The High Rocks (14 page)
Authors: Loren D. Estleman
Although the litter creaked beneath Bear's weight when we lifted one end of it, it proved strong enough to support him, and once I had flattened the ends of the wooden supports with the blade of the bowie to form runners, the entire burden slid across the surface of the snow as easily as any sled. I secured the litter with a thong to the scalp-hunter's saddle so that it dragged behind the dun, and mounted gingerly, the way any experienced rider does when stepping into a strange pair of stirrups. The big horse fidgeted beneath the rig and the unfamiliar weight on its back, but at a word from its prostrate master it adjusted itself grudgingly to the situation. I stroked its sleek mahogany neck to show it who was in command.
“Everything all right back there?” I shouted to Bear, over the howling gale.
“Let's just ride.”
We started with a jolt. Leather creaked, limb groaned against green limb, makeshift runners scraped over fresh powder. In our wake rode Little Tree to keep an eye on our progress. I cast a glance back in her direction. Beyond her, vague gray shapes bounded through the flying snow toward the bank in which I had buried Ira Longbow. They swarmed over it, digging with all four paws. Soon, however, even that scene was lost amid the swirling particles of white.
W
e were crossing over old ground in the beginning, but if we hadn't known what direction we were going, none of us would have realized it. What had been hills of snow were now sinkholes, hollowed out by the wind, while level spots through which Bear and I had passed without hindrance a few days earlier were heaped as high as ten feet. Whole stands of pine and maple had been all but obliterated; in other places they had been swept clean where before only their pointed tops had shown. What landmarks remained were blurred behind drifting clouds of white powder so that they resembled features in a grainy tintype.
e were crossing over old ground in the beginning, but if we hadn't known what direction we were going, none of us would have realized it. What had been hills of snow were now sinkholes, hollowed out by the wind, while level spots through which Bear and I had passed without hindrance a few days earlier were heaped as high as ten feet. Whole stands of pine and maple had been all but obliterated; in other places they had been swept clean where before only their pointed tops had shown. What landmarks remained were blurred behind drifting clouds of white powder so that they resembled features in a grainy tintype.
The wind was tearing out of the east at between forty and fifty miles per hour. I had my kerchief tied over the lower part of my face as feeble protection against frostbite, while Little Tree rode with her chin huddled in the collar of her fur-faced cowhide
jacket, one of a handful of items she had been able to salvage from the unburned cellar of the cabin. Bear, the most likely candidate for death by freezing due to his immobile state, was wrapped from head to foot in every available blanket. But for the snow, we might have been veiled mourners transporting the mummified remains of our king to a tomb on the banks of the Nile.
jacket, one of a handful of items she had been able to salvage from the unburned cellar of the cabin. Bear, the most likely candidate for death by freezing due to his immobile state, was wrapped from head to foot in every available blanket. But for the snow, we might have been veiled mourners transporting the mummified remains of our king to a tomb on the banks of the Nile.
What was two days' ride for a man alone on horseback was considerably more for a man and a woman hauling a litter through one of the worst blizzards on record. Missing Devil's Crack cost us a full thirty-six hours. Most of the passes being closed to us, we were forced to rely on mountain trails and narrow clefts in the high rocks, some of them so cramped we had to dismount and walk our horses single file, Little Tree leading the mare by its bridle, me driving the big dun from behind as if it were an ox plowing a field. At these times we stopped often to disengage the broad litter where it had wedged itself between the rocks. In three days we made barely twenty miles.
I had been wrong when I'd told Bear not to worry about the bullet in his back shifting while he was being moved. At intervals his paralysis gave way to agony as the lead wobbled about next to his spinal column, relieving his numbness just long enough for the pain to set in. Although he bore it without complaint, his suffering was evident in his features. That's the essential difference between man and
beast. I'd have shot a dog before letting it go through the hell he accepted as a matter of course.
beast. I'd have shot a dog before letting it go through the hell he accepted as a matter of course.
We were emerging from one of these clefts on a downhill grade toward the close of the third day when I stopped short and signaled the squaw, who was walking behind me, to draw back from the opening. A hundred yards beyond, the entire Flathead nation was pouring onto the circular plateau below us from a forest to the east. At its head rode Chief Two Sisters.
He wore a white woven coat decorated with broad bands of greenâthe labor, most likely, of the squaw of some ambitious brave. His tarnished-silver hair was braided in front, loose in back, and bound with ornaments bearing the Salish symbols of strength and virility. In the waning light, his face was old and drawn but hard, the eyes sunken beneath his square, jutting brow, mouth turned downward into a permanent scowl. He shifted uncomfortably from time to time on his horse's back, but I gathered that this was not so much from pain as from discomfort caused by the strip of deerhide that was wound tightly around his injured ribcage, part of which peeped above the V of his coat as he leaned over to dig a lump of ice out of the top of his moccasin boot. Like his braves, he rode with a rifle slung over his left shoulder. The difference was that while most of the others carried single-shot Spring-fieldsâthe kind the army had given them several years earlier as a token of good faithâhis was the
Henry repeater that had been taken from me by Rocking Wolf. Apparently he didn't share his nephew's contempt for the weapon.
Henry repeater that had been taken from me by Rocking Wolf. Apparently he didn't share his nephew's contempt for the weapon.
At his side rode a muscular-looking individual in a buffalo robe, the only visible part of his face a narrow strip of flesh showing between a scarf wrapped around his lower features and a headdress crowned by a pair of curving buffalo horns. This had to be the medicine man whose antipathy toward me I had sensed in the chief's lodge something over a lifetime ago. His eyes were hard and shifty, like those of medicine men everywhere.
I watched from the cover of a vertical pillar of rock while the mass of warriors, with an occasional feminine face sprinkled among their numbers, slowed to a halt behind the chief's raised right hand. Silence prevailed while Two Sisters scanned his surroundings. His eyes swung in my direction and I froze, my hand gripping the butt of the Deane-Adams. But they moved on without pausing, and when it was apparent that he had satisfied himself that they were alone on the plateau, the chief turned and said something to the man mounted at his side. The wind drowned out his words. Which was all right, because I wouldn't have understood them anyway. The medicine man heard him out, then pulled down his scarf to reply. That's when I received my second shock of the day.
The face beneath the headdress was dusky, the nose broad and flat, the lips thick. Against this
background, the whites of his eyes were startling. It was the kind of face you expected to see beneath the cap of a Pullman porter, or bent over your boots and grinning at its reflection in the fresh shine. The last place you would have looked for it was beside the chief of the most powerful Indian tribe in the Bitterroot. I'd known that some tribes took in Negroes out of spite for the white man, but I could think of no other instance in which one of these foundlings had risen to such influential rank. The entire party could have charged us at that moment and I would have been unable to react, I was that stunned.
background, the whites of his eyes were startling. It was the kind of face you expected to see beneath the cap of a Pullman porter, or bent over your boots and grinning at its reflection in the fresh shine. The last place you would have looked for it was beside the chief of the most powerful Indian tribe in the Bitterroot. I'd known that some tribes took in Negroes out of spite for the white man, but I could think of no other instance in which one of these foundlings had risen to such influential rank. The entire party could have charged us at that moment and I would have been unable to react, I was that stunned.
For a while it seemed that there was some disagreement between the two about whether they should camp there for the night or proceed into the cleft in which the three of us were crouched. At length, however, the order was given to dismount, and as darkness crept over them, the Flatheads began setting up their lodges.
“We'll camp here for tonight,” I whispered to Little Tree, after withdrawing from the opening. “Pull out before dawn, the way we came in. If they find us here we'll be wolf-meat by tomorrow night.”
“Lose one day,” the squaw pointed out.
“Better a day than our scalps.”
“Ain't no need to pull out,” said Bear.
I looked at him. Bundled up as he was aboard the litter, only his blue eyes showed, staring up at the sky.
“Suicide must look pretty good from where you sit,” I said dryly.
“How many injuns we got?” he asked me.
“Four or five hundred. The whole shebang. Why?”
“You know how long it takes to shove four or five hunnert riders single file through this crack?”
“What are you getting at?”
“Them Flatheads is anxious to clear these mountains before every pass gets blocked twixt here and the plains. Many as there are, they'll save at least a day by going around the long way. Besides, Two Sisters ain't exactly the kind to favor placing his whole tribe in a situation where they could get bushwacked as easy as in here. Just sit tight. They'll be on their way by sunup tomorrow.”
“And if they aren't?”
He met my gaze. “You reckon we can survive an extra day in this blizzard?”
“No.”
“Then I don't see as we got much choice.”
That ended the discussion. Above us, the wind squealed between broken pinnacles of ice and rock, casting bushels of dry white granules over us at ragged intervals. “How's the back?” I asked Bear.
“It ain't good,” he said. “Every now and then, I get so's I can move my legs a little; sometimes I almost figure I can get up. But it don't last long.”
I nodded. Then, “What do you know of a black man who rides with the Flatheads?”
The scalp-hunter stiffened. “He with them now?”
“You know him?”
“That's Black Kettle, or so he calls himself.” His voice was taut. “Blackfeet talk about him all the time. According to them, he worked as a slave on a plantation down in Georgia until he got caught up in an uprising and was wounded when the overseer's men moved in with shotguns. They cut down about a dozen of them. Slaves ain't cheap, so they patched him up, give him a whipping, and told him to get back to work. Sometime later he knifed the overseer and lit a shuck for the Northwest. That's the story he give the Flatheads, anyhow. I reckon he was heading for Canada when he got took prisoner by Two Sisters.”
“He dresses like a medicine man,” I said.
“That's what he is. Injuns and niggers take to each other like hot corn and butter, and crazy men are powerful medicine. He had to make it sooner or later.”
“Black Kettle's crazy?”
“If he was a dog, he'd of been shot a long time ago.”
“I take it he doesn't care for white men.”
Bear laughed, but without humor. “Next to him, Rocking Wolf is a Presbyterian minister.”
“That explains it,” I said.
“Explains what?”
“Why your parents were killed. I'd always wondered what prompted Two Sisters to go on the warpath that year. I'm surprised you didn't see it.”
“I saw it.”
“Then how come his scalp isn't in that bag?” I nodded toward the gunny sack hanging from the horn of the dun's saddle.
“Don't think I ain't tried,” he said. “He's crafty. He never leaves camp, and I ain't got to the point where I'm ready to take on more than one or two hunnert Flatheads at a shot.”
“Meaning that someday you will?”
“Meaning that someday I'm going to take Black Kettle's kinky scalp.”
We fell silent for a moment, listening to the wind and the faint noises drifting up from the camp below us. Finally, Bear said, “Any sign of Rocking Wolf?”
“No. Maybe he'd dead. I don't see how he could make it out there with neither horse nor rifle.”
“We don't know for sure that he don't have a rifle. Besides, survival is an injun's business; it's the first thing he learns before he gets his feather. Likely they missed him somewhere.”
“That's one feat I hope we can duplicate,” I muttered.
Little Tree and I unhitched the litter and did what we could to make ourselves comfortable, which proved to be a wasted effort. The cleft acted like a bellows in reverse, sucking in cold air and cascades
of snow that rattled in gusts against our heavy clothing and burned our skin like hot ashes wherever it found a chink. We didn't dare light a fire; for warmth we wrapped ourselves in our blankets and huddled together around Bear with our backs to the wind like cattle. Now and then a scent of wood smoke wafted over us from the direction of the plateau, which did nothing to improve our spirits. Further, there was no escaping the conviction that behind us, the shadows swarmed with wolves. It was going to be a long night for the three of us.
of snow that rattled in gusts against our heavy clothing and burned our skin like hot ashes wherever it found a chink. We didn't dare light a fire; for warmth we wrapped ourselves in our blankets and huddled together around Bear with our backs to the wind like cattle. Now and then a scent of wood smoke wafted over us from the direction of the plateau, which did nothing to improve our spirits. Further, there was no escaping the conviction that behind us, the shadows swarmed with wolves. It was going to be a long night for the three of us.
Sunupâif it could be called that, hidden as it was behind the pewter-colored overcastâfound me struggling to get to my feet, working the rust out of joints I hadn't known I possessed until that morning. After relieving Little Tree of the Spencer, I crept forward to the granite promontory I had manned the previous afternoon. The plateau was a beehive of activity; Indians milled around leading horses, striking huts, extinguishing firesâin general, getting ready to depart. In the center of everything sat Two Sisters astride his painted horse, barking orders and directing the operation with sweeping gestures. While he was thus engaged, Black Kettle rode up to him. Immediately the two appeared to resume the argument they had carried out the day before, the medicine man gesticulating like a madman while his chief shook his head stubbornly. Watching, I got the impression that this was a common scene between them. Eventually Black Kettle threw
up his hands, wheeled his horse, and cantered out of sight beyond the rock behind which I was crouching.
up his hands, wheeled his horse, and cantered out of sight beyond the rock behind which I was crouching.
That Two Sisters had won the argument was evident. The only question that remained was what stand he had taken. Had he opted to go around the mountain the long way, or was it his intention to defy what Bear had said about him and lead the tribe straight through the cleft? If it was the latter, we were as good as dead. There was no way we were going to hitch up Bear's litter, turn around, and get out of there before the first Indian entered. I cursed myself for having taken the advice of an invalid who was more than likely suffering from delirium.
“What our plans?”
I started and swung the Spencer around, narrowly missing Little Tree's head with the side of the barrel as I did so. She had come up behind me so silently that I hadn't known she was there until she'd spoken. She was holding Ira Longbow's Dance, which I'd given her previously, in her right hand. I relaxed my hold on the rifle.
“You're doing fine,” I told her. “Just keep that gun handy. If they come this way, we're going to sell our lives as dearly as possible. It worked for Custer.”
Either the speech sounded better then than it does now, or Little Tree's training kept her from commenting. At any rate, it seemed to satisfy her,
because she stopped asking questions I couldn't answer.
because she stopped asking questions I couldn't answer.
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