Medicine Road (26 page)

The braves looked at one another, scowling their
disappointment. Iho! Well, well! Big Face was failing in his old age. No laugh here. Just a straight
tongue. Too simple. No imagination. Any man
could get lonely around that cursed Skull. Naturally. They shifted their gazes to Black Coyote,
awaiting his word.

"Where is Skull?" asked the chief presently.

"Off in the trees, like I said." The renegade
shrugged. "He was going to make dirt first. Then
go make his dream. He said he would stay in the
trees until first light, making a big dream. He said
the need for meat was that bad. That he thought
Black Coyote needed a real dream for tomorrow's
hunt."

Tim paused, assaying the effect of his tale on the
blank-faced braves. Apparently the assay ran a little
short. Clearly feeling this, the Mormon nervously
fattened it up a bit.

"Oh, and yes. Skull was going to see to his ponies.
Going to bring them up from the herd for tomorrow.
Right after the dream he was going to-do that."

It was a good try, worthy of the politician's brain
bequeathed Tim by his Hibernean forebears, and it
had several of the braves nodding their understanding of such a serious business. Dreams were
big things. Very important. Perhaps Black Coyote
should reconsider his decision to let Tall Elk put
this Big Face on the red holy pole. After all, the
need for meat was great. And if Skull's dreams were
successful...

The nods had barely started when Dog Head's
long jaw opened to snap them into instant motionlessness. "He had already brought his ponies up. I
helped him."

"Go get Skull," ordered Watonga, his eyes studying the way the white man's skin was going gray
under its travel-dust cover while the little silence
born of Dog Head's laconic statement was living its
brief moment, and dying. "We will leave it to Skull.
But be careful. If he is truly in a dream, don't wake
him. He can talk later."

Yellow Leg and Dog Head were back in less than
a minute.

"Skull won't talk for a long time," vouchsafed the
former. "Not for a very long time."

"Not for any time," added the latter succinctly.

"Where did you find him?" asked Black Coyote
softly.

"Back of the log where he lay down with Big
Face," explained Yellow Leg. "He won't need all
those ponies he brought up now. Just one."

"His best one," agreed Dog Head reverently,
"that the journey to Wanagi Yata may be swift and
pleasant."

"Aii-eee!" Watonga's sibilant answering hiss
wasn't so low but what the pain in it was evident.
Skull, for all his consumptive shortcomings, had
been the light of the chief's fierce eye. "Anything
else?"

"His gun was gone. The knife, too. You know that
knife? The one with the white handle and the black
skull burned on it? I always wanted that knife...."
Yellow Leg's suspended words took the eyes of all to
the putty-faced Tim O'Mara.

By this time, the rest of the braves had come up
from the cooking fires to crowd soundlessly behind
the Mormon's accusers. In the silence Watonga
stepped forward, put his hand inside the white
man's hunting shirt, stepped back to hold aloft the
bone-handled, skull-emblazoned signature on Tim's
death warrant.

His words spilled like glacier water down the
rigid channel of the Mormon's spine. "We will give
him to Tall Elk now. She caught him."

This was all he said, but as to the manner and immediacy of Tim's demise he couldn't have said more had he orated all night. The squaw, who had retrieved Johnny O'Mara from the teepee, handed the
child to Watonga, shifted the blunt-stoned maul to
her right hand, stepped toward the waiting white
captive. The braves pulled silently back, making a
lance-studded circle.

Halfway across this circle, the crouching Tall Elk
hesitated, interrupted by a commotion in the back
rank of watching braves. The outer warriors parted to
admit anewcomer, all eyes flicking in his direction.

Blood Face was excited, his silence-gesture
sweeping dramatically with the barking-"A-ah! "-
that announced his arrival. It was the tribal warning
word of sudden danger and it commanded precedence over even a traitor-killing.

"I was tracking Mato, Kicking Bear, my best buffalo pony. He wandered back along the canon trail
from whence we came today. The light was going
bad and so were the tracks. But I saw those other
tracks. The light wasn't that bad."

"What other tracks?" Watonga's question was instant and intense.

"Arapaho moccasin. Toed-in."

"Snake!" the name burst from a dozen slitmouths, labeling the enemy people, the Shoshone.

"No, Shoshone!" Blood Face's contradiction was
harsh. "Minniconjou! I know that track. I have studied it well. Do not forget, I was the last scout, before
Toad, to leave that red-wheeled goddam's trail before the Water Road of the Pines."

"Tokeya Sha!" Tall Elk snarled the hated name
into the quick silence.

"Aye," nodded Blood Face. "Tokeya Sha, the
Minniconjou."

Turning to await Watonga's word on Blood Face's startling discovery, the braves were interested to see
the chief's huge jaw spreading the frost of a slow
smile across his coarse features. "Waste," growled
the hulking savage. "Good, good."

Blood Face had expected more than this out of the
drama of his revelation, showed his irritation immediately. "How is this? I bring Watonga news of his
great enemy. I tell him that Tokeya Sha is following
him. And he does no more than stand there grinning like a dog coyote smelling bitch-heat blood!"

"I just thought of something," answered Watonga, letting the grin spread, unchecked. "Let me
ask you. Who gets the first rules of woyuonihan?
Even above the best friend?"

"The worst enemy." Blood Face frowned. "Any
heyoka knows that."

"All right, then. We owe this Tokeya Sha hard
courtesy rules. Am I talking straight?"

His answer was a wave of scowling nods. Erasing
his slack smile, Watonga added his own scowl to the
others.

"So, then. Who gave us this white mongrel in the
first place? Who was it attacked our ambush in the
Bend of the Wild Horses, thus letting us know of
Big Face's treachery?" The chief's repeated questions were accompanied by glowering thumb stabs
at the cornered Mormon.

"Tokeya Sha, who else?" admitted Blood Face.

"Even so," Watonga nodded. "And is the Sioux
Fox to outdo the Arapaho Coyote in the matter of
simple woyuonihan?"

By now, the listening braves were beginning to
swing into the drift of their chief's shifty thinking,
their big mouths slackening into a splattering of
loose-lipped grins.

"Truly, it must not happen that way," said Yellow
Leg seriously. "Clearly we cannot avoid this matter
of courtesy. It must be as Watonga is thinking."

"Well?" Blood Face's growl showed all the resentment of the slow mind left behind by swifter ones.
"What in pte's name is Watonga thinking? I am lost
as a blind wolf whelp six feet from a hind tit."

Watonga's deep gutturals boomed out, giving the
answer to them all. "When this stinking Big Face betrayed us for the first time, Tokeya Sha attacked us
and so warned us of the betrayal. Now Big Face has
betrayed us for the second time. He has tried to steal
my little white son, Ya Slo. Nohetto, there you are.
This time Watonga will leave Big Face in the middle
of the trail for Tokeya Sha. It is woyuonihan, courtesy
rules, that's all."

Jesse, moving as close on Watonga's backside as a
man dared in shut-in country, cast a worried eye
skyward. Above the overhanging canon escarpments, the sun glow was cooling out. Already the
gray of early evening was blurring the hostile pony
tracks. Another five minutes and a cat couldn't see
that trail, with glasses.

As it was, Jesse had to follow it afoot the last mile.
And being off his horse, with the cussed Heyoka
tied in a cedar clump a mile back there, didn't add
to a man's easy breathing, either. Due to the brushchoked nature of the canon, he'd had to hang farther
back than he liked, too. In more open country a man
could see to take his chances. In here, with the scrub
and all, you had to tread mighty light and far back.
One thing, anyway, he had plenty of room now.

The Arapahoes would surely make Portola
Springs their camp for tonight-were, no doubt, already there. That gave him a good six miles to play
with. He'd sneak those miles plenty quickly, once dark shut down. Be right on top of old Watonga
when he broke camp next morning.

Rounding a blind corner in the narrow track, he
nearly knocked heads with the fact he wouldn't
have to wait until morning for Black Coyote. He was
on top of him, right now.

The grazing Indian pony threw up his head,
stood staring, prick-eared, nostrils flaring. The
mountain man knew another second would bring
the nervous animal the hated Wasicun scent, start
him to whistling out the warning-whicker.

"Waste, Bunke wakan. Waste, waste." Jesse muttered
the Indian words like a prayer, slipped back into the
screening brush as he did so, crouched, breath held,
awaiting the little beast's reaction.

Confused by the familiar, gut-deep tongue, the
pony hesitated, snuffled curiously, forgot its momentary alarm, fell to grazing again.

Seconds later, Blood Face trotted down the trail.

"Ho, there, Mato! May Wakan Tanka curse you
with spavins and stringhalt. An hour in camp, and
here you are two miles along the back trail!" The pony
moved a few yards away from Blood Face, as the subchief came sidling up to seize its trailing halter rope.
"Next time Watonga finds a herd of buffalo and calls
an early camp, I'll stake you so close to the ..."

The brave's voice broke in mid-threat, his eyes going quickly to the thick dust of the trail a few paces
beyond the pony. Only a second he hesitated, before
swinging up on Mato and turning him for camp. After all, when you're one of the best trackers on the
short grass, you don't need more than a second to
single out a Sioux moccasin stamp from 400 barefoot
pony prints.

In his pinon scrub cover, Jesse cursed. Had the red son seen his tracks, or hadn't he? Chances were,
he hadn't. The light was nearly gone and, besides,
what the hell difference did it make? A man ought to
be thanking Wakan Tanka that the Arapahoes
hadn't seen him, not fretting about whether he'd
spotted his moccasin prints. As a matter of calm fact,
the brave probably hadn't even seen those. Anyway,
Jesse sure as sin hoped he hadn't. It was quirky
enough trailing 100 pucker-bung hostiles without
they were onto your being after them.

Piecing together what he knew of the Carson's
Canon trail, with what the Arapaho sub-chief had
growled at his wandering pony, the mountain man
figured Watonga must be camped in Carson's Creek
Flats, two miles ahead, five short of Portola Springs.
Also that the reason for the halt had been the discovery of buffalo ahead. Blood Face had said so, and
the sub-chief's word was good enough for Jesse.
Now, any sizable herd would not be down in the
canon but up on Coulter's Meadow, somewhere beyond the springs. That was a ten-mile trot from Watonga's present camp. The sons would have to leave
in the dark, tomorrow, probably about four, to get
up on the herd by daylight.

The more he thought of it, the better it shaped
up. The Indians would no doubt make their hunting camp at Portola Springs, leave Johnny and the
squaw there to get ready for the meat dressing.
The hunters would likely be gone the best part of
the day. Cripes, a man couldn't ask for a much better shot than looked to be coming up-a neardeserted camp, heavy timber, one squaw to handle,
and ten hours to handle her in! If a Minniconjoutrained gambler couldn't make a hand like that pay
off, he'd just as well forget the whole game.

When Jesse snaked out of the brush to go dogtrotting back toward the hidden Heyoka, the set of
his mouth and eyes were those of a man who had just
drawn three cards to an inside straight-and made it.

Carson's Creek Flats lay like the bulge of a paunch
skin in the slender channel of the canon, the narrowed neck pointing toward Jesse. In this regard,
the mountain man's approach to the Indian camp
site, cautiously made about 5:00 A.M., was necessarily a blind one. There was no way to see into the flats
save to follow the main trail squarely on into them.
Sneaking around the last turn in that trail, handleading Heyoka, Jesse's eyes widened.

The Indians were completely gone, all right, but
they had left a little something behind for Tokeya
Sha, the Minniconjou. Its name was Tim O'Mara
and it was rawhide-bound, hand and foot, to a fourinch sapling stump in the center of the deserted
clearing, and stark naked.

The first flash that tightened the trapper's tenderloins was that Watonga had built a wick-munke for
him, using Tim as bait. Then, given a little thought,
the idea of a trap didn't hold up too well. Even if
Watonga knew he was after him, he had ought to
know better than to try and bait Jesse with Tim. Or
to bait him at all, after falling into Jesse's trap at
Jackpine Slash. By cripes, there was something
fishier here than Friday in St. Patrick's parish. In a
spot like this, there was only one sure thing to do:
circle the whole flats and make dead certain there
wasn't a pack of Arapahoes ambushed to jump him
the minute he moseyed out to sniff around Tim.