Badlands Bloodsport

14

By the time the Blackford party got rolling again, silver-white moonlight limned everything in a ghostly aura. Humans and horses were bone-tired, and even the Ovaro was growing ornery in the deepening cold. Fargo regretted the loss of that Platte River trading post not only for the ammo shortage—the grain, too, was depleted. Alfalfa and hay were not enough nourishment for horses being taxed to the limit as these were.

“I know there’s bad trouble on the spit,” Slappy remarked when Fargo fell back beside the fodder wagon. “But these team horses is fair done in, Fargo.”

Fargo grunted affirmation. “Don’t matter. If we have to, we’ll push ’em till they drop and then ride shank’s mare. Our only chance is Fort Laramie.”

“You think we can beat back another attack?”

“Depends where we are when it comes. I figure we’ll be out of the Badlands sometime tomorrow afternoon. That’ll put us on the open plains. If they hit us before we reach the plains, there’s a chance we can use the natural cover like we did for the last attack. And if we hoard our bullets, we might manage to drive them off one last time with our barking irons.”

Slappy nodded. “I take your drift. If they attack on the open plains, we’ll be like ducks on a fence and our ammo won’t hold.”

Fargo, busy gnawing a hunk off a heel of cold pone, nodded. “There might be another fly in the ointment. They might not trail us through the Badlands at all but swing just south of us across the open plains and cross our trail out in the open.”

“Uh-huh, meaning no natural cover. We’d be exposed like bedbugs on a clean sheet.”

Fargo gave him a weak grin. “Which is it, chum, bedbugs or ducks? But no matter how you slice it, I figure there’ll be at least two more attacks before we’re close enough to the fort to scare ’em off. And there ain’t enough ammo for two skirmishes.”

“Like old Montoya use to always say: Man proposes, but God disposes. It’s the damnedest thing—Montoya told me about this church down near Santa Fe. They got one whole wall covered with the crutches of crippled men what went there and prayed to be cured.”

“Crutches, huh? How many wooden legs did he see?”

Slappy gaped in confused astonishment. Fargo gave him a weary grin and nudged the Ovaro forward.

“Say, Davy Crockett!” Derek called down from the box of the mud wagon. The scornful twist of his mouth showed his contempt. “How was Rebecca? She didn’t squeal like a pig as Jessica did—p’r’aps the smell coming off you bothers the skirts from the better classes?”

Jessica’s curly head poked out of the mud wagon. “The only pig in this group, Mr. Wyler, is you. Your very name is gall and wormwood to me! I shall hire a band when Fargo kills you.”

“That bloody tongue of yours was pickled in vinegar, now, wasn’t it?” Derek replied. “You just mind your pints and quarts, lass, or I’ll box your ears for you. The worm will turn—when you see me beat your buckskin hero to a bloody pulp, you’ll be hiking your skirts for me. And by the Lord Harry I will roger you roundly—a better pumping than Fargo gave you, I’ll warrant.”

Jessica’s face turned to Fargo in the moonlight and she sighed. She mouthed the word impossible. Fargo doffed his hat.

He rode forward alongside the japanned coach. “How’s the team holding, Skeets?”

“The calico gelding is lugging as if he’s spavined. Only three are pulling. The calico won’t make it through the night, I shouldn’t think.”

“The short water ration isn’t helping,” Fargo said. “I hate to do it, but we may have to spell the horses for a couple of hours.”

Skeets lowered his voice. “Fargo, a word to the wise—don’t be so sure that Derek intends to wait until we reach Fort Laramie before he pounces. That clod-pole wants to hear you roar like a hog under the blade.”

“Clod-pole? I figured you two for friends. You were sure’s hell working as a team when you left me tied up on the plains.”

“That was before you and Jessica had your bit of fun. After that—cor!—the man turned into a bloody lunatic. They’ll make cheese out of chalk before he lets you make it to the fort alive—he’s afraid to kill you there knowing how much soldiers admire you.”

“You think he’s really harebrained enough to kill me while we’ve got warpath Indians on our spoor?”

Skeets turned his lipless face toward Fargo in the milky moonlight. “Fargo, he’s an angry bull and you’re his red rag. That bull doesn’t care about the slaughterhouse just ahead of him—he just wants that red rag. You just be careful of that skull-struck fool.”

“I plan to,” Fargo assured him, “but why this sudden concern about my hide?”

Skeets snorted. “Is your piece charged? You’re the only bloke among us who understands these flea-ridden aborigines. If Derek puts you with your ancestors, my guts will end up as tepee ropes.”

It sounded like an honest answer and Fargo accepted it in silence. Skeets wouldn’t likely end up as tepee ropes—horsehair ropes were far easier to fashion—but there was a good chance the men’s scrotums would end up as kinnikinnick pouches, their teeth as dice, their skulls as stew bowls, and their scalps as capes. The Cheyennes never wasted a part of the buffalo, and they were just as practical with white men.

“Another thing,” Skeets added, “don’t be fooled by all of Derek’s blowing off about beating you to death with his fists. He’s the lad can do it, all right, but he fears you’d give him a merry time of it, and he’s heard all the talk about that toothpick in your boot. He carries a two-shot over-and-under inside his coat, a Brasher. Both barrels fired together could drop a dray horse.”

Before Fargo could reply, the offside calico gelding Skeets had mentioned stumbled in the traces. Reluctantly Fargo called a two-hour halt.

The teams were unhitched and even Lord Blackford and a scowling Aldritch were drafted for the job of rubbing each animal down. Water was dwindling and the second water hole Fargo remembered had turned out to be alkali tainted. Hating to do it, Fargo used almost all of the drinking water for the horses.

“You sodding fool!” Derek roared out when he realized what was happening. “You’ll kill us!”

“We’re still the better part of two days away from Fort Laramie,” Fargo said. “We can make it on the few swallows a day I set aside for us. But these team horses are pulling, and they’re going to drop dead in the traces without this water. And then we will be killed, sure as sun in the morning.”

“We still have the saddle horses.”

“The strawberry roan and a sorrel were killed, and there were never enough horses for each person. A few of us would have to ride double, and these saddle horses are just as water starved. We desert these conveyances—our only cover—and those braves would ride us down like we were three-legged dogs.”

Derek had assumed his usual aggressive position, feet spread wide and thumbs hooked in his shell belt. Fargo kept a steady eye on his hands.

“And just how do we even know these bloody savages are still after us?” Derek demanded yet again. “We have only your word for it, and you’ve hardly a sterling record. You said there would be a second source of water, yet the bleeding thing was hardly more than a mud puddle filled with water that gives a man the runny shits.”

“Have you et Johnson grass and gone plumb loco?” Slappy demanded. “You need a good boot up your sitter, is all. Fargo first found that water five or six years ago, and it don’t take long in the Badlands for alkali to seep in. Christ sakes, he’s the only one among us that knows ‘B’ from a banjo. You don’t even know gee from haw.”

“Yes, Derek,” Ericka threw in, “you of all people should know that. He warned you and Skeets not to molest that buffalo herd, yet you did. And now look at the pretty kettle of fish we’re in.”

“He’s been right all along about the Indians, too.” Rebecca spoke up. “Lord Blackford hired him for his frontier expertise, and I hardly think a Tyburn hangman should overrule a man who—”

“Well, of course I haven’t spread my legs and tucked away his cod as you and Jessica have,” Derek snarled.

“All of you pipe down,” Fargo said. “It appears that Derek is challenging my leadership, so we’ll put this to a trail vote.”

He drew his Colt and thumb-cocked it. “If the majority votes yes, I’ll kill him right here. If the vote is no, I’ll kill him later as planned. Slappy?”

“Plug the son of a bitch.”

“Jessica?”

“Yes.”

“Rebecca?”

After a long pause: “No.”

“Lord Blackford?”

“I . . . that is, it would seem . . .”

“You got a fish bone caught in your throat?” Fargo snapped. “Kill him or no?”

“I should think not,” Blackford said.

“Aldritch?”

“Of course not. This is savage murder. Under Anglo-Saxon jurispru—”

“Skeets?”

“For the good of the group, kill him now.”

“Skeets, you sodding bastard,” Derek growled.

“Ericka?” Fargo completed the roll call.

“Yes. When we are attacked, he spends more time aiming at you than he does the Indians.”

“Well, it’s a tie,” Fargo said. “Too bad Montoya was killed.”

“Ain’t you got a vote, Fargo?” Slappy demanded.

“Well, if I do, then so does Derek and it’s still a tie.”

Fargo leathered his shooter. “Democracy isn’t always perfect, Derek. The rest of you try to stay warm and get some sleep. Me and Slappy will split the watch.”

In the generous moon-wash Derek looked like a man who had tried to swallow his food without chewing it.

“I promise you’re going to die hard, Fargo,” he finally managed.

“That’s a distinct possibility,” Fargo conceded cheerfully. “I face it almost every day. But I wager you’ll be feeding worms long before it happens.”

* * *

The Cheyenne were known as notorious late sleepers. So before they rolled into their blankets, on the day they recovered their scattered ponies, each brave drank copious amounts of water. Thus, aching bladders ensured that they were awake when their sister the sun finally streaked the eastern horizon like gleaming copper. A quick meal of pemmican and dried fruit fortified them for the battles ahead.

As was the custom, after they were all mounted they lined their ponies up to await the words of Touch the Clouds, their battle chief.

“Brothers!” he called out in the cold, still air. “You know me! You have seen me count coup and take scalps, and never have I played the rabbit!”

“You have the courage of five men, brother,” spoke up Smiling Wolf, the well-known hothead from the Antelope Eaters clan. His sturdy claybank was painted with red circles, the color of courage in battle. “Every man here knows that. However, does your wisdom always match your courage?”

Touch the Clouds watched him in the grainy morning light. He held his face impassive, for only women and white men showed their emotions in their faces.

“Do not hint and play guess-what games like the women and children,” Touch the Clouds replied. “Like a man, say boldly what you mean, Smiling Wolf.”

“Only this: Some of us know that you and Swift Canoe have spoken about this hair-face named Fargo. Both of you believe he has medicine, power. This is nonsense started by the toothless old grandmothers who invent songs about him. Brother, there is medicine in the motion of the wind, the stars, and in certain Indian shamans who have learned the medicine ways. Maiyun, the Great Supernatural, would never give holy power to white men. Why, he would give it to yellow curs first!”

Several braves murmured assent to this.

“And are you now a medicine man?” Touch the Clouds inquired. “Is it even so? Then why have you not turned the paleface bullets into sand and saved our brothers who may no longer be named?”

“You have always been clever at twisting words to say wrong things,” Smiling Wolf fired back, anger sharpening his tone. “No red man needs power to know that no white man can possess medicine. Unless you mean the medicine of the evil road practiced by those who live by night.”

“I say he has medicine,” Touch the Clouds said flatly. “And so do the Navajos down in the red-rock country. They even gave him a medicine name: Son of Light. This is no name for dark powers.”

“The Navajos? If Comancheros stole Cheyenne children, would we need a white dog to save them? I have heard that Navajo men grow corn and beans, yet we should believe them when they speak of medicine? And do the cowardly Poncas call him a god?”

“Time is wasting,” Touch the Clouds said impatiently. “If you have a point, pull it from your parfleche and let all of us examine it.”

“My point, war leader, is this. As our battle chief you can command us, at any time, not to kill Fargo. Is this your plan?”

“Such a plan would make me a traitor to the tribe. I am bound by Hunt Law and council decree, you know this. I admit I will not kill him myself except to save a brother. But you, Smiling Wolf, are eager to cover yourself in glory, as befits a young warrior. I command that all braves must hold back from killing him until you have had your chance.”

Smiling Wolf was well satisfied. He sat straighter on his pony, pride etching his features. “I am for him, brothers! His scalp will top the totem of the Antelope Eaters clan!”

“We will not ride through the malpais,” Touch the Clouds told all assembled, using an old Spanish word for the Badlands. “We know where they must be going—to the soldier town called Fort Laramie. Our ponies are trained to run hard in grass. We will circle around to the place where their slow-wheeled turtles must come into the open.”

“I have ears for this,” said the brave named Cries Yi-ee-a. “Brothers, these fools wrap their feet in stiff hides and press their lips against the mouths of their women—would they lick a dog’s mouth? Have you seen them greet each other? They grip each other’s hand and pump them up and down—when first I saw this, I fell upon the ground and laughed until my ribs hurt. ‘How do you do?’”

Laughter rippled through the group. Truly these white-skin invaders were a foolish and odious lot.

“If they were only fools,” Cries Yi-ee-a concluded, “we could leave them in peace. But they ruined our hunt, murdered he who is gone, and have killed more since. Touch the Clouds speaks of great medicine, but what of the evil medicine that must befall our entire people if this Fargo and his companions are not punished according to the Cheyenne law-ways? Let us cross our lances.”

Solemnly, each brave crossed his lance with the brave next to him. Now came the shrill, collective war cry for which the speaker was named: “Yii-ee-ya!”

Yipping loudly, holding their red-streamered lances high, their faces grim with the fierce determination of the warrior cult, the Cheyenne war party rode off for bloody glory.