Where the Lost Wander(91)
The boy returns with my saddle, his face alight with anticipation, and I hand him a coin from my bags. He flips it, smiles, and scampers away. I saddle the dun and swing up onto his back. He dances and tosses his head, eager to go, and I hear a few of the bets change. I don’t know how their system works and have no wish to find out. If I win, I get the pictures, and that’s all I care about.
I let the dun scamper a bit, warming up his limbs, but no one is patient enough for me to test the course. I move toward the line, but Wahatehwe is not the only one waiting there. Magwich insists on racing, and no one dares deny him.
“If I win, I get the woman,” Magwich insists.
“No. If you win, you win. You get nothing from me,” I say. I don’t even look at him. Wahatehwe is between us at the line, and I move the dun beside his paint, refusing to be goaded by the loathsome Magwich.
“If I win, I will take my horses,” Magwich warns Wahatehwe. The crowd goes silent, awaiting Wahatehwe’s response.
“If you win, I will give you the five horses I won from you,” Wahatehwe relents, letting his voice carry.
Magwich bellows, raising his hands like he’s already won, and the bets are cast yet again.
“But if the Pani wins,” Wahatehwe shouts, his eyes gleaming with mischief, “I will give the five horses to him.”
Magwich is stunned into silence, and the men around us whoop, but there is no time for argument.
“We race!” Wahatehwe yells. “Cross the creek and come back, Pani.”
Then the gun fires, making the dun jump, and Magwich and Wahatehwe are off, kicking their horses’ flanks, their hair flying out behind them, the dust billowing. I don’t even have to spur the dun. He sees the others leaving him behind and gives chase, almost unseating me. I mold myself to his back and bury my hands in his black mane, letting him go. He pounds down the clearing and past the camps, in pursuit all the way. Wahatehwe leads Magwich, and neither is paying any attention to the dun closing in. I cross the creek as they are turning around, and the dun hits the far bank and is back in the water without me taking the reins at all. It’s a race, and he is losing, and the dun doesn’t like to lose.
By the time we reach the edge of the clearing, the dun is stride for stride with Wahatehwe’s paint. Magwich is behind us, and I don’t look back to see how far. The dun flies, running with all the joy he’s been denied since leaving the Dakotah at Fort Laramie, and when we reach the finish, we are a full length ahead. The dun doesn’t want to stop, and I draw hard on his mane and bear down in the stirrups to bring him around.
Wahatehwe is laughing, his head and his arms thrown back, and those who shifted their bets at the end, gambling on the long shot, are yipping and dancing with the same zeal. For a brief, sweet moment, my heart is light and the snakes are quiet. I trot my horse back toward the finish, shaking my head in disbelief.
“Didn’t know you had that in ya, Dakotah,” I say to the dun, laughing. It’s about time I gave him a name. He’s earned it.
“I want that horse, John,” Wahatehwe yells, his teeth still flashing behind his lopsided lips. It seems I’ve earned a name as well. Washakie is approaching on his horse, his war chiefs beside him, and all are grinning. It was a good race.
I slide from the dun, reaching up to take the satchel from Wahatehwe’s outstretched hand. He is still astride the paint, incredulous and laughing, and then he isn’t. His eyes flare, and Washakie shouts out in warning. “Brother!”
I whirl, stepping to the side, and a knife sinks to the hilt in the dun’s right flank. The horse shrieks and bolts, and Shoshoni scatter like a drop of oil in a too-hot skillet, spitting in every direction.
Magwich runs at me, another blade flashing, his teeth bared, and I spin, narrowly avoid being split from my navel to my neck. He slashes again as I feint left, but he nicks my face and takes off a piece of my hair. I stagger back, reaching for the blade in my boot, and he dives again as I scramble and spin. His blade catches my shirt, and the tip of his knife scores my stomach in a long, shallow slice. The welling blood behind the gaping cloth makes him smile. The area around us is wide and empty. No one interferes. No one calls out. They watch.
“I will take your scalp and take your woman . . . again,” Magwich spits out. “I will put the Newe in her belly. Again.” Magwich is panting with his confidence, his knife wet with my blood, but Otaktay, the half-breed Sioux, taught me how to kick and bite and gut a man a dozen ugly ways before I was thirteen years old, when my rage had nowhere to go. My rage is bigger now.
Magwich thrusts again, his stance wide, his powerful thighs braced to run me through, and I drop, kicking out like a mule and connecting with his knee. When he falls forward, I drive my elbow into the side of his head as hard as I can, making him stumble and reach for the ground to catch himself. He drops his knife, and I step back, letting him pick it up again, waiting to see if he wants to die. I want to kill him, but I don’t want to die. I made a promise to three boys and a dead man that I would take care of Naomi. I can’t do that if I kill this man and have to face two thousand more. I am not one of them. He is.
“I don’t want to kill you,” I lie. “Take your knife and Wahatehwe’s horses and go. I don’t want them.”
He laughs. I am bleeding, and he is not. Some in the circle around us jeer, and others jostle to see. Magwich picks up his knife and begins to circle, his stance low and his feathers dancing. He is favoring his knee. He lunges, and I kick out again, connecting with his injured leg, but the dirt is thick and loose from the pounding of hooves and the near-constant racing. I slip, and he pounces, bringing his knife down in a wide arc. It glances off the ground above my head, but my knife is already in his belly. He stiffens, his big body flexing in surprise. He tries to roll away, to escape the blade that is already embedded, but I wrap both hands around the hilt and yank upward, splitting him open before shrugging him off.