Shortgrass Song by Mike Blakely Page B

monotonously on three or four of the lower tones.
    Buster put his paper envelopes in his pocket and stood to greet the warriors. Mounted and painted, they appeared ten times prouder than when he first met them in the stinking gully on the plains. Kicking Dog rode behind Long Fingers and carried a lance with a scalp of black hair, stiff with blood, tied to the shaft.
    â€œBuffalo Head,” Long Fingers said, “I see you and Holcomb cut down more trees. Why do you cut down that many? To build a lodge?”
    â€œYes,” Buster said.
    â€œA lodge of trees is better than living in the ground like a prairie dog. But I hope you do not cut down all the trees.”
    â€œWe won’t,” Buster said. “We cut the last ones we needed today. Where’d you find those cows?”
    â€œIn the mountains. My boys want to eat them. I do, too, but they do not belong to my people. Not like the trees you cut for Holcomb’s lodge.”
    On the way to the dugout, Buster had to explain what he had been doing with the flowers. Long Fingers wanted to know if the whites used them for medicine. When he found out that Buster was trying to grow them, he said, “Leave them alone and they will grow plenty good all by theirself.”
    Snake Woman was gathering firewood when she saw the Arapaho coming. A breath caught in her throat, and she dared to hope that maybe Long Fingers had come back for her. She hated living with the whites. She was so ashamed of the cloth dress they made her wear that she kept it covered with a blanket except in the heat of the day.
    She had never eaten so well or worked so little, yet she knew the white people and Buffalo Head would do something horrible to her sooner or later. The crazy white woman had already started a daily torture of pulling her hair with a fine-toothed comb. She feared she would be scalped alive, but so far the white woman had managed only to rid her head of lice and nits. Now her scalp felt barren and unhealthy because nothing lived there anymore.
    She hated the wagon they made her sleep in. The wind whistled under it at night. And that oldest boy kept watching her when he should have been hunting rabbits. If he came after her—she didn’t care what the whites did to her—she would kill him.
    But now maybe she wouldn’t have to. Long Fingers was driving three cows before him. Maybe he had brought them to trade for her. She picked up one more stick of wood and scrambled toward the hole in the ground where the white people lived.
    â€œHey, Pete, here comes the snake lady,” Matthew said as the squaw neared the dugout. “I’m gonna ask her.”
    â€œShe doesn’t understand English, stupid,” Pete replied.
    â€œAsk her what?” Caleb said. He missed out on everything.
    Matthew approached the squaw and pulled on her sleeve as she dropped her wood on the pile. She ignored him and watched the Arapaho ride nearer over the rim of the creek bank.
    â€œHey,” he said, pulling on her sleeve again.
    She looked at him.
    â€œOpen your mouth.”
    She stared, her lip curling with hatred.
    â€œOpen your mouth, I want to see your tongue.” Matthew wiggled his tongue at her and motioned for her to open her mouth.
    Snake Woman looked away and prayed the three cows would be enough. She hated living with the whites.
    â€œLeave her alone, Matthew,” Pete said.
    â€œYeah,” Caleb said. He didn’t know what it was all about, but he usually sided with Pete.
    Buster looked like a captive walking among the horses of the Indians. He waved at Ab to let him know everything was all right.
    â€œHello, Chief Long Fingers,” Ella said, formally, when the Indians stopped near the roof of the dugout. “I see you’ve found some of our cattle again.”
    â€œI bring them back to you. Your children need them like mine need the buffalo.”
    â€œChief, why don’t you keep that big bull calf. We owe it to