by Judd Cole
At first he made good time low-crawling, timing his most rapid bursts with the stronger gusts of wind to cover his movement. As he neared the two workers, he was forced to slow down. Sharp pieces of flint dug into his elbows and knees, pesky flies bit his face. Soon he could hear the occasional sound of their voices, but he couldn’t make out their words yet.
His senses fully alert for signs he’d been spotted, he quickly scuttled across an exposed stretch of shorter grass. Then he was back on his face again, inching closer to the corral.
“Well, still, if the scuttlebutt I hear is true, then it’s goin’ too far.”
“Did I say it wasn’t? No, sir! What I’m saying is this. You open your mouth about it, it’s the last complaining you’ll ever do. Old Hiram is over his head this time. Hell rue the day he ever threw in with Winslow and his bunch.”
“I’ll say! What Winslow brags he’s got planned for the Innuns, it ain’t Christian. A Christian will by God fight and kill an Innun if he’s bound to. But he don’t take pleasure in the kill, nor in talking about how he plans to carve up the body.”
“Christian! Tim, you’re behind times! These ain’t no Christians.”
“That’s clear from what they got planned for the Hanchons.”
Touch the Sky turned his head and focused all of his awareness on hearing what the two men said next. But at this point he felt the ground vibrating. Lifting his head slightly, he spotted several more hands riding toward the new corral from the main yard. It angered him to leave before he learned the all-important missing fact: when the next strike was coming. But he decided not to push his luck against the present odds.
He retreated to his dun and swung wide north, sticking well behind the trees. The things he had heard left his insides a welter of anger and fear. Whatever Steele and Winslow had planned for them all, it would be as cruel and brutal as the men themselves. His father bravely talked the he-bear talk. But how could two Cheyennes and a handful of horse-wranglers stop men like this— men who had the weight of the U.S. Army behind them?
Amidst this wild tumble of thoughts, his mind kept showing him images of Kristen Steele, her wing-shaped eyes the seamless blue of endless summer sky. Perhaps these thoughts explained why he unconsciously nudged the dun closer and closer to a small pond well beyond the wagon track which ran past Steele’s house.
Abruptly, he touched the pony’s neck to halt her. As he looked, where the track seemed to disappear behind a series of grassy hummocks, memories were unleashed like floodwaters. Memories of meeting Kristen here in their secret copse behind the pond. Memories of long embraces, warm kisses, plans for their future in this new land that was like fruit ripe for picking.
Those were plans for his life as a white man, he reminded himself now. And they were a mistake. He was a Cheyenne and must always live like one.
Nonetheless, he hobbled the dun in a stand of cedar and, avoiding open stretches, approached the copse.
The wind chose this time to suddenly gust stronger, rustling the leaves around him and wrinkling the surface of the pond. Thus he did not hear the soft crying noises from within the copse.
He stepped through the close wall of pines and nearly tripped on Kristen!
“Matthew, oh, my God! You frightened me so!”
His face flushed warm. “I didn’t know you were here, honest.”
“It’s not that. It’s just, I can’t believe you’re here. Don’t you know Pa’s men will kill you on sight? You’re not safe here!”
Her hair tumbled over her shoulders in a golden confusion. A white linen skirt was neatly tucked around her legs as she sat against the trunk of a huge walnut tree. Touch the Sky dropped to one knee beside her. A quick glance told him that the letters scattered around her were from him. Blushing and dropping her glance from his, she quickly gathered up the letters.
Her eyes were red and swollen from crying. “What is it?” he said.
She shook her head. “You’re up against so much right now. It’s not right to bother you with my troubles. Matthew, listen to me! Pa and his men will kill you in a minute if they spot you anywhere around here.”
“Sure they will. I’m a Cheyenne, ain’t I? That’s good enough reason to most people.”
“And it’s wrong! It’s just wrong, and I won’t stand for it! That kind of senseless, mean hatred is why I will never marry Seth Carlson or any man like him! I don’t care what Pa threatens!”
It was out now, so she told him about the encounter with her father and Seth Carlson and her father’s declaration: Either she agreed to marry Carlson, or her father would ship her back East to live with his sister.
“Carlson!” Touch the Sky spat the word out of his mouth as if it were a bad taste. “He isn’t worthy to kiss your boot, let alone marry you!”
“He’s a horrible man! He hates what he’s ordered to hate. He frightens me. There’s this mean glint in his eye, sometimes, when he looks at me. The same glint he gets when he talks about Indians. He knows how I feel about you, and it galls him.”
She stopped there, but Touch the Sky finished for her.
“Galls him that you love a Cheyenne instead of him?”
She nodded, another tear zigzagging down her cheek.
“Oh, Matthew, I’m so scared for you! Pa is at that stage where he doesn’t raise his voice anymore. He just keeps getting quieter and more dangerous. I’ve seen it before, and when he gets this way, he always gets what he wants.”
“He’s already taken enough from me. This time he won’t get what he wants.”
Matthew dropped down beside her, one arm encircling her. She turned toward him and leaned against his bare chest, her hair soft and still sun warmed.
Swallowing hard so she could speak, Kristen said, “Do you still think about me?”
He nodded, not trusting his voice.
“Corey doesn’t answer me when I ask him if you’ve got a girl—you know, a Cheyenne girl. But not answering, I guess that’s a kind of answer.”
Red men don’t kiss their women, Touch the Sky reminded himself then as he smelled the clean honeysuckle smell of her skin. But he wanted to kiss her, and bad, and he could tell she wanted it too.
A horse whickered, close by on the wagon road, and Touch the Sky was on his feet in a blink.
He peered out past the brake of pines and across the pond. Four riders sat their horses, rifles propped across their saddletrees.
One was Abe Winslow, and he was staring toward the copse.
“C’mon, Abe!” called one of them good-naturedly. “You promised us two hours of hard drinking! Daylight’s burning, Boss!”
“I’m tellin’ you,” said Winslow, “I saw a redskin. Two of ’em, maybe more, I’m not certain there. It was sudden like, just in the corner of my eye. They was peekin’ in at somethin’ inside them trees.”
“Well, they’re gone now,” said the other man. “Well kill them later.”
But Winslow urged his mount off the track and started around the pond. Silent but quick, Touch the Sky moved back beside Kristen.
“Pretend to be reading your letters,” he whispered. “Just sit here and pretend to read.”
Touch the Sky swung up into the sturdy lower branches of the walnut, trying not to shake them too much as he moved around to the back of the tree. He unsheathed his knife and held it ready in his teeth to free his grip.
Winslow reached the near end of the pond, halted, dismounted. Touch the Sky could watch him clearly through a tunnel in the leaves around him.
Winslow lifted his slouch hat long enough to give his head a good shake, throwing the filthy, wet-sand-colored hair back out of his eyes.
He drew a French-made grapeshot revolver from his sash. It was designed for close-range killing where aiming wasn’t important and fired a 20-gauge shot load.
Touch the Sky transferred the knife from his teeth to his hand. Carefully, he maneuvered around until he was in position to spring out of the tree. But he could clearly see the other well-armed
riders sitting on the far side of the pond, impatiently waiting.
“Christ Jesus, Abe!” one of them shouted. “I’m as dry as a year-old cow chip! We’re working on Hiram Steele’s time, what’s your hurry?”
Even if he killed Winslow, there were three more to fight—and Kristen sitting right there where lead would be flying?
“Easy,” he whispered to Kristen. “Here he comes.”
A few moments later Winslow stood inside the copse, staring at Kristen as if he’d just found a gold piece in the road.
“Yes?” she said archly. “Do you have a message from my father?”
Winslow grinned, baring green-rimmed teeth and gums the color of raw liver. “No need to play the quality miss with me, sugarplum. Some o’ Hiram’s wranglers already told me how you like them red bucks. No wonder they was peekin’ in here—waitin’ to see if it was their turn yet, I reckon.”
It took a moment for his meaning to take. When it did, Kristen blushed to the roots of her hair and turned her face away.
“You are a filthy, disgusting pig,” she said. “Leave me alone now or I’ll tell my father.”
Winslow laughed, brandishing the grapeshot revolver. “This here little gal will take care of your daddy quick, sweet corset. You remember that.”
“Please leave me alone now!”
Winslow moved a step closer. Kristen seemed to shrink within herself, searching for more distance from him. Overhead, Touch the Sky silently began chanting a battle song, preparing himself to leap and kill in one smooth movement. He should be able to seize the grapeshot revolver before the other riders could react.
Winslow’s voice had gone husky and intimate in a way that disgusted Kristen. “Tell me something, quality miss.”
Now he stood towering over her. He leaned closer, his breath whistling in his nostrils. “Tell me this much. Is it true what I hear? I hear that a red man’s jizzom is red too. Is that a fact? I mean, I figger you would know, bein’ as how you meet with ’em out here.”
Hatred welled up inside of Touch the Sky, raw and bitter and strong. But if he gave in to his urge to gut Winslow now, he endangered Kristen more than he already had. So he set his jaw hard, his mouth a straight, grim line, and held back. The moment to leap might yet come. And even as he thought these things, he wondered: Was Winslow just talking about her meetings with him, or just now had he actually spotted another Indian? Could it have been Little Horse? If so, why had Winslow mentioned there were two?
Kristen had turned her body protectively away from Winslow, refusing to meet his eyes. He laughed. He started to reach out to touch her hair.
Touch the Sky loosened his one-handed grip on the branch overhead, silently took in a long breath. Between the fourth and fifth ribs, he could hear Black Elk repeating. That way it is straight to the heart. And you must twist as you thrust, tearing your enemy’s guts.
“Goddamnit, Abe!” shouted one of the men impatiently. “Are you draining your snake or what? We’re ridin’ on without you!”
He stared at the humiliated girl for another ten seconds or so. Then he turned and yelled to the men, “Hold your horses! I’m on my way!”
Then he looked down at Kristen again. “I’ll be lookin’ for you again out here. And you can tell that buck of yours his little trick in the basin was a big mistake. His scalp is gonna hang off my coup stick!”
“Brother, did you not see?” said Swift Canoe. “The white dog peered in, then left without firing! He spoke to Touch the Sky and the yellow-haired white woman. Yet during the raid in the basin, they pretended to be enemies. This white has joined in the treacherous plan to make it appear that Cheyennes are on the warpath against the white nation!”
River of Winds said nothing, his eyes lost in serious reflection. The two spies were hidden in a thicket behind the copse. They had carelessly come near to being captured when, engrossed in observing Touch the Sky and the white woman, they had not heard the white dogs approaching.
“Only think on these things,” said Swift Canoe. “We have seen Touch the Sky and Little Horse receiving messages from Bluecoat pony soldiers. We saw the soldiers again riding to meet them on the ridge. Now we have seen this paleface speak with him. Are you finally sure in your heart, as I am, that they have turned against our people? Do you not see that they have agreed to play the fox, to make the whites believe that Cheyennes are on the warpath?”
Though he maintained his silence, River of Winds did indeed agree now that this was true. He was finally convinced when he saw Touch the Sky making love talk with the woman whose hair had trapped the sun. After all, everyone back at camp believed his heart belonged to Honey Eater.
“Little brother,” he said finally, “now I am one with you in your belief. But we have no orders from the councilors. I will leave before our shadows are long in the sun and ride quickly back to the tribe with this news. You will remain here, all eyes and ears. But you will not raise your weapons against Touch the Sky, do you hear my words?”
“I hear them, and I will obey.”
But deep in his heart, Swift Canoe felt only a deep loathing for this turncoat who had killed his brother and now sold his people for gold. He knew well that, despite the tribe’s sanction against shedding Cheyenne blood, they would respect any brave who killed this terrible enemy of the red man.
He would watch, while River of Winds raced north, for his opportunity.
Chapter Fourteen
Tom Riley adjusted his hat a bit as the midday sun crept straight overhead. The recruit platoon of horse soldiers stood at parade rest for the noon formation, their faces dusty and sweat streaked from morning maneuvers.
Riley had spent most of his time lately on training exercises north of Fort Bates—a recent change of assignment which he knew Seth Carlson had arranged to get him out of the picture. But now he and his unit had returned for supplies and remounts.
One thing Riley detested about garrison duty was the endless list of Department of the Army orders and directives he was forced to read aloud each day to his men. He finished off a long list now, his voice raw and tired from shouting out commands all morning.
“‘Each year at this time,’” he read from a sheaf of documents bearing the seal of the War Department, “‘the military is plagued with the same insidious problem at its frontier installations: those nefarious cowards sometimes known as snowbirds. These are unpatriotic men who join the Army during cold months for food and shelter, then desert with the arrival of spring.
“‘All legally enlisted men-in-arms are hereby advised: Snowbirds are also deserters, and if caught will be executed as enemies of their country—’”
“At least the Army kills you quick and clean,” said one of the salty old NCO’s who had fought in the Cherokee Wars back East. “Them goddamn Innuns’ll cut off your peeder first!”
A few men laughed, but Riley let it go. They got enough harsh treatment from the likes of Seth Carlson.
He finished the latest batch of Army messages. Riley reminded the men of the regimental parade today at 1330 hours. Then he dismissed his men for their noon rations.
He was crossing the parade field, toward the bachelor officers’ quarters behind the sutler’s store, when Riley saw Hiram Steele ride through the main gate.
The big, broad-shouldered man sat straight in the saddle, looking neither to his left nor his right. His business often brought him to the fort. Riley knew it was not unusual for the rancher to visit the officer in charge of the stables, where he was apparently headed now. Nonetheless, Riley found himself swerving toward the complex of big, single-story buildings where the regiment’s horses were stalled when not grazing.
He ducked behind the corner of a nearby barracks when Seth Carlson emerged from the Headquarters Building. The officer too headed toward the stables. He and Steele made a point of pretending not to notice each other.
Riley fell in behind a corporal marching a work detail and kept them between him and the stables until he’d crossed the parade fi
eld. Then, after confirming that Carlson and Steele were indeed meeting in one of the stable buildings, he hurried around behind it. A wooden loading arm protruded from the loft door, thick ropes dangling down. Riley gripped one of the ropes and climbed hand-over-hand up into the loft.
His boots silent in the thick-matted straw and hay, he crossed to the edge of the loft and glanced below. Normally a private or two would be cleaning out stalls or pounding caulks into horseshoes. But the soldiers had gone to the mess hall. Steele and Carlson stood near the stall where Carlson’s new mount now chewed on a nose bag full of oats.
“How do you like him?” said Steele, nodding toward the strong, well-muscled chestnut he’d given the soldier to replace the black Carlson had been forced to shoot.
“I’m starting to think you did give me the best of your herd. He’s fast and a strong jumper.”
“That’s an Indian-fighter’s pony,” said Steele proudly. “He’s trained for steep slopes and mountain trails. That, and quick maneuvering. This animal would of sensed that prairie-dog hole and missed it.”
“He’ll get his first trial tonight.”
“It’s all set at your end then?” said Steele.
Carlson nodded. “It’ll be me and three men from the dragoons, all of us in mufti. Now, I gave ’em my word: They’re being paid to attack and burn the house and outbuildings, nothing else. We’ll lay down cover fire on any wranglers in the yard, but it’s up to your bunch to round up the horses and fight off Hanchon’s men in the field. We have to hit quick and get the hell out.”
Steele nodded. “If the redskin is around the house, he’s yours. If he’s out with the herds, Winslow can have him. I don’t care who kills him, so long as he’s put under. This strike will either break John Hanchon’s will or kill him. I ain’t out to kill him, mind you, just to drive him out of the mustang business. The choice is his.”
“Speaking of choices,” said Carlson, “has Kristen said anything more about—about what you talked about the other night? About us getting married?”
