The Arrow Keeper’s Song (27 page)

“We'll need to push hard tomorrow,” Tom said. “I want to put some distance between us and this village.”

Philo straightened and wiped his hands on a rag he had draped across his shoulder. His right cheek was swollen with a plug of tobacco. “You worried? Things have been pretty quiet so far.”

“I don't count on it to last.”

“The way I see it, the Spanish have pulled back to Santiago. Hell, maybe by the time we get there, the battle will already be over. Maybe even the whole war.”

“You're not looking for a fight?”

Philo shrugged and shook his head no. “Nor medals neither. Mind you, if fighting comes my way, I ain't about to step aside. No, sir. I've got as much sand as the next man.”

“And twice the hot air,” Tully Crow said, rounding the corner of the casita. The Creek had finished checking the village with Willem. “Philo's all mouth and gut wind.”

“Go to hell, Tully,” Philo growled. His friend's ribbing had struck a sore spot. And they were all tired and cantankerous, their nerves on edge.

“Yessir. I'm on my way,” Crow replied, and started toward the kitchen in search of dinner. He stalled in the doorway and looked back at Tom. “Nothing out there but lizards and such. The town's empty 'cept for us. You reckon one of those fancy colonels will pin a medal on me, Tom? I mean when I come riding in with this here Celestial fellow?” Lamplight from the kitchen outlined the wiry man, his large nose and homely features accentuated in the sallow glare.

“I saw a soldier once all decked out in his Sunday best,” Tully continued. “He had three shiny medals on his chest. Right proud he was of them, too. I'd sure like to have me one.”

“Maybe,” Tom said. He didn't believe his own words for a second, but if the notion made Tully happy, Sandcrane saw no harm in holding out the hope.

“There'll be nothing of the sort. Medals are for gentlemen. And you aren't nothing but a half-breed buck from Indian Territory,” Philo scoffed, seeing the opportunity to repay Crow's earlier comments in kind.

“Philo Underhill, if they handed out medals for being a dumbass, you'd have a whole shirtful,” Tully replied, and vanished through the door.

“Damn if he didn't get in the last word again. That redstick's gonna open his mouth once too often. Mind you, we're partners, and I side with him. But blast it if I'll let him get away with calling me a coward.”

“No one thinks you are, Philo. Easy, now.” Tom clapped him on the shoulder. “You're the only man I know brave enough to haul a wagon loaded with dynamite down these ridges.”

“You mean dumb enough,” Philo corrected, and spat a stream of tobacco juice against a corral post. He wiped a forearm across his mouth and stepped around Tom. “Bacon smells good. That Enos can cook. Glad you didn't kill him the other day. Try not to—until we reach Santiago.”

“I'll do my best, Philo,” Tom replied. “Save me some coffee,” he added as the stocky half-breed hungrily followed the aroma to its source.

Tom Sandcrane had no desire to reenter the mud-walled casita. He ambled along the corral until he reached the gate where his own mount waited to be released. The animals had been left saddled and ready in case Tom and the others needed to leave in a hurry. He reached into his saddlebags and removed the medicine pouch, then continued on to the plaza.

It promised to be another wondrously clear night, with the moon like a silver-plated disc suspended in a night sky already bedazzled with stars. The horizon changed from deep blue to obsidian as Tom reached the center of the plaza and a well that had one time no doubt served the entire community. A stone basin about seven feet in diameter and a pump on one side brought cold, clear water from a river below-ground. Tom set the pouch aside, removed his hat, then worked the pump, cupping the water as it spilled forth. He splashed his face and the back of his neck, gasping at the bold, brisk contact. He stood there, bowed forward, his elbows on the edge of the well.

Tom circled around and sat with his back to the smoothed stone, facing the rugged hills that formed the north wall of the valley. He opened the pouch, removed the pipe, fit the stem into the red clay bowl. The ashes had fallen out, but the bowl still contained some of the brittle leaves of tobacco and cherry bark from the night before. The memory still chilled him. He could not remember even opening the pouch, yet there had been ashes in the pipe. At least now he was aware of his own actions—that was some comfort.

“Tom?” Willem approached from the casita where he had been standing on the porch as Sandcrane walked past like one entranced. He rounded the well as his startled friend struggled to his feet. Willem glanced down at the pipe, recognizing the workmanship. “What is this? So you have returned to the old ways?”

Tom shrugged and shoved the pipe back into the pouch. “I was just thinking. Nothing more.”

Willem appeared doubtful. “I spoke to you from the porch.”

“Oh. I didn't hear you.”

“Obviously. What were you hearing?”

Tom started to fabricate another story but changed his mind and instead held up the pipe bundle. “This.” He sighed and rubbed his weary eyes, then looked up, struggling to explain what was unexplainable.

Willem understood his dilemma and waved aside his friend's faltering attempts. “Your father would call it a mystery and leave it at that.”

“I'm beginning to understand why,” Tom replied.

“At least the Spaniards weren't here to welcome us,” the red-haired breed said, checking his surroundings as he spoke. The humble casitas bathed in moonlight presented a tranquil scene. “I miss
o-kohome
, the coyote. The hills here are too damn quiet to suit me. Still, I prefer the silence to gunfire.” He folded his arms and straightened. “I think we have done well. We have found the doctor's friend alive, and tomorrow we will bring him to safety. It is good.”

“You talk as if the journey is over, Willem.”

“And you sound like one of the old ones prepared to sing his dying chant.” Willem chuckled and began to wail softly, singing a fragment he remembered from long ago:

“Ho-aya. Ho-ka-aya
. Spirits, I am coming.

All you who have gone before,

I am coming.

All-Father, I am coming.

Do not hide your face.”

Tom placed his hand over Willem's mouth and stifled the song. “No!”

Willem pulled free with a struggle, taken aback by Tom's behavior. They used to joke and laugh about the old ways together, how the warriors would sit and sing as death approached. Tom and Willem had made a pact to struggle to the end under such circumstances, or if all else failed, they resolved to run like hell rather than sit waiting to be killed.

“What's the matter with you, Tom?”

“Nothing. Just don't mock the song, especially not here in this place.” Tom stepped back and slowly turned a complete circle, hills and mud huts crawling past until his gaze settled once more on his friend of long ago. “Do you remember when we were young, that time we fought Grover Weasel Bear and the other boys whose fathers were Dog Soldiers?”

“Yes. We were fishing downriver, near the mudflats,” Willem said. “Suddenly you stood up and told me to grab a club. Then we stood back to back. And waited. Not for long. Grover and the rest came charging out of the rushes.” Willem ruefully grinned. “We gave a good account of ourselves.” He sauntered forward a few paces, then outstretched his arms and faced Tom. “But we're a long way from the Washita.”

Tom Sandcrane clutched the pipe bundle in his hand.
What was happening? After weeks and months of silence, why now?
“We may be closer than you think.” He started back toward the only house whose windows were aglow with life.

“Hey, Tom. Maybe you should have taken the Sacred Arrows after all,” Willem Tangle Hair loudly called, unnerved by the exchange and seeking to make a jest of what had transpired, while an inner voice repeated Tom's warning. And from out of the night the echo of his voice,
after all … after all … after all
, hounded Tom as he crossed the plaza, quickening his pace, until at last he was running toward the light.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

E
NOS
S
TUMP
H
ORN PLANTED THE TOE OF HIS BOOT BENEATH
Tom Sandcrane's rib cage and nudged him awake with a quick, sharp thrust. Tom gave a start and kicked over a clay jug of water, then rolled out of his blankets and scrambled to his feet, his muscles protesting the sudden burst of action. The contents of the jug emptied onto the hard-packed earth in front of the casita. In the moonlight the water stain resembled a puddle of blood.

“You wanted the last watch,” Enos remarked with a chuckle, and tossed his own bedroll down within spitting distance of the front door. “You're sure jumpy. There's nothing and nobody around, and that's a fact.” There was still a note of antagonism in his voice, though he offered no immediate threat. As a gambler holds his cards close to the chest, secure from prying eyes, Enos kept his intentions to himself. It was clear he had not completely absolved Tom of blame for what had befallen the Southern Cheyenne after the reservation was opened to settlement. But what he planned to do about it was anyone's guess. The truth of the situation was like a thorn in the flesh; he had to let time take care of the problem or dig it out himself.

As far as Tom was concerned, Enos Stump Horn was the least of his problems. Without a reply Sandcrane took up his Krag rifle, walked out of the cabin's shadow, and stood in the moonlight, where he paused to locate the remainder of the patrol.

Philo was snoring in the back of the freight wagon and wouldn't wake until dawn. Joanna and Celestial were inside the room, Celestial in one cot, the doctor stretched upon another that Tom had placed against the opposite wall. He glanced upward and spied a pair of rifle barrels propped against the low wall concealing Willem and Tully, who had chosen to sleep on the roof of the casita. The barely audible rasp of snoring men asleep beneath the stars drifted down from above.

Tom yawned and rubbed his eyes, slung the rifle over his shoulder, and ambled toward the corral. A black shape scampered across his path and caused his heart to skip a beat before he recognized the shape of a tree rat, a foot-long rodent whose range had carried it a long way from timber. Tom threw a pebble in the rat's direction and watched it scamper beneath the fence, then race across the corral toward the jacals beyond.

One of the geldings whinnied and tossed its head as Tom climbed the fence, perched on the top rail, and cradled the rifle across his lap. From this vantage point he could watch both entrances to the moonlit valley. Overhead a rush of wings hammered the air, and a pair of shadowy silhouettes darted across the face of the moon. Then the world fell silent again, and only the trade winds dared whisper.

Again the gelding called attention to the man on the fence. And Tom, this time, was reminded of a prayer. The words floated up from the dim recesses of his memory, a place seldom visited, filled with ancient truths he struggled to deny.

The horse neighs

and daybreak appears,

see how the moon,

my mother, wanders

beyond the hills.

“Father why must I learn the songs?” the boy asked
.

Seth looked down at his young son, and his heart filled with
pride. “One day you will be the Keeper of the Sacred Arrows and you will sing the songs so that the world will not end and the people be forever lost.”

Images of long ago drifted on the wind. Tom could see himself, no more than five or six years old, staring up into Seth's strong features, gentle now as he beheld his son. Young Tom stared at the bundle in awe, proud that one day the responsibility would pass to him. But mission school had changed everything.

Well-meaning teachers had forbade the children to speak
tsehese-nestsestotse
, the Cheyenne language. Put aside the old ways, they were told; the Maiyun were dead. There was only the white man's God, who did not speak in the wind and the shadows, the thunder and starlight, animals and stone. Mission school had shown him the world as it was and his conquered people for what they were. It had been a painful vision. Seth had been wrong. There was no magic. No mystery. For the Southern Cheyenne, the world had indeed ended while the elders had crowded the ceremonial lodge and the Arrow Keeper had sung his songs and chanted his prayers.

Vanquished, the night slipped away, in full retreat before the onslaught of morning. A last few stars clung to the western horizon like heavenly stragglers, while above the hidden eastern entrance to the meadow, the sky changed from velvet-black to slate-gray. Dawn's early glow found Tom no longer on the fence, but seated on the ground, his back against the wooden rails. The man had lost all sense of passing time. He had spent his watch in a realm of shadowy memories, assailed by images of childhood and stories his father had told him; he had walked in a land of dream and death and regret, of loss and gain, of duty and denial. Yet little of the journey remained. It was too fragile a thing to outlast the sunrise. Suddenly the veil of memories lifted, and he stared around, perplexed, then felt a rush of guilt and panic. He stood and checked his surroundings. It was a frightening realization—an entire army could have entered Rosarita, and Tom would have been completely oblivious.

He heard the scrape of wood as the side door of the casita opened and Joanna emerged from the little house, the first to rise. She held an enameled tin coffee cup in one hand and chose her steps carefully to avoid spilling the liquid on her fingers. She turned and eased the door shut behind her, then started toward the corral, a breeze tugging at her hair and the hem of the loose-fitting shirt she wore.

Tom neither moved toward her nor offered an acknowledging wave. He stood like a statue, his features somewhat haggard and sober.
What is happening to me?
His mind searched in vain for answers. He lowered his gaze to the gun in his hands. The Krag was an excellent rifle, accurate and trustworthy, and the thirty-eight-caliber double-action Colt riding high on his right hip was the finest handgun made. And though he had no desire to count coup in battle or grace his belt with some Spaniard's scalp, he knew how to use those weapons. Tom could hit anything he aimed at. Somehow none of these facts reassured him. After all, how could a man fight the past? The sooner he was gone from Rosarita, the better.