Free The High Rocks by Loren D. Estleman Page B

yellow coat?”
    â€œThe scouts described a small man with a big hat. There was no mention of a coat, yellow or any other color.”
    â€œHe probably traded it for something warmer. His name is Church, and he has a warrant signed by the President for the arrest of Mountain That Walks. Two of the men with him are his partners. As for all of them being white, your scouts need glasses; the fourth is a half-breed who calls himself Ira Longbow.” I hesitated, letting the silence work against the chief for a change. “He claims to be your son.”
    If I expected any kind of reaction to that last piece of information, I was disappointed. Two Sisters could have given Rocking Wolf poker lessons when he wanted to. Finally he nodded. That could have meant that he believed me, but it could just as well have been a sign of satisfaction at hearing an expected lie. In any case, he didn’t return to the subject.
    â€œThe next moon,” he reminded me. “I can wait no longer. By then the first blizzard will be on its way to block the passes with snow and ice. We must
leave the mountains by then or be trapped. When we return in the spring, we will be carrying arms and wearing paint for war with the whites. Much to my regret.”
    I left, my back tingling beneath the medicine man’s hostile scrutiny.
    A sour-featured brave escorted me like the prisoner I was to a lodge near the camp’s center. There I was handed an earthen dish heaped with chunks of lean, bloody meat by an old squaw whose cracked pumpkin of a face told me she had borne worse dangers than those offered by Bear Anderson’s mountains. I ate hungrily, not pausing to wonder which of the dogs that had greeted me earlier was going into my stomach; to a man in my condition it tasted like tenderest sirloin. When it was finished and the dish was taken away, I stretched out fully clothed on a flat straw pallet beside the fire and drew a mildewed blanket up to my chin.
    I was prepared to spend the night staring up at the cloud-lathered sky through the opening in the top of the lodge. As it turned out, however, I had little trouble getting to sleep. So great was my exhaustion that nothing could have kept me awake, not even the fact that I didn’t have the slightest idea of where to find Bear Anderson or his lair.

6
    â€œY ou are leading me in circles, white skin.” Rocking Wolf spoke flatly and seemingly without emotion, but the emotion was there, in his words. They dripped cold fury.
    The sun had risen dazzlingly over twelve inches of fresh snow, shining through the spots where the wind had slashed the cloud cover into fibrous shreds and turning the uninterrupted vista of white into a blazing brilliance that hurt the eyes and did little toward relieving my headache. We had followed the pass northward until the flanking cliffs fell away, at which point we had taken a turn to the west and swung lazily in the direction from which we had come. It was mid-morning before we stopped at the top of a gentle rise and looked out over the Christmas-painting scenery of crystallized trees and blue-shadowed drifts. I was still stuck with the broken-down chestnut mare, while Rocking
Wolf had secured himself a fresh mount that morning from his stable of painted stallions—a situation meant to discourage any plans I might have entertained about escaping. Over his shoulder was slung a Winchester with a shattered and thong-bound stock. In the distance a river etched its way southward through the foothills, its chocolate color startling against the carved whiteness of its banks. To the south, clouds drifting across the mountaintops tore themselves lengthwise along the razor edges of the peaks. The air was brittle.
    â€œNo circles,” I corrected him. My breath hung in vapor. “We’re just taking the easy way south. By now the narrow part of the pass is piled up with drifts three feet high. If you’d rather flounder your way through