When Red Shirt was settled, Joel stepped back and looked about him at the people pressing close around him. Like wolves crowding around a buffalo calf, he couldn’t help thinking. But he could sense a feeling of open curiosity, not one of hostility. A good thing, he thought, because I ain’t in much of a position to do anything about it, if they decide to turn hostile.
The crowd behind him parted then to permit an elderly man through. Joel knew at once that he was either the chief or the medicine man. He was surprised when the distinguished-looking man spoke to him in English, better even than Red Shirt’s rudimentary attempts.
“Welcome,” he said, after looking at the wounded man on the deer hide. “My name is Walking Eagle. Your friend looks badly hurt. Crooked Arrow will look at his wound.”
“Thank you,” Joel said “I appreciate your help, and I know Red Shirt does.”
The chief looked at him and smiled, nodding slowly. Then he looked more closely at Red Shirt’s wound and spoke to him in the Shoshoni language. When Crooked Arrow, the medicine man, parted the spectators again, he examined the wound carefully. Afterward, he told four of the young men to carry Red Shirt to his tipi, leaving Joel to stand undecided as to what he should do. The feeling lasted for only a few seconds before Walking Eagle took charge of his guest.
“Come,” he said to Joel. “You must be hungry. Cold Wind said that he found you while you slept, so you must need food.”
“Yes, sir,” Joel replied. “I surely would appreciate some breakfast. Red Shirt and I lost about all the supplies we had after we were attacked. At least we had our weapons and cartridges with us. I didn’t have much choice but to get him outta there after he got shot. Figured I’d hunt for something to feed us this mornin’.”
“Your friend’s wound looks bad. Crooked Arrow will tend to it,” Walking Eagle said as he led him to a large tipi in the center of the circle of lodges. Two women walked along behind them, and when they reached the tipi, Walking Eagle gave them instructions that sent them hurrying to comply.
Inside the tipi, a small fire in the center of the lodge sent a thin column of smoke up to escape through a smoke hole at the top. Joel looked around him at the snug structure of buffalo hides, and the perimeter of the wide floor where a series of large hide bags were packed with the belongings of the chief and his family. He had never been inside a tipi before. The thing that caught Joel’s eye, however, was a small coffeepot at the edge of the fire. He felt he would kill for a cup of coffee on this of all mornings, and he had been convinced that he would never get one in an Indian village.
“Come, sit,” Walking Eagle said, motioning toward some blankets at the rear of the tipi. “While my women fix you some food, we can talk about these men who killed your people.” He paused then to ask, “What are you called?”
“My name’s Joel McAllister and I can tell you right off that I’m mighty glad you speak American so well, because I don’t know your tongue at all.”
Walking Eagle smiled and repeated the name. “I was a boy when the Hudson Bay Company built a fort near the place where the Snake and the Boise rivers meet. My father was a scout for them. I learned your language then. The Hudson Bay Company left the fort many years ago, but the army opened a new fort near there and called it Fort Boise. It was to protect your white settlers passing through these mountains on their way to the Oregon country. There are soldiers there still, and they are at peace with the Shoshoni, and Colonel Wilcox there is my friend.”
He paused to give an order in his tongue to one of the women when she came into the tipi to get something from a parfleche near the back wall. She nodded vigorously and reached down to pick up the coffeepot. She must have read the look on Joel’s face, for she smiled at him before disappearing again through the flap of the tipi. He figured the women were cooking his breakfast on the big fire outside.
“These men who attacked you,” Walking Eagle said, getting back to the conversation he was most interested in, “how many were they?”
“I can’t rightly say, because I never got a chance to see them all together.” He went on to explain how he and his people split up to defend three different positions. “Red Shirt and I killed the three men who jumped us at the meadow, and we could hear the gunshots comin’ from the mine and the house, so we knew there were more than a couple more. By the time I was able to get to the rest of my people, everybody had been killed. When I went back to get Red Shirt, I counted six men pickin’ up the three we shot. But I couldn’t see how many were drivin’ our horses and cows off.”
Walking Eagle thought about it for a few moments before commenting again. “You say these were white men, but they scalped the victims?”
“That they did,” Joel answered. “They pretty much wanted it to look like Indians did it. I figure that’s why they scalped ’em, and that’s why they were so set on not leavin’ any of their dead behind.”
“I think you’re right,” Walking Eagle said. “It calls to mind a raid on a small family that had a claim on War Eagle Mountain. It was a little over a year ago. Everyone in the family was scalped, so they thought it was the work of a war party. Soldiers from Fort Boise went to Silver City to look for the Indians, but there was no sign of them anywhere. The white people in Silver City were sure it was a war party. Some said a Blackfoot party slipped into those hills that night. Some said it was Utes. Some said that maybe it was a war party from my village. But Colonel Wilcox knew better. We do not make war on the whites. It was the spring of the year, and we had already left this valley to hunt buffalo. The soldiers know that we have been wintering here in this valley, where the cold winter winds are not so fierce, for many years. I hope that the soldiers don’t come to my village to see if my warriors raided your camp.”
“If they do, you can say there are two witnesses who can tell them the killers were white men, and I know who they are,” Joel said. His comment seemed to reassure the chief.
Talk was interrupted then when one of the women, the older one, entered the tipi carrying a plate of roasted venison.
“Food,” she said in English, and smiled when she placed it before Joel.
“This is my wife, Yellow Moon,” Walking Eagle said.
“Ma’am,” Joel said with a nod.
“Please, eat,” Walking Eagle encouraged.
In a moment more, the younger woman entered, holding the coffeepot and a metal cup. She smiled shyly at Joel as she raked a little pile of coals from the fire, arranging them in a circle. Then she filled the cup with coffee, placed it before Joel, and set the pot in the little circle of coals.
“My daughter, White Fawn,” Walking Eagle said proudly.
Joel had suspected as much. He smiled at her and nodded politely. Eager to taste the coffee, he reached down for the cup, releasing it instantly when it proved to be too hot to pick up. His sudden reaction caused White Fawn to giggle delightedly.
“Burn,” she commented, then handed him a cloth she had used to hold the handle of the pot. “Wait,” she advised.
“Wait,” he repeated, feeling like an idiot for not thinking before picking up a metal cup of hot coffee.
He went to work on the plate of venison then while Walking Eagle and his daughter looked on approvingly. He hadn’t realized how really hungry he was until he attacked his food. By the time his coffee was cool enough to drink, he had only a few small chunks of meat left. He could have finished those as well, but he had been told that if a guest finished everything on the plate, his host assumed that he had not been satisfied and wanted more. Joel knew he could not put away another plate of food, so he put it down and patted his stomach to indicate it was full.
“Thank you,” he said, and finished his coffee, whereupon White Fawn immediately refilled it.
“I learned how much the white man loves coffee when I was at Fort Boise,” Walking Eagle said. “I like it, too. I get the beans at the fort. There is a tradi
ng post there.”
“Well, I appreciate it,” Joel assured him. “I doubt there’s a white man alive who loves coffee more’n I do.”
Looking very pleased, White Fawn smiled at him, then carried his plate out of the tipi. When she had gone, he thanked Walking Eagle once more for the food and said, “I’d like to go see how Red Shirt is gettin’ along now.”
“I’ll take you to him,” Walking Eagle said, and got to his feet.
Joel followed him out of the tipi and walked beside him toward Crooked Arrow’s lodge. There was still a small gathering of curious spectators outside, waiting to get a look at the white man who brought the wounded Bannock to their camp. They parted to make a path for the chief and Joel. As they walked past the large fire in the center of the circle, Joel saw Yellow Moon and White Fawn standing beside it. Yellow Moon nodded solemnly while her daughter smiled at him, then shyly looked away.
They found Red Shirt asleep on a woven mat by the fire in Crooked Arrow’s tipi. The medicine man explained that he had placed a poultice on Red Shirt’s wound that would draw some of the poison out of it, and given him some broth made of special herbs that let him sleep. With Walking Eagle acting as translator, Joel was told that Red Shirt’s wound was very serious, and that he might die if the poison was not removed.
“It is very deep,” Crooked Arrow went on to tell Walking Eagle. “The herbs will bring the swelling down. It is good that you got the bullet out, but I think he will be weak for a long time before he can be on his feet. The flesh is very angry and must be given time to drive the poison out.”
The diagnosis was worse than Joel had hoped for, and he wondered if he should have taken Red Shirt on to Fort Boise to find a doctor. If he had done so, he wondered now whether his friend would have survived the trip. Walking Eagle must have read his thoughts, for he told him that Crooked Arrow was a wise man, and that he had healed the battle wounds of his warriors for many years.
“It would be best to leave Red Shirt here where my people can take care of him. You are welcome to stay with us for as long as you want. Then you can see how he is healing.”
“I can’t stay here,” Joel said. “I’ve got something I have to do.”
As he said it, a picture of Elvira, Ruthie, and Blue Beads came to his mind as he had last seen them—scalped, their bullet-riddled bodies covered in blood. The image caused a feeling of sickness in his stomach, and each day that passed would make it worse. He knew that he could not turn back the tide of revenge that threatened to drown him until he rid the earth of such evil.
It was not difficult for Walking Eagle to guess what was eating away at the young man’s soul. He was a warrior. He understood the fury that made Joel’s heart pound.
“You must do what your heart tells you to do,” he said. “I wish you success against your enemies. We will take care of your friend, and welcome your return.”
“Thank you,” Joel said. “There are a few things I need to get before I return to Silver City. Is there a trading post near your village?”
He wanted to buy extra cartridges as well as the basic utensils he would need to survive and had lost in the raid. He was fortunate that he still had money from the weapons and things he and Riley had sold on their way out to Silver City. That, his horse and saddle, and his weapons were all that he had. Anything he had planned to accumulate in the future was to have come from his and Boone’s efforts. His plans to raise cattle and horses were the most difficult to give up, but until his blood quest was done, there was only one thing that dominated his mind—total vengeance.
Walking Eagle told him there was a trading post on the Snake River, due east of the village, not too far, but because of the mountains in between, it was a much longer trip.
“The trail is easy to follow,” he said. “You can see where my people have gone that way. The man’s name at the trading post is Beecher. He will treat you fairly.”
“Much obliged,” Joel said. “Since it’s still early, I reckon I’ll leave right now.”
The chief walked with him to his horse, where they found Cold Wind waiting to ask if Red Shirt was going to be all right. With no way to tell him, Joel relied on Walking Eagle to give him the Bannock’s status, whereupon Cold Wind nodded solemnly and smiled at Joel. Standing within earshot, Yellow Moon and her daughter heard the chief ask Cold Wind to show Joel the trail to the trading post. Since there were many trails heading out from the village, it was necessary to start on the right one. When Cold Wind went to get his horse, which he had tied beside his tipi, White Fawn ran back to her mother’s tipi. Back within a few minutes, Cold Wind started to ride, but reined his horse back when he saw White Fawn running to catch them. Hurrying to reach Joel’s horse, she held a cloth bundle up to him, a shy smile adorning her young face.
“Get hungry, need food,” she said. Then stepped quickly away as soon as he took it from her.
Surprised, he nonetheless managed to mutter, “Thank you, ma’am,” and watched her as she stepped back to stand beside her mother. “This’ll come in handy,” he added. Turning to Walking Eagle then, he said, “When Red Shirt wakes up, tell him I’ll be back. It might be a while, but I’ll be back.”
• • •
Walking Eagle had been right, there were many trails that led back and forth from the Shoshoni village. Communicating with nothing more than hand signals, Cold Wind set him on the right trail as evidenced by the many hoofprints, both recent and old, that had all but beaten out the thin covering of snow. The Shoshoni warrior sat on his horse at the head of the trail and watched him until he disappeared around the foot of the mountain. Satisfied that Joel would stay on the right path, he returned to the village.
As he had been told, he found the trail to the trading post long with many turns before finding its way through the mountains that seemed crowded shoulder to shoulder with narrow valleys. These led him through juniper-covered slopes and sheer-walled canyons. Arriving at the trading post, he found a low, flat log structure, built right into the riverbank on one side, little more than a dugout. There was no other customer about as Joel rode the gray up to the hitching post and stepped down from the saddle. As a matter of habit, he pulled the Spencer carbine from his saddle scabbard and went in the door.
“Howdy,” Horace Beecher greeted him from his rocking chair next to a round iron stove near the center of the store, which was a room with one short counter at one end and the walls on three sides lined with barrels and shelves and sacks of grain, flour, several kinds of beans, including coffee, and several big tin tubs of lard. “Don’t recall seein’ you before,” Beecher said as he placed a pocketknife and a piece of pine he had been carving on the floor beside his chair and got to his feet. “Little doll,” he said, explaining his carving. “I make ’em for the Injun young’ns that come in here.”
“Howdy,” Joel returned his greeting. “I need a few things.”
“Well, I’ve got most of whatever anybody needs,” Beecher replied.
“I need a fryin’ pan,” Joel started, then listed his basic needs, ending up with a question. “You by any chance have a coffeepot?”
“Only one I’ve got is a little one,” Beecher said, “but if you’re fixin’ to be stayin’ around here for a while, I can get you a big one in the spring.”
“Little one’s fine. I don’t need a big one—too hard to carry on a horse.”
“I swear, mister, you were about out of everything, weren’t you?”
“Pretty much,” Joel replied. “What about cartridges?”
“Forty-fours?”
“No, fifty-fours.” He held his carbine up.
“Ain’t sold many of them lately,” Beecher said. “But I got some—three boxes, as a matter of fact.”
“I’ll take all three,” Joel said. He was planning to go to war, and he didn’t want to run out of cartridges.
Looking at the assortment of supplies
and ammunition, Beecher began to worry a little. The stranger was a fair-sized man, and he was holding the carbine as if it was a natural part of him. There had been no mention of money, paper or otherwise.
“That’s a right big order,” he said. “I hope you ain’t plannin’ on robbin’ me.”
His comment puzzled Joel. “Why would you think that?” he asked. “I was hopin’ you don’t try to rob me. You ain’t told me the price for all this yet.”
His response caused Beecher to chuckle in relief. “I didn’t mean no offense. But your wearin’ animal hides and all, I thought you were most likely a trapper, but I didn’t see no packhorse totin’ pelts to trade. And I’ve been held up before.”
“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you,” Joel said, “but I was plannin’ to pay for my goods, if they ain’t too much. How much do I owe you?”
“Let me figure this up real quick,” Beecher replied, more enthusiastic now to complete the transaction since it seemed that it wasn’t a holdup. He immediately began to itemize Joel’s purchases, jotting each one down on a scrap of paper with the stub of a pencil. Finally, after checking his figures a second time, he looked up and said, “I make it out to be sixty-three dollars. You know them cartridges ain’t cheap.” He stepped back from the counter a couple of steps to wait for Joel’s reaction. When there was none to speak of, he asked, “How you figurin’ on payin’?”
“Dust,” Joel replied, reached under his shirttail to untie a small skin sack, and placed it on the counter. “There’s a good bit more than sixty-three dollars’ worth in that.”
Grateful for the sizable order, and especially the method of payment, Beecher pulled his scale over from the end of the counter and said, “I’ll round it off to an even sixty dollars just to show you I appreciate your business. I doubt if I’da ever sold that little ol’ coffeepot to anybody.”
“Much obliged,” Joel said.
Beecher helped him carry his purchases out to load on his horse, and stood watching while Joel took a few minutes to figure out how best to balance them on the gray. “You need a packhorse,” he observed aloud.
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