Warrior (Freelancer Book 2) (25 page)

They parked the Travco behind a small factory that put new treads on old truck tires just off Cheyenne Avenue, and Rick walked alone to the corner of Sweet Medicine and Cheyenne. As he approached, he saw that Charlie Walksalone was sitting in a battered white plastic chair under a pine tree. He seemed to be asleep, tooled boots crossed well out in front of him, the broad Resistol hat tipped down over his eyes, and his hands clasped over his chest.

He looked up as Rick walked over, eyes sharp and amused in a web of creases. Without a word, he gestured to the chair next to him; Rick sat and pulled out his cigarettes. He offered one to Walksalone, who took it without hesitation, and sparked his Zippo with the quick up-down motion on his jeans.

"So, you're still doing that little trick?" Walksalone remarked.

"Yeah." Rick looked at the flame and felt a little sheepish about depending on such a silly thing.

"Go ahead," Walksalone said. "It's about the only thing been keeping you alive since that flashy move you pulled on that dirt road in Virginia. Luck should never be taken for granted."

Rick lit both their cigarettes, and they settled back in the flimsy chairs.

Walksalone took a deep drag and blew several smoke rings. They watched the rings drifting in the still air. "No sir. Luck is a lot like a woman. If you stop appreciating either one, you can expect to find them gone fairly damn quick."

It didn't seem to require an answer. Rick put the lighter back in his jeans, and the two men sat in the shade without speaking for a time.

Eventually, Walksalone finished his smoke, stubbed it out on the sole of his boot, expertly fieldstripped the butt, and put the filter in his shirt pocket. Rick followed suit and said, "That brings back some memories. Were you in the war?"

"The war?" Walksalone seemed to find it funny. "No. At least not this last one. It's just that those filters last for thousands of years, and I find I like this country the way it is, not all junked up with
mâsêhánééstóva
."

"Huh?"

"Craziness." Walksalone sat up straight and angled his chair slightly to face Rick. "So you've come back, Whirlwind. Have you come to ask the Cheyenne to repay the debt we owe you?"

"Well," Rick paused and regarded the sere landscape for a moment before continuing, "A little girl was taken by a sick bastard who intends to—"

"Infect her soul as well?" interrupted Walksalone. He turned his head away and spat emphatically. "Yes, I've heard about his coming. It might help you to know that the girl is still OK. He's waiting to defile her as a celebration of his success."

"How do you know these things?"

Walksalone just shrugged. "Is the 'how' important? I could have friends in his camp, or I could have wiretaps on his phone. Let's just say that I'm certain. Do you want the Cheyenne to help you rescue this girl?"

Rick thought for a moment before answering. "No. I think we can find her and get her back. It may sound odd, but my favor would be for the Cheyenne to do something for the Cheyenne."

Walksalone's calm gaze didn't show any surprise.

He nodded slowly, waiting for Rick to continue. "This bastard is bringing his little army of fools and thugs here. I'm afraid that he intends to kill or capture all the 44 traditional chiefs and use them to blackmail the Tribal Council to agree to the coal leases."

"I didn't know that. It could pose a problem." Walksalone kept his gaze on Rick. "But not a problem for you in particular."

"Well, that's the thing." Rick shook his head in mild frustration. "I’m well aware that I'm not Cheyenne, but I was here for months, and the land…it gets into you."

"Into your soul?"

Rick grimaced. "I'm not quite sure about souls and all that but it got into my head. And it's nice to have something in my head besides nightmares."

"So what is your favor? Do you want to come and live with us?"

"No," said Rick, but his voice was uncertain. There was another pause, and then Rick spoke with confidence. "No. If the Cheyenne owe me a favor and, mind you, I'm not actually asking for one, I'd have brought that—"

"Delivery?"

Rick laughed briefly. "'Delivery' is as good a word as any other, I suppose. I'd have delivered that just for Pete Talltrees. But I think what we have here is a 'potlatch’."

Walksalone nodded. "That's from the Northwest tribes, but I know what it is. It's when one person gives much, and the other can never get out of debt. It's a good description of where we are."

"Well, here's what I'd like. You’re absolved of any debt to me if you protect the chiefs and the tribe from the Children's Crusade and make sure that the coal leases are rejected." Rick reached around and pulled a folded set of computer printouts from his back pocket. "We crunched the numbers, and you're being robbed. The plans for the future are even worse. They're going to build over a hundred power plants on the reservation. Your land will be ripped away, your water will run green with acid, and your air will choke you."

Rick handed the printouts to Walksalone. "So, that's my favor. My friends and I will find the little girl. I'd like you to fight to save yourselves."

Walksalone kept reading for another couple of minutes. Still concentrating on the printouts, he said, "This is from a PDP, isn't it?"

"A PDP-6. How did you know?"

"What? You think I hang out here on the prairie all the time?" He laid the papers on his lap and leaned back, looking at the countryside again. "Magic and computers have a lot in common. Your friends are a bit more than just smart people."

Rick was surprised, but he nodded, and they were quiet for a few minutes. Then Walksalone said, "Can I tell you a story?"

"Sure."

"You've heard of the Sioux fighting with Custer, right?"

"Of course."

"How about Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce?" Rick nodded. "They still teach his tactics in Officer Training School. Not that I got there, but I did read some of the textbooks."

"And, finally, do you know about the journey of the Northern Cheyenne back to their home?"

Rick shook his head.

"Well it's a long story, but I'll give you the Readers Digest version if you pass over another of those Winstons." Walksalone held out two fingers, Rick gave him a cigarette, and they both lit up.

Walksalone stretched out again, blew a single smoke ring, and began to talk. "After Custer's death, Washington reinforced the troops in the West, and the Cheyenne were captured and marched off to the Indian Lands down in Oklahoma. Perhaps it was well-meant—although I doubt it—because there were already Cheyenne living down there. Living there still, for that matter.

"Well-meant or not, once the Northern Cheyenne showed up, there wasn't enough food for that many people, diseases spread, and it was generally a piss poor situation. They begged to be allowed to go back to their home here on the High Plains, but the federal government in its wisdom refused."

Walksalone took another long drag of his cigarette and Rick said, "Can't see that all that much has changed."

Walksalone laughed. "No, I guess not."

Then he went on. "Finally, in 1878, two of the chiefs, Morning Star who was also known as Dull Knife and Little Wolf decided it was time to stop dying in Oklahoma and headed home. About three hundred people followed them, but less than a hundred were warriors. The rest were women, children, and old men."

Walksalone stopped again, looking off into the distance as if he could still see the long lines of marching people. Rick didn't say anything.

"The Indian lands in Oklahoma are a thousand miles from here," Walksalone said slowly. "The Army put thirteen thousand troops in the field to stop them, and, when they couldn't sneak around them, the warriors straight up beat them. It was the biggest, longest, and most successful campaign by any Indian tribe in the entire history of the West."

He snorted. "'Successful' is a relative term, I guess. By the time they got to Nebraska, they were starved, almost barefoot, and low on ammunition. So Morning Star sent Little Wolf off with all the young men who could still fight and gave them the best horses and most of the weapons. Little Wolf was to keep going, fight his way back up here to the Tongue River while Morning Star would surrender with the old and weak, trusting to the benevolence of the U.S. Army."

"The Army isn't a notably benevolent organization," said Rick.

"No. No, it isn't." Walksalone took a deep breath as if he were gathering strength. "It was the dead of winter, below zero most of the time. Morning Star's band was captured and taken to Fort Robinson. Of course, the commander told them they had to go back to Oklahoma, and, of course, they said they'd rather die right where they were. The commander, an idiot named Henry Wessels, decided that they'd change their minds if he cut off their food and heat.

"Well, that lasted for six days, and finally there was nothing else to do but escape." There was a small smile on Walksalone's face. "You see, Indians aren't all that stupid, and so when the Army ordered them to 'disarm,' they turned in the worst of their weapons and hid the rest. They had about a dozen old rifles, and the rest just took kitchen knives or whatever they could find."

"So many of them had no moccasins that witnesses said there was a trail of blood in the snow leading from the fort. The pursuit and the slaughter went on for three weeks."

"Those who were wounded were brought back to the fort; but, when Wessels asked them again if they would go back to Oklahoma, one of the women stood up and said, 'You've already killed most of us. Why don't you just go ahead and finish the job?'"

"Tough people," observed Rick.

"Yes, they are," agreed Walksalone. "Dull Knife eventually made it to the Sioux reservation to the West. Weak as they were, they had run almost all the way; and every time the troops caught up, one of his chiefs would drop back and fight until he died, and then he'd be replaced by another who would drop back, fight, and die. The warriors under Little Wolf were faster and more dangerous, so they made it as well."

Walksalone took off his hat and, pulling a bandanna out from his back pocket, wiped the moisture off the sweatband. "So that was it. Dull Knife was never allowed back here to the Tongue River. The few Cheyenne left alive made an agreement with General Miles that they would remain peaceful if allowed to stay. It's a small reservation, smaller than most of the others, but it's our home."

Walksalone put the Resistol back on his head, set it firmly, and stood up. Rick stood as well. Walksalone said, "So, Whirlwind, do you think the Cheyenne can take on a few deluded idiots?"

"Sure sounds like it."

The Indian held out his hand. Rick shook it and felt the strength of the man's grip.

"We will honor your request, and I think the printouts you've brought should persuade even the greediest that the coal deal is a bad one. Good luck with your hunt."

As Rick walked up to the motor home, he could see that Eps and Scotty had found a faucet, attached a hose, and were just finishing scrubbing off the last of the pink color. Since it was a Sunday and they were hidden from view by the tire retread facility, they decided to stay where they were. A planning meeting soon assembled on the couches and bucket seats of the "living room" area.

"OK, first thing is to find Sage, and that means we need to find Cloyes," Rick said. "My bet is that he's not going to be involved in the attack. He'll have some strong point well out of the action and direct everything by radio."

"Congratulations! Give the man a Kewpie doll!" Eps said, "Steve just found his frequency, and, indeed, he appears to be buttoned up somewhere in that humongous power plant they're building up in Colstrip."

"Sadly, Steve can't triangulate his location closer than a box a couple of miles on a side," explained Scotty.

"How long will that take us to search?" Rick asked.

"It's not really relevant." Eps answered. "Steve also said that what they're calling 'Operation Sand Creek Two' is going to happen early tonight. We don't have enough time to perform a physical search."

Kristee's fingers buried themselves in the tough vinyl of the bench seat, and the muscles on her jaw stood out like ridges of stone.

Scotty glanced at her and held up his hands in a "hold on" gesture. "There's another way. We can split up and do a triangulation on his radio signal. It will be imprecise at first, but if he keeps talking, we'll keep moving and decrease the margin of error."

Kristee exploded. "So fucking what! You decrease the margin of whatever? How does it help find my kid?"

Scotty started to speak, stopped, and started again. "When we get done, we'll know exactly where she is."

Kristee relaxed slightly. "Oh. OK."

Scotty turned to Eps. "We need two points of reference. You offload and set up a receiver here for the baseline, on top of Tire Tread City would work. Stay low so no one can see you."

Eps nodded and ran out the door. Almost immediately, they could hear the sounds of boxes scraping and slamming in the cargo compartments under the floor.

Scotty continued, "I'll get the exact frequencies from Steve and then re-configure our rooftop parabolic receiver. That should take me," he glanced at his watch, "approximately twelve minutes. Then we'll start moving the Travco and calibrating the angles."

He turned to head for the workroom but stopped and faced Rick and Kristee. "We will do what we can, but, frankly, Eps and I aren't highly skilled at direct confrontation. Once we find Cloyes, you two are going to have to take the lead."

Rick looked at Kristee and watched as her eyes narrowed in concentration. "I don't think that will be a problem."