by Dean Owen
In the distance he heard the cry of a wolf that had picked up the blood scent miles away. Ellis glanced around once more, and then swung into the saddle and loped slowly back up the sand spur, turning to see the plains grass sweep back over his roan’s tracks and hide them forever. Soothing his mount with soft words and caresses on the neck, Ellis got the big stallion to lie flat in the grass deep on the farther side of the rise, and stretched out, belly-down, himself.
His body stiffened against the piercing shrieks of the brave dying on the other side of the spur. Then he heard a low growl, and suddenly the blood-curdling howl of a wolf. He knew a plains jackal had committed the final coup on the disemboweled brave.
* * * *
It was not long before the second party of braves arrived. Ellis heard them when they were still some distance away, on the opposite side of the spur. He could imagine them spurring their ponies ahead to the scene and he listened for their voices to rise when they discovered the deaths.
He understood a great deal of what they said to each other, and they were as impressed with the size of the bull and with the obvious struggle of their slain comrades as they were with the fact that nothing lived. Their feelings for the slain Indians were genuine but short-lived. Soon Ellis heard them begin the skinning and quartering of the huge buffalo.
He judged it to be close to one in the afternoon when he heard them begin to move off. He waited, tense, and then, with a reassuring pat to the stallion, he snaked his way to the ridge of the spur. A band of eight, the spare ponies of the dead braves slung heavy with sides of dripping beef, moved off to the northeast. The guts, bones and hoofs were all that remained of the bull buffalo. The three slain braves were left to the wolves, vultures and maggots. They had not been buried. Only the renegade brave, who had broken away from all tribal culture, would leave another brave unprotected in death, especially in such an honorable death.
Wary of the wolves that were now growing in number and tearing at the remains of the buffalo and the dead men, Ellis moved back to his roan and swung into the saddle. He topped the spur and slowly, with great patience, began trailing after the Cheyenne party.
CHAPTER FOUR
Jake Reeves had once been captured by the Blackfeet, along with an old trapper who put him wise to the contradictions of the Indian mind. “One minute,” the trapper said, “you’ll find an Injun to be as wise as Solomon and the next minute caperin’ ’round with a piece of lookin’ glass like a ninny bitter. But there ain’t nothin’ a redskin likes to do more than show off. He loves to strut and dance and sing and make medicine, but when he’s huntin’ or out on a war party, he’s dead serious. Best goddam fightin’ man in the world, considerin’ he usually ain’t got nothin’ but a hoss and a bow ’n’ arrow, standin’ up to his fight naked as a jay bird. And when he’s fightin’ he’s already thinkin’ how he’s gonna dance and make medicine when he gets back to his lodge. And part of that palaver he’s plannin’ is torturing his captured enemy. He figures to kill you anyway, so he might as well have a little fun, and show off in the bargain. Now, if you stand up to it like a man, and take the torturin’, it just makes him that much bigger in the eyes of the squaw and the other braves that he was able to capture a man as brave as you. On the other hand, if you give up and start whinin’ and beggin’, you’re makin’ a ridicule outa him, so he’ll likely kill you for embarrassin’ him, ’cause capturin’ a whinin’ beggar ain’t no coup. Now, boy, if they really got you, you ain’t likely to get away, so the only chance you got is to work on his pride and the yes-and-no, it is-it ain’t part of the savage’s make-up. When he comes to torture you, stand up to him. Don’t be sassy ’cause he’ll just ram a Green River in you and gut you. No, boy, you gotta play off the contradictions, the pride and man part of him against the little kid part of him. Now, how you do that is dependin’ a whole hell of a lot on what particular Injun’s got you. If you’re lucky to be caught by a chief, or a medicine man, you stand a better chance ’cause the whole shebang is watchin’ him and he’s gotta put on a good show. That’s important, boy, puttin’ on a good show. Killin’ ain’t no more than blowin’ your nose to a Injun, so just killin’ a captured enemy don’t mean much. You have to make him look good. Now, you might be able to do it this way, boy. Listen good, ’cause leastways you might have a chance.
“When he starts to give you a rassle, torturin’ you one way or another, take it without battin’ an eyelash. And then when he’s struttin’ before the women and the kids and the other braves, you have to indicate that it was luck that let him get you. See what I mean, boy? You gotta get across the idea that you’d like to just set the record straight—mind you, not challenge him, or call him a liar, ’cause that’d be interpreted as beggin’. You just gotta ease it into his mind that the others watchin’ don’t believe his tale about how he got you. It ain’t the others you gotta convince, it’s him. Put it in his mind that they don’t believe his story and, boy, you gotta chance to meet him with tommy-hawks, or bow ’n’ arrow, or over the steel of a Green River blade. That’s the only chance you got, boy, and if you whip him, ain’t a nation of Injuns livin’ that’d knife you in the back. I tell you, boy, it’s the only chance you got.”
The boy Reeves, sixteen and strong as a bull, had nimbly maneuvered a giant Blackfoot brave that day into fighting a duel of death with naked knives before the hoots and hussahs of the Blackfoot’s village. Jake Reeves still wore the jagged pink scar along his upper belly where the brave’s knife had narrowly missed a death lunge, and the boy fighter had successfully countered with his own knife, driving it up to the hilt into the Indian’s stomach.
The old trapper had been burned to death at the stake, a victim of his own plan when his captor had simply dismissed the old man’s suggestions that he was a coward, with a tomahawk blow between the eyes.
In later years, as he grew older and wiser in experience in the ways of the Indian mind, Jake Reeves had fought four such challenges and walked away from them. He became friend to many tribes because of his reputation with a Green River blade and because of his honesty. He had carved out a special place for himself and for his sister in the heart of the Missouri country. The two of them became known as Big and Little Sand Sticker, because to hold one tightly was impossible without drawing blood.
But Goose Face was a bitter and wise brave. He had learned the white man’s lesson of war simply and effectively. Take any advantage, offer no quarter and don’t succumb to the cleverness of the white man’s mind. When you have him, kill him. Don’t talk, don’t hesitate, just kill him. Jake Reeves’s attempts to force Goose Face into personal combat before the other renegades had not worked. The young rebel savage had simply whacked Reeves on the head with his rifle and ordered him spread and pegged to the ground in the bottom of the draw.
The scout had been pinned to the ground since the night before. The sun had burned down on him since dawn and his tongue had swollen from thirst. He had listened to Goose Face plan to stampede the buffalo into the railhead, and attack from the east at the same time, and he knew that since it was Saturday the Johnny-Jacks would be dead drunk, to the man, crowding Watson’s grog tents.
When Goose Face had split up the party, leaving twenty braves behind to stampede the herd, Reeves had hoped for one thing: that the remaining braves would not be able to resist taking one buffalo while they waited. It was the last thing Jake Reeves remembered before he fainted beneath the sun. One of the sentinels had spotted a huge bull—from the talk, the biggest ever seen—wandering away from the herd. Reeves had listened to them argue. Many were afraid of Goose Face and contended that they should remain in the draw until it was time to attack the railhead. Others insisted that they had a right to eat. Eventually a plan was decided on to take the single, huge buffalo. Lots were drawn to see who would go. Half of the stampede party rode out of the draw; it was then that Jake Reeves slid into unconsciousness.
He was still unconscious
when the party returned talking of the fight that must have taken place between the giant bull and the three braves. It was from such stories that legends began and grew in the lodges of the plains people.
When Nathan Ellis saw the party of Cheyenne approach a draw beyond a small rise, he recognized the position. He stopped his roan and flanked out away from the rise, wary of being spotted by sentinels he knew would be watching. He dropped back to the east, rounded a swell and pulled the stallion down still. There before him, five miles away, was the buffalo, and beyond, shimmering like a mirage in the afternoon heat, was the railhead camp.
Moving back away from the draw and well west of the buffalo, Ellis dismounted and hobbled the roan. He removed his carbine and rawhide lariat and slung his canteen over his shoulder. Going fast and low in the belt-high grass, he angled off well west of the draw.
* * * *
When Liza Reeves finally caught her snorting gray, she pulled the sand sticker from beneath the blanket and swung into the saddle, her face contorted with rage.
She slapped the pony hard on the rump, cleared tent guys and stays in leaps that startled dogs and scattered chickens, and struck straight west.
She rode low in the saddle, head forward, braced against the stirrups and the motion of the gray. She moved to the north of the buffalo, cutting right across the railhead where the Johnny-Jacks were laying rail faster than it had ever been put down before in the entire world.
She knew Nathan Ellis had gone south of the herd and, ordinarily, she would have lifted the high dust in that direction herself, but her anger was working hand-in-hand with her obstinacy. To hell with him, she thought, that smart rebel critter! I’ll just ride north and out back around the head of the buffalo, and have a look-see into that rise beyond.
Knowing the habits of her brother, knowing nearly as much about the trail as he did and completely dismissing the idea that anything could have happened to him, she tipped the edge of the herd and cut back toward the rise. As she approached, she noted that the buffalo, who were grazing all the while but moving nevertheless, had made a circuit away from the rise.
She pulled the gray down and stopped, stood in the saddle and smelled the air. She caught the faint tang of brush-wood smoke, and then searched for visible sign.
She laughed suddenly. “Of course,” she said to herself. “Jake wouldn’t make a fire anybody could see.”
She nudged the gray broomtail forward toward the rise, her nose catching stronger suggestions of smoke as she moved.
Liza was not so enthusiastic to see her brother as to throw caution to the winds. She was aware that the fire could just as easily have been made by Indians, but she did not believe they would cut out a buffalo from the herd and feast on him with the railhead moving so fast, nearer all the time. More likely, she reasoned, there wasn’t a redskin in a thirty-mile reach of here. A big party with much medicine would hesitate before going after the buffalo so close to the railhead, and a small party simply wouldn’t dare.
She slapped her knees against the gray’s ribs and touched him with her wang reins. The animal spurted forward toward the rise.
* * * *
Ellis snaked belly-down through the tall grass. Above him an old Cheyenne warrior, who had lost his hair many years before in some forgotten brush with another nation, sat cross-legged atop a round of grass-covered clay, an outcropping of the rise above the draw.
The brave’s attention was drawn back into the draw itself and his sweeping search of the plains east to the buffalo and the railhead became less and less frequent. When Ellis smelled the brush smoke, he grinned to himself. The Cheyenne were taking their time with the buffalo and not eating it raw, but were roasting it instead.
The Cheyenne sentinel waved his arms and yelled something to the other brave beyond the round out of Ellis’s view. He was getting angry, Ellis thought, and hungry. Someone answered him, but the old brave did not reply. He swept his eyes around the plains and then turned his body around to address himself more fully to the activity in the draw.
Ellis drew his Bowie and clamped it between his teeth. He inched forward, bringing the lariat up and slipping the eye down to make a tight, eighteen-inch loop. He judged the Cheyenne to be about twenty feet away from him, pulled off that many coils, looped them in his left hand and waited.
The Cheyenne did not move. Ellis watched the high grass atop the round and when it began to waver a bit, he tightened up. The grass bent in a sudden hot gust of wind. Ellis jerked up and flew the lariat against the wind, up and out. It faltered and appeared to drop short. He was ready with the Bowie when the loop dropped neatly over the brave’s head. He jerked hard and what little outcry the Indian made was carried away by the gust and not heard in the draw.
With quick strides, Ellis was beside the brave, who struggled in the grass against the rawhide lariat. Without hesitation, Ellis rammed the Bowie into the Indian’s back. The knife struck bone and then slipped past and into the heart. The old warrior died without a sound.
Ellis pushed the grass aside to stare down into the draw. All of the remaining braves were hacking away at the dripping sides of beef, gesturing and talking rapidly. Further to one side Ellis spotted the spread-eagled form of Jake Reeves.
He moved back and to a higher point on the round, searching for the second sentinel he was sure would be placed farther to the east. He stopped some fifty yards farther up the rim of the draw, and waited.
He did not wait long. A garish face, old and seamed, peered up out of the grass and stared down into the draw at the other braves.
Ellis grinned.
Snaking his way back to the dead Cheyenne, the Texan removed a double curved Nez Perce bone bow the old warrior had probably received in a trade many years before, and slipped a feathered shaft from the fur quiver. Stringing the arrow, he tested the power of the bow and decided it would kill at fifty yards. Then he slipped away toward the farther end of the round.
The second sentinel did not show himself for nearly five minutes. All that time Ellis was inching forward. He was nearly forty yards away, still hidden by the plains grass, when the Indian showed himself. Ellis lifted up to one knee, pulled down on the powerful bow and sighted briefly on the Indian’s chest.
The arrow sang eerily in the silence. A second later Ellis heard the dull thunk of the shaft finding its mark.
The moment he had shot the arrow, Ellis grabbed his carbine and moved toward the top of the round over-looking the draw. He did not expect the second Indian to die without a sound as conveniently as the first had, and he wanted to be in a commanding position above the feasting party below.
His luck held. The second Cheyenne made less noise than the sing of the arrow, and Ellis found himself over-looking the draw, where more than a dozen unsuspecting braves gorged themselves on buffalo meat.
Ellis’s face tightened at the sight of Jake Reeves.
He threw down on the party and fired at a Cheyenne. The man dropped in his tracks, a good part of his head torn off. The others looked upward in stunned silence.
Ellis raised the carbine again. “Let the long beard go,” he said in his best Cheyenne. “Drop your weapons.”
The Indians did not move. Ellis fired again. A second warrior dropped like a stone. The braves allowed their weapons to fall to the ground.
Two of them went to Jake Reeves and began to release him. The absence of Goose Face intensified the already growing suspicion in Ellis’s mind that this was an advance party sent here—or left in the draw—for some savage reason of the renegade leader.
Ellis indicated that he wanted the scout put on a pony and brought up to the ridge of the rise. Jabbering among themselves, and looking up at the round where the sentinels should have been, the party slopped water into Jake’s face and made efforts to bring him to. A horse was brought from the end of the draw and the scout was lifted, ungently, onto the animal’s back.
As one of the braves stepped forward to lead the broomtail up to Ellis, a blood-curdling scream ripped the hot afternoon quiet.
Ellis spun around. Atop the round where he had slain the second sentinel, a brave held Liza Reeves by the hair with one hand and brandished a blade across her throat with the other.
Even from this distance Ellis could make out the disfigured face of the Cheyenne and knew that it was Goose Face.
CHAPTER FIVE
In broken English that was thick with the k sounds of the Cheyenne tongue, Goose Face screamed his threats across the rise. “She die! She die! You stop! She die!” Goose Face cried. Then, turning to the braves in the draw who stood transfixed at the quickness of events, the renegade leader ordered them up to Ellis. The tall Texan gripped the carbine tightly, knowing that if he fired or resisted, Liza Reeves would die instantly. She may die anyway, Ellis thought, but at the moment he had no choice.
“Shoot ’em! Shoot ’em!” Liza Reeves shouted across to him. “He’ll kill me anyways!” Goose Face jerked her backward by the hair and slapped her hard across the face.
Ellis made his decision. He jerked up his carbine to take aim on the Cheyenne leader when half a dozen pairs of hands pulled at him from below. Ellis fought back violently, kicking, biting, wrenching, but it was futile. The braves overpowered him with brute strength. There was a violent pain in the back of his head and Ellis felt himself sinking willingly into the arms of the braves, and then came a blackness that was not penetrated even by the white-hot Nebraska sun.
* * * *
When Goose Face had cut back to view the railhead and explore the reason for the explosion, he had lingered long enough to see a second rider in buckskin cutting to the north.
Goose Face had not hesitated. He had jerked his pony around and pounded even further to the north, cut back beyond the buffalo and drew up well west of the draw where he had left his stampede party. From deep in the high plains grass he had watched Ellis make his approach to the round and slay two of his braves. He was on his way to cut the tall Texan down from behind, when he sighted the woman. His crafty mind saw a ripe opportunity, and he circled the draw and came up behind Liza Reeves. His medicine was working well for him. The rider was a woman. Goose Face knew there was nothing the whites prized more than their squaws.
