by Judd Cole
Touch the Sky marveled again at the Black Hills’ beauty. They stretched from the northeastern Wyoming Territory into the Dakota country, a series of rocky, craggy heights rising above the semiarid plain that surrounded them. Lush, dark green forests stood out against barren backgrounds of shale, sandstone, and limestone. Streams tumbled everywhere.
When the Black Hills were well behind them, and they were approaching the Platte River, Little Horse rode up beside his companion.
“Brother,” he said, “I hope you are keeping eyes in the back of your head.”
It wasn’t necessary to say more—Touch the Sky knew what he meant. Wolf Who Hunts Smiling had made a point of letting him know he was watching him intently. The other Bull Whips too made contemptuous faces when they passed him in the column.
“I am,” he replied. “The arrogant Wolf Who Hunts Smiling is waiting to pounce on me at my first mistake. He knows that resisting a hunt soldier is a dangerous business. I cannot even fight back.”
“This thing is wrong,” Little Horse said. “Arrow Keeper tells me the soldiers were originally limited to making sure no hunter attacked the herds too early once the buffalo were spotted. Now the Bull Whips freely beat anyone at any time during the hunt.”
Little Horse looked over his shoulder to make sure a Bull Whip was not riding close.
“Consider the last hunt, what the Whips did to Black Robe of the Root Eaters Clan. He fired on a buffalo before the command was given. The Whips threw him on the ground and beat him until he could not stand. They broke up his weapons. They cut his blankets, moccasins, and kit to shreds. When they had finished, they took all of his food and went off with his horse. They left him alone on the prairie, sore and bleeding, too weak and hurt to move. And the Hunt Law would not permit anyone to help him.”
Touch the Sky nodded grimly. “Wolf Who Hunts Smiling has picked a troop to his liking.”
“Truly, brother. Hold that thought close to your heart, especially after making a fool of Black Elk and Swift Canoe at the Animal Dance. They are for you, buck!”
~*~
The Kiowa scout named Stone Mountain peered out past the rimrock, watching the long Cheyenne column advance below on the plain.
He and his Comanche companion, Kicking Bird, had been camped for many sleeps here in the steep hills just north of the Smoky Hill River, well south of the Wyoming-Colorado border. Stone Mountain was aptly named. The huge Kiowa was even taller than his leader, Hairy Wolf, and his shoulders were so massive he had been forced to cut a slit across the back of his captured Bluecoat blouse in order to put it on. His thick black hair fell past the base of his spine.
“Maldita sea,” Kicking Bird cursed in Spanish. “Now we must finally leave this fine camp.”
Stone Mountain nodded glumly. He had been glad to leave the hot, dry ravines and canyons and arroyos of the Staked Plain behind them. They had found this place and used it as a base camp when spying on the Cheyenne’s advance scouts. But now the tribe had finally reached this far south, and he and Kicking Bird would have to give up this safe, snug place with its good hunting and clear, cold water. It was time to head back now and alert the main band.
True, there were far more blue-dressed soldiers up north. But the two Indians were so used to finding cover in the desert that they could move with ease up here. Even when trees were scarce, one could hunker down in the waist-tall buffalo grass.
Stone Mountain left a little leather pouch with a few beads inside under a rock in the center of the camp—it was the Kiowa way to leave a gift to a place that had been good to them.
“Watching the Cheyenne tribe on the move is a child’s job,” Kicking Bird said. “But I would rather sneak into a bears den than spy on their camps. Their dogs are many and raise a clamor at the first smell of an enemy.”
Stone Mountain nodded. Dogs were also likely to make a racket at the wrong time. For this reason the Cheyennes left them behind when riding into battle or the hunt.
“It was the Cheyenne,” he said, “fighting beside their cousins the Sioux and their allies the Arapaho who first drove the Kiowa out of this fine land. At one time we shared the Kansas and Nebraska ranges with the Pawnee. This green land is our rightful homeland. Now look how they fly right into our faces again! Will they not be content until we are camped in Sonora?”
The two scouts had moved down below the rimrock to untether their ponies. Kicking Bird, who craved tobacco badly, paused to split his wooden pipe open with a rock. Eagerly, he sucked at the brown gum inside it.
“Take heart, brother,” Stone Mountain said as he swung his huge bulk onto the back of his sturdy buckskin pony. “You saw the women and children just now. Prices are good in Santa Fe. There will be no shortage of fine tobacco if this raid goes as planned!”
~*~
Three sleeps into the hunt journey, Gray Thunder’s Cheyennes sighted the Arkansas River. The largest and most treacherous of all the rivers on the Southern Plains, it wound from the Colorado Rockies across the Plains to the huge river the Indians called Great Waters, the whites the Mississippi.
Fresh meat was needed for the trail. One of the braves who had lived in this area with the Southern Cheyennes recalled that a huge salt lick, which attracted game, was located nearby. Gray Thunder called for volunteers to search for it.
Touch the Sky and Little Horse were among the braves who rode off from the main column. They all fanned out, dividing the river valley into sections for the search. Touch the Sky nudged his gray toward a stretch of thickets just past a huge bend in the river.
The salt licks were places where earth surrounded saline springs. The vast amount of salt which accumulated brought deer, elk, and antelope in fantastic numbers. Touch the Sky tethered his pony and entered the thickets on foot, searching for fresh game prints.
He searched the river bank in both directions, finding signs only of rabbits and other small game. He had returned to his pony, and was about to break out of the thickets onto the plain when, suddenly, he felt a sharp tug at his legging sash.
A sapling behind him suddenly split; a heartbeat later, the sharp crack of a rifle reached his ears. Only then did Touch the Sky realize that the tug was a bullet which had reached him before the sound of the rifle—he was being fired upon!
Instinctively, he leaped out of the line of fire. But he couldn’t retreat deeper into the thickets while his pony was tethered in the open.
He leaped out of the thickets and raced toward his horse. But when he glanced out across the short-grass expanse, he spotted no enemies closing in—only Black Elk accompanied by two other riders. Touch the Sky waited for them to reach him.
“Do not stand there gaping as if you were beholding the Wendigo, mooncalf!” Black Elk said as he dismounted. He was accompanied by Tangle Hair, the Bowstring Soldier who had settled the dispute over Honey Eater s braid, and Lone Bear, the leader of the Bull Whip soldiers. “A wounded elk may be escaping. I shot at one just now. Help us find it.”
“You have found your elk already,” Touch the Sky said.
He grabbed his buckskin legging sash and twisted it until they could see the small hole where Black Elk’s bullet had torn through.
Black Elk’s face revealed nothing. There was silence for several heartbeats while Lone Bear exchanged a long glance with his troop’s newest warrior. Touch the Sky watched both men care-fully.
“Truly,” Black Elk said, “from where I stood, I was shooting at an elk.”
“It is common at such distances,” Lone Bear said, “to mistake buckskin clothing for an elk’s hide. Indeed, palefaces are always shooting each other this way. Do I speak straight-arrow, Tangle Hair?”
Tangle Hair was young, only a soldier and not head of a troop as Lone Bear was. Besides, why did this tall Cheyenne always manage to be in the middle of trouble? Nonetheless, Tangle Hair could not help admiring him. He was no brave to fool with. Besides, Tangle Hair had been patrolling the flanks of the column when Touch the Sky entered that thicket—and
he could have sworn Black Elk too had seen him enter.
“You speak straight-arrow indeed,” Tangle Hair finally replied. “It is a common mistake. Good thing for Touch the Sky that Black Elk s aim was not a cat’s whisker better.”
“Yes,” Black Elk said, staring at Touch the Sky with the hint of a smile playing at his lips. “Good thing.”
Chapter Five
Two sleeps passed after the incident in the thicket. Touch the Sky kept a wary eye on his enemies while the land all around him gradually changed as the tribe pushed further south, following the buffalo trail.
There was still enough grass, especially near the rivers, to support the buffalo herds. But more and more now Touch the Sky noticed flowering mescal, the white plumes of the tall, narrow cactus known as Spanish Bayonet, and the low-hanging pods of mesquite. Now they had to be careful to keep the horses and children from drinking bad alkali water.
Touch the Sky was riding by himself on flank guard when Spotted Tail, leader of the Bowstrings, rode out from the main column to join him.
“I would speak with you,” Spotted Tail said, his pony falling into step beside Touch the Sky’s. The brave had thirty winters behind him. But the white streaks in the back of his hair, which had earned him his name, had appeared in his youth.
“I always have ears for words spoken by the leader of the Bowstrings,” Touch the Sky said with genuine respect.
“This is a delicate matter.” Spotted Tail glanced out across the mesquite-pocked range, toward the main body. Touch the Sky knew he was watching for Bull Whip soldiers.
“I saw you count first coup at the Tongue River Battle,” said Spotted Tail. “I have watched you since you arrived at our camp. I have heard the charges against you. Indeed, I was among those who voted for your execution when you were first charged as a spy for the blue blouses. I am glad now that old Arrow Keeper intervened to save you. After watching you fight at Tongue River, I will never question your loyalty to Gray Thunder’s tribe. You are a warrior, buck, and straight-arrow Cheyenne all the way through!”
These were important words, coming from the leader of the tribe’s most popular soldier society. But Touch the Sky held his face impassive, as warriors did. A man who knew he had earned praise never showed gratitude for it.
“However, many in the tribe—many in my own society—disagree with me. Some think that a Cheyenne who once wore white man’s shoes and lived under a roof can never be a Cheyenne. For this reason I cannot follow my heart and invite you to undergo the initiation into the Bowstrings—not yet.”
Touch the Sky nodded, understanding this thing. No Indian leader, be he a chief, a clan headman, or a military society leader, could dictate to his followers.
“However,” said Spotted Tail, glancing again toward the main column, “that is not why I rode out here. I came to tell you that you better play the sharp-eyed hawk during this journey. Something is afoot with the Bull Whips. They have plans for you. In this they are spurred on by Black Elk and his hotheaded young cousin. Indeed, it was to make your life miserable, I believe, that Black Elk left the Bowstrings.”
Touch the Sky nodded. “There was a time when he felt nothing but cold contempt for me. Now he hates me.”
“Everyone knows why,” Spotted Tail said, not bothering to elaborate. “Know this. I have told my Bowstrings, watch not only the people, but the Whips too. They are no men to fool with. Nor are many of them honorable—more than one has stolen meat from Bowstring racks.
“But though I have asked my troop to watch over you, some will refuse to help. Those who are opposed to you say it does not matter that you are brave and strong. They say you are still a lone coyote without a clan and therefore loyal only to yourself. So be wary like a fox. Do not give the Bull Whips the smallest reason for noticing you.”
Touch the Sky nodded, thanking the warrior before Spotted Tail rode back to join the main column. His words left the tall brave apprehensive, but determined. He had sworn this thing to his friend Little Horse when Touch the Sky returned from Medicine Lake after his vision: He was home to stay. Anyone who planned to drive him out now would have to either kill him or die in the attempt.
As if to reassure himself, his hand dropped to the butt-plate of the percussion-action Sharps protruding from his scabbard. The weapon had been a gift from his white father in Bighorn Falls. But if the soldiers chose to invoke the strict Hunt Law, as an excuse for “punishing” him, he would not be free to fight back.
Despite these worries, the increasing excitement of the tribe, as they drew nearer to the buffalo, infected Touch the Sky too. Several of the hunters carried their specially blessed buffalo shields, depicting the tufted tails and woolly humps of the great shaggy creatures. In camp at night, the children who’d been on previous hunts lorded it over the younger ones and kept repeating, “Wait until you see them!” The braves said little. They smiled and looked away, embarrassed to admit that they too were affected by the excitement—though obviously they were.
They were fully aware that this mesa and ravine country was the home of their enemies, the Kiowa and Comanche. The far-flung flankers and scouts sent back word of any movements by red men or blue-bloused soldiers. Black Elk, reckless in battle, showed great prudence when responsible for the entire tribe—at the least sign of potential danger, he led the column wide around it. As was Cheyenne custom, they rode under a white truce flag to announce this was not a hostile movement.
They reached a series of sandstone rises between the Canadian River and the Red River. The spot offered plenty of water, good protection from the sand-laden winds, and plenty of drift cottonwood to make excellent fires. Black Elk called a halt for the day, giving the order to make camp.
Touch the Sky and Little Horse were ordered to backtrack some distance and make a “false camp.” This consisted of building a few fires and leaving a few ponies tethered in the area. It would serve as a decoy. If attacked by Kiowa or Comanche, the racket would alert the real camp upriver.
By the time they returned to the main camp, Touch the Sky was famished. Little Horse joined his clan circle, and Touch the Sky crossed to Arrow Keepers fire. As usual, the old shaman had cooked meat for him too, and prepared extra yarrow tea.
While he ate, Touch the Sky saw Honey Eater crossing to join the women of her clan. After the hunt, the hunters would congregate for hours and boast about their kills. But the hard work of skinning and butchering would fall to the women and children.
Touch the Sky carefully avoided looking at her. Black Elk’s jealousy had softened the warriors brain, and Touch the Sky knew he was on the feather-edge of killing both him and Honey Eater. He would do nothing to set the hot-tempered warrior off.
On the other hand, he was determined to keep as close an eye on Honey Eater as he possibly could. The murder stigma was strong, but Touch the Sky would sully the Arrows if necessary to protect the woman he loved with all his heart.
Arrow Keeper glanced at the youth s face and read some of these conflicting thoughts in the flickering firelight as they ate.
“Will you be riding herd guard again, little brother?” the shaman asked him.
Touch the Sky nodded. He had learned a valuable lesson from the hunt journey: When the tribe stopped for the day, always send the ponies out farther away from camp during the early part of the evening, under guard. That way they could graze until moved in closer during the late hours, yet there would still be grass left for them near camp.
“The duty is unpopular,” Touch the Sky said. “But I volunteer because of your advice that a shaman should seek time alone. And truly, Father, I have come to enjoy the time spent with the ponies.”
“This is a good thing. A shaman, like a chief, must love and serve his people. But he is not as afraid as most to spend time alone, meditating and observing. Only by listening closely to the language of Nature can you learn her secrets. Still … ”
Arrow Keeper gazed beyond the circle of the fire, past Touch the Sky and off into the g
rainy twilight of the Southwestern Plains.
He was thinking of his medicine dream, his vision of blood staining the sacred arrows. And he was thinking of this feeling now, this premonition which stained the air. This was enemy territory, after all.
“Still,” he repeated, “shaman or no, it is also a good thing to keep your weapons at hand.”
~*~
Touch the Sky’s gray was exhausted, so he let her rest. Instead, he cut a good little paint out of the herd and rode north of camp, toward the Red River, to guard the ponies grazing the bunchgrass farther out. Wolf Who Hunts Smiling and several other Bull Whips watched him closely. But Arrow Keeper too was watching, and they left him alone.
The sun had bled slowly out of the western sky, leaving a blue-black dome smattered with glittering stars. Spanish Bayonets rose tall and dark against the skyline. Now and then coyotes barked—a series of fast yelps ending in a long howl that made Touch the Sky’s hackles rise.
The portion of the herd he was protecting was grazing close to the river. Touch the Sky gave the paint her head and let her wander and graze, only occasionally nudging her into movement to bunch the ponies a little tighter.
Finally they settled in one area. He dismounted and took up a position with his back against a Cottonwood, his Sharps lying across his legs. From here he commanded a view of the long, moonlit rise which was the best line of attack.
Despite his vigilance, Touch the Sky was weary. He had been up with the sun, ridden guard on the flanks, then doubled back with Little Horse to set up the false camp. Now he would remain with the ponies until they were called in for the night.
For a time, despite his determination to the contrary, his mind was filled with thoughts and images of Honey Eater. But slowly, as his weary muscles began to grow slack, he pushed the thoughts aside and listened to nothing but the bubbling chuckle of the river, the eerie rhythm of cicadas, the occasional nickering or snorting or stamping of the horses.
