Wild Splendor

Harold thrust his heels into the flanks of his horse and rode up beside Four Fingers. “How much longer are we going to have to travel across this desert?” he shouted, wiping a bead of perspiration from his brow with the back of his hand. “Surely this isn’t the way to Sage’s new stronghold. The women wouldn’t last one hour had they been forced to travel in this heat.”

“This is not the way he would have traveled with his people,” Four Fingers said, glowering at Harold. “But it is the way Four Fingers travels to get to the other side of those mountains that you see in the distance, where I think Sage has taken his people. It is uncharted land. It is land I scarcely know myself. That was where I had planned to go eventually to hide away from the likes of you. It seems I did not go there soon enough.”

A big ball of sagebrush came tumbling by in the hot breeze, its sagelike odor wafting through the air behind it. A lizard, with its large, beaded eyes and flashing tongue, darted by, soon burrowing its way deep into the depths of the sand, apparently seeking a cooler hideaway until the moon replaced the sun in the sky.

“I’m not like that lizard,” Harold grumbled. “I’m forced to endure this damned heat. How much longer, Four Fingers? Give me an estimate of how long it’s going to be before we can leave this desert.”

“By nightfall you will be sleeping on grass beneath trees,” Four Fingers said matter-of-factly. Then he nudged his horse with his moccasined heels and rode away from Harold, edging in between his Kiowa companions.

Four Fingers leaned over, close to his warrior. “He is a weak man,” he said, grinning. “Neither he nor his soldiers will last the rest of the day in this heat. By nightfall we will be riding free again. We will then see if Sage is making his new stronghold in those mountains yonder. If so, we will take it away from him. We will enter the camp under cover of night and one by one kill the Navaho while they are sleeping.”

His eyes narrowed. “One among them will be spared,” he said. “I will have the woman with hair the color of corn silk. She will bear my children.”

“And what if the child has hair the color of wheat?” one of his warriors dared to say.

“Golden hair . . . black?” Four Fingers said, shrugging. “During these times when the number of the Kiowa is lessening, does it truly matter the color of the hair? That the child has Kiowa blood flowing through its veins is all that matters.”

Harold did not like seeing the Indians chatting among themselves. He feared that plans of escaping were possibly being discussed. He snapped his reins and rode up to the Kiowa.

“I did

n’t say that you could gossip like women while on this journey to find Sage,” Harold said with a feral snarl. “Just keep riding. Do you hear?”

A shiver rode up Harold’s spine when Four Fingers gave him a savage glare, yet he shrugged it off. He hardly had to worry about his safety when the Indians had no weapons, and he and his soldiers had so many.

He rode onward, flanked on each side by a Kiowa, while the soldiers rode up to stay close behind them. A movement in the distance, through the dancing haze of the heat, drew Harold’s keen attention. He leaned over his saddle horn and cupped a hand over his eyes, trying to shield them from the sun. He strained to see what had drawn his attention, but he could see only the blur of the heat as it shimmered across the sand.

“It must’ve been a damn mirage,” Harold whispered to himself, shuddering at the thought of not surviving this heat. Thinking he saw things might be the beginnings of heatstroke.

He glanced over at Four Fingers, knowing that the Kiowa chief would welcome seeing his white pony soldier companions drop one by one, like flies, from their saddles, from heat exhaustion. The way Harold’s clothes seemed to be pressing in on him, like heated gloves clutching him from his shoulders down, he felt that he could hardly stand another minute of wearing the damnable uniform. The deep blue color of his uniform was drawing the sun to it like a magnet. He was even beginning to feel lightheaded.

Again he saw movement in the distance. He squinted his eyes, afraid to accept that what he was seeing was a mirage, for surely after hallucinating came unconsciousness.

Trembling and afraid, he stared into the distance with more determination. He almost shouted with relief when he saw that it was no mirage after all, but many horsemen riding toward him.

Suddenly he shuddered, realizing that there was no reason at all to be happy about seeing men on horseback out in the middle of the desert. He and his men had no cover if they were attacked, and scarcely any energy left for the fight that was due. The heat had drained them of their energy.

“Who is that?” Harold cried, giving Four Fingers a harried look. “Can you tell? Who’s approaching us?”

Chief Four Fingers drew up quickly, forcing his horse to a sudden stop.

Everyone followed his lead.

Harold leaned closer to Four Fingers. “Why did you stop?” he shouted, sweat pouring from his brow and stinging his eyes as it rolled across them.

“Renegades!” Four Fingers said, fear etched on his usually stoic face. “It is Navaho renegades. These renegades are the ones responsible for the massacres and killings of the white settlers. They are responsible for my band of Kiowa being so few in number. They kill without reason or feelings. They are heartless.”

“Good Lord,” Harold said, panicking. He looked in all directions but saw no route of escape. If he and his men turned and ran, the Navaho would soon catch up with them. If they met them head on, they would have no chance of surviving. From the looks of it, the Navaho renegades outnumbered this entourage of soldiers and prisoners three to one.

He saw that he had only one order to give. “Dismount and get your horses on their sides,” he shouted. “Use them as cover. Defend yourselves as best as you can.”

In a scramble his men forced the horses to the ground. The soldiers, as well as the Kiowa, knelt down behind them. The Kiowa were given weapons again, for now they were all fighting for their lives together.

Harold gulped hard and steadied his aim, his fingers trembling on the trigger as the Navaho came dashing toward them. Tears came to his eyes, for he knew that soon he would be meeting his Maker and he was afraid that he would be turned away, to go where all sinners had to go.

He had one last fleeting thought of Leonida, his heart thumping wildly as an arrow pierced his chest and he discovered too late the difference between Sage and these bloodthirsty renegades.

One by one the soldiers fell, followed by the Kiowa warriors. Four Fingers clutched at the arrow buried deep in his chest and looked wild-eyed at the renegade who lowered his knife to remove the Kiowa’s scalp.