Far as the Eye Can See by Robert Bausch Read Free Book Online Page A

smell was so strong it cut into my nostrils.
    When Theo got there, he said, “Indians don’t hang folks.”
    “What’s that mean?” I was kind of sick. I felt awful for Preston. I liked him and it didn’t bode well for this trip that he ended up like that only a few weeks or so after he started out.
    “Wasichus,” Big Tree said.
    “He must’ve done something to piss off those fellows he was traveling with,” Theo said.
    “What happened to Joe Crane? He wouldn’t stand for this peaceably.”
    “You don’t know,” Theo said.
    “Wasichus,” Big Tree said again.
    “What the hell does that mean?” I said.
    Theo said, “White men.”
    I walked over and got back on my horse. “It’s a hell of a thing,” I said. Then I started circling around that place, looking for Joe Crane.
    Maybe I should of seen Preston’s death as one of them portents of things to come.

Chapter 3
    Me and Big T ree buried Preston right next to that tree where we found him. We worked fast. The wagon train moseyed on by while we worked, and when we was done, it was almost ahead of us. I didn’t find Joe Crane anywhere around there, but I did find one of Preston’s boots. It had the sole ripped out of it, so it was useless. There wasn’t no blood on it but it was sure his boot. Preston was a big man, and he wore them high-heeled pointy-toed things Texans wear.
    When I got back to the train, I went right out front again, next to Big Tree. I talked as we rode along, trying to see if I could get him to say whatever thing. He didn’t say a word the whole time we was a-digging that grave. Riding next to him, I hated looking up so high to see his eyes. I couldn’t tell if he was listening to me or not. We rode most of the day, and Big Tree held that nose of his high in the air, looking for more “death,” I guess. At one point I said, “Do you speak American?”
    He nodded.
    “When?”
    He didn’t look at me, just kept staring at the horizon. The sun begun to gleam off his eyeballs as the day wore on.
    “You know,” I said, “I sure hated to see Preston hung up there like that.”
    Nothing.
    “I wonder how that happened.”
    “Wasichu,” Big Tree said.
    “But what could have caused it? I mean, you think he committed some sort of crime?”
    He looked down at me and I felt like a small child.
    “He must of committed a crime,” I said.
    Big Tree made that harrumphing sound. Then he said, “Wasichus kill for gladness.” I couldn’t tell from my position below him, but I thought he might of smiled a little.
     
    Theo ordered a halt near dusk at a place on the Smoky Hill River in Kansas called Fort Hays. We had to get permission from a Colonel Harding to set up outside the fort for the night. Theo put the wagons in a big curving U around the front gate. We formed a good perimeter with the fort in the open end of our encampment. The colonel seemed to like that arrangement. He was a short, dark-haired, muscular fellow with great black whiskers that curled all the way down the side of his face and up over his nose. His eyes was dark as a cow’s eyes and almost as big. His uniform was a little too tight, and with all them gold buttons and yellow striping down his legs and medals on his chest, he looked like he ought to be the emperor of something. He suggested a pig roast, and that was something everybody in the train was happy to take part in. Two of the Indians that lived around there butchered a hog in no time and then we got several fires going. Some Swedish fellows from one of the new wagons built these Y-shaped structures, then hung a spit in the middle of them and turned the meat as it cooked over the fire. You could tell the Indians never eat a whole pig, but they liked it enough.
    When darkness come, with all the fires, and the children running wildly—with the smoking meat and pots of stew, and lots of whiskey and beer—we really had a high old time. But watching that pig meat turn black and crispy, I couldn’t get the