The Arrow Keeper’s Song (15 page)

“Things will be different in Tulsa,” Tom muttered aloud as he added a few extra branches to the fire.

There wasn't much to the farmhouse—four small rooms and a privy out back. An overturned crate served as a makeshift stool. The place, though meager at best, had been someone's dream.
A failed dream
, Tom thought. And that was a subject he knew all about.

He was enjoying his second cup of strong black coffee when his eyes inadvertently lowered to his open saddlebags and the beaded buckskin pipe bundle Seth had given him. The bundle was ever with him, like his father's recriminations, the symbol of his failure.

What
do you want from me? You're clay and wood and nothing else. Maybe a few feathers and some sweetgrass. Old things. Remnants of yesterdays. There is no place in me for you. I can read. I can write. I've seen … things, machines, factories. I am not the man you think I am
. Certainly Tom Sandcrane's world had changed, indeed he had been the agent—or perhaps the dupe—of that change.

News of the land rush in western Oklahoma reached him shortly after his departure from Cross Timbers, how white settlers hungry for land had swarmed across the former borders of the reservation. An oil boom on the north section of the Cheyenne tract, as it was now called, had caused a lot of excitement along with the man behind the discovery, Allyn Benedict. It appeared the former Indian Agent was prospering.
Emmiline and her father. They clouded my vision with images of a future in which I had no part. They led me like a well-trained show horse
. Every time Tom thought of the agent and his daughter, it was like opening a wound; a dark mood would settle on him, and he would have to move on, rootless as a tumbleweed.

Tom reached into the saddlebag and lifted up the pipe bundle, holding it in front of him. The silence was broken by a flash of light, followed by a rumble of thunder, and an increase in the intensity of the downpour. For one fleeting instant he was tempted to hurl the pouch across the room, to shatter the red clay bowl of the pipe against the wall and be free of it forever. Instead he gingerly placed the pouch aside and dug the Tulsa
Territorial Register
out of his saddlebags, opening it to the front page, to read again the banner that had attracted his attention:

AMERICA MUST FIGHT!

Underneath the banner, the article continued its appeal:

“Notice is given to all young men.

The Spanish Army has thrown down

the gauntlet. Will America rise to

the challenge? Cuba is awash with the

blood of martyrs both American and Cuban.

The
Maine
must be avenged!

A call to arms rings out across the

territory.

Attention! Skilled horsemen, proficient

in the use of firearms and with a longing

for adventure. The First United

States Volunteer Cavalry under the

command of Captain Robert Huston is seeking

recruits. The command will be formed in Tulsa.

The best men of each local militia

as well as those hardy souls exhibiting

talent and expertise may apply to

Captain Huston for permission to join

the ranks. No man proficient with horse

and rifle will be turned away.

Remember the Maine!”

Here was the answer for the heaviness in his soul. Here, plain as print, in boldface whiskey-stained type was a promise of glory and adventure, a holy cause, a place far from the southwestern plains and the life that reminded Tom Sandcrane of his failures. He was tired of wandering, of working someone else's land or cattle, tired of breaking someone else's horses. Perhaps he wanted to join for all the wrong reasons; patriotic fervor was the furthest thing from his mind. No matter. Once he had read the jingoistic appeal, he couldn't get Cuba out of his mind. The whole thing seemed incredible and, in its own way, grand. And he was determined to be a part of it.

Tom folded the paper and stared at the flames, losing all sense of time passing. An hour crept by. Maybe a few minutes more. No matter; he was oblivious to everything but the strangely eerie sounds of distant drums and the vision dancing before him in the flickering firelight.

He saw his father there, in the dancing flames, standing among wraiths of smoke. Seth Sandcrane looked as he did in the olden days when he sang the Arrow Keepers song, and there was a delicate balance of joy and sorrow in his eyes, which in itself is the face of wisdom.

Father, why is there loneliness?

Seth held up a gourd rattle and shook it. There was no sound to accompany the motion of his hand holding the empty gourd. Then Seth inserted a dried kernel of seed corn into the gourd and shook it again, and Tom listened and he knew what loneliness sounded like. Then Seth emptied a handful of seeds into the gourd and shook it back and forth, and the noise was full and jubilant. Only when the seeds were shaken together did the gourd have meaning and a purpose. But to know that, he had to hear the sound of a solitary kernel, the lonely song.

And then the image of his father vanished, leaving Tom alone, in the dusty floor of another dreamer's ruins. The young Cheyenne blinked and rubbed his eyes, yawned and glanced about at the empty room. The blaze in the fireplace needed a log or two. He shook his head, stood, and stretched the stiffness from his limbs, realizing he no longer heard the droning rain, only the precisely regular pattern of droplets plunging from the roofline and spattering the glassy surface of a puddle. He emptied the coffeepot onto the coals and sent a column of steam rising through the chimney.

Tom Sandcrane's thoughts were of departure now. He repacked his saddlebags, pausing once to stare down at the buckskin pouch containing the pipe. Tom reached down for the pouch, then hesitated.
No. I'll never be free. You will always be pulling me back. Let it end here
. He shifted his stance, ignored the pipe bundle, and gathered the rest of his belongings. Staring straight ahead, he walked swiftly across the room and emerged from the farmhouse. The roan whinnied and snorted as if to say it was about time Tom reappeared.

Outside, the fresh-washed air was cool and clean smelling, tinged with the scent of mesquite and buffalo grass. He gulped in great lungfuls like a man who has nearly drowned only to burst through the mud-slick surface of a pond and find his life. It mattered not that gray clouds continued to spring up like dark, angry thoughts. He was moving on, away from the past. A flash of distant lightning distracted him, and Tom noted a shower tracking across the prairie off to the south, but nothing loomed between him and his destination.

I
ought to be able to reach Tulsa without a soaking
, Tom figured as he tightened the cinch and readied himself for the last two miles of what he hoped would be an uneventful ride. Once again fate intervened: The slap of leather, the jingle of harness, and the moist sound of horse hooves sinking into the mud alerted the wanderer to the fact that he had company. Tom Sandcrane, ever wary of strangers, stepped to the edge of the porch to check his backtrail and spied a pair of men riding the bench seat of a buckboard behind a team of tired mules. The wagon lurched its way through mud holes, swaying its occupants from side to side as the mules plodded toward the farmhouse.

Tom studied the men as they approached. Indeed, he found their clothing of keen interest. Both men, who appeared to be in their late twenties, wore uniforms that consisted of dark-blue woolen shirts, light-blue trousers, brownish hats, gaiters, and dark-brown rounded-toe boots. Canvas cartridge belts circled their waists, loops jammed with thirty-caliber ammunition. Amazingly enough, the two soldiers' uniforms were for the most part dry. Tom figured they had taken shelter beneath the buckboard when the storm hit.

“Howdy,” the soldier holding the reins called out as the buckboard rolled to a stop. “The name's Tully Crow. The big sack of guts riding beside me is Sergeant Philo Underhill, First Volunteers.” He instantly appraised Tom's features. “Cheyenne, huh? We're mixed-blood Creek.”

“Tom Sandcrane,” Tom said by way of introduction.

“Lucky you reached old man Sanders's place before the sky opened up. Me and Philo had to wallow in the mud beneath the wagon over 'neath a stand of scrub oak just off the road.” Tully Crow was thin as a post, his hair and eyes brown as a squirrel pelt, while a hopelessly large nose loomed from his narrow, clean-shaven features. Philo Underhill, like Tully, was of average height but heavyset, with muscled forearms and thick shoulders. His large, round, puffy-looking eyes gave him a rather sleepy look. Philo was the typical ranch hand, good-natured and capable, with a ready grin and a keen sense of mischief.

“Howdy.” He stabbed a thumb in Tully's direction. “Tully here ain't got much use for rank. But I'll learn him different once we reach the encampment.” The heavyset man winked.

“We rode clear to Buffalo Springs and couldn't find nobody willing to put on one of these fancy uniforms,” Tully Crow explained. “I was certain we'd recruit a couple of the boys from the Slash M.” He shook his head, then studied the Cheyenne. “Captain Huston is gonna be pissed with both of us. He's liable to suspect we just taken this wagon and spent our time drunk down by the creekbank, seeing as we got nobody to show for our efforts.”

“You have now,” Tom said, answering the man's unspoken inquiry.

Tully and Philo exchanged looks, then concentrated on the Cheyenne as if they were both unable to quite believe their good fortune. Tom had the nagging suspicion that these two soldiers had indeed used their tour of the surrounding ranches as an excuse for a drunk. Both men appeared jittery, and Tully's eyes were red from lack of sleep, his cheeks criss-crossed with veins.

“Now, see here … uh … Tom,” Philo began. “We cannot take just anyone. A cavalryman needs to know his way around horses. Can you ride?”

“Better than either of you in your present condition,” Tom replied.

“Hell's bells, Philo, just take a look at his mount. This roan is prime horseflesh. A man doesn't sit an animal like this unless he can ride,” Tully spoke up. The smaller man was not about to lose the only recruit they had.

The sergeant grudgingly conceded the point. But if he was going to bring a man into camp, he wanted to be certain that man was a good prospect for the Volunteers.

“Can you shoot?”

“Try me.”

Philo Underhill reached behind him and brought out one of the bolt-action rifles from the wagon bed and passed it over to the man on the porch. “This is a Krag-Jorgensen rifle. It fires a thirty-forty center fire and holds five rounds. Tully, you point out this Southern Cheyenne a target, and we'll see if he can hit it. Two times out of five will do.”

“Sure,” Tully replied, and with a sweep of his hand snatched the sergeant's campaign hat from his head and tossed it into the air.

Tom snapped the rifle to his shoulder, sighted, fired, worked the bolt, chambered another round, and fired again. The first slug lifted the hat as it started to sink back to earth, the second slug followed the first, ripping through the crown. Three more rounds in quick succession kept the campaign hat dancing in air. However, as the sound of gunfire faded, the target fluttered down into its owner's outstretched hands. Philo stared at the shapeless lump of brown felt that had been his hat, then glared at Tully, who was straining to contain himself.

Tom dropped the rifle into the wagon bed. “The sights need adjustment, but it will do,” he dryly observed.

“Yes … and so will you,” Philo said with a sigh, and tossed the remains of the hat over his shoulder into the wagon bed. “Ride along with us, Tom Sandcrane. Welcome to the First Volunteer Cavalry.”

“I'll drink to that,” said Tully, producing a smoked-glass bottle from beneath the wagon seat. He popped the cork and took a long pull, then passed the home brew to Philo, who offered it to Tom. When the Cheyenne declined, the sergeant shrugged and helped himself to a drink, gasped and shook his head, muttered something about “the rattlesnake piss gives it body,” and then returned the bottle to Tully, who finished the last of its fiery contents. The smaller man smacked his lips, stood in the wagon, and, loosing a war whoop, tossed the bottle out into the farmyard. He palmed a revolver kept tucked in his canvas belt.
Crack
went the twenty-two-caliber pistol, and the bottle shattered. The breed tucked the revolver into his waistband, picked up the reins, and took his seat. It was Tully's way of showing that the Southern Cheyenne wasn't the only man who knew how to handle a gun.

“You ready?” he asked.

Tom started toward the roan, then hesitated, his hand on the saddle pommel. He shuddered, closed his eyes, felt a tearing in his soul, heard the sound of drums deep in the recesses of his mind. It was simple: Swing a leg over the horse and light a shuck out of there and don't look back. But the past wouldn't let him go. Invisible talons tore at his soul. The bleak, empty windows seemed to fix him in an accusatory stare.
You can't
, a voice seemed to whisper in his mind.
The pipe is from your father
. Whatever else had come between them, the gift had been Seth's way of saving he loved his son.

Tom realized the soldiers were waiting for him to climb into the saddle and accompany them east to Tulsa. They needed to leave if they wanted to outrace the cloudbursts. “No … just a minute.” He turned on his heels and entered the farmhouse.

Sergeant Philo Underhill and Tully Crow, their expressions full of curiosity, stared at the empty doorway, unsure of what to expect. They heard the clatter of the Cheyenne's boot heels on the wood floor within the farmhouse and wondered what the man was about. Then Tom reappeared, a beaded pouch of brushed buckskin clutched in his right fist.

“What's that?” Philo asked.

“Something I thought I could leave behind,” Tom replied, tucking the pipe bundle into his saddlebags. “I was wrong.”