CHAPTER XI
Ten Bears’s council ended without resolution, but this was not an uncommon occurrence.
More often than not, a critical council ended indecisively, thus signaling the start of a whole new phase of the band’s political life.
It was at these times that, should they choose to do so, people took independent action.
Wind In His Hair had lobbied hard for a second plan, Ride down and take the horse without harming the white man. But instead of boys, send men this time. The council rejected his second idea, but Wind In His Hair was not angry with anyone.
He had listened openly to all opinions and offered his solution. The solution had not been adopted, but the arguments against it had not convinced Wind In His Hair that his plan was poor.
He was a respected warrior, and like any respected warrior, he retained a supreme right.
He could do as he pleased.
If the council had been adamant, or if he put his plan into action and it went badly, there was a possibility he would be thrown out of the band.
Wind In His Hair had already considered this. The council had not been adamant; it had been befuddled. And as to himself . . . well . . . Wind In His Hair had never done badly.
So once the council had ended, he strode down one of the camp’s more populous avenues, looking in on several friends as he went, saying the same thing at each lodge.
“I’m going down to steal that horse. Want to come?”
Each friend answered his question with one of their own.
“When?”
And Wind In His Hair had the same answer for everyone.
“Now.”
It was a little party. Five men.
They rode out of the village and onto the prairie at a studied pace. They took it easy. But that didn’t mean they were jovial.
They rode grimly, like blank-faced men going to the funeral of a distant relative.
Wind In His Hair had told them what to do when they went for the ponies.
“We’ll take the horse. Watch him on the way back. Ride all around him. If there is a white man, don’t shoot him, not unless he shoots at you. If he tries to talk, don’t talk back. We’ll take the horse and see what happens.”
Wind In His Hair wouldn’t have admitted it to anyone, but he felt a wave of relief when they were in sight of the fort.
There was a horse in the corral, a good-looking one.
But there was no white man.
The white man had turned in well before noon. He slept for several hours. Around midafternoon he woke, pleased that his new idea was working.
Lieutenant Dunbar had decided to sleep during the day and stay up with a fire all night. The ones who stole Cisco had come at dawn, and stories he’d heard always singled out dawn as the preferred hour of attack. This way he would be awake when they came.
He felt a little groggy after his long nap. And he’d perspired a lot. His body felt sticky. This was as good a time as any to get in a bath.
That’s why he was hunkered down in the stream with a head full of suds and water up to his shoulders when he heard the five horsemen thundering along the bluff.
He thrashed out of the stream and went instinctively for his pants. He fumbled with the trousers before throwing them aside in favor of the big Navy revolver. Then he scurried up the slope on all fours.
They all got a look at him as they rode out with Cisco.
He was standing on the edge of the bluff. Water was dripping down his body. His head was covered with something white. There was a gun in hand. All this was seen in glances thrown over shoulders. But no more than that. They were all remembering Wind In His Hair’s instructions. With one warrior holding Cisco and the rest bunched around, they tore out of the fort in tight formation.
Wind In His Hair hung back.
The white man hadn’t moved. He was standing still and straight on the edge of the bluff, his gun hand hanging by his side.
Wind In His Hair could have cared less about the white man. But he cared greatly about what the white man represented. It was every warrior’s most constant enemy. The white man represented fear. It was one thing to withdraw from the field of battle after a hard fight, but to let fear fly in his face and do nothing . . . Wind In His Hair knew he could not let this happen.
He took his frantic pony in hand, swung him around, and galloped down on the lieutenant.
In his wild scramble up the bluff Lieutenant Dunbar was everything a soldier should be. He was rushing to meet the enemy. There were no other thoughts in his head.
But all that left him the moment he surmounted the bluff.
He had geared himself for criminals, a gang of lawbreakers, burglars who needed punishing.
What he found instead was a pageant, a pageant of action so breathtaking that, like a kid at his first big parade, the lieutenant was powerless to do anything but stand there and watch it go by.
The furious rush of the ponies as they pounded past. Their shining coats, the feathers flying from their bridles and manes and tails, the decorations on their rumps. And the men on their backs, riding with the abandon of children on make-believe toys. Their rich, dark skins, the lines of sinewy muscle standing out clearly. The gleaming, braided hair, the bows and lances and rifles, the paint running in bold lines down their faces and arms.
And everything in such magnificent harmony. Together, the men and horses looked like the great blade of a plow. rushing across the landscape, its furrow barely scratching the surface. It was of a color and speed and wonder he had never imagined. It was the celebrated glory of war captured in a single living mural, and Dunbar stood transfixed, not so much a man as he was a pair of eyes.
He was in a deep fog, and it had just begun to dissipate when Dunbar realized one of them was coming back.
Like a sleeper in a dream, he struggled to come awake. His brain was trying to send commands, but the communication kept breaking down. He could not move a muscle.
The rider was coming fast. stampeding toward him on a collision course. Lieutenant Dunbar did not think of
