He saw the Pawnee’s eyes flick left, then right, about the same time Shad heard the tumbling clicks of several belt weapons. Not anything near as loud as the Spencer’s action—so he instinctively figured them to be the trackers’ pistols. He sensed the Pawnee drawing near more than he could hear them. Like a burning he sensed their muzzles trained on his back, pointed at his ribs, aimed for his gut. Years of staying alive out here plainly told the old plainsman that the rest had turned their sights on him. His ears burned as they jabbered among themselves in confusion and anger.
“Leave him be,” one of them finally spoke. “His coup. Leave be. His hair.”
Shad turned his head slightly, seeking the one who talked something he could understand from this bunch. “You speak English. So I’ll say this in English. Get this worthless sonofabitch off that Cheyenne—or I’m gonna kill him. Here and now.”
“You shoot him, you won’t—”
Shad roared, “Listen—I’m gonna splatter his goddamned face all over the ground!”
His eyes went immediately to the tracker on the ground over the body when the Pawnee shifted a bit, then bent over to resume his taking of the scalp.
Uncorking his fury, Sweete swung the muzzle of his Spencer against the side of the tracker’s head to send him sprawling backward and clawing for his own belt weapon. In a whirl of motion the old plainsman brought up his big moccasin, connecting below the chin, hurling the tracker backward again, watching the blood squirt from the Pawnee’s mouth.
He had begun to whirl back on the rest, but not before he felt the searing slash of the blade along his ribs. The pain came white-hot as the knife tip entered, then skittered along a rib with a sound like someone drawing rusty iron across a flat sheet of granite. That turn he had started likely saved the old man’s life, that act of bringing the elbow up, making contact with the slasher. Like the solid ring of an iron ladle brought down hard on an oak table, his arm sent the Pawnee into the air. The rest were coming now.
Too close to fire the Spencer, he slapped it into his left hand, gripping the barrel midlength to continue his swing in one unstoppable arc. It cracked against a skull, splattering some blood as the Pawnee went down in a heap, as heavily as a burlap hundredweight of wet oats.
Shad took a long step toward the others. Now he stood over the body, ready to defend it—flailing away with the Spencer in the left hand as he yanked the big knife from his belt with his right, ready to fling it as the rest suddenly drew back, their eyes as wide as frightened coyotes suddenly interrupted at a feeding frenzy.
They jabbered among themselves quickly. Shad wished Hook were here: he knew enough of the Pawnee tongue. Then one spoke.
“We shoot you—or you kill us,” the Pawnee said.
From the tremulous edge to the tracker’s voice, Sweete somehow did not quite believe it. “If you’re to be about killing me—let’s have at it, you red niggers.”
Tossing the Spencer with a spin into the air a few inches, Sweete caught it, thumbing back the hammer. Not knowing if there was a loaded cartridge under that hammer or not.
“No bullet in gun,” the Pawnee sneered. “We shoot you—”
“Just what the shit is going on here?”
At the corner of his eye Shad watched an officer appear, coming to a halt with more than a dozen soldiers.
“Likely I can get a couple more of you before I can’t pull the trigger on this here rifle no more. Maybeso gut a bunch of you niggers before I go under,” Sweete growled.
The soldier plunged down the side of the ravine, landing in front of Sweete that next moment. Major Royall.
“Mr. Sweete, isn’t it?”
“Out of my way, Major. Don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Hurt?” William B. Royall asked. “Looks to me like you’re the one about to be hurt by this bunch of North’s trackers.” The officer’s eyes fell to the two groggy Pawnee on the ground, then quickly narrowed on the dark, wet slash along Sweete’s ribs. “Tell me what started this bloodletting.”
“Told this bunch of niggers to leave the body alone.”
“We’ve got Cheyenne to fight, Mr. Sweete. We’re not supposed to be drawing down on our own Pawnee.”
“I’ll kill them—I’ll even kill any soldier of your’n what touches this body.”
For a moment the major studied the scout’s face. Then Royall glanced down at the dead warrior. Slowly he wiped his dusty, gloved hand across the back of his mouth. “Never will get used to using Indians against Indians. It’s something I think makes us just as savage as—”
“You gonna get these sonsabitches away from me, Major? Or am I going to have to spill a little more blood here?”
With a wag of his head the officer asked, “What in blue blazes makes this one so damned special to you, Mr. Sweete?”
The salty sting at his eyes made it hard to look down into the face of this dark-headed officer. Not really such a bad sort, this Royall.
“Put your guns away!” the major suddenly turned and snapped at the Pawnee.
