Edge of the Wilderness - By Stephanie Grace Whitson Page 0,23
think the Great Father’s army needs help from savages.” Smiling bitterly, Daniel tucked his nose down into his collar and crouched beside the fire.
“Exactly what do you find amusing about me?” Jensen called from where he had been watching the exchange between Daniel and Sacred Lodge. He marched toward the fire and stared across the amber tongues of golden light to where Daniel sat, his dark eyes glittering as they reflected the flames. Daniel lifted his eyes from the fire to Brady’s long-jawed face, but he made no move to answer. The other scouts sitting around Daniel shifted slightly, but stayed put.
How many weeks had it been, Jensen thought, he’d been treated like so much baggage. They all treated him like he was some blubbering idiot. Or, what was worse, like he wasn’t even there. Especially this Daniel Two Stars and his friend Robert Lawrence. Someone had told him Robert Lawrence had a reputation as being a merciless killer before he got religion. He and Two Stars were good friends. But Lawrence was gone to take messages to Sibley and wouldn’t be back for a couple of days. It might be a good time to settle the score with Two Stars.
He’d done plenty to “make nice” with these savages, Brady thought. Only yesterday when he heard Two Stars’s stomach rumble with hunger, he’d offered a piece of jerky. The savage had taken it too. And now he sat there, looking into the fire, laughing with his friends at a West Point graduate! Kicking at a piece of kindling sticking out from the fire, Brady sent a shower of sparks upward and watched with satisfaction when Two Stars and the other scouts sitting near him startled and moved back from the fire.
“I asked you a question!” Jensen growled, planting his feet and folding his arms. “What’d I say that you think is so funny?”
Daniel looked up at him briefly, shrugged, and stared back into the fire.
Jensen leaned over and thrust his chin out. “I know about you. You speak English as well as any white man. You read well enough to have picked your own name out of the Good Book. I don’t appreciate being laughed at. So speak up, Two Stars.” Jensen made a fist and pounded the open palm of his opposite hand. “Speak up, or be prepared to be shut up once and for all.”
Daniel sighed. Holding his hands out to the fire for a moment to warm them, he got up and headed toward where they had picketed the horses for the night.
When the Indian turned his broad back to Jensen, something tightly wound inside the soldier came undone. He sprang on Two Stars, pummeling him with his fists, yelling at the top of his lungs.
The surprise attack caught Daniel off-balance. He tumbled to the earth, Jensen atop him, flailing madly at his back. The scouts formed a circle around the two men and began placing bets on who would win.
When Jensen finally landed a solid punch near Daniel’s left shoulder, the Dakota brave yelped with pain. Rolling onto his side, Daniel unseated Jensen and scrambled to his feet. But Jensen wasn’t finished. Lowering his head he charged Daniel, wrapping his arms around the brave’s midsection and driving him backward. The wiry soldier’s strength surprised Daniel, who found himself lying on his back holding his hands in front of his face to fend off the man’s blows.
When Jensen showed no signs of letting up, Daniel lurched to one side and with all his strength managed to unseat him again. The instant the soldier landed in the dirt beside him, Daniel put one hand on his assailant’s throat, gripping hard enough to cut off Jensen’s air supply. His face red, his eyes bulging, Jensen grabbed desperately at Two Stars’s hand. When he was satisfied that most of Jensen’s fury had been spent, Daniel let go, only to receive a well-placed punch to his left eye that made him roar with pain. He released Jensen and leaped up. Meaning to land a kick to the soldier’s rib cage, he once again found himself on the ground as Jensen grabbed his raised foot in midair, threw Daniel to the ground, and was atop him again.
Over and over the two men rolled, until Jensen let out a yelp and, pushing himself away, grabbed his left wrist with his right hand and ran for the nearby creek where he plunged his singed hand into the water. The sensation in his backside told