There was now but three of them, Old Lodge Skins and two braves, the latter each leading four riderless ponies. They showed no preparation for violence, but this second appearance was too much for most, and for the first time our people began to yell and cry. Back under the wagon went Tom and Bill. Caroline was the exception. I remember while grabbing onto her bony hips in my own fright, looking up at her face I observed a rather keen look about the nostrils like a horse’s when he smells water.
The other two, with their herd, stayed back some thirty yards while Old Lodge Skins rode forward on his brown-and-white pinto, which had painted rings around the eyes. He put up his hand and orated for about fifteen minutes in a queer falsetto. His plug hat was a little more crushed than yesterday but otherwise he appeared in perfect shape.
It was strange how in no time at all everybody went from fear to being excruciatingly bored, and the very women who yesterday had been helpless victims and just minutes earlier were howling in fright, now began to advance on him threatening with their fists and saying: “Git on out of here, you old skunk!” Which shows something about the way a female is put together; she will suffer any outrage so long as it is interesting, but bore her and she don’t know fear.
But Caroline spoke up. “Settle down, now,” said she, swaggering out in front of the crowd. “Don’t you understand they come back for me? That’s what the horses is for, to pay for hauling me off. You noticed yesterday, didn’t you, that I wasn’t touched while all that nasty business was being done to you? They was saving me, was what they was doing.” My sister’s cheeks were a deal moreruddy than the sun could be held accountable for, and she was tossing around her copper hair like the flies was at her face.
“Now, you’d better let them take me,” she went on, “unless you want to get kilt like the men.”
“But Caroline,” Ma asked plaintively, “what in the world do they want you for?”
“Probly torture me in various devilish ways,” Caroline answered very proudly. I thought it a strange thing to boast about, myself, but held my peace, because what I could see was that my sister reminded me of nobody so much as my Pa. That poor thing was determined to be extravagant.
The Widow Walsh then said: “Ah, go on, then. I ain’t stopping them,” and turned away, the rest of the women with her. They had lost their men and been raped and were stranded in the wilderness, and there was no way back but that by which they had been months in coming, so they could hardly be much moved by what happened to one girl.
Old Lodge Skins was impassively sitting his horse, watching us through droopy eyelids. On the wooden saddle hung his shield, round, made of hide, and adorned with ten black scalps. In place of the blown-up musket he now carried a lance from the shaft of which dangled a couple more hanks of hair. He wasn’t a bad-looking dog, or hadn’t been in his youth, anyway, whenever that was; his braids now were shot with gray and the muscles of his limbs were stringy. It is hard to tell an Indian’s age, but he must have been within smelling distance of seventy. He grew a big nose with a long, hooking sweep to it, and the ends of his mouth had slight upward twists, whereas his eyes was sad. He generally wore a sort of good-natured melancholy as to expression. You couldn’t say he looked dangerous in any wise; indeed, it was rather Caroline who seemed savage at this juncture.
She had been a tomboy but was getting on in years, and the men never took to her back in Evansville except as a pal. She had got a crush on the local blacksmith, a widower of forty, and hung around the forge, but as far as he went was to let her hold a horse’s hoof while he shoed it. Then there was some farmer’s son: I think for a time they spread manure together, forked hay, and the like. Not even them drummers who came and went, of
The other two, with their herd, stayed back some thirty yards while Old Lodge Skins rode forward on his brown-and-white pinto, which had painted rings around the eyes. He put up his hand and orated for about fifteen minutes in a queer falsetto. His plug hat was a little more crushed than yesterday but otherwise he appeared in perfect shape.
It was strange how in no time at all everybody went from fear to being excruciatingly bored, and the very women who yesterday had been helpless victims and just minutes earlier were howling in fright, now began to advance on him threatening with their fists and saying: “Git on out of here, you old skunk!” Which shows something about the way a female is put together; she will suffer any outrage so long as it is interesting, but bore her and she don’t know fear.
But Caroline spoke up. “Settle down, now,” said she, swaggering out in front of the crowd. “Don’t you understand they come back for me? That’s what the horses is for, to pay for hauling me off. You noticed yesterday, didn’t you, that I wasn’t touched while all that nasty business was being done to you? They was saving me, was what they was doing.” My sister’s cheeks were a deal moreruddy than the sun could be held accountable for, and she was tossing around her copper hair like the flies was at her face.
“Now, you’d better let them take me,” she went on, “unless you want to get kilt like the men.”
“But Caroline,” Ma asked plaintively, “what in the world do they want you for?”
“Probly torture me in various devilish ways,” Caroline answered very proudly. I thought it a strange thing to boast about, myself, but held my peace, because what I could see was that my sister reminded me of nobody so much as my Pa. That poor thing was determined to be extravagant.
The Widow Walsh then said: “Ah, go on, then. I ain’t stopping them,” and turned away, the rest of the women with her. They had lost their men and been raped and were stranded in the wilderness, and there was no way back but that by which they had been months in coming, so they could hardly be much moved by what happened to one girl.
Old Lodge Skins was impassively sitting his horse, watching us through droopy eyelids. On the wooden saddle hung his shield, round, made of hide, and adorned with ten black scalps. In place of the blown-up musket he now carried a lance from the shaft of which dangled a couple more hanks of hair. He wasn’t a bad-looking dog, or hadn’t been in his youth, anyway, whenever that was; his braids now were shot with gray and the muscles of his limbs were stringy. It is hard to tell an Indian’s age, but he must have been within smelling distance of seventy. He grew a big nose with a long, hooking sweep to it, and the ends of his mouth had slight upward twists, whereas his eyes was sad. He generally wore a sort of good-natured melancholy as to expression. You couldn’t say he looked dangerous in any wise; indeed, it was rather Caroline who seemed savage at this juncture.
She had been a tomboy but was getting on in years, and the men never took to her back in Evansville except as a pal. She had got a crush on the local blacksmith, a widower of forty, and hung around the forge, but as far as he went was to let her hold a horse’s hoof while he shoed it. Then there was some farmer’s son: I think for a time they spread manure together, forked hay, and the like. Not even them drummers who came and went, of
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