A Big Sky Christmas (22 page)

As often happened out on the plains, within a couple days the fierce, freezing wind out of the north was replaced by a much gentler, warmer breeze from the south. Jamie knew it would be only a matter of time until the next Blue Norther came barreling down on them, so he wanted to cover as much ground as he could while the weather was decent. He pushed everyone hard and used every bit of daylight he could.

The grinding pace meant there wasn't much time to mourn Alice Hamilton. Her death and that of her husband were tragic and senseless, but those graves were behind the wagon train. Everyone needed to look ahead, because that was where the next challenge would be found.

As Jamie could have predicted, that challenge wasn't long in coming. He was riding the point with Hector Gilworth several days later when he spotted riders paralleling their course about half a mile to the west.

Without saying anything to Hector, Jamie turned his head and looked to the east. He saw more riders in that direction. That came as no surprise to him. He had been expecting something like this. The wagon train was just too tempting a target.

“Ride on back and tell Cap'n Hendricks to have everybody circle the wagons,” Jamie said quietly to Hector.

“But it's the middle of the day,” the burly, bearded scout protested. “We don't usually circle up until we stop at nightfall.”

“Well, we're going to today, because there are Indians on both sides of us.”

Hector let out a surprised exclamation. “Are they going to attack us?”

“Too soon to say, but we'd better be ready in case they do. Now git!”

Hector got, hauling his horse around and galloping back toward the wagons.

Jamie reined Sundown to a halt and sat easily in the saddle. As soon as the Indians saw the wagons forming up into a circle, they would know that their presence had been discovered. If they planned to attack, they would probably do it quickly, before the immigrants had time to get set up for defense.

On the other hand, it could be that the Indians just wanted to parley. Some of the tribes didn't mind the wagon trains passing through their territory as long as they received some sort of tribute in return for safe passage.

They liked to negotiate from a position of strength, though, which is why they usually showed up with a considerable number of warriors, all painted fiercely and bristling with lances, bows and arrows, and occasionally, rifles. They liked to throw a scare into the settlers.

It wasn't just for show. If things didn't go well, the Indians would welcome a fight.

Jamie turned his head slowly from side to side. More mounted figures were visible in both directions, and they were angling their ponies toward the wagon train. The Indians were closing in, but they weren't getting in any hurry about it. Jamie hoped that meant they just wanted to talk.

He turned the stallion and rode back toward the spot where the immigrants were hurriedly pulling the wagons into a circle. Seeing the train stopping, the other scouts and outriders were coming in, too, some of them galloping hard to make it back to the relative safety of the wagons.

Bodie Cantrell rode out to meet Jamie a couple hundred yards away from the wagons. “Hector says there are Indians about to attack us.” They both reined to a halt.

“That's jumping the gun a mite,” Jamie said. “Right now it looks to me like they don't want to fight. Of course, that could change mighty quick-like.”

“What should we do?”

Jamie narrowed his eyes in thought. After a moment he said, “Your friend Lucas is pretty good with a gun, isn't he?”

Bodie looked a little uncomfortable about answering that, but he said, “Yeah, I suppose so.”

“He's cool-headed and can take orders?”

“I'd say so.”

“Go get him. The three of us will ride out to see what they want.”

Bodie nodded. He was aware that what Jamie was asking of him involved considerable risk, but he wasn't the sort to dodge trouble.

When Bodie came back, he didn't have just Jake Lucas with him. Captain Lamar Hendricks rode with them, too.

Before Jamie could say anything, Hendricks spoke up to explain his presence. “If you're going to talk to these savages, I need to be there. I was elected to be the leader of this wagon train.”

“And I was hired to be the wagon master,” Jamie said. “Who'd you leave in charge back there?”

“Hector Gilworth.”

“Well, Hector's a good man, I suppose. If we all get killed, he'll put up a good fight.”

Hendricks was a little pale under his tan. “Do you think there's a chance we'll all be killed?”

“There's always a chance.” Jamie inclined his head toward the north. “I reckon we'll find out pretty soon, because here they come.”

About a dozen warriors were trotting their ponies toward the four men. As they drew closer, Jamie saw that they were painted for war. But that didn't have to mean anything, he reminded himself. They might still be able to get out of this without a fight.

“Somebody else is coming from the wagon train,” Jake said suddenly.

Jamie twisted around in the saddle to look. It was hard to surprise him, but his eyebrows rose slightly when he saw Moses Danzig riding toward them on one of the extra saddle horses.

Confronting a bunch of potentially angry Cheyenne was just about the last thing Moses needed to be doing, Jamie thought. But it was too late to send the rabbi back to the wagons. Jamie turned back to keep an eye on the approaching Indians.

As Moses came up beside him, panting slightly from the effort of riding two hundred yards on horseback, Jamie said quietly, “Moses, what in the Sam Hill are you doing out here?”

“Hector wanted to let you know that we're all dug in and ready to fight if need be,” Moses replied. “He was going to send his cousin to do it, but I suggested that he let me ride out here instead. Jess can use a gun and I can't, so he's of more value there.”

“If there's a fight out here, you can't even defend yourself.”

“I'll trust in a higher power for that.”

Jake said, “On these plains, ain't no higher power than Mr. Colt and Mr. Winchester.”

“We'll save the theological debate for later,” Moses said. “Oh, my. They're certainly savage-looking, aren't they?”

The Indians were close enough to confirm by the markings on their faces and the decorations on their buckskins that they were Cheyenne, just as Jamie had suspected. As Moses had pointed out, they looked fierce.

Jamie remained utterly calm. That required an effort of will, but he kept his face just as stony as those of the warriors who brought their ponies to a halt about twenty feet away. Beyond them, about as far distant as the wagons were, a hundred more warriors waited on horseback.

Jamie raised a hand in the universal signal of friendship and said in the Cheyenne tongue, “Greetings. We come seeking only a trail to travel peacefully to the north.”

One of the older warriors in the group, a man Jamie suspected was the war chief for this band, responded. “This is our land. We have hunted it for many, many moons. It gives my people life. We would not have it taken away from us.”

“Nor do we wish to take it,” Jamie said with the formality such parleys always demanded. “If we hunt the buffalo, it will be for fresh meat only, and we will kill no more than one.”

“You already have the buffalo with sleek hides,” the Cheyenne said.

Jamie knew he was talking about the oxen. “We do,” he acknowledged, “but we need them to pull the wagons. They are not for eating.”

“If you kill a buffalo, you should replace it. Give us one of your animals for this buffalo of ours that you may kill.”

Hendricks asked nervously, “What are the two of you saying? It sounds very serious.”

“He wants us to give him an ox,” Jamie drawled in English. “I reckon we can spare one. Unless you'd rather fight over one animal.”

“No, no. Not at all,” Hendricks said quickly. “If that's all it takes for them to let us go on safely, then by all means, give them an ox!”

Jamie conveyed that to the war chief, but before the Cheyenne leader could respond, one of the other warriors suddenly pushed his pony forward and spoke up angrily. “It is not enough! We must have one of their women in trade for their safety as well!”

Jamie instantly knew what the interruption was about. The warrior who had just made the outrageous demand was probably one of the war chief's rivals. He didn't want the encounter with the white interlopers to end peacefully. He wanted a fight, wanted the wagon train wiped out so that he could claim credit for the massacre and further his own cause among the tribe.

The varmint had to know good and well that the immigrants would never turn over one of their women.

“What did that one say just then?” Hendricks asked. “It didn't sound good. What's this about?”

The chief turned to glare at the warrior who had butted in as Jamie said, “The other fella has upped the stakes. He wants an ox . . . and one of your womenfolks.”

The men gasped in shock and anger, and Jake exclaimed, “Why, that dirty—” He grated out a curse and reached for the gun on his hip. He had just cleared leather when Jamie leaned over in the saddle and shot his hand out to clamp around Lucas's wrist to keep him from raising the revolver and firing.

It was too late. The damage had already been done. The warrior who had started this ruckus cried out and jerked a rifle to his shoulder, ready to fire.

Jamie heard some rapid words he didn't understand behind him, but ignored them. He was about to reach for his Colts, knowing that in another second the air would be full of gun smoke and flying lead and arrows.

“Stop!”

The voice was old and not exactly powerful, but the piercing timbre of it cut through the air of impending violence and made all the men on both sides freeze in their actions. Another of the Cheyenne pushed his horse forward. He was ancient, his coppery face so lined with wrinkles that he seemed a hundred years old. His braided hair was pure white. But despite his obvious age he sat tall and straight in the saddle, like a much younger man. He leveled a buckskin-clad arm, pointing as he asked, “Who is this mighty shaman?”

Jamie didn't have any idea who the Indian was talking about. Realizing that the man was pointing past him, he glanced over his shoulder and saw Moses sitting on horseback, looking terrified. The young man's lips were moving as he muttered unfamiliar words under his breath.

The war chief reached over and grabbed the barrel of the angry warrior's rifle, forcing it down.

Jamie said harshly to Jake, “Pouch that iron, mister!” They had been given an unexpected respite, and he didn't intend to waste it. “Everybody else, keep your hands away from your guns!”

The tension was still thick as the two groups of riders faced each other.

Jamie went on. “Moses, the old man is talking about you. He says you're a mighty shaman and wants to know who you are.”

“A . . . a shaman?” Moses shook his head. “I don't even know what that is.”

“A medicine man, like I suspect that old fella is himself. Sort of like the spiritual leader of the tribe.”

“Oh. I suppose you could say that, although Reverend Bradford certainly wouldn't agree.”

“What was that you were saying a minute ago, Moses?”

“I was praying.” A glimmer of understanding dawned on the young man's face. “I was praying in Hebrew . . .”

Before Jamie could stop him, Moses walked his horse forward, putting himself between the two groups. Several of the warriors lifted lances, but a sharp word from the chief made them lower the weapons.

The ancient Cheyenne moved his pony forward until he and Moses sat alongside each other with their mounts facing in opposite directions. Moses began speaking again in Hebrew.

Jamie didn't understand a word of the speech, of course. He didn't see how the Cheyenne medicine man could understand it, but the old man listened attentively. When Moses was finished, the old man surprised Jamie by lifting a hand and launching into a long speech of his own.

Jamie was fluent in the Cheyenne tongue, but what the medicine man was speaking was something else. It was similar to the Cheyenne language, enough so that Jamie thought he caught a word every now and then, but at the same time the words carried a sense of antiquity with them, as if the old-timer were speaking a long-forgotten tongue that had mostly vanished from the face of the earth.

When he was done, he held out his hand. Moses clasped it, and they sat there like that for a long moment. Then the medicine man turned to the warriors and barked words in Cheyenne that Jamie understood.

“What's going on now?” Bodie asked in a hushed voice.

“The old man is telling them to turn and ride away,” Jamie explained. “He says that we're among the favored of the Great Spirit and that their medicine will become very bad if they harm us.”

“We don't have to give them the ox anymore?” Hendricks asked as the Indians began to turn their ponies and ride away, some with obvious reluctance. They weren't willing to go against the old medicine man's decree.

“No, they won't bother us again, thanks to Moses.”

Bodie said to the young rabbi, “What in the world did you
do
, pard?”

Moses shook his head. “I just called down blessings upon him and his people and told him that we were peaceful and would cause no trouble as we crossed the lands that traditionally belong to them.” He smiled faintly. “I said it in Hebrew, of course, and made it all sound a lot more flowery.”

“And he understood you?” Jake asked, visibly astonished.

“I don't know. He seemed to. Or maybe he just understood the tone of what I was saying.”

“How about all that palaver he gave back to you?” Jamie asked. “Did it mean anything to you?”

Moses frowned. “He wasn't speaking Cheyenne?”

“Not the Cheyenne I know.”

“That's . . . odd. I didn't actually understand what he was saying, of course, but every now and then I . . . I sort of felt like I ought to understand. Do you know what I mean?”

“Like if you went back far enough, the lingo he was talking had something in common with what you were saying to him?”

“Exactly!” Moses exclaimed. “And that makes perfect sense.”

Bodie said, “How in the world do you figure that?”

“Have you ever heard of the Lost Tribes of Israel? In biblical times, the land of Canaan was ruled by twelve tribes. But when Canaan was split into two kingdoms—Israel and Judah—those tribes to the north that formed the Kingdom of Israel vanished from history and are now considered lost. According to legend, they were forced by enemies to leave their homeland and spread out across the world.” Moses smiled. “There are some who say that one of those tribes found its way to the North American continent and eventually became the Indians that we know today.”

“Wait just a doggone minute,” Jake said. “You're sayin' that you . . . and those Cheyenne . . . are related somehow? Like distant cousins?”

Moses spread his hands. “Well, it's just a theory . . . but you have to admit, that old medicine man responded when he heard me praying in Hebrew. The fact that we're all still alive and no blood was spilled . . . I'd say those prayers were answered, wouldn't you?”

Jamie nodded. “I'm not exactly sure how you managed it, Moses, and I don't care.”

All the Indians had vanished. The plains were empty around them again.

“Let's get those wagons lined out and rolling again,” Jamie continued. “We've dodged a bullet, and we've still got some daylight left. Let's put some more miles behind us!”