Reno halted his horse. He guided the animal with his knees, for the hackamore had been dropped over the dun’s neck, and one hand held each rifle butted against both thighs.
At the edge of the camp, one of the Indians, resplendent in his colorful buckskins, rode a few yards ahead before stopping his black horse. To the Indian’s right came the second Indian, younger, thin, and stripped down to nothing but breechcloth, the hackamore in his teeth, his hands supporting a long bow already nocked with an arrow. The third man, small, thin, with a face painted black as if he were an Indian marked for war, came along the other side of the Indians to Jed Reno’s right.
Even over the distance, Tim heard the big gun’s hammer as it was pulled to full cock.
“Reno!” the white man called out, the word echoing in the morning air. “Who’s the runt with you?”
Jed Reno did not answer.
Maybe he was too hungover from the damage he had done to the jug of whiskey yesterday, but Tim figured it had to do with something Reno had told him a few days back on the trail. “Don’t waste words when it comes to a fight. Just get her done.”
The next word the white man spoke sounded like a profanity. Then, the two Indians kicked their horses into gallops. The white man waited a few moments, then his horse powered forward, circling wider than the two Indians who came straight ahead.
Reno barked something and rode out to meet the charging racers.
Tim could not take his eyes off what was happening. It seemed like something out of a storybook, like one of those tales he had heard and read about knights back in England dueling each other with lances. Except Jed Reno carried no lance, just two flintlocks, and was outnumbered. He had only two shots in those rifles, and he faced three men. Tim glanced at one of the pistols in his belt. He wanted to kick the pinto into a gallop, but could not make himself do it.
Was he a coward? Was that why he had run when his ma told him to . . . when the bandits attacked their camp? Could that be why he had lived and his parents had died? Had that been the reason he had hidden out all night in that smelly beaver dam? He tried to tell himself that he was just doing what Reno had told him to do. Stay there.
The horse wanted to run. Tim had to pull back on the hackamore to keep him from joining the chase.
He heard the report of the first shot.
A moment later, he felt an arrow whiz past his head—a wild shot from the young Indian. Blinking, Tim tried to come to terms with what seemed to be happening. Who fired the first shot?
He saw the white smoke, though it was far beyond horse and rider, and realized it had been the Indian riding in the center. The Indian pitched a long rifle, and as if he were a magician, a long spear appeared in his free hand. Near him rode the younger Indian, who sent an arrow flying almost as soon as he had fired one. Tim wanted to see where the white man was, but he could not take his eyes off the charging Indians and Jed Reno, who was galloping right into their midst.
If he lived to be older than Methuselah, Tim Colter would never believe what he saw nor understand how it could have happened.
Riding his dun, Reno rode right between the two Indians, ducking as the one in the center sent his lance sailing. Aiming both rifles, he braced the stocks on his hips and squeezed both triggers as he rode at a hard gallop. The guns boomed as one.
On Reno’s left, the younger Indian flew off his horse’s back. The horse kept galloping. He landed, bouncing several times through the grass, and then lay still.
To Reno’s right, the big horse carrying the Indian in the beautiful buckskins tumbled, sending the brave flying over the horse’s neck as the horse rolled head over tail, several times, before it stopped, never to rise again.
Another shot came, and Reno’s horse toppled, but the mountain man leaped off before the great dun collapsed. He no longer held his rifles, having tossed them aside as soon as he fired both shots. He came up limping, whipping a knife as he ran awkwardly.
Tim couldn’t see clearly as everything happened so fast.
The Indian in the fine buckskins strode toward Reno, a knife in his hand. They slashed as they ran past one another, both men leaping at the last second to avoid his opponent’s blade.
Quickly, Tim looked away from the fight. He had to find the man, the white man. Sure enough, he saw him . . . galloping away, tossing his smoking musket into the grass. He had fired the shot that had killed Reno’s great horse. Fired from a distance, the coward. He rode away, drawing a pistol from his belt.
Reno and the Indian locked arms. They pulled each other close. The Indian’s head came forward, trying to smash Reno’s nose, but the trapper jerked back, falling backwards, only to bring his knees up and catapult the Indian head over heels. Down went the Indian. Quickly, both men sprang up, Reno to his knees, the Indian all the way to his feet.
The Indian shifted the knife, brought it back, prepared to throw it from a distance of ten yards, but Reno threw his first. Over the fading echoes of the gunshots, Tim heard a piercing scream.
Down the Indian went, holding his stomach and raising his head to the sky, singing a strange song.
He had a knife in his gut, buried to the hilt, and he was singing? Tim couldn’t believe it.
But he had no time to think, for that yellow-livered white man with the black face came charging with a pistol in his hand, the arm holding the short gun fully extended as the horse galloped closer and closer to Jed Reno.
Reno tried to stand, but fell. He pushed himself to his knees and moved back, away from the charging horseman. Tim tried to pull a pistol, though he knew that the horse and rider were far out of range, and that no matter how many rotting tables he had shot, hitting a moving target was far beyond his skills.
The rider yelled but did not fire the pistol, waiting to close the distance. Still moving on his knees, Reno suddenly lunged for the ground. The horse and white man were practically on top of him. The black-faced man reined hard to pull his horse to a stop then something shot out of the ground and the man was screaming, falling off the side of the horse. Several sidesteps later, it raced after the Indian horse long out of view.
Tim had to move. He slipped from the saddle, pulled the screw-barrel .45 from his belt, and left his horse, the spare, and the pack mule. Heart racing, he ran across the campground, sweating, fear rising in his stomach.
Reno stepped toward him, fell to a knee, then stood up.
The white man with the blackened face lay on his back with a post sticking up from him.
Suddenly, Tim stopped . . . and almost threw up. It wasn’t a post. It was a spear. The lance the well-dressed Indian had wielded.
Jed Reno took another step, but had to stop to grip his right thigh where an arrow stuck out of his leg.
CHAPTER 29
Not one arrow, but two. Tim had seen the one sticking out from the side, but about halfway up to Reno’s hip, he saw another. Blood oozed from the buckskin britches. Reno’s face had turned ashen, but he kept moving. At least, he tried to. Grunting in pain, he fell to his knees and toppled forward, but managed to keep himself up with his arms.
Tim ran to his side.
The Indian kept singing that guttural chant.
Putting both hands on the mountain man’s shoulder, Tim helped him back to his knees.
“Where?” Reno’s muscles tightened in pain. He gasped, “Where . . . is . . . he?”
The Indian still sang.
“Mur—” The one-eyed man grunted. “Murchison. Gotta . . . talk . . .”
Tim could not believe Reno’s strength and determination. The man came to his feet with only slight assistance from Tim, who had been trying to unloosen his bandanna to wrap around the man’s bleeding legs. Blood soaked the pant legs of Reno’s buckskin britches, but he moved, leaning on Tim for support.
The white man lay in the grass, both hands gripping the shaft of the lance that had pinned him to the ground. Blood gurgled from this mouth, his face whiter than even Reno’s—except for the black markings.
>
It took every ounce of strength Tim had to keep from throwing up at the sight of the dying trapper.
His face had not been painted for war, but blackened by dirt . . . or gunpowder, perhaps. Tim had heard of that happening, the black grains becoming embedded beneath the skin, scarring a man for life.
“Murchison.” Reno pulled away and fell to his knees beside the little man who had tried to kill him, and who had killed the fine dun horse.
Tim could not feel pity for the dying man. He felt nothing.
He turned around, taking in everything. The dead Indian—a boy not much older, perhaps not even as old as Tim himself. The dead horses. The smell of blood and gunsmoke and death rising in the air. The other Indian, still clutching his belly, but on his knees, looking at the sky, singing whatever song it was. Maybe it was some kind of prayer. Blood also spilled from the Indian’s lips. Coughs interrupted his song.
“Reno . . . you . . . kilt . . . me.”
The words, sounding more like a boy crying than a man, returned Tim’s attention to Reno and the man with the spear sticking out of his gut.
“Someone . . . was . . . bound to,” Reno told him.
“I . . . know.” The dying man shut his eyes tight.
“Where is he?” Reno asked. “Where is he going?”
The man’s eyes opened, and his head turned, sending a mouthful of blood onto the already red-stained carpet of grass. As the light faded from his eyes, the little trapper with the face marked black, whispered, “Hell.”
Tim waited. So did Reno. But the little man spoke no more, although his eyes kept staring at Jed Reno. It took a while before Tim realized that the man was dead, and that he saw nothing—at least, nothing near the Green River.
Still, the Indian sang, and coughed, and sang.
Reno dropped to his buttocks, breathing heavily.
Tim remembered the bandanna and handed it to him.
“Boy, get that jug. Off the mule. Need it.”
Tim’s legs carried him fast as he could to the horses and mule he had left to graze, unhobbled, not picketed. The pinto lifted its head, but did not run, just went back to eating the tall, lush grass. Tim went to the mule, remembering what Reno had told him. “Never come up directly behind any horse or mule. Make sure they can see you. Or feel you. If you walk around a horse or mule, keep one hand on his body. You don’t do that. You’re apt to wake up with a mighty bad headache or never wake up at all.”
“Easy, boy.” Tim put his left hand on the mule’s neck, rubbing it in a counterclockwise direction, while his right hand reached for the jug Reno had tied for easy access. He saw another sack, and remembering what was in it, he let go of the jug, which fell harmlessly to the grass, and pulled out a wooden container from the leather sack. Finally, gathering the jug and the stoppered piece of hollowed-out wood, he raced back to the one-eyed trapper, praying that he would still be alive.
Reno lay beside the dead man, eyes closed, his chest rising and falling rapidly.
Tim slid to a stop on his knees, and as Reno’s eyes fluttered, he pulled out the cork from the jug and splashed the contents on the two arrow wounds.
The language exploding from Jed Reno’s mouth and the fire in his eyes caused Tim to fall back, spilling more of the Taos Lightning onto the ground.
Reno had pushed the upper part of his body halfway up with his arms. He cursed more, fell back, came up wailing. Tim swallowed back fear.
“Boy!” Reno managed. “What—” More profanity. “Whiskey!”
Tim found the jug.
“I thought you wanted me to cleanse the wounds.”
“I wanted . . . to . . . drink it.” Reno fell back down.
Tim handed him the jug, but the mountain man lacked the strength to lift the container.
“Cut off . . . my britches.” Reno shook his head, trying to keep his mind free.
Tim reached for Reno’s sheath and realized that it was empty. He swallowed, knowing where he would find the mountain man’s knife.
Suddenly, he understood just how quiet it was. The Indian no longer sang or coughed. Looking up, Tim saw the Indian in the beautiful buckskins lying on his side, eyes closed. Tim made himself stand and cross the few yards till he came to the dead Indian. Dropping to his knees, he reached forward, and grasped the big handle to the knife, half-expecting the Indian’s eyes to open and his hands to grasp Tim’s wrists. But the Indian did not move. Tim pulled the knife free, choked down more bile, and wiped the blood off on the dead man’s beautiful leggings. He drew in a deep breath, let it go, and ran back to Reno.
Once he had cut away the buckskins, freeing them from the two arrows and pulling them down, he stared at Reno, who had managed to find the jug and take the last two swallows of whiskey. In stark contrast to his sun-browned face and hands, his legs were white as snow except for the dark bloodstains.
Tim wiped his mouth. “Do I . . . pull them . . . out?”
Reno’s head shook. “Might leave the arrowhead in that way. No telling what the Piegans dipped them in. You gotta push.”
Tim found the lower arrow first, the one sticking out from Reno’s side. It seemed to be deeper, and less likely to hit any bone. He gripped it with both hands and pushed. His hands were so sweaty, they slipped off the shaft and landed on Reno’s white leg.
He cried out in pain.
“Sorry.” Tears welled in Tim’s eyes, and, try as he might, he could not stop them from rolling down his sunburned cheeks.
“Get her done, boy,” Reno said, and gritted his teeth.
Tim found the arrow again and shoved. The arrow moved. He pushed it again, and Reno cried out as the obsidian point broke free just above the back of Reno’s knee.
Tim paused, wondering what to do next. He couldn’t push the arrow all the way through the man’s leg.
“Cut off the head,” Reno said. “Then pull the shaft out.”
Again, Tim found the big knife and cut free the dark arrowhead, which he tossed aside. After wiping his eyes, and not caring about the bloody stains he had made on his tear-stained face, he grabbed the shaft higher, just below the beautiful feathers, and pulled. The arrow came free, and Reno only grunted—did not cry out—and Tim fell onto the grass. He held up the arrow then, sickened by its sight, quickly tossed it away.
“Other one . . . boy.”
Tim found it, but feared it might prove more of a challenge.
“Just don’t ram it into my manhood, boy.” Reno even managed to smile.
Not much chance of that, Tim thought.
The arrow was higher on Reno’s thigh, a few inches below the hip, but on the other side of his crotch. Tim gripped the shaft and shoved. Reno grunted again. Tim shoved again. And again. He had to push with all his might before the skin on the back of the one-eyed man’s leg gave way with a sickening sound, and the arrowhead was out.
Without waiting for Reno’s instructions, Tim found the knife again and cut the arrowhead free. He gathered enough strength to grab the shaft, and pull, and pull, and pull until the rest of the missile came free, and he tossed it aside.
Reno lay down, breathing rapidly as Tim stared at the ugly wounds. Mixing a few curses with prayers, he grabbed the wooden container, removed the stopper, and dumped some liquid into the holes where the arrows had first entered Reno’s leg.
More profanity. More shouts. Tim had to dodge the weak attempt of a punch Reno pulled.
“What the—? What did—?” Reno could not finish.
“Beaver bait,” Tim told him.
“Why . . . in—? By Jupiter, why would you—?”
“You said it was a cure-all. Fixes gunshots . . .” Tim wiped away tears.
Somehow, Reno managed to laugh as he lay on the ground. His head shook and he said in a hoarse voice, “Help me up, boy.”
Tim started to, but stopped.
“Don’t worry. I won’t . . . hit you.”
When the mountain man was sitting up, reaching down and grabbing his thigh, he stared at the
wounds.
“They’re still . . . bleeding,” Tim said.
Reno could only manage a quick nod. After another curse, he straightened, and grabbed another thong hanging around his neck. Tim helped him remove the powder horn, which Reno handed to him.
“Pack the front holes first, boy.”
“With gunpowder?”
Reno nodded, already pulling the pipe and tobacco pouch out of his gage d’amour. While Tim packed the two bloody holes with gunpowder, Reno leaned on his side and began using flint, steel, and tinder to get a small fire going.
Tim wasn’t sure what Reno meant to do. Maybe gunpowder would stop the bleeding.
Once his wounds were packed, Reno discovered that the bandanna had come off when his britches pant leg had been cut off. He rewrapped it above the highest wound, tying the knot as tight as he could. “All right.”
Tim looked up. Reno had sat up again, puffing on his pipe.
“Best pack the exit wounds, too, boy.”
Tim nodded, and did as he had been ordered.
Reno looked at Tim and understood. “If you’re going to throw up, now’s a good time to do it. Over yonder. Don’t want you to blow up with me.”
“Mister . . .”
“Go on, boy.”
Tim came to his knees, then feet, and slowly wobbled over toward the youngest dead Indian. He glanced back as Jed Reno pulled hard on the pipe, and then lowered it to the highest wound, turned the pipe over, and touched off the black powder.
CHAPTER 30
Tim raced to Reno, who lay on his side, alive but unconscious. He saw the ugly wound, the stench of burned flesh turning his stomach. The bleeding had stopped, but only for that wound. The three other holes poured blood, and most of the gunpowder he had packed in the wounds had been washed free by the blood.
Tim looked at the flint and steel the trapper had dropped. He had not gotten much of a fire going, just enough to light his pipe. Tim ran around, gathering what twigs and dried droppings he could carry and rushing back to Reno’s side. He put just a little handful of dry grass and twigs in a depression in the grass, lay the tinder atop it, and began working flint and steel.
Colter's Journey Page 18