Slim was in a fear induced stupor and Curly Bob was consumed by rage. It was just beginning to dawn on him what was happening.
He tried to turn around to confront the boys but the log wouldn’t let him move. He yelled at Slim “Move damn you, move.”
Slim just stood there as if he were deaf.
Curly Bob shifted his weight in Slim’s direction trying to get his attention. All it did was knock Slim off his feet and as he fell he pulled Curly Bob down with him.
All this did was enrage Curly Bob even more. If he could have gotten a hold of Slim at that moment, he’d have killed him with his bare hands. He couldn’t thrash around much. All he could do was scream and curse the kids and Slim.
Jack walked around so that if Curly Bob raised his head he could see Jack.
“Curly Bob this is your first lesson in team work. Now calm down. Take a deep breath and try and get a hold of yourself. If you don’t work with Slim here, neither one of you will make it back to Hard Luck.” Jack said with a big smile.
With great effort Curly Bob composed himself enough to speak. He was still filled with rage and breathing hard when he said, “You can’t leave us like this.”
As he spoke he was pushing with his feet trying to dig his shoulder into the dirt so that he could get to his knees but without Slim’s cooperation he could get nowhere. He gave up. He lay there his breath coming in gasps both from anger and exertion. Finally, his anger gave way to futility.
He began to plead “You can’t leave us like this. We’ll die out here. We don’t have a chance.”
“What chance would you have given us?” Jack said. It was his turn to be angry. “You would have killed us and it wouldn’t have been a quick death. Our bodies would have been lying here instead of Dirty Earl’s.”
Curly Bob broke in “No, no kid you got it wrong. We was just goin’ to have a little fun with the girl. We wasn’t gonna kill nobody.”
As soon as the words were out of his mouth he knew he had said the wrong thing.
Jack was on his feet in a flash. The next thing he knew, Sonny had his arms wrapped around Jack and was pulling him away from Curly Bob.
Curly Bob was lying there with blood coming out of his nose and mouth and he had a deep gash over his right eye.
Jack’s right boot and pant leg below the knee was covered in blood. For the second time in his life a red haze was lifting from his eyes. He looked down at Curly Bob and then in surprise he saw his right boot and pant leg. He shook his head like a person coming out of a dream.
He told Sonny, “I’m all right. I’m all right.” and shook off Sonny’s grip.
He walked like a sleepwalker to his horse and slowly climbed into the saddle.
Sonny bent down and grabbed Curly Bob by the hair and pulled his head up so Curly Bob could look into Sonny’s eyes. Curly Bob was in pain and shock and was having a hard time focusing. Suddenly Sonny’s face came into focus.
Sonny waited until he had Curly Bob’s attention and said, “If we ever see you again we’ll kill you.”
Curly Bob just looked at Sonny. His mind was filled with pain and he was in a fog.
Sonny grabbed Curly Bob’s hair and gave his head a jerk and said, “Do you understand me?”
Curly Bob turned his head a little to the side to spit out a tooth and croaked, “Yes.”
Sonny dropped Curly Bob’s head and it thumped back down on the ground.
Sonny looked at Jack and saw that he was still in a daze. Sonny said to Beth “Let’s load up the booze and be on our way.”
With the whiskey loaded they turned their horses and rode back the way they came, up river.
Jack was leading three of the packhorses and Beth lead the packhorse that was pulling the travois.
Sonny rode up alongside Jack. They both rode in silence for a while.
Jack said softly “Did you hear what the son of a bitch said?”
“Yes.”
“Beth was right we should have killed them.”
They rode through a wooded area for about twenty minutes and then across a grassy plain for about two miles and then back into the woods. When they were about fifty feet into the woods, Sonny called for a halt. He rode back to just inside the tree line and pulled out a pair of binoculars and scanned the plain they had just crossed and the trees on the other side of the plain. When he was satisfied that they were not being followed, he rode back to the others.
They rode on through the rest of the morning not saying anything, each lost in their own thoughts.
At noon they stopped and broke out the corn fritters to have lunch.
Jack went down to the river took off his boots and pants and began to wash the blood off them.
Beth took some corn fritters and water to Two Feathers.
She put her hand to his forehead. It felt warm but no hot. She looked closely at his abrasion, the cut over his eye and checked the bandage on his finger.
She said to Sonny “He’s running a fever but he’s not burning up and it looks like there is no infection.”
His lip looked worse than the night before and that gave her some concern.
He drank some water and she gave him a corn fritter. She gave him two more corn fritters and some water.
Jack had come back from the river and joined them.
Beth said, “He’s a tough one. He has an appetite which is good and if he doesn’t have internal injuries, I think he’s going to be all right.”
For the first time, Two Feathers said something and pointed to the boys.
They all stood there not knowing what to do.
Two Feathers had a look of impatience and said it again. When he got nothing but blank looks, Two Feathers made a fist with his good hand and put it on his crotch and moved his fist from his crotch in an arc.
The boys stood there shaking their heads and Beth said with disgust at the boys “He wants to pee you idiots.”
Both boys exclaimed “Oh! Oh! Yeah!” and jumped forward to help Two Feathers to his feet.
He got up much slower than he had done the night before. As with Slim’s knife wound, his wounds had set up and stiffened.
Beth walked back to the horses to give Two Feathers privacy.
When Two Feathers had relieved himself the boys brought him back to the travois.
Beth had gone down to the river and moistened the sock that she had use the previous night to clean Two Feathers wounds. When Two Feathers was back on the travois she began bathing his face.
Sonny said, “Maybe we should ask him”, pointing to Two Feathers, “which direction we should be going?”
“How are we going to do that?” said Jack.
“Gestures, grunts, pointing, hell I don’t know but maybe we can get the point across.”
Beth touched Two Feathers on the shoulder to get his attention and said, “What direction should we go?” She stood up and pointed up river and said, “This way?” She pointed down river “Or this way?” She pointed across the river “This way?” She then pointed away from the river “Or this way?” She then held her arms out from her side and shrugged her shoulders.
Two Feathers did nothing but give her a puzzled look.
She went through the whole routine again and got the same result.
She said, “I don’t know guys. Any suggestions?”
Sonny and Jack tried various signs and even acted out going in different directions but got the same results as Beth.
“Well,” said Sonny “One thing’s for sure. We’ll never make our living as a mime. We might as well get going.”
“Sonny, lead my horse will you? I’m going to walk beside Two Feathers for a while.” Beth said.
“OK.” Sonny tied the packhorse’s lead to Beth’s saddle horn, took her horse’s reigns and climbed into his saddle.
They headed up river.
Beth walked along side of Two Feathers. She took his right hand and started talking away to him.
She told him that she thought that he was goi
ng to be just fine. Oh, he’d be sore for a few weeks but he was going to get better. She told him where they were from and about falling down the hole in the cave and how they came to the river.
Sonny looked back at Beth and then looked at Jack and just shrugged his shoulders as if to say “Who knows?”
She droned on for about two hours. Two Feathers looked at her, never taking his eye off her. He gave her his full attention as if he knew exactly what she was saying.
And when she stopped talking he surprised all three of them. He started talking to her. Sometimes he would let go of her hand and use his hands to make signs and gestures. When he would finish gesturing he would take her hand again. So it went for the next week as they went north along the river. Each day Beth and Two Feathers would carry on a conversation. Sometimes Two Feathers would sleep but when he was awake, they would talk all day.
The days were clear and warm and the nights dry and cool. Each night they would set up their ponchos in case it rained and the four of them would sleep under the shelter.
The swelling had gone down on Two Feathers’ face and his appetite had improved. He was walking better but his ribs were still giving him trouble. With Beth’s help he would hold on to her saddle and the two of them would walk for a short while. The effort would exhaust him but he would try and go as far as he could each day and each day he could go farther.
Things hadn’t gone so well for Curly Bob and Slim.
After the children and Two Feathers had gone, Curly Bob lay there on the ground for about an hour. There was a buzzing sound in his ears and his face hurt. Because of the blood and the swelling, he couldn’t see out of his right eye.
In the distance he heard someone calling his name. He had to roll his head around to the right as far as he could in order to see who was calling him. He looked at Slim for a while before he recognized him and then things began to come back to him and he realized where he was and what had happened.
“Yeah Slim, what do you want?”
For some reason Slim had recovered. His ass hurt and he was tied up weird but other than that he was feeling pretty good. Maybe it was because the Indian wasn’t in the area anymore and horrible death was not imminent. He didn’t know and besides he wasn’t the type to analyze things anyway. But he did know if they didn’t get on their feet and get going, they would die and it wouldn’t be pleasant.
“We gotta get goin’.”
“Get goin’ where?”
“To Hard Luck.”
“To Hard Luck? Why do we want to go to Hard Luck? That piss ant town.”
“Curly Bob, just get on your feet and let’s go.”
Curly Bob didn’t want to do anything but Slim kept pestering him so with great effort on both of their parts, they finally managed to stand up. Once on his feet Curly Bob felt better than he looked. Oh, he had a thumping headache and he couldn’t breathe through his nose but his head had started to clear.
He looked over at Slim and to his own surprise asked “How’s your ass?”
“It’s been better. You ready to go?”
Slim looked at Curly Bob and said with surprise “You got your hair! The rest of you looks terrible but you got your hair!”
“Of course I got my hair. Why?”
“Them kids told me that Injun lifted your hair.”
“Nah, he didn’t scalp me. The little bastards!” Curly Bob was getting all worked up again. “Let’s go!” he snarled.
Slim thought, “Well, he must be feelin’ better already.” and off they stumbled.
It was difficult going for them in the wooded areas. Sometimes they had to walk at an angle to negotiate the trees and brush. They made better time in the open areas where they could walk side by side.
It was a terrible discomfort walking hunched over with the constant pressure of the cords on their necks and to make matters worse the cord running between their legs began to rub their butts raw. Each step was agony. They didn’t dare stop for fear they wouldn’t be able to get going again.
Curly Bob had long since stopped cursing the kids, Two Feathers, Slim and every other human being that he had ever know, including a dog he had once owned as a kid. He simply was too exhausted and in too much pain to think of anything else.
Both he and Slim had tried to get out of their bindings but Jack had done too good of a job tying them up. So on they went, walking through the night and into the next day. They thought that nothing worse could happen to them, that everything that could go wrong had gone wrong. Well were they in for a surprise.
Across the river in the trees, four Cheyenne warriors had been watching them. The warriors couldn’t make up their minds as to what they were seeing. It was too far away for them to see that Curly Bob and Slim were tied up and they couldn’t understand why men, even white men, would walk in such a fashion, naked, with a log on their butts.
The youngest warrior called Little Tree said, “Perhaps these are lost spirits of white men who can’t find their way out of this world into the next. Maybe they were disgraced in battle or died bad deaths.”
The older warriors said nothing for a while because they didn’t have any better explanation. The younger warrior thought they were being wise and felt foolish for having said anything to men of such great wisdom.
After following the two white men for over an hour and not being able to figure out why they were naked and walking so funny, the oldest warrior, Gray Dog said, “Well, there is one way to find out who these men are.”
The other warriors were trying to figure out just what that way was when Gray Dog dug his heels into his pony’s side and let out a whoop and plunged his horse into the river. The river at this point was only about two feet deep so the horse was able to cross it at a full run. The other warriors were taken by surprise but soon recovered and whooping and yipping followed Gray Dog into the river.
Curly Bob and Slim had to pivot to their right to see what was happening. Although they knew what was happening they still had to see it. And what they saw turned their blood to ice.
Gray Dog was at a full gallop. His horse kicking up a spray of water as it ran towards them.
If they could have been objective about this, they would have thought “What a magnificent sight, a Cheyenne warrior in his prime, galloping across a river, war lance in hand. By God Slim this’ll be something to tell your grandchildren about. What’s that three more following him? Splendid!”
It was a magnificent sight indeed. However, Curly Bob and Slim didn’t really appreciate it in that light. They pivoted back and scuttled for the trees.
Gray Dog wheeled his horse in front of them. Only then did he see that they were tied. The other warriors arrived.
Curly Bob and Slim were at the end of their string. Curly Bob felt like crying and Slim did.
Gray Dog slowly rode his horse around the men taking it all in. The other warriors followed him. They made comments among themselves and poked them with their spears.
Gray Dog threw his leg over his horse’s neck and slid to the ground. He handed his spear to Little Tree and walked over to Curly Bob. He grabbed Curly Bob by the hair and said to his companions “Look at this one’s hair. It is yellow and has waves. It will look good on my war lance.”
The other warriors laughed and Gray Dog pulled out his scalping knife.
Curly Bob lost control of his bowels and all strength in his legs. He sank to his knees. He would have fallen on his face had Gray Dog not been holding him by the hair.
Slim staggered but somehow stayed on his feet. He was blubbering.
Gray Dog quickly let go of Curly Bob’s hair and stepped back in disgust and said to his companions “What kind of men are these? No wonder they are tied up like dogs.”
Curly Bob fell forward pulling Slim to the ground.
Gray Dog sniffed and smelled the hand that had held Curly Bob’s hair. He pulled his hand quickly away from his nose. He made a face and said, “This one not only soils himself but also smells of piss.”
The three other warriors laughed.
He grabbed his spear from Little Tree, took two quick steps and leapt onto his horse. Slowly the four warriors rode away laughing.
Two days later, a day’s ride from Hard Luck, hungry and dehydrated, Curly Bob and Slim were found by four prospectors.
Both Slim and Curly Bob recovered and although Curly Bob was as mean and nasty as he ever was, he had lost something. Both he and Slim were never quite the same again.
After ten days on the trail, the river took a radical bend to the west toward the mountains. Two Feathers pointed them north away from the river.
They filled their canteens and four canvas water bags and set out.
Beth had walked most of the way next to Two Feathers and by the time they were leaving the river, could say a few simple phrases in Cheyenne. She would teach these to the boys. Being multilingual, languages came easy to them.
When Jack or Sonny would walk with Two Feathers, he wouldn’t say a word to them but with Beth he was a regular Chatty Cathy. It hurt the boy’s feelings.
The boys would ask her why Two Feathers would talk to her but never to them. All she could do was shrug her shoulders. She had no answer. She didn’t speak enough of the language to ask Two Feathers and if she did know enough to ask him, she probably wouldn’t understand the answer. She told the boys as soon as she felt she was comfortable with the language she’d ask him.
This relationship she had between herself and Two Feathers made her feel more than a little smug. She felt that she and Two Feathers had a special bond that the boys didn’t have. It made her feel good and she got a kick out of the boy’s envy. At every opportunity she would not so subtly rub it in.
She would say things like “Today Two Feathers taught me the names for horse, deer, sky and water.” or “Today I learned how to say ‘Come here. I want to eat.’”
“Is that all he thinks about is his stomach?” Sonny said. His voice dripping with sarcasm.
“No, Sonny. That’s not the point. He’s not hungry. He’s just teaching me the language.” Beth said sweetly with a smile. She knew how to get their goat.
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