by Win Blevins
With that he suddenly stood up, flashed his teeth, and nodded curtly. Leaving His Presence, Silk thought—that was the way of McKenzie, to make himself seem all-powerful, and you obliged to him.
As Silk went out the door, McKenzie added, “Still, I’d advise caution.”
Silk snapped out of his reverie.
Magpies by the spring. Lots of them—carrion birds, they were. Silk urged the mare to a lope. Then she shied off and he had to dismount to get a close look.
A horse, with Hairy’s hobbles on it. The magpies wouldn’t leave even when Silk got close, the darned critters. Silk couldn’t see how the horse was killed—maybe gutshot, since the birds had ripped that area open.
Silk knelt for a close look at…Yeah, that was the chestnut wig half pinned under the horse’s neck.
Haire-e-e.
Silk backed off to where the mare was grazing. Hairy.
There was sign everywhere—hoof prints and moccasin tracks, but Silk didn’t read sign well.
He sat down and put his head on his knees.
Why couldn’t he cry now? He cried when it was fake, but he didn’t have any tears now. He remembered the words he’d spoken over Hairy’s coffin: “The truth is, Lord, I didn’t always know if I liked him. But I loved him, and I think You do, too.”
For a few minutes he sat there, head down, not really thinking. He remembered sometimes. Remembered when Hairy pulled him to the ground that night after they stood up to Fitzpatrick. Remembered when Hairy painted himself so crazy for the Cheyenne affair. Remembered when he and Hairy and Jim hugged, after the fight. And heard under those memories a stately, measured music with a high, poignant obligatto of loss.
In half an hour he was up and reaching for the reins. He knew what he had to do.
“Blackfoot,” said Jim. “Not Cheyenne.”
Pine Leaf, still on her horse, nodded. “Siksika,” she hissed.
Yellow Foot got down and started checking out the ground more carefully. The horse was just bones now. Yellow Foot, with grief large in his soft eyes, picked up the chestnut wig and handed it to Silk.
It was Pine Leaf who found it. Hairy’s finger. It had been hacked off, and now lay covered with sandy soil. It was the left-hand little one with the ruined walnut nail.
“Where’s the rest of him?” Silk muttered.
So Jim explained that one sport of Blackfeet was dragging victims behind a horse until they died. Could be anywhere, any direction, within several miles. If it was close, the magpies would have marked it before.
This talk left everyone grim.
So the four of them looked the site over thoroughly and found, according to Jim, remarkably little. It had been a party of maybeso six or eight or ten men—hard to tell after all the walking around here, first by the men and then by the horses. A party out for ponies or scalps, looked like, from the light way they travelled. Came from the south—Crow or Cheyenne country—left to the north. Likely knew about this camping spot too, and just chanced on Hairy.
“I don’ see his Shakespeare, either,” Pine Leaf put in.
“No, they took their time and scavenged good,” said Jim.
“What does a Blackfoot want with a book?” Silk asked, pouting. He’d hoped to keep the Shakespeare as a memento.
“End up at some trading post,” Jim allowed. “Not close by.”
He filled up with water, mounted, and led them off about half a mile, within sight of the spring but on higher ground. “Like Hairy shoulda done,” he commented to Silk.
So they did the chores of making camp. Silk felt melancholy. He tried to think about his future. He would have to leave the Crows now, but had no partner. He could hunt for Fort Cass, probably—maybe he and Ginny would…Or he could go to rendezvous, and try to hook on with Rocky Mountain Fur. But hymns kept pushing these plans out his head. Hymns and memories.
Over a supper of pemmican he finally asked: “So do we go after them?”
Antelope Jim shook his head. “Trail’s near three weeks cold now, and they were headed home. Have to hit the whole village.”
“We hit Siksikas all times, all places,” said Pine Leaf. “We take their blood. That’s how they pay for Hairy.”
“We’d never find them as done it,” said Jim.
That flat statement sat between the four of them for a long moment.
“But if you want to follow trail,” added Yellow Foot, “I go with you.”
Silk shook his head. It was pointless. Seemed everything was pointless.
After dark he sat and blew hymn after hymn on the love flute, his own requiem for Hairy.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
One fair daughter and no more
—Hamlet, II.ii
It was the talk of the fort: Ginny was gone. Kidnapped, it seemed.
Tulloch swung from brooding to raging. “Right out of her own home!” he would say suddenly and crash his fist on the table. “My daughter taken…” Then silence. Ginny’s mother, the self-effacing Crow woman, said nothing but was not stoical—Silk saw her hauling water with tears on her face.
It was the Blackfeet apparently. A small band visited the fort for several days while the Rotten Belly band was camped there and Jim, Pine Leaf, Yellow Foot, and Silk were gone to see about Hairy’s death. Neutral ground or not, Tulloch had a bad time keeping the Crow outfit from rubbing those Blackfeet out. After a couple of days, Chief Rotten Belly led the Absaroka people off in a bad mood, unwilling even to be near the Siksikas.
Tulloch disliked and distrusted Blackfeet too, but this band had stopped to trade the previous fall, and the Blackfeet were being courted avidly by American Fur these days. So Tulloch really couldn’t turn them away. The baron ordered, Get the trade at all costs!
The cost in this case was Ginny.
In all the hullabaloo Silk found out some about Ginny he didn’t realize. She was an unusual breed girl—was born back in the U. S. somewhere and raised to be a real lady—had gone to Miss Somebody’s finishing school and had high-falutin notions. Dead game, though, Jim said. Wouldn’t stay back in the States like her dad wanted. Went with her adopted mother regular to live with the Pryor Mountain Crows. Treated Injuns like folks. Negroes, too—Jim caterpillared his lips as he said the word. She said she was an Abolitionist. Jim described that as an oh-so-generous organization of white people to give black people their freedom, which was already theirs for the taking. And Ginny could ride a horse agile and quick as a dust devil, and wouldn’t have her head turned by nobody.
So Silk figured she must be some.
Tulloch kept fuming. He blamed himself for not being more suspicious. Why was that lot—small, but arrogant as any Blackfeet—this far south anyway? Yes, a stop to trade a few robes the previous autumn, that was understandable. Exploratory, probably, and Tulloch had instructions to barter generously. But why’d they come back? The new trading post, Fort Piegan, was right in their back yard. Why, indeed, except to steal Ginny? His precious Ginny.
Why hadn’t he let the Crows massacre them? Thus Tulloch sent up fumes and smoke, but would not erupt. Mostly he retreated to his ledgers.
He’s a man who aims to live small, thought Silk. He’s not going to do a darn thing. Ginny’s gone (Silk already felt like her friend) but the sumbuck’s gonna do nothing. Silk sniffed his contempt.
“What are we waiting for?” Silk challenged Jim. The big black was stoking his little clay pipe after dinner. He took time to light it and offer the pipe to the four directions, the earth, and the sky before he answered.
“Maybeso for daylight to start after Rotten Belly,” Jim said evenly. But the gleam in his eye gave him away. They were camped just downriver from the fort. Rotten Belly had left word he would be hunting around the big bend of the Yellowstone, where he expected to find many buffalo.
“We got to get her,” Silk said flatly.
Pine Leaf and Antelope looked at each other thoughtfully. Silk guessed they’d been talking about it. Yellow Foot just gnawed on more roast, their f
irst fresh meat in five days. Yellow Foot seemed to eat twice as much as Jim, yet still looked slim and smooth-skinned as a girl.
“Antoine be here pretty soon,” said Jim. Antoine was a breed who hunted for the fort. “That’s what he’s coming to talk about.”
Jim puffed on his pipe quietly until Antoine slipped in out of the night and sat down without a word. He was young, fit, and good-looking, except for a hint of sneer. Silk felt mistrustful of him. Jim tapped out the pipe and refilled it and handed it to Antoine.
The breed took a hasty puff and raised his eyebrows at Jim. “You go?” he asked.
“Maybeso Ginny want to be with them,” Pine Leaf offered. “Likes young warrior maybeso.”
“Not that kind of girl,” Jim said. “She’s a real lady-lady.”
“Besides, they’re too ugly,” Yellow Foot put in, grinning, and went back to eating.
“She wouldn’t go off and not tell her parents and break their hearts,” Silk added. He felt foolish.
Antoine eyed Silk strangely, then shook his head no. Turning to Pine Leaf, he said that if she was ever captured by the Siksikas, she would know why no woman should ever let herself be captured by those dogs. He snapped out curses on Blackfoot bodies and souls in three or four languages.
Antoine was so dark he might have been an Indian, except for the Frenchy accent in his English. The accent, which sounded sort of womanly, seemed queer coming from so fierce a face.
“And Ginny is Crow, hate Siksika,” Antoine added.
“What you think?” Jim said to Pine Leaf.
“Better to have the Lumpwoods,” she answered, meaning the men of that Crow warrior society.
Jim shrugged.
“I go,” Antoine said. “Simple.”
“Why not?” said Silk, a little irked.
So Jim, Pine Leaf, and Antoine spelled out the obstacles. The little band was headed north, maybeso anywhere into Blackfoot country, which was five hundred miles on a side. Being only three days old, the trail could be followed. Likely be easy to follow, in fact, and for that reason the girl would not be with the band. Some young men would be taking her another way—that trail likely hard to find, harder to follow. They’d be wary of being tracked from the fort. Worth a try, maybeso, but poor odds.
Antoine had an idea, though. For a couple or three weeks, the bands would be making the hunt of early summer. After that they would gather for the Sun Dance. Every bunch of Piegan and Kainah and Siksika from all over the north country would be there. Likely find out at Fort Piegan where the big doings were. Sure enough a place to spot the girl. Maybe tricky to march her off.
“We can’t wait a month,” Silk interjected.
Antoine shrugged. “Lots of riding good for a horse or a woman,” he said with a malicious smile.
Silk felt himself flush.
Jim waited. Waiting to see if I do anything dumb, Silk thought. Antoine, I’ll take care of you later.
“My problem here,” Jim allowed, “is our army. This one”—he jerked his head at Pine Leaf—“is a soldier. Yellow Foot too. Antoine’s an old hand. And you, Silk, are a gallant young recruit, but new to the game. Such as might go on a war party to hold the horses and watch.”
“I can fight,” Silk growled.
So what was that icicle he felt inside? “Such kid endangers us all,” Antoine said.
“Let me,” Jim said to Antoine pointedly.
“Maybeso you can fight—for sure you can shoot,” allowed Jim. “But we got a problem here. Goin’ far, far into enemy country, we don’t need no hotheads, no heroes, and no independent thinkers. There might be a way—just to get close and have a look-see, you cotton—but it has to be done easy and smart.
“This child don’t start out till everyone understands they’re soldiers and Antelope Jim is the general.”
Antoine said of course. Silk agreed, louder. Pine Leaf lay back and looked at the stars. Yellow Foot grunted and kept eating.
“This child promises to hogtie you and lash you to the saddle if you get out of line,” Jim said to Silk.
“I understand,” Silk answered. He sounded scared even to himself.
Jim looked at him. “Believe you do. Actual, the general is more worried about you, Antoine.”
“Me, my father, my grandfather all fight Siksikas,” Antoine growled.
“That’s how come I worry,” Jim said. “You ain’t scared, and you got reason. Besides, Tulloch says you been making eyes at Ginny for another wife. But you can’t keep the belly of the wife you got full. Either of her bellies. Tulloch says I ain’t supposed to let you close to his daughter.”
Antoine said nothing, though his face looked full of words and feelings. Pine Leaf was watching Silk with a little smile.
“Wagh! This child tells you simple, Antoine. You get outa line and I shoot you. Backshoot, if I have to.”
Antoine stood up and looked down at Jim. Finally he gave a little shrug. “First light,” he murmured, and walked off into the darkness.
The four shook out their blankets and spread them. They’d talked until the big dipper showed about midnight, but Silk couldn’t sleep. He stared at the night sky.
So. They were going to try to slip into an encampment of thousands of Blackfeet. They were going to try to ease Ginny out on the sly. And keep her away from Antoine.
A damsel in distress, and an antagonist for the lady’s hand. But not fairy-tale stuff. Real as an icy knife-edge.
Silk blinked and turned the Milky Way into a grand smear. He made funny little sounds, sort of like chuckles, in his throat. He’d never been so excited in his life. Or was it scared?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
where is any author in the world
Teaches such beauty as a woman’s eye?
—Love’s Labours Lost, IV.iii
Silk held his glass on the girl. She was easy to pick out in the village because her hair shone white as Easter lilies in the sun.
No one had told him what she looked like. Ginny Tulloch seemed about four-and-a-half feet tall. Maybe four-and-three-quarters. She was like a doll—beautifully proportioned, erect of carriage, perfect as a porcelain figurine, outfitted in a showy skin dress glittering with German silver. But she was tiny. And at first Silk thought she must be wearing a white scarf, but she wasn’t. Ginny, at seventeen, had rolled atop her head abundant hair of dazzling white.
“The tow-headed one,” Jim had said, passing the glass. Silk would never have put that childish word to it.
“What gorgeous hair,” he murmured. “Pure white.”
“Sort of,” Jim said. “She’s got it rolled in ermine tails. Actual hair is ginger. Makes it handy to spot her, don’t it?”
Ermine tails—Silk liked that even better. Through the glass, Ginny was as a creature in a dream. Silk would give the rest of his life to her.
Jim tapped him and Silk handed the glass back. Antelope glassed the rest of the village. It was a circle of tipis spread comfortably around a big meadow on the south side of Two Medicine River, full of yapping dogs and shouting children. Ordinary and peacable as any village of Indians on these Western plains, except for two things: There was a score of other encampments just like it nearby, making a metropolis of enemies, and these Blackfeet were holding a white girl captive. The girl Silk had set his heart on.
She wasn’t guarded. But why should she be—wasn’t home several hundred miles away across enemy ground? What could a lone girl do in that spot? He looked around for the brave who stole her away. Though he’d spotted the tipi she slept in, he couldn’t tell which man owned it. If it was a kindly older man who treated her like a daughter, fine. If a young man, a mate, Silk meant to have that man’s life.
He didn’t care about the risk. Jim would understand, when he thought on it.
Silk lay back in the cool of the crevice and relaxed. He and Jim were hiding in a vertical split in a sandstone bluff, not a mile from the village. The crevice was dark and cool. You could climb out frontways or straight up. “
Snug as a bug in a rug,” Jim said. Cool and concealed, anyway.
It had been a heck of a month. The five of them had ridden from the Yellowstone across to the Musselshell and over the mountains to the Judith and clear on north to the Missouri, near the mouth of the Marias. There they saw the charred remains of Fort Piegan, built the summer before to establish trade with the Blackfeet. When American Fur abandoned it for the winter, the Blackfeet burned the stockade down. A going-away present, Blackfoot-style.
But the little party of seekers heard about a new post just six miles on upriver, and rode over to talk to David Mitchell, the clerk of Fort McKenzie. Mitchell wouldn’t tell them anything—didn’t want outsiders messing around the Blackfoot Sun Dance. But the hired men at the fort said the Blackfoot get-together was up on the Two Medicine River, far to the west, in the shadows of the great mountains that divided the continent.
So the little band pushed its quest deeper yet into the land of the Blackfoot enemy. They rode by night and slept by day. When they passed the mouth of Cut Bank Creek, they searched for miles around until they found a concealed place to camp, in a dense grove in the bottom of a deep canyon, with graze for the horses and cover for the men. Were they not five against five thousand? That was when Jim asked Silk to come along and scout out the main camp and try to spot Ginny. Not to make any move, Jim cautioned, just to look-see. Silk thought maybe Antoine was miffed at being left behind, which was handsome. The two went off, wearing some of Pine Leaf’s Blackfoot-style mocassins. They moved on foot and by dark.
Now they knew. Knew where Ginny was. Knew the layout of the camps and pony herds. Knew where the sun-dance ceremony itself was about to take place, led by a faithful woman. Knew what they had to know.
Silk asked Jim how they could manage it. The mulatto shook his head. “Silk,” he said genially, “you can shoot. Sure can. Now you gonna learn the first skill of war. Waiting.”
They lounged in the crevice all day, dozing off and on, watching the camp in its daily routine, trading riddles, mostly just waiting in silence. Silk imagined playing his love flute—the one Ginny had carved—to pass the time. Maybe it would entrance the girl magically, mesmerize her, lure her from the grip of the enemy to the arms of her lover.
