Wind Walker

buffalo would one day be the only hide worth trading? Or that there’d be only one outfit a man could sell to when he had furs for barter? Or that the traders would no longer pack their goods overland to a midsummer rendezvous in some central valley … hell, he groused—nothing ever would be the same again, nothing like those glory days when he and a few others walked this land as giants. As bold and brassy as young bulls in the spring of their lives! Why, back in those heady days how could any of them even begin to believe those shining times would come to an end?

So full of life were those seasons that not one of them gave a thought to what might lie on the horizon … until it was too late, until the first emigrants were moving through with their white women and their preachers too, until the big fur companies had choked the life right out of the beaver business and only buffalo were left, until every man jack of them had shuffled on to Oregon country or limped back east with his tail between his legs … except for a hardy few who held on and on and on. Become half Indian, half white … but not near enough of one race or the other to make a home or find some peace in either world.

And the saddest thing was these princes of the wilderness had brought about their own ruin. The big fur brigades had trapped many of the richest streams entirely clean of beaver, taking even the kits before they moved on to strip another section of the river, keeping the harvest out of the hands of the English and other American outfits. Over time in those final years a man could ride into a valley and not find a dam or a pond, nary a beaver lodge—much less hear the warning slap of a tail striking water, or the industrious chawing through the tender saplings, the branches of each young tree rustling as it fell and was dragged through the meadow. Greed—and the belief that if a man did not take everything he could for himself then others would come along to take it all for themselves—had turned this brief ride through glory into an endless, wandering search to recapture some shred of that magnificent era—

He heard the whistle, jerking awake suddenly, aware that he had been dozing in the saddle, the sun splendidly warm on his face, lulled asleep.

Titus found Flea pointing at the line of trees ahead of them. Shadows tucked back in the cottonwood. Beyond that fringe of trees the valley stretched north into an irregular bare meadow that meandered along the east bank of a stream that eventually poured its bounty into the Musselshell. Some three miles away at the end of that open ground grazed some horses, a sizable herd content and unalarmed in the midday autumn sun. Narrow spirals of dusky smoke lifted into the sky from lodges beyond the timber, hidden from view. That was not a war camp; instead, a large gathering made before the first hard snow arrived and the bands eventually broke up into smaller clan units, dividing off to last out the winter in the lee of the mountains.

Three riders appeared from the trees ahead, one of them raising a shield as signal. For the first time Bass turned to look to his left, the bad side, and spotted the horseman who seemed to appear out of nowhere on the ridgetop across the stream. The rider waved back with what appeared to be a piece of faded blue blanket. Off to the right he heard the snort of a horse. Four more horsemen brought their animals out of the trees nearby and came to a halt.

“Hold up, son.”

Rea drew back on his reins and turned around in a half circle, gentling the lead mare who controlled their packhorses. Keeping an eye on Waits, Magpie, and young Jackrabbit, Titus waited several moments until he was assured they were close enough, then turned back to peer at the horsemen. The three riders in their front had already put their horses into motion, while the four off to the right approached more slowly, cautiously, at an angle.

“Pote Ani? Is that really you?” one of the voices called out.

“It is me!” Titus cried in Crow with growing excitement, squinting in the bright autumn sun at the trio, unable to discern which one had called out his name.

“The old shaman—Real Bird—he said he had seen you in a dream a few days ago … that you were going to return twice more,” the young man explained as he approached. “But after that second return, you would never leave the Crow again … without a terrible end coming to you and all those around you.”

A cold fingernail scraped its way slowly down his backbone with that prediction from the old soothsayer. He trained his eyes on the youngster and asked, “Who are you?”

“Stiff Arm!” the young man cried.

“No! You are grown so much in this past year!” Titus marveled, immediately forgetting the ominous prediction with the joy of returning home to his wife’s people. “When we left last summer you were but a youngster, growing quickly … but a youngster still the same … and look at you now! A young man! Is this what happens when you put away the things of a boy?”

“Do you remember me too?” one of the four asked as they came up and halted on his right.

Turning, Bass studied the youth’s face. “Is that you, Three Iron?”

“Has it truly been a year, Pote Ani?”

Titus nodded. “Long enough for boys like you to grow into such fine young men.”

He watched how that made both of them beam there before their peers.

“Could this be little Flea?” Stiff Arm asked with a grin, pointing out the young horseman sitting next to Titus. “The boy who was so small when you left us last summer?”

“Like my father said, a year is a long time in the life of a young warrior,” the boy replied, his face glowing.

Three Iron agreed, “Well said, Flea! Well said!”

Then a young man Bass did not know asked, “So that must be Magpie?”

Seeing how they all had trained their eyes beyond him, Titus turned in his saddle to find his wife and the other two children approaching with the lone travois horse.

“No, Turns Back,” Stiff Arm said, “that cannot be little Magpie!”

“But who else could it be, Pote Ani?” asked another youngster Scratch did not know.

“Pote Ani, please forgive our brash manners,” Three Iron apologized. “These boys—Turns Back and Don’t Mix—they are as amazed as I am just how beautiful Magpie has become in the year since she has been away.”

With a guarded sigh, he took a moment and studied his daughter as the last three members of his family came to a halt around him. The girl was every bit as beautiful as her mother must have been at that young age— which made Scratch wonder if Magpie herself would choose to wait for just the right man … or if she would allow herself to be swept off her feet by the first suitor who turned her head with sweet talk and a bevy of pretty presents.

“Magpie?” breathed the youngster named Don’t Mix. “You are now the prettiest girl in our camp!”

She dropped her eyes as Waits asked, “Husband, who are these young men?”

“We are some of the camp guards. My name is Stiff Arm,” the horseman introduced himself.

“Who is this one who talks to my young daughter without waiting for her mother’s permission?” Waits asked, her eyes boring into the guard next to Three Iron.

“I-I am Don’t Mix,” he answered, grown a bit anxious in the face of a mother’s sternness.

“Who is your mother, Don’t Mix?” she asked him abruptly. “Do I know her?”

“I d-don’t know—”

“Maybe I should know her first before you take the liberty of talking to my daughter, Don’t Mix.”

“I apologize for him,” Turns Back volunteered, off to the side. “Maybe we forget ourselves and our manners when we see how pretty a girl has come back to live in our camp.”

She turned to look at the one who had spoken up. “Do I know your mother?”

“Yes, I think you do,” the boy declared. “She has told me you and she were friends when you were children yourselves.”

“What is her name?”

Turns Back said, “Bends. Her name is—”

“Yes, Bends,” Waits repeated. “She is your mother?” When the youngster nodded, she looked him up and down. “Are you sure? You are not the skinny little boy I knew as the son of my friend. Where is that little boy who had such big feet and skinny legs that I was always afraid he would trip over his moccasins and break a bone?”

All around Turns Back the other youngsters were sniggering behind their hands, just the way young men