“What the hell?” Tobin roared and pulled back hard on the reins. What he saw didn’t make sense. Little Wolf had run north just as Tobin figured he would, following the valley, heading toward Canada. Now, for no apparent reason, the white Cheyenne had turned back dead west, following an old hunting trail that led up into the mountains. This caused Tobin some measure of irritation. He thought he had figured out his man, knew what he was thinking, and he had him heading straight for Canada as fast as he could get there.
“Hell,” he blurted, “he’s heading into Kutenai territory” Tobin didn’t like it when his prey didn’t run true to form. He paused to think it over for a few minutes while he scrutinized the trail plainly left by the four horses. Maybe he’s just trying to throw me off, he considered. Then another thought struck his mind. “Maybe this ol’ boy has still got a taste for blood and he’s thinking about taking a few more scalps from his good friends in Medicine Creek before he leaves the country. Maybe Little Wolf was more bloodthirsty than he had figured him to be. The longer Tobin followed the trail up through the spruce and pines, the more the idea appealed to him. He felt he was back inside Little Wolf’s head again. “That musta been one purty little Injun gal,” he said.
Although Tobin never hesitated to follow a hunch, he still kept a sharp eye to make sure Little Wolf was not intent on doubling back and heading north again. As slick as this renegade was, Tobin did not discount the possibility that the Cheyenne was waiting to ambush him.
The trail was steep in places as it climbed higher into the trees, sometimes blocked by fallen timber, deadfalls that necessitated a detour. But the tracks always came back to the trail. Hours passed with no long departure from the trail leading to the west.
It was almost sunset when the tracks split off from the trail and led off through a thick forest of lodgepole pines, with trees so close together that Tobin marveled how a man could lead four horses through it. Uh-oh, he thought and smiled to himself. He’s trying to lose me now. Though there were still a couple of hours of daylight left, it would soon be black as night in the pines. So Tobin decided it best to make camp where he was and wait for daylight to follow Little Wolfs trail. The Cheyenne was slick—it wouldn’t do to give him any advantage.
Morning came. Tobin knew he was losing ground by having to wait for the sun to filter a little light through the tall pines, but he had little choice. Even when he decided it was as light as it was likely to get, the floor of the forest was still cloaked in a dark veil. Tobin was not discouraged. He was confident that no man was his equal when it came to tracking. At times he found it necessary to dismount and proceed cautiously on foot as he searched for disturbed patches in the deep floor of pine needles.
After hours of dogged tracking, he emerged from the trees on a downslope. Out in the open, the trail led down through a grassy bottom to a small stream where it appeared the Cheyenne had stopped to let his horses feed on the knee-high grass. The water ran deep and swift, and there was beaver sign everywhere among the clumps of willow. Tobin gnawed on a piece of buffalo jerky while his horse drank from the stream. He studied the trail leading off up the stream, paralleling the coursing water. Tobin glanced ahead, toward the mountain where the stream originated, thinking, After holding to the west for more than a day, he’s turned back north. Again Tobin smiled. This is where he figures to throw me off. Wants me to think he’s heading for Canada after all.
The trail was easy to follow until the stream narrowed as it carved its way through broad areas of shale and rock, approaching the treeline. The buckskin began to labor as the incline became more severe, but Tobin pushed him onward. “If that damn renegade can drive four horses up here, you better damn shore make it,” he scolded.
“Here it is,” he stated at the place he expected to find, where the trail he had been following vanished. Now we’ll see who’s the best, he thought as he dismounted and began a careful examination of the rocky ground. He covered the area, working in a wide circle until he found what he was looking for. It was barely noticeable, a handful of disturbed gravel and a small hoofmark on a rock. “East,” he noted softly, and he paused to look off in that direction, a path that would lead back to the valley of the Flathead. “You son of a bitch, I know you! You ain’t going back to that valley.”
Leading the buckskin, he worked slowly along the rocky ledge until he found the sign he knew had to be there: two clear prints in a patch of bear grass. I don’t care how damn good you be, four horses is gonna leave sign somewhere, he thought to himself. He stood up and looked around him, satisfied that he was always a step ahead of the man he followed. “Yessir, Mr. Little Wolf, you’re about as slick as any I’ve chased. But you ain’t got no notion of heading north like them tracks say.”
Farther up, he found more sign that led through the trees until he reached another outcropping of rock where the trail disappeared again. Undeterred, he turned west once more, knowing where his man was going. You got careless now, he thought. You ain’t figuring on nobody staying on your trail this long. It was as he figured. Little Wolf, thinking he had surely thrown Tobin off his track, had not been as careful when he led his horses out toward the west again. It was then that Tobin was certain Little Wolf was intent on returning to raid the citizens of Medicine Creek.
Just as Tobin expected, Little Wolf doubled back until he struck the old hunting trail he had originally started on, toward the country of the Kutenai. The tracks were not easy to follow in some places, but he was always able to pick up some sign farther along on the trail. That is, until he eventually realized there had been no sign for the last mile or so. He found himself staring into a wide valley with a long narrow lake and absolutely no sign that a man with four horses had passed that way. Dumbfounded, he realized that he didn’t know for certain where Little Wolf was.
“That son of a bitch,” he mumbled, almost stunned by the knowledge that he may have been outfoxed again. It was especially galling to Tobin to accept the fact that he was reduced to guessing on the direction Little Wolf had taken. He had been so cocksure of his man. Now he was more determined than ever to add this trophy scalp to his string. Without a trail to follow, Tobin had no choice but to follow his hunch and strike out for the settlement of Medicine Creek.
From a ridge on the north side of the mountain, Little Wolf sat, an interested observer of the befuddled man on the buckskin pony in the valley below him. The huge man was an excellent tracker and Little Wolf had attempted to lose him if possible. But he also decided that if his ruse to lead him off to the west didn’t work, he had no choice but to kill him. He had figured the big man correctly, knowing that if he made it too easy to follow him, Tobin would become suspicious. Content now that he was free of the man, Little Wolf climbed on his horse and started out north to Canada once more.
* * *
Blue Otter, strong in his resolve to live as a free man in the old ways of his father and grandfather, was beginning to question the wisdom in that decision. Perhaps he should have returned to Lapwai with Wounded Bear. His wife, Quill, and her sister were near exhaustion, their feet sore and bleeding from two days straight of walking along the rocky ledges and down through an endless line of waterless gulches. He had chosen to travel the high country where the soldiers’ horses could not follow. But he had paid a price for it in the toll the journey had taken on the women and child. He himself was sore and heavy of limb.
At last, they crossed over the last ridge that separated them from a wide valley where they might rest. Although their throats were parched from thirst, they stopped near the summit of the ridge to catch their breath before descending through the belt of pines and spruce that girded the mountain. It would take at least an hour to make their way down the mountain to the meadow below, but at the end of that hour there would be water and a place to rest in the willow thickets, and maybe even time to hunt, for they had not eaten since the day before.
* * *
Little Wolf remained still as stone. His bow raised, the arrow sighted on a young black-tailed deer, he drew the bowstring back slowly, paused a fraction of a second, then released it. The arrow flew straight to its mark, close behind the animal’s front leg, sinking deep in its ribcage. The young buck was staggered by the impact of the missile, but righted himself in a moment and managed to take three great bounds before crashing to the ground. He struggled to regain his feet, taking several more faltering steps before falling for the final time. Little Wolf was upon him quickly and ended the animal’s misery with his knife.
He gutted and bled the deer. Then, carrying the carcass on his shoulders, he made his way back to the trees where his horse was tied. After loading the deer on his horse, Little Wolf started back to his camp, holding to the slope and the cover of the trees. He was about to emerge from the pines and go down to the stream when he pulled his horse up suddenly. Had he not been vigilant by habit, he might have missed the flicker of movement in a willow clump near the water’s edge.
Little Wolf immediately slid off his pony and tied the animal to a tree limb. Making his way down to the edge of the meadow, he positioned himself behind a fallen tree where he could watch the willow thicket. His eyes had not deceived him. He could now see that there were three women, or two women and a child perhaps, hiding deep in the willows. He glanced quickly around the valley. There were no horses. Little wonder he had not seen them before. Two women and a child on foot was strange indeed. Where were their men? They were Indians—of that he was certain. But what could they be doing out here in the mountains, many days’ travel from any village? He decided to watch them for a while.
He had not waited long before he saw a solitary Indian man, loping slowly across the upper end of the little valley on foot. He carried a rifle and a small animal over his shoulder. From a distance, it appeared to be a rabbit or possibly a marmot. But Little Wolf was sure of one thing—the man had not had much luck with his hunting. Little Wolf had not heard a rifle shot, so he concluded the man was just as reluctant to announce his presence in the valley as he was. He probably killed the animal with a stone, he thought.
Little Wolf continued to watch the little group as the man entered the thicket. The excited reception the man received from the women told Little Wolf that the people were evidently short of food. It was apparent they were in a desperate state, probably escaping a reservation. If they were intent on running to Canada as he was, it was going to be a long, hard way on foot.
* * *
Quill got to her feet and took the rabbit from her husband. Her sister fed more limbs to the fire to bring it to a flame. Blue Otter shook his head as if to apologize although he said nothing.
“It will be all right,” Quill reassured him. “It will be enough to give us strength. And tomorrow, maybe you will find something bigger.”
Blue Otter nodded solemnly. “We need food. Tomorrow I may have to go up in the hills and take a chance on shooting the gun.”
As the sun settled behind the hills to the west, and the valley gradually cloaked itself in shadows, the three adults lay about the tiny fire, watching the child suck the last bit of nourishment from the bones of the rabbit. Blue Otter’s heart was sad, but he resolved to make a better day of it tomorrow. Quill sat staring into the glowing coals and wondered about the fate of her father and mother, who had been taken back to Lapwai by the soldiers. Then her thoughts returned to her own plight and the ordeal facing her sister and herself. King George’s land was a strange and faraway place. She wondered if they would make it. In the land of the Salish now, they had to journey through Blackfoot and Pend d’Oreille country. Would they find hospitable people there? Or would they be killed, or turned over to the soldiers?
Thinking her husband had made a noise, she looked up from the fire. She gasped uncontrollably, her heart in her throat. A man was standing there at the edge of the firelight, seeming as tall as the willow behind him and as wide as a grizzly. Hearing her gasp, Blue Otter turned to see what had caused her terror. He sprang to his hands and knees and attempted to scramble to his rifle, which was leaning against a tree trunk. The towering spectre stopped him with no more than a casual motion with the rifle in his hand. Blue Otter knew there was no chance.
“Have no fear,” Little Wolf said. “I have come as a friend.” He stepped into the circle of light and they could now see that what had appeared to be the huge shoulders of a monster was, in fact, the carcass of a deer draped across his shoulders. Little Wolf let the animal drop to the ground.
As the two women set immediately into the butchering, Blue Otter stood up to welcome their benefactor. After expressing his gratitude for the deer, he told their visitor that they were Nez Perce and were trying to make their way to Canada. He looked up at the stranger towering a head taller than he, and did not have to wait for Little Wolf to introduce himself. “You are the white Cheyenne.”
“My name is Little Wolf. I am Cheyenne.”
They sat beside the fire and talked while the meat roasted over the flames. When Little Wolf heard Blue Otter’s recounting of their journey, he scarcely could believe his ears. Blue Otter told him of the Cheyenne woman Hump had brought to Wounded Bear’s tipi, how Broken Wing had taken care of her wounds. He then told of her flight from Lapwai with Wounded Bear’s family, thinking Little Wolf was dead.
“I thought she was dead too,” Little Wolf interrupted.
Blue Otter nodded understanding. “She was sure that must have been the reason you did not come for her.” He went on to tell of the abduction of Rain Song by the evil Hump. Then he told of the attack by the soldiers and their subsequent escape. “It has been hard. As you can see, we are weak and hungry. And there is still a long way to go.”
“Rain Song, where is she now?” He tried to remain calm but the tremble in his voice revealed his apprehension.
“I cannot be sure, but Hump often lives on the reservation. He and Yellow Hand never stayed at the fort with the other scouts.”
Little Wolf’s first impulse, upon hearing that Rain Song was alive, was to leap on his pony’s back right then and find her. He knew he could not, however. He would have to wait until morning light. He stayed to eat with them, then got up to leave. “I must leave and prepare to go after this man Hump. I’ll be back in the morning before I go.”
“Good,” Blue Otter responded. “We will finish the deer in the morning.”
At first light the following morning, Little Wolf appeared as suddenly as he had the night before. This time he was leading four horses. “I must go after my wife now. I wish you well on your journey to King George’s land. You have a long way ahead of you, too far to walk. I’ll leave you these four horses. I won’t need even a packhorse. They are a strong breed, as you well know. They will carry you to your freedom.” In an effort to stem an overwhelming flow of gratitude from the destitute Nez Perces, he insisted that five horses would only slow him down now that he must travel fast.
Blue Otter thanked him profusely anyway, knowing that the white Cheyenne may have saved their lives. He recognized one of the horses, but did not comment. It was Yellow Hand’s pony. They parted company then, the Nez Perces to the north toward Canada, the Cheyenne back the way he had come to find Hump.