“I don’t get it,” Lumpy said. “Wha’d’you mean, we ain’t gunna meet up with Carlson after the heist? We always go to the shack and divvy up the swag with him.”
Woodrow Denton was busy tucking horsehair braids under his Cheyenne headdress. He looked at Lumpy as if he were something he had just scraped off his boot.
“Is your brain any bigger’n that bump on your neck? Now why would you think we won’t be meeting him?”
“Cuz,” said a man named Omensetter, “we ain’t dealin’ him in for this hand?”
All five of the disguised thieves sat their mounts in a little short-grass clearing near the Milk River Road. Their rifles were balanced at the ready across the withers of their Indian ponies. By now the whites had gotten proficient at riding without saddles. Beaded leather shirts and fur leggings, the style of northern Indians, covered the skin that wasn’t darkened with berry juice.
“Right as rain,” Denton said. “We’ll be going to the shack, but Carlson won’t. Soldier Blue set this one up weeks ago. Since then he’s got ice in his boots. His C.O. is still farting blood on account of how ‘Injuns’ aired out his wife. Carlson says no more Cheyenne attacks. But I say, he can go piss up a rope! There’s going to be one more heist. This haul today will leave all of us in the Land of Milk and Honey.”
“We talking gold?” Lumpy said.
“It will be soon enough. It’s a freight wagon, and we’re heisting the whole damned she-bang. It’s loaded with good liquor, tobacco, and coffee, all bound for the sutler at Fort Randall.”
“Hell,” Lumpy said, “a wagon? Are you soft between your head handles? What need we got for such truck? We already smoke good Virginia ’baccy and drink top-shelf mash liquor. I reckon my coffee ain’t fit for the Queen of England, but—”
“Lumpy,” Denton cut in sarcastically, “if brains was horseshit, you’d have a clean corral, you know that? Of course we don’t need the goods. The Blackfoot Indians need it. They need it so bad they’re doing the Hurt Dance. Oh, do they want it.”
“Blackfeet! They ain’t got no gold.”
“Neither does a beaver, numb-nuts. But what he don’t carry in ready cash he’s good for. The Blackfeet tribe is rich right now in good beaver plews. They’ll give us every damn one of ’em for that wagonload of goods. Then we haul ’em to the trading post at Pike’s Fork. The dandies in London are crying for their beaver hats. The price is up to two hundred dollars for a pressed pack of eighty furs.”
“Hell, that shines fine by me,” Omensetter said. “But the Blackfeet are no tribe to fool with. How do we get them plews without them gettin’ our topknots?”
“I know a war chief named Sis-ki-dee. Leads his own band, palavers English real good. He’s a crafty son-a-bitch and keeps one hand behind his back. But he’s smart nuff to know when the wind’s blowing something his way. I’ve dealt with him before.”
“The hell we do with the freight wagon?” Omensetter said. “Where do we store the goods until we can swap ’em?”
“You ever knowed ol’ Woody to leave any loose ends? I already checked behind the shack. There’s a watershed gully runs right down to the road. She’s bumpy, but not so steep a wagon couldn’t make ’er. Carlson won’t be coming around here for at least a few days. He’s off in the field killing Cheyennes. We unload the stuff into the shack, then wait until nightfall and douse the wagon with kerosene. Nobody’ll spot the smoke after dark.”
“All right,” Lumpy said. “But what about when Carlson comes back? Won’t he get wind of this raid?”
“Does asparagus make your piss stink?” Denton said. “Of course he’ll get wind of it. He’s a soldier, ain’t he? But ’zacly what will he do about it? Go to law, for Christ sakes?”
Denton had been wanting to part trails with Carlson anyway. True, it had been useful having a soldier in his camp. But Denton realized this little piece of cake had finally gone stale. The newspapers were full of outraged editorials about the savage aboriginals. It was only a matter of time before the U.S. Army—treaty limitations be damned—sprang a nasty surprise on them.
So why cut the officer in on this last haul? Besides, Carlson wasn’t putting all his cards on the table either. He was nursing some private grudge against the Cheyenne tribe. During that last raid, Denton had heard Carlson busting caps behind them, had heard riders. But when he’d asked him about it later, Carlson had lied. Denton had no desire to put his bacon in the fire just to help a man settle a private grudge.
Omensetter had broken cover to ride down and scout the road. Now he came racing back.
“She’s a-comin’. I see a dust plume on the horizon.”
Denton nodded. “Remember, this is our last strike in these parts. We’re taking the entire team and wagon. That means no one can survive this one—they’ll get too close a look at us and guess our game. That means we kill the driver and the guards. We’ll leave the bodies behind with their hair raised and Cheyenne arrows in them.”
Touch the Sky and Little Horse knew better than to flee south toward Shoots Left Handed’s camp. That would be like leading wolves to a warren. Better to escape in the opposite direction, diverting the soldiers. Now that Carlson had recognized his arch-enemy, they knew he would lock onto their scent.
The two friends joined up while fleeing down the backside of a steep ridge. Arrow Keeper’s surefooted ponies managed to find footholds that mules might have missed.
But Carlson’s mountain troopers too rode excellent mounts—half-wild mustangs from the high country, broken in by Indian trainers. For some time they stayed right behind the fleeing Cheyennes.
And as they did, the two braves realized they were up against a dangerous new breed of Bluecoat fighter. Paleface soldiers were always dangerous down on the open plains, waging the style of warfare suited to their formations and training. But usually, in this kind of rough terrain, shaking white pursuers was a matter for Indian sport. But not now. Now they were forced to ride full out, barely outrunning the bullets behind them.
Several times they were forced to assume the defensive riding position invented by the Cheyenne tribe: They slid far forward, clinging to their ponies’ neck with their legs. The rest of their bodies were tucked down under the horse’s head, out of sight. If a pony were shot, this position allowed the Cheyenne to kick off and away from the falling weight.
“Brother!” Little Horse shouted as they raced along a rocky spine, looking for a way to cross to the next swayback ridge. He pointed down into a small valley to their right. “Look!”
Touch the Sky’s glance followed his friend’s finger. A moment later he tasted the bitter sting of bile rising in his throat.
Dead Blackfeet and horses lay sprawled everywhere, thick with blue-black swarms of flies. Touch the Sky, who had grown up next to Fort Bates, recognized the brass casings of artillery shells. His face went cold and numb when he saw that several of the bodies had literally been blown apart. Carrion birds were everywhere, forming a living, moving carpet of black over everything.
It took him a moment to realize why the birds kept turning their heads to expel something from their beaks. Then he understood. They were spitting out lead slugs—some of the bodies, incredibly, had been shot dozens of times.
The two braves locked glances. Little Horse was clearly dumbfounded—what kind of powerful hair-face magic could open a man up like a dressed-out deer?
But there was no time to wonder. Behind them, a sharpshooter’s carbine cracked, and a bullet whizzed past so close to Touch the Sky’s ear that it sounded like a bumblebee.
Despite the tenacious mustangs pursuing them, the superior training of Arrow Keeper’s ponies eventually began to show. But as the distance between Carlson’s men and them opened up, Touch the Sky saw that fatigue was sapping Little Horse.
“Brother!” he said. “Make for the wagon road. These ponies are keen for speed. It is dangerous to ride in the open, but we must open the distance and then you must rest.”
His words rallied Little Horse. “I have ears for this. As you said when I lay in the tipi, brother. Today is not a good day to die! Hi-ya, hii-ya!”
~*~
Touch the Sky’s hunch proved right. Arrow Keeper had indeed blessed these ponies with great speed.
Not since his great chase across the plains after Henri Lagace, the white whiskey trader, had Touch the Sky felt a pony fly on the wind as his blood bay did now. Nor did Little Horse’s buckskin lack heart for the run. Once they gained the wagon road, both animals tucked their ears back and forced their riders to hang on dearly.
Carlson and his men were nowhere in sight. Touch the Sky’s plan was to find a good shelter for Little Horse, then backtrack and find the soldiers. If they planned to resume the ride to Shoots Left Handed’s village, Touch the Sky would have to somehow divert them—even if he had to make himself a target again for Carlson.
They flew over a rise, rounded an S-turn, then drew their mounts in when they saw what lay beside the road.
Three white men, riddled with bullets and arrows—flint-tipped Cheyenne arrows. All three had also been scalped. The attack had been recent, for the pungent smell of spent cordite still tainted the air.
“Our make-believe Cheyennes are back,” Little Horse said.
“All the merrier for us,” Touch the Sky replied, “if we are caught down here. Do not forget a Bluecoat pack is on our heels, buck! Now we ride.”
But despite their urgency to escape, they were soon forced to stop once again, amazement starched into their faces.
The two young braves had left the road and were threading their way across a long pine slope. They were slipping across the treeless swath of a watershed when Touch the Sky spotted the danger just in time to halt his friend in the trees.
Well up the slope, the watershed veered hard right and disappeared behind the treeline. Just to the left of this point stood a run-down shack. A huge wooden wagon stood in the watershed nearby, wheels chocked with hunks of wood. Several men worked steadily at hauling goods from the wagon into the shack—men dressed in Cheyenne garb, though most had removed their fake braids and went bareheaded. One was bald as a newborn; another had an odd lump on his neck. All looked like hard-bitten killers. The two Indians could clearly make out where the white men had dyed their skin.
“Finally,” Little Horse said, keeping his voice low, “we meet the white dogs who would stain our sacred Arrows. I am for them now, buck! I count five. We have killed more.”
“We have, but not so many as are still closing in behind us, brother. And do not forget how close this place is to the soldier-town called Fort Randall. If you want to catch an eagle, you never climb up to its nest. Nor is this any place to be attacking hair-faces when you still lack red blood. Maiyun will be with us enough, buck, if we are alive tomorrow when Sister Sun claims the sky.”
Little Horse frowned at these words at first, still keen to send their enemies under. Then, as weariness began to make his limbs feel like stones, he saw the truth of his friend’s words.
“It is clear Arrow Keeper had a hand in shaping you,” Little Horse said admiringly. “As you say, now we ride.”
“As for these,” Touch the Sky said, nodding up the slope. “I feel we may lock horns yet. For now, let us remember that Shoots Left Handed’s camp is the next place Carlson will hope to find us.”
“Then, brother, let us not disappoint so worthy a foe. Let us be there to welcome him!”