People were half-costumed, sometimes even half-clothed, and they laughed and talked, and even ate and drank while they waited for their turn to perform. Only one buffalo and one longhorn cow stood in for the entire herds. No one galloped, or even trotted. Only when actual tricks were rehearsed did anyone seem serious about what they were doing. Fox led her out for the “Indian war dance,” positioned her at a drum, and told her to follow the other drummers. Dutifully, she did, discovering that the other two “squaws” were both of the Mexican ladies who had altered her costumes for her. All the real Pawnee but one danced, plus four Mexican men; the drummers were all whites or Mexicans.
It is a good thing my hair is not anything like as long as it was before I set off on this journey, she thought, contemplating the impossibility of cramming four braids, each as long as she was tall, under a wig. I shall have to procure a pair of scissors and keep it trimmed every night!
It turned out not to be at all hard to follow the somewhat monotonous drumming of the only Pawnee who did not dance. The singing was something else entirely, and although the Mexican women sang along with the drummer and dancers, she kept her mouth shut and just listened.
The first thing she knew at once—because she understood Pawnee—was that this was no war song. The words were simple, interspersed with sounds that she understood served the same purpose of carrying the song as the meaningless melodic syllables of European songs. The words were very simple, repeated several times, interspersed with the “hey-yo” sounds that comprised most of the tune. “Father is good. He gave me a pipe. He is good.” The giving of a pipe, she knew from Karl May, and also from those dream fragments, was a matter of great honor and occasion, so this was something of an important song. Of course, she wondered why the Indians were dancing to this, and not to a real war song, but she resolved to ask this of Leading Fox when they were somewhere more private. It was astonishing how so few voices managed to fill the entire empty show tent with their haunting cries.
The “squaws packed up the camp”—which consisted of a couple of props and the drums—and the Indians took their horses and rode around the arena three times, making no attempt at the bloodcurdling war cries they had done for the show. Then they exited, and the settlers and the stagecoach entered to circle the arena, camp, be attacked by the Indians and be rescued.
And now it was time for her first trick-shot performance.
Directed by Cody, she rode Lebkuchen into the center of the ring where someone had set up a portable gun stand with three identical rifles on it. Above her was the great expanse of the tent roof. The arena was empty except for herself, her helper, her horse, the gun stand and the targets at the band-end of the tent. To her great pleasure, the rifles were all the same as that carbine she had used to prove herself. There was a man in an outfit of fringed buckskin and an animal-skin hat waiting beside the stand. He took Lebkuchen’s reins once she had dismounted and handed her the first rifle.
“Mornin’ missy,” he said, with a grin that showed he was lacking a tooth in front. “I’m Ned Toller. I’m more or less the stage manager. These here are Winchester repeating rifles. They hold fifteen shots each. Now what yer gonna do here, is take a shot at each one of those five targets. Then we’ll move back, you’ll take another five shots, and move back a third time, and you’ll take another five. Each time, we’ll take off the targets and five folks’ll ride around the ring displayin’ ’em. Then we’ll pull the rabbit across the end an’ yer gonna shoot it fifteen times. We’ll just call out how many times ya hit it. Then we’ll move all the way back, and yer gonna shoot one target fifteen times, an’ we’ll ride it around so people kin see how ya did.”
Now by this point, the entire company had gathered at the target end of the arena—at a more-than-safe distance from the targets themselves, in her estimation, but certainly near enough to see whether or not she hit. She suppressed a smile. None of them, other than Kellermann, Fox and