Stone Hand

by Charles G. West

“We shall see.” She beamed. “I really don’t have to be back in Baltimore until the fall.”

  Her father’s stern expression gave indication enough to inform them of his opinion of the situation. “You really had no business coming out here in the first place, young lady, and you’re going back with the first troop movement to Fort Cobb. This is no place for a lady.”

  “Why, Daddy,” she teased, “what about the sergeant major’s wife? I’m sure you don’t mean that Mrs. Kennedy is no lady.”

  The colonel almost sputtered his response. “That’s different,” he stammered, then regained his composure. “You know what I mean. Cora Kennedy and the other three wives in garrison are damn near as hard campaigners as their husbands. They weren’t raised in Baltimore like you were. At any rate you are going back at the first opportunity.”

  Sarah said nothing in reply but her smile told them that she would probably return to the East on her own schedule. Jason found himself hoping she would stay longer than a week also, even though he would be unable to find enough excuses to remain in camp himself. The girl held a certain fascination for him. He had to admit that. Why he even bothered with the thought was a mystery to him. Even if he held romantic interests for the girl, he could see himself as no competition for the dashing young surgeon who was so obviously overwhelmed by her. Still, he admitted, it would be nice to have her around for a while.

  * * *

  While the colonel and his daughter entertained their guests, less than ten miles from the camp a lone, menacing figure sat, silently watching the evening activities of a cavalry patrol some fifty feet below the ledge he perched on. It was a small patrol, no more than a dozen troopers. Still, they would be at small risk of attack from any of the roving bands of hostiles in the territory. It was their misfortune, however, that this was no ordinary Cheyenne renegade silently watching and waiting for the camp to settle in for the night. He sat patiently, his rifle cradled across his arms as he noted the horses hobbled off to the left of the bivouac and the single guard posted there. He watched the two perimeter sentries as they finished their coffee and left the campfire to take up their posts. Only three of the twelve were on guard while the others rolled up in their blankets. Typical, he thought, and a faint smile creased his face.

  CHAPTER 2

  Jason stood over the mutilated body of the horse guard while the sergeant related the events leading up to the previous night’s raid. “They must have been positioned on three sides of the camp,” the sergeant speculated. “Near as I can figure, all three must have been hit at the same time.”

  Jason didn’t say anything for a few minutes. Then he turned to the sergeant and quietly announced, “There was only one man.” His scout around the perimeter of the campsite had told him that the raider had acted alone. There was one set of prints, one horse. He had come down from the bluff overlooking the small stream where the patrol had carelessly made their camp. Jason would never have picked the spot himself. It offered cover on three sides to anyone inclined to attack the camp. It could not have been more inviting to the renegade. Still, it took more than the average man to accomplish the three separate killings of the guards as well as the theft of a half dozen of their horses. All this happened without waking the rest of the camp. Jason did not have to be told that this could be the work of only one man, Stone Hand.

  So at last he was confronted with the task that lay before him. Colonel Holder had dealt him no pat hand. He was going to earn his money on this one. He bent down over the mutilated body to examine it more closely. He had noticed it on the other two bodies. This Cheyenne had a signature. The left eyebrow of each man was slit with a single stroke of the scalping knife. It had to be intentional, there being no reason for it beyond a deliberate sign to let the army know that it was the work of one man. “Well, he’s telling us he did it and he’s daring us to catch him.” He glanced up at the sergeant who was watching him examine the body. “He’s an arrogant bastard.”

  “You think it was that damn devil they call Stone Hand?”

  “That’s my guess.” Jason sighed. “Well, I guess I’d better go to work.” He whistled up Henry and mounted, nodded to the sergeant, and rode off to follow the trail Stone Hand had left.

  There was no effort on the Cheyenne’s part to disguise his trail for a mile or so. It was a simple matter to follow the trail left by the seven horses. Stone Hand obviously felt no concern that he would be followed until morning so he loped along at his leisure. Jason was able to make good time as the trail led him through the scrub and over the hills toward the Cimarron River. It was reasonable to assume that a loner like Stone Hand would not keep a string of horses. He’d leave too wide a trail. So he would undoubtedly get rid of them as soon as possible and that meant he would have to be heading to some renegade village somewhere north of Supply. Jason urged Henry on. Maybe this Indian was not as clever as he had been led to believe; maybe he was even lying around somewhere in a Cheyenne camp gloating over his raid.

  After following the obvious trail for over an hour, it occurred to him that the Cheyenne might be luring him into an ambush. He had to discard that as a possibility because Stone Hand would not know he was being tracked unless he stuck around to see. And the trail was old enough to indicate he didn’t. Jason kept his senses sharp anyway, carefully studying every likely site for ambush. Then he topped a slight rocky rise and the trail disappeared.

  He pulled Henry up short and looked around for some indication of a trail. Jason held himself as a pretty fair tracker and he didn’t see how he could lose a trail left by six shod horses. He dismounted and searched the rocky ground for dislodged pebbles or broken scrub. It appeared that the Indian and his horses had simply vanished into the air. “I must be getting crazy,” he mumbled. Leading his horse, he backtracked to the point where he had last seen tracks leading into the rocks.

  He had to come out somewhere, he thought, and he searched the rocks until he found what he was looking for. He stopped here, he decided. He took the horses on short rein, in a tight bunch. Jason suddenly smiled. “That son of a bitch,” he said softly, “he wrapped the horses’ hooves with rags or something and changed directions on me. He ain’t heading north at all.” It took another thirty minutes or so but he finally found a faint print leading toward the west. The land was rocky and it was difficult to pick up a trail, causing Jason to lose valuable time searching for sign. About a mile from the first print, he came upon a stream. Studying the sign around the stream, he determined that the Cheyenne had removed the wraps from the horses here and had followed the stream south.

  After several miles, the trail left the stream, leading once again toward the west. He followed the tracks until late in the afternoon when the sun was low in the sky. It would be dark soon when it dropped below the hills directly before him. So he started thinking about a likely place to camp. He was in uncertain territory now, Commanche country. There was no telling how many independent bands of renegades roamed this territory.

  Just before darkness set in, he crossed another small stream and decided he had better camp while he could still see what he was doing. He allowed himself a small fire in a hollowed-out bend of the stream to boil some coffee to add a little spark to his cold supper of dried jerky. Afterward, he banked the coals of the fire, hoping to save at least a spark for morning. Then, as was often his custom when camping in hostile country, he arranged his saddle pack near the fire, making it look like a sleeping man. That done, he took his blankets and rifle and lay down under Henry, some fifty feet away from the fire. It would take an awfully good eye to see that little fire from any distance but he saw no sense in taking chances. He felt safer sleeping under Henry. The horse had never stomped on him yet and would wake him if any horse-stealing Indians tried to sneak up on him.

  Along about dark the next day he caught first sight of the camp. He worked his way along a ravine until he reached a point of woods about three hundred yards from the northernmost lodges. He counted twenty-three tipis al
ong a bend in a shallow river bed. A nice little hornet’s nest, Commanche, he thought. I wonder if Colonel Holder knows about this bunch.

  The colonel had been concerning himself with the tracking and hunting down of the many small groups of Cheyennes, usually a half dozen or so renegade bucks. This, on the other hand, was a sizable band of Commanches. The colonel would want to know about any congregation of hostiles this size. One of the army’s major concerns was to keep these little bands from joining together into any sizable fighting force. Jason knew, if that were to happen, there would be a steady stream of young men leaving the reservations to join them. For his own part, he knew also that if he were a young Cheyenne he’d be damned if he would rot away on a reservation. What puzzled him most was why the Indians didn’t break out now. No man should have been born to reservation life, white man or Indian.

  Well, he thought, it ain’t for me to say. My job is to catch one murdering renegade. He looked around for a way to crawl up closer to the camp for a better look.

  After making sure there were no lookouts posted, he worked his way up to the edge of the camp, no more than twenty feet from the outermost lodge. He lay flat behind a slight rise in the riverbank, his rifle close up against his side, watching the camp settle down for the night. The cookfires were dying out as heavy darkness crept in among the lodges. Satisfied that all was peaceful, he rose to his feet and made his way around the lodges to the horse herd. Even in the darkness it was a simple matter to find the stolen army horses. They were bunched together, still not ready to mingle with the Indian ponies. Stone Hand was here all right. But there was little he could do about it. He sure as hell wasn’t going to go into a Commanche village to look for him. He would have to wait and hope for a chance to take him alone, maybe in the morning. There was no way he could be certain but he had to figure that since Stone Hand was a loner he wouldn’t hang around long socializing with the Commanches. More than likely he would move on in the morning and that would be Jason’s best chance to get him.

  He made his camp that night some two miles from the Commanche village. In the darkness, he led Henry down to the water and let him drink before riding back up into the hills for the night. He didn’t worry about the possibility of Henry’s tracks being discovered by the river since the horse was unshod and would be indistinguishable from the Indian ponies. It was a cold camp that night since he deemed it prudent to do without a fire.

  Shortly before dawn, Jason was out of his blankets and in the saddle. He rode back to the point of trees at the head of the ravine where he had watched the Commanche camp the night before. He hobbled Henry and positioned himself where he could watch the Indian camp as it came to life with the rising of the sun. It appeared to be a peaceful camp. He was tempted to say nothing of its existence to Colonel Holder when he got back. But he knew he had to. That was part of his job, to report any renegade bands of Indians he discovered. Jason didn’t like that part of his job. These Commanches seemed to be peaceful enough, just trying to live free, as they had done for hundreds of years. He knew if he were an Indian he would not go peacefully to live on a reservation. But his task that day was to hunt one particular man, he reminded himself, and the people of the village were harboring him.

  He spent the entire day watching the comings and goings of the village. There were a few young men who left the camp in small groups to hunt, one old man on a broken-down pony left around midday, leading a packhorse. Women worked around the river and lodges, children played. But there was no sign of anyone that even suggested the description of the infamous Stone Hand. Jason scanned the camp constantly with his field glasses. After a while he began to doubt his instincts. Maybe the man was not there. But he was certain of the trail he had followed. Still, there was no indication that Stone Hand was in the camp. When could he have left? During the night? Jason doubted that. Why would he? He’d just arrived. He had horses to trade. He couldn’t be aware of the white man stalking him or he would have had the whole camp out looking for him.

  When darkness approached once more, Jason had to conclude that his man was not in the camp. With his field glasses he carefully scrutinized each member of the small hunting parties when they returned. He was sure Stone Hand was not among them. Feeling that he had wasted his time and had been bested in this first encounter with the notorious outlaw, he had to figure Stone Hand must have ridden out with one of the hunting parties and did not return to the camp. Disgusted, and with no trail to follow, he decided he might as well head back to Camp Supply.

  A half day’s ride away, what at first appeared to be an old man slumped under a blanket and riding a broken-down pony slid off the pony and cast the blanket aside. He rubbed his long hair briskly with his fingers, shaking the ashes from his braids until the gray turned into a deep black. For a few minutes he stood watching his back trail until he was certain there was no one following. Then, without emotion, he drew his long scalping knife and calmly slit the neck of the broken-down horse he had ridden from the village. That done, he jumped on the horse he had been leading and continued his journey.

  Stone Hand was not always so cautious and deceptive in his comings and goings. But when his senses told him there was cause for caution, as they had warned him that morning, he always obeyed. His were the instincts of the hunted and his spirits told him there was danger close by. That morning, before daybreak, when he went to relieve himself, he was startled by the sudden flight of a blackbird. The bird did not fly straight away but circled and reversed its flight, a clear sign to Stone Hand that it would be wise to disguise his trail that day. Now as he looked back over the rolling prairie and found it empty of enemies, he gave thanks to the spirit of the wolf and the hunter. He then kicked his heels into the ribs of his horse and rode off toward the Arkansas River. There was a settler’s cabin there and it looked like a good day to kill.

  CHAPTER 3

  He was not always called Stone Hand. His father had named him Black Eagle and he had lived with his parents until his fourteenth year. They belonged to Black Kettle’s village and Black Eagle was much like any other Cheyenne boy of that age. That is, until one cold and frosty morning in the year of 1864.

  They had descended upon the sleeping village just after sunup. Sweeping in from the south, their horses thundered across the sandy stream bottom and through the narrow ribbon of water. Steam from the horses’ nostrils formed a ghostlike fog on the crisp November morning as the first line of troopers splashed through the shallow water and up toward the unsuspecting village. Many in the camp were still sleeping, only a few were up and about. One of the women had discovered the presence of the large body of soldiers shortly before daybreak and came to alert Chief Black Kettle. As the troopers came into sight, a group of men, women, and children gathered before the chief’s lodge and watched the advancing cavalry nervously. Black Kettle told them there was no danger. Major Anthony had told them to camp here.

  A bugle blast pierced the peaceful silence, minutes later becoming a dull background strain as the soldiers opened up with their rifles. Soon, the entire village was drowned in an explosion of continuous gunfire. Unprepared and without warning, the men of the village were helpless to defend their women and children. Following instructions from Major Anthony, most of the young fighting men were off to the east, hunting buffalo to feed their people. What had been a sleeping village moments before, had become a killing ground as the cavalry made sweep after sweep through the tipis, burning and slaughtering.

  A boy no more than fourteen summers stumbled from his bed and out into the cold of the late November morning, his bow and quiver the only possessions he had time to take. He took no notice of the cold as the scene that met his eyes would endure in his mind for the remainder of his life. In the horrible confusion that swept over the village like a tidal wave of fire and gunfire, he stood there for a moment, uncertain which way to run. He did not understand the attack. His village was at peace with the soldiers. Suddenly he was aware of his father’s voice yelling for hi
m to run for the river. His mother and father, running close behind him, were cut down by the blistering rifle fire that had somehow missed the boy. When he turned to help his parents, he was horrified by the sight of his mother’s forehead splitting open as another rifle ball found the mark. They were finished, there was nothing he could do for them. He must save himself now.

  He ran, dodging the slashing sabers and hastily aimed carbines of the soldiers until his path was suddenly blocked by a trooper who had been chasing a group of fleeing women. The trooper and the Indian boy saw each other at almost the same time and the soldier wheeled his horse around to cut off the boy’s escape. He had been trained to become a warrior since he was a small boy but he had never killed a man. The soldier spurred his horse. His saber drawn and held high, he bore down on the Indian boy. The boy was calm. He felt no fear. He deliberately fit an arrow onto his bowstring and drew it back. Waiting until the charging horse was almost at his feet, he released the arrow and calmly stepped aside to avoid the animal’s hoofs. His arrow buried itself deep into the man’s chest. His first kill and there was a feeling of deep satisfaction. More than that, there was a rush of blood through his veins, a feeling he had never experienced before, and one that he wanted to feel again.

  Making his way along the dry creek bed, he joined a group of his people who were running toward some sandpits where the banks were some ten feet high. One hundred people, mostly women and children, they made their stand, holding the troopers at bay with their bows and the few guns that some of the men possessed. Here they prepared to fight to the death, defending the few survivors of the massacre. Frantic men and women clawed desperately to dig rifle pits in the sand in an effort to gain some form of protection from the stinging rifle balls that filled the air around them. Many people were killed. All about him the bodies of his friends and relatives lay in the sand. The boy shot all his arrows. It was now left to the men with guns to hold the troopers at bay. They fought for most of the day until a short while before sundown when the soldiers withdrew, losing stomach for the fierce engagement with the embattled survivors. It was less risky to return to the burning village to pillage and mutilate the wounded.