He spoke about it to Ben Fleet, but the man was in a deep scare and he showed that he would be of little use in an emergency.
“If we try anythin’,” he said, “they’ll kill us for sure.”
“They’re goin’ to kill us for sure, any road,” McAllister reminded him.
There was more shooting the following day and this time it was prolonged. Falling Leaf came and told him that a body of soldiers a hundred strong had advanced to within a mile of the people and had been met by the warriors. The Indians had suffered a couple of dead, but many soldiers had been killed. This had done the spirit of the people good. Once again, they felt that their medicine was good. The great medicine man, Man Who Dreams, who was with the band had predicted that the Cheyenne would have a great victory over the soldiers and that they would reach their old homeland in the north. The people quickened their pace, there was a new light in their eyes and a spring in their steps. Warriors came to taunt the prisoners with their triumphs. Soon the army would be defeated and the people would go into camp; then the Cheyenne would find out what kind of men the scouts were.
Two days later, Strong Bear himself led an attack on the east flank of the army, which was probably Towney’s command, and in the dawn managed to drive off some more horses. There must be a lot of soldiers on foot now and that would slow them down. The warriors came back with fresh and bloody scalps dangling from their legging fringes and pony bridles. They sang, beside themselves with joy.
Fleet cried in despair: “Why don’t they kill us an’ get it over with. I can’t stand no more of this.”
They went on, pushing ever north. Now and then they detoured west as evasive action, but their main direction was north. The country started to break before them, they saw the distant mountain peaks on a clear day and they knew that their hope was justified.
They caught another scout and brought him triumphantly back to camp. This man was of different caliber from Ben Fleet. He was an Indian, a Delaware, and McAllister knew him from the past. He had served many years with the army and had a good record. He was a first-class trailer and a man of courage – Jim Daley, a Christian. He was in a bad state when they brought him in. He had been hit over the head with a war-club and his face was all bloody. He had also received a lance wound through his left arm, but he took his suffering stoically. They bound him as they had the other captives and set him to walking with them in the midst of the people.
He greeted McAllister with a wry grin.
McAllister questioned him about the army and learned that the soldiers were having a bad time in the snow trying to keep up with the Indians. They were many miles from their supply wagons which now could not be moved and the two generals were having to pack supplies forward by horse and mule. It would not be long in Daley’s opinion before they were forced to withdraw. A good number of men had been killed and as many wounded. It was bad for the wounded and they were undergoing untold suffering. There had been two doctors, one with each of the commands, and one of them had been killed in an early attack.
McAllister watched perpetually now for a chance of escape, but none offered itself. The women watched the prisoners closely. It was their delight.
They came to timber and, in spite of the close proximity of the soldiers, great fires were lit. That night, though everyone was tired from the terrible march, there was dancing among the trees, men and women girated wildly in the firelight, the voices of the people providing the music, the stamping of feet and clapping of hands the rhythm. They danced far into the night and in the dawn the soldiers attacked.
McAllister was woken by the sound of rifle fire and heard the bullets tearing their way through the trees. For a moment, the people panicked and tried to flee, but the soldiers mistakenly tried to get among the trees and horsemen never did stand a chance among trees. They were cut down by the rifles which the Indians had taken from the soldiers, they met the ferocity that Cheyenne warriors always showed when they were immediately defending their women and children. It was the soldiers who fled this time. The Indians suffered no more than two dead, a warrior and an old woman, and three wounded. The wounded were an incumbrance, for there were more than a dozen with the people now and several of them had to be mounted on precious horses. A horse died in this affray and his body was at once butchered and distributed. They went on.
They walked all through that day and the following night, for Strong Bear was afraid that the soldiers would redouble their efforts before it was too late, but scouts sent back to spy on the soldiers brought the news that they had stayed back and showed no signs of moving.
The people rested on the following day, building themselves makeshift shelters in the snow. Once again providentially the snow fell heavily and blanketed out the sign they had left. They rested the whole day and through the following night and then went on again. The Delaware suffered greatly from the wound in his arm, but nobody did anything about it. McAllister was unable to help with his arms still bound tightly to his sides. Fleet had started to whimper.
They walked for another week and neither saw nor heard anything of the soldiers. Strong Bear expected that more soldiers would come after them from the north, but none appeared.
“Pretty soon now,” Daley said, “we’ll see the Sioux or some Cheyenne. We are coming to their country.” The news did not cheer McAllister.
* * *
“Something’s up,” the Delaware said.
McAllister pulled himself together and looked up ahead. There was something up all right. The excitement spread like wildfire through the people; they surged forward, talking animatedly among themselves, their faces alight. The crones guarding the prisoners beat them with renewed vigor to make them hurry forward. McAllister pressed forward and then he saw him.
He didn’t have to look twice to know that he was a Sioux. A tall man astride a small paint pony. His face was proud and fierce, painted neatly, a skin cap on his head with three eagle’s feathers in it. He was dressed in a loose hunting shirt and leggings, showing off a crimson breech-clout. Around his shoulders was draped a fine fur cape. He was armed with a long bow-lance and a revolver was thrust through his belt. He beamed on his Cheyenne cousins, welcoming them; they plied him with questions. He understood not a word for he apparently spoke no other tongue but his own and a Sioux woman married to a Cheyenne was brought forward to interpret. The Delaware understood Sioux and he translated roughly for McAllister.
They were in Sioux country all right and not twenty miles ahead was a mixed village of Minneconjou and Northern Cheyenne. It looked like they were at the end of their travels. The two men looked at each other – they knew what that meant.
Fleet said: “Now they’re goin’ to kill us.”
“That,” said McAllister, “will be the least of it.”
Chapter 12
The village stood in the curve of the creek, sheltered by the low hills, smoke rising in welcome from the smoke-holes in the peaks of the lodges. There must have been two hundred tipis there, half of them formed in the circle of the Cheyenne. The people came out to meet the fugitives, the air was full of shrill cries and the barking of dogs, relatives greeted each other, willing hands helped the infirm, wounded were lifted tenderly down from horses, hostile eyes were turned on the prisoners. Small boys came to bait them, to make snowballs to throw at them, to strike them with sticks in cruelly innocent delight. Fleet fell to the ground and they belabored him as he lay weeping there with pain and humiliation.
The people moved in a great noisy mass down into the village and there they were cared for: the cold were made warm, the hungry were fed and the injured were cared for. There was tenderness and pity for the fugitive Cheyenne, cold glances and rough treatment for the prisoners. The three of them were separated, each of them being taken to a different lodge and thrown roughly to the ground. Falling Leaf managed to find herself shelter in the same lodge as McAllister and at once she tried to make their host release his arms. They had been tied in the same position fo
r weeks now and he despaired of ever being able to use them again. Reluctantly, the owner of the lodge, Spotted Bull, permitted his arms to be freed for a time while he ate.
The pain he suffered after the bonds had been untied was excruciating and it was all he could do to prevent himself from crying out. It was more than an hour before he could move his hands although Falling Leaf massaged his arms. But at least he was warm and was given a little food, for which he was duly thankful. After he had eaten, one of Spotted Bull’s sons tied his hands again but this time only at the wrists. He was heaved out of the way under the wall of the lodge and left to lie there.
At least, McAllister thought, they’ve left my legs free. That gives me a chance.
He lay there for two days without anybody but Falling Leaf coming near him. She fed him what she could, but it was precious little. However, he had eaten something and the numbness and lethargy of the march had given way to a warm drowsiness. He slept hour after hour, building himself up after his utter exhaustion, knowing that if a chance of escape came, he would want every ounce of strength he could summon.
Falling Leaf told him that she had questioned many warriors who had been over the back-trail of the fugitives and that none of them now claimed to have seen her husband, Little Wolf, alive. She was starting to despair, but she begged McAllister to believe that, even though her man might be dead, she would not cease from trying to help him. By this she meant that there would be few in the tribe who would now protect her if she had to face trouble. He thought she was a brave fine girl and he told her so.
Then, alarmingly, Falling Leaf didn’t appear again. McAllister asked one of the women who lived in the lodge what had happened to her, but the woman wouldn’t tell him beyond that Falling Leaf “had gone away”. He had always hoped that if it came to the time for death or torture, the girl would have at least cut his bonds and let him take his chances, but now even this hope went. Word did come from her, however. A young warrior who said he was Little Wolf’s cousin managed to get into the lodge unobserved and tell McAllister that Falling Leaf had been sent to live in a tipi on the other side of the camp because it was known that she was friendly with McAllister. It was this young man’s opinion that McAllister and his fellow captives would be put to the torture and killed at a big feast that would be held in the next few days.
“Cut me free, brother,” McAllister said. “That’s all I ask.”
The young man took fright at the suggestion and went away. McAllister sighed and started work for the hundredth time on his bonds in a vain effort to get out of them.
From now on food became scarcer for him. He lay against the wall of the lodge, watched the life going on in it, slept and longed for food and freedom. He kept his eyes sharp for any weapon or knife that might be dropped near him with which he could sever the rawhide that held his wrists, but the chance never came his way. Slowly, he gave way to despair.
Then the drums started.
It was night and he could see the reflection of a great fire on the inside of the tent. The drums were not far off and they were loud. The men of the lodge came in and dressed in their best finery, colored shirts and sashes, fine white doeskins, colored fringes, beautifully worked moccasins, feathers. They painted their faces carefully in brilliant hues, working at their mirrors like actors about to go on stage. This went on for a long time. They were in no hurry and they wanted to look their best. An old woman soured and bent with age came and squatted by McAllister, letting him catch the stench of her, and telling him that the time had come for him to show the Cheyenne how much of a man a whiteman could be. He would bring delight to the women, fire and steel would shrink his manhood that night.
Spotted Bull, the owner of the lodge, came and stood looking down at him.
“Prepare yourself, whiteman, for the ordeal of fire,” he said.
McAllister grinned up at him amiably.
“I will give you no pleasure, brother,” he said. “I shall die without sound.”
Spotted Bull seemed a little taken back by his apparent calm.
“We have ingenious ways,” he said.
McAllister said: “Many Horses will take your living liver from your body when he hears of this.”
Doubt showed on the man’s face.
“Many Horses is dead,” he said. “He died at Indian Creek.”
He turned away, summoning the younger men to the dance. They began to drift away. The din outside increased. The sound of singing and that of flutes and pipes were added to the sound of the drums. After a while, he heard the stamping of feet as the dancers started.
If he didn’t get out of here now, he’d never get out at all.
He got to his feet, his eyes and ears alert. Lying across a bed of skins was a long and slender bow-lance and its tip was made of steel. His heart leapt. Quickly, he lay down on one side with his back to the spear and after several unsuccessful attempts managed to get the spear-head between his body and the bonds that held his wrists behind him. From the start, it was awkward work and once he felt the sharp edge of the blade slash his flesh. But he didn’t let that deter him. What was a cut wrist in exchange for a life? He sawed away, moving his whole body at times to do so, holding the haft of the weapon as firm as he could with his feet. He thought that he would never have success, but at last one strand gave. He now redoubled his efforts, sawing away like a fury till the sweat leapt from his flesh.
All the time, the drums thundered on and the people raised their voices in wild joy.
Another strand gave. How many more? He worked on furiously. His eyes watched the doorway for a possible interruption.
Hands free, he thought, then under the wall of the tent, away under cover of darkness. The idea was to get himself astride a pony and then south as hard as he could go in search of the army. It was funny, really. He had wanted out when he was with the soldiers, now he had never needed them so badly.
He couldn’t believe it when it happened. His hands were free. He got them around the front of him and sat up. There were still strands of rawhide tight around his wrists. He got to work with stiff and almost lifeless fingers and slowly, agonisingly freed his wrists completely.
At once the blood started to work its way back into his dead hands and at once, as he expected, the pain started. He worked his fingers backward and forward, clenching and unclenching them.
Movement caught his eye.
He looked up.
An Indian stood stooped in the doorway, his black eyes glittering from out of the mask of paint.
McAllister moved as quickly as he was able. Stooping, he picked up the lance and rammed the blunt end into the encarmined face. With a howl, the man fell backward, holding his face with both hands. He fell backward into another warrior behind him. There were two of them at least, come to take him off to the killing. In self protection, McAllister went berserk. As the second Indian pushed his way into the tent, crouched for action, war club in hand, McAllister aimed an almighty swipe at him with the haft of the lance. The man parried the blow with his hand, jumped forward and came in with the club slashing downward. McAllister avoided this by sidestepping, dropped the lance because there was no room to maneuver it in the confined space and rushed in on the Indian. As he did so, he saw another man enter the lodge. It looked like he was going to meet his comeuppance right here and now. It should save everybody a lot of grief.
He hit the man in the belly with his clenched fist, the fellow doubled and McAllister crossed over with his left and caught him a deadly blow on the temple. He went down without a sound. Warily the other man stepped around the fallen warrior, club held ready. He was a thickset man, little more than a moving shadow inside the darkened tent and with his back to the light of the fire outside, but he moved with a surety that showed him agile and quick. McAllister knew that, in his weakened condition, he was going to have his work cut out to stop this one.
His eye caught the club of the fallen man. He feinted at his adversary and, as the man started back, he
stooped and tried to pick up the fallen club. The Indian moved fast. He swung the club and clouted McAllister a terrible blow over the left shoulder, bringing him down to his knees with his left arm almost helpless. McAllister didn’t get the club, but he went on forward, launching himself inside the raised club, his hands grappling for the throat of the warrior. The man brought his weapon down in a smashing blow on McAllister’s forearms.
The big man grunted with pain and fell back feeling that both his arms had been broken.
He heard a sound behind him, tried to sidestep and something hit him on the back of the head. He pitched forward on to the Indian lying on the ground.
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