Killdeer mountain, p.13
Killdeer Mountain, page 13
A frontier success story, but a bit suspect, like a perfect hand in poker that one stares at in disbelief. I wanted to reserve judgment on the rapid postwar rise of ex-Sergeant Joseph O’Hara.
He poured whiskey from an unlabeled bottle into two wine glasses that bore a steamboat’s name painted in gold on their sides. After presenting me with one of the drinks, he was ready to talk about Major Rawley.
“A strange sort of officer,” he said. “Kept things inside himself, if you know what I mean, sir. Acted odd at times. I laid it to that wound he’d got on the side of his cranium. At first I did. But later on, I wondered if perhaps he’d always been peculiar in his ways.”
The party going to Canada consisted of four men—Major Rawley, Sergeant O’Hara, Antoine Fromboise the French trader, and a man named Ben Shanks. Shanks appeared suddenly at Fort Standish one day, and O’Hara readily discovered that he had been summoned from Saint Paul by Colonel Herrick. “A fidgety sort of man,” was the way O’Hara described him. “Skin and bones.” O’Hara was clever at finding out things about people. He soon knew that Shanks and Colonel Herrick had been partners in Saint Paul. Before the Sioux uprising in Minnesota, Shanks was an Indian agent. He had once been accused of cheating the Indians, but Herrick used his influence to get the charges dropped. Undoubtedly the two were bound up in various unsavory political schemes, and it was Shanks not Rawley who was Herrick’s trusted agent in the plan to abduct Spotted Horse from Canada. Shanks carried the gold for bribery, and if gold failed and force failed, Rawley was there as a shield, a scapegoat.
“Snow came late in Dakota that winter,” O’Hara said. “It was very cold as usual, but we’d had only flurries up to the time we left the fort. I wondered if we could get in and out of the British possessions and back to Fort Standish before a big January blizzard hit us. We prepared as best we could for it. As neither the major nor I would be wearing our uniforms I arranged with a trader for buffalo coats and muskrat caps and gauntlets. The buffalo robes were splendid, with quilted linings and soft buffalo-calf collars for covering our faces. The major was quite gratified.”
“I’ve been told,” I interrupted, “that Major Rawley sometimes resented the way you watched over him, guarded him like a helpless child.”
He looked hurt. “And who would have told you that, sir?” he asked defensively, but without waiting for a reply continued: “The Assiniboins have a saying that if you save a man’s life he becomes your burden. It was I who found him on the Malpais. While he was recovering I kept an eye on him, yes, and I was loyal to him after that business at Killdeer Mountain. If he resented me, he never showed it. In fact, in spite of our differences in rank, we were like brothers during that hard march in and out of the British possessions.”
“Was he really eager to go?” I asked.
“I remember at first he wanted to know all about Spotted Horse, if he truly was a murderer, and if he would get a fair trial should he be brought back to Dakota Territory. Colonel Herrick swore the old chief would be properly tried, but allowed that evidence was mighty heavy against him. The colonel hated Indians. More’n once I heard him say the Sioux nation should be wiped out to the last man, woman, and child, the way the Israelites went after the Canaanites. Anyway, after Major Rawley was convinced that Spotted Horse should be captured, he was for it like a bear after honey, and once he’d started on the thing he put his whole soul into doing it right and proper.”
O’Hara stopped to take a hearty swallow of his dark-tinted liquor, and I followed his example, almost choking on the stuff. It was not Irish whiskey, as I’d thought it might be, but was pure firewater, and from then on I only occasionally touched the tip of my tongue to that wild mare’s milk.
“Of course there was another thing,” he went on after wiping his lips on the sleeve of his starched white shirt. “The major felt disgraced by what happened at Killdeer Mountain. He wanted to prove that he was no coward. He thought if he went into the Sioux camp in Canada and brought Spotted Horse back, nobody would ever look on him again as a coward. He talked to me about that later on. Redemption, he said it was.
“Well, one morning we left Fort Standish at sunrise. Ten below zero on the thermometer, with thin clouds of ice crystals overhead, but we had our buffalo robes and muskrat caps, and gum-coated blankets. Also snowshoes for each of us in case of a storm. We took four spare horses, so we had a good supply of pickled pork and dried fish—and extra amounts of coffee and sugar for trading if need be. Ben Shanks was carrying the gold in a bag, how much I don’t know, but he never let it out of his sight and you could tell by the way it sagged that it wasn’t light.”
On the second day’s march they rendezvoused at Maison du Chien Butte with a Canadian named Amos Medlock. Antoine Fromboise had arranged the meeting some time before, and it was apparent to the shrewd O’Hara that the two men had been involved previously in various dealings across the border. Someone had built a solid shelter of rocks at the base of the butte, and it was there that they found Medlock with a retinue of several métis—half-bloods who worked for the trader. Medlock had some kind of license from the Hudson’s Bay Company to trade with the native tribes.
After Fromboise finished with the introductions, Major Rawley ordered O’Hara to picket the horses on the lee side of the shelter, and the others went inside to escape a bitter wind blowing up from the north. When O’Hara finished his work and joined them, Medlock was explaining to Rawley the difficulties of dealing with the Hudson’s Bay Company. “They rule everything in the western territories,” he said. “They are the Queen’s government.”
“Every man has his price,” Ben Shanks declared. He picked at his bony nose. “Who is head man at Fort Manitou?”
“Robert McDougall,” Medlock replied. There was a tinge of bitterness in his tone. “Fancies hisself a lord. You’d best go around him. I can do that for you.” He stared at Shanks. “And you know my modest price.”
Shanks nodded. “I just want to be sure it’s done right. No foofaraw. Quiet and peaceful like.”
“Do you trade with Spotted Horse’s people, Mr. Medlock?” Rawley asked.
“No, I do not,” the trader answered flatly. “My license is for the native tribes. Assiniboin and Chippewa mostly. McDougall and Hudson’s Bay look upon Spotted Horse’s people as refugees under their protection for the duration of your Civil War.” His humorless laugh was harsh. “Don’t matter to me about the trading ban. The Sioux have little to trade except a few robes. Still trying to kill enough buffalo to piece out their tipis and dry enough meat for winter.”
“How far is their camp from Fort Manitou?” Rawley asked. “And how large is it?”
Medlock closed one eye. “Three leagues maybe. I’ve seen it from a distance—about two hundred lodges.”
“Antoine Fromboise tells me you have a plan for drawing Spotted Horse out of his camp without disturbance.” Rawley’s tone was questioning.
“I have a way.”
Shanks spoke then. “No violence.”
Medlock shook his head, his mouth twisting in a grin.
“We’d like to know the risks,” Rawley said, turning toward Fromboise. “Do you know, Antoine?”
Fromboise shrugged. “Oui.” He winked, at Medlock. “You can put confidance in these Americains, Amos. They not rob you.”
Medlock leaned closer to Fromboise and said something softly in French.
“Au contraire,” Fromboise replied, shaking his head vigorously. “C’est vrai.” His shaggy white eyebrows lifted, and his naturally bulging eyes turned toward Ben Shanks. “Tell him the monnair is in gold and he will tell you how he brings Spotted Horse to you.”
Shanks looked startled. He touched the waterproofed canvas bag beside his boot, his fingers trembling slightly. “You’ll be paid in gold,” he said in his high whine.
Medlock nodded. “All right. That old Sioux has a taste for strong water. His squaws make a few first-rate buffalo robes. So we trade, on the sly. All I need do is drive a wagon out to the trail crossing of Spruce Woods Creek and post a pennon. Spotted Horse and some of his trusted braves will soon show. Strictly illegal, of course. If Master McDougall got proof of it he would flail my ass, but he’s got better things to do than watch over his Sioux refugees with a Spruce Woods patrol.”
“So.” Rawley’s tone was dubious. “We capture Spotted Horse when he comes to your wagon for whiskey?”
“Oh, no, not then or there,” Medlock answered hastily. “I’ll not risk trapping the chief and whatever other redskins may be with him out there in the open. No, I’ll have no liquors with me, but I’ll invite the chief, or him and whoever may be with him, to toddies after dark at my trading post. There and then, you’ll take over, Major Rawley—after Ben Shanks has paid me in full.” His eyes had a yellow sheen in the light of the low fire in the center of the shelter. “My terms are half now and half after I bring Spotted Horse to you.”
“One-quarter now, and three-quarters on delivery,” Shanks said, his voice turning higher.
Medlock shrugged. “All right. But all in gold, none of your Uncle Sam’s greenbacks.”
Rawley bent down to warm his hands over the fire. “Suppose Spotted Horse doesn’t come forth when you take your wagon out there? Can you go into the tipi camp to invite him?”
“He’ll most likely show because he’s been two weeks between drinks. If not, we’ll wait a day. He’ll show. No, it’s too risky to go into their camp. Out of bounds by McDougall’s orders. He’s touchy about the reports of two white captives being held by the Sioux—a woman and a young boy. He don’t want it pressed or talked about.”
Rawley stood quickly upright. “White captives?” he repeated in a loud tone. “A woman?”
“They deny it, the Sioux, I mean. But my Assiniboins who’ve visited the camp say they saw her and the boy.”
Rawley stepped around the fire so that he towered over the squatting trader. “What is she like?” he demanded. “Her hair color, her size, her age?”
Medlock slid backward a few inches. “Damn it, major, I have not seen the woman. Wait a minute.” He turned to peer at the métis who were sitting or lying along the rock wall in the shadows cast by the firelight. “Hanska,” he called, and spoke rapidly in French. A round-faced large-paunched man wrapped in a dark blanket stepped closer to the fire. He knew only a few words of English, but with Rawley prompting and Medlock and Fromboise interpreting, the half-blood’s description of the woman he had seen in the Sioux camp matched Nettie Steever’s appearance.
“I know that woman,” the major declared. He strode back and forth in the cramped shelter, his voice edgy with excitement: “We must get her out of that camp. The boy, too, though I know nothing of him.”
Medlock frowned. “Such an enterprise would take some doing, major. Dangerous, very dangerous. Not even McDougall and the Hudson’s Bay Company could handle it without great risk of a brawl. The company shuns such. Uprising might spread, you know. Whatever Sioux brave claims that woman, or the boy, would have to be dealt with. If the Sioux are willing to surrender the captives, they’d still want ransom of some kind—goods, horses, maybe money.”
“It’s a case of abduction pure and simple,” Rawley said. “From U.S. territory into British territory. By international law the British authorities must return the captives to us.”
Ben Shanks laughed. “Ain’t we about to do the same thing to old Spotted Horse, major? Abduct him across a national line? You’d better leave that woman be till we’ve got Spotted Horse back into Dakota Territory.”
“If Medlock can’t help us,” Rawley said, “I’m going to the Hudson’s Bay people, to your man McDougall, and demand that she be released to our custody.”
Shanks shook his head firmly. “Better sleep on it, major. We’re without any official power here. We ain’t even supposed to come into the British possessions without their permission. If you start making official demands—”
Medlock yawned and turned to reach for the blanket roll. “I’m for some rest, gentlemen. We’ve got a long day’s journey ahead of us at daybreak, and the weather don’t look good.”
Next morning there was no sunrise because of clouds, and the travelers started north from the shelter in a dismal gray light that was nearer to darkness than dawn. The land they were crossing was vast, yet also intimate and secret. “High, lonesome country,” was the way O’Hara described it. “Cold, barren, and bleak. To be avoided by man during the winter months.” Before noon tiny snow pellets were spinning out of the sky, rattling against the frozen earth. A buffalo herd rumbling southward swerved to the east to avoid the horsemen. Snow and ice on the animals’ coats warned of the paralyzing harshness of the advancing weather.
Medlock and Fromboise, riding just ahead of O’Hara and Rawley, fell into an argument over the probability of a blizzard. “May catch us before dark,” Medlock said dourly. “Not this day,” Fromboise retorted. “Wind turning to west. And look at clouds. Too thin. Take time to make big blizzard. It come. But not this day.”
Fromboise was the better forecaster. Just before dusk, at their first sight of Fort Manitou across a scattering of frozen swales, thin strips of pale blue showed in the sky. When they rode past the graveled approach to the main building, there was still light enough to see British and Hudson’s Bay Company flags flying from twin staffs and read the neat lettering above the entrance: HEADQUARTERS HUDSON’S BAY COMPANY.
Medlock did not slow the pace until Major Rawley forced his mount up alongside the trader’s. “Is it there I’ll find McDougall?” he asked.
“Yes, likely you will, major, but I warn you to stay clear of him until your other business is completed.” Behind them the other riders slowed to avoid crowding the leaders, some of the métis turning aside and wheeling so that the movements of the little column in the street began attracting attention from the few passersby.
“Let it wait till later, major!” Shanks demanded, his voice almost a wheeze in his effort to keep it from carrying too loud on the heavy air.
“No.” Rawley turned his horse toward the entrance of the headquarters building. “Sergeant O’Hara, fall out and accompany me.” He turned in his saddle, calling back to Medlock: “We’ll find your place later. There may have to be a change in plans.”
O’Hara stood up, stretched his thick arms, and walked to the window overlooking the river. He rested his hands on the wide sill and looked down at the lights of the steamboats. “God, that seems a long time past,” he said quietly. “But I remember like it might’ve happened an hour ago—the way I felt when we hitched our horses to that polished rail in front of Hudson’s Bay Company headquarters. The dying daylight was a kind of brownish color, all the buildings were painted brown, everything neat, not a mess of untidiness the way it usually is around most of our posts.
“The major walked right up the whitewashed steps and knocked hard on the heavy door. A deep voice bid us to enter. The air inside seemed too warm after that bitter cold we’d been breathing all day.
“McDougall was alone in the main room, reading a book. He had one leg cocked up on a rough table, and he was smoking a long-stemmed pipe. Logs were burning in fireplaces at both ends of the room, big roaring fires with leaping flames.
“Major Rawley wasted no time on what you would call the civilities. Maybe he was bluffing a little, but he came right to the point. Claimed he had crossed the line in search of Mrs. Nettie Steever, believed to be a captive of the Sioux who had fled to the protection of Fort Manitou.”
Robert McDougall, according to O’Hara, was a man of about forty, black hair sprinkled with gray, forehead skin weathered into deep lines, cheeks fiery red. His long-flowing side whiskers were of the fashion known as dun-drearies, and his waxed mustache was enormous.
After greeting Rawley and O’Hara, he stood with his back to the fireplace nearer the table, facing his unexpected callers. He tried to put on a fierce and pompous mien, but was not too successful at it. He admitted having heard rumors of white captives among the refugees, a woman and a boy, had made inquiries in fact, but the Sioux he communicated with denied any knowledge of captives in the Spruce Woods camp.
“I have reliable firsthand information that they were seen in that camp,” Rawley insisted. “Not more than ten days ago.”
McDougall rocked back and forth on his heels in front of the fire, hands locked behind his back, blinking his eyes at Rawley. “For God’s sake, Mr. Rawley,” he lashed out suddenly, “why do not you and your man remove those beastly-smelling buffalo robes? You must be sweltering.”
Rawley smiled for the first time. He and O’Hara laid their robes on a chair, and moved closer to the fireplace. “Could you help us, Mr. McDougall? We may need to search every tipi in Spotted Horse’s camp.”
“I suppose you came across the boundary without papers of any kind. Like all the others.” McDougall reached for a large box on the table, removing two form sheets and handing them to Rawley. “Fill these out, Mr. Rawley. Where it says ‘purpose of entry,’ write ‘to purchase furs and skins,’ or something of the sort. Record nothing about white captives.”
Noting the quizzical expression on Rawley’s face he added quickly: “Oh, for God’s sake, don’t you understand my delicate position here? A handful of whites in a country of thousands of red Indians. To survive we must keep the peace. You Americans drive your hostiles over on us and we don’t have the power to drive them back. If we could do so we would not, out of fear of stirring up our own natives. And then your outrageously mad Civil War. Out here in this wilderness we must maintain the chilly attitude of Britain’s government toward your government while at the same time we depend upon your cooperation in shipping our furs and hides, even our mail, by way of Saint Paul and Chicago. There is no all-weather trail through the Canadian shield, you know.” He stopped with an imploring gesture, showing his teeth in an ironic smile.
