Renegade Justice

by Judd Cole

  “The same law that says my permanent silver bar outranks your temporary gold one. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Riley was visibly angry. But Corey realized he was also powerless.

  “Are you saying,” said Corey, “that you don’t plan to do nothing about this?”

  Carlson’s lips curled in a sneer. “Clean the wax outta your ears, boy. That’s exactly what I said.”

  “This ain’t fair! John Hanchon done honest business with this fort for years.”

  “He done business with this fort,” said Carlson, cutting him off. “You got that part right. But that’s all behind us now.”

  Hot blood crept up the back of Corey’s neck. “You got no right to let the Hanchons be drove out just on account of you had a fight with their boy Matthew.”

  “Stow it!”

  “I ain’t in no damn Army,” said Corey. “You don’t push me around.”

  But Riley gripped Corey’s arm above the elbow, silencing him.

  “Permission to leave, sir,” he said to his superior.

  Carlson glanced at Corey for a full ten seconds. “Dismissed,” he finally said curtly.

  Riley took two steps backwards, saluted smartly, then did an about-face and left, Corey in tow.

  “We did what we could,” said the young officer as Corey prepared to mount and leave the fort. “I’ll keep my eyes peeled. But Hanchon was right as rain. There’s no help to be had here.”

  Corey was silent for a long time, thinking. He knew that Matthew’s tribe—Yellow Bear’s Northern Cheyennes—had established their winter camp just north of the Bighorns halfway between the Powder and the Rosebud Rivers. But by now they would have returned to their summer camp at the fork where the Little Powder joined the Powder. It was perhaps three days’ hard ride from here.

  Corey slipped three fingers into the fob pocket of his vest, touching the specially notched and dyed blue feather which he always kept there. It had been given to him by Chief Yellow Bear himself after Corey had helped to save Yellow Bear’s tribe from a Pawnee raid. It also guaranteed safe passage through Plains Indian country: Show it to any tribe, Yellow Bear explained, no matter if they were Sioux or Arapahoe or Shoshone, and they would treat him as a brave and honored friend of the red man.

  Right there on the spot, Corey made up his mind.

  “You’re right,” he said to Riley. “There’s no help to be had here.”

  Corey knew Matthew was still his good friend, even though he was now called Touch the Sky and rejected the white man’s ways. And he would never forgive him if Corey sat idly by while Matthew’s adopted parents were ruined and driven out— maybe even killed.

  Soon all hell’s gonna be a-poppin’, thought Corey. But tomorrow I ride north into Cheyenne country.

  Chapter Two

  Touch the Sky lifted aside the elk skin flap covering the entrance to his tipi and stepped out into the cool morning mist.

  His sister the sun was just beginning her journey across the sky. The short white days of the cold moons were over. It was now the Moon When the Green Grass Is Up, and the Cheyenne pony herds had been turned loose from their rope corrals to graze in the lush meadows bordering the Powder River.

  Touch the Sky had seventeen winters behind him. The young Cheyenne was lean and straight and tall, with a strong hawk nose and keen black eyes. His black hair hung in loose locks except where it had been cropped close above his brows to keep his vision clear. He wore beaded leggings, a breechclout of soft kid leather, elk skin moccasins.

  He paused outside his tipi and listened to the strong, deep voice of an old squaw as she sang the Song to the Sun Rising. Then he glanced across the camp clearing toward a lone tipi reigning by itself on a low hummock between the river and the rest of camp: Chief Yellow Bear’s tipi.

  White plumes curled from the smoke hole at the top. But Touch the Sky knew it was not smoke from a cooking fire. The old chief lay near death. Now the tribal medicine man, Arrow Keeper, kept incense burning day and night while members of the tribe took turns sitting beside the chief’s sleeping robes, singing the ancient cure songs.

  Most of the tipis were erected in circles by clans. The center of camp was reserved for the council lodge—a huge willow-branch frame covered with buffalo hides. In front of the council lodge, a pole had been carved with the magic totems of the tribe. The enemy scalps dangling from it looked like tufts of coarse hair clipped from horsetails.

  A cooking fire blazed in front of Arrow Keeper’s tipi. Touch the Sky felt his stomach churning in hunger when he smelled elk steaks sizzling over the tripod. He had started to cross the clearing toward Arrow Keeper’s tipi when a mocking voice behind him stopped Touch the Sky in his tracks.

  “Woman Face!”

  Angry blood pulsing in his temples, he turned to face the speaker.

  “You are walking in the wrong direction,” said Wolf Who Hunts Smiling. “The women’s sewing lodge is at the other end of camp.”

  The speaker had a wily face befitting his name, with swift, furtive eyes that missed nothing. Wolf Who Hunts Smiling had been present when Bluecoat pony soldiers killed his father. Now he despised all whites with a hatred unmatched by anyone else in the tribe. He had accused Touch the Sky of being a spy for the whites ever since the wandering outcast had been captured still wearing his white man’s clothing. The mocking name “Woman Face” was a reference to Touch the Sky’s former habit of letting his emotions show in his face—a white man’s habit despised by Cheyennes as unmanly.

  Touch the Sky saw Wolf Who Hunts Smiling carefully eye the knife in his sheath. The obsidian blade was small but honed on one side to a lethal edge that could shave the callus off a pony’s hoof.

  “Call me Woman Face again,” said Touch the Sky, his features stony, “and you will humiliate your clan when this woman feeds your liver to the dogs.”

  Wolf Who Hunts Smiling was accompanied by another of Touch the Sky’s sworn enemies in the tribe, Swift Canoe of the Wolverine Clan. Swift Canoe blamed him for the death of his twin brother, True Son, during a raid against the lice-eating Pawnees. But Touch the Sky alone knew it was Wolf Who Hunts Smiling’s disobedience which had alerted the Pawnees and resulted in True Son’s death.

  Both of his enemies stared at him, their eyes revealing the hatred their faces refused to show. But wisely, neither of them tested his boast. They had witnessed his courage under torture and strength in battle.

  “He talks the he-bear talk now,” said Wolf Who Hunts Smiling. “He knows he is safe here in the middle of camp. Perhaps he has forgotten that I have walked between him and the fire.”

  “I have not forgotten this thing,” said Touch the Sky. “What? Forgotten it? I am weary of hearing you repeat it like the camp crier. Words are nothing, things of smoke. Let your battle axe speak for you. For my part, I have no desire to kill either of you. Have you listened to the counsel of Arrow Keeper and Yellow Bear and the elders? We have enough enemies. It is foolish to kill each other.”

  For a moment, his unexpected words softened the hatred in the eyes of his enemies. Then, perhaps recalling the sight as Bluecoat canister shot turned his unarmed father into stew meat, Wolf Who Hunts Smiling said bitterly, “A dog who sleeps in manure stinks like manure. You may dress like a Cheyenne, talk like a Cheyenne. But you have the white man’s stink on you for life!”

  Touch the Sky abruptly turned his back on both of them and joined Arrow Keeper. The old shaman had squatted near the tripod to collect the tasty fat dripping from the steaks, catching it on a broad leaf.

  “Good morning, Father. How is Yellow Bear?” the youth greeted him. Wolf Who Hunts Smiling’s parting remark had left angry veins pulsing over his temples. Perhaps it was true and Touch the Sky didn’t have the courage to accept it. Perhaps he did have the white man’s stink all over him.

  Arrow Keeper, whose medicine bundle was the owl, drew his blanket around him tighter and slowly shook his head. The old medicine man’s long gray hair wa
s shot through with parched white streaks. His ancient face was still hatchet-sharp in profile, but as wrinkled as an old apple core.

  He made the cut-off sign in answer to Touch the Sky’s question. It was bad luck to use the word death directly.

  “He will soon be called to the Land of Ghosts. I fear greatly for the tribe. The loss of a chief is strong bad medicine for his people. Our enemies, hearing of it, may well choose such a time to attack.”

  These words troubled Touch the Sky. He had already witnessed the awful death and destruction Pawnees had inflicted in a surprise raid on Yellow Bear’s tribe.

  Arrow Keeper read these thoughts in the young buck’s troubled eyes. It was the old shaman’s important mission to protect the tribe’s four sacred Medicine Arrows with his very life. The fate of the arrows, always kept clean in their coyote fur pouch, was the fate of the tribe. If the Medicine Arrows were lost, the tribe was lost.

  “Yellow Bear has served his ten winters as chief,” said Touch the Sky. “Cannot the Headmen appoint a new leader?”

  Arrow Keeper shook his head. “The chief-renewal ceremony should be held now that the snows have melted. But the Sun Dance, and the required feasting, cannot take place while our chief lies ill.”

  Touch the Sky glanced again toward Yellow Bear’s tipi. “And Honey Eater? How is she?”

  Worry smoldered deep in Arrow Keeper’s dark eyes as he thought about Yellow Bear’s daughter. “She is like a beautiful lark that has forgotten how to sing. Her father’s death will leave her alone. You must be strong. She loves you straight and true, little brother. But as you know well, Black Elk has already sent her the gift of horses. True, she returned them. But her father was well then. The Cheyenne way will not permit her to remain unmarried for long once her father leaves this world.”

  Touch the Sky nodded, deeply troubled. Only a battle-tested warrior could court and undergo the squaw-taking ceremony. He was now a blooded warrior. And Honey Eater had declared her love for him. But besides two fine ponies, what riches could he bring to the marriage? And her refusal of Black Elk’s bride-price had led that fiercely jealous young war chief to declare to Touch the Sky: Know this. There must come a time when Honey Eater either accepts my horses or you and I must fight to the death!

  Touch the Sky saw the entrance flap of Yellow Bear’s tipi lifted aside; then Honey Eater stepped outside.

  She was distracted with worry and did not notice him. Again Touch the Sky admired the frail beauty of her high, finely sculpted cheekbones. Her long black hair was braided with white petals of mountain columbine. Her buckskin dress was ornamented with elk teeth and eagle tails, with gold coins serving as buttons.

  She joined a group of girls who were headed toward the women’s lodge. Some were already, as they walked, stripping bark from willow stems with their teeth. They would use the stems to weave baskets for gathering berries, which would be dried and stored for the cold moons.

  Suddenly, the camp crier burst into view over the rise south of camp. “The hunting party has returned early!” he shouted, riding up and down through the village. “Firetop rides with them!”

  Immediately, excited voices buzzed throughout the camp. Touch the Sky couldn’t believe his ears. Firetop was the name the tribe had bestowed upon his friend Corey Robinson when they honored the redhead as a savior of the tribe. He had faced down great danger when, pretending to be insane, he had frightened the superstitious Pawnees away before they could launch their bloody second raid on Yellow Bear’s camp.

  Now the hunting party, led by a young brave named River of Winds, topped the rise. By now the central camp clearing was crowded with braves, elders wrapped in their bright Hudson’s Bay blankets, naked children dashing around like the excited dogs. When the redhead broke into view on his big blood gelding, a warrior honored him by raising the Cheyenne war cry.

  “Hiya hi-i-i-ya!”

  It was repeated by all the warriors, Touch the Sky included. By the time the party reached the clan circles, Corey’s horse was forced to a standstill by the knot of Cheyennes trying to touch and greet him. Corey smiled sheepishly as hands groped for him, squaws attempted to hand him food, gifts were showered on him.

  Finally Touch the Sky worked his way closer and Corey spotted him. His gap-toothed grin widened.

  “Matthew!” he shouted, offering his hand from force of habit. Then, quickly, he withdrew it, remembering that his friend could no longer follow the white man’s customs.

  “Touch the Sky!” he corrected himself. “God-in-whirlwinds, am I glad to see you!”

  Momentarily moved at seeing his good friend again, Touch the Sky permitted himself a rare smile. But the English words felt stiff and heavy in his mouth when he said, “Good to see you too, Corey.”

  Despite his joy, Touch the Sky was worried. He knew that Corey would not have made the long, dangerous ride across Plains Indian country just to pay a social call. His special blue feather was no protection from enemies of the Cheyenne. But it was almost mid-morning before the two friends finally found themselves alone in Touch the Sky’s tipi.

  “’Fraid I got bad news,” Corey said bluntly as soon as they had settled in among the elk skins and buffalo robes.

  Carefully, leaving nothing out, he told all of it: how Hiram Steele had driven the Hanchons out of the mercantile business; how someone, most likely Steele, had harassed the Hanchons all winter, attacking hands and killing horses and even trying to burn the homesteaders out; how Seth Carlson and his superiors at the fort were deliberately ignoring the dangerous situation.

  Touch the Sky struggled to keep the emotions from his face as Corey spoke. But anger at Steele boiled up inside him like a tight bubble escaping. It was tempered only by fear and concern for the only parents he had ever known—good, loving parents who had bucked all criticism by raising a Cheyenne boy among whites. After all, it was to protect them that he had left in the first place.

  “Come with me,” said Touch the Sky when Corey was finished.

  The two youths sought out old Arrow Keeper at his tipi. Touch the Sky explained everything Corey had told him. When he was finished, he said, “Father, what should I do? I am a Shaiyena. But these two whites are the soul of my medicine bag. How can I let these things happen to them? Am I not a warrior? Is their battle not mine?”

  Arrow Keeper was silent a long time, his seamed face impassive.

  “Only three sleeps ago I had a troubling medicine dream,” he said finally, almost to himself. “This thing was foretold.”

  Now he looked at the young Cheyenne.

  “Do you realize what the rest will think and say if you desert your tribe now? Now, when your chief will soon rest on his burial scaffold and leave the tribe vulnerable to attack?”

  Unable to keep all the misery from showing in his face, Touch the Sky nodded.

  “And, little brother, have you also considered Honey Eater? She loves you. But Black Elk loves her. When Yellow Bear leaves us—and soon he must—she will need you more than ever. She will be alone. A Cheyenne who is alone is a dead Cheyenne. Do you have ears for my meaning?”

  Again Touch the Sky nodded. His heart felt heavy as a stone. Arrow Keeper was telling him that she would almost surely have to marry Black Elk if Touch the Sky were gone too long.

  “Tell me,” said the old shaman, “do you love these white people? Were they good to you?”

  Touch the Sky nodded. “They were good to me. I would die for them as I would for the tribe.”

  Another long silence. Then Arrow Keeper repeated to himself, “It was all foretold.”

  He seemed to reach some decision. He met the young Cheyenne’s eyes.

  “Place these words in your sash and carry them with you always. Your place is with your tribe. You know I speak only one way, straight-arrow. My heart is a stone toward most whites. But some there are”—here he looked at Corey with fondness in his red-rimmed eyes—“who are friends to the red man. A Cheyenne who forsakes his father and mother, no matter what
color their skin, is no Cheyenne.”

  His last words surprised Touch the Sky.

  “You are a blooded warrior now,” Arrow Keeper said. “I have spoken. Now let your heart decide. I have seen the mark of the warrior buried in your hair, and I have spoken to you of the great vision I experienced at Medicine Lake. It told me that a great destiny is in store for you as a war chief of the Cheyennes. I trust in this medicine dream, though indeed, it may have been a false vision placed over my eyes by enemy magic.

  “Now make your decision, Cheyenne brave. Do you go to help these whites who raised you, knowing it may turn your tribe against you forever and cost you Honey Eater? Or do you stay?”

  It felt like a hot knife was being twisted deep in his guts. But Touch the Sky’s mouth was a determined slit—he knew what he had to do.

  “I go to my parents. Their battle is my battle.”

  Old Arrow Keeper held his face impassive. But a brief twinkle in his eyes told the youth that he was proud of this decision.

  “Then go,” he said simply, turning his back in dismissal.

  Chapter Three

  “No need to get ice in your boots,” said Hiram Steele. “Hanchon can’t prove nothing. You just keep following the plan, and I’ll make you a rich man.”

  Seth Carlson was impatient to broach the subject of Kristen’s visits to the Hanchon spread. But Steele got blood in his eyes quick when anyone pushed into his personal life.

  “I ain’t getting icy boots,” Carlson said. “I’m just telling you, he’s filed a homestead at the Territorial Office. He aims to prove up the land and stay.”

  “Where you been grazing? That’s old news. Well, maybe he filed a homestead, but I’ll wager he won’t be roosting there. John Hanchon’s got no spine for fighting.”

  Steele was a big, heavy-jowled, flint-eyed man in homespun shirt and trousers and a rawhide vest. He stood in front of a fieldstone fireplace in the parlor of his spacious, notched-log house. The room’s sole reminder of his dead wife was a cherry spinet against the back wall. Bearskin rugs were scattered across the plank floor.