“And modest too,” Tony said.
Enos was about to tear into him, but he abruptly dipped his chin to his chest and slouched along like he was having the worst day of his life.
Charley looked in the direction that Howard had been staring and spotted a burly policeman. The policeman hadn’t noticed them. Soon they arrived at the stable and finished loading packs and throwing on saddles.
Mr. Leeds came out to see them off. “I wish, for her own sake, that you would reconsider taking Miss Patterson.”
“Hell’s bells, friend, don’t dampen our spirits right out of the chute!” Enos had donned his buffalo coat and was his usual boisterous self. “We’re goin’ off on a grand adventure! She’ll have herself a larrupin’ time the likes of which these greeners won’t forget the rest of their lives.”
“Just so they live through it,” Leeds commented. “Bring them back alive, Mr. Howard.”
“I’m not about to make any promises I can’t keep, hoss. It’s not up to me. It’s up to the Almighty. And he’s mighty fickle, if’n you ask me.” Laughing, Enos spurred his sorrel mare.
With that, the four manhunters rode out of Denver. Charley came last, leading the pack animals and wondering what in the name of all that was holy he had gotten them into.
Chapter Nine
Nebraska Panhandle
To William Shores it seemed as if a million buffalo were stampeding toward the wallow in which he was crouched beside Red Fox. His first impulse was to dart to the claybank and burn the breeze, but as he spun, Red Fox gripped his arm.
“No, Brother John. Buffalo catch. Buffalo kill.”
Shores tore loose but stayed rooted where he was. The old warrior was right. Outrunning them wasn’t an option. The herd was bearing down on them faster than he would have thought possible. The rumble of their hooves was a continuous tremendous din. A huge cloud of dust blanketed them like fog, a cloud so thick that Shores could see only the foremost hairy ranks.
“There be smarter way,” Red Fox declared. Vaulting onto the rim, he spread his thin arms wide.
“Get down here, you fool! You’ll be trampled!” Shores snatched at the Shoshone’s ankle, but Red Fox stood firm.
“Watch, Brother John. Watch and learn.” Red Fox threw back his head and began to sing.
To Shores it was utter lunacy. Even if the buffalo could hear the old man over the drumming of hooves, which was doubtful, they weren’t about to stop. To them he was nothing, a frail human twig to be crushed under their heavy hooves. They would plow Red Fox under their grinding hooves, and his bones would join the bleached legion already dotting the prairie.
Again Shores tried. “You’ll get yourself killed!”
Red Fox sang louder.
The claybank was snorting and prancing. Fearful it would bolt, Shores seized hold of the bridle. The Shoshone’s paint showed no alarm whatsoever, but Shores grabbed its rope reins anyway. It would serve the old man right to be stranded afoot in the middle of the prairie, but Shores couldn’t bring himself to let that happen.
Shores tried not to think of the buffalo or their wicked, curved horns. When he was a boy growing up in Texas, he had had occasion to see what those horns could do. Buffalo had been a lot more numerous back then, and the big herds had pushed far to the south. An uncle who was enormously fond of buffalo steak had taken Shores hunting a couple of times. Shores didn’t get to do much other than camp chores, but on their second outing, another hunter, a neighbor of his uncle’s who always liked to joke and laugh, had made the mistake of getting too close to a wounded bull and paid a fatal price.
The horrid image was seared into Shores’s memory: the sight of the man thrashing about in a pool of scarlet, screaming and blubbering, his forearms pressed over what had once been his stomach. One of the bull’s horns had shredded the flesh like wet paper, creating a cavity large enough to fit a watermelon in, and the neighbor’s innards had come oozing out.
In another heartbeat, the herd was on top of them. Shores almost cried out as a hedgerow of broad, massive heads swept toward the north side of the wallow. Too many to count, an unstoppable force no man or beast could withstand. Red Fox would be smashed aside. Then it would be his turn.
But at the instant of certain death, at the moment when Shores believed Red Fox would fall under a grinding array of battering hooves, the herd parted as cleanly and completely as the Red Sea had for Moses, and instead of breaking over the wallow like waves on a shore, the buffalo parted to the right and the left, missing Red Fox, and swung wide.
All Shores could do was gape. He stifled a mad urge to shuck his Winchester from its saddle scabbard and blaze away. It sobered him to think that in the greater scheme of things, man amounted to no more than the specks of dust that floated before his eyes. Specks which were part of the choking cloud that swallowed him like the Biblical leviathan swallowed Jonah. In the blink of an eye, he couldn’t see his hand holding the reins or the buffalo nor Red Fox. He couldn’t hear the Shoshone either for the near-deafening din.
Something brushed against him, and Shores jerked back, thinking it was a buffalo. But it was only the claybank, as terror-struck as he was. Dust choked his nose, his lungs. His eyes watered uncontrollably. He erupted in a coughing fit, his pounding heart fit to burst.
Then, as spectacularly as it had begun, the stampede swept to the south. There had not been thousands. Several hundred at the most. The rumbling of the herd’s passage gradually faded, and the dust slowly thinned.
Shores straightened. His ears were ringing, and his mouth had gone bone dry. He tried to swallow and swallowed dust. Wheezing, he touched a hand to his chest, overjoyed to be alive.
A second hand was placed next to his. “Brother John all right?” Red Fox was caked with dust. So much so, not a single patch of bare skin showed, and his grey hair was now brown. Yet he was having no trouble breathing.
“I’m fine,” Shores croaked, swatting at his clothes. “I kept your horse from running off.” He handed over the reins.
Red Fox’s teeth were a bright flash of color. “Climb on. We ride fast or be rubbed out.”
Shores thought his ears must be clogged. “What are you talking about? The buffalo are gone. You saved us from the stampede.”
“But not save from cause.” Red Fox hurried to the south rim. “Come, Brother John. Please.”
Confused, Shores stumbled after him. He’d swear the dust had seeped into his joints and muscles, making him as sluggish as a snail. “Listen, you’re not making any sense. We should rest a bit, clean ourselves off. I have a canteen, and I’m willing to share the water.”
“Not drink water if dead.”
“I wish you would stop talking in riddles. Granted, you’re handicapped by not knowing English that well, but I’m willing to take the time to listen if you’ll take the time to express yourself clearly.”
Red Fox gazed to the north and immediately swung onto the paint. “You not hurry, you die.”
Shores was losing his temper. “And just who in the hell is going to kill me?”
“Them.” The old Shoshone pointed.
Approximately two hundred yards out were eight warriors. Six were armed with bows and arrows, two with rifles. They wore their hair differently than Red Fox and were considerably stockier and more muscular.
“Who are they?” Shores asked.
“Some call Lakotas. Some call Sioux. Same, same. Sioux fight Shoshones, Shoshones fight Sioux. Only one thing Sioux hate more.”