Cut Hand

Chapter 1-1

Chapter 1Spring 1832

At the edge of the Little Island Mountains, the Dakota country

From our place of concealment, we silently watched the tribesman ease cautiously out of the draw and press up a steep slope littered with broken boulders and sparse-leafed mountain scrub, exposing himself to two warriors on sturdy Indian ponies methodically working the rims of the coulee below. One threw up a long gun and shattered a stone near the fleeing man’s shoulder. A third brave, nearer his quarry, loosed a wild yell and wheeled his pony, raising a tomahawk as the pinto churned awkwardly across the sharply pitched ground. His prey evaded the hatchet and snagged its wicked head, bringing down both man and mount.

The two adversaries tumbled in a dog-fall over the cruel, stony ground. Only one, the fugitive, staggered to his feet, swiped a bloody knife on his slain foe’s leggings, and broke for the scrambling pinto. A second shot roared. The pony screamed in pain and flopped to the ground, sliding in the loose scree.

The runner dropped behind the downed beast and clawed a weapon from beneath the heavy body. We watched silently as he eased the barrel over the horse’s side and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. Abandoning the useless musket atop the dead horse, the brave slithered on his belly to the sanctuary of a narrow fold of rock and began a slow climb up the escarpment. The other two Indians, most likely believing their prey now armed, dismounted and carefully approached the fallen pony.

Hidden by a thin, serrated outcrop of granite crowning the ridge, we witnessed the deadly drama unfold below us. The lone Indian, clad only in breechcloth and moccasins, slipped through the thin cover of the slope, gaining significant advantage over his cautious pursuers in this ghastly game of hide-and-seek with human lives in the forfeit. I held strongly to the view red Indians are human, even though this brought me into conflict with much of society. I had the same opinion of black slaves. Neither conviction was oft voiced aloud.

Beyond the promontory we occupied, the high plains stretched below puffy thunderheads to the northern horizon broken only by a distant, barren mamelle. These broad, short-grass champains cut a swath through the country four hundred miles wide from Canada to Tejas, interrupted by occasional ranges such as the Little Islands at our backs and the Great Shining Mountains rising well to the west.

Splitlip Rumquiller surveyed things with an expert eye on my far right. Wild Red Greavy lay in the middle, taking in events through mere slits, and I anchored the left, shivering with excitement and a modicum of fright.

The runaway, making clever use of scant cover, was now close enough to distinguish his features. He was tall, appearing to be over six English feet, and well-formed, putting me in mind of a statue called David I had once seen pictured in a book. The Indian, who was probably no more than my own twenty-and-one years, glanced up suddenly. I froze. To move was to invite discovery. In that brief moment, I was struck by how likely he was. Comeliness was not something I equated with the natives I encountered back east.

The horsemen, remounted now, crisscrossed below him, secure in the knowledge that he held no long-range weapon. The youth would have breached the ridge in a clump of mountain mahogany twenty paces to our right had not one rider suddenly urged his spotted pony straight up the slope, forcing his target into the shelter of a small draw leading to where we lay hidden.

The second brave reined his mustang left to box in their prey. Then both deliberately worried their way up the slope, no more than two hundred yards behind the man on foot. Within seconds, slight noises came from directly below us; strong red-brown hands grasped the upright granite, and the brave vaulted over the crest with his eyes scanning the slope behind him.

In an instant Split was on him, tumbling the Indian onto his back in the dust. Red vaulted atop the savage, leaving me to grab a flailing right arm. It was all I could do to hold on. The fugitive tossed wildly before my weight gained the advantage. Split grunted a few guttural words, and the Indian settled down. Red, caught in the bloodlust of the moment, raised a knife high above his head. Without thinking, I thrust myself between them.

“Whut th—” Red was barely able to slow his killing stroke. I seized his wrist in both hands. Even so, the blade drew blood from my left breast.

The man beneath me stirred not a muscle, although I trembled with belated fear. Sweat popped out on my forehead.

“Don’t kill him!” I implored. Men slew one another, sometimes for no reason, but I did not cotton to being a party to it.

“Billy, you damned fool!” Red raged quietly. “That siwahe’d lift your crown, he git half a chance. Now git outa my way.”

Splitlip’s quiet rumble brought us to our senses. “You don’t stop squabblin’, we’ll be in for it right quick. Them other two’s gittin’ mighty close. Red, keep a eye on this feller, but don’t do nothing rash.” Split beckoned me away from the ridge and silently signed for me to hurl a stone off to the left and below the horsemen. I gave it my best heave.

A moment later we returned to where Red sat atop the fallen Indian with a knife tip threatening the tribesman’s exposed throat. A quick look showed my companion had not given in to a murderous impulse in our absence.

“They’s taking the bait,” Split informed us in a whisper. Both he and Red spoke a form of English that was almost foreign to me, although my ear was becoming accustomed to it. “But it ain’t gonna fool them for long. They ain’t gonna be able to bring the horses straight up, so they’ll look for another way to the top. We’s hightailing it, and we’ll take this ‘un with us. Ain’t gonna leave him for them to find and git curious. Let’s move!”

“Ya crazy old galoot!” Red grumped. Nonetheless he stowed the Indian’s knife in his boodle and came up with a set of manacles. Where they came from, I didn’t know and was afraid to ask. After securing the prisoner’s hands behind his back, Red fixed a rope to the chain and handed me the fag end. “You favor him so much, you kin nursemaid him.”

Mutely accepting the chore, I followed our shackled captive as he trailed Red into the pine forest on the high side of the ridge. Split tarried to erase our sign. After a short distance, I stopped casting about for hostile Indians and studied the one in front of me. Thick black hair, worn loose, tumbled over wide shoulders and cascaded down a muscled back that tapered to a waist no bigger than mine despite his larger frame. Firm buttocks, only half-covered by a leather apron, flexed with each step. Suddenly embarrassed, I realized I was studying a near-naked man the way I’d admired Abigail on the rare occasion she deigned show a spit of flesh. That was a queer thought for a Christian-raised gentleman, one I dismissed as excitement over my first proximity to a pure quill Indian.

Split joined us shortly before the light failed and picked a thick copse of locust for our camp. Nights were chilly at this altitude, but it was colder in the grave, so we dared not risk a fire—not with two armed and mounted warriors in the vicinity. If the flames failed to give us away, the smoke most certainly would. More than one immigrant party had been betrayed to hostiles by such carelessness. We took a cut of a meal, jerky and hard tack, me sharing mine with the Indian.

After we ate, Split sat cross-legged in front of our prisoner and talked gibberish for a while. Splitlip Rumquiller, who took his byname from an old hatchet wound, had pre-eminence among us by dint of superior experience. Nearing fifty, he spoke several dialects and knew the tribes to avoid and those who would do business with the white man. He had walked this particular route north of the Santa Fe Trail twice before. The Indians called him Splitrum.

At last the battered old frontiersman turned to us, and indicated a long-healed wound on the youth’s left hand. “Name’s Cut Hand, because a that scar. Tribe’s sorta a cousin to the Sioux. The argot’s near the same. Understands me good enough, though some words is different. Calls his band the People of the Yanube. That’s a river off to the north. Pappy’s the misco, the headman. Cut Hand was off in another camp visiting a gal. Musta been good poontang, ‘cause them others flat-out jumped him on the way back home. They kilt his pony, but he hightailed it for the hill country.” Split hawked and spat even though he’d used up his chewing tobacco a week past. “Been trying to shake them for half a day.”

Split turned to Red. “So’s you’ll rest easier, he’s gonna stay with us till we put some distance twixt him and his village. Won’t give us no bother less’n you have another go at him. When we’s satisfied, he’ll take his knife back and head home.”

Red was a small, grum man of rusty hair and crazy green eyes, who tended to rise at a feather. A shanty Irishman from somewhere around Boston, he reputedly had a wife and five carrottopped fry. No one knew why he had taken to the willows and appeared on the Santa Fe Trail five years back, although the set of iron ruffles that now confined our prisoner’s wrists might provide a clue.

“I say we just kill him,” Red proposed. “Ain’t no use taking chances. Then we’s free to worry about them others. Shoulda give them two a lead ball twixt the eyes when we had the chance. Now they knows about us, it’s bound to be harder.”

“Ain’t my way to kill without no need,” Split growled in a low voice.

Red gave in sourly. “Just don’t let him git in my way. And them irons stays where they is.” He shot a thumb at me. “You’re gonna have to watch him. You don’t git no sleep, that’s your plight.” He turned back to Split. “I’d feel better we git some water twixt us and his people. They a river anywheres close?”

“One south a us. Said to be another trail to Fort Wheeler that a way.”

Red spoke to me again. “I ain’t sleeping with him. Find yourself a place off in the woods and chain him to a tree. If them other los come, they’ll take your topknot and leave mine where it be.” I took “los” to be a scurrilous name for red men.

“Ain’t a bad idee,” Split mused. “Them others found our sign by now. If you got chores, best git on them. I’ll find a spot for you to bed down.”

“Chores?” Then understanding dawned. “Oh! Come on, Cut Hand.” I got to my feet. The big youth rose effortlessly, listened to Split for a minute, and then strode off, dragging me along by my rope.

We walked half a league before he found a spot he considered satisfactory. I shrugged. It appeared no different from a dozen others we passed without pausing. The Indian ignored my eyeballing his nakedness as he stepped out of his breechclout, but he spat staccato sounds until I stood on the other side of the bush as he went about his private business. I tied my end of the rope to a sturdy branch to perform my own, fully realizing this was a useless effort as he could easily escape by merely jerking it free.

As we washed in a cold, clear freshet, I was unable to keep my eyes off him. A tight black bush crowned his long, thick manhood. If he noticed my observation, he gave no sign. When we were finished, he was unable to tie his flap one-handed, so I did it for him. As I performed the awkward chore, my hand—necessarily, I thought—pressed against his thigh. My reaction took me by such surprise that I fumbled. I grew excited so abruptly, had I not already passed water, it would have been impossible to do so. My fingers lost their grip, dropping the leather apron to the ground. I bent to retrieve it and found my eyes on a level with his genitals. Purposeful or not, I lost my balance and grasped his thigh to regain my equilibrium. My thumb invaded his freshly washed pubic hair. I scrambled to my feet and aggressively went about fastening his drawstring without daring to meet his eyes.