“You don’t have to worry,” I say. “If all he wants is horses, he can have them all.”
She looks at me.
“Except for Cricket here.”
“It is just his way of letting us know he is here,” she says. “It is his way.”
“He can’t be nowhere near,” I say. “Not through all we been through.”
She’s looking all around now, like some kind of wary animal in a streambed. Little Fox don’t understand. We’re still mounted, but he’s on the ground and it’s light enough he can see Ink’s face.
“He thinks I’m threatening you,” I say.
“No he doesn’t. He trusts you now.”
She speaks words to him that are soft and kind. It’s a tone in her voice I ain’t never heard before. He goes to her and she reaches down and helps him get back up behind her. I take the carbine off my shoulder and hold it ready in front of me. The sun’s high enough to gleam over the trees in front of us. To my right I see mountains, high and green in the new light.
“Want to head for them hills?” I say.
“Hump is watching us right now.”
Below us to our left is the river, wide and fast, deep with water that still steams with cold. All around us ain’t nothing but tall grass and a few clumps of bushes and trees that look black now and like any one of them might move.
I turn Cricket toward the mountains. “Follow me,” I say. Ink kicks her horse in the side and comes along, still looking behind her and all around in a kind of panicked, jerky movement, like a bird. Little Fox holds on for dear life.
“It ain’t nothing to worry about,” I say. We ain’t running. I keep my eye on the mountains. Ahead I see a place where the ground rises up and curves enough at the bottom that I think we can camp there. I want to camp up against that hill so it’s at my back, and I only have to keep watch of what’s in front of me.
When we get to the bottom of the hill, though, I see it’s really a pond there collecting water that runs over the crest and drops into it. I don’t like the noise it makes. I won’t be able to hear nothing else. So we go on up past the hill and the little waterfall into the trees at the foot of the mountain. By that time the sun has risen over the far trees on our left and we can almost see our shadow.
“It’s by God daylight,” I say. “We pretty much have to stop here.”
We go far enough into the forest that it’s still pretty dark. We’re in a long stretch of flat land that rises very slowly ahead of us. There ain’t nothing but tall black trees all around. The ground is covered with pine needles and not much else. It’s like a brown, smooth carpet under the shadow of the high branches.
“This place is not good,” Ink says.
“It’ll have to do.” I climb down off of Cricket and tie her to one of the thinner trees. I bring the rest of the horses around in front of us and tie the tether to the same tree. Ink sets Little Fox on the ground, then she rides a ways back from where we come and ties her horse to a tree down that way. She pulls the saddle off and then carries it back up to me and throws it down against a tree. “You sleep first,” she says.
“What’d you put that animal all the way down there for? Think he’ll make noise if Hump comes?”
She don’t say nothing.
“That horse’ll make noise like the other one did when he cut him loose,” I say.
“If it is Hump, he will not take the horse,” she says. “He took the first one to let us know he is here. If that one is taken, it is not Hump following us.”
“That’s right smart.”
We set up camp in the clearing between three fairly large pine trees. The branches hang low enough that it feels like a kind of roof over our heads. Sunlight leaks in, of course, but it don’t light up too much. It scatters so much around us, it looks a little like jewelry laying around.
I ask Ink if I can see her wounds again.
“They are fine,” she says. “I am healed.”
“Can’t hurt to check.”
She don’t look at me. She’s studying that horse she left down the hill a ways.
“Was you scared from all them balls of ice?” I say.
“No.” She turns to Little Fox, who sits on the ground next to her and asks him something. He nods and then looks at me. She says, “He’s seen it before too.”
“I got to admit, I was scared.”
She stays quiet. After a while I say, “You know, I got to where I think I can count on you.”
Now she looks at me. The white parts of her eyes around the dark, gleaming lenses and the white teeth in that dark face are almost eerie. Like she come up out of some dark place of the earth to judge us all, but all she says is “How long do you think before we get to Fort Buford?”
“Maybe the day after tomorrow, if we travel all night both nights.”
She nods and looks away again.
“You know,” I say, “I been kind of protective of you.”
“I know you have.”
“I have.” I feel kind of proud that I said it. I didn’t know I would, but it seems to fix something soft in her. She looks right into my eyes now.
“I am grateful to you,” she says.
When she says that, I think of Morning Breeze saying “Beech-i-lack” and suddenly I feel kind of sad that I’m going to take off and leave Ink in Fort Buford. I don’t think it’s anything but what she expects, but what if it ain’t? What if she’s starting to hope I don’t? I don’t want to shock her with it. “I really am sorry that I shot you,” I say. “But maybe it will turn out to be a good thing.”
She looks at me like I might of said something bad. “I would like to stop talking about it.”
“It’s enough that you know I wish I had not done it,” I say.
“I know it. You have never stopped speaking of it.”
I almost reach out to put my hand on her arm. We are in this bejeweled forest, bathed in dark and light, her black hair glistens and brightens with every movement of her head. I feel kind of close to her, but respectful too. I don’t want nothing from her at all. I ain’t going to get back to Eveline before she takes off without me. I know that now. It surprises me how it don’t make me angry as it should. It’s the damnedest thing: I don’t want to just say farewell to Ink, at least not so soon. I can wait for that time now. I ain’t in no all-fired hurry no more, and when it hits me that I ain’t so trapped by time, I smile at Ink and say, “I think we will both remember this journey.”
“You sleep,” she says. “I will keep watch.”
Little Fox stares at me. He does not know how to take this sudden calm talk between me and Ink. I reach out my hand toward him, and he leans back. “I won’t hurt you,” I say.
Ink leans close to him and says, “Nahveesay-eh. He is my friend.”
Then, by God, Little Fox says, “Tosunny cheost?” His voice is still raspy and wore-out, but Ink understands him.
“I am from the Sioux,” she says. “Nee-Se-Sioux. Nee-do-schi-vay?”
“O-dah, leeshee ey,” he says.
Ink turns to me. “His name is Little Moon.”
“Well, we got it half right,” I say. “Should we call him that from now on?”
“No,” she says. “When he can speak our language, we will let him decide.”
I lay down under a pretty low-hanging branch, but I can’t sleep. She sits a few feet away, holding the pistol in her lap. It’s getting warmer, and the moisture from the river finds its way even up here. I sit up.
“I can’t sleep right now,” I say. “I’m going to do a little hunting first.”
She nods her head.
“If I get something, you can sleep while I prepare it. Then, after we eat, I’ll try sleeping again myself. I do better with a full belly.”
It’s the first time we’ve stopped where there ain’t no water running next to us. We’ll have to go back out of the woods and a ways down the side of the mountain to get back to that pond we passed. But we got water in the canteens, and enough f
ood that even if I don’t have no luck we won’t starve. Still, I want to find fresh meat. I take my carbine and give the bow and arrow to Little Fox and we head off on foot into the forest. We leave Ink sitting at the base of a tree with the pistol in her hands. “Do not fret,” she says. “I will not shoot you when you come back.”
Little Fox stops and looks at her. She waves, and then he comes along with me.
We walk up the slight incline toward deeper and darker places in the forest ahead. It turns out to be a long climb up a hill that gets more and more steep. After a while I realize we are climbing up the low side of the mountain, getting higher and higher. I got that cold feeling behind my eyes again, thinking about Hump. Maybe he could be in these trees. Little Fox don’t make no noise next to me. Even under ten years old, he moves like a cat, silent and ready. He’s already got a arrow nocked into the bow.
Near the middle of the day, I watch him kill a small deer. Except for the plunk of the bowstring, there ain’t no sound. I’m pretty well shocked to find out a deer makes a loud cry when it gets hit. That first one he shot, scuttling fast along the ground, didn’t make no noise at all. This one’s smaller. I roll it over and give Little Fox my hunting knife. He knows exactly what to do. He cuts from between the back legs up the belly to the soft white fur at the base of the throat. He cuts as shallow as he can, just under the skin, so he don’t open the sac that contains all the organs. Just as he’s about to reach inside the still-warm body for the windpipe so he can cut it free, I hear a pistol shot down the mountain and way back where we left Ink. It’s so loud, it swallows a few beats of my heart. Like it come from deep in there and not the woods at all. I wonder if Ink shot something herself; another rabbit maybe. But then I hear another shot. And another.
Little Fox jumps to his feet. I take the knife from him and put it back in my belt, grab the carbine, and we leave the half-gutted deer right where it lays and start running back. I go fast for a long time. Little Fox can’t keep up but he knows where I’m going. I race downhill headlong, working like hell to stay on my feet, dodging trees, holding the carbine at the ready, and I hear two more shots, loud and final. I stop for a second to listen, so out of breath I can’t break out of the noise I’m making. It’s like the woods have no sound. I don’t even hear Little Fox coming up behind me. I feel my heart hammering against my ribs. I think I can still hear the echo of them pistol shots moving through the trees and out into the sunlight. And then I don’t even hear my breathing or the pounding of my heart. I stand in the light-scattered forest and listen. But there ain’t no noise at all, and I know whatever happened is over now.
Chapter 24
When we get back to camp, everything is gone except for two white men laying on the ground near the tree where Ink was sitting the last time I seen her. One has been shot right in the left eye and at the base of his neck. The only thing moving near him is a couple of flies that circle and drop over the gurgling wound. His other eye don’t see nothing at all. The other fellow is still alive but holding on to his lower gut like it’s on fire. He squirms and breathes, hisses like a big snake. He sees me and tries to slither away, but I go over to him and stop him with the barrel of my carbine right in the space between his shoulder and his jaw and he don’t move a inch.
“I’m done for,” he says. “He’s killed me.”
“Who’s killed you?”
“The Injun that was a-settin’ here.”
“Really.”
“Help me,” he says.
“What Injun?”
“A little fellow,” he grunts out. “We was trying to take the horses back.”
“What do you mean take them back?”
“He stole our horses.”
“The hell he did. Those was our horses.”
He looks at me hard, like he can’t really make me out. He gasps for air. I sling the carbine over my shoulder and squat down next to him. He ain’t no more than twenty years old, if that. He’d have a hell of a time getting a beard to sprout. He’s missing his front teeth and he ain’t seen a bath in a long time. He’s wearing a dirty buffalo-skin jacket and blue regular army trousers. Leather moccasins cover his feet. He’s got thin, wispy blond hair and dark brown eyebrows. Right now pine needles and chips of wood cling to his hair. I can see he’s sweating to beat all. Blood seeps through his shaking hands.
“Help me,” he says.
“Ain’t nothing for it,” I say.
“Ohhh, Lordy, Lordy.” He commences crying a little bit, and I feel embarrassed for him.
“Was you the ones that stole our horse yesterday?”
He don’t say nothing.
“Cut it loose from the tether as we was moving up the path?”
He nods his head. “Help me.”
“Where’d he go?”
“Who?” He looks at me.
“The Indian.”
“They took him. They’ll make him pay.”
“Who took him?”
“Treat,” he grunts it out. “Treat.”
“Treat?” I say. “Treat. I’ll be damned.”
He looks at me.
“Treat’s a young fellow, ain’t he?”
He scrunches his face up a bit in pain. Then he gasps, “Near about my age.”
“How many?” I say.
“There was five of us. We was in the militia and run together. That’n over there’s my big brother.”
“Well, he’s done for.”
Little Fox has put a arrow in the other fellow, and he stands over him now getting ready to do it again.
“Little Fox,” I say.
He looks at me with them dark eyes.
“We’re gonna need them arrows.” I hold my hand out palm down and signal by cutting the air in front of me. “Stop it.”
“Ohhh, God. Oh, God,” the dying fellow says.
“Where was Treat headed?” I ask him.
“I can’t feel nothing below my waist.”
“It’s probably a good thing. Tell me. Where was they headed?”
Suddenly he comes back to hisself a little bit and it hits him that he don’t know who I am or what I might be up to. “I ain’t telling you nothing.”
“Suit yourself,” I say, and stand up.
He starts to try and move away, and I put the barrel of the gun against his jaw again. “You ain’t going nowhere.”
He’s crying some more, but not out loud. “I need water.”
“I got no water.”
“I sure could use some water. My canteen . . . my canteen . . .” He can’t finish. He breathes so fast, he’s turning red.
Neither one of us says nothing for a spell. It’s going to take a very long time for him to die, and when it’s finally over, he won’t have vocal chords left because of all the screaming he’s bound to do. The bullet has made a big hole in his lower stomach, and I can already smell it.
“You are bowel shot,” I say. “If you’re lucky you’ll bleed to death. I seen it happen to some folks. Most die of the infection, though. That’s a long time.”
New terror bulges in his eyes. He’s seen this kind of death before, even as young as he is.
“It could be real bad,” I say.
“Finish me,” he gasps.
“I’d be more than happy to,” I say. “Just tell me where Treat was headed.”
He thinks about it for a spell. I see his eyes staying fierce for just a little bit, but then something in them gives way. He don’t see no point in suffering for folks that left him here to die. “It’s Treat and two others. They was headed for the Yellowstone.”
“Where they going from there?”
He shakes his head, like he needs to get fog out of it. “The Black Hills.”
I lift the carbine up and let it hang over my shoulders. He lays there, staring at me, his mouth open a little, and dry as a sunbaked rock. Every time he breathes, it takes everything moist out of his mouth and eyes. When he tries to talk some more, his tongue seems to stick to the roof of his mouth an
d it makes a noise like something that’s slapped into a bowl of molasses.
“Help me,” he manages to say.
“You got a pistol?”
He nods.
I squat down again, lay the carbine next to me, and open his jacket. He’s got a Schofield revolver tucked in his trousers. I pull it out, empty all the shells but one out of it, and give it back to him. “You do it,” I say. “I don’t want to.”
I go back over to his brother and remove his pistol—it’s a Colt dragoon, the exact same kind of pistol as the one I give Ink, except it’s got a fancy pearl handle. I search him for ammunition and find a pouch of it tied to his belt. I give the pistol and the pouch to Little Fox. I can see the pistol is right heavy for him, but when I move to take it back, he looks at me and stuffs it into the waistband on his leather breeches. “Ne ah esh,” he says.
I ain’t even thought yet about the fact that I’m on foot now. I got no food. I got a little boy with me I don’t understand, and we got to move fast to find Ink.
I hear a click behind me and turn to see the wounded fellow sitting up, holding the Schofield to his head. “Shit,” he says. “It misfired.”
I walk back over to him.
“I’m still here,” he says, and he actually gives this little laugh. Like the joke is on him.
“Yes, you are.” I take the gun away from him and put a few more shells in it, then I hold it next to his head, just above his ear. “Thank you,” he says. “I would probably miss.” He looks straight ahead, like a man waiting for the barber to make the first snips of his hair. I pull the trigger and it clicks a second time.
“Damn,” he says.
I pull the trigger and it clicks again. “I hate these god-damn Confederate pistols,” I say.
“One more time ought to . . .” he starts to say, but this time when I pull the trigger it goes off. His head snaps away from me, a splash of blood flying with it, and he falls over.
I drop the gun where he lays and start off down the hill, walking as fast as I can toward the clear ground away from the trees. I don’t even look at Little Fox, but I know he’s coming right behind me. I want to get away from these pine needles that leave no track where people or horses walk. I figure I’m following at least seven horses, and Cricket is one of them. I think Treat will want to be near water, so he’ll lead them down to the river. The ground in the foothills, closer to the river, will be easier to track them in. I want Treat to have good sense—to want to stay near the river. I don’t want him to be smart enough to wonder what that last shot was all about; I don’t want him to know I am following him.
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