Charles West - Lawless Prairie

“I’m glad I happened on you,” he replied.

“They killed my mother,” she sobbed. “My husband and my father,” she asked anxiously, “are they looking for me?”

“I don’t know, ma’am. Like I said, I just happened along.” He removed the last of the ropes from around her ankles, and looked her over as best he could in the darkness. It appeared that she had several cuts on her arms and shoulders, and her face was badly bruised and swollen beside her left eye. His heart went out to her when he speculated on what she must have endured at the hands of her captors. “Can you walk all right?” he asked. When she nodded, he continued. “I expect it might be a good idea to leave this place. We can go downstream a ways till we find a better place. Then we’ll see about takin’ care of some of these cuts.” The site the warriors had chosen to make their camp seemed to be a common crossing of the river. And considering the number of Indians he had seen during the last several days, he thought it best not to take the chance of being caught with three dead warriors.

He helped her to her feet and watched her to make sure she was all right. She seemed unsure of her balance at first, but soon recovered her composure. “I prayed to God to either send me help or take my life,” she said, her words halting and barely audible, tears streaming down her face again.

He really didn’t know what to say to her. He had compassion for her, but words of consolation did not come easily to him. “Well, you’re all right now. We’ll get outta this place and get you somethin’ to eat—fix up your cuts.” That was all he could come up with to ease her distress. “I’ll see what we can use as far as guns or cartridges go, and I’ll take a look at their horses.”

“One of those horses is my father’s,” Joanna said.

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied, and left her standing there while he took an inventory of the Indians’ weapons. After a moment, she followed him as he examined an old Henry rifle. She stood gazing down at the cold features of the broad-shouldered Sioux warrior after Clint moved on to pick up the shotgun beside one of the other bodies. After a couple of moments, she looked around her and found a large rock the size of a loaf of bread. With tears gushing forward again, this time in unbridled fury, she held the rock up as high as she could, then slammed it down with all her strength in the warrior’s face.

Hearing the solid thud of the stone as it crushed the face of the corpse, he turned to see the woman glaring down at it, her fists clenched, her face drawn in anger. Realizing that he was staring at her, she turned to him and simply said, “That shotgun belongs to my father.”

“Right,” he replied, again at a loss for response. He paused briefly by the third body, and seeing nothing of value beyond an early model Remington single-shot rifle, moved on to get the horses.

He thought about keeping all four of the horses, but decided that he didn’t want to herd the three extra. He did decide to take the opportunity to trade the prison horse for one of the Indian ponies, a paint, deeming it a definite upgrade. Taking one of the Indian saddles, he put it on Joanna’s horse.

“It might not be the most comfortable saddle,” he told her, “but it’ll beat ridin’ bareback.” After witnessing her final farewell to the broad-shouldered warrior, he was a little reluctant to touch her, but she willingly accepted his hand in helping her up in the saddle. Then he led her horse back to retrieve Rowdy and upgrade his packhorse.

Following the dark riverbank downstream, they rode for over an hour until Clint selected a deep gully leading down from the bluff. In a short time, he had a fire going and coffee was not long after. There was little he could do to fix her wounds, but she insisted that all she needed was to clean them and wash herself in the river. Once she had finished her bath and dried with a blanket Clint had taken from one of the warriors, she seemed content to warm herself by the fire.

Clint handed her a cup of coffee. “Get you a little somethin’ to eat, and then we’ll catch a couple hours’ sleep before sunup.” She merely nodded in return. “What’s your name?” he asked.

“Joanna Becker,” she said.

“All right, Joanna. My name’s Clint Conner. Where’s home? Where did those Indians grab you?”

“I don’t know exactly,” she confessed. “We have a cabin on a stream back there in the hills. My husband and my father were working a claim, but I don’t know how to get back there from here.” She tried to be calm, but she could not hide her dismay. “They killed my mother.” She tried to continue, but could not keep from sobbing. He waited until she gathered herself once more and went on. “I know my husband’s looking for me, but I don’t know how to get back.”

“Never mind,” he assured her. “We’ll get you back home,” knowing as he said it that it would not be such an easy task. He sliced two generous slabs of bacon from what was left of the side he had taken form Clell Ballenger’s supplies and dropped them in his frying pan. As he tended the sizzling meat, he glanced up at Joanna. With the firelight flickering upon her swollen face, he decided he might have been wrong about her.When he first found her, he thought she was a little older. But on closer inspection, he decided she was not much older than he. It was just the battered face that misled him. “Don’t worry,” he assured her. “I’ll get you back to your husband safe and sound.” He hoped he wasn’t making a boast he couldn’t keep.

By the time they had finished the coffee and bacon, there were not many hours of darkness left. Clint gave Joanna a blanket to wrap around herself and made her a bed with his saddle blanket and an oilskin slicker. Although it was still summer, the night was chilly enough to call for a blanket. She lay awake, watching him until the soft steady sounds of his breathing told her he was asleep. Only then could she relax and permit sleep to overtake her. He seemed an honest enough young man, but her recent ordeal at the hands of the Sioux warriors caused her to be wary of any strange man. When sleep finally came, it captured her completely, fueled by her total exhaustion.

She was awakened by the gentle touch of sunlight upon her cheek. Opening her sleep-swollen eyes, she was at once alarmed. He was gone! Immediately a bevy of worrisome thoughts filled her head, causing her heart to beat with alarm as she stared at the empty space where he had made his bed. Concerned when going to sleep about the possible attempt for the stranger to seek relief of his lust, she had thought that he might simply choose to sneak off and leave her. He had told her that he was on his way to Montana. Evidently he didn’t care to have the bother of a woman.

Almost in a panic at this point, she flung the blanket from her, frantic to see whether he had left her a horse to ride. In her haste, she tripped over a fold in her blanket, fell to her knees, and scrambled to her feet again only to discover the horses gone from the willows where they had been tied. She almost cried out in anguish, but stifled the cry in her throat when she saw Clint beyond the willows, leading the horses up from the river. Feeling awkward and foolish, she returned to fold her blanket, hoping he had not witnessed her panic.

“Mornin’,” Clint called out when he saw that she was up.

“Good morning,” she returned sheepishly. If he had seen her little show of fear, he did not let on.

“You were sleepin’ so soundly, I didn’t have the heart to wake you,” he said. “You feelin’ strong enough to ride?” When she answered yes, he went on. “If you’re needin’ some privacy to do whatever you gotta do, there’s a pretty thick stand of fir trees beyond those willows. I’ll be makin’ us some coffee while you’re gone.” She nodded and immediately took her leave.