Son of the Hawk Page 9

  Early the next morning, Trace reached the long tree-covered ridge that ran like a high wall above the old game trail he had been following. Leaving the trail where it looped around the chimney-like stone column, he guided the paint up through the pines. Upon reaching the top of the ridge, he had to pause for a few moments to get his bearings. Looking off toward the east, he spotted the mouth of the narrow draw that led down to the stream.

  As he descended the slope into the little valley, his eyes constantly scanned back and forth, alert for anything that looked out of the ordinary. There was a heavy silence hanging over the dark slopes that surrounded the valley. It seemed to amplify the gurgling sounds of the noisy stream that cut like a scar through the grassy bottom. He thought about the first time he had seen this tiny valley, and recalled how peaceful it had seemed to him then. On this day, however, there was an ominous feeling about the place. He couldn’t explain why—the grass was high, still with some scattering of wildflowers that defied summer’s end—the stream was strong and clear. It was just a feeling he had, but he had learned to pay attention to those feelings, for they had often forewarned of something the eye had not yet detected.

  Urging the paint forward again, he crossed over the stream and climbed up the other bank. That was where he found the first one. Lying parallel to the rushing water, the sun-bleached skull seemed to stare vacantly up at the cloudless sky from its grassy tomb. Trace dismounted and knelt to examine the skeleton. It had been a white man—he could tell by the clothes. The fact that they were torn and shredded was a clear indication to Trace that the body had been found by wolves or buzzards—or both. He reckoned the worms had cleaned up what was left.

  He found the other three close by, almost hidden in the tall grass. The position of two of the skeletons, with their arms flung out and legs spread or bent under, led Trace to conclude that it had most likely been a wolf pack that devoured the corpses. There were no signs of injury on any of the skulls but one, and that one had a neat bullet hole in the forehead. He considered this for a moment. If the men had been attacked by a band of Indians, there would have been much more evidence of broken skulls and bones. If he had to guess, he would say they might have been murdered in their sleep. Apparently, Annie’s husband and his partners were murdered soon after they first arrived in the Black Hills. And from the lack of sign, no one had been here since. It was a hard thing to have to tell the young lady, but there was little doubt that these four skeletons were the men they searched for.

  It would not be a pleasant thing for Annie to see, but Trace decided after some serious thought that it might be important to the girl to know which skeleton was that of her late husband’s. So he left the bones where they lay, figuring she could identify her husband by his clothes, if she decided that’s what she wanted to do. After looking around a little while longer to see if there were any clues that might shed more light on the murders, he decided there were a few signs that didn’t seem right. He determined to make a closer search of the area later after Buck arrived.

  Shortly before midday, Trace spotted the three riders as they approached the rock. He walked out on the flat surface of the giant stone and signaled. Annie, upon seeing the tall mountain man, urged her horse ahead of the others, anxious to know what Trace might tell them. Buck already knew that Trace had found something, since he had waited for them instead of meeting them farther along the trail. And he had a pretty good idea that the news wasn’t good since Trace was waiting alone.

  “Did you find anything, Mr. McCall?” Annie yelled long before her horse pulled up to a stop.

  “Yes, ma’am, I’m sorry but I did.”

  “Oh,” was all she responded. She had dreaded this moment, knowing deep inside that Tom had in all probability met with some disaster. In spite of telling herself for months now that Tom could take care of himself, there had been a nagging lack of faith in his return. He would have gotten a message to her somehow—and none had come. She waited for Trace to explain.

  “I found ’em,” he began. “I don’t know any way to make this any easier . . .” He paused, groping for some words to soften the message he had to give her.

  “I know,” she interrupted, “they’re dead.” Feeling suddenly weary, she dismounted and walked off a few yards to shed her tears in privacy.

  Trace felt a deep compassion for the young woman, but he was not good in situations like this, so he was greatly relieved when Luke Austen quickly dismounted and moved to comfort her. Buck shook his head sadly and nudged his horse up beside Trace.

  “Injuns got ’em?” he said, his voice soft enough to keep Annie from hearing. Whereupon Trace related the scene of the murders that he had discovered.

  “I ain’t so sure it was Injuns, Buck,” Trace answered. “It just doesn’t look like the work of Injuns. They ain’t nothing but bones now—and rags—but I left them where they lay till I find out if she’s up to looking at ’em. Then we can put them in the ground.” He glanced over at the grieving woman, her head now buried against the lieutenant’s chest.

  Buck’s curiosity was up. “Well, I’d like to take a look. You think they might have been murdered by white men?”

  “Well, I don’t know for sure, but right now it appears that way to me.”

  Annie regained her composure after only a few minutes, and when she again exhibited a calm demeanor, Trace described the scene he had found by the stream. “I didn’t bother ’em, ma’am. I mean, I left ’em lay as I found ’em in case you wanted to try to identify your husband’s bones.”

  “Annie,” Luke said, “it might not be a good idea for you to see them. Why don’t you let us bury them and then you can take a few minutes alone to say good-bye.”

  “What if it’s not Tom?” Annie quickly responded. “No, I’ve got to see for myself. It could be any four men—we don’t know for sure.”

  “Ain’t likely it’s anybody else, ma’am,” Buck commented. “The lieutenant’s right, it might be somethin’ you don’t need to see.”

  Her composure recovered and her resolve firm, Annie insisted. “I need to know if it’s my husband or not. Mr. McCall, will you lead us to the place?”

  Trace glanced at Buck before answering. “Yes’m, I’ll take you there.”

  * * *

  Gazing down, unblinking, at the bleached white skull whose empty black sockets stared up at her, Annie found that she could not picture Tom’s face even though she tried to focus her mind on it. Cheerful and cocky, he had kissed her farewell and stepped up in the saddle, promising to return with enough gold to build her a fine house in Oregon. Young and boyish in his enthusiasm for this great adventure, he and his three equally inspired partners rode out of Fort Laramie more than four and a half months ago. Now as she felt a tear creep slowly down her cheek, she found it difficult to believe that these cold bones were once the warm and caring man who had shared her bed, albeit briefly. Although the only remaining possessions were his shirt and pants, she knew that it was Tom lying there. She had made the checkered shirt for him herself, and the trousers were the same he had worn on the last day she had seen him. Suddenly she felt a heavy blanket of guilt descend upon her shoulders—guilt born from knowing she had not loved him as passionately as he had loved her. I would have, Tom. I was learning to. Tasting the salt on her lips, she realized that her tears were now flowing freely. She turned as a shadow fell across the skeleton, and a voice gently woke her from her reverie.

  “We’d best put these poor souls in the ground and be on our way, ma’am,” Buck softly urged. She nodded and turned toward Trace who was already scraping out a shallow grave for one of the others—Ned Turner, she guessed, although she could not be sure.

  “I’m sorry there don’t seem to be no keepsake for you to take with you,” Buck said. “They was stripped pretty clean.”

  “His watch,” Annie spoke softly, not really meaning to say it out loud, “I wish I could have kept his watch.”

  “Ma’am?” Buck asked.

 
Realizing then that she had spoken loud enough to be heard, Annie explained. “I gave Tom a silver watch for a wedding present. I had his name inscribed on it. I just wish I could have kept it.”

  “Oh—Well, I’m sorry, ma’am.”

  * * *

  The rest of the afternoon was spent burying the remains of the four prospectors. There were still several hours of daylight left before the shadows would close in on the valley, but Trace and Buck agreed that they wouldn’t find a better campsite than where they stood. After making sure that it wouldn’t be too painful for Annie to spend the night at the scene of her husband’s massacre, they decided to wait until morning to start back to Laramie. While Buck and Luke gathered wood for a fire, Trace took a closer look at the area where Tom Farrior and his partners had been slain.

  The sign was several months old, but there were still enough clues to enable Trace to get a pretty fair picture of Tom Farrior’s final hours. According to Annie, each of the four men had led three packhorses. Based on this, Trace concluded that the four had no more than two or three visitors to their camp. There were not a great number of prints, and all but a few of them came from shod horses. It would be impossible to determine the exact number of horses—dependent upon the comings and goings of the party, and how many days they spent at this campsite. But Trace was confident that the number of tracks definitely ruled out a large war party. In addition to the four skeletons, there were bones from a large animal—probably a deer from the size and shape of the bones.

  “Whadaya think happened here?” Buck asked when Trace came over to the fire.

  “Hard to say,” Trace answered. “Ain’t no way to know for sure, but if I had to guess, I’d bet they were visited by two or three strangers pretending to be friendly—probably murdered them in their blankets.”

  * * *

  By the time night’s heavy veil had lifted from the deep-shaded valleys, Trace was halfway down the back side of the ridge, working his way carefully toward the chimney rock. He figured the others were still in camp, probably getting packed up to ride by then. Trace had felt a need to scout the way back to the old game trail before the four of them started out again. He didn’t like surprises, a trait that had contributed to his longevity in hostile territory. He also had a healthy respect for the tracking ability of the Sioux warrior.

  When he spotted the towering rock below him some two hundred yards away, he dismounted and tied his pony to a pine bough. Moving quickly but silently, he made his way farther down the ridge, his eyes alert to every movement of the wind in the pine needles that whispered a muted warning. Below him, a bird suddenly fluttered from its nest, screeching an angry protest for having been disturbed. Trace froze, his eyes searching. Then he saw them—two Sioux scouts, kneeling to study the ground where Trace and the others had left the trail the day before.

  The discovery of the two warriors caused no sense of fear in the Mountain Hawk but served to alert every fiber of his mind. He dropped slowly to one knee and carefully scanned the forest below him. The decision to be made now was whether to fight or run, depending upon the number. His decision was easily made, for only seconds later, the two scouts were joined by two others, with the rest of the war party on their heels. Trace counted fourteen more that he could see through the trees—he couldn’t say how many more were hidden from his view.

  Moving quickly, carefully placing each foot so as not to dislodge a stone or limb that might alert the warriors of his presence, Trace climbed back to where the paint was waiting. Still on foot, he led the pony back over the crest of the ridge before climbing in the saddle and starting down the slope toward the stream.

  When he rode into camp, his companions were ready to leave and only awaiting his arrival. “Where the hell you been?” Buck demanded, “We’ve been ready to ride for half an hour.”

  Trace couldn’t help but smile. Noticing that Luke was still adjusting Annie’s saddle for her, Trace estimated it to be more like five minutes. “I expect we’re gonna have to find another way out of here.”

  No more needed to be said as far as Buck was concerned. “They found where we left the trail, I reckon.”

  “They did,” Trace confirmed.

  “How close?”

  “Thirty minutes, maybe.”

  Buck looked around him, at the slope they had originally come down, to the even steeper opposite wall of the valley, then back at Trace who had already determined their escape route. “Don’t look like much choice, does it?” Buck quickly determined. “Down the stream for as far as we can.” He would have told Luke and Annie to get ready to ride, but he glanced back to discover they had already mounted and Luke was checking his rifle. Glancing back at Trace, Buck asked, “You have any idea where this stream comes out?”

  “Nope,” Trace answered, “but this is as good a time as any to find out.”

  “I reckon,” Buck snorted and climbed up in the saddle.

  With Trace leading, they rode down the middle of the stream for approximately a quarter of a mile until the slope steepened and the stream became narrower and deeper, making it too difficult for the horses to find solid footing. Leaving the water, they made their way through the trees that hugged the coursing waterway, and detoured around a flume of solid granite, picking up the stream again some distance down the mountainside. As the slope continued to steepen, it became more and more hazardous, with the riders almost laying on their horses’ rumps in some places. And in even steeper areas, it was only possible to keep from tumbling head over heels by sidling along the slope, back and forth, gradually working their way down.

  Annie could feel her heart pounding against her ribs as she held onto the army saddle for dear life, the muscles in her legs almost cramping from pressing so tightly against the horse’s sides. It seemed to her that she was about to fly over her horse’s neck at any moment. In spite of the threat of pursuit, she was too afraid of tumbling down the mountainside to worry about the Indians behind them. She could see the valley a quarter of a mile below and no apparent access to it. The tiers of tall pines stood like rows of sharpened spears, waiting to impale the horse that made the first misstep.

  Ahead of her, Luke Austen laid back in the saddle, trying to help his horse maintain its balance—his concern for her safety apparent in his frequent glances back at her. Leading Luke, Buck’s horse hit a patch of loose shale and started to slide sideways. The horse, a mountain horse like Trace’s, recovered, finding solid footing after a slide of some seventy-five feet, coming to a stop in front of Trace.

  “I swear, Buck,” Trace deadpanned, “if you wanna lead, just say so.” Then he looked back to make sure Luke and Annie avoided the soft spot Buck had hit.

  Buck held his horse back to let Trace lead. “For a minute there, I thought I was gonna take the shortcut down,” he said. “You go right on ahead. I’m kinda interested to see how you plan to git us offen this dang mountain.”

  “I’m kinda anxious to find out myself,” Trace returned. “We’ll just keep sidling till we come across a gulch or a draw that leads down from here.”

  “We better find somethin’ pretty soon before we have a pack of Sioux warriors slidin’ down on top of us,” Buck said as Trace’s paint passed him. He continued to hold back to let Trace’s packhorse by. Usually hitched by a lead line to the back of Trace’s saddle, the packhorse was no longer tied. It was not as surefooted as the paint, and Trace didn’t want to risk having the packhorse lose its footing and drag him down the mountain with it.

  Buck waited for a few minutes until Luke and Annie caught up, then continued the treacherous descent toward the trees below. After what seemed a painfully long time, Trace disappeared into the pines that formed a thick ring around the mountain, and it appeared that the four of them might gain the cover of the trees before being spotted by the warriors pursuing them. Buck was about to call back to Annie and Luke to hurry when he heard a sharp cry of alarm high up the mountain above them.

  “Damn!” he uttered, looking up to
search for the source of the war cries that now rang out from above. In a few moments he spotted them. Several hundred feet above, he could see them scrambling over the boulders, trying to find a place to get a clear shot. Moments later, he saw an eruption of tiny puffs of black smoke, like mushrooms suddenly sprouting forth among the rocks, and the sounds of lead balls rattling through the trees followed immediately.

  “Hurry!” Buck called, as he herded Luke and Annie into the thick pine forest. As soon as they reached the cover of the trees, the shooting stopped, but the war cries increased. They hurried to catch up to Trace, the ground having leveled out to form a ridge at last. Making better time now, Annie and Luke followed Buck as he weaved his way through the thick forest, still mindful of the red horde wildly descending the mountain behind them.

  The easy going was short-lived, for the three of them had gone no more than fifty yards when they found Trace waiting for them. There appeared to be an opening in the trees beyond him which was immediately interpreted as a bad sign by Buck. Just as he feared, the ridge they had been following ended abruptly before a cliff. Trace had dismounted and was looking over the situation when the others pulled up.

  “Well, now ain’t this somethin’ to write in your diary,” Buck cracked when he joined Trace at the edge of the granite cliff and peered down at a lower ridge two hundred feet below. “How we gonna git down there? Fly?” He paused to give Trace a mischievous glance. “’Course, you bein’ the Mountain Hawk, that might be what you had in mind.”

  “We’d better find some way outta here or we might have to find out if we can fly.” He turned to face Luke and Annie. “Lieutenant, we ain’t got a lot of time, so we’d best split up and look for a way down from here. You and I can follow the cliff line along the slope ahead. Buck and the lady can follow it in the opposite direction. That all right with you, Buck?” Buck nodded. “All right, then, let’s get to it.”

  Closer now, the war whoops rang from the mountainside above them, only muted slightly by the thick stand of trees that hid them from sight. Trace knew that the Sioux braves would abandon all caution in an effort to overtake them. Half of them might end up sliding and tumbling down the slope, but the other half might be enough to rub the four of them out. Moving as fast as they could, he and Luke led the horses along the rocky ledge, searching for some means of escape. If worse came to worst, they might have to abandon the horses and climb down the face of the cliff. Trace sought to avoid that if at all possible.