a few hunting parties of ‘rapahoes might be down this way, killing along with the herd. But whatever their tribe, they’d be back toward the rear of it, and it went north for miles.
An hour later he saw them, first the frost cloud of their hot breath crystallizing in the cold morning like the smoke of a distant grass fire, then the wormlike wiggle dark under the thickening cloud. He heard them, too, the rumbling minor thunder of a thousand hooves on the hard earth, the roaring of the rutting bulls. It always took him aback, this first sight and sound of buffalo. As if they’d emerged suddenly, full-grown, from some fissure in the prairie, a kind of smelly, dusty, woolly afterthought to a volcanic cataclysm, stupid-eyed, the long curls of their dung-caked hair swaying rhythmically beneath their clumsy humps, horns poking spikes at a sky obscured by their dust. All of them covered with dollar signs.
It would be hot work for the next month or so.
He watched them just long enough to ensure they were definitely headed south, then hitched the team, checked the lashings on the load, and lined out toward the rendezvous.
For the moment, at least, the dream and the war forgotten.
5
J ENNY DROVE THE spring wagon behind the mules, Zeke and a more recently acquired animal named Zebulon. Otto said the mules seemed no older now than when he’d bought them. “That’s mules. Probably looked ancient when they were foaled.”
Vixen, his chestnut mare, trotted along behind the spring wagon, hitched to the tailgate by a braided rawhide lead shank. She was Jenny’s horse now. Otto had a new mount he’d bought in Dodge that morning, a tall, lightly dappled gray named Edgar. He rode ahead, swinging in wide sweeps from one side of the trail to the other, scouting the landscape. Jenny noticed that he never skylighted himself for more than a few moments on the crests of the rolling prairie swells, merely peeking over the tops to see what lay beyond. He always took his hat off before peeking.
“They’re out there,” he told her. “And they’ll see us before we see them. Count on it.”
“They,” of course, were the Hostiles, a term Otto seemed to use for all Indians except Tom Shields. Sometimes he called them “Mister Lo” or “Poor Lo,” which puzzled Jenny until he told her it was a sarcastic play on the phrase “Lo, the poor Indian!”—often quoted by the Eastern newspapers in their naive laments over the treatment Indians received at the hands of Westerners. Mister Lo had been making trouble lately, he said, burning out a road ranch between Dodge and Fort Hays to the north, killing four workers on the A., T. & S.F. just west of Granada, Colorado, the railroad’s current “head of track,” and only a week ago waylaying, murdering, scalping, and mutilating a solitary buffalo runner who had been transporting a load of hides back to Dodge along the well-traveled road from Camp Supply in the Indian Territory.
Before they’d left Dodge City that morning, Otto gave Jenny a “parting gift,” smiling sardonically as he handed it to her. It was a .50-caliber brass cartridge case plugged at the open end with a piece of cork. Within it reposed a glass vial filled with a viscous blue fluid. He showed her the vial, then replugged the case.
“This is the best I can offer you by way of an insurance policy,” he said. “It’s hydrocyanic acid. If you’re about to be captured by Poor Lo and his brothers, one sip of this is a far more certain means of escape than that last cartridge’ the dime novels talk about. They never tell you what happens if the last cartridge is a dud. But this works every time, instantly. All you need do is ‘bite the big bite.’”
Now she understood his ironic smile.
In German, “ Gift ” means poison.
Tom Shields brought up the rear with the Murphy hide wagon, which had been parked at Otto’s camp until Captain McKay found buffalo. It was drawn by eight spans of oxen. Tom’s pony, a
An hour later he saw them, first the frost cloud of their hot breath crystallizing in the cold morning like the smoke of a distant grass fire, then the wormlike wiggle dark under the thickening cloud. He heard them, too, the rumbling minor thunder of a thousand hooves on the hard earth, the roaring of the rutting bulls. It always took him aback, this first sight and sound of buffalo. As if they’d emerged suddenly, full-grown, from some fissure in the prairie, a kind of smelly, dusty, woolly afterthought to a volcanic cataclysm, stupid-eyed, the long curls of their dung-caked hair swaying rhythmically beneath their clumsy humps, horns poking spikes at a sky obscured by their dust. All of them covered with dollar signs.
It would be hot work for the next month or so.
He watched them just long enough to ensure they were definitely headed south, then hitched the team, checked the lashings on the load, and lined out toward the rendezvous.
For the moment, at least, the dream and the war forgotten.
5
J ENNY DROVE THE spring wagon behind the mules, Zeke and a more recently acquired animal named Zebulon. Otto said the mules seemed no older now than when he’d bought them. “That’s mules. Probably looked ancient when they were foaled.”
Vixen, his chestnut mare, trotted along behind the spring wagon, hitched to the tailgate by a braided rawhide lead shank. She was Jenny’s horse now. Otto had a new mount he’d bought in Dodge that morning, a tall, lightly dappled gray named Edgar. He rode ahead, swinging in wide sweeps from one side of the trail to the other, scouting the landscape. Jenny noticed that he never skylighted himself for more than a few moments on the crests of the rolling prairie swells, merely peeking over the tops to see what lay beyond. He always took his hat off before peeking.
“They’re out there,” he told her. “And they’ll see us before we see them. Count on it.”
“They,” of course, were the Hostiles, a term Otto seemed to use for all Indians except Tom Shields. Sometimes he called them “Mister Lo” or “Poor Lo,” which puzzled Jenny until he told her it was a sarcastic play on the phrase “Lo, the poor Indian!”—often quoted by the Eastern newspapers in their naive laments over the treatment Indians received at the hands of Westerners. Mister Lo had been making trouble lately, he said, burning out a road ranch between Dodge and Fort Hays to the north, killing four workers on the A., T. & S.F. just west of Granada, Colorado, the railroad’s current “head of track,” and only a week ago waylaying, murdering, scalping, and mutilating a solitary buffalo runner who had been transporting a load of hides back to Dodge along the well-traveled road from Camp Supply in the Indian Territory.
Before they’d left Dodge City that morning, Otto gave Jenny a “parting gift,” smiling sardonically as he handed it to her. It was a .50-caliber brass cartridge case plugged at the open end with a piece of cork. Within it reposed a glass vial filled with a viscous blue fluid. He showed her the vial, then replugged the case.
“This is the best I can offer you by way of an insurance policy,” he said. “It’s hydrocyanic acid. If you’re about to be captured by Poor Lo and his brothers, one sip of this is a far more certain means of escape than that last cartridge’ the dime novels talk about. They never tell you what happens if the last cartridge is a dud. But this works every time, instantly. All you need do is ‘bite the big bite.’”
Now she understood his ironic smile.
In German, “ Gift ” means poison.
Tom Shields brought up the rear with the Murphy hide wagon, which had been parked at Otto’s camp until Captain McKay found buffalo. It was drawn by eight spans of oxen. Tom’s pony, a
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