“That’s not what I meant. They’ve been dead hours. They’ll smell and have started to swell.”
“So hold your nose.” Venom turned away before he shot him. He was in a foul temper. Thanks to the delays, the girl and her green-clad friends were now hours ahead. He went over to the Kyler twins, who were standing by their mounts.
“You two are the best trackers I’ve got after Rubicon. I want you to go on ahead. Track the girl and her party, but don’t let them see you. Leave marks for us. We’ll come along as fast as we can.”
Jeph nodded at the mounds of earth. “You reckon one of them is the black, don’t you?”
“Unless he killed a couple and went on after the rest, but he’d never have bothered to bury them.”
“The girl and her green Indians must have jumped him,” Seph said.
Venom scowled. “Rubicon always did what I told him, and I told him not to tangle with them. If he’s in one of those graves, then yes, somehow they caught on that he was tracking them and killed him.”
“They ain’t harmless then,” Jeph said.
“Whoever said they were?” Venom gestured. “On your way. Keep your eyes skinned. I don’t care to lose you two, too.”
“Don’t worry about us. The black only had two eyes and two ears. We have four.”
“Too much confidence can get you killed,” Venom cautioned.
“Better too much than too little,” was Seph’s rebuttal.
They climbed on and rode off. Venom watched until they were out of sight, then stepped to where Potter, Tibbet, Calvert and Ryson were scooping the fresh dirt away with their hands. Potter’s face was twisted in disgust.
“It’s only dirt, you idiot,” Ryson chided.
Potter wiped a sleeve across his sweat-speckled brow. “It’s what’s under the dirt. The dead spook me.”
“Why? What can they do to you?”
“It’s how they look. Pasty and bloated and all. I can’t stand to touch them. It gives me shivers.”
“If it wasn’t that you can shoot and cook, you’d be worthless,” Calvert put in.
Potter stopped scooping. “Here now. Why are you mad at me? What did I do?”
“You’re breathing.” Venom stabbed a finger at the mound. “Dig, damn you. I don’t intend to stand around here all day.” He scoured the plain, then sat down a few yards away with his rifle across his legs.
“Strange, isn’t it?” Tibbet said while scooping.
“What?”
“The girl took the time to bury them. She must know we’re after them, but she did it anyway.”
Venom leaned back. The sun was low in the west. They only had an hour or so of daylight left. “That’s the difference between people like her and people like us. It tells you a lot about her.”
“How so?”
“We wouldn’t have bothered. We’d have left these two to rot, even if one is Rubicon, and pushed on.” Venom paused. “This girl couldn’t bring herself to ride off and leave them lying there. That shows she’s got a good heart. She went to the trouble to plant them, knowing every minute she delayed was a minute closer we came. That shows she’s got grit.”
“A good heart and grit won’t stop her from being dead,” Ryson said.
“No one is to harm her unless I say,” Venom warned. “I might have another use for her before we kill her.”
Several of them laughed.
Potter mopped his brow again. “Say, how do we know she’s not in one of these graves?”
Venom gave a start. He hadn’t thought of that.
“Here!” Tibbet bawled. “I found a hand!”
“Get excited, why don’t you?” Venom said. “It’s the body the hand’s attached to that I want to see.”
They dug with renewed vigor and in no time exposed a young Arapaho warrior, his hands folded across his chest, his face so pale he was whiter than a white.
“Cut in the neck,” Tibbet observed aloud.
Venom stood and went to the body. “The last of the four we jumped. We don’t have to worry about word getting back to the Araphaos. Uncover the other one.”
It took barely a minute. Rubicon’s features were waxen, his mouth curled in a grimace. His arms, too, had been folded across his chest, and his eyes were closed.
“He looks like he’s sleeping,” Potter said.
“He is. Forever,” Calvert remarked.
Tibbet squatted and indicated a red stain on Rubicon’s shirt. “He was stabbed. They jumped him, I bet. He’d never let them get close enough, otherwise.”
Venom turned to his mount. “Let’s go. We still have daylight left.”
“Don’t you want us to bury them again?” Potter asked.
“I’m not the girl. I don’t have a good heart. Let the coyotes and the buzzards fatten their bellies.” Venom’s saddle creaked as he forked leather and hooked his feet in the stirrups.
“Even Rubicon?”
Venom sighed. “Haven’t you gotten it through your head yet? You’re only of use to me while you’re breathing. Once you stop, I don’t give a damn what happens. Now get on your damn horse and quit asking damn stupid questions.” He took the lead. They wouldn’t be able to go far before darkness claimed the prairie, but that was all right. Morning would come soon enough.
“Tomorrow you’re mine, girl,” Venom vowed.
Evelyn rode until well after the sun went down. She would have pushed on until midnight, but little Mikikawaku could barely sit her saddle and the rest of the family showed signs of severe fatigue. Reluctantly, Evelyn stopped in the middle of a basin and announced, “We’ll spend the night here.”
Dega touched the gash in his temple. “It good we stop. I not feel well.”
Evelyn was worried he had a concussion. She swung down to help him dismount.
“I do it my own self.” Dega refused to be weak in front of her. He slowly alighted, then had to lean against his horse when dizziness threatened to buckle his legs.
“Are you all right?”
“I fine,” Dega lied.
Tihikanima put her arm around her son’s shoulders. “Sit,” she directed. “Let me look at your head.”
“I just told Evelyn I am fine, Mother.”
“You try too hard to impress her.” Tihi examined the wound and touched a dry drop of blood. “You were fortunate he struck you with the flat side of the tomahawk.”
Dega sank onto his back and placed his forearm across his forehead. “I want sleep.”
Evelyn opened her parfleche. Inside was a bundle of pemmican and another that contained herbs her mother used to heal and cure. The Shoshones had treatments for all sorts of ailments and injuries. Everything from grinding sagebrush leaves into powder to use on the rash on a baby’s bottom to balsam root to ward off ticks to the fuzz from prickly pear cactus for removing warts.
At the moment Evelyn was looking for what the Shoshones called
“I drink or eat?”
“Neither. I have to rub it on. It’ll hurt some, but in a while the pain will go away.”
“What did she say?” Tihi asked.
Dega translated.
“Tell her I will take care of you. I have medicine in my pack.” Tihi went to rise but Dega gripped her wrist.
“I thank you, but I would like her to treat me.”
“You choose her over your mother?”
Dega didn’t say anything.
“I have nursed you since you were an infant. Every scrape, every bruise, the time you burned your fingers in
