The First Day of Eternity

Book 2: Hunters

by Charles G. West

Genres: Historical Fiction; Westerns

Synopsis

Raised by Crow Indians. Enlisted by the US Army. Legendary scout Cody Hunter returns to the mountains where he lost his family—and makes a shocking discovery that will change his life forever . . .

THIS WOLF HUNTS ALONE

His Crow name was Crazy Wolf. Orphaned after losing his family in an Indian attack, young Cody Hunter found a loving home among the Crow people—and learned the ancient ways of the Crow trackers. His well-honed skills earned him a place in the U.S. Army as a valued scout. But now, after fifteen years of living his life as Crazy Wolf, Cody is ready to face his painful past. He will return to the place that still gives him nightmares—and where the dreams of his father ended in bloodshed . . .
 
High in the mountains of Montana, Cody finds a stone memorial erected by the survivors of the families slaughtered there. The site of the attack triggers Cody’s darkest memories—and leads him to a stunning realization: his father and two brothers did not die on that day. They may still be alive. And he will stop at nothing to find them again. To follow in their footsteps. To track them down on the treacherous journey west. A search this deadly may be the craziest thing Crazy Wolf has ever done. But he is a born Hunter—and he’s willing to die that way. . . .
 
Second in the explosive series by Spur Award-winning author Charles G. West!
 
“Rarely has an author painted the great American West in strokes so bold, vivid, and true.” —Ralph Compton

Release date: December 26, 2023

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 320

Sample

Cody Hunter remained standing motionless for what seemed like many minutes, staring down at the engraved stone that seemed so out of place here in this wilderness. This was not the roughly carved names and dates left by emigrants and travelers so often found on these wagon roads. The persons responsible for memorializing this rugged-looking patch of scrubby weeds and bushes thought it worthy of a permanently engraved and polished gravestone. He was still in a mild state of shock as he read the gravestone again. The tragic attack had happened fifteen years ago, but the stone had obviously been left here at a more recent date, judging by the condition of it.

Fifteen years had passed since the attack on the three wagons traveling the Mullan Road to Washington Territory, and Cody had been only five years old at the time. So, his memory of the attack was vague at best. He remembered the sudden explosion of shooting and his parents telling him to run to the lead wagon. He remembered he had been walking with Bobby Frasier when the shots first rang out. He and Bobby ran until Bobby suddenly fell. After that, there was nothing until he awoke one morning in a Crow tipi to find an Indian woman smiling down at him. Her name was Morning Rain, wife of Spotted Pony. When Cody was well enough to understand, Morning Rain told him that Spotted Pony had found him under a bush after the attack on the three wagons. She told him about the wolf that was protecting him until he was found by the Crow hunters. She also told him that Spotted Pony had found the bodies of his father and his brothers.

Now, after so many years had passed, years that saw him accept Spotted Pony and Morning Rain as his parents, he is stunned to realize one of the bodies Spotted Pony found was not that of his father. He had said he found the body of a woman and a man. They were evidently Bobby Frasier’s parents. The bodies of the two boys were those of Bobby and Tim Frasier. He remembered then that the Frasiers also had two daughters. Looking at the tombstone again, he guessed that the daughters were responsible for its existence. At the moment, he wished he had never seen the stone. He had grown into manhood thinking his real parents were dead and he was proud to be a Crow warrior. To learn now that his father and brothers might still be alive was more of a troubling nature to him. He could not deny a natural curiosity about them, but the contrast in their lives might be too much to overcome. Maybe best to leave things as they are, he decided, and push on westward. “Things happen for a reason, Storm,” he announced to his big dun gelding as he climbed back up into the saddle. “And it seems to me that I was supposed to walk the path of the Crow. I’ve got no complaints.” He wheeled his horse around to follow the trail out of the Mullan Pass.

Cody continued to follow the road down from the pass, just as his father had fifteen years ago. It was supposed to lead him to Clark’s Fork River. Although only five at the time, he remembered that the river would take them up a valley to a place called Hellgate Village. He remembered that he and his brothers had laughed at the name. He could only assume he would know the river when he reached it, for he was now traveling where he had never been before. Since he was in no particular hurry to reach Hellgate Village, he was inclined to keep an eye alert for any signs of deer activity. He had already decided to stop and make his camp if he discovered a good hunting spot, and he came to an obvious one when he approached a healthy stream making its way down from a tree-covered ridge north of the trail.

When he reached the point where the road crossed the stream, he was gratified to discover a multitude of deer tracks going and coming on a path he assumed led to the river. There was no longer any decision to be made, he was ready to select a spot to camp for the night. If he had read the sign right, and he was confident that he had, then he should be able to take care of his needs for meat for quite a while. So he turned his attention toward the selection of a place to camp that would serve him for a few days while he butchered and smoked a quantity of deer meat to last him for some time. The camp he needed would have to provide grass and water for his horses for the few days he would spend there. So it only made sense to follow the stream to the river, camp beside the river, and hunt the game trail the deer followed to the river. That way, his camp would be far enough away from his hunting and not likely to scare the deer away.

He was pleased to find the river was closer than he thought. When he reached the point where the stream emptied into it, it appeared to be a popular crossing point for the deer. It seemed that he had happened upon the perfect hunting ground. He wasted no time in selecting the location for his camp and soon had his horses and packs taken care of. There was plenty of wood available for his campfire as well as his smoke-curing of the meat. He thought then of his Crow brother, Bloody Axe, and their many hunting trips together. Bloody Axe would have thought this a perfect setup.

By the time he had his base camp established, the sun was already setting and soon it would be dark and the deer would be coming out of the tree-covered hills above to go to water and graze. He planned to do most of his hunting in the morning, but he decided he might as well enjoy some fresh meat tonight. So as not to take the risk of scaring the game away from the trail, he decided to kill his deer tonight with his bow. With that possibility in mind earlier, he had made it a point to notice likely spots to ambush a deer on the path down to the stream. So he picked up his bow and started back up the slope on foot, walking through the trees parallel to the game trail. When he reached the last spot he had mentally noted, he cut over to the path and settled himself across the stream from it.

After a considerable wait, he was beginning to think he might not know the habits of the Montana mountain deer. Then he heard the soft padding of deer hooves on the path above and a large buck passed on his way to the river. Behind the buck, three does followed. Cody notched an arrow and drew it back. Aiming for a lung shot behind the front leg of the hindmost doe, he released the arrow. At that short distance, both his aim and his power were enough to cause her to stumble at once, then attempt to get up to run. But Cody was quickly on her to end her suffering before the other deer knew she was down. “I’m glad you weren’t any bigger,” he said when he strained to get her up on his shoulders. Once he got her settled, he very carefully retraced his tracks back down the slope to his camp.

As soon as he got back to his camp, he gutted and bled the deer. Then he hung the carcass from a tree limb, all this before he started his fire. The spot he had selected for his camp was at a sharp curve in the river, and he located his fire back against the elbow formed by the curve. With a thick stand of fir trees lining that side of the river, he figured his fire would be very hard to detect, especially from the road that continued north after crossing the stream, a considerable distance away. That was important to him since he planned to stay long enough to supply himself with meat enough to last him for a while. He built his fire then and while it was gaining life, he started butchering the deer, setting aside the cuts to be his supper that night and his breakfast in the morning. He then prepared cuts of meat for smoking, including some thin strips to be smoked and eaten later on as jerky. After his fresh meat was done, he went to work converting his fire to a smoking chamber, using green wood and leaves and branches to produce the smoke he needed to preserve the rest of the meat.

Still feeling no need to hurry, he remained there for a couple of days until he decided he could not reasonably carry any more on his two packhorses. It was with a fair amount of reluctance that he finally closed down his camp. Had it not been in the vicinity of a well-traveled road, he might have considered wintering there. As carefully as he hunted, he was convinced he would never interrupt the endless supply of meat that came down the stream. “Time to get movin’ tomorrow,” he told the dun gelding. “Another day or two in this camp and you’ll be too fat to travel.”

It crossed his mind that he would be traveling the same road his father and brothers traveled after the attack by the Blackfoot party, thinking that he was dead. The thought of how they must have felt caused him to wonder if he should make any attempt to let them know he was alive. He had already decided it best to leave things as they were. Now, he wasn’t sure if that was the right thing to do. Ultimately, he decided he would try to find his father and brothers if he could. Then he could decide whether to tell them the true story or not. That decision sat easier on his mind. After fifteen years, it was unlikely anyone in Hellgate Village would remember that one wagon, anyway.

He was awakened shortly before daybreak by the sound of gunshots. A hunter, he wondered, but still groggy after having been awakened by the shots, he wasn’t certain exactly how many he had heard. They were not that far away and sounded as if they had come from the wagon road. He decided it in his best interest to see if he could find the source of the shots so he could avoid being shot at himself. In the darkness he might be mistaken for a deer. So he packed up his camp, figuring to cook his breakfast after he checked on the shots. He climbed on his horse and started back through the trees until he reached the wagon road again just as the first rays of light began to expand. After riding what he estimated to be a distance of about half a mile, he was approaching another stream crossing. He spotted a thin line of smoke wafting up through the trees a few dozen yards off the road. He decided it best to check it out, so he turned the dun gelding off the road and rode into the trees beside the stream, where he dismounted and pulled his rifle from the saddle sling. Leaving his horses there, he proceeded to make his way to the fire on foot. He had not gone far when he saw the campsite through the trees in a small clearing and what looked like a body lying several feet from the fire.

Immediately alert then, he crouched and advanced a little closer to the fire, holding his Henry rifle ready to fire. He hesitated and listened for a few moments. Hearing no sound other than the insects by the stream, he took another step forward in time to hear the snap of a bullet behind his head, followed at once by the report of the rifle that fired it. At the same time, he saw the muzzle flash directly across the campfire in the bushes on the other side. He reacted at once. Hearing no sound of another cartridge being chambered, he instinctively charged right across the fire and into the bushes on the other side. The collision with the shooter sent them both tumbling and both frantically fighting for possession of the shooter’s rifle. Cody easily overpowered his opponent who turned out to be a woman who continued to struggle until she realized it was useless.

When he felt her relax her arms, he said, “I have not come to harm you. You have nothing to fear from me. Do you understand? The person lyin’ beside the fire, is that your husband?”

“He is my brother,” she answered. “They killed him. I thought you were them coming back to look for me.” He released her arms then, feeling sure she was no longer a threat.

“You’re sure he’s dead?” Cody asked.

“Yes,” she answered. “They shot him three times.” She started crying then. “I ran into the bushes and they came after me, but I climbed up into a tree and they didn’t see me in the dark. I waited a long time after they gave up before I went back to my brother. I’m sorry I shot at you, but I thought it was them.”

“How many were there?”

“Two,” she answered. “Two vile men. They took our horses and the little food we had. They said they wouldn’t hurt us and then they shot my brother down and that’s when I ran. I outran them and kept running till I got tired and hid in that tree. I heard them talking when they walked under that tree. I was so afraid they were going to look up and see me. One of them said I would come back to the fire to get anything I could use. So they went away to make another camp, then sneak back here when I came back.”

“I’m surprised they left you a rifle to use against them,” Cody said.

“They didn’t see it,” she said. “Tom propped it up against a tree when he went to get more wood for the fire. And that was why he didn’t even have a chance to fight when they pulled their guns.”

“I’m sorry about your brother,” Cody told her, “but right now I expect we’d better get ready for their return so you can get your horses and whatever else they took from you. I’ve gotta go get my horses and move them down below your camp so they don’t see them.”

“Are you sure we shouldn’t just run before they come back?” she asked. “These are two rough men.”

“They need to answer for killin’ your brother,” Cody told her. “And we need your horses back. So you stay right here outta the clearin’ and I’ll be right back.” She looked uneasy about it as if he just might leave and keep going rather than fight two killers. But she nodded her head vigorously. He went back toward the road to get Storm and his packhorse. In a few minutes, he was back, and when he led the two horses past her, he held out a piece of deer jerky. “You hungry?” Again, she nodded vigorously and took the jerky while he went to hide his horses.

“Whaddaya reckon that shot was?” Elmo Cox asked. They had been gone for more than half an hour, but they hadn’t ridden but a quarter of a mile at most. “I didn’t see no rifle at their camp.”

“I know it, but you know that feller musta had one. He just had it hid somewhere,” Paul Pickett said. “So it had to be that woman firin’ that shot.”

“But whaddaya reckon she was shootin’ at?” He pulled at his chin whiskers as he thought about the slender little woman. “She ran like a little doe through them bushes. You don’t reckon that one shot we heard was her shootin’ herself, do ya?”

“I hope to hell not,” Pickett replied, “but you can’t really blame her after she got a look at you. We better let me break her in first.”

“The hell you say,” Elmo replied. “We’re gonna flip a coin to see who gets to saddle break her.”

“I say we’d best get back down there and find out what that shot was about,” Pickett insisted. “I’ve got a bad feelin’ about that woman. She just mighta stuck that rifle under her chin and pulled the trigger. Maybe we shouldn’ta left her back there by herself. Hell, let’s get the horses rounded up and get on back there.” That was motivation enough to get both men hustling to get back to find the explanation for the one shot.

Aware now that the woman had a rifle and might know how to use it, the two outlaws approached the spot where the road crossed the stream. They decided it best to leave the horses there by the road, and they would go into the camp on foot. They left their rifles on their horses, but both had their handguns drawn in precaution as they carefully made their way back to the clearing. Just before reaching it, they both stopped upon seeing the woman sitting beside a tree on the opposite side of the fire from them. “There she is, Elmo. She’s just settin’ there waitin’ for us.”

“I don’t see no rifle. Be careful,” Pickett warned. “Wait a minute! Yonder it is. It’s leanin’ up against a tree on this side of the fire. Ain’t no way she can get to it before I can put a bullet in her head. Hello there, Missy!” He called out to her. “Did you think we was gonna run off and leave you? We decided we was gonna take good care of you.”

They headed straight for her then and still she did not move from her position by the tree. “Who you want first?” Elmo asked, advancing even closer. He was surprised when she answered him.

“I want you,” she said and pulled her hand out from under her skirt with Cody’s .44 Colt in it and pulled the trigger. At the same time, Pickett dropped to his knees when a shot from Cody’s rifle slammed him in the chest. Elmo staggered backward, hit in the side by the woman’s shot. He raised his pistol to fire as she dived behind the tree, but he crumpled to the ground from Cody’s kill shot in the center of his back.

“It’s over now,” Cody called out to her. So she came out from behind the tree where he had positioned her with strict instructions that she was to take one shot, then dive behind the tree whether she hit or missed. “You did a good job,” he said. “I think your brother would have been proud of you.” She carefully handed his .44 back to him, and he removed the empty shell. He had been totally surprised when she requested that she be given the opportunity to personally avenge her brother’s murder. He thought it too dangerous for her to try and only agreed to it because he was confident he could cut both men down before they could react to her shot. Now, seeing the satisfaction her vengeance had brought her, he was glad she managed to get the shot off.

“Thank you for letting me shoot one of Tom’s murderers,” she said. “I guess it’s about time I thanked you for coming along when you did. I’m so grateful to you and I’m pleased to meet you, Mister. . . .” She paused and waited for him to fill in the blank.

He hesitated a second before saying, “Hunter, my name is Cody Hunter.”

“I’m so glad to meet you, Cody. My name is Katie Cole. To tell you the truth, when you first found me I took that shot at you because I thought you were an Indian. I still thought you were one until you landed on top of me and I could see your face.”

“I suppose I could have told you my name is Crazy Wolf, but my birth name is Cody Hunter. I was raised by the Crow Indians from the age of five.”

“Well, we make quite a team, Cody and Katie,” she said.

“I reckon so,” Cody agreed. “But right now we’ve got some work to do. First, we need to take care of your brother. I don’t even know what direction you are headin’ in. Where were you and your brother headin’?” When she said Missoula, he hesitated, then said, “North?”

“That’s right,” she said, “north. We were on our way to our father’s house. Which way are you going?” When he said he was going north, too, she said, “Then I guess we might as well travel together.” She paused, then said, “If that’s all right with you.”

“That’s all right with me, but what do you want me to do with your brother’s body? Do you want me to bury him, or do you want to take him home to bury? I don’t know how far that would be.”

“Bury him,” she said without hesitation. “It’s gonna be hard enough to tell Pa that Tom’s dead without showing up on the front porch with his stiff body.”

“All right, you can pick the place and I’ll dig him a grave. Before I do that, though, I’ll drag those two off away from the stream somewhere for the buzzards to eat. Then I’ll go out to the road and bring in all their horses and stuff.”

“Or would you rather eat some breakfast first?” Katie suggested. “Have you got any more of that deer jerky?”

“I’ve got better than that,” he said. “I’ve got fresh deer meat that I killed yesterday, that should still be fresh enough to eat this mornin’. If it isn’t, I’ve got a load of smoked meat as well as jerky. I’ll bring my packhorse up and you can take a look at the meat.”

She was obviously thrilled to find he was so well supplied with food, and she volunteered to do the cooking while he removed Elmo and Paul from the clearing. She and her brother had used up the last of their money in Helena and were about ready to start cooking their shoelaces. But Cody was well supplied with coffee, flour, salt, and sugar, so that it was like a feast to Katie. When they finished, Cody found a short-handle shovel and a one-hand pickaxe on the outlaws’ packhorses that he used to dig Tom’s grave. Afterward, Katie said a few words of farewell over the grave. She helped him search through the belongings of the two outlaws, and Cody inspected the horses and saddles they had acquired. Although it took them into the early afternoon before they were finished, they packed up their camp and started moving farther along the road to Missoula.

They followed the river road for about twenty miles before stopping to make camp for the night. The spot Cody picked was a grassy clearing close to the edge of the river where there was ample grazing for the horses they had accumulated. And there was plenty of firewood in the trees that surrounded the clearing. Once the horses were taken care of, Cody returned to the fire and poured himself a cup of coffee while Katie cooked up some of the smoked venison. “How far do you think we are from Missoula?” Cody asked her.

“I’m not too good at guessing things like that,” she answered. “But I’d guess we’re another day or a day and a half away.”

“I don’t have any idea of the distance, myself,” Cody told her. “The last time I was this far up this road I was just five years old and I’d never heard of Missoula. Where did you and your brother Tom start out from on this trip?”

“Near Great Falls,” she answered. “Tom rode all the way from Missoula just to escort me back home.” She paused then to try to prevent the birth of a tear in her eye. “And it ended up costing him his life.”

“I’m sorry,” Cody quickly apologized. “I shouldn’t have asked you. It’s none of my business, anyway.”

“No, there’s no need for you to apologize,” she insisted. “After what you’ve done for me, I’ll tell you anything you wanna know.” She hesitated for a few moments to decide whether or not to make a confession. “I’m on my way home to tell my father I’m sorry for leaving after he tried to make me see how wrong I was. But he told me I was always welcome to come home. And no matter where I was, he’d send Tom to come get me.”

“That was bad, what happened to your brother,” Cody said, “but it sounds like your father will be mighty glad to see you when you get home.”

“I don’t know if he will or not,” she said, having decided to tell Cody the complete story, “especially when he finds out that Tom’s dead.” She continued her story while she formed up some pan bread to fry in the grease from the smoked venison. “I got tricked into a bad decision by a sweet-talking drifter who was passing through town. Troy King was his name, and he said he fell in love with me the first time he saw me. Said he’d been looking for me all his life, and now that he’d found me, he couldn’t leave town without me. Pa and Tom both told me I was making a mistake if I believed Troy, but I was too dumb to listen to them.” She paused then, realizing she was dragging out her life story and Cody might not want all the details. “Anyway, to make a long story short, I went with Troy after he promised we would get married when we got to Great Falls. But I found out right away that Pa and Tom were right, and Troy turned out to be an outlaw who rode with a gang that holed up outside of Great Falls. He had no plans to marry me, so when he went with his gang to rob a bank four days away from there, I went into town and telegraphed Pa, and he sent Tom to get me. So that’s the innocent maiden you just saved from those two men.”

He realized that, for some reason, she thought she owed him a confession for risking his life to save her, and he felt truly sorry for her. “I’m sorry that happened to you, Katie. But it wasn’t your fault you were lied to. I believe you’ve already paid a terrible price for makin’ a wrong decision, but there can’t be any blame thrown your way for believin’ what a liar told you. My advice to you is to start your life all over again in Missoula.”

“You are truly an unusual man,” she stated simply.

“I’ve got my faults,” he replied.

They started out early the next morning after Cody saddled all the horses they were in possession of now. He decided to tie a packhorse to his and Katie’s horses and let the rest of the horses follow on their own. “At least, I think they’ll follow along, but if they don’t, I’ll tie ’em onto a rope.” It turned out that the horses running loose were inclined to go with the lead horses, so Cody and Katie took to the road, planning to cook breakfast when they stopped to rest them.

Katie found herself in a great state of mind on this morning. She felt that she had confessed to the mistakes she had made and yet Cody showed no signs of condemning her for her poor decisions. And he continued to treat her like a lady. She told him that when she and Tom had first fled from the shabby cabin where Troy King had left her to wait for his return, she feared that he would immediately try to come after her. But once they reached Helena, she felt he would not care enough to follow their trail any farther.

However, if Katie had known Troy King a little better, she would have known that he would go to any means to punish anyone who rejected him, and she would have been in fear for her life. Pushing his horses hard, Troy King was confident that he would overtake her before she made it home. He didn’t waste any time trying to track her because he knew she had only one place to run, and that was home to her father’s house in Missoula. After taking care of Katie, he planned to quiet the old man as well if he didn’t catch up to her before she made it home. Once he was on the wagon road that followed the Clark Fork River, he was surprised to discover a great many recently made hoofprints at a couple of stream crossings. He was curious enough to follow the tracks at one of the crossings, for there were many tracks following the creek as well as some fairly fresh droppings that indicated horses were left there by the road for a while. He decided to follow the tracks that led into the trees by the river.

When he reached the clearing where a campfire had been built, there were plenty of signs that something had gone on including some blood where it appeared a couple of bodies had lain. He decided then that there might be more to gain than just the settling with Katie Cole, and from that point on, he became more alert to any more tracks. He followed the tracks of what he decided was about a dozen horses. It was getting late in the day now, and he guessed that he was about forty miles from Missoula. The party he had been following would no doubt be going into camp soon. He had also decided that Katie Cole had likely joined the party and that there were probably three or four in that party. He was going to have to see if there were more than he could handle, but first, he had to see if Katie was with them.

As he expected, he soon came to the place where the tracks turned off the road and went through the trees, toward the river. With his rifle ready now, he followed the tracks in through the trees. When he was far enough in to hide his horses, he dismounted and tied the horses. Then he continued on until he saw the campfire, and Katie was kneeling be. . .