Tumbleweed Joe by Brian Doswell (ebook voice reader txt) 📖

and his last meal of cold beans had been twenty four hours since. Snow drifted in the wind. The sky closed in on him and he pulled a muffler round his neck to warm the air in his throat as he breathed it in. His nose told him that there was a blizzard coming and the Bay pulled her head down as her way of telling him it was time to turn round and head for the comparative shelter of the barn.

Wind whistled across the ridge ahead blowing the snow apart for an instant and in that instant Tumbleweed saw smoke, hanging as if frozen in the air. No one lived out here except the Indians. Since the great wars, the Sioux tribes wandered to and fro across the plains, denied access to their homelands in the north, they survived by scavenging.

The Bay lifted her head, her nose caught the scent of warmth and she pulled towards the smoke which Tumbleweed could no longer see as the blizzard gathered strength, wrapping its winter arms around him.

Deep snow slowed the progress of the big mare but she kicked her way through the drifts herding the six strays they had rounded up and keeping the little group together. Tumbleweed lengthened his stirrups, stretching his legs to ease the cold in his knees. The Bay did the work she was trained to do.

The Bay drove the cows towards the crest of the ridge and one by one they slithered down the lee side seeking shelter from the wind but also heading towards the five Sioux wigwams. One of the cows cried out in pain, her back leg was twisted in the slide and she walked on the other three, dragging the broken leg at a crazy angle. Tumbleweed watched the cow, sometimes the dumb things righted themselves and sometimes they just lay down and died. Either way, didn't make no difference now. One cow more or less was expendable; his job was to get the others back to the herd.

The sick cow cried again and the pain in its voice carried across the frozen air like the howl of a hungry wolf. Tumbleweed knew then this one was going to lay down any time now. He had a revolver in his belt and a pouch full of bullets in his coat pocket. He never carried a loaded gun when he was riding, too many riders shot themselves that way. Guns were for settling arguments and stopping the pain of sick animals. He checked the options; he had no arguments with no one and the damned cow was going to die anyhow. He could shoot the poor beast and put it out of it’s misery but if he took off his gloves to load the gun, his fingers would surely freeze. Heck, it was only one cow. His best option was to turn round and brave the wind back to the ranch.

But the Bay didn’t want to turn the five remaining cows. She let them head towards the Sioux camp, all the time staying ahead of the advancing snow line, resisting Tumbleweed’s pull on her reins.

Suddenly the wind gathered strength and the blizzard closed in on him so that everything was white, every direction was white, up was white, down was white. Tumbleweed’s ears cracked with the frost and the moist air in his nostrils froze so that he had to rub his nose on the back of his glove just to breath. He lost all sense of direction, left or right, forwards or back, everything was white. The Bay stopped in her tracks and whinnied.

If you asked him afterwards, Tumbleweed would have said he heard the Bay talking to another horse, but at the time, his mind was as numb with cold as his body. So numb that everything stopped.

§§§§§

Reason came to him later. Reason came back to him after the warmth of the fire thawed his blood and it flowed again around his aching veins. He knew he was lying on a dry dirt floor. Warm liquid dribbled over his cracked lips and a soft warm cloth lay over his eyes, softening the frozen ice that bound his eyelashes together. The scent of wood-smoke filled his nose and his mind told him he must be inside a Sioux wigwam. Gradually, as his senses returned, he heard the familiar rounded vowel sounds of Indian voices, including one speaking occasional, broken English words.

Tumbleweed shook his head intending to dislodge the cloth over his eyes but as he did so he felt a soft hand move the cloth across his forehead revealing the inside of the wigwam, still blurred to his frozen eyes.

A female voice spoke to him,

“Your horse brought you to us. She is a Sioux horse. She is safe with our horses but you cannot go anywhere now, not until the snow stops.”

Tumbleweed looked upwards into the point of the wigwam and tried to turn his head, but soft hands held him still.

“You must rest, your body is frozen, it will take some time to thaw and it will not be good to move too soon. You are safe here.”

Tumbleweed had no option; his limbs would not obey his mind, the mind that was filled with questions.

"How did I get here?"

"How long have I been here?"

He tried to form the words but his voice seized and bundles of unsaid sounds tore at the lining of his throat, yet still he needed to know the answers.

The soft hand came back to his brow.

“Rest cowboy, you will be healed soon, then your horse will take you home, she is a Sioux horse.”

Tumbleweed slept. He had not wanted to, his body decided for him. A voice in his head told him he was safe, he could sleep and he did, for several hours until consciousness slowly came back to him. He knew he was awake when his nose smelt the unmistakable aroma of roast beef. His ears caught the sound of sap-spitting pine branches, as each log burned on an open fire. He opened his eyes to clear vision and he allowed them to roam around the smokey interior of the wigwam.

He turned his head towards the fire to see a circle of Sioux Indians laughing and talking animatedly between chewing on mouthfuls of hot roast beef, cut from a haunch that turned slowly on an iron spit above the fire.

His limbs felt heavy and he was obliged to lie still, listening to the story being told by the elder of the tribe.

“Many moons ago, there was a cow . . . .

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Publication Date: 07-20-2010

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