“It is men like you who give all your people a bad name,” Winona declared. “You are a coward who strikes only when you and your friends outnumber those you prey on. How many had their backs to you when you killed them? No doubt all of them.”
The Crow’s features twisted in anger. His hands flew in sign language. “The Absarokas are not Shoshones. We do not grovel at the feet of the whites! We do not want them taking all our beaver! We do not want them killing all our buffalo! I will never rest so long as a single white man defiles our land.”
His vehemence bordered on blind hatred. Winona had struck a nerve and rattled him to the point where he might not think straight when the time came for him to spring his trap, which was exactly what she wanted.
To the south a horse nickered. Thunder Heart gestured for her to be silent and stepped to the edge. Squatting, he surveyed the woodland.
Winona saw her chance. His back was to her. All it would take was a single push and he would hurtle over the brink to the boulders sixty feet below. Rising soundlessly into a crouch, she edged toward him, her arms outstretched for the fatal shove. She covered half the space between them. Three-fourths of it. Her fingertips were the span of a single hand from his spine.
Thunder Heart spun. Lightning bolts seemed to flicker in his eyes as he drew one of the pistols, pointed it at her face, and cocked the trigger. “Did you think I be that easy?” he rasped.
Winona waited for the hammer to fall. Instead, he made her sit back down, then slid her knife under the thin leather strap that supported his own knife sheath around his waist.
“Not try that again, woman,” the warrior said.
Off in the forest, a twig snapped. It was loud enough to tell Winona that her husband was very close. Soon he would be within pistol range. Would Thunder Heart really be brash enough to fire, even though it would take someone with great skill to hit anyone at that range with a flintlock? Surely not, she assured herself.
“This way, Nate! I found their tracks!”
Winona tensed. It had been Henry Allen who yelled. She heard hooves pound and muted voices. They had to be near the tree line. Coiling her legs, she prepared to sell her own life if need be to preserve the life of her mate and her children.
The Absaroka grinned from ear to ear. “The great Grizzly Killer not smart, eh?” he whispered. “Him care too much for you. Him do what I want.”
A hoof pinged off stone. Winona could wait no longer. She was going to warn Nate even if it meant the warrior killed her. An outcry was on the tip of her tongue when once more the Crow swiveled and grabbed her by the left wrist. His strength was overpowering. She was wrenched erect, her arm twisted behind her back. Then she was herded to the lip of the bluff in plain sight were her family and Allen. They immediately drew rein.
Thunder Heart, shielding himself with her body, jammed the pistol’s muzzle against Winona’s temple. His taunting laugh rolled off across the valley. “We meet again, Grizzly Killer!” he cried. “This time, you die!”
Nine
Richard Ashworth started off the morning in a good mood. He awoke at the crack of dawn, invigorated from an undisturbed night’s sleep. He was raring to face the new day and whatever challenges it might offer.
Birds filled the surrounding woodland with a sensational chorus of varied cries as Ashworth stepped from his tent and inhaled the crisp air. He had never felt so alive before, never been so inspired by a heartfelt zest for life.
Back in New York City, Ashworth had invariably slept in until 11 a.m. every day. He’d had to drag himself from under the sheets, pour a gallon of black coffee down his throat, and take a hot bath before he even began to feel vaguely human.
The long nights were to blame, Ashworth felt. Practically every night of the week he had stayed up until all hours, making the rounds of the theaters, visiting the best clubs, eating at only the best of restaurants.
Small wonder, Ashworth mused, that the family fortune had dwindled to its pathetic state. But that would all change. His plan was all coming together. Within two years he would have enough money to go on living in the lap of luxury for a long time to come. Invested wisely, the funds might even be sufficient to last his lifetime. What more could a man ask for?
Ashworth adjusted his cape, then tilted his high beaver hat at a rakish angle. Not far off a trapper was tending to the stock, and Ashworth noted how different the grungy man’s beaver hat was from his own.
Beaver hats sold in the States were regarded as the height of fashion. They were treated and trimmed until they were as smooth and soft as a baby’s bottom. The favored shape was much like a stovepipe, with a circular brim. At ten dollars a hat they were quite expensive, but no gentleman of means would be seen without one. They were a mark of status, of culture and breeding.
The mountain men, on the other hand, stitched their beaver hats together from freshly skinned hides. They left the hair on, and they preferred a shape that reminded Ashworth of the hats worn by Russian Cossacks. Crude beyond belief, the hats nevertheless kept the wearer’s head warm and dry in the worst of weather. Ashworth would never be caught dead in one.
A footfall behind him brought the New Yorker around to find his second shadow had once again attached itself to him. As usual, he made an effort to be civil. “Good morning, Emilio. Another fine morning, is it not?”
The hulking giant did not answer. Over the course of the nine weeks they had been together, Emilio had not grown to like Ashworth any better than he had that first day they met. If anything, his contempt had grown. Ashworth reminded Emilio of the landed gentry back in the old country, of the simpering aristocrats who believed they had a God-given right to trod everyone else underfoot.
The lack of a response mildly ruffled Richard Ashworth’s feathers. He told himself that he should be accustomed to it by now, that the watchdog was as refined as a lump of coal and marginally more intelligent than a turnip. “Don’t answer me then,” he scolded. “Exhibit your lack of social grace for all the world to see.”
Emilio smirked. He cared no more for the niceties of society than he did for those who practiced them.
Ashworth hid his irritation and strode toward the closed gate. Tendrils of smoke rising skyward west of the compound confirmed the Crow encampment was still there. The Indians were not allowed in at any time, a precaution suggested by Scott Kendall and Henry Allen. All business with the Crows and other bands who showed up was conducted outside.
The two trappers on guard duty were scruffy sorts with greasy beards and buckskins. Ashworth knew that he should know their names, but although he tried his best, he couldn’t recall what they were. Truth was, one mountain man pretty much looked like every other one to him.
“Morning, gentlemen,” Ashworth said. “Would either of you happen to know if Mr. King showed up during the night?”
“As far as this hoss knows, booshway,” said a gnarled specimen of manhood, “no. If n you ask me, them Crows made buzzard bait of the Kings. Little Soldier and his bunch are no account any ways you lay your sights.”
“I beg your pardon?” Ashworth said. Trying to comprehend trapper jargon vexed him greatly. Most of them had an appalling grasp of grammar and mispronounced words with careless abandon.
“Maybe the Crows rubbed them out,” the man clarified.
“Why would they want to do that?” Ashworth asked. “Little Soldier gave me his word of honor that he would be on his best behavior the whole time he’s camped near us.”
From behind the New Yorker a new voice intruded. Reminiscent of gravel being poured over a tin plate, it at least had the distinction of clear diction. “When are you going to learn, sir, that you can’t trust those Crows any farther than you can heave a griz? Little Soldier is only being friendly because it suits his purpose.”
Ashworth turned. Of the sixty men under him, three stood out as eminently reliable. One was Kendall, another Allen. The third was Clive Jenks, a fellow New Yorker who had left a farm upstate to seek his fortune west
of the broad Mississippi. “And how many times must I tell you, Mr. Jenks, that so long as Little Soldier behaves himself we must give him the benefit of the doubt?”
Clive Jenks was a short, rawboned man whose buckskins were nearly worn out at the elbows and knees. He was so fond of snuff that he always had a wad in his mouth, bulging one cheek or the other. Spitting brown juice at his feet, he cocked a blue eye at Ashworth. “Any coon that goes around giving Injuns the benefit of the doubt is just asking to spend the rest of his days bald, if you take my meaning.”
“My intellect is up to the challenge, thank you very much,” Ashworth said dryly. It bothered him a little that, after all he had done to meet the trappers halfway, after he had accepted their advice on every matter under the sun, they still saw fit to question his judgment on this one trivial affair.
Ashworth had always rated himself an excellent judge of character, and in his opinion, Little Soldier was as dependable as any savage could be and more so than most. The Crow had bent over backward to comply with every demand made of him, and was tickled silly at being picked to help guide the expedition into Blackfoot country.
Why couldn’t the mountain men just accept that? Ashworth mused. Why did they persist with their unfounded suspicion? It was no wonder the trappers and several tribes were on such bad terms, when the whites refused, to offer an open hand of friendship.
Ashworth would change all that. He would make them see that the Crows could be trusted. He would teach them that the proper way to conduct themselves was as perfect gentlemen. And who knew? Once he had proven it worked with Little Soldier, maybe he would do the same with the Blackfeet.
As his father had always said, a little breeding went a long way.
Nate King started to raise his Hawken, but stopped at the sight of his wife perched precariously on the very brink of the bluff. A fall from that height would cripple or kill her. “Don’t shoot,” he said as Henry Alley began to lift the Kentucky.
“Did you really think I would?” the man from Tennessee responded.
Zach King made no attempt to use his rifle. He had his hands full with Evelyn, who had been entrusted to his care. She sat in front of him, always squirming and fidgeting in the saddle, a regular armful. On spying their mother, Evelyn bawled, “Ma! Leave her be, bad man!” She tried to scramble down off the bay but Zach held on tight.
“Be still, Blue Flower,” Nate said, and she instantly obeyed. Both children had learned at an early age not to sass their parents. Indian children were brought up the same way. Their lives too often hung in the balance for them to get into the nasty habit of rebelling. Not so back in the States, where pampered offspring of immature parents were frequently permitted to do and say whatever they wanted, when they wanted, including talking back to their own folks.
Nate saw that the Crow had one of Winona’s flintlocks pressed to her temple, and his blood ran cold. “You can’t hope to kill us all!” he shouted up. “Let her go, and I give you my word that you’ll be free to leave. You can even take one of our horses.”
Thunder Heart gouged the muzzle deeper into Winona’s skin. “Drop guns, white dog, or I shoot!” He pushed Winona a trifle farther out and dirt cascaded from under her moccasins. “You shoot me, she fall!”
Winona knew her husband would do as the Absaroka wanted. Nate would do anything to spare her from harm, even put himself at the mercy of a warrior who had none. She tried to twist and grapple with Thunder Heart but he held her too firmly.
Only Winona’s heels rested on the rim. Another fraction more and she would topple onto the boulders below. Glancing down, she observed a long, thin ledge. No more than a couple of inches wide, it was too narrow to support a person—or was it?
Nate slowly lowered his Hawken to the ground, saying out of the corner of his mouth, “Sorry I got you into this, Henry. It was my fight, not yours.”
“What else are friends for?” the Tennessean said, bending low so his Kentucky would not hit the ground hard when he let go. “But if you think I’m giving up my pistols, too, you have another think coming. Once he disarms us, he’ll torture us a spell. No matter what he claims, he wants to see us suffer.”
“Now the pistols!” Thunder Heart called down.
Nate needed to stall, to have time to ponder. “Let my wife back away from the edge and we’ll do as you want.”
Laughing, Thunder Heart shook Winona so violently that she nearly went over. “Drop your pistols!” he repeated. “I not say it again!”
Nate reluctantly put a hand on each flintlock. He wished that Winona could somehow take a short step to either side to give him a clear shot.
Zach was thinking that, if he could slip a hand behind his sister’s back, he could draw his flintlock without being seen. The only drawback was that, if the Crow spotted him and fired, Evelyn might take a ball meant for him.
“Be quick!” Thunder Heart warned. “Or I shoot Shoshone!”
Winona’s arm was close to being torn from its socket. She could feel the Absarokas knuckles digging into her spine between her shoulder blades. He had such an unbreakable grip that it was just possible he would be unable to let go quickly enough if she could take him by surprise.
Nate put a hand on his right pistol. He had been backed into a corner. He had to draw swiftly and fire and pray that Winona did not fall when the Crow did. His hand tensed, his thumb hooked the hammer.
Up on the bluff, Thunder Heart gloated in Winona’s ear. “See, Shoshone? The great Grizzly Killer not so mighty! You make him weak! Because of you, he lose life!”
“That’s what you think,” Winona said. Suddenly she flung her heels over the brink. She dropped like a rock, tearing loose from her captor. As she fell, she twisted around to face the bluff. The ledge flashed up to meet her and she flung both arms out, her fingers digging into the soil. For a dreadful moment, she feared the earth would give way and she would plunge to the bottom, but the ledge held. Her arms lanced with torment, she hung on.
Nate’s breath had caught in his throat. He almost screamed his wife’s name, then saw her catch hold. At the same time, Thunder Heart, who had toppled forward and nearly gone over the rim, was on his hands and knees, taking aim at her. Nate drew and his flintlock thundered. The crack of his pistol was echoed by the blast of Allen’s, who in turn was echoed a split second later by the boom of Zach’s.
Like a punctured water skin, the Crow deflated. Three new holes had sprouted into existence on his face, two above his eyes, one below them. The pistol slipped from his nerveless fingers.
Winona flinched when a hard object struck her shoulder. The flintlock appeared below her, tumbling end over end. She saw it smash down at the bottom and the butt shatter. Glancing up, she discovered that the Absaroka was slowly sliding over the rim—directly toward her.
“Ma!” Zach cried.
Nate was in motion, galloping along the bluff in search of a way to reach the crest. A game trail bearing scuff marks and partial prints revealed how his wife and the Crow had gained the summit. Vaulting from the saddle, he flew upward, legs pumping. He tried not to think of Winona slipping, tried not to imagine the result should she be dashed onto those jagged boulders. Just climb! his mind screeched.
Winona had seen her man ride off. It would not take him long to find the trail, but reaching the top would be another matter. Could she hold on that long when her shoulders were aflame with agony and the dirt under her fingernails was slowly but steadily crumbling away? She heard her children calling her name and marshalled her strength to reply.
“Do not fear! I will be all right! Your father will save me!”
Zach wanted to believe her. But the sight of wisps of dust swirling from under her hands alarmed him. Even he could see that her grip was being lost bit by gradual bit and that eventually she would do as the pistol had done. “There must be something we can do!”
“If only there were, boy,” Allen said. “If only there were.”
Winona overheard. It occurred to her th
at, if she fell, her son and daughter would witness every grisly detail. “Stalking Coyote!” she hollered. “Take Blue Flower into the trees!”
For the first time in his entire life, Zachary King balked at doing something his folks wanted him to do. “I’m staying right here, Ma!” he responded at a loss to understand why she wanted them to leave.
“Please, son!” Winona said. Her fingers were losing their purchase, especially her left hand, where her little finger no longer had a grip. The ledge under it had dissolved.
“I should stay with you!” Zach insisted.
The Tennessean leaned toward him and said, barely above a whisper, “Think, boy! She doesn’t want your sister to have to live with the memory.”
“The memory of what?” Zach asked. No sooner did he phrase the words than he knew. The trapper’s expression was his clue. He glanced at his mother, then at Evelyn, who gaped upward in undisguised terror. “Oh, I reckon I savvy now. Sorry.”
Zach started to rein his bay around to trot into the woods when a rain of dirt and pebbles snapped his gaze on high. More of the ledge had crumbled. His mais left hand clung to the bluff by a fingernail. “Hang on!” he yelled. “Please, Ma! Don’t let anything happen to you!”
Winona was doing her best. She held herself as still as was humanly possible and breathed shallow. She also had propped her knees against the bluff to take some of the strain off her arms. But there was nothing she could do about the ledge. It continued to fall apart, small clumps of earth at a time.
The biggest clod yet broke off. Winona’s left hand clawed empty air. Dangling by one arm, she groped the sheer wall, seeking in vain for a solid handhold that wasn’t there. Her legs swung from side to side. The muscles in her right shoulder were aflame with anguish. It wouldn’t be long.
A rain of dust heaped onto Winona’s head from much higher up. Tilting her head back, she saw that the Absaroka was about to pitch over the edge. Hoping to swing out of the way, she tried to place her left hand next to her right, but she couldn’t clamp her fingers tight enough to get a solid grip.
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