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of the Winchesters for yourself?”
    “Naw. They cock right smart, but I’ll stick to this here Spencer. It can fetch a red divvil far as I can smell ’em. And I tell ya, my nose is some powerful.”
    “I think I can stand now,” I said. I made a clumsy rise to my feet, kept a hand on the edge of the seat.
    “Reckon you’ll be going after them that bushwhacked you and your friend?” Johnston said.
    “Something like that.”
    “They headed back to Pa Sapa. Got some good space on you. They’ll be hard to track.”
    “I’ll try anyway.”
    Johnston pursed his lips. “I sorta figured on goin’ up to Canada, but the cold’s gettin’ to my old bones these days. Nice winter for a change in the Hills. Figure I’ll just ride back with you.”
    “I’m glad,” I said. “And thanks again for patching me up.”
    “Didn’t really have anything else to do at the time. Come on, pilgrim, let’s get going.”

6
    The man who rode with me had become a Western legend among both white men and red: hero of mountain men, scouts and trappers.
    Liver-Eatin’ Johnston had earned that name because of a vengeance he had taken out on the entire Crow Nation. The story had been muddled through the years, but it was general knowledge that Johnston’s Flathead wife and unborn child had been killed on the Musselshell by Crow braves, and Johnston, returning from trapping to find the bodies, set out on a blood train. Legend says he tracked them down, killed and scalped them, then cut out their livers and ate them raw.
    The Crow, being a proud people, set upon Johnston in an unusual manner. Chief of the Crows, Big Robert, decided to send twenty men, one at a time, after the Liver-Eater. He felt this was more honorable than sending a pack.
    Over a period of fourteen years Johnston met, killed, scalped, and devoured the liver of every one of those braves.
    By that time there was a new chief, Gray Bear, and he made a truce with Johnston.
    The story grew from year to year, but there was no doubt in my mind that there was something to it. I had seen him kill and scalp those Sioux, and he looked like a man well-trained in his business. I couldnen ss. I c’t help but wonder if Johnston ate their livers after I’d passed out.
    Later, when we left the train, I noted that he had buried all the whites, but not the Indians. I didn’t take notice to see if their ribcages were slit open. But I did ask him why he hadn’t buried them, too. Johnston said, “They don’t bury white men, and I play by their rules.”
    Glancing over at Johnston, seeing that big, fiftyish, red-headed man riding tall in the saddle with bloody Sioux scalps dangling from his belt, I figured that he was, in fact, capable of cutting out a man’s liver and eating it raw.
    He was also the man who had doctored me, fed me, and probably saved my life. He was also riding back into the Black Hills with me, and I couldn’t help but believe it was because of my wounds. He was behaving like a friend.
    Thinking of friends made me think of Bucklaw. Lying back there beside the tracks in a shallow grave made me think of Major Carson, Mix and the others.
    I would heal.
    I would bide my time.
    Eventually I would find them.
    And they would pay in blood.

7
    We traveled slowly, without particular concern or worry. Once, Johnston sniffed out a hunting party of Sioux—he had actually sniffed them out like a dog raising its nose to the air and taking in the scent—and we had gone into hiding. We dismounted, grabbed the horses’ heads, and twisted the animals to the ground. Biting on the horses’ ears, holding their nostrils, we watched as a half-dozen Sioux passed within a hundred yards.
    Had they come up from behind us and hit our sign, there would have been hell to pay. But as they were in front and upwind, we got away without a fight.
    Couple days later we came upon a herd of buffalo. The beasts were over five hundred yards away, but there wasn’t any mistaking what they were. It was