One dyin' and a buryin',

One dyin' and a buryin',

Some cryin',

Six carryin' me,

I wanna be free.

-Roger Miller

It was a day to bury our dead and tend our wounded. We also had prisoners I had to deal with. The massive and imposing Sheriff stood guard over them right now with the assistance of Brin and that frightening double-barrel shotgun. They weren’t going anywhere and weren’t going to try. Weapons superiority was a wonderful thing.

We spent the first light patching up the wounded; that meant the wounded from both sides. I then had them send a runner to fetch travois for their non-walking wounded. Could I trust them not to bring back reinforcements?

Yes, I could.

Their tribe couldn’t take another hit like we just laid on them. They were all part of one large family and related. I couldn’t literally wipe out this sub-tribe if I decided to do it. Hell, Pete might come and do that anyway, once he heard the news. They lost almost twenty men and a few more would never fully recover from their wounds, that was at least half of their manpower. There would be a lot of wailing in their camp tonight. They had attacked us; it wasn’t our fault. It’s called ‘getting what you get for doing what you did.’

We buried our two dead. One poor soul, a tough guy, had simply frozen in battle and gotten run through by a lance. The other was simply a matter of wrong place at the wrong time; he took a musket ball directly through the brisket. We got off easy but putting people in the ground still sucked regardless of why.

We buried them near the banks of the Kansa River. We dug them each a hole. It wasn’t a perfect rectangle like you see in a Hollywood movie; it was just a couple of holes in the ground. We made them fairly deep and long enough for each of them. We lay their bodies down there with their private possessions, then tossed about a foot of dirt on them. We then laid down a layer of rocks to keep the animals away, and finished by filling the holes in with more dirt. Gruesome work, overall.

Rabbi said a few words from the old testament and we put large stones over their graves to serve as markers.

**** ****

I’d seen to the wounded. We did have one guy who’d ride travois all the way back. I’d keep him drugged up a little bit, but he was just going to have to deal with the pain. It would have been different if I’d been a drug dealer on a run who got transported back, but no I was just a techie with an overwhelming desire to flee society and remake himself as a modern day mountain man.

Now it was time to deal with the Kansa. It was also time to eat. Breakfast hadn’t happened and lunch was upon us - my stomach was growling like an angry Brin.

I was damned glad to see our giant camp pot bubbling with beans and to see a large chunk of beef on the spit. We’d lost a heifer at the last stream crossing; she was proving useful one last time. We had wild veggies in with the beans; everything should be tasty and probably even kosher.

I grabbed a flask of Byrne’s Bourbon from my pack and went to sit down with the Kansa sub-chiefs. I assumed that the Chief of their band would be here soon. We would try to get down to real business then.

To be honest, I have no idea what Kansa called their tribe or their chieftains. I simply used our common word which came down from French and Latin. Hell, I didn’t know the Pawnee word for Chief or the Algerian Berber’s word for it, either. A chief is the leader and the top person in whatever organization. There was a big fuss about that in the modern world and I could only shake my head at the lack of knowledge.

Sheriff and I sat with the sub-chiefs. We offered coffee and strong tea. They accepted the yaupon with grunts of appreciation. We had cooked it to espresso strength and it was mighty nice stuff. Sheriff and I stuck with coffee for now.

“Your chief comes?” I asked to open the discussion.

“He come,” was the simple reply from the English speaker.

I simply grunted and offered them tobacco from my pouch. They accepted and Sheriff, of course, demurred politely. I smoked a butt. I would only smoke with their Chief and that wasn’t a sure thing either. We smoke, drank, and waited.

And we waited.

Brin started to smell the meat and started to whine quietly. I called for him to be brought a beef joint with meat. He deserved it. Again.

The tobacco and drinks went around one more time while we waited. Sheriff was getting anxious, but I simply gave him a look; it was time to play the patience game. The ‘Patience Game’ was something I had to learn while overseas. It was a practice in discipline and domination; it was also key to negotiations. The longer you kept silent and held onto your position, the better your position became. If you had what they needed, for example, a group of their young warriors, why would you ever be the person to open negotiations? Remember, you can just kill those guys and achieve the same outcome as losing your current upper hand.

So you just had to sit and relax. Everyone could smell the same food and everyone was hungry. I was hungry as well. Still we waited. This was a game that had to be played correctly. It was as deadly serious as a gun fight.

We heard them coming, I knew they had men in the bush as well. We would either have an agreement or there would be a bloodbath. If there were to be a bloodbath, I’d be the one to start it.

That damn Chief strode into my camp like he owned the place, so I ignored him until his sub-chief spoke. I merely lit a cigarette and waved at the spot across the fire from me.

“He may sit,” was all I said.