“Peace, did you say?”
“And whatever we can save for our children. The Comanches have nothing left from their ancestors, nothing they can truly believe in. That eats them out from the inside. It leaves them wide open for the likes of Owl Prophet. I found a new faith among the Kiowas and I’m bringing it to the Nermernuh. Do you know the peyote cactus? It opens a way, it quiets the heart—”
Peregrino stopped. A tiny laugh fluttered in his throat. “Well, I don’t mean to sound like a missionary.”
“I’ll be glad to listen later,” said Tarrant, while he thought: I have seen so many gods come and go, what’s one more? “Also to any ideas you may have about making peace. I told you I have money. And I’ve always made a point of getting wires in my hands. You savvy? Certain politicians owe me favors. I can buy others. We’ll work out a plan, you and I. But first we’ve got to get you away from here, back to San Francisco with us, before you take a bullet in your brain. Why the hell did you come along with these raiders anyway?”
“I said I have to make them listen to me,” Peregrino explained wearily. “It’s uphill work. They’re suspicious of old men to start with, and when their world is falling to pieces around them they’re afraid of magic as strange as mine and— They’ve got to understand I’m not unmanly, I am on their side. I can’t leave them now.”
“Wait a minute!” Rufus barked.
They stared at him. He stood foursquare, legs planted wide apart, hat pushed back from roughened red face. The hook that had pierced foemen looked suddenly frail under this heaven. “Wait a minute,” stumbled from him. “Boss, what’re you thinking? The first thing we got to do is save those ranchers.”
Tarrant moistened his lips before it dragged out of him: “We can’t. We’re two against a hundred or worse. Unless—“ He cast a glance at Peregrino.
The Indian shook his head. “In this the People would not heed me,” he told them, dull-voiced. “I would only lose what standing I have.”
“I mean, can we ransom that family? Comanches often sell prisoners back, I’ve heard. I’ve brought trade goods along, besides what was intended for presents. And Herrera ought to turn his stock over to me if I promise him payment in gold.”
Peregrino grew thoughtful. “Well, maybe.”
“That’s giving those devils the stuff to kill more whites,” Rufus protested.
Bitterness sharpened Peregrine’s tone. “You were telling as how this sort of thing is nothing new on earth.”
“But, but the barbarians in Europe, they were white. Even the Turks— Oh, you don’t mind. You ride with these animals—”
“That’ll do, Rufus,” Tarrant clipped. “Remember why we’ve come. Saving a few who’ll be dead anyway inside a century is not our business. I’ll see if I can, but Peregrino here is our real kinsman. So pipe down.”
His comrade whirled about and stalked off.
Tarrant watched him go. “He’ll get over it,” he said. “Short-tempered and not very bright, but he’s been loyal to me since-before the fall of Rome.”
“Why does he care about … dayflies?” the medicine man wondered.
Tarrant’s pipe had gone out. He rekindled it and stared into the smoke as it lost itself beneath the sky. “Immortals get influenced by their surroundings, too,” he said. “We’ve mostly lived in the New World these past two hundred years, Rufus and I. First Canada, when it was French, but then we moved to the English colonies. More freedom, more opportunity, if you were English yourself, as of course we claimed to be. Later we were Americans; same thing.
“It affected him more than me. I owned slaves now and then, and shares in a couple of plantations, but didn’t think much about it either way. I’d always taken slavery for granted, and it was a misfortune that could happen to anybody, regardless of race. When the War Between the States ended it and a great deal else, to me that was simply another spin in history’s wheel. As a shipowner in San Francisco I didn’t need slaves.