Nate brought up the rear. He deliberately rode slow until a fifty-foot gap separated him from the rest. When he came to a cluster of cabin-sized boulders, he reined in among them, swinging down and shucking his Hawken from the saddle sheath. Then, keeping low, he worked his way to the lowest boulder, flattened, and crawled to where he had an unobstructed view of the slope he had just climbed.
Now all Nate had to do was wait. Whoever was back there was bound to show themselves. He hoped it wasn’t hostiles.
Some whites were fond of saying that the only good Indian was a dead Indian, but Nate wasn’t one of them. He didn’t hate Indians just because they were Indians. He’d married a Shoshone woman, after all, and been adopted into her tribe. He dressed more like an Indian than a white. And he was so bronzed by the sun that, were it not for his beard, he could pass for an Indian.
Long ago, Nate had learned an important lesson. The red man was really no different than the white. Oh, each had their own customs, and they wore different clothes and lived in different dwellings and spoke different languages. But when all that was stripped away, the red man and the white man were a lot more alike than either was willing to admit.
Another lesson Nate learned was that, just as with whites, there were good Indians and there were bad Indians. There were Indians who were kind to one and all, and Indians who would slit the throat of an Indian from another tribe as readily as they would slit the throat of a white man.
Movement below brought an end to Nate’e reflection. He rose on his elbows to better see the four warriors who had emerged from the trees and were climbing toward him.
“Damn.”
Nate didn’t need his spyglass to tell they were Blackfeet. And there was nothing the Blackfeet liked more than to count coup on whites.
Dueling Fingers
It was rare to see Blackfeet so deep in the mountains. Rare, too, to see such a small number. Usually their war parties were made up of thirty or more warriors. Nate suspected the four were a hunting party; they had spotted Ryker and the Woodrows lower down and were waiting for a chance to kill them or steal their horses, or both.
Nate racked his brain for a way to avoid bloodshed. A parley was out of the question. The warriors were apt to attack the moment he showed himself.
Reluctantly, Nate settled the Hawken’s sights on the warrior in the lead and thumbed back the hammer. He curled his finger around the rear trigger and pulled it to set the front trigger. Then, his finger around the front trigger, he took a deep breath to steady his aim.
The four Blackfeet abruptly halted and stared intently up the slope.
To Nate, they appeared to be looking right at him, or at the boulders he was in. He couldn’t imagine how they had spotted him, as low to the ground as he was. Then he realized they weren’t staring at him; they were looking at something to his right. He raised his cheek from the Hawken and received a shock.
Tyne Woodrow had come around the boulders, apparently spotted the Blackfeet, and drawn rein. There she sat, smiling sweetly down at them.
Alarm coursed through Nate. He doubted the Blackfeet would kill her. But they might decide to take her back with them to raise as one of their own. He placed his cheek to the Hawken, but he didn’t shoot. All four warriors had bows. If they should send a flight of arrows up the slope, a shaft might hit Tyne.
Nate stood and moved into the open. Stepping close to Tyne, he said without taking his eyes off the Blackfeet, “Don’t move. We are in deep trouble.”
“Mr. King!” Tyne said cheerfully. “I wondered where you got to. I thought maybe your horse threw a shoe, so I came back to look for you. Who are those Indians?”
“They are Blackfeet and they don’t like whites.”
“Why wouldn’t they like me? I’ve never done them any harm. My mother says that so long as we are nice to people, they will be nice to us. And Indians are people, too.”
Nate’s regard for the girl soared. “Sometimes nice isn’t enough.”
“Should we go talk to them and ask what they want? My father says that Indians like to trade.”
“We’ll stay put.”
“I have some pretty ribbons for my hair. One is green and one is yellow and another is the most wonderful blue. Do you think they would like ribbons for their wives or their sisters?”
Nate almost laughed at the notion of pacifying the implacable Blackfeet with a few paltry ribbons.
“Oh, look! The one with the big nose is coming toward us. He’s quite dashing except for his nose.”
Nate tensed. The warrior in the lead was indeed climbing. Nate raised his Hawken, then realized the warrior had not done the same with his bow. Suspicious of a trick, Nate lowered his rifle again.
The other Blackfeet weren’t moving.
Tyne turned out to be a little chatterbox. “My goodness, they have fine buckskins. And look at how their hair shines. What do they use to make it shine like that?”
“Some Indians slick their hair with bear fat,” Nate offhandedly mentioned.
“Goodness gracious. Indian girls too? I couldn’t do that. I like my hair loose so the wind can blow it, but mother nearly always makes me wear a bonnet.”
“Hush. I must concentrate.” Nate could ill afford a distraction.
“I’m sorry. Am I talking too much? Mother says I do that. She scolds me about it. But how do we get to know people if we don’t talk to them?”
“Hush,” Nate said again. A thought struck him and sent a shiver of apprehension down his spine. It could be there were more than four Blackfeet, and the others were flanking him.
The lead warrior came to a halt within easy arrow range. Most Blackfeet were highly skilled with a bow and could hit a target the size of a man’s head from a full gallop.
Nate tried to read the warrior’s expression. He saw the man’s eyes widen slightly, and he glanced over to see Tyne beam and wave.
“How do you do?” she called down. “We are pleased to meet you.”
“You don’t listen very well,” Nate said.
“You said not to talk to you. You didn’t say anything about not talking to them.”
“Don’t talk at all. Let me handle this.”
“All right. But if you want, I will get my ribbons out.”
“Just sit still and be quiet.” Nate stepped in front of her horse. If arrows did fly he could shield her with his body.
The lead warrior was still staring. He appeared to be in his thirties or maybe his early forties. He had high cheekbones and an oval chin. A single eagle feather was in his hair. He gave no indication of what he was thinking or what he was going to do.
Nate took a gamble. Leaning his Hawken against the boulder, he raised both hands so the Blackfoot could see them. Then he clasped them in front of him with the back of his left hand to the ground. It was the hand sign for “peace.”
Most tribes used sign language. Some tribes used signs that others did not, but overall the hand gestures were remarkably consistent. So much so, that a Blackfoot or a Piegan, who lived up near Canada, could communicate with a Comanche from down Texas way.
The warrior didn’t react.
Nate waited. When half a minute went by, he repeated the gesture and added another. He held his right hand in front of his neck with his palm toward the Blackfoot, then raised his index and second finger toward the sky and curled his thumb over the other two. It was the sign for “friend.”
The warrior swiveled and called down to the other Blackfeet in the Blackfoot tongue. Then he took the arrow from his bow and slid it into his quiver. The bow went over his shoulder. All this to free his hands. Quickly, his fingers flowed with practiced skill.
While Nate was not a natural born linguist like his wife, he was well versed in sign, and he followed the gestures easily. No one knew exactly how many hand signs there were. Many hundred was the common consensus, but Nate believed it might be over a thousand. Even so, a lot of words that whites took for granted were not among them.