“I thought there weren’t any liveries here,” Ebersole said.
Dempsey spat out a quid.
“There ain’t none here,” he said. “They’s one up at Livingston. ’Course, you ain’t in Livingstone, are you?”
“All right, a dollar a day,” Ebersole agreed, snarling the words to show his displeasure in the arrangement.
“In advance,” Dempsey said.
“In advance,” Ebersole agreed as all of them dug out a dollar for the payment.
“Where at is the tryout being held?” Hawkins asked.
“Don’t you hear all the shoutin’? It’s just down the street at the south end of town,” Dempsey said. “They’ve put up bleachers there, you can’t miss it. Hell, near ’bout the whole town is there, all you got to do is follow the noise.”
Grumbling, the six men turned their horses over to Dempsey, then as he led them back into the stable, they walked down the street toward the crowd.
“Taylor, you and Slayton need to hang back a bit,” Ebersole said. “They’re sure to recognize you two. I don’t think they’ll recognize me or Peters or Dewey, or Hawkins, ’cause it was dark the only time he seen us, and we wasn’t right up against the train.”
Running Elk and White Bull had been with Mean to His Horses for at least three weeks. In that time, Mean to His Horses had led his warriors out for several raids, but he had not taken Running Elk or White Bull with him. In addition, there were at least twelve others who had joined Mean to His Horses’s group who had also not been allowed to go on raids.
Running Elk was willing to wait until they were invited, but White Bull had other ideas.
“We will make our own raid,” White Bull said. “We will show Mean to His Horses that we are warriors with courage and honor.”
“Do you think that is wise?” Running Elk asked.
“Yes. It will be like it was when we were young and hunted together,” White Bull said. “And when I killed the bear. Do you remember?”
“I remember when you killed the bear.”
Running Elk recalled the incident White Bull was talking about. They were young, no more than fourteen summers. It was the last year before Running Elk was selected to go back East to the white man’s school.
Running Elk had shot an antelope, and it ran into some trees. He went into the trees after it, and saw where it had fallen. It was still alive, and Running Elk knelt beside it to cut its throat. That was when he heard White Bull calling out to him.
“Running Elk! There is a bear!”
Looking up, Running Elk saw a bear coming toward him. It wasn’t a grizzly, it was a black bear, but it was frightening enough. Running Elk had put down his bow when he went after the antelope, so all he had was his knife. Frightened, he knew it would do no good to run, so he stood up and turned toward the bear to face it, with his knife in his hand.
That was when he heard the whizzing sound of an arrow pass only inches from him. The bear had stood up, and the arrow buried itself in the bear’s heart, killing him instantly. White Bull had saved Running Elk’s life. Even in the difficult days after Running Elk had returned from the school, when the relationship between them had cooled, when they became rivals for the hand of Quiet Stream, Running Elk was aware that he owed his life to White Bull. And it was because of that that their relationship had never gone from being rivals to being enemies.
“Hear me!” White Bull called to the others. “Mean to His Horses thinks that we are not ready to go with him, but I say we can show him we are ready. I am going now to claim coups against the white man! If you are brave of heart, you will go with me.”
“I will go,” Jumping Wolf said.
“And I will go,” Standing Bear said.
Within moments, everyone had declared their intention to go but Running Elk.”
“Running Elk, will you not go with me?” White Bull asked.
Running Elk smiled, and put his hand on White Bull’s shoulder. “I will go with you,” he said.
“Hang on there, Tommy! Hang on! You can do it!” someone shouted as the six men walked around the edge of the bleachers. The bleachers were overfilled with spectators and scores were standing on each side of the bleachers, right up to the rope that marked off the riding arena. In the arena a cowboy was trying to stay in the saddle of a bucking horse.
He wasn’t able to, and a groan went up from the crowd.
“There they are,” Slayton said, pointing to a table that was set up in front of the bleachers.
“You sure that’s them?” Ebersole asked.
“The three on the left are,” Slayton said. “That’s MacCallister and Cody. I don’t know the name of the man on the right, but he was with MacCallister and Cody back in Sheridan.”
“Slayton is right,” Taylor said. “That’s MacCallister, Cody, and the other man is a writer named Prentiss Ingraham. I met all three of ’em while they was takin’ me to jail.”
“What do we do now?” Dewey asked. “We can’t shoot them in front of all these people.”
“We’ll just wait and watch,” Ebersole said. “We’ll get our chance.”
