Son of the Hawk Read Online Free Page B

abandoned since the army took it over a couple of years ago. Now it looked more like a town than a military fort. He’d heard that it was officially designated Fort William, but nobody called it that. The trappers were mostly gone now, but the Indians still came there to trade at the post trader’s store. He had passed a camp of Sioux about a mile from the fort, next to a Cheyenne camp. In the next few days, there would be many more bands arriving for the big medicine treaty the government had called for—Arapahos, Crows, Assiniboines, Rees, Hidatsu, Mandans. These were some of the tribes the government had invited. To add a little more spice to this already volatile stew, he had heard from Bridger that Washakie—though uninvited—intended to bring his Snakes to the party. Buck was curious to see what was going to happen when all those Indians were camped so close to each other. Some of the tribes invited to the conference were blood enemies, and he figured it was going to take a miracle to keep some of them from going after each other. Pretty soon, there were going to be thousands of Indians around the fort, and as far as Buck had seen, there were probably no more than three hundred or so soldiers to keep thepeace. They had set up a camp near the fort and called it Camp Macklin. It was going to be interesting, and Buck decided it was a spectacle he didn’t want to miss.
    “Buck Ransom,” Lamar Thomas called out when he saw the grizzled old mountain man walk in the door. “I thought you was dead.”
    “I ain’t took no inventory lately,” Buck replied, “but last time I looked, I was still here.” Lamar always greeted Buck with the same statement, no matter how long it had been since Buck was last in Laramie. Sometimes Buck wondered if the sutler’s clerk was disappointed to find him still among the living. “I could use a little something to cut the dust in my throat,” Buck said.
    “Bottle or glass?” Lamar asked, reaching under the counter.
    Buck thought it over for a moment before replying. “You better just pour me a drink. I wanna do a few things before I dive into a whole quart of that poison.” He watched while Lamar filled a shotglass and then handed it to him. Then, after wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he tossed it back, closing his eyes tightly as he endured the burning in his throat. “Damn! It’s been a while,” he rasped hoarsely when he opened his eyes again. “Better give me another one.” After chasing the first with a second dose of the fiery liquid, he waited for a moment until his voicebox was operative again. “You seen Trace McCall?”
    Lamar shook his head. “Not since spring. He come through not long after the last good snow.”
    Buck didn’t bother to ask if Trace had said where he was heading when he left Fort Laramie. Trace probably hadn’t known himself. At least Buck now knew that Trace had made it through another winter with his hair intact. Nowadays, that was quite an accomplishmentfor a man who spent his time living in the midst of so many warring Indian tribes.
    Ordinarily Buck didn’t spend much time worrying about the welfare of Trace McCall, the man the Blackfoot Indians called the Mountain Hawk. In all his years trapping in the Rocky Mountains, Buck had never seen a man become as natural a part of the mountains as Trace had—he was more Indian than most Indians—as good with a bow as he was with his Hawken rifle. He could damn sure take care of himself, but Buck had been a wee bit concerned for his old partner lately because it had been longer than usual since Trace had come to Promise Valley to visit.
    Trace had no family. The closest thing he had to kin were the friends he had in Promise Valley where Buck had a cabin in a small settlement of emigrants from back East. Until this spring, Trace had never failed to show up in the valley to visit with Buck and look in on Jamie Thrash and her father. But this year he didn’t come, and Buck had