Wrath of the Savage (4 page)

“Well, I was wonderin' if anybody noticed the damn thing stickin' outta me,” Duncan remarked between painful breaths.

“Take hold of his feet,” Bret told McCoy, and the two of them carried the wounded sergeant through the willows to the open gap, where they paused to let Coldiron know they were coming in.

“Coldiron!” he yelled. “We're coming across. We're gonna need some cover fire when I tell you.”

It wouldn't do to surprise the big scout without a warning. He might shoot at them, thinking he was under attack.

Bret looked at McCoy then. “Ready?” Then he yelled out, “Now!” Coldiron peppered the rise with gunfire while they hurried across the open gap. When they arrived safely behind the hummock, they laid Duncan down as gently as possible.

Once Duncan was settled, Bret turned his attention to the arrow protruding from his stomach. Getting weaker by the minute, the sergeant was obviously dying. The arrow was embedded deeply inside him, but the head did not go all the way through, which would have made it much easier to break it off and pull the shaft out. Not sure what he could do without causing the sergeant a great deal of pain, Bret deliberated over it for a few moments, trying to decide if it could only be removed by cutting into the wound and enlarging the entry hole. But he couldn't leave the arrow where it was.

“Lemme see,” Coldiron said, after Bret seemed to be hesitating. The big man crawled over beside Duncan, who now showed no ability to protest. Coldiron grasped the arrow shaft gently, testing its firmness. Duncan emitted a sharp grunt at the touch. “It's in there pretty good, all right,” Coldiron decided. Then he turned to Bret and commented, “See them markin's there, they're Blackfoot, like I said.”

“I don't give a damn who they are—” That was as much as Duncan could mutter before Coldiron tightened down on the shaft. With one massive paw on Duncan to hold him down, he suddenly yanked the arrow out, head and all, like uprooting a weed from the ground. It was so painful and unexpected that the sergeant was unable to make a sound for a moment before yowling weakly like a wounded coyote.

“Sweet Jesus!” he was finally able to gasp as a fresh flow of blood gushed from the newly enlarged wound.

“Yep,” the imperturbable scout remarked casually as he held the arrow up to examine it. “It's Blackfoot, all right.” He glanced back at McCoy. “You got anything to stuff over that wound? He's bleedin' out right smart.”

McCoy reluctantly produced a piece of the cloth he was using to bandage his knife wound. It was obvious to him that Duncan was going to die, no matter whether they tried to bandage his wound or not. The sergeant was bleeding from his mouth as well as the hole left by the arrow. It didn't make sense to McCoy to waste his extra shirt on a dead man.

•   •   •

They waited out the few hours left before daylight, watching the rise intently, as well as the river at their backs. There was no further gunfire from the Indians, and when the first light of day began to find its way into the valley, the weary survivors roused themselves to be more alert.

As the sun climbed higher in the early morning sky, it was now easier to see the site of their camp and the bodies of their comrades slumped in eternal sleep around the ashes of the fire. What came as a surprise to them was the discovery that the bodies of the two warriors that Bret had killed were missing. Under the cover of darkness, the Blackfoot had crept into the camp to retrieve their dead. The light of day also revealed the absence of the bodies Coldiron had accounted for.

“They was already outta cartridges,” he said to Bret. “They slipped out in the dark while we was settin' right here watchin' for 'em.” He got to his feet then, certain he was right, and unafraid of being shot at. “Well, that's that,” he announced.

Bret looked back at Duncan, who seemed to at last be resting peacefully. When he told him what the morning light had revealed, Duncan didn't respond. He had passed quietly during the long morning hours.

“Damn,” Bret uttered softly. He had not had the opportunity to get to know the sergeant very well, but what he had seen up to this point had been enough to judge him a good man and a proper soldier. “He's dead,” he reported when he looked up to meet Coldiron's inquisitive glance.

“I figured,” was Coldiron's response.

Bret couldn't help wondering if the sergeant's death was hurried along by Coldiron's method of extracting the arrow. They went then to their campsite to check on their dead, six bodies lying grotesquely in various states of surprise as they had been set upon in their sleep. The sight sickened Bret. He had seen mutilated bodies of soldiers when he had buried the dead at Little Big Horn, but these six were under his command, and were dead because of his failure to protect them. None of the other survivors of the attack might see it that way, but that was the way he saw it, and it weighed heavily upon him. Coldiron moved up beside him to comment, “They didn't waste any time, did they? They didn't even take time to scalp 'em.”

Bret was staring at a couple of haversacks lying near Copeland's body. The contents that had spilled out on the ground were primarily his issue of Blakeslee cartridge cases. “If they had known what those were,” he said, “we mighta had a battle for our horses.” Thinking of his one missing man then, he told McCoy to go up to the little rise beyond the willows to look for Weaver's body. “We'll bring him back here and bury him with the others.”

“That's a helluva lot of diggin' to do,” McCoy protested. “And it don't make no damn sense to hang around here waitin' for those Injuns to come back.”

Bret was in no mood to suffer the private's insolence. “I gave you an order, Private, and I don't want to hear any more of your mouth. Now get your ass up there and look for Weaver.” McCoy hesitated a moment, burning inside before turning to leave. “I didn't hear you respond, Private,” Bret said.

“Yes, sir,” McCoy blurted.
You son of a bitch,
he said under his breath.

About fifteen minutes passed before McCoy returned. “He ain't there,” he reported. “I looked all around that spot. Nary a sign of him.”

Bret looked at Coldiron. “You think they captured him?”

“I doubt it,” Coldiron replied. “If they thought there was a guard watchin' the camp, they woulda most likely killed him. I figure they just wanted to pick up their dead and get the hell away from here before daylight caught 'em without no cartridges for the guns they just got.”

“Hell,” McCoy put in, “even a damn Injun ain't got no use for Weaver.”

Bret and Coldiron had already started digging graves, but they dropped the two hand shovels the patrol had brought with them and went to the rise then to see for themselves. There were traces in the sand where Weaver probably sat, and Lazzara before him, but there was no sign of a struggle having taken place, and no blood anywhere on the ground. Bret didn't like the picture forming in his mind. Coldiron voiced it for him. “Looks a helluva lot like he turned rabbit on us and took off.” He pointed toward a trail left in the sand among the willows. “Looks like he was crawlin', leavin' tracks like that.”

“That son of a . . . ,” Bret started, then checked himself. “We'll take a wide circle around here to look for him. First, though, I wanna take a look behind that long rise where the hostiles were holed up. Maybe that'll tell us something.”

A few days ago, he wouldn't have cared if Weaver had deserted. He would have figured the army would be better off without him. But if Weaver had deserted, leaving his fellow troopers to perish because of his negligence, then Bret was determined to run him down and let him answer for his crime.

An inspection of the low rise where the Blackfoot warriors had taken cover revealed nothing beyond evidence that they had been there. Bret was really only concerned about the possibility that Weaver's body might have been there. Coldiron, however, was puzzled about something else.

“I can't figure why they came back here to hit us,” he mused aloud. “How the hell did they know we were trailin' 'em?” A notion suddenly struck him and he walked to the other end of the rise to confirm it. “It was that Blackfoot band, all right, but it was a different bunch that jumped us,” he told them. “This warn't the same ones we was following. Their tracks came in from the south. It was just dumb luck that they came up on us. They didn't even know we were here.” He looked at Bret as if caught napping.

Bret understood the reason for the big scout's guilty expression, for he had the same feeling. “I take the blame,” he said. “We should have gone on to check on that second house around the bend of the river. If we had, we would have seen that the war party had divided after hitting the first house.” He had been too anxious to follow the obvious trail leading away from the house to be thorough in his investigation.

McCoy, standing behind Bret, posed the question already troubling Bret's mind. “We gonna take what's left of us on back to Fort Ellis now?”

It seemed the sensible thing to do, but Bret was reluctant to make that decision. It was not an easy thing to abandon the two women who had been captured, but he had an obligation to report the massacre of his patrol. He turned it over and over in his mind before looking at Coldiron.

“This war party,” he asked, “can you track them?”

Coldiron shrugged. “Yeah, I can track 'em.”

“I'm thinking they'll lead us to the other war party that took the women, since it appears that the twelve or so you said were in the original party were just half of the whole war party. Is that the way you see it?” Coldiron said that it was the way he figured it. “All right, then,” Bret went on, having made his decision. “McCoy, I'm sending you back to the fort to report what's happened here. Coldiron and I will continue on the trail of the hostiles.” He looked quickly at the formidable scout to check his reaction. “That's if you're agreeable with it.”

Coldiron was somewhat surprised by the lieutenant's proposal. He would have bet that the three of them would be on their way back to Fort Ellis. He hesitated while he studied the earnest face of the young man. He had to admit that it might have been a mistake on his part for judging Hollister as a typical toy soldier fresh from the academy. He thought of the cool head and apparently fearless way he had handled himself in the heat of the attack—not to mention the accuracy he displayed with his weapon. He decided that Bret would account well for himself in any tight situation. His response on that night had confirmed it.

The fact that he and the lieutenant would be outnumbered bothered him a little, but since the two of them were armed with repeating rifles, while the Indians were without ammunition for the Spencers they had acquired, he was sure they could protect themselves. And it was likely that the warriors they were on their way to join would not be better armed, either. The third factor in his consideration was his skill as a tracker. He didn't intend to be discovered by the war party until he and Bret were ready to make their move. After quickly considering all of that, he answered the question.

“Yep. Suits me just fine. If we ain't in time for them poor ladies, maybe we can at least make them Blackfeet pay up for it.”

McCoy started to protest. “Are you sure that's a smart thing to do, Lieutenant—just the two of you against a pretty good-sized war party, and me ridin' all the way back to the fort alone?”

“No, it's probably not the smart thing to do, but it's the right thing to do. Coldiron and I will be all right, as long as we keep our senses about us, and our eyes and ears open. You shouldn't have to worry about any danger to yourself. This close to the fort, that war party is obviously headed north as fast as they can go, and you should reach Fort Ellis by noon. Can't be more than about fifteen miles from here. Am I right, Coldiron?”

“That's about right,” Coldiron replied. “You've come about full circle from my place on the Gallatin.”

“Come to think of it,” Bret continued, “for that distance, you could take the horses back with you. Might be best to load the dead on their horses and take them back to Fort Ellis to bury.”

“Sir,” McCoy protested, not at all happy with the idea, “I don't think one man can handle—” That was as far as he got before Bret stopped him.

“You have your orders, soldier,” Bret snapped, confident that he himself could lead the horses back, and if he could, then McCoy should be able to manage it. “I'll take Sergeant Duncan's horse with me. If we're successful in rescuing those women, we'll need another horse. That'll give you one less to mind. Now let's get those bodies loaded. We're losing time here.”

“Yes, sir,” McCoy replied obediently while fuming inside.

Coldiron smirked at the complaining soldier and said, “That beats havin' to dig graves for all of 'em.”

McCoy didn't respond vocally, but he told himself he'd gladly dig a grave for him and the lieutenant.

•   •   •

Private Tom Weaver climbed to the top of a deep ravine and anxiously looked back over the way he had come. It was two hours past dawn now and he had been walking since about ten thirty the night just passed. His eyes squinted, straining against the rising sun in an effort to see any sign of anyone following him. After a few long moments of peering back toward the valley, he sat down, relieved to be able to rest before starting out again. If anyone had seen him slink out of the camp, they would surely have caught up with him by this time. Taking another look back to the east just to be certain, he removed his right boot to examine his foot. Cavalry boots were not the best for walking and he feared he was getting a blister on the knuckle behind his big toe.

“Damn,” he swore softly when he found the skin broken. He took his handkerchief from his pocket and wrapped it around the injured foot, then pulled his sock over it. “Best I can do,” he said. Thinking back to where he had just come, he added, “Helluva lot better'n gettin' scalped like the rest of the boys.” The thought brought a smirk to his face, certain he had escaped a massacre. “My hair wouldn't look good on some wild Injun's lance.