After a ride of a little over an hour, Charley cut back to the river, and led them into a stand of trees where she saw the packmules she had seen earlier in her village. Once inside the trees, she discovered the faintly glowing embers of a campfire that the two sleeping men lying nearby had apparently left unattended. From the size of the prone figure closest to the fire, Martha guessed it was the man called Marlowe. She felt a clammy hand gripping her insides as she recalled the hairy brute that had accompanied Charley to Bloody Axe’s camp. Would he be next when Charley was finished with her? The other, a few yards back from the fire, appeared to be an Indian, sprawled as in a drunken sleep. She bit her lip, trying to hold back the tears that threatened to form in the corners of her eyes.
Charley would have ridden right over the body near the fire, but his horse balked, refusing to step over it, and Martha realized then that Marlowe was not sleeping. The knowledge that he was dead made her thankful that she would not have to endure his assault. The casual indifference displayed by Charley as he dismounted filled Martha’s mind with a new fear. He would not hesitate to kill her when he was done with her.
“You just set right where you are,” Charley commanded sternly while he tied her horse’s reins to a
tree. “I wanna build this fire back up so I can see you real good.” He reached up and patted her thigh, laughing when she tried to pull it away. “I don’t want you to get cold with your clothes off.” Leaving her to form that horrifying image in her mind, he picked up some dead limbs and stirred up the coals of the fire. Once the fire had caught up again, he grabbed Marlowe’s corpse by the boots and dragged it several yards away in the brush. “Come on, Marlowe, quit hogging the fire.” He laughed heartily at his own joke.
Martha was horror-stricken by the scene before her. Charley had always reviled her, but she had no notion of the evil he was capable of until that moment. Even in the dim light of the fire, she could see the dark stain where Marlowe’s blood had soaked into the ground. And the way Charley found humor in the grisly corpse made Martha tremble with fear.
Glancing now at the second corpse lying in the darkness just beyond the firelight, she could only see enough to know that it was an Indian. She shivered uncontrollably with the realization that maybe Robert was not murdered by outlaws as Charley had said. He had not seemed to be overly grieved back in the village when he had told her of his brother’s death. Martha closed her eyes for a second, praying for God to help her. When she opened them, it was to look directly into Charley’s face, grinning up at her.
“It’s time for our long-overdue little party,” he said. Untying her ankles, he pulled her from the saddle, her hands still tied. “I promised myself a long time ago I was gonna have some of your honey—and then you up and run off with a bunch of Injuns.” Standing her on her feet, he took the rope that had tied her ankles together and knotted one end of it around her wrists, holding onto the other end. “Well, it’s just you and me now, darlin’.” She tried to run, but he immediately
jerked her back with the rope. “Now, don’t be that way, darlin’,” he cooed wickedly. “You’re about to get it like you never had it with ol’ Robert.”
In desperation, she tried to appeal to his sense of conscience. “Please, Charley, don’t do this. I’m your sister. It wouldn’t be right. Think what your mother and father would say. They’d be so disappointed to know you violated your brother’s wife. Please. Just let me go, and we’ll forget it ever happened.”
Charley fixed her with a long look of amusement. Then he threw his head back and laughed. “I swear, Martha, that’s about the most tender story I’ve ever heard. You keep on and you’ll have me in tears.”
“You son of a bitch,” Martha spat.
Her venom seemed to please him, exciting him even more. “That’s more like it,” he said, still grinning. “If you do it right, maybe I’ll let you live a little longer. But if you don’t please me, I’ll just slit your throat and leave you to keep company with ol’ Marlowe over there.”
“You go to hell.”
The grin faded from his face, and he suddenly reached out and tried to rip her dress away. But the snow-white antelope skin was too tough and did not tear. She immediately reacted by slapping him hard across his face. Infuriated, he struck her with his fist, knocking her backward. As she struggled to keep her balance, reeling from the force of the blow, he plowed headfirst into her, driving her to the ground. In a flash, he drew his knife and held the point of the blade hard up under her chin, causing her to cry out in pain.
“By God, you’re gonna give me what I want, or I’ll slice you up right now.” He had hoped she would surrender to him out of fear, but he could see that it was going to be a battle. Staring her down for a moment while he considered his next move, he suddenly
pulled his knife away and got to his feet. Picking up the loose end of the rope again, he pulled her over to a tree where he looped the rope around it and tied it. On her feet now, her hands still tied securely together, she pulled against the rope with all her strength while she backed around and around the tree, trying to keep him at bay. Her efforts to avoid him became a sadistic game for him, and he laughed at her while stalking her in a circle around the tree. After a few moments, he tired of the game, and lunged forward, knocking her off her feet.
Though struggling desperately, she knew that she could not fend him off. He took her ankles and dragged her away from the tree trunk until her arms were stretched helplessly straight out above her head. With his body pinning her legs to the ground, she was helpless to fight him. Triumphant, his lips parted in a satisfied smile, he slowly pulled her skirt up, revealing the soft white thighs that he had long pictured in his mind. The anticipation of what was to come was enough to cause drool to collect in the corners of his evil grin. She screamed out in horror when she felt his coarse hands groping her inner thighs.
“That’s right,” he goaded, “yell all you want. I like to hear you holler. It makes it . . .” Suddenly his words were lost in a clap of thunderous hooves and the lightninglike snap of a rawhide whip. It happened so fast that Martha would remember it as only a blur—like an explosion, the horse bursting forth from the darkness outside the campfire—the instant appearance of rawhide coils wrapping around Charley’s throat—and then she was free.
The force of Black Elk’s attack yanked Charley off Martha and dragged him fully fifty feet before the infuriated warrior brought his charging pony to a stop. At once, Black Elk was on the ground, his war axe in
his hand. Rolling over and over in an attempt to scramble to his feet, Charley clawed at the rawhide coils wound tightly around his neck. In his confusion, he was unable to loosen it as he looked around him desperately trying to find his assailant in the flickering light of the fire. Then suddenly he appeared. Like a painted phantom stepping into the circle of light, the warrior stalked his prey, war axe in one hand, a long skinning knife in the other. The shadows from the flames danced across the massive chest and shoulders of the Blackfoot warrior, his face an enraged mask that promised certain death.
Terrified, Charley reached for his pistol, only to realize that he had removed it before his assault upon Martha. In a panic, he made a desperate move toward it. Quicker by far, Black Elk cut him off, standing in his path, quartering him with eyes as black as the dead coals in the fire. Charley froze. His cold fear seeped throughout his entire body, leaving him almost helpless to move. As Black Elk moved slowly toward him, Charley’s hands began to tremble. Unable to move seconds before, he now turned and tried to run for his life. With one swift leap, Black Elk planted one foot firmly upon the whip handle trailing in the dust, the other end still knotted around Charley’s neck. Yanked off his feet again, Charley landed hard on his back. Grunting with the impact, the frightened man clawed at the rawhide again, his desperation enabling him to loosen the whip this time. Free for the moment, he scrambled to his feet, and ran wildly toward the brush on the riverbank. Right behind him, Black Elk stopped, planted his left foot, took deliberate aim, and hurled his axe end over end, landing it squarely between Charley’s shoulder blades.
Charley screamed in pain, and crashed to the ground. He struggled back up on his hands and knees
only to feel the powerful hand that grasped his hair and jerked his head back. The hellish scream that emanated from deep inside him was silenced abruptly when Black Elk’s long skinning knife sliced through his windpipe. There followed a silence that seemed almost as loud, as the Blackfoot warrior stood over his kill.
Martha had been transfixed in a state of shock while she witnessed Charley’s terrifying execution. With her hands still bound to the tree, she could do nothing but sit and watch as her husband expunged his wrath on the hapless white man who had been her brother-in-law. Such was his fury, that Martha found herself to be terrified, afraid to speak even after Black Elk turned to look at her. She had never before witnessed the full fury of her husband, not even when he had rescued her from the Crow raiding party. For a long moment, he stood motionless, staring through her, as if not really seeing her at all until, gradually, he released his taunt muscles and relaxed his fierce frown. The flood of his blood lust having finally receded, he came to her.
Emotionally drained, she fell into his arms as soon as he had untied her hands. Clinging tightly to him, she pressed her face against his bare chest, and whispered, “I was afraid I was never going to see you again.”
His tone at once gentle again, he replied, “Did you think that I would not come for you?” He looked down at her and smiled. “I will always come for you. Know that, if you know nothing else.”
Exhausted, she lay back while he gently examined the broken skin beside her eye. Reading the loving concern in his gaze, she could not help but tremble when she remembered the intense fury that blazed in those eyes short moments before. She smiled at him
then, knowing that—as he had said—he would always come for her, no matter what.
When morning came, they rounded up the horses and the pack mules. Out of respect for Charley’s father, Martha persuaded Black Elk to leave his scalp, which he did reluctantly. He even helped her dig a shallow grave. Marlowe received no such consideration. After Black Elk scalped him, he left the corpse for the buzzards. They wrapped Wolf Tail’s body in a buffalo robe found in one of the packs, and Black Elk lifted it up on one of the mules, to be taken back for a proper burial.
After opening one of the packs to see what manner of trade goods the white men carried, Black Elk decided to carry all the packs back to the village for the people to share. All except the firewater. One by one, he smashed each of them with his axe. When that was done, he looked at Martha and said, “We go now.”
Martha never looked back as they led the mules out of the stand of willows by the river, hoping she could somehow erase the horrible memory from her mind. Charley was dead. She would never have to fear him again. Robert was dead, too, in all likelihood murdered by his own brother. She felt compassion for Robert’s parents, decent people who would probably never know what had happened to their sons. She shivered involuntarily as the memory of Charley’s evil sneer flashed through her mind. She would sleep very close to Black Elk this night.
“I see ’em,” Badger said in response to Clay’s outstretched arm. The old scout had been watching the circle of buzzards for the last two miles. “More’n likely it’s just some dead animal, but it wouldn’t hurt to take a look.”
They cut away from the trail they had been following since sunup that morning and made for the trees bordering the river, both men with a sharp eye out for any sign of danger. It appeared that whatever the buzzards had found was in the stand of willows close beside the riverbank. “I expect it would be best if we duck into the trees below that spot,” Clay suggested, “instead of riding right in off the open plain.”
“I expect so,” Badger agreed. This was dangerous country they were riding through—Blackfoot country—it wouldn’t pay to get careless.
When they entered the trees, the two men split up, Clay pulling his horse off to the right of Badger, leaving a space of about twenty yards between them. In this fashion, their two pairs of eyes could take in more of the scrub they were riding into. Walking their horses slowly, they filed through the clumps of gooseberry bushes and junipers, skirting the thickets that
hugged the river’s banks, all the while glancing back and forth, never letting their gaze linger on one spot for more than an instant. Clay did it without thinking. After months of riding with Badger, he had acquired the habit of seeing everything around him, constantly looking for sign. It was a healthy habit because ambush was the Blackfoot’s stock in trade.
It didn’t take long to discover what had attracted the buzzards. There was a small clearing in the midst of the willows where someone had obviously made a camp. Near the edge of the clearing, one large buzzard sat on the chest of a corpse while half a dozen others flapped about, squawking raucously.
Satisfied that whoever had killed the man was long gone, Clay and Badger rode on into the clearing and dismounted. Using their rifles as clubs, they scattered the cluster of buzzards around the body, backing the hissing scavengers away long enough to take a look at the corpse.
“He’s a big’un,” Badger said as he bent over the mutilated body. “White man, shot full of holes. Somebody wanted to make sure he was good and dead.” He straightened up again. “Git back!” he yelled at the emboldened buzzards as they began to crowd in, reluctant to give up their feast.
Clay moved around to get a better look at the man’s face, what was left of it. The back of the man’s head was shattered, a result of too many bullet holes to count accurately. “He’s been scalped,” he observed. Looking at the congealed blood around the top of his head, he said, “He ain’t been dead more than two or three days.” Clay had seen enough dead men during his time in the war to make a fair estimate.
“That’s about right,” Badger agreed, moving around to have a closer look himself. Then it occurred
to him. “Damn, Clay, ain’t he that big ol’ feller you whacked on the nose at Fort Union? Marlowe, I believe Pete called him.”
Clay took another look and considered. “Hard to tell.” He studied the corpse for another few seconds. “I believe you’re right, though. I wonder what he was doing way out here. He’s a helluva long way from Fort Union.”
“No tellin’. That low-down son of a bitch was more’n likely up to no good, I’ll bet.”
Unwilling to give up what they figured rightfully belonged to them, the ring of buzzards closed in once more on the two men standing over the corpse. Dancing closer and flapping their wings, they issued a loud challenge, retreating only when Clay or Badger would make an aggressive move toward them.
“I wanna take a look around this camp,” Badger said. “Let’s drag this bastard down in the bushes a’ways, and let the buzzards finish their supper.” He and Clay each grabbed a heel, and pulled the heavy corpse down through the brush. The buzzards followed behind them, squawking like chickens waiting to be fed.
There was plenty of sign to tell at least part of the story. The most obvious were the shattered jugs. Badger bent low and sniffed a broken shard. “Whiskey. I thought so. That’s what that ol’ boy was up to.” He stood up again, and looked about him at the ground. “Looks like he tried to sell firewater to the wrong Injun.”
“They must have had somebody tied to a tree,” Clay observed aloud as he examined the ground around a slim willow. “You can see where the rope burned the bark on this little willow.”
Badger nodded his head. “Yeah, looks like ol’ Marlowe run into a heap of trouble.”
By the trampled bushes and droppings in the trees, they could readily see where Marlowe had hobbled his packhorses. Puzzling were the other bloodstains apart from those where Marlowe’s body had lain. “Maybe he got a couple of ’em before they got him,” Badger offered as explanation. Then Clay found something outside the clearing, almost hidden by a clump of gooseberry bushes.
“There’s a fresh grave over here,” Clay called out.
Badger dropped the top half of a jug he had been holding, and came at once to examine the grave. “That sure is peculiar now, ain’t it? If it was Injuns what done this, why would they bury one of ’em and leave the other’n for the buzzards?” He looked at Clay, a question on his face. “I think I’ll take a look at who’s buried in this grave.”
“Why?” Clay wondered aloud. He couldn’t see that it would help them any to find out.
“Curiosity, I reckon,” Badger replied as he started back to his packhorse for a shovel.
The grave was still fresh enough for the dirt to be soft, and after only fifteen minutes’ work with the shovel, Badger uncovered the body of a white man. He tossed the shovel aside and pulled the dirt away from the dead man’s face with his hands. After another few seconds, he sat back on his heels and said, “Ain’t nobody I know.”
Clay knelt down on one knee to get a closer look at the corpse. At first, it didn’t look like anyone he knew, either. The features were wooden and drawn in death, a ragged slash gaping beneath the scrubby beard. And yet, there was something familiar about that face. He studied it a moment longer before he suddenly realized who he was staring at. “Charley Vinings,” he blurted. Then looking back at Badger, he repeated, “Charley Vinings.”
“Who’s Charley Vinings?” Badger wanted to know. The name meant nothing to him.
Clay explained that Charley was Martha’s brother-in-law. “That might explain why Marlowe was in Blackfoot country. Maybe Charley hired him as a guide, and they were trying to find Martha.”
“He picked a helluva guide,” Badger snorted.
Clay stepped back away from the shallow grave to give himself some room to think. With Charley here, where then was Robert? Maybe some of those other bloodstains in the clearing belonged to Robert. Maybe the murdering Blackfeet took him captive.
Could be that I’ve misjudged Robert and Charley. They may have been looking for Martha all along.
The cruel image of the savage Black Elk returned to his conscious thoughts, and he could feel his muscles tense as he pictured what had taken place at this lonely campsite.
As if to confirm Clay’s thoughts, Badger commented, “That’s what it looks like, all right. They was camped here and the Blackfeet jumped ’em.” He scratched his head thoughtfully. “What I can’t figure out, though, is why they buried this feller, and not the other one. And they scalped Marlowe, but not this one.”
Badger dismissed it as just another example of how unpredictable the Blackfeet were. For Clay’s part, he wasn’t concerned with the why of it. His mind was focused on the murder of Martha’s brother-in-law by the Blackfeet, and in his mind, it was by the hand of Black Elk. Who could say what Robert’s fate was? The urgency to get underway again was now more crucial than ever. This massacre had occurred no more than a couple of days before. Black Elk could not be far away. Clay only hoped that he would reach Martha and Robert before they were slaughtered, too. He had
little hope of being able to help Robert. In all likelihood, the Blackfeet would have already tortured and killed him. But he would not permit himself to think that Martha was dead. The reports they had received from Black Shirt’s camp indicated that a white woman was traveling with Bloody Axe’s village.
Martha has to be alive. Why would they kill her after all this time?
One fact seemed to be painfully clear, however. There would be no peaceful negotiations with this band of Blackfeet. Probably Robert and Charley had tried that. Charley’s battered body attested to the failure of their efforts.
“Well, partner, looks like we’d better decide just what the hell we’re gonna do.” Badger’s comment broke into Clay’s thoughts. “I don’t think we’re far from them Blackfeet you’re lookin’ for—and there’s a plain enough trail they left when they rode outta here. The part I ain’t sure about is, what are you plannin’ to do when we catch up to ’em?”
Clay was already giving that question plenty of thought. There were only a couple of things he knew for sure. If Martha was in the camp, he was going to get her . . . or die trying. The second thing he was certain of was that he would hunt Black Elk down and kill him. There were other concerns that he had to give serious thought, however. He had no right to jeopardize Badger’s life in this personal, and perhaps fatal, quest that now consumed his mind. After a long pause, he finally answered Badger’s question. “Nothing’s changed. I’m going after Martha.” He turned to look the old trapper in the eye. “I don’t expect you to risk your neck any further. You’ve gotten me this far, I reckon I can follow this trail the rest of the way.”
Badger studied his friend’s face for a moment before replying. He liked this young firebrand, who could smolder so intensely with a fire within, while
giving no indication of the burning passion on the outside. “You know it don’t look likely this band of Blackfeet is gonna waste time talking. If you try to go in peaceful, you’re liable to end up like these fellers.”
“I know,” Clay replied. “I don’t plan to talk to them. I’m gonna tail them until I find where they’re keeping Martha. Then I’ll wait for a chance to get to her.”
Badger continued to study Clay’s face, considering his words. “All right, say you do that, and you do get a chance to snatch her. Then what are you gonna do?”
“I don’t know,” Clay answered truthfully. “Just run for it, I guess. I’ll just have to take it as it comes.” He shrugged his shoulders, dismissing the concern. “I’ll make it somehow. I always have.”
“These fellers lying here always made it, too, till they met up with this bunch of Injuns. You ain’t got no more chance than a chicken in a den full of foxes. Nah, I reckon I’m gonna have to go with you. You’re gonna need my rifle.” That said, he turned and gathered up his horse’s reins, preparing to mount. As he put a foot in the stirrup, he added, “We’re still gonna lose our scalps.”
They followed a trail that led north, away from the river and toward Willow Creek, as best Badger could guess. They concluded that it had to have been a small party that jumped Charley and Marlowe because the tracks they followed were left by no more than ten or twelve horses. That conclusion was not one hundred percent accurate, Badger pointed out, because the Blackfeet often went on foot if they were going to steal horses. But he had a feeling that the massacre they had just left was not the result of a horse-stealing party.
The sun had not yet set when Badger reined back hard near the brow of a long ridge. “Hold up,” he called back. When Clay caught up to him, he pointed to a fringe of cottonwoods and alders that defined a creek no more than half a mile away. Beyond was a gathering of at least a hundred lodges. “Well, there’s your Blackfoot camp.”
Clay’s heart was pounding with the excitement of knowing that Martha might be less than a mile away. He could feel the blood surging through his veins as he realized that the end of a journey that started nearly a year before had finally been reached. Now he must confirm whether or not Martha was actually here. After looking over the layout of the village from the ridge, they agreed that there was very little concealment nearby. If they were going to scout the camp up close, it was going to have to be at night.
“Best thing we can do right now,” Badger advised, “is head for them hills over there.” He pointed toward a chain of hills off to the west toward the mountains. “Find us a place to leave these packhorses.” He was also thinking of the best possible avenue of escape if indeed they were successful in rescuing Clay’s sister. He could already picture a desperate race for their lives with a horde of angry Blackfoot warriors on their tails. They would have a better chance in the hills. Knowing what Badger had in mind, Clay agreed, and they rode westward along the ridge until the hills between them and the village blocked their view.
Crossing the creek well below the Blackfoot camp, they rode up through the tree-covered slopes until they found a narrow gulch running down toward a tiny stream winding its way drunkenly through a tiny meadow. After scouting the meadow for sign, they decided that it was well off the beaten path of the
Blackfoot hunters. In fact, there were no tracks to be found, not even old ones. So they hobbled the horses and waited for darkness.
It was a long wait for Clay Culver. Now that he was so close to Martha, he could not help but worry. He had waited so many long days to find her that he feared something might happen to prevent him from reaching her. What if it was not the right village? But it had to be. The trail from Charley’s grave led straight to this camp. It was the right village, and the murdering savage he had built up such a hatred for was in that village. Black Elk. The mere thought of the man caused his muscles to tense, and he unconsciously dropped his hand to the handle of his knife.
I’ll open his throat the same way he did for poor Charley.
He glanced over at Badger, his head propped up on his saddle, his hat pulled down over his eyes, sleeping the innocent sleep of the newborn. Clay shook his head, amazed at the man’s lack of concern. Then he got to his feet and walked up to the top of the gulch to take a look around.