Charles carried the rusty axe inside. He kicked over a nail keg and chopped it apart. Next he demolished a table and two chairs. He struck with hard blows, letting pain jolt through the handle and up his arms.
He piled up the wood and set fire to it with one of his last matches. He left the whiskey ranch burning behind him.
They reached Red Bear's village on the Sweet Water in pouring rain. No one threatened Charles, and those few people who peeked out to watch the arrival hung back, properly awed because they remembered the bearded white man who commanded a black wizard. The black wizard wasn't with him, but surely his medicine was.
Of Whistling Snake they saw nothing. Charles turned Green Grass Woman over to the care of Red Bear's stout and toothless wife. Green Grass Woman was not of Red Bear's village, but the chief knew about her.
"She will go with us to the white fort," Red Bear said in his tipi. Seated by the fire, Charles used a bone spoon to eat some stew. He no longer worried about the origin of the stew meat.
"You're going to give up to the soldiers?"
"Yes. I have decided it after much thought and consultation with others. If we do not give up we will starve or be shot. All in the village have agreed to go except for eight of the Dog Men, who refuse to quit. I said I would not lead grandfathers and infants to death just to preserve the honor of the Dog Men. It wounds my pride to go to the soldiers. I was brave once too. But I have learned that bravery and wisdom sometimes cannot walk together. Life is more precious than pride."
Charles wiped stew from the corner of his mouth. He said nothing.
He hadn't slept in twenty-four hours. But he wanted to be on his way. Red Bear endorsed that. "The Dog Men know you are here. They are angry."
Then the wise thing was to hurry out of the village. Ceremoniously, he thanked Red Bear's kindly wife and the chief for welcoming them. He said he would like to say goodbye to Green Grass Woman. The chief's wife led him to a nearby tipi where she'd made the girl comfortable. Beside a small fire, bundled in a buffalo robe, Green Grass Woman lay with her head and shoulders elevated by a woven backrest. Charles took her hand.
"You'll be all right now."
The puffy eyes welled with new tears. "No man will ever have me. I love you so. I wish you had lain with me once."
"So do I." He leaned down, holding his beard aside, as he kissed her mouth lightly. She cried in silence; he could feel her shaking. He caressed her face, then stood and slipped through the oval hole into the slackening rain.
Stars began to shine through translucent clouds blowing across the sky. Red Bear saw them to the edge of the camp, then turned back. The freshening wind tossed Charles's beard. He patted Satan, watched the clearing sky, began to hum the little melody that reminded him of home. Beside him, Gray Owl trotted his pony and observed his friend cautiously. What the Indian saw brought a fleeting smile.
They spied a lone horseman motionless on a low rise ahead and thought nothing of it. Some boy on duty with the horses, Charles assumed. He angled the piebald toward the stream to avoid passing too near the sentinel. The Indian suddenly loped down off the rise to intercept them.
"What's this?" Charles wondered aloud. Then his mouth dried. The Cheyenne was speeding toward them, booting his pony. In one hand he carried a lance, in the other a carbine with long feathers tied to the muzzle. Something about the rider's head and torso reminded him of —
Gray Owl reined in, despair in his eyes.
"Man-Ready-for-War," he said.
And so it was. Older now, but still handsome, though there was a famished, fugitive look about him. He wore his regalia and full paint. Around his neck hung his wing-bone whistle and the stolen silver cross. From shoulder to hip ran a wide sash painted yellow and red and heavily quilled and feathered. When Charles saw the sash he remembered Scar had been chosen a Dog-String Wearer.
In the light of the clearing sky, the huge white scar fish-hooking from the tip of the brow down around the jawbone was quite visible. Satan snorted nervously, smelling the Cheyenne pony as it trotted up.
"Others told me you were here," Scar said.
"We have no quarrel anymore, Scar."
"Yes. We do."
"Damn you, I don't want to fight you."
Wind fluttered the golden eagle feathers tied to the barrel of the carbine. Scar rammed his lance point in the muddy earth. "I have waited for you many winters. I remember how the old one tore away my manhood."
"And I remember how you repaid him. Let it go, Scar."
"No. I will pin my sash to the earth here. You will not pass by unless it is to walk the Hanging Road."
Charles thought a moment. In English, he said to Gray Owl, "We can bolt and outrun him."
Gray Owl's morose old eyes were despairing again. He pointed to the rise. The starlight showed that four warriors had appeared there to insure they would not escape.
Sick at heart, Charles flung off his black hat. He pushed the gypsy robe over his head and laid it across his saddle. He dismounted, handed Satan's rein to Gray Owl and drew his Bowie from his belt, and waited.
64
Scar drove his lance down through the slit at the end of his sash, pinning it. The lance vibrated as he let go. Charles understood what the sash said. To the death.
The Dog Society man began to mutter and chant. He untied a thong at his waist to free a wood-handled axe. He raised axe and carbine over his head in some ritual supplication Charles didn't understand. Then he ran the edge of the iron head along the carbine's barrel, back and forth, a whetstone rasp. Sparks spurted.
I've had enough,
Charles thought. Texas, Virginia, Sharpsburg, the Washita. Augusta, Constance, Bent's razor — is it endless?
With a grunt, Scar threw the carbine away. The gun tumbled barrel over stock and landed unseen in the dark. Chanting louder, he kicked out of his moccasins. He sidled around to the right, presenting his shoulder and forearm. He showed the axe, then began to swing it clockwise in a small taunting circle. Suddenly he struck out straight toward Charles, the blade horizontal.
The ground was soggy, the grass still brown and scant after the winter freezes. Charles's foot slipped as he raised the Bowie in both hands and blocked the axe blow, edge against edge. Scar's force drove his arm on. The axe head slid off the knife and whistled past Charles's ear. Charles stabbed at the lunging body, a hard target in the starry dark. He missed.
Scar's sash limited his movement, Charles's only advantage. He knew that if he just walked away, out of Scar's reach, the four riders would come down for him. So he had to finish it here, God help him.
Once more Scar came sidling in, rotating the axe in the clockwise circle. He swung. Charles ducked. He swung again. Charles ducked again, but he felt the iron pluck at his hair. He stabbed upward. Pricked the inside of Scar's left sleeve. The Dog Soldier leaped away nimbly, turning like a dancer to unwind the sash twisted around him.
Charles crouched, both hands high in the traditional stance of the knife fighter. The Bowie twinkled in the starlight. Already the two men had churned their little patch of ground to choppy mud. It sucked at Charles's boots as he sidestepped, awaiting the next feint or slash.
Scar chanted and tossed his axe to his left hand. Charles shifted to counter the move. Turning toward Scar's left hand opened the left side of his body to attack. Without warning, Scar tossed the axe back, laughing deep in his belly as he chopped with his right hand.
Charles's right-to-left parry slashed the inside of Scar's forearm. Scar reacted by jerking the axe upward. Charles reached for it with his left hand and Scar kicked with his right foot. The hard blow struck Charles's groin. He reeled, lost his balance in the mud, fell.