Ride to Valor

by David Robbins

  He opened his mouth to shout for help.

  A battering ram in the form of Two Bears struck the warrior in the chest and bowled him over. Cowlick was a step behind, and as they had done with the Kiowa, they now did with this one; they pinned him.

  A hand was thrust down. James gripped it and Shard pulled him to his feet.

  “You all right?”

  “I think so,” James said, rattled by the abruptness of the attack.

  Shard faced their new prisoner. “Ain’t this interesting? This one’s a Cheyenne, not a Kiowa.”

  The Crows hauled the warrior to the fire and bound him. The Cheyenne sat with his back straight, his jaw jutting.

  James forced himself to observe. He would endure the cutting and the blood and not be a weak sister. Only there wasn’t any.

  The Cheyenne said something. Cowlick untied the Cheyenne’s wrists, which puzzled James until the four of them commenced to communicate in sign language. James had heard of it but never seen it used. Their fingers fairly flying, they were at it for over an hour. Then Cowlick retied the wrists and Jack Shard leaned back.

  “It’s as I thought.”

  “Care to enlighten me?” James requested.

  “It’s a bunch of young bucks out to make a name for themselves. Kiowa and Cheyenne together. This one was sent back to see what was keeping the pair we caught.”

  “What will you do with him?”

  “Turn him over to Captain Pemberton. Or you will. You’re leaving in the morning. I’ll send Two Bears along so you can find your way.”

  “Couldn’t I stick with you?”

  “You’re my liaison, remember? Tell Pemberton there are thirty in this band. They broke into two groups and aim to strike as far south as the Arkansas. Their leader is a Kiowa called Long Knife. I’ve heard of him. His mother was killed at Sand Creek by that Chivington I was telling you about. Reckon he’s out to balance the scales.”

  “Long Knife,” James repeated.

  “This one,” Shard said, jerking a thumb at the Cheyenne, “is called Lean Wolf. Don’t let his hands loose, whatever you do. And at night tie his feet, too.”

  “He can’t do much trussed up,” James said.

  “You’d be surprised.”

  James turned in, but sleep was elusive. He’d no sooner drift off than he’d have a nightmare and wake with a start. Once he was being chased by shambling red horrors bristling with knives and tomahawks. Later on it was a spectral woman covered in blood. Dawn broke much too soon. He had his horse saddled and ready before the sun rose.

  Lean Wolf had told Shard where his horse was hid and Cowlick had fetched it. Now they undid the rope around his ankles and threw him on. Two Bears fitted a lead rope and mounted his own animal.

  “Be mighty careful, you hear, Irish?” Jack Shard cautioned. “I’d hate for anything to happen to you.”

  “Makes two of us,” James said.

  28

  The sun was a furnace, the prairie blisteringly hot.

  A shimmering haze made objects in the distance appear different from what they were. Antelope had six legs instead of four.

  A rocky stretch gave the illusion of being a lake.

  James was wet with sweat outside and parched inside. He refused to touch his canteen. There was no telling when they would find water.

  Two Bears appeared immune to the heat. He rode alertly, not sweating a drop, his rifle across his horse.

  It had been three days since they left the farm and Jack Shard. In the evenings they stopped and Two Bears cooked. The Crow always tied Lean Wolf’s legs and as an added precaution ran a rope from around Lean Wolf’s neck, down his back, to his ankles, so that should Lean Wolf try to wrest free, he’d strangle himself. The first evening, James had asked if that was entirely necessary and Two Bears had looked at him and laughed and said, “Heap big pile Buffalo Shit.”

  James really didn’t like that nickname.

  The fourth evening they sat at the fire, James sipping coffee, Two Bears deep in thought about something. James was mildly surprised when the Crow stirred and stared across the flames at him and asked a question.

  “Why you here, Buffalo Shit?”

  “Your friend Shard told us to deliver a message and the prisoner to Captain Pemberton.”

  “No,” Two Bears said, and smacked his hand on the prairie grass. “Why you here?”

  “Why do you want to know?” James responded. In his opinion, his personal life was none of the Crow’s business.

  “You white. You come fight Indian. Why? You like fight Indian?”

  “Oh,” James said, and sighed. “No. It’s not that. I don’t like to fight at all, to tell you the truth. I’d just as soon get along with everybody.”

  “Yet you here.”

  “I got into trouble once,” James revealed. “A judge made me join the army.”

  “Judge?” Two Bears said. “What that?”

  James briefly explained about the court system and the duties of a judge.

  Two Bears considered that, then said, “So him say you do and you do?”

  “I didn’t have any choice, no.” James would have done whatever it took to stay out of prison.

  The Crow reflected some more and then asked another surprising question. “You like Injuns?”

  “I don’t not like them,” James said, “provided they’re not trying to kill me.”

  “Many Injuns hate white-eyes.”

  “I don’t hate anyone.” James remembered Bunton. “Well, almost anyone. I’d just as soon all whites and all Indians were friends.”

  “You dreamer,” Two Bears said. “But good dream.” He half closed his eyes and continued with “My people many enemies. Long time fight. Long time kill. Not kill, we die. You savvy?”

  “Your people don’t have any choice, either.”

  “No,” Two Bears said. “Coyote say kill, we kill.”

  “Coyote?”

  “Him make Apsaalooke. Once world no land. Only water. Him have duck dive deep—”

  James was trying to make sense of it. “What was a duck doing there?” he interrupted.

  “Only Coyote, four ducks, in all world. Him have duck bring up dirt. From dirt make land. Make first man, first woman. They first Apsaalooke.”

  “First what?”

  “That name my people.”

  “But Shard said you are Crows.”

  “Whites call Crows Crows. My people call Apsaalooke. It mean people of big-beaked bird.”

  “That duck you were telling me about?”

  “Him bravest duck. Other ducks not so brave.”

  “There wasn’t a dove anywhere, was there?”

  “No dove, duck,” Two Bears said. “Why you ask?”

  “Just a story my mother used to tell me when I was little. It had a lot of water and a dove.”

  “Four ducks,” Two Bears said, and held up four fingers.

  “Then Coyote make other animals. Make many enemies for Apsaalooke fight.”

  “Didn’t Coyote like your people?”

  “Like people much. Make enemies so we fight. Fight make people strong.”

  “I don’t know,” James said. “Always making war seems to me a shabby way to live.”

  “What be shabby?”

  “A poor way,” James explained. “But then I’ve no room to talk. My own people, the Irish, are known for having a bit of a temper and loving a donnybrook as much as they love to drink.”

  “What be donnybrook?”

  “A fight,” James said. “My people love to fight.”

  Two Bears smiled. “Your people, my people, much same. Fight good. Make strong.”

  “Or make you dead,” James said, “and I’m not all that fond of the dying part of it.”

  “No one want die,” Two Bears said. “It happen when happen.”

  The next day they got an early start to take advantage of the cool of morning. It didn’t last long. By noon James was sweltering. “Damn, it’s hot.” He swiped a
sleeve across his face.

  Two Bears didn’t respond. He hadn’t said much since they started out.

  “Don’t you like me, Two Bears?” James asked.

  The Crow got that amused look of his. “Why you ask, Buffalo Shit?”

  “I’d just like to know. You’re the first Indian I’ve ever really known, and I’ve grown to like you some.”

  “We friends, eh?”

  “I’d like to think so.”

  Two Bears was about to reply when he straightened and stared intently to the east. Suddenly drawing rein, he said, “We have trouble, Buffalo Shit.”

  “It’s Corporal Doyle. Thank you.” James looked and saw only haze. “What kind of trouble?”

  “Enemies come,” Two Bears said.

  James rose in the stirrups. He squinted against the glare and said, “I don’t see anything.”

  “You white,” Two Bears Said. “Whites have eyes like blind mice.”

  James went on squinting. Just when he thought the Crow must be wrong, figures appeared. Riders, coming in their direction. “Maybe they haven’t spotted us and we can slip away.”

  “We try,” Two Bears said without much confidence, and reined to the north.

  Their mounts raised dust, but it couldn’t be helped. James got a crick in his neck from glancing back. It was a quarter of an hour before he established with certainty that the riders had changed direction. “They’re after us.”

  “Yes,” Two Bears said even though it hadn’t been a question.

  For another thirty minutes they pushed their animals as hard as they dared. Their heat-haze shadows never gained—or lost ground, either.

  “This won’t end well,” James said.

  “We fight,” Two Bears declared.

  “The two of us against how many? Ten? Twenty? I can’t tell.”

  “Eleven,” Two Bears said.

  “How can you tell that from here?”

  “Must find place to fight,” Two Bears said.

  Before them stretched mile after mile of flat.

  “This couldn’t have happened at a worse time,” James said.

  The terrain stayed the same. James was desperate for a bluff or a tract of woodland or anywhere they could hunt cover.

  He’d already made up his mind he wouldn’t submit meekly. The hostiles might win, but they’d know they had been in a scrape.

  “There!” Two Bears exclaimed, and leveled a finger.

  James wondered what in hell he was pointing at. There weren’t any trees, just more flat. Then the ground broke away in front of them and he hauled on the reins on the lip of a wash. It wasn’t much protection, but it would have to do. Descending, he slid down.

  Two Bears pulled Lean Wolf off his pinto so hard that the Cheyenne stumbled. Lean Wolf righted himself, but the next moment Two Bears kicked his legs out from under him and began tying his ankles.

  James climbed to the top and flattened. The hostiles were still a ways off.

  Pebbles rattled, and Two Bears was at his side. “We count coup this day.”

  “We’ll wait until they’re right on top of us,” James said. “If we drop enough, maybe the rest will make themselves scarce and we can be on our way.”

  “They fight to death,” the Crow said. He opened a pouch and took out cartridges and began feeding them into his Yellow Boy.

  “Nice rifle,” James said. The Yellow Boy was a Winchester. It had a longer barrel than his Spencer and held more rounds. He’d heard tell Indians favored it.

  Two Bears’s face lit and he ran his hand over the shiny receiver. “Heap good gun. It why me join army.”

  “Are you a good shot?”

  “Jack Shard better.”

  The hostiles were close enough that James could make out that while most had bows and arrows, a few had rifles. Dust spewed in their wake in thick coils.

  “I never shot an Indian before.”

  Two Bears stopped loading and looked at him. “You kill them or they kill you.”

  “It’s easy for you, isn’t it?”

  “To kill enemy?” Two Bears chuckled. “You stupid, Buffalo Shit.”

  James was tired of being treated like a dunce. “For the last goddamn time, stop calling me that.”

  “You angry,” Two Bears said. “That good.”

  “Why?”

  “It easier kill enemy when mad.” The Crow finished loading and replaced the cartridges he hadn’t used in his pouch. He glanced at Lean Wolf, who was grinning up at them in clear delight at their predicament, and said something that caused the Cheyenne to spit and glower.

  “What did you say to him?”

  “That if me die, him die. Kill him with last breath if have to.”

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” James said. He raised his Spencer, but the war party wasn’t quite in range. “God. What did I do to deserve this?”

  “You afraid?” Two Bears asked.

  James examined his feelings and answered honestly. “No, I don’t believe I am. Not a lot, anyway. Mostly I’m upset that I might not get to marry the sweetest girl I’ve ever met.”

  “That good, too,” Two Bears said.

  “How in hell can that be good?”

  “It help you kill even better.”

  29

  James was itching to squeeze the trigger when to his surprise the hostiles abruptly stopped just out of rifle range. “What the hell? Why did they do that?”

  “They see us,” Two Bears said.

  “How?” James marveled. Only their eyes and foreheads were exposed. “I couldn’t see us from that far out.”

  “Blind mice.” Two Bears chuckled.

  James figured the hostiles would charge and pressed his cheek to the Spencer. But all they did was sit there. From the sharp gestures a few were making, he got the idea they were arguing. “What in the world is that about?”

  “Maybe some want rush us,” Two Bears speculated. “Smart ones say no.”

  “Why smart?” James asked.

  Two Bears indicated the sun, which was on its westward slant. “Smart to wait for almost dark.”

  James was relieved. That gave them a few hours to think of something. His relief was short-lived, however. Five of the warriors separated from the rest and came toward the wash, spreading out as they advanced. “They’re going to attack us, aren’t they?”

  “Yes.” Two Bears chortled and took aim.

  “Why are you so happy?”

  “Me count coup,” the Crow said eagerly.

  James was about to say that it was stupid to relish being in a fight for their lives when it hit him; he was being a hypocrite. He had done the same thing as a Blue Shirt. Particularly on that last terrible night when the Blue Shirts fought the Florentines; he’d looked forward to it as much as the rest. “We’re a dumb bunch,” he said.

  “Who dumb?” Two Bears asked without raising his head from the Yellow Boy.

  “You. Me. Anyone who thinks killing is grand.”

  “You not like kill but you in army?” Two Bears laughed. “Maybe bunch not dumb. Maybe you dumb, Buffalo Shit.”

  “I told you. I didn’t have any choice.”

  “You not have choice now.”

  Life does that a lot, James thought. He took aim at one of the advancing warriors.

  Two of the five had rifles. The others had arrows nocked to bowstrings. All wore war paint and several had paint on their horses, as well.

  “Wait yet,” Two Bears said.

  A bead of sweat trickled from under James’s hat and down his cheek. A fly buzzed his face. He slowed his breathing as Sergeant Heston had taught him and forced himself to stay calm.

  At a yip from one of the warriors, all five exploded into motion. Two Bears’s Yellow Boy banged and one of the hostiles with a rifle flung his arms into the air and pitched from his warhorse. The others swung onto the sides of their animals, hanging by the crook of an arm and an ankle.

  “Damn,” James said. They would be impossible to hit
with so little of them showing.

  “Shoot horses,” Two Bears said, and fired.

  A sorrel squealed and crashed to earth. The rider was flung clear and bounded to his feet. Firing his rifle, he sprinted for the wash.

  James had yet to shoot. He shifted the Spencer, centered on the chest of the onrushing warrior, and smoothly stroked the trigger. The warrior’s feet came off the ground and he hung suspended for a heartbeat as if transfixed by an unseen spear. James swiveled to aim at a horse that was almost to the wash. He worked the lever, thumbed back the hammer, and involuntarily flinched when a shot kicked dirt into his eyes. He blinked to clear his vision, and the horse was on them. A swarthy form hurtled from its back. James jerked the Spencer to shoot just as a shoulder smashed into him, tumbling him down the incline. His spine slammed hard and his head swam but only for a second. As it cleared he beheld an airborne fury clutching a knife. He jerked the Spencer and fired and tried to roll aside. It felt as if a boulder fell on him. Panic swelled as he imagined the blade biting into his flesh. He heaved and pushed and worked the lever.

  The hostile’s face was inches from his own. Their eyes met. The other’s hate was prodigious. The warrior spoke a single word.

  James scrambled to his knees. He didn’t realize the hostile had gone limp until he went to shoot. He stared at the body, amazed he was still alive.

  The crash of Two Bears’s rifle brought him out of himself. He swiveled and saw the Crow go down with two warriors on him. In a whirl of arms and steel, they fell into the wash.

  The combatants came to a stop. A hostile reared. He howled and raised his knife to stab Two Bears.

  James shot him.

  The Crow and the last hostile were grappling and slashing in a blur.

  James jacked the Spencer’s lever, but he couldn’t get a clear shot.

  Of a sudden it was over. The hostile collapsed, scarlet pumping.

  Two Bears slowly propped an elbow under him, grunting with the effort, and leaned on his arm. “Heap tough redskin,” he said.

  James ran to the top. By his count there was still one of the five left. He need not have worried. The last lay on his belly, an oozing hole where the left eye had been, a bronzed hand still gripping a bow.