Chapter 2

Indian Angent Patrick Wills walked away from his meeting with the Ixopaw with the usual impression that he was wasting his time. The Chief Panther Sprung, Voice of the Table of Matrons, made quite clear that the fighting as they saw it was not going to end. The gold of New Attica yet glittered beneath their feet--none should claim it.

Hogwash. If the Ixopaw weren't going to do anything with it, Wills reasoned to himself, then why die to preserve it? He found them pompous, for a savage people, and downright insulting.

When first he emerged from Panther's decorated teepee--no palace by American standards, but Agent Wills was experienced enough to be impressed by the chief's quarters in their own right--he had been nearly apoplectic, stammering and stuttering and sputtering and swearing. They had ridden the trail out of "New Attica" (what a name, thought Wills, what a damn irritating Greek name these forested hills were given; and by whom?), got ten miles into the Dakota Territory and had to stop because Wills was having a fit.

The small enterouge that always accompanied him on missions drew up next to him and harkened the orders of the agent's physician, Johansson Vecht. They set about establishing a perimeter of lookouts. Troopers in blue coats stood watch as the doctor administered the good agent his much-needed morphine. Wills' fit at last subsided, and with an hour of recovery he would feel ready to ride the rest of the way to Deerhead. As it was he fell back in a stupor, lounging about in the grass smoking tobacco and trying to whistle.

He thought nothing of stripping down to his underclothes and passing out into the dirt. He liked the feel of it, of the soft wet red clay loam against his cheek and feeling the breathing of the earth. His anxiety through osmosis seeped into the till. He imagined with closed eyelids that gold just beneath him was crying out for him and he chose not to heed it. He chose to forget the Ixopaw because they would be eliminated anyway. Sitting Bull had left. They had not the numbers anymore to repel the next offensive. In effect, they were irrelevant. The Country, through their noble diplomat Patrick Wills, had attempted clemency. Time and again. Always they were defied.

There was nothing else to fret over, Wills thought. And he sighed into the earth and felt it sigh back.

Vecht clicked his tongue and went to speak with the lead lieutenant commanding the troopers. For this he had come to America. For this he had sacrificed his ex lover in Vienna.

"Dr. Vecht, are you leaving me?" The voice was pathetic, simpering and muffled.

The doctor stopped but did not turn around. "Only briefly, of course. Do not fret, Agent Mills, I shall return with some dried bacon and some jam, and we will fill your stomach before we set off again, eh?"

"It's just I've begun to feel the earth shake, Johansson. Just a moment ago. I don't like it. Is this some new side effect?"

How should I know? Vecht thought. But he did not say it. Instead, again without turning to look at the sad fool, he answered "No".

"Mr. Wills!" said the lieutenant. "We have visitors. Eight riders, coming from the south. I suggest we mount up."

"He is indisposed," complained Vecht. "I mean look at him."

"Get him on a horse."

The doctor could hear them coming now. The sound of their coming brought a cold breeze, he thought. And the sky was darkening, the breeze starting to whistle, to quicken.

"Come along now, Agent Wills." He grabbed hold of his patient's elbow with one hand while the other hugged Wills' belly.

Patrick brushed his physician away once helped to his feet. He stumbled around a bit and again repelled Vecht when the latter tried to help steer him towards his ride.

"Ho there! Hold up!" A trooper screamed.

"Pull up, now! That's an order!" The lieutenant barked.

"Agent Wills, please turn around!" Vecht cried, finally getting a hold of Wills' coat.

"Aw, goddamit. Look at them. Black riders." Wills had encountered them before. They were Drake's Army--an outfit of jackasses and con artists.

"State your business! You approach federal representatives of the United States of America..."

"Let's have your guns, boys..."

"Private Mannis, give me a hand here?"

The flurry and furor sobered Wills as he looked about him and witnessed the party of interlopers dismounting and swarming into his wake. They complied with his soldiers without protest and approached with smiles and cocky postures. At the head of their charge was no less than Drake himself. Wills had only seen the man once before, but he was unmistkable.

Hungry rumbles rippled above them. The wind tugged at fabric and whisked the horses' manes.

For this reason Drake spoke loudly. "Agent Patrick Willis, I presume? I don't know you sir," pointing at Vecht, "but I am Sidney Drake, pleased to make your acquaintance."

"We know your name, Drake," Wills said. "What is it you want? Be brief, before we decide to arrest you."

"There will be no need for that, Mr. Patrick. I'll be brief: there ain't nothing in New Attica for you. And by 'you' I mean the government."

"Is that all?"

"That is all."

"You see Drake, I'm a diplomat. I'm also a lawyer. How those two professions can coincide within one man is a miracle of God. So this is my proposal to you: remember that those cavemen have nothing to do with you and fuck off. Then you may live a free man." Wills cleared his throat as thunder crackled above.

"Quite merciful of you," said Drake. "We will leave, then."

He turned about with a tip of his hat--black felt with a white satin band. All of Drake's riders wore mainly black but he was the one who wore the big black frock coat with the silver buttons. His entourage tailed behind him and his exit was like that of a king's.

When Wills looked back to Vecht the shooting started. Wills whirled around and saw that as soon as Drake had reclaimed his pistols he had turned them on the troopers. The first man lay dead at the ground and Wills watched as Drake fired shot after shot into the surrounding troopers. They were not many, and while they were trained soldiers Drake fired with speed so unnatural none could have done anything to save himself. Soon the lieutenant was dealt with and Drake came upon the doctor and Indian agent, his guns trained on them like vicious hellhounds.

"So have you revised your position on New Attica?" Drake asked.

"I wish you wouldn't call it that," Wills snarled. Thunder boomed again. Lightning bloomed after it.

"Please, sir, we have no power. We cannot decide what happens to...to New Attica!" Vecht was a wretched creature. His bare hands were upturned uselessly in front of his face.

"For a diplomat you sure let others do your talking for you." Drake fired at Vecht without hitting him, and laughed when the doctor flinched and squealed.

"What's your plan then, Drake? Where do we go from here?" As terrified as Wills was, he felt confident Drake would not harm him.

But after another gunshot from Drake Vecht's Austrian screaming and whimpering stopped. Drake's riders formed up behind him.

"On the count of three, Patrick," Drake cooed. "One, two..."

At daybreak the train was robbed. Y woke to the squealing grind of the locomotive coming to a stop. There was a great lumbering, metallic groan...then nothing. The other passengers grumbled in sleep and confusion. One man stood up and declared he would find an attendant to complain to and wasn't this just utter madness?

Y himself stretched out and rubbed his eyes. Looking out his window he saw that they had not reached their destination. They were out in the middle of some field. He heard murmurs speculating on where they were, but nobody seemed to have an actual clue. Looking next to him, he saw that Dean Hollis was not there.

Their car door opened and the man who had gone off to collect an attendant was thrown backwards into the car with them, his face bloody and his attire discombobulated. Behind him stood a giant, an actual giant. The behemoth wore animal skins and carried in one hand an axe for woodchopping and in the other a burlap sack. His face was obscured by a scraggly bramble of tough black hair and beard shiny with oil. He wore a bearskin cape and his cowl was the bear's head. The bearded jowels and his dark eyes peeked out from between the beast's jaws.

The large savage had to stoop to avoid hitting his head off of the car's ceiling. The bleeding traveler wept, belly down on the floor, at the giant's boots. The giant passed him where he lay to allow someone else room to follow him in. The second man was of normal size and stature, though he looked a child in the wake of his companion. This man wore a light denim jacket over a collarless white shirt. His dark trousers looked clean and pressed and were tucked into a pair of knee-high riding boots. He hid his face in a potato sack which had slits cut out for his eyes. It was he who addressed them all, and his voice was polite, easy and rather disarming.

"Well folks, if you haven't guessed, this is a robbery. Aw, shit indeed. My friend here is gonna go round with his wallet and you are all to tip him with everything you have. Whatever luggage you brought aboard is already being parceled through outside, so go ahead and empty your person. Jewelry, coin, cash, whatever is expensive. Remember that all your donations will be going to a good cause, and please don't nobody be no hero. Ok, let's be quick."

Most folk on the train did not resist the giant. Those that did were answered with the giant's mean strength. Y saw a man get knocked out with his head shattering windowglass. He saw a yowling woman get her lip bloodied and her nose smashed up. The whole commotion set in him a wily panic, and he focused on keeping his mind even with his eyes.

When they got to him the giant paused as the masked man spoke out. "Up with you, kid."

Y thought he knew the voice and threatened to reveal the name.

"Go on and say it, then."

Y blinked dumbly at him in disbelief. Then he said the name.

"That's right," laughed Hollis. "Up with you then."

He was seized by the giant, struggling as he made for the gun in his satchel.

Hollis was waving it about, "I relieved you of that burden," he said. "Now quit the foolishness."

The giant lifted him out of his seat and threw him back over his broad shoulders. They were wide enough to build a house upon. Y scuffed against the ceiling.

"Get him outside," Hollis said.

The giant grunted and did as he was ordered. The July morning was already warm and the verdant fields slatted by thin blades of sun. The giant fullrisen under the sky took Y high as a mountain, and when he was dropped to the ground the wind flew out of him and he sucked for air like a grounded fish.

For what felt like hours he lied where he was dropped as the sky brooded over a morning the color and weight of steam. Then the train started up again its chewing of machinery and the loud mechanisms of steamwork gurgling with life. More time passed. Crunches in the dirt, heavy hoof trots, boots, clinking of spurs and stirrups. The giant still stood above him, picking at his mouth. The burlap bag was limp across his boots. Someone called out to him. Someone else jumped down from their horse.

"It's alright, Y," said Hollis. "The bad folk are gone."

"Wyndell prolly kilt im."

"Wyndell ain't kilt nobody except that thrifter in St. Louis. Right Wyndell?"

The giant dropped his cowl and waves of black locks went streaming down his face. "He ain't kilt. He's pretending so's to fool us."

"Na, he's just playful. Hey kid!" Hollis came forward and kicked him.

Y got to his feet without hurry. Three men stood before him: the giant Wyndell, Hollis and a third stranger who had spoken a minute ago.

"This is Y," Hollis told them. He smugly grinned from Y to his compatriots. He reached around his waist and from behind retrieved Y's father's peacemaker and tossed it harmlessly on the ground at the boy's feet.

"You're letting me go?" Y asked.

"If you should be so stupid, it's allowed. Just go where you need to go by divination. Or perhaps some fine rider will commute you to Deerhead. Or you do the smart thing and come with us. We got a cabin, room, food. We'll take you to Deerhead and you'll make money from it. Good money."

"I dunno Dean..."

Hollis whipped around on the speaker. "You don't know nothin. I see someone who needs our help. And he can help us."

"Don't be stupid, Dean. Let's leave him lay."

"Shut up now! I says he's coming with and so he's coming with. Wyndell, take him up on Acorn and ride between Percy and me."

"Dean, this don't make no sense."

"So help me God Percy I'll leave you here instead with a hole between your eyes! Go on Y, follow Wynchell."

"Look, I don't wanna.."

"Go on." In Hollis' eyes was a quiet rage which set an animalistic fear in Y.

Wyndell stuck his forefinger and thumb together and plunged them into the depths of his beard and blew. A sharp, crying whistle rang out across pasture and prairie.

Dean got back onto his horse and followed Percy to a dirt road cloaked in timber. From the direction of the fields emerged a great brown beast of a workhorse with a flowing mane the color of wine. Wyndell pet her and showed her to Y, saying, "This here is Acorn. Treat her with respect. I believe within her is the seed of the world, understand?"

"Not really. She's a fine horse though."

"Seed of the world spreads roots where it goes. They grasp like fingers, understand now?"

Y looked at him.

"Up you go then. I'll get you to the cabin. Let's see what Hannah's got for breakfast."