Perhaps if he had waited after the rest of Porcupine’s raiding party fled the area near the soldier camp. Perhaps if he had stayed behind, not to take the scalp of the Shaved-Head he killed, but to lie just beyond the fringe of firelight. Watching. Patient. Then he might have caught a glimpse of the tall man his mother called Rising Fire, there among the soldiers and trackers. In the end Bull cursed himself, deciding he had missed the chance to kill the one who the white men called Sweete.
“There will come a time soon when we go after the soldier horses, to trouble them on our backtrail,” Porcupine had said.
“No. They’re getting too close for us to hit them and run any longer,” Bull countered. “The distance has narrowed so that we can no longer take the chance of leaving our village behind. Instead, the warriors must remain close to protect the women and old ones.”
Porcupine had looked at Bull strangely, then said, “Why do I have the feeling in my belly that those are only words to you—and not the guiding fire in your Dog Soldier’s heart? Why can I no longer trust that you really believe what you are saying?”
Maybe the truth did indeed parade itself in any costume to fit the occasion.
But he was not the only one in that camp who toyed with the truth. Why had Tall Bull and White Horse said they would gladly turn over their white captives to the soldiers, if only the soldier column would stop dogging their village? Bull knew better. Neither of the war chiefs would willingly give up their white women. Not without a fight. And in these last days, that was what troubled him most: brooding on what it was about those white-skinned ones—about his own white blood.
Was it the evil of the white women that made the thinking of the two war chiefs run crooked? Was that why Tall Bull and White Horse thought more of themselves than they did of the rest of their people?
So was it his own white blood that caused Bull to test and push and strain at the truth? Was it the blood from the one the whites called Sweete that made it so easy for High-Backed Bull to lie?
No longer was Bull only angry. Now he was afraid. Feeling tainted and dirty, from the inside out—not sure if he could trust himself any longer.
Upriver at all possible speed to catch those Cheyenne.
Even Lieutenant Becher’s detail of ten Pawnee had themselves a running scrap of it with a small war party on the ninth.
The trail was about as hot as it could get, to Shad’s way of thinking. And to look around at the grimy, dust-caked faces of those young troopers this morning, a man could see there wasn’t a damned one of them who didn’t know he was headed into a bloody fight of it.
It was only a matter of time now.
Through that morning Shad and the Pawnee scouts came across two of the Cheyenne campsites, in addition to the camp he had watched Tall Bull’s people setting up the night before. In a matter of grueling, sand-slogging miles, Major Carr’s Fifth Cavalry had eaten up the Dog Soldiers’ lead by three days. It was there at the site of the enemy’s last camp that the regimental commander halted, ordering the entire outfit prepared for any eventuality from here on out. As well, Carr sent back a half dozen of the Pawnee trackers and two soldiers to bring in with all possible speed the supply train due down from Fort McPherson.
As the sun grew all the hotter and the men sat sweating beside Frenchman’s Fork, Shad watched a discussion on the command’s readiness turn into a petty argument as tempers flared, embroiling both Carr and Major Frank North. While the civilian did all that he could to urge keeping the column on the move to catch the enemy before the Cheyenne reached the South Platte, Carr steadfastly clung to his need to resupply his command before coming in contact with that enemy.
“But if you’re suggesting that I have no other choice, Major North—then I’ll order a forced march with two battalions. The rest I’ll leave behind to await the supply train.”
“We’ve got to move now, General. That village finds out we’re back here,” the younger Luther North grumbled, “they’ll bolt on us. And we’ll be left with nothing but feathers—instead of capturing the whole goose.”
After grappling with his dilemma, Carr finally decided. To the North brothers and his officers he explained, “This is simply a gamble I have to take. I can’t push ahead recklessly, what with the certainty that I will scatter that village full of bloody-eyed warriors to the four winds … and have them bump into my supply train out there, somewhere, rolling in here with an inadequate escort.”
“You fail to put this command on the march right now, you might be missing the greatest opportunity of your career,” Frank North grumbled.
