Cheyenne Justice

by Charles G. West

  Charles West

  CHEYENNE

  JUSTICE

  “Give me your knife.”

  Jason pulled out his skinning knife and placed it in Talking Owl’s hand. The Indian drew the blade across his wrist, bringing blood. He handed the knife back to Jason and nodded his head toward Jason’s wrist. Jason understood. He drew the blade across his own wrist and pressed it tightly against Talking Owl’s wrist. “Now we are brothers, Jason Coles. You are not an enemy of the Cheyenne people. You must tell Two Moon this.”

  That done, Talking Owl sank back again and sighed. It had all happened so quickly. Talking Owl was quiet then and closed his eyes to sleep. Jason turned back to the meat roasting over the fire. When he turned again to Talking Owl, the Cheyenne was dead…

  SIGNET

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  First published by Signet, an imprint of Dutton NAL, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.

  First Printing, February, 1999

  Copyright © Charles West, 1999

  All rights reserved

  ISBN: 978-1-101-66293-9

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  For Ronda

  Table of Contents

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Special Excerpt from Wind River

  Chapter I

  Jason Coles was not in a happy frame of mind. His disposition was caused primarily by the fact that it was necessary for him to be flat on his belly, crawling cautiously up to the top of a low rise in the prairie, when he should be on his way to Fort Lincoln. This little delay in his journey had already cost him half a day and it might be a couple of hours more by the time he took care of the problem.

  He raised his head slightly, just enough to peer over the top of the rise. It was just as he figured. Below him, on the other side of the rise, the two young bucks who had stolen his horse were busily going through his pack, taking inventory of the supplies they figured were now their property. Jason shook his head, disgusted. It didn’t bother him that the two young Sioux braves had stolen his horse—that was a natural way of life for Indians and he didn’t blame them for that. He also didn’t really blame them for stealing the supplies he had packed on the horse. What irritated him was the mess they were now making of the pack. There was no call for that.

  He backed away from the top of the hill and circled around to the west in order to have the sun at his back. Keeping low to take advantage of the cover the slope afforded, he worked his way up through the buffalo grass until he was within thirty yards of the two young Indians. They were far too engrossed in their newly gained goods to be on the alert for an attack by a white man.

  Jason paused to survey the situation before moving in to recover his property. Two Sioux boys, maybe fifteen or sixteen years old, one broken-down sorrel horse for the two of them, no weapons other than bows and knives—they were a pretty scrawny-looking pair of warriors. He felt ashamed of himself for letting them sneak up to his camp and run one of his horses off. They had hit him at sunup when he was saddling his other horse. He had reacted in time to stop them, and he would have if they had been grown men. Before they had made fifty yards, his Winchester was out and he had drawn a bead on the skinny back of one of them. He was about to pull the trigger when he realized they were just boys. He had lowered his rifle, cursing himself for being too softhearted. They must have figured they could easily cover their tracks and lose the white man. Now here they were, thinking they had stolen themselves a fine Appaloosa pony.

  Jason sighed as if resigning himself to take care of a bothersome chore, stood up, and started walking toward the two boys, who were still unaware of his presence. When he was within twenty yards of them, he raised the Winchester hip high and started firing in rapid succession, spraying the sand around them, the bullets flying only inches from their feet. The sudden explosion of rifle fire startled the two so severely that they both jumped up in a panic, not knowing which way to run. In their panic, they collided with each other, landing both of them on the ground. When they tried to scramble to their feet again, they were stopped cold by a bullet neatly placed on each side of them. In an instant, both pairs of hands were up in surrender.

  “Boys,” Jason started, speaking to them in the Lakota tongue, “you’ve put me to a great deal of trouble.” He stood over them, calmly reloading his rifle. One of the boys, seeing this, started to get to his feet. He was stopped cold by the simple movement of Jason’s hand coming to rest on the handle of the pistol in his belt. When the young Sioux settled back again, Jason resumed the loading of his rifle. “Now, what should I do with you two thieves?”

  The two boys looked at each other and exchanged puzzled expressions. They had assumed that, having caught them, he was now going to shoot them. Jason studied their faces for a long moment. They were still within the reservation although a long way from the agency. From the look of them, they weren’t hunting. Jason didn’t have to think hard to guess where they were going. He didn’t blame them.

  “Going to join Sitting Bull?” He paused. They did not answer. “Crazy Horse?” Still there was no answer. “While you’re sitting there, suppose you start putting that stuff back in that pack.”

  They did as he directed. When they finished, he took the pack and put it on his horse. He glanced at the two skinny Sioux boys and, before he tied the pack down, he pulled some jerky out and tossed it to them. Still puzzled, they backed away from it as if suspecting a trick.

  Jason smiled. “You better take it. You’re gonna need something to eat if you’re planning to ride that broken-down nag there all the way to the Big Horn country.”

  Again they exchanged puzzled glances. Then one of them finally spoke. “You are not going to shoot us?” Jason shook his head no. “We will not go back to the reservation,” the boy said, his jaw jutting out defiantly.

  Jason shrugged. “I don’t care where you go. I’m just telling you you’re not going on my horse.”

  They stared at him in disbelief, still expecting to be shot at any moment, or tied up and dragged back to the reservation. Jason did not tell them that he would not make anyone return to the sorry life the government forced on reservation Indians.

  “Now, th
e two of you climb up on that horse of yours and get going.” He pointed his rifle toward the northwest. “Sitting Bull is that way.”

  Still wary, they got to their feet, collected their scant belongings, and climbed up on the sorrel. Both boys watched the tall white scout with suspicious eyes, finding it hard to believe he was going to let them go. When it appeared he was not going to stop them, one of them, the one who had remained silent until then, spoke. “You are Jason Coles, aren’t you?”

  Jason was surprised but answered simply, “I reckon.”

  He watched them until the sorrel disappeared over the second rise before leading his packhorse back to his other Appaloosa.

  * * *

  Jason sat easy in the saddle, even though he had ridden four hours without a break since starting out at sunup. It was time to step down for a while and stretch his stiffening muscles. The line of cottonwoods in the distance indicated a stream and he figured to reach it at a point where it cut through a low flat in the rolling plains. He would rest his horses there.

  He glanced back at the Appaloosa on a line behind him. “You didn’t put up much of a fight when those two young bucks ran off with you yesterday. Maybe I should have let them have you.” He had named the horse White because she was predominately white, with black spots on her rump. The horse he rode was called Black for the obvious reason that he was mostly black. Jason was not a man to put a great deal of thought into the naming of an animal, although he had on occasion become especially attached to a particular horse. Both horses were Appaloosas and the last remnants of Jason’s only attempt to settle down in one spot. His thought had been to breed the animals, but these two, Black and White, were all he had left of the original fourteen.

  As he neared the cottonwoods on the east bank of the stream, his thoughts turned to the reason he was heading to Fort Lincoln. Once again he was responding to a summons from Colonel Holder. The telegram had mentioned nothing about the nature of the trouble and had only requested that Jason come as quickly as he could. That won’t be anytime real soon, he thought. Fort Lincoln was ten days to two weeks away, depending on how hard he pushed his horses. Jason felt no real urgency, to get there as soon as possible, in spite of Colonel Holder’s request. If there had been any real urgency, Holder would have told him what it was. Jason suspected the colonel was just dissatisfied with his present complement of scouts and simply wanted someone he had confidence in. So, I reckon I’ll get there when I get there, Jason thought.

  It was still June but the warm dry weather seemed more suited to July or August. Man and horses were glad to reach the shade of the trees. Jason dismounted and led his horses to the stream, which, although down to less than half its normal size, pushed enough water through to satisfy their thirst. While the horses drank, he scanned the horizon in all directions. Just because he was riding through the great Sioux reservation didn’t mean any Indians he encountered would be friendly.

  Most of the people in Washington thought there were only two classifications of Indians—those who had come to the reservation and those who had not. They saw the reservation Indians as “tame” Indians, while the bands still running free were regarded as “hostile.” Jason knew it wasn’t that simple. The reservation Indians were finding that the Great White Father was not taking care of them like he had promised and every month more and more of them were slipping out of the reservation to join their free brothers in the Powder River and Big Horn country. Jason didn’t blame them. He didn’t like what he had seen at Camp Supply in Oklahoma Territory, and the Red Cloud Agency, part of which he was now crossing, wasn’t much better. The Indians living on these reservations were a pathetic looking bunch of people. Once proud and fierce warriors were being turned into “Loafer Indians.” He had to admit one thing—the government had been highly successful in convincing the Indian that it was a helluva lot better to die fighting than to rot away on one of their reservations. Too bad the folks in Washington failed to see that the lesson the Indians were learning was the opposite of the one the government intended to teach them.

  He leaned back against the trunk of a large cottonwood and bit on a piece of hardtack. “Damn,” he uttered. “I’m gonna have to hunt up some fresh meat.” He’d made many a meal on the army’s hardtack but he didn’t like it any more than the next man. Still, it kept his belly from rumbling when there wasn’t anything else. There was also a sack of jerked buffalo meat in his kit, but he was saving that back for supper. He took another large piece of hardtack from his saddlepack and broke it in two with the butt of his pistol, put half of it back in the sack, and started gnawing on the other half. He was comfortable sitting in the shade of the trees and, after another look around the horizon to make sure he was alone in this part of the world, he settled back to relax for a few minutes before getting back in the saddle. Without conscious effort, his thoughts wandered back to his early years on the frontier and where they had led him.

  Still green on the vine when he first hired on as a scout for Captain Phil Sawyer, riding out of Fort Cobb, Jason was quick to learn that he didn’t care much for the Pawnee scouts assigned to the company. At that tender age it was easy for him to make a general distinction between red man and white—he worked for the army and Indians were the enemy. The army told him that the red man refused to go to the reservation where he belonged, instead raiding the settlements and killing innocent whites, attacking army patrols and mutilating prisoners. It was easy to see a clear line between the savages and civilized man. With experience and years of seasoning, however, that attitude changed until now things were not that simple. Jason no longer accepted his earlier impression that there was a clear-cut line between right and wrong. After many encounters with Indians, he had come to know the red man as an individual and had begun to see that there was another side to the conflict—the Indian side. That didn’t mean there were no bad Indians—he could readily think of a few that he had personally sent to meet the Great Spirit. But he had found that the army’s way was not always the right way and he was lately becoming more and more uncomfortable with his role as an invader in the Indian’s homeland.

  He had not been consciously aware of the changes in his attitude—they had been gradual over the years. But they had consequently transformed him into a loner. Oh, he had many friends, both in the army and among the various villages of Lakota and Cheyenne. He had even lived briefly with a young woman of the Osage tribe. But he worked best alone. He continued to scout for the army, but on his own terms. He was a free man.

  After the horses were rested, he climbed on Black and splashed across the shallow stream, up through the cottonwoods on the opposite bank, and set out to the north again, keeping well west of the Red Cloud Agency. He let Black set the pace. All that day he rode on without sighting any recent sign of Indian traffic. The trails he came upon were old and he figured them to be left by hunting parties from the agency. He had traveled this country many times before, so he set a course that would ensure a supply of water. He was to find, however, that streams that had always been dependable before were now dried beds of sand, baking under the relentless sun of the dry season. After several unsuccessful attempts to dig up water for his horses in dry stream beds, he decided to take a more westerly direction. This way he would strike the south fork of the Cheyenne River and then cross over to the Cheyenne, east of Pumpkin Buttes. It would take him a little out of his way but he knew he would at least have water.

  There were two more days of riding before he struck the river and it was early afternoon when he led his horses down to the water’s edge to drink. There was still enough daylight to make four or five more hours, but he decided to make camp there and rest the horses. He felt a strong hankering for something for supper other than jerky and hardtack, so he decided to hobble his horses and do a little hunting along the riverbanks. Although he had left the boundaries of the reservation some miles behind him and was now in hostile territory, he decided there was not much risk in firing his rifle. After all, he had
ridden all day without finding any sign that indicated anyone had recently passed that way.

  After the horses were hobbled out of sight in one of the many coulees that broke down to the river, he took his Winchester and started up the riverbank on foot. Within a hundred yards of his camp, he came upon a narrow cut in the bluffs where there were so many tracks that it was obviously a favorite watering hole for antelope. He had hoped to find something like this. Made to order for supper, he thought, this is as good a spot as I’m likely to find. Checking the breeze to make sure he was downwind of the watering hole, he settled himself in a patch of young willows and waited.

  After an estimated hour had passed with no visitors to the watering hole but a few dragonflies and one thrasher, he was beginning to believe he was going to have to settle for hardtack and jerky after all. He was about to get up and hunt farther on upstream when one lone antelope appeared at the top of the bluff. The animal stood there for a few moments, looking at the water below.

  “Well, come on down for your evening drink,” Jason muttered under his breath. It was unusual to see one of the fleet-footed animals alone. The antelope hesitated, jerking his head around from side to side as if unsure about going down to the water. What the hell’s bothering you? Jason thought. He knew the animal could hardly sense his presence. He was downwind and well concealed. Maybe the antelope was not a loner after all and was waiting for his friends to catch up. Something’s bothering him, Jason concluded. At that moment, the antelope made up his mind and, after nervously stamping his front hooves a few times, descended gracefully from the bluff and made his way to the river’s edge.

  Jason waited to let the animal have one last drink, then slowly raised his rifle and drew down on him. Almost without realizing he was doing it, he whispered a brief Lakota prayer of thanks to the antelope for sacrificing his life for his survival. Then he dropped the animal with one shot placed neatly behind the shoulder and through the heart.