In the distance, the incoming train whistled, but he knew it wouldn’t stop unless a passenger was getting on or off, which wasn’t too likely. Homer pulled off his pants and blew out the lamp, got into bed. The train chugged on through town, whistle blowing a warning. Then the sound faded slowly as the train kept moving. Homer listened to it fade, and after a long moment, he drifted off to sleep.
Sometime near dawn, a howling wind woke Homer Bledsoe up. There was something else that came to him. He sat up abruptly in bed, wide awake. “There was a poster. . . .”
Quickly, he got up, lit his lamp, and went down the stairs in his nightshirt. He stumbled through the darkness to his bulletin board, stubbed his toe, and hopped, cursing. When he reached the board, he held the lamp up high, peering at all the posters and announcements posted there.
“Ah, there it is.” He put on his spectacles and leaned closer.
MISSING AND FEARED KIDNAPPED. BEAUTIFUL BLOND GIRL WITH BLUE EYES. BIG REWARD. REPORT TO K BAR RANCH.
“Big reward. Wonder how much?” He sighed and took off his spectacles. Five hundred dollars would be a fortune to him. But suppose he was mistaken? He’d heard about the owner of the K Bar, a stern and formidable man. Suppose he got that man all upset and it turned out it was the wrong girl? Besides that, he’d have to close his store for the day and lose that profit. Well, the big reward was worth the risk. He grabbed his lamp and headed for the stairs. He’d get dressed and drive over to the K Bar. If he kept a steady pace, he might get there a little after noon.
Sunny had left the pharmacy and followed the stars back toward the foothills. The wind picked up and blew dust against her face so that it stung her delicate skin. Had the man at the pharmacy recognized her or heard about the kidnapping? There was no way to tell and nothing she could do about it anyway.
She paused, confused, and looked down at the dog. “Wolf, can you take me back to the cave?”
The dog looked up at her, whining and wagging its tail.
“Come on, Wolf, we’ve got to get back to Diablo.”
The dog barked and took off at a trot. Did he know where he was going? There was nothing she could do but trust Wolf to find their way through the windy, dusty night.
“I must be the world’s biggest fool,” she muttered as she rode. “I’ve spent days planning on how to escape, and once I have, I’m going back to help the gunfighter. I ought to leave him to die.”
She should, but it wasn’t in her heart to desert a hurt man. What if he had already died by the time she got there? Sunny shrugged off that possibility and kept riding, closing her eyes against the blowing grit. She hadn’t meant to shoot him, only get control of his pistol, and she’d sure rather not have his death on her conscience.
It seemed like forever that she followed the dog through the howling darkness, and then Onyx was climbing the hill to the cave.
The campfire was down to glowing embers. She tied up the horse and grabbed her sack of medicine. “Diablo, can you hear me? Diablo, are you all right?”
He moaned softly, and she knelt by his side. His eyes were closed, and his pulse was thready. His bare skin had so much blood on it she gasped.
He felt cold and shivered when she touched him. The first thing she’d better do was build up the fire and get him warm. Even then, she might not be able to save him.
He moaned and thrashed about, said something in a whisper so low she could not understand. He must be delirious. What on earth was he dreaming about? From the way he was fighting and muttering, it must have been a horrible nightmare.
Chapter 14
In Diablo’s fevered mind, he was once again a Santee Sioux slave, only fourteen winter counts old, and he was running away on this early spring morning. Everyone around the camp was busy, including the grumpy old woman who owned him. He was called He Not Worthy of a Name, and if he were caught, he would be beaten severely as he had been in the past. His back was already crisscrossed with whip scars, and he had decided he had had all the punishment he could take and the risk was worth it.
He went out the back of the teepee and crawled into the brush. At any moment, he expected a cry to go up that he had been missed. His heart seemed to be in his throat as he crawled through the dirt and tall grass, putting more distance between him and the camp. He was hungry, but then he often was. As a half-breed slave, he was always the last one fed. His owner was the mother of one of the warriors hanged because of the uprising, the warrior who had been He Not Worthy of a Name’s father. She beat the boy often and blamed him for her warrior son’s death.
Now the boy was at least a hundred feet from the encampment. At any moment, he expected to be discovered and whipped, but so far, no one had set off any shouts of alarm. Finally, he got the nerve to stand up and look behind him. The camp was quiet, the horses grazing, small children laughing and playing. He had never been allowed to play. Even when he could barely toddle, he had been made to work, carrying firewood and water, skinning game that the others ate before throwing him the scraps.
As he watched, he wondered where to go and what to do with his new freedom. No other tribe would take him in; they might return him to his owner. He had been to the trading post a few times and spoke a few words of English, but he did not think the whites would welcome him either. Hadn’t his white mother’s family given him to the Indians after she killed herself?
He did not know where to go, but he knew he must put as much distance between him and the Santee as possible or his life would be even more miserable than before. For the next dozen days, he traveled west, not knowing where he was going and not caring. He was starving and weak when he crossed a stream and drank and drank. Along his journey, he found a few acorns and roots to eat and even dug out a mole and caught a gopher. He knew how to make fire, but he was afraid the scent of the smoke would draw the attention of a Sioux hunting party, so he ate the small animals raw.
Finally, one afternoon, he was so weak he decided he could go no farther. The night had been cold, and he had found a cave up in the foothills. There he had crawled under some fallen leaves, attempting to stay warm. He knew if he did not get food soon, he would be too weak to keep walking. It was tempting just to sit down in the woods and give up, but his will to live was stronger. He had not survived all these years as a slave to surrender and die now.
In another day, he was imagining things. The Great Spirit came to him and told him he would live. The spirit of his father, the Sioux warrior whom the white soldiers had hanged along with all those others, came to him and said he did not blame him. It had been the crooked Indian agent back in Minnesota who had been responsible for the great uprising that Taoya-Teduta, Little Crow, had led.
His eyes blinked open. It was morning again. He had no idea how far he had traveled over the last dozen suns, but his shoddy moccasins were worn through and his bare feet were raw. Every step was painful and left a bloody imprint. His rib bones stuck out like the skeletons of the disappearing buffalo that lay on the prairie from the white hunters’ slaughter. All the Indians were beginning to go hungry the last few years.
He took a deep breath to make sure he was still alive and thought he smelled meat cooking. He must be imagining things again in his delirium. He took another sniff and thought it was the best smell he had ever smelled. He was tempted just to lie here and die, smelling the imaginary meat and pretending he had all of it he could eat, but his will to survive was strong and he struggled to his feet and limped down the twisting, crooked path from the cave. Somewhere ahead lay life-giving food. His feet bled as he walked, but he knew he could not stop. To stop was to die.
He did not know how long he walked through the brush, the stones and broken twigs cutting into his sore feet, but he knew it was a long, long time. He sniffed the wind like an animal and followed the scent that floated on the air. Yes, someone was cooking meat. His dry mouth salivated as he followed the smell. Probably at the end of the wind he would find a hunting party, which would return him to the old woman who
se son had fathered him, but he was so hungry he did not care.
In the shadows of late afternoon, in a clearing under three cottonwood trees, he peeked around a boulder and saw three white men sitting by a campfire. Their three horses grazed beyond the clearing. A butchered steer lay nearby, and they were cooking strips of beef on sticks over the fire. They laughed and talked with each other as they drank strong coffee from their tin pot and cooked fried bread in the coals.
He watched them gorge on the food while he licked his lips. He was so weak he swayed a little, but he was careful not to let them see him. No white man at the trading posts had ever been kind to him, and so he did not expect these to be.
They were in a good humor and laughed and poked at one another.
“Hey, Tex, you think the owner of the K Bar minds us helpin’ ourselves to a few of his steers?” the very skinny one asked and grinned.
“Hell,” said the weathered one called Tex, “he’s got thousands of them, Slim. He probably won’t even miss us stealin’ a few.”
The third one, an older fellow, looked around nervously. “I don’t like it, hombres—rustling cattle is a hangin’ offense.”
“Aw, Dusty, don’t be so scary,” Slim said and took another bite. “Likely he wouldn’t begrudge hungry men one steer and sellin’ a few more so we’ll have money enough to get back to Texas.”
“Ah, Texas,” sighed Tex, “Wyoming is too damned cold. If we can just get train tickets back to Texas.”
“Heaven on earth,” Dusty nodded, “but I reckon the owner of the K Bar won’t feel like buyin’ us tickets. He catches us with a running iron, he might hang us on the spot.”
“Oh, shut up and eat, partner,” Slim snorted, “then we’ll finish changin’ them brands.”
He Not Worthy of a Name watched them eat, licking his dry lips. He had hoped they would be leaving soon and he could eat their scraps or chew the bare bones they threw away, but it appeared they were going to stay a while. One of them took a long iron rod and put it in the fire and nodded toward the cattle grazing on the prairie just past them. “Yep, boys, we’ll rustle just a few and go back to Texas.”
The boy was so weak he swayed, and when he did, the grass around him rustled.
“Who’s there?” Slim was on his feet, pistol drawn. The other two jumped up, reaching for rifles.
Should he run or let them kill him where he stood? He was too weak to run, although he took a couple of tottering steps.
“Come out of there, or I’ll kill you!” Slim ordered.
There was no use to run. He put his hands in the air and stumbled out of the brush. They would kill him now. He only wished he had managed to get a bite of their food before he died.
“Why, it’s just a half-breed kid!” Dusty said and stood up.
“Looks like he’s about done in,” Tex said. “Kid, who are you?”
He swayed on his feet, weak and dizzy. He was proud; as he had not begged when the old woman beat him, he would not beg now as they killed him. “I—I am Not Worthy of a Name.”
“Are you hungry?” Tex asked.
He only managed to nod as he collapsed by their fire.
Immediately, all three gathered around him. “Good God, look at his feet and those scars on his back,” said Slim.
Another held a tin cup of water to his parched lips. “Where are you from, kid?”
He gulped the water gratefully. Maybe they would feed him before they killed him. He tried to remember a little English. “I—I am running away from the Santee Sioux camp. I was a slave there.”
“Get him some meat, Dusty,” Tex ordered as he poured a tin cup of coffee and put a lot of sugar in it. He held it to the boy’s lips.
He knew about sugar, but he had never been allowed any. The coffee was strong and sweet, and he almost gulped it, even though it burned his mouth and felt warm all the way down.
“Easy, kid,” Tex said, “would you like some food?”
He could only nod, not believing his good luck. These men were being kind to him. No one had ever been kind to him before, not in his whole life.
He struggled to sit up, and Dusty handed him a tin plate of beans and roasted beef and fried bread. He ate so fast he choked on some of it.
“Take it easy, kid,” Slim said, “there’s plenty more where that came from.”
He did not know if they would kill him later; he only knew that right now they were feeding him. He gulped more coffee and ate three more plates full before he sighed and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“What are we gonna do with him?” Slim asked the others. The men lay back against logs, enjoying the fire, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes and sipping coffee.
“We could take him with us to Texas,” Tex suggested.
He struggled to find a few words of their language. “What is—what is Texas?” he asked.
“What is Texas?” all three asked, wonder in their eyes.
“Why, boy,” drawled Slim, “Texas is heaven, the Happy Hunting Ground. It’s a big, big land, and the weather is warm there, not like Wyoming, where it’s colder than a mother-in-law’s heart.”
“That’s right,” old Dusty agreed. “All cowboys want to go to Texas—it’s God’s country. We came up here on a cattle drive, and now we’re tryin’ to get enough dough together to take the train back south.”
“Dough?” the boy asked and sipped his coffee.
“Money, wampum. We figure we’ll use this here runnin’ iron,” Slim indicated the rod in the fire, “to change a few brands on some steers and sell them.”
He knew stealing meant trouble. It had happened to a couple of braves of the tribe. “You steal the cattle?”
“Just a few,” Tex drawled. “We hear the K Bar is the biggest outfit in Wyoming, so he won’t miss a few since he’s got thousands. We got to change the brands. That’s what a running iron is.” He pointed to the metal bar heating in the campfire.
“Can—can I go with you to Texas?” he asked, hardly daring to hope. It sounded warm and wonderful, with plenty of food. All they had to do was head south.
The three looked at each other.
“If we take him, we’ll need more money,” Dusty complained.
“What’ll happen to him if we leave him behind and the Sioux catch him?”
“They’ll kill me,” the boy said. “Take me to Texas. I will be your slave if you will.”
Tex laughed. “We don’t need no slave, boy. You help us with the brandin’, and we’ll take you. You can be our compadre.”
He blinked, puzzled.
“Friend,” Tex explained. “Ain’t you ever had a friend?”
The boy shook his head.
“Well, now you got three. We look out for each other and share whatever we got.”
The three cowboys grinned at him, and he felt warm inside. It was good to have friends, and they would all go to this Happy Hunting Ground called Texas. He already loved the place without ever having seen it.
Tex said, “Slim, rope us a couple of steers, and Dusty, you build up that fire so we can use this runnin’ iron.”
He Not Worthy of a Name smiled for the first time he could remember. He had never been so happy. He had friends, men who liked him and would help him. They would all go to this wonderful place called Texas, and it would be warm there and there would be enough to eat. Better yet, he would have freedom.
They never got the first steer branded.
About the time they dragged a bawling steer to the fire, a voice thundered, “All right, stick ’em up! You damned rustlers are gonna learn your lesson.”
He did not understand what was happening, but the three cowboys put their hands slowly in the air and there was a look of fear on their faces.
“You too, half-breed,” the voice ordered.
He put his hands in the air as five men on horseback rode out of the shadows and into the light of their fire. The late afternoon dusk threw weird shadows on the surrounding brush.
The big
one with the black hair and mustache held a shotgun, and as he dismounted, he swayed a little.
The boy smelled the liquor on the man and looked at the others. They all seemed to be under the influence of firewater.
“Honest, mister,” Tex said. “We was only gettin’ one scrawny steer, we was hungry.”
The big man swore an oath and knocked Tex down with the butt of his rifle. “I ain’t loco, I see that runnin’ iron. Now Joe, you and Wilson and Smitty tie ’em up.”
The fifth man was an older man with light hair and pale blue eyes. “Now, Hurd, let’s not do anything we’re gonna regret.”
“I ain’t gonna regret a thing,” the man called Hurd said, and there was anger in his dark eyes. “You rustlers been helping yourself to K Bar cattle too long. Now I’m Hurd Kruger, and I own the K Bar. You know what happens to rustlers.”
The older man got off his horse. He’d been drinking, too, the boy thought, but maybe not as much as the other four. “Hurd, why don’t you have your men take them into Buffalo and turn ’em over to the sheriff ?”
The mean one called Hurd swayed on his feet. He was more than a little drunk, as were his cowhands. “No, Swen,” Hurd snapped as he watched his men tie up the three men and the boy, “I need to send a message to every rustler in the county. I ain’t sweated and slaved to build the K Bar so every worthless Texas saddle tramp can come in here and steal from me. You men put these damned thieves on their horses.”
“Mister,” said Slim, “we was just hungry and tryin’ to get back to Texas, honest. We’re real sorry.”
“Not sorry enough,” Kruger said, sucking his yellow teeth.
“Hey,” said Slim, “the kid didn’t do nothin’. He just showed up an hour ago, and we fed him.”
Hurd threw back his head and laughed. “So he was eatin’ my beef, too? He lies down with dogs, he gets fleas. He’s a rustler as far as I’m concerned.”
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