Lawless Prairie Page 11

  Joanna walked along the riverbank until she was certain she was out of sight of the camp. Once she was sure of her privacy, she removed her shoes and stockings, removed her cotton underpants, and waded out into the cool water. With her skirt tied up around her waist, she walked out until the water was well over her knees. Looking around her again, fearful of being seen by one of the men, she then examined the large bruises on the insides of her thighs. Blue and just beginning to turn yellow, they no longer ached as before, but the sickening feeling the sight of them provoked would live with her a long time. She thought then of Robert, and pictured him riding away from the cabin, unable to bear the thought of living with a wife who had been ravaged by savages. Maybe I shouldn’t blame him, she thought. Robert was not a strong or capable man. She surprised herself with the thought, realizing that she had never labeled her husband that way before. She was not ready to admit that it was probably brought about by a comparison with Clint. She resolved to think less of Robert Becker. That part of her life was over.

  Clint came to an abrupt halt when he was suddenly surprised by the sight of the young woman standing in the river in water over her knees. With her skirt tied up around her waist, there was a generous portion of her slender thighs exposed. He could not help but pause a moment to stare, grateful that her back was turned toward him. But a moment was all he would allow himself before quietly turning around and withdrawing to search for firewood on the other side of the camp. The incident set his mind to thinking, however, and he wondered what manner of man Robert Becker was. He couldn’t have been much, Clint thought, to go off and leave his wife like that. He considered for a moment the possibility that he might take a wife someday. I can’t see it, he decided. I’ll probably be a loner all my life—end up like Billy Turnipseed.

  Chapter 9

  Just as Billy Turnipseed had said, they came to the fork of the Little Powder and the Powder in the afternoon of the second day. There were plenty of signs that a fairly large village of Indians had recently camped there. They were obviously moving fast because there were no signs of tipi rings, but many cook fires.

  “It wasn’t too long ago,” Clint commented after examining the ashes in one of the cook fires. “I expect if we’d gotten here day before yesterday, we mighta been invited for supper.”

  “We mighta been supper,” Karl retorted. “I’m just as glad we’re late.”

  Clint glanced at Joanna. Her tight frown told him that she was not ready to joke about anything to do with the Sioux. He quickly changed the subject, thinking that she would be a lot more comfortable away from the abandoned Sioux camp. “There’s still a lot of daylight left. Maybe we could keep moving, and hope to strike that creek he told us about before dark.” Joanna quickly agreed, and Karl was willing to ride on.

  Lying flat on his belly on the grass-covered crest of a long mesa, Clint watched the procession of Lakota men, women, and children on the opposite bank of the creek. At a distance of approximately three hundred yards, he could count twenty-two horses with eight male riders, and maybe five female. Walking along with the rest of the pony herd were a number of women and children.

  “Are they still heading off to the northeast?” Karl asked as he crawled up beside Clint. That was the general direction of most of the Indian trails they had crossed during the past two days.

  “Nope,” Clint answered. “They started followin’ the creek.” He looked up at the fading afternoon light. “I expect they’re gettin’ ready to make camp.” He turned back to Karl. “We’d best cut around this mesa and strike the creek a mile or two north of their camp.”

  They continued north, following the creek until darkness threatened to overtake them. Finally selecting a spot where a stand of willows and berry bushes provided a suitable screen from any chance riders that happened by, Clint said, “This’ll have to do, I reckon. I’ll build a fire in that gully after I see to the horses.”

  “I can build the fire,” Joanna said. “You and Papa take care of the horses.”

  “All right,” Clint said. He couldn’t help but notice that her “take charge” attitude seemed to have surfaced again since leaving the spot where the Sioux camp had been.

  Supper was the same as every night before since leaving the cabin, beans boiled with some of the deer jerky. Clint would have killed fresh meat but for the presence of so much Indian sign. In fact, they continued to come upon so many recent trails of Indians on the move that Joanna approached Clint with a request before they went to sleep that night. “I want you to let me have that pistol you left with me when the savages attacked us in the ravine,” she said.

  “Why, sure,” he replied. “I’da given it to you before if I knew you wanted to tote a gun.” He went at once to get it from his saddlebag. Upon returning with the weapon, he checked the cylinder. “It’s loaded with five cartridges. It’s settin’ on an empty cylinder. Just cock it and she’s ready.”

  He gazed into her eyes as she took the revolver, reading the deep determination registered there, and immediately felt the hurt in her heart. She did not request the weapon for the sole purpose of helping to ward off an Indian attack. He wished that he could promise her that he would let nothing happen to her, but he knew that she wanted the pistol to ensure that she would never be taken alive by hostiles again. “I’ll get you to your folks,” he said softly.

  She nodded, then withdrew to her blanket. If any man would defend her, she was confident that Clint would be the one man who could. But even Clint could not prevail against an attack by a group as large as the camp they had seen that afternoon. I will never be taken by savages again, she vowed as she tucked the revolver up under her blanket.

  The night passed without incident, and respecting Billy Turnipseed’s advice, they continued north along the creek for another day before striking due west to find the Tongue River. Once it was found, they followed the winding river through seemingly endless stretches of open prairie for two days before sighting what could be nothing but the Yellowstone in the distance. They discovered a rough shack on the south bank just before dusk, providing an immense sense of relief to see some sign of white men, even though a hand-painted sign nailed over the door proclaimed the building to be a saloon. The next order of business was to find Karl’s brother.

  “I can go in and ask,” Clint suggested to Karl. “A saloon ain’t a fit place for a lady, so you and Joanna can wait out here.”

  “All right,” Karl said, “but don’t go in there and start drinking unless you bring me a bottle, too.”

  “I’m goin’ in for directions, only. We’ll drink after we get where we’re goin’.”

  “Frederick Steiner?” the bartender, a short, heavyset man, echoed. He scratched his bald head while he tried to recollect. “I can’t say I know the man.”

  “He’s supposed to have a place near here,” Clint said. “I think there’s a few families that claimed land to farm.”

  “Well, if they’re farmin’, it would have to be on this side of the river. The land on the other side ain’t much fit for farmin’.”

  There were a couple of men drinking at the rough plank bar when Clint walked in, and they paused to listen to the conversation. One of them, a coarse-looking man with a face full of whiskers, wearing two six-guns with the handles facing forward, spoke up then. “You might be lookin’ for that group of German folks that moved onto some land east of Wolf Creek.”

  “That sounds like the folks I’m lookin’ for,” Clint said.

  “I can tell you how to get there. Just follow the river east,” the stranger said, “past the tradin’ post, I’d say a good four or five miles. The first house is just the other side of Wolf Creek. I think there’re three houses all told, if I remember correctly. I ain’t been over that way in about six months.”

  “I’m obliged,” Clint replied.

  “If you’re drivin’ a wagon, it might be rough goin’. You’re gonna have a slew of deep gullies to get around. Might be a little chancy in the dark.”
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  “No wagon,” Clint replied as he turned to leave. “Much obliged.” The stranger and his companion strolled casually over to the door behind him.

  Outside, Clint repeated the directions to Karl and Karl nodded slowly. “Sounds like the place,” he said. “Frederick said there were three families that started out from Omaha.”

  “Accordin’ to what that fellow said,” Clint recalled, “it’s four or five miles to the first house, and we don’t have any idea which house is your brother’s. You wanna try to find him tonight, or wait till daylight?”

  Karl paused to give it consideration. “It is getting pretty late. Might be best to make camp one more night and look for Frederick in the morning.” He turned to his daughter then. “How about it, Joanna, think you can stand one more night on the trail?”

  “I think it would be a lot better than rousting everybody out in the middle of the night, since Uncle Frederick doesn’t even know we’re coming. Besides, we don’t even know how to find his house. It could be any one of the three.”

  “All right,” Clint said, eyeing the two men lolling against the saloon doorjambs, “but I think we oughta ride on down the river a piece before we make camp.”

  Leading the way, and picking his path carefully in the moonless night, Clint guided the buckskin downstream, holding close to the banks of the Yellowstone. After a mile or so, he came upon a clump of cottonwood trees that formed a screen around a grassy knoll. “This looks like as good a place as any,” he announced.

  They dismounted, and while the men took care of the horses, Joanna built a fire. Soon venison strips were sizzling over the fire and coffee was boiling in the pot. The conversation was light on this last night on the trail. The dangerous passage through the Powder River country was behind them and spirits were high. “What are your plans now that we’re almost there, Clint?” It was Joanna who asked the question.

  Clint shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not really sure. Like I’ve said from the beginning, I wanna see the territory, maybe ride on to the mountains west of here.” He preferred not to mention that he felt it necessary to locate a place where he didn’t have to worry about being found by a lawman.

  “You oughta stay on here with us,” Karl said. He had taken a liking to the young man during the past week.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Clint replied, “I ain’t much of a farmer.”

  “I expect it wouldn’t take a lot to show you how,” Karl said, then chuckled when he added, “I found out I’m a better farmer than a gold miner.”

  Watching Clint’s reaction closely, Joanna commented. “I think Clint still hears the call of the wild hawk. He wants to raise his horses and live the free life with no crops to look after or hold him in one spot.” Even though she believed it to be true, she wished it were not so. She felt safe when Clint was around.

  “Maybe,” Clint replied. “I’ve got a long way to go before I can be thinkin’ about raising horses. All I’ve got is Rowdy and those three Indian ponies, and Rowdy can’t do much to make a herd. He’s a geldin’, so he don’t even glance at that little mare. I think I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me before I can call myself a wrangler.”

  The conversation changed to speculation about the morning when they would find Frederick’s place, and after a while, Karl announced that he was turning in. “Tomorrow’s a big day,” he said, and moved a little away from the fire to make his bed. Joanna and Clint remained to talk for a short while before deciding they should follow Karl’s lead.

  Moving off to the opposite side of the fire from the woman and her father, Clint rolled up in his blanket. Soon the camp was quiet except for the steady rhythm of Karl’s snoring, but Clint could not fall asleep. His senses told him all was not right, and he kept thinking about the two men at the saloon, especially the one who did all the talking. He had the look of a predator about him, and although he had been friendly enough, Clint didn’t trust him. After a while, when the sense of alertness would not leave him, he crawled out of his blanket, pulled his rifle from his saddle sling, and walked back in the trees to check on the horses.

  Rowdy lowered his head and rubbed his muzzle against Clint’s chest, and received a scratching behind his ears in return. While Clint was stroking his horse’s neck, Rowdy’s ears suddenly pricked up and the Indian horses whinnied softly. Always alert to the horses’ warning signals, Clint quickly looked around him in the darkened grove of trees. He saw nothing at first glance. Then a slight motion off to his left, like a fleeting shadow, caught his attention and he dropped to one knee. Peering into the dark shadows, he could not detect any movement, but he was sure that his eyes had not been playing tricks on him. Continuing to stare into the inky void, he began to inch toward the spot where he thought he had detected movement. He quickly dropped to one knee again when suddenly two shadows separated from the black tree trunks and moved toward the camp. He didn’t have to guess who the visitors were.

  Moving as quickly as he could through the brush while making as little noise as possible, he hurried to overtake them, but they had already reached the sleeping figures by the fire before he cleared the trees.

  The sudden report of a pistol split the still night air, bringing Karl and Joanna bolting up from their slumber. “Time to get up!” the man with the shaggy beard shouted. He fired another shot into the ground beside Karl. “Let’s have a look in them packs. You might as well save us the trouble of goin’ through ’em. Tell us where the money is and maybe you’ll live a little longer.”

  His partner, a tall thin man, had set eyes upon Joanna. His lips parted in an evil grin and he said, “You might live a little longer at that, sweetheart.” Joanna cringed and pulled her blanket up close to her neck. Then it occurred to him. “Where’s the other one?”

  He was answered by the sound of a Winchester rifle cocking. “I’m right here, asshole.”

  The thin man made a fatal miscalculation when he attempted to raise his pistol to beat a rifle slug already on the way. He took a couple of steps backward before dropping to the ground, shot through the heart. His partner, quicker of wit, immediately grabbed Joanna, pulled her to her feet, and held her before him with the barrel of his pistol pressed against her throat. “Now, damn you,” he spat, “me and the little missy here is gonna back outta here real slow. This here .44 has got a hair trigger, so I wouldn’t advise you to try nothin’ fancy.”

  Clint said nothing, but put the rifle butt against his shoulder and took dead aim. He walked slowly forward, following his prey while the bearded one dragged Joanna away from the fire. The rifle never wavered as Clint stalked the man, who held Joanna tightly before him, keeping the gun pressed against her neck while trying to keep his head almost hidden behind hers. Clint continued to stalk, waiting, his rifle aimed, until the man looked quickly behind him to see where he was going. It was only for an instant, but when he jerked his head back to watch Clint, he was met with a bullet that put a neat hole in the middle of his forehead.

  Joanna screamed when the rifle suddenly barked and the bullet thudded against her abductor’s brow. She felt the pistol drop from her throat, and the man sagged to the ground, killed instantly. Her nerves shattered, she screamed out in relief, but also in anger. As Clint walked up to make sure the second outlaw was dead, Joanna ran to him and threw her arms around him, screaming, “Damn you! You could have killed me!” Still trying to control her emotions, she pressed her face against his chest, not sure whether to thank him or curse him for risking her life.

  “I knew I wouldn’t miss,” he calmly explained.

  Karl, still in a mild state of shock over the sudden chaos that interrupted his sleep, could do little more than gape at his daughter clinging to Clint so desperately. When he finally found his voice, it was only to utter, “What . . . ? Where did they . . . ?”

  “That’s the two fellers back at the saloon,” Clint explained while totally aware of the young woman still pressing tightly against his body.

  Suddenly aware as well, Joanna rel
eased him and quickly backed away. “I’m sorry,” she said, embarrassed to have surrendered to her emotions. “I thought I was shot. I felt the bullet right next to my face.”

  His composure regained, Karl shook his head in wonder. “That was a helluva shot,” he said, “a dangerous shot.”

  “I knew I wouldn’t miss,” Clint repeated earnestly. “I couldn’t let him back outta here with Joanna. They weren’t plannin’ on leavin’ any of us alive. They didn’t wear masks or anythin’ to keep us from seein’ their faces.”

  “He’s right, Papa,” Joanna said. “They planned to kill us all.” And something worse for me before they killed me, she thought. Only then did she remember the loaded revolver tucked under the edge of her blanket, and chided herself for lacking the presence of mind to have used it.

  With Karl’s help, Clint dragged the bodies away from their camp and deposited them in a deep gully near the river. Then Clint walked back along the river until he found their horses tied in a clump of berry bushes. Well, it ain’t the way I planned to build a herd, he thought, but there ain’t no use in leaving them.

  In spite of the fact that there was no more danger, there was not much chance of deep sleep for the rest of the night. The morning sun was greeted with a general sense of relief as Joanna rustled up some breakfast while Clint and Karl loaded packs and saddled horses. Clint checked on the bodies again, ridding them of weapons and ammunition before breaking camp and leaving the tragic scene behind them. A clear day before them, and the anticipation of reuniting with brother and uncle, served to lighten the atmosphere for the travelers, but Karl would never forget the machinelike reactions of his young friend in the execution of the two men. He would also remember his daughter’s clinging to Clint instead of running to her father. That could signal trouble ahead.