When he jumped into the snowy trench that Black Wing was using as cover, his friend could not hide the smile on his face. “Are you a scout for those soldiers down there?”
“No,” Trace replied frankly, “I just go out to round up the crazy ones.” Knowing now that it was not worth the risk to stick his neck out again, he stood up on the edge of the trench and signaled to Luke and Turley, still watching from the ridge. Turning back to Black Wing, he explained. “There’s about thirty soldiers on the other side of the ridge. I’m waving them on down.” When he saw the look of concern in Black Wing’s eye, he hastened to reassure him. “Don’t worry, these ain’t the crazy kind. They know you’re friendly.”
Several minutes passed, then a line of troopers appeared on the top of the ridge, making their way down toward them, Luke and Turley in the lead. The Indians came out of their defensive places and stood watching the arrival of the soldiers. Trace walked out to meet Luke.
“I guess you could see what happened when I tried to talk to that damn fool down there,” Trace said as Luke rode up.
Seeing that Trace was not injured, Luke found the incident rather humorous and could not help but smile. He started to remark on it when he was interrupted by a cheer from the wood party in the gully. Seeing the arrival of Luke’s detachment, they assumed they had been saved from an Indian massacre. “I think Masters is happy to see his rescuers,” Luke said, his grin spreading.
Trace didn’t say anything for a long moment while his bile lowered a bit. “You can send somebody down to tell him he can come out. Maybe he won’t shoot at soldiers.”
Luke laughed. Turning to his sergeant, he said, “Turley, go down there and rescue Lieutenant Masters and the wood party.”
While Turley proceeded down the slope, Trace introduced Luke to Black Wing and Big Turtle. Black Wing suggested that it would be a good thing if they sat down and smoked together. While Luke’s soldiers and the Crow warriors looked each other over, Trace, Luke, Black Wing, and Big Turtle sat down on a buffalo hide and passed a pipe that Big Turtle carried. The meeting went well, with Black Wing declaring his friendship for the Great White Father in Washington. After the polite talk and rituals were observed, the conversation was mostly between Black Wing and Trace. When Trace inquired about the welfare of Black Wing’s father—and Trace’s adoptive father—he was told that Buffalo Shield had become too old to ride with the war parties.
Soon, Lieutenant Ira Masters and his detachment of fifteen dragoons made their way up from the river and sheepishly stood off to one side while several of their number attempted to right the overturned wagons. Some of the Crow warriors helped round up the army horses that had run off during the soldiers’ panic to reach the safety of the gully. Trace took one of the horses from the wagon team to replace his. While he was recovering his saddle and bridle, Lieutenant Masters approached.
“Sorry about the mistaken identity, McCall,” Masters said, his tone condescending even in the face of his blunder. “I suggest you find an attire less like that of an Indian while you’re working for the army.”
Trace stopped what he was doing and turned to look the young officer over thoroughly. He could overlook greenhorn stupidity—and no harm done—but arrogance was another thing. He fixed Masters with a penetrating glare and in a low, even tone, said, “Let me tell you something, sonny. If you’re lucky, you might keep your scalp long enough to learn how things are out here. You’re lucky I wasn’t riding my own horse, else I’d still be kicking your ass.”
Masters recoiled. “Do you realize you’re talking to an officer in the United States Army?” he demanded indignantly.
Trace didn’t blink. “I’m talking to the ass I’m gonna be kicking if you ever shoot at me again. Now, get the hell away from me before I decide to start practicing right now.”
Masters was completely unnerved. Insulted and confused, he was uncertain what he should do about his dressing down from a civilian scout. His sense of manhood called for him to demand satisfaction from this half-wild lout. But Trace had risen to his full stature, a good head taller that Masters, and half again as wide across the shoulders. As a compromise to his honor, Masters glared back at the mountain man for a few moments before turning on his heel and departing. I would not soil my hands, he told himself.
* * *
Trace stood talking to his friend Black Wing until the troopers were ready to move out. They reminisced about the times they had when they were boys, living in Red Blanket’s village. They were good times, both agreed. “Why do you live with these crazy soldiers?” Black Wing asked. “Come back to the mountains with us, live as a man should live. We could hunt the buffalo together again, follow the elk and the deer, take horses from the Blackfoot.”
“It would be good,” Trace admitted—and it did have a great deal of attraction for him—“but I have something I must do now. There is a white man that I must find and kill.”
Black Wing nodded his head slowly. “This white man, what has he done to earn your vengeance?”
Trace told him of the union with Blue Water that had produced a son, of the murder of the Shoshoni girl, and the abduction of the boy. “I lost his trail in the snow, but I will search for him again when the snow melts.”
“There is a white man who lives with the Gros Ventres,” Black Wing said.
This captured Trace’s attention at once. He was interested in any rumor about a white man living with Indians. “How do you know this?” Trace asked, knowing that the Gros Ventres were allies of the Blackfeet and no friends of the Crows.
Black Wing explained. “A Hidatsu man came to our village. He had been a prisoner of the Gros Ventres for two years where they made him a slave. One day when he was gathering wood with the women, he saw a chance to escape. He happened upon our village after the first snow. He told of a white man who came to the Gros Ventre camp with a boy tied with a rope around his neck.”
Trace’s blood went cold inside his veins. Without realizing it, his hand tightened around the handle of his knife until his knuckles were white. It had to be him! After a moment, he regained control of his emotions. “Where was this village?”
“He said it was on the Big River, beyond the land of the Assiniboine, near the mouth of the Yellowstone.”
“I’ll find it,” Trace said, his words slow and hard as granite. Heating now, blood rushed through his veins, and he was burning with an urgency to ride. Fighting to keep his emotions from taking control of his senses, he told himself that he would have to wait. There were too many miles of frozen country between here and there. Two more months and the passes would be free of snow. That was time enough. The Gros Ventres would not likely leave their winter camp before then. Even if they did, he would find them, for now he had a trail to follow. Taking control of his emotions again, he took a deep breath and promised himself that he would not be denied.
They camped side by side that night, the soldiers and the Crows. The troopers shared their hardtack, salt pork, and coffee with the Indians, since Black Wing’s warriors had found little game in the area. The next morning, when the wagons were righted and minor repairs were completed, Luke gave the order to mount and the troopers prepared to return to Fort Laramie. At Trace’s suggestion, Luke had his men donate half of their coffee ration as a gift to the departing Crows. It seemed an appropriate gesture of goodwill. And since the men had drawn rations for ten days, there was coffee to spare. Once again, Trace bid his boyhood friend farewell and turned his horse toward Laramie.
Guiding his horse in beside Luke’s, Trace looked toward the east where the rising sun had lit the cloudy sky in shades of fiery red, waves of brilliant color that spread across the prairie until they faded to a pink glow in the dark clouds over his head. Trace knew the radiant display was no more than a tease, and it would soon disappear. As he suspected, within an hour there was no evidence that there was ever a sun, the clouds grew dark, and it would probably snow before they reached the fort. But with Laramie only one day’s ride,
the soldiers were in a lighthearted disposition as the column retraced their march of the day before. Trace sat easy in the saddle, trying to adjust to the uneven gait of the horse he now rode. It was a hardheaded beast with a broken rhythm in its walk, and there was little wonder that it had been relegated to pulling a wagon. Behind him, he could hear the almost constant banter of the soldiers, as the men from Luke’s patrol chided the members of the wood detail on their panic-stricken flight to the riverbank upon sighting “hostiles.” Trace supposed that Lieutenant Masters, who was even closer to the banter, was getting his ears singed a little. That thought led him to thoughts of Grace Turner, and for a moment, he recalled the chilly afternoon on the creekbank. It caused him to glance back at the boyish face of the young lieutenant. He unconsciously shook his head as he decided that Grace was too much woman for Masters to handle. As quickly as thoughts of Grace had come, they were pushed aside by the news Black Wing had given him. Suddenly the banter of the soldiers got on his nerves and he needed quiet time to think.
“I’m gonna ride on ahead,” he said to Luke, and without waiting for Luke’s reply, gave the balky horse his heels. When he had spaced about a quarter of a mile between himself and the column, he let his horse settle back to a slower pace. From long habit, his eyes scanned the trail before him, darting back and forth, never fixing on one spot for any length of time. While that part of his brain stayed alert, working on instinct, another part worked furiously to sort out the recent events that served to trouble his mind.
While thoughts of finding the boy had never been far away, the fact that he had resigned himself to wait until the spring thaws had diminished the urgency somewhat. Now that urgency was renewed and he ached to set out for the Missouri right away. The Big River, as Black Wing called it—where the Yellowstone began—that’s where White Eagle was. It would not be easy. The Gros Ventres were strong friends of the Blackfeet, and not especially cordial to white men. To be tolerated by this hostile tribe, the renegade who had taken White Eagle must have been useful to them in some way—probably supplying guns and powder. This man he sought, this thin-faced white man in the flat-crowned black hat, showed a talent for allying himself with various bands. The one common thread seemed to be that each band was hostile and savage in its intent. Trace had the distinct feeling that the entire world would be a far better place without Mr. Black Hat.
The sky became darker and darker as the clouds continued to hover close to the earth, and Trace’s mind wandered to the Crow war party making its dangerous journey back to their village. It had been a daring raid Black Wing had undertaken, especially at this time of year. A thought struck him that Black Wing’s raid might well have been inspired by the Great Spirit for the primary purpose of telling Trace where he might find the boy. He had been reluctant to admit it, but without help from some source, it might have taken him years to track down the white renegade. He realized that he was thinking like an Indian, but the teachings of old Buffalo Shield seemed to make more sense to him than the white man’s beliefs. Then he thought of Black Wing’s invitation to come back to the people. It was tempting—a way of life that Trace had found most fulfilling—he would think about it. But first he must find the boy—and settle a score with Black Hat.
A light snow was falling by the time the column approached Laramie. Plodding silently now through a veil of white, the wind stirring eddies around the horses’ hooves, the column appeared ghostly, as if floating through a cloud. Cold and stiff from hours in the saddle, the men began to rouse themselves from their cold-induced stupor as they closed on the encampment. The wood party was back, although a couple of days late.
CHAPTER 14
By his own evaluation, Trace was not fit to live with for the next couple of months. So he kept to himself and his own thoughts as much as possible. There were a few patrols, but they were organized more for training purposes than actual missions. Some of the free time was spent in the company of Sergeant Turley and occasionally Luke, but most of the time Trace sought his own company. Thoughts of White Eagle with a rope around his neck kept recurring no matter how hard he tried to put them aside. Several times he determined to pack up his horses and start out, snow or no snow. Each time he would have to remind himself of the distance he must ride, most of it through hostile country. His best chance of accomplishing all he needed to do was if he was successful in traveling through that territory unseen. He wouldn’t be doing himself or the boy any favors if he was wandering all over the territory, leaving tracks in the snow. Even though he would keep to the mountains as much as possible, the slopes were too treacherous for his horses when covered with snow and ice. And many of the passes would be blocked. He had no choice but to wait.
A week before Lieutenant Masters was scheduled to transfer back to Fort Kearny, Trace did have occasion to see Grace Turner. She made it a point to bump into him in the post trader’s store one Saturday morning.
“Well, hello, stranger,” Grace said, smiling. “Where have you been keeping yourself?”
“I’ve been around,” Trace allowed.
“We were talking about you the other night at supper. My fiance seems to think you’re a little too rough-cut for his liking.” There was a definite twinkle in her eye when she said it. “He says you lack the proper respect for an officer. What did you say to him, anyway?”
“Nothing that I recall,” Trace replied and quickly changed the subject. “I reckon you’re making big plans for your wedding. I surely wish you and the lieutenant all the happiness in the world.” Trace wanted to let Grace know that he harbored no resentment toward Masters, just in case she had the notion that he felt jilted by her. Hell, he thought, no woman in her right mind would tie up with a drifter like me.
Grace was outwardly pleased by his sentiment. “Why, thank you, Trace. You know I’ll always have a special place in my heart for you.”
Trace began to become uncomfortable. “Well, I guess I’d best get on about my business,” he said. “Hope you have a safe trip downriver.”
She caught his sleeve as he started to go. “Trace, I was thinking about taking a walk down by the creek to that spot Annie used to call her secret place—around four this afternoon, I expect.” Her eyes searched his, her smile warm and inviting. Then she turned to leave, but in case her message was a bit too demure, she paused and whispered, “If you’re out riding, you might want to take your buffalo robe with you. It’s still pretty chilly out.” Not waiting to witness his reaction, she promptly turned on her heel and was off.
Trace stood there a moment, watching her as she made her way toward the door. Finding it difficult to believe at first, he marveled at the woman’s blatant invitation, practically on the eve of her wedding. He thought back to the last time they had met by that creek. He had certainly been surprised at what came to pass at that meeting. He was more surprised now. Damn! he thought, I must have done something right. Wrestling with his emotions, he changed his mind several times during the balance of the morning.
But at a little before four that afternoon, he saddled the paint and rode off toward the cottonwoods that lined the creek behind Lamar Thomas’s house.
He saw her once more after that day, passing her on his way to the stables. They came no closer than twenty yards of each other. Neither spoke—Trace nodded a solemn greeting, Grace smiled warmly. There was an unspoken understanding between them, a bond created by a mutual fulfillment of a deep need. There was no need for words. Two days later, a mail wagon with an army escort made it through from Fort Kearny. Assured that the trail was passable, Grace and her husband-to-be left Fort Laramie the following day. From a low rise along the riverbank of the Laramie River near the site of the old fort, Trace watched them depart—none of the parties involved knowing that he had presented Ira Masters with a son for a wedding present.
* * *
“Come’ere, boy.” Booth Dalton jerked on the rawhide rope, causing the boy to stumble, almost falling on the floor of the tipi. On the other side of the lod
ge, sitting close by the fire, Charlie White Bull chuckled, always delighted by pain administered to others. “We need some more wood,” Booth said.
White Eagle silently began the routine that was now all too familiar to him. He reached up and started working at the knot that tied the rope to the noose around his neck. Once the rope was untied, he removed his moccasins and leggings. Next he pulled his shirt over his head. Down to his breechclout, he then left the tipi to gather wood for the fire.
Booth laid back by the fire, smug in the knowledge that he needn’t fear that the boy might run away. He felt certain that the desire to escape had been sufficiently dampened when earlier attempts had been dealt with severely. He smiled to himself when he thought of his latest method of clipping the little eagle’s wings. Jumping around barefoot and almost naked in the snow, while gathering wood, effectively discouraged any thoughts of running away. It also sped up the wood-gathering process.
“When you gonna let me have that boy?” Charlie asked. “These Gros Ventres ain’t gonna give you what you want for him.”
“Shut up!” Booth snapped, tired of hearing Charlie’s constant nagging. “It don’t give no profit to me, you skinnin’ that boy.” A thin smile cracked his stern countenance. “What you complainin’ about, anyway? Maybe you’d rather go git the wood.” He stretched his legs out to make himself more comfortable. “It suits my fancy to have me a slave, even if I can’t trade him.”
Near the center of the camp, Wounded Horse stood talking to Fire That Burns. Both men paused to watch the nearly naked boy searching along the riverbank for deadwood. After a moment, Wounded Horse spoke. “I do not think we should permit those two to remain in the village. There is a stench about them that offends my nostrils.”
Fire That Burns nodded, understanding the war chief’s feelings. Most in the village shunned the white man and his half-breed friend. They were only tolerated because the white man promised to supply them with guns—and the fact that the half-breed was said to be the son of a Blackfoot woman. “Maybe you are right,” Fire That Burns replied. “Maybe we should drive them out. I would have driven them from our camp before if we didn’t need the guns they promised.”
Son of the Hawk Page 23
