by Win Blevins
The sound was well to his left.
A night owl called back.
He jumped. The call was shockingly close, maybe twenty yards ahead.
He thought he knew what was happening. He got all of himself but one eye behind the tree, and then looked fiercely.
A dark shape got to its feet.
Way too close. My God, I almost walked up on him.
Another shape materialized from the darkness of the grove. The two stood close together. Sam thought maybe he heard soft words. A shape walked away.
The guard had changed.
He squatted behind his tree and thought like a madman. The new sentry would be rested and ready. What? …
He decided to observe. Different sentries had different ways, whether white or red. Some stood absolutely still. Some stood still but turned a different direction every minute or two. Some paced a little. Some sat down.
This one sat on a low boulder facing north, body erect, head looking very alert. Sam couldn’t make out his face.
Sam quaked a little. Maybe the man had a rifle. That would be enough to get Sam and Coy down the river. Not going into the village would cut his risk way, way down.
His chest hurt. He couldn’t do it. At least he didn’t think he could. Couldn’t leave The Celt.
Safety! Dad would tell you safety!
He watched. He saw no rifle silhouette. If his eyes told him truly, the dark shapes in those hands were probably tomahawk and war club, or the like.
About twenty-five steps to where he could do what he had to do.
He backed away quietly. Regardless of what he did, this wasn’t the angle to start from.
He sat. His mind swayed. My God …
Clear head.
He insisted to himself. Clear head.
He probably sat for half an hour. Then he had a plan. He marked the spot where the sentry stood with three distinctive trees. He backed away further into the moonshadowed grove. My God, I’m going to do it.
He approached from the same direction the new sentry had come, deep within the grove, the direction of the creek. He moved one foot pad at a time, shifting weight carefully, advancing with infinite patience. He thought of the panther, as they called a mountain lion back East, the creature his father had given him as a model. One paw at a time goes down, in perfect control. The cat puts it down, but lightly, so he can pick it up again. When he’s sure, he puts weight on it.
He looked often at his three trees, to be sure of them as the shapes changed with angle.
When he was directly east of the sentry, he began to move toward him. Not straight toward him. Three steps this way, two that, from tree to tree, watching all the time.
His sentry was still sitting, position unchanged. He wondered if this man’s father had taught him silence and attentiveness in the woods, and the extraordinary patience of the hunter. His heart stirred a little.
No, he corrected himself, if the Pawnees are like the Sioux, it’s the mother’s brother who teaches hunting and war. Then he tossed this useless thought out of his mind.
He took two long breaths in slowly and let them out slowly. He would do what he had to do.
The sentry’s head turned toward him.
He froze, and thought he must have turned white enough to see. He didn’t breathe.
The sentry’s head turned in another direction.
Then Sam realized. The man looked west for some seconds, then north, then east, then north, then west, and so on. The movement of head and torso was very regular, disciplined. He faced upstream and didn’t look back toward the village. Sam wondered if he was saying something in a ritual way, maybe, timing his turns. ‘It is a good day to die’ several times over. He’d heard that’s what warriors said.
He pursed his lips against a pang of sadness.
He circled to the left, back toward the village, on his lion pads. Twenty yards from the sentry, directly behind him on the “safe” side, he started his move straight forward. One foot at a time, test, shift weight. Repeat. He zigged this way and zagged that way, keeping trees between the two of them. If the sentry turned, Sam would look like a thick place in a tree trunk.
Soon there were two trees between him and the sentry. Then one.
His heart burst into his throat like a duck flapping up off water.
Head clear. Body steady.
He felt of the blade of the patch knife in his right hand. Very sharp.
No rifle. The man had a tomahawk, maybe, in each hand.
He stepped out from behind the last tree. Since the sentry was looking left, he stepped to the right. With the sentry’s movement timed, he wouldn’t be able to hesitate. Right, test, wait, shift, repeat. Forward, test, wait, shift, repeat. When sentry’s head turns to center, pad left, test, wait, shift, repeat. Left again. Watch for sentry’s head to change direction. Pad ahead …
His heart was loud enough to hear. He waited for the sentry to whirl and attack.
My God, one step and I’m within reach.
He told himself to breathe—not to breathe quietly, to breathe at all.
He resisted lunging.
One step. God, I’m going to do it.
He wanted to laugh. He wanted to let his laughter crack like thunder.
All caution to the winds.
Sam took one running step and lunged.
Left hand grabbed for mouth.
Mouth twisted free.
Right hand cut neck hard.
Left hand grabbed for mouth and went in.
Teeth crunched fingers.
A scream charged up Sam’s gullet, but he sent it into his blade. He cut throat, hard and deep.
The sentry gagged. He coughed. Spasms convulsed him. He crumpled.
Sam pulled his bloody hand out of the mouth and let him fall to the ground.
Sam couldn’t tell whether the hand was bloody from his own veins or the sentry’s. Maybe it was all the same.
He thought maybe his fingers were broken.
A paroxysm racked Sam. He made an odd sound. He honestly couldn’t tell if it was laughing or sobbing.
He looked at his bloody hand, started to wipe it off, then stopped. No, he would leave the blood, his or his enemy’s. It meant something.
Quickly, he started back into the grove. Just as quickly he turned around, grabbed two tomahawks out of the dead hands and a knife from the belt. He ran lightly into the trees.
He decided to move quickly. If someone heard and came to check, he wanted The Celt in his hands before the uproar started. He walked fast to the edge of the clearing and circled toward the west, behind the brush dwellings, his eyes raging for the hut he wanted.
The damn things all looked the same.
He stopped and looked hungrily for orientation. He didn’t dare walk into the main circle, for fear of disturbing some dogs.
He couldn’t tell much about the lodges at night. The painting on them, what made them different—the colors were washed out in the moonlight.
Carefully, he remembered where Third Wing’s lodge was, on the west side facing east. In his mind’s eye he looked at the brush hut he wanted, a little north of west.
Then he looked at the north star and put it directly to his right. He studied out the shape of the circle. Its western arc, then, was right over there. Farther west was … And a little north of that was …
He could see it would be one of three huts.
Quietly, behind the arc of the brush dwellings, he circled to the west.
How was he going to know which one?
His heart fluttered. He could hardly believe it was going so well.
No uproar yet. No one had discovered the sentry’s body. They hadn’t heard the scuffle.
When he got close, he caught a break. He recognized the paint horse staked in front of the brush lodge. He’d forgotten about the paint. He wanted to laugh.
He stepped with care-care-care in that direction.
Damn, he wanted to laugh.
In two or three
minutes he was alongside the hut. Stepping out in front of it seemed like a big moment somehow. Dangerous.
He did it.
Instantly he dropped to his knees.
The moon threw his shadow into the hut. He stared in. My God, had he woken them?
A dark shape within stirred.
Nothing happened.
Rolling over, he decided. He stayed crouched on his hands and knees, waiting.
Nothing.
He crawled forward. Then he saw. Only one dark puddle of robes was in the hut. One of the young men was away. Was he on a war party? Horse-raiding party? Was he on sentry duty?
My God, did I kill the man who stole my rifle?
He grinned. No. Too good to be true.
Forward, hand pad, knee pad, testing, careful, shifting weight.
A much worse thought came to him. Was The Celt on a war party? Horse-raiding party? Sentry duty?
Nothing to do but go forward and find out.
The paint stomped and flabbered its lips.
Sam kept very still, watching the robes.
Forward, carefully. Now, in the shadow at the top of the hut, he saw The Celt hanging, just as before.
He looked at the dark spot on the robes next to him. Surely this was the man who stole The Celt.
An urge to kill boiled up his gullet.
He let it pass. Foolishness.
He took two careful knee-steps forward and rose on his knees. Now he could hear clearly, the deep, regular breathing of sleep. Strangely intimate, to hear the breath of a sleeping enemy. He reached up, patch knife in hand, and leaned over the sleeping figure.
With his left hand he grabbed The Celt in the middle. With his right he sliced the thong in the corner.
The Celt’s barrel suddenly swung down.
My God! It didn’t miss the sleeper by much.
Then, when he cut the second thong, he damn near dropped The Celt right on the sleeper.
He took two of the deepest breaths of his life, synchronizing them with the sounds of the sleeper’s breaths.
Then he reached up and gingerly lifted down his shot pouch.
His eyes almost filled. Lead balls, powder, and a rifle to shoot with. Food. Life.
He slung the pouch over his right shoulder and under his left arm, as he always wore it. He dropped one of the two tomahawks as too awkward. The other stayed in his belt.
He backed up, on hand and knees. Backed up again, carefully. He burned with the desire to jump up and run, but he quelled it. Slowly and carefully.
Outside, finally, he stood up. He looked around. No visible problems.
Then he had an idea. He stepped to the stake that held the paint and pulled it.
No, I won’t steal the horse. Pony tracks would be much too easy to see. But if he spends a little time in the morning hunting his horse, so much the better.
If his luck held, Sam would be long gone.
It held.
Soon he was out of the village.
Giddy, crazy feelings washed over him.
Quickly, he got to the creek and stepped in.
By God. By God. I did it.
Chapter Eighteen
He had to get moving. This was a long way from over.
He and Coy splashed up the creek less than an hour, until Sam got impatient with the slow pace. The Pawnees would eventually find where he left the creek anyway.
He drank deep. Then he lay down in the water and rolled in it. Reluctantly, looking back, he moved to the edge of the grove and looked out toward his rocky ridge, visible as a dark smudge on the land.
They went at a lope across the sandy plain. Carrying The Celt in his right hand, the rawhide rope over one shoulder, Sam was conscious of every footprint, until they got to the ridge. Here the Pawnees would expect him to turn toward the river—they knew he had no way to carry water. Therefore, glad of his wet clothes, worried about eventual thirst, he turned to the north.
Along the ridge, along the ridge, no tracks. He watched the Big Dipper—he couldn’t afford to be visible when the sun came up. That was a long time off.
When the ridge melded into the plain, he turned east. Where the hell am I going? There’s got to be a creek over those next low hills, or the next ones.
Again he went at a lope—distance might be his salvation. Coy kept up.
The hills were no obstacle, but the watercourse beyond was midsummer dry. His throat was so parched it hurt. The dry air coming in and out on every breath felt like sandpaper.
Across the northeast ran more low hills. He had to get across them, find water, and get a hiding place before dawn. Otherwise I’ll probably die.
If there was no creek in the next little valley, he would have to head for the river and not stop until he got there. Moving around in the daylight, that’s what he probably wouldn’t survive.
The little stream was manna from heaven. He smiled at himself. Small manna, an inch deep and a foot or two wide, and a blessing. He lay on his belly and drank. Coy slurped it up greedily. Sam flopped down in it.
He washed his bloody left hand. Blood was blood, and whose didn’t matter. The hand was swollen, and maybe only half useful for holding The Celt’s stock so he could shoot. He would have to shoot tomorrow, maybe.
He walked in the creek toward the river. He decided to hope a hiding place would work. No other chance.
In first light he saw some watercress growing in the creek, yanked it out with both hands, and stuffed it down. Coy sniffed the watercress, sat, and watched forlornly.
It was time to hide. So far he had been very, very lucky.
And got lucky again. Around the next bend another little creek flowed in, a bigger one. He stepped into it and realized the damnedest thing. This creek was flowing north. Not toward the river. In the dark he hadn’t seen a low divide. Maybe this one led to another creek that went to the river…. To the devil with that.
He walked in the water right upstream, south, toward the river, stepped out onto thick grass that would show no tracks, and cached in some dense bushes.
Best I can do today.
Better load The Celt before I sleep.
Oh hell. When he opened the shot pouch, he saw there were only four lead balls left. He rummaged around in the bottom. Only four. The thief had practiced with the rifle.
Damn.
He thought clearly, I’m not going to make it.
He loaded The Celt. Then he reached for Coy, snuggled up to the coyote pup, and both went to sleep.
Coy woke him up at midday, squirming.
What was going on? Did Coy hear something? Smell something?
He wanted desperately to leave the thicket, walk up the nearest hill, and look around. I have to see my fate coming.
He stayed put. Stayed put all the way to dark.
Then they walked back down the big creek to its junction with the little creek. There, even by moonlight, the tracks of several horses were obvious in the sand along the bank. They had tracked him this far and turned upstream.
It gave him the chills. They’d ridden close by him and Coy, sleeping, and he hadn’t heard them. If Coy had, he’d kept quiet. He scratched the coyote’s ears well.
He frowned. They would be searching this creek again tomorrow.
No tracks. We have all night. All night over this divide should get us to the river. But that’s what they’re looking for.
He thought. This is a wide valley. Any creek a little to the north will flow into the big river. No telling whether upstream or down, but …
What if we went the other way?
They set out, and soon found their creek flowed into a river, and the river was headed east alongside the big river, and surely into it.
Mountain luck.
Just above where the rivers joined, in the first light of the new day, he found a patch of cattails. Thinking they’d be great cover, he slogged his way in. When he sat down in the muck, he decided to pull some tails and eat the roots. He’d seen them sliced into stews but neve
r eaten one raw.
It was bad. He ate another one, and another. Coy watched pathetically. Sam was going to have to make a kill today or the pup would disappear on the hunt, maybe never come back.
He stretched out in the muck and went to sleep.
About midday he stirred and saw Coy feeding on a prairie dog next to him. He went back to sleep.
When he woke up again, he still felt exhausted but not sleepy.
He looked around and decided he was still alive. Sometimes life seemed charmed.
He stretched and discovered that every muscle he had ached. He went back to sleep.
As the sun set, he left the patch of cattails quietly and walked in the shallows to the big river. This could be a danger spot. He eased to the edge of the border of cottonwoods along the stream and looked out to the north. Nothing. He crossed the very wide, very shallow stream and looked out to the south. Nothing.
Not that they weren’t searching for him. They just weren’t looking right here right now.
Probably they weren’t close enough, he guessed, to say where a shot came from, even if they heard it. In two nights’ travel he was certainly more than twenty miles from the village, maybe even thirty.
Far enough from the enemy, and too close to starving times.
He sat very still in edge of the trees. Sat and watched more. His patience paid off. Across the plains, looking for a drink, came two muley does and several fawns. He held Coy and petted him—can’t let the pup scare the deer off.
He would have to make sure with one shot. Couldn’t shoot again. If he wasn’t desperate, he wouldn’t even think of using one ball on a deer.
The shot was clean.
The other deer bounded off. Take care of those fawns, he said in his mind to the remaining doe.
He trod softly to the southern verge of trees and looked out. No riders.
He splashed across the river and looked out across the more dangerous prairie to the north. Even after about ten minutes, no riders.
Coy was tearing at the doe. He opened her and gave the pup the gall bladder. He himself ate the liver raw. It was the best mouthful he’d ever tasted. He ate the heart raw too.
While he built a low fire, he skinned a front quarter and let Coy feed on it. For himself he roasted back straps on a stick, ate his fill, dozed, ate his fill again, and repeated the process twice more. Gideon claimed an hivemant could eat ten pounds of meat at a sitting. You learned to do it, said Gideon, to store up against the days you spent starving. Sam hadn’t believed this until now.
