by Tim Champlin
“What was that?” he managed to gasp.
“Only a small flock of passenger pigeons,” Carrick said.
“A small flock?”
“Oh, yeah. I’ve seen ’em take an hour or two to pass in flights so thick they block out the sun like an eclipse.”
Zane could hardly believe it. “Passenger pigeons became extinct long before I was born,” he said in a low voice to Tom and Huck so Carrick couldn’t hear.
“Can’t be,” Tom said with finality. “They’s so many they could fill the whole world. They’s so thick, hunters don’t bother shooting them; they catch ’em in nets. Use the meat to feed the slaves.”
“They are extinct in my time,” Zane insisted, still shaken by the realization that such a thing could happen in only a couple of generations. “There is not even one left alive.”
“I’ll go along with most o’ what you say about your time, but that’s a real stretcher,” Tom said.
“Well, let me tell you another fact you may or may not believe,” Zane continued, somewhat riled that he was being called a liar. “The United States recently had a black president who served for two terms.”
Jim looked interested. But Tom and Huck regarded Zane with disdainful looks. “No such thing!” Tom stated.
“Is that the brass-bound truth?” Huck wondered. “If Pap warn’t already dead and gone, that kinda news would kill him sure.”
CHAPTER 25
* * *
“Zane, if you think those pigeons were something, come take a look at this,” Carrick said.
Zane mounted his burro and rode to the guide’s side, taking the spyglass from Carrick.
“Look off to the southwest there,” Carrick pointed.
When he focused the glass, he saw in the distance what looked like a brown caterpillar. Then it seemed to resolve itself into a fuzzy, crawling carpet. He took the telescope away from his eye and looked again. Only a dark line.
Then he used the glass again, and suddenly gasped. “Buffalo!”
“Yep,” Carrick said, taking the telescope and handing it over for the others to have a look. “A good-sized herd from the look of it. Hope a couple hunters from the train are out far enough to spot them. All the trains could use some fresh meat.”
“There must be thousands of them,” Zane said.
“Very likely,” Carrick said, “though all the traffic along the Oregon Trail has disrupted their migration routes. They don’t seem as plentiful as they did five or six years ago.”
“I reckon you’re gonna tell us all the buffalo are wiped out in your time,” Tom scoffed.
“No, we still have them, but they were barely saved from extinction when only a few hundred were left. I’ve read there was such fearful slaughter by the late 1870s a hunter had to go for many days out here before he could spot maybe a half dozen animals.”
“Another of your stretchers, I’ll be bound,” Tom said.
“Only twenty or thirty years from now, you remember what I said,” Zane warned, feeling like an Old Testament prophet.
“Why would anyone shoot all the buffalo?” Huck asked. “They’s enough buffalo meat out there to feed the whole country for the next thousand years.”
“For the hides,” Zane said. “And to take away everything the Plains Indians depend on so they could be conquered.” He remembered these sad tales from his American history classes.
Tom and Huck looked at him and then shook their heads in disbelief.
“Young man, I don’t know if you’re stringing these boys along, or you’re just guessing about the future,” Carrick said to Zane. “But I could envision that happening. The Plains tribes do depend on the buffalo to live. No resource, living or otherwise, is limitless. I’ve already lived long enough to see beaver and mink and river otter decline from trapping.”
While they were talking the sun had slid under a cloud and the wind began gusting, bending up Carrick’s hat brim. Zane noticed the scout watching the sky to the west. It had turned ominously dark.
“Let’s go, boys,” Carrick said, neck-reining his horse. “She’s gonna come on to storm in a little while and we don’t want to be caught out in the open. See the greenish tint to that black cloud, low down? That’s a sure enough sign there’s hail, so it ain’t nothing to fool around with.”
They urged their mounts to a trot. The wagon train was miles to the south, but Zane realized the scout was leading them toward a clump of cottonwoods in a creek bottom to shelter from the coming blast.
They’d only ridden a couple hundred yards when a cluster of Indian horsemen swept out of the hollow and reined up, eighty yards in front.
Zane caught his breath and his heart skipped a beat or three. Both parties halted, eyeing each other from a safe distance. Sudden fear froze Zane for several seconds. He gripped the reins of his burro.
“Oh, no!” Tom breathed.
Zane took a deep breath, trying to calm himself while his eyes took in this apparition. There were a dozen or fifteen warriors, naked except for breechclouts, bronze skin painted with red, blue, and yellow markings, eagle feathers waving in their long, black hair, ponies decorated with various symbols.
The leader out front wore a long headdress of eagle feathers that hung down his back, ruffling in the wind. Each rider was armed with a bow and a quiver full of arrows with knives at their waists.
Scared as he was, Zane was thrilled at the sight. Silhouetted against the black sky, wind blowing their feathers, the brightly painted ponies sidling and tossing their manes, these Indians were the picture of all that was wild and free in the world.
“Hold steady, boys,” Carrick said, raising his hand, palm outward in a symbol of greeting. “It’s a Sioux war party.”
“Not a hunting party?” Tom’s voice quavered a bit.
“They’re painted for battle. They’d likely have some of their women along if they were hunting buffalo.”
“Oh.”
With yips and yells, the Indians swept down into the slight depression and then rode up and surrounded them.
“Keep your hands in sight and don’t make any sudden moves,” Carrick said. “They look mighty irritated and we’re easy pickings. Let’s see what they want. Maybe I can parlay our way out of this.”
When they rode in tight, Zane caught a musky odor, saw the paint streaked with sweat, and heard their grunts as they inspected the little party.
Zane glanced over at Jim. His eyes were wide under the brim of his flop hat.
With guttural bursts, the Sioux began commenting to one another.
The leader in the long headdress stopped in front of Carrick, and the two began to sign with their hands.
“You speak Sioux?” Tom asked in a tight voice.
“Only a little,” Carrick muttered. “But most tribes know sign language.”
From the vigorous gestures, pointing, and an explosive word now and then, Zane gathered the head Indian was aggravated about something.
While he had a chance, Zane studied the features of these men. What were they thinking? What was happening behind those dark eyes? With a jolt he realized they were humans, like he was—they weren’t animals or some kind of subspecies. Their skin was darker than his and they all had strong features and no whiskers, but differed from one another in looks as their own little group did.
One rider edged his pony forward, reached over, and snatched off Zane’s glasses, looking at them curiously, then put them on. When the lenses distorted his view, he yanked them off in wonder as if they were magic. Zane had to choke back a laugh. The Sioux decided to keep the eyewear and shoved them into a pouch at his waist.
Another warrior had ridden up to Jim and touched the big man with a short spear he carried. Then he grew bolder, reached out a hand and rubbed the black arm, and looked at his fingers to see if the charcoal had come off. Maybe he’d win an extra coup feather for his bravery, Zane thought. In spite of their fearsome aspect, they were almost like children.
Carrick and the lea
der were still signing and pointing.
“They’re not sure what to make of us,” Carrick said quietly. “Especially Jim.”
“Looks like they want a fight,” Huck said. “Worse than the Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons. Hope they got a better reason.”
“It’s the usual thing,” Carrick said. “They’re alarmed because the whites—as many as leaves on the trees—are invading Sioux land. Whites come in swarms, like locusts, chopping down the trees, stripping off the grass, fouling the streams with dead animals, bringing strange sickness—cholera and measles.” He shook his head. “The whites are too many to fight, but the Sioux and their allies will steal our horses and guns and food and kill as many as they can—usually picking off stragglers like us. That’s about the gist of it.”
Zane swallowed hard. Stragglers?
The Indian leader began speaking again, gesturing and pointing.
“They’re taking us to their camp,” Carrick said. “Ride along peaceful and don’t talk. We’ll have to play this by ear.”
With the Indians surrounding them, Tom, Huck, Jim, Zane, and Carrick were herded to the west at a trot.
Well, if Tom had wanted to go adventuring amongst the Injuns, his wish had been fulfilled in abundance, Zane thought. Sometimes imagining an adventure was a lot safer than the real thing. Tom had always insisted Indians were honest and honorable and brave and noble. Where he’d absorbed this idea, Zane guessed from Tom’s conversation, was from reading romantic novels.
After two miles they reached a camp that turned out to be a cluster of fifteen hide tepees pitched on flat ground 200 yards from a small creek. The camp was inhabited by numerous women, children, and barking dogs. Zane wondered if the dogs were for guarding or for food in lean times.
They were directed to dismount and did. The women were apparently preparing to break camp in the face of the approaching storm, but dropped what they were doing and surrounded the little party, poking and prodding them as if they were livestock up for auction. The smaller children looked on, wide-eyed, at these strangers.
Everyone seemed to be talking at once and Zane wished he could understand the language.
A couple of the younger women were running their hands over Jim and smiling, much to his obvious discomfort.
A tent flap was thrown back and an older man emerged, white hair in long braids that hung down on each side of a face that resembled a brown, dry lake bed with hundreds of cracks and creases.
“Running Wolf!” Carrick cried, opening his arms wide at the sight of this ancient.
“Carrick!” the man answered taking the scout by the shoulders.
“It is many moons,” Carrick said. “Are you well?”
“Old,” the elder said, stating the obvious, and almost smiled.
“Running Wolf and I knew each other in the old days when I was working for the American Fur Company,” Carrick explained. “He was a great and wise warrior.”
“Old now,” the Indian repeated. “We must feast,” Running Wolf decided, then said something to the warriors and to the women.
But an older woman pointed at the approaching black cloud and apparently told him the feast would have to wait. An artificial early twilight was creeping over the plains.
Zane took a hard look in that direction. Far off, he could barely make out a dark funnel. It appeared to be scarcely moving, twisting, but probing the earth from under the massive greenish cloud. In the clear air of this wide-open country, things that appeared to be twenty miles away were as likely to be fifty.
But if Zane had spied that distant tornado in his other world, he would have been diving for the nearest ditch or cave or cellar.
“Must show you,” Running Wolf said, ignoring the protesting woman, and taking Carrick by the arm. “Your two white men,” he began as he led the scout toward the rear of the camp. “They kill Winter Hawk.”
Zane and the boys followed.
Between the cluster of tepees and the picket line that held the spare horses, two men were tied, spread-eagled, on a framework of saplings, apparently semiconscious. Their hats were missing, their clothes torn, and their faces streaked with blood.
“We skin,” Running Wolf said. “Take scalp. Put fire here.” He indicated his chest. He accompanied the halting English with vigorous gestures.
Two women cursed shrilly in Sioux and lashed switches across the faces of the helpless men. Zane guessed these two would provide entertainment before being scalped and roasted alive for the murder of a warrior, and maybe only for being white in Sioux country. He’d read the Apache exceeded all others for ingenious torture, but the Sioux were not far behind.
“The noble red man,” Zane remarked sarcastically to Tom before he remembered that Running Wolf apparently understood and spoke English.
“It be dem!” Jim cried.
“Who?”
The boys leaned closer. The black, drooping mustache, the scruffy reddish brown hair. They weren’t in disguise now. It was Weir and Smealey.
CHAPTER 26
* * *
“Your two kidnappers?” Carrick asked in a low voice.
“Yes.”
“You bring these men into our country,” Running Wolf stated, not in such a good humor now.
“No,” Carrick said. “They come alone. Very bad men. Steal from these boys.” He indicated Tom and Huck, then pointed at the tied men. “They run away.”
There was a grumbling among the Sioux crowding around and Zane felt the baleful stares. Were these Indians assuming all white men were the same and should be treated the same? In his own time, many whites made the same assumptions about blacks, Chinese, and Indians. He sensed an undercurrent of resentment that could be taken out on them as well—similar to an inner-city riot about to break out, punishing the innocent with the guilty.
“Don’t say nothing, boys,” Carrick said, turning away from the sight. “I can understand some o’ their talk. A few of them are out for any white blood. Jim might escape it, but we could be roasted right alongside these kidnappers if I don’t play this right.”
A cold hand clutched at Zane’s heart.
Thunder boomed, hardly more than a mile away.
Carrick walked to his horse and opened the saddlebag, pulling out a hefty canvas sack tied with a drawstring.
Was he bribing them with gold? Where was the gold Weir and Smealey had taken?
“My old friend, Running Wolf, has many wives and many children,” Carrick said, smoothly, handing the sack to the old man. “Running Wolf has counted many coups in battle and taken many scalps. It is time for him to rest with much honor. Here is something to help soothe the aches in your bones during the moon of popping trees.”
While the old Indian’s gnarled fingers were fumbling with the drawstring, Carrick said in a low aside to the boys, “It’s seven pounds of the best shag tobacco, mixed with latakia and a hefty portion of hemp.”
Some of the other Indians were now beginning to lose interest in these proceedings and pay more attention to the coming storm. Many of the women had turned to striking camp, dropping the tepee poles and rolling up the hide coverings.
A gust of wind whipped a cloud of dust across the bare ground, scattering ashes from the cooking fires.
Zane sprang to his burro and took hold of his halter. An Indian had grabbed the reins of Jim’s mule and the other loose horses that were whinnying and tossing their heads in alarm.
Carrick was suddenly there. “Okay, let’s git out of here. Running Wolf has given us his blessing to leave, and none of these other braves dare cross him.”
All five mounted quickly and kicked their animals into motion, although the high-strung horses needed no encouragement and bolted like racehorses.
Jim and Zane were left fifty yards behind, but caught up when Carrick and the boys slowed down over the crest of a hill a half-mile away.
The wind was roaring now, and Carrick shouted something that couldn’t be heard, but pointed toward a clump of trees growing near
a cutbank in a creek bottom.
They raced for this meager shelter.
As they plunged their mounts down the wash, the rain burst over them and then hailstones began pelting down, bouncing in every direction. The animals were jumping and plunging as the ice stung their hides and heads.
Holding the reins, the men were able to huddle up under the lip of the cutbank and keep the largest ice balls from hitting them.
“We gotta set those men loose!” Huck shouted.
Nobody answered. Darkness had almost fallen. It would be a long wet night. The temperature had plunged at least twenty degrees within minutes.
“Weir and Smealey—we can’t let them burn up!” Huck yelled.
“De Injuns got ’em, Huck. Ain’t nuffin’ we kin do.” Jim’s voice boomed.
“I have to try.”
“Why d’you care?” Tom shouted back. “Look what they did to me and you and Becky. Let the Injuns have ’em.”
“Then, if you don’t care about them wretches, Tom Sawyer, let’s you and me go after the gold,” Huck cried.
“Now you’re talkin’! I wondered when somebody was gonna mention them bags o’ gold.”
The roar of hailstones hitting the trees, ground, and rocks was so loud, they had to shout to be heard.
The boys sprang to their horses and vaulted into the saddles. Zane and Jim were a bit slower with their mounts.
As the burro took off, slipping and sliding up the bank after the boys, Zane barely heard Carrick shouting something but paid no mind.
He ducked his head against the slashing ice that was bouncing everywhere, beginning to accumulate on the ground and in the prairie grass. In the rush of excitement, he hardly knew what he was doing or why. The hail stung like thrown gravel, but the straw hat partially protected his head and face. Squinting ahead, he saw Tom and Huck galloping toward the site of the Sioux camp. He twisted in the saddle and looked back. Jim was only thirty yards behind and closing fast.
