Talmage Powell
The Talking Medicine
As the first arrow whispered past his scalp to thunk into the side of his wagon, Sam Tucker decided the major’s warning had been sensible. Action and mental cogitation went hand in hand for a man who had lived for some time by his wits. Sam kicked his coffee pot over the campfire and rolled to one side as a second arrow hissed at him.
The fire died with a quick sizzle. Lying in the shadows with six-shooter in hand and heart pounding so hard they must have heard it in China, Sam scanned the night before him. How many Indians there were or where they had come from were questions to be answered later. Doubtless it was a small party, perhaps a single scout, who had seen his fire.
The major in command of the fort had warned him. “Somebody has been getting rifles into Crow hands. Not healthy for a lone white man to wander up those back-trails alone. We’re doing everything we can to avoid incidents, while trying to get at the bottom of this rifle running. We’ve got to stop it soon or it’ll mean the massacre of outlying settlers, a small war with the Crow Indians. I don’t want any fool medicine pedlars touching off the powder keg.”
That had been final.
Sam had stalked from the major’s office. He had promised to meet Buffalo Biddix, the herb gatherer, on Macklin’s Branch. The old man was depending on it. If there was Indian trouble in the air, it was good reason to be at the appointed spot. Old Buffalo was just the kind to take root at the meeting place, come hell or high danger. Biddix would stay put, depending on Sam, worrying about him, until food was gone — or until marauding Crow braves had spotted him and combed his hair with a scalping knife.
Sam had therefore gone up the branch. He had waited now for two days, the cloud of worry about Buffalo gathering ever heavier in his mind. Now he wondered if the silent treachery of the arrows was a clue to Buffalo’s fate.
Sam inched forward, eyes straining into the velvet of the star-studded night. He had a yen to say: “Look, you characters, I’m one-quarter Cherokee myself, from my mother’s father. Couldn’t we pow-wow over this thing?”
He saw a flicker of movement at the edge of the clearing. He followed it with the six-shooter; then he squeezed the trigger. He heard the scream of a wounded man, and experienced quick amazement at his marksmanship.
He was already rolling to one side, and a rifle was cracking down near the creek. He could hear the slugs beeing around his head and wondered if attack from this new quarter meant there was a whole party of them.
He clamped his teeth to keep them from rattling like a pair of wild castanets, and made his way on his belly toward the creek.
The rifle was still now. Only the gurgling water broke the silence of the night. Then a twig snapped. Sam began shooting, and the rifle talked back.
Again silence, followed by the thud of light, running feet. A horse whickered; then its hoofbeats crossed the creek and the silence dissolved that noise too.
Sam reloaded his gun, gulping for breath; sweat was streaming down his face, and he thought with some respect of the man who’d occupied his skin a few minutes ago.
Cautious, he moved to the creek. The moon rode free of clouds and spilled cool silver on him. No more warriors threatened his life, and he breathed easier.
In the soft bank of the creek, he found a moccasin print. He bent and examined it closely. He wouldn’t forget it in a hurry. The Indian had been big-footed, and he had left a distinct mark. At some time in the past, the moccasin had been cut across the sole, perhaps on a sharp rock. It had been laced back together with a fine rawhide thong, leaving a faint ridge across the sole which had imprinted itself in the soft earth.
Sam moved from the creek to prowl toward the warrior who had screamed in reply to the pistol’s bark. He held his gun at full cock, his nerves so tense the whisper of a leaf might have caused him to squeeze the trigger. He found the warrior two dozen yards from the camp site. The buck was tall, lithe, and bronze. A Crow. Sam knew that from the paint markings and sensed it from the odor.
His lucky slug had caught the Crow squarely in the chest. Bright crimson shone against the duller red of the Indian’s flesh, and a thread of blood crawled from the corner of the wide, thin-lipped mouth.
Sam knelt beside the Indian, and the brave opened his eyes. They were already glazing in death. The brave tried to spit in Sam’s face.
“The other white man,” Sam demanded. “The old one with the jacket of buffalo hide.”
“He will die,” the Indian made it sound like a satisfied curse. “Running Elk will kill him.”
With that, the brave died.
Sam sat hack on his haunches. He thumbed his wide-brimmed hat hack. He tried to reconcile the two statements. “He will die.” That meant Buffalo was in the hands of the Indians, but still alive. Still a chance for him, if his young partner could get to him.
Then his mind came back to the second statement. “Running Elk will kill him.” But Running Elk was a Sioux chief, and the Sioux hated the Crow.
Sam was not a man who experienced any great yen for danger, violence, or hard labor. But the task was clearly before him. Seek out Running Elk; then if Buffalo was there, bring him out to safety.
Sam considered the warrior, who possessed one thing that might he very handy in powwowing with the Sioux. With a grimace and gulping effort to keep his stomach in place, Sam unsheathed his knife and lifted the Crow’s scalp.
Bathing in the crystal clear waters of T’yehkeela were three Indian maids. Each was beautiful as they splashed and shouted laughter. But one, Singing Waters, was of a perfection to reduce the other two to beggary. She was tall, lithe, straight as the arrow of a chieftain. The water and sunlight made satin of the deep rose of her naked shoulders. Her hair was long, gleaming black, falling about the delicate planes of her face, a glinting cloud free of its braid at the moment.
Then one of the girls saw the horseman come over the rise, uttered a shriek, and the three covered themselves to their necks with water and stared fearfully.
They saw a heavy, big-hocked horse that would have been more in place before a wagon than under a saddle. They saw a rangy, big-boned young man astride the animal. He was handsome, with a square face, deeply weathered, and dark brown eyes. He wore a black mustache and his hair long in the fashion of the buffalo hunters, curling from under his hat about his neck.
He wore a rather dandified suit of black, dusty now from the trail. And the girls did not miss the fact that he was heavily armed, with a knife and two sixguns showing under his open coat, and a carbine in his saddle boot.
Singing; Waters gasped. From the stranger’s saddle hung a gory hank of black hair — a scalp.
The stranger saw the girls and endured a moment of confusion before a slow smile lighted his face. Singing Waters felt the fascination of the smile. Even through her fear, she found herself thinking the smile was nice.
The stranger swept off his wide-brimmed hat and bowed in the saddle. In the most imperfect Sioux Singing Waters had ever heard, he said, “My spirit is suddenly refreshed and weariness drops from me.”
That, Singing Waters thought grimly as she got control of her fear, is exactly what we’re afraid of.
In English learned at the mission school, she said, “Go away!”
The stranger’s eyes rested on her. She felt warm color come into her cheeks. Strangely, her fear took wings on the afternoon breeze. Then she glanced guiltily, as if fearful her companions could read the unbidden thoughts the stranger’s smile tricked into her mind.
Grinning, the stranger said, “I come as a friend, seeking the great chief Running Elk.”