“Help me up on my horse,” P. D. commanded. With Arlo’s help, she managed to get up in the saddle, but almost fell off again when he released his hold upon her arm. Arlo quickly caught the arm again, and held on until she managed to settle herself.
An interested observer, Bo said nothing while Arlo tried to get his mother firmly situated in the saddle. When Arlo cautiously withdrew his hand, and stepped away from the horse, P. D. held onto the saddle horn with both hands, causing Bo to remark, “Hell, she can’t ride. She’ll be off that horse before we get ten feet.” Addressing his mother directly, he said, “Ma, you’re hurt too bad to ride.”
“The hell I am. I want that son of a bitch!” P. D. protested.
As reluctant as he was to go against his mother’s orders, Arlo had to agree with his brother. “Ma, Bo’s right. One of us is gonna have to climb up behind you to keep you from fallin’ outta the saddle. You’re lookin’ weak as hell, and it’s a rough ride down this mountain. You’ve been shot,” he needlessly reminded her.
Already starting to reel in the saddle, P. D.’s eyes flashed with anger. “I want that son of a bitch!” she repeated. “If you two was worth a shit, you’da found that one, pitiful, little gal, and we’da hemmed Slaughter up in that cabin.”
Bo took a cautious look around him as he spoke. “I expect we’d better think about our own asses right now, and I don’t cotton much to standin’ around here while that feller is loose. He might be drawin’ a bead on one of us right now while we’re standin’ around jawin’.” He couldn’t resist throwing a barb at his brother then. “Most likely you, Arlo. You’re the biggest target.”
“You’d best hope he ain’t aimin’ at the biggest mouth,” Arlo retorted.
“That’s enough!” P. D. blurted. “We’ve got work to do. Let’s get at it.”
Releasing the saddle horn with one hand, she grabbed the reins and, with a kick of her heels, started toward the trail down the mountain. Almost immediately, she began to list to one side, and before her horse had taken a dozen paces, she keeled over and landed on the ground. Horrified, Arlo hurried to help her. Bo shook his head, chagrined by his mother’s stubbornness, a little half smile on his face. “Well, I was wrong,” he chortled. “She made it about twenty feet before she fell off.”
“We’ve got to get the hell off of this mountain and get her to a doctor,” Arlo insisted. “She’s lost way too much blood.”
“Where the hell are we gonna find a doctor out here?” Bo responded. “The closest doctor around is in Virginia City, and that’s a helluva long ride from this damn mountaintop. Besides, I expect by now there’s a passel of Injuns standin’ between us and that river canyon we come up from the Yellowstone.”
“Well, what are we gonna do?” Arlo pleaded, realizing the truth in Bo’s remarks.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m fixin’ to get my ass to hell away from this mountain. To hell with Slaughter. There’s gotta be another way outta these mountains besides goin’ back down that same trail.”
Arlo cocked his head to one side, giving his brother a questioning look. “I don’t know,” he said. “Ma’s pretty set on gettin’ that Slaughter feller now, especially since he killed Wiley.”
Disgusted with Arlo’s apparent inability to realize the seriousness of their situation, Bo spat back, “Look at her! Does she look like she can go after anybody?”
“What about Wiley? Are we gonna let that son of a bitch get away with killin’ him?”
Bo had little sympathy for his younger brother. “That dummy was bound to get hisself killed one way or another. He probably made it easy for Slaughter. Besides, Ma was the only one gave a damn about him, anyway.” When Arlo still showed signs of hesitation, Bo tried to set the situation for him. “You wanna save Ma, don’tcha? Well, like you said, we gotta get her outta here. We can’t fight a whole damn tribe of Injuns, and maybe Slaughter, too. And the longer we stand here jawin’ about it, the worse our chances are. We’ve got to head around the other side of this mountain, and find another way back to that river.” He watched Arlo for a few moments while the big man thought about it. “We don’t know that Slaughter took off runnin’, anyway. He might be comin’ to look for us. He might be more to worry about than the damn Injuns.”
Arlo finally conceded to his brother’s logic. Although P. D. regained consciousness, she was still too weak to protest the planned retreat. Confronted with the fact that the mountainside was too steep and rugged to permit carrying her on a travois, they concluded that one of them would have to ride double with her. If not that, they would have to tie her on her own horse. They decided it best to try the latter choice, so between the two of them, they managed to lift her up on her horse. Once she was seated in the saddle, Bo held her while Arlo tied her feet in the stirrups, then looped the rope around her waist and tied it off on the saddle horn. “Ma, just lay forward on the horse’s neck and hold on,” Arlo told her. “Me and Bo’ll get you outta here. After we get some distance between us and them Injuns, we’ll see what we can do to help ease that shoulder.”
Too weak to protest, P. D. did as her son instructed, mumbling only one faint objection. “I want that son of a bitch.”
Chapter 12
Broken Hand’s village was alive with urgent preparation for war, as a party of Crow warriors hurriedly caught up their favorite war ponies and readied their weapons. Some took brief moments to apply war paint to themselves and their ponies. Within a few minutes of Molly’s arrival, the war party was ready to ride. Singing Woman was not only Broken Hand’s sister, she was generally beloved by everyone in the Crow camp. Even the young boys begged to accompany the war party. Broken Hand restricted the search party to thirty experienced warriors, knowing a larger number to be a hindrance on the steep mountain trails. His plan was to leave some of the camp’s warriors to guard the trails that ended on the ridge above the village in case the bounty hunters came back the same way they went up. The Crow chief asked Molly about Slaughter, but she could only tell him that Matt was somewhere in the mountains—alive, she hoped, but she was uncertain about that.
“Look!” one of the warriors cried, and pointed toward the mountaintop.
Following his gaze, Molly looked up to see a thin trail of smoke rising up from between two mountain peaks until caught and sheared by a lofty wind current that flattened it, drawing it out across the mountaintop. She knew at once that it had to come from the high valley between the two peaks, and could only mean a fire at the cabin. Frantic, she looked at once toward Broken Hand. He acknowledged her concern with a slight nod, turned his pony’s head toward the river, and led the war party out. Feeling helpless, Molly watched until the warriors were out of sight, then she turned and went to Singing Woman’s tipi to wait.
* * *
Still thinking there had been four bounty hunters, and confident that two of them were dead, Matt was startled to see smoke rising from the opposite side of the mountain. Judging by the trail of smoke, he felt reasonably sure the fire had to be from his little valley. He had happened upon a faint trail that he felt certain was left by Molly. It was not easy to follow up through the forest of pines, but it had eventually led him to a rock shelf and a boulder with a deep crevice. He studied the crevice for a few moments, thinking it a likely place for her to hide, but he could find no sign on the rocky shelf. With no trail to follow from that point, he had decided to go down to the Crow village, certain that Molly would try to go there.
Now, having seen the column of smoke rising above the mountains, his plans were changed. He headed back to the cabin as quickly as he could. As he guided the paint back down through the pines, his mind was busy conjuring any number of explanations, all of which were based upon the possibility that the two bounty hunters were not alone.
By the time he reached the clearing where his cabin had stood, his worst fears were confirmed. It was too late to save his cabin. Entering the clearing cautiously, he could see no sign of anyone, even though whomever set the fir
e could not be long departed, for the cabin was still in full blaze. Thinking then of the livestock, he looked beyond the burning structure to spot the horses scattered in the meadow—Zeb’s sorrel, Molly’s horse, the packhorse, but no others. Then he noticed that the body that had been lying between the corral and the cabin was gone.
Seeing there was nothing he could do to save his homestead, he immediately set to work scouting the clearing, searching for some sign that might talk to him. Whoever had taken the body and set fire to his home could not have gotten far. A careful examination of the trail down to the Crow village produced no evidence of shod horses leaving the clearing. After almost half an hour of meticulous study, he found what he was looking for—a fresh trail of shod hoofprints leading from the south edge of the clearing. He knelt to examine them closely, his fingers lightly tracing the outline of one as if feeling for something the print might tell him. They were recent tracks, and not some left before by the two bounty hunters he had killed. He was sure he would have seen them earlier if that had been the case.
Getting to his feet again, he followed the direction of the hoofprints with his eyes, looking beyond the edge of the clearing, past the thick belt of lodgepole pines, toward the steep rocky slopes above. Had they determined the game was too costly and decided to let him be? They had lost two of their party. These thoughts raced across his mind as he tried to decide what he must do. It was only a moment’s hesitation, however, for the one person who dominated his thoughts was Molly. He knew that he could do nothing until he found her. He turned back toward the clearing. In the saddle again, he guided the paint past the twin pines and the rocks where P. D. had lain in ambush, and started down the trail toward Broken Hand’s camp.
* * *
Halfway down the mountain, at the huge boulder where the trail made a hard turn to the right, he met the war party from the Crow village. Matt called out to identify himself before emerging from the trees above. Broken Hand waved for him to approach, pulling his pony aside to give Matt room on the narrow trail. Surprised to see the Crow warriors, Matt started to proceed, then stopped when he saw several of Broken Hand’s warriors carrying a body from the bushes beside the trail. Matt’s breath suddenly caught in his throat when he realized it was a woman’s body. It could be no one but Molly, he thought. She had escaped, and this was where they had caught her. Devastated, he hurried down to meet Broken Hand.
The Crow chief read the distress in Matt’s face as he urged the paint pony closer. “It is my sorrow, and not yours, my friend,” Broken Hand called out. “It is Singing Woman.”
Matt’s entire nervous system was immediately flooded with relief. Seconds later, he felt guilty for his resulting sense of reprieve upon hearing the body was Singing Woman instead of Molly. Then he shared the chief’s feeling of grief over the loss of his sister. Singing Woman had been his friend, and almost like a doting aunt to Molly. The anger returned to take dominance in his thoughts. First it was Zeb, and now Singing Woman. The evil that had followed him to these mountains must be eliminated. He sought to console the Crow chief, but could not find the proper words.
Broken Hand nodded, understanding Matt’s inability to express his empathy for his loss. “Bird With No Song is safe in my village,” he said, referring to Molly by the name the Indians had given her. “She waits for you there.”
Matt expressed a silent prayer of thanks, free then from long moments of worrisome thoughts. She was safe in the Crow camp. There could not be a better place for her. His mind turned at once toward the obligation owed his two friends.
“We saw the smoke from our village,” Broken Hand said. “Was it from your cabin?”
“Yes,” Matt replied. “The men who killed Zeb and Singing Woman burned it down. I killed two of the men, but there are two more. I found tracks where they left my cabin, and now that I know Molly is safe in your camp, I’m going after them.”
“They are the four white men I saw before,” Broken Hand said. “They came to our village looking for you. I told them we did not know of anyone named Slaughter. They left, and Singing Woman went to warn you.” He shook his head sadly as he turned to look at the body now wrapped in a blanket. “They must have followed her to your cabin. Bird With No Song said they killed Zeb Benson.” Seeing a look of distress appear in Matt’s face, he quickly assured him. “The men did not harm her. She was able to escape and come to us. My warriors and I were going to look for you after we found Singing Woman. Now that I know you are safe, I will take Singing Woman back to prepare her body for her journey. Take my warriors with you to hunt these men.”
Matt was grateful for the offer, although he was at first inclined to reject Broken Hand’s assistance, preferring to scout on his own. A large war party might be too easily seen. On second thought, however, he decided to take two of the warriors to help him read sign. Now knowing he would be trailing only two men, he figured a greater number of warriors would not be necessary, anyway. But he wanted to take no chances on losing these two murderers. The Crow scouts would be along simply to make sure he missed no sign. Having hunted with several of the warriors in the past, Matt already knew who he would pick to go after the killers with him: Wounded Horse and Looks Ahead. Both men were more than willing to go. After a brief farewell to Broken Hand, Matt and his two Crow scouts set out for his cabin, where they would follow the trail Matt had discovered earlier.
* * *
Upon reaching the cabin, they found the walls still smoldering. The lusty flames that had fed upon the interior of the structure had evidently been partially extinguished when the roof collapsed, leaving a blackened shell of what had once been his home. In spite of the sense of urgency to track the killers, Matt took a moment to survey the ruins of his cabin. The fallen timbers in the roof had formed a shelter over Wiley’s funeral pyre, leaving the badly scorched body to remain a grisly feast for the vultures. Matt took a brief look around the clearing where he and Zeb had toiled to make a home for the three of them, knowing that it would be his last glance. The little valley was now haunted by too many bad memories.
His momentary wandering was interrupted then by a call from Wounded Horse. “Here,” the Crow scout called out, having found the tracks leading away from the clearing to the south that Matt had discovered earlier. Matt and Looks Ahead joined him.
“Two horses?” Matt asked.
“Hard to say,” Wounded Horse replied after studying the prints partially exposed in the pine needles. As Matt had done before, the scout stood up and followed the direction the tracks indicated.
Looks Ahead knelt beside Wounded Horse to examine the tracks for himself. After a few moments he shrugged his shoulders, unable to determine any more than Wounded Horse had. Getting to his feet, he followed Wounded Horse’s gaze toward the rugged mountain above them. “They ride to the higher slopes, maybe hoping to lead us into an ambush,” he said.
“Maybe,” Matt said, hesitating. “And maybe they’re just lookin’ for another way outta these mountains, figurin’ we’d be waitin’ for them if they came down the trail.” Either way, he knew he had to find them. With two of the four dead, it was possible they had decided the mission was too costly, but he doubted they would give up at this point. It was more likely that they had just withdrawn to decide upon a new plan to capture him. He had no intention to wait around for them to make their next move.
Already, shadows were lengthening, threatening to cloak the little valley where Matt had built his cabin. It would soon be too dark to follow a trail as difficult as the one the bounty hunters had left. Reluctantly, Matt decided to camp there next to the smoldering cabin, and start out early the next morning. They decided it wise to take turns keeping watch during the night in the unlikely event the men they hunted might return. The night passed peacefully, however, with no unusual sounds other than the occasional popping and hissing from the live coals still eating away at the charred timbers that framed Wiley Wildmoon’s grisly cremation. At daylight the following morning the three hunters
were in the saddle, making their way up the steep slope behind the corral.
Chapter 13
“Gawdammit!” Arlo swore upon returning to the rocky shelf where Bo and P. D. waited. “There ain’t no way to get across to that next mountain the way we’re goin’. About fifty yards up ahead, I come to a damn cliff—must be a two or three hundred foot drop.”
“I told you we was climbing too high up this damn mountain,” Bo said. “We shoulda dropped down back there and followed that game trail back down through the trees.” He shook his head in contempt. “But, hell, you knew better,” he said sarcastically.
“Well,” Arlo offered in defense, “it looked like we was never gonna find a way outta them trees.” Half the morning had been spent following the narrow game trail through a forest of lodgepole pines that seemed as thick as hairs on a dog. They had plodded endlessly over ground covered with pine needles, ground that never saw the sun due to the towering height of the closely packed trees. When they had reached an opening that offered a way up out of the maze of pines, Arlo insisted upon climbing up to where they could at least see the way before them. Now, after sidling across fields of loose gravel and shell rock, they had reached a dead end.
“If you’da listened to me,” Bo complained, “we wouldn’t a’been walkin’ the last hour. We’da been ridin’ these horses instead of leadin’ ’em halfway across the Rockies.”
“All right, dammit,” Arlo shot back angrily. “I was wrong, so we’ll just have to turn around and go back the way we come.” Anxious to change the subject, he asked, “How’s Ma?”
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