Just as he figured, the squaw made for the nearest cover, holding the child close to her bosum. The remaining braves dived for their weapons, not really sure from where the attack was coming. Jason managed to catch one of them as he jumped up from the fire. The bullet thudded into his breastplate and he fell heavily across the campfire, knocking the antelope hump on the ground. There were two left and they scrambled for the horses. One of them had a Henry repeating rifle and he fired it wildly at the hillside as he ran.
Jason moved to his left, working his way down the hill as quickly as he could, trying to get in position to fire at the two fleeing Cheyennes. Both men reached the ponies before he could get a clear field of fire and in a second they were off at a gallop in different directions. Even with the moonlight, it was too dark to get a good shot and Jason knew he would only have a chance at one of them so he picked the one closest to him. Judging by the sound of the horse’s hooves and a faint image through the shadows, he guessed the direction the rider was heading. He trained his rifle on what he deemed to be the line of flight and targeted a slender opening in the trees where the moonlight shone on the forest floor. In an instant, the rider flashed through the open spot. In the same instant, Jason squeezed the trigger, knocking the rider off his horse.
Five down but one got away, he thought. Without hesitating, he turned and ran back past the campfire and down the path he had seen the Indian woman take. As he left the light of the fire and plunged into the darkness of the trees, he was staggered by a heavy blow on the back of his shoulder and almost dropped to his knees. He thought he had been hit with a log until he felt the searing pain of the knife being withdrawn from his flesh and his shoulder felt like it was on fire. As quick as a cat, he rolled away from his attacker and fell to the ground, landing on his back. It was the squaw and she screamed out as she flew at him in an attempt to make the fatal thrust with her knife. In one quick motion, he pulled the forty-four from his belt and pumped three slugs in the avenging woman. She landed, dead, on top of him.
He held the muzzle of the pistol pointed at her head for several seconds but she did not move. Then he rolled her body off of him and got to his feet. By now the knife wound in his shoulder had begun to throb and he felt the bloody buckskin sticking to his skin. He would have to take care of it pretty soon but there was the matter of the baby and, before that, he had to make sure all five of the warriors were dead.
As he moved from one body to the next, confirming their deaths, he silently cursed himself for letting himself get jumped by the woman. It was his only mistake in the assault but it was a costly one. Already his shoulder was pumping fire through his veins. He didn’t figure the woman to wait behind a tree no more than a few yards from the fire. He figured her to run and keep running in an attempt to get away. His main worry had been that he would have to chase her half the night and maybe not find her and the boy until he could track her the next day.
“Damn!” he swore. “I wish to hell I’d shot her first.” As soon as he said it, he regretted it. The idea of killing a woman did not sit well with him, even if he had had little choice in the matter. “Damn her! Why didn’t she just run?”
All at once he stood still and listened. It was the child. In the heat of the shooting, the child’s crying had gone unnoticed. He followed the sound to a thicket close to the tree where the woman had ambushed him and found the boy sitting on the ground. He picked him up with his good arm, and carried him back to the fire. The child, recognizing Jason, stopped crying as soon as he was picked up and hugged Jason tightly around the neck.
Back by the fire, Jason took a good look at little Bright Feather. That was the name Lark had given him because when he was not more than a few months old, he would entertain himself for hours with a green-tipped feather from a pheasant. The child looked none the worse for wear. Jason cut a strip of meat from the antelope hump, now lying on the ground, and gave it to the child to keep him occupied while he went to the stream and tried to clean his wound. Before going to do for his wound, he dragged the bodies of the three Cheyennes away from the fire circle. The one who had fallen face first across the antelope hump had landed almost in the fire and the fringes of his buckskin shirt were smoldering in the ashes, creating a smell Jason decided he could do without.
He cleaned his wound as best he could in the chilly water and stuffed a piece of the squaw’s skirt inside his shirt to stem the bleeding. That done, he had another thought to consider. He could not be certain what the one Cheyenne who escaped would do. He might be stalking the camp right now, Jason couldn’t know for sure but his best guess was that the man probably kept running for a good while, not knowing what size force had attacked his camp. Jason didn’t plan to hang around that spot long enough for the Indian to make his way back to see for himself. Bright Feather seemed to be content sitting by the fire so Jason cut him another strip of meat and left him there while he went back to retrieve his horses.
He thought about taking the time to scalp the five braves. Jason didn’t believe that a man without his scalp would wander around forever in the spirit world. But the Cheyennes did and, for that reason, Jason thought about doing it. He couldn’t count on what that one surviving Cheyenne would do after he got done running so he figured he’d best not waste too much more time here. Besides, his shoulder was going numb and useless and he didn’t feel like he would be in much shape to fight before long.
At least he had recovered most of the stolen Appaloosas. The hostile who had gotten away rode out on one of them, and another one kept running after Jason knocked his rider off his back with the Winchester. Seven of his horses were left. That left one that he couldn’t account for. They must have sold him or given him away. Hell, he thought, they might have eaten him. He took the hobbles off and tied them on a lead line. After that, he cut the other Indian ponies loose and scattered them, put Bright Feather up on the saddle in front of him and headed up the stream, leading his string of horses. He wanted some distance between himself and this place before daylight.
The one nagging thought that bothered him now was whether or not he had killed Black Eagle. He had no way of identifying the men he had killed. He had only heard of Black Eagle from the Ute chief, Two Elks. As he walked the horses up the streambed, he thought about what Two Elks had told him about Black Eagle. Stone Hand had been imprisoned in the stockade at Camp Supply. Jason, himself, had brought him in for trial. But Stone Hand had killed a guard and escaped. Two Elks said that Black Eagle was the young man who had slipped Stone Hand the knife he used to kill the guard. Jason hoped Black Eagle was one of the bodies left back at the campfire but his intuition told him he was probably not that lucky.
CHAPTER III
He was awakened by the warm rays of the morning sun on his face and the sound of the child crying. At first he didn’t remember where he was until he sat up and looked around. He had to sit there for a few minutes before the spinning stopped in his head and his thinking cleared. He was aware of a deep throbbing in his shoulder and he guessed he must be somewhat feverish. Since the wound was in the back of his shoulder, he couldn’t examine it to see how inflamed it had gotten. From the way he was feeling, he didn’t have to be told it was serious.
Bright Feather, seeing Jason aroused, came to him, still crying. “I reckon you’re hungry, ain’t you?” He got some Indian bread from his saddle pack. The Cheyenne woman had evidently made it the day before, and, seeing it in a pan by the fire, Jason took it along with most of the cooked meat. He crumbled the bread up and mixed a little of the thin grease from the meat with it and gave it to the boy. “I’m sorry, boy, I don’t have much else you can eat.”
The child didn’t seem to mind and went right to work on the bread. Satisfied that Bright Feather was content for the moment, Jason took the time to make some decisions. He was afraid that if he didn’t get to somewhere he could tend his wound pretty quick, he wasn’t going to be able to travel at all. And him with a baby to take care of. He hadn’t given much thought
to what he would do with the child when he rescued him. All his thoughts had been on catching Black Eagle. And he sure as hell didn’t plan to get stuck in the back.
He looked around him now, at the place he had camped a few hours before sunup. He figured he was about seven or eight miles north of the spot where he had killed the Indians. He glanced back at the child seated at the edge of the stream, splashing in the shallow water. He shook his head in amazement. “What in the world am I gonna do with you?” Bright Feather looked up at him and smiled. Jason knew he couldn’t stay there. He decided the best thing to do was head back to Fort Fetterman on the North Platte. Maybe he could get his shoulder looked after there and find someone to help him take care of the boy.
* * *
Less than half a day behind Jason, Black Eagle stood and scowled down at the bodies of his companions. During the attack the night before, it was impossible to determine how many and who was shooting at them. There was no choice but to escape to safety. When he was certain there was no pursuit, he turned back and came upon the campsite in the early light. Now, as he knelt over first one and then another of his slain companions, he could feel his heart pumping with the venom of hatred for this one white scout. For it could be no other—Coles! The thought of the hated scout shooting from the hillside, killing his friends, and taking the baby once more, sparked a fury in the Cheyenne warrior that could only be satisfied with Coles’s death.
A few hours later he stood over the place where Coles and the boy had slept. The trail was not difficult to follow to that point. He had to warn himself to control his fury as he searched for sign that would tell him where the scout had gone when he left this camp. Black Eagle had never known such frustration when, after hours trying to pick up Jason’s trail, he still could find no sign. Coles had gone some distance up the stream and Black Eagle was unable to find where the scout had left the rocky creekbed. He cried out in anger when he had to finally give up the search.
“Coles, I will kill you. I swear it by the Great Spirit. I will cut your scalp from your skull and carry it on my lance.” He stared up into the bright blue sky as if trying to see the spirit he swore on. Having no trail to follow, he had to admit the scout had beaten him on this day, leaving him little choice but to wait for another chance.
* * *
It was three days of hard riding before Jason saw the sentries posted at Fort Fetterman—and a welcome sight it was. He had been fortunate in that he did not meet any hunting parties on his journey. His shoulder caused him a great deal of pain but he didn’t get feverish after the first night so he figured he was going to heal all right. The biggest concern he had was feeding Bright Feather. Jason had little food left but jerky and coffee and that made poor feed for a growing youngster. He stopped once when he found some wild turnips and mashed them up and fed them to Bright Feather. Aside from the turnips and a few handfuls of berries, that was about all the boy had to eat in three days.
Leading eight horses was a strain, especially when a man had only one good arm. But those horses were the sum total of Jason Coles’ net worth and he was determined to hold on to them. So he had gutted it out and was now rewarded by the sight of Fort Fetterman.
The sentry watched with some curiosity as Jason approached him. He had pulled over two years service on the frontier so he had seen more than a few curious sights of Indians, buffalo hunters, trappers, and the like. But this was enough to arouse his interest to the point where he came halfway to attention. By his appearance, he judged Jason to be a mountain man and it appeared he had seen a little trouble. One shoulder was crusted with dried blood and he held an Indian baby in the saddle in front of him. His horses looked a sight better than the man. They were a fine-looking string. Probably stole them from the same place he stole the youngun, the sentry thought. All kinds show up at this post.
“Howdy,” Jason said, when he pulled up in front of the soldier. The sentry nodded in reply. “Is Wes Woodcock still the sergeant-major here?”
“Yessir.”
“Where might I find him?”
The guard directed Jason to a plain log building with a flagpole in front, one of several wooden structures surrounded by scores of tents. Off to one side was a long crude building, divided into individual living quarters. These, Jason assumed, were for the officers and noncommissioned officers who had families. A dusty parade ground separated them from the enlisted men’s tents. Jason turned Black’s nose toward the headquarters building.
Sergeant-Major Wesley Woodcock peered through the open door at the stranger heading his way across the parade ground. Something about the way the man sat his horse, like he was just another part of the horse, caught Woodcock’s eye. He’d seen that man before. Curious, he continued to keep his eye on the man until he was within forty yards of his door.
“Well, I’ll be . . .” He scraped his chair back and stood up. “Well, I’ll be . . . Jason Coles.” He walked out and stood on the small porch, staring at the man on the horse until he pulled up in front of him. “Jason?” It was a question because, although he recognized him, he wasn’t sure it could really be Jason.
“Wes,” was Jason’s simple reply.
“Jason Coles! I can’t believe my eyes. Why, hell, they told me you was dead . . . cut down by some renegade Cheyenne over a year ago.”
“Reckon not,” Jason replied.
Woodcock found it hard to believe. “Why, hell, they said they’d seen your grave at Camp Supply.”
Jason didn’t answer for a moment while he considered what Woodcock was telling him. “Dammit, Wes, is there something wrong with your eyes? You see me sitting here in front of you, don’t you? Who told you that anyway?”
“Simon Bone,” Woodcock said. “He said one of the Indians at the agency told him. He was at Supply when it happened. He told me the buck’s name that was supposed to have done for you but I don’t recollect it right now.”
“Simon Bone, huh?” The name brought a sour taste to Jason’s mouth. Jason had no use for the man. A few years back, they had both worked for Captain Jim Riley. Riley commanded a company of Pawnee scouts, riding out of Fort Cobb. Jason developed a strong dislike for the Pawnee scouts and, in his estimation, Bone wasn’t much less a cutthroat than the Pawnees. The two had had a falling out over a Commanche warrior that Bone had wounded and captured. He decided to amuse himself by skinning the young Comanche alive. He was well into his cruel entertainment when Jason happened upon them, attracted by the warrior’s screams. Jason put a bullet through the Comanche’s brain to end his misery, which caused Bone to fly at him with his skinning knife. Jason had calmly laid him out with the barrel of his rifle. The blow caught Bone beside his eye, shoving in the skull on that side. The incident left Bone with a right eye that appeared to be half-closed all the time.
Woodcock smiled, remembering. “Yeah, Bone. He’s a friend of yours if I recall correctly.”
“The Cheyenne that told Bone I was dead, was his name Black Eagle?”
Woodcock scratched his chin. “You know, I believe it might have been.”
Jason had a hunch where the story came from. Bone wouldn’t hesitate to tell a lie, but this time he probably wasn’t lying. If Jason’s hunch was right, the problem was Bone couldn’t talk Cheyenne worth a damn. He just didn’t understand the people he was supposed to be scouting. Black Eagle had sworn to kill Jason and when a Cheyenne thinks something in his mind, he knows that it will happen. He probably mounded up a bunch of rocks to signify Jason’s grave. In his mind, Jason was already a dead man. It was just a matter of opportunity to finalize it. Bone didn’t have enough savvy to understand thinking like that.
Wes stood staring up at him. “Well, so you ain’t dead,” he allowed.
“Reckon not,” Jason replied. He didn’t bother explaining to Wes why Bone thought he was dead.
As if just then noticing, Wes asked, “What have you got there?”
“A youngun,” Jason answered.
“Well, I can see that. What the hell
are you doing with a little Injun youngun?”
“He ain’t an Injun,” Jason said and handed the boy down to Wes, the pain in his shoulder causing him to grunt as he did.
“He ain’t?” Wes replied, taking the child and holding him out in front of him to give him a good look. “He shore as hell looks like an Injun.” He put the boy down at his feet and looked back up at Jason. “You look like hell. What happened to your shoulder? You get shot?”
Jason stepped down from his horse. “Knife. A squaw jumped me.”
“A squaw? The youngun’s mother?”
“No, dammit, Wes. I told you he ain’t no Injun. Now, if you’re through asking all your damn-fool questions, I’d like to get this shoulder looked at. But first, I need to get the boy something to eat.”
“You look like you could use a little grub yourself. I’d better let Ruthie fix you up. She’ll know what to feed this child.” He gave Jason a sideways glance. “A sight better than you do, I’ll bet.” He stuck his head inside the door of the Orderly Room. “Bates, I’m going over to my quarters for a bit. If the colonel comes back, tell him I’ll be back before Retreat.” He looked back at Jason. “Better let Ruthie take a look at that there knife wound too. We got a sawbones on the post but your chances of survival are better with Ruthie.”
* * *
Ruth Woodcock was a little round woman with a complexion as ruddy as that of her husband’s. Jason imagined that she might have been a comely enough young girl before fourteen years on the frontier aged her more than her years. The western frontier did that to most women if they stayed out here long enough. Jason couldn’t help but wonder how she and Wes had had the misfortune to be assigned to a Godforsaken post like Fort Fetterman. The first time he had seen it, there was nothing but tents. Now at least there were a few rough log buildings. It was known pretty much as a hard luck post where the wind howled all winter and the supplies were short. Ruth showed the signs of living without the simple comforts that most women called the basics. The exterior wear did nothing to dampen her spirits, however. Jason could not remember seeing her when she was not up to whatever task was at hand, and cheerful about it to boot. He counted Wesley Woodcock a fortunate man.
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