Winona did not see how any human being could live under such conditions. She picked her way with care to a stool and took a seat after removing the cradleboard so she could hold Evelyn in her lap.
The stench hardly bothered Zach. He had smelled much worse, like that time after the Shoshones conducted a buffalo surround and the prairie had been choked with carcasses being roasted by the scorching sun. The horrible stink and the swarming flies had about gagged him.
Nate, however, covered his mouth with a hand and pretended to cough. Breathing shallow, he took the stool next to his wife and leaned the Hawken against the table.
“This is wonderful, just wonderful,” Old Bill said as he puttered about hanging an unlit lantern on a peg, moving some hides closer to the side of the dugout, and collecting battered cups for their coffee. “I sure am glad you folks stopped on by.”
“We had a reason,” Nate said. “We’re trying to find out who killed an old Ute by the name of Buffalo Hump.”
In the act of setting the cups on the table, Old Bill paused. “A Ute, you say? What does it matter who killed him? They’re all a bunch of murderin’ skunks in my book.”
“Not all of them,” Nate said and detailed the reason for their visit. “You can appreciate the fix we’re in. We have to find the guilty parties or risk losing everything that means anything to us.”
Zeigler had listened with rising interest. “I’d like to help you, King. But the fact is that not a single stranger has paid me a visit in pretty near a year. The last man who did stop by was Jeremiah Sawyer, just about four weeks ago. He lives northwest of here in Crow country. About a two-day ride, is all. Maybe he can help you.”
“I know Jeremiah,” Nate said, not showing his disappointment that the visit to Old Bill hadn’t panned out. Going to see Sawyer might prove equally as useless but it was better than doing nothing. “We’ll head for his lodge at dawn.”
“I’ll be glad to guide you there,” Zeigler said. “That’s all right. We’ll manage.”
“It’ll be hard if you’ve never been there. His place is as out of the way as mine is. I can shave half a day off the trip if you’re willing to push yourselves.”
The prospect was appealing. “Let me talk it over with my wife,” Nate said. Clasping her elbow, he escorted Winona from the cramped dugout. The cool evening air was downright intoxicating. He inhaled the sweet pine scent with relish.
“Thank you, husband,” Winona said softly. “I did not know how much longer I could stand it in there. If a member of my tribe were to keep his lodge in the same condition Old Bill keeps his dugout, the man would be shunned by everyone.”
“Should we refuse his help?” Nate asked.
Winona pondered before answering. She was glad that her husband often relied on her judgment when making decisions of importance to both of them. It wasn’t a trait shared by all trappers. From other Shoshone women who had become the wives of whites, she had learned that by and large the trappers did as they pleased without regard for the feelings of the women. Several Shoshones had even been beaten for questioning their husband’s actions.
“If he can save us half a day,” Winona said, “we should accept his offer. It worries me, being gone from our cabin for so long. Should the Utes come while we are gone, they might burn it down to spite us.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Nate said. He was also questioning how the old mountain man would be able to lead them when it would be difficult for Zeigler to keep track of landmarks. “You stay out here while I go have a few more words with him.” He walked past Zach, who stood by the entrance.
Winona turned and admired the blazed of color painting the sky. She observed her son move toward the horses, then stare eastward and freeze. Whirling, she learned why, and gooseflesh erupted all over her body.
Lumbering across the stream toward the dug-out was a huge grizzly.
Five
Nate King hardly got a word out of his mouth when his son bawled his name and a tremendous roar smote his ears. He was outside in a half-dozen bounds, the short hairs of his neck prickling when he beheld a veritable monster of a grizzly upright on its hind legs.
It had been many months since last Nate had tangled with a grizzly. When he first arrived in the mountains, it seemed as if every time he turned around he ran into one of the savage behemoths. More by circumstance than design he had survived time and again. But each harrowing nightmare had left him that much more anxious about future encounters.
So when Nate saw the enormous creature drop to all fours and move closer, it took him five seconds to bring his Hawken up to shoot. He knew that a single shot seldom dropped a griz. More than likely he would only enrage the beast. But he couldn’t stand there and do nothing. He had to act before his wife and children were torn to shreds.
Nate aimed at the grizzly’s chest. Provided fate smiled on him, he might succeed in putting a ball into its lungs or heart.
“No! Don’t shoot!”
Bill Zeigler raced from the dugout, flapping both arms like an ungainly demented bird trying to get off the ground. He leaped in front of the Hawken, blocking the shot with his body.
“Are you crazy?” Nate yelled. “Get out of the way before it’s too late!”
“It’s just Ulysses!” Old Bill cried. “He won’t hurt any of us if we give him what he wants.” So saying, the mountain man ran toward the bear.
Too flabbergasted to do anything except gape, Nate realized that Zeigler held a deer haunch. The grizzly had stopped and lifted its ponderous head to sniff the air, sounding for all the world like a bellows.
“Here, Ulysses!” Old Bill said, halting a dozen feet from the monster. “Just like always.” Using both hands, he flung the haunch with all his might. It sailed end over end to plop down directly in front of the grizzly.
The bear sniffed at the meat a bit, then widened its maw and clamped down so hard the bone crunched. Its prize firmly held between its iron jaws, the lord of the Rockies ambled off across the stream and into the lush undergrowth beyond.
Nate liked to think that he had seen practically everything that had to do with the mountains and those who lived there. But never had he beheld the like of a man feeding a griz as if it were a prized pet instead of a living engine of destruction. Old Bill had to be missing a few marbles to pull such a stunt. Nate lowered the Hawken, shaking his head sadly when the old trapper waved at the departing bear.
“Thanks for not firing, King,” Zeigler said. “That griz has been a friend of mine since before that boy of yours was born.”
“You’re playing with fire if you let that thing come around here whenever it pleases,” Nate said. “Mark my words. It’ll turn on you one of these days. Grizzlies are too unpredictable.”
Old Bill clucked at him like a hen at an uppity chick. “Most griz are, I’ll agree. But I came on that one when it was just a cub, shortly after its ma was wiped out in a rock slide.” He smiled at the memory. “I was going to blow its brains out when the thing started bawling like a baby. Then damned if it didn’t waddle up to me and lick my hand. How could I shoot it after that?
“I fed it for weeks and weeks. Got to the point where the critter followed me around everywhere I went. Made trapping real hard, what with the beaver not about to go anywhere near a trap if there’s griz scent in the area. Finally I had to shoo it off. But it still comes by every now and then, so I give it some grub like in the old days. It always goes on about its business without trying to hurt me.”
Winona had clutched Evelyn to her bosom when the bear appeared, but now she cradled the child and said, “My people believe that only someone who possesses powerful medicine can call the great bear a brother. We will be honored to have you go with us tomorrow.”
A peculiar grin twisted Old Bill’s mouth. “Thank you, ma’am. You have no idea how much it means to me.” He snickered for no apparent reason. “No idea at all.”
~*~
His name, as best the whites could pronounce it, was Brule. He was a Bl
ood warrior, a former member of one of the three tribes that made up the widely dreaded Blackfoot Confederacy.
He stood on a flat rock on a shelf of high land overlooking the next valley the men who followed him must cross, and he bowed his head in shame—shame that tormented him every time he thought about his former life, shame that he would never let those behind him see.
Brule was an outcast. He had done that which no warrior was ever allowed to do, committed the most heinous of acts. He had killed one of his own people.
It had been justified, in Brule’s eyes. Minoka had tried to woo the maiden Brule had craved as his own. And when Brule had confronted him, Minoka had been rash enough to strike Brule across the face with an open palm.
No man could endure such an insult and still lay claim to manhood. Brule had done what any warrior would do. He had stabbed his rival through the heart.
Perhaps if it had been anyone but Minoka, Brule would still be among the Bloods. But Minoka’s father was a war chief, a man of vast influence. That influence had been used to persuade the people of the village to cast Brule out, to expel him into the wilderness, where he was destined to roam until he died.
And he had roamed, for a while, until the aching loneliness had driven him to despair and he had resolved to end his existence by throwing himself off a cliff overlooking a lake in the Tetons.
Who could have foreseen that the white-eye named Lassiter would spot him and come to investigate? Lassiter had drawn a pistol and pointed it at him, but Brule had made no move to defend himself. He hadn’t cared how his life ended, so long as it did.
Then the white man had asked him questions in sign language, and after Brule answered, Lassiter had put the pistol away and asked Brule to ride with him, to share in the killing and the plunder to come. For Lassiter had a great scheme to make himself rich among his kind, and in order to achieve his goal he needed to gather around him those of like minds.
Brule had not held any desire to be rich as the whites conceived of wealth. But he was a warrior born, and he did like the idea of going on the warpath against everyone and anyone—even his own people. For the more Brule thought about the injustice done him, the more he learned to despise those who had seen fit to cast him aside. Yet he could not shake the sense of shame.
Behind Brule a horse snorted. He turned and saw the breed, Cano, trailed by Lassiter and the rest of the whites. He bore no friendship for any of them. The breed, he tolerated. Lassiter, he owed a debt. The rest, he would as soon slit their throats as look at them.
Brule despised whites. His tribe, along with the Blackfeet and the Piegans, exterminated any and all white men found in their territory.
He knew that the mountain men considered his people, and their allies, as little better than bloodthirsty animals who slaughtered for the sheer thrill of bloodletting.
Nothing could have been further from the truth, in Brule’s opinion. While it was true the Bloods had always been a warlike people, they adhered to an honorable system of counting coup little different from other tribes. They were no more cruel or savage than the Sioux, the Cheyenne, or the Arapaho.
But in one major respect the Bloods did differ. They were heartily unwilling to stand idly by while their lands were overrun by the white vermin from the East.
It was a proven fact that the whites killed off wildlife at an unbelievable rate. In just a span of ten winters the trappers had severely reduced the number of beaver and mountain buffalo and were now slaying plains buffalo with an abandon the Bloods found appalling.
Brule’s tribe regarded the whites as invaders who would eventually drive the Bloods from their homeland unless they were stopped before they became too numerous to resist.
For Brule to associate with whites, as he was doing now, required a measure of self-control he had rarely exercised. He couldn’t stand to be near Lassiter and the others for more than a short while without feeling an urge to smash their heads in. They were filthy, arrogant, revolting. They looked down their superior noses at Brule and his kind, when in truth they were no better.
Brule had yet to make up his mind how long he would stay with them. He did know that before he left, he might slay every last one. For the time being, however, he was content to act as their scout and to share in any booty that interested him.
Already Brule had benefited. He had a new knife riding on his left hip and a steel tomahawk on his left. He carried a fine rifle instead of the cheap fusil he had formerly used. A large ammo pouch and a powder horn adorned his chest. He was better armed than ever before, which pleased him immensely.
Now, facing the others, Brule adopted a stony expression and squared his bronzed shoulder.
The half-breed addressed him in sign language. “Why have you stopped, my friend?” Cano asked.
Brule let the insult pass. He would never be friends to any bastard offspring of a white pig and a Dakota slut. But it served his purposed to pretend. Pivoting, he pointed at a column of smoke rising to the northeast. “White men,” he signed.
The breed turned to Lassiter and addressed him in the birdlike gibberish the whites called a language. Brule had tried to learn the tongue, but found the chirpings almost impossible to duplicate. He knew a few words—that was all.
Lassiter moved to the edge of the shelf and studied the smoke a while. He then employed sign to say to Brule, “I think you are right. No Indian would make a fire that gave off so much smoke. Sneak down there and see how many there are. We will wait here for you.”
Brule saw Cano go to speak and quickly jogged off. He suspected that the breed wanted to go along hut he would much rather scout by himself.
Perhaps because of his Indian blood, Cano liked to spend time with Brule, a feeling the Blood did not reciprocate. He came to a game trail and flew toward the grassy basin below, making as little sound as the wind itself.
The smoke rose from fir trees near the mouth of the valley, which was watered by a stream large enough to contain beaver. Brule soon spied a beaver lodge, leading him to suspect the fire had been made by trappers.
He heard their voices long before he glimpsed the camp, which was typical. Brule didn’t know why, but white men always raised their voices much higher than they needed to. It was as if they were taught at an early age to bellow instead of to speak in normal tones. They talked loudly, they laughed loudly, they snored loudly—all in keeping with the loathsome creatures they were.
Brule slowed and flitted from tree to tree. Presently he saw a string of horses, eight in all. The fire blazed in the middle of a clearing. A lean-to had been erected, and under it sat a beefy man sharpening a knife on a whetstone. Two other men were by the fire, sipping coffee.
Going prone, Brule snaked to a bush at the clearing’s edge. From there he spied a pile of steel traps beside the lean-to. He counted three rifles and five pistols between them.
But it was the knife that interested Brule most of all. It was extraordinary, at least three hands long, the blade sharp on both sides instead of just one, the hilt a glorious golden hue and encrusted with several sparkling stones. Brule’s breath caught in his throat as he marveled at its beauty. It was unlike any knife he had ever seen, and he wanted it so badly that he tingled in anticipation.
There was only one problem.
When it came to plunder, Lassiter had the final say. Spoils were always collected into a heap and passed out as Lassiter saw fit. If any of them wanted a particular item, they were free to say so. Usually Lassiter handed it over, but not always. Brule had lost a fine red blanket and an ax he coveted to Cano.
This time would be different. Brule was not about to let anyone else lay claim to the magnificent knife owned by the beefy trapper. He would take it for himself and slay anyone who objected.
In order to have first claim, Brule knew he had to dispose of the whites himself. With the thought came action. There was no hesitation, no prick of conscience. Whites were his enemies. Enemies were to be slain. Life was as simple as that.
&
nbsp; Brule backed into the trees and made like an eel, worming his way around the camp perimeter until he was behind the lean-to. It would have been better to wait until dark, but nightfall was hours off and Lassiter was bound to come see what was taking him so long.
The Blood placed his rifle on the ground and drew both his slender knife and the steel tomahawk. Rising into a crouch, he stalked to the side of the lean-to and peeked around the corner. One of the whites at the fire had his back to Brule; the other was busy refilling the coffeepot. The man in the lean-to was bent low, stroking that grand knife with delicate precision.
Brule’s pulse quickened at being so close to the unique weapon. Its gleaming brilliance dazzled him. He had to restrain a mad impulse to dash over and snatch the knife from the man’s hand.
The trappers by the fire owned rifles, which were propped on a nearby saddle. One had a pair of flintlocks, the other a single pistol. The man in the lean-to also possessed a rifle but it had carelessly been leaned against a sapling in front of the shelter. He also had two pistols under his belt.
Coiling his legs, Brule cast about for an object to throw and found a small stone that suited his purpose. Transferring the tomahawk to his left hand, he hurled the stone as far as he could into the firs on the opposite side of the clearing. It hit a high branch, then clattered earthward from limb to limb until it thudded on the ground.
Both trappers at the fire stood and warily peered into the trees. The man who owned the wonderful knife looked up from the whetstone.
In that moment when they were distracted, Brule struck. He was on the beefy man before the white could blink. His tomahawk cleaved the air and the man’s skull with equal ease, shearing deep into the brain. The man died without an outcry, blood spurting from the rupture.
Without hesitation Brule whirled and charged the other pair. They both had heard the blow and turned. The nearest was momentarily paralyzed with fright but at last made a grab for a flintlock. By then Brule was close enough to throw his knife with an accuracy honed by years of practice.
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