SAVE QUEEN OF SHEBA
0101 A huge greenish black fly was crawling slowly over his
0102 hand. The fly was so close to his eyes for his hand lay
1._________
0103 tossed upon the dirt just a few inches from his face,
0104 that King David could see every leg as it moved, the
0105 iridescent wings flick, the big bulbous eyes. He won-
2.__________
0106 dered why he did not move his hand and brush the fly
0107 away, but then a buzzing sounded in his head and his
0108 eyes closed and he seemed to sleep again.
3.__________
0109
4. __________
The fly was still there. The buzzing in his head was
0110 softer, but now he was conscious of something else.
5.___________
0111 There was a burning on the back of his neck as if he
0112 were lying facedown in the hot sun. Hot sun—yes he
6.__________
0113 was sure the sun was very hot. He was even sweating.
7.__________
0114 Best to move to a shady spot, like under a tree. Why
8.__________
0115 didn’t he move to a shady spot?
9.__________
0201
The fly moved closer, boldly, not afraid. Another
10.__________
0202 moment and it lifted into flight and landed on King
0203 David’s face, his right cheek, just under his eye. He
11.___________
0204 could feel the fly’s sticky feet, feel its thirsty seeking for
0205 food, for blood---
0206
12.___________
Slowly, slowly the crawling feet of the fly stirred
0207 something way down deep in him. He felt muscles
13.___________
0208 awaken as if from sleep, bones clack together. The
14.___________
0209 hand before his face moved. And then he felt pain,
15.___________
0210 and the pain made him catch a deep breath and cry
0211 out.
0212
16.___________
But the air he sucked in saved him, for it gave him
0213 strength to raise his head, get an arm under himself,
0214 pull himself up, look around.
0215
17.___________
Directly ahead lay a wagon, turned over on its side,
0216 and from beneath it protruded a man’s leg. There was
18.__________
0217 a man, then, under the wagon. Dizzily he turned his
19.__________
0218 head to the right. There was a smashed keg which had
20.__________
0219 held water, now soaked into the ground, and beside it
0220 another from which flour had spilled. Beyond that lay
21.__________
0221 a horse, dead by the looks of him, and another man.
22.__________
0222 There was an arrow sticking out of the man’s back.
23.__________
0223
King David stared at the arrow and wondered if he
0224 too had an arrow in his back. Something hurt very bad
24.__________
0225 but he could not tell what it was.
25.__________
0226
26.__________
He turned and looked to the left. There were more
0227 kegs, boxes, some tools scattered here and there, and
0228 among them lay more people. All of them, men and
27.__________
0229 women, one boy, lay in various positions as if some-
0230 body had raised them to a great height and dropped
0231 them, and they broke and died as they fell.
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28.__________
0301
Slowly King David bent his knees and pulled his feet
0302 around to where he could see them. His gray hickory
29.__________
0303 shirt was smeared with dirt and blood—more on the
0304 new black woolen britches his Ma had made for his
0305 twelfth birthday last week, and still more on his left
0306 arm where his head had lain. He raised a hand to his
30.__________
0307 chest, his face, his head. Yes, there. High on his fore-
31.__________
0308 head was a ragged tear in the skin, and there seemed
32.__________
0309 to be a loose flap of skin with hair on it hanging loose.
33.__________
0310 He could tell there were thick, sticky clots of blood
0311 matted in his sandy hair and streaked down his sun-
0312 burned, bony face.
0313
“Tried to scalp me,” he said aloud to the silence
0314 around him, “but didn’t quite.”
0315
34.__________
He could see that several wagons were scattered
0316 around—some of them had been burned, but the fires
35.__________
0317 were out now, with only a heavy stinking smell of
0318 smoke that was drifting slowly away on the faint
0319 breeze. He now felt very thirsty, but it looked as if all
36._________
0320 the water kegs had been smashed, as well as sacks of
0321 flour and beans torn open and spilled on the ground.
37._________
0322 Slowly, carefully, he tried to stand up, but on the first
0323 attempt his head banged and roared and he had to
0324 stop. Then he crawled on hands and knees over to the
38.__________
0325 nearest wagon, grasped the wheel in bloody hands, and
0326 pulled himself up.
39.__________
0327
Got to look around.
40.__________
0328
He felt fairly safe, oddly enough. He could see that
41.__________
0329 the Sioux raiding party had gone. In the deathly si-
0330 lence the early afternoon sun beat down on the prairie
0331 and the wind washed idly over sightless faces turned
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42.__________
0401 up, over bloody clothing, quilts and household gear
0402 trampled into the earth. There was blood everywhere,
43.___________
0403 on the bodies, on the ground. Besides the smoke, an-
44.___________
0404 other curious, sickening smell was beginning to thicken
0405 in the hot air—a smell he would remember forever, the
0406 smell of death.
0407
45.__________
Carefully King David counted the wagons he could
0408 see. Five, six, seven wagons—four of them burned—lay
46.__________
0409 all overturned, their horses missing. Pa’s wagon was
47.__________
0410 not one of them. Pa—got away, he told himself in a
48.__________
0411 rush of relief. But the relief was short-lived. Then—if
49.___________
0412 he’s all right—why didn’t he come back for me? Pa and
50.___________
0413 Ma—they must be hurt—maybe dying—or they’d have
51.__________
0414 come back for me—
52.__________
0415
King David let go of the wagon wheel and started to
0416 walk, aimlessly, across the littered ground. His feet
53.__________
0417 shuffled and his knees were weak, and he wished he
0418 had something to lean on. Something knocked against
54.__________
0419 his ankle and he looked down. Without the slightest
55.___________
0420 degree of surprise, he saw that it was a cane, still held
0421 in the clenched hand of a dead woman.
0422
“Give—me—the—cane—Miz Stone—“ he whispered.
0423 “I need it—“
0424
56.___________
57.___________
58.____________
He twisted the cane out of her stiffening fingers and,
0425 using it, began a slow circle of the wagons. It was very
59.____________
0426 hard to think, but he began to piece some of it to0427 gether. It must have been about eleven o’clock in the
60.____________
0428 morning—Wagonmaster Keane, sitting tall on his big
0429 black horse at the head of the column, had just told
0430 them to halt for nooning, to eat a cold meal and to rest
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0501 and graze the stock. King David had been walking out
61.____________
0502 ahead of the train, just behind Mr. Skinner, the guide,
0503 so as to get away from the dust raised by the wagons
0504 and the loose stock. This part of the train had been
62.___________
0505 traveling on the Oregon Trail well south of the North
0506 Platte River and had crossed Scott’s Bluffs by way of
0507 the Robidoux Pass. They had hoped, by taking this
63.___________
0508 route, less heavily traveled now, to find better grass for
0509 the stock than they might have encountered on the
0510 trail that held close to the south bank of the North
0511 Platte.
0512
After leaving Saint Louis, the settlers had disinter-
0513 grated into several widely separated groups of wagons,
0514 with those pulled by horses—the “horse column”—far
0515 ahead of those pulled by oxen—the “cow column”—
0516 and King David knew that the wagons with ox teams
0517 were to go by the north fork of the trail that followed
64.__________
0518 the Platte. By this time, there was no telling where that
65.__________
0519 part of the train would be, but he was sure they were
0520 too far away for him to be able to find them especially
0521 since he was injured.
0522
66.__________
These seven wagons here had been slightly in the
0523 lead of their own small train, with a distance of a mile
0524 or so between them and the next group back, and their
0525 horses had already been unhitched. The remainder—
67.__________
0526 the missing fourteen wagons with Pa’s among them
0527 that lagged behind—were just coming into view, with
0528 horses, of course, still in the traces. Suddenly there had
68.__________
0529 been a noise of yelling and trampling hooves, followed
0530 by shots and screaming. King David could remember
0531 the raiders—Sioux, somebody called them—coming
0601 out of the draws and gullies of the sand hills to their
69.__________
0602 left.
0603
70.__________
It was too late to form a circle of wagons—the teams
0604 were already unhitched—and all the men could do was
0605 scramble for their guns while the women and children
0606 ran for cover. King David heard shouts, curses,
71.__________
0607 shrieks, the sound of rifles, horses screaming. Then
72.__________
0608 something struck his head—and like a curtain, dark-
0609 ness dropped over his memory.
0610
So now he stared around. I’m alive, he told himself.
73.__________
74.__________
0611 These others here are all dead. And the rest of the
75.__________
0612 wagons have gone on—escaped without me.
76.__________
0613
Suddenly he had a terrible need to find someone else
0614 alive. He had lived through the raid—surely someone
77.__________
0615 else could have survived also. He stumbled from one
78.__________
0616 body to the next, but only cold faces looked up, with
0617 blood splashed everywhere that was growing thick
0618 now, like red pudding cooked too long by the hot sun.
79.__________
0619 Every once in a while the breeze stirred a shirt or a
0620 bonnet, and he thought for a moment that someone
0621 still lived, but each time when he went to see, he could
0622 hear no breath, no beat of a heart.
0623
80._________
Past the farthest wagon lay a couple of wooden
0624 chairs, and under the chairs a feather bed. The breeze
81._________
0625 now freshening was lifting clots of feathers through
0626 holes in the ticking and tossing them up to drift idly
0627 away over the prairie. The white feathers looked like
82._________
0628 snowflakes, and in his thirst, the pressure of the heat
0629 of the sun, he was drawn to them, as if their cool white-
0630 ness could soothe the fever he could feel rising in him.
0631
83._________
From under the feather bed a child’s foot stuck out,
0632 shoeless, little, white. He looked at it for a moment but
84._________
0701 did not expect it to move. His sister had little white
85._________
0702 feet…his sister, Queen of Sheba—
86._________
0703
He sprang forward, jerked the feather bed back.
87._________
0704
His sister lay quietly, looking up at him. “Are the
88._________
0705 Indians gone?” she whispered.
89._________