The Ferguson Rifle

"They're going west, and he thanks you." What would my friend Timothy Dwight think of me now? Riding west with a band of Indians?

Remembering the man, and what he knew of me, I smiled, for he would not have been surprised. The others, perhaps, but not Dwight.

CHAPTER 6

When we had come upon the Cheye

The travois that had been drawn by a squaw was now hitched to one of our packhorses.

Davy Shanagan and the brave, whose name was Buffalo Dog, rode together, carrying on a conversation in sign talk with a word thrown in here or there. Listening to their conversation and to the other Indians, I soon picked up several words of the Cheye

One of the old men knew of a camping place, and keeping scouts out to warn of danger, we moved toward it. After a while, Shanagan joined me at the point. "They're ridin' to join their people," he said. "There's a plenty of Cheye

Shanagan explained that the Cheye

"Let 'em think it," he added. "It makes us big men in their eyes. Prestige... that's the key word with Injuns." We made our own camp closer to the woods than the Cheye

After collecting sufficient fuel for the night to come and the preparation of supper and breakfast, I moved to the point of the woods overlooking the plains. The position provided an excellent view in all directions, and sitting down just inside the belt of trees, I gave some thought to the situation.

The government of the Spanish colonies was a jealous one, permitting no trade with anyone but the Indians, and guarding against trespass. Captain Fernandez, as a diligent soldier, would have orders to resist any encroachment upon what was believed to be Spanish territory. From him, we could expect nothing but trouble.

Since I'd joined the mountain men, no plan of action had been discussed. We were riding toward the western mountains for a season of trapping and exploration. If all went as we hoped, we would find a favorable location and build winter quarters before snow fell, and if our trapping was successful, we could expect to return to Saint Louis in the spring with a bundle of furs.

Riding in company with the Cheye

Faint sounds from the camps behind me only served to emphasize the stillness of the plain before me. The sun was gone but light remained, and a sky shot with crimson arrows from beyond the horizon.

Shadows gathered in the hollows among the low hills... a wind stirred the grass, then the trees... there had been a lull, a moment of stillness. In the east there was a mutter of thunder ... still far off.

For the first time, I found myself wondering what I had done. Behind me lay the career I might have had, a career as a teacher, an author... perhaps even in politics, for my friends were well situated in all these areas.

Few men had better educations, few had read so widely in so many fields, and now I had left it all behind. With the sudden death of my wife and son, my life had begun to seem empty and pointless. I had come west on impulse, and what lay behind it I did not know. Was it a secret desire to die? Had I come west for that?

Or to lose myself in a land far from all I knew, from old memories and old associations?

Rising, I walked back to the fire.

Talley was squatted beside the coals roasting a chunk of beef, and the smell was good. Kemble was cleaning his weapon, giving it all the care a mother would give a child.

Ebitt came up to the fire, carrying some knots and large fragments broken from a stump.

"Are you from Boston, Scholar?" "From Virginia, and then Carolina. When the war ended, we moved near Boston. We lived in the country not too far out." We talked campfire talk while the coffee came to a boil and the meat roasted. Meanwhile we ate wild onions dug from the prairie soil.

"My family worked with iron," Ebitt said.

"I had no taste for it then, but one day I'll go back." He looked up at me. "We did ornamental ironwork. Pa considered himself an artist." "Some of them were," I said. "I have seen the screen in the cathedral at Nancy, done by Jean Lamour, and the staircase in the town hall.

beautiful work. And there was always Malagoli of Modena." Ebitt lowered his chunk of meat, looking up at me. "Were your people in iron, too? I've heard my father talk of such men. They were the masters!" "You're a smith, then?" I asked him.

He lifted his hands to me. They were square, powerful hands. "Iron is in the blood. Once a man has worked with it, it never leaves him.

Yes, I was a smith, but I grew restless thinking of the western lands. At nights I would lie in my bed and think of all that vast, open land.

unridden and untouched. One day I shouldered a pack and started out." "There's no telling about wandering men," Talley commented. "They come from everywhere. I knew James Mackay. He was west in 1784, and again in '86, '87, and '88." Kemble agreed. "Truteau was an educated man. Jean Baptiste Truteau. He came from Montreal, taught school for a while in Saint Louis, I hear... that was about '74, but some years later he was in the Mandan villages, trading. He lived with the Arikara, too." We made our plans. Of the lands toward which we were moving we knew nothing but hearsay. There were furs... we did know that, and once in the mountains we had no doubt of our ability to find them.

For three days then we moved steadily toward the setting sun. We rode the flanks or point along with Buffalo Dog, and we saw no enemies. Several times we killed buffalo, and once an antelope. The Cheye

He rode beside me. "Why do you give us meat?" he demanded.

"You need meat," I said.

He was not satisfied, but after a while he asked, "Where do you go?" "To trap fur in the western mountains," I said. "First, I must have horses. This," I said, "is a splendid animal, but he needs time to learn to feed upon your grasses. He will learn, but in the meantime he should not be ridden as hard as I must ride. I shall need a western horse." "I will give you a horse," Walks-By- Night replied. "When we come to our people, I have many horses." "It would be a great gift. I have nothing to give Walks-By-night." "You have given meat to my people. You have ridden beside us when the Utes might have come, or the Pawnees." To that I made no reply. Our presence might have contributed to their safety, and it was well that he believed so, for we wanted their friendship.