The Saga of Harlan Waugh (The Mountain Men) (28 page)

Looking over Big Eagle’s shoulder as if expecting to see the Indians charging over the ground in pursuit, Harlan said, “That we can do, and we will keep a small fire for cooking this evening so we don’t advertise our position to unwanted eyes.”

After dinner, the two men staked out their horses with Martha the bell mule in the middle of the livestock for the warnings she always offered when around Indians of any sort. Then, crawling under some nearby clumps of overhanging willows for the cover they offered, the two tired men rolled up in their sleeping furs and went to sleep alongside their Hawkens.

Eee-haaw went Martha in the darkness amid the nervous pawing of the rest of the horses’ hoofs.

Both men were instantly awake but did not move for fear of giving away their positions before they could pinpoint the danger. It would do them no good to walk around presenting a target until they figured out what had riled up Martha, be it man or critter.

Soon a darkened figure slowly crept between Harlan and Big Eagle. Zip-thunk went an arrow from Big Eagle’s bow into the darkness. Without a word, the figure pitched forward to the ground, wiggled some in his death dance, and then lay still.

Then another darkened figure, unaware of what had happened to his partner, appeared out of the willows right beside Harlan! Thwack went Harlan’s tomahawk into the intruder, followed by an inhuman screech!

Then the darkness of the night closed in around the mountain men as if nothing had happened. Harlan and Big Eagle continued their vigil for the rest of the night. By dawn, it was obvious that there were no more Indians, and the two men rose from their concealment in the willows to look over their camp and animals.

“Paiutes,” exclaimed Big Eagle as he rolled over the one he had shot in the head at point-blank range with his bow and arrow.

“The same for my man,” said Harlan as he removed his tomahawk and wiped the blood and chunks of brains off the blade on the dead man’s buckskins.

“Good old Martha,” said Big Eagle as he took a clump of grass outside her reach and fed her out of satisfaction and respect.

“Time to move on, and fast,” said Harlan. “There will be more where these two came from once the tribe realizes these are gone or killed.”

“That being the case, we must try to hide our tracks and watch our back trail if we don’t want to experience the same kind of treatment,” Big Eagle commented.

Finishing the last of the venison from the previous evening, the two men hurriedly packed their animals and headed into the shallows of the river to hide their tracks after they had hidden the Indian’s bodies in a small wash. Following the river for a good mile, they finally left the water in a dense, brushy area as they headed deeper into the mountains.

Four days later, the two men finally discovered Bosco de Gamma’s permanent camp, complete with lean-tos and horse corrals, in a densely wooded draw out of sight of prying eyes.

From the tracks and warm fire-pit ashes, it was apparent that two men had gone farther into the mountains to find new trappings while the other two had set out on foot to follow a nearby stream full of beaver dams, ponds, and beaver. In the corral were the group’s leftover seven horses. Three of the missing horses, by their trail, had struck out from camp scouting for other beaver- trapping waters to the south.

This is too easy, thought Harlan as he closely scanned the surrounding terrain for any sign of danger.

At that point, Big Eagle didn’t care about caution or concern for danger because, to his way of thinking, a deserved killing of varmints was not far off.

Bring it on, he carelessly thought as his rage and lust to kill continued to grow. He had nothing but violence in his heart for those who had had a hand in the killing and raping of the love of his life, not to mention the rest of his family.

Now that he was this close to his quarry, nothing but a bullet or an arrow would stop him from killing those who had killed his loved ones. Soon someone is to die, he thought with narrowed set of eyes as the emotion rose in him to a dangerous, almost unthinking, fever pitch.

Staking their horses in a little meadow at a safe distance from the trappers’ camp, Big Eagle and Harlan made ready. Stalking back over the hill and down into the creek bottom and beaver- dam areas, they moved carefully and quietly downstream. Below them about fifty yards away, they noticed some movement!

Two trappers could be seen setting their traps along several beaver dams and ponds. Big Eagle unlimbered his bow and handed his Hawken to Harlan. Then, sneaking around the two unsuspecting trappers, he disappeared into the undergrowth. Giving Big Eagle a few minutes to get into position, Harlan began sneaking downstream, using the beaver dams and clumps of willows for cover as he walked directly toward the two unsuspecting trappers.

The two men, having set out all their traps, turned and started walking back toward their campsite. Peering through the clump of willows hiding him, Harlan saw that one of them was none other than Dick Nance, a vicious individual and bully who loved beating the stuffing out of men smaller than himself.

The other was Jacques Puzier, a mean-ass Frenchman. Both men were longtime traveling companions of Bosco de Gamma and killers in their own right. In fact, they had been the ones at the rendezvous who had beaten Runs Fast while Bosco de Gamma had taken on Winter Hawk in the contest for the boy’s Hawken.

No two men deserve dying more, thought Harlan with a look of clouded violence on his face.

Rising from his hiding place in the willow patch, Harlan faced the two men as they continued walking away from the trapping area. For a few seconds, the sight of Harlan standing before them did not register. Then it did!

Puzier began to raise his rifle, suspecting that he was looking at death. He never saw it coming as Big Eagle’s arrow caught him right between the shoulder blades with a resounding whack! Lurching forward screaming and in the process dropping his rifle, he desperately reached behind his back in agony in an attempt to pull the arrow out. His effort was in vain as Big Eagle ran up to him and in one fell swoop spun him around and scalped him while he was still alive. His screaming was now ungodly, to say the least, and could be heard at least half a mile away.

Big Eagle let him go to roll around on the ground in pain and let out a yell of triumph as he waved the bloody rag of a scalp over his head. Nance, totally surprised by the suddenness and ferocity of the attack, slowly lowered his rifle to the ground in a sign of submission, but that didn’t stop Big Eagle, who was on him in a flash.

Grabbing Nance’s shoulder-length hair, he jerked his head back and, in several quick swipes of his gutting knife, scalped Nance as well. His screaming was unholy as he jumped around holding the madly bleeding top of his head in abject pain. It got worse as Big Eagle continued hacking at the man with his knife. First Big Eagle sliced off the fingers on Nance’s right hand as he tried to disarm Big Eagle; then, with another swipe of his knife, Big Eagle hamstrung his right leg so he couldn’t run. The sounds coming from the trapper were inhuman as the blood continued gushing from his scalped head and down over his buckskin shirt as he stood wobbling on his one good leg.

Harlan just stood there and let Big Eagle continue in an attempt to get the murderous fury out of his system. Puzier was gasping his last as the hemorrhaging in his lungs from the arrow caused him to drown in his own blood. Then, Big Eagle disemboweled Nance with another vicious swipe of his knife! With his intestines flowing over the ground and into the dirt, Nance fell onto the forest floor, writhing in pain as he also began to bleed out.

Lowering his rifle, Harlan watched the life run out of the two men. He felt a certain satisfaction that six of the eight who had wreaked havoc on White Bear and all the people in his camp and also on his sons, were now in the In-Between World. He felt even better that the stirring in him relating to the loss of the love of his life was also partially avenged. Only two of the original killers remained to be reckoned with, and he would not rest until Bosco de Gamma and his partner in crime were bleeding out on the ground as well.

Leaving the two men where they had fallen, Big Eagle and Harlan quietly began the long walk back to the camp of Bosco de Gamma. They hoped to ambush the remaining two killers and give them the same treatment rendered to their partners. In fact, Harlan had some special treatment for Bosco de Gamma when the time came. Treatment that would even make God turn away...

Zipppp went an arrow by Harlan’s head, so close that he felt the sting of the wind from the shaft! Zippp-zippp-zippp went three more arrows by his body as Harlan quickly stepped behind a large tree for protection. An Indian exposed himself from behind another tree before him, and Harlan killed him with a quick shot from his Hawken.

"Hey-yeh-yeh-yeh ” yelled two more Indians as they charged Harlan’s position with tomahawks upraised now that they knew he had fired his one and only shot from his rifle.

Pow went Harlan’s pistol as he shot the closest charging Indian in the face. Then he grabbed his own tomahawk from his sash and threw it at the next man rushing at him. That throw hit the man squarely in the mouth in a splash of blood and flying broken teeth.

He careened into the tree partially protecting Harlan in the shock of the impact. Turning in agony, he met Harlan’s knife plunged deeply into his guts, splashing blood over the tree bark and Harlan’s arm. A fourth Indian, seeing the quick demise of his companions, took off running through the trees in an attempt to escape.

Harlan, now in a killing haze, took off after him with his remaining unfired pistol in one hand and his knife in the other. Closing fast, Harlan fired one shot at the fleeing Indian, hitting him low in the leg and effectively slowing him down. Harlan was on him in a flash, cutting his throat with one swipe of his knife. When he did, the impact of the two bodies hitting each other spun both to the ground. Jumping up, Harlan saw that his adversary was dying as he gurgled his last through a set of wide-open and surprised eyes.

Then, remembering Big Eagle and wondering where he had gone during the fight, Harlan ran back to where the attack had started. Sitting on the ground with his back against a tree was Big Eagle. Driven deeply into his guts just below his breastbone was the shaft of an arrow!

“No!” screamed Harlan as he reached his son’s side.

Their eyes met, and at that moment both realized that they would be separated for only a short time before they met once again on the Happy Hunting Grounds. Gathering up his son in his arms, Harlan cried like a baby as he felt the life go out of Big Eagle with just a last quiet gasp, a shudder, and no words. The surprise and agony in the dying man’s eyes said it all.

It was an hour before Harlan let go of Big Eagle, finally letting him slip gently to the ground. Harlan’s very heart and soul left with the loss of life from Big Eagle, the last of his frontier family.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The Final Trip

The Paiutes had the last say, Harlan thought bitterly as he surveyed the battleground around him. Even though the four of them died, they avenged their two brothers killed on the Duchesne River by killing Big Eagle. Not only that, they ruined any chances of surprise in catching and killing Bosco de Gamma with all the gunfire.

Shaking his head in disgust, he took two buffalo robes from the trappers’ camp and buried Big Eagle high in a large oak tree on the hillside. As he stood there looking up, the tears flowed down his cheeks and onto his buckskin shirt, leaving dark brown stains. God, how he hurt inside! He had lost everything dear to him, once again he stood alone in a land that was seemingly uncaring.

Those were the last tears he ever shed. With a hardened heart, he turned away from Big Eagle’s burial site and walked back to his horses. I still have some unfinished business to attend to.

Returning to the trappers’ campsite with his horses and mules in tow, he let the horses belonging to those whom he had pursued for so long loose from the corral so they could survive on their own. Then he turned to the trail leading away from the battle site to the one of the last two remaining killers. He was now on a hunt with a determination that was not of this world.

High up on a ridge, Bosco de Gamma, upon hearing the shooting, had started back to help Nance and Puzier. But the shooting was over so quickly that he stopped so he could watch his campsite from afar until events could untangle themselves and become clearer.

There on his trail far below was the lonely figure of one man, and from the looks of the intensity of his cold-tracking, it had to be none other than Harlan Waugh.

“What we gonna do, boss?” whined a nervous Pete Sites. “That bastard is gonna dog us until the end of time unless we kill him.”

“That is just what we are going to do,” said Bosco de Gamma with narrowed, hate-filled eyes.

“How we gonna do it, boss?” Sites asked with fear still in his eyes and in the sound of his voice. “He has killed all our pards, and now he is on our track. Is there anything that will stop him afore he stops us?”

“Since he is cold-tracking our trail, we will go up into those rocks yonder, and when he gets within range of our rifles, we will ambush and kill him. When that is done, I will tear out his heart and eat it like I ate the hearts from those damn Comanches back on the Arkansas who tried to kill me so long ago!” said Bosco de Gamma with a killing look in his eyes.

Strangely, it was the same look as that in Harlan’s eyes at that very moment as he closely followed three sets of tracks.

The two trappers being pursued took their horses to the high ground and tied them off in the trees. Walking back down the mountain to a rocky point, the two men took up ambush positions and waited for the ever-patient, hard-tracking Harlan Waugh to walk into their trap.

Harlan, lost in his immense grief and not paying attention to the lay of the land around him as he should have, felt Martha pulling back hard on the reins. Looking back, he could see that she was looking up the mountain as she usually did when she spotted a grizzly.