F
or two beats after I put away the gun, no one moved. We might have been snow sculptures in that lonely glade. Then, at a signal from Rocking Wolf, the brave mounted at his right lowered his gun and trotted over to me, where he sat looking down at me with an expectant scowl.
“You will surrender your weapons,” directed the Indian in command. His English was ponderous but correct.
Thinking that it was becoming increasingly difficult for me to hold onto a firearm, I unbuckled my gun belt and handed it up to the brave. There was another long silence while his eyes searched me from head to foot. At length they settled upon the hilt of the knife protruding above the top of my right boot. The scowl became ominous. I stopped, drew the knife from its sheath, and gave it to him, handle first.
While the brave had been engaged in disarming me, Rocking Wolf had nodded again, this time to a savage at his left, who swung past my skitterish mount and hooked the Henry out of its scabbard, then tossed it to his superior. Rocking Wolf caught it in one hand and examined it perfunctorily. With a shrug he handed it to another brave.
“I do not applaud your preference in firearms,” he told me. “What is your name, and what have you to do with the thing that has happened here this day?”
I told him my name. “As for the rest,” I added, “I prefer to talk it over with Two Sisters. Where is your chief?”
Rocking Wolf barked something in Salish. Immediately the brave who had relieved me of my revolver and knife reached down and snatched a handful of my collar, thrusting the point of the latter weapon against my jugular as he did so. His hands smelled of rancid bear grease.
“Perhaps opening your throat will show us the way to your tongue,” said the chief's nephew.
The bite of the knife acted as a spur to my already racing thoughts. “Killing me will gain you nothing, Rocking Wolf,” I said hoarsely. “Whereas allowing me to live may lead you to the hiding place of Mountain That Walks.”
The forbidden name brought a reaction from all who understood the language, even Rocking Wolf. Again there was a long silence. I felt a drop of blood trickle down my throat and into my collar.
“How is it that you know my name, white skin?”
I hesitated, allowing my eyes to slide toward the Indian holding the knife. At a nod from his superior the brave withdrew the blade and relinquished his grip on my collar.
“I used to run into you and your brother, Yellow Horn, in the mountains when you were hunting.” I rubbed my throat, smearing the blood. “That was many years ago. Few words passed between us at those times.”
“I do not remember you.”
“It's likely you didn't notice me. I was always with Bear Anderson, him who you call Mountain That Walks.”
For an instant, Rocking Wolf let slip his mask, revealing the naked hatred that writhed beneath. Nine rifles were poised to fire; there was a beat during which I was one harsh syllable away from death. Then he retreated behind the India rubber facade once again.
“You are either very brave or very foolish to tell me that,” he said. “I have not yet decided which is the case.”
“Do we have a bargain?”
“What makes you think I value your knowledge? The murderer of my people has left a clear trail to follow, and we are expert trackers.”
“Now who's being foolish? Nightfall is less than two hours away. Even Salish can't track a man in the dark. By tomorrow the snow will have returned to
cover the trail. I grew up with Anderson, remember; I know how he thinks. I alone can lead you to his lair.”
He studied me in silence. His thoughts were impossible to read. After an eternity he looked to the brave with the knife and gave him a curt order. Reluctantly, the brave backed his horse away from me.
“Mount your horse,” Rocking Wolf directed. “You will get your meeting with the chief.”
I waited until all weapons were put away, then stepped forward to untie the chestnut.
It was the work of five minutes for the braves to gather up their dead and sling them over the backs of their horses. When that was done, Leslie Brainard was left alone to decorate the tree where he had met his merciful end. By morning the wolves and coyotes would finish the job that had been started by the Indians.
“Where is Yellow Horn?” I asked Rocking Wolf, once I was in the saddle. “I don't see him in your party.”
“My brother is dead,” he said. “Killed last winter by Mountain That Walks.” He gave his horse a kick and led the way north.
The pass inclined steadily upward to about six thousand feet, where it leveled out, yielding what would have been a spectacular view of the sunset over the Bitterroot had it not been for the thickening veil of clouds that reduced the violent reds and purples to a vague rust on the horizon. Soon even that was gone, and from then on we felt our way
forward with only the aid of the snow's own mysterious source of illumination. An hour after sundown it began to snow again, this time in large wet flakes that slithered down our faces and made sizzling noises when they struck the ground. I dug my chin into my chest for warmth. Around me, the Indians rode straight as andirons; in their bearskins they remained as warm as if they hadn't left their fire-lit lodges.
The Flathead camp was laid out across a broad spot in the pass, between two cliffs of sheer rock. Only the tops of the temporary animal-hide structures were visible above the snow. Here and there a torch burned, its flame flaring and faltering beneath the snow's untiring assault. A hundred yards before we reached the camp we were stopped by a rifle-toting sentry atop the east cliff, who addressed our leader in rapid Salish.
Rocking Wolf answered him in the same tongue, gesticulating in my direction and snarling a string of words that didn't sound much like compliments. The sentry lowered his weapon and waved us on.
“You're late getting out of the mountains this year,” I remarked as we entered camp.
“That is because Two Sisters cannot be moved.” Rocking Wolf kept his eyes trained straight ahead of him. “Ten suns ago he was thrown by his horse. His injuries have yet to heal.”
A scruffy dog of uncertain ancestry came bouncing out from behind one of the lodges and announced our arrival in raucous barks. It was joined by another,
and soon we were surrounded by mongrels of every size and description, snapping at our heels and raising enough racket to bestir the corpses on the backs of the party's mounts. Here and there a flap was pulled aside and a half-naked brave stepped out of his lodge to stare at us with suspicious eyes.
The chief's lodge, a squat cone made of buffalo hide and bearskin sewn together and stretched over six stout poles bound together at the top by a strip of uncured leather, was no grander than those that surrounded it. A colorless haze of heat drifted out through the opening in the top, causing the crossed ends of the poles to shimmer like sunken pilings at the bottom of a shallow pond. Rocking Wolf dismounted before the lodge and, out of habit, landed a glancing blow with the sole of his right moccasin boot alongside the head of a black-muzzled mutt that had gotten too close. The dog shrieked and drew its upper lip back over its yellowed fangs, but it shrank away. The Indian exchanged a few low words with the fur-clad brave guarding the entrance, who ducked inside for a moment, then returned and nodded curtly. Rocking Wolf told me to stay where I was and entered the lodge through the low flap.
News that a white man had been brought in alive along with the corpses of the missing hunting party had spread quickly throughout the camp. Everywhere I looked I met a hostile face, leaving me with little doubt about who they believed was responsible.
I thought of Leslie Brainard's fate and wondered if they could have anything worse in store for me.
The wails of the women were conspicuous by their absence; I came to realize after a moment that there were few, if any, squaws in camp. Probably they were waiting for their men back at the permanent village west of the Bitterroot. That was proof enough that the prospect of crossing the mountains was no longer a casual one now that they were part of Bear Anderson's domain. The thought didn't gratify me. A savage afraid, like an animal cornered, was a thing best left alone.
The quickening snow had put out the last of the torches by the time the chiefâ²s nephew emerged from the lodge and signaled for me to enter. I dismounted amid a chorus of threatening growls and elbowed my way through the throng, expecting any time to feel the burning pain of a knife blade being shoved between my ribs.
But the aura of command that surrounded the chief's lodge was too great, and presently I found myself blinking in the light of the fire that burned in the center of the cone. After the dimness of the snow-covered landscape outside, it was some moments before my eyes could discern anything in the gloom that surrounded that crackling brightness. Meanwhile, I occupied myself by listening to the voice that addressed me as soon as I entered.
“You're far from home, Page Murdock.” It was a dry voice; something that had been left too close to
the fire so that all the moisture had been allowed to bake away, leaving only the brittle shell. It handled English with less difficulty than Rocking Wolf, which was no surprise. During his fifty-odd years, Chief Two Sisters had learned to speak three languages fluently.
“Farther than you think, Chief,” I said after a moment. I fished my badge out of my breast pocket and held it up in the firelight. “I'm a deputy U.S. marshal operating out of Helena. The man your braves were torturing when they were surprised by Mountain That Walks was my prisoner. He's the reason I'm here.”
The fire hissed and belched while Two Sisters digested the information I'd given him. Gradually, I was able to make out the lines and finally the details of a lean figure sitting up on a straw pallet on the other side of the flames, his back supported against one of the sturdy poles and a buffalo robe drawn up to his chest. His eyes were black hollows beneath a high, square brow. The shifting firelight threw his equally square chin and sharp cheekbones into relief against the corrugated parchment of the rest of his face. He had a wide, firm mouth and a nose with a crushed bridge, as if at some time in the distant past it had come up hard against the flat of an enemy tomahawk. His hair was shoulder-length but unbraided, the color of tarnished silver. The term Flathead being a misnomer foisted upon the Montana Salish by the early pioneers, there were no
signs of the artificial flattening of the skull practiced by some western tribes. His breathing, loud in the seclusion of the lodge, was even but careful, as I suppose any man's would be after he had broken several ribs falling from his horse.
There was a third party in the lodge, a squat, broad-shouldered brave whose features were impossible to make out as he stood almost completely enveloped in shadow beside his seated chief. His chest was naked and powerful, leathery slabs of muscle glistening beneath the obligatory coating of bear grease. When he moved his head I caught a glimpse of firelight glinting off the buffalo horns of his headdress. That would make him the medicine man. Knowing that, I didn't have to see his face to guess what he thought of my presence in camp. There isn't a medicine man west of Buffalo Bill's show who doesn't view all white men as a threat to his authority.
“This man you say you were hunting,” spoke up Two Sisters. “Which of your laws did he break?”
I told him. His scowl carved deep lines from his nostrils to the corners of his mouth.
“A foolish crime. We Salish beat our squaws when they make us angry, but we do not kill them. What's to be gained?” He sighed, easing his breath out between his cracked ribs. “It's a shame that Mountain That Walks arrived when he did to put an end to his suffering. The fate the hunting party
had planned for him was far more fitting. He is the one responsible for your injury?”
I put a hand to my head, touching the bandage beneath the brim of my hat. The pounding had become so much a part of me that I'd forgotten I was wearing it. I nodded.
“He had no firearms?”
“He did after he hit me. I saw no sign of them where he was killed. At the time I assumed Bear Anderson had taken them, but they could just as easily have been picked up by Rocking Wolf and his party.”
Two Sisters shook his head. “My brother's son says the only weapons he saw were those that had been carried by the dead braves. Their horses were also missing, perhaps frightened off by the shots.” He paused. A stick of wood near the heart of the fire separated with a loud report, sending up a geyser of sparks and bathing the chief's face in brief, fiery brilliance. His eyes were sad. “It's a bad thing to have happen,” he said. “Tomorrow I will have no choice but to call a council of war.”
“Not if I can lead you to the lair of Mountain That Walks.”
The flare had died, returning his face to shadowy patchwork. “Rocking Wolf has told me of your boast,” he said. “How will you do this?”
“How do you hunt any game? By knowing its habits. I spent a third of my life hunting those mountains with Anderson. His movements are
predictable. Depending on the weather and the shifting of the game he lives on, I can place him within a few miles at any given time.”