Wolf Creek (11 page)

“Sweet Jesus,” the sergeant said. “Here
comes some more!”

Charley tore his gaze from Stone Knife, whom
he would dearly like to gut like a fish, and looked in the
direction the sergeant had indicated.

“Looks like about thirty warriors,” Charley
said. “About the same as what Stone Knife’s got left.”

The newcomers were not charging; they rode
their mounts slowly toward the battlesite. Soon they were close
enough for Charley to make out.

“If anybody was wonderin’ where the
Cheyennes was,” he said, “that’d be them yonder.”

The Cheyenne leader lifted his rifle
horizontally above his head and slowly rode forward while his men
kept their horses immobile. After a few moments, Stone Knife did
the same. Both leaders were riding towards the Company A
survivors.

“Looks like the new one wants to parley,”
Dent said.

The Cheyenne reined in his mount and called
out to the troopers.

“Hear me!” he said, in clear English. “I am
Strong Horse! Is that the one called the Black Feather I see among
you?”

“It’s me,” Charley yelled.

It was Stone Knife’s turn to call out.
“Black Feather is mine!”

Strong Horse came closer. “We must have more
words,” he said to his Kiowa counterpart. “I have spoken to one who
has been at Old Mountain’s camp, and learned much.”

“What is there to learn?” Stone Knife said.
“The soldiers attacked a peaceful village, and killed many women
and children and old people. And now we will have the beginning of
our revenge.”

“Your father still lives,” Strong Horse
said. “That is something worth learning. So does my daughter,
thanks to the Black Feather, who saved her and sent her to safety.
The one they call Dent—there—kept his men from killing our kin, and
was punished for it. And the small man, the one who cuts hair, he
bravely came to Old Mountain’s camp to help care for our
wounded.”

Stone Knife was silent for several
moments—he seemed to be shocked and speechless. He finally found
his voice.

“Have my ears gone bad?” he said. “Are you
telling me that—
again
—you want to rob me of my revenge
because someone helped your
daughter
? Your daughter is
nothing to me!”

“Nor is your father, it seems,” the Cheyenne
said. “But my kin is all to me. I will claim as friends those who
help them. These three, like the man at the ranch, are under my
protection.”

“You—you would fight me, even me, your ally?
For such as these?”

“You know I would,” Strong Horse said. “And,
on this day, with the warriors I have, you know I would probably
win.” The Cheyenne warriors rode forward to stand beside their
leader, and the Kiowas did the same.

Stone Knife shook with frustration. He
screamed his anger at the sky. Strong Horse watched him
impassively.

Finally the Kiowa leader seemed to regain
his self-control. He waved his arm at the soldiers.

“These white men,” he said. “
These
.
They killed our kin, and yours. Do you protect them, as well?”

“I do not.”

The troopers’ faces fell. The sergeant’s
eyes bulged. “Wait just a minute, Dent—Captain,” he said. “Did I
hear these damn savages right? They’re gonna let you go but not us?
You can’t let ‘em do that!”

Dent took a deep breath. “I won’t, sergeant,
I promise.”

Strong Horse turned his mount to face them.
“You three. Black Feather. Captain. Hair Cutter. Throw away your
weapons and come stand with us, and you will live.”

“I’ll do no such thing!” Dent said. However,
both Charley and Hix tossed their guns away.

“What are you doing?” Dent demanded.

“Gun ain’t got but one bullet left in it,
anyway,” Hix said.

Charley stepped close to his friend. “Tom,”
he said. “We outnumbered ten-to-one. We can all die today, or some
of us can live. It’s that simple. Think on what you got waitin’ for
you at home, and how much they need you.”

“While you’re at it,” Hix said, “think on
how happy these men of yours was at the idea of hanging you, just a
couple of hours ago.”

“They’re not my men,” Dent said absently.
“The major made sure my men were far away from me. So I can’t hold
it against them, they had no reason to feel any special loyalty to
me.”

“Good Lord, Captain,” one young trooper
said. “You can’t let ‘em!”

Tom Dent’s spine straightened. “I’d die
before I’d let—”

Charley Blackfeather’s rock-hard fist lashed
out like a bolt of lightning, catching his friend on the temple and
instantly knocking him senseless. Dent collapsed like a sack of
potatoes.

The sergeant screamed in fury, took a step
toward Stone Knife, and raised his pistol. He was filled with
arrows before he could pull the trigger. The sergeant sank to his
knees, and his gun fell into the dust. Almost as one, Stone Knife’s
men launched themselves from their saddles and rushed the other
three troopers. A couple of shots were fired, but no one was hit;
within moments each soldier had several Kiowas holding him
immobile. That included the sergeant, who seemed to have some life
yet left in him.

“I could not save you all,” Strong Horse
said to Charley. “Nor did I want to.”

Stone Knife, too, had dismounted. “Very
well, Strong Horse,” he shouted. “You will have these men, for
today. I will take them some other day. This one”—he pointed at
Charley—“is like a black feather on the wind, always blowing just
out of my reach. He will live—
today.
”

“It is good,” Strong Horse said.

“But you must have your warriors restrain
them. Because I want them to watch. I want them to see. I want them
to know what fate awaits them.”

Strong Horse made a gesture, and several of
his Cheyennes held Charley and John Hix, even though they did not
resist—unlike the troopers, who were struggling, screaming, and
crying.

“I never wanted to hurt nobody!” the young
trooper said. “It was orders! It was orders!”

“Him, too,” Stone Knife said, pointing at
the prostrate and unconscious Tom Dent. With a nod from their
leader, several Cheyennes picked him up. Stone Knife slapped him
twice, hard, and he came to and began struggling.

“Now,” Stone Knife said, and his warriors’
knives flashed, cutting the clothing from their captives, who were
then tied spread-eagled to stakes that were driven into the
ground.

Stone Knife stood defiantly before Charley,
Dent, and Hix. “You will not escape this sight, not even in your
dreams!”

“No!” Dent yelled, and lowered his head; a
Cheyenne grabbed his hair and pulled his head back up.

The four troopers from Company A were
mutilated and skinned alive. Dent cried and screamed as much as
they did. Charley knew the other Indians were thinking that his
friend was weak, but he knew what a brave man Tom Dent was. A man,
perhaps, with too much heart.

For Charley’s part, he watched impassively.
He had seen this sort of thing before, dozens of times in his
fifty-plus winters. He had been on the administering side, although
it had been a long while. Enduring torture is a warrior’s last
weapon, his last chance to show the world his courage. It always
disturbed Charley when the victims were from his own side; he
resolved to avenge these four men, when the opportunity arose. Not
because he cared that much for their fate—Hix was right, they had
been champing at the bit to see him and his friend die, and each of
them had participated in the killings at Old Mountain’s camp. No,
he would avenge them because balance must be maintained. The same
reason the Kiowas were killing them now.

Charley noted that the barber was also
watching dispassionately. With some whites Charley would suspect
shock, a stubborn refusal to acknowledge what was happening before
their very eyes. But that was not the case with John Hix—he seemed
almost bored. A couple of times the shadow of a smile passed across
his face, as if he were also gaining revenge in some manner.

When the spectacle was over, Stone Knife
shrieked in triumph and led his warriors galloping away. Twenty-one
U.S. cavalrymen, counting Major Joab Putnam, lay naked and
butchered on the prairie.

Strong Horse waved his arm, and his
Cheyennes released Charley, Dent, and Hix.

“My debt to you is paid,” the Cheyenne
leader said. “I will make sure Stone Knife does not double back for
you, and I made sure he left you enough water. You have a long walk
back to your fort, but you can make it by tomorrow. If I see you
after today, I will be free to honorably kill you myself.”

With that, the Cheyenne abruptly wheeled his
mount and sped away, his men behind him.

“Let’s go,” Dent said, his voice hollow. “I
want to put as much distance between me and this—this whole ordeal
as possible. We can send a burial patrol back for these poor men
when we get to the fort.”

Hix walked over to the dead horses they had
used as cover, and bent over. He straightened back up with
something in his hand. It was a scalp, with long flowing blond
hair. Joab Putnam’s.

“They missed this somehow,” he said. “This
will make a nice memento.”

Dent shook his head. “We’ll see it gets
buried with him. It’s more than he deserves, I know—this is all his
fault.”

“What a waste,” Hix said.

“Sorry I had to knock you upside the head,
Tom,” Charley said.

Tom shrugged. “I know you were saving me.
But I wasn’t spouting nonsense. I really would rather have died
with those men than live with the knowledge I abandoned them.”

“Are you sure about that?” Charley asked.
“You seen how they died.”

Tom Dent paused. “No. No, I’m not sure. All
I am sure of is this: when we get back to the fort I will be
handing in my resignation.”

“You shouldn’t do that, Tom,” Charley said.
“After all that’s happened, and with the major dead, I don’t think
anybody is gonna be pursuin’ any charges against us for what we
done at Old Mountain’s Camp. And this—well, this was Putnam’s
doing, not ours.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Charley clapped his friend’s shoulder. “You
study on it while we walk home, Tom. There’ll be plenty of time for
thinking. Let’s go.”

They set off in the direction of the
fort.

“At least it ain’t too cold,” John Hix said.
“I always hated the cold.”

Charley decided to keep a close eye on John
Hix, from now on.

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