Wind Walker

THIRTY-THREE

There comes an overwhelming peace when a man finally stands upon the ground where he is prepared to die.

When all things are suddenly made right in his world … and in the world beyond.

Those five Blackfoot yelled at one another as they reached the rolling, snowy bottom ground along the Judith River. Close enough were these enemies that Scratch could see how they sneered and maybe even cackled to find themselves pursued by only three Crow horsemen. So sure of their numbers and their strength that they could rein up at any moment, whirl around, and overwhelm these three puny pursuers. Especially since they were sure to see that two of them were old men. A pair of tired old warriors, and the five of them were clearly strong, vital, and in the flower of their youth.

It did not matter to him what the hell the Blackfoot thought, or what the devil they did when all eight of them got close enough to fight. He kept his wind-weeping eye on that Red Coat, seeing now how the man clutched his left arm low against his hip. Wounded by the shot Bass gave him in the village after the Blackfoot killed Waits, but not wounded near bad enough that his pony couldn’t lick it over this broken ground with the four others. No matter what those five warriors did when it came time for the close fighting, which way they turned or how they squared off against their pursuers, Titus vowed he would keep his eye on Red Coat, follow him to the death—and if Red Coat was the only one Bass could strangle this cold day … then all things would be made right in his world.

Scratch turned to Bear Who Sleeps. “The Red Coat is mine. He took my wife from me in camp.”

The young man nodded solemnly. “I know. That one is yours.” Then the Crow leaned forward slightly to peer around the white man and look directly at the Shoshone. “Friend,” he said, a word that surprised both Bass and Slays in the Night, “I will go after these enemies on the left: the Painted Robe and the Green-Stripe Blanket.”

Into a wild and feral smile, the Shoshone’s old, wrinkled face beamed with happiness. “It is good! This day I will kill the Yellow Paint Elkskin and Buffalo Horn Headdress! Keee-yiiii!”

It was clear to see that the Blackfoot were running the horses toward the edge of an icy slough where the dead and hollow stalks of seven-foot-tall reeds stood shuddering in the freezing wind, the bottoms of every bush and clump of willow already collecting a delicate white ringlet of snow—a tiny, hard, icy snow. Not the gentle whisper of dry, downy flakes that normally fell on these northern plains, but a deadly, wind-driven pelting of pain. The stolen horses began to scatter off the narrow path they had been taking, starting to turn this way and that as the snow-crusted meadow widened against the long, narrow borders of willow, alder, and skeletal cottonwood, trees that seemingly stood alone against the lowering blue-black bulk of the clouds.

This had always been a beautiful valley, he remembered as he spotted the first of the snow-dusted beaver lodges. The industrious creatures had turned this meadow into a home fit for several families of the flat-tails. But now they and their tiny kits were holed up inside the warmth of their domed mud-and-branch lodges, staying dry, on shelves that kept them out of the freezing water, until spring finally broke winter’s hold on this high and dangerous land once more in nature’s never-ending cycle of giving life back after all had been taken away with the coming of a deep and mighty cold. Yes, this had always been a beautiful place, he reminded himself.

A fitting place to see this through to the end.

The Blackfoot wouldn’t have much cover if they didn’t make it to the foothills of those mountains still miles and miles away. He heard the first muffled gunshot from off to their left and turned quickly. Couldn’t see any of the other raiders, nor the rest of the Crow pursuers. Another shot. The others must be drawing close enough to the raiders to bring things to a fight, he thought—but he kept his eye on Red Coat. And noticing how the gunshots unnerved some of the five enemies. No, these Blackfoot would not have much cover to hide in once they went afoot in this frozen swamp … but neither would their pursuers.

That’s why Titus determined he would stay in the saddle as long as possible. He was nowhere near as quick and nimble on foot as his strong, young enemies would be. And he would have a decided advantage over the wounded man if he was able to run Red Coat down with his horse. Besides, he told himself as the five began to drift apart, no longer in a tight bunch, this painted pony beneath him might just serve as the finest shield of all for one or maybe two lead balls fired his way when things got close and deadly. When the guns of these enemies started to roar and their muzzles spewed jets of yellow fire back at their pursuers.

Closer and closer they got to the Blackfoot as the five continued to drift apart, two going to the right and Slays in the Night reining away with them. The other three he followed with Bear Who Sleeps. Red Coat turned to look over his shoulder, fear beginning to show in his eyes for the first time.

“You remember me, don’t you?” he screamed at the warrior.

Red Coat stared a long moment at the white man, blinked.

“Yes! I’m the one going to kill you!”

As he turned back around, Red Coat shouted something to those who rode at his side. Buffalo Horn Headdress and Yellow Paint Elkskin were busy a moment pulling at something attached to the front part of their bodies. Figuring they were dragging pistols from their belts, he prepared to duck the moment they twisted around to fire at him … but then he watched the two companions with Red Coat bring their hands to their faces. They hadn’t brought pistols!

In a moment they turned to peer back at their two pursuers, and Bass saw both had put whistles between their teeth. The sort of eagle wingbone whistle that many warriors wore from narrow thongs around their necks as they went into battle. Holding it between their lips as they charged into battle, blowing those shrill, high, keening notes of the majestic warbird, calling upon its spirit, invoking its courage and strength, perhaps praying that the cry of their whistle would turn an enemy’s knees to water.

“Not today, boys,” Titus muttered grimly. “Nothing gonna turn me away from this last fight.”

The faintly shrill sounds of those whistles drifted back on a brutal gust of wind as winter’s fury snarled past his ears with a mournful death howl—

Suddenly Buffalo Horn Headdress yanked back on his reins and brought his frightened pony around so savagely that the horse almost toppled with its rider into the soggy, icy bog of this grassy meadow, where beaver would thrive and a new generation flourish come the floods of spring. The young man’s face was one of determination as he blew on his whistle, lowered his short-barreled English smoothbore at the two advancing enemies, then slammed the heels of his thick winter moccasins into his pony’s sides.

“A brave one—this!” shouted Bear Who Sleeps.

“I only want Red Coat!” Titus screamed.

“Yes!” Bear Who Sleeps replied as he brought out his heavy flintlock pistol and raked back the hammer. “This coup is for me!”

“Shoot straight!” Titus roared at the warrior. “And your heart will be sure to follow!”

“My bones are the rocks of this earth” Bear Who Sleeps sang his high-pitched song, “and my eyes are doors to the sky! I will live always with those rocks and the sky!”

With a quick jab of the heels, Titus sharply reined his pinto to the right, away from the Crow, his eyes searching for the Shoshone and the other two Blackfoot. He found that Green-Stripe Blanket had dismounted and dropped to one knee, bringing up his rifle. But Slays in the Night was quick enough, good enough at that deadly range—firing before the Blackfoot could, tumbling the warrior onto his back as the Shoshone rode on over the dying man after that shot, pursuing Painted Robe on into the thick stands of reeds so tall they could almost hide a man on horseback.

Gunfire roared to his left, a little behind. Two shots so close together they could have been the two halves of a man’s heartbeat. Twisting around, Bass watched Bear Who Sleeps bound backward onto the rear flank of his pony, his arms flung wide as he pitched off the horse into a shallow puddle of ice-rimed meadow water. Buffalo Horn Headdress immediately leaped his horse over the body of his enemy and reined around sharply, the pony’s hooves sending up cockscombs of dirty spray at the edge of the shallow beaver pond. The eyes of the Blackfoot were trained on his next enemy as he suspended the empty firearm from the front of his saddle by a leather loop tied through its trigger guard. His other arm was already reaching behind his shoulder, pulling a bow and a handful of arrows from the wolfhide quiver strapped across his back.

Those intense, black-cherry eyes widened as Bass raced directly for him, bringing up his old flintlock as Buffalo Horn Headdress nocked an arrow against the twisted rawhide string and started to muscle it back. Scratch sensed the buck of his rifle as it fired—the half-inch-thick ball catching his enemy midchest. The bow and its lone arrow went spilling one way, the rest of the short arrows and the warrior toppled off the far side of the horse.

Yanking back on his reins, Bass skidded to a halt right over the body. The luster was gone from the eyes that peered up at him, the lips slowly releasing the wingbone whistle he had clamped between his teeth … mouthing something in silence. Then the lips moved no more.

Titus quickly jerked around, looked over his shoulder, and spotted the backs of the other two as they pushed their ponies behind the stolen horses up the long, low slope at the side of this beaver meadow, making for the saplings and stunted cedar. With a moment’s hesitation, he reluctantly opened his left hand, watching the long-cherished flintlock tumble into the icy scum of black water.

“You been a good girl,” he whispered, his eyes burning with remembrance and regret. “‘Ol’ Make-’Em-Come’ … you brung me all the way through the years ’thout ever lettin’ me down. Appears I gotta do the rest of this on my own now.”

Freeing a wild cry that raked his throat like the shards of a broken china mug some trader might use to dispense his watered-down whiskey, Titus Bass wheeled his wide-eyed, lathered pony and pounded his legs into its ribs—setting off after the last two. Stuffing the thick braid of buffalo-hair rein between his teeth, the old man yanked out both pistols from his belt.

A muffled shot rang out somewhere to his right. Must have been Slays in the Night, he figured. With a quick glance, he realized could not see anything of the others. Only the two left in front of him. They were all that mattered now. His old friend was finishing his business with these men who had stolen and killed what had mattered most to the Shoshone. Slays was having his finest moment—a redemption long coming to a man who had chosen the wrong path so many winters ago. A man who had climbed back onto his feet and owned up to his trespasses … stepping back from the brink of dishonor.

No matter now, Bass thought, Slays in the Night will die a warrior, an honorable man. His will be a life redeemed before his Creator, here in these glorious final heartbeats of a man’s existence.

That’s what it was. Redemption—

There! Yellow Paint Elkskin was leaning off his pony ungainly, suddenly lunging to the side, frantically grabbing a handful of Red Coat’s sleeve as the warrior Bass had wounded back in the Crow camp slowly keeled to the side. Try as he might, Yellow Paint Elkskin could not prevent the wounded man from falling off his horse. Red Coat flopped to the snowy slope in a patch of cedar, rolled onto his back, and kicked his legs a little. Then lay still.

With that same awkwardness, Yellow Paint Elkskin wheeled his pony above his dying companion, then faced the oncoming enemy. The warrior slowly dismounted to kneel over Red Coat. As Bass thundered down on him the Blackfoot struggled with something at the front of Red Coat’s blood-soaked sash. Yellow Paint Elkskin’s arm became a blur as it shot up in an arc, a long yellow tongue of flame spewing from the weapon in the Indian’s bare brown hand.

Bass sensed it slam into his chest, but not in a painful, gut-numbing way. Instead, as if the warrior had swung a long, stout limb of hickory at Titus as the white man rode past. Connecting with his breastbone so unmistakably solidly that its impact immediately made him weak to the soles of his moccasins. With a jerk he clamped down on the pistols with both cold hands, gritted his teeth around that braided rein, and did his best to lock his legs around the girth of his pony’s rib cage. But instead it was as if some unseen hand reached out and had him by the nape of the neck, yanking him loose and flinging him off the back of the horse.

The air exploded from his lungs in an audible gush as he hit the hard, frozen snow and slid more than five feet, ultimately stopping against a clump of eight-foot-high willow growing at the edge of the frozen beaver pond. Frantically sucking in a breath, he blinked that one eye clear and tried to look down at his chest. It was hard to breathe. Pulling apart the folds of his blanket coat and the buffalo-hide vest, he saw it … and it took his breath away. A small black hole was seeping a little red. But not near enough, he cheered himself—

Then heard the warrior’s shrill cry.

Rolling onto his left elbow, he flexed the fingers of both hands, found he had the pair of pistols still locked in them despite his fall from the pony … but discovered he had little strength to drag his legs under him. They were sluggish, almost like something once rigid or stiff now gone soggy and limp. They moved for him a little, and far too slowly as he attempted to rise. That war cry growing louder.

Bass managed to get turned slightly, recognizing the hard breathiness of the Blackfoot as the warrior bore down on him, a short war club held high overhead. Two blades, big ones, steel daggers, one protruding from each side of the club’s head, swung high in the air, where they sliced their way through the swirling dance of the wind-driven snowflakes. All of a sudden his stomach wanted to lurch with the sour, thick taste of blood gumming up the back of his throat.

He knew he’d been shot in the lights. The way a man would bring down his family’s supper. About the only way a man dropped as big a beast as a buffalo. Here he was … the old bull, he brooded. The old bull brought down by a shot to the lights.

But Titus forced back down what little contents his stomach held and squeezed his eyes shut an instant. Gasping for a breath as some blood and a little stomach bile gushed from his nostrils, the old mountain man pitched forward on hands and knees, coughing up red and yellow phlegm, managing to pivot onto one knee as the warrior loomed right in front of him.

His left hand bucked with the heavy powder charge in the pistol. On instinct he brought up the right hand at the target too, then caught himself for a heartbeat. Yellow Paint Elkskin was so close Bass could see his face, realize how young he was, less than half his own age … that smooth, flawless, un-lined flesh suddenly turning gray as his moccasins slipped out from under him and he pitched backward with the force of the lead ball at such close range. Bass was showered with icy snow the man’s spinning feet kicked up right in front of the trapper as the warrior crumpled backward with a grunt, hit the ground, then slowly kicked himself backward on the snow, using both of his legs in an ever-slowing cadence.

Turning at the sound of the hoofbeats, Scratch quickly reloaded the pistol with powder and ball as he prepared himself to find Slays in the Night, ready to tell his old friend that, sure, even though he’d been shot in the chest, it wasn’t all that bad. He’d make it through to night … if Slays and the others could only get a fire going to warm him. Titus was just beginning to sense the deepening cold growing there in the very core of him—

But it was Green-Stripe Blanket bounding out of the timber, cutting to his right around the edge of the pond and the tall reeds, then suddenly reining up in a spray of icy snow and pond water. Bass blinked, spotting the smear of blood soaking the warrior’s upper arm, as the Blackfoot wheeled his pony, called back up the hill.

Slowly, his head as unresponsive as a hundredweight pack of beaver hides, Scratch turned slightly … and found Painted Robe walking out of the scrub timber where Slays in the Night had followed the two. At the end of his left hand unmistakably hung the old Shoshone’s full scalp, the long black-and-gray hair dragging the new crust of snow.

He was alone. Except for Pretty On Top and the others. But the sounds of their fighting came from so, so far away. He was alone, with this pistol, and his two knives, and the short-handled tomahawk that rubbed against the base of his spine. Alone with these last two Blackfoot. Yet both of them did not matter. Only one now. Painted Robe. Because that warrior carried an old friend’s scalp.

The Blackfoot talked to one another. Not as if Bass could understand the two warriors, even really hear what they had to say in the shockingly cold air that seemed to cocoon around him all the more tightly, air so cold it was hard for him to catch his breath, nothing more than little gasps now. But—he watched their mouths moving as Green-Stripe Blanket urged his pony ahead a few more yards, then stopped halfway between the white man and the body of Yellow Paint Elkskin. As Titus’s head began to weave and he felt the immense cold seeping down from his chest and into his belly, Green-Stripe Blanket nudged his horse into motion again, angling up the side of the hill slightly, moving out of Bass’s vision now—gone to that left side where there was no seeing unless he managed to turn his head … that refused to budge.

Then he heard Painted Robe’s moccasins crunch on the crusty snow and willed himself to look at that enemy. The warrior was yelling something to the unseen horseman. Then the Blackfoot started walking again, coming boldly around the upper end of the beaver meadow, where some of the stunted trees had been felled by the industrious flat-tails. One of them was still behind him, he remembered. And turned with a jerk that made his head swim.

But he found Green-Stripe Blanket had remained motionless, his pony standing uneasily over the bloodied body of Buffalo Horn Headdress. He yelled something at Painted Robe, then pointed off to the body of Red Coat.

Painted Robe cried angrily, shaking the Shoshone’s scalp.

But Scratch’s eye was drawn back to Green-Stripe Blanket as the warrior dropped to the ground. He tugged on the knot in that bright red sash that held the blanket around his waist and pulled a pistol from the sash as he freed the rein from his other mitten. That enemy was closer, Titus decided, and started to twist his upper body around so he could aim his last pistol at the nearer of his two enemies.

Yet while Green-Stripe Blanket stood only a matter of yards away, the warrior did not raise his pistol to fire. Instead he merely stared, his eyes glowing like coals there inside the hood made from the hide of a gray prairie wolf. Studying the white man.

I’m being given this chance, Scratch thought. This one last chance before he shoots—

The pistol bucked in his hand, and Green-Stripe Blanket visibly flinched as the ball passed harmlessly over his shoulder.

Damn, he thought as the realization that he had missed slapped him. Scratch crumpled forward onto his hands in the snow as he started to heave, his stomach spewing what little it held, blood and bile dripping from his lips and out of his nostrils too, steamy and warm on the frozen snow between his knees. He coughed, gagging some more—then recognized the sound of footsteps.

Turning his heavy head in that direction, he expected to find Green-Stripe Blanket come to finish him off with his pistol, but instead it was Painted Robe, carrying that long, black-and-gray scalp in one hand and a small-headed tomahawk in his right—the blade and some of the haft glistening with frozen blood. Fixing his gaze on that limp, bloody scalp, Titus wrenched himself backward, unsteadily rocking onto his knees until he managed to hold himself steady and reached around to the small of his back with his left hand, feeling for his own tomahawk. He needed it now that he held his last loaded firearm. With the heel of that hand clutching the tomahawk, Scratch shoved back the hammer to full cock and brought his wobbly arm up, the muzzle of the weapon weaving side to side across its target.

He’d already killed the bastard who killed his woman. And before he died he’d finish off the one who had scalped Slays in the Night. That done, it didn’t matter what Green-Stripe Blanket did behind him. Hell, his mind rumbled with the thought, he was halfway to dead already. More’n that now … ’cause he was already halfway to dead when he put the Crow camp behind him and rode after these raiders, knowing in his marrow this was the last time he would ride away from his wife’s people.

Real Bird had forewarned him, told the white man of that awful dream. But across the last three days there wasn’t a one of the Crow warriors who remembered the old prophet’s vision of doom for Titus Bass. There was simply too much misery and loss, too much blood someone must atone for, that any man who had long ago heard of Real Bird’s vision would think to warn the old trapper that he best stay in the village with his children and protect the camp. But here the old rattle-shaker’s dream was, come to pass—

He wearily pulled back on the trigger, heard the klattttch of the hammer as it fell against the frizzen. But the pistol didn’t fire. Nothing more than a muffled phfffft of what little powder lay in the pan. For an instant he stared down at it, finding the black grains mixed with icy flecks of snow, realizing everything had been ruined when he tumbled off his horse into the trampled snow beside the frozen beaver pond—

The warrior’s cry caused him to jerk up, but not in complete surprise. He had expected this.

Already Painted Robe was lunging his way … then suddenly stopped no more than five feet away and, for some crazed reason, stood staring down at the white man. His eyes wild, he yelled something to Green-Stripe Blanket, but Bass did not care enough to worry about the one still behind him. He heard that wounded warrior trudging on the crusty snow, heard his steps as that unseen one, who wore the skullcap of a wolf tied around his head, circled to his left until he stood far back of Painted Robe’s shoulder. That’s when Painted Robe raised the scalp up at the end of his arm, held it straight out from his shoulder, shook it, and cursed. Finally he spit on the hair, a second time, then flung it aside into the beaver pond.

With his one good eye, Bass watched the scalplock sail through the snowy air, land among those stalks of dried, frozen rushes, tangled among them and suspended for a moment before it fell to the thin layer of dirty ice.

“You stupid, ignernt idjit,” Titus growled, finding himself renewed as he spoke for the first time to these enemies. “You figger that’s a Crow scalp, don’cha?”

Painted Robe’s eyes narrowed as he shifted the tomahawk in his right hand.

With a snort of wild, unrestrained laughter, Titus pulled free the tomahawk from the back of his belt and roared, “Joke’s on you, nigger! Joke’s on you!”

As he was attempting to raise his tomahawk and heave himself onto one foot, Painted Robe snarled and lunged forward, the warrior’s tomahawk cocking back in an arc as the Indian loomed over him. The handles of their weapons clattered together an instant before the two men collided. Bass spilled backward, Painted Robe atop him, the Blackfoot doing his best to swing the tomahawk at the end of his wrist. Suddenly Bass flung his head forward, slamming his forehead against the side of the warrior’s jaw. Painted Robe hesitated.

And Scratch swung with his tomahawk, connecting with the back of the Indian’s head, but only a glancing blow with the side of the blade, stunning the warrior.

With a pained grunt, the Blackfoot roped his left arm around the back of the white man’s neck and yanked Bass’s head off the ground as he raised the tomahawk in his right hand, preparing to slam it down into the trapper’s face. But Titus shoved his open mouth right against the warrior’s chin, clamping down with all he was worth, feeling his teeth grinding through the thin layer of flesh and muscle, tightening on bone.

He heard the man crying out, felt the Indian’s hot breath there on his forehead as he chewed and clamped harder still, trying all the while to swing his own tomahawk with what strength he had left as the Blackfoot struggled, wriggled, thrashed—

Then Scratch felt it tear him in half.

As the white man released his grip on the Indian’s chin, he cried out in shock. The lower half of his face smeared with blood, the warrior pulled back slightly. Like the bullet wound, Bass did not want to look. He knew already. Even though he had yet to feel the pain of it, he realized he had been dealt a second mortal wound. The terrible cold seemed to envelop his whole belly as he willed his left arm to squirm free from where it was imprisoned between their two bodies, so it could rise into the air clutching his tomahawk.

One of their voices screamed as he brought down the weapon in the last, desperate act of a doomed man, driving the bottom point of the blade into the crown at the back of the Blackfoot’s head. Perhaps it was Green-Stripe Blanket who had cried out a warning to his friend. Bass wasn’t for sure. He couldn’t see the other warrior.

Or, it might have been Painted Robe himself who screamed as he saw the tomahawk on its way and could not get his head out of its path. Or, perhaps he yelled in surprise and pain the instant the sharp blade was being driven through his skull and into his brain. Bass felt the hot splatter of blood and brain. …

But none of that mattered now as Painted Robe collapsed backward, his legs tangled with the white man’s as all strength drained out of the trapper. The Blackfoot spilled one way, Titus slowly sank onto his elbow, rolled onto his back away from the warrior, and let out a long raspy sigh.

Hard to breathe, growing harder still. His chest filling up with blood. Shot in the lights.

Gradually the fingers of his right hand crawled to his belly, feeling the amazing warmth, the gushing wetness, the bubbles of gut spewing from the deep, long, ghastly wound that had opened him up from side to side. Scratch closed his eyes, wishing he could have held Waits one more time. Wishing he could have spent just one more night lying against her before this last day had been given them both. Just one more night with her—

Sensing a presence, Scratch slowly opened his eyes, blinking his one good one until it focused on the hazy form that moved over him, then stopped. Green-Stripe Blanket stood frozen over the old man for a long, long time. Staring down at the white man. Then the Blackfoot’s hand started down for the trapper’s throat.

In a futile move, Bass seized the Indian’s wrist, held it as tightly as he could while the Blackfoot used his other hand to pull himself free of the trapper’s grip. It wasn’t hard; almost all Scratch’s strength was gone. His head flopped back into the bloody, trampled snow. Titus knew he was too weak to delay, much less stop, what was to come. But a strange calmness seeped through him as he realized death was now. Assured of it all the more when Green-Stripe Blanket reached around the back of the white man’s head and seized hold of the collar of Bass’s greasy warshirt.

Ain’t you got a surprise comin’? Scratch thought as he was rolled onto his side. Figger to tear off my hat to scalp me now … an’you’re gonna find I awready been scalped!

He felt his fur hat get torn off, then started to snort with this one last joke on his murderers when the Indian suddenly dropped to a knee so he could stare intently into Bass’s face. The young warrior reached out tentatively, as if unsure of what he was about to do, then gently tugged the faded black silk bandanna off the old trapper’s head. The Blackfoot’s eyes widened … but not in fear or surprise. Instead, in something like … like recognition.

For a moment the Blackfoot’s eyes grew big with wonder, even awe, as he looked this way, then that—as if afraid the Crow war party would come racing over the brow of the nearby hills and discover him … but eventually his dark eyes came back to rest on the white man’s face once more. Not near as wide now, no longer filled with amazement. Strangely, they had grown soft.

Titus gagged, felt his riven stomach lurch as he did his best to turn his head aside, puking up a great glob of blood onto the Blackfoot’s arm, the one that still gripped him by the back of his collar. Sensing how weak he was becoming, how much the temperature had fallen since he had ridden down on these five raiders, Scratch watched with dulled senses as the Indian scrambled onto his feet, turned, and with that hand still gripping the back of Bass’s collar … started to drag the white man across the crusty snow.

Slowly, yard by yard, lunge by lunge, the young man got the old trapper turned. As the Blackfoot started up the long, shallow slope toward the stand of some saplings and taller timber, away from the rushes and willow, escaping the dirty ice of that frozen beaver pond, one of the white man’s useless legs at a time slowly straightened out and trailed along behind him. He was helpless now. No matter what the Blackfoot decided to do with his body, it could not matter. He was good as dead already.

That dirty trench of new snow he was leaving behind told the story, smeared with gobs of his blood. How he struggled to maintain enough strength to hold in the long, warm, greasy coils of his own sundered gut, warm, steaming intestine that squirted out between his hands, escaping the pressure of his arms, spilling to his left side where Painted Robe had opened him like one of his grandpap’s Christmas hogs … trailing beside him in the snow. Oh—how he didn’t want his guts to be dragged through the bloody trench up this long, sagebrush-covered slope as the fat, frozen, fluffy flakes of snow collected on his coupled arms, steaming on the purplish coil of his warm gut that he could no longer contain.

With a grunt from them both, the Blackfoot stopped. Shifted his position, then yanked on the white man once more. Then again. Finally a last time. And eventually came around in front of the trapper, seized both of Bass’s shoulders, and tugged him up into a sitting position.

He struggled to focus that one good eye on the warrior as the Blackfoot gently nudged him back now. Without protest, unable to fight, Titus sensed the trunk of the tree press between his shoulder blades. He let his head relax back against the rough bark and sighed. Listening to the sounds of the warrior as the Blackfoot moved off on the icy snow.

Titus coughed and spewed up some bloody phlegm. Nothing left in his belly to bring up but more blood. Hell, he didn’t have a belly left to hold anything—

Suddenly the warrior was kneeling close again, unfurling the red capote as Bass watched the swimming of the colors and motion. Must be the murderer’s coat, he thought. But why?

Green-Stripe Blanket gently spread the red capote over the white man’s bloody body. He tugged it down Bass’s legs and tucked it under them. Watching this ceremony with complete disbelief, Bass finally brought his one good eye again to the man’s face. The smeared paint, the high cheekbones … like so many other brownskins he had fought and killed in all his seasons in this high and terrible land.

But this man’s eyes were soft. Not like the chertlike eyes of Yellow Paint Elkskin, or Buffalo Horn Headdress. Not at all like Painted Robe’s eyes filled with such hatred and fury. “Old man,” the Indian’s lips said.

Bass thought he shook his head slightly, heavy as it was, befuddled that he understood the Blackfoot’s language. And he tried to speak, but no sound came from his own tongue.

“Don’t talk, old man,” the warrior said, his words clear and distinct inside the white man’s head again. As if the Blackfoot spoke a passable American. “Save your breath for what must come next. You must save your breath to start your walk on the wind.”

“W-walk?” he finally uttered in a moist whisper. “Wind?”

With a nod, the Blackfoot stuffed a hand inside his blanket, reaching inside the sleeveless buffalo-hide vest he wore, where two of his fingers snagged the long, thin leather loop that was draped around his neck. Bending his head slightly, the warrior tugged the thong free of his otter-wrapped braids, on over the top of his head where he had tied a big handful of the hair at the front of his brow into a grease-crusted sprig that stood straight up, the sort of hairstyle a warrior would adapt when riding into battle, a symbol that any fighting man would understand: he was daring all his enemies to attempt to take his taunting scalplock.

With a tug, the Blackfoot finally pulled an object free from beneath the front of that buffalo-hide vest Bass could now make out was sewn from the reddish skin of a young buffalo calf. Straining, his vision fixed on what the warrior held out between them, the object just inches from the white man’s eyes.

An eagle wingbone whistle, suspended from its thong and gently nudged by the icy wind that spat sharp snowy arrow-points against their exposed flesh.

But … not just any eagle wingbone whistle. The half breath seized inside what Titus had left of his lungs. This … this whistle appeared familiar. Wrapped in porcupine quills of oxblood red and greasy yellow. A simple pattern of flattened, colored quills that he could not help but recognize.

Eventually his moist, swimming eye climbed to the warrior’s face. Something like a smile seemed to cross that face as the Indian realized the old man was studying him. The Blackfoot reached up to his chin, yanked on the thong that tied the wolfhide cape on his head, and pulled it off.

“Do you know me now, old man?”

There it was again. That perfect white man’s American talk he magically heard inside his head when the Blackfoot opened his mouth, moved his lips and tongue. Even though other, foreign sounds came out of the warrior’s face, like the garbled tangle of some foreign language … what Bass heard inside his head was nonetheless American talk he understood perfectly.

“I-I don’t know you,” and he hacked up more of the thick blood congealing at the back of his throat. Finally he stared at the whistle, and whispered, “But … I know th-that.”

“It was my brother’s,” the warrior said inside Bass’s head. “You killed him many, many winters ago.”

He stared at the whistle, realizing what the Blackfoot said must surely be true. That was where he had seen it before, having taken it off the dead man he had eventually buried in a tree, wrapped in a warrior’s red blanket.

“I don’t have a red blanket to bury you in,” the young warrior apologized. “The way you buried my brother that day. All I have is this red coat that belonged to my friend who you killed.”

Swallowing, Bass explained, “He killed my wife.”

“Your woman?”

“In the village. He was the only one of you I really wanted. I am glad he is dead now.”

“It is good you can wear his capote,” the young warrior declared. “He honors you, a mighty warrior who killed him. You wear the color of war as you die, old man. Just the way you honored my brother many winters ago.”

“One warrior always honors ano-another.”

As the first tear slipped from the Blackfoot’s eye, he said, “And you honored me that day too. Giving me my brother’s war whistle, placing it between my lips to blow for him as he began to take his first steps on the wind.”

He didn’t know if he could talk anymore, it was getting so hard to breathe, just to keep his eyes open, “I-I …”

“Don’t go to sleep yet,” the Indian scolded. “You must walk this last road alone, but you must walk it before you sleep.”

“C-can’t—”

Scratch felt the Blackfoot slip the long leather loop around his neck, tug it down behind his long, curly hair, then gently straighten it out before he held up the whistle once more.

“Yes … you can. Because you are a warrior. You must do this before you start your last, long walk.”

Then the young man brought his fingers up, gently parting the old trapper’s lips, prying his teeth apart as Bass felt himself sinking into such unimaginable cold. Eventually the youngster managed to slip the end of the whistle between Scratch’s teeth.

Leaning back at last, the Blackfoot brought his face down close to the old man’s, his two dark-cherry eyes looking back and forth between the good eye and that milky, clouded one.

At long last the warrior whispered, “Now … it is time for you to blow for yourself. Blow to call on the First Maker, the guardian of all warriors. Blow to call upon He Who Will Listen To Our Final Prayers. Blow, you old warrior!”

He tried, but only a weak whisper of air escaped the end of the warrior’s wingbone whistle.

“You must try harder, old man,” the Blackfoot urged. “The day you were born, the First Maker blew His breath into your mouth, into your spirit the very moment you emerged from your mother’s womb. Now it is time for you to blow out your last breath, to return it back to the First Maker … in the great circle of a warrior’s life. That first breath He gave you, now you must send it back to Him with your final prayer, old warrior. One last breath and it will be finished.”

He tried again. A little louder.

“That wasn’t your last,” the warrior explained. “The last will be strong. As strong and mighty as you have been a warrior all those seasons you have walked this earth. But now, you must begin a different journey. You will begin to walk on the wind for all time. So you must blow.”

Leaning back, the Blackfoot rocked onto his haunches, then stood, looking down at the white man. “This is for you to do now, on your own. Make this last prayer of yours a good one, old warrior. The First Maker will hear what prayer rests in your heart as you blow with that final breath … and he will be there to walk beside you on the wind.”

Bass sat there, leaning against the tree, blinking his pooling eyes as the young warrior turned slowly and trudged down the gentle slope. After a few steps, the young man whose life he had once saved, the young man whom Titus Bass had once sent back to his people … this Blackfoot warrior stopped—turned—and spoke one last time.

“Pray for what is most dear in your heart, Wind Walker.”