Charles West - Lawless Prairie

Clint watched her closely as she went about preparing a meal for them. It seemed there was a sadness in her face that was not there while the two of them were searching the mountains for the cabin. He felt that it was not entirely due to the shock of finding her husband gone, but also because she was faced with the reality of her mother’s death. During the time when the two of them were concerned with the possibility of being found by another war party, there was little time to dwell on other things. His concern now was the sense of security she and her father might feel just because they were home. In his mind, there was no safety for the two of them in this remote cabin. It was just a matter of time before the next war party found them. Further thought on the matter was interrupted when Joanna set a plate of beans and biscuits before him.

“Sorry, but this is about all I could scare up on short notice,” she said. “It’s not much for grown men, but maybe it’ll keep your stomach warm.”

“I’m afraid I haven’t been thinking much about fresh meat for a while,” Karl apologized.

“I reckon that’s understandable,” Clint said. “That’s one thing I can do for you. I’ll go huntin’ in the mornin’. Lord knows I saw plenty of sign on the way in.”

When supper was finished, Clint and Joanna’s father remained seated at the table drinking coffee while Joanna cleaned up the dishes. After listening to Joanna’s account of the days following her rescue, until they showed up here at the cabin, Karl began to tell Clint about his journey from Germany when Joanna was a baby. And before he wound down, he had taken Clint through every phase of his and his family’s life, from New York to Missouri, to Omaha, and finally to this cabin in the Black Hills. Halfway through, Clint caught Joanna’s gaze, and she rolled her eyes heavenward as a sign of boredom. Clint smiled at her, understanding the old man’s need to talk about the past.

Finished at last, Karl paused to light his pipe, puffing out great clouds of gray smoke. “I guess I’ve been doing all the talking,” he confessed. “I must apologize.”

“Quite all right,” Clint replied.

“What about you, Clint?” Karl asked, settling back in his chair. “Joanna said you were on your way to Montana.”

“That’s a fact,” Clint said.

Hoping for more of a response than that, Karl continued to probe. “Where in Montana?”

“Can’t say for sure. I reckon I’ll know when I find it.”

“You got family?” Karl asked in an effort to get his guest to open up a little. Unnoticed by both men, the question prompted Joanna to pause and listen.

“Nope, just my pa back in Cheyenne,” Clint answered, reluctant to delve any deeper.

“What are you planning on doing when you get to Montana?” Karl pressed.

As interested as her father in the young man’s plans, Joanna, however, perceived the reluctance on Clint’s part. “Papa, for goodness’ sake, let the poor man drink his coffee. You’ll wear him out with your questions.”

Her father jerked his head back with a mock expression of surprise. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be nosey.” He chuckled and winked at Clint. Then to Joanna he explained, “I had already been thinking about pulling out of here myself, even before those savages ran off with you. I hadn’t said anything to Robert about it, but I was thinking about going on up to the Yellowstone with your uncle Frederick. That’s why I was interested in what part of Montana Clint was heading for. We weren’t scraping enough gold out of that stream to buy salt and flour. And Frederick has always tried to get me to join him up there.” He glanced over at Clint then. “My younger brother went out to Montana with two other families a year ago. They’re farming a strip of land on the lower side of the Yellowstone River where the Tongue River connects with it. I thought if you’re going up Montana way, it might be a good time for us to pull up stakes and go with you—as far as the Yellowstone, anyway. There ain’t a helluva lot of summer left, so I was thinking I’d better get going if we’re going to do it. I think it would be better for Joanna, too, to be around other folks instead of wasting away up here with an old man. Of course, you might not want any company.” He looked at Clint and waited for his response.

“It’s fine with me,” Clint replied at once. “I think you’re asking for more trouble if you stay here in these mountains by yourself.” He was actually relieved to know that Joanna would not be at the mercy of any roving Sioux raiding parties that happened upon the isolated cabin. Equally relieved, Joanna smiled her approval.

The next few days were spent in preparation for the journey north. It could have been done more quickly, but for the need for fresh meat. So Clint spent one day hunting in the mountain ridges for deer. As he had noticed before, there was plenty of deer sign close to the cabin, and they were not hard to find. He came upon a small herd drinking from a spring at the bottom of a ravine. Since he planned to smoke the meat to preserve it, he passed up a shot at a ten-point buck in favor of a medium-sized one. He wanted a deer that was in good condition without much fat; the less fat, the better and quicker the meat would dry.

Back at the cabin, he and Karl cut four forked stakes to support the drying frame they fashioned; then the venison was cut in strips to hang from racks made from tree limbs over a fire pit dug in the yard. One whole day was required to properly dry the jerky, but there was enough to last them for the journey to Montana. When all was ready to depart, Karl closed the door to the cabin that had been his family’s home for only eight months. He and Joanna made one last visit to the grave of his late wife before stepping up in the saddle. There were no happy memories left there by him or his daughter as they followed Clint up the side of the ridge, each rider leading a packhorse, loaded with the earthly possessions of all three.

With no real knowledge of the country they had set out to cross, they went back in the general direction Clint and Joanna had come from when he brought her home. Reaching the Belle Fourche, they decided to follow the course that Clint had originally picked before his encounter with Joanna’s abductors. “I figured on holding to a north and slightly west trail, figured I had to hit the Yellowstone somewhere,” Clint said. “Once we strike the Yellowstone, I reckon then we’ll have to figure out which way to go to find your brother’s place.”

Less than a day’s ride found them approaching the banks of another river. Recollecting the planned route that his brother had told him about back in Omaha, Karl speculated that it might be the Powder, and he knew that the place his brother described was at the confluence of the Tongue and the Yellowstone. “If we keep bearing to the west, we’ll reach the Tongue River,” he said. “Then we can follow it north to the Yellowstone.”

“That suits me just fine,” Clint responded. “I ain’t ever seen any of this country before.”

They camped by the river that night and started out on a more westerly course the next morning. A little before the sun was directly overhead they came upon a trail apparently left by an entire village of Indians on the move. The trail led directly from the west, causing Clint and Karl to decide it best to turn a little more north so as not to chance overtaking them. Stopping only long enough to rest the horses, they pushed on until almost nightfall, crossing several other trails of smaller Indian parties heading west. As the sun settled lower in the prairie to the west, they spotted another river by the line of trees in the distance. “I was hoping we’d come up on a stream or river or something before dark,” Karl said.