by Terry Grosz
“Kill him! Kill him now, John! Don’t let him get a-holt of you or he will crush you like a bug just like he almost did to me,” said one of his men with a last name of La Rochelle.
“No, that is too good for this bastard. I want him to suffer a while before I blow him a new asshole with this here rifle. Then I want to be the one to toss his miserable carcass into the Missouri for what he did to me some time back at Fort Union. No one treats John Pierre like that and gets to live a longer life. Additionally, I get to give it to you big time for taking away my little Indian ‘play-pretty’. Plus my boys still resent you for taking away their ‘fun time’ with her as well. Now you are going to pay for that as well, if I have my druthers,” snarled John Pierre, now really enjoying himself because he finally held the upper hand over a much-hated individual in the being of Iron Hand…
“Tie this big bastard’s hands and feet up and do a good job of it, or you will suffer more than my wrath,” snarled John Pierre, as he instructed another trapper named La Duc to do the deed. “But be careful how you do it. Just make sure he does not get a hold of you, or you will rue the day because he is so damned strong and is reputed to enjoy killing those he does not favor with his bare hands,” continued John Pierre. As he spoke, his eyes never left those of his prisoner and the end of his rifle barrel never left being leveled at the center of the trapper’s chest standing before him…
Moments later, Iron Hand felt his wrists being tied so tightly that it would be just moments before the fingers in his hands would be going numb. Then a rope was tied around Iron Hand’s ankles, which was tied just as tightly as had been his wrists, after being forced to sit down. Then it was Old Potts’s group of trappers’ turn at being tied up as had been that of Iron Hand. Then the lot of the now tightly tied-up men were tossed into a squirming pile in the middle of a small clearing where they could be easily watched over by John Pierre’s group of outlaw trappers.
Then John Pierre’s men ate the cobbler meant for Old Potts’s men and finished off the remains of the entire stone crock of rum in short order as well. Following that, John Pierre gave orders regarding who would be on guard duty over the now-bound trappers and assigned two men to watch over the prisoners at all times. Then the rest of the group started going through the packs of furs and provisions from Old Potts’s group of trappers, helping themselves to what they wanted as they sacked the piles of packs and supplies.
Finished with their looting of the packs, the outlaw trappers returned to the group of tied-up men being led once again by John Pierre. “Alright, Boys, let’s give it to them. We will teach all these pukes that it does not pay to bathe in our Missouri River.” With that, all of John Pierre’s men dropped their pants and as a group, urinated all over the helplessly tied-up men…
Iron Hand’s internal seething was almost beyond his control! Yet he could do nothing and knew that if he tried, they would all be killed on the spot. So best to hold in check his killing temper and await his chance, if he ever got one… About then, a young Indian boy, obviously a slave-boy to the group of rough outlaw trappers, walked into the campsite struggling with a heavy stoneware crock of rum. About then, he stumbled on a tree root and dropped the jug of rum, which did not break in the process. Instantly, John Pierre jumped up, grabbed a horse quirt from off a nearby saddle and commenced thrashing the young Indian lad unmercifully! Soon, the young Indian lad was on the ground crying out like little Sinopa had been doing the first time Iron Hand had observed John’s cruel and mean-tempered behavior. Seeing that cruel act, Iron Hand could no longer contain himself.
“Quit beating that young boy!” yelled Iron Hand.
John Pierre, being surprised over being given an order, turned and saw who had just given that order and then aggressively stomped over to where Iron Hand lay tied up on the ground. Standing over Iron Hand, John’s face twisted into a snarl, and it was then that John Pierre commenced savagely beating Iron Hand over and over again with the lead-handled horse quirt, until he passed out from the rain of smashing blows around his head and face!
The next morning, Iron Hand awoke from his vicious beating, only being able to see out of one eye clearly and barely able to move from all the dried and crusted blood all over his badly beaten and heavily bruised head and shoulders!
“Iron Hand, are you OK? Damn, I thought you were dead from all the vicious beating you took at that bastard’s hands,” quietly said a very concerned sounding Old Potts lying next to him.
Iron Hand tried to reply but found his mouth horribly busted up, several teeth missing and both lips split clear to his jaw bone! Trying to roll over and sit up, he found he was in so much body pain that it took several tries before he was successful. But he finally managed to sit up, only to get a hard kick in the center of his back from an unknown assailant until he heard a man’s voice. It was La Duc and it was his turn to guard the prisoners. Because of resenting having to do so, La Duc took out his dissatisfaction and wrath on the unprotected back of Iron Hand. However, little did La Duc realize he had just signed his death warrant, especially if Iron Hand ever got away from what was binding him and he got a hold of his scrawny neck with either of his powerful hands!
Finally, La Duc, tiring of kicking the hell out of Iron Hand’s back, ambled off over to the fire where the rest of his cohorts were starting to have breakfast. Once again, Iron Hand tried sitting up because that seemed to help keep his badly damaged head from spinning off his shoulders like a penny top! It was then that Iron Hand heard a slight rustling in the dense brush behind him. Figuring he was in for another foot stomping, he braced himself! Then he felt a knife begin quietly cutting the rope that was binding his wrists and hands! Soon he was free, but his hands had been tied so tightly that he had hardly any feeling in them. Then he felt something like the thick handle of a knife being thrust into his constantly flexing hands as he tried desperately to get some feeling and movement back into them! Looking out his good eye, he could see all the men still eating breakfast a distance away and not paying any attention to all the men they had captured the day before, still all tied up and dumped into a large pile.
Then the rustling in the bushes was heard once again and this time Iron Hand got a glimpse of the young Indian lad fast disappearing through the brush like he feared for his life if ever caught doing what he had just done! Then Iron Hand could just see that the boy moving through the brush was the one and same young Indian who John Pierre was beating with a horse quirt when Iron Hand had told him to stop. In so doing, the beating of the Indian lad had stopped and then commenced on Iron Hand as he lay helplessly tied up from head to toe. Then Iron Hand realized the young Indian lad had more than likely braved another beating or even death for what he had just done and in so doing, was returning the favor to him for standing up for the young boy in his time of need! That act of utter bravery would not be lost on Iron Hand…
Looking over at the men around the fire having breakfast and seeing that no one was paying any attention to their prisoners, Iron Hand made his move. With his hands now getting their feeling back, Iron Hand reached down and cut the ropes binding his ankles so now he could stand up and better defend himself if and when the opportunity arose. Then looking at Old Potts who was closely watching what Iron Hand was doing, he placed the butt of the knife into Old Potts’s hands so he could cut himself free. Following that and in order not to bring any unwanted attention to the captured trappers, Iron Hand resumed his sitting up position like nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. Yet he full well knew that the rest of his group was now one by one making wise use of the knife just handed off to Old Potts earlier!
It was then that Iron Hand could feel the adrenalin racing throughout his body and rifle or not, someone was going to die for what they had done to him and his group of trappers! About 30 minutes later, here came La Duc to once again watch over the prisoners. When he did, he saw that Iron Hand was sitting up and looking right at him. Looking back at the ‘prairie rattler’-like stare Iron Hand
was giving La Duc, he failed to notice that the giant trapper was loose from his ropes and ready to strike the first thing that he got his hands upon…
“What you looking at, puke? Want some more of the same I gave you before breakfast, huh?” Without realizing that his prisoner was now free and flushed with adrenalin, La Duc kicked out at Iron Hand. In so doing, La Duc’s last remembrance was seeing a blur of movement, feeling a roaring pain in his neck and then nothing but blackness, as Iron Hand grabbed his leg, jerked him suddenly down to the ground alongside him, and cleanly snapped his neck with one quick movement with his powerful hands!
Being that all the recent action had taken place on the ground below the level of the close at hand bushes, no one around the campfire took notice of La Duc’s quick disappearance. Slowly removing La Duc’s two belt-sash pistols, he handed one to Old Potts and the other to Crooked Hand. Both of those men, thanks to the young Indian boy and the use of his knife, were now also free. In fact, all of Old Potts’s group of trappers had passed the knife around and all were now free! Free but not moving because all of them realized they were, except for a knife and two pistols, basically unarmed.
To make any kind of obvious movement advertising that they were now free and to subsequently arouse suspicion from their captors still around the campfire, would court Old Potts’s trappers nothing but death and destruction in short order! Then Iron Hand quietly slipped La Duc’s rifle across his legs and handed it off to Gabriel Dent to use when the time came. Now three of the trappers were armed and Iron Hand heard the quiet ‘clicks’ as all three men holding a weapon, had just cocked them so they would be ready for instant deadly action when the time came and action on their parts was called for.
Still not having a plan for himself, Iron Hand was soon given an opening. John Pierre’s closest ally from his bunch of cutthroats was a French-Canadian named La Rochelle. It was that man that Iron Hand could see coming their way to relieve La Duc from his guard duties, so he could go and get some coffee which was now ready for consumption.
La Rochelle walked over to where the prisoners were still making like they were all piled up, then stopped, turned around and took the time to begin to urinate nearby. When he turned around, he had his rifle jerked from his hands and tossed backwards by Iron Hand in the direction of the rest of Old Potts’s crew! When his rifle was abruptly jerked from his hands and upon seeing Iron Hand materialize up out from the underbrush, La Rochelle’s eyes showed an inordinate amount of white ringing his pupils, indicating his deep fear over what was coming next! He died without emitting one single sound, not only because of extreme fear upon seeing Iron Hand quickly reaching for him initially, but because it is hard to yell when one has his neck quickly choked closed and then snapped…
Then all hell broke loose in that Missouri River bottom in those next few seconds! John Pierre, looking in the direction of his prisoners and seeing Iron Hand tossing his best friend La Rochelle off into the brush like a rag doll with a broken neck, roared out in surprise and then in extreme fury! Grabbing up a nearby musket, John came screaming and charging towards Iron Hand with ‘blood in his eyes’! As he did and unarmed as he was, Iron Hand just stood there and hoped that the rest of his fellow trappers were as ready as they could be for the hell and fury that was now coming their way.
Since Iron Hand had already killed two of the total of eight trappers in John Pierre’s group, the remaining five came charging in behind John Pierre with their rifles at the ready! John Pierre, being the bully and coward that he was, stopped a good ten feet shy from Iron Hand, raised his rifle and said, “Now you die, you piece of shit. I should have killed you earlier but any time to die is a good time for you, you bastard!”
“ZZZIIPPPP—THUNK!” went an arrow straight into John Pierre’s left ear, dropping him to the ground in less than a heartbeat! Then before Iron Hand and his fellow trappers could get involved in the fight with the onrushing five remaining armed trappers, about 20 Blackfoot warriors materialized up from their places of hiding in the dense brush surrounding the campsite, and showered the air with arrows, all aimed at the oncoming rush of John Pierre’s group of trappers!
Seconds later after the screams had died away, out from the brush not more than 20 feet away from the still-wiggling in his death spasms John Pierre, rose Spotted Eagle with a stern and killing look on his face, as he now held an empty bow! As he did, his warriors swarmed over the dead and dying trappers from John Pierre’s group of outlaws, scalping and knifing as they went! There were several muffled screams as several still-living trappers were scalped alive, but soon all was stilled, hearts and the like, on the evil trappers’ side of the camp!
Old Potts’s trappers, realizing they were outnumbered and figuring they were all going to die at the hands of the attacking Indians, figured on defending themselves to their last breath. Then Iron Hand, after recognizing Spotted Eagle, yelled out to his fellow trappers, “Don’t move or shoot! They are our friends. They are Spotted Eagle’s braves, so don’t shoot! Put down your guns!”
Then Spotted Eagle, still in his killing emotion of the moment, walked over to John Pierre, dropped his bow, then reaching down, slit his throat and then scalped him where he lay still wiggling in his spasms from suffering a violent death! Finally standing up and holding John Pierre’s bloody and very recognizable long-haired scalp tied back with a bright yellow ribbon, Spotted Eagle said clearly for all to hear, “This is Sinopa’s Revenge!”
When Spotted Eagle spoke those words, Iron Hand remembered back to when he had taken little Sinopa away from John Pierre and the rest of his raping fur trappers. The indignities she had suffered at the hands of John Pierre and his kind had now been laid to rest, that was if Spotted Eagle holding up a bloody scalp meant anything to the knowing and understanding observer…
Then Spotted Eagle walked over to his Brother, Iron Hand, saying, “My Brother, it seems once again you needed the help from your Indian Brother. What happened to your face and head? You look like you have been using your head to ‘chop down trees’,” he said with a big, all-knowing grin. Then the two ‘Brothers’ hugged in recognition and relief that the past moment in time was now lost to the ever-blowing prairie winds…
After all John Pierre’s trappers’ bodies had been tossed into the Missouri River, Spotted Eagle and a couple of his warriors treated John Pierre differently. Shortly afterwards, John Pierre’s stripped naked body swung silently from a long rope tied to a stout cottonwood limb overlooking the Missouri River. There he swung quietly out in the open, ‘waiting’ for the ever-meat hungry black-billed magpies to find him and ‘rejoice’ over finding such a wonderfully sized, 300-pound dinner waiting for them and all of their buddies… A closer look at the naked man slowly swinging in the air ‘waiting’ for his soon to be aerial friends, the magpies, was noticeably missing his manhood. ‘Manhood’ which had been removed with the aid of a very sharp knife and tossed into the Missouri River for the crawfish to enjoy…
That afternoon celebrated over cups of rum, the trappers and Spotted Eagle’s 20 warriors feasted on roast venison, Iron Hand’s style of Dutch oven biscuits slathered in honey or sugar and finally, two Dutch oven baked apple pies, courtesy of John Pierre’s provisions from his own pack string. That evening around a blazing campfire and more cups of rum supplied from the now dead Pierre’s provisions, Spotted Eagle told his tale as to how and why he had managed to track down and save his Brother, Iron Hand, and avenge his wife, Sinopa, in the process.
Enjoying the attention as everyone waited for him to begin speaking, Spotted Eagle finally began telling his story with the following words. “Long ago, my cousin, Chief Mingan, asked me and 20 of his best trackers and warriors to hunt down two young and wayward members from our own tribe who abused the very young and old of my band. Because of their abuse of the young and very old from my band and then stealing a number of our best horses, Chief Mingan from the Medicine Lake Blackfoot Tribe asked that I lead a party of warriors, hunt down these two brot
hers who became known as the “Bad Seeds”, and kill them for what they had done to our people.”
“For many moons, my fellow warriors and I hunted the Bad Seeds unsuccessfully. They were very clever and we could not find them and do as Chief Mingan had ordered. Then along came my Brother and his fellow trappers and in a fight along the Missouri River, they hunted down and killed a number of the bad Indians who were preying on the white man trappers, killing them and taking their furs. In that fight, one of the Bad Seed brothers was killed by my Brother, Iron Hand. But the other older Bad Seed brother got away and we have been hunting him ever since.”
“A moon ago, we finally discovered where the remaining Bad Seed and his Gros Ventre brothers were hunting down and killing the white men trappers. But when we finally tracked them down in the Porcupine River country, we discovered all of them had been killed by what appeared to be white man trappers. But it was really hard to tell who had killed the Bad Seed and his fellow Gros Ventre brothers, because our Great Bear Brother, the grizzly, had found their bodies first and had eaten many of them. Fortunately, he did not eat the scarred head of the Bad Seed and upon finding that lying around their old campsite, we figured our hunt for him was over but another one had just begun. So, we followed the trail of the white man trappers who had killed these bad people and found their cabin where they had been living. But they had already left the area and were heading down towards the Missouri River. So we followed their trail until we got to the great river, and then followed it even further as it led toward Fort Union,” continued Spotted Eagle.