Medicine Road (33 page)

"Leave off the sass!;'- The wagon master's yell was
heating up with tension. "We ain't got all autumn
here. How you aiming to trade?"

"We're trading red now. Red-style. Injun honor."
The mountain man dropped his call back as low as
he could.

"How's that, again ... ?" Andy Hobb's voice
dropped, too, now.

"Long promise ... short fuse." Jesse used the old
frontier phrase covering the white man's belly-low
opinion of his red brother's given word.

"Whoa, Nellie!" The implication in the mountain
man's answer hit the old man suddenly. "You can't
do that, boy. It ain't civilized...

"I ain't, neither," barked Jesse. "Now, get aholt of
Morgan and ask him did he bring that coil of touchoff medicine along. And get a move on, old hoss."

Jesse could see the oldster duck away from his
rock, slide quickly back and around the far side of
the Pittsburgh, go to palavering with the tall Missourian. Shortly the boss muleskinner slid back
along the far side of the wagon, went to rummaging
in the seat box. He was back with Andy Hobbs in a moment and the two went into another discussion.
Apparently something was amiss. Either that, or
Jesse was getting a mite jumpy.

To the cotton-mouthed mountain man the silent
seconds of the wait seemed to drag their feet louder
than bonedry brakes on a sun-blistered wagon
wheel. Then, just as he was about to consign Morgan
Bates and his misfire memory to hell's hottest stove
hole, the palaver broke up and old Andy doubled
over for the quick scuttle back to his outpost. Once
more safely behind his forward rock, the wagon
master took up his interrupted conversation with
the quietly cursing Jesse.

"Feast your peepers on her, boy! Fifty feet of the
best even-burning fuse ever twisted. Morgan says
you can clip it anywheres from twenty seconds to
ten minutes!" With his tight-voiced call, the old
man's arm waved the stiff coil of shining black
loops.

Jesse let his breath go. Man! Sometimes a Minniconjou like him played in pure outhouse luck. Old
Morgan hadn't let him down. Now! With the breaking off of the thought, his long arm was returning
Andy Hobbs's wave. "God bless that Missouri redneck for me, Andy. Happen his touch-off medicine
works for us. I'll buy him four hundred yards of the
damn' stuff, for free. Set tight, boys. Here goes for
the dicker with old lump jaw."

"Take your time," the old man hollered acidly.
"It's your red wagon!"

Jesse went down back of the rocks, muttering and
shaking his head.

"What's the matter, Jesse?" Johnny O'Mara's thin
voice piped up worriedly. "Ain't we going to get
away, after all? Gosh, I thought we was saved!"

"Shut up, boy. We're all right. I just got to have me
a minute to think. You keep quiet and lay low."

With fifteen seconds of his minute unused, the
mountain man stood up, jaw set, eyes narrowed
nearly shut. While the crouching boy stared, fascinated, he picked up his Hawken, straightened his
shoulders, stepped slowly and deliberately into the
open meadow on Watonga's side of the rock pile.

Ten long, measured strides, rifle held butt and
barrel high over his head. Ten strides counted off by
the growling wave of deep, approving hunhunhes
that rose up among the watching Arapahoes. Then
he stopped, held the rifle toward the hostiles, bent
forward to place it on the ground. When he straightened, his hands were held shoulder high, empty
palms out, toward the Indians.

It was the peace sign-Wolkota wa yaka cola-by
prairie protocol it could not be ignored.

Watonga walked his pony three lengths out in
front of his hidden braves. His deep voice came
rolling across to Jesse, but it came without the outward palm. It came with the war sign, with the
chief's lowered hands firmly full of loaded rifle.

"What does Tokeya Sha want of Watonga? Why
does he use the holy sign?"

Jesse let him have it quickly. The afternoon shadows were already high on the canon walls, creeping
higher by the minute. Time was running out. The
mountain man's voice carried to the scowling savage, the measured Sioux cadences rolling dramatically. Hau, kola. Hau, tahunsa. Would the great
Arapaho chief accept the gift of the red-wheeled
goddam with its original load of big hmunha, intact?
Exactly as Brigham chief had promised it to him? Would he take the twenty-four cases of Wasicun
gunpowder in exchange for the courtesy giving of
Tokeya Sha and little Ya Slo to the goddam drivers
from Big Throat's fort? Would Watonga do that?

The chief hesitated. Wheeled his pony suddenly.
Rode back into the cedars without a word in answer
to Jesse's wheedling offer.

Five minutes passed, every last one of them sweat
damp enough to wilt the starch out of six Sunday
shirts. Jesse, standing alone in the meadow, knew
he was holding the biggest breath he had ever
taken.

Watonga came back as abruptly and blackbrowed as he had left. He-hau, would Black Coyote
accept the white goddam guide's crawling surrender? Would he accept the Wasicun's craven powder
offer? Hau, he might do just that. Providing. Providing that he, Watonga, could inspect the goddam before accepting. That was flat. Nohetto.

The mountain man let his breath out so loudly he
thought maybe the chief could have heard it, 200
yards across the meadow. Wagh, of course Watonga
could inspect the gift. Did Black Coyote think
Tokeya Sha would play him false? Lie to him? Give
him short measure?

It seemed that Watonga did. Iho, no matter. He
would come in, anyway. If he liked the looks of the
powder, a deal might be made. After all, Tall Elk was
gone. There was no one to care for Ya Slo. And did
not the red-haired goddam guide admit that by losing the powder to Watonga he was letting Black
Coyote count the biggest coup of all? Did the Fox
admit that? That the Coyote was his master?

Aii-eee! Indeed he did. He did just that. He was proud to admit it. It was a great honor to be beaten
by a real chief like Black Coyote. Woyuonihan. Hunhunhe. Watonga was all man. Much more man than
Tokeya the Minniconjou. Would he, then, now come
in and inspect the Fox's surrender gift?

Hau, he would. He'd do that. And he'd bring his
chiefs along, too. He would bring Elk Runner and
Gray Bear.

H'g'un, that was fine. But why bring his friends?
Tokeya had no friends. Tokeya was alone out there.
Did Watonga fear to come alone to meet him? Was
that the way it was?

Wagh! Damn! Never! Watonga's heart was big,
like a bear's. He was coming. By Man Above he was
coming now. All by himself!

Waste, good. Tokeya would have the old one, Big
Throat's wagon chief, drive the red-wheeled goddam to mid-meadow. He would have the wagon
chief make all his men come out and stand in the
open so that Watonga could see none of them was
hiding in the goddam. Now, would Watonga have
all his warriors ride into the grass a way? Not far.
Just a little way. Just so the Wasicun could see that
none of them was going around the meadow while
the talk was made?

He-hau, of course. Woyuonihan. Black Coyote
would do that. It was only common courtesy.

Waste, all was agreed, then?

Jesse yelled the deal over to Andy Hobbs while
Watonga was arranging his warriors. The old man
signaled his understanding, began unhooking half
of the sixteen mules which had dragged the 5,000-
pound freighter up a canon God had built to give a
two-horse surrey a headache. When he was ready,
he made his final yell.

"How about the Injun part of it, boy?"

"Five foot long. And stuff it down your crotch
cloth," Jesse echoed back. "And don't forget your
tinderbox!"

The packed ranks of Watonga's followers sat in sliteyed silence as their chief rode out to meet the redwheeled goddam. In mid-meadow Jesse and Andy
Hobbs stood waiting, the Pittsburgh parked and
rein-wrapped, the mules standing quietly.

Black Coyote rode past them without a word or
look, tied his pony to the rear wheel, clambered into
the sheeted Pittsburgh. He was back out in three
breaths-three breaths in which one tinderbox and
five feet of black powder fuse got from one Wasicun's crotch cloth to another's.

"How'd you find it, chief? You savvy, powder all
there? Waste, good?" Andy Hobbs's scraggly beard
bobbed with the rapid questions.

"Waste. Powder all there. Wiksemna nunpa dopa.
Two times ten and four. Watonga says it."

"You betcha!" The beard bobbed again. "Nary a
clanged drachma short. Twenty-four kegs, twenty-five
pounds to the keg. Six hundred pounds to the damn'
ounce of the best by-god powder Du Pont ever built!"

The towering Arapaho nodded. "Good. Watonga
trades. You leave powder, take boy. Get out now. Watonga come fast, bring warriors, take powder. You
leave powder on ground, take goddam. Nohetto."

Jesse stood, dumb as a lightning-struck ox. God
Almighty, now what? Leave the powder on the
ground? Aii-eee! There was one to twist a man's
thoughts around. A real cute one. He'd sure as hell
never foresighted that idea.

Watonga sensed the mountain man's hesitation,
the burr of his suspicion showing its quick bristle in
his demand. "How goes it, Tokeya?" He fell back
into Jesse's Sioux tongue. "I smell something. And
there's no wind."

"Of course!" It was a wild shot, and the only one
open to the floundering mountain man. "Tokeya is a
fool. You smell his bad judgment. It doesn't take a
wind to smell a heyoka. I had not seen this softness
in Watonga's nature, that's all."

"Softness?" The chief's scowl clouded up black as
a summer cloud. "Tokeya speaks of softness. How is
that?"

"Oh, nothing. Nothing at all." Jesse kept the
shrug as insultingly careless as he could. "It was not
in my mind to think Watonga would weaken thus
toward an enemy. Aye, to think of it! Letting Tokeya
make away with a thing that has been such a curse
to you. Naturally I thought it would be taken and
burned. To be made to count as a real coup. Especially since the chief must remember that I heard
him say to Tall Elk that it was the curse of his life,
and that he would rather count a coup on it than to
eat fat cow all winter. Ah, well. Tokeya is grateful.
Watonga is as graceful as a woman. Ha ho!"

"Do not thank me." The chief's huge jaw chopped the ugly words short. "It is nothing. Thank your big
mouth for what you hear now. Watonga did not remember that you heard that curse. Leave it there.
Right where it is. With all the powder in it!"

With the angry demand, the Arapaho swung his
four-foot skull club and with a great shout of "Onhey!"-the word shouted when the first coup is
struck on an enemy, literally: "I kill him, first!"smote the sideboards of the Pittsburgh a thunderous
clout.

"Now, wait! Watonga said I could take the goddam." Jesse made the objection hesitantly, hoping
he wasn't over-putting it.

He wasn't.

"Leave the goddam! That's the way it will be
now," snapped Watonga. "Nohetto!"

"Nohetto," sighed Jesse, bowing regretfully to the
superior power of the hulking raider. "Perhaps in
time Tokeya will learn that Watonga is all the man
he looks."

"I am going," was all the Arapaho said, turning
his roan pony with the words.

"Wait!" Jesse's hand gestured quickly. "You have
counted the powder. I have not. Would Tokeya Sha
give a gift not knowing it was all there, as his word
was given on it?"

"Woyuonihan," grunted Watonga, waving his
hand haughtily. "Be quick about it. I honor you."

Jesse was inside the wagon before the chief's
words were well out. Once there, he found the
sheeted dimness too uncertain for an honest count.
Surely there could be no objection to striking a little
light with Andy Hobbs's tinderbox, nor to getting
that damned stiff fuse out of his crotch cloth, so it
wouldn't chafe him out of being absolutely sure Black Coyote got everything that had been promised him. A man had to have things just so, in a close
deal like this one.

When the mountain man crawled back out of the
Pittsburgh, a sharp eye might have wondered that
he was in such a mortal hurry about it. And about
the way he talked when he did get out.

But Watonga's beady orbs were busy with pleasanter prospects. Ha! Iho! How blind were these
white antelopes? Oh, sure. Let them give him the
goddam full of powder. Let them leave it there and
go running for their rocks. Hau, let them go. It was a
long way to Big Throat's fort. And did they know
about the hidden way to climb out of Little Chief's
Valley, back there where the grass grew wide among
the cedars? The way that would let a fast pony get
back to the Medicine Road well ahead of any band
of Wasicun goddam drivers traveling down the main
canon trail? Did they know that? About that secret
way Watonga would have sent some warriors to cut
off Tokeya and Ya Slo had he not known he could
catch them so easily without doing so? Iho, indeed.
Here was a trade that wasn't done yet.