Standing up, Falcon looked over toward Dorman, and saw that he was squatting by one of the Indians.
“Is he still alive?”
“Not now, he ain’t,” Dorman replied. “His name was Two Bears.”
“Did you know him?”
Dorman nodded. “Yeah, I knew him,” he said. “Falcon, we’re in a lot of trouble here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Accordin’ to Two Bears, they’s Indians from all over the nations gatherin’ up for this fight. They actually figure on pushin’ the white man out of here once and for all.”
“How many Indians are we talking about?” Falcon asked.
“They’re comin’ from six tribes. Miniconjou, Oglala Blackfeet, Hunkpapa, Cheyenne, and Sans Arc,” Dorman said. “Maybe as many as twenty thousand of ’em.”
“Twenty thousand?”
“If all them tribes get together, there will be that many,” Dorman said. “I’m tellin’ you the truth. We are goin’ to have us one hell of a fight on our hands.”
“You’re right,” Falcon said. “I don’t think the general realizes that.”
“So, what do you want to do? Try to run down that gun? Or go back and tell the gen’rul what we found out?”
“Look,” Falcon said, pointing to a couple of boxes of ammunition. “They got away with one of the guns, but none of the ammunition.”
“Don’t you think they’ve got bullets?”
Falcon shook his head. “Not this kind,” he answered. “These are special fifty-caliber bullets. The cartridges have to be machine-made to fit these guns, or the gun will jam up. We’ll spike this gun and burn the ammunition. Without bullets, I don’t think they will be able to do much with the gun they got. We’ll go back and warn the general.”
A few minutes later, as they were riding away, they heard the ammunition explode. Falcon hadn’t recovered the guns, but he had made it so that they weren’t going to pose a danger to the cavalry.
Chapter Fifteen
It was getting dark as Falcon and Dorman followed the path of a swift-running mountain stream. They had been riding in silence for a couple of hours, with the only sound being the scraping of shod hooves on the gravel along the streambed.
Dorman interrupted the silence.
“There’s someone down there,” he said.
“Where?” Falcon asked.
“Down there, in that ravine.” Dorman pointed. “Do you see him?”
“I see something,” Falcon said. “Don’t know if it’s a rider or just an animal. It’s too dark to make out.”
“We’d best keep our eyes open,” Dorman said. “If it’s an Injun and we seen him, then that means he sure as hell has seen us.”
The two men rode on, maintaining their silence. Dorman took a bite of his tobacco twist, then held it out in offer to Falcon.
“Never picked up the chewin’ habit,” Falcon said.
“You’re smart. It’s a nasty habit,” Dorman replied. “Only, when you got a hankerin’ for terbaccy, like now, well, a chaw is a lot better’n a smoke. Injuns can smell terbaccy smoke from a mile away.”
The moon was but a sliver of silver in an overcast sky, making it very dark, too dark to proceed any further. They moved into some trees, tied off their horses, then stretched out on the ground.
“Benteen tells me you were married to a Sioux,” Falcon said.
“Yeah, I was,” Dorman said defensively.
“I was married to a Cheyenne.”
Dorman raised up on his elbows and looked over at Falcon, though in the darkness, Falcon could barely see him. Dorman chuckled.
“I’ll be damn,” he said. He chuckled again. “I should of know’d there was somethin’ I liked about you. That Injun that I was talkin’ to back there? Two Bears? He was my brother-in-law.”
“Too bad.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t much care for the son of a bitch when I was married to his sister.”
“Where are you from, Dorman?”
“If you had asked me that fifteen years ago, I wouldn’t have give you a answer. I would’a figured you was tryin’ to take me back.”
