One misty morning in a stand of pines — on the ninth of April, by Charles's careful count of the days — the three men stood with hands muzzling the fretful horses while, not a hundred feet away, three troops of cavalry trotted by in a shallow creek. They were Kansas state troops, probably some of the Nineteenth Volunteer Cavalry old Crawford had raised and brought in to support Sherman. Gray Owl's pony tossed his head free and whinnied. Charles cursed under his breath. A yellow-haired lieutenant, a pink-faced farmer boy, glanced sharply to the misty pines. He pulled his horse out of the column and sat staring at the trees. Charles prayed a clumsy wordless prayer. The farmer boy on horseback chewed his lip, doubtful about what he'd heard because the horses and men in the column were quite noisy. He tugged his rein and rode on. In five minutes the splashing stopped; the water flowed calmly again; the troopers were gone.
April brought the crows and the redbirds. Any shower brought a profusion of hoptoads afterward. The sweet blooming fecundity of the spring embittered Charles unreasonably. He slept deeply at night, and had many dreams. He had never felt so tired or hopeless. Conversation among the three men had long ago diminished to the minimum necessary to convey a question or the day's plan.
One morning, early, they spied the distant mass of the southern buffalo herd, returning north with the warm weather. They rode hard and reached the herd in two hours. They killed one cow, gorged themselves on fresh roasted meat, and packed all they would be able to eat before spoilage. Buzzards kept them company, awaiting their departure.
The ride to the buffalo reminded Charles again of the vastness of the Territory. A whole army corps could be maneuvering and they might miss it. He'd convinced himself that he could search the Territory as you'd search a room. He was desperate; he had to think that way. Now he saw the foolishness of it. He was thinking more realistically. That befitted a man who'd partnered with the Jackson Trading Company, but it whittled away his hope.
The mood of his companions didn't help. Magee was morose because of the Delaware woman, and Gray Owl because he couldn't guide them with any success. He was failing in his life's purpose.
They rode for hours without speaking, each man sunk into himself. The Wichitas rose in the south like monuments in a flat field. Wending across the lower slopes of the western side, they found abundant sign. A large number of Indians had pitched their tipis about a week ago. So many Indians — several hundred by Charles's estimate — that time and weather had not yet been able to erase all the traces.
After they camped that night, Charles went searching on foot in the sparkling dewy morning. He discovered a rusted trade kettle which he picked up and pressed with his thumb, immediately making a hole in the thin rust. It was an impoverished village that had camped here.
Gray Owl trudged up. "Come see this," he said.
Charles followed him down to the base of the peak to a set of travois pole tracks that had survived. He knelt to study them.
Between the pole tracks he saw the prints of wide moccasined feet. He brushed his fingers lightly over one print, half obliterating it. The print belonged to a woman, and a heavy one; no man would pull a travois.
Charles pushed his black hat back and said what Gray Owl already knew. "There are no more dogs. They've eaten them. They're starving. They didn't move because they wanted to; they're in flight. From here they could logically go south. Or west, to Texas. Maybe all the way into the llano."
Gray Owl knew the llano — the staked plains; a scrubby, inhospitable wilderness. "West," he said, nodding.
They rode with a little more energy. Here at last was a large group of people, one or more of whom might have seen a white man and a boy. Charles knew the odds against it but at least it was a crumb. Until now, they'd been starving.
The sign of so large a migration was easy to follow. They tracked the village to the North Fork of the Red, then northwestward along it for a day and a half. Suddenly there was confusing sign. The remains of another encampment and, across the river, trampled hoof-marked earth, which showed that a second large body of Indians had joined the first.
Gray Owl left for a day, scouting north and east. He returned at a gallop. "All moved east from here," he said. His skin was free of sweat despite his blanket and the hot spring day.
Magee used his nail to scratch bird droppings from his derby. "Don't make sense. The forts are east."
"Nevertheless, that is the way."
Charles had a hunch. "Let's go up the river a while. Let's see if all of them rode east."
Next morning they found a campsite where perhaps thirty lodges had stood. The day after that, they found the grandfather.
He was resting in cottonwoods with a few possessions from his medicine bundle — feathers, a claw, a pipe — spread around him. The malevolent odor of a chancred leg seeped from under his buffalo robe. He was old, his skin like wrinkled brown wrapping paper. He knew his death was imminent and showed no fear of the oddly assorted trio. Gray Owl questioned him.
His name was Strong Bird. He told them the reason for the great migration eastward. Some six hundred Cheyennes under chiefs Red Bear, Gray Eyes, and Little Robe had decided to surrender to the soldiers at Camp Wichita rather than die of starvation or face the bullets of the soldiers of General Creeping Panther, who was roaming the Territory sweeping up bands of resisters. The grandfather was part of a group that had bolted with Red Bear after he changed his mind about surrendering.
"Thirty lodges," he said, his eyes fluttering shut, his voice reedy. "They are eating their horses now."
"Where, Grandfather?" Gray Owl asked.
"They meant to push up the Sweet Water. Whether they did, I don't know. I know your face, don't I? You belong to the People."
Gray Owl seemed heavily burdened. "Once long ago."
"Age has rotted my flesh. I could not keep up. I asked them to leave me, whether or not the soldiers found me. Will you help me die?"
They hewed down branches and fashioned a burial platform in one of the strongest cottonwoods. Charles carried the old man up to it, with Magee bracing him below. He could barely stand the stench but he got the grandfather settled with his few possessions and left him with warm sun shining on his old face, which was composed and even showed a drowsy smile.
As they rode out, Gray Owl said, "It was a generous thing to help him to the Hanging Road. It was not the deed of the man they named Cheyenne Charlie. The man who wanted to kill many."
"There's only one I want now," Charles said. "I think our luck's changed. I think we're going to find him."
That was his blind hope speaking again. But the sunshine and the springtime buoyed him, and so did the possibility that Red Bear's band of holdouts might have seen a white man. Gray Owl warned Charles and Magee that Red Bear, now a village chief, was formerly a fierce Red Shield Society chief, which no doubt explained why he'd balked at giving up along with the others.
They found the village far up the Sweet Water's right bank. The Cheyennes made no effort to hide themselves. Cooking fires smoked the sky at midday and from a rise, through his spyglass, Charles saw several men with raggy animal pelts on their heads shuffling in a great circle around the edge of the encampment.
The wind brought the trackers the faint thumping of hand drums.
Magee used the spyglass. Uncharacteristically sharp, he said, "What they hell have they got to dance about? Aren't they starving to death?"
"Massaum," Gray Owl said.
"Talk English," Magee said. "That's the name of the ceremony," Charles said. "They put a painted buffalo skull in a trench to represent the day the buffalo came to earth, and the dancers pretend to be deer and elk and wolves and foxes. The ceremony is a plea for food. The old man said they're starving."