The Arrow Keeper’s Song (11 page)

“Pohkeso,”
Tom muttered. “Where did you come from? You damn near scared me out of my boots.” The cat meowed, bounded to a nearby bookshelf, and proceeded to clean a paw. The pounding in Tom's chest gradually subsided, and he returned his attention to the papers he had left in the chair. He tucked the map inside his shirt and proceeded to work through the remaining contents of the portfolio, finding the preliminary correspondence between Allyn Benedict and Prairie Oil and Gas and the official agreement that set up the agent's company as a subsidiary of the larger corporation.

Still other papers outlined how a lump sum was to be paid to the tribe in cash on the first day of September, when the Southern Cheyenne reservation would officially cease to exist. The corporate payments amounted to three hundred dollars for every Cheyenne male head of household. No doubt the corporation considered this a generous compensation, but Tom knew it was a pittance compared to the profits to be made from the oil reserves. That the arrangement had been finalized without tribal approval made him all the more furious. A sense of betrayal welled up in his heart. Using Tom's influence to pave the way, Allyn Benedict had sold out the very people he was supposed to represent and put himself in line to make a fortune.

Jerel Tall Bull must have known. Tom wondered what odious agreement Allyn had made with the proprietor of Panther Hall. Even now the Tall Bulls and their hirelings were claiming tribal lands for Benedict. No wonder the brothers had been given free rein by the Indian agent to operate Panther Hall with impunity, despite the fact that the sale of alcohol was forbidden on the reservation. Allyn Benedict had been forced to turn a blind eye or risk losing his Cheyenne accomplices.

“He didn't need to buy
me
off,” Tom muttered to the silence. “Allyn recognized me for a blind fool.” He stood and savagely kicked the drawer shut with a loud bang, startling the cat on the bookshelf. The frightened animal sprang out of the shadows and landed on the desk, brushing against the oil lamp and sending it crashing to the floor. The glass reservoir shattered, spilling lamp oil that instantly ignited. Tom leaped aside too late. His trousers caught fire as the oil spattered his legs. Instinctively, he darted into the outer office, grabbed an oval throw rug from the floor, and slapped his legs with the heavy woven fabric. The effort was successful but proved to be a costly delay. By the time Tom had finished with his smoking trouser legs, the office was nearly engulfed. Nevertheless, he hurried back to fight the flames and reached the doorway in time to catch a glimpse of the cat as it disappeared through the office window, a patch of black against a blazing back-drop.

“My father was right about you all along!” Tom shouted at the feline. Indeed, Pohkeso the trickster had worked her mischief after all.

Using the rug to smother the flames, Tom tried to beat a path to the desk. For a moment the Cheyenne thought he might succeed. Then the fringes of the rug began to smolder, and seconds later it ignited. He fought valiantly, but in vain. Flames blistered his cheeks, smoke stung his eyes and filled his lungs, searing his throat as he gulped for air. He tossed the rug aside and stumbled back, choking as he went. Too late. Too late. He staggered from the room, patting out his singed shirtsleeves as he headed for the front door, remembered it was padlocked, and altered his course. He opened the window and swung a leg over the sill. The portfolio! He shot a glance over his shoulder. A wall of flames barred him from returning to the Indian agent's office. Tom patted the map inside his shirt with a soot-blackened hand. At least he had something, some proof. But how to use it? He could track a deer, but the mission school had never taught him to follow a trail through the courts. Outrage burned within him as fierce as the blaze he left behind, fueling him, blocking his need for sleep. Rest must come later, much later. Now it was time to confront Allyn Benedict.

It was a ritual as constant as the changing seasons. Allyn Benedict rose early, before sunup, dressed in his woolen trousers, collarless shirt, and square-toed black shoes, and made his way to the kitchen. He stoked the embers in the cast-iron stove, added a few chunks of wood to feed the flames, then began to grind the coffee while he checked to see if enough water remained from last night to fill the black iron coffeepot. He hand-ground the correct amount of coffee and added it to the pot, then took a seat, stretched out his long legs, and waited for the water to boil and the aroma to fill the house. The contract he had signed with Artemus Lehrman lay upon the table. In the gray light he unfolded the document and began once more to read its contents. Again a feeling of accomplishment swept over him. Benedict Exploration and Development, as a subsidiary of Prairie Oil and Gas, now owned the reservation oil fields. If he felt a twinge of guilt, he immediately corrected the matter with a thought. After all, the situation justified his recent actions. The tribe lacked the expertise and business sense to develop an oil field. Let them run their cattle and tend their farms along the Washita. If it hadn't been Allyn Benedict, someone else would most certainly have come along and done the same thing, securing the ownership of the reservation lands. At least the Southern Cheyenne would always have jobs with Allyn in charge of things.

The agent's son, Clay, opened his bleary eyes, coughed and scratched, and rolled off the couch in the front room, where he'd been sleeping. Spying his father, Clay sauntered into the kitchen, yawning as he walked. His rumpled trousers and shirt looked slept in. A crusted-over scratch marred his right cheek from midear to the corner of his mouth.

“When will the coffee be ready?” he asked in a thick voice.

“Apparently not soon enough,” Allyn said. “I waited up for you as long as I could last night. Was there trouble at Panther Hall?”

“No problems,” Clay said. “The Tall Bulb will handle their end of the deal. I just got kind of delayed on the way home.”

“Dallying with some young lady, no doubt.”

Clay shrugged and managed a smug little chuckle that gave his father the impression he had identified the reason for his son's late return. It certainly sounded better than the truth. In reality Clay Benedict had drunken himself into a stupor and fallen off his horse not once but twice. A daggerlike branch was responsible for his wounded features. It was only by the grace of God he hadn't broken his neck. He frowned at the coffeepot for not hurrying itself along, groaned and rubbed his throbbing temples, and decided perhaps a lungful of fresh morning air would ease the hammering in his skull.

Clay rounded the stove and continued unsteadily over to the kitchen door, worked the latch, and made his way outside. There was a patch of shade on the west end of the house, so he made his way around front only to be brought up sharply at an astonishing sight that sent him charging toward the front of the house. He nearly knocked the door off its iron hinges as he burst into the front room and shouted his news.

“Fire! My God, the agency's burning to the ground!” His cry of alarm galvanized his father into action and sent the rest of his family stumbling from their beds. Allyn dropped the contract onto the table and headed into the living room.

At the rear of the house Emmiline bolted awake, climbed out from beneath her bedcovers, and hurried across the room. She tore aside the curtains and shoved her head through the open window, looking toward town. Sure enough, the office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs was consumed in flames. Tongues of fire lapped greedily along the false front and traveled the length of the roof. Fortunately, the building stood apart from the other structures that made up the settlement: the mercantile, the corral and blacksmith shop, and St. Joachim's Church.

The sun was up, bathing the wooded hills in golden light, but the bright-blue summer sky bore a sooty trail of black smoke that poured from the rapidly disintegrating structure. Emmiline ducked her head inside and, grabbing a robe from the foot of her bed, darted into the hall, nearly colliding with her mother, who had also been roused by Allyn's outcry. They reached the front room as Allyn Benedict bolted out onto the porch.

“What the hell is this?” he blurted out. As the alarm spread from cabin to cabin, the inhabitants of the settlement flocked to the street; men, women, and children, both the old and the young, made their way down the hillsides. No one attempted to save the BIA office. It was useless to combat the flames. There was little anyone could do; the fire was too far along. Although no other building was in immediate danger, a bucket brigade was formed to wet down the sides of the government warehouse from which every two weeks rations of sugar, flour, and stringy beef were doled out to men who had once been the lords of the plains. For many of the Cheyenne, the early-morning blaze was an exciting event to be viewed with curiosity and speculation. Perhaps the children were most thrilled by all the commotion. They began to jump and dance and chase one another up and down Main Street.

Luthor White Bear and his comely daughter, Charlotte, appeared on the wooden walkway in front of the mercantile. Another group of Cheyenne led by Father Kenneth joined Coby Starving Elk in front of his corral. Dogs howled and barked and tried to call attention to the fire, only to be driven off by a few accurately tossed stones. Willem Tangle Hair and several other young men arrived on horseback, dismounted near the office, and began to form a second bucket brigade in front of the BIA only to be driven back by the flames.

“Damn. The whole building's finished,” Clay said. “What about the contract you signed with Prairie Oil and Gas?”

“It's in the house,” Allyn snapped. He stood with hands on hips and watched with morbid fascination as the flames continued to engulf the office. “How could this happen?” he asked aloud. Emmiline and her mother moved up alongside the agent, the family arranging themselves in a rough line across the front yard.

“Never mind, Mr. Benedict, it's no great loss,” a voice called out from behind them. “Anyway, you'll need a big new office to handle your company's business.”

Allyn whirled around at the sound of his name and saw Tom Sandcrane standing on the front porch. He had entered the house through the kitchen door as the Benedicts hurried outside, distracted by the blaze in town. Tom held up the contract Allyn had left on the kitchen table. The Cheyenne's trouser legs were singed black. His hands and face were streaked with soot.

“Benedict Exploration and Development … that has an impressive ring to it.”

“What are you doing, Tom? Put that down.” Color crept to the agent's cheeks. His eyes widened with understanding. The condition of Tom's clothes told him all he needed to know. “Dear Lord, the fire is your doing. Why?”

“Because he's a crazy drunk like his father,” Clay said, and lumbered forward with his fists clenched, his own misgivings about his father's transactions momentarily forgotten in the excitement of the moment. His family was under attack; nothing else mattered. Tom suddenly brandished the claim stake like a dagger and fixed Clay in a stone-cold stare that brought the younger man to a halt. This Cheyenne was in no mood to trifle with the likes of the agent's headstrong son. With Clay in retreat, Tom held the contract up to the front door and skewered the pages, driving the claim stake through the document and into the door. Then he reached inside his shirt and produced the map he had removed from the Benedict's desk.

“I found this map in your desk, Allyn. Funny thing, it's entirely different from the one you kept on the wall. I also found letters and contracts. They were all very interesting. Unfortunately the fire's claimed them. But maybe, just maybe, I can find someone to stand against you.”

“Look. I can explain this,” Allyn said. “I wasn't just thinking of myself.”

Tom stepped down from the porch and trembling with barely suppressed rage, advancing on the Indian agent. Allyn Benedict was no coward. He stood his ground, strong in the conviction he had done nothing wrong.

“See here, Tom, I've taken care of you. That stretch of land along Coyote Creek you always fancied. Look on the map. It has your name on it. And as for the oil grants …”

There was no reasoning with the Cheyenne. The agent could see that his words weren't reaching past the cold fury in Tom's eyes. In that moment Allyn Benedict glimpsed the warrior's heart that the mission school had never fully tamed. Tom Sandcrane was past talk; he had come for revenge. But he hadn't counted on Emmiline Benedict. One moment she was standing off to the side, and the next she was between her father and Tom, blocking his attack.

“No. Stop this!” she said.

His fingers were blistered and burned. Black sweat streaked his features. His neck was seared where a fragment of burning rug had fallen on him and left a nasty wound. Yet the wounds were nothing compared to the pain of betrayal.

“When did you know?” Tom asked, his gaze boring into the woman.

“Dammit man,” interjected Allyn. “Don't think to paint me a villain. This is business. The tribe will thank me one day. And you too, my lad. I won't forget your people.”

“When did you know?” Tom repeated, ignoring her father's remarks.

“All along. From the onset.” Emmiline refused to avert her eyes. She wasn't proud of her father's actions, but she was determined to stand by him. And after all, she shared his desire for wealth. What would the Cheyenne do with those oil fields, anyway?

Tom nodded and slowly exhaled. The fight left him on the wings of a sigh. He looked at Allyn. Margaret had already hurried to his side. Clay was lurking off to the side, curiously unable to meet Tom's gaze. Emmiline stood before him, saddened yet defiant. “Father only means …”

Tom reached up and placed a finger on her lips and shook his head. “No more lies.” Then he walked past them and down the hill, down through the drifting smoke and the ashes of what might have been.