Black Hills Badman

an alacrity few horses could match.

It was partly why Fargo never lacked for confidence in the stallion. It had saved his hide countless times. He expected that this time would be no different, that the Ovaro’s exceptional stamina would enable him to widen his lead to where the warriors had no chance of catching him. He glanced back, and smiled. He was gaining.

Fargo faced around. Too late, he saw a low limb. He ducked, or tried to, but the limb struck him full across the chest. Pain ripped through him as he was swept bodily from the saddle and crashed to earth. He landed on his back, his head swimming. The breath had been knocked out of him, and it was all he could do to rise on his elbows in a vain bid to get up. He got his hands under him but he couldn’t muster the strength to stand.

Then Fargo’s head cleared and he saw the Ovaro twenty yards away, looking back at him. “Here, boy,” he croaked. Again he tried to stand. This time he made it to his knees but his chest was hurting so bad, he had to grit his teeth against the agony.

Hooves drummed, approaching swiftly.

Fargo pushed up off the ground. He swayed. He took a faltering step. His body wouldn’t do what he wanted it to. Concentrating, he started to walk, but oh-so-slow.

The hooves became thunder.

Fargo turned and dropped a hand to his Colt. He figured the warriors would turn him into a porcupine but not until after he took more than a few with him. One was already in midair. A shoulder slammed into his chest, into the same spot the limb had caught him. He was bowled over and wound up on his back with the warrior on top, the warrior’s legs pinning his arms. He tried to rise but couldn’t. He was helpless, completely, totally helpless.

The warrior grinned and raised a gleaming knife on high.

Fargo tensed. He had always known it would end like this someday. He’d tempted the jaws of fate again and again, and now those jaws were closing. He held no regrets, though. He’d lived a good life. Maybe not good by the standards of some, but good by his own reckoning. All the women, the whiskey, the cards, had been the spice that gave his life taste.

The knife gleamed in the sunlight.

That was when a swarthy arm flicked out and a swarthy hand gripped the wrist of the knife-wielder.

“Heyah.” It was Lakota for “No.”

The warrior with the knife wasn’t happy. “Why not?” he demanded, adding, “Anapo.” He wanted to count coup.

“I know this white-eye.”

Fargo found his breath and said quietly, “Unshimalam ye oyate.”

The warrior about to stab him showed surprise at hearing his own tongue from white lips. He had lived maybe twenty winters, and wore his long hair loose. “Why should I spare you? You are my enemy.”

“I have lived with the Lakotas. I have shared their lodges.” Fargo glanced at the other warrior, the one who had stopped the knife from being buried in his body. “My heart is happy to see you again, Four Horns.”

“It should be.” Four Horns grinned. He was in his forties, his features typical of his people: a high forehead, high cheekbones, a long nose, and square jaw. He wore his hair in braids.

The warrior on Fargo’s chest still hadn’t lowered the knife.

“What will it be, One Feather?” Four Horns demanded. “Kill him or get off him. But if you kill him we are no longer friends.”

One Feather frowned. He glared at Fargo, then slid the knife into a fringed sheath. “I spare you, white-eye. But not because I want to. But for Four Horns.” He stood and stepped back.

The rest of the warriors were still on their mounts, some staring at Fargo in open hostility.

Four Horns offered his hand. “It has been almost five winters since I saw you last, He Who Walks Many Trails.”

“Pila mita.” Fargo let himself be pulled to his feet. He still had the Colt but if he so much as touched it, he would be dead before he got off a shot.

“Why are you in the land of the Lakotas?”

“Hunting,” Fargo answered honestly. He touched a hand to his chest, and winced.

Four Horns cocked his head. “Why come here to hunt when there is so much game elsewhere? Is it worth risking your hair for meat?”

“I happened to be passing through,” Fargo lied. He didn’t dare tell them the truth. They would go after the senator’s party.

Four Horns turned to the warriors on horseback. He spoke so fast that Fargo had trouble following what he said but it was something to the effect that Fargo was his friend and he would be grateful if they didn’t kill him.

“It is wrong to spare a white-eye,” One Feather said. “They always bring trouble.”

“I think highly of the Lakotas,” Fargo said in his own defense. “I want to be their friend.”

“You lie. Whites want us dead.”

Four Horns said, “I tell you I have shared meat with him. He always speaks with a straight tongue.”

That was about as high a compliment a Sioux warrior could pay someone. Fargo was grateful. Even more so when One Feather grunted in disgust and walked over to his horse.

“One Feather is young yet,” Four Horns said with a tinge of sadness. “All he thinks of is counting coup.”

“Too many on both sides think only of killing,” Fargo agreed.

“Let us sit and talk.”

Four Horns moved a stone’s throw from his friends and sank down cross-legged in the grass. Folding his arms, he smiled warmly. “If I had my pipe we could smoke.”

“Cola,” Fargo said.

“Yes, I am your friend. As your friend I warn you to get on your horse and leave the Black Hills. There are Lakota everywhere and more are coming.”

“Why?” Fargo asked. It was normal for the bands to pay the hills a visit but not for all of them to converge at the same time. “Are the Lakota making great medicine? Is there a council of war?” For some time there had been rumors that the bands were going to gather together in a concerted push to drive the white man out. Fargo didn’t doubt that if it ever came to pass, blood would flow in rivers.

“You have not heard?”

“I have been in the white man’s lands far to the south. I have not heard anything about my Lakota brothers.”

Four Horns smiled happily. “It is glorious, my friend. A white buffalo has been born.”

Fargo’s interest was piqued. To many tribes, white buffalo were special. They were living symbols of hope and unity. The Indians held them in the same high regard as the white man held, say, his church or his Bible. “Where is this animal?”

“Here.” Four Horns gestured at the hills. “Exactly where, I will not say. We kept it a secret. I hope I do not hurt your feelings by not telling you.”

“I understand.”

“It has been many winters since a white buffalo was among us. It is why the bands gather. Not one or two or three but all seven. All the warriors, all the leaders.”

That meant thousands of Sioux, Fargo realized.

“The Arapaho have asked to see the white buffalo. The Cheyenne, as well. It will bring many of the tribes together.”

“It is good fortune for you,” Fargo told him.

“Little Face said the same words.”

Fargo frowned. Little Face was what whites would call a medicine man, or shaman. Fargo had met him a few times and didn’t like him for the simple reason Little Face was a bigot. Just as there were whites who hated the red man because the red man wasn’t white, so were there red men who hated the white man because the white man wasn’t red. “I am glad you are sitting there and not Little Face.”

Four Horns’ eyes sparkled with humor. “He is still mad at you over the white woman.”

Fargo remembered. The Sioux had attacked a wagon train. They killed a score of whites and took a white woman hostage. Little Face wanted her for himself but Fargo persuaded the council to let her go back to her own kind. “He sure does hold a hate.”