Badlands Bloodsport

“All right, then, duck,” Derek fumed. “But with me you’d be safe.”

Fargo laughed, tipped his hat to Jessica, and dropped back beside the fodder wagon. “How’s them two horses you patched up?” Fargo asked Montoya.

“After you cut the arrow points out, I rinsed the wounds with whiskey and covered them with bear grease. That will keep the flies off. A horse is an odd creature, Fargo. One little crack in a pastern can ruin it for life. Yet I once saw a Sioux arrow penetrate a horse in its right side and fall to the ground on its left. And that sabino continued to graze as if nothing had struck it!”

Montoya paused and then added in a more somber tone, “This matter with the Cheyennes—it is deadly serious, verdad?”

“Verdad.”

“You said we must use wit and wile to defeat them. What does that mean?”

“It means we can’t shoot our way out. I’ve checked all the ammo in this party, and there’s just not enough. We’ll have to use mentality, not bullets. I can’t chew it any finer than that right now. The red man sees and thinks about the world around him in a different way from us. That difference is going to be our hole card, but I haven’t turned it up yet.”

“This is—how you say?—thin,” Montoya said.

“Yeah,” Fargo agreed. “Mighty thin.”

 * * * 

By the time false dawn glowed in the east, the Blackford party had reached a stretch of low sand hills. These led, only a few miles to the south, to the heart of the Badlands marking the border between the Dakota and Nebraska territories.

Fargo halted the conveyances and addressed the nine men and women in his charge. “We’re going to stop right here in the midst of the hills. I don’t think the attacks will start until tomorrow, but in case I’m wrong all this loose sand and hilly terrain will make an attack difficult.”

“Is that Indian spy still out there?” Skeets demanded.

“He’ll be with us from now on. The Cheyenne believe in keeping their enemies close.”

“Fargo, how long will we be staying in this desolate sand?” Blackford complained. “Our water is low. And I’ve already got these blasted fleas all over me.”

“Only long enough to grab a few hours of sleep. I know of a seep spring just ahead where we can let the horses tank up and fill our water bags. Then we’re going to jog south toward Fort Laramie.”

“South?” Aldritch interposed. “Why, man, that will take us right into this Badlands we have been skirting for days.”

“No help for it,” Fargo said bluntly. “If we try to swing around it to the west, we’ll add days to the journey—days we can’t survive in constant battles.”

“Rubbish! We don’t even know if the savages will attack us again,” Aldritch said. “You could certainly be wrong, now, couldn’t you?”

“And if they do,” Blackford said with arrogant petulance, “it will most likely be because Fargo caused one to break his neck when he shot his horse out from under him.”

“No, Your Percyship,” Slappy cut in wickedly, “it’s on account your bootlick murdered one disguised as a buff.”

Fargo had to bite his lip to keep from laughing out loud at the “Percyship” gibe. It was still too dark to see Blackford’s reaction, but either Derek or Skeets snickered.

“You’ll keep a civil tongue in your head, you uncouth mudsill,” Blackford retorted hotly. “I’m paying your wages.”

“That’s a hoot. More like, Aldritch loaned you the money to pay ’em.”

“Stow it, Slappy,” Fargo ordered curtly. “We’ve got enough enemies as it is. We don’t need to turn on each other.”

“That’s good advice, Ebenezer,” Derek called from the box of the mud wagon.

“Chuck the flap-jaw, you egg-sucking groat!”

“Mr. Fargo,” spoke up Ericka, who had emerged from the fancy coach, “this Badlands—I have read that it is some of the most grotesque topography in America. Are you certain we can pass through it?”

“Confident, ma’am. I’ve traversed it several times with army mapmakers. I’ve crossed worse terrain in the Snake River lava beds and out in the Salt Desert of Utah. I even know of a water source.”

“How can we sleep right now,” Rebecca spoke up, “if we don’t know for certain whether there’ll be an Indian attack?”

“That’s no problem,” Fargo assured her. “Me, Montoya, and Slappy will go turnabout on guard. The Cheyenne believe bravery is born in the east, out of the sun, and they always attack from that direction. In this open terrain an attack won’t be a surprise.”

Fargo knew, from talking to Ericka and Rebecca, that they had read up far more on the American West than had Blackford or Aldritch. The question he had been dreading now cropped up.

“Mr. Fargo,” Ericka said in her lilting voice, “is it not true that the Lakota tribes are considered ‘battle cousins’ of the Cheyennes?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And this region around us—what tribe inhabits it?”

Fargo sighed. “Right now, Lady Blackford, we’re standing in the heart of Lakota country.”

6

“I must warn you, Skye,” Jessica said as the two of them moved farther into the hills, “not to be disappointed.”