Richard Ashworth was taken back when Nate King, Henry Allen, and Clive Jenks glanced at him as if he should have his mouth washed out with soap. All he’d asked King’s son was, “Are you sure it was the Crow, boy? Or could your imagination have been playing tricks on you?” He’d given the youngster a pat on the head. “After all, boys your age are prone to flights of fancy.”
Zach bristled at the suggestion he was a mere child who couldn’t be trusted. “I know who I saw, mister,” he stated coldly. “It was that murdering Absaroka, big as life.”
“We both saw him,” Zeb Gilcrest threw in. “And the two of us couldn’t be wrong.”
Ashworth spread the fingers of both hands and touched the tips together. “All right. Let’s assume that you actually did. What in the world is Little Soldier doing so far from his own country alone?”
The Tennessean had an answer. “The polecat wants to get back at us—that’s what. He’s by himself because the other Crows wanted no part of it.”
Ashworth indulged in a laugh. “I don’t see why he even bothered. What can one man hope to do against all of us? It’s ridiculous.”
“Is it?” Nate said soberly. On the face of things, the greenhorn had a point. But Nate wouldn’t put anything past their nemesis. The Crow wouldn’t have come all that distance unless he was fairly confident he could get his revenge. Little Soldier must have a plan of some sort, but what?
Jenks cleared his throat. “The varmint can’t have gone far. I say we round up about forty men and go after him.”
“He’d hear that many riders coming from a long way off,” Nate said. “Two men should be enough. Allen and I will go—and Zach so he can show us where he saw Little Soldier last.”
Zachary swelled with pride. To be allowed to ride with the men was an honor. He was the first to the horses, the first to mount. There was a short delay while his father and the man from Tennessee saddled up. Then they trotted on out the gate and raced southward.
Nate was so preoccupied with pondering Little Soldier’s presence that he almost overlooked the fact that they had passed a certain knoll he had set as one of his son’s boundary markers. Twisting, he said, “I thought I told you not to go beyond that point.”
“We were after a big elk, Pa,” Zach said, hoping that would be enough to justify his breach of conduct. Another excuse occurred to him. “And if we hadn’t, we never would have spotted the Crow.”
“I’ll let it go—this time.”
From the top of the hill Zach pointed out where he had initially seen Little Soldier and the route the warrior had taken. “He disappeared into those trees yonder and we lit a shuck for the fort.”
“You did the right thing.” Nate held his Hawken cocked as he descended to the meadow and crossed to the spot his son had indicated. Unshod hoofprints led into the pines. They advanced slowly, making as little noise as was humanly possible. Nate preferred to catch sight of Little Soldier before the Crow caught sight of them.
The trail looped to the north. Once past the hill, the Absaroka had ventured to the tree line and from there stared out over the valley dominated by Fort Ashworth. Apparently he had sat a while studying everything, then backed into the pines and continued on a northerly bearing.
500 yards farther on, directly abreast of the stockade, the Crow had again moved to the edge of the trees for a better look. It must have pleased him immensely, Nate suspected, to have found them. But would Little Soldier try to burn the stockade to the ground? Run off their stock all by himself? Pick off trappers one by one?
The warrior had gone north again, then westward, making a partial circuit of the valley. Abruptly, for no evident reason, the Crow had reined to the northeast and ridden off at a trot.
“Where could he be off to in such a hurry?” Allen whispered.
Nate shrugged. It did seem as if Little Soldier had a definite destination in mind, but there was nothing in that direction except limitless miles of untamed wilderness. Plus the Blackfeet, of course, inveterate enemies of the Crows. Little Soldier was taking his life into his hands by going into the heart of their territory.
For over an hour the two Kings and the Tennessean dogged the warrior’s trail, and at the end of that time they were no closer to their quarry than they had been when they started. Nate checked the sun, which hung low in the western sky. He hadn’t thought to bring extra provisions along. All he had was enough jerky for about four meals, in a parfleche saddlebag.
“The big question is whether we see this through to the end or head on back,” Nate commented when they paused on a switchback to give their animals a breather.
“I’d rather go on,” Zach said, thrilled by the likelihood of a fight with the Absaroka.
Henry Allen nodded. “Something tells me that, if we let him slip away, a lot of lives will be lost.”
“Then it’s unanimous,” Nate said. “We may go a little hungry, but we don’t give up until we’ve put a permanent end to it.”
Sunset caught them in thick timber where the shadows lengthened so quickly they were in near total darkness within minutes. Nate had to accept that they wouldn’t catch Little Soldier that day, and he called a halt at the next clearing they came to.
A cold camp was in order. Nate limited himself to a single piece of jerky, but gave a handful to his son. Allen had pemmican, which he offered to share. Nate declined, saying, “It might have to last us a while. We’d better go easy.”
Their saddle blankets served as bedding. Nate tossed and turned all night, and he was grateful when dawn’s light spurred them on their way.
Not quite an hour after the sun rose, Nate found where Little Soldier had bedded down. “We’re not that far behind him,” he remarked.
“By nightfall he’ll be buzzard bait,” Allen predicted.
They tried. They really tried. By prodding their horses on even when the animals flagged, by taking fewer rests than they should, by refusing to stop to eat, they covered as much ground as they normally would in two days of riding. Yet it wasn’t good enough. When darkness fell, Little Soldier was still ahead of them.
“Damn it all!” Allen groused. “What’s his hurry? Where is he so all fired eager to get to?”
“I wish I knew,” Nate said.
Zach had not said much all day. It had taxed him to keep up with the men, and he couldn’t wait to close his eyes and drift off. Half asleep, he mumbled, “Who can tell with a mad wolf like him? Little Soldier is crazy enough to do anything.”
That was what worried Nate. The Crow would stop at nothing to savor his vengeance. And whatever Little Soldier had in mind, it was bound to be the last thing they would ever expect.
Another day dawned crisp and clear. Nate had to stomp his feet and flap his arms to get his circulation going. He missed having a cup of coffee so much that his mouth watered at the notion.
“Today is the day,” Allen declared.
Nate didn’t share his friend’s confidence. It was obvious that Little Soldier’s horse was more than a match for any of theirs. They would be lucky if they caught sight of him.
As if to confirm Nate’s hunch, tracking the Crow became more difficult. Early on, the warrior changed direction. His tracks wound eastward a while, then to the southeast, then to the northeast again. Over and over the pattern was repeated.
“What in the hell?” Allen said at one point. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear he was lost.”
By early afternoon their horses were in need of rest. They had climbed to the crest of a sawtooth ridge and Nate was about to suggest that they stop for a while when his son blurted out and jabbed a finger eastward.
“There he is, Pa! See him?”
Below the ridge lay open prairie. Scattered across it, grazing contentedly, were hundreds upon hundreds of buffalo. Maybe half a mile out was a solitary rider, weaving among them.
“He’s slowed down some,” Zach observed.
Nate scanned the herd of shaggy brutes. “He had to because of the buffalo. He’s being careful not to spook them into stampeding.”
Zach eyed the beasts with trepidation. He had yet to go on a buffalo hunt. His father joined the Shoshones once or twice a year on a surround, as they were called, and although he had begged to go along the last few times, his pa had refused, claiming he wasn’t quite old enough. “Are we going on down there?” he asked.
“We have to,” Nate said, taking the lead. “It’s our best chance yet to catch him.”
Buffalo were quirky critters. At times they would panic at the mere sight of a man on horseback. At other times they would totally ignore him. Nate tried to gauge the mood of the herd by the number of great hairy heads that raised up to warily regard them as they reached level ground. A few of the older bulls fringing the main body looked up and snorted, but none pawed the earth or lowered their horns in preparation for a charge.
Nate deemed it safe to do as Little Soldier had done. “Keep in single file,” he whispered over a shoulder. “And whatever you do, don’t make any loud noise.”
Buffalo had the distinction of being the largest creatures on the continent. Adult males stood six feet high at the shoulder and weighed close to 2,000 pounds. Females were only a foot or so shorter and weighed a little over half as much.
Their bulk, combined with their unpredictable temperament and their wicked spread of curved horns, made them supremely dangerous.
At birth, a buffalo usually had a yellow coat with a light red stripe down the spine. Gradually the coat darkened with age, so that by the time a buffalo attained full stature, it boasted a rich, dark brown hide thick enough to keep a person warm in the coldest of winters. Small wonder the Indians prized buffalo robes above all else for their bedding.
Zach gulped as he approached the first group. The bulls were so big that he could have sworn they dwarfed him and his horse. When one looked up at him, he immediately froze in the saddle. The bull was chomping grass, its huge jaws moving up and down, the crunch of its iron teeth enough to bring goosebumps to Zach’s skin.
Nate checked to see how his son was doing. It took more gumption than most possessed to ride through the center of a buffalo herd, and he was proud at the courage Zach displayed.
A few of the buffalo moved out of their way, but most stood firm and had to be skirted. Nate swung past several young bulls and angled to the right to bypass a cow and a calf. Suddenly the calf snorted and came toward him. So young that its legs wobbled, it acted more curious than upset.
The same wasn’t true of its mother. Grunting, the cow spun and regarded them with her dark beady eyes. She took a few steps to head off her offspring, but the calf skipped past her, coming straight toward the black stallion.
Nate had to rein up or risk bowling the calf over. The stallion flared its nostrils and pricked its ears, but didn’t give in to the overpowering fear that many horses experienced when in close proximity to buffalo. The calf stopped and sniffed at the stallion’s front legs, then moved toward the back ones, its muzzle rubbing the stallion’s belly as if in search of teats.
To keep the horse from bolting, Nate patted and stroked its neck. The calf reached the black’s tail, realized there was no milk to be had, and bawled its displeasure. That was the signal for the cow to stalk forward, grunting louder than before, its ponderous head swinging from side to side.
Zach was positive the mother was about to charge his pa. He remembered what his father had mentioned about always aiming behind the foreshoulder and did so. A buffalo’s skull was too thick for any ball to penetrate, even the larger calibers.
The cow stomped the ground once. It uttered a rumbling snort from deep within its barrel chest. Catastrophe was averted when the calf pranced back to its mother’s side and the pair moseyed off among the others.
Nate rose in the stirrups to catch sight of Little Soldier, but the warrior was nowhere to be seen. Moving on, he fought shy of any brute that acted the least bit belligerent. Twice he had to swing wide of wallows where bulls were rolling over and over in an effort to get some relief from the insects that plagued them.
Buffalo gnats were the bane of the buffalo’s existence. Resembling animated black beads, the gnats would swarm over the great beasts, burrowing into their hides and causing large sores to form.
The wallows reeked of bull urine. Nate made it a point to hold his breath when going past.
Threading through the herd made for slow going. Nate developed a crick in his neck from constantly twisting it right and left. He smiled when the last of the beasts appeared.
Little Soldier had headed to the northeast once more. Nate brought the stallion to a gallop. A sea of high grass stretched before them as far as the eye could see. To the north, a pack of gray wolves shadowed the herd, waiting to pick off the sick and the aged.
Once, that would have bothered him. When Nate first had come to the mountains, he had been horrified by the constant violence, by the daily battle for survival every animal endured, by the unending struggle to keep from being killed for food.
Big insects and fish ate little insects. Birds ate the big insects. Eagles and ospreys ate the fish. Bobcats ate the birds. Larger predators, such as panthers and wolves, preyed on deer, antelope, and buffalo. Grizzlies ate anything and everything.
It had bothered Nate that the whole purpose of existence seemed to be for creatures to slay one another. Even humans got into the act, with Indians and whites killing one another at the drop of a feather.
Back in New York City, where Nate’s every want had been provided by markets and stores and tailors and barbers, he had somehow come to the conclusion that the natural state of man was one of comfort and ease. Having his every need provided on a silver platter, as it were, had blinded him to the truth that in the natural, scheme of things it was dog eat dog.
City life did that to a person. It warped his thinking, made him believe that the world owed him a living when the frank truth was that the world didn’t owe him a damn thing.
A dot on the horizon brought an end to Nate’s musing. “Little Soldier,” he said for the benefit of the others.
“Reckon he’s seen us, Pa?” Zach asked.
“I doubt it,” Nate said, but slowed anyway. It was best if they take the crafty Crow by surprise. “We’ll hang back until dark and jump him after he’s made camp.”
The sun arced steadily higher. The temperature climbed.
“Are they what I think they are?” Allen inquired, pointing.
Rising up over the rim of the world materialized three buttes. They were harbingers of an area where the prairie gave way to arid ravines and gorges. And wafting skyward from one of those gorges were tendrils of smoke.
“A campfire,” Nate said unnecessarily. The others could see for themselves. He scoured the terrain for the Crow, but the only things moving were a pair of antelope heading in the opposite direction.
Taking cover behind boulders the size of a Shoshone lodge, Nate rummaged in one of his parfleches and came up with his spyglass. Trappers relied on them, a practice started by Lewis and Clark, who had packed a few on their famed expedition.
Nate swept the wasteland from north to south. The gorge was bordered by brush and boulders, enough to conceal them but not their mounts. “We’ll get as close as we can with the horses, then investigate on foot,” he directed.
In a gully seventy yards from the gorge, Nate tied the stallion to mesquite. Climbing to the rim, he pretended to be part of the landscape for almost ten minutes until he was convinced no one had spotted them. Then he zigzagged to a weed-choked slope that brought them to the top of the gorge.
Flattening in the shadow of a rock monolith, Nate peered over the edge. He expected to find the Crow settling down early. Instead, he saw a half-dozen warriors, armed to the teeth. At his elbow there was a soft intake of breath.
“Bloods!” Zach whispered. By some accounts, they were more fierce than their allies, the Blackfeet and Piegans. When he’d been much younger, his father and Shakespeare McNair had nearly been rubbed out by a Blood band, and Zach had never forgotten how scared he had been listening to his Uncle Shakespeare relate their narrow escape.
Nate saw a small spring. It explained why the band had stopped there. Six painted horses were tethered nearby, as well as five others. Several warriors had coup sticks, from the ends of which dangled scalps. Dry blood on a few marked them as recently acquired.
The Tennessean leaned toward Nate. “It’s a war party on their way home after a raid on the Sioux.”
“I wonder if Little Soldier knows they’re here,” Nate whispered.
The very next second Zach stiffened. “Pa, look across the gorge!”
A head and shoulders had risen above a row of weeds. The Absaroka was intent on the six Bloods. He watched them for the longest while before vanishing in the growth.
Henry Allen sighed. “Too bad. I was hoping they’d add his hair to their collection. Come to think of it, the Bloods probably aren’t partial to fleas.”
Nate grinned. “We still have a job to do. So let’s get to it. We’ll fetch our horses and circle around to pick up his trail on the other side.”
“Not so fast, hoss,” Allen said, nodding.
Little Soldier had reappeared, only lower. Exercising skill worthy of an Apache, he was working his way down the gorge toward the Bloods.
“What in the name of all that’s holy is that idiot Injun up to?” Allen said. “Even he can’t be fool enough to think he can defeat six Bloods by his lonesome.”
Nate was mesmerized. It was insane for the Crow to tempt fate, yet Little Soldier didn’t stop until he had reached a clump of scrub trees a stone’s throw from the war party. Nate had a clear shot but he didn’t take it. The Bloods were bound to come on the run, and he had no hankering to trade lead with them.
Little Soldier observed the warriors go about various tasks. One man, an unstrung bow resting in a quiver slung across his back, began to gather wood for the fire. His hunt brought him ever closer to the Crow’s hiding place. Little Soldier inched toward him.
“I do believe that mangy Absaroka is sun-struck,” Allen whispered. “It’s too bad the Bloods will have the honor of gutting him. I was looking forward to stuffing his innards down his mouth and making him eat them.”
Zachary glanced at the Southerner, trying to tell if he was serious or not. He went to ask, then was glued to the tableau below as Little Soldier unexpectedly jumped up and trained the rifle on the Blood carrying the wood.
“Dumber than a buffalo chip,” Allen quipped.
The other Bloods had seen and started to dash to the aid of their companion, but they stopped short at a yell from the Crow. Little Soldier strode into the open, motioning for the Blood in front of him to drop the dead branches. Then he marched the warrior at gunpoint back to where the others stood.
To Nate, it was total madness. The moment Little Soldier dropped his guard, the Bloods would be on him like a pack of ravenous wolves on a buffalo calf. The Crow wouldn’t stand a prayer.
“Well, look there!” Allen whispered. “Up the gorge a way! This is fixing to get mighty interesting.”
A seventh Blood was on his way back to camp, a pair of dead rabbits in his left hand, a lance in his right. He reached a bend in the wall and saw his fellow warriors. Stopping, he set the rabbits down, then slunk along with his back to the wall. Taking two or three steps at a time, he closed in on the unsuspecting Crow.
Nate was stupefied when Little Soldier lowered the rifle and held it in the crook of an elbow to free his hands for sign language. The angle was all wrong for him to see what the Crow said, but the expressions of the Bloods left little doubt that it had not gone over well with them. Little Soldier addressed them again, his hands flying, unaware of the seventh warrior who had slanted toward him and was almost within hurling range.
“I wish Jenks were here to see this,” Allen said. “He always claimed that ornery Crow has eyes in the back of his noggin.”
The seventh warrior proved Clive Jenks wrong. Rather than throw his lance, he sneaked up behind Little Soldier, planted himself, and rammed the butt of his lance against the Crow’s head three times in as many seconds. Little Soldier crumpled.
Henry Alley chuckled. “So who says there isn’t any justice in this world of ours?”
“Let’s get out of here,” Nate proposed. “They’re bound to check to see if Little Crow was alone.”
The three of them sped to their horses, walked the animals until they were far enough from the gorge to mount without being spotted, and trotted westward. No outcries rang out.
“We can breathe easy now,” the Tennessean commented.
Nate hoped so. But a tiny voice deep inside warned him not to take anything for granted. Where there were seven Bloods, there might be more.