Sing The Death Song: Dutch Wilde & Bright Feather Western Adventure (Half Breed Haven Book 6)

by A. M. Van Dorn

  Bright Feather interpreted his response just as Dutch himself asked a question that would be translated to him.

  “There was to be a peace conference, but the war drums have sounded. What will silence them?” he asked.

  “You are right, pony soldier. When the war drums sound there can be no peace unless …” the pair shifted on their feet anxious to hear what the old warrior was proposing. “Let the Chiricahua whose arrow struck me be brought here for punishment,” The chief said through Bright Feather.

  “If that is done? Dutch asked.

  “The peace will be kept. I do not think he will come, but I give you until dawn before I order my braves on the warpath,” The chief’s response was translated.

  Dutch nodded just as they were dismissed by a wave from the tired chief. They left, escorted out of the camp by the same Coyoteros that permitted them in, and rode quickly back to the Fort. Dutch felt he would need some backup whether the Chiricahua felt threatened or not. Once back at the fort, he filled in the colonel after being advised to proceed with extreme caution, was granted a small detachment of troops, including Vellaneau, to accompany him to the camp of Stalking Wolf. He was not sure how things were going to go.

  When they arrived at the Chiricahua camp, another long ride that took out another hour, the sun was swimming atop the hills ready to dip behind them for the day. Dutch and his lover asked to be taken to the chief of the tribe. The camp was vastly similar except for the arrangement of the tents. The chief’s tent was not in the middle but almost at the end of the camp. As they were led towards it, Vellaneau heard a few braves boasting and recognized an English word. He turned his horse and nudged it towards the braves. Dutch and Bright Feather left him alone and went to the chief as they had at the Coyoteros camp. The older man was waiting for them in front of his lodging, along with several other Indians, advisors or shaman, Dutch speculated to himself.

  Dismounting quickly, Bright Feather interpreted again, their discussions going straight to the point. Dutch was coming to realize how important her job was.

  “Stalking Wolf was wrong to break the peace. Let the Coyoteros chief punish him. However, you must take Stalking Wolf on your own, I cannot order him,” Bright Feather related from the chief.

  Dutch found that odd. “Do the words of their chief fall upon deaf ears?” he asked and waited while the words were translated.

  “Stalking Wolf is the leader of the warrior society. The braves obey him, not me. Take him if you can,” The chief told him through Bright Feather.

  As they left the chief, Dutch could tell things were about to get dicey and went with Bright Feather to the rest of the detachment from Fort McCallister. As they rode through the camp, it felt like it was almost empty of people. When they got to the other side, though, he found where they had all gone. There was a wall of braves standing shoulder to shoulder, waiting for them. Dutch kept his alarm at bay. Like Bright feather had said, show no fear.

  “We are here for Stalking Wolf,” Dutch said to the crowd in English before Bright Feather translated. There was murmuring from the group but no one moved.

  "We'll get arrows instead from these savages!" Vellaneau called to him. Bright Feather, however, pushed her way to the front with Dutch.

  “I will speak,” she said forthrightly.

  Her bravery to stand there with him reminded Dutch of one of the many reasons he loved her. She faced the crowd with head held high, proud and hoping they got out of this in one piece. Bright Feather began talking to the braves in front of them, her voice strong with command and confidence as she asked for Stalking Wolf, who was nowhere in sight, to be surrendered.

  "Silence, squaw! I know the pony soldier's language from the days my grandfather traded with them before they sought to take our lands," the man in the center of the braves said derisively.

  Dutch was growing alarmed and glanced from one side to the other. He hoped his men were on alert.

  "While your words may ring true, that is not why we are here. You know why we came," Bright Feather switched to English since that was what the brave had done.

  “What I know is who you are, squaw! You walk the wrong side, and you know it,” he shouted up at Bright Feather.

  “What are you talking about, Injun?” Vellaneau asked the brave.

  “Quiet! Let us do the talking,” Dutch snapped. Vellaneau would only make things worse than they already were. He could feel the tension in the air.

  “I am called Yellow Knife, not injun, and it is only out of respect for our chief that we have turned our back on our alliance with the great Yavapai warrior, Black Hawk … uncle to this disloyal squaw who would stand with pony soldiers and seek the head of a brave warrior such as our brother, Stalking Wolf,” the brave grimly told them.

  Vellaneau’s heart leaped into his throat as he was stunned by what was said and drew his gun. The braves begin raising their bows and then lowered them when they saw Vellaneau was pointing his weapon at Bright Feather!

  “Hands in the air, woman!” the lieutenant said to her.

  “You dumb rebel bastard. What the fu …” Dutch began.

  “Her uncle is Black Hawk! Leader of the Omegas! You brought a spy into our midst!” he shouted at Dutch who drew his own pistol and leveled it at Vellaneau.

  “You holster that weapon right now and I might not report you to Colonel Caine.” Dutch spat at the dangerous lieutenant.

  “The colonel is the first person I’m going to tell about this when we get back. You aren’t the first man to be duped by some woman spreading her legs. Now we are going to get that son of a bitch, Stalking Wolf, and when we get back …”

  “The colonel already …” Dutch made to shout but their words were interrupted by a loud cry from the braves.

  “You will never have him, pony soldiers! Go now. Fight over this traitor amongst yourselves. Leave now or die!” Yellow Knife ordered them fiercely.

  “He means it, Dutch, we must go!” Bright Feather said.

  “Mount up men and fall back!” Dutch called, knowing when to retreat and fight another day. The men all got back on their horses and had begun to leave the tenuous situation when a shot rang out. Turning in awe, Dutch saw a young soldier had taken a shot back at the warrior society.

  “Have you lost your mind, Private?” Dutch shouted at the man.

  “It looked like one of them red devils was going to shoot his bow,” he stammered in response.

  “Well, they are shooting them now for real,” Bright Feather commented almost calmly. Indeed, arrows started flying towards them as the warrior society mounted up to give chase.

  "When we round that turn up ahead, dismount and take cover!" Dutch called out as they rode.

  “We are sure going to need it,” Bright Feather called back to him.

  They rode out and far away from pursuing braves as fast as possible. Watching out for flying arrows, they rounded a curve in the path that would get them back to the fort in an hour. On Dutch’s orders, they veered off the path into a jumble of shrubs and boulders instead, where the squad could safely halt their horses and hide. The squad dismounted and began to position themselves behind various large stones getting ready for the braves who were following them. Bright Feather freed her bow and quiver where it had been strapped to White Lightning and slung it over her back.

  Dutch, Bright Feather, and Vellaneau were grouped together. Dutch wanted to hit the man for his earlier stupidity but decided to let the colonel take care of the man … if they got out of this, he thought to himself. Dutch raised his gun as the sound of the pursuing hooves got closer.

  “Fire over their heads just to keep them back. We don’t need to start a war with them!” He commanded those around him.

  “Maybe we don’t, but Stalking Wolf’s friends seem ready to oblige!” Lieutenant Vellaneau said sarcastically.

  “There is only one way of escape. You must trust me, Dutch, and release the horses!” Bright Feather suddenly said, her eyes pleading.

&nbs
p; “Are you out of your mind, or are you working with them to get us killed?” Vellaneau said in shock.

  “Dutch, please,” Bright Feather said urgently, ignoring the lieutenant. Dutch trusted her completely and did as asked and gave his troops a command.

  “Men, do as she says.”

  Despite nervous faces, the men did as instructed and the horses were released immediately.

  “When a warrior thinks he is winning a fight, he will break off to collect some horses as a coup,” she told them, watching as the horses thundered away.

  "I'll tip my hat to you on that one," Vellaneau said as the braves galloped off after the horses. Using the distraction, they all began to sneak away through the brush. "Then again maybe you just saved us so you can continue your mission to spy for your uncle Black Hawk. Now, what are we going to do without horses?" Vellaneau asked after a while. Dutch decided to ignore his complaints and innuendos for the moment.

  “We’ll get them back later after we save the peace conference. Right now, Vellaneau, you’ve got two feet so I suggest you use them. We have to get back to the fort,” he said.

  “We will reach it with our scalps sure enough, but the mission has gone to hell. I shouldn’t have expected as much from a Yankee. You failed Lieutenant Wilde,” he said.

  “I would say that is the first thing you have said since I got back from my furlough that I agree with. I still don’t see how we are going to hand over Stalking Wolf to the Coyoteros chief,” he wondered as they walked.

  “We will find a way,” Bright Feather said and Dutch was warmed by her optimism.

  As the terrain began to rise, at Dutch's command it was crawling on their belly time. The soldiers were trained, and with the sounds of the braves in the distance, they remained quiet. Even Vellaneau, for the time being anyway, though Dutch was sure he had more to say about Bright Feather. Exercising caution, he made sure they kept the brush on their left as they crawled up a grade that walking upright might put them back into the view of the braves that were engaged in claiming their horses. An urgency settled over him. He was not so certain that all of the braves would be so easily distracted, especially Yellow Knife who appeared very hardcore to him. Yellow Knife and Stalking Wolf appeared to have far more in common with Black Hawk's renegade group of Yavapai than their own people.

  Soon they came upon more boulders than brush and began directing the troops through and around them before they eventually came to a cliff face that reached at least fifty feet overhead. Even the most skilled of climbers would have had trouble scaling the wall of rock, let alone a band of men trying to make a quick escape. As Dutch pondered his next move, Bright Feather waved his attention. In the distance, she had spied a split in the cliff and it looked like it passed through. Perfect, he thought and directed the troops on ahead. Once they were all ahead of him, he took a last look around and couldn't see anyone, so he followed them through the opening in the cliff. Once on the other side, he found they were at the edge of a ravine.

  Dutch studied the situation taking in the sight of a solid looking tree that had grown too big for the dry earth and at some point, had toppled over, forming a bridge across the chasm. In a day filled with bad breaks, this seemed like their first bit of good fortune. He jumped up on the trunk and moved a few feet stamping one of his feet to see if it jostled. To his relief it held secure and the trunk looked like it was thick enough to hold as needed. He was thankful to see an opening in the cliff on the other side too because there was no going back the way they came because he knew eventually the braves once they had their horses might wish to resume their hunt and he wanted to put as much distance between them as possible. It galled him to have to run away as it went contrary to every fiber of his being as both an officer in the army and as a Wilde, but the circumstances had forced him into this course of action.

  Knowing the woman he loved, he didn’t even make an attempt to get her to go across first, as she would dig her heels in and refuse. “Okay, men, single file across. We can make a clean break from there,” he told them gesturing to the other side. Vellaneau nodded agreement.

  “We can also eliminate pursuit by any overzealous redskin if we can knock the tree into the ravine after we are across,” The lieutenant said. Dutch agreed. As a fellow West Point grad, the man wasn’t stupid, even if he was a bigot. One by one the men scrambled across the tree and it held firm to everyone’s relief. He noticed a breeze coming briskly through the ravine, but it didn’t cause any problems, other than one man’s hat flew off, and the corporal cursed at losing his apparel. Most of the men were over, and by then a path of sorts had been forced through the branches of the tree. Bright Feather was next and when she was halfway across Dutch ordered Vellaneau across. His love was so fluid in her movements he enjoyed watching her move.

  Soon Bright Feather completed the crossing with Vellaneau quickly making his way over, too, and then Dutch started his turn. He found the going not too bad. He was one of the bigger soldiers, so he snapped a few dry branches with his shoulders as he went. When he was about at the halfway point suddenly a hissing sound flooded his ears and an arrow stuck in the tree next to his right hand at the same time he heard Bright Feather cry out a warning. Dutch abandoned his hands and knees and dropped flat on the tree, looking back over his shoulder. He spotted a brave on the cliff above the cut they had come through and then he saw in the fading light, sure enough, it was Yellow Knife. Dutch twisted sideways as the brave let another arrow fly and his legs swung off the tree dangling free in midair for a moment. It was a good hundred-foot drop and he pulled himself up gasping.

  “Let me just shoot the injun!” Vellaneau growled.

  “No! If we do that, the war spreads to the white man, too! Lay down cover fire for me to get across,” Dutch commanded. He managed to get a few feet more progress along the tree when another arrow stuck in the wood a foot in front of his face. Dutch had a feeling that the breeze through the ravine was keeping the experienced warrior from skewering him. He made it another foot and one arrow after another fell to either side of him, a few once again burying themselves in the tree trunk. The last one sliced his shoulder and Bright Feather called out in concerned fright.

  “Yellow Knife will only keep coming until we have to put him down anyway!” Vellaneau yelled to him. Dutch gritted his teeth and shouted to Vellaneau to stay his hand and only fire over the brave’s head and kept working his way closer as his troops resumed shooting in the air as commanded. Vellaneau called out again that the warrior was not going to give up the pursuit.

  “He can’t keep coming if he can’t follow us!” Dutch shouted his answer to Vellaneau. The arrows lessened as his troops made it harder for the brave to take a clear shot without risk. Dutch kept going with clenched teeth until he was only about ten feet from the ledge.

  "Almost home," he muttered and slid to the side when an arrow embedded itself in his holster that was close. Too close! He thought as he yanked it out and then cursed as he almost fell off the tree before he grabbed one of the branches at the base and pulled himself closer. When he was within reach Bright Feather and Vellaneau rushed forward and helped him the last few feet. He staggered with them to the opening in the cliff face.

  “Your flask, Vellaneau!” he ordered.

  “What? What are you talking about?” Vellaneau said.

  "The one with the brandy in it, we need it," he said and Vellaneau shook his head. It was technically against regulations to carry the alcohol, but Dutch didn't care about that. As far back as when he was just a wet behind the ears cadet on the banks of the Hudson, he had known Vellaneau always carried it in his pocket.

  “Just give it to me, damn it. We need to set the tree on fire. Bright Feather, soak an arrow in it. We don’t want to get in range of Yellow Knife if we can avoid it,” he said. Vellaneau realized his reasoning was sound and with a slightly disgruntled look, he produced it and passed it to Dutch’s lover. Bright Feather quickly went to work.

  Looking back, Dutch cou
ld see Yellow Knife was approaching the tree. He had come down from his perch during the covering fire. The brave started to cross when Bright Feather's flaming arrow stuck in the tree about halfway across and the dry wood caught quickly. The breeze in the ravine helped fan the fire and soon the tree was ablaze, effectively blocking their path from Yellow Knife's rage forcing the Indian to retreat to the safety of his side of the ravine.

  Dutch ordered his men to hasten away even as Vellaneau couldn’t resist taunting the warrior on the other side.

  “So long, Injun! You tell Stalking Wolf if he’s going to hide like a coward he best send better men than you after us!” Dutch grabbed the man’s arm and turned him around.

  “Enough! Let’s go!”

  They turned and started to follow Bright Feather and the other men through the cut in the rock when suddenly a tomahawk smashed off the rock wall next to them. Turning to look back they found Yellow Knife was no longer alone. In the light of the burning tree they saw, just lowering his arm from making his throw was a grim-faced Stalking Wolf.

  “Well, now look who came out from hiding behind the skirts of his men.”

  Dutch wasn’t listening but instead only locked eyes across the distance with Stalking Wolf. The look on the brave’s face told him one thing—that he was now the sworn enemy of the warrior.

  Slowly he turned away from the simmering Indians across the void and nodded for Vellaneau to get moving. He wondered how long the glowering Stalking Wolf would stand there with his hatred coursing through him.

  CHAPTER 23

  * * *

  Dutch stood at attention with Lt. Vellaneau in front of Col. Caine’s desk. He felt like a new recruit being called on the carpet for bad behavior. In a way, he was, he thought since he had failed in his mission.

  “I take full responsibility for the unsuccessful negotiations with the warrior society as well as for Private Lariat’s action in provoking them. He is one of my men and should have been better disciplined,” Dutch told his commanding officer honestly.