by Will DuRey
Lakota Justice
The stagecoach from the north has failed to arrive in the small settlement of Laramie, and when two men ride in fresh from a fight in the southern long-grass country, the inhabitants begin to fear that the rumoured unrest among the Sioux following the discovery of gold in the Black Hills has become reality. Their concerns are relayed to the nearby fort where the visiting wagon-train scout Wes Gray agrees to join an army patrol sent to find the missing coach. Although doubtful that the Sioux have begun hostilities, he is compelled to investigate the matter for the safety of those travelling west in the nearby wagons, but the discovery of an empty coach is only the first step along a trail which includes murder, kidnapping and inter-tribal warfare, and subjects Wes to extremes of personal violence and humiliation.
By the same author
The Hanging of Charlie Darke
The Drummond Brand
In the High Bitterroots
Return to Tatanka Crossing
A Storm in Montana
Longhorn Justice
Medicine Feather
Arkansas Bushwhackers
Jefferson’s Saddle
Along the Tonto Rim
The Gambler and the Law
Lakota Justice
Will DuRey
© Will DuRey 2016
First published in Great Britain 2016
ISBN 978-0-7198-2167-7
The Crowood Press
The Stable Block
Crowood Lane
Ramsbury
Marlborough
Wiltshire SN8 2HR
www.crowood.com
Robert Hale is an imprint of The Crowood Press
The right of Will DuRey to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
CHAPTER ONE
Gold in California and the Donation Land Act grant of 320 acres of prime Oregon territory to anyone who would settle and improve it were the lures that converted the first trickle of west-bound pioneers into a surge. Undaunted by the 2,000-mile trek, men and women walked more than halfway across the continent, from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean, driven onward by the belief that the land of the West was their promised land. They comprised not only families who had called themselves Americans since before the Revolution, but also those who were new to the continent, for whom the vast, empty land was both a refuge from oppressive Old World regimes and an opportunity to flourish through the sweat of their own endeavour.
With their possessions loaded in long covered wagons hauled by teams of sturdy oxen or hard-working mules, they followed the recognized trails, marking their progress as they passed each recorded landmark: Chimney Rock, South Pass, the ferry crossing-points on the Green River, Fort Hall, then west along the Humboldt to find a way across the Sierra Nevada. Many of those heading west made the journey alone, but many more organized themselves into groups, hiring men to guide them through the strange and dangerous land.
One such man for hire was Caleb Dodge, a former colonel in the Union army during the late civil war. Although he was a stern man, his reputation as wagon master was without equal. He knew that strong leadership was essential if he was to get the people in his care to their destination, and before leaving Independence he told the families of the trials that lay ahead. He listed the land, the weather, the illnesses and avoidable accidents; he told them not to overload their wagons with unnecessary gewgaws because, when the fiery heat of the Plains or the long uphill haul across the Sierra became too much for the animals, so much of what they had started with would be discarded and left to rot on the trail or adorn the tepee of some curious, acquisitive Indian.
He predicted an autumn arrival date, informing the emigrants that it would take half a year to reach their destination because they would achieve no more than fifteen miles a day and often a lot less. When they reached some of the big rivers they would only travel its width that day; crossing those rivers, Caleb insisted, would only be achieved with determination, hard work and a willingness to help each other. Everyone would need to be responsible for every wagon, families would have to help families, hauling, guiding, pushing and encouraging until every wagon had gained the far bank.
On this trip, Wes Gray, Caleb’s chief scout, hadn’t been in the meeting hall to hear Caleb say those things, but he knew he’d said them. He always did. Wes had heard them many times before and now, as he sat astride his big saddle horse, Red, on a ridge above the western bank of the Blue, the evidence of Caleb’s leadership lay below him. These new emigrants had overcome their first major hurdle. The last wagons were crossing the river before joining the night circle, which was forming on the plain 200 yards beyond.
The Blue wouldn’t be the most difficult obstacle these pioneers would encounter, but it was here that Caleb’s procedures were first put into practice, to be maintained for the trek ahead. The river wasn’t fast-flowing but it was too deep for the animals to haul the long prairie schooners. So, with ropes and logs the wagons were floated and pulled, providing some men with an opportunity to demonstrate their ability to oversee the operation, others to master the engineering aspects of the job, and the remainder to add their strength to that of the beasts when hauling the wagons over the water and on to the far bank.
As arranged, Wes had met up with the wagons the night before, making himself available, along with the rest of Caleb’s workforce, to help at the first river crossing. He’d worked all day, offering advice where it was needed and lending the strength in his body to haul and push whenever necessary. But now they were all across and his duty called him further afield. The wagons would travel no further this day because every one had to be checked for loose or fractured wheels, torn canvas and shifted loads. Then, when the night fires were lit, there would be a gathering, a celebration for a task achieved and a boost for the long weary days ahead.
Beyond the Blue the territory to the north was the homeland of the Lakota, the many tribes of nomadic Sioux who fished the great rivers and fed on the game that abounded in the hills. It was a fabulous land, a panorama of rolling hills and snow-topped mountains, vast expanses of flat plains, dense forests and long, fertile valleys. Wes Gray had lived west of the Missouri since his youth, had crossed the Rockies and seen the great Western Ocean, had travelled north in the great winter snows and south to the land scorched clear of plants and animals, but this was the land he loved best.
He’d set foot on this land before forts had been built and before soldiers patrolled the area; before farmers built homes and citizens built settlements. As a youth he had learned the ways of the West from no less a person than ‘Blanket’ Jim Bridger. Together they had set traps and hunted, then lived off the income made from the pelts of bear, deer, beaver and buffalo. They had lived in caves, cabins and tepees, sometimes alone, often with tribesmen.
Wes had an Arapaho wife, Little Feather, who lived with her people in the Snake River country where he had spent many winters. Apart from the feelings he shared with Little Feather, the marriage had been a declaration to the whole village that his relationship with them was permanent; that their needs were his needs, their enemies his enemies and their struggles his struggles.
From that point he had been a brother of the Arapaho. Not only had they taught him their spoken tongue but also the sign language common to the tribes of all the nations that wandered the Plains. They also gave him a new name, Medicine Feather. Among the nomad tribes it had become a name acknowledged with honour. Among his own people, men trod carefully when they heard the name Wes Gray.
When the last wagon closed the circle Wes turned his horse westward. Two or three hours of daylight remained, which was enough time for him to cover as much ground as the wagons would trave
l in a day. His duty was to scout ahead, check the trail for unexpected obstacles like swollen rivers and rock slides and, if necessary, find a safe, alternative route that wouldn’t cause a vast delay. Time was important. The wagon train was scheduled to be in California in September, but delays along the 2,000 miles from Kansas were inevitable and, if the winter snows began to fall in the Sierras before the wagons crossed, the journey could end in disaster. Such a thought was the spur that drove Caleb Dodge to be a tough wagon master. Such a doubt never entered Wes Gray’s mind.
If all was well, if there was nothing to impede the progress of the wagons, Wes wouldn’t rejoin them for seven or eight days, not until they reached the banks of the Platte which they would follow all the way to Fort Bridger. Perhaps he’d visit Jim Taylor, a friend who had settled on a V-shaped piece of land where the Mildwater Creek met the South Platte. Meanwhile, he’d fork north to Fort Laramie where he would inform the military of the presence of this group of emigrants on the Oregon Trail. It would also be an opportunity to learn the mood of the tribes and of any possible threat of attack.
The recent discovery of gold in the northern Black Hills had brought an influx of white men to the Dakota territory, incurring the wrath of the Indians. The Paha Sapa, the Black Hills, was not only the sacred land of the Lakota people but also theirs by right as it was encompassed within the area set aside for Indian tribes in the treaty that had been signed at Fort Laramie only six years earlier. Now miners were desecrating the hills, townships were being built and white men settling on land which had been promised to the Sioux. The government, despite its words of peace, was sending soldiers to the area with threats of war if the Sioux tried to protect their property.
So far the Indians’ quarrel had been with the military; Wes knew of no recent conflict with travellers along the Oregon Trail, nor of any events likely to alter matters this far south, but being aware of and preparing for such dangers was why Caleb Dodge hired him. So Wes rode on through the high, bluestem grass of that country, taking advantage of whatever high ground was available from which he could survey the land ahead, the next section of the way westward for the wagons.
Early on the following morning he came across the tracks of four unshod ponies. Sioux, he suspected, hunting or scouting for signs that the buffalo had returned. They weren’t far ahead, perhaps an hour. Wes hoped to find them, pass around a pipe and, with the use of sign language and the handful of Sioux words he’d acquired, exchange news. Perhaps, if their village was close by, they would invite him to spend the night for, like the Cheyenne, the Arapaho were cousins and allies of the Sioux, so when he spoke of his family on the Snake he would be welcome in their tepees.
He came across them at a spot along the North Platte where mountain streams from both north and south plunged into the main artery, dropping from heights of thirty and forty feet, respectively. The Indians called the place The Valley Where Two Waters Fall. It was a place that Wes never tired of seeing. High banks, thronged with hickory and cottonwoods, sloped down to the river a quarter of a mile below. The grass was greener here, shorter and decorated with wild flowers of purple and yellow. Willow trees and thick, chest-high bushes provided shade at the water’s edge. Apart from the turmoil caused by the upstream cascades, the river was so clear that rocks and fish within could be seen as easily as bonnets in a haberdasher’s window. But the sound of the plunging water was a constant roar; songbirds sang, but a man had to become accustomed to the crash of water before he heard them.
Wes dismounted on the slope above the riverbank to confirm the identity of the riders he had been trailing. It didn’t pay to approach Indians in a hurry. It startled them. Only attacking enemies advanced at a gallop. Wes wanted to get a good look at the Indians and make his presence known before descending. In this instance his cautious approach was rewarded. As soon as he saw the markings on the ponies he realized his mistake. The four warriors were not Sioux. They were Shoshones, and the Shoshone, like the Crow, had been since time immemorial mortal enemies of the Sioux. They wouldn’t welcome Wes to their camp, his Arapaho connections would be no help to him with these warriors; they were in the land of their enemies.
Wes remained hidden for several minutes, watching the four Shoshones. Scant though their clothing and armaments were, there was something almost military in the uniformity of their appearance. They wore no paint and their unbraided hair was held back by a broad, rabbit-skin band. Their clothing consisted of hide breechcloths and moccasins, and their weapons were a bow, a small animal-skin quiver full of arrows, a scalping knife in a sheath on their left hip and a stone-head axe, which was carried in the right hand. Wes had no intention of getting mixed up in an intertribal war. Those battles, with rules and behaviour that even Blanket Jim didn’t fully understand, had been waged over centuries.
It occurred to him, however, that four was a small number for a raiding party. Usually they were at least twelve strong, a group small enough to move quickly but large enough to inflict damage in the event of discovery. This made Wes suspect that here was an advance group sent out to locate a likely Sioux village; that thought was swiftly followed by a question: how far behind was the main raiding party? If they were close they would already have come across his own tracks intermingled with the unshod hoofmarks of their comrades.
Certain that the Shoshone would have no mercy on him if he was found spying on them, Wes decided to move. Further along the bank, where the mountain stream tumbled into the North Platte, the terrain was high, hard rock. No tracks would be left there and, in the event of discovery, Wes could ride a little way along in the water to be sure of losing any followers. Keeping a hand over Red’s muzzle he walked him back over the ridge and out of sight of the braves below.
Curiosity made him reluctant to leave the valley without observing the Shoshones for a while longer. If they were part of a larger group it was important to know how large and whether they were any kind of threat to the settlers he was leading along the Overland Trail. Once he’d gained the high ground of grey obsidian rock he circled round, looking for a suitable vantage point. Telltale markings where chunks had been hewn away to make arrow heads and tomahawk blades identified this as a popular place for the Indian nations, but Wes discounted stone gathering as the purpose of the Shoshones. They had come to raid the Sioux, steal their ponies and their women; trophies of both kinds would bring honour and wealth when they returned to their own village.
Eventually he came upon a deep cleft which provided both a hiding-place and a commanding view of the valley and its approaches. He drank deeply from his water can, then poured some into his hat for Red. He also fed the big horse a handful of oats and was biting on a chunk of dried beef when movement off to his right caught his attention. The main party had arrived. The ability of Indians to remain invisible until the last possible moment never failed to amaze him. He counted eighteen of them and, until they topped the ridge that led down to the river, he had been unaware of their approach. They knew how to use the land as camouflage. They could find gulches and ravines to ride along that dropped below ground level and out of sight of watchers. He had known ambushes on prairie land that looked flat and barren but which hid troughs and ridges so secret that a hundred Indians could wait within twenty yards of their prey without fear of discovery.
Now they were at the point where Wes had headed for the rocks. They paused, glanced in his direction but without any eagerness to follow. One white man wasn’t worth their interest. They were, after all, raiders in the land of their most bitter enemies, and if they were to be successful it was essential that their presence was undetected. White men fired guns and the sound of a gunshot travelled far. Sioux warriors would investigate if such a thing should happen. The scalp of a white man was a great trophy, but not worth the risk to the successful outcome of their raid. Eventually they rode down the escarpment and joined the four who had been the advance party.
Their leader was distinguished by a bone ornament that raised the hair o
n the crown of his head by four inches, creating a fold as it fell down his back. The ornament also kept a single feather in place, it being at the back of his head and hanging down so that its tip touched his shoulder. He gave instructions to his followers: two were assigned to keep watch on the trail they’d just ridden and two more were set to watching across the river. The others feasted on berries and roots found on the riverbank, and dried meat that they carried in beaded pouches on their ponies. The ponies rested in the shade or waded into the water until the Indians were ready to move on.
After the guards had been changed to allow the original watch to eat, the Indians moved out in two groups. The first, ten strong and led by the chief, walked upriver, past the cascades where, surprisingly, the water was no deeper than hock high, and they stayed in the river until they had rounded a bend and were gone from sight. The other group went back up the slope, cautiously, and disappeared again among the fissures and crevices of the terrain.
Content that the Shoshone raiders weren’t a threat to the wagon train, Wes moved from his rocky hiding-place down to the grassy slopes of the valley. The sun was beginning to slip in the sky and it wouldn’t be possible to reach the fort before nightfall. But there was still travelling time in the day and Wes decided to use it. He didn’t want to camp in this valley in case the Shoshone had arranged to reunite here after their separate raids.
CHAPTER TWO
The new Stetson with its band of silver discs had been admired by several of Jake Welchman’s friends and acquaintances, and he was inspecting it when the bullet ploughed through his temple and killed him outright. He fell from the high board of the Wells Fargo coach on to the hard trail below. The hat fluttered down beside him. Surprised by the attack and confronted by three armed men whose faces were half-covered with grubby neckerchiefs, Ben Garland hauled the team to a halt. Under threat from the outlaw leader he threw down the strongbox. One man dismounted, blasted apart the lock and, with a whistle that signified they’d hit the mother lode, began stashing the bundles of notes into saddle-bags.
