Wilderness Giant Edition 5

by David Robbins

  As a result, Zach spent most of his time hunting in the company of another boy named Zeb Gil-crest. Zeb’s pa was from New England, his ma a Flathead. The pair had hit it off the first time they met back on the trail, and when not with their families, they could be found roving the nearby woods in search of deer or squirrels or rabbits.

  Five days after the dedication of Fort Ashworth, and one day before the mountaineers were to branch out into the adjacent waterways and commence trapping, Zach and his friend happened to be hunting south of the stockade. They had gone farther than ever, over a mile, and young Gilcrest kept glancing back and frowning.

  “Don’t you think we’ve gone far enough, Zach?” Zeb asked. “Remember what your pa told us.”

  “He’ll understand,” Zach said, riveted to a set of fresh elk tracks they had been following. A big old bull was heading south toward the Salmon River. It could provide hundreds of pounds of meat, enough to feed whole families for weeks. He wasn’t about to let it get away if he could help it. “Another mile won’t make a difference.”

  “I don’t know,” Zeb said anxiously. “Your pa was clear as could be. He told us never to go past that knoll we crossed five minutes ago or he’d see that we regretted it.”

  “He’ll forgive us if we get this elk,” Zach predicted.

  “I hope you’re right.”

  The tracks wound toward a gap in a pair of hills that flanked the valley. It gave Zach an idea. “Let’s climb the first hill,” he proposed. “We might get a clear shot at the bull from up there.”

  “Fair enough,” Zeb said, “but I’m not going a step farther than the top. My pa will tan my backside good if he hears I disobeyed your pa.”

  Small pines dotted the steep slopes. Zach gripped the ends of low branches to keep from losing his footing as he ascended. Well shy of the crest the trees thinned, and he had to scramble like an oversize salamander to reach the level summit. There he paused to catch his breath and survey the surrounding countryside.

  Miles to the south glistened the Salmon. To the east and west majestic mountains reared. The Bitterroot Range boasted a breathtaking natural beauty that awed even a boy like Zach, who had lived among mountains all his life.

  “Whew!” Zeb Gilcrest declared, joining him. “That was some climb! I’m plumb tuckered out!”

  “You need to get more exercise,” Zach said, poking his rifle at his friend’s ample midsection.

  “Don’t you start in on me,” Zeb scolded. “I get enough of that from my folks.” He patted his stomach and chuckled. “Can I help it if I like to eat? I was born with a bottomless pit.” Zeb paused, his eyes drifting past Zach. “Say, who’s that?”

  Zachary turned. Silhouetted against the flowing waters of the Salmon was a lone rider. The distance was too great to note any details other than the shadowy shape of the horse and the man astride it. He watched intently as the rider came northward toward them.

  “Must be a mountanee man out hunting,” Zeb said.

  “Alone?” Zach was doubtful. “All the hunters are supposed to go out in pairs.” Scooting toward a thicket on the south slope, he said, “Come on. Let’s hunker down and spy on this coon a spell.”

  “What if it’s an Indian?”

  “All the more reason,” Zach said. “Our folks will need to know if there are any hostiles about.” Reaching the growth, he squatted behind some weeds higher than his head. His friend was quick to join him.

  “I don’t know,” Zeb used his favorite expression. “What if he spots us?”

  Zach wagged his Hawken. “We’re armed, aren’t we? And we can shoot as well as the next man. What do we have to worry about?”

  The rider was in no great hurry. For minutes on end he would be in the open, then disappear behind a, hill or knoll and not be seen for some time. Not until he was under a mile off did Zach catch on to the fact that the mystery man was paralleling the exact route the brigade had taken from the Salmon. “I’ll be! That cuss is tracking us.”

  “Huh?”

  “Use your noggin,” Zach said. “He’s following the sign we left weeks ago.” He pursed his lips. “Too bad it hasn’t rained since.”

  Firs hid the rider for more than a quarter of an hour. When next he appeared, he was only twenty yards off, across a meadow that separated their hill from another.

  “Tarnation!” Zeb Gilcrest said. “It’s an Injun!”

  “Maybe a Blackfoot!” Zach said, fingering the Hawken’s trigger. Should that prove to be the case, he couldn’t let the warrior ride off to tell the rest of the tribe where to find the expedition. It would be up to Zeb and him to stop the man or scores of lives might be lost.

  “What’s he doing now?” Zeb wondered.

  The warrior had knelt to pick something up. Straightening up, he broke it apart in his hands.

  “Horse droppings,” Zach guessed. “He can tell how old the sign is by how dry the droppings are.” It was an old trick that took a lot of practice to get down pat. Zach should know. His father had been trying to teach it to him for years, and he still misjudged more often than he got it right.

  “He’s coming right for us!”

  The warrior had swung onto his pinto and started across the meadow. Just then, to the north of the fort, a rifle cracked faintly. Instantly the rider drew rein. He sat there a while, head cocked.

  Zeb fidgeted. “Reckon he knows we’re here?”

  “No, but he will if you won’t be still,” Zach whispered. He had never realized his friend would be so excitable in a crisis, and he was glad he had learned it before they encountered a real threat, like an entire war party.

  “Look!”

  The rider had angled to the east, toward dense trees. He was almost close enough for them to see his features but he was staring back toward the Salmon River.

  “Turn this way. Dam it!” Zach said. A clear glimpse of the man’s hair and buckskins would help him determine which tribe the warrior belonged to.

  Then the warrior shifted to study their hill. Zeb Gilcrest gasped. Zach’s pulse raced, and he tried to tell himself that he was imagining the whole thing, that it couldn’t possibly be who he thought it must be. Yet there could be no mistake. The rider was none other than Little Soldier.

  Eighteen

  Richard Ashworth was taken back when Nate King, Henry Allen, and Clive Jenks glanced at him as if he should have his mouth washed out with soap. All he’d asked King’s son was, “Are you sure it was the Crow, boy? Or could your imagination have been playing tricks on you?” He’d given the youngster a pat on the head. “After all, boys your age are prone to flights of fancy.”

  Zach bristled at the suggestion he was a mere child who couldn’t be trusted. “I know who I saw, mister,” he stated coldly. “It was that murdering Absaroka, big as life.”

  “We both saw him,” Zeb Gilcrest threw in. “And the two of us couldn’t be wrong.”

  Ashworth spread the fingers of both hands and touched the tips together. “All right. Let’s assume that you actually did. What in the world is Little Soldier doing so far from his own country alone?”

  The Tennessean had an answer. “The polecat wants to get back at us—that’s what. He’s by himself because the other Crows wanted no part of it.”

  Ashworth indulged in a laugh. “I don’t see why he even bothered. What can one man hope to do against all of us? It’s ridiculous.”

  “Is it?” Nate said soberly. On the face of things, the greenhorn had a point. But Nate wouldn’t put anything past their nemesis. The Crow wouldn’t have come all that distance unless he was fairly confident he could get his revenge. Little Soldier must have a plan of some sort, but what?

  Jenks cleared his throat. “The varmint can’t have gone far. I say we round up about forty men and go after him.”

  “He’d hear that many riders coming from a long way off,” Nate said. “Two men should be enough. Allen and I will go—and Zach so he can show us where he saw Little Soldier last.”

  Zachary
swelled with pride. To be allowed to ride with the men was an honor. He was the first to the horses, the first to mount. There was a short delay while his father and the man from Tennessee saddled up. Then they trotted on out the gate and raced southward.

  Nate was so preoccupied with pondering Little Soldier’s presence that he almost overlooked the fact that they had passed a certain knoll he had set as one of his son’s boundary markers. Twisting, he said, “I thought I told you not to go beyond that point.”

  “We were after a big elk, Pa,” Zach said, hoping that would be enough to justify his breach of conduct. Another excuse occurred to him. “And if we hadn’t, we never would have spotted the Crow.”

  “I’ll let it go—this time.”

  From the top of the hill Zach pointed out where he had initially seen Little Soldier and the route the warrior had taken. “He disappeared into those trees yonder and we lit a shuck for the fort.”

  “You did the right thing.” Nate held his Hawken cocked as he descended to the meadow and crossed to the spot his son had indicated. Unshod hoofprints led into the pines. They advanced slowly, making as little noise as was humanly possible. Nate preferred to catch sight of Little Soldier before the Crow caught sight of them.

  The trail looped to the north. Once past the hill, the Absaroka had ventured to the tree line and from there stared out over the valley dominated by Fort Ashworth. Apparently he had sat a while studying everything, then backed into the pines and continued on a northerly bearing.

  500 yards farther on, directly abreast of the stockade, the Crow had again moved to the edge of the trees for a better look. It must have pleased him immensely, Nate suspected, to have found them. But would Little Soldier try to burn the stockade to the ground? Run off their stock all by himself? Pick off trappers one by one?

  The warrior had gone north again, then westward, making a partial circuit of the valley. Abruptly, for no evident reason, the Crow had reined to the northeast and ridden off at a trot.

  “Where could he be off to in such a hurry?” Allen whispered.

  Nate shrugged. It did seem as if Little Soldier had a definite destination in mind, but there was nothing in that direction except limitless miles of untamed wilderness. Plus the Blackfeet, of course, inveterate enemies of the Crows. Little Soldier was taking his life into his hands by going into the heart of their territory.

  For over an hour the two Kings and the Tennessean dogged the warrior’s trail, and at the end of that time they were no closer to their quarry than they had been when they started. Nate checked the sun, which hung low in the western sky. He hadn’t thought to bring extra provisions along. All he had was enough jerky for about four meals, in a parfleche saddlebag.

  “The big question is whether we see this through to the end or head on back,” Nate commented when they paused on a switchback to give their animals a breather.

  “I’d rather go on,” Zach said, thrilled by the likelihood of a fight with the Absaroka.

  Henry Allen nodded. “Something tells me that, if we let him slip away, a lot of lives will be lost.”

  “Then it’s unanimous,” Nate said. “We may go a little hungry, but we don’t give up until we’ve put a permanent end to it.”

  Sunset caught them in thick timber where the shadows lengthened so quickly they were in near total darkness within minutes. Nate had to accept that they wouldn’t catch Little Soldier that day, and he called a halt at the next clearing they came to.

  A cold camp was in order. Nate limited himself to a single piece of jerky, but gave a handful to his son. Allen had pemmican, which he offered to share. Nate declined, saying, “It might have to last us a while. We’d better go easy.”

  Their saddle blankets served as bedding. Nate tossed and turned all night, and he was grateful when dawn’s light spurred them on their way.

  Not quite an hour after the sun rose, Nate found where Little Soldier had bedded down. “We’re not that far behind him,” he remarked.

  “By nightfall he’ll be buzzard bait,” Allen predicted.

  They tried. They really tried. By prodding their horses on even when the animals flagged, by taking fewer rests than they should, by refusing to stop to eat, they covered as much ground as they normally would in two days of riding. Yet it wasn’t good enough. When darkness fell, Little Soldier was still ahead of them.

  “Damn it all!” Allen groused. “What’s his hurry? Where is he so all fired eager to get to?”

  “I wish I knew,” Nate said.

  Zach had not said much all day. It had taxed him to keep up with the men, and he couldn’t wait to close his eyes and drift off. Half asleep, he mumbled, “Who can tell with a mad wolf like him? Little Soldier is crazy enough to do anything.”

  That was what worried Nate. The Crow would stop at nothing to savor his vengeance. And whatever Little Soldier had in mind, it was bound to be the last thing they would ever expect.

  Another day dawned crisp and clear. Nate had to stomp his feet and flap his arms to get his circulation going. He missed having a cup of coffee so much that his mouth watered at the notion.

  “Today is the day,” Allen declared.

  Nate didn’t share his friend’s confidence. It was obvious that Little Soldier’s horse was more than a match for any of theirs. They would be lucky if they caught sight of him.

  As if to confirm Nate’s hunch, tracking the Crow became more difficult. Early on, the warrior changed direction. His tracks wound eastward a while, then to the southeast, then to the northeast again. Over and over the pattern was repeated.

  “What in the hell?” Allen said at one point. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear he was lost.”

  By early afternoon their horses were in need of rest. They had climbed to the crest of a sawtooth ridge and Nate was about to suggest that they stop for a while when his son blurted out and jabbed a finger eastward.

  “There he is, Pa! See him?”

  Below the ridge lay open prairie. Scattered across it, grazing contentedly, were hundreds upon hundreds of buffalo. Maybe half a mile out was a solitary rider, weaving among them.

  “He’s slowed down some,” Zach observed.

  Nate scanned the herd of shaggy brutes. “He had to because of the buffalo. He’s being careful not to spook them into stampeding.”

  Zach eyed the beasts with trepidation. He had yet to go on a buffalo hunt. His father joined the Shoshones once or twice a year on a surround, as they were called, and although he had begged to go along the last few times, his pa had refused, claiming he wasn’t quite old enough. “Are we going on down there?” he asked.

  “We have to,” Nate said, taking the lead. “It’s our best chance yet to catch him.”

  Buffalo were quirky critters. At times they would panic at the mere sight of a man on horseback. At other times they would totally ignore him. Nate tried to gauge the mood of the herd by the number of great hairy heads that raised up to warily regard them as they reached level ground. A few of the older bulls fringing the main body looked up and snorted, but none pawed the earth or lowered their horns in preparation for a charge.

  Nate deemed it safe to do as Little Soldier had done. “Keep in single file,” he whispered over a shoulder. “And whatever you do, don’t make any loud noise.”

  Buffalo had the distinction of being the largest creatures on the continent. Adult males stood six feet high at the shoulder and weighed close to 2,000 pounds. Females were only a foot or so shorter and weighed a little over half as much.

  Their bulk, combined with their unpredictable temperament and their wicked spread of curved horns, made them supremely dangerous.

  At birth, a buffalo usually had a yellow coat with a light red stripe down the spine. Gradually the coat darkened with age, so that by the time a buffalo attained full stature, it boasted a rich, dark brown hide thick enough to keep a person warm in the coldest of winters. Small wonder the Indians prized buffalo robes above all else for their bedding.

  Zach gul
ped as he approached the first group. The bulls were so big that he could have sworn they dwarfed him and his horse. When one looked up at him, he immediately froze in the saddle. The bull was chomping grass, its huge jaws moving up and down, the crunch of its iron teeth enough to bring goosebumps to Zach’s skin.

  Nate checked to see how his son was doing. It took more gumption than most possessed to ride through the center of a buffalo herd, and he was proud at the courage Zach displayed.

  A few of the buffalo moved out of their way, but most stood firm and had to be skirted. Nate swung past several young bulls and angled to the right to bypass a cow and a calf. Suddenly the calf snorted and came toward him. So young that its legs wobbled, it acted more curious than upset.

  The same wasn’t true of its mother. Grunting, the cow spun and regarded them with her dark beady eyes. She took a few steps to head off her offspring, but the calf skipped past her, coming straight toward the black stallion.

  Nate had to rein up or risk bowling the calf over. The stallion flared its nostrils and pricked its ears, but didn’t give in to the overpowering fear that many horses experienced when in close proximity to buffalo. The calf stopped and sniffed at the stallion’s front legs, then moved toward the back ones, its muzzle rubbing the stallion’s belly as if in search of teats.

  To keep the horse from bolting, Nate patted and stroked its neck. The calf reached the black’s tail, realized there was no milk to be had, and bawled its displeasure. That was the signal for the cow to stalk forward, grunting louder than before, its ponderous head swinging from side to side.

  Zach was positive the mother was about to charge his pa. He remembered what his father had mentioned about always aiming behind the foreshoulder and did so. A buffalo’s skull was too thick for any ball to penetrate, even the larger calibers.

  The cow stomped the ground once. It uttered a rumbling snort from deep within its barrel chest. Catastrophe was averted when the calf pranced back to its mother’s side and the pair moseyed off among the others.