The Holy Road

Chapter XLVI

Aside from the incessant, unseasonable rain which swamped the southern plains, the signs had been good for Wind In His Hair and the hostiles. They had been fortunate in striking several more small herds of buffalo and, despite having to dry the meat indoors, they had made enough to last beyond winter.

Everywhere their odyssey led them they met contingents of wanderers with like minds and, as the days until the deadline melted away, Wind In His Hair's camp swelled steadily. People from Comanche bands like the Antelope and the Liver-Eaters and Those Who Move Often had come together, as had significant groups of Kiowa, Cheyenne, and Arapaho.

With warriors in the hundreds to guide, Wind In His Hair was in constant council. Ten sleeps before the deadline, half a dozen parties of warriors had been selected, formed, and dispatched to specific corners of Comanche territory there to keep an eye on the hair-mouth soldier forts.

Wind In His Hair and his advisers had anticipated the army's plan, thinking the soldiers would try to push them from the south, and it seemed likely that the first enemies would come from the place called Fort Richardson. Owl Prophet, whose standing had been shaken but far from destroyed, declared adamantly that soldiers would be coming from the south.

Three Hard Shields — Dances With Wolves, Smiles A Lot, and Blue Turtle — had been chosen to make the far ride to Fort Richardson. The distance was great, as was the difficulty of sitting undetected under the soldiers' noses until their movements could be learned, but the hardest part was the unrelenting rain.

Descending the caprock required a man to be alert in the best of times but after a week of intermittent deluge the steep ground was greasy and the horses fought for footing all the-way down. The riders had to jump on and off constantly to give the animals a chance to stop sliding or gain their balance. Halfway down, Blue Turtle jumped off his pony, lost his feet, and might have gone over a precipice had he not been able to hang on to his horse's tail.

Bucolic streams had become racing, churning rivers, and at one crossing Dances With Wolves and Smiles A Lot were unhorsed when a large, thick log they were trying to avoid suddenly veered and struck both horses at once. For a quarter mile the warriors and their animals struggled in the current. Miraculously, both eventually made it to solid ground and were reunited with Blue Turtle. But Dances With Wolves lost his food, and from then on rations for two had to be shared by three.

Once they reached the vicinity of the white man fort, the three warriors were dismayed at how little spying they could actually accomplish. The best vantage point to be had was a thick growth of oak a quarter mile from the soldier fort, but with the incessant rain it afforded only fractured glimpses of enemy movement.

The sound of the rain, which dripped from every leaf of every tree, squashed all but the loudest noises coming from the fort, and for three days and nights the soaked, cold scouts huddled under the trees with their horses, nibbling at their dwindling supply of jerked meat.

They were too despondent to converse much, but when they did say something it usually pertained to the task at hand, and midway through the third day of their surveillance Smiles A Lot wondered if they should try to get some white man clothes, put them on Dances With Wolves, and let him go among whites.

Blue Turtle correctly pointed out how risky it would be to obtain the clothes and when they looked at Dances With Wolves for a response, he spat, “No more white man clothes," then rose from a squat and walked off through the drizzle.

On the morning of the fourth day, when the fog lifted a few hundred feet off the ground and sunlight was endeavoring to penetrate the gloom, the scouts were astonished to see the first riders in a long column starting out of the fort.

Seconds later the distinct cracking of twigs caused the three Comanches to turn. Only a few yards behind them was a large buck. Flanks heaving, he stood nervously and, as he craned his neck for a furtive look behind, the report of a gun exploded in the stillness.

A slug whistled through his antlers and, as the buck bounded away, another round was fired. The Comanche scouts could see white men, two of them, in civilian clothes, coming through the woods with rifles. And the white hunters could see them.

Fortunately for the spies, they had gathered up their weapons and made ready to move as soon as they saw the column starting out from the fort, intending to shadow it for a day or two before hurrying home with news of its existence.

But there was no time to shadow anything now. The hunters were already firing at them as Dances With Wolves, Smiles A Lot, and Blue Turtle leapt onto their ponies. They charged along the tree line until it ran out. No one was hit by the hunters, and if the soldiers saw them now, it couldn't be helped.

On hearing gunfire in the nearby woods, the column halted. But Captain Bradley was not overly disturbed. Since his initial, disastrous encounter at the dry streambed he had clashed with Indians several times, and the results had been far different. He had vanquished several small groups of Comanche and Kiowa raiders, overrunning and killing half a dozen warriors. His naive, bungling commandant had been replaced by an astute field officer, and since winning his captain's bars he felt supremely confident. Late experience told him that if he took the necessary precautions, kept a clear head, and thought on his feet, the men he led now could keep a whole nation of Indians at bay.

He had met General MacKenzie and held him in high regard. Mackenzie's obvious grit was something the captain wished to emulate, and he felt honored to be given the opportunity to play a vital role in the grand campaign to sweep the plains. As he sat squinting at the tree line for a sign of what might be causing the disturbance in the woods, Captain Bradley did so without a hint of trepidation.

A tiny knot of riders burst into the open at the end of the trees. They galloped up a long incline toward the naked brow of a low hill several hundred yards distant, and the captain noted with satisfaction that his chief of scouts, a levelheaded former ranger named Cox, had already raised his field glass to follow the runaways.

"Comanches?" Bradley asked casually.

“Sure are, Captain," Cox replied, the glass still pressed against his eye. "Three of 'em. They seen us. . they're ridin' like hell.”

"Good," the captain said cooly, "that's the whole idea.”

The chief of scouts suddenly lowered his field glass, squinted at the three riders for an instant, then raised the glass again.

"I'll be goddamned!"

He abruptly passed the glass to Captain Bradley.

"One of 'em looks like a white man. Take a look, Captain.”

Bradley raised the glass in time to see the three Comanches crest the little knob of a hill. One of them — his hair was cropped and he was appreciably taller than the others — happened to glance back a moment before he disappeared behind the rise. At first sight he might have passed for Indian, but, seeing the structure of his face and the roundness of his eyes, the captain was inclined to agree.

"Probably a deserter," Bradley theorized, handing the glass back.

"I've heard there's a few white men with,em, but I never seen one before."

"Me neither," the captain replied.

"I wouldn't want to be in his hide when we catch him.” Cox chuckled.

"No," the captain remarked, picking up his reins, “he won't have any skin to be in after the army gets him."