Return of the Spirit Rider (Leisure Historical Fiction)

by Cotton Smith

  Beezah’s second shot spun Gleason around again and the outlaw reached out for Grinshaw as he stumbled. His third shot hit Grinshaw high in the chest. He stutter-stepped backward and Falling Leaf fired at him, hitting him in the left forearm. Her fourth shot misfired. Adjusting to the impact of the two bullets, Grinshaw fired quickly at Beezah, missing; then at the Indian woman just as Sean took a step and dove at him, forcing the gun to shoot high. Grinshaw clubbed Sean’s head with the barrel of his gun and cocked it and then stopped.

  Facing him were Beezah, Falling Leaf, Harry and Crawfish with their revolvers pointed at him.

  “Looks like I’m staring at a stacked deck,” Grinshaw growled. “Mama didn’t raise no fools. I’m too old for this crap—an’ these boys couldn’t shoot their way out of an outhouse.” He let his gun drop from his hand and raised his hand. A small hole in his chest was turning red, as was the lower part of his left shirtsleeve.

  “Watch him, Jean-Jacques—and Harry,” Crawfish said and moved beside the unconscious Irish boy, studying the bloody cut in his head.

  From the far side of the table, Harry snorted. “If that boy’s hurt bad, mister, I’m gonna skin your goddamn hide.” He glanced at the crying Martha and the worried Falling Leaf, now both on the floor beside Crawfish. “Sorry, dear.”

  She nodded her understanding and rose. “I’ll get some hot water and a cloth.”

  “Thanks, Martha,” Crawfish said.

  Harry’s face was crimson as he rambled toward them from the far side of the table. Beezah watched him pass, then returned his attention to the outlaws. Harry walked around the table and kicked Milens’s side to check his status.

  Groaning, Milens drew up his legs like a child.

  Bounding up to the gray-haired outlaw, Harry stopped. “You no-good piece of horse dung. You hurt a fine boy.” Before anyone realized what he was doing, the old horse man clubbed Grinshaw along the side of the head with his gun barrel. Grinshaw’s hands withered to his sides and his body completed the descent.

  Harry stared at the fallen outlaw, thrust out his chin and quietly returned to his chair, keeping his revolver on the outlaws.

  “Harry…Sean’s coming around.” Crawfish half-yelled his enthusiasm.

  “What?”

  “Sean’s coming around.”

  Harry jumped up from his chair and returned to the downed boy. Beezah resumed the chore of guarding the outlaws without being asked.

  “W-What h-happened? D-Did I?” Sean stared at the four adults close to him. Martha wiped the moistness from her eyes; Falling Leaf muttered something in Lakotan; Harry mumbled a combination of joy and concern; and Crawfish patted the boy’s shoulder and told him to rest easy, that all was well.

  Standing to let Martha and Falling Leaf tend to him, Crawfish turned to Beezah. “You’ve saved our lives, my friend. We are in your debt.”

  “Nay, the debt is only even. Vin Lockhart saved mine first,” Beezah said. “The spirits deemed it so.”

  A half hour later, Sean was resting in the Rhymers’ bed with a wrap around his head and both older women tending to him. Harry had hitched up a team to his buckboard and was waiting out front for the outlaws, wounded and tied, to be brought for a ride to Denver.

  Crawfish kept a gun on Diede, Grinshaw and Gleason while Beezah half-carried, half-dragged Dr. Milens outside to the waiting vehicle.

  As they cleared the door, Dr. Milens mumbled, “T-There never was…a magic stone, was t-there?”

  Beezah smiled. “Of course there was.” He patted his vest pocket. “But you forgot to ask the spirits’ permission to see it.”

  “W-What spirits?”

  “Ah, Governor, if you really could communicate with them, you’d know.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  A hot August sun lay across his shoulders, forcing Vin Lockhart’s mind to race ahead to Morning Bird. For days now, the closer he got to where he thought the tribe was hiding, the more he was afraid of the reaction he might get from her. It had been more than a year since they had been together. Long enough to have forgotten him.

  Why did he think she would wait? Because he said he would return? She was probably married now. Maybe with child even. The thought made him nauseated and he vomited on the side of the trail. Riding on, he tried to focus on finding the small village. Follow his instincts, like Stone-Dreamer had taught him. Was this another way of saying listen to the stones talk to you? He wondered and patted his shirt pocket where the cardinal feathers were kept. They felt warm to his touch.

  If he was right, Black Fire’s band would be camping within a thickly timbered creek line where they had often gone when Lockhart was with them. It was more than a day’s ride, more like two, and almost due north. The location had proved an excellent natural protection for the tribe. A twisted wall of underbrush and saplings, butted up against huge shadow caves of dense greasewood, cottonwood and willow trees, and flanked by towering pines that made it impossible to see through—or think there was an opening large enough just on the other side for Black Fire’s lodges. In his mind, he was already there.

  He reined up to read the trail ahead of him. Wiping the sweat from his neck, he brushed against the Eyes-of-the-Wind pebble hanging from his ear. A rawhide string was looped over it and tied to the small stone. He had been wearing it since leaving Cody and the Fifth Cavalry. He eased his legs from the stirrups and straightened them. Both his leg and arm were healing, but stiff, from the Cheyenne fight and long days in the saddle. He could endure the pain for as long as it took, he told himself.

  In spite of his desire to get to the tribe as quickly as possible, he had taken good care that his horses, especially the dun, did not get worn down. Several times, he had switched to one of the three Cheyenne war ponies on a lead rope behind him. One carried a pack of supplies as if it had been trained to do so since it was a yearling.

  He had cut across a cavalry column headed northeast. A full column with at least twenty outriders. Scouts, he assumed. They were almost a day ahead of him, judging by the softening of the edges of the tracks. He hadn’t seen riders of any kind since he left Cody. And these were the first tracks.

  When he left Cody, Crook and his force of 1,800 troopers, including the Fifth Cavalry, and 250 Shoshonis and 200 civilian guides and packers, had joined Terry and his force of 1,700 troops at his new camp near the mouth of the Rosebud. They were behind somewhere. Quite a ways, he thought. However, Terry had several cavalry units out on serious probes of the region. This was obviously one of them.

  There were fresh rumors that the Cheyenne were headed north to settle into a winter camp and withdraw from further fighting. Many of the Hunkpapas were moving toward the invisible medicine line and Grandmother’s Land for safety. Sitting Bull was supposedly leading them, but it wasn’t clear.

  Jokingly, Cody had said the army thought the main Indian camp, led by Crazy Horse, was either at the Little Missouri, or the Killdeer Mountains, or Slim Buttes, or maybe the Short Pine Hills, or Powder River. Or even the Black Hills. A winter campaign, if decided upon, would be hard on everyone involved. Especially the Indians. The army badly wanted Crazy Horse, but they would attack any and all encampments found.

  That fear drove Lockhart.

  Before leaving the camp, Cody saw to it that Lockhart had fresh provisions and ammunition. Cody had wished him well and reminded Lockhart that he was still welcome in his theater group if he should ever change his mind. In turn, Lockhart had reminded Cody that he was always welcome as his guest at the Black Horse and the Silver Queen. Just in case it was needed, Cody gave him a letter indicating Lockhart was riding scout for the Fifth. It was even signed by General Merritt; Cody didn’t say how he obtained the signature.

  Lockhart eased the dun forward and the string of war ponies behind him reacted appropriately. This time his mind slipped to a happy moment last summer when he had returned to his old village with Touches-Horses after securing his escape from Farrell and his outlaws. The sweet intoxication of Mo
rning Bird. Her eyes caressing his. Inviting him close. Their parting had been difficult, but he had to return; he did not belong with the tribe any longer. Most of them thought of him as a spirit.

  He had promised to return for her. Now he was keeping that promise. Would she even remember it? Few times in his life could he recall ever being so uncertain, so anxious. He tried to prepare himself for the worst, the rejection. Polite, of course. But nonetheless, a rejection. Clearing the ridge, Vin Lockhart’s attention was drawn to a sight almost a half mile away. He knew what it was immediately and the nausea climbed back into this throat.

  Bodies were strewn about the open plains. Black shapes against Mother Earth’s robe of brown and green. Either the cavalry he was following had been ambushed—or they had found and attacked a band of hostiles. A lone feather, then another, dark spindles against the sun, fluttered in the air from where they were attached to an inert shape and Lockhart had his answer even from this distance.

  As he rode closer, his gaze took in the full impact of the horrible sight. Indians lay where they had died, fighting without cover or the chance for escape. Caught in the open by an overwhelming number of mounted soldiers. Were they headed to the reservation? He had a hunch they were. If so, they might have thought the advancing cavalry was coming to escort them there. Until it was too late.

  He stopped twenty feet from the first downed casualty and dismounted near a lone cluster of scrub oak trees; one barely four feet tall. They were the only trees for two hundred yards in any direction. None of his horses, including his dun, wanted to go closer to the stench of death. He un-looped the lead rope from his saddle horn and tied it to a sturdy branch, then did the same with the dun’s reins.

  Although there didn’t appear to be any need for it, he yanked his Winchester free of its scabbard anyway, cocked it and started toward the small massacre. The heavy metallic readying gave a sense of purpose that belied what was before him. The worry that was climbing within him turned into reality as he recognized the closest dead warrior.

  Black Fire!

  The steady leader lay with oozing black holes on his warshirt and leggings and one in his head. He had been scalped. Scalped! His body lay across his dead wife—and two children. He had tried to shield them from the rain of bullets that killed them. Lifeless shapes. The attack had come this morning, he guessed. It was over quickly.

  Lockhart stopped, not believing his eyes. The bodies were a mix of men, but mostly of women and children. Where were all the warriors? He fought his mind to keep it from telling them his friends would be here. He walked among the dead, hoping he wouldn’t find the bodies of those he cared most about. His old friend, Bear-Heart, was sprawled on the earth, killed in fierce battle. The ground beneath had turned black from his blood. He, too, had been scalped; his head, now a mass of dried blood and skin. The wing of a magpie, the messenger of the North Wind, dangled from what remained of his hair. The massive necklace of bear claws he had always worn had been yanked away.

  Not far from him was the lifeless body of another old friend, Thunder Lance. His death grip held a familiar lance, decorated with eagle feathers, strips of otter fur and special beads to represent the Thunder-Beings. A small pouch of war medicine was bound to the lance just above his hands.

  Sings-With-Stones lay beneath a dead horse. Lockhart had once been jealous of the young warrior. Stone-Dreamer had become a second father to him because the warrior had received a stone-vision and he hoped to learn from the holy man’s teachings and become a shaman. Lockhart wondered why the stones hadn’t alerted him to this danger.

  He walked slowly through the death circle. Several women cradling small children were frozen shapes. Strewn about the area of death were lodgepoles and travoises, signs of a moving village. Only a few horses were dead. Either the cavalry had run them off—or most of the tribe was walking.

  His head was swimming with fear, anger and remorse. He had not found Stone-Dreamer. Or Touches-Horses. Or Morning Bird. For that, he tried to be thankful. But it didn’t mean they were alive. What if the soldiers had taken her to…

  He screamed into the still air and fell to his knees. No words came. Only a scream that sounded more like the panther of his vision than that of a human.

  How long he knelt there he wasn’t sure, but the sun was pushing against the horizon when he finally stood again. His shoulders rose and fell, and he tried to study the scene objectively. Clearly, many warriors were not there. Only those who had families. He was certain Black Fire was leading them to the reservation. It was the only thing that made sense. The cavalry had seen them and charged. The few warriors with the tribe had fought bravely. It looked to him that the soldiers had taken away weapons for trophies as well as scalps. One woman had been scalped; he turned away from the sight. She was Blue Sky, the mother of Sings-With-Stones. He hadn’t seen the young warrior’s father, but he guessed that body was there, too mangled to identify.

  Everything in him wanted to follow after the cavalry and take revenge. Their trail led to the east. Revenge. Hot, black revenge filled his soul and he stood shaking with anger. How could the wasicun be so evil? How could they despise people they didn’t even know? In spite of himself, he looked again at the scalped woman.

  He swung the rifle to his shoulder as if to begin a march and knocked the stone from his ear. It fell to the earth and he stood, looking at the small shape. A thought washed over him, if Stone-Dreamer, Touches-Horses and Morning Bird weren’t here, where were they? Had they stayed behind in the camp—with the missing warriors? Seeking revenge only meant death; finding them meant a great deal more. He leaned over to retrieve the earpiece. Had it spoken to him?

  In minutes he was riding again. There was no time to bury the dead; he would have to leave that to Mother Earth. Ahead of him, twisting toward the one-time camp, were conflicting sets of tracks. Faint trails, coming and going, consisted of unshod horses, moccasin prints and long lines of lodgepoles being dragged. A small village moving their lodges, their women, their children, then moving again. He rode steadily into the settling dusk.

  Early the next morning, his weary eyes studied the timbered land looking for a crease where the Indians had slipped through. As he slipped between two lodgepole pines and headed northeast, he began to yell loudly, “Hokay! It is a good day to die. I am Oglala. Only the earth and sky live forever. It is a good day to die.” The Oglala battle cry was followed by the Kit Fox song, “I am a Fox…I am supposed to die…” He ended with the loud statement, “I am Panther-Strikes. I am an Oglala warrior who rode with Black Fire. I am the son of Stone-Dreamer. I am a brother to Touches-Horses.”

  Clearing the natural tree walls that encircled the small village, he came to a stop. Nothing was in sight, except two upright tepees. The rest had been there and had gone.

  “Kola. Brother, I knew you would come,” came an invisible, but familiar, voice in Lakotan.

  Coming around the closest lodge was Touches-Horses, thinner than Lockhart last saw him, but smiling broadly. Jumping from his horse, Lockhart grasped Touches-Horses’s forearm in the traditional warrior’s salute; then they hugged each other heartily. Stepping back from the emotional reunion, the warrior explained the tribe had split. Painted Badger had taken all of the young warriors with him to join Crazy Horse; Black Fire had taken the rest of the village to go to the wasicun’s agency two days ago. Touches-Horses had stayed behind, as had Morning Bird, to be with Stone-Dreamer who was dying.

  Hearing that Morning Bird was here caused Lockhart to look around. She must be in Stone-Dreamer’s lodge, he decided. His nerves were on edge and he tried to calm himself. In halting Lakotan, he said, “I came for you and for my father…and for Morning Bird. If she wants to come.” He swallowed back the anxiety of what response his statement might bring, then told his former brother-in-law of the massacre.

  Touches-Horses dropped his eyes to the ground and groaned as the significance of the destruction of Black Fire’s group reached his soul. He staggered and Lockha
rt held the warrior’s arm to keep him from falling.

  “It is as Stone-Dreamer said. Our days are over.”

  “Not if you come with me.” Lockhart told him about the horse ranch and that they could live there, but added that they needed to go before the soldiers found them. He hadn’t used the Lakotan language so much in years. Some of the words came hard.

  The idea of the ranch reached Touches-Horses’s eyes for the first time and he blinked away the tension. Such a choice had never occurred to him. Never.

  With a long inhalation, Touches-Horses stared into Lockhart’s eyes. “My sister, Morning Bird, she waits for you. In Stone-Dreamer’s lodge. He told her that you would come. He told her that you wanted her. She cried.” With a deep sigh, he led the way, walking the few steps to Stone-Dreamer’s painted lodge.

  Speaking softly, Touches-Horses said, “Your father has not been well since the fight at the greasy grass.” He swallowed and added, “He was rejected when he tried to counsel the tribe to leave that area and wait for you. After that, the Grandfathers told him to come home.”

  An eight-inch clay figure rested upon a skin of white ermine in front of the lodge’s opening. Lockhart knew this was the image of the Great Spirit from Stone-Dreamer’s medicine bundle. He hadn’t actually seen the totem before; it was rarely displayed—but he knew what it was, from years-ago descriptions of others. Next to the wankan piece was a smaller deerskin cutout in the shape of a man; buffalo wool was attached to represent the man’s hair. Encircling both shapes was the gold chain and watch he had given to Stone-Dreamer as a present.

  The piece was a representation of him. He winced at the thought. More surprising was to see his own medicine shield on display next to the tepee, the shield he carried as a warrior. Around it were four slender sticks, placed upright in the ground. Tied to each stick was a buckskin bag of tobacco and willow bark, an offering to Wakantanka. Laying beneath the shield was a red-painted buffalo skull. Three stones in a row, also painted red, lay a few inches from the top of the head, as if a crown.