“Looks like we’re out of the frying pan,” Cunningham called warily.
“And smack into the fire,” Tylor told him. “They’re going to get us in the end, you know. Run us down out in the grass. Ambush us. Steal the horses in the night. Some trick.”
“Reckon so,” Cunningham agreed. “Think we ought to shoot this coon while we got the chance? Open the ball and see if we can put the scare on ’em?”
Tylor hesitated. Play now or later? Here, they at least had a chance to . . .
The hiss-thap sound of an arrow hitting flesh startled him. With no conscious thought, he triggered the rifle. The pan flashed. His shot took the stunned youth full in the chest.
As the smoke billowed, Tylor charged forward, swinging the jack handle. The second young man was bringing his bow up, pulling back the arrow as Tylor unleashed all the strength in his body. The jack handle’s barrel brush past the young man’s hastily uplifted arm. Hit the man’s head with a melon-hollow thud. Tylor saw the fellow’s facial skin ripple with the force of the impact.
Tylor pivoted, started for the next warrior, pulling the jack handle back.
The man was staggering away as Tylor dealt him a glancing blow with the rifle’s barrel. Almost knocked him from his feet. An arrow was protruding most of its length out of his right shoulder. Ahead of him, another of the Arapaho was running full tilt up the slope.
Tylor’s frantic gaze took in the camp, seeing the hawk, hissing and leaping against its ties, trying to fly with its splinted wing. The thing looked terrified.
A blue cloud of smoke was rising from where Cunningham was already pouring powder into his muzzle, his eyes taking in the three fleeing warriors.
An arrow made a blur through the air. It hissed past an Arapaho’s left ear and would have been a head shot if the man wasn’t jerking back and forth as he ran.
And then they were gone.
“What the hell?” Tylor demanded in terror and confusion.
“Get yer reload, John!” Cunningham cried. “We ain’t out of this yet.”
Tylor fumbled for his horn, bullet bag, and priming. Almost spilled the pour, dropped a ball, fished out another, and rammed it home. Raising the lock, he used his small horn to prime the pan, flicked it closed, and raised his rifle.
The chief was on his back, kicking ruts in the grass with his heels. Blood bubbled on his lips, his eyes blinking as he stared up at the yellow-orange of a dying sky. The warrior who had been next to him was hunched down on his knees, as if in prayer. His back was bowed, his hands gripping a bloody arrow that stuck out of his chest like a gigantic thorn.
Tylor spun on his heels, seeing the youth he’d shot, eyes fixed. The one he’d hit with the jack handle was staggering away, reeling. As the man slowed, bent, Tylor pulled his rifle up.
The young Arapaho threw up, his body bucking with the ef fort. Then he straightened and staggered out of sight.
“What the hell?” None of it made sense.
“Kai kuttih!” someone called from the grass above. “Kai kut
tih!”
“Wonder what that means?” Cunningham asked, his rifle shouldered as he spun to face the new threat.
“Sounds like a kid,” Tylor muttered, the jack handle raised.
“Kai kuttih!” And a figure slowly raised itself above the screening grass. The hands were held high, thin fingers spread wide.
Tylor shot a glance back toward the horses, seeing that they were only fixed on the single figure, not staring around as they would if the camp were being surrounded.
As if reassured, the wisp-thin youth walked down the slope into the hollow, repeating, “Kai kuttih!”
And then it hit him: Despite the short-cut hair, the newcomer was distinctly female. Round hips, thin waist, slim legs and arms. And that was no war shirt, but a supple and form-fitting dress.
“Tylor,” Cunningham called. “I’ll be double damned if’n it ain’t a girl!”
CHAPTER 7
Gray Bear lay belly-down in the grass, his heart beating like a pot drum in his chest. He gripped his bow so tightly he wondered if the wood would crush. The arrows in his left hand, he managed to treat with more care. Flies were buzzing around his head.
Above, the evening sky burned with that fading pale haze of late summer orange fading into night. Through the masking stems of grass he could just see the dead and dying Arapaho. See the Taipo as they stood, shoulders hunched behind their raised aitta. He had watched the deadly weapons spew smoke, fire, and death into the Arapaho. His own victim was on his knees, curled over the arrow Gray Bear had driven through the man’s back.
“No shoot!” Singing Lark kept crying out.
Tam Apo, keep her safe!
Gray Bear forced a swallow down his dry throat. She had volunteered, insisting that as a girl, she posed no danger to armed men.
But the Taipo had just been in a fight for their lives. Men who had just killed—almost been killed themselves—were known to react first, think later.
“No shoot!” Singing Lark kept calling as she walked down into the camp.
The tall Taipo kept her covered with his skinny aitta. The short, mostly brown, man proved the more wary, his gaze skittering around as he tried to watch in all directions. Gray Bear had to approve. This one wasn’t anyone’s fool.
His heart skipped again as the hawk shrieked, unhappy with the noise, the smell of blood. The bird kept trying to leap away, forgetting its bound legs; kept trying to flap its immobilized wing.
Gray Bear took a deep breath. Trying to come to grips with the reality before his eyes.
I dreamed this!
Not this scene directly, not the dead Arapaho, or the position or sequence of events, but the man and the bird. The Taipo and their weapons. Dreams, his personal puha, had led him to this place.
“No shoot!” Singing Lark insisted loudly as she stopped in front of the tall Taipo.
This was the moment of truth.
Gray Bear took a deep breath and shifted his arrows, ready to rise to his knees and drive a shaft through the tall man’s chest if he tried to take Singing Lark captive.
The tall man said something in an incomprehensible tongue.
The brown man kept turning, pointing the aitta this way and that, his gaze still roaming in search of enemies. He said something back.
The tall man lowered his aitta. His hands formed the sign for “Who you?”
“Singing Lark,” she both signed and told him. Her hands like graceful birds, she signed, “We are Newe.”
At the sinuous sign for the people, the tall man cried, “Snake, by God!”
“Snake?” the brown man asked, lowering his rifle. He pointed to the dead Arapaho chief and signed, “He is yours?”
Singing Lark cried, “Kai!” and made the sign for Sa’idika. Then she signed, “Enemy.”
The brown man pointed to the Arapaho transfixed by Gray Bear’s arrow and signed “Who kill?”—his movements jerky, his suspicious eyes on Singing Lark.
“My taikwahni,” she told him, then turned, calling, “Stand up, Gray Bear.”
Both Taipo followed her gaze as Gray Bear—feeling like his heart wanted to leap up his throat—stood and called, “Kai kuttih!” He carefully left his arms at his side, the bow and arrows almost hidden in the waist-tall grass.
“How many Newe?” the tall man signed.
Gray Bear shifted his bow to his left hand, signing, “Five. Haintsa!” He made the hand sign for “friend.”
The two Taipo talked warily to each other, glancing suspiciously from Singing Lark to him, to the surrounding grass.
“Show yourselves,” Gray Bear called. “Keep your weapons down. Just stand there so the Taipo can see you.”
Turns His Back, Red Moon Man, and Kestrel Wing stood from where they’d been concealed.
“Look at their faces!” Turns His Back said in amazement. “You think their mothers locked hips with bears?”
“I’ve seen Taipo before,” Red Moon Man noted
, a hint of superiority in his tone. “When the Astorians went through the Valley of the Warm Winds last year. They are all crossed with bears and very pale.”
“Enough,” Gray Bear told them. He signed, “I am coming to you.” And as he started down the slope, he added, “Kai kuttih!” and “Haintsa!”
To his relief, the Taipo didn’t raise their aitta, didn’t make as much as a threatening move.
“Taikwahni!” Singing Lark proclaimed with pride as he stopped beside her. As she did, she made the sign for “chief.”
“John Tylor,” the brown man said, stepping forward.
Gray Bear blinked, stunned. He signed, “I have seen you.” Then he pointed. “I have seen the hawk.”
John Tylor smiled, the expression making his beard move as if alive. “Seen you.” And he pointed at his head.
Gray Bear took a deep breath. “Nothing prepares a man for a moment like this.” He pointed at the Arapaho. Signed, “Dog Eaters.” And said, “Sa’idika.”
Then he turned, pointed to the west, and signed, “We go. Now. Sa’idika come back tomorrow. No good.”
The two Taipo talked again.
The brown man used signs to ask, “What you want?”
Gray Bear pointed to the man’s rifle. “Aitta. We trade. Much trade. Unlike Sa’idika, we no take.”
And then he stepped to the side, dropping on his knees before the still agitated hawk. “Brother, it is good to see you. The day will come when once again you fly. If I have seen this, I am sure that day will come.”
The young hawk met his gaze, black pupils burning in those bright yellow eyes. The bird was panting, tongue flicking with each breath.
To the others, still waiting up on the slope, Gray Bear ordered, “Go and get the horses. We have a hard night’s ride ahead of us. The Dog Eaters who escaped will bring others back. We don’t want to be here.”
When he looked up, it was to see John Tylor bent over the young Arapaho he’d killed. The man was speaking softly, as if in apology. The Taipo had a pained look on his face, as if tormented in the soul.
Gray Bear hoped the kind words wouldn’t cause the dead Arapaho’s mugwa soul to follow them. Ghosts could bring terrible trouble down upon a man.
CHAPTER 8
Tylor was impressed and more than a little amazed. The girl, Singing Lark, Denito’ai Hiittoo in Shoshoni, had led them on their long night’s ride. She’d been out front, scouting, riding ahead to vanish in the half moonlight. Sometime later, she’d appear out of the darkness, whisper instructions to Gray Bear, then fade into the night again.
It had started with Gray Bear’s insistence that the Dog Eaters were going to return. Not such a hard leap to make given that half of the raiders had escaped. Let alone the fact that someone was going to come looking for the bodies. Chances were good that they’d have a real mad on when they did.
Tylor had to admit, he was just as glad to be quit of the little hollow. The fact that he’d killed that young man—barely more than a boy—kept replaying in his head.
Didn’t matter that the kid was there to cause him harm, looked forward to it, actually. Killing Tylor, striking him for coup, and stealing his horses and outfit would have made the kid a full-fledged warrior. Turned him from a boy to a blooded man of renown all in one triumph.
I just up and shot him.
He’d known what the sound of that arrow hitting home had meant. Somewhere deep in his mind, he’d probably thought it had hit Cunningham, that there was no way out.
Might not have been Cunningham who’d been hit, but Tylor had been very much correct that any chance for a peaceful resolution was gone.
Nevertheless, the whole thing was confusing. Upsetting. He’d killed that boy. Badly hurt, maybe killed, another. A lot of Dog Eaters had died.
Those fateful moments kept replaying. The buck of the rifle against his shoulder, the gush of smoke and the bang. The Arapaho kid had just crumpled. Dropped like lifeless meat. Alive one instant, then—like a snap of the fingers—he was dead. Broken. Destroyed.
Tylor rubbed his trigger finger, trying to understand the impossibility that such a tiny movement, the pressure on the pad of his finger, could have such horrendous consequences.
How fragile life was.
The almost magical appearance of Gray Bear added to his confusion and discomfort. The amiable-faced Indian from his dreams. The one who’d reached out in supplication, tears streaking down his face. Maybe the taikwahni’s face wasn’t exactly the same. Could have been some difference in the roundness of cheek, the bridge of the nose, or the width between the eyes.
Sure looks close enough to be a brother.
John Tylor wasn’t much for mystical visions, leaving those claims for the devoutly religious, the insane in their asylums, and the devotees of opium and too much alcohol.
But, yes, damn it. He’d dreamed it. Never had so much as a hint of foresight before. Didn’t believe it now.
So, what the hell? He had the hawk. Now he was riding with the Indian.
To his and Cunningham’s relief, the Shoshoni had stood to the side as he and Will had mantied up the packs and lashed them onto the packhorses, then saddled their mounts. The entire process had been accompanied by awed mutterings among the Shoshoni who rode like centaurs.
As darkness descended, the way had led down to the Grand River, into the water and downstream, across the river, then over a ridge to a tributary stream. Sticking to the channel, they’d splashed back down to the Grand, then turned upstream. The horses had had to wade up through the shallows for what seemed half the night; the stars had wheeled most of the way across the heavens.
Then Singing Lark had led them up another creek, this one on the south bank. They’d made their way upstream until the brush closed in so densely they had to break out.
Singing Lark kept them low, following the contour of the land, keeping to drainage bottoms, hanging on the edge of the brush, having them ride single file.
The sun stood a full three hands high above the northeastern horizon when Singing Lark led them over a low ridge and down to a camp. The location was in the uplands, well hidden, a deceptive depression in what looked like a grassy flat.
“Have to tell you,” Cunningham muttered as they rode into the shallow bowl, “this coon’s about to slide off this old bone rack and give up my ghost if it means a nap.”
Tylor blinked and yawned. He appraised the camp: small lodges laid out in a semicircle, women and a few kids staring at him with stunned brown eyes. Fires—apparently burning buffalo dung—smoldered, but cast little smoke. Packs lay about, and parfleches were stacked next to the lodge doors.
Behind the tents, a dozen horses were pastured, a tall, crop-haired boy keeping an eye on them. The animals came in all colors, looking shaggy, small, but wiry. They seemed well-caredfor, coats sleek. Now they neighed in greeting to their returned brethren.
A seep fed a patch of willows and provided water at the foot of the hollow, then the trickle soaked back into the ground from whence it had come.
As Tylor and Cunningham rode into the camp, they were the center of attention. The women, children, another couple of men, and one grinning and ugly old woman with wild-flying white hair flocked around, chattering among themselves.
The sight of the hawk, tied where it was atop the manty on Tylor’s packhorse, elicited awed comments. For its part, the hawk stared around, starting to pant again, worried at the proximity of so many people.
Gray Bear dropped from his horse, face breaking into a smile. The old woman went straight for him; her gaping grin exposed a couple of brown teeth in her gums and rearranged the mass of wrinkles that was her face. She hugged him, laughing and chattering in Shoshoni.
Then she turned her dark and sparkling eyes on Tylor as he stepped off of his mare. She spoke to him in what was clearly a reverent tone. With a frail-looking hand, she reached out and tapped the barrel of his rifle with a clawlike finger.
After she’d done so, she raised the finger
to her nose, sniffed, as if searching for an odor, and chuckled, apparently amused at herself. She turned to the people calling out in a singsong voice. The people laughed and clapped, looking pleased.
Singing Lark was still sitting on her horse. The girl’s eyes were bright, her smile almost enchanting. As her eyes met Tylor’s they seemed to warm in an oddly beguiling way.
“What do you think, coon?” Cunningham asked, his wary eyes trying to keep track of everything.
“I think it’s too early to tell, but my hunch is that we’re safe for the moment.”
“Been cogitating on it. These Snakes, they didn’t just show up. Neither did the Arapaho. My take? Them Arapaho was tracking us. Follering our trail. Maybe the Snakes caught sight of us? Maybe they saw the Arapaho and was watching them to see who they was hunting. Maybe they was a watching us and then saw the Arapaho. However that worked, them Arapaho would never have braced us if they’d a knowed about the Snakes being right close.”
“That gives you the uneasy shivers, don’t it? You and I figured we were alone out in the middle of nowhere. Never had so much as a clue we were the center of so much attention.”
“Yep. Reckon this child just larned him a lesson he ain’t never gonna forget.”
“Me either,” Tylor assented, thinking about how blithely and carelessly he and Cunningham had ridden. Right into a mess. But for the good graces of the Snakes, it would have turned out a whole lot worse.
Gray Bear, grinning, had finished his greetings. He turned, gesturing that Tylor and Cunningham unsaddle. With his hands, he signed. “You stay. Eat. We trade.”
“Trade?” Tylor asked glancing back at the packs. “Well, hell, that’s what Booshway Lisa sent us out here to do.”
He and Cunningham stripped the saddles and tack from the horses, then watched the young man from the horse herd lead them out to the cavvy. The usual melee ensued as the horses sorted it all out.
Tylor took care to place the hawk in the shade of a couple of packs. To his surprise, Gray Bear spoke to one of the women, and she produced a prairie dog carcass. It took the hawk a while—uncertain as it was about its new circumstances—but in the end, hunger won out and it ripped into the fresh meat.
Flight of the Hawk: The Plains Page 4
