Chapter 13

Shouts from several of the tribe made Pale Horse look up from the discussion he had been holding with Eagle Wing - the Shoshone shaman. Listening, he made out "riders coming" and switched his gaze to the ridge in the distance.

Sure enough, a cloud of dust was swirling at the top of the ridge and he half expected to see it continue down the face and towards the village.

But instead it stopped. Shielding his eyes from the late-afternoon sun, he could make out a group of horses and some riders, but there seemed to be quite a few more horses than men.

The riders, whoever they were, paused long enough to make sure they had been seen, and then did continue down the slope. They were riding slowly, offering no threat so as not to alarm the villagers.

As they drew nearer, Pale Horse could see that there were three riders, spread out in a line, and they seemed to have around eight empty horses following behind.

Closer still, and he was able to make out details. The central rider was the white man, Djaik, who had come to this village five days earlier. His large Bay horse with the white blaze was quite distinctive.

That meant that the shorter rider in black was the Comanche woman who had killed Bent Stick. The pair of them had ridden out, taking his daughter Grey Cloud with them, saying they would be back at about this time.

So where was she? The third rider looked like another white man and was riding a buckskin horse.

Wait - there was Grey Cloud's pony - he could see it now. But it didn't have a rider. What had happened to her?

Pale Horse turned, called to his wife Speaks Loudly that she should come out of their tepee, and then started to make his way to the edge of the village to greet the riders. He looked calm and impassive, but he was worried about his daughter. He knew she hadn't had a good life once she married Bent Stick, but then she was taken away by the white man and his Comanche woman, and now she was missing.

The other men from the tribe parted to let their chief through. He stood, waiting, as the riders approached. A few of the younger boys ran out towards the riders but then stopped, unsure of themselves and feeling exposed, and ran back to the safety of the crowd.

The riders got nearer still, and Pale Horse could clearly recognise Djaik. He rode with his hands in plain view, holding no weapons, obviously wanting there to be no misunderstanding.

His woman - what was her name? Suahtaholah? She was on Djaik's right, Pale Horse's left.

On his other side was an unknown white man. Grey hat, check shirt with a vest on top, brown pants. No sign of weapons, but they could be hung from the horse's saddle on the side hidden from his view. It was a good looking horse too, with the pretty buckskin colouring it stood out, though it wasn't a man's horse really.

And it wasn't. As the three drew up in front of him, the rider on his right pushed her hat back from her face and said: "Hello father."

Pale Horse nearly let his astonishment show. But he retained his calm exterior - it was important that the tribe felt he couldn't be rattled - and said, "Welcome back, daughter."

He then turned to Jake. "Welcome to you all. Thank you for bringing my daughter back safely. Please join me at the fire when you are ready and tell us how you came about all of these horses. I imagine it is a good tale for you to tell."

"I honoured to tell it." Jake replied. "May I clean first? We ride whole day."

"Of course," Pale Horse answered. "I will send some boys to help with all of your horses."

With that, he turned back towards his lodge and the main fire circle in the village. Djaik and the two young women rode off at an angle towards Grey Cloud's tepee where the three of them gratefully dismounted.

Jake moved to catch Grey Cloud as she almost fell from the saddle - her first day on a white man's saddle had been bad enough, but as she had only just started riding any distance and this was only her second full-day's riding, her legs didn't seem to want to work.

"Go rest," Jake told her. "We bring everything in."

"But you shouldn't," she complained. "It is my job to do that."

"Not this time," Sue told her. "You rest the ache from your legs and we will be with you shortly."

Four boys appeared having been sent to help. Jake recognised two of them from his previous visit. Between them, they quickly moved all of the horses behind the tepee and got the saddles and packs off them. Jake carried the packs into the teepee while Sue found several sets of brushes and told the boys to water the horses and to brush their coats. The two boys who had already done this once assured her they would show the other two and that the horses were safe with them.

Once that was being taken care of, she joined Jake and Grey Cloud in the teepee. She found the younger girl lying down, groaning.

"Come on," she urged her. "There is no time to relax. Djaik has to go to the fire circle."

"It may be rude," Djaik interrupted her. "But we ridden all day and I need bath and clean clothes. So does Grey Cloud. They just have wait."

Grey Cloud pulled herself up, still groaning. Sue went to the packs, neatly piled to one side of the tepee, and found soap, cloths and spare clothes, and then they were off to the river.

They didn't take long as they knew the tribe would be waiting. So, after a quick wash, the three made their way to the centre of the village. Grey Cloud had changed her white man's clothing for a buckskin dress again. She also found one for Sue - which amused Jake as he hadn't seen the Comanche girl in a dress for some weeks. She rather spoiled the appearance, though, by putting her gunbelt back on.

Jake, on the other hand, had removed his buckskin shirt with the missing sleeve and put on a spare, white man's shirt. It was blue, and contrasted with the tan buckskins that the women wore.

Before leaving, he strapped his gun back on and then bent down and unrolled the blanket with the spare guns in it. He selected the best of the rifles and picked it up to take with him.

Pale Horse was sitting on a log by the fire talking to the other important men in the tribe. Eagle Wing was there, on the chief's right, as was his custom as tribe shaman. On the chief's other side was Red Hand, the brave who had been with him when they first came across Djaik and Suahtaholah - who the white man called Sue.

They had been waiting for some time. Pale Horse knew that the white man and his women had ridden a long way today so was not surprised they wanted to wash before they came to the fire. Anyway, the delay gave the tribe time to gather. The three rings of seats were almost full. Just one place in the inner ring was open, across the circle from Pale Horse. The other two rows were also full of braves, all seated in an undiscussed but well-known hierarchy.

To one side were the younger men and the women, standing in separate groups. They too were talking amongst themselves, waiting for something to happen. If anything, the area was even fuller than the last time Djaik had visited their camp. Everyone wanted to hear his story but they were also intrigued in case anything happened like the last time. Then, the white man had brought a woman into the circle to speak for him. The result had been the death of one of their number and the departure of the chief's own daughter, Grey Cloud, when the white man left. What would happen this time?

As the three travellers approached, the crowd grew quiet - the silence spreading as everyone gradually noticed their arrival. Pale Horse studied the three of them.

The white man, Djaik, had changed out of his Indian-made buckskin shirt and was now dressed more as he would have expected. A blue cloth shirt and a black-and-white neck scarf contrasted with his buckskin pants and moccasins. He truly was a man of two halves - white man on top and Indian below. He wore a gunbelt with a revolver in a cross-draw holster on his left side while a big knife hung on the right. He looked calm but prepared for anything - though he didn't seem nervous or on edge. He was carrying a long gun - a rifle the white men called them.

One pace behind to his right was the Comanche girl - Suahtaholah. She had put aside her white man's garb and looked almost like a member of his tribe. Even the dress she work was Shoshone from the beadwork on the front. Her hair was held back by a buckskin thong and her eyes could be clearly seen. Though she looked calm, those eyes were flicking from Djaik to Pale Horse to the group around the fire to the gathered young men to the women and back. The relaxed look was an act - she was ready for anything. She also wore a gunbelt, like the white man's with a revolver on the left but, in her case, two knives on the right - one much larger than the other.

His daughter followed the white man on his other side. She too wore a dress and moccasins. She didn't have a gunbelt but she did have a belt with a scabbarded knife hanging from it. It wasn't as big as the other two but was a good size - it was Bent Stick's old one. However, the biggest change wasn't in her appearance but in her demeanour. Just a few days before she had looked haunted, keeping out of everyone's way and looking at the ground with her hair hanging over her face.

Now, Grey Cloud stood tall. Her hair was also tied back and she looked ahead, not down. She looked her father in the eye and smiled when she saw him watching her. She looked around, seeing people she knew in the crowd and attracting their attention. She smiled at them, no longer a scared mouse but a confident woman. Pale Horse was amazed at the change in her in only five days.

The three of them stopped just outside the circle. Pale Horse stood and, looking Djaik straight in the eye, gestured to the empty place. The white man nodded his head and made his way to his spot. When he reached it, Pale Horse sat and Djaik followed suit.

The two girls made their way around the outside of the circle. They didn't join the other women though. Instead, the Comanche took up a place just behind the rear circle where there was a gap in the logs and she had a clear view of Djaik, Pale Horse and everyone around the fire. It was casually done, but she put herself in just the right place to keep an eye on everything and to go quickly to Djaik's aid if he needed her help.