Wind River

by Charles G. West

Overview

A man's two worlds are about to collide in this classic western from Charles G. West...

Robert Allred was born to a white family who abandoned him. Discovered by the Cheyenne, he was raised as one of their own, earning the name Little Wolf. When his tribe fights for survival against the U.S. Calvary, Little Wolf is torn between his adopted family and the ones who gave him life—especially when he discovers his long-lost white brother is one of the soldiers marching against him...

“Rarely has an author painted the great American West in strokes so bold, vivid, and true.”—Ralph Compton

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101662922
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/01/1999
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	103,189
File size:	426 KB

About the Author

Charles G. West lives in Ocala, Florida. His fascination with and respect for the pioneers who braved the wild frontier of the great American West inspire him to devote his full time to writing historical novels.

Read an Excerpt

AMBUSH

Little Wolf raised his arm and was about to signal Black Feather when, suddenly, a figure rose in front of him, directly between him and his Cheyenne friend. His whole nervous system suddenly went numb. The man had been kneeling between two small boulders no more than ten feet in front of him. Little Wolf realized that Black Feather did not see the man. He also realized that the man, an army scout by the look of his buckskin shirt and blue army-issue trousers, was not aware of Little Wolf’s presence behind him. As he watched, the scout slowly raised his carbine and drew down on the unsuspecting Cheyenne.

There was no time for thought. Little Wolf, without consciously thinking about what he was about to do, pulled his stone club from his belt and brought it down across the back of the man’s skull. . . .

Wind River

CHARLES G. WEST

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1

“Now what the hell’s ailing you, Sadie?” Squint Peterson dug his heels into the belly of his balky old mule.

The mule had been cranky all morning, more so than usual. She was naturally bad-tempered anyway, so much so that Squint had named her after an ill-mannered prostitute who had accommodated him at the rendezvous in the summer of ’39. He grinned as the thought of that particular union came to mind. It was his first and last rendezvous. He wasn’t much more than a kid, fifteen years old. He had spent the winter trapping on the Yellowstone with his Uncle Bris. In fact, it was his Uncle Bris who introduced him to Sadie, giving her instructions to “Rub the peach fuzz offen him.” He laughed when he recalled his introduction to “the sins of the flesh.” She rubbed it off all right, but not without a gracious plenty moaning. The poor woman had whined and complained the whole time he was trying to satisfy his needs.

“You’da thought she was the Queen of Sheba,” he announced aloud. When he concentrated on it, he could still see her screwed-up expression when he removed his buckskin britches, revealing long underwear that had not seen the light of day for at least two months before that night. The abrupt physical release that followed cost him two prime beaver pelts. She wanted two more, since he hadn’t washed before coming to her tent, but he lied that two were all he had left. He might have been green as a willow switch and rutty as a springtime buck, but he wasn’t about to let go of his hard-earned plews for one go-round on a puffy-faced old whore. She reluctantly admitted him to what she referred to as her paradise, the memory of which lingered with him long after he had journeyed back down the south fork of the Powder. As a matter of fact, he had not been able to rid himself of the last of those memories until that winter’s first freeze when he submerged his buckskins, with him still in them, in an icy mountain stream. He almost froze himself to death but it got rid of the stubborn body lice.

“Matter of fact,” he told the mule, “that was about the last real rendezvous they had.” He shook his head in amazement when he thought about it. “Twenty-four . . . no, twenty-six years ago . . . Damn! Has it been that long?” It was hard to imagine he had spent that many years roaming around these mountains, still retaining his scalp. There had been a couple of times when the threat of Indian trouble had influenced him to head back to civilization for a while, but it never lasted. The longest was a period of two years when he tried his hand at being a lawman. Two years of that was enough to drive any man back to the mountains.

He shifted in the saddle a little to ease the ache in his back. It caused him to ponder his chosen way of life and the future it offered. He liked it best in the mountains, but he wondered if he wasn’t approaching the age where his senses might start to lose their keen edge. And he knew that when you lost that edge, you usually lost your scalp along with it. The thought of his hair decorating the lance of some Sioux warrior didn’t serve to overly frighten him. He just didn’t like the idea of being bested by anyone when it came to surviving by one’s wits. There were a few gray hairs showing up in his beard already but he could still cut sign quick as most Indians and shoot better than any man he’d met so far. He had to admit, however, that it was getting easier to thread a needle if he held it at arm’s length, a fact that accounted for several briar rips in his buckskins that needed repair. Maybe he should give more thought to moving out of hostile country. Maybe it was time to move on to Oregon, a big territory. Squint needed a big country. He was a big man and he required room to stretch out. Well, he decided, I reckon I got a few years yet before I’m ready to turn toes-up.

“Sadie, git!” he admonished and stuck his heels in her again. She seemed reluctant to step across the narrow gully that had been formed by the recent snow and runoff. Had he not been thinking of a prostitute at rendezvous, he might have been more alert to the mule’s skittishness. As it was, he was taken completely by surprise.

He found himself in midair before he had time to realize what had happened. At first he thought he had been attacked by a mountain lion or a bear. He landed on his back, his assailant on top of him. The force of his contact with the hard ground knocked the wind out of him. By then he realized his attacker was a man and, in spite of the pain in his lungs, he struggled to defend himself from the thrust of the knife as it sought to evade his arms and find a vulnerable spot. There was no time for conscious thought. He fought totally by reflex, sparring with the arm that held the knife while pushing against the man’s neck with his other hand. He could hear the man grunt as he strained to gain advantage. Finally his assailant tore himself from Squint’s grasp and raised his knife hand for one desperate thrust. Squint managed to catch his wrist in his hand and block the assault. There was one final attempt to free himself and then the strength seemed to suddenly drain from the man’s arm like water from a busted water bag and Squint realized that he was in complete control. His assailant had given up the fight.

Squint quickly rolled over on top of the man, pinning him to the ground while he fought to regain his breath. His initial thought, as soon as he could breathe again, was to dispatch the red-skinned son of a bitch, for he could now identify him as an Indian, straight to hell. As furious as he was at having been attacked, he was almost equally angry for letting himself be taken like that, like a damned green tenderfoot.

There seemed to be little resistance from his adversary as he shook the knife loose from the Indian’s hand. When he stuck the point against his throat, the man made no effort to defend himself. This lack of resistance caused Squint to hesitate and, since the man no longer seemed an immediate threat, he paused to consider what manner of being he was about to send to the great beyond.

“Why, hell, you ain’t no more than a boy.” He sat back on his heels, still astraddle the Indian. “And a pretty damn scrawny one at that.”

There was no response from the boy. His eyes, dull and lifeless, appeared to focus on some faraway object. It was obvious to Squint that he was prepared to die. In fact, he looked like he was two-thirds gone already. It was evident that he had mustered all his strength for that one desperate attack and, when it failed, it had drained him. Moments before, when they had struggled for possession of the knife, Squint could have killed him without thinking twice about it. Now, as the boy lay helpless beneath him, he was reluctant to dispatch him.

“What the hell did you jump me for?” Squint demanded, not expecting an answer for he spoke in English, even though he could converse a little in several Indian dialects. It was a little late for caution, but he stood up and looked around to make sure the boy had acted alone. At the same time he kept an eye on his assailant, still lying there. Satisfied that he was in no danger of attack from another quarter, he turned his full attention to his captive. It occurred to him that the boy wasn’t dressed too well for the chilly weather that had descended upon the valley for the past few weeks, wearing only a buckskin shirt and leggings. It was then that he noticed the dark crusted spot in the shoulder of the shirt.

“Damn, boy, looks like you been shot or something.” This might explain the boy’s apparent weakness. “Better let me take a look at that.”

When he started to open the shirt over the wound, the boy recoiled in pain and made one feeble effort to resist.

“If I was gonna hurt you, I’da done kilt you,” Squint grunted as he brushed the boy’s hand aside.

The wound was bad. From the looks of it, Squint guessed it was caused by a bullet, and from the way it was all inflamed and swollen, the slug was probably still in it.

“I tell you what,” Squint decided, “that thing looks like it’s festering and I’m gonna have to dig it out of there.”

If he had any objection, the boy didn’t register it. He didn’t have any fight left in him and offered no resistance when Squint took his arms and pulled him up so he could heft him up on his shoulder.

“Boy, you ain’t got no weight to you a’tall.” He marveled that the lad had been able to summon enough force to knock him off his mule. When he realized how light he was, Squint couldn’t help but feel a little sheepish that he had allowed himself to be taken so easily.

“Whoa, Sadie. Hold still.” He spoke softly in an effort to calm the mule. Sadie still seemed a mite skittish, what with the smell of Indian still in her nostrils. Rolling back her eye in an effort to keep the man and his burden in view, she attempted to sidestep her hindquarters away from him. He began to wish he had ridden one of his horses and left the mule back in his tiny corral. “Hold still!” Impatience crept into his tone as he grew tired of following the retreating beast around in a circle, the wounded Indian boy on his shoulder and the mule’s reins in his free hand. Finally he gave the reins a hard jerk to show the reluctant mule who was boss and she kicked her hind legs once in response. But, after registering that one complaint, she settled down and accepted the load Squint slid off his shoulder onto the saddle. She grunted once more in protest when Squint stepped up behind the boy. He gave her a couple of hard kicks with his heels and she broke into a trot for a few yards, then settled down to a slow walk. Squint knew he could kick her until her slats caved in and she would still give him no more than a few yards at a trot before falling back into a walk. She would run, but only when she was with his horses when they ran. So he resigned himself to a leisurely ride back to his camp. “I hope you don’t bleed to death before we git back.” The boy was drooped over Squint’s arm, unconscious or dead, Squint wasn’t sure.

As he settled his body into the rhythm of the mule’s walk, he wondered what manner of creature he was bringing home with him. He wasn’t accustomed to running into anyone this far up in the hills and he didn’t particularly care to have anyone know he was even there, let alone take them to his camp. This was not the first time he had decided to winter in the mountains, instead of going down to one of the settlements until spring. He knew it wasn’t a real good idea to winter in the same camp two years in a row. Somebody might discover it and lie in ambush for you the next year. But this one was so well hidden he figured the odds were good that he was still the only man who had set foot in the small ravine he had stumbled on while tracking a wounded deer, two years ago this spring.

His mind returned briefly to that chilly spring morning. He had jumped the deer accidentally while making his way down through a stand of lodgepole pine, on his way to the river to water his horses. When the buck suddenly sprang from a thicket, it took Squint completely by surprise. He reacted quickly enough to grab his rifle and get off a shot, even though the animal was running directly away from him and didn’t offer much of a target. Squint only had time for one shot. He hit him but he didn’t kill him. The shot caught him in the shoulder. The impact was enough to knock the deer down and roll him over but he was back on his feet immediately and off again. Squint hated it when he didn’t get a clean kill shot at an animal. That meant tracking him until he bled himself out and died.

He must have followed that deer for a mile or more before he lost the trail just on the other side of an outcropping of rock overlooking a stream, swollen with winter’s runoff. There was no sign of the wounded animal anywhere. Beyond the stream, a clearing stretched for a quarter of a mile. If the deer had crossed the stream, Squint would have been able to see him long before he reached the other side of the clearing. He was sure he had not lost the trail up until he reached the rock outcropping. There was no other place for the buck to go, unless he went straight up the side of a cliff. If it had been a bighorn, that would have been a possibility, but a deer? Squint didn’t think so. Still, there was no deer in sight.

Feeling as though he had been totally bamboozled by a dumb animal, Squint dismounted, for his horse was having difficulty maintaining sure footing on the rock. As he led him back the way they had come, he stumbled and would have fallen had he not caught himself with one hand. As he was about to straighten up, he glanced to his side at what he had thought was a little stand of pines in front of a solid rock wall. From his position close to the ground, he was surprised to find that he could see daylight between the tree trunks. Instead of standing in front of a solid rock wall, the trees were in fact standing in an opening into the wall. The fact that there was a solid bridge of rock spanning the opening made it appear there was a solid wall behind them. Leading his horse through the trees, Squint found an opening through the rocks big enough for two horses to pass though side by side. Once through the opening, he had found himself in a clearing, maybe half of an acre in size. It was walled in by the mountain on three sides with a small stream trickling through the northernmost point. The floor was carpeted with grass and there, under a clump of low-growing laurel, the deer lay dying.

*   *   *

A sudden groan from the Indian boy, as Sadie almost stumbled, brought Squint’s mind back to the business at hand. Now, two years later, he was bringing a human being into his secret camp, although the wounded boy might be closer kin to the wounded deer he had originally followed here. He had to admit that he had some doubts about giving away the location of this place. If there ever was a perfect camp, this place had to be it. What with the trouble that was brewing all over between the army and the Indians, a man needed a good secure camp to hole up in.

To say he was overly worried about Indian trouble would not be accurate. He wasn’t as unconcerned as he used to be, however. It used to be that, if a man wanted to trap some beaver, take some meat when he needed it . . . even buffalo . . . as long as he stayed to himself . . . why, hell, the Indians wouldn’t bother him. As a matter of fact, he had quite a few friends among the Shoshone. Wounded Elk’s winter camp on the Wind River had been one of his favorite visits the year before. It was different now. This year, he wasn’t sure if he would be welcome or not. All the tribes seemed to be in a state of agitation. There had been some reports that the Cheyenne were getting stirred up south of here. The Blackfeet were getting set to start some real trouble up north. They never got along with many of the other tribes as it was and they sure didn’t have any love for the white man. Squint could readily see for himself that the Sioux were getting ready to give somebody some grief. For some time now, he occasionally observed Sioux, Lakota as they called themselves, in war parties coming through the passes that led down to the basin country. He only saw them from a distance but they were close enough to tell that they were not hunting or horse-raiding parties. They were wearing paint and feathers. The fact that his policy was to keep them at a distance, where he could see them but not vice versa, was the key to his survival in this hostile country.

A man with half a gourd full of seeds would probably pack up what skins he had and get the hell out of here before the real trouble starts, he thought. But what the hell would I do to make a living? The last job he had held down in civilization was sheriff of a two-horse town on the Missouri. “And I’m damned if I’m going back to that,” he muttered.

Another groan from the Indian boy caused him to wonder if he wasn’t just toting a body a hell of a long way to bury it. Probably should have just cut his throat back there and be done with it, he thought. It was a useless thought because Squint couldn’t bring himself to kill a defenseless boy, and that was what irritated him most. “Too damn softhearted for my own good,” he mumbled.

A low snort from one of the horses, probably Joe, told him that they smelled the mule approaching. He carefully guided Sadie over the rock and onto the thick floor of pine needles so as not to leave a track leading up to the entrance of his camp. As a matter of habit, he stopped at the opening in the rock and waited, listening. Joe snorted again and the mule answered. Joe seemed to feel a fondness for the mule, even favored her over Squint’s other horse, a little mare he called Britches. He named her that because of her markings. She was dappled all over except for her legs. They were black and it made her look like she was wearing britches on her front and hind legs. All seemed in order in his camp. Even so, he entered the clearing cautiously, looking first to the ledges over the opening and then toward the clump of laurel, behind which the horses were tethered. Long ago he inspected his little hideout from the perspective of someone who might have a notion to ambush him. He decided these two positions would be the most likely places to hide, so he always checked them first. Content that his camp was safe, he entered the clearing.

*   *   *

Squint didn’t know a hell of a lot about doctoring, but he knew enough to recognize an infected bullet wound when he saw one. And he had seen more than a few of them when he had been a sheriff, what with all the drunken cowboys and half crazy mountain men that had stumbled through his town, fighting over just about everything from cards to women. For most of the years he was the law there, there wasn’t any doctor as such. Most of the bullet wounds that were treated at all were tended to by one old woman, who was really a midwife. Usually, if the victim didn’t die right away, and the wound bled freely, it healed well enough if left alone. More gunshot cases were walking around with the lead still in them than those that had the bullet removed. Sometimes, however, the bullet would be close to the surface and the wound would fester if it hadn’t bled clean, like this Indian boy’s, and it would be necessary to dig the lead out and cauterize the wound. It wasn’t much fun for the person with the wound but Squint didn’t know any other way to stop the festering. He had seen it go untreated before and the result was usually the loss of a limb, or worse.

After he had checked on the horses and unsaddled the mule, he went about building a fire and readying himself to take care of the boy. His patient didn’t appear to be faring any too well and Squint wondered anew if he was just wasting his time. Maybe it would be more humane to simply leave the poor kid in peace and not complicate his dying. Still, he thought, the boy was obviously unconscious. The only sign of life was an occasional babble of some kind that Squint was unable to make out. It sounded like Cheyenne, but he couldn’t say for sure. At any rate, the boy was out of his head so it didn’t figure to make much difference whether Squint dug the bullet out or not. The boy wouldn’t feel it anyway, so he might just as well operate on him.

He took his skinning knife and cut the boy’s shirt away, leaving the wound exposed for him to work on. It looked bad, swollen to the point that it looked like it was ready to bust open on its own accord, like a huge boil. He could see a dark blue spot in the center that had to be the bullet. It appeared to be just beneath the surface. Squint’s experience with bullet wounds told him that it would be a lot deeper than it looked. He watched the boy’s face as he stoned a keen edge on the already sharp skinning knife. There was still no sign of consciousness.

“Let’s get it done,” he sighed and wiped the blade of the knife on his leggings. “You’re damned lucky you ain’t awake for this.”

Once resigned to the task, Squint didn’t waste any time on gentleness. Human hide was tough and he sank the knife deep into the boy’s shoulder at the top of the wound and then cut straight down across the entire swollen area. The boy stiffened perceptibly but made no sound. Almost at once, thick, yellow pus oozed from the incision and Squint recoiled when the acrid smell of rotting flesh assaulted his nostrils.

“Damn!” he exclaimed and backed away for a moment before continuing. He cleaned the wound as best he could with a square of cloth, the remains of a shirt he had brought with him when he first came to the mountains. Squeezing the cloth out in a pan of water he had placed near the fire to warm, he wiped away the rest of the pus. The wound was still weeping, but now it was mostly blood. He probed in the wound for the bullet but found that he had to cut deeper to expose it. The problem now was the wound was becoming a bloody, pulpy mess and it was difficult to see the piece of lead he was groping for. Still, he was determined to dig it out. After inflicting this amount of damage on the boy’s shoulder, he couldn’t quit without retrieving the bullet. Finally he felt the blade tick the piece of metal and, with the knifepoint, he worked at it until he had gotten it free of the surrounding flesh. After rinsing it with water, he held it up to examine it.

“That shore ain’t no musket ball,” he announced. It was a slug from a breech-loading rifle. “Army Spencer, more likely.” Squint’s interest was one of idle speculation. He wasn’t really concerned with how the boy had come to get himself shot. Now that he had extracted the bullet, he concerned himself with the wound.

From the look of it, and certainly from the smell of it, there was a great deal of rotten flesh around the edges of the wound. Little wonder the boy’s so sick, he thought. It can’t do him much good to have all that rot around that open wound. He pondered his next move for a moment or two before deciding to proceed with the cauterization. He remembered seeing a medicine man in Wounded Elk’s camp treat a lance wound that had festered about as bad as this one. He had stuck a handful of maggots right on the wound and let them eat away the rotten flesh. Squint didn’t have any maggots. Even if he did, he figured that burning it away with a hot knife was better than maggots anyway.

Again, there was little response from the wounded boy when Squint applied the red-hot skinning knife, just a mild, convulsive tremor before falling limp again. Since the response was so slight, Squint took his time and thoroughly seared the flesh over the entire wound, the smell of the infection now masked by the odor of burning flesh. The surgery complete, he sat back on his haunches to examine his work. The boy was breathing steadily. The thought crossed Squint’s mind that the boy might fool him and pull through. It was, after all, a shoulder wound. If he had been gut shot, his chances wouldn’t be worth much. It would probably depend on the boy’s constitution, on how bad he wanted to live. Time would tell—Squint had done all he knew to do for him.

He decided it best to leave the wound open to the air that night. He could put some grease on it and bandage it in the morning. The night air would probably do it some good and, this time of year, there wasn’t any problem with flies getting into it. He rigged up a bed for the boy and covered him with a deer hide. Night was settling in over the mountains by then. If his patient woke up in the morning, he would see about feeding him. If he didn’t, he would bury him.

*   *   *

The boy was strong. He was still among the living when the sun rose high enough for the first rays to filter over the mountain and illuminate the delicate crystals of frost that had formed on the grass floor of Squint’s camp. Squint yawned and shivered involuntarily as he stood at the edge of the clearing and emptied his bladder, absentmindedly watching the steam formed by his warm urine on the frost.

Cold, I hate being cold, he thought.

He glanced back over his shoulder at the still form of the Indian boy. He had checked on him as soon as he was awake and, although the boy still seemed to be asleep, he appeared to be breathing easily. His fever might even be broken. Squint couldn’t tell for sure. “I reckon I better put some wood on the fire and see about getting us something to eat.”

As he picked a few sticks of wood from his pile, he pondered his options now that he had taken on an invalid. He was still not sure the boy was going to make it. If he did, then Squint would have some decisions to make as to what he should do with him. He wasn’t even sure the boy wouldn’t attack him again when he got strong enough. “Hell,” he muttered as he balanced a stick of firewood across the load already on his arm, “I might have to nurse him back to health just so I can cut his throat.”

He stirred up the coals, all that was left of the fire, until he worked up a flame. Then he laid some small sticks on it until they caught well enough to start up the larger pieces. He had a pretty good-size woodpile and, if the winter was not too severe, it should probably last him through. He didn’t like to go out looking for firewood in the deep snow. As he stared into the growing flame, feeling its warmth on his face, he couldn’t help but remember how he had sweated when he had cut the wood last summer. It had been quite a chore, and Squint was not one to appreciate chores. “But when you got yourself a year-round camp,” he muttered, “you have to do things like cutting firewood and drying jerky.” It was almost like homesteading. And the wood had to be hauled in by mule from the other side of the mountain because Squint was afraid he might give away the location of his camp by cutting wood close by.

A groan from the boy pulled his attention from the fire and he turned to look at his patient. The boy, still asleep apparently, muttered several words that Squint couldn’t make out. They were words though, not just grunts, Squint was sure of that. He still thought it sounded like Cheyenne. He bent low over the boy in an effort to hear what he was mumbling about. As he did, the boy opened his eyes and he and Squint stared at each other for a long second. There was a strangeness in the boy’s gaze that confounded Squint. Finally he sat back and announced, “Dang if you ain’t the first blue-eyed Cheyenne I ever saw.”

The boy answered, his voice weak but clear, “I ain’t Cheyenne. I’m Arapaho.”

This served to startle Squint more than a little, not because of the boy’s apparent lucidness, but because he had answered in English.

“Well, I’ll be . . .” Squint gazed at the wounded boy in disbelief, never finishing the statement. He simply stared at the boy for a long while. Finally he blurted, “Well, what the hell did you try to bushwhack me for?”

There followed a long pause, during which the boy gazed intently at the grizzled mountain man hovering over him like some great bear about to devour him. There had been a moment of alarm when he first opened his eyes to find the huge man staring down at him, a moment when he wasn’t sure what was in store for him. But he quickly decided this bear intended no harm and he answered, “I thought you was a soldier.”

Squint considered this for a moment before replying. “Well, any fool can see I ain’t.” He was trying to make up his mind about the boy. Based on his remark, he wasn’t sure whether he was a good Indian or a bad one. He didn’t know many Indians who did like soldiers and he couldn’t blame him for that. He had to admit that, since living in the mountains for most of the last twenty years, he wasn’t sure he liked soldiers himself, and that went for settlers and prospectors and railroads and everybody else who was so damn hell-bent on civilizing the territory. He couldn’t help but get riled up whenever he thought about it. If the damn government would just live up to their own treaties and leave the Indians alone, he thought, then there wouldn’t be all this trouble that’s been heating up over the last two summers. Now it’s gotten so the Sioux are out to get any white man they see, no matter whether he’s done them harm or not. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the Cheyenne, the Arapaho . . . in fact, all the tribes on the plains were pushed about as far as they were going to be pushed. There was going to be all-out war and he was likely to be caught in the middle of it. Realizing his mind was wandering from the situation at hand, he brought his attention back to his patient.

“Can you eat somethin’ now?”

The boy nodded. His eyes betrayed the fact that the offer was met with some enthusiasm. It was not lost on Squint.

“I bet you ain’t et for a spell,” he said, “from the look of you.”

Squint sat back and watched as the boy devoured half of a cold, snow hare that he had cooked the day before. The other half had been Squint’s supper. He had planned to eat it for breakfast himself but it was disappearing fast. Since one half of a rabbit wasn’t much nourishment for a healthy young buck, much less one that was half dead, Squint dipped into his precious supply of baking soda and mixed up a little batter for pan bread. His pan bread wasn’t the best in the territory but, by Squint’s standards, it was passable. He poured the batter into a frying pan and set it on some coals at the edge of the fire to let it raise. When he thought it was ready, he pushed it closer to the fire to let it bake. The boy’s eyes followed his every move. When the bread was done, he flipped it out and tore it in half. The boy didn’t hesitate to accept the half extended toward him.

“You don’t waste a lot of time chewing, do you? Just sort of choke it down like a dog.”

The boy did not answer but continued to stare at his benefactor. When he was finished, he indicated that he needed to relieve himself and Squint helped him to his feet. He almost fell when the sudden movement sent a stab of pain through his shoulder and Squint had to grab him to keep him upright. He seemed none too steady and Squint offered to help him over to the edge of the clearing but the boy refused. He made it clear that he needed no help when taking care of nature’s demands.

“You a mite modest, ain’t you?” Squint teased. He stood back and watched the boy stagger toward the woodpile. “Hold on to the woodpile for support. If you fall in your business, holler and I’ll come pick you up.” The boy made no response. Squint’s attempt at humor was lost on him.

While the boy went about his toilet, Squint busied himself getting some jerky from a knapsack. Since the boy had done away with the rabbit, he would have to satisfy his hunger with cold jerky. Busying himself with the knapsack, he pretended to take no notice of the boy but, in fact, he was studying him intently out of the corner of his eye. The kid looked Arapaho right enough but, when he dropped his leggings, he sure had a pale behind. And a pale behind and blue eyes sure as hell didn’t add up to any Arapaho he’d ever seen. Squint returned to the fire and made himself comfortable. He watched the boy as he slowly made his way back to the fire and gingerly lowered himself to a sitting position. Once settled, he pulled his shirt away to examine his wound.

“It don’t look too pretty but it ought to heal up right proper,” Squint offered in the way of explanation. The boy continued to stare at the fair-sized hole in his shoulder, already beginning to form a thin film of scab.

“Did you have to use an axe?”

He blurted it out so suddenly that it startled Squint and he couldn’t help but laugh at the boy’s tone. He fished around in the pocket of his shirt and came up with a small lead slug. “Well, first I had to dig this out of you.” He threw the bullet to the boy. “Then I had to burn the wound to keep it from going rotten. Like I said, it ain’t pretty but it’ll be all right.”

“You damn sure made a mess of it.”

“If I had’na, you’da been a one-armed Arapaho and that’s a fact.”

The boy stared at Squint for a long minute while he evaluated the huge man’s statement. Deciding that Squint did what was best for him, he said, “I reckon I ought to thank you.”

“You don’t have to if it causes you pain,” Squint replied sarcastically. The boy didn’t reply but shrugged his shoulders, wincing with the pain the movement caused.

They sat in silence for a long while, the boy obviously uncomfortable with the situation he found himself in, until Squint decided it was long past time for some introductions as well as a general understanding as to what their relationship was going to be. He broke the silence.

“My name’s Squint Peterson. What’s yours?”

“Little Wolf.”

Squint considered this momentarily. “Little Wolf,” he repeated and paused again. “I mean, what’s your real name? Your Christian name? Do you remember it?”

The boy hesitated, obviously reluctant to admit owning one. The intense expression on Squint’s face told him that Squint knew he wasn’t a blood Arapaho. A frown creased his face as he replied. “I remember,” he said softly. “It was Robert . . . Robert Allred.”

“Well, Robert, or Little Wolf, whatever you want to call yourself, where are your folks?” He didn’t wait for an answer before adding, “How long you been Arapaho?”

The boy thought for a moment before answering. “I don’t know. I lost track. I think this is the fourth winter, maybe the fifth, I ain’t sure.”

“You been living with the Arapaho for four or five years?”

“I been living with the Cheyenne. My father is Arapaho.”

That would explain why Squint was certain the boy had been mumbling in Cheyenne when he was delirious the night before. The Cheyenne and Arapaho were longtime allies and quite often lived together. Squint continued to prod him for information. “Tell me how you come to get shot.”

“Soldiers.” The boy replied in Cheyenne, his eyes narrowed as he spat the word out.

“Soldiers?” Squint echoed. He knew that Cheyenne word well enough. He waited for further explanation but the boy offered no more.

It was apparent that his guest had no use for the military, but Squint still had no way of knowing what he might have done to get himself shot. In his years in the mountains. Squint had occasionally run into white men who had taken up with a tribe of Indians. Most of them were a pretty sorry lot, as far as he was concerned. Some were hiding out from the law back East. Some were just living with an Indian woman temporarily. A few simply preferred the Indian way of life. Squint himself had considered wintering with the Shoshones but decided he’d rather go it alone. He looked long and hard at the boy, trying to see inside his heart. He could see no meanness in the blue eyes that now gazed absently into the fire. For the second time, he asked, “Where are your folks? I don’t mean your Injun folks. I mean your white folks.”

“Dead.”

Squint studied the boy’s expressionless face for a moment. “How? How long?” It was obvious the boy wasn’t much of a talker but Squint was determined to get the whole story out of him so he kept prodding him with questions until finally he wore him down and he began to talk. It was difficult at first and slow in coming, but once he started, the whole story came out.

CHAPTER 2

Robert’s parents were not really dead. At least Robert had no way of knowing whether they were or not. As far as he was concerned, they might as well be. So when he thought of them at all, he considered them dead. He was born in St. Louis. That much he was sure of because he could remember a little about St. Louis and playing in the streets as a small child with the few friends he had. He couldn’t remember a lot about his mother. She tolerated him at best. His father had absolutely no use for him. They made little effort to hide the fact that his birth had not come as a blessing to a family with five young’uns already fighting over what little food there was to eat.

It seemed to him that he was a constant irritant to his parents, causing them to fight a great deal more than they did already. His father resented the fact that his mother had gotten herself pregnant for the sixth time, a deed he swore was not done by him. In fact, most of the time he referred to Robert as that bastard brat of yours. His mother denied it of course and hated his father for impregnating her with another child to birth. So one night in a saloon, when a mule skinner bound for Oregon casually stated to Robert’s father that he wished he had a son to work for him, it appeared to be the answer to his father’s prayers. It didn’t take much to persuade Robert’s mother and a deal was struck that very night. Robert, asleep in his corner of the cubbyhole he shared with his two brothers and three sisters, was trussed up and carried out like a sack of flour. He was all of ten years old.

The mule skinner’s name was Lige Talbot. At first he tried to get Robert to call him Pa but the lad rebelled at the notion. He knew the nasty old man with the rivulets of tobacco juice framing his chin was not his pa and he refused to call him anything but sir. Lige kept Robert tied to his wagon for two days until he figured they’d gotten far enough from St. Louis to take any thoughts of running away out of the lad’s mind. His caution was well-founded because Robert did think about it, but he didn’t have anyplace to go. Lige told him that he had bought and paid for him so Robert knew he wouldn’t be welcome if he showed up back home. Being with Lige Talbot was better than being alone so he decided to stick it out for a while.

Lige was bound for Oregon. He was always bound for Oregon and Robert soon came to believe that he would never get there. He didn’t have the fortitude required for the long trek so, although he started many times, he could never stick to it for very long. Two weeks out of St. Louis they joined a wagon train on the Oregon Trail but Lige’s powerful thirst for spirits caused them to leave the train in Kansas territory where Lige hired his mules out. There were many hauling jobs between the river and the settlement of Wyandotte and a man with a good team of mules could make some good money for himself. For a while, Lige prospered. He worked Robert hard but he treated him well enough. There was never any love lost between them, though. It was strictly business. Robert worked, and in return, Lige fed him and gave him a pallet to sleep on. The boy didn’t spend much time worrying about his existence. He just figured that all boys had to work sooner or later and he soon forgot his playmates and his brief exposure to childhood back in the streets of St. Louis.

Winter passed and spring came around and, with it, Lige’s urge to move on again toward Oregon. He had tired of the work and had become bored with Wyandotte. Besides, he had a sizable grubstake built up. So, one morning he announced to Robert that it was time to pack up and go to Oregon. This time he made it as far as Nebraska before the itch for a bottle and a soft shoulder overpowered him and he settled in for a time at a small trading post near the Platte. It was here that Robert came to know firsthand about Indian trouble.

The trading post was run by a man named Johnson so it was known throughout the territory as Johnson’s Crossing, built near one of the favorite crossings of the Platte. This location gave him access to the wagon trains heading west as well as trade with the Indians, mostly Pawnee and Ponca.

There were many hardworking, fair-minded men running trading posts across the country. Freeman Johnson was not one of them. He was a short stump of a man with a huge belly and a face full of hair, with not a single hair on the top of his head. When Robert first saw him, he thought the man looked as if his head was put on his neck upside down. Even a boy of Robert’s age could sense that the man was not to be trusted.

Lige Talbot was a different story. Lige found a drinking companion and never seemed to catch on to the fact that Johnson would sell him a jug of cheap frontier whiskey at an exhorbitant price, then help him drink it up. Johnson had an enormous capacity for whiskey. Robert suspected this accounted for his huge belly. Lige proved to be such a good customer that Johnson let him and Robert sleep in the back of his stable. It wasn’t long until Lige drank up most of the money he had managed to put aside while hauling freight in Kansas. The close comradery Lige shared with Johnson faded quickly when the last of his money disappeared. With the money gone, they found they were no longer welcome to free housing in the stable. Johnson told them they would have to move out. In a moment of desperation, Lige agreed to trade Johnson two of his six mules in exchange for ninety dollars of credit and the use of the stable until the credit ran out. It was enough to make Lige feel comfortable for a while. Johnson was shrewd enough to know that Lige would use up most of the credit on whiskey that didn’t cost him a tenth of the total.

Freeman Johnson was a double-dealing, underhanded scoundrel anytime he could get away with it. But he was at his worst when it came to dealing with the Indians who came in to trade with him. Robert came to despise the man, not so much for skinning ole Lige for everything he owned, because Lige more or less deserved it. He knew better than to throw his money away on whiskey but he did it anyway. No, Robert felt little pity for Lige. But it made him feel ashamed when Johnson openly cheated the Pawnees out of prime fox or beaver pelts for a jug of rotgut frontier whiskey.

The young Pawnee men were like children, trusting Johnson to treat them fairly. It seemed to Robert that Johnson’s greatest delight was to introduce a young Indian to the evils of drink. It was a downright dirty thing to do because, for some reason Robert never understood, Indians never seemed to be able to handle liquor. It made them crazy. Johnson convinced them that it enabled them to get more powerful visions and the more they drank the more powerful the visions became. Whenever he got one of them hooked on it, he might as well have owned him because the poor devil would trade anything he owned for that damn jug. Visions were mighty important to an Indian. Usually a young buck would go off by himself for four or five days without food or water in hopes of inducing a vision that would reveal the path of his life for him. With Johnson’s firewater, they could sometimes get one in a matter of hours. The trouble was, with too much firewater, they soon didn’t want to do anything else. In the few months Robert was there, he had already seen more than a few bucks started on the road to oblivion, thanks to Freeman Johnson. Sometimes Robert would think about it at night, lying on his straw pallet in Johnson’s stable, and he wondered why God let somebody like Johnson go on doing the things he did. As it happened, it wasn’t God who decided to do something, but rather a band of war-painted savages.

He heard them, nothing more than a rustle of hay at the far end of the stable. Still half asleep, he raised up on one elbow and stared at the small glow of light where the stable wall joined the back of the trading post. He glanced over at the lump that was Lige Talbot to see if he had noticed the light but the steady drone of Lige’s snoring told him he was too far gone to notice anything. As he watched the light, it suddenly seemed to become brighter and he realized at once that the light was a fire and the fire was rapidly growing into discernable flames. The stable was on fire!

He was now fully alert and was about to yell out an alarm when he saw two, three, then four Pawnee warriors dart by the flames, heading in the direction of the front of the trading post. They looked like devils as the glow of the flames illuminated their faces, painted for war, causing their dark features to gleam menacingly and sending a shiver of cold fear down the boy’s spine. Their shadows, twisted and contorted, danced across the stable wall like dark imps as they filed by the fire. Instinctively, he lowered himself back down behind the straw and, as quietly as he could manage, crawled over to the sleeping form beside him.

“Mr. Talbot,” he whispered. “Wake up, Mr. Talbot.”

Lige Talbot was deep in sleep, aided as usual by the strong spirits of the night before, and he was not easily aroused. Robert had to shake him roughly, several times, before he stirred.

“What is it, boy?” he finally replied, his voice angry, irritated at having his rest interrupted.

“Indians,” Robert whispered. “We got to get out of here! Indians is burning the stable!”

“What?” Lige replied, not able to comprehend as yet.

“Indians!” Robert insisted, still tugging at Lige’s shoulder. “We got to get out of here!”

Lige recovered his senses enough to get his eyes open and what he saw was enough to bring him out of his blanket. The hay at the end of the stable was blazing by then, sending sparks drifting into the back part of the building where the two of them were sleeping. It would be only a matter of minutes before the whole stable would go up in flames. “The mules!” he yelled and scrambled to his feet.

Robert had already gathered up his scant possessions in preparation for flight and he didn’t have to be told to follow Lige when he ran for the back door of the stable. There were no Indians to be seen inside the building. Robert guessed they were busy setting fire to the trading post. They had evidently not seen the two of them sleeping in the stable, or were simply not interested in them.

The mules were in the corral out behind the building with all the other animals—horses mostly, along with a couple of pigs in one corner and one milk cow. This late in the spring, Johnson didn’t keep horses inside. Once outside, they could see the trading post catching up in flame. Lige was too worried about his mules to check on Johnson’s welfare and he yelled to Robert to get around behind them while he ran to open the corral gate. It wasn’t necessary to warn Johnson anyway because, while they were chasing the livestock toward the gate, they heard him shouting profanities at the savages on the other side of the building. The shouts were followed by gunshots, fired by Johnson no doubt, but Robert never found out for sure. There were only three or four shots fired and then the only sound they could hear were the war cries of the savages.

The entire structure was ablaze by then and it lit up the corral and smaller outbuildings. Robert was terrified but still managed to make his feet move toward the gate, waving his arms, trying to herd the animals out of the corral. They too were terrified by the flames and the noise and, at first, they simply ran around and around the small corral in panic. Lige was finally able to turn the lead animal, a large bay mare, toward the opening and freedom and the horses and mules jammed the small gate, almost stopping it up. Robert could see several Indians running in their direction from the front of the trading post in an effort to head them off. It was no doubt their intention to take the animals themselves. Beyond the illumination of the firelight, he could see dark figures in the shadows, closing in on him from both sides. On his right a shadow moved toward the corral. Off to his left, several shadows moved from the trees on a line to intercept him. In his terror, he looked to Lige for assistance but Lige was concerned only with his mules and his own hide. Robert did the only thing he could and that was to get into the middle of the stampeding animals and run with them. He grabbed the tail of a small, dappled gray horse and let the animal pull him through the mass of flying hooves and dirt clods.

He lost his footing and went down in the mud churned up by the many hooves but he held on to the gray’s tail, dragged until he could manage to scramble to his feet. As soon as he was up and running again, he looked ahead for Lige, just in time to see the axe buried in Lige’s neck. Lige had been too occupied with two of his mules to see the axe coming or the Indian who killed him. It didn’t look real. It was so grotesque, the axe buried up to the handle in the side of Lige’s neck and the utter shock registered on his face. Robert could not believe it was happening right before his eyes. He didn’t have time to react. Things were happening too fast in that moment of confusion. The horses, slowed by the narrow opening in the fence they were all trying to pass through at the same time, squeezed in together. Robert was fearful that he might be crushed by the sheer weight of the horses, even if the Indians didn’t kill him. But he still held on to the gray’s tail, although he felt he was drowning in a sea of horseflesh.

There was too much confusion and noise. Robert couldn’t keep up with the horses and still look around him to see what was going on. So he concentrated on the one thing, staying on his feet and holding on to the gray for dear life, half expecting to feel the sudden bite of a tomahawk or the sting of an arrow at any moment. Once through the gate, the mob of horses and mules headed for the open country. The gray hesitated for just a moment as if she was waiting for Robert. That moment was all the time Robert needed. He didn’t have to think about it. He quickly released the gray’s tail and jumped on her back. As soon as the horse felt the boy’s weight on her back, she bolted after the rest of the animals in full stride.

Robert had ridden a few horses and mules around the corral of the trading post and once or twice down to the river with Lige, but never at a full gallop. And on those occasions, even though he had no saddle, at least he had a bridle and reins to hold on to. His primary thought now was not to fall off and be trampled to death. So he clamped his knees as tight as he could on the gray’s sides and wrapped his arms around her neck. He couldn’t be concerned with who or what might be pursuing him. All he could do was hang on. The night was dark so he couldn’t even see where he might be running to. He just had to trust that the gray wouldn’t stumble or run him into anything while she was blindly following the mob of horses.

After what seemed to Robert like a long terrifying ride but, in actuality, was only about a half mile, the horses gradually began to slow down until all but a few of the wilder ones broke into a trot and finally a walk. The gray, along with the other horses close by him, stopped and began milling about a small creek. Their panic subsided, they now seemed uncertain of their purpose and appeared to wait for direction from some source. All was quiet behind them. The Pawnees were evidently in no hurry to recover the livestock. Robert guessed they figured there was no one close enough to come to Freeman Johnson’s rescue. They could round up the horses at their leisure after having their fun with Johnson, or what was left of him anyway. Robert didn’t want to think about that at the moment. The one thing he was absolutely certain about was that he would be long gone when they did get around to looking for the stock. He pulled the gray’s head around and gently kicked her into a canter, letting her go pretty much in any direction she fancied. He didn’t care as long as it was away from the trading post. The fact that the gray set out toward Colorado territory would have held no interest for Robert, even had he known.

CHAPTER 3

The next few days following that terrifying night were but a blur in the boy’s memory. It had all happened so fast that the one dominant thought in his mind was to run, and run he did. He kicked the gray into a gallop for most of that first night, ever fearful that he might suddenly hear the sound of the Pawnee raiders overtaking him. The rolling hills offered scant cover from pursuers so he knew he had to purchase as much distance as possible before daylight exposed him on the open prairie. The course he set was a wandering one. In fact, he had set no course at all, merely hanging on to the gray, pulling on the horse’s ear occasionally when she showed signs of turning back toward their back trail. Eventually the night passed and, when daylight brought no sign of pursuers anywhere on the horizon, Robert finally permitted the weary horse to rest.

For the better part of a week he rode in a generally southwesterly direction, for this seemed to be the easiest route toward the mountains on the distant horizon. He came across enough streams to keep him and his horse from dying of thirst and there was plenty of grass for the horse. But Robert was getting weaker and weaker from want of food. Once he found a bush loaded down with reddish-blue berries and he filled his stomach with the sour fruit. When he had eaten all he could hold, he filled his pockets with the rest of them. The stomachache that resulted almost made him vomit them back up but he realized he had to have nourishment of some kind or he would lose what little strength he had.

He was grateful that the horse had more or less adopted him because he knew that, with no reins or even a rope, he could be afoot at any time the gray decided to rid herself of her burden. Whoever owned the horse had evidently broken her properly. As he rocked along with the rhythm of the gray’s walk, he thought about who might have previously owned the animal before she ended up in Johnson’s corral. These thoughts led to thoughts of the night of the raid and to Lige Talbot. Poor Lige, he never knew what hit him. Robert guessed that if Lige had to die, it was best that he got struck down before he had a chance to think about it. The image of Lige with the Pawnee’s axe buried in his neck would burn in Robert’s mind for a long time. He wondered if Lige had felt any pain, or if life was just snuffed out like a candle. When he concentrated on the image long enough, it would make him shudder and he knew he didn’t want to die that way, quickly or not.

The berries didn’t last long and the growling in his stomach was a constant reminder that he needed to find sustanence. At one point he considered killing the horse to keep from dying of starvation but the thought of being on foot was more frightening than going without food. Occasionally he would spot a small animal, a prairie dog he supposed, but he never got close enough to catch it. He would not have hesitated to eat it raw for he had no means to build a fire. He had a knife, which he always wore strapped to his belt, and the clothes he had on when the Pawnees attacked. But that was all. His other belongings had been dropped in the panic to save his skin.

His nights were filled with dreams of food, always meat, usually thick slices of beef, roasted over an open fire. Sometimes it was simple jerky, but always it was meat. He would awaken with his empty stomach gnawing at his backbone and, unable to go back to sleep, he would get up on the gray and start again toward the mountains. He knew somehow that he would find food in the mountains but the mountains never seemed to get any closer. And then one morning, when the sunlight had just begun to dissolve the shroud of mist that blanketed the shallow river he had just forded, he found himself climbing upwards through a stand of tall pines. At once he realized that the gray had been working harder than usual to maintain the pace and he shook himself from the half slumber he had fallen into. Looking back the way he had come, he discovered that he was at a fairly high elevation above the river. Looking ahead now through the trees, he discovered that he had to tilt his head back to find the top of the hill the gray was toiling toward. He was in the mountains! He had made it! The realization of it was enough to start his blood pumping and clear the cobwebs from his brain.

He had been unconcerned about direction, letting the gray have her head. Now he looked around to decide on a course through the mountains before him. Tugging on the horse’s ear, he turned her back toward the river. It would make more sense to follow the river through the hills, he figured. Besides, it wouldn’t hurt to stay close to the water. He felt a small measure of elation and his spirits were lifted in anticipation of finding some source of food. He had been telling himself for days that there would be food in the mountains. He had been keeping himself alive on berries and roots he dug up along the banks of the streams he crossed but he knew he had to find some real food soon. He could relax a bit now that he had reached the cover of the timber covering the slopes. Even though he had seen no sign of another human being, he had felt totally exposed the whole time he was crossing the rolling hills. Now there was a feeling of safety in the tall trees and mountain laurel.

The gray, once Robert turned her back to the river, seemed to know where the boy wanted to go and she plodded steadily along, following the water, working her way around rock outcroppings and fallen trees and back again to the riverbank. It seemed to Robert that there were game trails everywhere he looked. His heart was beating rapidly with thoughts of catching some small game. He knew he would eat before night found him on this day. Had he not been so absorbed in his thoughts of food, he might have been more alert. And he might have paid more attention to the sudden skittishness of the gray.

He still didn’t realize the horse sensed trouble until the stillness of the morning exploded with a roar that split the silence like a lightning bolt, causing the horse to fall back on her hindquarters, sending the boy sprawling end over end down an embankment and into the edge of the river. Terrified, he scrambled back up the rocks only to come face to face with a brown monster. Standing on his hind legs, the bear looked to be as tall as the pines behind him. Robert had never seen one before but he did not have to be told that it was a grizzly, evidently infuriated at having been surprised by the boy and his horse. Robert was almost paralyzed with fear. He had no idea whether he should run or stand his ground. The grizzly roared again, causing the pine needles on the trees to vibrate, and the echo reverberated up the narrow canyon. Then, still upright on his hind legs, the monster moved toward the gray.

“Run!” Robert yelled when he finally found his voice. He couldn’t understand why the horse was still sitting there on her haunches, her forelegs straight. She looked to be half sitting, half standing, her eyes wide with fear. “Run! Git! Git!” Robert screamed but the horse made no move to escape as the bear advanced toward her. Robert stood helpless as he watched the great bear slowly stalk the horse. He could see the animal’s claws, like long yellow spikes, and his teeth bared as he roared again. He was powerless to help the gray.

When the grizzly had closed to within a few yards of her, the gray finally showed signs of reacting but her response was slow, as if she was in a trance. She turned slowly away from the bear and only then did Robert realize why the gray had seemed in a stupor. For now he could see the long gash where the gray’s neck had been laid open by a swipe from the giant beast’s paw. The horse had been hit when she bolted, throwing him. Robert heard himself gasp involuntarily when he saw the flesh, ripped and hanging from his horse’s neck. If the blow had caught him instead of the horse, he would surely be dead!

The gray was on her feet now but the bear had closed the distance between them and was ready to pounce on the hapless animal. There was nothing Robert could do to save his horse. His thoughts, distracted for a moment by the horrible drama taking place between the two animals, returned now to saving himself. For what would the great beast do when he had finished the horse? Come after him? He told himself to run while he had a chance but he seemed to be transfixed by the spectacle of the slaughter.

The gray surely realized that she was finished. Her eyes rolled back in a wild stare as the grizzly lunged to complete the kill. But the gray was not short of courage and, in a final act of defiance, kicked out with her hind legs, delivering a solid blow to the bear’s skull. It made a sharp cracking sound like a rifle shot. The blow was enough to stun the great beast and it fell heavily to the ground. Without pausing to think about what he was doing, or the danger he was in, Robert immediately pulled out his knife and attacked the fallen bear. Afterward, when he was in a more rational state of mind, he would find it difficult to explain his actions and why he did such a foolish thing. At the time, he had one thought only and that was to kill the beast before it recovered its senses and came after him. He had only his knife for a weapon so he rushed to the fallen monster in an attempt to cut its throat.

Dodging back and forth to avoid the huge mouth, Robert stabbed at the animal’s throat with all his strength. He was unable to penetrate the tough hide, only causing the stunned animal to roll back and forth slowly. It would be a matter of moments before the beast shook off the effects of the blow to its skull. Robert was frantic. Seeing a large rock near his feet, he picked it up. It took most of his strength to lift it with both hands. Lifting it as high as he could manage, he then slammed it down as hard as he could on the bear’s skull. He would remember long after this day the dull thud it made. And still the animal thrashed about. Robert was terrified. Dodging the flailing paws, he set upon the bear once more with his knife. He stabbed again and again at the animal’s belly, with all the strength he could muster, causing the bear to strike out blindly with one huge paw. It barely missed Robert’s head. The wounds brought blood but were not serious enough to be mortal. The boy had no conscious thoughts beyond fighting for his life but, when it was over, he would never forget the strong stench of the beast and his mind’s eye would always remember a confusion of dark fur, matted with mud and spattered with blood. He jabbed again and again before he at last found a vulnerable spot beneath the bear’s neck and the knife went in up to the hilt. He withdrew the knife and struck at the wound over and over, desperately ripping at the hole he had caused. His face was suddenly spattered with blood when he struck a vital spot. Still he continued to stab the bear until he was forced to back away to escape the flailing paws. Had he known more about bears, and grizzlies in particular, he would have had better sense than to try to kill one with a knife.

Luck was with him on this day. The wounded animal roared and stumbled to all fours, blowing bloody foam from its nostrils and again barely missing the boy with a wild swing of its forepaw. Robert scrambled over behind a large rock and watched, his eyes wide with fear, expecting a charge from the enraged beast. But the bear seemed confused, maybe from the kick in the head, or from the huge rock he had tried to crush its skull with. There was a great quantity of blood streaming from the wound in the bear’s neck. Robert thought he must have seriously wounded him. The grizzly turned back to the horse, now lying still on the ground, either dead or dying, Robert couldn’t tell for sure. The gray was not a big horse but she wasn’t small either and Robert was terrified when he saw the enraged grizzly slash the horse’s side open with one powerful forepaw. The gray was swept from the riverbank as easily as a person might kick a cat out the door. Robert knew his life was about to end if he didn’t do something quick.

Figuring he had mere seconds before the lumbering beast located his hiding place, Robert left the cover of the rock and sprinted for a tree that was growing right up against a solid rock cliff. There was a ledge about twenty feet up and he figured, if he was lucky, he could manage to scramble up the tree and get up on the ledge before the grizzly saw him. From a dead run, Robert jumped up into the limbs of the tree and climbed as fast as he could pull himself up, expecting to feel the bear’s claws in his back at any moment.

Robert’s escape was detected by the bear but the grizzly did not spring into chase, as Robert expected. Instead, he merely watched the boy as he climbed, showing no interest in pursuit. Robert’s heart was beating wildly as he climbed out on the ledge and looked down at the huge beast. There was a great deal of dried blood matted in the animal’s fur but Robert could still see fresh blood oozing from the knife wound. Evidently he had hit an artery and the bear’s rage had caused it to keep pumping instead of clotting. Maybe he’s had enough, Robert thought. Maybe he’ll just go away. As if the bear had read his thoughts, the beast suddenly turned and loped toward the cliff and the boy on the ledge.

At the foot of the ledge, the bear reared up on his hind legs, reaching with his front paws, but the boy was safe by a good ten feet. Robert jumped back from the edge when the bear made several fruitless attempts to jump up and gain enough foothold to climb the cliff. Still, Robert didn’t feel very safe on his perch and he looked around him for any possible route of escape. There was none. The only way off the ledge was to go back the way he had come and, judging by the enraged roars of the wounded bear, it didn’t appear that the beast was going to lose interest anytime soon. He worried that the bear might ultimately find a way up to him, maybe by the same tree he had climbed. He had hoped that, after a few futile attempts to scale the cliff, the bear would tire of the game and give it up. But as he watched the persistent animal below him, it occurred to him that the best thing that could happen would be if the bear kept losing blood. He was already showing signs of fatigue. Maybe, if he kept aggravating him, he would kill himself from loss of blood.

He’s already madder’n hell. It can’t get no worse, he thought. With that, he picked up a rock about the size of a cabbage and threw it at the raging grizzly below him. The rock hit the bear squarely between the eyes and served only to further infuriate the beast. Robert looked around for something larger, and picked up the biggest rock he could lift and struggled over to the edge with it. The bear was directly under him. This time there was a definite effect when the rock impacted with the top of the bear’s skull, and the boy felt a triumphant surge when the animal staggered slightly and backed away a few feet. The grizzly sat down, dropping heavily to the ground. Getting weak from loss of blood, the bear slowly rocked his head back and forth, from side to side, the ferocious roar replaced now with a cry that was more bellow than roar. Robert continued to pelt the wounded animal with rocks but the bear’s will to fight seemed to have drained. Robert found it hard to believe he could have mortally wounded the great beast with nothing more than a hunting knife. The kick from the horse must have done more damage than he had thought. Whatever the cause, the bear was definitely quitting the battle. With some effort, it got up on all fours and slowly padded from the clearing into the trees.

Robert watched until the animal could no longer be seen through the brush. He was aware of the beating of his heart now, pounding against his ribs. It had seemed to stop while the monster was raging below the ledge. He suddenly felt weak in the knees and had to sit down for a moment before carefully climbing back down the tree. He looked around him constantly, fearful that the bear might suddenly appear in a cloud of fury and strike him down. But all was quiet in the little clearing by the river. Convinced at last that he wasn’t about to meet his maker, at least not in the next few minutes, he walked over to look at his unfortunate mount of the past several days.

“Damn,” he uttered softly, looking at the still, gray mound that less than an hour before had been his salvation in this vast wilderness. Now he was on foot. The horse had saved his life, certainly when he escaped the Pawnees, but again in the forest when she kicked the bear in the head. A wave of compassion swept over him as he recalled how faithful the gray had been, sticking by him all the way across the prairie. “Damn,” he repeated, a little more angry this time. The more he thought about the bear attack, the more angry and frustrated he became. He looked around until he found his knife, wiped it clean and returned it to the deerskin case strapped to his belt.

“That bear looked awful damned poor when he dragged his ass off through the trees,” he said. He made up his mind to follow his trail to see if the bear was indeed dying. He felt more comfortable with the idea that he was stalking the bear instead of the other way around. Besides, bear meat was meat and he needed nourishment. His mind made up, he trotted off in the direction he had last seen the grizzly.

The bear was not hard to follow. A blind man could follow the trail of broken limbs and smashed bushes and Robert did not fail to notice the occasional smears of blood on the leaves in the thicker foliage. The animal was apparently headed for higher ground, possibly to some cave up the mountain somewhere. Robert hoped to find him before that happened. He had no desire to follow a wounded grizzly into a cave. His worries were needless, however, because after climbing for about a quarter of an hour, the trail suddenly led back down the slope toward the river again. Only now the bear seemed to be confused and uncertain because the trail led first one way and then another, wandering aimlessly. Robert guessed the bear must have lost too much blood by then to even know where he was heading. The trail steepened a bit and Robert had to hold on to the bushes to keep from going too fast. All at once his feet slipped out from under him and he went down on his backside. When he tried to scramble to his feet, he went head over heels, thrashing and grappling in a frantic effort to stop his tumble. He ended up at the bottom of a ravine in a thicket of mountain laurel.

“Damn!” he swore, afraid to move until he was certain he hadn’t broken anything. Satisfied that he had suffered no more than a few bruises and one or two skinned places, he carefully began to extract himself from the laurel. Once out of the bushes and on his feet again, he glanced to his left. There, no more than ten feet from him, lay the body of the grizzly.

His heart leaped up into his throat and he ran for the side of the ravine, scrambling up the slope on his hands and knees. When he was halfway up the steep bank, he paused, for he realized the bear had not moved. He froze motionless, holding on to the root of a small bush to keep from sliding back down the bank. Gasping for breath, he stared down at the huge mound of fur for a full minute before he finally relaxed and let himself slide slowly back down to the bottom.

He still felt the need to exercise a great deal of caution as he carefully approached the motionless brown heap, stopping every few feet to listen, staring to detect any sign of even the slightest quiver. He didn’t know if grizzly bears ever played possum or not and he wasn’t going to take any chances that this one might be waiting to grab him. After two or three such pauses with no sign of life, the boy finally stood over the fallen animal.

The bear was lying on his side and Robert could see the wound, still weeping slightly, just under the beast’s huge neck. It seemed odd to him that a wound that looked so small could have been that lethal. A little bolder now, he reached out and poked at the carcass with his knife. There was no doubt about it, the bear was dead. He suddenly felt a warm, almost primal, feeling of triumph. He had faced a mighty foe, a challenge of death, and he had emerged victorious! Now, he thought, he would eat bear meat for supper! With that stimulating thought, he set about the task of skinning the bear.

This proved to be almost as big a challenge as killing the bear. Robert knew nothing about skinning any animal, much less a bear, and he wasn’t sure where he should start. One thing he knew, though, he couldn’t wait too long in doing whatever he was going to do. It wouldn’t take long for wolves or vultures, or both, to detect the dead animal and he had nothing but his knife to fend off any scavengers. He stood looking at the carcass for a full minute, trying to decide where to start. He remembered how tough the hide was when he had first tried to plunge his knife into the stunned animal so he decided the underbelly would be the most likely place to start.