Owen Wister

“ While we steered the pack-horses through and over the wretched net of cross timber that lay like traps and puzzles upon the Sheridan Trail, I suggested the idea to George. What if we should meet the skull watching us from the limb of a tree? Though it had lived so long under water, it might still be able to breathe air. These inventions did not interest George; he merely remarked that Sun Road seemed less scared since our halt at the soldiers’ cabin. ”

“ A little silence followed, and behind me a liquid gulp sounded as one of the big bubbles rose with an influx from the depths of the pool and broke.
Sun Road made a gesture. “This my son Dick.”
I stepped forward to shake hands, but the child shrank from me.
Sun Road spoke quickly. “He never go school yet. Go soon, maybe one snow, maybe two snows.”
I nodded to the little fellow in as friendly a fashion as I knew, but he would not look at me; his eyes were upon his father.
“He big boy pretty soon,” continued his father. “Go school, learn heap books, come back, take you hunting. ”

“ But they took more than elk and buffalo away, they carried children whose fathers they had killed. Must these boys grow to men and raise enemies to their people, must these girls be slaves and tan the deer hide for their masters and bear their seed? The Shoshones waited, making believe they had no more warriors. Then the Blackfeet returned. Up among the hills of Warm Springs the Shoshones jumped from hiding and surrounded the enemy, and soon the last few fell back, and fell back, and hid in the geyser cave. ”

“ One was riding my way; and keeping pace with him bobbed a little boy whose legs did not reach half down his pony’s side. With a slow gesture the Indian’s right arm now and then lifted a little as it hung slack and came down again as he lightly used his quirt. I recognized Sun Road.
Sun Road was the eldest son of a chief, and heir to nothing any more save the extinction of his race because it lay in the path of my own. A small herd of horses was his worldly goods, and when the chance came he was glad to earn fifty dollars a month for taking tenderfeet like me where big game could be found. ”

“ Set ’em up another, make ’em happy as you can——”
and the contemptible Calico instantly dashed up a hill. “She’s temperance!” I yelled as I made after her.
This was our only commotion that afternoon or next day, but it or my song had set Sun Road to singing himself. From where he ambled in the lead I could catch casual pieces of his strange melodies; it was more as if nature were chanting.
The feel of the mountains was coming in the air. “He’ll be making medicine for elk some morning now,” said George. ”

“ They’re just as different in character as white men. Tighee has always had an intelligence which helps him to be in the lead, but Sun Road has nothing but his native force that makes him respected. He is simple—you saw how badly he lied—and in his heart he holds closer to the old things, for all that he has been to school and wants his boy to go.”
“Let’s you and me go alone,” repeated George Tews. “I’m a pretty good hunter myself and you’re a pretty good packer. We'll make it all right.” ”

“ I resumed.
“Every so often he does, though he’d never say why or when, or speak of it. When I get up to go after the horses, he’s always out of camp already. He makes it seem as if he had been catching up his own horse. And it’s true he always does that. But that’s not all of it.”
We wound onward through the stones and the sage-brush, while the sun shone high over the pale open distance across Wind River.
We nooned beside the cool torrent of Dinwiddie, and while George and I were throwing off the packs—Sun Road never touched any but his own—my thought reverted to the Indian. ”

“ No change touched the Indian’s great face and he repeated quietly:
“Plenty other men take you hunting.”
“Who?”
“Tighee know that country.” He was another Shoshone Indian, well-known to me.
“Tighee,” interposed George Tews, “has got a job at the post.”
“Paul La Rose take you,” said Sun Road. He was a half-breed whom I also knew well.
But Paul La Rose was already engaged to guide another party up the North Fork of Wind River. There really was no one else available. I had come about two thousand miles for this month of holiday, and in desperation I spoke. ”

“ You don’t think you made him angry about Bull Lake?”
“Angry, no! He’ll say something when he has it to say. He’s just enjoying life now—only he does it more like a tree than you and I know how to.”
“Sun Road,” said I as we sat on the ground at_our luncheon, “is it too far to make camp on the river below Red Cañon and the Blue Holes?”
“Yes, that’s good camp. We make it.”
“Because I want to fish this evening.”
“That’s good.”
“And tomorrow we'll ford above there because it’s easier fishing on the other bank. I'll start ahead and have trout fried for your luncheon at our nooning place. ”

“ They see water too late, they want to stop but other buffalo behind not see water, only want to run away from Indians; so those big bull buffalo that lead the herd they get pushed and they go over edge and fall in water deep down. They never come out again. Can’t get on top of water any more. Can’t see daylight any more. So big bull buffalo all blind in bottom lake they mourn for daylight some time. When they do that you hear noise come out of lake.”
George Tews finished, and Sun Road did not move; he continued to smoke. “How about that, Sun Road?” asked George. ”

“ When all in the cave were dead, the Shoshones went to the camp of the enemy and brought their children back to their own people.”
“That is a good song, Sun Road,” said I; and I wondered if the Indian piety that in him was so living, was already as strong in little Dick, his son. “Can Dick sing that?” I inquired.
“Dick?” Sun Road repeated, at a loss. “My boy Dick?”
“Yes.”
“I not teach Dick songs. He go school pretty soon. Learn white man songs.”
If all of Sun Road’s generation were letting it die thus with themselves—well, that was best. ”

“ After those photographs and that young girl he dressed in all the splendor he had brought with him and hid no longer from tourists. Through Kingman Pass, by Obsidian Cliff, at Norris Basin, through the Gibbon Meadows and up the Fire Hole River, wherever we passed camping parties or stages, the screams and cameras now made him sit straighter. He rode imperturbable by the steam and the pools and strange formations which increased as we drew nearer to the Upper Geyser Basin.
Through this belt the earth grew unearthly. ”

“ It’s our reasons for our feelings that are different from his. Did you ever want to kill a man?”
“Several times.”
“Did you ever do it?”
“Not so far!”
“Neither have I. My reasons stop me. Sun Road hasn’t got some of those. When he was about twenty he went on a hunt for winter meat with some other Indians, and one of them was careless with his gun, pointing it around promiscuous in camp. Sun Road spoke to him. Spoke to him twice. One day the fellow accidentally shot Sun Road in the leg while he was dressing an elk. Sun Road jumped up and put a bullet through his heart.” ”

“ Pack-horses maybe get sore backs. We make Horse Creek in two drives.”
When the saddles were on again and we were ready to start, Sun Road said this: “You take lead now. You know trail.”
His face and voice were very friendly, it was like a dignity conferred, and I flushed with pleasure; but next day as we journeyed on after our nooning beyond Torrey Creek I was careful to resume my customary place behind the feeble-minded Calico. No one spoke for several miles; then George Tews imparted to me a flattering fact. ”

“ Those two he mentioned, Tighee and Paul La Rose, go there with parties.”
“A superstition takes a long while to die,” said the post trader. “In Jim Bridger’s time none of them would go near. it. They said it was the home of devils and believed that the geysers were the open doors that let the devils out on earth.” ”