“What will they do?”
“Depends on you folks.”
She stood up. “It is time for me to awaken Duncan.”
He got up too. He looked down at her, and she knew he was grinning that exasperating grin. “You sure you want to go in? You right sure?”
She looked up at him and said quite calmly, “Yes, Mr. Vallian, I am sure.”
She turned away and walked a dozen steps before she turned to look back. “I am sure of something else, too, Mr. Vallian.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“I am sure that you are a gentleman, Mr. Vallian.”
CHAPTER V
Before the sun appeared the earth was still, and silence lay like a blessing upon the land. No blade stirred in the coolness, nor any bird in the sky, only somewhere not too far off, a meadow lark spoke inquiringly into the morning.
One arresting finger of smoke lifted thinly to the sky, and where the horizon drew its line across the heavens, a cloud seemed to lie upon the grass, off where the world curved away from them.
“Put everything away,” Vallian advised, “put your goods out of sight. You’ve got a-plenty of flour and sugar, so plan to spare them some.”
“We’ve scarcely enough to make it through,” Susanna protested.
“Take out a third,” Vallian said, “but don’t let it show. An’ remember this: don’t look scared. Injuns got no respect for a frightened man. You got to make them stand first, then give them something. If they figure you’re scared they’ll just take it all an’ your scalps, too.”
“I don’t see anybody,” Tom protested. “Ain’t nobody in sight for miles.”
“Shut up, boy, an’ listen.” After a moment he said, “Trouble with city folks. Always talkin’. You never learn anything when you’re talkin’, boy, only when you’re listenin’.”
The clouds flushed pink, and a streak of bright crimson slashed the sky, reflecting on the grass and giving it a rosy sheen.
“Shouldn’t we be moving?” McKaskel asked, irritably. “Why wait like this? How do you know there is anyone out there?”
“I know. They’re watchin’ us.” Vallian paused. “You got a Bible?”
“A Bible. Of course.”
“Get it out, stand there in front of us an’ read. Read, an’ take in the sky an’ all. The Injuns,” he added, “may not buy it, but they like a good show.”
Duncan McKaskel went to the wagon and got his Bible. He straightened his coat, stretched his neck out of his collar. He walked out and faced them. “I think this is nonsense,” he said, self-consciously. “And I am no minister of the gospel.”
“Right this minute,” Con Vallian removed his hat, “you surely are. You’re a gospel-shoutin’, fire an’ brimstone preacher. Now when they come, don’t none of you turn a hair. Pay them no mind.”
McKaskel opened the Bible and turned the pages. Suddenly from behind him there were shrill, piping yells. Involuntarily, he started to turn.
“Read!” Vallian spoke sharply. “Read, if you want to live!”
Behind him there were pounding hoofs, and the wild, shrill yells. He read, “For the waters of Nimrum shall be desolate: For the hay is withered away, the grass faileth, there is no green thing.”
He paused just a moment and he saw Susanna’s face go pale. The horses were thundering down upon them and suddenly they halted, dust drifted forward and over them, and he could smell the hot sweat smell of horses, and he could hear their gasping right behind him, and he continued to read, “Therefore the abundance they have gotten, and that which they have laid up, shall they carry away to the brook of willows.”
Slowly he turned to face the Indians. His heart was pounding, but he said quietly, “Would you care to join us?” he gestured at the ground around bun, and indicated they should be seated, but one Indian, with a strongly-hewn face and an eagle beak of a nose said, “No! We are hungry! You must feed us!” He waved his coup stick in the air.
Susanna spoke softly, “Duncan? Maybe-”
“No!” Con Vallian’s hat was still in his hand, held near his belt, in his left hand. “We will give you nothing! There is meat out there! The Arapaho are great hunters! Let them hunt!”
The warrior’s eyes turned to Vallian, measuring him with care, then to Duncan McKaskel, who had lowered his Bible to his side. He stood close to the wagon, and there was a rifle there, ready at hand.
“We are hungry,” the warrior spoke harshly. “What you have, we will take!”
“Our wagon is small,” Vallian said, “and not worth the warriors who must die to take it. If you wish to come, then come, but sing your death-songs before you do, for many will die.”
He lowered his hat, and in his hand he held a gun.
“Mac,” he said quietly, “put the book on the tailgate of the wagon and take up your rifle. Keep your eyes on ’em, but do it slow.
“Tom?” he spoke a little louder. “Show ’em your piece. Just show ’em… don’t shoot.”
The muzzle of the gun came through the drawstrings at the rear of the wagon.
“We come in peace. We do not stop in your land, but we have little food, less than we need to get where we go, and the Arapaho are hunters, great hunters.”
The warrior waved a hand over the country. “There is no game. We have killed nothing. We are hungry. Our papooses are hungry.”
Vallian spoke again. “You have young ones? How many are they?”
“Nine?” The warrior held up nine fingers, hesitantly.
“Mrs. McKaskel, go to your wagon and get out twenty pounds of flour, as near as you can get to it, and put out a little salt, some sugar, and that haunch of antelope.”
“It is starting to spoil,” she protested.
“Makes no mind. You lay it out. Half the meat they eat is spoilin’.”
She did so, working swiftly. She brought the meat, flour, sugar, and salt to the Indians and placed the packages on the ground.
“We have no war with the Arapaho, who are brave men and great warriors. We cannot feed warriors, but we will not see your children grow thin and cry in the night for hunger.
“Take this for your children, and go with God. Walk with the Great Spirit upon the good grass, and be not worried.”
Duncan McKaskel spoke suddenly. “Be not worried,” he repeated, “the buffalo will come, and the antelope. You will hunger no more.”
The Indians dismounted, took up the food, and wheeled and dashed off, leaving only dust behind. They raced away, vanishing over a low line of hills, and Duncan McKaskel turned and stared at Susanna.
Her face was white, and she was trembling. She looked at Con Vallian. “Would they have killed us?”
“Likely. Like I said, Indians are notional. Stand up to ’em and they like you, knuckle under and you’re beneath contempt, lower than a dog’s belly.”
“That was kind of you, to think of their children.”
Vallian shrugged. “Kind, hell! I was thinkin’ of my scalp. Injuns think a sight of their young uns, and offerin’ to feed them taken us off the hook.”
“I didn’t know you had that gun.”
“Out here you better have a gun, and a gun in the wagon ain’t good for nothin’. I believe what the old Quaker said, ‘Trust in the Lord, but keep your powder dry.'”
Swiftly, they harnessed the team and moved out on the plains. Before them, not over a mile away, they saw a wooded creek.
Vallian pointed. “Stop there an’ load up with wood. You’ll be needin’ it. Your next stop is Lost Spring, sixteen, seventeen miles west, an’ there’s nothing there, nothing but a few buffalo chips, far out on the prairie. Everything close by has been used.”
“What about the Indians?”
“If they want you, they’ll find you. I say load up with fuel. From here on you’d better sling a canvas underneath your wagon. Let your wife an’ boy walk behind an’ pick up buffalo chips-”
“Pick them up? With our hands?”
“Yes, ma’am. They’re dry… if you’re careful which ones you pick, an’ they’ll be the only fuel you’ll have for miles. You sling that canvas underneath and when they pick up the chips they can toss them into the canvas along with any sticks they can find. You’ll be needin’ fuel.”
The sun was up now, although just above the horizon. The sky had hazed over and a wind kicked sudden gusts that flapped their canvas top and blew the horses’ manes.
Duncan McKaskel walked beside his mules, and Vallian rode close to the wagon seat, near Susanna. “That was a good thought, he had,” Vallian commented, “telling them the buffalo would come. Injuns set store by medicine men. Him carrying on with the Bible like that… they’ll think he’s a preacher.”
“And if the buffalo do not come?”