Two in the Field (50 page)

“Goose reckons whoever was torturing him got surprised,” Linc said, “and left before finishing the job.”

“Torturing?”

“The man was tied down and hot coals were put on his vitals.”

I looked at our surroundings: buttes stratified by belts of white, black, blue, brown and red clay. So majestic, so beautiful. What caused people to do this to each other?

“You okay?” I said, drawing Cait aside at our next halt. Since leaving the grisly remains she’d moved up to ride between Linc and me, her eyes dull, her mouth compressed into a tight line. She tried to nod but her face contorted and a sob broke from her throat.

I put my arms around her while she cried.

“After I saw that poor man,” she said brokenly, “I couldn’t stop thinking …” Her words trailed off.

About Tim
, I knew she meant.

“We’ll be okay,” I told her. “We’re making pretty good speed.”

“I must think only about finding him alive,” she said, “and not dwell on the … other.”

“Sometimes it’s hard to stay positive.”

She nodded, wiping at her eyes.

The rest of that day we rode practically stirrup to stirrup. While regretting its cause, I savored our renewed proximity. It felt comfortable, like a soothing balm.

That night I dreamed that a grizzly bear stalked us, a monster who blotted out the moon and stars, rearing up over us with slavering jaw and terrifying roars. Just as we were about to be devoured, a blue-uniformed figure swept Cait safely away. Then the bear was gone too, and I was alone under the moon and stars. Unable to get back to sleep, I tried to decide which had been worse: the bear or the loneliness that followed.

At dawn Cait brought me a cup of coffee, her attention energizing me as much as the hot liquid did. She apologized for her shakiness the previous afternoon and thanked me for taking care of her. Again that day we rode close together.

The next morning we set out across the Big Badlands carrying all the water we could. This was the stretch where Custer had lost men. Rising even earlier than usual, we were well underway before sunrise. By noon we were in hell. Alkali dust swirled up around us with every step, the heat was blistering, and our water was vanishing far too fast. When Cait passed out during a mid-day halt, I poured my water ration over her face and hair, fearing I’d made a fatal mistake in letting her come with us.

As if the heat and dust weren’t enough, we had to pick our way cautiously through carpets of cactus to spare the horses’ fetlocks. Rattlesnakes were everywhere. One buzzed in front of a mare, which reared and threw her rider down hard and smashed his canteen. He wasn’t injured but we lost an hour chasing down
the mare, and our water was further diminished. We crawled on. No choice but to keep moving ahead. No trace of water. It seemed to me we were in the worst possible trouble.

Crossing a dry creekbed the second evening, Goose signaled a halt beneath scrub cottonwoods. With a sharpened stick he made exploratory pokes in the dirt. Settling on a place he liked, he dug a hole the length of his arm and motioned for us to come and look. Water was seeping into the bottom of the hole. Not much. But a life saver that would permit us to go on.

I’d long since ceased regarding the Lakota as a stunted burnout. In my eyes he was one hell of a hero.

Dehydrated and weakening, Cait could scarcely eat. She’d also developed a painful heat rash. I borrowed some salve from Goose and gingerly daubed it on. It was well after dark by then, but the air was still warm and thick. By the time the temperature cooled enough to offer true relief, the sun would rise again. There seemed little new to talk about, although I made several attempts. We sat side by side, seemingly in separate universes.

“Sorry,” she murmured finally, “I can’t put off dismal thoughts of Tim.”

“They’ll keep him alive,” I said, with more conviction than I felt. “Tim’s no use to McDermott otherwise.”

After a moment’s reflection she reached for my hand, her fingers feeling very thin in mine. In that one small way, at least, the night desert bloomed.

Late the next afternoon, after another day in the inferno, we finally reached a freshwater creek that marked the edge of the badlands. We slumped along its banks, exhausted. Linc and I looked after our mounts, and afterward didn’t want to move. But Goose
insisted that we celebrate our successful crossing by gambling with him. He produced a small willow basket and three pairs of dice made of plum pits. One pair held the tiny image of a buffalo on two sides; the second, a bird on two sides; the third was black on two sides. “Chips” or counters were little sticks polished smooth from handling. There was a complicated point system. If the buffalo turned up twice, for example, and the other four dice showed unpainted sides, the thrower got ten points. If all dice showed blanks, the thrower got 32 points and won all stakes.

Goose seldom lost, and we never figured out exactly why.

“He asked who’s taking care of Lily,” Linc said when we finished. “I told him about Kaija.”

“Tell him I’d like to know about Lily’s parents,”

Just when I’d decided that Goose wouldn’t answer, he began to talk. He wouldn’t name the father except to say that he’d been a leading Oglala warrior and like a brother to Goose. As for the mother, she’d proved herself a
witkowin
, a crazy woman.

“Then why’d he honor her with a scaffold?”

“Not ‘crazy’ like we think of it,” Linc explained. “More like high-spirited, untamable. She would run off with other braves and her husband would fetch her back. She’d do it again, despite the shame she brought to him. When she came back heavy with another man’s child, he still took her in, so great was his caring for her.”

Goose spoke some more.

“When the child was near, the mother became very ill—witkowins often die young—but the father had a vision that his own death would come first, so he told Goose what to do if the baby survived them.”

“I gather the father did die first?”

Linc listened further to Goose, then nodded and gave me a significant look. “Shot by goldbugs.”

Wonderful.

“Goose had been told to journey with the girl’s mother until she died.”

“And then …?”

“Stay at that spot until Great Spirit caused the next thing to happen.”

“Which was me.”

“Yup,” Linc said. “It was Goose who came up with whites being able to offer more—not Lily’s parents—but your destiny got hooked up with theirs.”

Just what I needed, I reflected. More spirits messing with my life.

Cait’s condition was our main concern, but to everybody’s surprise it was Linc who came closest to going down. On our eighth day out he had a recurrence of the malarial fever he’d picked up during the war. It left him depleted and occasionally delirious. Goose nursed him with woka and offered to construct a pony-drag decorated with his famous beadwork, so that Linc could travel like an Indian child. Linc mumbled that he wasn’t
that
far gone, and tied himself upright in his saddle.