Shadow on the Sun Read Free Page A

years.”
    â€œRutgers graduate?” asked Boutelle.
    Finley nodded. “That’s how I got this job,” he said. Rutgers University was the sponsor for the Apache nation.
    â€œI see.” Boutelle slid a clean square of handkerchief from his inside coat pocket and patted at the perspiration that scored his upper lip. The hot room was beginning to reek of steaming wool. This, added to the pungent odor of cigar and cigarette smoke, made Boutelle’s stomach edgy.
    â€œWell, I’ve got to go now,” he said, picking up his hat.
    â€œHow long will you be staying in town?” asked Finley.
    â€œNot long,” replied the younger man. “Just until the Apaches are established on the reservation.”
    â€œUh-huh.” Finley nodded. “Well, that should be about a day or two.”
    â€œMmm.” Boutelle put his handkerchief away. “We’ll see.”
    Finley knew what the younger man was thinking, but he said nothing. Boutelle, like the majority of newly arrived people from the East, believed, quite firmly and—to them—logically, that the Indian nation was composed of treacherous savages, rarely to betaken at their word, never to be trusted. Indians were, like any wild animals, to be penned in, watched over, and kept from doing evil. Finley imagined that Boutelle was one of the legion who conceived of Indian reservations as some kind of open-air zoo.
    He would say nothing, however. It was not his place to lecture. Besides, Boutelle would be gone in two days at the latest; there was no point in risking friction. Even if he did say something, it would not likely alter Boutelle’s trend of thought. Words rarely changed a young man’s attitude.
    â€œPerhaps I’ll see you later in my office,” he said to Boutelle.
    â€œPerhaps, Mr. Finley.”
    Boutelle made his turn from the bar without noticing the approach of the small Indian. The first he saw of him was as an obstacle in his path, and he twitched back as the Indian ducked aside.
    â€œWhat do you want, Little Owl?” Finley asked in the Indian tongue.
    The old Apache glanced timidly at Boutelle, then looked at Finley once again, his dark eyes abject. At his right side, his hand rubbed slowly on the leg of his grease-stained buckskins as though cleaning itself.
    Finley grunted once and reached into his pocket. His hand moved quickly to Little Owl’s and met it, palm to palm. The gesture took only a moment, and then the small Indian was padding down the length of the bar away from them.
    â€œDid you give him drinking money?” Boutelle asked in surprise.
    â€œJust a loan,” said Finley.
    â€œI thought giving liquor to the Indians was against your principles.”
    â€œAs a rule, it is,” Finley said apologetically, “but—well, I guess I just can’t think of Little Owl as an Indian. He isn’t really anymore.He’s a hang-around-the-town Indian, hasn’t even got a tribe to call his own. He lives outside of town with his wife and children.”
    â€œAt the town’s expense, I presume,” Boutelle said acidly.
    â€œNo, no,” said Finley, lying a little. “Little Owl works during spring and fall roundups. He’s a pretty good little puncher.”
    Boutelle glanced down the counter and saw the old, stolid-faced Apache carrying a stein of beer into the back room.
    â€œ
He
works with cattle?” Boutelle asked.
    â€œYes, quite a few Indians do,” said Finley, taking a cigar from his pocket. He bit off the end and spit it into the gaboon. “Not that they’re very good at it,” he went on, smiling. “They’re too timid with the stock.”
    He chuckled at the expression on Boutelle’s face.
    â€œYou’ve never thought of Indians as being timid, have you?” he said, blowing out a cloud of smoke. “They are, though. They hate to take a risk, any kind of risk at all. That’s why they