Well, now I got a suspicion they was about to jump me nonetheless, and it jerked me from my dream, gun in hand.
But what I saw from beneath the wagon was fringed leggings and a pair of moccasins with a little strip of blue and red beading across the instep and an interrupted band of white running from ankle to toe. I had once set and watched Shooting Star apply them beads, strung on sinew and stitched with a bone needle.
They belonged to Burns Red in the Sun, who must be wearing them at this moment though I could see him only as high as the waist from where I lay. He wasn’t alone, but accompanied by some fifteen or twenty other pairs of moccasins. And there was something about them feet and legs that didn’t look too friendly.
You may be interested to hear what it was. Well, from down that low I couldn’t see the butts of anybody’s weapons. Which meant they was holding them in a usable position.
CHAPTER 13 Cheyenne Homecoming
I WASN’T in no particular hurry to come on out of there; and when I did issue forth I did not care to do so at the feet of them Indians. As to the latter, I had no choice, however, for they was on the other side of the wagon also and at both ends.
So I crawled out and stood up soon as I cleared the edge of the wagon box, and it was sure enough the face of Burns Red in the Sun that I looked into. Painted heavily, it went without saying, and just as well for otherwise I should not have recognized him.
I oughtn’t to omit to say that while I was rising, two other Indians seized my arms and lifted my pistol and knife. This bunch was not on a friendly mission. They continued to pinion me, and without making a fuss over it I was able to observe that my company of mule skinners stood or lay all around in various states of captivity, though it was not apparent that any struggle had took place.
Even with my credentials I found this a delicate moment. Burns Red was not being exactly quick to make me out. I had forgot, too, that if you encounter it of a sudden, face paint will scare hell out of you.
I had dropped my sombrero, so Burns had a fair shot at my features. I had got a year or so older since we had last been together and I had the beginnings of a mustache, though they wasn’t enough to put off anybody.
Still, he was right cold when he spoke. His eyes showed unsympathetic out at me over vermilion cheeks and on either side of a nose with a white line down the bridge. He wore a full bonnet of eagle feathers tipped with down.
“Why,” he asks, of course in Cheyenne, “did you steal my father’s horse?”
It was then I noticed that nearby another Indian was holding the halter of that pinto I had bought in Denver. This man was an old acquaintance, Shadow That Comes in Sight, who had led my first raid against the Crow, you might recall, on which I had made that name for myself. However he was looking sullen at present.
“Brother,” I says to Burns with some urgency, “don’t you know me?”
You would have thought he might consider how I happened to speak fluent Cheyenne. Not him.
“You white men,” he said in great disgust. “We took you in and fed you when you were hungry and lost because dreams of the yellow dust had made you crazy. Then you steal our horses. You are all very bad men, and we don’t want to make a treaty with you.”
The others roundabout muttered peevishly in agreement with them sentiments. I couldn’t make head nor tail of his complaints, however, so I just explained where and how I had got the pony and said that regardless of that, he could have him on general principles, being my brother.
I had now used the word “brother” a couple times, and it was beginning to penetrate Burns’s eagle feathers and the thick skull thereunder. So after denouncing white men some more and gesturing in an unpleasant way with his rifle-on which occasions them two holding my arms would give me a good agitating and the rest of the Indians would glower and mutter at my mule skinners, who though ordinarily the typical, uncouth, foul-mouthed swaggering bunch that follows that profession, was now paralyzed in fear-after a long time, during which I almost give up hope, for even though you’ve lived with Indians for five years they can be quite damaging to your peace of mind, he at last said in personal irritation, as contrasted with the racial charges he had been making:
“Why do you keep calling me ‘brother’? I want you to stop doing that. I am not your brother. I am a Human Being.”
And the swarthy fellow holding my right arm, who wore a belt full of scalps one of which was blond as corn and never come from no Pawnee, said: “I think we should kill him first and then talk.” I did not know this man, but among the others I recognized Bird Bear and Lean Man and Rolling Bull, the latter restraining my left arm.
“Well,” I says boldly, “it seems the Human Beings cannot be trusted any more than the white men who did you wrong. Only two snows ago I was your brother, lived in Old Lodge Skins’s tepee, hunted and fought with the Human Beings and on one occasion at least almost died for them. I suppose you will say with your tongue-that-goes-two-ways that you never heard of Little Big Man.”
Burns Red in the Sun said: “He rode beside me at the Battle of the Long Knives, where the white men did not know how to fight. He was killed there after rubbing out many bluecoats. But the white men did not get his body. He turned into a swallow and flew away across the bluffs.”
“I tell you,” I cried, “that I am Little Big Man. How would I know about him otherwise?”
“All people know of him,” said Burns Red in that stubborn redskin manner. “He is a great hero of the Human Beings. Everybody knows the Human Beings, so everybody would know of him. I shall not talk of this further.” He shifted his rifle to the left hand and put his right upon the handle of his scalping knife. “In addition to being a horse thief you are the biggest liar I have ever heard,” he went on. “And also a fool. I tell you I saw Little Big Man fall and turn into a bird. Therefore you cannot be he. Besides, you are a white man. Little Big Man was a Human Being.”
“Look at me,” I said.
“Oh,” said Burns Red, “Little Big Man may have had light skin, but that does not mean he was a white man. Besides, what you are showing me is you and not him.”
Well, there you have it. There ain’t nothing in the world, not the most intractable mule, that is so obdurate as a goddam Indian. I figured I was a goner at this point, especially since Burns said he was going to cut out my tongue for telling lies, at which that especially mean fellow on my right arm was considerably cheered. He was no more than a kid, about my age when I killed the Crow. I have said I didn’t recognize him, but suddenly I did.
He was Dirt on the Nose, growed up some from that young boy to whom I had give a pony after the exploit in which I got my adult name.
Burns Red drawed his knife. I looked at Dirt on the Nose. Hell, it was worth a try.
I asked him: “You still have that black I gave you up on the Powder River?”
His ferocious look disappeared, and he answered: “No, the Pawnee stole him when we were camped at Old Woman Butte two snows ago.”
“Did you hear that?” I asked Burns Red in the Sun.
His face went blank, insofar as you could say behind that paint.
“It is true,” he said, “that there is a thing here that I do not understand.”
I proceeded to rapid-fire a number of other detailed reminiscences at him, but he was not further impressed. He put away his knife, though. It was that particular about the horse that saved my life, or at least my tongue. People came and went in them days, but horses was serious.
So them Indians decided to take me to their camp and let the older men adjudicate the matter. I was no longer physically constrained, but neither had they reached the point of returning my weapons. They left a guard upon the mule skinners, who I told to accept this inconvenience in good grace; not that they had any choice.