The rope had been untied from the leather that bound Sam’s wrists, and he had been given a small thin robe that had lost most of its hair. On this in the tent he sat and planned and waited. The brave who had been sent in to guard him was taller and heavier than most Indians: Sam thought he stood an inch or two above six feet and weighed more than two hundred pounds. He supposed that the chief had chosen one of his boldest and most dependable men, and one of the most savage, for this critter hadn’t sat a full minute when with Sam’s Bowie he made passes across his throat. He took from his lap a tomahawk and made movements with it to show Sam how he would split his skull. His face expressionless, Sam watched the grim pantomime; inside he was thinking: If my plan works, you dog-eater, you and me will be huggin before this night is over.
Sam was weighing his chances in every way he could conceive of. The tent was about ten feet across and about eight feet high where it was anchored to the center pole. lf he were to move fast inside it, Sam told himself, he would have to bend over, for if his head struck the tent the Indians outside might see the movement. The guard sat on a heavy robe. As he faced Sam he was just to the left of the flap, which had been thrown open and back. There were three big fires blazing outside; the voices were shrill. The firelight cast flickering illuminations over the guard’s face and gave a horrifying appearance of evil to his war paint. His right hand clasped the handle of the knife, his left the handle of the tomahawk. He had no gun. He was alert but tense; he had to turn his head now and then to peer out. Sam knew the man was burning with infernal thirst and was wondering if he would share the rum or be forgotten. Oh, they would bring him a chunk of roasted elk but would they bring him the water that turned a man into fire? If only he were the one who spoke some English, Sam could have talked to him and tried to make a frenzy of his resentment and impatience. As it was, he did nothing and said nothing; it would be best to look sleepy and tired. Sam was sitting straight across from the guard; their faces were only about six feet apart, their moccasined feet only about two. Sam’s face was in shadow; he knew that the guard could not see him clearly, but Sam could see the emotions convulsing the guard’s face. That Injun’s belly was burning for rum. If they forgot him he would be mad enough to grease hell with war paint before this night was over.
The guard made no move that Sam’s lidded eyes did not see. During the first hour he had turned to look out at least once every ten minutes; he was then looking out every five minutes; and at the end of an hour and a half he was looking out every minute or less, and the way he moved showed that he was itching with resentment and suspicion and that his thirst was like hell’s own. Nothing, Sam told himself, was more likely to make a guard think his prisoner secure than a boiling passion that took his mind olf him and returned it and took it off again. Alcohol could do it; a female could do it. Alcohol, it now seemed to Sam, was the redman’s curse, and woman the whiteman’s ....
Just itch all over, Sam thought, his bound hands in plain view on his lap, his head sunk as though he were half gone in fatigue and sleep. Just itch, you bastard, and keep looking. Sam had never felt more brilliantly alert, as though all his senses and mind and emotions shone in the full blaze of noon sunlight. Never had his eyes been sharper. Just git yourself a thirst like that in hell, Sam was saying inside; and over and over calculated the risks and his chances. He figured that he had been sitting with the guard about two hours. For nearly an hour he had smelled the roasting flesh. He knew that tripods of green trees had been set up and that hanging from them were the carcasses, slowly roasting in flames and smoke. Redmen when hungry never waited for flesh to cook but almost at once began to hack off bloody gobbets; and by the time their hunger was appeased there wasn’t much left but bone and gristle. Before long now these Indians would be drinking. Sam had hoped they would drink before they ate. Once they started drinking they would have pictures of mountain men bringing them whole rivers and lakes of rum, to ransom the Crow-killer, so that a second time they could capture him, for more lakes and rivers. What dreams children dreamed!
There now came to the door of the tent a face whose war paint had been smeared over with fresh blood. In this brave’s hands was a piece of pine bark, on which rested a pound or two of hot elk meat. The guard set the meat by him and began to gesticulate, and to talk in a high shrill voice ill-becoming a bold brave warrior; Sam knew that he was asking why he had not been fetched a cup of spirit water. The two braves gestured and yelled at one another, and the one who had brought the meat then went away. Sam did not move or lift the lids on his eyes, for he knew that his moment was drawing near. Very gently he tried to ease his cramps and relax his muscles.
In only a few moments the Indian returned with a tin cup in his hand. Sam knew that in the cup was rum. The guard eagerly took the cup and sniffed, and he was so enchanted that he laid the knife on his lap, and seizing the cup with both hands, put the rim to his lips. Sam’s gaze was on the other Indian; he was praying that the fellow would go away. He had hoped that the guard would be alone with him when he drank and that his first gulp would be so large it would strangle him. Sam was to say later that both his prayers were answered. The Indian in the tepee doorway, eager to get back to the drinking and feasting, did vanish; and the blockhead with the cup of rum did take such a huge mouthful that the fiery spirits choked him. He suddenly tightened all over and was fumbling to set the cup down when Sam moved with the swiftness that had become legendary. In an instant his powerful hands were on the redman’s throat. Everything that he did now had been thought through, over and over, so that there would be no false move or wasted moment. As hands seized the throat a knee came with terrific force into the man’s diaphragm, paralyzing his whole torso. In the next instant Sam released the throat and his right hand seized the knife. He twisted his right hand around until he could put the blade to the leather and sever it, and the moment that was done, the left hand was back to the throat to be sure it made no sounds, and the right hand was gathering the robe, tomahawk, and piece of elk meat. He then slipped under the back of the tent into the gray—white night.
In a flash he was gone across the pale snow and into the trees.
24
IT WAS SNOWING hard. During the hours when he sat waiting for his chance Sam had known that he would need the Almighty’s help if he were to outrun the pursuit of fifty-eight hell-fiends, and the bitter cold and deep snows of winter. His instincts told him that he was going east but he was not sure. of it. During this day’s march he had seen a range of mountains west of him, another north, and another east, and he had thought the range on the east was the Continental Divide. If it was, the Missouri River was only forty or fifty miles east of it, and from there across the desolation to Kate was a hundred and fifty or two
hundred miles.
During his many hours of thinking and planning he had recognized that it would be folly to go south, over the trail up which they had come, or west to the Flatheads. His captors would expect him to take one of these routes. They would not expect him to go north into Blood and Piegan land, or to be fool enough to try to cross the Divide after heavy snows had come. Earlier in the day the war party had crossed a river but he did not know what river it was. He had never been through this country. He had heard that there were several rivers in this area, all of which came down from the Divide and flowed west. Up one of these rivers looked to him like the only possible way to freedom.