“The elk are moving back up the valleys. I want to hunt while there are so many of them in the mountains.”
Rain Song smiled at her husband. “Maybe you can kill a young one that has fattened up on the spring grass.” She helped Little Wolf as he gathered his weapons and supplies and packed them on the pack horse tied at the cabin door. “Are you going alone?”
“Yes. Since Lark may have her baby any day now, I think Sleeps Standing would rather stay close by. And I want Sore Hand to take care of the horses.”
Rain Song laughed. “Why does Sleeps Standing concern himself? He won’t be of any help when the baby comes. What do men know of having babies? When the time comes, White Moon and I will help Lark with the child. Sleeps Standing will most likely be in the way. Why don’t you take him with you? He’ll go if you ask him to.”
“I know. I’m leaving him here for my sake, not Lark’s. He is so anxious to have a son, I think he might drive me crazy before we got back.”
“He shouldn’t worry. I believe it’s a son. She’s carrying the baby too high to be a girl.”
He smiled down at her. She is probably right, he thought. She usually is. How could one so young, and seemingly innocent, know so many things? He paused a moment to look into her eyes. Dark and mysterious, they seemed to reflect the thoughts of his soul. He wondered if she knew the power she held over him. “Well,” he finally said, sighing, “if I don’t get started, we may not have any meat for you to cook.”
She walked with him to his horse. Sleeps Standing was waiting there, talking to Sore Hand. The old Nez Perce nodded and handed the reins to Little Wolf.
“Where will you hunt?” Sleeps Standing asked.
“I think I’ll go up through the north pass and back down to the river on the other side. That was a favorite spot of theirs last spring. If the elk are there, I should be back in three days.” He stepped up into the saddle and settled himself, then smiled down at his Cheyenne friend. “Maybe you’ll be a father when I get back. Rain Song seems to think it’ll be a boy.”
A broad smile lit up Sleeps Standing’s face. “Lark thinks so, too. She is so big, I think it might be a buffalo.”
Little Wolf laughed. “Maybe we can raise buffalo along with the Appaloosas.” He started to leave, but paused when Rain Song placed her hand upon his leg. They exchanged meaningful glances, all that was necessary between them. Then she stepped away and he wheeled the spotted horse and started toward the head of the valley.
* * *
A little more than half a day after Little Wolf led his pack horse down through the narrow pass that separated two steep mountain ridges, a party of twenty-two heavily armed members of the Vigilance Committee crossed the western slope that guarded his little valley. Of the twenty-six who had originally agreed to ride, four had begged off with various excuses. Franklin Bowers was not concerned. Twenty-two should be more than sufficient to handle the problem, and he preferred to leave behind any who might feel a bit squeamish about the business at hand.
The one man he insisted had to come along was the mayor. Puddin Rooks was of little value in a real fight, but Bowers wanted the mayor’s presence to give the mission an official blessing. Everybody was hot to act and ready to shed any amount of blood and plunder while the extermination was taking place, and that’s what it was, an extermination. But Bowers knew from experience that, after the deed was done and things cooled down, then people found their religion again and started pointing fingers, looking to disassociate themselves from the slaughter. And the fingers usually pointed at the sheriff. In the end, it always turned out that he was the one who led it, that he was the one who did all the killing, that he was responsible for all of it, no matter if there were a hundred who willingly participated. That’s the way it had been in Silver Creek and again in Twin Forks, and the reason he drifted into Medicine Creek. Well, he thought, this time it’s the committee that’s doing the business and the mayor is here to give it sanction.
Bowers looked upon himself as an exterminator and he was damn good at his job. He had no patience for people who preached peaceful co-existence with the red man. The Injuns had squatted on the land long enough. It was time they were pushed out of the way of the white man’s natural right of progress. Manifest Destiny, they labeled it back east in Washington. Well, he had no use for politicians any more than he did for Indians, but he was right there in bed with them on the issue of Manifest Destiny.
* * *
Sam Tolbert appeared on the ridge and waved the party up. He waited in a cluster of pines while Bowers and the rest of the men caught up to him. As soon as Bowers pulled up, Tolbert started talking.
“Just like I said, they’re down there all right, pretty as you please. I left Lonnie and Purcell down the other side of the ridge a piece to keep an eye on ’em.”
“How many?” Bowers asked.
“I didn’t see but five of ’em, the three women and two men. I didn’t see Little Wolf, but that don’t mean he ain’t around.”
“Well, I’d like to get ’em all while we’re at it.” He turned to Puddin Rooks. “We’ll leave the men here while I go back down the ridge with Tolbert. We’ll watch ’em for a while and wait to make sure they’re all there. When I’m ready, I’ll send back for you.” Puddin nodded. “And, Puddin, don’t let ’em start no damn fires. I don’t want to signal the damn Injuns that we’re here.”
After crouching behind a small boulder for a long while, Bowers pulled his watch out of his vest pocket and stared at it. It was almost four o’clock. “Dammit, we’ve been settin’ here for almost an hour and a half.” He looked at Tolbert, who was watching the valley below from behind a twisted pine trunk. “Tolbert, are you sure you saw that white man down there?”
“Shore I’m shore,” Tolbert shot back, the irritation plain in his tone.
“Were you sober when you were here?”
“As a damn judge. You ask Lonnie. He saw the son of a bitch too, same as me.”
His answer did nothing to ease Bowers’s irritation. He wanted the king rat of this little camp of vermin. It was getting late and Bowers was determined to move on the camp before darkness found them still in the steep mountain passes that guarded the little valley. It was already too late to make it back to Medicine Creek that day. He at least wanted to get clear of the mountains before making camp.
“Hell,” he finally blurted, “he ain’t there. Even a lazy buck wouldn’t lay around in the cabin this long. He’d have to come out for something to eat.”
Lonnie Jacobs moved over next to him. “Well, whaddya wanna do?”
“What do I wanna do?” Bowers got to his feet. “What I came out here to do. I wanna take a piss and then I’m going down there and burn them lice outta there.” He motioned toward Purcell. “Go on back and get the rest of ’em. And tell ’em to keep it quiet. I don’t wanna give any of ’em time to run off.” He watched as Purcell made his way back up the slope.
“What about Little Wolf?” Tolbert asked. “I thought he was the stud buck we was after.”
Bowers thought about it for a few moments before answering. “Well, you’re right. He is the one we want, but I reckon when we burn his nest out, he’ll most likely hightail it as far away from here as he can. He’ll damn sure know we won’t tolerate his kind around here. He can haul his ass back down to Fort Robinson with the rest of his Cheyenne trash.”
“I don’t know…” Tolbert started, his voice trailing off. Of the committee, he was the only one who had actually seen Little Wolf before he and Lonnie had stumbled upon the Cheyenne’s ranch, and that was at the Little Big Horn, when Little Wolf had been stunned by a bullet and was in captivity. And he had heard many stories about the notorious war chief of the Cheyennes from fellow soldiers who had faced Little Wolf in battle. From what he had heard, Little Wolf was no ordinary fighting man. He glanced up at Bowers to find the sheriff glaring at him. Tolbert shrugged his shoulders and said, “I reckon you’re right. He’s a mean one. I hope he runs, is all I’m saying.”
“If he’s got any sense, he’ll run,” Bowers said. “Now let’s get down there and take care of these varmints.”
As quietly as possible, the party of citizens moved down the slope, staying in the cover of the pines until coming to a ridge about two-thirds of the way down to the grass of the valley floor. Bowers held up his hand and halted them. While they watched, the two Indian men got on their ponies and rode out toward the horses grazing at the north end of the valley.
“Wait,” Bowers cautioned. “They’re going to drive the horses in.” This couldn’t have made his job any easier if they had put a gun to their heads and pulled the trigger themselves. He quickly split his posse into two groups. “You men follow me. We’ll cut them two bucks off before they can get back to the cabin. Lonnie, you and Tolbert take the rest of the men and attack the cabin. And, Lonnie, you men keep a sharp eye. A squaw can shoot a gun, same as a buck.”
* * *
Sleeps Standing circled his pony around to the northeast, coming in behind the horses grazing in the lush valley grass. Sore Hand rode around to the west and together they started the horses moving back down the valley. As they loped along, heading the herd along the eastern side of the stream, Sore Hand pulled up even with Sleeps Standing.
“That little gray mare doubled back again,” Sore Hand yelled. “You keep the horses moving and I’ll go after her.”
Sleeps Standing nodded and kept driving. This was not unusual. The little mare had an independent way about her and she never wanted to be driven with the rest of the horses. He didn’t even glance in Sore Hand’s direction as he cut out and galloped across the stream in pursuit of the ornery mare. Only moments later, a movement from the base of the ridge to the east caught his attention. In the next instant, a group of riders appeared, charging hard at him. Before he had time to even wonder at their sudden appearance, the air around him was filled with whistling lead. His first thought was to go to the aid of the women and he kicked his pony hard, trying to make a break for the cabin and his rifle.
As he raced over the valley floor, he could see the riders angling to cut him off. They were white men, though not soldiers, he noticed. His pony splashed into the wide stream and struggled to reach the other side. As he pulled up on the bank, he saw another band of men charging down on the cabin. Lark! he thought, his heart pounding like a hammer. At that moment, his pony collapsed under him and he tumbled headfirst in the grass. He tried to scramble to his feet, but the impact of the first bullet between his shoulder blades knocked him down on his stomach. He struggled to his knees amid a hailstorm of bullets from the riders bearing down on him. The posse’s fire tore into his body as he sank to the ground again and lay still.
In the tipi next to the cabin, there was total panic. It was not the first time the Indian women had experienced the terror that followed a sudden explosion of rifle fire upon a peaceful valley. Their first impulse was to run. Of the three, only Lark thought of defending them. She picked up Sleeps Standing’s rifle and tried to load it as she ran from the tipi, following White Moon and Rain Song. Rain Song yelled for them to make for the cabin where there would be better protection from the riders’ bullets, which were now ripping holes through the hide covering of the tipi. Before she could load the first cartridge into the chamber, Lark was hit. She screamed in pain and fell. Moments later, she was dead.
White Moon screamed in agony and ran to her sister. She was struck in the forehead as she attempted to lift Lark in her arms. She collapsed over the body of her sister. The horror of the slaughter taking place before her eyes was like an explosion in Rain Song’s mind. She fell back against the cabin wall, the whole valley spinning in her head as consciousness slipped away, leaving her in a numbing black void. She no longer heard the cracking rifles or the wild shouts of the men, nor even her own screaming.
At the north end of the valley, chasing the little mare on the far side of the stream, Sore Hand pulled up hard on the reins when he heard the attack behind him. From behind a screen of willows on the bank, he saw the massacre taking place. It had all happened so quickly there was nothing he could do to help his friends. He saw Sleeps Standing go down as the second group of white men fired at the women. There was no time to get to them. Even if there was, he had no weapons other than his knife and a whip. He slid off his pony and tied him in the willows. When he was certain the pony could not be seen, he worked his way back down the creekbank, getting as close as he dared to the cabin. With eyes wide with the horror of the scene, he tried to see who was responsible for this hatred. He knew these men! It had been three years since he had set foot in the settlement the white man called Medicine Creek—three years since the white men drove his people from the river valley. But he remembered a few of the men he now saw.
At the cabin, things were already out of hand. Arvin Gilbert shouted for order. “Cease fire, dammit!” he yelled repeatedly as the blood-crazed posse rode around and around the cabin, shooting at everything in sight, intoxicated by the sound of their own gunfire. Puddin Rooks, caught up in the blood-letting, emptied his pistol into White Moon, his eyes wild with the sight of her broken and bleeding body. Finally, when Bowers rode up, there was some semblance of order restored. Behind him, one of the men dragged the body of Sleeps Standing with a rope tied to one ankle.
“Look here, Bowers,” Lonnie Jacobs crowed. “I got me two of ’em with one shot.” He rolled Lark’s body over to display the ugly black bullet hole in her swollen stomach. “This ‘un was about to have pups.”
Bowers only grunted in reply as he stepped down from the saddle and walked over to the cabin. Several of the men were already inside, searching for anything of value. There wasn’t much; a couple of rifles, some ammunition. These were immediately carried outside to be displayed. Bowers emerged from the cabin to see Lonnie Jacobs bending low over one of the women who had fallen against the side of the cabin.
“Hey!” Tolbert exclaimed. “This ‘un ain’t dead!” He backed away a little as if to get an overall view of the woman. “Hell, she ain’t even been shot.”
Bowers walked over and stood looking down at the unconscious woman, “Fetch me that water bag yonder,” he said, and held out his hand. When it was handed to him, he emptied it over the prone body before him. Rain Song immediately stirred and her eyes fluttered for a moment before opening wide. What she saw sent her into a fit of panic. She tried to scramble up but Bowers harshly knocked her back down with his foot. She lay still then, terrified, waiting for her execution. Bowers drew a long skinning knife from a sheath on his belt. With his other hand, he grabbed a handful of Rain Song’s hair and jerked her head back, the honed blade at her throat.
“Hold on, Bowers!” It was John Schuyler. “Let her go. There ain’t no call for that. We done enough killin’.”
“What the hell’s wrong with you, Schuyler? This is what we come out here for, weren’t it?” He pressed the knife blade against the terrified Indian girl’s neck, but he hesitated.
Arvin Gilbert spoke up. “I think we done what we come to do and that’s run ’em out of here. We burn this place down and the job’ll be done. I think we need to remember we’re all Christian men here and we’ve got no call to slaughter this girl. She ain’t no threat to us now.”
Bowers held no such notions of Christian kindness. As far as he was concerned, she was no different than the vermin he found in his lard cellar—just another rodent to exterminate. He was of a mind to go ahead and slit her throat, but he sensed a general feeling of guilty compassion taking hold of some of the members of the committee. Reluctantly, he released her and pushed her back against the cabin again. “Well, what the hell do you propose to do about her? Just let her go?”
“I didn’t say that, but we can take her over to the agency at Lapwai with the rest of them Injuns. That’s where they’re supposed to be anyway.”
Bowers shrugged his shoulders and got to his feet. “Hell, I don’t care.” He looked around him at the gathering of citizen vigilantes. “Is that what you all want?” There was a general agreement that this would probably be the Christian thing to do. The one objection came from Lonnie Jacobs, who still wanted to kill the woman. Bowers scanned the faces of the rest of the posse. They all seemed reluctant to continue the slaughter. “All right, then, we’ll take her prisoner. Let’s burn this place to the ground.” He stood back and watched while the rest of the posse set fire to everything that would burn. There was a certain satisfaction Bowers felt in watching the flames licking the sides of the log house. He could not, however, avoid a feeling of disappointment knowing that two of the Indians had escaped. Little Wolf would have been a prize worth catching. The other one, the one Tolbert said was an old Nez Perce, was insignificant. “Some of you boys round up them horses.” At least there would be some profit shown for their raid.
The bloodlust had consumed Puddin Rooks, and he too was disappointed that most of the posse favored sparing the girl. It was like a fever had taken hold of him and he craved to see more and more blood flow. While most of the men rounded up the horses, he joined Tolbert and Lonnie in mutilating the bodies of the women while Bowers held a terrified Rain Song, making her watch the atrocities committed. The sight sickened Arvin Gilbert and he turned away.
From a bullberry thicket near the head of the valley, Sore Hand watched the flames leaping into the late afternoon sky and the black column of smoke that curled up toward the mountain tops as he quietly sang his song of mourning.