Winter Woman, page 3
The River Rats ran.
After that Jacob had just naturally tagged along with Glen and Renne. He had hoped to see the girl again, but never had that kind of luck. When the trappers were ready to go back upriver to prepare for the coming winter's fur trapping in the Rocky Mountains, Jacob joined them. In St. Joseph, they helped him buy a horse, a young gray stallion. He immediately named it Jubal, and it was the horse he rode today.
Jacob had never regretted joining with Glen and Renne. He recalled that he had earned only one-quarter share that first winter trapping pelts. He had learned from those rowdy, experienced men how to set a trap, skin an animal, to track and shoot with the best of men. Coming down from the mountains in the spring of that first year, the group had been attacked by Blackfoot Indians. Jacob had killed two men that day and grew from boy to man. There had been more battles during the next three years, and Jacob had brought death to other men.
Glen was from Tennessee. He was the oldest, nearly half a century, and there were streaks of gray in his hair. But he was strong and tough. He had first gone into the mountains in 1840, when beaver was still king of furs. He often spoke of those grand days of the mountain man rendezvous, when the fur buyers—bringing everything a man needed, from lead and powder to sugar and women—came to the trappers on the great plains.
Renne was a Frenchman from Canada. He had migrated down to the States several years before. He would not give his reason for leaving Canada. He was tall and wiry. At times he would go for days his face gloomy and never say a word. However, he was the best trapper of the three, knowing exactly where and how to set the traps to catch the wily mink, martin, and fox.
Glen and Renne were men you could steal horses with, men who would bravely fight to the death beside Jacob.
He rose to his feet and moved through the darkness among the trees toward Glen. As he passed the horses, one of the packhorses whimpered with weariness, complaining to Jacob for running it so hard.
Jacob ignored the complaint and went on. He called out ahead in a low voice, "It's me, Glen." He didn't want to come up unexpectedly on the man, for he was damn quick with a knife and gun.
"Trouble over on your side?" Glen asked.
"No. I want to talk."
"About Renne?"
"We've got to do something. If we don't, he's going to die."
"I'm damned worried about him, too."
"There's an army surgeon at Fort Laramie. He must have had a lot of practice tending gunshot wounds and could take the bullet out of Renne. If we can get him there alive."
"That's a hundred-and-fifty miles from here."
"We could make it to the fort in three days, or even less if we didn't stop. I saw some young cottonwoods that'd be the right size for making a travois that we could haul Renne on." A hazardous idea like an excited bee was careening about in Jacob's head.
"We'd need stronger horses than we got. That'd have to be some of the Crows' mustangs."
"That's exactly what I've been thinking. All we got to do is kill the Crows first."
Glen stared through the darkness at Jacob. His young comrade made an excellent friend. But he was brave, brave to the point of being dangerous to himself. Still, Glen had been considering the same action so maybe it wasn't such a bad plan after all.
"There's fourteen of them against the two of us," Glen said. "However, one of them might be bad wounded."
"Three are watching us. And I think you hit that Indian you shot damn hard, so that leaves only ten against us at first. That's just five for each of us to kill. We'll take care of the others when they come running to help."
Glen laughed low in his chest. Jacob made it seem so damn easy, as if the Crows weren't mean fighters. Glen turned and studied the distant camp of the Indians.
"They won't think two men would be stupid enough to attack ten," Glen said. He looked up into the dark sky. "And the night's black as tar."
"We'll crawl up close," Jacob said. "Then just stand up and walk straight at them. It'll take them a few seconds to figure out we're not two of the guards coming into camp."
"We'll shoot them all to hell," Glen said. "You take Renne's pistol along with yours. I'll take my rifle and pistol. If we shoot fast enough, and don't miss too much, we might get it done and not get shot up too bad ourselves."
"Glen, I don't plan on missing. I'm going to be right in their faces before I start shooting."
Four
Jacob and Glen stopped worming their way through the dead prairie grass. Slowly they raised their heads and surveyed the camp of the Crows. They had removed their brimmed white men's hats, which would have been a dead giveaway, and now wore bands of buckskin tied around their heads. In addition, Jacob had pulled his long yellow hair back and tied it behind his head. There was nothing they could do about their white men's beards.
Two hours had elapsed since the two men had crawled out of the grove of trees and inched their way over the prairie. Fortunately no Crow lookout had been encountered. Now they were less than a hundred feet from the enemy.
Jacob began to count the warriors sitting in the flickering light of the campfire. The Indians were silent, their faces hanging like masks. Some were cleaning their rifles, others stared with black eyes into the flames. One lay wrapped in a sleeping robe. He would be the man Glen had wounded, Jacob judged.
"I count eleven," Jacob whispered.
"Those guns being cleaned won't be loaded," Glen whispered back. "Shoot those fellows last."
"I know that," Jacob whispered tersely.
"Keep your pistols out of sight. I don't expect the Crows have any and they'd make them suspicious."
"Right."
"Are you ready?"
"Let's get on with it."
Glen climbed to his feet and walked slowly and deliberately toward the camp of the Crows. He carried his rifle at the trail in his right hand.
Jacob walked beside Glen. He held his two cocked pistols along his legs and slightly behind, out of sight. He felt the tension in every muscle. His heart pounded against his ribs. Two men against ten, maybe eleven, was sure as hell tempting fate. One piece of bad luck, a gun to jam or misfire, or the Indians reacting too swiftly, could be Glen's and his death.
The two trappers closed the distance to seventy-five feet. Seventy feet. One of the Crow warriors picked up a piece of wood and tossed it onto the fire. As he straightened, he looked across the flames and into the night.
The warrior stared intently at the men coming out of the darkness. He saw the heavily bearded faces. One beard was almost yellow. The white trappers! He sprang to his feet and opened his mouth to cry out a warning to the other Crows.
Glen saw the expression on the Indian's face. He jerked up his rifle and fired. The lead ball plowed into the Indian's chest, burst the throbbing heart, and exploded out his back. The .52-caliber bullet slammed the man backward to the ground. Glen swiftly switched the empty rifle to his left hand and pulled his pistol.
The crash of the rifle and the fall of the warrior brought every Crow, except the wounded man, to his feet and grabbing for his weapon.
Jacob jerked up his right-hand pistol and shot a brave snatching up a rifle. He brought up his left-hand pistol and killed a man reaching for a bow. He knew with certainty, as only a truly skilled marksman can know, that his pistol balls had gone true to their intended marks.
Jacob cocked both pistols as he continued to advance. Strangely, the sound of gunfire and the startled cries of the Crow braves faded away, becoming distant and muted. Every second of time expanded, lengthened. The movement of the enemy seemed to be in slow motion. He pointed his right-hand pistol at the chest of a big warrior who had jumped to his feet and was raising a trade musket to his shoulder. Jacob fired. The man dropped his musket and fell.
Jacob and Glen were now well inside the ring of firelight. The range to shoot was but a few short steps. Still they moved closer, their revolvers exploding. More men staggered under the strike of bullets and fell in crumpled forms on the ground.
Jacob halted with the fire at his feet. He brought a pistol to bear on the Crow just beyond the fire, the only enemy still on his feet.
The man had been one of those who had been cleaning his rifle. He was swiftly reloading. In the few seconds since the battle had begun, he had poured powder down the barrel and rammed a ball down on the powder with a rod. Now he held a cap between his fingers and was ready to press it onto the nipple.
The warrior looked across the fire at Jacob and saw the pistol leveled straight at his heart. He raised his eyes to Jacob's, and studied their deadly sheen. His lips pulled back showing his teeth, and a mocking expression of contempt came over his face. He dropped his partially loaded rifle to the ground and spread his arms to expose his chest.
Jacob hesitated pulling the trigger. Not one of the Crow warriors had tried to run. Brave men, every one.
"So be it," Jacob said. He shot the warrior directly through the heart. Brave men should be killed quickly. Just as he would have wanted to die.
Glen moved to the warrior he had wounded earlier in the day. The man had crawled partway out of his sleeping robe and lay with his hand almost touching his rifle, but too weak to reach it. He painfully raised his head and looked up at Glen.
"I'm going to leave you live, for you'll slow down the others," Glen said. "And you don't need that rifle." He kicked the weapon out of the reach of the wounded man.
"We'd better get out of the light," Glen said to Jacob. "The others might come running to help."
"I'll go guard Renne and our furs," Jacob said.
"All right. I'll wait here in the dark for a spell. Might get a shot."
Jacob stole away into the darkness.
* * *
An hour passed as Jacob crouched with loaded guns beside Renne and watched the night in all directions. The fire at the Crow camp had died and darkness had closed in to hide all the land. He had expected to hear a shot as one or more of the Crow warriors returned to their camp to investigate the shooting. However, the only sound was the rustle of the grass and the drone of the wind among the trees. And Renne's labored breathing. Jacob waited on, staring into the blackness.
A rifle exploded near the camp of the Crows and ripped a hole in the silence of the night. Jacob knew by the sound of the gun that it was a Sharps. He hoped it was Glen's gun and not that of their enemy.
After a time, two low, short whistles came out of the night's murk. Jacob answered with the same signal. A moment later, he heard a noise on the prairie and the dark outline of a man and three horses appeared. Glen came into the edge of the grove of trees.
"I heard you shoot, so I guess the Crows came?' 'Jacob said.
"Two men came sneaking up. One of them moved like a white man. But it was damn dark out there. Anyway, I took a shot at the one I thought was white. I think I hit him, but he ran off with the other fellow."
"That could've been the one with the Sharps that wounded Renne."
"Maybe so."
"I see you took some Indian mustangs to help us get to Fort Laramie. If you'll keep watch, I'll chop down those saplings and build that travois for Renne to ride on."
"The noise of chopping might bring the others."
"I'll be watchful."
Jacob dug a short-handled ax from one of the packs and went into the darkness among the trees.
* * *
Wolf Voice watched the white man Shattuck, a big man with a long, lank face, bandage the gun wound on his arm by the light of the small fire. He had been with Shattuck when the rifle shot had exploded out of the darkness as they crept up to investigate the battle at the Crow camp. It would have been fitting had Shattuck been killed.
Wolf Voice was angry because the white trappers had escaped with their valuable furs. It was Shattuck's fault, for he had misjudged the trappers' actions and gave bad advice. The trappers had been run to ground and were surrounded by many Crow warriors. Shattuck had told Wolf Voice that the trappers would abandon their furs and packhorses so they would make less noise as they slipped away in the night. Wolf Voice had wanted to believe that, for he knew several of his braves would be killed in an attack on the well-armed trappers in their fortified position.
Shattuck looked across the fire at the Crow War Chief, and the warrior Long Running. They watched him with black, savage eyes. Shattuck knew the bone-deep malice the men bore him. "Now look, Wolf Voice, you can't blame me for what the trappers did," he said. "How could I know they'd come shooting instead of running like any sane man would to save his skin?"
"You judge other men by what you would do," Wolf Voice growled. Still he felt his own guilt at not preparing his braves for an attack by the trappers.
Shattuck hid his scowl at Wolf Voice's insult in his long beard. He wanted to pull his pistol and shoot the heathen bastard. But he needed the Crow chief and his several other bands of warriors patrolling the prairie searching for trappers to rob of their furs. In turn Wolf Voice wanted the trappers and every other white man permanently out of his land. To drive them out and keep them out, he needed new modern rifles instead of bows and arrows and old trade muskets to arm his braves. Shattuck would provide the guns, and in return he would get the furs at a small fraction of their value on the market in New York City.
Wolf Voice turned away from Shattuck with contempt. He looked at the bodies of his dead followers that Long Running and he had placed side by side near the mustangs that still remained in their possession. The wounded Black Feather was unconscious and lay as still as the dead.
Wolf Voice had unwisely depended too much on the words of the white man. His braves had died because of his failing as a chief. There would be much sorrow in his village when the wives and relatives learned of the terrible thing that had happened here this night. It would have been much better had he fought and died with them, then they all could have gone together into the next world. But he was still alive and now must try to atone for his lack of leadership and recapture a little of his honor. To accomplish that, he would kill the white trappers. Wolf Voice would also kill Shattuck, after he had delivered the new rifles.
"Long Running, we will take Black Feather and our dead comrades back to our village," Wolf Voice said. "There we can give the dead the proper ceremony to send them as warriors into the next world."
He faced Shattuck. "Do you know the names of the trappers?"
Shattuck shook his head. "I never got close enough to see them plain." A foxy look came into his eyes. "But I see that you want to even the score with them."
"I want you to follow the trappers and find out who they are. Meet me at Fort Laramie half a moon from now and tell me what you have discovered."
"What does it matter who they are? Killing one white man is the same killing any other."
"Do you really believe that?" asked Wolf Voice. He cocked his rifle and half raised it toward Shattuck.
Shattuck looked at the gun in the Indian's hand, and he saw Long Running become suddenly tense and alert, ready to back his chief’s action. "No, there's a difference," he said quickly.
"I'm glad you understand that I must kill those same men. And that I must know how to find them."
"If I do that, do we still have our agreement?" Shattuck had ridden with the Crow chief to fight in an attack on trappers to seal the agreement. Now it was in danger of coming apart.
"Yes."
Shattuck did not want to waste time chasing after the trappers. However, he knew that he must do what Wolf Voice asked if he wanted more furs at a dirt cheap, give-away price. "All right. They'll stop at Fort Laramie. I'll catch up to them there."
"Do it," Wolf Voice said. He motioned at Long Running. "Let us load our comrades on the mustangs and leave."
The two Indians moved toward Black Feather and the corpses. Partway there, Wolf Voice stopped and looked back at the white man. "Go, Shattuck. Discover who the trappers are. But don't kill them. That is for me to do."
* * *
The night reluctantly unravelled, giving up its dominion over the valley of the North Platte River. The day crept in and broke over Jacob and Glen staggering with exhaustion along the riverbank. They had traveled for three days with but a few short stops to rest and one for two hours of sleep.
Jacob held the lead rope of the horse that pulled the travois carrying Renne. The wounded man had not once regained consciousness or uttered a word. At the brief halts, Jacob had lifted Renne's head and, careful not to strangle him, poured water down his throat.
Glen led four packhorses, struggling along wobbly-legged under their load of furs, and two saddle horses too weak to carry riders. Three other horses too worn down to travel had been released along the back trail.
Jacob raised his eyes and looked ahead into the growing daylight. Some distance away, a large wooden structure sat on a bluff above the river. He fought to focus the vision of his tired, strained eyes.
"Glen, look," Jacob croaked. "I think I see Fort Laramie."
Glen raised his head and squinted. "I see it too. 'Bout a mile."
Minutes later Jacob and Glen stumbled through the gate set in the log palisade wall of Fort Laramie, the most isolated outpost of the U. S. Army. They moved on across the wide parade ground that dominated the enclosed area of the fort. On the left and backed up against the wall of the fort were the enlisted men's barracks. Flanking that structure were the armory and a blacksmith shop. Set off by itself was a combined store and trading post. Two trappers wearing worn, dirty buckskin sat on the porch of the store and watched Jacob and Glen cross the compound. The officer's quarters were on the opposite side of the fort. Directly ahead of Jacob and Glen on the far side of the compound were the Commandant's Office and the duty officer's room. The infirmary was adjacent to the duty office.
An officer emerged from the duty officer's room. He stopped on the steps and surveyed the two approaching trappers. Jacob and Glen recognized Colonel Granger, Fort Commandant.
