“Just remember, Carlson. The shit rolls downhill. That’s not my cherished personal philosophy, Captain. That’s the way the Chain of Command works. If I get thumped on from above, I thump on those below me. And I assure you, I am being thumped on.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I don’t believe it! Two raids, practically back to back. Carlson, I was willing to overlook your miserable conduct and proficiency reports from Fort Bates. I happen to know the man who commanded your regiment there. Bruce Harding is a good enough clerk. As a soldier, he isn’t worth the powder it would take to blow him to hell.”
“My sentiments too, sir. He—”
Colonel Orrin Lofley frowned, nervously fingering his red goatee. “I’m not finished, Carlson, you’re out of line! As I was saying, I was willing to overlook all that. But two raids mounted by a small group of renegades, back to back, and what’s your battle plan? Has your company even pulled up its picket pins yet?”
“It’s posted in the morning report, sir. My company deploys at 0500 tomorrow.”
“Don’t give me the smart side of your tongue, Soldier Blue. I know damn good and well when you deploy. That’s why I called you in here. Those special weapons I requisitioned have arrived from Fort Union. Your men can pick them up at the armory after you sign the receiving orders.”
Carlson felt a smile tugging at his lips. Since Matthew Hanchon and his stocky little companion had obviously thrown in with Shoots Left Handed’s band, that was good news indeed. Anything was good news if it increased the chances of killing Hanchon.
“Very good, sir. I’m sure they’ll be an efficient addition to the unit.”
“They damn well better be.”
Lofley shut up before he embarrassed himself. But Carlson knew he was thinking about that fiasco with the Hunkpapas—the infamous operation where twenty-five thousand rounds of ammunition scored five kills, all women and children.
Lofley was even more agitated than usual, Carlson noted. Thanks to the newspapers making merry at his expense, humiliation had become Colonel Lofley’s constant companion. Lofley confirmed all this with his next remark.
“I can’t even look my own wife in the eye, Carlson. Her lying there in bed, so sore from a redskin bullet she can’t move. And what does the horseshit-for-brains chaplain give her as reading material to pass the time? The Bible? Hell, no! He gives her the newspapers, full of scathing articles written by cowardly little scribblers who have to squat to piss. Articles about the supposed buffoon she married!”
Hell, Carlson thought, even a blind hog will occasionally root up an acorn. Why can’t the newspapers be right now and then?
But he wisely held his tongue while Lofley wrapped up his tirade. “We’re just goddamn lucky nobody got killed this time. But the paper-collar newspaper boys are reminding everybody over and over just how many gold double eagles were heisted. Carlson, you’ve got a history of fighting Cheyennes. I know that some tribes in the Southwest have learned about currency from the Mexicans. But since when does the Cheyenne tribe suddenly place such a value on white man’s gold?”
This question was uncomfortable and made heat rise into Carlson’s face. He realized, again, that his little scheme was played out. Ironically, Lofley hadn’t asked that question until he’d read it in the very newspapers he hated so passionately.
“That’s a puzzler, sir, it is. But the Cheyenne is a wily Indian with no lack of brains. They’ve found some use for that gold.”
“Speaking of wily Cheyennes. Did you send Rough Feather back out as I ordered?”
“Yes, sir. As soon as I had his map and crystal-clear directions. He’s been ordered to watch the camp constantly. If they move, he’s to blaze a trail and follow.”
“I see you ordered the band to remain in garrison for the deployment instead of marching out with you. No music?”
“That’s right, sir. No music, no bugles, no flags. Just weapons and ammunition, all packed on the men themselves. The lack of fanfare is to remind the men of the mountain company’s single mission—to kill Indians.”
Lofley thought about that, fingering his goatee some more. Then he approved it with a nod.
“I mean it, Carlson. Don’t let this explode in our faces while the eyes of the entire goddamn country are on us. When you do reach this camp, do not take all damn day in a complicated West Point maneuver. The longer it drags on, the more chance for something to go wrong.”
“Don’t worry, sir,” Carlson assured him. “Nothing can go wrong. It’ll be fast, it’ll be efficient, and I guarantee, there won’t be any Cheyennes left to report to the reservation.”
~*~
“But why did Arrow Keeper send just us?” Little Horse said. “Without boasting, brother, I can agree he sent two of the tribe’s best warriors. And perhaps, with luck and skill, two good braves might indeed stop these make-believe Cheyenne raiders. But buck, from all the sign we have read, the jaws of a death trap are already closing on this camp. Two braves are merely two more to die with the others.”
Late afternoon sunlight slanted through the tipi’s smoke hole and the open flap of the entrance. Little Horse still lay resting in his buffalo-fur sleeping robe. His voice, like his body, was still weak. But the crisis had passed, and once again the sturdy little warrior had eluded Death’s black lance.
“I too have given much thought to this thing,” Touch the Sky said. “Arrow Keeper has entered the frosted years, truly. But brother, his mind is as keen as the blade of my ax. He has a plan.”
“I have never known him to be without one, surely. But what kind of plan? Brother, you have eyes to see! These Cheyennes have reached the end of their tether. There is no place left to run, nor are they strong enough to flee if they could.”
Touch the Sky nodded. “I know, brother, I know. You think that perhaps this time Arrow Keeper made us wade in before he measured the depths? Perhaps. Even the wisest owl can fall from its tree. But I do not believe Arrow Keeper sent us merely to furnish targets for the Bluecoat bullets. This time I do not think our battle skills were foremost in his mind.”
Little Horse’s forehead wrinkled in curiosity. He studied his tall young friend closely. Little Horse was among the few in Gray Thunder’s tribe who had noticed the mark buried past Touch the Sky’s hairline: a mulberry-colored birthmark in the perfect shape of an arrowhead. The traditional mark of the warrior. But such a sign also marked vision seekers and those whose medicine was strong.
“You mean, brother,” he said slowly, “you think the hand of the Supernatural is in this thing?”
But Touch the Sky refused to talk of such things openly. At any rate, he thought, his own supposed magic had done precious little to help their desperate kinsmen.
“Leave it alone, brother,” he told Little Horse. “I can see that you are tired and need to rest again. Get strong, buck, find your fighting fettle! You are no good to me sleeping in this tipi,” he added fondly.
Little Horse yawned hard. “I will soon be fighting like five braves,” he assured Touch the Sky, his eyelids already closing.
“I never saw you fight any other way,” Touch the Sky said, though he knew his friend was asleep.
Touch the Sky too felt the same sense of helpless frustration Little Horse had expressed. For now he was limited to constant scouts around the perimeter of camp, checking for more infiltrators. He had already helped erect breastworks of pointed logs, lining them across the one vulnerable entrance. Rifle pits had been dug behind these. But rifle pits were almost a meaningless gesture because the tribe owned only a few rifles and ammunition was critically short.
He stepped outside into the bright sunshine. The air, this high up, was rarified and clear, and he could see the mountains of the Land of the Grandmother to the north. As he passed through camp, some of the others cast odd looks at him.
Their looks were not exactly unfriendly. The Cheyenne people were too hospitable for such barbarity to visitors of their own blood. But the nods that White Plume and Pawnee Killer exchanged—clearly they said, “This stranger, so far he is a good nurse. Fine, but this is squaw’s work. He seems useful for nothing else. As for his supposed medicine—add his magic to a rope, and all you have is a rope.”
But Touch the Sky only held his face impassive in the warrior way, keeping his feelings private inside him. Slowly, as he made his way carefully down the narrow access trail, the camp began to recede behind him.
The sun was at its warmest and lay against his skin like a friendly hand. The cool mountain wind lifted his long black locks, feathering them out behind him like wings. It felt good after the close confines of the tipi.
Nonetheless, Touch the Sky sensed danger.
He glanced to his right, toward a wide swale—a low, moist tract of ground—overgrown with small bushes.
A tickle moved up the bumps of his spine, as light as a scurrying insect. Light, but it spoke of much danger.
Death lurked there at this moment, waiting. Just as it had waited somewhere around here for Goes Ahead. He was sure of it now.
Feigning interest in a point further down the trail, Touch the Sky moved on past the swale.
~*~
The Ute scout named Rough Feather flattened himself into the damp ground when the tall Cheyenne youth stared toward his position.
He cannot possibly see me, the big Indian told himself. This huge depression was covered with thick bushes. He had taken extra care in selecting it—after all, he was returning to an area where he had already killed one brave. They were alerted to his presence now.
Rough Feather had made his report to Carlson at Fort Randall. Then he had returned here at once, following orders to watch the camp closely until Carlson’s special Indian-killing regiment arrived and turned this tribe’s history into smoke.
This tall young brave—his buckskin leggings and low elk-skin moccasins marked him as a stranger to this territory. But stranger or no, they all died the same.
Rough Feather eased his knife from its sheath. Because they were tall with especially long arms for Indians, Utes were noted knife fighters. Their style was to stand back and madly slash at an opponent’s arms and hands in a flurry of wild passes. Then they closed for one perfect killing thrust when their opponent was disoriented.
But when he next peered out from behind the bushes, a line of nervous sweat broke out on his upper lip.
A heartbeat ago the Cheyenne had been there. Now he was nowhere in sight.
~*~
Touch the Sky made himself virtually invisible. Sticking to natural depressions and isolated bits of ground cover, he circled well behind the dish-shaped area formed by the swale.
Safe behind a tangled deadfall, he gathered up a pile of fist-size rocks.
One by one, he sailed the rocks high into the air over the swale. Each one thunked to the ground with a crashing of bushes. He covered the entire swale methodically, until one of the rocks chunked into something besides the ground—something human or animal that grunted in pain.
Touch the Sky didn’t hesitate. The element of surprise was vital, but useless unless you followed through on it immediately.
His knife clutched in his fist, he leaped toward the spot where his rock had landed. The spy was fast for such a big man. He eluded Touch the Sky’s grasp at the last moment and fled from his hiding place.
Touch the Sky recognized his tribe immediately from the brave’s massive size and distinctive beaded headband. The Ute had at least three inches and twenty pounds on him. But it was his speed that truly amazed the Cheyenne. At one moment he was the pursuer; the next, the Ute had whirled and turned into the attacker.
The ferocity and speed of the knife assault caught Touch the Sky completely off guard. White-hot wires of pain sliced into his hands and arms before it dawned on him—he was being slashed! Again, again, hot steel sliced into him with the sting of a rattler’s fangs.
The Ute’s arms flailed like a white man’s windmill gone Wendigo, his blade glinting cruelly each time the sun caught it. Touch the Sky took cuts to his hands, arms, face, chest, stomach, all the time backing rapidly away. Ribbons of his blood ran into the ground.
The Ute’s exertions left his breath whistling in his nostrils. Touch the Sky’s foot hit a rock and he went down. With a snarl of triumph, the Ute leaped for the death cut.
Desperately, Touch the Sky tensed his back like a bow and rolled aside just in time. The Ute crashed hard to the ground.
Touch the Sky, his lips a straight, determined slit, closed for the kill. His blade sought for the spot between the fourth and fifth rib, as Black Elk had taught him—from there it was a straight thrust to the heart.
But this finishing blow wasn’t needed. The Ute lay on his face, immobile except for fast twitches of his legs. When Touch the Sky flipped him over, he saw why. The turncoat Indian’s knife had landed against a rock and turned against him, driving deep into warm vitals.
Though he had been slashed many times—each cut like fiery bites—Touch the Sky’s injuries looked worse than they were. Few of the cuts had gone deep into tender meat. But as he stared at the dead Indian’s Army-issue shirt and trousers, he realized the awful truth.
No scout would have stayed in this dangerous area this long after discovering the camp and killing Goes Ahead. It would be a scout’s mission to immediately return and report the camp’s position. This Ute had already done that. Touch the Sky was sure of it. His job now had been to keep a close eye on the tribe until the soldiers arrived.
How long now before they arrived? Surely not long. Touch the Sky knew they wouldn’t be riding in under a white flag—nor would they brook surrender.
It would not, however, be a battle. Not against Shoots Left Handed’s dispirited, ill-equipped warriors.
It would be a massacre.
Blood streaming freely from his many slashes, Touch the Sky headed back to report this latest piece of bad news.