Whirlwind

Chapter 1

Prologue; Colorado, November 29th 1864

The cavalry rode into the encampment, disregarding both the white flags of surrender waved by the Cheyenne and also the single great American flag which had been raised at the centre of their village, around which dozens of Indians huddled for protection; believing that the white soldiers would respect this emblem of their own nation. They were mistaken. The bluecoats opened fire with carbines and then followed up by hacking at the survivors with their sabres. They were apparently determined to leave no survivors; men, women or children. Twenty or thirty squaws and their children had taken refuge in a little gulley, but the troopers set about killing them as well.

Lieutenant Carson dismounted and wandered through the Cheyenne village in a daze, unable to make sense of the scene before him. Men whom he knew well were trying to ravish young Indian women, while others were firing indiscriminately into a group of mothers with their children clinging to them. A small boy, lighter skinned than the other children and no more than seven or eight years of age, stood bewildered and alone outside one of the tepees. Without thinking, Carson grabbed his arm and began dragging him in the direction of the supply wagons. He tried to make it look as though he were behaving as brutally as the other soldiers. The child did not resist.

When they reached the nearest wagon, Carson lifted the boy up and placed him inside, concealed from the outside world by the large canvas hood. He said to the boy, “Do you speak English? Can you understand me?” There was no reply. The lieutenant pushed the boy down until he was laying flat and then pulled some rugs over him. “Stay here, you understand? Don’t move!” Although the child had said nothing, nor even indicated whether or not he knew what Carson was saying to him, he stayed low down and made no effort to sit up.

Lieutenant Carson of the 3^rd Colorado Cavalry went back to the village and attempted to instil some discipline into the men and restore order. It was a hopeless enterprise. They were in a frenzy of debauchery and none of the other officers showed any inclination to call a halt to the outrages. When darkness came, Carson went back to the wagon and was mildly surprised to find the Indian boy still laying there quietly. He handed the boy half a loaf of bread and a canteen of water and then harnessed up the wagon, heading for the nearest farmhouse that he could find. He had no idea what fate would befall any other survivors of the massacre that day, but he was determined that one child at least would be saved.

Ten or eleven miles down the track, in the opposite direction from Denver City, Carson came across a farmhouse. It was a soddie built of cut turfs, with a large wooden extension to one side. He pulled up and hailed the occupants. Lamplight showed through one of the windows and so he suspicioned that those inside were not yet sleeping. He was right, because after a space, a man who looked to be about sixty came out of the house, holding aloft a barn lantern.

“Who are you and what are you wanting?” cried the man.

“I have a child here. I want somebody to care for him.”

“A child? This makes strange listening. Are you sure you are not about some villainy? If so, you’d best take care, my partner has you covered from the window.”

“Nothing of the sort. It is an Indian boy. I cannot keep him with me.”

“Come down then. Mind, you’d best keep your hands where we can see them.”

Lieutenant Carson climbed down and then went to the back of the wagon. The boy was sitting up and looking round him warily. “Come on son, there’s nothing to be afeared of.” He reached up and the boy suffered himself to be lifted down from the wagon and set on the ground.

The man with the lamp had come closer and was staring in perplexity at Carson and the Indian boy. “Soldier is it? And an Indian? What’s the game?”

“No game, sir. This boy’s family are dead and I need somebody to care for him. Will you do it?”

The man stared at the child intently. At length he said, “Bring him into the house.”

The man’s “partner” was indeed in the house and covering the scene outside. She was a grey-haired woman of about the same age as he, that is to say sixty or more. She was holding a shotgun, but set it against the wall as soon as she caught sight of the child. She and the man were looking in wonder at the little boy. Carson repeated his hope of finding shelter for the boy. She said, “Are you saying that you want us to care for this child? For how long?”

The lieutenant cleared his throat. “Well forever, I guess or leastways until you can find somebody else to take on the job. I have to get back. Will you take this child in charge and care for him?”

“As God he knows, we will,” said the woman, “The Lord has guided you here with this charge.”

“I don’t know aught of that ma’am,” said the soldier, suddenly embarrassed at hearing the Deity mentioned in this matter-of-fact way, “But if you will look after this fellow, then that is enough for me.”

The old man took Carson’s hand and squeezed it hard. “You may rest easy. We shall protect this child and raise him as though he were our own. God bless you son for this.”

The lieutenant jumped up onto his wagon and turned it round, heading back to Sand Creek, hoping that he had done the right thing.

Chapter 1

Han Jackson sat on an outcrop of rock about a half mile from the soddie, watching his parents as they moved about the vegetable garden back of the house. They were slower than they had been even a year ago and looked increasingly frail and helpless to the young man. He hated to leave them alone, even for a day, but they had both insisted that he go off into the wilderness for a spell, as tradition required.

Devout Methodists as they were, his adoptive parents had always done their best to ensure that the child to whose care they had pledged themselves did not lose touch with his own origins. They were hardened in this resolve by what they later discovered of the massacre which had left the child an orphan. He had learned English, but never been allowed to forget his own language or the ways of his forefathers. They took him on regular trips to Cheyenne villages, where he learned about the tribe from which he had come.

Today Han, as everybody knew him, was to go into the wilderness for a week with no food or water and survive only on what he could find for himself. He was eighteen or thereabouts and it was important that he undertake this test of stamina before he was much older.

Patrick and his wife had stopped hoeing and were taking a rest by the side of the little garden which was Esther’s pride and joy.

“That boy’s still fretting about leaving us by ourselves for a few days.” observed Esther, in a tone which she tried to make impatient but which her husband knew very well expressed pride and affection. “He acts like we can’t get along without him for more than a day. Young fool.”

“He worries about us,” her husband said. “As God he knows, we are neither of us as spry as once we were. You have to admit that Esther.”

His wife laughed shortly. “Then what? We are both over seventy. I can still keep house and you can still plough a field. Ain’t that enough?”

“He’s coming down from yonder rock. Mark what I say, he’ll be telling us that he sees no need for this final stage and that since he aims to run this farm, it does not signify that he can pass all the tests that a young Indian brave might need to undertake.”

Hohanonivah Jackson or Han as he was invariably known, at least among white folk, was a striking figure. Working on the farm alongside his adoptive father had given him an astonishingly muscular physique for his age and he was as tall and graceful as any Indian warrior. His hair, which he had lately allowed to grow right down over his collar, was that lustrous and glossy black which appears to have a touch of blue in it when the light catches it at a certain angle. High cheekbones and a clear, copper-coloured skin completed the picture.

When once he reached his parents, Han squatted down between them, putting his arms around their shoulders and kissing each lightly on the top of the head. Esther pretended to be irritated by this display of affection. “What are you about child? Have you gone soft?” she demanded gruffly. The young man grinned back at her, love showing in his eyes.

“I am going to miss the two of you over the next week. I wanted to tell you so.”

“Well, well, that’s enough now,” said the old woman, briskly. “You are ready to start out this afternoon?”

“Are you sure that…” Han’s words tailed off. He was gripped by an uneasiness; a nameless fear that something would befall these two good people if he were not here to care for them. He never talked of the massacre at Sand Creek, but the memory of it still lingered within him. If only he had been able to save his real mother from the barbarians who had cut her down in front of his eyes.

“Off you go now son,” said Patrick Jackson, “We’ll manage well enough without you for a while.” The boy gazed for a moment or two into the old man’s eyes and then nodded and went off to the house to prepare.

When you are only eighteen or thereabouts, anything that happens to you is likely to seem like an adventure and Han Jackson’s week in the wild was no exception. He had slept outside before, and so that was no great hardship; as for catching his own food and finding water, these too proved easy enough. He was able to start a fire by using the traditional methods and tracking down lizards and snakes was something he had been doing since he was small. His unerring aim at throwing even enabled him to bring down a couple of jackrabbits with rocks, which he skinned and roasted alongside the lizards.

Han, which was short for Hohanonivah or “Whirlwind” in Cheyenne, was guiltily aware that this expedition was supposed to be somewhat more than a camping trip. It was a time of reflection; he should be trying to commune with the Great Spirit during this retreat, but he had received no messages from the gods and so took it that he was just not one of those so favoured. He remembered though to make his prayers each night to the God of his parents, thanking him for his mercy. Due to his raising, he saw no contradiction at all in praying to Jesus one night and then the next day invoking the gods of his ancestors.

All in all, the week passed pleasantly and uneventfully enough, although Han felt a little leaner and tireder by the end of the time. He was surely looking forward to sleeping in a proper bed again. At dawn on the final day, he set off back towards the valley, reaching the hills which rose above it a little before noon. He climbed over the ridge and saw his home laid out below him; the neat patchwork of fields surrounding the house. As he looked more closely at the scene beneath him, something struck him as strange. Near the house he could see what at first he took to be bundles of clothes. Not only that, although it was mid morning, he could see no sign of either of his parents. Then, in a flash, it became clear. What he had taken to be clothes were really two figures laying on the ground.

Han started to run down the side of the rocky hillside towards his home. In his mind he went frantically over the things which could have happened to the elderly couple. Perhaps they had fallen ill and collapsed? If so, then he might be in time to get them into bed and care for them. He cursed himself for leaving them alone. He knew now that those bad feeling she had had about this scheme of going off for a week had been a warning to him. If only he had heeded it!

As he got closer, he checked his headlong rush and stopped to look a little harder at the figures of his parents. They would hardly both have fallen ill and collapsed at the same moment right close to each other like that. He drew the razor sharp knife from its sheath and set off at a slower trot, his eyes constantly scanning the surroundings for anything at all out of the ordinary. By the time he got down to the valley, he knew already that they were dead.

As he approached the man and woman laying in the dirt, he could see clouds of flies buzzing around them. There could be no doubt that they had died some while ago. When he got up close, the full horror of the thing hit him. The man he called his father had been shot several times in the back and his wife had, from the look of her, had her throat cut. Hohanonivah stood there for a good few minutes trying to figure out what had happened in his absence.

If he had been a sheriff or Marshall, then he would perhaps have wondered if one had not killed the other and then committed suicide. Knowing them as he did though, Han knew instinctively that this was no sort of explanation. He walked round the bodies slowly, looking for signs of what might have happened. Whatever it was, it must have happened right here, there was no sign of the bodies being dragged about; they almost certainly died right where they lay. Died! At the thought of this, the young man could restrain himself no longer and he fell to his knees, weeping hopelessly like a bereft child.

The death of these people, who had been so precious to him, inevitably put Hohanonivah in mind of the massacre in his childhood, during the course of which he had lost his first parents. He remembered the feeling of sheer helplessness as he watched his mother being killed. What he would have given, young as he was, to be able to strike at the bluecoat who had cut her down. But at that time he had been a child, maybe eight years old. He could have done nothing against those savages. It was different now.

Eventually, Han got to his feet and went into the house. He saw at once that the floorboards had been pulled up and the clay jar where his parents hid their money had been removed. It lay smashed on the floor and of the gold coins which it had contained, there was no sign. A glint beneath the floorboards caught his eye. Two of the $10 pieces had fallen there and been missed by the thieves. He reached down and picked them up. Nothing else seemed to be missing. He went back outside.

There had been no rain for the last week or more and so the tracks of the horses which had rode up to the house were still fairly clear. It looked to Han as though there had been four or five of them. He couldn’t imagine five men coming here specially for his parents’ meagre savings; they must just have been passing and decided on the off-chance to see if there was anything here worth stealing. Obviously both Patrick and Esther Jackson would have taken that ill and so they had been killed. He went back to the house and returned with a spade.

It took the young man most of the afternoon to dig the two graves deep enough. When he had done so, he lifted the bodies of the old people reverently and laid them carefully in their last resting place. Then he fetched the Bible from the house. Han read a few passages from the New Testament; those relating to the promise of eternal life. Then he closed the Bible and said out loud,

“Hear my words, all gods and spirits. I will hunt down those who murdered these good people and kill them with my own hands. I shall not rest for anything until everyone who had a hand in this is dead.”

***

While Hohanonivah Jackson was burying his parents, the men who had killed them were some sixty miles away, heading south towards New Mexico at a leisurely pace. Threatening an old couple into revealing the hiding place of their wealth and then killing them anyways was not something likely to weigh heavily on the conscience of four of the five riders. Only one of the men looked troubled and anxious, as though what passed for a conscience in him was raising its head. Every one of the men, this one included, had plenty of bad deeds to their credit. Still, although the murders had only been committed two days ago, only he was still thinking of them. The band he was riding with had been in need of some cash money and did not feel much inclined to leave any witnesses behind who might later be able to identify them. Only one of them though was still gnawing away at what had been done. His unease had not gone unnoticed by two of the other riders.

Eli Holt and his brother Jed were in a sense the leaders of the group who were making their way to New Mexico. The two brothers had picked up with the other three members of the band while engaged in some road agent work up in Wyoming. The other men had been overawed by what they had seen of the Holts in action and felt that here were men who would stop at nothing in the pursuit of easy money and lively action. Eli and Jed were both as keen on gunplay and fist fighting as they were on any actual spoils and anybody tagging along with them could be sure that they would have little time to grow restless or bored. Where the brothers were, excitement and bloodshed were never far behind.

The five men had worked their way south from Wyoming, leaving in their wake a trail of robberies, rapes, assaults and murder. Their aim now was to move into New Mexico and prey on the comancheros who worked out of that territory. This was apt to be a dangerous undertaking, but if they were successful, the plunder would be considerable. Their three followers were not aware of the fact, but there was a pretty high turnover in membership of the Holt Gang. This was because the brothers generally found a way of sacrificing their men in order to save their own skins when the going got tough. Those who rode with the Holt brothers had an alarming tendency to get shot or taken by the law before the time came to share out the spoils. Had they been a little brighter, the three men now riding with Eli and Jed might have asked themselves how come such a bloody and resourceful pair of characters had been riding alone when they teamed up with them. You would have thought that such men would have gathered around them a regular gang long since.

***

Han’s pony was hungry but otherwise healthy. She had been in the field with a plentiful supply of water but little in the way of food other than the scrubby, dried out grass. He saddled her up and then packed a bag with some food. He had a rifle of his own and also tucked his father’s pistol into his belt. Last of all, he brought out the quiver and bow which he had made with his own hands as custom dictated. The bow he carried slung across his back and the quiver of arrows he attached to the saddle.

Then he went back into his home a final time and opened the Bible again at the Book of Hosea. When he had been little, his parents told him that he was mentioned in the Good Book. His Cheyenne name meant whirlwind and they pointed out the verse in Hosea which makes reference to the whirlwind. Now he spoke this same verse out loud, as a promise and perhaps prophecy. In a strong, clear voice, he said, “They that sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind.” He closed the Bible and set it gently on the kitchen table. In a quieter voice, he said, “Those bastards have surely sown the wind. Let’s see if they are ready to reap the whirwind.” Following which reflection, he locked the door behind him, mounted the pony and set off south in pursuit of his prey.