The steps resumed. He’s walkin’ round the other bin. The sound stopped again. Israel craned his ears. We been in worse pickles than this over the last two months. Well, maybe not. The steps circled their container, stopping twice. There was a rapping on the side. Checkin’ to see if it’s full. He don’t wanna climb that ladder.
There was a muffled curse, then the creak of a ladder rung. Lucy squeezed his hand so hard one of his knuckles popped. Lord, I’m talking to you. I may not have the right, and it surely ain’t been earned. But me and Lucy, we come too damn far. God, don’t let ’em hear my heart beat.
Another creak and a second knuckle popped under Lucy’s vice-like grip. Easy woman, easy. Keep your head. Don’t be getting’ nervous and losin’ that breathin’ stem.
Another creak.
Israel tried desperately to recall how many rungs there were on the ladder, six or seven? He ought to be lookin’ over the top right now.
Another creak. “Oh Lordy, what’s he doin’? Has he seen somethin’? Lookin’ closer?” His hand ached where Lucy clamped down on it. He squeezed back twice. Lord make my heart not beat so hard. He gonna see the grain rise and fall with every beat. Please, Lord. He felt a slight shift in pressure in the oats above his head to the left of his left ear. “Oh Lordy, he diggin’ in the grain. He’s digging in the grain! Lord make him stop.”
There was a sharp crack and a loud curse. Israel started despite himself. “Damn it, shit!”
Seemed like the voice was right over their heads.
“What is Tommy? What’s going on up there?”
“The damn ladder broke. About broke my damned knee and ripped my damned pants. I just bought ’em last week at the mercantile.”
Creak…creak…creak. “He’s goin’ down. Goin’ down! Lordy, thank you, Lord.”
“Anything up there?”
“Yep, three rats. Charles you know you got damn rats in your barn?”
“Ain’t never seen a barn that didn’t have a rat.”
“Come on down, Tommy.” The Marshall’s voice dropped. ”Sorry. Just doing our job. You understand, don’t ya, Charles?”
“No, matter fact, John, I don’t. But here’s what I do know—it’s getting’ dark and I got six milk cows need milkin’. They don’t much like lanterns, and I ain’t partial to tuggin’ on teats in the dark.”
The Marshall laughed. “Well, there’s several things I could say to that but bein’ an officer of the law, I won’t!” The other deputy laughed.
“I guess it’s like you say, Charles. Mildred got overworked.”
“Like I said, Marshall.”
Israel strained his ears. It sounded, but he couldn’t be sure, like they were walking toward the barn door.
“You playin’ poker tomorrow, Charles?”
“I got too much spring work to do. But I’ll see you in church on Sunday.”
It sounded like they were outside the barn. Lucy’s grip had loosened, but he could feel the agitation and tremble through her hand to his. She suddenly tore from his grasp. She’s frantic, tryin’ to get to the surface. He swam to the top, pushing grain away from his mouth. Just Lucy’s mouth and nose were above the oats. She coughed. Israel wrenched his hand free and covered her mouth.
“What was that?” one of the deputies called out.
Charles sneezed, then hacked and coughed. “It’s my damn spring cold. You can set your clock by it. End of May every damn year.” He coughed once again.
There was a moment’s silence, and Israel held his breath, Lucy’s eyes above his hand wider than he’d ever seen them.
“See you on Sunday, Charles.” There was a pause, then the distinct sound of three horses riding from the barn.
Israel scooped the grain from around his wife’s face and neck, pushing it rapidly toward the walls of the bin. Her head and tops of her shoulders were finally clear, a cone of grain around her. He looked at her and started to laugh, covering the sound with the hand he had pressed against her lips.
“Israel, what’s so damn funny? We been goin’ for two months. Hid in rivers and with rats in root cellars. Been chased by Bushwhackers with torches and ropes. And dat hemp was way too thick for them to just tie our hands. And then I finds out, theys calls it, ‘Bleeding Kansas’. Lord knows, I walked through a blizzard. Still got frostbite on my toes, and you think that’s funny? One thing ’bout you, Israel. You ain’t become a littler or bigger fool since the day I met you. You’re just the same fool.”
Lucy still had her eyes wide open, but her eyebrows furled down over them and an oat husk clung to one. Israel took his hand off his mouth and brushed it away, his laughter echoing in the bin.
“You better hope I stay stuck in here, Israel, cause if I get out…”
Israel looked at her, still chuckling. “It ain’t that we’re stuck or what we been through, although you gots to admit Lucy, that hidin’ in that trash bin outside that restaurant in Holton in the Kansas Territory, when them Bushwhackers were huntin’ us, you gots to admit, that was pretty smart.
“And smelly,” she snapped back at him. He gently dug the grain from around her shoulders, and then helping her, they struggled, half swimming to the interior ladder.
“Be careful going down them outside steps. One of them rungs is broken.”
They clambered down to the main level, Lucy wincing with pain on the steps, Israel holding her hand.
Charles was leaning on a pitchfork. He grinned as they walked up. “I’m not sure you’d pass for deputies, but on a dark night you’d most likely pass for white folks.” He chuckled as he looked them over.
Lucy turned her face to Israel, her skin an off-white from the grain dust. He knew he looked the same.
She started to laugh. “After all these years, I find out now I done married a white man.” The three of them laughed until their bellies ached.
Charles’ face grew serious. “You’re gonna have to move on in the next day or so, Israel. They’ll be back. That damn Mildred does nothing but gab. She’ll get folks riled up, and the Marshall will be back just to keep ’em happy. There’s others behind you on these rails of freedom we gotta think of. We can’t lose hideouts in the chain. Won’t do no one no good to get pinched.”
Israel turned to Lucy. Her eyes were wide and frightened. “We was hoping to rest up for a while. We’ve been on the go for two months. Poor Lucy here, she’s havin’ trouble walkin.’ Her knees are getting worse. She got frostbite on one toe that ain’t right yet.”
Charles looked at him, then sank down to one knee, leaning on the pitchfork for support. “Lucy, if ya wouldn’t mind, raise your skirt just enough so I can see your knees.” Lucy flashed a startled glance at Israel, who nodded. She shyly lifted her threadbare heavy cotton dress until her knees were showing. They were swollen and wrinkled. Around the inside and outside of her joints, her dark skin had a purplish hue.
Charles pulled himself up by the pitchfork and leaned on it again, looking at Israel. “You told me you are handy with a leather awl, and know tack?”
“What’s he up to? I don’t fix up his tack and he turns us in?” Charles nodded over the top of his pitchfork toward the tack room. “Back there is ten saddles. Ain’t one of them that don’t need work, some more than others. Been meanin’ to get to it,” he chuckled, “about the only thing I told the Marshall that was the truth, is that there ain’t enough time to get half of it done ’round here.” He nodded his head to the side. “That there is a going on twenty-year-old mule. She’s a worker, and there’s a couple good years left in her.”
Israel looked over at the mule who was watching impassively, one ear forward, one ear back, her muzzle more white than grey.
“I’ll make ya a deal, Israel. I’ll come down here this evening after dark. I got me a big tanned leather cowhide from a milk cow decided she didn’t want to give milk no more. I’ll bring down some awls, rawhide, stitching, and the metal pieces I bought about a year ago.” He spit some chew on the rough barn floor. It hit the woo
d with a splat. “Them parts ain’t left the bag I brought ’em home in.” He looked at Israel, “You fix them up good and that mule’s yours. Those knees of Lucy’s don’t look none too good to me. If you’re headed all the way to the Rockies, she’s gonna have to ride.”
Israel stuck out his hand, “Thank you. You’s got yourself a deal.”
Charles shook his hand firmly and smiled. “Now before I leave, I’m gonna shutter every window in this place and when I leave, that barn door too. Don’t poke your head out and don’t touch them windows. Come hell or high water, you need to be on the road tomorrow night.”
He reached in his pocket and held out a large pen knife. “You’ll be needing this, Israel. When I come back tonight I’ll bring you some supper along with those tools. You’ll need leather shears, too. After that, I won’t be back to the barn. Too many prying eyes. Just leave that knife on top of one them saddles when you’re done.” He pointed over to the corner, “And take that halter too.”
He wheeled to go, then turned back to them. “That mule’s name is Sally. She’ll come to it, and she’s pretty unflappable. The only thing that I know she ain’t partial to is gunfire.” He shook his head, “She don’t like gunfire at all.”
He nodded his head to Lucy, “I wish you well, Ma’am, the Good Lord look after you.”
He held out his hand to Israel. The handshake was firm, warm and sincere. Charles looked him in the eye. “I know it’s been tough. Every one of you brave people comes through here has their stories. Most of ’em ain’t too good. But, remember,” his eyes boring into Israel’s, “if freedom was easy, everyone would have it.”
Lucy and Israel stood silently as he shut and latched the shutters on the two open windows, walked to the barn door, and shut it behind him. Lucy turned to Israel. Tears, their downward slide slowed by the grain powder on her face, were working their way down through the white dust on her rounded cheeks, leaving jagged tracks. “He was like an answer to our prayers.”
He hugged her tightly. “I love you, woman. And he,” Israel painted at the roof, “loves us. And, it’s more than that, woman. It’s a job. It’s my first job as a free man. Ain’t gettin’ no money, but we is gettin’ a mule. With that mule we can go further. You know every place we stopped particularly, that last place in the Kansas Territory, Alton, they said further west you go the safer it’ll be. Now we can go to that place with the river on the map that nice old lady shared with us in Topeka, you know, the night we slept in that carriage in the back of her livery. Looked like to me that map made that river to be on the other side of mountains, but still in ’em. I never read one of them types of maps before.”
“Contour maps, Israel, that’s what she called it. A contour map.”
“Yep, but I’m telling you, Lucy, my eye went right to that river. Out of all them lines and drawings, something made me pick it out, right off. I’m not saying the good Lord spoke, but that map sure talked. Can’t even pronounce the name of the damn river.”
Lucy smiled. “For someone who knows readin’ and writin’, husband, you surely have a short memory. She said it was pronounced un-com-pag-grey. You ‘member what she said it meant in Indian?”
Israel nodded his head “Yes, Lucy I surely do remember that. Uncompaghre. Where water turns rocks red.”
CHAPTER 47
MAY 27, 1855
SPIRIT WHISPERS
Three Knives nudged his pony with his heels, moving him beside Eagle Talon’s mustang. “We must stop and find some water for Brave Pony.”
Eagle Talon looked at his friend, nodded, and then gazed upward at the sun. “When we next see willows or the talking trees, we shall rest briefly. I will tend to Brave Pony. You can dig for water, and Pointed Lance can gather plantain for the poultice. It is early, but perhaps they can find some young shoots. Brave Pony is lucky the Pawnee bullet passed all the way through him.”
Three Knives grunted. “If we can stop the bleeding with the poultice, I think he will live to count more coup.”
He turned and smiled at Three Knives, “It was a good day for The People… and a good day to count coup. I saw you take four myself and will tell the Council.”
Three Knives nodded, but his smile was shallow and his normally lively features subdued. “I saw you count five coups. Two were crippled when they rode off and three dead. I shall tell the Council. You almost doubled your feathers in one sun, Eagle Talon.”
Eagle Talon glanced sideways at the other brave, “What bothers you?”
Three Knives gave him a quick but steady look, and then faced forward, his proud profile glistening bronze in the morning sun. “If the village has found tatanka, they will be stationary—skinning, cleaning, packing meat, and fleshing out the hides. If that is so, then we shall meet up with them before the sun sets today.”
They rode in silence, Eagle Talon expecting Three Knives to continue, but he didn’t. Mulling over the alternatives, he finally said, “You are worried with what the Council will say about our launching an attack on the Pawnee?”
“And what they will say about us leaving our positions. Flying Arrow’s desire was clear,” Three Knives snapped. “We were to shadow the Pawnee—to always know where they were.” He paused and turned his gaze to Eagle Talon again, this time a hard look, his eyes narrowed. “He didn’t say to help the hairy-faced-ones. You do know, Eagle Talon, that today you might have saved the lives of white eyes that you may have to kill later, or die at their hands?”
Eagle Talon contemplated this thought. In the spur of the moment decision, excitement of the battle, and the inexplicable peace he found in the bond he made with the hairy-faced-one with the white pistol, and his woman who reminded him of Walks with Moon, he had not considered this. He nodded slowly, “What you say may be true, Three Knives, but I believe we made the right decision. It is also entirely possible the white eyes in those wagons may someday help us.”
He caught and held Three Knives’ eyes. “Of this I am certain. The hairy-faced-one who calls himself Roo-bin, and his woman, Ray-bec-ka, shall never be our enemies. I feel this in the Spirit. This,” he pointed to his heart, “and this,” he pointed to his head, “can be wrong. But Spirit,” he pointed to the sky, “is never wrong.”
Three Knives extended an arm, “Look—willows, and a lone cottonwood—shade for Brave Pony.”
Eagle Talon signaled back to Turtle Shield and Pointed Lance, who rode on either side of their wounded comrade, to pursue the same slow pace. He and Three Knives cantered over to the lonely willow stand and dismounted quickly. Three Knives reached into the little patch, parting the supple golden branches, looking earnestly at the ground for water. He looked up, “None, but I can smell it. The ground is damp. I’ll find a rock and dig.”
Turtle Shield and Pointed Lance had reached them now, each of them with a hand on either arm of Brave Pony, who sagged weakly over the neck of his horse. Eagle Talon walked to them. “Lower him down to me.” He gathered up Brave Pony in his arms and carried him over to the taller grass at the base of the cottonwood, laying him down gently, then examining the wound closely. The injured brave’s eyes fluttered open. “Perhaps it is my time to meet Wakan Tanka.”
Eagle Talon was concerned. There was puss forming around the uneven edges of both the entry and exit of the Pawnee bullet that had pierced his friend’s side. He was sure the shell had not touched anything vital, but infection could kill just as easily.
He grabbed Brave Pony’s shoulder and squeezed it hard. His friend’s eyes opened again, “Are you trying to break my shoulder, too?”
Eagle Talon laughed with a humor he didn’t feel. “You see, you feel pain. This is not your day to die. You will have to wait to see Spirit. You’re stuck with the four of us for many winters.”
Turtle Shield and Pointed Lance came running up, their hands full of young plantain leaves. They looked with concern at Brave Pony, then at Eagle Talon, with the question in their eyes.
A minute later they heard a low shout from Three
Knives. “Water. Plenty of it!”
“He will live,” he answered their voiceless query. “Three Knives, get the water over here. I will prepare the poultice.” Using a rounded rock, he pounded and mashed the plantain to shredded fibers. Three Knives joined them from the willows, carrying two small buffalo bladders. The tough membrane was damp, but watertight. “Three Knives, give him some water.”
Eagle Talon stripped off his shirt and made a shallow leather bowl within a circle of rocks he assembled. He looked up at his friends, “Walks with Moon will have my hide for this. She made the shirt for me just this winter.”
The three warriors laughed, “I’m sure you will find a way to make her smile, Eagle Talon. It is well known in the village that if we can’t find you, you are under the robes with Walks with Moon.”
Eagle Talon chuckled and shook his head. “Winters are cold and long. One must stay warm somehow.” They all laughed again, even Brave Pony, although his laughter was mixed with a hacking cough. Eagle Talon carefully stirred the plantain, adding just a bit of water at a time. When it was a fine, mushy, fiber paste, he had Three Knives and Turtle Shield roll Brave Pony to his side.
“Three Knives, bring me some of the gunpowder for your musket.” Three Knives looked at him, initially not understanding. Then his eyes lit up. “A good idea, Eagle Talon.” He ran to his mustang and grabbed his powder horn.
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