“No—they likely didn’t have an idea one of finding us here. Just bumped into us, I’d lay.”
“Dam’t well look ready to fight, they do—this bunch not looking for us, Mr. Sweete.”
“You’re right on that count, Lieutenant. This bunch does look all dressed up for a scrap, don’t they?”
With each side-to-side sweep of the double arc, the near-naked horsemen drew a few yards closer, and closer, then closer still. Yet, for all the lead fired and as hot as things were growing, two, and two only, of the Cheyenne lay motionless on the slope of the grassy hillside. Again and again the horsemen probed the Pawnee squads, jabbing here and there, feinting a full frontal charge of it before pulling back. Yet, as daring as the Cheyenne were becoming, there was little the frustrated Pawnee could do but watch the enemy horsemen ride in close, then drop to the far side of their ponies as they swept magnificently along the Pawnee flanks.
If Dog Soldiers were good at anything, they were good at taunting their enemy before they came in for the kill. And in this case, the Cheyenne were old, old enemies of the Pawnee.
“Mr. Sweete!” Becher hollered, his voice near cracking in volume as he hurled his shrill call over the tumult of gunfire, death songs from the horsemen sweeping past, and deafening war cries from the Pawnee trackers themselves.
Shad crabbed over and did his best to shrink his big frame down in the dry, stunted grass. “Lot of noise to it. And damn if they don’t put on a pretty show—their parade too.” He watched the look of incredulous confusion cross the soldier’s face.
“I vas getting ready to ask you v’at you t’ought the odds vere that ve vould be overv’helm’t,” Becher said sourly.
“They ain’t working up much steam, Lieutenant,” Shad said, tearing the grin off his face when he found the soldier in no mood to make light of their situation.
“Vat the hell that mean?”
“Means them horsemen likely break off soon.”
Becher eyed him severely. “You expect me to believe that? After they already lost two of their number? Vat makes you so sure they von’t do everyt’ing to run right over us?”
Shad chewed his tongue a moment to keep from snapping at the German. “Lookee here, Lieutenant. I wasn’t told to come along to help you with the Pawnee—you got things well in hand there. I thought I come along to help tell you about the enemy. If you don’t want my—”
“Just speak your piece, Mr. Sweete.”
He drew himself up a bit, then gazed back at Becher. “To them Dog Soldiers—these odds ain’t near good enough in their favor. Besides, Lieutenant—them warriors really are just as surprised as we are. Shit, I figure they already found out they can’t run us over, like you figure they’ll do to us. So my bet is them Cheyenne gonna pull on back, ride off to fight another day.”
Becher’s eyes quickly swept over his three squads, as if to assess some of the growing commotion among the trackers. “I just pray to Gott you’re right, Mr. Sweete. From vat I see—ve’re in trouble already as it stan’ts. These men don’t ha’f enough ammunition vit’ us to make a stan’ting fight of it.”
Shad only nodded and fell silent, thinking a prayer might not be so bad a thing, after all. Yanking up the flap to his sizable leather possibles pouch he had hanging over his shoulder, he was reassured to find the three extra Blakeslee loading tubes for his Spencer rifle inside. Through his many years trapping the high streams of the Rocky Mountain west, Sweete had carried greased patches and huge molded balls of Galena lead along with vent picks and flints and repair tools for the three flintlock rifles he had packed up one side of the Shining Mountains and down the other across two decades of chasing castoreum. But no more were there the two powder horns hung from that pouch’s wide strap.
None of that heavy truck did he carry these days, abandoning the bulky trappings of that bygone era— powder, ball, and patch. Still, he never quite shook the feeling of being naked without the pouch—its continued comfort beneath his right arm served to remind him of just how far man had advanced during the bloodletting of the Civil War in learning how better to kill his fellow man.
No more was it a matter of taking one shot—reloading—and shooting again, all within the space of a minute. Now a good marksman could efficiently empty a handful of saddles at a respectable range in the same time another man reloaded a muzzle loader for his second shot. Yet as Shad brought back the hammer on the Spencer and started to nestle the rifle into the crease of his shoulder, the old trapper stopped, squinted, then shielded the high light from his eyes with a hand.
He was studying the heaving, galloping ponies a little closer, the clay paint dabbed and smeared across their necks and flanks: crude hieroglyphics and potent symbols. Shad strained his old eyes across that shimmering distance to make out the face paint and hair fobs of the onrushing horsemen. For a moment he thought … then could not be sure with the glimmering cascade of sand and hoof.
From the start Bull had grown straight and strong as a lodgepole pine. Back in his youth the boy had already shown the ropy muscle of the deer in his powerful legs, the rippling muscle in his arms like that under the hide of a mountain lion. Maybe that was Bull atop that blaze-faced gelding dotted with crimson hailstones … maybe not. But—even at this distance, he told himself, wouldn’t a father recognize—
In a swirl of sand the two files of horsemen racing down their flanks suddenly sprang themselves back atop their ponies like a child’s string toy and performed a pretty arc back against one another as they swept noisily away from the Pawnee.
“What’d I tell you?” Shad roared at the lieutenant when the two swirling columns scattered over the far slopes to the north, leaving Becher’s Pawnee behind to hurl their angry oaths at only the summer sky.
“By Gott, ve did it! Three of them dead by my count, Mr. Sweete.”
“Them Pawnee of your’n did it, Lieutenant,” Shad admitted. “Wouldn’t believed it had I ain’t seen it with my own eyes—them Injun trackers fighting like white men. By damned this bunch stood and took the best them Dog Soldiers had to dish out. Beehelzebub! But I was feared they would bolt and go to horse to mix it up when the Cheyenne rushed us.”
“To horse?”
“Yep. Only natural for a Injun to want to fight from horseback. Brought up that way. And, after all—these Pawnee is first, last, and always will be Injuns, Lieutenant.”
Becher rose from the grassy sand to signal in his three squads. Horse holders huffed up with their mule-eyed mounts as Shad once more grew aware of the heat beating at the back of his neck. Up and down his neck he dragged the greasy, smoke-stained folds of a huge black bandanna, resplendent with a splash of red Taos roses, pushing aside the shoulder-length waves of iron-flecked hair.
“V’ere you t’ink ve are now, Mr. Sweete?” Becher asked, dragging a sleeve down his nose where a drop of sweat clung like a translucent pendant. “Colorado Territory alrea’ty?”
Sweete peered off to the northwest. “If we ain’t—we’re damned close, Lieutenant. Don’t really make a bit of difference to the general, does it? I figure all that’s important to Carr now is that he has a trail to follow. And a hot one to boot.”
Taking the reins to his mount from a Pawnee horse holder, Becher said, “Goot. Ve ride back now to bring up the main column.”
“As hard and long as Carr’s been pushing his soldiers, I’ll wager the general’s gonna be damned pleased to hear about us getting run at by these Dog Soldiers.”
Becher nodded, smiling. “Very please’t, I t’ink. So vat is special to these Dog Soldiers? Vat makes these bunch so important to us?”
With a knowing gaze on the hills where the horsemen had disappeared, Sweete replied, “Because when you get jumped by Dog Soldiers, you get hit by the best the Cheyenne nation can throw at you. The baddest, bloodiest red outlaws as ever forked a pony.”
Swelling his chest with unabashed pride, the lieutenant grinned. “Vell, then, Mr. Sweete. No more do ve snoop our noses around on this gottforsaken groun’t vit’out any sign. Goot size war party like this—painted and feat’ered—they vere out for no goot. And now Carr’s got them!”
“Out for no good is right as rain. Them Cheyenne are letting the wolf loose, I’d say.”
The German smiled even wider, smoke-stained teeth like varnished pine shavings. “Let’s get these Pawnees back to Major North—so I can tell General Carr ve got Cheyenne wolves to track now!”
