In the Season of the Sun (43 page)

“Shit,” Tom muttered and swung up into the saddle. Jacob passed him his rifle. Tom nodded his thanks. “You tell your red-heathen friends to let his scalp be. You hear?”

Jacob frowned at his brother's tone of voice. “Heathens? My people walk closer with the Great Spirit than any of Kilhenny's bunch.”

Tom watched as Pike's body was carried back into the trees. “Better watch out, Jacob. They'll have you believing all their shell-rattling and prayer fires, mark my words.” Tom Milam looked over at Tewa, who held her elk horn bow with an arrow already notched in the sinew string. “You tell your braves I'll be riding in the lead. And we got one of your Injun friends trussed up in the wagon, so mark their targets.”

“Lone Walker?”

“Yeah,” Tom said. He'd overhead the Shoshoni call their prisoner by name.

Jacob's heart already felt lighter. He turned toward the wall of brush. “Lone Walker is here!” His voice carried to the women hidden behind the dry-brush barricade, Sparrow Woman among them. The wife of Lone Walker closed her eyes and tears of relief spilled down her cheeks. Lone Walker had promised her he would always return. Once again he had kept that promise.

“Lone Walker's that special?” Tom asked.

“He's my father,” Jacob answered.

“Joseph Milam was your father or have you forgot?”

“I have spent half my life with one, half with the other. I cannot love one less, the other more.”

Tom dropped his gaze to the blood drying on the sun-washed, grassy slope. “Neither can I,” he said. He could sense Jacob's alarm. “Don't worry, brother. I'll do what needs to be done.”

Tom swung around and started back the way he had come. He paused once as if plagued by something left unsaid. He looked at Jacob, confused and unsure of what was to be.

For a brief moment Jacob hoped his brother would return. Together they could formulate a new plan to lure Kilhenny into the pass. Yet, even as he wished it so, Jacob realized how the years stretched like an unbridgeable chasm between Tom and himself.

There was no crossing over. And no turning back.

The minutes crawled past. Jacob tried to make them count. He rode among the women hidden behind the wall of dry brush and made sure each wife, sister, or mother was supplied with a lighted torch to set afire the massive tumble-weeds, or a knife to cut them loose and send them rolling down the slope.

Sparrow Woman had brought a parfleche of cold fry bread and dried meat. Little Plume and Good Bear Woman and several other women brought water to the men on the hillsides and when all had drunk their fill returned to their places by the underbrush, finding rest in the lazy morning, taking time to gossip nervously among themselves, dreading the violence to come.

Sparrow Woman embraced her adopted son as he walked past. She seemed more beautiful than he could remember in the emerald-tinted sunlight. Whatever her own fears she hid them well.

“Mother, keep as far back among the trees as possible when the shooting starts.”

“I will be where I am needed,” Sparrow Woman replied.

Jacob gave up trying to argue with her. She could be as stubborn as a she-bear in a honey grove. He accepted a chunk of fry bread from her. His stomach was tied in a knot, but he knew it made her feel better to feed him, so he ate despite his lack of hunger. And so Sparrow Woman left him, satisfied with herself.

A bee landed on the fringed sleeve of Jacob's beaded buckskin shirt. The insect had alighted for a momentary rest between its hive and the patches of purple-pink bitterroots and crimson Indian paintbrush sprouting from the parched earth. Jacob allowed the insect its moment of respite. The bee as quickly launched itself yet again, then darted through the brambles and out into freedom.

Freedom. Jacob liked the sound of the word. That's what it meant to be a Blackfoot and to roam Ever Shadow … to be free.

Tewa caught his attention, She had ridden up from the village after making certain the old ones and children were hidden in the forest beyond Medicine Lake. She didn't come alone: Two Stars was with her.

Two Stars turned his sightless gaze toward Jacob, and Tewa whispered in her grandfather's ear.

“You don't need to tell me,” the irascible old chief exclaimed. “I know it's him. Even after all these years he still walks like a white man.” Two Stars spoke gruffly, but he followed his comments with a laugh. Then Tewa guided his hands to one of the rawhide ropes tethering a mass of firebrush to a pine sapling. Two Stars seemed satisfied by her placement of him and he patted the knife sheathed at his waist. “I will know when to cut it.”

“What are you doing, old one?” Jacob asked of him.

“All that the darkness and age allows,” Two Stars replied, turning in Jacob's direction. He stretched out a leathery hand and Jacob stepped within his reach. Calling Dove, the blind man's wife, had marked Two Stars' wrinkled features with war paint. Streaks of white clay covered his forehead and eyelids. Two Stars touched his fingers to his own eyes and then to Jacob's. “You must fight for me, grandson. May you be sharp eyed as I once was and your aim be true. I am old, but the rising sun warms me. And if I am to die, then let it be on such a fine day.”

“I had the vision of sight,” Jacob said. “Now, Grandfather, you have given me the vision of wisdom.”

“There is a time for wisdom and a time to shoot straight.”

“I see them! They have started through the pass,” Otter Tail called out, trotting up from the barricade.

Half a dozen braves followed him. Jacob knew them all, for they were Crazy Dogs, warriors who would fight to the death rather than flee from battle. Twenty more braves positioned themselves near the bales of underbrush, their rifles loaded and willow-wood longbows held at the ready. Jacob imagined the same scene being repeated on the opposite slope, where Yellow Eagle and the remnants of the Kit Fox Clan joined with the Buffalo Hat warriors and Bowstring Clan. The jaws of the trap were complete.

“Perhaps some of us should block the other end of the pass to keep any of our enemy from reaching our village,” Otter Tail suggested.

“Good idea,” Jacob said. “I'll go with you.”

“And I,” Tewa said.

Jacob started to protest, then held his tongue, realizing he'd let his heart rule his head. Tewa's elk horn bow was useless from the hillside. But on horseback and charging through the ranks of the trappers, she was probably more dangerous than any man.

Tewa did not wait for permission. She needed none. Her lithe body vaulted onto the back of her mountain-bred mare and only looked once to see what was keeping Jacob. She was one with him. She would accept nothing less than to charge into battle at his side. It was the way of a warrior woman—Tewa's way and Tewa's love.

And so they rode into the Medicine Lake pass, Kilhenny's army, determined to follow him to heaven or hell as long as there was a profit to be found.

Coyote Kilhenny and Tom Milam took the lead and kept to a brisk pace, for the half-breed didn't like the way the hills rose to either side and the strange barrier of underbrush among the trees unsettled him. But Tom continually reassured him that he and Pike had thoroughly searched the hills right up to the tree line and found nothing to fear. Pike was another matter. Where the devil was he? Toward the middle of the column, Skintop Pritchard cocked his rifle and scrutinized the walls of the pass. Tom claimed he and Pike had silenced two braves stationed as lookouts. That meant the Blackfoot wouldn't know what hit them when the nine-pounder opened up and seventy wild buckskin-clad berserkers cut loose on the village. Pritchard licked his lips in anticipation. It was gonna be a fine day, just fine.

Con Vogel dropped back toward the wagon, taking comfort in the proximity of the cannon. He'd been reassured by Kilhenny that savages invariably feared such a weapon for the havoc and destruction the gun could wreak over a long distance. Now, the only problem with keeping close to the wagon was having to listen to their prisoner's low-voiced chant. Vogel found it difficult to ignore. He heard Bud Ousley curse the Blackfoot as well. Vogel couldn't figure out why someone didn't just silence Lone Walker permanently.

Iron Mike rode the wagon like a chariot. He stood in the back with his rifle primed and ready. Like Coyote Kilhenny, Iron Mike had a sixth sense when it came to Indians. And right now he felt an itch he just couldn't scratch, a premonition, or just plain gut feeling, that there were Blackfeet present. He had to remind himself that Tom Milam had checked out the pass and pronounced it safe. While Iron Mike had no use for young Milam, the trapper in the wagon also knew Tom to be a shrewd woodsman and not one to be taken lightly in a fight. The red devil wasn't born who could fool the lad. So Iron Mike kept his misgivings to himself. He tore a strip of cloth from an empty shot bag and gagged his prisoner and nodded in satisfaction.

“Well done,” Vogel said. Ousley, driving the team of horses, breathed a sigh of relief.

The men bringing up the rear of the column raised a cheer and then fanned out, taking care not to bunch together.

“Where the blue blazes are the birds? Even that red tail's skedaddled.” Kilhenny shaded his eyes as he sat astride his sturdy roan. “I don't like it.” The half-breed glanced aside at Tom. “Where did you and Pike knife them lookouts?”

“One on either rim,” Tom lied. They were already well into the pass. He wondered what was taking Jacob so damn long? Nothing stirred save the dust churned by the iron-shod shoes of the horses. No sound save the jingle of harness and the creak of the wagon axle and the muted conversations of the trappers as they rode into the Blackfoot stronghold.

“I smell smoke,” Kilhenny declared, wrinkling his nostrils and holding his head high to the wind. He straightened in the saddle. “By damn I do.”

“From the village. It's not far now.”

“Village? The hell you say. Are you blind, Tom?” Kilhenny pointed at the bundled drybrush that had suddenly begun to smolder and catch flame. Kilhenny spun his horse and shouted to the column behind him. “Pritchard, take some men and flush what you can from the thickets!”

Skintop Pritchard nodded and as quickly dispatched five men toward the west rim and led another four up the east slope. At the rear of the column Iron Mike ordered Ousley to halt the wagon and help him load the nine-pounder.

“I don't like this,” Kilhenny repeated as the bordering underbrush burst into flames. The half-breed returned his attention to the trail ahead. His expression betrayed even more alarm as Jacob Sun Gift, Tewa, Otter Tail, and Crazy Dog rounded a low hill and placed themselves directly in the center of the pass but outside the trap.

Kilhenny remembered the yellow-haired, white-skinned renegade who had tried to kill him. He had escaped from Fort Promise and returned to plague Kilhenny once more.

“Who the hell is he?” Kilhenny said, pulling a pistol from his belt as he fought to keep his skittish roan under control.

“Jacob Milam,” Tom replied softly in an icy voice.

Kilhenny's jaw went slack. For him, time stood still and a grim realization burrowed into his mind replete with memories of the Platte River massacre—Joseph Milam and the rest of the families who had trusted Kilhenny lying dead in the dust of their dreams. Jacob Milam … alive? And if Tom knew that, what else did he know? Everything!

Farther up the pass Jacob raised his rifle and loosed a terrible war cry that reverberated the length and breadth of the pass. At his signal the women on the hills rushed forward, braving the blazing underbrush to sever the ropes while the warriors started the manmade tumbleweeds rolling downslope. They used their spears for levers, and the fiery bales, once pushed into motion, wouldn't be stopped.

Skintop Pritchard and the rest of the men were caught completely off guard in mid-slope. The wall of underbrush burst into flame and then began to move. Pritchard fired into the barrier and the men around him followed suit.

Pritchard tried to turn his gelding out of the path of the fire. He pulled too sharply on the reins. The horse panicked as the flames licked its hooves. He felt the animal falter beneath him and leapt free as the gelding stumbled and slid into another rider, sending man and horse in a vicious head-over-heels, crippling fall.

Pritchard rose up on his knees, looked upslope, raised his hands to his face, and ducked down as a fiery bale rolled over him, setting the trapper's clothes ablaze. Pritchard shrieked and scrambled to his feet and tried to beat out the flames. But his greasy buckskins burned like a torch. He ran and danced and beat at himself to no avail. His course grew more erratic, his motions more leaden. His cries became a guttural whisper, then ended. What toppled to the ground no longer even resembled a man.

51

T
he fiery avalanche continued down the hillsides, leaving a trail of flames in their wake. The trappers tried to arrange some form of battle line, but the flaming barricade tumbled through their ranks and scattered the riders, destroying any semblance of a defense. As the blaze raged through the pass, the Blackfeet on the hillsides opened up with rifles and bows. Kilhenny's men pitched from horseback, and riderless mounts scurried toward the south entrance to the pass as the grass fire gradually closed off this last avenue of escape.

Kilhenny turned his horse and took in the debacle at a glance. The air rang with the thunder of guns and the screams of the dying and the crackle of flames. War cries rent the air both from the hillsides and the north end of the pass, where Jacob and the others charged the already disheartened trappers.

“I should have left you to die,” Kilhenny bellowed, his features grown livid with rage. He whipped his horse into a gallop and ran the gauntlet of pandemonium and death. Tom raised his rifle and for a moment held Coyote Kilhenny in his sights but could not bring himself to pull the trigger, despite his pretense of ruthlessness and his desire for revenge. So he drove his heels into the flanks of his own frightened mount and followed Kilhenny into the hellish conflagration.