“Indians steal horses, mules; butcher and eat oxen. They take guns and powder, iron kettles, sometimes clothes. They steal children. They do not take wagons. They do not ride horses with shoes. They do not remove shoes from horses they steal until the iron wears away.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“White men did this.”
The simple pronouncement staggered Griff. “No. They would have to be insane. Men like Sherman’s Bummers. Animals.”
“Ja, sure. You have called them right. Here. Look at these tracks. The horses that made them were used to wearing shoes. See how that one favors the left rear? Tender. A rock bruise or somethin’.”
“It could be that they were captured horses,” Griff offered, unwilling to follow Ansel’s logic.
“See how smooth and well trimmed the hoofs had to be. Sharp impressions as though fairly new shoes had been removed to make them look like Indian ponies. And too heavy. Indians feed their animals entirely on grass. These horses are used to grain. Over here. Look, some droppings. See the grain.”
“Could have been left by one of the horses on the train.”
“Ja, sure, mebbe so. But one thing more bothers me, even at the other sites there were Indian bodies, to me this is proof Indians did not do these things. Only renegades who have been cast out by their tribes and families will leave bodies behind. Their relatives will travel hundreds of miles to recover bones so the spirit may join its ancestors. I am not a scout. A … true frontiersman. Ja, sure. But I know what I see. White men rode with the Cheyenne.”
Griff became livid. He shook with fury and his voice quavered. “Then I will … find … them … and kill each one… slowly… painfully … until one of them tells me where my son is. Then I will hang that one.”
“Do not follow them into their madness,” Ansel sagely cautioned. “Let the law do it.”
“No. I am the law in this instance. I am the judge, the jury, and by God’s grace, the executioner. So help me, I will find them.”
Griff turned away and began to gather items to be used for identification when they reported this to the nearest outpost of Ft. Laramie. When the pair swung into their saddles again, the sun had nearly set. But by unspoken agreement they wanted badly to get away from this grim spot before stopping for the night.
Two miles farther east along the wagon road, they found Evan’s blacksmith wagon. The heavy conveyance had bogged down in soft sand to one side of the ruts. The mules had been exhausted from trying to free the ponderous vehicle and the thieves had shot them in the traces. Griff said nothing, yet the expression on his face would have struck terror into the men responsible.
Chester Braithwaite didn’t like it at all. More renegade Cheyenne and outcasts from other tribes had joined them in their excursion. They had hit the second wagon train and taken it easily. There had been a boy among the survivors, wiry and tough for his size. He had wounded two of Braithwaite’s men and the colonel decided to dispatch the lad himself. While the braves and his long riders pleasured themselves with the women, Braithwaite stalked across the corpse-littered circle of wagons to where Two Otters held the youngster. That’s when the argument began.
“I’ll take him now,” Braithwaite offered. “A bullet in the back of his head will calm him plenty.”
“Let go of me! Let go, damn you, you shit!” the boy yelled in a piping voice. He struggled in Two Otters’ grasp and swung a vicious kick at the tall Cheyenne warrior.
“No,” Two Otters declared. “I have lost a son. A boy his age. He is brave. He shoot your men. He hit me with rifle.” Two Otters grinned and pointed to a spreading black bruise close to his left eye. “I take. Make him Cheyenne.”
“My orders are no survivors. Let me have him.”
“We fight over this boy. You die, many of your men die. Two Otters take boy anyhow. Why fight? We like raiding with Breat’watte. Much treasure to take woman, such whis-bah to drink. Much sweet white powder to eat. Cof-fee. We raid, kill, take scalp. One little boy. What’s he mean? I keep or we fight.”
Braithwaite still shuddered thinking of the maniacal glow in Two Otters’ eyes. He had, in the end, relented. After all, no one would ever see the child again. He might as well be dead. Living with the Cheyenne he would become a smelly savage like them. Who would know? Certainly not the Consortium. Besides, it soothed him to make decisions for himself. He had wealth, power in the form of thirty-seven men willing to follow him anywhere, a quick mind, and tactical experience which rivaled that of many officers he had known. It might be time for him to strike out on his own. First, though, he would do one last thing for the Consortium.
He would find … and kill Griffin Stark.
Chapter Eleven
FROM A DISTANCE, it looked like nothing more than a low earth mound with the top lopped off and sides squared to military precision. Its brown sameness was unrelieved, except for the huge wooden gates, standing open now, and the tall flag staff with Old Glory snapping in the stiff prairie breeze. When Griffin Stark and Ansel Thorson approached, after a two-day ride from the massacre site, they felt somehow uneasy. Perhaps it was the dozen conical lodges a quarter-mile from the outpost, their slender pine poles thrusting, fingerlike, to the sky, their brightly painted buffalo-hide covers tightly stretched. Or the silent, sullen looks of the handful of adult male Indians, who watched them ride past with insolent stares and lips curled into sneers. Unlike Forts Kearny and Laramie, they saw no laughing, naked brown children. Only timid small faces that peeped from tepee doorways and disappeared again. Once past this menacing assemblage, they heard the high, thin cry of a sentry.
“Corporal of the Guard, Post Number Two. Riders approaching from the west.”
The easy familiarity of it relaxed some of Griff’s tension. Post Number Two was always the main gate. Post One, the headquarters, Three the provost marshal’s office and guardhouse, Four and Five the front guard towers and so on. How easy to get involved in the comforting, reassuring sameness of army routine. Griff flexed his shoulders, sloughing off the tightness. When they reached the entrance, he made his request of the guard mount corporal.
“We would like to see the outpost commander. There’s been an attack on a wagon train.”
“Bert Russel’s string?” the corporal inquired, suddenly wide-eyed.
“Yes.”
“Right this way, sir.”
Captain Jim Mitchel turned out to be a small, intense man with rabbity features and deadly snake eyes. He listened while Griff and Ansel recounted what they had discovered, including the Mormon massacre, then selected a slim, hand-rolled cigar from a leather-bound humidor on his desk and bit off the end.
“Any idea how many hostiles?”
“More than thirty. Ja, sure,” Ansel offered his opinion. “An’ Captain, not all of them were Indians.”
“What?”
“I counted more than fifteen different sets of hoofprints that clearly showed the animals had been shod up until the time of the raid. Not grown-over hoofs that had the shoes taken off by Indians. Fresh. Ja, sure. I am positive of that. Many of the others had been well fed and generally heavier than war ponies. They also left their dead on the field.”
Mitchel puffed smoke in frowning contemplation for a long ten seconds. “Ansel, if you hadn’t scouted for the Sixth for ten years, I would wonder what you had been drinking to come up with such a wild tale. You’re sure it’s renegade whites?”
“Ja, sure, Captain. They must have figured that no one would come upon the wagons until the tracks had been wiped out.”
“More like they were ignorant of such things,” the captain suggested. “I’ll get a patrol ready now. Would you two accompany them? Regular scout’s pay, prorated for the time you are out?”
Ansel glanced to Griff. “If that’s what you want, sir. Yes,” Griff answered for them both.
Ten Kills sat his pony, filled with pride although his head throbbed from the last of the whis-bah he and his friends had consumed the night b
efore. They rode north, to contact others whom he knew would gladly join in this fight against the white man. The heavy metal object that hung from around his neck was a real trophy of war, not a symbol of weakness and surrender like the shiny discs given at treaty councils with the Grandfather Washington’s men.
The Blackbird men – so named for their coats-with-long-tails and the fluttery movements of their arms – had lied and stolen the prairie. Now Ten Kills and the other brave warriors would take it back. Only one thing bothered him, outside of his stupendous hangover.
Why would the white-eye, Breat’watte, and his men ride with the Cheyenne? Was he not an enemy too? When the others had been driven out, the blue coats and the ground scratchers, then could the People not turn on Breat’watte and destroy him like the rest? Yes, they already had many trophies, many scalps to show. How envious the braves would be who didn’t go. Next time they would all leave their reservation home and join the fight. If only he could take back things of the blue coats. Something to prove that they could be defeated. Ten Kills started, then jerked his pony around in a tight circle below the ridge. He signaled his followers to halt.
The Great Spirit worked in strange ways, he marveled. Here he’d asked for a small enough group of blue coats to let them have a victory and before the thought had ended, lo, a little string of the pony soldiers came riding right to him. Ten Kills dismounted and signed the other warriors to do the same. Quickly he outlined what he had seen.
“We’ll be there in another hour,” Griff informed the young lieutenant leading the patrol.
“Filthy savages,” the fresh second lieutenant spat. “It’s inhuman to make war on women and children. I hope we get a chance at the heathen mongrels.”
A moment later, his wish was granted.
Screaming Cheyenne charged at the small column from in front and one side. Ten warriors against forty-two troopers and two civilians. The Cheyenne had an advantage in surprise and the fact they had their weapons ready, while the soldiers did not. Like a scorching devil wind off the desert, they swept through the ranks without pausing for individual combat.
They left behind six troopers on the ground.
“Sergeant!” the inexperienced officer shouted.
“Prepare to dismount! … Dis…mount! Horse handlers forward. Platoon … draw carbines! Form a defensive position and fire on my command.”
With whirlwind swiftness, the Cheyenne turned and raced back, dividing into two groups that swept past the cavalry’s front.
“Take aim! … Fire! Reload. Take aim! … Fire! Reload. Fire!”
Thick powder smoke obscured the targets of both sides. Four more troopers lay in the dirt, dead or nearly so. Only one wooden Cheyenne war saddle had been emptied. Beside Griff, firing at targets of opportunity, Ansel shook his head in resignation.
“All wrong. The boy lieutenant is making mistake. The Cheyenne are good, ja, sure. But they don’t like the long knives.”
“You old faker,” Griff admonished. “You told me you wanted to come out here to see country you’d not been to before. Here, all the time, you had been a scout.”
Ansel only grinned and shot another warrior from his pony. “What do you mean, ‘they don’t like the long knives?’ ”
“Sabers. That’s something they don’t understand. Ja, sure.”
Griff hurried to the young officer. “Get the men up. Have them use sabers. A mounted counterattack.”
The green officer turned a sickly white face to Griff. “Are you crazy, mister? The Cheyenne are the finest light cavalry in the world. They’d eat us up on horseback.”
“No. Listen to me. They shy away from sabers. Ansel told me just now.” The lieutenant only stubbornly shook his head.
Griff ran to his own horse, drew his ornate saber and swung into the saddle. The Cheyenne charged again.
A big .54 caliber Sharps slug made a meaty smack when it punched through the young lieutenant’s forehead. Two arrows burrowed deep in his back before he finished twitching out his life. Griff spurred Boots and ran the length of the defensive line.
“Up! Get up for Christsake! Sergeant, mount the troops, draw sabers and prepare to charge!”
“Yessir!” To his surprise, the sergeant found himself responding to the whiplash of command in Griff’s voice with a snappy salute. “Horse handlers to the line! Prepare to mount, odd and even. Mount one … mount two. Draw sabers! Echelon right and left into line …” His eye went to Griff.
“Trumpeter, sound the charge!” Griff commanded, thrilling again to the excitement of leading troops into battle.
Golden notes filled the air, for a second drowning out the shrill war cries of the attacking renegades. The remainder of the patrol surged forward, sunlight glinting off naked blades. Suddenly the tables had turned.
Ten Kills looked at the oncoming wave of blue, saw the twinkling spots of brightness on the upraised sabers. Suddenly deprived of his battle lust – he knew what the cold steel could do – he whooped at his men and they released one more volley of arrows and bullets. Then they tried to run.
The stamina of their grass-fed ponies had been mostly used up in successive charges, now they could not match the energy of the big, well-grained cavalry mounts. Slowly the gap closed.
Griffin Stark angled his attack directly toward the tall war chief with the odd-looking medallion. To both sides he saw the troopers close, arms raising and lowering rhythmically, silver blades turning crimson amid shrieks of the dying Indians. With a jolt, Boots’ broad chest smashed into the front shoulder of Ten Kills’ pony.
Ten Kills tried to swing a war lance to his defense. Too late. Griff’s saber made a trail of light through the air and ended in a gory splash as the keen edge sliced through Ten Kills’ left wrist. The lance fell to the ground, dead fingers still clutching it. The Starr in Griff’s left hand roared and another brave flipped backward out of sight, propelled by a .44 slug. Ten Kills shrieked defiance.
Griff turned back to him, eyes wide at the sight of the steel-headed tomahawk that the Cheyenne warrior hefted in his right hand. He jerked Boots back a second before the deadly weapon whirred past his ear. Again the gold-chased saber whistled through the scorching midday air.
A moment of intense pain, then Ten Kills felt nothing at all. He still sat astride his favorite war pony, rigidly erect, until his head tilted to one side and fell into the churned up dirt at his mount’s feet. Blood geysered in twin columns. His body went slack and slid from the saddle.
“Regroup!” Griff shouted over the tumult. “Hit them again.”
In ten minutes the battle ended. Only one Cheyenne, a young boy of sixteen or so, managed to escape. He rode furiously across the rolling plains until he disappeared beyond a grassy swell.
“Ye did that right smart, Mr. Stark,” the sergeant complimented Griff a minute later. “Were ye by chance ever in the cavalry?”
Griff hesitated only a fraction of a second. “Stuart’s. Army of Northern Virginia. I commanded a squadron … at the Wilderness.”
To Griff’s surprise, the sergeant rendered him another snappy salute. “By yer leave, Major. An’ now that we have us no officer to command, would yerself consent to take charge until the patrol is ended?”
Gravely, Griff returned the military courtesy. “Thank you, Sergeant. If that’s what you want.”
When the patrol returned to the fort, Griff was anxious to start to look for Jeremy. Tentatively Ansel agreed. Two old-timers had shown up, one of whom spoke Cheyenne. Griff prevailed upon him to join the search. Technically, the Cheyenne were at peace with the white man. Some lived on the designated reservations, others farther west in the wild lands beyond the Yellowstone country. Griff also learned that his friend, Damien Carmichael commanded an outpost on the edge of the unearthly Yellowstone Valley.
They would, he declared, make a wide sweep of the Cheyenne camps and end up at Outpost Eleven. A drop-in visit to Damien would surely raise both their spirits, Griff figured. Whether he found Jeremy or n
ot.
What darkened his thoughts and added skepticism to his outlook was the object he had seen around the decapitated Cheyenne’s neck. After the battle, he examined it closely.
“See this, Ansel,” he offered the odd, three-pronged metal device to his friend. “Look closely at it. Remember what the postmaster in Broken Bow told us?”
“Ja, sure. That your brother-in-law had built all sorts of tools to fit the end of his stump.”
“See these straps, the way they are attached to this cone of hammered iron? And, they are welded onto the outer surface in a way that, I would guess, would let the wearer operate a forge bellows. This buck and the others must have been on the raid. Maybe he killed Evan … or Julie. We have to find out—run down the others and know once and for all. Maybe, just maybe, that way we will also find Jeremy.”
Chapter Twelve
SILVER CREEK, COLORADO Territory, teemed with people. Miners jostled each other on the muddy tracks that served as streets, hucksters of every variety plied their wares. An early morning rainstorm had turned the clayey soil into a sticky morass. Chester Braithwaite and five of his most trusted henchmen: Lyman Dawes; Mitch Gordon; Leo Lakin; Finn McDougal, and Syd Guthrie rode through the swarm of men and animals, shouldering them aside with their sturdy mounts. At Braithwaite’s signal, they reined in at a tie rail outside a large saloon.
“I’ll be next door at the Wells Fargo office. You boys don’t get drunk without me.” Two years on the frontier had broken some of the smooth edges off the former colonel. At least publicly, he spoke with a cruder vernacular, carried himself like a seasoned Indian fighter, and wore the nondescript clothing of his contemporaries.
Inwardly, he still appreciated the finery of life, the things of which the war had deprived him. Alone, in the small cabin he rented, he used his accumulated wealth to furnish it in exquisite taste. Fine crystal decanters brightened the sideboard and only the best liquor ever filled them. Heavy drapes covered the oiled paper windows, and a comfortable wingback chair sat near the fieldstone fireplace. Above all, he cherished his privacy and the secret life of luxury he enjoyed out of sight of the ruffians and drifters he had to work with. His fastidious nature caused him to grimace at the thick clots of mud that clung to his high-top boots as he stepped onto the narrow plank walk in front of the stage-line office.
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