Slocum 421 (7 page)

She'd whispered something she told him she'd read on the wanted poster—
He may be riding a tall gray horse.

The Nebraska line was a visible scar he crossed over, marked by a crude sign using
NEBR
on the first line,
ASKA
on the second line. He knew where some trash hung out in the Platte River Brakes, but for now he wasn't going there. A two-day ride or more was still ahead for him to get where he wanted to go, but the land was gently rolling grassy plains. This was Pawnee land, and he intended to stop at their large village.

When he drew closer to the great half-underground lodge that they all lived in as one big community, he spoke to a woman going for water.

“I am looking for Three Bear. Is he here?”

She wrinkled her nose, then checked to be sure that no one was close. “He has a new wife. I think he is busy servicing her right now.”

Slocum nodded and thanked her like that was the answer he'd expected. Some Indians were very frank in what they said—and there was a tinge of jealousy in her tone of voice. Before she'd gone ten steps, she called to him and waited until he had turned the gray toward her. “White man, my name is Swan Woman. I am a widow.”

“My name is Slocum. I have no wife.”

She was wrapped tight in the trade blanket, and a sweet smile crossed her copper lips. “I will take you to Three Bear.” With that she hung her metal pail on his pack mule, and with the fringed bottom of her dress slapping her shapely calves above her moccasins, she hurried to be beside his horse. He dropped his arm down for her and swung her up behind the cantle. This wasn't her first horse ride double, he decided, as she settled in place hugging him freely.

“Where did you come from?” she asked.

“Kansas.”

She laughed. “Everyone comes from Kansas.”

“I visited a family I knew on the Republican River.”

She leaned around a little. “Where is your home?”

“Far south is where I was raised.” The memory of those days nagged at him, the war years and the aftermath exploding his dreams and completely devastating his future. But he had no intention of opening up about that now.

“If you're taking me to find my friend, what will you do for water?”

“Drink from the family next to me's supply.”

“Oh, yes, the Pawnee way is ‘What you have I have also.'”

She laughed. “You are no stranger to our ways.”

“What happened to your man?”

“He was killed fighting the Sioux with the army.”

“Bad thing to happen to you.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Today I met a man with a fine horse and good mule. After you see Three Bear, where will you go?”

“I plan to go to the Brakes next.”

“Is there room for a squaw to go along?”

“I'd buy her a horse to ride.”

“Better yet. Yes, I would go with you. Stop here. I will go find him for you.” She slipped off the gray's butt to her feet, straightened her blanket, and went proudly inside the great lodge's entrance. Curious small boys and girls pointed at Slocum and his horse. They wore only short leather shirts and were all naked below that. Saved changing diapers, he decided. Lined up, they giggled and pointed at the stranger in their presence.

A large woman soon rounded them up, scolding them in Pawnee for pointing at him. The last small boy stuck his tongue out at Slocum and made him laugh. Lots of traffic going in and out, then Swan Woman reappeared with his friend Three Bear, a burly-chested giant of a man wearing an eagle-bone vest and a breechcloth.

“Ah, Slocum,” he roared. “What brings my friend to here?”

“To see my friend Three Bear, and to laugh about old times,” Slocum said, coming down off his horse.

“There is not much to laugh about. They want us to move to Indian Territory. It is too damn hot down there. The corn won't grow as tall, and there would be people we hate there and don't agree to have as our neighbors.” He shook his head warily. “Why down there, do you suppose?”

“I am not the white father, nor can I speak for him.” They hugged and then shook hands.

“I am sorry. You and I are like small feathers that fell from a hummingbird wing.”

“Smaller than that. Good to see you and learn that you are still sowing oats in young women.”

Three Bear laughed. “Nothing is secret in this great house. Nothing. Come. We will find some good food I know you can eat.”

Slocum stopped and thanked Swan Woman.

“I will watch your animals. They need a drink and to graze. You can find me down by the river.” She used her slender hand to point out the direction.

“Thank you, Swan Woman. I will join you later.”

Her head bowed, she nodded and went off with his stock.

“Ah, my horny friend is only here a few minutes, and already he has a pretty widow woman corralled. No different than ever. Come and meet my men and some more woman.”

“One at a time is enough for me,” Slocum said and followed Three Bear inside.

“Ah, but you are not a chief. They expect more from me. Now I have three wives. I take the daughters from other chiefs to show I am like a brother to them.”

“I understand. You must have had enough food for all of your people, and now winter is near over.”

“We still have food, but we already planted some corn early in case the next season is dry.”

“I had some bad luck in Kansas. I have been hunting buffalo for almost a year down there. Had a good crew. Came out of a saloon one night and saw a man shoot another in cold blood. Then he turned his gun on me. I shot him in self-defense. But he was a Washington congressman's son, and they said I murdered him. I was being rushed off to federal prison without a trial. My men freed me and so now I am a fugitive.”

“Oh, the government men, they have ways, don't they?”

“Like sending you and your people to another land.” Slocum shook his head.

Soon men starting coming inside, and some came over to sit on the floor. On the outer ring women were seated, some nursing babies. Others were enforcing a “sit down and be silent” rule on their tagalongs.

“This man is my friend, Slocum,” Three Bear told the group. “He and I have hunted and we have fought together many times. Once a war party of Sioux were trailing us. There were maybe two handfuls of them yipping and screaming on our tail. He said for us to ride up this steep hill and we could face them off. I didn't believe him. He had two rifles—a buffalo gun and a Sharps .50-caliber, and he used the Sharps first. He told me to save my ammunition, that they were too far away for my gun. We were on our bellies watching them come toward us. A warrior with his face painted black, who had been shouting at them to hurry and kill us. Slocum took aim and shot the war leader off his horse.

“Then he reloaded as they milled and made some dust. The chief came out screaming next, and Slocum sent him to where all good Sioux go. Two of their leaders gone, they picked their dead up and one showed us his ass. The dumbest one in the tribe. Slocum shot him too. They rode away without him.”

The men were laughing.

“He is good man. The women say they have time to have a feast tonight. Warm enough we can build a big fire outside to celebrate my friend's visit.”

A cheer went up, and everyone shook Slocum's hand.

Finally he spoke to his friend. “I am going to rest for a while. I will be there when the drums begin.”

“Much dancing. Have big time. We need to laugh more anyway.”

“Good. I will come and laugh with you.”

They hugged, and Slocum went to Swan and his horses. He soon learned they were farther away than he had thought she'd go, and finally, over the next rise he spotted the gray hobbled and the mule as well. She'd even unsaddled the stock and set his panniers off to the side.

He found her under some walnut trees in the sunshine, for warmth, sitting cross-legged on his bedroll. He dropped down beside her and stretched out.

“You didn't have to do all that.”

“I said I'd care for them.”

“You did good.” On his belly he chewed on a long grass stem. “You have any children?”

“They both died. They took sick and then died. I was very sad.”

“I keep asking you questions that hurt your heart, don't I?”

She shook her head and put her black braids over her shoulders. “I am enjoying talking to you. You are different than most white men.”

“How is that?”

“You don't talk in broken English to me. You don't suggest I am a whore who needs you.”

“What if I did?”

“I would think you were teasing me.” She laughed. “I know why Three Bear likes you.”

“Why is that?”

“You talk to him like he is your brother. What will you do in the Brakes?”

“Maybe live for a while. See, I have a price on my head, and men will come looking for me in time. But every day I can just be a man and live in peace, I am grateful for.”

“You look like a man in peace today.” She stood and began to take the deerskin dress off over her head, exposing her brown legs, then the black pubic area, her flat belly, and the pear-shaped breasts, as he rose on his knees to help her.

“May we get under the covers? There is no scent of another woman in them.”

He pulled off his boots while she laid her dress on the panniers. She was a neatly made tall woman. He let her get under the blankets and then he undressed. At last he joined her and considered the treasures he held under the blankets. A willing, supple woman who molded to his body and whom he kissed, growing excited about their path ahead. Indian women hardly knew kissing, but they soon learned, as she did. Then they fell in a whirlpool of kisses, with his flesh against her muscled body. Soon connected as one, they worked each other hard.

After a nap, they straightened up, redressed, and went to the festivities. She wore his many-times-rained-on felt hat. She asked if he minded and he shook his head. “Wear it as long as you want.”

He knew that for her to show up wearing his headgear let everyone there know that he was hers. And she walked proud in her deerskin dress, the fringe wrapping around her calves, the hat a little too big, covering her forehead, with her braids trailing down her back.

She said, “You need an eagle feather or two for it to be a lucky hat.”

“No, it is a lucky hat because I have you to wear it.”

She tried to see out of it, to look at him after his statement. Then she hugged his waist. “Tonight I am proud I met you.”

He joined his friend, and she went to help the other women, but did not relinquish his hat.

Three Bear laughed at the sight of him hatless. “She already scalped him.”

Slocum laughed and joined him. “Women will do that to you.”

“Oh, how well I know.”

“I need a good horse for her to ride. She says she is going with me.”

“I can get you one.”

“I will pay you for it.”

“I will give you one.”

“No. Sell it to me.”

Slocum finally gave up. That hardheaded Pawnee wasn't taking any money for the horse. So he found Swan Woman, and they joined a stomping line of dancers. Women teased him, and he laughed, not understanding half what they said to him.

Lots of fire-roasted meat left them all with shiny lips from eating the grease. Little ones were herded off to bed eventually, and the night dancing became more exciting. The chanting grew louder, and the movement was like a great serpent snaking around. Slocum forgot about everything else but the willowy Swan Woman and him—isolated as if they danced inside a huge bubble floating among so many others but in their own private world.

At last they ran off into the night, to their own cave under the blankets and stars, to make love with a newfound fierceness. Slocum felt better than he had in weeks.

The ox yoke on his neck had been lifted for one night anyway.

They left before the sun came up on the third day. Swan rode a nice paint mare with a three-month-old paint horse colt still nursing on her. With the mule in her care, they left for the northwest. Slocum carried a Winchester across his lap. The colt was a strong one, so Slocum had no worry about him keeping up. Swan rode a blanket saddle with stirrups and a girth. She could hurl herself on the mare's back in a flurry of fringe and be ready to race when her butt hit the blanket.

He stopped at a small store at a crossroads on the prairie. Inside he found a good beaver hat that he liked and that fit him. He paid the man after some dickering and then put the felt one on her head. She smiled contentedly and tied the strings he never used, to save it if the wind tried to steal it from her.

They flushed prairie chickens as they rode away. To not lose a high-crowned hat in the prairie country was a learned art. One adjusted, without thought, the tilt of one's head to the various veins of wind. She must have had that skill, he decided, for she never lost it that day, though the tied strings surely helped. In no hurry they jogged the horses some and walked a lot. Mid-afternoon, they made camp at a spring full of watercrests. The water was cool and sweet. They found enough fuel to make a fire, and with some help from him, she made coffee with boiled ground beans. The big horses and mule were hobbled so they grazed while the colt lay down in the sunshine to absorb it. He'd made it fine, but Slocum supposed it had been a long day for him anyway.

“Have you ever been to St. Louis?” she asked.

“A few times.”

“Did you like it?”

“I don't enjoy cities. They are confining. No hunting. People live too close. Gangs control areas. Children are abused. Forced to work instead of play.”

She nodded.

“Why?”

“I only wondered. I heard stories about large boats like houses that belch smoke and have paddle wheels behind.”

“Riverboats?”

“Yes. Are they all right?”

“Sure.”

“You ever ride a smoking one on an iron trail?”

“You mean a train?”

“Yes.”

“Lots of times.”

“Was it fun?” She poured the two of them coffee in tin cups.

“Not the laughing kind.”

“I talk too much. But I always wondered about things I had never seen and what they would be like.”

“Knowledge is what fuels your education.”

“I never went to school. Am I too old to ever learn how to read?”

“No. You can learn how.”

“Being an Indian does not stop you from reading?” She busied herself, on her knees, making fry bread and getting the skillet hot.

“No one can stop you from reading.”

“Good. I will learn how. You are a strange white man. You are not a priest, not a minister, yet you speak about things I never expected to learn and you say them truthful. A Pawnee husband can't read and don't care that he can't read. So his woman does not need to know how to read and be ahead of him.”

“Some white men think like that too.”

They ate beans with salt and pepper on them, plus the fry bread. She made enough for their next morning meal as well. Then they listened to whip-poor-will making love calls and later went to sleep.

That night Slocum also heard the frogs croaking. Spring would soon be there.

 * * * 

Two days later, with no incidents so far, they met a traveling photographer with his wagon. The man's name was Beecher, and he said that for a dollar he would make a picture of them standing together. He also wanted one with Swan Woman's colt if he would stand still.

She looked at his examples and nodded she wanted one made.

Slocum said he would buy one for her.

“You must stand very still for a long time. If you move your face, then it will be a blur.” Turning to Slocum, he said, “Hold your rifle in your arm.”

“What will we look like?” she asked.

“The plainsman and his squaw,” Beecher replied.

He took the picture with his great box camera, with bellows like they used on a forge, set up perched on a tripod.

Beecher acted excited when he removed the plate. “I believe I have it.”

He went inside his wagon and was gone and gone. At last he emerged waving a small item. They ran over to see the results. Sure enough he had them on the silver, gray, and white card about the size of a postcard. There were Swan Woman and Slocum standing side by side, him holding the rifle and her under his brown hat. They made a real pair, Slocum mused.

“Oh, this is wonderful,” she cried. “I have never had such a thing before.”

Slocum paid the man and they rode on, with her completely entranced by the entire thing.

The next day he stopped at a store to get some items that they were near out of, and she tended the animals while he was inside. No one else was there when he went into the store that smelled of harness oil, grain, and dry goods. After he paid the man for the spices and baking powder, he heard lots of noises and the mule braying in the confusion outside.

Must have been fifty pack mules all braying at once, and some whiskered bear was kissing a kicking Swan. He held her arms in his massive hands, and her moccasined feet were off the ground. His efforts had knocked the hat onto her back.

“Put that woman down,” Slocum shouted, running out in the daylight and clutching the cocked Colt in his right fist. That crazy madman had his woman!

The man, under a near-shapeless hat, whirled around still holding Swan Woman in the air. “Who in the fuck are you—Slocum? That you?”

“Put her down.”

“I am, I am. Put that damn gun away, man. I should have known she belonged to you. No one else could have found such a pretty Pawnee and talked her into a having a honeymoon with him. I have been out there so damn long my balls are moldy. What are you doing way up here?”

“That's my business, Pistol Pete.”

The big man swept off his shapeless hat and bowed to Swan Woman. “So sorry, ma'am, but you are so beautiful I could not resist your charming attractions. You are so beautiful and so lucky to have him.”

Obviously not moved by his apology, she wiped off both of her sleeves where he had gripped her and wore a scowl of disgust on her brown face. Then she put the hat back on and strode to Slocum's side. “I never encouraged him to do that.”

“Hell, if you'd been a goat he'd have grabbed you the same way.”

“I never—”

He knew she was upset and he whispered, “I know that.”

She nodded and crossed her arms over her breasts—still seething mad. Then he could really smell the stinking buffalo hides on the pack mules. These men were returning hunters. Dressed in heavy coats despite the day's warm air, they stunk worse than a stagecoach-stop outhouse.

“Boys, this is the great Slocum,” Pete said. “He was southern fried as a boy and in the war he was a captain. But he's a well-known outlaw now like the rest of us, on the run from federal agents and those Pinkerton pricks.”

Slocum looked at the black faces of two ex-slaves, the brown faces of two Mexicans and two breeds, and the pale rat face of a runt Slocum knew as Weasel—who together made up Pete's gang. They were either seated on saddle mules or standing around looking for more than one store and probably a whorehouse as well.

“How you been?” Pete asked Slocum.

“Fine. How about yourself?”

“Killing buff. Only honest work we can find. But we are going to find us a hide buyer and some white whores and plow their fields up.”

“I understand. Well, plenty of good luck doing both.” He motioned for Swan Woman to get on her mare. “We're going to see if the Rockies still sparkle in the sunlight.”

Slocum and Swan, on their horses with the mule and colt following, left Pete and his men there on their galled raw mules, watching with hard-eyed looks. When they were beyond earshot, Slocum rode in close. “Sorry.”

“No need to be. Those men give all white men a bad name. I am glad you didn't kill him, 'cause all those other men might have killed you.”

“It was not a matter of who died.”

“I knew that too. I am grateful.”

“When you live out here on the edge, those kind of people show up.”

She nodded. For a long ways she was silent, and when they stopped to camp, she stood with him holding her tight for a long time. Then she hurried around making camp and acting like herself again. Her meal cooking, she sat beside him on the bedroll.

“Will we go see the sparkling Rockies?”

“I just said that to make conversation with him. It was none of his business where we went. Now he will say to others he saw that Slocum in Nebraska and he was going to the Rockies. That will become gossip on the lips of men seeking favor or money for that news when they're contacted by lawmen or detectives.”

“That is like seeding corn, isn't it? They will go look for the stalks?”

“Exactly.”

She acted smug over her discovery, and they ate more beans and fry bread made in a skillet. He opened a can of peaches, and they shared the juice and fruit in it.

By bedtime she was back to acting herself again and they made love. No way to guess her age, but he felt she was maybe twenty or even a year or two older. He enjoyed her energy and dedication to him, along with her willowy body.

 * * * 

They rose before dawn, ate oatmeal with raisins and brown sugar, drank coffee, and rode on. They reached the Brakes, and Slocum knew a few of the men in the scattered cabins and dugouts. To him they were all too harsh to be around, and so they crossed the Platte and rode west on the great wagon road. It was before the grass broke dormancy, so this was still a barren area due to overgrazing by the emigrants and the train tracks that had now been laid in that place.

Slocum knew a man who raised horses north of there, and so he rode to see him. But he found that John Henry's cabin and corrals had been burned to the ground some time earlier. Obviously it was the work of an Indian war party. He was disappointed that his old friend was either dead or had moved on. They found a neighbor woman at home a few miles west. Her wash streaming on rope lines, she looked at them with suspicion in her eyes when Slocum reined up.

“Ma'am, sorry to bother you,” he said.

A tall, raw-boned woman, she swept the blond hair from her face and squinted in the sunshine at him. “What do you need?”

“What happened to John Henry? I just came from there.”

“The goddamn Sioux attacked him last summer. He's still alive, but moved to Ogallala. He lives with his cousin out there.”

“Bad deal.”

“Me, my husband, and his brother were under attack for half a day, but we killed five of them and they never got us. They finally left and the next day the army arrived. But John was coming home the day before. He was alone and they wounded him, and then they trailed his mares and two stud horses away. I sure miss him. He was a nice man toward me and all my family.”

Slocum thanked her and tossed his head to Swan that they were leaving. The woman's name was Emma, and Slocum knew John Henry had frequented her. Her and those two men she spoke about were having a rough time making it—so Emma entertained men like John to make their ends meet. They were her egg money—she didn't have any chickens.

He and Swan never stopped in any town, but rather camped away from faces, until they were near the home of another man Slocum knew and so they rode to his place. Curly Manard was breaking a horse in a round corral when they rode onto his ranch. He had the horse running in a circle, but he stopped and climbed up on the fence, still holding his air rifle. He shot the horse in the flank with BBs until the horse quit trying to escape and came to him.

Seated on the top rail, he removed his hat and swiped his wet forehead on his sleeve.

“Afternoon, ma'am,” he said, like Slocum was not even with her. “I'm so glad you dropped in. My name is Curly and my head ain't as curly as it used to be, but you can see this. Who is this man you brought along?”

She straightened her back and smiled. “My name is Swan Woman. He goes by Slocum.”

“My, what is a famous lady like you doing riding with such a low-bellied hombre?”

“All I could get.” She jumped off her horse. Curly set down the rifle and ran to hug her, then swung her around in a wide circle.

“Well I feel sorry for you.” He set her down and kissed her forehead.

“Crazy, ain't he, Swan?” Slocum asked her.

She shrugged and fought a smile. “Better than most.”

Slocum laughed and hugged his friend. They had lots to say to each other, so with him on one side of her and Curly on the other, they herded Swan to the house and inside it.

Slocum had never thought about it, but she had never been inside a farmhouse before in her life, and she was totally struck by all of it. She whirled around trying to take it all in at once.

“What a wonderful place.”

Her obvious awe of everything made both men smile. She was in a heaven on earth, far, far from the smoky crowded round house at home. The fireplace, the range in the kitchen portion, the hand pump in the sink that produced water with only a small effort on the handle—she gazed around at everything. Then, with her butt backed to the sink, she sighed. “Where is your wife?”

“She died last winter,” Curly said. “They said pneumonia.”

“I am so sorry. I too have a sad story. My husband was killed fighting as an army scout. Then such a thing as took your wife took both my children.”

“Then you ended with this scoundrel Slocum?”

“I chose him when he came to our lodge to see Three Bear. He gave me his hat and said we must ride to see his friends.”

“I am so glad you came, Swan.”

“May I fix you some food?”

“I can show you how to use the range.”

“I fear I might burn your house down.”