Wings of the Hawk

by Charles G. West

Now Trace caught sight of a big bull’s antlers thrashing through the brush of the thicket. Black Wing bugled again, and the bull turned in their direction, furious—positive that some stranger was trying to mate with his cows. He snorted frantically, overcome with jealous rage, and squealed and whistled at the would-be intruder. Other bulls on the far side of the meadow echoed his warnings, and soon the clamor was almost deafening.

  Black Wing looked back at Trace and they both smiled. “You’d better shoot straight or this one will chase us all the way back down the mountain,” Black Wing said.

  “If we don’t shoot straight, you might have to mate with him. You’re the one doing the bugling.”

  An agitated bull could be dangerous, especially if wounded, so they positioned themselves to shoot from two sides, aiming for the lungs. Trace could have easily shot the bull from a comfortable distance with his rifle, but he had decided it best to save the little powder and lead he had left. Consequently, it was necessary to get in close to make their bows effective.

  Suddenly there was an explosion of cracking limbs, and the bull elk burst through the thicket, six or seven hundred pounds of hurtling rage. Thung! Thung! Two bowstrings released. The elk continued charging for another twenty-five yards before abruptly crashing to the ground, his forelegs folded underneath him.

  The two boys looked at each other and smiled their approval. Buffalo Shield would be very proud. The village was moving to winter camp and the elk’s meat and hide would be needed. Trace was well pleased with himself. The prospect of spending the coming winter in Dull Moon’s warm tipi greatly appealed to him, and any thoughts of St. Louis and the Blunts were far from his mind.

  * * *

  Hamilton Blunt looked up from his desk when his brother entered the room. “Well?” was his only greeting, even though it had been well over a month since Morgan had left to meet LaPorte at Fort Laramie.

  Morgan, equally as brusque, answered. “I saw LaPorte. He knows what to do.”

  Hamilton, never a man of patience when it came to waiting for his orders to be carried out, was not satisfied with his brother’s answer. “Well, was there any sign of the boy?” Morgan shook his head. “Had anyone seen him?” Again Morgan shook his head. “Did you tell LaPorte to get off his behind and go out and find him?”

  “Dammit, Hamilton, I put LaPorte on it! Nobody’s seen the little son of a bitch since summer. You’re talking about thousands of square miles of prairie and mountains out there. He ain’t gonna find him overnight. It might take some time, but LaPorte’ll find him. A young white kid out there by himself will show up sooner or later.” Morgan settled himself in a chair opposite the desk. “I’ll be going back out there in the spring. I’ll bring his scalp back for you.” A hint of a sneer formed at the corners of his mouth. “It’ll make a nice little wristband for your bride.”

  Hamilton failed to appreciate his brother’s crude humor. “You need to watch your mouth, Morgan.” He brooded over the information just given him for a few moments before speaking again. “I want his head,” he said softly.

  “My goodness, am I interrupting something?”

  Both men turned quickly as Julia came silently through the door. “No, of course not, dear,” Hamilton quickly replied. “We were talking business, that’s all.”

  She graced them with a smile, making a special effort to seem cordial toward Hamilton’s moody brother. In truth, she was not pleased to see Morgan back in St. Louis. The man made her uncomfortable. With his ever-present leer, he seemed to regard her with contempt. When she had spoken to Hamilton about Morgan’s seemingly hostile attitude toward her, he said that it was largely her imagination. She feared that Morgan harbored ill feelings about her—and maybe even held her responsible for Tyler’s death.

  It had been a horrible nightmare for her, recalling the circumstances of Tyler Blunt’s death. It had been so terribly difficult for her to accept the fact that her son Jim was capable of something so heinous. Hamilton had tried to spare her as much pain as possible when he explained how Jim had cold-bloodedly stalked Tyler and stabbed him from behind. Hamilton had even tried to accept some of the blame, saying that he should never have sent Tyler over there to try to persuade Jim to come and live with them. It grieved her to think about it. Jim had always been such a kind and loving boy. What would his father have thought? That notion caused her to experience a tiny twinge of guilt, and she unconsciously glanced down at the satin dress she wore. It was a sight different from the homespun she’d worn when John was alive. I don’t have any reason to feel shame, she told herself. John would be pleased that Hamilton was here to take care of me.

  Gathering her wits about her, she effected a warm smile. “Well, brother Morgan, I’m happy to see you made a safe journey back.” Morgan didn’t reply, but continued to sneer. She turned quickly to her husband. “Hamilton, would you speak to Frances? I want to bake an apple cake, and she insists that you gave her orders to keep me out of the kitchen.” If Julia could have had her way, Frances would no longer be in Hamilton’s employ. But Hamilton would not even discuss the possibility of firing Frances. She had taken care of him and his house for years now, and she looked upon Julia as little more than a nuisance living in what she felt was her own house.

  Hamilton Blunt favored his bride with a benevolent smile. “Why don’t you tell Frances what kind of cake you want? She’ll bake it for you. You know I don’t want you to soil your pretty hands by slaving in the kitchen.” Hearing a contemptuous snort from Morgan, he quickly cut his brother short with a searing glance. He got up from the desk and, taking Julia by the arm, escorted her to the door. “Now why don’t you go on down to the parlor and I’ll join you for some coffee in a few minutes, as soon as Morgan and I finish up a little business here.”

  Making an attempt to be cordial to her brother-in-law, she called back, “Morgan, will you be joining us?”

  Hamilton answered for him. “No, Morgan’s going down to the freight yard.” When she left the room, he closed the door behind her and turned to face his brother. “You make sure that damn half-wit LaPorte knows how important it is to eliminate that brat of hers?”

  “He knows,” Morgan said with a shrug. “Besides, he wants the money.”

  “Dammit,” Hamilton spat, “I can’t have that boy showing up around here again. People might start believing his side of the story.”

  “Hell, why are you so worried? He’d be a damn fool to show up here again. Anyway, he ain’t gonna do much talking after LaPorte and his boys find him.”

  Hamilton’s concern that Trace might return and go to the sheriff with his version of Tyler’s death was muted when winter set in for good during the following weeks. Travel to or from the western frontier had halted completely. It would be some months before the trails were passable for even mule trains to get through.

  Far across the frozen plains from St. Louis, in a sheltered valley in the Big Horn Mountains, Trace McCall contented himself to spend the long winter with his Crow family. Snug in the warmth of Dull Moon’s tipi, he sat with Buffalo Shield and listened to the old man’s tales of the history of his people, working on the horn bow he was making. The buffalo had been plentiful and their food stores were ample. Trace and Black Wing would not have to leave the safety of the valley until the weather was good enough to hunt in the mountains once more.

  CHAPTER 9

  Joe LaPorte sat in the back of the disabled prairie schooner, its broken wheel causing the wagon to sag toward the right. Four mules lay dead in their traces where his Blackfoot war party had shot them down. While his Indian friends plundered through the sacks and barrels thrown from the wagon, LaPorte thumbed through a cloth-bound family album that contained a stack of letters.

  LaPorte stared at the pages of words, all of them meaningless to him since he could not read. Still, he leafed through them as if hoping to find some clue that might indicate that the young man lying dead beneath the wagon was the boy he searched for. Some were written in large, bold strokes,
some in a more delicate script. He glanced down at the mutilated body before him and shook his head in disgust. This was not the boy. Angry, he threw the letters aside and climbed out of the wagon to join in the whooping and laughing of the circle of warriors as they indulged in the slow torture of the young man’s wife.

  She had been a pretty little thing, and there had been quite an argument before he could convince his Blackfoot friends that she must be killed. Lame Fox’s nephew, Two Humps, wanted very much to keep the woman. But LaPorte insisted she had to be killed. He couldn’t leave witnesses alive. Otherwise, he would not be free to come and go in the white man’s forts. It was Lame Fox who saw the logic in this and ordered his nephew to take her life.

  She was almost dead now, her homespun dress soaked with blood, as she knelt on the ground, her chin resting on her chest. Her screaming had stopped long before as she waited for the blow that would take her away from this world of suffering. When it came, she made no sound other than the rush of her final breath. She sagged to the ground, the axe still buried in her neck.

  Four years was a long time to search for one white boy in a wilderness that stretched beyond the Rocky Mountains. LaPorte was halfway convinced that Jim Tracey—or McCall, whatever his name was—no longer existed. No doubt he had fallen prey to a war party and his bones lay bleaching in the sun somewhere in the vast regions of endless plains—or perhaps he hadn’t come west at all. LaPorte had long since given up on earning the five hundred dollars that Morgan Blunt had dangled as enticement to find and eliminate one fourteen-year-old boy. After four years, the boy was closer to a grown man than he was to a kid. How would he recognize him if he saw him? Still, Morgan Blunt journeyed out from St. Louis to find LaPorte each spring, admonishing him to find the boy. LaPorte had taken the lives of several young white men who had the misfortune to be traveling alone, yet none was the boy he so desperately searched for.

  He opened the flat tin box and looked again at the money inside, a sizable sum saved up to start a new life beyond the mountains, no doubt. There was not much else of value to be gained by the murder of the young couple—a small amount of powder and shot, some flour, some salt pork, a bolt of cloth, and a few trinkets. LaPorte toyed with the idea of taking this young man’s head to Morgan Blunt and claiming it was that of Jim Tracey. He was tired of waiting for the reward Blunt had promised him. It was unlucky that the man’s hair was dark brown; Blunt had specifically told him that young Tracey’s hair was sandy. “Damn!” he uttered in disgust and turned to fetch his horse. He called to Lame Fox, “If your boys are through having their fun with the woman, let’s get out of here.”

  * * *

  It had not been a rewarding spring for Buck Ransom and Frank Brown. There were too many trappers in the mountains, and there were not many beaver streams that had not been trapped out. Some of their old friends had already given up on trapping as a way of life. To make matters worse, the price of beaver plews had dropped even further since the year before. Five years ago, a prime beaver pelt brought six dollars; last year it brought three. Sublette predicted that in a year or two you wouldn’t be able to give one away. Silk, he lamented, was what had killed beaver.

  “Well, I reckon we’re gonna have to give up on beaver,” Frank said as they discussed the gloomy outlook. “Buffalo hides is the thing now.”

  “Give up?” Buck retorted indignantly. “Why, I reckon not! Beaver’ll shine agin. Just wait till them silk hats start coming apart in the rain. They’ll be wantin’ beaver right enough.”

  “I swear, Buck, sometimes I wonder if you ever notice what the hell’s goin’ on around you. We ain’t never had such a skimpy load of plews before, and this close to rendezvous.” Without thinking, he looked from side to side before adding, “And we had to come this far up in Blackfoot country to git these.”

  They had both seen sign during the last couple of days, most likely hunting parties passing through the mountains. And just the day before Frank had been forced to lay behind a creek bank, neck-deep in icy water, to avoid being seen by a party of about twenty Blackfeet. For safety’s sake, it was time to cross back over to the western side of the mountains and start working their way down toward the Green River.

  After looking over their packs to make sure everything was tidy, both men climbed aboard their horses. Buck took the lead as they filed out of the shallow gorge where they had camped for the previous two days. He had just cleared its rim when a musket ball whistled past his nose. By the time he heard the shot, he had already jerked his horse back down into the gorge again. He heard his pack mule scream behind him as an arrow buried itself in the animal’s neck.

  Frank wheeled in beside him, bending low in the saddle. “Head for the creek bank,” he yelled and raced for cover with Buck on his heels. Behind them, the air quickly filled with musket balls and war whoops.

  “Blackfoot!” Buck yelled as he whipped his horse frantically. The race was on, the Indian ponies swiftly closing the distance between them. Buck drove his horse recklessly over the rough gullies that wound down to the creek bottom. When he was within a dozen yards of Buck’s pack mule, one Blackfoot tried to get a shot off with his bow, but the roughness of the terrain spoiled his aim and he gave it up. Driving hard, the warrior instead caught up to the pack mule and grabbed the animal’s tail, hoping to slow the mule down. Buck pulled his pistol out and blasted the warrior off his pony. This caused the rest of the war party to pause momentarily before charging after them again. It was all the time the two trappers needed to reach the safety of the sandy creek bank.

  They slid off their horses and quickly hauled them down behind the high bank. Buck tied the animals in a patch of willows while Frank scrambled back up to the lip of the bank to hold off their attackers.

  “Give me your rifle,” Frank barked, “and hurry up with them mules!” He fired, killing a charging young buck with a ball in his chest. As the warrior fell, Frank grabbed Buck’s rifle and killed the warrior directly behind the first one. This stopped the charge while the savages reconsidered swarming the sharp-shooting trappers. Frank quickly reloaded both rifles. “Buck, what the hell are you doin’?”

  “Just hold on, dammit! I’m trying to git this dang arrow outta my mule’s neck.”

  “Damn that mule! You’re gonna be tryin’ to pull arrows outta your ass if you don’t git up here and help me!”

  Buck crawled up beside his partner. He took his rifle from Frank and reloaded his pistol. “What are you frettin’ about, Frank? You stopped ’em, didn’tcha?”

  “We thinned ’em out a little. They’re setting behind that bluff, tryin’ to decide if they’re gonna give her another try or wait till dark.”

  “Hell, they ain’t gonna come at us agin,” Buck said. “That ain’t their style. They’ve done lost three. They’ll be waitin’ till dark to try to sneak up on us.”

  “Maybe,” Frank allowed. He never took anything for granted.

  “They’ve had enough,” Buck insisted. “I know Blackfeet. They ain’t willin’ to risk any more necks.”

  No sooner had the words left his mouth when the savages rose up from the bluffs and mounted another charge upon the two trappers. “Oh, shit,” Buck blurted and fired, taking out the lead rider. Frank waited a few seconds, giving Buck time to reload, before he picked the closest brave and cut him down, reloading himself as soon as he had pulled the trigger. In seconds, Buck was ready to fire again. Firing at staggered intervals, they were able to inflict heavy losses upon the Blackfeet. When their leader called the attack off, there were four more warriors lying dead before the creek bank.

  “You all right?” Frank asked when a lull in the fighting occurred.

  “Reckon so,” Buck answered. “They shore tore up this cottonwood over my head, though.” He motioned toward the shattered tree trunk with his head while reloading his rifle.

  Frank glanced up at the splintered bark only inches above Buck’s head. “There’s more than a few old fusees in that bunch. Somebody’s got a
decent rifle.” He squinted toward the bluffs where the band of Blackfeet had once again retreated. “I reckon they won’t be trying that no more. Nuthin’ to do now but sit tight until dark. Then we’d best git our asses out of this place.”

  Buck nodded. Frank had just about summed it up. The spot they had landed in by the creek was defensible against a frontal charge, like the two they had successfully repelled. But he knew that they would be sitting ducks if they stayed there much longer. Even if they defended both sides of the creek, they were still vulnerable from the upstream and downstream sides. Their only hope was to slip out under cover of darkness.

  On the far side of the bluffs, Lame Fox was visibly distressed. After seeing their firepower, he had thought it unwise to rush the two trappers the second time. But LaPorte had persuaded him to take the risk, and now he had lost seven of his bravest warriors. LaPorte himself had not participated in the headlong assault, preferring to remain hidden in the bluffs, taking shots from a distance. He could not, he insisted, afford to be seen by the two white trappers in the event that Lame Fox’s warriors were not successful in overrunning them.

  “Their guns are too strong,” Lame Fox complained. “It was not a wise thing to do. Now I have lost seven warriors, and the white men are still alive.”

  “You should have kept going,” LaPorte replied coldly. “You almost had them when you turned back. They can’t reload but so fast, and your warriors were almost on top of them when you quit.”

  Lame Fox did not take the criticism kindly. “Their guns are too strong,” he repeated, openly irritated. “They are better than the few old muskets we have.”

  “We don’t wanna let those two old buzzards get away. They’ve got rifles—pistols too—and powder and lead, and horses. You need that stuff.” And I need those two scalps, he thought to himself. Ever since his confrontation with Buck and Frank four years before on the North Platte, he had been waiting to catch the two of them when he had Lame Fox’s warriors with him.