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While drumming his fingers on the top of his oak desk, the colonel glared up at Tiny with angry, impatient brown eyes. “Chief Strong Wolf uses reason before he acts,” he said. “He’s a man of peace. He would not do anything foolish that could threaten the safety and well-being of his people.”
He laughed throatily. “Abduct a woman?” he said. “That isn’t like him. You go and tell Chuck that his sister is probably enjoying her outing on horseback. Tell him that if she doesn’t return by sunset, though, to come and tell me. I’ll put together a search party for her. But until then, tell Chuck not to jump the gun. He’s worrying too much.”
“That lady could even now be in the clutches of the Potawatomis,” Tiny said, placing his palms on the colonel’s desk, to allow him to lean closer. “If anything happens to her, you’ll be responsible.”
“Get your filthy hands off my desk,” Colonel Deshong said, leaning closer to Tiny. “And don’t come in here mouthing off to me about who’s responsible for what.”
Tiny eased his hands off the desk and straightened his back. “And are we to also ignore the damn fact that Strong Wolf stole the dynamite and threatened the countryside by settin’ it off? A damn Injun don’t know nothin’ ’bout dynamite. If he’d miscalculated, not only the dam would be blown up, but half the human race in these parts.”
“You don’t give the chief credit for much, now do you?” Colonel Deshong said, pouring tobacco into the bowl of a pipe from a small pouch.
“Why should I?” Tiny said, plopping his hat back on his head. “But I see I’m wastin’ my time here. You don’t give a damn ’bout anythin’ much except yourself and the comforts of your soldiers here at the fort.”
He swung a frustrated hand in the air. “Let the damn redskins take over everything,” he shouted. “See if I care.”
As Tiny and the men stamped from the colonel’s cabin, they could hear him laughing behind them. Tiny turned with doubled fists as the colonel followed them outside, puffing on his pipe.
Colonel Deshong slipped the pipe from between his lips. “Tiny, do you want to know what I really think about what you told me today?” he said, his eyes dancing with amusement.
“Don’t think I do,” Tiny said, turning again to stamp away.
“I think you made it all up in an attempt to get Strong Wolf in trouble,” Colonel Deshong shouted, not one to give up that easily when he had not yet said his piece. “Be sure the next time you come to the fort, it’s not with tall tales that take up my precious time.”
Tiny swung himself into his saddle. He grabbed up his reins as he waited for the rest of the men to mount their steeds. He glowered at the colonel, then wheeled his horse around and rode off in a hard gallop through the tall gate of the palisade walls that encircled the fort.
“He’ll be sorry!” Tiny said as he looked over at Clem, his best buddy and partner in mischief. “No one gets away with talking to me that way.”
“There ain’t much we can do about it,” Clem said. He reached a hand and scratched at the stubble of whiskers on his chin. “The colonel is pretty much in charge in these parts.”
“Well, he may be in charge, but I don’t take to being ignored, and being accused of saying things that ain’t true,” Tiny shouted, raising a fist in the air.
“Again I say, Tiny, there ain’t much we can do about it,” Clem said, sinking his heels into the flanks of his horse to catch up with Tiny again, when Tiny raced on ahead of him.
“What am I to tell Chuck?” Tiny said as Clem sidled his horse closer to Tiny’s. “He was genuinely worried about his sister. What if she has been abducted? Chuck’ll have my hide for not convincing the colonel to go and search for her at the Injun village.”
“Perhaps we should go on to the village ourselves and take a look,” Clem said, again itching his whiskered chin, a habit when he was nervous.
“Naw, I don’t want to risk that,” Tiny said, his eyes squinting as he tried to make decisions that would work in his favor. “There ain’t much love between me and that Injun leader. He’d as soon shoot me as look at me.”
He laughed into the wind. “Especially over that dam,” he said.
“You’re lucky Chuck didn’t have your hide over that,” Clem said, now resting his one hand on the butt of his holstered pistol. “You should’ve removed the dam. Chuck was adamant about that, Tiny.”
“Well, I was just as adamant about keepin’ it where we built it,” Tiny spat out angrily.
“But you knew that Strong Wolf wouldn’t stand for that dam bein’ there,” Clem argued back.
“I had to take a chance of him bein’ too much of a coward to remove it,” Tiny said. “He’s known for his peaceful ways, ain’t he? Well, who’s to say he might have been too afraid of stirrin’ up trouble by removin’ the dam. It was a chance worth takin’.”
“Yeah, and it could’ve cost you your job,” Clem said, laughing sarcastically.
Tiny glowered over at him. “I’m too valuable to Chuck for him to fire me,” he said thickly. “He may have brought his sister to Kansas, but damn it all to hell, Clem, I?
??m the ‘eyes’ he truly needs. I’m the one who knows how to take care of the journal entries. His sister doesn’t. I keep our men in line. His sister doesn’t. And I know the land, every inch of it. His sister doesn’t.”
“Yeah, I see what you mean,” Clem said, then strained his neck when he saw someone approaching them in the distance.
He nodded at Tiny. “Ain’t that a Potawatomis brave headin’ our way?” he said, pointing.
