“It’s downright ghosty, Jonah. A cry of a wolf like what me and Gabe heard few nights back—means only one thing. Spirits. Bad medicine. And a man in his right mind best be getting clear of these parts. Something fearsome always happens after a man hears that ghosty howl. Always has. Always will.”
“Whoa, Shad. You saying that wolf call you two heard some time back meant to tell you those soldiers were starving?”
Sweete shook his head. “I can’t say. Just that as long as we been out here in these mountains and plains, both Gabe and me learned to trust to what the critters tell us. Animal spirits can smell a lot more’n what any of us can.”
“That wolf smelled something bad coming?”
“Like death on the wind,” Sweete replied matter-of-factly. He turned back to Bridger to ask, “What’s doing with Connor?”
The old trapper sighed. “The stiff-necks back in Washington City putting an end to all Injun fighting for a while.”
They both sat upright, but Sweete spoke first. “The devil, you say? What’s the army supposed to do—sit on its thumbs? Dumb idjits, expecting they can talk peace to these war-loving, free-roaming bucks.”
“None of them back east understands the one simple rul—that the only thing a warrior understands is blood and brute force.” Bridger shrugged. “Connor says that bunch of politicians back east is cutting the army down to size now that the war back east is done with.”
“’Bout time, it is too,” grumbled Hook. “Cut it down far enough for this boy to go on back home to his family and farm.”
“Shame of it is, Connor’s been relieved of command and this expedition is done,” Bridger confided. “General’s heading back to Utah.”
“Utah?” Hook asked. “Ain’t that where all the Mormons went to settle?”
Sweete nodded. “Some of these boys marching with Connor been serving out to Camp Douglas in Utah. Hell, the general himself served as military commander out there till the army called him up for this expedition.”
That enviable western post, Camp Douglas, stood on a bluff above the City of the Saints in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake. A paradise duty is what the soldiers called the place, for well-groomed plots of grass and flower beds surrounded the huge parade of packed, stream-washed gravel taken from the mountain stream diverted for irrigating the post’s own fields. Connor himself had seen the post raised as his first duty upon arriving in the land of Brigham Young back in October 1862.
While the general publicly told Young and his elders that the post was being built to protect the Overland Stage route and the Pacific Telegraph line from Indian depredations, the Mormon suspicion was that the army had been sent into the heart of their State of Deseret to keep an eye on them. Because most Mormons rankled at the recent bevy of laws Congress had been passing to outlaw polygamy in the states and its territories, Utah declared itself neutral once hostilities broke out between North and South in 1861.
“As far as Patrick E. Connor was concerned, in the Civil War, if you weren’t with him, you were against him,” Bridger went on. “The general took a special interest in keeping a close watch on the Mormons. And the dealings of that Mormon chief, the one called Brigham Young.”
“Shad’s told me about how he sent his private army out to get you of a time, Gabe.”
Bridger grinned, but with a coldness that made a drop of sweat slip down Hook’s spine.
“That’s right. One of these days, Jim Bridger would like to have him a chance to look that puffed-up prairie cock eye to eye and see just what he’s made of without standing behind his hired killers.”
“You never will, Gabe,” said Shad. “Young’s the kind who’ll never be a big enough man to stand on his own.”
Both he and Sweete chuckled when they went on to tell Hook how Connor marched into the land of the Mormons and never once worried about ruffling Mormon feathers. He was the chief political and military officer representing his government in the territory, and as such he took his job serious.
“From the first day his men started building that post up on the bluff, Connor ordered a cannon pointed down the hill at Brigham’s pride and joy—his tabernacle.”
From the walls of Camp Douglas, soldiers could look down not only on the lake itself, but the neatly platted streets and outlying farms of the Mormons where crops flourished and livestock abounded in the narrow valley. In excess of twenty thousand Latter-day Saints called it home, with more arriving every year.
“When the general started to replace his wooden buildings with stone from nearby quarries, just like the stone the Mormons had used for their own tabernacle, Brigham howled!” Sweete continued. “He came stomping up to the camp to protest to Connor that his fort was looking a mite too permanent for his liking, that the soldiers were harassing honest, God-fearing citizens, and that the army’s horses and mules were fouling the city’s water supply.”
“After the way he’s now been treated by the politicians and peace-loving turncoats back east, I’ll bet Connor will damn well welcome getting back to the land of the Saints,” Bridger said.
“Sounds like you got a chip on your shoulder for them Mormons,” Hook said. “Not that I blame you, I s’pose.”
“Me? I ain’t got a problem with a Mormon—if he keeps to himself and doesn’t stomp on what’s mine. It’s when a thieving, yellow-backed bastard like Young sends out a hundred of his Angels to burn my fort and steal my stock, murdering my hired help in the bargain—yeah, that’s when you might say I get a mighty big chip on my shoulder, young’un.”
“It ain’t the Mormons, Jonah,” Sweete went on to explain. “It’s the goddamned leaders they follow, eyes closed, swallowing all that cock and bull about every threat made to their beloved Zion.”
“What’s Zion?”
“What the Mormons call Utah,” Sweete answered.
Bridger scowled. “Zion is what the Mormons call the place that God give ’em special. ’Cause they’re special people. Like Brigham tells it—the rest of us is supposed to stay out of Mormon country.”
Boothog’s cheek burned with the fires of hell where Jubilee Usher had slapped his huge flat hand across it.
“Let that be a warning to you, Major Wiser.” Usher’s voice rocked the limestone cave in the forest where they had taken refuge from a pursuing detachment of soldiers for the past week. The rain fell noisily outside the musty cave. “I never want to catch you talking to the woman again.”
Boothog glanced quickly at the fair-haired woman, her own lips swollen, bruised, and bloody—knowing Jubilee had battered her too. Behind the purple bruises and swollen lids, her eyes were like some frightened animal’s—almost willing to take a chance in trusting the handsome Boothog, to trust anyone and anything rather than continue with the daily abuse she endured from Jubilee.
“If you give me the girl, Colonel,” Wiser declared, using the honorary title Brigham Young had awarded Usher among Young’s Danites.
Usher stared incredulous at his second in command. “You are a crude animal, Major. Here for so long I had considered you above the level of these others. It is they I must watch to be sure the girl remains a virgin until the time we return to the City of the Saints.”
His breath still shallow, the burn at his cheek slowly fading. “You have what you want, Jubilee—gimme the girl. Why’s she so special to make it back there a virgin?”
Usher took one sudden step forward, instantly shutting Wiser up. “She’ll fetch a much handsomer price from a wealthy man looking for a new, young wife.” The big man turned toward the woman and began stroking her long, disheveled hair. She tried to push his hand away at first, but he caught her wrists and held them in one big paw while he went back to stroking her golden curls.
“Besides, Major Wiser. There are plenty of opportunities for you to find yourself a suitable traveling partner. The girl is just that—a girl—and I won’t stand for you copulating with her like some evil, bestial tool of the devil.”
He wanted to scream out t
hat Usher himself was a hypocrite—but Wiser didn’t have the nerve. He could cower any of the rest of their sizable band of freebooters, either with his fists or with his quickness at the handgun he kept resting just forward of his left hip. But try Jubilee Usher? Wiser was a far smarter man than that.
Boothog swallowed his words, mumbling as the damp, fetid smell of this place invaded his nostrils once more.
“What was that you said?” Usher demanded, turning from the woman.
“It just ain’t fair, Colonel.”
Usher went back to stroking the woman’s hair, caressing the side of her face with a single finger. “No one ever said earthly life was fair, Major. It’s just up to men like you and me to make things a little more even for ourselves, and our kind, don’t you see?”
“I want—”
“Find yourself a woman, Mr. Wiser!” Usher snapped, whirling on his subordinate. At his sharp words the woman jerked back, the harsh sound echoing from the low, dripping roof of the dank cave.
“I’ll do that, Jubilee.”
“And you’ll do well to stay away from both the woman and the girl, I mind you.”
“As you order, Colonel.”
“This one,” Jubilee sighed, cupping the woman’s chin in the palm of a huge hand and gripping it hard, “she is a pretty, pretty thing. A fitting gift from God, handed exclusively to one of his most trusted servants, can’t you see? It was His will and His will alone that guided us to that farm, Major. She was waiting for me there.”
Wiser wanted to tell Usher that he was crazy—but he didn’t have the nerve. While Boothog realized he would be nothing more than a common thief and murderer with a devilishly handsome face and a charm that had lifted more petticoats and unbuttoned more bodices in the last three years than most men did in a lifetime—Jubilee Usher was something else altogether.
A drop of cold cave seepage splattered on his forehead.
The big man, the “Colonel,” really believed in what he called his divine mission, believed in his continual revelations from God, believed he alone had been chosen to wage war on any and all Gentiles in the West whom he saw as a threat to his prophet, Brigham Young.
And it was Jubilee Usher’s unshakable insanity that made him the most dangerous animal Boothog Wiser had ever known.
In the last days of summer and the first days of fall, the Shahiyena told of fighting two groups of white men who had attempted to force their way into the Black Hills country and the hunting ground north and west of the sacred Bear Butte. One group corralled its wagons, then offered one of those wagons filled with coffee and sugar and flour to the warriors if the white men were allowed to pass. The Shahiyena had allowed the white men to go on their way, knowing they were heading into Lakota land, where Red Cloud and Young Man Afraid would make things hard on them.
The Bad Face band of Oglalla did make it hard on those stupid white men. And on the two groups of soldiers groping their way around on the Rosebud and the Powder, slowly starving themselves and their horses until the great snowstorm came howling out of the north and left the riverbank littered with the stinking carcasses as soon as it warmed days later, snow melting beneath the incredibly blue skies of Indian summer.
Crazy Horse had to admit he liked this time of year the best. A season of change. It was the last time he and the other young ones had to raid and ride and romp before the coming of winter that would put the high land to sleep for many moons. Not only would the mountains be shrouded in snow, but for weeks at a time, the valleys and bluffs, the ridges and coulees would be choked with it. Rivers and creeks, springs and streams would be frozen.
And he would find himself restless and agitated, prisoner in the winter lodges once more—his spirit yearning for the freedom of the high plains.
Here in the final days of the Moon of Black Calves, the Lakota scouts had returned with news that the great soldier encampment along the Powder had finally turned south and were heading back to the fort called Laramie.
“The time has come,” Crazy Horse said, having waited for his turn to speak to the great council of warriors and advisers. “The soldiers are fleeing with what horses they have left and what wagons they can pull out of our hunting ground. I agree with Man Afraid—we no longer have to keep our warriors here to protect our villages from them. These white men are going home. Let our young men go raiding on the Holy Road one last time before Winter Man seizes the land and chokes us with cold for many moons!”
“My young friend makes sense,” agreed Young Man Afraid. “Our women already have many hides to tan, and the meat is dried for the winter moons. No more do we need to hunt. Our young men itch for one last ride. I say let it be a big one!”
Slowly the wild calls for war and raiding and white blood faded away. And eventually all faces turned toward Red Cloud’s. A proven chief, his face only beginning to seam with the lines of age and wisdom, this undisputed leader of the Bad Face band of Oglalla chose his words well.
“We will wait until the soldiers are three days’ ride south of Pumpkin Buttes.”
Crazy Horse could feel the swelling of excitement growing in the huge council lodge as Red Cloud gave his pronouncement.
“Then our warriors can sweep around the tail end of the soldier column—assured they will not turn and attack our camps as they attacked the Bear’s Arapaho village.”
“They will not,” Crazy Horse declared, watching many of the dark eyes turn his way. “The soldiers are beaten—once and for all. The white man’s army will not dare attack our mighty villages as they destroyed the Arapaho camp. The Bear was not wise, my friends. It is a very careless thing for a man to embrace peace when all around him the countryside is filled with those who hunger for war!”
13
November, 1865
“I’LL MISS YOU, Shad,” Hook said in a husky tone that scraped past the hot knot in his throat.
“Here,” Sweete said gruffly, holding out his hand. “Promised I’d give you a going-away present.”
Hook glanced at the lines of troops shuffling into formation, teamsters easing themselves down onto plank seats and the columns of cavalry escort going to saddle.
“What is it?” he asked, studying the small rawhide-wrapped ring in his palm. It had been divided into quadrants, at its center was encircled a small, smooth pebble. The rawhide strands were wrapped with flattened porcupine quills of greasy yellow, robin’s-egg blue, and a light moss green.
“Toote’s people call it a medicine wheel. This is one she made for me some time back. A pebble spoke to me beside a stream near the place where I first laid eyes on the woman. Injuns believe rocks and such things are creatures too, and talk to people.”
“You believe that?”
“I’m here to tell you that’s the certain of it.”
“This is something she made special for you—I can’t take it.”
“That’s why I’m giving it to you. Among these Indian people, everything sacred is a circle. Life itself is a great circle: from borning to dying. I’m asking you to keep this, ’cause one day you’ll return.”
“I ain’t never coming back, Shad.”
“You keep telling me that, Jonah. But there’s a great circle of all things out there—and you don’t know what will ever bring you back. All I know is, this pebble talked to me again last night. Ain’t talked to me since I first picked it up and heard it say I ought to take some ponies to a particular Cheyenne warrior so I could ask his daughter to be my wife.”
“It told you to marry Toote?”
“And this morning, after all those years, it spoke to me again. Telling me it was time for it to go with you on your journey home.”
Jonah held out the medicine wheel in his palm, self-consciously, and more than a little concerned about all the mysticism.
He swallowed, anxious to be on the road to Fort Leavenworth where his unit would be mustered out, from there on his own to southern Missouri. But not anxious enough to rip himself from the warm security this big man
had offered during Jonah’s brief sojourn on the high plains. This, he felt, was something to be done carefully. He stared down at the medicine wheel.
“You can wear it round your neck—or keep it in your plunder. Its power will be with you no matter what, son,” Sweete explained. With the scuffing of boots on wood, his eyes flicked over to watch the officers emerge from Colonel H. E. Maynadier’s office, turn, and salute in leave-taking.
Jonah felt suddenly like hugging the big man, but such a thing just wasn’t his way. Things were too much of a rush for him at the moment. Instead of embracing the old trapper, he held out his hand, reaching for Sweete’s, hoping he would not become moist-eyed as he said his farewell.
“I’ll remember you, Shadrach Sweete,” he said as he dropped the big man’s hand and started off toward his company, who were hollering for him to join their ranks. “You come to Missouri soon and look me up—you know where.”
He smiled at the old trapper, waving as the dusty column was ordered to face about and into a march, pushing off the parade and past Fort Laramie’s stone guardhouse, heading down the North Platte for the east and home.
“I’ll find you, Jonah Hook. By glory, I’ll find you.”
Hook was damned well relieved that the sun had made a glorious rising this crisp fall morning. Its brightness meant he and the rest had to squint as they marched into that brilliant sunflower yellow orb. Because now no one would see the moistness come to his eyes as he shuffled along in cracked ankle-boots he hoped would last him long enough to make it home to Gritta and the children.
Crying was all right. But it sure as hell wasn’t any other man’s business.
Jonah glanced around him, on both sides of the column of fours, cavalry escort up ahead, wagons loaded with provision for the homeward-bound march at the tail end of the line.
As much as he had tried to deny it the last few weeks, there was something about this place that he was going to miss—although he had admitted it to no man.
At first Hook figured such thoughts rumbled around inside him merely because this was such new country to his eyes and ears and tastebuds. And for the longest time he had figured that newness would wear off. But with the rounding of every new green hill or ocher ridge or yellow-tinged bluff, the scenery never went stale to the eyes. With each new mouthful of buffalo or elk, mule deer or antelope, the tumbling, endless plains of the West became something to be savored with all his senses. With every new scent and sound, or shape to the clouds in the incredibly immense sky that always hung just beyond arm’s length overhead, Jonah had slowly come to accept that his affection for this place was not merely because of its newness only.
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