Rincewind among the Redskins 11

Apologies for late delivery of this chapter. As might be appreciated, I had to do some research to get it as right as I could, especially in the matter of dialogue adapted from a famous film about Custer's Last Stand. Any remaining inaccuracies are mine!

An old Indian chief called Horned Helmet was the first to spot the cavalry as it turned into the head of the Big Horn valley

Too old to fight but still alert enough to keep watch, he had volunteered for scout duty, and had alternated a night of prayer and meditation up on the high bluffs overlooking the river, alternating with listening and looking for intruders. He had seen the Scalbie scouts running into the valley and discarding their cavalry-blue coats, symbols of servitude to the white man, before proceeding deeper towards the Indian camp. He had sent Fleet Fox (who at his age was more like Arthritic Dog) to alert patrols further down the valley to capture the Scalbie. Who, he thought with distaste, were most likely to be dangling from poles and waiting for a spare partner for the Sun Dance by now. If it wasn't an insult to the Sun, that is.

As the dust cloud kicked up into the rays of the dawning sun grew nearer, he conferred with the other Elder Braves who shared this lookout position. It was decided that the seventy-eight year old Bear Cub should ride down to the camp to alert the Chiefs and rouse the younger braves to their fighting stations. This was certainly a lot of horse soldiers: at least thirty-score , maybe more, riding in three columns.

As he watched the dustcloud, he heard a thump and a grunt from behind him. He sighed.

"Young Eagle?"

"Yes, boss?" said the sixty-five year old Indian, youngest of the scouting band.

"Get Bear Cub back on his horse again, would you? And this time, tie him on, for safety?"

"Shay again?"

Horned Helmet sighed. It was, one way or the other, going to be a long morning.

_______________________________-----

Rjuister's column had saddled and left the laager before five in the morning. At five-thirty, an exhausted and wounded despatch rider had arrived, his horse staggering with exhaustion. An arrow stood proud from the saddle. General Kriminel was awoken. He read the despatch with an impassive stony face, and had then asked the rider:

"Eny word of mouth?"

"Yes, sir. It is emphasised that a Klatchian army, sixty thousand strong, is massing on their southern border, three weeks' march away from here. The politicals don't think they're bluffing. If we don't withdraw, they'll come to force us out."

"End we cannot fight them. Well, it's obvious!"

He paused, and smiled. It was the first time he'd really smiled in weeks.

"We're going home, gentlemen. Kindly tell the men."

"And Colonel Rjuister?"

"Send out gallopers. Recall him. Tell him he's court-martialled if he doesn't withdraw immediately end return to the laager. There's no point in losing men now."

_____________________________________----

Rincewind rode on, gloomily, alongside the lunatic Rjuister, who was on an exalted plane of martial ecstacy, alternately praising his men, cursing the enemy, and talking to himself.

"After this they will promote me back to General. They will have no choice! Oh, to prove them wrong, all those who scorned me…"

It's even pronounced "Ruster", thought Rincewind. He's certifiably crazy. Just like Ronald Rust at home. Normally he's kept in check by people like Vimes and Vetinari, but remember that time he took over, during the Leshp(1) business, and nearly destroyed us all? Well, I'm about to see what a Rust, in a position of absolute power, with no Vimes to punch him and no Vetinari to sideline him, is capable of doing. And from close up. Ohshitohshitohshit. I'm going to die.

On cue, the regimental musicians broke out in an attack of Barely Owin'. Rincewind appreciated the courtesy detail.

_____________________________-----

"How are we doin', Stibbons?" Ridcully brayed.

Ponder Stibbons looked up, wearily, from HEX's readout.

"According to HEX, sir, we are approaching a nexus in space-time."

"Say again, Stibbons?"

"Think of it as a fold in that rubber blanket, sir."

Ridcully looked blank for an instant, then he remembered.

"Oh yes. THAT rubber blanket you keep goin' on about as a simile for the interaction of space and time. And a nexus thingie is?"

"Think of it as a fold in the blanket, sir, that just so long as the fold is in existence, brings together two points which are normally separated by a period of time or a distance in space".

Ridcully still looked puzzled. Stibbons sighed, and stepped down a mental gear or two

"If I draw two dots on a piece of paper, sir, you will see that in normal space, they are six inches apart. But if I fold the paper through a third dimension, I can make them meet, thus."

"They're still not quite meetin', Stibbons. I can see through the paper! One of 'em's adrift by half an inch, look!"

Ponder smoothly altered the fold.

"This is the point where we can bring Rincewind and the Luggage back to their correct place and time sir. It happens in approximately ten hours. HEX is preparing to exploit the fold in the sheet."

"Hmmm." Ridcully mused. "You're forgettin' something, lad. Something possibly vital."

"Such as, sir? I assure you we've been through the maths several times…"

"No, not the maths, lad. That's a bloody untidily folded sheet. You'd better hope Mrs Whitlow doesn't see it first. You know what she's like!"

_________________________________----

Chief Bull scowled at the bedraggled and woebegone Scalbie refugees.

"What the Netherworld makes me think we can trust you two-faced forked-tongued buggers?" he demanded, of a line of Scalbies who had been securely tied to posts by their vertically stretched thumbs.

"You signed on with the white man, you have now deserted from the white man, and you want to join us? Pull the other one, it's got little bells on the buckskins!"

"Chief! Chief!"

Bull turned to face the running newcomer.

"They're attacking. Down the valley. As you thought they would."

"No scouts or outriders?"

"None, Chief."

"How many?"

"At least six hundred".

"Raise the camp! Get everyone out there under their war chief! Move it! If we get bodies into the agreed places we've got 'em on three sides! Everyone up and out! Find your War Chief!"

Chief Bull paused, and added, as a shouted, ululated war cry

"Brothers! Today is a good day for somebody else to die!"

Then he paused, looking at the Scalbies.

"I may have a use for two of you. Do as we tell you, and you might just be excused helping the ladies with their needlework."

Over the next forty minutes, a torrent of Indians poured out of the camp and into the bluffs and ravines - and the all-concealing prairie grass – completely unseen and unsuspected by the cavalry soldiers. Only a few were left, largely old men, to screen the approaches to the encampment.

As the cavalry rode deeper into the valley, it already had sizeable Indian forces on both sides of it. Very soon, they would close in behind it. Colonel Rjuister's destruction was assured.

_____________________________________------

Rjuister halted the column.

"Men, hold! We will take brief refreshment."

NCO's took up the order.

"Dismount!"

"Water break!"

As the men gratefully took up the opportunity – unaware of the silent death moving into position all around them – Rjuister beckoned Rincewind to him.

Face feverish with excitement, he called his trusted officers to him for a brief conference.

"You, fellow!" he said to Rincewind. Tell me again in what direction the Indians lie, and in what approximate numbers!"

"Can we trust him, sir?" asked Major Reno, sceptically.

"This man will be invaluable to me, Major."

Reno raised a sceptical eyebrow.

"Invaluable, sir?"

Rjuister laughed. There was a neurotic edge to the laughter.

"He was almost hanged as a renegade. He willingly came along as a scout. Oh, his game is very obvious: to lead me away from his Indian friends."

"Well, I still don't quite follow you, sir."

"Anything that man tells me will be a lie. Therefore, he will be a perfect reverse barometer. Isn't that correct? Oh, and address me as General. For I shall surely be a General again after this day's work!"

"Of course" Reno said, slowly. "General."

Rincewind sighed. "Just what I told you last night, General. There are eighty thousand of all ages. Twenty thousand males of fighting age. And just follow the river round."

"Sir, two of the Scalbie scouts have returned." Lieutenant Gibson reported.

The Scalbies want to know if you're going down the Medicine Tail Coulée. "

"Which one is that?"

"It's the one that follows the river round and to the right" Rincewind said, wearily. It leads to the main camp. You can't miss it."

Rjuister shot him a quick glance. He chose not to reply to Rincewind.

" They do, do they?"

"Yes, sir, they do" replied Gibson.. "They claim they want time to sing their death song".

"Tell the Scalbie they're women!" Rjuister replied, dismissively.

"But if the hostiles come in behind us, and if they're waiting for us below, we'll never get out of there!" objected Captain Bentine.

If Rincewind thought he'd seen a mad Rjuister before this, he now had chance to revise his opinion.

"Hostiles behind us?" the would-be General almost shrieked. "I see no hostiles behind us."

He ranged his arm far and wide. His officers and Rincewind followed his movement. Rincewind fancied he could see slight movements in the long grass that could not be explained by wind. And anyway, it was shaping to be a stifling hot wondless day.

"Do you see any?" demanded the General.

"No, sir, not at the moment." Bentine conceded, reluctantly.

" Then stop trying to cause a reversal of a Rjuister decision!"

He turned back to Rincewind. Full of fear as he was, Rincewind still felt it was like being eyeballed by a neurotic chicken.

"But, sir, wouldn't it be best to send at least a squad down Medicine Tail Coulée?" Reno insisted.

"No, it wouldn't."

"May I ask, sir, why it wouldn't?"

"Because it would cost us the vital element of surprise!"

"Surprise?" Reno repeated, incredulously. "They know we're here!"

"But they don't know that I intend to attack them without mercy".

"That's no surprise!"

"Of course it is. Nothing is more surprising than the attack without mercy."

Reno was visibly gathering his wits together.

"General..." he paused, unable to find the words. "General, I must protest this impetuous decision!"

"A Rjuister decision, impetuous?" the General said, with mild surprise. Smuts called me impetuous, too! That uncultured Boor drunkard, sitting there in Pratoria, calling me impetuous!"

Reno had one last attempt. "General, I implore you to reconsider!" he pleaded. "Think of the men whose lives depend upon you. And their families!"

Rjuister turned to Rincewind.

"What should I do, Wizard?" he demanded.

"Sir, that man doesn't know anything!" Bentine protested. Rjuister ignored him.

"What do you say, Wizard? Should I go down there, or withdraw?"

Rincewind thought furiously. I think I've got him.

A few confused thoughts about knives and the nature of truth passed through his head. He shook them out.

"Well?" Rjuister prompted him. "What's your answer, Wizard?"

Rincewind spoke carefully and slowly, working out the steps in his mind.

General,... ...you go down there".

"You're saying, go into the coulee?"

"Yes, sir."

"There are no Indians there, I suppose?"

"I didn't say that. There are thousands of Indians down there, and when they're done with you, you stupid inbred bastard, there'll be nothing left…"

Rincewind was stuck for a simile for a moment. Then one arrived in his head as if it been hiding nearby, waiting for its chance.

"...but a greasy spot on the grass."

Rincewind, for a second, wondered if he'd gone too far. But he was dealing with what to all intents and purposes was a Rust, and since it was utterly unthinkable that a Rust would ever be abused by a lowly civilian, and a wizard to boot, it was highly possible his mind had rejected the "stupid inbred bastard" comment , as something that could not possibly have been said.

Rjuister grinned.

"Still trying to outsmart me, aren't you, Wizard? You want me to think that you don't want me to go down there…" he paused, in triumph, ...but the subtle truth is you really don't want me to go down there!"

Rincewind pretended dejection.

"Well, are you reassured now, Major?" Rjuister called, in victory. Bentine turned his face away and shook his head.

"Men of the Seventh!" Rjuister shouted. "The hour of victory is at hand! Onward to Little Bighorn and glory!"

A cheer shook the grass. Rincewind sighed. He was talking about glory but hadn't paused to consider Glory's inevitable stablemate. Typical general.

And then Rjuister did the one thing that truly doomed his men. He split his command and gave it three different and widely separated objectives.

Rincewind noted this and started plotting for how soon he could become Indian again. He spoke the language, after all, and he was still wearing the remains of warpaint. Maybe a moment might come for touching it up and disappearing off the battlefield altogether. And then there was the Luggage…

________________________________-----

"So what's so special about the date, Stibbons?" demanded Ridcully.

Leaving HEX to calculate for Rincewind's safe return, Stibbons and Ridcully had been dragged off to the Library by a very insistent Librarian.

"June the twenty-fifth, Central Howondalandian Plains, in the year 1903. Which is exactly where Rincewind is in time. I think the Librarian wants us to be aware of what happened on that date… "

"Ooook!" the Librarian said, for emphasis.

"During what Historians call "The Howondalandian Adventure", or the Continental Crisis, the newly-formed Boor republic of Rimwards Howondaland attempted to send a permanent military expedition into the centre of the continent with a view to further colonisation. However, this very nearly precipitated a war with the Klatchian Empire, whose government viewed an aggressively expanding state Rimwards of its border with some alarm.

"The Boors were persuaded to withdraw from the central continent following intense diplomatic pressure from Klatch, and their forces were all south of the forest belt again by the start of 1904. However, the withdrawal order did not reach the Army in the field in time to prevent a humiliating and avoidable defeat at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, fought on the 25th June, which resulted in the near-total destruction of Howondaland's Seventh Cavalry Regiment.

In 1905, a multi-partite agreement was signed, here in Ankh-Morpork, acknowledging that the Central Plains, in perpetuity, should be the reserved tribal lands for the dwindling Red Indian peoples of Central Howondaland, and none of the surrounding Powers had a right to encroach upon that land, militarily or in any other way. Klatch, Hersheba, Ankh-Morpork, Kwa'Zululand, and the Union of Rimwards Howondaland were all signatories to this treaty, as were the principal tribal chiefs. It is recorded that Big Chief Bull of the Latoka Sioux provided several peace-pipes for delegates to smoke, leading to the then Patrician of Ankh-Morpork making the famous speech, I don't know about you gentlemen, but I ain't half feeling a bit peckish right now. And does anybody else see the funky purple spiders? The Grand Vizier of Klatch replied to the motion with I second the esteemed Patrician, and I move that the conference thanks Chief Bull for providing such quality shit. One day I bring a hookah and some good hash and we talk more, eh, Chiefy?"

"All very interestin' Stibbons, but where does Rincewind fit into it?"

"Well, sir, all the Histories agree that the long-term significance of the battle was that it demonstrated to watching eyes that the Indians, hitherto thought of as a bunch of squabbling small tribes, could unite under strong leaders and completely defeat any army sent against them by a powerful, supposedly modern and civilised, neighbouring State. And after all, sir, the Boors had just conclusively beaten us in open war! The Klatchians certainly lost interest in any Rimward expansion after that, and the Zulus made sure their northern border was agreed with the Apaches and the Navaho after several hundred years of back-and-forward border fighting. Our own Mr Betteridge speculates that had this war gone any other way, the Indians would have been utterly destroyed, Klatch and the Boors would have gone in and grabbed what they could, and Howondaland would have been utterly ravaged by war for the next fifty years. We'd have been forced to go in against Klatch – the kith and kin argument about Rimwards Howondaland again - and the likeliest end result is that Klatch would have emerged as undisputed world superpower. What they wanted to do over Leshp, but nearly a century earlier."

"And Rincewind?"

"Here's the funny thing, sir. Both the Indians and the Boors, in their accounts of the War, have accounts of an, er, shaman who appeared from nowhere and provided, in various intangible ways, weapons, leadership, and magical assistance to enable the Indian nations to pull it together and fight. The Boor reports say that this was a Wizard from Ankh-Morpork who they briefly captured, but who managed to get away in the confusion of Rjuister's last stand. Their accounts hint that this was Ankh-Morpork's malicious interference in their affairs, as our twisted revenge for losing the Boor War. They believe this evil Wizard manipulated Colonel Rjuister's mind and led him to his death, along with most of his Regiment."

"RUSTER? No wonder they lost, then! Wouldn't trust a Rust to clean me boots!"

"And this book reproduces a picture. A sort of needlework tapestry, commissioned in honour of the Great White Shaman {{He-Who-Washes-The-Wind}}."

"That's a very pale leather, Stibbons. Wonder what sort of animal it came off.."

"Indeed, sir. You will note a long thin stylised Wizard. In a ragged robe. And a pointy hat. And that's not all. The creature here is described as "unidentifiable in Indian myth and legend but may be an artistic representation of the Shaman's reservoir of power."

"It's a bloody box, Stibbons. With legs!"

"I believe we have tangible evidence of Rincewind's interference in history in this place and time, sir."

Ridcully stroked his beard, thoughtfully.

"Or of Rincewind bein' used as the tool for somebody else to interfere with history. If the alternative was mass destruction of the Redskins, fifty years of bloody war, and Klatch endin' up too powerful for everybody, I'd lay good money on those little buggers in saffron stickin' their oar in. I smell History Monks, Stibbons!"

"They're just a legend, Arch-chancellor!"

"No legend, lad. You live to my age as a Wizard, so see many strange things and meet many strange people. They exist, alright" They just keep themselves well-hidden. And this is just the sort of thing they'd do!"

Rjuister will meet his doom and Rincewind returns to the University in Chapter Twelve, coming soon.

(1) What I did in the Leshp War, by Rincewind:- Heard war declared and regiments were raising. Packed Luggage with food and warm clothing. Went to hide in deepest University cellar I could find. Got the Librarian to bring periodic news. Returned to surface when Vetinari restored, Leshp resunk, and emergency over.