Medicine Road (23 page)

"We got to gobble them maybes. What you say,
boys? You all game for it?"

"I reckon." Joplin shrugged, saying it like he
thought it, not giving a damn either way. His laconic agreement was hacked by a wave of sober
nods from his fellow muleskinners, Morgan Bates
putting the official company signature on the hasty
contract with his slow-drawled grin.

"Me, I ain't got nothing to lose but a few days'
pay and a scalp that ain't been washed since last
July. Besides, I ain't never felt right about us crooking poor old Black Coyote outen his honest deal
with Brigham Young and his blessed little Saints. I
dearly love them Mormon bastards and anything I
can do to prove it to them, I aim to get done. I got a
daddy and two brothers was kilt in them saintly riots around Nauvoo back in 'Forty-Four, and I
reckon they'd want me to make it up to old
Brigham. Jesse ..."-the black-bearded Missourian's grin, although opening another wide
notch, failed, somehow, to match the beaded intentness of his dark eyes-"if you aim to finish delivery
of that Du Pont to Watonga, I'll skin your redwheeled wagon for you!"

"You'll get your pay"-Jesse Callahan's blue eyes
were snapping-"and hold onto your hair, too. And
finishing delivery of that Du Pont is what I aim. After all, old Brigham's a white man, no matter what you Christian Gentiles think. And he's give his
bounden word that Watonga's to get that powder.
Outen my own great love and respect for my red
brothers, I got to see that the straight-give word of us
whites ain't allowed to green up with no tarnish!"

Many a center shot is fired for a hard joke. Unknowingly the wide-mouthed mountain man had
got his slug of cynical lead square in behind the left
shoulder of immediately future fact. He found the
bullet hole a sight quicker than he was looking to.

Jesse made no effort to follow Watonga's war
ponies. Instead, he headed back for Paiute Crossing.
He knew Tall Elk would have ordered the village to
knock down the teepees and pull out as soon as the
emigrants left, knew, also, that it was a mort easier
to track a 1,500-head horse herd and a passel of old
men and squaws than to stick to 100 high-traveling
trail raiders like Watonga's war party. He was more
right than rockets on the day after the 3rd of July.

The village track lay north and west, just as it
ought, to cut the Medicine Road like he'd figured,
and it lay, broad and clear, as a bull's bottom in a
Sharps' sight. A blind squaw could have followed it
backward in a fog thicker than boiled-dog soup.

Jesse Callahan was far from dim-sighted, and the
weather was clearer than a first-prize glass eye. He
caught the village just as the long prairie twilight
was playing out to pure black. Next morning, he
gave them an hour's start, then set off dogging
them, keeping to the west and well back. He ex pected to have some company from the east soon,
and wanted to give them ample room to move in
peacefully. Watonga should swing out of the tumbled hills to the mountain man's right before very
long now, to join up with the moving village. That
is, he should if Jesse had things figured right.

He had. Black Coyote's bunch, with Johnny, Tim,
and Tall Elk, cut into the village track ahead of Jesse,
about 10:00 A.M., passing so close to the granite outcropping back of which Jesse and Heyoka were hiding that in spite of her severe training along such
lines the mountain man nearly had to strangle the
little Sioux mare to prevent her whickering a lethal
welcome to the nose-close Indian ponies.

Jesse got a real, big-eye look at the whole flashy
parade. Watonga, looking bigger and blacker than
ever in the clean morning sun, rode first, impressively haloed by the eight-foot aura of his white-eagle war bonnet, the gargoyle-faced Tall Elk jogging,
hard-eyed, at his side. Between them, in a place of
honor that would have dazzled any frontier boy of
seven, and whistling free and easy as though he'd
been delivered of an Arapaho squaw in the first
place, Johnny O'Mara trotted proudly on a beautiful
little calico pony. Jesse couldn't help grinning at the
cheeky little sprout, sitting there on that sawed-off
paint, chipper as a jay bird in a berry bush. Either
the kid was dumber than all get out, or he was
smart enough to play it happy. Whichever way, it
made no difference. What counted was that he was
well and frisky and showing more spunk than a
spit-face kitten.

Back of this honor group cantered Black Coyote's
high command: Gray Bear, Elk Runner, Yellow Leg,
Blood Face, and the canine-jawed Dog Head preciously remembered faces, all of them, to the
tensely watching Jesse. Behind the sub-chiefs, atop a
wheezing pack pony, came Tim O'Mara, and the
way that he came spread Jesse's blue eyes wide with
justifiable surprise. Where the mountain man would
have guessed the Indians would have been escorting the renegade Mormon like an honored guest,
they had him laced onto that pony's back tighter
than a wood tick on a wolf's tail.

Before Jesse could begin to guess at the possible
reason for Tim's captivity, the renegade had ridden
on past, closely followed by his special and delighted guard, the perpetually grinning Skull. Regardless of his puzzlement, the mountain man knew
that the ropes binding Tim's feet beneath his
mount's potbelly must have an explanation that very
probably concerned Jesse, most personally. As Skull
and the captive white man passed, Jesse knew that
his first problem had just been put-the discovery of
what lay behind Tim's fall from grace.

Strung out for a quarter mile back of the white man
and his leering guard, eating the rising gray trail dust
of the others, straggled the main pack of Watonga's
flea-bitten coyotes. Watching the last of them disappear over the top of a mile-distant rise, Jesse let out
his breath, eased off on Heyoka's nose wrap.

"By God, old clown," he muttered feelingly,
"they're riding just right ... heading to hook up
with the village and not a scout or out-rider in the
lot of them. Hookahey, Heyoka! Let's get out of here!"

The mountain man spent the first part of that night
on a hogback ridge 600 feet above the fully rejoined
Arapaho village. The lodge fires were lit early and
Jesse could see from the distant movement of the tiny figures toward Watonga's central teepee that a
powwow of some kind was coming up. To get closer
to this he decided to risk a roundabout sneak up on
the council gathering. There was never any telling
what a Sioux-reared man could make out from
sight-reading the fluent Indian hand signs and
keeping an ear cocked for the louder bursts of Indian oratory. Providing he could get in close
enough, he might learn plenty.

He had good luck. A spur of the very ridge he was
on clearly ran down into the campsite, being close to
twenty feet high where it ended in among the
teepees and heavily covered with low brush. He
was able to get up to within fifteen yards of Black
Coyote's open-air Indian forum. Watonga and his
six sub-chiefs were squatted around a blazing fir,
chewing the last of the pemmican and discussing
such varied topics as the lack of heavy buffalo sign,
the best way to boil a fat dog, the comparative merits
of the teepee techniques of the Arapahoes as against
the Sioux and Cheyenne women, and, naturally, the
legal status and problematical future hunting
grounds of an erstwhile friendly white man suspect
of having turned traitor in the small matter of the
recent abortion of the attempt to wipe out the emigrant train. Jesse held his breath at this mention of
Tim, waiting shadow-quiet for Watonga to proceed.

Presently the chief spoke to Gray Bear. "Go and
get him, now."

Gray Bear nodded to Elk Runner and the two
friends departed to return in a moment with the
bound but glowering Tim O'Mara stalking between
them. A quick look around the fire changed the
renegade's expression from one of anger to one of
uneasy apprehension. And with excellent reason. Yellow Leg was there and he was a reassuring sight,
his shriveled parchment face, snake's eyes, and
dwarfed leg toting up to a sum of rare comfort.
Blood Face squatted next to him, a still pleasanter
vision, the birthmark that gave him his name
spreading its sick stain from his forehead well past
his loose, purple lips. Dog Head was pretty, too, and
well named. His jaw and nose were long, with a
mouth that began up by his ears and featured four
hand-filed canines that glistened attractively whenever he chose to smile-which was about once every
three years. Toad was equally winning, his bloated
body, neckless head, and thick, warted skin giving
ample evidence of the logic behind his name. The
last and in size, least, of Watonga's head men was
the most cheerful of the lot. Not, in rank, one of the
sub-chiefs, this brave squatted well back from the
others, only the handful of dry twigs that Yellow
Leg threw on the fire at the approach of Tim
O'Mara flaring to reveal his heretofore unnoticed
presence to Jesse. His tall, elegantly proportioned
comrades called him simply Skull. Very short for an
Arapaho, Skull's continual wracking cough was the
clue to the dread white man's plague that accounted
for his skeleton-like emaciation. The broad, Mongol
structure of his face, from whence, obviously, came
his name, wore a perpetual, delighted grin. The fact
that this expression was the result of jaw muscles
contorted in their healing from a Comanche lance
slash did nothing to detract from Skull's bright outlook. He appeared incapable of harming a weanling
mouse-and would open his mother's guts for a
fair horse or a handful of good powder. Skull was a
war-raid orphan, adopted by Watonga himself. He
was only nineteen, the best tracker and bloodiest knife fighter in the band, and Black Coyote's court
favorite.

There were no introductions as Tim's guardians
stepped back to give him the fire-lit central stage.

"What has Big Face to say?"

In his hiding place, Jesse marked the fact the Indians had a familiar name for the renegade, judging
from this that Brigham Young's mission was not his
first work among them.

"We trusted you," Watonga was continuing, "and
you betrayed us. Do you deny it?"

The Arapaho chief had addressed his questions in
Sioux, the common language of all the plains tribes,
and to the hidden Jesse's continuing education Tim
answered them in the pure, fluent tongue. Evidently
little Johnny O'Mara had known what he was talking about when he had told Jesse that Tim knew as
much about Indians as he did.

"Wonunicun," answered the renegade, using the
Sioux apology word. "A mistake has been made. I
don't even know what you are talking about."

"Then you shall," said Watonga. "Now, listen to
this. You came among us bearing the word from the
Mormon chief, telling of the gunpowder in Big
Throat's goddam." (Big Throat was one of the Sioux
names for Jim Bridger.) "Big Throat's friend, Tokeya
Sha, he was too smart for us and the powder got
away. That was not your fault. But then you came
again, telling us you would show us how to get the
powder in return for our helping you to attack the
shabby white goddams and kill your woman. You
even agreed that Tall Elk was to have the redheaded boy into the bargain. We agreed and we attacked. And, as we attacked, here came that cursed
Tokeya Sha and nearly killed us all. Ten good war riors were left there in the Grass of the Wild Horse.
Now then, answer this. How did Tokeya know
about that attack?"

Jesse could see that Tim was as stunned by the
turn of events as Jesse was, by hearing the full
charge of the renegade's treachery. Tim looked helplessly about him, began stumblingly to talk. Surely
the chiefs could see that he had no way to prove he
knew nothing of how that red-haired friend of Big
Throat's had learned about the attack on the emigrants. They would just have to believe that Big
Face's tongue was straight, as it had always been
with his red brothers. As to the new plan for seizing
the gunpowder, he had really had one. But then Watonga had seized him and made him prisoner and
would not let him talk of it.

As the cornered renegade went along, his red fellows began nodding and grunting pleasantly. Tim
took heart. It was clear that he was still the old master at befuddling these red half-wits. Hell, they were
all as simple-minded as so many settlement goofs.
All a man had to do was have guts and a gift of gab.
Tim had guts enough to stuff a bear, with maybe a
handful left over. As for gab, he never ran out of
that. It was plain that he still had the gullible buzzards firmly in hand. Secure in this belief, he wound
up his speech abruptly.

When he had finished, Watonga took one step.
Right out of that hand. "Well, well. Now that you
have spoken, here is what I think. Big Face stinks
like a sick dog."

Tim had time to gasp and that was all.

"Let us understand one another, brother," Black
Coyote continued softly. "I say that you never had
another plan for seizing the powder and that you plotted with Tokeya Sha to trap us in that meadow
so that you could take all the powder and supplies
for yourselves. I say that....