"Shut the fuck up, unless you want me to shoot that prune-eyed cretin."
Very quietly, Wooden Foot said, "No, I don't want you to do that."
"Then fetch me the goods."
"They're in travel bags. Outside."
The man pushed the muzzle of the gun into Wooden Foot's shoulder.
"Let's go."
14
Charles drew his Bowie from its sheath. His heart raced as he started for the tipi. Long strides brought him near the round hole a few seconds before Wooden Foot crawled out.
The trader sensed Charles close by, standing against the tipi, but didn't turn his head to give it away. He was followed by the man with the gun. In the starlight, Charles saw a bearded face, then sleeves with yellow corporal's Stripes. A deserter, all right.
"Hold it there, old man," the man said, straightening. He was stocky and a head shorter than Wooden Foot, who wasn't all that tall. God knew from which fort he'd bolted. Maybe Larned, or the newer one, Fort Dodge.
Charles shifted his weight for the strike. About to speak, the deserter heard or sensed something. He pivoted, saw Charles, fired.
The ball scorched past Charles's cheek and tore through the tipi cover. Charles rammed the knife into the deserter's blue blouse and turned it, skewering him.
"Oh, no," the soldier said, rising on tiptoe. "No." A second later, he was unconscious on his feet. His hand opened, and the gun dropped. His knees unlocked, and Charles supposed he was dead, or nearly so, as he sprawled on the moonlit ground, boneless as a cloth doll. The stinking excretions of death came quickly.
Charles wiped his knife on the grass. "What do we do with him?"
Wooden Foot was puffing as though he'd run a long way. "Leave him" — more gasps — "for the scavengers. He don't deserve no better."
Fen trotted from the dark, whining; he knew something was wrong. Wooden Foot patted him. "That was slick work with the knife, Charlie. You're learnin' fast." He grabbed the blue uniform collar, raising the dead man's head. Moonlight on the lifeless eyes made them shine like coins. "Or did you already know how to do that sort of thing?"
Charles finished cleaning the knife with a wad of dead grass. He shot the Bowie back in the sheath and tapped the handle with his palm. The handle hit the sheath with a soft but distinct click. That was answer enough.
In the tipi, Boy crouched with his arms crossed. Hugging himself hard, he cried big tears. By now Charles understood why the youngster reacted that way. It wasn't merely fright. His poor short-weighted mind sometimes understood that his uncle faced a hard task or a rough situation. He always wanted to help but couldn't send the right orders to his hands or feet or any other part of his body. Twice before, Charles had seen him weep in angry frustration.
Wooden Foot took Boy in his arms. He patted and comforted him. Then he plucked at the front of his own shirt. Charles again noticed the deep red of the trader's face. Wooden Foot saw him staring.
"I told you, it ain't anythin'," he said, almost as angry as his nephew.
Charles didn't pursue it.
In early November, the Jackson Trading Company crossed trails with a half-dozen Arapahoes moving north. All wore their hair heavily dressed with grease, but one, more sensitive than the others to the recent summer sunshine, had hair more golden-brown than black. The scalp showing in the part of each man's hair was painted red.
Wooden Foot talked with the Arapahoes in a combination of sign, rudimentary English, and their own tongue. Charles heard "Moketavato" a few times; he recognized the Cheyenne name of Black Kettle, the peace chief Wooden Foot admired and respected.
He needed no special understanding of Indians to recognize the animosity of the Arapahoes. It snapped in every syllable, every sharp gesture and fiery look. Still, they kept talking with Wooden Foot, squatting in a semicircle opposite him, for almost an hour.
"I don't understand," Charles said after the Arapahoes had ridden away. "They hated the sight of us."
"Sure, they did."
"But they talked to you."
"Well, we hadn't done nothin' to stir 'em up, so they was duty-bound to treat us in a civil manner. Most Indians are like that. Not all, though, so don't be lulled."
"You talked to them about Black Kettle."
Wooden Foot nodded. "He and the Arapahoe peace chief Little Raven touched the pen to that treaty on the Little Arkansas not two weeks ago. The treaty stakes out a new reservation, gives a parcel of land on it to every Cheyenne or Arapahoe who's willin' to live there, and sweetens it to a hundred sixty acres if somebody lost a parent or a husband at Sand Creek. The guv'mint came down hard on what happened there, and they's sendin' Bill Bent, a good man, into the villages this winter to see that the sojers don't do the same thing again. Only trouble is, they was only about eighty Cheyenne lodges at the Little Arkansas. They's some two hundred others roamin' loose, and to them the treaty'll be just so much spit in the wind."
Charles scratched his chin; lengthening stubble was turning into a beard. "Did you find out where Black Kettle's camped?"
"Straight ahead, on the Cimarron. Right where I meant to look for him. Let's travel."
Under the rim of the low bluff, Wooden Foot pointed to littered bones. "Buffla jump. They turn the herd and run it over the edge. Pretty soon the buffla are pilin' up and breakin' legs and generally makin' it easy for the braves to kill 'em."
Two days had passed since their meeting with the Arapahoes. Light snowflakes fell in the windless afternoon, melting as they touched the frost-killed grass. Charles relished the warmth of his cigar and wondered how his son would react to his first sight of a snowfall. He surely wished he could be there to see —
"Jumpin' the herd that way ain't quite as glorious as killin' buffla in a reg'lar hunt. But if winter's closin' in and there ain't enough carcasses put by yet, it's a good quick way to —" He broke off, turned his head. "Hold on."
He ran out of the jump and up to the rim. There he knelt, palms pressed to the ground. "What is it?" Charles said.
"Riders. Comin' fast. Damn. They's two dozen or more. I got a hunch we used up all our good luck on that thievin' snowbird, Charlie."
Charles ran for Satan, jerking his Spencer from the saddle scabbard. Wooden Foot ordered him to put it away.
"Why?"
" 'Cause we need to see who they are. You want to guarantee you'll be kilt, shoot an Indian without tryin' to palaver first."
Wooden Foot walked along the lip of the jump, thumbs in his cartridge belt, his slow slouching gait indicating a lack of worry. Charles saw plenty in his eyes, though. He slid the Spencer back and joined his partner. Wooden Foot motioned Boy to his side as bareback riders in a wide concave line came galloping down on them.
The Indians wore fringed leggings. Some had scarlet blankets tied around their waists. Six wore huge bonnets of eagle feathers. Charles also noted, not happily, three Army-issue garments, two of them short fatigue jackets with the light blue facings of the infantry, the third an old-style tail coat faced with artillery red. The wearer of the tail coat displayed a couple of medals on the front.
Another Indian, a sleek, thin, notably darker man in his mid-twenties, wore a huge silver cross on a chain around his neck. Strands of some wispy material hung from the sleeves and front of his buckskin coat. Almost all of these decorative strands were black, though Charles did notice a few yellow and gray ones. He assumed the cross, like the Army coats, was stolen.