Abruptly, the disturbance was over. There was no trailing off of noise, with nudges and whispers. Just a sudden cessation - sound then silence. The crack of logs on the many fires even seemed halted for several moments.
“Turn to face Chief Black Hawk,” the sub-chief commanded. Neither his tone nor his expression held the slightest degree of good humor now and his veneration for the chief showed as strongly as it did in the faces of the braves and squaws of lower status.
Edge swung around casually and regarded the imposing Indian who had stepped through the flap of a teepee much larger than all the others in the camp.
Black Hawk was tall for a Sioux - almost six feet. He was about thirty-five and had a smooth handsomeness beneath the daubing of warpaint. His build was broad and muscular, the flesh rippling with latent strength as he straightened from a stoop and took two steps forward before halting. He wore a buffalo hide robe decorated with quills, a skin shirt and leggings tied with thongs. His heavily feathered head-dress reached to his ankles. As he placed his arms akimbo and surveyed Edge with a dark stare from his jet black eyes, the half-breed sensed the ambiance of power emanating from his intelligent face and strong body.
“What he here for?” he demanded of the sub-chief. “I say all pale faces kill quick.”
The sub-chief replied in his native Siouan and spoke for a long time. The way he held up three fingers and the look of surprise and then hate which showed on Black Hawk’s face suggested to Edge that the story of his assault on the south side of the butte was being told.
Edge held the chief’s gaze for long moments, and it was Black Hawk who finally submitted, a grimace revealing his feelings about it. Then, as bursts of Siouan were exchanged between the big chief and the sub-chief, he glanced around at the watchers. His attitude was arrogantly casual, but then he spotted something that caused him to fix his gaze and tense his body. The braves were dressed in a great variety of clothing, some of native make and some stolen from the army and white civilians. One of them, whose attention was captured by Black Hawk to the exclusion of all else, was wearing the bodice section cut from Elizabeth’s red and green dress.
The half-breed held himself in check, fighting back the rage which threatened to explode from his mind and trigger physical action. Many of the braves carried rifles and all would have a knife or tomahawk. And despite the near reverence of their whole-hearted attention to Black Hawk, Edge knew he would not be able to get within ten feet of the brave he wanted before death struck at him from every direction. So he just stood and looked, fixing every detail of the brave’s appearance in his mind. He was about twenty-five, short and stockily built. He had a nondescript face, except for an old knife scar running up from the corner of his mouth to just beneath his right eye. He sported just one feather at the back of his head, and in addition to the top part of Elizabeth’s dress, he wore buckskin pants. His feet were bare.
“I’m talking to you,” the sub-chief said, jabbing the muzzle of the Winchester painfully into Edge’s hip to bring him back to full awareness of where he was.
Edge’s lips curled back to show an evil grin. “But you ain’t saying nothing good, uh?”
The sub-chief eyed him levelly. “Black Hawk wants to know why you came here?”
Edge raised a hand to point to the scar-faced brave. The Indian realized he had suddenly become the centre of attention and tried to draw back. But the press of bodies around him trapped him where he was. His eyes showed fear as he looked everywhere but at the ice-cold expression on Edge’s face. “To kill him? “
Black Hawk glanced at the brave indicated, and grimaced at the fear he showed. “Why you want kill Silent Thunder?” he demanded.
“Kidnapped my wife,” Edge answered, still staring at the trembling brave. “Probably killed her, since he’s wearing part of her frock.”
Black Hawk unfolded his arms and crooked a finger towards Silent Thunder. The brave stepped forward, and came to a trembling halt when the chief extended his hand, palm forward.
“You’re invited to question him,” the sub-chief explained, his good humor returning, shown by a wry smile.
Edge raked his eyes over the crowd and saw a great many similar smiles. “He go to the same school you did?”
The sub-chief shook his head, rustling the feathers. “No, a lousy agency class. Never could speak English good. Can’t speak it at all now. Can’t even speak Siouan. Told a bad lie one time. Pretended to have great courage, but proved a coward. Used to be called Rolling Thunder. Black Hawk’s great-uncle, Sitting Bull, personally cut out tongue and gave new name.”
The brave hung his head in shame as the story of his disgrace and punishment was retold. Edge eyed him with dispassion. “He ever get caught with another man’s squaw?” he asked sourly.
“Only tongue taken from him,” came the reply. “Whole man everywhere else.”
Again Edge had to force back the anger, blotting out the threatened image of Elizabeth’s terror in the hands of the mute, scar-faced brave. “There were a whole bunch of braves at my place,” he said. “I don’t give a damn which ones tells it, but I want to know what happened to my wife.”
Native cruelty swept away the good-humor. “She’s past worrying about. None of the raiding parties brought back prisoners.” The grin he showed now was an evil leer. “She wouldn’t have died easy, but she’d have died loved.”
Edge knew he had no chance of reaching the scar-faced brave. But the sub-chief was close at hand and the half-breed was filled with enough hate to swamp the entire Sioux nation. One moment he was stock still, seemingly transfixed by the weight of his emotion. But then he whirled, arms rising and hands curled. The metal of the rifle barrel was cool against his sweat-sticky palms. He heard a gasp from the watching Indians, and the dry clicks of a score of bullets being pumped into breeches. Then, as he forced the Winchester’s muzzle out of line with his body, Black Hawk’s voice barked a command. He tensed himself for the thud of lead into his body, but the silence which followed the chief’s order was unbroken by gunfire.
The sub-chief allowed the rifle to be forced down so far and no more. The effort it took to withstand the pressure of Edge’s strength showed as only a tautness of his facial skin. His eyes met those of the half-breed’s over a distance of less than two feet. They sparkled with the intent to kill.
“Black Hawk says leave you to me,” he hissed between clenched teeth. “May the best man win, uh?”
“I always do,” Edge rasped, and jerked back on the rifle.
He had been holding it out to his side, on a level with his hip. As he yanked it, he pivoted on the ball of one foot and thudded his shoulder forward and up. It crashed home to the Indian’s jaw, crunching his teeth together as he opened his mouth to hurl a retort. The surprise blow hurt the Indian, but not enough to make him release his grip on the stock and lever of the rifle. He revealed his pain with just a low grunt, then countered. He fell backwards, retaining his hold on the rifle so that Edge was forced to follow him. Both his moccasined feet swept up as he hit the ground. Edge saw what was happening, but could do nothing about it. The Indian’s feet thudded agonizingly into his stomach and he had to go where the thrust of the kick and his own momentum carried him. His body cart wheeled high into the air and then swung down. He heard a throaty roar of approval from the watchers as he crashed, full-length on to his back. A gasp of pain ripped from his lips as the base of his spine took the full impact of the fall.
The moon seemed to zigzag across the sky, dodging crazily among the stars. But the hallucination lasted only a moment. He shook free of it and rolled over, thrusting up his arms to point the rifle skywards. The Indian had also forced himself into a roll, a wicked grin splitting his lips as he saw Edge’s head only inches away from the rifle muzzle. But at the moment he squeezed the trigger, Edge forced up the barrel. The crack of the shot cut across the babble of the excited crowd. The bullet whined up into the night sky:
The Indian emitted a growl of disgust and
released his hold on the rifle, using both hands to help power his spring upright. Edge experienced no elation. He had the rifle, but his grip was on the barrel and the lever needed to be pumped. Even before he was on his haunches, the sub-chief, self-assurance replacing his disappointment, had drawn a knife with a nine-inch blade. The Indian lunged forward, the knife slashing through the air. Edge sprang upwards and backwards, sweeping up the rifle as a club. The Indian howled as the stock cracked against his wrist, deflecting the knife thrust. The knife fell from numbed fingers and Edge started to turn the Winchester. But the sub-chief caught the knife neatly in his left hand and leapt forward, arm at full-length, the point of the weapon aimed at the half-breed’s heart.
Edge pivoted and leaned backwards from the waist. The angle of the knife blade was altered with a simple twist of the wrist. Triumphant joy masked the Indian’s face. A thousand voices were raised in anticipation of the kill. By changing his grip on the rifle, Edge had reduced its effectiveness as a club. But it became a defensive shield. When the knife had less than two inches to travel before it plunged into him he jerked the Winchester up, across his body. The power of the Indian’s thrust drove the knife deep into the rosewood stock of the rifle.
Those watchers standing behind Edge had no way of knowing the knife had not plunged into his body. A roar of triumph went up from this section of the audience and they waited expectantly for the half-breed to stagger back with blood spurting from his chest. Instead, Edge continued with the pivoting motion. Unwilling to release his hold on a second weapon, the sub-chief found himself halted abruptly in his forward leap. He thudded flat-footed to the ground, and was then hurled back and to the side. The power of Edge’s sweeping turn and the whip action of the rifle hurled the Indian into a backwards stagger as he was forced to relinquish his grip on the knife handle.
The roar died, merging into the stunned silence with which those able to see the move had greeted the sub-chief’s failure to kill Edge. The Indian flailed his arms, but was unable to maintain his balance. He sat down hard, his body whipping backwards, to be halted abruptly as he banged against the legs of the stony-faced Black Hawk. The chief, and the entire audience, fixed the defeated man with a contemptuous stare.
Edge used the momentary respite to turn the rifle, with the knife still firmly stuck into the stock. Not until the Winchester made its ominous clicking of ejection and cocking did he regain the attention of every eye in the camp.
“Kill him,” Black Hawk instructed in a funereal tone, refolding his arms. “Such battle is to the death. It is Sioux custom.”
Edge was aiming the rifle negligently at the disgraced sub-chief, who showed shame but no fear. “Is it also custom to blast me soon as I squeeze this trigger?” he asked evenly.
He could see only a section of the silent Indians, with less than half a dozen rifles aimed at him. But he could sense the menacing muzzles of many other guns directed towards him.
“Not for him,” Black Hawk rasped, bending one knee and thudding it into the back of the sub-chiefs head. “We saw fair fight. But no way knowing how you killed three braves on hill.”
Edge clicked his tongue against the back of his bared teeth and shook his head. “I ain’t buying that,” he replied evenly. “Reckon I’ll take my custom elsewhere.”
As he spoke, he elevated the aim of the rifle and his pose was no longer casual. The stock, with the knife protruding to the side, nestled against his shoulder. One eye closed and the other narrowed to a glinting slit. He flicked up the back sight with a finger and drew a bead on the centre of Black Hawk’s head.
“Figure you’re in charge of the store, feller,” he said. “You ready to put up the shutters or do we do a deal?”
Black Hawk blinked. It was the only sign of his surprise. Whispered conversation scratched the night’s stillness, but it was succeeded only by more silence. No one was prepared to act without a command from the chief.
“You fool. You still die.”
“I reckon,” Edge allowed. “But I’d rather go to the Happy Hunting Ground with you than him. Full chief’s just got to have more influence up there than a sub-chief. And the way things have been, I figure I’ll need someone with pull to get me through the pearly gates.”
Black Hawk was not sure he understood everything Edge said. But he fully appreciated the meaning of the unwavering aim of the Winchester.
“What you want?”
Edge spat from the corner of his mouth. “Out of here.”
The chief pondered a moment, then fired off a burst of throaty sounds which comprised instructions in his own language. The sub-chief glanced up at Edge’s resolute expression behind the rifle and the look on his own face revealed his low estimate of the half-breed’s chances.
“I will walk ahead of you to last teepees in camp,” Black Hawk told Edge. “Braves not kill you unless you harm me.
“No, deal,” Edge replied immediately. “I take you to the ridge or the butte. And I take a pony.”
Black Hawk frowned as he considered these requests. The braves waited. The fires crackled. He shook his head, then nodded. “Pony you have. I come only to last teepees.”
“Tell ’em,” Edge said.
Another short burst of Siouan was directed to the frustrated audience of Indians. One brave moved out of the crowd to the rear, and broke into a run towards the dry-stone wall corral. Black Hawk stepped backwards, but only a pace. It showed his confidence in the marksmanship of his braves. Forty rifles cracked in perfect synchronization when the chief dropped his hands to his sides. The sub-chief had been expecting the end and offered no futile resistance. Every bullet drilled into his head, each killing impact countering the effect of another. So that, for stretched seconds, he teetered in his sitting position, a man without a head: just a blood-dripping skull. Then, as pieces of torn flesh and gristle flew away from him to spray over a wide area, he toppled to the side. One miraculously still-perfect brown eye, like an oddly colored egg, surveyed his executioners with mild surprise. Out of the other socket oozed dark brain matter, with the consistency and hue of fresh mud.
Black Hawk eyed Edge balefully. “Him endanger my life,” he explained. “Indian law – for that he must pay.”
“Sure, chief,” Edge answered, holding the Indian’s level gaze along the length of the Winchester’s barrel ‘‘For something as bad as that, he’s just gotta be liable to get Siouxed.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Silently, as Edge circled around to stand behind Black Hawk, the Indians reformed themselves into two close-packed rows, marking a path towards the southern fringe of the camp. When they were in position the hatred generated by every brave and squaw seemed to be a palpable force, designed to provoke the white man into making a fatal error.
But the half-breed was no stranger to this tactic. He possessed the ability himself and used it as a weapon - the glinting eyes in a frozen face that spoke a clearer threat than a thousand harsh words.
The brave who had brought the pony from the corral headed first down the human corridor. Edge allowed him to have a start of twenty feet.
“Okay, chief, move it,” he rasped. “And hope the guys in the bleachers remember I’ve declared open season on birds of any color.”
Black Hawk moved forward with great dignity, arms held akimbo again and face set in an expression of firmly controlled anger. Edge trailed him, the Winchester still aimed from the shoulder with the muzzle a constant foot away from the back of the proudly held head. Moonlight glinted on the blade of the knife projecting at right angles from the stock. But Edge’s narrowed eye behind the back sight gleamed with a greater intensity. His knuckle was white around the trigger.
As he came level with each flanking pair of braves, the Indians brought up their rifles to an equally steady aim.
But Edge gave them only one opportunity for a snap shot that might have killed him before he could blast a bullet into Black Hawk’s head. This was when he glanced for a split-second at the scar-faced brave who
wore proof of his complicity in Elizabeth’s abduction. But if the Indian riflemen closest to Edge saw that he was fleetingly distracted, they were unprepared to match their speed with his.
The brave led the pony a few feet out into the open from between the tail end of the two lines of tense watchers. There he halted and turned around.
“We stop here,” Black Hawk said, but merely shortened his stride.
“When I say,” Edge rasped in reply, re-adjusting his pace to that of the chief. He made his captive walk about ten yards clear of the camp. Then: “Okay, halt and turn around.”
As Black Hawk complied, Edge side-stepped in a half circle, placing the chief between himself and the silent watchers.
“You leave now!” Black Hawk commanded.
“When I get what I came for,” Edge snarled. “Tell the stable boy to bring Scarface out here.”
“I not know what you mean.”
“I want Silent Thunder,” Edge demanded.
“Not part of agreement,” the chief retorted with great determination. “You not to be trusted in making deal.”
Edge sent a stream of spit out of the corner of his mouth. “I wouldn’t buy a used wagon from you, either. Do like I said.”
“No!” As he barked his reply, the chief’s back became ramrod stiff, his shoulders rising as he filled his lungs with what he thought might be his last breath.
“You tired of living, feller,” Edge asked evenly, not revealing in his tone that he sensed defeat.
“I do not send brave to certain death only to save my life, pale face. You insist, we both tired of living. Sleep together.”
“Thanks, but you’re not the kind of bird I fancy,” the half-breed replied, knowing that Black Hawk was not bluffing.
“What do now?”
“Turn around again.”
The chief did so.
“Tell him to give you the pony.”
Black Hawk chose to stare down the bore of the Winchester rather than focus on Edge’s face. “I said only this far.” His tone was adamant.
Sioux Uprising (Edge series Book 11) Page 10
