Wilderness Double Edition 14

by David Robbins

  “Do you always sleep armed to the teeth?” Bartholomew asked.

  “Yes, and I’m a light sleeper. So when you wake me up, just holler. Don’t touch me, or I’m liable to stick you before I know what I’m doing.” Lou smiled at her fib. Like all the other untruths she had told recently, she had a good excuse.

  “Sure, sonny. Whatever you want,” Bartholomew Dunne said. He swallowed the pemmican but didn’t take another bite. Eyebrows knit, he sat and stared across the fire at the lithe figure lying there. A painter screeched, an owl hooted, and a shooting star streaked across the sky, but he paid them no mind. All he did was stare, stare, stare.

  Eight

  The trouble started shortly after Kendrick’s brigade ate their supper.

  Cyrus Walton had shot a doe while out gathering firewood, and soon thereafter a bloody haunch was roasting over a makeshift spit. The greenhorns were in fine spirits, joking and laughing and bantering about all the wonderful things they would buy with their share of the gold.

  Zach King and Ben Frazier were pretty much ignored, although at Kendrick’s orders both were given water. Zach was thirsty enough to drink all that was left in the water skin, but Elden Johnson yanked it away from his lips after only half a dozen swallows.

  Hurting from head to toe, sore and stiff in every muscle and joint, Zach watched the haunch slowly turn on the spit and brown to a well-done sheen. The delicious fragrance made his stomach growl. A constant sharp ache deep in his gut added to his woes. His mouth watered uncontrollably. He had never been so hungry in his life.

  When the haunch was done, Ira Sanders sliced off sizable chunks and passed them out. Elden Johnson tore into his piece like a famished wolf, and the sight caused the ache in Zach’s gut to worsen. He had to turn away. He looked around when Cyrus Walton brought some to Frazier.

  “What about me?”

  The pudgy clerk turned to go.

  “What about me?” Zach repeated.

  Walton grinned. “What about you, ’breed? Vince didn’t say anything about feeding you. Starve, for all I care.”

  Frazier hadn’t touched his yet. “Let this boy die and you’ll regret it. His pa will wipe out every last one of you miserable worms.” Raising his voice, he said, “You hear me, Kendrick? Just like you need me alive to find the gold, you need Zach alive to fend off his pa.”

  “He’s right,” Elden Johnson said.

  Kendrick was chewing with gusto, his chin smeared with grease and blood. He stared at the trapper, then at Zach, and lastly at Cyrus Walton. “Give the ’breed some, too. As much as I’d love to stake him out and peel his hide off, we’d better play it safe.”

  So Zach was given meat. And since he couldn’t very well eat with his hands bound behind his back, Walton untied the rope. Zach feared the man would see his scraped wrists and the dried blood and inform Kendrick that he had been trying to escape, but Walton never said a thing. Zach’s back was turned away from the fire, so maybe Walton didn’t notice. Or maybe Walton didn’t care, since it was evident Zach’s struggles had done little good.

  The venison was placed on the grass in front of him. Instantly, Zach went to reach for it, and immediately regretted being hasty. His arms screamed with torment. He nearly did the same out loud. The circulation had been cut off for so long, he couldn’t move them. He tried again after a bit, but it was as if his shoulders were fused solid. Even wriggling his fingers was excruciating.

  Zach knew he must be patient. Given time, he would be able to pick up the meat. But he couldn’t wait. He was too famished. Bending, he bit into the venison where it lay. The taste was exquisite. His belly did flip-flops, and saliva gushed from his mouth. Zach gnawed it like a dog gnawing a bone, then, with a wrench, tore off a savory strip.

  “Take your time, son,” Frazier cautioned, “or you’ll get sick.”

  Easier said than done. Zach’s natural impulse was to down the mouthful in a single gulp. But he willed himself to chew slowly, and then to swallow slowly. It actually hurt going down, but soon a deliriously warm sensation spread from his abdomen outward. Just the one morsel had him feeling better than he had in two days.

  Zach went on gnawing and eating, small sections at a time, relishing the meal as if it were his last. Which it might well be.. There was no telling how long Kendrick would see fit to keep him alive. The man was as changeable as the wind, and might kill him whenever the whim struck.

  As Zach ate, his arms were restored to normal. They tingled terribly for a long while, and when he eventually sought to bring them around in front of him, his sockets protested. It felt as if bone grated on bone. But he succeeded, and didn’t move after that except to take more bites. He didn’t want to draw attention to himself, didn’t want his wrists tied again.

  Ben Frazier finished and asked for another piece, but Vince Kendrick told him that was all they would get.

  “Why waste more meat on you, old man, when after tomorrow your eating days will be over?”

  That was when the trouble started: The Batson brothers, who had been keeping to themselves most of the day, stopped eating at the mention of what their leader had in store for the trapper. Billy said, “We’ve been meaning to talk to you about that, Mr. Kendrick.”

  “You don’t say.” The big man did not sound delighted at the news.

  “My brother and I think it’s wrong to murder Mr. Frazier. He never did us any harm. And he saved my brother’s life.”

  Kendrick glanced at the older sibling. “This true, Frank? This how you feel?”

  Frank Batson frowned. “Don’ take that tone, Mr. Kendrick. We’ve stuck by you through thick and thin, haven’t we? And we’ll go on sticking by you. But yes, I feel we should let the old coot go once he’s shown us where the gold is. It’s the least we can do after what he did for me.”

  “Did you hear that, gents?” Kendrick said. “The farmers, here, think we’re being too hard on gramps. Any of you agree?”

  No one responded.

  “Don’t be shy,” Kendrick declared. “I’d really like to know. I won’t hold it against you. I won’t be mad if you think you know better than me. I won’t be offended if you believe I should step down and let someone else take over.”

  “Now, hold on, Mr. Kendrick,” Billy said. “We never made any such claim.”

  Kendrick was a cauldron on the brink of boiling over. “Like hell you didn’t! It’s the same thing, no matter how you phrase it. You two think I’m making a bad decision. Which means I’ve got no business being the leader of this expedition. So go ahead. Takeover, if either of you are man enough.”

  Frank Batson couldn’t hide his worry. “Calm down, Mr. Kendrick. We have no hankering to be booshway. You’re the boss. Not us. When we signed on, we agreed to always do as you say, remember?”

  “Oh, I remember. The question is, do either of you? Apparently not, or you wouldn’t be doubting me.”

  “All we’re saying—” Frank began.

  “Is that I don’t know my ass from a prairie dog hole,” Kendrick cut him off. “Well, think again. If we let the old buzzard live, he’ll tell others what we did. Maybe you yokels don’t care if a bunch of his friends track us down and fill us with lead, but I do.”

  Billy started to rise, but his brother gripped his shoulder. Tearing loose, the younger Batson snapped, “Of course we care. You’re putting words in our mouths. And don’t call us yokels. It’s an insult.”

  “No fooling. But if it looks like a buffalo and smells like a buffalo and walks like a buffalo, odds are it’s a buffalo.”

  “What do buffaloes have to do with anything?” Billy asked. Some of the men laughed, which added to his resentment. “That’s enough! I’m sick and tired of being treated like a jackass. So help me, I’ll shoot the next man who treats us like dirt.” His hand wrapped around the butt of a pistol.

  Silence descended. They all stopped eating. Ed Stark made as if to stand, but stayed where he was at a gesture from Vince Kendrick. Elden Johnson’s arm drifted towar
d a rifle at his side.

  “Sit down, little brother,” Frank Batson said. “We don’t want to get them mad at us. They don’t mean anything by what they do.”

  “The hell they don’t!”

  “It’s just their way of poking fun, is all,” Frank said. “City folk do it all the time. You’ll get used to it.”

  “Never,” Billy said. “All my life I’ve had to put up with snotty people looking down their noses at me. I won’t take it anymore. Just because I plow fields for a living doesn’t make me dumb as an ox. I’m as smart as the next fellow.”

  “No one ever said you weren’t.” Frank tugged at his brother’s shirt.

  “Mr. Kendrick just did.”

  Vince Kendrick put down his meat. Wiping both palms on his buckskins, he said quietly, “It’s one thing to accuse me of not being fit to lead, another to threaten me. I want an apology, sonny.”

  “Don’t call me that. I’m not your boy.”

  Like a rattler uncoiling, Kendrick slowly rose. “Say you’re sorry, farmer. For your own sake.”

  “Say it,” Frank urged.

  “No,” Billy answered.

  “What can it hurt?” Cyrus Walton commented. Elden Johnson’s fingers were an inch from his Kentucky. “It’s in your own best interests, youngster,” he said.

  Even Ira Sanders had an opinion. “If you have any brains, you’ll do as Vince says.”

  “If I had any brains,” Billy retorted, “I’d never have joined this trapping brigade. I should be home helping my ma and pa instead of wandering all over these mountains with the likes of you.”

  The potential for violence sizzled like frying bacon. Billy hadn’t taken his hand off his flintlock, and Kendrick’s fingers were close to one of his own. Another few moments and blood would be spilled. All of the men were as grim as a hangman. So the hearty laughter that pealed like a bell was all the more glaring.

  Ben Frazier slapped his leg and rocked on his rump, exclaiming, “Yes! Yes! Go right ahead and shoot each other! It’ll give the Utes that many less to kill. And give my friend and me a better chance to get away.” He poked a bony finger at Billy. “Come on, boy! What are you waitin’ for? Shoot that son of a bitch for treatin’ you like a fool.” Next he pointed at Kendrick. “And you! Show him he can’t sass you and get away with it! Put one smack between his eyes!”

  Ed Stark was fit to be tied. “Shut up, you damned loon!”

  Zach smiled to himself. The ferret had it all backward. Frazier wasn’t loony. He was canny as a fox, and was trying to save the younger Batson’s life. Although why the trapper should go to the bother, Zach couldn’t say.

  Vince Kendrick was as incensed as Stark. “You’d like it if I killed this boy, wouldn’t you, old man?”

  “Hell, I’d like it better if both of you died,” Frazier said gleefully. “Two less vermin in the world won’t be missed.”

  For heartbeats the outcome hung in the balance. Then Kendrick hooked his thumbs in his belt and said, “Just to spite you, you old goat, I’m not going to do it. You’ll have to try harder.”

  “Shucks,” Frazier said.

  Frank Batson nudged his brother. When Billy neither moved nor spoke, Frank nudged him harder and said, “Do it, damn you.”

  “I reckon I let my temper get the better of me, Mr. Kendrick. But I still think you treat us poorly at times.”

  Cyrus Walton snuffed out the last of Billy’s anger by remarking, “Hell, kid. He doesn’t treat you any different than he treats the rest of us. Vince was born cranky, and his disposition hasn’t improved much over the years.”

  “Go to hell,” Kendrick said.

  Everyone laughed, including the Batson brothers. The crisis had passed. Frazier caught Zach staring at him and leaned close to whisper, “I know what you’re thinkin’. I should’ve let them do it. But we need all these peckerwoods alive for when the Utes attack.”

  “What makes you so sure the Utes will?”

  “Because they were followin’ us for hours. You couldn’t spot ’em, lyin’ facedown over that horse like you were. But I did. And my guess is they’re just waitin’ for the right moment to catch us off guard.” Frazier nodded at the men around the fire. “None of these greenhorns know it yet, but they’re all dead men.”

  Louisa May Clark couldn’t say what woke her. One moment she was adrift in dreamland—or, rather, a horrendous nightmare—and the next she was wide awake.

  In her nocturnal flight of fear, Lou had been lost in an immense forest filled with gargantuan trees. For hours she wandered in a frantic effort to find a way out. But no matter which trail she took, they all brought her back to the same spot, to a small clearing in the center of the forest dominated by a bizarre marker, a chest-high pile of gleaming human skulls.

  There were dozens of trails, but each and every one eventually led to the clearing and those terrible skulls.

  All the while, Lou couldn’t shake the feeling she was being stalked. That someone, or something, dogged her footsteps, always staying in the shadows so as not to be seen. Repeatedly she felt its baleful eyes on her back and whirled, and repeatedly there was nothing there.

  Then Lou passed under a thick limb that hung low over her. As she did, the leaves rustled and a monstrous shadow engulfed her own. The thing had been lying in wait above. Startled, she threw back her head and clutched at a knife. But she was too slow. A shimmering sheet that resembled molten ink enfolded her within itself. She couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe. Desperate, she slashed and hacked, but the blade had no effect. Her lungs were close to bursting and she was close to dying when her eyes snapped open and she realized it had been a nightmare.

  Lou couldn’t shake the feeling of dread, however. Of evil menace and lurking terror. She saw that the fire had gone out, saw a multitude of stars testifying to the immensity of the firmament. About to try and go back to sleep, she experienced a shiver ripple down her spine when a soft rustling noise fell on her ears. The sound came from behind her. Just like in the nightmare. Only, this was real.

  Lou still had her knife, but she had dropped the pistol while she slept. Easing her hand to the ground, she groped for it. The rustling came a second time, louder, closer. An urge to flee almost overpowered her. Then her fingers closed on the smooth butt of her flintlock.

  Something lightly brushed Lou’s shoulder. It was all she could take. Spinning, she thrust with the knife. Only at the last possible moment did she check her thrust when she discovered who it was.

  “Damn, sonny! You could kill a man like that!”

  Bartholomew Dunne was on his side an arm’s length away, propped on an elbow. He recoiled when the blade sought his throat.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Lou demanded, sitting up.

  “Trying to get to sleep. What does it look like?” In a huff, Dunne patted the blanket he had spread out. So near hers, the edges overlapped. “I just lay down and was going to wake you so you can keep watch.”

  Judging by the stars the night was half done. So Lou had no reason to distrust him other than her intuition. She was positive he had been about to do more than he said. But what? And why? “Fine, but next time don’t lie so close. I don’t like to be crowded.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ve forgotten how touchy whites can be.”

  Dunne’s excuse rang hollow. Lou rose, wrapping her blanket over her shoulders. “Just so it doesn’t happen again.”

  The crusty trapper curled up, pulled his own blanket to his chin, and was out to the world in under a minute, breathing deeply, sound asleep.

  Lou had a nagging suspicion that he really wasn’t, that he was peeking at her from under his eyelids. A silly notion, she told herself. But she couldn’t shake it. She walked a dozen feet away and sat where he couldn’t see her.

  Yawning, Lou vigorously shook her head to help stay alert. Another ten or twelve hours of rest would suit her just fine. Her body felt as if it were made of marble, and her brain couldn’t think fast enough to outrace a snail.


  Lou thought of Stalking Coyote, of how he looked at her in their more private moments. Of the love he had shown, the tenderness, the concern. It comforted her. It filled her with a fuzzy feeling deep inside. Oh, what she wouldn’t give to be able to take him into her arms and hug him silly! She prayed he was all right, and vowed that if any harm had come to him, she would see that the men responsible paid dearly.

  Idly, Lou admired the heavenly spectacle, something she’d always liked to do when her pa was alive. Many a night, while he’d snored loud enough to rouse the dead, she had lain for hours staring at the stars and thinking.

  On this night, Lou thought of a fascinating tidbit she had learned the summer before from a pilgrim bound for the Oregon Country. The man had claimed, incredibly, that Oberlin College was admitting women to its programs of higher learning, the first college in the country to do so.

  Lou never had much schooling, and she was painfully conscious of the lack. At one point she’d had about made up her mind to go back to school once her pa and her returned to the States. After hearing about Oberlin, she’d even dreamed about going on to college, of becoming one of the first ladies in the country to have a degree.

  Her father had thought it a crime against human nature. “Women need degrees like they need holes in their heads,” he had complained. “Why, it’s as bad an idea as giving women the right to vote.”

  But then, her pa was always railing against something or other. Lou harbored the idea he wasn’t happy unless he was griping. She’d asked her ma about it once, and her mother had smiled in that knowing way of hers and said, “Some think the Almighty knew what He was doing when He made women and men so different. I say he used all the good ingredients making women and threw what was left into men.”