Chapter Six

CORN POE BOSS RIBS • BIG BULL • HAM HOCK • “THEY’LL HANG YA, ALRIGHT.”

LIONEL SPOTTED a small boy watching them as they passed. He was squatting out in the high grass that poked through the snow on the far edge of the bluff. Beatrice saw him too, but continued to ride toward the cabin. The boy pulled up his britches and ran after them.

“Hey, Pa, Pa!” the boy yelled as he ran. “Pa, some riders comin’! Pa, there’s riders!”

Lionel could tell that this annoyed Beatrice, but she continued to ride toward the cabin, ignoring the trailing child and his yells. Then the largest man that Lionel had ever seen stepped from the door, bending to clear its low frame. He stood around six feet five and weighed up toward three hundred pounds. on his head sat a bowler derby with a cluster of goose feathers trailing off the back brim.

“My name is Corn Poe, if anyone’s asking. That there’s my pa, Big Bull Boss Ribs, and this here’s his place.” The small boy, Corn Poe, panted as he ran up behind them. “Just as a word of caution—he’s not real fond of trespassers.”

Corn Poe Boss Ribs was eleven, but looked to be about seven. He was the ninth of Big Bull’s thirteen children and was considered the runt. He was small, had poor lungs, and had been born a month premature, which Big Bull considered to be a bad sign.

As Beatrice and Lionel rode closer to the door, Big Bull finished gnawing on an old ham bone then threw it to a couple of mangy dogs that circled his feet. Big Bull looked the great horse over, which made Lionel feel uncomfortable to say the least. He couldn’t help but think that Big Bull might be capable of eating the horse, or maybe even them. Beatrice must have felt the same because she kept them just beyond the edge of Big Bull’s reach.

“That’s a good-lookin’ horse you two be travelin’ with there,” Big Bull said, scratching his enormous gut. “What’cha doin’ way out here on a horse like that?”

“This horse or his origins is of no concern to you,” Beatrice replied.

Big Bull looked them over. “I think that you and that there horse would be bringin’ trouble to the Boss Ribs, and that sure as hell concerns me.”

“We don’t want no trouble. Just the way to the Milk River,” Beatrice said firmly.

“We’re lookin’ for our grandpa who lives up that ways,” Lionel added, drawing a glare from Beatrice that did not go unnoticed by Big Bull.

A woman Lionel assumed was Big Bull’s wife and a few of his other children gathered in the doorway. Lionel was surprised to see that the woman Big Bull kept as his wife was white like the priest and Brothers back at the boarding school. He hoped that Beatrice would ask her for some food, maybe a blanket to drape around their shoulders as they rode.

“Yep, I think that the soldiers would be comin’. Comin’ with troubles for the Boss Ribs. You best be movin’ on, alright.”

Corn Poe reached up and stroked Ulysses’s long mane. “Them soldiers come, I betcha they hang ya.”

“Hang us?” Lionel asked. “Why would they wanna hang us?”

“Why, for horse thievin’!” Big Bull bellowed. “I doubt that two mangy Injuns such as yerselves got legal claim to a horse like that one yer ridin’ on!”

Big Bull’s laugh startled Lionel. It sounded as though he might explode like one of the soldiers’ cannons.

“They tryin’ to break us Blackfeet from horse thievin’. They’ll hang ya, alright,” Corn Poe chimed in.

“Who asked you anything?” Big Bull said, throwing a second salted ham hock at Corn Poe. It hit him in the head and fell to the snow. But Corn Poe eagerly picked it up and began to gnaw at it much like his father and the circle of dogs at their feet.

“‘Us Blackfeet,’ he says, you little half-breeded idjit,” Big Bull added.

Lionel just looked at the bone.

“Hell, you two will freeze or starve before them soldier boys get ya, I’ll bet,” Corn Poe said with the bone clutched in his teeth.

Lionel thought about the Frozen Man. He thought about his own feet and his cold, aching toes.

“None of that is of no worry to you,” Beatrice said with a gentle nudge to Ulysses’s flank. The horse turned toward the side of the house, and Beatrice dug in her heels to continue their journey north.

“Well, you’re headin’ in the right direction. Just edge away from the sun till just passed midday and you’ll hit the Milk. But you best be advised not to bring no troubles onto your grandfather, if he is truly kin to ya.”

Beatrice didn’t look back.

“And when you’re caught and strung up, you didn’t hear none of that from me!” Big Bull laughed.

Lionel looked back to the cabin and the Boss Ribs. The whole family was now outside, standing in front of the house staring at them.

“Remember that you didn’t hear none from me….” Big Bull’s voice trailed off as the two rounded the back of the house. “And if them soldiers ask, I’ve got a family to worry about, so I’ll be sure to tell ’em you were headin’ to the Milk!”

Big Bull’s laugh continued to echo from the house as they rode on and out of the Boss Ribs’ little valley.