Summary: Ben’s attempt to escape his misery at Marie’s death leads him to an appreciation of another kind of sorrow.

Rating:  G  (3,725 words)

 

A Sense of Something Greater

Cigarette smoke hung in musty clouds over the heads of the men who were gathered together in the Sutler’s store of Fort Bridger. They either sat at the tables deep in conversation, playing cards or checkers, or were leaning upon the counter talking, drinking and generally using up their leisure time. Occasionally a loud laugh would rise about the general sound of voices, or someone would shout above the racket to be heard by another on the far side of the room.

 

At one table Ben Cartwright and several other men were deep in conversation. Their voices were not overly loud and their general demeanour was that of a group of men relaxed in one another’s company. One of the men was smoking heavily on a rolled up cigarette and another was drawing heavily on a pipe, sending plumes of smoke billowing ceiling wards to drift into the thicker clouds that clung to the rafters.

 

“Cartwright?”

 

The Officer’s voice was crisp and impersonal, and cut through the mumble of sound as effectively as a sword could cut through butter. Ben Cartwright glanced up from where he sat and watched as the Officer approached him. The man was florid faced, narrow eyed and had greasy hair swept back from a low forehead. The dust from his journey clung to him in patches of yellow and grey, evidence of several days hard riding. The hic cup of silence that his voice had created ended as each man there returned to the conversations they were holding before the interruption had occurred, leaving it to Ben and the Officer to commence their own.

 

Ben did not address the Officer until the man was actually prevented from walking any further by the table that acted as a barrier between them. He raised his black eye-brows and nodded, “Yes, Captain, what can I do for you?”

 

Captain Jack Pearson narrowed his eyes and his lips thinned perceptibly as he looked down at the other man. It irritated him more than he could understand himself that this man could act as though it were he who were the Officer waiting to give orders. The cool air of command that Ben Cartwright had never lost since leaving the sea appeared to exasperate Pearson more than anyone else at the Fort.

 

In the six months Ben had been at Fort Bridger and acted as a scout he had secured the respect and admiration from most of the men there, and that had included all the Officers until Captain Pearson had arrived a mere five weeks earlier.

 

“They tell me you’re the only scout who hasn’t been out of the Fort for a few days?”

 

Pearson asked in a no nonsense manner that made Ben bristle with an irritation of his own. He nodded slowly. It had hardly been his fault that he had been confined to the Fort. On his last foray he had had his horse shot from under him and had received a bullet wound in the arm. Not a particularly severe wound but it had bled a lot by the time he had reached the Fort to get any medical attention to it.

 

It had been a strange, unusual life over the past six months even though he had experienced so many variations of employment in his life time. He had to get money somehow and it had to be steady employment. In his urgency to escape the pall of despair that had arisen from Marie’s death he had seized on it as the only employment available to him. The fact that it was ‘steady’ only until a chance bullet or arrow came his way was some thing he had decided not to dwell upon.

 

Far back in Nevada territory he knew his eldest son was having to bear the responsibility of caring for his younger siblings and to keep the fledgling ranch on its feet. Ben often wondered when his pay check was sent home what reaction it brought to his serious minded eldest son. Would he just breathe a sigh of relief at money arriving to pay for the necessary requirements of the ranch or would he, just briefly, pause to ponder over the dangers and the difficulties his father had faced to earn it.

 

He stepped away from the table and stood up, slightly taller than the Officer. His dark hair was now streaked with grey at the side, giving him an air of distinction above that of the man facing him. He waited for whatever order he was about to receive and knew instinctively it would not be to his liking.

 

“Get a horse and go scout to the west side of where we last rendez vous-ed. There were signs of some hostiles still lurking in the area. I want you to flush them out.”

 

“Flush them out?” Ben said slowly, emphatically, as though giving the Officer an opportunity to clarify exactly what the phrase could mean, instead he only received a narrow eyed piercing look from the man’s blood shot eyes.

 

“We found a hunting camp not far from where you had to leave us. Managed to deal with that alright but there’s a few stragglers left.” he stared at Ben’s impassive and expressionless face and raised his eyebrows, “I’ll leave you to deal with them.” he paused as though waiting for Ben to speak, but when after some seconds had passed without Ben saying a word he continued, “You can take a small detail of men. Ten men. That should be more than sufficient.”

 

Then he was gone, striding out of the building with his spurs ringing against the flagstone floor. Ben watched him go with the sick feeling that he never wanted to have to see the man again.

 

He put away the writing materials, carefully folding them in the cloth and tying them together to be placed in his saddle bags. He was aware of the Sutler watching him and glanced up to meet the mans pale eyes,

 

“I’ll see you when I get back,” he said quietly.

 

Tom said nothing. He knew when a man had had enough of the life, he had seen it too often before over the years. With a sigh he nodded in acquiescence and began to wipe the surface of the counter as he watched Ben Cartwright stride out of the building.

 

Above the Fort’s walls the sun blazed from a cloudless sky. Black specks appeared on the horizon and Ben, pausing on his way to the stables to select a horse, wondered if they were buzzards or other birds of prey, and what significance their presence could mean. The sun burned through his shirt and vest, and he narrowed his eyes against its glare.

 

A woman passed him by and smiled at him in acknowledgment, he inclined his head and strode on. He had no time for pleasantries now and when he looked up he could see the Officer waiting at the stables with papers in his hand.

 

What a miserable life, he thought to himself as he grew nearer to the man, a miserable life hunting down those even more miserable. The whole thing made him feel physically sick.

 

………………..

 

He found the village not two days later. He remembered how the lack of a horse and his own wound had prevented him riding on with the convoy. Now he thanked God that he had had no hand in the devastation he saw around him.

 

Tepees had been burned to the ground and what little remained of them were falling lop sided in upon themselves before they would collapse in a crumpled undignified mess. Charred remains of pottery, the scorched rings of grass where fires had once burned, blood stains and remnants of things he did not wish to look upon.

 

With lowered head he steered his horse into the direction he had been ordered. What was they supposed to do against any force that may come up against him now? Stragglers? How many? Ben squared his shoulders and looked about him as he rode from the village. He bitterly resented this assignment as an Army Scout but while he was on the pay roll he was under orders. Having been a sea man for some years of his life and used to years of obeying commands, Ben urged his horse onwards, clamped his mouth shut and tried to forget the sights he had passed through.

 

………………..

 

Ben meandered his way through the trees, keeping his ears open to the sounds about him. One hand gripped the reins while the other hovered close to the stock of his rifle. The horse moved forwards with a stealth worth of its army training and neither man nor beast dared to make a sound. Ben found himself breathing so softly that he was near hyperventilating.

 

The jangle of army harness, the crisp sound of the details movements were the only sounds that they could hear. The sun mounted to its mid day peak and Ben turned to suggest they make a small camp to rest themselves and their horses. He noted that the men did so with an alacrity that showed their own distaste for their assignment.

 

“I’m going to look about here a little,” he said to the young rookie soldier, a lance corporal and the highest ranking of them. The soldier nodded, glad to have a chance to do nothing more than be vigilent while having time to drink coffee and snatch a morsal to eat.

 

Disheartened at his task Ben rode the horse at a walking pace. He had turned into a small copse of trees and undergrowth when he heard a sound ahead of him that made him draw up the horse to a standstill. For a full moment he sat astride the animal and craned his head forward as though to hear more clearly the sound that emanated from the small clearing he could just espy through the thinning trees ahead.

 

It was a perfect site for an ambush. He was alone as Army Scouts often were and he was vulnerable. His hand hovered once again over the stock of his rifle; he paused, and then returned his hand to rest upon his thigh. He bowed his head in sombre thought and melancholy as the sound became distinguished from the sighs of the trees and whispers of movements from the forest animals.

 

“Wi-ca-hca-la kin he-ya pe-lo ma-ka kin le-ce-la te-han yun-ke-lo e-ha pe-lo e-han-ke-con wi-ca-ka pe-lo”  (The old men say the earth only endures. You spoke truly. You are right).

 

The thin reedy voice sang the death song and it rose through the trees in the same way a slip of smoke would wind its way skywards. Ben had heard the son once before, months earlier. Then it had been sung by mourning, wailing women and children, heartbroken men, as they sobbed their way through the words of the song, wrapped in blankets with their dead scattered through their village. It had been one of the most miserable encounters of Ben’s career and a cruel introduction to what this ‘war’ against hostiles was all about.

 

Ben shivered. Hostiles! He shook his head in contempt of the word. Men, women and children who opposed the white man’s government were ‘hostiles’. It seemed ridiculous to even frame the word when there was so much misery confronting them from every side. But then, hate begets hate. He shook his head again and dismounted.

 

An old man stood wrapped in a blanket with his eyes closed and his arms crossed over his chest. He swayed too and fro as he sang the mournful words that his people had chanted for generations over their dead. Ben wondered where this old man’s dead were, and he raised his eyes to scan the trees, knowing these people placed their dead upon the boughs of trees when they were not able to build the burial scaffolds on their own land.

 

The old man’s rheumy eyes opened. They were brilliantly black and as hard as jet. Ben stared at him, his eyes fixed upon those blazing orbs. It struck him that they were the only living thing about this old man, those eyes and the thin reedy voice.

 

Ben took off his hat, unbuckled his gun belt and let the weapon fall to the ground. He stepped forward and waited for the old man to indicate just how far he could go. Several paces more and the old man bowed his head. Ben took several more paces until he was standing by the fire itself and the old man was merely an arms length away.

 

He wanted to say sorry. But sorry for what? That the majority of this man’s people were innocent victims of prejudice and hatred? Had not there always been victims, innocent, trusting young and old, since the world began of these self same vices? Did he want to say sorry for intruding upon this old man’s personal griefs? Or was he sorry that the old man was there, reminding him that he was scouting for an army that would consider him a ‘hostile’?

 

“Sit”

 

An old man’s voice, still with some force to it, but tired, as though defeated. The command was forceful. Ben glanced down at the ground and found himself sitting, cross legged, opposite the Indian. There was silence for some moments. Then the old man looked again at Ben

 

“You have sons?”

 

“Yes, three sons.”

 

“That is good.”

 

Ben said nothing. It was good to have three sons, but better than good was the fact that they were no where near this territory, but safe on the Ponderosa.

 

“You have squaw?”

 

“No. She has died.”

 

Ben swallowed pain; it was like tasting bile in his throat. Marie … he swallowed again.

 

The old man nodded and raised his eyes aloft. Ben turned to look in the direction of the old mans’ eyes and bit his bottom lip hard. Two bodies wrapped in threadbare blankets were cradled by the boughs of the sturdy tree. One had what looked like a child’s doll in a back cradle hanging at its foot. A small body, shrouded securely upon the tree’s limb. The other body was that of an adult. Ben realised that it must have been difficult for an old man to have got this body upon the tree for the blankets were disturbed and he could see locks of grey hair drifting in the sway of the tree. A painted bow and other female contraptions had been placed on her body.

 

“Your squaw?” he asked gently.

 

The old man bowed his head in acquiescence and raised a hand

 

“And daughter of my son.” he whispered.

 

Ben looked at the old face. He wondered what this Indian had looked like in the prime of his youth. Perhaps then, in his vigour and vitality, he had never seen a white man on his land. His days would have been filled with pleasures, and the excitement of the buffalo hunt. He would have made his children and seen them grow and along with their growth he would have become aware of a dark shadow looming over them. That shadow would take form, take substance, reach out and snatch away at everything, everything.

 

“I have to get out of this,” Ben pondered as he watched the old man’s eyes lose their brilliance and light, “I have to get home to my boys, where I belong. This world is not mine, I can’t bear it, not this misery, not this extinguishing of life and culture.”

 

His thoughts were disturbed when he realised the Indian was speaking. He was telling Ben that his name was Great Elk and that he had been a Chief of a great people.

 

“One time, my people and I could walk and ride for many days. We saw no white man. Only the tatanka (buffalo) black upon the hills. All the days we could hunt and ride and journey without seeing a white man. Now the white man is here. Only so far as this and this can you go, they say. Now I can go no further. My squaw and the child of my son are dead. Soon I too, shall die. I am the last of my tribe.”

 

Ben nodded. The Indian looked at him with wise old eyes. Wise because of the misery he had seen and because soon he would be beyond any white mans reach. The runnels in his face seemed to have been formed from the streams of tears that had run down his cheeks in his life time. Ben felt once again the cold clasp of misery touch his heart.

 

“In the night the soldiers came with their big guns. We heard their horses and then the guns firing. We were not many and it took little time. The ground was hard with the winter frost, hard like iron. We walked until we could walk no more. Little ones were freezing. We cut open the bellies of our horses and put our feet and hands inside to keep them warm before we journeyed on. As we walked we left footprints of blood behind us.”

 

Ben frowned. It was hot and a summers day. He realised Great Elk was talking of an event that preceded this final destruction of his camp.

 

“I have no hate for the white man. There are good white men. There are good Indian. There are bad in both peoples. This I know, I have seen it. If only all good men would say to the bad ‘To talk is good.’ I have not raised my hand against any white man.”

 

Ben reached out a hand in a silent gesture of his own need. How could he put it into words? ‘I need peace of mind. I need to put these things behind me? I need to know why we do these things to one another? I need you to know that I understand your misery?’

 

The old man paused for some seconds, then reached out and placed his gnarled hand upon Ben’s. It was dry, and soft, and Ben could feel the bones like light twigs and the skin like cold dry loose flesh. They sat like that for a full moment.

 

In the folds of the blanket Ben saw the long stemmed pipe that must have been smoked by the old man over many years. The paint that had garnished the carvings was long faded now and the stem was brittle and thin. Slowly he put his hand to his jacket pocket and withdrew a leather pouch. He opened it carefully before passing it over to the Indian who took it in one hand and raised it to his nose to sniff at it appreciatively. He nodded, and took several pinches of the tobacco which he put into the bowl of his pipe. Then he leaned forward and took an ember from the fire to light it.

 

After drawing upon the stem for sufficient time for the tobacco to draw he passed the pipe to Ben, stem first. It was Ben’s initial reaction to decline, not wanting to use up what was tantamount to being the old man’s final smoke, but he accepted and drew upon it several times, before handing it back.

 

They sat together without speaking. The old man’s white head with the long braids hanging to his waist trembled slightly as he drew upon the pipe and exhaled the smoke which rose about him like slender wraiths writhing above his head.

 

Ben looked again at the shrouded bodies and closed his eyes. A memory came of a coffin lowered into the soil and his three sons standing side by side and casting that handful of soil that had thudded down upon the lid. He saw the flowers placed upon the coffin tremble as the soil covered them. He saw his sons faces, so white, so strained, so shocked.

 

Joseph had pushed his hand into his father’s and pressed his face into his father’s jacket sleeve as though the sight could no longer be borne. When it was over Ben had carried his little son back to the buggy and driven him home. Silent they all were, silent and pale and not knowing what to say, what to do.

 

He put a hand to his eyes to remove the scene only for it to be replaced by another – Adam’s accusing eyes, Hoss’ tears and Joe’s white blanched face with the wide eyes staring up at him as though in shocked disbelief.

 

“I have to go” he could hear himself saying to them, “I have to go.” and he had gone, left them without mother or father. Left them to face the weeks ahead not knowing if he would ever return to them. Only a pay check every month. Only a letter whenever one could be delivered.

 

He lowered his eyes and looked at the old man who rocked back and forth smoking the last pipe of his life. He had left his sons, his home, because he wanted to go somewhere to ease the pain in his heart over the loss of his beloved Marie. And what had it achieved, this leaving them, this escape from the reality of his own loss? More pain, more misery because the agony and bitterness he had experienced over the past months had expunged the more personal grief into something bearable at last.

 

“I have to go,” he told himself, “I have to go home.”

 

Then the old man pulled the blanket over his head. The pipe he had set down beside him and when Ben offered him the pouch of tobacco the old gnarled hand had pushed the younger mans hand aside. Great Elk rose to his feet, crossed his arms over his chest and looked up into the sky. He began his chant once again. Ben waited awhile then realised that he had been dismissed. He got to his feet and returned to his horse.

 

Later he would return and place Great Elk with his people. The last of their tribe. And then he would go home.

 

 

The End.