Mountain Man John Colter Pt 3: The Long Ride East

The Madison valley opened wide to the west beneath a clear sky, the ground still pocked with the marks of a buffalo herd. The grass lay bent and broken across the flats, and the earth was cut deep where the animals had driven through it. Tall pine trees stood along the edges of the valley, casting long shadows that reached out across the lower ground. 

John Colter raised his hand to his forehead to shield his eyes from the sun as they rode up out of the low ground. The camp took shape ahead of them along the edge of the Madison, spread wide across the valley where it met the timber. Riders filled the open ground near the river.

Charlie came up alongside him, his horse straining against the heavy pull of a travois stacked high with buffalo meat.

“Looks like the Crow are here, Koltar,” he said. “It’s time to go.” He flashed him a quick smile, then eased his horse ahead and pulled away.

There was activity throughout the camp. Lodge poles stood stacked in small groups where they had been pulled and stripped, the hides folded and tied near the center. 

A small girl stood beside a teepee, watching the riders come in. She did not step back as Colter approached.

He eased his horse to a slower walk and reached into his bag. He drew out the small wooden carving and held it out to her.

“For you, Little Bird.”

She hesitated, then stepped forward and took it carefully in both hands. She turned it slightly, studying the shape, then looked up at him and smiled. She said something soft in her own language.

Charlie came up beside them, his horse still hitched to the travois.

“She says thank you, Koltar,” he said.

Colter smiled. “Tell her she’s welcome.”

Charlie said something back to the girl, and she nodded once, holding the carving close against her chest.

“Now help me take down this lodge,” Charlie added, already turning in the saddle. “We need to get moving.”

Colter nodded and swung down from his horse without a word.

Charlie’s wife worked a short distance behind her, already loading the last of their things. 

She moved with quick, practiced motions, pulling a bundle tight with rawhide before setting it onto the travois. A pot and a rolled hide lay ready at her feet. She glanced up once at the girl and the doll in her hands, then back to the work without breaking her rhythm. Colter helped Charlie take down the lodge, working the poles free and stacking them with the others before leading his horse forward to join the riders already forming for movement.

They were out of the timber and moving east before the sun had climbed far. The column stretched and settled into itself as it found the ground, lengthening as more people and animals folded into it. The land opened as they moved, the timber thinning and giving way to a broad valley cut clean by the Madison river. The water ran hard and clear along the base of the slope, the current pulling tight against its banks and sliding over the stone with a force that never quite broke into noise. It did not wander. It held its line and cut the valley with it.

The first arrow came without warning, driving in from the edge of the wood line and striking a horse ahead and to the left. The animal went down hard, its legs folding beneath it as it crashed into the ground.

The air was filled with arrows and screams. 

The horses reacted first, surging and twisting under their riders as the shafts struck home. People scattered, pulling children close and dropping low as the arrows fell into the column. 

Colter turned in the saddle, scanning through the chaos. He pushed through the crowd until his eyes found Little Bird. She was pressed against her mother, both of them low and still as the crowd broke around them.

Charlie came up beside him at once.

“There, Koltar,” he said, pointing toward the high ground. “On the ridge!” His voice trailed off as his horse surged up the slope. “The Blackfeet have found us!”

Colter kicked his horse and drove it forward, racing after Charlie Broken Hand as they climbed toward the rise.

He could see them now.

The Blackfeet warriors moved along the ridge in a loose line, slipping in and out of the trees as they came, not bunched together but spread wide across the ground. Some were mounted, their horses cutting fast along the slope, while others ran on foot through the trees, using the cover as they closed the distance.

Their faces were marked for war, dark paint drawn across the eyes and down the cheek, some wearing it heavy, others in thinner lines that broke the shape of the face in the shifting light. Feathers moved with them as they ran or rode, worked into hair bound tight at the back or left loose to fall along the shoulders.

Colter saw one rider break clear of the timber and drive along the ridge, his bow already raised. The arrow came in high and fast, passing over Colter’s shoulder as he closed the distance.

He worked his rifle free from the saddle and brought it up, but the man was already turning, leaning away in the saddle as he rode toward him.

Colter shifted his grip, catching the rifle by the barrel. As the rider came alongside, he swung hard across the man’s body, the stock striking him high and off balance. The blow pitched the rider sideways out of the saddle.

Colter was on him a moment later, his knife already in his hand.

They hit the ground together. Colter drove in, trying to bring the blade down, but the man caught his wrist and forced it wide. They rolled once, the ground uneven beneath them, each fighting for leverage as the space between them closed to nothing.

Colter struck him with his free hand, a short, hard blow that broke the grip for an instant. He forced the knife back in and drove it down, the motion close and deliberate as the struggle gave way beneath him.

For a moment he stayed there, the weight of the man slack beneath him, his breath coming hard as the ground shifted around him.

Colter pulled the knife free and came up, his breath still hard in his chest. He found the rifle where it had fallen and snatched it up, turning as he looked for his horse. It was gone.

There was no time to look for it.

A figure broke from the trees and came at him from the side, closing fast. Colter turned into it, bringing the rifle across his body and firing at close range, the report loud and flat in the confined space between the trunks. The man crashed into Colter and drove him backward, the two of them going down hard in the dirt.

Colter rolled free and turned to face his attacker, but the man lay lifeless on the ground. He snatched up his rifle and dropped to a knee, working the reload by feel, quick and practiced as the fight pressed in around him.

He scanned the fight until he found Charlie out on the open ground, riding hard across the flats with two Blackfeet closing in behind him.

Charlie kept his horse moving, never holding the same line for more than a moment. One of the men pressed in closer, leaning forward as he loosed, while the other held wider, circling to cut him off.

Colter dropped to a knee and brought the rifle up, finding the nearer rider as he turned broad in the saddle. He fired once.

The man came out of the saddle and went down hard.

At the same moment Charlie loosed again, his arrow striking the second man in the chest. The rider faltered and lost his seat.

Charlie let out a sharp cry and raised his bow in the air in victory.

Then he jerked back.

An arrow struck him high in the chest. He slumped forward in the saddle, the bow slipping from his hand as he lost his grip. For a moment he held there, then fell sideways to the ground.

“Charlie!”

Colter raced toward him, the rifle still in his hands as he crossed the open ground between them.

He was halfway there when the arrow hit.

It drove into his leg and took his footing out from under him. He stumbled and went down, catching himself with one hand as the rifle slipped free. For a moment he tried to rise, but the leg would not take the weight.

He stayed there, low to the ground, the fight moving around him as the pain came on and settled deep.

The fight went on around him, but it came to him in pieces now, sound breaking apart and returning in uneven bursts that did not always match what he could see. Movement passed through his field of vision and was gone before he could fix on it, shapes crossing and recrossing the same ground as the distance between them collapsed and opened again.

He pushed once against the ground and managed to rise onto his knees, his sight settling low across the grass and the churned earth where the struggle had already marked the place.

A horse came through the fight at a dead run, riderless, its head low and eyes wide. Colter tried to turn away, but the animal was on him before he could move clear. It struck him and drove him back into the ground.

The world went dark.

He opened his eyes. 

The sky moved above him, pale and steady, broken now and then by the passing of branches as they worked along the edge of the timber. The pain was there waiting for him, set deep in his leg and chest, dull at first and then sharpening as he drew breath.

He tried to move but found himself bound fast to the frame beneath him, the rawhide pulled tight enough that there was no give in it.

A figure moved into view beside him. It was Little Bird.

She walked close to the travois, keeping pace with it, the small wooden doll held in both hands. She looked down at him as his eyes found her, then reached out and placed the carving against his chest, pressing it there as if to make sure he kept it.

Colter held it without speaking.

Beyond her, the ground fell away toward the river.

The Madison ran close along the bank, its current moving cold and steady through the valley. Along the far edge of it, near the line of timber, something stirred in the distance.

A grizzly bear stood near the edge of the bank, broad through the shoulders, its weight carried low as it turned slightly toward the open ground. One side of its head was wrong, the ear gone, the other torn along the edge. A scar ran down its face, pale against the darker fur, and the coat along its back hung uneven where old wounds had taken hold.

It lifted slowly, rising onto its hind legs.

Then it roared.