Beneath a Dakota Cross (14 page)

Rain ran off his beard, but his mouth was dry, his lips chapped.

He could smell a wet prairie, a wet horse, a wet, wool saddle blanket, and a dirty, wet canvas coat.

There was no movement that he didn't make.

No sound other than his own and Coco's.

At a clump of sage, much similar to the one where he spent the night, he cut the trail of a single rider. It had traveled perpendicular to the direction he was going.

It's been plastered down, and the low spots are holdin' puddles of water . . . maybe today . . . maybe several days old . . . rain makes it impossible to tell. But it's the freshest trail I've seen. 'Course, it could be Indian tracks. The horse was shoed. They could have stole him. He's headed south. That would be Sioux country. Could be one of their scouts.

But the Sioux aren't south of here . . . they're west of here. Any brave would know that. It could be someone who thinks he's headed towards the Sioux. Who in his right mind would do that?

Or
her
right mind.

I refuse to believe my Dacee June would ride off into a storm, across Indian land, on her own. No sir, I don't believe that.

Brazos turned southwest and followed the tracks until he came to an outcropping of limestone rocks no bigger than a shed. In the midst of the boulders was a small circle of wet, black ashes.

No tellin' how long ago that fire was lit. Probably isn't Sioux. They wouldn't feel the need to hide in these rocks.

Brazos climbed down to the muddy prairie, reins in his left hand, carbine in his right. He approached the fire circle. He dug the toe of his boot deep into the soaked ashes, then dragged the boot a second time, plowing a little furrow in the muddy prairie beneath where the fire had been.

The furrow began to seep full of water, and he squatted down, tugging off the leather glove on his right hand. He reached deep into the muddy furrow with his fingers, then stood straight up.

That ground is still warm! All this rain is from this morning. Someone camped here last night!

One man out on the prairie?

Or one little girl?

She knows how to camp. I took her to round up wild cattle on Cowhorse Creek that time, and she insisted on doin' all the camp chores. Only nine, and she built the fire and baked me a Dutch oven peach cobbler. Then she sat around the fire singing church songs. Remember that, Lord? The sweetest little voice in Texas. I know you remember. “And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior's blood? . . .” Charles Wesley, you never sounded better than that night.

Brazos allowed the tears to mingle with the rain on his bearded cheeks and searched the ground trying to find boot prints, but could locate no identifiable ones. Even the horse prints were beginning to fade in the water and mud.

Someone's a few hours ahead of me riding south. Sooner or later they'll run into the Bad River, then they'll have to go east or west.

Lord, if it's Dacee June, may she turn east.

If it's anyone other than a Lakota Sioux, may they turn east!

Brazos followed the muddy track to the next rise, then dropped off the shelf of the prairie. The clouds remained at the higher elevation, and his vision improved to several hundred yards. There was still no one in sight, and the horse prints were blending into the muddy ground. He thought he spotted a reflection of a ribbon of water stretching south. He rode Coco east about thirty feet, then stood in the stirrups. He pulled out his spectacles and jammed them on his cold, rain-drenched nose.

By studying the ground directly in front of him and tracing it due south, he began to connect the reflections.

It's a wagon track! A light wagon. A carriage . . . no one in their right mind would bring a carriage this far from Fort Pierre!

Brazos could feel his head begin to throb. He pushed his hat back a little.

But someone did come out here.

And someone else is following the carriage.

Brazos rode south following the carriage tracks marked by standing water. Both knees stiffened in the cold and began to ache. He kicked his feet out of the stirrups and tried to ride with his legs stretched.

I'm too old for this land.

It's a young man's world up here. Wild. Primitive. Unspoiled. Harsh. Dangerous.

I'll be fifty in the spring.

A sharp pain settled in his lower back, and he tried to straighten up, even with the storm in his face.

Good heavens, Sarah Ruth, you always were the only one with common sense. Sometimes life is like a dream. This is not real. I'm not soaking wet on the prairie searching for my little girl. Dacee June is home on the ranch . . . in the kitchen learning how to cook with you, darlin'. Veronica and Patricia are on the porch sewing. Todd, Samuel and Robert are branding down at the corral, and I'm trying to put hobbles on a rank mustang that I captured down at Black Butte.

There's a warm gulf breeze rustling the leaves of the pecan tree near the barn. The dog is barkin' at the big, gray cat that's sittin' on a fence post, ignorin' the entire world. The branch water is runnin' clear, and corn and peas in the garden is head high.

Now, that's real life.

The way it's supposed to be.

This is just a dream.

He felt an uneasiness in the pit of his stomach. Almost like a cramp. Almost like needing to vomit.

It's a lousy, cold, painful, confusing dream.

It's like I'm up there with you just lookin' down at all of this.

Brazos cocked the hammer back on the Sharps carbine that lay across his lap. For a moment he thought about squeezing off a round, just to hear the sound.

Sarah Ruth . . . I'm either freezin' to death or startin' to lose my mind. And I don't know which would be worse. Something's wrong here, Lord. I'm gettin' disoriented.

Brazos pushed his hat back and wiped his bandanna across his forehead which was covered with cold rain and hot sweat.

This is not good, Lord. I'm not findin' my baby girl. I've got to get back to town.

I've got to stop and build a fire.

I'm gettin' dizzy. I should've eaten something besides coffee and jerked meat.

He slumped forward and felt the saddle horn brush across his stomach.

I've got to keep from fallin' off my saddle.

Lord Jesus . . . it's all up to you now.

A sharp pain hit Brazos in the right shoulder when he rubbed it to loosen the muscles, and then his entire right side cramped up with a sharp pain.

I've got to lay down. I've got to rest. I could sleep in the mud. It ­doesn't matter . . . nothin' seems to matter.

In the distance to the south of him he heard a rain-muffled report of a rifle, followed by four or five more shots. The cramp in his side started to fade as he stood in the stirrups and tried to peer across the cloudy prairie.

That's a gunfight!

Brazos spurred Coco's flanks and began to trot south. He counted five more shots fired. By the time he reached the top of the next rise in the rolling prairie, the pain in his knees had melted away. He wiped the rain off his spectacles and replaced them on his nose. He rode Coco over to a patch of sage and peered down as the prairie sloped to a narrow river, lined with leafless cottonwoods and brush.

Must be the Wapka Shicha . . . the Bad River. I'm that far south?
Even in the dampness of the day, he could spot the gunsmoke from a rifle a split second before the report reached him.

I don't know whether the rider has pinned the people in the carriage, or the carriage has pinned the rider.

Maybe this has nothing to do with either!

Following a row of sage, Brazos rode closer to the river and continued to listen to the sporadic gunfire.

Scattered shots . . . no one's getting a look at the enemy . . . repeaters . . . lever action guns . . . but that's a single shot returning fire.

.45-70.

Trapdoor.

That's an army man.

At least, an army gun.

Brazos leaped to the ground when he spotted the five ponies, the carbine at his shoulder. Three of the horses were covered with Indian saddles. The .50-caliber bullet shattered the sapling that the horses were tied to, and all five mounts stampeded towards the east. He squeezed off another shot at the hooves of the lead horse and the cavvy galloped out on the prairie. A buckskin-clad Indian darted out from behind a cottonwood stump and sprinted in the direction of the horses.

Brazos followed him with the metal sights of the Sharps carbine.

Mister Indian, I squeeze off this trigger and you're dead.

Brazos raised his head up off the carbine.
Lord, I can't shoot someone without knowin' why. I reckon I'm not too good at killin'.

An explosion rang out, and the bark flew on the tree next to his right shoulder.

Now his single shot cannoned from his shoulder.

Boom!

He shoved another bullet into the chamber.

Boom!

And another.

Boom!

The report from the .50 Sharps was deep, loud, and bounced off the low clouds as Brazos threw the three shots in rapid succession into the clump of cottonwoods.

Several shots were randomly fired his way, then two more buckskin clad Indians dashed toward the direction of the fleeing horses. The horses bolted out of sight, with three fleeing Indians in dogged pursuit. Brazos led Coco closer to the river. He stopped behind the safety of a large, leafless cottonwood.

“Mister? Are you all right in there? Did you take any lead?” Brazos shouted.

There was a pause. Then a deep, crisp reply. “No, sir! Did any of you get shot?”

When Brazos heard the voice, it was like a warm sip of hot coffee after a long, cold night. It gave him the same rush of warmth that he had felt sitting in the audience when a thirteen-year-old boy won the blue ribbon for steer raising at the Coryell County Fair.

“No one shot out here,” Brazos replied. “You're alone, aren't you?”

“Yes, sir,” the man shouted back. “How many's out there with you?”

“It's just me.”

“All those shots from one gun?”

“I got a little excited with my ol' Sharps, Sergeant.”

“I can't see you, mister. Can you see me? How did you know I was a sergeant? Did you say . . . a Sharps?”

The cloud cover was still thick, but Brazos thought for a minute it felt like spring. He thought about singing.

“Say,” the man yelled out. “You wouldn't happen to be a decrepit old man from Coryell County, Texas, who totes a Sharps carbine and refuses to wear a sidearm, would you?”

“Keep yourself hidden, Robert, I'm not sure when those Sioux will be back . . .”

“They're Sahiyela and Lakota. But I haven't seen you in over a year. I don't plan on hidin' in the brush now.”

“Is your pony OK?”

“I got him here with me,” Robert said.

“Ride through the brush down the river. I'll watch from here to see that they don't back-trail you. I'll catch up a few miles west of here,” Brazos instructed.

“I presume you are out here lookin' for Dacee June?” Robert shouted.

“I'm out here lookin' for two of my children. I found one.”

Brazos waited almost five minutes. The Indian braves didn't return, so he mounted and rode east along the Bad River. He spotted the dark blue raincoat of a tall, thin young man standing beside a long-legged, yellow-maned, light sorrel gelding wearing a McClellan saddle.

Brazos dismounted.

Robert pushed his hat back and gave him a brief salute. “I'm glad to see you, Father.”

“You salute officers, young man. But you hug your daddy, you understand that?”

“Yes, sir!” Robert was the same height as Brazos, and the two men found themselves hugging dripping wet coats. Brazos thought it might have been one of the best hugs he had received in his life.

“You're an answer to my prayers, son.”

“I was doin' a lot of prayin' holdin' off those Indians by myself. I didn't know the Lord would use one old man to deliver me. They're supposed to be way south of here. I didn't expect them this far north, or east.”

“There are several hundred lodges of Sioux and Cheyenne between here and the Black Hills.”

Robert stepped back in surprise. “That's just an army bluff, to keep people out of the hills.”

“I'm afraid not. I skirted their camp comin' out.”

“I don't think the army knows about that,” Robert said.

“I presume Sergeant Fortune will inform them. Let's build a fire, Son.”

“What if the Indians sneak back here and attack us?”

“Then I'll die warm. My bones are freezin', Son.”

He looked Robert over from head to toe. Clean shaven. Neatly trimmed mustache. Steel-gray eyes. Square chin. Broad shoulders. The kind that won't back down when he's right. The kind that's right most of the time. “Son, findin' you out here is one of my life's most cherished blessings.”

“Well, you're going to be double-blessed when we find Dacee June.”

Both men scouted the brush along the river for anything that would burn on a wet day.

“Did you get a telegram from your Uncle Milton?” Brazos asked.

“Yes, sir. I didn't know how to reach you. I figured you went out of the Black Hills with General Crook, but I hadn't heard from you in months. I sent a telegram down to a friend at Fort Russell who was goin' to try to find you in Cheyenne City. I thought maybe you'd be headin' home for Christmas.”