by John Legg
Closer and closer the screaming horde came, and a few arrows thudded into packs or saddles. Horses snorted in fear, and mules tried to kick away, braying shrilly.
“Now, lads!” Squire finally bellowed.
A number of gunshots boomed out. Another Arikara tumbled from his horse, and two more jerked as if they had been hit. Over the din, Squire heard Bellows, Ransom and their helpers fighting to keep the squealing horses and braying mules in line.
The Indians were almost on them. A second volley roared out as the men hid behind walls of horseflesh. Squire fired with them, and another Arikara was smashed down. Two more fell under the hail of lead balls.
Star Path moved up next to Squire, holding a trade rifle. He grabbed it, and handed her the Hawken and his shooting pouch. With deft fingers, she reloaded for him.
Squire took a quick glance around. Two of the eight squaws were cowering behind their men. The others were helping however they could. Silver Necklace and two others aided the men trying to keep the snorting, whinnying, braying mass of horses and mules in line.
The Arikaras slammed into the horseflesh barricade with numbing force. The shock of it battered the men around, and two nearly slipped under the hooves of the milling animals. But the wall stood firm.
“Mount up!” Squire bellowed as he leaped on Noir Astre's back. Bellows and Ransom fought their way to Squire’s side. Each grabbed the reins of a pair of horses, one behind the other. With a nod, Squire slashed the ropes that held the two pairs together, and he and his men poured out of the opening.
Bellows and Ransom pushed the knotted herd forward, battling to keep it from bolting under the arrows and lances of the howling Indians.
As Squire bulled into the melee, using his powerful horse as a battering ram, he heard Bellows’s deep voice roaring curses. “Get away from my horses, ya goddamned bloody savage sons a bitches. Bastards. Damned Injins, you ain’t gonna get my animals. Shit! Get out of the way, damn your flea-infested asses.”
Squire jammed his rifle into the scabbard, letting Star Path take care of the spare. Despite her bulk, the Sioux woman swept easily onto her pony’s back. Slapping the horse’s rump with the rifle barrel, she wedged her away around until she could help Bellows and Ransom.
Squire yanked out his tomahawk. It was nearly two feet long and had a heavy steel head with a razor edge. With his massive arm and long reach, he cut through the enemy like a scythe.
He saw two camp hands and a trapper go down. The cacophony pounded at his ears. Star Path calmly loaded and fired her rifle. The other Sioux women reloaded rifles and pistols and sometimes helped to control the animals. One had pulled out a small bow and was firing arrows.
Squire saw Carpenter club down a young warrior with her rifle and Train wrestling with another Arikara, both men still on horseback, gripping each other’s arms as they twisted and struggled. Suddenly Hannah buried her tomahawk in the warrior’s back.
As Train flung the critically wounded warrior off the pony, Squire saw Whitaker, who stood with Bible in hand exhorting the attacking Indians, his thin, reedy voice heard only in snatches through all the noise. The Rees avoided this strange man sitting astride his horse in the twisting cloud of dust.
The trappers and Arikaras broke into small knots of whirling violence. But the outnumbered Indians were fighting for their lives now.
“Homer!” Squire bellowed. “Get them animals out of here. Go on, move ’em out!”
Bellows and his helpers kicked, shoved and pushed the wild, bloodied animals forward, hampered by the ropes that joined the snorting, braying mass of horses and mules.
Squire took a hasty survey. He noticed Strapp sneaking away and hiding behind the herd. He saw two Arikara warriors club Li’l Jim down and jump off their horses to finish him with their war clubs. Then he saw Li’l Jim’s partner—the small, wiry Benji—racing over.
Benji leaped off his horse and onto the back of one of the Indians. The warrior reached behind his buffalo-horn headdress, grabbed Benji and threw him off. Dazed, Benji struggled to get up.
With a hurried word from Squire, Noir Astre rammed forward to Li’l Jim, Benji and the two Indians. Before the horse had fully stopped, Squire was on his feet on the ground. Two huge hands reached out and grabbed the Arikaras around their necks. Lifting them like so many sacks of flour, one in each hand, Squire slammed them together. Their faces burst in a shower of blood with a sickening, cracking sound.
Squire dropped the limp bodies and looked to Li’l Jim. The young man was groggy, and he had a long gash down his left arm. Squire lifted him and vaulted back into his saddle. He looked around for Benji, but the youth had remounted and was racing off to another battle within the battle.
Within moments, Li’l Jim recovered his senses and jumped from Noir Astre onto his own horse. Squire spotted a warrior, war club in hand, springing toward Melton, who was struggling to reload his pistol.
“C’mon, hoy,” he whispered to his horse. Noir Astre leaped. In a few bounds, Squire was looming over the unsuspecting warrior. He swung the tomahawk and split the Indian’s skull, splattering blood and brains over everything within a two-foot radius.
The Arikaras began scooping up their dead and wounded, and then they raced northward, toward the safety of home.
Quiet came slowly, and the dust began to settle. Bellows and Ransom brought the herd of blowing horses and mules to a halt half a mile away, and soon everyone began to rally near the milling animals.
“All right, boys, be checkin’ your partner. Make certain he be all right. Then see to your possibles and such.” He turned to Melton. “Ye know how many was hurt, Colonel?”
“We have three dead, that I know of,” Melton answered, his breathing coming hard. “Two were camp hands—DeClaire and Jackson. The other ...” Melton paused.
“Tell it, Colonel.”
“The other was ...”
“Tobias?”
“No, it . . .”
“Hey, Nathaniel,” Li’l Jim called out. “I can’t find Benji. You seen him?”
Squire looked sharply at Melton, who nodded sadly.
Li’l Jim trotted up to Squire’s side, and the mountain man was blunt. “He be dead, lad.”
Li’l Jim’s eyes widened with disbelief. He stared at Squire, then at Melton, then back to Squire. “It can’t be, Nathaniel. It can’t. I was right there with him most of the time. He saved me. Damn, you’re lyin’.”
“I be sorry, lad,” Squire said softly, putting a huge hand on the youth’s shoulder. “I know how ye feel about him. O1’ Benji were a good lad,” he added, honoring the youth with the sobriquet ‘old.’ “Hard workin’, quiet, always there when ye’d be needin’ help, never causin’ no one no harm.
“But he be gone now, lad, and there ain’t no changin’ that. Mayhap it’d be best if’n ye was to go see to him now.” Perhaps he was being harsh to his young friend, but right now he did not care. He had nearly three dozen people with him, of whom perhaps six had been in a battle before this. There were many youths scared and near to sick. They had to be thought of, and a camp had to be made, and horses and mules tended. Besides, Li’l Jim would have to learn to live with the death of his friend. It happened all too frequently out here. And if Li’l Jim could not adjust to that, well . . .
Li’l Jim nodded absently and shuffled off, feeling the hot sting of tears burning his face. The painful arm wound was forgotten in grief.
“We lose any horses?” Squire had to be practical under the circumstances.
“Nary a one,” Bellows said proudly as he walked up. “Several took arrows, but they ain’t bad. And a few of them goddamned horses worked themselves loose, but we got ’em back. Even got us two ’Rikara horses to boot.”
“How about ye, Homer? Ye come through all right?”
“Yep. Took me an arrow, too. In my leg there,” he said, pointing to his calf. “Hardly even stuck in. Won’t cause no harm. Sure won’t.”
A few of the others were scratched, and
one man was seriously wounded from a rifle ball that had pierced his chest between his ribs.
“Let’s move out, boys,” Squire ordered. “We’ll be stayin’ the night not far from here. There’ll be plenty of fresh water and wood and good grass for the horses. We’ll be mendin’ and restin’ soon. ” A little more than an hour later they filed into a sheltered flat along a poor-running creek. They made their camp and cooked their food and ate it before burying the dead.
The lung-wounded man had died and was buried near the bank of the stream with the two camp hands.
The burial of Benji was sad for all of them. He had been a friend to many, and all the men grieved for the quiet, soft-spoken, hardworking youth. Li’l Jim did not want to let his partner go. He refused to throw the first handful of dirt on the blanket-wrapped body.
“Do it, lad,” Squire insisted. “Time passin’ ain’t gonna make it no easier. ”
“I can’t, Nathaniel. He was my partner, my friend.”
“Aye, lad, that he was. And a shinin’ one, too. But he’s gone under, and ye ought to help put him to rest. It’s the way of things out here. Ye can’t be changin’ that.”
“Hell of a lot you know,” Li’l Jim said, his lower lip quivering. The threatening tears made him all the more angry. “He weren’t your friend. Don’t ya know what it’s like to lose a friend, dammit?” Squire’s blue eyes grew sad. “Don’t go speakin’ like that, lad. I know just how you feel. Aye. But ye got to go on livin’.”
“That ain’t so easy to do, Nathaniel.” The youth swiped at his tears. “Damn fool to be actin’ so.”
“There ain’t nothin’ for ye to be shamed of. Ye get it all out of ye now, it won’t go on plaguin’ ye.”
Li’l Jim let the tears flow then, and finally tossed some dirt on Benji’s blanketed body. Colonel Melton said a quiet, simple prayer, since he did not want to give Whitaker a forum for his preaching.
The next morning they set out early and moved fast. It was a chilly, overcast day. Winter loomed, and they still had many miles to go.
Chapter Thirty
THEY rode nearly eighteen hours a day, pushing themselves to the limit. They followed the North Platte more closely as it wound northwest, the land rising steadily, if imperceptibly.
The nights had grown colder and snow squalls were coming more frequently. They had lost two more animals, and a third was getting increasingly lame. But the men could not delay.
By noon the day after the battle with the Arikaras, they had passed the bulky sandstone Courthouse Rock on the south side of the river. Soon after, they spotted the long clay-and-sandstone needle of Chimney Rock, and they had passed it by mid-afternoon.
Finally they halted, facing a wall of white bluffs, sparsely dotted with stunted cedars. They had water from the wide Platte, but the shifting quicksand beds made bucketing it up an adventure. There was no game and little wood for a fire, though they found some driftwood.
The following day they passed the massive white cliffs that would one day be called Scotts Bluffs. Several hours later they entered a land where cottonwoods covered the rich bottomlands. Squire called a halt for the day. Another storm was threatening.
They had killed half a dozen buffalo during another difficult ride through a massive herd. Some of the Sioux women set to cleaning and fleshing the hides, while others readied their men’s lodges. Star Path had started making a tipi for her and Squire, and she hurried to try to get it finished, using the hides he had taken before she joined him. Silver Necklace—with Star Path’s help— was doing the same for her and Bellows. Within two more days, both couples were living comfortably.
The rest of the men, including Melton, had to make do with tents. Melton did spend one night inside Squire’s lodge, just after it was raised the first time, using poor, crooked cottonwood limbs rather than good lodgepoles. But when the giant mountain man had openly made love to Star Path, Melton was terribly embarrassed. After that he turned down Squire’s offer to stay there, instead reclaiming his tent.
One night, shortly after his lodge was set up for the first time, Squire, against his better judgment, let Train and Hannah use his tipi for a few dark hours. From then on he would allow them to use the lodge once in a while, making sure they separated to sleep after a few hours. He knew it was dangerous, and quite possibly foolish. But he figured the alternative was worse.
It was unfair, and probably impossible, he reasoned, to keep the two apart forever. If he did not provide at least a reasonably safe haven for an occasional interlude, they most likely would take it upon themselves to slip behind a bush for a quick tryst. That would almost certainly lead to their being discovered by someone.
No one seemed to notice. Most of the men were too preoccupied with getting warmer, more comfortable—and untattered—clothing, as well as shelter when they could. Most of them wore buckskins now, which had been made for them by the Sioux squaws for payments they negotiated. A few of the men, unwilling or unable to pay, had made their own, with much difficulty and cursing.
Even Squire finally retired his shabby calico shirt in favor of a heavy war shirt that he had kept packed away in a parfleche during the trip. It was made of tanned buffalo hide, from which all the hair had been carefully removed. It had once been a cream color, but now it was dark with grease and wood smoke. It hung to his knees, and the bottom fringes made it even longer. It was gathered at the waist by his thick, wide belt of bull hide, which was decorated with designs in brass tacks. The front of the shirt was festooned with sun designs of beads, shells, wing bones and porcupine quills. Half a dozen scalps dangled from it, two on the front and two at each shoulder hanging down the sleeves.
Star Path had made the shirt for him years ago, and he treated it as best he could. He was proud of it, as was she. The garment was warm, and he had made his medicine for it when she had first made it. It had served him well through hard times, and he expected it to do so now.
After a few days of making meat, the brigade entered a long series of narrows between the high cliffs of rock, the chalky walls pushing the men close to—and sometimes into—the river. Late in the afternoon they made their way out into the open again, onto a wide, level plain where there were great herds of buffalo, and where other game abounded.
The weather seemed to grow a little colder each day as the land rose. Their path often took them through narrow defiles, but their camps generally were good, with large groves of cottonwoods, ashes, white oaks and fragrant-burning cedars. But still there were nights when they had to rely on driftwood for their cook fires and dried meat for food. And once in a while, they were forced to make a cold camp.
Heavy, wet snow fell twice, slowing them, but they pushed ahead as fast as possible, slogging though low drifts. It was into November, and they found ice in their water buckets every morning.
The men became exhausted, and tempers wore thin. During a two-day period they spent making meat, Squire had to break up three fights, two of them over squaws. Melton said nothing about it, but Squire could see the accusation in his eyes. However, Squire’s temper was also a bit short, and he really didn’t give a damn.
Squire did not slow the pace. The men grumbled, but there was little they could do but push on. To desert now, not knowing where they were, entering Shoshone and Arapaho country, would be suicide. Most of the men had frightened looks in their eyes, with winter edging in on them and Squire pushing them so hard.
They finally reached the gray mass of Independence Rock, about a hundred yards off the Sweetwater River. Squire was feeling a little better now that they had passed from the North Platte onto the Sweetwater. It showed good progress.
The men made camp on the east side of the huge edifice, and while doing so, most of them slipped away one or two at a time to climb the rock so they could see the lay of the land for miles in all directions. Some even carved their names in the granite face of the rock.
Before dawn the next morning, a blizzard roared down out of the mountains. The men
were partially protected by Independence Rock, but they had to sit out that day and the next, until the storm blew itself out. They used the time to replace horseshoes and catch up on the hundred or so other chores that had been neglected of late.
“What’s next?” Melton asked, exasperated, as he slumped wearily by a small fire their second night there.
“Devil’s Gate, Colonel. Long narrows through high rock. It be some treacherous, but nothin’ we can’t handle, if’n we get some help from the goddamn weather. After that, it be only two, mayhap three days’ ride till we be cuttin’ off from the Sweetwater.”
The weather did cooperate for once, and they made it easily through Devil’s Gate, the men silent as they rode past through the gloomy cleft, silent beneath the towering red rock walls.
Slightly warmer temperatures melted much of the snow as they moved westward, almost to South Pass. They wheeled north, following Beaver Creek, which flowed into the Wind River and the Bighorn River. Two days of riding along Beaver Creek brought them to that junction, and they swung northwestward, following the south bank of the Wind River up toward the Absarokas.
They were in the Shining Mountains now, at long last, and the men rode in subdued, awed silence, their mortality looming before them in the stark, majestic peaks.
Even Squire seemed to grow more uneasy as they traveled. Thinking it unusual for the giant mountain man, Melton finally spoke to him about it as the two stood in the dark, watching the dawn creep up on them. “You appear troubled, Nathaniel. Is something wrong?”
“I been seein’ a heap of Injin sign. Most of it fairly fresh— less’n a day old.”
“What kind?”
“Blackfoot. This be Crow land mostly, though the Snakes and the ’Rapahos got some diff’rent notions on that. Blackfoot roam where’er they damn well please, but it ain’t like ’em to be round here this time of year. That be worrisome.”
“Are they close?”