by Nan Ryan
Bright Feather limped forward. He reached the booth. He was so little his face was on the level of the plank board where the candy jar sat. He peered over it at a tall, rawboned woman with graying hair and asked politely, “May I have a peppermint stick, ma’am?”
Margaret Tullison laughed, reached out, ruffled his hair and said, “You sure can, darlin’!” She reached in the jar, took out two sticks and handed both to him. He took them and stood there with a peppermint stick in each hand, so pleased with his good fortune he was speechless.
“Remember what you say when someone gives you something,” Maggie prompted.
“Thank you very much,” Bright Feather said to Margaret Tullison.
“You’re mighty welcome,” she said. Then added, “Tell you what, if you eat those up and want another, you come right back over here.”
“Bright Feather” came the soft voice of the Kiowa woman he lived with. Morning Sun was the patient, motherly, middle-aged widow who was raising Bright Feather and five other orphans. Those five were with her now. She gently scolded Bright Feather in their native tongue. “You must not wander away from me. You could get lost in the crowd. Now come.”
He nodded, but proudly held up his peppermint sticks. Margaret Tullison was already lifting the glass top from the big jar, taking out candy for the other five children. Maggie acknowledged Morning Sun and bid Bright Feather goodbye.
Turning to Margaret Tullison, she said, “We’ll be back to relieve you at three o’clock.”
“Good enough,” said Margaret.
“We better start looking in earnest for a place to spread the blanket,” Katie said.
“Yes, I agree.”
They had volunteered to help out by manning one of the booths from three o’clock until six. Until that time, they were free and they wanted to find just the right spot. A place where they wouldn’t miss anything and could most enjoy the festivities.
“What about over there close to the main agency building?” Katie suggested, pointing. “That’s where all the rations will be distributed, so most of the activity should take place around there.”
Maggie nodded but declined. If they settled in near the agency buildings, they would see only the Indian women and children.
“Wouldn’t you rather go on out beyond the buildings to the pasture where they’ll race the horses this afternoon?” Maggie asked. “That’s where most everyone goes, and if we’re not there early, we won’t get a front-row spot.”
“Well, all right,” Katie was agreeable. “We can eat our picnic lunch before they start running their horses and kicking up dirt.”
“Of course. Let’s go now and…and…Wait, I see Double Jimmy. Let’s say hello.”
The ruddy-faced, white-haired Double Jimmy stood beside one of the big, heavily loaded agency wagons. In the crook of his arm was a tiny Indian baby and at his side was the infant’s proud young mother. Double Jimmy was making silly faces at the baby and teasing the mother. The baby was cooing. The mother was beaming and laughing.
The travois ponies were lined up close to the large wagons from which the rations and clothing would be distributed. The Indian women stood about waiting, visiting, talking together, showing off their new babies and discussing the big meal they would have once they were issued their supply of fresh beef.
Double Jimmy looked up and saw Maggie and Katie coming toward him. He waved them forward, gave the squirming baby a kiss on the forehead and handed it back to its mother.
“You two lovely young ladies gonna help us hand out supplies?” he asked, giving both a hug when they reached him.
“I suppose we could,” Maggie said with a smile. But she hoped it wouldn’t be necessary. She didn’t want to stay here. She wanted to watch the horse races.
“Naw,” said Double Jimmy. “Not necessary. I was just teasing you.” He raised his white eyebrows at Maggie. “I figure I know where you’ll spend most of the afternoon.”
Maggie playfully punched him on the shoulder. “You think you know everything, don’t you?”
“This much I know. When the horse racing starts, you’ll be there cheering ’em on or my name’s not James W. James.”
Maggie laughed. “You know me too well.” And he did. Over the years, Maggie’s father had owned many sleek Thoroughbreds. Maggie had learned to love horses and horse racing from the time she was a toddler. “You coming out there?”
Double Jimmy shook his head. “Got my hands pretty full right here.”
“Don’t you have several hands to help you?” asked Katie, looking about for his assistants.
“Of course he does,” Maggie answered for him. Then to him, “When are you going to quit working so hard? Let the others handle some of the tasks?”
“What? You mean this agency could operate without me?” he said with mock horror. “Well, I’ll be switched!”
The women laughed. Maggie said, “This agency could never do without you and neither could I. Come for supper some night soon?”
“Just tell me when.”
“Make it a week from Tuesday.”
“I’ll be there,” said Double Jimmy. He made a face then and said, “You’re not meaning to try your hand at biscuit-making again, are you, child?”
“I promise not to,” she said, and laughed at herself. The last batch of biscuits she had made had been a disaster. Didn’t rise at all, were burned nearly black and were as hard as rocks. “Pistol and I are still playing toss and fetch with the last ones I made.”
Fourteen
“My goodness, I’m so full I need a nap,” Katie said an hour later.
“I know what you mean,” Maggie agreed with a yawn.
They had found the ideal spot for their picnic lunch. A long line of live oaks grew at the edge of a broad, grass-covered pasture. They had spread the blanket in the shade of a big oak. There they had an unobstructed view of the pasture where the horse racing would take place.
Full and drowsy from their lunch, Maggie and Katie now watched with lazy interest as the Indians began bringing their prized horses onto the straightaway track. The race would be a quarter of a mile. A lightning-fast sprint. The horses would thunder directly past them.
Maggie sat leaning back on stiffened arms, legs stretched out before her, feet crossed at the ankles. Her head felt heavy. So did her eyelids. She idly wondered why she had been so all-fired keen to come out here and spend the afternoon. Right now she’d much prefer being back at her cottage, where she could climb up onto her soft feather bed and sleep for an hour or two.
She was about to suggest that they leave when she looked up and almost lost her breath. Shanaco was coming onto the track, leading his shiny black stallion.
“There he is!” exclaimed Katie in a stage whisper.
“Who?” Maggie pretended ignorance.
“You know very well who,” Katie said. “The chief of the Comanches. The Eagle. Shanaco. The rebellious half-breed everyone’s talking about.” She paused then, shaded her eyes with a hand and added, “Lord, he is good-looking, isn’t he?”
Maggie shrugged slender shoulders. “I suppose.”
Katie chattered on, but Maggie didn’t hear a word she said. Her full attention was focused on Shanaco.
The tall, handsome chieftain wore fringed, tight-fitting leggings and soft moccasins. But no shirt. His broad, coppery chest was bare, and it must have been lightly greased because it gleamed in the bright sunshine. A scarlet bandanna was knotted at his throat, and a wide copper band was wrapped around his right biceps. His raven hair hung loose around his shoulders; his scalp lock was adorned with red ribbon and tiny silver bells.
He turned abruptly, the movement exposing his beautiful, deeply clefted back as well as the gentle curve of his lean buttocks and long, muscular legs. If ever a man looked good bare chested and in a pair of tight buckskin leggings, it was Shanaco.
He turned back around and he was smiling broadly. It was, Maggie realized, the first time she had ever seen him smile. Really sm
ile. She was amazed at how it softened his stark, sharply cut features. She wished she was closer so she could see his metallic eyes twinkle with that radiant smile.
Maggie quietly ground her teeth when a cluster of young men crowded around the smiling Shanaco, partially blocking her view. He was taller than the others, so she could still see his dark head, but not his lean, powerful body.
“…and I’d bet my bottom dollar she will,” Katie was saying.
“What? I…I’m sorry.” Maggie reluctantly turned to look at her friend.
“I said, ‘Look down there at the far end of the pasture. Right near the finish line. Lois Harkins, all gussied-up, seated queenly in a parked buggy. She’s staring at Chief Shanaco as if he were some tempting dessert.”’ Katie leaned closer to Maggie and whispered, “Think she’ll try to get The Eagle in her bed?”
“Katie Helen Atwood!” Maggie exclaimed under her breath.
Whispering still, Katie said, “Mark my words. If what you told me about her is true, and I have no reason to doubt it, then what would stop her from going after an exquisite masculine prize like Shanaco?”
Maggie exhaled with irritation. “For one thing, she won’t get the opportunity.”
“Women like Lois make their own opportunities, you know that. She’ll find a way to meet him. And then…”
Over my dead body. “What if she does? Who cares? The races are about to start. Let’s watch.”
Along the sidelines, whites and Indians alike were making bets. The Indians had little with which to wager. No money. Only small keepsakes and articles saved from their old way of life, things that were valuable to them and no one else. The troopers bet money they had saved from their meager wages. There was much laughing and shouting as the betting grew fierce.
Maggie glanced again at the track. Riders were now mounted and exercising their horses. Trotting them up and down the straightaway. She glanced again at Shanaco. He was not yet mounted. He stood beside the nickering coal-black stallion, rubbing the creature’s sleek neck and whispering into its pricked ear. Finally he climbed astride the pony’s bare back with the easy grace of an acrobat.
He put the black into a canter, then kneed him into a gallop. The stallion stood out from the crowded field, just as his rider did. Watching, Maggie frowned suddenly. This race was unfair. The other Indian ponies didn’t have much of a chance against Shanaco’s magnificent black. She knew enough about horses to recognize that the stallion was a superior creature. Perfectly configured and bred for speed and stamina.
And while most everyone had turned out specifically to see Shanaco race the mighty stallion, she found it less than noble of him to enter the race knowing he would be the sure winner. He was supposed to be the leader of his People, the one they looked to for guidance, the chief who put aside his own ego so that they might glean the glory.
Selfish, selfish man!
Maggie was shaken from her reverie by the sound of the bugler blowing a warning to the riders to return to the starting line and take their places. The contestants called to one another, laughed and trotted toward the start line. The last one to move into place was Shanaco and the black.
Fourteen riders and their mounts had filed into position behind a chalked line. The nervous horses snorted and stomped the ground. One reared up, almost unseating his rider. Shouts and whistles came from the sidelines. Everyone, including Maggie and Katie, were now on their feet.
A uniformed trooper stepped up to the line and raised his .45 Colt pistol. The anxious riders hunkered down close to their mounts’ necks, moccasined feet poised to slam into the beasts’ bellies. Maggie stared directly at Shanaco. He wasn’t moving a muscle. Wasn’t leaning forward. Wasn’t hunkered down. His moccasined feet were not raised or poised. He was seated astride the stock-still stallion with his back regally straight and his right hand loose on the reins.
The trooper fired his Colt into the air.
The horses shot away.
The black easily moved to the front of the pack. The others galloped after him. Maggie bit her bottom lip. She knew the outcome already. Shanaco was going to win. The others didn’t stand a chance.
The race was half over. A young Comanche riding a small, speedy paint was gaining on Shanaco. A couple of lengths back, a little wiry mustang was laboring hard to catch up. Behind the three front-runners raced the thundering herd.
Nearing the finish line of the fast quarter mile, Shanaco and the black were a neck ahead and bragging bettors were already counting their winnings.
But just as the race was about to end, Maggie saw Shanaco loosen his hand ever so slightly on the reins in a silent signal to his mount. The black changed strides, fell back just a hair, and the paint shot ahead, crossing the finish line first.
There were groans all around from puzzled bettors.
Maggie wasn’t puzzled.
She knew a great deal about horses and even more about riders. Shanaco had purposely lost the race to his young tribesman. Maggie felt her heart throb in her chest. Although she’d chosen to forget, this was not the first time she’d witnessed the supposedly cold, uncaring Shanaco make a truly admirable gesture. Apparently there was some good to the man.
Maggie was thoughtful as she watched the laughing chieftain congratulating the race’s proud young winner. Shanaco warmly embraced the shorter, younger man and Maggie caught herself smiling her approval.
A fresh batch of horses were already lining up for the start of another race. A horse and rider could enter only one race. The contestants in the first were finished for the day. Now it was the Paneteka tribe’s turn. After them, the Kiowas. But Maggie found that she was no longer terribly interested in the races.
From beneath lowered lashes she watched as Shanaco led the black off the track.
She involuntarily stiffened when she saw the simpering Lois hastily alight from her carriage and step directly into Shanaco’s path.
He stopped. He towered over Lois.
Lois was tipping her head back, looking up at him, and asking him something. Shanaco nodded, then stepped around her. Maggie saw Lois watch him walk away. And she was smiling as if pleased.
Maggie quietly fumed.
Fifteen
Three o’clock that afternoon.
Maggie and Katie now manned the booth vacated by Margaret Tullison. The foot traffic had thinned out considerably. They knew the reason. The horse races had ended and the rations were being issued over behind the agency buildings. Double Jimmy and three of his helpers had set up folding tables directly in front of the loaded wagons.
The Indian women had patiently lined up to collect their share of badly needed supplies. Coffee and sugar and corn and salt and soap and clothing for their families. The laughing women packed the allotted treasures on the travois horses. They were eager to get over to the large holding pens where the beef would be distributed.
The beef issue was the climax of every ration day. The cattle were given to the Indians on the hoof, making it great sport for everyone. Just as they had for the horse races, the Indians crowded around, cheering and waving as a soldier or agency employee released the cattle, one at a time, into a huge pen.
As the frightened steer bolted across the corral, a mounted brave with quiver and arrow would race after the startled creature, taking aim, releasing an arrow, pretending he was still out on the open plains hunting buffalo.
After the cattle were slain, the Indians made quick work of skinning their kill. Once that was done, the women finished the butchering and hauled the fresh meat away. While their men stayed behind to watch the rest of the slaughtering, the women headed home to start preparing the big feasts.
Steaks and roasts and ribs would be cooking over blazing fires when the men returned. The joyful feasting would go on until well past midnight, and the People, young and old alike, would go to bed with full bellies for a change.
At their booth on the parade ground, Maggie and Katie could hear the shouts and laughter coming from the pens where
the beef was being issued. Maggie wondered if Shanaco was out there, joining in the merriment.
She didn’t have to wonder long.
She got up out of the folding chair in which she had been sitting, leaned her elbows on the booth’s plank counter and glanced at the sparse crowd milling up and down the quadrangle.
Shanaco was approaching.
He was walking slowly because Old Coyote was at his side. The aged chief was saying something to Shanaco, gesturing with his hands, likely telling a tall tale. When Coyote finished speaking, Shanaco threw back his head and laughed. Maggie found herself smiling foolishly.
She caught herself, stopped, straightened and crossed her arms over her chest. And felt her knees go weak when Coyote pointed directly at her. Shanaco nodded, took the old chief’s arm and propelled him toward the booth.
“Is he coming over here?” Katie Atwood asked, rising to stand beside Maggie.
“He is,” Maggie replied, hoping she sounded casual.
Old Coyote was smiling as he made his slow, sure way toward the booth. “Miss Maggie,” he said when he reached her, “so happy you still here. Need your help.”
“You have it,” she assured him, and reaching out, took his hand and squeezed it. Then said, “Chief Coyote, you know Katie Atwood, I believe.”
The old Kiowa looked puzzled but nodded to Katie, then addressed Maggie. “You know Chief Shanaco?”
“Why, yes, I…yes,” Maggie said, and finally looked up at the tall Comanche. With a slight shake of her head, she said, “Shanaco, this is my good friend, Mrs. Katie Atwood. Katie, Chief Shanaco.”
“Nice to meet you,” he said politely, and the overwhelmed Katie could only nod. His gaze quickly returned to Maggie. “We have this minor problem and the chief tells me you can help us solve it.”
“I’ll certainly try,” said Maggie.
“Have done it again, Miss Maggie,” Old Coyote said, sheepish. “Cannot remember where I live. You know?”
“Yes, I do,” she said, and smiled kindly at him.