Mountain Hawk

by Charles G. West

  Two Kills didn’t wait for Little Bull to respond before he demanded, “Now the white men show themselves for the evil dogs they have always been. I say we must kill these devils now. We have tolerated them in our camp for too long.”

  Black Otter proclaimed his agreement with Two Kills, and the people who had gathered quickly joined in the cry for the white men’s scalps. Little Bull alone was not ready to pronounce the death penalty. “Wait,” he commanded, “let us talk about this before we act.” He, like the others, longed to see the last of the likes of Plum and Crown, along with the other two, but he had a grudging respect for the firepower of the four white men. He knew that his braves could overcome the four, but not without paying a dear price in lives. Also, Plum had been married to Little Bull’s sister before the accident took her life. He must think about that as well as the guns and powder Plum had supplied to them for over two years.

  He talked directly to Bright Cloud. “I know this man Crown struck you, but he was not able to violate you, was he?” When she answered that he had not, he said, “These are dangerous men. They have many guns and use them well. Only one of them has committed this outrage, but if we kill him, his friends might fight us. I think it is best to drive them from our village, and let them go unharmed. After all, they have fought with our warriors in many battles. It is only right that we let them go in peace.”

  His statement was met with obvious disappointment from the crowd gathered before his lodge. To further placate the injured parties, he added, “To pay for this insult, we will not permit them to take the horses and skins they traded for their whiskey. Black Otter shall have ten horses for himself to pay for the wrong they have done to Bright Cloud.” This seemed to placate the incensed Black Otter somewhat, and the rest of the people were satisfied just to be rid of the white men. The prospect of regaining the plunder they had been cheated out of was enough to satisfy the others.

  * * *

  “What the hell happened to you?” Plum asked when Crown walked up to the fire and sat down. Crown had a knot beside his eye that was still swelling. A trickle of blood was drying upon his face.

  “One of them damn squaws hit me with a rock,” Crown growled.

  Plum laughed. “You been tryin’ to go courtin’ again, ain’t you? Your style’s a little rough for these Blackfoot maidens, Crown. Maybe you oughta go back to them Cree women you’re so popular with.”

  Crown only glared at him. He didn’t appreciate Plum’s banter, and he was still in a foul humor from the confrontation that morning. “I’ve had just about enough of your . . .” That was as far as he got before he was interrupted by a warning from Sowers and the sound of Little Bull with a group of warriors coming up behind them.

  Plum, seeing the delegation approaching, smelled trouble. “Well, now,” he said, “what’s this here?” Seeing the grim expressions on the Blackfoot faces, he glanced at Crown. “What’ve you been into?” He didn’t wait for Crown’s answer. “You damn fool, I oughta shoot your sorry ass.”

  “You oughta try,” Crown stated coldly.

  The two locked eyes for a moment, but there was no time to take it further. Little Bull was already before them, his warriors forming a circle around the four men. Plum took notice of the fact that the warriors were armed. Those who owned guns had them, and the rest carried war axes and bows. He didn’t like the look of this. He glanced at Crown and noticed that he had picked up his rifle and laid it across his knee. Plum’s hand came to rest on the handle of his pistol.

  “Welcome, friend,” Plum started, his eyes darting back and forth between Little Bull and Two Kills. “Why have you come to the lodge of your friend with so many armed warriors?”

  Little Bull wasted no time with polite talk. “Plum, you and these others are no longer welcome in this village. If you are still here when the sun comes up again, we will kill you. You must never again come to this camp.”

  Plum was stunned. “Well, that’s a helluva note,” he exclaimed in English. Then he responded in the Blackfoot tongue. “I don’t understand. Why does my friend talk to me this way?”

  Little Bull related the incident that had taken place at the creek that morning and informed Plum that the general mood of the people was to punish the white men by death. It was only through Little Bull’s intervention that the four of them would be spared and permitted to leave in peace.

  Listening to the Blackfoot war chief’s words, Plum struggled to keep his anger under control. He cast an accusing glance in Crown’s direction. You had to do it, you son of a bitch. It had taken more than two years to gain the trust he thought he had established with the Blackfoot band. It was a lucrative arrangement—like having his own private army of raiders. True, they were not his to command. But Little Bull had been easy to manipulate, what with the Blackfoot’s natural tendency to be warlike. To have it all destroyed because of Crown’s lustful urges infuriated Plum. Maybe, he thought, there’s an easier way out of this. Knowing Crown had been too lazy to make any effort to learn the Blackfoot tongue—he recognized only a few basic terms—Plum made an appeal to the chief’s sense of justice.

  “If what you have told me is true,” Plum said, “then my heart is filled with shame.” He glanced at Crown with a slight grin, and Crown smirked in return. Plum continued. “This thing Crown has done is a bad thing, and he must be punished.” He searched Little Bull’s face, expecting to see some change in the stony countenance, but there was none. Plum pressed on. “I will turn this man over to you to punish as you see fit. My white friends and I will not interfere.” Again he paused to see if there was any sign of appeasement in Little Bull’s face. As before, Little Bull maintained an unyielding facade. “Crown is sorry for the insult to Bright Cloud and is ready to pay for it with his life.” Plum glanced at Crown again and whispered in English, “Nod your head to let him know you’re sorry.” Crown shrugged indifferently, but nodded his head several times, never suspecting the fatal significance of his gesture. When Plum looked back at Little Bull, he knew the sacrifice was not going to be accepted.

  The Blackfoot warriors had stood silently watching the four men while their war chief talked to Plum. There was a sense of restlessness among some of the younger braves, making it necessary for the elders of the village to restrain them. Plum was aware of the tinderbox that threatened to ignite if he demonstrated even a spark of anger. So he attempted to maintain a calm disposition as he made one more plea.

  “We have fought side by side for many moons. Your enemies are my enemies. We should not let this one evil man destroy our friendship.” He gestured toward Ox and Sowers. “These two and I will help you kill Crown.” Sowers, who could understand enough to know what Plum proposed, nodded agreement. Ox sat there with his perpetual smile of amazement on his wide face, waiting for Sowers to explain what was going on.

  Little Bull had held his tongue until Plum had finished speaking his peace. He now gave his final decision on the matter. “It is no good, Plum. You call yourself friend to the Blackfoot, but what kind of friend are you? What you say is true—we have fought side by side—but you and your white friends grow rich from the spoils of our battles, while my people have gained nothing. We are tired of being cheated by you. Go now, and be thankful that I hold my warriors back.”

  Plum scowled inwardly. His plan to appease the Blackfoot chief while also getting rid of Crown hadn’t worked, so now he needed Crown, and Crown’s guns, for his own protection. Plum knew he was finished here. Accepting his defeat, he sought now to cut his losses. “It will be as you say. We will pack up our hides and round up our horses, and leave you in peace.”

  Little Bull slowly shook his head. “You will take no skins. You will each take two horses, nothing more.”

  Plum recoiled slightly. “Surely you would not steal our property,” he replied.

  A hint of a smile creased the stern features of the Blackfoot war chief. “No, I would not take anything that truly belongs to you.”

  “So that’s how it i
s, is it?” Plum muttered in English. But noticing the increasing impatience of the young warriors, he said nothing to the chief. He turned to Sowers and said, “Looks like we ain’t got much choice if we wanna keep our hair. Saddle up and let’s git the hell outta here before some of these young studs go off half-cocked.”

  Sowers didn’t have to be told twice. He had followed the conversation, wondering the whole time if it would suddenly ignite into a massacre. He, like Plum, knew that if the shooting started, they might kill half a dozen of the Indians, but then they would all four be rubbed out. He nudged Ox on the shoulder and said softly, “Git your stuff packed and saddle your horse.” Ox smiled and did as he was told.

  Crown, who had sullenly watched the discourse between Plum and Little Bull—his hand never off of his rifle—now looked at Plum and then Sowers. “What the hell is goin’ on?” he demanded. “Are they throwin’ us out? Are we lettin’ these damn Injuns chase us off over a little innocent fun?”

  “Shut up, Crown,” Plum snapped. “Git your damn stuff together. It was you got us into this mess. Now keep your mouth shut before you git us all kilt.” Crown started to get his back up, but one look at Plum’s face told him it was not the time to push it.

  Inside the lodge, Jamie had crept up close to the entrance flap to listen to the confrontation taking place outside. She didn’t understand what the dispute was over, but she could tell by the tone of the voices that it didn’t bode well for Plum and his friends. The last statements in English finally told her that the Indians were ordering them to leave. She felt a flutter of excitement with the hope that she might be left behind. She was certain that her treatment at the hands of the Blackfeet could be no worse than that she received from the cruel and sadistic white men. After all, she thought, her time spent as captive of the Kutenais had been a pleasant experience compared to the hell she now endured.

  Outside, Plum made another appeal to Little Bull for a bigger share of the horses, which was again denied. “One horse to ride, one horse for pack,” Little Bull stated.

  “What about her?” Plum asked when Jamie stepped out of the tipi.

  Little Bull looked at Jamie for a few seconds, then said, “Take her with you. She is your wife.”

  “I get a horse for her?” Plum quickly asked. Little Bull shrugged before nodding yes.

  “Please, I want to stay with you,” Jamie suddenly cried out to Little Bull. “I can work hard. Don’t make me go with him!”

  “Shut your mouth,” Plum warned.

  Little Bull didn’t understand, but he assumed the woman was pleading for her life. “You go,” he said, using the few words of English he knew.

  “Damn right, you go,” Plum growled under his breath while squeezing Jamie’s arm in a viselike grip. “You’re gonna pay for that bit of sass, bitch.” He shoved her back toward the tipi.

  Jamie stumbled, and almost fell, but she grabbed onto Ox’s arm to regain her feet. The oversized brute steadied her and, gazing intently into her bruised face, asked, “Don’t you wanna go with Plum?”

  She looked up at him. The confusion written on his face was genuine, and in spite of her own hopeless plight, she almost felt sorry for the simple giant. “No, I don’t want to go with Plum.” She could see that this only added to his consternation.

  Correctly gauging the temperament of the Blackfoot camp, the four white men wasted no time getting ready for the trail. A cold wind swept down the length of the valley as the train of five riders and nine horses filed through the lower end of a rocky canyon. Plum was in a hurry to make his way downriver to Three Forks. There wasn’t much time to set up a winter camp, so he figured it best to return to a favorite campground. He pushed them along, keeping the horses to a steady pace until they reached a sheltered ravine with a trickle of water running down to the river. Here they made camp for the night.

  During their travel that day, Plum had allowed Jamie to ride without being tied, but she rode in the middle of the string with Sowers and Ox behind her. If she had entertained any notions of escape, she quickly discarded them, for there was no place for her to run on the narrow trails. Resigned to her fate, she still could only wonder why God would sentence her to such misery. There was to be a slight reprieve, however. As before, when they had left the Kutenais’ camp on their way to Little Bull’s village, Plum did not assault Jamie that night. She did not escape his ire altogether, for he laid into her with his whip as punishment for her outburst to Little Bull. Her cries of despair were of no concern to the other men, with the exception of Ox, who pulled his blanket over his head in an effort to block out her screams. After what seemed an eternity to the tortured girl, Plum was finally satisfied with the punishment and hobbled her ankle to his own with a rawhide cord. Then he rolled up in his blanket and went to sleep.

  * * *

  Jamie was awakened by the gentle touch of a huge hand on her shoulder. Even though still in a half-dream state, she automatically cowered, expecting to be struck. When that did not happen, she blinked her eyes open, straining to see in the darkness. She almost cried out when she became alert enough to discover Ox’s wide face only inches from her own, the faint light from the dying coals of the fire flickering across his rough features.

  “Shhh,” he warned, placing his hand across her mouth. “Don’t make no noise.” When she nodded that she understood, he took his hand away and whispered, “Come on, before Plum wakes up.”

  Jamie hesitated for only a second while she weighed the likely consequences if she blindly did as she was told. Ox, although his physical appearance was terrifying, had actually been the only one of her four captors who had never really harmed her. Realizing that the cord binding her to Plum had been cut, she scrambled up as quietly as she could and followed him out of the circle of firelight. As she stepped over the sleeping form of Sowers, and around Crown’s prone body, she considered the possibility that Ox might simply be planning to try to make love to her. She discarded the thought almost as soon as it occurred to her. Ox was deathly afraid of Plum, although Jamie knew that the giant bear of a man could crush the smaller Plum if he was of a mind to. So she tiptoed out of the firelight into the darkness of the moonless night, following the hulking form before her.

  After some thirty yards or so, Ox stopped so suddenly that Jamie bumped into his broad back in the darkness. When he turned to face her, she caught a glimpse of a horse standing before them on the narrow trail. Straining to see in the pitch-black of the ravine, she realized that it was the horse she had been riding, saddled and tied to a low bush.

  Ox placed his hands on her shoulders and asked, “You don’t want to be married to Plum, do you?”

  Astonished by his innocence, she answered, “No. I’ll never be his wife.”

  He hesitated then, his huge hands still holding her by the shoulders, while he sorted it out in his child’s mind. Finally satisfied with his decision, he said, “If you ain’t really Plum’s wife, it ain’t right for him to beat you, is it?”

  “No,” she replied softly.

  He nodded his head several times. Then he suddenly lifted her off her feet as easily as he might lift a puppy. He sat her on the horse and, still holding her shoulder said, “Ride as far as you can before daylight, so Plum can’t catch you and beat you no more.”

  He stepped back and suddenly inhaled sharply, his hands reaching for the horse as if stricken. Puzzled by his strange behavior, Jamie was about to ask if he was all right when he began to stumble. He grunted in pain as Plum withdrew the long skinning knife from his side. Before Ox could recover from the attack, Plum plunged his knife into his stomach and slashed a long rip in his gut. Ox crumpled to the ground.

  Jamie screamed as Plum grabbed a handful of her shirt and pulled her off the horse. As she lay helpless at his feet, he slapped her several times. “Thought you was gonna run off, did you? Maybe now you know what happens to anybody who tries to steal my property.”

  “What’s goin’ on?” Crown yelled as he came crashing through the
underbrush, alerted by Jamie’s scream. Sowers was right behind him.

  “Ain’t nuthin’ goin’ on,” Plum answered calmly. “Ox ain’t gonna be with us no more, that’s all.”

  Crown, panting from his exertion, almost tripped over Ox’s body in the dark. “What the hell?” he blurted out. Then, seeing Jamie quietly crying at Plum’s feet and the saddled horse behind them, he quickly added it all up. “Huh,” he grunted, “we could sure use Ox a helluva lot more than we need that damn woman out here in Blackfoot country. Why did you have to go and kill him?”

  Plum reached down and cleaned the blade of his knife on Ox’s shirt. “That’s what happens to anybody that crosses Jack Plum,” he said, the warning in his tone unmistakable.

  “Ah, damn,” Sowers whined. “Ol’ Ox didn’t know what he was doin’.” He knelt down to examine him. “He ain’t dead yet.” A faint moan was heard from the wounded man. Getting closer, Sowers said, “Damn, Plum, you opened his gut. He’s tryin’ to hold his insides in with his hand.”

  “Let him lay!” Plum commanded.

  Sowers shook his head sadly, but got to his feet again. He had kinda liked ol’ Ox. He would miss having the big bear around. He knew that Ox was too stupid to realize the gravity of his actions. To Ox, it most likely amounted to the same as letting a squirrel out of a trap. Well, Sowers thought, I reckon you learned the hard way not to cross a snake like Plum. Stepping back from the body, Sower asked, “Whad-daya want to do with him?”

  “Let him lay,” Plum repeated. “See if he’s got his pistol on him.”

  “He ain’t,” Crown replied. He had already checked. Crown, though not indifferent to Ox’s early demise, wasted little sympathy for his oversized friend. His only regret now was that there would be one less gun to fight any hostile Indians they might encounter. If they had to come up one man short, Crown would have preferred that it was Plum lying there dying.