Winding Stair (9781101559239) (42 page)

He struggled to get these faces out of his mind. This was not the time for idle daydreams. He wanted to concentrate on the front sight of the Spencer and the targets he knew would soon be there. But he only had to struggle for a little while. With Catrina's tiny face still shimmering among the heat waves of the Arikaree's sand, he saw them coming.

They were like clouds of prairie dust boiling down from the riverbanks and coming from beyond the far bend, fusing like quicksilver to form a solid mass that filled the riverbed from bank to bank, coming at a mad gallop toward the island, the ponies' hooves throwing up a sparkling spray of grit. And above it all, the high-voiced yipping and shouting, as though every wolf west of the Missouri had been set loose at once.

“God Almighty!” he said aloud, sighting the carbine and waiting for the major's command to shoot. “I ain't ever gonna see my next birthday!”

He was twenty-two and his name was Roman Hasford. He was not aware then of the little irony in any of this, but he had come all the way from Arkansas, by various routes, to find a Cheyenne chief who bore his name. Roman Nose.