Chapter 5

 

 

THE next couple of days passed much the same, their trip slower because of the rougher ground they were covering and because by late afternoon when the sun was in his eyes anyway, it was all Gideon could do not to grab Jed around the waist and just throw him into the brush alongside the trail. No, he didn’t mind the pace at all. He was enjoying his time with Jed, not just the relations, which were damned good and more than he could have dreamed for, but the company, too. Jed was quiet mostly, and sometimes Gideon missed having someone else talking, especially when he tired of hearing his own voice, but he was coming to think of the sounds around them—birds, coyotes, insects, wind in the dry grass, the burble of an unexpected stream—as the voice of his companion. He was coming to realize that Jed thought the same of himself.

They passed through Dubois, a small settlement that was hardly more than a couple of buildings and a stable. Gideon stopped at the trading post long enough to resupply them with some hard tack, jerky, coffee, and bullets for Jed’s gun, while Jed waited outside in the shade of the building. No one seemed to give Jed a second glance—but then, there was pretty much no one around to be glancing.

Two days out of Dubois, Jed walking ahead and Gideon enjoying the view as he led Star along, Gideon got his first adventure of the trip. He’d borrowed Jed’s rifle and shot five big geese the last time they’d camped near any water to speak of, and they had three left with their feathers still on, tied across the skirt of Star’s saddle, plus most of a cooked one from supper last night. That had been the last game to speak of that they’d seen, but Canada geese were big birds, fifteen or more pounds apiece. It was plenty to last them all the way to California, if it didn’t go off first, what with the crabapple tree Star had sniffed out and some kind of pine nuts Jed found that they’d harvested.

Gideon munched on a handful of those nuts as he half-listened to Jed’s chanting, but mostly he was caught up in the memory of what they had done the night before, when Jed had stretched out on his back and invited Gideon into him. He’d relished the feel of Jed’s lean legs wrapped around his waist, and the sight of all that jet-black hair spread out like a blanket beneath them. It had been the best yet, not just because he liked being on top like that, but because when it was over, as he stretched over Jed, they’d kissed—and Jed had opened his mouth for him.

He was thinking of that kiss, of Jed’s curious tongue touching his, of the taste of coffee and jerky and the wild mint that Jed had found along the way and liked to chew on, when Jed slowed and then stopped altogether, his head lifting and one hand going to his rifle.

Gideon’s hand went to the gun at his hip in a mirror action as he looked around for whatever had spooked Jed.

It didn’t take long to find it. They were coming across the plateau from the right, a small group of Indians. Like Jed, they carried long rifles, but they had theirs out and pointed toward the ground.

Jed glanced back over his shoulder, but he waited until Gideon came up beside him to speak. “We are on the lands of the Newe,” he said quietly. “Your people call them—” he paused then said slowly, “Shoshone.” Gideon felt a little thrill of excitement—he’d liked Indians before Jed, and he liked them a whole lot more now, but Jed’s face was stiff and still, and his eyes were trained on the men coming toward them. Gideon squinted against the afternoon sun and looked as well, counting five men, one older and four younger, somewhere between his age and Jed’s maybe. “They have no love for my people,” Jed went on after a few seconds, “but I can speak to them. I have traveled these lands before, and I have no quarrel with them, nor they with me.”

Jed seemed like he was just going to stand there and wait for them to approach, so Gideon did the same. “Shouldn’t we, uh, go up and say howdy?”

Jed shrugged, and Gideon grimaced at the back of his head. Now wasn’t the best time for the man to go mute on him.

For the moment, he kept his mouth shut and watched the new Indians approach. They were dressed similar to Jed, in native buckskin, white folks’ shirts, and leather boots, and they all wore their hair in long braids with feathers caught in the weave. The Shoshone slowed as they came near, the four younger ones fanning out around the older man when he stopped about fifteen feet away. The oldest wore a headdress that reminded Gideon of one that Harold Crowe wore for performances, and Gideon couldn’t help but smile.

One of the younger braves glared at him, and he worked to wipe the smile off his face right quick. It was then that Gideon realized that he might be the one to cause the problem here, him and his white skin.

Jed handed his rifle back to Gideon and held up one hand, indicating for Gideon to stay still while Jed stepped forward to greet the locals. Jed stood still before them, straight and proud, his pack on his back and his hands forward and spread open. Jed was the one who spoke first, his words sounding a little like the ones from his chants—but only a little. He spoke slowly, as if the words were difficult for him, and his eyes never left the older man.

The older man replied in the same language and without nearly so much difficulty as Jed seemed to have, and Gideon watched them all intently, curious as hell about what they were saying but smart enough to keep his damned mouth shut. After a couple of minutes, one of the younger braves broke out of the loose half-circle and walked up to Gideon with his hand out. Gideon thought at first it was for a shake, like most folks greeted one another, but when he extended his free hand, the brave frowned at him and reached right past it, grabbing the barrel of Jed’s rifle.

“Hey, now!” Gideon protested, tightening his grip on the stock.

“Let loose your hold, Gideon,” Jed snapped impatiently, and Gideon reluctantly did as he was told. He tightened his mouth to keep any words from slipping out when the Indian took his pistol out of its holster, too, examining it carefully before returning to his party.

The old man looked at Gideon square on for the first time, and said something to him in that new language they were all using. Gideon looked to Jed, hoping for a translation but at this point, not expecting it. Jed didn’t even look back, but he did say in English, “He does not speak the tongue.”

The old man’s English was heavily accented, but Gideon still understood when he said, “He speaks for you,” and waved his hand toward Jed.

Gideon crossed his arms over his chest, clutching tight to Star’s reins and forcing down his frustration about the brave stealing their guns. “Yeah,” he agreed. He pointed to the man who’d taken their weapons. “That’s my Colt, and the rifle’s Jed’s,” he said. “I didn’t expect no thieving.”

“Shut up, Gideon!” Jed snapped at him, harder than any words he’d ever said. To the old man he added, “He does not understand that you are holding them in trust.”

“You have entered our lands,” the old man said. “You may not hunt here. We have precious little game for our own people.”

“Oh.” Gideon stepped forward enough to get a glimpse of Jed’s profile, loosening the reins and letting the leather slide through his fingers so Star wouldn’t follow. Jed’s face looked just about chiseled in stone. “Sorry about the misunderstanding,” he said to the Indian holding their weapons. “You could’ve just told us. We ain’t gonna disrespect your rules.”

The brave holding the guns frowned at him. “White men say that often. Then they graze their cattle on our lands, kill our grasses, and try to settle within our borders.”

Gideon nodded, warming to the subject because he’d heard Harold tell stories like it many a night, to folks interested in listening before the shows. “I’ve heard that happens a lot, yeah. A friend I work with—he’s one of quite a few Indians I know—he says lots of us white folk are pains in your sides, so I can’t blame ya for being suspicious. But some folks like me, we just want to get along. I could tell you stories….” Jed had turned at some point during his speech to stare at him, mouth agape, and when Gideon noticed he trailed off. “What?”

The younger Indians said something to each other in their own language, and Jed turned back to follow the conversation. His face softened into a brief grin, and he nodded. “He does have the fox spirit in him, and he has many stories.” In the other tongue he added something that made all five of the new Indians chuckle. Gideon thought about frowning at Jed, who was clearly making fun at his expense, but he shrugged instead. Men who were laughing weren’t usually men who were readying for a fight, so he uncrossed his arms and extended his free hand.

“Y’all shake?”

The older man stepped forward and gripped his hand firmly, just like a white man would, and while Gideon sorely wanted his Colt back, he figured he’d see it before they moved on or Jed would have made more noise about it. This was the first time on the whole trip that Gideon had been glad all his guns were in a trunk and waiting for him with Bill’s show.

The old man didn’t let go of his hand. “You will not hunt here. You will not fight here. You will bring no harm to our people. You agree?”

Gideon shrugged. “Sure.”

The old man looked toward Jed again, who shrugged, too, and let go of Gideon’s hand. “We are returning to our camp,” the old man said, looking back and up, toward the sun. “We will travel together for now.”

It wasn’t a suggestion, Gideon realized as the braves moved to flank him and Star. The Shoshone leader nodded to Jed, who fell into step beside him as they led the procession. To Gideon’s left, the guy with their guns nodded to Gideon, and Gideon nodded back and tried a smile. The four younger braves veered off to a stand of stubby trees to pick up carcasses they’d clearly hidden when they’d seen him and Jed coming: two mule deer, each with its legs tied to a carrying pole, long, flat ears still just dragging the ground after each pair of hunters had hoisted their pole to their shoulders.

They walked an hour or more at a pace that made Gideon and Star sweat, but the Indians seemed to have no trouble, not even the ones carrying the loads. Jed stepped in to take one end of a pole, freeing up the brave who carried their guns. There was no conversation—or nothing that Gideon would call conversation. Every so often, the old man would say something, and Jed would answer, or the younger men would exchange a word or two, but no one really talked—not even when Gideon tried asking questions. All he got for his efforts were annoyed frowns from the Shoshone and a hushed, “Walk now, talk later,” from Jed.

So he spent the walk trying not to think about what the Shoshone wanted and trying not to watch Jed’s butt and trying not to let himself get so damned bored he’d start an argument just for the hell of it. He hadn’t thought much before about how his idle chat entertained him as much as his listeners. After a time he felt his tension ease a little and realized he’d started humming like Jed often did. He wasn’t using any words—he didn’t know how to say spit in Sioux—but the rhythms came to him easily after all these days and nights with Jed. The braves looked at him now with more curiosity than suspicion, so he figured he’d lucked on to something right, and either way, the humming kept him from going stir crazy.

Now that he was thinking about it, his mind naturally supplied more familiar songs and he hummed those, too, but quietly. He went through all of “You’ll Miss Lots of Fun When You’re Married,” twice, then hummed “I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen” before he jumped around a little through reels and dance songs, which didn’t seem to impress the Indians nearly so much. But nobody complained, either, and careful observation of Jed revealed no more than the man’s regular amount of irritation with his white ways, so he figured he was all right. Besides, it was something to do to while away the hard-walking hours.

He was halfway through the songs he knew from H.M.S. Pinafore—the little musical troupe that traveled with Bill Tourney’s show had been performing parts of it for a couple of years now—when they topped a rise, and he caught sight of the camp. For some reason he’d expected a fire pit and some pulled-up logs, the kind of camp he and Jed had been making every night for almost two weeks now.

He hadn’t expected a home.

Clearly though, that was what this was, a native town tucked up along yet another winding bend in the Snake River. Tall teepees stood in a loose half-circle around what could only be called the public square. Well… public circle. He grinned, amused at his own wit. Permanent buildings ambled away from the teepees, some as familiar to Gideon as any settler’s cabin. Other buildings looked like workshops, all of them made of wood and earth, and two big barns stood a little away from the rest. Wagons, a few of which looked brand, spanking new, were lined up beside the barn. Ponies dozed in a fenced corral, and Gideon couldn’t wait to get a look at them. Indian ponies were captured or bred from the wild mustangs that roamed the prairies out here, and he’d heard tell they were fine horseflesh, some of them.

The last thing in the world he wanted to do, though, was gawk like so many paying customers did at Bill Tourney’s show, eyes wide and mouths open, dumbstruck and looking like ignorant hicks for it. So he set his jaw firmly, concentrating on keeping his teeth together, tugged his hat a little lower down on his head, and shut up with his singing as they all approached the town. A rutted wagon path led up from the south, and when the braves reached it they turned onto it, picking up their pace like horses to stables the closer they got to home. Gideon was jogging along and Star had kicked into a trot by the time the eight of them—well, the seven men plus Star—reached the square.

People came out to meet their party, women and kids mostly, and an old man who must be the chief, the way the hunting party collected around him. Lots of words, not in any language he could understand—apparently not in any language Jed did either, because he came back to stand beside Gideon with the one brave who Gideon guessed had been assigned to watch them. After a time, the old man raised a hand, and Jed stepped forward. Gideon was still holding Star, so he figured he could just keep being useful like that and stay out of Jed’s way until somebody asked him to do something. The chief nodded at Jed and asked something in that tongue both tribes knew. Jed answered it, his voice smooth and low even if he did go slowly with the words. Whatever he said seemed to satisfy the chief, who nodded once more and turned back to the man who had been leading the hunt. Jed came back to stand beside him while the locals talked on, gesturing to each other and to the deer that the braves had laid down, pointing at the sky and the hills to the east. Gideon wished like hell they’d talk English, because this was the longest and most animated conversation anybody’d had around him since—damn, he thought, resisting a low whistle, since Livingston.

Gideon looked around the village, silently doing the math. There must be a couple of hundred people here, and most of them looked thin and tired. Five young men sat back, away from the milling crowd, and their hair was all cut short, shorter than Gideon’s was now. “They get in trouble?” Gideon asked Jed. He pointed to the men with the short hair. They looked sullen enough, maybe hair cutting was some kind of punishment in these here parts.

Jed sighed, shook his head, and turned to the brave who still carried their guns. After a brief exchange, Jed went back to using English. “They traded their hair for supplies,” he said flatly. “Those two new wagons, bags of flour for winter. The government….” He sighed again. “Your people, they do not understand. They think if they make us look white and dress white, we will become white.”

“Huh.” Gideon had actually seen a lot of pictures, conversion pictures they were called, of Indians who he’d always thought had taken up the Christian religion, or white society. It hadn’t occurred to him that the government had been bribing them to do it. “So, what? They’ll grow their hair back out now?”

“Of course,” Jed said, and shot him an annoyed look. “Would you not?”

It was Gideon’s turn to shrug, because while he understood a little more about Indians and their hair than most folks did, he clearly still didn’t understand enough. “So why did they cut their hair for supplies?”

This time, Jed actually turned and looked at him, his eyes wide and his face showing more distress than it had since they’d met up with the Shoshone. “Look around,” he hissed before drawing a deep breath and schooling his features back to stoniness. But his eyes were still wide and angry, and Gideon felt guilty without knowing why.

So he looked around, paying closer attention than he had before. Thin and tired, he thought again as he looked at the people, but more—thin to the bone, some of them, with the dark circles under their eyes and deep shadows in them. More than tired, they looked exhausted, and weary of the world.

He looked closer at their surroundings and saw the way the hide on the teepees was worn and patched, as was the clothing the Indians wore. The buildings were rough and more than a few had holes between the boards that needed filling in, and gaps in the wood itself. 

“Jed?” he asked in a whisper. “What’s… why are they so…?”

Jed’s face tightened. “Because they are Indians. Because your people think it is better to confine us to land that is dying, that you have robbed of game and forests and fish, so that we might die as well.”

Gideon frowned, looking back at these Shoshone. The chief and the older man who had led the hunting party here were moving away from each other, and the group around them was shifting as well. 

“His name is Tendoy,” Jed said as the older man came toward them, followed by the braves who had traveled with them earlier and a larger crowd of stone-faced onlookers. Gideon was used to being looked at, so he just smiled and nodded at those people who met his eyes, mostly the women, and waited on Jed to finish filling him in. “Tendoy is honored here. We are his guests. We will be treated well.”

Tendoy came close, holding up a hand to Jed. He spoke again in the tongue that Jed understood, and Jed answered. Then Tendoy turned and spoke in a loud voice to the braves who’d walked them to this village.

Jed whispered, “He is telling them that we are to eat well and to sleep on furs as warm as their own. They killed two deer today.”

Gideon frowned as he looked at his companion. “They got no call to feed us. Tendy here already told us they didn’t have enough game on their land for us to be huntin’ on it.”

“‘Tendoy’,” Jed corrected. “It is the way of the Newe, Gideon. If they have welcomed us as guests, then that is how they will treat us.”

“Well, I’ve got some white ways I’m pretty fond of, too,” Gideon said stubbornly. “And one of ’em is not taking from folk who can’t afford to give it. Hell, Bill Tourney lowers the price on tickets a little when we run across a town that’s hard up, and he loves money more than he loves his wife.”

Jed didn’t have a chance to answer him, because Tendoy took that moment to call to Jed, drawing him away. Gideon stepped back, rubbing Star’s neck as she nudged him with her nose looking for treats, but Gideon quieted her with a word while he watched the village folks going about their day.

Tanning racks lay on the ground not far from the road they’d walked in on, but there weren’t many hides tied to them. An old woman with two little kids, a girl and a boy it looked like, skillfully scraped one hide that they’d laid out in the sand by the river’s bank. From this distance he couldn’t tell what the hide was from, but it sure was bigger than a deer. Still, it was only one. The low building that was clearly a smokehouse, he’d expect to see sides of carcasses hanging, drying meat to get ready for winter, but to Gideon’s eye, too many of them hooks were empty. Some of these men had cut their hair for supplies. Gideon felt his mouth tighten, thinking on how important it had been to Jed that somebody carried his hair for him. Whatever barber had cut those braves’ hair wouldn’t know nothing about that, would have just swept it out with the rest of the trash at the end of his work day.

There must be a couple of hundred people here, but the garden down by the river didn’t cover more than an acre, and it had damned little in the way of row crops, mostly corn and beans. Mule deer were big enough animals, but them two were going to go fast. He eyed the geese still tied behind his saddle, and hoped Jed wouldn’t mind. “Star, you be still now,” he said quietly, and dropped her reins to the ground. Sliding a hand over her flank, he reached to untie the cord that they’d used to tie all three birds’ necks together from the saddle strings.

Tendoy was still walking to Jed, and Gideon thought maybe it wasn’t proper for him to just go up and interrupt one of the old folks, so he looked for and found the brave who’d carried his Colt and Jed’s rifle on the walk back here. “My name’s Gideon Makepeace,” he said as he walked up to the brave. “What’s yours?”

The man looked at him for so long, Gideon thought maybe he wasn’t going to answer. But then he said, “Cowhatocowait.”

Gideon wanted to groan. Why didn’t these folks have white names, too, like Harold Crowe and the other Indians in the show? Hell, maybe they did and just weren’t inclined to tell him. “Ka-ha-do…” he tried and frowned. “Beg pardon?”

That actually brought a smile to the brave’s face, and he repeated his name, slow and careful: it sounded like Cowhad-to-cowait to him, so he said it back, just to be sure.

The brave nodded, then raised his hand, palm to the ground, and waggled it side to side. Gideon grinned, reckoning that “close enough” translated fine for just about every kind of person he’d ever run across. “We appreciate you having us as company. My folks taught me that we should always have a gift to give when we visit.” He held out the three geese. “Don’t know if I’m s’posed to speak to the older feller over there. It okay if I give ’em to you? You could maybe pass ’em on from Jed and me?”

Cowhatocowait’s face softened some, and he nodded. “I do not give them for you. You give.” He pointed to where Jed and the old man stood, so Gideon squared his shoulders and prepared to do this all over again. He came up behind Jed, trying to be quiet enough but failing, because Jed turned to glance at him before he got within ten feet of the pair.

“Here,” he said, taking a step past Jed and holding the geese out to Tendoy. The older man drew back, maybe in surprise, and a couple of men from the camp moved fast, coming in close like Gideon was gonna—what, knock him in the head with three dead geese? Still, he held them out and waited, looking away only long enough to check that Star was minding, ground-tied right where he’d left her. Her ears were swiveled toward the corral and the other horses, but she stayed put, and when he turned his head back around, Tendoy was frowning at the geese, then up to his face. 

As Tendoy met his eyes, he said, “I got us five of these Canada geese a few days from here. My family and I, we bring something when we come visiting. Specially seeing as how y’all weren’t expecting us, and you’re still doing us the kindness of letting us stay here tonight.”

Tendoy stared at him before his eyes went to the geese. Then, he turned slowly to look at Jed. “You took them,” he said, tilting his head toward the geese.

Gideon frowned in confusion until Jed nodded and said, “Gideon did, with my rifle and his bullets. He speaks for us both. There is another, also, cooked. We will share that as well.”

Tendoy looked back to Gideon, but Gideon was watching Jed. The corners of those thin lips twitched just a little, not a smile, but the start of one. Gideon smiled for both of them and held the geese closer to Tendoy, glad when the old man took them because they’d been getting damned heavy. Fifty pounds of gooseflesh wasn’t as good as a mule deer, but it was more than these people’d had before, and Gideon was glad to do it—glad Jed was, too, after what Tendoy had said.

From there, everything went easier. He and Jed were ushered away, surrounded by men who wanted to share their tobacco and company. Gideon had to explain three times that he needed to take care of his horse before Cowhatocowait understood that he wasn’t gonna let nobody else do it for him, and had two teenaged girls walk him over to the corral.

“Any stallions in there?” he asked, peering around the corral for balls beneath long, bushy tails. He wasn’t willing to take the chance that she might be amenable to company.

The girls frowned at each other and at him, until Cowhatcowait caught up to him, and he could ask again. “Need my mare to be ready to perform when we get to San Francisco. Last thing I need from her right now’s a foal growing inside her. Just wanted to make sure you didn’t have any studs mixed in here.”

Cowhatcowait smiled and pointed up the river, where a lean-to and a much smaller corral had been built right into the water’s edge. They didn’t even have to carry water for the horses kept there. “We have three stallions. But your horse is not in season.”

Gideon shrugged. “I spent the last four months on a breeding farm, and I swear some days it seemed like most of my time was took up keeping the studs away from her, or her away from the studs. I just don’t want to take any chances.”

“She has good lines. Why do you not wish to breed her?”

“I work for a wild west show,” Gideon said, wondering if he’d get invited to tell some of his stories. “I think she’ll make great foals, too, but she’s only four years old, and I ain’t ready to ruin her for show work just yet.”

Cowhatcowait shrugged and shook his head. “She is safe here. Kimane and her brother sleep at the lean-to, to care for our stallions. The horses have never escaped before.”

Gideon nodded and started pulling Star’s tack and saddlebags. She’d had a long day and a fast one, compared to most, so he borrowed a burlap sack and rubbed her down good, smoothing her hair and looking for hot spots from her saddle or the bags, but she was fine. He dug in his carpetbag for a crab apple and held it out, enjoying the feel of the soft hairs and softer lip as she nibbled it out of his palm before, with a scritch for her ears, he set her loose in the corral.

“Star is well?” Jed asked him when Cowhatcowait escorted him back to a big fire pit between the teepees.

Gideon squeezed Jed’s shoulder in thanks. It had taken Jed some time to accept just how attached to his horse Gideon was, and more time to appreciate why.

“She’s good. They even let me treat her with some oats, and in the morning I’ll let her loose with the mares and the geldings to graze. Be a nice break for her, too.”

“For her, yes,” Jed said, his face still and sober, but his eyes were dancing. Jed was teasing him again.

“Yep. Now me, I’m itching to be moving, but I suppose I can suffer with the break,” he said, and smiled when Jed shook his head, grinning fondly.

“Come to the fire, Gideon.”

Gideon followed Jed to the big fire pit where three circles of logs, like theater seats, surrounded a big open space and the fire in the center. Cowhatcowait directed Gideon into the second row, and Gideon settled down next to Jed. A minute later Tendoy joined them, settling into a squat on Jed’s other side. Gideon came to appreciate the bonfire as darkness fell and the night cooled down. There was a lot of talk, and some of it was even in English so he could understand it.

As the smell of cooking meat started to fill the air, Gideon felt a change in the people around them. Voices rose and there was more laughter. Someone started playing drums, thin hides stretched over wooden frames, and before long a brave in the front circle peeled off his shirt and started dancing. Others followed suit, and soon enough most of the people from the inner circle were doing the same. It wasn’t dancing as Gideon was accustomed to, not paired-off couples doing reels and twirls around the floor; instead, it was mostly men, stepping to beats of their own, a little like what Harold, Thomas, Aaron and the others did for the paying audiences in Bill Tourney’s show. They moved in a wide circle around the fire, stomping their feet and clapping their hands, chanting like Jed but louder, their voices and the women’s in the crowd blending with the rhythm from the drums. This dancing showed him more than anything else just how much of a put-on Harold and his kin did, and how much of their real dances they hid or saved for their special occasions.

As the dancing went on, more of the men stripped off their shirts, twirling about with their skin glistening in the glow of firelight. A few went a step farther, dancing only in thongs and moccasins, their legs muscular and defined, sweeping upward to curves of ass and waist that made Gideon have thoughts he knew he ought not to be having right now. He wondered if Jed would take offense that these writhing bodies were affecting him.

After a while, as the speed of the music changed, Tendoy leaned toward Jed and said something. Jed frowned, his eyebrows drawing together. He glanced to Gideon then turned back to Tendoy who said something else and smiled. As with Jed, it was a slight shift of the corners of his lips, but his eyes lit with amusement, and Gideon wondered how bad this was going to be.

“Jed?” he murmured, leaning in close to his friend. “Everything all right?”

Jed said something else to Tendoy, who nodded, before Jed turned and said just for Gideon, “I have been asked to dance. It is an honor, to share the dancing circle.”

Gideon looked to the dancers near them. “They, uh, ain’t gonna ask me to join in, are they?” he asked. Not that he hadn’t danced with his Indian friends before, when he’d been drunk enough.

Jed snorted. “No, they will not.”

Gideon tilted his head Jed’s way, examining the way his eyes followed the dancers’ movements, certain Jed wasn’t thinking the things Gideon had been a moment ago. “You want to dance?” he asked.

Jed shot him an eager look. “It has been five years since I danced with others.”

“You should, then,” Gideon urged, grinning despite himself. “I’m happy to watch.”

Jed’s face hardened like it had when they’d first met these Shoshone out on the plains. “Do nothing—” He stopped, pursing his lips, then glanced warily around them, “backwards. And stay quiet.” He leaned just a little bit closer and hissed out, “For both our sakes.”

Gideon nodded agreement, even though he had to wonder what Jed was so worried about. He didn’t speak Shoshone, and while the Shoshone spoke English, they didn’t seem very keen on using the language unless they were talking to him directly. Wasn’t like he was dumb enough to make eyes at any brave, not even Jed, in company like this.

On the other hand, it was hard not to want to start something when he watched Jed move his blanket to a log in the front row and join the circle. The Shoshone were strong dancers, their movements sharp and aggressive, as if they were doing a war dance. But the sounds of drums and the bodies of most of the other dancers seemed to fade away as Jed absorbed more and more of his attention. Jed’s movements were similar, and his dance was similar, but he used more turns and more circles, his hips and arms weaving patterns in the air. His voice was hard to hear, but Gideon could imagine it, low and clear, familiar to Gideon’s very bones.

When Jed caught the hands of a brave and a squaw and set them to moving sideways, around the fire, they caught the hands of those next to them, and so on until all of the dancers were joined. The quiet conversations in the audience faded away until all Gideon heard was the crackle of the flames, the beat of the drums, the soft slaps of moccasins on dirt. This went on for some time, and ended as naturally as it had begun, folks simply letting go of each other’s hands.

When no one was holding hands anymore, conversation picked up again in the crowd, and Jed started to weave among them again. He reminded Gideon of an exotic woman who traveled Bill Tourney’s show. She danced with scarves and veils and chains that she wore at her waist and on her ankles and wrists. The idea of Jed in colored veils, his limbs jingling with chains—well, it didn’t do nothing for Gideon’s peace of mind at the moment.

Suffice to say, Jed was a sight to watch.

He moved faster than the others, dancing between them and around the circle, his head thrown back and his long hair whipping around with his movements where the Shoshones’ braided hair stayed more still. When Gideon caught sight of his face, it seemed that his eyes were always closed, which Gideon knew couldn’t be the case—he could have run into the others or stepped into the big fire in the center of the dancing circle.

Gideon leaned forward, fascinated, so focused that the voice next to him startled the hell out of him.

“He dances as a warrior.” Tendoy had moved in close beside him, settling on the log where Jed had been sitting.

Gideon nodded, careful not to reveal what he was thinking.

“The gods sent us that dance,” Tendoy said slowly, as if trying to find the words. “We believe it is a way to save ourselves from your people, to bring us back to the old ways. To give us back our lands.”

The sadness in his voice caught Gideon’s attention, and he turned to look at the older man. “That’s the Ghost Dance then,” he said, less surprised than he supposed he should have been.

Tendoy looked startled for a moment before the lines of his face smoothed to blandness. “The Ghost Dance has been forbidden by your white leaders,” he said, his voice mild. “We would not break your laws.”

Gideon looked back to where Jed danced, twirling faster now, his arms outstretched, his leg strong and reliable for him, not bothering him at all. Some of the Shoshone dancers had stepped out of the circle to watch him, and Gideon read the respect on their faces. 

Outlawed or not, Indians still held to their faith just like white folks held to theirs. Seemed like Jed was made up of his faith.

Tendoy said, still very slowly, “It was his people who died at the Knee.”

His people. Jed moved to the far side of the fire, his movements partly lost behind the bright blaze. “I don’t mean no disrespect, but I don’t know a lot about your people—or any of the tribes, not on their own. I reckon everybody’s read about Wounded Knee,” Gideon offered, careful now. “But I’ll bet I don’t know as much as I should.” It was sort of the truth. Most of his Indian friends were from further north, up in Canada. While he knew that there were a lot of different tribes, he’d never given much thought to the differences between them, not like he would to, say, the differences between Irish and Italians.

Here he was, keeping company with one, and he didn’t know how to tell him from most of the other Indians he saw.

Jed did a series of jumping twirls that had the drummers picking up the pace of the beat, and Gideon found himself clapping along, relieved when all the noise made it too loud for more conversation. The other dancers picked up the beat, too, as it grew into a frenzy of jumps and turns and somersaults in the air that made Gideon think more of circuses he’d seen than of Indian ghosts.

When Jed came out of a jump and fell to the ground, Gideon jerked forward, but Tendoy’s hand on his arm stopped him. “He has died. He will rise anew,” he said, like he was quoting scripture. Gideon watched as a few other braves leapt and fell to the ground, as other dancers moved over and around their panting bodies, and the rest of the tribe got to its feet, clapping to the beat of the drums until the dancers still standing came slowly to a halt.

They were breathing fast and hard, shiny with sweat, and dark circles stained the shirts of the ones still wearing them. Jed pushed off the ground and shook his head back, his hair wild, his eagle feather still drifting in the air behind him, and strands of hair were stuck to his damp forehead. But his eyes were bright and as alive as Gideon had ever seen them—more alive than in the heat of their passion.

This was something Jed loved, this dancing, but Gideon guessed Jed loved even more what it was supposed to do for his people.

Any tensions left between the Shoshone and Jed ended with the dance. The food was ready, and they sat to eat, sharing a meal of goose and fresh venison, some kind of root vegetable that reminded him of turnips, and flat bread still warm from oven or stone. As Jed settled back down beside him, Gideon grinned.

“If I’d known you could do that,” he whispered, “I’d have asked you to dance for me.”

Jed grinned back and said just for Gideon, “You have. It’s just a different sort of dance.”

Gideon watched Jed eat, watched the grease from the venison shine on his fingers and wanted to lick it off them. He turned his eyes away before he made trouble.

When the stories started, it was easier to ignore the lure of Jed beside him. An old woman who called herself Anzee-chee began the storytelling session, telling of a massacre some thirty years past that had taken too many of their people, and of a medicine man who’d seen it in a dream and saved those families who’d left before the military arrived from Fort Douglas. She told it in English, no doubt for his sake, and the way she spoke the words sounded like poetry to Gideon. He had the sense that if she repeated the tale, every word would be the same. He knew from Harold Crowe and his brother Luke that lots of tribes kept their history this way, since none of them were much for writing or book making.

“Jedediah says you tell many stories,” Tendoy said, turning to Gideon. He raised his voice, gaining the attention of all the folks settled around the fire. “Gideon will tell a story of his people’s now.”

Gideon flushed and shot a look to Jed, looking for guidance. He didn’t think stories about the show were proper, not after the tale the woman had told, and he didn’t know what these folks would want to hear.

Jed nodded to him. “Tell them of how your mother met your father, and how she came to travel with him,” Jed suggested, and Gideon smiled. Jed loved that story, and it was a nice tale indeed. Might lift some spirits around here. So he launched into it, telling about his grandmother the schoolteacher, how his ma said it had been love at first sight with his daddy. “Well, love at first sight or not, it took the whole week the show was in town for it to be love of any other kind,” he said, infusing his voice with the dark humor of it. “A few weeks after the show moved on, Mama turned up expecting with me, and she wrote a letter to my pa to see if it was really love or if she’d just been, well, a stop on the road.” Gideon smiled fondly at the memory, because he’d had his share of stops on the road and not one of ’em would he have been overly happy to hear that kind of news from. “My daddy’s name is Robert Makepeace, and he wired her money to come and catch up with him the same day he got her letter. I was born in New Orleans, where the show hunkers down for the winters, and I’ve worked with it since I was a kid. Still do,” he said.

“But the show is not near here,” one of the braves said, a question in his voice.

“Gideon was hired by a horse breeder in Montana,” Jed put in, “to help school some of his animals. Gideon saved my life there, and now I am returning him to his family and his work.”

Some folks nodded, and plenty of the women were smiling. True love was always a happy tale to tell. When a brave stood up to tell a story, his was happier, too, and right funny, about his first hunt and how bad he’d been at it, scaring the game away with his noise and his questions until his older brother had threatened to leave him under a tree until the hunt was finished. And so the night went on, long after the food was finished and the fires burned low. Some folks had already gone to bed. Gideon could see shadows through the teepee walls, the movement reminding him of puppet shows the actors’ troupe put on for little kids.

Cowhatocowait asked him for one more story, so he told one about a dancing bear who had been a part of the sideshow for a couple of years, right up until it had tried to dance with the wife of the mayor in a small town in Virginia. The bear had been more interested in the smell of the flowers in the woman’s hat than in the woman herself, but she hadn’t understood that one bit, and the bear had scared ten years off her. They’d managed to get everybody settled down with the bear unhurt, but the bear and his keeper had parted company with the troupe soon after.

The moon, just a few days past new, had set long ago, and most of the fires were banked for the night. Tendoy held up his hands after Gideon finished. “Rest. We must hunt at dawn,” Tendoy said, his voice stern as he looked at the braves who were still chuckling at Gideon’s story. 

Gideon said, “I’m right tired myself. Jed and I still need to find a place to bed down anyway—”

“You will stay here,” Tendoy said, gesturing to a nearby teepee. “The furs are thick and soft.”

Gideon glanced to Jed, unsure of how to answer.

“We do not wish to take someone else’s furs,” Jed said in English, but he added to it in whatever that language was that both tribes seemed able to speak.

Tendoy frowned, but he looked a little relieved, too. He answered Jed in that foreign tongue then clapped his hands together, pointing to a little crowd of young men. They rose and moved away to do his bidding, and Tendoy pushed himself to his feet. It was the signal for everyone else, and Gideon was thankful; his legs were aching from sitting Indian-style for so long.

“We will share Tendoy’s teepee,” Jed explained. “It is an honor to share his home.”

Gideon nodded his thanks to Tendoy. “Them geese Jed found,” Gideon said, “they weren’t but three days east of here. Big flock of ’em, maybe Jed can tell you how to find ’em?”

“Three days is off our land,” Tendoy said, a clear rebuke.

Jed leaned forward, said, “It is less than two days, without a white man and his horse. The land between here and that lake is unsettled. We saw no cattle or whites to the west of it. You could send only two braves, and they could bring back much meat and feathers.”

Tendoy looked thoughtful, and nodded slowly. “Tell Cowhatocowait of your route. But tomorrow. Now, we sleep.”

Tomorrow, Gideon promised his unhappy dick, they’d be moving on. But it was going to be a rough night of not thinking about Jed and his dancing.

It wasn’t though; once he settled in on the bed of furs a hell of a lot softer than his bedroll on the ground, Jed stretched out past him, their heads close together like they slept most nights, he found that he couldn’t stay awake.

As Tendoy had promised, the next morning started early, and Gideon was not happy to be rousted before the sun was even up. It didn’t take him long to figure out that he was in a whole village of people like Jed, who were up and moving before first light, and he hoped they wouldn’t be staying in too many more Indian camps along the way. He’d got to liking his extra time to rest while Jed got up and roamed for meat or wild vegetables, and he realized now just how much Jed was spoiling him. The thought made him grin, and he vowed to do more of his fair share on the road ahead.

Star was just as uninterested in moving around at this time of the day as he was, but she gave in more quickly when Jed murmured things to her in his own language and stroked her long neck and behind her ears. Gideon was almost jealous of the horse, and he said as much, drawing a quick grin from his companion.

They set out with Tendoy and his braves, walking as the sun rose. There was as little talk as there had been the day before, but there was less tension. When Gideon started humming, one of the braves grinned at him, and before too long, he was teaching “Never Mind the Why and Wherefore” to the whole party.

They stopped at a stream to refill canteens, and Tendoy gave them back their guns. “We will part here,” he said, speaking English. “Kill no more than you must to eat for a day. Go in peace.”

Gideon took his gun from the man then held out his hand in offering. “Thanks for the hospitality,” he said.

Tendoy nodded, clasping Gideon’s hand like a white man would. He turned to Jed and spoke in Shoshone, which Jed answered in kind. They spoke longer, and when they parted, they grasped each others’ wrists in the Indian way.

Tendoy stepped back, and Jed turned to Gideon. “Come on,” he said quietly, leading the way.

The Shoshone waited as they walked away, and even though he could feel their eyes on his back, Gideon didn’t even think to feel threatened.

After a while he looked back, and they were gone. He could barely see them moving off to the north, vague shadows amid the dry grass.

After a while Gideon asked, “Why did they give us back our guns? I thought they didn’t want us killing anything they might need.”

Jed smiled a little. “You shared food with them, and you shared your life with them. You showed respect for their ways.”

“How about you, Jed?” Gideon asked. “Did I show respect for your ways?”

Jed slowed his pace a little, looking at Gideon. For some reason, this answer was suddenly very important, and Gideon stood a little straighter. There was plenty he could have done wrong, from plain old ignorance—

“Yes, Gideon,” Jed said slowly. “You did. I thank you.”

Gideon felt his chest puff up with pleasure at that answer, and turned his face away to hide his smile, so Jed wouldn’t tease him about it. Much as he usually enjoyed Jed’s teasing, this thing with the Shoshone had been… well, it had become important to him that he’d done good by Jed.

They moved on until almost nightfall, when Jed found a stream and strolled along until they found a good spot to camp near it. While Gideon set a small fire, working with Jed’s flint which he was learning to master, Jed put their bedrolls side by side. Before the sun was down, Jed stripped out of his clothes and washed, then he wrapped himself in his blanket and his thong, so Gideon braved the icy water and did the same but pulled most of his clothes back on after. It was getting damned cold tonight. They ate dried meat and flat bread that Tendoy’s people had packed for them, and while it seemed like they were talking a lot, neither of them actually said much with their mouths. Before they’d finished their meal and packed the rest away for tomorrow, Gideon was half-hard, just from the looks he and Jed kept sharing.

 

 

AFTER the sun set, the gray dusk gave way to a blue-black night in the east and warm, darkening hues to the west; the crescent moon hung low in the sky. Jed stood and dropped the blanket onto the rest of his bedroll. With his eyes holding Gideon’s, he moved in a slow circle around the bedrolls, swirling and stomping in a rhythm that needed no music, even though he did almost-silently chant the familiar sounds Gideon had come to know. 

Gideon slapped his thigh like a drum, keeping time with his partner, and it wasn’t long before Jed was covered in a sheen of sweat that caught the firelight so that he seemed to shimmer as he moved. Jed’s hair was blacker than the night, and it, too, caught what little light there was, shining as it swung and flew with a life of its own.

Part of Gideon had a life of its own, too, and it rose hard and proud as Jed danced, his naked skin inviting, his lithe body showing all its finest qualities to Gideon’s hungry eyes. The thong covered Jed’s good parts, but it also defined the hard muscles of his ass, drawing Gideon’s eyes every time Jed turned or twisted.

On his fourth or fifth pass around their bedrolls—Gideon had lost count long ago—he came close enough for Gideon to reach and run his fingers down the back of one leg. He didn’t intend to throw Jed off-balance, just to draw him closer, but Jed was shifting his weight from one leg to the other, and Gideon’s pull on it threw him off his center. Jed fell. Fortunately, he was small enough that he didn’t hurt Gideon too much when he landed squarely on him. Unfortunately, it ended Jed’s dance—and took Gideon’s breath. Jed lay on top of Gideon, trying to get his arms under him. Gideon caught his hips, hands slipping on all that sweaty, bare skin, and did his best to lift a little, helping Jed put some space between them until Jed got his arms pushed out in front of him. 

His hair hung down like a dark waterfall on all sides of Gideon’s face and over the top of his head so that Gideon couldn’t really see anything: no stars, no moon or sky, not even the details of Jed’s face just a few inches above his. All he could do was feel: the hard dirt beneath his bedroll and the hard, warm planes of Jed’s body pressed against him. He could smell the rich, earthy smell of Jed, and the mint on his breath, could hear the sound of Jed’s panting loud in his ears as Jed quickly caught his breath.

Gideon decided that now was a great time to take it away again, with a long, deep kiss that ended with his tongue in Jed’s mouth and his hands struggling to untie the damp leather tie of the thong. For his part, Jed had positioned his knees on either side of Gideon, and Gideon could feel the press of Jed’s erection as it ground against his own. 

 He twisted, levering himself and then rolling so that Jed was under him. The thong came loose, and Jed grunted as they rolled and twisted against each other. When Jed rose above him, Jed managed to get his hands between them and tug Gideon’s pants open, and for a while, Gideon did no thinking at all.

But when Jed slid down, urging Gideon on top, Gideon’s body cooled just enough for his brain to start working again. He looked down into Jed’s eyes, starlight reflecting in the wide pupils. “This means a lot to me,” he said, searching for words that he’d never used before, not with a man or a woman. Words he wasn’t sure he should be using now, not just because Jed was a man, but because the words seemed so important. Binding. San Francisco wasn’t so far away anymore, and they’d be parting ways there. Words, meaningful words… there seemed no point to it, except for the need inside Gideon to say them.

“I know,” Jed answered, his voice low. “I feel for you, too.”

Gideon smiled down at him, the words warming parts of him that weren’t connected to his balls. He leaned down and kissed Jed, slow and warm, letting the heat of passion cool just enough to give them both back a little control. “Want to give you something,” he said as he drew back. And Gideon did; he wanted to give Jed his heart, but that seemed big, too big, and the other offer was easier to face. “Want to let you get inside me this time.”

Jed blinked and his breath caught, a choked sound in his throat. His hands tightened their grip on Gideon’s shoulders, his fingers hooked into the fabric of Gideon’s shirt. “What?” he asked, his voice passion-thick and rough with desire that was familiar now, and so damned welcome.

Gideon swallowed, but he didn’t back down on his offer. He didn’t even want to. “You been the one doing the most giving,” he said. “Reckon I’d like to be giving you some back.”

Jed held his gaze for several seconds before taking a slow breath. “I—I can’t. Not now. I am too impatient. You would have pain.”

Gideon kissed him on the lips, a soft touch. “I ain’t afraid of you,” he said as he pulled back. “And I ain’t a virgin—I’ve had men before.”

Jed smiled, his teeth white in the darkness. “I’m glad to hear it,” he said. “But for now, I like it better the way we have been doing it.” To emphasize his words, he spread his legs and hooked his ankles behind Gideon’s knees. “I want you again tonight.”

The relief Gideon had felt earlier came back, but this time, he chided himself for it. Jed had every right to ask for and get the same thing he offered to Gideon so willingly. And Gideon wanted to give it. But as Jed arched his back, pressing his hips up against Gideon, Gideon was glad that the hot column of flesh bruising his belly wasn’t going into him tonight. He always had been called selfish, and he wouldn’t deny that. Not about this.

Jed really was impatient, and he barely gave Gideon time to find some grease to ease the way. By the time they were joined, he was pushing up against Gideon, using his legs to lever his groin up off the bedroll, rubbing himself against Gideon’s belly as much as he could while Gideon pushed deeper and deeper inside him. As much as Gideon liked talking, there just wasn’t anything that needed saying when they were like this. He resisted the pull of Jed’s ankles, resisted his own wants enough to get inside slow, until he was buried to the balls. Once he was seated he rested on his elbows and looked down at Jed’s face, trying to make out what few details he could from the flickering firelight, but he had the feeling he’d get his ass kicked—literally—if he didn’t hurry up and get moving. Still he waited, until Jed’s tight-clenched eyes opened, and Jed looked up at him, until Jed’s urgent movements slowed just a little, and he thought Jed might be frowning at him.

“What?” Jed asked him.

“Nothin’,” Gideon replied, and pulled almost all the way out of the tight-clenching flesh, then thrust back in. The movement made Jed’s head push back into the ground and his neck arch, made Jed’s chest push up a little as he responded to the pleasure Gideon could give him.

Gideon got plenty of pleasure in return, the passage slick and tight, warm and so smooth, and he gave up trying to control this thing and just rode it, letting Jed lead as much as he could, even though he knew it was going to make him spill sooner than he wanted, make this end sooner than he wanted it to. He focused as much as he could on Jed, to try and take his mind off that tight, slick glove around his shaft, but it was a lost cause, and soon enough, he was grunting, sure the end was coming at him like a freight train, keeping the pace Jed seemed to crave with an effort that made the urgent pleasure surging in him all the better for not letting it get rushed any more than it already was.

“Jed, I’m—” he panted.

The strangest thing happened: Jed, whose arms had been around his waist, moved one down to his ass and poked a finger into him, dry, startling him a little, and moved the other up to his arm, gripping his biceps hard. Jed didn’t even say anything, and Gideon just kept thrusting, getting maybe a few more in than he would have otherwise, from that little pain of Jed’s finger in him and the other pain of Jed’s fingers so tight they might leave bruises on his upper arm. He thought of them marks there, and felt how each thrust forward tightened his hole around Jed’s slim finger, and when he came, he felt like his body was getting shaken apart. Every piece of it felt like it was coming: his ass where Jed’s finger barely moved, his balls, his buried, overwhelmed cock, his belly, his throat where some kind of sound wanted to climb out, his clenched teeth, his arm where Jed’s fingers branded him. Hell, it felt like the roots of his hair were quaking and shaking right along with the rest of him.

He panted and shook, and Jed just lay there, legs gripping around the backs of Gideon’s thighs, and when Gideon could, when the pleasure waned a little, and he had some kind of control over his body again, he hunched back just a little to make a space between their bellies. He didn’t pull out of Jed’s ass—he wasn’t dumb about things like this—he just made enough room to reach between them, using the arm Jed didn’t have that death grip on, grabbed up Jed’s hard, hard cock, and stripped it fast, three times, four, five—the come slammed through Jed just like it had Gideon, the muscles of his ass clamping so tight ’round Gideon’s sensitized cock that it almost hurt, his body arching and rolling and making this ride as rough and wild as any spirited bronc could, but so much better. So damned much better.

Slowly, Jed’s grip on his arm loosened, and slower still Jed’s arched body relaxed back onto their bedrolls.

“Ahh,” he said, a damned noncommittal sound for all the pleasure Gideon knew they’d each just had. It made him smile, though, and after a second he slid his hand down Jed’s arm, encouraging him to ease his finger out. He used the same hand to reach even more awkwardly behind himself and unhook Jed’s ankles from around each other, and only then did he pull out of Jed. The sound, soft and wet, sent a last lurch of pleasure through his groin, and he smiled some more as he finally rolled to one side of Jed and stared happily up at the blanket of stars.

“One day,” Gideon said, “you’re gonna fuck me like that.”

The silence stretched on for a couple of minutes, broken only by their calming breaths, the crackle of the small fire, and the sounds of night critters—crickets mostly, and mice or rabbits or gophers rustling the dry grass around them. Jed’s hand bumped Gideon’s hip and felt around for his hand, clasping it tight. “One day,” Jed agreed.

Gideon figured he could die right now, and he’d be satisfied with his life, short as it had been so far. He didn’t have to look at Jed to strengthen that feeling. He wasn’t sure this feeling could get any stronger, this satisfaction that reached far past his loins, up to his heart and his head and into his soul. For the first time this trip, he decided that California, and San Francisco, weren’t nearly far enough away.