But the last thing he wanted to do was make camp with these two strangers. They must be a few lodge poles short of a tipi to come into this land with only the two of them. A sick old man and a young woman? He didn’t know the terrain they’d traveled through to reach this place, but he’d sure seen the country ahead of them. They wouldn’t last a week where they were headed.
He couldn’t be the guide they wanted, but he could at least carry the boat around the waterfalls. From there, they could follow the river’s winding path easily enough.
For today, he’d carry the boat as far as he could manage, then he may as well return to his own camp for the night so he wasn’t bedding down beside these strangers. Maybe one or two of the other men would come back with him the next day to finish the work. All three would want to come if he told them there was a woman in the party. Especially one as fair of face as Susanna.
His weary body almost smiled at the thought of the reactions they’d have when they saw her. Beaver Tail had never seen a white woman wear men’s leggings and tunic, and her clothes certainly didn’t hide the soft curves of her lean form. She’d have three marriage proposals the moment the others laid eyes on her.
But Beaver Tail wouldn’t be offering one of his own. Women had only caused trouble for him in the past, a trouble he spread to everyone around him. He’d come on this journey to escape that particular type of problem. No reason to invite disaster on himself again.
Chapter 2
“This is where you will camp tonight.” Beaver Tail fought to keep from panting as he leaned against the side of the boat to catch his breath. In truth, he wasn’t sure his legs would hold him on their own, but he couldn’t let these two strangers see his weakness.
Although, if a man had to show weakness, surely it would be allowed after hauling this oversized canoe for more than half the sun’s journey across the sky this day.
Susanna trudged toward him and dropped both of her satchels on the ground with a grunt. The older man—had he said his name was Wilkins?—trailed her, looking even wearier than his daughter. Although the possessions he carried were considerably lighter than her load had been.
The fellow didn’t look well. Maybe because of the bags under his eyes and the way his shirt hung on his gaunt frame. Both of those could be explained by reasons other than illness, but there was something else about him. A pallor to his skin? Despite the fact he was browned from long days in the sun.
“How much farther to the last falls?” Susanna still struggled to catch her breath.
Beaver Tail straightened. “We’re a little over half the distance. I’ll return when the sun rises to finish the portage.”
“Do you live around here?” She wiped her brow with the loose fabric of her shirt sleeve.
“Our camp isn’t far.”
“Our? Which tribe are you from?”
“Blackfoot.” She’d misunderstood his meaning, but he let the misconception stand. Better she think an entire band of Blackfoot camped nearby and stay on her guard.
Something passed through the woman’s eyes, then disappeared as her jaw tightened and she nodded. “Thank you for your help today. We would have struggled much more than you did to move the dinghy.”
The passage would have been nigh impossible for them, but he wouldn’t correct that untruth either. Let her keep her dignity. She seemed to be a scrappy creature, like one of the runt dogs in his mother’s camp that fought for the larger bone against animals twice its size.
He turned to the man. “You have food enough for the evening meal?” They’d only brought two packs, which meant the heavier one remained below the rapids. Hopefully it didn’t contain anything they’d need this night.
Maybe one of his companions would hike down and carry that satchel tomorrow morning while the rest of them took the boat and these packs. Neither Wilkins nor Susanna looked like they would last another day as difficult as this one.
And no matter how badly he wanted to put distance between himself and any female, he’d never been a man to stand by when someone needed help. He was pretty sure the others would feel the same.
“We have plenty.” Even with the weariness thickening his tone, Wilkins’s voice held a gentleness that made him wholly likeable. “Can you stay and take a meal with us? It’s the least we can offer for all your hard work.”
Beaver Tail shook his head. “I need to go.” The night would be a short one as it was.
“Maybe in the morning then.” Wilkins stepped forward and extended his hand. Before Beaver Tail could react, the older man clapped him on the arm. “God be with you on the trail. Come tomorrow mornin’, we’ll share a cup of coffee.”
The touch was foreign. So unexpected. There wasn’t a bit of malice in it, just pure friendliness.
Yet Beaver Tail couldn’t remember ever being handled so. Jabbed with an elbow, sure. Pushed in the chest with a hard palm or fist, certainly. But nothing so kind as this man’s gesture.
An inkling of memory slipped through his awareness. Just enough to tickle his longing. Someone else had rested a hand on his upper arm. A big hand, massive enough to be a bear paw. Yet the touch made him feel loved. Appreciated.
A sensation he hadn’t felt in more years than he could count.
Beaver Tail turned away. He had no time for thoughts like these. Reaching for a new burst of energy, he stepped toward the trail leading upriver. As soon as a hill hid him from sight, he pushed into a run.
Susanna stepped into the darkness to attend to personal matters before returning to her blankets. Some animal sound had awakened her, and she may as well take care of this before she went back to sleep. The night couldn’t really be called dark, for an almost-full moon lit the sky, along with more stars than there must be droplets of water in the Missouri River.
Box elders lined the little creek near their camp, and she tucked herself behind one for privacy. A sting pricked her neck, and she swatted hard at the spot. These horrid mosquitos even attacked in the dead of night. Lewis and Clark had written the honest truth when they recorded in their journals that the mosquitos in this area were immensely numerous and troublesome.
A grunt nearby snagged her attention. The underbrush shook, not ten strides away. She gripped the tree beside her. Some creature was out there, big and clumsy. Why hadn’t she brought her rifle?
She could only hope it was a beaver or badger, but images of the awful grizzlies Lewis and Clark had written of loomed in her mind. She struggled to see what lurked in the bushes. All she made out was the leaves shaking.
But she couldn’t take a chance. Pushing off from the tree, she sprinted back toward camp. She’d barely run two strides before a mighty roar sounded from behind. Hadn’t she read that grizzlies could run faster than men? Maybe this was only a harmless black bear. Lord, let it be.
The ground seemed to shake beneath her as a thudding noise chased close on her heels. She screamed, but she didn’t dare slow down to shout any louder. A glance from the corner of her vision showed a creature so light brown its fur shone almost dirty white in the moonlight. She plowed forward as the fierce grunts closed in on her. Thick prairie grass and prickly pear slowed her as if she slogged through snow.
At this rate, she would never outrun the animal, and aiming straight toward camp had left her out in the open. Veering left toward the creek and its sheltering brush, she jumped a cluster of prickly pear. Her foot landed on a spike, but with the fear coursing through her, she ignored the pain.
If she could just make it to one of the trees ahead… Could bears climb trees? She couldn’t remember for sure, but that might be her only chance of escape.
A blow struck her side, knocking her off balance. She screamed, but the sound was swallowed by a roar loud enough to shake her teeth. Her racing heart climbed into her throat as she stumbled forward, doing her best to keep from going down. Should she turn and fight the beast?
There was no way she’d win a battle against the strength she’d felt in that blow. She ha
d to get to the trees.
Just as she regained her momentum, the animal slammed into her back, knocking her forward with a force that tore through her. Her head banged against the ground even as sharp claws flipped her over.
Pain roared through her like liquid fire. Searing her side, twisting her neck as another blow jerked her back the other direction.
This would be the end of her. Would Pa survive in this wilderness alone?
Another hit, this one to her leg, skidded her across the ground.
A rifle shot ripped through the air. The bear roared, the sound fiercer than any of the others.
She wanted to curl into a ball, to hide away from the creature, but every part of her pulsed with a pain more ferocious than she’d ever imagined.
Something hard and sharp clamped down on her leg. Another gun blast.
She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think with the agony now honed in on her right thigh.
Then the pressure released.
The rifle sounded again, yet this time it seemed farther away. Through a distant haze.
She tried to fight it, but the haze closed in around her, blacker than the night.
Beaver Tail lay on his fur pallet, every part of his body tense. Three shots, so distant they could be from Wilkins’s camp. Had danger found the man and his daughter? Or maybe the bullets were only meant to bring down game. Perhaps an elk had wandered near and they’d needed to replenish their meat supply. But in the middle of the night?
And three shots?
Something was wrong, he could feel it deep inside. Yet what could he do? He was two hours’ run away from them. He’d have to wait and see how they fared in the morning’s light.
Yet no matter how many times he reassured himself, his sleep came in restless fragments. Two hours before the sun would rise, he nudged French awake with his moccasined foot. The man mumbled something, probably in his native language, but his slurred words were hard to decipher.
“If you still want to help the woman and her father, we leave now.” Beaver Tail moved on to Caleb’s side. “Wake up.”
The man groaned when Beaver Tail gave him the same nudge on his beefy shoulder. Caleb Jackson was a massive man, tall and broad enough to make most people quake in their buckskins. But his heart was just as oversized as the rest of him.
“We have visitors to help.” That reminder should jar him out of his slumber.
“Why can’t we help them in the daylight?” French peered at him with only one open eye.
As he’d suspected, Caleb hoisted himself to sit upright, his short-cut hair poking in all directions. He scrubbed a paw over his face, then blinked in the darkness.
Time to move on to the last man. He turned to Joel and eyed his face. Sleep hadn’t softened his intense features much. His mouth formed a thin line, and his brow wrinkled. Maybe it would be simpler to leave him behind. But that would be the easy way out.
Beaver Tail gave him the same toe nudge he’d given the others. Joel—always in perfect control of himself—raised one eyelid. “I’m coming.” His voice didn’t even sound sleepy. Probably he’d awakened when Beaver Tail first rose and had been feigning sleep. That would be like the man.
Beaver turned away and reached for a piece of roasted meat. Then he grabbed three more for the trail. “French, you go to the bottom of the rapids and get whatever packs they left there. You two, I’m leaving now and I’ll be running. If you want a part in this, get moving.”
That was all the nursemaiding he planned to do. The rest, they could decide for themselves. It’d be nice to have help hauling that boat and the rest of their things, but he’d do the work himself if he had to.
It wouldn’t be the first time in his life he’d had to bear the hard labor alone.
“Those two on the outside look to be the worst.”
Susanna forced her eyes open and watched as Pa peered at the tooth marks in her leg. He poured cool creek water over them.
The liquid burned like fire singing her skin, and she had to clamp tight around the stick in her hands to keep from screaming. Crimson-colored water streamed down her leg, reminding her too much of the blood that often leaked down Pa’s chin after a coughing fit.
“We need to drain the blood from the bear carcass before it cools.” She bit the words through clenched teeth. None of her bones were broken, so she could tend her own wounds. Her clothing would need stitched up too. But that could wait until daylight.
Not too much later than sunrise, though. How early would Beaver Tail come? A wide swath of fabric hung from her trousers where the bear had clamped on her right thigh. As strong as the creature’s jaws had been, it was a wonder his teeth hadn’t crushed her bone. Maybe Pa’s first bullet had weakened the animal.
Pa raised his focus to her face and eyed her for a long minute. She worked for a reassuring smile. Or at least a look that didn’t show the depth of her pain.
She must have accomplished it, because he pushed to his feet. “I guess we’d better not let all that meat go to waste. Maybe our new Indian friend can use some of it too.”
Good idea. She’d rather not have to haul around the meat from a full bear carcass, especially while she nursed these wounds. And especially as much food as this massive beast would provide. When Pa had stretched the body out, the creature looked to be taller than she was. From what they’d heard, game should be plentiful as they finished traveling up the Missouri and across the plains. They wouldn’t want for food for a while. The mountain country was where hunting would become harder.
While Pa prepared the bear carcass, she struggled to her feet and limped back toward camp. Her head throbbed with every step, making the world around her spin. When she pressed her hand against her forehead, the pain eased a little, but each step took concentration to keep from falling. She had to shake free of the haze that still trapped her mind.
She applied the salve they used for wounds—something they’d had to dip into on this journey more often than she liked—then forced herself to trudge back out to where Pa worked over the bear.
She’d made it across half the distance when he saw her coming. He sat back on his heels, raising a hand to point at her. “You go right back to camp and lie down. I’m sure you have more than a few scrapes and tooth marks than those I’ve seen. Rest your head and let yourself recover. At least for tonight.”
Normally, she’d ignore the warning. Skinning a full grizzly was too much work for him in his current condition, but she wasn’t sure how much strength she had left in her.
He must have seen her indecision. “I’m only going to bleed it tonight. In the morning we’ll finish the job.”
She eased out a breath. He could handle that much. She started to nod, but the knife of agony that shot up her neck stilled the action. “All right.”
Clamping her jaw to keep the pain inside, she turned and eased back toward their camp. Her bed pallet had never sounded so good.
Chapter 3
Voices drew Susanna from the fog of sleep, but it took several seconds before she could place any of the resonant tones.
Pa and…the Indian who’d carried their boat? She forced her grainy eyelids open but had to blink against the bright daylight. The aches in her leg and side gradually worked into her awareness, joining the steady throbbing in her head.
The voices had stopped, and she struggled to make her eyes and her mind focus. The figures finally shifted from blurry into a clearer picture.
A couple strides away, the Indian was crouched, watching her. His black hair was tied back in a leather strip at his nape but looked like it probably reached just below his shoulders. His dark eyes studied her with an unnerving intensity, as though he could see anything she tried to hide.
“Your head aches much?”
She would have thought the rumble of his deep voice would make the pain in her skull worse, but instead it soothed. Her pain must be showing on her face for him to know that much. She started to nod but caught herself, unwilling to endure the
extra throbbing.
Instead, she managed a wry smile. “You’ve been rolled by a bear before too?”
One corner of his mouth twitched. “Not by a bear, but rolling from a horse brings pain enough.”
His gaze scanned the length of her. Not indecently but rather looking for injuries. Her hand closed over the edge of the blanket. Good thing she’d laid the wool covering over her to protect her skin from attacking mosquitoes. It now also concealed her leg from indecent exposure at the rip in her trousers.
Beaver Tail seemed to sense her unease, for he stood and turned to her father. It was then she saw the other man beside Pa. No, two men.
She pulled the blanket farther up her chest, although she still wore the linen tunic that was the only shirt she’d brought on the journey. Pa had protested when she’d donned the men’s tunic and trousers, but if she was going to work like a man—rowing the dinghy upriver, hunting, and anything else Pa couldn’t manage these days—she might as well have the freedom of men’s clothing. She had brought one skirt but hadn’t donned it in well over a month. Especially since there was no one in this wilderness who would understand the rules she was breaking, the rules of polite society.
Except maybe the two men standing beside her father would know. White men. Who’d surely come from the States.
“Susanna, this is Caleb Jackson and Joel Vargas. They’ve come with Beaver Tail to help carry our things the rest of the way around the falls.” Pa motioned first to the giant of a man whose shock of auburn hair looked like it might shine copper in the sunlight, then to the smaller stranger, whose dark features fit tightly in his olive-colored face. Spanish maybe?
She mustered as much of a smile as she could in response to their nods, then forced herself to lower the blanket as far as her waist. Why did even that act make her feel exposed? She’d need to find a way to get the men out of camp long enough for her to stitch up the gaping hole in her trousers.
Freedom in the Mountain Wind Page 2