The meeting took place on a large sandbar near the eastern bank of the Arkansas River. The sun was out, and a thick layer of crusty snow sparkled, as a cold wind blew in from the west. Both of the groups were mounted—but they were very different. Susan, Tilson, and the rest of the delegation from Haven knew how to ride; Capelli was the only exception. They had good horses brought in from a variety of locations but they weren’t familiar with the animals, and it showed.
The Osage had better mounts and sat atop them with the easy confidence of men who rode every day. They were twelve warriors in all, varying in age from about sixteen to sixty, and were armed with everything from powerful longbows to Chimeran Augers. All of them were dressed warmly, and some wore elaborate necklaces made out of stink fangs. Except for some red plaid here and there, they looked much as their ancestors had a hundred years earlier.
The Osage leader was notable not only for his skillfully made buckskin clothing, but a powerful physique and a shock of prematurely white hair. He sat with one leg crossed over his horse’s neck. His boots were handmade and came almost to the knee. “Stick Walker sent a message. You wish to cross our land.”
Capelli knew that the Osage called the banker “Stick Walker” because of his cane. Back before the stinks came, Potter had been willing to loan the tribe money when other people wouldn’t, and the native Americans hadn’t forgotten. “Yes,” he said. “That’s true. Thank you for agreeing to meet with us. My name is Joseph Capelli.”
“I have three names,” the other man replied. “I am called Pahusca, my council name is Papuisea, and my war name is Cahagatongo. But,” the Osage added with a friendly grin, “my friends call me Bo.”
Capelli smiled. “And my friends call me Joe.”
“Good. So, Joe, what’s on your mind?”
“Two things. First, the town of Haven would like to enter into an alliance with your people—and second, we would like your assistance in locating what might be a large shipment of arms.”
A horse snickered and the river gurgled as Bo eyed Capelli from a dozen feet away. “An alliance against whom? And for what purpose?”
Susan took over the negotiations at that point, spending the next ten minutes describing Judge Ramsey’s plans and laying out the reasons why the Osage should oppose him.
Eventually Bo nodded. “You make a convincing case. I will raise the matter with our council. In the meantime there is the arms shipment to consider. Let’s suppose that it exists and that we manage to find it. What then?”
The possible split had been the subject of a good deal of discussion prior to leaving Haven. Some, like Mel Tilson, felt it should be 90–10, 80–20, or 70–30, all in Haven’s favor. But Potter, Locke, and a majority of council members agreed that anything other than 50–50 was unrealistic. Not to mention the fact that an even split would not only help bring about an alliance with the Osage but serve to strengthen the native American community as well. So Susan made the offer.
Bo raised an eyebrow. “Now that we know the shipment is on our land, perhaps we should keep all of it.”
“You can try,” Susan admitted, as her horse took a step sideways and she pulled up on the reins. “But you haven’t happened across it yet. And what if the stinks or Ramsey’s regulators find it first?”
Bo was silent for a moment. Then he uncrossed his leg and nodded. “You have a deal. Let’s ride.”
It took a day of hard riding to reach the area where the Suzy Q had gone down. Capelli had qualms about traveling in broad daylight, and was in considerable pain after hours on horseback, but there was no stopping Bo and his war party. They all maintained that the Chimera were afraid to enter the reservation because of the large number of casualties they had suffered during past incursions.
While respectful of the Osage nation’s fighting prowess, and inclined to believe many of their boasts, Capelli was more than a little cynical regarding the theory that the stinks were afraid to enter the area. The Chimera didn’t have emotions so far as he knew. But the hive-mind had a limited number of forms available to do its bidding. So perhaps the sparsely populated reservation had been spared so the aliens could focus their energies elsewhere.
In any case there was no denying the fact that Bo and his warriors were very skilled at using whatever cover was available, hiding their tracks in streams, and avoiding open areas where the stinks could spot them from above. Which was one of the reasons why the party was able to reach the half-frozen floodplain called Broken Waters without incident.
The name stemmed from the way Hominy Creek split into a half-dozen competing channels before coming back together a few miles farther on. The water level was low at the moment, but Capelli could see where the creek had been pushed out of its bed by seasonal floods, and had stripped most of the surrounding soil away. Beyond that a white-capped bluff could be seen, with a line of bare-branched trees at the bottom, just back of the high-water mark.
Judging from Lieutenant Larson’s coordinates and Susan’s much-folded map, the Suzy Q was nearby. But where? The light had begun to fade, so there wasn’t enough time to look around.
“We’ll make camp,” Bo announced authoritatively. “Then, when the sun comes up, the hunt will begin.”
It was a good plan and, truth be told, the only one that was likely to work since stumbling around in the dark would almost certainly be fruitless. As those who weren’t on guard duty sat around the communal campfire and tried to stay warm, Susan took advantage of the opportunity to lobby Bo regarding the possibility of an alliance.
And while Tilson peppered the mostly taciturn Osage warriors with questions about where they lived, and how large the tribe was, Capelli took the opportunity to clean his weapons.
Then it was time for Capelli and Susan to take a short walk before slipping into their sleeping bags. A flat rock sat next to one of the channels. Capelli swept a layer of snow off it before allowing Susan to sit down. With an arm around her shoulders, Susan snuggled in. “Joseph?”
Capelli took note. Whenever Susan switched from “Joe” to “Joseph,” it generally meant that something serious was at hand. “Yes?” he answered cautiously.
“There’s something I need to tell you. Something important.”
“Okay, what is it?”
Susan looked up at him. “I—that is to say, we—are going to have a baby.”
Capelli was stunned. There had been so much going on, so much to do, that the possibility of a child hadn’t occurred to him.
“Well?” Susan demanded. “Aren’t you going to say something?”
“That’s wonderful news,” Capelli said warmly, and was pleased to discover that he meant it.
Then something else occurred to him. “Wait a minute! You knew you were pregnant and you came on this trip anyway? You’ve been riding a horse!” he said accusingly. “What about the baby?”
“I knew you’d go all Capelli on me,” she said affectionately. “That’s why I didn’t tell you. Besides, these are early days. There isn’t anything to worry about yet.”
“So I’m going to be a father,” Capelli said, as the realization continued to sink in.
“Yes,” Susan replied, softly. “And a good one.”
Capelli felt his wife’s lips melt under his, and for that brief moment in time, they knew what true happiness was.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
KNOCK, KNOCK, WHO’S THERE?
The night passed without incident. Once the sun was up, breakfast was over, and nearly all traces of the encampment had been erased, it was time to go looking for the VTOL. By using a grid search, the humans were able to locate the downed aircraft in less than an hour.