Absaroka Ambush

by William W. Johnstone

  “I have no doubts about that, Captain. None whatsoever.” She tossed him a huge chunk of bread. “Just baked. Enjoy.”

  The following days plodded on and passed uneventfully. By the time the women had crossed the Soldier and then the Vermillion, they knew how to cross rivers—at least small ones—and asked no help from the men. It became a matter of pride to the ladies. And that was what Preacher had been hoping they’d develop.

  Despite himself, knowing that the awful, terrible worst was yet to come, he began to feel proud of these women. These women wasn’t no shrinkin’ violets. They were women wanting a new start in a new land, and they were willing to work for it.

  They were about three days south of the Little Blue when Steals Pony came galloping back to the train and up to Preacher.

  “Indians! Sauk, Fox, and some Winnebagos, Preacher. They’ve come down from the north for their annual spring hunt on the plains.”

  There were only very minor differences between the Algonquin tribes such as the Fox, Sauk, Winnebagos, Ojibwa, Ottawa, Illinois, and Miami. Sometimes several tribes would band together for the great spring hunt on the plains. Only a few tribes did not make the trek southward for buffalo, among them the Potawatomi and the Ottawa. They really didn’t have to, for their own country was abundant with moose and deer and bear. Most of those northern tribes combined the planting of crops with hunting.

  “Are they friendly?” Preacher asked, not yet halting the wagons.

  “Well . . . they were not unfriendly. But we have to remember that this is their great religious time, too.”

  “Yeah,” Preacher agreed. “Manitou. And Manitou can make them unpredictable as a tornader.”

  To many Indian tribes, Manitou was all the forces that were present in things, men, rocks, trees, the wind . . . everything. Manitou also was the controlling hand in their destinies, and if they felt the power of Manitou within them, the Indians’ temperament could be violent.

  “Pass the word, Steals Pony. Tell the gals to haul out them rifles and shotguns. Make sure that hair is danglin’. We’re gonna circle for the afternoon and put on a show of force for them.”

  Preacher rode up to the lead wagon.

  “Savages, Captain?” Eudora asked calmly, no fear evident in her voice.

  “Yep. And a bunch of ’em, too. Begin the circle, Eudora.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain. If the savages want a fight. We’ll give them one.”

  Preacher smiled. For a fact, he’d damn sure hate to tangle with Eudora Hempstead.

  Six

  Preacher sent scouts out to keep an eye on the Indians while he sat his saddle and watched the wagons slowly circle the driven livestock. He’d had the women practice this move, and they did it perfectly, without panic. He rode up to the wagon with Faith, Gayle, and Wallis.

  “Don’t worry too much about this bunch,” he told the women. “They’re not gonna risk gettin’ killed and leavin’ their families without no means of food. If they do come close to us, Miss Faith, what you’re gonna see is all that’s left of the Great Lakes tribes. And I mean this is it. They really ain’t been a force to reckon with since Black Hawk and his Sauks and Foxes was cut down back in ’32 as they tried to swim the Mississippi.”

  “Then why are we doing this?”

  “‘Cause you just don’t never know about an Indian. They don’t think like we do. Their values ain’t the same. I’m not sayin’ they’re right or wrong; they’re just different. I’spect once they see how big a force we are, they’ll ride on. But they might come back tonight and try to steal horses or oxen, or maybe take a scalp or two. You just never really know.”

  Faith was scribbling furiously on a tablet.

  “Y’all fetch your weapons and get behind cover. I’m goin’ out to confer with them.”

  “Pretty sorry lookin’ bunch,” Ring remarked, when Preacher rode up.

  Preacher looked at the gathering of Indians about a quarter of a mile away. And as he watched them, he knew this bunch would give them no trouble. Even at this distance, he could tell that many of the men were old by the way they sat their ponies. “Get all the men up here,” Preacher told Ring. “Rifles in hand. Line up along this ridge. I think that’ll be all we have to do. And put that damn Rupert Worthington right here next to me. I don’t want him startin’ nothin’.”

  The twenty-five men, all carrying rifles, lined up in a single line on the ridge, each man about five feet from the next.

  “Are they hostile?” Lieutenant Worthington asked, his eagerness for battle obvious in the question.

  “No, boy,” Preacher told him. “They ain’t hostile. They’re just old and tired and beat down in spirit and wore out. That’s all. And I ain’t gonna take what pride they have left away from ’em. Stay here. Steals Pony, Snake, let’s ride.”

  The three mountain men rode up to the mixed band of Indians. Preacher lifted one hand, palm out, to a man who wore the headdress of a chief. The chief hesitated, then returned the gesture of friendship, peace, and welcome.

  “We apologize if we have interrrupted your hunt,” Preacher said. “We are only passing through. We will be gone in the morning.”

  “That is good,” the chief replied. “Would that be so with all white men?”

  “All white men are not the same,” Preacher said. “Like all Indians are not the same. There are good and bad among us all.”

  “You speak the truth. It is good to hear it from the lips of a white man. It is a rare thing. You will not be bothered by us. Come and go in peace.” He turned his horse and rode away, the large band of Sauk and Fox following.

  “There are a few mean-eyed young bucks among that band,” Steals Pony said. “I think we’d best double the guard tonight.”

  “I think you’re right,” Snake said. “Do you know what that was you was talkin’ to, Preach?”

  “No.”

  “That was Chief Chekuskuk. The head honcho of the Fox.”

  “And one of those young braves was Wind Runner,” Steals Pony added very, very dryly. “With fresh scalps on his horse’s mane.”

  “Keep the young’uns in the center of the circle,” Preacher instructed the women with kids. “They’ll be a few Sauk or Fox try to slip inside tonight to take scalps. By now they’ve broke away from the main band and are circlin’ the train. But they’re miles out.”

  “But you said the Chief promised us safe passage,” a woman named Claire Goodfellow said.

  “The chief don’t always speak for everybody,” Preacher told the women. “What color you are don’t make no difference. Young people is the same everywhere. Some of them have respect for their elders, some don’t. They’ll be a dozen or so pay us a visit tonight.”

  Eudora had done a bang-up job of circling the wagons. She had pulled them in tight, angling them close with tongues pointed inward so the mules and oxen could be unhitched inside the protective circle. The tall, handsome woman was definitely an asset and Preacher vowed to stay on her good side. She had never said why she was going west, and Preacher would never ask. He’d heard rumors that Eudora had been jilted by a beau back east and was heartbroken. But he didn’t believe that rumor. The one he believed was the one that she’d caught her intended with another woman and had jerked out a pepperbox and drilled him through the brisket. Her father, a fairly wealthy shipowner had gotten her out of Boston a half a step ahead of the law, who had a noose ready for her shapely neck.

  And Eudora Hempstead was not her real name. But it would be from now on.

  Steals Pony, the Delaware, slipped back into the camp like a ghost and almost caused one of the drivers to soil his underwear when he tapped him on the shoulder. “You will die unless you open your ears to the night,” he told the Missouri man. “You stand and shuffle around instead of squatting and being silent. You also smell bad.” He walked on, chuckling softly.

  He found Preacher. “They come.”

  “How many?”

  “Ten. Maybe twelve.”

  Lieut
enant Worthington walked up. “What do you want me to do, Preacher?” he asked nervously.

  “Get back to your post and stay there,” Preacher told him shortly. “And don’t be firin’ at shadders. You’ll have the whole damn camp shootin’ at the wind.”

  Rupert walked off, muttering to himself.

  The first young buck made the fatal mistake of going after Eudora Hempstead. He thought the tall ’man’ would prove to be a formidable foe and once he had ’his’ scalp, he would show it proudly and songs would be sung about his bravery.

  The only song that would be sung about that young Fox would be his death song, sung by his relatives.

  Eudora uttered a very unfemininelike oath and flipped him off her back and smashed the butt of her rifle into his face, then ruined his throat with another savage butt-smash. She was a very strong woman. The brave died horribly, thrashing about on the ground.

  “You want his scalp?” Snake called out.

  “Heavens, no!” Eudora said.

  Faith turned green.

  “Then I’ll jerk it off,” Snake said, kneeling down with a knife in his hand.

  Faith belched as ladylike as possible.

  Snake whacked off the hair and hung it on his belt. Then he and Steals Pony tossed the carcass outside the circle of wagons.

  Faith turned her head and lost her supper, as did several other women standing close by.

  “Must have been something they et that didn’t agree with ’em,” Snake said.

  “Of course,” the Delaware agreed, his eyes twinkling. “Probably the venison.”

  “I’m shore that’s it.”

  “Wipe your mouth,” Eudora told Faith, as she removed the blood from her rifle by rubbing the butt-plate on the ground.

  Faith wiped her mouth with a dainty little hanky and gave the tall woman a very dirty look. The look bounced off Eudora with a laugh. Eudora cradled her rifle and turned her attention to the blackness outside of the circle.

  Preacher’s eyes picked up a flitting shadow and he cocked his Hawken.

  There was no moon, the skies were overcast and the air heavy with moisture. They’d have rain in a few hours.

  The shadow flitted again and Preacher lifted his rifle. If the Indian held to his course, he was heading for a tangle of old brush, about fifty yards from the train.

  The brave jumped and Preacher fired, the ball taking him in the side and blowing out the other side. The buck screamed once and fell to the ground. He lay still.

  “Good shooting, Captain,” Eudora said. Then she lifted her rifle and blasted the night. A brave let out a mighty yowl of pain and the sound of running feet was heard—feet running away.

  “Where the hell did you shoot that buck, Eudora?” Preacher called.

  “In the stern,” she replied. “Dead center.”

  Across the way, old Snake chuckled. “He’ll not be sittin’ on no horse for some time to come. She’s firin’ a Whitney military .69 rifle. Their new model. It’s a dandy, too. That buck probably ain’t got but one back cheek left. If you ladies will pardon my unseemly talk.”

  In the distance, faint sounds of squalling from the shot buck could still be heard.

  Preacher grimaced in the night. There was no doubt in his mind that Eudora’s shot was deliberately placed. He wondered where she had plugged that feller back in Boston? He thought he could guess. Probably shot it off. Preacher shuddered.

  Preacher and the others waited for a long and silent ten minutes.

  “They go,” the Delaware called, lying on his belly with his ear to the ground. “They will not return.”

  “Their medicine turned sour on them,” Charlie Burke said, walking up. “That shootin’ by Miss Eudora done it. You’ll do, lady,” the old mountain man said. “You’ll do just fine.”

  “Don’t bother cranin’ your necks to see the bodies,” Preacher told a few of the ladies the next morning just before the wagon train’s dawn pullout. “They’re long gone. Injuns tote their dead off. Y’all done just fine last night. That was just to get you ready for when a real war party comes at us. And they will.”

  “Worse than last night?” Faith asked. “How could that possibly be?”

  Preacher just looked at her, disgust in his eyes.

  “Oh, you’re just trying to frighten us,” Faith dismissed his remark with a toss of her strawberry curls.

  After a couple of weeks out, Faith had been horrified to discover that there really was no road, just a trail, of sorts but the Eastern socialite and sometimes writer had toughened up, despite herself. Her face and forearms had turned red from the sun, blistered, and then begun the tanning process. Her muscles, which had ached fiercely the first week, had grown stronger from the pushing, shoving, hauling, and hours at the reins handling the big mules. Of course Faith still complained all the time, but now no one paid any attention to it.

  So far none of the women had voiced any desire to turn back. And the men had been surprised at that, for they had been watching about a dozen of the ladies whom they felt were the weak ones, not necessarily in body, but in spirit. But even those women had toughened up and were enduring the trail.

  They saw no signs of the Sauk or Fox as they rolled out. Preacher knew they had killed at least three of the attacking Indians and wounded at least two more. To an Indian’s mind, those losses were too great to continue the battle. They had failed, but perhaps there would be another day.

  Preacher headed the wagons for the Platte.

  In about seven years, when the flow of westward pioneers would number in the thousands, the U.S. Army would establish a fort on the south side of the Platte, and it would be one of the most important forts on what would soon be called the Oregon Trail. But for now, Preacher, his friends, and the ladies on the wagons, were alone in hostile country. Should it be needed, there was no one they could turn to for help. If something were to happen to them, it might be months before a patrol was mounted to look for them. And by then it was doubtful any trace of them would be found. There are no accurate records as to the number of men, women, and children who just vanished—disappeared from the face of the earth, with wagons, mules or oxen, and equipment, forever—on their way west. Some place the numbers in the hundreds, others say it was in the thousands. No one really knows because many wagon trains were hastily thrown together and headed west without U.S. Army permission. Many foolhardy folks headed west in small trains—three or four wagons—and were never seen again. Once the wagons left the edge of civilization and hit the Great Plains, they were adrift in a sea—a vast sea—of silence, void of all the amenities they were accustomed to. Danger lay all about them. The horizon seemed to stretch forever.

  They were alone.

  Totally alone.

  Seven

  Steals Pony had been gone for two days. Something had been troubling the Delaware and he had pulled out, heading toward the wagons backtrail. On the afternoon of the third day of his absence, he reappeared and swung down from the saddle. The wagons had completed their circle, cookfires were blazing and the coffee was ready when Steals Pony rode in.

  Preacher took one look at the Delaware’s worried face and asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “A large band of white men are following us. They carry supplies for a long journey and are well-armed. They are being careful to stay two days ride behind us. We are in trouble,” he ominously ended it. He poured a cup of hot, strong coffee and took a big gulp.

  “Did you recognize any of the men?” Snake asked.

  “Jack Hayes,” Steals Pony said, refilling his cup. “Tom Cushing. Rat Face. I could not recognize any of the others, but a tall, well-dressed man appears to be in command.”

  Preacher waved Lieutenant Worthington over to the fire and told him what Steals Pony had just reported.

  For the last several days, Rupert and his small troop had been very quiet and reflective. Preacher and the other mountain men knew what had happened. They’d seen it many times over the years. The vastness of the land
had numbed Worthington and his men. This was what Preacher had tried to explain back in Missouri. But the plains could not be described. It was simply impossible to do that. They had to be seen and tasted personally. And for most, it was a very humbling experience. Their next humbling experience would be when they hit the Rockies.

  “Is it possible, Preacher,” the young soldier said after a few seconds pause, “that these men are heading west on legitimate business?”

  “I wouldn’t think so, Rupert. I got me a hunch—’cause I run into this very same thing last year—that Jack and Rat Face was supposed to be the inside men. Oncest we got several weeks from the jump-off point, them others in the gang would ambush and take over the train. Hell, folks have been doin’ this ever since men and women left the colonies and headed west. It ain’t nothin’ new.”

  “But . . . but this is, well, dastardly! Well! We’ll just alert the authorities and let them ...” He slowly trailed that idea off, suddenly remembering that there were no authorities out here. The nearest law was days to the east and almost two thousand miles to the west.

  Preacher took a sip of coffee and smiled. “Now you’re beginnin’ to understand what we been tryin’ to tell you, Rupert. There ain’t no law ’ceptin’ the pistols buckled around your waist and the rifle in your saddle boot. We’ll find us a good ambush spot up ahead and you and your men will take the wagons on. Me and my friends will take care of Jack Hayes and his bunch of no-counts.”

  “Ambush spot?” Lieutenant Worthington said.

  “Yeah.”

  “You’ll lay in wait and . . . ambush those men coming up behind us?”

  “Yeah. You got a better idea?”

  “But . . . but . . . you can’t do that!”

  “Why not?” Snake demanded.

  “Because those men haven’t done anything. That’s why.”

  “But they’re gonna do something!” Preacher said.

  “You don’t know that for sure.”