Jason guided his horse down through a grassy meadow which was strewn with white boulders and occasional dead logs left by the countless storms that rumbled through the mountain passes. Birdie picked her way carefully around the larger boulders and through the screen of evergreens. A packhorse laden with fresh meat followed behind him. Long Foot brought up the rear, leading a second packhorse. Within a few minutes, they emerged from the trees and topped the ridge along the eastern side of the valley. They were almost home.
Suddenly Jason threw up his hand and halted the horses. He motioned for silence and listened. There was a sound on the wind. It drifted up from the valley below, at first faint, then gaining in intensity until Long Foot recognized it as a chant. Almost at the same second, they both realized it was a song of mourning they were hearing, a death song, and it was coming from their valley. Jason hesitated no longer. He gave Birdie a firm kick and started off down the ridge at a gallop. Long Foot was close behind.
They found Magpie sitting before Raven’s tipi. Her dress was open above her waist and her lap was filled with the blood that flowed from the slashes across her breast. She continued to sing her song of mourning as she stared at the two men approaching her. Jason was the first to reach her, dismounting on the run even before Birdie came to a full halt. But she looked past him to Long Foot, sobbing as she told him of the murder of his wife.
“Stone Hand!” Jason roared in disbelief. “How can that be? I cut him in two. I saw him go down!”
Long Foot’s grief could not be contained. The scout moaned with a pain that tore at the very core of his soul. He went inside the tipi, where Magpie had carried Raven’s body, and prostrated himself before his dead wife, sobbing in agony. Outside, Jason listened, horrified, while Magpie described the abduction of Sarah and the baby.
Magpie was alive only because she was up on the north ridge, picking wild berries. She heard screams and hurried back as fast as she could but she was too far from the cabin to be of any help to her sister. When she reached the fork of the stream that divides the base of the valley, it was in time to see the end of the assault. It was Stone Hand, come back from the dead. She hid in the stream while she watched him take the three best horses in the corral. He forced Sarah, with the baby, onto one of the horses while he mounted another. Before leaving, he turned the rest of the horses loose. Then he led Sarah and the spare horse out across the valley toward the south. When he was out of sight, Magpie left her hiding place and ran to the cabin where she found her sister lying in a wide pool of blood, her body still warm.
It was as if a huge boulder had been dropped upon his chest. Jason was stunned by the young girl’s accounting of the assault. When his senses returned to normal, the shock was replaced by a feeling of urgency approaching panic. He had to find her! He felt sick inside when he let his mind speculate on the torment she might be enduring at the hand of that devil. Stone Hand had somehow survived that fall down the dark shaft inside the cave. Was there a ledge halfway down? And a secret passageway to the outside? Thinking back to that day, it didn’t seem possible. Maybe the bastard was supernatural. After all, Jason had seen many a man die with less serious wounds than those inflicted upon the renegade. He could barely contain his anxiety to start out after Stone Hand, but he knew he must wait until Long Foot and Magpie prepared Raven’s body for burial.
Long Foot’s grief was without measure. He cried openly as he and Magpie worked feverishly to fashion a burial platform for his wife. At the same time, a fury was building inside him to avenge her murder. Demon or not, Stone Hand must pay for this deed, the senseless slaughter of an innocent woman. He must pay, and pay dearly. In truth, while Long Foot was fond of Sarah, he was really concerned less with rescuing her than seeking his revenge upon Stone Hand. So he and his sister-in-law worked quickly to prepare Raven for her journey. When it was done, Jason stood ready with the horses and supplies.
While the burial preparations were proceeding, Jason rode down the valley, hoping to round up the rest of his horses. All the while, as he rounded up the horses, he labored under a heavy cloak of guilt. He would not have blamed Long Foot for feeling Raven’s death was his fault. But Jason had been certain the renegade could not have survived. Long Foot harbored no such notions, however. He did not doubt that Jason had killed Stone Hand. He was convinced that Stone Hand had returned from the spirit world to claim his son.
They had not scattered far. He found them grazing in the lush grass of the valley. They would need fresh horses, so he turned the two packhorses loose and caught up two to replace them. He rounded up three others and along with the packhorses he drove them back to the cabin. He allowed a fleeting moment of regret for having to leave the rest of his horses behind but he could see no other choice. There was no one to care for them. There was Magpie of course, but he could not leave the young girl there alone. There was no telling when, or even if, they would return to his little valley.
He had no choice but to dump the fresh meat they had brought back. There was no time to dry it. He packed as much of their dried meat as he thought necessary on the two packhorses. The fresh meat would have to feed the wolves or spoil. Even though the sun was sinking toward the western ridge, they set out after the renegade, not wishing to waste any more time. At the south end of the valley, Jason pulled up before topping the rise that would put the valley behind them. He took one brief look at the little cabin and his empty corral. Two of his Appaloosas had followed them toward the mountain pass but stopped at the stream. Maybe they would stay in the lush valley and not scatter into the hills. His dreams of a horse ranch seemed destroyed at that moment. A few moments was all he spent gazing at what might have been, and then he turned his horse and continued on toward the south pass.
* * *
The trail was not hard to follow through the first three passes. There was really only one way through the mountains that loomed straight up above them on each side. It would be more difficult when they left the last of the high mountains and traversed the lower slopes. Then they would have to rely upon their skills as trackers, for Jason knew from experience that Stone Hand could be impossible to track at times. He was more confident this time, however, because of the presence of Sarah and the baby. It would not be as easy for the Cheyenne to cover his tracks. Too, he hoped Stone Hand would not think he was being trailed this soon and might not push as hard to travel fast.
They camped after dark the first night on an outcropping of boulders by a busy stream. Magpie scurried about, making the camp and preparing some food. Long Foot, after seeing to his horses, sat off by himself, chanting a song of mourning. He sat there, moaning low, almost in a whisper, for more than an hour before coming back to the fire and eating some of the meat Magpie offered him.
Jason watched in silence. His heart was sad for his friend’s loss but there was nothing he could offer to ease his pain. He thought about the man they were tracking. Where would he take his hostages? He was traveling south now but he had little choice. Where would he go when they were clear of the high mountains? Oklahoma Territory? Commanche territory? He seemed to have allied himself with the Commanches. He might go back there. Then his thoughts lingered on Sarah and her baby. From what he knew about the man, Jason did not have to guess why Stone Hand came for the baby. He could not abide the thought of his son being raised by whites. He had killed Raven. Why her and not Sarah? He could only conclude that the reason might be that Sarah had milk and Raven did not. That thought triggered another alarming question. How long would Sarah live after her milk dried up? He had wondered at first how Stone Hand had found his valley. Then he remembered Sarah telling him of the three Ute warriors who had passed by while he and Long Foot were in the Bitterroot country. They must have told Stone Hand of the three women and a baby.
Magpie looked at Jason, her eyes searching his, silently asking if he wanted more to eat. He shook his head no, and she started to turn away. With a hand laid gently on her shoulder, he stopped her. Since her heavy song of mourning on the day of Raven’s death, she had remained silent in her grief. As she gazed up at him now, he could read the hurt in her eyes. His gaze shifted down to her antelope skin bodice, which was stained with her own blood from the slashes she had administered in her grieving. His heart reached out to her at that moment and he longed to tell her everything would be all right. Her eyes, unblinking, never left his gaze. After a moment, she came to him, seeking the comforting she so desperately needed. He held her close, his arms around her, her head on his shoulder, and he could feel her body relax in the haven of his embrace. For a few brief moments he felt a peace that he had never experienced before.
* * *
They were up and away at first light, holding to the eastern slope of the pass, riding in the shadows of the steep walls that formed the narrow corridor. The shrill cry of a hawk went unnoticed as the two men kept their eyes glued to the trail, their senses keen for sounds out of the ordinary. Long Foot led. Jason knew he could not hold the Osage scout back anyway, his passion to avenge his wife driving him like a forest fire. Jason’s only fear was that his friend’s rage might blind him to the point of blundering. Long Foot, however, did not miss a sign, even when the trail they followed veered across a rocky crest and turned to the east.
“He turn toward sun,” Long Foot said. “Maybe he go to Shoshone.”
Jason pulled up beside him. “Maybe, but I doubt it. It’s just his nature to change direction. He’ll turn back south.”
Long Foot nodded slowly, thinking it over, then agreed. “He go Commanche. We catch him.” He spoke softly as if to reassure his dead wife. “Damn right,” he added, barely above a whisper.
Jason’s prediction proved to be correct, for after several miles the trail turned south again and followed a narrow pass through the last of the mountains and into the hills. By noontime they came upon Stone Hand’s campsite from the night before. Jason swore when they found it. He had hoped to find it earlier in the day. Now he knew they were still a half day behind them. They had not closed the distance any from the day before. Stone Hand was making as good a time as they were, even with Sarah and the baby. Jason could imagine how hard it was on Sarah, but he tried to put it out of his mind and concentrate on the business of tracking.
* * *
The trail was demanding. Long, wearisome day followed upon the day before. Still they seemed to make no progress in closing the distance between them and the devil they chased. Magpie did not complain even though the trail proved hard on the young Osage maiden. Though she still grieved inside for her sister, she gave no outward sign of her mourning. Death was a familiar partner to all Osage girls and Magpie did not attempt to question the sense of it. Raven was gone and in time Magpie would release her sister to the great beyond and go on with her life. In truth, she did not expect her own life to span many more days for she was convinced the devil they pursued was in fact a spirit form and would undoubtedly destroy them all. The urgency of their journey placed a strain upon all three of them so that each day seemed to be a grim passage of time from dawn to dark with almost no conversation passing between them beyond essential communications.
She leaned forward as the spotted pony she rode hesitated briefly before scaling a rocky mound on the riverbank. She could feel the powerful muscles of the animal between her thighs and the impact of its hooves upon the hard earth of the rise. Up ahead, Jason glanced back to see that she was all right. It was no more than a brief glance. Then, satisfied that she had negotiated the climb with no trouble, he quickly looked away, concerned once again with the trail before him. She had met his glance without expression but inside she was pleased that he showed concern for her. For several months now she had been aware of the strong feelings developing in her heart for the tall white scout. She had assumed in the beginning of their journey to Jason’s valley that he longed for Sarah and this was sad because she could also see that Sarah did not have these feelings for Jason. She knew now that there was affection between Sarah and Jason and that he had compassion for her but there had been no indication of a deeper feeling. She was grateful for this because she had feared he would naturally be charmed by the beautiful white woman. Jason was a good man and he deserved a good wife. In her deepest heart she wished she could make him see her. If he could see inside her heart, he would know that she would be a good wife for him.