The Sioux were on them then. Gabriel fired his musket pointblank into a brave’s chest. Pike slammed his rifle across the face of another. A ball from the caravan tumbled a third from his mount. Gabriel lashed the runner with his quirt. Pike beat at its croup with his rifle. The Indians didn’t attempt to follow, but they were laying down a withering fire. An arrow sliced the air next to Pike’s cheek, tugging at his long, wind-tangled hair. Another struck the steel buttplate of his rifle and almost tore it from his grasp. Finally, miraculously, they passed out of bow range. Clouds of gunsmoke nearly obscured the wall of carts as the half-breeds quickened their rate of fire, and the Sioux were forced to withdraw.
Gabriel didn’t pull up until they were almost at the carts. For a second Pike thought he was going to crash the horse into them. Then Gabriel hauled back on the reins and the horse went into a slide that rattled the wooden beds with chunks of sod. Pike jumped clear, and this time his leg did give out, dumping him on his face. Gabriel swung to the ground and quickly hitched the reins to an axle, but the horse was half crazy with fear and immediately jerked back and broke free. Although Gabriel grabbed for what was left of the reins, he was too slow, and the horse took off down the length of the caravan with its nose high in the air, disappearing around the bend.
Pike rolled onto his back and tried to reload, but suddenly nothing seemed to work right. He could see and hear clearly, yet every time he made an effort to pry the stopper from the powder horn’s throat, the ball of his thumb would skid clumsily away. He started to swear, but the words came out garbled, and finally he just lay back.
Kneeling at his side, Gabriel asked: “Are you hurt badly?”
Pike shook his head. With his face turned away, he was staring past the littered plain to where the Sioux were abandoning their attack. Even as he watched, several of them began to drift toward the larger group, those Indians who had dropped out of the fight earlier.
“Gonna be hell to pay here in a few minutes,” he croaked.
“I know,” Gabriel said, tugging at the sash holding Pike’s capote closed.
Pike struggled to bring the younger man’s face into focus. “Looks like I owe you a heap now, too. I’m gonna be running buffalo out here for the rest of my damn’ life.”
Gabriel didn’t answer. He pulled the coat back, scowling at the wound in Pike’s side. “It is not bad, but it is not good. A crease, but deep.” He met Pike’s gaze impassively. “Another inch and you would have died, very slowly and very painfully.”
“Another inch the other way and it would’ve only scratched me,” Pike pointed out. Around him, half-breeds were dropping over the carts, scurrying onto the plain with their fusils in one hand, shovels, axes, and hide scrapers in the other. “What the hell?” he mumbled.
“They will dig trenches if there is time,” Gabriel explained. “Already an ox has died from a fusil ball that found its way through the carts. We must keep the Sioux as far away from the train as possible. Roll onto your stomach. I want to look at your back.”
“Don’t be frettin’ over my hide. Go help ’em with the digging. I’ll slap a patch over this when things slow down a mite.”
“You talk too much,” Gabriel said. “Roll over while there is time. The Sioux will not wait forever.”
Pike twisted onto his stomach, gritting his teeth against the harsh burn of his wounds. He had been pushing on adrenaline ever since spotting the Sioux, but that energy was beginning to ebb.
A woman’s voice came from inside the carts, and Gabriel replied: “There is a musket ball in his hip, but it is not too deep. There are splinters of wood and rawhide around it, though. I think the ball must have passed through the back of his saddle first. It is his side that needs the most attention. Bring sinew and a needle.”
“God-dammit, get on out there,” Pike said huskily. “I’ll be along as soon as I catch my breath.”
“I do not think so,” Gabriel replied. “Isabella will see to your wounds. When she comes, I must leave.”
McTavish’s chunky squaw soon hove into view, carrying a buffalo bladder filled with water, a small rawhide parfleche painted in muted colors, and a length of amber sinew. Placing her medical kit on the grass next to Pike, she lowered herself to her knees at his side. Gabriel touched her shoulder lightly, then left without speaking. Isabella’s eyes rested on Pike’s face a moment, then she went to work, freeing the long tails of his shirt first to examine the wound in his side. After a couple of minutes of poking, she sat back on her calves.
“The ball touched a rib but did not break it. Your medicine was good this day, otherwise you would be dead.”
“More likely it’s because a Sioux can’t shoot a long gun worth a damn,” Pike said.
Isabella peeled a length of thread-size sinew from the narrow strip and rolled it into a marble-size ball that she placed in her mouth, leaving about a quarter of an inch of one end protruding from between her lips. While the sinew softened in saliva, she untied the whang from around the mouth of the bladder and spilled a little water onto a cotton rag.
Pike flinched when the cold cloth touched his bruised flesh, then hardened himself to it. Isabella swiftly cleaned the wound, then set the rag and bladder aside. From the parfleche, she brought out a brass needle case and a pair of tiny, gold-inlaid scissors that looked too delicate to cut much more than the thinnest of papers. Setting those aside, she took the moistened sinew from her mouth and threaded it through the eye of a stout harness needle.
“This will hurt bad,” she told him matter-of-factly, snipping off the stiff, quarter-inch section she’d used to guide the sinew through the needle.
But Pike already knew that, and was focusing his attention on the half-breeds as they chipped frantically at the hard soil. The Sioux were stirring again; a bunch of them that he took to be leading warriors and war chiefs were edging around to the northeast. They seemed to be arguing, gesticulating wildly to make their points. After several minutes of this, half a dozen or so Sioux extracted themselves from the larger party to cautiously approach the caravan. They stopped just out of range, and from there a single horseman advanced another thirty yards, his warbonnet flapping gently in the wind. Raising an eight-foot lance furred with the scalp locks of his enemies, he began to speak loudly in Sioux.
“What’s he saying?” Pike demanded of Isabella, then grunted and slammed the side of his face against the ground as she ran her needle through the edge of his wound on both sides and tugged it closed. “Jesus Christ,” he hissed.
“The pain cannot be avoided,” she said with what might have been a trace of compassion, “but it will soon pass.”
“The hell with the pain,” Pike grated, panting. “What’s that redskin saying?”
“He says he is Black Fish, and that he is war chief of his village. He says that they are Yankton Sioux, and that this is their land. He says the bois brûles are trespassers and thieves who steal the Yankton’s buffalo and wood and water and grass, and that the bois brûles have killed brave Yankton warriors this day, and that for this, they… we… must pay. He says twenty guns and enough powder and shot for one hundred rounds for each gun, and one hundred knives and belt axes, and ten good buffalo runners. He says that if the bois brûles do this, we can go on, but that if we do not, then the Yankton will surely wipe us out and sell the women to the Pawnees.” She took another pass with her needle and pulled the flesh tight. “You will scar,” she remarked absently, eyeing her work. “Perhaps if I took smaller stitches…”
Turcotte was speaking now. Pike tried to hitch himself around to watch, but Isabella pushed him down. “Do not squirm so much. You do not have to see in order to hear. I will tell you what is said.”
“Where’s my rifle?” Pike asked suddenly. He forced himself up on one elbow, batting her hands aside. “Where’s my god-damned rifle, woman?”
“There!” Isabella snapped, pointing behind him. He twisted around to see it leaning against one of the carts. He didn’t remember putting it there,
and wondered if Gabriel had.
“Is it loaded?”
“I do not know. Hold still. I must finish this if you are to fight later.”
Pike swiveled back to listen to Turcotte. “Now what’s he saying?”
“You must be still!” Isabella scolded. “I cannot work this way.”
Pike swore and tipped his face into his arms as another wave of dizziness pulsed through him. “What’s he saying?”
Isabella slowed her sewing almost imperceptibly, then went back to work. “He says no,” she replied without fanfare.
Pike smiled into the grass. “Bueno, that’s good.” He chuckled. “That shines for a fact.” He tried to relax, taking deep breaths. “You about finished?” he asked.
“I am maybe half done. I could have been finished if you did not wiggle so much. Sewing on you is like trying to skin a live snake.”
Pike didn’t answer. He could hear Black Fish continuing to harangue Turcotte and the others, but he didn’t have to understand the language to know what was being said, or what would happen next. Turcotte had refused the Yankton’s first demand. Perhaps he would give in later, through negotiation, to a lower price. Or maybe he wouldn’t. Either way, it would take some time to sort out, maybe as long as an hour. And it was good that Turcotte hadn’t given in too readily. It might have gone harder on them in the long run if he had. Dealing with hostiles was something of an art, Pike knew, a fine balance of bluff and deference; too much of either could convey the wrong message. In the meantime, he could relax a few minutes, let some of his strength return. He was hoping the light-headedness would pass, too. He wasn’t going to be much good if he passed out in the middle of an attack.
After suturing the crease in his side, Isabella bound the wound with a length of cotton cloth, then leaned back and said: “Now I must look at your butt.”
Pike almost refused, but then he laughed and said—“What the hell.”—and thumbed his trousers down far enough to expose the mangled flesh on his hip. Isabella leaned close to peer at the damage, softly clucking her tongue.
“I think Gabriel was right,” she said after a while. “The ball is still in your hip, but it is not deep. It must come out, though, or it will maybe poison your blood and kill you anyway.”
“Then get it out,” Pike said gruffly.
Her touch was gentle as she probed the bruised flesh, but still he had to grit his teeth to keep from crying out. “There are splinters of wood and rawhide that must also be removed,” she said, peering intently into the bloodied wound. “The rawhide may not be too painful, as it already turns soft in your blood, but the wooden splinters are small, and the skin here is much torn. It will not be easy.”
“If they gotta come out, do it.”
“They must come out,” she agreed, then tapped his shooting bag. “Do you have a bullet mold?”
She opened the flap without waiting for a reply, rummaging through the leather bag until she found his mold. She studied the steel, pliers-like contraption for a moment, opening and closing the jaws speculatively, then nodded her satisfaction.
“This will work,” she said, running a finger along the slight, inward curve of the two hafts. “I will use the handles to remove the ball. That will cause less pain than cutting it out with a knife.” She gave him a sober look. “Maybe that way you will not scream so loud.”
“It ain’t deep enough to scream over,” Pike returned as nonchalantly as his ragged breathing would allow.
Isabella washed away as much of the blood as she could, then began to probe for the spent ball. Pike’s face twisted in a grimace, and, although he was determined not to cry out, he couldn’t prevent a thin, sputtering whistle from escaping between his teeth. Isabella continued to cluck her tongue against the roof of her mouth as she labored over his buttocks, but soon she sat back with a small exclamation of delight, thrusting the misshapened ball in front of Pike’s face.
“See, it was so near the surface it almost fell out. It is a good thing it did not go any deeper, though. It could have crippled you.” She fingered the handles apart to allow the bloody chunk of lead to drop into the grass in front of his nose.
Pike concentrated on slow, deep breaths as Isabella began the tedious process of digging for splinters with the tip of her knife. Sweat poured off his face and stung his eyes, and his throat felt as dry as the inside of an abobe brick. He tried to focus on the half dozen or so Métis within his vision. They’d already scooped out shallow craters about fifty yards from the carts, and were packing the dirt down in front of them. It would be scanty shelter, at best, he figured—they would have to sprawl belly-flat to fire, and reload from the same position—but it was something, and more than the Sioux would have.
Turcotte and Black Fish were still palavering, but their voices seemed muted, more fuzzy than distant. Pike blinked suddenly and shook his head, fighting back a slowly descending curtain of blackness.
“You must not pass out,” Isabella reprimanded him sharply, jabbing his shoulder with her finger. “Do you hear me, American?”
Pike lifted his head to look around. On the prairie, the Métis had stopped digging and were standing next to their pits, their fusils at the ready.
“The Sioux have rejected René’s offer of ten North West guns and fifty rounds of ammunition,” Isabella said. “Now I think maybe we will fight again.” She gave the waist of his trousers an upward tug. “Come. I have removed the largest splinters. The rest will have to wait until later.”
Pike struggled to his feet, staggering a little. Isabella shoved his rifle into his hands, then linked her arm through his and led him to a gap between two of the carts.
“We must hurry now,” she urged. “There is not much time left.”
He had to get down on his hands and knees to crawl through. As soon as Isabella had wiggled in after him, she and another woman began shoving slabs of dried meat and bundles of untanned hides back into the gap. Pike had to wait until another wave of dizziness passed, then he began methodically to reload. By the time he heard Turcotte’s warning shout, he was ready.
Chapter Nineteen
The Brown Bess rocked Gabriel’s shoulder. Through the smoke he saw a warrior lurch atop his pony, then pull it around and race out of range. Rolling onto his back, he slanted the musket across his chest and quickly reloaded. As he did, a fusil’s ball channeled a path through the sod several feet to his right. Seconds later, an arrow thudded into the mound of dirt in front of his pit.
The Sioux were circling the entrenched Métis at a gallop, darting in occasionally to fire an arrow or gun, then immediately withdrawing. A few abandoned their mounts to run in on foot, seeking shelter behind the bodies of the dead horses that littered the field. These Yanktons were keeping up a steady sniping, but the war party had so far avoided a direct charge. That was more or less what the bois brûles had expected. The Sioux wanted glory and honor. They wanted ponies, scalps, and plunder. What they didn’t want was the heavy loss of life a pointblank assault would incur. The bois brûles wouldn’t have risked pits on the open prairie if they thought the Yanktons would attempt to ride over them en masse.
A lot of the Sioux, Black Fish among them, had refused to take part in the battle altogether. They sat their ponies well out of range, watching as their more obstinate comrades threw themselves futilely against the line of Métis marksmen. As time passed, the confidence of the bois brûles began to grow. Between shots they would call out derogatory comments or flash obscene gestures. In the rifle pit to Gabriel’s right, Nicolas Quesnelle leaped impulsively to his feet. Raising his smoothbore above his head, he shook it toward the Yanktons as he broke into an impromptu jig.
“Coyotes!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “Old women who pee in their robes!”
He was still gleefully prancing from one foot to the other when a bullet slammed into his chest, knocking him flat on his back.
There was a scream from the caravan, followed by a distant, horrified: “Papa!”
; Keeping low, Gabriel scrambled across the intervening distance, dropping to his knees beside the stocky half-blood. “Nicolas, are you all right?”
Quesnelle was struggling to sit up. He looked pale and a bit muddled, and there was blood on his chin from where he had bitten his lip, but Gabriel didn’t see any evidence of a wound.
“Sacre bleu,” Quesnelle mumbled, rubbing his chest. Then, from his lap, he picked up a lead ball, slightly flattened on one side. He pulled the deep-cut neck of his shirt out to peer down his chest. “A spent ball,” he said, chuckling with relief. “I got a bruise, Gabriel, but that is all.”
Gabriel waved to the caravan to let those inside know that Quesnelle was all right. Patting the bois brûle on the shoulder, he said: “You must keep your head down, Nicolas. Next time, the ball may not be fired from so far away.”
But Quesnelle was concentrating on his breathing, which seemed to be coming with more difficulty now that he was sitting up. Hanging onto Gabriel’s arm, he puffed: “I cannot… breathe so good… my friend.”
Gabriel brushed the lapels of Quesnelle’s capote aside, then pulled his shirt up until he could see the fist-sized bruise and lump of swollen flesh where the ball had struck him. He said: “There is a broken rib, perhaps.”
Quesnelle swayed suddenly and his eyes rolled back until only the whites were visible. With a gasp, he flopped onto his back. For one terrifying moment, Gabriel thought he was dead. Then he saw the slow rise and fall of the bois brûle’s chest and knew he had only passed out. But there was nothing he could do here.
As if Quesnelle’s falling were a signal, a bone-chilling howl arose from among the Yanktons, and a band of forty or more charged across the plain toward Gabriel’s and Quesnelle’s position.
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