Then Chance said a few things to the horse which he would not have said in the presence of Lucia Turner, or for that matter in the presence of the woman in Chicago.
He stumbled after the horse, his feet shuffling in the dust, muttering.
Once he got to within about four or five yards of it and then it shied away and stood looking at him, as though it might never have seen him before.
Chance whistled softly and coaxed and wheedled but the animal had better things to do.
Nibbling here and there out of reach.
Then Chance, not thinking, angrily, hungry, began to run after the animal, and it moved easily away again, effortlessly maintaining that same maddening, delicate interval.
Then he stopped and began to cajole it once more, and wished he had the rope that was on the saddle, and felt like putting a bullet behind its ear.
Then Chance said, “Ah,” for he had seen to the left, about a hundred yards away, a small grove of trees, and Chance circled so as to drive the horse into the trees.
“Yah!” he yelled, rushing forward.
The horse turned and cantered into the trees. There, after a minute or two, Chance ran the animal into a mass of brush and as it was backing out snorting he grabbed the bridle.
Instantly the horse became calm and obedient, infuriatingly domesticated.
“Goddam you,” said Chance, giving its neck a couple of happy slaps. “Yes,” said Chance, “double goddam you.” The horse rubbed its nose against his shoulder.
Chance heard a tiny noise.
It sounded like dried peas or pebbles in a wooden bowl, and it was over his head.
He looked up.
In the moonlight above him, hanging from a branch of the cottonwood beneath which he was standing, he saw a gourd rattle swaying softly, gently, in the wind. It was from this that the sound came.
He looked up past the rattle and was startled.
In the branches of the tree, a few feet above the rattle, there was a wooden scaffold, and on the scaffold there was a large bundle, wrapped in leather and tied tightly.
In other trees Chance saw similar scaffolds, each with a similar burden.
From the scaffolds, here and there, hung other rattles, and bone whistles and pieces of colored cloth. From some of the scaffolds there hung, like dark disks in the moonlight, leather shields.
He knew what place this was, and that there would be food here, offerings of corn and dried meat, but he also knew that he would not eat it.
The eastern sky was gray now, the moon a pale disk in a robe of fading stars.
The first definite light of the sun, flung from its rim’s edge, lay over the prairie now like a cold, golden blade, a saber gleaming at the bottom of the horizon, bleak and glinting in the east.
Chance stooped down and tore up a handful of grass and sucked the moisture from it.
The wind cut through the grove of cottonwoods, stirring the rattles and the streamers of colored cloth, faded now, hanging from the branches. Over his head the buffalo-hide shields turned and swayed, moving with the wind.
Chance shivered.
It had taken him longer to catch the horse than it should have, and he had stayed perhaps a bit too long in this place, looking about.
Had he not been as hungry as he was he might have stayed in the grove until dark, and then moved out at night.
He could eat the offerings on the graves, and he supposed it was the thing to do, in spite of the repulsion. He asked himself why he should not do so. He told himself he was not yet that hungry. Also, he told himself, I am the brother of Running Horse, and he would not want that.
Swinging up into the saddle Chance moved the horse out of the trees.
They had broken cover only a pace or two when Chance flung himself out of the saddle, the rifle shot cracking over his head, two others splattering into the damp ground under his horse’s hoofs.
Running he dragged the protesting animal back into the shelter of the trees.
Of course they had followed him, Drum and the others. They had been waiting for him to come out of the trees.
They should have waited longer.
They had been eager, too eager, as young men are eager.
Chance tied the horse well back in the grove, where it could not be seen, trying to shelter it back of a knot of cottonwoods.
He slipped Grawson’s carbine from the saddle boot, checked the weapon quickly, scooped a handful of cartridges from the saddlebag into his pocket.
Why hadn’t they come into the grove to get him?
Chance ducked back through the trees and getting to the edge of the grove, crawled forward on his stomach, inching with the carbine up a tiny, bush-covered rise that would give him a view of the prairie.
Water from the bush he crawled under slid down his neck, and Chance cussed to himself and lifted his head over the rise, just enough to bring his eyes over the grass.
There were three of them.
They had withdrawn apparently, more than a hundred yards from where their shots had been fired.
Chance estimated the distance and the wind. He decided not to try a shot. There would be little more than a random chance of getting a bullet within yards of them.
He watched them, astride their ponies.
They made no move to approach more closely. They had returned their rifles to the buckskin sheaths carried across their thighs.
For a minute Chance angrily regretted losing his horse and spending the time necessary to recapture it, and for not leaving the grove immediately, but as he lay there on the damp grass, watching the young men in the distance, he realized that he would be dead now if the horse hadn’t escaped, if he hadn’t taken shelter in the grove.
He had scattered them, but they would have regrouped almost immediately, picked up his trail in the moonlight, followed him and brought him down on the open prairie, apart from cover, where their three carbines to his one would have made the difference.
He might have survived, but it was not likely, especially after they had learned that he was dangerous.
Unaccountably, to Chance’s mind, they had not feared him to begin with. He was not an Indian.
But now, judging from the distance, they feared him, but would not give him up.
Chance was puzzled why they did not fire into the trees, trying to draw his fire.
Perhaps their ammunition was severely limited.
Sometimes Indians went into battle with only a handful of bullets, sometimes only three or four.
The Indians could not make their own bullets, as could the white man.
Chance wondered if the white man would have held his land if he had only two or three bullets per man and a handful of stone – or metal-tipped arrows, and his wits and his courage. Probably not, thought Chance, especially after the buffalo were gone. What if the enemy could take the white man’s beef and wheat and corn from him, as they had taken the buffalo from the Indian?
Chance carefully backed from the tiny, grass-covered rise and slipped back among the trees. Then, under cover, changing his position, he emerged from the grove, standing at the edge of the grove in full view. If any of the Indians reached for their carbines, he would have time to retreat into the trees. He wanted to see if they would fire. And he did not want to betray the position on the small rise. It was too good to reveal until he was reasonably sure of a hit.
Chance was now out of the grove about fifteen yards. The young men watched him. When he was about thirty yards out, they began to separate and move their ponies toward him, walking.
As they approached, he turned and, slowly, walked back into the trees. He had judged this matter fairly carefully, taking into consideration the time it would take to withdraw the carbines from the buckskin sheaths, the difficulties of firing from a moving platform at the distance and in the wind, and the time it would take to dismount and fire. Even so he knew they would have time for at least one shot apiece. And, as he walked away, and neared the grove, three shots rang out, cracks and whines in the air, passing through the trees, but he did not hurry. Then he was back among the trees and turned to face them, and they fired no more, though he was clearly visible-and they were moving back again, out of the range of a reliable shot. So Chance learned that they had ammunition, that they would fire only on him when he was out of the grove-probably because they did not wish him to die in the place of the scaffolds, did not want him to die in a place holy to the Sioux. And he had taught them, as Running Horse would have liked-that he did not fear them, that his medicine was so strong that he could walk slowly and alone before them, not fearing their bullets. That would give them much to think about. Also it might anger them, and that would be good. It had been a risk, but Chance hoped, not as great as it had seemed, and the advantages to be accrued were considerable.