The Little Cabin in the Woods-A Cowboy Will Story

Short story of a fictional cowboy wondering through the real old west circa 1840's-1880's told by the cowboy to a teenager at the end of the 1800's related by the teen 40 years later.

A Cowboy Will Story

The following is from the memories of Cowboy Will, as told to me, during the summer of 1894. I was a youngster, in my early teens living in Pittsburgh. We lived in one of the neighborhoods that had grown up around the steel factories. Cowboy Will lived near us, always sitting out on his porch. He looked to be seventy, or seventy-five years old. Most folks just passed him by without even noticing the old man there, and he not caring much if they did, or didn't. I don't think I ever saw any other visitor with him. One day I happened to offer just a general 'Hello' while passing, and now, more than forty-years gone by...I don't remember how...but Cowboy Will and I became great friends and the old guy told some wonderful tales about his life, which are the basis of this, and other tales. Through all his tales I came to know, really know, Cowboy Will, enabling me to use literary license and still stay true to the man I knew all those years ago. This story, he said, happened around 1848, or so…

A Little Cabin In The Woods

1. Sand Land

The sun was beating down, just as it had for days on end now. Traveler plodded along, his head drooped in the same manner of his rider. Will, sitting upon the horse’s back, wondered how the animal just seemed to keep going, on and on. The heat was suffocating, and it alone was heavy to carry, yet Traveler just kept on giving and giving. Will was sure that without this wonderful animal, he would already be dead, and that, he thought, may yet come to pass.

There was a time when Will’s mind pondered his situations, but that was long ago now. Now, he was sure that destiny wasn’t his to command; as sure as he had equally once believed it was. One day it had dawned on him that there were just too many forces at play to possibly be in control of even a simple majority of them. That simple thought, as massive as it was, was nothing more than a tiny seed that was ever-sprouting within his being. Most importantly though, it helped him learn to accept situations, both good and bad, as they really were, not how he wished they would be.

            Too, the sand…Will had never imagined there could be so much sand in one place. It was like a great ocean, only there wasn’t even a single solitary drop of water, only sand, sand and more sand. It was in his lungs, in his eyes and overcrowded in every crevice, nook and cranny that Will owned. This ocean of sand, instead of waves, had only dunes that crested and broke into more dunes, and then, more dunes leading to more dunes. This was all he had found for the last four days. He had maybe one more day of water for him and Traveler. Of course, he could cut Traveler out and maybe stretch it for two more days, but what then? He had already decided that he would share with Traveler to the very last drop. This was something notable about Will, even in this dilapidated state of being, his mind would never allow an animal who served so well to be treated even one wisp less than deserved.

            On they plodded, and Will kept his eyes hidden under the brim of his sweat soaked hat. It was only around nine in the morning and they had gone about as far as they could dare in the wide-open day time. Will pulled Traveler from his slow amble to a stop and stepped off into the burning sand. He could feel the heat through his boots. He had been lucky enough to find a dune that would give a small shade spot for awhile yet, and this sand, while still Hades hot, was less so than that under the direct sun. In just a few moments, he had a make-shift lean-to as meager help against the coming day. Soon after, he and Traveler, who was sort of tucked under the shade, head and neck mostly, were settled for a small rest and wait until evening. Will poured Traveler some water. The horse seemed to understand to take only what was absolutely necessary and refused any more than that. Will patted him on the face just over his eyes. “You’re a good horse and friend, Traveler.” Will, sort of the same as Traveler, covered head and torso, sipped some water, capped the canteen and closed his eyes for some rest.

            Dreams are wonderful things for human beings and no less so for Will. He found himself sitting beside a beautiful lake, lush and green, so moist that a thin, fragile watery cover draped over everything. As it is in dreams, he never questioned why he should be sitting in such splendor, and in fact it was a perfectly natural feeling. Will’s dream-self interacted with people that in waking life he would never know, yet there, in his dreams, they were perfectly known and not out of place in any way.  From a place far away from detection, the real Will watched with amusement at the theater of his mind and wondered at his own imagination. That real self felt a pang of regret knowing that even though a rough memory of this may be remembered by his waking self, he would never remember it in the stunning realistic, even touchable detail, that was rendered by the dream before him now.

2. The Devil Carries A Rifle

            Reality, however, carries its own stunning details also. The first thing in Will’s mind was the heat. As he was waking up, it pressed down on him like a piano lying on his chest. Breathing was an effort just by itself, effectively wiping any memory of the cool green paradise right out of existence with every labored breath. Then his eyes started to respond to the waking process. His lids pulled themselves grudgingly open. Will had been lying on his back and as he looked up, he was staring right into the business end of a large caliber rifle that, from about six inches away, was pointed right at his forehead. Will’s sand blurry eyes traveled up the length of the barrel past the weathered hands to the face laid over the stock of the rifle, squinting and serious. A scrabbled old man was staring down at him, dark eyes gleaming under a greasy cap made from some animal, though Will could not determine which it might be.

            “Well, well” cackled the old man, “What have we here, Johnny-Boy?”

            It was only then that Will realized that the old man had company along for the fun, and whatever real possible dangers there were just doubled. His mind yelled at him to do…something. His eyes told him there was nothing to be done at this very moment other than to hold on for the ride and see what happens. It was the only choice available to him and he recognized the falseness of calling it a choice.

            “Get up, you…NOW!” the old man barked, and Johnny-Boy came around into Will’s vision. He looked to be somewhere between 16 and 20 years old compared to the old man who looked to be in his latter 60’s.

“…you get on up…like pappy says” ordered the younger one.

Will just sat there, staring at them. The old man dropped the gun away from pointing and his demeanor changed to that of a frustrated parent with an obstinate youngster. Then the old man swung the rifle, holding it by the barrel, so that the wooden stock crashed into Will’s skull, sending him to immediate darkness. No dreams came to Will this time.

            Coming to was much worse than going out and as Will began to take note of himself, he couldn’t figure out where he was, but he was sure that his head ached and that he was moving, and not to comfortably at that. In fact, he was strapped over a horse, no, not a horse, his horse, Traveler. He took some comfort in that, but it passed pretty quickly. He noticed that there were voices speaking nearby, but not close enough to hear what was being said. His head throbbed terribly, and it was making his stomach roil with displeasure.

            After a few moments of convincing himself not to lose his lunch, so to speak, full memory came to Will and he considered the old man and Johnny-boy. It came to him why his head hurt so much, too; The old man. Will kept as still as possible not wanting to alert the captors of his consciousness. He needed time to think. First, he assessed himself. Though his head ached, he figured it wasn’t too serious, he had memory, and he figured that was good.

            His head was facing to the rear of whatever direction they were heading, off the rear of Traveler, and he was looking at the path they had just covered in the rhythm of the horse’s gait. He took immediate notice that there was no sand. They were not in the desert anymore. They were now on a rocky trail that was moving upwards, because he was looking downhill. Will figured he had been out at least a day, he had seen mountains off to the northeast, some of the southern reaches of the Rockies. It would have taken at least a day to get there. Will mentally checked the rest of his body, and though very sore for being strapped over a horse, all seemed pretty much okay.

         A few small tugs and pulls confirmed that he was trussed to the horse quite well, in fact, professionally, even. This told him something of his captors. They were most likely trappers, of a sort, that is, that for reasons unknown to Will, turned to more interesting prey, humans. Will had heard of these types and wondered at the ease in which they captured him. It irritated him. Humans were much easier prey and much more predictable than animals, and if your heart was evil enough, humans were much more profitable in many ways. Will knew they weren't Indians; the old man and Johnny-Boy were white men. Indians, mostly Comanche in these parts, would have killed him right away, and Will wondered if that might have been the better thing to happen. Will had heard of some of the profit motives involved with people hunting, and none looked so good for him. In fact, it would lead to one of two conclusions no matter what, and that was slavery or death. Or maybe somewhere in between, making the latter look good.

            He could still hear the two chattering up ahead of him, and still he could not make out any of what was being said, then suddenly, he noticed a third speaker in the conversation, the voice carrying to him only in the very least of hearing, but he was sure it was a woman’s voice intermixed with the two men. Three, Will wondered if there were more and hoped that there weren’t. The odds were growing mightily against him and that was not wasted on him.

            Will tried his best to relax his body, struggle in this state was of no use and would only drain him of any energy he did have, so he endured as best he could as Traveler moved up the rough trail. In fact, he guessed by the roughness that they were well off any well traveled routes, and probably one that only these scalawags ever used. He imagined they were headed to a hideout or such. Then it struck him how funny the mind was, and doubt rushed in to do its work on him. In the span of a few ticks of the clock a few doubts became a crowd, all screaming madly at him, but he shut them out and locked the door. They banged and banged. Will ignored them. Doubt finally tired out and their screams became dull mummers, and then faded away completely, as Will had known they would, as he stood resolute in his mind against the bolted door.  

            Now his mind really began to work. His mind tended to present problems, among other things, sort of like a tree in his mind, starting from a seed of need (as he thought of it), growing a trunk and branching in endless pathways, ultimately producing some fruit, be it sweet or rotten, but there is always a pathway from one to the other. The trick was picking the right branches at the right times, and true, most people have no real talent for this or even aware of such things, Will was quite good at it. One of those branches would get him out of this, but which one?

3. Idle Chit-Chat

            The hours passed by and Will kept his mind busy chasing the branches, trying to determine outcomes. He could feel Traveler’s tiredness beneath him and regretted the burden he was imposing on the animal. On they plodded and then Will noticed something was different. It took a moment or two before he identified the change, the wind, ever so slight as it was, had reversed directions. It was now blowing from the front of the little pack train instead of the rear. Will concentrated on the view off Traveler’s hip and decided that they were now moving downward, ever so slightly.

            With that wind, the voices of his captors came easily to his ears. They seemed to be in a conversation concerning trapping, skins and meat. Normal conversation for trappers and Will figured that these were animal trappers primarily and began wondering what worth he might be to them. Why had they not just killed him and take whatever they wanted? It had been many seasons since Will had seen any real law keeping, and had learned that in this land, whoever wielded the most violence at the right time was the only law. He listened to them…

The girl was speaking… “The way I see it, we got us five good hides here, just the skins alone will be worth the effort to get these fine pieces. Them others are too old for their hides, but these five young’uns here, we will be rich, rich, rich!”

Will recognized the next voice as Johnny-Boy, “And that is gonna be some kind of good eatin’, ain’t it Pappy?

The girl again, “It has been so long since we had us such a fine catch as this, we won’t have to worry for some time to come. This is the blessing I have been prayin’ for, every night. I just can’t believe our luck!”

“And that is gonna be some kind of good eatin’, ain’t it Pappy?” Johnny-Boy excitedly asked again.

“Boy,” Will recognized this voice to be the old man, “get your mind off your stomach for just a little bit, will you?”

Will wondered what other unfortunates had happened into the path of this little band of hunters. He even wondered if they would share whatever those good eats, as Johnny-Boy called them, with him. The mind is funny and his tummy was empty. Again, too, he wondered what his worth to them could be. He listened more.

The old man went on, “Now, that last one we got there, that one will be ready right away, but those others, they are a might on the scrawny side, we are going to have to keep those for a while, get a little meat on them bones.”

There was another sound that Will could now hear, too. It was an odd shuffling sound that he hadn’t heard before. He couldn’t really tell what it was, but he now figured some of the hunter’s quarry was live game. He tried in his mind to match the sound with all creatures he had encountered and came up short of a match. It puzzled him.

“As soon as we get home, Johnny-Boy, you get that last one staked out, so we can skin ‘em and get to tanning right away. Missy, you take them others down to the pen and get them some fodder right away, I don’t want to be caring for them wretches any more than we have to.”

COWS jumped into Will’s mind. These fine folks are rustling cows! Johnny-Boy’s comments seemed to confirm…

“When I get him skinned, then I can cut us some meat, right Pappy, then I can, right?”

“Yeah, Pappy,” the girl chimed in, “let him Pappy, I am awfully hungry too.”

“You two beat everything I have ever seen,” came from the old man. He then giggled a sick sounding giggle and added, “…yeah, I reckon so, I don’t see no stopping you two, that’s for sure.”After this the trio fell into silent traveling and didn’t speak of anything more

Soon a pine scent came along on that slight breeze. It had burned at Will’s nose for the last several miles. Then the girl announced, "It's nice to be back home!" The traveling band came to a stop. They had  arrived at a little cabin in the middle of nowhere.  Will hadn’t been among trees in quite some time and had forgotten the woodland's sharp aromas that now assaulted his senses.

Will heard someone approaching and he feigned unconsciousness. He felt the straps holding him to Traveler being cut away and he allowed himself to fall clumsily, and quite painfully, to the ground like a sack of potatoes without the slightest hint of resistance, and by nasty chance, it was his face that found the ground first, and then he didn’t have to pretend to be unconscious, because he was.

4. The Camp

He was only out for a few minutes and came awake as he was being dragged by his feet. As his head bumped along the ground, his nose smelled the air and registered the smells of a processing camp, sour and acrid tones, though faint, mixed with the over-sweet fragrance of the pine and cedar forest they were embedded in. Will figured it had been some time since anything had been processed here, and what little conversation he had heard seemed to reinforce that idea. Maybe they weren’t very good trappers…but they had him, didn’t they?

Will let his eyes ever so slightly slit open. He could see that it was Johnny-Boy that was dragging him along. He reminded Will of a mule showing no strain what so ever. Will felt like the plow for this mule, as Johnny-Boy had a foot on each hip, with Will splayed out behind him on his back. Will let his head flop over to one side and saw a rude cabin in a small clearing and the back of the old man and what must be the girl, who passed just out of his sight as he looked. The old man went into the cabin. Will let his head work its way to flopping into the other direction and could make out two clearings, one corral like and the other with cover and vats for processing. He noted that beyond those, the woods were thick and seemed to fall slightly away whereas behind the cabin had been slightly up.

What he didn’t see, and marked it, was cows. He didn’t see any cows…and now that he thought of it, he hadn’t heard any cows either, not now or before on the trail. Cows made noise, he had heard none. In fact, he had heard nothing living other than the captors, himself and his horse, and shuffling.

Johnny-Boy was dragging Will to the corral area. When they got to the fence, Johnny-Boy dropped Will’s feet to open the crude gate to the corral area.

Will instantly knew this was his only moment. He knew if Johnny-Boy got him where ever he is taking him, it would be too late. What Will didn’t know was if his body would respond. He knew what he needed to do was get up and run for his life, but he wasn’t sure that he could do that simple thing. He was racked with pain from bottom to top, but it was his only chance.

Will was looking up at Johnny-Boy’s rear end as he was reaching for the crude gate. Will drove both of his feet into Johnny-Boy’s butt, driving him face first into the top of the gate. In a flash Will was on his feet and he was moving. He looked around as he scooted along the obvious trail as it led away from the little camp. He intended to turn at the end of the corral and head downhill as fast as he could. He saw Traveler and knew instantly there was nothing he could do about that and he felt a pang inside, but he kept moving. Then something else caught his eye.

As he ran, Will’s eyes caught sight of the rest of the heard that this little band had nabbed along with him. It all came rushing into his mind... the sounds he had heard... the ones he hadn’t, along the trail here. It hadn’t been cows. It hadn’t been any animals at all. It had been these Indian women he was now seeing, ten head, Will counted, blindfolded and gagged, tied one to the other. At the head of the line was a white woman with a bullwhip in her hand. Her attention was on him, but she didn’t let go of the rope of Indian women to chase after him, instead, she was yelling her fool head off… “Paaaaw!”

Pain screamed through his whole body, but Will ran faster. He reached the corner of the corral and the woods as Johnny-Boy was regaining his feet and starting to scramble after him. The old man was making his way out of the shabby cabin as Will broke into the woods, on the down sloping side, and ran as hard as he could, dodging the trees and bouncing off more than one or two of them. The wood grew denser as he fled away from the cabin and sight distances began to diminish until there was only a glimpse now and then. Soon, there were no glimpses, only sounds of runner and pursuer and soon, not even that. Still, Will ran and ran until he finally fell in a fern and laid there in complete exhaustion. His breath heaved in his chest as never before. His lungs were demanding more air than could be supplied and Will concluded he must be very high in the mountains. He waited, and he listened. He heard nothing beyond the forest noise that was all around him. 

5. Ten Bears

Will lay still and quiet and soon brought his breathing under control and began imagining his seed of need. He wanted his horse and belongings back, and too, there were the Indian women. He couldn’t just leave them there with those insane people. Will began working the facts out in his mind and didn’t like what it was all adding up to. The conversations of his captors, what little he had heard, indicated something that seemed too horrible to think about. If their talk had been about animals, that would mean one thing, but if their conversation was actually about him, and the Indian women, well that was another kettle of fish altogether. Will shivered in his skin.

Even rarer than the stories of the slavers that roamed the landscape in search of hapless victims, were stories of white cannibals. Will had heard a few mentions of such but had dismissed them as old lore from children’s stories meant to frighten and entertain. He knew of certain Indian tribes that did such, but never in these parts, and these were not Indians at all, they were white and spoke English, though very poorly, but English.

First to consider was that he had no weapons. All Will had were the clothes and boots he had on. He would have to remedy this as soon as possible. Next was that it was late afternoon and soon darkness would be falling, and Will figured it would cool considerably, so he would have to see about some heat or cover so he didn’t freeze to death out here. He was sure that later tonight, he would be thinking of that oppressive desert heat with fondness…

Will sat up and looked around. The wood had thinned again, a small bit, and about fifty yards further from him was a small brook. Will wanted to leap to his feet and race to the water but restrained himself from doing it. Instead, he hesitated and in that instance his ears heard a sound, ever so slight that he wasn’t sure he had heard anything. Then he heard it again, and he was sure. It was someone moving through the woods ahead of him. Will was wondering how Johnny-Boy had gotten ahead of him when he heard another noise off to his side, separate of the other he had already heard. There were two people moving around. Then a third noise off to his other side, three people. How was it possible that all three of his captors had gotten in front of him, unless, he had gotten turned around somehow…

Before Will could consider, three Indian braves were on him, one to each side and one laid across his chest with a knife to his throat. Will was looking into the eyes of the brave on top of him. His eyes were wild, but not blood lust wild. The Indian started talking to him in Spanish, but Will did not know Spanish and the Indian recognized that Will wasn’t following. The Indian started again in rough English.

“Who you?”

The knife ever so slightly pricked at Will’s throat.

“What you do here?”

“I am Will. I was running.”

“You hunt Indians?”

Will hesitated a bit…he wasn’t sure exactly what the Indian meant by the question, but he quickly realized the meaning and replied, “No, I don’t, and now I am running from hunters…”

The Indian finished for him… “Of people.” The Indian gazed a moment longer, then relented the knife from Will’s throat. He got up off of Will and motioned Will to stand up. He did though it wasn’t easy for him. His entire body was one knot made up of a million other knots.

“I Paruasemana.” He motioned to the other braves with him and added, “We Ketahto.”

Will repeated the name, sounding it out, “Parra-wah-ser-man-oh.”

The Indian grunted back agreement with the pronunciation Will had stumbled, but successfully, though.

Will had recognized them as Comanche but also knew there were many groups within that general name. Will looked at their bare feet and repeated the translation of Ketahto, “Don’t Wear Shoes”.

Paruasemana grunted in agreement with Will’s general translation.

Sweeping his hand indicating the little group facing him, Will tried more… “Don’t Wear Shoes are great horse warriors in the plains, but I see no horses, why are you here in these mountains that are so far away from your lands? Will was pretty sure he already knew the answer but was interested if the Indian would tell him that he was chasing after the women he had seen in the hunter’s camp. Trust was everything; it would mean living or dying here and now.

Paruasemana stood mute for a moment, sizing Will up best he could on the spot, then cast his gaze to his two partners, and then back at Will. He answered Will’s question, “Devils stole our women. We are going to kill them.”

The panic Will had been standing on, with all his inner might in every effort not to show it, began to subside a bit. He had a chance and that was something. Without thinking he spoke out, “Yeah, those devils still got my horse, too!”

Paruasemana stood only stoically looking at Will. He turned and spoke Comanche to his cohorts and the three of them chuckled among themselves. It was a little unnerving to Will. Paruasemana turned back to Will, again with all seriousness and spoke, “Join us as a brother and we get horse back for you.”

It was delivered as a statement with no telling emotion. Will pondered but knew time was short. He answered back to Paruasemana, “What did you say to your friends there that was funny?” Will figured if he was going to get killed, it might as well be here and not after he helped them, after all, a horse might be mighty valuable to these fellows. The thought of trust floated back through his mind…

“I tell them that you must be Comanche at heart, you escape the devil’s pit, but you want to go back and get your horse…they agree… join us, we go now.”

Will figured here and now wasn’t what he wanted for dying and decided no matter the outcome, he would go along and see what happened. “You said your name was Paruasemana, does that have some kind of English translation?”

“I am called Ten-Bears by the English whites. You can call me Ten-Bears.” He continued on, “Ten-Bears’ word is stronger than mountain under our feet, I ask you to join as brother, not as trick. Ten-Bears has seen hunter devils before and knows what you run from. In this we can unite and do what must be done. If women are dead, we will kill devils anyway. The world not cry out in loss over those devils.”

“I am called Will. Let’s go get my horse!” Will took note that each of the Indians had several short spears and a bow and a couple of knives and as he was looking it all over, Ten-Bears handed him a fine hunter’s knife and sheath which he strapped on. He had heard the horse warriors were fierce rulers of the lands they claimed and preferred the spears to bows.

The Indians moved back to the little stream and began drinking from it and Will joined them in this, too. Soon, they were off, headed back to that little cabin in the woods. The Indians were tireless and moved like sleek animals through the woods on their way and Will, somehow kept pace with them. They were moving along when Ten-Bears suddenly stopped in his tracks, and the other two likewise stopped. Within the blink of the eye, they were off the path they had been following and crouched out of sight and before Will could process it, he was seen by Johnny-Boy, who yelled at him, “I see you…dang you…make me run after you…I see you, I am a-cumin to get ya!” Will looked at Ten-Bears, who was motioning Will to stand still…

Johnny-Boy came running down the path, his stupid mouth running right along with him, “…thought you was (huff, huff) a-gonna git away, (puff-puff) did ya? Ha, you cain’t (huff) get away from us, (puff) boy, you just cain’t…” Will could hear the huffing and puffing between Johnny-Boy’s words. Will also saw the rifle in Johnny-Boy’s hands and wondered why the idiot didn’t just stop and shoot him, but he could see that Johnny-Boy wasn’t thinking about any gun at all, he was just running down the path to catch his prey. Will looked past Johnny-Boy trying to see if anyone else was with him and decided that there was no one else near, other than the Indians, which, Johnny-Boy had no idea of in the least.

Just then, Ten-Bears pounced on poor Johnny-Boy. That shock was pretty close to the last thing ole Johnny-Boy ever knew of life in this world. Ten-Bears was like ten bears on the young, blood-lusting cannibal. In the first second, a slashing knife sweep left Johnny-Boy looking at his guts as they spilled down the front of his legs and hit the ground. The next second delivered another knife sweep to Johnny-Boy’s throat. The third second Ten-Bears had moved away and the other two Indians each planted a spear into the chest of Johnny-Boy. Will saw life leave Johnny-Boy’s body and it toppled over lifeless on the ground.

Will expected to see the Indians swarm the body to take whatever they wanted, including Johnny-Boy’s scalp. What he saw instead was that the Indians wanted nothing to do with this body or possessions in any way; they only looked at the dead heap with a certain fear in their being and then took off through the woods again, with Will falling in behind them. They left Johnny-Boy there to be dealt with by nature and none looked back.

6. Strange Alliances

On they ran and Will wondered at his own endurance. His drive had become the same as the Indians he now ran with. He had become their brother somehow in the short time because of the seed of need that they all seemed to have in common. And here he was, running down one of those branches, leading to some end he didn’t yet know.

After a while, they neared the little camp and came to rest. They could see the cabin and part of the corral area; they could see some of the women staked to hitching post, but most were out of their sight. They sat watching. Soon a white woman came into view; she was distributing some food to the Indian women that they could see. She stopped as if she heard something and turned and looked in the little spying group’s direction. She seemed to scan the area then turned back to her chores. She became agitated at one of her captives and dropped her pan of gruel and grabbed the bull whip from her side and began lashing the captive. Will, and each of the Indians, gave small grunts at each crack of the whip. Finished with her lesson, the white woman re-hitched the whip to her side and bent to pick up the pan of gruel, scraped what she could off the ground back into the pan, dirt, refuse and all, and continued serving the slop.

The woman worked her way back out of sight and Will noticed Ten-Bears and the other two Indians gesturing to each other. Will tried to follow along and picked up that one of the braves heard something, horses, Will thought the brave was saying that horses were coming this way down the same road Will had been carried in on. Will listened as hard as he could, but he could hear nothing and was beginning to think he had missed what the Indians had been gesturing about. Then he heard something, quite a ways off, but another moment confirmed he had interpreted the braves right, there were horses approaching the camp, and Will wondered who would be coming to this wretched place.

Whoever it was, it was cause for Will and his band of wild Indians to sit on their heels for a spell. Will had liked the odds with just the old man and the girl to deal with. They would have to wait now and see how this change would affect the odds. Soon, the riders came into sight.

Will was elated at what he saw. The first rider that he saw was a Calvary solider, and not only a soldier, but even from his hidden spot, Will could tell it was an officer. He couldn’t make out the fellows features, nor really tried. Later, he would lament this, but now, his mind reeled at the appearance such as this, his mind running all the possibilities, all of which ended in the Calvary riding in to the rescue. Will looked at Ten-Bears and noted right away that the Indians in no way shared his elation at this new development.

Ten-Bears and his two companions, slowly began shrinking away from their positions back into the woods, Will stayed on a minute or two and noticed there were other riders with the soldier, but they were not troopers, at least they weren’t dressed as troopers, and there were only three others. Will then fell back with the Indians to the woods. They instinctively selected a spot concealed from the camp, but the camp couldn’t be seen by them either, as they were on the down side of the camp.

Without speaking to each other or to Will, the Indians moved off again, this time aiming in a wide arc around the camp to gain the other side. Part of the way Ten-Bears stopped, and the other two braves continued on without even a glance at Will or Ten-Bears.

Will had figured in his mind that they had stopped roughly in line with the rear of the shed area where the Indian women were hitched to the post in the ground with large iron rings that Will had seen on his run out, the post where he would be hitched right now if he hadn’t run for it. Then he thought a little more and reminded himself of the talk he had heard, and now he imagined there was a giant butcher block up there, and really, by now, that is where he would be. The thought was grim.

Ten-Bears didn’t speak. Instead he gestured. He held his palm out, with all five digits extended, indicating ‘wait’, then he repeated the gesture and then pointed at Will and then pointed through the woods where the shed area would be, and the ten women. Will nodded and pointed that he understood, he was to go to the shed area…Ten-Bears then patted his hands in a downward motion telling Will to wait. Ten-Bears finished all he had to say with indicating for Will to wait until he saw the Indians again. Will understood and Ten-Bears disappeared into the woods following after the other two braves.

Cautiously, without making any sounds, Will worked his way back through the woods towards the camp's shed area. In more than a few minutes, he could make out the shed area up ahead and he slowed his pace from turtle to snail and crept forward for a better vantage point. The heavy evergreens gave good cover and no dry leaves laying around, all to his favor. He spied a good tree with very low hanging branches and roots that snarled out of the ground in fantastic ugly ways that somehow seemed to narrate the tree’s personal witness of horrors from the camp just beyond.

Will wriggled, though still quiet, up to an ugly out-cropping of the tree’s root that hid him well and provided a sort of peep hole between twisting roots competing for the same space. Through the hole he could pretty much see the entire shed area and a little out into the paddock where the Indian women were. He could see four of the women, on their knees, arms pulled up to the ring above them. He was looking dead on one of the corners of the shed, so he couldn’t see what was inside, but he grimly surmised what might be in there.

To his surprise, suddenly the woman of the camp came around the corner, talking to someone behind her, though Will couldn’t make out what they were saying. Then the Calvary officer came into view, but his face was turned, mostly away from Will’s view, talking to the woman. The woman pulled on the chains making the captives stand up.

Then, two of the other fellows came into view. They were trappers, and by the looks of them, way out of their normal trapping range. Will had seen fellows like these way north in the Rockies, but never this far south before. He wondered. The two trappers were loud and boisterous, though, Will couldn’t make their conversations out either. Soon he understood them well enough.

They were looking at the outermost Indian woman chained to the post, but she only looked down and not at them. They looked her over like she was a horse or a cow. They looked at her feet, her teeth, her breast, her buttocks, the last two by cutting away her ragged clothing with a huge hunters knife that Will had no trouble seeing as it flashed out of its scabbard and right up the front of the Indian woman to her throat where it expertly stopped just short of a life ending slash.

The little group passed on this choice and moved to the next Indian woman and repeated the whole affair again. This time one of the trappers seemed to like what he was seeing, and Will could tell the trapper was bargaining with the woman of the camp. They seemed to settle on a deal and the trapper handed over a tiny bag, which Will guessed by its small size, must be gold. Then the camp woman produced a key and unlocked the Indian woman from the second post. The trapper that bought her grabbed the ring of her chains and disappeared around the corner dragging the Indian woman behind him. She wasn’t fighting it, she just wasn’t helping either. It didn’t matter to the hulking trapper in the least.

Will watched as the remaining group passed on the next two Indian women and then they passed out of sight around the corner. Will waited a little while, keeping his eyes constantly looking for any sign of Ten-Bears or his companions. He found no trace of them, though the shed blocked his view of the space between the shed and the camp’s cabin, and of course, what may lay beyond the cabin. He figured the space between the shed and the cabin would be where the horses and people would be gathered.

After another few moments, Will’s seed of need began to sprout into trunk and branches and he began picking his path. He would wait ten more minutes then he would move. He hoped it would be sooner, but he waited.

Ten minutes passed and nothing in his view changed. He was about to start his way towards the shed corner closest to him when he heard the hooves of horses being started and heading away from the other side of the shed. From where he was he could see down the pathway that both he, and the present visitors, had come into the camp. The visiting party was now leaving by that same path and he could see the rears of the officer, the trappers, and four of the Indian women, one each was riding double with a trapper and two on Will’s horse, Traveler.

Will felt his heart pang seeing Traveler leaving when he was so close but figured the horse would fare much better than the Indian women would. Then on the upper side of the path, just behind the departing shoppers, Will saw, for a quick second, Ten-Bears’ two companions making their way in the woods following the group that had just left.

Will looked back at the officer riding away, he tried to note everything he could about the man, his hair was brown, just above his shoulder, rather long Will thought. It was stuffed under a Calvary hat and Will thought without the hat, it would be an extraordinary head of hair. He had a rather large frame, about six foot, or so, Will thought, from seeing the man towering over the chained Indian woman. He just couldn’t really make out anything more of note about the man.

7. Best Laid Plans

Will’s idea was to free the Indian women first, if he could. That meant that he would have to go in the shed first. Those women were chained with iron and he had not a single tool of any kind on his body save the knife Ten-Bears had given him, so it would have to be the shed first. There had to be tools in there, and maybe even a key, though he doubted he was that lucky. He watched for another moment. Will steeled his nerves and began to move when, suddenly, Ten-Bears was there behind him. It was just as though he appeared out of thin air and was just there, Will had heard nothing at all and it gave him quite a start. Ten-Bears offered a wry smile as he had no problem reading the shocked surprise on Will’s face. Will smiled back.

Then another surprise took the both of them. Voices came from the shed, it was the woman, but the other voice was a male...not the old man, this was the voice of a younger man, and then they saw the owner of the voice, as he stepped through the rear of the shed. He was wearing a bloody smock like a butcher and he was carrying a bucket, which after a few steps, he emptied like you would a spent bucket of water.

Only it wasn’t water that came from that bucket. Will had once traveled a bit with an old salt, as the man had called himself. That fellow had been a career sailor. Once he had described the fishing business while passing the hours of their travel, and he had talked about a most foul brew called chum, which was cut up pieces of fish parts into a bloody mix that was thrown in the water to attract the target fish. What Will saw come out of that bucket just now seemed a perfect example of what the old sailor had been talking about. Will’s stomach turned as he considered the improbability of what he just witnessed had anything to do with fish.

Will looked at Ten-Bears and saw a look of a man, not an Indian, a man, in total disbelief of what he was seeing. The butcher man was going about everything very routinely, having casual conversation with the unseen woman. All business. Will began wondering what else the trappers and the officer packed out of the camp. The butcher man disappeared back into the shed. Will and Ten-Bears spent a moment more making crude signs to each other that laid out a plan. A moment more and they were on the move to the rear of the shed area.

Ten-Bears made a wide loop to come up on the far side of the rear opening as Will made his way up to the near side. The smells were overpowering, and Will fought hard to quell his roiling stomach and tried not to think of the smells surrounding him. It was impossible to block it out. From his side, Will could see things he would never forget. Will could see the pre process side and from what Will could see, two Indian women had already met their fate; their skins hung for drying, for tanning, by these hunters of people. Undoubtedly, Ten-Bears could see the latter process area, where the two women had been cut up like sides of beef by the bloody butcher they had just seen throwing out what he couldn’t use.

All at once, the camp woman came screaming around the far corner behind Ten-Bears. She was waiving huge old pistols, one in each hand, drawing a bead on the Indian.

 And…

The bloody butcher stepped through the opening right at Will and he was wielding a bloody chop knife, intent on doing some cutting.

The woman fired once… Ten-Bears tried with a jerk to avoid the bullet, but she was too close and found her mark, but not as she wanted as her bullet only grazed the Indian’s shoulder.

The bloody butcher swung madly, and Will found himself off balance and backing away to avoid the slashes raining at him.

The woman tried to fire the other old pistol but it miss-fired.

On the bloody butcher came; swinging and swinging his deadly knife; trying his best to slash Will in any place he could land the blade, of which Will was sure he couldn’t avoid much longer. The barrage was breaking through and Will knew one little slip and it was all over for him. Oh, his kingdom for a gun. He didn’t have a kingdom, and he didn’t have a gun.

The woman couldn't believe what had just happened as the hammer clicked with no bang. Ten-Bears was on her. Before her guns hit the ground, her throat was slashed ear to ear. She still couldn’t believe what had just happened. She died not believing it. It didn’t matter. She was dead.

The bloody butcher was about to deliver the death blow to Will, swinging his arm in a wide arc, putting all he had in it to crush any defensive block and sink that bloody blade home. Just then, the very tip of the butcher's knife blade glanced off the corner post of the shed and it sent the knife flinging oddly out of his hand. It was a miracle, and one Will intended to take full advantage of. Will threw a halfhearted jab at the butcher’s face hoping to let the attackers own momentum do the work. Will’s fist crashed into the butcher’s nose and Will knew from the noise made the man’s nose was broken, and the butcher screamed in pain and started swinging wildly in Will’s general direction.

The old man of the camp stepped through the opening demanding to know what was going on; he was toting an old shotgun, swinging it around trying to get a target. He looking at and trying to get a shot at Will but there was no shot, so he tried to swing it around to Ten-Bears, but it was too late for him, he should have started with Ten-Bears, which may have gotten him a chance at both of them, he had a double barrel, but he didn't. Instead, the old man got a knife right under his shoulder blade, and right through his dirty rotten heart, and died as his eyes saw the point of the blade emerge from his chest.

Will took one more step back, gathered himself and advanced for an attack of his own on the bloody butcher. Will moved in and began pounding his clinched fist, as fast as he could into the bloody butcher’s face. Will smashed and smashed, and the bloody butcher went down in a heap on the ground, his face like raw meat. With a smashed up face and busted nose, the bloody butcher's breathing was labored.

Will stood looking down at the mess he had made of the man on the ground before him. Will took one boot and held it over the neck area of the bloody butcher. The bloody butcher’s eyes looked up at him. Will looked right back at them and mashed his boot down on the bloody butcher’s throat. Will pressed and pressed until no more breath moved in the bloody butcher. Only then did he notice that Ten-Bears was just standing there watching him with a sort of “…yeah, I understand…” look on his face.

 8. The Kill

Ten-Bears and Will freed the remaining three women and found one the old man had dragged off to his cabin. She was beaten, busied and dead, but Ten-Bears brought her out of that cabin, and then set it on fire, as Will did the shed area, with its man-sized butcher block and all.

They left the evil dead where they lay. Ten-Bears gathered three mules and set all the other livestock loose and ran them off. He put the three women on two of the mules and placed the dead one across the third mule and headed up the path the others had left on not long ago.

The somber little party traveled up the path. Ten-Bears said nothing. The Indian women said nothing. Will said nothing. They just moved on. Soon they came upon a place in the path that looked like a large animal had been killed there and then dragged off into the woods. Will was sure the animal was one of the trappers, or the officer.

Ten-Bears stopped, looked over the scene for a moment and moved off again up the path. Will did the same, though he felt he was missing something. He shrugged and moved on also.

Then, a little later, just as Ten-Bears had done to Will, one of Ten-Bears’ companions was just there, in the path. Will hadn’t seen or heard him, he was just there. Will considered seeing the two Indians pass through the woods following the trappers and figured they must have meant for him to see them, which was the only reason he had seen them.

Ten-Bears and his companion talked between themselves for a moment and then once again moved on up the path. Again, Will shrugged and moved off too. Soon they rounded a bend to find a scene as terrible as the one they had left ablaze back down the path.

The other Indian was there, squatting beside one of the dead trappers that had been speared through the neck, in fact, both trappers had speared through the neck. Also, were the bodies of the four women, each one with her throat slit, apparently killed by the trappers. There was no officer, no Traveler.  There were the two horses the trappers rode, and four pack mules. 

Ten-Bears talked with his companions and then to Will. The two Indians had attacked the group back at the first spot they had seen. They thought the Army officer was dead and left him there to chase the trappers, which they caught up with here. They came up and attacked, just as the trappers were killing the women, but it was too late. The brave they had met down the path had gone back and discovered that the Army officer wasn’t dead and was gone. He followed the trail into the woods where it ended, and then horse tracks ran off to the south. He said that the tracks looked like the horse belonging to Will.

9. Parting Ways

Will had been right, along with the live humans, the trappers left that camp with fresh meat. They had bought the human meat that was cut for eating and were carrying it away to their own camp somewhere to eat, or more likely, to sell to others without telling the truth about what it was.

Ten-Bears and his companions gathered all the dead Indians and packed them on the trappers mules, saying that they would not leave them here anywhere near this place. They placed the cut meat with the dead bodies of the trappers.

Ten-Bears approached Will. He removed a necklace that had an interesting carving in some white stone, very thin. Ten-Bears explained it was symbol of power among all Comanche Indians and would signify Will as a brother to the Nation and afford him every hospitality. Ten-Bears claimed Will as his true brother with no exceptions, be it blood, skin or otherwise.

Will was amazed as the Indian expressed his true gratitude to him and gave him the valuable amulet. Ten-Bears asked which of the trappers horses he wanted, and Will picked one and asked Ten-Bears if he knew the closest trading post to the south and Ten-Bears told him of the only one he knew and also said there was a fort there, too. Ten-Bears called it Fort Bain, and said it was about three days to the east at the southern end of the Bitterroots and told Will how to find it.

Ten-Bears then added, "The man you look for, the horse soldier...speared in neck too...if  live, he be marked here..." Ten Bears was pointing to the right side of his neck, just a little below his jaw. 

              Will and the Indians parted ways. They went west, and Will went east. The little cabin in the woods, and a great part of the woods, burned to nothing over several days, seen nightly by Will as he looked west when he camped. Even when he was in a valley at night with mountains between him and that ghastly fire, he could see the glow, and he swore he could smell the putrid smoke, though he knew that was impossible, wasn't it?