Flight of the Hawk: The Plains

by W. Michael Gear

  Girl? Odd, but she didn’t act like a girl. Rather she had a hard side to her personality—as if she were mature beyond her years. Nothing was childlike about her ability as a scout and tracker. She might be young in years, but not in actions.

  Well, maybe but for the teasing. She seemed to take great delight in his foibles and ignorance about all things Shoshoni.

  Better yet, he had come to enjoy her company. Damn, how long had it been since a woman looked at him with anything other than disgust in her eyes? She was just easy to be around.

  So, maybe he ought to sneak over and shoot her a buffalo. He was on the verge of suggesting this when she clamped a hand to his arm and squeezed. In the Shoshoni way, she nodded instead of pointing.

  He followed her gaze, looking north down the gradual rolling slope toward the bur oak in the drainage bottom that led down toward the Grand River.

  Tylor thought he had sharp eyes. Nevertheless, it took him a couple of seconds to pinpoint the distant dots, and then to realize what they were: riders.

  “Think that’s Will and Gray Bear?”

  “Sa’idika,” she told him. Despite his commitment to learn Shoshoni, the rattled words that followed came too fast for him to grasp.

  “Which way they headed?” Tylor wondered, squinting, trying to discern their direction.

  “Antsi Newe.”

  “Did you say they’re looking for us?”

  She turned her dark brown eyes on his. “Ha’a. Yes. Look for us.”

  He wondered who was learning the other’s language faster, him or her. And he had the advantage of being immersed in it. Hearing it all day long. Having to try and use it, even if his fumbling attempts brought amusement to the Shoshoni.

  Tylor pulled a dry stem of grass, chewing absently on it as he watched the distant riders.

  “Which way they go?” he signed.

  “Tapaiyuanankute.” West. “Antsi. They look for, yes. Along river. Places we might leave . . . um . . .”

  “Tracks. Sign,” Tylor finished. “Makes sense. If we didn’t have the seep up at the camp, we’d have to send somebody for water. So, if you’re Arapaho, you send parties cutting for sign along both sides of the river.”

  She gave him a knowing sidelong glance, and her clever smile bent her full lips. She made the signs for “We see first.”

  “Still, it’s worrisome,” he told her. “Wish Cunningham and Gray Bear would make it back. They could ride smack into those hunting Arapaho. Worse, the Arapaho could cut their trail, follow them right into camp. Wish to hell we were all headed west as fast as we could go.”

  Her eyes were fixed on the distant riders, the wind teasing her silky black hair. The soft hide dress she wore conformed to her shoulders and slender back. He tried to ignore the way it molded around the rest of her.

  Which made him return his attention to the distant Arapaho. He knew what they would do to Singing Lark. She would be taken, raped repeatedly, and then sold into the worst kind of slavery. He’d seen enough slave women throughout his time in the west.

  “That isn’t going to happen. Not to this girl,” he promised around the grass stem he chewed.

  How can you prevent it? If they find us, attack the camp, what can you do if we’re overrun?

  She was watching him, a question behind her dark eyes. “Hinni?” What?

  “Worried about you, girl. That’s all.”

  “Don’t know words.” She’d picked up that phrase early.

  He made the signs for, “I want me to make you safe.” He pointed to himself. “Me. I want to keep you.” He pointed at her. “. . . Um, protect. Yes?”

  She studied him, a curious confusion behind her eyes. Her lips pursed. She signed back, “You want me. Manapuih.”A pause. “Ni kwee?”

  Tylor could see her surprise. She seemed to be considering him with a new intensity.

  “Me. Keeping you . . . um . . .” What was the sign? “Protect? Take care of?”

  She bit her lip, wary eyes on his.

  Tylor pointed at the Arapaho. “I don’t want them catching you. Understand?”

  She glanced back at the Arapaho, talking rapidly to herself. He caught the word taipo as it popped up in her soliloquy. Then she laughed to herself and shrugged.

  Singing Lark studied him in a way she never had before, a churning behind her eyes. Accompanied by a rapid-fire string of Shoshoni, she reached out and distastefully fingered Tylor’s beard. Gave it a half-hearted tug. Then she lifted the cuff of his shirt, tapping his skin where it remained white and protected from the sun.

  “I want you . . .” he signed and stopped short. “Not hurt.”

  She seemed to be arguing with herself.

  “Nakweekktu?”

  “Girl, I just didn’t want harm to come to you.” He used his most earnest voice, hopefully communicating his serious intent.

  She took a deep breath, seemed to reorder her thoughts, and said, “Nihannih napaisai.” She made the sign for “Later.” And in English, said, “Understand?”

  “Understand what?”

  “Nakweekktu.” She made the signs for “Not now.”

  In the distance the Arapaho had crossed the drainage, headed west along the broken slope above the Grand River.

  “Come,” she told him in English. “Go back. Tell others.”

  But he could tell that he’d upset her as they rose to their feet and walked silently back to where the horses had been hobbled down in the low lee of the ridge.

  In the distance, the Kuchu’na watched, heads up, alert.

  Tylor tightened his cinch and stepped into the stirrup. He had inalterably changed his relationship with Singing Lark. But what the hell had he done?

  CHAPTER 15

  The morning sun still lay beneath the eastern horizon when Dawson McTavish awakened to the sound of the tin pot being placed on hearth stones in the fire.

  He blinked, aware of how cold the morning air felt compared to the warmth in his blankets. He’d always found mornings hard. Some part of his makeup was naturally lazy. But, he did have his family legacy to live up to. The great trader, Robert McTavish, three times removed as he was from Dawson, cast a large shadow, one that Dawson had to be worthy of. People expected that of family. Not to mention his maternal relationship to Dickson and the trust that his mentor had placed in Dawson’s ability as an agent.

  It’s up to me to be the leader.

  He sat up, looking around in the gloom to see that Fenway McKeever had breakfast cooking. Across the fire, Joseph’s blanketed form indicated that he was still asleep. From his blankets, however, Matato was watching the big Scot through dark and gleaming eyes. Wasichu’s bed was empty, the young Sioux no doubt having excused himself beyond the brush for his morning toilet and to check the horses.

  Dawson sat up, yawned, and stretched as McKeever set the stew pot on the renewed flames where they leaped around freshly placed wood.

  “You’re up early.”

  “Much t’ do, laddie. I figure we can made nigh onto thirty miles by nightfall.”

  “Thirty miles? We can’t travel that fast. Not through Arikara country. They’ll see us for sure.”

  “We’re not going through Arikara country. We’re headed west, laddie.”

  “My duty is to find the Teton Sioux, to induce them to give their loyalty to the crown and make war on the Americans. If the Sioux side with us, so does the whole upper river.”

  “Yer not the only agent Robert Dickson has workin’ oot here, are ye?”

  “Well, of course not. James Burke was sent south. And Jacques Molier and his party were dispatched—”

  “I told you who I be, laddie.” McKeever was staring at him from across the fire. “Who I work for. And I daresay, John Jacob Astor and William McGillivray outrank yer Robert Dickson like a king trumps a jack. Now, I give ye an order. We’re going west. And we’re going to make good time at it.”

  Dawson threw off the covers, climbing to his feet in a half panic. “You can’t just drop int
o my camp from nowhere, giving orders. I don’t have the faintest idea who you are. You claim to be Astor’s agent, but for all I know, you’re just some boatman. Maybe a madman on the run.”

  The Scot’s eyes had turned a frigid green, the pupils like tiny dots. “Laddie, yer aboot t’ become a debility.”

  “A debility? What kind of talk is that?”

  “The kind that gits a mon killed.”

  Dawson’s gut had that queer liquid feeling of fear. “You threaten me?”

  “Aye, and it’s more o’ a promise actually. Ye’ll obey, or not. But soon’s breakfast is over, we’re heading west. At least yer horses and plunder are going wi’ me. Ye can stay here and look fer yer Sioux if’n ye want. But I got Comp’ny business in the west.”

  “Matato,” Dawson said, “escort this man out of my camp.”

  The big Indian rose from his blankets like a wraith, silent, fast. One second he was in his bed, apparently somnolent, the next he was on his feet. Dawson was already grinning his victory when the big Scot, like lightning, shifted, hammered a blow with a freckled fist, and punched Matato in the throat.

  Dawson saw the wide expression of disbelief in Matato’s diamond-shaped face. His jaw worked, tongue protruding. The big Sioux’s shoulders hunched, jerked.

  McKeever backheeled him, slammed the big Sioux to the ground with a resounding thump. Hard enough to stun him. Even as Matato’s body bounced, McKeever launched himself, driving the point of his knee into the Sioux’s chest, the Scot’s full weight behind it. The sound of popping ribs could be heard. Matato’s body bucked and jerked. His legs twitched, arms fluttering and fingers spasming.

  McKeever, just as quickly, rocked back and up, regaining his feet in a single fluid motion. He leaped high; his booted foot stamped down on Matato’s throat. A crackling and snap could be heard. Matato’s eyes and tongue protruded in a ghastly caricature; his limbs twitched, a rasping came from his throat. Then the bugged eyes stilled in his head. The body went limp.

  McKeever wasn’t even breathing hard as he said, “Now, laddie, be aboot yer business. I mean t’ be on the trail by sunup. That means we need to eat, have camp packed, and be gone.”

  Unable to take a breath, Dawson reached for his throat; his gaze remained riveted on Matato. The big Sioux’s wide eyes were fixed on the lavender morning sky; his expression empty and slack.

  Joseph Aird stirred in his blankets, yawned, and sat up. Hair mussed, he rubbed his eyes. “Is it morning?” he asked, voice muzzy.

  “Aye, and git yer arse oota them blankets and to work, laddie.”

  “You giving orders? Or did I miss something?” Joseph blinked, then shot McKeever a confused look.

  “Jist a wee rearrangement in the chain o’ command,” Mc-Keever told him. “Change o’ plans. Now, roust yer young arse and give me a hand w’ the horses and packs.”

  Joseph blinked, looking confused. “What?”

  “You heard him,” Dawson said, trying to keep the fear from his voice. “We’re . . . we’re heading west.” He should do something. Get up. Fight.

  Instead, frightened in a way he’d never been, Dawson just wanted to throw up. His blood seemed to melt in his veins.

  “What? Why?” At that moment, Joseph’s wandering gaze fixed on Matato’s corpse. He gaped, as if trying to understand why the big Sioux was sprawled so.

  Because if we don’t, I have no doubt but that McKeever will kill us all.

  CHAPTER 16

  Possessed by an uneasy feeling, Gray Bear fundamentally understood that his world would never be the same. That it had been forever altered. Without any chance to go back.

  He had started this mad journey with the simple goal of accruing enough wealth that he could trade buffalo calf hides for a good sheep-horn bow to replace the one he’d broken.

  Since that spring day when he’d left the Valley of the Warm Winds, he’d been forced far to the east, watched his best friend and so many of his people die, been made a chief, and been saddled with the uncomfortable responsibility for his little band’s safety. He’d killed Sa’idika and was now being hunted by them. Had found himself face to face with Taipo. He’d traded with them at the Great River, actually been in their log village: what they called a “post.” He’d seen their boats. Huge floating wooden lodges. Inconceivable compared to a bullboat. Stood inside their remarkable wood-and-stone structures. Unbelievable compared to a wickiup. Seen their remarkable clothing, goods, furnishings, and wealth. Miraculous things that—had he not experienced them with his own eyes—he’d never have believed.

  That late afternoon he didn’t ride with a new sheep-horn bow, but with a shiny new aitta held crossways on his horse’s withers. No, not aitta, but rifle. A gun. Those were the Taipo words for the gleaming weapon.

  Gray Bear ran his fingers along the smooth wood and metal. It felt like nothing he’d ever touched before. Will Cunningham had picked this one special for Gray Bear. Said it was better than the “trade guns” the others had. That this one “held true.”

  If he hadn’t trusted Cunningham, Gray Bear would have insisted on one of the trade guns. They had gleaming brass work, a snakelike creature inlaid in the wood beside the metal tube. His rifle, in contrast, looked drab, had dull iron fixings, and a smaller cock.

  “Trust me, coon,” Cunningham had told him. “It be a better gun. More accurate. What’s pretty ain’t always strong.”

  Yes. The world had changed. Inexorably. Gray Bear fingered his rifle, distressed by the knowledge that what he once had known, the world he had lived in, was gone. That those easy and simpler days of just being Newe and living in the mountains were finished. Much as his father must have felt when the rotting-face sickness first came and killed almost all of the people.

  No going back. No recalling the dead. No reclaiming the endless plains that the Shoshoni had once dominated.

  “No way to be a simple hunter,” he whispered to himself as Moon Walker led the line of horses winding up out of the narrow drainage and onto a shoulder of the rolling slope that led to the uplands south of the Grand River.

  The western sky brooded in an ominous way, thick with high-piled bruised-looking clouds. Beneath them, the storm’s black skirt flickered from hidden lightning. Huge as the thunderheads were, the setting sun was hard-pressed to outline the limits of the monster bearing down on them.

  I am taikwahni. I have traded our prized calf hides for a fortune in rifles. If I can get them back to the Newe, I will be a great man. The other leaders will come to me. People will never look at me the same way again.

  “I never asked for this,” he whispered.

  He pulled Moon Walker up, letting the west wind play across his face and tug at his cropped-short hair. Carefully he took his time, searching the endless grass, the gently rising and falling country, trying to read each slope, each undulation, searching desperately for any hint of an enemy.

  “Camp’s just over thar,” Cunningham said, pointing in a most un-Shoshoni way. The action always jarred Gray Bear, and was considered rude; but Taipo did a lot of rude things without even a hint that it might be upsetting to their hosts. Newe probably did the same among Taipo. He’d seen the stern looks, the uncomfortable expressions, as he and his warriors had wandered around the post, oohing and aahing, as they fingered the magical and mysterious belongings, and lifted the lids from barrels and peered inside.

  “Yes.” Gray Bear told him. “We close.” In Shoshoni he added, “Time to be extra wary.”

  “We have all these rifles,” Red Moon Man said arrogantly. “What fool band of Sa’idika would dare attack us now.”

  “Rifles we barely know how to use,” Gray Bear reminded. He’d been itching to shoot his gun. Instead, Cunningham had carefully explained that, like a bow, one didn’t just pick up a rifle and shoot “center.”

  After Cunningham demonstrated how the gun worked, Gray Bear, Red Moon Man, and Walks Too Fast each had been allowed to prime his rifle, cock it, aim, and pull the trigger. And each had ju
mped half out of his skin as the flash of fire, smoke, and smell had exploded in front of his face. But for a quick catch on Cunningham’s part, Red Moon Man would have dropped the rifle onto the ground.

  “We can’t fight with a weapon we do not understand,” Gray Bear insisted. “Cunningham said he’d teach us. First, we have to be away from the Arapaho, the Arikara, the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Sioux. Then we will learn this new thing.”

  “The wait is eating at me like a thing alive,” Red Moon Man declared and shifted his grip where he held the lead to the packhorses.

  “Me, too. I want to feel this Taipo’s puha. I want to control it. See the rifle kill.” Walks Too Fast’s expression was filled with frustration.

  “What’s up?” Cunningham called, pulling up next to them.

  Gray Bear signed, “Too many wants. Want this. Want that.”

  Cunningham and the rest laughed. “All in good time.”

  “We’re going to get wet.” Walks Too Fast jutted his chin at the storm.

  “Be nice to get to camp,” Gray Bear told him. Then he took one last glance back. Let his eyes scan the backtrail. Almost missed the slight black dots.

  He pulled Moon Walker around. Squinted.

  Yes, the dots were moving. “Look. There.” He pointed like a Taipo. Figured it didn’t matter as long as they saw the same thing he did.

  “Riders,” Cunningham muttered. “Somebody found our backtrail.”

  “How many?” Walks Too Fast asked. “I count five, ten, maybe eleven. No, look. There’s another three. That’s fourteen.”

  “And a couple of outriders. Call it sixteen,” Red Moon Man said. “And they’re all traveling light. Men. War or hunting party. Not a moving village.”

  Gray Bear wheeled Moon Walker around. “So much for stealth. We go straight for camp.”

  “How will we see them coming in the middle of that storm?” Walks Too Fast asked.

  “How will they see us fleeing through it?” Gray Bear asked in return. “Mayanuhi!” Move it!

  He put heels to Moon Walker, wondering if it would hurt his new rifle to get wet.