Arrow Keeper

by Judd Cole

  Matthew made his way slowly to the tack room, feeling his way in the near darkness of the interior. He groped until he found an old saddle and bridle Knobby had tossed into a back corner. Matthew knew Knobby wouldn’t begrudge him them—not after all the work he had done for the old hostler.

  He lugged the saddle and bridle back into the stable and dropped the tack long enough to back one of the bays out of its stall. The friendly animal nosed his shoulder and Matthew patted its neck.

  When he slipped the bridle on, the bay easily took the bit.

  Matthew threw the saddle blanket on, then the saddle, and cinched the thongs. His heart finally starting to pound hard as the moment for departure neared, he led his horse across to the store’s tie-rail and looped the reins around it.

  After retrieving his poke and weapon from inside, Matthew slid the rifle into the saddle scabbard and lashed his belongings behind the cantle with rawhide whangs. Then, his reluctant legs as heavy as solid stone, he went back into the house and paused in his parents’ open doorway.

  Moonlight outlined both of them in a soft glow like foxfire. His mother’s pretty, normally fretful face was almost fey and girlish in repose, as if years of hard work had been soothed away. And his father’s seamed, honest face—the face of a good man who had always done right by Matthew and everyone he dealt with—looked younger too.

  The boy was ashamed when his eyes abruptly trembled and the hot tears came. But Carlson’s words lashed his memory like a relentless whip, goading him into action. There’s nothing carved in stone that guarantees John Hanchon’s contract with Fort Bates.

  Matthew wiped his eyes with the back of one hand. Then he hardened himself for whatever lay ahead. He cast a final glance at the only family he had ever known and left his home for the last time. He unlooped the reins and stepped up into leather. Then, his heart saddened but determined, he pointed bridle north toward the Powder River and Cheyenne country.

  Chapter Three

  For nearly a week, Matthew rode from sunup to sunset, his only destination the upcountry of the Powder River. He had no firm plan. But like a buffalo following the ancient stampede trails, he stubbornly held his course.

  His first two days on the move were warm and dry, and he made good time. But early on the third day, the seamless blue sky turned the color of dull pewter and for two days, thick gray sheets of rain poured down without letting up. It was impossible to find dry wood for a fire. At night, teeth chattering, Matthew wrapped himself in his blanket and slicker, then burrowed deep into fallen leaves to keep warm.

  As the rains continued, the rivers and creeks of the Northeast Wyoming Territory, already swollen with spring runoff from the mountains, became treacherous to cross. Once, at the Shoshone River, Matthew was forced to backtrack downstream to a less turbulent spot where the bay would not shy when he coaxed him close to the raging waters.

  To make matters worse, he had stupidly forgotten to bring a knife for skinning small game. To supplement his hardtack and jerked beef, he picked green but edible wild plums and serviceberries.

  At one point, where the western edge of the Black Hills bordered the plain, he was forced to run to high ground for hours while a huge buffalo herd stampeded by. Fascinated, he watched hundreds of wolves worrying the fringes of the herd, weeding out sick, lame, and aged buffalo.

  As he traveled, Matthew saw his first grizzly. It emerged from a cave near Beaver Creek, a huge, brownish-yellow male with long, curved claws the length of a grown man’s foot. It rose up to its full height on its hind legs, sniffing the wind and making deep growling sounds. Matthew was grateful he was downwind. But he also prayed that Old Knobby had been right when he told the boy a grizzly’s eyes were as weak as a buffalo’s.

  Matthew spotted plenty of mule deers and big gray prairie wolves at lower altitudes, and elk and bighorn sheep higher up. But people were scarce, which suited him fine. He saw miners occasionally, and twice he happened upon small details of soldiers cutting logs for new forts. Once, skirting the banks of the southern Powder River, he saw a large keelboat loaded with whiskey. But he avoided everyone he saw.

  Late on the fifth day of his journey, crossing a high ridge between the Powder and the Tongue, he spotted another detail of soldiers cutting pine logs in the valley of the Powder. Sunlight glinted off a sentry’s field glasses as he studied the lone rider. No doubt puzzled at recognizing a lone Indian dressed as a white man, the soldiers sent a detail racing toward his position to investigate.

  Matthew reminded himself these weren’t soldiers from Fort Bates who knew him. That thought made him abruptly rein his mount down the backside of the ridge. As he rode, he suddenly heard thwacking noises everywhere. Moments later he recognized the hard sounds as lead balls crashing into trees. Turning around on his mount, he saw the soldiers firing upon him and realized the bullets were reaching him before the sound of gunfire!

  The squad of cavalry guards charged him. Though he had a good lead, the soldiers’ horses were strong and well rested. Matthew rode his tired bay hard, but it was lathered quickly from the pace. He had no choice but to hide in a river thicket until the soldiers gave up their search. Afterwards, he slipped the bay’s bit and loosened the cinch, letting his thirsty mount drink from the river. Since Matthew’s legs and back ached from the saddle, he decided to camp right there.

  That night, burrowing deep into the leaves under a moon as round and ripe as a melon, he thought about the meaning of the soldiers’ actions. They considered him an enemy, just one more Cheyenne buck to slaughter. Out on the open plain, he was no longer the son of John and Sarah Hanchon, respected citizens of Bighorn Falls.

  As he lay there in the country of the Northern Cheyennes, the foolish desperation of his plan suddenly became painfully obvious. Old Knobby was right, he told himself: He couldn’t simply ride up to a Cheyenne camp and expect to be accepted as a member. Besides, almost a week with no human company under the big, lonesome dome of sky made him feel lonesome and small. He missed the people back home—especially Kristen. His brain tangled by such thoughts, he finally drifted off to sleep.

  The next morning he risked a fire long enough to boil coffee. Then he walked down closer to the river, where he had tethered the bay in a good patch of graze. He led the horse back to his camp, saddled him, and cinched the girth under his belly. For the next few hours, he followed the Powder as it wound northeast.

  Toward noon, plunging up the side of a cut bank, the bay suddenly shied. And sweat broke out on Matthew’s back when he spied four armed Cheyenne sitting their ponies directly across his path.

  There was a long, surprised silence on both sides. The Cheyenne stared, their faces impassive, but their eyes revealing shock at the sight of this towering young Cheyenne dressed in white man’s clothing. Three of them were full-grown braves older than Matthew. The fourth was a few years younger. They wore beaded leggings, breechclouts, and elk skin moccasins. Their weapons included streamered battle lances, bows and arrows, sturdy British trade rifles known as Indian guns and London fusils. Two of the braves wore leather bands on their wrists for protection from the slap of bowstrings. All of them rode their mustangs bareback, except for the thin cushion of red Hudson Bay blankets.

  Their hair was longer than Matthew’s, hanging in loose locks, but cut off close above the brows to keep their vision clear. Matthew knew, from all of Knobby’s stories, that the pouches hanging from buckskin thongs on their breechclouts were their medicine bags. These held pieces of the special totem, or magic object, for each man’s clan. Knobby had told of seeing beaks, claws, feathers, and precious stones in different medicine bags.

  Matthew wondered why the older Cheyenne also had pieces of coarse horsetail dangling from their waists—until he realized they were scalps. Then his blood ran cold.

  Finally, the oldest brave rode close enough to touch the bay’s nose. He said something in a strange language that was mere gibberish to the youth.

  Unsure what to do, Matthew finally offere
d his right hand. “How do you do?” he said. “My name is Matthew Hanchon.”

  The brave stared at the hand, contempt starched into every feature. Behind him, the others broke into gales of hearty laughter.

  “How do you do?” one of them said awkwardly, offering his hand to another. Both braves laughed so hard they had to slide down from their horses and roll on the ground.

  As his friends laughed, the brave who had ridden forward allowed his face to show his hatred for the Indian who had traded his breechclout and moccasins for trousers and boots. He wheeled his pony around and returned to his companions. After a brief conference, the youngest Cheyenne rode forward. He had a wily face and swift, furtive eyes that watched Matthew’s every move.

  “I am called Wolf Who Hunts Smiling,” he said proudly in slow but good English. “My father was Red Feather of the Panther Clan. I belong to Yellow Bear’s band.”

  “You speak English!” said Matthew, relieved.

  “For two winters, I and my father were prisoners of the Long Knives at the soldier’s house called Fort Laramie. We escaped, but my father was killed by the big-talking guns.”

  His words were as flat and hate-filled as his eyes. “Why have you ridden into our country?” he demanded.

  Matthew swallowed the hard lump in his throat. For the first time he finally had to admit his purpose. “Because I am a Cheyenne, and I want to be with my own people.”

  A sneer divided Wolf Who Hunts Smiling’s face. He called something back over his shoulder to the rest, and they laughed again.

  “You, a Shaiyena!” said Wolf Who Hunts Smiling. “You who offer us your hand to shake like the Bluecoat liars who shake the red man’s hand before they kill him and take his land? I say you are a double-tongued spy sent to listen and learn. Everyone knows that the Bluecoats use Indian spies to discover our camps.”

  “No! I swear I’m not.”

  “I have no ears to hear your lies, white man’s dog!”

  Wolf Who Hunts Smiling abruptly wheeled his pony around and approached his companions again. After a brief exchange with the other braves, he returned, his eyes glinting with triumph.

  “I told them you are a spy who pretends not to know our language. The rest agree.”

  Without another word Wolf Who Hunts Smiling leaned forward, hugging his mustang’s neck between his knees. To Matthew’s surprise, he slid the new Colt out of the saddle scabbard.

  When Matthew instinctively reached out to grab the weapon back, Wolf Who Hunts Smiling brought the butt stock up hard against the side of the youth’s head. He saw a quick burst of bright orange, then he slid down out of the saddle like a heavy bag of grain.

  Matthew never quite lost consciousness, but his limbs felt like stones he could not lift. Helpless, he watched from the ground as the Cheyenne crowded around his horse and divided up everything he owned, the oldest Indian doing the distributing. After a brief speech, the brave handed the Colt to Wolf Who Hunts Smiling.

  Without a word, Wolf Who Hunts Smiling calmly lifted the rifle and shot the bay in the head. The animal just missed crushing Matthew as it crumpled to the ground, blood blossoming out of its skull. When Matthew cried out, Wolf Who Hunts Smiling dismounted and pressed a razor-sharp knife against his neck.

  “It has been decided. I may kill the spy to avenge my father!”

  White-hot fire creased Matthew’s neck as the young Indian pressed the blade into his flesh, drawing blood. His tormentor’s lupine face twisted with scorn as he watched the fear show in the youth’s eyes.

  As Wolf Who Hunts Smiling flexed his arm to press the blade deeper, Matthew remembered Knobby’s advice. His eyes registering defiant hate instead of fear, he hawked up a wad of phlegm and spat it in his adversary’s face.

  Momentarily startled, Wolf Who Hunts Smiling loosened his pressure on the blade. Matthew had recovered enough strength to arch his strong back and throw the younger and smaller Cheyenne clear. But as he rose to his knees, one of the braves clubbed him with a heavy trade rifle, knocking him unconscious. With a triumphant shriek, Wolf Who Hunts Smiling leapt at the boy, his knife held high. But the oldest brave caught his arm in an iron grip.

  “Brothers!” he said. “You saw the tall stranger’s courage just now. Could we be wrong? His blood is Shaiyena. An acorn wrapped in a leaf is still an acorn, not a leaf. Will we shed the blood of our own as quickly as the Bluecoats do? I say we must take him back before the council.”

  “No, War Bonnet, he is a spy for the whites,” Wolf Who Hunts Smiling protested. “The whites killed my father. My heart is like a stone toward them. I say we kill him!”

  “Does the calf bellow to the bull? Are you a warrior whose words weigh with mine?” War Bonnet demanded. Wolf Who Hunts Smiling looked away, his face contrite but still angry.

  “You know I speak only the straight word! In the Crooked Lance Clan, we have been forced to fight and kill many enemies, but we kill none who do not fire at us first. We will take the stranger back with us and let the headmen decide his fate!”

  Chapter Four

  Later that afternoon, the four Cheyenne returned to their tribe’s summer camp at the fork where the Little Powder joined the Powder. His face stern but proud, Wolf Who Hunts Smiling led their packhorse by a lariat. The animal pulled a travois to which their prisoner, who had regained consciousness, had been lashed. Matthew’s legs had been left to bounce over the rough, rocky ground, in the course of the journey, they had been badly bloodied and bruised. In addition, one of his eyes had swollen shut from the impact of the trade rifle’s butt.

  The entire village gathered at a huge open area surrounding the Council Lodge. The Indians stared, some more surprised than hostile, as the prisoner was lashed to a carved pole from which dangled enemy scalps.

  For the rest of that day and through the night, Matthew was deliberately ignored by the men of the tribe. Occasionally, a small, naked child would dart forward to poke at him with a stick or yank his hair. Once, an old squaw, her wrinkled face twisted with hate at the sight of Matthew’s white man’s clothing, spat contemptuously in his face. A few of the younger females were less hostile toward the handsome prisoner—even openly curious when no elders were about to scold them for looking. One in particular found excuses to pass by him several times on various errands.

  Despite his fear and the pain from his wounds, Matthew was struck by the frail beauty of the maiden’s high, finely sculpted cheekbones. She was clearly different from the other girls her age. While most of the young women in the tribe wore glittery beads, buttons or shells in their hair, her long black hair was braided only with white petals of mountain columbine. Her buckskin dress, which was decorated with elk teeth and eagle tails, had gold coins for buttons. Her bare legs were the color of wild honey.

  From his position at the middle of camp, Matthew watched the entire village. The tipis, erected in circles by clans, were covered with tanned buffalo hides. Many had worn so thin they were bright with the cooking fire within. Dark plumes curled out the smoke holes.

  A crude pole corral beyond the camp was filled with well-fed ponies and mules. Closer at hand, Matthew could see a group of women huddled around a huge side of fresh buffalo meat. They cut razor-thin slices and stretched them on pole racks to dry. Amazed, Matthew watched children old enough to walk still nursing at their mothers’ breasts as the women went about their tasks.

  By the time darkness descended, fires crackled and blazed everywhere. Cramped and uncomfortable in his sitting position, Matthew realized that, unlike Bighorn Falls, the Cheyenne village had no official bedtime. Because it was noisy and active all night long, he slept little. Children played, braves bet on pony races through the middle of camp, and old women with their hair cut short in mourning chanted all night long.

  The only thing Matthew craved more than sleep was food. It wasn’t until well past midnight that an old squaw approached him carrying a piece of bark with cooked meat on it. Her face stony and impassive, she held it up so he could eat
.

  Although the meat was tough and stringy, he chewed ravenously and ignored the queer taste. Only after he had swallowed most of it did the old squaw shift her position enough for him to see the carcass of a young dog on the spit behind her. The old squaw cursed and leapt back when Matthew suddenly retched up the meat. Her eyes were bright with contempt for the weak white man’s Indian who stupidly wasted such a delicacy.

  Thoroughly miserable, homesick, and frightened, Matthew finally drifted into an uneasy sleep near dawn. Far too soon, he was shaken roughly awake by another old squaw with a face as cracked and lined as the clay of a long-dry riverbed. This one brought him a strip of dried venison, which he devoured as quickly as she could shove it into his mouth.

  Most of the fires had burned down to embers. Even though it was not yet midmorning, Matthew saw plenty of activity around the Council Lodge, and he knew he was the cause of it. This central structure, which consisted of a wooden frame covered with elk and buffalo hides, was the largest in the camp.

  Matthew had not been watching the lodge long when a lone horseman rode throughout the camp, shouting something over and over like a town crier. Men emerged from tipis and filed inside the council lodge, still carefully avoiding any glances toward him. They wore their best ornamental garments for the council. They were decorated with porcupine quills, stones, feathers, leather fringes, and hair from enemy scalps.

  As the adult males entered the Council Lodge, Wolf Who Hunts Smiling and two braves approached Matthew.

  “We will both attend the council,” Wolf Who Hunts Smiling said coldly. “It is customary that only warriors are permitted. But you must be there to hear the Council judgment, and I must be there to be your tongue.”

  When Wolf Who Hunts Smiling finished speaking, one of the braves thrust his stone lance point into Matthew’s neck while the other untied his hands. But their precautions were wasted, for Matthew was so cramped from his position that one of the braves was forced to help him to his feet.