Wind River

by Charles G. West

  The weeks that followed were busy ones for Little Wolf. Each day was spent hunting the elk and deer that could still be found in the valleys and high meadows. Sometimes he went with a larger hunting party of eight or ten men, which was most of the men in the little winter village. Other days he went out alone, or with one other, usually Sleeps Standing. These were the hunts he enjoyed most. He had become quite skillful in stalking his prey. The long hours spent at Spotted Pony’s side had not been wasted on Little Wolf. When he hunted alone, he disciplined himself to be patient, taking hours sometimes to steal up to his prey so that one shot from his sinew-backed ashwood bow was all that was needed to ensure a kill. Sometimes, when it was not mandatory that he return to the village with some form of food, he played a game of stalking. The object was to get close enough to his prey, usually an antelope or small deer, to kill it with his knife. He had never accomplished it but the more he practiced the game, and the more he perfected his patience, the closer he came. His dedication to the perfection of this skill stood him in good stead with the older men of the village and he was always a welcome member of any hunting party. He, in turn, was very proud of his reputation as a tracker and was recognized as second only in this skill to his friend Black Feather in the entire tribe. Spotted Pony often pointed out that Little Wolf was a good bit taller than Black Feather which actually presented a disadvantage to his son. He maintained that if Little Wolf was as small as Black Feather he might be an even better tracker than his friend. For his part, Little Wolf genuinely liked Black Feather and felt no sense of competition with him. In fact, he was glad to have the opportunity to learn from his friend whenever possible. This, and the fact that he missed his friendship, were the prime reasons he decided one chilly morning to visit his friend.

  * * *

  A light dusting of snow had settled over the village during the night, leaving a thin, pale blanket on the ground. Little Wolf knew it would all be gone by midday and the weather would be quite comfortable for his journey. Spotted Pony had studied the sky the night before and predicted the snowfall but assured Little Wolf that the sky would be clear in the morning. Spotted Pony was seldom wrong about the weather so Little Wolf was not surprised at all when the sun rose the next day to reveal a cloudless sky.

  The air was crisp and cold when he walked to the edge of camp to relieve himself and, just for a second, he wished that Indians wore long underwear like he remembered wearing as a child in St. Louis. He had adjusted to Indian winters but he still felt the chill in the mornings. The men in his tribe never wore shirts except in special ceremonies, preferring to remain bare from the waist up. Warmth was provided by heavy robes of buffalo hides, the fur turned inward. They wore leggings of buffalo or deer hides up to the groin, covered by a breechcloth.

  He said good-bye to Spotted Pony and Buffalo Woman and climbed up on the little pinto his father had given him. Making sure his hide parfleche of food was secure, he arranged his bearskin robe around him and nudged the pinto across the tiny stream and down toward the river. His only essentials for his trip, in addition to the small packet of jerky, were his bow, ten arrows, his knife, his war club and a fire drill. This was all he would need, no matter how long his journey might prove to be.

  Spotted Pony and Buffalo Woman stood and watched until he could no longer be seen through the pines. Buffalo Woman sensed a feeling of foreboding as she watched her son leave. For some reason, she wished that he had not gone, but she would never ask him to cancel his visit. If her son felt he should go to visit the village of Red Shirt, then it was for him to decide. She said nothing of her concern to her husband. He would mock her for acting like an old prairie hen over her young. In these times she could not be certain they would ever see Little Wolf again. Sometimes she could feel impending danger hanging over her people like a great invisible mist and she didn’t feel secure when those closest to her were away.

  Little Wolf guided the pinto up through the mountains, through tall green trees and grassy meadows strewn with small boulders and scattered deadwood left in the path of countless storms. He would intercept the winding river on the other side of the mountain range and follow it until he found Red Shirt’s camp. The climb was hard on the pinto so Little Wolf walked most of the way. He could have elected to follow the river from his village, around the mountains, until it intersected the river Red Shirt was camped on. But that would have taken longer. Also, in the high country, he was not as likely to be spotted by an army patrol, should one happen by, or a raiding party of Shoshones out to steal horses. He knew Red Shirt would be camped somewhere on the river, but how far he could only guess. But he was confident that he would find his friend, Black Feather.

  After climbing for most of the morning, he finally crested a small ridge and started down the far side. Halfway through a stand of aspen, he detected a movement out of the corner of his eye. Immediately alert, he froze, scanning the brush below and to his side. For a moment there was nothing and then he saw it again. It was a deer, a large doe. She had evidently sighted Little Wolf at the same moment the boy had seen her. For a long moment the boy and the deer stood transfixed, staring at each other. Then the animal bounded off into the brush. Little Wolf smiled and, at the same time, reprimanded himself for carelessly stumbling down the mountainside, his senses numb. “Good thing it was a deer and not a Crow scalping party,” he muttered. “Too bad I wasn’t close enough to get a shot at it. It would have been nice to ride into Red Shirt’s camp with a fat doe across my saddle.”

  Nightfall found him at the river. He hobbled his horse and made a camp under a large pine within sight of the river but far enough up the ridge to be hidden from anyone traveling the water. He judged his cover adequate to allow a small campfire so he bundled up in his bearskin, close to the fire, and was soon asleep. The night passed without incident and he continued his journey downriver the next morning.

  Another day’s journey carried him far down the river with still no sign of his friend’s village. In some places the terrain was too rugged to continue along the bank and he would detour for long distances before working his way back to the river again. After another night camp and another day’s journey, he began to have some doubts. Maybe he was following the wrong river. True, he had not known for sure how far Red Shirt’s camp was from his own. But he had expected it to be no more than two or three days’ journey. He had no fear of being lost. He was more concerned with the embarrassment it would cause him if he had taken the wrong fork and couldn’t find the camp. Black Feather would never let him live it down if such was the case. Still, he had to believe he was on the right path so he decided to continue until he found the camp or until the river ran out, even if it was a hundred miles. As it turned out, he was closer than he thought.

  Warm and comfortable in his bearskin, Little Wolf urged the little pinto along. It was another chilly morning and the horse seemed reluctant to get started. Little Wolf suspected the animal had not been ridden enough lately and was starting to protest the daily journeys. As the pinto struggled up a steep creek bank, Little Wolf noticed the horse’s ears flicking as if he heard something. Thinking that it could possibly be other horses the pinto heard, which would mean the village might be close, Little Wolf pulled the horse to a stop, pushed the bearskin back from his ears and listened. At first he heard nothing but the sound of the water rippling over the stones in the creek bed. Then, faintly, he made out a distant cracking sound. He strained to listen. There was no mistaking it. It was gunfire. That could mean only one thing, he thought. Black Feather’s village was under attack! It could be soldiers or a war party from some raiding tribe, but it had to be Black Feather’s village.

  He kicked the pinto into a gallop and followed the sound of the gunfire down the river, stopping every few minutes to listen to make sure he was going in the right direction. After a short while, it was no longer necessary to stop to hear the sound of the rifles. It was getting louder and louder and, from the sound of it, it had to be an all-out attack b
y soldiers. There was too much gunfire to be anything else. Red Shirt probably had no more than one or two old muzzle loaders in his whole camp. The shooting was almost without pause and so loud now that the pinto began to balk when he urged him forward. Little Wolf had to rein him hard and kick him repeatedly to keep him from stopping.

  Now he could see smoke rising above the trees, not the wisps of breakfast fires, but the smoke that dozens of burning tipis might make. His heart was racing with the apprehension of what was probably happening in Red Shirt’s village. He thought at once of Black Feather. His friend had been so eager to fight. He wondered if he was already dead. He hoped that Black Feather had escaped and not tried to fight the army’s rifles with his bow and lance.

  When he judged the smoke to be about a mile away, he began to scan the ground before him more carefully. He didn’t want to ride headlong right into an army scout. He slowed the pinto to a trot as he looked left and right. The shooting had almost subsided by the time he estimated he was less than a quarter mile away from the smoke. Only an occasional crack of a rifle could be heard now. Mopping up, he thought, and the mental image of such an operation caused the anger to rise in his throat. Not wishing to chance detection by the soldiers, he tied the pinto in a stand of aspen and made his way down through the trees on foot, his bow in hand, his stone war club in his belt.

  Long before he reached the edge of the forest, he could see the carnage still underway. It was a terrible scene and one that would live in his memory for as long as he lived. At first it did not seem real. He had been correct in his initial assumption. It was the army—blue-coated troopers were everywhere, galloping back and forth through the burning village, wheeling to fire at a wounded brave, charging to cut off the escape of a fleeing woman. Little Wolf was paralyzed by the horrifying spectacle. There were bodies everywhere, brown lifeless lumps that were once his friends. For a moment, he stood transfixed by the carnage, his eyes unable to blink, his nostrils filled with the peculiar stench of death. Then he regained his senses enough to think about his own welfare. Making his way carefully to the edge of the clearing, he dropped down behind a fallen tree to survey the scene. He felt helpless at this point. There was little he could do to help his fallen friends, yet still he felt the need to do something. He decided to skirt the clearing to see if he might find some survivors who had managed to escape into the forest.

  Alternately running and crawling, he managed to make his way around to the other side of the village to an outcropping of boulders. He paused for a moment to listen. He was about to move again when he caught a movement beyond the rocks, just ahead of him. He held his breath, fearing that he might be heard. Then he recognized the low whispering from the other side of the boulder as Cheyenne. Still he did not expose himself until he could see them. As he watched, a figure crept slowly from the far side of the rocks, looking in all directions before crawling toward a thicket of laurel. It was Black Feather! Little Wolf could scarcely believe his eyes. It was a miracle! He was so delighted to see his friend that he almost called out to him. He stood up. Black Feather was still unaware of his presence. He looked back toward the rocks and motioned. A girl quickly made her way up beside him. Little Wolf recognized her as Morning Sky, Black Feather’s sister.

  Little Wolf raised his arm and was about to signal his friend when, suddenly, a figure rose in front of him, directly between him and his two Cheyenne friends. His whole nervous system suddenly went numb. The man had been kneeling between two small boulders no more than ten feet in front of him. Little Wolf realized that Black Feather did not see the man. He also realized that the man, an army scout by the look of his buckskin shirt and blue army-issue trousers, was not aware of Little Wolf’s presence. As he watched, the scout slowly raised his carbine and drew down on the unsuspecting boy and girl. There was no time for thought. Little Wolf, without consciously thinking about what he was about to do, pulled his stone club from his belt and brought it down across the back of the man’s skull with all the strength he could put into it.

  The club made a dull sound on the man’s head, like hitting a hollow log, and the man crumpled in a heap. He uttered no cry but his finger closed on the trigger as he fell, causing the rifle to discharge, sending a bullet whistling harmlessly through the trees. The explosion of the rifle so close to him caused Black Feather to whirl around to face his attacker. Knife drawn, he stood ready to defend himself. His face, at first twisted with rage, relaxed into a mask of disbelief as he looked into the face of his closest friend.

  “Little Wolf!” he exclaimed. Then he saw the fallen army scout on the ground between them and understood at once what had happened. Suddenly his broad face broke into a wide grin. “I knew you would come.” He reached out to clasp his friend’s extended arm. Immediately his mind leaped back to the danger at hand. “Come, we must leave this place!”

  Little Wolf looked down at the man he had just clubbed. The blow had been fatal. The pointed edge of the war club had crushed a portion of the man’s skull and it was obvious that he was no longer a threat to them. That he was probably dying seemed certain but he was still breathing at that moment. Little Wolf hesitated. The man was an Indian, probably a Pawnee, though he wore the blue uniform trousers of the army. Black Feather, seeing his friend’s apparent confusion as to what to do about the dying man, casually reached down and calmly cut the man’s throat.

  “Take the rifle,” Black Feather whispered and motioned for him to follow.

  Little Wolf might have gone away without the weapon had it not been for Black Feather’s presence of mind. Little Wolf quickly loosened a bandolier of ammunition from around the man’s chest, picked up the rifle and ran into the trees after his two friends. Behind him, the sounds of the troopers mopping up went on but he seemed not to hear them. A new sensation had taken hold of him now as he realized that he had killed a man. The thought numbed his brain, as did the picture of the gaping hole in the man’s throat where Black Feather sliced it open. The whole episode made him feel a bit queasy. He hoped Black Feather and his sister wouldn’t notice.

  High up into the tall pines they ran, stopping only when they could no longer hear any of the chaos behind them. Finally satisfied that they had escaped, Black Feather dropped to the ground and gasped for breath. His two companions dropped beside him.

  “I knew you would come,” Black Feather repeated. “I dreamed it two nights ago.” Little Wolf did not reply as he strained to catch his breath. “In my dream, a deer was being devoured by a black bear. Suddenly a great grizzly appeared and the black bear vomited the deer up and fled before the grizzly. The deer got to his feet and ran away. I knew the grizzly was you. Now I know what you were trying to tell me.”

  “What happened? Why did the soldiers come?” Little Wolf asked.

  “We didn’t even know they were close until they rode across the river as the sun came up. Many of the women had not even started their cook fires. They gave no warning, rode into the village shooting and killing—women, children, everyone. Some tried to fight them but our arrows were no good against their guns. Red Shirt is dead. I saw the bullets when they tore into his flesh. He did not have time to shoot more than one or two arrows before they killed him. I knew I could do nothing against them. I shot at two of the soldiers when they rode through the council tipi. I may have hit one of them, I’m not sure. I had to think of Morning Sky, had to take her to safety. There was nothing I could do.”

  “You did the right thing,” Little Wolf quickly responded. “It is one thing to die in battle, but it is foolish to sacrifice your life against impossible odds.” He turned to look at Morning Sky, a shy girl of barely twelve or thirteen. “You were right. You had a responsibility to save your sister.”

  “There will be other times,” Black Feather said, defiantly. “The white soldiers will pay for this.”

  “Come, you and Morning Sky must come with me to Spotted Pony’s village. We’ll be safe there.”

  Black Feather agreed but first he wante
d to remain where they were until they were sure the soldiers had gone. Then they could go back to the village to search for survivors of the cowardly attack. Little Wolf agreed but, from what he had witnessed of the massacre, he doubted there were any left alive. Another troublesome thought entered his mind. If the army attacked Red Shirt’s camp, how many other camps were in danger of the same fate? He must return to Spotted Pony’s camp as soon as possible to warn his own people to be prepared.

  As Little Wolf expected, there were no survivors to be found when they made their way back down the hillside later that afternoon. The village was in ruins. Nothing remained but charred tipi poles and smoldering lumps that were once the bodies of humans and ponies. It was not a pretty sight. Black Feather’s face was stern, frozen with grief. Morning Sky cried and moaned in her agony for her family and friends. Little Wolf saw at once there was nothing they could do there and he felt the urgency to return to his village.

  They found Red Shirt’s body next to the burned out ashes of the council tipi. He had been riddled with bullet holes. His blood, already congealed, formed a dark pool around his body. His face, contorted into a mask of rage, was frozen to register his anger forever for the cowardly attack on his people.

  Black Feather and Morning Sky moaned in their grief at the sight of their father. Little Wolf could feel their sorrow. Red Shirt had been such a strong image of leadership in the tribe. He had always seemed so powerful and, seeing his lifeless body before him now, Little Wolf was shocked to see how small and frail the mighty chief looked in death. He was to learn that all men shrank when death overtook them. Although impatient to leave there and warn Spotted Pony, he could not deny Black Feather’s request to help him prepare his father for his journey to the great beyond. They could not wrap him in his ceremonial shirt but Black Feather was able to arm him with a bow and lance and they used some of the lodge poles to construct a burial platform for him. When it was done, they went to the place Little Wolf had tied his horse only to find the animal gone. So they set out for Spotted Pony’s camp on foot.