"They say they search for his son," Red Bear told the priest, with a nod at Charles.
Whistling Snake regarded them, fanning himself with a small rotation of his bony wrist. A toddler, a plump bare girl, started toward him, reaching out. Her mother snatched her back and clutched her, dread in her eyes.
The priest shook the fan at Magee. "Buffalo soldier. Kill them."
"Damn you," Charles said, "there are other black men on the Plains besides buffalo soldiers. This is my friend. He is peaceful. So am I. We are looking for my little boy. He was stolen by another white man. A tall man. He may be wearing a woman's bauble, here."
He pulled his earlobe. An elderly Cheyenne covered his mouth and popped his eyes. Charles heard the excited buzz of the women before Red Bear's glare silenced them. Charles's stomach tightened. They'd seen Bent.
The priest fanned himself. "Kill them." The brown iris shifted in its trench of hard scar tissue. "First that one, the betrayer of the People."
Gray Owl's pony began to prance, as if some invisible power flowed from the priest to unnerve and befuddle his enemies. The pony neighed. Gray Owl kneed him hard to control him. His face showed uncharacteristic emotion. Fear.
Magee spoke from the side of his mouth, in English. "What's that old bastard saying?"
"He told them to kill us."
Magee swallowed, visibly affected. "They better not. I want to get out of here with my wool on my head. I want to see Pretty Eyes again." The squaw, Charles assumed. "I'm not going to cash in here. I been trounced by nigger-hating saloon trash —"
The priest pointed his fan, exclaiming in Cheyenne, "Stop his tongue."
"I been cussed by white soldiers not fit to shine a real man's boots. I won't let some old fan-waving Indian just wave me off this earth, whisssh!" There was a strange, fear-born anger prodding Magee. He shook his derby the way Whistling Snake had shaken his fan. "You tell him he doesn't touch a wizard."
"A —?" Startled, Charles couldn't get the rest out.
"The biggest, the meanest of all the black wizards of the planetary universe. Me!" Magee flung his hands in the air like a preacher; he was back in Chicago, encircled, with only his wits to forestall a beating.
Red Bear retreated from him. A fat grandfather protected his wife with his arm. Magee looked baleful sitting there on his horse, arms upraised, shouting. "I will level this village with wind, hail, and fire if they touch us or don't tell us what we want to know." A moment's silence. Then he yelled at Charles like a topkick. "Tell 'em, Charlie!"
Charles translated. Where he faltered, as with the word for hail, Gray Owl supplied it. Whistling Snake's fanning grew rapid. Red Bear watched the priest for a reaction; Whistling Snake was temporarily in control of things. "He is a great worker of magic?" Whistling Snake asked.
"The greatest I know," Charles said, wondering if he was insane. Well, what was the alternative to this? Probably immediate annihilation.
"I am the greatest of the spell-workers," the priest said. Charles translated. Magee, calmer now, sniffed.
"Cocky old dude."
"No," Charles said, pointing to Magee. "He is the greatest."
For the first time, Whistling Snake smiled. He had but four teeth, widely spaced in his upper gum. They were fanglike, as if he'd filed them that way. "Bring them in," he said to Red Bear. "Feed them. After the sun falls, we will test who is the greatest wizard. Then we will kill them."
He studied Magee over the tips of the fan feathers. His laugh floated out, a dry chuckle. He turned and walked majestically into the village.
Magee looked numb. "My God, I never figured he'd take me up on it."
"Can you show him anything?" Charles whispered.
"I brought a few things, always do. But it's only small stuff. That old Indian, he's got a power about him. Like the devil was singing in his ear."
"He's only a man," Charles said.
Gray Owl shook his head. "He is more than that. He is connected to the mighty spirits."
"Lord," Magee said. "All I got is saloon tricks."
The prairie sunshine had a precious glow then; this morning might be the last they'd be privileged to see.
The Cheyennes put the three of them in a stinking tipi with old men guarding the entrance. A woman brought bowls of cold stew too gamy to eat. Before dark, the villagers lit a huge fire and began their music of flute and hand drum.
An hour of chants and shuffling dances went by. Charles chewed on his only remaining cigar, nursing a superstitious certainty that they wouldn't get out of this, if he smoked it. Gray Owl sat in his blanket as if asleep. Magee opened his saddlebags, rummaged in them to take inventory, closed them, then did it all over again ten minutes later. The shadows of dancing, shuffling, stomping men passed over the side of the tipi like magic lantern projections. The drumming grew very loud. Charles reckoned two hours had passed when Magee jumped up and kicked his bags. "How long they going to string us out?"
Gray Owl raised his head. His eyes blinked open. "The priest wants you to feel that way. He can then show a different, calm face."
Magee puffed his cheeks and blew like a fish, twice. Charles said, "I wish I hadn't got us into —"
"I did it," Magee said, almost snarling. "I got us here. I'll get us out. Even if I am just a nigger saloon magician."
A few minutes later, guards escorted them outside. A hush came over the ring of people around the fire. The men were seated. The women and children stood behind them.
The evening was windless. The flames pillared straight up, shooting sparks at the stars. Whistling Snake sat beside Chief Red Bear. The latter had a bleary smile, as though he'd been drinking. Whistling Snake was composed, as Gray Owl had predicted. His fan lay in his lap.
A place was made for Charles to sit. Red Bear signed him to it. Gray Owl was roughly hauled back with the women, further punishment for his betrayal. The grandfather on Charles's left drew a trade knife from his belt and tested the edge while looking straight into Charles's eyes. Charles chewed the cold cigar.
Red Bear said, "Begin."
Magee spread his saddlebags flat on the ground. Charles thought of the campflre circle as a dial. Magee was at twelve o'clock, Whistling Snake sat fanning himself at nine o'clock, and he was seated at three, with Gray Owl behind him at four or five.
Magee cleared his throat, blew on his hands, reached up for his derby, and tumbled it brim over crown all the way down his arm to his hand. An old grandfather laughed and clapped. Whistling Snake's slitted eye darted to him. He stopped clapping.
His face already glistening with sweat, Magee pulled his blue silk from a saddlebag and stuffed it into his closed fist. He chanted, "Column left, column right, by the numbers, hocus-pocus."
Red Bear showed a slight frown of curiosity. Whistling Snake regarded the distant constellations, fanning himself. Charles's belly weighed twenty pounds. They were doomed.
Magee pulled a black silk from his fist and popped the fist open to show it empty. He waved the silk like a bullfighter's cape, displaying both sides, and sat down. Whistling Snake deigned to glance at Charles. The four filed teeth showed, in supreme contempt.
Whistling Snake handed his fan ceremoniously to Red Bear. He rose. From his robe he produced a wide-mouth bag made of red flannel. He crushed the bag, turned it inside out, displayed both sides, balled it again. Then suddenly he began a singsong chant and started a hopping sidestep dance around the circle. As he danced and chanted, he held the top corners of the bag by the thumb and index finger of each hand;