Touch the Sky knew the Pawnee were excellent horsemen. He was as good as dead if he attempted to outrun them across the wide-open prairie and sage flats.
Instead, he veered hard to the north, toward the Bighorn Mountains and the Yellowstone with its protective thickets.
His side felt like it was on fire. But hearing the bloodthirsty whoops and yips behind him made him forget the pain. The gray surged forward, laying her ears back flat as Touch the Sky prodded her flanks with his heels.
She was well rested from the slow pace earlier. Now, as the stolen Crow pony opened up the distance between Touch the Sky and his pursuers, he realized what a magnificent animal she was.
By the time the sun dropped below the horizon, the Pawnee were no longer in sight behind him.
Touch the Sky slowed his mount from a gallop to a run to a canter. Despite the fall of darkness and the fiery pain lancing through his wounded side, he knew he was dead if he stopped. The Pawnee were in their element after dark. He knew they could read the star-shot heavens as easily as a Cheyenne read sign along a game trail.
He ate some dried plums from his legging sash. But increasingly, he became aware of an overpowering thirst. Distracted with worry when he had ridden out of camp, he had foolishly neglected to fill a bladder-bag with water. Nor, after this hard run, could the gray go much longer without drinking.
He knew this new course was unlikely to cross any water before he reached the Yellowstone. But he couldn’t afford to waste time searching for it.
He slowed the gray to a long trot and held that pace. Constantly, he turned one ear to listen behind him. At one point, when the gray faltered slightly topping a rise, he halted her for a brief rest.
Wincing at the pain which flared up in his side, he slid to the ground and dropped down on all fours. Placing one ear to the ground, he listened long and carefully. He heard or felt nothing, and relaxed slightly until the next burst of pain jolted him back to the reality of his danger.
He knew he would have to deal with the arrow before the wound swelled closed around it. But he also knew that removing the arrow would increase the bleeding. And on the open plains, there was plenty of time to bleed to death.
He could tell, by the location of the Grandmother Star to the north, that the night was well advanced. Mounting again was even more painful than dismounting. Speaking gently to the gray, he stroked her neck. Then he nudged her flanks.
Reluctantly, expecting a long, cool drink of water as reward for her hard work, the tough little pony snorted in protest before she obeyed.
~*~
“He is bleeding, but not heavily. The blood has not yet stiffened. He cannot be far from here.”
Gun Powder knelt atop a long rise where the Cheyenne had obviously stopped, judging from the prints, both hoof and moccasin. The blood was clearly visible in the unclouded light of a full moon.
Red Plume stared at a brave named Iron Knife, anger tightening his face.
“You squirrel-brained fool! How could you have missed the pony and hit the Cheyenne? For this you will forfeit a coup feather. He is no good to us if he bleeds to death!”
Iron Knife said nothing. He stared straight ahead and showed nothing in his face. He was ashamed of his failure with his bow. But he had no respect for Red Plume or his clan, not one of whom dared face his knife. There was much talk of taking his coup feathers away. Yet no one in the tribe had ever gotten close enough to pluck them out of his bonnet.
“It is a fast pony,” said Gun Powder. “A strong pony. But without water it will weaken. We can catch him this night if we ride hard.”
Red Plume nodded. Idly, as he considered the best course of action, he picked a louse from the grease in his topknot and cracked it between strong white teeth.
“Then we ride hard!” he said. “Before the morning star is born, he will lie under our lances!”
~*~
Twice during the long night Touch the Sky heard the distant sounds of his enemy behind him. Reluctantly, his wounded side throbbing at the increased jolting, he pushed the thirsty and tired gray to a long gallop.
Thus he opened the distance between himself and his pursuers. But by now his thirst was so powerful it overshadowed the pain of his wound. He sucked on pebbles to keep moisture in his mouth.
Finally, as his sister the sun began to color the eastern horizon pink, he was unable to bear his thirst any longer.
There was nothing he could do yet for his pony. But Touch the Sky veered right from his course when he spotted a rocky spine rising out of the plains. It had rained recently. He recalled a trick that old Knobby, a former mountain man who was now the hostler back in Bighorn Falls, had told him about.
Slowed considerably by his stiffening wound, he dismounted, hobbled his pony, and picked his way up toward the boulders at the very top of the spine. As he had hoped, the hollows of the larger rocks still held precious drops of rainwater. Gratefully, he moved from boulder to boulder, lowering his lips to the night-cooled water and lapping it up like an animal.
It was only a few swallows, all tolled. But the water blunted the harshest edge of his thirst. Before he climbed back down to his pony, he scanned the plains to the south.
His mouth tightened into a grim slit when he saw riders profiled against the new day’s horizon. They were the size of insects at this distance. But a slight lead on a thirsty and nearly exhausted pony meant nothing on the plains.
His wound throbbed with insistent pain as he climbed back down to his mount. Now that the sun was rising, he decided to veer northeast—riding into the new sun would make him a more difficult target next time the Pawnee attacked.
Speaking softly to his pony, explaining that there was no other choice, he mounted and reluctantly pushed northward.
~*~
“The Cheyenne buck stopped here to drink.”
Gun Powder’s voice was raised so it would carry down to the others. They sat their ponies at the base of the rocky spine, watching the keen-eyed warrior read the boulders for sign.
“He has ridden into the sun,” said the Pawnee brave called Iron Knife. He squatted on the ground, examining the prints leading away from the spine.
“Our enemy has tough battle bark on him. He has decided we must earn the right to dangle his scalp from our coup stick,” said their leader, Red Plume.
The warrior’s tone showed approval of their quarry’s survival spirit. The Cheyenne had raised their battle-axes forever against the Pawnee. This one knew full well what fate awaited him if—when—Red Plume’s Pawnee braves seized him.
There was no question that he would soon watch crows and vultures pick at his guts, pulled out of his body coil by coil before his own eyes. Pawnee scouting ability was respected even by the Bluecoats themselves. The red “men of men” were considered the U.S. Army’s most capable mercenaries—they formed the backbone of special Indian-hunting units which had razed more than one Cheyenne, Sioux, Arapahoe, and Shoshone village.
Those who called this “treachery” had forgotten the ancient wrongs against the Pawnee. The Sioux and the Cheyenne had joined forces to drive them south from the Powder River country, hoarding the vast buffalo herds for themselves. Pawnee children died of starvation while, to the north, buffalo meat lay rotting.
Soon, thought Red Plume, the just anger of the supernatural father, Tirawa, would demand another bloody retribution from the Cheyenne. Not just this lone warrior or the annual ritual of sacrificing a captured maiden—often a Cheyenne—to the Morning Star. This time the entire Cheyenne nation must atone with blood.
“He is a warrior,” said Red Plume. “A sly one. However, nothing lies between us and the river but empty plains. A frog is slippery—in the water. But it is easily crushed on dry land.”
He glanced up at the spine again and gestured impatiently to Gun Powder. “Hurry! Now we ride hard and crush our frog!”
~*~
The sun was well up and casting short shadows. Dull pain throbbed like a tight tourniquet in Touch the Sky s wounded side. By now thirst had caked his mouth like parched alkali soil, a raw, dry grittiness that filled his throat and left his belly cramping.
The gray too was weak with water starvation. Even at a slow trot she faltered often. Now he had to fight her more and more to keep her pointed northeast—some instinct made her want to try another direction.
Finally, tired of fighting her, Touch the Sky gave her her head and let the gray set her own pace and direction. She veered sharply to the west, breaking from a trot into a lope which soon became a run.
Abruptly, she drew up short in a slight, wide, dry depression that formed a winding path across the vast prairie.
Puzzled, even through the increasing fog of his exhaustion, pain, and delirium, Touch the Sky stroked the pure white mane.
“This is a dry streambed,” he told his pony. “The water is long gone. You smell a memory, just a memory.”
But the gray nickered impatiently, turned her head, pawed the ground hard.
His jaw set firmly against the pain, Touch the Sky dismounted and sank to his knees, staring hard at the depressions where the gray had dug up the dirt.
It looked darker than dry earth should—and felt slightly damp to his touch.
He gouged his fingers into the deepest print and probed even deeper.
When his fingers came back out, there was mud under the nails!
Unsheathing his knife, ignoring the pain in his side now, Touch the Sky dug frantically. A few minutes of digging exposed a thin layer of seepage.
He dug deeper, and soon a little pool had formed.
Giving thanks to Maiyun and the four directions, Touch the Sky dropped his face into the pool. Forcing himself to take measured swallows, he drank his fill. Then he widened the hole and rose to let the gray follow suit.
His legs were still weak with hunger. Touch the Sky ate some pemmican and dried fruit from his legging sash while the gray drank and rested. Now, he told himself, they must ride hard toward the valley of the Yellowstone. His wound had swollen dangerously tight around the arrow. It had to be removed, and he had to sleep.
The pony had grazed lush grass all spring. Now, refreshed by the water, she resumed her hard pace.
Touch the Sky rode until his shadow was lengthening in the westering sun. Finally, topping a long rise, he spotted the first coarse-barked cottonwood trees with their leathery leaves. He had finally reached the winding valley of the Yellowstone.
His enemies were still trailing him—the last time he had listened to the ground, he had felt them approaching at a rapid pace. Now he led the gray into the river and followed the current downstream until he was sure he had made it difficult for the Pawnee to pick up his trail again.
He rode up out of the water and into a protective line of thickets. This was Crow country. So first he checked the ground all around him. He read the old and fresh tracks of weasel, mink, wolf, and cougar and knew it was safe—animals would not be so abundant in an area where humans were.
Touch the Sky found a nearby clearing amidst the thicket. He hobbled his pony in the patch of browse. Then he set to work building a crude brush lean-to in which to hide. He covered it over with branches and brambles, until it looked like a natural deadfall.
He threw his buffalo robe inside. By now the sun was sending her last feeble rays up against the encroaching night sky. Touch the Sky was now prepared for that which he had been dreading.
First he found a stand of spruce trees and dug some balsam sap from one. From a red willow he peeled strips of soft bark. Then he returned to his brush lean-to and crawled inside.
Wincing, he snapped the fletching off of the Pawnee arrow. Then, setting his jaw, he jerked the arrow out forward in one sharp tug.
White hot fire licked at his side, and a field of black dots danced in front of his eyes. Hurrying to get it done before he passed out, he packed the ragged, angry edges of his wound with balsam. Then he bound it with strips of the bark.
His ministrations left him exhausted. He collapsed back into his robe. Within moments he was sleeping like a dead man, even as the nearby Pawnee searched desperately for his trail.