"Yes," Nystrup said grimly. "We counted on that, their being backwards, too much during the war, and on their absurd superstitions about gears and machinery." He looked at Ingolf shrewdly. "You have an idea?"
"Sort of. We have to know what's going on in there, and if we can get some supplies and fresh horses for your people, Captain. It would take a pitched battle to fight for them, and we're not in shape for a stand-up fight, and they outnumber us. But if we send in some people who can pass for… oh, I don't know, merchants from one of the Plains towns come West to buy up plunder, that sort of thing. There are a few places like that in the Sioux country, tributary to the tribes. Then we could buy what we need. Last I heard, the CUT and the Sioux had made peace."
"We don't have much contact with the Sioux," Nystrup said. "The CUT was always between us and them. Most of the Indians in new Deseret are… were… friendly and part of our Church. I don't think any of my people could fool the Cutters."
"Well, I've had a lot of contact with the Lakota tribes," Ingolf said, with a lopsided smile. "Mostly not too friendly, as in, contact with their arrows and shetes and tomahawks. That was my first war, when our Bossman in Richland sent men to help the Republic of Marshall fight 'em. And later when I was working for some traders in the Nebraska country, I rode guard on a caravan they sent out West, to Newcastle, and I got caught there for the winter. There was this girl
… anyway, I can't pass for a Sioux, but I think I could buffalo outsiders who'd never seen the place into supposing I came from that town."
Rudi felt a broad smile growing. "Sure, and that is an idea. You think it's possible?"
"Like I said, most of the Cutter levies are just cowboys, or a few are farmers or townsmen," Ingolf said. "Yeah, they believe in that crazy religion-or say they do, if they're smart, anywhere Corwin controls- and they're suspicious of outsiders, but they're just… men, otherwise. I saw a fair number the first time I was a prisoner of theirs; they let me out a bit once I'd convinced them I'd swallowed their line of bullshit."
"Well, if we were to try it, certainly you'd have to be one of our spies," Rudi said musingly. He looked around. "Their leader, in fact. I'd be another…"
Ingolf spoke again: "Three or four men would be the maximum. No less, though. Corwin makes a big noise about how safe their territory is for traders, but nobody travels with a lot of cash all by himself. And there should be a woman-a Mormon woman."
Rudi blinked. "Why?"
"Camo-cover, Rudi. We'd be refugee-traders as well as buying loot in general."
"Slaves, the Cutters call them, don't they? It seems a bit too honest for them."
"Refugees is the word out East, and some places allow that sort of thing; everyone's always short of working hands. Say four men and ten, twelve horses-we'd have the horses to carry stuff. We'd be pretty popular, too; coin's a lot easier to transport, and they'd want to change some of what they've taken into hard cash."
"We don't have any of the CUT's minting," Rudi mused. "Or any from farther East. Boise currency might do at a pinch, but not the Association's or Corvallis."
"The Sioux don't coin, but they do use gold and silver. A bar of gold's a bar of gold. And at the least we could buy up some folks and get them out to their kin, and enough supplies."
Rudi winced a little; he hated the thought of playing slaver even as a deception, but it was a legitimate ruse of war.
"I'll go if they need a woman," Rebecca Nystrup said.
Her cousin opened his mouth, then closed it again. It was good protective coloration. Rudi sympathized with him as he visibly suppressed the desire to say that she'd do no such thing-he could scarcely order one of the other women to do it, when his own kin had asked for the nasty, dangerous job.
"I volunteer!" Fred Thurston said.
"Sorry, Fred," Ingolf said. "You'd stand out too much."
Frederick looked at him blankly for an instant, then struck the palm of his hand against his forehead. "Right. Damn, I hadn't thought of that. We haven't gotten far enough away from Boise for people to just take me for myself."
Black folk were even thinner on the ground here in the interior of the Northwest than they were on the Pacific Coast-Mrs. Thurston was Anglo, but her husband's African strain was plain in her son, too plain for him to pass for Hispano or Indian.
And since his father had been ruler of Boise ever since he brought order out of plague and chaos in the first Change Year, the association of young black man and Prince of Boise -specifically, fugitive prince with a massive price on his head -would be all too likely, even for Cutter levies from beyond the Rockies. Their leaders at least would have some familiarity with local politics.
Rudi ran the rest of his band through his mind. They couldn't take any of their own women; Cutter females were close-kept, even more so than in the Protectorate back home. Which left…
"Edain… and Odard, I think," Rudi said. "Would Edain's accent pass? Or mine, for that matter?"
"Sure," Ingolf said. "You get all sorts of funny ways of talking in little pockets and backwater settlements, nobody can keep track of them all. These Montanans all sound like hicks with head colds to me anyway. You'll have to leave the skirts"-he grinned at Edain's bristle-"pardon me, the kilts, behind. Odard's OK too-you could pass for part-Injun, my lord Baron. Most of the folks who call themselves Sioux look pretty much like white-eyes these days, mostly because they are white-eyes, but the important families are likely to have the old blood."
Odard Liu nodded; his father had been half-Chinese, and it showed in his coarse crow-black hair, high cheekbones and the fold at the corners of his blue eyes. Father Ignatius had similar looks save for black eyes, courtesy of a grandmother from Vietnam, but his tonsure wasn't the only thing that made him too unmistakably a Christian cleric.
"Happy to volunteer," the Association noble said dryly. "Even ex-post-facto."
Mathilda snorted. "You volunteered for everything when you joined up, Odard."
He gave her a charming smile, and a courtly sweeping bow that went oddly with his grimy wool and leather outfit and shapeless floppy-brimmed canvas hat. Somehow it evoked the image of the impeccable court fashion he delighted in at home.
"That is most true, Your Highness. My sword is ever at my lady's service."
Ingolf made a passable imitation of the bow himself as she blushed and cleared her throat. He spoke briskly: "You can be the Injun prince, if you want, Odard. It'd be likely we'd have a chief's son along, if the local tribe where we came from were putting up part of the money."
"No time like the present," Rudi said, looking up; six hours to sunset. "We'll have to have a set of signals-"
"Stop right there, strangers!"
The words were backed up by half-a-dozen stiff horn and sinew horseman's bows drawn to the ear. Ingolf let his balance shift back a bit, and Boy halted between one pace and the next; his favorite mount had a lot of quarter horse in his bloodline, and would pass anywhere in the plains-and-mountain country. Rudi managed that as well, and Edain, which Ingolf had worried about-the younger clansman's horsemanship had improved over the past couple of months, enough to pass for a city-man from Newcastle. Odard had mastered the cow-country style too, and it was different from the long-stirrup Portland seat. At least he'd been brought up on horseback, which was something you couldn't counterfeit.
One thing that wouldn't pass was a Sioux who couldn't ride, he knew.
Everyone in their party raised open hands in the peace gesture; except for Rebecca Nystrup, of course, but hers were handcuffed, with the chain looped through a ring on her saddlebow. The Cutters eased off on their draws, which was reassuring-it was all too easy to let a bowstring roll off your fingertips if you held it too long. An arrow in the face killed you just as dead whether it was intentional or not.