“You betcha you can.” He had more than enough confidence for both of us, not necessarily a good sign. “Come on, no time is there to waste.”
Scared half out of my wits as I kept looking for the trooper hats of Crow cops to show up, I stuck tight by his side as we sifted along the arena corral where people were watching the rodeo from the backs of pickups and the fenders of their cars, blending in as best we could.
At last safely reaching the area of food booths and crafts tables and so on, we made straight for the homemade SLEWFOOT ENTERPRIZES camper, where the bearlike Indian man sprang up from his leatherwork when he saw us coming.
“Howdy. You fellows collectors, maybe? ’Cause I got some nice things stashed in the camper here. Buffalo skulls and like that.”
“Hah-uh.” Herman shook off that approach, glancing over his shoulder in one direction while I nervously checked over mine in the other. “Something else, we are in hurry for.”
“In a hurry, huh? Funny, you don’t look like fugitives from a chain gang.” Humorous as that theoretically was, there was small-eyed suspicion behind it as the Indian vendor studied the pair of us trying too hard to compose ourselves. “Anyhow, the something else. What might that be?”
“Your help, ja?” So saying, Herman extracted a twenty-dollar bill from his billfold but held on to it.
“Huh, twenty smackers,” the Indian acknowledged the sight of the cash, “that’s starting to look like the price on something else.” He jerked his head toward the rear of the camper. “Step around the tepee on wheels here and let’s palaver.”
Back there out of sight, I breathed slightly easier. Waiting to hear what we had to say, the Indian stood there broad as a bear. Even his head looked like a grizzly’s, round and low on his shoulders. Herman couldn’t wait to ask. “You are Apache, maybe? Winnetou, you know about?”
“Winnie who?”
“Not now, okay?” I hissed to Herman.
“Apaches aren’t from around here, friend,” the Indian helped me out in putting us past any further Karl May enthusiasms out of Herman. “I’m Blackfoot. Louie Slewfoot, to boot,” he introduced himself, Herman and I shaking hands with him the proper soft Indian way while keeping our eyes off his clubfoot that jutted almost sideways from the other one.
Briskly he got down to business. “What can I do for you to loosen your grip on poor old Andy Jackson there,” he indicated the twenty-dollar bill in Herman’s fist. “Look, he’s turned green.”
Herman glanced at me, I endorsed what he was about to say with a sickly smile, and he spoke the momentous words that would either save my skin or not.
“Dress up Donny like fancy-dancer. Long enough to get him out from here.”
“Whoa, no way.” Louie Slewfoot backed away a lame step, laughing in disbelief. “These costumes are sort of sacred to Indian people, you can’t just wear them for Halloween.” He gave me a sympathetic wink. “Nothing personal, cowboy, but them freckles of yours are a long way from Indian.”
“Hey, that’s not fair,” I bridled. “I have an Indian name even, Red Chief. Nickname, I mean.”
“Sure you do,” he rolled his eyes, “and I’m Tonto.”
“And look at my moccasins, don’t they count? They’re Blackfoot, like you.” His heavy dark eyebrows drew down as he took a good look, but that was the extent of it. “And I went to school some at Heart Butte with Indian kids,” I persisted insistently, “and—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he butted in, “all of that gives you full standing in the Whooptydoo tribe, chiefie, but I can’t go around duding up a white kid in—”
“How about this, then,” I butted right back, reaching the arrowhead out of my pocket and peeling back enough of its condom sheath to flash the slick black obsidian to him in my palm.
“Wah.” Silent now, he put a hand toward the shiny black stone, but didn’t touch it. “That’s big medicine. Where’d you git it?”
“It’s, uh, been in the family.”
“Tell him all, Donny,” Herman warned before wisely hustlng off toward the front of the camper to keep a lookout.
I spilled the whole tale of arrowhead and Sparrowhead, Louie Slewfoot listening without ever taking his gaze off the obsidian gleam of it.