So intent was Totter on his quarry that he failed to hear the sound of a pair of horses not more than a handful of yards away.
Totter’s finger had begun to close on the steel trigger of his weapon when suddenly the bright silvery night shattered apart almost in his ear and God he cried out scared his own sound mingling with the shriek of the Hunkpapa war cry.
The horses came around the side of the soddy and Totter’s finger closed wild on the trigger of his weapon and the fire jumped out of the barrel high and wide of Chance and Totter was covering his head with his hands and rolling away and one of the hoofs of the running animals caught him in the face like a pumpkin and he spit blood and teeth through the hole in his face.
“What the hell!” yelled Grawson from somewhere in front of the soddy.
Chance’s arm disappeared from the hole and he leaped across the soddy and jumped headfirst out of the window, hitting the dust, rolling and getting up and running.
Two shots were fired but Chance didn’t know whether they were fired at him or the Indians.
He ran along the bottom of the hill between the soddy and the school on the other side.
Another shot was fired.
There was no mistaking that one. It kicked a rock from the side of the hill, a few feet to his right.
It had been a pistol shot.
The range was too far now for clean shooting with a small weapon.
If Grawson had fired, Chance wondered why he hadn’t used his carbine.
Another shot splashed dust behind him.
There was a cut in the hill, that led up behind the school. The school was high. He headed for the school. He ran up the cut, up toward the school, and the hair stood up on the back of his head as he heard a pair of horses behind him.
He turned to fire.
A voice cried “Brother!” in Sioux.
“Brother!” cried Chance in the same tongue.
Joseph Running Horse, astride one of the horses, the other with an empty saddle, had his hand lifted in greeting. Chance took the reins of the second horse, put his boot in the stirrup and hoisted himself to the saddle.
There was a carbine in the saddle boot of his horse, and he knew why Grawson hadn’t used the weapon.
“Come,” said Running Horse, urging his horse up the cut.
Chance followed and he saw the white boarded school on the top of the hill. They rode past two mounts for swings on which there was no rope. Past a lonely teeter-totter in the silvery schoolyard.
Running Horse pulled up behind the school.
Chance saw a woman near the wagon box against the north side of the building.
She came to his horse. “You must hurry,” said Lucia.
Chance looked at Running Horse.
Running Horse simply said, “We have their horses.”
Chance dismounted and faced the girl, saw the strain of her fear, saw how her hair could be beautiful when the wind moved it in the moonlight.
“Thank you,” said Chance.
She dropped her head. She had one of the blankets she had carried William Buckhorn in, wrapped about her shoulders like a shawl. The girl seemed confused. Then she lifted her head. “You were kind to William,” she said. “I didn’t want you to die because of me.”
“I wanted to kill them,” said Running Horse. “With the knife. It would have been easy. They were apart, not watching behind. She did not wish it.”
Lucia looked at Running Horse as though she could not believe what she had heard. “Joseph,” she said.
Running Horse was speaking to Chance, and he paid the woman no attention. “Shall we go back and kill them now?” he asked.
“No,” said Chance, “but my heart is filled with gratitude to my brother.”
“They will follow you,” said Running Horse. “It will be better to kill them now.”
“No,” said Chance, “I don’t want to hurt them. I just want to go away.”
“Someday you must fight,” said Running Horse.
“I just want to go away,” said Chance.
“Your Brother will fight with you,” said Running Horse.
“Thank you,” said Chance, “but I just want to go away.”
“All right,” said Running Horse, “do what you want.”
“Mr. Smith,” said Lucia, “I sent William to Fort Yates, in a wagon. His parents are taking him.”
“Good,” said Chance, “I think he will be all right.”
Lucia smiled. “You’d better be leaving now, I think,” she said.
Chance grunted. Yes, he would have to be leaving now. There would be no place where he would be staying too long. There never would be.
He looked at the girl and her face, thin and delicate in the moonlight, seemed very lovely to him.
There would never be a place he could stay too long.
Chance felt bitter, and very sad.
“Someday,” said Chance, “if it’s all right with you, I would like to come by again.”
She looked up at him, and to Chance’s surprise he thought her eyes were moist. “That would be nice, Mr. Smith,” the girl was saying.