Cheyenne Justice

by Charles G. West

  He studied the tracks carefully and determined that his man had ridden out to the east. There were three horses but two of them carried riders, so evidently Abby was still a hostage. The third horse carried a light load, probably a packhorse that belonged to the fellow under the tree. The tracks could not tell him if all three horses rode out together but he assumed that they had. Satisfied that he had gleaned all the information he could at the campsite, he climbed aboard the paint and started out after the two riders. As he rode by the already stiffening body under the tree, he offered one final comment. “Looks like your friend didn’t think enough of you to put you in the ground. And I sure as hell don’t. Besides, buzzards gotta eat too.”

  The trail was easy to follow. There had been no attempt to disguise it—evidently there had been no consideration toward the notion that someone might be tailing them. As he kept his eye on the trail before him and his senses keen for any danger from an unexpected quarter, he pushed the paint forward at a ground-eating pace. He had a fleeting thought about Abby’s welfare, wondering how she might be holding up. He discarded the thought immediately, knowing that it never helped to worry over things that he could not control.

  Jason rode on for a couple of hours when he approached the northern end of a low butte that stretched for about a half mile to the south. He pulled the paint up and studied the tracks for a few moments. One of the riders had veered off and headed around the end of the butte. The other rider and the packhorse went straight up and over the butte. Jason looked at the country ahead and considered the general direction the trail had taken for the last hour. Why did they split up, he wondered, and why did one of them go the long way around? It didn’t take but a moment to sink in. He realized that the two of them were not riding together. The man leading the pack horse was trailing her.

  Abby had escaped—that was the only thing it could be. When she approached the butte, she rode around the end of it. The man chasing her took a short cut, trying to gain ground on her. This put a little more urgency in the chase and he hurried the paint up the slope of the butte. The pony took to the incline with the surefootedness of a mountain goat.

  On the other side of the butte, the trails joined again and continued on in generally an eastern direction, although Abby showed a tendency to lean toward the south a little. It was late in the afternoon when he came to the river. Here’s where she decided to cover her trail, he thought, because, when he crossed, there were only two sets of tracks that came out on the other side. To further complete the picture for him, tracks ran upstream and down. Jason decided the man he tracked had ridden upstream first and then, when he didn’t find where Abby had come out of the water, he turned around and searched downstream. Jason scouted the tracks upstream first, just as the man had done.

  He hadn’t gone two hundred yards before he reached the point where the man had turned around. Impatient cuss, he thought. Jason did not see any sign that the man had missed and, while he normally would have scouted the riverbank for a while longer, he decided he would stay with the tracks and he turned back too. He walked the paint slowly downstream, his eyes searching the open riverbank for the one little piece of evidence that would tell him what he wanted to know. He looked at the riverbank as Abby might, trying to guess where she might consider it safe to leave the water. He continued searching along the river’s edge, just as the man leading the packhorse had done several hours before. There was also the possibility that Abby had left the water on the same side she had entered, but he doubted it. Abby was running—trying to get back to Fort Lincoln was his guess. But if she continued in the same direction she had been riding, she was more likely to end up in the Black Hills.

  Up to now, there had been no likely spot to disguise her exit from the river, for the banks were bare and wide and her tracks would have been evident even to the rankest greenhorn. But then the river took a little turn around some overhanging trees and a little grassy knoll almost reached the edge of the water. The bare sand was only a few yards wide here before the grass began. This would have been the first likely spot, he figured, and by this point she would probably have been impatient to get out of the river and resume her flight. The problem was, there were no tracks across the short stretch of sand and he had yet to see the horse that could leap from that riverbed, over the sandy bank, and land in the grass.

  The man he followed had not even stopped to consider it, for the tracks never wavered but continued on down the river. Still Jason had an instinct for such things, so he dismounted to look the spot over more carefully. Something about the sand looked too smooth to be natural. When he took a closer look, he knew right away his instincts had been right on target. She had come out here and had swept the tracks clean. He looked around until he found the broken willow branch and the discarded switch where she had thrown it.

  “Good girl,” he muttered, smiling as he looked up to follow the tracks of the two horses disappearing down the riverbank. The next few minutes were spent on his hands and knees until he found a print in the soft grass. He traced the impression of it with his finger, then looked in the direction it pointed. Southeast, he thought. Little by little, she had constantly changed her course more to the south. He was sure she had Fort Lincoln in mind, but unless she changed her direction pretty soon she was going to miss it by a helluva lot.

  * * *

  Being a stranger to the country, Abby had no concept of the distance to be covered. She remembered how long it took her and Nathan White Horse to reach Sitting Bull’s camp, but part of that time was spent in finding it. For that reason, she kept hoping that beyond every ridge, on the far side of every line of rolling hills, behind every low butte, she might strike the Missouri. She knew she would recognize the Missouri when she reached it. Big and wide, it would be easily discernable from the smaller, shallow rivers she had come to so far.

  Now her hopes were becoming strained, for she saw mountains stretching across the horizon before her and she began to doubt her sense of direction. She had not remembered those mountains when she and Nathan were going in the opposite direction. She knew she should be south of the trail they had ridden then, but she didn’t think she was that far south. What mountains were they? The Big Horns? Maybe she had gotten turned around and started out in the wrong direction that morning. She had been near exhaustion when she finally stopped and slept last night. No, she told herself firmly. The Big Horns were far behind her. Lost or not, the sun still rose in the east and she was riding toward the sun. She pushed on toward the mountains.

  After two days riding and no sign of anyone following her, she began to feel less threatened and gradually her nerves settled down. “I believe I lost the son of a bitch,” she announced to her horse. Her concern shifted from her immediate safety to the challenge of finding her way back to Lincoln. And she was confident now in her ability to do that. She was certain to reach the Missouri eventually and then it would be simply a matter of following it north. “If the damn thing hasn’t dried up,” she stated.

  Of immediate importance now was the matter of food, for the supplies she had taken from Pike’s packhorse were now running out. There was no coffee left and the salt pork had been finished at supper the night before. She hefted the little pouch she had found in the bottom of Pike’s haversack. “I’d trade you right now for a sack of potatoes.”

  Well, I can hunt, she told herself. She fancied herself an adequate shot with a rifle and she figured that if a man could hunt to survive, then she damn sure could. Having seen no sign of Pike behind her for the last two days, she felt it would be safe to risk a shot. It seemed to her that she was the only living person on the face of the earth. Who would hear it if she fired her rifle?

  As she approached the higher hills, she saw more and more signs of the presence of game and even some glimpses of antelope herds in the distance. But she was never close enough to take a shot. By the late afternoon, she was beginning to feel the gnawing in her stomach that told her she was going to have to find som
ething to eat before very much longer. It would be getting dark in a couple of hours, so when she came to a stream that cut through a narrow pass she decided to make camp there for the night where she would have water and some grass for the horse.

  She entered the stream and turned her horse to walk slowly up the center, looking for a suitable place to spend the night. She had not gone fifty yards when she pulled back on the reins and held her horse still. There, not a hundred yards away, two black-tailed deer, a buck and a doe, stood drinking at the stream’s edge. Moving very slowly so as not to spook them, she drew her rifle from the boot and carefully took aim at the deer closest to her. “Easy, boy,” she whispered as her horse shifted from one foot to the other. When he was still again, she pulled the trigger. The bark of the rifle startled her and her horse jerked back briefly before settling down again. Her shot hit the buck, wounding him in the back leg. The impact spun him around and he fell. She urged her horse forward but the deer struggled to his feet and tried to hobble off after the doe, now disappearing through the brush beside the stream.

  “Damn,” she uttered and pulled back on the reins again to take another shot before he reached the cover of the shrubs. Her second shot missed entirely but she quickly cocked the rifle and her third shot caught the deer behind the shoulder. Still the deer made it to the bushes and out of sight. She galloped after it.

  The dying buck had made it to the cover of the brush by the stream and no farther. When Abby galloped up through the bushes and discovered her trophy, her first sensation was a flush of triumph. She had made meat, her first kill. There was a feeling of self-confidence along with the pride of knowing she could survive in this wild country as well as anyone. Her elation was tempered only a little with the sober thought that, now that she had killed it, what was she going to do with it? She had never skinned anything before. There were scant occasions for skinning wild game back at her father’s newspaper in Chicago. Her growing hunger told her that she would figure it out.

  The first thing she must do was to get her kill out of the bushes where she had room to butcher it. This proved to be a bit more difficult than she imagined. The buck didn’t appear to be that big—the antlers counted only four points. But when she attempted to pick him up, she found she could not lift the animal. She dropped his legs and went around to his head and, taking a firm grasp on the antlers, tried to drag the deer free of the brush. At first that didn’t work either but finally it occurred to her to use the horse’s strength to drag the deer out.

  By now the light was fading as the shadows covered the narrow pass, so she decided to camp right where she was. She soon had a fire going and her horse hobbled where it could chew on the bark of the bushes by the stream. Nathan White Horse had showed her how to start a fire with his flint and steel and, while she had spent a good part of the night trying to make enough sparks the first time, she had since improved her technique.

  Having no idea where to start her butchering, she studied the carcass before her. Finally she decided she would cut the skin around the neck to separate it from the body. Then she would start on the deer’s belly, split it down the middle, and try to peel it off like she was taking off a coat. That seemed a sensible approach to her, so she set into her work with a hungry vengeance.

  It wasn’t as easy as she had hoped and she worked away at the stubborn hide, straining and cursing. Not bothering to disembowel the animal, she cut and pulled at the hide until she had managed to expose a considerable area of flesh. She was too hungry to continue her struggle to completely skin the animal, so she left it half peeled and cut some strips of flesh to roast on a stick over the fire. While her supper was cooking, she went back to work on the hacked-up carcass, cutting strips of flesh from the shoulder and haunch. She wanted to make a supply of meat to carry with her but she had no way to preserve it. She knew that the Indians dried meat in order to keep it but she wasn’t sure how they actually did it. Anyway, she didn’t have time to stay in one place long enough to dry meat. So she would cook enough for now and then think about finding more food later.

  The first strip of roasted venison she ate was only half cooked because of her impatience. But she decided it was the best meat she had ever tasted—a royal feast, in fact, enhanced by the fact that she had killed it, skinned it, and cooked it. She ate her fill of the sizzling hot meal, continuing to eat long after her hunger was satisfied. When she was content, she went down to the stream and washed her hands and face. Unconcerned about Pike or any other mortal, she rolled up in her blanket by the fire and was soon asleep.

  Morning found Abby rested and ready to be on her way. Another night safely passed, with no threat on her life, gave her reason to believe she had indeed escaped Pike’s vengence. He may not have even thought it worth the bother to come after her in the first place. Of course Selvey had incentive to want to find her and gain his revenge for the frying pan she laid him out with. But she squandered no more thoughts on the matter. It was a beautiful morning and her spirits were up as she saddled her horse and prepared to ride.

  She had considered eating more of the deer meat but the carcass had already begun to bloat and she had no appetite for it. So she breakfasted on a couple of hardtack crackers and guided the horse toward the north end of the pass. The Missouri might be on the other side of these mountains, she told herself, by now not really believing it.

  Although her situation was grave, she found herself admiring the country she was traveling through. The rolling treeless hills of the past few days had given way to higher hills and ridges covered with green trees. The stream she followed sparkled with the early rays of sunshine that lit the treetops on the slopes beside her. The peace of the narrow valley seemed immune from any form of violence, a haven from the world of savage Indians and the likes of Selvey and Pike. She felt in the best spirits she had been in for many days.

  The narrow pass proved to be longer than she expected, for she rode for two hours, following the winding course of the stream. But still there was no end to it. Fearing that it was causing her to lose her eastern progress, she looked for some way out of the pass without climbing up the steep sides. Finally she came to a cut where a branch of the stream forked off eastward again and she decided to follow it in hopes it would lead her to the other side of the high ridges above her.

  The branch narrowed to no more than three or four feet wide in some places where the rushing water cut through massive rock formations. Abby’s horse could barely find adequate footing in many spots, causing Abby to consider going back to the main stream. But having gone this far, she decided to continue until the horse could not get through. Reaching a point where she had to dismount and lead the horse, she was ready to turn back when she sighted a clearing about two hundred yards ahead. A few yards farther through the narrow opening in the rocks, she could see a wide valley beyond. Her spirits lifted once more, she hurried the horse along toward the clearing.

  She was almost out of the narrow pass when she first spied the cabin. It was actually little more than a shack, but the sight of it caused her heart to leap into her throat. She almost cried out and had to caution herself to be careful. Maybe Indians built cabins too, she told herself, even though it just didn’t look like anything an Indian would build. She continued slowly down into the clearing and stopped to look the situation over carefully before proceeding any further. Her rifle out, she scanned the little clearing from left to right. There seemed to be no one around and there were no animals, no horses. Maybe the place was abandoned. Then her eyes settled on a wood trough in the water and she realized that it was a sluice. This was a miner’s shack. Her heart pounded again, for this meant that it was no Indian cabin.

  “Hello,” she called out. “Hello the cabin.”

  There was no answer save the echo of her voice coming back to her from the rock walls of the pass. Then the heavy silence returned to the clearing. It was abandoned, she decided, and led her horse on down to the cabin, where she tied him to the end of a log protru
ding from the wall of the rough shack. “Hello,” she called again and slowly pushed the door open with the barrel of her rifle. Peering into the dark interior, she took but a moment to realize it had been empty for a while.

  She shoved the door open wide. Her heart sank a bit with the disappointment of finding no one there, but at least it was a sign of civilization. The gold must have played out, she thought. Maybe there was a mining settlement close by. She stood in the center of the crude shack and looked around her. There was a table made from split logs and two chairs, one of which was lying on its back on the dirt floor as if someone had gotten up quickly and knocked it over, never bothering to right it again. A bucket sat in the corner with water in it. At the back of the cabin was a fireplace with a short chimney, made of stones from the stream. The mud had crumbled around a few of them and they had been pulled out of the fireplace. In a corner by the fireplace Abby found a couple of packs, similar to the army haversacks that soldiers carried, but they were empty. “No woman,” she muttered. It was obvious there had been no female’s touch about the crude abode.

  There was nothing for her there, no reason to waste any more time. But she had an urge to pause there for a while, maybe a day or two to rest and find food before continuing her journey. Maybe it was just because it was a structure, a building erected by white men, some semblance of civilization. I’ll stay here for a while, she determined. The prior owners abandoned it, so now it’s mine to use as long as I want. The decision made, she went outside to unsaddle her horse.

  Outside the cabin, she looked around the clearing to determine the best place to hobble her horse. The site picked for the cabin was no more than a pocket in the side of the high ridge behind it. Standing in front of the shack, she could see a narrow trail that led up the slope, evidently to a narrow ledge about sixty or seventy feet above the stream. Curious, she decided to follow the path to see where it led.