"She's some Rancher's daughter," he said quietly, his face serious. "An important Rancher; probably a Sheriff."
Rudi suppressed a smile. "It's a bit obvious, isn't it? She hasn't the manner of an underling."
"Or the gear of one," Fred said. "That's expensive horse harness-not just the silver, the workmanship-but it's her working tack, not something kept for special occasions. It's a good horse, too. People like that have a hard time disappearing." A grin: "I did!"
Rudi nodded. "Which means that she might be worth the trouble of pursuing, and draw enemies on us," he said thoughtfully. "Hmmm. See if you can draw her out."
The son of Boise's first ruler went over to get his cold meat and beans. Breakfast was leftovers from last night; buffalo hump was so succulent that it still tasted good cold, and the flatbread was only a little stale. Garbh gnawed on some ribs, delighted to get them raw and with all the meat still attached.
"I'm from Idaho, myself," Fred said in friendly fashion.
She gave him a long considering look. At least she wasn't acting like he was a kid; even as the President's son girls his own age had tended to treat him that way, when they weren't obviously trying to get to his dad through him.
It's a bit of a relief to be just another guy, he thought.
"Boise?" she said.
"Yeah."
Her eyes narrowed. "We heard some rumor that they've thrown in with the Cutters."
"Some of them have," he said bleakly. "That's… a lot of the reason why I left."
Her smile was broad and genuine. "Hell, this outfit here might as well have WHS for its brand, for We Hate Sethaz! I wouldn't mind slapping that iron on a maverick. Or a Cutter's butt."
When they'd finished breakfast he tossed the remains of the hump to Garbh. They still had most of the young yearling they'd killed two days ago, but it wouldn't last long in this weather unless they made a drying rack; nine people could eat a deer down to the bones and hooves easily enough before it spoiled, but not a yearling bull buffalo dressed out at six hundred pounds of meat.
Rudi looked after them as Fred took her to look at the remounts, talking animatedly; he smiled tolerantly. The girl was pretty-in a strong-boned, strong-willed way-and they were both young.
Her own horse obviously needed a few days' rest at least. Rudi was wondering whether it would be worthwhile to stop and jerk some of the buffalo-he hated the thought of waste, though of course the buzzards and coyotes had to eat too-when Ingolf came riding in from his early-morning circuit.
"Visitors," he said, and gave Virginia a hard look.
"What direction?" Rudi said. "How many?"
"At least twenty, from the sound, you betcha. From the east."
"Well, boggarts bugger us and the Dagda club me dead," Rudi said in annoyance, controlling a prickle of alarm; that was where they were headed. "Backtracking would be… risky."
Everyone looked at Virginia Kane. She'd said she'd lost her pursuers, and there had been no sign of any until now, but…
"She came in from the west," Fred pointed out. "Not from the east."
Virginia nodded. "Cutters wouldn't loop around through the Lakota country, I don't think. You're already over the Seven Council Fires border. The Cutters are crazy but not crazy-stupid."
"Gear up, everyone!" Rudi said. "Mistress Kane, put your saddle on one of our remounts-your horse isn't going to be fit for much anytime soon."
It was twenty-two riders, when they could see the approaching party. They were spread out over a fair stretch of the grassland, taking their time to swing around the prairie-dog town and drawing in at long bowshot away from the nine-now ten-travelers. Two of them rode on, coming closer with arrogant confidence.
The which they're entitled, since they outnumber us nearly three to one and this is their land, Rudi thought.
Back home, there was usually somewhere to take cover, and you could place yourself by a swift glance at the mountains.
Here… And it's like a bug on a plate I feel, hereabouts. Waiting for the fork to come down…
"Sioux, all right," Ingolf said out of the corner of his mouth. "Don't put their backs up-but don't let them think they can push you around, either."
" This porridge is just right, as the ill-mannered girl said when she wandered into Father Bear's house," Rudi said quietly back; he kept his hands carefully free of his weapons, but his skin prickled with an awareness of where they were.
The two men pulled up halfway between the parties. Rudi and Ingolf walked their horses out to meet them; when they were in speaking distance he raised his hand palm out.
"Hau kola," he said, and used one of the phrases of greeting Ingolf had taught him. "Lay he hun nee kay washte."
"Yeah," one of them replied, the older of the pair. His tone was as pawky as his words. "And the top of the beautiful fucking morning to you, too, kilt-boy."
Both the Sioux riders were in fringed buckskin trousers, beautifully tanned and supple; their hair was parted in the center and hung to either side in braids wrapped with leather thongs. The younger wore nothing else save pants, boots, the skin of a kit fox around his neck and a feather in his brown hair with a red dot on it. He carried an odd-looking standard, with a curve a bit like a shepherd's crook on the end, lined with eagle feathers; the red flag attached to it had a device of seven white tipis grouped in a circle.
The other wore a long buckskin tunic as well, dyed yellow above and red below, with beads and quillwork and bone tubes in rows on the chest, and a steel cap that mounted a headdress of bison hair and horns. Both had bows in their hands, shetes at their belts, lariats and shields slung at their saddlebows. The man in the steel cap was in his forties and darker than his follower, with a few strands of gray in his raven black hair and lines in his big-nosed, high-cheeked brown face. He had a pair of binoculars in a case as well.
All the men behind them were well armed; a few had short lances as well as bows and blades, or stone-headed war clubs; all the ones Rudi could see were young but in their full strength, and looked wiry tough. Several wore leather breastplates, probably tough bison hide, one had a mail-shirt, and all of them had light helmets at their saddlebows. Many had battle scars as well, sometimes proudly picked out with red paint. He hoped the tufts of hair on the lances and shields were just tufts of hair-horse hair, for example, or buffalo.
And not hair hair.
A herd of remounts followed them, with a few near-naked youths in breechclouts riding about to keep them bunched. The herdsmen were mounted bareback, but the grown warriors had good Western-style saddles.
"We're just passing through," the Mackenzie said.
The older Indian's eyes went to the buffalo-hide pegged on the side of the wagon to dry, and to the quartered carcass hanging from the rear of it.
"Passing through, eating our tatonka," he said. "You know, we're sort of sensitive about armed white-eyes coming on to our land without permission, making themselves at home and killing our buffalo. Call it an ethnic quirk."
Rudi spread his hands over his saddlehorn in a peaceable gesture, and smiled.
"We didn't know it was a herd beast," he said.
"It's not a herd beast," the Indian said-Rudi noted uneasily that he hadn't introduced himself yet, either, or used any formula of hospitality. "We herd cattle and horses and sheep and llamas, not buffalo and pronghorn and elk and deer. Those are game, and all the game on the Lakota nation's land belongs to us and our brothers of the Seven Council Fires."
"There seemed to be quite a few of the buffalo. We're ready to pay for it, sure, and you can have the hide and the meat if you'd rather."
"Thanks a lot for offering to give us back our own," the Indian leader said. "Last time round, we said: Sure, it can't hurt, there's a lot of buffalo and water and grass, let 'em take a little now and then when they're passing through…"
He paused for effect and held up a mock-admonishing finger: "And that turned out to be a very bad mistake. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."