Slater's Way

by Charles G. West

  A close inspection of the gravel and soil beyond the meadow failed to expose tracks of a large party of horses leaving the area, however. Puzzled, he intensified his search, walking along the edge of the meadow to see if they had ridden up through the trees instead of following the river trail. He could find no tracks anywhere to indicate they had actually ridden north.

  Concerned now, he hurried over to the upriver side of the meadow, where the trail entered it. Here he found what he had hoped not to find, plenty of fresh tracks leading back the way they had come. He chastised himself for failing to notice them when the patrol rode in, then turned to look at the campsite behind him. Half of the detail was down at the edge of the river, watering the horses. He turned again to look at Lieutenant Russell, who was already drinking a cup of coffee and talking to Sergeant Bell. It struck him then. It was a trap!

  “Get back to the river!” he shouted. “Get out of this open space!”

  Instead of reacting immediately, Russell turned to stare at the scout, sprinting toward him and Bell as they talked. Both men were openly astonished by his sudden yelling. A moment later they were startled by the first shot fired from the wooded slope above them, the slug catching Bell in the shoulder. That shot was followed almost immediately by a barrage of rifle fire from the trees, sending the leisurely campsite into near pandemonium as the troopers caught in the open meadow ran for the cover of the trees and bushes along the riverbank.

  “Get to the river!” Slater yelled out again. One who had not been slow to react to Slater’s first warning, Red Basket had immediately grabbed the reins of her and Slater’s horses and led them quickly to meet him.

  With only one foot in the stirrup, they each hung on the side of their horses as they galloped toward the river. Reaching the bluffs, they dropped down behind the bank, pulling their rifles as they did. Behind them lay the bodies of three troopers not lucky enough to have escaped the fire from the trees above them. The rest of the patrol followed Slater’s lead and hunkered down behind the low bank of the river, scrambling over the rocky shore searching for cover of any kind. Sergeant Bell lay on his back behind a large fir tree, cursing angrily, while Corporal Jarvis stuffed a makeshift bandage on his shoulder.

  Still confused by what had just happened, Lieutenant Russell crawled over closer to Slater. “Where the hell did they come from?” he gasped. “How did they get behind us?”

  “I ain’t sure,” Slater replied, “but I’m guessin’ they musta gone back up that mountain behind us where they made their burial ground. They musta found one of the bodies that were missin’. Maybe one floated down the river.”

  “Damn,” Russell swore. “I’ve got three men lying out there.” He said it as if he held Slater responsible.

  “You’da had more’n that if we hadn’t run when we did,” Slater said. “I expect they were waitin’ for the rest of your men to come up from the river.”

  With his hand, he raked out a trench in the gravel big enough to rest his rifle in. He glanced over when Red Basket crawled up a few feet away and did the same. Then she laid Teddy’s Winchester ’66 in the trench and prepared to return fire. Knowing it a waste of time to tell her to crouch down beneath the bank and let the men do the fighting, he offered advice instead. “Save your cartridges until you see a target. Watch that tree line up there and see if you can catch a muzzle flash. That’ll give you something to shoot at. Even if you don’t hit anything, it’ll be close enough to give ’em something to think about.”

  She didn’t say anything, but after a couple of minutes, he heard her fire.

  Overhearing Slater’s instructions to Red Basket, Russell ordered his men to do the same. “Watch for a muzzle flash,” he called out. “Don’t waste ammunition just shooting at the damn woods.”

  The barrage of shots that had erupted from the riverbank before tapered off then to random shots up and down the line of troopers. After about twenty minutes of stray bullets stinging the air over their heads and spitting up plumes of sand from the bank, Russell pressed Slater for more answers. “They’ve got us pinned down here. They could keep us pinned down all day.”

  “I expect that’s so,” Slater replied. “But they can’t come outta those trees and cross that open meadow without gettin’ shot, either.” He pulled his rifle back to reload. “And we’ve got water and our horses behind us. So when it gets dark enough, me and Red Basket are gonna slip away from this bank and get the hell outta here. I’d advise you to do the same.”

  “We’re going with you,” Russell replied at once, without taking the time to try to think of an alternative plan. His concern now was to escape without taking any more casualties, and something told him he’d be wise to hang on to the stoic scout.

  * * *

  “You’re certain?” Iron Pony asked again.

  “It’s him,” Striped Otter insisted. “I got a good look at him. It’s White Crow. I’m certain he’s the man who killed Black Arrow and the others.”

  Iron Pony’s forearms began to ache, as a result of the force with which he had clenched his fists upon seeing the tall white warrior, dressed in animal skins, decorated in the fashion of the hated Crow. It had taken all of Iron Pony’s strength to control the desire to kill him when he began to walk up the meadow toward the trees where the Lakota warriors lay in ambush.

  Close by his side, Medicine Hat had continued to caution him not to fire unless White Crow came into the trees and saw them. “We want to kill this devil,” Medicine Hat reminded him, “but if we shoot him now, the soldiers will get away.”

  Iron Pony had managed to rein his passion back while White Crow searched the edge of the meadow for tracks. He studied his enemy intensely, trying to memorize every line on his face, clean-shaven, without the facial hair that so many white men wore. His hair, though not coal black, was long, reaching his shoulders in the style of the Crow men. After a few moments more, White Crow had looked toward the river, then walked away toward the lower end of the meadow.

  When he had left, Iron Pony signaled his warriors to leave their hiding places and move down to the edge of the trees. The soldiers would have been easy targets when they all came up into the open meadow. But then White Crow called out the warning and those soldiers in the meadow fled to safety. Angry Bear was the first to fire his weapon. Seeing the soldiers suddenly break for the riverbank, he didn’t wait for Iron Pony’s command, aimed at the lieutenant, but missed and hit the sergeant. Furious, Iron Pony shot at White Crow, but he also missed his target.

  Instead of running in a panic to the river as the soldiers had done, White Crow and the Indian woman had clung to the sides of their ponies, using the horses as shields, as an Indian would have. He had not fired the medicine gun that Striped Otter had described. But he might possess big medicine, for it was he who commanded the soldiers to run to the river to take cover, spoiling the planned ambush. How could he have sensed Iron Pony’s presence unless his medicine told him he was in danger?

  Angry and frustrated, Iron Pony cautioned his warriors against wasting ammunition shooting with no clear targets, just as the lieutenant had cautioned his soldiers. “They have no place to go,” he said to them. “We will move across the grass when night comes and kill them all. Then we will see why White Crow did not use the medicine gun, if he truly has such a weapon.”

  * * *

  “Keep your damn head down, Trask,” Corporal Jarvis blurted.

  “I gotta fill my canteen,” Trask said. “I’ve gone plumb dry settin’ here up under this bank. Besides, I think that hole in the bank between us is a yellow jacket nest. I just saw one come outta there.”

  “You’re gonna get stung with somethin’ stronger than a yellow jacket if you show your head over the top of that bank,” Jarvis said. “Long as you’re gonna fill your canteen, though, you might as well fill mine.”

  “Yeah, we wanna make sure you don’t stick your neck out,” Trask replied
sarcastically. He waited a moment for Jarvis to toss the canteen over to him.

  “Be careful,” Jarvis said, “but if you get your ass shot, toss my canteen back up here.”

  “Right, I’ll throw it up in the air and see if those Injuns can hit it.”

  Listening to the senseless conversation between the two soldiers, Slater wondered if any of the others were as casual about their predicament as they were. Even with the coming of darkness, he was thinking it was not going to be easy to slip across the river without the Sioux knowing it. He figured they would be moving down across the clearing as soon as it got dark. But if they were smart, they would send half of their warriors down the back side of that wooded hill to cross the river farther downstream and circle around behind the soldiers. He decided that he didn’t want to sit there and wait for the Indians to think of that. He had hunted this far down this river before, and he was almost certain he remembered following a wounded deer up a narrow ravine on the other side of the same hill. He glanced over at Red Basket to find the imperturbable woman studying him.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked, sensing that he was about to do something about their situation.

  It no longer surprised him when Red Basket seemed to know when he was contemplating taking action of some kind. “I’m thinkin’ I don’t particularly like our chances of outlastin’ that bunch of Sioux, if we just sit here. So before it gets dark, I’m gonna make my way along the river far enough to get down below the foot of that ridge they’re perched on. There’s some pretty heavy brush between here and there, so I might be able to sneak down there without being seen. I think I can get up to the top of that ridge they’re settin’ on, maybe get up behind ’em. And if I get there at the right time, I might be able to keep ’em from splittin’ up and tryin’ to get around behind us.”

  She nodded thoughtfully. “It is a good plan. I will go with you.”

  He shook his head. “You need to stay here and help the soldiers,” he said.

  “Teddy say you shoot fast and you don’t miss,” she said. “That’s good, but two guns better than one gun. I go with you.”

  Even though her aggressive confidence no longer amazed him, this was a little too much to expect of the woman. “I need to have you stay here and keep an eye on our horses,” he said. “I’m gonna have to go on foot. I’d never slip out of here with a horse. They’d damn sure see a horse sneakin’ down the river before dark. Besides, with me gone, the soldiers will need your rifle when those warriors come down offa that hill.”

  “I stay,” she conceded reluctantly. “You be careful.”

  “I will,” he replied. “You make sure you keep your head down, and we’ll get outta this mess if we’re lucky.”

  With his rifle and a full cartridge belt, he crawled over to tell Lieutenant Russell what he planned to do. “If I can get up there behind ’em while there’s still enough light to see, I might be able to keep ’em from sendin’ somebody to get behind you.”

  “Very well,” Russell said, unable to think of any suggestion of his own to offer, “if you want to take the risk.”

  “If I don’t,” Slater said, “I’m afraid all of your soldiers ain’t gonna make it across the river.”

  Russell turned his head to look at the expanse of open space on the other side of the river between the water and the first growth of fir trees at the base of a hill. It was a long sprint to run, even in the dark. The prospects of losing more of his men were high.

  “I appreciate your willingness to go,” he said. “Do you want me to ask for volunteers to go with you?”

  “No, I work better alone,” Slater replied, thinking that if he figured he needed help, he probably would rather have had Red Basket with him.

  Not waiting for any further discussion, he turned at once and was away, running in a crouch behind the taller bushes along the bank. When he came to the end of one patch of taller growth, he dropped down on his hands and knees until reaching taller cover again. He moved along the riverbank in this fashion for almost one hundred yards before he reached a small stream that emptied into the river at the foot of the hill. He paused to peer back toward the forest over the meadow. If his movements had been seen from the trees, he was not likely to know it until he was met on the back side of the hill by a delegation of Sioux warriors coming to intercept him.

  Only one way to find out, he thought, checked his rifle to make sure it was ready to fire, and set off up the stream.

  The stream emerged from the mouth of a narrow ravine that led up through the heavy growth of spruce trees that covered the side of the hill. When he started climbing, he was sure it was the ravine he remembered. He was almost certain he recognized the spot where he had found the deer as it lay dying. He couldn’t help thinking that on this hunt his prey was a bit more dangerous, and he was still undecided as to who was the hunter and who was the hunted.

  The ravine led him to the top of the long ridge, and he started making his way back toward the Sioux war party, feeling lucky that he hadn’t met anyone coming toward him so far. It was not easy to estimate how far back the Indians were. The trees were thick, and he could not see any of the meadow below, so he proceeded very cautiously. At this point, at least, he concluded that he had evidently not been seen leaving the cover of the riverbank.

  Knowing that he had to be close to a point over the war party’s ambush, he moved slowly from tree to tree, straining to see down through the dense forest. It occurred to him that he might have gone too far and had missed them. But if that was the case, why had he not found their horses? He had counted on finding their horses corralled somewhere up the hill behind the warriors’ positions. Right on cue, he heard a horse whinny, and he froze, uncertain if he had been discovered. After a few seconds, he heard another whinny, this one with a little grunt at the end, like that typical of a stallion, or a gelding, different from that of a mare. It was enough to tell him that he had found their horses, and they were scattered among the trees, their owners having found no clearing to corral them.

  His task now was to work his way down far enough to see the warriors’ positions, but first there was the matter of spotting the one watching the horses, if there was one. He looked straight up at the sky, trying to guess how much time was left before the sun went down. The light was already getting dim there in the dense growth of trees, but the sky told him that he still had ample time to find the horse guard.

  Relying on his instincts and the ability to move almost silently from tree to tree, stopping each time to listen and observe the actions of the horses he passed, he soon concluded that there was no one watching them. And since there was not a convenient place to corral the horses together, it appeared that each warrior had simply tied his pony to a bush or tree limb. In some places, Slater found two or three horses tied to the same tree. The warriors had apparently had no concerns that they might be attacked from the rear.

  A few yards farther down the ridge brought him to a spot where he got his first sighting of the waiting warriors. Spread in a line no more than five or ten yards above the edge of the open meadow, the Lakota crouched, awaiting the order to attack. Slater glanced up at the sky again.

  It ain’t gonna be much longer, he thought.

  The problem facing him now was the dense growth of the forest, making it much more difficult for him to get off a volley of quick shots. He had hoped to find several of the Indians exposed to his surprise assault, giving him more than one target for his rapid fire before they could dive for cover. By firing and moving quickly from spot to spot, he could still kill one or two, but he needed to do more damage than that to be effective. Then an idea occurred to him that might help to give him more targets.

  Withdrawing a few yards back up the slope, he moved quietly through the trees, untying each Indian pony as he came to it. In a short time, he had untied almost all of them. At first, they stood close to the place where they had be
en tied, so he crept back among them, gently encouraging them to move down the slope.

  For a few long moments, it looked as though his plan was not going to work, until one, then another moved, and the rest of the horses followed, their natural desire for water and the grass that the meadow provided drawing them. Below him, near the edge of the trees, he heard a surprised exclamation from one of the warriors when one of the ponies emerged from the forest and walked slowly out into the grassy meadow. Soon a second horse appeared in the meadow, and in a matter of minutes Slater could hear the excited cries of the warriors as they saw all their horses filing out, heading for grass and water. It was enough to cause the confusion Slater had hoped for, and he moved quickly to get in position to take advantage of the Indians’ befuddlement.

  Surprised by the sudden appearance of their ponies in the meadow, the warriors tried to move quickly to stop them. They were forced to leave the cover that had made them difficult targets, and Slater was quick to take advantage of that opportunity. The Henry rifle spoke in rapid succession and two of the warriors dropped at the edge of the meadow.

  While the rest of the warriors reacted in panic-stricken confusion, uncertain where the shots had come from, Slater moved to another position and fired at two more who had left their cover at the edge of the woods, killing one and wounding the other. Aware then that the shots were coming from somewhere in the trees, the Indians backed down into the fringe of the meadow, searching frantically for the source of the barrage. At that point, with visible targets suddenly appearing, shots rang out from the soldiers lying along the riverbank below.