The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich Page B

sheriff and the colonel. His eyes stood out black as tacks on white paper. “Didn’t you or didn’t you step in that house?”
    William Hotchkiss urged his horse up suddenly behind Colonel Lungsford and he poked his gun against the other man’s back. Colonel Lungsford turned and spoke to Hotchkiss, pushing the barrel of the rifle away from his kidneys.
    â€œPut that thing down, you idiot,” he said.
    Vogeli herded Hotchkiss away from Sheriff Fells.
    â€œSorry, boys,” said Wildstrand. “We got to do what must be done.”
    He leaned across the space between them and shot Fells’s horse between the eyes. The sheriff threw up his hands as he went down with the horse. There was the bullwhip crack of bone. The report made everybody jump. The men all looked at one another, and in the wagon Asiginak started toward the sheriff. He was thrown back by one of the Buckendorfs.
    â€œWe are done for,” said Cuthbert. He began to gag on the blood soaking down his throat from his nose.
    Emil Buckendorf slapped the reins and the wagon rolled smoothly ahead.
    â€œWe still ain’t figured out a place to hang these Indians,” said William Hotchkiss. “Maybe we could use Oric’s beef windlass.”
    â€œI ain’t in this!” cried Oric, who’d just caught up. He jumped off his horse to help Quintus Fells. The sheriff was breathing fast and saying, “Whoa, whoa, whoa…” He was still under the dead horse. His eyes rolled up to the whites and he passed out. Lungsford said “damn” and a few other words and got off his horse to help Oric free the sheriff, letting the wagon go by.
    Jabez Woods, Henric Gostlin, Enery Mantle, and all the others stood quietly alongside the road watching the men who had guns and horses. Now they began to walk alongside the wagon, down the two-track grass road.
    â€œMaybe over that swell,” said Mantle. “Those trees this side of it are scrawny.”
    â€œAll the good trees is back of us, over the reservation line,” said a Buckendorf.
    â€œWe just need one tree branch,” said Wildstrand. He looked into the wagon and his face was white around the eyes, like all the blood was gone underneath the field tan.
    â€œWe found those people already dead,” cried Cuthbert, stirring Holy Track from a drowsy stupor. Mooshum was listening to everything. “We found them, but we did not kill them. We milked theircows for them and we fed the baby. I, Cuthbert, fed the baby! We are not your bad kind of Indians! Those are south of here!”
    â€œDon’t talk bad of the Bwaanag,” said Asiginak. “They adopted me.”
    Cuthbert ignored him and badgered the white men. “Us, we are just like you!”
    â€œJust like us!” Hotchkiss leaned over and slammed the butt of his rifle against Cuthbert’s head. “Not hardly.”
    â€œYou are right,” said Asiginak in Ojibwe. “You are a madness on this earth.”
    Cuthbert’s head was all blood now. His eyes were hidden in his bloody hair, his neck awash with blood, his dirty shirt was blood all up and down. He spoke Ojibwe from inside the bloody mask and said to Holy Track, “Don’t worry. There is another boy among them. Pretty soon one of them will notice and remember the sheriff’s words. They’ll let you go. When you speak of my death to others, tell them of my courage. I am going to sing my death song.”
    â€œI hope you can remember it before you shit your pants,” said Asiginak.
    â€œAiii! I am trying to think how it goes.”
    Both men began to hum very softly.
    â€œTo tell you the truth,” said Cuthbert, after a little while, “I was never given a death song. I was not considered worth it.”
    â€œMake one up,” said Asiginak. “I will help you.”
    They began to tap their knees and mumble a whine of melody beneath their breaths again. They did not address