Badlands Bloodsport

“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!”

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