Winter Rain

Jonah shook his head again. Then stared into the Shoshone’s eyes. “No. I don’t have that much time to burn now. I got the scent of that bastard strong in my nose right now. After all these years—at long last I can smell him. Nawww, I ain’t bound to lose him—to lose my woman again just ’cause I messed up watching things over my shoulder.”

The warrior had pushed up from the rock shelf, stood brushing his hide leggings before they went to their horses. “I don’t go now—you still ride?”

“I will.” Jonah had nodded, confirmed. “A man must. You don’t go—it’s all right. I’ll go on alone.”

“Yes. You alone before I come. You go do what is right anyway. That is why I go with you now.”

There had been no more words, nothing more between them but the clasp of hands in that practice of solidarity between men.

And now it had been hours since the Shoshone had declared his allegiance to Hook’s plan to go after the six, to take them off his backtrail in one fell swoop. Hours since they had really talked. Having seen where the Danites had camped, found what side of camp the horses were grazed, seeing the size of their fire as autumn’s twilight squeezed down early on this land—the two sat propped against a handful of man-sized boulders less than a mile from the Danites’ fire, waiting for moondown, waiting to move in and put an end to Hook’s backtrail problem.

Jonah finally said what he had been thinking ever since they emerged into the bright fall sunlight in the Red Desert Basin earlier that day and reined their horses into the tracks left by the six.

“Thank you, Two Sleep.”

“You say so when we are done, Hook,” the Shoshone replied. “When we go back to go on get your family.”

He sighed, gazing up at the spinning sky overhead, stars clear as dewdrops on corn silk of an early summer morning, the whole shiny glitter of them seeming almost close enough for him to reach out and knock those droplets off with a flick of his fingers. Not knowing why he couldn’t reach that far.

“You don’t have to do this, you know.”

“I know,” Two Sleep replied. “I do it with you.”

“That’s just it. Can’t figure out why you’d want to walk in there with me—when the odds are agin us.”

The Shoshone looked over at the white man riding beside him. “Odds better when I come, no?”

“This bunch is likely good at killing, Two Sleep. They didn’t get into Usher’s group—they didn’t stay alive in that bastard’s outfit less’n they were awful good with guns.”

“This Usher you tell me—he send the best back for you, yes?”

Jonah nodded. “I suppose he would. His best. Do it clean and quick.”

It was the warrior’s time to sigh and contemplate. “Then—you … me. We do much more to be better.”

After he had patted the Shoshone’s arm reassuringly, Jonah gazed a moment at the aging warrior in the pale starlight. “It still doesn’t tell me why you come along. This ain’t your fight. Not riding on with me to the land of the Mormons neither. Can’t make sense of why you just don’t ride off down that road where you was heading when you bumped into me.”

“Told you. Like your whiskey. Like your company.”

“Don’t have any more whiskey, goddammit. You seen to that.”

Two Sleep nodded, pursed his lips. “So all I got is a friend to ride with, yes?”

“No. It’s gotta be more than that. More reason for you to pick this same bloody road as I picked for myself. Some good goddamned reason to put your life down for me. Why? Why you doing this for me?”

“Not for you,” he answered abruptly. “This trail is for me.”

“You? How—”

“Last chance for me, Hook.”

Jonah wagged his head, failing to make sense of any of it. Yet. “What the hell for—”

“I lost my woman. Lost children too,” the Shoshone admitted.

“White men? Like these bastards?”

“No,” he answered. “Got my own devils, Hook. You got yours.”

“Who then? Who took ’em? You know ’em?”

“I know. Lakota.”

“The Sioux?”

“Brule. Burnt Thigh. Bunch under Pawnee Killer.”

“Happened not long ago, I’d suppose.”

“No. Long time. Fourteen winters now. They gone a long time.”

“They? The Lakota come in and took your family?”

“Them didn’t die. Woman. She tall and pretty. My daughter too. Twelve summers old then. Both taken.”

“Other children?”

“Three boys. All fighting age.” He bent his head, staring at his lap.

Studying the way the Shoshone held his impassive face surrounding those liquid eyes, Hook realized the man was still mourning. Even after all this time. Fourteen years, going on fifteen.

“What happened to them? Your boys? The three of ’em.”

Still bent over in prayerful repose, Two Sleep drew a single index finger nearly the circumference of his neck, then used that finger to draw a circle around his head, ending his wordless description by yanking on his own greasy topknot.

“Goddle-mighty,” Jonah exclaimed quietly. “Them Brule killed ’em all—all three of ’em?”

Two Sleep held up both his hands, palms up in a plaintive gesture. “All gone. Sons gone on Star Road now. I put them in the trees. Above the ground. Where the wind talk to them for all time.”