The Powder River (17 page)

Smith and Nail saw the two riders stop at the ranch on the creek and the wagon go on alone. The white people were awfully damn sure of themselves. Now the odds weren’t so long. The two Indians circled a long way around the ranch to stay out of sight and came back close to the creek where the country turned rough for a mile or so. They spotted the wagon far down the road and looked at each other. Time to take a long route around the wagon at a good pace, find the right spot overlooking the road, and set their comrades free.

That was when Nail held up his hand, and Smith stopped his horse. He must have heard something.

After a wait it came again, a soft, throaty cry.

Smith and Finger Nail sat their horses. After a while it came again. The mating call of a sage hen.

Of course, sage hens didn’t mate this time of year.

Smith immediately slipped off his horse and hurried around between his two horses. Nail was crouched under his mount. Smith swiveled his head slowly all around the horizon. Well, they hadn’t been shot at yet.

The call came once more—a grating musical note like the one made by bowing a saw.

Nail handed Smith the lead rope to Twist’s horse, dropped his own reins, and padded off to the north, bent at the waist, moving fast but cautiously through the sagebrush. His mount was evidently well trained.

After a moment Nail stood up in the sage and made the scouts sign for
friends
with his arms. Smith trotted over, leading Nail’s horse.

It was-Twist, lying spraddle-legged, his back all bloody. Smith dismounted and checked him. Hell, his spine was hit, and his legs paralyzed. A miracle that he’d gotten away from the whites in this condition. He’d lost a lot of blood and was half-conscious. It was a wonder he’d been alert enough to make any kind of call.

The bullet had entered at the bottom of his ribs and traveled upward. A brief examination showed no exit wound. It’s nicked something, thought Smith—spleen, pancreas, liver, lung, heart. Twist is dead.

Smith rubbed the stitches on his itchy eye sockets. Every time he’d done that, he’d wished Twist was dead. Maybe he still did. An entrance wound and no exit wound. Paralyzed, even if he does live.

“We need water and we need a fire,” he told Nail.

Nail nodded and headed back toward his mount.

Why in hell am I doing this?

Half an hour later Smith started the surgery. He talked to himself under his breath. So now you’re going to risk your grandfather’s life to save your enemy’s life. Crazy goddamn world.

It was the spleen. More than nicked. Clobbered. The wound wasn’t bleeding much. He felt for the bullet, and for once found it quickly. Smith had seen this kind of wound before. He had to go after the bullet, and when he took it out, the patient would bleed to death. Exsanguinate, as they called it.

Smith went after the bullet. He got it easily. Then he started sewing up the spleen as fast as he could go. Blood ran over his fingers in rivulets, and into the abdominal cavity. He got the sewing done before Twist stopped breathing.

Smith sat down in the dust. He looked up at Nail. He reached over and closed Twist’s eyes.

He wept. He couldn’t have said what for.

Chapter 8

He wasn’t easy in his mind. Smith was approaching Ogallala in the predawn light on a good road at a canter. Both the horses, his and Sings Wolf’s on the lead, were well lathered from hard riding and near exhaustion—if they rode them hard again without a rest, they’d risk killing them.

He’d sent Nail back to the people. An Indian who looked like an Indian would be a red flag in this business.

He stopped a half mile outside of town and peered in at the dusky streets. Ogallala, Nebraska, was another trail-drive town, this time on the Union Pacific Railroad, just above the forks of the Platte River. It probably wouldn’t be a damn bit different from Dodge City—cow-boys and drinking and gambling and whores—and wasn’t worth a glance. Right now the town was probably asleep, like Dodge City would be, sleeping off the debauch that took place last night and every night.

He could take the horses to the livery and get them grained and watered. He had enough beaver to cover that. But he might need to get out of Ogallala in a big hurry, with Sings Wolf. He sure couldn’t afford the time to be asking a liveryman kindly to bring the horses out before them there white people shoot me down.

He walked the animals down to the South Platte, watered them, and picketed them in some good grass for half an hour. Rest, beasts, rest, he said to himself teasingly. But not
requiescat in pace
. We got to hightail it in an hour or two.

Sings Wolf must be in jail, and nothing was about to happen to him this early in the morning, surely not. They’d hold him for trial or telegram Sidney Barracks to come get him. Either way, a couple of hours wouldn’t make any difference.

So Smith would go in and check things out and decide whether to bring the horses in or hide them here. He set out walking and found that the striding motion felt good after half a night of cantering. Of course, a little sleep would feel good, too.

How the hell was he going to get Sings Wolf away from a sheriff and deputies and hundreds of overwrought white men? That was hairbreadth scape stuff like he’d heard about in the East, Deadwood Dick doings.

Smith had no idea what he would do. He’d just go in and do whatever he could figure out. He was going to try something. If he was a little bit clever, and the whites acted a little bit dumb, he or Sings Wolf might even come out of it alive.

That didn’t sound too unlikely, and it appealed to him. He wondered if that was the way Deadwood Dick did it.

Yes, it all does damn well sound too cavalier, Elaine, my love, but what can I do? They’re going to kill my grandfather.

A tall half-breed shambled down the alley alongside the jail, weaving a little, raucously singing some goddamn song. Goddamn breeds.

At least that’s what Smith hoped any whites would think, if they were up early enough to see him. He was supposed to look like a scout, decked out the way those throwback misfits the mountain men got decked out—blanket coat, broad-brimmed hat, moccasins, deerskin pants. Drunk as a skunk. A damn half-breed, sure. People tolerated them because the army needed them.

This one kept leaning against the jailhouse wall every few feet, like he needed it to keep from falling down, he was so drunk, and he wouldn’t stop that screeching. That would give the white folks a chance to curse the half-breeds’ fondness for booze. Worst parts of both races, they would say. Smith was amused to pretend to be what people thought him anyway.

Smith was mostly concerned about his size. He had tied his long hair up under his hat. The one item that would really make people wonder, his breechcloth, was hidden by his capote, and the bottoms of his leggings looked like pants. People would remember him because of his size, but that couldn’t be helped. He’d try not to commit any more crimes punishable by death.

He wondered if there were any wanted notices out on him yet for killing the Reverend Ratz and the three scouts, and kidnapping Hindy. He doubted it. The army wasn’t that efficient. But there would be notices. Respectability was getting out of reach.

After another ten feet, Smith leaned his back on the wooden wall again and rapped it smartly with the handle of his knife, twice. He bellowed out one of his favorite songs again, flowing in a minor key.

My heart knows what the river knows,

I gotta go where the river goes.

Restless river wild and free,

The lonely ones are you and me.

This time a song came back, in his grandfather’s voice, preparing for death:

Nothing lives long—

Except the rocks.

Smith was gratified to have found Sings Wolf, unreachable as he might be. The wall had no window, of course—the sheriff wasn’t dumb enough to invite lynch mobs to shoot prisoners like fish in a barrel. Sings Wolf would be pretty safe in jail. So he’d best scout out the situation.

That would be the good part. First a little hotel coffee—he wished he could spare a dollar for the white man’s bacon and eggs, but he couldn’t. Then a beer in the saloon. In both places a lot of gossip.

Then, if he was lucky, a visit to the telegraph office. Smith had an idea. An idea maybe even worthy of the dime-novel hero Deadwood Dick.

Smith headed for the telegraph office. The other white folks accepted him as an army scout—why not the telegraph operator?

The town was grumbling. That damn Injun who killed some folks at the Sunvold place was being handled the way the sissy government did everything—escorted to Sidney Barracks for formal trial. The Sunvolds would have to go all the way to Sidney to testify, a trip of a hundred miles, hang around a couple of days, and then the damn government might not do anything about it. But it was that fool Eric Sunvolds own fault for not taking care of business when he had the chance. Can you imagine the old guy hauling the Injun to town in a wagon when he could have strung him up right there? And he lost one Injun, a young buck, on the way. People shook their heads at Eric Sunvold.

Smith blessed him.

Smith opened the door of the telegraph office and peered down at the man at the desk. His key was ratatattating, so Smith held his tongue. The fellow was tiny as a twelve-year-old girl and still had the innocent face of a kid to go with his gray hair. The little man stuck his tongue out of the corner of his mouth as he was concentrating. The key clattered, the clerk wrote in pencil, clattered something in return, and wheeled in his desk chair to face Smith.

“What can we do you for, wayfarer?” His voice was chipper, his eyes bright, and he didn’t seem to notice that Smith was a head and a half taller and a hundred pounds heftier than he was. He twitched his nose as though what he’d said had been funny.

“Got orders from Sidney for me?” It was a dumb ploy, and it didn’t work.

“What’s your name, wayfarer?”

“Cummings. Tom Cummings. I’m out of Sidney. Scout.” Elaine’s maiden name. He wondered if he could think of a way to send her a telegram. A reach across a chasm wide as death.

The little old man made the gesture of flipping the corners of the telegrams on the spike, though he clearly knew there was nothing. “Not a thing for any Cummings,” he said pertly. Smith noticed that his eyeshade had been embroidered with roses. Roses, for heaven’s sake. Smith suppressed a smile.

“Supposed to be orders for me here yesterday afternoon,” said Smith, trying to put a hint of annoyance into his voice. Seemed to him that anything he did, any false name he used, would still put them on his track if it went to Elaine. Dammit.

“Not a sign, wayfarer,” piped the little man. Unfortunately, he didn’t go on to say what there probably was a sign of from Sidney, a reply to the sheriff’s telegram of yesterday. He got out a pad and started marking with his pencil.

“Good-looking roses,” Smith said, feeling like a fool. He was going under a phony name and separated from his wife, and when he needed to be straightening out his life, here he was paying compliments to some idjit on his embroidery. Christ, he wished he could think of a way to send a telegram to Elaine without leaving a trail of evidence.

Whoa, maybe he ought to run—was that fellow drawing a picture of him? Just what he needed, a picture to go with the wanted notice. Smith put his hand in front of his face and fooled with his hat brim.

“Hope you don’t mind if I make some notes,” said the operator brightly. “I’m doing some little articles for the newspaper back home, and they’re keen on how Westerners look. Especially a scout, like you. Care to sit down?” He gestured toward the office’s one other chair.

Smith took his hand away and sat. The fellow was setting down words, not lines. Maybe Smith could get him to talking.

“Had any adventures you might care to pass along to our readers? Just a typical bit of Wild West experience?”

Why not? He thought of one of the old stories from his home country. “Come down a funny kind of crick yestiddy,” said Smith. He supposed he’d seem more authentic if he talked a little crude. Ridiculous, a man born and raised in the wild territory around the Yellowstone trying to seem authentic to some Easterner. “Named it Alum Crick.”

“Why was that?” the operator asked helpfully, scribbling as fast as he could go.

“It was all sticky from alum. So sticky it was twelve miles going out, but only six back. Even the miles puckered up.”

“Ha-ha,” said the operator, grinning. He actually said “ha-ha” instead of laughing. At least the greenhorn caught on. And he never stopped scribbling.

“Where’d you get that beadwork hatband?”

“It’s quillwork,” said Smith. “My mother did it.” He paused for effect. “One of my two mothers.”

The little man did glance up with a gleam in his eye. “Your mother’s of what tribe?”

Best to fudge a little here. Cheyenne was surely a trouble word. “One Sioux, one Arapaho. My dad was a trader on the Platte.” The little man made with the words. “Say, any telegram at all from Sidney today?”

“Not yet,” piped the operator. “Couldn’t tell you anyway, ’less it was yours.”

Smith nodded in agreement.

“Is that a Hudson Bay Company blanket your coat’s made from?”

“Witney blanket,” said Smith.

Just then the key clattered. The little man answered back quickly, in his spunky way. For a minute or so the telegraph operators ticked away. Then the little man licked his pencil and wrote carefully on a different pad, his tongue sticking out again. The tongue had a dark, lead-colored stripe.

When he finished, he tore the top sheet and the carbon copy off the pad and whacked the carbon onto the spike. Then he seemed to look up at Smith with a particularly bright eye. “Say,” said the little fellow, “would you keep an eye on things for a minute? I’ve got to run over to the sheriff’s office.” And out the door he darted.

Smith thought for a moment. Seemed like the little fellow had caught on to him somehow. Maybe the operator was setting Smith up. Or maybe he was giving him a break.

Smith stepped over to the desk, looked around to make sure he wasn’t being watched, and looked sideways down at the carbon copy. Origin, Sidney Barracks:

HOLD PRISONER FOR US ARMY STOP DETAIL ARRIVES LATE TODAY ESCORT PRISONER HERE STOP YOUR COOPERATION APPRECIATED STOP COLONEL A W DEYO

Well, there was his answer. So a full afternoon ahead. Too damn full. Maybe Smith should just slip on out now. Still, it would look less suspicious, and more grateful, if he stayed and gave the operator a little yarn for his newspaper stories. Smith settled back down in the chair and tried to find his good humor. What could he spin for a little fellow who didn’t know fat cow from pore bull? Oh, sure, one of his father’s favorites:

“I ever tell you about the time Old Ephraim run me up a box canyon, shook me out of a tree, and begun to claw at me?”

Breathlessly: “Nawsir, what happened?”

“He killed me and et me, naturally.”

Smith eyed the horseback figures in the distance, walking their horses toward Ogallala. Two of them, plus one horse being led. Looked like Kossuth hats on the men, but he couldn’t be sure. A couple of minutes would tell. He hoped it wasn’t another false alarm. He wriggled himself flat against the rock and got his Winchester into place.

Smith had fussed about it and fussed about it and made his decision the only way he could. He’d go by how he felt and to hell with the arguments he carried on in his head. He wouldn’t kill the soldiers. He’d disarm them and tie them up and take their horses and uniforms and boots and leave them where they couldn’t get to the road before dark, much less to town. And if that was taking a dumb chance, he’d just have to take it. And to hell with you, all you bloodthirsty bastards on both sides.

They were Kossuth hats, and yellow-striped uniform pants. These were surely his boys. Well, it would be fun to pull on them what the cavalry scouts pulled on Smith and Sings Wolf and Hindy back there. He couldn’t see how it wouldn’t work. The road was in the open, with no cover nearby but what Smith had. No one else was coming—he could see five miles and more either way. The point of rocks gave him perfect command of the road. The distance was about sixty yards, potshot distance.

If it was a stupid chance, he’d just have to take a stupid chance.

A sergeant’s stripes on one. So they spared a noncommissioned officer for this detail. The rest of the goddamn soldiers were probably readied to go chasing after Cheyennes as soon as the scouts brought word where they were.

The sergeant was a little in the lead. Smith would warn them.

Sergeant Brock was tired and irritable. He’d covered over forty miles on horseback since daybreak, walking and loping the horses alternately, his lower back hurt, and he was sober.

Drunk or sober, he hated horses. Horses were created, in his opinion, to make some men feel goddamn superior and give others back pain. He was condemned to pain. He’d started out in the cavalry to get up off the ground and see and saunter like a lord, but the years had tortured his spine, and now he spent his life on horseback hating horses. He loved to see a Jehu, handling a freight team, giving it to the bastards with bullwhip every few seconds all day long.