the eyes; slits for eyes, the iris as dark as the pupil; skin pitted and pockmarked; skin a raw umber; nose bulbous. Yes, and the belly distended from ascites, too much rotten whisky. And look at the clothes. His headdress the decaying remains of a bald eagle, twenty years dead. A collarless shirt, swapped or stolen five years ago and never changed; a waistcoat, once an immigrant’s, with no buttons left. And there on his lapel a campaign button, a florid face in the center surrounded by small print: WIN WITH BUCHANAN. I’ll sketch it from memory, Glover decided, and send it back to Leslie with the obvious caption: AGENCY INDIAN.

And the women crouched on the floor beside him: one shapeless as a sea elephant and stupefied by overeating; the other wasted and furtive, peering from beneath her shawl like a rat from a hole, consumptive and no doubt highly contagious. Motionless and silent, they crouched until Brown seized their glasses.

Another round for our honored visitors! Grain alcohol for strength, he cried, tipping up the spirit lamp. Whisky for flavor, and now the Brown mixture: a little pepper for savor, and a drop or two of mange medicine. Drink up! he cried.

The thin one coughed as she swallowed the mixture; the chief drank it down. He shuddered slightly and licked his thin lips.

Thank you.

Bravo! Brown turned to Ten Eyck. Trula rula!

Tura... Ten