“They say a mining company is divided up into the teeth and the tail,” Caleb Riley said. “The tail part of this one is back East, eager to tote up their profits. And right now, I reckon, you’re looking at what passes for the teeth.”
Several huge bonfires lit the main field camp of the Far West Mining Firm in their flickering, orange-yellow glow. The air was pitch-fragrant with the smell of fresh-cut railroad ties heaped everywhere in serried pyramids. Stacks of pointed survey stakes alternated with groups of laborers. There were two groups: miners and the rail-gang crew recently recruited out of the town of Register Cliffs. Tents had sprung up everywhere, a virtual city of them.
The camp was located in a sheltered hollow well up the side of a mountain in the rugged Sans Arc range. The mining site itself, inactive of late, was a vast, dark scar farther up the mountainside. Earlier, riding in, Touch the Sky had spotted the first of the spur line right-of-way markers—a heap of rocks with a numbered stick jabbed into it.
Now Caleb was giving him his first quick tour. He pointed to a steam locomotive with a tender and several wooden boxcars attached.
“Brought ‘er in from Register Cliffs,” the young miner explained. “End of track is actually about another mile past this spot, but camping is lousy up there. The line’s gone as far as it can until the surveyor has got a sight to follow. This way we can at least get back to Register Cliffs for supplies. But that route is useless, far as hauling out ore. There’s no access to river shipping.”
Caleb pointed vaguely off toward the shadowy mass of the Sans Arcs.
“Our one chance in hell is to get that spur line through to Laramie, and quick. Every day the mine sits idle, we’re feeding and bankrolling an army. And frankly, some of these characters are pretty rough. It’s gonna be some nasty weather around here if this company goes belly up and strands them, broke and hungry.”
While he listened, Touch the Sky was curiously studying the iron horse. Even though he had spent his first sixteen winters among whites, he had never seen one before except in drawings. He admired the diamond-shaped stack, the ornate, scooped iron of the cow-catcher.
“That last car,” Caleb said, “is full of dynamite and black powder and fuses and such. That’s why we keep a sentry posted in front of it night and day. And that first car, we got plenty of oats and com stored there. We have to have mighty strong animals out here, and the grass is poor fodder. Of course, you’ll feed your own horse from it too. It’ll earn its keep up in that high lonesome.”
A tall, thin, nervous-looking man with mutton-chop whiskers stepped out of the surrounding shadows.
“Timely met,” Caleb said. “Here’s Nat. Touch the Sky, meet Nat Sloan, our surveyor. This is the Cheyenne I mentioned to you, Nat, the one my brother knows. He’ll be sighting through for us.”
More from fear than distaste, Sloan seemed to shrink into himself upon sight of this tall, half-naked savage looming before him. He did not offer his hand to shake. But Touch the Sky suspected this had nothing to do with respect for Indian customs.
“Pleased,” Sloan muttered. Though he didn’t actually leave, he seemed to withdraw toward the shape-shifting shadows as if suddenly fearing he made too tempting a target in the firelight.
“Relax,” Touch the Sky said scornfully without the slightest trace of an accent, “I won’t raise your hair until you’re asleep.”
For a moment, all three men hung fire. Then Sloan suddenly laughed out loud.
“Christ,” he said. “I apologize. Been reading too many newspapers lately.”
“Uhh, the men are a mite edgy,” Caleb apologized. “For most of ’em, this is the first time they’ve been in wild Injun country. You might think they’d feel safe enough, what with their numbers and all the weapons we’ve got to hand. But most of these men are laborers with no organized combat experience. They’ve fought in brawls, and they’ve fired squirrel guns and such. But half of ’em don’t even know how to crimp a cartridge.” Touch the Sky noticed several mule-team wagons loaded with crushed rock.
“That’s to shore up the boggy places,” Caleb explained. “The places you can’t get us around. Our rail gang is split up into three teams. We got the graders, the roadbed crew, and the tracklayers. Actually, the rails go down damn quick once we really start to hump it over easy ground. Once you blaze the way through for us, this spur line will be built quicker than scat.”
Again Touch the Sky noticed it: Caleb’s almost jaunty tone implied that the task was nearly done already. Nat Sloan, who had about ten years in age on Caleb, noticed this too. Now, despite his nervousness, he spoke up.
“Caleb, don’t you be turning that color into double eagle gold pieces just yet. I surveyed for lines back East that didn’t have half the obstacles these Godforsaken mountains pose.”
“You said you thought we could punch a spur through.”
“I did, and I still do. But you make it sound easy as rolling off a log. We got steep grades to level, gorges to cross, cataracts and rock slides to skirt. And cold weather sets in early at high altitudes. We get caught in a winter snowstorm, we’ll all be sleeping with the worms.
“This young Indian, hell, I wish him well. He looks stout enough to me, by God. But he’s got his work cut out for him, just like the rest of us do.”
Two burly men in twill coveralls passed near them. Caleb called out, “Liam! C. J.! C’mere a minute, fellas. Touch the Sky, this is Liam McKinney. He’s the gang boss for the rail crew. And this is C. J. Stone. Besides being a trick shot with a pistol, he earns his breakfast by holding the surveying sticks for Nat.”
Both men nodded warily at the tall young Cheyenne. But McKinney had a merry, hail-fellow grin and plenty of laugh lines in his tough face. He looked more curious than hostile at this up-close view of a wild Indian.
“That’s my crew over there,” he said, cocking his head over his right shoulder, “stuffin’ their gobs with bacon and biscuits. Mostly Irish, like me—the only race that prefers a bottle to a woman, the Lord help us! I’m hoping you’ll be givin’ those hard-cussin’ bachelors of the plains plenty of work. They get nerve-frazzled, just waitin’ around.”
“You can spread your blanket roll anywhere when you’re in camp,” Caleb told Touch the Sky. “That square canvas tent Liam just pointed out is the mess tent. You can consider that an invitation or a warning. You all set to start path finding tomorrow?”
Touch the Sky nodded. He had no intention of spending more time in this tent city than he had to. And did Caleb really think white men would let him eat with them? The youth had a good heart, Touch the Sky realized. Therefore he assumed the next man did, too. That could be a serious mistake on the frontier.
“Just roust me out when you’re ready,” Nat said. “I’ll give you your equipment, show you how to set the markers.”
Again Touch the Sky nodded. But for the space of a few heartbeats, as he stared out toward the vast, black-velvet folds of darkness beyond the campfires, a premonition of danger moved up his spine like a cool lick.
Somebody was out there. Watching. Waiting. He was sure of that. Just as sure as he knew there was a set of badger claws in the medicine pouch dangling from his clout—somebody was out there.
Almost as if timed to underscore this new danger, Touch the Sky heard the sudden, far-off kill cry of a mountain lion.
~*~
Sis-ki-dee could not slip close enough to hear what the yellow-bearded Crooked Feet was saying to the tall Cheyenne. But the Blackfoot renegade had immediately recognized this mining venture for what it surely was: a potential source of badly needed supplies for his band.
They had only recently reached the Bighorn country after fleeing from the massacre up north in the Bear Paws. The immigrants had been low on supplies, and the pickings were meager.
Forward scouts for Sis-ki-dee’s band had spotted the iron horse, then the field camp, before sunset. Plenty Coups had agreed with his leader: If they were truly going to control this region, the miners must understand immediately that a peace price would have to be paid. The first meeting between them and the “Contrary Warrior” would be crucial.
So a plan had been made. And now Plenty Coups and the rest of Sis-ki-dee’s renegade band had taken up positions in the surrounding rocks and trees. When all were ready, Plenty Coups nodded at his leader.
Sis-ki-dee had tied a white truce cloth to his lance. He left his buckskin-sheathed .44 North & Savage rifle with Plenty Coups. Now he rode boldly down into the Crooked Feet camp, lance thrust out before him.
Conversation, music, laughter, all slowly trailed off as this fierce apparition mounted on a big claybank moved through the circles of firelight. Flames gleamed off the heavy copper brassards protecting his arms, glinted yellow off the brass rings dangling from his ears, sent flashes from the gaudy silver trimming his saddle. His eyes were wild and crazy-dangerous, his hair close-cropped and ragged. Even at a distance, the smallpox scars lent his face an ugly, cruel aspect.
Sis-ki-dee had worked as a guide for the Northwest Fur Trading Company, so he spoke some English. He rode directly to the spot where Caleb and Touch the Sky stood talking.
“I am called Sis-ki-dee of the Bear Paw Blackfoot tribe,” he announced without ceremony. “Better known as the Contrary Warrior. I do not speak this name before a white man because I play the fawning dog. I speak it that you will learn to fear and respect it.”
Touch the Sky recognized the name immediately, as well as the insane glint in the brave’s eyes. Chief Shoots Left Handed had mentioned this renegade during Touch the Sky and Little Horse’s sojourn up north. He was a dangerous man, sick in the brain and capable of any act of heinous cruelty. For his part, Sis-ki-dee immediately suspected this was the tall young Cheyenne warrior who could supposedly turn bullets into sand.
“I reckon maybe I could get behind the notion of respecting your name,” Caleb finally replied, hiding his surprise at this unexpected arrival. “If I decided you deserved it. But as for the other, I didn’t come West to live in fear.”
It was a good answer, and Touch the Sky shared the same feelings. But this Blackfoot intruder clearly was not impressed.
“Is it even so? Then yellow beard, you were wrong to come, for ‘fear’ is now the ridge you are camped on!”
“Tell you what, friend,” Caleb said, “I got no stomach for threats. Let’s just cut through the shit and get down to cases. Speak your piece.”
“Even now, as your hair-faced companions sit around their fires and trade lies about their courage, my band have their rifles trained on their vitals. One signal from me, and there will be no one left to bury your dead.” Touch the Sky knew this much was bluff. Sis-ki-dee did have a band out there, no doubt. Touch the Sky knew he had followers. But if there were enough to easily wipe out the entire camp, it would have been done by now. Caleb glanced at him, and Touch the Sky signaled his doubts with a shake of his head.
“Better make sure they all shoot plumb,” Caleb said. “Else you ain’t gonna ride out of here, truce flag or no.”
Rage parted Sis-ki-dee’s lips and showed his teeth.
“I said get down to cases,” Caleb said. “You’ve already made it clear how tough you think you are. What do you want?”
“Guns, ammunition, liquor, food. You must pay a peace price for your use of this land!”
Caleb stared at the Blackfoot for a long time, as if he had just announced that pigs could fly. Then he turned to Touch the Sky.
“The hell is this? I just struck a deal with your tribe, now this jay comes along lookin’ to bamboozle me. You know him?”
Touch the Sky stared up at the renegade as he sat his horse.
“I know of him,” he replied. “Up north, in the Bear Paw Mountains, he is known as a murderer and a thief. If he has come down here, it can only mean his treachery has finally brought a storm of white wrath down on him.”
“And I know of you, Cheyenne dog who licks these Crooked Feet. I have heard the foolish tales of your strong medicine, how you turned an entire tribe into ghosts during a Bluecoat attack. Like most ‘shamans,’ you have cleverly invented tricks and deceptions to impress the superstitious cowards. You will find Sis-ki-dee much less easily impressed. And you had best think long and hard before you advise your white master here to ignore my peace price.”
“I will not think even for the space of an eye blink. I give him my counsel now, and it will not alter. I say this. You are a murdering, thieving intruder in my hunting grounds. You have no right to demand a peace price in Cheyenne territory. And I say this too. Even if a peace price were paid, your word is as bent as the white man’s barbed wire.”
Sis-ki-dee’s jaw clenched visibly, the muscles knotting. Now he stared at Caleb.
“Do you listen to the counsel of this reckless Cheyenne dog? Or do you wisely accept my offer and avoid a storm of trouble and rivers of blood?”
Caleb stood with his hip cocked, staring at the Blackfoot with contempt.
“Damn straight I listen to him. He’s right as rain. The Cheyenne tribe’s got a legal claim to the land we’re going through, spelled out in black and white in an official treaty. You, on the other hand, are just a common thief. I advise you to take your braves and skedaddle on out of here before I forget I’m a peaceful man.”
“A wise man never digs his own grave,” Sis-ki-dee said. “Now I give you a taste of the many bitter meals to come!”
Sis-ki-dee suddenly raised his lance over his head, the signal he and the others had arranged. Their plan was simple: As an awesome display of firepower, all of the braves had been instructed to empty their weapons into a single mule, now chomping grass near the mess tent.
But first they raised their eerie battle cry, “the shout that kills,” invented by Sis-ki-dee to unnerve Bluecoats. It was hideous to hear up close, thrust out hard from the diaphragm—a series of harsh, guttural barks which Touch the Sky could compare to nothing in his experience. The immediate effect of hearing it froze a man in his tracks.
Then, with an ear-splitting racket that made Touch the Sky wince, fifty rifles opened fire as one. Orange tongues of muzzle fire licked at the night, so many it was as if lightning had exposed the dark skeletons of the trees.
Even more dramatic was the impact on the target. The competing angles of fire, the continuous fire of the repeating carbines and Winchesters, the huge slugs of the big-bore Lancaster rifles—all this forced the unfortunate mule to perform a grotesque danse macabre. It first flew completely off the ground, then twisted and somersaulted before slamming into the ground again. But now it seemed to oddly crow-hop as more bullets made the legs and head flop wildly about.
Some rounds also struck the mess tent, shredding the canvas, raising a clatter as they thwapped into metal utensils. A rail laborer screamed in pain, his mess kit flying from his hands as he was struck. Then, even more unnerving after the sudden firestorm, the shocked silence.
The wounded miner groaned; intestinal gas escaped from the punctured mule in a steady hiss. The wind shifted slightly, and Touch the Sky whiffed the acrid stink of cordite staining the air.
Sis-ki-dee read the anger in Caleb’s face and spoke up quickly, barely containing his smirk. “Before you shoot me, remember those same rifles you just heard are now trained on you and your men. Is the pleasure of killing one crazy Indian worth making so many widows and orphans back east of the Great Waters?”
Clearly the marauder was enjoying this game. Touch the Sky did not wait for Caleb to speak. The young miner had already stood his ground well, and Touch the Sky respected him—obviously he was cut from the same tough cloth as Tom Riley. But though they were presently camped on open government land, it was Cheyenne territory that spur line would soon be crossing. That made this an Indian matter. And it was the Indian way to punish their own, not leave it to palefaces.
“You and your warriors have killed a mule,” he said, contempt clear in every word. “And you have played the big Indian in front of huge-eyed whites new to this territory. But a warrior does not waste time making he-bear talk, he lets his weapons speak for him. Blackfoot, I say you are a white-livered coward.”
In a heartbeat, Touch the Sky’s obsidian knife was in his hand. “Tether your mount, and we two shall fight to the death!”