“Cynthia Ann Parker’s remains?”
“Jeremiah does what he can, speaks to those’ll listen—writes letters for Quanah, asking the Parker clan down in Texas to let the woman’s boy take his mother’s bones home to the prairie she’d come to love.” He raised his eyes to the treetops. They glistened in the dancing fire glow. “Jeremiah’s made his pa so damned p-proud.”
The old man’s voice cracked as he said it, so Hook turned and rose slowly, unsteady at first, then moved off to fetch up one of the packs that he brought back to the fireside. He untied the thongs from the cowhide case and from it began pulling some utensils they would need for their dinner.
An object tumbled to the ground as Hook pulled free a green bottle of pepper. Curious, Nate leaned over and retrieved it, intending to straighten up the spill. “Here, let me help.”
Then he stopped, turning that object over slowly: a small cloth-wrapped bundle he moved into the flickering light of their fire. At one time the cotton fabric had been brightly colored, a fine calico fabric. Now it lay in the newsman’s hands a dull, grimy scrap of once-vibrant cloth. It smelled deeply of many camp fires. Bringing it under his nose, Nate felt something hard wrapped within the folded bundle of old cloth.
“Something special, Jonah?” he asked, wanting to open it, but afraid he would never get permission. Thinking maybe it contained the ear of an enemy, perhaps one of those shriveled fingertip necklaces he had seen on display in the Smithsonian Institute.
Hook put his hand out to take it, then shook his head, dropping his hand, empty. “No.” His eyes leveled on Deidecker. “I figure it’s time you looked at what’s inside there.”
“This cloth, whatever is the story—”
“Zeke’s shirt. The one I come on down there in Texas.”
“The shirt the whore’s child wore?”
“Same.”
Through the folds of cloth Nate of a sudden sensed something strange, wild, and unnamed communicated to his fingers. As if the years were reaching out to touch him.
“Go ’head, Nate. It’s time you saw the … saw what’s there.”
Reverently he slowly peeled back the layers of faded, worn calico folded over and around the object. Fold by fold he exposed the object he finally pulled out of his lap and into the firelight that sundown in the Big Horns. A rawhide-wrapped wheel about as wide as his hand. Dividing the wheel into four equal quadrants were two twisted rawhide strands, each quadrant a maze of rawhide netting. At their center was lashed a hard, textured object, almost resembling a blackened peach pit.
“Go ahead, Nate. Take a close look.”
“Is this what you call a medicine wheel?”
“I suppose folks back east call ’em that. Out here the Injuns call that a dream catcher.”
Over Deidecker’s hands spilled the long, black tendrils, some of which were flecked with gray. He figured it had belonged to an old warrior.
Just inside the circumference of the stiff rawhide wheel had been lashed a crude circle of stiffened skin from which dangled that thick patch of long, gleaming hair. No more than four inches across. Just the topknot no doubt, Nate thought as he began to stroke, that fine black hair flecked with snow. He felt a sudden, evil chill and figured it was nothing more than the thrill of holding such an artifact against his own skin.
“A scalp? A real honest-to-goodness human scalp?” Nate asked.
“Ain’t ever seen one before?”
“In museums. Never held one in my own living hands. And I never did see one of these wheels … a dream catcher, with a scalp sewn on it.”
“That travels with me, wherever I go, Nate,” Hook said as the old man bent over the fire, sliding the skillet with the two loin steaks atop the flames.
The fire’s glow in the deepening mountain twilight gave the shining hair reflections like a candle in a mirror. Glittering, gleaming beads of light, like black diamonds dancing up and down the full length of the silky strands. “Never knew many Indians, Jonah. And from what I’ve seen, I can’t say as I ever realized an Injun’s hair could be so fine to the touch.”
“That ain’t a Injun’s scalp.”
Nate’s mouth went dry. His heart thundered at his ears. He swallowed and forced the words around his parched tongue. “A … a white man’s sc-scalp?”
“Yep.”
“Who … whose scalp is it, Jonah?”
Hook gazed evenly at the newsman. The fire crackled and popped between them, spitting fireflies of sparks into the deepening dark of that immense, all-consuming land. Tiny, iridescent shooting stars born of their wilderness fire sent spiraling skyward toward the great heavenly bodies.
“The one Gritta took herself.”
TERRY C. JOHNSTON
1947–2001
Terry C. Johnston was born on the first day of 1947 on the plains of Kansas and lived all his life in the American West. His first novel, Carry the Wind, won the Medicine Pipe Bearer’s Award from the Western Writers of America, and his subsequent books appeared on bestseller lists throughout the country. After writing more than thirty novels of the American frontier, he passed away in March 2001 in Billings, Montana. Terry’s work combined the grace and beauty of a natural storyteller with a complete dedication to historical accuracy and authenticity. He continues to bring history to life in the pages of his historical novels so that readers can live the grand adventure of the American West. While recognized as a master of the American historical novel, to family and friends Terry remained and will be remembered as a dear, loving father and husband as well as a kind, generous, and caring friend. He has gone on before us to a better place, where he will wait to welcome us in days to come.
If you would like to help carry on the legacy of Terry C. Johnston, you are invited to contribute to the
Terry C. Johnston Memorial Scholarship Fund
c/o Montana State University-Billings Foundation
1500 N. 30th Street
Billings, MT 59101-0298
1-888-430-6782
A Preview of
RIDE THE MOON DOWN
In the sequel to Terry C. Johnston’s bestselling frontier trilogy, Carry the Wind, BorderLords, and One-Eyed Dream, readers watch the mountain man Titus Bass continue his heart-wrenching journey through the perils of the Wild West.
Ride the Moon Down is another triumph of the master of frontier fiction, Terry C. Johnston, who brings to life once more vivid slices of America’s history.
Here is a preview of the opening chapter of this fascinating novel.
The baby stirred between them.
She eventually fussed enough to bring Bass fully awake, suddenly, sweating beneath the blankets.
Without opening her eyes, the child’s mother groggily drew the infant against her breast and suckled the babe back to sleep.
Titus kicked the heavy wool horse blanket off his legs, hearing one of the horses nicker. Not sure which one of the four it was, the trapper sat up quiet as coal cotton, letting the blanket slip from his bare arms as he dragged the rifle from between his knees.
Somewhere close, out there in the dark, he heard the low warning rumble past the old dog’s throat. Bass hissed—immediately silencing Zeke.
Several moments slipped by before he heard another sound from their animals. But for the quiet breathing of mother and the ngg-ngg suckling of their daughter, the summer night lay all but silent around their camp at the base of a low ridge.