He was awakened by the warm rays of the morning sun on his face and the sound of the child crying. At first he didn’t remember where he was until he sat up and looked around. He had to sit there for a few minutes before the spinning stopped in his head and his thinking cleared. He was aware of a deep throbbing in his shoulder and he guessed he must be somewhat feverish. Since the wound was in the back of his shoulder, he couldn’t examine it to see how inflamed it had gotten. From the way he was feeling, he didn’t have to be told it was serious.
Bright Feather, seeing Jason aroused, came to him, still crying. “I reckon you’re hungry, ain’t you?” He got some Indian bread from his saddle pack. The Cheyenne woman had evidently made it the day before, and, seeing it in a pan by the fire, Jason took it along with most of the cooked meat. He crumbled the bread up and mixed a little of the thin grease from the meat with it and gave it to the boy. “I’m sorry, boy, I don’t have much else you can eat.”
The child didn’t seem to mind and went right to work on the bread. Satisfied that Bright Feather was content for the moment, Jason took the time to make some decisions. He was afraid that if he didn’t get to somewhere he could tend his wound pretty quick, he wasn’t going to be able to travel at all. And him with a baby to take care of. He hadn’t given much thought to what he would do with the child when he rescued him. All his thoughts had been on catching Black Eagle. And he sure as hell didn’t plan to get stuck in the back.
He looked around him now, at the place he had camped a few hours before sunup. He figured he was about seven or eight miles north of the spot where he had killed the Indians. He glanced back at the child seated at the edge of the stream, splashing in the shallow water. He shook his head in amazement. “What in the world am I gonna do with you?” Bright Feather looked up at him and smiled. Jason knew he couldn’t stay there. He decided the best thing to do was head back to Fort Fetterman on the North Platte. Maybe he could get his shoulder looked after there and find someone to help him take care of the boy.
* * *
Less than half a day behind Jason, Black Eagle stood and scowled down at the bodies of his companions. During the attack the night before, it was impossible to determine how many and who was shooting at them. There was no choice but to escape to safety. When he was certain there was no pursuit, he turned back and came upon the campsite in the early light. Now, as he knelt over first one and then another of his slain companions, he could feel his heart pumping with the venom of hatred for this one white scout. For it could be no other—Coles! The thought of the hated scout shooting from the hillside, killing his friends, and taking the baby once more, sparked a fury in the Cheyenne warrior that could only be satisfied with Coles’s death.
A few hours later he stood over the place where Coles and the boy had slept. The trail was not difficult to follow to that point. He had to warn himself to control his fury as he searched for sign that would tell him where the scout had gone when he left this camp. Black Eagle had never known such frustration when, after hours trying to pick up Jason’s trail, he still could find no sign. Coles had gone some distance up the stream and Black Eagle was unable to find where the scout had left the rocky creekbed. He cried out in anger when he had to finally give up the search.
“Coles, I will kill you. I swear it by the Great Spirit. I will cut your scalp from your skull and carry it on my lance.” He stared up into the bright blue sky as if trying to see the spirit he swore on. Having no trail to follow, he had to admit the scout had beaten him on this day, leaving him little choice but to wait for another chance.
* * *
It was three days of hard riding before Jason saw the sentries posted at Fort Fetterman—and a welcome sight it was. He had been fortunate in that he did not meet any hunting parties on his journey. His shoulder caused him a great deal of pain but he didn’t get feverish after the first night so he figured he was going to heal all right. The biggest concern he had was feeding Bright Feather. Jason had little food left but jerky and coffee and that made poor feed for a growing youngster. He stopped once when he found some wild turnips and mashed them up and fed them to Bright Feather. Aside from the turnips and a few handfuls of berries, that was about all the boy had to eat in three days.
Leading eight horses was a strain, especially when a man had only one good arm. But those horses were the sum total of Jason Coles’ net worth and he was determined to hold on to them. So he had gutted it out and was now rewarded by the sight of Fort Fetterman.
The sentry watched with some curiosity as Jason approached him. He had pulled over two years service on the frontier so he had seen more than a few curious sights of Indians, buffalo hunters, trappers, and the like. But this was enough to arouse his interest to the point where he came halfway to attention. By his appearance, he judged Jason to be a mountain man and it appeared he had seen a little trouble. One shoulder was crusted with dried blood and he held an Indian baby in the saddle in front of him. His horses looked a sight better than the man. They were a fine-looking string. Probably stole them from the same place he stole the youngun, the sentry thought. All kinds show up at this post.
“Howdy,” Jason said, when he pulled up in front of the soldier. The sentry nodded in reply. “Is Wes Woodcock still the sergeant-major here?”
“Yessir.”
“Where might I find him?”
The guard directed Jason to a plain log building with a flagpole in front, one of several wooden structures surrounded by scores of tents. Off to one side was a long crude building, divided into individual living quarters. These, Jason assumed, were for the officers and noncommissioned officers who had families. A dusty parade ground separated them from the enlisted men’s tents. Jason turned Black’s nose toward the headquarters building.
Sergeant-Major Wesley Woodcock peered through the open door at the stranger heading his way across the parade ground. Something about the way the man sat his horse, like he was just another part of the horse, caught Woodcock’s eye. He’d seen that man before. Curious, he continued to keep his eye on the man until he was within forty yards of his door.
“Well, I’ll be . . .” He scraped his chair back and stood up. “Well, I’ll be . . . Jason Coles.” He walked out and stood on the small porch, staring at the man on the horse until he pulled up in front of him. “Jason?” It was a question because, although he recognized him, he wasn’t sure it could really be Jason.
“Wes,” was Jason’s simple reply.
“Jason Coles! I can’t believe my eyes. Why, hell, they told me you was dead . . . cut down by some renegade Cheyenne over a year ago.”
“Reckon not,” Jason replied.
Woodcock found it hard to believe. “Why, hell, they said they’d seen your grave at Camp Supply.”
Jason didn’t answer for a moment while he considered what Woodcock was telling him. “Dammit, Wes, is there something wrong with your eyes? You see me sitting here in front of you, don’t you? Who told you that anyway?”
“Simon Bone,” Woodcock said. “He said one of the Indians at the agency told him. He was at Supply when it happened. He told me the buck’s name that was supposed to have done for you but I don’t recollect it right now.”
“Simon Bone, huh?” The name brought a sour taste to Jason’s mouth. Jason had no use for the man. A few years back, they had both worked for Captain Jim Riley. Riley commanded a company of Pawnee scouts, riding out of Fort Cobb. Jason developed a strong dislike for the Pawnee scouts and, in his estimation, Bone wasn’t much less a cutthroat than the Pawnees. The two had had a falling out over a Commanche warrior that Bone had wounded and captured. He decided to amuse himself by skinning the young Comanche alive. He was well into his cruel entertainment when Jason happened upon them, attracted by the warrior’s screams. Jason put a bullet through the Comanche’s brain to end his misery, which caused Bone to fly at him with his skinning knife. Jason had calmly laid him out with the barrel of his rifle. The blow caught Bone beside his eye, shoving in the skull on that side. The incident left Bone with a right eye that appeared to be half-closed all the time.
Woodcock smiled, remembering. “Yeah, Bone. He’s a friend of yours if I recall correctly.”
“The Cheyenne that told Bone I was dead, was his name Black Eagle?”
Woodcock scratched his chin. “You know, I believe it might have been.”
Jason had a hunch where the story came from. Bone wouldn’t hesitate to tell a lie, but this time he probably wasn’t lying. If Jason’s hunch was right, the problem was Bone couldn’t talk Cheyenne worth a damn. He just didn’t understand the people he was supposed to be scouting. Black Eagle had sworn to kill Jason and when a Cheyenne thinks something in his mind, he knows that it will happen. He probably mounded up a bunch of rocks to signify Jason’s grave. In his mind, Jason was already a dead man. It was just a matter of opportunity to finalize it. Bone didn’t have enough savvy to understand thinking like that.
Wes stood staring up at him. “Well, so you ain’t dead,” he allowed.
“Reckon not,” Jason replied. He didn’t bother explaining to Wes why Bone thought he was dead.
As if just then noticing, Wes asked, “What have you got there?”
“A youngun,” Jason answered.
“Well, I can see that. What the hell are you doing with a little Injun youngun?”
“He ain’t an Injun,” Jason said and handed the boy down to Wes, the pain in his shoulder causing him to grunt as he did.
“He ain’t?” Wes replied, taking the child and holding him out in front of him to give him a good look. “He shore as hell looks like an Injun.” He put the boy down at his feet and looked back up at Jason. “You look like hell. What happened to your shoulder? You get shot?”
Jason stepped down from his horse. “Knife. A squaw jumped me.”
“A squaw? The youngun’s mother?”
“No, dammit, Wes. I told you he ain’t no Injun. Now, if you’re through asking all your damn-fool questions, I’d like to get this shoulder looked at. But first, I need to get the boy something to eat.”
“You look like you could use a little grub yourself. I’d better let Ruthie fix you up. She’ll know what to feed this child.” He gave Jason a sideways glance. “A sight better than you do, I’ll bet.” He stuck his head inside the door of the Orderly Room. “Bates, I’m going over to my quarters for a bit. If the colonel comes back, tell him I’ll be back before Retreat.” He looked back at Jason. “Better let Ruthie take a look at that there knife wound too. We got a sawbones on the post but your chances of survival are better with Ruthie.”
* * *
Ruth Woodcock was a little round woman with a complexion as ruddy as that of her husband’s. Jason imagined that she might have been a comely enough young girl before fourteen years on the frontier aged her more than her years. The western frontier did that to most women if they stayed out here long enough. Jason couldn’t help but wonder how she and Wes had had the misfortune to be assigned to a Godforsaken post like Fort Fetterman. The first time he had seen it, there was nothing but tents. Now at least there were a few rough log buildings. It was known pretty much as a hard luck post where the wind howled all winter and the supplies were short. Ruth showed the signs of living without the simple comforts that most women called the basics. The exterior wear did nothing to dampen her spirits, however. Jason could not remember seeing her when she was not up to whatever task was at hand, and cheerful about it to boot. He counted Wesley Woodcock a fortunate man.
When she saw them approaching, she stepped out on the front porch and waited, hands on her hips, as if getting set to deliver a good scolding. When they were within hearing distance, she sang out, “Jason Coles! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, letting poor folks think you’re dead.”
“Ruth,” was Jason’s simple greeting, tipping his hat respectfully.
“I don’t think I even want to know how you come by that Injun baby.”
“He ain’t Injun,” Jason replied.
She realized at that moment that the dark stains on Jason’s shirt were dried blood. “Looks like you been in another scrape.”
“Yessum, I reckon. Wes said you might take a look at it for me. I’d be obliged . . . it’s a mite sore.”
She shook her head impatiently. “My goodness gracious. Well, get off your horse and come on in the house. Here,” she said, reaching for the boy, “give him to me.” She gave the child a good looking over. “What were you planning to do? Starve the poor little feller to death?”
* * *
Ruth Woodcock had plenty of experience patching up her husband and her two sons; Jeremy, six, and Lemuel, four. She had seen knife wounds before as well as gunshot wounds. After she had fixed something for the child to eat, she cleaned Jason’s wound and put a clean bandage on it.
“One of my next jobs is gonna be to clean up that youngun,” she stated, looking at Bright Feather now sitting contently in a corner of the room. “Jason, what in the world are you doing with a baby?”
Ruth and Wes listened intently while Jason told them of how he happened to become Bright Feather’s stepfather. He told them of the Osage girl he had taken to his valley and the abandoned white baby she had adopted as her own. There were deep lines of compassion on Ruth Woodcock’s face when Jason related how he had come back to the valley to find Lark murdered and the baby stolen.
Ruth gazed at her own two sons for a few moments, deep in thought. They were sitting quietly at the table, listening to the adults talk. No one noticed the tear that formed in her eye as she let her thoughts wander back to the baby she had lost. Her baby would have been about the age of this little one. The thought of it tugged at her heart, reminding her how much she had wanted that baby. After a moment more, she made up her mind. “Jason, what are you planning to do now? I mean about the child?”
“I don’t know for sure, Ruth. I do know I’ve got some unfinished business with Black Eagle. Maybe I’ll go back to scouting after that. But the boy . . . I don’t know. I reckon I can find an Injun woman to take care of him while I’m here.”
“No such a’thing, Jason Coles. You trying to make a sure-nough Indian out of him? You leave that boy here with me. You ain’t fit to raise a child and he’ll get along fine with my two boys.” She turned to Jeremy. “Ain’t that right, honey?”
The youngster smiled brightly. “Yessum. We’ll take care of him.”
“Good, it’s settled then,” Ruth said and she reached over and patted her son on the head.
In truth, Jason was relieved somewhat. He knew the boy needed a mother, but he felt it only prudent and polite to protest. “Ah, no, Ruth. I can’t ask you to do that.” He turned to her husband. “Wes, I couldn’t burden you with—”
Ruth cut him off. “Wes ain’t got nothing to say about it. It ain’t no burden on him anyway. I’m the one that says whether it’s a burden or not and I say it ain’t.” She walked over and picked Bright Feather up and gave him a huge hug. Then she set him down between her two sons and said, “Boys, say hello to your new brother.” They both beamed happily.
“Ruth, I don’t know what to say.” He looked from her back to her husband. The sergeant grinned back at him. A worrisome problem was solved for Jason for he really had had no notion on what he was going to do with a baby. “I’m obliged,” he offered humbly.
Ruth, looking very satisfied with the business just concluded, stood looking over her new charge with a critical eye. “Well, we’re gonna have to give you a good scrubbing, Mr. . . .” She looked over at Jason. “What did you say his name was?”
“Lark named him Bright Feather. He doesn’t have a Christian name.”
“We can’t have people calling him Bright Feather.” She thought for a minute. “We’ll call him John. That all right with you, Jason?”
Jason couldn’t help but grin. “I think it’s perfect.”
“All right, then. Come on, boys, and help me give your new brother a bath.”
Leaving Ruth and the children in the kitchen, Jason and Wes walked out on the front porch. Satisfied that they were out of earshot of Ruth, Jason put the question to Wes straight. “Wes, I didn’t figure to saddle you with another youngun. Are you sure this is all right with you?”
“Hell yes, Jason. Listen, man, you ain’t been around for a couple of years so you wouldn’t have no way of knowing. Ruth lost a baby about a year and a half ago and it like to kilt her. You coming along right now with that little tyke was like a blessing. I saw the light in her eyes when you said he didn’t have no mama. Don’t give it another thought. We’re in your debt.”
Wes stepped down onto the dirt of the parade ground. “Now I reckon I’d better get back to the Orderly Room. What are you gonna do now?”
“I got to take care of my horses first.”
“That’s a fine-looking string of horses. You gonna try to keep all of ’em?”
Jason scratched his head, thinking. “No. . . . To tell you the truth, I need to sell most of ’em to get myself a new grubstake.”
“Why don’t you come with me and talk to the colonel? You serious about going back to scouting? I’d bet he’d sign you up in a minute.”
“All right, but first I’ll set the horses to graze and hobble ’em,” Jason said. “Who is the commanding officer here now?”
“Colonel Fleming,” Wes answered.
Jason nodded. He remembered Colonel Marcus Fleming. He had known him briefly when they were both at Fort Laramie. From what he could remember, Fleming was a sensible man. He wouldn’t object to working for him if he was offered a job. “All right,” he said. “I’ll see you over there as soon as I tend to the horses.”
* * *
Colonel Marcus Fleming sat behind his desk, thumbing through the latest letters and dispatches that had been brought in that morning from Laramie. There were several addressed to him from the Department of the Platte headquarters in Omaha, all routine matters except one. That one brought a frown to his face. “Where the hell am I going to get the extra men?” he mumbled.
“Sir?” Sergeant Woodcock asked, thinking the colonel had addressed him.
“Nothing, Sergeant, I was just talking to myself.” He then went on to complain. “This message from Omaha . . . I guess General Sheridan is putting his spurs into everybody out here. This is another directive from General Ord. He’s ordering us to increase our patrols. He wants all the little groups of hostiles rounded up and brought to the reservation.”
“We’re doing about the best we can now, sir,” Woodcock replied.
Fleming didn’t answer but he knew what Woodcock said was close to the truth. There wasn’t much additional he could do to increase patrols. If his regiment was at full strength, he could send out more patrols. But it was not. Add to that the fact that over half of the men in the regiment were foreigners, immigrants who could barely understand their officers’ orders. The balance of the regiment was liberally spiced with former Confederate soldiers from the War Between the States as well as misfits from the Union forces.
To attempt to maintain peace with this ragtag assortment of troops was absurd. When he let his mind dwell on it, he could sometimes work himself up to the point of angry frustration. Just last week, a patrol of twenty troopers and one officer ran up on a party of no more than a dozen Sioux renegades. Since his soldiers were still armed with single-shot breech-loading rifles, they were forced to retreat before the smaller force of hostiles because more than half of the Sioux were carrying repeating Henry rifles. When was the War Department going to wake up to the fact that the enemy was, in many cases, better armed than the U.S. Army? A few of the men had even bought Winchesters with their own money. He didn’t blame them. He himself owned a Winchester seventy-three and a Colt single action forty-five.
Sergeant-Major Woodcock stuck his head around the partition that separated the Orderly Room from Colonel Fleming’s desk. “Here he comes now, Sir.”
The colonel slid his chair back, stood up, and waited to greet Jason. “Coles,” he acknowledged, extending his hand. “It’s good to see you.”
Jason shook the outstretched hand. “Colonel Fleming.”
Woodcock ambled in behind Jason and leaned up against the partition. While they were shaking hands, he said, “Jason’s available to go back to scouting, Sir.” He glanced at Jason. “Ain’t that right, Jason?”
Jason shrugged. “Well, I reckon.” Looking at the colonel, he added, “That is, if you need any more scouts.”
Colonel Fleming smiled for the first time that day. “Oh, I need a good scout all right. I just finished reading a message from Omaha telling me to put out more patrols. I’ve got four civilian scouts and about twenty Indians, Crow and Pawnee mostly, a few Sioux, none of ’em I completely trust. When I heard you had ridden in, I was hoping you were looking for work. Sergeant Woodcock can pick you up on the payroll starting tomorrow.”
“Well, it’s done then. I appreciate it.” Jason started to leave, then paused. “There is one thing more. I need a grubstake. I’ve got a string of the finest horses in these parts. I’d like to sell seven of ’em.”
Fleming was interested. “Sergeant Woodcock mentioned that. Said you had some Appaloosas. Is that right?” Jason nodded yes. “I’m authorized to purchase horses when I need them so I think we can take them off your hands. Matter of fact, I’d like to pick out one of them for myself.”
Jason left the colonel’s office feeling like he had his feet set firm in the stirrups again. The next morning, after Colonel Fleming selected his personal mount, the Appaloosas were left with Sergeant Ott Swenson to have U.S. branded on their hides. In a way it generated a slight feeling of regret in Jason’s mind. It was like an official end of a dream he had harbored for many years, to raise a herd of the finest horseflesh in the territory. The feeling lasted for only a few minutes, however, replaced by an older and more familiar feeling of freedom with the whole of the western frontier as home instead of one secluded valley in Colorado territory. He had a voucher in his pocket that would give him a sizable line of credit at the sutler’s till the rest of his money for the horses came from Omaha, and he was back to doing what he knew best.