The Search Begins

 

Two days later, on the second of May, as the sun broke the horizon the two men rode west out of Fort Kearny.  Pony led the pack horses through Dobytown in silence.  When they passed the last structure, he turned in his saddle and said, You know, lieutenant, this ain’t a frolic.  I won’t have time to tuck you in. 

    I require neither your permission nor your supervision, Mister Rogers, said Baker.  I’ll take care of myself, I assure you.

That so.

Yes.  It is.

You scrapped with these Indians yet, lieutenant?

Not yet.

Yes.  Well, I seen your horses and I seen your troops.

Make it plain, Mister Rogers.

Alright.  Willing aint the same as able lieutenant.  Not out here. 

Those were the last words the two men exchanged for the next ten hours, until late in the afternoon, when they halted near a spring at the mouth of a shallow canyon.  Pony moved among the pack animals as they drank.  Baker dismounted and stretched, loosened his saddle, and shielded his brow with his hat in the yellow afternoon light, surveying the green-gray prairie that overlay the earth in every direction, confusing distance until his eye could discern no scale, nor depth or height of any presence that might break the view of buffalo grass, soapweed, prickly pear.  Empty.  A lonely place.  Perdition.  

He spoke:  It has a kind of desolate beauty.

Pony did not look up. He murmured softly to the horses as his hands ran gently up and down their legs, inspecting hooves.

Far up in the pale, cloudless sky a Swainson’s hawk wheeled slowly in the rise of a thermal draft, its light breast feathers flashing momentarily like a struck match.  Baker uncorked his canteen and took a long pull.  He walked over to Pony and held it out.

Rogers, he said, you think we’ll be able to find the girl?

Pony looked at the canteen and at Baker, but did not drink.

Sooner or later we’ll likely run into somebody’s heard somethin.

So… you think she’s still alive?

Pony lifted another hoof.

If they didn’t want to take her that way you’d have found her with her family.  Indians don’t generally hesitate when it comes to warfare.

Warfare?  Against innocent women and children?

Pony stopped, looked at Baker.

Well now, you need to ask old Squaw Killer Harney about that. Ask him about how he unlimbered his guns on a Sioux village up on the Blue Water.

He turned back to his work.

Teach em a lesson, he said.  Hell, lieutenant, I’d say they learned it.

He dropped the hoof and looked at Baker.

Baker corked his canteen.

Know the heathen character pretty well, do you?

Heathen character? Pony asked.  Lieutenant, I’ll tell you a secret:  Indians is plagued by the same appetites and weaknesses as whitemen. 

He plucked some grass and held it up. 

You want to know what the difference is?  It’s this here.  This makes all the difference.  This country don’t give a damn about a man’s inventions or who he prays to.  Pay attention to this, lieutenant.  If you live long enough it’ll teach you all you need to know about Indians - and yourself, for that matter.

He let the grass blow through his fingers.

Hell, we’re just another tribe out here.    

Baker drew a deep breath.

Think we’ll ever be able to reach a peaceful settlement with them?

Pony smiled.

Well, I’ll ask you…  Think there’ll come a time when all us whites up and leave this country?

Of course not.

Pony shook his head.  Hell, Indian’s born to war anyway.  Most of em don’t want to see old age.  It’s gruesome out here. 

Baker turned and walked to his horse, looped the canteen over the pommel.

Tell me, Rogers, how’d you get the name?

Pony loosened the cinch on his saddle.

My mother’s name was Rogers.

No.  No, I mean Pony.

Pony didn’t reply.  He pulled his saddle and blanket from the horse, carried it to the foot of the slope on the canyon wall.

What are you doing? said Baker.

Horses need rest.  Me too.

Rest?  We could make another ten, maybe fifteen miles before dark.

Pony looked at him.

Suit yourself, lieutenant.  Go on ahead.

But… why stop now? Baker asked.

Pony looked up at the sky.

Sun’ll be down in a few hours.  That’s when I’ll be travelin. 

He spoke as he moved toward the pack horses.  Get outta the heat.  Draw less attention.

Baker paused, thinking.  Well, he said, I’ll gather some fuel.

Pony stopped.  No fires. Smoke’d be seen for miles out here.  It’s cold camps and night travel for now, lieutenant.  You want to be helpful, pull those loads.   I’ll rub the animals down.

They finished and spread their blankets and laid upon them, chewing pieces of jerked meat in silence, rifles beside them.  Both men stared into the distance as shadows of the hills lengthened in the hazy air.  The only sounds were the swish of the horses’ tails and the rip of the grass as it was grazed.  Pony spoke.

When I first come out here I worked for an old Frenchman who traded with the Indians.  Furs, ponies, all manner of things.  It was him give me the name.  Pony boy, he called me. I tended his stock.

What was his name? Baker asked.

Roubidoux.

He still around?

Pony shook his head.

In forty-nine a drunk pilgrim shot the old man dead over a game of cards at Laramie.

They hang him for it?

Weren’t necessary.  I run a skinnin knife through his windpipe.     

  ---

Meta Bauer was not dead.  In the months following her disappearance from the wagon she lived among her captors.  She walked in their caravans across trackless vaults of earth and sky; heard their laughter and their speech and gained understanding of it; saw them dance and weep and sing and pray and also die, young and old alike, bathed in fever sweat or awash in blood, their black eyes glassy with pain. 

She learned to eat their pungent broths, the roots and herbs and marrow bones, the dried berries and roasted meat and raw organs that sustained them, and she endured with them the lack of these when the trees were naked and the rivers frozen and the snow lay deep.  She knew the name they called themselves.  And in time though still a child she saw revealed in their hunts and their warfare and in the stories they told in the glow of their night fires the warrant of blood that bound each unto all, and to the horses and dogs that lived with them and to the merest of things.

Meta Bauer was not dead, except to the life she lived before they made her one of them.