Scalpdancers (37 page)

“Like hell,” Morgan blurted out in English. He caught himself and continued in the dialect of the Blackfeet. “I will stand with you.”

“It is not in my dream,” Lone Walker retorted.

“So maybe it's in mine,” Morgan said in English.

Lone Walker gave up trying to explain anything to the crazy white man. He wondered why he had ever let such a one accompany him back across the Backbone of the World. Yet the moment he lowered his eyes he knew the reason. Stretched out before him were two shadows upon the ground. They were bound together, two paths become one.

“Maybe we better get started,” Morgan suggested, kicking dirt into the fire and smothering the embers. A column of smoke spiraled up to collect in the branches. “Where do we ride?”

Lone Walker pointed to a glacier-scalloped jumble of boulders and broken cliffs rising to the south. “The Stone Bear—” The words died on his lips. Wearing a look of consternation, he inhaled and the stench of blood and gunsmoke filled his nostrils. There was anger and death in the valley. “We must go!” he blurted out. There was no time to explain.

21

The plant was the curlydock and it grew in patches throughout the narrow confines of the valley, its large, dark leaves upturned to the sunlight. Red medicine, the Blackfeet called the plant. Sparrow filled her beaver skin pouch with the brown heart-shaped seedlike fruit and young crisp leaves gathered from stalks as tall as herself. It was midafternoon and the autumn sun warmed her shoulders as she moved among the swaying stalks, her hands darting from plant to plant, harvesting what she needed. The dun pony she had ridden from the cave was hobbled close by. The mare contentedly cropped the buffalo grass growing amid the wildflowers.

Bees swarmed from plant to plant and cut lazy circles in the warmth of the afternoon. Lark buntings shooshed and dived and darted after insects. Mountain chickadees circled overhead, eyeing the human intruder with suspicion. They swooped low and, lacking the bravery of the buntings, avoided the young woman and soared upslope, returning to their nests among the lodgepole pines. Out on the floor of the narrow valley a family of prairie dogs rummaged in the earth and chased one another from burrow to burrow. Their antics brought a smile to Sparrow's face. But her reverie didn't last long.

A horse and rider suddenly appeared, riding hell-bent along the floor of the valley. Then several other horsemen galloped into view. Pursued and pursuer maintained a course that would bring them right below Sparrow. A rifle shot rang out. Sparrow hurried to her horse and forced the animal to lie on its side in the wildflower patch. The mare balked at first, but the young woman knew how to handle the animal and soon they were both concealed among the wildflowers.

The rider came on. Hoofbeats drummed the earth. Sparrow raised herself up. The fugitive was closer now; Sparrow could see it was a woman. Closer now and the rider turned her face to the sun. “Blind Weed!” Sparrow whispered the name of her friend. Shoshoni rifles fired a ragged volley at their quarry. Blind Weed leaned forward over the neck of her horse and for a single awful moment Sparrow thought her friend had been hit. But the Blackfoot woman was merely making as small a target as possible out of herself. A hundred yards became seventy, then fifty, and then Blind Weed was right below Sparrow. She leapt from her horse as the animal fell. Blood spurted from a mortal wound in the horse's neck.

Afoot now, Blind Weed had no chance at all. The Shoshoni, with Drum in the lead, knew it only too well and with war cries ringing out, charged forward. Sparrow acted on reflex. She cut loose the hobble and brought her mare upright and swung up onto the animal's back as the mare clambered to its feet. Sparrow pointed the dun toward the stranded young woman, who waited, her face to the enemy. Blind Weed gripped a trade knife in her fist. She was determined to sell her life as dearly as possible, preferring to die rather than reveal where she had left Moon Shadow and the others in order to lead the Crazy Dog soldiers on a merry chase.

“Blind Weed!” Sparrow called out.

The woman afoot spun around and stared in total disbelief at her rescuer. Sparrow reined in her mount alongside Blind Weed.

“Foolish girl, leave me. We can never escape with two of us together,” Blind Weed gasped, shoving the dun away.

“I won't leave you,” Sparrow shouted. Bullets plucked the air around her as the war party came on.

Drum was as surprised as anyone to see the second Blackfoot maiden rise up out of the tall grass. He checked the slope as best he could to see if there were any more surprises concealed among the flowers.

“Take them alive!” he shouted to his companions and reloaded his rifle at a gallop.

Sparrow fought her frightened mount and brought the horse under control as Blind Weed, unable to make her friend listen to reason, leapt up behind the younger woman. Sparrow whirled her mount and, whipping the poor beast about the neck and flanks, galloped off toward the opposite end of the valley.

Maybe if they could reach the north end … She glanced over her shoulder and bit her lower lip to keep from crying out in despair. The Shoshoni were slowly, inexorably gaining.

“We will never make it out of the valley alive.” The bag of red medicine leaves slapped uselessly at her side, a taunting reminder that she would never return to Singing Woman Ridge. But it would not be for lack of trying.

She slapped the dun along the side of the neck and the animal quickened its stride yet again, carrying its double burden across the buffalo grass. She leaned low over the animal's neck until the mane lashed her features. Blind Weed suddenly tightened her embrace about the smaller woman's midriff.

“The Shoshoni have sprung their trap!” she shouted and pointed past Sparrow's shoulder to the opposite end of the valley, a narrow gap between the heavily wooded slopes.

Sparrow had hoped to reach the tall timber and lose their pursuers in the emerald twilight of the pine forest. Now two horsemen had arrived to block their escape. With war party behind them and another two braves a hundred yards ahead Sparrow's hopes collapsed. She veered from the trail, headed for the hillside. But the incline was too steep for the mare's double burden. A few yards into the climb the horse lost its footing. Blind Weed dropped off as the animal faltered. Sparrow followed suit, leaping lightly to the ground. The mare recovered its balance and darted off in the opposite direction. Sparrow made a futile attempt to catch the horsehair reins, but the mare eluded her grasp with a toss of its head.

Blind Weed and Sparrow glanced at each other, the gravity of their situation impossible to ignore. Knife in hand, Sparrow turned to face her attackers. Blind Weed stood at her side.

“Moon Shadow and the others will have escaped,” Blind Weed said, resigned to her fate. She looked toward the war party who were—surprisingly—drawn up in a line about sixty yards from the two women.

“What is this?”

The war party should have been swarming over the women on the hillside.

Sparrow was as surprised as her companion. Impossible, the Shoshoni party no longer appeared interested in the women. Sparrow shaded her eyes against the burning glare of the sun and studied the horsemen at the north end of the narrow valley. The wind in the buffalo grass seemed to whisper a name. She feared to listen, warned herself not to hear it, not to believe. But the wind that stirred the long grass and ruffled her hair would not be denied. It caressed her cheek as it rushed past, leaving only his name. And when she could deny it no longer, Sparrow surrendered to a hope that love had not let die.

“Lone Walker,” she said.

“Sparrow.” Lone Walker dropped the reins of the pack animal, the gray mare, and grabbed his powerful elkhorn bow from the back of it. His heart felt as if it were about to burst through his chest. He wanted to run to Sparrow and lose himself in the wonder of her embrace. Surely the Great One had guided him to this place that he might come to her aid.

“Your woman?” Morgan asked. Lone Walker nodded. Morgan exhaled. He'd seen enough of the inexplicable to accept without question their miraculous and timely arrival.

“Who are the others?” Morgan asked.

“Shoshoni,” Lone Walker replied contemptuously. “They are no match for us.”

Morgan counted six Shoshoni. “I admire your notion of fair odds,” he said in English.

The Blackfoot mulled over the white man's remark, trying to comprehend Morgan's words. “What are you saying?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Morgan said. “Only six Shoshoni. I wish there were ten.” He gulped and tightened his grip on the reins, primed his long-barreled flintlock rifle. Ships he knew, back-alley fighting he knew, but this was something else. He nervously eyed the horse beneath him. Even after two months on the trail he could hardly call himself a proficient rider.

“Listen, maybe I better—” He never finished.

“On this day,

All-Father,

Ride before me.

Let the wolf be my courage,

Let the hawk be my shield

On this day.”

Lone Walker finished his prayer. He ended with a blood-curdling war whoop and charged the war party.

“Oh, shit!” Morgan exclaimed as his mount of its own volition lunged forward at a gallop. Morgan clung to horseback for all he was worth and rode pell-mell into the fray.

Drum and his Crazy Dog Soldiers were taken aback by the sudden arrival of the two strangers and searched the hills for signs of a trap.

“Who are these two?” one of the braves muttered.

“Dead men,” another said, brandishing a ten-foot lance.

Drum was not a man to back down from a fight. He called for the other braves to follow his lead. He could have saved his breath. These were Crazy Dogs. To them, any day was a good day to fight—and if need be, to die. Warriors with names like Bold Hawk and Little Sky and Snake Killer started forward as one; their war cries rent the stillness as they charged.

Lone Walker snatched a couple of arrows from his otter skin quiver and clamped them between his teeth, then notched another to his sinew bowstring. He allowed the gelding free rein, controlling the horse with the pressure of his legs. The animal wasn't as well trained as the gray, but it did have heart and could run with the wind. That was all Lone Walker required. The gelding had a steady, easy gait; its long-legged stride devoured the distance and soon brought him within range of Shoshoni rifles.

A coyote, spooked from its den in the tall grass, scurried out of harm's way. The sleek pelt became a rust-red blur of motion through the buffalo grass and wildflowers.

Lone Walker saw the guns of his enemies belch powder smoke and heard the crack of gunshots above the thundering hooves. He returned their fire, with arrows.

Morgan rode into battle Indian style. He dropped his reins and tightened his legs about the animal; he hefted his rifle, sighted, and fired. The weapon's recoil shoved him off balance. He kicked up his feet, pawed the air, and tumbled from the horse as a couple of slugs from the Shoshoni rifles fanned the space he had once occupied. Morgan hit hard, rolled, heard a loud crack, and waited for the first spasm of pain to tell him he had broken an arm or a leg. He crawled to one knee as a shadow flitted across him and a Shoshoni lunged at him with a spear.

Morgan scrambled out of the path of the chiseled blade and grabbed for his cutlass. He drew the weapon and parried a spear thrust from the brave towering over him. Morgan lunged with the cutlass in what should have been a killing thrust except for the fact that the weapon was only half as long as it once had been. He stared up at the jagged end of the blade.

Christ, he'd broken the damn thing in his fall. The Shoshoni didn't give Morgan much time to dwell on the past. He kicked the white man and knocked the blade aside and rode off for a few paces, then whirled his horse with a savage tug on the reins and charged.

Morgan didn't have time to try for one of his pistols. The brave was on him in a second. This time Morgan was ready. He was a big man, so the Shoshoni brave had not expected such quickness in him. Morgan did the unexpected. He darted in front of the Indian's horse and waved and screamed and so startled the animal that it reared and tossed the brave in the dirt.

The warrior rolled to his feet. Dust caked his features; hate filled his eyes. He lunged with his spear. Morgan parried the thrust, leapt inside the reach of the spear, and drove home the jagged blade of the cutlass. The Shoshoni brave gasped, his expression contorted, and he sagged to the ground.

A horse pounded the earth behind Morgan. The white man spun about, pistol in hand, only to face a dead man bearing down on him. The Crazy Dog Soldier toppled from his horse and rolled across the trampled grass almost to the white man's boots. The broken shaft of an arrow protruded from a bloody patch in the center of his chest below his breastbone.

Drum was down and scrambling from his dying mount. Lone Walker counted coup on him, striking the brave's shoulder with the tip of the elkhorn bow. A Shoshoni, Little Sky, rammed home a powder charge down the barrel of his rifle and seated the charge and lead shot by slapping the butt of the trade gun on his thigh. He had circled his horse and came around behind Lone Walker, who was busy with another enemy.

The Crazy Dog Soldier called Snake Killer was priming his musket when a Blackfoot arrow struck him. A puff of dust rose from his buckskin shirt. He dropped his powder horn as a second arrow passed completely through his left side and thwacked into the buffalo grass just behind the man. Snake Killer slumped forward over the neck of his horse and slid to the ground.

Lone Walker heard his name shouted from the hillside. Sparrow was pointing behind him as she ran across the valley floor.

He swung about as Little Sky held his horse steady and leveled his rifle. This time he wouldn't miss. Lone Walker faced the man and reached for the last of his arrows. Too late, Little Sky would take his shot. Lone Walker tensed, ready to leap from horseback.