Preacher knew what Broken Pine meant. Big Thunder had the mind of a child and probably would never progress beyond that. He had seen such things before, as if nature balanced out an abundance of one thing by taking away from another.
“The woman traveling with you,” Broken Pine said. “What village is she from?”
“I don’t rightly know,” Preacher answered honestly. “She told us that Angry Sky’s war party attacked her village and killed most of the warriors, then carried off some women and children as captives, but she didn’t say who the chief was or anything like that.”
“And she managed to get away from Angry Sky? She must be very brave and resourceful.”
“Seems like it,” Preacher agreed. “I expect she had some luck on her side, too. But then the luck played out on her, because she ran smack-dab into a bunch of white men who’d come out here to murder honest trappers and steal their furs. A fella name of Jefferson Scarrow is the leader of that group, but I don’t know anything else about him except that he wants to get his hands on Butterfly again.”
“You took her away from this Scarrow?”
“Yeah.” Preacher smiled proudly in the darkness. “Actually, my boy Hawk That Soars sneaked right into their camp and set her free.”
“The Absaroka?”
“Yep. Scarrow and the rest of his gang have been after us ever since, and now they’ve thrown in with Angry Sky.”
“Blackfeet and white men working together?” Broken Pine sounded like he had a hard time believing that.
“I know. It’s mighty odd, ain’t it? But I reckon what it shows is that men who are evil and ruthless enough can form an alliance with each other to get what they want.”
“And once they have it, they will try to kill each other,” Broken Pine said with a wisdom beyond his years. Preacher had thought the very same thing more than once.
After a moment, the young Crow went on. “This woman Butterfly must be very beautiful if so many men want her and are willing to kill to capture her.”
“She’s a fine-lookin’ gal, that’s true enough,” Preacher said.
“I am curious. I would like to see her for myself.”
Preacher was sure that was true, and the other young men would be interested in Caroline, as well. That had the potential to create some friction between them and Hawk, but any problems like that would have to be worked out later. Survival was more important at the moment, and that meant finding his friends and lighting a shuck for that Crow village upriver.
Preacher knew that Hawk would be wondering what was taking him so long and might be on edge, so when they were close enough he sang out quietly, “Hawk, it’s me, and I’ve brought some new friends with me.”
Dog ran on ahead. A moment later, the big cur came bounding back, but he didn’t seem happy. He ran in circles and whined to let Preacher know that something was wrong.
“What is it, Dog?” Preacher asked as he and the five Crow warriors came to a stop.
Dog let out a little yip, turned in circles, and dashed off again.
Preacher was acutely aware that Hawk hadn’t answered his hail, and neither had anyone else in the party.
Quietly, he said to Broken Pine, “You fellas stay here. I’m gonna have a look around.”
“If there is trouble, we should come with you.”
“No, I reckon I can handle it, but if I holler, you and the rest o’ the boys come a-runnin’.”
Leaving them there, Preacher catfooted forward through the trees. He was close enough to the river to hear it flowing over its rocky bed. His keen eyes picked out the three dead trees that had fallen across each other. He had told Hawk that would be a good place to fort up if necessary.
No one moved around the deadfalls. He didn’t even see the horses, and it was difficult to miss anything that big, even in the moonlight.
“Hawk!” Preacher called again, louder this time. “Hawk, are you here? Charlie? Aaron?”
He almost called White Buffalo’s name but caught himself before he did. It would take some time for his brain to adjust to the fact that the garrulous old-timer was dead.
Preacher stalked up to the deadfalls and looked all around the logs. No one was there. Some of the grass nearby was beaten down, though, and that was a sure sign of feet stomping around heavily, probably during a fight. Several branches on a small bush were broken, too. Something had happened there, sure enough, and although Preacher didn’t know what it was, he could be certain of one thing.
Hawk and the others were gone.
CHAPTER 23
Earlier in the night, Angry Sky had moved his warriors on the eastern side of the river to the western bank since he now had a better idea of where his quarry was. He pushed his combined force at such a rapid pace that Jefferson Scarrow thought the horses would be worn out and unable to continue by morning.
But if they caught up, killed Preacher and the others, and recaptured Butterfly, it wouldn’t matter what the horses were capable of, Scarrow supposed. He just had to make sure all the Blackfeet were dead shortly after that, too, so he and Plumlee and the others wouldn’t have to flee with the girl.
They could rest for a while instead. He would be able to take his time with her, and then he and his men could resume the activities that had brought them out there in the first place, namely stealing furs and getting rich.
Before they had gone far enough to exhaust the horses, and after his scouts warned that they were getting close to the place where they would find who they were after, Angry Sky called a halt. He ordered his men to dismount, then told Scarrow and the others in English, “We will go on foot from here.” The sneer on the war chief’s face was evident in his voice as he added, “Are you and the others capable of moving quietly, white man?”
“We can be quiet just fine,” Plumlee blustered.
Scarrow raised a hand in a signal for him not to get carried away. “We’ll do our very best,” he promised Angry Sky. “I don’t believe we’ll give away our approach, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Be careful that you do not,” the Blackfoot said curtly. “This has gone on too long. I would be done with it.”
“I feel exactly the same way,” Scarrow said, and meant it.
They moved forward through the darkness. Scarrow noticed that several of the Blackfeet fell back a little, so that the war party was split, some in front of the white men and some behind. They were surrounded, in other words, and Scarrow was certain Angry Sky had arranged things that way on purpose. He wanted his men to be in position to betray the whites as soon as they had achieved their objective.
Scarrow didn’t intend to give the savages that opportunity. He whispered to Plumlee, “Pass the word to the men. As soon as the men we’re after are dead, they’re to open fire on the Blackfeet.”
“I like the sound o’ that,” Plumlee replied, also in a whisper. He drifted back a few steps and spoke to the next man in line in a voice too low to be overheard.
They all advanced stealthily upriver until Angry Sky motioned for them to halt and held some sort of conference with several other Blackfeet.
Scarrow wasn’t going to be left out of things, whether Angry Sky liked it or not. Boldly, he moved closer to the knot of warriors and asked, “Is something wrong?”
“Quiet!” Angry Sky snapped at him. “I sent the scouts out again, and they have returned with news. Preacher is no longer with the group we seek.”
“He’s not? Where could he have gone?”
Angry Sky shook his head. “I do not know. But it worries me.”
Such caution seemed odd coming from a war chief with Angry Sky’s evidently fearsome reputation. Scarrow said, “It seems to me this is a turn of good fortune for us. From what we’ve heard about him, Preacher is our most formidable enemy. Now we won’t have to deal with him in order to get the girl back.”
“Every Blackfoot in this land hates and fears Preacher,” Angry Sky said. “To be the warrior who kills him would bring gr
eat honor. This is something you cannot understand, white man.”
Scarrow frowned. “Wait a minute. What are you saying? That you’d rather kill Preacher than take Butterfly back from the ones who stole her?”
“I would do both,” Angry Sky declared. “My people will sing songs about Preacher’s death for many moons, and I would have them sing of me, as well.”
“So what is it you intend to do? Wait for Preacher to come back from wherever he is before you try to recover the girl?”
Scarrow knew he was treading on shaky ground by standing up to Angry Sky. The war chief was accustomed to making all the decisions and being obeyed without question. Scarrow didn’t want to be seen as weak in front of his men, though, and he reminded himself that his group actually outnumbered Angry Sky’s. If anyone should be the leader, he thought, it was him.
Angry Sky shook his head. “If we wait for Preacher to return, we must fight all of them. We strike now, while he is gone.”
“I like the sound of that.”
“But we do not kill the others. We take them prisoner.”
“Hold on there,” Scarrow said. “Why not wipe them out while we have the chance?”
“Because if we take them alive, then Preacher will have to come to us. One man against a little more than twenty. He will have no chance. Then, once he is dead, we can take our time killing the others.”
Scarrow wondered how much of Angry Sky’s plan was strategic and how much was sheer bloodlust. He wanted a chance to torture the other men in Preacher’s party. Two of them were white, so that made sense. The Blackfoot hatred for white men went back decades. Scarrow had heard that it stemmed from an incident thirty years earlier when the expedition led by Lewis and Clark first penetrated the then-unknown frontier.
But giving in to the savages’ bloodthirstiness might not be the best move.
Scarrow said, “Don’t you think that Preacher will come after us to save the girl, whether the others are dead or not? It would make matters simpler to go ahead and kill them.”
“I have decided,” Angry Sky replied in a flat, hard voice that didn’t allow for any argument.
Scarrow could tell that if he pressed the issue, it would mean a fight. A fight that couldn’t be won without suffering some losses. And once the battle began, the short-lived alliance would be over and the Blackfeet would have to be wiped out.
None of that appealed to him, so even though it went against his better judgment, he said, “All right, Angry Sky, but it may not be possible to take all of them alive. Some may fight to the death.”
“So be it, but we will spare the ones we can . . . for now.”
The anticipation in the war chief’s voice at the thought of the grisly fate he had in store for any captives made a tiny shiver go through Jefferson Scarrow.
* * *
The longer Preacher was gone, the more Hawk worried, although he wouldn’t admit that to the others . . . and was reluctant to admit it even to himself.
Logically, he knew that his father could handle any trouble the situation threw at him. Even though he and Preacher hadn’t been partners for all that long—hadn’t even known of each other’s existence until fairly recently—they had shared enough adventures since then that Hawk had complete confidence in Preacher’s ability to take care of himself.
His friendship for Charlie and Aaron, though, along with the growing affection he felt for Butterfly, made him concerned. If something did happen to Preacher, as unlikely as that was, then it would be up to Hawk to see that the others reached the safe haven of the Crow village. He was sure he could do that . . . but he would feel better about things when Preacher showed up again.
The loss of White Buffalo earlier tonight had already shaken Hawk deeply. The old-timer really had been like a grandfather to him. With White Buffalo gone, Hawk wasn’t exactly the last of the Absaroka—there were other bands scattered across the frontier—but at that moment, he felt like it.
As if sensing how troubled he was, Butterfly went over to him. “Sit and talk with me, Hawk That Soars,” she suggested, motioning with a graceful hand toward the deadfalls. “Perhaps it will make you feel better.”
“I feel fine,” he said without hesitation, unwilling to admit any weakness, especially to a woman.
“You must grieve for White Buffalo.”
“He died as a warrior would want to die,” Hawk said stubbornly. “When there is time, I will sing a song in his honor.”
“And I will sing a song of mourning for him,” she promised. “But tonight, there is nothing more we can do for him.”
The thought of sitting on one of the logs next to Butterfly and talking with her appealed to Hawk, but he still shook his head. “I must keep watch. Our pursuers may catch up to us at any time.”
“Aaron and Charlie are both watching for the enemy.”
That was true. The two young trappers held their rifles ready and stalked around the outer edges of the open area, alert for trouble. Hawk knew they didn’t have the same capabilities he and Preacher did, but he reminded himself that they had stayed in the mountains and continued trapping during the time he and Preacher had gone back down the Missouri River to St. Louis, and they had survived.
But as far as he knew, they hadn’t run into any real danger during that period. Not like the danger that currently faced them.
Still, Butterfly had to be frightened. She was just asking him for a few moments of comfort. And he could remain alert while he was sitting with her . . .
“Come,” he said. “We will sit.”
“Good,” Butterfly said as she touched his arm for a second. In the moonlight, he could see the shy smile on her face.
They moved over to the deadfalls and sat down on one of them. After a moment of silence, Butterfly asked, “What will you do once we reach Falling Star’s village, Hawk That Soars?”
“Preacher believes you will be safe there. He and I will resume trapping, along with Aaron and Charlie.”
“There is no chance that you would . . . stay there, too?”
He couldn’t be sure what she was asking, but he knew what his response was, anyway. “I cannot. I must go with Preacher.”
“Is trapping beaver that important?”
There was more to it than that—a lot more—but he wasn’t sure how much he should tell her. He knew that once freed of the responsibility for Butterfly’s safety, Preacher would want to hunt down the men responsible for White Buffalo’s death. He would avenge the old warrior. All the white men led by Jefferson Scarrow would die, and so would the members of Angry Sky’s war party. Once Preacher set off on the vengeance trail, nothing would stop him or ever slow him down for very long.
Hawk intended to be at his father’s side on that quest. He owed it to White Buffalo.
Being a woman, Butterfly would never understand that, Hawk thought. So he said, “I cannot live with the Crow. They are not my people.”
“The Crow and the Absaroka are related, and you are the last of your band. They would take you in, Hawk, you know that.”
She was right about that, of course, and he also noticed that she had just called him Hawk, as Preacher did, instead of his full name. He found himself liking that.
“They will take you in, Butterfly. They have no such obligation to me.”
“Preacher calls me Caroline,” she said, changing the subject. “It is a strange name to my ears . . . but it has a pretty sound to it.”
“It does,” Hawk agreed. “Would you rather that I call you Caroline?”
“Will you make me go to a land of strangers, as Charlie and Aaron believe is the right thing to do?”
“Back east?” Hawk shook his head. “I believe it would be difficult to locate your white family, and even if we could, they would not want you now that you have lived as an Indian.”
“You sound bitter.”
“I know white men,” he said. “I have not seen a great many of them . . . but enough to know what they are like.” He looked off
into the night. “These plains and valleys and mountains are home for people like you and me, Butterfly. I will not call you Caroline. While that may have been your name once, it is not your name now.”
She leaned against him and whispered, “I feel the same way, Hawk That Soars.”
He enjoyed the soft, warm pressure of her body. It wasn’t enough to make him forget all the bad things that had happened, but it helped. He knew he ought to get up and join Charlie and Aaron in standing guard, but he hated to leave Butterfly . . .
He happened to be looking toward Charlie when the stocky young trapper went, “Urk!” and jerked backward toward the trees. In that split second, Hawk realized someone had gotten behind Charlie, looped an arm around his neck, and pulled him violently into the shadows. If Hawk had been a white man, he would have cursed himself in that moment for allowing himself to be distracted by Butterfly’s warmth and beauty.
He leaped to his feet and cried, “Aaron, look out!”
It was too late. Two figures sprang at Aaron as if from nowhere and bore him off his feet. Hawk heard the meaty thuds of fists and feet striking flesh.
Butterfly screamed.
Hawk whirled around and saw several men charging at them from a different direction. He flung his rifle to his shoulder and fired. The sight of an attacker flying backward as if slapped down by a giant hand rewarded him.
But then the others were on him. He lashed out with the rifle butt, felt it connect solidly with flesh and bone. Then he dropped the rifle and grabbed his pistols. Before he could pull them free, however, strong, wiry hands clamped on his arms and pinioned them at his side. The struggling knot of men surged back and forth on the grass, stamping heavily on it as they tried to subdue Hawk.
Something slammed against his head and stunned him. Red explosions burst behind his eyes. His brain still worked enough for him to realize he had been struck with a war club or the flat of a tomahawk. Whatever it was, the blow left him only half-conscious and unable to put up as much of a fight as he wanted to. He tried to force his muscles to work, but they stubbornly refused.
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