Another of the boys rides dangerously close to the Pawnee in a show of swagger and defiance. Jonathan laughs and rides at a small cluster of them to see if they will attempt to touch coup on him. He knows that for the Sioux boys, striking an enemy on the body with a stick carved and blessed for the purpose is as honorable an achievement as killing the enemy in battle. If they try it he will grab their coup sticks and dismount them. He cannot kill them—the bluecoats won’t allow that and there are too many pilgrims who may not want him to do it either—but he is taking some pleasure in terrifying the Sioux women and the old folks. Like lice, the Sioux, he thinks. Everywhere, lording it above all other tribes. Butchering, taking slaves. Jonathan’s sister was captured in a Sioux raid when she was only a girl of seven summers and every time he encounters the Sioux he looks for her though he knows he will not recognize her. There is a sore part of his heart that will never heal, for he loved his sister and watched her taken, hidden as he was in the scrub with his mother. Every day he has lived since, he remembers the shame of hiding and watching her taken by Sioux and remembers the sound of his mother’s weeping when she thought she was alone.
He gives a war call and turns his horse and rushes at a group of retreating women and children, their dog following, a lodgepole travois bouncing in the rutted track behind it. A pot stolen from the pilgrims is dislodged from the travois and rolls onto the trail and Jonathan, like the boy in the red shirt, swings down from his mount at speed and collects it. The Sioux women seem to know that he would happily rape and gut them and hurl their babies into the river and they do not look him in the face. He whoops and lunges from his saddle at one of the boys whose eyes go wide with terror. He slaps the boy on the back of the head with his reins as the boy turns and flees. He prays that he will meet the boy’s father, farther up the trail.
Soon it is over, dust settling, the pilgrim women repacking crates inside the wagons, folding linen. Some of the Indian women took a dress or two, a fry pan or cook pot, and the young Mennonite girl still howls for her rag doll but not much of value is missing.
“Thank you, sir,” a man says, his English better than the woman’s. “I am Willem Vogl and we are Vogls and Hitzelburgers. We go to Montana for farming and not gold. We are not gold-seekers.”
Molloy tips his slouch hat to the man. “Lieutenant Molloy, at your service, sir. Corporal Kohn, Private Rawson. And that is Jonathan. You won’t have to worry about him stealing your sugar.”
“I am pleased to meet you, sir,” the Mennonite man says, and he is joined now by an older man wearing a beard that covers his jawline, but no mustache. This man says something to the younger, then speaks in German to Kohn.
Molloy and Rawson look to the corporal. Kohn says, “It’s Swiss. Or Schwabian or some such. I can understand some of it. He thanks us, anyway, for driving off the Indians.”
The older man continues to speak to Kohn in his dialect.
Molloy says, “Well, you tell him he’s very welcome and that we would be much obliged to share a meal in return for escorting their train as far as Fort Reno.”
Kohn nods and speaks to the older Mennonite. His voice has taken on a harsh aspect that Molloy does not often hear from Kohn unless he is giving orders. Perhaps, Molloy thinks, it is just the language and the way it comes off the tongue.
“And tell them that we would be—”
“He wants rid of us now, sir,” Kohn says. “He’s saying they are pacifists and cannot abide soldiery about their camp.”
“What’s pacifists?” Rawson says.
“They don’t believe in raising a hand in violence against another man. Or they’re just damn cowards who don’t mind if others do it for them.”
“Admirable. Admirable . . .” Molloy says, uncorking his canteen. He hands it to Jonathan, who drinks and hands it back.
“And they cannot abide liquor either,” Kohn says.
Whether Kohn is translating the old man’s words or stating a known fact, Molloy