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Show LEE NELSON'S CHAPTER 13 As Dick Boggs drove his wagon out of the Shoshone camp early the next morning, headed west, Sam wondered about Lance's proposition proposi-tion to kill the old man. Lance made it sound so easy, so matter of fact, like chopping down a tree. Boggs certainly had it coming com-ing with all the trouble he had caused the Mormons back in Missouri, Mis-souri, and whatever he was up to now in trading Indian souvenirs to Brutus Young, something wasn't right. Still, to just gun Boggs down like a pesky skunk didn't set easy with Sam. Boggs was not yet out of sight when Sam and Lance returned to their tethered horses to saddle up. "Remember, we're not sneaking drink givers," said Lance, as he and Sam rode towards the Shoshone village. "What?" asked Sam, not understanding. under-standing. "Sneaking drink givers. That's what Injuns call white men who sell them firewater." "Name seems to fit us pretty good." "Could get us killed, too." "How's that?" "If they decide to scalp us and take our firewater, they won't have soldier boys coming after them. Sneaking drink givers are outside the protection of white law, and the Injuns knows it." "Then what...?" Sam started to ask. "Besides, some of the old chiefs are beginning to see what the firewater fire-water is doing to their people. They don't take kindly to sneaking drink givers. Wouldn't want one of the old men telling the young bucks to lift our topknots." "Topknots?" asked Sam. "Scalps, hair on our heads." "Then how do we trade them whiskey without them knowing we're whiskey traders?" asked Sam, sarcasm in his voice. He was irritated that this business about how the Indians felt about whiskey traders hadn't been explained to him earlier instead of the moment they were riding into a large Shoshone village with three pack horses loaded down with firewater. "Just keep your.mouth shut, like a wide-eyed bacon eater, and I'll take care of everything," suggested sug-gested Lance with a smile, thoroughly thor-oughly enjoying his companion's uncertainty. "And what's a bacon eater?" Lance smiled. "A greenhorn." Sam remembered when the tables were turned back in the railroad rail-road camps. Lance, the half-breed off the prairie, was like a frightened animal, unsure of himself in a white man's world, counting on his friend Sam to help him in situations he didn't understand. Now Sam was the one who didn't understand. Lance was enjoying the turnabout. The tepees formed a loose V on the grassy plain. Lance led the way, his horse holding its head high, its ears forward as it entered the open end of the V. Sam followed, fol-lowed, leading the pack horses. Lance held his right hand high, the first closed except for the first two forefingers, which were extended ex-tended and touching, the sign of friendship among the tribes of the plains. Children of all ages and sizes scampered from tepees and the open prairie to greet the visitors, quickly forming a noisy procession behind the pack horses. The older children wore leather breechcloths or dresses. The smaller children were naked. The women remained crouched in the doorways to their tepees, or stood just outside their tepees, watching the approaching white men. The Shoshone men walked towards the apex of the V, the same place where Lance and Sam were headed, apparently the dwelling place of the chief or head man. The chief, a big heavy man, emerged from his tepee just as Lance pulled his horse to a stop. The chief was not distinguishable by any special headdress or clo thing, but by his authoritative manner. man-ner. He was the first and only man to approach Lance and Sam. Lance's arm was still help to the square, the two fingers extended to signify friendship. Lance continued to hold his hand in the air as the chief looked him over. No words were spoken. After what seemed a long time to Sam, the chief slowly extended his left hand, palm up. He placed his right fist over the extended palm. Lance's previously stern face broke into a friendly smile at the chiefs test of friendship. Sam didn't know what was going on. The closed fist on the open palm was the sign for tobacco. Lance reached back into his saddle sad-dle bag and tossed a black plug of chewing tobacco to the now smiling smil-ing chief. After securing the twist in his belt the chief slapped one palm forward for-ward against the other in the direction direc-tion of the lone mountain to the north, asking the travelers if they were heading north. Lance pointed his forefinger straight up then towards the distant mountain, answering yes to the chiefs question. Then Lance made a curling downward motion with his fingers in front of his mouth, telling the chief he was hungry, obviously ob-viously fishing for an invitation to stop and eat. The chief made the same curling motion with his fingers in front of his mouth, then held both fists on top of his head, forefingers curling upward and inward to indicate he had buffalo meat for his visitors. While dismounting, Lance tossed tos-sed some blue and red beads to the children and women. Sam dismounted dis-mounted too, paying careful attention atten-tion to the sign vanguage, as Lance explained to the chief that he and his companion were headed to the Montana gold fields with a load of supplies for the miners that they didn't have anything of real value to trade to their red friends. Sam was trying so hard to follow the sign language that he didn't notice the little boy pulling on his shirt. "The kid wants to give you something," said Lance. Sam looked down at the naked little boy who had a toy bow in one hand and a two-foot length of buffalo buf-falo intestine in the other. The intestine in-testine was dirty, except for the end the boy had been chewing on. The boy held the intestine out to Sam. "Heard me tell the chief we were hungry," said Lance quickly. "Wants to share his breakfast with you. Better take a bite or two before be-fore they think I was lying about us being hungry." "You're the one that said we were hungry," responded Sam. "Maybe the story would be more believable if you helped the kid with his breakfast." "Take a bit, fast," hissed Lance. Sam figured he had no choice in the matter. He was not really sure if the situation was serious or his friend was just playing a trick on him. He assured himself that he would not forget the incident so that a later, safer time, he could get revenge on his companion. Sam reached out and accepted the dirty intestine from the boy. Holding his breath to avoid any possible smell the thing might have, Sam enthusiastically enthu-siastically bit off a big chunk from the clean end and gulped it down. With a smile of gratitude he handed the remainder back to the boy, who with a squeal of delight ran back to his tepee to spread the news of sharing his breakfast with the white man. Lance and Sam followed the chief and two of his companions into the chiefs tepee. While the red men began gnawing on the twist of tobacco. Lance and Sam helped themselves to a rack of buffalo ribs that had been simmering near the fire. Slicing between the two end ribs with his knife, Lance removed an entire rib, almost three feet long and handed it to Sam. Then he cut another for himself. ...Sam did some quick figuring. They had traded off 43 bottles to get 21 horses. Not a bad day's work. By the time Lance and Sam had cleaned off their first rib, the plug of tobacco was completely consumed con-sumed and the chief was packing his pipe for an after-breakfast smoke. During breakfast Sam and Lance learned the chief was called Curly Bear. The stone bowl of his pipe was shaped in the form of a bear's head, and triangle designs were carved the length of the long wooden stem. While the men were passing the pipe around, Lance excused himself him-self for a moment to get something from his pack horse. He returned a moment later with a quart bottle of firewater. The Indians beamed, except ex-cept the chief. Using sign language, Lance went . to great length to explain that the firewater was for the miners in Virginia Vir-ginia City, but since the Shoshones were friends with the miners, he '. was' sure the white gold hunters1, wouldn't mind sharing with their red brothers. Lance held the bottle out to the chief while the other Indians In-dians looked covetously at its tan contents. Curly Bear hesitated. Lance suggested sug-gested that the white men in Virginia Virgi-nia City might be offended if the great Shoshone chief refused their little gift. One little bottle of firewater firewa-ter never caused any trouble. Seemingly persuaded by Lance's arguments, Curly Bear finally accepted the bottle, quickly removed the cork with his teeth, and commenced to guzzle. Nearly a third of the bottle was gone before be-fore he removed it from his mouth and handed it to the next Indian, who didn't swallow quite as much to make sure every other man in the tepee received his fair amount. No sooner had the last drop dis- appeared than the Indians, including includ-ing Curly Bear, began to ask for more. Very emphatically. Lance swept his hand across his body, the palm forward then rotating inward, an emphatic refusal to produce more liquor. The Indians persisted in begging for more firewater, but Lance's answer was always an emphatic no as he began consuming his second three-foot buffalo rib. Sam sensed that the Indians were getting angry at Lance's apparent indifference to their pleas for more firewater. Lance was so busy chewing on his buffalo rib that it was like he really didn't care what the Indians wanted. Sam hoped Lance was doing the right thing. It wasn't until Lance had finished his rib and wiped his hands clean on his buckskins that he began be-gan talking to the chief again, still in sign language. He said the miners min-ers in Virginia City needed more horses, and probably wouldn't be too upset if he traded some of their whiskey for a good horse or two. Immediately the chief sent one of his companions to fetch a horse. The men stepped outside the tepee to do the bartering. When the brave returned with a bay gelding, Lance quickly checked its teeth and hooves, then asked the chief how many bottles of firewater he would take for it. The chief chatted with his friends for a moment, then held up five fingers, indicating five bottles. Lance walked around the horse again, slowly, taking a closer look. The Indians wer restless, annoyed by Lance's apparent reluctance to trade. Before Lance finished his second inspection of the horse, several of the braves were urging their chief to lower his asking price to four bottles. Without any further attempts at communication, Lance walked over to his pack horse and removed not five, but seven bottles and handed them to the surprised chief. Lance then explained in sign language lan-guage that he didn't want to cheat his friend, the great Shoshone chief, by giving him only five bottles bot-tles for such a fine horse. Lance .said he wished he could give the chief even more, but since the whiskey belonged to the miners in Virginia City, he wasn't privileged . to do so. The Indians cheered at their good fortune and began uncorking the bottles. Lance and Sam stepped step-ped aside to discuss the situation. "Why'd you give him seven when he only asked for five?" demanded de-manded Sam. "Drunken Injuns can get awful mean if they don't like you," explained ex-plained Lance. "Those extra two bottles will buy us plenty of goodwill, good-will, enough to get us through a lot of trading." "Things will get pretty wild around here in a little while," explained ex-plained Lance. "Fights, horse races, arguments, singing, dancing, danc-ing, the works. Help me unload a couple of boxes of bottles, then take the animals out a few hundred yards. Let the horses graze, but don't unsaddle them. I'll have kids bring you the horses I trade for. Be ready to leave as soon as you see me coming." Sam did as he was told, finding it easier and easier to go along with Lance's wishes. So far, things were working out just fine as long as Lance dfdn't continue paying seven bottles for each horse. At that rate they wouldn't be able to get a very large herd. But Sam wasn't disappointed. He waited all afternoon with the horses,' and every once in a while an Indian child would lead out a new animal. From all the noise coming from the camp, it sounded like the Indians were enjoying their firewater. It wasn't until the sun was just about to touch the western hills that Sam spotted Lance staggering unsteadily towards him, carrying an almost empty crate containing the remainder of the untraded whiskey bottles. While securing the leftover firewater fire-water to the pack horse, Sam did some quick figuring. They had traded off 43 bottles to get 21 Continued Next Page Storm Testament From Previous Page horses. Not a.bad day's work. He just wished Lance was in better condition to help him with the horses. The half-breed had shared too many drinks with his Indian friends, and had a hard time even getting onto the back of his saddle horse. Knowing he wouldn't get any help from Lance with the herding, Sam tied the new horses head to tail in a long single file line. By the time darkness settled on the Snake River" Valley, Sam and Lance had put several miles between themselves them-selves and the loud celebrating still going on in the Shoshone camp. |