“Remarkable. And where is he now?”
I smiled. “You don't really expect an answer to that.”
“I suppose not.” He returned the smile, faintly. “I'm curious to know why you are offering your service in this matter.”
“I'm always willing to help when the price is right. In this case it's my life.”
He thought that over. Outside, the snow settled onto the sides of the lodge with a sound like frying bacon. At last he spoke.
“You're probably lying, but I can't afford to pass up any opportunity to avoid war with the whites at a time when we are so poorly prepared. It has been five of your years since the bulk of my people was moved forcibly to the valley you call the Flathead, two days' ride east of this camp. Our numbers now are small.” He swept a hand across his face, as if to erase the memory. It was a neat piece of acting. “You and Rocking Wolf will leave at dawn tomorrow. You have until the next moon to return either with news of where to find Mountain That Walks or with his body slung across a saddle.”
“Just Rocking Wolf? You must trust me.”
“A party would attract too much attention. As for Rocking Wolf, he is the best of my warriors. I would advise you not to attempt an escape.”
“You didn't worry about attracting attention last year, when you headed up the bunch that killed Doc Bernstein outside Staghorn,” I reminded him.
“The old white man,” he said, after a pause. “I remember the incident. He gave us no choice. We had reason to believe that he was harboring Mountain That Walks after one of our party had wounded him. We asked for permission to search his dwelling. He was going to shoot.”
“What about his wife and child? Where they going to shoot?”
He studied me for a moment without speaking. The chief used silence like a weapon. “You're an emotional man, Page Murdock. I didn't realize that before.”
“And was Mountain That Walks there?”
“No. Apparently we were mistaken.”
I didn't carry it any further. The confrontation had given me a clear idea of the boundaries of his patience, and they weren't as broad as they'd seemed. Nothing about him was as it seemed. I changed the subject.
“I need food and a place to sleep. Can you fix me up?”
“My nephew will see to your needs,” he said. “One more question.”
I had turned to duck through the flap. I stopped and looked back at him.
“Since you know so much, perhaps you can tell me why a party of four white men was seen two
days southwest of here by my scouts the day before yesterday. Is this a new trick on the part of your army to rob my people of their birthright?”
He spoke casually, but I could tell that he had been waiting to ask the question ever since I'd appeared in the lodge. I pretended to give it some thought, though of course I already knew the answer. “Was one of them a small man wearing a big hat and a long yellow coat?”
“The scouts described a small man with a big hat. There was no mention of a coat, yellow or any other color.”
“He probably traded it for something warmer. His name is Church, and he has a warrant signed by the President for the arrest of Mountain That Walks. Two of the men with him are his partners. As for all of them being white, your scouts need glasses; the fourth is a half-breed who calls himself Ira Longbow.” I hesitated, letting the silence work against the chief for a change. “He claims to be your son.”
If I expected any kind of reaction to that last piece of information, I was disappointed. Two Sisters could have given Rocking Wolf poker lessons when he wanted to. Finally he nodded. That could have meant that he believed me, but it could just as well have been a sign of satisfaction at hearing an expected lie. In any case, he didn't return to the subject.
“The next moon,” he reminded me. “I can wait no longer. By then the first blizzard will be on its way to block the passes with snow and ice. We must
leave the mountains by then or be trapped. When we return in the spring, we will be carrying arms and wearing paint for war with the whites. Much to my regret.”
I left, my back tingling beneath the medicine man's hostile scrutiny.
A sour-featured brave escorted me like the prisoner I was to a lodge near the camp's center. There I was handed an earthen dish heaped with chunks of lean, bloody meat by an old squaw whose cracked pumpkin of a face told me she had borne worse dangers than those offered by Bear Anderson's mountains. I ate hungrily, not pausing to wonder which of the dogs that had greeted me earlier was going into my stomach; to a man in my condition it tasted like tenderest sirloin. When it was finished and the dish was taken away, I stretched out fully clothed on a flat straw pallet beside the fire and drew a mildewed blanket up to my chin.
I was prepared to spend the night staring up at the cloud-lathered sky through the opening in the top of the lodge. As it turned out, however, I had little trouble getting to sleep. So great was my exhaustion that nothing could have kept me awake, not even the fact that I didn't have the slightest idea of where to find Bear Anderson or his lair.
“Y
ou are leading me in circles, white skin.” Rocking Wolf spoke flatly and seemingly without emotion, but the emotion was there, in his words. They dripped cold fury.
The sun had risen dazzlingly over twelve inches of fresh snow, shining through the spots where the wind had slashed the cloud cover into fibrous shreds and turning the uninterrupted vista of white into a blazing brilliance that hurt the eyes and did little toward relieving my headache. We had followed the pass northward until the flanking cliffs fell away, at which point we had taken a turn to the west and swung lazily in the direction from which we had come. It was mid-morning before we stopped at the top of a gentle rise and looked out over the Christmas-painting scenery of crystallized trees and blue-shadowed drifts. I was still stuck with the broken-down chestnut mare, while Rocking
Wolf had secured himself a fresh mount that morning from his stable of painted stallionsâa situation meant to discourage any plans I might have entertained about escaping. Over his shoulder was slung a Winchester with a shattered and thong-bound stock. In the distance a river etched its way southward through the foothills, its chocolate color startling against the carved whiteness of its banks. To the south, clouds drifting across the mountaintops tore themselves lengthwise along the razor edges of the peaks. The air was brittle.
“No circles,” I corrected him. My breath hung in vapor. “We're just taking the easy way south. By now the narrow part of the pass is piled up with drifts three feet high. If you'd rather flounder your way through that, you're welcome to try, but I'll be waiting for you at the other end.”
“How do I know you are not leading me into a trap? You have already admitted that Mountain That Walks is your friend.”
“Was my friend. I haven't seen him in over fifteen years.”
He looked at me, and I got the impression that he was smirking behind the coarse scarf that swathed the lower part of his face, leaving only his eyes visible between it and his bearskin headpiece. “And does the white man find it necessary to see his friends every day to ensure that they remain friends?” he asked.
“Look around,” I said. “If I were going to lead you into a trap, would I have chosen this area? From here you can see ten miles in every direction. The pass would have been a far better place for an ambush.”
“Where are we going?”
I nodded toward the mountains to the south. “Straight up. If I know Bear, he'll be heading where no Indian in his right mind would follow him. This time of year a mountain goat would have trouble getting around on the high rocks.”
“That is a long way to go if we are to return by the next moon.”
“You can talk to your uncle about that,” I said. “He's the one who set the time limit.” I urged the mare forward down the slope.
The wind began to rise about noon, and for the rest of the day it blew in ever-increasing gusts, bringing snow swirling down from the sides of the mountains and rippling the wet stuff in the flat spots until they resembled sheets of corrugated iron. After a while my face grew numb and I fell into the habit of pinching it from time to time between gloved fingers to make sure the skin wasn't frostbitten. Steam rose from the mare's neck and withers.
Night fell without warning, the way it does in the mountains; one minute we were riding along through snow tinted orange by the wallowing sun, our shadows stretching out a mile to our left, and
the next we were plunged into darkness. We made camp on a slope, using a stand of jack pine for a windbreak and building a tiny fire with the aid of boughs from a dead tree, over which we warmed our stiff fingers. Rocking Wolf watched from a safe distance while I used a knife borrowed from him to pare off a couple of slices of bacon from the small slab I had bought in Staghorn. I cut out more than was needed and slipped the extra slices inside my coat to keep them from freezing. When I was finished he held out his hand for the weapon. I returned it reluctantly. My skillet having disappeared along with my horse the day Brainard got away, I strung the slices on a stick and roasted them over the flame. This done, I offered one to the Indian. He shook his head, holding up a three-inch length of jerky which he had taken from inside his bearskin where he had been keeping it warm beneath his arm.
“Suit yourself,” I said, crunching the crisp bacon between my teeth. “There won't be many more hot meals where we're going. We can't take the chance of having Bear smell wood smoke once we hit the mountains.”
“White men.” Rocking Wolf ground away contemptuously at the tough jerky. “How do you expect to conquer the Indian when you insist upon taking all the conveniences of home with you wherever you go? Give a Salish a knife and a piece of jerky, send him out into the wilderness, and he will
come back two moons later as healthy as he was when he left.”
I let that one slide while I studied the strip of bacon remaining on the stick. “What do you plan to do with Mountain That Walks once you've got him?”
He paused in mid-chew. His browless eyes glittered in the light of the little fire: “That decision belongs to the chief,” he said. “When I was a boy, not yet strong enough to draw a bow, I saw the punishment of a white soldier who had been captured in the act of raping a squaw. He was a big man, like you, with big hard hands and a face like cracked leather. I think he was what you would call a sergeant. The braves stripped him and turned him over to the women, who have their own way of dealing with the crime of which he was guilty.
“It is a compliment to his strength and training that he was still alive when it was over. He begged to be killed. The braves did not oblige. They left him lying there until he ceased to beg.” He went on chewing. “This was for the crime of rape. I imagine Two Sisters has something much more fitting in mind for the murderer of our people.”
“Do your people enjoy seeing suffering that much?”
“We enjoy it no more than the whites. When a man commits a crime among your people, he is usually compelled to hang from a rope by his neck until he chokes his last. Our punishments are
neither worse nor better. They are just different.” He finished eating and rolled himself up in the buffalo robe he used for a blanket. “Sleep,” he said. “We will move again at dawn.”
I sat there a moment longer, gazing at the uneaten slice of bacon. In the firelight it took on a reddish glow, as though it were dripping with fresh blood. I thrust it inside my coat and made ready for bed.
Staying awake was harder than I'd anticipated. In many ways, riding a horse all day long is more exhausting than walking for the same length of time, and in spite of the cold and the hardness of the ground I had all I could do to keep my eyelids from falling shut of their own weight. I stuck it out for the better part of an hour, and then I got quietly to my feet and picked up my saddle, holding onto the cinch lest the buckle jingle. Rocking Wolf lay motionless beneath his buffalo robe on the other side of the guttering fire. With the saddle under my arm and the blanket and saddlebags slung over my shoulder I stepped cautiously through the wet snow to where our horses were standing in the shelter of the pines, mine tethered, the Indian's hobbled. I gazed longingly at the painted stallion for a moment, but I was no bareback rider, and saddling it was out of the question as it was unfamiliar with the procedure and would undoubtedly have balked and alerted its master. Besides, I was getting used to
the chestnut, which says something for the adaptability of human nature. I saddled the mare.
I had my foot in the stirrup and was about to swing my right leg over when something piled into me from behind and carried me with it to the ground, emptying my lungs upon impact and clapping my jaws shut with a jarring snap. The mare whinnied and tried to rear, pulling taut the reins that held it. Snow sifted down from the pine's shivering boughs. My skull rang. Dazed, I lay on my face in the snow for a long moment, grinding pieces of what had been a perfectly good molar between my teeth. Then I scrambled to my feet and swung around, fists clenched. I stopped when Rocking Wolf placed the muzzle of the Colt I had borrowed from Henry Goodnight against my forehead and drew the hammer back with a sound like a walnut being crushed.
“I wondered what had happened to that,” I said finally. I let my hands drop to my sides.
Moonlight drenched the Indian in silver, but it might just as well have been dark for all the expression he wore. His bearskin and leggings were covered with snow from his tackle. “You might have died, white skin,” he said. “I would not like to see that happen. Not until we have found Mountain That Walks.”
He held the gun on me while I unsaddled the chestnut, and kept me covered all the way back to camp. Then he put the weapon away inside his
bearskin and settled down on his side of the glowing ashes as if nothing had happened to disturb him. His seeming carelessness didn't tempt me. It would have pleased him to shoot me in the leg during an escape attempt; I would still be alive to lead him to his quarry and would give him less trouble. Wrapped in my blanket, I lay back and stared at the sky. The moon, shot with clouds like black arteries in a blind man's eye, was full. Tomorrow it would begin to wane, eventually to be replaced by a new moon.
“Don't remind me,” I muttered, and drew the blanket over my head. But that was too much like what they do to corpses, so I pulled it down and turned over onto my left side.
When day broke, crisp and cold as the leftover slice of bacon I had for breakfast, we had left the camp far behind and were starting up the grade that wound into the mountains. The wind had died down, but that was only temporary, the lull before the big blow. The air stung my nostrils and the sun was so bright coming off the clean surface of the snow that I was forced to ride with my eyes squeezed shut most of the time to keep from going snowblind. It was because of this that I failed to see the tracks on the northern slope until my horse was right on top of them.
I turned to the Indian, but he had already noticed them. He nodded once, curtly. I obeyed his unspoken command and dismounted for a closer look.
Four horses had trampled the snow into a trail of slush that girded the mountain from east to west.
“Have you ever known Mountain That Walks to travel with companions?” I asked Rocking Wolf.
“Never.” He bounded to the ground and squatted for a moment beside the trail. “Nor have I known him to ride a shod horse. You have laid a poor trap, white skin.” He drew out the revolver and pointed it at me.
“Put it away,” I said, wearily. “I thought you Indians were supposed to have such good eyesight Can't you see that one of these men is wounded?” I pointed out the spots of blood that peppered the snow.
He spent a long time studying the crimson specks. Finally he returned the gun to the inside of his bearskin and stood up. “We will follow them,” he said. “If it is a trick, you are the one who will pay.”
We didn't have far to go. Two miles later the Indian reined in and signaled for me to do the same. He sniffed the air. I followed his lead.
“Wood smoke,” I said.
He didn't reply, but kicked his horse gently and together we rode forward at a walk around the bend of the mountain. We halted at the top of a rise that fell away before us into a fan-shaped hollow, at the bottom of which three men sat huddled around a fire at the base of a lone pine. A fourth lay wrapped in blankets nearby. Their horses, tethered
to the tree, craned their necks to nibble at the needles on the lower branches above their heads.
“White men do not belong in the wilderness,” observed Rocking Wolf in a low murmur. “It is a foolish camper who kindles his fire beneath a tree heavy with snow.”
“Not if he doesn't want anyone to know he's there,” I said. “Those branches do a pretty good job of breaking up the smoke so that it can't be seen from a distance.”
“You know them?”
I nodded. “It's Church and his bunch, the Strakeys and Ira Longbow. That's Church, the small one with his back to us. They're the party Two Sistersâ² scouts reported seeing a few days back.”
“Will they give us trouble?”
“They want what we want. Of course they'll give us trouble.”
We were picking our way down the slope when one of the tethered horses spotted us and began snorting. Church, who had been facing away from the rise, sprang up and spun on his heel, drawing his gun as he did so. On the other side of the fire, Ira Longbow rose slowly with his Dance in his hand. He wore the black Spanish hat I'd seen earlier, low over his eyes in the manner of a caballero, but it didn't help; he still looked like a half-breed. The third man, Homer Strakey, Sr., watched us from a kneeling position beside his son's prostrate form.
As before, I was unable to tell if he was wearing any weapon at all. Which made him the one to watch.
We stopped five yards from camp, and for a space the horses' fidgeting was the only sound for miles. Then Strakey, Jr., began moaning in a low voice and broke the tension.
“Page Murdock.” A grin flickered across Church's face, but it was just his peculiar tick manifesting itself once again. He made no move to holster the gun. He had a gray woolen scarf pulled down over his hat and knotted beneath his chin, and he had discarded his duster in favor of a hip-length sheepskin coat that looked as if it hadn't been cleaned since it was removed from the sheep. “You turn renegade?” His crossed eyes took in the Indian mounted beside me.