To hell and gone, p.19
To Hell and Gone, page 19
Hank Fry brought his coffee and ration of bacon over to sit down with McCall, Barnes, and Cody. “Whaddaya plannin’ to do with these bucks iffen we was to catch up with ’em?” he asked McCall. “You gonna arrest ’em and take ’em to the reservation?”
“I suppose that’ll depend on what the situation is when we catch up with ’em,” McCall replied.
“Whaddaya think we oughta do with ’em, Hank?” Sergeant Barnes asked, always entertained by Hank’s perspective on various subjects, especially when the subject was Indians.
“Hell, ain’t no doubt what we oughta do with ’em,” Hank answered at once. “Line ’em up and tell ’em we’re gonna take ’em back to the reservation. Then shoot ’em down like the wild dogs they are and take ’em back to the reservation. ’Cause if you don’t, they’ll be right back stealin’ and killin’ again.”
Cody couldn’t help thinking Hank and Ben Walker would have gotten along so well had they known each other.
Deciding the horses had rested and grazed enough, the patrol mounted up and set out again, following the tracks along the river valley. Rugged hills were scattered along the east side of the river. Cody and Hank were riding out ahead of the patrol, keeping an eye out for anything unusual. After about eight miles, McCall spotted them waiting at a stream for him to catch up.
Hank pointed to the narrow canyon the stream was flowing from. “They cut in here and followed that stream up into them hills. So now, we gotta be watchin’ out we don’t ride into no ambush.”
“Why would they be set up to ambush us?” McCall naturally asked. “It was days ago when they rode up that canyon.”
Hank hesitated, evidently having not thought of that. “Right,” he said after a few moments, still trying to think of how to undo his remark.
Cody came to his rescue. “Hank’s right. We’re gonna have to be careful we don’t ride into a camp. They might have lookouts in these hills on both sides of that canyon.”
“Oh,” McCall said, looking at the steep hills on both sides. “Well, that makes sense. That would be a bad place to get caught in a crossfire.”
“I reckon there ain’t but one way to find out,” Cody said. “Come on, Hank. I’ll help you check it out.” He wheeled Storm and started up the stream, and Hank followed after him.
Cody was not really worried about any lookouts on the hills north and south of the canyon. He was of the opinion the raiders could very well have a camp back in those hills, but not that close to the entrance to them.
Once inside the hills, he and Hank found the canyon led to a whole range of steeply sloping hills and narrow valleys, but the tracks of the horses and cows plainly showed which valley to follow. He signaled McCall to bring the patrol forward.
They followed the obvious trail deeper into the hills until Cody spotted the buzzards circling over a hill up ahead of them. He and Hank advanced cautiously until reaching the valley attracting the buzzards. They followed the valley as it curved sharply to meet another valley with a small stream. Cody guessed it was the same stream they had entered the hills in, and it was now the setting for a feast for vultures. The screeching, quarreling birds were feasting on the remains of the cows the patrol had been following. A count of cow heads told them Lassiter had owned ten cows. The Indians had made camp there, probably for a day or two, and it was where they had butchered all ten of the cows.
While Hank went back a way to wave the patrol forward, Cody rode into the noisy valley where the obnoxious birds were picking every morsel of meat from the skulls and feet and anything else that was left of the cows. He could see where a small quantity of the meat had been cooked to eat, but could find no evidence to show they had smoked any of the meat to preserve it, meaning the village they were going to was not so far away that the freshly butchered meat would spoil. Maybe they were not going to the Big Belts.
Cody shared his thoughts with McCall when the patrol came into the valley.
“The question now, I guess, is how far is the main camp and how big is it?” McCall pondered.
“Well, there are still tracks to follow,” Cody said. “Trailin’ ’em sure ain’t a problem. I guess we should be able to find out where they are and then decide if we need to go back and get help.” Even as he said it, he couldn’t help hoping they would not have to withdraw because of the size of the camp. He knew McCall could not risk the lives of his men in an unwinnable situation. But he also knew that every additional day those two children were held captive was one day closer to death or insanity. It would be especially hard for the boy. He could be subjected to any amount of ridicule and physical punishment. It would also be a nightmare for the girl. But she was almost of an age where she could be of some use to them. The important thing was to get to her before she went out of her mind with fear. He thought of Amy Boyd and the hell she had suffered. But in her case, she was already a woman in the eyes of the Sioux warriors, and she was taken strictly for their immediate pleasure with no plans to keep her alive afterward.
He could only speculate on this war party’s reasons for taking the twelve-year-old Lassiter girl. It was his guess they intended to use her as a slave and breed her when she was a little older. His thoughts were snapped back to the present when McCall asked which valley they were going to follow.
“That one,” Cody said, pointing to another narrow valley leading into the higher hills.
They left the noisy birds to clean up the scene and drove on into the rugged hills. Thinking the raiders would not have stopped to butcher the cattle where they had unless it was close to home, Cody and Hank were more cautious. No doubt the raiders had no desire to butcher the meat in their camp and attract the large flock of buzzards there. It turned out the party they followed were satisfied with keeping the buzzards a little over a mile from their village as it was almost at that distance when Cody signaled Hank and pointed to smoke drifting up from beyond one of the largest of the hills ahead of them.
Hank verified it and they went back to tell McCall to hold his men in a defensive position, ready to defend or retreat, whichever was necessary while his scouts climbed up that large hill to get a look at what was on the other side.
Cody and Hank left their horses at the base of the steep hill and made their way up through small clumps of ponderosa pines here and there until reaching the almost bald top. With only knee-high grass for cover, they crawled far enough forward to see into the valley on the other side. It was easy to see why the Indians had picked that valley to locate their village. It was broader than the typical valleys in the range of hills, and included a running stream and grass for their horses. Cody guessed the stream forked off from the one where they had done their butchering.
The smoke they had seen came from a large fire in the center of a camp of fourteen tipis.
A pretty good matchup, he thought, if there’s a warrior in every one of them.
Four of the tipis had a horse tied beside it.
Knowing an Indian warrior often tied his favorite horse beside his tipi didn’t mean only four warriors were in the camp. Cody looked beyond the tipis to a grassy meadow where a dozen or more horses were grazing, indicating more than four men were in the camp. He’d been certain more than four had attacked the Lassiter farm and driven the cattle to this valley.
Quite a few people mingled around the fire set up to smoke the meat. It appeared they were preserving most of the meat just butchered in the valley of the buzzards.
The next thought that came to Cody’s mind was that the village was getting ready to move. Most of the people around the fire were women and many of them were older women. He realized he saw no children. Maybe, he thought, this was why the raiders had taken the boy and his sister.
Seconds later, he saw one of the women tending the meat turn to call to someone behind her. At the top of the high hill, he was too far away to hear what she’d said, but about a minute later, another woman came to the fire from the other side of the closest tipi. She was driving ten-year-old Billy Lassiter as one would drive a pig—using a stick to guide him over to a pile of tree limbs that had been cut for firewood. The boy picked up an armload of wood and started toward the fire but was stopped abruptly by a sharp crack of the woman’s stick across his back. He stood still while she increased his load of firewood with several large pieces, then drove him back to the fire where the woman who had called for more wood berated the boy for his slowness.
Atop the hill, Cody felt his body growing tense with anger and empathy for the boy. He could imagine the torment the child was suffering on top of the murder of his parents. He contrasted Billy’s fate to that of his own. His father and brothers were killed by Blackfoot warriors, too, but he’d been saved by the Crows and treated as one of their own. Whatever action the patrol took, they must try their best to rescue the children.
His thoughts were distracted when Hank crawled over close to him. “I ain’t seen the girl. Have you?”
Cody shook his head no.
“Blackfoot,” Hank announced simply. “Just like we figured.”
“Right,” Cody said.
“Yonder!” Hank whispered suddenly, pointing toward the stream.
Cody saw Joy Lassiter carrying a water sack. As she walked up from the stream beside a woman also carrying water, the scouts could see a short rope tied around her ankle. The other end was tied around the ankle of the woman beside her.
“They’re already trainin’ her to be a squaw,” Hank commented. “The lieutenant is likely gonna demand her and her brother’s release. He’s gonna wanna know how many men they’ve got. I don’t know how we’re gonna tell him that unless we see some of ’em.”
“You’re right about that,” Cody said. “Judgin’ by the horses grazin’ out there, they could have more than we’ve got. A lot depends on how well they’re armed. If there’s a man in every one of those tipis, they’ve got fourteen. And if they all have a brother,” he joked, “there are twenty-eight of ’em. I reckon we oughta go back and tell Lieutenant McCall what we’ve seen and let him decide what he wants to do.”
Hank agreed, so they eased back away from the crown of the hill and returned to their horses.
McCall listened to their report, and as they expected, he was disappointed when they were unable to give him a close approximate number of warriors his men might be facing.
Cody spoke first. “All we can tell you for sure is there’s most likely four warriors in their tipis. Their favorite horses are tied right outside each tipi. Two or three fairly young-lookin’ men were walkin’ around the fire where the women were smokin’ the beef. But enough horses were grazin’ beyond the camp to suggest there’s quite a few more men around somewhere.”
McCall paused while he considered the report. “And you saw the two Lassiter children?”
“Yes, sir. We did,” Hank answered. “Women was leadin’ ’em around on ropes, but the young’uns seemed to be all right.”
Young Lieutenant Ira McCall had a decision to make, and it was not one even an old battle-scarred officer would find easy to decide. If he confronted the Indian camp, and they chose to fight, the odds were good he would have the advantage in firepower. But he would also risk putting the lives of the two hostages in danger. In fact, it was not out of the question the hostages would be purposefully murdered in an act of retaliation. McCall could withdraw, but he considered that out of the question.
He finally made a decision based on his moral concern for the two children. “Sergeant Barnes!” he ordered. “Get the men ready to ride. Find a piece of white cloth—a rag, an undershirt—something to make a white flag with. We’re going to approach that Indian camp—” He paused and looked back toward his scouts, then asked, “What are they? Flathead? Blackfoot? What?”
“They’re Blackfoot,” Hank answered him.
“We’re gonna approach that camp under a flag of truce,” McCall continued, “and I’m gonna tell ’em we’ve come to get those two children. We’ll give them the opportunity to surrender, to be taken to the reservation where they will be taken care of. And only those who participated in the murder of Mr. and Mrs. Lassiter will be tried for their crime.”
Hank turned to give Cody a look in the eye to see if he was as astonished as himself. “I’d be mighty surprised if them Blackfoot would just surrender and hand them young’uns over,” Hank said to McCall. “What’s your plan if they say, ‘go to hell?’”
“Then I reckon we’ll open fire on ’em, and keep shooting until they have to surrender,” McCall answered. Then said to himself, “And hope those children don’t get hit.”
“If it was me givin’ the orders, I’d start with that last plan,” Hank saw fit to comment.
Cody didn’t like McCall’s plan, either, but he understood the dilemma the lieutenant found himself in. If hostages were not involved, the order of the day would simply be to hunt down the hostiles and punish them for the crimes of murder, arson, and cattle rustling. Their women and children would be taken to the reservation.
Unfortunately, the innocent often paid a penalty as severe as those who perpetrated the crime. As far as his personal feelings were concerned, the Blackfoot was an enemy of the Crow. To deepen his hatred of them, it was Blackfoot warriors who’d killed his father and his brothers, and shot him in the back when he was but a small boy. For all those reasons, he would stand with McCall and fight the Blackfoot.
After Hank’s comment on the subject, McCall asked Cody if he had any questions regarding the orders he just gave.
Cody answered him. “No, I have no questions. You are in command, and I understand the difficulty of your job. I will stand and fight and hope the women and children can be spared. I think you must not delay giving them your terms. It is my opinion they are getting ready to leave the valley and go up into the mountains where they will be much harder to find.”
McCall nodded his understanding.
“It is also my opinion they will not surrender,” Cody added.
“Here you go, Lieutenant,” Sergeant Barnes said as he walked up with the white flag he had fashioned using a slender tree limb and a white hand towel one of the men had with him.
McCall took the flag and hefted it a couple of times while thinking about what Cody had said then handed it back to Barnes. “That’ll do nicely. I want you to carry it and throw it away when the shooting starts.”
Barnes had given the men the command, To Horse! as if at a formal parade.
Seeing the men were all standing at the head of their horses, McCall gave a little talk to ready them for the coming confrontation and to remind them they were all soldiers.
When McCall finished, Barnes commanded, “Prepare to Mount! Mount!”
The fifteen troopers all mounted sharply, wondering what had gotten into the sergeant. One or two wisecracks were made near the rear of the column. With Cody and Hank up ahead as usual, McCall led the patrol through the narrow valley before reaching the first of the higher hills, the one the two scouts had climbed and watched the village from. Barnes ordered the men to load their carbines and hold them at the ready but not to fire until commanded to.
As the men filed around the hill, a few of the women tending smaller fires smoking slabs of beef saw them riding slowly around the base of the large hill. Confused, they squealed in fright. “Soldiers! Soldiers!” And they ran toward the center of the village.
Soon, all the women saw the soldiers, but they did not run as they would have if the soldiers had come at them at the gallop. Instead, they milled about nervously calling the name of their chief, Bucking Horse, until he came from the tipi in the center of the village. Other warriors appeared from other tipis to join him. As puzzled as his people by the non-aggressive-approach of the soldiers to his camp, he nonetheless made a show of bravery with a powerful pose in front of the people around the big fire. In a matter of a few seconds, he was joined by eight fierce-looking warriors, some with rifles and a couple with bows.
“I’m countin’ nine, including the chief, so far,” Cody said to McCall. “Here comes two more, that makes eleven. One of them has a rifle.” Within the next few minutes, two more appeared, carrying bows. They stood defiantly backing their chief, all in one tight little group. Cody was amazed. McCall had been right in his assumption the warriors might not give battle if his soldiers sauntered up casually, instead of charging full bore on the camp.
“You can see your targets, all standing by the chief, if I give the order to fire,” McCall said to his men. “Sergeant, tell them to get more space between themselves. We don’t want to give them a good target group, too.”
While Barnes stretched his line of troopers, McCall took his white flag and rode out in front of them. “Chief,” he called out. “Can you talk white man talk?”
His question caused the chief and the warriors around him to hurriedly argue whether they should or should not. Finally the chief decided and replied. “We talk some white man talk.”
“My name is Lieutenant Ira McCall. What is your name?”
“I am Bucking Horse.”
“Bucking Horse. I have heard of you,” McCall lied. “I have heard Bucking Horse is a reasonable man. I like to be a reasonable man, too. That is why I have not attacked your village. I have come for the two white children you have in your camp.”
His statement caused a lot of anxious murmuring among the people standing around the fire. Bucking Horse was not sure what to reply.
Finally, he said, “We have no white children. We are preparing to leave this place. Go and leave us in peace.”
“Release the boy and the girl at once,” McCall replied, still speaking calmly, “so we may take them back to their people. Then we will talk about peace between us.”
