Sioux Slave (21 page)

What difference did it make? Even if they were Pawnees, they wouldn't know about Brown Sugar. He pitched over on his face as they galloped up. The lieutenant and one of the scouts knelt by him, propping him up, putting a canteen to his lips. “My God.” The pink-faced officer looked horrified. “My God, man, what happened to you?”

Lucky didn't answer. He was too busy gulping the tepid water. Oh, it tasted so good! It wasn't his time to die after all.

The handsome Indian scout pulled it from his hands. “Not too much,” he cautioned gently. “Wait a minute, then drink a little more.” He wore a blue army cap at a rakish angle over one eye, and white teeth flashed in his dark face when he grinned.

Lucky tried to talk, couldn't. He reached for the canteen again; guzzled the water. The prissy officer took his own canteen, poured a little water on his snowy white handkerchief, wiped Lucky's face. “You look like a piece of raw meat. What happened?”

Lucky didn't answer for a full five minutes. He just kept drinking water. He looked up into the two faces, sighed. “Whiskey. I'd love some whiskey.”

The scout said to the officer, “Sir, I've got some snake bite remedy in my saddlebags.”

The pink-faced officer frowned. “Terry, I'm not sure that's by the book.”

“Believe it or not, sir, this isn't West Point.” The handsome Indian grinned. “We don't always follow regulations.”

“Then get it, Terry.” The officer gestured.

“Terry? Hellava name for an Injun scout.” Lucky grinned with expectation. Whatever tribe he was, most of the ones who scouted for the army were enemies of the Sioux. When he could get his breath, he'd tell about the massacre of his partners and the white warrior riding with the Sioux.

The officer took off his gloves. He had fine, well-manicured hands. A greenhorn. He'd been found by some wet-nosed, “by-the-book” greenhorn, Lucky thought, but anyway, he was safe. The Indian held out a bottle. Lucky accepted it gratefully and took a long drink. Then the scout stuck a cigar between Lucky's cracked lips, and lit it. “I am
Ter-ra-re-cox:
Warcry. The soldiers call me ‘Terry.' ”

“Thanks, Terry, much obliged.” Lucky took a deep puff, sighed loudly. The smoke tasted good. He was feeling better by the minute. A little food, some rest, a woman, and he'd be as good as new.

The lieutenant peered at him. “Mister, you look like you died and forgot to lie down. How long you been out here, anyway?”

Lucky took the cigar out of his mouth, reached for the whiskey again, and struggled to find his voice. “Damned if I remember. Don't even know what month it is.”

“May,” the officer volunteered.

It was hard to speak, but he had to tell him. “White man riding with the Sioux,” Lucky said. “Yellow hair ... blue eyes ... you'd swear he was Injun, speaks good Lakota.”

“A
white
man?” The young greenhorn looked thunderstruck.

“Sioux?” The scout's expression changed. The buck was thinking about scalp-taking, all right.

There was so much more to tell, but his strength deserted him.
Tomorrow
, Lucky thought with grim satisfaction,
tomorrow I'll tell them enough to have every soldier in the Dakotas looking for that white Injun.

The lieutenant started to wipe the sweat from his pink face with his handkerchief, looked as the grime Lucky had left smeared on it, frowned, and used his manicured fingers instead. “What's your name and what are you doing out here?”

“Trader,” Lucky gasped. “They call me Lucky.”

Something about the scout's expression changed. “You alone?”

Lucky nodded. “Two partners dead; Sioux got 'em.”

The young officer scratched a cheek covered with almost peach fuzz. “Well, you're lucky, all right, Mister. You could have died out here.”

“Ain't my time yet.” He took a puff on the cigar.

The officer stood up, looked at the scout. “We've got to get this man back to the fort; he's in a bad way.”

The scout nodded. “Tell you what, lieutenant, why don't you take your patrol, ride back to the fort and tell them we're coming. I'll keep my scouts, we'll rig a travois and bring him in.”

“Good idea!” The pink-faced man turned and looked longingly off in the direction of the fort. “I'll tell the colonel what's happened so we can map strategy.”

Map strategy. The high-toned boy sounded like a West Point cadet, all right. Lucky saw the scorn in the scout's dark eyes, quickly hidden. “Sir, dragging a travois, we'll be moving slow. Tell the colonel I'll report as soon as I get in; probably after dawn.”

“A written report,” the lieutenant reminded him primly; “Everything by the book.”

“Yes sir.”

 

 

The rest was a vague blur to Lucky. Dimly he remembered the patrol riding away in the dusk. The handful of Indian scouts began to make a travois from lances and blankets and carried Lucky to it. They gave him a hunk of crispy fried rabbit, a canteen of water, a full bottle of whiskey, and a fistful of cigars.

“For an Injun, you're all right,” he told the chief scout. “I'll see the colonel knows how well you've treated me; it'll look good on your record.”

The rakish brave tipped his cavalry cap over one eye, looked pleased, and motioned for his men to mount up. He rode beside Lucky as the travois moved along.

Lucky took a deep puff of his cigar. He was feeling a lot better. “The only other things I want are a big steak, more whiskey, and a pretty woman. No, I'd like the whiskey and the woman first.” He winked at the scout.

The scout nodded, his handsome dark face immobile. “Our village is just a little out of the way. You'd be more comfortable there. I have a good friend with a pretty sister.” He winked back.

Lucky thought about the grim infirmary of the fort. The sawbones would put him on soup, most likely, no whiskey, and no women. “Sounds good to me. Is the girl pretty?”

The scout pushed his hat back. “Only if you like a small girl with big breasts. We call her Kirit.”

Lucky snickered. “Maybe I don't care if we ever reach the fort.”

Terry motioned to one of the other scouts. “Ride and tell Kirit that we bring an injured white man named Lucky. He'll need her care.”

The man mounted up, rode out.

Dusk had fallen, but the Indians had given Lucky a blanket, and he was content, even though his wounds hurt some. They traveled for hours. He would have sworn they turned west, but Lucky couldn't be sure. He thought he remembered some of those eternally burning lignite hills to the west–or was he confusing the terrain with the Badlands, that hostile environment General Sully called “Hell with the fires out?” In the distant pale lavender glow of moonlight, the smoldering brown coal outcrops that had been set afire by long ago lightning sent wisps of smoke into the sky.

Lucky looked around. “This don't look like the way to the fort.”

The handsome Indian scout made a soothing gesture. “Wouldn't you rather go with us to our camp? That fort infirmary won't have anything but quinine and bitters.”

Lucky thought about the girl he had been promised, Kirit. A pretty Indian girl, some roast buffalo tongue and a bottle of whiskey while he recuperated; that sounded good to him. He lay back and relaxed while the travois moved.

 

 

It must have been almost dawn when the little party finally arrived at the camp. It was a temporary camp, the kind many of the tribes set up when they were on a hunt. Dogs barked and curious Indians came out to see who was coming in. On the ridge, he saw a pale glow of burning lignite. It had turned cool again, and the thought of warming his hands near the lightning-caused fire appealed to him.

The scout grinned. “You comfortable? Pretty cool for a May night.”

May night. Mae, naw, couldn't be “Your friend's sister pretty?”

Terry nodded. “Kirit is small and dark. That's why they named her Cricket.”

May. Cricket. Lucky tried to make sense of it, recall just exactly what the fortune teller had said.

The travois halted. Terry leaned on his black stallion's neck, smiled at Lucky. “The pretty girl is going to walk with us.”

“Where?” Not that he much minded, Lucky thought ruefully. He was plenty drunk from that comforting bottle of whiskey the scout had given him at the beginning. “Terry, you're all right!” He grinned crookedly up at him.

He heard the girl come out of her lodge, turned to see if she was as pretty and young as promised. Although her face was shadowed, her body looked inviting as she stood there in the glow of the slow-burning background fires.

Abruptly, the warriors who carried the litter paused.

“Hey!” he protested. “What the–?”

“You asked for some whiskey and a woman.” Terry's voice was abruptly as hard as his dark eyes. “You are about to get both. I think you've met.”

He blinked as the girl stepped out of the shadows. Was it? Could it be?

“Hello, Lucky.” The girl stepped from the shadows, holding a bottle of whiskey. “I've waited a long time for this moment.”

“Brown Sugar?” He could only stare at her, almost in disbelief. “I thought you was in the Sioux camp?”

May. Whiskey. Cricket. All the bits of the prediction fell into place; all but one.

The Indian girl knelt by his side even as the warriors came forward suddenly, pinned his arms and legs. Even as he struggled, they took him off the litter, spread-eagled him, staked him down.

He felt cold sweat beading on his face. “Look, Sugar, there's been some mistake–”

“And you made it,” she reminded him. Very slowly, she poured a stream of whiskey all over his body.

He didn't like the cold look on her face. “Look, Sugar or Cricket, or whatever you're called, you can't scare me,” he blustered, pulling at his bonds, but they held. “The army knows I'm here.”

“Its unfortunate that you were in worse shape than the scouts realized,” she said. “You died unexpectedly before they could get you to the fort.”

This had to be a joke. She was trying to scare him. He'd call her bluff. “You can't kill a man by soaking his clothes with whiskey.”

“Can't I?”

Only then did he see the warrior stepping forward with a iron kettle full of the burning coal from the ridge.

 

 

Warcry rode into the fort at midafternoon, dismounted, tied up his horse, entered the lieutenant's office, and saluted.

“Oh, Terry.” The lieutenant looked up from the report he was writing in prim, precise strokes. “At ease. The colonel's been eager to interview that trader we found.”

“Bad news, sir.” Terry frowned and leaned on the desk with both hands. “The man took a turn for the worse, so we stopped at our camp because it was closer. He lasted until almost noon.”

“Dead?” The young man's eyes widened and he sat up straight behind his desk, tapping his pen against his teeth. “His wounds didn't look that bad to me.”

The scout tipped his cavalry cap to the back of his head. “Me neither, sir, but he was a long time dying–badly burned.”

“Damn!” The pink-faced young man threw his pen across the room like a spoiled child tossing a toy, “I forget how relentless that sun can be.”

“Isn't it, though?” Terry smiled, remembering. Cricket had had her revenge. The trader had begged for death. He had kept mumbling about a fortune teller.

“You should have sent a messenger to the fort,” the lieutenant grumbled, “but I don't suppose he would have been any better off in our infirmary. I hate having to report all this to the colonel.”

“I'll accept the blame, sir. We went ahead and buried the man. We don't even know what his real name was. He called himself Lucky.”

“That's ironic, isn't it?” The lieutenant rubbed his beardless pink face with a well-manicured hand. “You think there's anything to that story about that white warrior?”

The scout paused a long moment. He had promised Cricket he would try to protect the white man who had helped her, although it went against his grain, since the man rode with the enemy. He shook his head. “No, I think the trader was out of his mind from sun. It doesn't make much sense that a white man would be riding with the Sioux, does it?”

The other man tapped his soft, well-manicured fingers on his report. “Nevertheless, I keep thinking about that deserted wagon train me and a friend of mine, Lieutenant Ware, found last year.”

“Sir?”

“We were with a detachment last November near Julesburg, trying to keep the lid on the Indian problems. Not that it did any good. Later that month, Chivington started a wholesale war by attacking the Cheyenne camped at Sand Creek.”

“Mind if I smoke?” Warcry already had his tobacco out and was rolling a cigarette.

The officer frowned at his impudence, then seemed to remember the Pawnee was going to take the heat from the grumpy colonel and nodded permission. “About forty miles from Julesburg, out in the middle of nowhere, we find this wagon train. It was the spookiest thing you've ever seen; no people, no animals, no sign of life at all.”

Even the Pawnee scout was interested now. He puffed his cigarette. “It'd been attacked by Indians?”

The lieutenant shook his head. “If so, there was no sign of it; no arrows or bullets or anything burned or torn up. Damndest thing I'd ever seen. I said no sign of life, and that's what I meant, no bodies, no skeletons, no animal carcasses. It looked like they had just circled their wagons as if they were going to camp for the night and disappeared into thin air.”