Blood Dance by Joe R. Lansdale Read Free Book Online Page A

before I cousouold move. He was already coming up to a half crouch when the Indian stumbled out of the dark and fell at my feet on top of his bow.
    “You dance with that one, pilgrim,” Johnston called. “I’m goin’ to skin me ‘nuther.”
    I got my Winchester up just in time to come to a half crouch and block the swing of another warrior’s tomahawk. He seemed to have come out of nowhere.
    I twisted the rifle when I blocked and managed to knock the weapon out of the Sioux’s hand, but not before he kicked me in the groin and knocked me back.
    Lifting the Winchester, I quickly shot and caught the Sioux just under the chin. It lifted him like an uppercut and tossed him down heavier than a blacksmith’s anvil.
    Scrambling to my feet, I saw that a whole horde of Sioux had engulfed Johnston. His Spencer lay at his feet, stock cracked, and two Sioux lay there with it, heads cracked.
    I shot one of the braves in the back of the head at close range. Johnston kicked another between the legs, connecting the toe of his moccasin to the Sioux’s tailbone. The Indian’s spine cracked with a sound like a pistol shot, and he dropped.
    Johnston wheeled on the other, got hold of his head and twisted it around like wet mud.
    Two more Indians came out of the pines, and I dropped one with my Winchester. An arrow went by my ear about the same time.
    Before I could let down on that last Indian, two arrows came out of the dark back to back, and entered the warrior’s neck and left ear, buried halfway up the shaft.
    Another Sioux appeared at the edge of the wood and he caught an arrow in the eye and another in the chest.
    Things got quiet.
    “Who invited himself into this fight?” I said.
    “Well, if he hadn’t shown, Red Spot, we might be decoratin’ some Dakotah’s lodge pole come sunup.”
    A man stepped from the concealment of the pines. He was dressed in buckskins. There was a quiver draped on his back, and across his shoulder was a strapped Winchester. He had a knife on his hip and a bow in his hand. He had a fistful of eagle quills in his hair.
    It was the Crow from Carson’s camp. The one I had called Eagle Feather.

2
    The Crow looked at Johnston. He did not seem interested in me.
    The big mountain man did not seem in the I least bit perturbed by the arrow sticking in his shoulder.
    “Dapiek Absaroka?” the Crow said.
    “At yer service,” Johnston said.
    I had a moment of uneasiness. Johnston had been called his Crow name—The Killer of Crows—and by none other than a Crow.
    If eyes were weapons, Johnston and the Crow had already pierced each other wim">ach othth .50-caliber balls of hate.
    “This isn’t going to get ugly is it?” I said.
    “That’s up to this red divvel. He did save our lives, and I’d hate to scalp ‘em. I’m at peace with the Crows. Sort of.”
    “We are at peace with you,” the Crow said. “Sort of.”
    “Well, I’ll be damned,” Johnston said, “this here booger speaks English.”
    “Missionaries,” the Crow said.
    “Brought ya God, huh?”
    “English and smallpox.”
    “Listen,” I said, “you helped pull our fat out of the fire.”
    The Crow looked at me. “You were the other man. I saw you shot.”
    “You saw what happened at the train?”
    “I thought you were dead. You and your friend were brave. You turned against many. You must be strong to live after so many wounds.”
    “You were trying to catch up with Carson?”
    “He has humiliated my people,” the Crow said, turning to Johnston, “as this man has done.”
    “That was years ago,” I said. I could feel the tension drawing between the two men like drying rawhide.
    “So who’s keepin’ count,” Johnston said. “I’d jest as soon make a necklace out of yore teeth.”
    The Crow smiled. “We are at peace.”
    “I reckon,” Johnston said. “How are you called.”
    “Di wace rockusakeetak.”
    “That right?” I asked.
    “Mean’s something like, You Are Next To Dead Thing,” Johnston