Magnificent Guns of Seneca 6 (25 page)

"Too late!
 
Ask me your question and the fates will decide the consequences."

Haienwa'tha shot to his feet and stood chest to chest with the larger man, blocking his younger brother.
 
"I will ask in his place and the consequences will be mine to face."

Toquame Keewassee's eyes flashed hungrily, "So be it."

"By what right are you taking the women of our people and selling them to the Wasichu?"

"We do not give passage to everyone we meet, son of Thasuka-Witko, particularly in the land of our enemies," Keewassee said.
 
"But it was for your father's sake that I spared your lives.
 
You see, I have always heard tell of his great battles and legendary courage."
 
Toquame Keewassee stepped even closer to Haienwa'tha, so close that the two men stared directly into one another's eyes, "Never did I think I would actually see it demonstrated until now."
 
He smiled warmly at the boy and put his arm around his shoulder, "Walk with me, little brother."
 

Everyone around the fire visibly relaxed and began to dig into the pot of stew for the conejos.
 
Thathanka-Ska's hands were numb as he took his plate from the man next to him, still trying to see where his brother had gone.
 
He looked down at Lakhpia-Sha in time to see the boy slide his knife back up his sleeve before he reached for a plate and smiled as if nothing were wrong.
 

***

It was hours before Haienwa'tha returned.
 
He crept past the bedroll where Lakhpia-Sha lay sleeping and tried to slide down onto his own silently, but Thathanka-Ska was waiting.
 
"Where the hell have you been?" he said.

"Talking.
 
Listening.
 
He wants to know where the Hopituh Shi-nu-mu women are."

Lakhpia-Sha stopped sleeping mid-snore and bolted upright, "You didn't tell him, did you?"

"No.
 
Of course not," Haienwa'tha said.
 
"But he knows we know.
 
He is patient enough to wait."

"Wait for what?" Thathanka-Ska said.
 
"Us to lose our minds?"

"For trust.
 
He could force it from us, but he chooses to wait until we offer it to him."

"Fat chance," Lakhpia-Sha sniffed.

Haienwa'tha shrugged and said, "I don't think it's a bad idea."

Thathanka-Ska's mouth fell open and he looked from his friend to his brother and back, "What did you say?"

"I said I don't think it's a bad idea.
 
They don't
sell
women to the wasichu.
 
He helps them get off of this planet so that they are spared.
 
He said he has seen tribes of starving women being forced to eat one another's flesh to survive, so he helps them find new lives in other places."

"They wouldn't have to survive alone if he weren't killing their men!" Lakhpia-Sha said.
 

"Not everyone sees the truth," Haienwa'tha said.
 
"They want to share this place with the wasichu, but the white man only takes more and more.
 
He says that every treaty is a death sentence, and we are signing them readily.
 
The wasichu have no honor, and yet we all act amazed when they break our treaties.
 
It is like inviting a werja to dinner and being surprised that it tried to kill you."

"Not all wasichu are like that," Thathanka-Ska said.
 

"Do not ever speak of El Halcon among these people," Haienwa'tha said.
 
"In fact, don't speak of him to me either."
  

"If this man thinks so highly of Thasuka-Witko, he should respect that as well."

Haienwa'tha shook his head and said, "Trusting El Halcon was a mistake, and we will not discuss it further."

"We are not going to tell him where the Hopituh Shi-nu-mu are," Thathanka-Ska said.
 

Haienwa'tha laid his head down on his rolled up blanket and said, "Get some rest.
 
Tomorrow, you can talk to him yourselves."

"I have nothing to say to him," Thathanka-Ska said.
 

"He is your next Chief, the one who will lead us to the new lands."

"I do not believe that."

"Exactly as Thasuka-Witko predicted," Haienwa'tha said.
 
"Get some sleep."

Chapter 16:
 
Is Your Back Against the Wall, or Just Across the Line?

The preacher regarded the man riding next to his wagon with careful glances, working in his assessments as he surveyed the landscape.
 
He handled his destrier like he was born in a saddle and carried two engraved Colt Defeaters.
 
He was a lawman but he had a hunted look in his eyes like a man who'd sooner cut your throat than let you lay a hand on him.
 
And then there was the way he gunned down those men in front of the bank, Father Charles thought.
 
That's not the reflex of a lawman.
 
That's pure killing, and you don't learn to do it without practice.
 
"You mind if I ask you a question, Mr. Clayton?"
  

"I never thought much the church, padre, so if you're about to try and save me, we are gonna have a long and unfriendly ride ahead of us."

Father Charles chuckled and said, "No, not me, son.
 
I learned a long time ago you can't convince anyone of anything.
 
Most folks don't want to hear new ideas, just ones that support what they were already thinking."

Jem nodded and said, "Then ask away."

"What made you get into law enforcement?"

"Grew up in it, I guess," Jem said.
 

"You used to be a deputy before you became the big boss?"

"No.
 
Not hardly."

"So you changed your ways and became a man of the people, is that it?"

Jem cocked his eye back at the old man in the wagon and said, "Last year I tied a man to the back of my destrier and dragged him across ten miles of desert into that canyon over yonder.
 
Then I cut his head off with my knife and spiked it on the ground for his brother to find.
 
Then I killed his brother and shot another man who was like a father to me at the same time.
 
After that, I killed the Sheriff and the Mayor.
 
That sound like a man of the people to you?"

Father Charles' eyebrows raised as Jem spoke and he said, "No.
 
It surely does not.
 
Everything you just said is gonna take you straight to hell."

"At least I'll have plenty of people I recognize."

"Why'd you cut that man's head off?"

Jem turned away from him to look back at the road.
 
"He tried to force himself on my sister in front of her crippled husband.
 
She fought him off as best she could.
 
I got there before it was too late."

"You got similar reasons for the other things you did?"

"Similar enough," Jem said.
 
"Not that I intend to explain them to anyone, and that includes you."

"Some things we do in this world we just have to learn to live with, Jem.
 
Others we have to worry about dying with.
 
I spent a good portion of my life destroying things.
 
It was all I knew how to do, but you see, once you create something, it changes all that.
 
When I had my little girl and I saw what the Lord had made through me, I couldn't go on being the man I was before."

Jem smirked, "I ain't cutting my fingers off for nobody, padre."

"You'd be surprised what you do when you find that one person, Jem.
 
The one who makes you change."

"I knew a man once who fell so in love with a woman that when she died, it was like the lights went out on his front porch.
 
You know what I mean?
 
He had two little kids and as much as he tried to do right by them, he had some kind of giant hole inside that kept him from ever feeling anything good again.
 
I watched him go through that and you know what I said to myself, padre?
 
I said that I didn't think I was ever going to love anyone that much.
 
And you know what else?"

"What else?"

"I was right."

***

They didn't speak much after that, heading deeper into the wasteland until both moons emerged through the wash of crimson left like paint strokes by the setting sun.
 
Jem yanked on his destrier's reins and said, "Whoa."

Father Charles stopped his wagon and leaned over the side of the carriage, trying to look in the same direction as Jem.
 
He didn't see anything but worn out road and long stretches of red dirt and mountains.
 
"What is it?"

"Somebody passed through there not too long ago.
 
That's a wagon wheel rut."

"So?"

"So it's getting dark," Jem said.
 
"We're stopping for the night."

"We ain't got time to stop this early into the evening, Jem," the preacher said.
 
"We can cover another few miles before we need to make camp."

"Yeah, or we can walk up on the wrong people and wind up in a shootout.
 
You do what you want, but I'm stopping here."
 
He undid his saddle bag and bedroll and walked far off the road until he found a wide flat spot that backed up against a rock wall.
 
There were sticks and bushes aplenty all around, and he lit a few of the branches on fire to help him look.
 
Won't be no fun if I reach for a stick and it turns out to be a rattler,
he thought.
 
By the time he finished, Father Charles had wheeled his carriage over to the campsite and started to break it down for the evening.
 

Jem threw the pile of brush on the ground and lit the dry branches with a match until it was engulfed in flames.
 
Father Charles worked a crank on his destrier's harness and the thing hissed as its hinges popped open and two hydraulic arms lowered to the ground, keeping the contraption propped up while the animal stepped out from under it.
 
"You hungry?" Jem said.
 

"I didn't see no leapers," Father Charles said.
 

"Wouldn't matter.
 
Gunfire will draw whoever's out here to us faster than flies.
 
I brought some provisions."
 
Jem dug two cans of beans and gravy out of his saddlebag and cut their lids off with his knife.
 
He poked holes in the sides of the cans and stuck long sticks inside them to hold them directly over the fire, cooking the beans inside.