Man on Two Ponies by Don Worcester Read Free Book Online Page B

head again, with his ridiculous braids gyrating, he turned to go.
    â€œWhere does Mollie live?”
    â€œDeer-in-Timber? Her family has a cabin down the creek a couple miles. She helps the teacher at the school there, though I hear she’ll get married before long.”
    Billy picked up his suitcase and tool box and continued on his way. Mollie Deer-in-Timber getting married! I never thought of that happening. I should have talked to her before she left. I should have written and not let her forget me.
    John Culver, the trader, was a tall, round-shouldered man with twinkling blue eyes and a sandy colored mustache that hid his mouth. He was smoking a pipe, and like most whites and Indians at Rosebud he wore khaki shirt and pants and Brulé moccasins. Billy introduced himself and shook hands. “Mr. Wright said you probably can tell me where my father is camped,” he said. “But first I must see my grandfather, Two Buck Elk, and borrow a pony.”
    â€œYou’re fresh back from Carlisle, I see,” Culver said. “I went to college in Pennsylvania for a couple of years before I got the wanderlust and headed west. Now I’m a squawman with a couple of mixed-blood sons. Come along way, ain’t!?” He smiled. “You know, if I had it to do over I wouldn’t change a thing.” Billy knew he’d like Culver.
    â€œYour father is Pawnee Killer, you say?” Billy nodded. “Not figurin’ on stayin’ with him, are you?” Wishing he hadn’t been asked that, Billy nodded again.
    â€œI must see him, and I don’t have anywhere else to go. I’ll stay with him if he wants me.” Culver’s mustache twitched.
    â€œIf it doesn’t work out like you want, come see me when you get back. “He took Billy outside and pointed out the trail to Two Buck Elk’s camp, about ten miles away.
    Leaving suitcase and tool box at the trading post, Billy set out on foot for the camp. When he was almost halfway there a family of Brulés in a buckboard drawn by a team of trotting ponies approached, going in the same direction and leaving a cloud of dust behind. Billy stopped, expecting them to offer him a ride. The driver was dressed like a white man, but his hair was long. He glanced at Billy, frowned, and drove on without slowing down. The woman looked straight ahead, but the two children in the back of the wagon turned their heads owl-like to stare at Billy through the dust.
    When he reached the little settlement Billy saw that a white canvas tipi stood by every cabin, and near each was a buckboard. In the distance he saw small patches of knee-high corn. His grandmother, in a long calico dress, was entering a cabin, and he knew that Two Buck Elk was probably in the nearby tipi. Remembering the Teton custom just in time, he struck the tipi with his hand to announce a visitor, then raised the flap and peered in. His grand father was sitting crosslegged on a green and white blanket, leaning against a willow backrest and smoking his pipe. He wore pants and moccasins, but no shirt. The flesh hung loosely on his arms.
    Two Buck Elk looked up at Billy with an expression of surprise, then of sorrow on his wrinkled face. With his left hand he touched his disfigured ear.
    â€œGrandfather, they finally let me come home,” Billy said, entering the tipi.
    Two Buck Elk looked him over sadly. “What have they done to you, grandson?” he asked hoarsely. Arising, he walked around Billy, inspecting him from all sides. “You’re as tall as I am,” he said. “But your hair! They promised to teach you to talk like a Wasicun, not to make you look like one. They lied.”
    â€œDo you think my father will know me?”
    Two Buck Elk started to answer twice, but checked himself each time. He knocked the ashes from his red stone pipe and returned it to its beaded buckskin case before replying. His reluctance to speak was ominous. Billy stared at