Read Online Bounty Hunter (9781101611975) by Bill Yenne - Free Book Online Page B

have become into one band with the Káínawa Siksikáwa who live in the red coats’ country.”
    â€œSo that I understand,” Cole recapped, “some people from your own tribe stole some of your horses and they’re running with some people from the Káínawa Blackfeet up in Canada?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAnd your uncle wants
my
help in getting the horses back?”
    â€œYes . . . and also to punish the Pikuni for riding with our enemy.”
    As with many tribes, including the pale-skinned ones from Cole’s world, people who seemed indistinguishable to outsiders were often rivals—or worse. The Pikuni Siksikáwa of Montana and the Káínawa in Canada shared a language and a culture, yet they had been openly hostile with one another forever. Of course, in Cole’s own generation, the Civil War had consumed nearly a million lives of men, men just like him, men who were on two sides but who nevertheless spoke the same language.
    â€œWhere are they now, the renegades and the Káínawa?” Cole asked. “Did they go back into Canada?”
    â€œNo . . . they went to the
Mistákists Ikánatsiaw
, the mountains which go to the sun,” she said, “. . . one or two sleeps toward the place of the setting sun . . . to the west from here.”
    â€œWhy does he need an outsider for this?” Cole asked.
    â€œBecause most of our young men have gone away to hunt the
iiníí
 . . . the buffalo . . . far to the east . . . many sleeps. They stole the horses because we were in a moment of weakness. We need help.”
    â€œHow did you decide to pick me?”
    â€œIkutsikakatósi and Ómahkaatsistawa,” she said, nodding to the two young men. “They spotted you this morning as the sun rose. They told my uncle about the white man riding where white men usually do not come. He said to get the white man to help.”
    â€œYou don’t see too many white men out here, then?”
    â€œNo, not this side of the trading posts, not in many moons.”
    â€œI was told there were three others who came this way a day or two ago.”
    â€œI haven’t heard of them, they must have gone some other way,” she said. Her expression agreed with her words.
    â€œMust have,” Cole said.
    The old man said something, but Cole didn’t hear it; his rapt attention had been on watching Natoya’s graceful gesture as she pointed to the west.
    She heard it though and quickly translated.
    â€œYou will go now . . . you will go
aami’toohski
 . . . westward at once.”
    The chief said something to the men that caused them to grimace and Natoya to giggle slightly.
    â€œI have one more question,” Cole said, turning to Natoya. “Why me? Why did I get singled out for this escapade?”
    â€œBecause Ikutsikakatósi and Ómahkaatsistawa could see by your guns that you were a man who could fight . . . O-mis-tai-po-kah could see by your eyes that you are a fighter who does not like to lose.”
    â€œIf I would
not
have come with them . . . if I wouldn’t have agreed to this . . . ?”
    â€œThey would kill you and take your guns,” she replied, her expression very matter of fact.
    *   *   *
    T HE THREE MEN RODE OUT OF THE CAMP TOGETHER, BUT when they crested the hill at the far side of the river valley, the Blackfeet reined their horses ahead of Cole’s, deliberately shunning him. It was obviously a matter of hurt pride that a
nápikoan
had to be hired to help them do their job. Being thusly ostracized did not bother Cole in the least. If it was him, he would have felt the same way.
    Nor did it bother him to be riding alone. He had long preferred it that way, he thought to himself. But, thinking of Will, he recalled that he had not
always
felt that way.
    As they rode