“That’s what you think.” Rubicon noticed that the girl had lowered her rifle partway. The Arapaho still had an arrow notched to his bow, but the boy about to tie his wrists had stepped between them. No one else had a weapon ready to use. They were green in more ways than one, these people, and it was about to cost them. Suddenly stiffening, he looked back the way they had come and yelled, “Venom! Potter! It’s about time you got here.”
The ruse worked. All of them turned. Every last one. Even the boy with the rope.
Rubicon whirled. He had the boy’s tomahawk in his hand before any of them could think to stop him. He swung it and caught the boy across the head with the flat of the blade. He’d meant to cleave the boy’s head, but in his haste he misjudged his swing.
Plenty Elk saw Degamawaku start to fall. He stepped to the right for a clear target and took a split second to sight down the arrow. At that range he could hardly miss, but he was going for the heart, for a kill shot, and he wanted to be sure.
Rubicon expected the Arapaho to react first. The Dog Eater was seven or eight feet away, too far to hit. So Rubicon threw the tomahawk. He didn’t expect to inflict a wound, only to make the Arapaho duck and buy him the time to grab a gun from the girl.
The tomahawk spun end over end.
Plenty Elk went to fling himself aside and was turning when the tomahawk struck his bow and glanced off. The keen edge caught him in the side of the neck, slicing through skin, flesh and blood vessels. He clutched at himself as a red mist sprayed every which way.
“Plenty Elk!” Evelyn cried. She jerked her rifle up.
With a howl of triumph, Rubicon was on her.
Chapter Thirteen
Venom had no time to rein around, no time to spur his horse. He felt no fear, no panic. Bracing for the impact, he hiked his leg clear of the stirrup.
In a flurry of driving hooves, the bull crossed the space separating them. Just as it lowered its head to rip and gore, its front legs buckled and it crashed heavily to the ground, its momentum carrying it past Venom and his mount, missing them by a hand’s width.
A twitch of the bull’s tail, a final grunt, and it was dead.
“That was close!” Potter exclaimed. He had managed to push out from under his horse and was rubbing his left leg.
“You must have nerves of steel,” Tibbet threw in. “Sitting there as calm as could be.”
“I’m proud to ride with a man like you,” Jeph Kyler said, and his twin nodded in agreement.
Venom hadn’t done it to impress them. Still, anything that made them fear him more made it that much less likely they would cause him trouble. “We’re losing time,” he said, and reined around.
“Wait!” Potter hollered. “What about me?”
“Throw your saddle on one of the Injun ponies we took and be quick about it.” Venom chafed at the delay. He was eager to catch up to Rubicon and see the white girl. From the way Rubicon had described her, she must be about the prettiest young filly this side of the cradle.
The Kyler twins came up on either side.
“Want us to go on ahead and see how the darkie is doin’?” Jeph asked.
“Rubicon knows how to take care of himself.”
“That he does,” Seph agreed. “But there are seven of them and one is an Arapaho warrior.”
Venom still didn’t see the need, but since he preferred to stay on the twins’ good side, he replied, “I’d rather you stay with us, but go on if you want.” To his annoyance, they did. That left him with four, this close to Sioux territory. “Hurry up with that damn saddle, Potter.”
For the next several hours they rode nearly due west. Around them the prairie was awash in the golden glow of the sun. Butterflies flitted amid patches of wildflowers. Jackrabbits bounded off in incredibly long leaps. A red fox watched them go by, unafraid.
Venom supposed there were those who would call the prairie beautiful or God’s handiwork or some such. He wasn’t one of them. Grass was grass, flowers were flowers. As for the Almighty, he stopped believing the day he saw a little boy’s head crushed by the flailing hoof of a horse.
Toward the middle of the afternoon Venom was surprised to see the twins galloping back. He raised his arm and the others stopped to await them. “Don’t keep me in suspense,” he said as the pair reined to a stop.
“Indians,” Seph declared. “Thirty or forty. Northwest of here, heading east.”
“They’ll pass within a quarter mile of you,” Jeph took up the account. “We felt you should know.”
“Could you tell which tribe?”
“They were too far off. If I had to guess, I’d say Sioux, but that’s a hunch more than anything.”
Venom reined to the south. “We’ll go a mile or so out of our way so they don’t spot us.”
They went less than a quarter of that when Venom drew abrupt rein. To the southwest was a dust cloud. Only two things raised that much dust; a lot of buffalo or a lot of riders. He got out his spyglass. “Indians,” he announced. An awful lot of Indians.
“It can’t be the same bunch we saw,” one of the twins said.
“They’re heading northeast and will miss us by a good long way,” Venom calculated.
Potter anxiously remarked, “This country is crawling with the red heathens.”
“Maybe they’re looking for us,” Tibbet speculated.
“Or that girl and her friends,” Calvert said.
“Or that freight train,” Ryson threw in.
Venom had a different notion. “I bet they’re holding a powwow. Maybe they’re fixing to go on the war path against the Shoshones or some other enemy and the bands are gathering. Just our luck we happen to be passing through.”
Potter was glancing every which way. “We’ll have to be extra careful from here on out.”
Venom blistered the air with oaths. This would slow them. At the rate things were going, they wouldn’t catch up to Rubicon until sometime tomorrow.
“Yes, sir,” Potter said. “We’ll be turned into pincushions if we don’t keep our eyes peeled.”
Venom swore some more. He needed this like he needed a bullet hole in the head. “We’ll wait until this bunch is out of sight before we move on.” He leaned on his saddle horn.
“It’s too bad you had to shoot Logan,” Potter said. “We could use his gun if it comes to a fight.”
“Good riddance,” Venom growled.
The sun was about to set.
Logan had hiked for miles and his Texas boots weren’t fashioned for a lot of walking. His feat ached something awful. His head still ached, too. He would dearly love a chug of whiskey, but his flask had been in his saddlebags.
Logan thought of the white girl and what he would do to her. It had been too long since the last one. To make up for it he would take his time with her and draw it out as long as he could.
Logan was so lost in his daydream that he almost missed spotting an orange glow to the northwest. “A campfire,” he blurted, and stopped. He doubted it was Venom and the company. They were well to the west by now. Nor could it be the freighters. Their wagons were canvas-topped turtles and couldn’t have come this far. That left an army patrol, another party of whites—or Indians.
Logan debated. He looked down at his sore feet. He gnawed his lower lip. Finally he bent his steps toward the glow. He hoped he wasn’t making a mistake. But where there were men there were horses and he could dearly use a horse.
The glow turned out to be farther away than it appeared. Full dark had fallen when Logan came close enough to distinguish figures and to hear voices that warned him it wasn’t a patrol or other whites.
