Read Online Far as the Eye Can See by Robert Bausch - Free Book Online

to do.”
    “Where’d they get that wagon?” I said.
    “I don’t know. They hunt all along this river and camp where they please,” he said. “Sometimes for sociability and to be where they can trade for a few things, they camp near one of the forts. They’re good neighbors.”
    I shook my head in shame. “I’m sorry,” I said.
    “Don’t apologize to me.”
    “I mean I’m sorry I took the train on the wrong side of the river.”
    “That won’t be the only mistake you make out here,” he said.
    He was sure right about that. I was still powerful curious to know what happened to Preston. What kind of mistake led to his death.
    I felt so sorry for that poor Indian that Cooney shot. I thought I should at least apologize to them folks if I could.
     
    I asked Theo if he and Big Tree would come with me and Cooney to apologize to Twines His Horse’s Tail. It took a while to convince Big Tree, but he come along. “That your business,” he said.
    “We need you to translate.”
    “You need me to guard.”
    “It ain’t nothing I thought of,” I said. “But you’re right.”
    It was a bright morning. We approached the village with a bit of caution. Cooney and me was walking out front. Theo told us to go at a steady pace, but not too fast.
    “They’ll kill me,” Cooney whispered to me. He was sweating terribly, and although it was already pretty warm, and promised to be a very hot and humid day, there was a cool breeze drifting in and out of the trees around the fort. “I know they’ll want to torture and kill me.”
    “No they won’t, General,” I said.
    “Won’t what?” Theo asked.
    “Kill the general.”
    “They might want to. But if we walk in there and ask to speak to the old man, they won’t. Indians tend to honor folks that ain’t afraid.”
    When we got to the camp, a young brave come out to meet us. Big Tree went ahead and translated for us because the brave walked right up to him and begun speaking. All Crow Indians are pretty tall and stately; they have very nearly perfect bodies, every one of them. But Big Tree was aptly named. Even on foot, he towered over most folks, even the other Crow braves.
    The young brave and Big Tree spoke very stiffly to each other, then the brave gestured with his arm that we should come into the camp. There was huge lodges all in a big kind of circle, with some inside the circle at various placements, but all around the center of the camp where the wagon stood. A few dogs barked. Children run about, circling us and hollering to beat the band. Like they was on a raid. When we got to the center of the camp, the brave stopped and turned around.
    He said something sounded like “Hinnay, hay.”
    “He says we should wait here,” Big Tree said.
    Then Twines His Horse’s Tail come out of the big tepee next to the wagon. He was dressed with a breastplate of colorful reeds of some kind, and bright beads around his neck. He wore yellow leggings and a black loincloth, and his moccasins was decorated on the top with beads. On his head was a huge skullcap of a buffalo, with the black horns arching toward each other over his dark eyes. He had a old man’s craggy face, with lines that run from next to his deep-set eyes and down both sides of his mouth from his nose. His jet-black hair, twined with gray strands, draped his shoulders and hung way down his back. He was tall as well, and carried himself with absolute dignity. I felt like I was in the presence of a personage as great as Lincoln. Four other younger, tall, decorated braves stood next to him.
    He spoke in a deeply resonant voice.
    Big Tree said, “He wants to smoke a pipe with us, then he will talk.”
    Inside the tepee, we all sat in a big semicircle, and the old man lit this long pipe with beads and feathers a-hanging off of it. He passed it to his right and each brave puffed a bit, then passed it to the next until it reached Theo, who sat across from me, all the way on the other side of the half circle.