“Some soldiers are looking for you. They bring a baby with them.”
He came ahead with the news first.
“The soldiers are at Otters Den Creek.”
Ceeth Hwya didn’t think it was so. That shaman sometimes puts a hex on us.
“The soldiers will come here next,” said Man Who Flies on Black Wings.
“We should go to see them.” So my father and his uncle went to find the soldiers.
We heard gunshots.
As we came, we saw them. They had red beards. One of them carried an Indian baby in his coat.
My mother said they might want to kill us children. We all ran and hid behind the houses. We watched them.
They were having a hard time. They were sick and hungry. They didn’t understand any words.
Ceeth Hwya told his wives to bring them food.
We saw lots of white people later after that. That was the first time.
Lieut. Col. Allen Forrester
May 14, 1885
I have emerged from the hut, sit outside its door on a stump to write. Dawn came some time ago, but just now I watched the sun clear the tall mountaintop to the east. The men of the village have left on a hunt, Tillman with them. Women & children move among the trees at their chores & play. The tyone has assigned one of his men to stand guard. It seems we are not entirely trusted. Pruitt is still abed. His listlessness does not subside.
These Indians have chosen their site well. The village is on a south-facing slope, looking down on the north fork of the Trail River. A fast, clear creek runs out of the mountains, past the camp. To the north rise the tallest mountains I have ever seen, colossal wedges of snow & ice with ribbons of glaciers. At least one of the peaks appears volcanic, sending up a vapor throughout the day.
Here in the valley, much of the snow has melted except on the north faces & shaded corners. Along the river is a haze of green through the aspen & cottonwoods?—?leaf buds. Winter leaves us.
I heard the baby somewhere in the camp. Its cry is stronger. How does it fare, I asked Tillman.
?—?Healthy as an ox.
He says an Indian with a toddler of her own has taken the strange child to breast. With milk in its belly, it grows stronger. For that I am glad. Yet it is a startling thought?—?a woman nursing the creature.
How do I write of the infant? I have avoided it until now, the memory of its discovery, of crawling beneath the spruce tree, unsheathing my knife.
I had gone in search of firewood. We needed to dry our clothes & warm ourselves but were too weak to chop logs, so I looked for deadfall. It was not yet night. I wish now that it had been. I would have preferred darkness to seeing that unwholesome birth.
I came to a fallen tree with kindle-dry branches that I could break off with ease. As I worked, I heard the men nearby, lighting the fire, gathering other wood.
The cries were muffled so at first I did not distinguish them. It was only when I stopped breaking branches that I took notice. Faint but distinct in the quiet of the river valley, it was the sound of a small creature choked & struggling.
I thought perhaps a rabbit was caught in an Indian snare, or a moose calf injured by wolves.
The sound did not move, but varied in intensity so that at times it was a rhythmic wail, at others a stifled mewl.
I called to the men, asked if they heard the cry?—?They did not. I said I would investigate.
?—?Shouldn’t I come with you? Tillman asked.
It wasn’t far, I believed. I had my pistol so could fire a shot if I required assistance.
The cries led me away from the river, first through sparse cottonwood trees, so that I could still see the river & smoke of our fire, then to the dense band of alders that grows along the bank. I looked for another way around but saw no break, so I entered their shadowy tangle. I had to duck, shoulder my way through, until I emerged at the edge of a murky slough that again offered no easy way around. I thought then of turning back, but the cries continued, smothered, quickened. It was a foolish risk in my weakened condition, but I sloshed through the icy water to my waist.
When I reached the far side, the sound was still muffled, but closer. I walked among the trees, taking a step or two, stopping to listen, then a few more steps.
I was led to the largest of the spruces, a majestic, towering tree, with lower boughs that fanned broadly to the ground. The cries came from the base. I tried to peer through the branches, but could see nothing. In order to enter the low canopy, I had to crawl. The ground was wet & spongy beneath my hands & knees, squelched as if saturated. It struck me as odd, as usually such sheltered ground beneath an evergreen is entirely dry.