Horrible Harvest

Before any of us could ask, a man, well kept by the dark, come up on us. He was an old to older fella, robust enough, but thick with weather-beaten skin and shaggy hair. He wore layers of tanned hides and furs from various critters. He stepped into the circle of light that come off the campfire, and we got a good look at his sunbaked face. He had him red and gray hair that was a long-tangled mess, but positively well-groomed and short compared to his red beard of a thousand knots. A lump of fur sewn into a crude hat sat atop his flat head.

“You must be Piney,” I said.

He raised his upper lip into a snarl, and I could see no teeth. “I must be nothing. I am he, but I ain’t gotta be.” He stepped closer to the fire. “Who you fellas gotta be?”

“We’re hunters,” I said.

“Hunters? Well, you’re bad at it. I can say that with confidence. Yes, I can.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You passed a herd a buffalo – Just over the ridge. Had a bear on your trail about a week back. Would’ve got to you if I hadn’t got to it first. Rabbit, turkey, marmots – You’ve passed by game like no hunter I’ve ever knowed.”

“We’ve a specific type of game in mind,” Tate said

“Ain’t Sioux is it?”

“No – Of course not.”

“Of course not, nothing. Sioux have been hunting you.”

“What?”

“Got a half dozen – Maybe even six whole entire Indians looking your way right now.”

We scanned the darkness.

“You won’t see a one of them until they want you to see them.”

“Our business isn’t with the Sioux.”

“They don’t see things your way. You’re headed toward Sioux territory. They take that as their business – What sort of provisions you got?”

“What sort?” Douglas said. “Standard provisions.”

“Standard? What’s that mean?”

“We’ve got the sort of provisions one would expect – ”

“No – That word – What does it mean? Standard –”

“Why are you here?”

“Sioux sent me. They’ve been following you for a good three days now. I’m to get your intentions.”

“The Sioux trust you?”

He give a laugh. “Hell, no – Look at me. Would you trust me? Is whisky standard?”

“Why would they send you then?”

“‘Cause I like my head. Keeps my hat on.”

“What in the hell does that mean?”

“Means I live out here. Make my way out here. I need their blessing to do so. I cross them – They take my head – No whisky then?”

“Ain’t that kind of trip,” I said. “Tell them we’re here to fix a problem they’ve been having.”

“Just one? They got more problems than they can count, and they all come from white folks like you – Well, like two of you’s anyhow – I can’t say I ever seen a nigger this far out – ”

“Is that so?” Tate said. “Unfortunately, I see crackers like you all over the place.”

Piney let loose a toothless grin. “Ain’t no cracker like me anywhere but here on this very spot I’m standing – All trips call for whisky – Just so you know.”

“Cameron Miller,” I said. “He’s the problem we’re to fix.”

That got his attention. “Now that is a problem they’d like gone – Got smokes of any kind?”

“Cigars,” Tate said, standing and reaching into his jacket pocket.

“That’ll do – Whisky’d be better, but cigars’ll do – How you figure the three of you are gonna fix Miller?”

Tate approached him and handed him the cigars with his arms extended out far as they could go. Once the cigars were snatched out of his hand, he quick retreated from the godawful smell.

“We know the man.”

He stuffed the cigars inside his shirt. “You know the man? That don’t mean nothing. I know the ladies, but I can’t seem to wrangle one.”

“Maybe if you took a bath,” Douglas said.

“That’s been suggested – More than once but never been trained on it.”

“Trained? It’s soap and water in a big basin of some sort. Step in it. Soap up. Wash off. That’s the extent of the mystery.”

“That’s a lot of steps to commit to memory. I got a hard enough time remembering what I already know – Mulberry wine? You got any of that? You got your supplies in Sioux City, right? They got some mulberry wine – You buy from a fella and his wife – They got livestock out back?”

“We ain’t got mulberry wine. We ain’t got whisky. We ain’t got any goddamn liquor of any sort.”

“‘Cause it ain’t standing – or stand-herd – What was it again – How you plan on finding Miller?”

“You’re going to take us to him.”

“Who to what now?”

“We are going to hire you to take us to Miller.”

“Well, I ain’t got time for that. I got furs to trade – Traps to set. I got a living to make.”

“You’ll be paid.”

“Paid?”

“For your services.”

“I’m a fur trader. Thems my services. You gonna pay me for that?”

“We’re going to pay you for your knowledge,” Tate said.

He give a hell-hardy laugh. “I ain’t never been paid for my knowledges before. Even I can’t say it’s worth much.”

“I’d say it’s worth a hundred dollars.”

He give a squint of his glassy left eye. “A hundred dollars? For my knowledges of what?”

“The territory. The quickest way to Cameron Miller.”

He give my offer some thought. “You know you’re paying me to get yourself dead, right?”

“What comes of us when we find him will be on us, not you.”

“I don’t care much what happens when you find him. I just wanna make sure you pay me before you get yourself dead.”

I reached into my haversack and pult out a small wad of folded bills. “It’s yours soon as you tell your Sioux friends our intentions.”

He took in a deep breath through his nose and managed to suck in a clump of beard hairs into his left nostril. He quickly lifted the back of his hand to his nose and wiped the itch away. “You know there’s a mountain of mean just to get to Miller. He’s got stacks of wickeds running bad for him. They’ve kilt Federals, Sioux, whores, tykes from knee-high to chin-scrapers. It don’t make a damn to them. They’s savages – ‘Cept the Lakota don’t see them as they’s. They’s an it. Not many, but one, and that one is wah-kahn shee-chah. The Devil.”

“Your point being?”

“Miller ain’t but a part of the one. How you gonna make your way through the rest?”

“We’ve got us a list of those we plan to remove from the living, and we’ll take out any others that get in our way. We ain’t got no plans to go beyond that. We can’t take out all the one, but we’ll take its head and heart. That’s for fucking sure. You tell the Sioux that.”

He give a grin. “I think they just might like to hear that.”

With that, he up and disappeared into the inky savanna to our backs.