Blood Feather (13 page)

At the restaurant an hour later, he sat down with Belle and Zach Banta.

“Annabelle,” he said, “not only do we all want to get Missy back safely, but Mr. Pinkerton wants Joshua to get thees Blood Feather killer very badly. We weel spend whatever money we need to, to help Joshua. I weel send a paid posse out tomorrow to look for him.”

Zach said, “Wal I reckon thet is a right good idea, and yer better to hire three really good men, instead of ten outta the saloon. I'll help ya find some good ones thet know the area and how to git around in the mountains.”

11

Frozen Hell

The sun was out and snow was melting but still very deep in many places. Joshua could not wait any longer. Gabriel had to have some graze. He also knew that Blood Feather would not stay holed up for very long. He broke camp, saddled up Gabe, and left his cocoon of warmth and safety for several days.

Strongheart looked at the snow in all directions and saw that it got considerably deeper as he rode back into the shade of the trees. He rode west for miles and crossed a high mountain meadow, the snowcapped peaks of the Sangre de Cristos jutting up into the sunlit sky to his front, with virgin snow all around and tall evergreens poking up here and there. The snow was deep here, coming up over his stirrups and boots in some spots. He and Gabe were trotting through the deep snow, piled in some places to where his movement was almost like bucking as he plunged through the deep stuff. He was moving at a very brisk pace, which was always his way, when suddenly it happened. Gabe's front legs went down into the snow and kept going down, down, down. He went forward in a roll, and Strongheart flew over his head, kicking his feet out of the stirrups. He went headfirst into snow with no bottom, but somehow still held the reins in one hand. Looking back, he saw the red-and-white horse lying on his side, kicking all four legs, hoping to regain his footing. Struggling to his own feet, Joshua tried not to panic because he kept sinking in the deep snow. They apparently were in a bowl, drifted over and filled with snow much higher than their heads.

One second Gabe was trotting, and the next they were both in icy claustrophobia. Strongheart could not see which way to go, but he knew one thing immediately. Gabe was panicked, and Strongheart didn't blame him. Joshua half swam and half tried to run in the deep morass of white. Gabe was behind him bucking and rearing, trying to lunge forward through the frozen quagmire, while Joshua wondered if he was going to die under those thrashing hooves. His normally trail-wise horse's eyes opened wide in sheer terror. He tried hard to stay calm and keep moving, but the white demons of snow and exertion were pulling on Joshua's joints, arm, and leg muscles. His right arm was outstretched behind him holding his horse, lest a flailing hoof strike one of Joshua's vertebrae, a kneecap, or his Achilles tendon and snap it like a twig. He could only see the overhead branches of the closest tree, so he kept that as his goal. There had to be a lee side of the tree with less snow, he figured.

He really started to get scared and truly wondered if he was going to die, up high on a frozen wilderness, trying to find a kidnapped girl and a psychotic killer.

Strongheart made the tree trunk and literally crawled around it to find he was out of the bowl. Still panicked and wide-eyed, Gabe followed in his wake, and both man and horse stood on the lee side of the tree, their sides heaving from exertion.

They trotted for several more miles and came in sight of the ranch yard and ranch house. Strongheart stayed out in the trees and circled around, checking the place carefully. He found fairly fresh tracks going west, and they were those of the draft horse and another horse. That gave him more hope that Missy was still alive. He decided to go in and check the ranch house and see what clues were there, and he simply had to find hay for Gabriel, or they would not be able to go much farther.

In the barn, he found hay, a grass and alfalfa mix. This entire Wet Mountain Valley was known for some of the best hay around, so Joshua felt very relieved to learn this rancher had indeed put up some good horse hay. Cows could eat anything, old, stale hay with mold, but horses had very sensitive digestive systems and had to be very carefully fed. This was especially true with alfalfa. There was another horse in the corral, so Joshua figured he would take it along as a pack animal. For now he had to limit the amount of alfalfa that Gabe ate, and he found some oats as well. He unsaddled the horse, knowing he simply would have to take the time to take care of his mount or lose him.

He would go inside, but only after checking around the outside first.

Joshua found where Blood Feather had dug through the snow to the two bodies. Joshua looked at the frozen bodies of husband and wife and shook his head. Then, he saw that Blood Feather had apparently dug through the snow to find them simply to cut the little fingers off both. Belle had told him about seeing the necklace of fingers around the killer's neck.

He went inside, but only after he happily saw where Missy had made tracks to and from the outhouse. The killer apparently knew that with the high snows she could not and would not even try running and hiding. He was also relieved to see by the rumpled blankets that Blood Feather had slept by the fire and that Missy had slept in the large feather bed.

Then a piece of firewood came crashing down on the back of Strongheart's head and everything went black.

The seven-foot-tall figure stood above his prostrate figure and simply stared. He pulled out the giant knife and rolled Joshua over with his foot. He knelt down, opened Strongheart's coat, tore open his shirt, and moved the knife down above his chest. He started to cut into the chest, and suddenly the scream stopped him.

Missy stood there, tears streaming down her cheeks, and she put her hand out in a halting gesture and shook her head while yelling, “No! No!”

Blood Feather stopped. He had been waiting for this opportunity and had hidden out in the trees watching, knowing Strongheart's heart would provide him with the strong medicine he needed to feel emotions without killing. However, this was the first time the little girl had uttered a word. She had special medicine from the Great Spirit, and Blood Feather did not want to do anything to upset that. His mind did not work like a normal person's, red or white. He thought maybe he would keep her longer and be careful. But at some point, when the Great Spirit gave him a sign, he would kill her and eat her heart, too. He would then become the mightiest warrior ever, with the strongest medicine. Although his blank expression belied it, he felt good inside, because he was not eating Strongheart's heart now. He felt good inside because he knew that this would truly terrorize the mighty warrior Strongheart, letting him know that Blood Feather could let him go and simply plan on killing him later. In the meantime, he would enjoy the challenge of being tracked and trailed by Joshua Strongheart. It would continue to help him feel alive, like he had ever since he took the girl with the powerful medicine.

She ran over and threw herself on Strongheart's chest, but
We Wiyake
lifted her up and carried her out the door. He closed the door behind him, but then turned around and reentered. He grabbed some firewood and put logs in the fireplace to build a fire. Blood Feather pointed at Strongheart and the fire, showing Missy that he had done this so she would approve, and they left. His feeling was that this brazen act would frighten Strongheart even more.

Strongheart lay on the floor in front of the fire, unmoving, dried blood on his massive chest where
We Wiyake
had just begun to cut.

* * *

The warrior moved so slowly through the dense forest, he was barely noticeable. Up close though, he was a marvelous specimen. He could look down and see the top of the head of almost any fellow Lakota Sioux he was ever with. In fact, he had to look down at most people.

Most items that he would grab ahold of would move. They had no choice if he wanted to move them. His long black hair was braided this day, and beneath the red and black war paint, which obscured most of his face, his cheekbones were high, his jaw firm and strong, and his lips thin. His eyes were special—deep, dark brown, they looked very intelligent and, at the same time, like he was always ready to smile.

They scoured the ground in front of him now, sweeping left to right, right to left in ten-foot arcs, and every few seconds he would look up in the trees. About once a minute, he would slowly turn his head and look behind at his backtrail, as the way you walk into an area does not necessarily look the same when you walk out.

At the top of each bicep and at the base of each bulging deltoid, he wore a tight leather band which made the cantaloupe-sized biceps look even larger.

The bow looked tiny in his left hand, and he knelt down to look closely at some tracks. Each track looked like an upside-down letter V, and he looked at the crispness of their edges, then a slight movement caught his eye. A grain of sand had fallen from the edge of one V and down into the track. This deer was less than a minute ahead of him. There was a small pile of round pellets. He picked up one piece of manure in his fingers and examined it closely. It was round like a tiny brown marble, but on one side there was a tiny groove. Although most people could not tell the difference between a buck or a doe by looking at their sign, he could because bucks have a tiny anal protrusion in their bowel which makes a faint groove in each piece of feces. He knew this was a very large, heavy deer just by the size and depth of the tracks, but now he also knew it was a buck, which is what he wanted.

The warrior turned and looked back into the deep green morass to his rear. Finally, she was noticeable. The young Lakota woman had been shadowing him at a distance and was very well camouflaged herself. Even at that distance, her great beauty was obvious—the long, shiny black hair, olive complexion, and dark eyes. He held his hands up to the side of his head, extended fingers sticking up in the air, the sign for buck deer or bull elk. She smiled and remained motionless. This warrior was helping her and her mother so much; he was tall and handsome, and he truly cared, unlike so many braves.

He moved forward slowly on hands and knees, his bow in his left hand. Every few seconds now he paused and looked. He spotted movement, as a large twelve-point buck grazed on buckbrush and tufts of grass a short distance to his front. It took the warrior five minutes, but he rose to his feet and inched forward, the bottom of his bow now almost touching his hip. He moved with his left side forward, his right hand on the bowstring. The nock of the arrow rested between his index and middle finger, and his ring finger curled around the string. He would not look directly at the grazing deer, as he knew that deer and most prey animals, as well as some learned and experienced warriors had a sixth sense, a sense of knowing when a predator was staring at them. This was kind of like the feeling you got, the chill down the spine, when someone stared at your back through a window and you sensed it. The warrior watched a spot a few feet behind the deer, but his dark eyes were looking for one movement. There is a nerve in deer that makes a slight twitch in their tail an instant before they raise their head up. Just by experience alone, this brave knew that deer had a different type of vision than humans, which only allowed for them to see the graze beneath their head when their head was down grazing. He knew from experience and his childhood teachings that the deer, no matter how close, could not see him as a person when its head was up, as long as he did not move at all. Each time, the warrior saw the little flick in the buck's tail, he froze, even if one foot was raised.

A half hour passed and now he was so close, he also squinted when he froze, so the shine off his eyeballs would not spook the deer. His bow came up slowly, inch-by-inch, and while the head was down, he drew the arrow back.

The tail twitched, and he froze. Most men could not hold the powerful bow at full draw for very long without their arms shaking from total exertion, but this man was conditioned and very disciplined. The deer's head went down, the string slipped off the warrior's fingers, and he saw the arrow's almost instantaneous impact as it tore through the buck's left flank just behind the lower part of the left shoulder. It passed through the heart and then through the right lung, exiting the far side, as the buck leapt with the shock. He ran less than fifty feet, then struggled as the life drained from him, and lay still.

The warrior prayed to the deer's spirit and wished it well on its journey. Then the young woman, who was closer to the age of a girl, came forward and watched his dexterity with the knife. He first removed the heavy musk glands on the inside of the buck's back knees. Then he carefully cleaned the razor-sharp Bowie knife, knowing the smelly gland could taint the meat. She marveled at the heavily beaded and fringed sheath on his left hip, the giant shiny blade, the elk antler handle. He removed the testes and anus and again cleaned the blade thoroughly. He then cut through the pelvic bone and slit the belly all the way up well into the chest cavity. Next, he slit the throat, reached in and cut the esophagus, and then pulled the entrails out along with the lungs and other organs.

Walking to her village, the young woman was amazed at how small the mighty buck looked across this brave's shoulders. Soon, they were at the lodge, and the carcass was hung outside to be skinned and butchered.

Lila
Wiya Waste
, which meant “beautiful woman,” was the warrior's cousin, and her husband had been killed by the great bear. She and her mother had nobody to bring meat to their lodges, but Joshua Strongheart would come to her village and help her to get meat for the lodge because he was her closest relative. She accompanied him so she could learn. Joshua told her not to just marry again but to wait on a warrior who was worthy of her. She wanted to know how to be self-sufficient, for her cousin was not around the village circle very often, just a few times per year.

The tall warrior grabbed his bag and headed to the nearby stream to bathe, clean off his war paint, and change clothes. The Lakota and their allies the Cheyenne and the Arapaho were meticulous about bathing and keeping clean, and he was amused how so many racist
wasicun
used expressions such as “filthy redksins.” The Lakota actually viewed many whites as being very dirty and unkempt.

Thirty minutes later, he returned from the stream to the circle of lodges. Lila
Wiya Waste
looked with a great longing at him approaching. She wished he was not her first cousin, but wished more that he would look at her the way the other braves did. He now was dressed in his normal manner and looked like a totally different person, a white man, with Lakota features.