The Five Dollar Mail Book 3: The Road Home

106: Crazy

Cover painting by Angela Taratuta. Chapter artwork of Eagle Bone made of found images by me. All graphics by me.

Book 1: The Green, Book 2: Lynch's Boys, Book 3: The Road Home, and the Riders & Kickers Anthology are available on Amazon under the name Regina Shelley. So if you hate waiting for chapter posts and/or want a more polished read, the finished product is available now.

Here's one of my "ambrotypes", with Michael Greyeyes as Eagle Bone. I particularly like the startled look on his face in this picture. Enjoy! -gina

Eagle Bone was so startled at seeing angry bees swarm the bluecoat in front of him that he almost forgot to release his arrow.

His sister's deerhide parfleche had come sailing down from the roof of the cabin, slapping into the bluecoat's head and releasing a swarm of furious bees into a swirling, stinging cloud. The bluecoat was howling, slapping at his face and fighting to bring his pistol back up into position.

A sharp, burning pain stung the back of Eagle Bone's hand, startling him back into the moment. He released his bowstring, and the bluecoat staggered back into the woodpile, falling backwards over the scattered logs with an arrow in his chest. Eagle Bone felt something strike the side of his head, vibrating and buzzing. A bee was stuck in his hair. He shook his head, knocking it away before he got stung again.

He saw Lights the Storm diving around the side of a cottonwood, chips of bark and leaves exploding around him as someone shot at him. The bluecoats had turned on each other, and the grove was in chaos. Bullets whizzed past, and the smoke from guns clouded the air between himself and the trapped Crow. We do not even know who to fight right now. He loped away from the bees, feeling another sting burn his shoulder as he waved them away from his face.

He glanced up to see Still Water Woman and Wacanga on the roof, crouching behind the chimney. Is...she holding a pistol? He looked harder, unsure of what he was seeing. Today is revealing itself to be a strange day, indeed. This is what we get for agreeing to ride with bluecoats and listening to a Crow. Wacanga is crazy. His brains didn't thaw out with the rest of him.

He could almost hear Two Elk's scolding voice in his ear. Eagle Bone knew exactly what the old winkte would say to him right now. "You are the crazy one," he would have said, laughing. "No one forced you to come out here. You know what would happen if that wasichu with sweetgrass for hair is killed. You are here for your sisters."

"So you are right, two-spirit," he whispered, nocking another arrow and looking around for whoever was keeping the Crow pinned behind the tree. "As always." His eyes fell on a white man he recognized from the village, tall and bearded and with long, sand-colored hair, aiming a rifle at him. Stone. He swung his bow up and fired, and suddenly he was down hard on his back, his bow fumbling away and the ground slamming into him with the force of a war club. His leg was on fire, and he felt the heat of blood surging between his grasping fingers. He clenched his teeth against the white-hot agony, scrambling for his knife as the man started towards him.

"Nice try, red man," Stone said. "But today ain't your lucky day." He swung the butt of the rifle, throwing Eagle Bone onto his side with the force of the blow and trapping the knife against the ground with his foot.

Eagle Bone writhed in the dirt, his wrist pinned beneath Stone's huge boot and weakness washing over him in dizzying waves. Every movement brought fresh agony. He fought to push it away, to ignore it, to simply be able to clear his mind and think.

Stone bent over him, grabbing a handful of Eagle Bone's hair and unsheathing a huge knife. "This is worth more to me than it is to you," he grunted, twisting his fist to get a better grip, and raised the knife to Eagle Bone's brow. "You don't need it anymore. So you just hold still and..."

A shadow dropped over them and suddenly, he was crushed breathless at the bottom of a writhing tangle of buckskin and curses, blood running across his face and along his ear where Stone's knife had nicked his cheek. He could hear Still Water Woman screaming his name, and Stone and Wacanga howling a steady litany of white man's threats and oaths he couldn't understand. Wacanga...crazy, irritating Wacanga...had flung himself off the roof and leaped upon Stone's back like an attacking mountain lion.

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