Reno got only a glimpse of the blade of the knife as it flashed underneath the white moon, but he felt it bury into his side that Malachi Murchison had ripped back at Bridger’s Fort so many days before.
The rifles fell to the ground, and Reno knew better than to reach for either one of them. He needed both hands if he wanted to live.
Gritting his teeth, he felt the Siksika brave jerk the knife free. As the hand came down again, Reno reached up with both of his to stop the blade from piercing his heart. The Indian grunted, tried to pull back, and Reno let him do just that. The brave had expected resistance, but Reno went with him and then jerked to his left. Both men slammed onto the ground and rolled through more stinking water as it sped to the river.
The Indian was young, strong. He refused to release his hold on the knife, and Reno didn’t have the strength to keep up. He let go. The Indian rolled over, came up, and charged.
His side bleeding, Reno grabbed a smooth stone and threw it as hard as he could.
It caught the Indian in the chest, staggered him, and sent him tumbling to the right. He dropped the knife, but came up to his knees and reached for it. Yelling out a Siksika battle cry, he held it up and then felt the hatchet that Reno threw slam into his chest. The Indian gasped, fell back, and died.
Reno grabbed a fistful of mud and slapped it on his side against the burning knife wound. He crawled to the dead Indian, ripped the medicine pouch from his neck, and slapped it against the side, too. That would have to hold him for a while. He wanted to scalp the Indian, but lacked strength and time. Back he stumbled, stopping only to pick up the two rifles, which he clumsily carried as he wove through the rocks.
He was sweating, and knew the bleeding would not stop, for the Indian had buried that blade deep. Losing his balance, he fell into the river, came up and caught his breath. He had to fish the two rifles from the cold water and drank before he washed the knife wound. It still bled, but the blood was not abnormally dark, so the blade had pierced neither liver nor kidney.
The two rifles he had to use as crutches to push himself to his feet. He felt sick, but kept moving, and when he saw the black where he had left him, he even managed to thank God.
Only then did he see that the black horse was not alone. Six pinto horses stood just to the black’s side, partially hidden by the turn in the river. On each horse, sat an Indian, and each Indian held a weapon.
CHAPTER 35
“What?” Instantly, Tim Colter came awake, screaming and pushing himself up only to feel a coarse hand slam against his mouth, cutting off his cry and pushing him back against the robe. He tasted dirt and blood on his tongue. His frightened eyes sought out the man who had him pinned down. He tried to bite the hand only to realize that he couldn’t even open his mouth.
His mind raced. What had he been dreaming? It didn’t matter. What time was it? Still dark. Where was he? Still along the river by the hot spring. Maybe. It was too dark to tell. Where was Jed Reno?
“Boy.”
That answered the latter question. Tim’s eyes began to adjust to the night.
“It’s me.”
The hand still had not moved, at least not until Tim relaxed his muscles when his brain finally emerged from the fog and he recognized the one-eyed trapper’s voice.
When the hand withdrew, Tim slowly rose off the robe into a seated position.
Reno muttered something and stood up, the joints in his knees popping. Tim wiped his mouth, spit out the bitter taste, and realized blood covered his palm and lips. He spit again. At first, he thought that Reno’s hand had crushed his lips, but on further inspection, he realized he was unhurt.
“Jed?” he called out in an urgent whisper.
No answer. Tim rolled to his feet and followed the shadow that was moving about the mule and packs. He stepped past the hot spring and came to the figure that was lighted slightly by the moon. The waxing moon was not full, but bright enough. Pretty low in the horizon, there were maybe two hours before it set. Three hours, Tim guessed, till sunrise.
The fact that he knew that made him stop to think. He had come a long way from Danville, Pennsylvania. He had come even farther over the past week or two.
Grunting, Reno managed to throw something on the mule’s back, but the exertion knocked him to his knees. Tim sprinted to him and refused to let go even when Reno tried to shrug him off, and say that he was fine.
“You’re bleeding,” Tim said.
“Quiet.” Reno relaxed. He took a deep breath and let it out. “All right, boy, here’s about the time you grow up. We gotta get your sisters and them gals out of camp—”
“You found it? You found them?”
Reno nodded. “But we need to get her done before daybreak.”
“You’re still bleeding,” Tim told him.
“Got stabbed. That’s all.” Reno said it as if he had been bitten by a mosquito. He gestured toward a dark-colored horse that Tim had not noticed. “But the Indian that done it left us this present.”
“But—”
“Time’s wasting, boy.” Reno made himself stand. “Don’t fret over me none. I stitched it up a mite with a needle and some sinew.”
“You’re still bleeding.”
“I’m also still breathing.” He gathered the end of a hackamore he had fashioned to the mule and motioned for Tim to follow with the horse that had belonged to the dead Indian . . . well, at least Tim assumed the Indian was dead.
Something was different about Reno, but he could not put a finger on it. He shook off that thought, deciding that the mountain man needed some doctoring in a hurry. “Maybe you should soak in that hot spring again,” Tim suggested. Even though the water stank, it did seem to ease Reno’s pains earlier.
“No time. We’re riding.”
* * *
Taking advantage of the moon before it sank below the mountains off to the west, Reno and Tim rode hard, the trapper pulling the mule behind him, and Tim guiding the Indian horse—a nutmeg color with two white forefeet and a white star on its head—along behind him. They rode east, and for the most part, followed the river.
Tim lost track of time, but the moonlight soon faded. Reno slowed his horse to a walk, and Tim followed suit, worried sick. They rode past a dead Indian. As the horse he led grew skittish at the smell of death and blood, Tim assumed it was the Indian that Reno had killed. He wet his lips.
Some while later, the mountain man reined in and slid from his saddle. In fact, he slid all the way to his back, groaning and cursing softly. Tim leaped from his horse and raced to the wounded man.
“I’m all right, boy,” Reno said as Tim helped him up.
“No—”
“Don’t argue. We got to hurry.”
Tim realized what was different. “Your hat’s gone.”
“Yeah.”
He thought that Reno must have lost it in the fight when he killed the Indian, but Reno chased that notion away when he said, “And when you see it again, remember, that’s a bona fides. Trust him.”
“What?” Hardly anything Reno had said since coming back to the hot spring made a lick of sense to Tim.
Suddenly, the sky lighted up all around them.
“Thunderation!” Reno smiled. “Look at that, boy.”
Tim turned, amazed at the sights above him. The black sky had turned bright with colors, mostly pale green but with jets of pink, violet, and yellow streaking and flashing and dancing. It was a beautiful, somewhat macabre, pirouette. The lights danced across the sky. Through them, he could see the glow of stars, especially now that the moon had disappeared. His mouth hung open.
“Good sign, I think,” Reno said, pulling himself to his feet.
Tim stared. He swallowed. Eventually, he spoke, his voice unsteady. “What . . . is . . . it?”
Reno worked at the rifle behind his cantle as he explained. “An omen of war, some say. Spirits of the dead, say others. Reflections from campfires down here. The Menominee back East believe those are the spirits o
f great fishermen and hunters. It’s actually the Aurora Borealis—the Northern Lights—named after Aurora, the Goddess of the Dawn. You’re blessed, boy.”
Tim made himself look away.
“We don’t have much time.”
“How do you know so much?” Tim asked. “Not just about surviving out here, but Greek things and about Indians and . . . ?”
Reno was pointing at another rifle that he had strapped to the mule. Tim hurried to get it.
“Aurora ain’t Greek, boy, she’s Roman. I disremember her Greek goddess cousin’s name. And you know some about those things yourself.”
“Well . . .”
Reno made a slight gesture, and Tim knew to check the powder in the rifle’s pan.
“You knew about Marathon. I’d never heard of it,” he pointed out.
Reno pointed at his eye patch. “You knew about Cyclops. Called me that a time or two.”
“I . . . never . . .”
Reno smiled. “You talked a mite in your sleep, boy.”
Tim could only give an awkward shrug.
“No more time for gab.” Reno pointed at the horses and mule. “Take the hackamores and secure those mounts to those rocks. Hurry.”
“Should I hobble them?”
Reno’s head shook. “No. I figure you’ll have scarcely enough time to get your hands on the hackamores.”
After Tim had completed the task, Reno walked away, holding a rifle in each hand, while gesturing with his head for Tim to follow.
They walked to a stinking gulley where bad water flowed and steamed its way into the river. Tim frowned at the smell, and through the still dancing colorful lights overhead, he studied the ditch.
“It’s smaller here, but it’ll widen and deepen when you follow it,” Reno said.
The rifle Tim held began to feel heavy.
“Just follow it. Don’t gag. Don’t talk. Stay low. Be quiet. A few places you’ll have to crawl along that ditch in that awful water. Don’t let it foul your powder, because come daybreak, you’ll have need of it. There’s gonna come along a disturbance about then. That’s when you’ll have to move, and move fast.”
Tim adjusted the powder horn, and checked his possibles sack to make sure he had plenty of leaden balls. Already, the colorful lights overhead had started to fade.
“Four horses,” Reno said. “Well, three horses and a mule is what we got. You have yours. The other three are for that gal you’re so sweet on, her ma, and your two sisters. I figure your little sister will have to ride with you. We only got four horses.”
Tim’s mouth turned dry. His stomach felt queasy, and not from the stink of the ditch. “W-w-what . . . about . . . you?”
“I won’t need a horse, boy. Get moving. Now.”
“But—”
Reno silenced him with a wave of his bloody hand. “You remember what I told you? About Fort Union on the Missouri?”
Tim nodded, but he didn’t remember doing it. Things were happening too fast. His heart raced, his fingers grew numb, and he felt fear . . . so intense, he kept hearing his mother’s screams, telling him to run. He kept wondering if he had run away because his ma told him to or if he ran because he was a coward? Would he run away again? Leave Patricia and his sisters? Leave Jed Reno?
“Follow the Yellowstone . . .” a voice sounded, and Tim realized he had spoken.
Reno nodded. “Follow it forever. Till you reach the Missouri. Then look for the trading post.”
“What . . . should we . . . maybe . . . Bridger’s place?” Tim asked.
“You got a better chance of living if you head for Union, boy,” Reno said. “Remember the hard time we had getting over them mountains.”
Tim indicated that he understood. He wanted to say more, to ask Reno another question, another ten or twenty or five hundred questions.
But Jed Reno had turned and hurried off, weaving more, with one arm pressed hard against his side even while carrying a heavy rifle.
Tim blinked once but knew he had to move. He stepped into the ditch, ducked, and began to move to the south, his moccasins splashing in the foul water.
He slipped once, and the nasty water burned his knees and hands. He came up, trying to control his breathing, and wiping the muck off his palms before checking to see that the reeking mud had not ruined his weapon. Satisfied, he moved on, but no longer in such a hurry. He looked off to the east and realized he likely had some time. He also knew better than to splash about in the water.
At some places, he had to turn on his side, inching his way from the bitter water, and the closer he got to camp, the nearer he came to the stinking springs that had carved the ditch. The water grew hotter and hotter, and the odor turned even more nauseating. Grimacing, he fought back the pain, the urge to vomit, or just say that what he was doing was a crazy idea and run back to the river and cleanse off the putrid stench.
The wondrous, colorful lights overhead were gone. What had Reno called them? Northern Lights. The Aurora Borealis? A graying sky had replaced them, and the stars began fading.
Voices sounded from the ground above the ditch. He was nearing the camp. His heart raced. He was nearing Patricia. He was closer to his sisters and Mrs. Scott.
A voice barked from right over his head, and Tim froze as he heard footsteps above him. Another man, farther off, called out something. The footsteps stopped far too close, and the voice answered in French.
Tim held his breath and tried to press his entire body into the near side of the ditch.
“What are you doing?” called one of the raiders from afar.
“Purifying this water,” the man above Tim called out, his accent French though the words were English. Water began spraying on the opposite side of the ditch. Yellow water, stinking. The man was relieving his bladder.
The urine splattered on Tim’s skunk hat, his forehead, and his nose.
He wanted to cock the hammer on the rifle, but knew better. Any movement would give away his location. He held his breath, knowing that he could not move, blink, or even think.
“Ahhhh.” The Frenchman laughed as his footsteps faded away.
Tim felt his heart begin to beat again. He pushed himself a little bit farther and turned his head to see that he had only about ten more yards to go.
He wondered, Then what?
Wait, he told himself.
Reno had said there would be a disturbance. What had he said exactly? Tim tried to recall.
“There’s gonna come along a disturbance about then.”
Tim ran that sentence through his head a couple more times.
A disturbance. Near dawn. All right. But then what was he supposed to do? Reno had not told him that.
Tim kept moving and did not stop until he reached the end of the ditch. The miserable water boiled over from the pit and into the ditch. He kept clear of the poisonous, heated water, and tried to cover his nose and mouth with his left hand.
Already, the sky was light. He could hear voices around the campground. If anyone came near the ditch, unless he was blind, he would see Tim . . . and kill him.
Wood crackled. Horses snorted. Men laughed and belched and cursed.
Another voice, though sleepy and worn, called out, “Mother.”
Tim’s heart jumped. It was Patricia Scott.
The next sound he heard was a gunshot.
CHAPTER 36
Hoofs thundered, and above the sound of the galloping horses, Tim Colter heard Jed Reno shout, “Get them home, boy!”
Another shot sounded then the yipping and guttural chants of Indians.
Tim had no plan, no orders other than to get them home, but he knew everything he had to do, everything Jed Reno wanted him—trusted him—to do. The trapper and the kid from back East had not spent much time together, but in that little time, they had developed an understanding.
Tim knew.
Reno knew.
They did not need words or written plans. They acted. They reacted.
Thumbing back
the hammer on the rifle, Tim sprang out of the ditch.
“Kill the women!” a man yelled.
Tim did not see the man who yelled, but he saw a skinny trapper with a red beard and floppy hat charge toward him across the land of bubbling springs and terrible odor. Leaning forward, Tim used the ground to steady his aim The musket kicked, and he climbed out of the ditch, ramming in more powder and shot. “Patricia!” he yelled. “Nancy! Margaret! Mrs. Scott!”
He could not look back toward the lean-to where the women were being held. He stopped loading the rifle, and grabbed the barrel, lifting the weapon and swinging it like a club. It caught another man in buckskins—maybe an Indian, or a half- or quarter-breed—across the skull as he charged Tim with a hatchet. Bone crunched, and the man fell into the boiling pit that fed the ditch. If he was lucky, Tim thought, he was dead before the water scalded off his skin.
Across the camp, Tim watched Reno ride a brown and white pinto he had never seen. His mind flashed. Where did he get that horse? Tim watched and marveled as Reno fired a Hawken and then clubbed another man as he rode past, losing hold of the fine rifle as he loped around. Spread out behind him came four—no, five—Indians in nothing but breechcloths and feathers.
Quickly, Tim reloaded the rifle, brought it up, and took aim at one of the Indians closest to Reno.
Tim’s mind worked and he held his fire. No. Those Indians were not chasing after Reno. They were riding with him.
Tim shifted his aim, found a man with a hooded coat and a red beret kneeling by a cookfire. He drew a bead on the hood and squeezed the trigger. The man straightened, turned, knocking off his red beret. He had no beard, not even a mustache, and even though he was at least fifty yards away, Tim could read the expression of shock in the man’s eyes before he fell next to the fire.
“The pony herd, Red Prairie!” That was Reno’s voice. “Run off the ponies!”
“Reno!” came another shout, a yell of pure hatred.
Tim glanced over his shoulder and wet his lips. He ran, leaping over the boiling pit with the dead body in it, and handed the rifle and powder horn to Mrs. Scott.
Colter's Journey Page 22