Flight of the Hawk: The Plains Read online

  How have we come to this?

  The question rolled around in his head. It should have been an ordinary buffalo hunt. A simple half-moon’s venture into what the Shoshoni called the Powder River’s Basin. Instead it had become a desperate flight from a marauding band of Blackfeet that had driven them to the supposed safety of the valleys just east of the Black Hills.

  No sooner had they relaxed and dedicated themselves to the hunt than the Blackfeet had struck, killed half of the people, stolen so many of their horses, and panicked the survivors. It had been there that Three Feathers had been killed.

  Aitta, firearms, had made the difference. Especially in a lightning raid. Ride close, shoot, and dart away. A man couldn’t dodge a bullet. No shield—no matter how stout—could protect him.

  Gray Bear fingered his chin while the endless plains wind batted at him, flipping his short hair.

  So they had come here, east, into the endless sea of grass to look for Taipo. White men. The foreign traders who would barter guns for fine furs and hides. But where did Gray Bear and his little band find these elusive Taipo? Along the Great River, yes. But that selfsame river was crowded with enemies who would kill him and the rest of the men and boys, enslave the women, and steal their wealth of finely tanned calf buffalo hides.

  From his seat atop the ridge the task seemed impossible.

  “Hey, how you doing?” Old Aspen Branch asked as she climbed up beside him. She was what? Almost sixty? White-haired, her face like a shriveled and wrinkled old section of hide. Most of her teeth had fallen out, leaving her jaw undershot and her lips puckered.

  “Wondering how we got here.”

  “I told you. We need the aitta traded by the Taipo white men here in the east.” She gave him her toothless grin. “I felt the puha, the spirit Power that filled you. And you dreamed the Taipo with the hawk.”

  “Not all dreams are real, Grandmother.”

  He called her “grandmother” out of respect. Aspen Branch was a waipepuhagan. A female shaman and medicine woman. On occasion older women who had passed their last monthly bleeding would dedicate themselves to the study of spirit Power. Not that women didn’t have their own Power and spirits, but when a woman was “in her hunni” or bleeding, she wasn’t supposed to be in contact with men or a man’s possessions. To do so was considered a sort of pollution. Running and hiding as they were, associating with bleeding women hadn’t seemed nearly as dangerous as being murdered by the next war party to crest the nearest ridge.

  “That dream was real,” she told him assuredly. She gestured. “I know this place.”

  He shot her a sidelong glance. “You do? Here? This far east?”

  “Stood right on this spot as a girl. I was maybe five? Six? I was here with my father and a party headed for the Mandan to trade.”

  “You are sure this is the place?”

  Aspen Branch squinted her eyes, as if seeing back into the past. “We were the thunder in the world back then. The other peoples feared us. We rode where we would, having driven the Denee far off to the south. The Sa’idika, the dog-eating Arapaho, and the Pa’ganawoni, the Cheyenne, still grew corn and lived over east of the river. They only came here after the Blackfeet got aitta from those British traders up north. And even then, we might have kept all this, but for the rotting-face death. I was a young woman the first time the illness came upon us. Entire bands of people died. For every ten of us, only one or two of us were left.”

  “That was just the first time,” he whispered, remembering. “It came back when I was a boy. Twelve years since the last time the rotting-face sickness came.” He blinked at the memory. “It took more than half of the people that time, too. My mother and father, my older sisters.”

  “Disease and war.” Aspen Branch pulled at her ear. “So few of us survived that we’re no longer the thunder of the plains. No longer arrogant in our might.” She shot him a sidelong glance. “We need allies, Taikwahni. If we can find the right Taipo to speak for us, perhaps there is a way.”

  “Power and allies come at a cost,” he reminded her, watching as a couple of crows tumbled and sailed in the sere late summer sky.

  “We can pay.” She gestured to where the packhorses were hobbled in one of the low swales a couple of bowshots to the west. “Half of our horses are loaded with finely tanned buffalo calf hides. Beautiful things, soft as air, dyed pure white. No one tans better hides than we do.”

  At the moment, a rider appeared, working a buff-colored mare up and out of one of the drainages off to the east. She couldn’t be mistaken: Singing Lark. Sight of the girl brought a smile to Gray Bear’s lips. She rode the horse as if born on it, the wind catching her cropped black hair as she came at a canter.

  “Wonder what she’s found now?” Gray Bear asked absently.

  “We’ll know soon enough.” Aspen Branch shot him an evaluative look. “You know she’s had her moon?”

  “When?”

  “Just finished it, Taikwahni. Why do you think she’s been away from us so much these last days?”

  “Thought she was scouting for danger.”

  “Yes, she’s your scout, your chickadee who sees everything and keeps us safe. But she is also now a woman.”

  “Why didn’t she say anything?”

  “Why does anyone keep a secret? She doesn’t want anyone to know.”

  “And why are you telling me this?”

  “Taikwahni, she’s afraid that if you know she’s a woman, you’ll order her to stop scouting for you.”

  “Where would she get that notion?”

  “Think of the men who have preceded you. Even your good friend, whose place you’ve taken. All of them would tell her that she was no longer a girl, that she was a woman. That a woman’s duties were different than those of a girl, and for her to dedicate herself to the tasks that would help her find a husband.”

  He considered that. Red Moon Man, Kestrel Wing, and the rest would expect Singing Lark to behave now in a manner appropriate to a responsible woman. But they wouldn’t be nearly as adamant about it as the women in their small band.

  “Pia, we have fifteen of us. Just fifteen. We are in a land surrounded by enemies, searching for a Taipo who may be a fantasy. If the Arikara, the Mandan, the Hidatsa, or Cheyenne find us, they’ll kill you, me, and the men. The women they will take as slaves. I could care less if Singing Lark wants to keep acting like a girl.” A pause. “And I’d be a fool to lose her skill as a scout. She’s better than any man I’ve ever known.”

  Aspen Branch gave him a toothless grin. “That is why Puha chose you for this task. But Turns His Back, Red Moon Man, Kestrel Wing, not to mention the women, will have other thoughts on the matter.”

  “Then maybe we had best keep her secret, Waipepuhagan.”

  As Singing Lark rode close, her mare blowing and sweat-covered, she pointed. “I saw them, Taikwahni. Two Taipo. Or, I think they are Taipo. Light brown skin, hair all over their faces. They lead packhorses with curious packs, and”—she grinned— “best of all, they each have an aitta.”

  “Did one carry a hawk?” he asked. The man in his Spirit dreams had come in the company of a hawk.

  “Not that I could see, Taikwahni.”

  “What do you want to do?” Aspen Branch asked.

  Gray Bear sucked at his lips, then glanced at Singing Lark, enjoying the delight that reflected in the girl’s . . . no, the woman’s eyes.

  “Can you find them again, stay out of sight?”

  She grinned, exposing shining white teeth. “This is me! Of course, my chief.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Private Toby Johnson had never felt so tired in all of his nineteen years. He stood at ease, mud-spattered and smelling of his and his horse’s sweat. Every bone and muscle in his body ached from the long hours in the saddle. The knot of hunger was pulled tight in his empty belly. He’d started before daybreak, driving his mount down the rutted forest trails that passed for roads in this part of Tennessee.

  But he’d
made it to Jackson’s headquarters in Nashville where more than two thousand men had been enlisted into Jackson’s forces.

  At his desk, the general was inspecting the correspondence Toby had delivered. Dressed in a fine uniform, the general looked every bit as dangerous as his reputation. The shock of hair made Jackson appear like some raptorial bird; his eyes had hardened as they scanned the correspondence William Clark had penned back in St. Louis. Jackson placed the pages on the desk, leaned back.

  Toby pulled himself to attention, muscles stiff. Damn, Jackson looked absolutely fierce, mouth pinched, eyes burning. Toby figured the devil himself would cringe if he had to face Jackson when he was in a rage. The man unnerved him. Had caused him to run out without saluting the last time Toby had stood before him thus.

  Hope he don’t remember that.

  From his commander’s expression, the letter wasn’t good news.

  Someone had told Toby that the ancient Romans and Egyptians cut the heads off messengers who brought bad news. Compared with Jackson’s wrath, Toby concluded it was probably better to be a Roman.

  “Toby?”

  “Sir!” Toby saluted his best salute, eyes fixed on the wall behind so as to avoid the general’s deadly eyes. Those black pupils would have gone through him like a pin through a bug.

  “According to William Clark, the man about whom I have been enquiring has escaped. Again. We are at war, and now the black-hearted traitor is loose on the Upper Missouri to foment who knows what kind of perfidy. Damn that man!”

  Toby, whom most everyone considered dumber than a rock, was smart enough to keep his mouth shut. He wondered what “perfidy” was.

  Jackson leaned forward, pulled his pen from the inkwell, and scratched out a quick order. He blew on the sheet of parchment and handed it over.

  Toby took it, swallowing hard.

  Jackson’s pen was scratching its way across another sheet of paper as he spoke. “That’s a field commission, Corporal. You are to take Privates Danford and Simms. Your orders are to find John Tylor if you have to pursue him to the ends of the earth. That man could single-handedly lose us the Upper Missouri and the entire northwest. Turn the tribes against us and unleash a bloodbath. Deliver them into the hands of the British. I don’t care if you have to chase him all the way to the Pacific to do it, but I want John Tylor either captured and returned to me or shot dead.”

  I’m a corporal? In charge of men? On a special mission?

  Toby’s heart skipped, throttled only by the realization that if he failed, Jackson would have his balls. Better to just shoot himself in the head than return to report failure.

  “I know this is asking a lot, Corporal, but I don’t have anyone else to send. I’m filling out your orders now. You will present them to William Clark in St. Louis. Draw any stores you and your men will need from him or from the commanding officer at Fort Osage. Accept any advice either Clark or the officer gives you about travel upriver. I don’t care if you have to follow Tylor through hell and back, or what steps you have to take, but find that accursed traitor, and stop him before he commits more mischief.”

  Jackson handed over the orders, his thin face oddly red with anger, the fingers of one hand gripping the arm of his chair so hard the nails were white. “Word is that I may be taking the command to New Orleans to reinforce that swamp-slithering serpent Wilkinson. Your duty, your only duty, is to deal with Tylor so I can focus on other responsibilities. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, sir! Give you my word, sir!” Toby barked. Hunger and fatigue were gone; every fiber of his body vibrated.

  Jackson sat back in his chair, shaking his head. “Tylor is up the Missouri. Last known in the employ of Manuel Lisa. Lisa’s a trader and loyal to the United States. One of the partners in the Missouri Fur Company. If anyone does, he will have information on where to find Tylor.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What is it with that man?” Jackson knotted his jaws. “I should have shot him when I had the chance. You’d think he was water the way he slips through people’s fingers.”

  “What did he do, sir?” Toby dared the question.

  “Sold out this country, Corporal. He was in thick with Aaron Burr. Was going to use this government’s resources to carve his own country out of the Spanish lands in Louisiana and Texas. The man conspired with the British. With Anthony Merry, no less. That pompous and poisonous prig. Asked for a British fleet to back up his invasion. And, because of Merry’s intrigue, came within a whisker of getting it.”

  Toby blinked. The Burr conspiracy? By thunder!

  “Get out of here and go find that man!”

  Toby wheeled, calling over his shoulder, “Yes, sir. On it, sir!” as he hurried out the door. Only when he was in the hallway did he remember that he’d forgotten to salute again.

  All the more reason to hurry. He had to find Eli Danford and Silas Simms. Both were older than him. Tall, rawboned long hunters. And he had to get supplies. Enough corn and salt pork to get the three of them to St. Louis.

  And after that?

  Assuming he could convince Danford and Simms to follow his orders, assuming he could hunt this John Tylor down, what sort of man would he discover his fugitive to be? Tylor had obviously outwitted Andrew Jackson, escaped justice, orchestrated a traitorous conspiracy that included the vice president, was a known spy who was complicit with the British, and was up the Missouri unleashing havoc.

  Oh, Toby. What have you gotten yourself into?

  CHAPTER 5

  “What is it?” Tylor asked as Will Cunningham reined his horse in. The Kentucky hunter leaned forward over his saddlebow, squinted into the west wind as it tugged his beard back. The crow’s-feet tightened at the edge of Cunningham’s eyes.

  Tylor, not waiting for an answer, turned his attention to the endless grass that stretched to the far horizon. The haunting waves were so reminiscent of the ocean; endlessly rolling, they gave a sense of animation to the land. The plains were a place of movement: the restless sea of grass; the rising and falling wind; formations of cloud; and the endless parade of the sun, moon, and stars in the firmament.

  The ground here had taken on a flatter aspect as they traveled farther from the river’s broken uplands with their brush-filled drainages. But the appearance of the land deceived. It might look level at a distance, but as a person progressed, it was to find the country cut with enough creeks, dry drainages, and low swales to hide an army.

  “Old Cobble smells something.” Cunningham continued to scan the undulating grass. “Just caught a whiff.”

  “Out here it could be anything.” Tylor shifted his grip on his ugly, short-cropped rifle, glanced down to ensure he hadn’t snagged the pan to spill the priming. “Bear. Wolves. Lion.”

  “Injuns,” Cunningham rejoined.

  “Yep.”

  But the fall-yellowed grass betrayed no threat as it bent and rose under the wind’s playful massage. He couldn’t hear anything over the buzz of insects and flies, the rustle of the grass, the sighing of the wind. Overhead the sun beat down, the day hot. Sweat trickled down the inside of his shirt, wicked away by the dry heat. His black mare stamped at the flies, slashing her tail.

  Tylor carefully inspected his surroundings, relying on his peripheral vision. His travels in the southern plains had taught him that the corner of the eye often caught the first hint of movement.

  “Something’s out there,” Cunningham muttered, as if to himself. “Ain’t big.”

  Tylor caught it in the corner of his eye. There, off to the right. Grass shaken as something moved it against the wind. Just a change of pattern as the endless bluestem was disturbed.

  “Will?”

  At the hunter’s glance, Tylor indicated with his rifle. Then he reined his mare around, earing the cock back. He started his horse forward, rifle at the ready.

  Tylor’s mare snuffled, fully aware that something wasn’t right. The animal moved warily. Tense, ears pricked.

  Tylor got a good hold on the re
ins, unsure if the mare would shy, bolt, or buck. And, Lord knew, he had no idea how the animal would react if he shot from her. Probably pitch him on his head. He’d known nothing of the horse herd, his hours spent as a boatman on the journey upriver. He’d taken the mare at Lisa’s suggestion. And if she blew up? Well, as the saying went, a fella didn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Even when he was flying past its head.

  Tylor circled, trying to get a better look at whatever hid in the tall grass. The mare snorted, snuffled, and sidestepped.

  “Come on, gal. Let’s see.”

  Tylor booted the mare, clicking under his tongue, urging her forward. Clearly unhappy, she took a step. Then another.

  Off to the side, Cunningham had his long Pennsylvania rifle raised, Cobble standing with pricked ears.

  “Can’t be too much of a monster,” Tylor granted. “Might be a child or . . .”

  The thing in the grass exploded upward, a blurred image of gray, brown, and yellow. Flapping. A launching streak. The thing hissed, air popping as if pounded.

  The mare arched her back, leaped sideways. She did it so fast Tylor was left sitting on air. Really thin air given how fast he dropped and how hard he hit the ground. The impact knocked the wind out of him and left him stunned.

  He could hear the thumping of the black mare’s hooves as they hammered away across the grass. His vision blurred, cleared, and he struggled for breath.

  The grass monster, whatever it had been, was vanishing in the bluestem, the heads of grass marking its passage. Tylor sucked a breath. Realized he’d lost his rifle.

  What in hell?

  He staggered to his feet, sucked again for breath, and charged after the thing.

  Saw its path as it shoved through the grass, then stopped.

  Tylor shot a glance over his shoulder, seeing where Cunningham was chasing down the mare and the two packhorses who had followed.

  Tylor, still panting for breath, crept forward. Peered fearfully at the hole in the grass where the monster hid.