A GRAY CURTAIN of rain hung between sky and land, fusing the separate entities to a uniform blankness that hid the horizon and rendered the judgement of distances near impossible. The green of the summer grass melded with the dullness of the heavens, the rich, dark earth seeming almost to melt beneath the steady onslaught of the downpour. Rivulets of muddy water trickled down the slope of the plain, pooling where the land flattened out to form a spreading, shallow lake, its surface ravaged by the droplets. Although the sun was hidden behind the overcast, the air was warm, the lowering clouds undisturbed by wind.
The man slumped in the saddle of the big gray horse appeared oblivious of the cascading moisture. Or resigned to it. He wore no slicker – did not own one – so that his frayed linen shirt was plastered against his muscular chest, the soaking gradually washing the material back to its original white. The leather vest he wore was black with damp, only a shade or two darker than the buckskin pants and the high, Chiricahua-style moccasins. Water spilled from the brim of the low-crowned Sonoran Stetson that surmounted his rain-washed blond hair, layering the shoulder-length mane against his neck and face. Only his weapons were afforded protection from the elements, a blanket tugged over his saddle so that the cloth covered the Winchester rifle, canted butt-forwards on the right side of the saddle and the grip of the Colt’s Frontier model revolver hiked round to his left hip. On the right of his gunbelt the haft of a Bowie knife protruded from a leather sheath, water glistening on the brass tang and knob. The leather-wrapped haft of a slender-bladed throwing knife jutted from his right moccasin, the use-glistened binding gleaming brighter with the soaking.
He allowed the horse to choose its own pace, conscious of the tall stallion’s discomfort, holding the reins loose in his left hand and occasionally reaching forwards to pat encouragingly at the animal’s bedraggled neck. It was an unusual horse, not often seen on the Wyoming plains where the wiry mustangs of the Sioux or Cheyenne, or the heavy-built ponies of the Cavalry were the more customary mounts. It was taller in the shoulder than a mustang, though leaner built than the bulky, grain-fed Army horses, with long, powerful legs and a deep chest that stemmed elegantly to the gray neck and smallish head. It had about it a look of speed and strength, a fusion of types that set it apart from other horses.
It was bred from Arab stock, with hints – in the musculature and stance – of both mustang and Morgan. It was the result of careful interbreeding: a half-breed animal.
Like its master.
The man himself showed the same signs of mixed blood. His face was broad, wide cheekbones spacing narrow, sun-slitted eyes to either side of a firm, slightly flattened nose. His mouth was wide too, though somewhat thin-lipped above a firm jaw. The contours of his face suggested an Apache lineage, as did the buckskin pants and the moccasins. Y.et his eyes were blue and his hair was fair; his Stetson was of Mexican origin, his saddle and guns, American.
Like his horse, he, too, was a half-breed, the son of an Apache woman and a white man. His name – in his mother’s tongue – was Azul. In Santa Fe, in the great cathedral there, he had been christened in his father’s name: Matthew Gunn. And around the Border territories he had picked up a new name, a nick-name: Breed.
He had been born to a Chiricahua woman and a Santa Fe trader. His mother, Rainbow Hair, had been descended from Mangas Colorado, the murdered leader of the Apache; his father, Kieron Gunn, was of Scottish descent, a frontiersman and trader. Both had been killed by American scalphunters. And their son had devoted the next years of his life to tracking down those men and extracting the vengeance demanded by his Chiricahua upbringing.i
The same birthright that had molded his face to its combination of both white and Indian characteristics had also molded his mind. He had been raised as an Apache, though given what advantages his white father could offer. He spoke three languages: the dialect of his Chiricahua rancheria, the English his father had taught him along with the white man’s way of writing, and Spanish – the lingua franca of the south-west. He had followed the training of any Apache warrior – undergone the rigorous manhood tests that determined those youths fit for Apache life, and at the same time learned to exist as a white man. Yet he had never quite fit into either society. His blue eyes and blond hair set him apart from the other Chiricahua youths, and too many thought of the depredations of white settlers and scalphunters to ever truly accept him as one of their own. And at the same time his mother’s blood showed too clearly in his face and his speech to grant him acceptance to white society.
So he lived between the two spheres: a half-breed in both, respected for his skills – feared, even – but alienated; a man apart.
And now he was a man alone, traveling a strange country to head southwards to the only home he knew: the high ranges of New Mexico and Arizona.
Wyoming was foreign to him, this country of grassy plains and wooded hills; of broad rivers and rolling timber. He would not have been there had he not happened on two women who needed a man to carry them north to their destinies. That and the two ingots of silver worth upwards of $1000. Now he was heading back to the country he knew, away from the dead town of Jericho and whatever struggle was going on around the river known as the Little Bighorn.ii
It was of no interest to him. He knew nothing of the Sioux or of the Cheyenne, no more than his father had told him of the northern Plains Indians, and he was not at all concerned with their battles. His own people – his mother’s people – were constantly harassed by the whites. Either by the scalphunters intent on collecting the bounty offered in Mexico for Apache hair, or by settlers invading the land. The warriors of Apacheria fought back, or drifted away into the hills when the forces ranged against them proved too strong. But always they came back. Dogged and determined to hold on to the country they regarded as their birthright, back to the high meadows and the clean rivers of the south-western mountains.
It was as old Sees-Both-Ways, the Chiricahua shaman, had told him when he was no more than seventeen-summers’ old, and preparing for a raid on a group of Mexican buffalo hunters encroaching on Apache land.
The buffalo are our life, the old man had said, just as the rivers and the trees. Like the grass where we graze our ponies. Our people came here when no other man in the whole world wanted this place, and made it ours. Now these men would take it away. Take away the buffalo and after that, the land itself. But how can any man own the land? How can any man own the buffalo? The land belongs to the earth, to the Great Spirit. The buffalo are their own masters. No one can own them, though many use them.
Perhaps these Mexicans will go away when they have shot the meat they need, Azul had said. Go back to their own country and leave us alone.
No. Sees-Both-Ways had shaken his head, making the beads and tiny skulls woven into his hair rattle like an autumn wind. People like that never go away. What they can take once, they come back for. Again and again. Over and over. Until there is nothing left except the bones and the dying.
Azul had gone out with the raiding party, catching the Mexicans as the hide hunters led their pack train down towards the border. He had killed two of them and counted coup on three more. The hides were brought back to the rancheria, and a separate party collected the meat and the bones. No Mexicans were left alive.
On his return, Azul had asked his father about the hunting and the raid.
Kieron Gunn had said: It’s mostly that way. There’s folk can live with the land and folks that need to own it. If the Mexicans thought they could collect skins here they’d be back next near. An’ the year after. Each time there’d be a few more, until all the buffalo got shot out. Then the settlers’d come. Build houses that’d grow into towns that’d want railroads an’ stage lines. Before long there wouldn’t be any free country no more. An’ if we argued about that, the government would send troops in to take the land away from us. That’s the difference between white folks an’ Indians: your grandaddy never wanted to own nothing more than the right to live an’ ride where he wanted. But white folks wanted the copper an’ silver in the hills, so they killed him an’ started takin’ the land.
But you are white, Azul had said. Why don’t you want to keep the land?
His father had smiled, glancing around the hogan to catch the eyes of his wife as she sat, sewing a rawhide shirt.
I got all I want. I got a good wife an’ a good son. I go where I want, an’ I don’t owe nothing to no man. That’s the best way to be. Better’n gettin’ tied down to one place.
Azul thought about it as he matched the swaying of his body to the plodding gait of the Arab stallion. Maybe the Indians the man called Custer had gone to fight were making a stand against the same kind of encroachment. It was still nothing to do with him: the northern Indians had their own lands; his were to the south, and his only intention was to get back there and trade in his two silver bars.
Maybe in Taos, he thought, or Tijuana. Someplace there wouldn’t be any questions asked of a half-breed carrying one thousand dollars, or more, in raw silver.
Lame Bear crouched beneath the underhang of rock that afforded minimal shelter to his depleted band, and sufficient protection that their fire might go both unnoticed and undimmed. The three eagle feathers woven into his carefully-greased hair sagged under the weight of water picked up on the dash south. He stared into the flames, his hands stroking the honing stone automatically against the cutting edge of his tomahawk. His knife was already fresh-sharpened after the spilling of blood on the Greasy Grass, but his lance was broken, the point and half the shaft left in the body of a blue-coat soldier so that he had thrown away the scalp-tasseled pole as he fled from the new influx of stripe-legs that boiled over the rim of the badlands when all the Sioux thought the battle was ended and won.
Across the fire Little Eagle attempted to bind up a split arrow shaft, using strips of rawhide to fasten the wood in place. It was difficult for him, because Little Eagle had taken a bullet in his right arm and a Blackfoot hatchet down the whole length of his face. Now his arm was stiff, bound up with herbs and cloth, and his face was twisting sideways under the plastering of mud so that he had to squint to keep his vision on the arrow.
Sun Dancer was the only one not wounded, though Lame Bear had seen him kill four of the blue-coats with only the stone hammer he favored. Now he turned the makeshift spit with the same skill he had used in the fight to roast the rabbit they had caught.
It was poor fare for three warriors of the Sioux, but all they had.
The others – Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Red Cloud, Rain-In-The-Face – were gone. Either killed or moving north. Lame Bear had moved south after the fight, and his two brothers had come with him, seeking the lands they knew, where they felt safe from the blue-coats.
They had seen no other Indians, except the Blackfeet scouts the white men employed, on their journey southwards; nor any soldiers other than a few scattered groups that had been easy to avoid. Lame Bear had gone down into Wyoming because he thought the country there would be free of white men long enough for their wounds to heal and the seven tribes to come back.
He went on sharpening his tomahawk as the warmth of the small fire bled its heat into his leg, taking away the pain of the bullet hole in his thigh and the burning of the cut that ran down his left arm and across his chest. The blood was dry now, but the puckering of the star as it healed reminded him of the fight and the way he had been forced to run. It firmed his determination to kill every white man he met.
Azul saw the pale glow of the fire through the driving rain. He had come down over the plain to the narrow cut that ran across the land like a knife wound in the ground in expectance of shelter. At first he was disappointed, for the ravine was steep-banked on both sides, the center filled with a swelling torrent of water and the sides sheer, offering no protection. The late afternoon was fading rapidly into night, the setting of the sun indicated by the growing darkness of the rain-washed air, the gradual absence of light rendering the whole cut a uniform gray.
The fire’s glow was like a beacon, and in the absence of any other shelter he steered towards it. His pony’s hooves splashed in the central flood, the sound lost beneath the steady drumming of the rain. He dismounted several yards from the tempting glow of the fire and eased the Winchester clear of the saddle scabbard. Then, after looping the reins around the gray’s fetlocks, he moved forwards through the gloom, halting a few yards away from the rocky overhang to shout a warning.
In other circumstances he might have approached more cautiously; made sure of the occupants before announcing his presence. But now he was wet and tired and getting cold. He had ridden most of the day through the rain, the last of his food gone and no chance to hunt in the relentless downpour. Besides, there was no reason for anyone in the Wyoming territory to feel any grudge against him. Those few men he had crossed were dead, and he had no quarrel with either whites or Indians.
So he shouted, anxious to find shelter.
The answer was an arrow that whirred out from the cave through the gray gloom. It passed over his left shoulder, the susurration of its passage bringing an instinctive response.
He powered sideways, angling across the cut to fetch up on the near side. As he moved, he squeezed the trigger of the Winchester, blasting a shot against the facing wall of the cave. The bullet ricocheted from the rock, making a shrill sound that was abruptly followed by a scream.
Azul levered the rifle and flattened back against the stone, trying to discern movement through the darkening, water-washed air.
For a while there was only silence. Then two figures exploded from the mouth of the cave. Neither one was clearly visible through the rain, but Azul thought that he glimpsed bead-covered leggings and painted quill shirts, the flash of dyed feathers, and the glint of fire’s light on metal.
He shot at the last impression, squeezing down the trigger of the Winchester and levering the action as he swung the muzzle to cover the second darting figure.
Inside the cave Little Eagle rolled his body into a tight ball around the pain in his belly. His wounded arm jutted out, dropping the still-unbound arrow into the fire. The plastering of clay and herbs over his face split apart as he yelled, spreading his mouth wide to let out the agony that filled his body where the random shot had landed. Blood flowed out from his mouth and nostrils, splattering into the fire as Lame Bear and Sun Dancer moved to the mouth of the cave.
Sun Dancer notched a second arrow to his bow before racing out into the darkness. Lame Bear followed him, swinging the new-sharpened hatchet in his right hand, his painted war shield strapped against his left arm.
Little Eagle felt his life flow out from his wounds and began to croon his death song. It got lost in the rain and the gunfire.
Azul’s second shot spanged off Lame Bear’s hatchet, glancing from the metal with sufficient force that the Sioux warrior felt his arm twisted back, almost driving the blade of the axe into his ribs so that he stumbled backwards, falling down into the growing stream at the center of the cut.
Sun Dancer crossed over the miniature river, his moccasins making a loud slapping sound as he sought cover against the far bank. He fired on instinct, loosing off an arrow at the flash of gun flame from the far side of the ravine.
The stone head plucked through Azul’s shirt, scorching a line of pain over his right shoulder. Driving him off balance, so that his bullet flew wild, smashing off the rock ten feet over the Sioux’s head.
Sun Dancer set a fresh arrow to his bow, and sighted through the rain.
Azul fired again.
The bullet hit the unwounded warrior where his neck joined his shoulders. A great spurt of crimson blood spouted from Sun Dancer’s throat, splattering down over the stream so that the muddy water became darker still and the gray rock behind his head was colored with the outflowing of his life.
Sun Dancer dropped his bow, the arrow thudding into the moist ground between his feet. He went down on his knees, hands clutching at his throat in a useless attempt to stem the blood gushing from his neck. A harsh, gurgling cry erupted from his gaping lips and he pushed painfully to his feet. He tugged the stone war axe from his belt with bloodied fingers and launched himself at a run across the ravine.
Lame Bear came in from Azul’s right, hatchet raised high and mouth wide open to emit a shrieking battle cry. The half-breed spun round, firing from the hip as he weaved sideways, avoiding the glinting hatchet. His bullet pierced the hide shield, punching a hole through the fleshy part of the Indian’s upper arm. Lame Bear twisted, arm flinging wide as he sought to redirect the blow. Azul parried the downswing, taking the force of it on the barrel of the Winchester so that the rifle was knocked off target. He sprang back, working the action as his peripheral vision sighted the other Sioux moving in from his left.
He began to turn, but the joint attack forced him to shift the Winchester through too wide an arc. Sun Dancer was on him while the muzzle was still angled between the two Indians. The stone axe hefted in a vicious curve, slamming against Azul’s left shoulder. Pain exploded through the half-breed’s arm, paralyzing his nerve centers so that his hand dropped uselessly from the gun. Sun Dancer reversed his blow, swinging the axe back along a flat trajectory. Azul twisted, firing the Winchester one-handed.
Sun Dancer’s blow landed as the rifle exploded a bullet through the rain. The flint head of the axe caught Azul in the belly as the .44-40 slug ripped up the Sioux’s lower abdomen. Indian and half-breed both doubled over. Azul fought for breath, the pain of the blow sparking bright lights over his vision as he went down on hands and knees, his numbed arm giving way as he set his weight on it. He rolled on his side, kicking out as Lame Bear came in again.
Sun Dancer was out of the fight. Azul’s shot had pierced his stomach, ripping through the intestines to lodge against the wall of the pelvic girdle. The force of it threw the Sioux back, flattening him against the far side of the cut with his left hand still pressed to the wound in his throat and his right jammed against the hole in his belly. Blood pulsed from between his fingers, running over his chest and legs. His eyes got very wide, staring blankly through the rain, unsighted. Then he croaked a last inarticulate sound and his hands dropped to his sides. Blood and water mingled, smearing the copper tones of his skin with a darker hue that was slowly washed clear as he slumped against the muddy wall of the split.
Azul sensed, rather than saw, the last Sioux and rolled clear of a hacking blow. His flailing legs tangled with those of Lame Bear, the kick spilling the Indian on his back. The half-breed dragged a sleeve across his face, clearing his eyes of rain and the tears of pain caused by Sun Dancer’s attack. His left arm was still numb, useless in a fight, and he let go the Winchester, reaching instead for the Colt.
Lame Bear was fractionally faster. He got his legs under him and catapulted forwards, driving his shield straight at Azul’s face. The circle of hide rammed against the half-breed’s cheek and the tomahawk smashed down over his gun hand. The blade missed cleaving his hand free from his wrist, but the heavy wooden haft battered against the bone. Azul groaned, his fingers tearing from the butt of the pistol. Lame Bear screamed a victory shout, raising the hatchet high above his head. Azul saw the rain-slickened metal swing down at his skull as though in slow motion. And twisted to the side, slamming his right arm in a sweeping thrust against the Sioux’s forearm.
The descending blade was wielded with too much strength for the stroke to be fully deflected, but Azul’s defensive countermove was enough to turn the Indian’s hand slightly. The tomahawk missed his skull, crashing instead against the ground. The curved underside landed against his neck, where the column of flesh joined his shoulder. Again, pain exploded through his mind, a fresh wave of nausea flooding his belly.
Lame Bear snarled, tugging the hatchet loose and smashing it sideways to land the flat against the side of Azul’s face.
The half-breed’s jaw snapped open and his eyes glazed, oblivious of the heavy droplets of rain that spattered against the pupils. He grunted once, then his lids closed down and he stretched unconscious on the soaking earth.
Lame Bear eased back on his haunches, staring at the supine figure. For the first time he studied the man’s face, recognizing in the rugged contours the delineations of Indian blood. He wondered briefly if the man had been a scout for the blue-coats; but most of the Indians riding with the soldiers were of Blackfoot or Pawnee stock, and this man was not like them. Curious, Lame Bear reached out to touch the blond hair that straggled from beneath the man’s hat. He had been a fine warrior: his scalp would make a fine trophy.
The Sioux jammed his tomahawk under his belt and picked up the Winchester. He had never owned a gun before, but he had learned how the fast-firing weapons were used from the few members of his tribe who did possess such things. For a while his attention was caught by the rifle and he worked the lever, grinning as the shiny brass cartridges spun clear of the exit chamber and fell, plopping, into the water funneling down the ravine. He picked up each shell, aware of the difficulty of obtaining fresh loads, and thumbed them carefully into the loading gate. Then he remembered Sun Dancer and Little Eagle, and turned away from the unconscious half-breed.
Sun Dancer was obviously dead, and when Lame Bear checked the cave a single glance was enough to tell him that Little Eagle, too, had taken the Star Road into the Spirit World.
He thought for a moment of arranging their bodies for burial, then dismissed the idea. After the fight on the Greasy Grass there were too many whites around, and where one had ridden there could be others. Instead, he collected the carcass of the rabbit and wrapped it in Little Eagle’s blanket. Then he went out to check the three mustangs tethered further down the cut. He roped them together and led them back to the entrance of the cave. The presence of death made the ponies nervous, setting them to snickering until Lame Bear got them quietened down.
From up the ravine there came an answering whicker.
The Sioux stowed the rabbit on his own mount and drifted cautiously, a darting, almost-shapeless figure, through the rain, towards the source of the sound.
The sight of the gray stallion took all his attention away from the trophy still decorating Azul’s head. He had never seen so fine a horse. Taller than a mustang, it was; and cleaner of line. The mount of a great chief: a prize easily worth the lives of his two companions.
Cradling the Winchester in his still-bleeding left arm, he approached the animal, crooning softly as the dark eyes stared at him, the lips spreading back from the broad teeth.
Slowly, very gently, he moved closer, keeping up the soft, inarticulate susurration of sound, barely louder than the rain, scarcely heard above the soggy squelching of his moccasins and the nervous stamping of the magnificent horse.
As he came closer the stallion backed away, pawing irritably at the ground. Lame Bear saw that the reins – the double strings favored by white men rather than the single rein of the Indians – were hitched about the fetlocks. It was a fresh contradiction of the owner’s character, for such style of hobbling was applied by Indians to well-trained ponies. He moved in close enough to grasp the bridle.
The stallion fought to turn its head and snap at his wrist, cow-kicking in a vain attempt to smash him away. He dragged the head down, dropping the rifle as he sank his teeth into the beast’s right ear. He ground his teeth together as the stallion squealed and tried to buck, then let go and turned the head so that he was able to breath heavily into the flared nostrils.
The horse calmed. Lame Bear reached down to unfasten the reins. Led the animal back down the ravine to the other ponies.
He hitched it behind Sun Dancer’s mount, congratulating himself on his spoils. Three fresh animals, one of them worth a string of mustangs, and a rifle.
And the hair of his enemy.
He tucked the Winchester into the sheath mounted alongside the gray stallion’s saddle and drew his knife. It was a long, thin-bladed weapon, razor sharp on both sides: ideal for the taking of hair.
He went back towards Azul.