Cheyenne Justice

by Charles G. West

  Breathing hard, for the path was steep, she made her way up to the ledge. Whatever the purpose of the path, it had evidently not been used very much, for it was grown over in places by low brush. She stepped over the smaller branches and pushed her way through the larger ones. At the top of the path she stopped to look around. Seeing nothing at first, she started to turn around and return to the cabin. Then she saw it.

  A gasp stuck in her throat and she almost dropped the rifle she had clutched so tightly as she climbed up the path. The body had been there for some time. As she stood there, helpless to move for a few moments, she glanced beyond the putrid body and saw a second body. She had found the owners of the cabin. Her first impulse was to leave there at once but she forced herself to move closer to examine the lifeless forms lying against the rock wall of the ledge.

  They had been white men. Now they were mutilated carcasses. Both men had been scalped, their bodies stripped almost entirely of clothes so that their bloated bodies resembled some macabre form of giant insect. One of them had had his skull smashed to pulp, the apparent instrument a large stone by his body, stained brown with his blood. Suddenly Abby felt dizzy and her stomach began to heave violently. She staggered a few steps away and dropped to her knees, unable to stop her stomach from emptying its contents.

  She wasn’t sure how long she remained there on her knees. It seemed a long time before she felt her legs would support her again. Slowly, she got to her feet and, without looking at the dead men again, turned and retraced her steps back down to the shack. All the way down the path, she told herself she did not want to stay in this place another hour. She would saddle her horse and find another place to make her camp.

  By the time she reached the bottom and the peaceful serenity of the stream again, she had begun to rationalize her situation more calmly. She could think more clearly away from the grotesque scene on the ledge. The two miners had evidently run up the path, trying to escape the Indians. She remembered talk among the soldiers at Fort Lincoln about the miners pouring into the Black Hills looking for gold. Maybe she was in the Black Hills, which meant she was quite a distance south of Fort Lincoln. They had said there would be hell to pay because the Indians held that land as sacred land. The two previous owners of this cabin had paid that terrible price for whatever gold they may have found. But now her practical mind took over her thoughts. Wouldn’t this cabin be the safest place she could be right now? The Indians had already been here and killed the miners. There was no reason for them to come back here. It made sense to her. She decided to stay for a few days. She would be fine here…as long as she did not climb the path to the ledge again.

  With new resolve, she set about making herself comfortable in her temporary home. Confident in her ability to provide food for herself since her success with the deer the day before, she decided to go hunting in the morning. This time she might try drying the meat for the continuation of her journey back to Fort Lincoln. She felt self-sufficient again. “It’ll take more than a couple of old dead miners to scare me,” she announced with her old self-confidence.

  * * *

  The two Lakota warriors sat on their ponies, high up on the ridge, and contemplated the activity at the cabin in the small clearing below them at the foot of the mountain. Small Bear, the elder of the two, spoke.

  “You were right. I was not sure this one was a woman. She looked like a man with long hair.”

  On the afternoon of the day before, the two warriors had heard three rifle shots and rode to investigate. They discovered the trail of one horse leading into a mountain pass and followed it along a stream that flowed along the floor of the pass. There was still light enough to see when they came upon the camp of the lone rider. It proved to be a white man, or so they thought at the time. Small Bear wanted to ride down and kill the intruder immediately, but his companion, White Bull, was not so anxious. There was something curious about the white man and he persuaded his friend to wait so they could watch for a while. Small Bear reluctantly agreed and they moved to a point above the white man’s camp where they could determine the man’s intentions in their country.

  It was plain to the two Lakotas that the shots they had heard earlier were fired at this campsite, for there was a hacked-up carcass of a deer lying near the stream. It seemed a strange and inefficient way to skin a deer and they decided the person they were watching had never skinned one before. They wondered what the man’s business was here in the sacred hills. He did not kill the animal for its hide, and the head was not taken for a trophy. It was obvious the deer had been killed for food and yet most of the animal was left to rot. Looking over the man’s camp, they saw no packhorse carrying mining tools. They concluded the man must be lost.

  The longer they watched the man, the more curious he seemed until White Bull began to think he was not a man at all.

  “A woman?” Small Bear had exclaimed. “What would a white woman be doing in this country alone? If it’s a woman, she doesn’t wear women’s clothes. I say it’s a man, and a very foolish man at that.” Although unconvinced, he agreed to spare the intruder’s life momentarily so they could watch him for a while.

  The next morning they followed Abby up the stream after stopping to look over her campsite. Everything they saw told them that the person they followed did not belong in the mountains. Continuing upstream, they lost her trail in the rocky pass and after a while decided to double back to see if they had missed some sign. Small Bear finally discovered a print in the sandy bottom of a small branch that forked off toward the miners’ shack.

  It had become an intriguing game with the two warriors as they tracked Abby through the narrow cut and watched her reactions when she stumbled onto the cabin. Of special interest was her reaction to the bodies of the miners they had killed several days before. Watching this, White Bull was more convinced they were observing a woman. Small Bear was still unconvinced and could see no reason to delay the execution. “If it is a white woman,” he had said, “she will run away from there as fast as she can.” But the woman stayed and White Bull persuaded his friend to watch her for one more night.

  Now, as the two warriors sat on their ponies observing the strange antics of the white woman below them, there was complete agreement that it was, indeed, a woman they had followed for two days. Abby, stripped down to her bare skin, was happily splashing around in the cold mountain stream. The chill of the water caused her to almost lose her breath and she danced and hopped, flailing her arms wildly, in an effort to keep her blood circulating. She continued her wild gyrations until she was satisfied that she had had a thorough bath. Then she stepped out of the water, shivering, and dried herself, using her shirt as a towel.

  “Grant’s balls,” she exclaimed, repeating a muleskinner’s oath she had overheard while passing the stables at Fort Lincoln. “I don’t know if I could stand another bath in that water.” She laughed at herself, still shivering in her nakedness. Slipping her feet into her boots, she went over to the wooden sluice and used it for a clothesline to let her shirt dry. While she waited for the sun to finish drying her skin before putting her underclothes back on, she picked up her trousers and held them up to inspect them. Since they were the only pair of pants she had, she was reluctant to wash them. “I might need ’em in a hurry,” she stated. It struck her funny, looking at the worn pair of men’s trousers and, on a girlish impulse, she laughed and began to dance around, holding the pants as if they were her dancing partner.

  Small Bear and White Bull watched in fascinated silence for a long time, glancing at each other occasionally to exchange puzzled expressions. Finally Small Bear spoke.

  “I think her mind has gone.”

  “Maybe so. Maybe the spirits play with her mind. I heard there was a crazy white woman in Sitting Bull’s camp many nights ago. He asked his people to let her go unharmed. Maybe this is the same crazy woman. Maybe she has big medicine and that is the reason Sitting Bull permitted her to go in peace.”

  Small Bear was n
ot so certain. “It is just a woman, an ugly woman at that. Let’s put an arrow through her chest and see if she has special medicine.”

  White Bull was not comfortable with that solution. “It is not a good idea to kill one who is touched by the spirits. I say leave her alone and maybe she will go away.”

  * * *

  When the two Lakota warriors returned to their camp, they sought out their chief, Lodge Smoke, and told him of the crazy woman at the miners’ shack. Lodge Smoke, a wise and patient man, listened with interest as White Bull and Small Bear told of the woman’s antics by the stream.

  “Was the crazy woman looking for the yellow dirt that the white man craves?”

  “No,” White Bull replied. “And she seemed to kill only that which she could eat. Although,” he added, “she was very wasteful with it.”

  Lodge Smoke nodded thoughtfully as he considered what his two warriors had said. “I think you have done a wise thing, leaving the woman alone. I think it is the same crazy woman who was in Sitting Bull’s camp and he said that she should not be harmed.” He paused as if thinking about what he had just said. “Still, I think it would be best to watch this crazy woman for a while. If she does no harm, it is best to do no harm to a person the spirits have touched with their hands—even a white person.”

  And so it was that Abby decided to stay in her newfound cabin for a few days longer when she found that game was within her easy access, often coming within a few yards of the cabin to drink from the stream. Unseen and, consequently, unknown to her were the Lakota warriors who passed by on the ridges above her cabin almost daily, pausing to watch the crazy woman for a while before moving on. Those who happened by in the morning were fascinated by the strange ritual she performed in the stream. Abby, weary of the dirt and grime of long days before when there was no opportunity to bathe, now delighted in the clear mountain stream that flowed almost at her door. Before, when riding with Nathan and later with Jason—and certainly while she was a captive with Pike and Selvey—there were many streams and rivers, but there was no privacy to allow her to bathe. So she took advantage of the opportunity and bathed in the cold stream every morning. It became a game with her to keep from freezing while she waited for her skin to dry so she danced and cavorted around the rocks until she was dry enough to get back into her clothes. It served to exhilarate her and, unknown to her, fascinate the unseen somber figures watching from the mountainside.

  To the Lakota scouts, her ritual obviously surpassed simple bathing, for she did it every single day. There was little doubt that the woman was touched by a spirit and White Bull was convinced it was the spirit of the water who possessed her. It was obvious, he concluded, that she purified her body each day in the chilly waters and then performed her religious dance to appeal to the spirit of the water.

  Chapter XI

  Jack Pike sat hunched over against a huge pine tree, his rain slicker pulled over his head, watching the steady pattern of raindrops on the surface of the river. “Damn you!” he spat, cursing the very heavens above him for the second sudden storm during the night. He had been careless in making his camp and consequently he had paid for it with wet blankets and clothes. Pike didn’t care for even the thought of getting wet, especially bathing. He was convinced regular bathing weakened the skin. As opposed to bathing as he was, however, that was not the reason for his surly mood this morning. The rain had made it impossible to find any trail the woman might have left and his impatience to overtake her was eating through his craw like acid.

  He had continued down the river for more than two miles, looking in vain for the point where Abby might have left it. At first discounting the possibility that the woman might be smart enough to cover her trail when she came out of the river, he finally conceded that this was in fact what had happened. So he had crossed the river and made a careful search of the opposite side, still finding nothing. The closer it came to sundown, the madder and more frustrated he became. When darkness finally forced him to end his search for the day, he reluctantly pitched a hasty camp and turned in to wait for daylight again, only to be awakened by a thorough dousing in the middle of the night. The second storm hit at daylight and it didn’t appear it would let up anytime soon.

  Now, as he sat cursing the rain and the woman he had been unable to overtake, he was forced to admit to himself that he was beaten on this day. There was no trail to follow. It only strengthened his resolve to find Abby if it took him the rest of his life to do it. The woman was alone somewhere within this vast country and she would have to show up sooner or later. And when she did, he would be there to take his revenge.

  For now, he could think of nothing better to do than find Lodge Smoke’s village. There were only a few Sioux bands that still tolerated him and Lodge Smoke’s band had been the most profitable for his business. This thought caused him to curse those Indians who had warned him that he was not welcome in their camps. The bastards, he thought. They should appreciate his help in dealing with one of their biggest problems. The Indians were mad as hell at the miners pouring into the Black Hills and he had tried to convince the Sioux and some of the Cheyennes that he was only interested in helping them get rid of the whites.

  In spite of his current frustration, he was forced to smile when he thought about his arrangement with Lodge Smoke and Crooked Leg. He helped them find the scattered mining camps and often went in first as a decoy to lure the white men out in the open. He insisted to the Indians that he was only interested in helping them keep their sacred hunting grounds—all he wanted in return was all the worthless yellow dust they found at the camps. When he was in the Arapaho camp two days before, Crooked Leg told him that their hated enemy, Colonel Custer, was even now leading a large column of soldiers into the Black Hills. Crooked Leg had angrily complained that the soldiers had no right in the sacred land. There were sure to be more white men following. Pike had pretended to share the chief’s anger while thinking to himself, The more the merrier. There would be more gold dust for the taking.

  Those thoughts helped to improve his mood somewhat and he saddled his horse and prepared to head out toward the mountains to find Lodge Smoke’s camp. He considered himself a miner. “I just got a different way of mining,” he said aloud, a grin now creasing his face. “And now I don’t have to give Selvey a share.”

  When last he had been in Lodge Smoke’s village, the Sioux chief had been camped above the fork of the Powder and the Little Powder. So Pike set out, following the river, continuing on in the direction he had traveled before when looking for Abby. The chief had moved his camp further north, so Pike found it less than a half a day’s ride from where he started out that morning.

  Lodge Smoke’s people were accustomed to Pike’s occasional visits so there was no alarm when he was spotted approaching the village. For those who had seen him before, Pike was easily recognized from a distance. He was a tall, lean man who wore buckskins, long since turned almost black from smoke and grease, and a black hat with a wide brim. The Sioux called him Black Hat because the brim flopped low in the front and back, its wideness exaggerated by the thinness of Pike’s face. His eyes were set deep behind a nose that seemed as sharp as an axe.

  White Bull, standing beside his chief, watched their visitor approach. “Black Hat,” he stated with no emotion beyond a touch of contempt. Lodge Smoke only grunted in reply. White Bull was never happy to see the white hairface. He did not trust him. “I am sorry to see that man in our camp again.”

  Lodge Smoke said nothing for a moment. He realized that many of his people shared White Bull’s distaste for the white man who claimed to be a friend of the Lakotas. He made an effort to defend Pike but it was without conviction. “Maybe his heart is true. He has helped to draw out some of the miners.”

  “He only wants the yellow dust. He cares nothing for our people. I say let him keep no more of the yellow dust and then see how much he wants to help our people.”

  Seeing the chief and White Bull standing in front of Lodge S
moke’s tipi, Pike rode straight into the camp and pulled up before them. Using sign language and his rudimentary knowledge of the tongue, he told Lodge Smoke that he had come to visit his friends, the Lakotas. If the reception was cool, Pike took no notice of it. He was more interested in whether there had been any recent war parties into the hills and if the warriors had gotten the yellow dust for him.

  Disliking the man intensely, White Bull could not resist the urge to taunt him. “Yes, there is a crazy woman living in an old shack who gave me a sack filled with the dust.” He held his arms up, indicating the size of the sack. “It was too heavy for my horse so I emptied it in the stream. Then the sack was much easier to carry.” The pain reflected in Pike’s face brought a smile of satisfaction to White Bull.

  Pike fairly whined when he protested. “Chief, I thought we agreed to give me the yellow dust.”

  Lodge Smoke shrugged. He failed to see why the white man placed such value on the heavy dirt. “There is plenty of dirt everywhere. Why carry it around in a sack?”

  “But, dammit, this here’s special dirt,” Pike protested. “I can get you rifles with that dust…new rifles…repeaters.”

  “Why would any man trade a good rifle for a sack of dirt?”

  Pike shook his head, bewildered in the face of such obvious innocence. “Just don’t throw any more of it away.” Still fuming over White Bull’s story and not certain if it was true, he asked, “When will you be sending out another war party?”

  “We hunt now. Soon the summer will be over and we must have enough meat for the winter.” It was apparent that Lodge Smoke was not interested in scouting for miners at the moment.

  Pike was adamant. “Hunt? Hell, there’s plenty of time to hunt. You’ve got to find them miners and kill ’em. They’re gonna take your sacred hunting grounds away from you. You’ve got to kill ’em all.”