Return of the Tall Man

by Clay Fisher

  “I could have shot him without bothering you two,” he said, “but I didn’t want to alarm you. Besides, there was plenty of time.”

  “If that was your idea of plenty,” said Ben sharply, “I’d hate to get caught between you and what you’d call short notice.” He leaned to help the Nez Percé, just now arising. When the latter had come to his feet, he noticed that he limped badly. “Are you all right, friend?” he asked quickly. “I didn’t see you take that hit.”

  “It’s an old wound,” replied the other, “not from today.”

  “Not from the same day possibly,” said Go-deen, beady eyes alert, “but from the same Sioux, eh? Am I right? Of course I am. You’re the Wallowa, Aluin Ueukie, John Lame Elk; the same one that took the white woman from the Horse Creek Shoshoni of Crowheart.”

  The Nez Percé moved forward. As tall as Ben Allison very nearly, he was the handsomest man, red or white, the latter had ever seen. He towered over the squat breed, voice soft as a woman’s, dark eyes fierce and wild with that look of freedom seen only in the eyes of eagles.

  “Yes,” he said, “I am the one. My people and the white people at the agency call me Lame John. But don’t fear; I am not awkward about the leg. I received it fighting for the white woman. To find her again, I would take another like it or far worse.”

  Ben frowned slightly.

  “You mean you’re back here looking for that woman?”

  “Yes, I will always look for her.”

  “But do you know if these Sioux still have her?”

  “No, I don’t. These few you drove off just now, they jumped me as I was gutting a deer I had shot. I’ll admit I didn’t dream there was a Sioux within miles. If my people ever hear of it, I will never live down the disgrace. We don’t regard the Sioux as much. We think of them as dirt, as less than dirt.”

  “Beware!” warned Go-deen. “I am half Oglala.”

  “Hah! The very name means Dirt Thrower. Do you deny it?”

  Go-deen wavered, broke out his leering, lopsided grin.

  “I deny nothing, cousin. But I would like to make a good suggestion. Since Tall Brother missed his shot on Buffalo Ribs, it might be a wise thing if we went away from here pretty quick. I don’t know about you, but I’m getting uncomfortable.” He pointed across the meadow. “I have the feeling those four are talking about us.”

  Ben and Lame John looked at the Sioux. As they did, Buffalo Ribs upended his Winchester, another of the new carbines, and levered five deliberately spaced shots. With that he shook the rifle at the three companions, shouted something to his followers, wheeled his warhorse, and was gone swiftly into the fringing timber.

  “Five shots,” said Ben thoughtfully. “I’m not familiar with that sign apparently. How does she read, Go-deen?”

  “Five, that’s the Sioux bad medicine number,” replied the other. “They put it on anybody they intend seeing again. Five. Slowly spaced, just like that. I’m glad Buffalo Ribs wasn’t looking at me when he let off those medicine shots. Come on, let’s go.”

  Ben took Malachi from Go-deen, swung up on him. Holding him in, he nodded.

  “Just a minute. You mean to tell me that damned Sioux was looking at me in particular?”

  The breed regarded him impatiently.

  “Did I rescue this Nez Percé from him? Did I shoot three of his warriors out of their saddles? Did I jump out from behind these rocks yelling like a spirit wolf right in his face? Did I throw all those shots at him with that short gun you carry on your leg? Well …?”

  “Well, no.”

  “No is right. Never fear, Tall Brother. Buffalo Ribs won’t be confused between you and me when he meets us again. He will know you. Trust in that.”

  “Thanks,” said Ben. “I would have worried if you hadn’t of reassured me.”

  “Brothers,” interrupted the Nez Percé, “let us do as the Fat One suggested. Let’s get out of here.”

  “Fat! I like that! I really do like that—!”

  Go-deen was sputtering, and Ben stepped Malachi forward, wedging him between the breed’s old gelding and Lame John’s rawboned Appaloosa.

  “Hold on,” he said, “let’s don’t waste time arguing weights. We’re all here on the same business. Maybe we can show the best profit working together.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Lame John, puzzled. “I can’t see how we are here on the same business. How is that? I’m after that yellow-haired white woman, I admitted that. But she can’t be your woman, for she was Iron Eyes’. I know that.”

  “Wait up, friend,” said Ben and, bringing forth the locket, proceeded to tell him the full story of Amy Johnston. When he had done so, Lame John looked at him a long, searching moment, then asked quietly:

  “You do not want her for yourself then?”

  “No, I just gave my word to her father exactly the way I said, and no more.”

  “Then,” agreed Lame John, “we do have the same business, and we are three against the Sioux’s three hundred.”

  “Two only,” corrected Go-deen at once. “I am along in the capacity of an employed guide. The Sioux are my brothers in blood. Don’t think for a minute I will fight with you against them.”

  Lame John regarded him with some interest.

  “What do you call fighting them? You shot that brave just now. Was that an act of brotherhood in the blood?”

  “Bah! Don’t question me. I am Frank Go-deen of the Milk River half bloods. Would I lie to an ordinary Wallowa?”

  The tall Nez Percé leaned from the saddle, putting out his hand.

  “I am John Lame Elk,” he said, “and I do not question the man who shoots his own brother in my defense.”

  “It was only a half brother,” said Go-deen grudgingly.

  Ben edged Malachi back into the meeting.

  “Is this a private lodge,” he asked, “or can anybody belong to it?” He held out his own hand toward Lame John. “I’m Ben Allison,” he said. “Welcome to the Amy Johnston Rangers.”

  A light showed in the Nez Percé’s eyes, but he did not smile. He took Ben’s hand firmly, however.

  “Come on,” urged Go-deen, jerking his head toward Ben, “let’s get going before our white friend here starts another speech. All white men talk too much but this one—eeh!”

  Now Lame John smiled.

  “I like the way he talks,” he said. “I never heard such a beautiful tongue in my life as that with which he spoke to the Sioux just now.”

  “Bah! Any fool can jump out from behind rocks shooting helpless Hunkpapas with no warning. It was like lancing trout in a rain pool. Gun talk is always cheap!”

  “Indeed it is,” agreed Ben. “Let’s move out.”

  They turned their mounts, following swiftly around behind the ridge again. After a while of riding in silence, Lame John shook his head.

  “No, not cheap,” he frowned. “In the Bible it says, ‘All that a man has will he give for his life.’ The white brother offered me his life back there. Is that cheap? No, never. So now I offer him my life here.”

  “Nonsense,” said Ben, coloring badly. “Nobody owes nobody a thing. We’re all square.”

  “That’s not for you to say,” replied Lame John softly.

  “A life for a life is the Indian law. I would not change if it I could. From this place to the last end of the trail, I go with you. There’s no more to be said.” “Now you’ve done it!” growled Go-deen, eying Ben resentfully. “We’ll never get rid of him. Three mouths to feed and one brain to do the cooking. Eeh—!”

  9

  Hookahey!

  All that day they trailed the Sioux survivors, coming with day’s end to the warning sign of lodge smokes spiraling above the trees ahead. Not denying Go-deen’s advice, they cut away from the smokes, seeking higher country and safer from which to make their next decision.

&nb
sp; With dark, they lay up among the wind-warped cedars of the Little Belts, high and cold above the camp of the Hunkpapas. The Sioux village was set in a lovely alpine grassland bordered by thick timber and drained by the beginnings of the South Fork of Judith River. There was no water upon the arid hogback they had chosen, nor did they dare make a fire. Their supper consisted of a few grainy mouthfuls of jerky forced down by muscle, not mastication. For after-dinner entertainment they studied the Sioux through Go-deen’s telescope, holding terse court on the aspects of Hunkpapa community life as it might relate to their own present ambitions. The problem, according to Go-deen, was a simple one: to find out if the people of Buffalo Ribs still held Amy Johnston or, if not, what they had done with her.

  However simple, though, said the breed, this might take a little doing, as there remained one small complication. Ordinarily, his Oglala blood would gain him friendly entrance to the Hunkpapa lodges. But as Buffalo Ribs had almost surely seen him join Ben and Lame John in the ambush rocks, this kindness of kinfolk could not be counted upon. To this must be added the historical bad feeling between the Hunkpapas and Lame John’s people. Then consider the fact that Go-deen knew, from first-ear listening in the Sioux lodges all during the months of deep cold, that there had been much talk of an early spring war with the whites. Go-deen could not say whether a subsequent vote for that war had been given. All he could say was that the winter talk had been of a big war with the white man as soon as the new grass was coming first above the ground; and now the new grass had come, and Ben Allison was a big white man. In view of this, he, Go-deen, would have to identify that one small complication before mentioned. He would do it by asking Lame John and Brother Ben if they had any ideas for an approach to the lodges below which would not involve getting all three of their throats slit.

  Ben and the tall Wallowa shook their heads. All right, then, said Go-deen, they would do it his way. Ben was almost afraid to put the next question but knew he must.

  “And what,” he asked, “might that be?”

  “It might be any of several things, Tall Brother, but in fact it is only one. We leave this ridge by the back side before daylight. Once down it, we keep going as far and as fast as these miserable brutes of ours will carry us.” He had the telescope up at the time, and Ben asked quietly:

  “Why? You seeing something you don’t like down there?”

  “Indeed, indeed,” said Go-deen. “I’m watching Slohan’s lodge. There is a nice fire in front of it, and Slohan is talking across it with the headmen—maybe two dozen of them—with no squaws.”

  “No squaws? That’s a war talk, eh?”

  “Naturally.”

  “Slohan? That’s Buffalo Ribs’ Sioux name, isn’t it?”

  “I told you that.”

  “Sure, you’ve told me a lot of things.”

  “Good, then let me add this one more thing to all the others; don’t let the sun catch you still sitting up on this ridge.”

  Ben, squinting through the darkness, could make out the small figures seated and standing about the fire below. But the distance was so great that, with the naked eye, he could see no movement in the group.

  “Are you reading their lips?” he inquired crisply of Go-deen. “If so, tell me what they’re saying about me. I’m dying to know.”

  “If you make a joke, it escapes me,” said the breed, “but perhaps you are right anyway. You well might die from knowing what they are saying about you.”

  Ben’s briskness wilted.

  “Like what?” he asked humbly enough.

  “Like they’re speaking with their hands, as they always do in a serious council. So I’m not reading their lips but their signs. From this it becomes an easy matter to form an opinion of what is being said.”

  “Such as?”

  “They did see me shoot their friend when you were talking too much back there in the rocks. They also saw you help the Nez Percé to his feet. They recognized me, as well. So the rest is easy. They will come after all three of us with first light.”

  Ben looked at Lame John, frowned, turned back to Go-deen.

  “Anything about the woman we’re after—Amy Johnston?”

  “Nothing that I could make out through the glass.” He lowered the telescope, collapsing it. “As far as I’m concerned, that ends it. I have only one more thing to say.”

  Ben got wearily up off his belly.

  “Yes, I know,” he sighed. “Hookahey.”

  “That’s it; let’s go.”

  They started off, but Lame John stayed where he lay.

  “You coming?” said Ben, looking back.

  The Nez Percé did not move.

  “You know that I’m not, brother,” he replied. “I am here to get the woman back or die. If not the one, then the other matters very little.”

  “Look,” said Ben, going back to him, “I want to find her, too. I’ve given my word to do it, same as you. But I don’t think that us getting ourselves killed is the best way to go about helping Amy Johnston. Now, come on, get up and get going.”

  “No, never.”

  “I’ll give you my word and hand to come back with you and try again the minute we can get some decent help to bring it off. We just can’t swing it alone.”

  “You go on, Brother Ben. I must stay.”

  “The hell you must stay!” exploded Ben. “Now, damn it, come on. Don’t just lay there like a damned—” He stopped himself but not in time.

  “Like a damned Indian,” finished Lame John quietly, “No, no,” he went on as Ben stammered his apology, “it’s all right, brother. We don’t think in the same ways. That’s only natural and right. Our hands may meet but not our minds. One is red, the other, white.”

  “The hell!” said Ben firmly. “I don’t shake hands unless I mean it in my mind. Get up. We’re not leaving without you.”

  “Speak for yourself, Brother Ben,” dissented Go-deen. “This Milk River is leaving with or without that Wallowa!”

  The breed began to move away through the windy darkness, but Ben was after him instantly. Seizing him by the collar, he hauled him back to where Lame John still lay upon his stomach watching the Sioux fire.

  “Oh, no you don’t!” he said. “We’re not splitting up. In fact we’re going to hold a little war talk of our own right here and presently. There’s been two too many chiefs so far. You understand?”

  Go-deen wrinkled his lance scar, refusing to answer. But Lame John’s soft voice took up the matter.

  “What do you propose?” he asked.

  “Number one,” said Ben, “that we decide whether the finding of Amy Johnston is my job or yours. It can’t be both. Number two, and depending on number one, are we going to run this track-down white or Indian style?”

  Go-deen took a pose of outright hostility, or the best imitation of it which he could manage with Ben’s big hand still holding him firmly by the shirt collar. But Lame John got slowly to his feet and stood facing Ben, dark eyes burning.

  “Well spoken,” he said, putting out his hand. “Neither do I accept a man’s hand lightly.”

  Their hands met quickly and were quickly released, but with the grip Ben knew the Nez Percé had surrendered his most prized Indian right—the freedom to make one’s personal decisions without regard to his fellows. His next words sealed the concession.

  “Back there this morning,” he told Ben, “I said I would go with you to the far end of the trail. Now I say I will follow you to it. What do you want us to do?”

  Ben answered him with a wordless grip of both hands on his shoulders.

  “First off,” he said, “we’ll do just what Go-deen advised: be long gone before sunrise. Next, we’ll do what I suggested: go round up reinforcements and come back. That’s the best I can think of, looking at it long haul–wise.”

  Lame John bowed his head, a feeling almo
st of sadness lining his dark face.

  “It’s the difference between the red man and the white,” he said. “It is why the Indian must lose, and you whites must win in the end. It is exactly what Young Joseph has always told us.”

  “Young Joseph,” said Ben, “must be a pretty smart cookie.”

  “He will be a great man one day; he has the power to see ahead.”

  “Yes, well then,” said Ben, correcting the drift of the exchange, “we’re agreed. We’ll play it my way from here on.”

  “Right,” answered Lame John. Then he turned to Go-deen with one of his grave smiles. “What was that Sioux word, brother?”

  The half-breed regarded him balefully.

  “Hookahey,” he grunted.

  Lame John wheeled back to Ben, the smile giving way to a sober-sided nod.

  “That’s the one, Brother Ben,” he said “Hookahey!”

  “Bah!” said Go-deen, throwing up his hands. “Both crazy! One red, one white, and each as wild as a wolf with his bowels full of poison bait. Eeh! What’s a man to do when his own comrades go mad?”

  Angry growls aside, when Ben led the way to their tethered mounts, the Milk River breed went shoulder to shoulder behind him with John Lame Elk, the Wallowa Nez Percé. And from that time, there was no serious question of final voice among the Amy Johnston Rangers.

  10

  The Gray-eyed Oglala

  Just before daylight they rounded a switchback in the mountain trail they were following through the Big Snowy range, east of the Sioux encampment. Ahead lay a small pothole meadow similar, save in extent, to that wherein Buffalo Ribs had pitched his lodges. They were out into the grass, free of the timber, before any of them realized how similar was this new meadow. Go-deen, riding the lead, cursed and hauled in his old white gelding. Ben, immediately behind him, nearly fell off Malachi when the latter bumped the haunches of the white and was bumped in turn from the rear by Lame John’s Appaloosa. Awakened by the collision, the dozing Nez Percé, his view blocked by Ben’s wide shoulders, asked sleepily: