by L. J. Martin
Glancing down, I realize I’m stripped naked, my chest, belly, and hips, which haven’t seen the sun since I last swam near our farm, shine white as the belly of a beached catfish in the firelight, even though I'm hairy on chest, legs, arms and back.
My only covering is my head wrap, which they've left in place, strangely. Maybe they were amused by it.
These Indians seem as gleeful as I’m afraid. And one of them, the upper half of his face painted yellow, the lower red, carries a branch from the fire, it’s end a glowing ember.
I don’t think he plans to light me up a cigar.
Trying to appear as if I’m about to yawn my indifference, I glance at the overcast sky, then at the slight round light that’s the moon behind the overcast. It’s now a quarter way in its path, so I’ve been unconscious a couple of hours.
He pokes at me with the hot tipped ember, near enough to my personal parts that I feel the heat and give him a hip instead, which he touches and I jerk back and spin the other way, knocking his ember aside. He’s laughing as are his cohorts, a dozen of them. With me backed against my restraints as much as possible, he pokes the hot branch against the base of my throat and draws a line down my chest, which I discourage by plunging forward. And thank God it knocks the ember off the branch, but not before I get the stench of burning hair and scorched flesh.
But I don’t scream, although my eyes tear up and my cries are choked down and buried deep in my chest. I cough them away and grind my teeth.
Which seems to impress them. And they give each other a nod. And a laugh.
The braves return to the fire and what they’ve been eating, roasted meat that would look good to me if I wasn’t smelling my own burnt flesh.
At first I’m happy to see the men go back to the fire, then my mouth goes dry again as a half dozen women appear and are walking my way, each with a pointed stick in hand. Where the hell did they come from? I didn’t see them in the camp when I raided it to recover my horses.
They are laughing and giggling, looking as if they’re about to have a real good time…at my expense.
Chapter 24
Even more than the men, the women are laughing and making what I presume are lewd remarks, as they laugh after each guttural comment.
I'm surprised by a poke in the buttock from behind, then find myself dodging and cursing as the women surround me. I work hard to keep from taking a sharp stick in the eye, then ducking my head, gaining a stab to the forehead, those efforts are impaired by my bleeding forehead and blood occluding the vision from the very eyes I'm trying to protect. All I can do is drop my chin to my chest and take blows on the top and back of my head as I wiggle and thrust to throw off their aim at my lower parts.
I can't help but get the mental picture of the Lakota women dismembering the dead crow braves, and a chill racks my back as I wonder if that fate awaits me.
A pair of the women are particularly vindictive and torturous and after their sticks are dulled and bloodied turn them and use them as clubs, beating me on the head and shoulders, then my torso. They try to bring them up between my legs, but I manage to shift from side to side until one of the men rises and moves over and snaps at the women, and they nod in compliance to whatever he's told them, and retreat.
I must be bleeding from two or three dozen stabs and more than one split in my scalp and forehead, but manage a deep breath and sigh of relief as the women move away.
I'm still alive...embarrassed, beaten, bloody, head still pounding from the blows I've taken...but alive.
Just as I'm feeling a little better about my condition, I see the women returning, but not with pointed sticks, with larger branches and some broken logs as thick as my calves.
What the hell?
They begin stacking them around me and I realize....
They're building a fire.
I'm about to be roasted alive.
I don't pray often. I'm sure I don't pray enough. And when I do, I'm sure it's not seriously enough. I try to change all that as I close my eyes and entreat the good Lord to save me from this horrid end. I almost jerk my arms from their sockets trying to break free of the leather tethers…to no avail.
And it seems the Lord is busy at the moment as the women retreat and sit just beyond the circle of men, ducks in a row as if they're at the theater and preparing to see a stage act of monkeys and court jesters. One of the men rises...I guess he's finished his supper and ready for some entertainment...and grabs a flaming bough and moves my way.
Stopping in front of me, he begins a litany I don't understand, but fear I know the meaning...and he means to start the fire and sear the flesh from my bones.
I scream, not in fear but in anger, spittle flinging, curses I don't believe I've ever used, flying at him like lead shot from a scattergun. At first he's a bit taken aback, but then he begins to laugh, and steps forward with the bough extended, looking for the best place in the pile to get the inferno started.
Seemingly he's found it, and looks up at me and gives me a snarl, then his face explodes and his blood mingles with mine. I feel goop dripping off my cheeks, and know it’s come from the open hole in his face.
As quickly he pitches forward, instead of the bough going into the pyre at my feet, his upper torso does.
There's a shocked silence for a long second, then the Indians, both men and women, scatter, and the camp is suddenly filled with mounted milling Lakota. They're firing their rifles, swinging war clubs, and riding fleeing Crow down with their mustangs and lances.
It’s all I can do not to cry out in joy, but it’s too soon as one of the Crow women, one who must outweigh me by half, is charging at me with a gleaming trade knife in hand. Her overly large breasts, untethered beneath an elk skin dress, swing back and forth as she comes and I can only hope they’ll throw her off balance and she’ll fall on her face. But it’s not to be. Just as she’s a step from striking distance, an arrowhead appears out of her chest. Her eyes go wide and she stops in her tracks…then sags.
Many-Dogs leaps from his horse and is on her before she, face first, hits the ground with a feathered shaft protruding between her shoulders. Flinging aside his bow, he drives his own flint knife between her shoulder blades next to the arrow, as if it weren't enough. While he jerks the knife from her back, he glances over his shoulder to make sure he’s not about to meet the same fate, then leaps to my side and saws away the leather thongs tying my left hand…then goes back to the fight, leaving me to free my right and my ankles.
As soon as I do, Shamus appears in front of me with his cheek badly sliced. “Pretty Cloud?” he mumbles as blood leaks from the side of his mouth.
“Never saw her,” I say. Swinging my gaze around I still don’t, but do see a dead Crow brave wearing my trousers.
The fight, what’s left of it, has moved into the pines. I get my trousers off the Indian and back where they belong and move around the camp looking for more of my duds, but don’t find them so I come back to the man who’d purloined my pants and strip away his elk skin shirt and moccasins, and am soon again fully clothed. And I’m warm again for the first time since I regained consciousness.
Shamus yells at me. “Come on, younger, they got a bunch of our stock. Let’s get some horseflesh under us.”
As I set out to follow him, Many-Dogs again appears at my side and hands me my Sharps and my possibles bag. I was sure I’d never see the rifle again and don’t have time to thank him before he disappears into the pines.
A hundred yards from the Crow camp the pines open into a meadow, and although it’s too dark to count them I know there must be three dozen horses scattered about, and I spot at least two of my remaining three Percherons. In a few steps I find my sorrel, tethered to a lodgepole pine, the saddle, bridle and blanket on the ground at the base of the tree.
Shamus rides up beside me as I’m saddling up and I can see he’s still bleeding from the slice on his cheek. “Mr. Carbone, we need to get a wrap on that face or you’ll bleed out and we’ll hav
e to plant you here.”
As I talk, he’s unwrapping a neckerchief from his neck.
I wave him off his mustang as I continue, “Dismount so I can help you with that.” He does and I start to tie him a bandage, when a young Indian runs from the pines, a wad of green and brown leaves in hand. Shamus takes them and packs the cut, removes his skunk-fur cap, then gives me a high sign. I have to tie the handkerchief over his head and under chin to get it to cover and he won’t be flapping his jaw for a while, which I’m sure will hurt him more than the cut. But he quickly remounts and waves me to follow. I can see the contingent of Lakota forming up to follow tracks into the pines, but Shamus doesn’t follow and instead waves me to fall in behind him.
Now we’re a pair, both of us with head wraps. Me for my sliced ear, him for his opened cheek.
I fall in behind, and it’s all I can do to keep up with the old man as he pounds away through the slapping pine boughs, until we break out onto a grassy slope. Over the pines I can see the river a half mile below. He rides hard for most of three miles with the wooded slopes below us, then reins up near a rock outcropping only a couple of hundred yards from the edge of the Big Mo, and fifty yards above. Our horses are blowing hard, winded from the ride, and I’m not doing much better. Blood still weeps from so many spots on my body I worry that I’ll run out, and my head still pounds and the pain has been shooting from ear to ear with every footfall of the animals.
It would be harder to find a spot on my body that’s pain or cut free than one that’s not. A bloody mess would be an understatement for my condition, but at least none of my wounds impair my ability to move, or more importantly, to aim and fire.
Shamus dismounts and points me to the furthest point of the rocks. The pines below go right up to the side of the river below and I quickly realize I won’t be able to see anyone until they’re likely fifty yards out into the water, and likely two hundred fifty yards from my perch. I scramble out to the point and he soon joins me. He can only mumble, but makes enough sense that I can understand.
“River’s near a mile wide here and shallow. Only good crossin’ for ten miles either way. But she’s movin’ fast and you got to be of a mind or she’ll sweep you away. If them Crow got Pretty Cloud, or even if not, it’ll be here they try and cross to get to their stinkin’ territory. That is, should Many-Dogs and the boys not catch up with them in the woods.”
“We got to have more light,” I say, even with the moon now high in the sky, I can’t imagine shooting into a group where I’d have to worry about hitting Pretty Cloud. “They wouldn’t have killed her, would they?” I ask, suddenly wondering if we’re not on a fool’s mission.
He looks at me as if I’m daft. “Their women would, but you musta forgot how comely the girl is. No man in his right mind, unless he walks backward, would waste a woman like that ‘til she done dried up.”
“Walks backward?” I ask, not remembering ever hearing the term.
“A man what favors men over women.”
That one makes me shrug, so I remain silent.
“By my reckonin’,” Shamus mumbles, “it’ll be light in a couple of hours. Let’s hope they be fightin’ shy of Many-Dogs and the boys and don’t come afore light.”
“Let’s hope,” I say, and again it’s sit and wait.
As luck would have it, the wind rises which will make a long shot even more difficult. But then we’re blessed as the clouds begin to thin just as the moon nears the western horizon.
Still, no Crow. But Shamus looks confident and is reclining back on a rock. I’m wondering if he’s going to doze off, when he snaps his head up and cups a hand near his ear. “You hear that?” he asks.
Not wanting to compete with any sound coming from the distance, I merely shake my head. Then I do hear what sounds like a hoof clipping a rock, then in a second, a rock bouncing down a slope.
“They be here,” Shamus whispers.
As if the good Lord was listening, the sky is growing silver to the east. It’s another fifteen or more minutes before a few head of riderless horses, then the first of a column of riders appears heading out into the river.
“There,” Shamus says. “Eighth rider back, leading a horse with Pretty Cloud…her hands is tied behind her back.”
I count back from the lead rider, then realize the eighth has an arm extended behind him, dragging a reluctant horse. A horse mounted by a woman wearing a skirt. Then a half dozen more riders each with a woman afoot behind, holding onto the tail of the horse leading.
“Can you make that shot?” Shamus asks.
“Man or horse, either one,” I say with confidence.
“Your choice, just don’t hit my little girl.”
Using a rock in front of me to steady my aim, I lay down on the rider, then he changes direction a few degrees and Pretty Cloud is almost directly behind him, in my line of fire.
“Damn,” I mumble.
“Stay on him. He’ll change again.”
And he does, reining his mustang back downstream a little…just enough.
I take a deep breath and hold it, steadying my aim, release the forward trigger then apply pressure to the rear, tracking him, leading two feet and aiming most of three feet high at the three hundred yards he’s now distant.
The Sharps bucks in my hands and I pray it hasn’t been knocked around since it’s been out of my grasp…if the sights are off, I might not be able to live with myself with the result.
At first I think I’ve missed, then the Indian’s mount rears high on his back legs, twists, and goes over backwards taking his rider with him. By the time the man recovers he’s twenty feet downstream and being swept away by a current moving faster than his mustang could run…but he’ll never run again. He’s rolled to his back and his four feet extend up out of the water. I think I must have broken his neck. He’s being swept downstream but not nearly so fast as his rider.
The Indian released his lead rope while trying to hang onto his mount and I can see Pretty Cloud madly giving her heels to the flanks of the mustang. With her hands tied behind her, it’s a wonder she can stay mounted as her paint horse spins and water flies as he pounds back toward the tree line, knee deep in water. In seconds, with horses and Indians fleeing in every direction, she’s out of sight but coming back our way.
“Let’s go fetch her,” Shamus yells, and springs off a rock and into the saddle. Before I can sheath the Sharps, he’s a hundred feet down the hillside riding as if a griz is on his tail. By the time I’m following, he’s out of sight into the trees.
Knowing there may be a half a hundred hostiles in the trees ahead, I palm my Colt and let the sorrel pick his way, but have only gone fifty yards into the pines when I hear a couple of gunshots, then a horse…no, two horses, coming my way at a gallop. Forty yards away I see Shamus, leading the pinto with Pretty Cloud still in the saddle with her hands tied behind her, as they pound by at a gallop.
I spin the sorrel and he kicks clods and grass out behind as I give him my heels.
Riding as far back as the rock pile, I leap from the saddle with the Sharps in hand and set up, sure that Shamus will be pursued.
And I’m not wrong.
Three Crow braves burst from the tree line only a hundred and fifty yards from me. I lay down on the man in the lead and blow him from the back of his horse. The two following spin their horses, lay low across the necks of their animals, and ride back for the cover of the tree line.
As I’ve given up my position, and as Shamus and Pretty Cloud are disappearing over the ridge three hundred yards above, I don’t tarry. Mounting, I let the sorrel show his speed and endurance as he puts the rock pile and pines behind us.
By the time I top the ridge line, Shamus has reined up, dismounted, and is cutting the leather thongs binding Pretty Cloud's wrists. Then he goes to work cutting thongs binding her thighs to the cinch. No wonder she was able to hang on as she was tied on the horse.
“Did you knock one of those dogs off his horse? I heard
that Sharps roar,” he asks me as he works. Then we hear more shooting from down in the pines.
“I did and the rest turned tail.”
“Sounds like Many-Dogs done catched up with them. I’m taking my girl back to the village,” he says, mounting up.
“And I’m heading back to my river camp to check on my pard.”
“Keep the wind at your back, younger,” Shamus says, giving me a wave.
“Send Falls-From-Sky and Sheo my way with the rest of my stock. I’ll do right by them,” I yell after him, as he spurs away and gives me a wave over his shoulder.
I watch them disappear into the rising sun, then realize how badly I feel, as if I’ve fallen off a hundred-foot-high cliff and bounced my way to the bottom.
Sighing deeply, I head the sorrel downriver, still hearing sporadic gunfire coming from the pines.
I hope I can make it the ten or so miles back to camp.
And hope Ian hasn’t had his hair lifted while I’ve been gallivanting around over the Dakota plains.
As if I didn’t need more trouble, before I’ve gone a mile, the sky darkens and it begins to snow. Soon I can only hope the sorrel knows his way home as I can’t see far past his ears. At least it might discourage any pursuers, but I imagine the Lakota have already discouraged the Crow sufficiently.
Damn the Crow, damn the weather, and God bless my horse as he plods on as if he knows exactly where he’s going.
I hunker down in the saddle, take a turn around the horn with his reins, and shove my hands up under the elk skin shirt I’ve stolen from the Crow who stole my trousers.
I wish I had my coat and my hat. My sliced ear is aching, my head still feels like the pistons of a steam engine are banging around inside, with every shift in the saddle and plodding step of the sorrel my poked and prodded limbs pain me…and to add to the mess I feel like I could easily freeze to death before I find our soddy.
