Ridgeline: A Novel

Part One

JULY 12, 1866

Crazy Horse and the two other young Oglala covered the last few yards to the ridgeline on their bellies, horses hobbled for the moment below them on the hillside. They propelled themselves forward with knees and elbows, bows across their forearms, peering through the few clumps of sage and shortgrass that could grow on the dry hilltop. Crazy Horse could smell the dryness and feel the heat rising up from the earth as it breathed beneath him.

As the valley below revealed itself, his heart soared, and he forced himself to pause, scanning vigilantly from horizon to horizon, making certain he overlooked no danger. He glanced briefly to his left, at Lone Bear, and his friend smiled. Crazy Horse looked to his right at Little Hawk, his brother, still a boy of thirteen, beaming in excitement and anticipation.

Little Hawk spoke in a whisper. "Hexaka nais tatanke?" The elk or the buffalo?

It was good to have such a choice. Crazy Horse studied the scene and considered their options.

The Shining Mountains formed the far western horizon, their pine-covered flanks a rich green against the bleached, late summer grasses of the valley. Water, pure as the heart of the earth, bubbled up from alpine fonts and spilled off the mountains, so much that this valley, the valley of the Twin Creeks, held two streams, each cutting a serpentine path through the low ground before eventually flowing together. Thick willow stands spread outward from the water’s edge. Moose often fed in such willowy valleys, and as Crazy Horse watched, a big bull lifted his head from the water at a bend in the nearer of the two creeks. Crazy Horse took it as a good sign. He remembered seeing a bull moose on the day, twelve years ago, when High Backbone, his uncle, first brought him to this valley.

They had come to hunt then, too—and for High Backbone to teach Crazy Horse how to select the best willows for making arrows. They had crawled up to this very ridge, and the scene before them on that day was as it had been on a dozen hunts since, and as it was today. There was a reason their fathers and their grandfathers had fought the Shoshone and the Crow to hunt these lands.

Crazy Horse counted the elk, stopping at fifty, the animals strung along the creek. He watched the slight, bobbing bend of the grass and felt the whisper of a breeze in his face. The nearest elk were only a couple hundred yards down the hillside, including a fat calf that was perfect for their needs. The calf, though, was three times the distance a man could shoot an arrow, and there was little cover between them. If they attempted to creep forward, it was almost certain that one of the elk would spot them and set the herd in flight.

He turned his attention to the buffalo. The small herd of twenty or so animals was more distant—a half mile to their right. The buffalo still wore their summer hides, hair mangy and mottled except where it thickened at the foreleg and shoulder. As snows approached, the hides would grow dense, the rich and heavy robes that kept lodges warm in the coldest nights of winter.

They were not hunting for robes today, nor the supply of meat that would sustain the tribe through the long months of winter. The Oglala village was two days away on the Tongue River, too far to carry meat in any quantity. Big hunting parties would return to this valley and others like it in the Moon of the Rutting Deer. Crazy Horse, of course, was gathering knowledge that would help him to guide the others when that time arrived. These buffalo, he knew, were a small part of a far greater herd. They had seen the massive swathe cut by thousands of animals moving northward, hewing to the grassy foothills and many creeks that tumbled off the eastern side of the Shining Mountains.

Crazy Horse always had found his moments of greatest peace in places such as this. Since the time he was barely older than Little Hawk, Crazy Horse had ridden away from the village, gone alone for weeks or even months at a time. His parents had worried at first, as parents always worry, but they came to understand that to be apart from the tribe was a part of their son’s spirit. High Backbone advised Crazy Horse’s father that such a spirit was a sign of strength. It was obvious that Crazy Horse was different, his skin and hair lighter than the others’ in his tribe, but such differences should be seen as marks of distinction. When Crazy Horse rode away from the village, explained High Backbone, he was not rejecting his place within the tribe but, rather, seeking answers to questions that most people didn’t know to pose.

When Crazy Horse chose not to be alone, Lone Bear was the person most likely to join him. Of Lone Bear’s many attributes, the one Crazy Horse appreciated the most was his quiet steadiness. They could go for hours without talking, both perfectly comfortable, a testament to their bond. When Lone Bear did speak, he had given careful thought to his words, and Crazy Horse knew to listen.

Will we take the elk? Little Hawk whispered the question, staring expectantly at his brother.

Crazy Horse started to upbraid him. Unlike Lone Bear, Little Hawk spoke a lot, even accounting for his youthful enthusiasm and curiosity. His younger brother did not yet appreciate that the best way to learn was to watch, to observe patiently. Then Crazy Horse thought of High Backbone, how the old warrior answered most questions with a question of his own. What will happen if we try?

Crazy Horse watched Little Hawk wrestle with the question. It pleased him that his brother paused before answering, and he could see him walk through the hunt in his head.

Probably one of the old cows will see us … or catch our scent before we get close.

Crazy Horse nodded, but otherwise let Little Hawk continue to think it through.

Little Hawk studied the distant buffalo. Most of the small herd grazed down in the taller grass near the creek, but two calves stood farther up the hillside, close to their mother as she wallowed in a deep bowl just below the ridge. Dust rose from the wallow as she coated herself with the dry earth, smothering the fleas that vexed her in the summer heat.

With the buffalo, we could creep behind the ridgeline until we are close, then ride over, almost on top of them. The younger brother watched for approval in his older brother’s reaction, but Crazy Horse remained impassive.

Little Hawk took a bit of dust in his fingers and threw it up in the air in front of his face. It drifted back toward him. The wind favors us.

After staring at the buffalo for a few more moments, Crazy Horse nodded again and gave his brother a small smile of encouragement. Then, still on his belly, Crazy Horse pivoted and began to work his way back down the hillside toward the horses.

A few moments later, the three Oglala huddled, holding on horseback a short distance below the ridge, out of sight from the three buffalo near the wallow on the opposite side.

When we go, we go fast, Crazy Horse said to his brother. Pick the closest calf and stay on it. Wait to shoot until you’re close … then drive the arrow deep.

Little Hawk hesitated. How close when you loose the arrow?

Crazy Horse studied his brother, knowing he knew well the answer. Little Hawk had never killed a buffalo, but in the days since leaving the village, the boy had asked every question imaginable about the hunt, including this one. For an instant, Crazy Horse started to show his frustration, but he paused instead and found himself thinking again about High Backbone, appreciating more and more that, among the many other things he admired about his teacher, the old warrior was patient.

Crazy Horse swung his leg over his horse’s neck and dropped lightly to the ground. He called the mustang North Star for the shape of the patch that covered one eye and a part of her forehead. Crazy Horse had stolen the mare from the Shoshone three summers ago, and while there were other mounts calmer in battle, he had never ridden a horse with more skill at running buffalo. He stepped toward Little Hawk and handed North Star’s braided reins to his brother.

You ride North Star today … She’ll show you what to do.

Crazy Horse watched the surprise and confidence that came over Little Hawk’s face, as if he had been suddenly bestowed a magical power. Every boy in the village coveted the horse, and Little Hawk barely paused before jumping eagerly to the ground, grabbing North Star’s mane, and scrambling up onto the animal’s back.

Hold tight with your knees and let her run, said Crazy Horse. Set loose your arrow when she tells you the moment has arrived.

Crazy Horse mounted Little Hawk’s horse. He pulled an arrow from his quiver, quickly checking the fletching before notching it to his bowstring. Little Hawk mimicked his moves, and Lone Bear already was prepared. Without a word, Crazy Horse dug hard at his horse’s flanks, and the animal charged over the ridgeline, Little Hawk and Lone Bear on either side.

Between the cover of the ridge and the favorable wind, the cow and her calves had barely an instant to react to the charging hunters. The cow, despite her size, was surprisingly agile and fleet. In a heartbeat, she took flight, the two calves on her tail. They broke to the right, giving Crazy Horse and Little Hawk the clearest line. As they clamored across the wallow, the musky scent of the cow filled Crazy Horse’s nose, and he could taste the dust from the great cloud kicked up as she pounded out her retreat.

They came quickly upon a rocky outcropping, and the cow and the larger calf broke even harder to the right to avoid it. Crazy Horse watched in satisfaction as North Star, slightly ahead of him, barreled after the two animals, closing the distance but still out of range. The smaller calf stumbled at the outcropping, only slightly, but enough that a gap emerged between it and the other two. In confusion, the second calf veered away from the cow and toward the creek, where the main herd had also retreated.

Crazy Horse’s pony barreled after the second calf. He could tell from the horse’s sure movements that it was well trained, and he knew to trust its instincts, dropping the reins, needing both hands for the bow, relying completely on the pony to pick the path.

With dust now obscuring more of his vision, Crazy Horse focused on the sound of the pounding hooves. For short bursts, both the calf and the horse would find momentary rhythms—bu-darump … bu-darump—but then the uneven terrain would upset the flow, so that the pounding became irregular, more urgent somehow, building toward the moment of consummation.

The horse closed now on the second calf, and as Crazy Horse pressed his knees to hold the animal tight, he could feel its straining muscularity. Though lacking some of the skill of North Star, the horse was fleet, and Crazy Horse admired the animal’s ability to place him alongside the calf. The horse devoured the gap between them and the calf, until Crazy Horse found himself beside the animal, almost close enough to touch it.

Launching an arrow from a bow was an act that Crazy Horse had repeated tens of thousands of times in his life, beginning with the tiny weapons made for small boys. He drew his breath as he pulled back on the bowstring, and as the resistance from the stout bow grew, he added strength from different parts of his body—arms then shoulders, upper chest then stomach, upper legs and then, Crazy Horse had always believed, he drew a final measure of strength from his charging horse. By the time the bow came to full draw, holding tight for a moment to aim, Crazy Horse and his horse had come together in a mass of taut muscle, poised for the arrow’s launch.

The fluidity with which Crazy Horse shot a bow made the act seem wholly instinctive, yet every step had been taught, and he never aimed down the shaft of an arrow without hearing the voice of High Backbone telling him to make his target small. Don’t aim at the buffalo, he would say. Aim at a piece of hair.

The calf’s coat still carried the reddish hue of its youth, and Crazy Horse focused his gaze. The pony and the calf careened, a few feet apart, across uneven terrain at full gallop. Crazy Horse ignored everything but a tiny patch of bare hide below the buffalo’s front shoulder blade. Bury the arrow in that spot, Crazy Horse knew, and it would pierce the heart.

For an instant, the whole earth became an infinitesimal target in this one time and place, poised at the tip of his arrow. It all aligned … perfect.

Suddenly, from his right, Crazy Horse heard a whoop and caught an auburn flash. Little Hawk had brought down his calf.

Crazy Horse sat upright and released the tension in the bow without loosing the arrow. They had no need for two calves. The horse’s blood was up, though, and Crazy Horse needed a hand on the rein to pull the animal away from the buffalo. Finally, the horse turned, and Crazy Horse watched the small calf clamber free, down the hillside, bawling as it joined the retreating herd by the creek.

Breathing heavily from the exhilaration, Crazy Horse turned to look at Little Hawk, several hundred yards away on the hillside, sitting atop North Star next to the heap of the big calf dead on the floor of the prairie. My brother’s first buffalo!

The feast Crazy Horse shared later that afternoon with Little Hawk and Lone Bear should have seen his unbridled joy continue. They completed together the ceremony of dressing the animal, taking the hide and the meat before ending by facing the head to the east so that the buffalo’s spirit would always be warmed by the rising sun.

They let Little Hawk eat most of the liver in honor of his kill, but there was plenty for all of them to gorge on the sweet, tender meat. With buffalo chips, they built a small fire in the soft grass near the creek, sitting for hours, roasting meat on shaved willow sticks, enjoying the contentment of a full belly and listening to Little Hawk describe the details of a moment that he would recount for all his life. Lone Bear and Crazy Horse told the stories of their own first kills, and other stories, too, stories of hunting and war, stories of their people. They were serious at moments that demanded it, but more often, that day, they laughed together. When they were fully sated, they used the hide and fashioned a crude parfleche to carry the meat that remained, enough to feed them for days if need be.

Crazy Horse was careful to do nothing that might detract from his brother’s moment, but several times he looked up to meet Lone Bear’s inquisitive eyes. His friend knew him well, a fact Crazy Horse appreciated above almost all things. Crazy Horse struggled hard to keep the two rivers of his thoughts inside their own banks, to focus as he did when he aimed at the kill spot on a running buffalo. Yet, try as he might, he could not keep the streams from coming into confluence.

Yes, his purpose in this sacred valley was to hunt, to teach his little brother the ways of the tribe, to wander the land, and to harvest, as needed, its bounty. But there was another purpose … one that made his heart heavy with questions and fear. How could he revel fully in this day when all that it represented was at risk?

SAME DAY

Jim Bridger squinted a bit as he looked up toward the ridgeline, close now, the crest backlit by setting sun. His old mare paused a moment, tired after the long climb up the low foothill. Bridger hated to stop so close to the top, but the mare had earned a brief respite. He stroked her neck and patted her. Good girl … You catch your breath.

Just ahead of Bridger was the big pine he’d been using to orient. The valley of the Powder River was still dry this far south, so trees stood out, especially one so tall. Trees like this even earned names sometimes, Lone Pine or Bent Pine or Twin Pine. This tree didn’t have a name, at least not one he’d given it. But he’d seen it from a distance before and was curious now to see it up close.

He reckoned it was a hundred feet tall and probably a dozen feet around its base. Its deeply textured bark was copper brown, like the summer coat on a whitetail. The base was blackened by a long-ago prairie fire, but Bridger knew the outer skin was a full five inches thick, and a grass fire would hardly stunt it. He studied the pine’s other scars, massive branches torn away by relentless winds, holes bored by beetles and birds. Bridger admired the sap that the big tree spit out to heal itself, scabbing over its wounds from within.

As Bridger craned his neck to see the top of the pine, it occurred to him that the tree was not yet tall enough to see beyond the ridge. He wondered if it would grow to crest the butte before it died, and he hoped it would. How long had the old tree been alive? he wondered. Hundreds of years, he guessed. A long time to strive for a glimpse into the next valley and whatever lay beyond.

Jim Bridger was sixty-two years old that year, at least according to the ciphering by one of Carrington’s young soldiers. That seemed about right, though Bridger had never kept close track of such things. The Shoshone he had lived with for the better part of a decade kept only loose count of years, and they seemed to get along just fine without a precise tabulation. Besides, it sounded old when somebody said his age out loud. There were plenty of days when he felt it. Certainly there were enough other measurements to remind him of the passage of time. He missed the sharpness of his younger eyes, felt the cold sink deeper into his bones, wished he could still mount his horse without the pain that shot outward from his knees and shoulders and neck.

But the ledger had two sides. It was a relief not to worry any longer about puffing up his chest for the benefit of others. He found himself treasuring small glimpses of life that as a younger man he might have galloped right past. And there were still plenty of ridgelines to keep him wondering.

He pressed his heels gently against the mare’s flanks and felt the same stir of excitement he always did as he approached the top of a butte. In Bridger’s time on the frontier, he had crested ridgelines to discover danger—looming storms, grizzly bears, whole villages of hostile Indians spread out in the valley below. Sometimes the far side of the ridge held disappointment—fearsome mountains blocking the path ahead, a swollen river with no sign of a ford, painful emptiness at moments he’d been hopeful of eyeing the warm fire of a friend. In the grandest milestones of his life, Bridger had crested ridgelines to find pure wonder—his first glimpse of the Rockies after a boyhood knowing only plains, herds of buffalo so large that the whole earth seemed to breathe with their movements, a shimmering lake without horizon, so vast that Bridger had believed it to be the ocean. Some things he had seen before any white man in all of time.

Bridger halted the mare and dismounted just before the top, thankful for the gentle headwind that kept his scent from announcing his arrival. He moved forward slowly, keeping his profile low until he knew what lay beyond. The mare flared her nostrils, testing the breeze, and Bridger studied her reaction. She stared back at him, unperturbed, and her big eyes made him smile.

He crested the ridge, and what he saw still took his breath away. The whites called them the Big Horns, but Bridger liked the Sioux name better: the Shining Mountains. With the setting sun now behind their peaks, they glowed amid a crazy wash of colors that had always struck Bridger as regal, or even divine—purples and pinks and blues spilling one into another, all cut through with streaking golden light, radiating outward from the sun as if it were resisting the attempt to drag it below the horizon.

As a young man, Bridger remembered gazing up at the Big Horns with an intoxicating mix of anticipation and terror. He couldn’t wait to clamber across the peaks, barely looking as he went along, so excited to see what came next.

He still felt some of that excitement, though today he knew the Big Horns as intimately as he had once known the twenty acres of his father’s small Missouri farm. He knew the Absorkees, too, and the Wind River Range, and the Tetons. He knew the mountains of the Three Forks—the Gallatins and the Madison Range and the Tobacco Roots. He knew the mountains in Utah, and the mountains in California. Amazingly, to Bridger, there were mountains now named for him. Bridger couldn’t read, but an officer at Fort Laramie had shown him a map, printed in an actual book, showing mountains in Montana with his name written in letters across the whole range. It made him proud but also uncomfortable, and he hoped no one would ever think he was one of those people who went around scratching his own name on things.

Indeed, if there was one emotion that the mountains evoked as he grew older, it was humility. Looming peaks would always provide a welcome dash of the unknown, but more and more the mountains comforted Bridger for their timeless constancy, their steady presence, an anchor against the decades. They made him feel small, reminded him he was small, reminded some others who needed the reminding. He liked the idea that the mountains would carry on, long after the petty snarling of the day to day.

The mare snorted, and Bridger lowered his eyes from the lofty heights of the Big Horns. Three mounted Indians emerged suddenly from a coulee and rode directly toward him at a distance that Bridger guessed was no more than four hundred yards. He cursed himself for letting his guard down, philosophizing.

For an instant he considered flight, but they were too close, and the cover in this country too poor. So instead, Bridger put on the best show of confidence he could muster. He stood staring at the riders, letting them close another hundred yards, relieved that they appeared to be carrying only bows and no rifles. He made a show of pulling his Hawken from its sheath, checking instinctively to make sure the priming cap was firmly fixed. It was an old muzzle-loader, but Bridger knew how to use it and could still kill comfortably at a hundred yards.

Hawken in hand, he mounted, letting the mare walk slowly toward the approaching riders, now clearly identifiable as Sioux.

Bridger closed to a distance of thirty yards, close enough to sign, and then reined to a halt. He made sure they could see the pistol at his belt, a six-shot army Colt. They knew, of course, that they could kill him, but they would also know he’d kill one or two of them. He doubted that any of them wanted to die ingloriously at the hand of a grizzled old man, so at least he had that in his favor.

He studied the three Sioux. One was barely more than a boy, but the other two were young warriors, and unafraid in a way that suggested to Bridger that they probably had reason to be confident. Being married to a Shoshone woman, he knew the Sioux as the enemy, though he respected them for their skill as hunters and warriors. Besides, this was the heart of their land. He wondered if they recognized him, and it wasn’t out of arrogance. Though the frontier was vast, the number of its inhabitants was still small. After decades out West, he was known. During the recent peace talks at Fort Laramie, he had met most of the chiefs and even translated for the Shoshone. Thick Neck, the Indians called him, for the orange-sized goiter at his collar, another of those badges of growing old.

The Sioux talked to one another in low voices, seeming to defer to the man in the middle. Bridger didn’t recognize any of them from Fort Laramie, and none were old enough to be chiefs. The one in the middle stood out, lighter-skinned than the others, and with wavy hair more brown than black. There was something about him that gave Bridger particular pause—a quiet authority, a pensiveness that projected careful thought. Bridger decided not to give him too much time to form a negative impression. He reached into his saddlebag and pulled out a rope of tobacco, holding it out and nudging the mare forward. He rode directly to the light-skinned Sioux and reached out with the tobacco. The young warrior studied Bridger intently, his eyes penetrating. For a ponderous moment, Bridger wondered if one of them might move to kill him. But then the light-skinned Sioux accepted the tobacco and said something to the others. One of them dug out a buffalo tongue from a parfleche tied to the back of his pony and extended it toward Bridger. Bridger nodded and accepted it.

Bridger signed, pointing at the men and then motioning with his hand in a broad circle. Where are you going?

The light-skinned Sioux signed back. Hunting.

Bridger considered this response for a moment. It was possible, of course. Young Indian men were pretty much always hunting. More likely, though, was that these three were scouting for Red Cloud. The movement of Carrington’s column was no mystery, so the Sioux would be here to learn the details. How many soldiers? How many horses and cattle? Did Carrington bring cannon?

The light-skinned Sioux signed again, pointing first to Bridger, and then making the sign for soldier. Are you with them?

Bridger nodded. No sense lying. As a scout, he wore no uniform, but they knew he was with the army. To say otherwise would only hurt his credibility. In Bridger’s experience, people respected you more if you told them the truth, even if they didn’t like what you said.

The light-skinned Sioux emphatically pointed to the ground, then pointed to himself and the other warriors, then made the sign for Sioux. The meaning seemed pretty clear.

Bridger just nodded in reply. He didn’t have the words to debate it, even if he had wanted to do so. It wasn’t about debate anymore, in any event, but he didn’t know how to sign that either.

The light-skinned Sioux signed again. He pointed over the horizon, where Bridger knew Carrington’s column was inching its way up the valley of the Powder. The Sioux again made the sign for soldier, then crossed his arms at his wrists. Then he pointed to the distant east. Signing was never precise, but Bridger took the meaning. Tell them to go back.

Bridger stared at the Sioux, declining to react.

The Sioux leader said something to his comrades, quietly but with authority. They nudged their ponies, pivoted to the south, and rode away.

Bridger watched them for a while. They stayed below the ridgeline, keeping the foothills between them and the valley. After a few minutes, Bridger rode back up to the top of the hill, peering southward down the Powder.

In the distance he saw a rising plume of dust from Carrington’s column. He calculated that the soldiers were five miles behind him, two hours or more if he waited for them to catch up, plodding along with infantry and wagons. It would be dark by then, and Bridger knew they needed an hour to pitch their tents, tend to stock, and set pickets. He decided to ride back and meet them. They were close to good water at a little spring creek he knew. Besides, they needed extra time today to talk.

In the three weeks since leaving Fort Laramie they had seen nothing more dangerous than a pack of wolves. Bridger had warned Carrington and the other officers about the rising risks as they ascended the Powder, even scolded a group of officers in front of their wives when he found them picnicking in a small canyon away from the main column, shooting off pistols for the sole purpose of hearing the canyon’s echo. He knew they resented him, but he didn’t care. Better to ruffle a few feathers than wait until it was too late.

SAME DAY

Colonel Henry Carrington, commander of the Second Battalion, Eighteenth US Infantry, heard the high pitch of a buffalo gnat near his ear and swatted at it. The gnat escaped and then, undeterred, resumed its attack.

Colonel Carrington sat atop a tall gray horse at the crest of a ridge in the broad valley of the Powder River, flanked on either side by a captain, also mounted. Like all his junior officers, the man to his left, Captain Tenador Ten Eyck, had a distinguished record as a fighter in the Civil War. But it was Ten Eyck’s civilian career that Colonel Carrington valued most. Before the war, Ten Eyck had been both a sawyer and a surveyor, jobs that made him good with machines and gave him a keen eye for maneuvering through a landscape where obstacles seemed to pop up like prairie dogs.

Captain Ten Eyck removed his kepi and used a soiled handkerchief to wipe at the sweat that poured through the thin strands of hair pasted against his skull. Do you think, Colonel, that the officers might take off their coats?

The officer on the other side of Carrington, Captain William Fetterman, looked on hopefully, happy that Ten Eyck had voiced the very question he had been thinking. Fetterman, in his early thirties, was younger than Ten Eyck. Fetterman’s dark sideburns dipped southward a good distance down his cheeks and then connected east and west via a thick mustache. Carrington’s wife told him that the women in their party considered Fetterman attractive, and speculated that it would not be long before he married one of the ten laundresses who accompanied the Second