“I’m not sure,” Luke said, pushing his hat up with a finger, “but I think more of this herd is missing. I’m going up to the north section and take a look. They might’ve roamed up there yesterday.”
Scully shoved the cooling N-Bar-H iron back into the fire. He stood and dusted his pants. “I’m coming with you, then. I remember the last time you rode up there alone.”
Half an hour later, Luke pointed to a large herd spread like a mirage across the horizon in the distance. A breeze rippled over the rangeland, lifting and smoothing the ocean of grass ahead of them like wavelets. “Don’t see how they could’ve roamed that far,” he said to Scully.
“They probably ain’t ours, then. Axel’s, most likely.”
“Let’s go see.” Luke tapped his heels, and Bugle quickened his pace.
In a few minutes they were pushing into the mass of cattle, checking brands. Most were Axel’s X-Bar-L. There were only a few strays belonging to the Paxtons and the Ormons. Then, as they tunneled in deeper, they began to find N-Bar-H steers. And cows. And calves. Luke’s jaw took on a granite hardness. Axel wasn’t stupid. He didn’t need to rustle cattle. So what was this all about?
“What do you make of it?” Scully asked.
“About twice as many as I figured.”
“They could’ve been here all winter, you know.”
Luke shook his head. “That’s what I thought until I saw him.” He pointed to the spotted calf with a torn left ear.
“That critter was miles down range yesterday. Someone drove him here last night!” Scully snapped a look at Luke.
“What’s going on?”
“Looks like we got a thief out here,” Luke said.
A rush of sour thoughts filled his head. One man seemed to pull the strings in his life, jerking him around like a puppet.
Bart Axel.
The noon sun was warm on his back, but inside he felt cold. A slow procession of thoughts moved like ghosts across his mind. His parents . . . Mary Beth. He’d forgotten what they looked like. Sometime when he was around thirteen, he’d cut himself loose from old memories of a family he couldn’t remember and decided to make do with what he had. And Molly and New Hope was the family he had.
After that beating, it had been all he could do not to go gunning for Axel. No one knew how many nights he’d lain awake in his room, figuring how he’d do it. But he didn’t, because the law said there was no proof that Axel was involved and because Molly and Emily begged him not to. Then the barn . . . and now this.
Beneath the broad-brimmed hat, a glare of sunlight warmed his lower face. His jaw tightened.
Enough was enough.
Bart Axel leaned back in his chair. “Well, did he find his brand?”
“Just like you said he would,” Clete said, laughing. “Sullivan was out there checking our herd early this morning. Then he and Scully Anders took off for New Hope like their tails were on fire. You reckon they’ll be back?”
Bart stroked his cigar ashes into an empty glass. “I’m counting on it. But before he does, I want you to cut out two hundred of our own today and mix them in with theirs. Then Haldane and the men will drive them to Parker and put them on the train up there for Chicago.”
Bart chuckled, a dry sound with no humor. “The yardmaster in Parker isn’t fussy about brands, except the ones on his whiskey. Couple bottles of the right stuff, a box of cigars, and he’ll load anything I want him to.”
“And Sullivan will come after what he thinks are his cattle, because of where we’re taking them – to Parker,” Clete said.
Bart ran a knuckle down one side of his mustache, then the other. “Don’t underestimate him,” he said. “He’s smart. He won’t come too close, and he won’t come in right away. He’ll hang back and follow for a day or so till he sees what we’re up to. Once he’s figured it out, then he’ll come in and try to take the herd – or what he thinks is his herd. And when he does” – Axel picked up the nickel-plated Schofield from the desk and aimed it at the hat rack across the room – “bang!
Nobody can blame us for looking after our own.”
Clete nodded. “Sullivan’s been asking for it for a long time.” He smacked his fist into the palm of his other hand.
“But not you,” Axel said quickly. “Sullivan is Haldane’s job. We stay out of it. You and me will be miles away when that happens. We split the New Hope cows off and take them south to Wyoming. A man I know down there will take them off our hands.”
At sunup the next morning, the horses snorted and stamped in place. Luke and the men led their mounts, already saddled, out through the double doors of the barn. Blanket rolls were tied behind the cantles of the saddle, the saddlebags loaded. Every horse had a rifle scabbard slung on its left. Together, the men swung up and settled themselves, taking off a moment later in a muffled clatter of hooves across the corral and through the gate. They pushed the horses at an easy, rolling canter for the North Quarter, intending to cut out their own before Axel’s crew got started. Luke had brought as many men as he dared, hoping that the small army from New Hope would make Wade or Wesley or Axel himself think twice before starting trouble. But he wasn’t counting on it.
“Make sure those rifles are loaded,” he reminded them again. Though each of them carried a pistol or revolver on his left, butt forward, they wouldn’t be close enough to use them. At least he hoped not. “Look sharp. We’re getting close,” he warned.
Ahead of them, the plain stretched endlessly for miles – empty. There was no herd. Instead, the pasture was a mud wallow. It looked as if the herd had panicked, tracks crisscrossing everywhere, the grass trampled deep into the dirt, clods of earth dug out by hundreds of running hooves. The men swung off and looked around blankly. Leading Bugle and frowning, Luke walked a wide circle and tried to fit the pieces together. It made no sense.
Scully pulled off his hat and ran a hand through his thinning hair. “Looks like they took ’em out of here in a hurry, but why east? If they wanted to hide them, they should’ve gone south. There’s nothing east of here.”
Luke pulled himself into the saddle again. The horse shifted nervously. “Yeah, there is,” he said, his voice calm, deliberate. “Parker. They’re going to take them out by train. And they just might get away with it, too. Let’s go. We got a long ride ahead of us.”
They rode for more than an hour after dark, moving in closer – but not too close – to the herd they knew was up ahead. A few miles from the banks of the Bighorn River, they made camp in the open. Luke and Henry and Will Brown unsaddled the horses, picketed them, and turned them loose to graze while the Cosgrove boys helped Scully get a fire going. Supper was coffee, fried fatback, and the cold biscuits they’d brought with them. Lying around the campfire, eating and drinking, the men talked, speculating about the herd and why Axel had taken up rustling.
Legs outstretched, Luke folded his arms under his head, more aware of the sawing throb of crickets in the background than the drone of the men’s voices. He gazed into a sky bright with stars and, one by one, sifted the facts through the sieve of his consciousness, examining what he knew, guessing at the unknowns.
Why was Axel stealing his neighbor’s cows? He had thousands of his own. Anger welled up inside Luke again. Axel had to know they’d follow him, find him out. Did he really want the beef – or did he want Luke Sullivan?
Will Brown’s voice interrupted his thoughts.
“Luke, they ain’t more than five miles up ahead. Let’s go in and get them tomorrow.”
Luke shook his head. “Can’t. Not tomorrow or the day after, either. There’s nothing between Repton and Parker but prairie – sagebrush and a few scrub bushes for cover. If there’s one place we don’t want trouble, it’s there.”
“You looking for it?” It was Henry.
“Don’t know for sure, but let’s get ready just in case. Treasure Canyon is two days ahead. If we come in from the north end, we ought to be able to turn the herd and start them back this way before Hal
dane’s crew know what’s happening.”
Luke sat up and stirred the fire higher. A slab of pitch pine popped in a small explosion of sparks. “With any luck, they’ll be too busy trying to catch their cows and stay out of the way of the herd to worry about us. But I repeat: There’s apt to be some shooting, so if anyone wants to go home, the time to do it is now.”
There was no hurry the next morning. Scully treated them all, made flapjacks and boiled two big pots of coffee, while the men lolled around, joking and killing time, waiting until Haldane and his crew got well on up the trail. Leisurely, they broke camp, mounted up, and rode out at an ambling walk, staying out of sight, miles behind the herd. Once, they got close enough to see the dust on the horizon. Another time, they saw where the cattle forded the Bighorn River and turned north. They waded into it themselves and swam the horses across.
On the other side, a few minutes later, Henry Bertel pointed to Luke. “What’s he doing?”
He did look peculiar. Leaning far out of the saddle like a trick rider at a fair, Luke kept Bugle moving, zigzagging him back and forth across the cattle tracks. He stopped up ahead, got off, and waved to the others to do the same. Dropping into a high-kneed squat, he thumbed his hat back and pointed to a clear set of tracks.
“This herd’s been cut since yesterday,” he said.
“Cut again? When? Where’d they go?” Scully asked, his face registering surprise.
“Wish I knew,” Luke muttered.
He sent the Cosgrove brothers, Henry Bertel, and Will Brown off to follow Haldane and the herd going to Parker. He and Scully doubled back to where the tracks first crossed the river and turned north, where the Little Bighorn emptied into the Bighorn River. Luke pointed to a V-shaped spit of sand and rubble jutting into the center where the two rivers joined.
“How come it’s busted up out there?” Luke said.
“It’s where they went across, I guess.”
Luke shook his head. “No. Haldane drove them over about a mile back, remember?”
“A couple got loose, maybe?”
“Take more than a couple to chew it up like that.” For a full minute, he sat there, staring at the confluence of the two rivers. Again and again, his eyes pulled back to the Little Bighorn River curving to his left. “Let’s go down there a ways.”
Sully hesitated. “You forget that’s Crow territory?”
“No.” Luke hadn’t forgotten. His stomach was already knotting.
For the Crows, raiding was expressly forbidden by the treaty. Yet twice since he’d been back, Luke had seen signal fires in the mountains. Every chance they got, small war parties of Crows stole off the reservation, riding miles out of their way to avoid a ranch or a farm and being seen by the whites. Then swinging back, they swooped in on an enemy camp of Lakota Sioux or Cheyenne. So far, they’d left the whites strictly alone. But that could change.
Indian life had changed. All too often for the Crows, bad things happened after white men came in. But increasingly, there were signs of hostility. Until recently, the Crow had been the one tribe the white men trusted. But now, still unexplained, was the disappearance of two itinerant trappers last seen taking a shortcut through the reservation on their way south to Wyoming.
“I ain’t going in there,” Scully said grimly, shaking his head. “I like my ears right where they are.”
“We don’t bother them, they won’t bother us. Wait for me here. I won’t be long.”
He heeled Bugle into the river, and the horse swam the short distance in the middle for the bank on the other side. Water sheeting from his flanks, Bugle drove his powerful hind legs and scrambled out of the water and up the bank.
Scully watched and debated with himself. Tail swinging with each step, Bugle moved rapidly along beside the river, his rider erect in the saddle.
After a minute, Scully sent his own horse down the embankment and into the water, and caught up with Luke. A mile farther on, they stopped.
“Nothing,” Luke said. “Not a sign of them – they didn’t come this way. Let’s go back where they crossed and look again.”
From somewhere in the trees, the mournful howl of a coyote cut across the canyon like a knife, gliding, wavering. A brother answered, unseen but almost at their elbows. Both men spun in their saddles. Their eyes met. From far away, widely separated, others took up the call, not faint or fading but approaching, howling on the run.
“Those ain’t coyotes,” Scully whispered.
“Let’s get out of here.”
They wheeled their horses and kicked them into a gallop, racing along the riverbank to get out of the reservation. Leaning around a sweeping bend of the Little Bighorn, both men reared back in their saddles and plunged the horses to a stop.
Bows at full draw, a Crow war party crouched on the path in front of them.
CHAPTER
18
Luke started to sweat. It seemed as if these copper-faced men had been chosen for their vicious appearance, for the nightmare of Indian cruelty they represented. There was nothing they wouldn’t do. His breath trapped in his lungs.
His stomach had turned to air, hollow as a shell, and a muscle ticked out of control in his cheek. He shot a look at Scully. Eyes wide, Scully’s face sagged with fear. Until that moment, Luke had always thought Scully to be rock solid. Now he wasn’t so sure.
A tall, bare-chested Crow in buckskins and a breechclout held up a hand, palm out, and stepped forward. Attached to the heel of each moccasin was a coyote tail that flopped the ground with every step. He stopped a few feet from them and drove his lance into the earth, then nodded abruptly and pointed to the trail in front of him.
Relief flooded across Scully’s face. “I’ve seen him before. Name’s Little Turtle. Came to New Hope after Black Otter’s boys a time or two. He’s kind of a junior chief, so don’t go getting ideas about pulling your gun,” Scully warned. “Some say he’s a captain in the Dog Soldiers, a secret society you don’t mess with. The spear in the ground means he’s friendly. He wants to talk.”
“Go ahead,” Luke said.
“Ain’t me he’s looking at.”
Slowly, Luke stood in the stirrup, swung his leg over, and stepped down, stalling for time, studying the Crow waiting for him.
Crows were handsome people, tall and fine-featured, with narrow non-Indian noses. This one wore soft yellow-gray deerskin, his moccasins beaded and trimmed with tufts of fur. Around his neck hung a small leather pouch and an eagle claw. Hair, black as night, was cropped into a stiff brush above his forehead, the remainder bound loosely into two strips hanging to the front over his shoulders.
Over six feet tall, the man stood eye to eye with Luke and was in superb condition. Luke blinked slowly and dragged in a long breath.
For centuries, Sioux fought Blackfoot, Blackfoot fought Arapahoe, Arapahoe fought Cheyenne. The Absaroka – the bird people, the Crows – fought every one of them. With a fierce bravery, they ran a constant warpath, protecting what belonged to them.
And this reservation was theirs.
He and Scully were not only armed and trespassing on Crow land, they were following a herd of cattle bearing the New Hope brand and driving right through the middle of their reservation. Somehow, Luke had to convince Little Turtle that it was all a mistake. He cleared his throat and shook off the sweat trickling down his jaw.
“My name’s Sullivan. I’m from New Hope.”
Flat black eyes stared back at him.
“We’re looking for cattle. Our own cattle. They were stolen.”
Not a flicker of movement.
He doesn’t speak English, Luke thought, and chided himself that he didn’t know sign language, that he’d refused to learn it. Palm up, Luke lifted a hand in a gesture of openness, and turned to go. “We will leave now.”
“No.”
Luke wasn’t sure if Little Turtle had spoken or if he’d imagined it. The lips appeared not to have moved. The face before him could have been carved from leather.
>
“We meant no harm,” Luke said. In spite of himself, a tight anger coiled in his chest and thudded his heart against his rib cage.
“Come.” With a jerk of his head toward the trees, the Crow yanked his lance out of the dirt.
Luke didn’t move. Instead, he stared at the Crow brave in front of him. The man’s dark eyes locked on his, each man staring the other down.
Pictures flashed in Luke’s mind again, misty, detached. His mother, his sister, his father with his face half gone. Bitterness clawed at the back of his throat. Why was he spared then only for this?
No fair, Lord.
He went for his gun.
The Indian blistered out a stream of Crow. Luke took a step backward and collided with bodies, which weren’t there a moment before. His holster was empty, the Colt already in an Indian fist. Two braves pinned his arms high behind him, rounding his shoulders, stooping him over. Men on ponies moved in and surrounded them. One Indian with a long, thin strip of rawhide in his hands stepped in and bound his wrists behind him, lashing his thumbs together tightly.
Not taking his eyes off the Indian in front of him, Luke gritted his teeth. “What do I do now, Scully?”
Scully’s voice cracked. His own arms were being tied behind him. “I told you not to go for your gun. Crows are supposed to be peaceable to whites. I ain’t so sure now.”
The Crows took their rifles, pistols, even Scully’s pocketknife. One of them held Bugle’s bridle; another grabbed Luke’s shoulder and indicated with his head for Luke to mount the horse. Roughly, Luke was boosted into the saddle. Then the Indians boxed them in, crowding their ponies around the white men’s horses.
Bugle made an ominous rumbling sound in his neck and hoofed a step sideways in alarm. Not wanting the horse hurt, Luke pressed his knees into Bugle to reassure him.
Up and out of the canyon, they rode into dense woods, shadowed and thick with ferns. Here and there, a shaft of sunlight slanted through the branches. Only the stiff creak of timber overhead and the muffled thud of hoof beats broke the silence. Hands tied behind him, Luke rode in silence, wondering if they were the first white men to pass through.
The Vigilante's Bride Page 19
