The Blackfoot Trail

With no reason to believe that he was being stalked, Joe Fox led his horses down along the river. At the edge of the trees, where a low, rolling line of hills came down to the river, he climbed on the paint and struck out across the treeless slope. Although darkness was already descending over the valley, he decided to ride on until finding shelter at the base of the mountains beyond another treeless mesa. The covering of snow made traveling at night easy enough to see the breaks and gullies that might otherwise have hampered him. Consequently, he was in no particular hurry to get anywhere. The only urgency he felt was to remove himself from the people he was leaving behind.

After he had ridden for a little over an hour, a light snow began to fall, creating a lacy veil over the dark form of the mountain directly before him now. He pulled the hood of his bearskin coat over his head and pressed on, oblivious to the falling snow. Though heavy on his mind, he decided to put away thoughts of Callie Simmons and her parents, and bring his concentration back to what he knew best—survival. Thinking of his horses then, he determined it time to find adequate shelter for them. A long, deep ravine, carved into the base of the mountain was his choice for a campsite. Sheltered from the icy winds by a thick growth of pines, the defile offered protection for his horses as well as a little grass under a thin blanket of snow. “It won’t be much longer, boy,” he said as he took the saddle off the paint, “and the winter will start to let up.”

Stealing cautiously across the open meadow, Yellow Hand, followed closely by his companions, made his way toward the cottonwoods that framed the river. Once they reached the cover of the trees, they paused to look carefully around them. There was no sign of the man they searched for or the horses he led. There was, however, an easy trail in the snow that told them which way he had gone. Squinting in the darkness of the forest at the tracks left by the horses, Yellow Hand asked Wounded Elk, “Do you still think this man is a ghost? These are tracks a child could follow. I don’t believe ghosts leave tracks.”

“Maybe,” Yellow Hand said, disappointed to find that his brother’s killer had not camped in the cottonwoods, and unwilling to admit that Joe Fox had managed to slip away while they had sat waiting for darkness. “He cannot hide his trail in the snow. I’ll track him down and kill him. My brother must be avenged.”

“We will follow him,” Wounded Elk said in support of his friend, but deep in his heart he still had uneasy feelings about the man they sought to kill. Dead Man and Two Arrows were both mighty warriors, and they fell before Joe Fox’s gun. He would prefer to leave this ghost to go his own way. Yellow Hand’s plan to return to their village to organize a large war party was a good one. Rubbing out the party of white mule riders should be revenge enough for Two Arrows’ death. He did not share his feelings of reluctance with the others, however.

“I am afraid if we go after this one man in the high mountains,” Long Walker said, “it may take too long to catch him. If we are going to attack the white men in the holes by the river, we need to go back to our village and get our warriors ready. The white man is crazy. Who knows when they might decide to leave? They may not wait until the passes are clear.”

Yellow Hand nodded and considered the comments. Although Wounded Elk sought to hide his reluctance to follow this ghost, Yellow Hand sensed his friend’s apprehensions. “You may be right, but I know what I must do.” Looking at Wounded Elk, he said, “You and Long Walker should ride back to our village to prepare for the attack. Red Sky can go with me to kill Joe Fox.”

The man they hunted was in the process of making his camp a little more weatherproof, thinking the ravine a good place to stay for a while before moving higher up to one of his regular camps by the waterfall. By the light of a full moon that broke through with the passing of the recent snow clouds, he selected a spot in a stand of young pines. Picking four of the young trees, he bent the tops over and tied them together, forming a crude shelter. Cutting branches from other trees, he covered his shelter, making it better able to protect him from the weather. His hut of pines also allowed him to make his fire inside, away from any eyes that might be about. By the look of the sky, there should be more snow on the way, possibly by morning. That should help cover the trail he had left in the snow.

When his camp was finished and his horses taken care of, he roasted some of the dried meat he carried. He couldn’t help but think of the times Callie had brought him pan bread or some other thing she had cooked to eat with his jerky. As soon as the thought sprang forth, he forbade his mind to dwell on Callie Simmons. He had wasted enough thoughts on foolish fantasies that could not be. He must walk the path that had been set before him and leave the white man to his own world. His self-council was not enough to ease his mind, however, and he became restless and ill at ease, with a feeling that all was not well. He decided he needed to breathe the clean mountain air, free of the smoke from his fire. Taking his rifle, he left the hut and stood for a while listening to the sounds of the night. Looking above him, he saw a knob formed at the rim of the ravine where more young pines grew in a half circle. He decided to climb up to the knob to await the morning sun. It would not be long before it rose. He had labored all night and he felt the need to rest, but his restless feelings made the thought of sleep impossible. When he reached the knob of pines, he decided it would be a good place to watch the sun come up over the mountains.

The two Gros Ventre warriors paused to study the trail that now led up a draw at the foot of the mountain. Yellow Hand looked up at the sky. “It will be morning soon. I think he has decided to make his camp up this ravine.” Red Sky nodded. He was in agreement that if Joe Fox intended to climb the mountain, this draw was not a reasonable path to attempt. It went only a quarter of the way up before ending at the base of a sheer cliff.

With prospects of catching the mountain man while he was sleeping, they hurried along the trail, following it up the snowy draw, eager to reach the camp before sunup. Suddenly, Yellow Hand held his hand up to halt Red Sky. With hand signals only, he directed him to back his pony until reaching a pine thicket they had just passed. As soon as they reached it, Yellow Hand slid off his pony and whispered to Red Sky to do the same. He explained then that they had almost blundered right into the camp. “He has made a lodge with young trees,” Yellow Hand said. “His horses are tied in the trees beyond.” He looked overhead at the sky again just as the first tiny rays of the morning sun probed the trees at the rim of the ravine. “It will be light soon. We must hurry to be ready.”

Leaving their ponies in the thicket, they crept forward until they reached a point some thirty yards from the pine shelter. There they split up on either side of the trail in order to set up a cross fire. Yellow Hand hoped to catch his enemy as he walked out of his shelter, so he waited until the sun had risen over the ridges to the east. Still, Joe Fox did not come out. Too impatient to wait longer, he inched a few yards closer, then gave Red Sky the signal to shoot, and both warriors opened fire with their repeating rifles, pumping round after round into the makeshift shelter, sending pine limbs flying and filling the ravine with thunderous echoes.

After both men emptied the magazines of their rifles, they charged up to the shelter to peer inside. Stunned, they stood gaping into an empty hut. “Up here,” Joe Fox said, and they both turned toward the sound, looking up into the glare of the sun as it framed a dark image against a background of young pines. In the blinding light, it appeared to the two assassins that the image stood in a flaming arch, and in the next instant fiery missiles reached out to strike down both of them.

Joe cocked the Winchester, ejecting the last empty shell, and stood watching the two bodies sprawled before his campsite for a few moments to make sure they were dead. When there was no sign of life from either, he made his way back down the side of the ravine, alert to the possibility there may be more than these two. At the bottom of the ravine, he scouted cautiously along the trail until he came to the two ponies tied in a thicket. Satisfied then that they were alone in the attempt to kill him, he was left to ponder the reason. After going back to examine the dead, he was able to identify them as Gros Ventre, and realized that they must have been seeking revenge for the slaying of their brothers. He had been spared because of his feelings of restlessness. He also wondered whether the slight feeling of uneasiness he had experienced while making his camp had been caused by a sense of danger, as if something had been warning him. He did not discount it. It was a trait often manifested in wild animals, and like a wild animal, he had lived many years alone in the mountains.

Both Indians had early models of repeating Henry rifles. Joe checked the action of each and grunted his satisfaction. They would be worth something in trade for supplies. He had survived the attempt on his life, but all was not well, for two of his horses were lying on the ground, having been hit by lead flying from the warriors’ rifles. Their screams of pain had gone unheard amid the volley of gunfire. He was relieved to see the paint standing, nervously stomping his hooves and stepping from side to side. On closer inspection he found no wounds. For that he was thankful. He and the paint had been partners for a long time. Then he wondered whether there would be more Gros Ventre coming to find him, but the thought left him quickly, for suddenly he felt very tired and in need of sleep.

He untied the paint and the other, a sorrel he had captured in the first encounter with the Gros Ventre, led them away from the bodies, and tied them again. With the horses quieted down, he went back by the fire and lay down to rest. He would sleep, and afterward he would collect the two ponies in the thicket and leave this ravine to the buzzards.

Obviously distressed, Callie almost dropped the cake of bread on the ground, scarcely believing the words coming from her parents’ mouths. Her mother had been trying to discourage Callie’s friendship with the strange, quiet man from the mountains ever since Joe had first come to rescue them. But her father had never said a negative word in association with the man who saved his life. Dismayed, but not for long, her eyes flashed with anger, and she broke off a generous piece of the fresh bread. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you two,” she scolded. “Joe is the kindest, most thoughtful man I’ve ever met. He deserves a lot more than a little hunk of pan bread, and I’m taking it to him!” With that, she turned abruptly and left the cave.

“Callie!” her mother cried out and reached for her arm to stop her, but Callie was already out of her reach. “You come back here!” she ordered, but her daughter ignored her. Cora ran out the entrance after the head-strong girl. Jake didn’t know what to do, so he followed his wife outside. The girl didn’t get far before she ran headlong into Bradley Lindstrom as he was walking past their hovel.

Bradley went on to convey his concern. “He said he was gonna stay around for a few days, but he’s already gone. Luke Preston’s boy was over in those cottonwoods early this mornin’. There wasn’t no sign of Joe, and he found tracks leadin’ out toward the mountains to the south.” Bradley paused to scratch his head thoughtfully. “What I’m afraid of, though, is if he’s ever plannin’ to come back, ’cause we were sure hopin’ we could talk him into leadin’ us to Oregon come spring.”

“I don’t know,” Bradley replied, not necessarily in agreement with Cora’s assessment of the man who had proven to be pretty damned dependable in his eyes. “I hope he’ll change his mind about goin’ with us come spring.” He called to mind a conversation he’d had with Joe the day before. Raymond Chadwick was there as well. Joe had said then that he had a camp in the mountains two days’ ride from this valley, where he sometimes stayed part of the year. It was one of his favorite hunting spots, he had said, at the base of a waterfall that fed Otter Creek. If Joe really was gone for good, maybe it would be worthwhile to try to find that camp and hope they found him there as well. “Well,” he finally said, “I expect I’d best go see if my mules are doin’ all right.” He strode off toward the corral, leaving the three of them to consider this unexpected development.

Seeing the look of disappointment in Callie’s face, Cora sought to smooth her daughter’s ruffled emotions. “Callie, honey, your pa and me were just trying to keep you from making a mistake that would ruin your whole life. And now you see we were right about Joe Fox. He’s gone without so much as a kiss my foot to anybody.”

Callie cocked her head to one side, and frowned at her mother as a suspicion struck her that her parents had something to do with Joe’s sudden departure. All at once she was overcome with mixed feelings of anger and humiliation. She stared at her parents accusingly and charged, “You said something to him, didn’t you?”

One individual seemed to find the confrontation between mother and daughter amusing. Starbeau chuckled when he saw Callie walk away in an apparent huff. You can really swing that little behind of yours when you’ve got your dander up, he thought. Seated on his saddle blanket in the mouth of his cave, taking in the morning sun, he could not hear the conversation between Bradley and the Simmons family except to catch a word or a phrase here and there when a voice was raised. It was enough to tell him that there was a thread of discord between daughter and parents, and it had something to do with Joe Fox. He drew satisfaction from anything that caused trouble for Jake Simmons or Joe Fox, and it was doubly pleasing if that something meant trouble for both of them. He was almost certain that he had heard Bradley Lindstrom tell Jake that Joe Fox was gone. He hoped that was true. He hated Joe Fox as much as he had ever hated any man. More than that, although reluctant to admit it, he feared him, feared the man’s pragmatic reaction to threat. Starbeau was dead certain that Joe Fox was about to finish him off that night he shot him in the shoulder and would have completed the job if the others had not persuaded him to stop. The thing that caused Starbeau to fear the rangy mountain man was the cold, emotionless way he had prepared to kill him, with no show of excitement or anger, as if it were no more than the dispatching of a wounded animal. A man like that was dangerous, and given the chance, more specifically Joe Fox’s back, Starbeau wouldn’t hesitate to kill him.

“Lucky for him he’s gone,” he growled to himself, said mostly to boost his pride. Then he smiled when it occurred to his sluggish brain that with Joe Fox gone there was no one to challenge him. His size and bluster would once again cause fear and demand respect. His smile widened until it broke into a mischievous chuckle. Before that morning, he had just about decided to leave this camp of God-fearing Bible thumpers and forget about going to Oregon. The two hundred and fifty dollars hidden in the little wooden box in Bradley Lindstrom’s cave would give him a right comfortable grub stake for a while. Maybe I’ll go down to Butte, he thought. Don’t nobody know me there. He looked up at the sky then. I’ll just wait a little while longer for the weather to get better. He felt smug when he thought that Joe Fox wouldn’t be around to track him when he left with the money.