Read The Powder River for Free Online Page B

owner. Savages!
    The woman hunched. She was not even a woman, really, just a girl. Her dark face drew into an expression of intensity—Breitshof had never seen anything so fierce, even in battle. She tensed all over and seemed to tremble, then shuddered violently.
    The child lay on the blanket, free. From here Breitshof couldn’t see what kind of child. It raised a cry, not like the mother’s, yet infinitely plaintive.
    Suddenly Breitshof felt that he must see. It was a raging fever, this need to see. He stood and walked up to the girl, towering over her and the infant.
    The girl looked up at Breitshof and her face didn’t change. She saw him, but showed no fear. It was as though huge enemies commonly appeared to her in impossible circumstances and did not surprise her. Her eyes closed, her face set once more, she shuddered again, and the woman gave forth something more, something bloody.
    The child was a boy.
    Breitshof really felt feverish now, crazy. His face flushed hot, and he wanted to bellow.
    The woman picked up the umbilicus and bit it in half. Breitshof supposed she must have lost her knife. She picked up the little boy. She held the infant up to the west, the north, the east, the south, the sky above and the earth below—their damned pagan religion, Breitshof had heard. Then for the first time she acknowledged the stranger with her eyes. He saw that her face was very beautiful.
    Karlheinz Breitshof stepped forward and squatted down beside them. Shaky, in disbelief at himself, he reached into a pocket, got a clean bandanna, and offered it to the woman. She pushed her skirts down, took the bandanna calmly, and began to wipe off the glistening child.
    As Breitshof watched her, he was aware of being in a bizarre state, abnormally lucid, somehow elevated, yet trembly. He hated it.
    He still held the paper cartridge in his left hand. He put it into a cartridge box.
    The woman seemed to study him for a moment, head cocked. Then she turned her back to him and pointed over her shoulder to the buttons.
    So. She wanted to nurse the child and couldn’t get the fancy white-woman dress undone. He chuckled without making a noise.
    But the damned buttons wouldn’t come. They were cloth-covered, and the button holes were little loops, and he couldn’t get his fingers to work them. He tried several buttons, but his big, clumsy fingers wouldn’t work any of them.
    Karlheinz Breitshof touched the girl’s shoulder and pushed her gently to the ground. She flinched, and then seemed to accept without uncertainty or fear. He got out his Barlow knife and with his other hand grasped the high front of the dress. Then he put the knife tip to the girl’s throat, and neatly slit the dress down to the waist. Afterward he couldn’t help giving her a kind of twisty smile.
    Her small breasts exposed, she somehow seemed more naked than with her pelvis bared to the sky and bursting with child. She gave him a simple and indefinable look. She brought her son close and put a nipple in his mouth. The child sucked eagerly.
    Breitshof looked again at the fine dress and its satiny material. He flared his nostrils in anger. Her eyes were lowered, on the child. The kid had a pinched-looking face and was covered with black hair.
    Breitshof stood up. He brushed at his pants unnecessarily. He looked down at the mother and child. The mother looked up at him with beautiful, dark eyes, gravely, but he could not have said what her expression was.
    The sergeant wheeled and started walking back toward his horse. He turned once and looked back at the woman and child. No, he’d not kill them. For some reason he’d lost the urge.

Chapter 4
    Adam gave her the news, and Elaine jerked her hand back from the fire—it was singeing the light hairs on her fingers. So. The soldiers would be here this afternoon. And presumably the people would have their first fight with the bluecoats. Well, first fight in Elaine’s experience.
    Adam sat down on his spread-out