Winter Rage (Mountain Times Book 1)

by John Legg

  Squire walked off and hunkered down near Bellows and the Colonel. He smelled the food that cooked over the small, snapping fire.

  “How is the boy?” Melton asked.

  “Lookin’ some better. I was certain he’d have gone under by now.”

  Melton sighed. “Have you decided when we’ll leave?”

  “Tomorrow. Just after daybreak. I want enough light to make certain Tobias gets into a travois proper. It be bad enough we got to be movin’ him so soon, I don’t want to be makin’ it any worse for him.”

  “Why don’t we spend a few days here? Give him time to regain his strength.”

  “No water, no wood, and no cover, Colonel. That be bad enough, but this chil’s ol’ bones feel a storm brewin’. We get lucky, we might be reachin’ cover afore it hits.”

  “We’ll be ready then, Nathaniel, whenever you give the word.”

  “Yep,” Bellows tossed in. “Them boys’ll be ready long afore leavin’ time. Yep. I’ll see to it.”

  Chapter Twenty

  THE men were loaded and waiting in the dark the next morning, after eating a cold breakfast. When dawn poked lazily through the high, scudding clouds, Squire carefully placed Whitaker on a new travois that was stronger and more cushioned than the first one.

  Squire wanted his sleeping robe back, especially if a storm was coming. So he had several four-point blankets pulled from the brigade’s stores. With the cottonwood poles to work with, it was but minutes before Squire had worked two blankets around the poles so they were snug and would provide a comfortable ride. He attached the travois to a horse that Bellows had chosen for its easy gait and calm temperament. Then Squire placed Whitaker in and wrapped another blanket around him.

  “Comfortable?’’ Squire asked.

  “Ah-yep.”

  “Ye be needin’ anything, ye just yell and somebody’ll be fetchin’ it for ye.”

  “I’d like my Bible. It’s with my saddle.”

  Carpenter, standing nearby, ran off and was back with the book in a few moments.

  “Ye be all right now?” Squire asked.

  “Ah-yep.”

  “Bon.”

  As the day dragged on, Squire kept a close eye on the thunderheads growing in the western sky, and on Whitaker. He finally called to Train.

  “I don’t want to be leavin’ Tobias alone, so ye and the others can do the huntin’ on your own today. Go fetch those ye’d like to be goin’ with ye, then come back here and see me.”

  Train returned in a few minutes with Li’l Jim, Carpenter and Benji. “All right, lads,” Squire said, “ye’ve all been out huntin’ with me enough times that ye ought to know what ye be doin’. Abner’s in charge. Ye others heed what he says. Always keep at least two of your guns loaded and primed. We be in Pawnee country now, so ye’d best keep your eyes peeled for ’em. And don’t be dallyin’. There be a storm headin’ on us, and I misdoubt ye’d like to be out there when it hits.”

  They nodded and hurried off.

  It was late afternoon when the four hunters returned. Their pack horses were loaded with deer and buffalo meat and hides, and even the hide, some meat and tallow from a small grizzly. Lightning sent out darting tongues and thunder cracked overhead.

  “Ye done well, lads,” Squire said over the wind. “Have any troubles?”

  “No, sir,” Train said.

  “ ’Cept for the three shots it took Abner to take down one little buffler,” Li’l Jim chuckled.

  Train reddened, but said quietly, “We done just like ya told us and never saw nothin’ but animals.”

  “Best be leamin’ to read sign better, lads, all of ye. There be Injin sign all o’er.”

  The youths looked alarmed.

  “They nearby?” Li’l Jim asked cockily, but Squire could see that he, like the other three, was scared.

  “Nay, lad. But ye got to be able to read old sign well’s new.” The brigade rode on to the edge of the wide, shallow Platte. “Ye lads be careful when ye cross,” Squire cautioned everyone. “There be quicksand scattered about, and ye ne’er can be certain just where it’ll be, this damn river shifts so much.”

  Train was first to splash across to the large island, with its cottonwood grove and stand of willows. He didn’t show it, but inside he was quaking. The other men followed, some looking more sure of themselves than others, but they all made it. Three of the horses got stuck briefly, but worked themselves free with a little help. The water, normally shallow, was little more than a wide trickle now, and the sand was dry in many places.

  The willows and cottonwoods on the island allowed them to make a comfortable camp with plenty of wood for the fires. They had fresh meat and some water. The horses would have to be content with the little grass they found, as well as cottonwood bark. The men worked to get the camp set, with one eye on their chores and the other on the thick, black clouds pushed along by the roaring wind.

  While the pork eaters made camp, Squire took the burgeoning trappers back across the river to teach them more about reading sign. He had been doing it all along, as much as possible, but this was the best opportunity he had found for it, now that they were in Indian country for real. They had been at it but a few minutes when the skies opened up and dumped rain on them. They wheeled their horses for the small camp.

  Squire realized that despite all the teaching he had done, there was so much yet for the young men to learn—and precious little time in which to do it. The flight of a bird, the fleeing of an animal, a broken twig, the impressions of a moccasin or hoof in the ground, the freshness of horse droppings or a fire told Squire much. To him it was another sense, like sight and hearing, one he did not have to think about.

  He hoped there would be more time tomorrow. But for now, he hunkered under his hastily built lean-to and ate buffalo tongue and deer meat and sipped hot, black coffee loaded with the sugar that was nearly gone.

  Despite the precautions they had all taken, by the end of the day Whitaker was soaked through and in intense pain. In his delirium he shouted imprecations against sinners and jabbered incoherently. Squire dosed him with whiskey and laudanum until the troubled youth fell into an uneasy slumber.

  Throughout the night Whitaker would wake periodically and sing out in his reedy voice, against Satan and the sinful ways of men; of the Indians and how he was coming to show them the light.

  “Merde,” Squire muttered somewhere in the middle of the night, after he had been woken by Whitaker’s ravings for perhaps the fifth or sixth time. He almost grinned when he heard someone else yell, “Shut that sumbitch up.”

  Squire rose, but before he got out of his lean-to, he saw Train bending over Whitaker, pouring whiskey and laudanum into the youth. Squire rolled back into his warm robes and fell asleep.

  In the morning, however, Whitaker was in better spirits than many of the men, who had not slept well during the night. With some relish, he gobbled down some buffalo stew—including several chunks of rich meat—for breakfast and was ready to go when the others were.

  During the long ride over the rolling, tawny, treeless plains, now a mass of mud, Squire tried to spend more time with the men, teaching them the ways of the invisible signs in the air and on the ground. Fortunately, the rain had stopped before dawn, but clouds still covered the sky and the thunder still boomed. Lightning flickered occasionally.

  Some learned quickly. A few more besides Train, Carpenter, Benji and Li’l Jim began to pick up the thread of learning, youths like Billy Von Eck and Tom Douglas. Others probably would never get it, Squire thought sadly, ones like Shanks, who trusted too much in their God to bring them through anything, not understanding that grizzly bears, Blackfeet, wolves and other troublesome critters did not believe in the same thing. Squire just hoped they would all survive.

  It was a long, cold, muddy ride that day as they tracked the wide Platte Valley, and the men were happy when the order came to make camp. Squire picked a spot near a small, clear stream, with a few straggly willows and cot
tonwoods that would provide at least some firewood and forage for the animals.

  With clear weather back on them they stayed near the rich bottomlands of the Platte, and the men got their first taste of trapping beaver. Squire patiently showed them how to find the best spot to put a trap, teaching them to get there by wading in the river to kill off the man scent.

  “Once ye do that, lads,” he told the eagerly watching crowd of eleven young men, “ye clear yourselves a flat spot in about four inches of water. It can be a bit more or a bit less, but four inches or so be about right.

  “When ye get your trap set—doin’ it with your feet be easiest—ye attach the chain here to a float stick. Then ye jam that stick deep into the river sand.”

  “What’s that for?” one asked.

  “Once the beaver gets trapped,” Squire said, “he’ll most likely head for deep water, which he be thinkin’ is safe. The weight of the trap’ll be draggin’ him down, and he’ll drown. Ye can be findin’ him—and your trap—by the float stick.

  “Now, last, ye got to set some bait for the beaver. They be real fond of cottonwood and willow shoots, so mayhap ye got some of them and ye stick it into the bank so’s it be hangin’ o’er where your trap be.”

  He did so. “But that ain’t really the bait. What be drawin’ the beaver to the trap be medicine—castoreum—which ye put in this here twig stickin’ out of the bank. Here, Li’l Jim, ye do it. ” He sat back and watched with amusement as the young men took turns baiting the twig with the foul-smelling castoreum.

  The next day, when there were several beaver in the traps they had set, Squire showed the men how to skin them. In camp, he showed the camp helpers, whose duty it would be, how to stretch the skins on hoops made of willow, and how to flesh them and tan them with buffalo brains.

  Then he asked, “Colonel, do your backers have a name for your company?”

  “No,” Melton said, a little embarrassed.

  “Well, then ye can be thinkin’ up some initials or somethin’ with which we’ll be markin’ our plews.”

  “Do you have a suggestion?”

  “Aye, CMCO.” When Melton looked at him questioningly, he said, “It be signifyin’ Colonel Melton Company.”

  “A fine thing,” Melton said with a chuckle, ignoring the sneers on the faces of Zeb Willis and William Strapp.

  Whitaker had weathered the days and seemed a little stronger. He ate with some gusto, which gave Squire hope for the young man’s recovery.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  THEY seemed to appear out of nowhere, and to the young men of the trapping brigade they looked like all the Indians God had ever put on Earth. In reality, there were only fifteen mounted Pawnees who rode over the sandy hills, two days’ ride from Grand Island.

  The Pawnees hauled up on their horses. They stopped and watched the brigade.

  “Lord Almighty, what’re we gonna do?” Benji gasped.

  “We’re just gonna keep a ridin’,” Squire said. “They ain’t gonna be botherin’ us too much. We be too many for ’em.” When they were fifty yards from the motionless, gawking Pawnees, Squire turned in his saddle and called out, “Ye lads best listen. I’ll gut shoot the first dumb bastard who goes agin my orders. I want all ye pork eaters to get on back and help Homer and Cletus. Be keepin’ tight around them horses. It’ll be what the Pawnees’ll be wantin’ most. All of ye keep your guns primed, but don’t be cockin’ ’em. Just stand easy, e’en if’n they be comin’ right on up to ye and set to lookin’ o’er your horse and possibles. But don’t let ’em take nothin’ from ye, neither.”

  “They likely to attack?” Li’l Jim asked nervously, forgetting for the moment to be cocky.

  “Nay. We be far too many for ’em, ’less’n they be desperate, which they don’t look. They just want a few presents is all.”

  “Ah say we just gun ’em down.” Willis huffed.

  “Don’t go gettin’ no damnfool ideas, boy. Just do like I tell ye. ” Squire rode a little ahead as they neared the Indians. He held his hand up, palm outward in a sign of greeting, but said nothing.

  The Pawnee leader did likewise as his warriors began to slowly encircle the white men. They cast covetous glances on the horses. The young trappers and camp hands looked at the Indians with sidelong glances, afraid, but fascinated by the broad-chested Pawnees.

  Two of the warriors wore their long, black hair loose. The leader and the rest of the others had shaved their heads, leaving a strip down the middle from front to back. Each had built that strip of hair up into a roach with bear grease and had streaked the bald front of his scalp with red and white paint. Long, looping earrings adorned their lobes, and most were naked except for breechclouts and moccasins. The leader wore several silver chains and a large medal around his neck.

  “What are you doing in the land of the Pawnees?” the leader asked in his own tongue.

  “Just passing through,” Squire answered in the same language. “On our way to the Shining Mountains.”

  “You have many nice things,” the Pawnee said, pointing to the heavily laden mules.

  “We bring many gifts to the Pawnee. You will see.”

  Squire heard a tightening of breath behind him and looked back to see one of the warriors fondling the new buffalo robe Li’l Jim used for sleeping and for protection against the elements. Li’l Jim sat rigid, afraid, not knowing whether to shoot the Indian or give him the robe.

  Squire turned back to stare at the Pawnee war chief. The big Hawken rifle swung up in Squire’s right hand, cocked. The muzzle stopped, pointing straight between the Indian’s eyes.

  He knew that the war chief, Slow Walker, could both speak and understand English. Over his shoulder, Squire said, loud enough to be heard by all, “Ready your rifles, lads. We may commence to fight here soon.”

  Behind him, the men did as they were told, but Carpenter nearly dropped her rifle, so scared was she. All she knew was that these were Indians, and Indians had killed her whole family. Knots were tied in her belly, and she thought that without effort she would be able to spit out her heart, since it was so far up her throat. Her hands trembled and she swallowed hard to keep the bile from rising.

  Slow Walker called to his men, although he never took his unblinking eyes off Squire. The Pawnees began drifting back toward their leader. The young warrior who had taken a fancy to Li’l Jim’s buffalo robe snatched the heavy hide, yipping in victory as he rode back with the others.

  “That weren’t nice,” Squire said to Slow Walker. Without taking his eyes off the Indian, he called behind him, “Li’l Jim, ye go on o’er there and fetch back your robe.”

  “But, Nathaniel ...”

  “But nothin’, boy. Do it!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Out of the corner of his left eye, Squire saw Li’l Jim walk his horse slowly toward the half-circle of Indians. The offending warrior grinned and held the heavy, rolled-up hide behind him, resting it on the rump of his mustang pony.

  Li’l Jim was so frightened that his face had no color. His jaw was tight as he held out his hand and stared at the belligerent Pawnee. The Indian only widened his grin. With fear boring holes in his belly, Li’l Jim edged his horse over until his knee and the Indian’s were almost touching. Without a word, Li’l Jim snatched the robe and yanked as hard as he could.

  The Pawnee, unbalanced from holding the robe behind him, fell off his horse and slammed to the ground amid the laughter of men both red and white.

  The Pawnee leaped up, his face full of fury. He reached for his war club—a deadly-looking thing of stone, hard wood and dried rawhide. A sharp word from Slow Walker stopped the warrior from attacking, but did little to stem his anger.

  Li’l Jim, taut-muscled and pale, turned his horse and rejoined his friends.

  “Abner,” Squire yelled. “Fetch up a sack of them trade knives. And some meat from yesterday’s hunt.”

  Squire sat as patiently as the Pawnees, his eyes and gun never wavering from the Indians. He
could see the lice crawling in and out of Slow Walker’s roached hair.

  Train and Carpenter walked up with the items Squire had requested. “Put ’em on the ground there, lads,” he said, pointing to the short distance between Noir Astre and the Pawnee leader’s pony. “There be your gifts, Slow Walker,” he said when the two young people were done. “It be all you’re gonna get.”

  Slow Walker unfroze for the first time since Squire’s Hawken had leveled on him. He nodded his head once in acceptance of the gifts. But Squire knew it also meant that he apologized for the unseemly behavior of his young warrior.

  “Abner, ye be leadin’ the others out of here. Nice and slow-like. I’ll be keepin’ an eye on our friends here.”

  The men followed Train slowly past the Pawnees, eyes straight ahead. Whitaker, still in his travois, was too frightened to even moan with the pain of the jostling or to shout imprecations at the Indians. Bellows and Ransom brought up the rear with the spare horses—the most vulnerable. When all the men had gone past him, Train turned and waited for Squire.

  “Best be movin’ on, lad,” Squire said.

  “I ain’t movin’ the first step till you’re right beside me.”

  Squire gazed serenely at Slow Walker. “If’n your warriors be comin’ after us, I’ll be makin’ certain ye be payin’ for it. It’d be best for all if’n ye was to just let us go our way in peace. ”

  Slow Walker nodded and said, “No one will follow.”

  Squire uncocked his rifle and rested the curved butt on his right thigh, barrel pointing skyward. He moved his horse slowly forward, keeping his eyes on the Pawnees, particularly the young one who had been insulted. Train joined him, and the two rode with necks turned backward to keep watch.

  “Think they’ll be comin’ after us?” Train asked.

  “I doubt it, lad. Slow Walker’s a man of his word. But we got to be careful of that young buck. He just might decide to come agin us later with a few of his friends. A war chief be in command only durin’ that war party. They get back to their village, that young bastard got e’ery right to get himself up a war party and come after us. But I doubt he’ll be doin’ so. By the time he gets a war party together—e’en if’n he could, which be doubtful since he’s so young and goddamn foolish—he’d ne’er be able to find us. Plus we’ll be in Sioux land soon, and he ain’t about to risk that.” Squire and Train broke into a trot and quickly caught up with the rest of their brigade.