by John Legg
Melton greeted the returnees with a frown. “Where are Star Path and Hannah?” he asked, worry creasing his forehead. “And Tobias?”
“Tobias be dead, Colonel.”
“And the women?”
“Still with the Blackfeet,” Squire said as he and his two companions handed their horses over to camp hands.
Melton and Bellows led the men to the fire, where they gulped down chunks of half-raw elk, grease dripping.
“Did you find them?” Melton asked as they ate.
“Nay, Colonel. But we’ll be seein’ to it afore long.”
Melton glanced at Squire, then at Train. “I’m sorry, Abner,” he said quietly. “Truly, I am.” When Train continued eating, not answering, Melton turned back to Squire. “What happened, Nathaniel?”
Squire shrugged. “I found these lads,” he said with a mouthful of meat. “Tobias was killed and we didn’t find the women. So we come back.”
“How did Tobias die?”
“Blackfoot arrows.”
“That doesn’t tell me much, Nathaniel.” Melton said reproachfully.
“He got himself killed is all. Ye know goddamn well that e’er since that b’ar tore him up, he was crazy with his preachin’ and shit, what with havin’ his Bible in his hands e’ery goddamn minute of the day, and rantin’ on about savin’ all the savages. Well, he tried savin’ the Blackfeet. They put him under for his efforts.”
“Poor fellow.” No one else said anything. “What about the women?”
“Ne’er found ’em.”
“I can’t believe the Blackfeet just handed over their two prisoners without a fight. There must be more than you’re telling, Nathaniel.”
“We had us a touch of trouble, Colonel. Nothin’ we couldn’t handle.”
“He ain’t tellin’ true, Colonel,” Li’l Jim said. He glanced at Squire and saw the hard look in the mountain man’s eyes. But he went ahead anyway. “I don’t know how he found us or got into that camp. But he cut me ’n’ Abner loose. I couldn’t walk, so he carried me over his shoulder up the hill. Him ’n’ Abner killed four or five Blackfeet there.
“He went back to the camp a little later to get back his possibles. Tobias was supposed to stay with us, but he took off. Me ’n’ Abner saw Tobias get killed. Then we saw somethin’ real strange, right, Abner?”
The big young man still ignored everyone, his mind wrestling with the dilemma of his own making.
Li’l Jim shrugged and went on. “Tobias had scattered the horses earlier, and the Injuns had gone out after ’em. But they was mostly back by this time. So Nathaniel goes into the middle of that camp and yells somethin’ at ’em. Well the Injuns sat arguin’, pointin’ and all, like they was afraid to go after Nathaniel, even though he was all by himself and there was maybe ten or twelve Blackfeet. ”
Melton looked at Squire questioning. “What did you say?” he asked.
“I be L’on Farouche,” Bellows said so softly it almost was unheard.
“What?” Melton asked.
“What he said, I’d wager, is, ‘I be L’on Farouche,’ ” Bellows said. “Ain’t that right, Nathaniel?”
Squire grinned a little and said, “Aye.”
“What’n hell’s that mean?” Li’l Jim asked, scratching his head. “It be what the Injuns call Nathaniel, boy,” Bellows said. “What’s it stand for?”
“Wild man. Kind of like a savage.”
“He’s that all right,” Li’l Jim muttered. Then more loudly, “Then I reckon he challenged them Blackfeet, right? But are they that scared of him that they’d not attack when it was ten to one?”
“They would be if he was a ghost. Isn’t that right, Nathaniel?” Melton said, a smile growing.
“A ghost? What’n hell are you talkin’ about?” Li’l Jim asked. Bellows explained it to him, while the young man sat in wonder, eyes flickering from Bellows to Squire and back again. And when it was told, Li’l Jim breathed, “Goddamn!”
“Can you explain why you couldn’t find the women, Nathaniel?” Melton asked.
“The Blackfeet broke up into smaller parties. It be easier travelin’ that way, and they figured it’d be throwin’ anyone who might be followin’ off the trail.”
Melton nodded, then asked, “Was there any sign of William and Zeb?”
“Nay, Colonel. I reckon they stayed with Elk Horn’s band. I’d figured Elk Horn would be wantin’ to keep an eye on ’em. But I reckon I know where they can be found.”
“Wolf Creek?”
“Aye.”
“And Hannah and Star Path?”
“They’ll be there, too, I reckon. And I aim to be fetchin’ ’em back soon’s I take care of Strapp and Willis.”
Melton shook his head. “Damned thieving, murderous bastards,” he muttered, enraged.
“Don’t ye go worryin’ none about them, Colonel. They be dead men.”
“How do you know that?”
“I aim to be puttin’ ’em under,” Squire said simply. It was a fact, no more, no less. “I don’t take a shine to a body who aims to sell my scalp to the Blackfeet whilst I still be wearin’ it.”
“When will you go after them?”
“Soon’s I get ye and the others set for winter.”
“You’ll not get far in the snow, Nathaniel.”
“I been out in the snow afore, Colonel.”
“Is there any use in arguing against this, Nathaniel?” Melton asked, knowing the answer. “Any use in asking you to wait until spring?”
“Nay.”
“I didn’t expect so.” Melton sighed in resignation.
“I’m goin’, too,” Li’l Jim said suddenly.
“This be a job for me ’n’ Abner.” Squire said. “It ain’t your concern.”
“The hell it ain’t,” Li’l Jim snapped. “It wasn’t you them Blackfeet drug along like an old milk cow. It was me. Me ’n’ Abner. I got my own score to settle.”
“Ye be needed here, boy. The Colonel will be needin’ all the top hands along. After me ’n’ Homer, ye ’n’ Abner be the best we got.”
“That’s true, Li’l Jim,” Melton said, meaning it. “I would be most appreciative if you would stay and help lead us.”
“I’m goin’, and that’s all there is to it,” Li’l Jim said firmly. Squire studied the youth for a long moment. Like Train, Li’l Jim was a man you could put your trust in. While he might be rash sometimes, he was a dead shot, nervy, and did, indeed, have good reason to go. “Aye, lad, ye deserve to be comin’,” Squire said. “It be settled then.”
In the morning, the brigade pushed northwest, riding more than twenty hours. The next day and the day after that were more of the same, except that they curled southwest until they reached the spot Squire thought would be the best for them to winter in at this late date. He had originally intended to try to find LeGrande and winter with him up in Nez Perce country, but winter was too far along for that.
When the men made camp that night, well after dark, they were bone-weary and cold. But it looked a good spot, this shallow valley in the shadow of the Trois Tetons.
Squire stayed with the Colonel’s men for two more days, to make sure the men knew how to make warm winter lodges. He cautioned Melton and Bellows that they were on Shoshone land, but that Crows and Blackfeet might drift through, so they should always be on the alert.
During those two days, Squire watched the men set their traps in the small streams and ponds and saw them pull in lush pelts. The women and camp hands were kept busy fleshing and tanning hides. The women also were busy making tipis, more buckskin clothes, wool capotes and buckskin jackets, moccasins and more. Several were becoming downright rich by Indian standards.
The men had plenty of jerky and pemmican, and there were still elk, deer and some buffalo in the vicinity. Squire was satisfied that there would be plenty of wood for the fires and enough feed for the animals in the hollow between Gros Ventre River and the roaring Snake River.
On the third morning, Squ
ire, Train and Li’l Jim rode out, north along the Snake River. Each led an extra horse loaded with supplies. They turned northwest near Buffalo Fork Creek, and then north on the Lewis River. Miles later, they turned westward at a large lake and entered an eerie land of seething pools, erupting geysers, sputtering mud piles and boiling ponds. It was not too bad here, since the foaming, boiling waters kept the temperature up slightly. But it was a strange, twisted land nonetheless, and Train and Li’l Jim were mighty glad when they finally passed out of it after following the Madison River northward.
They continued mile after grueling mile, winding their way along the Madison until it turned into the wide, roaring Missouri. They stopped one day in the Three Forks area, at a camp of mountain men wintering there, and warmed themselves at the friendly fires. A meal of heated pemmican and hot coffee made them feel better, and they rode on the next morning in better spirits.
Several days later they passed a second winter camp of trappers, but they did not stop this time. They were at the far north end of Shoshone country, and the western edge of Crow land. Both tribes generally were friendly to the white trappers, and the mountain men often wintered near villages of those Indians. But they were also at the beginnings of Blackfoot country.
It was well into December, and the weather was fierce. Dark cloud banks bore down from the north, pelting them with snow and lashing them with arctic air, carried down on waves of howling, shrieking wind.
The three men snuggled down into their thick buffalo robes or capotes as they plodded along on gaunt horses. They silently cursed the snow that sifted under their collars and melted, leaving icy trails down their backs. Frost grew on their beards, and they swore at the cold that bit deeply at their fingers and faces and split their lips until blood seeped out and froze.
The glaring white landscape threatened to snow-blind them as they traveled across the frozen land. Their gums and jaws ached from chewing rock-hard jerky, and they were grateful one day when they were able to bring down an old, tough buffalo that had not followed the herd south. Twice they spotted deer mired in the snow, and once a moose. The animals made easy targets and yielded fresh, if stringy, meat for their pot. But often there was precious little fuel for their fires.
They wrapped their hands and gun locks in pieces of buffalo robe to keep them from freezing.
“How much farther we got to go, Nathaniel?” Li’l Jim asked when they had been out three weeks.
“It be a far piece yet, lad. But we’ll be makin’ it, boy. Don’t ye worry over that.”
Train was worried, though. He knew they would make it, since he had implicit faith in both Squire and himself. What he was worried about, however, was Hannah. Or, rather, how he would react to her. Everything Squire had said when they were at Big Tree’s camp was true, he knew. But that didn’t make the accepting of it any easier.
He felt violently ill every time he thought of what was happening to her in the clutches of Elk Horn. Vivid pictures of Hannah being ravished regularly by Elk Horn and half the other males in the Blackfoot camp flickered almost constantly in his mind, and with each his stomach would tighten and he’d feel it hard to breathe.
But his imagination conjured up even worse images for him. The worst were the ones in which Hannah was raped repeatedly, in front of the whole village, by Elk Horn or any other Blackfoot—and she enjoyed it! Each time one of those images intruded on the numbness he tried, usually unsuccessfully, to cultivate, his testes would shrivel up until they seemed to disappear. He slept little each night, awakening frequently, either because of the nightmares that were even more vivid than his daydreams, or from the cold.
Several times Train almost asked Squire for his advice, but he could not bring himself to do it. Squire was his idol, and he knew Squire would not go to others seeking help like this. So, as he tried to emulate the giant mountain man, he kept his mouth shut and worked the puzzle over and over in his mind, covering the same useless thoughts and fears, until he was ready to scream.
That he loved Hannah there was no doubt. No, the doubt was about himself. Was he man enough for Hannah? Was he more of a man than any of the Blackfeet that might have forced themselves on her? Was he man enough to accept what had happened to her and go on loving and accepting her?
There were no answers, he knew, until he confronted her. But instead of shutting out the problems and fears and worries, which were getting him nowhere, he let them wreak havoc on his mind.
Squire, for the most part, left Train alone, knowing what the young man was going through, and also knowing that he could be of little help. The three men did little talking anyway. It was hard enough to keep from going crazy as they fought through snow-choked passes or weathered a blizzard on a flat somewhere.
Li’l Jim killed an aged buck that had escaped the wolves, and the men fed greedily on the stringy meat, finishing it off in one long sitting. While the meat was cooking they had gathered cottonwood bark and pulled crinkly, brown grass from under the snow to feed the animals.
Rested, and with renewed spirits, the men pushed on through the snow. Two days later, while Li’l Jim rode with his eyes closed and his head bobbing, his horse suddenly shuddered and slumped down. Li’l Jim rolled with the horse and managed to stay clear of the animal’s bony body. The horse whinnied and struggled to rise.
Squire and Train spun around in time to see Li’l Jim push himself up off the ground and brush the snow away. “God- dammit!” he screamed with all his lungs, the sound foreign in the still, brittle-cold air. The drawn-out word hung there for some moments before fading away into the mountain fastness.
“Feel better, boy?” Squire asked, almost cracking a smile.
“No,” Li’l Jim snorted.
“Best be cuttin’ his throat, lad,” Squire said. “We can’t do nothin’ for him, and there be no reason for him to be sufferin’.”
Li’l Jim nodded and sadly pulled his butcher knife. He steeled himself and then quickly drew the sharp blade across the horse’s neck. Blood spurted from the gash. The horse quivered, and then was still.
“Abner,” Squire said as he slid off Noir Astre, “help me butcher that horse whilst Li’l Jim gets his saddle and possibles.”
The two men set about the task while Li’l Jim transferred his belongings to one of the extra horses after shifting the dwindling supplies. Then he saddled that horse.
Even as they pulled away from the carcass, a pack of large, gaunt gray wolves, snarling viciously, pounced on the remains. One of the wolves stopped to howl. The sound sent a chill through all three men. In winter, death was never far away.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
HANNAH had been riding the Blackfoot pony for more days than she could remember. Every bone in her body ached when the Indians stopped for the day. As the Blackfeet dismounted and chattered to each other, she sensed a certain excitement among them and figured they were near their final destination. It was something she both feared and welcomed.
Despite all the days in the saddle and the abuse that had been heaped on her, she was not ready to give up. Her pale green eyes burned with anger and determination.
It was hard to keep track of the days, but she figured it was at least three weeks since she had been tricked by Strapp and Willis, captured and brought into the Blackfoot camp.
While the brigade had been making camp, Strapp quietly asked her to help him, saying his horse was tangled in some brush and he could not free the animal alone. Her mind was preoccupied with Train’s having been captured, and so without question, she followed him into the woods.
They were just out of sight and earshot of the camp when Willis stepped from behind a tree, grabbed her arm and spun her around. She kicked and clawed, and then bit Willis on the wrist. She thought of Train being trapped in that Blackfoot camp and fought all the harder to free herself. But she was no match for the burly man.
While Strapp flattened himself against a tree, hand pressed to his breast, worried that someone might come along, Willis
threw Hannah down flat on her back. He fell on her, pinning her arms with his knees.
“Y’all best quit while y’all can, girl,” he said in his slow drawl.
Hannah’s eyes widened in fear. How did Willis know?
“Ah know all about yo’ little secret,” Willis hissed, a cruel twist to his smile. “And Ah been waitin’ a long time fo’ this.” He mashed his lips down on hers.
“Zeb,” Strapp protested, peering about uneasily. “Zeb. Think of Elk Horn. And our plan. ”
“The hell with yo’ plan,” Willis snarled, clamping his hand over Hannah’s mouth. He reached his other hand back and fumbled between her legs. With fear stark in her eyes, she clamped her legs shut, not letting him even wiggle his fingers. Angrily he yanked his hand free.
“Elk Horn won’t be pleased if he hears of this,” Strapp insisted. “To hell with Elk Horn, too. He ain’t nothin’ but a dumb savage. Y’all should know that.”
“He may be that. But we are in his clutches. He could have us killed in a minute.”
“He ain’t shit.”
“You would ruin all our plans—plans made months ago—for a quick tumble in the grass with this”—Strapp paused and wrinkled his nose in distaste—“creature?”
It was not that he did not like females. He did, indeed. However, his tastes ran to more refined women than this ragged little waif who dressed and acted like a man.
“Y’all got yo’ plans, William, and Ah got mine.”
“Well, I’m not going to stay here and watch,” Strapp said with disgust. “If you can’t control your, ahem, lust, then go ahead and relieve yourself in her. But be quick, as I will be back in Elk Horn’s camp in a few minutes, and will tell him what you’re up to.”
Anger colored Willis’s face. “Ah can wait some mo’.” He laughed harshly, but it had a hollow ring. “Now y’all be quiet, girl. First noise y’all make just might be yo’ last.”
Willis stood, pulling Hannah up. He tied her hands together, an evil curl to his lips. He threw Hannah, belly down, across a horse, and the three rode away.
Hannah fought the fear that welled up from her belly and into her chest as she tried to figure out what was going on. And why? If he wanted to rape her, why not get it over with? And who was this Elk Horn?