Among the trees Chance saw that one of the young Indians, Drum, no longer carrying his carbine, had advanced several yards. There, at the edge of carbine range, he sat down cross-legged, and took out a pipe and tobacco. Chance smiled as he watched the young Indian deliberately light the pipe, and begin to smoke. The other two braves remained at least fifty yards farther back. It was Drum’s answer to his own act of courage. He let the young Indian finish his pipe, and did not fire. It was doubtful that he could have struck him at that range, and it would be a loss of face to have attempted to hit him and miss.
Drum, after a time, stood up and, carrying the pipe, returned to his pony, and his two companions.
Then the four of them, the Indians and Chance, sat down to wait.
Chance knew that he did not feel like waiting too long. He was hungry.
But he would wait until after dark. That would be the best time. In spite of the moon.
Chance might have stayed for some time in the place of scaffolds, living off the offerings on the platforms, but he did not care to do this, and more importantly, Grawson and Totter would be somewhere, and they would, presumably, eventually, find him if he remained here.
He would move out at night and see what happened.
An hour went by and then another hour and Chance sat in the grove, keeping his eyes on the distant trio of Indians, waiting for dark.
He was hungry, damn hungry.
He supposed they were, too. Why not? Maybe they had the practical sense to bring something with them. But most likely not. They had expected to be finished yesterday. They would learn war, as Chance was. He should have stuffed bread in his pocket in the Turner soddy, should have eaten at any rate.
Chance noted, with begrudging approval, that the Indians had taken up a good position several hundred yards away. They were sitting on the slope of a rise that bulged up out of the rolling prairie about them like a bear’s shoulder. They were out of carbine range, of course. Most importantly, they were high enough to see the cottonwood grove as an isolated feature of the landscape. They could see if he left the grove, without splitting their forces, without getting out of earshot of one another. He would be spotted by all of them, together, within half a mile of leaving the trees, no matter what direction he took.
They might be young but that sort of thing was in their bones. They were Sioux.
Next time they would know enough to bring more food.
They had tobacco at any rate.
Chance didn’t.
For Chance there might not be a next time.
Chance shifted his position and sat with his back against the trunk of a cottonwood, some yards back from the edge of the trees.
Tobacco.
He wished he had the clay pipe now that Running Horse had given him, and a handful of his own weed. It made him angry to think of the young men on that bear’s shoulder of ground, talking and smoking, mostly smoking.
He wished Grawson hadn’t killed his horse. He’d liked the animal.
He wondered what had happened to the medicine kit tied behind the saddle, and wondered if young Buckhorn was doing all right, and if the blond schoolteacher thought of him, if she might wonder what had happened to him.
He guessed Buckhorn would be all right; that was a tough youngster.
Probably the schoolteacher would give the medicine kit to Running Horse; and he would tie it to the rafters of his cabin, with his own medicine pouch and the hawk feathers, knotted together with twine, that hung there, so Chance could get it if he ever came back.
And the schoolteacher-she-she would, presumably, think no more of him, at least after giving Running Horse the medicine kit; he had been there and he had left; he was nothing, and was gone; he had drifted in and out of her life, a human weed not too unlike those rolling tumbleweeds that blew across the prairie ending up somewhere at the wind’s end; he would not see her again; perhaps she had forgotten him already; he would not forget her; he would remember; he would not forget. Never.
Chance lifted his head sharply.
Carried on the wind, from a distance, he heard a man’s voice, thin and frail, singing.
In the shadow of the trees, his carbine ready, Chance saw the man, an Indian, wearing the forgotten regalia of a Plains warrior, riding slowly toward the grove.
It was not Drum, nor either of his two braves.
It was an old man, unafraid, riding directly toward him. None of the young braves in the distance had tried to stop him.
Did they want him to be killed?
The old man wore a flimsy, ceremonial breastplate of dyed porcupine quills. Besides this, he wore only a breechclout, moccasins and a single eagle feather, which stood high in his white hair. He carried a bow and three long buffalo arrows.
Chance leveled the carbine, set for extra steadiness in the crotch of a tree, directly at the center of the old man’s flimsy breastplate of porcupine quills.
But he did not pull the trigger.
Rather he let the old man ride almost to the muzzle of his weapon, and then withdrew it from the crotch of the tree.
Hearing the sound, Old Bear, the father of the girl Winona, stopped and listened, and leaning forward, made out the figure of Chance, one shadow among others, but one unmistakable, one bearing a weapon.
Chance lifted his arm in the sign of peace. “Hou,” he said.
Old Bear sat still on the pony’s back for a time, and then he, too, lifted his arm. “Hou,” he said.
“You are a white man,” said Old Bear.
“Yes,” said Chance.
“Why are you here?” asked Old Bear.
“My horse strayed,” said Chance.
“Go from this place,” said Old Bear.
“If I go from this place,” said Chance, “three braves will kill me.”
“I saw no braves,” said Old Bear, puzzled.
“They let you ride through them to come here,” said Chance.
“Are they Crows?” asked Old Bear sternly.
“No,” said Chance. “They are Hunkpapa Sioux, and their leader is named Drum.”
Old Bear seemed to stiffen. “He wants my daughter for his lodge,” said Old Bear.
“I won’t hurt you,” said Chance.
“He is bad,” said Old Bear. “Bad” And the old Indian made a gesture as if throwing something from him into the dirt, and disgust showed on the wrinkled face. “He wants me to die,” said Old Bear. “He wants you to kill me.”
“I won’t hurt you,” said Chance.
“Who are you?” asked Old Bear.
Chance looked to make sure that the young Indians were still where he had seen them last. “I am called Chance,” he said, “and among my own people I am a doctor.”
“You were at the camp of Sitting Bull,” said Old Bear.
“Yes,” said Chance.