Badlands Bloodsport

“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.

15

Fargo was numb from cold and exhaustion, at moments even falling asleep in the saddle, when he suddenly started awake at the sound of a woman’s piercing scream.

His right hand automatically knocked the riding thong from the hammer of his Colt even as he slewed around in the saddle to look behind him. The three conveyances had halted, and Rebecca, Jessica, and Ericka were pouring out of them. Fargo spotted Skeets—the group’s best marksman—lying in a crumpled heap beside the coach.

He wheeled the Ovaro and rode back, swinging down from the saddle and kneeling beside the inert form.

Ericka said, “Is he . . .?”

Fargo didn’t bother to check for a pulse. The back of Skeets’s head had been smashed to a bloody pulp, and his neck had snapped at an impossible angle when he fell off the box.

“He is,” Fargo confirmed. “Prob’ly dead before he even hit the ground.”

“Before he—?” Rebecca looked confused. “But didn’t the fall kill him?”

“He landed on his front,” Fargo explained. “His face is scraped up some, is all.”