Sidewinder

by J. T. Edson

  ‘The choice’s yours, mister,’ Handiman stated. ‘Now to see the Colonel.’

  ‘My wife has brought food for Cuchilo and the soldier,’ Long Walker put in, nodding to the tipi’s door. ‘They have ridden hard all day and need a meal.’

  ‘Have it, Mr. Manners,’ ordered the General.

  Any doubts that Manners might have felt at eating with Indians died away when Long Walker’s pairaivo carried in dishes of steaming stew. He did not care to inquire too closely into the contents of the stew, but had no cause for alarm. The Kid’s grandmother knew how to cook white man’s fashion and also to add such Indian ingredients as would improve the taste without offending a white’s stomach.

  With a good meal inside him, Manners threw off his tiredness and accompanied Handiman to the Fort. Colonel Sutter moved fast on hearing the news. Beyond a few comments on the stupidity of reviving Lancers, he ignored the fate of Przewlocki’s command. Quickly he set about organizing the gathering of the Kid’s requirements. Without disclosing the reason, Sutter arranged for the pick of the Fort’s remounts to be put at Manners’ disposal and gathered his Regiment’s Spencer carbines in. Although the Spencer had proved its worth during the War, much high-level opposition prevented it from replacing the single-shot Springfield as a general issue cavalry arm. In times of peace Congress objected to spending money on the more costly repeating arms when the Springfield served the same purpose; and willingly accepted the theory put out by conservative staff officers — secure in desk jobs far from the reach of hostile Indians — that such new-fangled weapons only encouraged the soldier to waste ammunition. However, every regiment held a few Spencers on charge for special duties. By calling in all his command’s stock, including three privately owned guns, Sutter equipped twenty-five of Manners’ party with firearms vastly superior to the one-shot carbines.

  At the Pehnane camp, the Kid and Long Walker interviewed one of the Waw’ai old men. At first the trukup tended to be arrogant and unco-operative but Raccoon Talker, called from her bed, changed all that. Once assured of Raccoon Talker’s medicine protection, and having been made aware of the consequences of refusal, the tsukup talked with some considerable willingness on a number of subjects.

  Dusty and Mark had been sent from the tipi before the interview began for no white man could be present when a medicine woman of the Nemenuh exercised her puha. Once the old man had hobbled away, to be kept a well cared for prisoner until he could do no harm, the two Texans were allowed back into the tipi. On entering, they found the Kid stripping off his white man’s clothing.

  ‘That damned Fire Dancer’s behind this, working hand-in-glove with those white jaspers who’re trying to bust up the treaty,’ the Kid told his friends as he dropped his clothing on to the bed, ‘She put the death curse on every tsukup and pu’ste who wanted to make peace and they all died of it. Got the rest so damned scared they don’t make a move against her.’

  ‘Did you learn who the white men are?’ asked Dusty.

  ‘He only knows one. A half-breed scout from the Fort here. I’m going to have me a talk with him. The tsukup described him, Fact being, I may not be able to. The feller he described’d be awful like that scout with the Lancers. Only Sidewinder killed him.’

  ‘Why’d he kill off a man who worked with him?’ Mark put in.

  ‘You’ve got me there,’ drawled the Kid. ‘Just pure ornery meanness, maybe.’

  ‘Or maybe Sidewinder knew he didn’t need the scout any more,’ guessed Dusty. ‘What’re you doing, Lon?’

  Dusty had a good reason for asking the question. Stripped of every item of white man’s clothing, the Kid cinched a belt around his naked middle. Several items of Comanche dress lay on the bed and the Kid reached for one before replying:

  ‘Sidewinder knows me and how I dress. Happen he gets word that I’m with the soldiers who’re after him, he’ll be a damned sight harder to handle than if he reckons it’s just another Army scout on his trail.’

  Some time had elapsed since the Kid last wore a breech-clout, but he still retained the knack of donning one. Taking the long, broad strip of traditional blue cloth, he stepped astride it and drew it up between his legs, tucking one end through the belt at the front and the other at the rear so as to leave flaps which trailed almost to his knees. Next came the buckskin leggings, secured to the belt, followed by a pair of moccasins and then a plain buckskin shirt. Strapping on his gunbelt, he looked at his friends and grinned at their expressions. Apart from his white-man’s short hair, he looked every inch a Comanche warrior. However Mark had thought up a snag to the deception.

  ‘There aren’t many scouts who ride white horses and damn few have one the size of Nigger,’ the blond giant pointed out.

  ‘I can’t make him smaller,’ admitted the Kid, ‘but Grandpappy Long Walker and me can do something about his colour. That’s why I asked you to fetch ole Nigger along while we talked to the tsukup.’

  Watched by the two Texans, Long Walker and the Kid used a powder which stained the big white’s coat and turned it into a dark bay. While Dusty and Mark had seen the Kid use much the same method to disguise his horse before, he had always been satisfied to make Nigger look like a paint instead of making an over-all covering. Knowing that he operated against a Comanche, the Kid did not take that kind of chance. He left off his bedroll, retaining only a couple of blankets fastened Indian style, and discarded his rope; but he kept the saddleboot in which to carry his rifle. Nor did the Texas range saddle strike a false note. Except when hunting buffalo, the Comanche always used a saddle and many obtained Texas rigs through trading or as loot in a raid.

  By noon everything had been made ready. Manners’ troop, conscious that something out of the ordinary must be afoot, sat their horses and glanced to where the lieutenant stood at General Handiman’s side.

  ‘Good luck, Manners,’ Handiman said, ‘We can only give you a week at the outside, If you haven’t caught up with and licked Sidewinder by then, it will be too late.’

  ‘We’ll make a try at it, sir,’ Manners promised.

  ‘I know that,’ Handiman assured him.

  ‘How about burying the Lancers, sir?’

  ‘I’ll attend to that. Your business is to nail Sidewinder’s hide to the wall as quickly as you can.’

  On leaving the Fort, Manners found the Kid waiting and needed to look twice before he recognized the other. In addition to the normal armament, the Kid held a bow on his saddle and a quiver of arrows swung from the horn close to his hand. The bow was typical Comanche construction; three feet in length made of a compound of bois d’arc, or Osage orange wood, and elkhorn, That bow had cost twenty ponies from a tsukup famous for his work. With a string made from the sinews of a grizzly bear, the bow could hurl a well-made arrow over fifty yards with target-rifle accuracy, or at close range sink the shaft feather-deep into the body of a buffalo bull. It possessed another virtue, as the Kid pointed out when Manners commented on the unusual nature of his armament.

  ‘It makes a whole heap less noise than a gun and can reach out further than a knife. Let’s go.’

  Not until they had started did Manners ask the question which interested him. ‘Where’re we going?’

  ‘To the Waw’ai camp,’ the Kid replied. ‘Do the men know what we’re on?’

  ‘I’ll tell them when we take our first rest halt.’

  ‘It’d be best.’

  After an hour of hard riding, Manners brought his troop to a halt and allowed the men to loosen their saddle girths and cool the horses’ backs. Then he gathered the soldiers around him and told them the nature of their mission. A few low growls of anger came when the men heard of the defeat of the Lancers, but Manners made sure that they knew the Comanches at the peace council knew nothing of Sidewinder’s activities. He did not need to stress to his men the importance of making peace with the Comanches, for all were veterans and knew what war with such highly skilled fighters meant. A soldier stood a better chance of coming through his hitch in
the Army alive if he did not have to fight Comanches.

  Not even a meeting with a group of Lancers altered the soldiers’ feelings. The Lancers had made good their escape, leaving their weapons on the field of battle, out-run pursuit and gathered on the way back to the Fort. None knew if any more of their battalion still lived, but the Kid and Manners guessed that other demoralized Lancers must be scattered across the range country. Telling the Lancers to return to the Fort, Manners gave the order to march.

  ‘We’ll have to nail Sidewinder’s hide to the wall real fast,’ drawled the Kid as they left the Lancers. ‘There’ll be more of them scattered and I can’t see them telling the truth about how they got licked. It’ll sure rouse up folks against the peace council. That damned Sidewinder, he knew what’d happen, him and his maw, when they jumped the Lancers.’

  ‘I’d like to get the white men backing them,’ Manners replied.

  ‘And me. But maybe Dusty and Mark’ll have some luck at the Fort. We can’t worry about that until after Sidewinder’s dead and his bunch scattered. Give us a bit of luck, and we might even do that tonight.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  A DEBT REPAID

  ‘I’M going ahead to scout the camp,’ the Kid told Manners as they halted in the darkness. ‘Hold your boys here and keep ‘em quiet.’

  ‘I’ll do that.’

  ‘Real quiet,’ the Kid emphasized. ‘If they want to talk, cough, spit or smoke, stop them. One sound, or a smell of tobacco, and the Waw’ai’ll be up and running.’

  ‘They’ll keep quiet,’ promised Manners’ sergeant, a grizzled veteran called O’Neil. ‘If they need to.’

  Something in O’Neil’s voice drew the Kid’s eyes to him, Suddenly the Kid realized that apart from himself none of the party even knew where the camp was located. If it came to a point, the men did not know the Kid’s identity or how come a stranger rode as their scout.

  ‘You’d best come with me, sergeant,’ suggested the Kid.

  ‘Go ahead, sergeant,’ confirmed Manners, knowing what prompted the Kid’s request. ‘I’ll hold the men here.’

  ‘Watch Nigger,’ drawled the Kid as he slipped from the saddle and made his preparations. ‘Happen he starts moving, follow him and he’ll bring you to me.’

  Taking a strip of meat from the small bundle he carried, the Kid shoved it under his gunbelt so that it hung suspended. Then he slung the quiver of arrows across his back, picked up the bow and nodded to O’Neil. Followed by the sergeant the Kid faded into the darkness.

  Before they had covered many yards, the Kid knew he could rely on O’Neil and that the sergeant could move in sufficient silence for their purpose. Side by side they passed over the bush-dotted range. A quarter of a mile fell behind them and the Kid could sense O’Neil’s uneasiness growing. Then, as they moved up a slope, both heard a low clatter as if somebody had dropped a cooking pot. Instantly they froze and waited for a time before the Kid gave the order to move on; which he did with a signal.

  Flattening to the ground, they cautiously peered over the rim and O’Neil expended a considerable amount of will-power in not allowing his surprise to show. At the foot of the slope stood the Waw’ai village, its fires so masked by the tipis that no sign of them had showed to expose their presence. By the central fire a number of young women stood or sat listening to a well-dressed female talking.

  ‘Not many men around,’ whispered O’Neil.

  ‘Hoss herd and camp guard at most,’ the Kid agreed. ‘I’m going down to take a closer look and listen to what that old witch’s saying.’

  ‘I’d best stay here and cover you.’

  ‘Don’t start shooting unless you’ve no other choice,’ warned the Kid and drifted over the rim with all the fluid, soundless ease of a stalking cougar.

  Making hardly more noise than a shadow, the Kid moved down towards the village. His eyes went to Sidewinder’s tipi, recognizing it by its central position and from the glow of a lantern inside. None of the other tipis possessed such a sign of affluence and the Kid doubted if Sidewinder would permit any of his braves to outstrip him in such a manner.

  A low growl came to the Kid’s ears and he saw one of the large, half-starved cur dogs to be found around any Indian village studying him. Ignoring the bow and arrows, the Kid slid the meat from under his belt. He did not wish to kill the dog for that would mean removing its body, even if he ended its life in silence. While alert, the dog held its warning down to a growl. It caught a mingled smell which confused it; that of Comanche mixed with white man. Before the dog reached any conclusion, the Kid tossed his chunk of meat between its jaws. Instantly the growl died away. Living a scavenger’s existence, the dog did not aim to pass up good food and it withdrew without further noise.

  Moving on, the Kid reached the rear of Sidewinder’s tipi and stood in the darkness. Fire Dancer held out on the subject of good times ahead when the men returned from their raiding mission. Already the Waw’ai brave-hearts defeated the white lance-carriers and without loss to themselves although many coups had been counted. Further success awaited them and the women must wait until the victorious warriors returned.

  Just as the Kid thought of withdrawing, he changed his mind. Maybe he could find some evidence to lead to the white men backing Fire Dancer if he entered the tipi. Not very likely, but worth a try. Quickly he laid aside the bow and quiver, then drew his knife. He did not slash down the side of the tipi, for that would warn Fire Dancer of his visit. Instead he cut across parallel to the ground and eased his way underneath, raising the inner ‘dew cloth’ (the lining of skins which hung down inside the support poles and could be tucked under the beds to prevent any draughts getting in to the sleepers).

  The interior of the tipi looked little different to any ordinary dwelling, apart from the hanging lantern. On one bed a nat’sakena and tunawaws, both empty, along with the lack of weapons, told that the man of the tipi rode on a war trail or attended to some other business which called for armament and his best clothing including the war bonnet. As the Kid looked around, he saw a half-consumed awyaw:t of pemmican hanging suspended from the poles and a stone jug of honey on the floor. He had paid no attention to them, going instead to the buckskin-decorated medicine bag which rested on the second bed. If the tipi held anything incriminating, that bag would be its hiding-place. No Comanche would dare touch a medicine-woman as potent as Fire Dancer’s property unless possessed of exceptionally strong puha. The Kid did not share the general fear and opened the bag. Inside he found the usual items, with one exception; powders, herbs, divining bones, the normal property of a medicine woman — except for the awyaw:t of pemmican. Prized item of food that pemmican might be, no woman would think of hiding it in the sacred confines of her medicine bag.

  Unless— Memory stirred and the Kid recalled an almost forgotten incident of his childhood. It stuck out in his mind because on the night in question he killed his first enemy. There had been a victory dance to celebrate the return of a successful raiding party and Fire Dancer was just back from her stay among the Kweharehnuh. One of the Antelope braves who escorted the woman back to the Pehnane died mysteriously that night and his brother blamed the Kid’s father. Waiting for Ysabel in a tipi, the brother met the Kid instead and only luck saved the boy. Sam Ysabel always claimed that Fire Dancer tried to poison him; which had been true although he never proved his suspicions. Looking at the awyaw:t, the Kid could guess what had happened. In some way Fire Dancer persuaded the Antelope brave to take a gift of pemmican to Ysabel, but the buck sampled it and for some reason did not deliver the rest. The Kid would never know that the brave had delivered the awyaw:t, throwing it into the empty tipi from where a dog stole it.

  Cold anger filled the Kid as he thought of the number of people Fire Dancer caused to die. The two Antelope braves; the Kid’s two boyhood friends and her helpers in the attempt at stealing his horse; four husbands most likely went under the same way; not to mention the opposition among the Waw’ai, old men and women who
wanted to make peace and found death instead.

  Hefting the awyaw:t, the Kid looked around until his eyes came to rest on the pemmican hanging from the tipi pole. A thought ran through his head and he moved forward to put it into operation. This was not the Ysabel Kid who laughed, joked and lived as a white man. Instead he had become Cuchilo, grandson of Long Walker, a Pehnane tehnap pure and simple.

  Taking down the pemmican, the Kid carved the second awyaw:t until it matched the first. Then he hung up the one from the medicine bag and looked about him to make sure he had left no sign of his presence. With the medicine bag closed and the first awyaw:t in his hands, the Kid carefully eased himself over the dew cloth, replaced it and slid through the slit. More of the curs hovered around and he tossed slices of pemmican to them. Then he took up the bow and quiver, moving off through the darkness in the way he came.

  Although Sergeant O’Neil remained alert, the Kid handed him a shock by materializing at his side.

  ‘The men’re all off on a raid,’ the Kid said. ‘Only women and a small guard there. We’d best get back to the troop.’

  ‘You took a fair time to learn that,’ O’Neil answered.

  ‘Sure,’ agreed the Kid. ‘I stopped off to pay an old debt.’

  After spending a time calming the fears of the other women, Fire Dancer returned to her tipi. She was about to go to bed when pangs of hunger bit at her and she rose. Taking down the awyaw:t of pemmican, she carved off a slice and smeared it with honey. Not a single suspicion entered her head as she sat on the bed and began to eat. To the best of her knowledge, nobody knew about the poisoned awyaw:t in her medicine bag and she knew that no member of the Waw’ai band dare interfere with her property. With honey masking it, not even the slightest trace of the poisonous additions to the pemmican came through to give a warning. After eating well, Fire Dancer settled down and went to sleep.