Victoria picked up the blanket she had been seated upon and carried it over to sit down with them. “Well, did Caleb talk your ears off?” she asked Ben.
Surprised by her overture, Ben replied, “Oh no. He’s already learned that you gotta be quiet when you’re scoutin’ someplace.” They both laughed then. “That boy of yours . . .” He paused, searching for words. “He’s a pistol. I bet his daddy is proud of him.”
“I suppose so,” Victoria replied, a smile of pride gracing her plain face.
“How long’s it been since your husband’s seen Caleb?” Cleve asked.
“Over a year,” Victoria answered. “He won’t believe his eyes when he sees how much he’s grown.” She was curious to know about Ben’s little boy, but thought it better not to ask, especially since Cleve had told her how Ben’s wife and son had died. So she directed her question to Cleve. “Do you ever think about a family, Cleve?”
Her question brought a chuckle. “Oh, gracious no, miss. I ain’t never felt no urge to strap myself down with wife and young’uns—beggin’ your pardon. That’s somethin’ that’s right for some men, but don’t fit at all to fellers like me.”
She laughed at his response. “Why, I bet you’d be a wonderful father with a little baby to bounce on your knee,” she teased.
He shook his shoulders as if a chill had run down his spine. “I’d just as soon you hung an anvil around my neck.” He quickly recovered then to say, “Course, if they was all as spunky as Caleb, that’d be a little different.”
Afraid that her next questions about family would be directed at him, Ben abruptly got to his feet. “Thank you for the coffee. I guess I’d best unsaddle my horse before he starts fussin’.”
Chapter 8
They broke camp early the next morning with a new sense of urgency. Already enough time had been spent on delays at Ogallala as well as the past couple of days just taken. August was just about used up and they were still possibly two weeks away from Deadwood. It was difficult to predict their daily rate of travel because of the uncertainty of Indian attacks as well as the terrain ahead of them. Cleve had been to the Black Hills on an earlier occasion before the strike in Deadwood Gulch, but not with a wagon. While the memory of the route he took on that occasion had faded somewhat in his recollection, he still remembered the rugged, rocky trails he followed once he reached the hills. With that in mind, it increased the necessity to make as good time as possible while still on the prairie. They decided to start out an hour earlier in the mornings and stop for the night an hour later, depending upon the availability of water.
Cleve and Ben decided it best to ride out ahead and to each side of the wagon, acting as scouts, because of the danger of hostile Indian parties. So each morning Cleve would indicate the line of travel for Jonah and he would guide on some point in the distance. As they had done ever since leaving Omaha, Victoria and Caleb, and sometimes Mary, would walk beside the wagon. The travel plan went without incident for the first couple of days, but their good fortune was not to last. Trouble was still in store for them in the form of one vengeful Lakota warrior.
Resting in a camp of twenty-four people, Dead Man cleaned the last scrap of meat from an antelope rib and tossed it in the fire before him. Looking across the fire at his friend, Wolf Kill, as he ate one-handed, the result of a bullet in his shoulder, Dead Man scowled, thinking of the pain he had suffered because of one white man. Nah-zay, he thought, the scar-faced white devil who had killed four of his friends. Man Above must have sent this white man to test him, for he was there with the wagon; then he was there with the lawman. He pulled out the badge he had taken from the lawman’s body and stared at it. Its medicine was not strong enough to protect the large white man. Even now his scalp was drying on Dead Man’s lance. He squeezed the badge hard as he thought about the scalp he wanted so badly, until he felt the edges of the badge cutting into his palm. He did not relieve the pressure, but stared defiantly at the trickle of blood that dripped from the pad of his hand.
His anger was born with the breaking of the treaty with the Lakota that said Paha Sapa—what the wasicu knew as the Black Hills—would belong to the Lakota Sioux forever. It was a sacred place to the Sioux, and still the hated whites kept pouring into the hills, looking for the foolish yellow dirt they craved. Dead Man was angry that most of his people had gone to the reservation to live like camp dogs, awaiting the white man’s scraps. His hatred for these people who invaded his lands was such that he desperately needed a face to put upon it—and now he had found that face—one appropriately wearing an ugly scar. He felt that if he could kill this demon, it would be a major defeat for the white men, so this is what he resolved to do.
“Your hand is bleeding,” Wolf Kill said, when Dead Man seemed not to notice. “What are you thinking so hard about?”
“I am going to kill the scar-faced white man,” Dead Man replied.
“How do you know where to find him?” Wolf Kill asked.
“He will find me,” Dead Man answered. “I will find the wagon and he will be there. It is me he plagues, so if I find the wagon, he will come to drive me away. But this time, he won’t drive me away because I will defy him and his medicine.”
Wolf Kill was skeptical. “I think his medicine is his gun that shoots many times and it is too strong. I say it is best to leave him alone. Two times we have tested his medicine and there are four fewer of us, and I am wounded. We should go with Red Sky and his people. There are too many soldier patrols in this valley now.” Dead Man frowned, displeased with his friend’s comments. He had suffered too much because of the scar-face, and he was convinced that his death would change this war between the Sioux and the white man in the Indians’ favor. “Have you talked with Red Sky about this man?” Wolf Kill asked. “Is he going to send warriors with you?”
“No,” Dead Man replied, his tone reflecting his anger. “He wants to keep his warriors close to protect the women and children. He wants to leave this camp and move downriver.”
“I’m sorry I can’t go with you,” Wolf Kill said. “With one arm, I would be no good to you, anyway. I am going with Red Sky.”
“It’s all right,” Dead Man assured him. “This thing is for me to do. I alone am the one to be tested. I will find the wagon. It leaves a trail easy to follow, and he will be there waiting for me. Then I will kill him.”
Ben counted eight Indians—four men, two women, and two children—two packhorses, one pulling a travois loaded with their belongings. They were crossing directly over the line Cleve had set out for the wagon, traveling from east to west. Lying on his stomach in the high grass that covered the top of a slight ridge, he watched them until they had disappeared off to his left, probably passing before Cleve by then. It was the second small group they had seen during the past two days’ travel. Cleve seemed to think it was a sign that there was a big gathering of bands somewhere, maybe Wyoming Territory. At any rate, they had not spotted the two scouts or the wagon behind them. He crawled back down the ridge to his horse and climbed in the saddle again. He had thought that it was time to look for a good spot to camp, but upon seeing the Indians, he figured it would be better to push on a little farther before stopping for the night. When he examined the Sioux party’s tracks, he discovered a great many more, older ones, which told him that it was a commonly used east-to-west trail they traveled, and therefore a definite reason to move on to find a better place.
There had been many streams in the last few miles, so he wasn’t worried about passing up the one he was now crossing. In less than a quarter of an hour, he saw Cleve cutting across the prairie to intercept him. He seemed to be in no hurry, so Ben continued on the course he was riding and let Cleve catch up to him. “You see that last little party of Injuns?” Cleve asked when he pulled up alongside him.
“Yeah. Looks like there’s a meetin’ somewhere yonder way,” Ben answered, pointing toward the west. “I’m thinkin’ it’s gettin’ on about quittin’ time for the day.”
; “Me, too,” Ben said. “Let’s stop at the next likely stream and wait for Jonah to catch up.”
They found a good campsite before going another mile and a half, so they dismounted and let the horses drink while Ben walked back to the edge of the trees that bordered the stream and looked for the wagon. “Jonah’s draggin’,” he said when there was no sign of the wagon. “Horses must be gettin’ tired.”
“I didn’t think we’d got that far ahead of him,” Cleve said, walking up to stand beside Ben. They both stared back over the way they had just come. After another twenty minutes had passed, he said, “Maybe we oughta go on back and look for ’em.”
They both climbed on their horses again and started back. In a short while they spotted the wagon standing in a wide treeless draw, the horses idly grazing on the prairie grass while Jonah and the others stood around the back of the wagon. “Uh-oh,” Cleve said. “Looks like trouble.” They urged their horses into a lope and pulled them to a stop beside the wagon. “What’s the trouble?” Cleve asked.
“Wheel,” Jonah replied, “same one I had fixed in Ogallala. It doesn’t look like they did a very good job.” He then showed them how the spokes had dried out enough to pull away from the iron tire. “If I go much farther on it, it’s gonna collapse.”
“Can you fix it?” Cleve asked.
“Yes, I can shore it up like I did last time—enough to hold it together until we get to Deadwood, I guess. It’ll take a little time, though. I’ll have to take the wheel off.”
“Well, let’s get you out of the open,” Ben said. “Can you drive it another half mile till we get to a stream up ahead?”
“I think so,” Jonah replied.
He climbed back up on the seat and started the horses. The two women and Caleb walked along behind him until the boy ran up beside the buckskin and Ben reached down and picked him up. Perched behind the saddle, he grinned at his mother as he wrapped his arms around Ben’s waist. “I declare,” Mary Marple said, “I believe you could lose that boy.”
“I think you’re right,” Victoria replied with a chuckle. “He wouldn’t keep him long before he’d drop him back on my doorstep, though.”
Jonah pulled the wagon into the cottonwoods lining the wide stream and unhitched the horses. When the best place to build the fire was decided upon, the men gathered firewood. Soon the women had supper cooking, while Cleve watered his and Jonah’s horses and hobbled the team so they could graze. As was his custom, Ben, with Caleb behind the saddle, rode out to scout the terrain around their camp. When everything looked peaceful to his satisfaction, he returned to the camp and unsaddled the buckskin while Caleb told his mother about the antelope they had seen on the other side of the stream. It would have been easy enough to bring down some fresh meat for supper, Ben explained to Mary. But he didn’t think it wise to fire his rifle when they had seen so many stray parties of Indians during the last couple of days of travel. “Well, we’ve certainly got enough put away from the last two you shot,” Mary said as she went about helping her daughter prepare some of the smoked venison. Ben went over to give Jonah a hand. He had already started bracing the wagon up in preparation for removing the right rear wheel. Cleve was standing by in a supervising capacity, generously offering advice.
Taking a close look at the wheel, after Jonah got it off the axle, Ben suggested that he could probably shape a couple of replacement spokes from a cottonwood limb with his hatchet and Graham Barrett’s bowie knife. Cottonwood was not especially the ideal wood for spokes, but it should do just fine until they reached Deadwood. So he worked on the limbs until breaking for supper, then finished them after they had eaten. When the job was finally finished, the wheel appeared to be solid enough, so they were set to start out again in the morning with no delay in their travel.
The camp was almost ready to start out. Cleve was helping Jonah pack up some of the luggage and supplies that had been removed to make working on the wheel easier, while the women packed away the cooking utensils for travel. Ben rode out about a mile ahead to see what might lie in their path. This time, he was able to get away from the camp without his frequent companion, Caleb, the boy having walked into the woods downstream to answer nature’s call.
Crouching low behind a thicket of bullberry bushes, a lone figure drew his knife as the boy approached. There could be no sound to alert the people at the wagon. Dead Man prepared to grab the youngster and muffle his screams while he slit his throat. Nearing the bushes that hid the vicious warrior, Caleb abruptly decided to pick a better spot than the berry bushes, and selected a willow thicket instead. Dead Man relaxed the tension in his legs and dropped to one knee. There was still the matter of silencing the boy. He would have to be dealt with, for Dead Man could not afford to have the camp alerted to his presence. Being careful not to move a branch, lest the rustle of leaves might cause the child to run, he slowly rose to a crouch again, and carefully placing one foot in front of the other, he moved toward the unsuspecting boy in the willow trees.
His attention captured by a frog sitting in the edge of the stream, Caleb amused himself by throwing tiny pieces of willow twigs at the amphibian to see if he could make him jump. His distraction was sufficient to cause him to be unaware of the savage and the razor-sharp knife blade in his hand. Suddenly, the frog jumped, and Caleb, having done all nature’s business he was going to do, lunged in an effort to catch it. It was no contest. The frog hopped successfully away from the boy with his trousers around his ankles.
“Caleb,” his mother’s call came from the camp.
“Yessum, I’m coming,” Caleb answered as the dark shadow hovering over him sank quickly back in the willows. The boy gave his bottom a quick swipe with the cloth intended for the purpose and ran back toward the wagon without once looking behind him.
Following the boy’s path, moving cautiously from one spot of cover to the next, Dead Man made his way to a double-trunked cottonwood from which he could see into the camp. He knelt to watch the activity of the family preparing to move. He saw the two women, the boy, and two men, but the nah-zay was not there. The Lakota warrior had been so sure that the scar-faced one would be there that he was beside himself with frustration. He lifted his rifle. At this close range, he could easily shoot the two men before they had time to defend themselves. The women would be no trouble to kill after that. He raised the carbine and laid the front sight on the middle of Cleve’s back, remembering the short stocky man as one of the two with repeating rifles. With his finger on the trigger, he hesitated when a thought occurred. What if Scar was scouting ahead of them and might be with the wagon after all? Dead Man slowly lowered the rifle. He decided he could not afford the risk of alerting the man with the scarred face. Once again, he sank back to wait and watch. Within a few minutes’ time, his decision proved to be a wise one, for he caught sight of a buckskin horse with the hated white man in the saddle approaching the camp from the north.
As the rider came closer, Dead Man’s hands tightened on his rifle and his heart beat wildly in his anger and excitement, for he could see the grotesque scar across his enemy’s face. He thought of his Lakota brothers who had fallen victims of the white man’s rifle, and the anxiety to avenge them was overwhelming—to the point where he could restrain his hatred no longer. Releasing a war cry that shattered the stillness of the morning calm, he rose and fired at the scar-faced demon.
In immediate panic, the camp erupted into a state of frenzied confusion as everyone scrambled to find cover. Taken completely by surprise, Cleve only had time to grab Caleb and pull the boy behind the wagon with him while yelling to the others to find protection anywhere they could. Victoria and her mother had no choice but to get under the wagon while Jonah dived into the wagon bed.
The sharp snap of a rifle slug passing within inches of his ear caused an instant reaction from Ben. With no time to think about it, he immediately slid over to hang on the side of his saddle, using his horse as cover. He was not sure where the shot had come from, other than somewh
ere on the south side of the camp. Two more shots were fired in his direction as he guided the buckskin into the trees above the camp, where he was able to draw his rifle and dismount. His concern now was for those in the camp. He heard several more shots, but without any sound of lead flying around him, so whoever their attacker was had shifted his firing toward the wagon. Ben listened, but he could hear no return fire from Cleve or Jonah. He could not know that Cleve’s rifle was in his saddle sling, and his horse had bolted with the first rifle shots fired, and his grizzled old partner was huddled under the wagon, trying to protect the women with his body.
With no knowledge of who or how many, Ben started making his way closer to the standing wagon as Dead Man cut loose with a series of five shots that tore holes in the wagon sheets and ricocheted off the metal tires. Ben could not determine if anyone had been hit or not, but he was able to pinpoint where the shots had come from. Scurrying to a better position from which to fire, he dropped to one knee behind a tree trunk large enough to give him protection, drew a bead on the cottonwood with the double trunk, and waited for the shooter to show himself. “Cleve, you all right?” he yelled.
“We’re all right so far, but I can’t get to my rifle,” Cleve yelled back. “I think it’s just one man, near as I can tell.”
“Keep your head down,” Ben replied. Just then, he saw the barrel of a rifle sliding into the V where the two trunks separated. He didn’t wait for their assailant to fire. Four shots in rapid succession tore large chunks of bark from the trunks and knocked the rifle from the notch. As soon as he saw the rifle fall, he left the cover of his tree and ran to the wagon. By the time Dead Man recovered and was able to fire his weapon again, he was too late to catch Ben in the open. Furious, he emptied the magazine of his carbine, sending seven bullets whining through the wagon’s rigging. Amid their deadly song, a sharp cry of pain was heard from beneath the wagon. “Mama!” Victoria cried when she saw her mother recoil with the impact of a bullet in her shoulder.
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