Charles found Gray Owl sitting cross-legged, asleep in the dark under the eave at the back of the sutler's. The tracker was wrapped in several blankets and buffalo robes; one covered his head like a monk's cowl. "You'll die of exposure," Charles warned after he woke Gray Owl from his doze.
"No. I can stand any weather but a blizzard. I taught myself long ago." Gray Owl stood up, shedding the robes and blankets. He gripped Charles's shoulder and stared into his eyes. "I will miss you. You are a good man. What you did, sparing the captives in spite of your hatred, that was good."
Charles had no reply except another tired shrug. Gray Owl asked the same question that Grierson had, to which Charles answered, "I don't know what I'll do or where I'll go. Off by myself, more than likely. The colonel let me keep my Spencer, and Satan."
"I think we are much alike," the tracker said. "Outcasts. I went apart from the People when they lost their way."
Gray Owl watched the slanting snow driven on the wind. "Like my father, I took a captured white woman for my wife. I treated her well and loved her very much. Three winters past, while I led the society men and the young warriors to the herd for the final hunt of the year, some jealous squaws tormented my wife with sharp sticks. She bled her life away, and no one would punish the women for their cruelty. The brother of the woman who led the others, a hate-filled man named Scar, praised them and told their story many times. When I returned and saw all this, I knew the People had strayed too far for me to lead them back. So I turned from them, forever. But if you are ever lost, Charles, and I can lead you to safety, I will."
"Thanks," Charles said, almost inaudibly. He was anxious to hurry through the rest of his goodbyes. It was beginning to hurt too much.
He embraced Gray Owl and left the Cheyenne resettling himself against the log wall of the sutler's. From a few steps away, he looked back. In the lamp-lit dark he saw Gray Owl's shoulders and blanket cowl dusted with white, like some strange stunted shrub that had died in the winter.
In this weather the men of the Tenth had no choice but to hole up in the foul, cramped huts that served as Fort Harker barracks. Charles stepped around the corner of the hut in which most of his detachment was bunking. Through the plank door, above the keening night wind, he heard Magic Magee's voice.
He shifted his buffalo overcoat and muskrat cap with ear-flaps to his left arm and eased the door open a couple of inches. By the light of oil lamps, he saw Magee kneeling on the dirt floor; "Now boys, you will observe that in this hand I have a stack of three ordinary tin cups, like we drink from every day. Say, would you slide back, Sergeant Williams? I need more space."
Charles smiled for the first time in quite a while. He watched Magee pluck one cup from the stack and invert it on the floor with a swift, sweeping motion. Magee placed the other cups similarly, in a line.
"What I am about to show you, boys, is one of the incredible mysteries of the ages. Back in Chicago, somebody told me that way over in some old tombs in Egypt, there are pictures of a magician doing this same cups and balls trick. Here's the ball. An ordinary little sphere of cork."
He showed it between the index and middle finger of his right hand, then pushed it into his left, or appeared to push it, making it vanish.
"Shem, where's the ball?"
"Gone," Wallis said.
"Gone where?"
"Don't know,"
"Why, come on. It's gone traveling." With zest, Magee raised the first cup to reveal the cork ball.
He took the ball, made it vanish in his hand, and revealed it under the second cup. Charles had watched him often enough to know the secret: four balls, one loaded in each cup beforehand and kept from falling out by Magee's skill in inverting the cups and snapping them down fast on the hard ground.
Magee started his patter again, but Williams felt the doorway draft, raised a hand, and reached for his sidearm. "Somebody out there?"
Charles opened the door wide and went in. "Only me, watching the show. I'm off, boys. I brought this coat and cap. Sell them to whoever you can and put the money in the company fund."
A couple of muttered thank-yous followed, but that was it. Charles felt self-conscious. So did the men. The smiles they tried were thin and sad. He stood there above the ring of black faces, his black hat slanted forward over his eyes. Snow was melting and dripping from the brim. The corners of his gypsy robe scraped the dirt.
He cleared his throat. He felt as awkward and nervous as he had the first time he was called to a West Point blackboard to recite. "I just want to say — you men are good soldiers. Any officer would be —" The words caught. He cleared his throat again. "Proud, to lead you."
"We proud to have you lead us, too," Shem Wallis said. "They give you a bad deal, those generals."
"Yes, well, sometimes that's all there is to life. A hell of a bad deal." He shook his right arm gently. In the crook lay his rifle. "At least Colonel Grierson let me keep my Spencer and my horse."
Star Eyes got to his feet, rubbing his knuckles back and forth over his mouth. Charles noticed the scar from the man's hotel days. Haltingly, Williams said, "Since I was about the first man to speak against you, I guess I should be the one to take it all back. For a Southerner, you're a real white man."
The soldiers laughed at the unconscious racism in the remark. Charles smiled. Flustered, Williams put out his hand.
"We'll miss you, C. C."
Charles's hand stopped in midair. "What?"
"He said C. C," Washington Toby answered. His leg was still bandaged, but he was able to get around.
"It means Cheyenne Charlie," Magee said. "Cheyenne 'cause you're so fond of them."
"Well, Cheyenne Charlie. I guess that nickname fits. I like it. Many thanks."
He turned and started out. "Sir? I clean forgot," Williams said, reaching inside his plaid flannel outer shirt, one of two worn over his regular blouse and long underwear. "This was stuck in my desk for a week. Guess they put it there while we was riding the railroad."
Charles took the pale gray envelope, inscribed in a familiar hand. He held it between thumb and fingertips, tapping it thoughtfully while his eyes froze again.
"Thanks. Night," he said, and left. The last thing he heard as he shut the door was Magic Magee calling out:
"Don't forget about the marker."
At the sentry post nearest the stable, a fire had been lighted against the freezing cold. Charles walked toward the tatters of flame driven horizontally by the prairie wind.
He'd put on gauntlets and he was carrying his Spencer in his left hand, the stock leaning against his shoulder, the blued barrel jutting up behind him. His boots crunched the accumulating snow as he quickened his step, anxious to be away.
As he passed the sentry's fire, he tossed Willa's unopened letter into the flames. He was quickly hidden by the dark inside the stable. Ten minutes later the sentry heard hooves in the snow, receding fast, the only sign of the rider's passing into the vast winter night.
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