Montana Territory

by Charles G. West

  “Where’d you say this was?” Hawk asked, not sure he had heard him correctly.

  “Well, we call it Choteau,” Pierce answered. “It ain’t really got an official name, I reckon. What I was told, they called it that ’cause some Frenchman named Pierre Chouteau had a camp here. What can I do for you?”

  Choteau, Hawk repeated to himself. That was what the little man called Frog had said when he showed him the trail the five men had taken from the Quaker massacre. He had pointed to the tracks and said, “Choteau.” He was trying to tell me that trail led to Choteau. I should have brought him with me, he thought, because he probably knows the whole country hereabouts. He realized then that the storekeeper was waiting for him to reply. “I reckon I could use some coffee, if you’ve got any,” Hawk said, “and some salt.” Those were the only two items he was really short of.

  “I’ve got both of them,” Pierce said, “and I’ve got a coffee grinder, if you want me to grind up the beans for you.” Hawk said that would be appreciated and Pierce continued talking. “I reckon you’re just passin’ through,” he said. “Don’t hardly ever see folks who are comin’ to Choteau.” As he was weighing out the coffee beans, a short, stocky woman came in from the back room to see whom Pierce was talking to. “This is my wife,” Pierce said. “Flo, say howdy to the only customer we’ve had today. Pardon my manners,” he said, returning his attention to Hawk. “My name’s Franklin Pierce, and this is my wife, Flo.” He extended his hand.

  Hawk shook his hand. “John Hawk,” he said.

  “Is that why you got that in your hat?” Flo asked, pointing to the hawk feather in his hatband. Her husband chuckled and said he should have guessed that, himself.

  “You guessed it. Sounds like business ain’t so good in Choteau,” Hawk said in response to Pierce’s comment that he was the only customer that day.

  “You can say that again,” Pierce said. “Me and the missus are thinkin’ about pullin’ up stakes and headin’ back to the farm in Minnesota. Things looked good here for a little while, had some farm families come in, and some miners lookin’ for gold in the hills about twenty miles west of here. The farmers found out that the land ain’t much good for raisin’ anything but grass, and there evidently ain’t no gold in the mountains. We’ve been hopin’ the cattle ranchers would move in, but we’ve about give up on that now.”

  “All the miners ain’t give up yet,” Flo commented. “At least, I reckon they’re prospectin’. Anyway, they still come into town to get supplies, always just one or two of ’em, but it ain’t always the same two. So, I figure they’re workin’ a big claim somewhere, ’cause they sure don’t look like farmers.”

  Her comment caused Hawk to ask, “Did you see any of ’em in the last few days?”

  “Nope,” Flo answered. “Ain’t seen hide nor hair of ’em in a while.”

  Since she seemed to be free-flowing with information, he asked another question. “How ’bout anybody else? Did you happen to see a party of five men ride through here in the last couple of days?”

  “No, like I said, we ain’t seen anybody,” Flo answered.

  Finished with the grinding of the coffee beans, her husband’s curiosity was piqued by Hawk’s questions. “Are you a lawman, by any chance?”

  Hawk saw no reason not to tell them whom he was trailing. “No, I’m not a lawman. I’m ridin’ scout for a cavalry patrol outta Fort Ellis. They’re a day or two behind me. We’re on the trail of five outlaws that murdered a group of church folks back down on the Missouri. They killed twenty-eight people, includin’ women and children. I’ve been trackin’ ’em, and they came this way.”

  “Well, forever more . . .” Flo started. “I hope they didn’t make it this far.”

  “We’da seen ’em if they had,” Franklin said. “As dead as this town is, nobody can hardly ride through here without somebody noticin’.” He paused but a second before continuing. “Fort Ellis, that’s way down on the Yellowstone, ain’t it?” When Hawk nodded, Franklin asked, “You and that cavalry patrol are a long way from home, ain’t you?”

  “That’s a fact,” Hawk said. “Just tryin’ to give the garrison at Fort Benton a little help.” He paid for his coffee and salt, then headed for the door. “Well, it was nice meetin’ you folks. I reckon I’ll be on my way.” They thanked him for the business and said they hoped he’d come back to see them. Outside, he tied his purchases on his horse, thinking his situation over while he did. Booth and his men had definitely come to this town. He had seen the tracks to prove it. They must have ridden around the town, not wishing to be seen. There was nothing to do now but go back the way he had come and try to find the place where they left the road. So, he climbed up into the saddle and turned Rascal back to the east, thinking about what Flo Pierce had said about the men she assumed to be prospectors. He had a feeling he was close to their destination. There must be a hideout not too far from this little town. Her description of the men who sometimes came in the store—one or two at a time, and not always the same men—seemed like what they would do if they didn’t want it known there was a gang holed up near there. He encouraged Rascal to pick up his pace with a nudge of his heels, anxious to find the trail he had lost.

  He was almost out of sight of the town when he found the place. The tracks were not that hard to see where the horses had left the wagon road and rode off to the south at a wide angle. He had just been careless. Since it happened at a point when the buildings of Choteau just came into view, he blamed it on that, thinking he must have been distracted by the appearance of a town when his eyes should have been on the trail. Now, with a trail to follow again, he hesitated to start out on it, in spite of his prior feeling of purpose. To be honest with himself, he had to admit that the tracks he had been following were so old by now that they might be somebody else’s tracks. Still, he kept finding that smaller hoofprint of a mule, and there were never any fresh tracks on the road. So he had to figure he was still on their trail.

  Another thought came to concern him, as well. He was afraid he had gotten too far ahead of Conner and the patrol at this point. They might have already turned back, and if they had, what should he do? He felt he was still on Booth’s trail, but he had figured to have a cavalry patrol to take on the five ruthless gunmen. In all good conscience, he could not simply break off his tracking and call it a lost cause. The crimes these five murderers had committed were too atrocious to write off as too difficult to pursue. If he couldn’t capture them on his own, he must at least find them, so they might still be brought to justice by some agency, either civilian or military. He made up his mind that he would make it his business to find them, but there was still the question of Conner and the patrol. It wasn’t fair to Conner to leave him lost in this wilderness, either. After laboring over the issue for a few more moments, he decided the proper thing to do was to ride back in hopes of meeting the patrol before having to ride too far. Maybe, he hoped, they might have reached the burned-out trading post, thinking even then that the soldiers would have had to ride like hell to have gotten that far. But if they had, then that would mean only another half a day lost to the outlaws. To satisfy his anxiety, he followed the tracks leaving the road for about half a mile before pulling up to stare out ahead in the general direction they led. They rode around that low mesa, he thought, so nobody in Choteau could see them as they bypassed it. That could account for Franklin and Flo failing to see them in town. Feeling now that he had saved himself some time for when he returned, he turned Rascal around and started back toward Grover Dean’s trading post.

  By the time he reached the blackened ruins of the trading post, his horse was ready for some water and rest. Thinking this as good a place as any to eat something, himself, he decided to try out some of the coffee he had just purchased. If luck was riding with him, maybe Mathew Conner and the fifteen-man patrol would catch up to him there. After relieving his horse of his burdens, he gathered enough wood to build a fire in front of the barn. He figured it would be see
n from the road up above, if the patrol did get that far. With water from the river, he made his coffee and roasted some deer jerky over the fire. It would be perfect, he thought, if the patrol caught up to him here. There was still an hour or so before dark, and if Conner was pushing his men to catch up, they might not have gone into camp for the night. Knowing it was wishful thinking, he nonetheless hoped they would show up. When darkness finally engulfed the clearing by the river, he unrolled his bedroll inside the barn door and crawled in, wondering how far behind Booth he now was. Before many minutes passed, he was asleep, almost as peacefully as the man and woman sleeping beneath the burned timbers in the ashes of the trading post. He hadn’t bothered to look to see if the buzzards left anything other than a couple of skeletons.

  When he awoke early the next morning, he found that he was still troubled over what he should do in regard to the patrol. Thinking of the killers he was following, he felt that he had a tiger by the tail, and he was reluctant to let it go. He needed Conner and his soldiers, if that gang was to be apprehended. And if he didn’t wait for the patrol, it would leave Conner with no idea what had happened to his scout. In the end, he decided he had to find the patrol, so he saddled up and started to backtrack again, planning to have breakfast when Rascal needed rest.

  * * *

  “Want me to get ’em mounted up, Lieutenant?” Corporal Johnson asked when he walked up from the creek.

  “Yes, go ahead and get ’em ready to move out,” Conner answered, even though he hadn’t made up his mind in which direction he was going to take them. They had been out over a week on what was supposed to be a ten-day patrol. And he knew he was a lot farther from Fort Ellis than a three-day march. How much farther, he wasn’t really sure. Damn it, Hawk, he thought, where the hell are you?

  In answer to his question, he heard one of the men call out, “Rider comin’ in!”

  Anxious to see if it was his scout, Conner hurried to the edge of the clearing to see. Even at a distance, there was no mistaking the identity of the rider. The sight of the tall figure, riding in perfect rhythm with the buckskin’s gait, was enough to relieve the anxiety that had been building in his brain. He remained there and waited for Hawk to ride in. “I was about to give up on you,” he said when Hawk pulled up before him. “Did you have any luck?”

  “Some,” Hawk answered, then gave him a complete report on what he had found. “I followed ’em as far as that little settlement I told you about, and I’ve got a trail to follow from there. But I figured I’d best come back and find you.”

  “I’m glad you did,” Conner said. “We’re already gonna be out longer than we were scheduled to be, and I was getting ready to turn this patrol back toward home. I’d like to catch up with that gang of murderers, but we’re already running short of supplies.” He turned and pointed toward the Rocky Mountains. “And it looks like this bunch is heading for the mountains. There ain’t any way of telling how long we might search in those mountains without finding a trace of them.” He shrugged apologetically. “As far as my mission’s objective, I’ve found what I was sent to find out. Major Brisbin’s nephew is safe and that’s about all that matters as far as this patrol is concerned.” Before Hawk could comment, Conner hurried to continue. “I know this was a terrible thing, killing all those innocent people . . .”

  “Plus the man and woman in the store between here and the town of Choteau,” Hawk interrupted.

  “Right, right,” Conner was quick to agree. “But, damn it, Hawk, I can’t take a fifteen-man patrol and roam all over the Rocky Mountains with it. I’ve got to take these men back to the post.”

  “I understand your position,” Hawk said. “You need to get your men back to Fort Ellis. But I don’t need to get back there. Hell, I’ve already been fired, anyway, so I think I’ll get back on that trail I just left and see if I can find those bastards. Then maybe I can tell somebody, either the military or the marshal service, where to look for ’em.” He paused when Conner’s reaction to his proposal didn’t seem positive. “You don’t need me to get you home,” Hawk went on. “The way I figure it, you ain’t but about a day’s ride to Great Falls, almost straight south from where you are right now, and you know how to get to Ellis from there. As a matter of fact, I remember crossin’ a north–south trail a few miles short of here, looked like an old Indian trail. I’d say it’s a good chance it would take you right to Great Falls. If you’re runnin’ short of food, I’ve seen plenty of sign of deer and antelope at just about every place I’ve camped. Corporal Johnson is always itchin’ to go huntin’. You could let him find a deer or something.”

  Conner shook his head as if amazed. “You really wanna find those outlaws that bad?” Hawk shrugged in response. “I hope you’ve got better sense than to try to take any action against them.”

  “I don’t plan to,” Hawk said. “I just wanna find out where they’re holed up, so a posse can go after ’em. It’d be a damn sin to let men like that get away with what they did.”

  Conner hesitated, taking a long moment to study his friend’s face. He was somewhat surprised by the compassion shown by the normally imperturbable scout and was feeling some guilt about the position he felt he had to take. “All right, if you feel that’s what you need to do,” Conner said. “I’m gonna turn back to Fort Ellis. I wish you good luck in scouting those killers, but damn it, Hawk, be careful they don’t add you to the list of people they’ve already slaughtered.” Hawk nodded in response and Conner asked, “You gonna start back right away, or do you need to rest your horse?”

  “My horse is all right, but I’m gonna boil me a little coffee and chew on some bacon, since I see you ain’t put out all your fires yet.”

  “I’ll have a cup with you,” Conner said, and told Johnson to hold up on the order to mount.

  * * *

  The patrol was delayed about forty-five minutes before departing for Great Falls and since the men really were running short of supplies, Hawk donated the coffee he had just bought from Franklin Pierce to the patrol. He figured he would replace it in Choteau, knowing Pierce would be glad to get the business. “I’ll see you back at Fort Ellis,” Conner said as they prepared to ride. When Hawk only nodded in reply, Conner added, “And you’d better report in or you won’t get paid for this scout.” Hawk nodded again and turned Rascal back toward Grover Dean’s store, not particularly concerned if he got paid or not.

  It was a full day’s ride back to Choteau, but Hawk decided to go straight back to the little town, in hopes of getting there before Pierce closed his store. It was important to get back on Booth’s trail, but it was more important to restock his coffee supply, because once back on the trail, there was no telling when there might be another opportunity to buy coffee. And I’ve got to have coffee, he told himself. As it turned out, the store was closed when he arrived, but he could see Franklin and his wife still inside, so he tapped on the door. Obviously surprised, Pierce unlocked the door. “Well, howdy, Mr. Hawk. Didn’t expect to see you back so soon. Matter of fact, I didn’t expect to see you back at all. Was there somethin’ you forgot?”

  “I’m gonna need to buy some more coffee,” Hawk answered. “I’m glad I caught you before you left for the night.”

  “You sure must drink a lot of coffee,” Flo saw fit to comment. “You ain’t sayin’ you’ve already run out, are you? ’Cause if you have, I’d say you’re making it too doggone strong.” She chuckled in appreciation of her own humor.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Hawk replied, japing as well. “I used it all up. Maybe you’d best show me how much you put in a pot of water.” They all laughed then with Franklin and Flo still waiting for the real explanation. So, Hawk told them what had happened to his sack of freshly ground coffee. “And I reckon I can get by without air to breathe, but I need coffee to live,” he said in conclusion.

  When the joking was over, Franklin asked the question he was really interested in knowing an answer for. “That cavalry patrol you gave your coffee to, are they likely
comin’ to Choteau?” He glanced at his wife. “Because if they are, we might better take stock of what kind of supplies we’ve got in the storeroom.”

  “No, they won’t be comin’ here,” Hawk replied, and saw the immediate disappointment in Pierce’s face. He figured that business must really be as dead as he had complained before. “No, they’re already on their way back to Fort Ellis. They’re way outta their usual territory, and the officer commanding the patrol said he’s gotta take ’em back.”

  “But you’re still here,” Flo pointed out. “Don’t you have to go back with ’em?”

  “No, ma’am,” Hawk replied. “I work for the army, but I ain’t in the army.” Not wanting to get into a discussion about why he was staying, he paid for his coffee and said, “Well, I’d best let you folks close up, so you can get on home.” He picked up his coffee and started for the door.

  “It ain’t a long trip,” Flo saw fit to remark, “since we live in the back of the store.”

  In the saddle again, Hawk rode down the short street to take a look at the stable in case he decided to put his horses up for the night where they might get some oats. One look at the shabby building made his decision for him. He’d camp on the riverbank—the stable looked as poor as Franklin Pierce claimed the whole town to be. He turned Rascal back up the road to the place where he had spotted Booth’s tracks leaving the trail. When he reached that point, he rode down to the river and made his camp.

  He was awakened the next morning by a light rain, thankful that he had decided to fashion a half tent with a piece of canvas he had brought with him for just such occasions. After taking a good look at the clouds rolling in off the mountains the night before, he had decided there was a good chance of rain. So, he awoke only half-wet, thinking he should have paid to sleep in the stable. With no inclination to try to revive his campfire, he rolled up his bedroll inside his piece of canvas and saddled Rascal. He wished at that point that he had brought his packhorse, but he had taken only the rations he thought he might need for the ten-day patrol, just as the soldiers had.