The Prairie Flower: A Tale of the Indian Border

He wandered about at hazard for many a month, following no precise direction, living by the chase, caring very little where he stopped, or the people with whom chance might bring him in contact. One day, after a long and perilous chase after an elk, which by a species of fatality he could not catch up, he suddenly found himself before a dead horse. He looked around him: no great distance off lay a sword, near which was a corpse, easily recognizable as that of a European by the dress.

Sparrowhawk felt his curiosity excited; with that sagacity peculiar to the Indians, he began ferreting about in every direction. His search was almost immediately crowned with success; he saw, at the foot of a tree, an old man with greyish hair and wild beard, dressed in tattered clothes, and lying motionless. The Indian quickly went up to examine the condition of the stranger, and try to restore him, if he were not dead. The first thing Sparrowhawk did was to lay his hand on the heart of the man he wished to succour. The heart beat, but so feebly, it seemed as if it must soon stop. All the Indians are to a certain extent doctors, that is to say, they possess a knowledge of certain plants, by means of which they often effect really wonderful cures.

While trying to restore the stranger, the Indian examined him attentively. Though his hair was beginning to turn grey, the man was still young, not more than forty to forty-five; he was tall and well-built; his forehead was wide and high; his nose aquiline; his mouth large, and his chin square. His clothes, though in rags, were well cut and made of fine cloth, which plainly showed that he must belong to a better class of society – the reader will understand that these delicate distinctions escaped the notice of the Indian – he only saw a man of intelligent appearance, and on the point of death; and though he belonged to the white race, a race which, like all his countrymen, he detested, and for good reasons – at the sight of such distress, he forgot his antipathy, and only thought of helping him.

Near the stranger there lay, in confusion on the grass, a surgeon's pocketbook, a brace of pistols, a gun, a sabre, and an open book. For a long time Sparrowhawk's efforts met with no success, and he was despairing whether he could raise the dying man to life, when a transient glow suffused his face, and his heart began beating more quickly and strongly. Sparrowhawk made a gesture of delight at this unexpected success. It was almost incredible! This warrior, whose whole life had been hitherto spent in waging war of ambushes and surprises with the whites, and committing the most refined cruelties on the unhappy Spaniards who fell into his hands, now rejoiced at recalling to life this individual, who, to him, was a natural enemy.

In a few minutes the stranger slowly opened his eyes, but he closed them again at once, as the light probably dazzled them. Sparrowhawk did not lose heart, and resolved to carry out a good work so well begun. His expectations were not deceived: the stranger presently opened his eyes again; he made an effort to rise, but was too weak, his strength failed him, and he fell back again. The Indian then gently supported him, and seated him against the trunk of the catalpa, at whose foot he had been hitherto lying. The stranger thanked him by a sign, muttering one word, beber (drink).

The Comanches, whose life is passed in periodical excursions into the Spanish territory, know a few words of that language. Sparrowhawk spoke it rather fluently. He seized the gourd hanging to his saddle bow, and which he had filled two hours before, and put it to the stranger's lips; so soon as he had tasted the water, he began swallowing it in heavy gulps. But the Indian, fearing an accident, soon took the gourd from his lips. The stranger wished to drink again.

"No," he said, "my father is too weak, he must eat something first."

The patient smiled, and pressed his hand. The Indian rose joyfully; took from his provision bag some fruit, and handed it to the man. Through these attentions the stranger was sufficiently recovered, within an hour, to get up. He then explained to Sparrowhawk, in bad Spanish, that he and one of his friends were travelling together, that their horses died of fatigue, while themselves could procure nothing to eat or drink in the desert. The result was, that his friend died in his arms only the previous day, after frightful suffering, and he should have probably shared the same fate, had not his lucky star, or rather Providence, sent him help.

"Good," the Indian replied, when the stranger ended his narrative, "my father is now strong, I will lasso a horse, and lead him to the first habitation of the men of his own colour."

At this proposition the stranger frowned; a look of hatred and haughty contempt was legible on his face.

"No," he said; "I will not return to the men of my colour, they have rejected and persecuted me, I hate them; I wish to live henceforward in the desert."

"Wah!" the Indian exclaimed, in surprise, "has my father no nation?"

"No," he answered, "I am alone, without country, relatives, or friends; the sight of a man of my colour excites me to hatred and contempt; all are ungrateful, I will live far from them."

"Good," the Indian said; "I, too, am rejected by my nation; I, too, am alone; I will remain with my father – I will be his son."

"What?" the stranger ejaculated, fancying he had misunderstood him, "Is it possible? Does banishment also exist among your wandering tribes? You, like myself, are abandoned by those of your race and blood, and condemned to remain alone – alone for ever?"

"Yes," Sparrowhawk said, sorrowfully, bowing his head.

"Oh!" the stranger said, directing a glance of strange meaning toward heaven, "oh, men! they are the same everywhere, cruel, unnatural, and heartless!"

He walked about for a few moments, muttering certain words in a language the Indian did not understand; then he returned quickly to him, and pressing his hand, said, with feverish energy: —

"Well, then, I accept your proposition; our fate is the same, and we ought not to separate again. Victims both of the spite of man, we will live together; you have saved my life, Redskin; at the first impulse I was vexed at it, but now I thank Providence, as I can still do good, and force men to blush at their ingratitude."

This speech was far too full of philosophic precepts for Sparrowhawk thoroughly to understand it; still, he caught its sense, that was enough for him, as he was too glad to find in his companion a man afflicted by similar misfortunes to his own.

"Let my father open his ears," he said; "he will remain here while I go and find a horse for him; there are many manadas in the neighbourhood, and I shall soon have what we want; my father will be patient during Sparrowhawk's absence. I will leave him food and drink."

"Go," the stranger said; and two hours later the Indian returned with a magnificent steed.

Several days were then spent in vagabond marches, though each took them deeper into the desert. The stranger seemed afraid of meeting white men; but with the exception of the story he had told of his narrow escape from death, he maintained an obstinate silence as to his past life. The Indian knew not then who he was, nor why he had ventured so far into the desert at the risk of perishing. Each time Sparrowhawk asked him any details about his life he turned the conversation, and that so adroitly, that the Indian could never bring him back to the starting point. One day, as they were rambling along side by side, talking, Sparrowhawk, who was rather vexed at the slight confidence the stranger placed in him, asked categorically —

"My father was a great chief in his nation?"

The stranger smiled sorrowfully.

"Perhaps," he answered; "but now I am nothing."

"My father is mistaken," the Indian said, seriously; "the warriors of his nation may not have valued him, but he still remains the same."

"All that is smoke," the stranger replied. "The love of country is the greatest and noblest passion the Master of Life has placed in the heart of man – my father had a revered name among his people."

The stranger frowned, and his face assumed an expression the Indian had never seen before.

"My name is a curse," he said, "no one will hear it uttered again; it has been like a brand seared on my forehead by the partisans of the man whom I, humble as I am, helped to overthrow."

Sparrowhawk made a gesture of supreme disdain.

"The chief of the nation must return to his warriors: if he betrays them, they are masters of his scalp," he said, in a firm voice.

The stranger, surprised at being so well understood by this primitive man, smiled proudly.

"In demanding his head," he said, "I staked my own; I wished to save my country. Who can blame me?"

"No one," Sparrowhawk replied, quickly; "every warrior must die."

There was a lengthened silence; Sparrowhawk was the first to break it.

"We are destined," he said, "to live long days together, my father wishes his name to remain unknown, and I will not insist on knowing it; still, we cannot wander about at hazard, we must find a tribe to adopt us, men to recognize us as brothers."

"For what purpose?"

"To be strong and everywhere respected: we owe it to our brothers, as they owe it to us; life is only a loan which the Master of Life makes us, on the condition that it is profitable to those who surround us. By what name shall I present my father to the men from whom we may ask asylum and protection?"

"By any you please, my son; as I am no longer to hear my own, any other is a matter of indifference to me."

Sparrowhawk reflected for an instant.

"My father is strong," he said, "his scalp is beginning to resemble the snows of winter, he will henceforth be called the White Buffalo."

"The White Buffalo; be it so," the stranger answered, with a sigh; "that name is as good as another; perhaps I shall thus escape the weapons of those who have sworn my death."

The Indian, charmed at knowing how henceforth to call his friend, then said to him, joyfully —

"In a few days we shall reach a village of Blood Indians or Kenhas, where we shall be received as if we were sons of the nation; my father is wise, I am strong, the Kenhas will be happy to receive us; courage, old father! this country of adoption will be, perhaps, worth your own."

"France, farewell!" the stranger uttered, in a choking voice.

Four days later they reached the village of the Kenhas, where a friendly reception was given them.

"Well," Sparrowhawk said to his companion, after they had been adopted according to all the Indian rites, "what does my father think? Is he happy?"

"I fancy," the other said, with a melancholy air, "that nothing can restore the exile the country he has lost."

CHAPTER IX

THE MASSACRE

Days, months, years, passed away: the White Buffalo seemed to have completely renounced that country which he was forbidden ever to see again. He had completely adopted Indian customs, and, through his wisdom, had so thoroughly acquired the esteem and respect of the Kenha nation, that he was counted among the most revered sachems.

Sparrowhawk, after giving on many occasions undeniable proofs of his courage and military talents, had gained also a firm and honourable place in the nation. If an experienced chief were required for a dangerous expedition, he was ever selected by the council of the sachems, for they knew that success constantly crowned his enterprises. Sparrowhawk was a man of clear mind, who at once understood the intellectual value of his European friend; obedient to the old man's lessons, he never acted under any circumstances without having taken his advice, and always followed his counsels: hence he speedily began reaping the advantage of his skilful conduct. Thus, when he two years later married a Kenha girl, and when his wife made him father of a boy, he took him in his arms, and presented him to the old man, saying, with great emotion:

"The White Buffalo sees this warrior, he is his son, my father will make a man of him."

"I swear it," the old man replied, firmly.

When the child was weaned, the father kept the promise he had made his friend, and gave him his son, leaving him at liberty to educate the boy as he thought fit. The old man, rejuvenated by the hope of this education, which gave him the chance of making a man after his own heart of this frail creature, joyfully accepted the difficult task. The child received from its parents the name of Natah Otann, a significant name, for it is that borne by the most dangerous animal of Northern America, the grizzly bear.

Natah Otann made rapid progress under the guidance of the White Buffalo. The latter had a few books by him, which enabled him to give his pupil a very extensive education, and make him very learned. Thence resulted the strange circumstance of an Indian, who, while following exactly the customs of his fathers, hunting and fighting like them, and who was now leading his tribe, being at the same time a distinguished man, who would not have been out of place in any European drawing room, and whose great intellect had understood and appreciated everything.

Singularly enough, Natah Otann, on attaining manhood, far from despising his countrymen, brutalized and ignorant as they were, felt an ardent love for them, and a violent desire to regenerate them. From that moment his life had an object, which was the constant preoccupation of his existence – to restore the Indians to the rank from which they had fallen, by combining them into a great and powerful nation. The White Buffalo, the confidant of all the young chief's thoughts, at first accepted these projects with the sceptical smile of old men, who, having grown weary of everything, have retained no hope in the depths of their heart: he fancied that Natah Otann, under the impression of youthful ardour, let himself be carried away by an unreflecting movement, whose folly he would soon recognize. But when able to appreciate how deeply these ideas were rooted in the young man's heart, when he saw him set resolutely to work, the old man trembled, and was afraid of his handiwork. He asked himself if he had done well in acting as he had done, in developing so fully this chosen intellect, which alone, and with no other support than its will, was about to undertake a struggle in which it must inevitably succumb.

He then sought to destroy with his own hands the edifice he had built with so much labour: he wished to turn in another direction the ardour that devoured his pupil, and give another object to his life, by changing his plan. It was too late. The evil was irremediable. Natah Otann, on seeing his master thus contradict himself, defeated him with his own weapons, and obliged him to bow his head before the merciless blows of that logic he had himself taught his pupil.

Natah Otann was a strange composite of good and evil; in him all was in extreme. At times, the most noble feelings seemed to reside in him; he was good and generous; then, suddenly, his ferocity and cruelty attained gigantic proportions, which terrified the Indians themselves. Still, he was generally good and gentle toward his countrymen, who, unaware of the cause, but subject to his influences, feared him, and trembled at a word that fell from his lips, or a simple frown.

The white men, and especially the Spaniards and Americans, were Natah Otann's implacable enemies; he waged a merciless war on them, attacking them wherever he could surprise them, and killing, under the most horrible tortures, those who were so unhappy as to fall into his hands. Hence his reputation on the prairies was great; the terror he inspired was extreme; several times already the United States had tried to get rid of this terrible and implacable foe; but all their plans failed, and the Indian chief, bolder and more cruel than ever, drew nearer to the American frontier, reigned uncontrolled in the desert, of which he was absolute lord, and at times went, fire and sword in hand, to the very cities of the Union to demand that tribute which he claimed even from white men.

We must not be taxed with exaggeration. All we here narrate is scrupulously exact; and if we now and then alter facts, it is only to weaken them. If we uncovered the incognito that veils our characters, many of our readers would recognize them at the first glance, and certify to the truth of our statements.

A terrible scene of massacre, of which Natah Otann was the originator, had aroused general indignation against him. The facts are as follow: —

An American family, consisting of father, mother, two sons of about twelve, a little girl between three and four years of age, and five servants, left the Western States with the intention of working a claim they had bought on the Upper Mississippi. At the period we are writing of, white men rarely traversed these districts, which were entirely left to the Indians, who wandered over them in every direction, and, with a few half-bred and Canadian hunters and trappers, were the sole masters of these vast solitudes. On leaving the clearings, their friends warned the emigrants to be on their guard. They had been advised not to enter into the desert in so small a body, but await other emigrants, who would soon proceed to the same spot; for a caravan of fifty to sixty determined men might pass safe and sound through the Indians.

The head of the American family was an old soldier of the war of independence, gifted with heroic courage, and thorough British obstinacy. He answered coldly, to those who gave him this advice, that his servants and himself could hold their own against all the Prairie Indians; for they had good rifles and firm hearts, and would reach their claim in the face of all opposition. Then he made his preparations like a man whose mind, being made up, admits of no delay, and he started against the judgment of his friends, who predicted numberless misfortunes. The first few days, however, passed quietly enough, and nothing happened to confirm these predictions. The Americans advanced peacefully through a delicious country, and no sign revealed the approach of the Indians, who seemed to have become invisible.

The Americans are men who pass most easily from extreme prudence to the most foolish and rash confidence, and on this occasion were true to their character. When they saw that all was quiet around them, and no obstacle checked their progress, they began to laugh and deride the apprehensions of their friends; they gradually relaxed in their vigilance; neglected the precautions usual on the prairie; and at last almost wished to be attacked by Indians, to make them feel the weight of their arms. Things went on thus for nearly two months; the emigrants were not more than ten days' march from their claim; they no longer thought of the Indians: if at times they alluded to them in the evening, before going to sleep, it was only to laugh at the absurd fears of their friends, who fancied it impossible to take a step in the desert without falling into an ambuscade of the Redskins.

One night, after a fatiguing day, the emigrants went to bed, after placing sentries round the camp, rather to keep wild beasts off than through any other motive; the sentinels, accustomed not to be troubled, and fatigued by their day's labours, watched for a few moments, then their eyelids gradually sank, and they fell asleep. Their awakening was destined to be terrible.

About midnight, fifty Blackfeet, led by Natah Otann, glided like demons in the darkness, clambered into the encampment, and ere the Americans could seize their weapons, or even dream of defence, they were bound. Then a horrible scene took place, the frightful interludes of which the pen is impotent to describe. Natah Otann organised the massacre, if we may be allowed to employ the term, with unexampled coolness and cruelty. The chief of the party and his five servants were stripped and attached to trees, flogged, and martyrized, while the two lads were literally roasted alive in their presence. The mother, half mad with terror, escaped, carrying off her little girl in her arms: but, after running a long distance, her strength failed her, and she fell senseless. The Indians caught her up; imagining her to be dead, they disdained to scalp her; but they carried off the child, which she pressed to her bosom with almost herculean strength. The child was taken back to Natah Otann.

"What shall we do with it?" the warrior asked, who presented it to him.

"Into the fire!" he replied, laconically.

The Blackfoot calmly prepared to execute the pitiless order he had received.

"Stop!" the father cried with a piercing shriek. "Do not kill an innocent creature in that horrible manner. Are not the atrocious tortures you inflict on us enough?"

The Blackfoot hesitated, and looked at his chief; the latter reflected.

"Stay," he said, raising his hand, and addressing the emigrant; "you wish your child to live?"

"Yes!" the father answered.

"Good!" he answered, "I will sell you her life."

The American shuddered at this proposition. "On what terms?" he asked.

"Listen!" he said, laying a stress on every word, and darting at him a glance which made him tremble to the marrow. "My conditions are these. I am master of all your lives; they belong to me; I can prolong or cut them short without the slightest opposition from you; but, I hardly know why," he added, with a sardonic smile, "I feel merciful today; your child shall live. Still, remember this; whatever the nature of the torture I inflict on you, at the first cry you utter, your child shall be strangled. You have it in your power to save her if you will."

"I accept," the other answered. "What do I care for the most atrocious torture, so long as my child lives?"

A sinister smile played round the chief's lips. "It is well," he said.

"One word more."

"Speak."

"Grant me a single favour; let me give a last kiss to this poor creature."

"Give him his child," the chief commanded.

An Indian presented the little girl to the wretched man. The innocent, as if comprehending what was taking place, put her arms round her father's neck, and burst into tears. The latter, frightfully bound as he was, could only bestow kisses on her, into which his whole soul passed. The scene had something hideous about it; it resembled a witches' Sabbath. The five men fastened naked to trees, the children twisting on the burning charcoal, and uttering piercing cries, and these stoical Indians, illumined by the ruddy glow of the fire, completed the most fearful picture that the wildest imagination could have invented.

"Enough," Natah Otann said.

"A last gift, a last remembrance."

The chief shrugged his shoulders. "For what good?" he said.

"To render the death you intend for me less cruel."

"What is it you want?"

"Hang round my daughter's neck this earring, suspended by a lock of my hair."

"Is that really all?"

"It is."

"Very good."

The chief came up, took from the emigrant's ear a ring he wore in it, and cut off with a scalping knife a lock of his hair; then, turning to him with a sardonic laugh, he said —

"Listen carefully. Your companions and yourself are going to be flayed alive; of a strip of your skin I will make a bag to hold the lock of hair and ring. You see that I am generous, for I grant you more than you ask; but remember the conditions."

The emigrant looked at him disdainfully.

"Keep your promises as well as I shall mine: and now begin the torture – you will see a man die."

Things were done as had been arranged; the emigrant and his servants were flayed alive. The emigrant endured the torture with a courage which even the chief admired. Not a cry, not a groan, issued from his bleeding chest; he was made of granite. When his skin was entirely stripped off, Natah Otann went up to him; the unhappy wretch was not yet dead.

"Thou art a man," he said to him. "Die satisfied. I will keep the promise I made thee."

And moved doubtlessly by a feeling of pity for so much firmness, he blew out his brains.

This horrible punishment lasted four hours. The Indians plundered all the Americans possessed, and what they could not carry off they burned. Natah Otann rigidly kept the oath he had made to his victim: as he said, from a strip of his skin, imperfectly tanned, he made a bag, in which he placed the lock of hair, and hung it round the child's neck by a cord also made of his skin. On the homeward road to his village, Natah Otann paid the most assiduous attention to the poor little creature; and, on rejoining the tribe, the chief declared before all that he adopted the girl, and gave her the name of Prairie Flower.