Wilderness Double Edition 26

by David Robbins

  “Lou! Lou! I’m coming!”

  Louisa looked down. Zach was racing toward the ice cliff and waving his arms. Now she was the one with tears in her eyes, tears of love and joy. Blinking them back, she kept descending.

  Zach’s next shout held a note of alarm. “Lou! Look out! Above you!”

  Lou raised her face to look up just as flecks of ice rained down. The man-thing was not moving slowly anymore. It was descending with incredible swiftness. A cry escaped her. It would be on her in moments.

  That was when a rifle boomed and a heavy slug cored the ice inches from the creature’s head. It stopped and glanced at Zach. The bearskin hood fell away, revealing its face and head fully for the first time.

  Lou gasped. The features were human but the head was strangely misshapen. The crown was sunken, as if the skull had caved in, and the sides bulged. A shock of filthy black hair grew at all different angles. The eyes were still watering but not as much, and in those eyes was the gleam of something Lou could not quite describe. Madness? Seething hate? They were more like animal eyes than human eyes. She saw no trace of the deeper intelligence that marked a human being, only the savagery such as she might see in the eyes of a grizzly or a wolverine.

  The moment passed. With amazing speed, the creature snarled and went up the cliff onto the ledge. It was out of sight before Zach could reload.

  Which was fine by Lou. She resumed her descent. Twice her feet slipped, but each time she had a firm grip with her hands and was able to cling on and jam her foot into a niche.

  Zach was waiting at the bottom. He had the Hawken to his shoulder, ready in case the man-beast came after her. He smiled each time she looked down, and each smile brought warmth to her heart.

  It seemed like hours but it could not have been more than ten minutes when Lou heard him say, “You’re almost there, hon’. Just a little bit more.”

  Another few moments and his arms were around her and Lou turned and her cheek was on his chest and he was stroking her hair.

  “You did it. You’re safe now.”

  Lou knew better. As soon as the sun went down, if not sooner, the monster would be after them. Unless they put a lot of miles between them and the glacier, they would have to go through the whole thing all over again: being chased, being hunted, and maybe, God help her, being caught. She pulled back. “We have to get out of here.”

  Nodding, his arm around her shoulders, Zach led her toward a stand of aspens. “Are you all right?” he worriedly asked. “I mean, that thing didn’t—” He did not finish his question.

  “No, it didn’t,” Lou said.

  “It’s a man, isn’t it? I didn’t get a good look.”

  “A man,” Lou confirmed. “But whether he is human, I can’t rightly say.” Suddenly she was tired. So tired her eyelids grew heavy with the sleep she had been denied. Yawning, she shook herself. She would sleep when they were in the clear, not before.

  Zach was saying how he had ridden like the wind to reach the glacier, and how he had about despaired of finding her when he heard her scream. They entered the aspens and he stopped and looked around in confusion.

  “What’s the matter?” Lou asked.

  “The horses,” Zach said.

  “What about them?”

  “They’re gone.”

  Thirteen

  Zach tried to remember if he had tied the horses and couldn’t recall. He had been so worried about Lou, he had not been thinking about anything else. Now he ran another dozen yards to a spot that afforded a view of the slope below, hoping to spot the horses, but they were nowhere to be seen. They were probably well on their way to the valley floor, to the cabin and their corral. “Damn.”

  Lou was at his side. “No use crying over spilt milk,” she said, with an anxious glance at the glacier. “We have to get as far away as we can before the sun goes down. He will be after us.”

  “He?”

  Lou related her ordeal as they jogged down the mountain. Fatigue had taken its toll, so she could not go as fast as she normally would. In an all too short span she had to go even slower. Her legs had become wooden and her feet ached abominably. She pushed on, though, until her blood was pounding in her ears and she was on the verge of collapse. Stopping at last, she bent over with her hands on her knees. “I’m sorry. I can’t take another step. You should go on without me.”

  Zach looked at her. “That has to be the silliest thing you have ever said to me.”

  “You can go a lot farther without me,” Lou said.

  “Do you seriously expect me to leave you?” Zach snorted. “You are my wife. I’ll stay by your side, come what may.”

  “You don’t understand. This thing, this person, he’s not like anyone or anything we have ever gone up against.”

  “So? If he is flesh and blood, he can bleed, and if he can bleed, we can kill him,” Zach said, wagging his Hawken for emphasis.

  “But all I have is my knife,” Lou said.

  “Thanks for reminding me.” One by one Zach drew his pistols and handed them to her.

  “I can’t take both.”

  “You can and you will,” Zach insisted. “They’re .55 caliber. Up close they can stop a grizz. They’ll stop this thing, too.”

  Lou tucked the big flintlocks under her belt. “We still have a few hours of daylight left. We should keep going.”

  Zach gazed at the spruce trees and the brush. “You rest awhile. You’re wore out.”

  “We can’t afford to.” Lou sucked in a breath and prepared to move on, but he clasped her arm.

  “I mean it. Rest.” Zach examined the ground, then moved off, saying, “I’ll be right back.”

  Lou did not like being left alone. She nervously scoured their back trail. The thing hated the sun, but it might come after them anyway. The mere thought of being in its clutches again terrified her. She nearly gave a start when Zach unexpectedly emerged holding a short length of tree branch about as thick as his forearm. “What is that for?”

  “A little surprise for your admirer.” Zach drew his bowie and chopped at one end of the branch, whittling it to a sharp point. Then, kneeling, he dug a hole slightly larger than the feet of their adversary’s and about eighteen inches deep. He re-sharpened the tip, then embedded the stick, point up, and covered the hole with brush and a few thin pine limbs.

  “Even if that works,” Lou commented, “it won’t do more than slow him down.”

  “Which is exactly what we want.” Zach rose and stepped back to appraise his handiwork. “Walk around the hole a few times so your scent is good and strong.”

  Lou did so, then urged, “We really should keep going. I can manage now.” She started off through the woods.

  Zach let her think she had him fooled. He could tell she was worn out and he watched her closely without being obvious. She was tough, his wife, and they covered more than a mile before he saw her legs wobble and heard her breath catch in her throat. “Let’s rest again,” he said, and stopped without waiting for her to agree.

  Leaning against a tree, Lou closed her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she gasped. “I’m plumb tuckered out.”

  “This is as far as we go, then.”

  “We can’t stop,” Louisa puffed. “You have no idea what we are up against.”

  “Give me more credit,” Zach said. He had fought grizzlies. He had fought a wolverine. He had gone up against the Blackfeet and the Sioux. He had tangled with renegade whites. “I won’t let the son of a bitch harm you,” he vowed.

  Lou wearily smiled. He meant well, but he had not seen the thing close up. He did not appreciate how huge it was, how tireless and strong.

  Zach tilted his head back and regarded the spruce she was leaning against. “Take a nap. I’ll wake you at sunset.”

  “I couldn’t sleep if I tried,” Lou said. She was too overwrought. But she did sit with her back to the bole and mop at her face with a sleeve. “I must look a sight.”

  “You’re as pretty as the day we met,” Zach said
, and meant it. In some indefinable fashion, he found her more lovely as time went on. It mystified him. He had figured that when two people lived together and saw one another day in and day out, they would get so used to each other that their allure would lose some of its appeal. But that was not the case. Lou truly was more lovely to him now than she had ever been. He never tired of admiring her when she was not aware. At night he would lie and gaze at her for hours, feasting on her beauty, and the marvel that she had taken him, out of all the men in the world, for her husband. He adored her, and he was not ashamed to admit it—to himself.

  Lou mustered a grin. “You are the most wonderful liar. But I thank you anyway.” She turned serious. “I hope you have a plan. We can’t just sit here and wait for it.”

  “That is exactly what we are going to do,” Zach responded. “Now close your eyes and try to sleep.”

  “I can’t, I tell you,” Lou said. To humor him she closed them anyway and took a few deep breaths to relax. The next she knew, a hand was on her shoulder, gently shaking her, and she opened her eyes to find the woodland shrouded in the gray of falling twilight.

  Zach smiled down at her. “For someone who couldn’t sleep, you snored loud enough to wake the dead.”

  Lou pushed to her feet. “No, no, no. You shouldn’t have let me.” She gazed up the mountain, but she could not see the glacier for the trees. “It will be after us soon if it isn’t already.”

  “Let it come.” Zach patted the trunk she had been leaning against. “I’ll give you a boost. Climb until I say to stop. I’ll be right behind you.”

  Lou craned her neck. The tree was thirty feet high, maybe more. “What good will it do? Surely you don’t intend to spend the night up there?”

  “Surely I do,” Zach said. “There is only one way for your friend to get at us, and we have three guns and plenty of ammunition.”

  “I don’t know,” Lou said dubiously. But it might work. The thing was a lot heavier than they were. No matter how quietly it tried to climb, they would hear it, or feel the tree shake.

  “If you can think of a better place to make a stand, I’m listening,” Zach said. He particularly liked that he would be below her. To reach Lou, the bastard had to get past him.

  “I can’t,” Lou admitted. The only idea she could think of was to find a large boulder and stand with their backs to it, but there was no guarantee they would get off a shot when the thing rushed them out of the dark.

  Zach grinned. “Then up you go, wench.” He leaned his Hawken against the tree and cupped his hands.

  Lou was raising her leg when they both heard it. From high up the mountain rose the ululating cry of the creature. It had left its lair and was after them. She could not suppress a gasp.

  “I won’t let it hurt you,” Zach said again.

  Lou smiled but she did not share his confidence. She hooked her foot in his hands and reached up. Another moment and she was perched on a low limb. He swung up beside her and they sat there, their shoulders touching.

  “I’m sorry this happened.”

  “It’s hardly your fault,” Lou said, puzzled. “I was the one who wanted to see the glacier up close.” She shuddered. “Well, I got my wish.”

  “Not that,” Zach said. “I’m sorry this has spoiled your plans. Starting our family will have to wait.”

  “Only until we get home,” Lou teased. “Then I’m holding you to your promise if I have to rip your clothes off.”

  “My wife, the hussy,” Zach joked.

  Lou giggled, then realized what he was doing, and letting go of the limb, she hugged him. “Thank you. I needed that.”

  “Just so you know, I won’t go back on my word. A promise is a promise. With a little luck and a lot of hard work on my part, in a month or two you will be in the family way.”

  “Hard work, huh?” Lou repeated, and chortled. “Since when is that work? You men love it and you know it.”

  “We don’t complain,” Zach said.

  Another howl that was not a howl caused Lou to stiffen and gaze into the darkening murk. “I think that is what he had in mind. He took me to be his mate.”

  “You’re spoken for,” Zach said. He did not mention how relieved he was that she had not been molested. It had been his innermost fear.

  “That works both ways,” Lou said, and kissed him on the cheek. “When my father died I was crushed. I was all alone in the world. I didn’t know what I would do, where I would go. Then you came along. You came out of nowhere and won my heart, and I have not regretted a day since.”

  Neither had Zach, which was peculiar, since he had long thought he would live his life a bachelor. He had more than a few failings, not the least of which was his temper, and when he was younger he could not conceive of a woman, any woman, willing to put up with him.

  Lou cleared her throat and reached for a higher limb. “We should get ready for when he shows.”

  “It will be a while yet.” Hours, Zach reckoned.

  Already climbing, Lou said over her shoulder, “It can’t be long enough to suit me.”

  Nate King liked to think he was as good a judge of human nature as the next coon. He made a habit of studying other people as he studied his books, and reading between the lines where it was called for. He was trying to read between the lines now.

  Something was bothering Neota. Nate knew the warrior fairly well, and liked him. The Ute had saved his life once, a debt Nate would not forget. The first day on their climb to the glacier, he tried several times, using sign, to engage the warrior in conversation. But Neota was uncharacteristically moody, and refused to be drawn into lengthy sign talk. He responded with the sign equivalents of yes and no to most of Nate’s overtures.

  That night they camped in the shelter of a hummock that spared them the worst of the wind. Nate shared his pemmican and slices of bread from a loaf Winona had packed. They chewed in somber silence, Neota lost inside himself, until Nate cleared his throat to get the other’s attention, and signed, “Question. You all right?”

  “I good,” Neota signed.

  Nate decided enough was enough. “You sign talk two tongues,” he bluntly signed, in effect saying that Neota was lying.

  Neota glanced up sharply and darkened with anger, but the color slowly drained and he bowed his head and sighed.

  Patiently waiting for the Ute to look up, Nate signed, “We be friends. Friends talk straight tongue.”

  A full five minutes went by before Neota’s fingers flowed in sign. As was his custom, Nate mentally filled in missing words, the better to communicate. In essence, Neota said, “I wish you and your family had not moved to this valley.”

  “It is a fine valley with plenty of water and game.”

  “It is bad medicine. The Utes think so. The Crows think so. The Nez Perce think so. But whites never listen to the red man.”

  “My wife likes it here and she is Shoshone. Blue Water Woman likes it here and she is a Flathead.”

  “The Flatheads live far away, in the country of the white fish lake. They have never visited this valley. They do not know.”

  “The Shoshones live closer.”

  “But they, too, did not know this valley was here. If they did, they would say it was bad medicine, the same as the Utes and the Crows and the Nez Perce.”

  “Perhaps they would,” Nate conceded. “But why are you sad my family came? Because of To-Ma?”

  “We thought him long dead,” Neota signed.

  “Maybe it is not him we hear at night. Maybe it is something else.”

  “It is him.”

  “Are you sad because he did not die?” Nate asked, seeking to make sense of the contradiction. “I should think you would be happy. He is one of your own, whether his brain is in a whirl or not.”

  “Brain in a whirl” was the sign equivalent for “crazy.”

  “I am sad because I must hunt him.”

  “Then I should go on alone,” Nate proposed. “You go back to your people and leave it to me.�
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  “I cannot.”

  “Give me one good reason. You have already done more for him than most would have done.”

  A bitter laugh rasped from Neota’s lips. “Yes, I did a lot for him. I killed To-Ma once. Now, because your family has moved to this valley, I must kill him again.”

  Fourteen

  The predators were abroad. The night was their element. In the dark they hunted unseen, pounced with lightning speed, and slew with ravenous abandon. From Canada to Mexico, from dusk until dawn was when the darkling legion filled their bellies.

  They did not go unheard. The night was a mad chorus of roars, shrieks, and snarls, mixed with the bleat of hapless prey.

  Zach King was so used to it that, normally, he did not give the nocturnal marauders much thought. They simply were, like the mountains and the air he breathed, and must be taken as a matter of course. But on this particular night the bedlam ate at his nerves.

  Somewhere out there was a predator like no other. Somewhere close, and coming closer. They had not heard its eerie cry for a while, but that could be because the thing did not want to give itself away.

  The tree rustled to a gust of chill wind. Zach had his back to the trunk and both legs wrapped around a limb and he was in no danger of slipping. Raising his head, he asked, “How are you doing up there?”

  Lou had one arm wrapped around the trunk and the other over a limb above her. “I’m covered with goose bumps. It’s freezing.”

  “It’s not that cold,” Zach said, although now and again he shivered. “Try not to think about it, and you’ll feel warmer.”

  “And if I try not to think of that awful creature, maybe I won’t worry as much,” Lou said insincerely.

  “We haven’t heard it in a while.”

  “It’s out there. It’s probably listening to us right this moment. Listening, and biding its time.”

  Zach patted his Hawken. “Let it bide all the time it wants. I’m ready.”