Golden Hawk 3, page 8
But Hawk could not get the words out. And the thought of Jim taking Singing Wind with him to his valley set the blood pounding in his temples angrily—as if it had already happened. In that instant he realized why he had been unable to sleep, why the sudden silence had sent him from Alice’s bed into the starlit night. He was remembering the days and nights he had spent with Singing Wind while those fierce snow squalls howled about the cabin—and then the awesome, wondrous silences that followed, as if the whole world had been made over again and was waiting for them to step out into it and make the first tracks.
He pushed his mug over for more whiskey. As soon as Jim filled the mug, Hawk downed it. The whiskey smote him like a fist and all doubt vanished. He saw his way clear.
“Guess maybe I’ll be pulling out with you, then,” he told Jim. “As far as the cabin anyway.”
“Tomorrow morning?”
“Yes.”
“That’s pretty short notice, ain’t it?”
“I’ve got the rest of the night to get my gear ready,” Hawk said.
“I’ll be welcoming your company, Hawk, but what of your woman? You and her been pretty close these past weeks.”
“That’s my business, Jim, and I’ll thank you not to concern yourself with it. Now, do you want my company or not?”
“I already told you, Hawk. I’ll be welcoming it, and I’ll remember to keep my fool mouth shut, too. That I will.”
The raw whiskey burning a hole in his stomach, Hawk got up, left the sutler’s, and returned to Alice Gentry’s quarters—and her bedroom. A lamp on her nightstand was lit and she was sitting up in bed with her back against the headboard. When Hawk entered the room, she was combing out her auburn hair, and when he saw this, he wondered if all women knew as much or had the powers that Alice Gentry possessed.
“You left quietly, but I heard you go,” she said. “I wondered what kept you.”
“The storm is passed finally. The stars are out.”
“Oh! You went out to see the stars, did you?”
“That was part of it.” He wondered why she enjoyed making him feel foolish at times—why she seemed to need to get the advantage over him, as if they were in some kind of contest.
“Only part of it? And what was the other reason?”
“I was thirsty for a drink,” he said, lying deliberately, knowing the answer would unsettle her.
He saw the alarm in her eyes and knew he had accomplished his purpose and was glad. Then he said, “I am going back to the cabin. I think you'll be safe here at the fort, come spring.”
“The cabin?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, Jed. Must we go over that ground again? What is there up there in that cabin that can’t wait until spring?”
Hawk still had said nothing to her about Singing Wind, but he knew that Alice suspected something. Perhaps Jim Clyman or Dick Wootton had spoken to MacGregor or one of the settlers and it had gotten back to Alice. But he didn’t care. He would say nothing to Alice about Singing Wind, and this time he would not stay here with Alice.
It was very simple. He did not belong here.
“Come to bed, darling,” she said, smiling up at him. She put down her brush and held her arms out to him.
He felt himself being pulled toward her. She moved closer. The blanket fell away, exposing her breasts, and he felt his mouth go dry. But he turned away and headed over to the big steamer trunk against the far wall where he had stowed most of his gear.
“I’m leaving tomorrow morning,” he told her. “I’d better get my things ready.”
For a long moment there was no sound from Alice.
“Let me help,” she said cheerfully enough, no trace of irritation or anger in her voice. “We don’t have all that much time, do we?”
He had reached the trunk. He turned to look back at her. She was on her feet, tying the sash on her robe, no anger in her face. As her eyes caught his, she smiled warmly.
Hawk breathed a deep sigh of relief. She was not going to be difficult. For that, he told himself, he would always remember Alice Gentry fondly.
Hawk and Jim Clyman set out the next morning. They made good time for a day, but then more snow, sweeping down from the north, delayed them, almost turning them back to Fort Hall. But they kept on, and Jim left Hawk a few miles from the cabin and headed northwest into high country, where snow appeared to be a permanent curtain over the mountain peaks. Not long afterward, trudging through a bright, clear day, Hawk found himself cutting across familiar country once again and knew the cabin was not far.
His heart ached now. Not with sorrow, but joy. Glancing around him at the wild country, the awesome, lonely beauty of the peaks, and the snow-covered mountain flanks, he knew this was where he belonged. Singing Wind was his woman, and soon he would be with her, wrapped in that snug buffalo robe she had made for him.
It was a few hours before dusk when he caught sight of the cabin, still a tiny, snug bastion amid towering drifts. Struggling through the deep snow, leading his horse, he stopped suddenly and peered with a frown at the cabin. The door was open and no smoke came from the chimney. Tired of waiting for his return, Singing Wind must have left and gone back to her people!
Filled with dismay at his loss, Hawk charged up the remainder of the slope and burst through the open door. But Singing Wind had not left. Spread-eagled on his robe, what remained of her torn, naked body pierced by lances, she was still waiting for him. He found himself staring at her open mouth and imagined he could hear the cry that must have come from it at the end. He knew without being told that she had called out for him.
He stepped forward and gently removed each lance. Four Bannock lances and one Comanche lance. He flung aside the lances and knelt beside Singing Wind, cradling her head in his arms, rocking mindlessly back and forth until the awful, bottomless grief within him boiled away, leaving only a seething desire to find and punish those responsible.
He stepped outside to the white, pristine world, turned his face to the sky, and cried out his vengeance—a long cry of inchoate fury that broke from the darkest hollows of his soul. It came back to him in a series of rolling echoes, and somewhere an overhanging drift of snow loosened and crashed down a mountainside, its rumble dying away only slowly.
Hawk turned and went back inside to Singing Wind.
Chapter Six
JIM CLYMAN’S VALLEY was not hard for Hawk to find, given the clues Jim had let drop and remembering the direction Jim had taken when he parted from Hawk. Jim had not exaggerated the valley’s isolation and beauty. Its sides were almost sheer, with forested ridges on top and no apparent way down to the stream threading through it, now blanketed with snow-covered ice. Nevertheless, Hawk kept going, leading his horse ever farther along the treacherous, snow-laden ridges, until at last he came upon a game trail that dropped through the steep, timbered slopes. Two days later he gained the valley floor and saw ahead of him a large snow-covered pond gleaming in the noonday sun.
It took another day for Hawk to find Jim Clyman. The big mountain man was in the process of raising a small cabin and seemed more than a little perturbed by Hawk’s presence—until he caught the grim cast to his face as Hawk rode toward him. Driving the blade of his ax into a log he was trimming, Jim came to meet Hawk.
“Nice valley you got here, Jim.”
“That it is.”
“Sorry to break into it like this.”
“What is it, Hawk?”
“It’s Singing Wind,” Hawk told Jim quietly. “She’s dead.”
“How did it happen?”
“Four Bannocks and a Comanche. They left their lances.”
“Calling cards?”
Hawk nodded.
“The Comanche—is he from that band in Texas that’s still after you?”
Hawk nodded. “Must be.”
“And the Bannocks?”
“They got a score to settle with me, so they joined up with this Comanche, looks like.”
“You goin’ after them?”
Hawk nodded.
“And you want me to go with you?”
“Just after the Bannocks, Jim. The Comanche I’ll take care of, if I have to track him clear through hell.”
“Light and rest a spell. We’ll pull out come mornin’. I been gettin’ a mite weary of building a cabin all by my lonesome anyway.”
Hawk swung out of his saddle and led his horse over to Jim’s crude lean-to close by the stream. He was pleased at the sight of the fresh beaver tail hanging on a spit over the fire. Having not eaten much this past week, he was ravenous.
He had been feeding on hate instead.
Their horses a full mile behind them, Hawk and Jim Clyman inched their way through the timber to the ridge overlooking the Bannock winter encampment. It was on a level plain at the head of a broad valley. The snow did not appear very deep, and a sizable pony herd was grazing deeper up the valley. The ponies’ sharp hooves had long since cut through the snow cover, enabling them to graze on the short buffalo grass. Between the lodges, racks were covered with strips of buffalo or deer meat drying in the sun.
“From the looks of it, they been having a fine winter,” said Jim Clyman.
Hawk nodded grimly. “Well, maybe we can put an end to that.”
The two men had already settled on what they would do when they came upon the Bannock encampment: nothing. Not until Hawk was able to spot the Bannock whose scalp he had partly removed earlier. It would take a while, both men realized, and they would just have to be patient.
“A mean bunch, these here Bannocks,” Jim Clyman muttered. “They was the only redskins Ashley would never trade with—not less’n he had a steady bead on ’em.”
“Let’s get closer.”
With a shrug, the big mountain man followed Hawk down through the timber. Hawk pulled up within less than a hundred yards of the nearest Bannock lodge, leaving them both still safely covered.
“This is close enough,” Hawk said. “We’ll watch from here.”
“You’re damn right it’s close, Hawk. Gives me the creeping willies. We better keep an eye out for their dogs.”
“We won’t find that son of a bitch ’less we can see him,” Hawk reminded Jim,
The mountain man shrugged. He could not argue with that fact, and he began making a rough bedding on the pines needles a few inches under the snow. Before long, the two men had provided a somewhat cramped den for themselves, one that was effectively screened from the Bannock village by snow-laden pines and juniper. It would be a cold camp and more than likely a long one, but they dared not show themselves or do anything that might draw attention to their presence.
The Bannock would love to find them. In one late-night discussion with Hawk and Dick Wootton, MacGregor had insisted that the Bannocks were not only heathen, but cannibals as well, and even worse rumors and accusations concerning the tribe had long circulated in these mountains.
But none of this mattered to Hawk as he settled down to watch the comings and goings of the Bannock tribesmen and women. All Hawk needed was one glimpse of that Bannock, a part of whose scalp he had taken. He could not be certain that he had been party to the murder of Singing Wind—or even that he belonged to this particular band. But it was good place to begin, the only real chance Hawk had to find those four Bannocks who had left their lances in Singing Wind’s body.
He knew where to find the wielder of the Comanche lance, and if he had to return to the Staked Plains and his old Comanche brothers to find him, Hawk would do so.
But first things first: those four Bannocks.
Three days later, sooner than either Hawk or Jim had expected, the partially scalped Bannock and three fellow warriors rode into the village a few hours before sunset, driving before them the small herd of ponies they had stolen. The village erupted immediately, and a great celebration ensued, the drums beating constantly while the returning warriors danced their victory dance and filled the night with their unashamed boasting. Remembering similar celebrations during his years with the Comanches, Hawk was glad no captives had been brought back along with the stolen ponies. The captives would have been turned over to the women and the night would have come alive with the stark and terrible screams of the tormented and dying.
Meanwhile, Hawk and Jim had noticed that all four of the returning Bannock warriors were without their lances.
In the week that followed both men watched the four Bannocks closely. The Bannock Hawk had partially scalped, they called Scalped. One of the other three had a dark, scowling face and wore a heavy bear-claw necklace around his neck; his jaw was unusually prominent, so Hawk decided to call him Big Jaw. The remaining two were Red Paint and Little Swagger, because of the former’s fondness for painting his face red and the latter for his short, stumpy stature and the strutting way he walked.
The four Bannocks remained in the village for a week. They were content to bask in the glory of their exploits, holding court to the younger braves and accepting visits from the older men of the tribe, all of whom were eager to share in the warriors’ glory. Jim and Hawk had to wait for any one of the four Bannocks to move out of the protection of the village, and it was a long week for them. Their quarters were cramped and the nights turned very cold indeed as the January thaw became a February freeze that reached into their bone marrow.
Meanwhile, during this long vigil, their view of the village was such that they came to understand much of what went on within it; they became virtual participants in its daily activities and in the lives of some of its inhabitants. More than once the two men saw braves slipping into the lodges of their young lady friends or stealing off into the timber with them for greater privacy. And the winter’s long, brutal cold caused the death of two old ones, a warrior who left many lamenting relatives, and a toothless, homeless old woman without kin who died at last huddled in a ragged blanket against the outside skirt of a lodge in a desperate but futile effort to gain some heat.
The night was dark, the wind high, its chill chasing the Bannocks into their lodges early, and so Hawk had dared a fire, being extremely careful to let it burn cleanly without sending any smoke into the air. The two men had long since dug a deep hearth in the ground to ensure that any light from their fire would not be seen from the village.
Glancing sidelong at Hawk, Jim drawled, “Dammit, I’m getting to know these people too well. It’ll be like murdering family if we have to open up on any of them.”
Hawk pulled his blanket more closely about his shoulders and leaned closer to the tiny fire, holding his mittened hands out over it. Without looking at Jim, he nodded gloomily. He felt almost the same way. These days had brought back the memory of the many years he had spent in the village of the Comanches who had captured him when he was only fourteen. There was not really all that much difference between the two peoples—at least not from this distance.
Despite their fierce savagery in battle and their reputation for treachery, among their own people the Bannocks appeared to be a kind and considerate band. They were filled with merriment and good cheer, despite the miserable cold and the growing scarcity of food as hunters returned without fresh game. Every day both men witnessed many instances of kindness, and they came to recognize and like a few of the children as they watched them play on the snow-covered river that coiled around their village.
“It doesn’t make any difference how we feel,” Hawk told Jim grimly. “Those four are dead Indians. If you want to pull out, Jim, I won’t stop you. You’ve done more than any other man would do, and I won’t soon forget you for this.”
“Shut up, hoss,” said Jim gruffly. “I never said nothin’ about pullin’ out. I just said it won’t be easy if we have to open up on these redskins. But I reckon if the time came, I could manage it well enough.”
Hawk nodded.
The time came two days later.
Early in the morning, Little Swagger and two older warriors rode out to hunt for fresh game. In an excess of optimism they were leading two pack horses. The night before, a young brave had returned to the village with news of an elk herd nearby. But evidently only Little Swagger and the two moving out with him had decided that the young brave’s sighting was reliable enough to warrant a hunting party.
Watching them go, Hawk told Jim, “Stay here and keep an eye on those other three. I won’t be long.”
“Hell with that, Hawk. I’m comin’ too.”
Hawk shrugged and did not argue as he climbed out of their camp’s narrow confines, stretched himself like a large cat, then set out for the distant hollow where they were keeping their own mounts.
Late that same day, crouching in a clump of birch over a narrow valley, Hawk and Jim watched the three Indians riding slowly toward them. Beyond the ridge ahead of the Indians, both men knew, grazed a small herd of elk, gaunt from lack of food and worn out from the long winter. Whatever Little Swagger’s hunting party managed to kill would hardly be worth carrying back to the village, but the three Indians did not know this. They would be grateful for what little meat these winter-gaunted elks could provide.
It was only Little Swagger that Hawk wanted. Hawk had taken the trouble to bring along one of the four lances he had taken from Singing Wind’s body. It did not matter whether the one he had brought with him belonged to Little Swagger. Scalp and the others would have no difficulty recognizing the lance or understanding its meaning when Hawk left it behind.
The three Indians came at the small elk herd from three sides, driving the animals up the steep slope before them. Hip-deep, the snow was enough to stop the fleeing herd in its tracks. Firing their flintlocks calmly into the frantic animals and loosing their arrows with deadly effect, the hunters brought down five of the fattest elks, then proceeded to dress them and load up their pack horses, ignoring the thin line of wolves that materialized on the ridge above. It was dusk before their task was completed, and in a small clump of pine below the lip of a protective ridge, the weary Bannocks made camp for the night.
