by Ron Schwab
He liked Sarah's grit. She had iron in her backbone, and he had always been attracted to strong and independent women. But, damn it, ever since he'd been down and out, it seemed like she tried to run the whole show. Well, give him a few more days, and he'd change that.
Finally, Sarah said, "Tom needs to get some sleep, and I think we could all use some rest. Joe, do you suppose you could help me move my bedroll and things off this ledge? Now that Captain Carnes is feeling better, I'll be moving down with Stone Dog." She looked at Tom mischievously. "I'm certain the captain will appreciate your company much more than mine."
"Yes, ma'am," Joe answered, his teeth flashing as he rose to help her.
Tom's irritation turned to puzzlement when Sarah bent spontaneously and kissed him softly on the forehead, as she pulled her bedroll away from his side. "Good night, Tom," she whispered. "Be a good boy."
She slipped away quietly into the night. As Sarah left, Tom suddenly felt very lonely; he could not fathom his reaction, but it was almost like a part of him had climbed down the ledge with her. And to think he was so damned mad at her a few minutes ago.
That night, he slept restlessly, tossing and twisting as his body unconsciously sought the warmth of the one that no longer lay beside him. Joe, stretched out on the other side of the crackling fire, observed Tom's apparent discomfort and draped another blanket over his back, but it offered little relief.
23
TOM PACED BACK and forth in front of the bluff, his eyes casting nervously across the broad valley that lay beyond. It had been nearly a month since Joe's return, and Tom was like a race horse waiting at the startling gate—skittish and impatient to be on the move.
He glanced back at the stark bluff, his eyes moving reflectively to the rustic village that had risen at its base. Two small, thatched, sleeping hutches rested at the foot of the granite escarpment where Sarah and Stone Dog had fashioned temporary homes. A small oven had been improvised from mud and stones by Stone Dog in front of Sarah's small dwelling. Deer and buffalo hides were stretched on long, upright poles scattered randomly about the camp. Now, a sturdy ladder led from the ground level to the rock shelf where Tom and Joe resided. Crusty, stiff deer hides had covered pine beams to form a roof that spanned the ledge and angled down to meet a wall of granite rocks, chinked with shale splinters and mud. It almost looked like some kind of medieval watchtower, Tom thought to himself.
He realized now, that the habitations had sprung up less from necessity than from the desire of the occupants to keep busy during the long wait. As he slowly regained his strength, even Tom had taken active interest in the construction and assisted to the extent his physical limitations permitted. He had first sat in the saddle again a week ago, and, after he had cantered the horse around the camp a few times, insisted he was ready to go. He started packing his gear in readiness to move out, but Sarah had adamantly refused to travel. He admitted to himself now, that she had been right.
But finally, today, he was ready to ride. Although still bony and gaunt, Tom had recovered some of his lost weight. The color had come back to his face, although his chin and cheeks were an unnatural, chalky white where his rusty beard had been shaved clean a few days previous. He rubbed the foreign smoothness of his jaw and wondered how he'd given in to Sarah's pointed suggestion that he would look less like a mountain goat if he sheared the luxuriant foliage.
As a concession to his gimpy shoulder, he had even allowed Sarah to do the tedious cropping and paring. He had been rewarded amply, however, when after the completion of the job, Sarah had teased, "My, I'd forgotten how handsome and dashing you could look." Then she had smiled and, without warning, planted her moist lips on his soft cheek and scurried away.
He knew, deep down, that the scraggly beard would not take root in his face again. Somehow, Sarah always seemed to get her way with him, and, for some damn reason, he did not really mind—he found himself wanting to please her.
The major remaining physical effect of Tom's brush with death was a restrictive stiffness extending from the top of his right shoulder to the ugly, strawberry-red scar tissue that crinkled into a crevice-like depression below the shoulder blade. When he attempted to raise his right arm above shoulder level, it felt like a drying rawhide strip was looped around his upper arm, pulling the limb downward, as prickly, needlelike darts of pain shot through the scapula above the scar. The joint seemed to loosen and become more pliant daily, but Tom suspected that the severed muscle and tissue would always impose some limitation on his movement.
Well, today, they should be on their way, but they were damn fools to be heading into the Rockies in early November. Winter's icy blast could strike anytime in those mountains, and they'd be in a hell of a fix if they got caught up there in a snowstorm. Miners were already pulling out of the Black Hills in anticipation of an early winter, but anything that would hit here would be nothing compared to the wicked, devastating blizzards that tore unmercifully through the Rockies when winter set in. But they had to chance it. Stone Dog said that most of the Oglala had moved west—evidently to join villages on the Little Big Horn and Little Powder rivers.
Billy's trail was already stone cold. If they didn't find him soon, they could forget about it. If he was alive now, chances were damn slim that he would be after a winter with the Oglala.
Tom walked toward the base of the bluff, where his companions were readying the horses. Sarah greeted him with a mock frown. "Joe just about loaded the pack horses by himself," she said haughtily. "You seemed to be too preoccupied to saddle your own horse, Captain, so I took care of it for you. Seems to me like you've become kind of used to being waited on hand and foot."
He bristled defensively, and softened just as quickly, when her laughing, sparkling eyes revealed he was being teased again. I've got to quit taking myself so seriously, he admonished himself.
"Thanks, Sarah," he smiled, and then, with a suggestive wink, "I'll do something for you sometime."
Planting a gentle elbow to Tom's ribs, she moved to her own gelding. Mounting, she seemed to be relinquishing command when she said, "I'm ready to go find Billy, Captain."
24
IN A GRANITE-rimmed canyon some five miles northeast of the pursuers, pots and pans clanged noisily as Jasper and Billy struggled to load the uncooperative Lucy. Jasper inched carefully up behind the old "mountain canary," the miners' nickname for the long-eared, obstinate beasts that carried enormous burdens with surefooted aplomb over often-treacherous mountain trails. He reached carefully over the burro's rump to snatch the end of the rope that was to finish the diamond hitch anchoring the load on Lucy's back.
Billy heard a dull thud and then Jasper's anguished moan, as the gangly man stumbled backward and fell to the ground, rubbing his painful shin bone.
"You mangy, old fleabag!" Jasper yelled. "You shoulda been bear food a long time ago.”
The old burro's ears lay back flat against her head, narrow slits of eyes glaring out between thick, wrinkled eyelids, daring Jasper to try again. Jasper's face was tomato-red. Billy had never heard him swear, but he was as mad right now as he had ever seen him.
Billy stepped over to the burro, grabbed the rope, pulled it tight, and quickly finished the hitch. There was no reaction from Lucy.
"I think maybe you just got yourself a job," Jasper said. "I've got more bruises than I can count from that cursed critter. Once she laid me up for three days."
"Me and Lucy get along just fine," said Billy. "You just got to talk nice to her, Jasper. . . . Be her friend."
"We'll just have to see about that," said Jasper. "Anyhow, a few more weeks and we'll be in Cheyenne for the winter. Then I'll be rid of her for a while . . . and maybe, you can find your folks."
"My folks are gone," Billy said dejectedly. "You and Crawdad are the only folks I got anymore."
Billy had been at the miners' camp for nearly a month. He had recovered quickly after his discovery by Lucy, and Crawdad and Jasper had informally assumed responsibility f
or his well-being. Billy more than earned his keep, helping Jasper with the meals and performing other chores around the camp. Crawdad had even lent Billy the utensils for panning gold, and the boy had accumulated his own small stake.
Now the camp was closing and most of the miners were going to Cheyenne for the winter. Ordinarily, they would have worked another few weeks, but Crawdad insisted there was going to be an early winter. The fur on the beaver was longer than switch grass, he pointed out, and the chilling winds that ripped down the canyon at night were coming too early. Some of the men did not want to leave yet. They had heard about a big strike up north at a place called Deadwood Gulch, and those that did not want to stay were itching to move north. In spite of their protests, however, when Crawdad stubbornly began to pack his gear, everybody else followed suit. Although the miners' camp had no formal organization, the unassuming Crawdad wielded great influence among the men and was their unelected leader.
Jasper took Lucy's lead rope and tugged gently. "Good girl, Lucy," he whined with his nasal voice. "You'll come with your old friend, Jasper, won't you . . . won't you?"
The burro jerked her head back and bucked defiantly as Crawdad hobbled up to Billy and wrapped his thick, rough arm around his shoulders. "Well, young feller, looks like them two's still at it. Don't know why, they just never hit it off. Anyhow, I guess we're just about ready to head out of here. You anxious to get going?"
At the query, Billy's blue eyes widened, moisture glazing their surface. "Yes, sir," he answered, "but I'm a little worried."
"There's nothin' to worry about, Billy. I got a lot of friends in Cheyenne. Somehow, we'll find out about your family. Anyways, we're not just goin' to throw you to the wolves. We'll work out something when we get there."
He stepped over and took the cross old burro's lead rope from Jasper and yelled, "I'm headin' for Cheyenne, boys! Anybody wants to come along, you're welcome."
He started up the narrow, winding trail that led out of the camp. Lucy followed obediently; so did Billy and the other miners.
25
THE FOUR RIDERS rode cautiously down the loose, rocky trail that led into the canyon, eventually dismounting and leading the horses as they approached a caved-off section of the path that barely let them by. A single misstep would send man or animal plunging several hundred feet to the chasm floor below.
As they walked out onto the bare, stone flat bordering the swift-running creek that seemed to gouge its way through the canyon bottom, Stone Dog pointed to an old deserted log shack downstream buttressed against the near canyon wall. "Trapper's camp," he said matter-of-factly. "Gone many moons."
Tom surveyed the decaying remnants of the camp. Brave men, he thought—or foolish—to be seeking furs right in the middle of the Sioux lands. The old mountain men were a dying breed and the trapper who had lived here alone, or with a squaw, had likely lost his scalp by now.
If there was such a thing as a good spot in these parts, though, the man had picked it. Trapping should have been good since the canyon appeared to broaden farther upstream where the rock surrendered to grass and aspen groves, no doubt lush with beaver and other fur-bearing creatures. One thing for sure, Indians would have to approach the camp from far to the north or single file down the almost impassable trail they had just travelled. The east and west walls climbed vertically upward for hundreds of feet, certainly impossible to scale, and farther south they narrowed to a bottleneck, through which the creek poured turbulently. The crushing force of the water and the depth of the creek at this point made access from this end of the canyon insurmountable. And yet, escape was possible by entering the same creek and catapulting with the raging water though the exit. Someone had selected the camp shrewdly.
He said to the others, "This looks like a pretty good place for a base camp. We'll stay here for a few days until we decide our next step. Stone Dog says the head of the Little Powder River should be just a few miles northwest. All signs indicate there are at least several major Sioux villages up that way, but we'll have to do some scouting to find where Billy's at." He paused. If he's here at all." Catching a glimpse of Sarah as she bit her lip apprehensively, he wished instantly he had not said the last part. He added quickly, "We haven't come all this way for nothing; we should find Billy in the next couple of days."
They stashed their supplies and bedrolls in the rundown trapper's shack. The glittering quartz canyon wall formed one side of the shack, and stone chips and gravel provided the floor, but it was a roof over their heads and a barrier against the cutting winds that were certain to tear down the canyon come nightfall. The dry, red clay that once secured the stones for the tiny fireplace had crumbled and left the rocks in a heap on the floor. There would be no fire in the cabin this night.
Stone Dog built a small cooking fire outside the shack using only the driest branches in order to make a nearly smokeless blaze. The fire would be extinguished before dark to reduce the chances of discovery by the Sioux.
When they bedded down for the night, as usual, each took a turn as lookout. Sarah took first watch and stood quietly outside the cabin door, her eyes fixed intently on the north end of the canyon. In the early days of their journey, Tom had worried about Sarah's taking a shift at the night watch, uncertain that she could handle it; he knew better now. Sarah gave no quarter, and asked none.
The next morning, Stone Dog and Joe climbed the painstaking trail out of the canyon in search of the Sioux camps. Tom remained behind reluctantly, admitting he could use a day out of the saddle. He still had not recovered his full strength, and his shoulder ached increasingly as the days got colder. He knew he had better be rested and ready when the time came to free Billy.
When the two riders finally disappeared over the canyon rim, Tom scrambled up to the cabin roof and, there, leaning back against the cold canyon wall, cradled his Winchester on upraised knees and turned his eyes toward the far end of the canyon. Sarah busied herself below with the camp chores and hummed softly as she moved in and out of the cabin. Her voice was soothing and seemed to blend in harmony with the singsong rush of the creek waters nearby. Tom watched her out of the corner of his eye and was struck by her grace and femininity in spite of the leather boots and denim trousers she wore. Her hair had grown considerably since the day they left the Double C, and he liked the way the golden locks were now just starting to curl like goosedown over the back of her slender neck.
The bright, midmorning sun finally bounced against the canyon wall radiating a warmth that suited Tom's mood, and he started to feel drowsy, his head bobbing slowly and snapping upright as he jerked himself to his senses. He came alive, however, when he spotted a flash of light apparently reflecting from something metallic up the canyon. It could have been the sun's rays glancing off one of the pieces of quartz or mica that were spread so freely along the chasm bottom. He focused his attention to where he had seen the momentary flicker and waited. Shortly, it flashed again, too much like sun on metal.
"Sarah," he warned, "There may be somebody riding this way. See if you can move the horses farther south, around the bend. Then beat it back here, fast."
Whoever it was would be a good mile away, but another flash of light confirmed that the visitor was coming in their direction. As Sarah returned from moving the horses, Tom clambered off the roof.
"Who is it, Tom?" she asked.
"Can't tell," Tom replied, "but we'd better be ready for trouble. The hell of it is, if we fire our guns, we'll be telling the whole Sioux nation somebody's down here. Anyway, let's get behind the cabin."
As they waited for some further sign of the intruder, Tom peered cautiously around the corner of the cabin, catching movement in the brush along the creek upstream. Abruptly, a young, Sioux buck astride a spotted pony rode into the clearing not more than two hundred yards away, a shiny rifle gripped loosely in his hand, showing Tom the source of the flashing light. He appeared to be alone.
Tom leaned over to Sarah, who stood at his side, back tight against the ca
bin wall. "It's a Sioux," he whispered. "Looks like he's coming this way. I could nail him easy enough, but with the echo in this canyon we'd wake up every Indian for miles. Damn . . . of all the luck."
"Tom," Sarah said, "listen . . . what if I let him see me. If he came after me, maybe you could move in from behind and get him without shooting."
"Might work, but it's just too damn risky, Sarah," he responded.
Before he could stop her, Sarah had moved from behind the cabin and was walking nonchalantly southeasterly toward the creek. Angered momentarily, he started after her and then stopped, realizing it was too late, and edged back behind the cabin.
The young Sioux, long black braids hanging over his deerskin shirt, spotted Sarah instantly but did not move. His eyes darted back and forth uneasily and Tom could hear the clicking sound as the buck cocked his rifle. Sarah pretended not to see the young Indian as she approached the creek and bent down, scooping water in her hands as if to drink.
The Indian, sensing the opportunity for surprise, kneed his pony ahead and rode slowly and cautiously downstream toward Sarah. Tom could feel his palms moisten as the Sioux moved closer, the pony's hooves crunching against the broken rocks and shale. He saw Sarah raise her head and look toward the approaching Indian. Feigning surprise, she bolted upright and dashed, as if terror-stricken, farther downstream. The Sioux dug his heels in the pony's flanks and charged recklessly, like a coyote after a jack rabbit.
Tom huddled close to the ground as the pony galloped past his hiding place and closed in on Sarah. Quickly, he slipped around the corner and entered the cabin, snatching the saber from his bedroll. As he came back out, he saw Sarah suddenly stop and turn to face the Sioux. As the Indian reined in the pony, and slid to the rocky ground, he was met with Sarah's icy glare. The buck set his rifle aside and with a twisted smile, moved toward Sarah, scratching meaningfully at his breechclout. He grabbed her wrist and jerked her toward him as Tom rushed in, his saber pointed lethally.