Jake Spoon heaved and heaved.
Maggie saw how young he was and took a little pity.
When he finished being sick she cleaned him up a little and helped him out the door.
"Now boys, look there!" Inish Scull said, pointing westward at a small red butte.
"See that? Pretend it's your Alps." "Our what, Captain?" Long Bill inquired. It was breakfast time--Deets had just fried up some tasty bacon, and the breeze, though chilly, could be tolerated, particularly while he was sitting at the campfire holding a tin mug of scalding coffee that in texture was almost as thick as mud. All the rangers were hunched over their cups, letting the steam from the scalding coffee warm their cold faces. The exception was Woodrow Call, already saddled up and ready to ride--though even he had no notion of where they were headed, or why. They had travelled due south for a few days, but then the Captain suddenly bent to the west, toward a long empty space where, so far as any of the rangers knew, there was nothing to see or do.
The low, flat-topped hill was red in the morning sunlight.
"The Alps, Mr. Colemanffwas the Captain repeated. "If you find yourself in Switzerland or France you have to cross them before you can get to Italy and eat the tasty noodle. That was Hannibal's challenge. He had all those elephants, but the Alpine passes were deep in snow. What was he to do?" Captain Scull was drinking brandy, his morning drink and his evening drink, too, when he could have it.
One well-padded brace of saddlebags contained nothing but brandy. A tipple or swallow or two in the morning cleared his head wonderfully, when he was campaigning, and also rarely failed to put him in a pedagogical mood. History, military history in particular, was his passion.
Harvard wanted him to teach it, but he saw no reason to be teaching military history when he could go out in the field and make it, so he packed up the ardent Dolly Johnson, his Birmingham bride, and went to Texas to fight in the Mexican War, where he promptly captured three substantial towns and a number of sad villages. The air of the raw frontier so invigorated him that he gave little thought to going back to Boston, to the library and the ivied hall. Because of his long string of victories in Mexico he was soon offered the command of the disheveled but staunch band of irregulars known as the Texas Rangers.
Inish Scull was convinced, from what he knew of politics, that a great civil conflict was looming in America, but that conflict was yet some years away. When it came, Inish Scull meant to have a generalship--and what better way to capture the attention of the War Department than to whip the Comanche, the Kiowa, the Apache, the Pawnee, or any other tribe that attempted to resist the advance of Anglo-Saxon settlement?
Scull might not have broken the wild tribes yet, but he had harried them vigorously for almost ten years, while, little by little, settlement crept up the rivers and into the fertile valleys. Farms and ranches were established, burned out by the red men, and built again. Small poor townships were formed; wagon roads rutted the prairie; and the government slowly placed its line of forts along the northern and western line of settlement. All the while, Scull and his rangers ranged and ranged, hanging cattle thieves in the south and challenging the fighting Indians to the north.
Still, now and then, with a prickle of brandy in his nostrils, and a cold wind worthy of New England cooling his neck, Scull found that the professor was likely to revive in him, a little.
At moments he missed the learned talk of Cambridge; at times he grew depressed when he considered the gap in knowledge between himself and the poor dull fellows he commanded--they were brave beyond reason, but, alas, untutored. Young Call, it was true, was eager to learn, and Augustus McCrae sometimes mimicked a few lines of Latin picked up in some Tennessee school. But, the truth was, the men were ignorant, which is why, from time to time, with no immediate enemy to confront, he had started giving little impromptu lectures on the great battles of history. It was true that the little butte to the west did not look much like an Alp, but it was the only hill in sight, and would have to serve.
"No, you see, Hannibal and his elephants were on the wrong side of the hills--or at least he wanted his enemies to think so," Scull said, pacing back and forth, his brandy glass in his hand. He hated to drink brandy out of anything but glass. On every patrol he carefully wrapped and packed six brandy glasses, but, despite his caution, he would usually be reduced to taking his brandy out of a tin cup before the scout was finished.
"What was he doing with elephants if he was out there in the snows?" Augustus asked. He hated it when the Captain got in one of his lecturing moods--though, since as far as he could tell they were just wandering aimlessly now, it probably didn't much matter whether they were riding or getting a history lesson. Now there the Captain was, drunk on brandy, pointing at some dull little hill and prattling on about Hannibal and elephants and snow and Alps and Romans.
Gus could not remember ever having heard of Hannibal, and he did not expect to enjoy any lecture he might receive, mainly because one of his socks had wrinkled up inside his boot somehow and left him a painful blister on the bottom of his foot. He wanted to be back in Austin. If he limped into the Forsythe store looking pitiful enough Clara might tend to his blister and permit him a kiss besides. Instead, all he had in the way of comfort was a mug of coffee and a piece of sandy bacon, and even that comfort was ending. Deets had just confided in him that they only had bacon for one more day.
"Why, Hannibal was African," Scull said. "He was a man of Carthage, and not the only great commander to use war elephants, either.
Alexander the Great used them in India and Hannibal took his on over the Alps, snow or no snow, and fell on the Romans when they least expected it. Brilliant fighting, I call it." Call tried to imagine the scene the Captain was describing--the great beasts winding up and up, into the snowy passes--but he had never seen an elephant, just a few pictures of them in books. Though he knew most of the rangers found it boresome when the Captain started in lecturing, he himself enjoyed hearing about the battles Captain Scull described. His reading ability was slowly improving, enough so that he hoped, in time, to read about some of the battles himself.
Just as the Captain was warming to his subject, Famous Shoes suddenly appeared, almost at the Captain's elbow. As usual, all the boys gave a start; none of them had seen the tracker approach. Even Captain Scull found Famous Shoes' suddenly appearances a little unnerving.
"I was in the camp of Buffalo Hump, he has a new wife," Famous Shoes said.
"His son took me prisoner for a while--he was the one who killed Mr. Watson. They call him "Blue Duck."' His mother was a Mexican woman who froze to death trying to get away from Buffalo Hump." Inish Scull smiled.
"You'd make a fine professor, sir," he said. "You've managed to tell us more about this scamp Blue Duck than I've been able to get across about Hannibal and his elephants. What else should I know? Has Kicking Wolf crossed the Alps with those stallions yet?" His witticism was lost on Famous Shoes, who did not particularly appreciate interruptions while trying to deliver his reports.
"Slow Tree came into camp with many warriors and many women," Famous Shoes went on. "Slow Tree wanted to kill me but Buffalo Hump will not let anybody kill me." "Whoa, that's news--why not?" Scull asked.
"I helped his grandmother die," Famous Shoes said. "I do not have to worry about Buffalo Hump." "Is that all?" Scull asked.
"You do not have to worry about Buffalo Hump either," Famous Shoes said. "He is still with Slow Tree. But Kicking Wolf is following you now." "Kicking Wolf--why, the rascal!" Scull exclaimed. "A few days ago I was following him. Why would the man we were chasing want to follow us?" "He probably wants to steal more horses," Call said. "Stealing horses is what he's good at." "It could be that, or he might mean to cut our throats," Inish Scull commented. He looked at the scout, but Famous Shoes seemed to have no opinion as to Kicking Wolf's plans.
"I didn't see him," he said. "I only saw his tracks. He has Three Birds with him." "Well, that doesn't tell me much," Scull said. "I've not h
ad the pleasure of meeting Mr. Three Birds. What kind of fellow is he?" "Three Birds is quiet--he does not speak his thoughts," Famous Shoes said. "The two of them are alone. The rest of the warriors are at the feast Buffalo Hump is giving for Slow Tree." "If it's just two of them, I say let 'em come," Augustus said. "I expect we can handle two Indians, even if one of them is Kicking Wolf." Call thought the opposite. Two Indians would be harder to detect than fifteen. It struck him as peculiar that Kicking Wolf chose to follow them just then; after all, he had just escaped with three fine stallions. They were probably better horses than any the ranger troop could boast--withthe exception of Hector, of course.
Scull strode up and down for a while, looking across the plain as if he expected to see Kicking Wolf heave into sight at any moment. But, except for two hawks soaring, there was nothing to see in any direction but grass.
"I have known Three Birds for a long time," he said. "He does not hate Kickapoos.
Once I helped him track a cougar he had shot. I think that cougar might have got away if I hadn't tracked it with him." Augustus was sometimes irked by Famous Shoes' pompous way of talking.
"I expect he's forgot about that cougar by now," he said. "He might step up and cut your throat before he could call it to mind." Famous Shoes considered the remark too absurd to reply to. Three Birds would never forget that he had helped him track the cougar, any more than Buffalo Hump would forget that he had been kind to his dying grandmother.
"Want me to see if I can surprise them, Captain?" Call asked--he was impatient with the inactivity. Talk was fine at night, but it was daytime and his horse was saddled and eager.
"You can't catch them," Famous Shoes said.
"They are following you, but they are not close, and they have better horses than you do. If you chase them they will lead you so far away that you will starve before you can get back." Call ignored the scout and looked at the Captain--he saw no reason to tolerate a hostile pursuit.
Captain Scull looked at the young man with amusement--he obviously wanted to go chase Indians, despite the scout's plain warning.
"I've been out there before and I didn't starve," Call informed him.
Scull pursed his lips but said nothing. He walked over to his saddlebags and rummaged in them until he came out with a small book. Then he walked back to the campfire, settled himself comfortably on a sack of potatoes, and held up the book, which was well used.
"Xenophon," he said. "The March of the Ten Thousand. Of course, we're only twelve men, but when I read Xenophon I can imagine that we're ten thousand." Augustus had quietly saddled up--if there was a pursuit, he wanted to be part of it.
Several other rangers began to stir themselves, pulling on their boots and looking to their guns.
"Here, stop that!" Captain Scull said suddenly, looking up from his book. "I won't send you off to chase a phantom, in country this spare. Just because Mr. Call didn't starve in it on his last visit doesn't mean he couldn't starve tomorrow--andthe rest of you too.
"There's always a first time, they say," he added.
"I expect it was some smart Greek said that, or else our own Papa Franklin." Then he paused and smiled benignly at his confused and ragged men.
"Ever hear Greek read, boys?" he asked.
"It's a fine old language--the language of Homer and Thucydides, not to mention Xenophon, who's our author today. I've a fair amount of Greek still in my head. I'll read to you, if you like, about the ten thousand men who marched home in defeat." Nobody said yes, and nobody said no. The men just stood where they were, or sat if they had not yet risen. Deets put a few more sticks on the fire.
"That's fine, the ayes have it," Captain Scull said.
He looked around with a grin, and then, sitting on the sack of potatoes, and squinting in order to see the small print of his pocket Xenophon, he read to the troop in Greek.
"That was worse than listening to a bunch of Comanches gobble at one another," Long Bill said, once the reading was over and the troop once again on the move.
"I'd rather listen to pigs squeal than to hear goings-on like that," Ikey Ripple added.
Augustus had disliked the reading as much as anyone, but the fact that Long Bill had spoken out against it rubbed him the wrong way.
"That was Greek," he reminded them haughtily. "Everybody ought to hear Greek now and then, and Latin too. I could listen all day to someone read Latin." Call knew that Augustus claimed some knowledge of Latin, but he had never been convinced by the claim.
"I doubt you know a ^w of either language," Call said. "You didn't understand that reading and neither did anybody else." Unlike the rangers, Famous Shoes had been mightily impressed by the Captain's reading. He himself could speak several dialects and follow the track of any living animal; but Captain Scull had followed an even harder and more elusive track: the tiny, intricate track that ran across the pages of the book. That Big Horse Scull could follow a little track through page after page of a book and turn what he saw into sound was a feat that never ceased to amaze the Kickapoo.
"That might be the way a god talks," he commented.
"Nope, it was just some old Greek fellow who lost a war and had to tramp back home with his ten thousand men," Augustus said.
"That's a lot of men," Call said. "I wonder how many fought on the side that won." "Why would you care, Woodrow? You didn't even like hearing Greek," Augustus pointed out.
"No," Call said, "but I can still wonder about that war."
Kicking Wolf was amused by the carelessness of Big Horse Scull, who put three men at a time to guard the rangers' horses and the two pack mules, but did not bother with guards for the Buffalo Horse. The men on guard were rotated at short intervals, too--yet Scull did not seem to think the Buffalo Horse needed watching.
"He does not think anyone would try to steal the Buffalo Horse," Kicking Wolf told Three Birds, after they had watched the rangers and their horses for three nights.
"Scull is careless," he added.
Three Birds, for once, had a thought he didn't want to keep inside himself.
"Big Horse is right," Three Birds said. He pointed upward to the heavens, which were filled with bright stars.
"There are as many men as there are stars," Three Birds said. "They are not all here, but somewhere in the world there are that many men." "What are you talking about?" Kicking Wolf said.
Three Birds pointed to the North Star, a star much brighter than the little sprinkle of stars around it.
"Only one star shines to show where the north is," Three Birds said. "Only one star, of all the stars, shines for the north." Kicking Wolf was thinking it was pleasanter when Three Birds didn't try to speak his thoughts, but he tried to listen politely to Three Birds' harmless ^ws about the stars.
"You are like the North Star," Three Birds said. "Only you of all the men in the world could steal the Buffalo Horse. That horse might be a witch--some say that it can fly. It might turn and eat you, when you go up to it. Yet you are such a thief that you are going to steal it anyway.
"Big Horse doesn't know that the North Star has come to take his horse," he added.
"If he knew, he would be more careful." On the fourth night, after studying the situation well, Kicking Wolf decided it was time to approach the Buffalo Horse. The weather conditions were good: there was a three-quarter moon, and the brightness of the stars was dimmed just enough by scudding, fast-moving clouds. Kicking Wolf could see all he needed to see. He had carefully prepared himself by fasting, his bowels were empty, and he had rubbed sage all over his body. Scull even left a halter on the Buffalo Horse.
Once Kicking Wolf had reassured the big horse with his touch and his stroking, all he would have to do would be to take the halter and quietly lead the Buffalo Horse away.
As he was easing along the ground on his belly, so that the lazy guards wouldn't see him, Kicking Wolf got a big shock: suddenly the Buffalo Horse raised its ear, turned its head, and looked right at him. Kicking Wolf was close enough then tha
t he could see the horse's breath making little white clouds in the cold night.
When he realized that the Buffalo Horse knew he was there, Kicking Wolf remembered Three Birds' warning that the horse might be a witch. For an instant, Kicking Wolf felt fear--big fear. In a second or two the big horse could be on him, trampling him or biting him before he could crawl away.
Immediately Kicking Wolf rose to a crouch, and got out of sight of the Buffalo Horse as fast as he could. He was very frightened, and he had not been frightened during the theft of a horse in many years.
The Buffalo Horse had smelled him even though he had no smell, and heard him even though he made no sound.
"I think he heard my breath," he said, when he was safely back with Three Birds. "A man cannot stop his breath." "The other horses didn't know you were there," Three Birds told him. "Only the Buffalo Horse noticed you." Though he was not ready to admit it, Kicking Wolf had begun to believe that Three Birds might be right. The Buffalo Horse might be a witch horse, a horse that could not be stolen.