Wilderness Giant Edition 5

by David Robbins

  Henry Allen was largely responsible for achieving order out of the chaos. The Tennessean was everywhere, giving advice, lending help where it was needed.

  Suddenly loud yipping broke out to the north. The war party was moving in on the stock sooner than Nate had anticipated! He was on, the ground and speeding toward the armory before anyone else realized what was happening. “Mount up!” he hollered over and over.

  There was one last thing Nate had to do. With his tomahawk, he busted the tops of three kegs of black power open and upended two of them on top of the stockpiled powder, balls, and guns. Grabbing the third keg, he upended it like the others, but this one he held on to as he backed from the armory and dashed to the spot where he had left his family.

  Winona and Zach were on their horses. Nate took the reins to his stallion and moved next to the ribbon of black powder. Drawing one of his pistols, he cocked it, pointed it at the powder, then glanced up to insure all was in readiness. Most of the brigade had heeded him. Only a few had yet to climb on their animals. Allen and several others were standing by to open the gate.

  Nate pulled trigger. At the blast, sparks and tiny flames shot up from the exposed powder. Crackling and hissing, the flames sputtered toward the armory at a brisk clip.

  “Now!” Nate cried, and launched himself onto the black. The Tennessean and company tugged the gate wide open, and as was fitting, Nate became the first man out. He was smiling, confident that he had handily outwitted their enemies. He was wrong.

  Over seventy warriors remained south of the fort. Some were to the east, some to the west, but the largest number were clustered around Little Soldier’s body in the very middle of the cleared space, barring the most direct route out of the valley. The moment Nate appeared, they howled in fury and charged toward Fort Ashworth like a horde of crazed wolverines.

  Twenty-Three

  It was too late to stop. There was no turning back. The brigade was committed to the course of action Nate had chosen. He angled to the east, where the smallest number of warriors were, and bore down on them at a gallop. A glance back revealed that all the mountaineers and their families were hard on his heels, staying in a compact group, the women and children in the center as he had directed.

  Henry Allen, Wild Tom, and other reliable men were at the forefront, right behind Nate. They were the ones who would bear the brunt of the impending violence, and to a man they were as grim as the specter of death that hovered over all their heads.

  Nate didn’t see any sign of Richard Ashworth or Emilio Barzini. He hadn’t thought to make sure they were with the group before riding out, and he couldn’t afford to go look for them. The greenhorn and the Sicilian were on their own. Live or die, it was in their hands.

  A piercing war whoop reminded Nate of the large body of warriors slanting to cut the brigade off. Even though the warriors were on foot, they stood a good chance of doing it; they were as fleet as antelope. Nate held his fire, saving his lead for when it would be most needed.

  The warriors to the east had fanned out to prevent the brigade from getting past. Nate gauged how much ground the brigade had to cover before it reached them, then how much there was between the brigade and the seventy to eighty warriors rushing madly forward, and he concluded that the brigade would reach the east edge of the trees with perhaps a thirty-yard lead.

  The fly in the ointment were the fifteen warriors who had fanned out in front of the woods. If they could slow the brigade down, delay it for just five to ten seconds, then the larger bunch would get there and it was doubtful any member of the brigade would ever get out of the valley alive.

  As if reading Nate’s thoughts, Henry Allen pulled alongside the stallion and hollered, “We have to break through that line or we’re worm food!”

  Nate nodded. Suddenly a horse whinnied stridently, and he looked around to behold one of the trappers catapulting to earth on a sorrel with an arrow jutting from its side. The man rolled clear and was picked up in seconds by a friend. But that arrow was only the first of many, as the charging warriors unleashed a hailstorm of shafts and lead balls.

  Nate clamped a mental lid on the cauldron of anxiety roiling in the pit of his gut. He needed a clear head for what was to come. Any lapse, and the consequences would be too terrible to contemplate.

  The fifteen Blackfeet, Bloods, and Piegans ahead were elevating bows and lances and a few fusees. They, too, held their fire, and it wasn’t hard for Nate to guess why. They planned to stop the brigade cold with a united volley. The ploy just might work.

  Nate didn’t care that he was one of their foremost targets. He bore straight down on them, the black stallion flowing like the wind. He had time for a hasty glance at Winona, and then he was close enough to open fire. He took aim as best he could.

  At the very instant Nate’s finger tightened, the brush behind the line of warriors parted, spilling out Clive Jenks and nine other brawny mountaineers who were on the Indians before the warriors had any idea the newcomers were there. Tomahawks, knives, and rifle butts flashed. Ten of the warriors were dead in a span of moments, their brains and blood splattered over the grass.

  The five Indians who were left were brave men; they turned to do battle. Jenks and company hardly broke stride. And since there were two trappers for each warrior, the outcome was never in question. The red men went down without taking a single trapper with them.

  Jenks knew what he was about. As soon as the last foe fell, he and his men darted to the south to get out of the way of the flying brigade.

  By this time Nate was twenty yards away. He reined sharply to the right and halted. Allen and five others automatically did the same. When the main group started to slow, Nate motioned them on, bellowing, “Keep going! Keep going! Don’t stop until you reach the Salmon! Ride! Ride!”

  Nate glimpsed Zach as the brigade pounded on past. He smiled grimly, but had no idea whether his son saw. Then, wheeling the stallion, he pointed at the uneven phalanx of charging warriors, and leaped to the ground.

  The other mountain men understood. Jenks and the trappers with him rushed forward to help, forming into a skirmish line. Allen and the five mounted men promptly dismounted, adding their rifles.

  The seventy-eight warriors belonging to the Blackfoot Confederacy never slowed. Why should they? They had the whites outnumbered. And they had just seen fifteen of their fellows slain. Thirsting for vengeance, craving coup, screeching and whooping, they closed on the hated whites who dared defy them.

  Nate dropped to one knee to take deliberate aim. “Don’t shoot until I say so!” he shouted.

  Thirty-five yards were all that separated the two forces. Then thirty. Then twenty-five. Nate would have waited even longer, but he had to give Jenks’s men time to reach their horses, concealed in the trees. “Now!” he roared.

  Seventeen Hawkens and Kentuckys cracked as one. Fifteen warriors in the leading line of warriors went down, clutching at shattered sternums or grasping at holes that blossomed in their foreheads. Those behind had to either leap over the bodies or slow down to avoid them. Most slowed. And it was then, as the momentum of the attackers was briefly broken, that a tremendous explosion rent the morning air, an explosion the likes of which none of the warriors had ever witnessed. To them, it was as if a hundred thunderclaps had sounded simultaneously. Sheets of flame and smoke spewed skyward above Fort Ashworth. To a man, the Confederacy froze to see the spectacle.

  Not so Nate and the other trappers. They broke for cover, those mountain men who had mounts handy swinging up and covering the flight of those who had left theirs in the trees. In seconds the foliage closed around them.

  Nate held back, watching the warriors. The Blackfeet, Bloods, and Piegans were still agape at the mammoth flames that engulfed the bowels of the post. Secondary explosions took place every few seconds, the scene reminiscent of a fireworks festival.

  It wouldn’t be long before the warriors realized their prey was eluding them. Nate slapped his legs against the stallion and en
tered the pines. Everyone else had gone. He brought the stallion to a trot and rode for over ten minutes without seeing a soul. A knoll hove into sight. Nate went to the top and placed a hand above his eyes to reduce the glare.

  To the southeast a knot of trappers were crossing a meadow. To the northeast were a pair of riders who had strayed wide of the mark. One wore a flowing cape. The other was a human mountain. Nate galloped to the northeast.

  Richard Ashworth was misery incarnate. He had never been so despondent in his life. Dazed by the disaster, he rode along not paying any attention to his surroundings, oblivious to where he was going.

  “I’m ruined!” Ashworth breathed over and over and over. Tears dampened his cheeks.

  It didn’t seem real. Ashworth couldn’t accept that his grand scheme had come undone, that he had lost everything. Everything! Every last piece of property he owned. Even the family estate. All of it was gone. Thanks to motley savages who slicked their hair with bear fat and traipsed around half naked! It was too ridiculous for words.

  “What do I do now?” Ashworth wailed. “What do I do?” He was so lost in despair that it took a few moments for the statement he heard to register.

  “We’ve gone far enough.”

  Wiping a cuff across his face, Ashworth glanced around. He had completely forgotten about his guardian. “Oh, Emilio!” he said sadly, reining up. They were in a small clearing in a stand of pines.

  The Sicilian said nothing. He had a job to do.

  Climbing down, he walked to Ashworth’s horse and loosened the straps to the expensive carrying cases the dandy carried behind his saddle.

  “See here?” Ashworth said, perplexed. “What the dickens do you think you’re doing?”

  “I don’t think. I know,” Emilio responded as he took the twin cases over to his own mount. He draped them over the back of the animal and tied them securely. Pivoting, he rubbed his hands together, savoring the moment. “I can’t tell you how much I’ve looked forward to this.”

  “To what?” Ashworth said, his perplexity growing. He detected a cold gleam in the giant’s beady eyes that was almost frightening.

  Emilio moved slowly toward the expedition leader. “You have no idea how hard it has been for me to put up with you all these months.”

  “It hasn’t been easy for me either,” Ashworth said, indignant. “Having you hover over me every waking moment was enough to give a lesser man fits. Why your employers saw fit to send you along, I will never know.”

  “They had their investment to think of,” Emilio said, “which is why they gave me certain orders.”

  “Orders?” Ashworth was growing more concerned by the second. The giant’s countenance was twisted in raw hatred.

  “The Brothers like to think ahead, to cover every contingency,” Emilio said. “They were counting on you to come through for them, but in the event you failed, I was told to take certain steps.”

  Ashworth’s whole body trembled as if from an abrupt chill. At last he comprehended. “You can’t be serious!”

  “But I am. I’m to return what is left of the money. First, though, I get to show you how the Brothers feel about failure.”

  Too late, Ashworth attempted to flee. He raised the reins and flicked them once. Then hands three times the size of his own clamped onto his last decent shirt and heaved him from the saddle. The impact knocked the breath from his lungs. He struggled to sit up, but he was much too sluggish. From out of nowhere a ponderous foot slammed into his chest, pinning him in place.

  “In the Old Country we have a name for men like you,” Emilio said. He was in no rush. The Indians were far behind, and he wanted to indulge himself. “In English, it translates as foul-smelling weasel.”

  “Let me go!” Ashworth protested, trying to push the foot off him. It was like striving to lift a ten-ton block of marble.

  Emilio leaned forward to apply more weight. He liked how Ashworth’s face flushed red, and the feel of ribs sagging close to the breaking point under his sole. “It wasn’t bad enough I had to let you lord it over me as if I were your servant,” he said as if addressing a child who had misbehaved. “I also had to listen to all your whining whenever anything went wrong. I had to tolerate your moans and groans at every little inconvenience.” He pressed hard. “It was disgusting. You are disgusting.”

  Ashworth barely heard. Acute pain racked his whole body. Most excruciating of all was the agony in his chest. He was sure that it would stave in at any second. “Please!” he said.

  Emilio frowned. “Groveling. How typical.” He placed a hand on his knee and bent even lower. Ashworth gurgled and wriggled like a hooked fish. “I want you to know that I will enjoy this, that I have never looked forward to killing anyone as much as I have to killing you.”

  “No!” Ashworth wheezed, pounding at the foot that held him down. He screeched when something inside of him broke with a distinct crack. Moist drops burst from his nose.

  “If I had till day,” Emilio said, “I would do this right. Chop off your fingers one by one. Stick burning sticks into your eyes. Things like that. But since I don’t have all day—” Sighing, Emilio wrapped his left hand around the other man’s neck.

  Ashworth felt his breath choked off, felt his body lifted effortlessly into the air. He kicked, but he might as well have kicked a brick wall. He struck feebly at the giant’s chest, but it was like hitting solid stone.

  “Good-bye,” Emilio said, vibrant with the thrill of extinguishing another life. “Save a seat for me in the inferno.” He squeezed, his fingers plying flesh as if it were so much clay, heedless of the warm blood that spurted onto his wrist. There were a few final convulsions, and the deed was done. Contemptuously, he cast the body down, wiped his hand on Ashworth’s cape, and turned to depart.

  “Not another step, you son of a bitch!”

  Emilio knew enough to stand perfectly still. It surprised him that he had not heard anyone approach. He saw the other man he so wanted to kill gliding toward him and inwardly smiled. It was his lucky day.

  Nate King had seen the two men enter the pines. Fifty yards out, he’d heard Ashworth cry out. Assuming that the pair had run into more hostiles, Nate had dismounted and sneaked closer. He’d reached the clearing just as the giant threw the lifeless husk that had once been the expedition’s leader to the ground.

  Now Nate circled around in front of the Sicilian, a cocked pistol in his right hand. He hadn’t had time to reload the Hawken and left it with the stallion.

  “I should have known it would be you,” Emilio said good-naturedly.

  “Shut up.”

  Nate looped around to where he could see Ashworth plainly. Any doubts he harbored that the greenhorn was dead evaporated when he saw Ashworth’s ruptured throat. “Why?” he wanted to know.

  “Does it really matter?” Emilio said, continuing to smile even as he slowly lowered his arms to his sides. A twist of both wrist, and a stiletto filled each hand, unseen by the mountaineer.

  “No, I reckon it doesn’t,” Nate said. He thoughtfully regarded the Sicilian. “The question is: what do we do with you?”

  There were no courts of law west of the Mississippi. The trappers lived by a very simple code: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. When a man committed rank murder, he usually answered to the friends of the victim.

  Only in this case, Nate mused, the victim had no true friends. Few of the mountain men had grown close to Richard Ashworth. His standoffish ways had insured that he died unmourned, except for possibly Red Blanket.

  “I’ll take you along and let the others decide what should be done,” Nate said. That was the fair thing to do. Were it up to him, he would shoot the giant and be done with it, but then he held a personal grudge. It was hardly right for him to set himself up as judge, jury, and executioner.

  “Whatever you say,” Emilio said with a shrug of his broad shoulders. As he shrugged, he flipped his left hand up and out, almost too fast for the human eye to follow.

  Nate ca
ught the movement barely in time. He pivoted, twisting as the slender blade sought his heart. In turning, he inadvertently held his right hand in front of his chest. The stiletto struck it a resounding blow and glanced off, catching him high on the forehead.

  A burning sensation seared Nate’s brow. He had been nicked, no more. Blood flowed. Not much, yet it got into his left eye and momentarily blinded him. Blinking to clear his vision, he extended the pistol at Barzini. Only the Sicilian was no longer there.

  Nate swung to the left. As he did, a vise closed on his wrist. His arm was brutally wrenched so viciously it nearly broke. He had no choice but to drop the flintlock.

  Emilio slid around in front of the mountain man and wagged his other stiletto in front of King’s nose. “You are a disappointment, cur,” he rasped while applying more pressure on the wrist. “Here I thought that you, at least, would be a challenge.”

  Forced to bend sideways or have his arm snapped, Nate gritted his teeth and glared at the complacent hulk. “I wouldn’t want to let you down,” he said, then kicked Barzini where it hurt every man the most.

  Emilio had expected just such a move and was ready for it. All he had to do was shift his weight to deflect it with his thigh. He had done the same a hundred times in as many fights. But this time something went wrong. For as quick as he was, he wasn’t quite quick enough. The kick landed solidly.

  Pain lanced through him. Releasing King, he staggered.

  Nate spun into a crouch, his Bowie clearing leather with the speed of thought. He sliced it across the back of Barzini’s leg, then skipped out of reach of the stiletto.

  Emilio, furious, took a step, intending to end their clash with a single stroke. But a strange thing happened. His left leg buckled, and he crumpled onto his left knee.

  Like a tawny panther pouncing on prey, Nate swept toward the Sicilian’s left side again. Barzini parried. As their blades rang together, Nate rotated to the right and slashed at his true target, the back of the giant’s other leg.