The Bold Frontier

by John Jakes

  “Do you know this Whistling Snake?” Charles asked Gray Owl.

  “Priest,” Gray Owl replied, almost inaudibly. “Ugly face. As a young man he scarred his own flesh with fire to show his magical powers. Even chiefs like Red Bear fear him. This is very bad.”

  Small boys darted forward to pat the horses. The animals sidestepped nervously, hard to control. Indian mothers chuckled and nudged one another, eyeing the trackers as if they were so much contract beef. Charles didn’t know what to do. He had bet on having an ace facedown and turned over a trey.

  One last try. “Chief Red Bear, I repeat, we only wish to ask if anyone in your village has seen a white man traveling with a small—”

  The crowd parted like a cloven sea. There was a great communal sigh of awe and dread. The old camp chief’s gaze was curiously taunting. Along the dirt lane fouled with human waste came the priest, Whistling Snake.

  Though Whistling Snake was at least seventy winters, he walked with the vigor of a young man. His neck and forearms had a taut, sinewy look. His pure white hair was simply parted and braided without adornment. He wore a hide smock that long use had buffed to the color of dull gold. A plain rawhide belt gathered the smock at his waist. In his right hand, chest high, he held a fan of matched golden eagle feathers two feet wide from tip to tip.

  Charles couldn’t remember seeing another old man with such an aura of strength. Or human eyes quite so arrogant and unpleasant. The right iris was only partly visible, hidden by a lip of puckered flesh. Scar’s face was smooth by comparison with that of Whistling Snake’s, which looked as though his flesh had melted from temple to jaw, then been pushed and twisted into ridges as it hardened. Indentations like large healed nail wounds stippled the ridges of flesh. The man was hideous, which only made him seem stronger.

  “They say they search for his son,” Red Bear told the priest, with a nod at Charles.

  Whistling Snake regarded them, fanning himself with a small rotation of his bony wrist. A toddler, a plump bare girl, started toward him, reaching out. Her mother snatched her back and clutched her, dread in her eyes.

  The priest shook the fan at Magee. “Buffalo soldier. Kill them.”

  “Damn you,” Charles said, “there are other black men on the Plains besides buffalo soldiers. This is my friend. He is peaceful. So am I. We are looking for my little boy. He was stolen by another white man. A tall man. He may be wearing a woman’s bauble, here.”

  He pulled his earlobe. An elderly Cheyenne covered his mouth and popped his eyes. Charles heard the excited buzz of the women before Red Bear’s glare silenced them. Charles’s stomach tightened. They’d seen Bent.

  The priest fanned himself. “Kill them.” The brown iris shifted in its trench of hard scar tissue. “First that one, the betrayer of the People.”

  Gray Owl’s pony began to prance, as if some invisible power flowed from the priest to unnerve and befuddle his enemies. The pony neighed. Gray Owl kneed him hard to control him. His face showed uncharacteristic emotion. Fear.

  Magee spoke from the side of his mouth, in English. “What’s that old bastard saying?”

  “He told them to kill us.”

  Magee swallowed, visibly affected. “They better not. I want to get out of here with my wool on my head. I want to see Pretty Eyes again.” The squaw, Charles assumed. “I’m not going to cash in here. I been trounced by nigger-hating saloon trash—”

  The priest pointed his fan, exclaiming in Cheyenne, “Stop his tongue.”

  “I been cussed by white soldiers not fit to shine a real man’s boots. I won’t let some old fan-waving Indian just wave me off this earth, whisssh!” There was a strange, fear-born anger prodding Magee. He shook his derby the way Whistling Snake had shaken his fan. “You tell him he doesn’t touch a wizard.”

  “A—?” Startled, Charles couldn’t get the rest out.

  “The biggest, the meanest of all the black wizards of the planetary universe. Me!” Magee flung his hands in the air like a preacher; he was back in Chicago, encircled, with only his wits to forestall a beating.

  Red Bear retreated from him. A fat grandfather protected his wife with his arm. Magee looked baleful sitting there on his horse, arms upraised, shouting. “I will level this village with wind, hail, and fire if they touch us or don’t tell us what we want to know.” A moment’s silence. Then he yelled at Charles like a top-kick. “Tell ’em, Charlie!”

  Charles translated. Where he faltered, as with the word for hail, Gray Owl supplied it. Whistling Snake’s fanning grew rapid. Red Bear watched the priest for a reaction; Whistling Snake was temporarily in control of things. “He is a great worker of magic?” Whistling Snake asked.

  “The greatest I know,” Charles said, wondering if he was insane. Well, what was the alternative to this? Probably immediate annihilation.

  “I am the greatest of the spell-workers,” the priest said. Charles translated. Magee, calmer now, sniffed.

  “Cocky old dude.”

  “No,” Charles said, pointing to Magee. “He is the greatest.”

  For the first time, Whistling Snake smiled. He had but four teeth, widely spaced in his upper gum. They were fanglike, as if he’d filed them that way. “Bring them in,” he said to Red Bear. “Feed them. After the sun falls, we will test who is the greatest wizard. Then we will kill them.”

  He studied Magee over the tips of the fan feathers. His laugh floated out, a dry chuckle. He turned and walked majestically into the village.

  Magee looked numb. “My God, I never figured he’d take me up on it.”

  “Can you show him anything?” Charles whispered.

  “I brought a few things, always do. But it’s only small stuff. That old Indian, he’s got a power about him. Like the devil was singing in his ear.”

  “He’s only a man,” Charles said.

  Gray Owl shook his head. “He is more than that. He is connected to the mighty spirits.”

  “Lord,” Magee said. “All I got is saloon tricks.”

  The prairie sunshine had a precious glow then; this morning might be the last they’d be privileged to see.

  The Cheyennes put the three of them in a stinking tipi with old men guarding the entrance. A woman brought bowls of cold stew too gamy to eat. Before dark, the villagers lit a huge fire and began their music of flute and hand drum.

  An hour of chants and shuffling dances went by. Charles chewed on his only remaining cigar, nursing a superstitious certainty that they wouldn’t get out of this if he smoked it. Gray Owl sat in his blanket as if asleep. Magee opened his saddlebags, rummaged in them to take inventory, closed them, then did it all over again ten minutes later. The shadows of dancing, shuffling, stomping men passed over the side of the tipi like magic lantern projections. The drumming grew very loud. Charles reckoned two hours had passed when Magee jumped up and kicked his bags. “How long they going to string us out?”

  Gray Owl raised his head. His eyes blinked open. “The priest wants you to feel that way. He can then show a different, calm face.”

  Magee puffed his cheeks and blew like a fish, twice. Charles said, “I wish I hadn’t got us into—”

  “I did it,” Magee said, almost snarling. “I got us here. I’ll get us out. Even if I am just a nigger saloon magician.”

  A few minutes later, guards escorted them outside. A hush came over the ring of people around the fire. The men were seated. The women and children stood behind them.

  The evening was windless. The flames pillared straight up, shooting sparks at the stars. Whistling Snake sat beside Chief Red Bear. The latter had a bleary smile, as though he’d been drinking. Whistling Snake was composed, as Gray Owl had predicted. His fan lay in his lap.

  A place was made for Charles to sit. Red Bear signed him to it. Gray Owl was roughly hauled back with the women, further punishment for his betrayal. The grandfather on Charles’s left drew a trade knife from his belt and tested the edge while looking straight into Charles’s eyes. Charles chewed the col
d cigar.

  Red Bear said, “Begin.”

  Magee spread his saddlebags flat on the ground. Charles thought of the campfire circle as a dial. Magee was at twelve o’clock, Whistling Snake sat fanning himself at nine o’clock, and he was seated at three, with Gray Owl behind him at four or five.

  Magee cleared his throat, blew on his hands, reached up for his derby, and tumbled it brim over crown all the way down his arm to his hand. An old grandfather laughed and clapped. Whistling Snake’s slitted eye darted to him. He stopped clapping.

  His face already glistening with sweat, Magee pulled his blue silk from a saddlebag and stuffed it into his closed fist. He chanted, “Column left, column right, by the numbers, hocus-pocus.”

  Red Bear showed a slight frown of curiosity. Whistling Snake regarded the distant constellations, fanning himself. Charles’s belly weighed twenty pounds. They were doomed.

  Magee pulled a black silk from his fist and popped the fist open to show it empty. He waved the silk like a bullfighter’s cape, displaying both sides, and sat down. Whistling Snake deigned to glance at Charles. The four filed teeth showed, in supreme contempt.

  Whistling Snake handed his fan ceremoniously to Red Bear. He rose. From his robe he produced a wide-mouth bag made of red flannel. He crushed the bag, turned it inside out, displayed both sides, balled it again. Then suddenly he began a singsong chant and started a hopping sidestep dance around the circle. As he danced and chanted, he held the top corners of the bag by the thumb and index finger of each hand.

  The heads of two snakes with gleaming eyes suddenly rose from the mouth of the bag, as if the snakes were crawling straight up to the stars. People gasped. Charles was momentarily mystified. Then, as the snakes dropped back into the bag, he noticed their lack of flexibility. Magee, cross-legged by his saddlebags, glanced at him with a disgusted look. He too had identified the snakes as snakeskin glued over wood.

  The Cheyennes thought it an impressive trick, however. Chanting and dancing, Whistling Snake went all the way around the fire, revealing the climbing snakes at each quarter. He finished the circuit and crumpled the bag a last time before he sat. He fanned himself with evident satisfaction.

  The Cheyenne faces shone in the glow of the fire. The atmosphere of lighthearted sport was gone. Whistling Snake watched the black soldier as if he were game to be cooked and devoured.

  Magee produced a quilled bag. From the bag he took three white chicken feathers. He put two in his leather belt and changed the third to a white stone. He held the stone in his mouth as he changed the next two feathers. He took the three stones from his mouth one at a time and with one hand passing over and under the other he changed the stones back to feathers. When he had three feathers in his belt, he concealed them all in one fist and waved over it. He opened his mouth and lifted out three feathers. He showed his empty hands, reached behind the head of a seated man, and produced three white stones.

  He eyed the crowd, awaiting some sign of wonder or approval. He saw hard glaring eyes. Charles realized Magee had not offered a word of patter during this trick. The black soldier sat down with a defeated look.

  Whistling Snake drew himself up with supreme hauteur. Again he handed the village chief his fan. He showed his palms to the crowd; Charles saw the heavy muscles on his forearms. Tilting his head back and chanting, the priest stepped forward close to the fire and laid his right palm directly into the flame.

  He kept it there while slowly lowering his left till they were parallel. His face showed no sign of pain. No stutter or falter interrupted his singsong chant. Magee sat stiff as a post, his eyes brimming with curiosity and admiration. He had momentarily forgotten that the Cheyenne wanted to kill him and take his wool and hang it up in his lodge. He was wonderstruck by the magic.

  A great rippling sigh—“Ah! Ah!”—ran around the circle, and there were smiles, grunts, scornful looks at the three interlopers. Slowly, Whistling Snake lifted his left hand from the fire. Then his right. White hairs on his forearms above his wrists curled and gave off tiny spurts of smoke. His palms were unblistered; not even discolored.

  Charles looked at Gray Owl, who exhibited as much expression as the granite of the Wichitas. Trying to hide what they all knew, no doubt. Magee flung Charles another look that was almost apologetic. Charles smiled as if to urge him not to worry. With a defeated air, Magee climbed to his feet. Charles snatched a faggot from the fire and with the hot end lit his last cigar.

  From a saddlebag Magee pulled a leather pouch which he carefully laid on the ground. He next took out a small hand-carved wood box which he opened and displayed. The box held four lead-colored balls of a kind Charles hadn’t seen for years. Magee plucked one out and carefully placed it between his teeth. Then he closed the box and put it away. With a sudden flourish, he yanked a pistol from the saddlebag.

  Several Cheyennes jumped up, readying their knives or lances. Magee quickly gave them the peace sign. He balanced the pistol on his palm and slowly turned in a complete circle, so all could see it. Where had he found an old flintlock? Charles wondered. The barrel showed no rust. Magee had cleaned it well.

  With slow, ceremonious motions, Magee opened the leather pouch and inverted it, letting powder trickle into the barrel. Suddenly he stamped his right foot twice, as if bitten by an insect. Along with most of the others, Charles looked down and didn’t see anything.

  Magee pinched off the flow of powder and tossed the pouch aside. He found a patch in his pocket and wrapped it around the ball he took from his teeth. He slipped ball and patch into the barrel, unsnapped the ramrod underneath, and with careful twisting motions seated the ball. He replaced the ramrod and primed the pan.

  Fat sweat drops rolled down Magee’s cheeks. He wiped his hands on his jeans pants. He signed for Charles to stand up.

  Astonished, Charles did. Magee glanced at Red Bear. The chief’s attention was fixed on him. Whistling Snake saw that and frowned. His fan moved rapidly, stirring the hair at the ends of his white braids.

  “What I did before was just play,” Magee said. “I am going to kill King Death before their eyes. Tell them.”

  “Magic, I don’t understand what—”

  “Tell them, Charlie.”

  He translated. Hands covered mouths. The fire popped and smoked. If silence had weight, this was crushing.

  Magee faced about in precise military fashion. He used his hands to make a parting motion. Those in front of him jumped up and shoved one another until a yard-wide lane was cleared. Magee summoned Charles to him with a bent finger. He gave Charles the old flintlock pistol and looked hard and earnestly into his eyes.

  “When I say the word, I want you to shoot me.”

  “What?”

  Magee leaned up on tiptoe, his mouth next to Charles’s ear. “You want to get out of here? Do it.” He made a puckering sound, as if kissing the white man. Several Cheyennes giggled over the strange ways of the interlopers.

  Magee snapped the brim of his derby down to snug it; the shadow bisected his nose. In the shadow, his eyes gleamed like discs of ivory. He took ten long strides, rapidly, along the cleared lane, his posture soldier-perfect. He stopped, knocking his heels together, at attention. He about-faced. He was standing a foot from a tipi with a great ragged hole in its side.

  “Aim the pistol, Charlie.”

  Christ, how could he?

  “Charlie! Aim for the chest. Dead center.”

  Charles felt the sweat crawling down into his beard. Whistling Snake leaped up, his fan flicking very fast. Red Bear rose too. Charles drew the hammer back. Magee’s shirt was taut over his ribs and belly. Charles’s arm trembled as he extended it. He couldn’t—he wouldn’t—

  Magic Magee said, “Now.”

  He said it loudly, a command. Charles responded to the tone as much as to the word. He fired. Sparks glittered, the priming pan ignited, the pistol banged and kicked upward.

  Charles saw a puff of dust, as if something had struck Magee’s chest three inche
s below the breastbone. Magee stepped back one long pace, staggering, closing his eyes, snapping his hands open, fingers shaking as if stiffened by a lightning charge. Then his arms fell to his sides. He opened his eyes. Whistling Snake’s fan hung at his side.

  “Where is the bullet?” Whistling Snake cried. “Where did it strike?”

  In a drill-ground voice, Magee said, “King Death is dead. You will answer our questions and release us without harm or I will bring back King Death, riding the winds of hail and fire, and this village will be finished.” He shouted, “Tell them.”

  Charles translated quickly. Gray Owl’s guards had drifted away from him as awed as he was. While Charles spit the words out, trying to make them as fierce as Magee’s, he scanned the trooper’s shirt. He saw no sign of a tear. Magee brushed his shirt off as if something had tickled him.

  Red Bear listened to the threats and instantly said, “It shall be so.”

  Whistling Snake screamed in protest. The sound broke the moment. The Cheyennes rushed forward to swarm around Magee, touch him, pat him, feel his black curls. Charles stared at the old flintlock pistol, felt the warm barrel. King Death was dead, and there through rifts in the surging, laughing crowd was the banner of his conqueror. The familiar huge white smile of Magee, the wizard.

  Red Bear prepared a pipe while Gray Owl attended to the horses. Charles didn’t want the forgiving mood to fade, didn’t want to linger and possibly lose their advantage and their lives. Ceremony required that he sit at the fire with Red Bear, however. Magee sat on his right. The village chief and several of the tribal elders passed the pipe.

  Red Bear had forced Whistling Snake to join the group. When his turn came he passed the pipe without smoking. He snatched a handful of ashes from the edge of the fire and flung them at Charles’s crossed legs. They covered his pants and the toes of his boots with gray powder. Red Bear exclaimed and berated the priest, who merely dusted his hands and folded his arms. Red Bear looked embarrassed, Gray Owl upset.

  Since the ashes did no real damage, Charles forgot about it. Having finished his cigar, he was grateful for a deep lungful of pipe smoke, though as always, the unknown mixture of grasses the Cheyennes smoked left him light-headed and euphoric, not a good thing at a time like this.