Nate opened his mouth to say the rifle would not fire.
That was when a buffalo hove out of the night.
Five
It was an old cow. Apparently she had fallen during the stampede and been trampled by her own kind. Jagged bone showed white against her lower front leg, and she bore multiple wounds. One was a long gash on her neck that oozed a copious flow of blood.
Shipley squeezed the trigger and was rewarded with a dry click. The cow was almost on top of him when he leaped aside.
In her weakened, dazed state, the cow had not noticed him until he moved. Startled, she veered, limping badly, and blundered into the spring. The splash was tremendous. She kicked and thrashed, sending waves sloshing. But she could not stay afloat. She was nearly spent. Her head went under, and her struggles grew weaker and weaker until finally they ceased altogether.
“Did you see?” Shipley marveled. “That brainless clod almost killed me.”
Nate was more concerned about something else, but they had no means of hauling the cow out of the water. Tactfully, he said, “We would be well advised to stay where we are.”
“I suppose,” the farmer conceded.
The dust was thinning, but they could not see more than twenty feet. Once the water stopped sloshing, quiet reigned.
“Wait until I tell my friends that I lived through a buffalo stampede,” Shipley said. “They won’t believe it.”
“We were lucky,” Nate said.
Beecher was fiddling with his rifle. “I have dry powder on my packhorse. We should look for our animals.”
“We won’t find them stumbling around in the dark,” Nate said.
“So we waste the entire night?” Shipley grumbled. “I think it’s a mistake. We need dry powder. We need it now, before another buffalo or something else comes along. I’m going to look for them whether you want me to or not.”
“You’re a grown man.”
“It’s nice of you to notice.” Shipley beckoned his wife. “Come on, Cyn. This fellow is on his own from here on out.”
“No,” Cynthia said softly.
“Excuse me? It is unseemly for you to stay here by yourself. I won’t have it.” Shipley held out his hand to her.
“No, Ship. Mr. King is right. We won’t accomplish much bumbling about in the dark. Let’s do as he says and wait until we have light to see by.”
“I resent this, Cyn,” Ship said. “I resent it heartily.”
“I’m sorry. Truly sorry. But he knows this country and we don’t. We must rely on his judgment.”
“Must we indeed?” Shipley archly rejoined. But he slung his rifle across his chest, and squatted. “I must say, this experience has been a revelation, and I’m not sure I like what I’ve learned.”
“You’re talking in riddles,” Cynthia said. “You can’t fault me for doing what I believe is best.”
“You promised to love, honor, and obey, remember? Yet, one of the few times I insist, you refuse.”
“Please, Ship,” Cynthia said. “This is hardly the time for a spat. I love you as dearly as ever. But I don’t always agree with your decisions, and this is one of those I don’t agree with.”
Nate was tired of their squabbling. To put a stop to it, he interjected, “Why not tell Jackson exactly where you are?”
“What can he do without weapons?” Shipley said curtly. But he quit his carping.
The rest of the night was a grueling test of nerves and will. Nate refused to fall asleep, but along about three in the morning, he did. Not for long, no more than half an hour, but he was annoyed by his lapse.
A pink tinge in the eastern sky brought a sense of relief. But Nate did not relax his vigilance, not when the pink became gold, nor when a blazing yellow crown rested on the world’s shoulders.
Shipley and Cynthia had been sleeping for hours. Cynthia awoke first, and blinked in astonishment. “Where did everything go?”
Except for about a dozen of the larger cottonwoods, the island of vegetation in the sea of grass was no more. In its place was trampled earth, bare soil pockmarked with thousands upon thousands of hoofprints. The undergrowth—every bush, every plant—had been pulverized to bits and swept away as if by a giant broom. Here and there were the splintered remnants of toppled trees. The birds that had roosted in those trees were gone, the small creatures that had made their homes in the underbrush had fled or been trampled.
Dust covered everything. It covered Nate and the farmer and his wife. It covered the dead cow that floated in the spring, and choked the water. Once so pure, the spring was now a reddish brown; a brown from the dust and red from the cow’s blood.
Drawing his tomahawk, Nate waded in to his shins and chopped off a good-sized piece of flank.
“What on earth are you doing?” Shipley Beecher asked.
“Breakfast.”
“I don’t know as I’m hungry.”
“Me either,” Cynthia said.
But both ate their ample share after Nate roasted the meat. While they were wiping their fingers on their clothes, he waded back in and chopped off another sizable piece and a strip of hide to wrap it in.
Shipley pointed at the hide. “You’re taking some with us?”
“Unless you would rather starve.”
“Which way do we go?” Cynthia asked. “We won’t last long without our provisions.”
“Stay calm,” Ship said. “It’s not as bad as it seems.”
No, it’s worse, Nate almost said aloud. Their horses were gone. They were stranded. Their source of water had been fouled. The haunch he was taking would not last long. Their powder was still wet, so their guns were still useless. As if that were not enough, they were in the heart of hostile territory. Comanche country, no less. And they had a white enemy to deal with.
“Is there any sign of Byron?” Cynthia asked.
Nate gazed at the stub of a cottonwood trunk a ways off. Beside it, caked with dirt, was part of a canine skull. A freshly caved-in skull, the brain partly visible. In a way the dog was the lucky one. It had died a quick death. Which was more than might be said for them. “I haven’t seen him,” he fibbed, hoping she would not notice it.
“I hope he got away.”
Shouldering the Hawken, Nate turned north and began walking. He did not let himself dwell on how far it was to Bent’s Fort.
“Wait, Mr. King.” Cynthia caught up and matched his pace. “I want the truth about something.” She waited for an acknowledgment that was not offered. “I sense you are upset.”
“It’s nothing your husband can’t fix.”
“Ship can be a trial, I admit. But he’s a good person at heart. Once you get to know him better, you’ll see.”
“If you say so.” Nate was saving his breath for hiking.
“My husband likes to do things his way, is all,” Cynthia explained. “He always has.”
“And you always let him.”
“That’s harsh,” Cynthia said. “I won’t deny he is hardheaded. But deep down he is a peach or I wouldn’t have married him.”
Nate glanced over his shoulder. Shipley was a dozen yards back, slouching along like a petulant child. “Was that what you wanted to ask about?”
“No. I want to know what our chances are. Don’t sugarcoat it. I won’t fall to pieces.”
“I won’t lie. They aren’t good,” Nate confessed. No sense, he thought, in mentioning the hurdles they must overcome. He squinted at the sun, dreading when the heat would worsen.
“In other words, you have doubts we’ll make it. But surely the three of us, working together, will survive?”
“We can try out best,” Nate said.
Thankfully, Cynthia did not talk his head off but settled down to hour after hour of steady plodding. They started out strong, but by noon the prairie was an inferno in the fiery grip of its relentless mistress. Sweat poured from their bodies, and their throats were parched. Shipley cursed cow buffaloes.
The afternoon was everything Nate feared it woul
d be. The heat was relentless. It came off the prairie in blistering waves, plastering his buckskins to his body. But he did not mind the burden of the meat. It gained them another day of life.
They saw no trace of buffalo other than a dead calf that had slipped and been mangled. They also came across a dead rabbit, or what little was left of it, and the front half of a doe.
The Beechers did not have much to say. Shipley, in particular, was a human clam. Whenever Nate glanced at him, the farmer looked away.
Nate was in superb condition, but even he dragged his heels by sunset. His legs were leaden. He longed for a drink of water. Just one cool, refreshing drink.
Grass had to suffice for their fire, but it burned too quickly. They had to constantly add more. They were so famished, they tore into the haunch before it was halfway cooked, and didn’t care.
The Beechers did not have much to say to one another, which was just as well. Another evening of their prattle would test Nate’s self-control.
It was about eight o’clock when Nate opened his powder horn and poured a thimble-full into his palm. The powder felt dry to the touch, but he had to be sure. He reloaded the Hawken. He started by flipping the frizzen open and ensuring that the hammer was forward. Next he poured powder from the powder horn down the barrel. Taking a ball from his ammo pouch, he wrapped it in a patch. He fed the patch and ball into the barrel, tamping them down with the ramrod. He charged the pan with powder, adding no more than half a pan, and flipped the frizzen back.
Shipley watched with interest. “If your powder works, mine will too.”
Nate checked the flint. He thumbed back the hammer. He pulled the rear trigger to set the front trigger. Other than grass, grass, and more grass, there was nothing to shoot at, so he aimed at a clump fifty yards from where he stood, and fired. He was rewarded with a crack and the belch of smoke and lead, and part of the clump dissolved in a spray of dirt.
“Now we can hunt and defend ourselves,” Shipley said happily, unslinging his rifle.
Nate reloaded his Hawken yet again. He inspected and reloaded one of his pistols. He was replacing the powder in the second pistol when Cynthia Beecher cleared her throat.
“I hope you won’t mind my saying, but I’m surprised you still use flintlocks. I don’t know a lot about firearms, but I do know that percussion models have been popular for a while now.”
Nate shrugged. “Flintlocks are what I’m used to.”
“I’m the same way,” Shipley interjected. “Although my uncle and my cousin have been wanting me to switch for a few years now. They say it’s easier and faster to reload a percussion than a flintlock.”
“It’s worth looking into,” Cynthia stressed.
Nate realized she was attempting to be helpful, so he smiled and said, “Maybe I will on my next visit to St. Louis.” He bought all his firearms from the Hawken brothers, and he trusted their workmanship.
Presently, the firmament sparkled with a myriad of stars, the spectacle made all the more dazzling by the rising of a full moon. A moon so big and bright, it lent the illusion they could reach out and touch it.
“How beautiful!” Cynthia breathed. “We never had moons like this back in Indiana. I wonder why that should be.”
“I talked to a man once who said it had something to do with the atmosphere,” Nate related. He gestured at the heavenly body. “A lot of plains tribes call this the Thunder Moon.”
“The Indians give the moon names?”
“What we call January, most tribes call the Cold Moon. February is the Hunger Moon. Some tribes called March the Crow Moon. Others call it the Waking Moon. April is known as the Grass Moon and the Geese Moon—”
“Let me guess,” Cynthia interrupted. “Because that’s when the geese fly north again?”
Nate nodded. “May is the Planting Moon. June is the Buck Moon, or Rose Moon. Then there is the Heat Moon, or Blood Moon, depending on the tribe. Which brings us to the Thunder Moon. Or, as some tribes in the northwest call it, the Sturgeon Moon.”
“Too many moons for me to remember them all,” Cynthia said.
“The Thunder Moon has a third name,” Nate said. “Some call it the Comanche Moon. It’s the time of year when the Comanches range far and wide in search of throats to slit. White throats, mostly.”
Shipley sniffed in irritation. “Did you have to bring that up and frighten my wife half to death?”
“I mentioned it for your sake, too,” Nate informed him. “This is the time of year when we are most likely to run into a Comanche war party.”
“Let them come,” Shipley Beecher said. “I’ll teach them to have respect for their betters.”
The five came north again. As before, it was Nocona’s idea. As before, Pahkah of the crooked nose, wise old Soko, Sargento the bloodthirsty, and Howeah, who seldom talked, were with him. But this time they did not come to hunt. This time they had painted black stripes across their foreheads and the lower part of their cheeks. This time they were on the warpath.
They had been riding for many sleeps. They crossed the sign of a band of Kiowa-Apaches, but the Kiowas were their friends. They crossed Cheyenne sign, but ever since a special council, the Comanches had been at peace with the Cheyenne. They crossed Arapaho sign, but the Arapahos were allies of the Cheyenne.
The sign the five Wasps sought most, they did not find. The sign of those the Nemene yearned to destroy. The sign of white men.
Came the day when wise Soko gave voice to the thought of all. “We have come far and not found those we seek. We should return to our people.”
“Go back without counting coup?” Pahkah said.
“Without a single scalp?” Sargento added.
“I share your disappointment,” Nocona assured them. “So I say we ride north for seven more sleeps. If we have not found whites by then, we will wipe the paint from our faces.”
The others agreed.
For six days they pushed north. On the seventh morning they came on buffalo sign. It was old, that of a large herd. The tracks showed where the herd had stampeded.
Late that afternoon, just when Nocona was about to suggest they stop for the day and head back at first light, a putrid odor was borne to their nostrils.
“A dead buffalo,” Sargento guessed.
“The meat will be bad,” Soko said.
They rode a little farther and discovered a spring and a badly bloated and severely decomposed cow. “It is an omen,” Nocona announced. “This is as far as we go.”
Sargento was riding around the spring idly examining tracks, when he hauled on the reins to his warhorse, threw back his head, and whooped. “The cow is an omen, but not the omen you think!”
One look, and excitement coursed through all of them. Excitement at the prospect of the hunt.
“Spread out,” Nocona said. “See what else we can find.”
They were thorough. They took their time. When they were done, they gathered to compare observations.
“Four whites, one of them a woman,” Soko concluded, “and a dog.”
“The dog is dead,” Howeah said.
“Two of the whites and the woman have gone north on foot,” Sargento said. For once he was cheerful. He liked nothing better than shedding white blood.
“The fate of the third white man is a mystery,” Pahkah said. “His tracks do not leave with the rest.”
“We take the scalps of the other two,” Sargento said. “The woman I will keep for my own. Beating her each morning will give me much pleasure.”
“We will decide later about the woman,” Nocona said. “First we must catch them. They are on foot, but they are seven to ten sleeps ahead of us.”
“We can catch them in half that time,” Sargento predicted.
“Then no one objects?” Nocona asked. “We hunt them?”
All were agreed.
New vitality in their veins, they pushed north. But that afternoon the unexpected dampened their mood. They came on a prairie dog town. The prairie dogs whist
led and scattered, and the five Wasps threaded through the burrows with the casual care of men who had done it many times and never suffered a mishap. They suffered one this day.
Pahkah’s horse had the misfortune to have the ground give way under its weight. Pahkah had swung wide of a burrow, unaware it angled sharply and was close to the surface. The earth buckled and his mount’s front leg plunged into the hole. Pahkah was thrown. In midair he heard—they all heard—the horrendous crunch, and his mount’s shrill whinny.
The leg was broken. Shattered in two places.
The five Nemene stood in a circle around the stricken animal. It was Pahkah’s warhorse, but all of them shared in his sorrow at what had to be done. They were not Apaches. They did not regard horses as food on the hoof. Especially their war mounts, the best of their herds. Often, when enemies were sighted near their village, they took their warhorses into their lodges so their enemies could not steal them. To the Nemene, their warhorse was their most valued possession. So when Pahkah drew his knife and silently, mercifully, slit the animal’s throat, they looked on in respectful silence.
Pahkah dipped a finger in the gushing blood and added red lines to each cheek. “I raised him from a colt.”
Soko offered to let Pahkah ride double.
Howeah commented that the death of the horse might be another omen. No one had anything to say to that.
Soon they rode on, more somber than they had been. That night they made a cold camp. Soko talked about how it had been in the old days, before the coming of the white blight. The others had heard his account many times but they listened in rapt attention. Every man there longed for a return of the old ways, for a time when the whites were erased from their world.
The next morning, another delay.
They awoke to find that two of the horses had strayed off. A remarkable circumstance. It had never happened before due to their habit of sleeping with the reins of their animals wrapped around a wrist or ankle. Yet both Sargento’s and Howeah’s mounts were gone. They found no evidence enemies were to blame. The animals had simply wandered away.
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