“Slaughter,” Matt replied.
There was a low murmuring of voices behind Little Hawk. The Blackfoot warrior raised an eyebrow and turned to those gathered around. “Igmutaka,” he announced softly, pronouncing the Lakota word. He turned back to Matt. “Igmutaka?”
Recognizing his Sioux name, he nodded and answered, “That’s what the Sioux call me. My name’s Slaughter.”
“Release him,” Little Hawk said. “He is enemy of the Sioux, not the Blackfoot.” Feeling himself free, Matt sat up, still wary of what might come next. He tried to get to his feet, but the effort reminded him of the bullet in his shoulder, and he sat back down. Little Hawk knelt down to examine the wound. “Bad, we shoot,” he said, searching for the right words. Matt realized he was trying to apologize for shooting him. Then Little Hawk asked, “Who shoot my people?” He pointed at the bodies.
Still uncertain if he was tracking three men or two men and a packhorse, Matt tried to answer. “Bad men,” he said. Using sign language then, he was finally able to tell Little Hawk that he had been tracking the men who had killed the three Blackfoot hunters.
“White men?” Little Hawk asked.
“Yes, white men—maybe two, maybe three.”
With the help of sign language, a skill Matt had learned after living with Zeb Benson and the Crows, and a necessary asset in understanding Molly, Little Hawk told Matt that he would take him back to his village to heal his wound. Matt tried to protest that he had to continue after the bounty hunters, but the Blackfoot warrior convinced him that he was in no condition to do so. “Black Fox will go after these men,” Little Hawk said. “You must heal.”
Matt was in no position to argue. His shoulder, having been numb moments before, was now paining him with every move of his arm. He had been so close to catching up with Zeb’s murderers, that the frustration of letting them go was more painful than his wounds.
Reading the white warrior’s face, Little Hawk nodded and said, “Black Fox will find them.”
Knowing it useless to resist, Matt relented. The fierce warrior took six others with him, and followed the trail left by P. D. and her sons. The rest of the Blackfoot hunting party loaded their dead on their ponies and, with Matt on the paint, returned to their village.
* * *
“I ain’t got time to get to no doctor,” P. D. said as she examined the swollen shoulder around the bullet hole. In spite of the pain from the wound, she was feeling stronger than days before. “I need to get this damn bullet outta there now,” she decided. “Arlo, you’ve seen me cut enough lead outta wounds to know how to do it. Clean off my knife and let’s get it done.”
None too enthusiastic about it, Arlo balked. “Ma, I ain’t no good at nothin’ like that. I’m afraid I might do somethin’ wrong.”
“What are you worrying about?” she snapped. “I’m the one who’s hurtin’. Hell, I’ll tell you if you’re about to kill me.”
“I’ll do it,” Bo volunteered. Sitting by the fire, he had listened to the exchange between his brother and P. D. with some amusement.
“I expect I shoulda known you’d do it,” P. D. said. “All right, then, you cut it outta me, but you use my knife. I don’t want you mixin’ none of that Injun blood with mine.”
Far from squeamish about operating on his mother’s shoulder, Bo was more than willing to perform the surgery. He enjoyed anything that required using a knife. Producing a bottle from her saddlebag, P. D. took a couple of stiff drinks, and announced that she was ready. Bo set to work, eagerly cutting into the wound. P. D. remained steely quiet while watching her son probe deep into her shoulder to find the slug. Both sons were astonished by their mother’s seeming immunity to the pain as she stared unmoving and unblinking into the bloody hole made by the knife. When Bo finally found the slug and dislodged it, she calmly instructed him to pour some whiskey into the wound. “That always seems to help it heal faster,” she calmly commented while the fiery liquid blistered the open wound. “Now you can heat that knife up in the fire.” The only indication that she felt any pain was a sudden tensing of her body when Bo cauterized the wound.
“You can tie a rag around her shoulder,” Bo said to his brother. “If you ain’t too squeamish to do that.”
Arlo didn’t bother to answer Bo’s barb. He knew he wasn’t shy when it came to cutting or shooting, and he knew Bo knew that. Bo would never understand that it was different when it came to their mother. Arlo would always find it difficult to do anything that might inflict pain on her. He obediently went to his saddlebags to look for something suitable to use as a bandage. Finding nothing, he looked in Bo’s saddlebags, where he discovered Bo’s spare shirt. With a trace of a smile upon his lips, he ripped it in two and poked one half back in the saddlebag. The other half he used for his bandage. That done, with Bo none the wiser, they settled in for the night.
* * *
“Hey, what the hell . . .?” Bo exclaimed when he pulled the remains of his good shirt from his saddlebag. Then it struck him. He turned at once to stare at P. D.’s bandage. Next he turned his irate gaze upon his brother, who met his accusing stare with a wide grin. “Why you low-down son of a . . .” Unable to finish the sentence in his fury, he launched his body at his grinning brother. Expecting the attack, Arlo blocked the wild right hand Bo threw, and slung the smaller man aside, rolling him over in the ashes of the fire. Yelping with pain, Bo scrambled away from the fire, frantically brushing the hot coals from his coat. On his feet again, he drew his pistol. “Now, by God, we’ll see once and for all who’s the big dog around here.”
“Put it away, Bo.” P. D.’s stern command effectively caused her irate son to pause. A rebel, but not to the extent that he could defy the steely voice of his mother, Bo stood where he was for a long moment, still with the pistol aimed at Arlo. “Put it away, I said,” she repeated, this time punctuating it with the metallic sound of her revolver cocking.
Another few frozen moments passed—Bo’s pistol pointed at Arlo, P. D.’s pistol pointed at Bo. Then, suddenly, Bo’s irate expression softened into a sheepish smile. He released the hammer on his pistol and lowered it. “Damn, Ma, I wasn’t really gonna shoot him,” he lied, “but you saw what the big jackass did. That was my good shirt.” He holstered the weapon. “You wasn’t really gonna shoot me, was you?” he asked then.
“Don’t you doubt it for a minute,” she replied, her voice cold and without emotion.
“You crazy bastard,” Arlo said, “I oughta break your neck for pulling that damn gun on me.” Moments before, he had been shaken, staring death in the face. Now he wanted restitution, in spite of the fact that his bullying had placed him in that dire situation.
“You oughta try,” Bo answered. “One of these days Ma ain’t gonna be around to save your ass.”
“Hush!” P. D. suddenly commanded, and held up her hand to silence them both. “Listen!”
At first there was no sound other than the soft gurgle of an eddy caused by a large rock near the water’s edge. Then the sound that had caught P. D.’s attention was repeated. It was the sound of her big blue roan’s inquisitive whinny. It was soon followed by a similar whinny from the other horses. “Somebody’s comin’,” P. D. warned. “Bo, scramble up that bank and see what you can see.” When it came to scouting or tracking, Bo was always the first choice, since he seemed to have a knack for it that was absent in Arlo. Although in a weakened state, P. D. had regained enough strength to handle a rifle, even though it would be with one hand. She reached for it then with her good hand while directing her eldest son. “Arlo, back outta that firelight. Them horses hear somethin’.”
Bo was gone for no more than a few minutes before he reappeared out of the darkness that cloaked the riverbank. “Injuns,” he whispered. “I counted seven of ’em, and they’re comin’ this way. I figure they saw our campfire, ’cause they’re walkin’, leading their horses, like they was fixin’ to sneak up on us.”
“Must be friends of them three we left back there,”
P. D. said. “How far away are they?”
“Hundred yards, I reckon,” Bo replied. “Maybe a little more.”
“Well, we’ll just have to set up a little welcome party for ’em,” P. D. said. Wasting no more time, she hurriedly positioned her sons in the willows by the river so they could lay down a cross fire over their camp. With Arlo’s help, she settled herself behind a low bluff where she could prop her rifle on the sand. Ready to receive their company, she cautioned Bo and Arlo to hold their fire until the Indians reached the campfire.
P. D. and her sons had barely gotten into position when the first Indian appeared. Moving silently in the darkness, Black Fox paused near the top of the riverbank to study the camp. There was no sign of anyone about the small fire that had now died to form a soft glow in the pitch black of the bluff. Thinking the white men to be asleep, he focused his gaze upon the dark lumps that were three saddles and blankets. In the darkness he could not see with any definition, but judging by the dying campfire, he assumed that the lumps were three sleeping men.
“Move quickly,” he whispered when the others caught up to him. “They are all sleeping. If we move all at once, we can kill them with our war axes before they know we’re upon them.” He looped his pony’s reins over a willow limb, and with ax in hand, led his party of warriors toward the fire.
A slow grin formed upon Bo’s face as a line of dark shadows suddenly materialized above him on the low bluff. He counted the silhouettes as they filed down toward the fire—five, six, seven, all accounted for. A real turkey shoot, he thought. P. D. had said to wait until the Indians reached the fire before shooting, but Bo could see no reason to wait. All seven of the warriors he had spotted before were parading unsuspecting right before him. So he put the front sight of his rifle on the last Blackfoot in line and squeezed off the first shot.
Instant pandemonium erupted on the darkened riverbank as Bo, anxious to kill as many of the warriors as he could, set off the killing rain of rifle fire that came from the willows.
That damn Bo, P. D. thought when the first shot rang out. Working with only one effective arm, she would have preferred to let the Indians get closer before she fired. With little choice left to her, she aimed at the center of the line of warriors and fired. Several yards away, Arlo opened up with his Winchester while she fumbled to crank another round into the chamber. Then, caught up in the resulting massacre, she ignored the wounded shoulder and blazed away using both hands.
Caught in a blistering hail of rifle fire, Black Fox went down with a slug in his left thigh. It no doubt saved his life, for he could hear the snapping sounds of bullets ripping the air overhead where he had been standing. Behind him, he heard the screams of pain as his followers were systematically cut down by the devastating barrage of lead. It was over in a matter of seconds and the war party all lay dead and dying on the riverbank, all save one. Black Fox rolled over into a shallow gully, and began a painful crawl back to his pony. There was nothing he could do for his friends. The only obligation left to him was to try to save himself.
“By God,” P. D. exclaimed as she walked up to examine the bodies, her wounded arm bleeding again from the exertion. “These godless heathens come in here thinkin’ they can murder innocent folks.” Seeing a slight movement from one of the bodies, she pumped two more shots into the dying warrior.
“Ma,” Arlo said, “your shoulder’s bleedin’ again.”
“Ain’t nothin’,” she replied, still caught up in the excitement of the killing. “It ain’t painin’ me a’tall.”
“There ain’t but six bodies,” Bo observed. “Where’s the other one?”
His question was answered for him by the sudden sound of a horse’s hooves as Black Fox galloped away in the darkness. Bo immediately spun around and emptied the remaining bullets from his magazine in the direction of the sound. “Should I saddle my horse?” Arlo asked, ready to give chase.
“Naw, let him go,” P. D. decided. “I’m pretty sure he was hit. I saw every one of ’em go down. He’ll most likely run off somewhere and die.” She turned her attention back to the bodies lying sprawled on the ground. “I reckon them Injuns learned who to mess with all right. You boys drag ’em away from the fire. Throw ’em over the bank yonder so’s I don’t have to smell ’em. It’s a while yet till daylight. We’d best get some sleep.”
“I want them scalps,” Bo interjected.
“Well, you’re gonna have to climb down there and get ’em,” Arlo said, already dragging a body to the edge of the bank.
Chapter 15
Even with his shoulder throbbing with pain, Matt had managed to remain upright in the saddle while following Little Hawk along a trail that skirted the bank of a wide stream. Leading north from the Yellowstone, the trail followed the water through a rolling prairie of knee-high grass and treeless hills. The journey took no more than a few hours, though it had seemed much longer to the wounded man. Finally, they had arrived at a fork in the stream and the Blackfoot village, some fifty lodges in a circle between the forks. Met by a small gathering of people down by the stream’s edge, the warriors were immediately pressed for news of the scouting party. Thinking Matt a prisoner, they pressed close around his horse, casting insults and threats, until Little Hawk silenced them. After learning of Matt’s innocence in the tragic event that claimed three men of their village, they were anxious to help, especially when informed that he was the vengeful warrior who had cleaned out the Frenchman’s nest of vipers. The medicine man was sent for at once, and Matt was taken to Little Hawk’s tipi.
Word soon spread through the rest of the village that the fearsome white warrior who had slain the evil white men and burned the Frenchman’s trading post was lying wounded in Little Hawk’s lodge. A crowd gathered outside the tipi while Two Bears, the medicine man, administered to Matt’s wounds. Little Hawk watched as Two Bears applied a poultice to Matt’s head before probing his shoulder wound to make it bleed. The bullet was judged to be too deep to extract without cutting through too much muscle, so it was deemed best to leave it. Two Bears explained to Little Hawk, and Little Hawk translated to Matt, that it would heal all right as long as it was allowed to bleed freely long enough to cleanse the wound. When he was satisfied that it had bled sufficiently, he applied a poultice and bandage. Matt only hoped that the medicine man knew what he was doing, for he couldn’t argue with him. He couldn’t help thinking that Two Bears’ attitude might be entirely different had he known of Matt’s close relationship with the Crows. He’d probably pack that poultice with dog shit, he thought.
At Little Hawk’s insistence, Matt agreed to rest there that night, although he still felt an urgency to ride after the bounty hunters. His common sense told him that he was in no condition to go after them until he gave his shoulder a chance to heal. The question might be irrelevant, anyway, since Black Fox and six warriors had gone after the white murderers. I’ll just cool my heels till I’m well enough to ride, he decided. This stuff the medicine man put on me will either kill me or heal me. One night stretched into two before he had rested sufficiently.
* * *
Matt awoke to the sound of voices outside the lodge. He soon determined that someone was approaching the village, and the sounds he heard were voices calling out in alarm. Rolling out of his blanket, he discovered he was alone in the tipi. With some discomfort due to the stiffness in his shoulder, he pulled his moccasins on and laced them. Then, with a little grunt of pain, he got to his feet, and stood motionless for a minute until his head stopped spinning. When he was confident he was steady enough, he went outside to see what had caused the commotion.
Near the edge of the stream, a crowd had gathered around a lone rider. Matt recognized the rider as the fearsome warrior, Black Fox. One legging was soaked with blood, and he appeared to be exhausted. Matt knew what had happened without being told.
“Six more warriors killed by these murderers,” Little Hawk wailed in his anguish. “Now they have killed nine of my people.” He went on
to explain to Matt what had happened. After the ambush, Black Fox had escaped into the night. Although he was wounded in his thigh, he had circled back at daylight to see if he could get a shot at the white men. But they had already broken camp and were gone. He picked up their trail, and followed for a while until he became weak and sick. Knowing he was helpless to fight the three white men, he gave up the trail and rode all night to reach his village.
“So there were three of them,” Matt commented, having been unsure until then.
“We will mount a war party to go after these murderers,” Little Hawk exclaimed. “There must be vengeance for my people.”
Matt studied the grieving Blackfoot’s face for a long moment, knowing the pain and frustration Little Hawk felt. It was the same pain he felt for Zeb’s death. He knew that he alone could seek that vengeance. “Listen, my friend,” he said. “You can’t go after these men. Most likely they’re heading for Virginia City. You can’t take a war party into Virginia City. It’s a white man’s town, with too many people. Your warriors would be massacred, and you have already lost nine. It would be foolish to lose even more.”
“Waugh!” Little Hawk cried out in frustration, for he knew what Slaughter said was true.
“It’s up to me to track these men down. I’m the reason they came to this territory. They came to capture me, or kill me, and your people were just unlucky enough to get caught in the cross fire. As soon as my shoulder is well enough, I’ll find them.”
“But you are only one man,” Little Hawk said, forgetting the scene he had witnessed at the Frenchman’s.
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