Medicine Creek
Page 29
Baskin, slow in perceiving but eventually getting the message, finally realized what Brice was doing. I reckon the poor bastard has had a pretty rough row to hoe with that damn Tobin riding his tail. It really didn’t matter one way or the other to him. If the lieutenant was that soft in the heart, then so be it. He ordered his men to fall back to the cottonwoods.
* * *
Puzzled by the soldiers’ curious behavior, Little Wolf held his fire and watched as the troopers withdrew to the grove of the trees where he had killed Tobin. Certain that they had surrendered the advantage they had surely held, he did not stay to question their judgment. With his two rifles in his hands, he left the cover of the log and disappeared into the thick forest behind him.
Halfway up the ridge, he encountered Rain Song waiting for him. “You did not run very far,” he scolded as he trotted up to her.
Her face reflected the joy she felt upon seeing her husband again. Her cheeks streaked with tears, she cried out, “I could not leave you again. If they kill you, then they must kill me too!” When he was beside the horse, she fell into his arms, almost causing him to lose his balance. With her arms locked tightly around his neck, she began to cry again. “I was afraid. I didn’t hear any shooting. I was afraid you had let them capture you so I could get away.”
“Come,” he said and, taking the horse’s bridle in hand, he started out along the ridge on foot. Rain Song followed closely behind. When he reached a small clearing that afforded an unrestricted view of the valley below them, he tied the horse in the trees and moved to a position where he could watch the soldiers’ activity. When Rain Song wondered why they were not hurrying to escape the troopers, he explained that he wanted to make sure they had given up the chase. In reality, his curiosity was what held him there. Why would more than twenty soldiers decide to quit the chase against one man and one woman? He glanced back at Rain Song and repeated a statement he had made earlier. “We need another horse.”
less fastidious, used a sock. Baskin carried a coffeepot when in the field, so Brice and Paul usually shared the brew with the sergeant. Brice was blowing on his first cup of the steaming liquid when a trooper came up to inform him that they were missing a horse.
When Brice and Baskin went down to check on it, they found all the horses tied to the picket line, or so they thought. But a quick count assured them that they were one short.
“Hell, I counted ’em and there’s a horse for every man,” Baskin said.
“You’re forgetting. We picked up Tobin’s horse. We should have one extra.”
“Damn, you’re right, we should have an extra horse,” Baskin said. “I’ll have somebody scout around, see if it got loose somehow.”
Brice and Paul stood by the fire and finished breakfast while some of the men searched for the missing mount. After a half hour, Baskin came back to tell them the search was in vain. The horse had obviously been stolen and there was little doubt as to who the thief was.
“It was Daisy,” Baskin said, attempting unsuccessfully to keep from smiling—his eyes glued to Paul Simmons’s face in gleeful anticipation of the outburst that was sure to come. He was not to be disappointed.
“What?” Paul exploded. “Daisy! Are you sure?”
“Yessir,” Baskin tried to deadpan, but the smile spread across his weathered features.
“Oh, no—oh, shit,” Paul groaned. “That whole picket line of horses, and he took the only one in the entire army that doesn’t hate me.” He turned to Brice for help. The desperation in his eyes caused Brice to smile broadly. “Oh, it’s funny all right.” Brice and Baskin broke into laughter but Paul could not appreciate the irony. “What the hell am I gonna do?”
“Don’t worry, Paul. You won’t have to walk back. You can ride that big buckskin of Tobin’s. He looks gentle enough.”
* * *
More than twelve miles to the north, Rain Song swayed in rhythm with the gentle motion of the docile mare as she followed Little Wolf’s Appaloosa down a wooded hillside. Before them, the snow-capped mountains in the distance stood tall like silent sentinels, promising protection in their vast wilderness. This time she knew they would find their place. She could feel it in her bones.
Little Wolf looked back at his wife and smiled when her eyes brightened in response. Like her, he had a feeling deep inside that this new land would bring them the peace they had sought for so many years. While he felt at peace with himself now, there was also a feeling of sadness in his heart. For his mind journeyed back to the early years and the many souls who had died along the way—friends who had ridden the warpath with him, loved ones who had been sacrificed for the white man’s Manifest Destiny. But it was a white man who filled most of his thoughts, more so than even his brother, Tom—Squint Peterson, the old scout who longed most for the peace Little Wolf and Rain Song were now in search of. He missed Squint—he would always miss him—the huge grizzly bear of a man who never gave up in his efforts to persuade Little Wolf to return to the white man’s world. Looking back at Rain Song again, he knew one thing to be true, I am Cheyenne. I can never be anything else.
He turned his face toward the north once more, and with his wife behind him, Little Wolf, Cheyenne, son of Spotted Pony, rode down into a green valley that would lead them to a land of shining mountains and lakes shimmering in the morning sun, of mighty rivers and rushing streams, a land where a weary warrior might rest.