Badlands Bloodsport

“Old Sylvester here ain’t got much to worry about,” Slappy piped up. “He’s goin’ bald. But they might slice off them-air muttonchops, use ’em for fly swishers.”

“Sew up your lips,” Fargo snapped. “Nobody’s getting scalped if we pull together and play this thing smart.”

But as Fargo forked leather and headed forward again for another scout, he felt the dreaded goose tickle on the back of his neck—they’d better play it damn smart, because bad trouble would soon be on their trail, and Fargo knew full well the implacable wrath and astounding skill of Cheyenne warriors.

 * * * 

“Fathers and brothers!” Touch the Clouds spoke up. “You know me! It is true that I was once taken slave by the yellow eyes as a child and learned their tongue. But did I not escape and return to my people? And when did I ever hide in my tepee when the war cry sounded? How many times have I cut short my hair for our dead? Unlike the hair-faces, who speak to the Indian from both sides of their mouths, I speak one way always. Have ears for my words!!”

Thirty Cheyenne headmen filled the hide-covered council lodge erected on the bank of Crying Woman Creek. Touch the Clouds had already privately informed Chief Yellow Bear of the extraordinary events that had interrupted the buffalo hunt one sleep earlier. An emergency meeting had been called to discuss it with the subchiefs and clan leaders who held voting power.

“Every brave here has seen your coup stick,” Yellow Bear responded. “The women sing of your deeds in their sewing lodge. Now speak words that we may pick up and examine.”

Carefully and accurately, Touch the Clouds reported all of it: how the two white men from the Land of the Grandmother Queen had killed “he who may not be mentioned”—by strict custom he did not name the dead herd spy, Little Horse—and scattered the herd far to the west. He described the attack on the white camp, the loss of a second brave, and how Touch the Clouds had counted coup on Son of Light.

“These two hair-faces who killed he who may not be mentioned,” Yellow Bear said. “Do you believe they knew they were shooting a man?”

“No, Father. They are stupid men and probably thought they were shooting a small buffalo. They were at a great distance from the herd.”

Smiling Wolf, a hotheaded brave from the Antelope Eaters Clan, shot to his feet. “Fathers and brothers, this does not matter! We all know the Hunt Law is strict on this point. Any white man who interferes with the hunt places the white stink on all the buffalo across the plains. Only vengeance will lift the stink. If we fail to lift it, the entire tribe will starve!”

The lodge erupted in shouts and argument. Yellow Bear folded his arms until it was quiet.

“Touch the Clouds,” he said, “I have heard of this Son of Light, whom the whites call Fargo. Did he try to kill you when you counted coup on him?”

“No, Father, and clearly he ordered his people to shoot for horses, not braves. I believe he spoke straight-arrow when he promised me he was trying to keep these ignorant men away from the herd. But he failed. And even if he means to respect our hunt, is he not leading these butchers to other herds? It is true that Smiling Wolf is quick to rise on his hind legs, yet he is right: If we do not avenge the Hunt Law violation and lift the stink, our women and children and elders will starve!”

An elderly brave with sixty winters behind him, River of Winds, sat just to Yellow Bear’s right at the head of the lodge. His flowing white mane of hair encircled a face as weathered and wrinkled as an old apple core. The custodian of the tribe’s four sacred Medicine Arrows, his advice was highly prized. Yellow Bear looked at him now.

“There was a time,” the Arrow Keeper said, “when I thought the white men were just another small tribe, one we might share our ranges with. But east of Great Waters, they have spread like locusts and driven the red men to worthless lands. They have exterminated entire tribes with the yellow vomit and the pox, diseases we never suffered before they came. And their strong water—it makes women of our men, destroying the warrior ways as they crave this drink brewed by the Wendigo.”

River of Winds paused to glance outside the lodge, where grieving women were bathing two bodies. Even now two new funeral scaffolds were being erected. His voice suddenly grew stronger.

“Only through the tribe do we live on! If the tribe succumbs, then so, too, does the collective memory of every Cheyenne. Our Winter Count records our past deeds, but it will die also. I wish no harm to Son of Light—in many ways he is like us. Nor do I counsel lightly for the taking of blood—even paleface blood. They are fools who wrap their feet in leather and spur horses, but in their wrath for revenge against the red man they are fearsome. Yet I fear we are bound by tribal law. Only through the tribe can we live on, so we must save the tribe. I have spoken. Now let younger men turn my words to deeds.”