Duel at Low Hawk

by Charles G. West

  Afraid that his answer might be his last act on earth, Nathan slowly nodded his head, then waited for the bullet. Boot’s bloodlust had been satisfied, however. He took the food that had been prepared for him and left the mourning family to grieve. “I’m comin’ back here,” he threatened. “I better not find you here when I do.”

  John Ward reined Cousin back and waited for Two Buck to come alongside. The young Cherokee had not complained during the entire day’s ride the day before. But on this morning, he appeared to be wilting a little in John’s opinion. The question in the lawman’s mind now was whether or not Two Buck could keep up the pace. “How’re you makin’ it?” John asked when Two Buck caught up.

  “Good,” Two Buck was quick to reply. “Don’t worry about me. I’m gettin’ stronger every day.”

  John shook his head. “I shoulda left you back in Red Bow,” he grumbled, and started to nudge Cousin. Two Buck stopped him and pointed to a rise some three hundred yards ahead. Topping the rise was a horse pulling a travois, with what appeared to be two children on the horse’s back and three adults walking beside them.

  John and Two Buck rode forward to meet them and, upon approaching, recognized Nathan Smoke and his family. When he saw who it was, Two Buck rode out ahead. “Nathan,” he called out, “what has happened?”

  While Nathan related the encounter with Boot Stoner, John took a look at Lester lying on the travois. The wound looked pretty bad, as bad as Two Buck’s had been, and the grieving party was still a full day’s ride from the doctor’s office at Red Bow. Speaking wildly and rapidly in Cherokee, Nathan told Two Buck about Boot’s sudden appearance, and how the evil half-breed had ordered them out of the cabins.

  “Is he still there?” John interrupted to ask.

  “No, gone now,” Nathan replied. Then, lapsing back into Cherokee, he told Two Buck that Boot was looking for Lilly, and had most likely gone to Low Hawk to look for her there.

  With an anxious look, Two Buck relayed Nathan’s words to John. “She’s got away from him!” he exclaimed. “I knew she would. And now that devil’s after her again. We’ve got to hurry.”

  John did not linger after learning that. They wished Nathan and his family well and set out for the Creek Nation. Once again, John Ward was no more than a day or two behind the murdering half-breed. By nature a patient man, he was beginning to feel a sense of anxiety over his inability to finally close the gap between himself and the bloodthirsty fugitive. He took a close look at Two Buck, trying to evaluate the young man’s progress in his recovery and wondering if he could keep up with the pace John prepared to set. Two Buck looked pale and weary, but there was a determination in his eyes that seemed to refute what John was thinking.

  As if reading John’s thoughts, Two Buck said, “I’m going to Low Hawk, John Ward.”

  John nodded. He knew it would be with him or on his own. “All right, then, let’s get goin’. We oughta make the Arkansas by sundown.”

  Close to total exhaustion, Lilly climbed to the top of a low ridge that paralleled a slow-moving stream. Seeming to have spent her last bit of strength, she sat down at the crest of the ridge and stared out across the grassy flat before her. Low Hawk. She could scarcely believe her eyes, but there it was, an isolated settlement of no more than a half dozen homes, scattered at odd distances around one general store. Her body, weary from walking for the most part of four straight days, crossing rivers and hills, was at the point of collapse. Footsore and hungry, having survived on little more than one rabbit and one squirrel—both shot with Boot’s pistol—she sat there a while, gazing at her journey’s end. Though only three hundred yards away, she wondered if she could force herself up on her feet once more. Then, at the thought of what might lie behind her, she turned to look over her shoulder, fearing that she might see Boot.

  With renewed determination, motivated by fear, she struggled to her feet. On legs that seemed to be on the verge of failing, she descended the ridge, crossed the stream, and trudged toward a grove of cottonwood trees on the far end of the settlement. She had been to her uncle’s cabin on many occasions before her parents were killed. They had offered to take her in after the tragic accident, even though they had no room for guests in their tiny shack. It had seemed a lucky coincidence that Wendell Stoner had been visiting friends near Muskogee and, hearing of the young girl’s plight, had volunteered to bring Lilly home to live with him and his wife.

  Now with renewed hope, Lilly’s heartbeat quickened as she crossed a small stream, pushing through a tangle of bushes and vines to reach the clearing where her aunt and uncle had built their home. Once clear of the bushes, her brief excitement of a moment before was replaced by a sudden despair. She stood looking at a weathered and rotting shack, obviously vacant for quite some time. Her aunt, Blue Woman, was gone.

  Despondent, feeling totally defeated, she dropped down on the ground and wept. She could think of no one who might help her other than her aunt and uncle. Her determination gone, she surrendered to the hopelessness of her situation. Boot would find her. He would always find her. It was useless to run any farther, so she lay back on the ground and closed her eyes, halfway expecting him to be standing over her when she opened them again.

  While she lay there, her brain dizzy with fatigue, she thought of poor Burley Chase, who had been so willing to help her. She knew she was responsible for his death, and she ached in her grief for him. Then she thought about her time with Boot, and what she could expect when he caught her. It is better to be dead, she thought. And then she became angry with herself for giving up, so she struggled to her feet and willed her weary body toward the little store in the center of the settlement. Surely someone there would know where her aunt and uncle had gone.

  “My Lord in Heaven!” Jonah Feathers exclaimed upon glancing up to see the bedraggled young girl approaching his store. “What happened to you, child?” Not remembering having seen the girl before, he called back over his shoulder, “Ruth, come out here.” Then he stood gaping, hands on hips, wondering what to make of the half-starved Indian girl, now within a dozen yards of the door and staggering drunkenly. From the sunken-eyed look of despair in the thin face, he knew that he had best have his wife talk to her.

  Ruth Feathers, a full-blooded Creek, appeared in the doorway just as Lilly stopped before Jonah. The obviously distressed young girl said nothing at first, shifting her gaze from Jonah to settle on his wife. When she spoke, it was a simple question. “Blue Woman?”

  “Blue Woman?” Jonah repeated the question, confused. He knew a Creek woman named Blue Woman. She was the wife of Tom Talltree. “Whaddaya mean?” he blurted. “You lookin’ for Blue Woman?”

  Lilly nodded. Ruth, who had been studying the desperate young girl intensely, interrupted her husband. “She’s looking for her aunt, Jonah.” She stepped forward and took Lilly’s hand. “I didn’t recognize you at first, but you’re Walking Owl’s daughter, aren’t you?” She turned to her husband again to remind him. “Her folks were killed a few years ago, drowned in the Canadian River.” Back to Lilly then: “Ain’t that right, honey?” When Lilly nodded again, she continued. “I’m sorry. I can’t recall your name, but I remember you now—went to live with a family in the Cherokee Nation.”

  “Lilly,” was the simple reply. Then, with haunting eyes searching from one face to the other, she asked, “Do you know where I can find my aunt?”

  “Sure we do,” Ruth responded at once. “They built a new place over on Black Rock Creek. Jonah’ll take you over there. But first, I need to fix you something to eat. You poor child, when did you last eat?”

  Not waiting for Lilly to answer his wife’s question, Jonah butted in. “What happened to you? How come you’re back here? Did you run away from them folks that took you in?”

  “They’re dead,” Lilly answered, and seeing the shock in both faces staring at her, she related the tragic homecoming of Boot Stoner. She told them of her captivity and her subsequent escape, embellishing as little as possibl
e, ashamed to tell all the details of her time with Boot.

  “Oh, you poor child!” Ruth exclaimed when Lilly had finished telling her story. “Let me get you something to eat, and then Jonah can hitch up the wagon and take you to your aunt. It’s about two miles from here, and you don’t look like you can walk another step.”

  They sat Lilly down in a chair behind the counter and bade her to rest while Ruth fried some corn mush and beans, the quickest thing she could come up with. Feeling she was safe for the moment, Lilly relaxed, and was soon dozing sitting up in the chair. “That poor thing,” Ruth commented to Jonah. “No soul on this earth should have to go through what she’s gone through. Just look at her. She’s already asleep.”

  “That child might still be in for some bad times. I heard some talk about Boot Stoner already. He’s been on a killin’ spree over in the Cherokee Nation. I didn’t know he’d murdered his own parents, though.”

  Ruth frowned as she considered what Jonah said. “You think he would try to follow her in the Creek Nation?”

  “Maybe not,” Jonah replied. “Maybe he won’t wanna risk gettin’ your people stirred up against him, but from what it sounds like, he’s a crazy son of a bitch.”

  Ruth let Lilly sleep until her food was ready, then awakened her. “You need to eat something, child.” Still drowsy, Lilly let herself be led into the kitchen behind the store and sat down at the table. She needed no encouragement to eat. Half-starved, she devoured the meal. When she had cleaned the plate, she made motions to wash it, but Ruth stopped her. “You just sit there. I’ll take care of this, and my husband will hitch up the wagon.”

  Lilly sank back in the chair gratefully. When Ruth turned around after washing the plate in the dishpan, the exhausted girl’s head was down on the table. Ruth stood, hands on hips, watching her for a few moments before calling to her husband. “Jonah, never mind hitching up the wagon. Let’s pick her up and carry her in on the bed. You can take her over to Tom’s in the morning.”

  Lilly slept through the afternoon and the night that followed. Her mind, free of fear for the time being, insisted upon time to rest and recover. Ruth felt certain she could not have awakened her even if she had tried. When morning came, Lilly woke up to the sound of bacon sizzling and the aroma of fresh-brewed coffee. Bolting upright with a start, she looked around her frantically, not sure where she was. “Well, look who’s awake,” Ruth greeted her. “Good morning, sleepy-head. Feel like something to eat?”

  As she looked around, Lilly at once felt confused. There was but one bed in the room, and she realized that she had occupied it. “I’m so sorry,” she started to apologize. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

  “Nonsense, child,” Ruth said. “You needed to sleep.”

  Still at a loss, Lilly asked, “But where did you sleep?” Then she spied a couple of quilts rolled up against the wall. “I took your bed!” Lilly exclaimed, alarmed.

  “Don’t you worry your head about it,” Ruth insisted.“Now, if you’re ready for breakfast, there’s a basin of water by the pump, and the outhouse is back of the barn.”

  Tom Talltree followed his mule to the end of the row and turned the animal to start back up the next row. He had placed a large rock on the plow to make it bite in the hard soil, and he leaned heavily on the handles in an effort to help it dig in. It had not been an easy transition to make a farmer out of Tom, but there was little choice if he and his wife were going to have food to eat. He had grown up in the white man’s world, knowing of his Creek heritage only through the tales of his father and grandfather. Those stories would die with him, for he and Blue Woman had no children. It was just as well, he thought, for this life in the Creek Nation was a hard path to walk.

  He was nearing the end of the second row when he glanced up to see a horse and wagon approaching from the bend in the road. He recognized the portly figure of Jonah Feathers, but not the woman sitting in the seat beside him. It was not Ruth; this person was much smaller than Jonah’s wife. He stopped the mule at the end of the road and waited. Glancing toward his cabin, he saw that Blue Woman had heard the wagon and had come to stand in the doorway.

  “Hey-oh, Tom,” Jonah called out as he pulled up at the end of the garden patch Tom was plowing. “I got somebody here that’s come to see you.”

  “Lilly?” Tom responded, recognizing his brother’s child.

  Recognizing the girl at the same time her husband did, Blue Woman hurried out the door to greet her niece. “Lilly!” she exclaimed. “Is that really you?”

  “It’s her, all right,” Jonah answered for her.

  “What’s wrong, child?” Blue Woman asked upon taking a closer look at her niece, lines of distress evident in her weathered face. Although Lilly was much improved after a long rest and some solid food, her emaciated appearance caused her aunt immediate concern. Blue Woman’s first thought was that Lilly had known abuse at the hands of her adoptive parents. “What have they done to you?” Blue Woman implored.

  Reading her aunt’s meaning, Lilly was quick to explain that she had suffered no harm by the hand of Wendell Stoner. She climbed down from the wagon seat into her aunt’s embrace. She explained that she had not run away from Wendell and Morning Light, but from their savage son.

  Jonah Feathers watched with keen interest as Lilly told of her escape from the evil half-breed, observing the concern registering in Tom’s face. The thin, somber-faced Creek farmer was already thinking of the possible trouble the runaway girl might visit upon his household. Though eager to help the young lady in distress when she arrived at his store, Jonah was just as eager to be done with her. He didn’t bother to get down from the wagon, offering only a simple line of conversation to his neighbor. “Looks like you’re tryin’ to get your spring plowin’ done, Tom.”

  “Yes, tryin’ to,” Tom replied, not really interested. Like Jonah, he had heard of Boot Stoner’s rampage in the Cherokee Nation.

  “Well, I’d best get back to the store,” Jonah said. “Good day to you folks.” With that, he turned the horse around and left them to care for their niece, unaware of the storm that was about to hit the tiny settlement of Low Hawk.

  Chapter 13

  Oblivious to the rain beating against his face like tiny stinging insects, Boot Stoner pushed steadily through a driving thunderstorm. Brilliant flashes of lightning lit up the bluffs before him for brief seconds and illuminated the cruel anger in his face, anger that drove him well past sundown and into the night. Unconcerned for the welfare of his horses, he had not stopped for food or rest the entire day. Only the Arkansas River stopped him now, further fueling his anger. In his mind, he had been wronged, betrayed by the slight Creek girl, and the lust for vengeful punishment for such a crime was the one driving force in his mind.

  Running high from spring rains, the Arkansas was too risky to cross in the dark, in the midst of a violent storm, and with animals already weary from the day’s travel. Obsessed as he was to get to Low Hawk, it was obvious even to him that he could lose horses and gear if he attempted to cross over that night. Cursing the night and the storm, he reluctantly sought shelter among the trees along the bluffs of the river.

  The storm passed during the early hours of the morning, and the new day broke bright and clear. It would have been a refreshing and cheerful sight to most people, but no such potential resided in Boot Stoner’s dark mind. Anxious to get under way again, he saddled his horse, then paused to examine the two he had picked up at the old man’s cave. The dun that Lilly had ridden seemed in good shape, but the old horse that had belonged to the man was showing its age after being pushed so hard the day before, and was standing with its head down and ears drooping. The very sight infuriated Boot. It suggested that the aging horse would be a source of irritation, and Boot had no capacity to tolerate irritation. With no hesitation, he cocked his rifle and dropped the unfortunate animal with a bullet in the head. There was no thought toward simply setting the horse free, as he had done with the mules. The mere fact that t
he aging horse could not stand up to his cruel pace struck Boot as an affront to him personally. The chore taken care of, he stepped up in the saddle and started out along the bluffs, looking for a likely place to cross over into the Creek Nation.

  Only one full day’s ride from the bend in the Arkansas where Boot Stoner crossed over, an uneasy homecoming was taking place in the home of Tom Talltree. “What are we going to do about her?” Tom asked Blue Woman when she came to the garden to bring him water.

  Puzzled by the question, Blue Woman responded, “What do you mean? She is our niece, your brother’s child. We will take care of her.”

  “There is barely enough for the two of us,” Tom insisted. “How can we take her in?”

  “Lilly is a bright girl. She can help you in the garden and help plant the corn. She can help me in the house.”

  Tom frowned at the thought. The scarcity of food was not what was really bothering him. “What if this Boot Stoner is still chasing her? What if he comes here looking for her?”

  Blue Woman hesitated for a moment, considering the likelihood. When she answered, it was with determination in her voice. “Then we will hide her, and tell him she is not here. And he can go look for her somewhere else.” There were still some lingering feelings of guilt on Blue Woman’s part that Lilly had been sent away to live with strangers when her parents were killed, instead of being cared for by members of her family.

  Tom shook his head slowly as he considered his wife’s comments. He had serious doubts that the problem could be handled that easily. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s bad business, that Boot Stoner. From what the girl says, he’s left a string of dead people everywhere he’s been.” He looked at Blue Woman and shook his head again. “I just wish she had lit somewhere else.”