Renegade Justice

by Judd Cole

  Twice he pricked his fingers deep, distracted by constant thoughts of Kristen—thoughts he had once believed were smoke behind him. But after seeing her again today, he couldn’t help contrasting her golden, nimbus-haired looks to Honey Eater’s dusky beauty.

  Nor could he help wondering to which race he owed his heart and his life. Old Knobby, the hostler in Bighorn Falls, had insisted the red man and white man could never live together in peace. But why? Why must he choose one group and turn his back on the other?

  Suddenly a horse whickered, cutting into his thoughts. The sound did not come from the herd behind them but from the line shack below.

  “Brother!” said Little Horse in a tense whisper. “A rider approaches our camp!”

  Quick as a blink they were both out of their robes and had backed into the surrounding brush, abandoning the circle of remaining light around the fire. Touch the Sky eased back the hammer of the Sharps and felt to make sure a primer cap was centered in the loading gate.

  A moment later a saddled but riderless horse walked into the camp clearing. The girth had been uncinched under its belly, and the saddle had slipped halfway toward the ground, one stirrup dragging.

  The horse, clearly hungry for human company, nuzzled Touch the Sky’s shoulder when he stepped out from hiding.

  “The owner was jumped while saddling or unsaddling,” said Little Horse. “But who is it?”

  At the same moment, both Cheyennes glanced downridge toward the dark line shack. Still no sign of fire or light.

  “I think,” said Touch the Sky, “it is time to check on this paleface who does not like Indians.”

  He quickly unsaddled the horse and pointed it toward the main corrals below, slapping it hard on the flank to send it running. He knew that, unsaddled, it would return on its own to the barn it was used to. Its arrival should alert the hands to send help.

  Their uncle the moon still shone brightly, making secret progress difficult across the open expanse. As Black Elk had taught them, they rubbed their bodies with saliva, then smeared their wet skin with sand to cut reflection. Rifles would slow them down, so they chose their knives instead. Then, relying on isolated trees and bushes, they made their way on foot to the shack.

  The door, caught in a steady breeze, repeatedly banged open and shut as they sneaked up from the rear. Touch the Sky eased around one corner, Little Horse the other. They saw him at the same time—a man lying spread-eagle in front of the shack, jaw slacked open as if he were drunk.

  But the paleface wasn’t drunk. His right temple

  was a raw, pulpy mess, as if he’d been struck hard

  with a rifle butt.

  Touch the Sky gently shook him. The line rider groaned but remained unconscious.

  “The blood is dark and crusting,” said Little Horse. “He was attacked earlier. Much earlier.”

  Touch the Sky nodded. He squatted to examine the matted grass in front of the shack. It had been well trampled within the past few hours by many well-shod horses, as many as six or seven. But where were the riders now, and why had they come?

  Perhaps thinking the same thing, Little Horse lowered his voice even more and said, “Brother, think on this thing. These men may have come even as your white father first showed us this lodge and wondered why it was so dark. They may have ridden on up to gather horses, only waiting for the moon to hide his bright face a bit so they may drive them out of the valley.”

  “Which means,” said Touch the Sky, “they may have seen us make camp. They may know we are here.”

  Both youths were disheartened at this prospect. Only dead Cheyennes, Black Elk had insisted over and over, lost the advantage of surprise.

  “It also means,” said Little Horse, “that they may be very near, right now. Watching us.”

  “The wind is from the sun’s resting place,” said Touch the Sky.

  Little Horse nodded, understanding. They stepped away from the shack, faced into the wind blowing from the pasture to the west. For several minutes they stood stone silent, stone still, simply smelling the wind.

  At first Touch the Sky smelled only the sweet grass, the clean, woman smell of mountain laurel, faint cooking odors lingering in the shack. Then, gradually, he became aware of something else: the musty stink of leather-shod horses and white men.

  Little Horse met his eyes and nodded. He smelled it too.

  No words were exchanged. It was nighttime, and they both understood that no Cheyenne who expected to live ever attacked a foe at night. Now they needed to observe while this fat moon aided them.

  They stuck close to bushes and trees and ducked behind hummocks, crossing open expanses on their elbows and knees. They leapfrogged, one dashing ahead to cover and then waiting for the other to join him before moving on. Steadily they worked their way along the ridge and around the shoulder of the hill.

  Little Horse was about to scramble into a coulee when he suddenly froze in his tracks and lifted his hand to halt Touch the Sky.

  Touch the Sky edged up beside him. Little Horse pointed further into the dry gulch. A half-dozen men waited there, their horses picketed nearby. One man squatted on his rowels, smoking. Several others shared a bottle of whiskey. They looked bored and impatient.

  Below them, on the other side of the wide coulee, hundreds of mustangs were bunched together in the moonlight. Steep-sloping hills formed a natural pen on three sides. The only way out was through the coulee.

  “By hell, I’m tired of waiting,” said the man smoking the cigarette. He flipped his butt away in a wide arc and rose to his feet, spurs jingling. “I say let’s point ’em out of here now, moon or no. We got ’em bunched good now, but they won’t stay that way forever.”

  “Winslow, you work us too damn hard,” said one of the men passing the whiskey bottle around. “You hadn’t spooked that wrangler’s horse, we wouldn’t be in such a damned all-fire hurry, would we?”

  “Last I checked, that hoss was just wandering the ridge,” said another man. “With the saddle on, it’ll stick close.”

  “Maybe so. But I ain’t heisting skittish mustangs in full moonlight.”

  “Anyhow,” said Winslow, pointing north, “there’s clouds boiling up over yonder, heading straight for the moon. Just a little longer and we can push ’em out of here.”

  The man called Winslow was tall and string-bean thin with shaggy hair the color of wet sand. Something about his voice alerted Touch the Sky. He strained his eyes in the clear moonlight, watching as Winslow turned in profile.

  The man’s face was badly pockmarked from smallpox. A moment later Touch the Sky remembered him, and a cold, numbing hatred iced his limbs. He glanced at several others and recognized two of them.

  Touch the Sky and Little Horse had fought these hardcases before, further north in Plains Indian country. They were former members of the private “army” paid by the whiskey trader Henri Lagace! But the army had disbanded after the Cheyenne raid on their camp which led to Touch the Sky’s killing Lagace.

  Clearly, Hiram Steele had found good use for unemployed cutthroats.

  Little Horse jabbed his shoulder excitedly, and Touch the Sky realized that his friend too had recognized their former enemies.

  They backed slowly away from the rim of the coulee and held quick council behind a huge boulder.

  “Brother,” said Little Horse, glancing over his shoulder into the sky, “soon the moon goes into hiding. Under cover of darkness, the white dogs will easily drive the ponies. Without our ponies, we cannot run for help in time.”

  “These are the white-livered cowards who killed High Forehead and the rest of our brothers,” said Touch the Sky. “They invaded our camp and killed children and elders. Now they land like carrion birds to destroy my white parents! We cannot let them succeed.”

  “I have ears for your words and courage to back them. But we cannot anger Maiyun by raising our battle axes after dark! We must play the fox, not the lion.”

  Touch the Sky nodded. Both youths
knew full well what had to be done and the best way of doing it. They circled wide around the mustang-filled clearing, hugging the steep slopes. At some places they were forced to cling to scrub pine to avoid sliding down the slope. But they made good time, unobserved, and were soon behind the mustang herd.

  Little Horse nudged him as they crouched low, trying not to spook the herd too soon with their human scent now that the wind was behind them.

  “I am quicker on my feet than you,” he said. “And you make the noise better. Let me get closer. I will scatter them while you make the call.”

  A heartbeat later Little Horse was gone, already blending into the herd and slapping flanks left and right.

  All horses everywhere, Black Elk had assured his warriors many times, are frightened senseless by bears. Now Touch the Sky swallowed a huge breath and brought it back out from deep in his guts, making a noise that was half bark, half growl—the deep, menacing woof of the grizzly.

  Instantly, scores of horses reared in panic, then bolted for the coulee. The ground thundered and vibrated, divots of soil flew everywhere.

  Touch the Sky again loosed his guttural imitation of a prowling grizzly. Now and again he caught a momentary glimpse of Little Horse, still smacking mustangs. Only the small Cheyenne’s quick, sure movements saved him from being trampled as he leaped first left, then right, twirling just out of harm’s way.

  Above the thundering din, Touch the Sky heard the white men shouting and cursing. They wisely decided to flee rather than attempt to halt the panicked herd as it squeezed itself into the gulch, threatening to crush them.

  He found Little Horse covered with dirt but unharmed. The two grinned in triumph. They knew the herd would scatter once it cleared the coulee on the other side, drifting back eventually to the lusher pastures of the high country. A light burned at the line shack, where someone was tending to the injured Woody Monroe. And shouts from further down the valley announced that wranglers at the Hanchon spread had been alerted to the rustlers. Winslow and his friends would count themselves lucky if they cleared the valley alive.

  But as they returned to their camp, the two Cheyennes sobered quickly. The shock of once again meeting their hated enemies filled them with grim determination to triumph.

  “Brother,” said Little Horse later, before Touch the Sky drifted down a long tunnel into sleep, “I recall well how those paleface devils piled hot rocks on you and laughed as you were about to swallow the Sioux arrow. I recall well the suffering they caused our tribe. This is no longer a white man’s battle I am helping you fight. And I swear this: Either we defeat them, or we will die the glorious death trying!”

  Chapter Seven

  “Damn it all, man!” said Hiram Steele, snapping his watch shut and returning it to the fob pocket of his vest. “Couldn’t you get here sooner with the news? It’s too late to warn Winslow and the rest.”

  “Get here sooner? I’m damn lucky to even be alive,” said Seth Carlson. “Before I could leave the post, I had to file a report on the skirmish. And there was clerical work to do on the wounded trooper. He broke an arm when one of the bucks knocked him off his horse. Not to mention that I had to get medical care myself and requisition a new horse.”

  Steele barely wasted a glance on the patch, the size of a silver dollar, where skin had been scraped off Carlson’s face in the prairie-dog-hole mishap. The rancher paced before the fieldstone fireplace, his heavy boots thudding on the bare planks. The flint-gray eyes focused on nothing, lost in worry.

  “You’re sure it was him?” said Steele. “All Injuns look alike.”

  “It was the Hanchon boy, all right. I didn’t recognize the buck with him.”

  “So it was just the two?”

  Carlson nodded. “And Corey Robinson, though he wasn’t fool enough to fight against us. All he did was rabbit.”

  “Hell, two pissant redskins and a freckle-faced sprout don’t put snow in my boots.”

  “Maybe, but I don’t like the turn this trail is taking,” said Carlson. “This is more than I bargained on. Today that red bastard humiliated me in front of my men. And because of him I had to shoot the best horse I’ve owned since I drew orders to this hellhole!”

  “I’ll give you a better horse. After this raid tonight, you can have your pick. As for that buck humiliating you, don’t forget the shoot-to-kill order. He’ll get his comeuppance soon enough.”

  If all went as planned, thought Steele, a good portion of Hanchon’s best horseflesh would soon be scattered among the herds grazing Steele property. No brands were used until the horses were broken and ready to sell, so Hanchon would have no legal claim against him.

  “Just a warning,” said Carlson. “Harding checked up in his orders manual, said something about having to maybe appoint a military board of inquiry to look into this Indian problem. If Hanchon reports this raid, there might be someone from the fort nosing around, asking you and your men questions.”

  Steele shrugged his beefy shoulders. “Anybody asks any of my wranglers, they were all in the bunkhouse tonight playing dominoes and checkers.

  “That’s just fine for you and your men,” said the young lieutenant, irritation clear in his voice. “But who covers my back-trail? I’ve been submitting false reconnaissance reports. If Harding ever gets wind of it, I’m headed for the stockade. Harding is no Indian-lover, and brains are not his strong suit. But he lives by the book.”

  Steele had a hair-trigger temper and did not usually tolerate ill temper from others. For a moment, the resentment in Seth Carlson’s tone made angry blood throb in his temples. But then he reconsidered. He needed Carlson’s influence at the fort.

  “Look here,” he said reasonably, “no need to get on the peck. Harding doesn’t know sic-’em about what we’re up to.”

  “I’ll grant that. Harding wouldn’t notice his own reflection in a hall of mirrors.”

  “All right, then. We’ll just keep Major Harding flummoxed like we been doing all along. You been blaming all this ruckus lately on renegade Cheyennes, right? And didn’t two just ride into the territory today raising hell and wounding soldiers?”

  Carlson had already told himself all this. What really pricked at him like a burr in his boot was the fact that the Hanchon boy was back—and that Kristen had evidently known he was coming and gone to meet him.

  “Do you remember,” he said, “when we talked about posting a sentry on Thompson’s Bluff overlooking the Hanchon spread?”

  Steele nodded.

  “I checked with him before I rode out here. The two Injun bucks and Corey Robinson rode to the Hanchon place, all right. But just before they arrived, Kristen showed up there too.”

  For a moment Steele simply stared in disbelief, as if Carlson had just announced that pigs could fly. Then, all of an instant, his broad, bluff face flushed purple with rage. But his voice was deadly calm when he finally spoke.

  “You’re not seriously telling me that my daughter went out to the Hanchon spread today?”

  “Unless there’s another pretty blonde hereabouts who rides a swayback piebald.”

  “Did she meet with the Indian?”

  “The sentry can’t see their place from the bluff, not the yard. Just the wagon road leading out to it. But she had to see him. She was still there when he rode in.”

  Steele was struck dumb with disbelief. He stopped pacing for a moment as he fought down the urge to rush back to Kristen’s bedroom and drag her out by the hair. Hadn’t he already warned the girl—twice, by God!—to steer clear of that place?

  Obviously, trying to keep a woman on the straight and narrow was like trying to train a cat. Threats were useless with Kristen, she was too bullheaded. But nobody bucked Hiram Steele, not even his own daughter.

  He glanced at Carlson. The officer’s injured face was still twisted in a petulant frown. Maybe it was time to throw the dog a bone, and at the same time punish Kristen.

  “They say,” said Steele, thinking out loud, “that if you’re on the
plains and you have no tree for hanging a man, you can always drag-hang him.”

  Carlson’s frown turned from anger to puzzlement. “Could you spell that out clearer?”

  “Just wait here,” said Steele, heading back toward Kristen’s bedroom. “You’ll soon catch my drift.”

  Kristen lifted the chimney from the coal-oil lamp and lit the wick with a sulphur match.

  Light splashed the rose-patterned carpet and pushed shadows back into the corners of her room. She opened the top drawer of a sturdy pine dresser and tugged aside a neatly folded calico skirt. Then she removed a packet of letters tied with a bit of red silk ribbon—letters from Matthew Hanchon. Letters he used to leave, in their secret meeting place, on those awful days when he delivered supplies and she couldn’t manage to meet him.

  She knew Seth Carlson had just arrived. That’s why she had feigned sleepiness and slipped back to her room earlier than usual. Now, as she again read some of the letters, she could faintly hear her father and Carlson’s voices, like sounds carried on the wind.

  Her thoughts and feelings had been a confused riot ever since unexpectedly seeing Matthew earlier today. Before, when he’d lived his former life in Bighorn Falls, she had always known, of course, that Matthew was different. But seeing him this way—today—made that difference so stark and real.

  The way he was dressed, those awful scars, that new glint of hard mettle in his eyes—and the strange language he spoke with that other Cheyenne! All of it made her realize how impossible was this love she still felt. He couldn’t live in her world, nor she in his, any more than a hawk could nest with a falcon.

  And yet, despite his fearsome, savage aspect today, she couldn’t help thinking about how magnificent he had looked. Stronger, more confident, with that heightened sense of alertness which characterized frontier survivors.

  While her fancy coined these ideas, three quick taps on her door startled her.

  “Kristen?”