“True. But the fact remains, you are the least liked white man of anyone I know, and it would please me greatly if you were to step over the line so I can ban you from the premises.”
“I’m plumb sorry to disappoint you,” One-Eye said sarcastically.
St. Vrain turned to go and his gaze alighted on the horses. “I say,” he remarked. “That packhorse looks familiar. As I recall, you did not have a pack animal when you left here.”
“I bought it,” One-Eye lied. “Paid forty dollars in coin.”
“From whom?”
“I don’t see as how that’s any of your business,” One-Eye hedged.
“Do you have a bill of sale?”
“Who the hell bothers with stuff like that way out here?” One-Eye angrily answered. “They wanted forty dollars and I paid them forty dollars and that was it.”
“They?”
“What?”
“You said they, as in plural.” St. Vrain studied the horse and the packs closely. “If only I could remember where I’ve seen this animal before.”
“Go remember somewhere else,” One-Eye said. “I have serious drinking to do, and I don’t need you putting a damper on things.” He chugged more whiskey, watching through slitted lids as St. Vrain made for the other end of the post. “Snootier-than-thou,” he growled, but only after St. Vrain was out of earshot.
One-Eye was happy to note that no one else had showed any interest. But the packhorse started to worry him. If St. Vrain nearly recognized it, others might, too. They might remember the young farmer and his wife, and wonder what he was doing with their animal.
One-Eye reluctantly corked the whiskey and placed the bottle in a pack. For the moment he would forget about selling the two horses. Maybe it was for the best, he told himself. He was still on good terms with the Crows. He could parley the horses into permission to stay with the Crows a spell, and possibly have a woman thrown into the barter.
The reins to his mount in one hand and the lead rope to the rest of the horses in the other, One-Eye made for the wide gate in the middle of the south wall. He was not all that eager to leave. But sometimes a man had to cut and run or be cut down by circumstances over which he had no control.
The post was doing a bustling business. Indians were present: some Cheyenne, several Nez Perce, a pair of Flatheads. A freight train bound for Santa Fe was leaving in the hour and the freighters were scurrying about like so many ants. The few frontiersmen he saw were strangers.
One-Eye halted at the gate and hollered for it to be opened. In his opinion it was a damned nuisance, how it was always kept closed. “Move a little slower, why don’t you?” he complained when the men responsible did not open it fast enough to suit him.
“Keep your britches on, mister,” was the peckish reply.
Irritated, One-Eye uncorked the bottle and tilted it to his mouth. He watched the amber liquor to see how much he could drain in one gulp. The level dropped nearly half an inch. Belching, he lowered the bottle and stared out the open gate—and found his way barred by the last person on the planet he wanted to meet up with. “It can’t be!” he blurted.
“Going somewhere?” Nate King asked. He had heard Jackson bellow for the gate to be opened as he rode up, and had unslung the bow he had taken from one of the dead Comanches.
Any other time, Nate would have been amused by the amazement on Jackson’s face. But now he felt only simmering rage that burned like a red-hot ember deep inside him.
The whiskey bottle hit the ground and shattered. Jackson glanced down in surprise, then gaped at Nate. “You made it back alive!”
“No thanks to you,” Nate said. “But the rest are all dead. The farmer. His wife. The Comanches.”
“You killed the Comanches?” Jackson said in blatant fear. His good eye darted right and left. He resembled, more than anything, a weasel backed into a corner.
“One more to go,” Nate said, “and I can go home.”
“Do you mean me?” Jackson nervously asked, and laughed a brittle laugh. “Have you forgotten the rules? No blood is to be spilled in the post. Ever. Anyone who breaks the rule will be banned for life.”
“It’s worth it.”
“St. Vrain and the Bents are your friends. You wouldn’t want to cross them, would you?”
“Root hog or die where you stand,” Nate said. “I don’t care which.”
Jackson fingered his belt and glanced at his horse. The butt of his rifle poked from out of his bedroll. The butt of another rifle—Nate’s Hawken—jutted from a pack on the packhorse.
“Don’t take all day making up your mind,” Nate said.
They were blocking the gate. People were staring, pointing, whispering.
The men who had opened the gate were listening to the exchange. One started toward them, but the other gripped his arm and said, “No, boyo. Let them settle it between themselves.”
“It’s not fair,” One-Eye said. “You don’t care if you get banned but I do.”
“You’re stalling,” Nate said. “And you’re taking it for granted you will leave here alive.”
“I must admit,” One-Eye grinned, “I fully intend to.”
“Start the quadrille whenever you are ready.”
Jackson laughed and started to turn, but it was a ruse. His hands swooped to his pistols and he jerked them clear of his belt.
Nate was faster. He was no Robin Hood, but neither was he completely without experience with a bow. From friends among the Shoshones he had learned the basic skills needed. Touch The Clouds had tutored him in the finer points in exchange for lessons in how to fire a gun. That tutoring served Nate in critical stead, for as Jackson’s pistols leveled, Nate loosed a shaft.
The barbed tip transfixed One-Eye’s shoulder. Jackson shrieked, staggered, and fled toward the blacksmith shop. He fired as he ran, but his aim was off. Lead whistled over Nate’s head.
Shouts erupted. People scurried for cover. It was common knowledge that innocent bystanders had a habit of taking stray slugs.
Jackson disappeared into the blacksmith’s. There was a sharp yell and the sound of a blow. The blacksmith stumbled out, blood streaming from a head wound, and collapsed.
Vaulting from the saddle, Nate ran to a freight wagon parked near the shop. The thin metal rim on a wheel was being replaced, and had been partially removed. Ducking behind the wagon, Nate peered between the spokes. The anvil was visible, and so was a workbench. But the forge at the back and the rest of the interior were mired in shadow.
From out of that shadow came a snarl. “Damn you! I’ve broken off the tip, but I can’t get it out! I’ll kill you for this, King. So help me God, this is your last day on earth.” More swearing punctuated the threat.
Nate said nothing. To talk in battle was the height of folly. He must stay focused.
“Come and get me, big man! I can’t wait to blow out your wick!”
Nate glanced at the packhorse. He would fare better with his Hawken, but Jackson was probably expecting him to try for it and would cut him down before he reached it.
“What’s the matter?” One-Eye taunted. “Nothing to say now that it’s come to a showdown?”
Bent low, Nate darted around the front of the wagon toward the shop. He angled to the right and had covered half the distance when a shot boomed and his left leg was knocked out from under him. As he fell he sent a shaft streaking at a wreath of smoke. Then, scrambling erect, he hopped like mad on his good leg. He came to the open door and leaned against it, taking stock.
The slug had ripped a furrow in his calf but had not severed a blood vessel or nicked the bone. His leg would heal, given time. Provided he lived.
“Still with me, King?” One-Eye cackled. “Maybe bleeding to death, I hope?”
Nate notched another arrow. Jackson had changed position and was over at the far side. Nate had visited the shop before, and remembered bins of scrap metal and coal and firewood lining the wall. Perfect cover from arrow or bullet.
“
Come on, talk to me!” One-Eye shouted. “It’s not like I don’t know where you are and you don’t know where I am.”
“I can’t wait for you to breathe your last.”
“That’s the spirit! But you’re getting ahead of yourself. I don’t die easy. Just ask your Shoshone friends.”
“This is for the Beechers,” Nate said.
“So she got to you, did she? That little blond vixen with the straying eyes? I can’t say as I blame you. She was as pretty a piece of fluff as ever I’ve laid eyes on. But I can’t say much for her choice in men.”
Nate was in motion while Jackson was still talking. He sank to his knees behind the base on which the anvil rested.
A pistol cracked, but the shot was a shade too slow.
Jackson, surprisingly, seemed unconcerned. “Tricky devil, aren’t you?” he said from somewhere near the bins.
Drawing the string back to his cheek, Nate peered past the anvil. Instantly a flintlock spat lead and flame, and a puff of air fanned his ear. Nate let the shaft fly and heard it thwack into the wall. He had missed, or Jackson had changed position yet again.
It was the latter, as another mocking snicker proved. “Is that the best you can do, Grizzly Killer? You’re not much shakes with a bow, are you?”
Jackson was crawling toward the furnace, Nate suspected. Swiftly nocking another arrow, he sighted along it at a patch of shadow lighter than the rest. He waited, holding his breath to steady his aim, but Jackson did not appear.
Again a pistol boomed. The slug spanged off the anvil inches from Nate’s face. He instinctively ducked as slivers stung his cheek and neck.
A shrill laugh came out of the depths of the shop. “Almost snuffed your wick that time.”
Nate reached for the quiver. He had one arrow left. Nocking it, he drew on the string. Comanche bows were powerful, strong enough to send an arrow into the heart of a buffalo. The strain on his upper arm and shoulders was considerable. He sought some suggestion of movement, but there was none.
A shape heaved up near the furnace. Without thinking, Nate sighted and released, and even as he did, he saw that the shape was not a man but a stool that Jackson had flung.
Nate whirled as his nemesis came charging around the anvil. Jackson pointed a pistol at his head. In reflex, Nate threw the bow. It struck Jackson’s wrist at the moment Jackson fired. The shot went wild.
Lunging, Nate seized Jackson’s wrists. He swung Jackson against the anvil with bone-jarring force and the pistol clattered to the ground.
Snarling, One-Eye wrenched free. The hand that had held the pistol suddenly held a knife.
Nate’s own palm molded around the hilt of the knife he had taken from the Comanche. He avoided a stab at his heart, sidestepped a slash at his arm. His own cut at Jackson’s neck missed. One-Eye immediately sheared at his groin.
Twisting, Nate backpedaled. He collided with the anvil. His ankle caught and he fell. Flailing for something to hold on to, he slammed his hand against the anvil and lost his hold on the knife.
One-Eye Jackson loomed above him. His mouth curled in vicious glee, he swept his own knife overhead. “I’ve got you now, you son of a bitch.”
Nate’s groping hand closed on a long handle. He swung it at Jackson’s leg, not knowing what it was, and heard the crunch of knee cartilage. Jackson howled and tottered, and Nate pushed to his feet. He saw what he held, the blacksmith’s big hammer. He swung it as he rose, catching Jackson in the side. Ribs cracked and snapped, and One-Eye folded in half, screeching oaths.
Nate’s right arm described a circle. The head of the hammer and Jackson’s head met, and the softer yielded to the harder with a loud splat.
Nate stared a moment, then dropped the gore-spattered hammer and limped slowly out into the sunlight. Scores of onlookers hung back as he limped to the packhorse and reclaimed his Hawken and his pistols. He was rummaging in the packs for his bowie and his tomahawk when footsteps came up behind him.
“He’s dead, I take it?”
“As dead as they get,” Nate said. He found his bowie, slid it into his sheath, and turned.
“Good riddance. But this puts me in a bind,” Ceran St. Vrain said. “We have rules, you know. One of them is that anyone guilty of taking a life within the confines of these walls is subject to banishment.”
“Do what you have to.”
St. Vrain nodded. “I hereby banish you, then. For fifteen minutes. After that you are free to come and go as you please.”
Nate wearily smiled.
“I’ll have food brought to my quarters. See you there in a quarter of an hour.” St. Vrain went to walk off, then stopped and snapped his fingers. “That reminds me. Do you still want that pitcher and washbasin? I found them in Bent’s office after you left.”
Nate did not have to think about it. “No.”
“Pardon me?”
“They would always remind me. Order a new set. A set that won’t be tainted by the horror.”
“I am not sure I understand but I will do as you request.”
“Thank you, Ceran.”
“You sure have gone to a lot of trouble, old friend.”
“They call it love,” Nate said.
“Is there anything else I can get for you?”
Nate King grinned. “Brandy. Lots and lots of brandy.”
WILDERNESS 52
GLACIER TERROR
Dedicated to Judy, Shane, Joshua and Kyndra.
Prologue
The animals feared the Thing in the glacier. They feared it the most on the nights of the full moon. For that was when the Thing emerged from the icy depths of its lair.
The deer in the thickets, the squirrels in their treetop nests, the rabbits and badgers in their burrows, heard the piercing howls, and trembled.
Part of their fear was instinct. They were always wary of the unknown, and the Thing in the glacier was unlike anything, anywhere. It was different from them, different from all that was.
Part of their fear was experience. The Thing hunted them and slew them, ate their flesh and drank their blood. Big or small, it made no difference. The Thing even killed bears and mountain lions, creatures that normally preyed on everything else. When the Thing was abroad, the bears and mountain lions slunk off into the shadows and wanted nothing to do with it.
As time passed, the Thing had to roam farther afield to find the succulent flesh it craved.
So it was on a night when the full moon hung golden and huge above the miles-high peaks that the Thing emerged and moved to the edge of the ice cliff. Below and away stretched a mountain and a valley. The Thing threw back its hairy head and voiced its challenge, a cry not like those of any other animal in the valley, more shriek than howl but not really either. It froze deer in their tracks. It caused a roaming black bear to turn and hasten elsewhere. It startled an owl into flight.
With eager tread the Thing descended to the forest below the glacier. It moved as silently as the wind, with a peculiar shuffling gait. Often it stopped to tilt its head to listen and sniff.
The Thing came to a bench sprinkled with boulders. Far down the mountain was the lake the Thing seldom visited. A grunt of surprise escaped the Thing at the sight of pinpoints of light where there had never been lights before. Its brow furrowed, and an ominous growl rumbled deep in its barrel chest. The Thing knew what those lights meant and did not like it.
Then the wind shifted, and an acrid odor brought the Thing’s head up to sniff anew. It glanced to the northeast, and there, much nearer than the lake, was another point of light that flickered and danced as if alive.
The Thing snarled. It was displeased. Yet, at the same time, it tingled with expectation, for where there was fire, there were those who made the fire, and those who made the fire were no different to the Thing than deer or mountain sheep or grouse. They, too, were prey.
The Thing glanced at the lake and the other points of light, then turned and made for the nearer one. It moved with consummate care, seeming to be part
of the night itself.
Sounds reached the Thing’s ears. The sounds made by the creatures that had made the fire. The sounds made no sense to the Thing. They were not growls or snarls but an unending babble that reminded the Thing of the chatter of chipmunks. The Thing bristled, and its long nails clicked and clacked.
Soon, very soon, the Thing would get to do that which it most loved: to rip and rend and tear. The Thing’s mouth watered. It craved flesh—raw, ripe flesh—to fill its belly and give it life, and it would not be denied.
There were four of them.
From his place of concealment, the Thing studied the intruders.
They were young. They had oval faces and high cheekbones and long, flared nostrils. Two wore their hair in braids, two wore their hair loose and flowing. All wore garments of deer hide, shirts, and leggings, the leggings decorated with beads. Their shirts had long fringe on the arms.
The four were well armed. Each had a knife. Three had tomahawks. Quivers filled with arrows lay near them, as did the bows that let the arrows fly. One had a spear close to his legs. Another had a war club.
They talked and laughed and gnawed at rabbit meat they had roasted on a spit.
The Thing suppressed a growl. Of all the creatures it encountered in its domain, it disliked these the most. It knew they came from the north, not the south; although how it knew, it could not fathom.
They were unaware they were being watched. One added a branch to the fire, and the flames grew brighter but not so bright that the light reached to where the Thing crouched in the dark.
The tallest of the four turned and pointed at the distant lake and the pinpoints of light and said something that caused the others to stop smiling and laughing.
The Thing was irritated by their chatter. Everything their kind did irritated it. Which was partly why the Thing made a special point of hunting them when they dared venture this close to the glacier. They had not done so in a good long while. But now they were here, and the Thing would do to the four as it had done to all the others. To that end, the Thing slowly unfurled and crept forward.
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