Beneath a Hunter's Moon

by Michael Zimmer

  Copyright © 2012 by Michael Zimmer

  First Skyhorse Publishing edition published 2016 by arrangement with Golden West Literary Agency

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  Cover design by Brian Peterson

  Print ISBN: 978-1-63450-438-6

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-0031-4

  Printed in the United States of America

  For Vanessa

  Prologue

  Feeling the Appaloosa’s stride break, Pike knew his flight was coming to an end. The big gelding’s gait had become increasingly jarring the last couple of miles, its breath a raw, wheezing struggle for air. Leaning forward, Pike ran his hand along the gelding’s neck. It came away sticky with sweat, flecked with a pink-tinged lather that he recognized as the lung’s blood. He was killing the horse, yet there was nothing he could do about it. Not with hostiles so close behind him.

  There were only four of them now, but there had been more. They’d jumped him in the pearly half-light of dawn, maybe two dozen all told, appearing soundlessly from the creeping mist of the river bottom where he had been breaking camp. For a startled moment, Indians and trapper alike had stood frozen in mid-stride. Then one of the warriors slid an arrow from the quiver across his back, and the strained tableau had broken. Dropping the oilcloth-wrapped bundle he’d been toting toward a pack horse, Pike sprinted for the Appaloosa.

  The leopard-spotted gelding was already saddled. Pike had only to jerk the reins free and swing aboard. He’d done so without touching the stirrups, jerking the horse around and digging in with his spurs almost before he fully had his seat. His rifle was leaning against a nearby tree, and he swayed lithely to the side as they raced past, snatching it up even as the first shrill war cry splintered the fragile peace of the small grove. A rifle cracked, the ball sailing overhead with a fluttery whine, and a flint-tipped arrow arched past his shoulder, its dark fletching disappearing into the mist.

  Keeping low over the broad, flat horn of his Mexican saddle, Pike sent his horse up a shallow bank, crashing through a fringe of gooseberry bushes in an explosion of frost and crisp yellow leaves, pounding east toward the coming sun.

  That had been almost three hours ago, and the Appaloosa had been running steadily ever since. Most of the dozen or so warriors who had followed him onto the open plain had dropped out within a mile, hurrying back to share in the plundering of his camp with those who had remained behind. Only these four had clung stubbornly to his tail.

  Pike had hoped the Appaloosa might eventually outrun them. It had the lines for it—long-legged and trim, with a deep, broad chest that seemed made for running—but he’d underestimated the bow-legged little Assiniboine he’d traded the horse from back at Fort Union. The Appaloosa had been run too hard at some point in its past and was wind-broken; it could sprint with the best of them, but it didn’t have the endurance for the long haul.

  Now, as the Appaloosa’s hoofs beat an increasingly ragged cadence against the hard prairie sod, Pike knew the race was drawing to a close. He would have to do something, or the Indians would be on him.

  Spotting the winding path of a small stream angling in from the north, Pike reined toward it. He had no way of knowing how deep those treeless banks might be. There could be decent shelter behind them for him and his horse. Or it might not be anything more than a shallow rill, a scratch across the tawny prairie. Yet no matter how skimpy its protection, it would be more than his attackers would have.

  Pike’s grip tightened on the heavy, iron-mounted rifle he’d brought west with him from Tennessee. There was reassurance in its familiarity, the solid feel of its straight-grained maple stock, the cool iron of its heavy octagon barrel. With a habit ground into him from a lifetime spent on the frontier, he ran his fingers back to the jutting spur of the flintlock’s cock, gliding the ball of his thumb lightly over flint and frizzen. He’d pulled the old charge last night, then cleaned the bore and reloaded with fresh powder and a newly-patched .53-caliber round ball. He’d primed it then, too, and sealed the pan with bear grease. If he hadn’t jarred the frizzen too much during the Appaloosa’s long flight and lost his priming, the rifle would be ready to fire. But he couldn’t check it now. He couldn’t risk the wind blowing away the fine ignition powder cradled in the rifle’s shallow pan. He would have to trust that the seal had remained unbroken, that the priming was intact.

  The Appaloosa’s front legs buckled, dropping the horse out from under Pike. Instinctively he kicked free of the heavy wooden stirrups, pushed away from the falling gelding. He slammed hard into the half-frozen ground and went tumbling, sky and grass whirling together in a colorful blur. When he finally stopped rolling, he was lying face down on the ground, his chest heaving, the wind knocked out of him. Pushing dizzily to his hands and knees, he saw the Appaloosa lying several yards away, its head bent at an impossible angle, its flanks still.

  Closer, he saw his rifle with a tuft of dun-colored grass sprouting from its lock. Panic swelled in his breast. If the rifle was broken, he was finished.

  Still feeling off-kilter from the fall, Pike shoved to his feet, then stumbled drunkenly toward his rifle. He was aware of the pounding of hoofs behind him, and threw a desperate glance over his shoulder. The warrior in the lead, riding a chunky buckskin, had swung his mount to one side to dodge the fallen Appaloosa. A single eagle feather fluttered wildly near the head of an iron-tipped lance cradled in the warrior’s right arm.

  Grabbing his rifle, Pike cocked it as he brought it to his shoulder. The Indian was less than thirty yards away now, his coppery face displaying a grim acceptance of his fate as the rifle’s muzzle swung to cover him—a game played, a gamble lost. Then the cock snapped forward and the flint struck the frizzen with an audible click. But there was no shower of sparks raining into the pan, no puff of priming smoke followed by the bellow and kick as the main charge caught and exploded.

  With a low, raspy curse, Pike eared the cock back a second time, flipping the frizzen closed in the same motion. The pan was empty but he’d seen a lucky spark ignite the main charge without priming before. It was a slim chance, but it was the only one he had. There was no time to reprime.

  The Indian had completed the outward curve of his shallow crescent to avoid the downed Appaloosa and was coming straight at him. He’d seen Pike’s misfire and was already shouting victoriously. Pike pulled the trigger, cursing the sterile click of his second misfire. Lunging to his feet, he reversed the rifle like a club, locking his gaze on the spear point leveled on his chest. If he was quick, and lucky, he might, he just might…

  Chapter One

  Big John McTavish was in no hurry. He moved slowly along the dry wash, his gaze swinging back and forth over the ground in front of his quilled moccasins. It was early yet, and still cool, but he detected a hint of warmth in the slanting rays of the morning s
un, a halcyon promise in the deep blue dome of the sky. Although it had already snowed once that season, he had high hopes for the next few days, and intended to be home well before a second blustery storm swept the high plains, cloaking the land in a mantle of white.

  It was peaceful along the broad streambed. To the south he could hear the trilling of red-winged blackbirds and, closer, the familiar chomp of the horses as they grazed at the ends of their picket ropes. The wind was barely a murmur, coming out of the west like the rustle of mice in the next room.

  Big John was a Scotsman, tall and raw-boned like his father, with an angular face tanned to leathery hue by the sun and the wind. His dark eyes were framed by a webbing of crow’s-feet, his hair, beneath his frayed Glengarry cap, was salted generously with gray, falling loosely over his collar. He wore sturdy center-seam moccasins, fringeless buckskin trousers, and a brown and white checked shirt under a red duffel coat. A black wool bandanna circled his throat, and at his waist was a wine-colored sash of woven buffalo wool, worked throughout with blue and green chevrons.

  He was a trader, or had been until his recent retirement, living along the Red River of the North that separated the dense forests the Sioux called minnesota from the vast, treeless plains to the west. He’d dealt almost exclusively in furs and pemmican and buffalo robes, passing on in turn good Sheffield knives, sheet-iron kettles, fusils—those smooth-bored trade guns so popular among the tribes—and a sight of other merchandise, as well. His inventories had included beads and vermillion and paper-backed mirrors small enough to fit in the palm of a hand or weave into the mane of a favorite pony. There had been needles and awls and axes, linen thread and iron arrowheads and daggers the Indians sometimes fashioned into lances. Scarlet and blue trade cloth and ornamental silver trinkets in various designs that could be used to decorate an Indian’s hair or clothing.

  Over the years Big John had traded among the Chippewas, the Assiniboines, even the Crees, who ranged far to the west, but those days were largely behind him now. In this autumn of 1832 he lived only to live, to watch with a keen but accepting eye the changes gradually overtaking the valley of the Red. He was a hunter like the others, and mostly it was a good life and a fair living, although hard and dangerous. He had hoped to die a hunter as well, living off the great, wandering herds of bison that had once darkened the flat plain bordering the Red River, supplementing the profits of the hunt with what small grains and garden truck he could raise in the summer. But times were changing and sometimes he wondered if he hadn’t lived too long, put too much faith in an economic system he’d once thought was limitless.

  Coming to a flattened oval of buffalo dung, he flipped it over with his toe. A black, hard-shelled beetle scurried into the grass, but that was all. The slightly dome-shaped chip was old, and most of the nutritional value that attracted insects had been washed away long before.

  Big John picked it up, adding it to the collection of dung already gathered in the sling of his coat hem. A little farther downstream, Gabriel was also scrounging for chips. On the nearly treeless prairies west of the Red River Valley, dried dung was often the only fuel available to travelers.

  From the corner of his eye, Big John saw his tall roan stallion lift its head curiously, ears perked to the west. Its nostrils flared as if to catch some errant scent. Seconds later, Gabriel’s horse also threw its head into the air. Stopping, Big John glanced at his partner, but the youth was concentrating on the horses, his face grave with concern.

  Returning to the horses, Big John dumped his collection of chips to the ground. By now, even the small bay they were using for a pack horse had turned its attention westward, although none of the horses was able to see above the tall cutbank Big John had chosen to shelter their fire.

  “Listen,” Gabriel said, coming close.

  Big John strained to hear but picked up only the soughing of the wind. “What is it, lad?”

  “Horses.”

  “Wild, are they?”

  Gabriel shook his head. “No, they are ridden.” He looked at Big John, a trace of uneasiness shading his smooth, dusky features. He didn’t need to elaborate. This was Sioux country, and they were intruders.

  “Tighten the cinches on the horses,” Big John instructed curtly. “We may have to make a run for it.” He picked up his long, double-barreled rifle and hurried to the cutbank. He had to stretch to peer over the top.

  A moment later, Gabriel leaned into the bank at his side, and Big John heard the boy’s sharp intake of breath.

  It seemed obvious to Big John that the man on the Appaloosa wasn’t going to make it. The spotted pony’s gait was choppy, and its head was bobbing erratically. The pursuing Indians were quickly gaining. Reluctantly Big John slid his double rifle over the top of the cutbank.

  “They are Chippewas,” Gabriel said softly, without looking around. “They are our friends.”

  “Aye, but there’s another out there who’s needin’ our help,” Big John replied. He cocked the rifle’s right-hand hammer. “I’ll not turn my back on a stranger’s needs, just so our friends can help themselves to his scalp.”

  “Maybe he deserves to lose his scalp.”

  Big John’s lips drew thin. “I’d do the same if it was four white men runnin’ down a Chippewa, lad, and ye know it. ’Tis the odds I’m protestin’, nothing more.”

  Gabriel didn’t reply, to Big John’s relief. He brought his sights loosely to bear, waiting for the Chippewas to come into range. After a moment, he added: “I’ll send my first shot across their bow if I can. Maybe that’ll stop ’em.”

  “Thank you, Big John,” Gabriel replied. Big John wasn’t surprised when the Appaloosa went down, but he was disappointed. He’d hoped he might be wrong about the man’s chances of reaching the cutbank where he and Gabriel were holed up. He had a feeling the Chippewas wouldn’t be so eager to fight if the odds against them were suddenly tripled. But it wasn’t to be. The Appaloosa’s front legs buckled and it went to the ground, spilling its rider.

  “Ah,” Big John breathed, wrapping all his regret into that single exhalation.

  The stranger on the Appaloosa tumbled wildly across the short buffalo grass, and for a moment Big John feared he might have been killed in the fall. Then he rose to his hands and knees, shaking his head as if dazed.

  “Hurry, man,” Big John urged. “Ye’ve no the time for woolgatherin’.”

  The stranger looked up as if he’d heard Big John’s muttered admonitions, then scuttled across the grass to grab his rifle. Big John felt Gabriel’s desperate glance, but couldn’t tear his gaze away from the drama playing itself out before him. It soon became apparent that something was wrong with the stranger’s rifle. He lifted it, lowered it, then lifted it again.

  “Misfire,” Gabriel breathed as the stranger surged to his feet, raising the weapon above his shoulder like a club.

  “So it would seem,” Big John agreed, swinging his sights on the distant warrior.

  The tip of the Chippewa’s lance was less than half a dozen yards away from the stranger’s chest when Big John squeezed the trigger. The rifle boomed, spewing a cloud of gray powder smoke across the prairie. Through it, he saw the warrior topple from the buckskin’s back, saw the second Chippewa yank his horse to a plunging, head-tossing stop. Lowering his rifle, the stranger began to work frantically on his lock.

  Big John sighed, feeling Gabriel’s gaze, the silent accusation in his eyes. “There was no time, lad,” he said with little enthusiasm.

  Gabriel stared at him a moment longer, then looked away. “He is thinking about it,” he said, referring to the second warrior.

  “I fear ye be right,” Big John agreed, cocking the left-hand barrel. Although the second warrior was farther away, he wasn’t moving. Big John knew he would be within the double rifle’s range if he wanted to risk a shot, but he wasn’t interested in prolonging the battle, not if it could be avoided. He waited tensely as the Chippewa appeared to calculate the odds with a show of noble indifferenc
e. Finally the Indian reined away, walking his horse back to where the last two warriors had halted well out of range. Big John exhaled loudly and lowered the hammer.

  “Fetch the horses, Gabriel. We’d best be gettin’ out there before they change their minds.”

  He clambered over the top of the cutbank, then paused to reload in plain sight. The stranger was looking his way, cradling his own long gun in a non-threatening manner. The Chippewas were also watching him, their stance more curious than aggressive. After returning the ramrod to its thimbles beneath the steel web holding the rifle’s twin barrels together, Big John glanced behind him. Gabriel had already swung onto the saddle of the piebald black gelding he called Baldy, and had Big John’s roan in tow. He led the stallion across the dry streambed and up through a break in the cutbank. Back on the little flat where they’d been gathering chips for a breakfast fire, the bay nickered questioningly, but didn’t try to pull loose from its picket.

  Big John mounted the roan gratefully, feeling more in control with a good horse under him. The buckskin the first warrior had been riding had circled around to the south and stopped some distance away. Pointing toward it with his chin, Big John said: “See if ye can catch yon pony, lad. I’m thinkin’ we’ll have a man here as’ll be needin’ it.”

  Nodding, Gabriel angled off toward the buckskin as Big John set a straight course for the stranger, drawing up only yards away. Meeting the man’s gaze, he offered a faint smile. “’Mornin’, and a lively one ye’ve had, I’d say.”

  “Some,” the stranger allowed, letting the dinged stock of his rifle butt rest on the ground between his plain, grease-blackened moccasins. He was short and gaunt and wiry-looking, with a deeply weathered face surrounding the twin pools of his faded blue eyes. A long, bushy tangle of gray hair splayed out from beneath a broad-brimmed, low-crowned hat of cheap wool felt. He wore buckskin trousers with fringe along the outside seam and an old red cotton shirt under a hooded white capote.