Wings of the Hawk

by Charles G. West

  ACTION-PACKED FRONTIER TALES FROM CHARLES G. WEST . . .

  Medicine Creek

  Bitterroot

  Wind River

  The Jason Coles Series

  Cbeyenne Justice

  Black Eagle

  Stone Hand

  Ride for your life. . . .

  Trace wheeled his pony and sprang into full flight. They bounded down the back side of the rise in full gallop, Trace bending low in the saddle, trying to avoid the arrows and musket balls that flew after him.

  Hoping to gain some ground, he jerked the pony around in a quick turn and charged off in a different direction. It had the desired effect of catching his pursuers by surprise, widening the distance between him and the warriors chasing him—all except for one. Out in front of his brothers, the Sioux anticipated the change in direction and angled across to intercept Trace. He was gaining on him. The determined warrior, war axe in hand, lay low across his pony’s neck.

  The two of them were outdistancing the rest of the war party, but the lone Sioux brave was almost behind Trace. He looked back into the warrior’s face, a mask of scornful fury, his eyes wide in anticipation of the kill, his cheeks adorned with jagged streaks of red and black war paint. His arm was raised to deliver a crushing blow with his stone war axe. Turning, Trace aimed his pistol at the Indian’s stomach and fired. He would never forget the look of shocked disbelief that replaced the brave’s angry visage as the Sioux rolled off his pony and landed in the grass with a thud. . . .

  Wings

  of the Hawk

  Charles G. West

  SIGNET

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane,

  London W8 5TZ, England

  Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood,

  Victoria, Australia

  Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue,

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  Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182–190 Wairau Road,

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:

  Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

  First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.

  Copyright © Charles West, 2000

  ISBN: 978-1-101-66289-2

  All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  BOOKS ARE AVAILABLE AT QUANTITY DISCOUNTS WHEN USED TO PROMOTE PRODUCTS OR SERVICES FOR INFORMATION PLEASE WRITE TO PREMIUM MARKETING DIVISION, PENGUIN PUTNAM INC., 375 HUDSON STREET, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10014.

  For Ronda

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  About the Author

  CHAPTER 1

  Young Jim Tracey loved to hunt. Maybe it was because he seemed to have a knack for it. Though only fourteen on this sunny day in the late spring of 1835, he had already proven himself as a marksman. From the age of ten, he had supplemented the family’s dinner table with squirrels and rabbits—most of them shot clean through the head with the rifle his daddy had given him. Because of his skill with the old flintlock, it was easy for Jim to persuade his father to let him take a mule up the mountain to see if he could sneak up on a deer.

  John Tracey was proud of his son’s natural talent as a marksman. Although he took credit for teaching the youngster how to shoot, starting his instruction at an early age, still he knew that young Jim’s ability was God-given. It was good for the boy to go off in the woods to hunt. They had been working long hours at the sluice box ever since the winter broke, with not a lot of gold dust to show for it. Besides, they could always use some fresh meat.

  John straightened up and, resting his shovel against a haystack-size boulder, arched his back in an effort to ease his aching muscles. He stood there a few moments, watching a young half-breed working with a shovel on the other side of the sluice. Henry Brown Bear was perhaps a year older than his own son, Jim. It was hard to say. John could only guess, and Henry wasn’t even sure himself how old he was. He was a good worker, though, and John never regretted bringing him along. When he thought about it, John figured it was best for the boy as well. He had been hanging around the trading post on the Platte, and probably would have turned into another loafer Injun if he had remained there. He was also good company for Jim. The two of them would sit by the fire at night and see who could tell the biggest lies. It made John smile when he pictured his son. I wish Julia could see how he’s growing into a man. The thought of his wife caused a sharp pang of melancholy to wrinkle his weary brow. Maybe we won’t stay another year, like I said before. We’ve got a little dust—not enough to buy a farm, but maybe we’ll just take what we’ve got and head back home.

  “Henry, let’s call it a day. You’ve been working pretty hard. Jim ain’t the only one deserves a day off.”

  Henry Brown Bear rested his shovel and straightened up. He gave John a wide, warm smile. John had never seen the half-breed boy in anything but a pleasant humor and he was always willing to work. John knew that Henry had to be tired, but the boy would have smiled just as warmly if he had told him they were going to work on through the night.

  In the next instant, Henry’s smile seemed to freeze on his face and his eyes grew wide, staring right through John. He clenched his teeth hard, and he looked as if about to speak, but he made no sound. Instead, he pitched forward, falling facedown in the clear mountain stream. John watched, amazed, thinking at first that the young half-breed was again acting like a clown. He was about to laugh at the boy’s antics when he saw the arrow shaft protruding from his back.

  Unable to move for a moment, frozen by the sight of a life just taken before him, John Tracey stared in disbelief. It took the snap of an arrow as the shaft splintered on the boulder beside him to shock his muscles into action. He broke from the stream and ran toward the cabin for his rifle. It was too late. He had barely reached the far bank when he felt the impact of the heavy rifle ball between his shoulder blades, driving him to the ground. At the same instant, the boom of the large-bore buffalo gun rolled over his head like a wave of summer thunder. He struggled to get to his feet, but his limbs seemed unwilling to support him. The pounding of his heart hammered in his ears as if that vital organ was going to crash through his rib cage. It was so loud that the sounds of fiendish war cries right behind him seemed way off in the distance, though he knew they were probably scalping poor Henry only a few yards away. John managed to gain his feet, but his chest felt heavy, like a huge stone had been lodged behind his breastbone. He staggered uncontrollably
, struggling to escape the hands he could now feel grabbing and clutching at his clothes. It was the last sensation John Tracey felt in this world before a war axe was buried in his neck.

  On a low bluff some fifty yards away, overlooking the clear, rippling stream, a gruff-looking bear of a man stood. His buffalo gun in one hand, he watched the scene without emotion—even with some amusement—as his Blackfoot allies celebrated the kill. After a little while, he picked up his horse’s reins and led it down to the scene of mutilation that was now under way. Once the scalps were taken, the bodies were left to rot as the savages busied themselves with ransacking the cabin. He himself had no interest in the spoils of the massacre. Only on second thought did he ask, “Find any little sacks of yellow dust?”

  Lame Fox, a solidly built warrior with a long scar across his back, answered, “No.” The big white man shrugged his shoulders, not really expecting any. Lame Fox spoke again. “There is another man.” He pointed to the edge of the clearing, where some tools were left near the back of the cabin. “See, tracks say three men here.”

  This interested the bearlike white man, but not enough to cause him concern. He had looked carefully at the two bodies—a man and a boy. He was satisfied. “It ’pears the other one went off up that way on a horse,” he said. Lame Fox nodded agreement. “Well, suit yourself on that one. We got the ones that matter.”

  Always interested in acquiring another horse, Lame Fox called his warriors together. He sent four of them to trail the mule Jim had ridden up the mountain. He, along with the others, would return to their village in triumph with the big white man once they had finished here.

  * * *

  After having left his father and Henry, who were still shoveling gravel into the sluice box, Jim decided to hunt for bigger game than the deer he had set out for. He pushed on through the timberline, up above the trees to the high meadows in search of an elk. The thought of bringing back one of the majestic animals made him swell with imagined pride. He’d show Henry what a mighty hunter he was. But after several hours of searching, he was disappointed to find no sign of elk, or anything else that would make meat for the camp. He decided to call it quits when he heard the powerful report of a large-bore rifle reverberating up through the canyons. That wasn’t Pa’s rifle!

  What could it mean? There was only that one shot, but it sounded as if it had come from the valley below, maybe even from the cabin. He prodded the mule, pushing him down the mountain as quickly as he could in an effort to get back to the camp. The mule, having the better judgment of the two, resisted Jim’s urging and would go no faster than he deemed prudent. “Damn you,” Jim admonished, “can’t you do no better than this?” But the mule would not cooperate. So they made their way across the ridges and down into the forest belt at a steady but slow pace, with Jim flailing his arms and kicking the mule’s rib cage. The mule simply ignored his antics.

  Once they descended the steep slope and were near the base of the firs, the mule relented and picked up the pace to a speed that was too fast to dodge and dart through the crowded pines safely, but Jim was anxious to close the remaining mile to the cabin. At that pace over the rough terrain, an accident was bound to happen. The mule saw the gulch that suddenly appeared before them and tried to swerve to the side, but it was too late. Jim went flying out of the saddle, landing on the near side of the gulch, rolling toward its lip when he hit the ground. He wound up in a tangled ball of juniper at the gully’s bottom. The mule slid on his front legs before rolling down the side of another ridge, almost bowling over four startled Blackfoot warriors. One of them reacted quickly enough to grab the frightened animal’s reins and bring it to a halt.

  Although young Jim was not aware of it yet, the spill had saved his life. Too stunned to move, he lay there wrapped in a cocoon of juniper and berry bushes. He was afraid to move for a few moments, unsure if he had broken any bones. In fact, it amazed him that he did not feel more than slight pain. Lying flat on his back, looking up at the sky from the bottom of the deep gulch, he decided it was time to test his limbs to make sure everything was still sound. Before he could move, however, he was frozen by the sound of voices above him. A moment later, he saw them pass along the rim of the gulch. Injuns! Their faces were painted for war, and they were already leading his mule away.

  His heart was pounding so rapidly, and so loud, that he feared they might hear it from above. All they had to do to discover him was to glance down into the gulch. He could do nothing but stare, unblinking, at the rim of the narrow gully as they slowly walked their horses past. There were four of them. The shot he had heard must have been fired by them. Maybe, he thought, they shot once at the cabin, and then his father and Henry scared them away. With nothing better to hope for, he decided that was it; his father had chased them away. Holding on to that slim hope, he waited, fearing to breathe, until the four disappeared over the ridge.

  He had been lucky. They had not thought to look down at him. However, he had lost his mule, along with his rifle. But I got my hair, he thought, and quickly tore his way out of the brambles, forgetting his earlier concern for broken bones. His foremost thought now was to get back to his father.

  Making his way as quickly as possible down the lower side of the steep slope above the stream, constantly scanning the terrain ahead of him, Jim was keenly aware of the deafening silence of the pines surrounding him. Every hundred yards or so he stopped to listen, straining to hear any sounds that might alert him to the presence of Indians, hoping that the four who had passed him back up the mountainside were all there were—and not part of a larger war party. His heart was pumping hard, whether from the physical exertion of his haste, or from the thought of finding something dreadfully wrong at the cabin, he could not say.

  He struck the stream a hundred yards above the cabin. Cautious now, he slowed his pace and carefully made his way downstream, stepping from rock to rock, pausing often to listen and study the way before him. He smelled smoke—too much smoke for a cookfire. He could feel his heartbeat pounding in his head now, and a cold feeling of dread sent shivers over his body. A few more paces down the stream, and he caught a glimpse of the cabin through the trees. The little bit he could see through the foliage showed nothing amiss. But, glancing up at the treetops, he saw a thin stream of smoky haze drifting overhead. Until then he had heard no sound above the noisy ripple of the stream. Now voices came to him on the wind and he froze in his tracks. It was Indian talk! Not loud screeching or war whoops, but just normal conversation between several Indians. Henry was half Crow. Maybe he was talking with them. That had to be it, for there was neither shooting nor shouting—they were probably Indians looking for food or gifts. Still, he would be cautious.

  He left the stream and circled around in order to come up on their campsite from above, on the opposite side of the water. Crawling behind a huge boulder, he slowly raised his head until he could see the clearing and the cabin beyond. What he saw seared an image in his mind that would never completely fade from his memory. Below him, not fifty feet away, the body of the half-breed boy lay still in the shallow water. He knew it was Henry only by the clothes he wore, for his head had been smashed in with a large rock, and strips of flesh had been sliced from his arms and shoulders.

  Captivated by the horror before him, he was helpless to move. His eyes wide with fright, he looked beyond the corpse of his friend toward the group of twelve or more savages milling around the tiny clearing. Their horses were grazing on the grass behind the cabin, his father’s horse and mules among them. A few of the Indians were making a halfhearted attempt to set fire to the cabin. The back room and a patch on the roof were burning, but the main cabin resisted their attempts. While Jim watched, horrified, they tired of the effort and rejoined their brothers. There was still no sign of his father. As he searched the clearing with his eyes, hoping that his father had managed to escape, he discovered his body.

  They had pulled his father’s corpse over to a tree and left it in a sitting position, h
eld up by more than a dozen arrows pinning his chest to the trunk. Jim almost cried out. He had to force himself to remain still. His father’s scalp had been taken and his head and face were awash in blood. Like Henry, he was identifiable only by the clothes he wore, so brutal was the mutilation he had suffered at the hands of his murderers.

  Jim slid down behind the rock, too shocked by the sight to even cry. Dazed, he did not move for several minutes as his brain fought to right itself. After a while, he recovered his senses enough to realize that he could not remain there long without being discovered. He forced himself back up to take another look, totally at a loss as to what he should do. There was no thought of helping his father—it was much too late for that. He wanted to run, but a strong feeling that he should at least take care of his father’s body kept him at the boulder. Again, he eased his head above the top of the boulder until he could see the clearing. The actions of several of the warriors gave him cause for more immediate concern. They were scouting around the clearing, pointing at tracks and looking toward the stream. Jim had heard tales of the Indians’ ability to track enemies, and his spine went numb when he thought that maybe they were now setting out to find him. There was no more indecision on his part. He decided the best thing for him to do was to run as fast and as far as he could.

  * * *

  Buck Ransom made his way slowly and cautiously through the thick patch of willows that screened the creek bank below the beaver dam. His moccasined feet trod silently through the sparse brush that managed to compete with the willows for the earth’s nourishment. Glancing about frequently, a matter of long habit in his chosen occupation, he still managed to focus his main attention on the sandy bank at the water’s edge and on the bait stick that was still standing where he had set it. The float was missing. There was no sign of it in the water near the dam, where he would normally expect to find it if the critter had run with it. Gone too was the notch-stick, evidently pulled up and no doubt floating downstream somewhere.