In the Season of the Sun (35 page)

The Blackfeet approached with caution but with no sign of fear. Tewa angled her mount out of the main body of riders and took up a place toward the rear of the others. Two Stars no longer needed her; his place was with the elders, who would actually approach the table and parlay with the white traders.

It didn't take long for Jacob to gravitate toward the back of the pack. Neither of them spoke. Jacob rode tall and straight, his shoulder-length blond hair streaming in the breeze. He was as proud as any of the rest, for the Blackfeet were lords of Ever Shadow. And he was of the People, if not in blood, then in spirit, which often is the strongest bond.

Jacob remembered enough of his own kind to know that a great and powerful civilization lay to the east, a civilization creeping ever westward. This trading post, no matter how innocent, was the first step in an even greater encroachment. A tide of men and women like his parents waited to be unleashed, to tame the land, to bring order to the frontier's own natural and splendid chaos.

Yet Jacob's foster father had counciled for peace. Perhaps Lone Walker hoped to slow progress and establish good enough relations that he might delay and even redirect the encroachment of the white men.

Jacob glanced at Tewa, caught her watching him from beneath her wolf-skin cowl. She quickly looked away as if breaking eye contact could sever the bond that joined man to woman. She turned her attention to the fort and kept her war pony to a brisk pace, her black hair swept back like the mane of her horse. With the elk horn bow slung across her back and brandishing a buffalo-hide war shield and a ten-foot lance, the warrior woman cut a figure of fierce, proud beauty.

Jacob Sun Gift's heart quickened. If only Lone Walker had a prayer song to heal the warrior woman's hate.

Then again, perhaps the problem lay in the singer, not the song.

“They're comin' in!” Dog Bill Hanna called back down to the men in the draw north of the fort. He craned his head above the rim of the draw as Tom Milam scrambled up to join him.

“As many as Bear claimed?”

“Yeah. Near as I can reckon,” Dog Bill said, his broad homely features betraying his disapproval.

“Go ahead.” Tom knew Dog Bill wasn't the sort of man to keep his emotions in check for long without exploding.

Dog Bill spat on the patch of earth between his elbows and shook his head in dismay. “Ain't right, invitin' a man to parlay and cuttin' down on him. Leastways an Injun wears his war colors if he's coming to fight.” Dog Bill glanced side ways at the young man beside him. “Then again, maybe you're Kilhenny's man and I ought not to be talking so free.”

“Maybe,” Tom Milam said. He watched the Blackfeet start across a meadow of pink and white bitterroots. He marveled at such a fair land and the price to walk it that a man must pay. Abigail's displeasure weighed heavy on him. Now Hanna added to the burden. It wasn't right and there was no sense in kidding himself. But he'd done a lot of things that weren't “right” by somebody's standard. Kilhenny always said a man had to make his own laws and live by them.

“Better tell the men to saddle up and check their loads,” Tom said.

Dog Bill hesitated, studying Tom, who stood and hefted the Hawken rifle he carried. The mountain rifle was a short-barreled, heavy bore gun that fired a .50-caliber lead slug with enough force to drop a charging buffalo bull in its tracks.

Tom clambered to the bottom of the draw and ordered the men to saddle up. Then he returned to his vantage point on the rim of the ravine. Dog Bill hadn't budged. He lay on his back, shading his eyes with his battered felt hat. The clouds on high looked as if they'd been painted on with quick strokes of the Almighty's invisible brush.

“Won't be long now.” Dog Bill rolled on his side and faced Tom. “You might as well know, son. I can't do nothing to stop this, but I don't intend to help it along neither. A man's got to enter his house justified.”

“Suit yourself,” Tom muttered. He tried to conjure memories of his parents, hoping to fuel his hatred, to give him the will to carry out Kilhenny's orders. Instead, what he had to face was his own life. He'd run wild, and all the time Kilhenny had taught him to ride and shoot and never walk away from a fight until the other man cried “Quit!” and then to back away. Trust no one. And now Coyote Kilhenny was teaching him a new lesson, treachery.

Nate Harveson turned to his sister on the ramparts above the west gate. He wore his finest frock coat, a handsomely brocaded vest, and woolen trousers tucked into shiny black boots. He patted the dust from his sleeve. “Now I'll show these savages a gentleman, eh?”

“In dress, not deed,” Abigail said. She had come to the walls determined to witness for herself what was about to transpire.

“Now, Abby, not again.” Harveson gently patted her arm. “My place is at the table. I'll not have Kilhenny assume any more of my authority.”

“Please, Nate, it's too dangerous.” It wasn't like her to behave so, but a premonition chilled her in the warmth of the midday sun.

“Far more dangerous if these men begin to think of me as a coward,” Harveson replied.

A hard-looking bunch lined the walls of the stockade. They were crouched down out of sight and cradling their rifles. Some, like Brownrigg, were still loyal to Harveson. A few, he reminded himself—too few. But help was on the way, two riverboats somewhere downriver, winding their way north—two riverboats with settlers and crews answerable only to Nate Harveson.

“Not to worry, Abigail. I could use a little excitement.” He opened his coat to reveal a brace of pistols at his waist. Harveson smiled and started down the stairway to the hard-packed earth. He found Con Vogel standing in the shadow of the open front gate. Harveson paused, surprised at finding the young German so close by.

“Why, Con, what are you doing here?”

“I figured there ought to be someone close at hand to close the gates if things don't work out.” Vogel shrugged, thrust his hands in the pockets of his worn, rumpled coat, licked his dry lips, and stared past Nate Harveson, unable to meet the older man's gaze.

“Good idea,” Harveson said. “You're quite right. I'm glad to see you've some mettle. None of us can live forever on the good name of our family. We have to stand alone and cast our own shadows.” he glanced at the Blackfeet, approaching from the prairie. “There's a good lad. Come by tonight. I am working on a new piece and I'd like you to hear it.”

Vogel stepped back into the shadows before his nerves betrayed him.

Harveson stepped through the gates and marched crisply to the table where Kilhenny and a few other men awaited the arrival of their guests.

“Nice and easy,” Kilhenny said aloud. “Remember, lads, when the party starts we tip this table on its side.” His hawk's eyes gleamed with anticipation. “That'll be the chiefs in the lead. We want them alive if possible, so wait till they dismount. Then I'll give the signal.” He'd gone over the instructions throughout the night and by now each man knew what was expected of him. But talking it out soothed his nerves, gave the half-breed the feeling of being in control. And he liked that.

“C'mon, Mr. Harveson, why don't you stand with me out front here,” Kilhenny suggested, daring the smaller man. Kilhenny walked around in front of the table and held his hands palm outward.

Nate Harveson noted the derision in the frontiersman's voice and wasn't about to allow Kilhenny to shame him.

“Why certainly,” Harveson replied, loud enough for the men close at hand to hear. “I'll stand as long as you.” He took his place alongside Kilhenny.

Harveson studied the approaching Blackfeet. How proud they rode, what magnificent savages with their lances and shields and prancing war-horses. Closer, he thought to himself, closer. Come on in, my splendid enemy. They were the lords of Ever Shadow, and they were in the way.

40

S
o it began, in the time of the Muddy-Faced Moon, the first act of a people's last tragedy. Bold and strong and fearing no one, the last free people rode into Kilhenny's trap. A hundred yards rapidly shrank to fifty as the warriors began to close ranks on the wheel-rutted main trail that led between the blockhouses. Several trappers had arranged themselves on the porch of each blockhouse and waved to the warriors and held up jugs of corn liquor and pouches of leaf tobacco.

Blankets had been draped over each of the cannons and empty crates stacked in front to better conceal their lethal presence. Still, the Blackfeet studied the situation, saw that the white men weren't armed, rode on toward the table. Only Jacob paused before the blockhouse on his right. Tewa noticed his expression and slowed her mount in response. Jacob continued to stare at one man in particular.

Skintop Pritchard.

The trapper held up a jug of whiskey, slapped the bottle, and shouted, “Hey, bub, come and have a drink with your own kind.”

“Shut up, Skintop,” another of the men on the porch retorted. “He probably don't speak English no more anyhow.”

Jacob searched his memory, his mind straining to recall when and where he had seen the man before. And then in came to him, the moment the warriors in front of him spaced themselves in such a way that Jacob had an unobstructed view of the table and the burly red-bearded trapper who stood to greet Lone Walker and the rest with his gesture of peace.

Joseph Milam shot down in cold blood, murdered by the
guide he had trusted, the man who had led them all into massacre. Coyote Kilhenny
.

The name rose in his gorge. Jacob began to tremble as the rage swept over him, consumed him. The hatred, dormant for so very long, blazed anew. Jacob couldn't even speak the name. The words choked in his throat. But the sound he uttered was born of irretrievable loss and unimaginable pain.

The gray mare lunged forward at a gallop and Tewa had to swerve her mount out of his path to keep from being trampled.

“Aaahhh!” Jacob's blood-curdling cry rent the air and scattered the braves, who feared they were under attack.

One moment Coyote Kilhenny had everything under control—the Blackfeet were just about positioned for the kill—the next second hell broke loose. A wild-eyed, white-skinned renegade came charging through the ranks of the braves right for Kilhenny.

“Holy shit!” Kilhenny growled and dived over the table just as Jacob fired his Hawken rifle. The slug fanned Kilhenny's rump, then plowed a hole through one of his henchmen who had the misfortune to be standing directly behind the half-breed. As the mortally wounded trapper crumbled to earth, the riflemen on the stockade walls rose up and opened fire on the crowd below. Rifles appeared in the windows and firing ports of the blockhouses while the cannoneers, who had been lounging on the porches, kicked away the boxes and cleared the tarpaulins and blankets from the nine-pounders.

But the Blackfeet, realizing they had ridden into a trap, scattered as the cannons roared. Lead shot ripped through the stragglers, dropping men and horses in a tangle of shattered bone and mangled flesh.

Coyote Kilhenny and the men around him tipped over the table and crouched behind the thick panels of their makeshift barricade only to appear seconds later, pistols in hand. Above them, on the stockade walls, Kilhenny's trappers unleashed a winnowing fire into the Blackfeet. An overturned table was a poor substitute for the safety of the stockade walls.

Lone Walker glimpsed the Shoshoni, Walks With The Bear, bolt toward the fort as the men on the walls opened up with their heavy bore rifles. Lone Walker hauled back on the reins of his mount, and his war-horse reared and pawed the air. Lead slugs riddled the horse, and the animal rolled onto its back, loosed a pitiful cry, and died. Lone Walker struggled to pull his leg free, but he was pinned. His quick-thinking actions had saved not only his life but Two Stars' as well. The blind man had been riding directly behind Lone Walker, whose horse had also shielded Two Stars from the trappers' rifles. The old chief clung to his horse as the animal galloped from the fray, bullets burning the air all around him. Yet he rode unscathed through a field of fire.

Lone Walker tried to bring his rifle to bear on the Shoshoni, but the wily traitor had already ridden to safety. He slid from horseback and ran, crouched, to a position behind the table. Lone Walker winced, trying to free himself, but the horse's dead weight held him fast. Bullets thudded into the ground around him, and the brave pitched backward as if shot, using pretense to save his own life. He remained motionless, his eyes closed, and listened to the cries of the dying and the thundering gunfire that lasted scarcely a minute in intensity. A minute was long enough.

Tall Bull rolled from horseback, the top of his skull blown away. Hawk Moon, riddled with bullets, managed to leap free as his horse crumpled beneath him. Though dying, the chief managed to raise his rifle and shoot a man from the stockade walls before taking his last breath. Standing Elk charged through a veritable storm of lead. He loosed a wild war whoop and bore down on the overturned table. One of the trappers rose up with a brace of pistols in his hands. He emptied both weapons into the air as Standing Elk's war lance skewered him.

The Blackfoot leapt his horse over the table, spattering the men with grit and dirt in his wake. Kilhenny, half kneeling, snapped off a shot that shattered the warrior's spine. Standing Elk threw his hands up and dropped from horseback, rolling to a stop in the churned earth. So died the chief of the Bowstring Clan. However, he wasn't the last man to die in the shadow of Fort Promise.

Nate Harveson had almost reached the front gate when Con Vogel emerged from inside the fort, raised his pistol, and fired. Harveson, looking over his shoulder at Standing Elk, was slammed backward by the force of the slug. He sat down hard in the dirt, clawed at his suddenly numb chest and the red stain spreading across his vest. “Sweet Jesus!” he muttered and looked up and saw Con Vogel, smoke curling from the barrel of the gun in his hand. Harveson tried to stand, but his arms had no strength. It was all crazy. Some mistake, yes, that was it, a horrible mistake. His legs were as numb as his arms now.
I'm building an empire. It's just the beginning. Abby! Oh God! Just the beginning
.