It sounded like they begun rassling. Somebody with a deep voice come and ordered them to get back on their horses, the company was moving out, but they kept cussing and crashing around. Dust was falling in on us, and I was afraid the cover’d give way. There was more yelling, then the sound of rifle butts whacking skulls, and at last, after some grunts and cussing, I could hear the horses finally moving on. I peeked out. The soldiers was all slowly parading away, two of them slumped out over their horses, tied to their saddles.
What I seen next was Eeteh’s wicked brother. My heart jumped up. He was hung back and still poking around. He kicked at the ruined spit and the dead ashes. He looked over at our pit where we was hiding, and come slowly towards us, toting his rifle. I cocked mine. I could probably shoot him first, but as soon as I done it, I’d have the whole consounded calvary interested in me. I didn’t know WHAT to do. General Hard Ass done it for me. He shouted for his scout to get back on his horse, dammit, they was pulling out. Eeteh’s brother stood there a moment, trying to peek in where we was, but the general took his revolver out and pointed at his head. He cocked it. Orders was orders, and Eeteh’s brother was already in trouble for leading them all to a deserted camp. He mounted his horse, squinting back my way with a mean grin, and joined the others.
When they was all gone at last, I pushed the pit cover away and crawled out, and pretty soon Eeteh come creeping down out a the hills on Heyokha. The poor old nag with the cracked heels was laying down by the crick, shot up a hundred times or more. “We got to go where the war ain’t,” I says, and Eeteh nodded.
The first thing we had to do was help Tongo out a the pit. Every day he was stronger, but he warn’t never going to be strong enough to jump out a that hole. We dug up earth and built a step a foot or so high in half the pit, stood him up on it, then built another step a foot higher in t’other half, and moved him over on it. We didn’t have no proper shovel nor cart, only Eeteh’s knife, our tin plates and cups, and our shirts for humping the dirt to the pit. It was distressid hard work and was going to take a million moons.
Emigrant miners was beginning to swarm up at the crick shore now, too, looking in the water for glittery traces. I found some wood and staked a claim, though I misdoubted nobody would take it seriously. Eeteh put on his black emigrant clothes with the derby tipped down low, and set on the edge of the eagle pit with his rifle on his knees. I fired my guns a few times to chase off the peskier ones.
Then I spied a gnarly old miner with a shovel and a pan and a bottle he attended to regular. I went over and told him we was looking for a partner with a shovel, and he was happy to obleege. He says his name was Shadrack and he was from Ohio where he’d been a farmer mostly till the grasshoppers et him out. I knowed Tom would a somehow got him to pay for the chance to shovel up the steps in the pit, but I was grateful just to have the shovel, and mostly let Shadrack lay off. Him and Eeteh nodded at each other without saying nothing, and Shadrack went down to the water with his pan to poke around. He didn’t find no gold, but he catched a big fish, which he shared with his partners.
Me and Eeteh built the third step on top of the first one, and then, taking turns, the fourth, fifth, and sixth, and from there Tongo was able to climb out and look around. He warn’t too impressed. He stumbled down to the crick for a long drink and then he come and laid down again, but he et the mash I made for him and generly made himself at home. He spent a few days walking about slowly like he was customing himself to the idea.
But then one day, all of a sudden Tongo shook his whole body like wet dogs do and broke into a slow trot. He circled round us a few times, snorting and wheezing—and the next second, he was galloping away! I called out to him, but he never even turned round. My chest felt like it had got kicked. I should a picketed him. But if he was of a mind to go, a picket wouldn’t a stopped him. I was afraid he was going back to the wild and I’d never see him again. But Eeteh only says to wait. An hour went by, two hours, night come. I couldn’t sleep for fretting. And then finally, at dawn, there he was, pounding towards us, splashing through the crick, looking his old self.
I was ever so glad to have him back. I fed him some corn-mash with honey and talked to him about how happy I was and stroked the sweat off of his neck. I didn’t know how fur he’d traveled, though I judged he’d been running fast as he could, ever since he galloped away. But he still seemed lively. He bowed his neck a couple of times and snorted. Eeteh throwed a soft piece of old lodge-skin over him and cinched it. He made a thong out a strips from his ruined buckskin vest and, finally, after tossing his head around in protest, Tongo let us loop it over his jaw for a bridle. I kicked off my boots and clumb aboard. He was quivering like something was about to bust inside him—and then all of a sudden we was off!
CHAPTER XXXIII