White Elk and the two braves with him, Lone Cougar and Spotted Calf, allowed their horses to meander across the open prairie as they carefully studied the ground for sign of buffalo. With no idea where the nearest herd might be, the Indians saw no sense in keeping their mounts traveling in any particular direction. The only attention the Indians gave the animals was to keep them moving when they stopped to graze on the sweet, fresh grass.
The three were one of several teams of trackers acting on suggestions by War Heart to find out if any more scattered bison had wandered onto the reservation. The remainder of the beef cattle had been slaughtered and consumed a week previously. The hides, when treated as the Indians had learned to do the skins of buffalo, did not turn out well. The cow skins ended up stiff and leathery, of no use except to make shields. No Kiwota would huddle comfortably under one of those when the next Moons of Cold Hunger came upon the prairie.
White Elk and his companions could find no sign of buffalo. They wandered farther west to Greasy Flats which marked the edge of the reservation in that direction. White Elk, a tracker with a strong instinct for the job, suddenly felt the presence of the animals or at least of a trail.
“Ah! My medicine tells me there is a herd nearby!” White Elk exclaimed.
Long Cougar laughed. “Is it your medicine or do you smell buffalo shit?”
Spotted Calf smiled. “My belly and the bellies of those in my lodge care not if it is medicine or stench. Which way is the herd?”
White Elk pointed the direction in which he wished to go and pushed on with Lone Cougar and Spotted Calf following. They rode out onto the flats, able to see for great distances in the area where only the barest rise of ground existed.
Lone Cougar pushed himself up and stood on his horse. He peered around in all directions. “I see nothing of buffalo,” he complained.
“There is something,” White Elk insisted. “I can feel it. Even if it is nothing more than tracks, we can follow them. If we find the herd, we can turn it toward the reservation and drive it where we can kill many animals without breaking the treaty.”
The trio of warriors continued on their quest. After a short time they discovered some tracks and dung. Spotted Calf slid from his horse’s back and studied the droppings.
“Ah!” he exclaimed happily. “They came by here two suns ago.”
“Yes,” White Elk agreed. “The main herd must be farther that way. These are the marks of young bulls who have yet to mate. The old bulls keep them away.”
Lone Cougar laughed. “Like an old man with young wives who are wanted by men of their own age.”
“Come!” White Elk said. “You make your jokes later. Now let us find this herd and turn it east. Then one of us will go to the village and bring other men to make the kills.”
“I will go,” Spotted Calf volunteered.
“Wait until we find them,” White Elk said. “If we can drive them closer to the village, it will make an easier kill.”
The warriors picked up the pace a bit until they found the tracks of a medium-sized herd. There would be enough meat to feed the People for a short while and relieve the hunger that had begun to set in from the shortage of beef and the slaughter of the large herd.
“Hold!” White Elk said. “More tracks. Look! White men’s horses, see?”
Spotted Calf pointed to the ground. “They are turning the herd to the west.” He looked around. “I think the white men came from the south and found the buffalo. Look at the tracks now. The buffalo started to run.
“The white men drove them away from the reservation so we could not find them,” Lone Cougar complained. “I thought Looks Ahead told those hunters to go away.”
“Maybe they will slaughter the herd and leave them to rot like they did before,” White Elk said. “If they do it off the reservation, we can do nothing.”
“I think that Running Wolf will then look for those whites and kill them,” Lone Cougar said.
“I will help him!” Spotted Calf said.
“And I!” vowed White Elk. “But let us see if the buffalo got away and maybe turned back toward the east. Come!”
More riding and tracking showed no dead buffalo, but the Kiwotas reached a place where the marks of the shod horses indicated they had turned in another direction.
“The buffalo kept going away from the reservation, so the white men knew they had done what they wanted to,” White Elk said. “At least they did not kill the buffalo. That means we might find them again someday.”
“The whites have still done us harm,” Spotted Calf reminded his companions. “The People will once again feel hunger. It is not right or proper during the Moons of Warm Weather.”
“The whites are on the reservation. Let us follow these hoof prints and find them,” Lone Cougar said. “They are not many. If we use stealth, we can kill them.”
“I agree,” White Elk said. “I will watch the ground. You two look around as we ride so nobody will sneak up on us.”
The sun went a quarter of its journey across the sky to the west as the tracking continued. By that time, the trail had veered slightly to the east out of the Greasy Flats and back onto the Buffalo Steppes. Scattered copses of trees became more numerous until there were enough of them to stop the east wind’s gusty wanderings across the reservation. The trail the Kiwota warriors followed meandered in and out of the formations of sporadic growth of elms, cottonwoods, and spruce.
“I think these whites did as we have been doing,” White Elk surmised. “They were a small group out hunting buffalo.”
“Not hunting buffalo,” Spotted Calf corrected him. “They searched for buffalo to run off so we would not have them.”
“Let us find those dung-eaters and kill them!” Lone Cougar exclaimed. “They have caused misery for our women and children.”
White Elk pressed on with his two companions. Suddenly smoke and bright flashes appeared in one of the tree lines. A split second later, the whine of bullets cut the air around them.
The Kiwotas whirled and rode in an oblique direction to seek shelter in another wild orchard. But fire came from there, too. Spotted Calf grunted and slipped to the ground. He managed to get back to his feet as Lone Cougar rode toward him. But the young Kiwota collapsed to sprawl in the prairie’s deep grass before help could arrive.
White Elk’s horse took a hit and stumbled. He slipped from the animal’s back, staying on his feet. He quickly knelt and fired in the direction of the attack. Then he went to his bow and arrows, sending three of the projectiles flying toward the targets. Two fell short, and one entered the trees.
The heavy firing continued, and Lone Cougar took several hits simultaneously. He went limp and fell from his horse. The way he hit the ground showed White Elk he was already dead. Now White Elk could see numerous white men coming at him from three different directions. He and his friends had stumbled into a cleverly concealed camp that was scattered between the different stands of trees.
White Elk sent arrows flying as he turned from group to group. He made no strikes, and his efforts came to a halt when a bullet shattered his skull. Collapsing to the dark earth, he joined his companions in death as the two unhurt Indian horses galloped off.
Coming across the open space, walking cautiously, the attackers approached to inspect the three corpses. Pockets Dugan was the first to arrive. He went to each Indian and bashed in their skulls with the butt of his Hawkens rifle.
“I ain’t a-going to put up with no possum playing,” he said. “I seen redskins lay still ’til it suits ’em to jump up and fight again.”
Red-Eye Morgan, Dan Lilly, and Earling Denmore joined him. One of the others finished off White Elk’s injured horse with a shot in the head.
“Poor ol’ thing,” he said in sincere sympathy.
“I’ll tell you one thing about Injuns,” Pockets remarked. “They can be real dumb bastards sometimes, can’t they?”
“These three thought they was tracking no more’n a half dozen of us,” Red-Eye said. “They damn sure didn’t know we’d have our camp scattered and hid in these trees like this neither.”
The remainder of the gang gathered up the Indians’ firearms and ammunition. They checked for other belongings that might prove useful, taking what they wanted. Red-Eye Morgan took out his hatchet and started chopping at the corpses, leaving gaping wounds. He slashed the legs so bad that a slight tug would separate them.
Dan Lilly chuckled. “Do you believe the same as them Injuns that a mangled dead man is going to the afterlife as a cripple?”
“Shit no!” Red-Eye replied. He had been left in charge by Ned Wheatfall. “I always do this for the misery it gives their pals and squaws on account o’ they think the dead’uns is gonna be stumbling through the Happy Hunting Ground for eternity like this. They got the belief that they’ll have to depend on the charity of others in the afterlife or whatever they call it.”
“Anybody want scalps?” Pockets Dugan asked. “It’s gonna be first come, first served.”
“Hurry up at it if you do,” Red-Eye said. “And don’t get real comfortable when we get back in the trees. We’re gonna have to leave early to be south o’ Bear Gap by late tomorrow like Wheatfall wants.”
After the scalps were taken by a couple of the hunters, they all went back to their various camps. The Indian corpses, mutilated and robbed, lay in undignified positions from the rough handling they’d received.
A couple of hours later, when the sun set and the evening breeze came up a bit, the darkness settled in over the remains of White Elk, Lone Cougar, and Spotted Calf.
No animals came near the dead men that night. The strong smell of humans coming from the three closely located bivouacs made the wolves, coyotes, and even the bears wary. When first light came the following morning, a heavy dew covered the bodies still lying in the same positions. By the time the sun was high enough to evaporate the moisture, Red-Eye Morgan and the rest of Wheatfall’s men had broken camp and were cantering south across the prairie, skirting the Buffalo Steppes as they headed for Bear Gap.
The insects, having no fear of humans, were the first to descend on the remains. Buzzing blow-flies landed on the gaping wounds, sticking their proboscises through the congealed blood to reach the still-liquid stuff farther down. They swarmed over the bodies, across the open eyes, and into the mouths of the dead Kiwotas.
A crippled coyote, his kill-limiting injury making him desperately bold, wandered in closer. The smell from the camps was still strong, but he had not eaten in three days. The famished animal bit into White Elk’s belly, pulling away flesh to expose the organs. The wild canine was able to take one mouthful of intestine and bite into the belly cavity for another before the arrow slapped into its shoulder. The animal yelped and tried to get at whatever had attacked it, stumbling on injured legs.
A second arrow from Running Wolf’s bow put the animal out of its misery.
The group of a half-dozen Kiwotas had picked up the dead men’s trails late the previous evening. Curious about the buffalo tracks, Running Wolf had decided to see where White Elk, Lone Cougar, and Spotted Calf had gone.
Running Wolf dismounted and squatted beside the body of his dead friend White Elk. He felt a long stab of pain and grief as he thought of the brave warrior going blind and crippled through the afterlife. Tears welled up in his eyes and flowed down his cheeks with the awful remorse that racked his body.
Other warriors, sent on to investigate the various stands of trees, now rode up and looked at the mutilated corpses with numb misery. None uttered a word. They remained silent, turning their eyes to Running Wolf, waiting for his reaction.
Running Wolf wiped at his eyes and stood up. “Now I know what the white men want,” the warrior said. “They will use this treaty to kill us a few at a time. When all the men are gone, they will let our women and children starve. Then they will cut up this ground like they did on the other side of the river on the east to grow crops.”
“Will we fight Looks Ahead again?” one of the other men asked.
“We will fight them all!” Running Wolf shouted. He vaulted back onto his horse. “Let us go back to the village. I would speak with War Heart.”
There were no more thoughts of finding buffalo as the group of Kiwotas rode cross the expanse of the prairie. Angry and desperate, they galloped on as fear for their families and their tribe grew with each stride of their war horses.
It took the greater part of the day to make the return journey. By the time they reached the village and splashed across the river to the lodges, the afternoon sun sat poised for its dive to the west. Running Wolf sent two of the men, Little Dog and Bear Claw, to announce the deaths of White Elk and his two companions. He then went directly to War Heart’s tepee and found him sitting in front, watching his wives tend to their chores.
Running Wolf dismounted. “White Elk is dead. So are Lone Cougar and Spotted Calf. They were killed by whites in the trees near Greasy Flats.”
War Heart’s eyes opened wide. “How can this be?”
“It was done by white men who then cut them up. Now they will go to the Spirit World blind and crippled,” Running Wolf said. “There is no medicine strong enough to mend their souls. Others will have to feed them.”
“You saw this?” War Heart asked. He did not weep openly; but his voice quaked, and tears eased down his cheeks.
“I saw their corpses and the tracks of the white hunters,” Running Wolf said. “The treaty is a trick to make us stop fighting so they can kill the warriors and starve our families.”
“I will speak to Looks Ahead,” War Heart said.
“What for?” Running Wolf demanded to know. “He will not get us the beef cattle we need. He said he made the hunters leave the reservation. But they have come back and even killed three of our men. All Looks Ahead does is lie. He used to be an honorable warrior and fighter. Now he hides behind lies because I think his medicine has grown weak.”
“He is a strong warrior,” War Heart said.
“Ah! Then, why did he quit fighting us and make a treaty?” Running Wolf asked. “I know. It was because his medicine will not work against us anymore.”
“I think his medicine is still strong,” War Heart said.
“You led us before when we fought Looks Ahead and his soldiers,” Running Wolf said. “We always fought him here on the People’s land. I will fight him differently and take the angry warriors who will follow me.
“How will you do that?” War Heart asked.
“I will leave the reservation and go far and wide across the flat country and kill whites,” Running Wolf said. “Looks Ahead will have to take his soldiers and ride far to find me. It will be different.”
War Heart, consumed by grief and misgivings, hung his head and said nothing.
“I will kill white soldiers, too,” Running Wolf said. “After they are all dead, we will go back to the way it was before they came here.”
“You cannot kill all the white soldiers,” War Heart said. “They are too many. Don’t you know? The White Father has so many soldiers that he sends them here to be killed. He does not care.”
“I will make strong medicine for myself,” Running Wolf said. “I know I can do that because I am so angry and ready to fight. This fills me with sacred strength and valor. I fight for the People! I cannot fail.” He scowled at War Heart. “You have failed!”
“I will speak to Looks Ahead about the white hunters,” War Heart said. “He will kill them for us.”
“He will not,” Running Wolf argued. “He wants all the People to die like the other whites.”
“I will speak to Looks Ahead,” War Heart said.
“You are a woman, and he is your husband,” Running Wolf sneered. “Will you fight with us?”
“No,” War Heart replied. “It is not good for the People to make war now.”
“We cannot find buffalo, and we have no cattle to eat,” Running Wolf said. “Would you scratch at the ground like the white man for your food? We are meat eaters! The only growing things we eat are what the women and girls gather in the forests. Would you live on berries?”
War Heart signaled his decision to speak no more by staring ahead.
“Ah!” Running Wolf said. “Go to your husband! I will take Kiwota warriors and go to war!”