It was a bull buffalo.
The seven Tunkua had seen the whole thing, and marveled at the destruction. They had crept to within an arrow’s flight of the young white woman and the warrior and were watching from concealment. They saw the warrior cut her hands free and remove the gag.
When they used sign talk, Skin Shredder almost gave himself away. He rose higher to see better and the brush he was hidden in rustled. But neither the warrior nor the woman looked up. He didn’t know which tribe the warrior belonged to. Since all tribes were his enemies, it didn’t matter.
Skin Shredder was about to signal to begin the stalk when a rider appeared lower down. That it turned out to be the young breed was no surprise. His people knew that the breed and the young woman lived in the same lodge. The breed had come to save her.
Skin Shredder expected blood to be spilled. He decided to await the outcome. He was amazed when the white woman attacked the warrior. She had great courage, that one. He was even more amazed when they tumbled onto the talus and caused part of the slope to break away.
Now the sliding of the earth had ceased. The talus was still. Thick clouds of dust rose over it.
Skin Shredder slashed the air with a hand and he and his fellow warriors cautiously moved lower. The warrior’s animal was tied to a tree and shied at their approach. Thanks to the breeze, the dust soon cleared—revealing nothing but talus.
“I do not see any of them,” Splashes Blood declared.
“Nor I,” Star Dancer said.
“We will circle around and search,” Skin Shredder instructed “You three go that way. You others come with me.”
“Do we finish them with arrows?” Star Dancer asked.
“It has been too long since our people ate a live heart. If they are breathing, we take them back with us.”
To the Tunkua, eating a heart was their most sacred ritual. Everyone took part. The sacrifice was fed a last meal the night before. At sunrise the sacrifice was stripped and washed and tied to a stake. Then came the dance of knives. By the time it was done the sacrifice was cut from head to toe. Usually they screamed and wailed. But they did not scream long. The taking of the heart came next; it was cut from them while they were alive. Then the medicine man would hold it aloft and go among them, and every Tunkua—man, woman and child—would reverently touch it. The heart was then cut into small pieces, and a piece placed on the tongue of each.
More than any other ceremony, it spoke to who they were and firmed the bond they shared as Tunkua.
Skin Shredder hoped they found one of the three alive.
Wisps of dust still rose. Here and there pebbles rattled.
They looked for bodies—an arm, a leg, anything.
“A bad way to die,” Splashes Blood said.
“Not fit for a warrior,” another agreed.
To Skin Shredder, death was death. His time would come one day, and he looked forward to it. The Tunkua believed there were three spirit worlds in the afterlife: one for animals, another for enemies, and a third for Tunkua. Life was much like it was in this world except there were no ailments or pain or misery, and the hearts tasted sweeter.
“They must be buried.”
“Keep looking.”
They were almost to the bottom when Star Dancer pointed. “There! It is the woman.”
Skin Shredder saw her hand poking limply from the dirt and rocks. “She must be dead.” No sooner did he say it than her fingers moved. “Link arms. We will form a chain. I will go out myself.”
It was treacherous work. The talus could give way at any moment. But by taking small steps and treading lightly, they edged out until Skin Shredder was close enough to grip the woman’s hand. Only a sprinkle of dirt covered part of her face and one shoulder.
Skin Shredder pulled. He had to do it in such a way that he didn’t press down hard with his feet. Bit by bit, he dragged her from her earthen grave. Rocks rolled and the earth moved, but it didn’t set the rest of the talus in motion.
The white woman groaned a few times. Her dress was torn and brown with dirt. Her face had many bruises.
Skin Shredder could not get over how hideous she was. She didn’t have the broad nose or big lobes or thick eyebrows of Tunkua women. She didn’t have the tattoos that made Tunkua women so beautiful. With infinite slowness, he stooped and picked her up. He was surprised at how light she was. He carefully handed her to Splashes Blood who in turn handed her to Star Dancer, who gave her to the last warrior in the chain; he set her on solid ground.
Once they were safe, they ringed the woman.
“Her ankles are still tied,” Star Dancer noted.
Skin Shredder cut the rope. He shook her but all she did was groan. He shook her harder, and when that failed, he smacked her on the cheek. Her eyelids fluttered and then opened wide.
Lou could scarce credit what she saw. The last she remembered, she was hurtling down the talus slope. A wave of fright washed over her, but she didn’t let it show. She knew about the tribe on the other side of the range. They called themselves the Heart Eaters and had those terrible faces. Her father-in-law and McNair had supposedly blocked the pass that permitted the Heart Eaters to enter King Valley, but apparently the warriors had found another way in.
From the frying pan to the fire, Lou realized. She smiled to show them she was friendly and slowly sat up. Her left shoulder throbbed and her face hurt all over. She looked around for Zach and fought down rising panic. “How do you do?”
Once again Skin Shredder was impressed by her courage. Most captives would cower in fright. “I do not speak your tongue.”
Lou remembered Nate saying the Heart Eaters knew sign. She motioned at the talus and asked in finger talk, ‘Question: You save me?’
‘We pull you out.’
‘I thank you.’
‘We no do help you.’
‘Question: What you want me?’
‘We take you our village.’
Lou’s breath caught in her throat. ‘I no want go.’
‘You go,’ Skin Shredder signed with a cold smile.
Twisting, Lou searched the talus for Zach. He was nowhere in sight. He might be buried and likely dead. Her eyes started to tear, and she blinked them away. “Oh, Zachary.”
Skin Shredder guessed she was looking for her man. He gestured, and Splashes Blood and Star Dancer seized her arms and hauled her to her feet. When they let go, she swayed like a reed and would have fallen if Star Dancer hadn’t held her.
‘Question: You hurt?’
‘I be weak,’ Lou responded. She could feel her strength slowly returning, but she didn’t want them to know. The longer they delayed, the better her chance of spotting Zach, or what was left of him, and she dearly wanted to see him one last time, even if he lay in the repose of death.
To his friends Skin Shredder said, “We will wait, unless one of you wants to carry her.”
No one did.
‘Question,’ Lou signed. ‘What you do with me in village?’
Skin Shredder held his hand close to his chest, his fingers hooked like claws. He pretended to claw his chest open and pull his heart out. Then he held his hand up to his mouth and pretended to take a bite.
The other warriors laughed.
Louisa King shuddered.
Chapter Thirteen
A small herd of mountain buffalo called King Valley home. Shaggier than their flatland cousins, they stayed deep in the woods most of each day, coming out at dawn and late afternoon to drink and graze. They posed no threat so long as they were not disturbed. Many a time Shakespeare had watched them from his window and been reminded of the days when he hunted their cousins with his Indian friends. He didn’t hunt these. Nate had suggested they leave the herd be. As Nate put it, “We’ll hunt them only if we’re starving. That way, we’ll always have a pantry on the hoof we can fall back on.”
Shakespeare got a chuckle out of pantry on the hoof.
But now, with his wife helpless on the travois, Shakespeare worri
ed their decision would cost him dearly.
The bull snorted and shook its shaggy head, its horns glinting in the sunlight.
Blue Water Woman heard the snort and craned her neck to see over the top of the travois. A tongue of fear licked at her and she swallowed it down. As she always did in a crisis, she willed herself to stay calm, to focus and not give sway to fright. “Husband?” she said softly.
Shakespeare didn’t take his eyes off the buffalo. He was holding his Hawken across his legs, but he made no attempt to raise it. “Not now, chipmunk. We have a problem.”
“I see him. You should cut the travois loose and ride off before he charges.”
Shakespeare almost gave a snort of his own. “And abandon you? That’s the silliest thing you’ve ever said in all the years I’ve known you.”
The bull stamped and tossed its head and came several steps nearer. Over six feet high at the shoulders, with a bulging hump and broad head, it was a living, breathing monster.
Shakespeare fingered his rifle. It would take a lucky shot to bring the brute down. It must weigh between fifteen hundred and two thousand pounds, a lot of it muscle.
Blue Water Woman rose on an elbow. The bull looked at her and rumbled in its chest.
“For God’s sake, don’t move,” Shakespeare cautioned. “If it charges I might not be able to protect you.”
“If it charges I want you to save yourself.”
Shakespeare did what he had just told her not to do; he moved. Turning in the saddle, he declared, “I can hardly forbear hurling things at you.”
“I cannot help it if I love you and do not want you hurt.”
“Grant me the same courtesy.” Shakespeare had never told her, but he secretly hoped he died before she did. He would be so lonely without her, he didn’t know if he would want to go on living.
Blue Water Woman was watching the buffalo. She was taken aback when other dark shapes appeared. Six, seven, eight, she counted, all as shaggy but none as big as the huge bull. “Carcajou!”
Shakespeare’s pulse quickened. One buffalo was bad enough. Nine was a nightmare. All those horns, on creatures as unpredictable as the weather. He eased the Hawken from his lap. He couldn’t get all of them, but he would bring the big bull down.
“Do not shoot,” Blue Water Woman cautioned. She worried that he might drop the bull in the hope the rest would run off.
“What do you take me for?” Shakespeare wedged the hardwood stock to his shoulder and took aim.
“What are you doing then?”
“Just in case.” Shakespeare intended to fire and throw himself in front of the travois, if it came to that.
“You are not to shoot no matter what,” Blue Water Woman insisted. She was all too aware of how stubborn he could be once he set his mind to something.
“That will be for me to decide.”
A cow started toward them, but stopped at a bellow from the bull.
“That was nice of him,” Blue Water Woman said. Her gratitude was short-lived.
Head bobbing, blowing noisily, its hooves ringing on rocks, the big bull advanced.
Shakespeare took a bead on the buffalo’s right eye. The skull was so thick that a brain shot rarely penetrated, and facing it head-on, he didn’t have a lung shot. His best bet was the eye, but with the head bobbing as it was, it was like hitting a bobbing dark pea.
Blue Water Woman gripped the travois. She had seen for herself how savage buffalo could be when they were provoked. Once, after a surround, she had gone with the other women to skin and carve the many buffalo the warriors killed. She had been slicing a belly open when she heard cries and shouts. A bull everyone thought was dead wasn’t. It had regained its feet, and before any of the warriors could loose more shafts, it had been among them, ramming with its broad forehead and ripping with its great horns. Four horses had gone down, one with its insides spilling out. A warrior had rode up and buried a lance in the buffalo’s side, and the buffalo whirled and gored his horse. As the horse fell, the man was pitched onto an upcurved horn. For as long as she lived, Blue Water Woman would never forget his death shriek.
Shakespeare’s impulse was to fire before the bull reached them. His finger curled around the trigger.
“Please, Carcajou.”
Against his better judgment, Shakespeare took his cheek from the Hawken. His nerves jangled as the bull came ever closer. The mare nickered and tried to shy but couldn’t because of the travois. “There, there,” he said quietly, and stroked the mare’s neck.
Blue Water Woman held her breath.
A swarm of flies buzzing around it, the big bull reached the mare. It looked at her, grunted, and walked on by.
Now it was beside the travois. Blue Water Woman could have reached out and touched it. She saw its nostrils flare, and suddenly it stopped. The great head swung toward her. For a few heartbeats she feared the worst. The bull sniffed the buffalo robe she was bundled in, then nuzzled it and rubbed against the travois so hard that the entire travois shook and threatened to shatter.
Shakespeare put his cheek to the rifle.
The bull ambled on. After it came the bull’s harem, none of them so much as giving the mare or the travois a glance. They crossed to the lake and dipped their muzzles to drink.
“I’ll be switched,” Shakespeare said in relief, and gigged the mare to get out of there.
Blue Water Woman sank onto her back. Tension drained like water from a sieve. “Are you glad you listened to me?”
“I always listen to you, heart of my heart.”
“Oh my,” Blue Water Woman said.
“What?”
“All this time I thought you were deaf.”
A ringing in Zach’s ears was his first sensation. He clawed up out of a dark well and floated in a pool of pain. Where he was and why he was in pain eluded him until he tried to move and discovered his arms and legs were pinned. Then it all came back in a rush: the talus, Lou, the Blood warrior, everything. He opened his eyes and brown specks fell into them, making them water. Blinking, he raised his head. He was on his back. Dirt and rocks formed a cocoon around him. Only his face was exposed.
That he was alive was a quirk of fate. If he had wound up facedown, he’d have suffocated. He thought of Lou—and sought to break free. Dust got into his nose, making him cough. He cut his fingers, but he didn’t care. After hard effort he was able to sit up. He looked around. The talus had swept him into the pines.
A lot of tugging and digging freed his legs. He slowly rose, half dreading a leg was broken. He was bruised and sore but otherwise fine
His rifle was missing. He’d also lost one of his pistols. A glint of metal drew him to the Hawken’s barrel, which poked from a bush. He picked it up and was relieved to find it undamaged except for scrapes and nicks. He looked around again but did not see the pistol.
Zach moved out of the pines. The talus slope was much as it had been. He scoured it from bottom to top, but there was no sign of Louisa. He cupped his mouth to shout her name and hesitated. If the Blood was alive, the warrior would hear and come after him. Zach shouted anyway.
The silence was a stab to his gut.
Zach moved along the edge of the talus, seeking some sign. A whinny brought more relief as the bay came out of the trees. It was covered with dust and the parfleche he had tied on was missing, but otherwise the horse was unhurt. He climbed on and called Lou’s name again.
Worry clawed his insides. He imagined her buried alive. It would be an awful way to go. He debated whether to scale the slope on foot and search every square inch. Instead he swung wide and rode to the top. Dismounting, he checked for sign. In the dirt were tracks—a lot of tracks. They told a story that sent a thrill of joy and then a chill of horror down his spine.
Lou was alive! But other warriors had her. Her footprints led to where a horse had been tied. From there, hoofprints led up the mountain, with the tracks of warriors on either side.
Zach knew of the tribe on the other side of the
divide; he had fought and killed one of its warriors. His pa and Shakespeare had used a keg of black powder to blow the pass—the only way over, they thought. Apparently there was another, and a war party had come into the valley. Those warriors now had Lou and were taking her back to their village.
That was how Zach read the sign. Lou faced a worse end than if she had been entombed in the talus.
Zach swallowed and gigged the bay. He figured they weren’t far ahead, no more than an hour, but they would move fast and it would take some doing to overtake them before they got over the range.
A grim fury seized him. All Zach wanted was to live in peace with his wife and the others. All he asked was to be left alone by the outside world. His days of living to count coup were over. But enemies kept putting them in peril. Danger kept rearing its unwanted head. Life was a constant struggle for survival, and he was tired of it.
The idea surprised him. He had never thought like this before. And now was hardly the time to start.
The Heart Eaters had his wife.
So be it.
He would have to save her and take their lives, or perish in the attempt.
From the woods below the talus, the Outcast watched the breed head up the mountain. Limping into the open, he started after him. His left knee throbbed and his head pounded. He’d lost his bow and his quiver, but he still had his knife and tomahawk. They would have to do.
The Outcast had not lost consciousness. For a while he had lain in a daze but finally he recovered enough to stand on wobbly legs. He almost gave himself away when he had moved through the trees, but fortunately he saw the seven warriors before they saw him.
They were strange, these warriors. The Outcast had never beheld their like. Their scarred faces were hideous. He imagined they did it to strike fear into their enemies, but he could have been wrong. He saw them uncover the white woman, saw their hand talk although they were too far away for him to tell what they were signing. Then the warrior had made the woman climb onto his pinto and they went off up the mountain.
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