The Buffalo Hunters by Mari Sandoz

Author:Mari Sandoz [Sandoz, Mari]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: 19th Century, Americas, History, Non-Fiction
ISBN: 9780803258839
Google: S7K755gTWkgC
Amazon: B0021LRCQG
Publisher: Bison Books
Published: 1978-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Down at the Walls it was a hot June to be worried about Indians. The spring flowers were dying under the drouth of summer, and the buffalo herd splitting up into smaller bunches. The yellow calves were playful now as the young antelopes and the deer were playful, and the young wolves and coyotes who lifted their thin, sharp voices in the night, the bright-faced young coons who wandered along the creeks, and the little skunks like bushy-tailed kittens. Birds too, were everywhere, the mother fluttering to draw the enemy from her small ones, her cry a warning to freeze to the ground, or to scatter in grass and brushpatch.

With all the alarm about Indians, nobody had actually seen one around the Walls, and yet the dead men were surely warnings to leave, to get back north of the Arkansas. Some of the hunters far out knew nothing about the Indian scare at all. Emanuel Dubbs' outfit, around the Salt Fork of the Red River, had found vast herds at Lelia Lake, with many water fowl and fish—a lonely, coolish, pleasant place. Good hides were still worth around two dollars and they worked fast in the heat and the dust. At the end of the third week they had over a thousand hides dry and ready to go.

They loaded all the wagons would hold and ricked the rest. The first night on the way back to the Walls they camped up a little creek not far from a high bluff, in a cotton-wood grove. They had heard of an Indian outbreak, but rumors were always flying thick as magpies around a good hunt, and carelessly they turned all their stock loose except Dubbs' best saddle horse. At dawn he climbed to the top of the bluff to see which way the horses had wandered. Not a head was in sight. He saddled and went to look for them, scouting the strange country for hours. Around noon he found the trail, an Indian-driven trail. Dubbs followed ten, twelve miles and saw that he couldn't catch up before dark, so he started back towards camp. At the high bluff he left his horse and crawled carefully to look over the top, down upon his camp about three hundred yards off. It was torn to pieces as by a tornado, with the body of a man sprawled naked over the tongue of one wagon. A knot of Indian ponies was hidden in a pocket and under a low bank of the creek Dubbs could see the tufted heads of Indians, watching for his return. He glanced around quickly, his hand clenched on the grip of his rifle. He was alone and afoot, yards from his horse down there, grazing, head held sideways.

The sun had set, the prairie was greying. He made himself go quietly and leisurely down to his horse, feeling watched all the way. Mounted, he got his gun ready, pulled his sixshooter around handy, and started out at a casual jaunt, as though to make one more search for his lost horses.

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