Lawless Prairie Read online

  It made little difference now, she decided; the die had been cast. Maybe the gold they had hoped to find would be turned up any day now. Troubling her mind lately was Robert’s lack of enthusiasm for almost anything. She guessed that maybe he was just tired. His interest in her seemed nonexistent except on the occasional nights when he felt the need to relieve himself of his anxieties by availing himself of the use of her body. The episode was always short and to the point as he groaned and struggled to keep the noise down in their tiny room next to her parents. Maybe, she thought, if I were not so plain . . .

  “There it is again,” she said.

  “What?” her mother asked.

  “That bird, can you hear it? There, hear it? It’s on the other side now.” As soon as she said it, a chilling thought came to her mind. With a worried glance at her mother still sitting by the window, she walked over beside her and peered out into the lengthening shadows. She saw nothing at first, but as she continued to stare, she suddenly caught a movement in the shadows, and her heart stopped for a beat. “Robert?” she called, hoping it was her husband by the corner of the cabin. She turned to speak to her mother, but was startled by the look of terror on the old woman’s face. She turned then to see the cause of her mother’s fright, the painted torso of a Sioux warrior framed in the kitchen window.

  Too terrified to scream, she murmured, “Mama . . . ,” and turned toward the shotgun over the mantel. Before she could take a step, the door was suddenly flung open and two warriors burst into the cabin. She started to run to the fireplace, but one of the warriors, a solid brute of a man with wide shoulders, caught her by the wrist and threw her to the floor.

  “Sit!” he commanded, glaring menacingly while the warrior at the window joined them. Horrified by the specter of the three painted savages crowding into the tiny cabin, both women sat paralyzed while the Indians began plundering the room. “Mahzah-wah-kahn,” the savage who had been at the back window said, pointing to the shotgun over the mantel. One of the others, shorter than his two friends, nodded and quickly took it from the pegs and examined it, turning it over several times before grunting his approval. He grinned at Wide Shoulders, revealing a gap where a tooth had once been.

  When Wide Shoulders spotted the pot bubbling over the fire, he picked up the wooden spoon Joanna had dropped. Dipping into the pot, he sampled the stew. “Le ta < ku hwo?” he demanded. “What is this?” he repeated in English.

  “Rabbit,” Joanna managed to force out of her throat.

  The warrior took another spoonful and grunted, “Wa<’ste, good.” He motioned for his friends to help themselves.

  Thinking that maybe they might leave them in peace if shown some kindness, Joanna’s mother got up from her chair. “If you and your friends are hungry, we could . . .” That was as far as she managed before being struck hard by the warrior standing closest to her. Joanna screamed and scrambled to her feet, only to be forced down roughly by the English-speaking Indian. “Sit!” he demanded, and gestured with the stone-headed war club he held.

  She jerked her hand free of his grasp. “How dare you strike a defenseless old woman!” she exclaimed, and rose to go to her mother’s aid.

  Gap Tooth drew back to strike her, but hesitated when Wide Shoulders said, “Wait!” He stood watching her as she helped her mother back in the chair. “Mother?” he asked calmly, but without compassion for the older woman now trembling and confused. His friends, no longer interested, returned their attention to the stew, dipping in with their hands and making short work of the supper.

  “Yes,” Joanna answered while blotting the blood from her mother’s face. The old woman simply stared straight ahead in shocked confusion, obviously stunned by the viciousness of the blow to the side of her face.

  An interested observer, Broad Shoulders watched Joanna’s efforts to get a response from her mother. When she got up to go to the water bucket to dampen the apron she had been using to clean the blood from her mother’s face, he repeated the command, “Sit!”

  “No!” she replied, her face taut with anger, and started toward the bucket on the table.

  He slapped her hard across the cheek, and hissed, “I say sit!”

  Staggered, but still on her feet, her face stinging from the blow, she gritted her teeth and thrust her chin out defiantly. “I’ll tend to my mother. Now, you take your savage friends and get out of my house!”

  Broad Shoulders’ face flushed with fury for a split second before relaxing to form an amused smirk. “I fix mother,” he said softly. Then before Joanna could react, he whirled and struck the unsuspecting woman with his war club, smashing her skull.

  Struck helpless by the horrifying sight of her mother’s head recoiling from the blow, Joanna felt her throat choking with a soundless scream that paralyzed her lungs and blocked her breath. She felt herself gasping for air, but could not stop the darkness that seemed to be filling her brain. The last image she could remember before losing consciousness was that of her mother’s head lolling drunkenly to one side as her body crumbled from the chair. When awareness next entered her brain, she found her hands were tied around the neck of the one horse in her father’s corral, and Broad Shoulders in the process of tying a rope to her ankles beneath the horse’s belly. Seeing that his captive was regaining consciousness, Broad Shoulders pointed his war club at her, gesturing. “You not good,” he warned, “I fix like mother.”

  Karl Steiner urged his horse up the slope, following his son-in-law through the pines that covered the ridge above their claim. It had been a long day with nothing to show for their efforts, but he was hopeful that the new location upstream would soon show some color. As the horses made their way around the rocky ledges that crowned the top of the ridge, Karl thought about his daughter’s husband, whose image was now softened by the growing darkness. Robert seemed to be a nice enough young man, but it seemed to Karl that he had taken to complaining about the work and the lack of instant wealth from the mountain stream. It might have been a mistake to undertake this joint venture with Robert and Joanna. Maybe it would have been better if he and Sarah had stayed in Omaha and let the young folks seek fortunes in the Black Hills. Hell, I still outwork him every day, Karl thought. He just doesn’t have the patience to wait until we strike some solid color. Sarah would scold him for criticizing Robert. As long as he makes Joanna happy, she always said.

  As far as Karl could tell, Joanna didn’t look particularly happy. But I guess I can’t really blame Robert for that, he thought. It had been nothing but long, hard hours ever since they first raised tents on French Creek, only to be escorted out by the soldiers trying to enforce the treaties with the Indians. Like all the other prospectors, they simply moved to another location, playing hide-and-seek with the army in the forbidden hills. He was still optimistic about the little stream they had settled on near the western edge of the Black Hills. His thoughts were interrupted when he realized that Robert had stopped.

  Pulling even with his son-in-law, he inquired, “Something wrong?”

  Robert was peering down through the trees, trying to see through the gloom of the evening. “Just seems kinda strange,” he replied. “Usually smell smoke, even see a little from the chimney on top of this ridge.”

  “Maybe the wind’s just changed,” Karl offered, not really concerned. He nudged his horse and started down the ridge in the lead. Although they often saw smoke from the ridgetop, the cabin itself was not visible through the trees until about halfway down. The first clue that something was amiss was when Karl came upon an empty corral. Still, it was not enough to cause him to worry. “Sarah,” he called out, “Joanna.” It struck him as rather odd that no one came to the door to greet them.

  “What?” Robert asked when he pulled his horse up in the yard.

  Karl dismounted. “I said I wonder where the women are.” Becoming more concerned by the moment, he hurried toward the front door, hesitating only briefly to pick up a couple of pieces of calico that lay on the ground, as if someone h
ad dropped them.

  Robert, now sensing something wrong, pulled his rifle from the saddle sling, and stayed back while his father-in-law stepped inside the cabin. Within seconds, he heard Karl’s cry of anguish. He ran inside the cabin then and found the grieving man with his wife’s body cradled in his arms, rocking back and forth while he sobbed. “Joanna!” Robert cried when he looked frantically around the ransacked cabin, but his wife was not there. Hoping with all his might that he would not find a second corpse, he lit a lantern with trembling hands, and searched the cabin again, looking under overturned benches and tables. The quilts that partitioned off the two bedroom areas were missing, and there was no one in the beds.

  There was no doubt in either man’s mind that the cabin had been visited by Indians, and Robert tried not to think about what fate his wife might have suffered. With Karl still lost in his grief, Robert went outside and searched all around the cabin and the corral. There was no sign of Joanna. The Indians had taken her.

  When he went back inside, he found that Karl had managed to pull himself together. He laid Sarah’s body gently back on the floor. When he saw Robert, he asked, “Joanna?” Robert shook his head slowly. “We’ve got to find Joanna,” Karl said, getting to his feet. “We’ve got to find my daughter before they kill her, too.”

  “We can’t go after ’em now,” Robert said. “We can’t track ’em in the dark. Can’t even see which way they started.”

  After a sleepless night, morning finally came to the little clearing by the stream. Preparing to make coffee, Robert hesitated when Karl insisted they not wait to have breakfast. “I’ve heard what those Indians do to white women,” he said. “We need to find Joanna before they have time to harm her.”

  “All right,” Robert said, and put the coffeepot down. He did not voice the thought in both of their minds that she might already be dead.

  Neither man was skilled at tracking, but the trail the Sioux left from the cabin was obvious even to a novice. It led down into the floor of the valley where it turned to the west. They were encouraged to find no evidence that the party had stopped soon after leaving the cabin, giving them hope that Joanna was still alive. In the late afternoon, they lost the trail at a fork in the Beaver River. Searching in a circle that encompassed the two forks, they failed to find any tracks other than their own. By the time darkness descended upon them, they were forced to admit they had no idea where the warriors had taken Joanna.

  Grief-stricken, they went through the motions of making camp, neither man with much to say to the other, knowing they had failed, and helpless to do anything to alleviate their despair. Despondent and defeated, they started back to the cabin to bury Sarah Steiner.

  Chapter 7

  After leaving the Platte three and a half days behind him, Clint Conner lay flat on his belly at the top of a long, low ridge. His horses waited behind him farther down the slope where they would not be seen by the small party of Indians passing to the west some seventy-five yards from where he lay. They were not the first he had seen; some were in large parties, and all seemed to be heading in the same general direction, toward the Powder River. It was the reason he had decided to ride farther to the east as he made his way north.

  He had managed to steer clear of the other Indians who had crossed his path, but he had almost blundered into the group he now watched from the hilltop. Three men and a woman, he could now tell as they reached a point closer to him. The woman appeared to be sick, he thought, for she rode slumped forward. As they came even closer, he realized that the woman’s horse was being led by one of the warriors. While Clint watched, the warrior gave the lead rope a sharp yank, causing the woman to grab on to the horse’s mane, for there was no saddle under her. As she raised her head, Clint recoiled, startled. Her hair was raven black, but her face was white. A white woman! A captive? Maybe she was with them by choice. Then he noticed that her wrists were tied, as well as her ankles beneath the horse’s belly. There was no decision to be made. She was a captive. He would have to try to free her. How to do it was the problem to be worked out. He was accurate enough with a rifle to get one of them, maybe two, at this distance, but then he ran the chance that the other would escape with the woman. Also there was the risk that if they were fired upon, they might kill the woman and then run. They had guns, but he could not tell from that distance whether they were repeating rifles, single shot, or shotguns. At any rate, they were armed and they outnumbered him. He felt pretty sure his best chance to get all three of the warriors was to wait until they made camp, and then go in under the cover of darkness. He slid back away from the top of the hill, and went to get his horses.

  Because of the open terrain, he was obliged to stay well behind the party as he followed them, often losing sight of them and relying on his ability to find their tracks. It was not always easy, owing to the numerous old tracks that intermingled. It led him to believe that the Sioux, and probably the Cheyenne, were gathering for some reason, and that equated to more trouble for every white man. He squinted up at the sun, trying to determine how many hours remained before nightfall. With no notion of where the big congregation of Indians was to take place, he just hoped the three he followed would make camp before joining the rest of their brothers. If they didn’t, there was little chance he would be able to help the woman. He couldn’t fight the whole Sioux nation.

  The last hours of sunlight had faded away before the Indians came to a river where they made their camp. Clint wasn’t sure, but he guessed that the river was probably the Belle Fourche. When certain they were stopping for the night, he settled for a dry camp in a shallow ravine where he could wait for darkness to cover the prairie between the two camps.

  It was not a long wait, but it seemed long. Most of the time was spent at the head of the ravine, watching the glow of their campfire. Finally the glow softened as the flames died out. Still he waited until he felt reasonably certain they had retired to their blankets for the night. Checking his rifle once more, he decided it was time.

  A rough guess told him the camp was approximately three or four hundred yards distant. Leaving his horses, he started walking across the open plain toward the tiny glow in the cottonwood trees along the riverbank. As he came closer, he brought his rifle up before him, ready to shoot at the first sign of alarm. There was no cry of discovery, or discernible motion of any kind. The camp was still. He hesitated when the horses tied in the trees began to whinny and shuffle around nervously, but their nervousness went unnoticed by the three Indians. Shifting his gaze from the horses back to the sleeping forms around the embers of the dying campfire, he searched for that of the woman. At first he could see only three bodies. Then he spotted the woman, bound hand and foot and tied to a tree near the horses.

  Satisfied that she was out of the line of fire, he walked into the camp, his rifle ready before him. The short, gap-toothed warrior was the first to discover the sinister visitor. He sat up, childlike in his attempt to brush the sleep from his eyes. The peaceful night was shattered by the crack of Clint’s rifle as a .44 slug smacked into the warrior’s chest.

  In rapid succession, he leveled the Winchester to pump a fatal shot into each of the other two as they sprang from their blankets. It was all over in a matter of seconds, and the peaceful night was quiet again except for the frightened sounds from the horses.

  Joanna Becker lay still, terrified by the abrupt explosion of gunfire, her mind a maelstrom of conflicting thoughts. The suddenness of the grim executions by the dark figure, now methodically prodding each body with the toe of his boot, caused her to fear that more trouble was to come her way. Evidently satisfied that all three were dead, he turned in her direction. She could not help but cringe against the trunk of the cottonwood as he started toward her.

  “Are you all right, ma’am?” Clint asked as he stood over her.

  The tone of his voice, soft with compassion, calmed her fears at once. She relaxed and replied, “I think so.” In truth, she was not certain how bad the many c
uts and bruises on her face and body were. Her captors had not been gentle with her. Some of her abuse she vowed never to speak of to anyone. All that mattered at the moment was that she had been saved. As he knelt down to untie her, she could not hold back the tears of relief. “Thank you,” she uttered softly. “Thank you for saving my life.”

  “I’m glad I happened on you,” he replied.

  “They killed my mother,” she sobbed. “My husband and my father,” she asked anxiously, “are they looking for me?”

  “I don’t know, ma’am. Like I said, I just happened along.” He removed the last of the ropes from around her ankles, and looked her over as best he could in the darkness. It appeared that she had several cuts on her arms and shoulders, and her face was badly bruised and swollen beside her left eye. His heart went out to her when he speculated on what she must have endured at the hands of her captors. “Can you walk all right?” he asked. When she nodded, he continued. “I expect it might be a good idea to leave this place. We can go downstream a ways till we find a better place. Then we’ll see about takin’ care of some of these cuts.” The site the warriors had chosen to make their camp seemed to be a common crossing of the river. And considering the number of Indians he had seen during the last several days, he thought it best not to take the chance of being caught with three dead warriors.

  He helped her to her feet and watched her to make sure she was all right. She seemed unsure of her balance at first, but soon recovered her composure. “I prayed to God to either send me help or take my life,” she said, her words halting and barely audible, tears streaming down her face again.