“Right,” Bret replied, knowing it was something he never would have thought to do.
They descended along the rocky trail by the busy stream until reaching a place where an old game trail crossed it and led into the trees on the other side. “Right there’s one of the ways outta here that I told you about,” Coldiron said, pointing it out. “There ain’t much use to scout around that trail. It’ll take you down offa this mountain, but you’ll just be deeper in between a couple others. I’m bettin’ on the other’n a little ways down. It goes off to the east and comes out in the foothills. If I’m right, those Injuns will be headin’ away from these mountains and goin’ around the Big Belts on the eastern side.”
When they came to the trail Coldiron spoke of, it turned out that he was right on his hunch, as he so often was. There were plenty of signs that the war party had taken the trail down, leaving hoofprints and broken branches as evidence. “Looks to me like the last thing they’re worried about is somebody followin’ ’em,” he said. “Makes my job a sight easier.”
At the base of the mountain, the trail emerged from the evergreens to cross a narrow valley between the mountain and a line of hills pointing toward the north. Once out of the hills, they pulled up while Coldiron dismounted and studied the tracks, to make sure they were the right ones, and not some older tracks. When he was satisfied and climbed back into the saddle, Bret thought he should check with the big scout to make sure he was comfortable with their chances. “I reckon I should have asked you back there on the mountain how you feel about pushing on into real Blackfoot country. You might not think it’s worth the risk.”
Coldiron shrugged. “I ain’t gonna lie to ya. Our chances of catchin’ up with that bunch ain’t too good. There’s a heap of Blood and Blackfoot bands up in that country, so it might take a long time to find the village they’re headed for. How long are you expected to be gone from the fort?”
“We were issued rations and ammunition for four days,” Bret replied. “I know I have to report back to Captain Greer, but if you’re in agreement, I’d like to stay on this trail for a couple more days. Maybe we’ll have some luck. If not, we’ll have to report back, and I’ll try to convince my superiors that it’s worthwhile to mount a patrol to go in search of those women.”
Coldiron shrugged again, seemingly indifferent. “Hell, whatever you decide, I ain’t got nothin’ better to do right now.”
While following the trail was their primary objective, of equal concern was to put some distance between themselves and the unsuspecting hostiles still on the mountain behind them. They had to think that their presence at the camp had not been discovered. It would have been incredible luck if one of the six warriors had had occasion to scout the ledge where the horses had been tied. So they followed the trail the rest of the afternoon until, finally, they decided to find a place to camp for the night and continue early in the morning. When they came to a sizable creek, they followed it down a wide ravine and made camp where it took a sharp bend around a huge rock.
Coldiron got his frying pan from his packs to cook some of the venison he carried. “I still got a little of that smoked deer meat,” he remarked. “Maybe we’ll get a chance at some fresh meat before we have to fall back on that damn salt pork the army gave you to eat.”
Neither man was really hungry, so a little venison and some strong black coffee were enough to satisfy them. Bret also had the urge to clean up a little, and maybe even shave the whiskers that had sprung up over the past couple of days. “How come you don’t just let it grow?” Coldiron asked. “I decided a long time ago that it was a helluva lot easier to just leave it the way God planted it.”
“I can see that,” Bret remarked, joking. “But I reckon I got in the habit of shaving at the academy.”
“Yeah, but you don’t even wear a mustache,” Coldiron insisted. “Don’t your face feel kinda naked?”
Bret laughed at the big man’s apparent serious interest. “I’ve grown one from time to time, but I got tired of it pretty quick, and off it came.” The ordinarily gruff army scout surprised him occasionally with questions unrelated to the job at hand.
Chapter 4
Early the next morning they were in the saddle and ready to travel, after Coldiron had ridden up on a high ridge to take a long look over the ground they had traveled the day before. Satisfied that there was no sign of anybody in sight, he felt more confident that the Indians might never have known they had white visitors the day before. Now maybe we can make up some ground on that bunch ahead of us, he thought. He returned to the campsite to find Bret scattering the ashes of the fire and covering them with dirt in hopes of disguising their presence there. He had the right idea, Coldiron thought, so he didn’t bother to tell him that a good tracker could see the ruse right away. And most likely every warrior in that bunch behind them was a good tracker.
Much of the final mile or so of their travel the night before had been guided by Coldiron’s sense of dead reckoning when it had become too dark to see the tracks they hoped to follow. From the base of the Crazy Mountains, it appeared to him that the trail left by the hostiles was heading toward Coffin Butte, so he had continued on that way for a while after he could no longer pick out hoofprints. Now before going farther, he wanted to find their tracks, so Bret scouted downstream while he rode upstream to see if they could find where the Blackfeet had crossed the creek. His intuition the night before was proven accurate when Bret sang out that he had found it. With a definite trail to follow, they set out to catch up with the Indians.
The tracking was not overly difficult since the Blackfeet apparently felt no concern that anyone was following them. Consequently they took the easiest route toward the Little Belt Mountains, and by noon, when the two pursuers skirted Coffin Butte and struck the Musselshell River they came upon the Indian campsite of the previous night. “They sure as hell ain’t in much of a hurry,” Coldiron commented as he looked around the riverbank. “We weren’t more’n about twenty miles apart when we stopped last night.”
“Maybe we’ll catch up with them tonight, if we don’t waste much time,” Bret said.
“I expect we’d best rest these horses here for a spell, so we might as well have a little something to eat.”
They built a small fire and prepared to partake of the usual fare of smoked venison and strong coffee, supplemented on this occasion by some hardtack that Bret had brought along. “I never thought I’d miss beans so much,” Bret commented as he bit off a chunk of the stale hardtack, after he had wiped some of the mold from one side of it.
His comment caused a chuckle from Coldiron. The oversized scout found his young friend an interesting study. “Whaddaya think your superiors back at Fort Ellis are thinkin’ ’bout you not showin’ up with that other soldier?”
“Well, they know what we’re trying to do. McCoy should tell them why we went on after the hostiles. I think it’s what they would have wanted me to do. It’s the right thing to do, anyway. When they sent us out to Benson’s Landing, they didn’t have any idea there were women captives. More than likely, they would have suggested that a patrol of fifteen or twenty troopers would have made more sense, but, hell, that young man didn’t know the two women were captured.”
“I reckon you’ll find out when we get back,” Coldiron said. “If we bring the women back safe and sound, I don’t think they’ll care one way or the other how long it took.” He paused for a few moments while he studied the lieutenant. “I reckon you always wanted to be a soldier, I mean, you goin’ to West Point and all?”
“I guess,” Bret replied, although a little hesitant. “My father was a career soldier, and I reckon it was always a foregone conclusion that I’d be one, too.”
“A what?” Coldiron responded, unfamiliar with the term.
“It was a safe bet that I’d go in the army,” Bret rephrased for the benefit of the simple man.
“Your daddy,”
Coldiron asked, “is he a general or something?”
“A colonel,” Bret replied.
“I thought your daddy had to be a general before you could get into West Point.”
Bret laughed. “No, there’s a lot of men at the academy whose fathers weren’t even in the army. My father was a colonel. He might have made general, given a little more time, but he was killed at Vicksburg.”
“That’ll slow a man down, all right,” Coldiron replied earnestly. Then thinking that he might have sounded a bit too crass, he commented, “Well, now, that’s a shame. Maybe you’ll make it to general and make your mama proud.”
“Maybe so,” Bret allowed, although he wasn’t sold on the idea. “But it’s already too late to make my mother proud. She died not long after my father was killed.”
“I swear,” Coldiron said. “That’s bad luck. You got any brothers or sisters?”
“Nope,” Bret replied. “I may have some relatives somewhere, but I don’t know where that might be, or who they are.”
“You’re kinda like me, then,” Coldiron said. “Ain’t got no kin, nobody to answer to—except the army. I ain’t sure about my folks, neither. I weren’t much more’n five years old when my daddy sold me to a trapper, name of Henry Luce.” Coldiron laughed at the recollection. “He was a hard son of a bitch to work for, but he taught me all there was to know about trappin’. I stayed with him for almost five years before we split up. I mighta stayed with him longer, but he got to thinkin’ I’d make a good substitute for a whore. He only tried it one time, but that was one too many as far as I was concerned. I left him with a gash in his side about half a foot long courtesy of my skinnin’ knife.” He chuckled at the thought of it.
“That’s pretty harsh,” Bret said. “Did you go back to your home then?”
“Nah, hell no. There wasn’t nothin’ back there for me, and I could take care of myself by then, so I struck out on my own. So far, I ain’t regretted it.”
When it was time to mount up again, each man felt that he knew the other a little better, and Bret appreciated the fact that since the age of around ten, Coldiron had been a self-sufficient individual, living in the wild, a true son of the mountains and forests. The gruff, sarcastic facade seemed to have disappeared, replaced by an almost jolly countenance. In Bret, Coldiron saw a young man of strength and courage, too much to waste away his years in the army. It was a shame, he thought, but that was up to Bret to decide.
Crossing the river where the Blackfeet war party had crossed, they were surprised to find that, instead of continuing north, the trail split, with half of the party turning to follow the Musselshell to the west, while the other half rode in the opposite direction. “I reckon I guessed wrong this time,” Coldiron confessed. “I thought sure as hell they were headin’ up toward the Judith.” He paused to watch Bret’s reaction for a few moments. When it was obvious that the young lieutenant was weighing the dilemma in his mind, he asked, “Whaddaya wanna do?”
Bret didn’t answer at once, for he was still wrestling mentally with his orders and his natural compassion for the unfortunate women captives. In the end, he reminded himself that he was an officer with explicit orders to follow, which he had already disobeyed by extending the search for two more days.
“We’re no closer to the hostiles than we were two days ago. And now, since they’ve split into two parties, we don’t know which party took the women with them. I have no choice but to report back to my post headquarters.” He shook his head, frustrated. “But I swear I’ll do everything I can to get them to authorize a search party.”
“Whatever you say,” Coldiron said. He could see that the decision was not one Bret found easy to make. But he also knew that there was no way of determining which trail they should follow. He hated to admit it, but he knew the odds weren’t good that either one of the women would still be alive by the time he and Bret caught up with them, if they ever did.
Reluctantly they abandoned the search, with Coldiron leading them to the west in an effort to avoid a chance meeting with the party of Blackfeet behind them. His intention was to skirt the Crazy Mountains on their western side and travel south in the valley between them and the Big Belt Mountains. The gruff scout had lived in the wild long enough to accept the sometimes harsh consequences the untamed frontier dealt to Indian and white man alike. But the young lieutenant rode with a sickening feeling of helplessness in the pit of his stomach to think that he had failed the two women.
• • •
They approached the outer buildings of Fort Ellis early in the afternoon after a hard ride of two and a half days. “I’m gonna leave you here,” Coldiron said, “and get on back to my cabin—see if anybody’s been botherin’ it.”
“Aren’t you gonna stop to get your pay before you go home?” Bret asked.
“Nah. You know as well as I do that they won’t pay me till the end of the month when they pay ever’body else. I’ll be back over here sometime to pick it up.”
“All right,” Bret replied. “I’ll see that you’re paid, and I just wanna tell you that you’re a damn good scout. I appreciate your work.”
“Why, thank you, Bret. Maybe we’ll ride together again sometime—maybe if you persuade Grice to send out that patrol.”
“I hope so,” Bret said. “Take care of yourself.”
“I always do,” Coldiron responded, and turned his horse away.
Bret watched the big bear of a man as he rode toward the other side of the collection of buildings that made up Fort Ellis. He was a good scout and he sincerely hoped he would be with him when he returned to the Musselshell to search for some sign of the two women. With a renewed feeling of urgency then, he turned his horses toward the post headquarters.
Lieutenant Roger Oakes was the Officer of the Day on duty. He looked up with an expression of shocked surprise when Bret walked in the door. Sergeant Harold Baker, seated at a small desk by the door, seemed equally stunned upon seeing Bret. “Hello, Roger,” Bret greeted Oakes. Like himself, Roger had not been posted at Fort Ellis for very long.
“Bret,” Oakes returned briefly, still wearing an ex- pression as if he had seen a ghost.
Surprised somewhat by his fellow officer’s strange greeting, Bret told him that he was just returning from the field and wanted to report to Colonel Grice. Oakes seemed to be speechless for a few moments before finding his voice.
“Well, yes, I’m sure Colonel Grice wants to hear your report. Why don’t you sit right down here, and I’ll send Sergeant Baker to get the colonel?” He looked over at the gaping sergeant and said, “The colonel’s at his residence eating dinner. Go get him and tell him that Lieutenant Hollister’s back.” Baker responded at once and was out the door, leaving the two officers to sit gazing at each other.
After a few moments, Bret sought to break the awkward silence, still baffled by Roger’s bizarre behavior. He would have expected a less stiff reception after being out on patrol for a week.
“I brought Sergeant Duncan’s horse back with me. We can have one of the men take it to the stables.” Oakes merely nodded in response. “Anything of interest going on around the post?” Bret went on. “I’ve been away for a few days.”
“Oh, not much,” Oakes said. It was obvious to Bret that the lieutenant was not prone to make even casual conversation. So he gave up and waited in silence for the colonel to arrive.
It was not a long wait. In less than twenty minutes, Colonel Grice stormed into the office with two armed privates right behind him. Bret and Oakes jumped to their feet to stand at attention. Grice, a short man with drooping shoulders and a potbelly, glared up into Bret’s face. “Well, by God, you’ve got your nerve showing up here at this post,” he fumed. “I was hoping to hell you were dead.”
“Sir?” Bret responded, stunned by the unexpected outburst.
“I have no patience for cowardice in any man, and especiall
y in an officer,” Grice ranted on.
“Cowardice?” Bret questioned, baffled by the colonel’s attack. “What are you talking about, sir?”
“Cowardice!” Grice repeated in emphasis. “The cowardice of running to save your hide when your patrol was attacked by hostiles.” He literally roared the accusation. “That, mister, is unforgivable of an officer under my command.”
“Whoa!” Bret responded. “Wait a minute. Where did you get an idea like that? Didn’t Private McCoy return with the horses and the bodies of my patrol?”
“Yes, he did. He and Private Weaver brought the bodies of their comrades back to be buried, after you ran away from the massacre of everyone but the two of them.”
“I sent McCoy back to report on the attack,” Bret insisted, hardly able to comprehend what could have given the colonel the idea that he had deserted in the face of combat. “Did you say Weaver? Weaver was missing.”
“He wasn’t missing when he and McCoy loaded the bodies on their horses and brought them back here,” Grice charged. “And neither man had any idea what had happened to you.”
“No, sir,” Bret replied. “That’s not the right of it. I sent McCoy back to tell you. The scout, Coldiron, and I went on to try to catch up with the hostiles in hopes of rescuing two women who were kidnapped.”
“Is that your story?” Grice demanded. “You went after two captives?”
“It’s not my story. It’s what happened.”
“Then where are the women? I suppose you were never able to catch the renegade Indians who stole them. For that matter, if Coldiron went with you, where the hell is he? Why isn’t he here to corroborate your story?”
“He went home to his place on the Gallatin,” Bret said, aware then that he had been so thoroughly demonized and realizing the guilty parties were McCoy and Weaver. “Sir, surely you’re not going to take the word of two malcontent privates like McCoy and Weaver over that of an officer.”
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