Nate froze, probing the forest for movement. He didn’t have to look very hard. A shadowy form materialized, advancing from the trees and moving directly toward the lodges. As near as he could tell, there was only one man. Quietly placing the Hawken down, he drew his big butcher knife and slinked forward. If he could capture the Blood alive, the Shoshones might be able to wring important information from him, such as how many were in the raiding party and where they were.
The vague figure made no attempt to conceal himself. Cocky devil, Nate thought, easing onto all fours with the knife clutched tight in his right hand. He angled to one side of the warrior’s line of travel, then flattened and tensed for the spring.
On came the Blood, armed with a lance that he was holding at waist height instead of ready to use in combat.
Nate was amazed at the man’s careless attitude, but he had no time to dwell on it. In seconds the Blood was passing him, and he let the warrior take two strides before he surged upright and pounced, his left arm looping around the man’s neck and clamping down hard so the Blood couldn’t cry out even as he pressed the tip of his blade into the man’s right cheek and growled in Shoshone, “Make one move and you are dead.”
The warrior started to struggle and gurgled as if drowning.
“Do you understand?” Nate demanded, applying more pressure and digging the knife in deeper. Immediately the man dropped his lance and ceased resisting. Nate slowly turned, forcing the Blood to move with him, self-conscious about having his back to the woods when there undoubtedly were more Bloods somewhere in the vicinity. He scanned the tree line but saw nothing. Should he shout to bring the Shoshones on the run? Or was it wiser to keep quiet so the war party didn’t realize one of their own had been captured?
He headed south, pushing the Blood before him, his left forearm locked on the man’s throat, his knife providing incentive for the warrior to cooperate. For over a minute he walked, constantly scouring the forest, barely paying attention to his prisoner, more concerned over getting an arrow or lance in the back than over the man giving him any trouble.
From out of the darkness came a walking mountain. Touch the Clouds appeared like a wraith out of nowhere, making no sound whatsoever. “Grizzly Killer?” he whispered. “Is that you?”
“Yes,” Nate confirmed. “And I have caught one.” The giant came closer, peered into the prisoner’s face, and made a sound like a bull elk startled by a stalking panther. “Have you taken a good look at your captive?”
“No. Why?”
“Perhaps you should.”
Nate relaxed the pressure on the warrior’s throat just enough so he could lean forward and see the man’s features. Recognition took a second in the dark, but when he saw who it was he lowered his arms and stepped back. “Beaver Tail!”
The young warrior rubbed his throat and glanced from the giant to Nate. “You are strong, Grizzly Killer. I feared you would snap my neck before you learned it was I.”
“You’re fortunate I didn’t shoot you on sight or slit you from ear to ear,” Nate said. “What were you doing out in the forest?”
“The forest?” Touch the Clouds repeated.
Beaver Tail fidgeted nervously. “Yes. I wanted to see if there were Bloods nearby, so when you were talking and everyone was busy listening I sneaked off into the trees.”
“You young fool,” Touch the Clouds said sternly. “What if there had been a war party out there? What chance would you have had all alone? You took a needless risk.”
“Which is easy for you to say,” Beaver Tail replied. “You have counted more coup than ten men. You have no need to prove yourself. But what about those of us who have yet to count our first coup?”
Nate slid his knife into its sheath. The young man’s motive was perfectly logical given the intense competition among the warriors to see who could garner the most honors in battle. To count coup a warrior would do practically anything: rush headlong into enemy fire, fight against overwhelming odds, even stake himself to the ground so that he couldn’t leave the battlefield before all his enemies had turned tail or were dead.
“Patience, my friend,” Touch the Clouds advised, draping a hand on Beaver Tail’s shoulder. “You must have patience. Your time to count coup will come soon enough. Losing your hair in the meantime because you are too rash for your own good will make your name a laughingstock instead of one our women will speak with pride.” He patted Beaver Tail’s arm. “When you have been in as many terrible fights as I have, when you have seen so many honorable men die horrible deaths, many of them your best friends, you will not be so thirsty for blood.”
“I will not rest until I have counted more coup than any Shoshone who ever lived!” Beaver Tail declared. Pivoting, he hastened toward the lodges, his back stiff, his chin thrust defiantly outward.
Touch the Clouds watched him go. “I have often wondered why the Great Medicine saw fit to make men so ignorant and childish. By the time we are old enough to figure out the way of the world, we are ready for the grave.”
Nate had no answer for that one. “I should get back to my post,” he said, thinking of his rifle, and began to retrace his steps. Hindsight told him it had been a mistake to go off and leave his Hawken behind. Not that any of the Shoshones would steal it. Few of them liked to use guns. Most preferred using their traditional bows and arrows over the white man’s weapon, with good reason since a skilled archer could fire anywhere from ten to twenty shafts in the time it took the average trapper to reload. Then too, he had carved his initials on the stock and would have no problem identifying his own rifle.
Just being separated from the Hawken made him feel uncomfortable. A man’s rifle was as essential to his continued existence as breathing itself, more so than a brace of pistols. Flintlocks were fine for close-in fighting and for shooting small game at close range. But for dropping bigger animals like buffalo, elk, and deer, at great distances, and for keeping hostiles at bay, there was nothing like a dependable Hawken.
He made for the approximate spot where he had jumped Beaver Tail, then walked to where he had deposited the rifle. It wasn’t there. Bending over so he could see the ground better, he searched to the right and the left. He wasn’t worried. He had simply misjudged the proper spot by a few feet or so and would find the rifle any moment.
A minute elapsed and he saw no trace of it. Puzzled, he straightened near the water and put his hands on his hips as he tried to deduce where he was going wrong. How could he be so far off the mark? Had he been farther east or west when he set the weapon down? In the excitement of seeing a presumed enemy, he might not have been as observant as he should have been.
Chiding himself for being such a dunderhead, he angled to the west, stooped low to examine every square inch of grass and dirt. If he failed to find the weapon in another minute or two, he would go to the nearest lodge and ask the warrior inside for a burning brand from the cooking fire. Weaving back and forth, he went closer to the trees. When he turned toward the village, he finally found his Hawken. But not in the way he expected.
The patter of rushing feet made Nate uncoil and spin, his right hand swooping to his flintlock. He saw a stocky shape an instant before something slammed into his forehead with the force of a runaway ten-ton boulder. Bright pinpoints of light blossomed before his eyes. And then the darkness claimed more than the land. It claimed his mind.
~*~
The tantalizing odor of roasting deer meat was the first sensation Nate became conscious of. He lay still, taking stock, aware he was on his back on the ground and a rock was gouging him in the lower back. His arms rested on his chest, his wrists were bound. Gruff voices spoke in a tongue he didn’t know, but which he suspected was the language of the Bloods. His head throbbed. It hurt just to think. Otherwise, he seemed to be fine.
Cracking his eyelids, he peered at a group of seven Blood warriors gathered around a crackling fire over which a haunch of venison was roasting. Trees ringed them, leading him to surmise they were in a clearing in the forest. Through the trunks he spied the sun rising above the far horizon. Apparently he had been out all night long and now a new day was dawning. He could hear birds chirping and the chattering of an irate squirrel.
One of the Bloods, an imposing figure who wore three eagle feathers in his long hair, rose and came toward him.
Nate closed his eyes and feigned being unconscious. He involuntarily flinched when a sharp object jabbed him in the side. The warrior spoke a few words, then jabbed him again, only harder. There was nothing to be gained by pretending any longer, so Nate opened his eyes and stared up into the Blood’s impassive face.
In the warrior’s right hand was a hunting knife. He slid it into a sheath on his right hip before addressing Nate again. A second warrior, shorter and with a cleft chin, came over.
Nate didn’t understand a word. “Do you speak Shoshone?” he asked when the warrior fell silent.
Neither Blood responded.
“How about English?” Nate inquired in that language.
Again the Bloods showed no indication they comprehended. They conversed briefly in their own tongue, then the one wearing the eagle feathers lifted his hands. “If you speak sign, white man, nod once.”
Nate nodded. The shorter Blood drew a knife and leaned down to slice the rope binding his wrists.
“If you try to escape we will kill you here and now,” the taller warrior signed. “I am Eagle Claw of the Bloods. Who are you, white man? And what were you doing at the Shoshone camp?”
Slowly sitting up, Nate rubbed his wrists to restore the circulation, then noticed the rest of the war party approaching. Two held bows, arrows nocked and ready to fly. He must make no unwarranted moves or he would never see his wife and son again. “I am known as Grizzly Killer,” he signed. “The Shoshones are my adopted people.”
Eagle Claw and the one with the cleft chin talked in their tongue for a bit. Finally, Eagle Claw looked down at him and said, “Are you the same Grizzly Killer who slew Mad Dog and White Bear of the Blackfeet?”
Nate answered honestly. Lying would do no good since he was the only white man in the entire Rocky Mountains who was called by that name. Occasionally Indian men from different tribes had the same name, but there were so few whites in the mountains that every name applied to only one person. “I am,” he said.
Eagle Claw frowned. “The Blackfeet are our brothers.”
“I know.”
“Their enemies are our enemies.”
“So I have heard,” Nate said. The confederacy between the Blackfeet, Bloods, and Piegans was loose-knit in that they rarely conducted raids together or combined their forces to wage war, but whoever aroused the anger of one tribe incurred the wrath of all three.
“Then you must also know that we will slay you.”
“You will try.”
Eagle Claw’s eyes narrowed, then he clapped his hands and burst into hearty laughter. Some of the others joined in, but not the warrior with the cleft chin. He glowered, insulted by Nate’s audacity.
“You have courage, white man,” Eagle Claw signed when the rough mirth subsided. “I will grant you that. But even brave men die.”
“The measure of a man is how well he dies,” Nate signed, choosing his words carefully, seeking to impress the Bloods and buy himself a fighting chance. “Cowards whine and cry. Brave men like us go to the spirit world with our heads held high.” He paused, gazing at each of them in turn. “All I ask is a fair chance, and I believe you will give it to me because the Bloods are widely regarded as some of the fiercest fighters of all the tribes in this land. Surely you would not stake me out to die in the hot sun like the Comanches might do, or tie me and fill me with arrows like the Apaches. Such deaths give no honor to anyone. Let me run a gauntlet. Or have me fight as many of you as you wish using only knives or tomahawks. Just let me die with dignity.”
At a gesture from Eagle Claw, the Bloods stepped closer to the fire and began a lively discussion.
Had the plea worked? Nate wondered hopefully. Indian men regarded bravery as the highest of virtues, and they regarded dying in battle as the ideal way to give up the ghost. No warrior wanted to die a helpless victim. He tried to read their feelings by their expressions but it was impossible. Eagle Claw and the one with the cleft chin were arguing strenuously while the others listened.
He suddenly spotted his weapons lying in a pile to the right of the fire. The flintlocks were on top. If he took a half-dozen quick strides, he could snatch them up and cut loose. But he knew those two Bloods with bows would both put arrows into him before he got off a single shot. He would live longer if he did nothing for the time being.
Eagle Claw was coming toward him. “Your eloquent words have touched our hearts, white man. All of us except Kicking Bird agree a man should have a fighting chance when he dies. Kicking Bird says that you are white and don’t deserve to leave this world like a true man. He says you should die like a dog.”
Nate glanced at the warrior with the cleft chin, who gave him a look of pure murderous venom.
“So you will get your wish,” Eagle Claw signed.
“How is it to be?” Nate asked.
The leader of the war party grinned enigmatically. “We want that to be a surprise.”