Tucket's Travels Read online

  Francis knew he was telling the truth. They would not be coming for him. Not because they feared these Indians, but because they would think he was dead. The train would lick its wounds and head on for Oregon without him. He would have to find a way to escape on his own.

  But Braid hadn't finished yet. The warrior dug into his buckskins, pulled out something, and threw it down in front of Francis.

  “I brought this for a girl child,” he said. “But perhaps you would enjoy playing with it more.”

  Francis stared at the object in the dirt. Only one thing kept him from screaming and attacking Braid —and that was the knowledge that it would do no good.

  What Braid had thrown down was a small china doll. It was a pretty doll, fashioned after a woman going to a ball.

  There was only one thing wrong with the doll— its nose had been broken off. Francis remembered exactly how that had happened. He had been teasing Rebecca, as he did sometimes, and in a fit of anger she had thrown the doll at him. She had missed him, and the doll had hit the corner of the stove and the nose had broken off. It was his sister's doll—Rebecca's doll.

  That night, during the dancing and celebration, Francis tried to escape. They caught him not ten feet from the lodge and tied him up.

  The next morning they let him loose, and that evening he tried to get away again. This time his “mother” beat him across the backs of his legs with a dried willow cane.

  So Francis gave up the idea of escaping for a while. They were watching him too closely.

  After his third week there, a large council meeting was held and the tribe decided to move the village. Francis had to help dismantle the lodge and load it on the travois in back of the horses—normally considered woman work, as was gathering wood—but he didn't mind because the work took his mind off the terrible situation he was in.

  He did mind the direction the band took when they had finished packing, however. Strung in a long line, with much barking of camp dogs, the file headed due northeast—away from the direction of the wagon train.

  I'll have to get all the way to Oregon, Francis thought glumly as he trudged along beside the travois, before I'll find out about Rebecca. That is, if I find a way to escape.

  It didn't cheer him either to find that the movement of the tribe—almost twenty miles a day—almost doubled the speed that the wagon train made.

  They traveled for ten days, and then put up a new camp on the southern edge of the Black Hills, the village winter ground—the place of sweet water and good hunting.

  Strangely, Francis liked the Black Hills even more than he had liked the Rockies. The Black Hills were not only fine to look at—with their dark ridges and green meadows—but good to live with as well.

  And it was here that Francis met Mr. Grimes.

  It happened early one morning. Francis had just finished fetching wood and was bending down over the fire, built outside the lodge because the days were still quite warm, when it seemed every dog in camp started barking at once. Francis turned to see what all the noise was about, and there, riding into the middle of the Pawnee camp as though it were the main street of St. Louis, was a white man with only one arm.

  It was, Francis learned from one of the Indian boys, Mr. Jason Grimes.

  THERE ARE CERTAIN THINGS that are always easy to remember because of the way they happen. Francis's first sight of Mr. Jason Grimes was like that. He would remember it always because of the way Mr. Grimes ignored the Pawnees. It was not an easy thing to do. The Indian dogs were snapping at the hooves of his horses and pack mules, and the squaws and children were so thick all around him that he only showed from the waist up. Yet he ignored them, threading his horse carefully, gracefully around the noisy women and children, looking off in space as though they didn't exist. He made quite a figure as he rode, straight backed, moving easily with the horse's roll. Francis got more of an impression of a piece of timber bolted to a saddle than a man—until he looked at Mr. Grimes's face. It was a thin face, and almost as dark as an Indian's, except that it bore a bushy beard and mustache. He had thin lips and washed-out blue eyes, and on top of his head he wore a dashing but dusty derby, set slightly back, with one long feather sticking straight up from the band. He had on fringed but otherwise not very fancy buckskins, plain moccasins, and no belt.

  The last thing Francis noted was that Mr. Grimes's left arm was gone. He carried his rifle, wrapped in a buckskin case, with the same hand that loosely held his horse's reins, and the fact that he had no left arm didn't seem to bother him at all. It seemed almost natural, as though he would have looked odd with a left arm.

  Francis realized suddenly that he was staring with his mouth open. He shut it. He moved forward through the crowd around the mountain man.

  “Hey,” he called. “Hey, over here. I'm a captive]” The word sounded funny when he said it, but he saw that the mountain man had heard, for he looked down from his horse quickly, then back up. Francis wasn't sure, but he thought the derby-topped head had shaken left to right just once—as though telling him to be quiet.

  Then he couldn't see anything more because his “mother” found him and dropped a noose over his head. She dragged him back, cackling happily, and led him into a corner of the lodge.

  With his hands tied in back of him and his ankles lashed firmly together, Francis had plenty of time to think. Most of his thoughts were about the mountain man. How could he come into the Pawnee camp and not be harmed? And why had he come? Was he a friend of The Indians?

  There were no answers in that dark corner of the lodge, but one thing was plain. The Pawnee weren't going to kill the mountain man. Just the opposite—his arrival was to be the reason for a full day of celebrating. Francis heard all the preparations, and with this knowledge, his heart sank. Any man that friendly with the Pawnees wouldn't be likely to offer him help in escaping.

  All that day he lay in the lodge, wondering. He got no food and no water. By nine that night, when the dancing had reached its full frenzy, he at last fell asleep.

  Francis wasn't sure of the time when he opened his eyes, but it was either very late that same night or very early the following morning. He did know why he had awakened. There was a calloused hand clamped over his mouth, and in the darkness of the lodge, he could make out the shape of a derby.

  It was the mountain man.

  Francis felt the bushy beard against his ear, and heard a whisper.

  “Don't move. No sound. Just blink your eyes if you hear me and are wide awake.”

  Francis blinked, and the hand was taken off his mouth.

  “Can you ride?” the mountain man asked, still whispering hoarsely.

  Francis nodded.

  “Good. In back of the lodge you'll find a little black mare I swiped from the Pawnee herd. Walk her out of camp with your hand over her muzzle. When you're safely out of camp, get on her and ride as hard as you can with the North Star on your right shoulder—” He stopped suddenly as Francis's “mother,” across the lodge, turned in her sleep. In a second he continued, “If you ride hard enough, and don't hit a hole somewhere, dawn will catch you at a small creek. Take the mare right into the middle of The creek and head upstream. Keep going in the water until you think you're going to drop, then go another ten miles. If you stop, they'll get you. Now, did you understand all that?”

  Francis nodded again, “Where will you be?” he asked, rubbing his wrists, which the mountain man had cut loose while he was talking.

  “Why, I'll be sitting right here in camp,” the mountain man answered, chuckling softly, “eating a good breakfast, wondering whether or not they've caught you. If they don't, I'll see you in a couple of days. Now, are you going to sit and jaw all night or get riding?”

  Francis took it for The command it was. Thirty seconds later he was leading the little mare quietly out of the village hoping widi all his heart that he smelled enough like an Indian not to upset The dogs.

  A minute after that he was on her back, wishing he'd never told a lie
in his life. The only time he'd ever been on a horse was when he'd ridden a workhorse while his father plowed. That had only been at a walk, and with a lot of harness straps to hang on to.

  The little black mare didn't even have a blanket on her back and she only had two speeds—dead stop and full run.

  FRANCIS GOT HIS FIRST MOUTHFUL of dirt not a hundred paces from where he got on The little black mare. Luckily, he had figured on falling off, and had taken the precaution of wrapping her jaw rope tightly around his hand. When he hit the ground, she dragged him only a couple of yards. He didn't have time to moan about his scraped elbows and knees. He didn't have time for anything but to get on again.

  The second time he made nearly three hundred shattering yards before sliding off her side and bouncing on the rocks of a dry streambed. The trouble was diat the mare was so fat—it was like trying to ride a nail keg.

  He didn't discover the secret until he had fallen off three more times, removing more and more skin from his elbows and knees each time. Then he remembered how the mountain man had ridden—stiff backed, but loose, almost relaxed, where he joined the horse. Francis still bounced around a lot, but all his bouncing was straight up and down—not off to the side. And once he'd learned to relax, Francis found riding the black mare exciting.

  Never had he been so purely thrilled. Her dainty head came down, her ears folded back along her flattened neck, and she really flew. Francis didn't try to turn her, as long as she kept in the right general direction—-due west—and he forgot everything in the roar of wind and drumming thunder of her hoofs.

  Just at false dawn, when the first grayness made faint shadows under trees, the mare streaked out onto a large meadow. It was entirely flat, and she picked up speed when she hit its edge. Francis, content in the knowledge that she wouldn't have to dodge around rocks and trees for a while, relaxed even more and loosened his hold on her mane.

  When she hit the water, he went off over her head, and when he got up, found he was neck deep in muck. The creek ran straight down the middle of the meadow. When he finally managed to scrape the mud from his eyes, the mare was nowhere to be seen. He had dropped the jaw rope, and she had gone on. He couldn't even hear her hooves. He wanted to look for her, then realized he hadn't time for that. This was the stream the mountain man had been talking about. Horse or not, his orders had been definite—head up the middle of the stream, and don't stop.

  He stepped deeper into the water, but didn't start upstream immediately. He felt sad that the mare was gone. He would have liked to keep her awhile, and though he didn't think much of the Pawnees he admired their horses.

  “Thank you,” he said quietly, looking off into the darkness. “Thank you, little mare. It was a good ride.”

  And he started walking in the water, only vaguely aware of The chill.

  Real dawn caught him nearly four miles up the stream. He had long since left the meadow behind, and The stream was now bordered by thick scrub pine trees. He was very tired, and ached all over from his many falls from the mare. But he knew that if he stopped before getting far enough upstream, he might not meet the mountain man again.

  So he kept walking; not in miles, or even yards, but in steps. All day long he did that. He quit thinking of food early in the morning; it did nothing but make him hungry. And somehow, without his having been aware of the passing of a day, evening found him still trudging, still moving. He didn't know how far he'd come, only hoped it was far enough.

  Just as the first night birds began dipping and wheeling over the stream for insects, Francis Al-phonse Tucket pulled himself onto the bank beneath a clump of overhanging willows and dropped like a bag of sand.

  In five seconds, wet clothes and all, he wouldn't have heard the Indians even if they beat their drums right next to his head.

  FRANCIS AWAKENED to a heavenly smell—the aroma of boiling coffee. He was afraid that if he opened his eyes, the smell of coffee would vanish. But when a hill ten seconds had passed, and the smell was still there, he knew he hadn't been dreaming.

  He sat up and saw the mountain man sitting over a small fire about ten feet away. His back was to Francis, but he spoke at once without turning around.

  “ ‘Bout time you opened up a mite—day's half gone already. You sleep like a fancy city man.”

  Francis stretched, wincing at the pain in his legs. That would be from the little mare, and the pain in his arms would be from falling on them, and the pain in his knees from the rocks he had landed on, but the pain in his stomach was from hunger. “How did you know I was awake?” he asked after a moment.

  “Your breathing changed. When you quit sucking wind like an old buffalo, I figured you were coming around.”

  “You've sure got good ears.”

  “I'm alive. You don't stay that way long out here unless you can hear a little.”

  Francis filed away that advice, and got up. Everything in him hurt with the movement. He didn't believe anything could be that stiff and still be alive.

  “I thought you said you could ride.” The mountain man chuckled.

  “I did all right,” Francis answered defensively.

  “If you mean you made it alive, I guess you did at that. But I wouldn't call what happened to your hands and knees all right. Seems to me you lost a little hide. Still, you pulled a good trick with that mare—sending her off ahead while you came upstream.” His chuckle turned to an outright laugh. “I followed Braid and five or six others for a while when they came after you. Unless I miss my guess, they're down on the Powder River somewhere, still after that mare.”

  “I didn't plan it,” Francis cut in. “I fell off.”

  “Eh?”

  “I said I fell off her when she hit the stream. I fell off and she kept right on going without me.”

  “That's sort of what I figured, but I thought it would be better if you said it. Kinda keep the air clean around here, if we talk straight.” He turned and faced Francis for the first time. “You know, that lie about knowing how to ride could have got us both killed last night, don't you? They could have caught you, and worked you over a bit, and the first thing you know you would have been telling them all about my getting a horse for you. Don't go shaking your head. I know you wouldn't want to talk. But I've seen the Pawnees make a man tell stories he didn't even know. So from now on you just tell me what you know is straight, and that'll keep us both out of trouble. What's your name?”

  “Francis Alphonse Tucket.”

  “I said it would be better if we kept everything straight, boy. Now what's your handle?”

  “I wasn't lying. My name really is Francis Alphonse Tucket. Honest.”

  “Let me put it another way. What do you go by? I mean, haven't you got a sort of short name they call you?”

  Francis thought a minute, then shook his head. “My mother always called me Alphonse, and my father called me Francis. I guess you can take your pick.”

  The trapper shook his head. “I'm sorry, and nothing against your folks, understand, but I don't like either of them. They don't hit my tongue right. Tell you what. My name is Jason Grimes. You call me Mr. Grimes, and I'll call you Mr. Tucket—that should keep us both happy. Is that all right with you?”

  Francis shrugged. “Suits me fine, Mr. Grimes.”

  “Good. Now then, Mr. Tucket, why don't you hobble your crippled body over here and have a sip of coffee? There's nothing like a touch of coffee to take the sharp edge off an empty belly. After that I'll give you a little venison jerky, and while you're chewing that you can tell me how you came to be the son of that old Pawnee lady.”

  Francis had tried coffee before, stolen from his mother's stove with sugar in it and he took some in a gulp. It was bitter and he nearly spit it out. But the heat of it felt good and seemed to take away some of the ache in his stomach.

  The jerky was as tough as an old boot. While he chewed it—and it took some chewing—he told Mr. Grimes about the adventure, starting with the wagon train and the rifle.

&n
bsp; He finished his tale by telling how Braid had dirown the doll down in front of him.

  Mr. Grimes nodded when Francis finished. “That Braid is a mean one. Back before I made friends with The Pawnees by bringing diem powder and lead every time I came through, Braid and I had one bush-ripper of a fight. Knives, hatchets—the whole works. I guess it lasted over an hour, and when it was done, he had one scar down his back and I had lost an arm.”

  “You mean Braid took your arm off?” Francis asked.

  “No, he just cut it good. But it got infected later and I had a doctor in St. Louis whack it off before it poisoned my whole body. It makes for some pretty tight talking whenever I come into his village. Braid hasn't forgotten his scar a bit, and every time I come in he asks me to wrestle. Oh, and speaking of wrestling, I've got something for you. Won it from Braid yesterday wrestling—he made the mistake of tying one arm behind his back to make the fight more fair. He was too stupid to realize that I get a lot of all kinds of practice with only one arm, so I whipped him pretty easy.”

  As he talked, Mr. Grimes went to his saddle and pulled out a blanket wrapped around something. He carefully unrolled the blanket and handed Francis his rifle, mold, powder, and caps.

  “My rifle!”

  “Yup, and a sweet little shooter she is, too. I knew it was yours when you started telling me about getting it for your birthday. Seeing as how it looks like we'll be riding together for a while—at least until I teach you enough so's you can make Oregon on your own—we'll take a couple of days off and I'll teach you to shoot it.”

  “I can shoot,” Francis said.

  “Well, maybe you can, and maybe you can't. But just reading signs makes your story look thin.”

  “What do you mean?” Francis asked.

  “I mean if you really knew how to shoot that rifle, it wouldn't have been seven Pawnees jumping you that day by the wagon train. It would only have been five, and maybe just four—–and those four would have been thinking seriously about going home without you. That's what I mean.”