Charles West - Lawless Prairie

“Sit!” he commanded, glaring menacingly while the warrior at the window joined them. Horrified by the specter of the three painted savages crowding into the tiny cabin, both women sat paralyzed while the Indians began plundering the room. “ Mahzah-wah-kahn ,” the savage who had been at the back window said, pointing to the shotgun over the mantel. One of the others, shorter than his two friends, nodded and quickly took it from the pegs and examined it, turning it over several times before grunting his approval. He grinned at Wide Shoulders, revealing a gap where a tooth had once been.

When Wide Shoulders spotted the pot bubbling over the fire, he picked up the wooden spoon Joanna had dropped. Dipping into the pot, he sampled the stew. “Le ta < ku hwo?” he demanded. “What is this?” he repeated in English.

“Rabbit,” Joanna managed to force out of her throat.

The warrior took another spoonful and grunted, “ Wa<���’ste , good.” He motioned for his friends to help themselves.

Thinking that maybe they might leave them in peace if shown some kindness, Joanna’s mother got up from her chair. “If you and your friends are hungry, we could . . .” That was as far as she managed before being struck hard by the warrior standing closest to her. Joanna screamed and scrambled to her feet, only to be forced down roughly by the English-speaking Indian. “Sit!” he demanded, and gestured with the stone-headed war club he held.

She jerked her hand free of his grasp. “How dare you strike a defenseless old woman!” she exclaimed, and rose to go to her mother’s aid.

Gap Tooth drew back to strike her, but hesitated when Wide Shoulders said, “Wait!” He stood watching her as she helped her mother back in the chair. “Mother?” he asked calmly, but without compassion for the older woman now trembling and confused. His friends, no longer interested, returned their attention to the stew, dipping in with their hands and making short work of the supper.

“Yes,” Joanna answered while blotting the blood from her mother’s face. The old woman simply stared straight ahead in shocked confusion, obviously stunned by the viciousness of the blow to the side of her face.

An interested observer, Broad Shoulders watched Joanna’s efforts to get a response from her mother. When she got up to go to the water bucket to dampen the apron she had been using to clean the blood from her mother’s face, he repeated the command, “Sit!”

“No!” she replied, her face taut with anger, and started toward the bucket on the table.

He slapped her hard across the cheek, and hissed, “I say sit!”

Staggered, but still on her feet, her face stinging from the blow, she gritted her teeth and thrust her chin out defiantly. “I’ll tend to my mother. Now, you take your savage friends and get out of my house!”

Broad Shoulders’ face flushed with fury for a split second before relaxing to form an amused smirk. “I fix mother,” he said softly. Then before Joanna could react, he whirled and struck the unsuspecting woman with his war club, smashing her skull.

Struck helpless by the horrifying sight of her mother’s head recoiling from the blow, Joanna felt her throat choking with a soundless scream that paralyzed her lungs and blocked her breath. She felt herself gasping for air, but could not stop the darkness that seemed to be filling her brain. The last image she could remember before losing consciousness was that of her mother’s head lolling drunkenly to one side as her body crumbled from the chair. When awareness next entered her brain, she found her hands were tied around the neck of the one horse in her father’s corral, and Broad Shoulders in the process of tying a rope to her ankles beneath the horse’s belly. Seeing that his captive was regaining consciousness, Broad Shoulders pointed his war club at her, gesturing. “You not good,” he warned, “I fix like mother.”

Karl Steiner urged his horse up the slope, following his son-in-law through the pines that covered the ridge above their claim. It had been a long day with nothing to show for their efforts, but he was hopeful that the new location upstream would soon show some color. As the horses made their way around the rocky ledges that crowned the top of the ridge, Karl thought about his daughter’s husband, whose image was now softened by the growing darkness. Robert seemed to be a nice enough young man, but it seemed to Karl that he had taken to complaining about the work and the lack of instant wealth from the mountain stream. It might have been a mistake to undertake this joint venture with Robert and Joanna. Maybe it would have been better if he and Sarah had stayed in Omaha and let the young folks seek fortunes in the Black Hills. Hell, I still outwork him every day , Karl thought. He just doesn’t have the patience to wait until we strike some solid color. Sarah would scold him for criticizing Robert. As long as he makes Joanna happy, she always said.

As far as Karl could tell, Joanna didn’t look particularly happy. But I guess I can’t really blame Robert for that , he thought. It had been nothing but long, hard hours ever since they first raised tents on French Creek, only to be escorted out by the soldiers trying to enforce the treaties with the Indians. Like all the other prospectors, they simply moved to another location, playing hide-and-seek with the army in the forbidden hills. He was still optimistic about the little stream they had settled on near the western edge of the Black Hills. His thoughts were interrupted when he realized that Robert had stopped.

Pulling even with his son-in-law, he inquired, “Something wrong?”

Robert was peering down through the trees, trying to see through the gloom of the evening. “Just seems kinda strange,” he replied. “Usually smell smoke, even see a little from the chimney on top of this ridge.”

“Maybe the wind’s just changed,” Karl offered, not really concerned. He nudged his horse and started down the ridge in the lead. Although they often saw smoke from the ridgetop, the cabin itself was not visible through the trees until about halfway down. The first clue that something was amiss was when Karl came upon an empty corral. Still, it was not enough to cause him to worry. “Sarah,” he called out, “Joanna.” It struck him as rather odd that no one came to the door to greet them.

“What?” Robert asked when he pulled his horse up in the yard.

Karl dismounted. “I said I wonder where the women are.” Becoming more concerned by the moment, he hurried toward the front door, hesitating only briefly to pick up a couple of pieces of calico that lay on the ground, as if someone had dropped them.

Robert, now sensing something wrong, pulled his rifle from the saddle sling, and stayed back while his father-in-law stepped inside the cabin. Within seconds, he heard Karl’s cry of anguish. He ran inside the cabin then and found the grieving man with his wife’s body cradled in his arms, rocking back and forth while he sobbed. “Joanna!” Robert cried when he looked frantically around the ransacked cabin, but his wife was not there. Hoping with all his might that he would not find a second corpse, he lit a lantern with trembling hands, and searched the cabin again, looking under overturned benches and tables. The quilts that partitioned off the two bedroom areas were missing, and there was no one in the beds.

There was no doubt in either man’s mind that the cabin had been visited by Indians, and Robert tried not to think about what fate his wife might have suffered. With Karl still lost in his grief, Robert went outside and searched all around the cabin and the corral. There was no sign of Joanna. The Indians had taken her.