Dances With Wolves

As much as he disliked Indians, Timmons knew virtually nothing of their ways. The territory had been relatively safe for a long time. But he was only one man with no real way to defend himself, and he should have known enough to make a smokeless fire.

But that morning he had rolled out of his stinking blankets with a powerful hunger. The idea of bacon and coffee had been the only thing on his mind and he had hastily built a nice little fire with green wood.

It was Timmons’s fire that had attracted the hurting little band of Pawnee.

He was squatting at the fire, his fingers wrapped around the skillet handle, drinking in the bacon fumes, when the arrow hit him. It drove deep into his right buttock, and the force of it knocked him clear across the fire. He heard the whoops before he saw anyone, and the cries sent him into a panic. He crow-hopped into the gully and, without breaking stride, clambered up the incline, a brightly feathered Pawnee arrow jutting from his ass.

Seeing that it was just one man, the Pawnee took their time. While the others looted the wagon, the fierce warrior who had shamed them into action galloped lazily after Timmons.

He caught the teamster just as he was about to clear the slope leading out of the gully. Here Timmons suddenly stumbled to one knee, and when he rose he turned his head to the sound of hoofbeats.

But he never saw the horse or its rider. For a split second he saw the stone war club. Then it slammed into the side of his skull with such force that Timmons’s head literally popped open.

four

The Pawnee rifled through the supplies, taking as much as they could carry. They unhitched the nice team of army horses, burned the wagon, and rode past Timmons’s mutilated body without so much as a parting glance. They had taken all they wanted from it. The teamster’s scalp flopped near the tip of his killer’s lance.

The body lay all day in the tall grass, waiting for the wolves to discover it at nightfall. But the passing of Timmons carried more significance than the snuffing of a single life. With his death an unusual circle of circumstances had come full.

The circle had closed around Lieutenant John J. Dunbar.

No man could be more alone.

CHAPTER V

one

He, too, made a fire that morning, but his was going much earlier than Timmons’s. In fact, the lieutenant was halfway through his first cup of coffee an hour before the driver was killed.

Two camp chairs had been included in the manifest. He spread one of these in front of Cargill’s sod hut and sat for a long time, an army blanket draped over his shoulders, a big standard-issue cup cradled in his hands, watching the first full day at Fort Sedgewick unfold before his eyes. His thoughts fell quickly on action, and when they did, doubt marched in again.

With a startling suddenness, the lieutenant felt overwhelmed. He realized that he had no idea where to begin, what his function should be, or even how to regard himself. He had no duties, no program to follow, and no status.

As the sun rose steadily behind him, Dunbar found himself stuck in the chilly shade of the hut, so he refilled his cup and moved the camp chair into the direct sunlight of the yard.

He was just sitting down when he saw the wolf. It was standing on the bluff opposite the fort, just across the river. The lieutenant’s first instinct was to frighten it off with a round or two, but the longer he watched his visitor, the less sense this made. Even at a distance he could tell that the animal was merely curious. And in some hidden way that never quite bubbled to the surface of his thoughts, he was glad for this little bit of company.

Cisco snorted over in the corral, and the lieutenant jerked to attention. He had forgotten all about his horse. On his way to the supply house he glanced over his shoulder and saw that his early morning visitor had turned tail and was disappearing below the horizon beyond the bluff.

two

It came to him at the corral as he was pouring Cisco’s grain into a shallow pan. It was a simple solution and it kicked doubt out once more.

For the time being he would invent his duties.

Dunbar made a quick inspection of Cargill’s hut, the supply house, the corral, and the river. Then he set to work, starting first with the garbage choking the banks of the little stream.

Though not fastidious by nature, he found the dumping ground a complete disgrace. Bottles and trash were strewn everywhere. Broken bits of gear and shreds of uniform material lay encrusted in the banks. Worst of all were the carcasses, in varying stages of decay, which had been dumped mindlessly along the river. Most of them were small game, rabbits and guinea fowl. There was a whole antelope and part of another.

Surveying this squalor gave Dunbar his first real clue as to what might have happened at Fort Sedgewick. Obviously it had become a place in which no one took pride. And then, without knowing, he hit close to the truth.

Maybe it was food, he thought. Maybe they were starving.

He worked straight through noon, stripped down to his long undershirt, a seedy pair of pants, and a set of old boots, sifting methodically through the garbage about the river.

There were more carcasses sunk in the stream itself, and his stomach churned queasily as he dragged the oozing animal bodies from the fetid mud of the shallow water.

He piled everything on a sheet of canvas, and when there was enough for a load, he tied the canvas up like a sack. Then, with Cisco providing the muscle, they lugged the awful cargo to the top of the bluff.

By midafternoon the stream was clear, and though he wasn’t certain, the lieutenant could swear it was running faster. He made a smoke and rested awhile, watching the river flow past. Freed of its filthy parasites, it looked like a real stream again, and the lieutenant felt a little swelling of pride in what he had done.

As he came to his feet he could feel his back tighten. Unaccustomed as he was to this sort of work, he found the soreness not unpleasant. It meant he had accomplished something.

After policing up the last, tiny scraps of refuse, he climbed to the top of the bluff and confronted the pile of scum that rose nearly to his shoulder. He poured a gallon of fuel oil on the heap and set it ablaze.

For a time he watched the great column of greasy, black smoke boil into the empty sky. But all at once his heart sunk as he realized what he had done. He should have never started the fire. Out here a blaze of this size was like setting off a flare on a moonless night. It was like pointing a huge, flaming arrow of invitation at Fort Sedgewick.

Someone was bound to be drawn in by the column of smoke, and the someone would most likely be Indians.

three

Lieutenant Dunbar sat in front of the hut until dusk, constantly scanning the horizon in every direction.

No one came.

He was relieved. But as he sat through the afternoon, a Springfield rifle and his big Navy at the ready, his sense of isolation deepened. At one point the word marooned slipped into his mind. It made him shudder. He knew it was the right word. And he knew he might have to be alone for some time to come. In a deep and secret way he wanted to be alone, but being marooned had none of the euphoria he had felt on the