Blood on the Arrows (Cole, Judd. Cheyenne Giant Special Edition.)

418 Pages·2000·1 MB·English

by  Judd Cole

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Cheyenne Giant Special Edition! Blood on the
Arrows
Page 1
ENEMY FIRE
Wolf Who Hunts Smiling's Colt spat muzzle smoke. Touch the Sky
watched as the lead freighter yelled and then sprawled in an ungainly
heap in the middle of the road.
The freighters behind him had broken out their long guns and covered
down when the attack commenced. Now Touch the Sky saw all of
them excitedly point in his direction. The next moment slugs started
buzzing past Touch the Sky's ear with an angry-hornet sound, forcing
him to retreat. Clearly, they assumed he was one of the attackers.
Just as clear was the blood-soaked hair of the bullwhacker who lay
sprawled in the road. Wolf Who Hunts Smiling's last shot had been
fatal.
"You murdering, savage bastard!" one of the freighters shouted behind
Touch the Sky. "Put at 'em, boys!"
Page 2
The Cheyenne Series:
# 1: ARROW KEEPER
# 2: DEATH CHANT
# 3: RENEGADE JUSTICE
# 4: VISION QUEST
# 5: BLOOD ON THE PLAINS
# 6: COMANCHE RAID
# 7: COMANCHEROS
# 8: WAR PARTY
# 9: PATHFINDER
#10: BUFFALO HIDERS
#11: SPIRIT PATH
#12: MANKILLER
#13: WENDIGO MOUNTAIN
#14: DEATH CAMP
Page 3
Cheyenne Giant Special Edition! Blood on the
Arrows
Judd Cole
Page 4
A LEISURE BOOK®
September 1995
Published by
Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.
276 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10001
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that
this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed"
to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received
any payment for this "stripped book."
Copyright © 1995 by Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher,
except where permitted by law.
The name "Leisure Books" and the stylized "L" with design are
trademarks of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.
Printed in the United States of America.
Page 7
Prologue
The tall warrior named Touch the Sky had earned more coup feathers
than any other brave in his Northern Cheyenne tribe. But his bloody
struggles to protect his people could not defeat the many tribal
enemies who constantly demanded his death, accusing him of spying
for blue-bloused soldiers.
The ill-fated brave's tragedy began in the year the white man's winter-
count called 1840. A U.S. Cavalry ambush killed the great Cheyenne
peace chief Running Antelope and his wife Lotus Petal. Only one
Cheyenne survived the Platte River massacre: Running Antelope's
newborn son.
Pawnee scouts were about to brain the infant against a tree when the
lieutenant in charge stopped them. The baby was taken back to the
Page 8
river-bend settlement of Bighorn Falls near Fort Bates in the
Wyoming Territory. There he grew up the adopted son of John and
Sarah Hanchon, owners of the town's mercantile store.
The Hanchons named him Matthew and loved him as their own blood.
The first sixteen years of his life were happy ones. Early on he went to
work for his parents, stocking shelves and delivering goods to the
outlying settlers. Though some local whites hated this full-blooded
Indian in their midst, many others eventually accepted and even
befriended him.
Then his life's path took a fatal turn when he fell in love with Hiram
Steele's daughter, Kristen.
The richest and most powerful rancher in the area, Steele caught the
young lovers in their secret meeting place. He ordered one of his
wranglers to savagely beat the youth and promised to kill him if he
caught the couple together again. Fearful for Matthew's life, Kristen
forced herself to a difficult lie: She told him she could no longer love
an Indian.
Already humiliated and heartbroken, Matthew soon faced even greater
troubles. A proud and arrogant lieutenant from Fort Bates, Seth
Carlson, had staked a claim to Kristen's hand. He visited Matthew
with a merciless ultimatum: Either Matthew pulled up stakes for good,
or the Hanchons would lose their contract to supply Fort Batesthe
very lifeblood of their mercantile business.
Page 9
Thus trapped between the sap and the bark, a miserable but
determined Matthew said goodbye to the only life he knew and lit out
for the upcountry of the Powder RiverCheyenne Indian country. But
his white man's clothing and language and customs doomed him.
Captured by braves from Chief Yellow Bear's tribe, he was
immediately accused of being a Bluecoat spy and sentenced to torture
and death.
Two young braves especially hated him: Black Elk, the tribe's war
leader, and his cousin Wolf Who Hunts Smiling. Black Elk's loathing
of this intruder deepened when Chief Yellow Bear's daughter, Honey
Eater, took too keen an interest in the accused spy's fate.
Wolf Who Hunts Smiling was about to plunge a knife deep into his
vitals when an authoritative voice stopped him. The speaker was old
Arrow Keeper, the tribe's shaman and protector of the four sacred
Medicine Arrows.
Arrow Keeper had just returned from experiencing a crucial vision at
holy Medicine Lake. In that vision, a mysterious youththe son of a
long-lost Cheyenne chiefeventually led the entire Cheyenne nation in
its greatest battle victory. This mystery warrior would be recognized
by a distinctive mark, and Arrow Keeper spotted it buried in the hair
over the prisoner's right temple: a mulberry-colored birthmark in the
shape of an arrowhead, the mark of the warrior.
Over the strenuous objections of many, Arrow Keeper and Chief
Yellow Bear spared the prisoner's life. His old name was buried in a
Page 10
hole forever and he was renamed Touch the Sky. Even more shocking:
Arrow Keeper insisted that this pathetic intruder must live with the
tribeand even train as a warrior.
Despite a constant campaign to destroy and humiliate him, Touch the
Sky became the most formidable warrior in the tribe. But after Chief
Yellow Bear died, Honey Eater was forced into a loveless marriage
with Black Elk. Her starcrossed passion for Touch the Skywhich he
returneddrove Black Elk to a murderous jealousy that his cousin Wolf
Who Hunts Smiling constantly encouraged.
With the mysterious disappearance of Arrow Keeper, Touch the Sky
was narrowly voted as the tribe's new shaman and Keeper of the
Arrows. But Wolf Who Hunts Smiling joined forces secretly with
Comanche and Blackfoot allies. He also selected another clever and
scheming brave, Medicine Flute, and called him the tribe's only true
shaman.
Now the tribe is deeply divided and the battle lines clearly drawn.
Wolf Who Hunts Smiling and his allies are determined to murder this
white man's dog and either convert or destroy his followers. Unlike
his treasonous cousin, Black Elk remains loyal to his tribe, but is
jealously obsessed with killing Touch the Sky. Hated by the white
man, mistrusted by the red man, Touch the Sky places his last hope in
the powerful medicine vision which promised that his destiny as a
great Cheyenne leader would eventually justify this loneliness and
suffering.