by James Axler
Auerbach served the redoubt as a medical aide, not as a tech, and his eagerness to jockey a Land Rover down the treacherous path to perform a mechanical task had struck everyone as odd, particularly Kane. The fact that Beth-Li Rouch was willing to accompany him seemed even stranger, but no one questioned it. Kane figured they were entitled to their whims, assuming they were suffering from redoubt fever, chafing at being cooped up inside the installation now that spring had arrived.
The journey from the plateau to the foothills usually required several hours, so Auerbach and Rouch weren't expected to return until late the following day. When it drew to a close, with no sign of them, no one in the redoubt was overly concerned. The signals transmitted by their subcutaneous biolink transponders showed no indications of stress. The transponder, a nonharmful radioactive chemical that bound itself to the glucose in the blood and a middle layer of epidermis, transmitted heart rate, brain-wave patterns, respiration and blood count. The signal was relayed by a Comsat satellite to the Cerberus redoubt and could be employed as a tracking device.
The telemetry showed that Auerbach and Rouch had left the foothills, crossing the tableland on foot, for reasons that none of the redoubt's personnel could fathom or even guess at. They had far exceeded the range of the trans-comms, so Kane, Brigid and Grant commandeered the Sandcat fast-attack vehicle and set off in pursuit.
They discovered the Land Rover parked at the edge of the rockfall. Grant found their trail in the grassy plains, which left no choice but to track them on foot. The only settlement within a hundred miles of the Bitterroot Range was a small one consisting of Amerindians. After the nukecaust, many of the surviving Plains tribes had reasserted their ancient claims over ancestral lands, and the group of Sioux and Cheyenne had done the same with this region of Montana. The atomic megacull had been a blessing to most Native peoples, the "purification" of prophecy.
The Indians never ventured into the Bitterroot Range, or the Darks, as they had been called for over a century. They attributed a sinister, superstitious significance to the mountains' deeply shadowed ravines and grim, gray peaks.
The nearest the tribesmen had come to the range was on the same day the pass had been blocked, when they were pursuing a roamer band that had attacked their village and carried off captives. One of the Indian warriors had glimpsed Kane, and so it was assumed they knew this part of Montana harbored other human beings.
After a day of trailing Rouch and Auerbach across the grasslands, Grant, Brigid and Kane came across the prints of unshod horses around the cold ashes of a campfire. The conclusion was inescapable, though they were able to take a small comfort in the lack of blood or signs of a serious struggle. They'd followed the trail to the Indian village, where Auerbach — and Rouch, presumably — were held captive.
Kneeling beside his backpack, Kane reached into a pouch and removed a small M-60 gren.
Uneasily, Brigid said, "Do you think you'll need that?"
"I haven't thought that far ahead," he answered curtly. "Do you think you can speak their lingo well enough so I won't have to?"
She paused a moment, thinking. Some months before, she had found a Lakota-to-English dictionary in the Cerberus database. Due to her eidetic memory, she had no problem recalling what she had read, but the Siouxan language relied on tones, as well as phonemes, and she had only once heard it spoken.
She murmured, "Hota Wanagi."
Kane straightened up, squinting at her quizzically. "What?"
"Hota Wanagi," she repeated. "That's what the warrior who shot Le Loup Garou called you, remember?"
Kane did and his lips quirked in a mirthless smile. "Gray Ghost, right?"
Brigid nodded. "Right. Maybe he'll remember you."
Kane doubted that very much, recollecting how he had been coated from head to toe with gray rock dust during the knife duel with the roamer chieftain, Le Loup Garou.
"He saved your life," said Grant. "Maybe he's a man of some standing in the village."
Kane pocketed the gren. "Maybe. But more than likely, he was concentrating on chilling Le Loup, not on saving me."
"He saw you fighting him," Brigid argued. "It's not much of an ace, but it's the only one we have to play."
Kane grinned at her use of the slang she had picked up over the eight months of her association with him and Grant. Because of her precise manner of speaking, it sounded incongruous.
He inspected his Sin Eater, holstered at his right forearm beneath the sleeve of his coat. He tested the spring-release mechanism by tensing his wrist tendons. The handblaster leaped into his hand, the butt unfolding and slapping into his palm.
Less than fourteen inches in length at full extension, the Sin Eater featured a magazine that carried twenty 9 mm rounds. When not in use, the stock folded over the top of the weapon, lying along the frame, reducing its holstered length to ten inches. The forearm holster was equipped with sensitive actuators that controlled a flexible cable in the holster and snapped the weapon smoothly into the hand, the stock unfolding in the same motion. Ingeniously designed to fire immediately upon contact with the index finger, the Sin Eater had no trigger guard or safety. Since the gun fired upon touching the crooked finger, Kane took pains to keep his finger straight and outstretched.
Brow slightly furrowed, Brigid watched as Kane pushed the blaster back into its holster, adjusting his coat sleeve. Then she unslung the mini-Uzi from her shoulder and placed it next to her pack.
"What are you doing?" demanded Grant.
She shrugged. "If we want the Indians to believe we mean them no harm, it's best we don't stroll into their village weighed down with musketry."
She opened her jacket, showing a flat, razor-keen knife in a sheath stitched to the lining. "I'll have this."
Grant lifted an eyebrow. "Domi's idea, right?"
She only nodded. Domi, the outlander girl, was a well-spring of sneaky inventiveness. At Lakesh's request, she had stayed behind at the redoubt, in case she had to rescue the three of them.
"If she was here," Grant continued, "she could flank the settlement."
Brigid refrained from mentioning that Domi had expressed an extreme dislike of Beth-Li Rouch, and more than likely wouldn't put herself in jeopardy to rescue a woman she despised.
Kane buttoned up his coat, wishing it were his Magistrate-issue Kevlar-weave garment, a twin to the one Grant wore. He had abandoned his own protective garment a few months before when he was forced to take a swim in the Irish Sea.
Eyeing the position of the sun, he announced, "Well, if they're going to take our scalps, we might as well give them the chance while it's still daylight."
Grant took out his trans-comm and keyed in the frequency of Kane's unit. He put one finger to his nose in the wry one-percent salute as they started off around the knoll. It was gesture reserved for those undertakings with a very small chance of success. Kane deliberately didn't return the salute, not calculating the odds at such a low number.
Before following him, Brigid spared a moment to glance back at the distant gray peaks of the Bitterroot Range shouldering up from the horizon. Clouds wreathed them, and snow still patched some areas. Winter lingered a very long time at such high altitudes.
Kane walked with a self-assured, long-legged stride, and Brigid's swift, almost mannish gait helped her keep pace with him. They walked directly toward the jumble of tepees, noting a lack of sentries on the perimeter.
They didn't speak as they walked, but the closer they came to the village, the more Brigid sensed a change in Kane. With every step, he slipped deeper into his Magistrate's persona, walking heel-to-toe as he entered a potential killzone, his passage barely rustling the high grasses. He moved swiftly, as gracefully as a wraith. His long months as an exile had not dulled the edge of his instincts.
Kane observed wryly, "I guess everybody is too occupied with Auerbach's cookout to post guards."
Brigid repressed a shudder. "Where do you think Beth-Li is?"
Kane's shoulders moved
beneath his coat in a shrug.
"Maybe she got away," Brigid suggested.
After a moment of thoughtful silence, Kane replied, "Maybe. She's resourceful. Probably more so than Auerbach."
"So I've been told." Try as she might, Brigid couldn't blunt the edge of sarcasm in her voice.
Kane detected it, cast her a swift slit-eyed glare, but said nothing. Brigid regretted the comment, but she doubted Kane had been seriously stung by it. She knew more about Beth-Li Rouch and Auerbach's relationship than he did, but she kept that knowledge to herself.
They reached the outer perimeter of tepees before they were seen. A yelping outcry arose, and the onlookers clustered around the pole whirled, then several men surged forward. They wore buckskin leggings and breechclouts with feathers in their long braided hair. Paint distorted their coppery faces into fearsome masks. They shouted angrily.
Brigid hesitated, but Kane side-mouthed, "Keep walking. Brazen it out."
Into the trans-comm, he whispered, "We're about to make contact."
Grant's filtered voice responded, "Acknowledged. Moving up."
The warriors rocked to a halt and started whooping. He saw no blasters, only knives and tomahawks, though one beefy man carried a long lance. Kane guessed they were yelling of what they were going to do to the interlopers and he figured it was just as well he didn't understand their language.
2
The man with the lance swaggered toward them, his gait almost a provocative strut. Painted vermilion stripes crisscrossed his blunt-jawed face.
Brigid and Kane continued walking, doing their best to keep their expressions composed.
Shaking the lance, the warrior howled, "Hoppo, wasicun! Hoppo!"
"I think he's telling us to go away," Brigid whispered.
Kane didn't reply. Instead, he swiftly assessed the man's broad chest and heavily muscled arms. He looked to be strong, more than capable of hurling the lance right through either one of them. His jet-black eyes darted back and forth between the two people, then fixed on Kane.
With a shrill cry, he rushed at Kane, swinging the butt of the lance in a whistling arc toward his face.
Without breaking stride, Kane lifted his hands, crossed his wrists and caught the end of the wooden shaft between them. Grasping it tightly, he pivoted, thrust out his hip and tossed the warrior over it. The man crashed full-length onto the ground with a thud everyone heard.
Kane released the lance and it dropped across the warrior's lap. As the warrior struggled dizzily to a sitting position, Brigid stamped down sharply on the steel head and the shaft jumped up, connecting sharply with the underside of his chin. Wood cracked loudly against bone, and the warrior fell over onto his back.
Instantly, Brigid and Kane were at the hub of a wheel of enraged people, many of them with knives in their fists. They shouted and pointed their blades, closing in. Kane readied his hand to receive the Sin Eater, but Brigid raised her arms and shouted, "Mita kuye cola! Hota Wanagi!"
The enraged outcries dropped to a mutter, but the Indians didn't lower their blades. A man's voice said forcefully, "Hota Wanagi?"
A warrior shouldered his way through the throng. He had strong Amerindian features, wide cheekbones with yellow lightning bolts painted on them and shiny black hair plaited in two braids that fell almost to his waist. Behind his right ear, a single feather dangled, as white as one of the cirrus clouds overhead.
He wore a loose vest of smoked leather and a pair of boot moccasins. Around his waist was a heavy, brass-studded belt that carried, in loops, a knife, a set of pliers and a polished chunk of turquoise. His erect carriage exuded a quiet dignity.
Narrow, burning eyes bored deeply into Kane's. "Hota Wanagi. Gray Ghost. I didn't recognize you."
Both Brigid and Kane were surprised into speechlessness for a long moment. The man's English was flawless and unaccented.
Kane nodded to him politely. "I'm good deal cleaner now, Chief."
"I'm not a chief. My name is Sky Dog, a shaman, what you wasicun would call a medicine man."
In a respectful tone, Brigid announced, "I am Baptiste. This is Kane. We're here for our friends."
Sky Dog shrugged. "Your friends are trespassers." He pointed to the object topping the pole. "And so was he, as you might recall."
Kane gave the skull an expressionless stare, as if he only looked at it to be polite. He recognized the scraggly beard and shriveled features of Le Loup Garou.
"Our friends aren't roamers," he said. "You know that."
Sky Dog nodded, smiling thinly. "I know it. But my people are just poor, ignorant redskins. They can't tell the difference between all the varied pedigrees of wasicun. Even I have trouble."
Kane ignored the sarcasm in the man's tone. He looked past him toward Auerbach, who stared at him with a panicky, pleading light in his eyes. Although tremblings shook his body, they didn't dislodge the heap of tinder at his groin. He called out hoarsely, "I've told them over and over that we meant them no harm, but they don't care!"
Brigid asked calmly, "Why is that?"
Sky Dog jabbed an arm toward the distant bulk of the Darks and grimly stated, "We care very much that the mountains shelter wasicun. But as long as you stayed up there, we were content to leave you be."
Kane struggled to control his rising impatience. "As we are you. If our people encroached on your territory, it was accidental. It's not like you posted signs."
Sky Dog's lips compressed. "It is enough that we know the boundaries of our land. We don't make allowances for ignorance. Nor do you, or you would not have blocked the only pass to the mountains."
Kane took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. Gazing intently into Sky Dog's eyes, he said quietly, "For the trespass, I offer my apologies. I promise it will never happen again."
Sky Dog's mouth stretched in a mocking smile, but he made no reply.
"But," continued Kane, "we will not leave without our people. If you force me, we'll fight for them. Much blood will be spilled. Ours and yours."
Eyebrows knitting together, Sky Dog asked in a low tone, "You threaten us, Gray Ghost?"
"I make promises," Kane retorted sincerely. "If you insist on holding our people, torturing them, then I'll view you as no different than Le Loup Garou and his roamers. Enemies to be chilled."
Sky Dog stared unblinkingly, his eyes locked on Kane's. Kane stared back. By slow degrees, he began tensing his wrist tendons. Then, with a laugh, Sky Dog ended the eye-wrestling contest. He wheeled around, pointing to Auerbach and shouting at the onlookers.
Several of the men glowered at him, one warrior snapping out a stream of harsh, angry consonants. Sky Dog raised his voice, pointing again to Auerbach, then to Kane.
Squinting in concentration, Brigid murmured, "He's telling them to release Auerbach into Gray Ghost's custody, that you are a mighty warrior and a friend. A couple of his people don't think much of it."
Kane nodded. "I figured that out myself." He casually glanced over his shoulder, wondering which declivity in the rolling plain hid Grant.
After a minute of loud shouting and gesticulating on Sky Dog's part, the warriors bent over Auerbach and began cutting through the rawhide thongs binding him to the pole and stakes. The man Kane had hip-tossed cast sullen sidelong glances in his direction, gripping his lance so tightly his knuckles stood out like knobs on his hand.
Auerbach arose hastily, the pile of twigs clattering from his crotch. Rubbing his wrists, gasping in relief, he joined Brigid and Kane. She considerately averted her eyes from his nakedness.
"Thank you," he stammered, "thank you."
Gruffly, Kane demanded, "Where's Rouch?"
Auerbach's fearful eyes flitted around, then settled on the scowling face of the Indian with the lance. "Ask him. His name is Standing Bear."
Kane directed his question to Sky Dog. "Where is the woman?"
The shaman fluttered a dismissive hand through the air. "She stays. Standing Bear claims her as his own. He won her."
Kane faced the bare-chested warrior and said, "Tell him he can't keep her. She's one of us, so she goes with us."
Sky Dog spoke briefly to Standing Bear. The man shook his head with a great deal of vehemence, black tresses whipping around his face. Furious words burst from his lips, accompanied by frequent gestures with the lance.
After a few moments, Sky Dog cut off Standing Bear's oration with a sharp command. Turning to Kane, he said, "Little Willow — the woman — will stay. Standing Bear fought the red-haired man for her and won. He finds mounting her very pleasant because of her enthusiasm." Auerbach uttered a noise of outrage. Sky Dog continued, "Standing Bear says that if she is your woman, you should not have let her leave your lodge with the red-haired one. She must be dissatisfied with you."
Kane gritted his teeth and was about to say she wasn't his woman. But he thought better of it and instead declared, "The woman goes with us. That is all there is to it."
Sky Dog cast Standing Bear a sideways glance, then stepped closer to Kane. In a conspiratorial whisper, he said, "Gray Ghost, Standing Bear is intractable on this subject. He will not even trade for her, even if you had ten ponies to barter with. If you try to take Little Willow from him, you'll have to fight the entire village. Me included, just so I can keep face."
He paused, then asked, "Is one woman worth it? She's seems very lazy and argumentative to me. Standing Bear may tire of her eventually and let her go."
Kane's mind raced over a series of options, alternatives and courses of action.
Brigid asked, "What if she doesn't want to stay? You'll hold her against her will as a captive? Like the roamers?"
Sky Dog obviously felt uncomfortable by being questioned by a woman, a wasicun woman at that. Slowly, as if begrudging each syllable, he answered, "If Little Willow wishes to go with you, that is one thing. We are not slavers. But Standing Bear will oppose it and will fight for her."