Stone Hand

by Charles G. West

  “Took one of my best Osage scouts with him, too. Oh, well, I give him two months at the most. He’ll be back.” With that he turned and went inside to his desk.

  Colonel Holder had expressed his relief at having his daughter on her way back East. He loved his daughter in his own way, certainly. After all, it was customary for a father to love his daughter. It was the right thing and Lucien Holder was always one to do the proper thing. But he had never been home long enough to become attached to Sarah. The periods between their seeing each other were so long that she seemed a stranger each time he returned home. He felt compassion for her and the tragedy she had suffered that summer but he could not overcome the feeling that he had personally been insulted by the brutal attack on his daughter. He wished that Sarah had not come to see him at all. Now, happily, she was on her way East and he could get back to the business of commanding his regiment.

  CHAPTER 13

  Sarah studied the broad back of Jason Coles as he rode easily in the saddle, moving with each rolling motion of his horse as if he were simply an extension of the little Indian pony. As for her, she was mounted on a roan only slightly smaller than his, one that he had picked for her because of its gentle nature and easy gait. Behind her, the somber Long Foot rode, slumped on his horse as if half asleep. Behind him, Raven and Magpie brought up the rear, leading three packhorses. It was a silent train for the most part, broken only by an occasional snort from one of the horses or a soft command from Long Foot to one of the women. The country they crossed was wild and empty of living things as far as Sarah could see. How, she wondered, could Jason possibly know where he was going. In all directions the landscape was the same. If he was uncertain at all, he gave no indication of it. She decided at first that he was using the position of the sun as a guide, but on the third day out from Fort Cobb, it turned cloudy and then completely overcast. It seemed to make no difference to the tall scout. He rode on, looking back occasionally to give her a reassuring smile. When they reached the mountains, he led them straight through the passes, never once hesitating or backtracking. Sarah was amazed at the man’s sense of direction.

  The riding was hard and boring. She had never spent so many long hours in the saddle and she was stiff and sore after the first day’s travel. At least it was not as brutal and terrifying as the forced ride as Stone Hand’s captive. As she followed along behind Jason, her mind wandered, daydreaming part of the time, wondering sometimes if she was making the mistake of her life—and always trying to avoid thinking about John Welch. Other times, she found it almost amusing to be in her situation. What would her friends back in Baltimore think if they could see her now, riding silently between Jason and Long Foot?

  Then her mind settled on the two Indian women riding along behind. The one called Raven was a pleasant enough woman. At least she seemed to be to Sarah. They never communicated, because Raven could not speak English. But she always went promptly to work each time they made camp, never seeming to complain even though Sarah never shared the camp chores with her. Magpie was a different sort. Jason said she was Raven’s younger sister but she did not favor Raven in the slightest. Where Raven was short of stature and well rounded in figure, Magpie was thin and taller with finely etched features that gave her a striking beauty. An odd choice of names, Sarah thought. Magpie, it didn’t fit for one so blessed with her looks. Her beauty went unnoticed at first, simply because the girl seemed to have her head bowed all the time. After a few days on the trail, Sarah noticed a pattern of behavior developing with the young Osage maiden. Any time there was a stop to rest or eat, Magpie was quick to see if Jason needed anything. At first, it was under the guise of checking his wound but her attention to the tall scout continued after the wound really required no more attention. It amused Sarah because Jason didn’t appear to notice, although he always had a smile for the young girl. Although Magpie and Raven never talked to Sarah, Raven always smiled warmly whenever their eyes met. Sarah decided she would be a good friend whenever they got to know each other a little better.

  * * *

  Long Foot was confused. Jason took this woman with him but they slept in separate blankets. He said nothing for the first two nights but his curiosity was eating him up and would not permit him to remain silent any longer. After the women had set up their camp on the third night, Long Foot came up to Jason as he hobbled the horses for the night.

  “Women set up good camp. Damn right,” he offered as a casual comment to start the conversation.

  “Yeah,” Jason agreed, “you got a right smart little wife there.”

  “You take colonel’s daughter as wife?”

  Jason, not bothering to look up, continued tying off the hobbles on Birdie. “Nope, I don’t take the colonel’s daughter as wife.”

  This served to further puzzle Long Foot. “Why not? She fine-looking woman.”

  Jason smiled up at his friend. “I’m just helping her, that’s all.” He winked. “And she is a fine-looking woman at that.”

  His answer did nothing to lessen Long Foot’s puzzlement. “Then, why she come with us?” Long Foot had agreed to go with Jason to his valley and help him start his ranch. He had assumed Sarah had come with them for the obvious reason any woman rides off with a man.

  Jason stood up. He looked at the Osage scout for a moment before deciding. There was no reason not to tell him that Sarah was going with him so she could have her baby. It wouldn’t be a secret for much longer anyway. So he explained Sarah’s reluctance to let her father know she was pregnant and, likewise, her reluctance to go back to her friends in the East and have her baby. Long Foot nodded solemnly, listening attentively, and appeared to understand the girl’s feelings.

  “You make baby?”

  “No. I didn’t make baby.” Jason was willing to let it go at that but Long Foot was curious.

  “Doctor make baby, damn right.” Like most of the people in the military attachment at Camp Supply, Long Foot knew that John Welch had courted Sarah strongly before her misfortune. So it was natural to assume that the doctor may have fathered the child.

  “No, dammit, it’s not the doctor’s,” Jason’s retort was sharp. “It ain’t nobody’s baby but hers.”

  Long Foot couldn’t figure that one out. He puzzled over Jason’s response for a long moment. Then enlightenment lit up his face gradually, like the rising of the sun in the morning, as he started to add it all up. His wide eyes and openmouthed expression told Jason that he understood. Jason cut him off as he was about to speak.

  “That’s right. It’s his.”

  “Stone Hand!” he whispered. Then, as an afterthought, “Damn right.”

  Long Foot seemed very much in awe of Sarah after that, an attitude that disgusted Jason somewhat. It was as if she was like the Virgin Mary, carrying the seed of that evil spirit. Jason wondered if he was going to have to go back to the Oklahoma Territory and dig up Stone Hand’s carcass just to show Long Foot he was a man, no more, no less.

  * * *

  It took over a week of hard riding to reach Jason’s valley. At first Sarah dutifully kept track of the days and nights on the journey. Then one night she realized that she had lost count and could not recall what day of the week it was. She fretted over it for a while. It seemed important to know what day of the week it was. It wasn’t long before the boredom of the trail caused her to lose interest so that she no longer cared what day it was or even what month it was. One day was like the next and the one before it. Because of this, it was a welcome sight when, after winding through a steep rocky pass and topping a fir-covered ridge, Jason halted the little party and said, “There it is.”

  At first sight she understood why Jason loved the little valley. It was just as he had described it back at Camp Supply, only the beauty of the green valley far surpassed Jason’s words to describe it. The floor of the valley was green with lush grass, dotted with summer wildflowers. The gentle breeze that swept down from the northern end caused the grass to sway first one way and then anot
her, causing the valley to churn like a gentle sea. She could see why Jason had picked it to settle in. The tall ridges on each side framed it with a protective rampart of aspen and pine. Above the ridges, stretching upward toward the clouds, the mountain peaks stood like silent sentinels. There was a feeling of safety about this place that told her she would be all right here.

  Jason had told them that he had started a cabin the last time he came to the valley but had been able to complete no more than the main walls halfway up. But, as he explained, it was a good start and he should be able to complete the cabin in plenty of time before the nights began to chill in the fall. In the meantime, he had packed in a couple of tents that he had managed to confiscate from the quartermaster at Supply. They could live in those until the cabin was built. He was very contrite when he explained that he planned one of the tents for Long Foot and his women and the other he planned to share with Sarah. He was quick to assure her that he would arrange some blankets to insure her privacy. It was simply that tents were bulky items and he thought it best to pack one less if it wasn’t absolutely needed. Sarah laughed at his concern for her modesty and informed him that if she didn’t trust him to be a complete gentleman she wouldn’t have come with him in the first place.

  Raven was not content to live in an army tent indefinitely. She and Long Foot had lived in one for a short time in Camp Supply but in her mind it was no fit place for a family to live. She extracted a promise from Long Foot to go back to the prairie to hunt buffalo as soon as the cabin was finished. With such a rich source for lodgepoles provided by the valley, it would be ridiculous not to build a warm tipi. Jason promised her that he and Long Foot would go on a hunting expedition before the summer was ended. First, work had to be done on the cabin. She was content with the promise. In the meantime she and Magpie, with Sarah’s help, went about the business of setting up their temporary home.

  The days that followed were filled with hard work and no wasted time. Jason set in to the building of the cabin with a vengeance, determined that Sarah’s baby would enter the world with a roof over its head. Raven and Magpie helped. Long Foot was not inclined to perform manual labor but Jason didn’t care. The women were hard workers and Long Foot would more than likely have been in the way. Besides, it was necessary to have someone free to hunt for food and Long Foot was well suited to that task.

  As the weeks passed, the little valley began to take on a more settled look. When Jason finished the cabin, he and Sarah moved inside. Long Foot and the two Indian women preferred to remain in the tent. The Osage scout said the little cabin was too much like living inside a tree. They took the tent that Jason and Sarah had shared and set it up in tandem with theirs, giving them a long, roomy abode, almost luxurious. Raven even backed off a little on her nagging for Long Foot to hunt buffalo for her tipi.

  The weeks piled on top of each other until months had passed and the end of summer approached and was gone. The nights began to cool and the days shortened. Jason built a table and chairs and a platform for Sarah’s mat so she wouldn’t have to sleep on the earthen floor of the cabin. He offered to make one for Magpie and Raven, too, but they declined, preferring to sleep on their mats of buffalo hides and blankets. Jason had never fancied himself as much of a carpenter but he had to congratulate himself on the work he had done. It was a right tidy little cabin, snug and tight against the weather. Sarah was pleased and that’s what mattered most.

  With the passing of the summer, Sarah began to show, causing the other two women to constantly fuss over her. The time spent with Raven and Magpie seemed to be good for her. She began to teach them English and, reciprocating, they tutored her in their dialect. Once, when Long Foot returned from the hunt with a handsome mule deer, Raven dried and softened the hide and made Sarah her first buckskin dress. Sarah was delighted with the gift and found it to be much more comfortable in her changing physical state.

  * * *

  The relationship between Jason and Sarah was an equitable coexistence. They shared the cabin but Jason partitioned off a bedroom for Sarah and he slept on his pallet by the front door. For Sarah’s part, she had found the tall scout fascinating in a wild sort of way from the first time she laid eyes on him. On considering his qualities, and she often did while watching him working to build their home, she admitted there was much to be admired in the man. Aside from his concern for her comfort and his willingness to take care of her while she carried the child of a savage renegade, he had become a trusted friend. She was grateful to the extent that she almost wished she loved him. But she knew that that would never happen. Sometimes she hated herself for it, but she still found her mind wandering back to that picnic by the willows and she knew John Welch would be forever in her heart.

  The winter was mild for those parts and the little band made it through with few discomforts. There was snow, of course, there was always snow in the mountains, and the streams froze over for months. But they had stored plenty of meat and firewood and Jason had packed in ample supplies of baking soda and salt, coffee, and dried beans. So it was not a hard time by any stretch of the imagination. Still, it was joyous news to Sarah when Jason came in one morning after checking his traps to tell her that the ice in the stream was melting. The coming of the spring was so gradual that she wasn’t really aware of it until, suddenly, one morning it arrived, seemingly overnight.

  Spring! The word itself brought a shiver of anticipation to her spine. She looked down at her swollen belly, grotesque on her slender frame, and marveled that she did not explode. She was huge. She no longer walked, but waddled like a duck as she went about her daily routine. Magpie was especially fascinated with her condition and insisted on patting Sarah’s rounded stomach every day…like patting a melon, Sarah thought, to see when it might be ripe. In her own mind Sarah hoped the birth would not be a difficult one. Her stomach was so huge and she remembered how violently ill she had been in the first three months. She constantly feared this offspring of Stone Hand was going to prove to be from the same violent savagery that had spawned the father. Raven assured her that everything appeared normal and that she would take care of her. In the privacy of their tent, however, she would confide to Magpie that she had never seen an expectant mother swell so outrageously and she worried that something might be wrong with the child. The two women could not discount the possibility that an evil seed may have been planted. None of these thoughts were shared with Jason of course since it was obvious to them that the man set no store in talk of such things as evil spirits. They decided that it was no fault of Sarah’s at any rate and they would help her have her baby, whatever it was. Long Foot, when apprised of their fears, held a more pragmatic opinion of the problem. “Wait till baby comes. If good baby…good. If coyote, kill it…damn right.”

  The snow melted in the mountain passes and still Sarah continued to swell. She became confined to the cabin due to a difficulty in walking. Jason began to worry that something was wrong and Sarah might be in danger if she didn’t give birth soon. It got to the point where she could no longer stand without experiencing severe back pain, and lying on her pallet provided very little relief. Jason worried that it may not have been a good decision to bring her up into the mountains to have her baby. He even considered loading her up on a travois and taking her to see a doctor…and the only doctor he knew the whereabouts of was John Welch. When he broached the subject with Sarah, she told him in no uncertain terms that she would die first, rather than go back to Camp Supply with her belly the size of a small buffalo. So he had little choice but to watch her suffering and fret over his inability to do anything for her.

  There were other things on Jason’s mind that caused him to be anxious. Spring was developing into full bloom and he was eager to make the journey to the Bitterroots to trade for the horses that would be the foundation for his breeding. But he felt he could not leave before Sarah had the baby and the trip would take several weeks, weeks during which the women would be left alone. He needed Long Foot with him to hel
p with talking to the Nez Percés. Jason knew Cheyenne well and he could converse a little in Commanche and Crow, but he had little knowledge of Nez Percé. Long Foot claimed to know the talk, damn right. There being nothing he could do to speed up the birth, he was forced to content himself with fretting and waiting.

  One afternoon the clear blue sky over the valley became crowded with puffy white clouds, which were rapidly pushed aside by boiling gray clouds that rolled over the mountains and filled the little valley with darkness even though it was still early afternoon. Long Foot approached Jason, who was smoothing out the frame of a crib he had been working on.

  He pointed to the darkened sky. “Raven say baby come, damn right.”

  Jason was startled. “Now? She’s having it now?” He dropped what he was doing and started toward the cabin.

  Long Foot grabbed his arm. “No, not yet.” He pointed up at the dark clouds again. “Soon, baby come, damn right.”

  Jason sat down to his work again. “Damn! You got me all worked up over nothing. I’ll tell you what’s coming soon, a thunderstorm, that’s what’s coming.”

  “Damn right,” Long Foot agreed and turned to leave Jason to his work. “Baby come, too,” he muttered to himself.

  * * *

  It was a boy and it fought its birth with the ferocity of a mountain lion. It came during the peak of the storm, amidst the crashing of thunderbolts and jagged flashes of lightning that tore the very fabric of the sky and threatened to drown the tiny valley. The birth was as difficult as the women had feared it would be and Sarah’s screams of pain could be heard above the thundering storm. Raven and Magpie were terrified, convinced they were standing in the face of some sinister spirit of Stone Hand revisiting earth in the form of his son. In spite of their fear, however, they stood fast and helped Sarah deliver. All souls survived the storm and when it was over Sarah fainted with exhaustion, leaving Raven and Magpie to clean and care for a robust little infant who seemed reluctant to be thrust out into the world. His cries of defiance rang out across the little valley, causing the two Indian women to stare at each other in amazement and not without a small measure of apprehension.