The High Rocks Read online

  Rocking Wolf answered him in the same tongue, gesticulating in my direction and snarling a string of words that didn’t sound much like compliments. The sentry lowered his weapon and waved us on.

  “You’re late getting out of the mountains this year,” I remarked as we entered camp.

  “That is because Two Sisters cannot be moved.” Rocking Wolf kept his eyes trained straight ahead of him. “Ten suns ago he was thrown by his horse. His injuries have yet to heal.”

  A scruffy dog of uncertain ancestry came bouncing out from behind one of the lodges and announced our arrival in raucous barks. It was joined by another, and soon we were surrounded by mongrels of every size and description, snapping at our heels and raising enough racket to bestir the corpses on the backs of the party’s mounts. Here and there a flap was pulled aside and a half-naked brave stepped out of his lodge to stare at us with suspicious eyes.

  The chief’s lodge, a squat cone made of buffalo hide and bearskin sewn together and stretched over six stout poles bound together at the top by a strip of uncured leather, was no grander than those that surrounded it. A colorless haze of heat drifted out through the opening in the top, causing the crossed ends of the poles to shimmer like sunken pilings at the bottom of a shallow pond. Rocking Wolf dismounted before the lodge and, out of habit, landed a glancing blow with the sole of his right moccasin boot alongside the head of a black-muzzled mutt that had gotten too close. The dog shrieked and drew its upper lip back over its yellowed fangs, but it shrank away. The Indian exchanged a few low words with the fur-clad brave guarding the entrance, who ducked inside for a moment, then returned and nodded curtly. Rocking Wolf told me to stay where I was and entered the lodge through the low flap.

  News that a white man had been brought in alive along with the corpses of the missing hunting party had spread quickly throughout the camp. Everywhere I looked I met a hostile face, leaving me with little doubt about who they believed was responsible. I thought of Leslie Brainard’s fate and wondered if they could have anything worse in store for me.

  The wails of the women were conspicuous by their absence; I came to realize after a moment that there were few, if any, squaws in camp. Probably they were waiting for their men back at the permanent village west of the Bitterroot. That was proof enough that the prospect of crossing the mountains was no longer a casual one now that they were part of Bear Anderson’s domain. The thought didn’t gratify me. A savage afraid, like an animal cornered, was a thing best left alone.

  The quickening snow had put out the last of the torches by the time the chief′s nephew emerged from the lodge and signaled for me to enter. I dismounted amid a chorus of threatening growls and elbowed my way through the throng, expecting any time to feel the burning pain of a knife blade being shoved between my ribs.

  But the aura of command that surrounded the chief’s lodge was too great, and presently I found myself blinking in the light of the fire that burned in the center of the cone. After the dimness of the snow-covered landscape outside, it was some moments before my eyes could discern anything in the gloom that surrounded that crackling brightness. Meanwhile, I occupied myself by listening to the voice that addressed me as soon as I entered.

  “You’re far from home, Page Murdock.” It was a dry voice; something that had been left too close to the fire so that all the moisture had been allowed to bake away, leaving only the brittle shell. It handled English with less difficulty than Rocking Wolf, which was no surprise. During his fifty-odd years, Chief Two Sisters had learned to speak three languages fluently.

  “Farther than you think, Chief,” I said after a moment. I fished my badge out of my breast pocket and held it up in the firelight. “I’m a deputy U.S. marshal operating out of Helena. The man your braves were torturing when they were surprised by Mountain That Walks was my prisoner. He’s the reason I’m here.”

  The fire hissed and belched while Two Sisters digested the information I’d given him. Gradually, I was able to make out the lines and finally the details of a lean figure sitting up on a straw pallet on the other side of the flames, his back supported against one of the sturdy poles and a buffalo robe drawn up to his chest. His eyes were black hollows beneath a high, square brow. The shifting firelight threw his equally square chin and sharp cheekbones into relief against the corrugated parchment of the rest of his face. He had a wide, firm mouth and a nose with a crushed bridge, as if at some time in the distant past it had come up hard against the flat of an enemy tomahawk. His hair was shoulder-length but unbraided, the color of tarnished silver. The term Flathead being a misnomer foisted upon the Montana Salish by the early pioneers, there were no signs of the artificial flattening of the skull practiced by some western tribes. His breathing, loud in the seclusion of the lodge, was even but careful, as I suppose any man’s would be after he had broken several ribs falling from his horse.

  There was a third party in the lodge, a squat, broad-shouldered brave whose features were impossible to make out as he stood almost completely enveloped in shadow beside his seated chief. His chest was naked and powerful, leathery slabs of muscle glistening beneath the obligatory coating of bear grease. When he moved his head I caught a glimpse of firelight glinting off the buffalo horns of his headdress. That would make him the medicine man. Knowing that, I didn’t have to see his face to guess what he thought of my presence in camp. There isn’t a medicine man west of Buffalo Bill’s show who doesn’t view all white men as a threat to his authority.

  “This man you say you were hunting,” spoke up Two Sisters. “Which of your laws did he break?”

  I told him. His scowl carved deep lines from his nostrils to the corners of his mouth.

  “A foolish crime. We Salish beat our squaws when they make us angry, but we do not kill them. What’s to be gained?” He sighed, easing his breath out between his cracked ribs. “It’s a shame that Mountain That Walks arrived when he did to put an end to his suffering. The fate the hunting party had planned for him was far more fitting. He is the one responsible for your injury?”

  I put a hand to my head, touching the bandage beneath the brim of my hat. The pounding had become so much a part of me that I’d forgotten I was wearing it. I nodded.

  “He had no firearms?”

  “He did after he hit me. I saw no sign of them where he was killed. At the time I assumed Bear Anderson had taken them, but they could just as easily have been picked up by Rocking Wolf and his party.”

  Two Sisters shook his head. “My brother’s son says the only weapons he saw were those that had been carried by the dead braves. Their horses were also missing, perhaps frightened off by the shots.” He paused. A stick of wood near the heart of the fire separated with a loud report, sending up a geyser of sparks and bathing the chief’s face in brief, fiery brilliance. His eyes were sad. “It’s a bad thing to have happen,” he said. “Tomorrow I will have no choice but to call a council of war.”

  “Not if I can lead you to the lair of Mountain That Walks.”

  The flare had died, returning his face to shadowy patchwork. “Rocking Wolf has told me of your boast,” he said. “How will you do this?”

  “How do you hunt any game? By knowing its habits. I spent a third of my life hunting those mountains with Anderson. His movements are predictable. Depending on the weather and the shifting of the game he lives on, I can place him within a few miles at any given time.”

  “Remarkable. And where is he now?”

  I smiled. “You don’t really expect an answer to that.”

  “I suppose not.” He returned the smile, faintly. “I’m curious to know why you are offering your service in this matter.”

  “I’m always willing to help when the price is right. In this case it’s my life.”

  He thought that over. Outside, the snow settled onto the sides of the lodge with a sound like frying bacon. At last he spoke.

  “You’re probably lying, but I can’t afford to pass up any opportunity to avoid war with the whites at a
time when we are so poorly prepared. It has been five of your years since the bulk of my people was moved forcibly to the valley you call the Flathead, two days’ ride east of this camp. Our numbers now are small.” He swept a hand across his face, as if to erase the memory. It was a neat piece of acting. “You and Rocking Wolf will leave at dawn tomorrow. You have until the next moon to return either with news of where to find Mountain That Walks or with his body slung across a saddle.”

  “Just Rocking Wolf? You must trust me.”

  “A party would attract too much attention. As for Rocking Wolf, he is the best of my warriors. I would advise you not to attempt an escape.”

  “You didn’t worry about attracting attention last year, when you headed up the bunch that killed Doc Bernstein outside Staghorn,” I reminded him.

  “The old white man,” he said, after a pause. “I remember the incident. He gave us no choice. We had reason to believe that he was harboring Mountain That Walks after one of our party had wounded him. We asked for permission to search his dwelling. He was going to shoot.”

  “What about his wife and child? Where they going to shoot?”

  He studied me for a moment without speaking. The chief used silence like a weapon. “You’re an emotional man, Page Murdock. I didn’t realize that before.”

  “And was Mountain That Walks there?”

  “No. Apparently we were mistaken.”

  I didn’t carry it any further. The confrontation had given me a clear idea of the boundaries of his patience, and they weren’t as broad as they’d seemed. Nothing about him was as it seemed. I changed the subject.

  “I need food and a place to sleep. Can you fix me up?”

  “My nephew will see to your needs,” he said. “One more question.”

  I had turned to duck through the flap. I stopped and looked back at him.

  “Since you know so much, perhaps you can tell me why a party of four white men was seen two days southwest of here by my scouts the day before yesterday. Is this a new trick on the part of your army to rob my people of their birthright?”

  He spoke casually, but I could tell that he had been waiting to ask the question ever since I’d appeared in the lodge. I pretended to give it some thought, though of course I already knew the answer. “Was one of them a small man wearing a big hat and a long yellow coat?”

  “The scouts described a small man with a big hat. There was no mention of a coat, yellow or any other color.”

  “He probably traded it for something warmer. His name is Church, and he has a warrant signed by the President for the arrest of Mountain That Walks. Two of the men with him are his partners. As for all of them being white, your scouts need glasses; the fourth is a half-breed who calls himself Ira Longbow.” I hesitated, letting the silence work against the chief for a change. “He claims to be your son.”

  If I expected any kind of reaction to that last piece of information, I was disappointed. Two Sisters could have given Rocking Wolf poker lessons when he wanted to. Finally he nodded. That could have meant that he believed me, but it could just as well have been a sign of satisfaction at hearing an expected lie. In any case, he didn’t return to the subject.

  “The next moon,” he reminded me. “I can wait no longer. By then the first blizzard will be on its way to block the passes with snow and ice. We must leave the mountains by then or be trapped. When we return in the spring, we will be carrying arms and wearing paint for war with the whites. Much to my regret.”

  I left, my back tingling beneath the medicine man’s hostile scrutiny.

  A sour-featured brave escorted me like the prisoner I was to a lodge near the camp’s center. There I was handed an earthen dish heaped with chunks of lean, bloody meat by an old squaw whose cracked pumpkin of a face told me she had borne worse dangers than those offered by Bear Anderson’s mountains. I ate hungrily, not pausing to wonder which of the dogs that had greeted me earlier was going into my stomach; to a man in my condition it tasted like tenderest sirloin. When it was finished and the dish was taken away, I stretched out fully clothed on a flat straw pallet beside the fire and drew a mildewed blanket up to my chin.

  I was prepared to spend the night staring up at the cloud-lathered sky through the opening in the top of the lodge. As it turned out, however, I had little trouble getting to sleep. So great was my exhaustion that nothing could have kept me awake, not even the fact that I didn’t have the slightest idea of where to find Bear Anderson or his lair.

  6

  “You are leading me in circles, white skin.” Rocking Wolf spoke flatly and seemingly without emotion, but the emotion was there, in his words. They dripped cold fury.

  The sun had risen dazzlingly over twelve inches of fresh snow, shining through the spots where the wind had slashed the cloud cover into fibrous shreds and turning the uninterrupted vista of white into a blazing brilliance that hurt the eyes and did little toward relieving my headache. We had followed the pass northward until the flanking cliffs fell away, at which point we had taken a turn to the west and swung lazily in the direction from which we had come. It was mid-morning before we stopped at the top of a gentle rise and looked out over the Christmas-painting scenery of crystallized trees and blue-shadowed drifts. I was still stuck with the broken-down chestnut mare, while Rocking Wolf had secured himself a fresh mount that morning from his stable of painted stallions—a situation meant to discourage any plans I might have entertained about escaping. Over his shoulder was slung a Winchester with a shattered and thong-bound stock. In the distance a river etched its way southward through the foothills, its chocolate color startling against the carved whiteness of its banks. To the south, clouds drifting across the mountaintops tore themselves lengthwise along the razor edges of the peaks. The air was brittle.

  “No circles,” I corrected him. My breath hung in vapor. “We’re just taking the easy way south. By now the narrow part of the pass is piled up with drifts three feet high. If you’d rather flounder your way through that, you’re welcome to try, but I’ll be waiting for you at the other end.”

  “How do I know you are not leading me into a trap? You have already admitted that Mountain That Walks is your friend.”

  “Was my friend. I haven’t seen him in over fifteen years.”

  He looked at me, and I got the impression that he was smirking behind the coarse scarf that swathed the lower part of his face, leaving only his eyes visible between it and his bearskin headpiece. “And does the white man find it necessary to see his friends every day to ensure that they remain friends?” he asked.

  “Look around,” I said. “If I were going to lead you into a trap, would I have chosen this area? From here you can see ten miles in every direction. The pass would have been a far better place for an ambush.”

  “Where are we going?”

  I nodded toward the mountains to the south. “Straight up. If I know Bear, he’ll be heading where no Indian in his right mind would follow him. This time of year a mountain goat would have trouble getting around on the high rocks.”

  “That is a long way to go if we are to return by the next moon.”

  “You can talk to your uncle about that,” I said. “He’s the one who set the time limit.” I urged the mare forward down the slope.

  The wind began to rise about noon, and for the rest of the day it blew in ever-increasing gusts, bringing snow swirling down from the sides of the mountains and rippling the wet stuff in the flat spots until they resembled sheets of corrugated iron. After a while my face grew numb and I fell into the habit of pinching it from time to time between gloved fingers to make sure the skin wasn’t frostbitten. Steam rose from the mare’s neck and withers.

  Night fell without warning, the way it does in the mountains; one minute we were riding along through snow tinted orange by the wallowing sun, our shadows stretching out a mile to our left, and the next we were plunged into darkness. We made camp on a slope, using a stand of jack pine for a windbreak and building a tiny fire with the a
id of boughs from a dead tree, over which we warmed our stiff fingers. Rocking Wolf watched from a safe distance while I used a knife borrowed from him to pare off a couple of slices of bacon from the small slab I had bought in Staghorn. I cut out more than was needed and slipped the extra slices inside my coat to keep them from freezing. When I was finished he held out his hand for the weapon. I returned it reluctantly. My skillet having disappeared along with my horse the day Brainard got away, I strung the slices on a stick and roasted them over the flame. This done, I offered one to the Indian. He shook his head, holding up a three-inch length of jerky which he had taken from inside his bearskin where he had been keeping it warm beneath his arm.

  “Suit yourself,” I said, crunching the crisp bacon between my teeth. “There won’t be many more hot meals where we’re going. We can’t take the chance of having Bear smell wood smoke once we hit the mountains.”

  “White men.” Rocking Wolf ground away contemptuously at the tough jerky. “How do you expect to conquer the Indian when you insist upon taking all the conveniences of home with you wherever you go? Give a Salish a knife and a piece of jerky, send him out into the wilderness, and he will come back two moons later as healthy as he was when he left.”

  I let that one slide while I studied the strip of bacon remaining on the stick. “What do you plan to do with Mountain That Walks once you’ve got him?”

  He paused in mid-chew. His browless eyes glittered in the light of the little fire: “That decision belongs to the chief,” he said. “When I was a boy, not yet strong enough to draw a bow, I saw the punishment of a white soldier who had been captured in the act of raping a squaw. He was a big man, like you, with big hard hands and a face like cracked leather. I think he was what you would call a sergeant. The braves stripped him and turned him over to the women, who have their own way of dealing with the crime of which he was guilty.

  “It is a compliment to his strength and training that he was still alive when it was over. He begged to be killed. The braves did not oblige. They left him lying there until he ceased to beg.” He went on chewing. “This was for the crime of rape. I imagine Two Sisters has something much more fitting in mind for the murderer of our people.”