So, his men would be tired, and the heavy artillery would not be present. But he would have surprise, and more than enough men to handle this simpleton Spaniard. Now, to lay the trap, and let the fool walk into it.
Scouts thundered up to the command group, horses shiny with sweat in the dim light of the waning crescent moon. Urgent words were exchanged and the scouts were let through to speak to Meriwether.
“Sir,” said the squad’s lieutenant. “They moved up during the night. And you can guess where they are now.”
Meriwether closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Camped?”
“No, sir. Prepared and ready. Heavy rifles and light artillery already emplaced. They own the high ground, sir.”
He shook his head. Not good, not good. How they knew was a question for future discussion. The important question right now was whether or not to commit to the changed conditions. He had lost surprise, but he still had better men and better tactics. He looked back to his scout leader.
“Well done. See to your men.” The lieutenant saluted and rode off. Then to McGettigan, he said, “Bring me the command staff. We need to talk.”
The scouts Storm Arriving had sent out to watch the bluecoat camp had come back as soon as the foot soldiers had joined up with the main body. He knew the land here very well, having patrolled it for years in his younger days, and he could see the path along which the bluecoats were leading them. The battleground would be in one of two spots, and judging by how fast the bluecoats could push their foot soldiers, it was going to be the one nearest the Iron Shirts.
Convincing the fool Pereira was easier than expected. The bluecoats would be at the ground in a day, but the Iron Shirts could be there overnight, if they hurried. The advantages of being there first were obvious, even to Pereira, and so they moved.
They had moved quickly, and now, they waited. Storm Arriving sat with his men in their usual place along the left flank. His sister and One Who Flies waited a stone’s throw away, putting a little distance between the lone walker and the whistlers. Pereira, still unable to imagine anything other than what he had already seen, had arranged his forces in nearly the same manner as before: infantry waiting in the center, Iron Shirt cavalry on the right, whistlers on the left. The only deviation was that, since he had sufficient time, he brought his big guns to the high ground. Storm Arriving knew the bluecoat general would do something altogether different from before, and wondered how much he would unbalance Pereira’s expectations.
He glanced over to his sister and, now, brother-in-law. They sat close, in deep conversation. One Who Flies pointed out to the field, then drew on the ground before them, explaining something about the coming battle. Mouse Road questioned something on the sketch and One Who Flies signaled agreement. Pleased, they both smiled.
Two emotions flooded through Storm Arriving. He felt a surge of happiness, seeing his sister so happy in a mate. His little sister, so often a thorn in his side, was always the questioner, the challenger, the rebel of the family. He had despaired of ever finding a satisfactory mate for her, and had given up on her ever falling in love. But on her own, she had found a mate perfectly matched to her every aspect, a man with whom Storm Arriving, if he were honest, could find little fault.
Balancing that happiness, though, was a bitter, sharp-edged envy, for he knew he would never know that happiness. His heart had been lost to the wrong woman. Speaks While Leaving was both more and less than a woman; the spirits had given her a power that set her apart. Straddling the divide between this world and the other, that power came at a cost, and the price was very high. He often thought back on their short, happy time together and, in truth, he missed his former wife.
Looking over at his sister’s happiness and love, he thought that perhaps his pride and grief had done more damage than had Speaks While Leaving. Babies die, all over the world, for no other reason than because sometimes babies die. Little Blue Shell Woman could just as easily have taken ill at home as she did in the Land of the Iron Shirts. Striking the drum and casting Speaks While Leaving aside had only created more damage, tearing apart their damaged love rather than working through their shared grief to strengthen it.
What, then, of this vision? As his mind turned back to that question, he felt his heart go hard once more. Visions. Had they not seen enough of them? And yet, over the years, her visions had almost always borne fruit. Was it possible that all the backtracks and all the recent missteps, that the problems among the bands and among the allied tribes were all just preparing the ground for this last action? Mouse Road and One Who Flies claimed to have seen the vision and felt the truth of it. But Iron Shirts had come from the southlands to fight for the People, not against them. And now more were coming across the Big Salty to join them. This could not be ignored. They had not even been able to get the Crow People to join them for a single season. No, it was not to be believed. She had been mistaken before; she was mistaken now.
His thoughts had taken his attention away, but movement at the far end of the vale brought him back. The battlefield was a long stretch of firm ground flanked by low folds of land on either side. The sound of drums and the high piping notes of bluecoat flutes carried into the vale. Then they saw the flags and the ranks of foot soldiers, all marching into view.
Why wasn’t the artillery starting to fire? He looked over at the high ground and saw the artillery teams in disarray, men scrambling for cover, others pulling wounded toward safety. He looked across the field to the high ground opposite and saw small puffs of smoke from the scrub that dotted the slope.
“Snipers!” he shouted, and ordered his men. “Up! Ready!” But before they could mount, the bluecoat cavalry appeared, charging their rear, carbines firing.
His soldiers met them on foot, firing rifles as they tried to mount up. Separated from the main group, One Who Flies got his walker up and in motion. One roar from the great beast set the bluecoat horses skittering to the side in fear, giving their soldiers the moment they needed.
The bluecoats moved downhill in an ordered retreat, trying to draw the riders off, but Storm Arriving refused the bait. “The snipers!” he ordered, and his riders sped off toward the scrub where sharpshooters were making good use of their long rifles.
Meriwether peered through his binoculars and would have chuckled if it hadn’t been so sad. The Spanish commander had set it up just as he had every time before. Predictability meant death in their business, and Meriwether was going to prove the point. Instead of pushing into the center with his riders, he split his cavalry and sent them to take the flanks by the rear. The Spanish cavalry was in dire trouble, decimated in the ambush and now foolishly following the Union riders out of the view of their command structure. The Indian riders had fared better, reacted faster, and refused the chase in favor of going after the snipers. Meriwether gave a hand signal and heard his orders relayed to the flagmen. His light artillery opened up on the slope between the Indians and his snipers, stopping the assault before it happened.
Artillery nullified, cavalry scattered, it was now a matter of who could out-tactic whom down on the field. Everything was in place. Time to bring it home.
“General!” McGettigan was pointing off to the right.
Meriwether looked and saw it. One of the Indians was riding out onto the field, alone. He brought the binoculars up again, found, focused.
“It’s one of those big walkers,” he said, “and the rider has a white flag on his rifle. He’s—oh, for Christ’s sake!”
“What is it?” McGettigan asked.
“It’s the President’s son. Of all the hare-brained, reckless, arrogant...” He didn’t finish his sentence, but remembered his words to his commander-in-chief.
I treat him just like any other combatant.
If it were any other tribesman, riding out onto the field under a white flag, what would he do? Except it wasn’t just any other tribesman.
He sighed.
“Call it off,” he told McGettigan.
“Sir?”
“Call it off,” he said again. “Let’s hear what he has to say.”
Bugles trumpeted and flags waved. Troops halted, turned, and headed off the field. Riders went out to recall the cavalry, artillery teams packed up their caissons, and the long rifles snuck back up and over the hill. The Spaniards stood like waxworks, confounded by the sudden reprieve, and the Indian riders pulled back as soon as the Union soldiers broke off.
Meriwether headed off the field with his command staff, moving back to the staging ground, fearing all today’s action had done was to give the Spanish general a preview of future tactics. He just hoped the man proved to be as dense as he was unimaginative.
As soon as George heard the drum and fifes, he recognized the tune of “The Girl I Left behind Me,” and knew that John Meriwether was on the field. The song was his marching song, just as “Garryowen” had belonged to George’s father.
“Now,” he told Mouse Road, and instead of following Storm Arriving against the sharpshooters on the hillside, they rode out onto the field, flying a stolen piece of General Pereira’s table linen as a white flag.
“Parley!” George shouted to any and all who might hear him. “Parley!” He kept it up, riding across the empty field between the two forces until, when the signal flags were raised and the bugles sounded the recall, he knew they were safe. From up the hill behind them, he heard his name.
“One Who Flies!” Storm Arriving shouted. “What are you doing?”
“Planning for contingencies!” he shouted in reply. And then the bluecoat rider came up, struggled to control his mount, and accepted their offer of parley.
As they were escorted back behind the lines, the army parted like the Red Sea before Moses, but not out of respect or deference. Many of these men had barely heard of walkers, much less seen one ridden through their ranks. Veterans and green-stick privates alike drew back in fear; some just plain ran, falling over their own feet in instinctive haste to distance themselves from the towering monster. As for his own effect on the soldiers, George knew that he and Mouse Road were nigh on invisible. Recalling the day he first saw mounted walker, he knew that, even if he were Lady Godiva, these men would never see him. They would only see legs as tall as a man, teeth long as their fingers, a mouth that could swallow a sheep in a gulp, and a living, intelligent, hunter’s eye the color of golden wheat and the size of a saucerplate. They would remember the thud of its footsteps, the rumble of its breath, and the sound of their own fear-thick blood pounding in their ears. Such was the awe George’s walker inspired in the uninitiated.
They left the battlefield, the infantry at their back, and rounded the bend to where the bluecoats had established their staging ground. The place was controlled chaos, to which George’s walker added no order. Ahead, George spied the general in the center of it all; one man in a swirl of motion as reports came in and commands were issued. He spied the walker and visibly mastered himself. All movement shrank back from the general as George rode closer. At a respectful distance he bade his walker halt and coaxed her quietly to the ground. He helped Mouse Road descend, and then stepped down himself. Together, they walked up to the general.
“General Meriwether,” George said in English. “Thank you, sir, for honoring our request to parley.”
Meriwether nodded. “George,” he said in greeting. “You’re looking...healthy. And who is this with you?”
“This is Mouse Road,” he said. “Of the Tree People Band, sister to Storm Arriving, the man who leads our soldiers. She is also my wife.”
That got a reaction. Meriwether’s brow knitted but his lips ticked upward the tiniest bit.
“I see,” Meriwether said evenly. Then he turned to face Mouse Road and gave a shallow bow. “A pleasure, ma’am.”
George told her what he had said, and she replied, “Also for me,” which George translated in turn.
“You came here at no small danger to yourselves,” Meriwether said, arms folded across his brass-buttoned chest. “You have asked for parley, and I am here to listen. What is it you wished to say?”
George knew this man. Resolute but fair, he would not be swayed by flattery or obfuscation. The general’s principles had cost George a few scars, the small joint off his little finger, and several friends during that first year. The debt had been levied back and forth many times since then, paid for tenfold in blood and treasure, by both sides. George hoped the general felt the same way.
“I am here to propose an alliance between the tribes of the Unorganized Territory and the United States of America.”
Meriwether’s hand rose slowly to cover his mouth. Then George saw his shoulders lift in a tiny shrug. Then another. Then he saw the crinkle at the corner of the general’s eye. And then he heard the general’s quiet chuckle. Meriwether raised his hand to forestall a complaint.
“My apologies, young man,” he said as he regained his composure. “It’s just that, well, you do know how to surprise a man.”
George nodded; the action felt unnatural after so many years among the People. “I hope that means you will consider the proposal.”
“I’m not the man you need to talk to,” Meriwether said. “You know that. I’m a soldier, not a politician. My diplomacy is of a more...distinct nature. I can’t provide the sort of answer you need.” He motioned to his adjutant, took a pencil from the captain’s ear and scribbled three short lines. Then he handed the paper to the adjutant. “Send this. Quickly,” he said, and then turned back to George.
“Are you rested enough to ride?” he asked.
“To where, general?”
“To talk with the person who can give you an answer.”
Chapter 18
Moon When Ice Starts to Form, New
Four Years after the Cloud Fell
North of the Elk River
Crow Territory
They needed to return home, but Speaks While Leaving simply did not have the strength. She had lain in the medicine lodge for three days, and while the fever seemed to have broken, it had stolen all of her vitality.
Every time she roused from her fevered sleep, Limps had been there, his spirit glowing, his face haggard and sad. She tried to speak to him, tried to reach out and touch his gentle, caring hand, but she could not. She felt like a child’s doll, limp and unable to move on her own. Soon, even opening her eyes was too much for her to do, so each day, each hour, she relied more on her “other” sight, than on her human eyes.
It was morning, and there was a dense fog across the camp of the Crow. Limps was near her, bundled in blankets against the cold.
Limps, she said, speaking to his spirit, hoping she could reach him. She saw his head lift, as if he had heard a distant noise. She tried again.
Limps.
Slowly, he turned to look at her.
Yes, she said. You can hear me.
A look of startlement crept over his features but he did not move.
It is fine, she told him, trying to reassure him. Do not worry. I just do not have the strength to speak.
“Yes,” he said. “I understand.”
Limps, please, find Grey Feather. I think it is time to return home.
“Yes,” he said. “I will.”
He left and she drifted through the spirit world. The people of the camp had their ghostly companions, just as she had seen at home, but these apparitions were close to their hosts. The world was humming with tension, as if all the possible futures were being drawn into one. The path was being chosen, but the world still needed to be guided, coaxed into the proper choice.
Then she found her mind above the land, flying toward the rising sun, heading home except there was no wind, no sense of movement. She was weightless and motionless, and the earth was drawn past beneath her, blurred by unknowable speed until it stopped and she looked down to see the camp of the People below her. The circle of the great summer gathering was broken; bands had left for their winter camps, soldier societies had been dispatched, allies had
gone home. Only a few bands still tarried, while downstream, the camp of the Iron Shirts had grown larger.
At the center were the square tents the vé’hó’e preferred to use, but around it had grown a circle of lodges. As she drew closer, she saw that these were all families who had adopted the new vé’hó’e god. They had cut their braids and wore clothing made of Trader’s cloth like the vé’hó’e. She saw them praying with the Ravens, receiving their benedictions, eating their bread.
As she watched, a faint sound distracted her: a scraping, thudding sound. She turned, searching for it, and flew north to track it down. She skimmed over the trees and up the rising land until she found them. Men, vé’hó’e, digging in the earth, scarring the body of the Sacred Hills, tearing the yellow metal from the ground and packing it away.
Anger pulsed through her and she was back in the medicine lodge. It was evening, and Limps was sitting nearby with Grey Feather. Heads bowed, they looked as if they had been waiting for some time.
Limps, she said.
Limps touched Grey Feather to rouse him. “She speaks.”
Limps, we must return. We cannot wait any longer.
“We do not have to wait,” he said, coming closer. He turned to Grey Feather. “Tell her.”
Grey Feather looked at Speaks While Leaving, a wary look in his eye.
“Tell her,” Limps said. “She hears.”
“Our riders, they have returned,” he said. “The word has been spoken, and it has been heard.”
Limps, she said. We leave in the morning. I cannot ride. You must prepare me for travel.
Beneath a Wounded Sky Page 16
