Wings of the Hawk

by Charles G. West

  Hamilton considered Morgan’s answer for a moment, then nodded his head, satisfied. “I want to be damn sure there were no mistakes.” He shifted his gaze to Tyler. “Like that first job.”

  Tyler, busy amusing himself with the scalps until then, dropped the grisly trophies back in the sack and took issue with his brother’s barb. “What do you mean? You said that little bastard should have an accident. Well, he damn sure had an accident, didn’t he?”

  Hamilton looked at him with the patient look of a man accustomed to dealing with idiots. His young brother was wild, with a generous dose of evil, but noticeably lacking in brains. “He was supposed to look like a wagon ran him down. The way you bashed his head in with that axe had the undertaker asking a helluva lot of questions—like why there were no wheel marks on his body.”

  Tyler shrugged his shoulders impatiently. He had already been scolded for this. He thought it unfair to bring it up again. “Dammit, you wanted him dead. Well, he’s dead—and ain’t nobody said nothing about it.”

  “Are you sure Travis Bowen didn’t see anything?”

  Tyler, irritated by his brother’s worrying, shot back, “I told you he didn’t. Hell, I sent him to change a team of mules. He didn’t see nothing.” He paused, then added, “He better not have, if he knows what’s good for him.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Jim moved silently through a thicket of chokecherry bushes that had been picked clean of their fruit by birds—a fact that held no interest for him at that moment. His attention was focused on the young black-tailed deer drinking at the edge of the creek. Carefully placing one foot before the other, he moved through the bushes without shaking a leaf. Closer now, he stopped to test the wind to make sure it had not changed on him. Satisfied that he was still downwind of the animal, he resumed stalking it, making his way slowly down the bank, using a stand of willows as a screen. He had managed to close within twenty-five yards of the deer when the animal sensed the danger. It suddenly lifted its head up from the water and snorted. Jim knew it would bolt within seconds. He would have no better opportunity for a shot. He slowly raised the pistol and took careful aim. The deer took two nervous steps backward, jerking its head from side to side, seeking to locate the danger it sensed.

  The pistol cracked and emitted a puff of smoke that sent the deer bounding over the low brush, the pistol ball sailing harmlessly over its head. Frustrated to the point of anger, Jim threw the pistol at the deer as it disappeared into the trees on the far side of the creek. “Damn you!” the boy cursed at the offending firearm. “I got a good mind to leave the damn thing in the bushes. Can’t hit anything with a damn pistol unless it’s setting on the end of the barrel.”

  In spite of his frustration, he dutifully searched through the low shrubs until he found the pistol. It belonged to Buck, otherwise he might not have bothered. “I could have throwed my knife and had a better chance of hitting him,” he mumbled as he cleaned the dirt off the weapon. He had lived to regret pushing his Pa’s mule down that slope—for more reasons than one. But the reason that rankled him this day was the fact that he had lost his rifle when he and the mule parted company.

  Without realizing it, he was developing skills that would prolong his life in the mountains—and in such a short time that Buck and Frank often commented on it when the boy wasn’t around. Jim didn’t realize that not many men, Indians included, could have sneaked up to within twenty-five yards of that deer to even consider trying a shot with a pistol.

  With a rifle, he could have easily killed the deer and provided meat for the camp. Buck and Frank hunted, and never failed to provide plenty to eat. But it was important to the boy to contribute to the food stores as well. More than that, it was in his nature to hunt, and he decided on that day that he was going to find himself a more accurate weapon than Buck’s pistol. He knew it was out of the question to ask to use one of their rifles. A mountain man would as soon loan you an arm or a leg. Besides, this was still Blackfoot land. A trapper couldn’t chance working his traps without his rifle. In fact, a mountain man looked upon his rifle as a more intimate partner than a wife. Both Buck and Frank carried Hawken rifles—percussion cap, not flintlocks—and Jim had often cast an envious eye upon the fine pieces with their octagonal barrels. “I’ll just have to make me a bow,” he announced and started back toward camp.

  “I heard the crack of that pistol a while back,” Frank said when the boy walked back into camp. He winked at Buck. “Where’s the meat? Did you need some help toting it back to camp?”

  “It was a buffalo—I was so hungry, I ate it on the spot.”

  Frank snorted a laugh. “You been spending too much time with Buck. Your lies are getting bigger ever’ day.”

  Jim sat down by the fire and helped himself to a cup of coffee from the kettle nestled in the coals. After he was settled, he pulled the pistol from his belt and examined it. “I can’t get close enough to anything to hit it with this thing.” He reached out to return it to Buck.

  Buck pushed it away. “You keep it on you. It’s better than nuthin’ if a Blackfoot sneaks up on you.”

  Jim stuck it back in his belt. He sat there drinking his coffee, thinking for a long time. No one spoke in the drowsy dusk of the evening, the only sound the low sizzle of a burning limb. After a while, Jim decided what he was going to do. “I’m gonna make me an Injun bow,” he announced.

  His statement piqued Frank’s interest. “That right? You ever shoot a bow?”

  “Nope.”

  “How do you know you can hit anything with a bow any more than you can with that pistol?”

  “I reckon I can learn. Injuns can shoot pretty dang good with ’em. If they can, I can.” Jim wasn’t just making big talk. He sincerely figured he could do most anything he made up his mind to.

  “You ever make one?”

  “Nope, that’s the part that’s got me worried a little bit.”

  Frank launched a long brown tobacco stream into the fire, barely missing the coffee kettle. “Well, I have. A Crow by the name of Little Bull showed me how to make a bow, and the arrows too, at rendezvous on the Snake River. Musta been four year ago.” He spat again. “Trouble was, I never could hit nuthin’ with the damn thing.”

  “I remember you dang near hit Ollie Finster with it,” Buck chimed in. “’Course, you claimed you was trying to hit a cook pot ’bout ten yards to the left of where Ollie was settin’.” The recollection of it caused Buck to throw his head back and laugh. “Ol’ Ollie was set on whuppin’ your ass. Said you was tryin’ to murder him. You was doin’ some mighty fast talking that day to cool ol’ Ollie down.”

  “Ollie was old, but he was tough as a pine knot,” Frank added, thoughtfully.

  Jim’s interest had been sparked. “Will you help me make one?”

  “I reckon.”

  When they split up the following morning to work the traps, Frank told the boy to keep an eye out for a good young ash, as this was the wood of choice for a stout bow. Buck allowed as how he would keep an eye peeled as well. It was close to the time when they would pack up and head for the Green River, where the rendezvous was to be held that summer. Though they were still trapping a few streams, they were not finding prime plews. Summer fur wouldn’t bring as much as winter pelts. For that reason, much of their time was spent scouting out likely spots to trap in the late fall and the following spring. Consequently, Buck and Frank were not adverse to spending a little time hunting for the proper wood for the boy’s bow.

  When the perfect piece of mountain ash was found, Frank showed Jim how to fashion a bow about four feet in length. He backed it with tough strips of buffalo sinew to give it strength, and he wrapped strips of hide around the middle for a handle. He used some more sinew to make the bowstring. Jim was pleased with the result. The hardest part, he found, was making the arrows. Frank used the same ash wood for them. He said the Crows used a piece of horn with a hole in it to fashion a smooth, uniform shaft. The slender limbs were forced through the hole, leav
ing a round, straight shaft. They had a piece of horn, so Frank bored a hole in it with his knife until it appeared to be about the right size. It was crude, but the finished product was not that bad, considering the artisans. Feathers were tied in slits on one end of the shaft to make the arrow spin, and a chiseled quartzlike stone provided the arrowhead.

  When it was done, Frank held it up for Buck and the boy to see. He was tolerably pleased with the finished product. “Well, boy, there she is. I ain’t making but one. You seen how to do it, you can make the rest yourself.”

  For the rest of the days they remained in the Sweetwater country, until they set out for rendezvous, Jim worked on his arrows. As soon as he had made four, he began experimenting with his new weapon, practicing until darkness made it too difficult to recover the arrows. Just as with a rifle, Jim seemed to have a natural feel for the bow, and he soon became expert enough to hunt with it. He came to almost prefer it to a rifle because its silence allowed him to take one animal without scaring off the one next to it. Watching him stalk a deer, Buck was fairly astonished when Jim made a kill shot from a distance of fifty yards. He exclaimed to Frank that night, “Maybe we better git ourselves a dang bow.”

  “Maybe so,” Frank answered, laughing, “but I don’t wanna wait for an Injun to git inside fifty yards before I light up his behind.”

  Despite the fact that he had recently lost his father, it was a good time for Jim. If ever a boy knew for sure where his destiny lay, it was Jim Tracey. The high mountains were where he belonged—of that he was certain. Trapping with Buck and Frank, he had almost forgotten his self-imposed obligation to return to St. Louis when the day came to leave for rendezvous.

  Jim’s first sight of rendezvous was overwhelming. To the boy, it looked to involve as many folks as the city of St. Louis. It was one huge, sprawling cauldron of redmen and white, trappers and savages, traders and merchants, even some missionaries. In fact, there were several thousand Indians, their tipis spread along the river, and at least two hundred trappers. Everywhere he looked, there were solemn-faced warriors; Indian maidens with shy, searching eyes; woolly mountain men too long in the hills; horses, dogs—it was one giant circus.

  They rode through the encampment until Buck and Frank spotted some of their old companions from the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. After a round of hooting and hollering, backslapping and handshaking, they set up camp alongside their former partners in the trapping business. These were all company men, working for Jim Bridger just as Buck and Frank once had. It was much like a great family reunion. Jim was swept up in the spectacle of it all.

  This was the time for drinking whiskey and blowing off steam that had built up over the long winter and spring. But it was also a time to sell plews, trade horses, buy new supplies, and catch up on the news—who had gone under, who had quit and gone back East. It was a time to find out what value a man’s year of hard labor was worth after the many hours spent wading in freezing-cold streams up to his waist, while trying to keep an eye out for bloodthirsty braves.

  On the second day after their arrival at rendezvous, Jim went with Buck and Frank to negotiate the sale of their harvest. His modest pack of plews seemed skimpy when compared to those of his two partners, but it wasn’t a bad showing for a greenhorn with only a month’s trapping experience. And it would earn enough to buy him some buckskins and a pair of moccasins to replace his worn-out boots.

  Buck introduced him to Bill Sublette, who had brought a load of supplies all the way from St. Louis. “Bill, this here young man is working with me and Frank. He’s got some plews to sell.”

  Jim had no idea what his pelts were worth. He was thrilled to get any amount for them. Buck and Frank, on the other hand, were somewhat disappointed. Prime pelts had gone for as much as six dollars the year before. Now Sublette was offering only five for winter fur, four for summer—and this in spite of the fact that it had been a bad year for beaver. Most of the trappers had not been as fortunate as the two partners. This accounted for the subdued tone of the camp this year, Frank told him. The boys didn’t have much left over after buying supplies for the coming year. There was still some drinking and wild carrying-on, but not like in years past. Still, it was wild enough to suit young Jim, and the party never stopped. All night long the loud talk went on, punctuated periodically by gunshots and occasional drunken brawls.

  One day Buck’s friend and former employer, Jim Bridger, decided it was time to end his many years as a bachelor, and he took the daughter of a Flathead chief as a wife. Buck decided to celebrate this occasion properly by drinking all the whiskey in camp. He might have done it, too, if Frank had not been matching him drink for drink until sometime before daylight when Frank slid under the table, dead to the world. When Jim came into the big tent that had been set up as a saloon, Buck was standing in the center, holding on to the tent pole with one hand and an empty jug with the other. Jim looked around him. Bodies were strewn everywhere in various positions. It looked for all the world like the aftermath of a massacre. Buck stared at the boy with eyes glazed as if he had been staring into the sun. It was apparent that he did not recognize Jim.

  “You ’bout ready to get some coffee?” Jim asked, not sure if Buck could actually hear him or not. His eyes were open, but he continued to stare right through Jim. “Come on, Buck. I made a pot of coffee and I cooked some side meat.” Buck said nothing, but continued to stare. “Where’s Frank?” As soon as he said it, he noticed Frank’s body under the table. He looked back at Buck, waiting for some response. Buck’s eyes flickered, the only indication that he was alive, then the contents of his stomach spilled out of his mouth and down the front of his shirt. That was enough for Jim. He turned and left the tent.

  It was well after sunup when the two trappers came staggering back to camp, both soaked to the skin. Ben Broadhurst, who owned the makeshift saloon, had hired a couple of trappers to carry all the drunks out and throw them in the river. Most of them sobered up enough to wade out of the water. A few were swept downstream, where they were pulled from the current by some of the Indian women who were collecting water for cooking. Buck, since he was the only one on his feet, was left where he stood. But after Frank was carried out, he decided to leave too—a decision probably made with the only brain cell that hadn’t been pickled. He was on his way back to the camp when he fell in the river. He was one of the bodies fished out downstream by the Flathead women—one of whom he proposed to during the rescue. It must have been tempting, for Buck must have presented a splendid picture of mature manhood at that point, but the lady declined. It wouldn’t have worked out anyway. It turned out that she was the mother of the woman Jim Bridger took for a wife, and that would have made Buck Jim’s father-in-law.

  Buck was sick for two days. Frank was looking for some hair of the dog that bit him before sundown that very day. He kept trying to persuade Buck that a drink of whiskey was what he needed to settle his stomach down, but Buck couldn’t stand the sight of the jug, heaving violently each time Frank held it under his nose.

  “I swear, Buck, you must be gittin’ where you can’t handle it anymore.”

  “Hell,” Buck groaned, “who was the last man standing?”

  All during that second day after the party, Buck groaned and complained that he had gotten too old to participate in such tomfoolery. He allowed as how he never intended to take another drink as long as he lived. By the following day, he began to believe he was not going to die after all. That night, he bought another jug.

  Jim Bridger’s wedding celebration left Buck with a cloud of melancholy hanging over his head. He had cause to reflect on his wild and lonely life in the mountains and regretted the fact that he had never taken a wife for himself. Man was meant to have a mate, he reasoned, and his life was closer to the end than it was to the beginning. That kind of thinking can lead a man to do irrational things. And, when a jug of frontier whiskey is added to the mix, anything can happen.

  Buck may have been content to drink away his sorrow
s and vomit up his melancholia, along with the contents of his stomach, the next morning, had it not been for the presence of an Indian woman. She was a fair-sized woman, by no means a savage beauty. But to Buck, in his advanced stage of intoxication, she was the fairest flower of the plains. The only problem, and one Buck considered minor, was that she was in the company of an evil-tempered trapper named Badeye MacPherson. Badeye was not the man’s given name, of course. It was a naturally assigned moniker due to a failing eye that was covered by a black patch.

  Frank noticed his partner’s brooding as Buck continued to consume the contents of his jug, starting a fresh fire in his throat just as soon as the flames from the previous gulp abated. He followed Buck’s stare across the large tent and saw where his focus rested. “Buck,” he said, “I see trouble brewing. You might better get your mind on somethin’ else.” When Buck continued to stare without answering, Frank sighed and said, “I reckon you’re gonna do it.”

  “I reckon I am,” Buck replied and struggled to his feet. He reached out to steady himself on Frank’s shoulder.

  “I’ll tote the pieces back to camp,” Frank said.

  “Obliged,” Buck replied and shoved off, setting an unsteady course across the grass floor of the tent, toward the woman.

  The Indian woman, a member of the Snake tribe, was seated on Badeye’s lap, cheerfully pouring whiskey down his throat. She looked up quizzically as Buck approached, then smiled at him. It was indication enough for Buck that she had as much as said, “Howdy, handsome stranger. Please take me away from this one-eyed mountain goat.”

  Buck grabbed the woman by the arm and pulled her up from Badeye’s lap. His senses dulled by alcohol, Badeye sat there for a moment before he brought his good eye to focus on Buck. When it finally registered in his mind, he bellowed, “Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doin’?”