The Warriors (46 page)

The boy shrieked and flopped forward, eyes glazing. The contents of the cup splattered the fire and started it hissing and smoking.

“Goddamn deceiving son of a bitch!”
Cutright screamed, the same instant Joseph yelled Kola’s name.

The cry and the jerk of Joseph’s head was signal enough. Overjoyed, Kola ran, leaped, and landed on the white named Darlington. He grappled for Darlington’s drawn revolver. Joseph had already launched himself straight across the smoking fire, falling on Cutright with no concern for his feet being in the scorching coals.

The impact jarred Cutright. The revolver in his right hand thundered. Joseph jerked his head aside, just in time to keep from being killed.

Darlington’s revolver exploded. Kola felt a rush of air near his shoulder as the bullet spent itself in the dark. Darlington was no match for Kola’s strength and renewed faith. Kola clawed Darlington’s face with one hand, dug the nails of his other into Darlington’s wrist, and the revolver was loose.

Kola threw it away and jumped up. He stomped on Darlington’s stomach. The man retched and grabbed his belly, rolling from side to side. Panting, Kola swung around.

Joseph had gotten Cutright’s revolver out of his hand. He was standing with his left boot on the Texan’s chest.

Cutright’s hands were raised. The palms shone with sweat. Grimy fingers quivered. His good eye focused on the revolver Joseph was aiming down at him.

“Lord, Kingston, please don’t—”

“Don’t do what you planned to do to us?” Joseph’s mouth was so thin, it appeared to be no more than a slit. “You don’t think I believed your story about letting us go? You said you have a family near Fort Worth. And you’ll want to do business up this way again, I presume. You wouldn’t want Kola and me turning up to cite you for theft. You were going to kill us before you left.”

Cutright’s popeyed silence was confession enough. Kola crouched quickly beside the writhing Darlington. But there was no danger. The man was in pain, talking incoherently, and starting to weep.

Joseph remained with one boot on Cutright’s chest.

“You’re not going to shoot me—?” Cutright breathed. Kola burst out laughing. The Texan sounded like a man beseeching the holy spirits. “You gave up too quickly! You—you don’t have the sand.”

Joseph’s smile was chilly. “I led you on, Major. You thought I didn’t have the sand. That was your error and my advantage.”

“You
are
the one from Fort Worth,” Cutright wheezed. “Got to be.”

“The two-hundred-dollar bounty would have been a nice extra profit for you.”

“I swear, I didn’t plan—”

“Shit. You murdered your commanding officer. Why should I expect better treatment?”

Joseph steadied the revolver and blew a hole between Cutright’s eyes.

Before Cutright’s body had stopped its violent jerking, Joseph flung the revolver away. He picked up the Laidley-Whitney and motioned Kola back. From across the cook fire, he aimed at the screaming Darlington, who flopped over on his stomach and frantically started to crawl.

The buffalo gun boomed. Darlington skidded three feet forward, an immense hole torn through the clothing covering his backbone. Even Kola, who was accustomed to blood, averted his head.

Joseph laid the buffalo rifle beside Cutright’s revolver. He sighed.

“Dishonorable men deserve to be treated in kind. Kola?”

The Sioux turned, momentarily frightened at the sight of his companion standing on the other side of the fire. Joseph resembled some demon risen from swirling smoke and tiny, licking flames.

Truly, Kola thought, this is a warrior to be feared more than any Sioux chieftain. He is so feared, his own kind offer money for his body. This is a great warrior indeed.

Kola couldn’t tell whether his companion was saddened by what had occurred, or took pleasure from it. One moment Joseph’s expression led Kola to believe the young white man had enjoyed killing the thieves. Then Kola thought he detected regret, or at least uncertainty, as Joseph looked at the moaning boy lying on his side with his head close to the embers. The boy’s hair was smoldering.

“Pull the boy out before he burns to death. That hair stinks to hell.”

Kola hurried to obey.

“Sit him up,” Joseph instructed. “Slap him some.”

Joseph watched impassively as Kola propped the boy up and smacked his face several times. Groggy with pain, the boy finally opened his eyes. He recognized Joseph and Kola, then saw the bodies of his uncle and Darlington.

“Oh, my Lord!” He sounded sick as he seized his blood-soaked arm.

“No complaints,” Joseph said. “You took your chances when you threw in with those two. You’d have stood by while they shot us. Probably even pulled a trigger yourself. Stand up.”

Aghast, the boy exclaimed, “I’m bleeding to death!”

“Maybe. Maybe not. You’ll find out after you’ve walked twenty or thirty miles.”

“I can’t walk!”

Joseph shrugged. “Your choice. Pitch me the knife, Kola.”

“No, no, I’ll go.” The boy weaved to his feet.

“South,” Joseph instructed. “If I ever see you north of the Republican River, you’ll be dead for sure.”

Red seeped between the fingers with which the boy clutched his arm. He glanced at Cutright again, then blazed, “You damn murderer! You could have left him alive!”

“Impossible.”

“How can you kill like that?”

“I had excellent training, directed by Mr. Jefferson Davis. After you kill one or two, the others come easy. Now you better get out of here before I change my mind.”

“I’ll remember your name, Kingston. Swear to God. I’ll remember it to the hour I die.”

Joseph laughed. “Save yourself the trouble. By the time you’re planted, I’ll have had a peck of names.”

“Someone’ll find you.”

“Someone will find
you,
stone-cold stiff, if you don’t start walking.”

“I need food and water.”

“No.”

“At least a bandage!”

“All you get from me is a chance to save your conniving hide. That’s more than you deserve. Now
walk!”

The boy started off, wincing with every laborious step.

“Wrong way!” Joseph barked.
“That’s
south.”

Like a sleepwalker, the boy stumbled in an erratic half-circle and lurched in the right direction. Joseph watched until he was lost on the dark prairie.

Joseph jerked off his low-crowned hat and busily fanned himself, drying sweat that shone like grease on his forehead. The white man’s next remark was intended to be conversational but had a strained quality.

“Now we can go ahead and take the buffalo up to the railroad. We’re also three horses to the good. I’d call it a passable day’s work.”

Saying that, he turned away. But not before he astonished Kola with a sad, almost grief-stricken glance. With his back toward the Sioux, he added, “A man should know better than to do a dishonorable thing like stealing another man’s kill.
He should know better!”

There was no regret in the last few words. Only anger.

Kola overcame the piercing fright produced by Joseph’s unexpected ferocity. He realized again that he would never understand the man’s unfathomable nature. But outwardly—ah, outwardly, Joseph was a
kola
of whom he could be eternally proud.

He let his awe and pride drive a yell of joy out of his throat. He circled the fire, stood over Cutright’s body, and raised his clout, exposing his genitals to the dead man’s staring eyes—his people’s ultimate insult to a vanquished and contemptible enemy.

Joseph walked back to his coffee cup and picked it up. Before drinking he said in a casual way, “We don’t need to waste time disposing of them. The turkey buzzards will do it in a day or two. Besides, they don’t deserve decent burial.”

He tossed his head back and drank. A spurt of fire in the thinning smoke reddened the streak of white hair that began at his hairline over his left brow and tapered to a point at the back of his head.

M
ICHAEL BOYLE HAD SELDOM
experienced the kind of consuming fright he felt during those first moments when he stood rooted on the summit of the low hill, trying to decide whether to run and attempt to warn the railhead. It was worse than the fear he’d suffered charging enemy lines with the Irish Brigade. At least with the Brigade, there had been others around him sharing the peril.

He was most conscious of the weapons arrayed against him. The short hunting bows. The quivers bristling with arrows. The knives. The war hatchets with shafts wrapped in bright red cloth and metal heads, not stone.

The knife blades and hatchet heads meant the weapons were trade goods, factory made. The Cheyenne—if that was indeed what they were—had either bargained for them at forts or stolen them in raids.

He saw no revolvers or rifles. But he understood Plains Indians owned few of those. Firearms which the Indians did manage to acquire were carefully guarded and used only on hunts or important forays against enemy tribes. It was a small, hopeful sign.

He licked at sweat on his upper lip. The warriors remained motionless, watching. The feathers in their sunlit black hair bobbed in the breeze.

The Indian holding Ruffin—the one with the immense bare belly—kept staring too. A hint of a smile appeared on the man’s thick-lipped mouth. But the eight-foot bow lance was rock steady. If Michael responded wrongly, or acted precipitously, the iron head would pierce Ruffin’s throat in an instant.

One by one, other details registered. On all the calico ponies, plaited horsehair was looped and knotted around the lower jaws to create both bit and bridle from a single long strand. Quirts held by muscular hands rested against naked thighs. The quirts resembled miniature whips—three thongs of rawhide attached to a carved round of wood heavy enough to deal a man a crippling blow.

About two-thirds of the Indians rode bareback. The rest, including Fatbelly, had hide saddles, little more than beaded pads. The leader’s gear also included a blanket under the saddle, beaded bright yellow and red. Fringes hung from each corner of the square.

The big-bellied Indian bore scars on his shoulders and had pendulous breasts. The scars were in pairs. Michael recalled hearing a Paddy describe rituals in which Plains Indians pledged their lives to the protection of their people—and the annihilation of their foes—and shed blood in self-mortification as proof of their intent. The scars as well as the leader’s air of authority said he was the one with whom Michael had to deal.

Weary of Michael’s hesitation, Fatbelly gigged the lance head deeper into Tom Ruffin’s neck. A line of blood trickled. Ruffin’s legs thrashed. Above the clasping hand, the boy’s eyes pleaded with Michael.

Fatbelly raised his eyebrows. His forehead creased like a wrinkled hide. The lift of the brows asked an unmistakable question:
What will you do?

Michael had no idea—except that he’d decided not to run and abandon Ruffin. In a voice as steady as he could manage, he asked, “Do you talk English?”

Half a dozen of the braves—all in their twenties—snickered and whispered among themselves. One let out a low but frightening whoop, then spat over the ears of his pony. The fat-bellied Indian whipped the lance to the right, then thrust it over his head. The young men laughing at Michael fell silent. The smirks disappeared.

Fatbelly grinned in a disarmingly friendly way. Michael wasn’t deceived. It would be foolish to trust the Indian—or regard him as a weakling because of his age, or his flabby breasts and stomach. The rest of him looked hard. The act of raising the lance had tightened huge muscles in his upper arm.

The Indian’s smile grew wider, revealing brown gums studded with broken teeth. He nodded in a vigorous way.

“English,” he said, garbling it so that it came out
Anglish.
The thumb of the hand holding the lance straightened, pointing at the Indian’s chest. “English!” There was an almost childlike quality about the declaration.

When the Indian continued, he mauled the pronunciation of nearly every word. “I have traded at white forts. But we are not Laramie Loafers—”

Some of the others understood and growled agreement.

“We do not come to bring war. We like black coffee that is sweet. We want to see the fire road you are making. No war, only see.”

He widened his eyes, blinking several times. The illustration almost made Michael laugh, not in derision but genuine amusement. The fat-bellied man almost resembled a small boy—except for that bow lance he’d quietly shifted back to Ruffin’s throat.

“We friends.” It came out
frans.
“No war. Just coffee.” More blinking. “Just look.”

Amusing as the Indian’s enthusiastic declaration was, Michael remained wary. He’d heard tales of braves who had ridden up to a government fort to trade with perfect cordiality one day, only to return the next and launch a vicious attack. They were unpredictable as the plains weather, Casement claimed. So he didn’t put much stock in Fatbelly’s assertions. Though his heart was beating less rapidly, Michael kept a frown on his face.

“Very well. If you’re friendly—”

Fatbelly’s nod was again impatient. “Friends.
Friends!”

“Then put the boy down.”

The Indian cocked his head, acting baffled. Michael suspected the man understood more than he let on.

Michael resorted to gestures. A finger at the boy, then at the buffalo grass.

“Down.
Let him go. Don’t hurt him.”

The Indian pondered. Shook his head. “You are many. We are few. We keep him till we see the fire road and get coffee. Then we let go. Is not wise to believe all you whites say. You say friends, then you turn many guns against us.”

Something ugly flickered in the man’s eyes. His smile disappeared.

“Two summers ago it was so when Black Kettle camped at Sand Creek.”

Michael winced; he knew the infamous reference.

In the autumn of ’64, Indian raids in the Colorado territory had resulted in the organization of a Denver-based military unit of six hundred white men. The men—mostly riffraff—had been commanded by a fanatic Army officer named Chivington, who also happened to be an ordained Methodist minister. Chivington led his men to a nearby Cheyenne encampment.