Back home in River Falls, Mrs. Jorgenson and her daughter had arrived every Monday morning at daybreak. In the washhouse, set well back from the main house, they started the wash water to heat in an oblong copper boiler long before daylight. The wash was hung on lines stretched across the back of the property. As soon as a garment or a piece of bed linen dried, it was ironed, also in the washhouse. In the eight years Mrs. Jorgenson had been the Anderson laundress, she had never stepped foot past the kitchen door where she left the baskets of freshly washed and ironed clothes.
Moss sat on the step playing with the toy Kristin had made by looping a string through a large button. He seemed to be fascinated with the toy and soon became quite adept at holding the loop wide with spread hands and twirling the button over and over until the two strings became entwined. Then by alternately tightening and loosening the string, he made the button rotate in alternating directions to produce a soft whirring sound when the rotation was at top speed.
The sun was warm on Kristin’s back, and little beads of sweat dotted her forehead. She pushed the bright strands of hair back from her face with the back of her hand and picked up the last of her wash to carry to the line. Suddenly she heard Sam utter a low menacing growl. She set the bucket of wet clothes back down beside the washtub.
The dog had risen from where he lay in the shade of the oak tree. He stood on stiffened legs, his tail straight out, hair on his neck standing. He was looking toward the creek and making low growling noises. Kristin strained her eyes but could see nothing. Ears erect, Sam moved out to the edge of the house yard, his eyes still on some distant point. Kristin’s heart picked up speed. She tried to calm herself; maybe Sam was seeing a small animal who had come to the creek to drink.
Then out of the woods beyond the creek came a group of horsemen. Sam let out a spate of furious barking.
“Buck!” The yell tore from Kristin’s throat.
“I’m here.” Buck came out of the shed with his rifle in his hand and quickly crossed to where she stood beside the step.
“Who? Are they . . . Forsythe’s men?”
“No. The one on the buckskin is Gilly. The rest are Sioux.”
“Are they . . . friendly?”
“The one next to Gilly on the Appaloosa is Runs Fast. He doesn’t like me much. They’ve got women with them, so they’re not up to mischief.”
“Oh, dear! I’ve never been this close to wild Indians before.”
Buck looked down at her and the corners of his eyes crinkled.
“Wild? They’re not any wilder than we are. Their ways are different is all. They’re just trying to hold on to what’s been theirs for hundreds of years.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing. Stay where you are. They’ve seen you, and if you disappear they’ll think I’m hiding something.”
“What will they think about Moss?”
“They know about him. The Sioux are very tolerant of the old and the sick. They call him Man-Lost-in-Head.” With his eyes on the approaching horsemen, Buck said, “You’ll be a curiosity. I doubt if they’ve seen a woman with hair like yours.”
“I could tie a scarf over it.”
“No. Stay here by Moss and don’t act scared even if one of them wants to touch your hair.”
“There are so . . . many of them.”
After a word from Buck, Sam moved around behind him and hunkered down.
“Sam doesn’t like Indians. It could be the smell. It could be that he knows they would eat him if not for me.”
“Eat him?” Kristin felt her stomach quiver.
As the party of horsemen came thundering into the yard, Buck went out to meet them. The white man, dressed in buckskins, got off his horse and shook hands with Buck. Full-bearded and brawny as a blacksmith, he had a huge head and a mane of black hair streaked with gray. His face was square and homely. She could not even estimate his age.
“Howdy. See somethin’s been added since I left.” Merry blue eyes darted to where Kristin stood beside Moss.
“Howdy, Gilly. Things go all right?”
“Right as rain. Lost a few, but what the hell. Iron Jaw says to tell his friend he’ll watch his herd.”
“What’s Runs Fast doing here?” He glanced at the brave who had moved his horse out ahead of the others.
“Oh, he’s just showin’ off. He ain’t goin’ to do nothin’. Iron Jaw’s the subchief under Red Cloud. He don’t dare go agin ’em.”
Runs Fast was the only Indian to dismount. He stood at the head of his horse with his rifle in his hand. He wore buckskin britches tucked into knee-high beaded and fringed moccasins but was bare from the waist up except for the beaded armbands around his upper arms and the bead-and-tooth necklaces hung about his neck. His skin was smooth and shiny as if it had been oiled. Black braids entwined with thin strips of doeskin hung down over his chest. He was handsome, and he was arrogant.
Buck went to him with hand extended.
“Welcome to my lodge,” he said in Sioux.
Runs Fast took his hand briefly. “I speak your tongue.”
“And I speak yours.” The two men stared at each other for a long, tense moment.
Runs Fast handed the reins as well as his rifle to another Indian and walked over to where Kristin stood beside Moss. He walked around her, looking her over from her head to her feet. Some inner voice told Kristin to stand still and look him in the eye. It took all her control to keep from cringing when he reached out and snatched the pins from her hair. The long silver braids slithered down her back.
Kristin was aware that Buck had moved over beside her.
“Whose woman?” Runs Fast demanded.
“My woman.” Buck struck his chest with his closed fist.
“I will barter for her.”
“No.”
“Six ponies.”
“No.”
“Ten ponies.”
“No.”
“She’s but a woman.” The Indian’s nostrils flared angrily. “Worth no more.”
“A woman with silver hair is worth a hundred ponies.”
Buck reached out and pulled one of the braids over her shoulder then left his hand there in a gesture of possession. The thumb of his right hand was looped in his belt over the gun that rested against his thigh.
“Ten ponies and two of my wives.”
“No. I’ve seen your wives.”
The Indian stamped his foot in fury.
“She make sons with hair like a cloud but she not worth a hundred ponies.”
“The sons she makes will be my sons.” Buck raised his voice to a level beyond the Indian’s and struck his chest again with his fist.
In a lightning move the Indian’s hand closed around one of Kristin’s braids. He glared at Buck defiantly. Kristin kept her eyes straight ahead.
“I could take what you have.”
“She is not worth the life of a brave warrior. She is weak. She cannot skin a deer. She is lazy. Only good for tending Man-Lost-in-Head.”
Kristin could not believe her ears. Buck Lenning was talking about her!
Still holding the braid in his hand, Runs Fast seemed to consider what Buck had said.
“How is she on blanket?”
Buck’s lips curled in a sneer as he gave Kristin a contemptuous look.
“She lies like a dead sheep. Use her and she wails the rest of the night.”
Kristin gasped. Only the tight pressure of Buck’s hand on her shoulder kept her silent.
“I take this from worthless woman and hang on my lodge-pole.”
Kristin felt the sharp jerk on her braid and uttered a small cry of fright. Buck’s hand lashed out and closed about the Indian’s wrist.
“Cut my woman’s hair, and I kill you.”
Kristin sucked in her breath and held it. For what seemed to be an eternity not a sound was heard and not a breath taken. Then Runs Fast took his hand from her braid and stepped back, shoved his knife into his belt and crossed his arms.
Buck gently but firmly put Kristin behind him.
“I want no quarrel, Runs Fast. This worthless woman is mine.”
“Bah!” the Indian snorted. “She old. Lazy. What woman can’t skin deer? She not worth—” He spit on the ground.
“She is old. Lazy. She would be trouble in your lodge. Your wives would hate her because of her hair.”
Buck calmly pulled a sack of tobacco from his pocket, thumbed a paper from a pack and rolled a cigarette. After he licked down the side to seal it, he put one end in his mouth and held the sack out to Runs Fast.
“Tobacco?”
The Indian’s dark eyes were bright with anger. He snatched the sack of tobacco from Buck’s hand and crammed it down into the waistband of his britches, then went to where Kristin had hung the wet clothes. She gasped as he jerked her white underdrawers off the rope line. She had tried to hide them between an apron and a dress. Runs Fast glared at Buck contemptuously, daring him to object. Swaggering back to his horse, he grasped the mane and leaped upon its back. Then with a defiant yell, he raised the underdrawers like a white flag, wheeled his horse and raced back toward the creek. All but six braves and two women followed.
Buck watched the departure, and when the yipping of the warriors was lost in the distance, he went to shake hands with each of the remaining Indians. They spoke for a minute or two, then walked their horses toward the knoll behind the ranch buildings. The women on ponies leading others loaded with supplies followed. Buck returned to where Kristin, seething with anger, was searching on the ground for her hairpins.
“You let him take my . . . take my—” She was so outraged she failed to hear the chuckle that came from the man called Gilly, but she saw the slow grin that lifted Buck’s wide mouth and sent lines fanning out from the corners of his eyes. “I see nothing funny about it.”
“I thought it a reasonable thing to do.”
“The things you said. You insulted me. You said I was lazy, that I couldn’t skin a deer. Let me tell you, Mr. Lenning, I could do it if I had to. You made me a . . . laughingstock, ridiculed me!”
“He had to save face, Kristin. It means much to a man like Runs Fast. He offered ten ponies and two wives for you. A big price for one woman. A man can usually get a wife for a couple of wild ponies. He can now say that my woman is worthless and lazy and brag that he took her drawers and I didn’t fight him for them.”
“Well, for crying out loud! I never heard of anything so . . . silly! I don’t appreciate being talked about as if I were a . . . were a cow!” She lowered her head to hide her flaming face. “Did that savage take my hairpins, too? Gustaf brought them to me from New Orleans. I swear to goodness—”
“Moss picked ’em up, ma’am. Don’t pay that Injun no mind. He’s full a cussedness, but he ain’t got no bite a’tall.” Gilly pulled an old felt hat off his head when he spoke to her. “Buck did a fair job of gettin’ him gone without a face-off.”
“Hello.” Kristin extended her hand. “I’m Kristin Anderson. Yarby Anderson’s niece.”
“Howdy.” Gilly took her hand and gave it one downward dip, then released it. If he was surprised by who she was, he didn’t show it.
“Where are the other Indians going? Are they staying here? Do I fix a meal for them?”
“No, ma’am. They’ll set up their own camp, and they’ve got their women to cook for ’em.”
Kristin took Moss’s hand. He had closed his fingers around her hairpins and refused to open them.
“You rascal! Give me my hairpins.”
“Milk early and shut up the calf with the cow,” Moss murmured, and he held his fist tightly closed.
“What in the world am I going to do with you?” Kristin exclaimed. She picked up the button and string he had dropped on the ground. “I’ll play with this if you’re not going to.”
She held on to each end of the loop and twirled the button until the strings were entwined before she pulled them back and forth. When the button was spinning at full speed, Moss dropped the hairpins and reached for the toy.
“Stage took the gold to Junction City,” he blurted.
Keeping the rhythm going, Kristin patiently slipped the ends of the loops over his outstretched fingers. Gilly stepped closer to watch the button whirl.
“Now don’t that beat all?”
“He catches on quickly to repetitive things he can do with his hands.”
“Always was handier than a pocket on a shirt.”
“Have you known him a long time?”
“Since I wandered in here four, five years back.”
“Then you knew him before he took sick?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Buck’s outstretched hand came between them. Kristin took the hairpins from him and put them in her apron pocket, leaving her braids to hang down her back. She knew he was watching her closely, but it would be a while before she’d be able to look him in the face after hearing him discuss her with the Indian. What in the world did he mean about being on the blanket like a dead sheep? Lord of Mercy! She hoped it didn’t mean—It surely didn’t mean that!
She picked up the bucket of wet clothes. With back straight, head high and flaming face, she crossed the yard to the line.
“Are you through with the washtub?” Buck called.
“I’m through washing, but don’t empty the water. I’ll use it to scrub the floor after the nooning.”
“Haven’t you done enough today?”
“A lazy, worthless woman would let all those good soapsuds go to waste. Is that what you’re thinking I’ll do? I’m not as lazy as you may think, Mr. Lenning. After I scrub the floor, I’ll throw the water out, then I’ll do the ironing.”
“I don’t have an iron.”
“I have a small one. It’ll do.”
Both men waited until she was at the far end of the rope line before they spoke.
“She’s got her back up good.” Gilly took his hat off and scratched his head. “That part ’bout her bein’ lazy hit a raw spot even more’n how she was on a blanket.”
“She may not have understood the part about the blanket.”
“Does she know about Moss?”
“No.”
“How’d she get out here?”
“Caught a ride out on a freight wagon. Forsythe was putting pressure on her to sell.”
“She’s a right sightly-lookin’ woman. ’Pears to be right strong-minded, too.”
“And prouder than a game rooster.”
Gilly chuckled. “And right now she’s madder than a hive of stirred-up hornets. Hope it don’t keep her from cookin’. I ain’t had my feet under a woman’s table since I went to town right after the thaw. I was so sick a eatin’ meat all winter, I’d a et a rotten turnip could I find one.” Gilly spat out a yellow stream of tobacco juice.
“I didn’t know that. I’d a swore you was in a hurry to get to town to the whorehouse.”
“That too, by gol!” Gilly’s eyes went to Kristin at the line. “She stayin’?”
“For a spell.”
“Moss likes her. Remember how he hated that Oglala squaw we got to watch him? First time we left him with her, he bit ’er.” Gilly’s chuckle was dry as cornshucks. “She got a hold a him and wouldn’t turn loose. She was madder than a stepped-on snake. After givin’ us both a cussin’, she hightailed it back to her tribe.”
“He’s going downhill fast, Gilly. Out a breath most of the time. Sleeps a lot, don’t eat much.”
“I could tell he’s lost flesh.”
“I got to decide soon—”
“Ya thinkin’ she’d leave if she knowed?”
“Not leave, but she’d be put out because I didn’t tell her right off.”
“Why didn’t ya?”
“I didn’t know if I could trust her . . . then.”
Gilly lifted his nose and sniffed the air like a hound dog.
“By gol, Buck. I’m thinkin’ I smell somethin’ mighty pretty. Jehoshaphat! It’s fresh bread! Ain’t it?”
“I thought you liked eatin’ burnt Indian bread, stewed gooseberries and boiled prairie onions.” Buck was fond of teasing Gilly, whose greatest pleasure in life was eating. They had spent many long winter evenings together and had weathered some rough times.
“It ain’t bad if ya ain’t et in a week and yore belly hole’s dancin’ up and down yore backbone.”
“Kristin’s a fine cook. I’d better warn you, though, she’s a stickler for manners and such. She likes things nice. We got a cloth on the table and all that. Don’t bring that stinking spit can in the house.”
“Well I’ll be dogfetched! Where’ll I spit?”
“Outside.”
“Ya mean get up and go out?”
“That’s what I mean. And don’t spit out the door where she’ll step in it.”
“Time’s when womenfolks ain’t nothin’ but a ache in the arse, fer all their cookin’.”
“You need to get housebroke, Gilly.” Buck laughed at the sour look on the old mountain man’s face and gave him a sound clap on the back. “Get a woman and raise a herd of younguns to take care of you when you get . . . old.”
“Bullfoot!”
“It’s good to have you back, Gilly. I’ve not had a full night’s sleep since you’ve been gone.”
“I found another one of them oil holes back up in the hills ’bout five miles this side of Crazy Peak. This’n shallower than the other’n. No more’n a couple a barrels of it seeped out in a basin.”
“It’d be worth about twenty dollars a barrel if we could get it to a market. There’s no way of knowing if the hole would fill up again. It would be more trouble than it was worth. We should get a bucket or two to use to grease wheels. It’s not good for much else.”
“We ort to get out there and fence it off, is what we ort to do. Them stupid steers would’a walked right in it up to their arse if I hadn’t a spotted the sick-lookin’ grass around it and a headed ’em off.”
“I’ve had a chance to make a supply of fence posts while I hung around the place. We’ll load the wagon and go out tomorrow.”
“Had any trouble?”
“Two bushwhackers lay waiting for me yesterday. Had to kill one. Sent the other one packing with the body.”
“Ort to a killed ’em both. It’s what I’d a done.”
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