Two Pawnee horsemen fired their rifles again and again at the approaching Cheyenne. Then both leaned off the bare backs of their ponies and scooped the white man from the grassy sand at a full run.
Jonah started to come to, his eyes struggling to focus as his toes dragged the ground, bouncing off tufts of bunch-grass, suspended between two men and their heaving, sweat-slicked horses. He tried to look up at who carried him helpless as a newborn, hoping they were Pawnee. Then blacked out again from the pain in the side of his head.
Wondering if the Cheyenne warrior who had knocked him off his horse had been Shad’s half-breed son.
Blessed, merciful blackness …
Women and children surged forward, old ones too—each one looking for any who were missing among the war party gone to the hills beside Plum Creek where the Cheyenne had abandoned their belongings.
There were three missing. Three more carried in wounded. Women wailing anew—knowing the Pawnee would surely mutilate the bodies of their men left on the battlefield.
Porcupine looked at Turkey Leg, then walked on past the old man, leading his pony through the crowd.
“Porcupine!”
He turned, not really wanting to talk with the chief. Slowly, the warrior faced about.
“You tried, young one. Sometimes—that is all that counts.”
“I could not hold the rest long enough to see what the scalped-heads would take, what they would leave behind,” he said with bitterness. “They were too anxious to fight.”
“In some the blood of revenge runs so hot it knows no control.”
“We failed—and paid a mighty cost for it,” Porcupine sighed. “There is one among us who is without control, Turkey Leg. He rides without thought into the muzzles of the white man’s guns. He taunts the others because of it—and so brings danger to the rest of our war party because he is without fear—perhaps because he is crazy.”
“The half-breed? Son of the Cheyenne woman who married the tall white man?”
Porcupine nodded.
Turkey Leg gazed into the distance a moment. “I remember the man well—as if it were yesterday. More than twenty winters ago, he came among us and would have no other for his wife. Now his son pays for the transgressions of his father.” He looked up at Porcupine. “I fear that High-Backed Bull will one day die at the hands of the white man—perhaps his own father.”
“What I fear most is that he is so crazy, so hot for blood, that he will cause the deaths of many of our finest warriors.”
“If it is something that is to come to pass—it is not for us to change the will of the Grandfather Above.”
Porcupine sighed. It was so. Not for him to decide who was to live. Who was to die. The recent journey of the sun and moon had brought death to this camp, which meant many left without husbands, without fathers.
“And still, Turkey Leg, the scalped-heads hold three of our people prisoners and sit on almost all that we owned.”
“But there are small victories, Porcupine. Small, but most meaningful. No more do the scalped-heads hold three Shahiyena. One has escaped.”
“Your mother?”
Turkey Leg shook his head, moistness coming to his eyes in the midday light. “No. It is the girl of ten summers. Somehow she escaped the scalped-heads as they were crossing the great river. She hid on an island from her captors. Because of this, the people have renamed her Island Woman. After our enemies gave up their search for her, she turned about and walked north onto the prairie. From what she told me of the time she heard horsemen coming, I believe she made herself small and hid from you and your warriors when you rode south to Plum Creek in the darkness.”
“Island Woman! This is good news, Turkey Leg!” He clamped a hand on the old man’s shoulder. “Now—we must free the last two.”
The chief tried to smile, then sucked on a lower lip in thought before he replied. “I have little hope for the boy and woman to escape like the girl. Better that I send word to the white man that I will trade for them.”
“The white children?”
“Yes.”
“You will give two back to the white man?”
“I will return all six to the soldiers—if they will only free the boy and the old woman.”
“You are a good son, Turkey Leg.”
“No,” the old chief answered finally, gazing up at the tall warrior with moist eyes. “If I had truly been a good son, my mother would not now be a prisoner of the scalped-heads and the white pony soldiers.”
Man That Walks Under the Ground, Spotted Tail, Young Man Afraid of His Horses, Pawnee Killer, Standing Elk, and others of the Sioux. The Cheyenne came as well.
Turkey Leg motioned Shad Sweete to the doorway of the crowded Sibley tent where the peace-talkers held court. The old mountain man was there to help translate for the Cheyenne when needed.
“You are the father of High-Backed Bull?” asked the Cheyenne chief.
“I am,” Shad answered.
“Husband to Shell Woman?”
Shad had to think a moment, to remember her given Shahiyena name. “She is mother to High-Backed Bull, yes.”
Turkey Leg sighed. “I wish to speak with you, Indian-talker.”
Shad followed the old Indian out the open tent flaps stirred by the autumn breeze. Although he could not recall ever meeting Turkey Leg, Sweete knew of the man by reputation. His word was good. And right now the old trapper was figuring Turkey Leg was set on doing some wrangling over peace terms away from the soldiers.
“I don’t have any power to help you in your talks with the great father’s peace-talkers—”
Turkey Leg raised a wrinkled hand, silencing the white man. “I did not ask you to talk to me of peace with the soldiers. Years ago, when you came among Tall Crane’s village, to buy yourself a wife—I too lived in that camp.”
“We have met, Turkey Leg?”
The old man shook his head. “No. But I know of you.”
“I know of you as well. Among many honorable men—you are known as a man of honor.”
“You speak of me like I am some ancient man, Indian-talker. I cannot have more than ten winters of life on you.”
Shad liked the chief’s smile. “I remember Tall Crane’s camp. It was a good time in my life. A good time in our lives—before things got … mixed-up and confused.”
“It was a good time for us all, Indian-talker.” Now the chief’s old eyes gazed back into the tent. “You see that one at the end of the table, seated beside the one with much braid on his blue coat?”
Shad nodded. “Major Frank North. Leader of the scalped-heads. The army’s scouts.”
No emotion was betrayed in the old man’s eyes. “I know of him. He was leading the fight we had at Plum Creek Ford.”
“Yes. You wish to meet him?”
“No. It is not necessary. I only know that he is the man you must talk to for me. I have—” He bit his lip as if it were something difficult to discuss. “I have six children this North will want.”
“Prisoners?”
