Bitterroot

by Charles G. West

Genres: Action & Adventure; Historical Fiction; Westerns

Synopsis

Charles G. West's Wild River introduced readers to Little Wolf, the white man raised as Cheyenne. Now, the thrilling saga continues as Little Wolf teams up with a fugitive U.S. soldier to escape an army of former comrades and bounty hunters...

"This is the West as it really was...savage, heroic, and unforgettable."—Ralph Compton

Release date: October 1, 1999

Publisher: Berkley

Print pages: 320

Sample

THE EX-SOLDIER

“Let her go, Spanner.”

The voice came from the doorway. There was no hint of excitement, just a simple command. Spanner turned to see who dared to interfere with his pleasure. He half expected to see the girl’s father, but it was not. He grunted and laughed when he saw Tom standing by the front door. He made no move to release the girl.

“Let her go,” Tom repeated, bringing the Winchester up waist-high, at the same time keeping a watchful eye on the three troopers still seated at the table.

“Looo…tenant,” Spanner growled with emphatic sarcasm. “When was the last time an enlisted man told you to kiss his ass?”

“Let her go,” he said for the third time.

Spanner hesitated, looking at the rifle already leveled at him. He considered for only a moment whether or not he could release his hold on the girl and draw his pistol in time. He was angry and half drunk but he had better sense than to try it. Still, he was not willing to give in so easily. “Ain’t you the brave one? I thought I run you out of here once, and here you come crawling back holding a rifle on me. I wonder how big you’d talk if you didn’t have the jump on me.”

Tom was running out of patience. “Sergeant, you might find it difficult to ride back to your outfit with a bullet hole in your hide….”

BITTERROOT

CHARLES G. WEST

For Ronda

Table of Contents

Chapter I

Tom Allred stood in the doorway of the small room that had served as his quarters for the past two years. The steam from the army issue cup rose upward until it met the cold, crisp morning air, where it was molded into wispy curls that swept gently across his face. He inhaled the aroma of the strong, black coffee as he gazed out across the dusty parade ground, gray now in the early morning light. Soon the first rays of the sun would touch the easternmost rank of the troopers standing down from reveille. The duty officer would soon dismiss the formation, and they would break for the mess tent. Tom knew the routine well. It had been his life for the past twelve years. But it would be his life no more. Yesterday he was Lieutenant Thomas Allred, U.S. Seventh Cavalry. Today he was simply Tom Allred, civilian, the rank and insignia having been removed from his faded blue shirt.

He allowed a sigh to escape his lips as he corralled his wandering mind, lest he permit it to linger on the sadness of this day. The army had been his life, his home, since he enlisted at the age of eighteen and marched off to offer his services, and life if need be, to the Union. Now, on this chilly autumn morning, he was to leave the only family he knew, the Seventh Cavalry. His fellow officers, those who survived the battle at the Little Big Horn, had been his only friends and they were now lost to him. He sipped the coffee gingerly from the metal cup, taking care not to burn his lips. The black liquid was not as hot as the metal cup that held it. He couldn’t help but smile when he remembered Squint Peterson’s complaining that, “By the time the damn cup cooled enough to touch it to your mouth, the coffee was too cold to drink.” Squint was a helluva scout, one of the two best on the western frontier, the other being Andy Coulter. Everything Tom knew about fighting Indians he learned from these two scouts. Of the two, Andy had been the closest to him. It was Andy who took him under his wing when he first arrived from Fort Riley in the summer of ’65, a bright-eyed young lieutenant with thoughts of glory and a long career in the army. But Andy Coulter was gone now. His body was found no more than twenty feet or so from Custer’s body on top of a desolate little hill near the banks of the Little Big Horn. He would sorely miss the scout. A friend like Andy could never be replaced.

His mind recalled a picture of the two old scouts, galloping out from the column, Andy squat and square in the saddle, Squint as big as a great bear. He wondered where Squint Peterson was now, and if he finally made it to the Oregon territory. He was always talking about going to Oregon. Maybe he was holed up somewhere, perhaps in a snug little valley, waiting for the winter that was now barely two months away. The last memory he had of Squint was the sight of his giant bulk bobbing out of sight as he and his horse struggled with the current in the muddy waters of the Yellowstone. Then the sobering thought struck him—what would Squint think about Tom’s situation now?

“Morning, Tom.”

“Morning, Sid,” Tom returned the greeting from the stocky figure wearing the garrison uniform of an infantry officer.

“I thought I’d catch you before you left this morning.” Noticing Tom’s horse saddled and tied to the porch railing, he added, “I reckon you’re all packed and ready to leave.” He faltered a moment. “I wish I could have done more—”

Tom interrupted him. “Sid, you did the best you could. I’ve got no complaints over the way you presented my side of it. I appreciate what you did for me.” He shrugged and threw the remains of his coffee cup into the dust below the porch. “Hell, there wasn’t much you could do, anyway. I don’t fault the army for it. They couldn’t very well overlook what I did and just say, Don’t do it again, could they?”

The lieutenant fidgeted. “Yeah, but I might have been able to save you your commission if I had been a little more experienced. I sure as hell ain’t a lawyer.” His glance dropped down to his boots as if inspecting them for dust. “I didn’t want the damn job in the first place but somebody had to represent you, so you got stuck with me.”

Tom laughed and put his hand on the lieutenant’s shoulder. “Nobody could have done it better. I got no complaints. Don’t worry about it. As far as the army was concerned, I did wrong and I was going to pay for it no matter who my defense counsel was.”

Sid nodded, understanding. He knew Tom was right. The army had to kick him out. At least he escaped having to serve any time in prison which, under most circumstances, would have been the case. Tom’s record had weighed heavily in his favor. He had served with honor at Vicksburg and Chattanooga before being transferred to the Seventh. And then, under Custer’s command, he had campaigned in the raid on Black Kettle’s village on the Washita, fought the Sioux and Cheyenne on the Bozeman Trail, and was in Benteen’s command at the Little Big Horn. He carried two wounds, both earned in battle with the hostiles. Because of this spotless service record, it had been difficult to explain his actions that evening on the Yellowstone, actions that had precipitated his court-martial.

Lieutenant Sidney A. Pearson had less than six months service at Fort Lincoln when he was appointed defense counsel for Tom Allred. An infantry officer, he had arrived too late to participate in the campaign against the Sioux. He had been in garrison when the shocking word of Custer’s annihilation was received at the fort, and he had remained on garrison duty during the three-pronged attack that finally crushed the Sioux at Wagon Box later that summer. Like Tom Allred, he had earned his commission under fire. For him it was Gettysburg but, unlike Tom, he had no experience fighting the Sioux and the Cheyenne.

Initially he had no desire to defend an officer charged with not only permitting the escape of an infamous Cheyenne war chief, but actually effecting the escape—losing not only the prisoner, but a valued army scout as well. What made it even more damnable was that the prisoner was none other than Little Wolf, a renegade so notorious that Custer himself had offered a reward of his own money for the man’s capture. In the weeks before the court-martial, however, Sid came to believe the man he was to represent was an officer of obvious integrity and devotion to duty. He wanted to believe that Tom was innocent of the charges brought upon him by the three enlisted men who were assigned to escort Little Wolf back to Fort Lincoln. But the evidence seemed to point toward his guilt.

The enlisted men, a sergeant and two privates, had discussed the incident at great length among themselves before deciding they should inform the post adjudant of their misgivings about the events that led up to the prisoner’s escape. It was close to dark when it was decided to take that treacherous trail beside the swollen waters of the Yellowstone. They had one of the best scouts in the army, Squint Peterson, so the men figured he knew what he was doing, although it seemed a risky trail to take at that time of day. It was almost dark and what little light there was was fading rapidly. The sergeant, a tall rawboned man named Waymon Spanner, figured it wouldn’t have saved more than two hours’ ride over the long way around that section of the river. Still, Spanner insisted, there would have been no problem were it not for the peculiar actions of the lieutenant and Peterson. It was plain to see that Spanner had a strong dislike for Tom Allred in the way he criticized his handling of the escape. Judging the man to be a born troublemaker, Sid wondered if Spanner knew any officers he didn’t hold in contempt. Still, he was the army’s chief witness, and the man who brought the charges. And it was his accounting the army accepted.

According to Spanner’s testimony, they had reached a point in the narrow trail where part of it had been washed out, leaving room for only one horse at a time to pass. Lieutenant Allred had halted the detail and instructed Peterson to check the prisoner’s bindings. Then he ordered the three enlisted men to pass over the wash-out first. At the time, this seemed like a curious command to Sergeant Spanner since they were better positioned to watch the prisoner from behind. The lieutenant had made some remark to the effect he wanted his men safely across the wash-out before a bloody hostile was permitted to cross. The events that took place within the next few seconds were not clear to him at the time, but soon seemed overly bizarre after discussing it with the other men.

One of the privates led. Spanner was next. Behind him, the other private, a young trooper named Wyatt, followed. Just as Wyatt cleared the wash-out, several shots rang out. At first Spanner thought they were under attack. He could hear horses screaming and the lieutenant shouting, “Halt!” Then the sound of the lieutenant’s carbine filled the canyon. He found out moments later that both Peterson’s and the prisoner’s horses had gone off the ledge into the river. This was the strange part, as far as the sergeant was concerned. Wyatt had managed to back his horse around enough to see what was happening. He was able to get his rifle out and fire a couple of shots after the prisoner as he was washed down with the current. But, according to Wyatt, he was lucky if he even hit the river, what with the way the lieutenant’s horse kept bumping his own. He swore it was almost like the lieutenant was purposely spoiling his aim. It was all over in a matter of seconds, and they could no longer see the two horses or riders in the half-light. But the lieutenant assured them that he had killed the Indian and that maybe Wyatt had shot Peterson. It didn’t make sense. Wyatt doubted very seriously if he had hit anything. But Lieutenant Allred insisted that both men were done for. Adding to the sergeant’s suspicions, they were ordered to proceed on to Fort Lincoln without searching for the bodies. It didn’t appear to be a case of simple carelessness, and the court had little choice but to find Tom guilty of something short of treason. There was just too much evidence against him.

Sid Pearson couldn’t help but like Tom Allred. He would have liked to save his commission for him, but Tom was unable to explain—or maybe he just refused to explain—why he acted as he did that night on the Yellowstone. Army records showed that the Cheyenne war chief, Little Wolf, was regarded as one of the most feared of all the hostile battle leaders. And, to make his crimes against the army even more serious, Little Wolf was not in fact an Indian but a white man raised by the Cheyennes. Lieutenant Allred himself had been wounded by Little Wolf and, had it not been for the actions of army scout Andy Coulter, he would have most likely perished in an ambush staged by the renegade. Sid had the feeling that Tom wasn’t telling him the whole story behind his actions during the incident at the Yellowstone. Still, he did the best he could for him, basing his defense almost entirely on Tom’s service record. Tom was found guilty, but was given a choice. He could remain in the army as a private after serving one year in prison, or he would be allowed to resign and forfeit all pay due him, which amounted to three months’ pay. Tom chose the latter.

“That looks like Andy Coulter’s forty-five-seventy Winchester.”

Tom’s comment startled him, and he realized his mind had been drifting back over the court-martial. “What?” he started. “Oh … yeah, it is,” he answered and held the rifle out toward Tom. “I thought you might need it. From what I’ve heard, Andy would probably have liked for you to have it.” He paused for a second while Tom took the rifle and examined it as if it were a precious thing. “I figured I’d better get it before somebody else confiscated it.”

Tom was touched. “Thanks, Sid. I appreciate it.” Andy had thought more of his rifle than if it had been a wife. It meant a lot to Tom to have it. Andy was seldom caught without that rifle. It was ironic that on the last day of his life, when fighting over- whelming odds, his rifle was back here at Fort Lincoln, getting a new firing pin. Tom rubbed his finger thoughtfully over the smooth surface of the stock, his mind drifting back to better days before Little Big Horn.

“Hell, I wish I could do more for you.” Sid stepped over to Tom’s horse and hooked the straps of a canvas satchel over the saddle horn. “Here’s some cartridges for it. Rifle won’t do you much good without these.”

Tom smiled. “Reckon not.”

“At least they let you keep Billy.”

“Yeah,” was all Tom answered, but he was indeed appreciative of the gift of his horse. Billy, a blue roan, had been with him for two years, and they were comfortable with each other. He was not as swift as an Indian pony. Still, Billy was not slow when it came to a full gallop, and he had staying power. Short legs and a broad chest with plenty of room for heart, Billy was a horse a man could count on.

“Well, I’ve got to go to work.” Sid extended his hand.

“Yeah, time for me to go too, I reckon.” They shook hands and Sid turned and walked briskly back toward the orderly room.

Tom watched Sid Pearson for a few moments until he disappeared around the corner of the officers’ quarters. Then he went back into the small room for one last look around to make sure he wasn’t leaving anything. He reached down and smoothed out a wrinkle in the blanket on the narrow cot. He didn’t do it consciously. It was a reflex action from years of army routine. Had he given it any thought, he might have realized that it didn’t make any difference now what condition the room was in. He didn’t have to care anymore. He picked up a small shaving mirror he had forgotten to take from the washstand. As he did, he caught a glimpse of his image, and it caused him to pause and examine the face in the glass. He almost did not recognize the man he saw. The eyes looked tired, etched at the corners with tiny wrinkles from long hot days in the saddle. Already a scattering of gray was infiltrating his mustache, a little premature for a man of thirty. The reflection he saw was a hell of a lot different from the fresh-faced lieutenant who rode out on the train to Fort Riley eleven years before. Duty on the western frontier aged a man. He had to wonder how much of that aging had taken place during the last few months while awaiting court-martial.

Sid had done as much as he possibly could have in representing him. Maybe Tom should have told him the whole story, he couldn’t say. It probably would not have made much difference in the outcome of the trial. On the other hand, maybe it would have. But Tom somehow felt it best to keep it to himself. There were only three men on the western frontier who knew the secret he had carried—himself, Squint Peterson, and Little Wolf—a secret he had been careful to keep from Custer, that Little Wolf’s real name was Robert Allred. He was Tom’s brother. Tom had only known it himself for a little over a year when Squint Peterson put two and two together and discovered the twist of fate that had placed the two brothers on opposite sides in the bloody struggle for possession of the plains. That was the reason Tom had not told Sid why he acted the way he had that evening on the Yellowstone. The army would view it as an invalid defense. Duty first, there would be no debate. In the final analysis, it was his decision alone, and renegade or not, enemy though he was, Little Wolf was his brother by birth and Tom could not let the man hang. His brother was raised from childhood as a Cheyenne warrior. Tom could not accept the fact that Little Wolf was wrong in choosing to fight for the people who took him in and raised him.

He gazed at the face in the mirror for a moment longer before turning and leaving his small quarters. Outside, he stepped up on Billy and pointed him toward the main gate. With a gentle pressure of his heels, he urged the horse into a canter and said farewell to the army and his career as a professional soldier.

Chapter II

Winter was hard that year, the hardest Tom ever remembered, and not entirely due to the weather. It was cold enough. It always was in Montana territory. It was more that he was orphaned from the military. Before, he was always assured of a warm home base where it was someone else’s responsibility to provide food and housing. Now, for the first time since he joined the army, Tom was on his own, alone in the vast winter wilderness of Montana. Looking back a few months, he was not sure now why he had chosen to go north and west when he left Fort Lincoln. At the time, he felt a strong desire to lose himself completely from all civilization. He had not the slightest notion as to how he could make a living. All he knew was the army. He couldn’t farm, even if he had a desire to, which he didn’t. He didn’t have enough money to buy stock, even if he had a notion to run cattle. There were cattle ranches in Montana. A few brave souls had even pushed herds up from Texas in search of the lush prairies, willing to take on the Indians and the cruel winters. Tom had no experience with cattle. All that was left for him were trapping and panning for gold. Of the two, he figured he knew the least about panning for gold. True, he wasn’t much on trapping either, but at least he had learned a little about it from Squint Peterson during the long winter months at Fort Lincoln, when cabin fever would drive the army scout out of the fort for a few days’ respite. Tom had accompanied Squint on more than one occasion, whenever the duty roster permitted. It had proven to be valuable experience, for he had learned how to build a camp in the snow and how to stay alive in the brutal winters of the plains. He would need this knowledge now because it was the wrong time of year for a man to strike out alone across the Dakota/Montana territory, what with winter just getting its second wind. But he felt the need to be on the move. Still, he disliked the idea of aimless wandering, so he told himself he was headed toward Oregon, the hoped-for destination of hundreds of other displaced souls. Once there, he could see to the business of making a new beginning for himself. But for now, it was enough to simply be on the move.

He had managed to save a little money from his army pay over the years and, although it didn’t add up to a sizable stake, at least it was enough to provide a start. After buying his basic supplies and ammunition, he had enough left to purchase a dozen #4 beaver traps and a few #2 mink traps. He figured he might as well give trapping a try. He had nothing better to do. There was considerable risk for one white man alone in what was still Indian territory—the weather wasn’t the only threat to a man’s life. Nonetheless, he figured he should be able to survive if he kept his wits about him and was careful about where he made his camps. The main Indian threat had been squashed near the end of the summer with the defeat of the Sioux at the Tongue River and Wagon Box. The survivors, those who had not been forced to return to the reservation, were mainly scattered. Sitting Bull and Dull Knife and several others were reported to have fled to Canada. The rest, the wild ones, were most probably holed up in winter camps. Even so, he was careful to live by the rule Squint had instilled in his mind. The key to surviving in hostile country is to make sure you see them a long time before they see you. Twice he had caught sign of Indian hunting parties, although he did not actually see any hostiles. The only Indians he had encountered since he left Fort Lincoln were a small band of half-starved Arapahos who had decided to give it up and go to the reservation. The party consisted of one man, his wife, and his wife’s two sisters. Tom traded the man his army pistol for a buffalo robe. He threw in a little beef jerky from his precious supply. Gazing at the hollow, hungry eyes of the women, he wished he could give them more, but he had none to spare as it was. The buffalo robe would go a long way in helping him survive the winter cold. He wouldn’t miss the pistol. A pistol was of very little value to a man in the wild unless he was involved in close combat with an enemy. Otherwise, it was no good at any range over thirty or forty yards. He wondered how long the Arapaho brave would be able to hang on to the pistol. He was sure to be thoroughly searched for weapons when he reported to the reservation. Other than that one party of Arapahos, Tom had been virtually alone in this wilderness.

After a while, he got used to being alone. He couldn’t say that he actually enjoyed it, but at least he didn’t seem to mind it. For the most part, he disciplined his mind to avoid thinking about his past life and the events that led to his forced exile. He tried to always focus on only a few basic things crucial to his survival; to stay warm, to stay out of sight, and to find food for himself and his horse. The latter was the most difficult, but he found that there was food for one man if he hunted constantly. Occasionally he was lucky enough to find an elk, driven down from the high country, but mostly his diet consisted of varmints and the beaver he caught in his traps. Down in the lower basins, near the rivers, Billy could usually scratch around for forage, although it would become more and more difficult as the winter progressed. Billy’s welfare was of primary concern to him. A man’s horse might mean the difference between living and dying. For that reason, a good deal of his time was spent digging in the snow to find grass and roots for Billy and peeling the bark off green tree limbs and the tender willow wisps—anything he thought might give his horse nourishment. The nights were getting steadily colder, causing him to question the wisdom of moving from camp to camp. Already, he often found his breakfast water frozen solid if he allowed his campfire to die down during the night. At night he slept with Billy’s bridle inside his buffalo robe to keep from placing a frozen bit in his horse’s mouth the next morning.

As the winter lengthened, it became increasingly difficult to stay on the move. Soon the snows came one on top of the other, causing him to wonder if he would be able to survive if he didn’t build a more permanent camp. The last several days had been spent by a winding stream that had provided him with half a dozen prime beaver plews, but the campsite was no good. The surrounding plains offered little protection from the winter blizzards he knew would be coming. He looked out across the rolling hills toward the high country and decided the best chance for him and his horse was to find a camp somewhere under the lee side of a hill. As if to remind him not to tarry in his decision, a cold breeze danced across his face, warning him to find shelter.

Billy seemed to sense the urgency in their journey as he struggled through snow up to his broad chest. At times, Tom had to hold his feet up sideways to keep the stirrups from dragging in the snow. But Billy was stout and had plenty of heart and he never faltered. Twice darkness forced them to make trail camp in open country before they reached the shelter of the foothills but, finally, they reached a steep hill covered with trees. On the far side, Tom discovered a rock formation that formed a small cliff that slanted back into the hill, creating a slight depression. He knew at once that this was the place they would wait out the winter.

The next two days were spent digging out some of the frozen ground under the rocks until he had fashioned half a cave where he and Billy could get out of the wind and weather. When he had completed his work, he had a shelter closed on three sides with a fire pit at the back. He next set about finding firewood under the snow to stockpile. He was no longer concerned about concealing his presence in the territory. His concern now was surviving the winter. He wasn’t worried about roving bands of hostiles. Any Indian with a lick of sense was already holed up for the winter, and if a rare hunting party stumbled upon his camp, he would deal with it the best way he could. He decided he’d rather die with an arrow in him than freeze to death.

The days that followed were spent almost entirely at work to winter-proof his camp, his every thought centered on keeping himself and his horse alive until spring. After he had done all he could to make the dugout secure against the weather, he hunted for anything he could eat. It didn’t matter what it was as long as it had meat on it, or roots he could boil in melted snow. The meat he was able to procure was cut up and stored outside his camp in the snow. More than one night was ended with a prayer of thanks to Andy Coulter for his Winchester. It fired as true as any rifle he had ever shot, and when cartridges were precious, accuracy was doubly important. Small game seemed plentiful in the mountains beyond the hill he had chosen for his camp, and most of this he managed to catch without wasting bullets. Squint Peterson had shown him how to rig a snare to catch rabbits, and he soon became adept at it. But he needed more than rabbits to make it through the winter. A stroke of luck probably contributed to his survival more than anything else.

It was late in the afternoon and he was making his way back down the mountain after a disappointing day of hunting. He didn’t like returning to camp empty-handed. He needed to store all the meat he could, feeling the urgency more and more as each day brought colder and colder weather. Something in his bones was telling him that storms were coming and coming soon. The sky had a slate gray cast to it, and there was fresh wind from the north blowing steady all day. As nightfall approached, the wind began to pick up in intensity. He didn’t like the look of it. He didn’t have nearly enough food stored to last him, and he was going back to his camp empty-handed. Already the snow was deep on the mountains and it was slow going, even downhill. Coming to a small stream that had not yet frozen solid, he braced himself to jump across it, a feat made more difficult because of the makeshift snowshoes he had fashioned. He misjudged the distance by a fraction, causing him to slip and ram his foot through the limbs of his snowshoe, resulting in a headfirst tumble down the mountain, ending some eighty or ninety feet later against a tree stump.

“Jesus Christ!” he exclaimed as he lay prone in the snow. “I’d be in a helluva fix if I broke my neck now, wouldn’t I?” He lay there for a moment longer to make certain nothing was broken. Then he reached for his rifle and checked to make certain he hadn’t plugged the barrel when he took his tumble. Satisfied that it was all right, he brushed the snow away from the lever and hammer. When he turned again to look down below him, his heart almost stopped. There, not fifty feet away, a great black bear stood watching him, evidently confused by this strange-looking animal that had just landed before him, arms and legs flailing as it tumbled wildly to a stop against the stump.

Tom was lucky that day that his chaotic descent down the mountain served to confuse the great be