Blood Bond

by William W. Johnstone

  “Safer outside,” Bodine muttered, peering out a window. He located the man in the barn loft, gently eased open the door, and knocked him back with one shot, the man dropping his rifle with a scream.

  Bodine was out the door and running up the muddy side of the street. He’d made up his mind he’d rather do that than go back and look at that ugly woman in her all-togethers.

  There were two of Thomas’s men somewhere, but where?

  Movement from a window caught his eyes and sent Bodine sliding belly-down in the muddy ground just as gunfire blasted the air where he’d been standing. Lifting his rifle, he made a mess out of the window and a bigger mess out of the face of the man who had been standing there.

  Bodine rolled out of the mud and into a space between buildings. He got to his feet and caught his breath.

  “Bodine!” came the call. “What’s your interest in all this?”

  “I don’t like to see folks robbed,” Bodine called.

  “I ain’t got no truck with you, Bodine. Lemme ride on out.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Pete Grant. I mean it, Bodine. I know that’s you. I seen you one time afore. Lemme ride on out.”

  “I see you again, Pete, I’m gonna kill you.”

  “I believe you, Bodine. I’m gone, Bodine. Headin’ south back to Texas. You ain’t gonna see me around here no more. That’s a promise.”

  “Ride on out, Pete.” Bodine stepped out from between the two buildings.

  Pete hadn’t been kidding. Once in the saddle he went fog-gin’ it, without even a glance back. People began coming out of the buildings, to stand and stare at Bodine.

  Bodine cleaned the mud off his clothing at a horse trough and checked and cleaned his guns. He walked back to Rowdy and made sure his supplies were tied down securely, then stepped into the saddle. As he rode past a building, the back door opened and the woman whose bath he’d interrupted smiled at him. Bodine noticed she had put on a robe—thank God!

  “Leaving so soon?” she asked.

  “I got to go, lady.”

  “Pity. We could have a real good time. My old man run out on me.”

  I can’t imagine why, Bodine thought. “Your town’s safe now, lady. I gotta go.”

  “Hell, them fellers never bothered me!” she yelled at his back.

  “I can believe that,” Bodine muttered, then rode out of town. Rowdy seemed as anxious to leave as Bodine did. Hadn’t been a decent-looking mare in the whole damn town.

  A week later, Bodine had still not been able to pick up Two Wolves’ trail. It seemed as though his brother had dropped off the face of the earth.

  Bodine had turned east, searching from the Rosebud to the Tongue, and then traveling the vast and lonely emptiness between the Tongue River and Mizpah Creek. There, he stopped.

  He just didn’t see the point of going on.

  There was no doubt in his mind that Two Wolves knew he was looking for him. Bodine had seen a hundred or so Indians during the past week, talking with some of them. But whenever he mentioned his brother’s name, they would either clam up or change the subject.

  All right, Bodine thought. If that’s the way it is to be, Brother—so be it.

  “Looking for me?” the voice came from behind him.

  Bodine did not look around from his cooking bacon over the small fire.

  “Why should I look for a person who has no more sense than a goat?”

  “If you are not looking for me, why are you so far from home?” Two Wolves walked down the embankment, leading his horse. He picketed the horse next to, but not too close to Rowdy.

  “I grew restless with all the inactivity.” He looked at Two Wolves. He was wearing boots and jeans and a beaded buckskin shirt. His hair was cut short, but he wore a headband.

  Two Wolves caught the direction of his eyes. “I do not know who I am. So I will dress as what I am. A halfbreed.”

  “That’s all right with me. As long as you behave like the intelligent person I know you are.”

  “Bah!” Two Wolves poured a cup of coffee. “It is the act of an intelligent person to enter into a gunfight with six of Tom Thomas’s men?”

  So Two Wolves had been following him. That would account for the occasional dust Bodine had seen on his back trail.

  “I did not say I was intelligent. I merely stated that you were.”

  “For once, you speak the truth.”

  “Why don’t you eat. That’s one way of shutting your mouth.”

  “I thought you would never ask. I thought you might have forgotten your Cheyenne upbringing.”

  “As long as I wear the scars on my chest I shall never forget.”

  “True.” Two Wolves broke off a piece of hard bread Bodine handed him and sopped it in the hot grease. He speared a strip of bacon with the point of his knife and let it dangle there, cooling.

  “I thought I’d follow the creek down a-ways and then cut east over to the Powder and take that on down to home range.”

  “I might decide to ride with you. I might not.”

  Bodine let the subject drop with that remark from Two Wolves. He wasn’t going to push him.

  “Have you been to the Rosebuds?” Two Wolves asked after a long silence.

  “No. You?”

  “No. I wanted to go. I wanted to see my father one more time. But I was afraid he would turn his back to me. I would not want that as my last memory of him. I have dreamed.” He abruptly shifted subjects.

  “My own dreams have not been pleasant.”

  “I prayed and fasted on the mountain, seeking guidance. But nothing came to me. I believe I am a nonperson. I do believe I am no longer a human being.”

  “If you are not, then I am not.”

  “That may also be truth.”

  Bodine looked up at the sun. “Six, maybe seven hours of daylight left. We could cover a lot of ground in that time.”

  “That definitely is the truth.”

  Bodine poured another cup of coffee and refilled Two Wolves’ cup, emptying the battered and blackened old pot. He tossed the grounds away and set the pot aside. They finished the bread and bacon and Two Wolves carefully put out the fire.

  Both young men stood up.

  “There is something you should know, I tat an e.”

  Cheyenne for brother. Bodine waited.

  “General Crook has left Fort Fetterman with a large force. There have already been small battles between Crook and the Cheyenne and Sioux. It is believed among my . . .” He paused. Sighed. “. . . the Indians, that Crook and Custer believe they can trap the Indians, with Crook coming from the south and Yellow Hair from the east. They will not trap the Indians. They will die instead.”

  “I tried to convince Colonel Travers of this. He would not listen.”

  “Then you have done all that you can do.”

  “How many Indians are camped along the river in the Rosebuds, I tat an e?”

  “Crow King says they are plenty as the leaves on the trees.”

  “You have spoken with Crow King?”

  “I have spoken with a few warriors from the Hunkpapa, yes. Seven thousand in the Rosebuds, Bodine.”

  “Seven thousand!”

  “Yes. That would mean more than three thousand warriors. At least.”

  “And you think we should do what with this information?”

  Two Wolves shrugged. “I do not plan to do anything with it. What you do with it is your concern.”

  “We could ride to the fort; tell Colonel Travers.”

  “We could ride to the fort. You could tell the colonel.”

  “Of course, he wouldn’t believe me.”

  “Probably not.”

  “What is the date, Brother?”

  “I do not have any idea. May something or the other. I have lost track of time.”

  “As have I.”

  “We could ride north and try to intercept Custer’s columns.”

  “This is also true.”

  “Going nor
th would be closer than trying to ride for the fort.”

  “It would certainly be the humane thing to do to try to reach Iron Butt. A man should know that he is going to die.”

  “Of course, he won’t believe us either.”

  “Probably not.”

  They walked toward their horses and saddled up. Then both returned to the creek and filled their canteens.

  “This could be a dangerous ride for you,” Bodine said.

  “I would not feel right if I let you go riding off alone, Bodine. You might get lost and wander around forever and ever. Then I would have to come looking for you. Better I ride along.”

  Bodine smiled and Two Wolves returned the smile. Then both young men laughed as they mounted up.

  “I remember when you got lost when you were about fourteen,” Bodine said, pointing Rowdy’s nose toward the north.

  “Me? Lost? Bah! I have never been lost.”

  They were still arguing as they rode away from the creek, on their way to try to alter destiny.

  Chapter 28

  The two young men angled toward the northwest, following trails and paths that only the Indians and a few mountain men knew of. This was raw, rugged, beautiful, and untamed country. A land where a misstep or the taking of the wrong trail could mean a quick death. But already settlers were moving in, trying to carve out some sort of existence from the wilderness. Most had not lasted. Crude crosses above shallow graves offered silent and lonely testimony to that hard fact of frontier life.

  The men lost track of the days as one blended into another and they began riding more west than north.

  “We may have missed him,” Bodine finally had to admit, standing up in his stirrups and scanning the horizon.

  “According to the braves I talked with, the column was several miles long and with infantry, moving no more than ten miles a day. I think we’ve come too far west.” He twisted in the saddle and pointed to a butte in the distance. “Let’s make camp up there and sit it out for a couple of days. The horses can use the rest.”

  On the flat, they found an overhang that was blackened from the countless fires of those the Indians call The People Who Came Before. Past the overhang, in a cave, they found a small stream that bubbled out of the rocks, a stream with cold clear water. Two Wolves killed two rabbits for supper while Bodine built a fire and heated water for coffee, dumping in the grounds when the water boiled. It was evident to them both that they were the first humans to use this flat in many years. How many, neither of them cared to venture a guess.

  They slept soundly that night, knowing their horses would alert them if danger was near. They could only stay for two days, for their supplies were dangerously low and they would have to ride for a settlement on the Yellowstone very soon.

  On the afternoon of the second day, Two Wolves spotted the dust.

  Bodine and Two Wolves hurriedly broke camp and saddled up, riding in an easy lope toward the long column. As soon as they were spotted, several of the forty Indian scouts, mostly Crow and Ree, broke from the column and raced toward them. Bodine and Two Wolves did not stop, but instead rode right through the cursing and yelling scouts and headed for the front of the column.

  “See what those two men want, Marcus,” Custer said to Major Marcus A. Reno.

  Reno broke from the column and loped over to Bodine and Two Wolves. “Just hold up right there, gentlemen,” the major ordered. “What’s the big hurry?”

  “I’m Matt Bodine, Major. This is Sam Two Wolves, son of Medicine Horse.”

  Reno rocked back in his saddle and studied the pair for a moment. “I’ve heard of you both. Now what do you want?”

  “To see Custer.”

  “Why?”

  “To try to save his life,” Bodine said bluntly. “And yours, as well.”

  “You have news of the hostiles?”

  A hundred years after the west was tamed, Indians would still bristle at the term: hostile. Two Wolves sat his saddle and chuckled.

  “Perhaps you would like to share the humor with me, Sam?” Reno questioned.

  “Some other time, Major. Providing you have that much time left you.”

  They all heard Custer shout the column to a rest. He loped over to join Reno. Reno backed up his mount and spoke quietly with Custer for a moment. Custer moved forward to look at Bodine and Two Wolves.

  The colonel’s long flowing hair had been cut short even for that time. His mustache was thick and bushy, hanging well over his mouth. He wore a red tie, fringed buckskins, and a wide-brimmed campaign hat. He was thirty-six years old.

  Custer waved Reno back to the column and faced the two men alone. “State your business, Bodine.”

  “You’re riding into a death-trap, Colonel. You have vastly underestimated the strength of the Sioux and the Cheyenne in the Rosebuds.”

  “You saw the encampment?”

  “My news comes from Crow King.”

  “Then I must place no credence in your warning, sir. But I do thank you for your concern. Is there anything else?”

  “We’ve had a hard ride to warn you, sir. We could do with some supplies.”

  “How many days?”

  “Three should do it.”

  “See the quartermaster. Good day, gentlemen.”

  Custer wheeled his mount and rode back to the column. Bodine stared at Custer’s back, a disgusted expression on his face. “On second thought, I think we can do without his supplies. We’ll hunt what we need. That sound all right with you?”

  But Two Wolves did not reply.

  Bodine glanced at him. His brother was staring at the long column intently, an odd expression on his face. “What do you see, Brother?”

  “Death. Pain. I do not want their supplies, Bodine. Let’s ride.”

  * * *

  They rode on to a settlement on the Yellowstone, on the way living on rabbits and berries and fish. At the settlement, which some were already calling Rosebud, because of its location at the mouth of the river, they bathed and had a shave and a haircut and enjoyed food they did not have to cook themselves. They soon found that the people in the village were very excited about Custer’s coming to once and for all deal with the hostiles.

  It was here, at the mouth of the Rosebud, that General Alfred H. Terry, the commander of the Department of Dakota, had ordered Custer to turn south to find the hostiles, believed camped in the Rosebud Mountains, probably along the Little Bighorn.

  Bodine and Two Wolves spent one night camped just outside the tiny settlement and pulled out before dawn the next morning, following the Rosebud down to its gentle curving toward the southwest. There, they angled off on a trail that would take them to the Tongue. Both had decided they would camp for a time along the Tongue and do some hunting.

  Both knew that was not the real reason for their staying close to the Rosebuds; but neither one spoke that reason aloud.

  They loafed for several days, fishing, hunting, sleeping, and acting like a couple of kids, swimming barebutted in a deep cold pool of the Tongue.

  They were fixing their supper under a late afternoon’s dying sun when a call came from the gathering shadows.

  “Hello, the fire! We’re friendly but slap out of grub.”

  “Come on in,” Bodine called, drawing a Colt and rearing the hammer back, knowing the sound would reach the distance. It wasn’t being unfriendly, just cautious.

  “We’ll be right back,” the man called. “Got to go back and get our horses. We didn’t know who the fire belonged to.”

  They were a couple of young cowboys who were just drifting after having spent the winter in a line shack just south of the Missouri.

  “Made the mistake of wanderin’ into the Rosebuds,” one said. “Man, I never seen so damn many Injuns in all my life.”

  “It’s a good thing they didn’t see you,” Bodine told him.

  “You shore got that right!” the man’s buddy said. “When we seed what we was gettin’ into, we got out of it, in a hurry!”


  Bodine poured them coffee and began dishing up the food. It was venison fried in wild onions with beans, but to the hungry young cowboys, it was a feast.

  Two Wolves eyeballed how fast the plates were emptying, smiled, and began slicing more meat to fry.

  “I better tell y’all,” one cowboy drawled his Texas speech. “They’s some bad ol’ boys about a day behind us. Headed by a gent name of Bull. Simon Bull.”

  “We’ve heard of him,” Two Wolves said.

  “They’re lookin’ for the gunfighter, Bodine. I hear he’s a bad one, too.”

  “Yeah,” his buddy spoke around a mouthful of food. “He’s got quite a name for hisself. Simon Bull’s a-ridin’ to kill him. That’s what we heared.”

  “He won’t do it,” Bodine said softly.

  “How come you to say that?”

  “I’m Bodine.”

  Both young men stopped eating and stared.

  Bodine jerked a thumb toward his brother. “That’s the son of the Cheyenne war chief, Medicine Horse. Sam Two Wolves. We’re brothers in blood.”

  “Pleasure to meet you gentlemen,” Two Wolves said, smiling at the awestruck young punchers. “Eat, eat, please. No one is ever turned away from food at a Cheyenne fire.”

  “Ch . . . ch . . . Cheyenne?”

  “Of course,” Bodine stuck the needle a little deeper with a straight face, “the trick is to get away after you’ve eaten and rested.”

  “And always eat everything an Indian gives you,” Two Wolves told them. “It’s very bad manners to leave food uneaten. Not to mention being a great insult.”

  The boys went to gobbling.

  Both Bodine and Two Wolves realized they had taken the joke too far and tried to calm the young men. But the young punchers weren’t having any of it.

  With their plates shiny clean, the punchers thanked them for the food, and backed out of the camp. They mounted up and rode out, quickly.

  “Shame on you!” Bodine admonished his brother. “You wild Indian.”

  “Shame on me! I’m not the one with the reputation. You’re the big, bad gunfighter who frightens young cowboys. What about Simon Bull?”

  “What about him? I don’t have any quarrel with Simon.”

  “He’s riding to kill you.”

  “He’s got it to do.”