The Shirt On His Back Read Online Free PDF

about Carson's Indian wife. The huge newcomer caught Yellow-Beard by the
hair, slashed with a knife of his own—
    Then
Yellow-Beard and the dark little rapist were dashing away across the rocks to
the river, splashing in its shallows in their fervor to escape.
    Cheering
in the trees behind him told January that the fight had, in fact, attracted an
audience. He turned, took note of the volunteer rescuer at his side - a human
grizzly nearly his own six-foot-three-inch height, with a prognathous jaw and
the small, brown, glittering eyes of an animal - then faced the crowd of a
dozen trappers, all whooping and waving and shouting, 'You sure showed 'em,
Manitou!' and, 'Good fightin', nigger!'
    'I
catched her for you!' yelled somebody, and sure enough, two of the camp-setters
hauled the half-naked girl to the fore, struggling despairingly in their grip.
'You won her, fair and square, nigger!'
    The
big black-haired trapper Manitou turned to regard January with those cold brown
eyes, and January said, 'Let her go.' He walked toward the crowd, held out his
hand. The girl looked about fifteen, and he could see the bruises her attackers
had left on her face. 'If I won her, I say let her go.'
    'She
gonna get away!' protested someone.
    Someone
else yelled, 'Watch it!'
    Three
Indians appeared from the brush at the water's edge. Someone in the crowd
called out, 'Oh, hell, now you gotta pay for her,' but the voice sounded
unnaturally loud in the sudden hush. Knives whispered in the crowd. Rifle
barrels came down ready for firing.
    The
smallest of the Indians stepped forward, a stocky, heavily pockmarked man in
his thirties, a skinning knife in his hand. The other two - bare-chested as he
was, and wearing feathered caps of a kind January hadn't seen before - moved
off to both sides, rifles held ready to answer fire.
    January
said, louder, 'I said let the girl go.' The girl cried out something, and the
man holding her cursed. The trapper Manitou crossed the distance between
himself and the other mountaineers, wrenched the girl free and shoved her in
the direction of the Indian men.
    'God
damn your hairy arse, Manitou, the nigger won her fair an' square—'
    The
girl stumbled in the sandy soil of the riverside. January reached down to help
her to her feet, and when the two Indian rifles leveled on him he opened his
hands to show them empty as she fled from him to them.
    Without
a word Manitou turned away, as if none of this concerned him any longer, and
shoved his way off through the crowd.
    January
turned back to the four Indians. 'Are you all right?' he asked the girl, who
stared at him with uncomprehending eyes.
    The
pockmarked man snapped, 'She is well, white man.'
    Robbie
Prideaux moved up out of the crowd to January's side, his rifle pointed; Carson
and another man put themselves on his other side. 'Well, here's damp powder,
an' no fire to dry it,' Prideaux murmured. 'The runty one with the pockmarks is
Iron Heart. He's chief of the Omahas. You watch out for him, hoss.'
    Iron
Heart put the girl behind him. The two other Indians flanked her, and slowly,
in silence, the four of them backed away to the river's shallows, then waded in
them away upstream.
    'That
was good fightin', though,' added the trapper approvingly. 'You's busy right
then, hoss, but you shoulda seen Jed Blankenship's face when old Manitou come
to your colors. Waugh! I thought he'd piss himself—'
    Hannibal
slipped through the dispersing crowd of trappers. 'Salve, amicus meus ?’
    January
thrust his knife back into its sheathe. 'I'll know that as soon as I know how
many friends my opponents have.'
    'Oh,
hell, pilgrim, you don't need to worry about Jed Blankenship.' Prideaux, who'd
waded out to the shallows where the burly red-haired man lay face down, paused
calf- deep in the purling water. 'Not unless you mind him struttin' all over
the camp sayin' as how he had you licked flat an' beggin' for mercy 'fore
Manitou came roarin' up—'
    'He
can strut and flap to his heart's