Wilderness Double Edition 14

by David Robbins

  “You must leave as soon as you can,” Winona said. They had an obligation to their friends—and to themselves. “Take Zach so he can watch your back.”

  “Nothing doing. With a marauding war party on the prowl, you’ll need him here with you. I’m going alone.”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  Resting his hands on her shoulders, Nate whispered in her ear, “Can Evelyn?”

  Winona was beaten and knew it. She couldn’t keep an eye on their daughter every second. And with Evelyn’s knack for getting into mischief, someone responsible had to watch over her. Still, Winona refused to yield. “I’ll have Louisa to help me.”

  “What could she do against a dozen hostiles?”

  Not much, Winona conceded, although not aloud. “Let me send Stalking Coyote to fetch Shakespeare.”

  Nate’s mentor, Shakespeare McNair, would be all too glad to accompany him, but it would take a full day to reach McNair’s and a full day for the ride back. Nate pointed that out, adding, “I can’t delay another hour, let alone two days.”

  In her head Winona agreed with his logic. In her heart she was apprehensive. Lone mountaineers were more apt to fall prey to mishaps—or roving war parties. But as the whites liked to say, “You have me over a barrel.”

  In their cupboard was ajar filled with an ointment used by Shoshones to treat open wounds. It cut healing time in half, a feat Nate would never have believed had he not seen it proven time and time again. Grabbing the jar, he stepped outside.

  In the States many people regarded Indian treatments as so much mumbo jumbo, as a mix of superstition and nonsense. Nate had been similarly inclined until one day he came down sick with an ungodly high temperature and chills. The sickness lasted for over a week, bringing him to death’s door. Winona had tried to get some herbs into him, but he had stubbornly refused, branding it a waste of time. Fortunately, McNair had paid them a visit. His mentor had given Nate a tongue-lashing that would blister a demon’s ears, then stood by while Winona spoon fed the herbs into him. Nate’s recovery had been little short of remarkable, and from then on Nate never argued with his wife when it came to healing.

  The bay was chomping grass. Nate applied the greasy ointment to the cuts, then let the horse drink from the trough by the corral. When he went in, Winona had just finished trickling a cup of tea down Scott Kendall’s throat. “Has he come around yet?”

  “No. By morning we will know one way or the other.” Winona set the cup on the counter. “I will stay up with him all night, or until his fever breaks.”

  “Let Zach or Lou spell you some,” Nate suggested. “No use wearing yourself out. You need to keep your eyes skinned in case that war party shows up.” He gazed deep into her eyes, tormented at having to leave with hostiles in the vicinity. “If I had my druthers I’d stay here where I belong. Say you don’t want me to go, and I won’t.”

  “You have it to do. No one with a sense of honor could do any less.”

  “Damn honor. Damn me for being a fool.”

  Winona smirked and nodded at Evelyn, who was switching dresses on one of her dolls. “Do not talk like that in front of the children, husband. You set a bad example.”

  They embraced warmly, kissing on the mouth, something they rarely did unless the lanterns were out and everyone else was sound asleep. Winona groaned ever so softly, then clung to him. Something else rarely done. “Take care, my husband. I love you too much and have lived with you too long to lose you now. Come back to me. Please.”

  “I’ll do it or die trying.”

  The parting was bittersweet. Winona, Evelyn, Zach, and Louisa were all present. Nate tried not to make a fuss, but when it was his daughter’s turn, Evelyn wrapped her tiny arms around his thick neck and wouldn’t let go, her button nose buried against his chin. Not once, in all the times he had gone off trapping and on other journeys, had she ever behaved this way—as if she would never see him again.

  “What’s got you so sulky?”

  “Nothing, Pa.”

  “You’re a terrible fibber.”

  Evelyn raised her head. “I just don’t want you to end up like Mr. Kendall.”

  “I won’t.”

  “How can you be so sure, Pa? I used to think you’d always come back safe because God loves us and watches over us. Now I know he doesn’t.”

  Nate could not have been more stunned if she had started foaming at the mouth like a rabid wolf. “I’ve heard some silly notions in my time, but that’s not worth a shovelful of chipmunk tracks.”

  “Ma told me.”

  Winona flinched as if she had been pricked by a lance. Here she thought Evelyn had understood the point she’d tried to make earlier. Apparently she couldn’t have been more wrong.

  “What did your mother say?”

  “That God makes the sun shine on good people and bad people at the same time. He doesn’t favor one over the other.”

  “So?”

  “So if you run into those bad men who hurt Mr. Kendall, God won’t make any special effort to help you. He’ll just sit up in heaven and watch.”

  Nate lowered Evelyn to the ground and squatted. “You’re mixing berries and wild onions, little one. The weather is for everybody. When the sun shines here, it’s also shining on the Shoshones and the Flatheads up north and those Apaches way down near Mexico who once stole your ma. God doesn’t give one tribe any more sunshine or rain than the other. He lets them all share alike.”

  “Oh. That’s fair.”

  “It’s different when good people and bad people need God’s help. Do you think God is going to lend a hand to someone who goes around killing folks just to be mean?”

  Evelyn shook her head.

  “Smart girl. God watches over those who live the way God wants us to live.”

  “Then why didn’t he look after Mr. Kendall? Mr. Kendall believes in the Almighty.”

  Nate’s grandfather once commented that the hardest questions to answer were those posed by children. Stumped, Nate answered as honestly as he knew how. ‘That’s where we come in. God brought Mr. Kendall to us so we can help him. And his family. That’s why I have to go.” He kissed her, then mounted. Everyone else was as somber as a thundercloud as he rode out. Twisting, Nate grinned and waved.

  “Don’t fret none, Pa!” Evelyn hollered. “God will watch over you while you’re gone!”

  Nate sorely hoped so. But as he passed the corral he loosened the twin pistols under his belt and adjusted his knife sheath so the hilt was within easy reach.

  Five

  From far out on the prairie the Rocky Mountains reared like jagged ramparts. Anyone fresh from the States could be forgiven for imagining they resembled a gigantic castle, the high stony walls stretching for as far as the eye could see to the north and south. Drawing closer, awestruck travelers were always dazzled by their imposing height and amazed that even in the hottest summer months snow crowned many of the majestic peaks.

  It wasn’t until mesmerized pilgrims neared the emerald-green foothills that they would realize the Rockies weren’t a solid sawtooth citadel, that the many high summits were broken by scattered valleys and canyons and gorges.

  In the upland regions were many lush grassy areas, called “parks” by the mountaineers. It was in one such valley that Nate King had his cabin. Two valleys to the south lay the Kendall homestead. Between them was another “park,” and there another couple dwelled.

  The three families were the only settlers in that whole region except for Shakespeare McNair, and he wasn’t so much a settler as a living part of the mountains themselves. He had lived in the Rockies longer than any living white man, since shortly after the epic journey made by Lewis and Clark.

  Nate didn’t quite qualify as a “settler” either. He had been a free trapper for years, and as many trappers were wont to do, he had adopted many Indian ways, even going as far as to take a lovely Indian woman as his mate. Or, rather, Winona had taken him, for when he thought about their courtship, he real
ized she had taken the initiative. He marveled that Winona had endured his awkward, bumbling attempts at romance without complaint, and that she later had been willing to become his wife.

  The couple who lived in the next park fit the definition of settlers perfectly. They were easterners who had been enticed into venturing to the frontier, and once there had fallen so in love with nature’s beauty, becoming so enamored of the magnificent splendor the Rockies offered, that they had built a cabin and set down roots.

  Simon and Felicity Ward were from Boston. They had an accent that tickled Nate’s fancy, and were as kind and decent as the year was long. Nate had imitated Shakespeare McNair and become Simon Ward’s mentor, passing on the knowledge McNair imparted to him.

  Nate had taught Simon how to hunt, how to track. How to tell the age of a print by the texture of the dirt and other factors. How to tell whether a deer was a buck or a doe by the way it urinated. How to judge whether an animal had been walking or running by the length of its stride and the depth of the impressions, Nate was a bottomless well of knowledge, and Simon soaked it up like a sponge.

  It delighted Nate no end that Simon had taken to the wilderness like a duck to water. The younger man couldn’t get enough of it. He still wore homespun clothes instead of buckskins, and he still thought more like an easterner than a true son of the wilds, but by and large Simon was learning to adapt remarkably fast and Nate had high hopes the Wards would be able to make a go of it.

  The Kendalls had been helping out in that regard. Scott had lived in the mountains longer than Simon and was enormously skilled in his own right. He, too, was teaching Simon essential crafts needed to survive.

  But their lives were not all work, work, work. At least once a month the three families got together for a day of socializing. The kids frolicked, the women talked about how pigheaded their men were, and the men drank and ate and played cards.

  Felicity Ward looked forward to those get-togethers with sharp anticipation. The next one wasn’t due to be held for another couple of weeks, but she was on the lookout for visitors just the same. Ever since Scott Kendall had ridden urgently by without a word of explanation, she had been waiting for him to return. Or for someone else to appear.

  Felicity had told her husband about Scott’s strange behavior. Simon wanted to ride to the Kings and find out what was going on, but Felicity cautioned him to wait a bit. If something was really wrong at the Kendalls’, they would find out soon enough and could decide then how best to help.

  On this bright, sunny morning Felicity was hanging just-washed clothes on a line stretched from a corner of their cabin to a tree by the stream. Her mouth crammed with clothes pegs, she stretched out a dress and hung it on the rope.

  Her husband was off in the woods, checking snares he had set the evening before. Yet another crafty trick taught them by Nate King. “Why waste hours traipsing over hill and dale, wearing yourself to a frazzle hunting,” the big mountain man had quipped, “when a snare can do all the work for you? One of Zach’s chores when he was growing up was to rig snares at new spots once a week and check them every day. He did a fine job, too. Hardly a night went by that we didn’t have something for the supper pot.”

  Felicity had been sad at the thought of killing sweet little bunnies. But her sadness lasted only as long as her belly was full. Once her stomach took to growling, she thought of them less as sweet little bunnies and more as delicious, nourishing meat. It was amazing how the threat of starvation changed a person’s outlook.

  Felicity gazed toward the forest, expecting Simon at any time. She hung a shirt and a towel, dropped the last few pegs in the pail she carried them in, and started to turn toward the cabin. Idly, she glanced to the north—and her heart skipped a beat.

  Even at that distance there was no mistaking the rider who approached. His size alone betrayed him. As did that big black bay of his, so much larger than most horses, adding to the impression of the rider being a giant among men.

  Felicity ran into the cabin to deposit the pail, then gave her hair a quick brushing and smoothed her dress. Silly, really, but she always liked to look her best when company called. Her mother’s influence was to blame, for in prim and proper Boston it was unpardonable for a hostess to appear at less than her best. Her mother had been a firm believer in “appearances are everything.”

  Felicity ran back out. She hoped Simon would return soon. It didn’t bode well that Scott Kendall wasn’t with their visitor.

  Struck by a thought, Felicity dashed back inside, snatched a glass from the cupboard, and raced to the stream to fill it. She had it ready, filled to the brim, when the man she was fond of second only to her husband reined up and gave her one of his charming smiles.

  “Howdy, Felicity. It does these tired eyes a world of good to see a sprightly damsel like yourself on such a cheery morning.”

  “Is it really so cheery?” she responded.

  Nate King never ceased to be amazed by feminine intuition. Women had an unnatural ability to divine things they had no rational basis to know. Take Winona. She could sense his feelings, his thoughts, even when he didn’t necessarily want her to. She also had a remarkable facility for sensing when others were going to pay them a call. On more than one occasion she had piped up with, “Someone is coming. I can feel it.” And sure enough, before too long someone would show up at their place.

  Now Nate stiffly dismounted and stretched. He had ridden half the night, stopping only for the bay’s benefit, and then only as long as was absolutely necessary. “Where’s that husband of yours?”

  “Checking snares,” Felicity said, giving him the glass. “I saw Scott Kendall go by late the day before yesterday. He was in a pitiable state, and wouldn’t hardly speak. Have you seen him? Is he all right?”

  Nate was emptying the glass. As he lowered it, a figure ambled from the trees, spotted them, and broke into a run. “Here comes your lesser half now.” Grinning, Nate removed his beaver hat and slapped it against his leg to shake out the dust. “How about if I tell both of you all about it over a bowl of soup? Or some of those tasty sweet rolls of yours? I can’t stay long, sad to say.”

  “I’ll have some rolls ready in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.” Simon Ward arrived as his wife bustled indoors. A young, exuberant man, he tossed the rabbit he carried next to the cabin, then fondly clasped the mountain man’s broad shoulders. “Nate! To what do we owe this honor? I’ve been tempted to ride up and see you, but my wife thought it best I stick around.”

  “You’re lucky she did.”

  “I am?”

  Nate ushered the younger man into the cabin. The couple listened intently as, between bites of Felicity’s delicious rolls, he detailed Scott Kendall’s accident and Nate’s run-in with Two Owls. Nate didn’t mince words. They had a right to know exactly how much danger they were in. “From now until we know the war party is shed of our neck of the country, you can’t take chances. Never go anywhere unarmed. Never stray far from the cabin unless you’re together. Always tether your stock close by at night so you can hear if they raise a racket.”

  Simon bobbed his chin. “Don’t worry. I haven’t forgotten what you’ve taught me. I’ll take every precaution.” Felicity was more worried about their friends. “Do you think Lisa and Vail Marie have come to any harm?”

  “I’ll know tomorrow when I reach their place.” Nate wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “Sorry to eat and light a shuck, but I only stopped long enough to fill you in and give my horse a breather.” He rose and claimed his Hawken.

  Simon and Felicity trailed him, arm in arm. “Do you have any inkling who these intruders are?”

  “Not yet,” Nate admitted. “Even the Utes are stumped. But we have to keep in mind that whole sections of the West haven’t been explored yet. There are parts no white man has ever set foot in. Areas the tribes we do know about shun as bad medicine.”

  Felicity stared wistfully eastward. His comments reminded her of how isolated they were. It was
close to a thousand miles to St. Louis, the nearest city of any consequence. To the west it was another thousand miles to California. Here they were, literally in the middle of nowhere, smack in the center of North America, as alone as if they were on another planet, outsiders in a world not of their making, infants daring to eke out a living in the cruel cradle of the wilderness. At moments like these Felicity regretted leaving Boston, regretted leaving their relatives, abandoning everyone and everything that had been special to her.

  Sometimes Felicity wondered what they were trying to prove. Why put their lives in peril for the sake of a dream? Then she would stand on the doorstep and admire the virgin valley, the regal peaks. She would see deer and buffalo grazing, see ravens winging by or maybe a bald eagle high, high in the sky, and her soul would be stirred to its very depths. She would know, in those instants, why she had let Simon talk her into the trek. Why she stayed, and might never return.

  It could be summed up in one word, a word more precious than all the others in the English language, a word embodying an ideal over which armies had clashed, an ideal for which men and women down through the ages had been willing to throw their lives away. That word? Freedom.

  In the mountains a person was truly free. Wonderfully, gloriously free. To live as they pleased, in any manner they desired. No one told them what to do or how to go about doing it. Politicians and lawyers weren’t trying to imprison them behind bars made of ironclad laws. Busy-bodies weren’t snooping into their affairs.

  Felicity had never truly understood what real freedom was until she came to the mountains. Which was ironic. Back in Boston she’d always assumed she was as free as any human being on earth, that having society dictate how she conducted her life was part and parcel of freedom itself. The Rockies taught her differently.

  Society was a gilded cage. It made living easier in that it provided food, clothing, and shelter. But at a horrendous cost. Since people were no longer able to hunt for their own food, they had to take whatever food was available at the market or butcher’s. Since they didn’t make their own clothes, they had to wear whatever fashions society decreed was acceptable. And because no one was allowed to plant stakes wherever they wanted, they had to make do with such housing as was available.