by Judd Cole
But Touch the Sky refused to talk of such things openly. At any rate, he thought, his own supposed magic had done precious little to help their desperate kinsmen.
“Leave it alone, brother,” he told Little Horse. “I can see that you are tired and need to rest again. Get strong, buck, find your fighting fettle! You are no good to me sleeping in this tipi,” he added fondly.
Little Horse yawned hard. “I will soon be fighting like five braves,” he assured Touch the Sky, his eyelids already closing.
“I never saw you fight any other way,” Touch the Sky said, though he knew his friend was asleep.
Touch the Sky too felt the same sense of helpless frustration Little Horse had expressed. For now he was limited to constant scouts around the perimeter of camp, checking for more infiltrators. He had already helped erect breastworks of pointed logs, lining them across the one vulnerable entrance. Rifle pits had been dug behind these. But rifle pits were almost a meaningless gesture because the tribe owned only a few rifles and ammunition was critically short.
He stepped outside into the bright sunshine. The air, this high up, was rarified and clear, and he could see the mountains of the Land of the Grandmother to the north. As he passed through camp, some of the others cast odd looks at him.
Their looks were not exactly unfriendly. The Cheyenne people were too hospitable for such barbarity to visitors of their own blood. But the nods that White Plume and Pawnee Killer exchanged—clearly they said, “This stranger, so far he is a good nurse. Fine, but this is squaw’s work. He seems useful for nothing else. As for his supposed medicine—add his magic to a rope, and all you have is a rope.”
But Touch the Sky only held his face impassive in the warrior way, keeping his feelings private inside him. Slowly, as he made his way carefully down the narrow access trail, the camp began to recede behind him.
The sun was at its warmest and lay against his skin like a friendly hand. The cool mountain wind lifted his long black locks, feathering them out behind him like wings. It felt good after the close confines of the tipi.
Nonetheless, Touch the Sky sensed danger.
He glanced to his right, toward a wide swale—a low, moist tract of ground—overgrown with small bushes.
A tickle moved up the bumps of his spine, as light as a scurrying insect. Light, but it spoke of much danger.
Death lurked there at this moment, waiting. Just as it had waited somewhere around here for Goes Ahead. He was sure of it now.
Feigning interest in a point further down the trail, Touch the Sky moved on past the swale.
~*~
The Ute scout named Rough Feather flattened himself into the damp ground when the tall Cheyenne youth stared toward his position.
He cannot possibly see me, the big Indian told himself. This huge depression was covered with thick bushes. He had taken extra care in selecting it—after all, he was returning to an area where he had already killed one brave. They were alerted to his presence now.
Rough Feather had made his report to Carlson at Fort Randall. Then he had returned here at once, following orders to watch the camp closely until Carlson’s special Indian-killing regiment arrived and turned this tribe’s history into smoke.
This tall young brave—his buckskin leggings and low elk-skin moccasins marked him as a stranger to this territory. But stranger or no, they all died the same.
Rough Feather eased his knife from its sheath. Because they were tall with especially long arms for Indians, Utes were noted knife fighters. Their style was to stand back and madly slash at an opponent’s arms and hands in a flurry of wild passes. Then they closed for one perfect killing thrust when their opponent was disoriented.
But when he next peered out from behind the bushes, a line of nervous sweat broke out on his upper lip.
A heartbeat ago the Cheyenne had been there. Now he was nowhere in sight.
~*~
Touch the Sky made himself virtually invisible. Sticking to natural depressions and isolated bits of ground cover, he circled well behind the dish-shaped area formed by the swale.
Safe behind a tangled deadfall, he gathered up a pile of fist-size rocks.
One by one, he sailed the rocks high into the air over the swale. Each one thunked to the ground with a crashing of bushes. He covered the entire swale methodically, until one of the rocks chunked into something besides the ground—something human or animal that grunted in pain.
Touch the Sky didn’t hesitate. The element of surprise was vital, but useless unless you followed through on it immediately.
His knife clutched in his fist, he leaped toward the spot where his rock had landed. The spy was fast for such a big man. He eluded Touch the Sky’s grasp at the last moment and fled from his hiding place.
Touch the Sky recognized his tribe immediately from the brave’s massive size and distinctive beaded headband. The Ute had at least three inches and twenty pounds on him. But it was his speed that truly amazed the Cheyenne. At one moment he was the pursuer; the next, the Ute had whirled and turned into the attacker.
The ferocity and speed of the knife assault caught Touch the Sky completely off guard. White-hot wires of pain sliced into his hands and arms before it dawned on him—he was being slashed! Again, again, hot steel sliced into him with the sting of a rattler’s fangs.
The Ute’s arms flailed like a white man’s windmill gone Wendigo, his blade glinting cruelly each time the sun caught it. Touch the Sky took cuts to his hands, arms, face, chest, stomach, all the time backing rapidly away. Ribbons of his blood ran into the ground.
The Ute’s exertions left his breath whistling in his nostrils. Touch the Sky’s foot hit a rock and he went down. With a snarl of triumph, the Ute leaped for the death cut.
Desperately, Touch the Sky tensed his back like a bow and rolled aside just in time. The Ute crashed hard to the ground.
Touch the Sky, his lips a straight, determined slit, closed for the kill. His blade sought for the spot between the fourth and fifth rib, as Black Elk had taught him—from there it was a straight thrust to the heart.
But this finishing blow wasn’t needed. The Ute lay on his face, immobile except for fast twitches of his legs. When Touch the Sky flipped him over, he saw why. The turncoat Indian’s knife had landed against a rock and turned against him, driving deep into warm vitals.
Though he had been slashed many times—each cut like fiery bites—Touch the Sky’s injuries looked worse than they were. Few of the cuts had gone deep into tender meat. But as he stared at the dead Indian’s Army-issue shirt and trousers, he realized the awful truth.
No scout would have stayed in this dangerous area this long after discovering the camp and killing Goes Ahead. It would be a scout’s mission to immediately return and report the camp’s position. This Ute had already done that. Touch the Sky was sure of it. His job now had been to keep a close eye on the tribe until the soldiers arrived.
How long now before they arrived? Surely not long. Touch the Sky knew they wouldn’t be riding in under a white flag—nor would they brook surrender.
It would not, however, be a battle. Not against Shoots Left Handed’s dispirited, ill-equipped warriors.
It would be a massacre.
Blood streaming freely from his many slashes, Touch the Sky headed back to report this latest piece of bad news.
Chapter Nine
“Niece, no one ever told you marriage was a tender hump steak. Your problem is that you are a dreamer. I knew you were your mother’s child, Honey Eater, as soon as you took to tying white columbine in your hair. You must remember that Black Elk is a warrior, tempered to lead when the war cry sounds. It is not easy for such men to show the soft side or be patient with girls who sigh and dream.”
“Well, are not other men brave warriors too? Yet do they cut off their wives’ braids or accuse them of treachery because they cannot bear their child?”
“Other men?” Sharp Nosed Woman said, watching her niece closely. “Just place these w
ords in your parfleche, niece. All men gawp about and make the love-talk when their blood is hot for the rut. In time, they are all alike. The blood cools, and so does the love-talk.”
“All men?” Despite her sadness, Honey Eater smiled gently as she recalled stories her aunt had told. “What about Grins Plenty?”
A rare softness seeped into the older woman’s eyes. Both women automatically made the cut-off sign, as one did when discussing the dead. She had lost her husband Grins Plenty in the same Pawnee raid which killed her sister, Honey Eater’s mother, Singing Woman.
“There was a man with hot blood and love-talk to spare,” Sharp Nosed Woman confided, lowering her voice a bit and bending over her beadwork closer to her niece. “Did I tell you how he … ”
She caught herself, looking at Honey Eater’s innocent, distracted face. “Oh, but you’ll blush and play the coy one. Never mind, never mind.”
The next moment the entrance flap of Sharp Nosed Woman’s tipi was lifted aside, and young Two Twists was staring at them.
“Sisters, may I come in?” he said, stepping hurriedly inside even before he had permission. He looked at Honey Eater. “I have a thing to speak to you.”
Sharp Nosed Woman inhaled a deep breath, preparing to interfere. This was highly improper. Two Twists did not even belong to their clan; he should have announced his presence from outside. And to ignore an older woman, speaking directly to a younger—one who was married at that!
Honey Eater’s confusion was mirrored in her face. She knew Two Twists was a friend of Touch the Sky’s, that this visit must have something to do with him.
Two Twists watched the older woman’s face closely and saw her objections. Quickly he spoke up before she could.
“Sharp Nosed Woman, please find a soft place in your heart and forgive an ill-mannered Cheyenne! The women in my clan have long praised your beadwork. And the men, they say all the time, ‘This Sharp Nosed Woman, how is it that a woman this comely is not marrying again?’ I did not mean to be rude. It is just that I have important words for Honey Eater’s ears. For her ears alone,” he added meaningfully. “And I must speak them quickly.”
He didn’t need to add what all three of them understood: Before Black Elk catches me.
Although she knew the youth was openly flattering her, Sharp Nosed Woman had smiled gratefully at his praise. She knew he was here to talk about Touch the Sky, and she did not approve. At the same time, she too had heard the young girls in their sewing lodge—singing over and over of the great love between her niece and this tall young stranger marked out for a hard destiny. And despite her flint-edged practicality, tears always blurred her eyes when she heard it.
“Honey Eater,” she said reluctantly, “I think I shall step outside and cut some turnips.”
This was a thinly veiled sign that she was offering to keep watch. Grateful, Honey Eater nodded.
“Be quick,” Sharp Nosed Woman added. “You know how dangerous this could be.”
The moment she was gone, Two Twists said, “Sister, I have checked for you. The stone is still there.”
Instantly, the tight bubble of a sob rose from her chest into her throat. But Honey Eater held it back. With that one remark, she realized, he’d meant the white marble in front of Touch the Sky’s tipi. This was Touch the Sky’s way of letting her know for sure that Two Twists was on their side.
Now she had someone to speak this terrible grief too! It was as if a dam suddenly gave way inside her.
“Oh, what do you know of him?” she pleaded.
“He is sworn to secrecy about his mission, sister. What passes at his end of things, I cannot say. From the look of the weapons he and Little Horse packed out of camp, I fear they are riding into great danger once again. But this much I do know. Thanks to his enemies here at home, especially Wolf Who Hunt Smiling, some terrible new trouble awaits Touch the Sky when he returns.”
This was the first time he had managed to be alone with her. He told her about everything he had seen and heard, including Wolf Who Hunts Smiling’s rebellious speech to the young warriors during training.
“This hotheaded young brave has the hunger of ambition blazing in his eyes,” Honey Eater said when Two Twists had finished speaking. “These things he said, they are meant to do more than ruin Touch the Sky.”
“You have eyes to see, sister, and your father’s fine brain. He plans to lift his lance in leadership before the entire Shayiena nation. And their mission, under him, will be to kill as many whites as possible. He despises Touch the Sky and any others who believe some whites are decent.”
“As you suggest,” Honey Eater said, “Wolf Who Hunts Smiling is not alone in his treachery. My own husband and others in the Bull Whip troop are also playing the fox.”
She, in turn, explained Black Elk’s recent meetings with his troop brothers Stone Jaw and Angry Bull.
“No braves to fool with,” Two Twists said glumly. “Something unspeakable is about to happen.”
Time was short, the situation critical. Hastily they agreed on the only plan they could. At the very first moment when the plan of Touch the Sky’s enemies was clear, both Two Twists and Honey Eater would appeal directly to the Star Chamber for justice and a chance to tell all they knew.
The Star Chamber was the Cheyenne’s court of last resort. It met in secret at the request of Chief Gray Thunder, the only non-member who knew which braves belonged to the Chamber. Their decisions could override the Council of Forty. But although any member of the tribe could petition them, it was extraordinary for them to grant the request.
Two Twists was about to slip outside again when the urgent voice of Sharp Nosed Woman drifted through the entrance:
“Maiyun help us now, here comes Black Elk, and he has blood in his eyes! Do not try to come out now, either of you! Do not move or make a sound. If he catches you in there together, we are all heading for a funeral scaffold.”
Honey Eater met Two Twists’ eyes, fear widening her own.
“Good day, Black Elk!” they heard Sharp Nosed Woman call out cheerfully.
“It would be a good day, woman, if my squaw knew where she lived! Is she here?”
“No, Black Elk, I have not seen her this day.”
“Then why is her beadwork missing? Whenever she takes it with her, she always comes to your tipi.”
“As you say, Cheyenne. But she is not here.”
There was a long pause while Honey Eater felt her heart pounding in her ears.
Abruptly, Sharp Nosed Woman laughed.
“Well, go ahead then, Black Elk! If you do not trust a woman who is your own clan sister by marriage! By all means, look into my tipi. This good widow has nothing to hide. Maiyun grant that someday she may.”
Another long pause. Two Twists, sweat beading on his forehead, gripped the bone handle of his knife.
“I have no time to stand here and chatter with women,” Black Elk finally said. “Nor interest in peering inside your tipi. If you see my squaw, tell her she knows where her tipi is and what time her husband likes his meals!”
~*~
Seth Carlson’s new mountain company set out promptly at 0500 hours, deployed in two long columns of thirty troopers each. The grim purpose of this mission was suggested by the fact that no officer wore his saber—sabers rattled in the dead of night, warning Indian sentries.
Following their Indian scouts, the unit deployed south from Fort Randall toward a remote spine of the Bear Paws. It was here, according to the map furnished by Rough Feather, that Shoots Left Handed’s band had found scant shelter beneath a ridge.
And it was here, Carlson was sure, that he would again meet Matthew Hanchon.
But this time, history would not repeat itself.
True, he may well have killed Hanchon’s sidekick, that squat little Cheyenne whose war cry could scare the bluing off a gun barrel. But that slug had been meant for Hanchon himself. The only God Carlson believed in was gold dust. Sometimes, though, he suspected Hanchon had some ki
nd of divine protection. Well, he’d need it for this next encounter, all he could rustle up.
Carlson let his sergeant assume the lead. He dropped back to ride up and down the columns, inspecting men and equipment. At first glance, they seemed a motley and unmilitary crew. Army dress regulations were strict only for garrison duty—in the field, men were mainly on their own. Experienced campaigners had learned to wear old clothes into combat. As a result, only a few of Carlson’s troopers wore the highly feared and despised blue coats—most wore coarse gray cotton shirts and straw hats they had purchased from the sutler.
Despite their ragtag appearance, however, they were formidable indeed.
Each man was a qualified sharpshooter with the new seven-shot carbines tucked into their saddle scabbards. Each man had faced action against Cherokees back East, or Apaches, Sioux, or other tribes out West. Each man packed everything he needed on his own person or on a horse—there were no cumbersome supply and ammo wagons to hold this unit up.
“Ulrich!” Carlson called out, riding up beside a freckle-faced corporal on a huge claybank. “Are you clear on the operation of that new gun?”
“Yes, sir. I’ll make ’er sing like a preacher on Sunday!”
The packhorse behind Ulrich carried one of the recently patented guns invented by Richard Gatling, as well as several long belts of ammunition.
“I fired it, sir, back East at Fort Defiance. This was when they was still testin’ it. She’s a reg’lar honey of a weapon.”
Trotting beside the packhorse, Carlson curiously eyed the ten-barreled Gatling.
“She spits out three hundred fifty rounds a minute, sir! It’s hard to credit even after you see it with your own eyes. But she does.”
Carlson’s jaw slacked open. “Stretching the blanket a mite, aren’t you?”
“It’s God’s own truth, Cap’n. And there was plans on paper for one that’ll double that rate. You just set the gun on its tripod and connect that magazine hopper thing right there. The barrels crank in a circle around that stationary spindle. You just feed the rounds into the hopper ’n’ give the enemy gyp! Hell, Mr. Innun ain’t even dreamed of this gun yet. Gunna be some mighty consternated red Arabs, once this pup starts barkin’ at ’em.”