To Hell and Gone

Book 1: Hunters

by Charles G. West

Genres: Westerns; Mystery; Action & Adventure Romance

Synopsis

A new action-packed historical Western from an award-winning author of more than forty Western bestsellers.
 
THEY CALLED HIM CRAZY WOLF
 
As a widower with three young boys, Duncan Hunter dreamed of a new life for his sons in the heart of Washington Territory. But the journey was doomed from the start. Before reaching Hell Gate, their wagon train was attacked by Blackfoot Indians. Most of the pioneers were viciously murdered. But Hunter’s son Cody survived—taken in by Crow Indians and raised as one of their own. They called the boy Crazy Wolf. This is his story . . .
 
 From hunting and tracking on the American frontier to leading patrols on covert missions for the U.S. Army, Cody Hunter would become one of the most valued scouts in the nation. But a part of him would always be Crazy Wolf—a man of two worlds, as wild and free as the land itself. And every bit as dangerous . . .
 
First in a blazing new 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: July 25, 2023

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 320

Sample

“I reckon there ain’t no use to try talking you out of it, no more,” John Hunter said, making one final attempt to change his brother Duncan’s mind about leaving. “We’ve always managed to get by so far, one way or another, ain’t we?”

“I appreciate what you’re saying, John, but you know, just like I know, this farm ain’t big enough to support two families like yours and mine. We gave it a helluva try, but every winter after that has just gotten worse.”

There was not much John could say to refute that. The winter of 1862–1863 was an unusually harsh one on animals and crops alike. But the cruelest blow it struck was taking the life of Louise Hunter, Duncan’s frail wife, with a fatal bout of pneumonia. Twelve years ago, Duncan had brought Louise to live with John and Louise’s sister, Mildred, on a ninety acre farm in northern Montana. Although not a sturdy woman, Louise gave Duncan three strong sons. “With three strong appetites,” Duncan always said.

“There’s a wagon train leavin’ Fort Benton to take that new road the army built, that Mullan Road that goes to Walla Walla, Washington Territory. Me and the boys are gonna be on it.”

“I swear, I just hate to see you go, Duncan. It ain’t gonna be the same with you gone.”

“I’m gonna miss you and Mildred, too,” Duncan said, “but it’ll make life a whole lot easier on you, and especially Mildred. I woulda gone a long time before this, but Louise didn’t want to leave her sister. Mildred’s got enough on her hands takin’ care of her own young’uns. It wouldn’t be fair to add my three to her chores.” He gave his brother a big smile then and said, “Hell, my boys are raring to go. When we file a claim on a good piece of land out in Washington, you might wanna come out there, too.”

“Maybe so,” John said. “I don’t know if Mildred is up to a trip like that or not. Right off hand, I’d say she ain’t, seeing as how she comes from the same stock as Louise. Ain’t you worried about Indians and things like that?”

“Not a whole bunch,” Duncan replied. “They say there’s not much danger if you’ve got a pretty good number of wagons in the train. They say the folks in the wagons usually have better weapons than the Indians attackin’ ’em. Morgan ain’t but ten, but he’s already a pretty good shot with a rifle.”

John just shook his head, still doubtful when he thought of his brother trying to drive his wagon and protect his three sons, Morgan, ten, Holt, seven, and Cody, five. “Duncan, for God’s sake, be careful.”

“You know I’ll do my best,” Duncan said. “I’ve spent dang-nigh every cent I’ve got, equipping my wagon for the trip, so I can’t change my mind about goin’. We’ll say goodbye tonight after supper ’cause we’re pullin’ outta here for Fort Benton in the mornin’ before breakfast.”

Mildred insisted on fixing one final big supper for them before a tearful goodbye and Godspeed, knowing in all likelihood, she would never see them again.

Arriving at Fort Benton, Duncan was to find only two other wagons waiting on the appointed date. He found the wagon master he had corresponded with at one of the wagons, a man named Luther Thomas. Duncan asked where the rest of the wagons were parked. There were supposed to be eighteen making up the train. Luther said all but Duncan and the other two wagons had joined a train that left a week earlier.

“I’m sorry about that,” Luther said. “It sure caught me by surprise. You can talk to Mr. Frasier there in the other wagon. He’s trying to make up his mind what he’s gonna do. It’s already after the first of May, so if you’re gonna get through the mountains before the first snowfall, you gotta go now.”

“What are you gonna do?” Duncan asked Luther.

“Me? Hell, I’m goin’ to Walla Walla first thing in the mornin’, even if I’m by myself. The army built that road, and I know it’s in good shape ’cause I already took one party out there. There ain’t been nothin’ about no Injun problems reported back here to Fort Benton. So I’m goin’. How ’bout you, Mr. Hunter? I don’t blame you one bit if you feel like it’s too risky for you and your boys.”

“I ain’t got nothin’ to go back to, so I’ll go with you,” Duncan answered.

“Good man.” Luther said. “We’re glad to have the company. “We’ll see what Frasier decides to do, now that he’s got more company.”

When they went to Frasier’s wagon to get his decision, he said, “I’ll see what my wife says,” and went back into the wagon.

Luther looked at Duncan and cracked, “Wise man. Might as well get it from the boss.”

Frasier returned with his wife.

“Howdy,” she said and went straight to Duncan. “I wanted to welcome somebody as crazy as Robert and me.” She looked around behind him before continuing. “I’m Rose Frasier. I wanted to meet your wife.”

“I’m very sorry, ma’am. My wife has passed away. But I’m pleased to meet you. My name is Duncan Hunter. These towheads are Morgan, Holt, and Cody. Say howdy to Mrs. Frasier boys.”

They all did in one polite “howdy.”

“Outstanding young men,” Rose said. “I know they’ll be respectful around my two girls and friends with my two sons.”

“My four are around here somewhere,” Luther said. “Looks like we ain’t gonna run short of young’uns on the trip. Why don’t we all have supper together tonight, then everybody can get to know everybody else,” he suggested. “And tomorrow we’ll start day one of our trip.”

And so the journey began.

Leaving Fort Benton, they started out west on the Mullan Road. Passing north of Great Falls, the road then dropped south to cross the continental divide west of Helena, following a path through Mullan Pass, driving for the Clark Fork River.

Tragedy struck the little three-wagon train just as darkness began to fall one evening. Coming out of the Mullan Pass, Frasier’s right front wheel was struck by a small boulder that had come tumbling down the slope above the wagons. Unknown to them, the boulder had been set in motion by a large war party of Blackfoot Indians, and it smashed the spokes of the wheel, stopping the wagon.

Ahead of the doomed wagon, Duncan and Luther grabbed their rifles and tried to return fire, but they could not identify targets to shoot at. The Blackfoot snipers were too well hidden in the slopes above the pass. Frasier’s fourteen-year-old son, Tim, started firing his rifle at anything he thought might be a target until a Blackfoot bullet slammed him in the chest. Luther’s wife, Flo, called all the younger children to run and take cover in their wagon, which was the lead wagon and farthest away from the deadly ambush. Morgan Hunter, Duncan’s ten-year-old, remained with his father to return fire, using his squirrel rifle.

“Duncan!” Luther yelled. “We’ve gotta get these wagons outta here!”

Duncan could see that. They had to move out of the deadly killing passage. But first, he had to jump down from his wagon to help Rose and Robert Frasier when he saw them running from their wagon. Morgan jumped down to help, too, only to provide better targets for the Blackfoot snipers. In a steady hail of rifle slugs, they retreated toward the wagon. From his wagon ahead of them, Luther could only watch as one of the families he was guiding ended their aspirations of starting a new life on the fertile plains of the far west right there in Mullan Pass.

“There,” Spotted Pony said, pointing down a rocky ravine where they could see the glow of flames in the darkness of the mountains. “They have found something to attack.” He and his Crow brothers had been avoiding the Blackfoot war party since first discovering their camp that afternoon. Judging by the sign left at their campsite, the war party was fairly large and surely outnumbered Spotted Pony and his five companions.

“That fire is too big to be a campfire,” Walks Fast said. “Maybe they found a wagon on that white man road.”

“Let’s go see,” Gray Wolf urged.

They made their way down from the top of the pass, descending carefully in the darkness to avoid creating any rockslides until reaching a flat ledge near the bottom. From there they saw that it was indeed a wagon burning.

“I smell meat,” Gray Wolf said. “What are they cooking? I don’t see anyone around.”

“The horses,” Spotted Pony said. “They are still tied to the wagon. There’s no one here. The Blackfeet have gone.”

They moved down off the ledge and looked around the burning wagon at the bodies lying there. All of them were mutilated and scalped. Suddenly, there was a rustling in a bank of low bushes, and all five of the Crow hunters were immediately alert to an attack, aiming their weapons at the spot where the leaves were shaking.

“Come out!” Spotted Pony ordered, but no one did. He moved carefully toward the bush, his rifle ready to shoot. With the barrel of the weapon, he pulled a heavy branch aside and immediately recoiled, surprised to see a wolf lying beneath the bushes. “Wolf!” he cried, alerting the others as he took a cautious step back to look all around him. For where there was one wolf, there were usually many. But there was no sign of any other wolves.

“Maybe he is wounded,” Two Moons said. “Be careful.”

Spotted Pony slowly pulled the branch aside again, his finger on the trigger of his rifle, ready to shoot if the wolf attacked. The wolf did not attack or run at once, as Spotted Pony expected, so he continued to hold the branch aside. The wolf continued to look at him but made no sign of aggression. “Be careful,” Two Moons cautioned again. “I think the wolf is crazy.”

Since the wolf showed no signs of attacking, Spotted Pony continued to hold the branch aside while he reached down with his other hand and pulled some lower branches aside as well. He recoiled, startled, for he saw a small boy lying on the other side of the wolf, his body pressed tightly against the wolf’s.

Seeing Spotted Pony suddenly recoil, the other Crows prepared to fire their weapons.

“Wait!” Spotted Pony exclaimed when a whimper and a slight movement of the hand told him that the boy was alive. Not until he reached into the bush to pull the boy out from under its branches did the wolf suddenly bolt away into the darkness. “This boy’s been shot in the back,” Spotted Pony told his companions. “He has not been scalped. He must have crawled up under the bush to hide when the Blackfeet shot the others.”

Spotted Pony rolled the body over on its back and pressed his ear to the boy’s chest. After a minute, he sat up and said, “He is not dead. His heart still beats.”

“I think the wolf was keeping him alive until we could find him,” Gray Wolf said. “It shook the bushes to get your attention, but it did not flee until you took the boy.”

“I think you are right,” Spotted Pony said. “I will take him back to our camp and see if he will live or die. I think that is what the wolf wanted me to do. Look around you. Everyone else is dead. There is a reason the wolf was sent to keep this boy safe.”

“I think we missed a chance to have some fresh meat,” Walks Fast complained. “You were so close to it, you could have killed it with your knife, instead of grabbing the boy.”

“Maybe that is so,” Spotted Pony said. “But I think the wolf’s spirit was keeping the boy alive. If we killed the wolf, then maybe we kill the boy.”

“He looks pretty bad,” Walks Fast said. “I think he’s going to die, anyway, and we could have had fresh meat.”

“That wolf had to be crazy. If it wasn’t, it would have eaten the boy, instead of guarding him,” Spotted Pony said. “If you had eaten the wolf you might have died.”

Spotted Pony was right. The boy did not die, and he was given the name Crazy Wolf and raised by Spotted Pony to be a strong young Crow warrior.

Sergeant Arthur Kelly walked over to the campfire to report the return of the Crow scouts to Lieutenant Preston Ainsworth. “Scouts are back, Lieutenant.”

“Bring ’em on over here, Kelly,” Ainsworth said. “Did they find that war party?”

“Yes, sir. I think they did.” He signaled the scouts to come on over to the lieutenant’s fire. Ainsworth was new in assignment to Fort Keogh, and consequently not familiar with the Crow scouts as yet. This, in fact, was his first scouting patrol. Aware of this, Sergeant Kelly told him the scouts were Crazy Wolf and Bloody Axe.

“Thank you, Sergeant,” Ainsworth said. He watched them as they approached, one of them a head taller than his companion. The shorter of the two Indians seemed to hang back a little, so Ainsworth addressed the tall one. “Bloody Axe?”

“No, sir. I’m Crazy Wolf. You wanna talk to Bloody Axe?” He stopped and stepped aside for his companion.

Ainsworth shrugged indifferently. He didn’t really care which of the scouts he talked to. He had just been guessing at the names, and in his mind’s eye, he thought the tall one looked more apt to be Bloody Axe. “The sergeant tells me you found the Sioux war party.”

Bloody Axe nodded rapidly. “We find Lakota. Better you talk Crazy Wolf.”

“Oh?” Ainsworth replied and turned to look at the other scout again.

Crazy Wolf stepped forward. “We found the Lakota camp. As near as we could count, there are about seventeen of them. They’re camped by a stream about four miles from here. Hard to tell how many of them have rifles, but we saw at least eight of them carrying them.”

Ainsworth was surprised by the report. “Very well, Crazy Wolf. By the way, your English is very good.”

“Thank you, sir, I try.”

Ainsworth didn’t say anything more for a few moments while he studied the young man standing before him. His clothes were similar to those Bloody Axe was wearing and his hair was worn in two long braids, but he was different. Then he realized his tanned face was not that of an Indian. “You’re not Crow, are you?”

Crazy Wolf smiled. “Well, I am and I ain’t. I was born in a white family, but I was raised as a Crow since I was five years old. So I forgot what it’s like to be white. My Crow father, Spotted Pony, taught me everything I needed to know to live in this world.”

Ainsworth was fascinated by his story. “But your English,” he said. “If you have been a Crow since the age of five, I would think you would have forgotten English.”

“Well, I reckon part of that is because when Spotted Pony found me, I made a promise to myself to never forget my mother and father and my two brothers, and that I wasn’t an Injun. I didn’t know there were good Indians and bad Indians, just like white folks. But most of the reason is because of a Jesuit priest at Fort Laramie when our village wintered there two years in a row. He even taught me to read and write a little bit. I think he spent so much extra time with me because he realized I was born a white child.”

“You mention a mother and father and two brothers. What happened to them?”

“My mother got sick and died. My father and brothers were killed by Blackfoot warriors. I was left for dead with a bullet in my back, but I hid till Spotted Pony found me and took me home with him. And now, I’m scouting for the US Army with my brother, Bloody Axe.” He could have told the lieutenant that he and Bloody Axe were the same as brothers, for it was Bloody Axe’s father who’d carried Crazy Wolf away from that field of massacre when he was five and took him in as a son. It was an act of compassion that could have caused a jealous rivalry between the two young boys, instead of the close friendship that resulted.

“Him talk good white man talk,” Bloody Axe offered, a wide grin on his face.

“Yes, he does, and you’re not bad, yourself,” the lieutenant said. Back to Crazy Wolf, he asked. “Do you remember your name when you were five?”

“Yes, I do. My name is Cody Hunter. My father was Duncan Hunter, my brothers were Morgan and Holt. I’ll catch up with them when it’s my time to go.”

“Well, I hope it’s not on this patrol,” Ainsworth said. “That’s quite a story.” He took a look at his pocket watch and said, “We still need to wait about thirty minutes and then we’re gonna move on that Sioux war party. You think your horses will be rested enough?”

“Yes, sir. They’ll be all right. Like I said, it’s not but four miles to their camp, so they ain’t worked very hard up to now.”

“There’s probably a couple cups of coffee left in that pot on the fire there,” Kelly said, pointing to one of two pots sitting in the edge of the fire. “If you want a cup, help yourself.”

“Thank you, Sergeant,” Crazy Wolf said. “Bloody Axe and I appreciate it.” He turned to relay the message to Bloody Axe in the Crow language, and they went to get their cups out of their saddlebags.

When they left, Sergeant Kelly said, “I reckon I shoulda told you about Crazy Wolf really being a white man, but I didn’t know whether you already knew it or not. Him and Bloody Axe used to scout for Lieutenant Ira McCall, D Troop of the Second Cavalry, when they were temporarily assigned here. When the whole Second Regiment was sent to Fort Ellis, Lieutenant McCall wanted to take Crazy Wolf and Bloody Axe with him. But they had been signed up here at Fort Keogh and the colonel said he couldn’t approve their transfer. Between you and me, sir, that’s what he said, but the real reason was because Crazy Wolf and Bloody Axe are the two best scouts in the whole regiment. And Colonel Miles wanted to keep ’em right here.”

“Well, that’s good to know, Sergeant,” Ainsworth said. “I’m glad you told me.”

When the horses were rested, Lieutenant Ainsworth gave the order to mount up. The fifteen-man patrol moved out to attack the Sioux war party that had raided a Crow camp two nights before, killing several and wounding several more. There had been an increase in the number of such attacks upon Crow camps within their reservation ever since Custer’s devastating defeat at the Little Bighorn. The Sioux victory over Custer was a stinging defeat for the Crows as well as the US Army because the battle was fought on Crow territory against a combined force of Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho. After the battle the combined Indian forces scattered. But the Sioux continued their attacks on Crow villages in the Crow reservation. It was time for the US to finally come down hard on the Sioux, and the man they relied on to end the Sioux aggression was Colonel Nelson A. Miles. Operating out of Fort Keogh on the Yellowstone River, Miles conducted raids on the scattered bands of Sioux warriors, either capturing them or causing them to flee to Canada.

After they had ridden about three miles farther south, Crazy Wolf rode back to confer with Lieutenant Ainsworth. In English, Crazy Wolf said, “You see that ridge yonder? There’s a healthy stream on the other side of it. You can see the tree line running up to it. The Sioux are camped by that stream on the other side of the ridge. If they’ve got somebody on top of that ridge as a lookout, they’ll see us comin’ so you might wanna wait till dark to go any farther. When we found them earlier, they were just makin’ camp to rest their horses, I suppose. They didn’t seem too worried about anybody botherin’ them. They didn’t send a lookout up on that ridge the whole time Bloody Axe and I were watchin’ ’em.” Noticing Ainsworth looked confused, Crazy Wolf added, “If you wanna take a risk that they didn’t post a lookout on top of that ridge, we can ride right up to their camp, then catch ’em in a crossfire from both ends of the ridge. Oughta make quick work of ’em, if there ain’t no lookout.”

Ainsworth thought it over for a minute. The chance of making quick work of it was very important to him at that particular point. When they had left on patrol, they had rations for fifteen days. Already out fourteen days chasing that band, and still two full days away from the fort, he said, “Let’s see if we can move on them now.”

He turned to Sergeant Kelly. “Sergeant, tell the men to rig for silence. We’ll divide the patrol in half. You take half and find a position at the east end of that ridge. I’ll take the other half and take the west. Hold your position until I order them to throw down their arms and surrender, then at the first sign of resistance, open fire. You understand? I’ll give ’em a chance to surrender, but I’m not going to wait long for their decision.”

“Yes, sir,” Kelly said. “I’ll take one of the scouts with me.”

“Right,” Ainsworth said. “I’ll take Crazy Wolf with me.”

Continuing their advance upon the ridge at a slow walk, all eyes scanned the top of the ridge for any sign of a lookout, or an ambush. Crazy Wolf wasn’t overly worried about either. Scouting the camp earlier, he’d seen no signs of caution and believed the Sioux had no idea they were being tracked.

Ainsworth reminded Sergeant Kelly he would demand a surrender before opening fire, and possibly that would drive the Sioux warriors back toward him and his men. “If you hold your fire for a brief time, you should be able to take a toll on the warriors if they choose to fight.”

Kelly understood what the lieutenant was planning and conveyed it to his men.

“Let’s try not to shoot each other,” Ainsworth said in conclusion.

When they reached the base of the ridge, they split up and rode to opposite ends of it and dismounted. One man was left to guard the horses. At the western end of the ridge, Ainsworth designated Private Cary Fitzgerald as the horse guard, since he was the youngest and least experienced trooper in his company.

Crazy Wolf led Ainsworth and six troopers cautiously around the end of the ridge and down into the trees beside the stream where they stopped to look the situation over. The ridge was approximately one hundred yards in length, but the Sioux campfire looked to be closer to the western end. Kneeling in the trees by the stream, they could see the Indians, apparently at their leisure.

“They haven’t got any idea,” Ainsworth whispered. He looked around at his men. “Everybody ready?” He received all affirmative nods. He stepped out from behind the tree he planned to use for cover and yelled to a startled camp of Sioux. “Throw down your weapons! You are to be taken back to your reservation.”

A cry of surprise went up from the startled warriors and they sprang up from their blankets to grab their weapons. Ainsworth ducked back behind his tree as the first shots came his way. His men didn’t wait for an order to fire but cut down on the exposed Indians, killing three in the first volley. As Ainsworth had predicted, the other warriors backed up rapidly toward the opposite end of the ridge, only to engage the fire from Sergeant Kelly’s men and suffer more casualties. Ainsworth’s men advanced to new positions, pinning the Sioux down on the creekbank as they returned fire at targets they were still having trouble clearly defining. As their casualties gradually increased, and their already meager supply of ammunition steadily decreased, it became clear they had little chance of surviving. The survivors raised their voices in cries of surrender, all except one.

Black Dog, the leader of the Sioux war party, dropped into a gully that ran down from the top of the ridge. Only a few feet deep, it nevertheless offered him enough protection to crawl up it without being seen. Reaching the top of the ridge, he raised his head high enough to see out of the gully.

Sure no one had seen his escape, he slid his body out of the gully, onto the top of the ridge, and rolled a few feet over the other side. Then he looked back down at his Sioux brothers with their hands held up over their heads. He knew the soldiers must have left their horses at the base of the ridge. He ran along the length of the ridge, weaving his way through the shoulder-high bushes that covered the slope, until he saw the horses.

Young Private Cary Fitzgerald held his rifle tightly in his hands as he heard the gunfire from the other side of the ridge. He knew why the lieutenant had picked him to take care of the horses, but he was just as glad not to be shot at by a bloodthirsty Indian. He had never killed a man, Indian or soldier, and he wondered if he could if the time came. Suddenly, he realized the shooting had stopped. What if the Sioux had won the battle? Would they come looking for the horses right away? How would he know who won until somebody came for the horses? He realized how hard he was squeezing his rifle, and released his desperate grip from the stock and wiped the sweat from his palm.

He turned toward the ridge and froze, his eyes locked on those of the savage, Black Dog, several feet above him. His war axe was drawn back in his hand prepared to strike. Cary’s whole body recoiled from the shock of the rifle shot behind him that slammed the fierce warrior in the chest, sitting him down to drop the war axe on the ground beside him.

“Are you all right, soldier?”

Cary turned around to find the scout, Crazy Wolf, ejecting the spent cartridge from the Henry rifle he carried. He reached down and picked up the brass cartridge, a practice he had. . .