Bret kicked the body off him, not sure if the half-breed was dead or not. When there was no response from the corpse, he quickly crawled over to retrieve his Winchester, looking around him cautiously, in case the dead man had friends close by. But he saw no one.
It’s a damn good thing there isn’t anyone, because I damn sure had my hands full with this one. I wonder if he was Bloody Hand, he thought, lacking the presence of mind to remember Lucy’s description of the Indian. It would have been fairly easy to identify a man with only one ear.
He sat there for a minute, exhausted, before moving forward again, this time with a rifle in each hand. He had other immediate worries now, and he needed the cover of the thick band of trees that circled the clearing. Everyone had to have heard the shot, and he couldn’t be sure who might be on their way to investigate.
Once in the trees, he stopped again to listen. There were no sounds that would signal an attack by other members of a war party, so he felt reasonably certain that he and Coldiron had been right in concluding that they were dealing with two Indians only. So now the question was, where was the other one?
Keeping the spot across the clearing where he had seen the muzzle flashes in mind, he started making his way through the thick band of pines with the intention of circling all the way around and coming up behind it. As he moved through the dark forest, he remained mindful of the fact that the other Indian had heard the shot, and Bret could not know if he had remained where he was. Suspecting that Coldiron had wounded the man, Bret thought there was still a good possibility that he might confront him unexpectedly in the trees.
The question was answered in the next few minutes when he was nearing the edge of the creek. A movement across the creek caught his eye and he turned in time to glimpse a horse moving up toward the clearing through a stand of willows. It disappeared from sight almost as soon as it had appeared. Bret went after it, almost certain the horse was being led up through the willows. By the time he reached the spot where he first saw it, the horse was gone, but there was another horse tied there. It further convinced him that there were two warriors only. Because of the broken willow switches, it was not hard to follow a man leading a horse. He didn’t have to follow him very far before he realized that the warrior was on a path to circle around behind Coldiron and the women.
Damn! he cursed to himself, and tried to hurry after the Indian. Then, thinking he should alert Coldiron, he fired his rifle three times in the air. He hoped that that would at least keep his big friend on his toes.
Pushing hurriedly on then, he suddenly dropped to his knee when he emerged from the willows to find a warrior standing some forty yards before him, his rifle aimed at him. The slug whistled only inches over his head, his reflex action of dropping to his knee having saved him. He brought the Winchester up and got off one round before diving flat on the ground. He had no time to take careful aim, but he saw the Indian stagger when his shot turned him halfway around. Bret scrambled to his feet as fast as he could, but it was not in time to get off a clear shot as his target used his horse to shield himself.
Not anxious to run into an ambush, even though he was sure the Indian was wounded, Bret followed the man cautiously, hoping to get the clear shot he needed to end it. It was not to be, however, for when he came again to the creek, he got just one glimpse of the wounded warrior galloping over the top of a small ridge. Seconds later, he was gone.
Damn! Bret thought. I should have shot the damn horse when he was using it for cover. “Well, I can’t do anything about it now,” he muttered, and turned to call out to Coldiron, “Nate! It’s all over! There were two of them, all right. One of ’em’s dead. The other one got away, but he’s wounded. I think he’s got two bullets in him.”
“All right,” Coldiron called back. “We’re comin’ out if you think it’s clear.”
“Come on, then,” Bret confirmed, confident that it was all right for the time being, but thinking that it would be wise to pack up and leave as soon as it was daylight. “I’m going to take a look to make sure that Indian isn’t waiting on the other side of that hill,” he called out again. Then he started out in the direction Bloody Hand had fled, moving at a steady trot, still carrying two rifles. When he reached the top of the hill, there was no sign of the wounded man on the other side of it, and none on the rolling expanse of treeless prairie beyond. It seemed likely that the man was intent only upon escaping.
By the time he returned to the clearing, Coldiron and the women were already in the process of packing up. “Somebody put a dent in your new coffeepot,” Myra said when he walked up to join them. “I found it halfway across the clearing.”
“You all right?” Coldiron asked. When Bret said that he was, the big bearlike man went on. “I wasn’t much help,” he said. “I shoulda been down here helpin’ you.”
Bret realized that his oversized friend was feeling genuine remorse for not having taken part in the fight. “You were protecting Lucy and Myra so I didn’t have to worry about them.”
“Yeah, well, you gotta start tellin’ me what you’re thinkin’ about doin’ next time before you go ahead and do it. Now, where’s the one you killed?”
“He’s up by the road,” Bret said.
“Let’s go take a look at him,” Coldiron said.
“I’m going with you,” Lucy spoke up then.
Myra quickly responded, “You don’t need to see a dead Indian. It might not be a pretty sight.”
“I want to see if it’s him,” Lucy insisted. “I have to know he’s dead.”
“You’re having enough nightmares as it is,” Myra told her. “There’s no sense in adding another one. Bret can tell you if it’s Bloody Hand. From the way you described him, it shouldn’t be too hard.” She turned to Bret then. “Can’t you, Bret?”
He realized that he was not absolutely certain, because of the desperate struggle in the dark, but he didn’t recall noticing that an ear was missing. He remembered wondering afterward if the man he killed was Bloody Hand, but that was after he had already left the body.
“I suppose,” he hedged. “It was so dark, and I was pretty busy at the time, but I’ll take a closer look for you.”
“Looks like you picked up an extra rifle,” Myra commented as the two men started to walk up to the road.
“What?” Bret replied absentmindedly. “Oh . . . yeah, a Winchester.”
“Well, unless you think you need both of them, then I could use one,” she suggested.
“I hadn’t thought about it,” Bret said. “Sure, you’re welcome to it. You know how to use it?”
“Just like the one I shot that deer with, I suppose.”
He chuckled at that. He had forgotten about it. “Right, just like that one.” He handed her Lame Dog’s rifle.
“And that means I get the pistol you’ve been carrying,” Lucy was quick to advise Myra.
“Damn,” Coldiron chuckled. “Everybody totin’ a weapon. We best be careful we don’t go to shootin’ each other.”
• • •
With the coming of daylight, Jake Smart ventured out of his store to see what all the shooting had been about. Bleary-eyed from spending the night moving from window to window, he had sought to protect his store in the event the shooting got closer. Also unable to sleep, Ruby suffered more concern than her husband. She was well aware of the cause of the shooting, for she knew what Lame Dog and Bloody Hand had planned. Soon after first light, and all was quiet in the valley, she implored Jake to investigate. And this was how he came upon Bret and Coldiron standing over the body of his son. When still not close enough to identify the deceased, he called out to the two men, “Sounds like you fellers had another busy night. Somebody tryin’ to steal your horses again?”
“Not this time,” Coldiron replied. “They had somethin’ more in mind. It was that crazy son of a bitch after Lucy again. That’s why we’re packin’ up. T
his place ain’t brought us nothin’ but bad luck.”
“Well, looks like that one won’t be botherin’ you no more,” Jake said. “So he was after—”
That was as far as he got when he came close enough to see the body. Stunned, he stared in disbelief, unable to speak.
“Damn, Jake,” Coldiron said. “You look white as a sheet. You know this feller?”
“He’s my son,” Jake answered softly, his voice barely above a whisper.
His simple statement cast all three men into a stony silence. Bret and Coldiron exchanged shocked glances, left speechless, for what words were appropriate for such an occasion? After what seemed an eternity, it was Jake who broke the silence.
“I knew he was runnin’ with a mean bunch, but I didn’t know he was plannin’ nothin’ like this against you boys.” He stood there, continuing to stare at the corpse.
Bret knew he should say something to justify the killing, so he offered his condolences and tried to explain how it happened.
“I didn’t have any choice, Jake. He was trying to kill me, and I was just the lucky one who came out on top. It was him or me.”
Bret’s attempt to explain loosened Coldiron’s tongue, and he wanted to make sure that Jake understood the facts of the matter.
“Don’t go blamin’ Bret for what happened here. We didn’t have no idea your boy was one of them two out to kill us and steal the girl again. God’s honest truth, neither one of us woulda knowed your son from any other Blackfoot warrior. Bret did what he had to do. Your son was the one did the choosin’. And that’s the truth of it.”
Jake considered what Coldiron said for only a moment before replying, “I know what you say is most likely the way of it, but what can I tell his mama?” There was no answer coming forth from either Coldiron or Bret. “Maybe you can help me carry him to the barn, and then I expect it’d be best if you fellers get on your horses and get on outta here.” He didn’t have to explain why.
“We can surely do that,” Coldiron said, “and we’ll be outta here by the time you go to the house to tell Ruby. I’m real sorry your son had to come to an end like this, but like I said, he didn’t give Bret no choice.” He turned to Bret then and said, “I can tote him to the barn. You go back and get the women on their horses and meet me here at the road.”
“Right,” Bret replied. “We’ll be ready to ride.”
He turned at once and hurried back down through the trees to the clearing, feeling as if he had somehow committed a crime. He wasn’t sure how he should feel, however, sorry for Jake and Ruby maybe, but also knowing that their son was an evil son of a bitch that deserved killing. He was going to have to tell Lucy that the man he killed was not the one-eared monster as she hoped. But when he recalled how Bloody Hand was lying low on his horse’s neck, he felt confident that he was critically wounded. If he didn’t die, he would be a long time recovering, and by that time, they would be long gone from this territory.
When he got back to their camp, he found the women packed up and ready to leave, so he told them to climb on their horses, and in a matter of minutes, they were heading up through the trees toward the wagon track. Lucy wanted confirmation of Bloody Hand’s death before she got on her horse.
“Bloody Hand’s gone,” he told her. “You don’t have to worry about him anymore. Right now we’ve got to ride. I’ll tell you all about it when we stop to rest the horses and maybe eat some breakfast.”
She was perplexed by his reluctance to simply tell her that the Piegan monster was dead, but it was obvious that he was not going to take time to discuss it then. So she didn’t resist when he hurriedly cupped his hands to give her a boost up on her horse.
When they reached the road up above the creek, Myra asked, “Where’s Nate? Ain’t he going with us?”
The big man was nowhere in sight, but within a few minutes’ time, he suddenly appeared, shuffling along at a rapid walk.
“We’re all set to go,” he said as he took his reins from Bret and climbed aboard the big buckskin.
Finally it was too much for Myra to hold her tongue.
“Will somebody tell me why we’re running away from here like we robbed the place? Are there some more Indians coming after us?”
“No,” Bret told her. “But we need to make tracks. We’ll tell you why after we put some distance between us and this place.”
With that said, he asked the paint gelding for a fast lope, and they headed south along the river. He had a notion that when Ruby found out about her son’s death, she would come looking for vengeance equally dangerous to that of a war party.
• • •
Approximately twenty miles north of the trading post, Bloody Hand lay where he had fallen from his pony. Weak from blood loss, and in severe pain, he gazed at his bloody hand but was in too much pain to appreciate the irony in the appropriateness of his name. His shirttail was soaked with blood from the bullet wound in his back, and he was not sure he had the strength to get back on his horse. When the afternoon sun began to settle closer to the hills, he began to chant his death song.
• • •
The angry explosion back at the trading post that Bret and Coldiron predicted came about as anticipated. Ruby Red Bonnet screamed in agony when Jake told her that they had to bury her son. Brought to her knees by the news that Lame Dog had been killed by Bret Hollister, she cried out her pain and began ripping her arms and face with her fingernails. Jake tried to comfort her, but she pushed him away. “Where is he?” she demanded.
“I carried him into the barn,” Jake said.
“Into the barn!” she exploded again. “You treat him like a horse or cow?”
“I just took him there so I could tell you about it before I just came carryin’ him in the house,” he tried to explain quickly.
She wasted no more words on him but got up from the floor and rushed out the front door. She found him lying on a bed of hay in the back stall and collapsed by his side, her grief overpowering. Jake could only stand by, helplessly watching her, as she sobbed and moaned with her pain.
After a long period, her grieving tears suddenly turned to anger. Without a word to Jake, she got to her feet and ran to the store. Jake wanted to give her comfort, but he didn’t know how he could, so he followed her to the store, only to be met by her on her way back, carrying his shotgun.
“Whoa, hon,” Jake attempted to reason with her. “Where you goin’ with that shotgun? Them folks has already pulled outta here. They’re gone.”
It was too much for her angry frustration. Using the shotgun as a club, she swung it at him, barely missing his head. He jumped back a couple of steps in fright.
“Why you didn’t kill them?” she asked. “He was your son!”
“Why, hon, I thought about it,” he whined defensively. “But I couldn’t hardly see how I could blame them folks for defendin’ theirselves. Could you?”
“He was your son,” she repeated, thinking that was reason enough.
“You shoulda told me John was fixin’ to ride into that camp to kill them folks and take that young woman back. He ought’nta done that.”
“Why you call him John? His name is Lame Dog, Blackfoot warrior,” she said.
“Yess’m,” Jake replied respectfully. “But I expect we’d best get him in the ground.”
• • •
They buried Lame Dog on the hill behind the barn, and Ruby stayed there by the grave, mourning long after Jake returned to the store. Later in the afternoon, she came back and got the shotgun again, then disappeared into the trees between the trading post and the clearing where Bret and the others had camped. Jake figured she went to their camp to mourn, but he began to worry when she didn’t return by nightfall. Deciding it was too dark to try to find her, he decided he had no choice but to wait until morning.
The next day, he looked for her, but she was nowhere a
round the clearing, and he feared she might be trying to track Coldiron and his friends, seeking revenge. He shook his head in frustration, knowing she had little chance of catching up with them on foot.
Two days passed before she returned to the trading post, looking half-starved and bleeding from the many self-inflicted wounds that testified to the intensity of her mourning. He greeted her at the door.
“Damn, hon, I’m glad to see you. You look like you could use a cup of coffee and a biscuit or two, although them biscuits ain’t as good as the ones you make.”
He hoped she’d gotten over Lame Dog’s death. He knew that he had. A man couldn’t begin to explain the why or the wherefore for the way things happened. It didn’t do any good to worry about it, one way or the other, and he wouldn’t have to worry about hiding the forty-four cartridges anymore.
“I reckon the best thing for us to do is to put all that meanness behind us now and go back to livin’ with what we got,” he counseled.
“What do you know about living, white man?” she responded curtly.
Chapter 14
Three full days of hard riding found Bret and his “family of misfits” in camp by a healthy creek at the foot of the Crazy Mountains. They had planned to stop there for the night only, but after finding deer sign all around the creek, they decided to stay over for a day or two more. The tragic happenings on their last night at their camp at the confluence of Hound Creek and the Smith River were well behind them now. There had been no sign that anyone was following them, and even Lucy seemed to be less tense and nervous. It was a good opportunity to release the tensions that had captured everyone since Lucy’s rescue from the Piegan village.
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