Boone's Lick

When it came to Ma and Pa and their differences, Neva held the most extreme opinion: she thought Ma meant to shoot Pa.

"That's what I would do if I was her and found out he had another wife--

maybe two other wives," Neva said. "I wouldn't have it for a minute, not me!"

"Sassafras," I said. "You saw Ma with Stones-in-the-Water. The two of them got along fine." "I'll stick to my opinion," Neva said.

I didn't believe that the reason we were crossing Wyoming, at a time when the Indians were angry, was because Ma meant to shoot Pa. But I did think that something hot was likely to happen at Fort Phil Kearny, if Pa was there. I didn't know what it would be but I wanted to hurry on to the fort, so Ma could get it over with.

"I don't care what they do as long as they don't make no more babies,"

G.T. said. "Keeping up with Marcy's about tuckered me out."

Three days after G.T. shot the antelope, with the sky spitting snow and the weather looking ugly, we found the first scalped man.

4M A R c Y found the dead miner while the rest of us were making camp. Uncle Seth decided he didn't like the tone of the weather, so he pulled up near a little grove of trees, where there was plenty of firewood and a little cover. Ma was rarely in the mood to quit early, but this time Uncle Seth persuaded her. While we were all doing our chores, hobbling the mules, gathering firewood, getting out the blankets, and unpacking the cooking gear, Marcy came waddling up to the fire carrying an arrow.

"Now that's unusual," Uncle Seth said. "Indians aren't usually careless with arrows--it takes too long to make one. They will even pick up arrows off a busy battlefield. Where'd you get it, honey?"

At first Marcy just sulled. She could talk a little--

"mule" was one of her words, but usually she had to be coaxed before she'd come out with a word, and sometimes she wouldn't talk no matter how much we coaxed. Ma had wrapped up a few sticks of candy, back in Omaha--I believe she was saving them for Christmas--but she had no intention of using them to bribe Marcy into telling us where she picked up the arrow.

"I am not fool enough to bribe a child," Ma said. "She'll come out with it when she thinks it's the only way to get attention."

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Ma was right. Marcy sulled for a few minutes and then led us right to the dead miner--a sight none of us had been expecting to see, just before supper. The man's head had been pounded in with his own spade; his eyes were missing and his legs had been split to the bone. A big patch of hair had been ripped off the front part of his head, which was black with blood. The dead miner was naked-- no sign of his clothes anywhere. It was only because of the bloody spade that we figured he was a miner. His stomach had been opened and most of his guts thrown to one side--the varmints had been into those, already.

I got to the corpse first. What was left didn't even look like a man. I thought for a moment that I had stumbled on the carcass of some strange Wyoming critter that I couldn't identify. Somehow it was his ears that convinced me that what lay exposed on the mountain meadow were the remains of a human being.

I guess G.T. felt just as confused.

"What's that?" he asked, when he first spied the body.

"Uh-oh," Uncle Seth said, when he saw the corpse. He tried to wave Ma and Neva off.

"You don't need to see this, Mary Margaret," he said. "Neva don't either."

Ma ignored the comment and walked right around him.

"Whoa!" he said to Neva, but she walked around him too.

Then we all looked at the dead man for a while, in the thin failing light.

"Well, now I expect these young ones will have nightmares," Uncle Seth said. He was put out with Ma for ignoring his advice.

"Let 'em!" Ma said. "They've come all this way with us and they'll all be grown soon. Let them look at what happens when people get too mad to control themselves."

The snow began to fall, while we stood there looking at the dead miner.

In a minute it covered the cavity in his belly and the bloody patch on his head. "What did they do with his eyes?" Neva asked. Nobody had an opinion. Ma took Marcy by the hand and walked back to start the cooking.

I remembered all the miners we had seen tramping along, while we were traveling by the Platte. "Some people must want to get rich bad," I said.

"Yes, they do," Uncle Seth said. "Not me," G.T. said. "Not me, not me, not me." "Let's get him buried, before the ground freezes,"

Uncle Seth said.

We got a spade and a pickax from the wagon-none of us much wanted to use the miner's own spade. Soon we had a pretty good grave. Ma called us to eat before we quite got finished--she had stewed up some of G.T.'s antelope. We lowered the man into his grave, but the stew was ready before we covered him up. Somehow just thinking about him hiked our appetites.

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After supper Uncle Seth took a lantern and went back himself to cover up the dead traveler.

"Do you want to say a scripture?" he asked Ma. "The grass withereth, the flower fadeth," Ma said. "You boys go cut some more wood--the chill's coming. We're going to need a good fire tonight."

G.T. and I chopped firewood from the little grove, while Uncle Seth shoveled clods over the dead miner. G.T.'s hands were so cold that he did a poor job of hobbling our mule Montgomery, who got away during the night.

The next morning, half a mile away, we found Montgomery dead--he was almost as messed up as the miner.

"Cougar," Uncle Seth said. "I expect when we strike Fort Reno we better bargain for another mule."

"Damn that Montgomery!" G.T. said. He was miserable all day--the death of our mule had been his fault.

5 I FOUND the second dead miner while following a deer near a little copse of trees--I wanted to get that deer, to show G.T. he wasn't the only one who could shoot. The miner's body was on the bald prairie, with an arrow stuck in the ground beside it, like a signpost. I was nearly a mile from the wagon when I stumbled on the body, which was even more cut up than the first corpse. It was cold--the body sparkled with frost. It didn't look human, any more than the first one had. The face was all smashed in, but the eyes hadn't been removed: they were staring up, like frosted crystals, into the sky. A patch of scalp was gone, and so were the man's privates. Both legs had been split open and his tongue had been cut out. I stopped dead, when I saw that corpse. The hair

on my head stood up--I couldn't control it. The grove of trees wasn't fifty yards away--it was right there, dense and dark. Whoever killed the miner might be right there, watching me. I wanted to turn and run for the wagon, which was just over the swell of the prairie, getting farther away every minute.

Then the deer I was following stopped too, just shy of the woods. It stood in plain view--it seemed to be staring into the woods. Maybe it saw the Indian who had killed the miner--maybe it smelled an Indian, or a bunch of Indians.

The deer suddenly turned broadside to me, making such an easy target that I aimed, shot, and killed it. I felt that I either had to steady myself and shoot that deer, or else scream and run off. I shot, and the deer fell, perfectly dead. Usually a deer, even one hit solid, will jump around a little, or run a few yards before giving up its life; but this deer just dropped.

It was a small deer, smaller than G.T.'s antelope. I felt I could probably carry it to the wagon, or at least drag it close enough that someone would see me and come help.