know him, or him me, We shot—we missed.
“I thought he dead. I waited long time. I went for his hair—he was gone.
“I went back—my horse was gone. Tied where my horse had been was a tomahawk and
some red cloth. This is strange man—we shoot, we miss, he goes poof! Then my
horse goes poof. But if he can take my horse, it is his. If I can get it back,
it is mine.
“He takes it. The tomahawk is good, sharp edge. The cloth is good for
squaw—maybe he needs horse.
“Seven suns. Day comes, the sun rises on my horse, tied near my head. How? I do
not know. Why is horse quiet? I do not know. It is magic? Perhaps.”
“My father brought him back?”
“It is so. Many suns, and one day when the people of our village are hungry, I
see an elk. I stalk. I am lifting the bow and arrow ready to fly when from close
under the bush where I am, another elk leaps up—all run. I miss.
“Suddenly there is a shot, the elk falls. I wait, nobody comes. I wait—nobody
comes. I go to the elk. Then he stands up, this man who is your father. He lifts
his hand to me, and then he turns his back and walks away. He has given us meat.
It is a good thing he has done, and my people are no longer hungry.
“At night I tell them of this man, and we wonder about him. Who has sent him?
What does he do here?
“His tracks are near our village. I think sometimes he watches us. We are not
many braves, and there are too many young ones, too many women. I must hunt
always, but the bow does not shoot far—hunting is hard.
“One morning when I leave my lodge there is a rifle there, lying upon a skin.
Beside it are powder and ball. Only he could have left it. Only he could come
into our village and leave without being seen. But then we see him no more.”
“No more?”
“Many moons, the snows come and they go—more than two times. Three? Four? We do
not know. After a long time we are in village on back side of Beaver Mountain.
“In the night the dogs bark, we see nothing. In the morning we find a haunch of
elk meat hanging from a tree. Our friend is back.
“We owe him much, for when the hunting was bad the rifle he left us kept our
lodges with meat. This time we do not need the meat he has left us and he knows
this. He has left it to tell us he is back.
“Often we see him then, but we do not like all we see, and he faces toward us
one time and makes the signs not to come near, and the sign for bad heart.”
We drank our coffee slowly. The old man was tired.
“Now we have young braves. They know of the white man who gave us meat. They are
like small deer—very curious. They watch. They come back to village to tell what
they have seen.”
The firelight played upon the seamed brown face, and the old man lifted his cup
in two hands and emptied it. Once more I filled the cup. This man had known my
father. This man had watched him upon his last trail, had known how he thought,
at least about some things. The white man of the mountains often fought the
Indian, but there was understanding between them—rarely hatred. They fought as
strong men fight, for the love of battle and because fighting is a part of the
life they live.
The Indian lived a life that demanded courage, demanded strength, stamina, and
the will to survive; and the white men who came first to the mountains had such
qualities—or they would not have come in the first place, and they could not
have lasted in the second.
Most mountain men were affiliated with one tribe or another, all had respect for
Indians. Some found the only life they loved among the Indians. My father was a
man of two worlds. Whether he walked among savages or among the civilized he was
equally at home.
“I must know where my father died. I would like to know how he died, but to know
where is enough. My mother grows old. She worries that the bones of her husband
lie exposed to the wind and have been picked by coyotes. They must be buried, as
is our custom.”
He sat a long time. “I do not know where he died. I know he went away. He went
to walk upon the mountains and he did not return. I can show you the trail he
took.”
“He went alone?”
“Alone—but others followed.”
There was a knot lying near, and I added it to the fire, for the night was cold.
Wind stirred the leaves, ruffled the flames. I gathered sticks and broke them
with my hands and built more warmth for the old man, then I filled his cup with
coffee and sat beside the fire again, waiting for whatever else he would say.
“A trail lies there, high upon the mountain, some call it the Ute Trail, but the
trail was old before the Utes came to these mountains. I do not know where the
trail leads, nor does any man, but there are harsh, cold winds and sudden,
terrible storms. There are days with blue skies and tufts of cloud—but these
days are few among the high peaks.”
“Do you know the trail?”
“It lies there.” He pointed toward the mountains. “I know where it is, not where
it leads. I am an old man. I have no strength to follow such a trail, and when I
was a young man, I was afraid.”
“If my father went there, then I must go.”
“He died there.”
“We shall see.” Again I added a chunk of wood to the fire. “Be warm, Old One.
There is fuel. Now I shall sleep. In the morning I will take the way you show
me.”
“I will go with you.”
“No. I shall go alone. Rest here, Old One. My cousins have given your people a
place. Stay with them, guide them.”
“I think soon the Indian will walk no more upon the land. When I look into the
fire, I think this.”
“Some will,” I said, “some will not. Civilization is a trap for some men, a
place of glory for others. The mountains change with years, so must the Indian
change. The old way is finished, for my father as well as for you, for the man
of the wilderness whether he be Indian or white.
“I think it will come again. All things change. But if the Indian would live he
must go the white man’s way. There are too many white men and they will not be
denied.”
Powder-Face shrugged. “I know,” he said simply. “We killed them and killed them
and killed them, and still they came. It was not the horse soldiers that whipped
us, it was not the death of the buffalo, nor the white man’s cows. It was the
people. It was the families.
“The rest we might conquer, but the people kept coming and they built their
lodges where no Indian could live. They brought children and women, they brought
the knife that cuts the earth. They built their lodges of trees, of sod cut from
the earth, of boards, of whatever they could find.
“We burned them out, we killed them, we drove off their horses, and we rode
away. When we came back others were there as if grown from the ground—and
others, and others, and others.
“They were too many for us. We killed them, but our young men died, too, and we
had not enough young men to father our children, so we must stop fighting.”
“Remember this, Old One. The white man respects success. For the poor, the weak,
and the inefficient, he has pity or contempt. Whatever the color of your skin,
whatever country you come from, he will respect you if you do well what it is
you do.”
“You may be right. I am an old man, and I am confused. The trail is no longer
clear.”
“You brought your people to my cousins. You work for them now, so you are our
people as well. You came to them when they needed you, and you will always have
a home where they are.”
The flames burned low, flickered, and went out. Red coals remained. The chill
wind stirred the leaves again. Powder-Face sat silently, and I went to my
blankets.
Nativity Pettigrew had led us to believe he had come right down the mountain and
the others after him, but that had not happened. Somebody—maybe several of
them—had followed pa. Somebody had come back, discovered Pierre’s body gone and