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The Way West (1955)

could trail them in the rain, while storm clouds trailed over him and the feet of the stock sucked and slipped in the mud. With him would be the knowing-while he ran the work stock in and helped yoke up or went for water or poked a team or greased the axles from the tar bucket that swung underneath the wagon. It was his secret, this knowing that good things lay ahead, and probably people would smile, but sometimes at night he would wake up to the crying of wolves or the rustle of the breeze, and the goodness would lie with him like something he could squeeze to himself.
Just tomorrow they might meet Indians-Pawnees with roached hair, or Cheyennes or Arapahoes or Sioux, war-party Indians painted red and black. They came streaming on to the prairie and held up and looked while the wagons jolted into a circle and women cried and the men examined their rifles. They came on then, the Indians did, their head feathers bent to the wind of the charge, their war whoops breaking hoarse on the ear.
" Steady," Dick Summers said. He lay underneath a wagon, his rifle resting on a spoke of the wheel, and Brownie lay with him. Around the circle other men had posted themselves, and inside it the women and children peeked, white-faced, from behind the boxes and gear they had yanked from the wagons.
" They can't come it," Dick said, his cool gray eyes looking along the barrel. "They'll circle."
" Course not," Brownie said, and Dick switched his gaze over and gave him a half-smile, seeing Brownie's eye cool, too, and his hands easy on his rifle.
The Indians were all shining shields and yelling mouths and pounding hoofs, and then the two steady