Dunbar kept an eye on the storm front. It was moving toward them, and the prospect of rain made the lieutenant’s face look sour.
He really had to do his laundry.
The blankets had started to smell like dirty socks.
CHAPTER VIII
Lieutenant Dunbar was right in step with the time-honored tradition of predicting weather.
He was wrong.
The spectacular storm slipped through during the night without loosing a single drop of rain on Fort Sedgewick, and the day that broke the next morning was the purest pastel blue, air that was like something for drinking, and merciful sun that toasted everything it touched without searing a single blade of grass.
Over coffee, the lieutenant reread his official reports of days past and concluded he had done a pretty fair job of putting down facts. He debated the subjective items for a time. More than once he took up his pen to cross out a line, but in the end he changed nothing.
He was pouring a second cup when he noticed the curious cloud far to the west. It was brown, a dusky brown cloud, lying low and flat at the base of the sky.
It was too hazy to be a cloud. It looked like smoke from a fire. The lightning from the night before must have struck something. Perhaps the prairie had been set afire. He made a mental note to keep an eye on the smoky cloud and to make his afternoon ride in that direction if it persisted. He had heard that prairie fires could be huge and fast-moving.
They had come in the day before, close to twilight, and unlike Lieutenant Dunbar, they had been rained on.
But their spirits were not dampened in the least. The last leg of the long trek from a winter camp far to the south was finished. That, and the coming of spring, made for the happiest of times. Their ponies were growing fatter and stronger with each succeeding day, the march had toned everyone after months of relative inactivity, and preparations would begin at once for the summer hunts. That made them happier still, happy in the pit of each and every belly. The buffalo were coming. Feasting was right around the corner.
And because this had been a summer camp for generations; a strong spirit of homecoming lightened the hearts of everyone, all 172 men, women, and children.
The winter had been mild and the band had come through it in excellent shape. Today, on the first morning home, it was a camp of smiles. Youngsters frolicked in the pony herd, warriors swapped stories, and the women mowed through the chores of breakfast with more gaiety than usual.
They were Comanche.
The smoke cloud Lieutenant Dunbar thought was a prairie fire had risen from their cooking fires.
They were camped on the same stream, eight miles west of Fort Sedgewick.
Dunbar grabbed up everything he could find that needed washing and stuffed it in a rucksack. Then he draped the foul blankets over his shoulders, searched out a chunk of soap, and headed down the river.
As he squatted by the stream, pulling laundry out of the sack, he thought, Sure would like to wash what I got on.
But there would be nothing left to wear while everything dried.
There was the overcoat.
But how stupid, he said to himself. With a little laugh he said out loud, “It’s just me and the prairie.”
It was a good feeling to be naked. He even laid his officer’s hat aside in the spirit of the thing.
When he bent toward the water with an armful of clothes, he saw a reflection of himself in the glassy surface, the first he’d seen in more than two weeks. It gave him pause.
His hair was longer. His face looked leaner, even with the beard that had sprouted. He’d definitely lost some weight. But the lieutenant thought he looked good. His eyes were as keen as he’d ever seen them, and as though he were acknowledging his affection for someone, he smiled boyishly at the reflection.
The longer he looked at the beard, the less he liked it. He ran back for his razor.
The lieutenant didn’t think about his skin while he shaved. His skin had always been the same. White men come in many shades. Some are white as snow.
Lieutenant Dunbar was white enough to put your eyes out.
Kicking Bird had left camp before dawn. He knew his leaving would not be questioned. He never had to answer for his movements, and rarely for his actions. Not unless they were poorly taken actions. Poorly taken actions could lead to catastrophe. But though he was new, though he had been a full-fledged medicine man for only a year, none of his actions had led to catastrophe.
In fact, he had performed well. Twice he had worked minor miracles. He felt good about the miracles, but he felt just as good about the bread and butter of his job, seeing to the day-to-day welfare of the band. He performed myriad administrative duties, attended to squabbles of wide-ranging import, practiced a fair amount of medicine, and sat in on the endless councils that took place daily. All this in addition to providing for two wives and four children. And all of it done with one ear and one eye cocked to the Great Spirit; always listening, always watching for the slightest sound or sign.
Kicking Bird shouldered his many duties honorably, and everyone knew it. They knew it because they knew the man. Kicking Bird did not have a self-serving bone in his body, and wherever he rode, he rode with the weight of great respect.
Some of the other early risers might have wondered where he was going on that first morning, but they never dreamed of asking.
Kicking Bird was not on a special mission. He had ridden onto the prairie to clear his head. He disliked the big movements: winter to summer, summer to winter. The tremendous clang of it all distracted him. It distracted the ear and eye he tried to keep cocked at the Great Spirit, and on this first morning after the long march, he knew the din of setting up camp would be more than he could manage.
So he had taken his best pony, a broad-backed chestnut, and ridden off toward the river, following it several miles until he came to a knobby rise he had known since boyhood.
There he waited for the prairie to reveal itself, and when it did, Kicking Bird was pleased. It had never looked so good to him. All the signs were right for an abundant summer. There would be enemies, of course, but the band was very strong now. Kicking Bird couldn’t suppress a smile. He was sure it would be a prosperous season.
After an hour his exhilaration had not diminished. Kicking Bird said to himself, I will make a walk in this beautiful country, and he kicked his pony into the still-rising sun.
He had sunk both blankets into the water before he remembered that laundry must be pounded. There wasn’t a single rock in sight.
Clutching the dripping blankets and the rest of the clothes against his chest, Lieutenant Dunbar, the laundry
