Epona danced a little nervously until Rudi ran a soothing hand down her neck. He swung to the ground, looped up the reins from her hackamore, and turned her loose; the big black mare mooched a few yards upstream and dipped her muzzle into the muddy water, being naturally too intelligent to drink down current from a body. He looked at the ground more closely, and caught a faint rank odor, like a neglected catbox. The killers had been messy feeders, too, even before the birds and coyotes had gotten to work. Several of the broad-winged scavengers were circling resentfully overhead, waiting for the irritating humans to go away and let them get back to serious eating.
Even in the midst of his annoyance, Red Leaf gave Epona an admiring glance.
Sure, and she's a better introduction than a friendly dog, Rudi thought.
Red Leaf dismounted in turn, and handed his horse over to one of the teenagers in breechclouts; the Sioux war-party had little apparent discipline, but organization seemed to appear like mushrooms after rain when they needed it. From what he and Virginia had said, the Kit Foxes were a brotherhood devoted to defending the tribal borders, and also a social club that organized everything from dances to marriages and acted as a police force besides.
"I'd say that's a tiger's prints," Rudi said, squatting for a moment and tracing the great plate-broad pugmarks with a finger. "But you don't have tigers hereabouts, I'm thinking. And there's at least four different animals, and tigers don't hunt in packs."
"No," Red Leaf replied. "We've got plenty of lobos these days, some grizzlies just lately, but no tigers. We do get goddamned lions, of all the crazy things, the past few years. They follow the buffalo north from Texas and New Mexico when the snow melts; now I hear some of them are wintering in the Black Hills. They breed like rabbits; only rabbits don't have fangs and claws and four hundred pounds of attitude."
"It doesn't look as if they'll take more than you can afford," Rudi said.
There was a herd of several dozen bison not half a mile away, a bachelor herd of bulls cropping at the new grass, and shedding their winter coats. That made them look tattered, but they were plump and healthy. He could see pronghorns from here as well, and some horses that were probably mustangs, and elk, mule deer, cattle that were probably also at least half-feral. When the travelers startled waterfowl out of the little stream, their wings had made a momentary thunder.
This was a spare land compared to the Willamette, but next to some of the deserts Rudi had crossed since he came east of the Cascades it swarmed with life.
Red Leaf glared at him. "It's the principle of the thing!" he said. "And they go for horses and stock as well. People too, if they get a chance, probably."
This Red Leaf was well named; he could use some time in Chenrezi Monastery, Rudi thought. He's a frustrated man, and lets that make him angry. Or to be sure, a spell with Aunt Judy…
"Sure, and it's not my fault," he pointed out.
"You white-eyes were always importing things. Starlings and tumbleweeds were bad enough, but lions?"
Rudi chuckled. "You could scarcely expect the ones running those. .. what were they called, Father? Seifert Parks?"
Ignatius came up, telling his beads with his left hand and looking around with the mild intelligent pleasure he showed at any new thing.
"Safari Parks, I think, Rudi. Those are lion prints? Fascinating! There's an empty ecological niche here for an open-country predator that can take down full-grown bison, I suppose, since the extinction of the American lion ten thousand years ago. They must be gradually adapting to the colder climate."
"… those Safari Parks to know the Change was coming," Rudi pointed out.
"My Order's information is that dozens of species have naturalized themselves and are spreading rapidly-giraffe, camels, ostrich, emu, baboons, rhino of both varieties, eland… no elephants, alas. And of course tigers over much of the continent-"
Immigrants all around. And speaking of white-eyes… the Mackenzie thought.
He cocked an eye at Red Leaf's followers as they attended to watering their horses and the remount-herd. About a quarter of them looked much like their leader; broad square strong-jawed faces, narrow-eyed, high-cheeked and big-nosed, with ruddy-brown complexions. A third wouldn't have suggested Indian at all as far as appearances went, if it weren't for the braids and feathers and fringes-there were several blonds and one tall, skinny narrow-faced young man with milk-white freckled skin and hair the color of new copper, come to that. The rest were every variety in between.
And Red Leaf's son Three Bears looked suspiciously lighter than his father, too. Folk had moved about a good deal almost everywhere after the Change, settled where they could and mated as inclination and necessity dictated, with little time or attention at first to spare for the old world's notions of who was what.
The which it would probably not be tactful to mention, he thought. Sure, and there are enough Mackenzies who have similar delusions about being the ancient Gaels themselves. In the long run, believing makes things like that near-as-no-matter true.
"And I'm part-Indian myself," he added. "One-eighth, to be precise about it; one-quarter, for my father."
Red Leaf snorted. "Cherokee, I suppose? Damn bunch of mutts."
"No, Anishinabe. Ojibwa," Rudi amplified, before he caught Ingolf's covert shushing motion.
A ringing silence fell. Red Leaf said: "You ever wonder why we're called Sioux by the wasicun… you guys… oh sacred guest?"
"No," Rudi said politely. "I know that you call yourselves Lakota. It means friends or allies, doesn't it?"
"Yeah; because we're the only friends we've got. Nadewisou is what the Anishinabe called our ancestors-Sioux is what the English made of the French try at saying the Ojibwa word. Like what we called telephone tag, when I was a kid, only through three languages."
"Ah, now, isn't that curious, and it's always good to learn new things. What did the word itself mean?"
" Nadewisou? It means… oh, something like treacherous little rattlesnakes. It's not a compliment. We weren't so fond of them either."
"Ah, well, I won't be usin' it, then," Rudi said cheerfully.
Red Leaf laughed, a little unwillingly. "You don't faze easy, do you, Rudi Mackenzie?"
"Not so that you'd notice, John Red Leaf," Rudi said. "There's no point in it, as far as I can see."
When they were out of quiet-conversational range of any of the others, he went on:
"Who's Virginia Kane?"
Red Leaf sighed and reached into a pouch and rolled himself a cigarette; when he'd flicked his lighter he passed the smouldering twist to Rudi, who hid a smile at the thought of the last time he'd shared tobacco with anyone-if it counted when you were dreaming, and the other party was a god. He took a puff, coughed slightly, and handed it back.
"She's Dave Kane's daughter," Red Leaf said, and looked sideways at Rudi's face. "Big wheel in the Powder River Ranchers' Organization, the PRRO-"
He pronounced it pee-double-r-oh.
"-and he and his father helped us a lot right after the Change-helped us get going, and brought his men to fight on our side when some folks decided that land was just plumb wasted on Injuns, and we backed him up a couple of times when the PRRO's politics got dirty. Or bloody."
"And it's the truth a man should stand ready to fight for his friends," Rudi acknowledged. "And stand between their friends' families and their enemies, if it's needful."
Red Leaf nodded. "There was a rumor he was part Lakota, but I don't know if that's true; he was a good friend for certain, but a bad man to cross. Anyway, after that we were tight with him and the PRRO-the Southern Lakota at least; we visited back and forth, did some trading, that sort of thing. And that kept this part of the country fairly peaceful, which was damned useful when we were fighting the States… the Midwesterners. We got a little overambitious in that direction back when things were still up in the air, thought we could take over our old stamping grounds in the Red River country since Wakantanka had given the white-eyes the grandmother of all wedgies."