She wasn't much more than a child, Max saw. Fourteen, maybe fifteen at the most.
Suddenly he knew why the chief had sent him down here.
He picked up the feather and held it toward her.
"Don't be afraid," he said gently.
"The mighty chief has put us together so that we may drive the devils from each other."
6.
ASTRIDE THE WIRY PINTO, MAX CAME DOWN THE RAMP from the railroad car behind the last of the cattle.
He waited a moment until the last steer had entered the stockyard and then dropped the gate behind it.
He took off his hat and wiped the sweat from his forehead on his sleeve and looked up at the sun.
It hung almost overhead, white hot, baking into the late spring dust of the yards.
The cattle lowed softly as if somehow they, too, knew they had come to the end of the road. The long road that led up from Texas, to a railroad that took them to Kansas City, and their impending doom.
Max put the hat back on his head and squinted down the fence to where the boss sat with the cattle-buyers. He rode down toward them.
Farrar turned as he stopped his horse beside them.
"They all in?"
"They all in, Mr. Farrar," Max answered.
"Good," Farrar said. He turned to one of the cattle-buyers.
"The count O.K.?
Eleven hundred and ten head I make it."
"I make it the same," the buyer said.
Farrar got down from the fence.
"I'll come over to your office this afternoon to pick up the check."
The buyer nodded. "It'll be ready."
Farrar got up on his horse.
"C'mon, kid," he said over his shoulder. "Let's get over to the hotel and wash some of this steer-shit stink off’n us."
"Man," Farrar said, after a bath. "I feel twenty pounds lighter."
Max straightened up from putting on his boots and turned around. "Yeah," he said. "Me, too."
Farrar's eyes widened and he whistled. Max had on an almost white buckskin shirt and breeches. His high-heeled cowboy boots were polished to a mirror-like sheen and the kerchief around his throat was like a sparkle of yellow gold against his dark, sun-stained skin.
His hair, almost blue black, hung long to his shoulders.
Farrar whistled again. "Man, where'd you get them clothes?"
Max smiled.
"It was the last set my ma made for me."
Farrar laughed. "Well, you shore enough look Injun with them on."
Max smiled with him. "I am Indian," he said quietly.
Farrar's laughter disappeared quickly.
"Half Indian, kid," he said.
"Your pappy was white and he was a good man.
I hunted with Sam Sand too many years to hear you not proud of him."
"I am proud of him, Mr. Farrar," Max said.
"But I still remember it was white men killed him an’ Ma."
He picked his gun belt up from the chair and strapped it on. Farrar watched him bend over to tie the holster to his thigh.
"You still ain't give up lookin' for them?" he asked.
Max looked up. "No, sir, I ain't."
"Kansas City's a big place," Farrar said. "How you know you'll find him here?"
"If he's here, I'll find him," Max answered. "This is where he's supposed to be.
Then I'll go down into West Texas an' get the other one."
Farrar was silent for a moment.
"Well, dressed like that, you better look out he don't recognize you and find you first."
"I'm hopin' he does," Max said quietly. "I want him to know what he's dyin' for."
Farrar turned away from the bleak look in the boy's eyes and picked up a shirt.
Max waited quietly for him to finish dressing.