Free Shortgrass Song by Mike Blakely Page A

Buster hadn’t missed a lick with the drawknife since the trader arrived. He liked to work steady once he got going on something.
    â€œWhere’d you get him?” Dutch asked, pointing at Buster.
    â€œThat’s Buster. He works here.”
    Buster paused long enough to tip his hat to the visitor, but Dutch shook off the courtesy and walked around the rising cabin walls to inspect the work.
    â€œI sure like those spotted horses,” Ab said. “What happened to the two others you had last winter?”
    â€œSold ’em. I’m goin’ up to get some more come fall.”
    â€œWhere do you get them?”
    â€œNez Perce. Up in the Palousey country.”
    â€œIndian horses?” Ab said. “That one’s a gelding.”
    â€œNez Perce geld ’em. That one there wouldn’t sire spotted foals, so they cut him. They know about breedin’. They breed for the spots. Magic. Bulletproofs ’em.”
    Buster watched the feathered top hat over the wall of logs opposite his corner. Then he caught Cheyenne Dutch looking back at him between the stacked logs, glaring from the corner of one eye. The mountain man’s stare made him shudder and look away. He went back to his work with the drawknife.
    Ab was studying the spotted horses. They had good muscle, sure feet, and alert eyes. The eyes had whites, like human eyes. The horses looked smart and seemed built for a saddle. They were long in the pastern for a smooth trot, short in the cannon for sound legs, and just big enough to carry a man fast.
    â€œI’ve heard you rode with Sam Walker in Mexico,” Dutch said.
    Ab nodded.
    â€œYou’ll know a thing or two about horses then.”
    â€œI’d like to buy a couple of these Nez Perce mounts from you this winter,” he said, “if you’re coming back this way.”
    â€œMaybe,” Dutch said. “I’m goin’ horselike myself.”
    â€œWhat?” Ab said.
    â€œSeen it in a dream: me goin’ horselike over the mountain of a nighttime. Light moon. I’m part horse on a light moon. Breed my women horselike, too.” He shifted his eye toward Buster again, leering between the logs.
    When Ella gave Dutch his sugar and coffee, he mounted the gelding and rode toward the creek, his mare and five dogs trailing behind.
    Buster climbed down from the corner. “What was he talking about? Horselike in his dreams and all?”
    â€œDon’t pay him any mind,” Ab said. “He says things like that. He’s a little touched.”

EIGHT
    A noise roused Buster from his sleep in the milk wagon. He didn’t know at first what had wakened him. The moon was three-quarters full, and he could see well the features of the plains and the shoulders of Pikes Peak looming in the southwest. He had almost decided to go back to sleep when the sound came again. It was a voice half human and half wild. It had come from the Holcombs’s covered wagon. He had never heard Snake Woman’s voice before but knew it was hers.
    He threw his piece of wagon sheet off, slid over the edge of the milk wagon, and ran quietly to the back of the covered wagon to listen. A violent movement and a grunt tempted him to look into the wagon bed. He saw the feather waving at the back of the beaver top hat.
    Cheyenne Dutch had Snake Woman pinned facedown on her blankets. He held her arms together behind her back and kept her legs apart with his knees. He was pulling the dress Ella had made for her over her hips.
    Buster grabbed a handful of iron-gray hair and gingham shirt and pulled Dutch out of the wagon backward, dropping him headfirst on the ground. Dutch tried to get up, but Buster kicked him to keep him down. “Mister Ab!” he yelled.
    Snake Woman pulled a wad of cloth out of her mouth and looked out of the wagon. She saw the mountain man trying to get up. Buffalo Head kicked at him, but the old trader grabbed Buffalo Head’s foot and