Scalpdancers (40 page)

Morgan gnawed a piece of jerked meat and meandered behind the falls and across the slippery jumble of rocks and tall yellow-green reeds, then followed a narrow little path out onto the opposite bank where Sparrow had built her fire. The flames unwound a fragrant banner of smoke that floated upward on the warm listless air. Morgan wondered why she had chosen a site apart from the rest of the Scalpdancers. When he saw the glistening trace of tears on her cheeks, he knew.

She watched him approach and turned away to tend the tea mixture she had brewed from the curlydocks. She added an armful of dried cornflowers to the flames and a handful of dried chokecherries to the mixture. She kept herself busy, hoping the white man would leave her in peace. Even if Lone Walker claimed him as friend, she was still shy and unused to such men. The white men were a mercurial race, friendly one moment, enemies the next.

Morgan shifted his big frame and cleared his throat, and when she still did not acknowledge him, he stepped around and placed himself between the woman and the medicine she brewed. Sparrow was in no mood to be trifled with. Lone Walker had just ridden off to do battle with an invincible foe. Now that she was alone, all her doubts sprang up, like wolves to a kill. Her eyes blazed with fury as she confronted Morgan.

“I shall need a parfleche of dried meat and a water bag,” Morgan said. “You ought to be able to fetch them without attracting attention,” he said, scratching his beard.

His instructions took her by surprise; then she noticed he wore his pistols in his belt, cradled his rifle in his arm. And out in the meadow his mouse-brown gelding, a hammerheaded steed with an ugly long-legged gait, was already saddled. Realization brightened her features. His teeth flashed in a smile. Her mistrust melted. She touched his hand, then hurried to do as he bid. So this Mor-gan was going to follow after all. But he was not born to these mountains. He was no tracker. The white man would need help, someone who could read a trail.

Sparrow knew just the person for the job.

Lone Walker momentarily skylined himself atop the ridge overlooking the valley and halted the stallion down within the shadows of the ponderosas and checked his back trail. Satisfied he wasn't being followed, Lone Walker dismounted and leaned the Medicine Cane against the nearest tree trunk. He'd spied a suspicious glint of metal beneath the water bag slung behind him.

Lone Walker lifted the folds of the pelts draped across the back of the roan and, shoving aside the buffalo gut he used for a water bag, the brave uncovered Morgan Penmerry's cutlass. The weapon's fourteen-inch blade remnant had been worked to a lethal point by Morgan, then secured in place by a strip of buckskin looped around the basket hilt. He'd wrapped the weapon in a swath of brushed buckskin, but the grip had worked free and sunlight reflecting off its brass hilt had caught the young brave's attention.

He untied the weapon, shook his head in disbelief, and started to toss the cutlass aside. No, that didn't seem the right thing to do. However, the Medicine Cane was the only weapon he'd need to face White Buffalo, at least so he'd been told by Singing Woman. He considered returning the cutlass to the Scalpdancers' camp and as quickly dismissed the notion. No, his feet were on the trail and White Buffalo was waiting at the end of it.

Lone Walker tucked the cutlass in his beaded belt. He took up the Medicine Cane and mounted the roan stallion. The animal descended the hillside at a breakneck pace, fighting Lone Walker all the way as it cut along a winding path worn into the hillside by elk and antelope. They startled a gray she-wolf and her cubs from their den and frightened a nesting falcon from its treetop perch.

It wasn't until they reached the valley floor that Lone Walker brought the willful stallion under control. But there was more here to occupy his attention than the skittish roan. The buffalo grass was trampled flat, and for at least a hundred yards across the meadow and leading off to the east, the bitterroot and tall amber-green stalks of grass had been churned into the earth by the passing of a large herd of bison.

“So
Iniskim
is to lead me after all,” Lone Walker said aloud.

A large herd had passed sometime during the night. He knew that by the freshness of the droppings. How far ahead they were was anyone's guess. The way was clear and he hurried the roan onto the trail left by the passing herd.

White Buffalo chose a spot midway between the hills near the entrance to the pass, about a stone's throw from the cluster of underbrush where Elkhorn Creek petered out. He cleared the ground and gathered enough rocks to delineate a circle six feet in diameter. Once the circle was formed, he built a fire of grass and twigs and added crushed bitterroot, the leaves of sweet pine, pulverized dried mushrooms, and a fragment of his sacred robe. He continued to wear the buffalo headdress despite the warmth of the day.

When the fire had burned to ashes, the shaman scooped them onto a flat piece of bark and sprinkled the stone circle until he had dusted every rock with the magical substance.

He organized his weapons in the circle: a rifle, powder horn and shot, and a Green River tomahawk; the buffalo rib fetish he kept in a pouch dangling from his belt. By noon the shaman's preparations were nearly complete. White Buffalo returned to the blaze-faced stallion tethered by the brush back near the creek. He mounted and rode the animal four times around the circle of stone and then, reversing direction, repeated the ritual.

As he finished the ceremony, he noticed Drum and Stone Bear watching him from the hillside. They walked their horses toward him. The Shoshoni braves were reticent to approach. White Buffalo was no man to trifle with and once disturbed might fly into a rage and unleash his curse on them. They came to a halt a couple of horse lengths from the stone circle.

Blue Cap appeared at the edge of the thicket. She had returned with the two warriors at White Buffalo's direction.

“I remain here until this ‘Lone Walker' comes,” White Buffalo told them. “Tell your people to remain in the village. When I have finished, I will lead them out over the bones of my enemy.”

Drum glanced aside at Stone Bear, his friend, and then replied, “The people will wait.”

“Grieving for the dead who did not return with Drum,” Stone Bear said, much to the smaller man's discomfort. Drum had endured much abuse since his shameful return, his failure made all the more reprehensible by the manner in which six Shoshoni Crazy Dog Soldiers had been killed or routed by two men, a white eyes and this Scalpdancer named Lone Walker.

“Wait if you must,” Drum began. “But let me be the weapon you wield against this
Pikuni
.”

“You have already tried once and failed,” White Buffalo reminded him.

“I must face him,” Drum said, desperation in his voice. White Buffalo could see some merit in using the Crazy Dog Soldier. Why not allow him the chance to redeem himself? And if he managed to kill the one called Lone Walker, then so much the better. Then again, the shaman had called a death curse down upon his enemy, so truly, by whatever name he chose to call himself, he was already dead.

“Go and bring me his scalp and your voice will be loudest at the council. You will walk the path of power with me,” White Buffalo said. His eyes glittered and his words had a hypnotic effect on the two men.

“And if I bring his scalp?” Stone Bear interjected.

“Then Drum will sit in your shadow,” White Buffalo told him.

“Let it be as you say,” the larger of the two warriors said. Stone Bear ignored Drum's look of anger. This was more than a matter of honor. “We will ride together, my blood brother and I.”

Before Drum could utter a protest, Stone Bear trotted off on his war-horse, his trade gun gripped in his strong right hand. He had never been beaten in a fight; he had never run from an enemy. Drum urged his own mount forward and White Buffalo watched the deadly companions ride abreast out of the valley of the Elkhorn.

Blue Cap started forward, but White Buffalo halted her. “Return to your lodge, little one. For I must be alone with my fate.”

How proud he looked, yes, this man who had taken her to his blanket, how powerful and full of fierce energy; there were none like him.

“I will wait for you,” she told him.

He alone was her light and shadow; he alone her people; there were no others. She skirted the thicket and galloped up the valley, retracing her route to the village. She was young and her heart was full of secret passions. She did not like being ordered about, however, and considered confronting the shaman. But that might not be wise. So she held her tongue and did as she was told. She'd charge through camp at a wild gallop, scattering dogs and children and overturning tanning racks in her wake. It made obedience much easier to take.

Alone again, White Buffalo added deadwood to the embers of the fire. Flames lapped greedily at the fresh fuel. He opened the pouch at his side and removed the fetish he carried, and placed the buffalo rib on a small stone altar near the fire. He sat cross-legged before the altar and began to chant softly. Upon the blood of the buffalo he had killed, the shaman summoned his powers and called for the likes of the Coyote Trickster to confuse his enemies and for the Death Striker to slay them.

He could not help but ponder this man called Lone Walker who had once been Lost Eyes. How had he received his vision? What had it been? White Buffalo thought he had killed the young warrior. That was his first mistake with Lone Walker. There would not be another.

White Buffalo remained by the fire the rest of the day and all through the night. Come morning he drank his fill from the creek and then hurried back to his power circle with an armful of branches for the fire. Time meant nothing. All the shaman's attention was centered inward, where he walked in dreams of blood.

23

The buffalo herd, a thousand strong, moved from valley to valley, meadow to meadow, in autumn. Lone Walker felt a kinship with the beasts from his vantage point on the edge of the herd. They too measured the land, enduring an endless journey from life to death, a quest for sweet grass and fresh water. He saw calves keeping close to their mothers as they staggered through another day of heat.

Lone Walker was familiar with these hills. The nearest water would be Elkhorn Creek another two hours by horseback. It was already near sunset. The herd would pass another thirsty night if they halted at dusk. Not Lone Walker though. He touched his heels to the big stallion's sides and the animal galloped ahead of the herd. One battle-scarred bull with only one horn lifted its shaggy head and studied horse and rider. This bison was over eleven feet in length and stood as tall as a man at the shoulders. The beast snorted dust from its snout and bellowed a warning. Lone Walker raised the Medicine Cane, its raven feathers streaming, and cried out to the herd and the one-horned monarch at the forefront.

“
Ha-ka-hai, Iniskim
, See, I ride with you. Today we are one. Why so slow? Has the shaman stolen all your power? We will see if he can keep it!”

Lone Walker's cry rang out over the meadow and the one-horned bull turned toward the solitary figure on the nut-brown stallion and shook its head and bellowed a challenge that reverberated through the hills. However, Lone Walker had not come to do battle with the beast but a man who had become as a beast, who would continue to work his evil among men. So he rode from the herd, and left it behind. There would be other hunts.

Darkness cloaked the hillside and obscured the two men hidden in a stand of juniper. They had wrapped the hooves of their horses with buckskin strips to muffle their descent toward the camp fire at the bottom of the hill.

“It is he. I was right,” Drum whispered excitedly. He had been the first to sight the camp fire from the hilltop a half-hour's ride from the valley of the Elkhorn.

Stone Bear had followed the Crazy Dog Soldier downslope. He never let down his guard but remained wary of the enemy below and the companion at his side. They were blood brothers, true, and ordinarily he'd not interfere. But why should Drum alone be allowed to win White Buffalo's special honor? If there were power and prestige to be won, Stone Bear figured he deserved the same chances as his friend.

Drum eased past the branches of the saplings he had chosen to crouch behind. A flash of lightning caught his attention and he lifted his eyes to the western hills and glimpsed a second flicker of faint light. There was a storm on the way, perhaps Cold Maker had tired of these warm days and still nights and was coming to bring them to an end.

“We must hurry,” Drum said, wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his elkskin shirt. He tightened the porcupine quill breastplate he wore and patted the barrel of the flintlock rifle he'd borrowed from another brave in camp. “He said four mornings. It must be Lone Walker.”

“Perhaps.” Stone Bear smelled of wood smoke and grease and he was fed up with waiting. “I shall see for myself.” He swung up on his own mount.

“What are you doing?” Drum asked in alarm.

“I will not kill a man from hiding.” Stone Bear grimaced, his voice thick with disapproval. “The Shoshoni are warriors, not rabbits.”

Drum colored and his eyes narrowed in anger. He placed a hand upon his breastplate; its buckskin border was fringed with the scalps of his enemies.

“I fear no man,” he hoarsely proclaimed and returned to horseback. “Least of all, you, my brother.”

“Once this Lone Walker is dead, we shall see who wears his hair,” Stone Bear sneered.

“He who first counts coup,” Drum retorted and, slapping Stone Bear across the face with his quirt, rode out of the clearing and downslope at a breakneck pace.

Stone Bear's horse shied and almost threw him. He fought the animal and brought him under control. Blood seeped from a gash on his cheek. He uttered a feral growl and charged after his companion, bent on revenge.

Lone Walker chose a campsite at the foot of a hill near a fallen ponderosa that the natural forces were reclaiming. He noted the presence of a beehive in the bowels of the rotting trunk and promised himself a dollop of fresh honey, later, after … He left the thought unfinished.