Flight of the Hawk: The Plains

by W. Michael Gear

The sound of a horse puffing breath, hooves cracking on rock, and the creak of saddle leather announced Dark Horse’s arrival as his black gelding scrambled up the rocky deer trail.

  Gray Bear’s counterpart pulled his blowing horse up, taking a position beside him on the narrow ridge top to follow Gray Bear’s gaze back over the basin.

  Dark Horse slumped over the saddlebow. “What do you see?”

  “Nothing moving but a herd of buffalo over by the Sage Butte. The important thing is that there is no band of howling Blackfeet screaming up the trail right behind us.”

  “This storm is going to be bad.” Dark Horse glanced up at the darkening sky. “I can smell it.”

  Gray Bear sniffed the cold wind blowing down the pass. “So can I. Feel it, that heaviness in the air?”

  “I hope you are right about this, moving the entire village.”

  “How can anyone know?” Gray Bear shrugged. “We could have ridden out to intercept them. Might have been able to get close, maybe partially surround them before we broke cover and charged in to attack. It might have worked, and we’d have killed some, broken their line of travel. Taken some of the horses.”

  “But?”

  “But they just as easily might have seen us. They have scouts, too. And if we hadn’t had complete surprise, if something had gone wrong with our attack and not everyone was in the right place at the right time? They might have killed a lot of us, broken our attack, and we would have paid in blood. The village would still be fleeing, but in the middle of the storm. People would die.”

  “So, we’re on the other side of Owl Creek’s Mountains, what’s different? They’ll still track us, at least until the snow covers the trail. They’ll know which way we fled.”

  “The difference is that I mean to finally bring this thing between that Pa’kiani war chief and me to an end.”

  “You’re not a war chief, my friend.”

  “I don’t want to be known as a war chief.”

  “What then? You taking this taikwahni talk seriously? You never wanted to be a chief.”

  “I could care less how people talk about me. I just want my people to be safe. I’ll do whatever that takes.”

  “Then, what happens if this plan of yours doesn’t work?”

  “Then we’re right back where we started: We’ll kill a lot of them, they’ll kill a lot of our people.”

  As Gray Bear looked up, the first flakes of snow came spiraling down from the darkening sky. If it came down too fast, too hard, everything he’d planned was going to fail.

  That was when Aspen Branch drove her horse up beside them. The old woman grinned, exposing the few brown teeth left in her jaws. “Hey, Taikwahni. I just had a talk with that hawk. Looked into his eyes. Got a message for you. He says to trust your puha.”

  If only it were that easy.

  CHAPTER 39

  Once again, it had been Singing Lark who saved everything. From a high point on the trail, she’d seen the distant riders heading down toward the cottonwood-lined Pia’ogwe off to the west. She had extended a finger Taipo fashion, pointing them out for Tylor’s less acute vision.

  “They just never give up,” Singing Lark growled under her breath.

  “Who are they?” Tylor asked, the west wind beating at him. It always blew stronger as it crossed the high points. He shaded his eyes with a flat of the hand, staring across the sagebrush-topped ridges to where the line of mounted men crossed a distant basin; the horses made dots of color against the winter-gray branches of the greasewood and pale alkali-white soil. The riders, at this distance, were too small to identify.

  “Pa’kiani. Don’t you recognize the horses?”

  “How can you recognize the horses? They’re at least five miles away.”

  She glared at him with that “you’re an idiot” look.

  Then she led them back down into the Bad Water’s valley, hurrying them down the narrow greasewood-and-sage-packed floodplain. Within a mile, she turned off from the Bad Water, heading them north into the mountains along the banks of what looked to be an intermittent stream. The creek bed was now dry, choked with sand and stone; scrubby-looking willows and currants were clinging desperately to its margins. The sagebrush they wound through on the narrow floodplain was as tall as Tylor’s stirrup.

  The way led upward, the foothills closing in, rising on either side. Occasional narrow-leafed cottonwoods began to dot the bottom. As the slopes on either side grew steeper, currents and mountain mahogany appeared in patches accented by scrubby juniper.

  They passed a faint trickle of water that marked the end of the stream’s reach before it faded into the sand.

  Night was falling; dark clouds kept rolling across the sky from the north and west.

  “Bad storm coming,” Singing Lark called from where she rode in the lead. She pointed. “I don’t think we’re going to make it to the other side.”

  “What is this place?”

  “Spirit Pass,” she told him. “Old trail across the mountains. Maybe it goes back to the Beginning Times. Maybe it was first made by Coyote. We’ll need to camp at the bottom. Need to collect rocks.”

  “Rocks?”

  “For the Spirits.”

  They’d ridden until dusk threatened. Singing Lark stopped when they reached a meadow where the steep-walled valley opened slightly.

  “Camp here,” she told him, stepping down from her horse.

  Tylor took stock. Where the creek ran along the steep eastern slope, a thick screen of narrow-leafed cottonwoods grew. The old ones had rotted in the centers, fallen, and provided a good supply of firewood. Thick stands of sarvisberry, squaw currant, rosebushes, and chokecherry crowded up against the slopes. Juniper dotted the rocky sage-covered heights. Here and there, on the mountainsides above, bare granite, chunks of black schist, and splashes of quartz could be seen.

  The temperature was dropping, Tylor’s breath clearly visible before his face.

  “What’s the plan?” he asked, following as she led her horse over to the stand of cottonwoods. The packhorses trailed behind, nipping grass, looking around with curious eyes and pricked ears.

  “Make shelter back in the trees next to the creek,” she said. “We’ll picket the horses at the top of the meadow. Get the packs off the horses first. Water them, then rub them down.”

  Tylor attended those chores, checking to discover that the shoe was now loose on the black’s right rear hoof. In the morning it would have to come off. A last testament to the white world and Manuel Lisa’s far-off post on the banks of the Missouri.

  He used the lash ropes to tie a picket line at the top of the meadow, paying attention to the curious pile of stones at the side of the trail where it started up through the canyon.

  “Spirit home,” Singing Lark told him as she approached with two hefty cobbles in her hands. “Temdzoavits, the rock ogre, lives in this canyon and guards the pass. By tossing a rock onto the pile, we confuse him. He hears the rock clack onto the pile and thinks it’s just another rock ogre passing.”

  “I see.” Tylor took the rock, asking himself, What if I don’t believe in rock ogres?

  Nevertheless, he tossed the stone onto the pile, hearing it clatter as it added to the already chest-high cairn. If there was a rock for every party who’d ever passed here, that was a lot of people.

  Singing Lark grinned at him, winked, and said, “I’m going to cut sticks to make a lodge frame. You need to go start the fire. We might be here for a couple of days. Depends on the storm.” She glanced around. “Plenty of wood and grass. Protected from wind. There are worse places to be.”

  They pitched into the work, Tylor knowing the ritual now. He dug out the firepit in an opening between the trees, used the fire bow to get the flames started, and added fist-sized rocks to act as heating stones for the stew.

  The first flakes of snow were falling as he and Singing Lark began construction of the lodge: a conical structure like a tipi, but laced together with branches into which sagebrush, juni
per branches, and shocks of grass were woven.

  Tylor retrieved the makings for stew as the snow began to fall in earnest. He made sure the manties covered the packs, and were tied in place.

  One by one he added sticks to the fire.

  “I’m going to get more wood,” Singing Lark told him as she stepped up from the creek with a skin full of water. She laid it carefully into the hole she’d dug as a lining for an “earth pot” to boil the stew in.

  Tylor watched her take her rifle and disappear into the swirling wall of white. He could barely see across the canyon now, the thick veils of snow swirling from dark clouds that rolled down the mountain.

  Dusk was falling. The gloom intensified as Tylor went about rolling out their bedding inside the shelter. He placed their critical gear—things they didn’t want to get wet—in the rear. His rifle, horn, and bullet pouch he set just inside the door.

  The wind was howling up in the heights, whistling through the juniper up on the slopes. Tylor shivered, thinking what it must be like down in the flats with no place to shelter.

  Nope, Singing Lark’s camp was not a bad place to be at all. Protected as the canyon was, the snow just twirled down instead of being driven sideways by the wind.

  Stepping back to the fire, he tossed another section of cottonwood branch on the fire, building up the flames.

  When he glanced up, it was with a start to see a man standing, legs braced, in the firelight. A big man, snow caked to his coat, hat, and leggings. A trade rifle was pointed at Tylor’s chest, cocked. The man’s hand gripped the gun by the wrist, finger on the trigger.

  At the sight, Tylor gaped, heart skipping.

  “Who the hell . . . ?”

  “Aye, laddie. And hell it is that I bring ye. It’s been a long hard ride, and I’ve had the entire time t’ think up how I’m gonna kill ye.”

  Even as McKeever spoke, men appeared, wraithlike, emerging from the swirling snow. Three, then four, six, a total of seven, all in a circle that cut off any chance to flee.

  Tylor shot a sidelong glance to where the jack handle rested just inside the door to the shelter.

  “Don’t do it, laddie,” McKeever warned. “I’ll shoot ye dead if’n ye try. And, to tell the truth, I’d like to gloat a while before I cut yer head off.”

  CHAPTER 40

  Dawson McTavish spared Joseph a sidelong glance when Fenway McKeever ordered, “Dawson, take yer wangs. Tie the good Mister Tylor up good and tight. Hobble his feet and truss him like a pig fer slaughter.”

  Dawson, his Bond rifle at the ready, stepped forward. This was the terrible John Tylor? The man was of medium height and build, dressed in a fine and warm-looking leather coat, a fox-hide hat atop his head. Frightened brown eyes, a thick beard the color of old tobacco, and a thin face turned Dawson’s way.

  “He won’t give ye any trouble,” McKeever said. “Just be sure ye don’t get in the way lest I have to shoot him in the heart.”

  Dawson reached into his pack and retrieved the thick leather strings.

  “You heard the man,” Dawson told Tylor, and careful to keep from getting between McKeever’s gun and Tylor, he pulled the man’s arms around behind him, binding them tightly.

  “Joseph,” McKeever ordered, “See to the horses. Tie them off to the picket.”

  Dawson tugged the last of his knots tight as Joseph hurried off into the storm.

  Stone Otter strode forward, his bow strung, an arrow in the nock. The man said something in Arapaho and drew his bow, the shaft aimed at Tylor. Red Bear Man and Wide Crane crowded in close, arrows nocked.

  Wasichu, standing off to the side, translated. “Stone Otter says that now, with his relatives watching, he is going to show the . . .”

  McKeever moved like a cat, using the muzzle of his trade gun to slap the head of the arrow up, causing Stone Otter to relax the bow’s pull.

  “Later,” McKeever told him, standing almost chest to chest, as if ready for a shoving match.

  “This man killed my younger brother,” Wasichu translated, as Stone Otter shouted.

  “Aye,” McKeever thundered back. “And ye’ll have his heart. All I want is his head. In one piece. It’s worth a bloody damn fortune.”

  “His head is worth a fortune?” Dawson asked. “Why?”

  “He didn’t tell you?” Tylor asked softly. “Fenway’s a hired killer. A man back east wants me dead. Settlement for an old grudge.”

  “You’re supposed to be some kind of agent. Working against the crown. Turning the western tribes against England.”

  “You’re Dickson’s men?”

  “Aye, South West Fur Company. Sent to turn the Tetons against Lisa. A grudge, you say? McKeever says he works for John Jacob Astor.”

  “It’s a lie. He’s working for a banker, a man named Joshua Gregg. Astor knows nothing about it. McKeever’s just using his name.”

  Dawson sat back on his heels, a sinking sensation inside. “It’s all a lie?”

  He turned his gaze to McKeever and Stone Otter where they stood chest to chest. The big Scot was grinning, his rifle cocked and at the ready. Stone Otter—his face like a molten mask in the flickering firelight—physically trembled. The Arapaho spoke, softly, passionately, as if fighting for control.

  “He wants to kill Tylor now,” Wasichu translated.

  “Be ready, laddie,” McKeever said from the side of his mouth. “This comes undone, ye’re to shoot the mon on yer left.”

  That would be Red Bear Man.

  Dawson eased to the side, recovered his rifle.

  Both Red Bear Man and Wide Crane noticed immediately, each whispering a warning to Stone Otter.

  “We find Ni’otho. Take trade now.” Wasichu translated Stone Otter’s next order.

  “Aye,” McKeever told him, “That was the deal. It’s yers. I’ll take Tylor’s head, ye can have the rest of him and the trade. But meanwhile, no one’s going anywhere in this storm. Not with a nice warm camp, a fire, and the makings of a stew.” He paused, adding, “We’re all friends here.”

  A pause. “Well, all but us and Tylor.”

  Stone Otter’s lips twitched as if he were trying to form a smile but couldn’t. He had to be achingly aware of the rifle pointed at his guts. Then he lifted the arrow from its nock, resettling it in his quiver. As he turned, he used the bow stave to slash sideways, caught Tylor across the face in a stinging blow.

  “Coup,” Wasichu explained as Stone Otter stalked off.

  Before they followed, both Red Bear Man and Wide Crane used their bows to strike Tylor across his unprotected head.

  McKeever’s eyes narrowed, taking note, as Dawson did, that both Red Bear Man and Wide Crane hadn’t slipped their arrows back into their quivers. Now the two Arapaho watched, uncertain gazes going from McKeever to Stone Otter. The latter had pulled up at the edge of camp, his head back, face lifted to the falling snow. He seemed to be struggling for control.

  Joseph appeared from the darkness, head and shoulders caked with white. He had the action of his rifle tucked under his coat to protect the lock. “What did I miss?”

  McKeever softly said, “Yer both Scots, aye? Ye’ve heard of Culloden? The great battle? Our esteemed friend, here, would be the Duke of Cumberland. See what happened to the Scots on the field of Culloden happen again. Right here. Are ye following me thread, laddies?”

  “We are,” Joseph said, voice unsteady.

  Stone Otter, no matter how much English he might have had, couldn’t have understood the illusion to Culloden. Wasichu certainly looked confused.

  “It’ll be coming any minute now, laddies. Keep yer powder dry.” McKeever stepped back, crouched down, and extended his hands to the fire. His trade gun lay protected in his lap.

  “Why don’t they take the trade and go?” Joseph wondered.

  In a low whisper, Dawson told him, “Somehow, I don’t think McKeever ever meant to keep that agreement.”

  Joseph, looking scared, caught Dawson’s eye and gave him a nod of underst
anding.

  The Arapaho had collected on the opposite side of the fire, talking in low voices.

  “Where is woman?” Wasichu asked as the tensions seemed to have abated.

  “Woman?” McKeever asked, then nodded his understanding. “Aye.” He turned. “Johnny, me lad. Whar be yer woman? Why don’t ye call fer the charming lass to come in to the fire?”

  “What woman?” Tylor asked innocently.

  McKeever pointed. “The one that rides that Spanish saddle yonder. Oh, don’t bother to deny it. We tracked ye long enough. We know she’s oot there. Call her in.”

  “She doesn’t speak English.”

  McKeever spun on his heels. “Ye’ll call her, or I’m blowing a hole in yer knee. While I cuts off yer head, Stone Otter and his friends can start chopping yer guts out.”

  Tylor nodded, took a breath, and shouted something in a language Dawson had never heard before.

  McKeever glanced curiously at Wasichu, but the Santee just shrugged, his eyes still on the Arapaho.

  “Go find her,” McKeever ordered the Santee. Then, standing, he tossed the young man his trade gun. “I told ye I’d get ye a gun before this was all over.” He leveled a finger. “If’n she gives ye any fight or sass, laddie, shoot her dead. Some of these squaws can be real trouble. Ye up fer that?”

  Wasichu grinned, examining the rifle. Dawson remembered how the youth had admired it when it had belonged to Matato. McKeever had just made a staunch ally.

  As the young Santee vanished into the falling snow, Mc-Keever pulled Tylor’s ugly rifle from the protection of the shelter and checked the priming.

  “Never liked this damn thing. Ugly as a witch’s bloody broom.”

  “What next?” Dawson asked, nervous eyes on the Arapaho. They’d taken positions, bows still strung and at hand. Red Bear Man and Wide Crane kept their hard eyes on the whites. Ready to nock and draw at a moment’s notice. Stone Otter, meanwhile, turned to Tylor’s packs, grunting as he stripped off the manties and began pulling out dried meat. Then came hide bags of what looked like roots and dried berries.

  “If they’re going to make a move, it would be now, with Wasichu gone.” Joseph reached up with a quick hand to wipe away a trickle where snow had melted on his cheek.