A Big Sky Christmas (25 page)

After following the Indians for about an hour, Jamie came to a spot where the hoofprints of the two ponies joined with those of a number of other horses. He reined in, studied the marks on the ground, and frowned.

The hoofprints confirmed one of his biggest worries. The two men who had grabbed the kids had rendezvoused with a larger party. The prints were such a muddle, he couldn't tell for sure how many there were. More than a dozen, that was certain. Maybe as many as twenty-five or thirty. Even if the group from the wagon train caught up to him, they would still be outnumbered.

But he wasn't going to leave Alexander and Abigail to become part of whatever tribe had taken them.

People usually fell into one of two extremes when it came to the Indians. Most folks considered them filthy, bloodthirsty savages, little better than animals. But some people—usually easterners who had never actually
seen
an Indian, much less had anything to do with them—claimed that they were noble aristocrats of the plains, living in harmony with nature, the land, and each other.

As usual, both sides were full of buffalo droppings. There were plenty of things to admire about the Indian way of life, but there was no escaping the fact that most of them suffered through hard, short, brutal existences, struggling to survive and constantly warring on each other. The odds of starving to death, dying of illness, freezing in the winter, or being killed in a raid by another tribe were high.

Jamie wasn't going to abandon the Bradford children to such a fate. He would get them back or die trying. Once the two kidnappers joined up with the war party, if that's what it was, the trail was easier to follow. He pushed on, confident that Hector and the others would be able to find him.

By late afternoon Jamie entered a range of small, wooded hills, the highest elevations and the most trees he had seen in quite awhile. With his instincts warning him that he might be closing in on his quarry, he used every bit of cover he could find as he continued following the trail.

He smelled the camp before he saw it. Wood smoke, cooking meat, and horseflesh. He dismounted and went up the slope ahead of him on foot, moving in silence over a carpet of pine needles. Before he reached the top he took off his hat and got down on his belly to crawl the rest of the way. When he got to the top, he worked his way through a patch of undergrowth, parted some branches, and looked down into a little canyon where more than two dozen Indians had made camp.

Blackfeet, Jamie thought as he saw the markings on their buckskins and the way they wore their hair. No women and children in sight. It was a raiding party. Several of the warriors sported crude bandages, which meant they had already been in a fight. They'd probably skirmished with another tribe and were on their way back to their usual hunting grounds, taking with them the two white captives a couple scouts had been fortunate enough to come across.

Jamie saw Alexander and Abigail sitting with their backs propped against a fallen log. They appeared to be all right, although their hands and feet were tied and Abigail was slumped against her brother's side, sobbing. Alexander had his head up and Jamie could tell that the boy was trying to be brave, but he had to be scared out of his wits.

Not for much longer, son, Jamie thought.

The trick was figuring out how to get him out.

Jamie studied the landscape around the Blackfoot camp. The canyon was formed by two ridges that dropped off almost sheer for about forty feet. He lay where those ridges angled in and came together. The trail the Indians had used to get into the canyon zigzagged down from that point. Anybody going down it would be in plain sight from the camp below.

At the far end, the canyon ended in a shale slope at the top of which rose a stone wall. The drop from the top of that wall to the shale was about twenty feet. However, the cliff face was rugged enough that it would provide handholds and footholds so that a man could climb down part of the way, leaving a reasonable drop to the shale.

If a man tried that and landed right, he could slide all the way to the canyon floor. If he didn't land right . . . well, he'd probably break an ankle, at the very least.

Jamie didn't see any other way into the canyon. He would have to have help to manage it.

He moved back down the near slope and glanced at the sky. About an hour of daylight was left, giving the other men from the wagon train time to catch up to him. He could finish working out his plan then.

 

 

The sun had just dropped below the western horizon when Jamie heard horses coming. He stepped out of the thick stand of pines where he'd been waiting and waved his hat over his head to signal the approaching riders.

They angled toward him. Hector Gilworth was in the lead, with Bodie Cantrell and Jess Neville right behind him, trailed by nine or ten men from the wagon train. Most of them were carrying rifles or shotguns.

He didn't see Lucas, Mahaffey, and Pearsoll and figured those three had stayed behind at the wagons. That was good. Jamie wanted some seasoned fighting men left with the rest of the immigrants.

He was much less pleased to see Reverend Thomas Bradford with the rescue party. He had hoped that Bradford would stay behind. He didn't trust that the preacher would follow his orders. In his arrogant stubbornness—and, to be fair, his legitimate concern for his children—Bradford was liable to try some foolish stunt that would endanger all of them.

Jamie would make sure to tell Hector to keep a close eye on the man.

Bradford crowded his mount ahead of the others and said loudly, “Have you found them? Have you found Alexander and Abigail?”

“Keep your voice down,” Jamie snapped. “Sounds carry farther out here than you think they would, and the Indians are right on the other side of that ridge. I figure they'll be posting guards on top of it any time now since it's getting dark, and we don't want them to know we're here.”

Bradford was a little quieter as he said, “All right. But what about my children? Have you seen them?”

“I have. They look fine, just a little tired and scared.” As the men gathered around him, Jamie went on to describe everything he had seen.

Jess Neville said, “That ain't good, is it? Them Injuns bein' Blackfeet, I mean. From what I hear tell, they hate white folks more than any of the other tribes in these parts.”

“That's true,” Jamie admitted, “but chances are, if they were going to hurt those kids, they'd have done it before now. We just need to get them out of that camp.”

“How are we going to do that?” Bodie asked. “It sounds like there's no way in there that wouldn't be suicide.”

“There's no
good
way,” Jamie explained. “But I think a couple men could work their way around to the cliff above that shale slope and drop down into the canyon from there. The rest of our bunch can cause a distraction that'll keep those Blackfeet busy while the two hombres grab the kids.”

Bodie shook his head. “No offense, Jamie, but how do they get back out?”

Jamie rubbed his chin and frowned, realizing that he hadn't gotten that far in his thinking. After a moment he said, “We'll have to take ropes with us and tie 'em at the top of the cliff. That'll help us get down, and the kids can hang on to us while we use the ropes to climb out.”

“Us?” Bodie repeated with a faint smile.

“I was thinking you might want to come with me.”

Bradford said, “I'll do it. They're my children.”

“That they are,” Jamie agreed, “but how are you at using a gun, Reverend? There's a chance whoever goes into that camp will have to fight their way out.”

“I've never believed in violence,” Bradford said stiffly.

“And I believe in using whatever does the job best. Bodie's coming with me. Unless you don't want to, son.”

“Try and stop me. Savannah's tearing herself up over this. She'll never forgive herself if we don't get those kids back safe and sound.”

Bradford started to bluster something, but Jamie stopped him with a hard look. He figured the preacher was about to say something else bad about Savannah, then Bodie would take offense, and they didn't need that complication.

“What do you want the rest of us to do, Jamie?” Hector asked. “How do we provide that distraction you were talking about?”

“Well, there's only one way to do it as far as I can see. You fellas are about to get your feet wet when it comes to Indian fighting.”

With a faint glow still in the western sky, Jamie and Bodie started out. They circled wide to come at the canyon from the west.

Hector and the other men were dug in behind rocks and trees on the other side of the ridge, waiting for the two rescuers to get into position. Hector owned a railroad watch that had been left to him by his father, and when exactly an hour had gone by, he and the other men would charge the ridge, yelling and shooting, before turning around and dashing back to their defensive positions.

The outbreak of gunfire would be the signal for Jamie and Bodie to make their move.

As darkness gathered, Bodie asked, “How are we going to find our way to the top of that cliff you mentioned?”

“I took a pretty good look at it a while ago,” Jamie replied. “Studied the lay of the land while there was still some light in the sky. I'll be able to get us there.”

“When it comes to surviving out here, is there anything you
can't
do, Jamie?”

A grin stretched across the big frontiersman's rugged face. “There's bound to be, but since I'm still alive I reckon I've figured it out pretty well so far.” He led them unerringly to the foot of a ridge where they dismounted.

“That canyon where the Blackfeet are camped ought to be just on the other side,” Jamie said quietly. “Get the rope off your horse and let's go.”

The slope on that side of the ridge was too steep for horses, but Jamie and Bodie were able to negotiate it on foot, carrying the ropes with them. As they climbed, Jamie sniffed the air and smelled smoke from the Blackfoot campfire. His instincts had been reliable yet again.

When they reached the top of the narrow ridge, the two men crawled forward until they could look down into the canyon. The campfire still burned, and in its flickering orange light they saw some members of the war party still moving around. Others slept. Jamie spotted the two children, dozing as they huddled against the same log where he had seen them sitting earlier. He touched Bodie's shoulder and pointed them out to the young man, who nodded.

Moving quickly and silently, they knotted one end of the ropes around the trunks of pine trees that grew atop the ridge. When that was done, they stretched out on the ground again, and Jamie whispered, “Now we wait. Shouldn't be long.”

It wasn't. Within ten minutes, gunfire suddenly roared in the distance. Jamie saw muzzle flashes from the opposite ridge and knew the Blackfoot sentries posted up there were returning the fire. In the camp, the rest of the war party grabbed rifles and began charging up the twisting path to the top of the ridge.

“Let's go,” he said.

They dropped the ropes over the cliff and swung out onto them, walking down the cliff backwards. It wasn't that far. When they reached the shale, they let go, left the ropes hanging there, and slid down the rest of the way to the canyon floor.

Jamie drew his Bowie knife as he ran toward the log where the children were lying, wide awake because of the yelling and shooting. He had warned Bodie against using their guns unless they absolutely had to, since that might alert the Blackfeet that something was going on behind them.

With a grace and agility unusual in a man of his size and age, Jamie vaulted over the log and dropped to one knee next to Alexander and Abigail. Abigail opened her mouth to scream. From her perspective, all she could see was a dark, giant figure looming over her.

Jamie put his free hand over her mouth. “Hush, Abby. It's me, Mr. MacCallister. Mr. Cantrell is with me. We're going to get you and Alexander out of here.”

He started sawing through the tough strips of rawhide with which they were bound while Bodie crouched next to the log and kept a lookout. Jamie had Abigail loose when Bodie suddenly hissed, “Somebody's coming!”

Jamie looked up just as a couple Blackfoot warriors charged into the firelight. The leader of the war party had sent them back to keep an eye on the prisoners. It was a smart move, but it had occurred to the fellow too late.

Spotting the two white men trying to free the captives, the warriors skidded to a halt and tried to raise their rifles. Firelight winked from the blade of Jamie's knife as it flashed across the clearing to bury nearly a foot of cold steel in the chest of one of the Blackfeet. The man gasped, stumbled, and dropped his rifle without firing it. He crumpled to the ground.

Less than half a second later, Jamie's left-hand Colt roared. The bullet ripped through the second warrior's throat and bored through the lower part of his brain. He dropped like a puppet with its strings cut.

Bodie had drawn his gun but hadn't had a chance to shoot. Jamie's blinding speed had seen to that.

Jamie pouched the iron. “Get my knife.”

It had taken only one pistol shot to dispose of the second warrior, and neither Blackfoot had gotten off a shot. He hoped the single shot had gone unnoticed by the other Indians, since they were busy trading lead with the rest of the rescue party and things were pretty noisy.

Bodie ran to the fallen warriors, pulled the knife from the chest of the one Jamie had killed with it, and hurried back to hand the blood-smeared blade to the big frontiersman.

While he was cutting Alexander loose, Jamie told Abigail, “You go with Mr. Cantrell now, honey. You'll have to put your arms around him and hang on tight to him while he climbs up a rope. Can you do that?”

“I'd rather you take me, Mr. MacCallister,” the little girl said.

“I'm busy with your brother. Mr. Cantrell will take good care of you. You just do everything he tells you, and don't be scared, all right?”

“I . . . I'll try.”

“Good girl. Go on, now.”

Bodie scooped Abigail up in his arms and ran for the cliff. It wouldn't be easy getting back up that loose shale while carrying the girl, but he'd manage.

A moment later, the last of the rawhide thongs fell away from Alexander's ankles. “You don't have to carry me, Mr. MacCallister. I can run.”

“Mighty fast?”

“Mighty fast!”

Jamie grinned in the darkness. “Come on, then.”

They hurried to the cliff. Through the moonlight, Jamie could see Bodie climbing the rope with Abigail clinging to his back, her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist.

“I can climb the rope, too,” Alexander said.

“I expect you can, but it might be faster if you got on my back, like your sister did with Mr. Cantrell. Reckon you can do that?”

“Sure.”

Alexander clambered onto Jamie's back as the big man knelt, then Jamie started up the slope. It took every bit of balance he had not to slip back down the shale. The climb seemed to take a long time, but finally he was able to reach up and grasp the rope. That steadied him the rest of the way and allowed him to go a little faster. He reached the bottom of the cliff, planted a booted foot against the rock, and started that part of the climb. It was the hardest part of the climb, taking a lot of muscle power to lift a man of Jamie's size. Alexander's weight added to the burden.

“Hang on tight,” Jamie grated.

“Don't worry,” Alexander said. “I won't let go.”

Jamie tipped his head back to watch the top of the cliff come closer. Bodie and Abigail reached the rimrock and vanished over it. Jamie was relieved they were safe. In a matter of moments, he and Alexander would be, too.

Below them, a shot suddenly blasted, and a bullet smacked into the rock face less than a yard away from them.