The Sundown Man Read online

  Kate didn’t give me any clothing, but she gave me what she could, sinew, needles, and scraps of tanned hide that could be sewn together for wearing apparel. She did this the night before we left the lake, and I hid everything in new places that I hoped I would remember, digging in the ground until my fingernails were clogged with dirt.

  When the time came to make my escape, I knew I would have to kill One Dog and perhaps some others. I would have to steal two horses for Kate and me and make my way back to the lake.

  And I knew I had to do this before the Arapaho journeyed to the place where they would hold their Sun Dance.

  Time was now my enemy.

  Four

  We journeyed across the prairie for most of the night. I felt like an outcast, because I was the oldest male member of that caravan and the women and children all watched me as if they were circling hawks. It was a humiliating experience and the fact that I was a prisoner, among people who had murdered our parents, made the experience even more intolerable.

  The motley caravan halted sometime well after midnight. We were all dog-tired, sleepy, and hungry. Most of the people just dropped to the ground next to the travois. Some of the women laid out blankets, buffalo robes, and such, while others fed the horses, leaving the travois hooked up. But the young boys propped forked sticks under the poles to take some of the weight off the horses’ shoulders.

  I knew we would not rest long. It was pitch-dark at that hour, but I reckoned that when the sky began to pale and the stars fade, the women of the tribe would have us up and moving again. I was just starting to drop off into a deep sleep when a hand touched my face and I heard a whispered voice calling my name.

  “Jared, Jared. Are you asleep?”

  It was Kate. Her shape was just an inky shadow above my face, but it was her voice all right, and the words were in plain, everyday English.

  “Yeah. Kate?”

  “I snuck off. Do you want to run away now? While everybody’s asleep?”

  “We wouldn’t get very far. All the horses are hooked up to travvy poles.”

  “I know,” she whispered. “But we could steal just one and ride double.”

  I looked around. The camp, such as it was, was quiet, except for the snuffle of a feeding horse and the snores of the old women. The stars were bright, and so was the silver moon riding high above us like a round sailing ship. We would have to move very fast and hope that none of the young boys left behind could catch us, or shoot us in the back with arrows. The boys all had bows and full quivers.

  “I hate it here, Jared,” she said, her voice almost a whimper. “We’ve got to get away.”

  “Yes, I know. First, we’ll have to find a horse we can take.”

  “At the other end of the camp,” she said, “there’s a little boy sleeping under the travois. He’s all by himself. Do you know how to take the poles off?”

  “Yes. I think so.”

  “Then let’s go,” she said.

  I got up and followed Kate around the edge of the sleeping camp. We both hunched over as if we were sneaking away on tiptoes. We were careful not to make any noise, but it was so quiet, except for the snoring, and the snuffling of the horses. Kate stopped and pointed. There, at the far edge of the encampment, was a lone horse and a lightly loaded travois. I nodded and took the lead.

  I crept up on the horse and the boy sleeping under the high side of the travois. He wasn’t a small boy, as I had thought, but a big, nearly full-grown boy, who might have been as old as I was. He was sound asleep, so I crept past him and motioned for Kate to go on the other side and lift the poles out of their loops. My idea was to drop the travois on top of the boy, climb up on the horse, and pull Kate up behind me. The horse was wearing a halter, but not a bridle. I knew the Indians used their knees to guide their ponies, and some even pulled on their ponies’ manes to turn them. The halter was woven out of horsehair, I think, but looked substantial enough so that I would have some control over the animal.

  Kate snuck around the other side and looked at me. I held up three fingers, then closed my fist. I was hoping she’d know what I meant, that we would release the poles on the count of three. She nodded and I held up my hand, then extended one finger, then another, then the last. We both lifted the poles and pushed backward.

  As soon as the poles came free, the pony spooked. I lunged for the halter, but it was too late. The pony bolted and kicked at me. His hoof struck me just above the knee, a glancing blow. But the pain was intense and I went down on one knee. Kate shrieked, cut the sound off, but not before she woke up half the camp. The travois fell on the boy, who rolled out from under it and grabbed me around the neck as I tried to rise up and stand on both feet. The pony ran through the camp, scared out of its wits apparently, and people rose up and shouted.

  Kate came over and started beating the boy who had ring-necked me, pounding his back with her small fists. I turned and squirmed out of the boy’s grip, but he grabbed my arm and held on like a bulldog. Kate kicked him, and he swatted her with a backhanded swing of his left arm. She went staggering off into the darkness as I tried to loosen the boy’s grip on my arm.

  With high-pitched screeches and screams, Indian women and children swarmed over Kate as I fought with the boy, pushing and shoving him, trying to strike blows to his face with my fists. Some other boys ran up and piled onto me. I went down under a mass of bodies, then felt sharp pains as some of the boys kicked me in my sides.

  In moments, it was all over. Two boys jerked me to my feet. Everyone around me was jabbering in rapid Arapaho. A boy came up in front of me carrying a smooth slender pole that resembled a straight walking stick. Two other boys forced my arms over my head and the boy with the stick laid it across my shoulders. Then the other two boys tied my arms to the stick with leather thongs, pulling them so tight they cut into my flesh.

  Some of the women and young girls poked my chest with sharp, pointed sticks, drawing blood. I was kicked and drubbed as they led me away to the front of the camp, where a boy hurled me to the ground and cursed me in his native tongue. Kate was nowhere to be seen, but I suspected she had suffered a similar fate.

  A ring of boys squatted down, surrounding me. Some jabbed me with the flint tips of their arrows, again drawing blood. The stick made my shoulders and arms hurt. All during this ordeal, I never gave them the satisfaction of crying out, although the beatings made my whole body hurt and I was sure that I was covered with bruises. The boys who were guarding me taunted me, called me every kind of filthy name. I was dog shit and snake shit. I was skunk and lizard. I was bad white boy and I was bad milk from my father’s testicles. I knew some of the cuss words, but I kept my mouth shut.

  Finally, the kickers left me alone. I lay there, trussed up like a Christmas turkey, the wood shaft digging into my shoulder blades, ants crawling all over my arms and legs and face, trying to hold my piss. My bladder was full and had been kicked something fierce, so it was ready to explode. The sky started to pale and the camp began to stir. I had no idea what they had done to Kate or where they had taken her, but I was hoping she wasn’t in pain, like I was.

  Some boys jerked me roughly to my feet. I pissed on one boy’s leg, and he smacked me across the mouth. I grinned at him and he struck me again. I lunged for him and he backed away, saying something in Arapaho that I could understand.

  “White boy brave,” he said, and that gave me some satisfaction.

  No one struck any fires and the band began to move. I saw the horse we had tried to steal, pulling its light travois, and the boy who was leading him saw me, lifted his breechclout, and displayed his pathetic genitals. All I could do was stick my tongue out at him, which I did. Little kids ran up behind me and stung my legs with switches, then ran away before I could kick them. They laughed at such sport with the white boy, and then finally left me alone when one of the women began scolding them.

  The sun rose and bore down on me. I thought I knew a little about how Christ felt carrying that cross up to Calva
ry, but of course I had a lighter load. Still, I felt like I had been crucified, and I was damned mad at the entire tribe of Arapaho. Near noon, those at the head of the procession halted and began directing the rest of us to form a circle. With relief, I realized that they were going to lay out a camp and set up the teepees. I didn’t know how the women knew where to set up camp until I looked around and saw all the hollows where men had slept on the ground. And the place was crisscrossed with moccasin tracks.

  Then, I felt the ground shake beneath my feet and I heard a rumbling sound. I thought at first that we were experiencing an earthquake, and then I saw the buffalo stream by in the distance. The others stopped what they were doing to look too. There were thousands of brown bodies running at high speed across the prairie. And I could make out near-naked Arapaho riding alongside, shooting arrows into the sides of certain buffalo. I saw the shaggy beasts go down, and the women lifted up their trilling cries and went back to work. Soon, the women were running from camp, carrying knives and bowls with them, while others struck fires from flint and stone. The bigger children ran off too, and I was left standing there with that yoke on my back like some dumb beast of burden.

  Two boys guarded me, clearly angry that they could not join the others who were butchering the downed buffalo. I looked at one of them and nodded toward a teepee, hoping he would take me inside, out of the sun. But he only glared at me and moved off belligerently to stand in the shade of that same teepee.

  Finally, late in the afternoon, the braves started streaming back into camp. One Dog rode up to me and looked down into my eyes.

  “Bad heart,” he said in English. “You bad. No run.”

  I shook my head, thinking that he wanted me to promise I would not try to run away again.

  One Dog said something to the two boys who had been guarding me, and they ran off to join those who were butchering buffalo. Soon, some started walking back carrying meat and hides. Some of the women carried bowls that were filled with hearts and livers and buffalo intestines. The smells were terrible, but my stomach rumbled with hunger.

  One Dog slid from his pony and untied the thongs that held the stick in place across my shoulders. He grabbed the stick before it fell to the ground, and then laid it across the backs of my legs with such force that I crumpled to my knees.

  “You no run,” he said, as if for emphasis.

  Tears stung my eyes.

  “One Dog is wise,” I said in Arapaho. “One Dog is brave.”

  He actually smiled at me.

  Then he beat me so hard my bones cracked and ached.

  And I soaked the ground with my tears before he quit.

  Five

  After that, life was hell for me.

  One Dog beat me whenever he was in camp, treated me like a dog. He still wanted me to teach him to read and write and he asked me questions about the books I read. I started making up stories from those books, making them sound as if they were legends of the Arapaho people.

  There was much meat in camp and the people were happy. The women tanned the buffalo hides, made garments, blankets, and robes from them. They used every part of the buffalo, the bones, the sinew, the hides. They boiled the intestines and ate these. They were an industrious people and seemed very happy as the summer wore on.

  I saw Kate now and then. She smiled at me to show me that she was all right.

  One Dog finally stopped beating me, but he still tied me up at night. His English was improving and so was my knowledge of the Arapaho language, which seemed to have a basis of about eight or nine hundred words. They could pack a lot of meaning into those few words, I discovered, and once I understood how to think in Arapaho, I became fluent in the language.

  But I didn’t tell One Dog, nor anyone else, that I could understand every word of their language. I only used simple words, not sentences, when I spoke to him, or any other member of the tribe. I used words like “eat” and “hungry” to convey my meaning. When the people spoke to one another, I played dumb. I never let on that I could understand every blessed word they spoke.

  I told One Dog the story of Odysseus, using sign and drawing pictures for him in the dirt of our teepee. I told him that Odysseus was a great warrior and that all great warriors embarked on such journeys, including himself. I could see One Dog swell up with pride when I made the connection between him and Odysseus. I told him there were many such stories and that they were all written in a magic language that was neither English nor Arapaho. One Dog thought that the talking papers were magic, and he was eager to learn all their secrets. I played One Dog like a musician strokes the strings of a fiddle, and I bided my time.

  When the buffalo herd had gone away and the camp was full of meat and work for the women and children and men, there was talk of the great Sun Dance at a faraway river. Soon, the new bands that had joined the camp began making preparations to embark on still another journey toward the place of the Sun Dance, a most sacred ceremony for the Arapaho.

  The large band that had gathered to hunt buffalo thus began to split up. Each morning, one of the clans would leave, until finally, there were left only our original number of twelve lodges. Then, finally, our camp struck its teepees and loaded the travois. We left one morning, heading westward into lands where neither I nor Kate had ever been.

  The country seemed to spread out, then collapse into itself. The earth looked ravaged by ancient floods that cut deep gullies and ravines into its surface. Buttes and mesas became more frequent, and larger, as if some great force had pushed the earth up, packed it down, and turned it to stone. The mountains grew ever closer, their snowcapped peaks shining white in the sun, their dark hulks looming over that vast plain like some fortress built by giants, or gods. Sometimes, when I looked at them, my heart squeezed up into my throat and I was dumbstruck.

  At night, the stars seemed so close that I felt I could reach up and touch them, and they twinkled like diamonds on a sea of velvet, while the moon sailed so close it seemed I could feel its beating heart. And when the moon fell close to the horizon, it became a huge, luminous globe, so bright it hurt my eyes to look at it.

  Maybe that wasn’t the Oregon Trail we were on, or maybe it was and I just didn’t know it. But I missed my father on those long star-shining nights, and my mother too. We should all have been together, heading west, Ma, Pa, Kate, and I, but Fate, that cruel, manipulative bastard, had decreed differently.

  As for Kate, my heart ached for her because I had noticed that she was no longer with Moon Woman, but was living in the lodge of one of the men who had murdered our parents. I found out that his name was Hiisiis Ba’a’, Red Sun. That’s not exactly what his name meant, but that was the literal translation. I learned, from listening to the talk in One Dog’s lodge, that Hiisiis Ba’a’ really meant something like “His body is red with blood,” and I shuddered at the expanded meaning of the Arapaho words.

  I caught glimpses of Kate and she looked wan and tired, and sometimes I thought I could hear her animal cries in the night when Red Sun was mounting her. But my imagination ran rampant on that long trek and all of my thoughts about Kate and the Arapaho were probably suspect. I hated those red-skinned bastards with such a purity and silent rage that I was startled at how deep that hatred went and how fierce it burned in my heart, like the fire in our stove back home in Kansas City.

  One morning, after the scouts had been sent out ahead and we were packing up to leave our overnight camp, one of the scouts rode back in at a high gallop. He was spewing words and signing with his hands so fast I couldn’t follow him. But a moment later, I saw what he was so excited about. And smelled it.

  The prairie was on fire. Flames danced like dervishes on the horizon and billows of smoke rose to the blue sky. The wind was in our faces as we looked westward, and it was evident that the fire was coming our way at a high rate of speed. One Dog barked orders to leave. The whole camp mobilized in jig time, and turned their backs to the fire and headed east. The boys lashed the rumps of the travois pon
ies with willow branches. Then One Dog held up his hand and everyone came to a halt. There was fire to the east of us, and more smoke.

  The band turned northward, and we ran into still another wall of flame and more smoke. Back we turned to head south, and that’s when we knew we were ringed in by a vast fire that covered many acres. Then the smoke blew in on us and we all began to choke and cough.

  One Dog ordered his braves to dismount. The young boys hobbled the travois ponies and we all lay flat on the ground, breathing the only clean air that was available. There was smoke everywhere.

  I noticed that the warriors ringed the villagers and all were armed. I wondered if they were going to shoot at the fire in a primitive attempt to stop it. Everyone grew very quiet and I felt fear tighten my belly, then rise up in my throat. I looked around at the faces of the others lying nearby, but they all seemed calm, fearless.

  Then, my face close to the ground, I heard a faint rumbling. The noise grew louder and I wondered what it was. I lifted my head and looked at the naked backs of two braves who were facing south. They lifted their bows and knocked arrows to the gut strings.

  I soon realized what the sound was. Hoofbeats.

  The rumbling grew louder, and then I heard the high-pitched yips coming from somewhere inside the smoke. Suddenly, there appeared a pony out of the smoke and the rider was hunched over its back, his face painted for war.

  Then more painted warriors dashed out of the smoke and the screeches tore at my ears, blasted my eardrums. Rifles spouted orange flames and I heard a lead ball whistle over my head. The Arapaho braves leaped to their feet and began shooting arrows and firing their rifles at the invaders who swept onto the gathering like hordes of locusts. There was pandemonium and confusion everywhere I looked. Women screamed. Children cried out in pain and fear. Men grunted, and some of them went down with arrows in their chests or their heads split open by rifle balls.