Her voice quivered with feeling. “It was not only ponies he wanted, though that was in his mind. He is not one of you. He has never been! My husband knew and told the boy from his death bed to torture his young years. He did not cast me out, my husband, knowing the shame it would bring upon him, but he hated me and he made me what I am, old, ugly, and worked to death! Strong Boy was not his son. Strong Boy is the son of a Crow chieftain who fell under the spell of One Who Turns Men’s Head when she had the beauty to bewitch all men! So great was her bewitchment that this warrior of warriors dared death to come to her side in secret meeting places. He would have made her queen of the Crow had he not died in battle.
“And now Strong Boy stands unbowed and unconquered. You will kill — but he will die as his father!”
“Wait!” The scalp began shaking again in Sam’s hand. “Strong Boy must not die. He must go to the white authorities, for he could not run the guns alone. He could only act as carrier and messenger. Somewhere there are white men who supplied him, who he will name, and who deserve the punishment they shall get. Prove your honor and friendship by helping the white men find and punish the evildoers in their midst.”
“Be it so ordered,” Running Elk said.
Sam Tucker and Buffalo rode away with the dawn. The trail was dim and the air cold, for in Sam’s mind lingered the vision of a face and the touch of ruby warm lips. Sam ate nothing and talked little.
When they reached the wagon on Macklin Branch, Buffalo Biddix snorted. “If you’re low on cash, I might loan enough to buy many ponies.”
Sam looked up at him. “She will forget in time. She will find a warrior.”
“I hear a jackass braying,” Buffalo said.
So they drove the wagon over terrain where no wagon was meant to go. And when they reached the Sioux village, the Indians turned out to meet them with much shouting and children chasing alongside.
Sam jumped from the wagon. Running Elk stopped him with news that the scalp had stopped talking again. “It will speak to your dreams,” Sam assured him, “as you sleep.”
And perhaps if Running Elk carried the thought firmly enough in mind, it would be so. But Sam had little thought for Running Elk. Sam burst into a tipi and flung gold coins at a middle-aged father. “To buy many ponies,” he said. “Now go buy them.”
When the man went out, Sam led Singing Waters outside. She looked thinner; there were signs of weeping on her face, but her smile was radiant.
“I have come back,” he stated.
“I can see,” she said rather tartly.
“Say, what was your name at the mission school?”
“Beulah.”
“I think I like Singing Waters better.”
She linked her arm with his. “We travel in the wagon, Sam?”
“We sure do.”
“It’s a nice wagon. But I can’t make out all the words in the big signs plastered across the side of the wagon.”
“Well, the sign says: ‘Magic Snake Root Oil to cure ills from lumbago to hay fever, presented by the one and only Dr. Sam Tucker, magician and ventriloquist extraordinary.’ ”
“What’s a ventriloquist, Sam?”
“A man who can talk back to his wife without moving his lips. Now pipe down. It’s about time I was showing you more of that custom we were being introduced to down on the creek when Strong Boy jumped me.”
“A beautiful custom, Sam,” she sighed, “of which I am eager to learn much more.”