Charles was thankful to be moving again. It helped ease his feelings of sadness and anger about Willa. Except for that, he felt good about things. He had a fine horse; Satan ran strongly, wasn't nervous about gunfire, and had exceptionally good wind. He had ridden the piebald long enough so that horse and man could almost sense one another's thoughts.
He was equally satisfied with his men. He dropped back toward Gray Owl at the rear and inspected them. They all rode competently, and a few, such as Magee, had a real flair for it. Those who'd kept their regulation trousers had reinforced them with canvas patches on the seat and thigh. Brims of straw hats and bills of chasseur kepis shaded their eyes. A bedroll with extra clothing hung over the front of each man's McClellan saddle. The saddle also carried lariat, picket pin, canteen, and a tin plate. A saddle sheath by the right knee held the rifle; at Charles's suggestion, his men had left their generally useless bayonets behind.
They passed him two by two, each with sheath knife on the left hip, holster with pistol butt forward on the right. Only one man had retained a regulation cartridge box on his belt. The rest kept their metal in bandoliers or belts they'd sewn themselves. For former city boys they were a fierce-looking lot; they really did resemble roving bandits ready for any eventuality.
Shem Wallis rode by. Charles heard him say to Corporal Magic Magee, "Lord, it's hot. I can't believe it's November. When we gonna noon?"
"Pretty soon," Magee said. "Here, watch this coin." .
Charles called out to Wallis, "We'll stop there." He pointed to a grove of bare trees some distance ahead and to the left. Since trees usually grew in the damp bottomland, they might find a stream, and cottonwood bark for the horses to forage on.
Charles dropped all the way back beside Gray Owl. The men liked the tracker, but Magee had really taken to him because Gray Owl was always such a fine audience for his sleights. Charles still hadn't learned a thing about his past, especially why he'd abandoned his people. The tracker seemed to be relaxed and in a good mood, so Charles decided to try again.
"Gray Owl, if you're going to track for me, I'd like to know some things about you. Tell me about your family."
The Indian hunched inside his buffalo robe. Despite the heat, no perspiration showed on his lined face. He thought for a while before he answered. "My father was a great chief named Crooked Back. My mother was a white woman he captured. They say she was fair and light-haired. She has been dead a long time."
This surprising information was a wedge. "Any other family?"
"No. Eight winters past, my sister traveled the Hanging Road. Five winters past, my only brother followed. Both were carried off by the same sickness. The one your people brought to us that we had never suffered before."
"Smallpox?"
"Yes." Gray Owl gave Charles a long look, and he felt a stab of guilt. The Indian gazed ahead at the heat devils.
Charles cleared his throat. "What I'd really like to know is why you're willing to track for the Army."
"When I was a young man, I went to seek my vision in order to become a warrior and find the purpose of my life. In the sweat lodge I burned out the poisons of doubt and hate and headstrong selfishness. I painted my face white to purify it and went apart, as seekers must, to a dangerous place. A lonely place, with grass so tall and dry, the smallest spark could ignite a great fire to consume me." .
Charles held his breath. He was getting somewhere.
"Three days and nights I lay hidden in tall grass, crying out for my vision. I ate nothing. I drank nothing. I was rewarded. The Wise One Above, the holy spirit you white men call God, began to speak from the clouds, and from pebbles in a stream, and from a snake passing by. I saw myself hollow and smooth as a dry reed, ready to be filled.
"God moved then. All the grasses bent, each blade pointing north toward the ancient Sacred Mountain. In the empty sky, an eagle appeared. It swooped low over my head and flew west. Then, from the center of the sun, a great owl descended. The owl spoke a while. Then the sun blinded me."
"Did the owl become your helper bird?"
Gray Owl was startled; Charles knew more of the tribe's ways than he'd suspected. "Yes. I keep a great owl's claw with me always." He tapped his medicine bundle, a drawstring bag tied to his belt. "And always, if I ask, a great owl will appear and guide me when I am lost or confused. I learned my purpose from the owl and from the eagle."
"What is your purpose?"
"It was to help the People find the way. To lead them to winter camps and to ceremony grounds for the great summer festivals. To track the buffalo south with the snows and north with the green grass. When I returned from seeking my vision I donned a warrior's regalia, but thereafter always followed my purpose."
"To lead the People. But now you're leading us. Why?"
Gray Owl's face turned stony. "The People strayed so far from the right way that not even God could lead them back. It is time to rest. Shall I search those trees ahead?"
It was as if a curtain had fallen in Trump's theater. Frustrated, Charles nodded. The Cheyenne dug in his moccasins and raced his pony away toward the distant grove.
Ten miles east, a westbound passenger train left the hamlet of Solomon and crossed the line into Saline County. In the freight car, two men polished their guns while two others played cards.
In the second-class passenger car, a young woman on her way to join her husband at Fort Harker gazed through the window at the stark landscape. She'd never been west of the Mississippi before. Her husband was a sergeant recently transferred to the Seventh Cavalry.
In the seat ahead of her, a cavalry officer wearing a silver oak leaf intently studied a book on tactics. At the end of the car the conductor counted ticket stubs. The other passengers talked or dozed, and no one happened to glance toward the south side of the train. There, about a mile from the right-of-way, a line of twenty mounted men started down a low hill and, at the bottom, began to ride rapidly toward the train.
While they waited for Gray Owl, Magee pulled out his piece of practice rope. He handed the rope to another trooper, Private George Jubilee, then crossed his wrists and asked Jubilee to tie him. Jubilee's father, a fugitive slave, had chosen the last name after he found sanctuary in Boston.
"Good and tight," Magee said. Sliding his horse closer, Jubilee concentrated on looping the rope around Magee's wrists several times. He didn't notice the momentary stiffening of Magee's spine, the slight shudder of his forearms, the sudden appearance of veins on the dark brown backs of his fisted hands. Charles saw it from his vantage point, though; he'd seen Magee's escapes and was alert to the trick. Magee was almost undetectably putting tension on the rope while Jubilee finished his loops and tied two knots.
Jubilee sat back on his saddle, smug about his handiwork. Magee began to twist his hands in opposite directions, his nostrils flaring. He grunted once and suddenly, faster than Charles could follow, his hands were apart. The rope was still knotted around his left wrist. He'd created just enough slack to allow him to work a hand free.
Magee smiled lazily and picked at the knots while Private Jubilee stared, dumbfounded. He was relatively new to the troop and to Magee's tricks.
Gray Owl returned in ten minutes. He was paler than Charles had ever seen him.
"Whites have passed here," he said with suppressed fury. 'There are dead men and dead horses among the trees. The bodies have been despoiled."