The Arrow Keeper’s Song (37 page)

From the president of Benedict Exploration and Development, this was more than an idle warning. Allyn Benedict meant business.

On the west side of Council Hill, a squalid collection of log cabins and mud-brick huts known locally as Rabbit Town sprawled along a dry creekbed and out onto the yellow plain. Perhaps thirty-five or forty Cheyenne families lived there, no more than a mile from Cross Timbers. Horses circled listlessly in split-rail corrals, their tails to the wind. Children oblivious to the wintry breezes and their own humble circumstances dashed among the cabins, running in packs like the scruffy mongrel pups nipping at their heels. Despite their jobs with Benedict's petroleum company, a pervasive air of poverty hung over the Cheyenne settlement, both of a monetary and spiritual nature. They seemed as dead as the plain of yellow grass upon which they dwelled.

Father Kenneth flicked the reins in his hands and drove the freight wagon through the middle of the settlement. The children recognized the wagon and the bespectacled priest and swarmed forward in a wave of squealing, laughing, excited voices. Hands outstretched to pat the priest's coat as he climbed down, reached beneath the seat, and produced a bag of peppermint candy, rationing out one to a child until each had received a treat. The delighted urchins, almost two dozen of them, scampered off.

Faces appeared in doorways, and shuttered windows momentarily cracked open as the inhabitants of Rabbit Town, the wives and mothers whose husbands were roughnecks in the oil fields, checked on their children.

Several dark-skinned women in shawls and woolen dresses emerged from their houses and came forward to greet the priest, exchanging, for the most part, lifeless pleasantries, all the while casting furtive glances in Tom's direction. By nightfall, Tom had no doubt, the news of his presence in the territory would have spread throughout most of the tribe. He sensed no animosity among the people, many of whom he recognized—nor any sense of welcome, not that he expected any.

Though his presence was the subject of some interest, not a word was addressed to him. Before long the chilling wind began to seep through the women's shawls and blankets, and one by one they drifted away from the two visitors. At last Father Kenneth bade the women farewell and climbed aboard the freight wagon, waved, then took up the reins.

“All of these families are pretty much tied to Allyn Benedict. Their husbands and fathers are roughnecks up north of here,” the priest explained. “Those who didn't fall for the speculator's tricks and kept their land have farms here and about. Like your father's.”

Tom studied the cluster of shacks and cabins and shook his head. So this was the future he had brought them to, hardscrabble farms and a bleak collection of cabins on the fringe of what had once been their own home. The malaise was palpable to him. He did not think they had ever seemed so defeated. “I'm surprised the women didn't try to stone me. I supported Allyn Benedict right down the line.”

“When Willem came home to us, he gave a vivid account of finding you in Cuba and of your heroic deeds, that you rescued a Cuban leader from the clutches of the Spaniards and killed a Spanish general in hand-to-hand combat. It made your people proud.” The priest sighed. “In this world you will find a hero can be forgiven much.”

Heroic deeds?
Images of the fire-gutted village of Rosarita and the freshly dug graves of the companions and friends he had left behind seeped into his mind like droplets of blood oozing through the crust of a reopened wound.

“Tom, are you all right?”

Sandcrane nodded, closed his eyes, and rubbed his forehead a moment, hearing the distant, muffled sound of gunfire that accompanied those images dissolve into the cadence of tribal drums, another auditory hallucination that plagued him with unceasing regularity.

“I shall … have to … thank Willem for preparing the way for my homecoming,” Tom haltingly replied. “Where can I find him?”

“Navaahe-nd htove?”
said the priest. “Who knows?”

“What do you mean?”

“He is in hiding.” Father Kenneth stared down at his work-roughened hands that were more befitting a carpenter than priest.

The words were painful to speak. These were dark days for the Southern Cheyenne, and more especially for Tom Sandcrane's closest friend. The priest kept his gaze riveted on his scarred knuckles. “Willem Tangle Hair is wanted for the murder of Charlotte White Bear.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

S
ETH
S
ANDCRANE MADE A LUNGE FOR THE
B
LUE
H
EELER
,
BUT
the brindle canine proved too quick for the Cheyenne and darted through the man's outstretched arms. Seth landed on his hands and knees in the dirt. General Sheridan halted just out of reach, spun around, and, with tail wagging, growled around the hammer gripped in his powerful jaws.

“I've eaten dog before, and so help me I will again if you don't bring me that damn hammer right now,” Seth bellowed, plucking thorns from the palms of his hands. The dog remained defiant, eager for the game to continue. I'll put a bullet in you and carve you for cutlets, you ungrateful bastard. Now, give me that hammer!”

General Sheridan scampered off through the skeletal beginnings of what would eventually be a barn. There were a couple of cross braces Seth wanted to nail into place before the priest arrived. It was a matter of pride. Seth Sandcrane, hoping to prove he was every bit the carpenter the priest claimed to be, crawled to his feet and dusted himself off, pausing to survey his surroundings.

He had built his cabin about a hundred feet from the banks of Coyote Creek in a small clearing flanked by live oaks and cedar. Willows and cottonwoods clung to the bank. Beyond the treeline a meandering string of meadows offered decent grazing for the dozen horses and hundred head of cattle he had purchased with the monetary allotment from the government. Prior to the land rush more than a year ago, a solitary sojourn by night—while avoiding federal patrols assigned to turn back “sooners”—had resulted in Seth's laying claim to the precise acreage his son had prized so highly.

The newly completed ranch house was a good deal larger than the cabin he had shared with Tom back in Cross Timbers, but it was nothing ostentatious, merely a comfortable, sturdy structure with a long, high ceiling in the front room, a kitchen off to the side, bedrooms at the rear, and a double outhouse a respectful distance from the back door. A low-roofed porch ran along the front of the house, where Seth preferred to sit and smoke his pipe and visit with the occasional friend who happened by.

His first barn had burned to the ground under mysterious circumstances. Seth suspected Curtis Tall Bull's hand in the calamity but lacked any proof. It was common knowledge Jerel's younger brother rode the wild side, nor was it any secret Curtis still harbored a resentment for the way Seth had humiliated him at the dogfighting pit more than a year ago. That General Sheridan had survived his wounds and followed Seth everywhere only served to aggravate the situation.

If Curtis was just plain mean for mean's sake, Jerel Tall Bull proved to be a driven man—ruthless, unwavering in his ambition. The few times Seth had crossed the Dog Soldier's path, Sandcrane had sensed an aura of danger surrounding Jerel, a darkness of the spirit more chilling than anything winter had to offer. It was as if Tall Bull's earlier dealings with the tribe and Allyn Benedict were only a prelude to something far more sinister.

Seth was sweating despite the biting cold. He slipped off his woolen work shirt, leaving only his flannel long johns to cover his muscular upper torso. He glanced down with pride, appreciating the fact he had worked off his paunch. His callused hands were steadier now, though there were moments when he thought he might have to hog-tie himself to a corral post to keep from taking a quick pull off a whiskey jug.

Each day was as hard as the one before, but he managed. More painful than his own unending struggle with alcoholism was the innate sense of loss he felt, watching his people's dissolution in the face of progress. He felt powerless to halt the gradual disintegration of the Southern Cheyenne. A kind of malaise held his people in an ever-tightening grip.

Luthor White Bear should have come forward, to call for a renewal and to rally the Cheyenne with the power of the Mahuts, the Sacred Arrows. But Luthor had not been forthcoming; indeed, his silence made the current situation all the more intolerable. Seth often wondered if the merchant was waiting for the Maiyun to whisper answers and was sick at heart with the certainty that when the Old Ones spoke, Luthor would not be able to hear them. Because no matter what had happened in the Council House more than a year and a half ago, despite the judgment of the elders, Luthor was not the Arrow Keeper. It was as simple as that. Men may have selected Luthor White Bear (poor bastard, grieving over the death of his murdered daughter), but the Sacred Arrows had chosen another, and the Maiyun would never let him go.

Seth Sandcrane sighed and surveyed his handiwork: house, chicken coop, smokehouse, corral, charred ground from which a new barn was rising phoenixlike, and a rectangular patch of ground plowed over, topsoil turned under, broken and waiting for spring.

Seth Sandcrane, the warrior, had become a farmer, a peacemaker, and in its own way, this was good. And it was good not to rage anymore, to war within himself. He had made many mistakes—too many—but like his shadow, they were behind him now. He thought of Kanee-estse, Red Cherries, and felt a tinge of remorse. And yet perhaps this too he would set right. Once she had called him brittle, back when he had been looking at the world from the bottom of a bottle. She had been right to say it. He intended to tell her that someday, maybe even bring her out to Coyote Creek.

A sandcrane, tall and gray with a wingspan as wide as a man was tall, rose from the creekbank, red plumage crowning its graceful head as the bird pummeled the air with its powerful wings. A grass snake wriggled in its long, pointed beak, helpless to avoid its fate. The bird glided above the farm and suddenly began to circle Seth where he stood. Seth watched the crane as it continued to circle him, and he heard the words whispered in his soul, with startling clarity.

The hairs rose on the back of his neck, his chest felt tight, and he walked out into the yard and faced east, positioning himself so that he could study the road to Cross Timbers through a break in the trees. The squirrels in the branches of the oaks fell silent; even the insects seemed to quit their flight, and the nearby creek, he swore, had ceased its gurgling song. The wagon in the distance announced itself with a tell-tale plume of dust rising in its wake. And as the shadow of the crane passed over him, the name rang in his heart and forced itself upon his lips.

“Tom?”

Yes
, said the crane, it
is your son
.

“Ha-hey!
Tsehee-haheto
. The one who is my son!” shouted Seth in the language of his people.
“Ene-ame-otse!
He is coming!” His voice rang out in the stillness. Horses grazing in the meadow lifted their heads. The cattle began to bunch together at the sound of a familiar voice. Seth trotted back to the house, dashed inside, and retrieved his Winchester carbine from the mantel, then hurried out into the yard and called out in a strong voice.

“Ha-hey!”
He fired the carbine into the air, levered another shell and fired again, and continued to do so as the wagon approached.
Crack-crack-crack
went the rifle in the cold air. The echoes had just about faded when Father Kenneth steered the team of horses into the yard and pulled up near the barn. Tom Sandcrane climbed down from the wagon and stood in front of his father. The changes in both men were obvious. Seth was older by more than a year, a bit grayer, but his eyes were clear now and his hands were steady and he had the lean, wiry look of his youth. Tom was scarred in body and soul, a fugitive whose eyes wore a wary, haunted cast, and Seth was reminded for a moment of Jerel Tall Bull. Tom had experienced some peculiar horror in the recent past, and the tendrils of that dark moment still clung to him. Seth noticed the black glove, his son's left arm awkwardly raised with the saddlebags draped over his wrist. Tom knelt as General Sheridan came loping up, barking with suspicion at first, then recognizing the intruder. The dog's tail began to wag and he dutifully approached, receiving a scratch behind his ears for his trouble. Tom straightened and faced Seth yet again.

“My father … I am here.”

Without hesitation Seth Sandcrane ignored Tom's outstretched hand, stepped forward, and embraced his son. The older Cheyenne glanced up at the priest seated on the freight wagon. Father Kenneth winked and looked almighty proud of himself, having brought the “prodigal son” home.

They worked until sunset. When the sun sank below the line of trees, the three men left the barn and returned to the ranch house where Father Kenneth panfried a skilletful of tough chunks of beef and flavored them with onions, tossing in a couple of crushed chili peppers and several slices of potato. The hungry men sat around a hand-hewn table in the kitchen and finished off the food in short order, then washed down the meal with cups of strong black coffee. Throughout dinner Seth and the priest regaled Tom with all that had happened during his absence.

Members of the tribe, led by Father Kenneth, had taken Allyn Benedict to task for the sale of the oil lands on the north section of the reservation; however, the Indian agent explained that the government was forced to sell part of the acreage to make the monetary payments to the tribe. And after all, two thirds of the reservation was still open for settlement—none of which consisted of oil-bearing land.

Attempts were made to wildcat oil wells, but these individual efforts on the part of the Cheyenne had not panned out. The priest had petitioned Congress to open an inquiry, suggesting a conflict of interest on Allyn Benedict's part, but as of yet had received no reply. Father Kenneth was certain that if he pressed his case, some lawmaker would eventually see the impropriety in the Indian agent's dealings.