The Battle of Half Moon Mountain by James D. Crownover

Author:James D. Crownover
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gale, Cengage Learning
Published: 2015-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16

THE REVENGE OF BLACK ELK

How do you plan for an ambush? There are a thousand ways, each dictated by conditions you find yourself in—an’ most of your well-laid plans don’t work when time comes to use them. Black Elk had a good eight hours’ head start on us an’ I expected him to attack this first day out. He would be anxious to attack us an’, too, didn’t want to be much further away from Osage villages. I wanted to frustrate him an’ delay his action for a couple of days until I had an advantage. I was glad no one rode with us, for as soon as we were safely out of sight of camp, I cut across an’ headed due south to White River. It was low this time of year so we had no trouble crossing out of sight of th’ customary ford. I steered back to th’ south trace an’ pushed th’ horses hard, making no effort to hide our trail. I planned to go straight through those disputed hunting grounds to the Village at Bear Springs. From there, it should be a safe trip to th’ Little Red River Valley as there was a lot of traffic between villages.

Now we would see how determined Black Elk was to get revenge on us. He would wait most of th’ day in his ambush, then backtrack to th’ village. Depending on how far out he laid his trap, we could be more than a day ahead of him b’fore he found our trail. I didn’t expect him to give up easily. If I could draw him deeper into th’ woods, maybe he would lose some of his caution an’ that would give me an advantage. He was a big man even by Osage standards an’ I knew I could not best him physically, so I had to outsmart him.

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