“Sounds to me like you’re treatin’ them the same as you treat us.”
“Smart gal.”
“But they’re
Fargo had met so many whites who had the same attitude that he supposed he shouldn’t be disappointed, but he was. “They’re people.”
“Pard, that is the stupidest thing you ever said,” Rooster spat.
“I say,” Wendolyn interjected. “All this arguing isn’t doing us any good. We need to work together.”
“I’ll work with anyone but the Blackfeet,” Rooster declared.
“Damn it, Rooster,” Fargo said.
“I’m sorry, pard. If they were Shoshones or Crows, I wouldn’t mind. You can call it wrong but I can’t help being me.”
“Will you at least not shoot them if we let them lend us a hand?”
Rooster glared at the three warriors, who were still on their horses. “I reckon I can live and let live just this once. But only for you, you hear? Were it up to me they’d be dead already.”
“Cecelia?”
“If you vouch for them I’ll go along with it too,” she said with obvious reluctance. “But understand me. They do anythin’ I don’t like, anythin’ at all, they’ll be gone or they’ll be dead.”
Fargo sighed and walked over to the Blackfeet. “You heard?”
“Me hear,” Bird Rattler said.
“There’s a lot of hate going around,” Fargo said. “On both sides.”
Bird Rattler ran a hand over his mount’s mane. “When I young, I think hate good. More winters I live, not like hate so much.”
“Stay away from the old one,” Fargo advised. “He hates the most.”
“It not old man worry me,” Bird Rattler said. “It bear.”
The tension was thick enough to cut with a blunt knife.
Bird Rattler and his companions made camp near the stream. By coincidence it was at the spot where Fargo and his companions usually took their horses to drink. That afternoon, Rooster took them to a different spot.
In the evening Fargo called them all together. The whites sat on one side of the fire, the Blackfeet on the other.
“If we are going to make this work,” Fargo began, “we need a plan.” He explained to Bird Rattler that they had hoped to lure the she-bear in close enough to shoot but so far she had only come once, and at night, and they didn’t get the chance. He also mentioned that the male bear had been with her.
“Bears much hard kill.”
“What was your plan?” Fargo asked him.
“Find tracks. Follow tracks. Find bear. Kill bear.”
“Except bears don’t always leave tracks, do they, redskin?” Rooster said sarcastically.
“No, white skin,” Bird Rattler said. “They not.”
“Using ourselves as bait hasn’t worked either,” Fargo said. “We need something better.”
“Like what?” Rooster said. “Bears think with their stomachs. All they care about is food. If our horses and us ain’t enough, what else can we use?”
“How about a deer?” Moose said. “We can kill one and rig it over the fire. Maybe the smell of roast meat will bring Brain Eater in again.”
Fargo had a thought. “We can go that one better. We’ll shoot a deer and bring it here to bleed out.”
“What’ll that do?”
Rooster grinned and snapped his fingers. “I get it, hoss. It’s the blood. Grizzlies can smell blood from a mile off.”
“They can?” Cecelia said. “Then why not kill two deer and bleed them? Or even three?”
“What do we do with all that meat?”
“Leave what we don’t eat to rot.”
“No, we dry it and smoke it for jerky,” Fargo proposed.
Between the blood and the venison, he reckoned it just might work.
Rooster excitedly rubbed his hands together. “This is the best idea we’ve had yet. Let’s get to it at first light.”
With the rising of the sun they split into hunting parties. Bird Rattle and his friends went off in one direction, Moose and Wendy in another, Fargo and Rooster yet a third. Usually they saw a lot of deer but by midmorning they hadn’t seen one. When Rooster drew rein in disgust, so did Fargo.
“Figures,” the old scout complained. “There’s never a deer around when you want to shoot one.”
Fargo was about to say that the others might be having better luck when he spied gray coils winding skyward over a mile away and half a mile lower down. “Smoke.”
“Got to be whites. Redskins are smart enough not to let folks know where they are. Should we have a look-see?”
The smoke was thinning by the time they crossed a ridge that overlooked a picturesque valley.
“Yonder, near those trees,” Rooster said, pointing. He rose in his stirrups. “Do you see what I see?”
Fargo did. Shucking the Sharps from his saddle scabbard, he gigged the Ovaro. They descended through heavy timber to the valley floor.
The Ovaro nickered.
“Side by side,” Fargo instructed. “You cover left, I’ll cover right.”
“I’ll watch our backs too.” Rooster’s horse shied and he had to calm it.
The valley was as quiet as a cemetery. Other than a butterfly there was no sign of life. A strong breeze rustled the grass.
“It can’t have been long ago if the fire’s still going,” Rooster said.
“No,” Fargo agreed.
“The damn thing could be anywhere.”
A patch of grass seemed to bulge and Fargo jerked his Sharps up. But it was only another gust.
“You’re twitchy, pard,” Rooster said, and chuckled.