Medicine Road (18 page)

"You been over?"

"Halfway."

"They stop you?"

"Yeah. Wouldn't let me into the camp. Claimed it
was Heavy Otter's village. Said the braves was all
downstream running buffalo. The big chief with
them, naturally."

"Well, hell, it could be. That's sure as sin buffalo
country down there and this here's the time of year
all the tribes is running their winter beef. Country's
like as not crawling with Arapaho hunting parties
from here to the Powder. I don't see how you're so
certain this is Black Coyote's bunch, thinking of it
thataway. Did you ask them about him?"

"Nope."

"How come not?"

"Wasn't ready. Saving that for tonight."

"We going over there?"

"They're coming over here."

"Why, dammit? You know I don't cotton to letting
a big bunch like that prowl my wagon camp."

"I asked them. Wanted to give you a look at them.
And maybeso throw a scare into this here emigrant
outfit. The clodhopper fools want to head back down
the trail for Kansas. I'm aiming to talk them outen it,
one way or another. Going to try and get them to tag
us into Gabe's and then wait for a strong outfit to
roll East with. And don't get your roach bristled
about those Injuns. I told them only the head men
and chiefs was to come. No squaws and no rag-tag."

"What's the matter that this emigrant bunch
heading back?"

Jesse shrugged. "Dead broke. Food's near gone.
Most of them old folks that ought never to have left
Shawnee. Just like all these idjuts what starts for Californy with a brokedown string of played-out bulls
and a slew of slat-bed wagons. God damn it, they
ain't fit to crawl into the next county, let alone cover
two thousand miles of cactus and riled-up Injuns."

"Hell's fire, Jesse. You been on or along this Medicine Road for better'n twenty years. You've seed a
hundred and ten outfits like this one, and clanged if
I ever heard you offering to wet-suck none of them,
before. What's chawing you, boy? You got yourself a
piece spied out amongst them?"

"Not percisely, Andy, I just...

"Listen, Jesse. I got a dozen wagons of badneeded trade stuff, not to mention that cussed Du
Pont, to get into Gabe's ahead of the Mormon push.
That's the way Choteau writ the orders and, by
damn, I ain't figuring to tote along no ragged-tail
batch of splay-foot dirt farmers while I'm doing it.
Besides, they've got the best idee of what to do, as it
is. If they're short on grub and plumb stony, they'd
best get on down the trail for home."

"What about Black Coyote and that big Arapaho
camp over yonder?"

"That don't mean a thing to me. We putten a
crimp in Black Coyote's tail that'll keep his bung
puckered for a month. He's going to be too busy explaining how you beat him around Jackpine Slash to
bother with any farmers like these here. Why, what
the tarnal hell's he got to bother them about? The
Crows done got their spare cattle, already. There
ain't a thing left to take offen the poor bastards.
Look at them, boy! Cripes, even a Taos Pueblo
wouldn't trouble to stop them to spit on. You mean to tell me a big medicine trail-raiding Injun of old
Watonga's class is going to jump these here roupy
Kansas jaybirds? Wake up, Jesse. Get back on the job
that Gabe hired you for!"

Jesse took the tongue lacing and backed off. Hang
it, the old man was right. Figuring it the way he
talked, there wasn't a Mexican's chance in Texas
that Black Coyote would bother the emigrants. The
way Andy saw it made Jesse look like a pure ninny.
But then, the old coot hadn't seen Lacey O'Mara
with her clothes off! Nor played with her gopherfaced kid and made a Sioux chief out of him!

"I allow you're right, Andy. Guess having them
Arapahoes dogging our wagon ruts ever since Fort
Laramie has got me smelling them where they don't
stink."

"I reckon, boy. You just forget it. You go ahead and
tend to this gal and you'll feel better."

"There ain't no gal, you damned old salt tail!"

"Hoss apples!" snapped the older man, turning
to poke up the fire. When he looked back up, Jesse
caught the quick drop in his voice. "Oh, oh. Shine
up your Indian lingo, boy. Yonder comes your three
friends. And then some, by God."

Following the wagon master's gesture, Jesse
made out a considerable line of Indians bearing
down on the wagon corral, foremost among them
the three old chiefs he had palavered with earlier.

"Get them emigrants over here, Andy." The
mountain man grunted the words hurriedly. "And
have Morgan wrangle that little red mule outen the
loose herd. That's the one what went lame on him
back to the North Platte crossing. Have him bring
her up here. I promised them chiefs a mule roast."

The wagon master started to leave, paused, squinting hard at the incoming Indians. Jesse, following the older man's gaze, narrowed his own
eyes. The dancing yellow blotches of the cook fires
carried outward, splashing and dappling the approaching visitors with their shifting light. Behind
the three old chiefs rode a tall, extremely darkvisaged Indian. This rider sat, stick-straight, naked
legs dangling, body enveloped from shoulder to
mid-thigh in a coal-black buffalo robe. Even in the
uncertain light, the hawk-featured face showed savagely handsome.

"I dunno, Jesse...." Andy Hobbs peered more intently before turning to go. "Maybeso you're right.
Happen they are bringing only the chiefs and head
men, like you told them. But, mister, if that big,
mean-looking buck in the black robe ain't a squaw,
I'll kiss your ruby-red rear feathers!"

Jesse fell flat on his scowling face in the powwow
that followed with the visiting chiefs. Were they
sure their tongues were straight? Did they call their
real chief Heavy Otter with their hearts true when
they said it? Aii-ee! Their tongues were straight as
war arrows. Straight as a Kangi Wicasi lancehaft.
That straight. Not a shimmer in the grain of the
shaftwood. All right, then. The red-haired Wasicun
had another name for them. Black Coyote. Had they
heard that name? Watonga. Black Coyote?

Wagh! Had they heard that name! To be sure, to be
sure. What Arapaho hadn't? A great raider, Watonga. One of the best. Woyuonihan, respect him. Respect Watonga. H'g'un! And, say, had the Wasicun
not heard that Black Coyote was down along the
Medicine Road this season? Had he not met him
along the trail just now? Had the red-haired goddam guide not seen Watonga? He should have seen him, if his tongue was straight. If he was telling his
red brothers the truth about just having brought
those twelve goddams all the way from Fort Laramie.
No? The Wasicun had not seen Black Coyote? Aii-eee!
The red-haired one was lucky. The goddams were
lucky. All the Arapahoes knew Watonga had come
south very early this summer. Wowicake, owatanla. It
was a true thing.

Andy Hobbs had looked across at Jesse, enjoying
seeing the slick oldsters hamstring the big cub.
These old chiefs were so plumb innocent and
straight-out it made the mountain man look awkward as a 600-pound cinnamon bear backing down
a smooth-bark sycamore.

The emigrants, too, bought the Arapaho yarn,
whole skein. After their bad luck brush with the
skulking Crows, these tall, handsome Indians with
their quiet dignity, impeccable manners, and plausible intent to be the white man's best friends struck
just the right note of assurance. Watching the nods
and smiles of the gray-faced farmers, Jesse nearly
puked.

The damned addle-pate ostriches. You never took
an Indian at his word. The minute you did, you had
as good as given him a root-hold grip on your hair.
And Andy Hobbs! By God, he ought to know better.
Yet, there he was, head-chucking and emptygrinning with the rest of them, like as if he'd spent
the last twenty years plowing corn in Kentucky, in
place of wading beaver streams and watching scalp
dances.

Even Morgan Bates, that aged-in-the-rawhide
trail rough, sat, fat and stupid, with his ears uncovered, enjoying the orations and handshakes of the
Arapaho head men as if this was his first trip up the Medicine Road! Sneering at the whole business, the
wonder was to Jesse that ever a wagon got to Salt
Lake, or a train to California.

An hour after the Indians rode in, they departed,
leading Morgan Bates's little red mule and waved
on their way by the good wishes of everybody in the
white camp-with the notable exception of one very
disgruntled red-headed mountain man. During the
palaver, Jesse hadn't noticed the tall, black-robed
buck Andy Hobbs had spotted for a squaw, had assumed she had been hunkered down in the shadows
back of the outer rank of chiefs, where a squaw belonged. Now, counting the Indians carefully out of
camp, (a prairie practice designed to prevent any
red visitors being left behind to hide and spring a
surprise attack), he missed the squaw again.

Well, probably nothing to that. She was undoubtedly the absent head chief's woman. That would explain how come she'd gotten to tag along in the first
place. Now she had evidently wandered off to poke
and beg around among the emigrant women while
her men folk palavered with the Wasicun.

Looking around the fire, he decided the muleskinners and farmers would squat around another
hour swapping lies before turning in. Andy Hobbs
was talking to Tim O'Mara and Tom Yarbrough.
Morgan Bates was spinning a milehigh Missouri
yarn for the remainder of the listening flat hats.

Jesse eased away from the group without troubling to make a speech about it. One minute he was
leaning against a wagon wheel listening with the
best of them, the next the wagon wheel was listening all alone. That damned six-foot squaw was loose
somewhere in camp, and Jesse meant to find where.
Of course, while he was looking for her, he would keep his eyeballs skinned for any other squaws that
might be wandering around loose. Like, say, real
light-colored ones. With maybe yellow hair. And, for
sure, blue eyes.

To make certain he got started properly on his
search, putting the interests of the emigrant folk
ahead of his own wagon crew, as was only noble
and just, the mountain man headed for the little
flicker of fires over amongst the Kansas wagons.
Skirting the other vehicles, he drifted up on Tim
O'Mara's old Pittsburgh, paused back of a dwarf
cottonwood about thirty feet out.

Tim had rigged a sort of flysheet of Osnaburg
sheeting to make a shelter against the scalding suns
and drenching dews of the upland prairies. This ran
out from the wagon's tailgate, and under it, as Jesse
moved in, crouched what he was looking for-both
of it: the coffee-skinned Arapaho squaw and the
creamy, gold-haired Lacey O'Mara.

The mountain man had no more than begun to
scowl his disappointment at so quickly finding what
he'd told himself he was looking for (especially at
finding it in the company of what he actually was
looking for) than he had something really unexpected to fret about. Between the two women, laid
down on a bundle of mangy cowhides, was a small
child. At first, in the weaving firelight, Jesse thought
it was the boy, Johnny, but as his eyes adjusted to the
dark he could see this kid was much smaller and
had long curls. It was for sure a girl and a white kid,
and it must be Lacey's!

Cripes. He hadn't figured on her having a whole
setting of chicks. Just that smart pants little redheaded cockerel, that was fine. But, hell. It kind of
shook a man to think a girl as slick and slim as Lacey would have herself a whole batch of young
ones. For the first time he began to wonder how old
she was, and how long she'd been married to Tim.
And, damn it all, how many other fuzz-head kids
were stowed away under that rickety Pittsburgh.

While his mind wandered disconsolately, his eye
watched professionally. And what it watched was
the tall black-skin squaw. The Arapaho woman was
making medicine signs and crooning some sort of
an Elk Dreamer song over the kid on the cowhides.
When she went to prying the tike's mouth open and
dumping some kind of powdered junk down it,
Jesse figured he'd best make his walk up.

He made it nice and quiet, as came natural to a
Minniconjou. Neither of the women saw him until
his sharp-growled- "Hau! "-startled them.

He didn't miss the flash of anger in the squaw's
scowl, or the unexpected brightness of Lacey's look.
He kept his voice down, deliberately ignoring the
Indian.

"What's the matter, ma'am? The kid ailing?"

"Oh, hello, Mister Callahan. Yes, the baby's sick."

"How long's she been thisaway, ma'am?"

"A long time." Lacey's voice sounded dull, hopeless. "It's the main reason I came out with Tim. The
doctor in Kansas City said she ought to be where it's
high and dry."

The mountain man looked at the wasted cheeks,
pasty color, flush spots over the tiny cheek bones.
One look was plenty. The kid had lung fever. She
was a goner, sure.

"Yours?" he grunted softly, feeling dumb for asking it, wanting, somehow, to hear her say it wasn't.
Knowing, of course, it was.

"Yes."

"God A'mighty, she's a purty little thing. How old
is she?"

"Three."

"Don't look it, poor little devil. What you call her?"

"Kathy."

"I know your other kid ... uh, one of them, anyways. Little carrot-top about five. Buckteeth like a
cub gopher. Him and me, we..."

"Johnny's seven, Mister Callahan. And there's no
others, just him and Kathy. He told me about how
you were the past president of the Sioux nation and
that you were so smart and mean that, when the
other Indians saw you coming, they all ran screaming... 'Run for your lives, it's the great Red Fox!'
Really, Mister Callahan...

"Shucks, that's nothing." Jesse's grin spread, ear
to ear, interrupting her threatened reprimand. "You
should have heard about the time I tangled rear
ends with Watonga, the king of the Arapahoes!"