by Win
Tomás dashed into the plaza at a canter standing on Vici’s back, hands held high. The crowd hushed. Not only was the medicine hat an unusual and striking mount, no one had seen a man stand and ride a running horse without reins—most of them hadn’t imagined it. Into the ring horse and rider charged, and once around. As the horse neared the entrance again, Tomás spoke, and Vici reared. Tomás did a flying dismount.
A few trappers clapped, but the Indians weren’t used to this custom.
Now Tomás gave Vici a signal with his right hand. The pony went clockwise around the circle at a steady lope. Up went Tomás’s arm, pointing the other way. Vici reared, pivoted on his rear hoofs, and circled the other direction.
A man controlling a horse with gestures!
Men clapped, and women made the high trill of acclaim.
Tomás motioned like he was about to pat the ground. Vici came to him, extended his front legs, and ducked his head between them, like a bow.
The silence of the audience was awe.
Vici stood again, and Tomás hurtled onto him from behind. At a word Vici began a slow walk toward the circle entrance. On his back Tomás mounted into a handstand.
The crowd gasped collectively.
As horse and rider slid out of the circle, out the fort gate, and into the sunset, everyone cheered.
Tomás woke up grinning. Grass’s nose was about an inch from his. The rest of her flesh was even closer.
He also woke up with his ass and his feet freezing. Their covering of blankets wasn’t enough. But he didn’t want to budge. He wanted to hold her. He wanted her to sleep in his arms forever, and he wanted her to wake up and do everything again, all that they’d done until the stars said dawn was close.
He wanted to know where her mind was right now, in the land of dreams. Was she dreaming of him? Was she remembering their mad romp, time after time? In her mind did she move her lips against him? Her hips?
Or maybe she was a girl again, with her parents and in her village. She was a Comanche and grew up in a canyon called in his language Palo Duro. These were the only words, apparently, she spoke of any language except Comanche. Nor did she know sign language. When she had been snatched away, somehow, from her family, she was perfectly ignorant of the wider world.
But last night, with the help of the music and the dancing and the whiskey—last night they needed only one language. Their bodies were sensuous in the dance, electric in the kiss, and in their union an earthquake.
He planned to spend the rest of his life with her.
He imagined what it must have been like for her, being taken away. Who stole her, Cheyennes? Young warriors? Did they molest her? Or did they intend her, from the start, as a gift to Yellow Eye?
Or perhaps raiders from another tribe tore her away from all that she loved. Away from suitors, or even from a husband. (She had demonstrated beyond all doubt that she knew plenty about sex, and loved it.) Did these abductors abuse her?
He wanted to know what had happened to her. He wanted to know, earlier than that, how she had lived. He wanted to know everything about her life, every detail. Undoubtedly, when they had gone to see the priest in Taos and sanctified their marriage, they would ride to Palo Duro Canyon and meet her family and tribesmen. Maybe they would even stay and live there—who knew? Nothing mattered except that they would be together.
Grass’s eyes fluttered open, and then popped wide. She grinned at him mischievously. The biggest thing he’d learned about her was that she loved to play.
Beneath the blankets their hands started playing.
Tomás heard footsteps.
Grass looked beyond his head and made a strange face.
Yellow Eye squatted next to them. In his hands he held two tin cups full of steaming coffee.
Tomás took the hint. He turned away from Grass and reached for a cup, gave it to Grass, and took another for himself. They lay under a leafless cottonwood, half way between the fort and the river, in a place they thought would be private.
Yellow Eye said something.
Baptiste translated, “Good morning, I am glad to see you.”
Tomás hadn’t seen him until that moment.
“I hope you had a good night.”
Tomás couldn’t find his tongue.
“Did you enjoy each other?”
Grass spoke first—“Yes.”
“Very much,” said Tomás.
Yellow Eye sat and crossed his legs. He took another cup of coffee out of Baptiste’s pot and sipped. He nodded to himself two or three times. Then he got a broad grin and said, “I trade her to you for that black and white pony.”
49
“I will not buy her!” snapped Tomás.
Baptiste said mildly, “She wants you to.”
They walked the horses on. Since Tomás wanted to talk and felt an urge to keep Vici close by, they were going to sit by the river. They got off and let the mounts drink.
Baptiste said, “What are you thinking?”
“Seeing her back in the Cheyenne camp. With her captors.”
Baptiste shook his head. “They were prepared to accept her. You are too, I think.”
Tomás’s eyes flashed fire at Baptiste. “Maybe instead of telling me to trade human beings like chattel, you will help me make a plan.”
Baptiste shrugged. “All right,” he said.
It almost drove Tomás crazy. Yellow Eye allowed Tomás to see Grass once a day, in the evening. First he and Baptiste took dinner with the Yellow Eye family, and Baptiste translated their awkward conversation. When dark fell, Tomás stayed for courtship in a proper Cheyenne way. But after the two of them stood by the door flap of the tipi for an hour or so, the blanket wrapped all the way over their heads, Yellow Eye would call, “Daughter, it is time to sleep.”
Those words infuriated Tomás. He went away every night, back to the barracks room in the fort where visiting trappers slept, stomping his feet. What really made him mad was that Yellow Eye seemed willing to stall forever.
Walkara grew weary of waiting. On the morning he and his young men left for his village, pack horses laden with trade goods, Walkara found Tomás and Baptiste to say goodbye and give them some information. “Pegleg, he went to California in the month Junio…”
“June,” grumbled Tomás…
“And he comes back, maybe, so he said, in Deciembre.”
“December.”
“To Taos.”
“Taos?” said Tomás. He and Baptiste looked at each other.
“Naturally, Taos. He will sell many horses and bring much trade goods back to our people. The women will be very happy.” Walkara gave a lascivious grin.
“You have led us on a merry chase,” said Tomás.
“You were easy to fool, and a lot of fun,” said Walkara. “Goodbye, my Mexican friend, my French-Canadian friend. I look forward to see you soon.”
Everyone else went on with their business. The men who made adobe bricks from mud and laid them into walls worked on enclosing the fort. Bent entertained an Arapaho group and made a sizable trade. Baptiste hinted that they might as well go to Taos early, as it would be more entertaining than this outpost.
“I love Grass,” he said.
“And you like to hate her father,” said Baptiste.
“He’s not her father,” snapped Tomás.
Baptiste raised his eyebrows.
For another week Tomás lived only to wrap himself in that blanket with Grass in the evening. Unfortunately, it had to be standing up.
Once in a while Yellow Eye would taunt Tomás. At dinner he would say easily, “A father expects a suitor to show that he wants a woman.” Or, “If you give nothing for her, she thinks you don’t want her.”
Twice he asked Tomás to show him Vici’s wonderful abilities again, but Tomás refused. Yellow Eye always had the manner of a man in no rush.
The “father” never let them do their courting more than a few feet from the lodge. And at the end of that week he told Tomás that
the Cheyennes would pack up their belongs tomorrow and ride back toward their winter camp. That evening Tomás was glad he and Grass were unable to communicate with words. They spoke only with their hands and bodies.
Tomás gave them two days head start. Bent had told him where the band spent the cold months. Though he didn’t know where Sand Creek was, Tomás had no difficulty sneaking away from the fort and from Baptiste and following something as broad as a lodge trail turning north, away from the Arkansas River.
50
Tomás told himself not to worry about the dogs, but his nerves were dancing a jig of fear.
The camp faced a big half circle of creek, with a high bank on the far side. Tomás had waded downstream for a long way. He was in the thigh-deep water in the shadow of the bank, and any noise he made would be less than the swishing of the current.
Now he stood absolutely still again and looked around. The sentry who stood on the bank downstream was silhouetted against the moonlit sky, a dark shadow pointed away from the invader. The sentries on the far side of camp weren’t visible from here. He’d spent all of last night and today watching the men who guarded the camp, so he knew where they were.
Nothing in the camp stirred. As the year grew later, dark came earlier, and people were inside, gathered close around their center fires, last talk before sleep.
Earlier Tomás crouched on the creek bank and watched the lodges go dark, one by one. From that distance he couldn’t pick out the one that belonged to Yellow Eye. He wanted the whole camp asleep before he made his move.
Which was now. He reminded himself that the wind was wafting gently in from the west, so the dogs couldn’t smell him. He’d been around the Cheyenne camp enough that they knew his odor anyway. Nothing was holding him back except that jig.
He stepped easily out of the creek and shivered—his wet leggings were icy almost to his groin. He looked back at the sentry. Still facing the other way. He ran lightly across the open ground to the shadow of the nearest tipi. Again he looked back at the sentry. The man was looking away from the village, not into it. Keep it up, thought Tomás.
He padded quickly to the shadow of the next tipi, and the next. This was Yellow Eye’s lodge. He slipped around to the south side and looked for the promised marker.
It was there. A strip of red ribbon poked from under the lodge cover. To Tomás it was a beacon, lit by Grass.
Yellow Eye was awake. Tomás heard it now, the rhythmic gasps of people making love. If you can call what an animal like Yellow Eye does making love. The thought of Grass lying near them, having to hear, irked Tomás. He wondered how often she had to put up with that.
He cursed. He asked himself if he should wait until the couple was asleep. Maybe they would hear him. Maybe they would see the movements.
To hell with it. Tomás didn’t want to sit beside this lodge for a long time waiting—too dangerous, and too disgusting. Besides, Mr. Sam Morgan said what worked best in any attack was just plain daring.
Right while they’re doing it, he told himself.
He knelt beside the strip of ribbon and got out his patch knife. It was always his sharpest blade, and he had spent his last afternoon back at the fort putting the best possible edge on it.
Mr. Sam Morgan, I am the daring one. He put the knife tip to the buffalo robe about a foot above the bottom and sliced.
The damn robe was tough, and the cutting seemed to take forever. Tomás listened to the sounds of sex and told himself that he was safe until they turned to silence.
Stroke, stroke, stroke—and his knife jerked through and hit the ground.
A hand grabbed his!
His heart stopped.
Then it beat fast—the hand belonged to Grass.
She slid her whole arm out, then a shoulder, followed by her face.
In the moonlight it was a spectacularly beautiful face.
She wiggled, but she couldn’t get through
Tomás turned the knife blade up, braced his hand on her ribs, and cut upward.
She wiggled. Not quite enough. He cut again.
The sounds at the rear of tipi got louder, gasps becoming grunts.
Both shoulders came through.
Tomás grabbed Grass under the arms and heaved. Slowly, wriggling, she squeezed out. Just when her hips cleared, the grunts turned to cries.
Tomás and Grass scrambled to their feet. They dashed headlong toward the creek—to hell with everything, run.
She hesitated when he splashed into the creek, then followed. Without a word he pointed upstream and waded.
After less than a hundred paces (what would have been genuine paces on land), Tomás grabbed her forearm and stopped her. The northern sentry stood still, a black line against a half-dark sky. He was looking toward them.
They stood as invisible, Tomás hoped, as the fish in the depths of the waters.
The sentry walked to the edge of the bank, which wasn’t as high here. He peered in their direction. And peered and peered. Suddenly, he strode away from them, along the bank.
“Quick!” said Tomás.
He led Grass by the wrist. They worked their way to the bank, where the water was deepest and swiftest, and leaned back against it. Maybe, Tomás thought, he won’t see us.
But this sentry was conscientious. He re-appeared where the bank was low, twenty or thirty paces upstream. Tomás could see him studying the dark waters. Then he waded into the creek, holding his war club at the ready.
Tomás and Grass squatted down in the water and held their faces almost to the surging liquid.
The sentry splashed his way downstream knee deep. Soon he passed them.
The man had seen or heard something. Tomás had no choice.
He motioned for Grass to stay where she was. Gently, he launched himself flat on the current and floated toward the sentry. Then he took several frog strokes to get directly upstream of the man.
Two steps away he stood up, knife in hand.
Hearing something, the sentry turned.
Tomás threw himself forward and buried the knife in the man’s chest.
51
They rode Vici and Kallie upstream in the creek.
Tomás knew the Cheyennes would be furious when they found the sentry. He hoped the body would float, and they wouldn’t know what happened until well after sunup. The death would cause much more outrage than the theft of a woman.
“All we have,” he told Grass, “is a few hours lead and some tricks.” Not speaking his language, she didn’t understand. But she cooperated.
He headed north because they would expect them to ride south, toward the Arkansas. He stayed in the water because it would cover their tracks. After about two miles they rode onto the land at a stony place. Then they rode hard through the dark toward another creek Tomás had spotted toward the west.
All night and all the day they kept riding, weary beyond weary in their saddles. When they bivouacked the second night, they built no fire, ate only jerked meat, took only the briefest moments for love, and slept the sleep of the dead.
Tomás expected to honeymoon at the fort. Bent would have no part of it.
“You killed a sentry?” he squeaked. His voice, naturally high, got shrill when he was emotional.
“I had to,” Tomás said.
Bent said something to Grass in Cheyenne, and it wasn’t polite.
She threw words back at him, and he threw some at her. Finally, Bent turned back to Tomás. “She’s proud that you were willing to kill a man to get her.” He looked from one to the one other. “Which shows that you’re both idiots.”
He thought a minute, fuming, and told them to follow him to the trade room. There he got out some sausage-shaped containers of pemmican and handed them to Grass. “Yellow Eye and the rest will be here today or tomorrow,” he said. “I can’t save you from them, and wouldn’t if I could. I have to live with them. So get the hell out of here.”
“What do I owe you for the pemmican?” asked Tomás.
&nb
sp; “Nothing. It’s worth it to get rid of you.”
Bent followed them to find Baptiste.
The Frenchy was glad to see them, but not at all surprised.
Tomás told him their story.
“Past time to get gone,” Baptiste agreed.
Quickly, they were packed and ready to ride.
“Where are you going?”
“Taos,” said Baptiste.
“I’ll tell them you rode west toward Walkara. Now get out of here.”
“I think it is immoral to take a woman by trade, like she was livestock,” Tomás declared.
“And not immoral,” said Bent, “to kill a man to get her?”
52
Sam Morgan approached Boiling Fountain Creek carefully. The creek leapt down the eastern slopes of Zebulon Pike’s big mountain. At one spot, before the steep slopes turned into rolling hills, the creek bubbled up about a dozen springs of fizzy water. It was carbonated, said the doctor who trekked out here with the army exploring expedition, and claimed that it was a remarkable tonic for the digestive system. Generations of Indians could have told him that. Cheyennes, Arapahos and Utes came from a hundred miles around and more to drink the cold, medicinal waters. For the last decade or so, the beaver men did the same. Sam liked to say, “That water eases my digestion and smooths the feathers of my spirits.”
Since Boiling Fountain Creek was a goal for pilgrims, it was considered sacred ground, and neutral, all comers welcome.
Which did not mean that a lone white man would be entirely safe here.
White man—Sam was sick of the term. Out here in the mountains it meant the beaver trappers, half of them not white but French-Canadian, Delaware, Iroquois, or Mexican. And even the white ones were making a new generation that blended white and red. Whenever anyone said “white man,” Sam immediately thought of Esperanza, Tomás, Azul, and Rojo, with the spritzes of different blood in their veins, and was petrified about their futures.
Now Sam tied Paladin and the pack mule, eased up to the ridge, lay flat, and glassed the Boiling Fountain Creek thoroughly with his field glass for danger.