He didn’t have to wait long. Crouching low now behind a sizable rock, his rifle cocked and ready, he watched as a lone Lakkota warrior walked his pony slowly up to approach the roan. His eyes constantly shifting from the horse to the slope above him, and back to the horse again, the warrior cautiously surveyed the mouth of the flume. After a moment, he raised his arm and signaled. Clay got ready for company.
In a matter of minutes, the warrior was joined by the rest of the war party. They milled about Rachael’s horse, which nervously greeted the Indian ponies, blowing at first one horse and then another. While the horses exchanged curious introductions, many of the warriors rode around the outside of the circle, their ponies dancing as their masters held them in check. Feathers fluttering in the strong morning breeze, faces and ponies painted for war, the warriors patiently awaited their leader’s decision. It was an easy decision.
Red Bull took little time in evaluating the situation. It was obvious that the three fleeing whites had left the valley at this point, but he took a moment to consider the route they had taken. The rocky passage that led up between the rocks was so narrow that it would be necessary to climb it in single file. It offered an excellent spot for ambush. It would be wise to be cautious. He conferred with some of the older warriors, expressing his concern. They, like their leader, agreed that ambush was a possibility. But glancing around them, on either side of the flume, they saw that the slope was too steep to climb without leaving their horses behind. Finally it was decided that six warriors should ride up the flume. If an ambush awaited, they would immediately fall back. In the meantime, the other warriors spread out to either side of the flume to scale the steep slope if the first six failed to reach the end of the flume.
Watching from his perch above them, Clay could guess what the discussion was about. His hope was that the entire party would enter the flume, jamming the narrow passage. He could do considerable damage before they had a chance to retreat. With luck, maybe the short muscular war chief would lead them. Sometimes a war party was called off in the event the leader was killed, a sign of bad medicine. This would not be the case this time, however, for six eager young warriors sprang to be the first ones up the flume. Still in hopes of discouraging the war party, Clay readied himself to do as much damage as possible.
Holding his fire, he watched as the six young braves entered the mouth of the rocky passage, kicking their horses hard. But the horses could only strain to maintain any pace at all up the steep incline, their hooves slipping and grasping for traction on the rocky floor. Clay waited. He would hold his fire until the lead horse had almost reached the top. Still he waited. When the lead horse was no more than fifteen yards below him, he rose, firing as he did. There was no hesitation between shots. The first shattered the breastbone of the warrior in front. The second mortally wounded the last rider’s horse, causing the stricken animal to try to back away, only to collapse across the flume, blocking it effectively. Blocked from any escape, the remaining warriors could only slide off their ponies and use them for cover. Picking his targets quickly, but methodically, Clay reduced the war party’s strength by two more before the other three scrambled over the dead horse to safety. Calmly replacing the spent cartridges, he stepped to one side when the riderless ponies clambered up the rocky waterway and galloped away through the trees. A pine bough suddenly snapped a foot above his head, followed almost instantly by the crack of a Springfield rifle, and he dropped down behind the rock again. Now the forest fairly crackled with the sound of rifle fire from below. Using the fallen horse as a protective barrier, several warriors were firing back at him. When he did not return fire for a long minute, the shooting ceased. Sliding to one side of the rock that shielded him, he eased his head around the corner of it in time to spot a warrior crawling over the carcass of the horse. One more shot from Clay’s rifle and he crumpled in a heap, the swift water washing his body up against that of the dead horse.
All went quiet below him, and he knew he had effectively stopped the advance. Giving up on the flume, they would be parlaying now, deciding how best to flush him out. He knew he held the advantage. He could keep them pinned down with his rifle, but not indefinitely. Given time, they would find a path up the mountain farther along the base where the slope was not so severe. Once that happened, he had better be long gone. But for a while longer, he could watch the slope beside the flume, and pick off any daring Sioux who tried to climb up—buying some additional time for Lon and Rachael to get safely away. Maybe this stout war chief would decide he had lost enough warriors, and give up on the chase.
Below him, Red Bull fumed as he paced back and forth. “Wanigi Ska,” he hissed, as if the name burned his lips. As if in a trance, he stopped and stood staring up at the trees, infuriated by the white ghost who had killed four more of his warriors. He had vowed to kill this intruder of the sacred hills when he found Lame Pony’s body. Now, more than ever, his hatred for the white man was like a hot coal burning inside his gut.
“We have to split our warriors to cut off his escape,” Little Deer said, breaking into his chief’s trancelike daze.
Red Bull quickly agreed. The war party was divided into two groups, one moving south along the base of the mountain, the other north. The face of the cliff that had effectively prevented them from charging up after the white man was approximately five hundred yards in width. On either side, the slope was more gentle. If they hurried, they could trap the white ghost between them.
Working his way cautiously along the edge of the trees above them, Clay watched the war party divide into two and start toward the opposite ends of the cliff. “I was wonderin’ how long it was gonna take them to figure that out,” he muttered. Knowing he didn’t have much time, he quickly ran back along the cliff in the opposite direction to that taken by Lon and Rachael. He hoped to lead the Sioux in that direction, diverting them from the trail actually taken by Lon and Rachael. Splashing through the stream, he ran through the trees some thirty yards past the flume before moving back to the cliff’s edge. Below him now, Little Deer’s party was making its way north along the base of the cliff. Clay knelt, picking his target, he squeezed the trigger, and once again, the Winchester claimed another of Red Bull’s warriors. In the time it took for the others to scramble for cover close to the cliff’s face, Clay had the opportunity to further reduce their number, but he chose not to. If the shots he took were effective in diverting the pursuit, then that was enough to satisfy him. His supply of cartridges was not unlimited, and he was a long way from home. One more shot, and he intended to get the hell out of there. Running again, he moved another twenty yards along the cliff. Quickly dropping to one knee, he fired one last shot that ricocheted off the rocks near Little Deer’s horse. Hoping that would convince the Sioux that he was fleeing toward the north, he wasted no more time. Moving as fast as he could manage through the tall pines, he crossed the stream again, and ran to recover his horse. Leading his horse, he trotted along the ledge until reaching the ridge where he and his companions had stopped to rest. He could only hope his ruse had been successful as he stepped up into the saddle and guided the paint up through the trees. Unseen below him, Red Bull raced along the base of the cliff, hurrying to join Little Deer’s warriors.
* * *
Higher up the mountain, in the outcropping of rock that Clay had pointed out from below, Rachael and Lon waited. They had barely reached the spot when the sound of rifle fire reached them. A single shot was followed almost immediately by a couple more. Then a barrage of shooting reached their ears. Glancing apprehensively at each other, they could only guess what the scene below them might be.
With no way of knowing if Clay was in real trouble—or even if he was alive or dead, they did not know what to do. Lon briefly considered going back in case Clay was pinned down by the Sioux. But that would mean leaving Rachael alone. No, he decided, Clay had told them to wait for him here. So he sat, unconsciously watching his horse scratching around in a patch of bear grass, searching
for something more appetizing. After a few minutes, the shooting stopped. In his mind, he tried to create the scene below as it might have happened. Maybe Clay was on his way to join them now. Then two more shots rang out, a few minutes apart. Maybe the Sioux had cut off Clay’s escape. Lon had been properly impressed with the tall scout’s knowledge of the mountains, and his quiet confidence. But what if the Indians had done him in? Lon didn’t care for the thought of sitting there idly while a band of warriors might be moving up the mountain, already on their trail. He glanced at Rachael, seated upon a knee-high rock, holding the reins of his mule as if fearful the animal would run off if she let go. How long should he wait? Clay had said not to wait longer than an hour. How long had it been? Probably not an hour, but Clay also cautioned him not to wait too long.
Getting to his feet, he walked back a dozen steps, looking over the way they had come. The trees told him nothing. Still, he stared hard at the treetops below him, searching for some movement in that forest that might indicate an advancing war party. All was still. Even the brisk breeze he had felt in his face all morning seemed to have taken pause. Hell, he thought, a whole tribe of Indians could be in those trees, and there wouldn’t be any way of knowing until they were damn near stepping on our toes. With a feeling of helpless indecision, he turned and walked back to Rachael.
“Any sign?” she asked, her face reflecting the concern he exhibited.
“Nothin’ I can see,” he replied. Thoughts of an entire Sioux war party silently advancing up the mountainside while the two of them sat like chickens on a perch began to weigh heavily upon his mind. His brain churning with a host of conflicting thoughts, he turned away from her, and climbed several feet up to a flat rock that extended beyond the others. Looking far out over the mountains before them, to the foothills beyond, he tried to determine a route that would lead them out of this maze of sheer slopes and twisting valleys. After a long look around, he came back down to where she sat.
“I don’t know if Clay is gonna catch up with us or not. To tell you the truth, I don’t know if we oughta be settin’ here waitin’ for somebody that has a good chance of bein’ dead.” Noting her frown of concern, he went on. “I ain’t partial to havin’ that crowd of hostiles catch up to us while we’re just settin’ here.”
“You think we should move on?” Rachael asked. “I’m afraid we might get lost in these mountains.” She paused, glancing back toward the trail they had followed up the mountain. “What about him? He said to wait for him here.”
“I think he’da been here by now. He mighta had to take off in another direction to save his own bacon.”
That was a thought Rachael had earlier been guilty of, although she had tried to put it from her mind. In their brief history with the army scout, there had been no indication of deceit or cowardice. But in an extreme crisis, who could say? “What do you think we should do?” She was not comfortable sitting there either.
He glanced up at the sun, now high above the mountains, to get his bearings. Then he turned and pointed to the southeast. “Yonderways is home. That’s the direction we came into these mountains. If you look where I’m pointin’, you can see where the foothills start. I’m sayin’ we’ve waited around here long enough. We might as well git ourselves off of this mountain, and find a way to get to those foothills. I can’t see no sense in waitin’ for a bunch of wild Injuns to come up that slope behind us.”
She walked over beside him to follow the line he indicated. There were still some mountains to cross between the one they stood on and the foothills he pointed out. “Do you think we can find our way around those mountains?”
“As long as we keep workin’ back to that general direction, we oughta be all right.”
She took one more worried glance back toward the way Clay would be coming, then quickly decided. “Let’s get started then.” With no further hesitation, they both climbed into their saddles, and Lon led the way down the mountainside.
Chapter 8
Henry Izard paused for a moment to listen to the sound of distant rifle fire floating on the wind. Curious, but not concerned, he figured somebody was most likely shooting something for breakfast. Thinking there might be a possibility another miner had set up camp a couple of valleys over, he turned his attention back to the shirt he was mending. Might be something we’d best look into, he thought. Prospects had not been promising lately. He was thinking more and more about moving out of the southern part of the mountain range. The land was more gentle north of there, before a man reached the rugged mountains even farther north.
A few seconds later, more shots were heard, a barrage of rifle fire in fact. This caught Henry’s attention for certain. “Sounds like somebody ain’t havin’ a good day,” he commented dryly, glancing over at the sleeping figure on the other side of the fire.
Billy Ray didn’t answer. Rolled up in his blanket, his backside to the fire, he hadn’t even heard the gunfire, and he wasn’t particularly interested in Henry’s comments, anyway. In his short partnership with the wily old scoundrel, he had seen none of the easy pickings Henry had promised. Henry encouraged him to be patient, but that was a quality Billy Ray held in short supply. He had half a mind to part company with the old man. Maybe, he thought, I oughta cut him a new smile, right under his chin, before I cut out. Then see how much dust he’s got in that little poke he thinks I don’t know about. Thinking about it brought a smile to Billy Ray’s face. It’d serve the old son of a bitch right—as many throats as he claims he’s cut.
“I expect we’d best move on today,” Henry said when Billy Ray finally peeled off his blanket and sat up. “We been at this camp for a couple of days, and it don’t pay to stay in one place too long in this country. Never can tell who might come callin’ on you.”
“I ain’t noticed it bein’ overly crowded in these parts,” Billy Ray replied sarcastically.
Henry smiled, ignoring the sarcasm. “I know a dandy place to camp, not half a day’s ride from here—good water, good grass, and the deer’s so tame, they’ll walk right up to you so you can knock ’em in the head with your gun butt.”
“Huh,” Billy Ray huffed. By now he had heard enough tall tales from Henry to last him a lifetime. “I reckon the ones you don’t knock in the head just stroll on over and lay down in the fire till they’re done.”
“That’s the place!” Henry exclaimed, delighted by the absurdity. “You musta been there before.” He laughed heartily. Holding his shirt up to examine his handiwork, he nodded his approval, and stuffed the garment into his saddlebag. “Whaddaya say we git ourselves movin’? I heard a lot of gunfire while you was gittin’ your nap. And this being one of the main trails through the hills, it might not be such a good place to be if Red Bull is scoutin’ around here lookin’ for scalps.”
Knowing the old man was right, Billy Ray reluctantly got to his feet and picked up his saddle. Turning his back, he started toward his horse. He had taken no more than four steps when he heard the rifle cock. In the wink of an eye, Billy Ray dropped the saddle, and whirled around, his pistol already out of its holster, to face a grinning Henry Izard. “One of these days I ain’t gonna be able to stop,” Billy Ray growled, exasperated, “and we’ll see how funny it is with some daylight showin’ through your belly.”
Henry chuckled. “You really are fast with that dang thing,” he said. But not fast enough to have stopped me from putting a bullet in your back, he thought. If it ever came to ending the partnership, Henry was confident that was the way it would be. Ned Clark had been the only real partner Henry had ridden with. A man could count on Ned. They would still be partners if ol’ Ned hadn’t gotten careless and gotten himself killed. Times like these, I miss ol’ Ned, he was thinking as he watched the reckless young gunman saddle his horse.
* * *
Just as Henry had said, a half day’s ride brought the two outlaws to a narrow valley, protected by steep mountains on either side. Tumbling recklessly from a rocky cliff some one hundred feet high, a wi
de rushing stream gathered itself into a shallow pool before wending its way through a thick stand of willows and service berry bushes on the grassy valley floor. Billy Ray had to give the old man credit for accurately describing the spot. It appeared to offer everything a man could want for a campsite.
Billy Ray was ready to ride down into the valley, but Henry cautioned him to wait under cover of the trees while they looked the place over before riding out in the open. There was something about the feel of the place that alerted him to be cautious—like maybe there was another presence in the valley. I wonder how long the young fool would keep his hair if I wasn’t with him, Henry thought as his eyes searched the willows that shielded the stream. Darting back and forth from one end of the stand of willows to the other, his eyes sought out the hidden coves and breaks that might conceal a Sioux warrior. He was almost ready to admit to being overcautious when his gaze caught a movement on the far side of the stream. “Hold still,” he whispered, holding up his hand to signal Billy Ray. “Somebody’s got here ahead of us.” Having no desire to barge into a Sioux camp, he decided it best to vacate the scene as quietly as possible. Before giving up on it, however, he intended to circle the camp to determine exactly who had discovered one of his favorite camps. There was always the possibility that some gold prospector had stumbled onto the little valley, and he wouldn’t want to ride away from a financial opportunity.
“What the hell are you waitin’ for?” Billy Ray asked impatiently.
Henry put a finger to his lips to signal his young partner to be quiet. Then he pointed toward a spot in the trees across the stream. Still Billy Ray could not see what had caught the old man’s attention. He was about to ignore Henry’s warning to be cautious when he caught a glimpse of a horse grazing beyond the willows.
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