by John Legg
“Looks like they didn’t get your hair,” Li’l Jim said with a grim smile. He was still frightened beyond belief, but he felt a little safer now, and with his returning strength came a return of the cockiness.
“Nay.” Squire looked grim, his face stony. “But Zeb told them he’d get my scalp if’n they was afeared of me. He went and killed Hayes and took the boy’s scalp, then told the Blackfeet it were mine.”
“Ah, shit, Nathaniel,” Li’l Jim said, anger and sadness vying for attention. “We got to do somethin’ about them sons of bitches.”
“Aye, that we do, lad. When I escaped, they was ready to go back on the deal. That’s when Zeb told ’em he’d put me under. He also gave ’em Hannah and Star Path to make certain they didn’t back out.”
“Who’s Hannah?” Li’l Jim asked again.
“I heard them talkin’ early on,” Train said, as he and Squire ignored Li’l Jim. “Said they was plannin’ to winter up near the Judith”—he made it sound like a question—“by Wolf Creek.”
“Aye, that’s what I heard, too, from a Blackfoot who was kind enough to be tellin’ me such things.”
“Would one of you please tell me who the hell Hannah is?” Li’l Jim demanded. He was getting exasperated.
“You made me your promise, Nathaniel,” Train said warily.
“Aye, lad, but it be a bit too late for keepin’ it now.” He told Li’l Jim about Carpenter.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Li’l Jim exclaimed. “No wonder you two was together all the time. Havin’ a little fun the rest of us was missin’ out on, eh?” He chuckled.
“That what ya think?” Train growled, balling up his fists.
Li’l Jim’s eyes widened. “I’m sorry, Abner. I didn’t know ya meant that much to each other. All I meant was that you was a heap luckier than us other boys.”
“Forget it,” Train sighed, relaxing. “You just said what any man would be thinkin’, is all.”
“Sinful . . . blasphemous,” Whitaker mumbled.
“Ye lads know who’s got my possibles and weapons?” Squire asked.
“War chief named Big Tree,” Train said. “His lodge is the big one near the north end of the camp there. It’s got a big bird painted on it.”
“Tobias, ye be helpin’ these two lads get way back in them trees in case them Blackfeet come followin’ our trail in the snow. It ain’t likely, since most of ’em’s probably still chasin’ ponies.”
“Where’re you goin’?” Train asked.
“To get my goddamn plunder. I’ll be back afore long.”
“I want to go, to help,” Whitaker said, holding up his Bible. His face was solemn.
“How can ye help, lad?”
“‘I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.’ ” His eyes glittered with fervor.
Squire snorted.
“Do not blaspheme. ‘Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thought.’ ”
Squire felt this was directed at him, but he cared not a whit. “I think ye’d best stay right here, lad.”
“But, Nathaniel,” Whitaker said fervently. He paused. “When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness . . . and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul.’ I can save the souls of these piteous savages.”
“Just you stay right here, lad,” Squire growled. He had reached his limit with Whitaker’s preachifying.
Chapter Thirty-Five
SQUIRE rode through the fluttering snow, plumes of steam issuing from his nostrils and his horse’s. He stopped on the hill and looked down at the camp. Most of the Blackfeet were heading toward it, herding their horses before them. He skirted the camp, avoiding the Blackfeet, and rode up to the lodge with the big bird painted on the hide.
Squire found his things in the dark lodge. He checked his Hawken, loaded it, and the big pistol. When he went outside, he placed the Colonel’s rifle in the scabbard, glad to have his own rifle back. He mounted and rode to the center of the village.
The majority of the Blackfeet were back, at the far end of the village, working to calm their horses. Well, Squire thought, this would be a good time to test the medicine of his “death.”
“I be L’on Farouche!” he roared. “The Piegans be no match for me.”
The Indians jerked their heads around. Several moved a little away from the horse herd. The few women in the camp, who had fled earlier and begun returning, vanished again. The warriors looked confused, frightened.
Squire rested the curved brass butt of his Hawken on his right thigh, muzzle pointed skyward. He pulled Melton’s rifle from the scabbard with his left hand and held it in the same position as the Hawken on the opposite side.
“I be L’on Farouche/” he bellowed again.
Some Blackfeet moved tentatively forward, jabbering, gesticulating, arguing. Squire was pleased, though he did not show it, at knowing his presence had sown so much confusion and fear.
Finally, two young men spat in disgust at their friends. They rode slowly forward, scared but hiding it. One nocked his bow; the other hefted a painted lance.
“Wait!” a cry came from the dark.
Whitaker stepped from behind a lodge, his Bible in hand.
“Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee,” he intoned as he walked to a spot between the warriors and Squire. “ ‘Behold, now is the day of salvation.’ ”
“Merde,” Squire muttered.
The Blackfeet gaped, senses assaulted again by the unknown.
“Get back up in them hills, ye goddamn fool,” Squire yelled. “They ain’t in no mood for listenin’ to one of your sermons.”
Whitaker stared at him, then gazed at the Blackfeet. “ ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,’ ” he said solemnly, moving forward, “ ‘I will fear no evil, for thou—’ ”
Three arrows thunked into his chest. Whitaker staggered a few steps and sank to his knees. “‘For … for I am … the ….’” He pitched forward on his face.
The two young Blackfeet yipped war cries and kicked their ponies into a run. They were no longer afraid. If they could kill the strange young man who spoke the white man’s medicine words, then surely they could kill a ghost. The one with the bow fired at Squire, and quickly fired a second time.
The first shaft tore through the wide sleeve of Squire’s shirt. The second thudded into his left leg, just above the knee. Squire did not flinch. He snapped the rifles down and fired them.
The Blackfoot with the bow went down, smashed in a backward somersault off his horse by a rifle ball. The other raced on toward Squire, lance ready.
Squire slipped his rifle into the scabbard and jammed Melton’s behind the saddle. The Blackfoot approached, teeth gritted against the wind, the lance looming. With the Indian’s spear just inches from his chest, Squire dodged with the quickness of a striking rattler. His hands shot out and clamped on the feathered lance. He shifted his weight and whipped the spear around behind him, throwing the warrior to the ground.
The Blackfoot landed in the soft snow with a thump and a startled cry. His eyes reflected stark terror as he realized the error of trying to defeat a ghost in battle. With all his power, Squire drove the lance through the fallen warrior’s chest, pinning him to the frozen ground.
Squire dismounted, holding Noir Astre's reins. He grabbed the reins of the Blackfoot’s horse. He strolled over to where Whitaker lay. Whitaker’s face was contorted with pain.
“Why wouldn’t they listen to me?” the youth asked. Tears trickled down the sides of his face and dripped onto the crimson-stained snow.
“I tried to tell ye,” Squire said without sympathy. “These bastards don’t believe in your God. Don’t want to. They got their own ways. ”
“Am I dying?” Whitaker asked, a throaty husk catching in his weak voice. He coughed and spit up blood. He went limp, dead, his vacant eyes still staring up at Squire, retaining the wonderment at hi
s failure.
Ignoring the arrow in his own leg, Squire ripped the three shafts out of Whitaker’s chest. He hefted the youth and settled him across the Blackfoot pony. He reloaded the rifles and shoved Melton’s into the scabbard. He grabbed the reins of the pony and mounted Noir Astre.
Squire eyed the small knot of warriors huddled at the far end of the village. Even in the darkness, he could see the fear on their faces and knew they would do nothing. He threw back his head and howled, then laughed loudly, eerily. The Blackfeet fled into the night. He laughed in joy, and entered a tipi, where he found frozen buffalo meat. He took some and put it in a buckskin bag, which he hung from his saddle horn.
Cradling the Hawken in his left arm, he turned Noir Astre and rode toward his companions. He spotted Li’l Jim and Train moving up the hill, and knew they must have been watching. As he pulled into the trees, the two youths were full of questions.
“Just let me be, lads,” he said. “Get a fire goin’ and put some of this here meat to cookin’. We’ll be stayin’ the night.”
“What about the Blackfeet?” Train asked.
“They’ll not be botherin’ us tonight, lad. Best see if’n ye can find a place soft enough to be buryin’ Tobias, too.”
Hastily they built a brush bower to ward off the bitter cold and the keening wind. They managed to dig a shallow grave for Whitaker in the hard ground. They placed his Bible on his chest when they set him in the hole. After Squire said a few inadequate words over the youth, they filled the hole and covered it with rocks.
Squire sat and slit through his buckskins around the arrow shaft, baring the ugly wound. “Waugh!” he grunted. “Ain’t bad. The point be stickin’ all the way through. Abner, get under there and break that point off for me.”
Train bent to the task, but shook his head. “It ain’t far enough through for me to grab it, Nathaniel.”
Squire gritted his teeth and shoved the shaft farther through his leg. “Try it again,” he said, seemingly unfazed.
There was a sharp snap. “Got it!” Train said.
“Thank ye, lad. Now go’n get some of that yarrow root from my sack.”
Train returned a minute later.
“This damned wound be bleedin’ a heap more’n I like,” Squire said. “So I aim to be settin’ hot steel to it. And I be needin’ your help for it.” He jabbed his large butchering knife into the coals. “Soon’s that blade gets hot, take it and slap it on that hole in the back of my leg. Understand, lad?”
“Reckon so,” Train gulped, eyes wide. “You sure? It’ll hurt like all hellfire.”
Squire shrugged. “Won’t be the first time. More’n likely ain’t gonna be the last, neither. Just do what I say.”
“I will.” Train swallowed hard as he glanced at the knife resting in the glowing fire.
“Don’t be lookin’ so worried, boy,” Squire said with a smile. “It’s me facin’ that knife, not ye.”
“Reckon you’re right. ” Train grinned.
Squire squinted at his knife and saw that it glowed dull red in the fire. “It be time, lad,” he muttered.
Train nodded, looking worried again. “How long ya want me to leave it on ya, Nathaniel?”
“Just till the hole’s sealed and it ain’t bleedin’. Few seconds.” Squire stretched out on his belly and gritted a stick between his strong teeth. “Do it,” he ordered.
Train gripped the knife tightly in a sweaty fist and jammed it against Squire’s leg.
The big mountain man tensed. His teeth gnashed at the stick, snapping it. Then the hot metal was gone from his leg. He spit the pieces of stick from his mouth. “Throw some snow on it, boy,” he rasped. “Quick.”
Squire sucked in his breath as Train packed the wound with snow. When the pain eased, he grunted and pushed himself up.
“Ye done well, lad,” he said, almost cheerfully. “But ye be lookin’ a mite peaked. I’ll take o’er now. Ye and Li’l Jim can set to grindin’ up that yarrow root for a poultice.”
Train looked relieved.
Squire’s forehead was beaded with sweat as he waited for the knife to heat again. When it was ready, he bit on another twig and held the searing blade on the jagged hole in the front of his leg. The stench of burning flesh stung his nostrils as sweat poured down his cheeks, into his beard. He dropped the knife and grabbed a handful of snow, piling it on the leg.
After the poultice was applied and the leg bandaged with a strip of buckskin, Squire slumped back against a log. “Waugh! Time for fillin’ my meatbag, boys. Pass me some of that hump meat.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
THE next morning Train demanded that they ride straight out to find Hannah, instead of riding back to Melton’s caravan. “And if’n you’re too damned scared to go after ’em, I’ll go myself,” he ranted.
“No ye won’t,” Squire said. “There be time for that later. But we have a responsibility to the others. They be needin’ our help. ”
“Hannah needs our help, too.”
“I know that, lad. But winter be on us, and we got to be makin’ certain the others is settled in afore we go traipsin’ after Blackfeet.”
“What about Elk Horn?” Train protested. “What’s he gonna do to Hannah?” He gulped.
“Ye know goddamn well what he be plannin’ for her. And do ye think that be the worst thing could happen to her?”
“Yes,” Train hissed.
“Well, lad, then ye can stop frettin’ on it. If’n Elk Horn ain’t had his way with her by now, he will have by the time we be gettin’ there whether we be leavin’ now or in a week or two.”
Train’s head and neck stiffened as rage and frustration boiled through him. “Goddammit, if’n there’s a chance we can save her before . . . before . . .” He jerked himself up. “I’m goin’ after her, and I’m goin now!” He started toward the horses.
Squire’s massive hand grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. “Nay, lad,” he said softly.
Train fought back the tears. “You no-account, lazy bastard. How kin ya sit there doin’ nothin’ when ya know what them sons a bitches are doin’ to my Hannah?”
“I know how ye be feelin’, lad.”
“Do ya?” Train snapped.
“Aye, lad, I do. Star Path was took with Hannah. But there be nothin’ ye can do about it now. Ye signed yourself a contract with the Colonel, and I aim to see ye make good on it. The Colonel knows nothin’ of these mountains, and if’n we don’t get back and help them boys get wintered up proper, they might all go under. Homer’s a good man—mayhap the best at what he does—but he ain’t used to such doin’s neither. I got to be puttin’ the good of all ahead of the good of one.”
“Then I’ll go alone.” His voice was forlorn.
“No ye won’t. Ye don’t e’en know where’n hell ye are, boy. Ye be in Crow land still, and them niggurs’ll might not kill ye, but they’ll sure as shit steal ye blind if they catch ye. Then there’d be the Blackfeet. Ye’d be gone beaver in two, three days.”
“At least I’d have done somethin' for my Hannah.”
“Gettin’ put under ain’t gonna be helpin’ your woman none, boy,” he said harshly. “We’ll be gettin’ her back.” He saw the anger that knotted Train’s jaws. “But I reckon it ain’t Hannah’s life that’s troublin’ ye, lad. It be yourself that’s poor bull. Ye just can’t bear the idea of that shit-smellin’ Blackfoot beddin’ her, can ye?”
Train just stared sullenly at the ground, his ears a flaming red. “Ye’d best be puttin’ that from your mind, boy. She ain’t gonna give up her feelin’s for ye just ’cause of what happened. And ye’d best not be givin’ up your feelin’s for her neither. Ye be a better man than that, Abner, I be thinkin’. And if’n ye ain’t, she deserves a heap better’n ye. She’ll be findin’ it, too, with one of the other boys.”
Train slumped as the bile rose to his throat. The thought of Hannah lying naked under a grunting Blackfoot revolted him, cut straight through to his manhood. He felt emasculat
ed. It was revenge he wanted—though he wouldn’t admit it—not just getting Hannah back. He gulped. Maybe he really didn’t even want her back. He was ashamed of himself for such thoughts. But after all, she would be used, dirty ...
Then he pictured her beneath him, green eyes glinting with lust and love, her tiny frame bucking under him, stronger than his body in some ways, glistening in sweat. And he heard her voice, talking soft to him during some of the few hours they had had alone, teasing him, coaxing him, building him up in his own mind.
He moaned with the pain of it. Squire squeezed his shoulder hard, and he lifted his head. His lower lip trembled, but some of Squire’s power flowed into him. “You promise we’ll go after her?” he asked.
Li’l Jim shoved his way into the conversation. He looked close to tears, too, in sympathy for his friend “If this big, fat bastard ain’t gonna help ya, I will, by Jesus,” he said forcefully, throwing back his shoulders and puffing out his chest. “You got my word on that, Abner.”
Squire smiled, knowing for the first time how Marchand and LeGrande must have felt when they had taken him on. “Aye, Abner,” he said softly, but strength was in the words. “Soon’s we get the others wintered in. I got my own accounts to be settlin’ with them buffalo-humpin’ Blackfeet—and them two pieces of coyote shit that threw in with ’em. ”
Train nodded, but his mood remained sullen, angry and frustrated on the journey back to the caravan. Two and a half weeks after he had left the brigade, Squire met up with it near the mouth of the Wind River. Squire, Train and Li’l Jim rode into Melton’s camp amid whoops of joy.
Bellows just stood, hands on hips, shaking his head. “Nary thought I’d see you boys again,” he said. “Nope. Goddamn, sure didn’t. Thought your asses was gone for all times.”
Squire grinned. “Glad ye missed us so, Homer. Silver Necklace treated ye so poorly ye get to longin’ for us, eh?”
The two men chuckled. “Shit,” Bellows wheezed. “I ain’t that happy to see ya. But come on. We got plenty of food.”
