Charles West - Lawless Prairie

When he went back inside, he found that Karl had managed to pull himself together. He laid Sarah’s body gently back on the floor. When he saw Robert, he asked, “Joanna?” Robert shook his head slowly. “We’ve got to find Joanna,” Karl said, getting to his feet. “We’ve got to find my daughter before they kill her, too.”

“We can’t go after ’em now,” Robert said. “We can’t track ’em in the dark. Can’t even see which way they started.”

After a sleepless night, morning finally came to the little clearing by the stream. Preparing to make coffee, Robert hesitated when Karl insisted they not wait to have breakfast. “I’ve heard what those Indians do to white women,” he said. “We need to find Joanna before they have time to harm her.”

“All right,” Robert said, and put the coffeepot down. He did not voice the thought in both of their minds that she might already be dead.

Neither man was skilled at tracking, but the trail the Sioux left from the cabin was obvious even to a novice. It led down into the floor of the valley where it turned to the west. They were encouraged to find no evidence that the party had stopped soon after leaving the cabin, giving them hope that Joanna was still alive. In the late afternoon, they lost the trail at a fork in the Beaver River. Searching in a circle that encompassed the two forks, they failed to find any tracks other than their own. By the time darkness descended upon them, they were forced to admit they had no idea where the warriors had taken Joanna.

Grief-stricken, they went through the motions of making camp, neither man with much to say to the other, knowing they had failed, and helpless to do anything to alleviate their despair. Despondent and defeated, they started back to the cabin to bury Sarah Steiner.

Chapter 7

After leaving the Platte three and a half days behind him, Clint Conner lay flat on his belly at the top of a long, low ridge. His horses waited behind him farther down the slope where they would not be seen by the small party of Indians passing to the west some seventy-five yards from where he lay. They were not the first he had seen; some were in large parties, and all seemed to be heading in the same general direction, toward the Powder River. It was the reason he had decided to ride farther to the east as he made his way north.

He had managed to steer clear of the other Indians who had crossed his path, but he had almost blundered into the group he now watched from the hilltop. Three men and a woman, he could now tell as they reached a point closer to him. The woman appeared to be sick, he thought, for she rode slumped forward. As they came even closer, he realized that the woman’s horse was being led by one of the warriors. While Clint watched, the warrior gave the lead rope a sharp yank, causing the woman to grab on to the horse’s mane, for there was no saddle under her. As she raised her head, Clint recoiled, startled. Her hair was raven black, but her face was white. A white woman! A captive? Maybe she was with them by choice. Then he noticed that her wrists were tied, as well as her ankles beneath the horse’s belly. There was no decision to be made. She was a captive. He would have to try to free her. How to do it was the problem to be worked out. He was accurate enough with a rifle to get one of them, maybe two, at this distance, but then he ran the chance that the other would escape with the woman. Also there was the risk that if they were fired upon, they might kill the woman and then run. They had guns, but he could not tell from that distance whether they were repeating rifles, single shot, or shotguns. At any rate, they were armed and they outnumbered him. He felt pretty sure his best chance to get all three of the warriors was to wait until they made camp, and then go in under the cover of darkness. He slid back away from the top of the hill, and went to get his horses.

Because of the open terrain, he was obliged to stay well behind the party as he followed them, often losing sight of them and relying on his ability to find their tracks. It was not always easy, owing to the numerous old tracks that intermingled. It led him to believe that the Sioux, and probably the Cheyenne, were gathering for some reason, and that equated to more trouble for every white man. He squinted up at the sun, trying to determine how many hours remained before nightfall. With no notion of where the big congregation of Indians was to take place, he just hoped the three he followed would make camp before joining the rest of their brothers. If they didn’t, there was little chance he would be able to help the woman. He couldn’t fight the whole Sioux nation.

The last hours of sunlight had faded away before the Indians came to a river where they made their camp. Clint wasn’t sure, but he guessed that the river was probably the Belle Fourche. When certain they were stopping for the night, he settled for a dry camp in a shallow ravine where he could wait for darkness to cover the prairie between the two camps.

It was not a long wait, but it seemed long. Most of the time was spent at the head of the ravine, watching the glow of their campfire. Finally the glow softened as the flames died out. Still he waited until he felt reasonably certain they had retired to their blankets for the night. Checking his rifle once more, he decided it was time.

A rough guess told him the camp was approximately three or four hundred yards distant. Leaving his horses, he started walking across the open plain toward the tiny glow in the cottonwood trees along the riverbank. As he came closer, he brought his rifle up before him, ready to shoot at the first sign of alarm. There was no cry of discovery, or discernible motion of any kind. The camp was still. He hesitated when the horses tied in the trees began to whinny and shuffle around nervously, but their nervousness went unnoticed by the three Indians. Shifting his gaze from the horses back to the sleeping forms around the embers of the dying campfire, he searched for that of the woman. At first he could see only three bodies. Then he spotted the woman, bound hand and foot and tied to a tree near the horses.

Satisfied that she was out of the line of fire, he walked into the camp, his rifle ready before him. The short, gap-toothed warrior was the first to discover the sinister visitor. He sat up, childlike in his attempt to brush the sleep from his eyes. The peaceful night was shattered by the crack of Clint’s rifle as a .44 slug smacked into the warrior’s chest.

In rapid succession, he leveled the Winchester to pump a fatal shot into each of the other two as they sprang from their blankets. It was all over in a matter of seconds, and the peaceful night was quiet again except for the frightened sounds from the horses.

Joanna Becker lay still, terrified by the abrupt explosion of gunfire, her mind a maelstrom of conflicting thoughts. The suddenness of the grim executions by the dark figure, now methodically prodding each body with the toe of his boot, caused her to fear that more trouble was to come her way. Evidently satisfied that all three were dead, he turned in her direction. She could not help but cringe against the trunk of the cottonwood as he started toward her.

“Are you all right, ma’am?” Clint asked as he stood over her.

The tone of his voice, soft with compassion, calmed her fears at once. She relaxed and replied, “I think so.” In truth, she was not certain how bad the many cuts and bruises on her face and body were. Her captors had not been gentle with her. Some of her abuse she vowed never to speak of to anyone. All that mattered at the moment was that she had been saved. As he knelt down to untie her, she could not hold back the tears of relief. “Thank you,” she uttered softly. “Thank you for saving my life.”