Little Big Man by Thomas Berger

Author:Thomas Berger
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780307788993
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2011-04-27T10:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 17 In the Valley of the Washita

WE JOINED BLACK KETTLE at the end of the big summer buffalo hunt in which all the tribe in the area come together, and then moved on down into the Nations, across the Canadian River, past the Antelope Hills, and onto the Washita, in that reservation what had been assigned to the Cheyenne by the treaty of Medicine Lodge. There was several camps there, strung along the river for about ten mile, more Cheyenne below us and Arapaho, Kiowa, Comanche, and some Apache too. The Indians figured to winter in that valley, which was well timbered with cottonwood.

It was nice, right nice, and Old Lodge Skins had been exaggerating in his bleak description. He still claimed the water was bitter, but I couldn’t taste it. However I didn’t chide him none, for he was outranked in this gathering, what with Black Kettle and Chief Little Raven of the Arapaho and Satanta, the famous cutthroat Kiowa who painted himself red to the waist and went about tooting a brass bugle. And they none of them paid much heed to Old Lodge Skins, being he had boycotted the Medicine Lodge council and was poor and had such a small band. There is a snobbery among all people who run things, white or Indian.

So my old chief set by himself most of the time and continued to dream and once in a while he would orate, but didn’t draw much of an audience these days, for his young men got to blaming him for not going to that council on account of the other Indians was boasting of the presents they had received for so doing and of the big show of riding the various tribes had put on for the Government commissioners, and a redskin hates to pass up a display or demonstration. Back in the old days when I was a kid we had camped near some Sioux on the Surprise River and one summer day they begun to yell and fire their pieces, and believing they was attacked we fell out to help them, but discovered they was only celebrating. Hump asked why and they said they didn’t know, but the soldiers over at Fort Laramie was doing it and the Sioux wouldn’t be found wanting in the celebration department. So Hump said he guessed the Human Beings better then, too, and all day we hollered and hooted and wasted ammunition. I figured out later it had been the Fourth of July.

You might have wondered what become of the two Indians who figured in my youth among the Cheyenne but seemed to have disappeared by this second residence: my enemy Younger Bear the Contrary and Little Horse, who was a heemaneh.

They had not been killed neither one, for I had asked after them and learned they was running with other bands, I expect so as to get companionship from others of their own kinds, Old Lodge Skins’s camp being too small to accommodate more than one apiece of them exotic professions.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.