Breckinridge looked at the fire with some alarm and said, “Maybe we should’ve made a cold camp tonight.”
“That don’t matter, either,” Tom Lang said with a shake of his head. “They’d know right where we are whether we built a fire or not. The only question is whether or not there’s enough of’em that they think they can jump us and have a good chance of killin’ us. Could be it’s just a small band and they figure there’s too many of us, too well armed. They’re savages, but they ain’t stupid. They only attack when the odds are on their side.”
Breckinridge frowned and said, “Seems like the farther we go . . .”
“The more the odds turn against us,” Tom said. “Yep. You’re right about that, boy.”
The scout suggested to Colonel Baxter that they increase the guards. Baxter went along with it, and for once Morgan didn’t try to talk him out of following Tom’s advice. Breckinridge thought maybe the isolation was getting to Morgan. He might have realized that they were a long, long way from civilization, and everything Morgan had counted on to keep him safe in the past—the law, his father’s money and influence—didn’t mean a blasted thing out here.
Even though Tom hadn’t spelled out his suspicions to the whole group, an air of tension gripped the expedition as it set out the next morning. The men looked nervously from side to side as they paddled up the river, as if they expected to see feathered, war-painted figures appear on the banks at any moment.
As they approached an area where the stream ran past some high bluffs on the left, Tom waved the canoes to shore.
“Gotta have a talk with the colonel,” the old scout said to Breckinridge. “I don’t much like the looks of what’s up ahead. That’s a good spot for an ambush.”
“There’s no other way for us to get where we’re goin’, is there?” asked Breckinridge.
“No, there ain’t, not without takin’ the canoes out of the water and portagin’ around. And that’s pretty dangerous, too, not to mention a lot of danged hard work.”
“What do you figure on doin’, then?”
“I thought maybe if there’s a surprise waitin’ for us, we could spring one of our own,” Tom said, but he didn’t go any further into detail.
Once they were ashore, Tom and Colonel Baxter walked off a short distance by themselves and had a long, earnest conversation. Breckinridge wished he knew what they were talking about, but he hadn’t been invited to the discussion.
Neither had Morgan, and that obviously rubbed him the wrong way. Whatever decisions were being made, he thought he had a right to be in on them.
Finally Tom Lang and the colonel came back over to the others, and Tom said to Breckinridge, “Get your rifle. You’re comin’ with me.”
“Where are we goin’?”
“On a little scoutin’ trip. We’re gonna circle around and come up on those bluffs from behind.”
“So we can see if there are any Indians lurkin’ up there,” Breckinridge guessed.
Tom smiled and nodded, saying, “That’s right.”
“We haven’t seen any hostile Indians the whole time we’ve been out here,” Morgan said. “I’m starting to think the threat they pose has been greatly overstated.”
“Well, I’d rather be wrong and keep my hair than be wrong and lose it,” Tom said. “It won’t hurt to have a look.”
Morgan looked at his father and said, “I should go with them.”
Breckinridge bit back a groan. Having Morgan Baxter come along on what might be a dangerous mission was just about the last thing he wanted.
“You should have a representative there, Father,” Morgan went on. “That way when these men report back, you’ll know they’re telling the truth.”
“Now hold on just a minute,” Tom said, frowning now. “Are you sayin’ Breck and me might lie to your pa about what we find?”
“I’m trying to prevent that from happening,” Morgan replied coldly.
“No one’s casting aspersions on your veracity, Tom,” the colonel said. “Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt for Morgan to join you, though. I’d like for him to get some experience at scouting. He might as well learn from the best.”
Scowling, Tom said, “If you’re tryin’ to flatter me, Colonel, it ain’t gonna work. This is no job for a greenhorn.”
“You’re taking Wallace along, aren’t you?” Morgan demanded. “He’s never been this far west, either. He’s as much a greenhorn as I am.”
“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. He was part of that army surveyin’ party I was with last year, down in Osage country.”
“Please, Tom,” Baxter said. “I think this would be a good experience for Morgan.”
Tom sighed and said, “You’re the boss, Colonel.” He fixed Morgan with a hard stare and added, “Get your gear. And you’d better do everything I say out there, or else I’m liable to leave you.”
“That’s right, son,” Baxter said. “Tom’s in charge of this scouting expedition. His word goes.”
“All right,” Morgan said, but his agreement didn’t sound all that sincere to Breckinridge’s ears. He didn’t trust Morgan and hoped that Tom had enough sense not to, as well.
As they gathered their weapons, Tom glanced at the sky, where the sun was past its zenith.
“Give us a couple of hours,” he told Baxter. “If we ain’t back by then, you’ll have to make up your own mind what to do, Colonel. If you decide to run that stretch of river up ahead, take it fast and don’t never slow down, no matter what happens.”
“All right, Tom. Good luck to you.” Baxter gripped Tom Lang’s hand and added quietly, “Look after my boy. I realize he’s headstrong, but he’s all I have left in the world.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Tom agreed. He turned to look at Breckinridge and Morgan and inclined his head to signal that they should follow him.
The three men set out, walking in a straight line away from the river’s southern bank. After a few minutes, Breckinridge asked, “If somebody’s up on those bluffs waitin’ to spring an ambush, won’t they see us leavin’ and maybe figure out what we’re up to?”
“They might,” Tom allowed, “but that’s why I picked the place to come ashore that I did. See that little rise yonder, between us and the bluffs? It’s just high enough I think there’s a chance it’ll hide us.”
Morgan said, “If they’ve been watching us, won’t they realize there are three fewer men in the party than there should be?”
As much as he disliked Morgan, Breckinridge had to admit that was a pretty smart question. Morgan had some ability in a fight, although he hadn’t really learned how to handle himself, and his mind was sharp enough. It was just a shame he was such an arrogant, stiff-necked bastard.
“They might,” Tom said in reply to Morgan’s question. “Seems like a longshot to me that they would’ve studied us that close, though. Now if half the bunch was gone, that they’d notice, for sure. That’s why I figured on such a small scoutin’ party.”
“If we find that there’s an ambush waiting for us, what will we do?”
“Well, we’ll have to get back and tell your pa in time to keep him from goin’ on through and paddlin’ right into trouble.”
“But you said there was no other way around except by, what was it, portaging?”
“Yeah. We take the canoes out of the water and carry ’em. Have to make a big circle and come back to the river farther west. It’ll add days and miles to the trip, but we may not have any choice.”
From a distance this terrain looked relatively flat, but as the three men crossed it Breckinridge discovered just how rugged it actually was. There were a lot of gullies and ridges that had to be crossed as the scouting party turned in a more westerly direction and began approaching the bluffs from behind.
“Careful now,” Tom Lang said quietly. “We don’t want to get ourselves caught. If there is anybody up there, they’re liable to have posted guards.”
“You think it might be Indians?” Morgan breathed
.
“Injuns or thievin’ white men, it don’t make much difference. They’d all cut your throat as soon as look at you.”
Most of the country through which the expedition had passed had been grassy plains, but in recent days Breckinridge had noticed more brush and even some trees, although they were a lot smaller than the towering growth he was used to back in Tennessee. He and Tom Lang and Morgan skirted one such clump of trees now, and as they passed it something caused the skin on the back of Breck’s neck to prickle. He knew better than to ignore such an instinctive warning. He whispered, “Tom . . . !” and started to turn.
The warning had come too late. Half a dozen men stepped out of the trees and leveled cocked rifles at the three scouts.
For an instant the urge to fight anyway was almost overpowering inside Breckinridge. He figured that if he flung his rifle to his shoulder and fired, he could get one of the varmints. Then, even wounded, he might be able to drag out his pistols and touch off a couple more shots . . .
Before he could do anything, something hard poked into his back. Tom Lang said, “Just hold on there, son. You try anything and I’ll blow your heart out, and it would purely pain me to have to do that.”
“What the hell!” Morgan blurted.
“Shut up,” Tom snapped. “Drop your rifle, Baxter. I’d just as soon not kill Breck, but I don’t give a damn about you, you nasty little piss-ant.”
“You . . . you’ve betrayed us!”
“Smart as a whip, ain’t you?”
Breckinridge said, “Tom, what are you doin’? Who are these fellas?”
They weren’t Indians, that was for sure. The six men threatening them were white. Bearded and roughly dressed, they were hard-featured men who looked like they wouldn’t hesitate to kill. Breckinridge was certain that was the case.
“These are my partners,” Tom Lang said. “Fella there is the boss of the bunch. Name’s Pete Hargrove.”
One of the men stepped forward with a sneer on his ugly face, which looked like it had been hewn out of wood with a dull ax. He said, “You go ahead and move away from these two, Tom, and we’ll get rid of ’em.”
“You might better think about that some more, Pete,” Tom advised. “You know how well sound carries out here. You shoot these two and the others will be liable to hear it, back yonder at the river.”
“We’ll kill ’em quiet-like, then,” Hargrove said. “Up close with knives.”
“Might not be as easy as you think. I’ve seen this big fella here account for several men in a fight. That’s why I want to talk to him before we do anything else.”
Breckinridge’s head was spinning. He struggled to wrap his mind around Tom Lang’s apparent betrayal. Why was it that nothing in his life ever seemed to go the way he thought it would? Why in blazes did fate or destiny or pure bad luck keep jerking him back and forth this way?
He knew one thing, though, and he expressed it by saying coldly, “I don’t want to talk to you, Tom. I don’t have a damned thing to say to you.”
“You’re wrong, Breck. I’m givin’ you a chance here, boy. You can throw in with us, and we won’t kill you. You’ll be one of us.”
Hargrove frowned and said, “I never told you you could bring somebody else into the bunch.”
“Listen to me. You want Breck on your side. He’s the fightin’est fool you’ll ever see.”
“Not a big enough fool to throw in with a bunch of no-good thieves,” Breckinridge said.
“You can see it’s a waste of time,” Hargrove growled. “Let’s just go ahead and kill ’em.”
“What are you gonna do, Tom?” Breckinridge asked. “Go back to the colonel and tell him there ain’t no ambush, so he and the other fellas will paddle right into it?”
“That’s the plan,” Tom Lang admitted. “And when we’re done, we’ll have us the best trappin’ outfit in the Rockies. Baxter sunk a lot of money into this expedition.”
Morgan said, “So you’d commit mass murder just to steal some traps and supplies?”
Hargrove came closer and said, “That’s the kind of thing somebody who’d never been poor would say. You never had to scramble for a crust of bread to keep from starvin’, did you, you little bastard?”
“Even if I did, I wouldn’t let it turn me into a thief,” Morgan replied. His voice was a little shaky, and Breckinridge could tell that he was mighty scared. Morgan was trying not to show it, though, and Breck had to give him credit for that.
“Last chance, Breck,” Tom Lang told him. “Say that you’ll join us. Otherwise we won’t have no choice but to kill you.”
Breckinridge turned his head to look at the scout and said, “Why, Tom? Just tell me that.”
“Why? ’Cause I’m old, damn it! How many more years I reckon I got in me? How many more years you think I can survive out here in the wilderness? I want to find me a front porch some place where I can sit in a rockin’ chair and whittle and have some sippin’ whiskey. One more year—this year—and then that’s how I want to spend the rest o’ my days. Back yonder in Saint Louis, Pete offered me enough of a cut to make it happen. I feel bad about it, but I got no choice.”
Breckinridge drew in a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. He said, “I feel sorry for you, Tom.”
Then he exploded into action, twisting away from the barrel of Tom Lang’s rifle and sweeping a leg around to knock the old man’s feet out from under him. As he came up again, he tried to raise his rifle, but Pete Hargrove sprang in, striking with the speed of a snake. He jerked a tomahawk from behind his belt and slammed the flat of its head against Breckinridge’s arm. The blow knocked the rifle loose from Breck’s grip.
A few feet away, several of the men swarmed Morgan Baxter. He tried to fire his rifle, but as he fumbled in an effort to cock the weapon, one of the thieves wrenched it away from him. The men knocked him down and started kicking him.
Hargrove reversed direction with the tomahawk and clipped Breckinridge on the jaw with it. Breck’s beard cushioned the blow slightly, but it was enough to set his brain to spinning anyway. He felt his balance going and fought to stay upright, but one of the men slammed a rifle butt into the back of his right knee and made that leg buckle. Another kicked him between the shoulder blades and drove him forward.
This wasn’t a tavern brawl. These men were hardened killers, the most dangerous adversaries he had faced since those Chickasaw renegades back in the Blue Ridge foothills. Breckinridge knew they would stomp and club him to death if they were able to pin him to the ground, so he rolled over desperately and brought a foot up into the groin of one of his attackers. The man screeched in agony and doubled over. When he fell to one side, that gave Breck an opening. He surged up.
But he had barely reached his feet when something hit him in the head with stunning force. Red explosions went off behind his eyes. He fell to his knees and the men closed in around him, kicking and slugging.
Then a harsh, guttural voice he hadn’t heard before ordered, “Stop! Do not kill the big one! Do not kill either of them.”
That command drew angry curses from Hargrove and the other men, which was a little puzzling. Tom Lang had said that Hargrove was the boss of this band of killers and thieves, and yet he was taking orders from somebody else. Reluctantly, Hargrove withdrew a few steps, as did the others.
Breckinridge’s head was spinning and he knew he was about to pass out. He hadn’t given a good account of himself in this fight, which was disappointing. But at least he was still alive, as was Morgan Baxter, judging by what the newcomer had said.
“Why the hell did you stop us?” Hargrove demanded. “We don’t need these two. We ought to just go ahead and kill them.”
A figure stepped up and loomed over Breckinridge. With the sun behind the man, Breck couldn’t make out much about him except a silhouette. Something about it was all wrong. After a moment he realized that was because the man had several feathers braided into his hair, sticking up at different angles from his head.
The last thing he heard was that same devil saying, “Hello, Flamehair.”
Chapter Twenty-six
It took a long time for Breckinridge to come fully awake. Before that he was only vaguely aware of several different sensations.
Heat. A pounding noise that assaulted his ears. Sickness that roiled his stomach and made his head spin.
Gradually he realized that he was angry, too, and that anger was what finally energized his brain and prompted awareness to grow. He remembered Tom Lang and the way the old scout had betrayed not only him but also everyone else in the expedition. Breckinridge clung to the rage he felt at Tom Lang and drew strength from it.
Eventually he figured out that he was lying on the ground with his arms pulled behind his back and his wrists and ankles tied. He forced his eyes open and winced as the garish light from a nearby campfire appeared. He was lying close enough to the flames that the heat was uncomfortable.
Squinting against the glare, he saw a grotesque figure on the other side of the fire. The buckskin-clad man stood there, hunched slightly, as he used one hand to beat on the hide drum he cradled against his body with his other hand. A huge, ugly scar marred the left side of his face, ran down onto his neck, and disappeared under his buckskin tunic. The skin was pulled so tight by the old injury that the Indian’s left eye appeared to be bugging out all the time. He stared through the flames at Breckinridge with an implacable hatred the likes of which Breck had never seen before.
This was the man who had stopped Hargrove, Tom Lang, and the other thieves from killing Breckinridge and Morgan Baxter. The Indian had called him Flamehair, Breck recalled. An apt enough name, he supposed, but to the best of his memory no one had ever called him that before.
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