Six-Gun Gallows (19 page)

Nate tilted his hat back and sleeved sweat off his forehead. “Damn, it's hot enough to peel a fence post—if there was any around. I'm spittin' cotton, Mr. Fargo. Can't I have one swallow from my canteen?”

“Just one,” Fargo relented. “This late in summer, who knows when we'll find water next?”

“Yessir. But you got a whole gut bag full tied to your horse.”

“Yeah, and three thirsty horses with stomachs five times bigger than ours. If our horses give out, junior, we'll soon be feeding worms. Here . . .”

Fargo rummaged in a saddle pocket and removed three small stones. He popped one in his mouth and handed one to each of the brothers. “Suck on that. It'll keep your mouth moist.”

“I ain't seen nobody yet,” Dub said. “How 'bout you, Mr. Fargo?”

He shook his head, eyes slitted against the sun.

“They had a good head start on us,” Dub added. “Maybe we ain't moving fast enough.”

“In this heat, anything faster could drop our horses,” Fargo said. “Besides, like I told you, I think they want us to catch up. Belloch wants that pouch like they want ice water in hell.”

“Ask me,” Nate carped, “we're just barkin' at a knot. Them sons of bitches could be in the Nebraska Territory by now.”

“Nobody asked you, titty baby,” Dub snapped.

“Teach your grandmother to suck eggs!” Nate fumed.

Fargo laughed. “Nate, you are a caution to screech owls. That would be your grandmother, too, chowderhead.”

“Oh. Yeah. I take it back.”

“Mr. Fargo,” Dub said, “what makes them border ruffians so all-fired mean and rotten?”

“Hell, you boys were all set to join them when I first met you,” Fargo reminded him.

“Yeah, but me and Nate are poor as a hind-tit calf. We was ready to join up on account we was hungry, is all.”

“That's how plenty of them get started,” Fargo said. “Their crops fail, and they band together for food and protection. At first it's just stealing chickens and melons. Next thing you know, it's raids like the one on Lawrence in 'fifty-six that earned this territory the name Bleeding Kansas. Then you get a paper-collar ‘agent' like Belloch in the mix, flush with railroad gold, and there's no room for mercy.”

“Was your people poor, Mr. Fargo?” Nate asked.

“Out west, son, if a man wants to tell his story, that's fine. But if he doesn't volunteer it, you
don't
nose his backtrail—savvy that?”

“Yessir.”

By now they were walking their horses. Fargo halted his companions and knelt to feel the ground with his fingertips.

“I could be wrong,” he muttered, “but it feels like a large group of riders approaching from the Smoky Hill River to our north. And I'd guess their horses aren't shod.”

The McCallister boys exchanged a troubled glance.

“There's a big Southern Cheyenne summer camp up that way,” Dub said.

Fargo nodded, his deep-tanned face resolute of purpose. “My spyglasses won't help—the sun's burning right at the angle I need. Well, we'll just stay frosty and see what happens.”

Fargo's matter-of-fact attitude, however, was for the boys' sake and didn't reflect his grim hunch. Sublette, two hours behind them now, was just a stepping-off place. Between that trading post and Fort Hays, about one hundred and fifty miles northeast on their present course, was neither farm nor sheep camp—just desolate plains that were crossed by at least six major Indian tribes, several at war with white men.

“Water your horses from your hats,” Fargo ordered before they mounted again.

They rode another half hour or so, Fargo watching the Ovaro's ears. They were the most dependable warning system he'd ever had.

Nate was carrying the provisions in a burlap bag tied to his saddle horn. He pulled out a dried plum and popped it into his mouth.

“This grub is better than we had at the camp,” he said, still chewing. “But I'd give a purty for some o' Ma's batter cakes and molasses.”

The Ovaro's ears pricked forward, and Fargo knew the three of them were up against it.

“Nate,” he said casually, “you're worrying about fleas while tigers eat us alive.”

“Huh?”

“Look to the northwest.”

“Big group of riders comin' in like all possessed,” Dub reported. “But who are they? Jayhawkers?”

“Worse. Southern Cheyennes,” Fargo said.

“How can you tell in that bright sun?”

“They're one of the few tribes that ride in formation. The Cavalry calls that a flying ‘V.' The brave at the point is their war leader.”

“Christ Jesus,” Nate said. “Shouldn't we run. They're still a ways off.”

“My stallion could probably lose them,” Fargo said. “But you two wouldn't stand a snowball's chance.”

“These horses we got are at least seventeen hands tall,” Dub pointed out. “Pa told us most Indian ponies are about fourteen hands.”

“Yeah, but did he also tell you that Plains Indians slit their horses' nostrils so they get more air? They can run full bore upwards of an hour.”

“We just gonna sit here?” Nate demanded, his voice wire-tight with nervousness.

“Actually, yes,” Fargo said calmly. “Just nerve up, both of you, and listen to me close. Most white men get killed because they don't know how to act around Indians. A Cheyenne warrior despises any man who shows his emotions in his face, especially fear, you take my drift?”

“Yessir,” they replied as one.

“Show nothing. No friendliness, no anger, and for Christ sakes, no fear. Don't kowtow, either. It's better to insult a Plains Indian than to lick his moccasins—that shows weakness and fear. They won't likely touch you unless they mean to kill you, but if they speak English they'll maybe try to insult you to test your face. Stuff like how your mother likes to rut with Cheyennes. If that happens, hold your face blank and spit on the ground—but not on them.”

The three white men watched the braves approach until they were close enough to make out their eagle-bone breastplates and quill-decorated rawhide leggings.

“Hell, Mr. Fargo,” Dub said, “I seen Cheyenne braves before at our place, and they all had long hair. These have cut their hair all ragged and short.”

“They've cut it off to mourn their dead,” Fargo said. “Most red men take great pride in their hair, so it's a serious sacrifice when they cut it.”

Seeing the whites waiting so calmly for them seemed to confuse the Cheyennes. The leader raised one arm, and they walked their mounts slowly closer. Each brave wore a leather band around his left wrist to protect it from the slap of his bowstring. Copper brassards encircled their upper arms.

“Show nothing,” Fargo reminded the brothers in a low mutter.

The braves, about a dozen strong, halted ten feet from Fargo's horse. The war leader, whose coup stick was crowded with eagle feathers, watched all three of them from calm and fathomless eyes. His face was blank as windswept stone. Then he stared only at Fargo, and each man gave the other a size-up.

“Tribute,” the leader said, pointing first at the Henry in Fargo's saddle scabbard, then the Spencer in Dub's.

Fargo shook his head. “I do not pay tribute. Only cowards do that. No man is my master.”

Still expressionless, the leader translated this for his braves. Clearly startled, despite their stone-carved visages, they turned this unexpected reply over carefully in their minds to examine all of its facets.

“You speak strong-heart talk,” the leader said. “But you cross our land and must pay tribute.”

“The land does not belong to men. Men belong to the land.”

Fargo knew that all Indians believed this from the core of their being. The brave translated Fargo's words for the rest, and a few of them reluctantly nodded at the wisdom of his words. Clearly this was an unusual white skin.

“I am Plenty Coups,” the Cheyenne said. “How are you called?”

“Skye Fargo.”

Plenty Coups nodded. “The Trailsman. For six years I study at the school on the large reservation south of here. I learn to read and write your language. Sometimes I hear of a mah-ish-ta-shee-da, a white man, who speaks one way always. Not from both sides of the mouth, as most white men do.”

Despite the praise, Fargo knew that most Indians hated a race traitor and that this remark was a test of his courage.

“All men lie,” he replied. “Red men sign treaties just to receive the presents, then break their promises.”

Plenty Coups shrugged as if to say he could not deny the ways of men. “White men use Indian skulls to prop open the doors of their lodges.”

“I have seen such things. And I have seen Indian parfleches made from the skin of white women and children.”

Plenty Coups waved this off as if it were a trifle. Fargo sensed his braves were growing impatient at all this talk, and the war leader feared losing face in front of them.

“You white skins speak of the talking papers called treaties. You speak of how we break our promise. You demand that we live on the worthless land you do not want, then chase us off when the glittering yellow rocks are found there. You demand that we believe in a virgin who had a baby when every man knows this is impossible.”

Fargo spat on the ground to show his defiance. “Do I demand that you grow gardens and wear shoes? Or pray to the white man's God? No. I swear by the four directions that, like you, I live beyond the white man's law-ways. Like the red man, I want only to be free.”

“Free? Fargo, we did not send out the first soldier—we only sent out the second. Before you mah-ish-ta-shee-da came upon us like locusts, there were always two fires burning in my lodge. One for food, one for friendship. Now this place hears me when I say it, the friendship fire is no more. The white man kills us as surely as he kills the buffalo—for sport. You will pay tribute or we will kill you.”

Again Fargo spat defiantly. “Maybe so better not.”

“Jesus, you best do it, Mr. Fargo,” Nate muttered.

Fargo, hating to do it, backhanded the boy hard, almost knocking him out of the saddle. “Go ask your mother for a dug, whelp. We are in council.”

Several Indians nodded, approving of this stern discipline. Fargo looked at Plenty Coups again.

“I have ears for your words,” he said. “I do not defend the white men, but the red men have evil ways also. I have watched your tribe run hundreds of buffalo over a cliff, killing them all only to eat one or two. I have seen red men burn the prairie grass as far as the eye can see. And why? Because they are too lazy to put herd guards on their horses. No man, white or red, lives as the High Holy Ones wish us to.”

Plenty Coups digested all this, then turned to his companions and conferred in the Cheyenne tongue for several minutes. Then he turned back to Fargo.

“Trailsman, why are you here?”

“I am chasing white killers. They work to build a road for the iron horse. Before your sister, the sun, is born again in the east,” Fargo promised, “we will be far from this place.”

Plenty Coups nodded. He pointed his streamered lance at an older brave wearing buffalo horns. “This is Eagle on His Journey. Earlier, he threw the bones. You understand?”

Fargo nodded. Plenty Coups meant the pointing bones, ritually tossed inside a magic circle to seek advice from the All-Knowing Ones.

“The bones told our shaman that, this day, we would meet a man whose medicine is powerful. We will not require tribute from you.”

“Ipewa,”
Fargo said in Cheyenne. “Good.”

“But will you leave a gift to the place?”

Fargo knew the Cheyenne tribe placed great value on saving face. This was a euphemism for a face-saving compromise for both sides: the white men could keep their rifles, but must offer something else. He also knew it was not the Indian way to haggle and dicker like white men. A man simply stated his best offer first, and the Indians either accepted or rejected it—perhaps killing you if it was rejected.

Fargo groped in his possibles bag and removed a small magnifying glass, hoping Plenty Coups had never seen one at the school.

He hadn't. Like the other braves he crowded in close, amazed when Fargo showed how it enlarged the pores of Plenty Coups' arm.

“This is a fine toy,” Plenty Coups admitted. “Our children will like it. But what use has it for men?”

“It is no toy,” Fargo assured him. “It can steal fire from the sun. Watch.”

Fargo slid an arrow from the leader's fox-skin quiver and concentrated the merciless sunlight on the tip of a crow feather. When it began smoking, the stoic faces gave way to open astonishment. When a puff of flame sprang up, the braves spoke excitedly among themselves.

“Eagle on His Journey was right,” Plenty Coups told Fargo. “Your medicine is powerful. A glass that steals flame from the sun . . . Fargo, you and your companions are safe. Great Maiyun would punish any Cheyenne who harms a medicine man.”

Before Fargo handed the magnifying glass over, he faced all four directions of the wind to bless it. This mark of respect excited more discussion from the braves.

“Holy smoke, Mr. Fargo,” Nate said when they had resumed their ride, “you sure do know Indians. They was all horns and rattles when they rode up. I thought sure they was gonna lift our dander.”

“I didn't want to wallop you like that, Nate,” Fargo apologized. “But I had to save face after a young buck spoke up like you did.”

“Yeah, I figured that out.
Damn
but you're strong. My head's still ringing.”