By the time Touch the Sky spotted the pony soldiers, it was too late to flee.
The midday sun burned hot and glaring from a sky of such a deep, bottomless blue it made him squint. He was crossing barren flats, a short-grass prairie broken by the occasional stand of scrub oak. He had dismounted to cautiously examine a long-deserted white outpost.
It was a group of sod houses with long roots trailing down from the roofs. They had been built in a circle for defense from Indians. The walls were loop-holed to accommodate rifle barrels. A stone watering trough in the yard held several inches of rain.
Touch the Sky guessed that this had once served as a way station for the white man’s huge, mule-team freight wagons. These were more and more numerous on the plains as the “Indian menace” meant more and more supplies for the Bluecoat army.
Little remained behind now. Touch the Sky found only some empty wooden crates and a pile of buffalo bones, all heaped in one corner of the largest sod house.
Hunger gnawed at his belly. First he turned his pony loose to graze the sparse grass of the yard and drink from the trough. Then he hauled some of the bones outside into the sunlight.
Touch the Sky cracked them open on the edge of the water trough. Then he used the point of his knife to gouge out the soft, nutritious marrow. What couldn’t be reached with his blade he dug out with the point of a narrow stick.
This put little in his empty belly. But even that little bit rallied him. Now he thought of a trick Black Elk had taught his band of young warriors.
He debated. It might be risky. But it seemed so empty out here, it ought to be safe. He had seen it work once before in country such as this.
And if the Pawnee were tracking him, it hardly mattered—by now they knew exactly where he was.
Moving gingerly to accommodate his still sore wound, Touch the Sky stacked some of the crates near the corner of one of the sod buildings. Then he climbed up and jabbed the stone point of his battle lance into the roof. Now the long red streamers flapped in the breeze.
Black Elk had thus attracted and shot a curious elk on the open plains, first tying a cloth to a stick. Perhaps, thought Touch the Sky, it would attract game now.
But instead of game, it attracted a Bluecoat cavalry squad.
Hours had passed with no luck. He gave up and was on the verge of whistling for his pony. Suddenly, a flock of frightened sparrow hawks shot by overhead.
Touch the Sky scrambled back up to the roof, careful not to skyline himself, and spotted the patrol. They rode out of the east in a fanned-out wedge formation, about a dozen strong. They were closing rapidly on the sod houses.
Outrunning them on his tired pony was out of the question. Even if he fled now, he would still be clearly visible on the open plain to the west when they reached the yard.
It was unlikely they had yet noticed the gray—she was blocked from sight by one of the sod houses. Touch the Sky whistled for her. When she trotted over, he led her behind the largest building. He could only hope the Bluecoats would make a quick check and ride on.
Otherwise ... he slid his throwing ax out of his pannier. Otherwise, he had the element of surprise—at least one long-knife would go under with him. He had no doubt the soldiers would kill him. A Cheyenne this far from the Powder River homeland was considered a renegade. The talking papers called “treaties” had done nothing to soften the white man’s heart.
It was then that Touch the Sky spotted the skunk.
It emerged from under a rocky mound near the yard, moving at the slow, leisurely pace of an animal that knows it need not bother running if threatened. Touch the Sky knew the foul-smelling secretion of its anal pouches could be whiffed from an hour’s ride away. Clothing sometimes retained the stink permanently.
He had little time to consider his idea. Instead, he hurried across the yard, “attacking” the skunk.
The animal glanced back at him, then raised its long, thickly haired tail in warning. Steeling himself, keeping the wind at his back, Touch the Sky moved in closer.
The skunk turned its back, erected its tail, and began the forceful muscular contractions that shot forth the pale yellow spray. As it emptied its pouches, Touch the Sky hurriedly backed away. But still, even with the wind at his back, the powerful stink tickled his gag reflex and made tears spring to his eyes.
For a moment the wind shifted, seeming to swirl directionless. Then it steadied to a swift breeze blowing out of the southwest. As Touch the Sky, still gagging, eyes streaming, staggered back to his hidden pony, the overwhelming stench was wafted out across the plains.
The soldiers bore down on the way station, their sabers gleaming in the sun.
Their horses’ iron-shod hooves tore out clumps of dirt and grass and flung them into the sky. The officer riding at the head of the wedge formation raised his saber. Now the men closed ranks and formed a skirmish line.
For a moment the sun was blocked, and Touch the Sky got a good look at the officer’s face. His blood ran cold when he recognized that sneer of cold command—Lieutenant Seth Carlson!
Of course it made sense that he would encounter his old enemy this far north. Touch the Sky’s soldier friend, Tom Riley from Fort Bates, had explained it. After Touch the Sky helped his white parents defeat Hiram Steele and Carlson, the officer had been reassigned to a desolate outpost up north.
Now Touch the Sky recalled his vow from that time he had refused to kill Carlson because it was nighttime, when killing should be avoided: that they would meet again by day, and that Touch the Sky would dangle the soldiers scalp from his clout.
Perhaps he would never live to dangle it, thought Touch the Sky. But if he was quick he could at least scalp his enemy before the soldiers killed him in turn.
Carlson’s patrol thundered closer.
Touch the Sky slid his knife out of its sheath and gripped it in his teeth, ready. He gripped his throwing ax and watched from behind the largest house, peering cautiously around the corner.
The soldiers raised a triumphant shout as they drew closer, their blood up for adventure.
Touch the Sky quietly sang the Cheyenne Death Song even as he prepared to fight for his life. Clearly, his ruse with the skunk had been a foolish, desperate plan.
Suddenly he felt invisible fingers lift his hair: The wind had increased.
Abruptly, the noxious stink slapped the soldiers and their mounts in the face with the force of a punch.
Carlson didn’t need to signal a halt. As one, the Bluecoats reined in their mounts. Two horses shied violently, one soldier leaned sideways from his saddle and retched.
It was an unwritten law of the frontier: Neither man nor beast challenged the skunk. The Bluecoats were no exception. After a hasty conference, one of them uncased a pair of field glasses. He quickly took a final look at the streamered lance.
Then Carlson barked out a command, and they rode on to the north.
Touch the Sky gave thanks to Maiyun. But even as he rode on, bearing southeast, stomach cramping from hunger, he couldn’t help wondering: Had he once again eluded a quick death only to suffer a slow one?
~*~
He was no longer aware of the passing of time. By sheer force of habit, he rode when the sun was up, stopped when the last rays bled from the sky.
By now the gnawing hunger had become a part of him. He could not think of a time when he had not felt it. His cheekbones, always pronounced, now protruded like the cheeks of a skeleton. His ribs were as gaunt as barrel staves.
From time to time he encountered green plums and serviceberries. He knew that some Indians would eat any insects they could find. The Cricket Eaters, or Digger tribe, could survive indefinitely on dried ants and their larvae. But when he dug a handful out of an anthill and tried to swallow some, he only retched it all back up.
For long periods now his mind wandered as if through dream time. Again in memory he saw Honey Eater stepping out of Black Elk’s tipi, wearing her beaded bride-shawl. He saw Kristen Steele, her hair like spun-gold sunshine, waiting for him in the secret copse where they used to meet.
Both gone, dead to him now. Two women from two different worlds—neither of which would let him be free.
Another moon, another sun, another hungry ride while cobwebs of delirium tangled his thoughts. At some point he had begun cutting off the buckskin strings of his fringed leggings, slowly chewing them for their meager nourishment.
Another sleep passed, and this time it was difficult to rise and get going.
He was thoroughly lost, thoroughly hungry, thoroughly dispirited. As he trudged up a long rise in the late-afternoon sun, his hand drifted to the obsidian blade of his knife.
He could fall on his knife now, and end it all quickly. The Cheyenne tribe did not consider suicide cowardly. In fact, a warrior who fell on his own knife to avoid suffering an unclean or undignified death was considered brave and was welcomed in the Land of Ghosts.
He topped the rise. Stopped. Stared long and hard, his jaw slacking open.
Suddenly, like sun bursting forth from rain-drenched heavens, Touch the Sky felt new hope rise within him. Below, reflecting silver in the glare, was a winding river swollen from rain and runoff. A choke point had formed at a sharp bend in the river, a spot where debris formed a powerful barrier.
But this was not, Touch the Sky realized, just a river. Now he knew he was somehow on the right path to Medicine Lake—and that a major vision awaited him there. For this twisting, winding river was also the horse-devouring “snake” of his recent dreams—among the objects snared by the choke point were several dead mustangs!