The place was a shambles. What his first-chance glance around it didn’t tell him, the low voice of Nella Torneau did. “They showed up about an hour ahead of you, mister,” she said. “They rode straight in and stopped their ponies about fifty yards out. That brave in the black skins is their leader. He put his rifle under his leg and held up both hands, real peaceful.” Ben chucked his head. This girl knew a thing or three about Indians. A man could tell it by the way she twisted her pretty lips around that “real peaceful,” like it was powdered with alum or straight saleratus. He let her go on, wanting her to get shut of it, knowing she’d feel better when she had. “He jabbered in Injun for a spell. It wasn’t Caddo or Comanche. I couldn’t make it out, and of course none of my folks knew a Kiowa from a Kwahadi.” Ben looked at her, wondering at her easy use of the southern tribe names. “Sioux,” he said. “Northern Oglala.” She nodded, hurrying on. “Anyway, after a bit he gave up and said something to one of his little friends, big, darkfaced buck wearing a handful of black feathers.
