Little Big Man by Thomas Berger Read Free Book Online Page A

they have lots of things that are taboo: for example, after you are married you can’t mention the name of your mother-in-law.
    My Pa was standing alongside Caroline, and I don’t recall what it was upset him most, the swearing or the attention my sister was getting, but he pushed out in front of her, saying, “If you was looking for the wagonmaster and spiritual leader of this flock, that be me, Your Honor.”
    Him and Old Lodge Skins then shake hands, and the latter fetches from a beaded pouch he carries in the vicinity of his belly a filthy, tattered hunk of paper on which some other white wag had scrawled the following:
    This heer is Skar-gut he is a good indun and takes a bath unse a yar wether he needs it or not he won’t cut your thoat under enny condishun so long as you keep a gun on him his heart is as black as his hind end yer fren
    B ILLY B. D ARN
    The chief evidently figured this to be a recommendation, because he looked right proud while my brother Bill was reading it aloud on request of my Pa (that’s the reason I said earlier I don’t think Pa could read himself; but it’s more than a hundred year ago and I don’t remember everything).
    Pa was a considerate person to strangers, especially if they was savages, so he pretended the note said something good and invited the whole bunch to come have a drink, which I don’t believe the Cheyenne understood right off. “Whiskey” they would have known, but Pa put it some long way, “potation” or whatever—and they still didn’t get it when Troy and our men broke out the jugs. You see, an Indian figures no white man in his right mind would give them liquor unless he had a running start. The traders always left the whiskey negotiation till last, brought out the barrels, and rode off fast as they could go.
    Indians are first to admit they can’t hold their liquor, and even in those early days some of the chiefs tried to keep it from their youngmen, though a redskin leader has only advisory power which is frequently ignored. Old Lodge Skins could not believe ten white men, counting the larger boys, half of them unarmed and with only two horses and having seven wagons full of twelve women and girls and eight smaller children, would feed whiskey to two score Cheyenne braves on the open prairie. If he had, he would have warned my Pa before he took a drink, because Indians are fair that way. They don’t feel any guilt about what they do under the influence of liquor, regarding it as a mysterious sort of power like a tornado—and you don’t see reason to blame yourself for knocking a fellow down if a high wind picks you up and throws you into him; although if you see it coming you would tell him to move clear. So with an Indian when he hits the booze, if he hasn’t anything against you.
    Old Lodge Skins took the tin cup my Pa handed him and drained it in one swallow, as if it was water or cold coffee, tilting his head back so far the plug hat fell off. The drink was already down his gullet before he altogether comprehended the nature of it, and you might say simultaneous with that recognition he became instantly drunk, his eyes swimming with liquid like two raw eggs. He fell over backwards on the earth and kicked his feet so hard one moccasin flew off and hit the cover of our wagon. His musket dropped, muzzle down, and packed some dirt in the end of the barrel, of which we’ll hear more later.
    Meanwhile our men politely ignored him and passed on to the other Indians. Not having brought out more cups, they handed around the jugs, grinning and shaking hands, and Troy thought his idea was proceeding so well that he started a practice of slapping the braves on the shoulder as if they was saloon cronies. Now I could see, at the age of ten, that the Cheyenne didn’t get the import of that: giving him a present with one hand and striking him with the other, and both by an individual of a different race, would call an Indian’s whole code of manners into