Winter Rage (Mountain Times Book 1)

by John Legg

  “But she’ll bring trouble, Nathaniel. A woman will slow us down. She would not be able to keep up.”

  “This ain’t no white woman, Colonel. She be a Sioux. She’ll be ready to set out e’ery mornin’ afore the others. She’ll pack better’n most of the men, and be doin’ so without abusin’ the horses or mules. She’ll ride all day and still make a better camp than any man here. Includin’ me.”

  “But what of the men? She would be the only woman amongst all these men through an entire winter. She’d be in danger.” Squire laughed. “If’n ye was to ask me, I’d say it’s the men who be in danger. Any chil’ takes a shine to Star Path and she don’t want him, he be in a heap of trouble. She can take care of herself. And,” he paused for emphasis, “ye seem to forget they’d also have me to reckon with.

  “ ’Sides, Colonel, a few of the boys has took a shine to some of the Sioux women. They be the others I mentioned.”

  Melton sighed. “Well, since my words have no effect on you, Nathaniel, I might just as well give the plan my blessing. Under protest, of course.” He laughed.

  Squire grinned. “Ye just wait till ye be tastin’ an elk stew or some seasoned hump meat the way Star Path cooks it. Ye’ll not be sorry then. Why don’t ye saddle your horse and c’mon with me?”

  “I don’t know what good it’ll do, but I suppose I’d better.”

  As they mounted up, Bellows strolled over, reins in hand. “Mind if’n I come along?”

  “Nay.”

  “It’ll be a minute afore I’m ready.”

  Ransom came running up, three horses trailing behind him. He handed the ropes to Bellows.

  “What are the horses for, Homer?” Melton asked.

  “You’ll see. Sure will.” He grinned slyly.

  Squire chuckled. Other men rode up with extra horses. They also had some trade goods which they hoped to use to bargain for the women. It would put them in further debt, but for some it was worth it.

  In the village, Squire released the young Sioux, with much praise at his and his companions’ prowess, and telling how it was just bad fortune for the Sioux that they had failed.

  Privately, Bellows joshed with old Sky Hawk about the failure of the young men. Sky Hawk took the teasing with good humor, since none of the others could hear it and so it did not humiliate the enterprising young warriors in front of the people. Melton’s men did not wait around long before heading off to dicker for the squaws they wanted.

  While Bellows chatted on good-naturedly, Squire excused himself, telling Melton, “I’ll be back right off.”

  Melton nodded, trying to choke down the fear that ate at his insides, fear that perhaps Bellows or one of the other men would overstep his bounds and bring the wrath of the Sioux down on them all. But his fears were groundless, and before long, Bellows and the old chief were smoking a pipe in friendship and offering each other a few last tales.

  Squire suddenly loomed up next to Bellows. “C’mon, Homer,” he said. “It be time we was movin’ on.”

  “You just hold on,” Bellows said with a wide grin. “I got me a little business to finish here. Won’t take but a few minutes.” Finally Bellows led over two of the three horses he had brought and gave them to Sky Hawk. The old chief surveyed the animals carefully, then nodded. The two men smoked once more from the pipe and then Sky Hawk called gutturally to someone in his lodge.

  A young Indian woman stepped out of the large painted tipi. Her wide moon face was bright, her silky hair shining with grease, braided, the long ends wrapped in otter fur.

  Bellows’s face cracked into a grin as he watched the young woman walk toward him, her head high, though her eyes were cast down. She was maybe sixteen, and, while not beautiful, she was comely and graceful. She wore a simple, unadorned doeskin dress that reached to her knees. Below the ragged hem were short leggings that went from her knees to her ankles, ending just above her plain moccasins. A bone choker hugged her neck and a single feather fluttered from her hair.

  Bellows helped her load her two small parfleches onto the third horse, and then both of them mounted. “This is Silver Necklace,” he said to Squire and Melton. “I’m ready to go now. Yep. I sure am.”

  Squire laughed, heartily. “Why ye ol’ coot. I knew ye had your eye on some squaw, but I ne’er expected ye to pick a mere babe. Goddamn, think she’ll be able to make ye a man agin?”

  Bellows chuckled and looked down at his crotch. “By God, it appears to have commenced workin’ already.”

  The two laughed. Then Squire teased, “How about ye, Colonel? Ye want yourself a woman? I’d be bettin’ we can find ye a good ’un. Young and plump, like little Silver Necklace here.” Melton reddened. .

  “She’d be keepin’ your bed warm come the cold nights of the mountain winter. Make ye be feelin’ like a ruttin’ young buck agin. Keep your balls from shrivelin’ up in the cold.” He roared with laughter, joined by Bellows and Sky Hawk.

  “I’ll be fine as I am, Nathaniel,” Melton said stiffly. “But I thank you for the consideration.”

  They rode out, Melton’s back stiff, Squire and Bellows still laughing and joking crudely.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  HALF a day after leaving their camp near the Sioux village, Melton’s caravan moved into a buffalo herd. It took them two days of riding—during which time they were unable to camp—before they were through the slowly moving herd. It was not easy.

  The men were nervous so near to the thousands of tons of moving buffalo. They always carried the fear that one of the beasts might take it into his great horned head to cause some trouble for the interlopers. But all the buffalo did was snuffle and grunt while cropping the short grass.

  At long last the men reached the fringes of the vast, southward-moving herd. Squire ordered a day’s rest. It was then, after the men had caught up some on their sleep, that they really became aware that they now had women along with them.

  The few men who had gotten squaws suddenly lived better than the majority of their counterparts. They might have tents, but even if they didn’t, their food was better; their individual camps were better kept and neater; and a few were soon turned out with new clothing made of deerskin, or maybe buffalo hide. The others had old cloth clothes that were ragged and torn to shreds, in some cases falling off. Their shoes—and hats, if they wore any—were in no better shape.

  Other men would, over the next few weeks, start negotiating for the women’s services as seamstresses, eager to replace their rotting clothes with warmer, heavier, more resilient buckskins.

  But having the women along created problems, too.

  In that first day alone there were three fistfights and one near stabbing, all over the attentions of one fetching young squaw who flounced around the camp without her leggings and wearing a too-short dress, exposing a generous stretch of copper-tinted calf and, on occasion, thigh.

  Melton stomped around camp, rage etched heavily on his jowly face. It made Squire angry, since he knew Melton was irate about having the women in camp—causing trouble, as he viewed it. But as the day wore on, Squire began to see the situation in a more humorous light.

  “Ye e’er gonna be cheerin’ up, Colonel?” he asked as they sat around a small fire for their evening meal.

  “Perhaps tomorrow, Nathaniel,” Melton said tightly.

  “What be troublin’ ye, Colonel?”

  “I would think,” Melton said stiffly, “that you would know damn well the answer to that.”

  “Reckon I do. But actin’ thisaway ain’t gonna change things none.”

  “We could send them back.”

  “What’n hell for?”

  “All this rancorous behavior would cease,” Melton said, eyes snapping angrily.

  “Buffalo shit.”

  Melton’s head jerked up, and he glared at Squire. The mountain man grinned. “Ye spent a heap of time in the army, Colonel. Was e’erything always perfect amongst your men? Did they ne’er have a fight amongst ’em?”

&nb
sp; “Well, no, of course not. But ...”

  “Hell, Colonel, ye can’t get this many men together without a fight commencin’ sooner or later. We been lucky, not havin’ much of it so far. But it was bound to be commencin’ one day. Ye send them women back now, and you’ll have several young bucks o’er there near ready to take your hair soon’s ye turn your back on ’em.

  “Ye ought to know from your army days that they’ll be fightin’, women or not. Come midwinter, when they been penned up together a couple moons, they’ll be gettin’ edgy. You’d be seein’ some eye gougin’ and ear bitin’ then,” he laughed. “Sure as shit. Leastways the women’ll be keepin’ a few of ’em too occupied for fightin’.”

  “But won’t they cause more trouble as the men become pent up over the winter?”

  “Mayhap, but I be doubtin’ it. A few of them boys’ll be gettin’ a mite tired of some naggin’ bitch of a squaw afore too long, and most likely’ll be happy to sell her to another. Or e’en share her around some—for a consideration.”

  Melton looked shocked, then shook his head at his own surprise. Indeed, that would solve many of the problems, once the jealousy of the new woman in a man’s bedroll wore off.

  “Some of ’em though’ll be stickin’ to their man like ticks to a buff’lo. And the men’ll return that feelin’. The others’ll get to be knowin’ which be that way and leave ’em alone for the most part once they be knowin’ they can’t get anywhere.”

  Melton sat in thought for some minutes, before a rueful smile spread across his thick lips. “I have been rather an ass, haven’t I?”

  “Aye.” Squire grinned so that Melton would know it was not meant as an insult.

  Two days later, on a chilly October afternoon, Squire motioned Train, Li’l Jim and Benji aside, away from the others who were plodding along on the trail. “There be Injins about, lads,” he said. “Ye seen somethin’?” Train asked.

  “Not in partic’lar. It be mostly a feelin’. None’s passed this way directly, but I know in my bones they be about. I want ye lads to be extra watchful whilst ye be on the hunt. Don’t be wanderin’ too far. And keep your eyes open good,” he yelled after them as they rode off.

  The three men were back with the column by early afternoon. They were all riding sleepily along when suddenly Li’l Jim shouted, “There! Look!” He pointed toward the northwest.

  “I was wonderin’ how long it’d be afore ye saw ’em,” Squire muttered.

  “They been there awhile, Nathaniel?” Train asked.

  “Hour or so. Kept a watch on us from o’er there.” He chucked a thumb northward. “They moved on fast just a bit ago, so they be in front of us now.”

  The Indians were still some distance away, but they were closing in rapidly across the wide flat.

  “What are they?” Benji asked, shading his eyes with a hand. “They don’t look like them Sioux we visited.”

  “Ye be leamin’, boy. They be Rees. And they be the nastiest goddamn Injins this side of the goddamn Blackfoot. ”

  “They huntin’?”

  “Nay. War party. Good-sized one, too, for the Rees.”

  The color drained from Benji’s face. “Ya sure?”

  Squire glanced at Benji and then at Melton, who sat nearby, grim-faced.

  “Aye, lad.”

  “How can ya tell from this far?” Li’l Jim asked. “They must be near half a mile away.” He was pale, too, but trying to make like he was unconcerned.

  “E’en at this distance ye can see they be wearin’ paint. Plus they be some miles from home. They ain’t gonna be comin’ this far just to hunt. Rees be good farmers when they set their minds to it, and they don’t usually ride this far from their villages less’n they be half-froze to raise hair. They be lookin’ for Sioux scalps and Sioux women and Sioux ponies, more likely than not. But we’d suit ’em just as well.”

  The Arikara warriors halted ahead of the column. Squire trotted out to meet them. Using signs, the Arikara war chief, who was scarred along the length of one cheek, asked for meat, guns, powder and shot.

  Under Squire’s orders, a scared Train and Li’l Jim spread out some hump meat and ribs on a partly tanned buffalo hide. Then they laid out some mirrors, knives, a hatchet and a few small bolts of red and blue cloth.

  The two young men hurried back to the others, glad to be out from under the glare of hard Arikara eyes. With signs, Squire told the Indians, “That is all.”

  The Ree leader surveyed the whites with liquid black eyes while his men boldly studied the horses. With a few grunting syllables, he had several of his men pick up the presents. Then he spun his dappled white medicine horse and, followed by his men, raced up a slope and vanished.

  When the Indians were out of sight, Squire called Train, Li’l Jim and Benji to his side again. “I don’t trust them Ree bastards one little bit, lads,” he said harshly.

  “Why not?” Li’l Jim asked.

  “They left off too easy. I know they be wantin’ our possibles. ”

  “We gonna go after ’em?” Li’l Jim asked, fear and excitement mingled in his voice.

  “Too damn foolish to do that. But I want ye boys to scout ’em out. Abner, ye head north. That’s most likely where they’ll be. Li’l Jim, ye backtrack our trail. Benji, ye take the south. And ye be careful after ye cross the river. Some of them sand hills on the south side be treacherous. I’ll keep an eye toward the west. Don’t none of ye get too far away. And keep your horse fresh. Stay off them hogbacks. Don’t skyline yourselves.”

  Squire dismounted, and the others did likewise. With a knife, the big man drew a map in the sand. “We be about here,” he said, pointing with the blade. “I reckon we’ll be stayin’ the night up near this little crick here. I expect it’ll still be runnin’. ” He pointed again. “If’n ye ain’t seen nothin’ of ’em by dusk, leave off and head there. Understand?”

  The three young men nodded, fear welling up in their bellies, and they all remounted.

  “If’n ye raise ’em, lads,” Squire cautioned, “get your ass back here as fast as your horse can run.”

  The three nodded again and rode off. Squire quickly detailed the scouting to Melton and trotted forward so he was a little ahead of the caravan. Not much, but enough to get—and give— sufficient warning.

  Two hours later, Benji topped a rise and raced toward the column, reining his foam-flecked horse to a stop next to Squire.

  “They’re waitin’, Nathaniel,” he shouted, breathing hard. “I seen ’em. There.” He pointed southwest.

  “So, they think they can fool us, do they? Thinkin’ to circle round and come on us from where we ain’t expectin’ ’em. Was ye seen by them goddamn savages?”

  “No, sir. They was on the other side of a long swell as I looked over.”

  “Bon. Ye tell the Colonel?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Hightail it back there and tell him and Homer. Then get yourself a fresh horse. Ride on out and fetch Li’l Jim. Have Hank ride out to bring in Abner. Ye’ve done well, lad.”

  Squire swung southwestward, riding hard, searching the lay of long swales. Now he knew where the Arikaras would wait. He hurried back to the column. Train and Carpenter were already with the others. Benji and Li’l Jim arrived minutes later.

  “All right, boys,” Squire said quietly. “This here be poor bull. If’n we was alone, most likely them Rees’d be leavin’ us be. But we got all them animals, and that’s what they want most. Homer, see that them goddamn horses and mules be tied together, two across and from one pair to the other. That way they can’t run off—or be run off. I want ye boys off’n your horses. Put the pairs of animals in a circle, and get yourself and your personal horse inside. Ye can fire o’er the top of the animals. Any horse or mule that gets hit bad, cut it loose. They’ll only be tyin’ us down.” The men nodded, all of them solemn. Fear tinted more than a few faces, and concern the rest.

  “Pair yourselves up. One can shoot while the other’s reloadin’. And
I don’t want nobody takin’ the first shot without me sayin’ so.” He looked pointedly at Willis. The Alabaman stared coolly back. .

  “Ye lads is about to get your first taste of real Injin fightin’,” Squire added. “Waugh! Them goddamn Rees shine when it comes to raisin’ hair. They’ll come chargin’ like all the demons in hell. But just hold your ground. Don’t go wastin’ powder and ball. Now get ready, boys.”

  They rode slowly forward, bunched inside the circle of animals. The men were quiet, tense, afraid. Their mouths were dry and their palms sweaty. As they rode, Squire moved up to Melton’s side.

  “Ye get yourself a partner yet, Colonel?”

  “No, Nathaniel. But I’d be honored to pair with you.”

  “I was hopin’ ye might say that.”

  “I just hope I don’t let you down.”

  “I ain’t worried, Colonel. Ye been in war afore. It don’t make no diff’rence if’n it be Britishers or Rees shootin’ at ye.”

  “I fear you’re right. War is much the same for all men.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  THE Arikaras boiled over a crest and splashed madly across the river and onto the flat of the north side. They screamed like devils as they raced toward the trapping party.

  “Get down!” Squire roared as he slid out of the saddle.

  When the Indians were still two hundred yards away, Squire calmly laid the Hawken rifle across his saddle and fired. One of the Arikaras toppled from his horse, but the others did not slow.

  “Hold your fire, lads,” Squire yelled as he reloaded quickly.

  Fear clutched at Carpenter’s bowels, and her stomach knotted. She could barely breathe with fear strapped across her chest tighter than the buckskin bands hiding her identity. She edged as close to Train as she dared.

  He smiled tightly at her, fear crawling around in his own belly. Fear for her more than for himself. He wanted to protect his woman, but he knew he could not. And for the first time he realized what loving her in such a situation meant: He was helpless to do too much for her, and that frightened him more than anything else.