Sidewinder (6 page)

Felicity’s eyes narrowed to twin slits as she stared hard at the approaching rider.

“Are you sure that’s not Brad?” she said to Julio. “That’s Brad’s roan, Ginger, sure as I’m looking at him. See that blaze on Ginger’s forehead?”

“I see it,” Julio said. “It looks like the roan gelding.”

“And it looks like Brad’s hat. He must be hurt. He looks so . . . so small.”

“He is small,” Julio said. “That is not Brad. That is an
indio
.”

In the clear mountain air, Felicity could see a long way, but it was difficult to judge distances. The rider was still almost a mile away, maybe half a mile, and when he turned his head, she could plainly see Brad’s grease- and sweat-mottled gray Stetson on the man’s head. But, was it Brad? Her heart was starting to plummet in her chest as the rider slowly came closer.

She stood up in her stirrups and waved again.

“Brad, Brad,” she shouted at the top of her voice. “Over here. Over here.”

She waved and the rider raised an arm. Just raised it. The rider did not wave. Brad would have waved. He would have called to her. Her heart finished its plunge, and she could hear its rapid beating in her eardrum.

“That is not Brad,” Julio said, and gripped the stock of his rifle as if to pull it from its boot.

“No, Julio,” Felicity said, “don’t you dare shoot that man.”

“I will not shoot,” he said, letting the rifle slide back a few inches. “I will be ready to shoot.”

“Did you see him wave back at me?” she asked.

“He raised his arm.”

“Maybe he’s hurt.”

Julio said nothing. He continued to stare at the rider, and he kept his hand on the stock of his rifle.

Brad’s horse was picking its way along an ill-defined game trail that was rocky and treacherous. The gelding tossed its head every few steps, flaring its mane, its tail switching at deer flies, its steps careful and, to Felicity, painfully slow.

“Brad,” she called again.

The rider did not answer, and with her heart sinking even more into that netherworld of fear and anxiety, she knew the rider was not her husband.

As Ginger came closer, Felicity saw the rider’s face. It was a dark face, and the sun glinted off polished leather the color of burgundy. High cheekbones, straight black hair, a deerskin tunic, elk-hide trousers. Moccasins in the stirrups. Beaded moccasins. A knife at his belt. There was also something tucked into his belt about belly button high, some kind of leather pouch, she thought. It had loops in it and a leather drawstring. She supposed it was a kind of possibles pouch carried inside his trousers. She had never seen a full-blood Indian this close before. He looked fearsome, and she was still not sure if he could be trusted.

“His face is not painted,” Julio breathed in what sounded to Felicity like a sigh of relief.

“No,” she said tightly.

The Arapaho reined Ginger in some ten yards from where Felicity and Julio sat their horses.

“Where is my husband?” Felicity asked.

“You are the woman of Brad Storm?” Wading Crow asked.

“I am his wife, yes.”

“I catch his horse.”

“I can see that. What have you done with my husband? With Brad?”

“You come. You follow.”

Wading Crow turned Ginger off the trail and headed for higher ground.

“Where are you taking us?” Felicity demanded, spurring her horse to catch up with the Arapaho.

“Take to Brad,” Wading Crow answered.

Felicity looked over at Julio, who was trying to flank Wading Crow. He shrugged.

“Is it far?” Felicity asked, an anxiousness in her voice that betrayed her doubts.

“No far,” Wading Crow answered.

She looked at Brad’s hat on Wading Crow’s head. It was battered and scuffed, and she thought she saw red stains on the underside of the brim. Blood, she thought. Brad’s blood.

“Is . . . is my husband hurt?” she asked. She could see the Arapaho up close now. His expression was taciturn. Like the iron in the mountains, it was reddish and brown at the same time, an ancient mask that brought up stories she had heard as a girl about the savage behavior of the Indian. An involuntary shudder coursed through her, and she fought to keep her emotions from showing.

Wading Crow did not answer right away, and Felicity resisted the urge to pound on her saddle horn with a balled-up fist.

“Husband good,” he said. “Rattlesnake bite him. Gray Owl suck out poison.”

“Are you Gray Owl?” she said.

“Me Wading Crow.”

She had the feeling that Wading Crow was deliberately talking to her as if he knew only a few words of English. She suspected he could talk better than he did.

“Is that blood on Brad’s hat?” she asked, pointing to her own brim.

“Blood yes. Rock fall on Brad. Break head.”

“His head is broken?”

“Little broke,” Wading Crow said in that same, exasperating laconic tone of voice. She wanted to shake him, make him open up and tell her everything that had happened to Brad.

Wading Crow rode Brad’s horse zigzag up the steep slope, avoiding the rocky, unstable area where the landslide had occurred. There were deep fissures all along the slope, gouged out by the melting snows, the spring runoff, and recent rains. Wisely, he let Ginger pick his way, find his footing, only using the reins to turn him back away from the more treacherous footing.

Clouds billowed out from behind the range to the north and west, great white thunderheads that blew slowly in their direction. Julio caught Felicity’s attention and pointed to them.

“
Va a llover
,” he said. “Much rain soon.”

“Oh, I do hope we get back home with Brad before that storm catches us up here. Do you know where he’s taking us?”

Julio shook his head. His forehead wrinkled with worry as he kept glancing up at the clouds.

They neared the top of the ridge, when Wading Crow held up his hand. He reined up and turned the horse to face Julio and Felicity.

“Why are we stopping?” she asked. “Are we close to where Brad is?”

Wading Crow touched a finger to his lips. He dismounted and handed the reins to Julio.

“
Espérate aquí
,” he said to Julio in a low voice.

Felicity understood him.

“Why does he want us to wait here?” she asked Julio. “What’s he going to do?”

Again, Julio shrugged, his face a blank.

Wading Crow reached into one of Brad’s saddlebags and pulled out a forked stick, less than a foot long. The stick, cut from a juniper limb, was thick, the two ends sharpened to a point. He crouched low and began to stalk something neither Julio or Felicity could see. They both looked at each other in puzzlement.

Then they both heard the rattle a few yards ahead of Wading Crow. Both stiffened in their saddles. Felicity brought up her hand to her mouth as if to stifle a scream.

Julio’s eyes widened. Felicity felt a shiver ripple up her spine. She had heard such rattles before, and she had a terrible fear of snakes. Brad had taught her to freeze and make no sudden movements.

“If you don’t threaten a rattler, he’ll run off eventually. If you get too close, the snake will strike. If you do get bit, just walk away and be calm. Otherwise, you’ll speed up the poison.”

She had never been bitten, but every time she heard a rattlesnake, she followed Brad’s advice and just froze stock-still. As he had said, the snake would stop rattling, and she would see it slither away. But the fear was there, deep inside her, and she wondered why the Indian was going after one with that forked stick.

Wading Crow crouched even lower and moved so slowly it seemed to take him hours to make a single step. He paused after each step but moved ever closer. The rattling got louder the closer he got to the snake.

Finally, he stopped and very slowly straightened up. He raised the forked stick even more slowly and just stood there, staring at the ground. Neither Julio or Felicity could see the snake. But they could hear it.

Wading Crow inched closer to the spot where he focused his attention. One inch. Two. Then another. Then he drew in a breath and held it. His arm came down so fast that it was a blur, and he drove the stick into the ground. Then he pounced and the rattling became more frantic. He drove a hand straight down into the grass, his left hand, and knelt down. When his hand reappeared, he was holding a timber rattler, less than a foot long. It was fat and squirmed in Wading Crow’s grip, lashing one way then another. He pulled the forked stick from the ground and began walking back to where Julio and Felicity were waiting, their hearts pounding like trip-hammers.

Felicity recoiled when Wading Crow got close. She closed her eyes and swallowed a scream. The horses grew nervous and tried to bolt or skitter away from the sound of danger. Julio and Felicity both pulled hard on the reins, the bits cutting into the horses’ mouths and tongues, forcing their heads downward.

Wading Crow put the stick back in the saddlebag, then pulled the leather pouch out of his belt and worked the opening larger. He held the sack beneath the snake and watched it. He was holding the rattler just behind its head. Its mouth was open, and the fangs dripped venom as it struggled to free itself.

At the right moment, Wading Crow plunged the snake down into the bag and let the bag droop as he held onto the drawstring. The opening closed, and Wading Crow squeezed the top and pulled the drawstring tight.

Felicity felt faint. Her heart pounded, and her temples throbbed with rushing blood.

Julio’s hand shook as he handed the reins to Wading Crow.

The bag shook with the snake’s thrashings. Wading Crow tied the drawstring into a tight knot, then put it in the saddlebag next to the forked stick.

He mounted Brad’s horse as if he had just stopped at a spring for a drink of water.

“We go,” he said, and headed up toward the timber.

“What does he want with a snake?” Felicity asked Julio. “My god, what if it had gotten loose?”

Julio shrugged.

“Maybe he is going to eat it,” he said.

Felicity shuddered again, then drew in a long breath.

In the distance, she could hear a faint rumble of thunder.

And the white clouds moved closer like a fleet of sailing ships. Behind them, more clouds, and their undersides were dark as if they had been dusted with charcoal.

High above them, a hawk sailed down into the valley, its head moving from side to side as it hunted below a blue sky, its wings burnished golden by the sun.

Gray Owl filled a small clay bowl with warm roots, dried venison, and a thick broth. He handed the bowl to Brad.

“You eat,” he said, signing with fingers to his own mouth.

“My belly feels pretty rocky.”

“Eat. Good. Keep bad hand down. Hand get small again.”

Brad took the bowl with his right hand, letting his left arm dangle. It made sense, he thought. The snake venom would stay close to his hand until it disappeared. The main thing, he thought, was to keep his hand below his heart. He knew that much from talking to men who had been snakebit. He gathered that Wading Crow had carried him here with his hand hanging low since the poison hadn’t gone up his arm. What venom had been in his hand had been mostly sucked out by Gray Owl. He felt he was a very lucky man.

He put the bowl between his legs and dipped his right hand into the food, drew it to his mouth. It tasted odd.

“Chew slow,” Gray Owl said.

Brad chewed slowly and swallowed the food. It seemed that he could feel its energy once it hit his stomach.

“Are you going to tell me the rest of that story, Gray Owl?”

“Good story. Heap more story.”

Brad continued eating, a bite at a time, as Gray Owl ate and talked at the same time.

“The boy go to the Snake Village. Many snakes attack the boy. He chew the herb and spit at the snakes. They run away. Boy goes to Snake Chief. Snake Chief good to the boy, but say he go home. Walk no more to the Lower Place.

“Snake Chief have two daughters. The boy sleeps with one that night. Next day, he say he go back home. Snake Chief offer one of two daughters to boy. He take girl he sleep with. He . . . ah . . .”

“Choose?” Brad said.

“Yes. He choose girl he have under the blanket. Snake Chief, he marry girl and boy. Chief tell boy to make piki bread. Piki must be white, yellow, blue, and red. He tell boy to take to mountain near village and scatter bread before he go home.

“The wife of the boy, she get fat with child. Long way back to village. Boy scatter piki in right way on mountain, white, yellow, red, and blue. The mountains all changed quick. This is the way the Hopi people use the color in the mountains. Hopi use red for painting pottery, the red and yellow to paint moccasins, the blue for painting their bodies.”

Brad had noticed the different colored bands in the mountains, mesas, and buttes of the southwest when he had journeyed to the Rockies from Missouri.