Pat said, “It’s going to be very risky taking those men to the Indians. What makes you think those warriors won’t kill us, along with killing the men who wronged them?”
Puma responded, “You don’t need to go—this is my responsibility.”
“If you go, I go,” Pat said. “Don’t forget, I speak their language just about as well as you do. If we can prevent an uprising, it will prevent many people from being killed. It will be worth the risk. Count me in. You get the wagon to haul them, and we’ll provide a driver for the wagon.”
Puma replied, “Thank you. I’ll assign two of my troopers to guard them.”
The wagon master said, “Have them here in the morning.”
Chapter 24
Wagons West
At daybreak, the wagons rolled. It was like old times for Puma; he and his old friend Pat were in the lead. The cavalrymen were riding outrider and rearguard positions. From sun till sun, the wagons moved west. Puma and Pat provided fresh meat for the troops and the people of the train.
One evening, while the people were sitting around the campfire, one of the men who had been with the mule skinners when their train was attacked by Comanche, told the story of a man called Sage, who had gone out into the night among the attacking Indians. The storyteller told of how Sage had reduced the number of Indians who were attacking and prevented the mule skinners from being slaughtered.
Puma told no one that this man was his father. Grant and Pat just smiled and remained silent. They knew the story to be true, and they had heard the story repeated many times around the campfires of the wagon trains they had led west. It had become a legend along the trails. The cavalry-men soon realized that Sage was Lieutenant McBain’s father, whom Pat Connors had mentioned earlier.
* * *
The wagon train rolled west along the valley of the Arkansas. Green undulating hills extended into the distance. Smaller tree-lined streams joined the Arkansas from both sides. The scene was peaceful to the point of being serene. Summer was coming, and the heat was building up; it was going to be a warm day.
Pat and Puma rode well out in front of the wagons. Pat held up his hand in a gesture indicating he wanted Puma to stop.
“There’s something wrong. Can you smell an old fire?” Pat asked.
Puma sniffed the air and said, “Yes, faintly. Somewhere ahead, someone has had a fire going, maybe several days ago. Do you think it might have been an Indian campfire?”
“It could have been,” Pat replied. “But I doubt that the fire we smell is the embers of an Indian campfire. Indians cook on small fires and the odor of a small fire doesn’t linger. This is something different.”
They rode on for about half an hour, with the smell of fire becoming stronger and stronger. The smell was now mingled with a stronger pungent odor of decaying flesh. The two men rode on cautiously, dreading to see what they were sure they were going to see. After rounding a turn in the river, they saw the scattered debris of what had been a wagon train.
Pat said, “That train left Independence just a few days before we did.”
Pat and Puma looked for survivors. There was none. The people had been scalped, and some had been mutilated. Puma said, “This is the work of men whose minds have been twisted by hate. This must be stopped.” Puma saw signs indicating his people, the Arapaho, had been involved in this slaughter. He was battling mixed emotions.
“Pat,” Puma said, “I’d better caution my scouts to be on the alert. I don’t want them to be caught off guard.”
“Yes, you warn your men. I’ll continue slowly until you catch up.”
Puma rode over a small hill to his left to alert the outrider. He found him watering his horse in a stream. Puma rode right upon him. The trooper was embarrassed to see his commanding officer show up beside him before he was aware of his presence.
Puma said, “Report to Sergeant Hurly. Tell him that we’re entering a hostile area, and that he should tell the wagon master. Then tell him to bring a patrol and join Pat and me in the lead-scout position. I’ll go check on the trooper who is riding right-guard.”
“Yes, sir, one of the new recruits is riding that position this morning. Everything was so peaceful; we felt it would be a good time for the new man to get the feel of riding scout.”
Puma was concerned. This was no time for a new man to be riding scout position. Proceeding to where the scout should have been, Puma found the tracks of two unshod horses mingled with the tracks of a shod horse. The tracks of the three horses led off to the right. Puma knew that Indians had come upon the new recruit and took him prisoner. Puma, riding his palomino stallion, knew he could outrun the Indians if he should encounter a large band. The recruit’s life was in danger, and Puma knew that he had very little time to rescue him. Riding with the intention of leaving an easy trail to follow, Puma rode over the hill, following the tracks of the Indians and the trooper.
Ahead, Puma saw a covey of quail fly up from a clump of trees. That was where the Indians would be holding the trooper. He dismounted, leaving the reins of his horse hanging; the palomino would remain where he dropped the reins. Puma proceeded cautiously on foot. He approached the grove. As he expected, the trooper was tied to a tree. The warriors were taunting him and enjoying torturing the scout for a time before killing him. Puma figured that the Indians were just scouts themselves and were not in the company of a larger band. He moved forward slowly.
The Indians were not really doing any great harm to their prisoner, yet. Puma waited until their attention was concentrated on their prisoner. Then he attacked, and in an instant, the two tormentors were lying unconscious. It all happened so fast and so unexpectedly that the trooper was as surprised as his captors. As he was being untied, he found himself looking into the steely eyes of his commanding officer. He was so shaken that after his binds had been released, he could hardly stand. He recovered quickly when he heard the command, “Gather the horses and pick up those men! Take them to the wagon train. We’re going to use them to negotiate a truce with the Indians.”
When Puma didn’t rejoin him right away, Pat knew he had run into trouble. He followed Puma’s tracks and found where Puma had met with his recruit, and noted that the palomino’s tracks led in the direction of the right-scout position.
While Puma and the recruit were tying the Indians to their horses, Pat rode up and said, “Looks like I wasn’t really needed. I should have known. What are you going to do with the two warriors?”
“I’m going to try to negotiate a truce with Chief Long Knife and Black Crow,” Puma said. “I don’t understand it; these warriors are not Arapaho—they are Cheyenne.”
Pat said, “I’ve heard that the Arapaho and the Cheyenne are banding together to fight the Comanche and the Kiowa. Anyway, they won’t negotiate for the release of these two who allowed themselves to be taken prisoners. Their comrades will have only contempt for them. You may as well have killed them.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Puma responded, “but I’m going to try anyway. Trooper, take these men to the sergeant and tell him to bring the trouble-makers forward. I want them to see what they started.” Pat smiled as he nodded toward the new recruit who was riding away with the two Indian prisoners. “That trooper has had quite a day—going from being a prisoner himself, looking at certain death, to becoming a hero bringing in two warriors as his prisoners. He’s going to move up several notches in the estimation of his fellow troopers. I think you've made a friend .... We’d better be on the lookout. Those Indians were not alone. There’s a whole band of them hanging around here somewhere. When these warriors don’t return, their comrades will come looking for them. We’d better find them before their friends find us or that wagon train.”
“Yeah, you’re right again, but I want to talk to Sergeant Hurly, and maybe we should let Grant know what we’ve found,” Puma said. “He won’t want the women to see what happened to the people in the wagon train who were just ahead of this one.”
“Okay,
let’s lead them around the sight of the massacre and set up a camp we can defend upriver a ways,” Pat agreed. “Grant will want to know what happened to this train. The wagon master was a friend of his. This was to be his last time to lead a train through. He’d promised his wife he would settle down after this trip. I’m sure glad I won’t be the one who’s going to have to tell her.”
The sergeant and six of his men rode up with the men they had taken into custody.
Puma said, “Let’s take them to the destroyed wagon train and let them see what their action has caused. I want to hear them boast about raping Indian women and killing the children after they see what’s left of the wagon train, which the Indians have taken their revenge out on.”
Puma made the men who had caused the killing dig the graves and bury the people who were slain. There was anguish in the faces of even the hardest of them as they buried the women and children. It was a fitting labor for them.
When the job was done, Puma had the sergeant take the prisoners back and again placed them in irons. The wagons had been arranged in a tight circle with the people and animals inside. They were prepared to defend themselves. It was an uneasy camp, and it was going to be a long night.
Puma said to Grant and Pat, “I’m going to see if I can find Chief Long Knife and Black Crow. Maybe I can talk some sense into them.”
Pat said, “If you’re going, I’m going, too, and there’s a good chance we won’t be coming back.”
“If we don’t talk to them before they attack,” Puma said, “there’s a good chance that none of the people in this wagon train will be going anywhere. Thank you for going with me. You speak Cheyenne better than I do. If there are Cheyenne among them, we may need to negotiate with them, also.”
Turning to Sergeant Hurly, Puma said, “In my tent there’s a lance with three white feathers. Bring it to me. It’s the Arapaho symbol of peace. We don’t know where the Indians are, but by now they know where we are so we’ll let them find us.”
When Sergeant Hurly returned with the lance, Puma held it like a staff, with the spearhead pointing at the sky and the white feathers blowing in the wind. Then, with Pat riding beside him, they rode into the shadows of the trees that were just beyond arrow range of the campsite. There was no one there to meet them, so they continued riding to the top of a hill overlooking the valley of the Arkansas. They had the two Cheyenne warriors with them. The warriors were tied. They waited in plain sight on the hill. The hours dragged on into the night and into the early morning of the following day. Still they waited.
While they waited, they talked in low voices of how they would try to negotiate with the Indians. As the light continued to build on the eastern horizon, they saw movement in the valley ahead. Four Indians on horseback approached. When the Indians got closer, Puma recognized two of them. They were Chief Long Knife and Black Crow, his stepfather. The other two men were Cheyenne. Puma didn’t know how he would be received by his mother’s Indian husband ....When he was a boy, his relationship with his stepfather was one of being tolerated. There had been no animosity between them, but there had been no father-son relationship, either. Both Black Crow and Chief Long Knife had spoken respectfully of his white father’s ability as a great warrior.
They stared at Puma. They had heard of an Arapaho who rode with the white man.
Black Crow was the first to speak. He recognized Puma and grunted,
“Puma Son of Mountain Lion, you have grown.”
Puma replied, “My father, Black Crow, why are you still alive when my mother, Evening Star, my brother, and my sister are dead at the hands of the Comanche? Why did you not defend them to the death, and die honorably at their side?”
“When Chief Long Knife and I returned from our hunting trip, the village had been destroyed,” Black Crow answered. “We knew you lived. We found where you had buried your mother. We hunted for you but we could not find you. I see you are a white man now.”
“No, I am still the same—half-white and half-Arapaho. My heart is heavy. Both sides of me are at war. I have come to see if I can bring peace between the two sides of me. Will you talk to me of peace, if I show you I have taken the men prisoners who did wrong when they killed my Arapaho people?”
Chief Long Knife said, “You have these men? Turn them over to us.”
“I will turn them over to you if you can prove that these men are the ones who killed my Arapaho people. If they are the ones, they must be punished,” Puma said.
“Turn them over to us, and then we will talk,” Chief Long Knife insisted.
"Bring the women who were wronged but did not die. Let them point to the men who killed their friends. That way, I will know that these are the men who are guilty of the bad thing you say they did,” replied Puma.
“Give us the men, and we will take them to our village,” Black Crow said. “There the women will point to them. Then we will punish them.”
“Yes, we can do that,” Puma said. “And you can bring the bad men who killed the women and children in our wagon train. We’ll have our women point to them, and then we’ll punish the bad men who did the killing and scalping. Is that agreed?”
Pat spoke. The Indians were astonished to hear him speak the Arapaho tongue. He said, “We will bring the bad men who harmed and killed your women. You bring your women and your bad men here. Your women will point to the men who harmed them. Our women will point to your bad men.” Then in the Cheyenne tongue, he asked, “Is it agreed?”
“How is it that you speak our tongue?” the Cheyenne asked.
Pat replied in Cheyenne language, “I was married to an Indian woman. She and my two sons were killed by the Blackfoot. I have sympathy for the Indians. We come to talk of peace. Let us sit and smoke the pipe. We can work out our problems. Some bad white men killed Indian women and children. Some bad Indians killed white women and children. There is no honor in killing women and children.”
One of the Cheyenne men said, “I have heard of you. You are the man of the mountains. You are known by our people. I say let us talk.”
Chief Long Knife said, “I say we kill these two men, and then we kill the people in the wagons.”
Puma said, “I am Arapaho. You are an Arapaho chief. That makes you my chief. Black Crow is my Indian father. My white father made the knife and lance you carry. Our lives are closely tied. I will not kill the two brave Cheyenne warriors you have with you because they want to talk. I do not want to kill you, but I will kill you if you try to kill me or my friend.”
Chief Long Knife said with contempt, “There are only two of you, and there are four of us. You cannot kill us.”
“You remember the skills my white father had with weapons like the ones I carry?” Puma asked. “He taught me to use these weapons. My skills equal his. Should you reach for your weapons, I will kill you before you could draw them. Believe me, I can, and will, kill you if I have to. I do not want to kill you; I want to work out the differences. Will you talk?”
The leader of the two Cheyenne warriors said, “Talk!”
“All right, let us talk,” Chief Long Knife said reluctantly.
Pat said, “Bring the women who were harmed to the wagon train. We will have the men you say killed some of your women. If your women can point to the ones who did these bad things, we will turn the bad men over to the law. If they are guilty, they will be hanged. You may watch them being hanged if you want. We want the bad men to be punished, the same as you do.”
“It will take three suns for us to bring our women,” Chief Long Knife said. “We will wait for you to return,” Puma said. Long Knife added, “If you do not wait, we will attack and burn your wagons, and we will kill all of your people.”
“Then it is agreed. We will wait,” Puma said.
Puma and Pat rode back to the wagon train. The people were anxiously awaiting their return. Pat told them what had happened. Most of them didn’t want to wait. They wanted to run and try to escape. Puma said, “That would be the worst thing
we could do. They have scouts watching.” Grant Davis said, “I agree. We’ll wait.”
* * *
Three days passed; nothing happened. On the fourth morning, a band of Indians approached the wagon. The travelers were frightened and wanted to shoot the Indians.
Puma said in a commanding voice, “Sergeant, maintain order. No one is to fire a gun or point a gun at any of the Indians. If the Indians have the courage to ride in, we’ll have the courage to greet them in a friendly manner.”
Puma and Pat rode to meet the approaching warriors. They didn’t have their women with them—they had been left at their temporary camp.
Puma said, “They don’t trust us, anymore than our people trust them. I’ll dress six of my troopers in civilian clothing. We’ll take them and the prisoners to the Indian women. My troopers will stand in a line with the accused men to see if the Indian women can pick out the guilty ones.”
When Pat and Puma met the Indians, Puma explained the proposal to Chief Long Knife and Black Crow. They agreed. Pat remained with the Indians while Puma went back and made the arrangements of escorting the twelve men in civilian clothing. Then, in a group, they proceeded to where the Indian women were waiting. Puma had the prisoners and the troopers form a line. The women were brought forth and were told to point to the men who had been in the group who had done the raping and killing. One by one the women pointed to the guilty men.
Chief Long Knife said, “Now we kill them.”
Puma pointed out, “That was not our agreement. These men will be turned over to the law, and they will be judged. If they are found to be guilty, then they will be hanged.”
Puma Son of Mountain Lion Page 17