Badlands Bloodsport

23

Touch the Clouds opened his mouth to give the command.

“Now, Slappy,” Fargo said.

Slappy handed the drawing to Fargo, who quickly turned it around so the others could see it. This was the moment of truth for the beleaguered whites: If Touch the Clouds or his companions had seen white men’s portrait art before, Fargo’s long shot would fail—and at first he feared it had done so.

The first reaction of all five braves was unremarkable. Their eyes, accustomed only to the wavy lines, crude figures, and symbolic shapes of the Cheyenne winter-count, were now staring at something altogether new to their world: a lifelike portrait of a living brave astride his mustang. They simply refused to understand it and were incapable of even knowing what all these bold black lines meant.

Then, all of an instant, Touch the Clouds sucked in a sharp, hissing breath. His face lost much of its color, and he nervously nudged his pony back a few paces. The others, too, followed suit, one even turning his pony in fright and riding back to join the others. All pretense of an “expressionless face” was gone now as the remaining four braves showed fear, wonder, and confusion.

“It cannot be me,” Touch the Clouds managed. “Yet it is, most certainly! And my buckskin . . . how can I be sitting my horse, speaking now, yet frozen on this . . . this thin piece of bark?”

A massive weight lifted from Fargo’s shoulders. But landing the dally rope did not mean the horse was corralled.

“It is you,” Fargo assured him. “But only your mortal image. It was stolen from you by a powerful bruja who travels with me. Her power is greater than all the wind and seas, than even the sun. She lives by night and, when forced to it, travels the evil road of black shamanism.”

Fargo had used the Spanish word bruja—witch—knowing the northern tribes had learned it from Southern Plains Indians.

All four Cheyennes continued to stare at the drawing, deeply frightened yet too fascinated to look away. Fargo continued:

“So far my own medicine has held her back. But you must know that, with one simple chant, she can take far more than your image from you: She can take your soul and even the soul of your medicine bag. You know what this means? You and your entire clan will wander blind and alone in the Forest of Tears, tortured by the Wendigo for eternity.”

Touch the Clouds, stammering a few times, translated this for the others. Fargo almost felt guilty when he saw the frozen masks of fear their faces became.

“It need not happen,” he added. “The choice is up to you and your braves. You can return with the killer who is in the wagon—and with this to show the elders and your chief. When they see it, and hear the true words you will speak, they will know you were wise and satisfied Hunt Law while also saving your people from the evil road.”

Touch the Clouds now felt the awful weight of leadership. Truly this stolen image was great magic, magic to be respected. But he must also save face with his braves and his tribe. He could not simply bound away like a frightened antelope.

Fargo read these doubts in the battle leader’s face. “Take this,” he suggested, offering the drawing. “Ride the line of your men and let each see it. Then make your decision. You can touch it—it cannot harm you.”

Touch the Clouds nodded. Hesitantly, he took the artwork gingerly in one hand and did as Fargo proposed. His companions rode the battle line with him.

“Fargo,” Slappy muttered, “you beat the Dutch! These red sons is shittin’ their clouts.”

“Don’t tack up the bunting just yet,” Fargo warned. “That hothead on the claybank who tried to count coup on us earlier looks like he’s ready to eat our warm livers. This whole plan could fail if a few braves don’t swallow it.”

But Fargo saw the shock and fear register on each face—including the hothead’s—as Touch the Clouds walked his mustang slowly along the line, showing the drawing to each warrior. Two more panicked and galloped their ponies to the south. This was followed by an animated discussion for perhaps five minutes.

“Tarnation,” Slappy said, his voice nervous, “I don’t like all this flap-jaw. Mebbe we shoulda tried meanery over shecoonery.”

Touch the Clouds rode back to join the whites. “We have ears for your plan, Fargo,” he announced. “But first my men wish to see this great bruja.”

Fargo had anticipated this. He looked back over his shoulder and called out, “Ericka!”

Slowly the English noblewoman emerged from the mud wagon, clad now in a flowing red robe with silver satin facings. She had pulled her long auburn hair from its chignon and now the dark strands flew in every direction, Medusa-like, in the chilly wind. She had applied kohl heavily around her eyes and thick rouge to her cheeks—black, the color of death and evil medicine, red, the color of courage. This heavy painting did not mar her beauty but only made it fierce and fearsome.

She glided slowly closer, as if flowing rather than walking. As Fargo had instructed, she focused her eyes nowhere and they seemed like lifeless marbles to the awed Indians.

“You want to hear her chant?” Fargo asked Touch the Clouds. Slappy was biting his lower lip so hard that blood oozed out.

“No, Son of Light! She is indeed real! We will take the prisoner and ride out! If your medicine is powerful enough, put her back!”

Fargo raised one hand and made a circle with it, spitting twice into the grass. Ericka revolved as if on a dais, returning to the wagon. In less than a minute the braves had thrown Derek, twisting and screaming, onto a pony and lashed his ankles to his wrists under its belly. With the mysterious medicine image tucked carefully under one arm, Touch the Clouds loosed a whoop and the Cheyenne warriors thumped their mustangs to a gallop across the grassy plain.

“Look at ’em red Arabs streak!” Slappy exclaimed, removing his hat and tossing it into the air with a whoop. “Fargo, you got a set on you, all right. And won’t be long, Derek the Terrible ain’t gonna have a set on him!”

Fargo nodded and tried for his best English accent. “Quite right, old bean. The bloody rotter is in a bit of a sticky wicket now, what?”

The rest heard this and laughed. “Fargo,” an elated Lord Blackford called out in an equally dreadful American accent, “you jo-fired son of a bitch, you cap the climax!”

* * *

The Ovaro had a keen nose for water, so for the next two hours Fargo patiently led him by the bridle reins in ever-larger circles. Finally the thirsty stallion led him to a small seep spring fed by the giant aquifer that underlay much of the plains. But Fargo’s efforts were wasted—by late afternoon a civilian-relief detail from Fort Laramie arrived, complete with rations, medical supplies, fodder, and casks of water.

For the rest of that day and night, the horses were rested and recruited while the bone-weary human travelers enjoyed a long-overdue sleep under army guard. They left three hours before dawn and arrived at Fort Laramie—a drab assortment of mud-brick buildings and stables scattered hither and yon around a hard-packed parade deck—a few hours after sunset.

Fargo was assigned a small room in the bachelor-officers’ quarters behind the sutler store. Being naturally fiddle-footed, he planned to ride on to Santa Fe as soon as the Ovaro was well grained and up to full fettle. He was sitting at a small deal table, sharpening his Arkansas toothpick on a whetstone, when a trio of knocks sounded on the door.

A mysteriously smiling Ericka greeted him when he opened the door, her sketch pad under her arm. “Percival is playing whist with some of the officers, so I slipped away for a bit.”

Fargo smiled back, his blood already coursing faster in his veins. Ericka had always been his favorite of the three lovely Englishwomen. “Time for that surprise you mentioned?” he asked hopefully as she crossed the threshold and he closed the door.

The barren room had only two hard wooden chairs, and she settled into one of them. “Yes, it is. Please remove your clothing.”

Fargo’s grin was almost ear-to-ear. These British gals liked to skip the parsley and go right for the meat, all right. Already he could feel his manhood uncoiling like a snake.

He crossed to the narrow web bed and tossed back the rough army blanket. “You best start undressing first—it’ll take you longer.”

“Oh, I shan’t be undressing. Only you.”

Half of Fargo’s grin melted away. Even if she only meant to pleasure him with her mouth—an exciting prospect—he wanted to at least see and touch her shapely body. The rest of his grin melted completely when she settled the pad on her knees and opened to a fresh sheet.

“Lady Blackford—”

“Ericka. We’ve performed witchcraft together, remember?”

“Ericka, I’m a mite bewildered here. First you tell me to strip buck. Then you commence to sketching. What kind of ‘surprise’ are we talking about?”

“Not the kind you expected, as I promised. Skye, are you really in the habit of seducing married ladies?”

“With me, it’s always the lady’s choice, married or no. If they’re willing, I’m able.”

“Oh, I don’t question the ‘able’ part. But you must understand—unlike Jessica and Rebecca, I am married and take my marriage vows seriously. Percival may seem like an old sobersides—indeed, he is—but he’s my husband and I love him. You can respect that, can you not?”

“Yes,” Fargo replied reluctantly but truthfully. “That’s why it has to always be the lady’s choice. But if foofaraw isn’t on your mind, why ask me to strip naked?”

By now Fargo had removed his shirt and his hands had paused at his belt. She gazed admiringly at the hard slabs of scarred muscle layering his chest and roping his shoulders. Her eyes wandered farther south and widened at the huge bulge in his buckskin trousers.

“I intend to sketch you in the nude,” she replied demurely.

“In the—now, hold on here. If you think—”

Her laugh was soft and musical. “You needn’t stare at me so pop-eyed! Nude depictions are a completely legitimate aspect throughout the history of art.”

“Nude women, sure. I’ve seen a few, though they tend toward the plumpish for my tastes. But a naked man?”

“Oh, don’t be such a philistine. Michelangelo has sculpted male nudes, and even great religious paintings depict them.”

“Yeah,” Fargo replied, “I’ve seen a few of them, too, and all those men are a mite . . . poorly equipped, you might say. If you plan on shrinking me up like them—”

She laughed again. “Quite the opposite. As you’ve noticed, I am a realistic artist who sketches her subjects exactly as they are. That’s the whole point of sketching you.”

“Look,” Fargo argued, “if you mean all that, you can see the problem here. I can’t stand naked in front of a beautiful woman like you without—without—”

“Being hard?” she supplied with a naughty twinkle in her eyes.

“Yeah, that. And not one of them paintings you’re talking about shows that. A lady like you would ruin her reputation if she—”

“If she presented it publicly, yes, you’re correct. But, Skye, upon my word, this would be for my very private stock only. Think of it a moment. The genteel ladies of the Midlands gather together every late afternoon for high tea. Only they would ever see this. They would gaze upon it, admire it, perhaps even . . . stimulate themselves in the languorous hours of solitude while thinking dreamily of you. Would you deny them—and me—this great pleasure?”

Fargo did think about it for at least a full minute. The word “languorous” was too far north for him, but the rest of it was sounding better and better. And maybe someday he could even get to England and meet some of those stimulated ladies.

“Well,” he finally said, dropping his buckskins, “if it’s for the ladies of England . . .”