Damnation Valley

by William W. Johnstone

  Moss came back and reported, “Another redskin, all right. Hard to tell, but I think he was shot in the back.”

  “Carnahan,” Breckinridge said flatly.

  “That’d be my guess.”

  Breckinridge half turned and gestured toward the stream.

  “Carnahan and Ophelia came up to the creek from the north, and the three Indians rode up from the south. There are tracks of several ponies around.”

  “But no sign of the ponies themselves.”

  “Nope.” Breckinridge had already figured out the implications of that. “Carnahan was able to catch them, so he and Ophelia are mounted now.”

  “You don’t know that. The horses could’ve run off. Carnahan must’ve opened fire on those bucks without warning, otherwise it ain’t likely he would have been able to kill all three of them. Look there.”

  Moss pointed to an arrow stuck in a tree trunk. Breckinridge had already noticed it and drawn the same conclusion.

  “They put up a fight, but Carnahan killed two of them with his pistols,” Moss went on, reconstructing the scene in his mind. “Then the third one tried to get away, but Carnahan knocked him off his pony with a rifle shot. That’s the only way it makes sense.”

  Breckinridge nodded in agreement. He spotted a broken necklace of animal teeth lying on the ground near one of the mutilated bodies and picked it up. He slipped it inside his pack. It was possible they might run into friends or relatives of these men, and if they did, the necklace might help identify the corpses.

  “We gonna bury ’em?” Moss asked.

  “We don’t have shovels,” Breckinridge said, “and we don’t know for sure how they’d want to be laid to rest. Besides, we need to get movin’ again. If Carnahan and Ophelia are on horseback, we don’t have any time to waste.”

  “If they’re on horseback, we don’t stand a chance in hell of catching them on foot. You know that, Breck.”

  Breckinridge glared. Logically, he knew his companion was right. No man afoot could catch a man on a horse. But he wasn’t ready to give up and admit that Carnahan had gotten away from him . . . again.

  Besides, a glimmering of an idea had just sprung to life in his brain. He said, “Listen, Charlie, if these three fellas were horse Injuns, it stands to reason that the rest of their bunch are horse Injuns, too. If we could find their village, maybe we could barter some ponies from ’em.”

  “You mean we ought to go lookin’ for a whole village full of savages who want to lift our hair?”

  “I think these three were Cheyenne, and the Cheyenne ain’t like the Blackfeet. They ain’t always hostile.”

  “They’re unfriendly enough I ain’t sure I want to go waltzin’ right into one of their villages,” Moss argued.

  “It’s our best chance of catchin’ up to Carnahan and rescuin’ Ophelia.”

  “Maybe, but you’ve got to think about this: we can’t do that gal any good if we’re bein’ tortured to death by a bunch of redskins.”

  Something caught Breckinridge’s attention. He looked past Moss and saw a column of dust rising to the south. When he looked closer, he was able to see several dark shapes at the base of that column.

  “Looks like the decision’s bein’ taken out of our hands,” he said. He nodded toward the dust in the distance. “If I ain’t mistaken, there are some fellas probably from the same bunch as these headin’ toward us at a gallop right now. They must’ve spotted those buzzards, too.”

  Curses burst out of Moss’s mouth. He said, “We need to take cover somewhere they won’t find us—”

  “Where?” Breckinridge broke in. He waved a hand along the creek bank. “We could put up a fight from behind them trees, but they wouldn’t keep the Injuns from findin’ us. And if there’s very many of ’em, sooner or later they’d get us. Our best chance is to try to make ’em understand that they don’t have any reason to kill us.”

  Moss was a little pale under his permanent tan as he glanced toward the onrushing riders.

  “You’re puttin’ an awful lot of faith in your ability to persuade ’em of that, Breck,” he said. His hands tightened on his rifle. “But I reckon I’ll follow your lead. Like you said, we ain’t got much choice.”

  They stood there at the edge of the trees, waiting, as the men on horseback approached. Breckinridge could tell now that there were half a dozen of them, all riding hard. A couple of them drew out in front of the others, either mounted on faster ponies or determined to arrive first on the scene of this tragedy.

  The buzzards that had been scavenging on the remains of the dead man farther out rose into the air as the hoofbeats approached swiftly. Awkward at first, as their kind always were, they became more graceful as they glided and soared away. The two riders in the lead drew rein and brought their mounts to skidding halts near the corpse.

  They were definitely Indians—Breckinridge could see that now. One of them carried a lance. He looked down at the grisly sight on the ground for a long moment, then whirled his horse around, thrust the lance into the air above his head, and let out a shrill, piercing cry of rage.

  He brought his horse to an abrupt halt facing the creek. Breckinridge knew the Indian had spotted him and Charlie Moss.

  The warrior didn’t wait around trying to figure out what to do next, either.

  He lowered the lance and kicked his pony into a run straight toward the two white men, yipping furiously and obviously out for blood.

  Chapter 21

  Charlie Moss started to raise his rifle, but Breckinridge grabbed the flintlock’s barrel and held it down.

  “Shootin’ that fella is the worst thing you can do right now, Charlie,” he said.

  “But he’s gonna run one of us through with that lance!”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Breckinridge hoped he was right about that.

  The Indian galloped toward them until he was about twenty feet away. Then he veered his horse to the side and flung the lance as hard as he could. He aimed it at Breckinridge, probably because Breck was the bigger target. Breck gave Moss a shove that pushed him out of the way, and he leaned in the other direction. The lance passed within inches of Breck’s right arm and buried its point in the creek bank.

  The Indian who had thrown it whirled his horse around and yelled. Breckinridge handed his rifle to Moss and strode forward in obvious challenge.

  “I sure hope you know what you’re doin’,” Moss muttered behind him.

  The Indian charged at Breckinridge again. His strident yips fell silent as he launched himself from the back of his speeding pony. He had a knife in his hand now as he flew through the air at Breck.

  Setting his feet and bracing his powerful legs, Breckinridge caught the attacking warrior in midair, pivoted at the waist, and used the Indian’s own momentum against him to fling him several yards. The Indian crashed to the ground and rolled over several times before he stopped himself and scrambled back to his feet. Somehow he had managed to hold on to the knife. He clutched it tightly as he bared his teeth in a grimace and ran at Breck.

  “Use your knife!” Moss urged.

  Breckinridge ignored him. The Indian feinted with the blade, but Breck didn’t fall for it. As the knife darted in at his belly, he caught hold of the warrior’s wrist and stopped it. His other hand came up in a fist and slammed into the man’s face. The force of the blow drove the man off his feet. As the Indian went down, Breck twisted his wrist and the knife flew free. He let go and kicked the knife toward the creek.

  The warrior shook his head for a second and then lunged at Breckinridge yet again. He was determined, Breck had to give him credit for that. Fast and slippery and strong, too. Despite Breck being quite a bit taller and heavier, the Indian got inside his grasping arms, tackled him around the thighs, and rammed a shoulder into his belly. Breck went over backward.

  The Indian tried to thrust a knee into his groin. Breckinridge avoided it and got hold of the man’s shoulders to heave him to the side. The Indian didn’t go
far, though. He twisted and aimed a kick at Breck’s head. Breck jerked out of the way, but the man’s heel still caught him a glancing blow just above the ear. It wasn’t enough to knock him out or even stun him, but it did disorient him for a second.

  The Indian must have seen that, because he jumped up and tried to leap on top again. Breckinridge met that by thrusting his foot into the man’s belly and using his leg to lever him up and over. This time the man hit one of the tree trunks and bounced off, landing in a limp sprawl on the ground nearby. He was out of the fight for the time being.

  The battle wasn’t over, though. Two more of the Indians had raced up on their ponies, and as Breckinridge came to his feet, they dived off their mounts and tackled him at the same time. He couldn’t stay upright under that much weight. He went down with both warriors on top of him.

  But a moment later, one of the Indians flew one way, and the other man went the opposite direction. Breckinridge had tossed them away from him like dolls. He rolled onto his side and got a hand on the ground. As he shoved himself upright, one of the warriors recovered enough to lunge toward him again. Breck bent over, caught the man on his shoulder, and straightened, lifting his suddenly alarmed opponent into the air. A twist of his body turned Breck around and allowed him to heave the man he held into the other one, who was also trying to attack again. They crashed together and sprawled on the ground, then lay there moaning and moving feebly.

  “Breck . . .” Charlie Moss said in a warning tone.

  Breathing a little hard from all the exertion, Breckinridge looked around and saw that the other three Indians had arrived. Instead of attacking as the first three warriors had, they sat on their horses several yards away. One man, the oldest of the bunch, by the looks of them, held a flintlock rifle with its barrel pointing in Breck’s general direction. The other two had arrows nocked on their bowstrings.

  Facing them, Breckinridge put a hand on his chest and said, “Friend. You understand the white man’s tongue? Friend.”

  Charlie Moss said quietly, “Considerin’ that you just beat three of ’em like they was drums, I ain’t sure those other fellas are gonna believe you.”

  Breckinridge patted his chest again and insisted, “Friend.”

  The Indian with the rifle said, “Three of our young men are dead. How can the one who did this be a friend to the Cheyenne?”

  His English was good. He’d probably learned it from one of the missionaries who had come west to convert the tribes they considered heathens, or else from fur trappers who had flocked to this region over the past couple of decades.

  “We didn’t do this, chief,” Breckinridge said, guessing from the older man’s bearing that he was a leader. “We just found these murdered warriors, like you did. But I know who killed them, and you’re right, he’s no friend to the Cheyenne. He’s no friend to anybody.”

  The first man Breckinridge had tangled with, the one who had thrown the lance at him, had recovered some from his collision with the tree trunk and struggled to his feet. He spoke in fast, obviously angry, Cheyenne. Breck knew a few of the words, but not enough to make any sense of what the warrior said.

  “You are here, and our young men are here, and you must have killed them,” the older man said. “This is what Elk That Stands Still believes.”

  “That’s what he said, eh? Well, he’s wrong. A varmint named Jud Carnahan killed your men. We’ve been trackin’ him for the past couple of days. He has a friend of ours, a young woman, with him as a prisoner.” Breckinridge waved a hand at the creek bank. “Study the tracks on both side of the creek. You’ll see that I’m tellin’ the truth. My friend and I just walked up here not long before you rode in. We saw the buzzards, too. Our tracks are fresh. The others were made yesterday. And you can tell by looking at these men, they didn’t die today.”

  A long moment of silence dragged past. The older man with the rifle was the only one of the Indians who didn’t look like he wanted to kill these white men without wasting any more time. And even he didn’t seem convinced that wasn’t a good idea. But finally he snapped what were clearly orders at the two men holding bows. They lowered the weapons, replaced the arrows in the quivers slung on their backs, and dismounted. They began examining the ground and the bodies, and Breckinridge knew they were checking the things he had pointed out.

  “I sure never figured we’d still be breathin’ this long,” Moss said under his breath.

  “Most folks will listen to reason if you give ’em a chance.”

  “And the ones who won’t?”

  “Well, them you got to make listen to reason, whether they want to or not. And if they still won’t do it . . .”

  Breckinridge’s shrug was eloquent.

  After a few minutes, one of the Indians on the ground spoke to the chief still on horseback. The older man listened with a solemn expression on his face and nodded when the other Indian was finished. He looked at Breckinridge and Moss and told them, “The signs say you are telling the truth.”

  “I always try to,” Breckinridge said.

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is Breckinridge Wallace. My friend here is Charlie Moss. Like I told you, we’re lookin’ for a man who attacked a tradin’ post up on the Yellowstone, ran off with a girl, and tried a heap of times to kill us. I reckon your young men had the bad luck to run into him.” Breckinridge reached inside his shirt and took out the claw necklace he had picked up earlier. “One of them was wearin’ this, I think.”

  He nodded toward the body the necklace had been lying near.

  He wouldn’t have thought the chief’s expression could get any more solemn, but it did. The man nodded slowly and said, “It is as I feared when they did not return to our village. That necklace belonged to my son, Rock Against the Sky.”

  “I’m sure sorry, Chief. The man we’re after has brought a lot of grief to a lot of people. That’s why we intend to kill him.”

  “The other two are my son’s friends, Fast Water and Bent Tree. They were fine young warriors. My people will grieve for them all.”

  Breckinridge nodded. There was nothing else he and Moss could say.

  The chief drew in a deep breath. His face was impassive now, but Breckinridge thought he could still see the pain lurking in the dark eyes.

  “You will come with us to our village,” the chief announced.

  “We need to get back on the trail of the man we’re after—”

  “You will come to our village. We will give you horses. The evil man who did this stole the ponies belonging to my son and his friends.”

  “Yeah, I reckon he did.”

  “We will give you fast ponies, and some of my warriors will go with you.”

  Breckinridge wanted the horses but not the help. The scores he had to settle with Jud Carnahan were personal ones.

  On the other hand, these Cheyenne felt the same way. Carnahan had brought grief to their tribe, and they wanted him to pay for it. They wanted to deliver justice to him themselves. Breckinridge couldn’t blame them for feeling that way.

  Besides, the Cheyenne knew this part of the country better than he did. He had never been in this particular area before. They might know some shortcuts that would cut down on Carnahan’s lead even faster. Whether they would be fast enough to offset the delay of visiting the Indian village remained to be seen.

  In the end, though, it came down to the fact that he and Moss were outnumbered, and despite the fact that the chief had accepted their story, the rest of the warriors still looked like lifting the two white men’s scalps would be just fine and dandy with them. So Breckinridge just nodded and said, “It would be our honor to visit your people.”

  * * *

  The chief’s name was Wolf Tooth. He told two of his men to allow Breckinridge and Moss to ride double with them. The Cheyenne warriors didn’t like that, but they obeyed their chief’s orders. Breck rode with the lightest of the men, so the horse wouldn’t break down under their combined weight.

  T
he Indian village was about five miles southwest of where the three young men had been killed at the creek. The tracks left by the ponies Carnahan and Ophelia had ridden away from the site followed the same general route for awhile, then angled off almost due south. Breckinridge had no idea where Carnahan was headed, and there was a good chance Carnahan didn’t know, either. He was just putting distance between himself and any possible pursuit. He wouldn’t worry about figuring out their ultimate destination until he felt like he was safe from Breck’s vengeance.

  He could never go far enough for that to be true.

  “My son and the others left the village to hunt yesterday,” Wolf Tooth explained as they rode. “But they did not take supplies to stay out overnight. When they did not come back by this morning, we rode out to search for them. Our medicine man, Bull Moose, said the signs were bad. I did not expect to find my son alive. But I hoped that I would.”

  “I wish you had, Chief,” Breckinridge said.

  Wolf Tooth stared straight ahead and his jaw was tight as he said, “They died as warriors. No man of the Cheyenne can ask for a better fate.”

  Breckinridge doubted that was what had happened. He suspected that some sort of treachery on Carnahan’s part had been involved, at least to a certain extent. That was just the man’s nature. But Breck didn’t see where any purpose would be served by explaining that to Wolf Tooth, so he kept his mouth shut.

  The Cheyenne left behind in the village must have been watching for the search party’s return, because Breckinridge heard wailing before the riders ever reached the first of the lodges. Seeing the searchers come back without the young men they had gone out looking for led to only one inescapable conclusion. The mourning had already begun, even before the news had been delivered officially.

  Warriors on foot crowded around the ponies. Most of them glared at Breckinridge and Charlie Moss. Breck looked over at Moss and saw that his companion looked nervous. Anybody with any sense would. He hoped that Moss would be able to keep a cool head while they were here.