Son of the Hawk (23 page)

There might be another way
, he thought,
if I can get close enough.
There had been times in the past—when one tribe battled another—when the leader of one of the tribes was killed, it was taken as such an ill omen that his warriors lost their confidence to fight. The plan had merit, but the problem to be solved was how to get close enough to Iron Pony without losing his own scalp—a loss that Trace planned on avoiding.
This might take a little doing
, he thought as he slowly backed away from the edge of the firelight.

Working his way around the perimeter of the camp to try to find a point where he might get a better view of the center, and the probable location of the chief, he almost stumbled into a mounted sentry circling the camp. Dropping flat on his belly, he held his breath while the Indian pony snorted a couple of times to announce the presence of a stranger. Luckily for Trace, the rider was more intent upon the activities going on around the campfire, and ignored his pony’s warning. They passed no more than six feet from each other in the dark.

Trace made his way completely around the Sioux camp, stopping occasionally to lie low in the grass when one of the mounted sentries came too close. Even though it was impossible to get near the dancers
without exposing his presence, it was not difficult to identify the chief. Iron Pony was easily picked out as he sat off to the side, observing the ritual. Trace watched him for a long time as warriors came to exchange brief words with him, some lingering a while to smoke with the chief.

Later in the evening, Trace suddenly tensed when he saw a white man approach Iron Pony. He had to be the man in the flat-crowned black hat that White Eagle had spoken of—the man who killed Blue Water. Trace rose to one knee, unconsciously fingering the sharp edge of the cavalry saber in his hand. He could feel the blood boiling in his veins at the mere sight of the murderer, and he forced himself to remain calm, knowing a foolish act of rage would spoil any hope of preventing the massacre of the surviving troopers trapped by the stream.
I’ll settle with you later
, he promised himself and lay back close to the ground.

The chanting and dancing were still going strong when Iron Pony retired to his blankets. Trace watched as the Sioux leader excused himself and went to a small lean-to consisting of a buffalo hide propped up by a section of tree limb. There were many such shelters scattered about, although most of the warriors simply wrapped themselves in hides to sleep. Iron Pony’s bed was in the center of a large circle of these makeshift beds and tents. If he was to eliminate the Sioux leader, Trace was going to have to make his way through this circle of warriors without being detected. More than dangerous, he decided it was probably stupid as well, but he was already committed to it. So he waited and watched, trying to determine how he could safely run the gauntlet of warriors between him and their chief.

Finally he decided that boldness would provide his best chance for success. He pulled his buckskin shirt
off and removed his hat. With a short piece of rawhide from his shirt, he tied his hair in a tight ponytail. Even though there was still a trace of suntan on his bare torso from the warmer days of the recent summer, he scooped up some dirt and powdered himself with it to dull the skin even more. This would have to do, he thought.

Very slowly, he got to his feet and stood there motionless for a short while, looking around him to see if he had attracted anyone’s attention. Satisfied that the few warriors who might have noticed him were intent on the ceremony around the huge fire, he started toward Iron Pony’s bed. Carefully avoiding the light from the smaller cookfires, he walked slowly, but boldly, through the maze of hide sleeping tents—some occupied but most empty. His heart pumping heavily, looking neither right nor left, he made his way into the center of the hostile camp, relieved to find that no one paid him any notice. He held the cavalry saber tight against his leg so it would not catch anyone’s eye.

He was almost there. Just as he stepped around an empty bedroll next to Iron Pony’s, the chief suddenly appeared, getting up from his lean-to to relieve his bladder. He took a few steps away from his bed to do his business. Trace stopped stone-still when the chief emerged from under the hides. When it became apparent that Iron Pony had not seen him, he quickly followed the chief, looking from side to side to make sure no one else was watching.

Iron Pony stopped, suddenly sensing someone behind him. Unconcerned, he turned to see who approached. Not recognizing the tall figure striding toward him, he calmly asked, “Who is it?”

Trace held one hand up in greeting. With the other, he brought the saber up in one powerful thrust that pierced Iron Pony’s belly, running him through like a
piece of meat on a spit. Before the mortally wounded Sioux chief could utter a sound, Trace quickly clamped his hand over Iron Pony’s mouth, stifling his cry for help. Trace caught the slumping hostile before he crumpled to the ground, supporting him with one arm. “This is for the Shoshoni women and children you slaughtered,” he whispered in the dying man’s ear.

When Iron Pony’s eyes stopped fluttering and closed for the final time, Trace carried his body back and laid him under the lean-to. He started to withdraw the sword, but decided it might be more distressing to the rest of the Sioux to find their chief as he now was. To further work on their minds, Trace took Iron Pony’s scalp. When it was finished, Trace stood over the dead hostile for a few moments, looking down at the man responsible for so many murders. If ever a man deserved killing, it was this one, but it would have been more satisfying for Trace if it had been the white man in the black hat. He ached to settle with the man who had taken Blue Water’s life. But if he had killed him instead of Iron Pony, the Sioux would probably have cared very little—certainly not enough to call off their siege.

While he stood there, thinking of Blue Water, he suddenly realized that the chanting had stopped. Snapping back to his senses, he quickly looked around to see the mob of warriors around the fire beginning to disperse to take to their beds. There was no time to waste. Forcing himself to walk slowly, even casually, he retraced his steps, weaving his way through the small campsites, until he eventually dissolved into the darkness. Wasting no time, he picked up his shirt and hat and started back toward the willow thicket on the far side of the ridge.

*   *   *

Daylight was still no more than a promise when Strong Bow threw his robe aside and stood up to see the first rays of the sun crawl across the prairie. It was going to be a good day to fight, he decided. At the council of the wise ones the night before, his chief had petitioned passionately for a total victory over the remaining soldiers dug in by the stream. Iron Pony had told them that his medicine was strong and the soldiers would fall before them like they had that afternoon. Strong Bow was convinced that Iron Pony’s medicine was more powerful than all the soldiers at Fort Laramie.

Soon the sun edged up over the rolling hills to the east, rapidly spreading its light over the prairie. Strong Bow looked around as other warriors emerged from their beds. It was time to prepare for battle. He turned to look toward the hide lean-to of Iron Pony’s and smiled to himself. His chief was slow in rising this morning. Perhaps he had too much of the dance last night. Strong Bow would derive much satisfaction from being awake and ready to fight before his chief had stirred from his robe.

Joined by several others who were equally eager to fight, Strong Bow strode up to Iron Pony’s tent. “Iron Pony,” he called, “it is time to kill the soldiers.” When there was no answer, he smiled to the others with him. “Iron Pony,” he called his chief’s name again and pulled the hide cover aside.

The small gathering of warriors gasped as one at the sudden exposure of the ghastly picture before them. Recoiling with the shock of finding their chief with a saber run through him, his face sagging as a result of his missing scalp, they stepped back in horror. Dumbfounded at first, they stared in disbelief. How could this happen right in their midst? The cry went out and soon the whole camp was alert and running
toward the gathering of warriors. At once loud wailing and cries for revenge were heard. After a few chaotic minutes, calmer heads called for order, and the elder warriors of the band gathered around the body of their chief to counsel.

While the initial reaction from many of the warriors was to immediately take their vengeance from the soldiers, some of the older heads, Strong Bow among them, had other thoughts.

“This is a bad sign,” Strong Bow warned, after thinking on it for a moment. “And I think maybe Man Above is not pleased with us. Iron Pony made medicine before fighting the soldiers. And though he felt his medicine was strong, someone—perhaps a spirit—came unseen into the middle of our camp and killed him.” Looking around him, Strong Bow saw many heads nodding in agreement. “It is also a bad sign that he was killed with the dead soldier-chief’s long knife. I cannot think for every man, but for me, I think it is a sign that our medicine is not strong for this fight. We have already killed many of the soldiers. I say we should go now and leave the others alone.”

There was a great deal more discussion among the warriors, but Strong Bow’s words rang a sober warning that most of the Sioux feared to be true. In the end, they decided it best not to tempt the spirits after they had sent such a clear message. The one voice that continued to protest the decision was that of the thin white man, pleading for the Sioux to continue the attack upon the soldiers. He was angrily shouted down.

Booth Dalton signaled Charlie White Bull with a subtle nod of his head, and the two quietly sidled away from the crowd toward the edge of the camp where Booth had pitched a small shelter made of two buffalo hides roughly sewn together. “I don’t like the way some of them braves is lookin’ us over all of a
sudden,” Booth said, once they had a little room between them and the large crowd of warriors milling around Iron Pony’s body. Charlie nodded rapidly. Even the dullwitted half-breed had noticed the suspicious, unfriendly looks thrown his way.

Both men knew that they were only tolerated in the Sioux camp because of the guns and supplies they had been able to steal from the Montana gold fields. True, Booth and Charlie had ridden with Iron Pony on the last two raids against the soldiers from Fort Laramie, but it was through no special effort on their part that Iron Pony’s braves were able to get army rifles. Booth knew that some of the young men in the camp had been grumbling for some time over the presence of the two outsiders. But Iron Pony, though generally sharing his brothers’ feelings about white men, insisted that Booth and Charlie should remain—partially because Booth had led them to the small party of Snakes on their way back from Laramie, and also because Booth had convinced him that Charlie was a Santee Sioux.

Now Iron Pony was dead, and old Strong Bow was already giving them the evil eye, or so Booth thought. Booth prided himself in the ability to remove his hind end from an explosive situation before someone lit the fuse. This sense of survival was the prime factor that had allowed him and Charlie to be long gone when the Montana vigilantes rode into his camp. Now it was time to make themselves scarce around here. Booth had been dealing with Indians long enough to see trouble brewing. He knew they would chew over this omen—Iron Pony with a dead soldier’s saber through his belly—until they worked it up to where Booth’s presence was making their medicine bad. It always ended up that way, Booth thought.

“We’d best git our possibles together and ride on outta here while they’re still arguing about it,” Booth
said. “No need to wait till they decide to carve us up. I can’t make a red cent offen ’em anyway. They’re gittin’ their own damn guns theirselves—and they got more’n a few yesterday.”

Charlie White Bull saddled their horses, as well as a spotted gray pony hobbled next to Booth’s, all the while shooting nervous glances toward the mob of Sioux warriors still gathered around Strong Bow. He wasn’t sure what Booth said was true, that they would be blamed for Iron Pony’s death, but he knew the two of them were not welcome in the camp as far as most of the warriors were concerned. “You leavin’ the tent?” he asked Booth when the horses were saddled.

“Hell no, I want them skins. Go fetch the boy.”

“You takin’ the boy? Whadaya want him for? He ain’t no good to us—want me to kill him?” The thought of a few moments of pleasure was enough to crack Charlie’s usual stoic expression.

“No, dammit,” Booth replied, “I don’t want him kilt.”

This was hard for Charlie to understand. The boy had tried to kill Booth—would have, too, if Charlie hadn’t been taking a crap behind those berry bushes. He had been squatting on his hauches, taking his comfort, when Booth came striding down to the crick. Charlie didn’t answer when Booth had yelled for him to come load up the packhorse.
He can load the damn horse hisself
, Charlie had thought. Because Booth was smarter than he was, he thought Charlie should do most of the work. It wasn’t the first time Charlie hid from him when there was work to be done.

So Charlie stayed real quiet, hunkered down behind the bushes while Booth passed within fifteen feet of him. A wide smile slowly spread across Charlie’s face when Booth passed him by. Moments later, he jerked his head back in surprise when a form suddenly rose
from the bushes on the other side of the narrow trail. Puzzled, Charlie stood up to get a better look, and discovered a boy, with bow drawn and aimed, about to send an arrow into Booth’s back. There was little time to think, but Charlie’s reactions were swift enough. Charging across the trail, into the brush on the other side, he bowled the boy over just as White Eagle released his bowstring, causing the arrow to fly wide of its mark.

Recalling the incident, Charlie unconsciously fingered the otterskin bow case and quiver now strapped to his back. The boy claimed he was Shoshoni, but he looked more white to Charlie. He still couldn’t understand why Booth had stopped him from cutting the boy’s throat.