“Slaves?” Carling said. “How terrible! I didn’t know Indians had slaves. I thought only illiterate Southerners kept other human beings in bondage.”
Preacher grunted. “The tribes been makin’ war and takin’ slaves from each other as long as anybody’s lived on this continent. And it sure as hell didn’t start with them. All the Africans who’ve been brought over here were captured and sold to the blackbirders by other Africans. They’ve been en-slavin’ each other for thousands of years. Slavery goes all the way back to the Bible and probably before. It’s easy for you folks from back East and up North to think that you’re better’n folks down South because you don’t own slaves, but somewhere in your family’s past, odds are they did. And if they didn’t, then some o’ them were slaves. Or both. Only way to wipe it out is to wipe out the human race.”
“You can’t be saying that you approve of such things,” Jasper Hodge said.
“Knowin’ that something exists and approvin’ of it are two different things.”
Hodge and Carling might have continued the discussion, but at that moment Chester Sinclair burst out with uncharacteristic vehemence. “My God! We barely escaped a terrible death just a few minutes ago, and you’re arguing philosophy and the human condition! Shouldn’t we just be grateful that we’re still alive?”
“I’m grateful,” Preacher said. He winced a little as he lifted a hand to his side where Badger’s knife had gashed him. “I’m also still bleedin’ a little, I think.”
Faith took a step toward him. “Let me take a look at it,” she said quickly. “Maybe I can help.”
“No, ma’am, that’s all right. I’m bettin’ that Rip or one of these other ol’ boys has experience at patchin’ up knife wounds. And squaws are mighty good at fixin’ up poultices and things like that. I’ll be fine, ma’am.”
“I insist,” Faith said. “Take your shirt off.”
Preacher glanced at Sinclair and saw that the man was scowling again, evidently having already forgotten his own advice about just being happy to be alive. Preacher hadn’t forgotten that Sinclair was sweet on Faith, and he didn’t want the woman making a fuss over him and causing trouble between him and Sinclair. From what he had seen so far, he liked Sinclair the best of the four pilgrims, despite the man’s apparent lack of self-confidence.
Faith wasn’t going to be denied, though, so Preacher gave in and peeled his buckskin shirt over his head, wincing again as the blood that had already started to dry on the wound pulled free. It was an ugly gash about four inches long.
“That really ought to have stitches,” Faith said with a worried frown on her face.
“Stitchin’ up a wound out here is a tricky business,” Preacher told her. “Sometimes you wind up just makin’ it worse. Best thing you can do for a scratch like this is put a poultice on it and then bind it up as tight as you can.”
“Where do I get this . . . this poultice?”
“Like I said, one o’ the squaws can gather some moss and herbs and make one up.”
Faith looked reluctant to turn Preacher’s care over to the Indian women, but she didn’t have much choice in the matter. A few minutes later, the squaws returned with a large pot of stew. The former prisoners crowded around it. The savory aroma emanating from the pot made all of them realize just how long it had been since they had eaten.
“Where are the bowls and spoons?” Faith asked.
One of the squaws handed out wooden bowls. “No spoons,” Rip told Faith. “You just dip your bowl in the pot and then eat with your fingers.”
Faith made a face. “How is one supposed to eat stew with one’s fingers?”
“One picks out the pieces o’ meat and onion and Injun taters and then drinks what’s left,” Rip explained with only a hint of dry humor.
Meanwhile, Preacher spoke to one of the squaws and showed her the gash in his side. She agreed to bring him a poultice to put on the wound and left the lodge to tend to it.
Everyone dug in, dipping their bowls in the stew pot as Rip had said. “Don’t eat too fast,” Preacher warned them. “Your bellies have been empty for a good long while, and they won’t take kindly to it if you put too much food in there too fast.”
A short time later, the Indian woman returned with the poultice, a mass of moss and mud and herbs. Faith wrinkled her nose in distaste at the smell that came from it.
Preacher didn’t mind the smell, because he knew the poultice would help heal the gash in his side. The squaw plastered it onto the wound, then wrapped strips of rawhide around Preacher’s torso and tied them tightly in place.
“Doin’ it this way will leave less of a scar than if somebody tried to sew it up,” Preacher said.
“It takes an incredible amount of knowledge just to survive out here, doesn’t it?” Carling asked.
“Yeah, but folks learn.”
“Either that, or they die,” Switchfoot added.
When the meal was over and Preacher’s wound had been tended to, the frontiersmen stretched out on the buffalo robes. Warm from the fire, and with their bellies full again, they would be asleep within minutes.
Faith looked around and frowned. “Where am I supposed to sleep?” she wanted to know. “There’s no privacy.”
She hadn’t been worried about privacy the night before, when she was trussed up and thrown down on the ground as a captive, Preacher thought. He didn’t point that out, though.
Chester Sinclair picked up one of the robes and carried it over to the rear wall of the lodge, where he spread it out carefully. “You can sleep here, Miss Faith,” he told her. “No one will bother you.” He left unspoken the pledge that he would see to that, but it was easy enough to read on his face.
“That robe sort of . . . smells a bit, doesn’t it?”
“You’ll get used to it,” Preacher assured her. “And it’s soft enough you won’t really care.”
“I suppose.” Faith sighed and went over to the robe. She lowered herself stiffly onto it and stretched out, turning her back to the others in the tepee.
It wasn’t long at all before several of them were snoring. As tired and beat-up as Preacher was, though, he still didn’t go to sleep right away. As the fire burned down to embers and its light dimmed, he thought about everything that had happened since he rode into the Rendezvous several days earlier. Life had taken some . . . interesting . . . twists and turns since then.
He still missed Mountain Mist, more than he would have thought likely, in fact, considering that they hadn’t been together all that long. And he was a mite sorry that he had been forced to kill Stump. The little trapper hadn’t been a bad sort, really. He had just let his resentment and anger get the best of him, and done some things that there was no turning back from. Preacher regretted, as well, that his old friend Hairface had gone over the divide. But he had a new “friend” in Bites Like a Badger, he supposed.
He asked himself if he could really trust Badger. He knew that having extended the hospitality of the village, Badger wouldn’t go back on his word. But if their paths crossed again somewhere else, away from the village . . . well, Preacher didn’t know what would happen then, but he was pretty sure he would keep a damned close eye on ol’ Badger.
Finally, he dozed off, allowing the bone-deep weariness that gripped him to carry him away into a dreamless oblivion.
Preacher was stiff and sore when he woke up the next morning, but that came as no surprise. He figured that Badger was hurting just as bad, and that thought put a faint smile on his rugged face. Everyone else seemed to still be asleep, so he got up quietly and slipped out of the lodge without disturbing them.
The Teton village was coming to life in the dawn. Women had gotten up and stirred the cooking fires until flames leaped up merrily. Dogs trotted here and there on the usual mysterious canine errands. Even this early, a few kids were playing. And while most of the warriors were still asleep, a few of them were out and about, too, carrying weapons and alertly watching the countryside around the vill
age.
Preacher stretched some of the stiffness out of his muscles and then ambled over to one of the warriors, a middle-aged man he recognized from previous visits whose name was Panther Leaping.
“Panther,” Preacher greeted the man. “May this day be a good one.”
“A good day to die?” Panther Leaping asked with a quirk of an eyebrow.
“If the spirits will it so,” Preacher replied. “Why are you watchful on such a fine morning?”
“Because the filthy, dung-eating Crow would like nothing better than to ruin it.”
The warrior’s emphatic answer made Preacher’s eyebrows rise. “There is trouble between the Crow and the Teton Sioux?” he asked. “I had not heard about it.”
“There is always trouble between the dung-eaters and the real human beings. The Crow have killed our warriors and stolen our women and horses.”
“This is sort of far south for them to be raidin’, ain’t it?” Preacher asked.
“Tell that to Silver Bear. He is their chief now and seeks war not only against the Teton Sioux, but also the Ogallala and the Hunkpapa and the Miniconjou, as well as the Cheyenne and the Arapaho.”
“Sounds to me like he don’t get along with much of anybody,” Preacher commented.
Panther Leaping lowered his voice to a confidential tone and said, “This is why so many of the older warriors among the people do not want Bites Like a Badger to pursue war against the whites. We should be getting ready to fight the Crow instead. That fight is coming, whether we want it or not.”
“It will be a good fight,” Preacher said. “But the true people will defeat the dung-eaters.”
He didn’t know if that was what would happen or not. Despite their degraded reputation among the other tribes, the Crow were fierce fighters and could be counted on to give any enemies quite a tussle. But since Preacher was a guest in the village of the Teton Sioux, he was polite enough to declare that they would win if it came down to a battle.
“That is why we watch,” Panther Leaping said. “Treacherous dogs that they are, the Crow might attempt to strike us unaware. So we watch for them, night and day.”
The entrance flap on the lodge where the pilgrims slept was pushed back then, drawing Preacher’s attention. He looked around to see Chester Sinclair emerge from the tepee. The big Easterner stretched, yawned, and looked around. Spotting Preacher and Panther Leaping, he walked toward them.
“Is everything all right this morning, Preacher?” he asked.
“Fine enough,” Preacher replied. “We’re alive, ain’t we?”
Sinclair grinned. “I can’t argue with that.”
“You look almost happy, Sinclair,” Preacher said.
“I am. I slept extraordinarily well. This high country air . . . it’s like nectar to a man’s lungs.”
The way Preacher saw it, a man could drown in nectar just like he could in water, but he knew what Sinclair meant.
“How’s your wound?” Sinclair went on.
“A mite stiff, but I’m fine,” Preacher replied. “I slept pretty good, too. That and some vittles sure as hell make a difference in the way a man feels.”
Willard Carling crawled out of the lodge in time to hear Preacher’s last comment. “Amen to that,” he exclaimed as he got to his feet. He came over to join the others and continued. “Preacher, I know you speak the language of these people. Could you ask them a question for me?”
“I’ll try,” Preacher said.
“I’d like to have my paints and my canvases back,” Carling said. “Do you think the chief would send someone back to where they were left, so they could be fetched here?”
Chapter Nineteen
The question took Preacher by surprise. He frowned at Carling.
“I mean, if it’s not too much trouble,” the artist went on quickly. “Really, though, they had no right to discard our possessions like that.”
“Out here a man’s generally got whatever rights he makes for himself, and what he can hold on to,” Preacher said. “But I reckon I can understand why you feel that way. You came to the frontier to paint, after all, and you can’t do that without paints and canvases.”
“Exactly! Thank you for understanding, Preacher. Now, if you’ll just tell, what’s his name, Bites Like a Badger . . .”
Preacher wasn’t sure how Badger would react to the request, but he supposed it wouldn’t do any harm to ask.
“Come on,” he said to Carling. “We’ll go see if we can find him.”
He nodded farewell to Panther Leaping and led Carling toward Badger’s lodge, which was one of the largest in the village and was located near the center of the gathering. When they got there, Preacher called out, “Bites Like a Badger! I would have words with you.”
Badger must have been awake already, because the entrance flap on the tepee was thrust back only seconds after Preacher spoke. The chief stepped out, crossed his arms over his chest, and regarded Preacher and Carling in a carefully neutral manner. Preacher thought he still saw some dislike in Badger’s eyes, though.
“Preacher is in pain this morning?” Badger asked.
“No more so than Bites Like a Badger,” Preacher replied. Neither of them was going to admit that they had gotten the hell beaten out of them by the other the night before.
“What is it you wish?”
Preacher waved a hand toward Carling. “My friend would speak to you.”
“He speaks the language of the true people?”
“No, but I will translate his words for him.”
Badger nodded and said to Carling, “Speak, white man.”
“What did he say?” Carling asked with a frown.
“Tell him what you want,” Preacher said.
“Me?” Carling held a hand to his chest. “But . . . but I thought you would—”
“Out here a man speaks for himself. Badger understands a little of what you say, but I’ll put it in his people’s tongue, too, so there won’t be any misunderstandings.”
“Well . . . if you’re sure . . .”
“Go ahead,” Preacher said firmly.
Carling swallowed. “Well, ah, Chief . . . I was wondering . . . if perhaps you could . . . could send someone to get my paints and brushes and canvases . . . that is, if it’s not too much trouble and if you don’t mind . . .”
“Beggin’s not the way to go about it,” Preacher interrupted. “Say what you mean. Tell him straight out.”
Carling looked skeptical and a little frightened. “You’re sure?”
Preacher nodded. He said quickly to Badger in the Sioux tongue, “Carling has expressed his respect for Bites Like a Badger and the true people. Now he will tell you what he wants.” He glanced at Carling and added in English, “Spit it out.”
“All right.” Carling straightened and crossed his own arms as he leveled his gaze at Badger. “You and your warriors took my paints and canvases and brushes. I want them back. I need them to paint. I want you to send men to get them and bring them back to me.”
Preacher translated, making the speech a bit more flowery in the Indian fashion. Badger glared and demanded, “Does this foolish little man not know that I still hold his life in my hands?”
“Among his own people he is a great man, a shaman of sorts. He demands the return of what is rightfully his, and if he is truly a guest in this village, you will be a good chief and honor his demand.”
“I could strike him down right now,” Badger growled.
“You could kill him,” Preacher acknowledged, “but if you do it will be a defeat for you, because it will forever be a stain on your honor. You have given your word that no harm will come to him and the others.”
Badger shrugged at that reminder. “I will not harm him. And I will send a small party of warriors to bring his belongings, strange though they may be, to the village. But only if he pledges not to use them to harm any of my people.”
“He means no harm to your people and wishes them only well.”
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p; Badger nodded reluctantly. “It is agreed.” He paused, then added, “The little man possesses more courage than I thought, to speak to me the way he did.”
“He possesses more courage than even he knows,” Preacher said.
Carling had waited as long as he was going to. He asked, “Well? What did he say?”
Preacher turned toward him. “Badger will send men to fetch your gear. It ought to be here by nightfall, or maybe tomorrow morning, at the latest.”
“That’s wonderful! Should I, ah, thank him?”
“That’d be a good idea.”
“How do I go about it?”
“Just speak your piece and maybe nod a little.”
“All right.” Carling faced Badger and said, “Thank you, Chief. You are a fine man, and I will paint your portrait first, before anyone else in your village.”
Preacher translated, “He promises to honor you with his medicine as soon as his paints and brushes and canvases are returned to him.”
Badger grunted and returned Carling’s nod.
Preacher touched the artist’s arm. “Come on. Let’s go back to the lodge with the others. Even though the Tetons have promised us their hospitality, it wouldn’t be a good idea to go wanderin’ around too much, especially by your lonesome.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Carling said. “I don’t intend to stray far from your side, Preacher!”
By the time Preacher and Carling got back to the lodge, the others were awake. Faith rushed up to her brother and threw her arms around him. “My God, Willard!” she exclaimed. “Chester told me you went off to confront that awful Indian! Have you lost your mind? He could have killed you! And all over some stupid paints and canvases!”
Carling stiffened and pulled back from her a little. “Stupid paints and canvases?” he repeated. “I don’t talk that way about your poetry, Faith.”
She fluttered a hand. “Oh, you know I didn’t mean anything by it. I just meant you shouldn’t be risking your life like that.”
“I wasn’t risking my life. I was simply letting the chief know that he had no right to throw away my property, and that I wanted it back.” There was a note of pride in Carling’s voice as he added, “And he agreed with me, too.”
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