The Pawnee were soon mere dust devils on the horizon. Wolf Who Hunts Smiling stared at his tribal enemy as he crossed closer toward the creek.
A sudden thought weakened his knees: Where was Woman Face’s horse, his weapons? How could he simply have appeared out of the earth like a thing of smoke?
How, wondered Wolf Who Hunts Smiling, unless this was not Touch the Sky but his ghost?
All in an instant, it made horrible but logical sense. The Pawnee had tortured and killed him! Why else would they have fled, the very first moment they spotted him, like dogs with their tails on fire?
It also made gruesome sense that Touch the Sky’s ghost would now imitate the silvertip. Was this not the animal his Cheyenne enemies lured to kill him? To Wolf Who Hunts Smiling, as to most Indians, ghosts who return to the body-world are revenants—spirits bent on revenge.
Thinking these things, Wolf Who Hunts Smiling forgot his recent stern lecture to Swift Canoe about courage under pressure. He also violated the manly code of his Panther Clan: Fear turned his face white, his eyes huge. His lips trembled as if he had suddenly been thrown naked into a snowbank. Clearly, he wore his terror in his face.
“Leave this place!” he said in his bewilderment.
He made the cut-off sign even though he knew such mild white magic was useless against a spirit manifestation.
Touch the Sky, now totally bewildered himself, stopped. He stood perhaps 20 paces back from the bank of the dried-up creek. Wolf Who Hunts Smiling had hollowed out a crude rifle pit. Only the upper part of his body was visible. Now and then a frustrated Swift Canoe called up to him, desperate to learn what was going on. Wolf Who Hunts Smiling ignored him, busy fending off complete panic.
“I fought with you, I drew your blood,” said Wolf Who Hunts Smiling. “And true it is I walked between you and the fire. But I never crept up on you from behind like a cowardly Mandan or came for you in your sleep like the treacherous Comanche! When you were trapped in the whiskey traders’ camp, I fought like ten warriors to free you. True, I wanted to kill you. But in a fair fight, warrior to warrior!”
This talk amazed Touch the Sky. He watched Wolf Who Hunts Smiling again make the cut-off sign. Clearly his enemy was convinced beyond all doubt he had returned from the Land of Ghosts. But why did he think this thing? What could have convinced him he had been killed?
Then, a heartbeat later, he understood.
He understood everything.
Now it was clear to him what these two Cheyenne—his sworn enemies—were doing in this desolate no-man’s-land so far from camp. Now he understood why that grizzly had so suddenly shown up at an uninhabited cave. He also knew how that freshly blooded fawn had gotten there.
It was bait planted by Wolf Who Hunts Smiling and Swift Canoe. Bait intended to lure his executioner.
His anger was tempered by his private amusement as Touch the Sky grasped the situation. For the first time in his memory, Wolf Who Hunts Smiling had lost his arrogant, wily sneer. Why not enjoy this rare turn of events?
“You say you only wanted to kill me in a fair fight. Then tell me, Cheyenne buck. Would you face a silvertip bear and call it a fair fight?”
Wolf Who Hunts Smiling was shamed into silence.
“And speak of this thing, great warrior. The night, at the white dogs’ camp on the Yellowstone, when you threw rocks to alert the paleface sentry? You ran away and left me to die. Was this another time when you wanted me to die in a ‘fair fight’?”
“These—these things were wrong,” admitted Wolf Who Hunts Smiling. “But River of Winds has recently sworn that he saw you making medicine with Bluecoats! And that time with the sentry, I was still angry after our fight which caused Black Elk to turn against me.
“But you were not killed as the result of anything I did, each time I left you a fighting chance. This is not the same as murder!”
“A long, thin creature that slides on the ground and bites me with poison is the same as a snake to me,” said Touch the Sky. “Call it whatever else you will. When you speak this way, you mangle words. Just like the white men who write talking papers and then steal our land with them. They call a white rock black when it suits their purpose, just as you now honey-coat your treachery.”
“Kill me if you will,” said Wolf Who Hunts Smiling. “Show me the Wendigo’s face and turn me to frozen stone. But do not say I am anything like the white devils who slaughtered my father!”
“I say it again! Evil was not invented by the white man—I have seen red men who would make the white devil Satan proud indeed.”
Wolf Who Hunts Smiling looked at the ground, knowing full well who he meant.
“What?” said Touch the Sky. “The child sulks! Will you now threaten to kill me again? It was your favorite sport while I walked the earth.”
“I have ears for this,” said Wolf Who Hunts Smiling. “You are right to mock me now. I spoke of it too much. Women fight with their words, men let their battle lances speak for them.”
Touch the Sky permitted his lips to widen in a wry smile.
“Are you telling me, then, that now you wish you would have killed me quickly and been done with it long ago?”
Wolf Who Hunts Smiling looked like a fox caught in a blind trap. He hadn’t meant to reveal so much of his true thoughts. Yet, it was foolish to lie to a ghost—it was said by the elders they could read the human heart the way living Indians could read a game trail.
Fear drained even the wily gleam from Wolf Who Hunts Smiling s eyes. But courageously, he nodded. “I wish now that I had sent you under, not Pawnee.”
Touch the Sky could not help admiring his enemy’s audacious courage even as he loathed him for his petty hatred and jealousy and ambition. Abruptly, he reached down, picked up a handful of dirt, and let it scatter in the wind.
“Tell me, Panther Clan!” he said to Wolf Who Hunts Smiling, each word laced with scorn. “How can a thing of smoke move the dirt—let alone harm a brave warrior such as yourself?”
It took Wolf Who Hunts Smiling many heartbeats to understand his mistake. When he realized, blood rushed into his face. Humiliation vied with rage and relief. Reflexively, he raised the Colt and aimed it at Touch the Sky. For a long moment the two Cheyenne stared at each other, faces carved from stone, eyes unwavering.
Then Wolf Who Hunts Smiling lowered the Colt. “Enjoy your white man’s joke. What happened here this day,” he said coldly, pointing out toward the battlefield where dead ponies and dead Pawnee still lay, “showed once again your great courage. You know I hate you, yet you saved me.”
“I saved a Cheyenne,” Touch the Sky corrected him.
“As you say. I still believe you secretly play the dog for whites. But I see now that I was wrong about your loyalty to the tribe. A Cheyenne who risks his life for a tribe member he hates will surely stand and cover himself with glory for those he loves.
“Even so, I feel it in my bones, the day comes when we will tip our lances at each other. And I will kill you—honorably or otherwise—if I obtain proof with my own eyes that you serve the Long Knives against us. Until such a day arrives, I swear this thing on my medicine bag: Never again will I sully the Arrows by deliberately endangering you in secret as I have done in the past.”
“I play the dog for no one,” said Touch the Sky. “But I have placed your words in my sash. I fear they are as close to a truce as we will ever come.” Touch the Sky recalled his medicine dream at the lake and added, “I too feel we will one day meet in combat. One of us will sully the Arrows by killing a Cheyenne.”
Wolf Who Hunts Smiling nodded. “I will wait here with Swift Canoe. Will you tell them back at camp where to find us?”
Touch the Sky nodded. “And I will mark the trail clearly with sign so they will be quick getting here.”
Touch the Sky had taken several steps back toward his hidden pony when the other Cheyenne called his name. He turned around.
Wolf Who Hunts Smiling brandished the Colt rifle.
“You have long wanted your weapon back. I offer it freely now.”
Touch the Sky debated. Black Elk had already taken the percussion-action Sharps rifle his white father had given him. He couldn’t be trusted with it, Black Elk explained, after the report from River of Winds. Why, thought Touch the Sky now, give Black Elk a second weapon to steal? He was riding back to enough trouble and hostility as it was. Approaching camp now with a long arm might even get him killed.
“You turned it into a true firestick this day,” Touch the Sky finally said. “I quit claim to it. The rifle is yours.”
“I accept it gladly!” Wolf Who Hunts Smiling called to his retreating back. “Just carry my warning close to your heart. I respect you, yes. But I respect any enemy who is worth the effort of killing!”