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  “Stop!” Jason roared, his rifle trained on the Ute closest to the fire. The young man sat up and raised his hands in surrender. Jason glanced at his companion by the log, who slowly rolled over on his knees and started to crawl toward a thicket near the stream that cut the center of the coulee. In one quick motion, Jason whirled and fired, cocked, fired again, sending sand flying in front of the Indian’s face. Realizing Jason could kill him long before he reached the cover of the thicket, he turned and raised his arms like his friend.

  Aiming to save as much daylight as he could, Jason didn’t waste much time in securing his captives. After making sure he had taken all their weapons away—two bows, two scalping knives, and two war clubs—he sat them down, back to back, and tied them up with some rawhide rope they had used to hobble the horses. Once the Indian ponies were cut loose from their hobbles, it didn’t take a lot of encouragement from Jason to run them off. That done, he returned to his captives and emptied a hide water bag over the rawhide rope to tighten the knots. Then he took the scalping knives and threw them as far as he could toward the thicket.

  “Well,” he finally announced, not concerned if they could understand English or not, “I reckon that’s about all I can do here. I figure two intelligent boys like yourselves can probably manage to work together to find one of them knives and maybe cut yourselves loose before you starve to death . . . or the wolves find you.”

  With his string of three Appaloosas behind him, he set out for home. It would take a day and a half in daylight. He hoped to make a couple of hours at least before it got too dark to travel.

  * * *

  Jason sat down on an outcropping of rock and studied his back trail. From his position, high up on a ridge that ran the width of the mountain pass, he could see the valley he had just come through for a good four or five miles back. There was no sign of anyone trailing him. He didn’t expect there would be but he checked his back trail just the same. He climbed back in the saddle and continued. Half a day and he’d be home. He thought about what would be waiting there and it brought a smile to his face.

  Her name was Magpie but Jason called her Lark because of her constant bright and cheerful disposition. He figured she was too pretty to be called Magpie anyway. As he thought back on it, it seemed she was the one who made the decision that they would live together—but he certainly didn’t put up a fight. It had been a good year for him and while it was hard to say whether or not he truly loved her, he was strongly fond of her and she made him a loving wife. One thing that was certain in his mind, when he was away from her he missed her. The baby was almost two years old now and growing like a weed. Even though he was not Jason’s, he began to grow on him until the little beggar had kinda gotten a hold on the scout. He smiled to himself when he thought about how far Jason Coles had come in a year’s time. He had always been a loner, unable to see any woman in his future. Now, here he was, a sure as hell family man, nailed down to one place for the first time in twenty years. The picture in his mind of Lark caused him to nudge his horse with his heels to pick up the pace.

  At first he thought it was a thin wisp of a cloud. Then he realized it was smoke, a thin trail of smoke, stretched out by the wind. And as the hawk flies, it was coming from the direction of his cabin. At once he became concerned. There was nothing in that direction but his place. He wasn’t sure what it could mean but he didn’t like the look of it. His valley was still several hours away. He pushed the horses harder, short of a full gallop.

  Closer by two hours now, he still had the ridge north of his valley to climb. The smoke was constant though not a heavy dark smoke, like something blazing. Instead, it was a thin, pale column that drifted lazily upward until reaching the winds over the hilltops where it stretched out horizontally.

  His horse labored to make his way to the top of the ridge, almost stumbling once before gaining the level terrain. From here, Jason could see the floor of his valley . . . and what he saw sent a bolt of lightning up his spine. The charred remains of his cabin glared at him, a great black sore in the green of the valley floor. A steady stream of brown smoke wafted upward from the still-smoldering timbers.

  “Lark!” he roared involuntarily, his heart now pounding on his ribs, and he kicked his horse hard with his heels. Unconcerned with caution, he descended into the valley as fast as the Appaloosa could manage without stumbling. At a full gallop, he crashed through the stream and charged across the remaining hundred yards of grassy bottom. He pulled the Appaloosa up sharply before the smoldering ruins, hitting the ground running before the horse had fully stopped.

  “Lark!” he called out desperately while pushing his way into the mass of charred timbers, shoving half-burned beams out of his way in a frantic effort to find what he dreaded to find. She was not there. He prayed this meant she had been abducted and was still alive.

  His face and arms black with soot and ashes, he staggered out of the desolate remains of his cabin. He looked toward the corral. The gate poles were thrown aside, his horses gone and no sign of her or the baby. He looked left and right. There was no one in sight in the whole valley. Judging by the smoldering timbers, the cabin had probably been burned the day he left to recover his horses. Was it part of the plan? Had he been deliberately led away from the cabin? Thinking back on the circumstances of the previous two days, he found it hard to believe the two young Ute warriors were up to anything beyond stealing horses. Whose work was this then? Utes? After leaving him in peace for a year, had they decided to drive him out? Maybe they were telling him to leave their country. But why not come after him then instead of the woman and child? He had had very little contact with the Utes, occasionally he would sight a hunting party skirting his valley. Usually they merely paused and watched from the ridge tops before disappearing again. Only twice had anyone actually ridden down to his cabin. They had seemed friendly enough and he had traded some coffee and tobacco with them and they had given him some news of the world outside his valley. Could they have changed their minds about allowing him to remain? Many questions, no answers.

  He called out Lark’s name as loud as he could, over and over for several minutes, hoping she might still be hiding in the long grass of the valley. There was no answer but the echo of his voice. In his anxiety, it seemed to be mocking his pathetic cries for the young Indian girl. He felt the emptiness of his valley, a feeling he had never experienced before, even when he had first come here alone. He must find her. He must hurry to switch his saddle to a fresh horse and search for her. But first he needed water to quench the thirst created by the hot ashes of his cabin and to clean some of the soot from his face and arms. Pulling his rifle from the saddle boot, he walked to the stream. There he found her. Just over the edge of the creek bank she lay, facedown. The blood that had been a pool under her head was now dried a crusty black; the back of her head was caved in so that pieces of her skull showed through her black hair, tangled with dried blood. There was one arrow in her back.

  Jason fell to his knees, his head spinning. The shock of finding her like this hit him like a blow from the war axe that had killed her. His lungs felt like they were going to explode and he felt the tears start in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Little One,” he moaned. “I’m sorry. I should have been here.”

  He started to pick her up but found he couldn’t bring himself to move her. Suddenly drained of all strength, he sat down beside her on the creek bank, staring at her body. He sat there for the better part of an hour, looking off toward the far end of his little valley, then back at the lifeless body beside him. Finally, he forced himself to get a hold on his emotions and see to the business of burying his wife and trailing her murderers.

  “The baby!” he blurted, just at that moment realizing he had been so grieved over the death of Lark that he had given no thought to the infant. They must have taken the child!

  Painfully he forced himself to regain his composure. Soon his mind began to take in and assimilate the signs left by the raiders. The one arrow left in
Lark’s body did not kill her. A war axe did that job. The arrow was left behind purposely so he would know who had taken her life. Someone wanted him to know who killed her. He only had to glance at the markings on the shaft to know it was Southern Cheyenne, probably some of the bunch that had jumped the reservation at Camp Supply. There were enough hot-blooded young warriors there that might want to avenge the death of Stone Hand. Jason could think of no other motive for the senseless killing of the young Osage girl. The loss of Lark was even more bitter because he knew that she had been killed only because he had not been there. They had obviously come for the baby but he knew part of the plan was to kill Jason Coles.

  Since it was plain it was not their work, he decided he would ride to the Ute village to see if they could help him. Although they were not at war with the Cheyenne, the Utes were not overly fond of them.

  He carefully wrapped Lark in a buffalo robe and stitched it up with some sinew. Close to the ruins of his cabin, on a little rise in the valley floor, he dug a grave and gently laid her in it with her head toward the eastern ridge. He choked a lump down in his throat as he shoveled dirt over her body, a body that seemed even smaller in death. Such a tiny thing, he thought, as he tried to imagine her as he had last seen her alive, her parting words the same every time he left the valley to hunt, “You come back, Jason Coles.” He had to smile . . . as if anything could have kept him from returning to her.

  The only thing left standing in the cabin was the fireplace. He loosened some stones from it and covered her grave with them. When he had finished, he stood over the grave for a while until he decided he had done all he could for her. Once again he apologized for not being there when she needed him most. He turned to leave, then hesitated a moment to add, “I’m sorry I never told you I love you.”

  The trail was almost three days old by the time he started toward the north pass. They had left his valley in that direction. Since they were driving ten of his own horses, it was hard to determine exactly how many Cheyennes were in the party. He guessed maybe five or six, judging by the tracks, skirting the main trail. After making the climb up the north ridge, he paused for a brief moment to take one last look back at his valley. He knew then he would never come back here. There were too many hard memories attached to the valley now. This was the second time he was leaving to avenge a death and search for the child. The first time had been to track Stone Hand after the savage had slaughtered Long Foot’s wife and abducted the baby. Now, once again, he was on the trail to try to recover the baby from the savages. He turned the Appaloosa’s head north and nudged him with this heels. He had made an honest effort to settle down, worked hard at it, but Jason Coles’s ranching days had spanned less than two years.

  CHAPTER II

  The trail seemed to head toward the Ute village. He had never been to the Ute camp but he knew where it was. He had been told by a member of one of the two hunting parties that had visited his cabin that their chief, Two Elks, had settled his people on Wild Horse Creek where it bends back on itself. Jason knew the spot, and the trail he had been following for the better part of three days seemed to indicate the Cheyennes were heading straight for it.

  As best he could recollect, he figured to be about a half day’s ride from the point where Wild Horse Creek pushed its way out of the mountains and curled around a couple of small foothills, almost meeting itself again. He would have to keep a cautious eye from here on in. With the way the Indian situation had heated up during the past two years, a man could never know for sure what kind of reception he would meet with any of the tribes. His situation wasn’t helped by the fact that he was a lone white man with a string of four Appaloosa ponies. He wouldn’t ride in with such fine-looking horse flesh if it wasn’t necessary. As it was, he couldn’t see that he had any choice if he was to find the baby.

  The Ute camp was right where he had anticipated. Crossing the first bend of the stream, he rode up on top of the first of the two hills it encircled. From the top of the hill he could see the entire encampment. Two Elks had settled his band on a grassy plain, near the edge of the mountains on the western side of the stream. Jason counted thirty-two tipis, all facing east toward the rising sun. He stood there awhile, unobserved by the camp, taking in the entire village. Peaceful, he thought. I wonder how long they’ll be able to live this way before the army comes along to round them all up and send them to the reservation.

  Jason didn’t care much for reservations, at least the ones he’d seen. The most recent was Camp Supply in Oklahoma territory, where he was scouting for Colonel Holder, and things were in a sad state there. He had done more than his share to cause Indians to be sentenced to the reservation and he wasn’t particularly proud of it. He had been a scout for the army ever since 1853 and he had seen the Cheyenne and the Comanche and the Sioux at their finest, when they ruled the plains. Many times they were his enemy but that was his job, scouting for the army. Seeing this Ute village before him now reminded him of the way it used to be for the Indians and he couldn’t help but feel guilty for being a part of the forces that were rapidly killing off this wild and free way of life.

  He might have sat there a while longer but for the sharp eye of a camp dog that started barking, instigating a chorus of yapping from the rest of the pack. Jason nudged his horse and, taking his time, descended the hill and crossed the western bend of the stream, heading toward the center of the village.

  A group of women, working on some skins on the far side of the the creek, paused in their task to look at the stranger. Several warriors, upon spotting the visitor, made their way toward Two Elks’ tipi where it appeared the white man was heading. Children stopped in their play to observe the strange man, sitting tall on the Appaloosa. There was no sense of alarm or hostility, merely curiosity for this rare encounter. The camp felt nothing to fear from one lone white man, driving three extra horses.

  Two Elks stepped outside to see what caused the murmur of voices in the camp. At first, when he saw the tall scout riding slowly into his camp leading three horses, he guessed that he might be a trapper, hoping to trade for furs. As the man approached and he could see him more closely, he knew it was the scout called Jason Coles. They had never met but he had heard tales of the respected scout and this man surely fit the description. This was the man who had killed Stone Hand. Two Elks had harbored no warm feelings for the notorious Stone Hand but like most men, he respected the renegade as he would respect a rattlesnake. If this Jason Coles did indeed place Stone Hand’s head on a pole, then he must have big medicine. It would be wise to treat this man with respect. When Jason reined up before his tipi, Two Elks raised his hand in a polite gesture of welcome.

  Jason returned the gesture and stepped down. There was a moment of silence while the two men measured each other with their eyes. Jason stood almost a full head taller than the chief, but there was a regal bearing about Two Elks that hinted of a strong backbone and demanded respect. By this time a crowd of men, women, and children had gathered to form a ring around Two Elks and Jason. The quiet reception surprised Jason somewhat. This wasn’t the first time he had ridden into an Indian camp alone. Usually he was met with some show of defiance, even threats. It seemed odd to him that there was a sense of quiet respect evident in the Ute village. It puzzled him.

  Two Elks spoke first. “I know you. You are Coles. Why have you come to our camp?”

  Jason’s command of the Ute dialect was not as good as his Cheyenne and Lakota but he knew enough words to make rudimentary communication with the help of sign. “I have no quarrel with your people. I’m looking for a party of Cheyennes I trailed to your camp. They killed my woman, burned my cabin, and stole my baby.”

  Two Elks studied the face of the white man. There was no fear in the deep blue eyes that were fixed, unblinking, upon his. “I have heard you have killed many of my people. Is it not an unwise thing to come into my camp alone? How do you know you will be permitted to leave?”

  Jason’s gaze remained constant, his ex
pression showed no emotion. “I have heard of the great chief Two Elks. It is my belief that a chief so great would not be so cowardly as to attack a man who comes in peace.” He glanced around him at the circle of warriors surrounding him. “What you have heard is true. I have many kills, but I have never made war on the Utes. I have killed none of your people. I have killed no women or children as the cowards I follow did. I have only killed in battle.” He nodded toward two young boys, standing at the edge of the circle. “Ask those two young warriors. They can tell you I have not killed any of your tribe.”

  A smile slowly broke through the stern countenance of the Ute chief. He had heard of the ill-fated raid on Jason’s horses when young Lame Deer and Red Shirt came back to camp riding on one pony. “Yes, one of those skillful warriors is my son, Red Shirt.” The smile widened. “He came back without his own horse.”

  Jason sensed an easing of the tension in the ring of warriors around him. Evidently the two young men had taken a general ribbing about their encounter with the white scout. He recognized the one called Red Shirt as the unfortunate young man who had been squatting on the log.

  Two Elks motioned toward the fire, inviting Jason to sit. “Share some meat with me, Coles. I think we should be friends.” Jason accepted graciously and the two men sat down to eat and talk. When they had eaten their fill from a pot of boiled venison, Two Elks told Jason what he came to find out.

  “The men you followed were here but they left yesterday. They go to join their brothers with Sitting Bull and the Lakotas. They said the Great White Father in Washington does not keep his word. The people at the reservation are starving and dying of white man’s sickness. There is no game to hunt. The land is a dead land where nothing can live. They will go back to the old ways and if there is war with the soldiers, then so be it.”