The Savage Trail

by Jory Sherman

  “Yeah. Pretty damned smart,” he said.

  “That two hours lead they had on us has shrunk some. Hell, they could be waiting for us most anywhere.”

  “And we can’t foller ’em no more.”

  “Not in this dark. Even I can’t see those sagebrush marks sitting on top of Gent here. I’d have to crawl along on my hands and knees. It’s not worth it.”

  “No,” Ben said. “So now what?”

  “So now, we ride off a ways and wait.”

  “Wait for what?”

  “I put my ear to the ground back there and heard hoofbeats.Pretty faint. But whoever’s following us is moving right along. I listened for quite a while, seems like. Soldiers, I figure.Walk a ways, trot some, then a gallop, and back to a walk.”

  “How close?” Ben asked.

  John turned his horse, beckoned to Ben.

  “Close enough that I can feel soldiers breathing down my neck.”

  Ben clapped spurs to his horse’s flanks and followed John.

  “We gonna hide, John?” Ben asked as he caught up to Savage.

  “No place to hide. We’ll just wait and see if we can’t get the drop on them. Better shake out your rifle. But don’t shoot. I just want them to see we mean business.”

  John pulled his rifle from its scabbard. He reined in Gent a few moments later and slid out of the saddle. Ben did the same. They stood there in the darkness, listening, waiting, watching their backtrail for as far as they could see.

  “I ain’t got a cartridge in the chamber,” Ben said.

  “Leave it be, Ben. We’re not going to shoot anybody.”

  “We ain’t? Then, why the rifles?”

  “We’ll use them as persuaders. Now keep quiet.”

  Ben opened his mouth to say something else, but closed it again. He laid the barrel of his rifle across his pommel and looked up at the stars, the frozen moon half in shadow. The distant cry of a timber wolf floated down from the foothills, hung in the air like a solitary scream from hell, then vanished into silence.

  The scent of sage, musty and cloying, flared in John’s nostrils as he sat his horse, listening, sparing his eyes from light by keeping his gaze on the darkest shadows sprawling across the landscape. He knew that when he needed to see those soldiers who were following them, he could make them out long before they saw him.

  It was not a long wait.

  John heard the scuffle of shod hooves, the swishing rustle of sagebrush and sand a few moments before the three riders came into view. All three of them were gazing at the ground, leaning out of their saddles like gawkers staring into a tide-poolin some dark, dismal swamp. He repressed the urge to chuckle.

  Three blind men following a cold trail, he thought.

  “Now, Ben,” John whispered. “Follow me.”

  John kicked Gent into action. The horse’s muscles bunched up and flowed into rippling energy, propelling its large body forward toward the three uniformed soldiers.

  “Hold up there,” John said, his voice deep with authority. He held his rifle straight up, pointing at the sky, the butt anchoredto his calf.

  “Whoa,” Herzog said to his horse. “Hold up,” he said to his men.

  The three horses stopped as Ben and John rode up.

  “Savage? That you?”

  “We mean you no harm, Lieutenant,” John said. “Hear me out.”

  He looked at the two men riding with Herzog, saw their sergeant’s stripes, their rugged faces blank with surprise.

  “You throwing down on me. Two against three.”

  “You’re following me, aren’t you, Herzog?”

  “That’s Lieutenant Herzog. Maybe I am. Maybe I’m not.”

  “Well, why strain your eyes, Lieutenant? Ben and I are followinga shod horse and two Indian ponies. Only their tracks petered out. I thought you and your sergeants might want to ride along with us. Save you trying to track us. You can be stubborn about it, or you can take me up on my offer.”

  Herzog did not answer right away. John could see that he was mulling the offer over in his military mind.

  “Why are you tracking these men?” Herzog asked. “This is army business.”

  “You mean stolen rifles,” John said.

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, the rifles are headed northwest. The main body of Indians broke off a ways back and headed that way. Reason I’m following these particular tracks is one of the horses is shod. The others aren’t. I figure there’s a white man behind this, and he’s going to lead me to Ollie Hobart.”

  “That what you figure?” Herzog asked.

  “That’s what I said. If you want your rifles back, you’re on the wrong trail, Lieutenant.”

  “We can’t take on fifteen or twenty Indians.”

  “Then, why not go with us? There’d be five of us against three. The tracks have been brushed out, but I reckon the white man and the two redskins with him are heading straight for those mountains yonder.”

  John cocked a thumb toward the black humps behind him.

  “I don’t know. It would be highly irregular,” Herzog said.

  John looked at the two sergeants. Their expressions were noncommittal. They stared back, impassive as store-window dummies.

  “What’s irregular is you and your men following Ben and me. We had nothing to do with the theft of those rifles. We’re not the enemy. But if my hunch is right, Hobart’s behind this. He wants to use the Cheyenne to rob those miners somewhere up in those mountains.”

  “I know where the prospectors are,” Herzog said. “But there’s probably a camp of renegade Indians not far from there. If your hunch is right, Cresswell could be headed that way.”

  “Cresswell?”

  “Major George Cresswell. He was in command of the armory.We believe he’s in cahoots with the Cheyenne who left the reservation up on the Wind River. He was captured as a kid, raised by Ogallala Sioux. He’s even got an Indian name. They call him Tashunka Gleska. Spotted Horse. Army figured he would be a big help fighting Indians. Now Colonel Ward thinks he’s helping the Cheyenne. For some reason we don’t know.”

  “Cresswell know Hobart?” John asked.

  “Could be. Hobart, we think, is behind the earlier thefts of ordnance and maybe lured some twenty or so Cheyenne away from Wind River.”

  “Well, you’re never going to find out if you stop me and Ben from going after Cresswell.”

  “My orders were not to stop you from anything, Savage.”

  “Look, Lieutenant, why don’t you call me John and I’ll call you, what’s your first name, anyway?”

  “Rolf.”

  “That okay with you, Rolf?”

  Herzog sucked in a breath through his nostrils. One of the sergeants, Daryl Freeman, screwed his face up in an expressionof distaste.

  “All right, John. Say we go with you after Cresswell. There are no tracks, you say. How do you figure to track him?”

  “I think those Indians will get tired of sweeping up after their ponies and drop the sagebrush broom. We’ll find more tracks by morning. And once they get into the mountains, they’ll leave sign that can’t be brushed away.”

  “You a tracker, John?”

  “I can read a broken branch, a turned-over stone, an iron scuff mark on a flat rock.”

  “You’re a tracker,” Herzog said.

  As they rode off toward the mountains, Herzog introduced his two sergeants, Daryl Freeman and Will Crisp, to Ben and John. After that, all five men were on a first-name basis.

  “How far ahead do you figure Cresswell is, John?” Herzog asked.

  “Probably an hour or so. He’s not in any hurry. Maybe less than that. Just be ready in case any of those three double back on us.”

  After that, none of the men spoke. John followed the brush marks, when he could see them, and they were as good as horse tracks.

  When they got to the foothills, John reined up, halting the entire party. He pointed to the ground.

  “There are the tracks,�
� he said. “Any idea where Cresswell might be headed, Rolf?”

  Herzog stared ahead at the looming mountains.

  “I think so,” he said. “Hard to tell, it’s so dark, but I recognizethese hills. If the tracks veer off to the left, I’d say Cresswelland the two Cheyenne are headed up Dead Horse Canyon.”

  “Dead Horse Canyon?” John asked.

  “That’s where the prospectors are. And probably where Hobart and the Cheyenne have their camp.”

  The sky began to pale when they found the entrance to Dead Horse Canyon. The morning star hung like a sparkling diamond in the sky. The moon was losing its glow. In the east, dawn was beginning to flow in a creamy line just above the horizon. An owl floated from the pine trees and flapped on silent wings to a higher perch somewhere up the dark and forbiddingdefile of Dead Horse Canyon.

  There was not a sound to be heard when the five men stopped to listen just inside the canyon.

  The tracks they had been following were no longer heading in that direction. John pointed to the ground, showed Herzog that the tracks were leading off into the pines toward a ridge to the north.

  “Be suicide to ride up this canyon,” John said.

  “I agree.” Herzog patted his horse’s neck. “We’ll have to flank them.”

  “We’ll make a lot of noise, Rolf. They’ll hear us for sure,” John said.

  “Any ideas, then?” Herzog asked.

  John looked at the ridge to the left of the canyon. It rose like the backbone of a prehistoric beast, its top bristling with pine trees that offered concealment and muffling of sound.

  “How far up are those prospectors, Rolf?”

  “About three or four miles. Canyon widens a little ways ahead.”

  “Follow me,” John said, and turned Gent into the trees at the foot of the ridge to their left. Four men followed John, none of them knowing of his plan, but trusting him. There was a bond between them now that had not existed before. Not one of them questioned his leadership.

  Somehow, they all sensed that John Savage had a plan, even though none knew what it was.

  A rising sun painted the dawn sky, daubing it a crimson the color of maple leaves in the fall, brilliant and raging with a sailor’s warning. The morning star disappeared and the moon turned into an empty shell being scrubbed away by an invisiblehand.

  Daylight came slow on the ridge and in the bosom of the mountains. And so, too, did the fear of what lay ahead beyond the bloodred horizon.

  25

  George cresswell held up his hand, signaling a halt to the two Ogallala riding behind him. He pointed to the flat rock just to his right. The stone jutted from the earth like a ledge. He had been to this place before, and underneath the ledge were dead limbs, sticks of wood, a tin box full of shavings, a flat piece of iron, and another piece shaped like a small horseshoe.

  He signed to the two redmen with him, one a Lakota of the Hunkpapa tribe, the other a Northern Cheyenne. All three men dismounted, then tied their horses to juniper bushes. The Lakota was called Talking Hawk; the Cheyenne had the name of Broken Thumb. Both wore buckskins, moccasins, beaded loin cloths.

  Cresswell dug into his saddlebag and pulled out a clay pipe with a long wooden stem carved from a willow tree. The bowl of the pipe was square, its pale pink exterior polished smooth. Then he pulled forth a pouch of tobacco.

  He pointed to the flint and steel beneath the rock, the wood and shavings. Thumb and Talking Hawk squatted down and lifted the items up to the rock shelf, then started to make a fire. Cresswell sat down on the edge and took off his cavalry boots and spurs. He stood up and removed his tunic, cap, pistolbelt, and trousers. Hawk walked to his horse and removed a bundle from his saddlebags. He carried the bundle to Cresswelland handed it to him.

  Cresswell untied the leather thongs that bound the bundle, unfolded a fringed buckskin shirt, beaded moccasins, trousers, and leggings. He donned the clothes while the small fire blazed. Thumb added more sticks to it.

  Cresswell filled the pipe, removed a flaming faggot from the fire, lit the tobacco. He squatted on one side of the fire and bade his two companions to sit. He puffed on the pipe. Then he took a generous pinch of tobacco from the pouch and tossed some into the fire at the four directions. He handed the pipe to Hawk.

  “I am now Tashunka Gleska,” Cresswell said, speaking in Lakota and signing with his hands. “I am no longer a white face. I am Ogallala as long as grass grows and water flows from the Paha Sapa.”

  “That is good,” Hawk said. “You are Lakota. You are SpottedHorse.”

  Thumb grunted and spoke in the Cheyenne tongue, his hands like birds, making the sign. “Spotted Horse is a redman. He is no longer a white face. He is brave. He is good.”

  “Hear my words, Wakan Tanka,” Cresswell said. “Give me strength to fight my enemies. Make me strong and let me returnto my people.”

  The three men passed the pipe until the tobacco was smoked, each saying words to the Great Spirit, Wakan Tanka.

  Cresswell held the smoke in his lungs until it began to burn, then let it slowly flow from his nostrils. He watched the smoke hang in the air for a moment, then slowly dissipate. Battens of fog clung to the sides of the ridge and he watched wisps of it detach and float like smoke. Tendrils rose from the rocks and into the air, as if the smoke headed toward heaven.

  He felt free for the first time in a long while. His consciencewas at ease. He had been no less a prisoner of the white man than he had been with the red. But over the years, he had seen what his fellow white men had done to the Lakota, the Cheyenne, the Crow, and the Blackfeet. Treaties broken, promises forgotten, good, strong men driven like cattleto places they didn’t want to go.

  Some of the men he had grown up with in the Dakotas had been reduced to beggars and outcasts, scorned and cursed by soldiers, whiskey peddlers, land grabbers, and prospectors. The injustice of it all had been eating away at him for a long time. Now, he had broken free of the white man’s grip and could return to a simpler life, a life where the people had respectfor the land and believed in a Great Spirit and the spirit that was in all things. The redman knew things the white man never considered in his headlong rush to acquire land, gold, and the subjugation of a proud and noble people.

  The air in the mountains was sweet, and the smoke representedthe spirit, the breath made visible, the soul that was free to roam the skies and the land. His chest and the chests of his two companions bore the scars of the Sun Dance and that gave him comfort now that he was not encased in a military uniform. He took no pride in being a white man. Not anymore.His skin was white, but his soul was as red as the iron-richearth.

  He had long ago given up his hatred for the Lakota who had killed his parents. He understood their reasons. The white man had invaded the redman’s birthplace, the land given to him by the Great Spirit, Wakan Tanka. The redman was not the enemy. He had known this for a long time and yet his militarytraining had held him captive. But when he saw the Cheyenne and the Lakota, the other tribes of the plains, sent to reservations, kept there like animals in a zoo, his heart had rebelled,his conscience had begun to hurt as if it had been pricked by a thorn that dug deeper and deeper until he carried a festering wound that none could see.

  Hobart had proven to be the last straw. He was another white man, a murderous, greedy white man, who wanted to use the Cheyenne to attack prospectors, steal their gold, risk their lives for a few moments of freedom. It was wrong. All of it was wrong, and he was now filled with a hatred for all white faces, and especially for Hobart, Mandrake, Tanner, Fry, and all the others who would exploit the redman and further degradethe character of a proud and noble race who only wanted to live in harmony with the earth and the sky. It galled him to think these thoughts and now, in his mind, he placed them in the bowl of the pipe, and released them in the smoke that rose to the sky and became part of all things, like spirit.

  They finished the ceremonial smoke and Cresswell put the pipe and tobacco back in his saddlebag.

  “
Now,” he said, “we go to our brothers and tell them to come with us to the north.”

  “Yes,” Thumb said.

  Hawk said yes, too.

  The sun was a boiling disk on the eastern horizon when the three men rode up the ridge toward the Cheyenne camp. The dew scent was thick in the air, reeking of pine and spruce, juniper, and fir. Partridges scurried through the underbrush ahead of them and jays squawked like angry fishwives, blue missiles flitting through the pine branches, leaving bouncing boughs in their wake. Overhead, a lone hawk sailed on a currentof air, head moving back and forth, golden eyes scanning the game trails for prey beneath small puffs of cotton clouds.

  Upwind, concealed in the trees, a man turned and headed up the ridge. He had been watching the white man and the two red men for a long time. He had read their hand signs, heard their words. He had made no sound. When he was far enough away, he began to run on moccasined feet. He was like a deer, fleet of foot, graceful, lithe, silent.

  His name was Turtle.

  26

  Ollie hobart rode into the renegade cheyenne camp just at dawn, Army Mandrake and Rosa Delgado flanking him. Dick Tanner brought up the rear, riding several yards behind the others. He looked over his shoulder often, just to make sure no one was on their backtrail.

  “No sentry,” he said to Army. “Goddamned Injuns.”

  “I just hope they ain’t drunk,” Army said. “Blue Snake should have had sentries all around the camp, the bastard.”

  He looked at Rosa when he said it, and she fixed him with a scathing look. She had gotten sober the night before, but she knew both men no longer trusted her to stay away from the whiskey. Jubal Fry, no longer wearing an army uniform, rode beside her, his civilian clothes so new she could smell them. They reeked of cardboard and paper, store dust and mothballs.

  Red Eagle stood outside his lean-to, smoking, when he saw Hobart and the others riding down from the ridge. Mist clung to the low spots around the camp, while clouds hugged the high peaks. There was no sunlight, only a soft pale glow to the east, beyond the craggy ridges and the tall pines rising above the foothills.