Beneath a Dakota Cross (15 page)

“I sent a letter out to you about a month ago. Looks like it ­didn't get to you. I wish it wouldn't have gotten to Dacee June. I can't believe she took off like that. Aunt Barbara must be worried sick. At least Dacee June made it to Fort Pierre. That much I know. I presume you spotted your mamma's jewelry?”

“Mamma's jewelry?” Robert carved deep into a wet stick with his hunting knife before he found some dry shavings. Both men squatted around as the sergeant sparked his flint in order to start the fire.

“A lady at the Wild Goose Cafe said her boyfriend traded a shotgun and two boxes of shells to a little brown-haired girl on the boat with a sweet Texas accent. Dacee June had a gun,” Brazos said.

“That's not all she has,” Robert reported.

Brazos squatted next to the deep, white smoke, holding his hand over nonexistent flames. “What do you mean?”

“A woman at the trading post said a girl came in and traded them to her for a tent and a bedroll . . . a little girl with a sweet Texas accent.”

“She's goin' to the hills, Robert. She's set on goin' to the Black Hills.”

“She's goin' to find her daddy, that's where she's going. She'd march into Hades to find you if she had to.”

Brazos retrieved his canteen, two tin cups, and a handful of damp coffee from the saddlebags on the back of his saddle. Then he squatted back down next to the fire. “I should have never left her, Son. God knows, I shouldn't have done it. At the time, it actually sounded like the Lord's leadin'. What would get into a girl to do such a thing?”

“She's just like you, Daddy. You know that. Mamma knew that. That's why she prayed so much for Dacee June.”

“And Samuel.”

“Sam can take care of himself,” Robert said.

“I know . . . I know . . . all you boys can. It's li'l sis that I'm frettin'. What's this carriage you're followin'? Surely no one would rent a carriage to a little girl alone. I didn't pick up the track until today.”

Robert's wet leather gloves were steaming as he propped his coffee cup on the flaming sticks. “Well, I left Fort Pierre before this storm hit,” Robert reported. “The army is patrolling the trail west. But I couldn't see where anyone had left Fort Pierre. I rode north thinkin' maybe they skirted around up there. I was hopin' she got in with some others going west, so I was looking for several horses, or a wagon, or something. I finally found these carriage tracks up along the Cheyenne River.”

Brazos swirled the coffee grounds in his cup with a small stick. “You can't take a carriage all the way to the Black Hills.”

“I know, but I was curious what they were doin' out here. It was the only decent trail I could find.”

“Dacee June might have bought that stuff in Fort Pierre but taken the boat on upriver,” Brazos suggested.

“Yep, that nags on me, too. But she's a bulldog, and if you mentioned comin' to Fort Pierre, she might have decided to ride out and meet you comin' in. Anyway, yesterday afternoon the carriage made a turn to the south and came straight down here. I camped up in some rocks, and by daylight the trail was about washed clean. Anyway, I followed the trail down here to the Bad River, and it suddenly turns back to the east.”

“East? They're goin' back to Fort Pierre! You figure it's someone out from Fort Pierre on a drive or a hunt?”

“Or someone lost . . . confused . . . cold . . . or all three,” Robert said.

“Someone who's twelve and has a sweet Texas accent?”

“I was hopin' it was her. Anyway, just as I picked up the trail back east the warriors showed up demanding my horse and gun.”

“And you declined the offer.”

“Yeah, well, they got persistent. So I holed up behind some logs, and we traded shots for a while until you showed up.”

“Were there just three Indians?” Brazos said.

“That's all I saw,” Robert replied.

“They have five horses.”

Robert stared into his cup. “I didn't see their horses.”

Brazos took a swig of coffee and felt the tin cup burn his lips, the liquid burn his throat. “Two of the horses weren't saddled.”

“You think . . .”

Brazos nodded. “They could be carriage horses.”

Both men stood up and began kicking out the fire.

CHAPTER SIX

The cold rain drifted to snow before they reached the curve in the river. Brazos knew they couldn't keep the horses galloping much longer so he slowed down to a canter as they followed a muddy carriage track up a grade, away from the Bad River. At the crest, he reined up.

“Do you see anything?” Robert called out.

“Nothin', yet . . . and this snow will blanket their tracks. If we don't locate that carriage soon, we won't be able to trail it at all.”

“I've been thinkin' about the shotgun you said Dacee June traded for,” Robert pondered.

“What about it?”

“Those Indians didn't have a shotgun. At least, they didn't employ it. And you know they wouldn't hesitate to filch it, if they could have. So those Indians stole the horses and not the shotgun . . .”

“Then Dacee June still has that shotgun!” Brazos blurted out.

“I do believe li'l sis would pull the trigger if she had to.”

“You're right about that.” Brazos thought back on how many times he had taken Dacee June bird hunting, much to her mother's dismay.
Sarah Ruth, you always said a young lady shouldn't be shooting a gun, especially one that leaves her shoulder black and blue. But my, how that girl loves to hunt.

Both men trotted east, their backs now to the squall. Each snowflake seemed to whistle as it sailed past.

“But if she's stuck out in this storm, she'll freeze to death before mornin',” Robert said.

Brazos brushed the snow off his shoulders. “I reckon she'll huddle near that carriage, wherever it is.”

“What's over by those boulders?” Robert pointed across a horizon of rolling prairie, dead grass, sage, snow, and mud.

Brazos stood in his stirrups and scanned the horizon. “In this storm, a person can't tell between sky and ground . . . just a blanket of white . . .”

“Over there! I think it's a buckboard or a surrey!” Robert broke into a gallop.

Brazos pursued.
Lord, how come I didn't see that? Maybe I need some new spectacles. Maybe I need the eyes of some twenty-two-year-old kid to locate things for me.

As he advanced, he could not observe anyone around the old, wet buckboard with three wooden bench seats and a tattered top of oilcloth and snow. Robert reached the wagon first and slid down from the saddle.

“Dacee June!” Brazos shouted. He circled his horse through the brush next to the rig. “You find any sign, Robert?”

“There's nothing in the wagon. Nothing at all!”

“Dacee June!” Brazos called again.

Robert mounted his horse and looped around behind him. “Dad, we don't know for sure that Dacee June was in this rig. It could have been anyone. We don't . . .”

“I know . . . I've been arguin' with myself about it. I want to believe she's back in Fort Pierre . . . or Bismarck . . . in some warm hotel room. But I wanted to believe she was sitting here at this wagon, waitin' for us . . . but she's not. She could be anywhere. She could be injured. She could be lost. She could be . . .” Brazos couldn't make himself conclude the sentence.

“Do you see any tracks leadin' away from the wagon?” Robert asked. “This snow is coverin' up everythin'. Whoever was in this wagon could have headed in any direction. There's no way of knowin'.”

Brazos studied the backboard. “If Dacee June was here, I know which way she went.”

“How's that?”

“The wagon is pointed east. This wagon was headed back to Fort Pierre when it was stopped and the horses stolen. Dacee June has been with me enough to know that she should follow the way the wagon's pointed. Like the time you, Sam, and those Devore girls broke an axle out west of the Leon River and Dacee June and I had to come find you. We just kept goin' straight to where the wagon was pointin'.”

“That only works until you lose sight of the wagon . . .” Robert pointed to a ridge straight ahead of them a couple hundred yards. “After that she could wander in any direction.”

Snowflakes were the size of two-bit pieces by the time they reached the ridge. A fresh, white quilt covered the ground, erasing all tracks. Both halted and gaped into the storm.

“Now where?” Robert inquired.

Brazos stood in the stirrups, whisking the snow off his jeans. He tried to study the eastern horizon. He removed his spectacles, folded them, and jammed them into the leather case. “Don't need those in this storm.” He kneaded the bridge of his nose and squinted as the snowflakes blasted his face. His heart throbbed through his temples.

Lord, at some point Robert and me will have to think about gettin' out of this storm and savin' our own lives. At least, savin' Robert's life. I am so tired, Sarah Ruth. If I find our girl dead in the snow, I'll just lay down next to her and die.
He tried to summon enough energy to talk. “Draw us a straight line in the snow from here, back to the wagon . . . maybe we can project it on up ahead.”

Lord, I know that it ain't right to only be concerned if it's my Dacee June. Whoever was in that wagon is some other father's son or daughter. I'd like to help them, no matter who it is. But I can't rescue what I can't find, and I can't track what I can't see.

With Robert digging a line with his boot heel, Brazos squinted both eyes almost closed and traced the direction of the line into the snowy horizon. “Is that some rocks up there?” he called out. He began to feel a surge of heat in his bones.

“What?” Robert replied, remounting his sorrel horse. “Where? I don't see anything.”

“Follow the horizon about thirty degrees south of that line you made. See them up there?”

“There's nothin' there.”

“Sure there is . . . look again. If Dacee spied out those rocks, she'd head for them to get out of this storm.”

“Daddy, I don't see anything. I think you're just being wishful. You don't even have on your spectacles.”

“I don't need them for that,” Brazos insisted.

“Our best bet is ridin' this straight line.” Robert offered. “It will at least get us towards Fort Pierre. If we veer off to the south again, we'll hit the Bad River . . . or Indians . . . or both.”

“I'm sorry your sight is playin' out on you, Son, but we're going this way.” Brazos booted his heels into Coco and trotted off into the storm.

The shout, “Daddy!” faded behind him.

Visibility was not much more than twenty feet.

And everything that was visible was white.

Robert rode alongside Brazos, and after a romp into the storm that featured horses slipping and stumbling, he reached over, seized Coco's chin strap, and yanked both horses to a halt.

Brazos slid forward in the saddle and clutched the horn with his left hand.

“What did you do that for?” Brazos shouted.

“We're goin' the wrong way!” Robert hollered.

“Turn loose of my horse!”

“Daddy, come on. You're gettin' snow blind!”

The once heavy snowflakes ceased as if on cue.

“I know what I'm doin', son.”

“And I know what I'm doin'. We've got to get you back to Fort Pierre before you freeze to death. We're going too far south, and you know it,” Robert argued.

Brazos extended the barrel of his carbine and cuffed Robert's hand away from the bridle. “I'm goin' after my baby girl.”

Robert stretched over with a gauntlet-covered hand and jostled his father's shoulder. “Your mind's playin' tricks on you. Come on, I'm takin' you to town!”

A Chinook wind wafted from the south, slowly lifting the clouds off the horizon.

“I'm not goin' back without my Dacee June!” Brazos thundered, and he slapped Robert's hand off his shoulder.

“Dad, we don't know where she is! Come on, let's go warm up and then figure this out!”

“Not unless you plan to whip me and hog-tie me to the saddle.”

“If that's what it takes to save your life, I'll do it!”

Robert's eyes flared. For a brief second Brazos thought he was looking straight at Sarah Ruth. Then he gazed off to the east.
Have I been starin' at a mirage? Is he right? Is this storm whippin' me and I'm seein' things? Freezing . . . exhausted . . . losing hope. What's happening to me? Has it gotten so bad my children have to take care of me?

“My word, you were right!” Robert suddenly shouted.

Brazos peered straight over Coco's ears. “I was? Those rocks . . . do you see them, too?”

“There's no way you could have seen those from back there,” Robert protested. “The snow on top of them makes them almost invisible from here, even with the storm subsiding.” He jolted his horse's flanks and loped towards the outcrop of brush and rock on the top of a rise about a half-mile away.

Brazos trailed him, and by the time they reached the bottom of the incline, he observed a sliver of blue sky behind the heavy, gray clouds.
Just like that, the storm is liftin'? Maybe the storm was all in my mind.

Robert slowed to push his horse through the thick, leafless brush that surrounded the jagged, snow-covered rocks. Robert's horse faltered, regained its foot, then lunged through the branches.

At that moment a limb the size of a hitching post came swinging out from behind the rock, catching a startled Robert Fortune in the stomach. He plunged off the horse, but managed to seize the branch and hold on, wrenching the assailant to the snow.

Brazos, his carbine at his shoulder, surveyed the two people rolling in the snow.
A woman? Who is she?
The lady's cape hood plummeted off her head, exposing coal-black hair that was halfway unfastened and draped across her face. Robert straddled her, pinning her arms to the snow.

“Who are you?” he shouted.

“Who are you?” she yelled back, her round, smooth face, blushed red from the raw storm, or embarrassment, or both.

“I'm Sergeant Robert Fortune . . .”

“Robert!” a young girl's voice wailed from somewhere behind the rocks.

One time, several years earlier, Brazos and Sarah Ruth had driven to Dallas with Milt and Barbara Ferrar and listened to a visiting orchestra from New York City perform select works of Beethoven and Bach. Until this very moment, he always figured those were the most beautiful sounds he would ever hear in his life.

But a young girl's scream in the Dakota storm far exceeded the melodies of the orchestra. In the background he was sure he could hear choirs of angels.

Brazos vaulted from his horse and plummeted through the thicket of brush. “Dacee June!” he yelled.

“Daddy!” the voice cried.

By the rocks, the hood of her cape buttoned under her chin, thick, wool gloves wrapped around a short-barreled shotgun, red-cheeked, blue-lipped, and eyes dancing, posed the most beautiful girl he had ever seen in his life.

“Dacee June!” The carbine tumbled into the snow.

Dacee June discarded her shotgun and sprinted towards him. She was over a foot off the ground when they met. Her enthusiastic arms knocked his hat off and encompassed his neck with a breath-stopping clutch.

Their tears mingled as he held her freezing cheek against his.

“Your face and lips are cold,” she informed him.

“But my heart is very warm,” he said.

“I just knew I'd find you,” she sobbed. “I knew I could. No one thought I could, but I found you, didn't I? I came to Dakota and found my daddy!”

“You found me, darlin' . . .”

“Actually,” a woman's voice skimmed through the cold air from the midst of the outcropping, “both Thelma and I were quite confident we would locate you.”

Two caped and blanketed women strolled closer. “Yes, we didn't really start to lose hope until this morning when the hostiles pilfered our horses. I tried to convince the others to burn the wagon for a signal fire, but Louise felt that would attract the wrong element.”

“The March sisters?” Brazos gulped. “What . . . why . . . how . . . ?”

“Would you please let me up!” the dark-haired woman shouted as Robert rolled off her and struggled to his feet.

“Hi, Robert!” Dacee June called out, but didn't liberate her father's neck.

“Li'l sis, I'm surely glad to see you.” He reached back to offer the woman on the ground a hand. She refused, struggled to her feet, then slipped and fell. This time she held out her hand as Robert assisted her.

“I can't believe you sisters are out here in the middle of a Dakota storm!” Brazos muttered.

“It's been quite an adventure!” Louise Driver declared.

“Especially the past forty-eight hours!” Thelma Speaker said as she sauntered straight up to young Fortune. “Hello, Robert, it's so nice you could meet us with your father. I'm sorry we can't offer you a cup of chocolate and a cookie.”

“Mrs. Speaker,” he said as he tipped his hat, “Mrs. Driver, nice to see . . . I mean, I'm amazed to see you. I trust all of you are well,” Robert stammered.