Jedediah's Passport by Dennis Doty

THE INDIAN APPEARED IN the middle of the trail. At this distance, Jedediah couldn’t be sure, but to him, he looked to be no more than seven or eight summers old. He sat slouched on a pretty paint pony just watching Jed. Mountain man instincts sent out their alarms, and Jed drew up staring back at him. Cheyenne kid for sure, he thought, noticing the beadwork patterns by habit. Jed raised his hand palm outward in the sign of peace. The kid made no move but continued to stare.

Jed nudged Hoss into a walk. The kid whirled his pony and rode off up the ridge, where he disappeared in the woods and snow. Jed fingered the beading on his buckskin rifle cover thoughtfully. Now, why would that kid show himself like that and then just ride off? It didn’t make no sense. First off, a kid that young wouldn’t be allowed to stray far from camp. That means there’s more Cheyenne close by. Jed pulled the buckskin cover back enough to get his gloved finger on the trigger.

By the time Jed reached the part of the trail where he saw the kid, snow already covered the tracks. He looked hard up the ridge where the kid went but saw nothing. He knew this country too well to try following an Indian in this weather.

“I reckon the others will know we’re here now, old hoss. We better keep an eye out and look for a place to fort up if they come for us.” He moved on down the trail.

Jed’s keen eyesight set his instincts to quivering like a rattlesnake’s tail when he saw movement in a clump of aspen up ahead. He pretended not to notice but wished hard for a cluster of dead-fall or a pile of rocks to crawl into. He didn’t like moving out in the open like this with hostiles about. Whoever it was had already seen him. No point in doing anything about it now. He held Hoss to a slow walk. If my time is up, it sure is a pretty day to die.

A paint pony walked out of the aspen with a kid on its back. What the hell? He must be riding that pony near to death to be that far ahead of me. Jed held Hoss to a walk, searching all the while for a place to make a stand. When he glanced back, he saw the paint pony’s rump disappearing up the ridge. Like sunlight breaking through clouds, it dawned on him.

“Damn,” he said as he jerked his horse off the trail and stopped behind some cedars. He studied his backtrail. Nothing moved, only the falling snow with an occasional soft thump as a clump of snow fell from a branch. That kid must be meant as a distraction. There ain’t no other explanation. Jed waited a full ten minutes while he watched his back-trail for any kind of movement that would mean someone was stalking him.

Nothing.

He turned his horse and rode back to the trail. The kid appeared again, just sitting his pony at the edge of the aspens like he’d never moved in the first place. Jed turned Hoss toward him and kicked him into a trot. When he got almost close enough to see the kid’s face, the kid kicked his pony and disappeared over the ridge.

“Wal, I’ve had ’bout enough of this,” said Jed.

He turned Hoss up the ridge to follow at a sedate walk. Hoss moved slowly, but Jed’s eyes flicked from left to right and back again looking for any sign of an ambush. A greasy queasiness settled in his stomach, and his scalp tingled like all the vermin in his hair suddenly scampered for cover. If this kid is bait, I need to spot the ambush before I ride into it.

“Easy now, Hoss,” he said. “Slow and easy.”

Jed couldn’t make out the kid’s trail in the falling powder. He walked Hoss up the slope, keeping off to one side of a game trail, and in as much cover as he could find. The trail led as straight as the terrain would allow, up and over the ridge. Jed stopped Hoss just before they crested the ridge so that only the top of his head and his eyes would show to anyone waiting on the other side. He searched the woods as far as he could see but found nothing remotely suspicious.

Using every inch of cover, he scurried across the ridge. When he got far enough down the other side so he wouldn’t appear sky-lined to anyone watching from below, he stopped Hoss again for a thorough look around. He watched as a skunk meandered across a small clearing ahead of him. A jay called out for a mate. Everything seemed normal, but Jed was still uneasy.

“Wal, if they’re down thar, I damned sure don’t see ’em.”

Jed slipped the beaded buckskin sheath completely off his rifle and tucked it away. He checked to make sure he had a load in the chamber and powder in the pan.

“Alright, Hoss, here we go.”

He followed the faint trail down the ridge. His eyes constantly swept the landscape and watched

Hoss’s ears. If any danger lurked down there, Hoss would spot it first. Not a twitch. By the time he got down off the ridge, the trail disappeared completely. He stopped again before advancing out of the timber. Where did that kid get off to? No trail to follow. He could have gone either direction. He felt a faint tingling in his nose, then nothing. Slowly, he turned his head back to the right. There. It was just the faintest whiff of smoke. He walked Hoss out of the timber and turned right searching for the source of the smoke smell.

His path took him on a reverse course but one ridgeline over. The snowfall became light and scattered. As the smoke smell grew stronger, Jed grew more cautious. Smoke could only mean man, and out here, man meant enemy. The snow swirled in a gust of icy wind, and he saw it. Just a glimpse, but he saw a torndown lodge with a snow-covered mass in front of it. Cautiously, he pushed on.

In minutes, he entered the devastated camp as a hint of sunlight began peeking through the overcast. It appeared to be a single lodge. The mass in front was obviously a body barely covered with snow. Three arrows stood up out of the snow like survey stakes. Jed slid off Hoss and dropped the reins. He eased back the hammer on his rifle and went to the body. He looked closely at the arrows. Absaroka. Crow. Traditional enemies of the Cheyenne, he thought. Jed hesitated, before turning the body over, knowing what he would find. He looked carefully around, but he saw no sign that the attacking party remained anywhere near. He saw no other living thing in the camp except himself and Hoss. He rolled the body over. Cheyenne, alright. Blood and bone shone brightly in the morning sunlight where the scalp was ripped away. The throat was slit from ear-to-ear. There was a reason the Cheyenne called the Crows the Cut-Throat People.

There was another body with a light coating of snow near the lodge and two more a little further away. Jed went to the near one. He saw before he rolled her over that it was a woman. She was not scalped. The body and the tracks told the story. She started to run away and saw that it would be useless. Rather than be taken alive and raped repeatedly by the hated Crows, she slashed her own throat. She clutched a bloody knife tight in her frozen fist. She fell still wrapped in a buffalo robe.

Put off by what they saw as a cowardly act, the Crows left her where she fell, unmolested. The scalp of a coward held no power.

Jed rolled her over face up. She was a beautiful woman, even in death. Her arm still clutched a bundle of furs she tried to save. The furs moved. There’s something in there. Gently, Jed pried her freezing fingers from the fur bundle. Inside was a baby girl. The sight of her closed eyes and blue lips alarmed Jed. He lifted her up and put his ear to her chest, hearing a very faint and slow heartbeat. She’s alive! Aw, hell. How am I gonna take care of a baby? Wal, I reckon the first thing is to get her warm again, poor thing. She’s ’bout froze to death. Jed held the baby close to him while he built a hat size fire from some mostly dry sticks and bark he found under a dead-fall and a couple of embers that still smoldered from the lodge fire. That’s where the woman was running to. She was gonna try to hide in that dead-fall.

When he got his fire going, Jed scooped some snow into his coffee pot and more into his cook pot to melt and put them on the fire. He took his bedroll off Hoss and spread it out on the snow. He flipped the blanket back and laid the baby on the groundsheet near the fire, then checked her breathing. He couldn’t detect any, so he gently blew into her mouth, then pushed on her chest with his palm. He repeated this process three times, hoping that it was the right thing to do. The baby opened her eyes and mewled weakly.

Jed scooped up a handful of snow and briskly massaged the baby’s arms and legs with it, getting fresh snow as needed. Having done enough to restore circulation and ward off frostbite, he rolled the baby in his blanket, dropped the corner flap over her face, and laid her on his ground sheet close to the fire. He took his knife and hacked some branches, then wove them into a rough lean-to over the ground sheet. He cut a piece of hide from the toppled lodge and built a reflector to throw back the heat from the fire into the lean-to. Finally, satisfied that there was no more he could do for the little girl-child, he added a couple of sticks to his fire and checked the last two mounds under the snow.

The smaller one was a boy about the size of the one he’d seen on the trail. Two arrows protruded from his chest and another from his thigh. He held a small bow. Jed brushed the snow off his face. It was bloody and misshapen where he, too, was scalped and mutilated. It nearly turned Jed’s stomach.

He moved to the larger mound under the snow and started brushing the snow away. It was a horse. No less than a half-dozen arrows stuck in it. It lay belly down, with its forelegs folded under. He continued to brush the snow off until he was sure. Out here, if a man saw a horse just once, he would recognize it anywhere. Yep. There it was—the splotchy paint coloring. What the hell? That cain’t be! Easy, Jed. Worry about it later. He drew his belt knife and cut into the pony’s haunch. He peeled back the frozen hide and cut a fist-sized chunk of lean red meat free. With only a few quick motions, he gutted the pony and removed the still-warm liver. After biting off a chunk, Jed took the meat back and dropped it in the snow near his campfire.

He went to his horse and dug around in the saddlebags, then returned to the fire. Jed moved the baby as close to the fire as he dared, feeling its warmth on his face. He scrubbed the blood off his hands and arms with fresh snow. When his water began boiling, he took the coffee pot off the fire and added some coffee, then put it back, adding a few sticks to the fire. When it boiled again, he poured himself a cup, then pulled out his belt knife again and carved thin slices of horse meat and liver into the cooking pot.

“This’ll prob’ly taste awful, but it’ll give you strength,” he said to the baby. “Help warm you up, too.”

After boiling the mixture again he pulled it aside to cool. He pulled out one of his knit gloves from the pocket of his coat, dipped it in the pot, and held it dripping until it cooled to his satisfaction. He held the still dripping glove over the baby’s face. The baby eagerly sucked on one of the fingers. Wal, that solved that problem. He continued to feed the baby. When she had her fill, and refused more, he scrubbed the glove with snow and hung it near the fire to dry.

Jed gathered a supply of firewood, then cut a large hide loose from the lodge and draped it over his little lean-to shelter. Having secured a water-tight shelter, he scooped most of the snow out from inside and covered the ground with fresh-cut pine boughs to keep it nice and dry. As he worked, his thoughts kept going back to the boy on the pony. He must have wanted to save his sister purty bad. Jed stood up and looked at the two distant mounds.

Taking his ax, he walked off to a small cluster of young pines. He found four that he liked and set about clearing other trees and brush from between them and tossing it aside. He trimmed the lower branches off about a foot from the tree trunks and cut the other branches off close. When he finished, he dragged another hide from the lodge over to the trees and tied it between them as high as he could comfortably reach by standing on the lower branches. Then he trimmed a couple dozen small branches of fall foliage and cut them in four-foot lengths. These he laid along the suspended hide like a corduroy road. Finally, he gently placed the boy on another hide, rolled it around him, and tied it in place. This bundle he carried over and placed on the platform. He climbed down, and removing his hat, said a few words.

“Father, I reckon yo’re kin to his Great Spirit. He was a brave boy what hadn’t ought to a died like this. He’s yours now. Take care of him.” He placed his hat back on his head, went back to the campfire, and poured another cup of coffee.

When he looked up, three Cheyenne warriors stood at the edge of the clearing watching him. They wore paint, and all held spears or war clubs. Jed decided that the best course of action would be to let them make the first move. He could probably take out one, maybe two of them, but if they wanted him, he was a dead man. He reached carefully out in front of him and picked up his cup. Keeping an eye on the warriors, he squatted on his heels and drank his coffee. The warriors stood watching without showing any expression at all.

One of the warriors stepped forward and spoke in what he knew to be Cheyenne. Jed didn’t understand a word of it. When it became obvious that Jed didn’t understand, the warrior turned and called out. A younger warrior came forward and joined him.

The two came closer, and the leader spoke again.

The younger warrior translated for him. “Who are you?”

“Jedediah Marcum.”

“What you do in this land?”

“I’m a trapper.”

The warrior looked at Hoss with Jed’s traps tied behind the saddle. He nodded.

“Je Die Uh—not like this name. I will call you Man Who Traps Fur. Me, Two Bull.” The young warrior translated. “You have coffee?”

Jed reached slowly into his pack and pulled out his spare cup. He handed it to Two Bull and nodded at the coffee pot.

Two Bull filled the cup and took a drink, then picked up the pot Jed used to dip the glove in. He looked, then smelled it. Two Bull wrinkled his nose at the mixture. Jed watched to see what he would do next.

“No beaver here. Why you come?”

Jed felt suddenly very uncomfortable. “The dead boy. He came to me.”

“You lie. He no leave camp.”

This was getting dangerous real fast, but Jed pushed on.“He came to me on that paint pony. I followed them here.”

“He no ride pony of his mother.”

“He did today, over that ridge there. You can check my tracks,” he pointed. “The boy and that paint pony showed themselves three times and headed back this way, so I followed him. He must have known that his sister couldn’t survive for long.”

Two Bull stared hard, searching Jed’s face. Jed stared right back at him.

“Where him sister now?”

Jed slowly reached down and pulled back the edge of his blanket. The little girl looked at them and cooed.

Two Bull called out again. A blanket-wrapped figure stepped from the edge of the woods and walked toward them. How many more are out there? The figure approached, and Jed could see that, although she dressed as a warrior and wore paint, she was definitely a woman. He remembered another old mountain man telling him one time that, among the Cheyenne, women could choose to lead a warrior’s life. She held out her arms for the child. Jed picked the baby up, letting his blanket drop to the ground, and gently handed it to her. She clutched the baby to her breast, pulled her blanket around them both, and stalked back into the woods.

“What was the boy’s name? He was very brave.”

“We do not speak the names of the dead—but, we will honor him.”

“Boy or ghost, I couldn’t say, but he rode like the wind to find help for his sister.”

Two Bull nodded.

“Go,” he signed. “This Cheyenne land. You go.” Then he stepped forward and placed his hand on Jed’s shoulder. He made the sign for friend.

With the economy of movement learned from years in this harsh land, Jed gathered his belongings, tied his bedroll behind his saddle, and turned Hoss north toward the Tetons. Beaver were plentiful around Jackson Hole. It would be as good a place as any for a winter camp.