Cheyenne Justice

by Charles G. West

  “And give you all the yellow dust,” White Bull said sarcastically. “These miners are your people, white man.”

  “They ain’t my people. I ain’t got no people.” Aware that both men were staring at him, he quickly added, “I’m a friend to the Lakota.”

  His disgust for the dingy white man was too overpowering for White Bull to tolerate any longer. He turned abruptly and walked away. Pike watched him for a moment, then turned his attention back to Lodge Smoke.

  “He was just japing me about that crazy woman with the big sack of gold, warn’t he? That was all a big story to get my goat, warn’t it?”

  Lodge Smoke shrugged, showing his disinterest. “No, no yellow dirt. The crazy woman had no yellow dirt.”

  The significance of the chief’s casual answer suddenly hit Pike right between the eye. His eyelids narrowed and his nostrils flared. “Crazy woman? There really is a crazy woman?”

  Lodge Smoke was mildly surprised that this piqued such an intense interest in the white man. He nodded yes.

  “You wouldn’t be talking about a crazy white woman? This here crazy woman you’re talking about, she’s an Injun, is she?”

  “Crazy woman is white. White Bull and Small Bear says she looks like a man.”

  “Damn,” Pike murmured to himself. A smile slowly began to develop across his homely features as he realized his good fortune. It might be too good to be true. He had to make sure. “This here crazy woman—she’s a right handsome little gal, is she?”

  “No. This woman big.”

  Pike was fit to bust. Lodge Smoke thought for a moment the sour-faced white man was going to laugh, something the Lakota had never seen him do. In an instant, Pike’s smile faded and the pinched, sinister facade returned to his features. “That ain’t no crazy woman. That woman belongs to me. She’s run off and I’ve been trying to find her. Where is she?”

  “I think it is best to leave this woman alone. The spirits talk to her. White Bull says she does no harm.”

  Pike flared up. “Leave her alone, hell! I told you, that woman belongs to me and I damn shore intend to git her back.” His eyes were now no more than slits, recessed in the dark face that cast a menacing glare on the Sioux chief.

  Lodge Smoke was not intimidated. “I think you forget where you are.” He calmly glanced to each side at the busy village surrounding the white man. Like White Bull and most of the other men in his village, Lodge Smoke decided he had had his fill of this evil-smelling white man. “You are still alive only because I let you live. Now I think it is time for you to leave my village. You may go in peace this time, but if you come again, my warriors will kill you.”

  Pike recoiled in shock. He had never expected to be cast out by the Sioux chief. “You need me, dammit. Where are you gonna get rifles and bullets?” He began to stammer, his threatening expression of moments earlier now one of disbelief. “You got no call to turn on me. I’m a friend.”

  “You bring more promises than rifles. The Lakotas need no white man. Go and never return to our country.” He turned his back and went into his lodge.

  Pike was left stunned by the sudden cancellation of his welcome. Then, becoming angry at the treatment just suffered, he started to reach for the pistol in his belt. He immediately thought better of the notion when he glanced around him at a growing number of warriors who had heard the last loud fragments of the conversation. The warriors, White Bull foremost among them, began to gather around him and he realized that he had best hold his temper and ride out while he still could. In spite of himself, he couldn’t help but spit out one last feeble display of defiance.

  “I’m going, but that damn crazy woman is my property and I aim to take her with me.” He climbed up on his horse and jerked the animal’s head around. “I’ll find her. I know where to look.”

  Pike wasted no time in clearing the Indian camp. He did know where to look for the woman. He had gotten enough information from White Bull and Lodge Smoke’s conversation to know that Abby had moved into one of the miners’ shacks in the mountains. There weren’t but one or two shacks that were not burned by the Indians. She had to be in one of them.

  * * *

  Jason stood before the scorched pile of timbers that had once been a miner’s cabin. In his estimation, it had been some time since the burning of the shack. Already, weeds were beginning to pop up between the charred logs. It was his guess that the lone skeleton he found closer to the creek had been taken by surprise while the man was panning. There was a large crack in the back of the skull that just about matched the sharp edge of a war axe. He had been a small man, one who had lived a hard life, judging by the crooked bones of the left arm, evidence of a long-ago fracture that didn’t set properly, and the curved backbone, bent after long years of toil. Must have been an old man, Jason thought. He looked around him at the makeshift corral where a half-smashed wooden cage caught his eye. “A chicken coop,” he murmured under his breath. He brought a chicken coop with him, all the way from St. Louis, or Ohio, or wherever he came from. The picture seemed clear in Jason’s mind—one old man, alone in these silent hills, with his mule and his chickens, looking for the strike that would send him back East to die in comfort. Instead, he met his end at the hands of the Sioux…or maybe the Cheyenne or Arapaho. The sign was too old to tell which. “You didn’t have any business out here anyway,” he said, looking down at the bleached skeleton. “Not much point in burying what’s left of your bones. I reckon the closest a man gets to Heaven out here depends on how high the buzzard flies that eats his carcass.”

  He led his horse to the edge of the stream and paused there while the paint drank. He was about to step up in the stirrup when his eye caught sight of another hoofprint—this one no more than a day old. Still holding the reins, he knelt down to examine it. It was fresh, all right, and it was from a shod horse. Someone else had ridden by the burnt-out cabin just before him. Curious, he searched the bank of the stream until he found more prints. Following them along the rocky bank until they led across an open stretch of sand, he suddenly stopped short. There, in the smooth sand, was a familiar print. The left front shoe had a nick in it. The last time he had seen that print was on the Powder River, and it was heading downstream searching for Abby. He had stumbled upon the white man’s trail once again.

  Jason stood up and looked over the scene again. The man had not caught her yet. His tracks told a simple story. He rode alone, leading one horse. There were no fresh tracks around the remains of the cabin. He had ridden by and stopped briefly to take a look, then continued on downstream. Jason himself spent only a few minutes more before stepping up on the paint and riding off, following the stream.

  * * *

  No more than six miles, as the crow flies, from the burnt-out miner’s shack, Abby Langsforth sat before the doorway of her adopted cabin and cut up strips of meat to hang on the branches of a wild cherry tree to dry. It was time to get under way again, so she had decided to try her hand at drying meat to take with her.

  She felt safe here in this pleasant little valley but she was not naive enough to believe she could survive a winter in these mountains. She felt girlish and lithe here in her private little world. Here she was no longer the homely sister. She was the prettiest girl here. She was graceful and alluring. She wished Jason could see her as she saw herself in this special place. Why had she thought of Jason Coles? she asked herself. What did Jason care about her one way or the other? For that matter, what did she care what Jason Coles thought? And yet there was a part of her that hoped she was more to him than a job he was hired to do. He was not like any other man she had ever met. Strong and silent, he was also sensitive. He might be able to see into her heart and see her as she saw herself in this little valley. Then she conjured a picture in her mind of Jason relentlessly searching for her. He would find her and she preferred to think he came for her because he cared for her and not because it was his job. “It’s my valley and I can think what I damn well please,” she concluded and put
thoughts of the tall scout out of her mind for the moment.

  How long had she been away from civilization anyway? She could only guess because she had lost track of the days. So much had happened. It had been around the middle of June when she left Fort Lincoln in Nathan White Horse’s company. It must have been in July when Jason came to find her. Could it still be July? The nights were already chilly and the mornings brisk. It was time to go. Still, she felt quite safe here. She was convinced that the Indians had never returned after they murdered the original owners of the cabin. Why should they? However, it was time to find her way home. She knew she had to, although part of her wished she didn’t have to leave.

  She glanced down at her hands and realized she had been holding the same piece of raw meat for some time. She shook her head as if to wake herself from her daydreaming. Suddenly everything seemed to be too quiet, as if all living things had paused, and immediately her instincts told her something was wrong. Alarmed, though not understanding why, she turned to reach for her rifle, which was propped against the side of the cabin.

  A cry caught in her throat and she felt as if her lungs were squeezed empty of breath. He stood between her and her rifle, his hand resting on the barrel of the weapon, his own rifle in his other hand. He was not tall but he seemed to tower over her as she sat in the doorway. Sitting cross-legged, her lap full of raw meat, she knew she was helpless. He could kill her before she got to her feet. Deserted by her usual bluster, she was terrified as she felt her gaze locked by the piercing dark eyes set in the bronze of his face. His black hair was worn in two braids and adorned with a solitary eagle feather.

  The dark eyes that had held her gaze softened and, though his face remained without expression, he seemed to be examining her. His manner was one of curiosity, and not menacing—or so she hoped. After a long silence, during which he looked her over carefully, he spoke.

  “I am White Bull, Lakota. I have come to warn you. You must leave this place, for you are in danger here. Black Hat searches for you. I think he means to kill you.”

  Abby could only stare, wide-eyed, as the Sioux warrior talked. Although his tone was not threatening, she could not understand a word he was saying. After he spoke, and stood staring down at her, she continued to stare at him for a long moment. Then she shook her head violently from side to side, indicating she could not understand. White Bull repeated his words, but again she shook her head frantically. Then, trying to use hand gestures and the few words of English he knew, he attempted to make her understand.

  “Go.” He signed the word “fast,” but could see she did not understand. “Go,” he repeated and thought for a moment, trying to remember English words. “Bad,” he recalled. “Go…bad.”

  She understood “go,” and surmised he was telling her to get out of his country. She wanted to tell him that she would gladly leave but she could not make him understand. “I go,” she said, nodding her head.

  This did not seem to satisfy him. “Go,” he repeated over and over. He picked up her rifle and went to her saddle. Sliding it in the boot, he picked up the saddle and carried it to her horse. There he stood motioning at her, then the saddle, then the horse. She understood and got to her feet and moved to take the saddle from him. “Go,” he pleaded.

  He stepped back and watched her saddle her horse. Still he was not satisfied and she was at a loss as to what he was upset about. “I’m leaving, dammit,” she muttered, working as fast she could.

  Suddenly he raised his rifle and, pointing it at her, made gunshot sounds. Seeing that this only served to frighten the woman, he searched his memory for words. Finally, he recalled and pointed the rifle at her again. “Pick,” he said. “Pick, Pick…come. Pick come.”

  “Pick?” she repeated. “Pick?” Then a terrifying thought struck her. “Pike?”

  He nodded vigorously “Pike! Pike!”

  She felt as if the blood drained from her body into her feet. “Pike come?…Pike come?”

  “Pike come.” He nodded solemnly, realizing that at last she understood.

  There was no need for further coaxing. “Damn…damn,” she mumbled to herself as she frantically finished tightening the girth strap and ran inside the cabin to gather what supplies she had. White Bull helped her tie her saddlepack on and she was ready to ride. Stepping up to the stirrup, she paused and turned back to face the Lakota warrior. Wanting desperately to thank him, she reached out to touch his arm. He backed away in alarm. She could not know that he was reluctant to touch one who was perhaps touched by a spirit. She tried to smile as warm a smile as she could muster under the dire circumstances and nodded her head up and down. He understood and nodded in return. She climbed on the horse and rode through the stream and out across the narrow meadow toward the pass beyond.

  White Bull remained in the little clearing, watching the white crazy woman until she dropped from sight on the far side of the ridge that ran down to the valley floor. He was not sure why he had felt the desire to warn her about Pike. The woman may have been talking with the spirit of the water. She may have been touched by other spirits as well. Who could say? Lodge Smoke was a wise chief and he had felt it best to leave the woman in peace. One thing he was certain of—Black Hat had no business with the woman. That was reason enough to warn her. Black Hat had no respect for the earth or the spirits. He was nothing more than a greedy leech and White Bull was glad that Lodge Smoke had finally had enough of the evil man and had cast him out of the village.

  A movement from upstream caught his eye and he turned to search for the cause of it. Nothing more at first, but then, far up the stream, he saw a rider making his way down the rocky stream bed. A moment more and he recognized the familiar black hat, the wide brim flipping down in the front, hiding the upper half of the man’s face. Ahh, White Bull thought, the coyote wasted no time. He felt an immediate rise of bile at the sight of the contemptible man. It was unfortunate that there had been a casual mention of the miners’ shack. Otherwise it might have been days before Black Hat looked for the woman here. White Bull would have avoided him but he assumed that Black Hat had already seen him, so he remained where he was, watching the white man approach.

  Pike made his way around the boulders and guided his horse out into the clearing. He climbed down from his horse, his eyes constantly on the Lakota warrior standing silently, a cunning smile etched in his dirty whiskers. “Well, now, White Bull. I didn’t figure on running into you again so soon.” White Bull made no reply. Pike casually looped his horse’s reins over a pine bough. “I’m right glad to see you. Yessir, I kinda hoped we could still be friends, you and me.” He attempted to broaden his smile. Still there was no reply from the stoic Sioux brave. Pike went on. “I can say for myself, they shore ain’t no hard feelings.” He glanced over at the cabin. “What you doing here, anyway? You ain’t fixin’ to set up housekeeping in that old shack, are you?”

  “Why do you come here, Black Hat? You have no business in this land.”

  His smile still fixed in place, Pike snorted as if amused by White Bull’s remark. “I’m on my way outta here but first, like I told ol’ Lodge Smoke, I’m lookin’ to pick up some of my property.” He glanced around him. “I’m figuring that there woman was staying here in this cabin. And I’m figuring that she ain’t here no more, since you’re standing here.” He glanced around again. “Or maybe she is, though I don’t see no horse or nothin’.”

  “The woman is not here,” White Bull stated. He kept his eye on Pike, carefully watching his every move, his rifle resting across his forearm.

  “No, I reckon she ain’t,” Pike said, thoughtfully scratching his chin under his whiskers. Then, seeming to suddenly itch all over, he reached up and rubbed the back of his neck, still with the smile permanently drawn across his homely face. “But I bet she ain’t been gone long, has she?”

  White Bull shrugged his shoulders. “I go now. There is no white woman here.” He was only catching bits of Pike’s conversation since Pike’s Sioux was elementar
y at best. But he understood the direction it was going in. He was not careless enough to give the grimy white man his back and, seeing that Pike’s rifle was secured in his saddle boot, he decided it was safe to mount his horse. In one graceful move, he jumped on the pony’s back and prepared to back the horse away.

  “Hold on a minute,” Pike pleaded. “You could tell me which way she headed. You could at least do that, after all the guns I brought you and your friends.”

  White Bull had had his fill of the evil man. Even now, as he held on to White Bull’s rope halter, the dirty coyote could not stop scratching himself with his other hand. “The woman is not here. I have nothing more to say to you.”

  “Dang, too bad you feel like that. Why, hell, I always kinda liked you. You and me ought to be friends. I shore don’t mean no harm to you. Look here, I won’t even wear my gun while I’m talking to you, friend.” He reached down and quickly unbuckled his belt, letting his pistol fall to the ground. “There, don’t that tell you somethin’? Leastways now you won’t feel like you gotta back your horse outta here.” White Bull still did not trust the man. Seeing that, Pike said, “Hell, you may be right about the woman. Maybe I’ll just let her alone.”

  “That is best.”

  “All right, then. No hard feelings.” He started to move close to White Bull but suddenly stopped and shuddered. “Damn, these bugs is eatin’ me up!” He scratched his belly violently with his left hand. With his right, he reached behind his back to scratch.

  White Bull shook his head in disbelief at the man’s filth. He was not prepared for the next move. Pike’s right hand came from behind his back with a long skinning knife that had been strapped there in a leather sheath. Striking quicker than the blink of an eye, he brought the knife up under White Bull’s ribs and thrust it all the way to the handle. White Bull screamed with the pain that tore at his innards as Pike hacked away at the wound. He tried to bring his rifle up but Pike grabbed the barrel with his left hand and, with a violent tug, pulled the stunned warrior from his pony.