Free Hangtown Hellcat by Jon Sharpe Page B

delicious coffee down to talk.
    “We are not here to make he-bear talk,” he told Fargo. “We smoked to the four directions with the big chief. But this land is Lakota, Cheyenne, Arapaho land. Why are these yellow eyes cutting down our trees? Why do they strip the bark and branches and then plant them again in this odd row? And this hard sinew they tie between them for the birds to sit on—why are they doing these odd things?”
    Fargo could tell the brave was far more curious than angry, and this was a good sign. It suggested they believed the white man’s medicine was behind these baffling actions, and Fargo had to play to that belief.
    “The white men,” he explained, “know how to turn their words into lightning. The lightning courses through the hard sinew. Just as your tribe sends messages a great distance with smoke, the white men use this lightning.”
    The braves discussed this among themselves. Their leader turned to Fargo again.
    “We have seen that We-Ota-Wichasa’s medicine is strong. But Indian blood runs in him and places him close to the spirit in all things. We do not believe white men can send lightning through this sinew. Lightning comes from the god who first made days and gave them to men. He is the red man’s god—he would not give his lightning to the white tribe.”
    “Ed,” Fargo said, “do you have a good battery in one of the freight wagons?”
    “Sure.”
    “Would a shock from it hurt a man?”
    “Nah. Just jolt him a mite. Sort of a tickling tingle.”
    “Mosey on over there and get ready to connect the wire,” Fargo said. “Don’t let these wampum merchants see what you’re up to. When you see me put my left hand on my hip, let ’er rip.”
    Fargo led the Cheyenne over to the unstrung portion of wire still lying in the grass. He handed it to the leader of the braves and instructed the rest to place a hand on their leader’s arms.
    “You will feel the lightning,” Fargo told them. “It will not hurt you. But just as there is living spirit in the motion of the wind, there is life in this hard sinew.”
    “This is not possible, hair face,” the brave insisted. “My people will band with the Lakota and other tribes. Together—”
    Fargo placed his hand on his hip as the brave kept talking.
    “—we will topple all these…
aiii
!”
    As one the six braves leaped like butt-shot dogs. The leader threw the wire down. “Like a snake it bit me!” he exclaimed. “I could feel the life in it. You spoke straight arrow. This spirit life leaped through all of us.”
    Fargo nodded. “This is not the magic of those who live by night,” he said, meaning black magic. “It will not harm the red man so long as he respects it.”
    Fargo said no more. This was a life force the Cheyenne could not fully understand, strong medicine indeed. Soon the word would spread across the West to many other tribes. Fargo predicted they would not touch these poles or wires even if they declared all-out war on the pale, hair-face invaders.
    Before the Cheyenne rode out, Big Ed made them a gift of coffee beans, sugar, and the canned milk they had instantly taken a great fancy to.
    “Good work, Fargo,” he praised. “They ain’t exactly swapping spit with us, but they’re not on the warpath, either. Say, you fellows look beat out.”
    Creighton glanced over at the cook who had just fed the Indians. “Hiram, keep that Dutch oven hot and fry up a couple of the Sunday steaks.”
    Fresh meat was scarce with both of the hunters gone forthe past two days. But the choice steaks for the Sunday meal were kept cool on ice packed between layers of sawdust in a specially insulated wagon.
    While they waited for their food, Fargo and Buckshot drank coffee and filled Big Ed in on their encounter down south on the Great Divide Basin. The only details Fargo omitted were the beautiful minx in the bathtub and her pretty blond companion named Jasmine.
    Big Ed listened carefully, picking his teeth with a sharpened