by Judd Cole
A tight lump rose in Touch the Sky’s throat, and he was silent for a long moment. He knew well that Little Horse was paying dearly for this loyalty. Even with Arrow Keeper’s blessing, the Headmen would be furious that a strong young buck, a blooded warrior and one of Black Elk’s favorites, had left the tribe to fight a battle for whites.
“Then let us ride,” said Touch the Sky. He knew it would insult Little Horse to thank him more directly. “We are still two full sleeps from our destination.”
Corey, who knew only a few words in Cheyenne, said, “What did Little Horse and you talk about?”
“Little Horse is fighting beside us against Steele.”
They rode hard for the rest of that day, subsisting on cold river water and the dried venison the Cheyennes carried in their legging sashes. Several times they dismounted at game trails to search for moccasin prints. They were relieved that there was no sign of the distinctive cross-weave stitching of the Pawnees.
Besides the Bluecoats, the many enemies of the Cheyennes and their nearby cousins, the Lakota Sioux, included the Absaraka or Crow tribe and the turncoat Utes who lived in the high country. But among their Indian enemies, all Cheyennes most feared and hated the bloodthirsty Pawnees.
Nearly thirty winters ago, Pawnees had captured the Cheyennes’ sacred Medicine Arrows. Though the Cheyennes had gotten them back in a revenge strike, the two tribes had been mortal enemies ever since. The lice-eaters had proven themselves eager mercenaries for the strong water and trinkets of the long knives, razing many Indian villages for them. The fierce Lakotas had at one time driven all Pawnees from the Powder River country. But they had begun drifting back. And Touch the Sky feared they would again attack Yellow Bear’s camp—while warriors were in short supply and he and Little Horse were gone.
On the first night after Little Horse joined them, the trio slept in a cold camp near the game trail. Touch the Sky had spotted a spruce grove near a good patch of graze. They tethered their horses with long strips of rawhide. Then they pushed the drooping spruce branches aside and disappeared inside. They spread their robes on the deep mat of needles and slept in a hidden lodge of silence, safe from all eyes.
“Brother,” whispered Little Horse after Corey’s deep, even breathing signaled that he was asleep. “I would speak with you.”
“I have ears for your words. Speak them.”
Little Horse waited for a moment, listening to make sure Corey was still asleep.
“I mean no disrespect toward Firetop,” Little Horse assured him. “His medicine is strong, and by right of courage he is one of us. But we will soon be among other whites. I must ask that you not say my name in front of them. Introduce me as War Eagle, but avoid even that false name.”
It wasn’t necessary to explain his meaning. Indians believed their names lost power if spoken by other Indians in front of whites.
Touch the Sky had learned this from Arrow Keeper but forgotten. Now he thought about it, then nodded.
“Of course, brother. In front of whites, I will not call you by any name but brother.”
“Nor I you. Do not be offended. I will honor your parents as my own.”
On the second night they sheltered in an old bear den in the cliffs overlooking the Tongue River. Earlier that day they had killed a deer and butchered out the loin and kidneys. Now, safe within the well-hidden den, they built a small cooking fire to roast the meat.
Later, before he drifted off in bone-weary sleep, Touch the Sky heard the ferocious kill-cry of a badger. It shot chills through him, reminding him of the Cheyenne’s own shrill war cry—and reminding him that death and danger lurked nearby constantly on the frontier. Nor was it only animals and red men who must fight constantly for survival. Were his white parents not locked in a struggle for their very existence? Black Elk was a harsh man tempered more by battle than by love. But he was right. Life meant always being a warrior.
And perhaps, after all, that kill-cry had been an omen: The next morning they rode into trouble.
They were making the most dangerous leg of the journey, crossing the vast, open stretch of sage flats surrounding Bighorn Falls. It was a level range pockmarked by prairie-dog towns, making footing dangerous for the tired ponies. Halfway across the flats, their path crossed that of a squad of Bluecoat pony soldiers from the soldier town of Fort Bates.
The three held a hasty council as the squad drew closer. Touch the Sky translated when necessary.
“We should try to outrun them,” said Little Horse.
“I think not, brother,” said Touch the Sky. “I know it is foolish to trust Bluecoats. But our ponies are tired, and truly, where would we run? Recall that talking papers have been signed, papers which say there is no war between red men and white.”
Little Horse considered these things, then nodded. “The talking papers are nothing. The white man speaks two ways always. Still, I have ears for your words. We are with Firetop. Surely they will not fire upon a white man.”
Touch the Sky repeated all this for Corey.
“Sure, Little Horse is using his head! I have heard of no trouble lately between Indians and the cavalry at Fort Bates. Besides, plenty of the soldiers know me. It might even be Tom Riley though that’s not his paint this officer is ridin’. If they challenge us, I’ll tell ’em I got lost around the upcountry of the river and you two brought me back on account of my blue feather requiring you to.”
Touch the Sky explained this plan to Little Horse and he nodded his approval. They rode on, the two Cheyennes folding their arms in the symbol of peace.
“What in tarnal hell?” said Corey nervously when, still several hundred yards away, the squad suddenly formed into a skirmish line. The officer leading them raised his saber, then lowered it sharply in the signal to attack.
“Ride like the wind!” shouted Touch the Sky to Little Horse in Cheyenne. To Corey he said, “You just stay here! If you don’t run, they won’t hurt you. It’s us they plan to kill!”
“Then, by God, they’ll have to kill three of us! Gee-up!” Corey urged his mount.
A moment later, startling both of his companions, Corey unleashed a ferocious Cheyenne battle cry: “Hiya hi-i-i-ya!”
The trio drove their exhausted mounts mercilessly, racing far too quickly across the uneven, pockmarked terrain. Their destination was the river valley with its protective thickets. But Touch the Sky knew they’d never reach it in time. Already the first bullets were whining past their ears, raising dust plumes all around them.
The two Cheyennes instinctively flattened themselves low against their ponies’ necks to make a smaller target. Corey made do with hunkering low over the saddle horn. They had only one firearm between them, the old breechloader protruding from Corey’s saddle scabbard. He pulled it out and laid it across the saddle at the ready. Touch the Sky and Little Horse, having practiced this so many times the movements came without thought, strung their bows at a full gallop.
“Brother!” shouted Touch the Sky to Little Horse above the hollow thunder of their horses’ hooves. “They are closing too quickly! Remember what Black Elk taught us. When all seems lost, we must turn the fox into the rabbit!”
Little Horse nodded, understanding that it was their only chance. It was an ancient Cheyenne fighting trick to split up during a retreat and divide the enemy force. A brave would then suddenly turn in mid-flight and attack his surprised enemy.
The two Cheyennes veered sharply to either flank while Corey continued straight toward the river valley. As Touch the Sky had hoped, the pony soldiers ignored the white youth and divided up to pursue him and Little Horse.
One of the Bluecoats, a young corporal on a powerful bay, surged ahead of the others pursuing Touch the Sky. The Cheyenne waited until the NCO had closed to within perhaps fifty yards. Abruptly, Touch the Sky jerked back hard on the dun’s buffalo-hair bridle. The battle-trained pony responded magnificently, whirling to reverse herself seemingly without breaking stride.
The corporal’s jaw
dropped in astonished disbelief when he realized he was suddenly under attack. In a heartbeat Touch the Sky was upon him, streamered battle lance pointing before him. His eyes met the soldier’s, and he saw that his enemy was barely older than he was. He read fear in those eyes, but also the determination to fight and die like a man.
At the last moment Touch the Sky diverted his lance, cracking it down harmlessly on the bay’s hindquarters.
“I have counted first coup, Bluecoat!” he shouted in English as both of them halted and turned their mounts. “I would let you live, that forever you will speak of Cheyenne bravery! Now make your choice.”
The soldier started to lift his carbine. Then he lowered it. His face showed confusion at this spectacle of an English-speaking Indian who had just spared his life.
“I’ll be damned if my weapon didn’t just hang-fire on me!” he said. “But get the hell clear of here now and stay out! We got orders to shoot all Cheyennes on sight!”
Touch the Sky had already touched heels to his pony. He was just in time to watch Little Horse turn on his surprised pursuer. The Bluecoat got off just one shot, missing the brave, before Little Horse knocked him from the saddle with a deft sideways sweep of his lance.
But now the officer leading the charge on his powerful black was bearing down on Touch the Sky, saber raised for the kill. Again Touch the Sky whirled around to face the attack, an arrow strung in his bow.
When the officer had closed to about twenty yards, Touch the Sky recognized Lieutenant Seth Carlson.
For a long moment their eyes held in mutual recognition and hatred. Then, as quick as a blink, one of the black’s forelegs sank deep into a prairie-dog hole. The bone snapped with a loud sound like green wood splitting. Carlson flew head over heels from the saddle and hit the ground hard.
At the sound of the injured horse’s scream of pain, another cavalry mount balked, snorting bloody foam. With two men down, including their badly shaken lieutenant, the momentum of the charge was broken.
There was no one in pursuit as Touch the Sky and Little Horse raced to join Corey. But even as he felt the swelling elation of victory, Touch the Sky recalled the hatred smoldering in Carlson’s eyes. And again he heard the corporal’s ominous warning: We got orders to shoot all Cheyennes on sight!
Chapter Five
“I shan’t stay long, Mrs. Hanchon,” said Kristen. “Pa will skin me alive if he finds out I’ve been here again since that trouble last Sunday. He thinks I’m at Holly Miller’s house in town, being fit for a dress.”
The two women were walking back from the small, windowless shed John Hanchon had constructed over a spring to keep food cold. Kristen wore a split buckskin skirt and a leather jerkin. She and Sarah had met before they reached the yard. Now Kristen led her lazy piebald by the reins. Sarah carried a wooden pail of milk.
Sarah halted and used her free hand to sweep the golden curls away from Kristen’s left cheek. There were still faint, puffy blue traces of a bruise.
“Oh, my land, child! You poor thing! You know we love having you here. But not at this kind of expense. You’d best do as your pa says and stay clear of here.”
Kristen nodded. “I know. But I have to talk to you and Mr. Hanchon. I’ll only stay a few minutes.”
“Well anyway, you came at a good time. John’s in the kitchen hungry as a field hand, waiting on his supper. Come along, dear heart, and at least have a cup of cool milk. Seems to me you’re losing weight.”
The kitchen was spacious and airy and smelled of sourdough mash and strong ash soap. John Hanchon, perched on a sturdy three-legged stool over a deal table, was entering figures in an account ledger by the light of a coal-oil lamp. His long-barreled Henry was propped against the nearest wall.
He closed the ledger when the two women entered. For just a moment the worried frown was not etched quite so deeply into his face.
“Talk about your sight for sore eyes! I swan, there’s none prettier than you two anywhere in Paris.”
His temporary good mood soured quickly, however, when Kristen explained the purpose of her visit.
“I don’t know exactly what Pa’s up to,” she said. “He was always a private man. But when my mother died, he just ducked inside himself and hasn’t come back out once. I don’t like to believe that he’s breaking the law. But he and Lieutenant Seth Carlson are in on something together, and it involves you. They’ve been meeting together often lately. They almost always quit talking or change the subject when I’m within hearing.
“I feel awful saying this against my own father, Mr. Hanchon. But he’s taken on plenty of extra hands lately, and I don’t see many of them working horses. And after the way Pa carried on about my being here on Sunday, I’m afraid he had something to do with that raid.”
“Seth Carlson, huh?” Hanchon nodded, his big, blunt features now lost in thought. “So that’s what’s on the spit. I wondered exactly who Hiram was in cahoots with at the fort. No offense, pretty lady, but I already guessed your pa is mixed up in all this trouble lately. I got no hand-to-God proof, mind you. But he’s been on the scrap something fierce ever since I started this spread.”
“It’s no say-so of his,” said Kristen indignantly, “if another man legally trains and sells horses in this territory. Pa can’t keep up with the need as it is, and more’s wanted every day.”
A startled gasp from Sarah interrupted the conversation. “Great day in the morning!”
Kristen glanced in the direction Sarah was staring. For a moment she simply refused to believe what she saw.
Then she screamed.
John Hanchon too glanced toward the door, which had been quietly lifted off its latch. But this wasn’t anything like the trouble he’d been expecting, and for a long moment he simply sat there. Then his eyes widened in fear and he lunged for his rifle.
“No, John, you big, handsome fool!” said Sarah. “Don’t you know your own son? It’s Matthew, or one of them is anyway!”
Corey, his face sheepish at being present at such a time, stepped into the kitchen behind Touch the Sky and Little Horse.
“I figured he had a right to know what’s been going on around here,” said Corey. “And now Touch—I mean, Matthew, has made up his mind to help you.”
“Matthew. It’s really you, isn’t it, son?”
Sarah moved quickly forward and embraced the youth she had raised as her own, unable to say more. At first, overcome with love for his adopted mother, Touch the Sky forgot his new dignity and restraint as a blooded Cheyenne warrior. He returned his mother’s embrace, tears momentarily blurring the room.
Then he remembered himself and glanced quickly toward Little Horse. But this was the smaller Cheyenne’s first time inside one of the lodges whites called houses. He was too awed by the novelty of his surroundings to notice his friend’s reversion to former ways—or that his parents called him by his paleface name, the name Arrow Keeper had buried in a hole.
“Matthew,” said John Hanchon, finally clearing the tight lump from his throat. “It’s damn good to see you alive, son.”
Only then did Touch the Sky notice, in his bone-numb nervousness, the pretty blonde. He suddenly felt as if the wind had been knocked out of him.
“Kristen?”
“Matthew?”
Their eyes held for a long moment, though he was seeing a familiar memory while she saw a shocking transformation. Like the Hanchons, she couldn’t stop gaping at this spectacle: two fierce, young Indians, their bodies muscular and sun-bronzed, the fringes of their leggings spotted with the stiff, black blood of old hunts, old battles.
That was certainly Matthew’s face, his distinctive nose and deep-set, perceptive eyes.
But there was also a new confidence and strength about him, places where muscle had hardened, and a distant, wary look in his eyes that Kristen had seen in older men—and wild animals in unfamiliar surroundings. And those scars! Like Sarah, she bit back an exclamation of pity when she noticed the gnarled lines of burn scar o
n his stomach, the ragged ridge of knife scar high on his chest.
For his part, Touch the Sky felt like he was trying to stand up in a dugout on a raging river. How many times, his heart suffering sharp pangs of loss, had he thought of Kristen? But then, slowly, thoughts of Honey Eater had filled the empty place in his heart. Now, so near again to Kristen, it was as if he had never stopped loving her for even one moment. Was he not a Cheyenne then, after all his suffering to earn the name?
“I must go,” Kristen said suddenly.
She added, before she could stop herself, “And you, Matthew. It’s not safe for you around here! You shouldn’t’ve come back. Please leave before my pa hears about it!”
She muttered a hasty goodbye and was gone before Touch the Sky could reply. Corey left too, saying his pa must be on the warpath by now.
As they had agreed, Touch the Sky introduced Little Horse as War Eagle, avoiding his real name. Little Horse kept his eyes cast down at the floor when spoken to by John or Sarah—not out of disrespect, but because he believed an Indian’s soul could be stolen if he made eye contact with whites.
For nearly two hours, the Hanchons kept their son busy with eager questions. But despite their obvious joy at seeing him again, they were clearly troubled by Kristen’s parting warning.
“Kristen was right, son,” said Sarah after she had fed everyone fried potatoes and side meat and cornbread. “I’m so happy to see you I could just burst! But it isn’t safe for you around here. Seems like trouble’s been happening ten ways a second lately. You and your friend risked enough just by riding here.”
“Your mother’s giving it to you straight,” said Hanchon. “There’s no real law out here and scarcely any gum’ment except the Army. And I reckon you already know how much the Army will help us. Hiram Steele is mean and low and spiteful, the brooding kind that holds a grudge until it hollers mama. And he grudges me every honest dollar I earn. You should clear out tonight, under cover of darkness.”
Dutifully, Touch the Sky translated these warnings to Little Horse. His friend was still devouring hot slabs of cornbread as quick as Sarah pulled them from the oven. He listened with an impassive face as Touch the Sky explained the danger in remaining there.