Far as the Eye Can See by Robert Bausch

said, “We’re gonna find out some things and then maybe I’ll get on this wagon and take them for a little ride.”
    I never seen it done, but there was always plenty of talk about it even when I was in the army. Tied to the wheels like that, if the wagon moved forward even one revolution, each man would break both arms and both legs. He could keep his head from getting crushed by holding his chin against his chest, but after that one revolution of the wheel, if the wagon kept moving, it would cause so much hurt, most men couldn’t even do that. It would kill them pretty horribly and pretty fast.
    The fellow who claimed to be Mitch said with some desperation, “At least give us a chance to prove who we are.”
    “What are Pawnee doing so far north?” Theo said.
    “We scout for the army.”
    “You’re stationed at Fort Sedgwick?”
    “Yes.”
    “Where’s your tribe?”
    “I am half Sioux. My father is a white man,” the one called Mitch said.
    The other fellow, Tom, said, “I ain’t no Indian at all. I am Italian.”
    Theo laughed. They both looked at him without fear, but you could see that he had their attention. “How is it you look so much like a Indian then? I don’t know as I ever seen a Italian fellow out this way. I don’t even know what a Italian looks like.”
    Both men looked at him as though he’d suddenly started singing a opera song.
    “Why’d that other fellow run off?” Theo asked.
    “Look,” Mitch said. “That was Major Carr. He probably went for help.”
    “You think we . . .” Theo started to say, and then we heard a lot of horses coming down the trail. They was coming hard and they made pretty big cloud of dust. The horses on Theo’s wagon started to snort and titter, and the wagon moved a little bit.
    “Jesus Christ,” Tom said. “Cut us loose.”
    Theo stood in front of the team and calmed them, but it was a risky thing to do because Theo had his back to whoever was coming down that trail. Big Tree got down off his horse and stood next to it, holding his rifle over the saddle, aiming toward the approaching horses. I did the same. It could of been Indians come to kill us all, but it was Major Carr again, this time with half the Fifth Cavalry. They trotted over the hill and fanned out around us. We watched them get into place, then Major Carr come forward again, this time with his sword drawn and resting against his shoulder. The dust swirled around us, and Theo’s horses tried to pull back away from it. The wagon moved again, but only slightly.
    “Cut those men loose,” Major Carr said to Big Tree.
    Big Tree put his rifle in the scabbard on his horse, walked over to the wagon, and did what he was told. Mitch and Tom stood there rubbing their wrists. Then Tom walked over to Theo and looked up at him, stared into his eyes with this fierce expression on his face for a long time without saying nothing. Then he spit at Theo’s feet and walked past him. Theo looked properly scolded, but he didn’t have nothing to say, neither. I think he was right embarrassed. I was just glad I didn’t have to see them two broken to pieces by that wagon.
    Major Carr announced who he was again. “I take it you can believe it this time.”
    “Yessir,” Theo said.
    “We are from Fort Sedgwick, and we will escort you there now.”
    “We don’t need no escort,” Theo said.
    “Just the same. There are dog soldiers in this area and we are at war with them at the moment.”
    Dog soldiers was Cheyenne, as I was to learn later. The Cheyenne was among the most highly organized of all the Plains Indians. They had fighting teams of warriors each with its own name and leader: the Elk Warriors, or the Crazy Dog Soldiers, or the Red Bear Warriors, and so on. Each team had its own chief, and they took turns directing the entire tribe when they was all together. But a lot of the time they was independent of each other and traveled and hunted and raided by themselves. The chief of the dog soldiers