was thinking as he sat his lathered black ten miles east of Timpas Creek Grove.
“What you think, Clint?” He broke his eyes from the buffalo skull with the question, sweeping the empty stillnesses of the valley, east and west.
Clint studied the skull. About it were the freshly manured tracks of many unshod ponies. From around it to the level of the brown earth upon which it rested, the burying snows had been carefully banked and pushed back. Above the right eye socket a crude human hand, palm down and fingers pointing to the ground, had been daubed in gaudy vermilion. Above the left eye, starkly drawn in black charcoal grease-paste, was a Sharps buffalo rifle, the barrel broken away from the stock at the point of the breech, and pointing abruptly earthward. Belowthe eye sockets, across the bridge of the foreface, was what appeared to be two human ears connected by a straight, slashing line in garish ocher yellow.
Clint shook his head. There was no grin lighting his handsome features, no customary easy softness in his tightlipped drawl. “By Gawd, I dunno, Ben. The hand and the busted gun read clear enough. They couldn’t mean but one thing, no matter the tribe that drawed them. But son of a bitch if I kin figger the yeller scrawl.”
“Nor me,” said Ben. “But likely we’d better figger it. It’s their road brand, that’s certain. Jest as certain, we’d best know what herd they’re cut out’n.”
“Well, I kin tell you two things,” nodded Clint. “It ain’t from no Kiowa nor no Comanche herd.”
“Thanks,” said Ben, “for nothin’.” Then, quickly. “Git Stark over here. He jest might know.”
“Now mebbe he jest might,” Clint agreed. “I allow it’s about time he knowed suthin’. Fer a man that’s so big in Montana he’s sure been gradin’ short yearlin’ south of his home range.”
“Give him time,” advised Ben. “He’s four-year-old beef. Jest new to the trail, I judge. Git him over here.”
Clint grunted something Ben didn’t hear, but that sounded as if it had son of a bitch and Montana mixed up in it somewhere, and spurred his mare on back to where Stark waited in the main trail.
“Twist your two-bit tail,” he called cheerfully. “We need a educated man up here that kin read summat besides Kiowa and Comanche billy-doos.”
Stark took one look at the pictograph on the bull’s skull, lost a layer or two of his fresh pink color, used a single agonized word both to justify Ben’s faith in his Indian higher learning and to let the Texasbrothers know upon whose tribal crossroads they were trespassing.
“Sioux — ! “ he gasped unbelievingly.
“The hell!” challenged Clint, not caring for the startled diagnosis. “I thought this here Arkansaw basin was Cheyenne country.”
“It is,” said Nathan Stark. “From the river, north to Fort Laramie and the Oregon Road. But that signature is Oglala Sioux.”
“You certain sure?” asked Ben.
“No chance I’m wrong. I’ve not studied their signs much, never had to in my business. But I do know that yellow symbol. Saw it splashed on the tailgate of a wagon burn-out up on the Bozeman last summer. I had one of Colonel Carrington’s Army scouts with me, and he read it off for us. That long slash connecting what look like ears, there, is a knife cut. That’s what the Oglala call themselves—the Throat Cutters.”
He broke off, frowning at the bright red hand and broken gun as Ben and Clint exchanged looks, then added, puzzled. “What does the rest of it mean?”
“The hand,” recited Clint with mile-wide irony, and as though reading it for him from the prairie primer on the facts of life in the far West, “if drawn upright with the fingers pointing to the sky and the palm outward, means peace. The gun, if in one piece and also aiming at the great blue beyond, indicates the selfsame Christian intention.”
Stark was looking to Ben, as he had from the outset, hearing Clint’s hardbitten recital but waiting
“What you think, Clint?” He broke his eyes from the buffalo skull with the question, sweeping the empty stillnesses of the valley, east and west.
Clint studied the skull. About it were the freshly manured tracks of many unshod ponies. From around it to the level of the brown earth upon which it rested, the burying snows had been carefully banked and pushed back. Above the right eye socket a crude human hand, palm down and fingers pointing to the ground, had been daubed in gaudy vermilion. Above the left eye, starkly drawn in black charcoal grease-paste, was a Sharps buffalo rifle, the barrel broken away from the stock at the point of the breech, and pointing abruptly earthward. Belowthe eye sockets, across the bridge of the foreface, was what appeared to be two human ears connected by a straight, slashing line in garish ocher yellow.
Clint shook his head. There was no grin lighting his handsome features, no customary easy softness in his tightlipped drawl. “By Gawd, I dunno, Ben. The hand and the busted gun read clear enough. They couldn’t mean but one thing, no matter the tribe that drawed them. But son of a bitch if I kin figger the yeller scrawl.”
“Nor me,” said Ben. “But likely we’d better figger it. It’s their road brand, that’s certain. Jest as certain, we’d best know what herd they’re cut out’n.”
“Well, I kin tell you two things,” nodded Clint. “It ain’t from no Kiowa nor no Comanche herd.”
“Thanks,” said Ben, “for nothin’.” Then, quickly. “Git Stark over here. He jest might know.”
“Now mebbe he jest might,” Clint agreed. “I allow it’s about time he knowed suthin’. Fer a man that’s so big in Montana he’s sure been gradin’ short yearlin’ south of his home range.”
“Give him time,” advised Ben. “He’s four-year-old beef. Jest new to the trail, I judge. Git him over here.”
Clint grunted something Ben didn’t hear, but that sounded as if it had son of a bitch and Montana mixed up in it somewhere, and spurred his mare on back to where Stark waited in the main trail.
“Twist your two-bit tail,” he called cheerfully. “We need a educated man up here that kin read summat besides Kiowa and Comanche billy-doos.”
Stark took one look at the pictograph on the bull’s skull, lost a layer or two of his fresh pink color, used a single agonized word both to justify Ben’s faith in his Indian higher learning and to let the Texasbrothers know upon whose tribal crossroads they were trespassing.
“Sioux — ! “ he gasped unbelievingly.
“The hell!” challenged Clint, not caring for the startled diagnosis. “I thought this here Arkansaw basin was Cheyenne country.”
“It is,” said Nathan Stark. “From the river, north to Fort Laramie and the Oregon Road. But that signature is Oglala Sioux.”
“You certain sure?” asked Ben.
“No chance I’m wrong. I’ve not studied their signs much, never had to in my business. But I do know that yellow symbol. Saw it splashed on the tailgate of a wagon burn-out up on the Bozeman last summer. I had one of Colonel Carrington’s Army scouts with me, and he read it off for us. That long slash connecting what look like ears, there, is a knife cut. That’s what the Oglala call themselves—the Throat Cutters.”
He broke off, frowning at the bright red hand and broken gun as Ben and Clint exchanged looks, then added, puzzled. “What does the rest of it mean?”
“The hand,” recited Clint with mile-wide irony, and as though reading it for him from the prairie primer on the facts of life in the far West, “if drawn upright with the fingers pointing to the sky and the palm outward, means peace. The gun, if in one piece and also aiming at the great blue beyond, indicates the selfsame Christian intention.”
Stark was looking to Ben, as he had from the outset, hearing Clint’s hardbitten recital but waiting
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