Sidewinder (9 page)

Julio moved closer to the fire, sitting near Felicity and Brad on the buffalo robe. They drank water from their canteens. The men stepped outside to relieve themselves until Felicity could stand it no longer. She donned her slicker and ventured outside, too, after the hail stopped. Brad went with her. When she found a place, he took off his slicker and held it over her as she squatted next to the south side of a large juniper tree. They both heard the horses whinny several yards away.

When she had finished, Brad said, “Let’s check on the horses before we go back.”

“Good idea,” she said, her face glistening with rain drops.

The horses were packed together, their rumps to the wind. All wore the long rope halters Brad always carried with him when he rode off the ranch. He sometimes let the horses graze while he and Julio had lunch. He couldn’t find the saddles and bridles. It was too dark. He patted the necks of each horse and spoke soothingly to them.

“I’m glad I left Curly inside when I left,” Felicity said. “But, he’s going to be scared.”

“Yeah. Curly doesn’t like storms.”

“He doesn’t like thunder and lightning, you mean.”

“I know he shakes like he’s passing peach seeds every time a storm comes up.”

“Runs under our bed and hides.”

“Is that a safe place?” Brad kidded. “It’s good to know.”

“Not for you it isn’t,” she said, and they ducked their heads and trotted back through the trees. They could see the soft glow of firelight inside the Indian hut. They had forgotten to wear their hats, which probably saved those from being blown away, and when they returned, their heads were soaked to the scalp. They looked like a pair of drowned rats, but no one in the shelter laughed at them.

Felicity shook out her hair and combed it with her fingers, letting the warm air from the fire blow through her tresses until they dried.

The darkness came on, and the wind died down. But the rain persisted, and sometimes a gust would spray water through the small openings and spatter the fire and the people sitting around it, looking for all the world like a gathering of ascetics on some dark pilgrimage to the nether regions.

Gray Owl lit a small clay pipe and offered it around. Julio and Brad both shook their heads.

“You do not take the smoke?” Gray Owl said to Brad.

“Too hard to get tobacco. We live a long way from a general store.”

“Tobacco is good. To smoke is good.”

Brad noticed that Gray Owl had sprinkled some of the tobacco into the fire before he packed his pipe. And then he had blown smoke to the four directions before offering it to the others. Wading Crow took the pipe and did the same thing, blowing smoke in four directions.

“The Mexican sheepherders who bring their sheep to the mountains in summer bring much tobacco. We buy, we trade.” Wading Crow passed the pipe back to Gray Owl. “We have much tobacco. We buy the old sheep from them.”

“Wading Crow does not like sheep much,” Gray Owl remarked. “He likes the beef.”

“But we do not have beef anymore. If you have beef, Sidewinder, I would like to buy some cows from you.”

“I have beef,” Brad said. “I suppose I could sell you a few head. How will you pay?”

“I will pay in gold.”

“Gold?”

“My people have much gold.”

Julio’s eyebrows arched in surprise.

“Dust or nuggets?” Brad asked.

“Some dust. Some small nuggets. We have a scale as well.”

“Do you know where my ranch is?” Brad asked.

“Do you not live in the valley below where the Mexi cano Albert once lived?”

Brad exchanged a look with Julio. Felicity looked puzzled. She wore a quizzical expression on her face.

“Who is this Albert?” she asked. “Why have I never heard of him?”

“Julio, did you show her the burned house?” Brad asked.

“Yes. I did not tell her who had once lived there.”

“That was Albert’s house? Who was he? What happened?”

“Seguin,” Wading Crow said. “Albert Seguin. He and his woman, his two sons were killed by a very bad man, a stealer of cattle. There was an American boy living with him also. He, too, was killed. I did not know his name. He said he had run away.”

“He was from Denver, I heard,” Julio said. “The white boy. I had forgotten about him. His father rode down from Denver, took his body back there to be buried.”

“Do you know who the rustlers were?” Brad asked.

Gray Owl passed the pipe back to Wading Crow. He puffed slowly on it.

“We know the stealers of cattle,” he said. “Two brothers. They are called Coombs. The leader is Delbert. His brother is called Hiram. They are very bad white men. They are much feared.”

Brad looked at Julio.

“I did not know who the rustlers were. I did not want to know. I did not ask.”

“How horrible,” Felicity said. “To murder those poor people over a few head of cattle.”

“The bad men live in Oro City,” Wading Crow said. “They steal from good men.”

“What do they do with the cattle they steal?” Brad asked.

“They are what you call butchers,” Wading Crow said. “They sell the meat to those who cook and sell food in the towns.”

“Why hasn’t somebody stopped them?” Felicity asked. “Why doesn’t the law arrest them?”

“I do not know,” Wading Crow said.

“Julio?” Brad looked straight at him.

“I think people are afraid. And it is said that they pay the town marshal and the sheriff. There is much money to be made in selling cattle that cost no pesos to the thieves.”

“Damn,” Brad said. “Somebody ought to do something. Back in Missouri, they would be hanged.”

“They do not hang such men in Oro City,” Julio said glumly.

They all sat silent for a time, listening to the soft patter of rain on the spruce-laden shelter. Felicity wondered if she ought to tell Brad about the horse tracks down by the creek. She could not help thinking about them now, especially after learning about the Seguin family. Maybe the Coombs brothers were scouting out their ranch, counting heads, with an idea to rustle their entire herd, some two hundred cows. No, now was not that time. They were stuck up here in the storm. She would tell him on the way back or wait until they got home.

“Wading Crow,” Felicity said, after a time, “why did you call my husband ‘Sidewinder’? His name is Brad. Brad Storm.”

“Indian name, Sidewinder.”

She looked at Brad. “Your Indian name? When did this happen?”

“This morning, I think. Last night maybe. It’s just what they call me.”

“Him good medicine,” Gray Owl said. “Strong medicine. Kill sidewinder.” He made a rattling sound with his teeth.

Wading Crow had been thinking. He was counting on his fingers. Brad watched him, wondered what he was figuring in that Arapaho brain of his.

“Sidewinder,” Wading Crow said, “you bring ten cow. I give two ounces for cow.”

“Two ounces of gold for each cow?” Brad said.

Wading Crow nodded. “Ten cow. Twenty ounce. You bring. I make map to village.”

Brad looked at Felicity, who seemed lost.

“That’s more than we could get in Pueblo,” Brad said. “More than we could in Denver. Even if we drove them to the railhead in Kansas, we probably wouldn’t get that much.”

“How much is it in greenbacks?” she asked.

“Thirty-two dollars a head, Felicity. Three hundred and twenty dollars for ten cows.”

She let out a low whistle.

“I could buy you that dress you wanted in Oro City,” he said. “The one at Cotter’s store.”

“Oh, Brad. That was just a-wishin’.”

“Well, wishes do come true sometimes, you know.”

He looked at Wading Crow.

“When do you want the cattle?”

“Seven sleeps.”

“That’s a week, darlin’.”

“I make good map,” Wading Crow said. “You come. Do Snake Dance.”

“Whoa,” Brad said. “I’m not . . .”

“What’s he talking about, Brad? Dance with snakes?”

“Never mind, honey. He’s just joking.”

“No joke,” Gray Owl said. “Sidewinder make good Snake Dance. Bring good luck.”

“Wading Crow, I’ll bring the cattle to you in a week, but I want no part of your Snake Dance. If that particular string is attached, I won’t bring the cattle.”

“You bring. I pay.”

“But no Snake Dance. Right?”

Wading Crow smiled. He waved a hand in the air as if to dismiss the very idea of a Snake Dance.

Brad wasn’t so sure.

“Don’t you go anywhere near those snakes, Brad,” Felicity said.

Julio looked sick. As if he had been kicked in the stomach.

The snakes had stopped rattling.

But Julio could still hear them, and the two Indians made him nervous. He told himself he would stay awake all night, just in case. With one hand on his pistol. The other on his rifle.

“Good,” Gray Owl said, finishing up his small clay pipe. It was pink, made from pipestone, traded long years before from a Southern Cheyenne. It was a good pipe. “Make sleep now. Much rain all night.”

Felicity wrapped her arms around Brad’s arms and yawned.

“I am tired,” she said. “Let’s get some sleep.”

“Yeah.” He was still thinking about the Snake Dance and the cattle and the gold. They could use the money. From what Wading Crow said, it would be a fairly long trip. Three or four days if they didn’t have to climb any big mountains.

He would work all that out with Wading Crow in the morning, he thought. He helped Felicity make up their bed. They pulled the buffalo robe over them.

Gray Owl added more wood to the fire and spoke to Julio.

“You sleep,” he said. “No worry.”

Julio’s eyes widened.

Did the Indian read his thoughts? Gray Owl showed him a place to sleep on a deerskin he had unrolled.

Julio could not refuse. He dared not refuse.

He still didn’t trust either Gray Owl or Wading Crow, but he had much tiredness and his eyelids were as heavy as lead sash weights. He lay down on the skin, but he didn’t carry his rifle over to the bed. He took his pistol belt off and loosened the pistol in its holster. He kept one hand on the butt as he closed his eyes.

Brad took one last look at the smoke hole. There were no stars, no moon. Only blackness and the silvery streaks of rain flashing past the opening.

Almost as good as stars, he thought, as Felicity draped an arm over his chest and snuggled close to him. The smell of her hair and the silkiness of it was the last thing he remembered that night.

Two hours before dawn, the patter of rain diminished to whispers by the time the eastern horizon cracked open a rent in the sky. There was only a mist in the high trees, a thin blanket of fog in the low-lying valleys. The jays circled the encampment, squawking and chattering, while the squirrels and chipmunks ventured forth, sipping water from the leaves, gnawing on pine nuts.

Brad cocked one eye open, focused on the smoke hole. He saw a paling sky, heard movement a few feet away. He opened the other eye and looked down at Felicity. She was still sound asleep, her lips parted invitingly, her face serene. He looked across the shelter and saw Gray Owl holding a mouse by the tail. He dropped it into a basket, and Brad heard the whirring sound of a rattlesnake. There was a swishing sound in the basket, a tiny squeak, and then the rattles were still.

Wading Crow was nowhere in sight.

Julio was still asleep, his pistol on his chest, both hands clutching it as if it were a child’s stuffed toy. Brad smiled. Julio might never get over his fear and mistrust of Indians. Brad wondered what Gray Owl and Wading Crow thought of the Mexican and his obvious fear that he would be scalped in his sleep or his throat would be cut open like a sliced melon.

Brad slid from under the blanket, very carefully, so he would not disturb Felicity. He stepped over to Gray Owl and talked to him in sign, asking him where Wading Crow was. He had learned some of the sign from an old Lakota drover in Denver who helped him drive his first herd up to Oro City and into the mountains where he had bought his ranch.

Gray Owl cupped a hand to his ear and pointed to a direction outside the shelter. Brad nodded that he understood, and walked outside and into the dripping pine trees. He heard the noises more distinctly now and walked toward them.

Wading Crow was putting fresh lashes on a large travois he had resurrected from the forest floor, two long poles, stripped of bark, tied securely together at one end, leaving a large, wide V between their loose ends.

“What are you doing?” Brad asked.

“Seven suns, we go.”

“Do you and Gray Owl pull that travvy by yourselves all through the mountains to your village?”

“Make smoke. Friends come. Bring horses.”

“Smoke signals?”

Wading Crow pointed through the trees.