Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
Night on the Plains<br />
The first night they camped in a place called Clagett, on the banks of the Judith River. There was a<br />
trading post here, surrounded by a stockade, but it had been recently abandoned.<br />
Hill cooked his first dinner, which they found heavy but otherwise acceptable. Hill used buffalo<br />
chips for fuel, thus explaining two of his nicknames: Chippie and Stinky. After dinner, Hill hung their<br />
food in a tree.<br />
“What’re you doing that for?” Johnson asked.<br />
“That’s to keep the food away from marauding grizzlies,” Hill said. “Now go get ready to sleep.”<br />
Hill himself stamped the ground with his boots before laying out his bedding.<br />
“What’re you doing that for?” Johnson asked.<br />
“That’s to stop up the snake holes,” Hill said, “so the rattlers don’t climb under the blankets with<br />
you at night.”<br />
“You’re jobbing me,” Johnson said.<br />
“I ain’t,” Hill warned. “You ask anyone. Gets cold at night and they like the warm, so they crawl<br />
right in with you, coil up against your groin.”<br />
Johnson went to Sternberg, who was also laying out his bedding. “Aren’t you going to stamp the<br />
ground?”<br />
“No,” Sternberg said. “This spot isn’t lumpy, looks real comfortable.”<br />
“What about rattlesnakes crawling into the blankets?”<br />
“That hardly ever happens,” Sternberg said.<br />
“It hardly ever happens?” Johnson’s voice rose in alarm.<br />
“I wouldn’t worry over it,” Sternberg said. “In the morning, just wake up slow, and see if you got<br />
any visitors. Snakes just run away, come morning.”<br />
Johnson shuddered.<br />
They had seen no sign of human life all day long, but Isaac was convinced they were at risk from<br />
Indians. “With Mr. Indian,” he grumbled, “the time you feel safest is the time you aren’t.” Isaac<br />
insisted they post guards throughout the night; the others grudgingly went along. Isaac himself would<br />
take the last watch, before dawn.<br />
This was Johnson’s first night out under the great domed sky of the prairie, and sleep was<br />
impossible. The very thought of a rattlesnake or a grizzly bear would have prevented any sleep, but<br />
there were too many other sounds besides—the whisper of the wind in the grass, the hooting of owls<br />
in the darkness, the distant howls of coyotes. He stared up at the thousands of stars in the cloudless<br />
sky, and listened.
Change language