Son of the Hawk (33 page)

Seeing that Booth was just about to lose consciousness, Trace eased his grip on the scoundrel’s throat slightly. “Where is the boy?” he demanded. “Is he alive?”

His windpipe already partially crushed, Booth could barely whisper. “If I tell you, will you let me go?” he rasped.

Too enraged to lie, Trace replied, “I’ll let you go to hell where you belong.”

Clearly seeing the end of his evil life only moments away, Booth resigned himself to his death, and in one last act of spite, said, “He’s dead, and you can go to hell.”

The pronouncement hit Trace like a rifle shot, and he clamped down on Booth’s neck, slowly crushing the life from his lungs. He held the hated renegade in his death grip long after Booth’s body went limp—his face now a terrified mask with bulging eyeballs that seemed to have stared Satan in the eye. Finally, Trace flung the lifeless body from him and stood up. Looking back toward the fire, he discovered Charlie White Bull painfully straining to drag himself to his rifle.

Trace walked over to the tree, picked up the rifle and tossed it out of reach. Seeing that Trace was coming to finish him off, Charlie pulled his knife from his belt, and falling back on his side, waited for Trace to attack. Trace paused for a moment to stand over the mortally wounded half-breed, his eyes blazing with hatred. Then suddenly he struck, kicking the knife from Charlie’s hand and pinning him to the ground before the half-breed could react.

Charlie tried to resist, but already he was too weak from the loss of blood to put up much of a fight. Seeing death reflected in the tall mountain man’s eyes, Charlie gave up his struggles and started to chant his death song.

“Is the boy dead?” Trace asked.

“No,” Charlie answered weakly, “he’s with the Gros Ventres on the Yellowstone.” The half-breed saw no reason to lie at his hour of death.

Trace released his hold on the dying man, and got to his feet. He stood over him once more and watched the man’s agonized struggling. Then he pulled out his pistol
and put a ball into Charlie’s brain, ending the half-breed’s torment, a payment for his honesty. With the sudden report of the pistol, everything seemed to go silent. Even the wind stopped its whispered song through the pine needles, and Trace felt a heavy cloak of melancholy fall about his shoulders. Instead of the sweet release of vengeance he had long anticipated when the score had been settled with Blue Water’s killers, he found that he was only saddened more by her loss. The loss was even more devastating because he had really never had the opportunity to know her as his wife. Looking now at the two bodies sprawled before him, he wanted to cry out to the spirits that this was not enough. Then he thought of the boy—their son, his and Blue Water’s, and he gathered his emotions again and tucked them away deep inside where he always kept private thoughts—away from the rest of the world—and turned his mind toward rescuing his son.

Without bothering to drag the two corpses away from the campsite, Trace lay down by the fire and slept the sleep of the weary. Sometime during the night, he awakened and, realizing his carelessness, unsaddled his horse and took the packs from his packhorse. Then he lay down again and slept until dawn.

Rested now, he was eager to complete his quest. Before bidding the late Booth Dalton and Charlie White Bull farewell, he gathered their weapons and ammunition. With his own bow and quiver once again on his back, he took the silver watch from Booth’s pocket, opened it, and read the inscription.
THOMAS L. FARRIOR, LOVE FROM ANNIE
. It would mean a great deal to Annie to have this returned. He tied the gray spotted pony behind his packhorse and cut the other horses loose. With the job he had ahead of him, he couldn’t bother
with extra horses. Everything finished there, he turned the paint’s head toward the Yellowstone.

*   *   *

For the past week, Wounded Horse had kept his village in a state of readiness. Every day scouts went out to scour the surrounding prairie and hills, watching for signs of the Mountain Hawk. Fire That Burns had told of dreams he’d had that foretold of the coming of this white man-spirit. For three nights in a row, he had dreamed of hawks—there could be no other interpretation. There had been many dances celebrating the honor and prestige that would come to the village when the golden scalp of the Mountain Hawk was displayed on the council lodge.

While White Eagle was treated with kindness, he soon found that he was still regarded as a captive. He was never allowed to leave the village alone. When he asked old Three Toes why the men of the village appeared to be preparing for war, he was told that it was nothing but springtime ceremonies. The boy suspected there was more to it than that, but he could not get any more information out of the old man, and Three Toes’s wife never spoke to White Eagle at all.

*   *   *

Several miles away, Trace knelt down to examine the tracks of two horses in a patch of snow. They were recent enough to tell him that he must be getting close to a village. He must exercise even more caution now to avoid encountering any Gros Ventre hunting parties. After another mile or so up the valley, the hunting trails grew more numerous, and he decided it was time to find a place to hide his horses. Most of his scouting would be on foot from that point and under the cover of darkness.

On the eastern side of a low line of hills, he finally found what he was looking for, a sheltered defile that
was ringed by thick pines—close enough to the village that he could hear occasional voices on the wind. Here he made his camp and waited for nightfall.

When the last few shafts of light finally faded away, he laid his rifle aside. Taking up his bow and knife, he left his hideaway and started for the Gros Ventre camp. There was still too much snow on the ground to avoid leaving tracks altogether, so he would just have to trust to luck, and try to mix his tracks with others that he encountered.

Long before he had made his way up a low hill some two hundred yards from the village, he could see the glow of a huge fire reflected on the dark clouds overhead, and hear the chanting of a war dance.
Sounds like they’re getting ready for something big
, he thought. Upon reaching the top of the hill, he saw the Gros Ventre village before him, spread along the riverbank. He estimated over a hundred tipis, and a large pony herd below the camp. It would not be an easy task to find the boy, especially at night, but the risk of getting close to the camp in daylight was too great.

Twice, while making his way down the hill and across the narrow valley floor, he was forced to stop and take cover to prevent encounters with a Gros Ventre rider patrolling the perimeter of the camp. It caused him to wonder. It was not the usual routine for a camp this size, especially in winter. Possibly the village was expecting an attack from some enemy.

When at last he worked his way up behind the outermost lodges, he began to edge his way around the camp, sometimes on his hands and knees, trying to find some clue that might indicate where White Eagle was being held. There was not much he could see. Still he continued to work his way around the camp, watching the people of the village as they either joined in or watched the dancers. There were many children
in the camp, but none that could be distinguished as White Eagle. Finally he had to admit that his efforts were meeting only with frustration, and he backed away a bit to contemplate his situation.

After giving it much thought, he decided that it would be impossible to find White Eagle at night. He could be in any one of over one hundred tipis. It was going to be risky as hell, but he was going to have to find a place to hide himself in the daylight, close enough to see the goings and comings of the village.

He spent the rest of the night trying to find a proper location to hide himself. An ideal spot would be on a rise on the west side of the camp in a stand of trees, but he rejected it because the sun would be directly in his eyes for much of the early morning. Stopping once again to lay flat on his stomach as another Gros Ventre warrior rode by, he then made his way along the riverbank until he found a place that might be suitable. In fact, it may have been made to order. A large log lay close to the river, held on the bank by two smaller trees. By scooping out the snow between the two trees, Trace found that he could fashion a sizable hole beneath the log. Once he had dug out enough to accommodate his body, he crawled inside. Using his bow as a rake, he pulled the snow back up to the log and smoothed it out as best he could. He could only hope he did an adequate job of disguising his handiwork—daylight would be the ultimate judge. There was nothing to do now but wait for morning, so he made himself as comfortable as he could under the circumstances, knowing that if he were discovered, this snowbank would be his coffin.

When the sun rose the following morning, Trace was surprised to find that he had dozed off during the wee hours before dawn. For now he could already hear sounds of the village waking up. Anxious to see
if his snow cave gave him the vantage point he had thought it would during the dark of night, he raked a small observation hole under the log. He was disappointed to find that he could only see about half of the camp—but that half he could at least see clearly. It might be necessary to find a better spot, but for now, he had no choice but to stay where he was, maybe even until that night.

Hours passed and Trace watched as the daily life of the Gros Ventre village unfolded. A few of the women cooked the morning meal outside, even though there was still snow on the ground. Smoke from the smoke-flaps of the tipis was evidence that the majority preferred the comfort inside the warm lodges. Cramped and hungry, Trace envied those warriors still in their fur robes as he rubbed his arms and legs to stimulate some circulation.

Gradually the village came to life. Some of the men went to tend their horses, only a few prepared to go hunting, a fact that puzzled Trace. He saw many young boys running between the lodges, but none that looked like White Eagle. After a while, he began to wonder if the half-breed had lied to him about the boy. As he grew more and more uncomfortable, he started to question the wisdom in burying himself in this frigid hole.

Later in the morning he spotted the chief of this band of Gros Ventres. His lodge was in the center of the village, close to what appeared to be a council lodge. From the manner in which other men of the camp approached this man, Trace could tell that he was either a chief or at least a respected member of the tribe. As Trace watched, an old warrior came from one of the lodges close to the chief’s and went to talk to him. Then the older man returned to his tipi and said something to someone inside. A few moment
later, White Eagle emerged and went around behind the tipi to relieve himself in a patch of bushes.

He was no more than fifty yards away. Trace could feel the muscles in his arms tense, and he had to remind himself to remain calm. Had there not been twenty or thirty warriors milling about, he might have made a move to grab the boy right then. But he knew that would be suicide, and it would get both of them killed. He turned his attention back to the old warrior who positioned himself a few yards away from White Eagle, obviously guarding the boy. Even though he would have to wait for a better opportunity, Trace now knew which lodge White Eagle was being held in.

Suddenly he heard a voice behind him, and he was sure he had been discovered. Quickly turning over to defend himself, he expected to find someone pulling the snow away from the log. Instead, he saw two Gros Ventre women walking to the water’s edge. During the early hours, the snow had evidently fallen away from the log, creating a long narrow gap through which he could clearly see the two women. Every nerve in his body seemed to be twitching at once. If they chanced to turn in his direction, they could not help but discover him, stretched out under the log. At that moment, he wondered how far he could get before a Gros Ventre war pony ran him to ground after the women screamed in alarm.

A stupid way to die
, he thought. But the women turned away from him and began to fill their water skins. Lying as still as he possibly could, he listened to their conversation.

“My husband refuses to go out to hunt, and I have cooked the last of that puny deer. I’ll see how he likes eating nothing but pemmican.”

Her companion laughed. “Mine, too. None of the
men want to be away from the village when the Mountain Hawk comes for his son.”

Hearing her words, Trace was astonished.
They know I am coming?
White Eagle must have said he would come. How else could they know?

Listening again, he heard the first woman say, “My husband says that Lame Elk thinks this hawk is a mortal man, but Wounded Horse is certain he is a spirit.”

“My husband agrees with Wounded Horse,” the second woman replied. “He knows the Blackfoot chief who saw the white man turn into a hawk and fly away.”

Trace didn’t listen closely to the rest of their conversation, his mind was too busy working on the startling information just heard. This news changed his plans dramatically. Thinking before that his task would be simply to steal into the camp at night and take the boy, hopefully while everyone was asleep, he now had to consider other factors. Now he understood the roving sentinels that constantly scouted around the perimeter of the camp. The whole village was waiting for him to show up. With his original plan, he felt it would have been highly likely that the Indians would think White Eagle had run away on his own. They might not have even cared enough to go after him. But now Trace could see the stakes were higher—the Gros Ventres were intent upon killing what they thought to be a spirit. When he took the boy, they would most definitely come after them. He would have to think on it, come up with some way to ensure a good head start after he got the boy.

During the morning, several more women followed the same path to the river to fill waterskins while Trace lay hidden in his cave. Stiff and fidgety, he longed to extricate himself from his snowy grave but was resolved that he must wait until darkness. Later on in
the afternoon, he came to change his mind, for more than an hour had passed with no one venturing close to his hiding place, not even the mounted perimeter guards. His discomfort had advanced to the point where he was approaching a reckless state of mind, causing him to conclude that there was little risk that he would be seen.