Piles of blood and sand and bodies and carcasses built up, a sight that brought shrieks from the hillsides as the women and old ones watched the slaughter of their chosen. Yet, with as much damage as the white man was doing to the horsemen, still Bull saw the horde coming, felt the unmistakable thunder vibrating up through the hard surface of the ground beneath his moccasins, heard the reassuring reverberation of their charge still ringing from the hills. And the closer they came, it seemed the more furious they drove their ponies, the louder rose their war cries.
With that fourth volley the warriors ceased their mighty screeching, having drawn deathly close beneath the guns’ fire-spewing muzzles. Most not already hollering in pain and frustration now rode on grim-lipped toward death’s call on the sandbar. Bravely, without question, they came on, as if possessed—following their chosen leader still a’horse at the center of that front line. Every rider of them weaving back and forth, making it hard for the white man to take a bead on a copper-skinned target.
Brazenly racing on into the face of his own death, Roman Nose raised his arm, exhorting the hundreds come behind him across the sandy riverbed, splattering water and grit and gravel in a huge, stinging curtain as they charged down on the half-a-hundred.
A fifth volley cleaved the air like summer thunder.
Smoke of a dirty gauze obscured the island as Bull plopped down at the edge of the plum brush, bringing the Springfield carbine to his shoulder. If he had a chance at this range, he would pick off one of the white men.
If only to do what one mortal could to turn the day, what he could to change the fate of Roman Nose.
12
THREE HEARTBEATS FROM the sandbar, Roman Nose ceased weaving.
His eyes locked on the great war chief from the riverbank willows where he crouched, High-Backed Bull watched Roman Nose clamp his legs tightly round his faltering pony. Dark splatters dotted the animal’s chest, each hole streaked with crimson.
With one breath Bull prayed the pony would not stumble and fall, pitching its rider into the sand, directly into the path of the row upon row, the hundreds rushing on the heels of Roman Nose.
And then he knew the hand of the Great Everywhere guided the war chief’s animal in this fateful charge— there was no faltering in the dying pony’s gait. Perhaps it was driven on by the sheer will of its rider, into the gaping jaws of the white man’s guns that continued to spew great tongues of fire at the onrushing ranks.
A flurry of movement at the far end of the island caught Bull’s eye. Turning, he saw a handful of the white men crabbing about in their rifle pits while the rest ducked back into their rabbit holes like tortoises. One of the brave chose to rise, emerging slowly from the dense, yellow-gray powder smoke, to stand and meet the charge every bit as bravely as those courageous Shahiyena warriors called “wanting to die.”
Roman Nose had seen the white man too.
Bull wanted to yell—scream—shriek—anything to distract the white man.
But before he could utter a sound, both men fired—their guns exploding at the same moment, the blast of their weapons swallowed by the roar of other gunfire, the cries of horses, and the screams of men going down in a spray of blood and sand and river water, all swallowed by the smack of lead against bone and sinew and flesh.
Roman Nose had not fallen. Like a war club he swung his own rifle from the muzzle as his wounded pony clawed its way up from the riverbed onto the edge of the sandbar. It faltered, pitching forward onto its front knees, then struggled back up unevenly, back into a ragged gallop right into the teeth of those first white guns. Sand coated its bloody chest where uncountable wounds stained its coat.
The solitary white man still waited, rifle at his shoulder, firing at the war chief as he leapt past.
When one of those bullets finally struck Roman Nose, it was as if Bull himself felt the course of its hot lead into his own body.
Could it be that this terrible event had occurred right before his eyes?
The sudden change in the pitch of those wailing cries from the nearby hilltops told Bull he had not been the only one to see it happen. The women, old men and children too … they had watched the fall of Roman Nose.
Through tears Bull saw the war chief grip his pony’s mane as the animal careened sideways off the sandbar, losing the last of its strength now as it crossed the shallow riverbed and plunged into the willow on the far side. Roman Nose wavered unsteadily, his head wagging as if connected to his shoulders by nothing more than loose strings.
Bull whirled from the plum brush, sprinting downstream along the north bank, refusing to believe what he had seen. The hot breeze stung his face, making him unaware of the tears that spilled across the furred earth-paint on his cheeks as he reached the sharp cutbank opposite the far end of the island. There he hurled himself off, lunging into the shallow water, and splashed across while the terror of that fateful charge played itself out. By the time Bull clawed his way up the south bank and into the willow, the white men had broken Roman Nose’s greatest charge. Wounded ponies and bloodied men parted like water flowing past a great boulder, clearing both sides of the island, cleft before a sure and sudden death in the face of the white man’s weapons.
Seven terrible volleys had torn into their brown ranks: spilling warriors, turning row upon row of the naked horsemen to the side, like waves crashing against a rocky coast. Sweating, gleaming, crimson-smeared bodies tumbled onto the pale sand, bobbed in the shallow, churned waters beaten to a red froth by two thousand thundering hooves.
Bull cried in utter despair as the white man’s pistols began to bark, firing into the backs of the retreating warriors. As his heart came into his throat, he watched the half-a-hundred finish off those wounded horsemen who had fallen close enough to the sandbar’s rifle pits.
In anger, fury, and rage, Bull turned away, eyes smarting.
And heard the snuffle of the pony.
He found the animal, found Roman Nose nearby—his strong legs now useless. Pushing back the gall rising in his throat, the young warrior knelt to find the great war chief unable to move. Only his arms could he move. Eyes stinging in anger, vowing revenge for the murder of Roman Nose, Bull pulled his war chief from the willows where Roman Nose had dragged himself with one agonizing pull of his arms after another. There were many bloody pucker-holes in his back, more wounds than Bull took time to count.
Away from the bank, where he rolled Roman Nose to face the sky, Bull saw by the throbbing of the huge, muscular neck cords that the war chief experienced wracking spasms of great pain.
“I … have lost my legs,” Roman Nose whispered, his eyes half-lidded in pain.
“I will go for help.”
“No—do not go,” he began. Then attempted a smile. “Yes. Go for help, High-Backed Bull. You see, I cannot ride.” He coughed. “No more will I ever ride.”
Turning away for a moment to hide his own grief, Bull felt overcome. This tragic end for a man whose very name had struck such fear into white hearts, turning them to water across many raiding seasons. He nodded, unable to speak around the sour lump in his throat, then hurried away. Bull cried as he caught up his horse and rode upriver for help.
Now as the sun began to sink in the west with a rose-brown crack of light, after a long afternoon wherein he never left the war chief’s side while the gentle hands of women turned Roman Nose and bathed him, cooling the war chief in the shade of a leafy arbor, Roman Nose smiled up at Bull.
“How I have missed never taking a woman now,” Roman Nose said quietly, looking at the young warrior as a cool rag was brushed across his chest. “I miss never coupling. I never married. You must, my young friend.” Then the chief’s eyes fluttered to Porcupine. “See that High-Backed Bull finds a woman—one to enjoy his life with.”
“Roman Nose denied himself for his people,” Porcupine replied. “Roman Nose will remain the greatest warrior of the Shahiyena.”
The dying man turned his head slightly, gazing now at the young woman closest to him. At first it seemed he struggled to say something, but could not force the words out. After a moment Roman Nose appeared to grow content with his own painful silence, content in listening to the chants of the medicine men gathered nearby, their
