A few days later they struck a buffalo trail as it angled across the rolling, broken country, meandering toward the headwaters of Vermillion Creek, taking them in the direction of Fort Davy Crockett.
“Shadrach,” Bass called out a few hours later, motioning the tall man over as their horses carried them west along that buffalo road. With Sweete come up beside him, he whispered, “Don’t make no show, but I want you to look down in the buffler tracks. Tell me what you see.”
The younger man casually peered off the left side of his horse, then the right. Eventually he looked at Bass. “Injuns.”
“How many you figger?”
“More’n two of us can handle.”
“We got a bunch of guns—”
“But there’s only two of us to fire ’em,” Shadrach interrupted.
“Easy now,” he soothed. “We don’t even know what they be. Maybeso they’re just some Snakes—following that buffler herd to make meat.”
Sweete sighed in relief. “You’re right. I just let that Sinclair get me jumping at shadows. I reckon that’s it: only Snakes, trailing them buffler down to the fort.”
“We ain’t got no reason to think them are Sioux tracks,” Bass warned.
Those recent seasons in Crow country had made for a lot of work for little beaver. Times past, he would have had more than twice the plews to show for his efforts, what with all the miles put behind him. Even after replacing those traps the Blackfoot had discarded, Bass still found he was forced to push higher to find the dammed-up meadows and lodges, forced to plunge farther and farther into the recesses of the mountains to find what beaver remained after years of relentless extermination of the creatures. More than once Titus had cursed others, then cursed his luck, and eventually cursed himself for stripping the creeks and streams and rivers of the flat-tails during those golden glory days.
But how was a man ever going to replace those belongings stolen and destroyed by the Blackfoot if he couldn’t find enough beaver to trade for the blankets and traps, kettles and beads, finger rings and hawksbells he had possessed before the Blackfoot had raided Absaroka?
Tullock had treated him more than square in their dealings at Fort Van Buren, but there was only so much the trader could do when the price of beaver was on the slide and the cost of goods was rising with every season supplies came north on the Missouri. No matter the pinch they both found themselves in, the company tobacco was good and Tullock’s private stock of rum was the best Titus had tasted since he had learned to drink Monangahela on that flatboat ride down the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans.
“I heard Beckwith’s back in the mountains,” Samuel Tullock had declared that summer evening when Bass rode over to Van Buren for some white company.
“Jim Beckwith? You was the one told me he’d give up on the mountains and gone back to St. Louis.”
“He did. But the story is he growed tired of it. Beckwith’s come back to the mountains.”
“He come back to hook up with that band of Mountain Crow?”
Tullock shook his head as he swallowed some rum. “No. Word has it when he come west last summer, he went out the Platte Road. They say he’s down at Fort Vasquez with them fellers—trading to the Arapaho and shining on some Cheyenne gals, I reckon.”
“Hard to figger, ’cuz ever’thing I ever knowed of him—he was real tight with them Crow.”
“Damn tight. Had him a handful of wives, and the Crow made him a war chief, some such,” Tullock agreed.
“Why the hell didn’t Beckwith come on back north, where he had him a good life?”
“Only thing I been able to figger since I heard he come back is that Beckwith don’t wanna have nothing to do with this country up here where the smallpox was.”
“Ain’t the pox all done, Sam’l?”
Nodding, Tullock replied, “The pox is done, Scratch … but now there’s talk around the tribes that it was Beckwith brung the pox to the Injuns up here.”
“Beckwith?” Bass squeaked in disbelief. “He weren’t even in this country back then. You and Levi told me one of the company boats brung the pox up the river a year ago.”
Grudgingly Tullock agreed. “I know. Cain’t be Beckwith brung the pox.”
“But the truth don’t matter none to the company, does it?”
The trader shook his head. “No it don’t, Scratch. Truth is, the company done everything it can to pin this terrible thing on Beckwith.”
“So now your booshways come out smelling sweet,” Bass grumbled at the weighty injustice of it all, “seeing how they made damned sure the tribes believe it were Beckwith brought ’em the spotted death.”
Jim Beckwith. Purty Jim Beckwith. Had him a sweet, sweet life with the Crow before he gave it up to try things back in St. Louis—
“Scratch!”
Blinking, Bass jerked at the sound of Sweete’s cry, torn out of his reverie. Turning slightly, he found the big man pointing with the muzzle of his huge rifle.
Across the winding bed of Vermillion Creek the narrow valley rose sharply. Atop those low bluffs on the far side at least a dozen horsemen were coming to a halt.
Feathers hung from hair and shields and lances. Scalp locks waved beneath ponies’ jaws, tormented by the gusts of icy wind. And every last goddamned one of those warriors sat there in the cold with frost streaming from his mouth as they all began to yell in exultation … suddenly jabbing heels into their ponies as they raced down the dull, reddish ocher of that hillside—coming on, coming on—close enough that Titus could see they were wearing paint.
Lots of damned paint. Those red niggers were decked out like no Injuns he had ever seen before.
One thing for certain—those sure as hell weren’t Snakes riding down off the hills to make a white man feel welcome!
* In the extreme northwestern corner of present-day Colorado
* What the fur trappers called present-day Yampa River.
30
“Into the draw!”
As that command shot from his lips, Bass was already wheeling his pony in a circle so tight, the horse nearly raked its knees on the frozen ground. Yanking sharply with his right hand to force the horse around, Titus tugged the boy back against him so hard he heard little Flea gasp.
“Hang on, son!” he growled.
From behind, Scratch could hear the horsemen reach the narrow stream, charging their ponies right into the water thinly covered by a wind-rippled slake of dirty ice. How he wished they had one or two more hands along to aim the rifles.
At the brushy mouth of the draw he tore back on the reins, almost dragging the pony back onto its rear haunches in the skid. He waved the woman and girl on past him, followed closely by Samantha and the half-dozen packhorses. For the moment the warriors were bunched as they forded the stream, the first horsemen just then emerging from the Vermillion, leaping onto the bank, pony legs and bellies streaming water—those first painted warriors drawing back the strings on their small bows.
Out in the open between those bowmen and the mouth of the coulee Shadrach Sweete looked ungainly on his snorting, heaving horse as it lumbered toward the wash beneath its rider’s bulk. The big man was sitting funny, most of his weight shifted to that right stirrup where he was all but standing as he bobbed across the last few yards. Inch by inch his saddle shifted farther and farther to the right, the cinch scraping against the pony’s belly while that right stirrup dropped closer and closer to the ground with every heaving leap of the horse.
Less than ten yards from the mouth of the wash the saddle spun under the animal’s belly and the big man spilled into the gray, weathered sage with a grunt. With its saddle rocking under its belly like a clanger in a bell, the pony clattered into the draw to join its four-legged companions.
“C’mon, Shadrach!” Titus screamed as he handed Flea down to Waits-by-the-Water the moment she hit the ground.
Vaulting from the off side of the pony an instant later, Bass ripped the mittens from his hands and dragged the long muzzl
e of the flintlock from the blanket roll lashed behind his Spanish saddle. Scratch figured the fall had momentarily knocked the wind out of the man … but he wasn’t prepared to find Sweete still crumpled on the ground. Unmoving.
“Get the guns, woman!” he flung the words over his shoulder in English, his breath a frosty streamer gone on the cold autumn wind. “All of ’em!”
Whirling, he dropped to a crouch and measured what distance the warriors had to cross before they got to Shad, before they could rush the entrance to their coulee. Drawing back on the set trigger, he brought the rifle to his shoulder just as Sweete raised his head, shook it slowly like a sleepy bear blinking awake of a spring morning after a long winter’s nap.
Scratch flicked his eyes to the front blade, laying it within the notch at the bottom of the buckhorn rear sight, and poked his finger inside the front of the trigger guard. The closest horseman was starting to lean off his pony, the bowstring taut, his left arm straightened at his groggy target on the ground.
The moment the rifle roared, Sweete jerked awake. “Balls of thunder!”
Hearing the woman clatter up behind him, Titus turned, finding her arms filled with six long weapons. Leaning the empty rifle against the side of the wash, he quickly took the six from her, standing them in a row. With a loaded one in hand, he turned back to find the bowman had toppled into the sage, those closest around him reining their horses aside as they bawled in rage at the white men.
Shad crawled backward a few yards, starting away from the draw to snag his rifle from the sage, then struggled to stand onto one leg, dragging himself up hand over hand on the long-barreled flintlock. Pivoting, he hobbled into motion, lunging step by step toward the mouth of the wash.
“Goddammit!” Scratch bellowed. “Don’t you lollygag, Shadrach!”
As the big man approached, Bass suddenly recognized how pasty Sweete’s face was—almost the color of that pale limestone of the Ohio River valley.
Four of them were coming, swiftly snapping into focus over the tall man’s shoulders. Bobbing side to side, they weaved atop their ponies, galloping straight for the lone white man. Shoving the second rifle against his shoulder, Bass felt inside the guard, finding this weapon did not have a set trigger. An arrow hissed into the sage at the big man’s lumbering feet. Another phtted against the wall of the wash near Bass’s head where it quivered inches from his eyes.
Instinctively, Titus wheeled the rifle, pinning the front blade onto that bowman’s chest, and pulled the single trigger.
With a shrill cry the horseman toppled to the side off his pony, bounced once in the sage, then sprawled for a moment before he began to crawl slowly back from the mouth of the wash, blood smearing the frozen ground as he bravely retreated.
Bursting into the open, Scratch sprinted toward the big man. When he reached out with his arm, looping it around Shad, his left hand struck the arrow shaft, causing Sweete to emit an inhuman cry.
“Jehoshaphat—you’re hit!”
Swallowing down that gush of pain as they hobbled into the wash together, Shad growled between clenched teeth, “You idjit! Figger I’m out there lollygagging on a Sunday stroll all for nothing?”
“Had me no idee you was out catching arrows, Shadrach,” Bass apologized, helping him to collapse onto the good hip. “Woman!”
As Sweete groaned behind him, Waits was there in a heartbeat, handing him a third rifle and standing the empty weapon beside the first. He could see she had looped the strap of her shooting pouch over her shoulder. Turning her back on the men now, she yanked the stopper from the powder horn in her teeth and poured the black grains into a large brass measure that hung by a thin cord from her pouch strap.
Clicking back the hammer on the loaded rifle, Bass glanced at his children, finding Magpie huddled against the side of the draw and clutching Flea on her lap, both of them nearly hidden by a blanket Waits had draped over them and some brush.
Kneeling beside the wounded man, Scratch gripped Shad’s knee. “What you figger to do with that arrow?”
“This’un?” Sweete said, holding up the long, bloody, headless shaft.
“Damn if you ain’t pulled it!”
Wagging his head, Shad said, “Nope—broke it.”
“Save the goddamned thing, Shadrach. You’re gonna wanna bite down on it when I go to digging in your hip with my skinner.”
The big man’s eyes went half-closed as he said, “Maybeso I can pray I’ll just bleed to death … or pray these goddamned Injuns kill me a’fore you get your knife in me—”
“You gonna be wuth a damn with that rifle of your’n?” he shut Sweete right up as he pivoted onto one knee and brought his own weapon up, hearing the approach of the pounding hooves.
“Them stupid niggers hurt me—” he bawled. “You goddamned right I’m gonna hurt ’em back!”
“I don’t wanna waste two balls on one of the bastards,” Scratch warned. “Which one you want?”
“You take that’un with the purty feathers round his head, and I’ll bust the one with that red blanket.”
At the last moment another warrior crossed his pony in front of the one wearing that wild spray of turkey feathers like a halo at the back of his head. Bass quickly shifted the front blade, held for that breathless moment, and squeezed the trigger. With its explosion the rifle shoved back into the notch of his shoulder with a completely different feel than he was accustomed to.
Beside him, Sweete’s weapon roared.
Instantly Shad was dragging his pouch away from that wounded hip, the fingers of both hands crusted with his own frozen blood. “Hold ’em off while I reload!”
“Waits!” he shrieked in warning, wheeling the instant he heard the children cry, the empty rifle held out before him.
She was dropping to one knee as the muzzle of the weapon she clutched swung upward in a jagged arc. With the buttstock pressed against her hip, she fired over the heads of the children—aiming at the horseman who had just skidded to a halt at the brow of the wash, directly over Magpie’s head.
The lead ball struck the Sioux pony just below the eye, slamming the animal’s head to the side as it crumpled, the warrior leaping off as his horse flopped into the sage. With a grunt he clambered off his knees, tore an arrow from his left hand, nocking it against the bowstring he drew backward with one smooth motion.
Lunging to the side, Titus threw his shoulder against his wife, pitching Waits-by-the-Water to the ground as he yanked a pistol from his belt. Dragging back the hammer, he pulled the trigger as the bowstring snapped forward. The arrow pierced the flap of his elk-hide coat as the ball caught the warrior just below the breastbone, crumpling him in half as he was driven backward from the brow of the wash.
“You loaded yet, Shadrach?” he cried as he reached down to pick the woman out of the brush and wheel her behind him.
“I am now!”
Shoving the empty pistol into her hand, Bass dragged the second loaded pistol from his belt, never taking his eyes off the top of the draw where the warrior had landed. Up there the only sound was the gentle pawing of the pony that lay dying in the sage, one solitary leg flexing across the flaky, frozen ground.
“Load,” he whispered to her as he stepped away, “then take a gun to him!”
The moment she nodded in understanding, he was moving in a crouch, roostering another ten yards into the brushy wash where he pulled himself up the side of the draw.
Behind him Sweete’s rifle roared, and he heard Shadrach whoop.
Slowly he hoisted himself against the hard-packed erosion of that coulee until his eyes could peer over the top. Off to his left lay the pony, totally still now. Far beyond it whirled six or seven of the horsemen, gathering among the willow and brush on the north bank of Vermillion Creek.
In that cold silence he heard the gurgle. Poking his head up a little farther, Scratch spotted the warrior less than five yards away. Lying on his back in the sage, the wounded man had drawn his knees up, clutching his belly with both h
ands, dark, glistening ooze creeping out between the fingers. As Bass hitched himself over the lip of the draw, the dying man slowly flopped his head from side to side, groaning, gurgling, and coughing as more of the shimmering ooze seeped from the side of his mouth, onto his bronze cheek, spilling down his neck into his unfettered hair.
Hooves pounded on the hard ground with a dull, hollow thud.
Clumsily whirling, Scratch clutched the side of the wash with his left hand as he dug in with the toes of his moccasins. And found another horseman bursting into view on the far side of the wash.
Scratch heaved upward, dragging himself onto the top where he lay on his belly, planting his two elbows against the flinty ground, leveling the pistol at the warrior who appeared surprised to find the white man there.
Yanking back on his rein so suddenly that he almost lost his balance, the horseman struggled to hang on to his pony as it reared, then reared again. Bass fired the pistol as the warrior was catapulted into the air. The pony staggered aside, spilling onto its forelegs. Dragging its muzzle out of the sage, the wounded horse struggled back onto its legs, spinning into a retreat.
Titus immediately wished he had used the lead ball on the warrior who clambered to his feet now and staggered away, dragging a leg painfully, clutching a hip with one hand.
“Where are you, Scratch?”
The moment he twisted to crane his head over the edge of the wash, Bass heard another boom from the mouth of the draw. Below the spreading patch of oily gun smoke, Sweete handed the woman the empty weapon and took a loaded rifle from her. Below him he could make out Flea’s inconsolable whimper and Magpie’s voice attempting to soothe her little brother.
Realizing his mouth was dry, that he was breathing fast and shallow, Scratch quickly surveyed their plight. While the coulee had given them some temporary shelter the moment the war party had charged, that coulee might well be their mass grave if the horsemen were able to take up positions above them. Like shooting fish in a rain barrel.
Ride the Moon Down Page 50