didn’t come in after me in spite of the Arikaras. That was why Fat Bear was a chief, too. A long time ago he made friends with Spotted Hawk, and when the Sioux or anybody crowded him too clost, the Crows would come in and help him. Them Crows air scrappers and no mistake.
“This is plumb gaudy!” I says. “Git yore braves together and us and the Crows will go out and run them fool Tetons clean into the Missoury, by golly.”
“No, no, no!” says he. He’s hung around the trading posts till he can talk English nigh as good as me. “There’s a truce between us! Big powwow tonight!”
Well, the Sioux knowed by now how they’d been fooled; but they also knowed the Pirut Queen would be past the p’int and outa their reach before they could git back to the river; so they camped outside, and Bitin’ Hoss hollered over the stockade: “There is bad flesh in my brother’s village! Send it forth that we may cleanse it with fire!”
Fat Bear bust into a sweat and says: “That means they want to bum you! Why did you have to come here, jest at this time?”
“Well,” I says in a huff, “air you goin’ to hand me over to ’em?”
“Never!” says he, wiping his brow with a bandanner he stole from the guvment trading post below the Kansas. “But I’d rather a devil had come through that gate than a Big Knife!” That’s what them critters calls a American. “We and the Crows and Sioux have a big council on tonight, and—”
Jest then a man in a gilded cock hat and a red coat come through the crowd, with a couple of French Canadian trappers, and a pack of Soc Injuns from the Upper Mississippi. He had a sword on him and he stepped as proud as a turkey gobbler in the fall.
“What is this bloody American doing here?” says he, and I says: “Who the hell air you?” And he says: “Sir Wilmot Pembroke, agent of Indian affairs in North America for his Royal Majesty King George, that’s who!”
“Well, step out from the crowd, you lobster-backed varmint,” says I, stropping my knife on my leggin’, “and I’ll decorate a sculp-pole with yore innards—and that goes for them two Hudson Bay skunks, too!”
“No!” says Fat Bear, grabbing my arm. “There is a truce! No blood must be spilled in my village! Come into my lodge.”
“The truce doesn’t extend beyond the stockade,” says Sir Wilmot. “Would you care to step outside with me?”
“So yore Teton friends could fill me with arrers?” I sneered. “I ain’t as big a fool as I looks.”
“No, that wouldn’t be possible,” agreed he, and I was so overcame with rage all I could do was gasp. Another instant and I would of had my knife in his guts, truce or no truce, but Fat Bear grabbed me and got me into his tipi. He had me set on a pile of buffler hides and one of his squaws brung me a pot of meat; but I was too mad to be hungry, so I only et four or five pounds of buffler liver.
Fat Bear sot down his trade musket, which he had stole from a Hudson Bay Company trapper, and said: “The council tonight is to decide whether or not the Arikaras shall take the warpath against the Big Knives. This Red-Coat, Sir Wilmot, says the Big White Chief over the water is whipping the Big White Father of the Big Knives, in the village called Washington.”
I was so stunned by this news I couldn’t say nothing. We hadn’t had no chance to git news about the war since we started up the river.
“Sir Wilmot wants the Sioux, Crows and Arikaras to join him in striking the American settlements down the river,” says Fat Bear. “The Crows believe the Big Knives are losing the war, and they’re wavering. If they go with the Sioux, I must go too; otherwise the Sioux will burn my village. I cannot exist without the aid of the Crows. The Red-Coat has a Soc medicine man, who will go into a medicine lodge tonight and talk with the Great Spirit. It is big medicine, such was never seen before on any village on the Missouri. The medicine man will tell the Crows and the Arikaras to go with the Sioux.”
“You mean this Englishman aims to lead a war-party down the river?” I says, plumb horrified.
“Clear to Saint Louis!” says Fat Bear. “He will wipe out all the Americans on the river!”
“He won’t neither,” says I with great passion, rising and drawing my knife. “I’ll go over to his lodge right now and cut his gizzard out!”
But Fat Bear grabbed me and hollered: “If you spill blood, no one will ever dare recognize a truce again! I cannot let you kill the Red-Coat!”
“But he’s plannin’ to kill everybody on the river, dern it!” I yelled. “What’m I goin’ to do?”
“You must get up in council and persuade the warriors not to go on the war-path,” says he.
“Good gosh,” I says, “I can’t make no speech.”
“The Red-Coat has a serpent’s tongue,” says Fat Bear, shaking his head. “If he had presents to give the chiefs, his cause would be as good as won. But his boat upset as he came along the river, and all his goods were lost. If you had presents to give to Spotted Hawk and Biting Horse—”
“You know I ain’t got no presents!” I roared, nigh out of my head. “What the hell am I goin’ to do?”
“I dunno,” says he, despairful. “Some white men pray when they’re in a pickle.”
“I’ll do it!” I says. “Git outa my way!” So I kneeled down on a stack of buffler robes, and I’d got as far as: “Now I lay me down to sleep—” when my knee nudged something under the hides that felt familiar. I reched down and yanked it out—and sure enough, it was a keg!
“Where’d you git this?” I yelped.
“I stole it out of the company’s storehouse the last time I was in Saint Louis,” he confessed, “but—”
“But nothin’!” exulted I. “I dunno how come you ain’t drunk it all up before now, but it’s my wampum! I ain’t goin’ to try to out-talk that lobster-back tonight. Soon’s the council’s open, I’ll git up kind of casual and say that the Red-Coat has got a empty bag of talk for ’em, with nothin’ to go with it, but the Big White Father at Washington has sent ’em a present. Then I’ll drag out the keg. T’aint much to divide up amongst so many, but the chiefs is what counts, and they’s enough licker to git them too drunk to know what Sir Wilmot and the medicine man says.”
“They know you didn’t bring anything into the village with you,” he says.
“So much the better,” I says. “I’ll tell ’em it’s wakan and I can perjuice whiskey out of the air.”
“They’ll want you to perjuice some more,” says he.
“I’ll tell ’em a evil spirit, in the shape of a skunk with a red coat on, is interferin’ with my magic powers,” I says, gitting brainier every minute. “That’ll make ’em mad at Sir Wilmot. Anyway, they won’t care where the licker come from. A few snorts and the Sioux will probably remember all the gredges they got agen the Socs and run ’em outa camp.”
“You’ll get us all killed,” says Fat Bear, mopping his brow. “But about that keg, I want to tell you—”
“You
