Cry of the Hawk

“Heard in Hays City she’s gone back to the blanket.”

“My, but you are picking up the tongue out in these parts. So she went back to her people?”

“What I’m told, asking about her in town. Gone back to her mother, and they both headed north to someplace in Nebraska to find their old village.”

“Lotta Pawnee up there. You figure on looking for her?”

“Enough folks for me to look for, Shad. She’s with her mama now—and I need to be finding some work while I keep my nose to the ground for that bunch out of Missouri.”

“You got any idea what we’re to be doing come freeze-up?”

He smiled at the old trapper. “We, eh? Well, now—for this boy, I’ve gone and found me a job with a new bunch of scouts being formed.”

“That the bunch under the North brothers?”

“Yeah. The major remembered me from Connor’s expedition to the Powder two years back. North needs help getting his Pawnee Battalion back together.”

“I hear the Norths both fought on the Union side.”

“Don’t matter, I suppose. Long as they can use me, I figure I can learn what I can from them Pawnee. Maybeso some tracking.”

“You learn what you can while there’s time. Come freeze-up this fall, the army will cut you loose.”

“That’s when I’ll be ready to ride south again—pick up that trail that went blind on me down in the Territories.”

Shad nodded. “I’ll be ready to ride with you. Your cousin—he going to go with us come winter?”

“Artus? I s’pose he is. Come winter, he figured he wouldn’t have no more work on that crew laying track up north on the U-P.”

“Nebraska?”

“Yeah.”

“I wish he’d hire on somewhere else, Jonah. Injuns still making things a might hot for track crews up there on the U-P.”

Jonah shrugged. “Artus, now, he’s come out of that damned war back east and got through just about everything else that’s been throwed at him. He’ll do all right, laying track. I don’t worry none ’bout Artus.”

34

Moon of Geese Shedding Feathers

ONLY THE NIGHTS were cool this season of the year. The days hot, sticky, steamy. But when the sun went down, a man could feel halfway alive once more.

Turkey Leg sat with the others. Their council held outside, at the center of the great circle of Cheyenne lodges. Too warm for any of them to huddle as normal inside a lodge to debate, argue, make plans. The breeze was better out here. Besides, the stars were out and bright this night.

“If the young men want to go to investigate this smoking, noisy monster,” said Burns, one of the older warriors, “I say let them.”

“Yes,” Spotted Wolf agreed. “We know the soldiers are back in their forts already. And they show no desire to again march after us.”

“It is true, the soldiers are no longer sniffing on the trails taken by our villages,” Turkey Leg said when all had grown quiet. Though he was chief, every man had his say in this warrior band. “Perhaps they do not have the heart to make war on us.”

“These soldiers,” spat Spotted Wolf, “they only want to make war on women and children … burn empty lodges.”

“Then go marching off aimlessly to wear both men and animals down without food or water,” Burns said.

“The white man is back where he is safe,” Spotted Wolf continued. “The young men want to ride with me to see what we can of this great smoking monster making noise in the north.”

“We have all heard tales of the monster, Spotted Wolf,” said Turkey Leg, an aging chief. “I would go with you to see it myself.”

Spotted Wolf rose before the others, all of them seated beneath the starshine. “This is a great honor, Turkey Leg. I will tell the others we ride in the morning.”

Turkey Leg chuckled, nodding. Many of the rest in the group were smiling at the young warrior’s enthusiasm. “But not too early, Spotted Wolf! An old man enjoys his sleep too much. Let me ride out to see this smoking monster when the sun has come to greet the day. You will see my old head come from my lodge door when the sun is rising. And no sooner!”

For all he knew, it could be the end of the world.

There wasn’t a thing out here but the endless hills covered with the tall grass rustling in the incessant breeze, the white-rumped antelope who stopped, cocked their heads, and watched the two men on the handcar pumping by on the noisy iron rails, and the endless blue mirror overhead that seemed to reflect all the sun’s heat back down on the rolling, swaying tableland.

The bandanna tied around his neck was soaked from the work this handle pumping had become. The shirt worn by the man on the other side of the handcar was darkened with sweat as well.

“How far we come, Harris?” Artus Moser asked. He was the lead man, which meant he was up-track and could only look where they had been. Unless he craned his neck around, which was damned difficult while you were pumping the handle.

Harris rubbernecked around his sweating partner and gazed up-track, considering. “Five mile. Maybe more.”

“We ought to spot that break in the line soon enough then,” Moser grumbled.

“You didn’t want to come with me, did you?” Harris asked.