From the start Bull had grown straight and strong as a lodgepole pine. Back in his youth the boy had already shown the ropy muscle of the deer in his powerful legs, the rippling muscle in his arms like that under the hide of a mountain lion. Maybe that was Bull atop that blaze-faced gelding dotted with crimson hailstones … maybe not. But—even at this distance, he told himself, wouldn’t a father recognize—
In a swirl of sand the two files of horsemen racing down their flanks suddenly sprang themselves back atop their ponies like a child’s string toy and performed a pretty arc back against one another as they swept noisily away from the Pawnee.
“What’d I tell you?” Shad roared at the lieutenant when the two swirling columns scattered over the far slopes to the north, leaving Becher’s Pawnee behind to hurl their angry oaths at only the summer sky.
“By Gott, ve did it! Three of them dead by my count, Mr. Sweete.”
“Them Pawnee of your’n did it, Lieutenant,” Shad admitted. “Wouldn’t believed it had I ain’t seen it with my own eyes—them Injun trackers fighting like white men. By damned this bunch stood and took the best them Dog Soldiers had to dish out. Beehelzebub! But I was feared they would bolt and go to horse to mix it up when the Cheyenne rushed us.”
“To horse?”
“Yep. Only natural for a Injun to want to fight from horseback. Brought up that way. And, after all—these Pawnee is first, last, and always will be Injuns, Lieutenant.”
Becher rose from the grassy sand to signal in his three squads. Horse holders huffed up with their mule-eyed mounts as Shad once more grew aware of the heat beating at the back of his neck. Up and down his neck he dragged the greasy, smoke-stained folds of a huge black bandanna, resplendent with a splash of red Taos roses, pushing aside the shoulder-length waves of iron-flecked hair.
“V’ere you t’ink ve are now, Mr. Sweete?” Becher asked, dragging a sleeve down his nose where a drop of sweat clung like a translucent pendant. “Colorado Territory alrea’ty?”
Sweete peered off to the northwest. “If we ain’t—we’re damned close, Lieutenant. Don’t really make a bit of difference to the general, does it? I figure all that’s important to Carr now is that he has a trail to follow. And a hot one to boot.”
Taking the reins to his mount from a Pawnee horse holder, Becher said, “Goot. Ve ride back now to bring up the main column.”
“As hard and long as Carr’s been pushing his soldiers, I’ll wager the general’s gonna be damned pleased to hear about us getting run at by these Dog Soldiers.”
Becher nodded, smiling. “Very please’t, I t’ink. So vat is special to these Dog Soldiers? Vat makes these bunch so important to us?”
With a knowing gaze on the hills where the horsemen had disappeared, Sweete replied, “Because when you get jumped by Dog Soldiers, you get hit by the best the Cheyenne nation can throw at you. The baddest, bloodiest red outlaws as ever forked a pony.”
Swelling his chest with unabashed pride, the lieutenant grinned. “Vell, then, Mr. Sweete. No more do ve snoop our noses around on this gottforsaken groun’t vit’out any sign. Goot size war party like this—painted and feat’ered—they vere out for no goot. And now Carr’s got them!”
“Out for no good is right as rain. Them Cheyenne are letting the wolf loose, I’d say.”
The German smiled even wider, smoke-stained teeth like varnished pine shavings. “Let’s get these Pawnees back to Major North—so I can tell General Carr ve got Cheyenne wolves to track now!”
19
BULL SWORE HE saw him. Saw the man who had fathered him among the Shaved-Heads.
As he rode away with the rest, more than a hundred in all, High-Backed Bull twisted to look over his shoulder at the disappearing figures behind him among the sandy hills. The Shaved-Heads were standing now, still in their three bands. Others hurriedly led their big American horses to those who had held the Shahiyena at bay during the heat of the battle. And near the center were clearly two white men.
He could tell by the hair hiding their faces.
That bigger one—how many men of his size could there be on these plains? How many wore what appeared to be greasy buckskins? That low-crowned hat with its wide, floppy brim slightly upturned in the front …
“Leave them be,” Porcupine said as he came alongside Bull, the whole of the raiding party urging their ponies into an easy lope upon seeing the Shaved-Heads were not going to pursue. Though he did not ask it, Porcupine’s face registered some question. “We will fight them another day, my friend.”
“When?” Bull asked, glancing one last time over his shoulder, hoping for another glimpse of the tall white man across the shimmering, misshapen distance.
