Demon's Pass (14 page)

The expression on Shardeen's face went from self-assurance, to shock, to outright fear.

“Like I said, we're even. I don't have the hammer pulled back either,” Jason added.

“Still think I'm sending a boy to do a man's job?” Clay asked, chuckling.

Shardeen looked hard at Jason for a moment, then an easy smile broke out on his face. He put his pistol back in the holster. “I reckon he's a pretty good man at that,” he said. “Let's go, boy.”

Chapter 9

 

As the late fall rains began to strip the brown leaves from the trees, Elk Heart took a new name. His new name was Bloody Axe. It was the name of a warrior, and it came to him in a vision while he was in the sweat lodge. The vision also told him to abandon the life of the contraire, return to his people, and select a few who would be warriors alongside him.

Because Bloody Axe's new name had come to him in a vision, all who heard him make the proclamation accepted it. A vision was a message from the Great Spirit and it couldn't be questioned.

“Why do they accept him now?” Elizabeth asked. “He struts around the camp as if he were a great chief, when only last month he was riding backward on his horse.”

“He has had a vision,” Brave Eagle explained to her. “Do you not understand that a vision is a sacred thing? He is no longer bound by his vow to be a contraire.”

“How do we know he's really had a vision? He could just be saying that so he wouldn't have to be a contraire any longer,” Elizabeth suggested.

“No,” Brave Eagle replied. “Maybe when you have lived long enough in your red life, you will forget some of the ways of your white life. You do not understand that a vision is a holy thing that no man would lie about. A vision is as sacred as the medicine bag he carries.”

“Brave Eagle, because you are a good, honest man, you see goodness and honesty in everyone. But I tell you that there are some things I learned in my white life which would serve Indians well. And that is that some people may appear to have honor when they have none.”

Brave Eagle laughed.

“Why do you laugh?” Elizabeth asked, irritated by his behavior.

“Because you, a woman, think you can tell me, a warrior, about life.”

Brave Eagle was still laughing when Elizabeth stomped away from him. She saw several warriors standing in the center circle, listening to a speech given by the one who now called himself Bloody Axe. Moon Cow Woman was standing just on the outside edge of the circle of warriors, and Elizabeth walked over to join her. Elizabeth had been working hard for several weeks now, and had developed a conversational level of the language. With that understanding, and Moon Cow Woman's occasional translation of the words and phrases she didn't understand, she was able to follow most of Bloody Axe's speech.

“Listen,” Bloody Axe began. “I have seen a vision of my many victories. I have seen the white men killed by Cheyenne warriors, and in this vision, I, Bloody Axe, have led this brave band of warriors.”

“Why should we let you lead us?” one of the warriors asked.

“Yes. You declared yourself to be a contraire, but now you come back and ask us to follow you.”

“I tell you this. The vision I had spoke of much glory for Bloody Axe,” Bloody Axe said. “Come, if you wish to share in this glory. Come and ride with me, and we will have a great victory over the white men who pass through our country!”

Bloody Axe shouted his last declaration and the Indians cheered, apparently won over by his fierce rhetoric. Then someone broke into song and as he sang, he danced, and the others danced behind him.

Those who would be warriors joined the dancing men, and Elizabeth saw that the one who danced with the lightest step and sang with the loudest voice was Running Rabbit.

When the singing and dancing was finished, the warriors ran toward their horses. Elizabeth called out to Running Rabbit.

“Running Rabbit, no, don't go! Please, don't go!” she yelled.

Running Rabbit stopped and turned toward her. “I must go,” he said.

“No.”

By now, Bloody Axe was mounted, and he saw Running Rabbit hesitate. “Running Rabbit, do you stay as Sun's Light pup . . . or do you ride with me as a warrior?” he taunted.

Running Rabbit hesitated no longer. With one final look at Elizabeth, he ran to his horse. Elizabeth glared at Bloody Axe, who was smiling triumphantly at her.

“He doesn't really want the boy,” Elizabeth said to Moon Cow Woman. “He is just taking him because he knows I don't want him to go.”

“There is truth to your words,” Moon Cow Woman agreed. “But you cannot say that to Running Rabbit, for to do so would bring him shame.”

When all the warriors were mounted, Bloody Axe held his rifle over his had.

“Yip, yip, yip, aiyee!” he shouted at the top of his voice.

The others yelled as well as they rode out of the village with a thunder of hooves. Brave Eagle watched them disappear, with a firm, pensive look on his face, and ice in his eyes.

 

When Bloody Axe saw the six wagons moving slowly across the prairie, he hurried back to tell the others of the potential target.

“Why should we attack wagons?” Kicking Horse asked. “They carry farmers, women, and children to far-away places. There will be nothing in the wagons but tools for farming, and the clothes and blankets of white men. These are not things for warriors.”

“Not these wagons,” Bloody Axe insisted. “Three of the wagons carry farmers, but three are the wagons that white men call freight wagons. Freight wagons carry many things, such as guns, knives, whiskey, axes, and sugar.”

“Guns? Knives?” Kicking Horse asked.

“Whiskey?” another eagerly wanted to know.

“Sugar?” Running Rabbit added.

The warriors laughed at Running Rabbit for he was known for his prodigious appetite for anything sweet.

Bloody Axe pointed to a river crossing. “We will wait here for the wagons. When they begin to cross the river, we will attack.”

Bloody Axe positioned the warriors so that they couldn't be seen by the approaching wagons. Then, with everyone in position, he moved back to the ridge from where he had first spotted the wagons, and waited.

A soft breeze moaned through the low scrub trees and shallow canyons. Bloody Axe looked back to see if he could see any of the warriors. At first he saw no one, evidence of their skill at hiding. Then, but only because he knew they were there, they gradually came into view.

One of the hidden warriors was Running Rabbit. He heard the wagons approaching, and though it was cold and he was lying in wet mud, he felt hot in the flush of excitement which had come upon him. He would count coup this day, and when he returned to the village all would see the feathered lance he would carry, each feather dipped in red to denote the counting of coup.

Suddenly Running Rabbit got an idea. He would count coup against one of the white men while they were still alive. If he could ride up to him and touch him with his coup stick while the enemy was still alive, then he would be able to claim the highest honor any warrior can claim. Counting coup against a dead enemy was honor enough, but, once dead, the enemy represented no danger. To count coup against an enemy while he lived would be the cause for stories and songs to be celebrated around many campfires, and surely, it would be entered in the sash of the winter count.

The winter count was the history book of the tribe. Symbols were painted on a long, winding cloth each winter, in order to designate certain significant events of that year. Though the white man called this year 1868, the Indian had no such numerical system. This year was simply, “this year,” and it would not have a name until the winter count was complete. Last year was “the year of the white buffalo calf,” because one of the hunters had seen a white buffalo calf during a hunt, a potent and holy symbol to the tribe. Running Rabbit had been born in “the Year of the Spreading Fever,” for many in the village were sick that year, and in fact, both of Running Rabbit's parents had died of smallpox. Now, Running Rabbit thought, as he lay in the mud and heard the increasing sound of the approaching wagons, he thought of a name for this year. This year would be known as “the Year of Running Rabbit's touch coup,” and he would be remembered forever among his people.

 

Ira Joyce didn't like it. There was nothing he could put his finger on, but something was bothering him, and the end of his nose began to tingle. Every time his nose began to tingle, it was a sign that something was afoot. He hauled back on the reins and put his foot on the brake.

“Whoa, mules, whoa!” he called.

When he stopped, everyone else in the wagon train behind him was forced to stop as well. Ira could hear the squeaking of wheel brakes and the drivers calling to their teams.

“Whoa!”

“Whoa, there!”

“Hold!”

“Why are we stopping?” Captain Reynolds shouted. Reynolds, who had been riding alongside his family's wagon, slapped his legs against the side of his horse and raced to the front of the small train. When he got there, Ira was cutting off a piece of chewing tobacco.

“What is it?” Reynolds asked. “Why did you stop?”

Ira stuck the plug in his mouth and positioned it against his cheek.

“Somethin' ain't right,” Ira said.

“What?”

“They's somethin' wrong.”

“What are you talking about? What could possibly be wrong?”

“I ain't sure what it is. I just know that somethin' ain't quite like it should be.”

Reynolds breathed out a long sigh of disgust. “You stop us because ‘somethin' ain't right,' but you don't have any idea of what it is?”

“No idea a'tall,” Ira said. He pointed to the river crossing about fifty yards ahead. “But I don't feel good about goin' through there.”

“Do you have a better place in mind?”

Ira spat before he answered. “Nope,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “This here's the only ford for ten miles or so.”

“Then we're going to have to cross here, aren't we?”

“I reckon we are,” Ira agreed reluctantly.

Reynolds took off his hat, stared into it for a moment as if gathering his thoughts, then put it back on. “Mr. Joyce, this is the third time you've brought this party to a halt because something didn't feel right to you. No doubt, you recall the ‘outlaws' who were trailing us a few days ago. Turns out they were nothing more than buffalo hunters. Then you didn't want to take the shortcut to the south because you said we wouldn't be able to find water in that direction. But we did find water. Now you halt us because you say something doesn't feel right, only this time, you don't even know what that is.”

“It's a feeling I have in my gut,” Ira said.

“Don't give me gut feelings, Ira Joyce. Give me facts,” Reynolds demanded. “If there is some danger up there, I want to know what it is.”

“That, I can't tell you,” Ira said. “All I can say is I have survived a lot of years out here, mostly because I listened to my gut when it had something to say.”

“Your gut isn't in charge of this wagon train, Mr. Joyce.
I
am,” Reynolds said. “Now, either lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way.”

Ira glared at Reynolds for a second, then he snapped the reins over the back of his team.

“Heah, mule! Giddyup!” he shouted.

Reynolds held his place as, once again, the wagon train began rolling. He had positioned a freight wagon in between each Conestoga wagon so that, today, his wagon was second in line. His wife had been ill for several days now, so Sue, his daughter, was driving.

“Hey, Pa,” Sue called out to her father as she guided the team by. “What's wrong?”

“Nothin' darlin',” Reynolds replied. “Just keep the team movin'. How's your ma'?”

“Not very good,” Sue replied, her voice betraying her worry. “She's runnin' a real high fever. I think she needs to see a doctor.”

“Well, honey, 'case you haven't noticed, there's not just a whole lot of doctors out here. You stay with her. If she ain't none better by the time we get to Denver, I'll get us one.”

Sue looked back into the wagon to check on her mother as the wagon started down the long, modest embankment, leading to the water. When she turned back around, she saw a single Indian riding toward them. He was carrying a long stick which he held stretched out before him, and he was screaming at the top of his voice.

Because of his uneasy feeling, Ira was ready. His revolver was lying on the seat beside him, and he picked it up and aimed at the charging Indian. Surprisingly, the Indian didn't appear to be armed, except for the stick he was carrying. The Indian swept right up to the side of the wagon and stretched the stick out, trying to touch Ira.

Ira waited until the last possible moment, then he pulled back on the trigger. The gun boomed and bucked in his hand, and the Indian's face turned into a pulp of red as the heavy bullet hit him right between the eyes. The Indian was launched backward from his horse.