Breckinridge couldn’t really see how well Morgan was doing, but he saw the look of intense concentration and strain on the other man’s face. Morgan worked at it for what seemed like a long, long time, and as he did, the sky grew maddeningly lighter. The heavens had a faint rosy tint to them now.
The sun would be up in less than an hour, Breckinridge thought. And then Tall Tree would come for them.
Breckinridge kept his arms pulled back as if his hands were still tied, but he flexed his fingers and his arm and shoulder muscles to loosen them up and keep them that way. He planned to explode into action when he got the chance, so he needed to be ready.
Morgan nodded to him. Breckinridge took that to mean he’d succeeded in cutting himself loose. Breck watched closely and could tell when Morgan flipped the knife over to the prisoner closest to him. All they could do was keep working as long as they had this opportunity.
More time dragged by, and then Breckinridge stiffened as he saw Tom Lang walking toward the prisoners. Dawn was close enough now that Breck had no trouble seeing the old scout turned traitor.
Lang stopped in front of them and said, “Breck, I just wanted to tell you again how sorry I am about all this. I was really hopin’ you’d join us so that you and I could still be on the same side.”
“I’m startin’ to wonder if we were ever on the same side,” Breckinridge said. “I don’t reckon you’ve got a side except lookin’ out for yourself.”
“Well, if that’s true it just makes me the same as ’most ever’body else in the world, don’t it?”
“Not really.”
Tom Lang looked angry for a moment, but then he went on, “Anyway, when I made you that offer, I didn’t have any idea Tall Tree even knew you, let alone had been holdin’ such a grudge against you. To tell you the truth—”
Breckinridge snorted in contempt at that idea.
Lang ignored him and went on, “The rest of us are a mite leery of that crazy redskin. I’ve been talkin’ to Pete, and I’ve got him convinced that we’ll come out ahead on the deal if we trade you for Tall Tree.”
Breckinridge frowned and asked, “What the hell do you mean by that?”
“I mean if you agree to throw in with us and give me your word you won’t double-cross us, we’ll kill Tall Tree.”
“You’d spare these other fellas, too?”
Tom Lang hesitated, which gave Breckinridge all the answer he needed. The old scout said, “Well, no, we can’t really do that. We couldn’t never trust the Baxter boy, after us killin’ his pa and all, and the others, well, they ain’t really worth much to us. That’d just make everybody’s share smaller, don’t you know? No, the offer’s just good for you, Breck, but I’m sure hopin’ you’ll take us up on it.”
Morgan had a worried look on his face, as if he thought Breckinridge might agree to Tom Lang’s proposal. But Breck just shook his head and said, “I can’t do that, Tom, and you should’ve knowed better. You can either let us all go, or else I’ll take what I got comin’ along with the rest of these boys.”
Tom Lang heaved a disappointed sigh.
“I was afraid you’d say that. It’s too bad, but there ain’t nothin’ else I can do for you. If it’s all right with you, I won’t be around when Tall Tree starts gettin’ up to his mischief. I’ve seen a heap o’ bad things in my time, but I don’t reckon I can stomach what that crazy redskin—”
He didn’t finish, because at that moment an angry shout echoed through the pre-dawn gloom somewhere else in the village, followed by the heavy blast of a gunshot. Breckinridge knew there was only one explanation for that.
The captive Crow warriors were making their desperate bid for freedom.
He came up off the ground with all the speed and power he could muster, well aware that this would be his only chance. Tom Lang had jerked around toward the commotion, but he must have seen Breckinridge moving from the corner of his eye. He tried to turn back and swing his rifle around, but he was too late.
Breckinridge’s right fist crashed into Lang’s jaw with all the big man’s weight and strength behind it. Lang’s head slewed far to the side. Breck heard a sound like a branch snapping and knew he had just broken Tom Lang’s neck.
The old scout’s knees unhinged, dropping him straight down to the ground. He let go of his rifle at the same time. Breckinridge snatched it out of mid-air and snapped it to his shoulder.
About ten yards away, the guards Hargrove had posted were still confused about what was going on, but one of them spotted Breck on his feet and yelled in alarm. He started to lift his rifle, but the one Breck held roared first. The ball struck the man in the chest and drove him backward.
Breckinridge lunged toward the other two guards, reversing his grip on Lang’s rifle as he did so. He swung it like a club and shattered the stock against one man’s skull, which caved in under the awful impact. In a continuation of the same move, Breck raked the broken weapon across the other man’s face and blinded him as jagged wood tore through his eyeballs.
Breckinridge glanced over his shoulder and saw that Morgan Baxter was on his feet and had the knife again. Morgan raced from prisoner to prisoner, cutting them loose as fast as he could. As the men struggled up, Breck called to them, “Grab any weapons you can and fight for your lives, boys!”
Two of the guards he had just disposed of had pistols stuck behind their belts. Breckinridge bent and grabbed the guns. He had a pistol in each hand as he straightened and strode forward like some avenging colossus.
Shouts, screams, and gunshots came from the other side of the Indian village. Breckinridge figured that was where the fight was going on between Hargrove’s men and the wounded warriors Antelope had freed, so he headed in that direction.
Morgan Baxter ran up beside him clutching a rifle. The other men followed him, trotting to keep up with Breckinridge’s long-legged strides.
“We’ll catch Hargrove and those other murderin’ bastards between us and those Crow warriors,” Breckinridge told his companions. “They outnumber us, so we need to hit ’em hard and fast.”
“Just lead the way, Wallace,” Morgan said. “We’ve all got scores to settle.”
Breckinridge liked the sound of that. Morgan might turn out to be all right after all . . . if he lived through this fight.
They charged through the scattered teepees and came in sight of the melee. Breckinridge wanted to bellow in anger, but that would just warn the thieves they were coming so he kept quiet and attacked in silence.
He slammed a pistol butt into the back of one man’s head and knocked him unconscious. Another of the thieves tried to aim a rifle at him. Breckinridge shot first, thrusting a pistol out and triggering it so close to the man’s chest that sparks from the muzzle landed on his buckskin vest and started it smoldering. The shot made the man fly backward, and when he landed he didn’t move again.
Breckinridge turned and fired the other pistol, this time blowing away a large chunk of a man’s skull just as he was about to drive a knife into the chest of a fallen Crow warrior. Breck dropped the empty pistols, stepped over to the corpse of the man he had just killed, and picked up the knife.
Some instinct warned him, and he ducked just in time to avoid a sweeping blow from a rifle swung by Pete Hargrove. Breckinridge whirled around and brought the knife up to plant it in Hargrove’s belly. He heaved up on it and twisted the blade so that it opened up Hargrove’s guts from belly to breastbone. Hargrove dropped his rifle and screamed thinly as his insides began to spill out over his futilely pawing hands.
Breckinridge ripped the knife free and shoved the dying Hargrove aside. He twisted his head one way and then the other as he searched the dawn light for one particular figure.
He was looking for Tall Tree.
A ragged screech like the wail of a banshee came from behind him. Breckinridge whipped around to see Tall Tree flying Breck’s way. The sun had just peeked above the horizon and the bloodred light was behind the hate-crazed Indian. If Tall Tree had
n’t cried out in rage, he might have succeeded in burying the knife he held into Breck’s back.
As it was, steel rang against steel as Breckinridge parried the thrust with his knife. The blades struck sparks against each other. Tall Tree’s momentum carried him into Breck, and both of them went down from the crash.
Breckinridge saw the renegade Chickasaw’s knife right in front of his eyes and jerked his head aside. The blade’s tip drew a fiery line across his cheek as it slid off and hit the ground. Breck rammed his left forearm under Tall Tree’s chin and shoved the Indian aside. He thrust with his knife but Tall Tree writhed out of the way like a snake. The Indian brought his knee up, aiming the treacherous blow at Breck’s groin. At the last second, Breck blocked it with his thigh.
Fighting like a wildcat, Tall Tree got on top of Breckinridge and tried again to drive the knife down into him. Breck’s left hand shot up and locked around Tall Tree’s wrist, stopping the blade just short of his chest. He thrust up with his knife, but Tall Tree grabbed his wrist. They lay there like that, faces scant inches apart, as they struggled mightily against each other. Breck was considerably larger than the Chickasaw, but Tall Tree fought with the strength of madness and that made them roughly equal.
Breckinridge’s breath hissed between his clenched teeth as he tried to hold off Tall Tree’s knife. The tip of the blade touched his shirt, then penetrated and drew blood. Tall Tree grinned and panted, “I will have . . . my vengeance!”
“Like . . . hell!” Breckinridge gasped back at him.
Slowly, his strength began to assert itself. Tall Tree’s knife had barely pricked his skin. He forced it away from his chest. At the same time, he brought his blade closer and closer to Tall Tree’s throat. Tall Tree’s left arm shook as he tried to hold off the cold steel.
Neither man asked for quarter. Neither of them would have given it, and they certainly didn’t expect it.
Guttural words spilled from Tall Tree’s mouth. Breck might have thought the Chickasaw was cursing him, but he remembered hearing that Indian languages didn’t have any curse words in them. A chill washed through him as he realized that Tall Tree was singing a death song.
Now it was only a matter of which of them would die.
Tall Tree’s arm suddenly buckled. Breckinridge’s knife flashed in the sunlight as he sunk its length in Tall Tree’s neck with such force that the blade penetrated all the way through. Breck felt the steel grate against bone and shoved harder. Tall Tree’s right eye bugged out to match the left one as Breck cut all the way through his spine. The knife slipped from the renegade’s fingers. Breck grabbed Tall Tree’s hair and heaved.
Not much was left to hold Tall Tree’s head on his shoulders. Breckinridge ripped the head free and tossed it to the side, where it bounced grotesquely and rolled over a couple of times before coming to a stop.
Blood poured from the neck of the Indian’s decapitated corpse. Breckinridge shoved it aside so the hot flood wouldn’t get all over him. He rolled in the other direction and came up on his knees, looking around to see who he needed to fight next.
No one was left. All of Hargrove’s men were down. So were some of the trappers and some of the Crow warriors who had battled so valiantly against superior odds.
But Morgan Baxter was still on his feet, and he hurried over to Breckinridge.
“Wallace!” he exclaimed. “You’re alive!”
“Yeah,” Breckinridge said. He glanced at Tall Tree’s head with its sightlessly staring eyes and tried not to shudder. “It was pretty damned close, though.”
Wearily, Breck climbed to his feet. He watched expressionlessly as some of the Crow women checked the bodies of the vanquished enemies. Any of Hargrove’s men who were wounded but still alive didn’t stay that way long, as the women casually cut their throats.
“My God, this is a savage place!” Morgan said.
Breckinridge thought about the things that had happened to him in Knoxville, Cooter’s Landing, St. Louis, and just about everywhere else he had been, and he said, “I don’t reckon there’s any place under the sun that ain’t.”
* * *
Breckinridge, Morgan, Akins, and one other man named Fulbright were the only survivors from Colonel Baxter’s expedition, and they all had bumps and scrapes that needed to be patched up. Breck postponed any medical attention for himself while he went in search of Antelope.
He was shocked to find the old man lying dead with several women kneeling around him, weeping and wailing. From the looks of the numerous bloodstains on his buckskins, Antelope had been shot several times.
One of the Crow warriors who spoke English told Breckinridge, “He came to free us while the guards were not looking, but they realized what was going on and opened fire on him. He could have run away, but he stayed to cut our bonds, even after he had been shot. Swift Antelope gave his life to help us defeat these white invaders.”
“Swift Antelope, eh?” Breckinridge said. “That was the old-timer’s full name?”
The warrior looked at him gravely and said, “He was one of the most famous chiefs of all the Crow people.”
That came as a surprise to Breckinridge. The chief of this band had lowered himself to bring water to prisoners, to act as a servant for the conquerors . . . but all the time he had been planning to strike back and free his people.
“It is an honor to have known him,” Breckinridge said softly.
The warrior said, “That mad one called you Flamehair. This is your name?”
Breckinridge started to deny that, then decided it didn’t really matter. Flamehair was as good a name as any for him, where these Indians were concerned.
“That’s right,” he said.
“From this day on, the Crow will consider themselves Flamehair’s friends.”
“And you and your people are my friends,” Breckinridge said. “We will not make war on each other.”
He held out his hand, and the warrior took it, sealing the bargain.
Morgan Baxter came over to Breckinridge a little later and asked, “What are you going to do now, Wallace? We’re a long way from civilization.”
“We’re not all that far from where we were goin’ to start with,” Breck pointed out. “I figured I’d head on to the Rockies and try my hand at trappin’, just like I’d planned. That is, if you’ll let me take one of the canoes and some of the supplies. Reckon we’ve got plenty now.”
Morgan rubbed his jaw and said, “I thought I might leave some of the supplies here in the village. From what I hear, they’ve had a tough time of it. Between sickness and what Hargrove’s bunch did, they may have difficulty making it. Some supplies might help.”
“That’s a mighty fine idea,” Breckinridge agreed with an emphatic nod.
“As for the rest . . .” Morgan took a deep breath. “Akins and Fulbright intend to go on to the mountains, too. I could start back to Saint Louis by myself, but I have a feeling my father would want me to try to make a success of the expedition regardless of everything that’s happened. I was thinking . . . hoping . . . that maybe the four of us could, well, continue to be partners.”
A big grin spread across Breckinridge’s face. He said, “That sounds like a mighty good idea to me, Morgan. How about you start callin’ me Breckinridge, though, or Breck?”
“I suppose I can do that.” Morgan shook his head. “This whole ordeal has really knocked some of the stuffing out of me, I think.”
Breckinridge didn’t say it, but he reckoned they might all be the better for that.
* * *
A couple of days later, they put two of the canoes back in the river and started west, towing two more canoes loaded with supplies. Breckinridge kept his eyes turned toward what was in front of them. In a few more days, they would begin to see the mountains in the distance, he thought, and that majestic sight would just give them more resolve to carry on despite all the tragedy that had befallen the group.
There was no way of knowing what waited for them in the Rockies
. More danger, certainly. Death, quite possibly. But Breckinridge had sworn a vow to himself and made a promise to John Francis Mallory as well, and he intended to follow through on those pledges. He would make it to the mountains. He would become a trapper.
And then he would discover the surprises destiny had waiting for him next.
America’s most popular Western novelists,
WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE AND J. A. JOHNSTONE,
continue their bold new series
featuring Breckenridge Wallace,
a big, strong, fierce kid fighting for a home
in the towering Rocky Mountains . . .
Keep reading for an excerpt of
THE FRONTIERSMAN
River of Blood
Chapter One
Breckinridge Wallace ran for his life.
Behind him, an enormous bear lumbered after him, moving with shocking speed despite its great size.
The same could be said of Breckinridge, who stood several inches over six feet, making him close to a head taller than most men, and whose shoulders seemed to be as wide as an ax handle. Bundles of corded muscle in his arms and shoulders stretched the buckskin shirt he wore. He was a giant among men, and he sometimes joked that he was still young and hadn’t gotten his full growth yet.
He wouldn’t get much older if he wasn’t able to outrun that damn bear, he thought as he raced across a flower-dotted mountain meadow toward a line of trees.
The scenery surrounding him was beautiful, and he would have been able to appreciate it better if he hadn’t been running for his life. Snowcapped mountain peaks loomed majestically over the lush meadows on the lower slopes. Off to Breckinridge’s right, a fast-flowing stream bubbled down from the heights, seeming to laugh and sing as it raced over its rocky bed. Towering pines reached for the deep blue sky.
The Frontiersman Page 25