River Otter by Mark Wildyr

Author:Mark Wildyr [Wildyr, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2012-09-09T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 20

I dismounted and ground-hitched Patch, knowing he wouldn’t move until I lifted his reins unless he was startled by something. The other two horses weren’t so well trained, so I looped their leads around the pinto’s saddle horn before kneeling to examine the tracks in the dusty farmyard. Hoof and moccasin prints. The renegades had been here. The lock had been forced on the outhouse door. I glanced around anxiously. Were they still here?

“I see you, River Otter.” Dull Lance stepped into view from the corner of the barn.

“I see you, too. Is it you causing all the trouble around here?”

“Me and my men.” Lance wore a loincloth and calf-high moccasins. His hair was braided. Painted lightning bolts coursed down his cheeks and across his bare chest in alternating colors of red and black. He was striking in a way that clawed at my vitals.

“And now you come to do me harm?”

Lance looked offended. “Nay, I come to see a man who helped me when I needed it. Why would I do him harm?”

I rose from my squat to face him. “Then why is the latch on my barn forced? Is that your smoke I see to the west?”

“It is a white man’s house that did not belong there. We chased him into his hole in the ground.” Lance indicated my cool room. “What you call your cellar. We left him there with his wife and fry — still breathing. At least, I didn’t kill them like they do us.”

“Why? What does that accomplish?”

“It lets them know there is a cost to taking our land. Perhaps it will make another farmer change his mind about settling here.”

I shook my head. “You do not understand the nature of greed. The white man’s lust for land overwhelms his deepest fears. All you will accomplish is the deaths of you, your men, and any bloods in the area. I can see the future you bring. I know what will happen. Burning them out and stealing their horses will not be enough for you. Soon, you will start killing. Already, the people of Yanube City look at me through different eyes. It will be the same for Dog Fox and his family at Teacher’s Mead. And for any other tribesmen who remain in this area. You will destroy us.”

“Wee-choh ee-yea. A lot of words to say nothing. Have you become a white man or merely his slave?”

“I am slave to no one. Neither white nor renegade.”

“Is that what you call us? Renegades? We are Sioux warriors living the life we choose on our own lands. The life you should be living with me.”

The invisible fist in my guts twisted. “That battle was fought twenty years ago. The Sioux and the Pipe Stem Draw People and all of the other bands withdrew to the northwest, abandoning this land to the settlers.”

“That was the doing of old men. We are young men come to reclaim what is ours.”

“With what? Half a dozen men claiming to be warriors?”

Lance’s eyes blazed.

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