Chapter 18

Jake sat on his horse atop the low hill and looked out over the white expanse that was his land. There had been some flurries of snow over the last few days, but last night's heavier fall had covered everything and turned the world white. Looking back, he could see the tracks that Blaze had left bringing him up here, but, apart from a few small marks from other animals, they were the only blemishes in an otherwise unbroken sea of snow.

It had started to fall at dusk the previous day, and when he woke this morning the weather had cleared but snow covered everything. Now, however, it was one of those bright days that sometimes come along after snow. An almost clear blue sky overhead, sun glinting on the shiny slopes, it was beautiful. Jake was pleased he had come up here, partly to check out his property and partly just to admire the view.

While gazing at the sight before him, he thought back over the past four months. Had it really been so long since he bought this place off George? It probably had, as a lot of hard work had gone into making the place fit to live in through the winter. The cabin had been finished, along with the barn for the livestock. The Monroe brothers had been invaluable, making three trips in total - the last one bringing a load of feed for the horses.

Dove had visited several times as well, in fact she was back in the cabin now. Sue was always pleased to see her, and Jake admitted that he was too. He enjoyed having her around, not in the same way that he enjoyed Sue's company, but well enough. She always slept with them when she stayed, yet a week or two later she would leave again for wherever it was that she lived. Then, whenever she felt like it, she would reappear.

One product of her visits was that both Jake and Sue could now make themselves understood in three languages, and could cope with a fourth. They still spoke to each other in an odd mixture of English and Comanche, with some Shoshone thrown in, but if they wished they could converse in just one. They weren't yet fluent, but they were getting there. Dove's native Ute, which she used sometimes when she spoke with them late at night, was becoming more comprehensible too.

Sue's skill at making clothes was improving as well. Dove had been showing her, and although Sue was certainly not a novice, she had picked up many of the finer points from the older woman. Between them, they had made the wolf skin coat that he was wearing. Jake liked it, it was very warm and he felt that it looked good as well. The grey fur ruffled slightly in the breeze. It's wrap-over style stopped those breezes from chilling him, and also would let him slip his hand in to his gun if he needed to.

He had come across three wolves about a month earlier, foraging for what they could find one winter's day. Now they were this good looking coat.

Jake was less sure of the matching hat. He liked his normal stetson, and this fur cap with flaps over his ears felt strange to him, and he was sure looked odd as well. But it was warm, and no-one was looking.

He gazed out over the small valleys in front of him. The air was so clear he could see every detail. There was a slight haze behind the next hill, but that was all.

Haze? There was no haze anywhere else. Jake looked closer - could that be a faint trace of smoke? He shook the reins, and Blaze started off down the hill towards the valley at the bottom. They angled to the right, so they could ride around the next hill rather than just going straight over the top, although Jake did then cut upwards to ride over the shoulder of the high ground.

As they crested the rise, and could see down the other side, Jake was astonished to see something completely unexpected. There was a hollow in the face of the slope which had given a good deal of protection from the snow. In that hollow was a tepee. It was a bit crude, as though it had been created from whatever materials the builder had to hand, but it was still an Indian shelter made from a few poles and a varied covering of blankets and animal hides. Two horses were tied up behind it.

Outside was some cleared ground, and a small fire. A woman, wrapped in a blanket, was bent over tending the fire and she obviously hadn't heard Jake's approach which had been muffled by the snow. However, as he started slowly forward again she looked up, gave a small cry, and rushed into the tent. Moments later, a man emerged, also with a blanket around his shoulders. But he had a lance in his hand and he looked up to watch Jake approach.

Keeping his hands in plain sight, Jake let Blaze amble forward until they were about twenty feet from the man standing by the fire. The woman was peering from the entrance to the tepee, and there seemed to be someone else behind her.

Blaze stopped, and the two men looked at each other. Jake was the first to speak. There was no point in speaking English, so he tried Comanche first.

"Hello there. How did you get here? And is there anything you need?"

The Indian's eyes widened when he heard a white man speak an Indian language, even though he didn't understand it. He replied in his language. "We are sheltering from the weather so leave us alone."

Jake understood some of that - it was the same Ute that Dove spoke! So he tried again: "How long here? Need any?"

This obviously completely amazed the other man. Here was a white man, not only talking with him, but in nearly his own language.

"We are sheltering from the weather. My son is sick and we don't want to move him until he is better."

Jake understood "sick" and "move", so he tried again. "You stay - I back," he called, while he made some 'you stay here' movements with his arm. With that, he wheeled Blaze away and made his way back towards the cabin.

Getting there about ten minutes later, he pulled up outside and, letting Blaze's reins hang over the hitching rail, dashed in. The girls looked up from their sewing as he made an unexpected appearance.

"Dove, there are some Indians on our land and I think they are Utes," he told her. The girls looked alarmed. "What do they want?" Dove asked, while at the same time Sue said "How close are they?" reaching for a nearby gun while she spoke.

"They look like they are sheltering in the low hills about half a mile beyond the stream," Jake told them. "They don't look dangerous but the man said someone was sick."

"We must go help them," Sue said as she got up and went to her pile of clothes which was on a shelf to one side. She started to pull pants on to go under her skirt.

Dove was obviously getting ready too, so Jake said, "I'll get your horses ready," and hurried out to the barn. By the time the girls had pants and coats and knee-high moccasins on, and Sue had buckled on her gunbelt, Jake was back having fetched the horses in record time.

Back at the shelter, Black Eagle didn't know what to do. He and his family, his woman, her sister, and his son Little Wing, had been travelling to his wife's tribe as they had heard that her father was dying. They had no choice but to go, he was chief of his band and wanted to see his daughter one last time. However, the weather had turned bad and they had been caught when it started to snow. Luckily they found this sheltered area and, using some poles he had cut from saplings and the blankets and skins they had with them, they had made a shelter. However, Little Wing, who was only six summers old, had caught a chill and was now lying inside, burning up from a fever.

Then a white man found them. Black Eagle expected to have to fight, but didn't fancy his chances as he had no gun like the white did. However, the stranger didn't attack him, but instead spoke to him, first in a language he didn't know, and then in a badly mangled version of his own. Then he had ridden off, after telling him to "stay". Would he be back with more whites? If he fled, where would he go in the snow? And what would happen to his son?

There was nothing to do but get ready for anything, and wait to see what happened. He made sure his lance and knife were sharp, and picked up his bow. With luck, he could shoot at least one or two before they got too close.

It wasn't long before he heard horses in the snow, and he stood outside the entrance to his shelter, waiting.

Three riders came towards him, and his heart dropped. He could take one, maybe two, but with three he feared for his family.

The three pulled up in front of him, again far enough away to show caution. The man he had seen before, in the wolf skin coat and hat, was in the middle. The other two were smaller, and seemed to be well wrapped up in buckskins. The man in the centre spoke to the one on his right, who moved forward a short way.

"There is no need to worry," she said in perfect Ute. It was a woman. She was riding without a saddle in the Indian way, although the other two both had saddles so they must be whites. The one on the other end of the line was smaller, maybe she was a woman too.

"We are here to help you. Djaik said that someone is sick?"

Black Eagle had no choice but to trust these people. He saw that the other woman had a gun around her waist, and he could see rifles hanging from two of the saddles. He was outnumbered so all he could do was see what would happen.

"My son is inside with a fever," he told them. "It came on yesterday and I am worried about him."

"This is no place for him then," was the answer. "Our home is near here and warm. Will you bring him? We can take care of him there."

Dove heard a woman's voice, hushed, speaking from inside the shelter. She was obviously giving the Indian her opinion without joining in the conversation directly.

"What do you want of us?" Black Eagle asked, though it pained him to be negotiating with a woman. "And do I have any choice?"

"We just want to help," the woman answered him. "And your choice is to stay here and let your son suffer. But that is up to you."

The woman then turned to the man on her left and spoke to him in another language that Black Eagle didn't understand, though he was sure that it wasn't the white man's language. The other woman, and it was a woman - he was sure, also spoke, and then the man seemed to make a decision.

"Do you want help to pack up your belongings?" the woman asked. "We have some more horses which we will fetch to help carry everything."

Black Eagle looked at the others. He had no option, he had to agree to their help if he was to get his son to shelter. He didn't trust these whites and their Indian woman, but it seemed like he had no choice.

"I accept your help on behalf of my son," he grudgingly agreed. The white man said something and the white woman turned her horse and went back the way they had come. The other two urged their horses a bit closer and over to one side. The Indian woman dismounted and came up to Black Eagle while the white man took the horse over to tether them close to Black Eagle's own.

"My name is Dove," she told him. "Let me help with the boy. Djaik will help you with packing the camp."

As she said it, the white man - Djaik she had called him - walked back from the horse. He was tall, taller than Black Eagle, and looked bulky in his wolf skin jacket. It looked well made and the wolf skin gave it a distinctive look. Black Eagle wondered where he had got it.

His woman appeared from inside the tepee. She looked directly at the strange Indian woman and said: "Our son is hot with the fever and weak. How will we carry him and where are we going?"

"Sue is fetching more horses so we can carry him easily. My name is Dove and I too am Ute. There is no need to worry about your son or your safety, we shall help you all we can. Let us get him ready to move while the men do all the heavy work." With that she went towards the tepee.

Suspecting that he was losing control of the situation, Black Eagle watched the white man approach. "My name Djaik," the other man said. "Let us get all quickly so we can warm."

Black Eagle understood that and, although he was not happy about being given instructions, or even suggestions, in his own camp, he saw that he had to go along with them for the sake of his son.

Some time later, the white woman arrived leading four more horses. Two had the frames on their backs that the white men used when they carried supplies and goods, the other two were Indian ponies. The woman pulled up, dismounted, and took blankets off the pack frames which she used to put over the backs of the ponies.

By this time the three other women had wrapped up Little Wing and got him ready to travel. Dove and the two Ute women carried him over to the horses and Black Eagle's woman mounted one of the ponies. The other two passed her the bundle that was Little Wing so she could hold him. The newly arrived white woman said something to Djaik, who answered her. Dove told the others to mount as well, and then spoke to Black Eagle. "We shall take him to our dwelling and make sure he is warm and well. When you have finished packing this camp, you can follow."

Black Eagle was incensed. Who was this woman telling him what to do? But his son was now on one of her horses. He would let her have her way for now, and then see about how to punish her for her presumption later.

The four women rode off. Djaik started stripping the skins and blankets off their pole frame and folding them neatly so they would go on the pack frames. Black Eagle gathered up other items from the camp and got them on the backs of his ponies, leaving room for him to ride the leading one. Soon the two men, and the five horses, followed behind the women's tracks, leaving just a collection of rough poles and trampled footprints on the white snow.

Pale Deer clutched her son to her as she followed the strange women through the cold countryside. She was frightened. She was concerned for her son, who wasn't moving. He had only six summers, and he had started complaining of feeling unwell a couple of days ago. Now he was so hot and he wouldn't move. Black Eagle told her it was just a chill, but she was not so sure.

She was also nervous on the horse. She didn't ride a horse too often, women in her tribe mostly walked, and here she was, riding a horse through the snow and ice with her precious bundle clutched to her.

And then there were the two strange women. One said she was Ute, and she rode like an Indian but with a lot more confidence than Pale Deer did. The other - well, she rode a big black horse with a white man's saddle, and she had gun around her waist. But she was dressed in buckskins that were obviously Indian made -perhaps the Ute had made them. She couldn't see her face, she had one of those wide brimmed hats that white men wore, but she had long dark hair bound back in the Indian way. She was a puzzle, and that too made Pale Deer feel concerned.