Wilderness Double Edition 26

by David Robbins

  Her cheek scraped the cold cliff face. To keep from having her face rubbed raw, Lou pressed her head against the thick hair that covered the creature’s chest.

  They did not climb to the top. They only climbed halfway, to what Lou took to be a ledge, until the thing let go of her and she sat up. The gaping maw of a cave confronted her, a cave of ice formed out of the glacier’s cold heart. The creature’s lair, Lou deduced, and shivered anew, but not from the cold.

  The thing growled and loomed over her.

  Instinctively, Lou shrank back, but she had nowhere to go. She was inches from the edge. If she weren’t careful she would plummet over the side, and no one could survive a fall from that height.

  An arm reached for her. Lou resisted an impulse to swat it aside. She must let the creature think she had given up. Fingers plucked at her hair. The creature bent down and sniffed. Its breath was putrid, worse than its body odor, which hardly seemed possible. It sniffed her hair, her neck, her shoulders.

  Lou wished she could see it clearly. Or him, for now there could be no mistake whatsoever. It was a man. A huge man, with great stooped shoulders as wide as a bull’s. She thought maybe something was wrong with its legs since it always moved with an odd shuffling gait, but up close its legs appeared to be all right. Thick as tree trunks, they were, with no bent ankles or other signs of crippling.

  Suddenly the thing grabbed Lou by the hair and turned to drag her. The only thing was, she always wore her hair cropped short, so short that her captor could not get a good grip. He had only dragged her a few steps when he lost his hold.

  “Damn you!” Lou snapped, her scalp a welter of pain. She rubbed her head and sat up. “You had no call to do that.”

  The creature/thing/man did not move or make a sound. It stared, its eyes glittering pits, breathing heavily as if its exertions had caught up with it.

  “What do you want?” Lou demanded. “Do you speak English?” When it just stood there, she tried Shoshone. Zach had been teaching her, and while she was nowhere near as adept as his mother at learning other languages, she could get by. She also knew a smattering of Spanish but that, too, failed to provoke a reply. “Can you even talk?”

  The sky to the east was brightening. The thing glanced up and growled, as if the break of day disturbed it. Grabbing Lou’s arm, it pulled her to the mouth of the cave.

  Lou dug in her heels. “No! I don’t want to!” But she might as well have railed against a boulder or a tree. The thing ignored her and hauled her after it.

  “Oh God,” Lou breathed. The moment would soon be upon her. She groped at her belt and was filled with dismay to find both pistols were gone. But not her knife. She gripped the hilt but did not draw it. She would wait until her abductor sought to fondle her. Then she would bury the blade and pray for the best.

  Lou could not see her hand in front of her face. She had the impression they were in a tunnel. The ice floor sloped down and turned to the right. The walls widened, the roof was lost in ink. She was peering up trying to get some idea of how big the cavern was when the thing unexpectedly growled and tossed her aside.

  Lou collided with an ice wall. It hurt, but not that much. Sitting up, she took stock. She still had her knife, thank God. She heard the thing moving about, but she could not see it. The sounds ceased. Total silence descended. She could not hear the wind, she could not hear anything.

  If she had to guess, Lou would say the thing had lain down to rest. But where? She moved her legs back and forth, but nothing was there. “Where are you?” she asked, thinking it might grunt or otherwise give itself away. The silence mocked her.

  One thing was for sure. Lou was not going to sit there and wait for it to get its hands on her again. The tunnel was to her left. If she could reach it, if she could only reach it, she might escape.

  Lou strained her ears as she had never strained them before. For a while there was nothing, absolutely nothing. Then came soft but heavy breathing, regular and slow. He/It was asleep.

  The next instant the ice cave brightened perceptibly. Not much, not more than a shade, but enough to tell her the sun had risen and light was filtering into the tunnel, which faced east.

  An insight struck her, the reason they only heard the howls and roars at night. The thing slept during the day. If she could get past it, she could be long gone before it woke up, provided she could somehow descend the ice cliff.

  One problem at a time, Lou cautioned herself. She rose, probing above her in case the roof was lower than she thought it was. She did not bump her head. Turning to the left, she ventured a tentative step. Nothing happened. The creature did not let out a sound other than the regular breathing.

  I can do it, Lou told herself, and took another step. She was careful not to scrape her soles on the ice. She did not know, but the thing might have the same keen senses as a bear or a mountain lion.

  Each step played havoc with Lou’s nerves. She hardly breathed, she was so scared. Her right hand was glued to the hilt of her knife. She would take a step, pause to listen, then take another. Step. Listen. Step. Listen. She must have gone ten feet and still she could not make out the tunnel. But it was there. It was there!

  The breathing grew louder.

  Three more steps, and Lou suddenly stopped. The breathing seemed to be coming from almost at her feet. She noticed a vague outline, and beyond it, the suggestion of an arch. Elation coursed through her. It had to be the tunnel!

  Unthinking, Lou took another step and nearly cried out when her toe bumped something. Something that stirred and made a noise as of heavy lips smacking together.

  The thing was at her feet.

  Lou divined what the creature had done. It had stretched out across the opening. To reach the tunnel she had to step over it.

  A chill gripped her, a chill that had nothing to do with her surroundings. The ice cave was surprisingly warm. No, the chill was spawned by the price she would pay if she blundered. She bent down, trying to make out exactly where the thing lay, but all she could distinguish in the gloom was its giant bulk. Lord, but he/it was huge! She always thought her father-in-law was big, but the thing at her feet dwarfed him.

  Lou inched to the right, thinking there might be a gap she could slip through. But no. She came to the ice wall. The creature’s legs blocked her from getting by. Undeterred, she crept to the left. Again she came to where the cave and the tunnel merged, and again she was blocked, this time by his/its shoulders and outstretched arms.

  She moved back to about where its waist should be. She raised a leg but lowered it again. The thing was too immense for her to step over. She might be able to jump over it. But if she misjudged, or it heard her, there was no telling what it would do to her.

  Lou was standing there debating what to do when the problem was taken out of her hands.

  With a grunt, the creature rolled over and sat up.

  Twelve

  When Zach’s horse flagged, he switched to Lou’s. He pushed them harder than he ever pushed any horse, pushed them almost cruelly, but the entire day went by and not once did he catch sight of Lou and whatever had taken her. He wanted to press on after the sun went down, but he had to face the truth; both mounts were about done in. If he kept going, he risked riding them into the ground.

  Zach could not have that. He needed them, needed to reach the glacier as swiftly as humanly possible. Accordingly, chafing at the necessity, along about midnight he drew rein on the bank of the stream, stripped both exhausted horses, and settled down to catch what sleep he could, which proved to be precious little. He could not stop thinking about Lou, about what she might be going through. About whether she was alive or dead.

  Fear ate at Zach like termites at wood. He tossed. He turned. Every now and again he got up and paced, then lay back down. Finally he dozed off, but his rest was brief. He was up again an hour before dawn, saddling the horses. He did not bother with breakfast. He had no appetite.

  The horses were sluggish. They had not recovered an
d were loath to suffer a repeat of the day before. But Zach was relentless. He had squandered precious hours. He would not waste more.

  Zach focused on the glacier. He squinted against the glare, squinted for so long and so hard, his eyes hurt. He spied a few elk. He spotted deer. But he did not see Lou or the thing that took her.

  Images filled Zach’s mind. Blood-drenched images of what he would do to her abductor when he caught up with them. It was going to die. As surely as the sun rose and set each day, as surely as the mountains existed, it was going to die in agony, and take a long time in the dying.

  Zach had never wanted to kill anyone or anything as much as he hankered to slay her captor. When he and Louisa first met, she used to tease that he was too bloodthirsty for his own good. If she only knew. He had suppressed a lot of urges since they’d wed, urges to eliminate those who posed a threat. But he would not suppress the urge this time. He would let the violence out, with a vengeance.

  The day waxed slower than melting candles. Both horses became lathered with sweat. Zach’s buckskins clung wetly to his body. He yearned to stop and rest, but fear drove him on, fear that he would be too late, that he would fail Lou when she needed him most.

  At times like this, Zach almost regretted living in the wilderness. Danger was always a misstep away. Unforeseen perils were all too common. Lou would be safer east of the Mississippi, where the large meat-eaters had been practically eliminated. That, and nearly all the hostiles tribes had been pushed west or wiped out.

  But as much as Zach loved Lou, and he loved her with all his heart and mind and strength, he loved the wilderness almost as much. He had spent his whole life in the wilds. To him, encountering a bear or a mountain lion was no more unusual than putting on his moccasins. They just were, and had to be dealt with as the occasion arose.

  The same with unfriendly Indians. Part Shoshone himself, Zach not only understood the warrior culture of many of the tribes, he reveled in it. To him, there were few experiences more exhilarating than counting coup. Although of late it had admittedly lost some of its appeal.

  Again, though, it was part and parcel of not only his life but life in general on the frontier. Everyone who ferried the Mississippi River knew they took their life in their hands the moment they set foot on the western shore. It was as inescapable as breathing. Complaining about it, wishing conditions were different, was useless. Like the wild beasts that roamed the plains and forests, the tribes who lived there had to be accepted for what they were. Some, like the Flatheads and the Shoshones, were friendly. Some, like the Sioux and the Blackfeet, were not.

  It was a lesson Zach learned at an early age. In that regard he was more like his mother’s people than his father’s. Whites were never satisfied. They were always trying to impose their will on their surroundings rather than accept and adapt to those surroundings. There were exceptions, of course, his father and Shakespeare being two of the more notable.

  Still, acceptance did not bring peace of mind. Especially not at moments like this, when his wife’s life hung in the balance.

  The glacier was a lot nearer. It was not a solid mass of ice as Zach had thought, but was mantled with snow near the summit. Serpentine in shape, it wound between high canyon walls that served to shade it for most of the day from the heat of the sun, and probably accounted for why it had not melted in the eons since it was formed. An ice precipice formed the lower end. If the thing was up there somewhere, it could see for miles.

  At the thought, Zach reined toward some aspens. He had to get under cover before it was too late, if it wasn’t already. He cursed himself for a fool. The lack of sleep, and worry, had conspired to make him careless. He could only hope the creature had not spotted him.

  Dismounting, Zach threaded through the aspens to a belt of scrub brush and boulders. Darting from cover to cover, he worked his way to within a few hundred feet of the ice cliff.

  Now what? Zach asked himself. The glacier was half a mile long and about half that wide. To search every square foot would take weeks. There must be cracks, crevices, even caves the thing could hide in. How was he to find it in all that icy expanse?

  He was mulling over his options when the canyon walls that overlooked the glacier echoed to a piercing scream.

  Lou was not a fainter. She had never fainted in her life. But she came uncomfortably close when the man-thing grunted and sat up. All the blood seemed to rush from her head and her senses swam in a haze of fright. Her knees started to buckle but she firmed them, and froze.

  The monster’s back was to her. It was staring into the tunnel, not into the cave. All it had to do was turn and it would see her, but to her astonishment and relief, it lay back down, placed its head on an arm, and within moments was breathing loudly and rhythmically once again.

  Lou began to tremble, her whole body, from her head to her feet. She willed herself to stop but she couldn’t. A reaction, she figured, to nearly being caught. After a while the quaking ceased, but she felt weak and short of breath, as if she had run a couple of miles. Why that should be, she could not say.

  The important thing was that she could still escape. All she had to do was get past it. But how, when it blocked the tunnel? She leaned forward, careful not to breathe too loudly, and noticed that when the creature had lain back down, only one of its arms blocked the left wall. The other arm was curled under its head.

  Lou edged closer. Gingerly, she lifted her right foot and placed it on the other side of the arm. The creature didn’t stir. She raised her other foot and was almost over when the man-brute snorted and rolled onto its back.

  Lou saw its eyes glare up at her. She braced for a blow or the rending of claws. But all it did was glare. Her nerves about to break, she balled her fists to defend herself as best she could. Still the thing lay there. Unable to stand the strain any longer, she went to leap over it. That was when she saw its eyes were closed. It was still asleep. Her mind had played tricks on her.

  Swallowing, Lou silently slunk into the tunnel, placing each foot with care. The farther she went, the lighter the tunnel became. She rounded a bend and nearly burst into tears at the sight of the entrance, ablaze in glorious sunlight. Forgetting herself, she ran.

  She had been breathing foul air for so long that the fresh air was flowery sweet. She stood near the edge and spread her arms and breathed deep. But she dared not dawdle. The thing could wake up at any moment.

  Lou dropped onto all fours and peered over the edge. The height was dizzying. How the creature had managed to climb the ice face baffled her. Then she saw them; niches chopped out of the ice, niches that could be used as handholds and footholds. Flattening, she reached down and ran her hand over the top niche. It was deep enough for a good grip, yet even so, it was ice, and all it would take was a single slip and she would fall to her death.

  Lou sat up and glanced at the tunnel. What choice did she have? It was either try to climb down or wait for the thing to have its way with her.

  Steeling herself, Lou slowly eased her legs over. She carefully probed with her right toe until she found the top niche. They were spaced uncomfortably far apart. She had to stretch her left leg to reach the next one. Then came the worst part, the part that required all the courage she possessed. With a silent prayer, she slid over the side and clung to her perch.

  She felt the fear take hold, felt her limbs start to weaken. No! she screamed at herself. She would not give in. She would be strong. She would do what needed to be done. Giving in was for the timid, and she had never been a quitter. If she had learned anything from her father, it was that a person never, ever gave up. So long as she had breath in her body she would do what she had to in order to survive.

  Lou glanced down. Her newfound resolve nearly dissolved at the sight of the ground so very far below. Turning her face to the ice, she began her descent. First one foot, then the other, then an arm, then the other. It was wisest to move slowly to reduce the risk of slipping, but she did not have the luxury. She must reach the bo
ttom quickly.

  She moved her leg, her other leg, her arm, her other arm. Already her shoulders were aching. She lowered her leg, then heard a faint sound from above. Looking up, she did something she had rarely ever done; she screamed.

  The creature was staring down at her. Its huge head was enfolded in a bearskin and only part of the face was visible; its glittering eyes, a long, wide nose, a mouth rimmed with teeth in which bits of flesh were stuck. It was squinting at her, and as she met its fearful gaze, its eyes started to water.

  Lou did not understand at first. Not until it glanced up at the sky and recoiled as if it had been struck. Then it hit her. The thing could not take the sun. It had lived in the dark of the ice cave and prowled in the dark of night for so long, its eyes were extremely sensitive to bright light. Smiling, she said fiercely, “Come get me, you devil, and I hope you fall!”

  She got her wish. A leg like a tree trunk slid over the edge and a foot covered by a bear-paw moccasin dug into a niche. It was coming after her. Only then did she realize that if the thing did fall, it would fall on her.

  Lou glanced down. She could not possibly reach the bottom before the abomination reached her. She tried anyway. Left with no recourse, she descended faster, too fast to be safe. Ten feet. Twenty feet. And still so many more to go. Again she glanced up.

  The thing was after her, yes, but it was descending much more slowly. Its eyes were almost shut and it was feeling for the niches one by one. At that rate it would take forever to reach the ground.

  Encouraged, Lou continued. In the light, the thing was not quite as fearsome. It was a man, as she had surmised, a huge man dressed in a bearskin with the claws still attached. She could see a mark on the edge of the pelt that she guessed was from Zach’s shot, but if the creature had been wounded, he showed no sign of it. But that mystery along with who he was and why he lived in the glacier would have to wait.

  She was lowering her leg when she thought she heard a shout. Dismissing it as another trick of her mind or a trick of the wind, she lowered her other leg. Then faint but clear came a yell.