12

The next morning found Kirby and Sam riding far in advance of the dilapidated caravan and talking, small wonder, of Indians.

“It appears,” Kirby was saying, “like young Satank has dusted the country.”

“Likely he has,” Sam agreed. “And with all them mules danglin’ from his coup stick, he kin afford to. Thet was a neat trick. The red rascal’s got brains and innards, both. Woyuonihan, I respect him. I respect all of them. They’re great people.”

“I allow ye’re the original red-lover, Sam. Me, I side with Cap Marcy … ‘It ain’t no use to talk honor with them. They ain’t got no sech thing in them. They won’t show fair fight and they kill and sculp a white man wharever they get the best on him, and if ye treat them decent they think ye’re afeered. No, the only way is to invite them all into a big feast and then kill about half of them. Thet way the balance will sort of take to ye and behave themse’fs …’ Now thet’s the way old Cap seen them, and thet’s the way Kirby Randolph sees them!” Kirby bobbed his head with a great deal of conviction and Sam, looking at him with his mouth corners screwed down into his chin whiskers like he had just bitten into a green persimmon, slowly wagged the head of his inner thoughts.

This obstinate cub was sure set against color, especially Indian color. Too bad, too. Save for his contempt of color blood, there wasn’t a sharper young one on the frontier. Happen the boy could learn himself that blood was red, no matter the color of the skin that was laid around it, he would finally be a man, full grown.

* * * *

The hundred miles from Ash Creek to the Ford of the Arkansas would have taken the sap clean cut of a fresh-sawed stump. Sitting now, hunkered to the coals of the ninth fire they had made since losing the mules to the Kiowas, Kirby glumly reviewed the journey.

It had taken them three days to pull the thirty-three miles to Coon Creek. The first camp out of Coon Creek, heading for the Caches, thirty-six miles beyond, they had buried Uncle Thorpe. The old man had lived four days, his leg apparently starting to heal. Then on the morning they had left Coon Creek, when Kirby had taken the rags off the stump to change them, he had smelled it beginning to rot again. He had wrapped it back up again, saying nothing to the oldster. But at noon camp Thorpe was talking to Clint again and by span-out time that night, he was dead.

Next day had been clear and beautiful and they had made a good camp that night. The following morning three Mexicans and two skinners were down sick and Sam, diagnosing the trouble as scurvy, had warned Kirby that they would have to lay over soon for a buffalo feed or the whole company would be down. Meantime, half a day was spent gathering prickly pears, and mashing them and boiling them into a bitter pulp which Sam forced down every gagging member of the train with the dire admonition that “scurvy was one painful son of a gun of a way to die. And thet short of fresh humpmeat and hot buffler boudins, pear pulp mashed and boiled was the onliest way to fight it.”

An all-day buffalo scout at the Caches had netted nine thousand piles of dead-dry chips and exactly one bone-clean bull skeleton. Then for the past two days it had rained steadily again, holding their miles down to a measly seven or eight a day.

Right now, judging from the way the moon had her pocky bottom wedged among the cross-river sandhills, it was crowding 1:00 a.m. Unable to join the rest of the camp in its grave-quiet slumber, Kirby had given up trying, rolled out of his blankets, stirred up the fire, thrown on a handful of wet chips, humped his lean belly up to the stink and the smoke, and crouched down to do himself some worrying.

And what was worrying him wasn’t busted wagons, trailmuck rains, fresh meat, or scurvy, or even digging old Thorpe under. What really had him down was a little billet-doux Sam had brought him after night-supper.

The young scout had sent the white-haired trapper over to Aurélie’s fire to drop a hint in Ptewaquin’s huge ear that the tall young Wasicun would make talk with the little Shacun lady. Nothing could be guaranteed, of course. The Wasicun was, after all, a warrior. But it might be gathered that if the little Shacun behaved herself, showing proper respect and becoming modesty, the Wasicun might possibly be in a mood to tender some peace talk.

Sam’s return from this truce-feeler had been prompt, the answer he bore, roundabout but clear and cold as lake-ice.

Ha-ho, ha-ho! Ptewaquin thanked the Wasicun. He was indeed a warrior. Even a chief. Tahunsa, they were cousins, Ptewaquin and the Wasicun. But the little Shacun would not talk with the tall white warrior. She had changed trails now. She was going to live in the great lodge of the dark man. The thin one who smiled so much and rode the fine black stallion. Even no later than this very night Ptewaquin had heard the little Shacun tell him that she would share his great lodge at the Trail’s end. Nohetto. There you were!

Cripes! Hearing that Aurélie was going to marry Don Pedro and go to live with him for keeps in the Governor’s mansion in Santa Fe was enough for Kirby. More than enough. Way more. Damn her anyways and all of them that carried color. They were all alike. Wild. Crazy. Spooky. Scary. Quick to twist into a man or away from him. Slow to go away from his mind. Once they got you, they had you. They had you and they held on to you. Held on to you like this cussed Aurélie was holding on to him right now. Propping his eyes open. Keeping his nerves tight. Not letting him ease down. Not letting him sleep. Pulling his mind and his hands back onto that creamy face and the full, live warmth of the rest of her. Pulling his nose back to the wonderful smell of her. His eyes to the peach curve of that dusky cheek, the heat lightning of the gleaming teeth, the green fire in the smoking glance. His ears to the passion-parted lips of her, burning moist on his cheek, and to the throaty, panting words of them—Oh, Wasicun! Wasicun!