The High Rocks Page 14

  I had seen too much in one day. When Bear straightened, holding aloft his bloody trophy for all to see, I turned my head and was sick.

  13

  Lying beside me, Little Tree was strangely silent. I overcame my nausea long enough to ask if she was all right. She wasn’t.

  “Bear!”

  I had to call a second time before he heard me. Finally he turned and, still holding the dripping scalp, made his way shakily across the ice; the sluggishness in his right leg told me that some of the paralysis was. still with him. “What is it?” he demanded, his chest heaving.

  “Your squaw’s dead.”

  I had been in no mood to break it to him gently. Now I regretted my bluntness. He dropped the scalp and fell to his knees at Little Tree’s side, gathered her in his arms and tried to get her to raise herself. It was no use; the blood was already beginning to congeal where a bullet from a Flathead rifle had made jelly out of the back of her head on its way out of her brain.

  “I hope the scalp was worth it,” I said.

  I regretted that too, but for a more personal reason, as without warning he let go of the corpse and swept his knife around in a broad arc with the intent of decapitating me. I ducked just as the blade swished past, knocking off my hat. Before he could come back the other way I fisted my revolver and, taking advantage of his hunched-over position, threw all my weight into a punch straight at his bearded jaw. I felt the jar all the way to my shoulder as I connected. That was more than I could say for Bear, who shook his head as if to rid himself of a moth trapped in his whiskers, gathered the front of my collar in one tremendous fist, and without so much as a grunt of exertion lifted me off my feet and held me dangling twenty-four inches above the ground. His eyes were bloodshot, his face purple.

  “Now,” he said, balancing the knife in his other hand, “let’s see what you et for breakfast.”

  “You’ll have to take my word for it.” I stretched out my right arm, which was only now beginning to ache, and planted the muzzle of the Deane-Adams between his bushy brows. “This time there’s no broken firing pin.”

  I could tell it wasn’t working. He was going to use the knife, and it didn’t matter whether I pulled the trigger or not, because with his last reflex he was going to let open my belly. We were both dead. All that remained was the burying. Judge Black-thorne was going to be confused as hell when he learned what had happened to me. I began to squeeze the trigger.

  The cylinder was already turning when the scalp-hunter’s face twisted into a mask of pain and he lost his grip on the knife. It hit the snow only an instant before he did. I pulled loose from his weakened hold on my collar, landed on my feet, and prepared to finish the job I had started, for the gun was still in my hand.

  He was stretched before me, unable to move. All my experience told me to fire and get it over with. Even if he wasn’t bluffing, and the bullet in his back had in fact shifted, we would both be better off if I put him out his misery and rode on. There was no doubt in my mind that that was the only thing to do, so of course I didn’t do it. I let the hammer down gently and put the gun away.

  “How bad is it this time?” I asked him.

  “Don’t know.” His feet shifted slightly in the snow. “I’m starting to feel something. A tingle.”

  “You’re lucky. It probably moved again when you hit the ground. It could just as easily have cut a cord and killed you. Can you ride?”

  “Go to hell.”

  “I’m sorry about Little Tree,” I said. “But she’s dead and those Indians are due back any time. If you can’t ride, I’ll have to rig another litter. From now on we keep moving until we get to town.”

  “Do what you want. I’m staying.”

  “Like hell you are. Little Tree and I didn’t bring you this far just to let you commit suicide. She’s dead because of you. Are you saying that doesn’t mean anything?”

  He didn’t reply. I gaped at him.

  “That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?” I arranged my face into a sneer. “You’re pathetic. It wasn’t enough that you threw away your life on vengeance; you had to toss hers out too. Now that it’s come down to a choice, you’ve chosen to go out in a blaze of glory. Glory, hell! You’re giving up.”

  Roaring in rage, he threw himself over onto his stomach and wriggled through the snow toward where he had left his Spencer. He had his hand on it when I took two steps and pinned it, hand and all, beneath my boot.

  “‘Mountain That Walks!’” I taunted, sneering down at him. “You can’t even crawl.”

  He let his face fall forward into the snow.

  I reached down, snatched the rifle out of his grip, and jacked out all the shells. “Better pick them up,” I advised, tossing the weapon down beside him. “You haven’t got that many to spare.”

  He was still lying there when I mounted the mare and rode off. I can’t say now whether I intended to leave him to his fate or if I thought my leaving might shake him out of it and get him to follow me. I was sure he could ride. How I really felt is a moot point, though, because I hadn’t made half a mile through the steep drifts that blanketed the foothills when I spotted the blue uniforms riding toward me from the direction of Staghorn. I reined in and threw a leg over the horn of my saddle to wait.

  They seemed to be taking an inordinately long time about approaching until I realized that they were doing so by design. They had heard shooting and had come running. As far as they were concerned, I was the enemy. My suspicions were confirmed when drawing within rifle range, they spread out, dismounted, and knelt in the snow beside their horses with their rifles braced in firing position. There were fifteen of them, wearing army blue oilskin slickers over their woolen winter uniforms.

  “You there!” This from a rail-thin horse soldier near the center of the line, a sunburned youthful type with a hollow, drillmaster’s voice, matter-of-fact and without inflection. “Throw down your weapons and dismount!”

  I didn’t argue. I unholstered the Deane-Adams for the ten thousandth time and flung it away out of temptation’s reach. Next came Church’s Colt, and then the rifle I had captured from Rocking Wolf. I got out of the saddle as slowly as I could without losing my balance and falling, which would undoubtedly have provoked the order to fire; he had that kind of voice.

  “Now the hat. Remove it with two fingers and scale it away.”

  He was no fool. I did as directed. None of the men left his ready crouch even then.

  “Identify yourself.”

  “Page Murdock, deputy U.S. marshal, Helena.” I was careful to keep my hands within sight. “I have a badge, if you’d care to see it.”

  Apparently he didn’t. He gave the order to mount, and after much floundering and soldierly cursing I was surrounded by men on horseback.

  “Sergeant, his weapons.” Up close, the officer wasn’t quite the young man I’d thought him to be; he had a blond moustache and creases beneath his vague gray eyes. His face was gaunt beneath the brim of his campaign hat, his complexion nearly as dark as an Indian’s. Little lumps of determination stood out on either side of his jaw.

  The sergeant, whose square, black-moustached features looked as if they had come up against more than one bony fist in their time—once quite recently—dismounted and fished the revolvers and rifle out of the snow where I’d thrown them, then handed them to his superior, who examined them in an offhanded fashion.

  “Captain Amos Trainer, Fort Benton,” he said in his clipped monotone. He made Two Sisters sound emotional by comparison.

  “You’re a long way from home, Captain.”

  He ignored that, pretending to be interested in the engraving on the side of the rifle. “We were told by the sheriff in Staghorn to look out for a mean-looking bastard riding a no-good chestnut mare. His description, not mine.”

  “You didn’t seem to have any trouble identifying me by it,” I said. “How is Henry?” I bent to retrieve my hat.

  “He’s dead.”

  I paused in mid-s
toop, then snatched hold of the hat and shook it free of snow, as if that were the most important job in the world. I put it on and carefully creased the brim. “Who?”

  “Nobody you’d know. About a week ago, a punk shell from Wyoming got drunk and called him out.”

  “Faster?”

  He shook his head. “Fast as. They fired at the same time. The punk was dead when he hit the floor. Goodnight died the next morning. He never regained consciousness.”

  “Two years ago the punk would never have cleared leather. Who’s the new sheriff?”

  “You’re looking at him. When there was no word from the man we sent here, General Clifton sent out his patrol to hunt down and arrest Bear Anderson, the Indian murderer. Goodnight was shot the evening we arrived. I wired the general, who wired the governor, who placed me in charge until the local citizenry can hold an election.”

  “Bet that pleased the general.”

  Something bordering on a smile passed across the officer’s gaunt features. He swung open the rifle’s lever, found the chamber empty, frowned, replaced it. “I was told you’d gone into the mountains after an escaped prisoner. Where is he?”

  “You don’t want to stand out here in this blizzard while I tell you that one,” I assured him.

  “We heard some shooting a while ago. You can start with that.”

  “I had a run-in with Two Sisters about a half-mile back.”

  “Alone? How many guns can you fire at one time, Deputy?”

  I sighed. “I’m tired of arguing, Captain. Bear Anderson’s back there, and he needs medical help.”

  He glared at me. “I think you’d better start explaining.”

  I took a deep breath and told him what I could, including the fate of the bounty hunters his commanding officer had hired. He listened in silence.

  “Mount up, Sergeant,” he said when I had finished.

  The sergeant had been standing behind me. Now he stepped into leather, oilskin rustling, and accepted the revolvers and rifles from his superior.

  “I’m going along,” I said.

  “That’s what you think. Sergeant!”

  “Yes, sir.” The sergeant saluted. He spoke with a Georgia drawl; I found myself wondering what rank he had held in the Confederate Army, and if we might have met somewhere before, across a smoke-enshrouded battlefield. He was too old not to have served.

  “Detail two men to stay here and keep an eye on Mr. Murdock. Orders are to shoot if he tries anything.” He gathered up his reins and reached back to flick open the flap securing his side arm in its holster. It was an Army Colt; what else was there, here in Colt country?

  “I’m going along for your protection,” I explained. “If you go in there half-cocked, you’re going to lose most of your men.”

  He smiled twistedly. “Against one man, Deputy? One wounded man?”

  I said, “The Flatheads number over five hundred, and they haven’t been able to take him in fifteen years. And wounded or not, he just killed two men, one of them with his bare hands. If he sees me with you—armed—he might go with you peacefully.”

  “You’re not sure?”

  “He tried to kill me a little while ago.”

  “You don’t inspire confidence, Deputy.”

  “That’s your job, Captain. I’m just a public servant.”

  “Very well. Sergeant!” He nodded at the non-com, who handed me my weapons. I accepted them and returned each to its proper holder.

  “But, remember,” added the officer, “my orders stand to shoot to kill in the event you cross us.”

  “I expected no less from the U. S. Army,” I replied, and mounted the mare.

  Heading back toward the river, I asked Captain Trainer what he was doing out there.

  “We were on our way back from our first patrol when he heard the shots,” he said.

  “Isn’t that neglecting your responsibilities as sheriff?” I asked.

  “Not at all. There’s no reason I can’t fulfill my duties to the U.S. government as well as to the voters.”

  “Funny, I thought they were one and the same.”

  “Column of twos, Sergeant,” he said, ignoring my comment.

  We came upon him just as he was preparing to straddle the dun. Little Tree’s body was nowhere to be seen; a mound of snow, marked at one end by a pine bough standing upright, explained his delay in leaving. He saw us approaching, but made no move toward the Spencer in his saddle scabbard. He mounted carefully and sat watching us.

  “You said he was wounded,” snapped Trainer, drawing his Colt. He signaled halt.

  “I said wounded. Not dead.”

  “Look at the size of him.” This from the sergeant. “I wish I’d brought my buffalo gun.”

  “Just keep him covered.” Trainer raised his voice. “Bear Anderson! This is the U. S. Army! Throw down your weapons and surrender!”

  The wind whistled.

  “Prepare to dismount, Sergeant.”

  “Prepare to dismount!” bawled the sergeant. Leather creaked.

  “You with them, Page?” The scalp-hunter spoke quietly.

  I said I was. He nodded. “Just as well. I was getting too slow anyway.” He slid the Spencer from its scabbard—the captain cocked the hammer of his Colt—and, swinging the rifle by its barrel, hurled it out into the middle of the river. It struck with a crash, bobbed once, and slid beneath the surface.

  The unexpected action distracted us. While we were watching it, Bear unsheathed his bowie knife and plunged it into his breast.

  14

  I had started forward before he hit the ground. Trainer grabbed my arm.

  “Stay back! It might be a trick.”

  I pulled my arm free and kicked the mare forward. Bear was lying in a hunched position at his horse’s feet, breathing heavily. The big dun, anxious, shifted its weight from one front hoof to the other and snorted steam. I dismounted and turned the scalp-hunter over onto his back. The bowie was jammed up to its hilt just below the curve of his chest; blood was spreading slowly.

  “Who’s got a clean kerchief?” I demanded of the troopers who had come forward to look down at the legend of the Bitterroot.

  “Ain’t nobody got a clean kerchief after three days on patrol,” the sergeant said, dismounting. “But here.” He untied the yellow cloth from around his neck and handed it to me.

  Pulling the knife from Bear’s breast was only a little easier than loosening an axe sunk in a maple stump, but by grabbing hold of the hilt and bracing my other hand against his shoulder I succeeded in drawing it out. Then the bleeding began in earnest. I tore open his bearskin and shirt and poked the end of the kerchief into the wound. He shuddered.

  “Some scalp-hunter you are,” I told him. “You can’t even kill yourself. That bearskin saved your life.”

  “I always did hate it,” he said, grunting through his teeth.

  I undid my belt, pulled it free, and strapped it around his chest inside his shirt to secure the makeshift bandage. It barely reached. I had to use the bloody knife to make a new hole in the leather before I could fasten it.

  “How long do you think that will hold?” Trainer asked.

  “Long enough to get him into Staghorn, I hope,” I said. “If he lives that long.”

  “He won’t.”

  “Ordinarily, I’d agree with you. But people like Bear Anderson don’t just die.”

  “I can’t understand it. If he wanted to commit suicide, why didn’t he just let us shoot him?”

  “I like to do some things for myself,” Bear grunted. Then he lost consciousness.

  “Will you look at that!” the sergeant exclaimed suddenly.

  I looked up. He was pointing across the river.

  A pack of wolves thronged the opposite bank, snarling and slashing at one another over the bounty hunters’ now-frozen bodies. On the outer edge of the pack, Lop Ear himself, head down and teeth bared, eyed the soldiers warily. His hackles bristled. The sergeant hooked his rifle out of its scabbard, nestl
ed the butt against his shoulders, and fired.

  The pack scattered, all except Lop Ear, who stood his ground. The sergeant fired again. This time the big leader howled and tried to rear, but the bullet had smashed a hind leg. The rifle crashed a third time. The wolf fell over onto its right shoulder, kicked, and lay still. Steam rose from its body.

  “Wolves,” spat the sergeant, lowering the rifle. “I hate ’em.”

  Expecting Bear to ride with a bullet in his back and a knife wound in his chest was out of the question, so the soldiers and I set about constructing a new litter while the captain paced the riverbank, twisting a gloved fist in a gloved palm and firing anxious glances from time to time across the water, where the Indians remained an unseen presence. On that side, gangs of wolves heaved and tore at the carcasses of the bounty hunters and their dead leader, bolting great bloody chunks of meat and hair in their eagerness to fill their bellies before they were shouldered aside by the others. Pleading low ammunition, Trainer had put a stop to any more shooting of the animals, and so we were forced to work to the accompaniment of their greedy slurps and snarls. At last we had the scalp-hunter secured to the rig and hitched once again behind the dun; with me in charge of it and troopers leading my mare and the black behind their mounts, we pulled out.

  The blizzard had begun to wind down by the time we reached the foothills. That night the cloud cover broke, allowing a ragged splinter of moon to glimmer down and set aglow the rolling whiteness that surrounded us. We made no camp, having fed and watered our horses at the river. As it turned out, though, we needn’t have been concerned about pursuit, as by sunrise—a brilliant, sparkling sunrise, the first such in many days—we had yet to be overtaken. Already it seemed that Black Kettle’s loss had begun to change the character of the Flathead nation. We stopped for a short rest at noon, and by the close of the second day we were on the outskirts of Staghorn, where the smell of wood smoke quickened the pace of even the most exhausted of our mounts.