Another Attack

Note: this segment was published earlier. Here it appears in sequence with the story, "Pony."

 

     The man awakened before his companions.  In the predawn darkness he moved quietly past the horse guard to inspect the hobbled, dozing animals, whispering to them as he gently cupped their muzzles and stroked their flanks, telling them they were very brave and greatly cherished.  Their coats were wet with dew, and as he touched them they yawned and licked their mouths, swished their tails and shook their heads, turning to watch as he walked away.

He went to the edge of a spring and knelt.  He cupped his hands in the water and drank from them and wet his face and shoulders.  Then he walked out onto the dark prairie; facing east he raised his arms and chanted softly, a death song handed down from generations long past.          

Gradually his companions woke but they did not approach him nor did they speak.  They watered their mounts and they ate what small rations they had.  They strung bows and primed the few ancient fusils they possessed, and assembled themselves in feathers and paint, each alone with his thoughts.  They sprinkled dust on the backs of their ponies to ensure swiftness and they daubed them with pigment for protection and when they were ready they mounted and joined together, the ponies prancing, wild-eyed and mouthing their jaw ropes, tails tied up for war.  The horizon glowed gray as they set off at a trot, a forest of legs quick-stepping nearly in unison.

 

--

In the veho-e camp were six men, unemployed teamsters and two who had joined three days previous, army deserters from Kearny, ragged and hungry but armed.  All were making for the mountains; they had heard of gold and silver plucked from the shadowed canyons of the front range, west of the South Platte and Cherry Creek. 

The day before they had crossed the Stinking Water and Frenchman’s Creek.  Fresh buffalo sign was everywhere, and as they passed a jug around their night fire they spoke of wealth and whores they would never know and also of fresh hump roast and ribs.  As stars wheeled in the night sky and the jug emptied they posted the deserters on watch, and the two fugitive soldiers seated themselves cross-legged at opposite ends of the picket line, each cradling a pitted and fouled army carbine in his arms, his thin belly pressed against a pistol stuck in his belt, aimed at his testicles.

The deserters were young, ages 19 and 23, illiterate, with only a few months on the frontier.  Both were second sons of working-class fathers.  Without hope of inheritance they had enlisted on the promise of adventure but found military board unappetizing, the work drudgery and the discipline unendurable.  They were poor gamblers; they had no money.   Worse yet, garrison life had installed in both a taste for whiskey, which flawed their decisions and left them vulnerable to physical impairments, such as the drowsiness that always accompanied their drinking – and so predicted their failure to sound the alarm in the early hours of the last morning of their lives.

They were the first to fall.  In the dark four bowmen belly-crawled to within fifteen paces of the sleeping guards.  They waited; arrows nocked.  Just before dawn they fixed black eyes upon the humped watchmen and slowly raised their bows.  And then the soft twang of death, followed by a choking, gurgling sound.  A twitch.  A long sigh.

With the dawn’s first ray of light came twelve riders at a dead run from the east, out of the new sun, flattened against their ponies’ backs, shooting arrows and waving buffalo robes to spook the picketed horses.

The camp's picket rope made a popping sound as it parted and the panicked horses snorted at the scent of the riders and broke away, galloping across the prairie to run in wide circles, looking back as they ran.

The attackers rode over the sleeping camp, trampling the slow-rising pilgrims.  First to ride among the victims was Lorenz Bauer’s killer, swinging his favored stone-headed club, viciously, down and down upon rising, unprotected skulls, turning now, leaning, aiming the pony with his knees.  Arrows slipped among the blankets - two, then four shafts sprouting in each of the waking men, their bodies flopping under the strikes of iron, stone and hoof.  At his waist the first Indian carried Bauer’s pistol, but he did not use it.  Destroying the veho-e was effortless - fluid, like sparks rising from a fire, finished as quickly as the eye looks.  

Only a couple of the whites died outright, however, and several braves quickly dismounted with hatchets and knives to finish the work.  The wounded lay moaning, their hands and feet moving, reaching for absent weapons.  None had slept in readiness; rifles lay underneath blankets, pistols beneath saddles, swaddled in oilcloth, rust-free.   

Not a gun was fired save one, a young brave’s musket.  The ball pierced the hips of a freighter, and the old, bearded skinner crawled from his blankets, unarmed and bleeding.  He was the last alive. 

Though his legs were useless he resisted death, pulling himself forward by fistfuls of buffalo grass, grunting, heading nowhere.  When the rest of his companions had been dispatched six mounted Indians gathered around him.  They watched him impassively, leaning forward on their ponies, one young brave with a brown leg looped around the tall fork of his war saddle. He sat relaxed, munching a found biscuit, his bow slung across the withers.

Suddenly into their midst strode Bauer’s killer, bloody club in hand.  The warriors’ ponies shied as he stepped on the teamster’s back, swung the mallet overhead and caved the old man’s skull.  Then, without a word, he walked away, leaving the veho-e body twitching in the grass. 

And when the horses were rounded up the war party rode south, wrapped in the dead men’s blankets, carrying the dead men’s guns and powder, eating stolen bacon with bloody fingers.  At the campsite the slain lay naked; hands, feet and heads severed, bellies opened, skulls flensed.

Around them a murder of crows began to gather.   

   

A Buffalo Hunt, Found By The Cheyenne

A portion of this post was published earlier, "Found By The Cheyenne."

The next day they came across buffalo; Pony and Baker gave chase.  It was the lieutenant’s first hunt from horseback and he had difficulty closing with the herd. The panicked mass of buffalo spooked his horse, which shied whenever an animal in the herd swerved or stumbled or kicked up a clod.  Baker kept up as best he could for five miles, firing his rifle and every round in his pistol but unable to bring down a single animal.  In the end he dismounted from his exhausted horse and watched the buffalo fade into the distance, enthralled by the waves of dust and thunder.

Pony killed a young cow and that evening the three of them dined on roast and ribs.  Pony and the Indian squatted on their haunches, smacking and chewing, the juices running down their chins as they ate.  When they finished they wiped their hands in their hair and lit pipes and broke out a jug.  Each took a swallow and Pony moved over to where Baker sat apart and offered him a drink.  The lieutenant shook his head, tossed rib bones into the sage.  Catcher said something to Pony in Cheyenne.

Well? said Baker.

Well what? said Pony.

I’d like to know what he said.

Pony squatted next to Baker.

He thinks you’re in a snit about them white men we shot.

I’ve seen men killed before.

You’re a soldier.  That’s your business, aint it?

Duty, Mister Rogers.  That’s how I prefer to think of it.

Well.

It’s your opinion I don’t have the sand for this, isn’t it?

What I think aint important.

Nevertheless…

Look, the Indian reckons you’re angry ye didn’t get to shoot anyone.

And you, Mister Rogers?  What do you think?

Pony took a long pull on the jug, wiped his mouth on his sleeve.  A drop glistened in his sparse moustache.

They meant to do us harm.  Sufficient reason to kill any man.

Any man?  You mean every man.  You killed all of them.

And what would your formulation be?  Ask em to supper?

They might have known something.  Might have seen the Indians we’re after.

Then what, lieutenant? Fare-thee-well and each on his way?

It doesn’t bother you in the least, does it?

Lieutenant, I intend to discover if the girl is alive and then collect the reward.  Whoever tries to prevent that is against me.

Ah yes.  The money.  We finally get to it.

Not finally, lieutenant.  First.

That, Mister Rogers, is what divides us.  You and I.  I believe the money is not your first concern, it’s your only concern.  Nothing else matters.

Pony shrugged.  The child’s predicament is none of my doing.

Baker shook his head, looked away, to the west.  The sky was clear, incandescent, the sun just touching the horizon.  It was unusually warm for September, and insects still hovered above the sage - their wings glowing, everything rimmed in gold.

Pony leaned forward.

Lieutenant, ye don’t approve of me.  I don’t give a good goddamn.  But I’ll say this:  If it helps, feel free to take whatever time is left to count the cost.  I’ll leave that to ye.  As for myself…

He tapped his pipe on the toe of his boot and stood.

…I intend to stay alive, he said, and walked away.

 

---

They rode on, the Indian flanking twenty, thirty rods out to either side.  Periodically he dropped back, scanning the back trail.  After two days they abandoned the Big Sandy and cut southwest, finding no mark of man’s passing until they came upon a scattering of mule bones, bleached and crazed.  Alongside a pelvic arch lay a dried, cracked leather pannier, empty, with a bullet hole in it.  Next to it a bible, half-buried in the sand, its cover weathered and rotting, the remaining pages melded, nearly transparent.  It was open to the book of Revelations, with a verse, barely legible, underlined in ink - And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.

The following morning, out of the pre-dawn gloom came nine of them, flattened against their ponies, quirting with bows and clubs like jockeys. They had cut the trail of Pony, Lt. Baker and Catcher two days before.  Miners, they thought.  Wandering the country as if they were lost, even with an Indian to guide them.    

A thousand yards out, Catcher saw them.   Then Pony.  They checked the loads in their weapons and gathered the horses in a nearby dry wash, the Indian holding picket ropes while Pony turned packs to form breastworks.  Then he leaned over Baker and shook his shoulder.

Wake up lieutenant, he said.  We got company for breakfast.

Pony turned and said something to Catcher in Cheyenne.

What? said Baker.

Get up lieutenant.  We been found.

Baker blinked sleep from his eyes.  He looked at Pony, who knelt and levered a round into the chamber of his rifle, brought the weapon to his shoulder and slowly, casually, cocked the hammer, took aim.  Baker’s eyes widened.  Five hundred yards.  Faint cries now, like migrating geese.  Baker flipped onto his belly, fumbled with his carbine.

      The Spencer’s report rang in his ears, and Baker saw the lead pony tumble, its rider hurtling forward, disappearing into the sage.  Pony levered another round, cocked the hammer, aimed.

Boom.

The acrid smoke obscured the lieutenant’s vision.  When it cleared, he saw the attackers had spread out; another pony was down.  Its rider staggered to his feet, weaponless.  They were four hundred yards away.  Baker checked his weapon.

Are they Cheyennes? asked Baker.

The horses, lieutenant, said Pony.

What?

Aim for the horses.

Pony fired again; a third mount and rider went down, cartwheeling.  Three hundred yards.  Suddenly the riders reined up and turned their horses in circles, shouting as they sawed the animals around, taunting the camp to fight.  Baker shouldered his trapdoor carbine, but Pony reached over and grabbed the barrel.

See what happens, he said.

Two of the unhorsed warriors doubled up with other riders, the third limped through the sage, cradling an injured arm.   The marksmanship was unexpected, and now the warriors wheeled and rode back in the direction they came, at a trot, their small rawhide shields flashing in the morning light.

They’ve had enough, said Baker, rising.

But the warriors were not quitting, nor did Pony and Catcher believe they would.  Instead, the attackers rode out of rifle range and dismounted in the sage to build a fire and smoke their pipes.  The three without horses sulked; one rocked back and forth, grimacing from the pain of a broken arm.  From behind their packs Baker and Pony could see only the tops of their heads above the sage, a thin vein of smoke twisting upward from their fire.  

What are they up to? asked Baker.

Pony glanced back at Catcher, who shook his head.

Nothin at the back door.  Maybe they’re all in front of us, Pony said.

Think they’ll come at us again? asked Baker.

Pony shrugged.  They know we’ve got good long guns.

He looked at Baker.

If they try us, aim for the ponies.  We come out here to trade, not shoot. 

They mean to kill us if they can, said Baker.

            Pony turned back to watch the warriors.

Cheyennes’re a clannish bunch.  They’re all family and everbody else is a stranger.

Again he looked at Baker.

Shootin the family is impolite.  Just aim for the horses.

They watched the Indians for a quarter-hour.  They could see the Cheyenne gesturing with weapons, animated in discussion.

How long do you think they’ll take? asked Baker.

Until they decide, said Pony, who turned and shouted something to Catcher in Cheyenne.  Catcher waved.

Pony rose.  He propped his rifle against a pack and pulled his pistol, checked the loads.  He stuck it back in his belt.

I’ll try to talk to them, he said.  If it goes wrong, I’ll be back on the double-quick.

He looked at Baker.

The ponies, lieutenant.

Baker nodded.  Pony turned and walked into the sage, his knuckles skimming the tops of the plants as he moved. Far to the west cotton boll clouds flattened and merged and grew dark, and a sudden wind fanned Pony’s gritty hair like flames as he walked.  A change in weather was coming and even the sky seemed anxious, as if the earth itself presaged a reckoning.

Renegades

For three days they rode wrapped in blankets, hunched against a cold driving rain, crossing both forks of the Arikaree and the south fork of the Republican, trailing along the Big Sandy as the clouds lifted.  The soaked ground bore yellow and rust-colored hues, rippled silver where standing pools whelmed the bleak sage in wallows and scattered sloughs.  It was the first week of September, Wah ka nun e ishi as the Cheyenne called it, the Plum Moon.

They had no fresh meat since Cottonwood Springs.  Bison were nowhere to be seen, yet the prairie bore abundant sign; its clumped surface was trail-scarred by herds all the way to the horizon. 

On the evening of the fourth day as they made camp they saw a herd of antelope in the distance, so before dawn Catcher set out after them on foot.  He carried a bow and quiver and the red flannel cloth he had at the Cottonwood Springs camp, and reluctantly he allowed Baker to come along, warning the lieutenant that he must do exactly as he was told.

They walked for an hour, until the horizon glowed.  A slight breeze gathered.  Catcher found a wide, deep buffalo wallow and gave Baker sign to lie at the bottom and not to move, nor make any sound.  On his belly, near the rim on the windward side, the Indian peered over the edge.  Another hour passed and the sun broke the horizon, throwing blue shadows across the prairie, bringing dew-heavy gnats up in swarms from the wet ground. Prairie dogs stretched and yawned atop burrow mounds.

Baker watched the Indian, who grasped the bow and three arrows in his left hand, the red cloth in his right.  Suddenly the right hand shot up in the air and pumped up and down four times, the red flannel flapping like the wings of a giant bird.  Catcher stopped and brought the cloth to his side.  A minute, two minutes passed, and the Indian made the same motion again – four pumps, then stopped.

This happened three more times, then ten minutes passed before Catcher waved the cloth again, this time only once.  Baker wanted to say something.  He began to suspect a joke was being played on him, that momentarily Pony’s face would appear at the edge of the wallow, smiling, laughing at his gullibility.  He started to sit up, opened his mouth to speak when Catcher sprang to his knees, simultaneously drawing the bow and releasing it.  Before Baker could speak Catcher had nocked another arrow, drawn the bow and released it again.  Baker rose.  He looked over the edge of the wallow to see dust raised by several antelope as they ran away, white rumps zig-zagging through the sage less than two rods distant.

The Indian drew his skinning knife from his belt and began to walk in the direction of the fleeing antelope.  Where was he going?  The antelope were almost out of sight. 

A motion in the sage caught Baker’s attention; he realized an animal was down.  The lieutenant could see the ends of the arrow shafts moving as the antelope tried to regain its feet.  From the wallow Baker watched the Indian and the motion of his arm as his knife was drawn across the animal’s throat.  No sound, except the sudden rattle of a late season grasshopper as it launched itself into the warming air.

Catcher quickly butchered the antelope, leaving most of the carcass and viscera glossy and steaming in the brush.  He and Baker carried the strap, the liver and heart slung in the bloody hide, each man holding one end, walking side by side.  Baker felt the animal’s stiff hair and its blood crusting on his hands as he walked.  The Indian said nothing.

 When they reached camp Pony had the horses watered and was gathering buffalo chips for the cooking fire.

So lieutenant, he said, you know how to catch antelope now?

Baker shrugged.  I’m not at all sure what I saw out there.

The Indian says they’re so curious, said Pony, all he has to do is wave that little red cloth and they come in from miles around.  It’s how he got his name.  Known for it among the Cheyenne. 

He readied a pot of coffee.

I’ve tried it a dozen times.  Antelope didn’t quit runnin til they got to Texas.    

Pony coaxed a smoky fire from the chips.  Baker wondered about such an obvious sign of their presence in hostile country.  Aw hell, Pony said, Indians could be anywheres out there.  Likely to see us first anyhow.  Might as well eat. They put the strap on a spit and cut the heart and liver in strips to fry.  Within minutes coyotes, perhaps ten, had surrounded the camp, slinking back and forth through the sage.  The hobbled horses whinnied for the proximity and kicked out viciously whenever one came too close. 

When they finished eating they rolled their blankets and gathered their possibles to make preparations for travel.  Baker was scouring their tin plates with sand when he looked up and saw Pony and Catcher staring east, rifles in hand.

A lone figure appeared on the ridge of a hill perhaps a half mile away.  The man was afoot, approaching at a steady pace.  Halfway he stopped and raised a hand.  A white man.  He wore a caped army overcoat, woolen army trousers and carried a long staff.  He had an army blanket rolled and tied over his right shoulder, a warbag, a canteen at his hip.  As he got closer they saw his clothing was torn, a long beard covering his unwashed face.  He was hatless; a faded red silk scarf covered his head.  His brogans were wrapped with rags.

Howdy to ye, every man, he said.  Name’s Louderman.  Phineas.  With a P-H.  Late of Ohio.

Neither Pony nor Catcher replied.  Baker rose.

I was wonderin could ye spare a piece of tug?  It’s been two days since I et.  Small animal.  Gopher, I think.  All gristle.  Like to puke my guts dry from it.

He drew up his canteen, pulled the stopper, tilted back his head and swallowed twice.  His thin throat was caked with rings of dirt.  He wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

We was just about to be on our way, said Pony. 

Baker interrupted.  Sit down, stranger.  We got time.  My name is Baker.  Artemus Baker, Lieutenant, United States Army.

Pony and Catcher exchanged glances as the lieutenant refilled the coffee pot and cut Louderman a long slice of the backstrap, which the gaunt man ate with noisy relish, seated cross-legged on the hard caliche.  The soles of his shoes separated from the cracked uppers, exposing his toes.

Mister Louderman, you got any idea as to your whereabouts? asked Baker.

The man licked his fingers, looked around.

Not to a certainty.  I reckon to cut the mountains fore too long though.  Am I right?

Appears you lack certain requirements for the journey, said Pony.  Where’s your horse?

Louderman took up the coffee cup, blew on it.

Horse?  Waugh, won’t have one.  Knotheads.  Kickin, bitin knotheads.  He tapped his shoe.  It’s shanks mare for me, he said.  I’m a walker.  Learnt to in the army.

He looked at his feet, smiled.  Don’t believe these here ankle boots will take much more, though.

You walked out here? asked Baker.

I mean to say so.  Ever damn mile of it.

Well now, said Pony.

Yessir.  On my way to Californey.

Catcher said something to Pony in Cheyenne.  Both men picked up their rifles and walked off toward the horses. Louderman watched them walk away.

Don’t appear either of your friends cares for my company, said Louderman.

Not my friends, replied Baker.  We’re… business associates, you might say.

Thought you said you was in the army.

We’re in search of a little girl, kidnapped by the Cheyenne.  Family was murdered.

Injuns?  Just you three is out here huntin’ Injuns?

The girl.  We’ll trade for her, if we can locate their camp.

I’ll be damned, said Louderman.

You said you were in the army at one time, Mister Louderman.

Louderman took a long sip of coffee, smacked his lips, wiped them on his sleeve.  He coughed.

As a matter of fact, lieutenant, I suppose I still am, he said. 

What do you mean?

I am an Ohio man.  Mustered in at Camp Dennison in sixty-one.  Me n my brother Albert.  Company C, Delaware Guards, fourth Ohio Volunteer Infantry. 

He looked at Baker.

Have ye seen any mischief with the rebels, lieutenant?

No, not yet. 

Ah, yes, well.  Louderman stared into his coffee cup.

We was, uh, we was on the peninsula with McClellan, he said.  Me n Albert.  Yorktown, Gaine’s Mill.  Malvern Hill.  Sharpsburg, too. 

He pronounced the names slowly, rhythmically, like the chiming of a clock.  He looked at Baker, a faint smile on his lips.

We was a fightin’ outfit.  Yessir.

The smile faded.

We was at Fredericksburg, too. 

He shook his head.       

Oh boy, there was a fight.  Yessir.

He set his cup down, clasped his hands and began kneading them, as if they were cold.  He stared at the ground.

We was in the tenth assault.  The tenth.  Me n Albert.

He paused and seemed to shrink within the overcoat. 

I can still see the Johnnies up there, flags wavin.  There they are, the colonel said.  There they are.

His voice trailed off to a whisper:  The tenth assault.    

He cleared his throat. That was a fight, by God.

He looked up at Baker, eyes brimming.

A hunert and fourteen of our regiment went in.  Only twelve come out.  Twelve, lieutenant.

He shook his head.

All them boys.  Shot to pieces.  Albert…

He looked at his hands.

It unstrung me.  My hands got to tremblin so’s I couldnt even hold my rifle. So I… I took the big bounce, is what I done. 

Deserted? asked Baker.

I was no use to myself nor anyone else.

He looked up at Baker.

I s’pose you aim to arrest me now, eh, lieutenant?

Pony was not a Christian, nor an educated man.  His prejudices were informed entirely by experience.  He could barely read his own name, so he paid less attention to language than motive when in the company of other men, especially whites, most of whom were fearful and contemptuous of his relationship with Indians. 

As he walked away with Catcher he knew something was wrong. He had survived on the plains by reading the messages that men send with their eyes, the giveaways that betray intention.  The ragged man was after more than food. Catcher had spotted it too.  Leave this stranger behind before he steals our horses, he said to Pony.  So they rose and took their rifles with them.

Their suspicion proved authentic when they saw three men bellycrawl behind the low rise where the horses were picketed.  

As they walked Catcher checked his pistol and reloaded his Sharps and waited for Pony to move around behind the horses, where the guise of readying pack saddles allowed him to slide the barrel of his Spencer across the withers of his horse.  They were over 100 paces from where the lieutenant was talking to Louderman.  Pony suspected the ragged man would make a move as soon as the commotion started; he would shoot or stab Baker, whose inexperience would allow his attention to be drawn away from the man who intended to kill him.  Pony had no particular concerns about Baker – he believed every man’s life was ultimately his own lookout – but if they were to prove successful in retrieving the girl he thought the lieutenant could be useful in collecting the reward.  At least Baker provided an extra hand, even without experience.  So Pony drew a bead on Louderman’s chest.  He saw Baker turn away to lift the coffee pot, and the ragged man reached inside his coat to bring forth something that caught the light.  Pony’s finger touched the trigger lightly.

Baker heard the impact of the Spencer’s 350-grain bullet, then the boom.  The rifle tended to fire high; though aimed at Louderman’s chest, the round struck him in the throat, producing a hollow, slapping noise as it tore away a large portion of the man’s larynx, just above the junction of the sternum and collar bones. 

The sound of the shot carried to Louderman’s accomplices, who brought weapons up as Catcher appeared at the top of the rise, thirty yards in front of them.

The Indian fired his Sharps at the closest man, knocking him backward into the second man, who was kneeling.  The third man, seeing both companions hit, turned and began running back down the depression.  He was fleet; he made twenty yards before Pony reached Catcher’s position and fired, exploding dust from the ground on the man’s right side. 

Damn, Pony said, levering another round into the chamber. He drew a deep breath and fired again, this time hitting the runner squarely between the shoulders, the impact driving him face-first into the sage.

By this time the second man had disentangled himself.  He wore his partner’s blood splashed brightly on his face and in a dark swoop across the shoulder of his tattered frock coat.  He carried a pistol in his hand, and he pointed it back as he scuttled up the side of the gulley.  He snapped off a shot at Catcher, who was walking down the rise toward him, his own pistol in hand. 

The ball went wide, so the panicked man fired twice more, missing both times.  Catcher closed the distance between them to no more than twenty paces, stopped, and raised his own weapon.  He brought up his left forearm and laid his right arm across it to steady his aim, cocked the pistol, and shot the man in the chest.  The man went down, rose again unsteadily, and went down for good when the Indian shot him again.

The lieutenant came running, hurdling the sage, revolver in hand.  Where are they? he said, white-faced and breathless.  Catcher was reloading. Pony pointed toward the bodies on the other side of the rise.  Who are they? said Baker.  Pony shrugged.  How’s yer friend? he asked.  Finished his coffee yet?  You nearly took off his head, said Baker.  Pony smiled.  Still got yourn though, aint ye lieutenant?

Baker let out a deep breath.  We don’t have shovels, he said.  Pony began walking toward the horses, stopped, turned back to face him.

What?

We haven’t any shovels.  To bury them.

Pony turned again, resumed walking.

They can bury their own goddamn selves. 

Stop, said Baker.  We’ve got to bury them.

Pony stopped, turned again.

Is that so?  The same as they’da done for you?

That doesn’t matter.  We’re not like them.

No we aint by god. We’re still breathin.

That isn’t what I mean.

     I know your meaning, lieutenant, Pony said. 

  

The Arapaho

They drove Catcher’s wagon to Cottonwood Springs and parked it behind the ramshackle stage station and put the Indian’s horses in a corral where he saddled a paint pony.  Then they bought some beans and fresh fatback and coffee and repacked the loads their animals carried.  They checked their weapons and mounted and rode to the edge of the settlement where Pony and the Indian stopped.

What is it? asked Baker.

Pony and the Indian looked at each other, then turned in their saddles and Pony spoke.

Me n Catcher, we think ye need to shed the blue shirt.

What?  For what reason?

Lieutenant, we’re on the trail of Cheyenne.  Bein Indians, chances are they’ll see us first.  That shirt makes it more likely they’ll run or fight.  Not the result we’re after.

I’m an officer in the army.

Ye can tell em that.  But first we got to get close enough to talk.  They don’t welcome the uniform, lieutenant.

Baker thought about it, then stripped his cavalry shell and folded it, tucked it in a saddle bag.  He wore a white muslin shirt, which grew dark with sweat as the day wore on and the temperature climbed.

They crossed the south fork of the Platte and headed west toward Julesburg.  Gradually the miles of needlegrass and coneflower gave way to sage, soapweed and rabbitbrush, and nothing other.  The river angled southwest, and the land descended into a broad floodplain, bordered on the west by low, naked slopes, riffled with washouts and shallow draws that trailed to the horizon like dry veins, twisted and narrowing, only to disappear in the high, rolling savannahs that moated the buttes and hogbacks, portends of the Rockies, far to the west.  In the center of the floodplain a ribbon of cottonwoods marked the winding flow of the Platte as it turned again west, then south to front the foothills, before finally bending back north, in the long canyon climb to its origins in the snowfields of the distant summits. 

They rode a land tracked in ancient millennia by herds of mammoth and camel, and the great spike-toothed cats that stalked the auguries of the bison flood; an ancient country, empty, through centuries and in tongues unknown described as the home of countless tribes, eagle-worshippers and headhunters, repetitious and transient. 

It was Cheyenne country.

--

There were two of them, mounted on tall American horses.  They were trail weary; for the past month they had been raiding with the Cheyenne, attacking small parties of the hairy-faces as they strung the talking wire or hunted buffalo, or when they foolishly struck out across the prairie as Bauer had done, inadequately armed, or alone -  deserters, prospectors, the hopeful and the forlorn, now dead.

Three scalps were attached to rawhide shields that hung from the crups of their horses, which bore underneath the brands of pale-skinned owners.  One rider wore three silver rings on his right hand; the other a rawhide necklace on which human fingers had been strung.  Both were armed with bows and on this morning they rode single file, confining their line of travel to the winding draws and low ground between rises, avoiding skylines like wolves.  They were returning to their people, to the land of the Arapaho, west of Laramie.

Pony rode to the middle of a dry wash, dismounted, and seated himself cross-legged in the gravel bed in front of his horse.  In his mouth he held a clay pipe.  Before him in the sand he set a coffee pot.  The Arapaho rounded a bend, saw him and stopped, pulling the jaw ropes until their ponies’ mouths gaped; nor did the Indians’ facial expressions betray their surprise.  But a moment passed, and both of them brought their bows up, slowly, simultaneously turning arrows they held in their hands so they could be nocked.

The click of gunlocks stopped them.  They turned to see Baker and then Catcher rise up on either side of the wash, weapons aimed at the heads of the Arapaho.

They expected to be shot from their horses, but the hairy-face who sat on the ground began sign-talking, and after a short interval the Indians slung their bows and dismounted to sit in the gravel, glancing around to see Catcher and Baker lower their weapons.

Pony built a small fire and made coffee.  They watched without speaking.  He spoke Cheyenne and he signed, telling them he was not interested in killing them or they would be dead already.  He only wanted to talk, and if the Arapaho would talk, he would send them on their way with gifts - some of the black medicine and a bag of sugar.  He asked them if they knew where the dog soldiers who had been raiding up on the Holy Road were, and if they knew anything about a small girl, daughter of a killed hairy-face.  He poured each of them a cup of coffee and set the cups in front of the warriors, the aroma rising.  He brought out a bag of sugar and put small handfuls in each cup, then set the bag before them, motioning to drink.  They looked at each other, but did not pick up the cups.  Pony poured a cup for himself and drank from it.  He smacked his lips and smiled and motioned again for the Arapaho to drink.  Then he lit his clay pipe.

They were young, barely eighteen years old, on their first extended journey away from their people.  The Cheyenne had treated them well, like family, but the travel and lack of sleep had worn them down.  They were homesick.  The coffee smelled good.  Only talk, the hairy-face said.  Then the pipe. 

Among the plains tribes a lit pipe was an almost universal sign of non-hostile intent, of truth spoken.  Not friendship, but a pause, a suspension of animus - temporarily, anyway.  The hairy-face spoke in signs and his Cheyenne was good.  He drank the coffee to show it was not poison.  And unlike most of his race it was obvious he was comfortable in the company of Indians; he traveled with one.

I am called Pony, he signed.  I know the Cheyenne well.  I have lived among them.  I am not here to fight.

Almost in unison the Arapaho reached for the coffee.

He offered them tobacco, which they took.

They gave their names.  White Magpie and Dog-That-Runs, which was short for The-Dog-That-Runs-After-Horses.  As their horses stamped the gravel and switched flies, their story unfolded:  They had been with the Cheyenne since the last full moon.  They had not seen the girl.  Magpie had heard about a girl in the camp of Little Wound, but since he hadn’t seen her himself, he would not say she was the one the hairy-face sought.  Many attacks had been made in the country around the Holy Road, and there was considerable anger among the Cheyenne against the hairy-faces.  Dog soldiers led some of the attacks.

Magpie was the speaker; Dog-That-Runs drank coffee and nodded.  Pony asked if they knew where Little Wound’s village was camped.  Neither knew, but Magpie thought the village was moving west and south out of the Smoky Hill country toward Two Buttes Creek.  Pony smiled and tapped his pipe against his heel, signaling the end of the talk.  The Arapaho finished their coffee and he gave them the sugar and a small sack of coffee beans. 

Before he rode away, Magpie looked at Catcher and Baker, then at Pony.  He leaned forward on the withers and spoke to Pony in low tones.  The Dog Soldiers will try to kill you, he said.  You will have to be very brave.  Then the two Arapaho put heels to their horses’ flanks and rode down the wash, rounded a corner and vanished from sight.

          Baker stepped to Pony’s side.  What did he say? he asked.  Pony turned and exchanged Cheyenne words with Catcher, who nodded and began walking up the wash to where their horses were tied. 

Rogers, what did he say?

Pony looked at Baker.  Lieutenant, we’ll be heading south.

He turned to walk away, but Baker stepped around him and blocked his path. 

What did he say?

Pony smiled.  He said be ready.  Step aside, lieutenant.

Baker didn’t move.  What did he say about the child?

Pony turned his head to the side and spit into the gravel.  When he turned back, his smile was gone.

He don’t know about the girl.  She might be with Little Wound’s people.  Mebbe not.

Where are we going?

To find out.

Baker didn’t move. 

All saucered and blowed lieutenant?  Ready to jump the heathens? 

He leaned forward. 

Where we're headed more'n likely it'll be the other way around. Now git the hell outta my way.