Chapter 16 #2
It was still dark, but the eastern sky was taking on the dull color of silver—a sign of the sun starting to rise into the early-morning atmosphere. Soon, Red Hawk and Effie would be more than visible to the well-trained eye of the scout, if one were about.
Turning back toward Effie, Red Hawk said, “I must investigate. You stay here. Hear me, you are not to move, no matter what cause is given you, nor are you to cry out, not even in warning. Do you understand?”
“Yes, but what’s wrong?”
“I do not know. I only know something is wrong. Do not disobey me. Stay here. Hide well.”
She nodded.
Bending toward her, he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Know always that I love you.”
She laid her hand atop his. “I too.”
He nodded solemnly, pressed her hand in acknowledgment and then set off, crawling through the growth and bushes that occasioned the open spaces of the prairie.
Stealthily, Red Hawk approached the meadow where they had left the wagons. He smelled no smoke there; he heard no voices. And yet, the evidence that something had happened here was unmistakable.
He crept up to the spot where Henry Smith should have been standing lookout.
No one was there.
This was a bad sign. A very bad omen, indeed.
Both wagons were turned onto their sides. Wheels were broken, the white canvas coverings were torn, shovels, trowels, papers, clothes and other equipment were scattered over the ground. But he could see no traces of the people.
Stealing carefully around the camp, he looked in vain for clues of an enemy, a scout, renegade whites, anything. There was none to be found. There should have been something.
Slowly, he stole into their former camp. It was a mess. Papers were everywhere, some blowing haphazardly in the wind, others caught on bushes. Indiscriminately, he picked up one, but since there was nothing to be found there, he studied what tracks and prints were left instead.
He could make no sense of this. Bending down, he fingered a particular imprint on the ground.
It was a track made by one of the men. Because of its deep indentation, as well as the fact that the feet were turned out, he recognized the footprint as belonging to the older man, John Owens.
Due to the erratic nature of the print, he knew the man had been frightened. He had also run away.
Looking up, Red Hawk took note of the direction taken, then studied more of the clues left. Here were the tracks of the two women, their two husbands out in front of them, clearly protecting them.
But from what?
There were no foreign prints here, no enemy he could find in evidence.
In vain, he searched the camp more thoroughly for signs of a foe. There was nothing.
Nothing, except for a boulder that was cracked, as well as one impression in the ground where the earth had been torn apart, as though the dirt had been pulled up by a white man’s plow. But that was all. There was nothing more to show the story of what had happened.
Rising, Red Hawk knew it was useless to try to find more clues in the camp. He had best find the others. Perhaps they could make better sense of this.
Their trail headed toward the water, which was almost a half a mile away. Slowly, carefully, he followed their path through the short prairie grasses.
Soon, arriving at the stream, he saw that none had lingered here, but had set off downstream. Much harder to track, but not completely impossible. Luckily for Red Hawk, one of the women had remained close to the shore, leaving an occasional footprint.
About a half mile downstream was evidence that they had paused. Farther along, they had continued, until at last, off in the distance, Red Hawk saw them. Camped for the moment beneath a large cottonwood, they looked a decidedly disheveled, disgruntled bunch. Quietly, he approached them.
One of the women screamed, and a shot was fired directly at him. It missed.
Haiya! This was discouraging. Not because someone had fired at him, rather because whoever it was had missed. The white men were terrible shots.
He called out, “It is I, Red Hawk. I have come in search of you. I have only returned from scouting. What has happened here? I can make no sense of what I have seen back at your camp.”
“Scouting, huh?” This came from John Owens. “A likely story.”
Red Hawk didn’t respond. It was not in his nature to defend his honesty, one way or the other.
“Maybe you can tell us where our esteemed leader Miss Effie is,” growled John Owens.
“Miss Effie is safe. I left her in a place where she would not be harmed.” Then, because hunger can often cause a person to be antagonistic, Red Hawk asked, “Has anyone eaten their morning meal?”
This elicited more response from them. Even the women spoke up with a hearty “No.”
“Before we talk about the night which has passed, perhaps it would be well to eat. I have some dried meat I will share with you,” said Red Hawk.
“It is not as robust a breakfast as to what you may be accustomed, but it will give you enough strength to think clearly. Then we might discuss what happened before returning to camp.”
“I’m not going back there.” This comment came from Madeline.
Red Hawk chose not to respond. Let them gain strength from nourishment first. Then he would question them.
Stepping into their midst, Red Hawk removed his bag from around his shoulder, withdrew the jerky from it and handed the bag to Lesley. “Do you think you could fill this with water from the stream?”
She nodded and set off to do as bidden.
Offering the food around, Red Hawk waited. When at last they each one appeared to be more nourished and in perhaps a better frame of mind, Red Hawk queried, “What happened here?”
“We were attacked,” spat out Carl. “Where were you?”
It was a fair question, and Red Hawk answered at once.
“Since we have started on this trail, I use the night to scout. Because we are not well armed, it is important I look for signs of enemies, and if I see something that might harm us, to set a path around it. Last night Miss Effie decided to accompany me so she might more easily understand my duties.”
Both Henry Smith and Carl Bell nodded, neither adding a comment.
John Owens was not to be so easily swayed. “What good would accompanying you do? What need does the manager of this expedition have of learning the duties of a scout? If she is the director, then she should have been here to go down with the ship.”
“Father!” cried Lesley. “Please.”
Red Hawk eyed John Owens severely. Gone was the elder’s congenial veneer.
In its place was the hostility Red Hawk had glimpsed upon first acquaintance.
At length, Red Hawk said, “Miss Effie had every right to accompany me last night. Since we must first reach the excavation site before any work can be done, it is her duty to ensure we get there safely. This group is not well manned, and any wandering war party could take advantage of us. It would be irresponsible to remain uninformed of what lies before us.”
Again, Carl Bell and Henry Smith seemed to comprehend this without question. But once more, John Owens had a differing viewpoint. “Tell me, if what you say is true and you scout through the night, when do you sleep?”
“Whenever I can—usually that is a few hours in the early evening.”
“Humph!”
Red Hawk didn’t respond. Instead, he paused, hoping the former subject might die. In due time, he asked, “Who attacked you?”
“We don’t know,” responded Lesley. “It happened in the middle of the night. At first we thought it was no more than a thunderstorm. But the noise came closer and closer, and my father felt the first shot.”
“Soka’pii. May I see the injury?” Red Hawk directed the question to Owens, who was still glowering.
At first it appeared as if Owens would not cooperate, but then with a shrug, he said, “Don’t see why not.” He offered up his arm for inspection. An angry, red welt ran all along his forearm. “The shot grazed me.”
Red Hawk nodded.
“We panicked,” Henry interjected. “Carl and I kept up a defense, while the women and Mr. Owens and his man, Fieldman, escaped. We followed them, keeping up a round of shots, until we ran out of ammunition.”
“You have no more bullets for your guns?”
“I think I used all that I had left with me when I fired on you,” said Carl.
“You did not bring all of the weapons and bullets with you?”
“No.”
Again, Red Hawk nodded. But he was puzzled. He had not seen any signs of ammunition scattered about the camp, and if they did not have it here, it should have been there. But these facts he kept to himself. “And then what happened?”
“Something we couldn’t see kept chasing us,” said Henry. “And though we fired and fired on it, it was as though our shots made little impression—as though bullets couldn’t kill it.”
Red Hawk frowned. “How did you get away?”
“As soon as we reached the water,” Carl continued, “it retreated. We don’t know why. We could only thank God that it did. But then all we could think of was putting distance between ourselves and the camp. We ran and ran until we stopped here. And here we have remained…until you found us.”
“Are you ready to return to your camp now?” Red Hawk said after a pause. “I believe that whatever the danger was, it is now gone.”
“Are you sure?” asked Madeline.
“I have been to the camp, and I did not see anything which would have attacked you or me. So yes, I believe the camp is safe now.”
“Do you have any idea who it was that attacked us?” queried Lesley.
Red Hawk shook his head.
“Was it Indians?” asked John Owens.
“Were it Indians,” said Red Hawk, “you would not be here, able to tell me about it.”
“Then who?” It was Henry speaking.
“I do not know. But come, it is daylight. I do think the danger has passed. Let us go back to the wagons. There we can strike a fire, and you can further nourish yourselves before we look through the camp for clues. There is much to repair and to do, as well, I fear.”
Luckily, there was not a single rejoinder or objection. As they all seemed ready to return, Red Hawk led them back to camp.