Bitterroot

by Charles G. West

  “Well, you damn sure put him out.” Doc finished shaving the back of Tom’s head and started stitching the wound.

  * * *

  The furry images in his brain slowly cleared to the point where Tom was aware of intense pain in the back of his head. When he finally regained consciousness, his first sensation was that of Doc Brewster’s thread pulling through his scalp. He jerked in an attempt to get to his feet.

  “Hold still!” Doc scolded.

  “What the hell…” he started, but could not finish. Gradually his eyes focused, and he realized he was lying on his stomach on a cot as he recognized the voice of Doc Brewster. His first thought was that he had been shot. “What happened?” he finally managed.

  “Hold still,” Doc repeated. “Your friend, Breezy here, tried to see if he could bust your skull open. He damn near succeeded. Sorta his way of saying you’re under arrest, I suppose.”

  Tom heard a grunt from behind him that he took to be Breezy’s. He couldn’t see him from his position facedown on the cot. He started to turn his head to the side, but thought better of it when a stab of pain seared his temples. “Under arrest? For what?”

  “I don’t know,” Doc replied. “For killing Will Proctor, I reckon.”

  The picture cleared some in Tom’s mind then, and he remembered the conversation leading up to his blackout. The last words he remembered Aaron saying was that all he wanted was for Tom to get out of town. He knew now that Aaron was just setting him up to relax his guard. Well, he thought, it damn sure worked. It had never really occurred to Tom that Breezy was a threat to him. “Dammit, Doc, there’s no cause to arrest me. I didn’t tell Will to come after me. It was him or me, self-defense, pure and simple.”

  “I believe you, but it ain’t up to me. All I’m interested in is sewing your head back together. You’ll have to talk to Aaron about the other.” He finished up the stitches and tied a bandage around Tom’s head. When he stood up, Doc paused a second to admire his handiwork, then said, “You’re probably going to have one helluva headache for a while.”

  “I got one now,” Tom replied. Very slowly, for his head was pounding, he rolled over on the cot and tried to sit up. He didn’t make it the first time. The room started spinning around, and he had to lie back to let everything settle down. He tried again in a few moments. This time he managed to sit up on the side of the cot, and after a little pause his head stopped spinning enough to enable him to take inventory of his situation.

  “Better come on out now, Doc.” This was Breezy’s voice. “I got to lock him up.”

  Doc took his time putting his instruments away. He stood in the small cell for a moment longer, watching his patient. When he was satisfied that Tom was going to be all right, he stepped outside, and Breezy closed the heavy wooden door. Tom lay back on the cot again, fighting a wave of nausea.

  * * *

  “Here’s you some grub.”

  Tom sat up as Breezy shoved a tray of breakfast inside the door, then quickly slammed it shut. Tom was more than ready to eat, since he had had nothing since the morning before when he had coffee and biscuits with Ruby. His brain was a good deal more clear now, and the dizziness had gone when he woke up that morning. The only discomfort that remained was a dull headache that increased to a sharp throbbing whenever he moved his head too fast. The coffee was strong and rapidly cooling as a result of its journey from The Miner’s Saloon, but it tasted wonderful to Tom. He drank almost half of it before tackling the eggs and sowbelly. Breezy stood outside the door, watching him through the small window.

  “Way you looked last night, I warn’t shore you’d still be kickin’ this morning.”

  Tom paused to glance up at the deputy. “Damn considerate of you to be concerned,” he grumbled. “I wasn’t sure I’d make it myself. I’m still trying to figure out why you cold-cocked me like that.”

  Breezy grunted in response, a snide grin creasing his whiskers. “Hell, I just give you a little love tap. Wanted to make shore you didn’t run off and leave us.”

  “Dammit, Breezy, there was no call to do that. What am I in here for, anyway? Aaron said to get out of town, and that’s what I was trying to do.”

  Breezy’s grin broadened. “Now, Dakota, you know Aaron ain’t gon’ let nobody drift in here and kill one of his deputies and then let him just drift right back out, ’specially somebody with a reputation like your’n. Why, outlaws all over would think they could come in here and do as they pleased.”

  Tom stopped eating. “You know damn well Will came after me. I had no choice but to defend myself. You’ve got no reason to lock me up.”

  “Will was a pretty good ole boy. He was a mite lazy when it come to doing his share of the work, but folks around here liked him. We don’t like to see hotshot gunmen come into our town killin our citizens…and him a lawman at that.”

  Tom could not understand the change in Breezy’s attitude. They had played poker for two weeks, him and Doc and Will. Breezy had seemed easygoing, almost friendly. Now his tone was definitely antagonistic and downright hostile. Could he and Will have been such close friends that Will’s death had produced this change? There had been no evidence that Breezy cared a drop for Will. Why then this sneering countenance he now displayed? Tom didn’t have long to wait before the reason surfaced.

  “Maybe you figure some of your Injun friends will come rescue you,” Breezy suddenly blurted.

  “What?” Tom didn’t understand. “What Injun friends?”

  Breezy grunted, the sneer still pasted on his face. “I know all about you, boy. Aaron read me the papers come in on you, Mister Injun-lover.”

  “What the hell are you talking about, Breezy?” Tom was losing his patience.

  “I’m talkin’ about you lettin’ that damn devil Little Wolf git away. I’m talkin’ about you gittin’ kicked outta the army for givin’ aid to the enemy.” Breezy was obviously enjoying his wealth of information and the opportunity to display it. “I’ll tell you somethin’ else, Lieutenant Allred. I was there when you done it. By God, I was there at Little Big Horn with Major Reno! ’Course I warn’t no officer like you, but I was there. Got mustered out two months after that campaign.” Breezy glared at Tom as if he had exposed the devil himself. “I thought somethin’ about you looked familiar the first day you showed up in town. Took me a while to place you, but I by God know you now.”

  Chapter XVI

  With some reluctance, the sun finally broke through the shrouds of steaming mist that cloaked the western slopes of the Bitterroots, causing the still-frozen spires of countless waterfalls to fairly sparkle as they cascaded down to the basin below. Spring had come. There was no doubt that winter’s grip had at last weakened and the snow would be gone in a matter of weeks. It was a joyous sign to Squint Peterson. He had never been overly fond of the cold weather, and now that he was getting a little long in the tooth, it seemed to affect him even more. He pulled his buffalo coat up around his ears and drew in a deep lungful of the icy air. The first signs of spring had inspired a lightness in his heart. Soon this valley would transform itself into a paradise of thousands of many different colors as wildflowers covered the lower slopes. And the high peaks that surrounded his valley would cast off their heavy winter coats, sending crystal-clear water leaping over the rocks in a frantic effort to reach the grassy floor of the basin. Squint and Robert, or Little Wolf as he still insisted on being called, were expecting at least a dozen new foals this season. Squint had always been interested in raising horses, and he was especially partial to breeding Appaloosas, a skill they had been taught by an old Nez Perce that helped around the ranch. Once this whole valley, and the one on the eastern side of the pass, was the home of the Nez Perces. But most of them were gone now. The soldiers had driven Chief Joseph and his people out and, after a helluva fight, finally run them to ground September just past. The army had not been successful in driving out all of the resistant Nez Perces, however. There were still a few renegade bands back in the small pockets of
the Bitterroots. Squint and Little Wolf lived in peace with the surviving bands, mainly due to Little Wolf’s reputation as a Cheyenne war chief. Their situation was one of mutual trust. He didn’t tell the white men in the little town of Medicine Creek about the presence of the few remaining Nez Perces and they didn’t spread the word around that the Cheyenne renegade, Little Wolf, was holed up just thirty miles from their little town.

  The past year and a half had been pleasant for Squint, away from the fighting and the army. Little Wolf had taken to ranching just fine. He was still a mite high-strung, but most of the venom had boiled out of his heart. It was mostly the country, Squint decided. The high peace of the mountains mellowed a man’s heart, if he had any heart at all. Even so, Little Wolf still thought like an Indian. When he gave it serious consideration, it was little wonder because Squint was the foreigner in this wilderness. Little Wolf and Rain Song belonged here.

  Yes, he thought, these were peaceful times and all that a man like Squint could hope for in the twilight of his years. Still, he could not help but permit worrisome little thoughts to creep into his mind. They had been isolated from the white man’s warring with Chief Joseph’s band. No soldiers had found their way into this secluded valley. How long, he wondered, would that be true? He dreaded the thought of a cavalry patrol stumbling onto the valley. He could not predict how Little Wolf would react. But, if he had to bet on it, he would put his money on his friend reverting back to his warlike upbringing. He shook his head as if to dispel such worries from his mind. Why worry about something that hasn’t happened yet?

  His reverie finished, Squint stepped up in the saddle and turned Joe back toward the cabin. The horse headed back down the slope at an easy pace. Like his master, Joe was in no particular hurry to get anywhere. Sore Hand, the old Nez Perce, walked out to greet him as Joe plodded slowly up to the barn and stopped.

  “Little Wolf say he go hunt with Sleeps Standing. Him be back tomorrow maybe.”

  Squint nodded. He knew that meant Little Wolf wanted him to stay close and keep an eye on Rain Song. He hadn’t planned to go anywhere anyway. Sleeps Standing was another Cheyenne renegade who had found his way into this valley, along with his wife and her sister. He had fought the soldiers at Wagon Box, the battle that signaled the end of the great Sioux and Cheyenne wars. Like many of his brothers, he had no belly for reservation life, and while he was trying to run from the soldiers, he got himself shot. As a result of that wound, Squint and Little Wolf received the amazing news that Tom Allred had been cashiered out of the army. Far back in the mountains as they were, they had very little news of the outside world, and that was the way they wanted it. When Sleeps Standing found them this past winter, Squint was amazed to learn that Tom was no longer in the army. Sleeps Standing told them of his wound and the desperate situation he was in when Tom stumbled upon him and the two women. Without Tom’s help and the food he brought them, all three of them might have gone under. According to Sleeps Standing, Tom was on the run from the army. If he got the story straight, Tom had killed a soldier, maybe more than one. It left Squint more than a little baffled. It didn’t sound like something Tom would be mixed up in. He would have to hear more of the story before he made judgment. At first, he wondered if Tom was trying to make his way to this part of the country, maybe hoping to find him and Little Wolf. But Sleeps Standing said he was headed toward the Musselshell country. Little Wolf had naturally shown great interest in Sleeps Standing’s news. After all, Tom was responsible for his escape from the soldiers. And, although he had never accepted being brothers by blood, he felt he owed a debt to the young cavalry officer in spite of fighting on opposite sides at Little Big Horn. Squint had to remind Little Wolf that he, too, fought on the side of the army in that battle. But that was water under the bridge. Little Wolf retorted that it made no difference anyway. He had gone his way and Tom had gone his. So, why discuss it?

  The citizens of Medicine Creek didn’t concern themselves with what went on in the small, isolated valley where Squint Peterson and his partner raised horses and a few head of cattle. They kept to themselves and that was all right with the townspeople. Various rumors floated around, but folks figured that as long as they weren’t threatened in any way, why concern themselves? Squint was the only person from the valley who ever came into town, and he seemed square enough. It had been confirmed that his partner was also a white man, though no one had ever seen him in town. It wouldn’t have surprised most folks if there were a few Nez Perces hiding out in the valley, but they didn’t expect any trouble from that quarter. So, from Squint’s way of thinking, things were working out just fine. Life was peaceful and a little bit dull—just the way he liked it. It would not remain that way for long, however.

  * * *

  In two weeks’ time, spring was evident in earnest. The mountain passes had opened up, and the streams were over their banks with the melting snow from the mountains. Confined for months by the heavy snows, Little Wolf and Sleeps Standing were at last able to range far from the valley on their hunting trips, staying out for several days at a time. This time they had been out only one night, working their way along the eastern slope of a high range of mountains that bordered a long valley the Nez Perces called Sweet Grass.

  Sleeps Standing saw them first. “There,” he said, pointing toward three small figures making their way across the valley below them.

  As the figures approached the foot of the mountain, they could see that there were two men and three horses, one a packhorse. Little Wolf and Sleeps Standing watched for a while in silence, then Little Wolf spoke. “They are not hunting. What are they doing in this land?” It was difficult to tell at that distance whether they were white or Indian. Both figures were wrapped in heavy hide robes. It was apparent that they were trying to follow a trail through the mountains by the way the lead man scouted through the patches of snow that remained in the lower draws and gullies.

  “One of the horses is lame,” Sleeps Standing commented. Little Wolf only grunted in reply as they continued to watch the progress of the strangers. The horse carrying the second rider seemed to be hobbling badly and appeared close to faltering. The distance between the first rider leading the packhorse and the lame horse gradually increased, until the second rider was several hundred yards behind by the time the lead man reached the pines at the foot of the mountain. He dismounted and appeared to be making a fire.

  “They camp early,” Sleeps Standing remarked.

  Little Wolf said nothing, but continued to watch. It was obvious now that one of them might be Indian but the other was definitely a white man. When the second rider caught up, he dismounted and the two seemed to have a lengthy discussion. After a few minutes of talk, the Indian mounted again and, leading the packhorse, started out alone, leaving his companion standing by the fire.

  “Let us see where this one goes,” Little Wolf said, and started off across the ridge. Sleeps Standing followed. From a position halfway down the opposite slope, they could follow the man’s progress until he was out of sight. He skirted the mountain until he came to the river. Once there, he paused for a moment, then turned south along the riverbank, and finally disappeared from their view. Little Wolf was curious enough by then to return to scout the second rider.

  They crossed back over the ridge and made their way down almost to the valley floor, where they stopped in the tall trees to observe the man by the fire. He seemed intent only on keeping the large fire burning. No effort was spent in making camp or in taking care of his lame horse.

  “What is he doing?” Sleeps Standing finally uttered.

  After a long time, during which the man appeared to do nothing more than shuffle aimlessly around the fire, Little Wolf tired of the game. “White men!” he said in disgust. “Who knows what they think? Come, let us take our meat back to the valley.” With that, he leaped upon his horse and prepared to leave. When Sleeps Standing mounted his horse, Little Wolf held up his hand. “Wait,” he said. Something had caught his at
tention back at the campfire.

  “What is it?” Sleeps Standing asked.

  “Look,” Little Wolf replied, pointing toward the fire.

  When Sleeps Standing’s eyes followed Little Wolf’s outstretched arm, he smiled at what he saw. The stranger had walked over to the edge of the brush and was now squatting to urinate. The rider was a woman. Now, in spite of his impatience, he was really curious. Why had the man ridden off and left his woman? He had taken the packhorse with him. It was obvious the man did not leave to hunt for food, for he made straight for the river and took the south pass out of the valley. It is not my concern, Little Wolf told himself. If the man wants to leave his woman by herself with a lame horse, why should I care?

  “Are we going to find out?” Sleeps Standing interrupted his thoughts.

  He looked at his friend for a moment, then glanced back at the woman, then back at Sleeps Standing. Finally he shrugged and wheeled his horse back toward the campfire. Sleeps Standing followed.

  * * *

  She dried herself with a small piece of cloth, quickly pulled the buckskin trousers up and tied them, then strapped the heavy cavalry pistol back around her hips. Her backside was still chilled by the exposure to the raw spring air, and she was anxious to get back to the fire. She was not aware of the two figures approaching until they were almost within fifty yards of the fire. At one moment they were not there and then the next moment they were right behind her. She was startled, an involuntary cry of surprise caught in her throat. Indians! She glanced frantically from side to side, fearful that there may be more even now surrounding her. But there were only the two. Her hand fumbled for the handle of her pistol.

  “Wait!” one of them called out in English. “We mean you no harm.”

  She hesitated, her hand still on the revolver. She had a natural distrust of Indians, and while she allowed them to approach her fire, she kept a wary eye on the two of them, still glancing behind her from time to time just to make sure. “I’m sorry. I don’t have any food to give you,” she blurted, figuring Indians always wanted to be fed.