Tie My Bones to Her Back

by Robert F. Jones

“Oh-kohm wished it so, my mother also,” Tom said. “The spiders would take pity on a boy whose parents are dead, she said. They call these boys ‘orphans.’ The spiders have soldiers with no honor who go into the enemy’s camp and pretend to be relatives of the enemy. That way they learn what the enemy plans by way of battle. I am to be one of these, but for the Sa-sis-e-tas. The spiders call these soldiers ‘spies.’”

  He said the last word in English, there being no equivalent in Sa-sis-e-tas except for the word “wolf,” which meant “scout.” Walks like Badger guffawed, since the English word “spy” sounded like a Sa-sis-e-tas obscenity. Tom frowned at the boy.

  “It was my mother’s idea,” he said. “At first I refused. It hurts worse than a scalp knife, dishonor. But Oh-kohm thought long and said that it was a greater honor to swallow one’s pride for the sake of the People than to count even many coups in battle. The information and rifles you bring us will help us to defeat the spiders,’ he said, ‘for we must defeat them before they kill all the buffalo, or we go under.’”

  “He speaks truly, the Little Wolf,” said Crazy for Horses. He got to his feet and tapped the hot ashes from the red pipe into the palm of his hand. They sizzled. Tom knew he was showing off his scorn of pain. But then Crazy mashed the hot coals against Tom’s forehead, grinning. Tom refused to flinch. “This to remember us by, Elk Brother,” Crazy said. “We will retrieve your rifles from the cave and bring them to Little Wolf. Do you remember the Yellow Boys when we killed Fetterman? They are good rifles, and now we will turn them on the spiders, kill them all, young and old—men, women, and children.”

  Tom thought again of the dead Snakes. Yes, he was getting too white.

  “Tell my father the buffalo killers are now all hunting below the Flint and the Buffalo Bull,” he said. “I’m sure you’ve seen them, having come this far. They plan to hunt the Staked Plain of our friends the Crazy Knife People, the Kiowa, until they have killed all the buffalo in the south, just as they have already done between the Shield River and the Buffalo Bull. It is more properly the fight of the Crazy Knives and of our southern brothers, the Hev-a-tan-iu in particular, but perhaps Little Wolf could send some soldiers down to help them.”

  “We will tell him.” Crazy said. “And yes, we have seen the buffalo killers you speak of.” He reached into his war bag and withdrew three fresh scalps. He laughed. Tom checked the scalps to see if Mr. Dousmann’s was among them, or perhaps Milo Sykes’s, but they weren’t. They belonged to other hide men—strangers. He wouldn’t have minded seeing Sykes’s hair. Crazy would have gotten the new Sharps rifle, and the three white-spider horses, too, when he took those scalps.

  “Hang these from your lance,” Tom said, returning them. “They’ll stink up your war bag.” He slapped Crazy on the shoulder and stepped back quickly to remount Wind Blows. He jumped her away and curvetted her.

  “My luck will improve, now that I have counted coup on a brave Elk Soldier of the Sa-sis-e-tas,” he said, grinning.

  “Piva!” yelled Crazy for Horses as Tom galloped away. “It is true!” Crazy held the crooked lance high over his head, the eagle feathers swinging wildly as he pumped it up and down. There were only two such lances among the Elk Soldiers, and they were carried only by the bravest soldiers in the band. If a battle was going against the Elk Soldiers, the man with the crooked lance would plant it point first in the ground. No one could retreat beyond the lance without incurring shame and dishonor. The lance was a rallying point, like the regimental flags the white-spider soldiers used in battle to stem a rout. A crooked-lance soldier fought to the end. He could relinquish his lance to another soldier only when he tired of taking risks with his life, or when he wished to marry and not go so often on the war trail. Or in rare cases, for other reasons.

  Tom Two Shields had once carried this very lance. He had relinquished it to his friend Crazy for Horses for one of the other reasons, and he had not liked doing it.

  12

  AT THE BUFFALO camp that evening, Raleigh waited until Tom Shields was out visiting with the horses. Jenny was cooking supper, singing one of her German songs. He ladled some hot water from the kettle into a copper bowl, carried it to the tent, and shaved for the first time in a week. He lathered up with soapsuds before applying the horn-handled straight razor. He walked over to the water barrel, stripped off his shirt, and washed his armpits. He looked back over his shoulder and, when all was clear, dropped his cavalry britches and washed his crotch. He went in the tent, rummaged around in his gear, and came up with a red wool shirt that Jenny had laundered. He rummaged further and found a vial of cologne, applied a splash to his raw, stinging cheeks, and rubbed the rest into his armpits. Then he put on the red shirt. It was faded from two years of washing in lye water slaked with ashes. Kind of a dark, mottled pink. He was about to exit the tent when he looked at his legs. The cavalry trousers were splotched black on the thighs with dried buffalo blood and smelled to high heaven. Thank God, I noticed, he thought. Been livin’ on the plains so long I’ve got used to my own stink. He went back to his trunk, felt around in its jumbled depths, and pulled out a pair of canvas shooting pants, stiff and baggy—but at least clean.

  Christ, it was troublesome, wooing a serious woman. He needed a drink.

  “You smell nice,” Jenny said after Raleigh had been lurking around the fire for a while. “Or is it the cinnamon in these potatoes I’m frying?”

  “I took a bath,” he said. “Seemed about time.” He had also applied a fragrant pomade to his hair. She had noticed him brushing it vigorously, then shaping his waves with an elegant ivory comb.

  “I wash every day,” Jenny said, turning the potatoes in the skillet. “So does Tom, for that matter. There’s always plenty of water hot on the fire, Captain, if you want to make use of it.”

  “Aw hell, don’t call me Captain, call me Raleigh,” Raleigh said.

  Jenny stirred some more.

  “That’s a nice name,” she said. “What does it come from? Is it some kind of a family name?”

  “Well, no, it’s the name of the capital of my home state, the Tarheel State, North Carolina, and it’s also the name of a man who was a captain of the Britishers when they first come over here. To Virginia, they come. Sir Walter Raleigh was a great soldier and explorer, and he founded a colony called Roanoke there. But he got his head chopped off later, I’m told.”

  “How awful!”

  “He, like, overreached himself. He was the Queen’s boyfriend, they say, but he wanted to be King. Too ambitious, I guess. Got chopped for it, he did. You gotta wonder what he thought while his head was a-tumblin’ into the basket. Was it really worth it, after all? Sure hope it was. That Queen must have been one tough lady.”

  He stepped in close to her nigh shoulder. Nearly as tall as he was. She was wearin’ a shirt she had sewn from sun-bleached, brain-tanned antelope hide, with Tom’s guidance, Raleigh remembered. Tom had shown her how to bead it, too. She was a little sweaty, but Raleigh liked the smell of a sweaty woman. Brought out the aroma of her soul, some fellows said. You could always whiff a whore, for instance, and if you had your doubts, just put her near a fire. The whore smell would come out. Whores try to make themselves smell good and end up smellin’ like a mixture of sweat, stale booze, high-summer roses, and marsh-rat musk. Jenny was no whore.

  Make your move, son . . .

  He slicked back his hair, then leaned over and kissed her on her sweet, salty neck.

  Jenny turned at Raleigh’s kiss. One of his hands cupped her buttocks, squeezing hard, and the other came around under her armpit to grope at her right breast. Even through her clothing his hands felt rough as dried corncobs. “C’mon, Jenny,” he breathed sweetly into her ear, “let’s do it.” His breath smelled of booze. The cast-iron skillet of cinnamon potatoes, fried in buffalo tallow, tilted just a bit.

  She was shocked, suddenly very disappointed—and very angry.

  He had overreached himself!

  Hot tallow from the skillet spi
lled down the front of his stiff canvas trousers.

  MLLO RODE HARD through the sunset, heading back south toward Captain McKay’s camp. He didn’t dare ride north for Dodge, it was too far, too risky. Too great a chance of running across more Indians along the way. Every few jumps he lashed the horse hard across the neck with the reins; it was Dousmann’s horse anyway, and if he ran its heart out, it was no skin off Milo’s hinder. The bluebelly bastard had gotten them into this. He hoped the red devils took their time killing the damnyankee, skun him out on a wagon wheel and burnt the fucker. Black Hat should of told me he’d seen Injuns, he should never of gone to take a potshot at ‘em. Brother and sister, shee-it. They’re alike no good. That bitch. Try to screw me outta my meat, will she? I’ll fix her fuckin’ wagon yet or my name ain’t Milo Aurelius Sykes.

  He pounded into camp from the north the next morning, while Tom and Jenny were turning dried hides. Her Henry lay on one of the hides and she grabbed it when she saw the rider. Then she saw who it was. Milo was riding Edgar, she saw as he got closer, and the horse was lathered near white. Their eyes looked wild, both horse and man alike.

  Raleigh was out killing buff, having said not another word to her after she poured the hot grease on him. He’d gasped at the pain, nearly as loud as she had at his words and actions, but then merely turned his back and stalked over to the tent. He ate no supper that night. She could hear his tin cup clanking whenever he refilled it with whiskey. She’d be damned if she’d go over there and apologize to him. He was crude, and he was the offending party. In the morning he was gone before she got dressed, out to the Buffalo Range. He’d calm down, though, or at least she hoped he would. Still, she didn’t know—that damned Southern pride. If only he hadn’t rushed things so fast . . .

  And now here came Milo. Suddenly she was alarmed. No sign of Otto.

  “Where’s Cap’n McKay?” Milo panted as he reined in the horse.

  “Where’s my brother?” she asked, frightened. “And the wagon?”

  “Injuns jumped us. Kioways or Comanch’. They kilt him an’ burned the wagon. I seen the smoke behind me as I rid in here. Now, where’s the cap’n, you goddamn honyock?”

  “Out there somewhere shooting more buffalo,” she said, waving vaguely west, not even responding to the insult. She couldn’t think straight. Milo kicked up the exhausted horse and rode west, toward the distant sound of Raleigh’s rifle.

  Indians? Killed him? Otto dead? Her knees went weak and she sat down on a stretched hide. Tom walked over to her. He sat beside her, folded his arms across his knees, and leaned forward.

  “I heard him,” he said. Her mind thinned out and started spinning. She leaned over and rested her head against his near arm. It was hard and warm and smelled of woodsmoke. Her throat choked up and she closed her eyes. Flashes of light cascaded down the insides of her eyelids. I won’t cry, she told herself desperately, I won’t. Noch nicht, not just yet. . . Then she was crying.

  RALEIGH MCKAY TOPPED the rise just before entering camp, Milo trailing well behind him on Otto’s winded horse. A storm was building to the north. Appropriate, Raleigh thought. He was still seething from the girl’s rebuff of the previous evening. Sure, maybe he’d been too abrupt with her, but he was horny, too long without a woman. In his experience some women appreciated bluntness, directness, not enjoying the coy dances and wordplay of dalliance any more than a real man did. Time enough for that stuff after the first hot fires had started to burn low, when you’d gotten to know a lady a little better, in intimate terms.

  He didn’t believe Otto was dead—Milo had refused to look him in the eye when Raleigh asked if he’d actually seen Otto go down—but now he figured maybe he could make up for his bad mistake last night by being comforting and gentle in this her time of grief. Naw, Black Hat couldn’t be scragged by any gang of young Hostiles. Not a man who’d survived the best Bobby Lee and Old Blue Light could dish out. Old Blue Light . . .

  As he reined in at the crest of the rise, he couldn’t believe his eyes. There in the hide yard, not two hundred yards away, Tom Shields was hugging Miss Jenny. His arms were around her, her head on his chest. The goddamn redskin had stolen his play. Raleigh kicked the sorrel in the ribs and poured down the reverse slope toward them at a raging gallop. Off to the north, thunder boomed, but nobody heard it.

  Milo, riding up moments later, watched as Captain McKay pulled Tom to his feet, smashed him in the face with his right fist, and clubbed him hard behind the ear with the other hand as he spun and fell. The half-breed dropped and McKay kicked him in the ribs. Tom’s eyes were glazed and blood ran from his nose and mouth. The captain had caught him completely by surprise, yanking him away from Jenny by the coat collar and punching him in the mouth. Mess with a white woman, would he? Even a ugly honyock bitch like the Dutch girl was white. Rape her, that’s what the breed had in mind. Milo dismounted and grabbed from the ground a mallet used to peg down dead buffalo hides. He stepped up as Tom tried to regain his feet. Milo cocked an arm to hammer him full swing from behind. Finish the fuckin’ red devil . . .

  From behind him, Jenny slammed the brass-shod butt of her Henry into Milo’s right kidney, hard, then swung it low and upward into his ribs as he spun around. “Stop it right now, the both of you.” She levered a round into the Henry’s receiver and pointed the rifle at Milo. “I swear by the allmachtiger Gott I’ll kill you!” She swung the rifle next to cover Raleigh. “You too.” Then she glanced briefly at Tom, who had sunk to his knees. Blood dripped from his mouth and lay in red loops on the matted grass.

  “Tom, wipe that blood off your face.”

  Tom didn’t look at her. He climbed to his feet, swaying, grabbed his hat, and then, still not looking at anyone, walked down to the campfire. He gathered up his war bag, his bedroll, and his rifle. He whistled once, off-key through broken teeth, and Wind Blows came at a canter, her ears pricked forward in question. Tom grabbed her mane and pulled himself onto her back. Kneed her into a gallop and headed north, toward the weather. He was still swaying as he rode off.

  Jenny watched him go. Then Raleigh grabbed her from behind, wrenched the rifle from her hands, and threw her to the ground. He slung the rifle aside. He stood spraddle-legged over her as he undid his belt and trousers. His face paled beneath its tan, his hair was wild, and his eyes looked crazed.

  “Hold her down, Sykes,” Raleigh said. “Pin her arms with your knees, that’s right, and sit on her head if you have to. We’re gonna show her a little Southern hospitality. Don’t worry, old son, you’ll get your turn.” He yanked down Jenny’s pants and placed the palm of his big, horn-calloused hand flat on her white belly, then looked at her with a vicious grin. “Goddamn Injun lover.”

  “About time we taught her a lesson,” Sykes said.

  AN HOUR LATER, in the dead, loud dark, Jenny slipped away from the camp. Once clear, she galloped north after Tom Shields, her mind awhirl with shame and anger. She had left Raleigh and Milo sitting around the whiskey barrel, getting drunk fast. They had both had their way with her, outraged her most vilely. Her mind skittered from the memory. She had to find Tom. Together they’d follow the hide wagon’s tracks to where the fight took place, see if Otto was really dead. If he was, at least they could give his bones a decent burial.

  She had taken only Vixen and the Henry from camp. All she wore was what she’d been wearing that morning before Milo rode in—her boots, longjohns, makeshift trousers, a heavy wool shirt of Otto’s that was too big for her over the antelope-hide blouse, and a wool stocking cap she’d knitted for herself. It was getting quite cold out here, with this snuffling roundabout wind. One blast would blow warm as summer, from the south, then the next, straight out of the north, would be bone-chillingly icy. She pulled the cap down over her ears. Looking ahead as she topped a rise, she thought she could make out Tom in the distance. Then his horseback figure disappeared in a dirty yellow-white blur of dust and—was it snow? It was snow.

  She urged Vixen into a gallop and headed as fa
st as she could into the building storm, toward where she’d last seen him.

  13

  OTTO HAD BECOME aware of the Indians the evening after they’d left camp. He couldn’t make out what tribe they were, but by the way they trailed the wagon, keeping low on the crests of the swells, he knew they were Hostiles. Jenny had kidded him about branding all Indians he saw as hostile, but in his experience they were. Even the tamest, most “civilized” of them, a lowly Ponca or Chickasaw or Choctaw, would shoot you in the back and loot your quivering body, then lift your hair for a trophy. He’d spotted this particular group of red devils yesterday afternoon as he and Milo crawled past Owl’s Head Butte. First just a glimpse of a buck peeking over a hilltop, eagle feather wagging in the wind. The eagle feather caught his eye. Otto kept guard that night.

  The following morning as the oxen plodded northeast over a frosty plain toward the Cimarron, he had seen five of the murderous bastards for nearly half a minute, exposing themselves contemptuously to his sight, but just out of rifle range. Clearly they wanted a fight. Then they disappeared again into a swale. This time he saw them long enough to notice that their skulls were shaved bald on one side. The hair on the other side was braided into scalp locks. Red or blue fabric wraps, not otter skin, tied off the braids. That could make them “tame” Comanches or Kiowas or Kiowa Apaches, probably living off government beef at the Wichita Agency in Texas when they weren’t out raiding. “Tame” was hardly the word for these reservation bloods—they were as murderous on government beef as they’d ever been on buffalo. Ungrateful sons of bitches. We’re only trying to civilize them, can’t they see that?

  Then he stopped himself. I’m sounding as bad as Milo, he thought, or Raleigh, for that matter. Actually, if I were a red devil like Tom, grown up on the wild roaming life of the plains, I’d bite the hand that fed me, too, if it insisted on keeping me in one place for the rest of my life.