Wilderness Double Edition #7

by David Robbins

  Zach seemed to have sensed Nate’s urgency. The boy made no further comments until they were near the bottom. Then, craning his neck to see the pass, he said, “There’s no sign of them yet, Pa.”

  “They’ll show. Count on it,” Nate said. From the heights he had sought, in vain, for a stream they could ride in for a few miles to throw the Indians off. Now he cut to the right into evergreens that would shield them from scrutiny from on high. He rode faster, heedless of the occasional branch that snatched at his clothing. Zach stayed right behind him, guiding the mare as adeptly as a seasoned mountain man.

  Nate lost track of the many minutes spent in flight. Never once did he leave the sanctuary of the forest. Always he shunned clearings or breaks in the trees where they might be visible from the heights.

  At length, as they negotiated the base of a curving hill, Nate changed direction and galloped to the top where massive, jumbled boulders afforded concealment for their tired mounts. It was the work of a moment to clamber onto a flat boulder and to go prone with the Hawken in both hands.

  “Did we lose them?” Zach asked, lying down at his elbow.

  “We’ll soon know.”

  From their vantage point they could see for miles along their back trail. In the distance, silhouetted against the azure sky, was the pass, now no more than a dark slit at the crest of the mountain. The lower portions were blocked from view by intervening peaks and hills.

  More minutes dragged by. Zach fidgeted and kept glancing apprehensively at Nate. Presently he made bold to state, “Maybe they weren’t after us, Pa. Maybe we went to all this trouble for nothing.”

  Nate lifted his right arm, his forefinger extended, and heard Zach’s intake of breath when his son saw the five stick figures that had appeared out of the notch. “Whoever they are, they’re persistent,” he said.

  “They sure are taking their sweet time. I bet if we try, we can shake them,” Zach said.

  “You up to a little hard riding?”

  “Try me.”

  “Then let’s show them what the King men are made of,” Nate proposed, giving his son a reassuring grin. “By the time we’re through they’ll wish they’d never laid eyes on our tracks.”

  Zachary laughed, delighted at the challenge confronting them. “Lead the way. And don’t fret none about Mary. She can keep up with Pegasus easy except on the flats.”

  Mary was the mare. Pegasus was the pied gelding given to Nate by the grateful Nez Percé after he helped them rout a raiding party of Blackfeet. Neither horse balked when they were goaded into a gallop, and they swept down the hill with their manes and tails flying.

  In all Nate’s wide flung travels he had never visited this particular region before, but he had heard enough about it from Shoshones who had to readily recognize prominent landmarks and to keep his bearings as he made to the east with the intent of locating a fork of the Stinking River that must, by his estimation, lie eight to ten miles off.

  Since speed was crucial, Nate didn’t bother sticking to the shelter of the restricting trees any more. He favored the open stretches where their animals fairly flew. In their wake were tracks a greenhorn could follow, which would enable their pursuers to gain ground but not enough ground, Nate prayed, to overtake the two of them before they came to the river.

  Trying not to be too obvious, Nate checked on Zach time and again. His pride swelled as he saw how splendidly the boy rode. He’d given his son numerous riding lessons and frequently watched Zach riding with other Shoshone boys, but not until now had he realized how expertly the boy could handle a horse. Begrudgingly, he admitted to himself that Zach was a much better rider than he had been at the same age—indeed, a better rider than he had been until his fateful trip west from New York City to the untamed frontier during his nineteenth year.

  Part of the explanation for his son’s ability had to be the one month out of every twelve spent with the Shoshones. Zach had learned skills he never would have mastered back in the States, where boys his age were subjected to dull days filled with the drudgery of schoolwork, or else were forced by economic necessity to work from dawn to dusk in order to contribute to the family welfare.

  Sometimes Nate envied Zach. He wished his own childhood had been similarly spent amidst the primeval glory of the Rocky Mountains among a forthright people who lived simply by design rather than circumstance. People who took each day as it came, without fear of what tomorrow might bring. People who had few needs and fewer wants and who would gladly give the last piece of pemmican they had to a hungry stranger. Such were the Shoshones.

  Mile after mile fell behind them as Nate reflected on his active years in the mountains and on the various hardships he had endured, hardships made bearable by the love of the woman who had claimed his heart. He shuddered to think how his life might have turned out had he never met Winona. Perhaps he would have gone back to New York and settled down to the accounting career his father had planned for him, to a boring existence of muddling over thick books crammed with meaningless figures under the critical eye of a pennyPercépinching employer. He would rather have died.

  It was strange, Nate mused, the unforeseen turns a person’s life could take. The whims of Fate were as unpredictable as mountain weather, changing with fickle abandon. One day a man might be on top of the world, the next living in the gutter. Of course, that was back in the States. In the wilderness the extremes were more basic. One day a man might be alive, the next dead.

  And Nate would not have it any other way. Living from hand to mouth, never knowing one day what the next would bring, had caused him to appreciate the pleasures life had to offer that much more. Oddly enough, the never-ending dangers he daily faced from savage enemies and brutal beasts alike only added to his lust for life. It was as if he was a knife blade and the wilderness the whetstone on which he was being slowly but inexorably honed.

  A sheer gully suddenly loomed in Nate’s path, shattering his reverie. The gelding cleared the gulf in a single leap. Shifting, he saw the mare do the same and his son’s beaming smile of triumph. “Well done,” Nate cried.

  The land had become more and more level, which was a good sign. Nate reckoned they were close to the Stinking River, so named by a wandering frontiersman who had taken part in the famed Lewis and Clark expedition to the Pacific Ocean, a man by the name of John Colter, undoubtedly the first white man to ever set foot in that part of the country.

  The name, though, didn’t do the river justice. From all Nate had heard it was one of the finest in the mountains. Colter, it so happened, had come on the river at the one spot where a large tar spring fouled the water and the air alike. Consequently, the unflattering designation.

  Shortly Nate spied a winding strip of deciduous trees a mile further on. They turned out to be cottonwoods, willows, and others, types requiring much more water than evergreens and which normally grew along the banks of waterways. He was certain they bordered the river he sought, and within five minutes his conclusion was borne out when he drew rein beside the sluggish waters of the Stinking River.

  “We’ll rest here for a spell,” he announced.

  “Is it safe to do that, Pa?” Zach inquired.

  Nate nodded as he swung to the ground. “We have quite a lead on those Indians. They might not even know that we know they’re after us, in which case they’ll take their sweet time trailing us so as not to give themselves away. We can afford a short rest.” He indicated Pegasus and Mary. “We have to stop for their sakes, anyway. If our horses give out, those Indians will catch us for sure. Never forget, son, that a man must always think of his horse first and himself second.”

  “Always?”

  Again Nate nodded. “Think of how hard it would be for us to make it back to the village without our horses. It would take forever, and we’d be tempting prey for every grizzly we met. Even a panther might see fit to attack us. A man left stranded afoot in this country is like a fish out of water. He has to be on his toes every second if he wants to stay aliv
e.”

  While the stallion and the mare drank greedily under Zach’s watchful care, Nate walked a short distance downriver, then retraced his steps and went an equal distance upriver. He checked the depth, the speed of the current, and the general lay of the land in both directions.

  By the time Nate hurried back, the horses were done drinking and Zach was giving them a rubdown using handfuls of grass. “Those Indians are in for a surprise when they get here,” he mentioned.

  “Are you fixing to ambush them?”

  “No. The odds are too great. I can’t risk something happening to me.” Climbing on Pegasus, Nate entered the water and turned upriver, staying close to the bank where the water only came up to his ankles.

  Zach imitated Nate’s example and declared, “I get it, Pa. They won’t be able to track us from here on out.” The river was flowing just fast enough to swirl away any mud raised by the hoofs of their animals. Although cold, the water wasn’t frigid enough to be uncomfortable. Nate hugged the side for over two hours, at last riding out onto a wide bench covered with gently waving grass.

  “What now, Pa?”

  “We let the horses graze, then go pick a spot to camp and turn in early so we get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow we’re going after elk again.”

  “But what if those Indians are still after us?”

  “I doubt they’ll come this far, son. But even if they do, it won’t be until sometime tomorrow. There’s not enough daylight left for them to reach this spot before dark. If and when they do, we’ll be long gone.”

  Zachary giggled. “I have to hand it to you, Pa. You sure outfoxed them. They’ll never catch us now.”

  “That’s the idea, son,” Nate said, matching his son’s grin, extremely pleased with himself and delighted at the impression he had made on Zach. Thanks to his cleverness, they were safe. Or were they? whispered a tiny voice at the back of his mind, a voice he ignored with a shake of his head. There was such a thing as being too cautious, and he wasn’t about to become that. Tomorrow they would down an elk, and in a few days they would head home. It would be as simple as that.

  Or would it? asked the tiny voice.

  Two

  “There is something strange about these tracks.”

  Rolling Thunder glanced up from the leg of succulent roast venison on which he had been chewing and stared at Bobcat, who was kneeling on the soft ground close to the river. The flickering light from their crackling fire revealed Bobcat’s puzzled expression. “What is strange?” Rolling Thunder asked.

  “See for yourself.”

  Standing, Rolling Thunder wiped his greasy left hand on his leggings and walked over. The footprints here were much clearer than those he had seen by the stream that morning, so clear he had been able to tell the style of stitching used in the construction of the moccasins. Since no two tribes in the entire Rockies made their moccasins exactly alike, from the stitching and the shapes of the soles he had confirmed that the pair they pursued were indeed Shoshones. “Now what bothers you about them?” he inquired.

  “Take a look,” Bobcat said, touching a finger to the toes of several tracks left by the man.

  At first Rolling Thunder noticed nothing unusual. Then, abruptly, he realized what he had missed detecting before and his blood raced through his veins. “One of them is a white man!” he exclaimed.

  The shout brought Little Dog, Loud Talker, and Walking Bear from the fire on the run.

  “What is this about a white man?” Little Dog wanted to know.

  It was Bobcat who answered, accenting his words by tapping one of the footprints. “The man’s toes point outward. We all know what that means.”

  Little Dog crouched to study the tracks, thinking quickly. Yes, he did know that only white men walked thus; Indians always walked with their toes pointing inward. It was yet another example of the truth that whites always did everything backwards. But if Bobcat was right it did not bode well for their hunting trip. One look at the sparkling gleam in Rolling Thunder’s dark eyes justified his concern, so he spoke before anyone else. “The toes do not point outward all the time.”

  “Then it is a white man who has lived among Indians and has practiced walking correctly but doesn’t always do so,” Bobcat said.

  “Or it could be a Shoshone with a limp,” Little Dog suggested. If he could convince the others, they might refuse to go along with the idea Rolling Thunder was bound to soon propose.

  “There is no evidence of a limp,” Bobcat stated. “I tell you it is a white man and a Shoshone boy.”

  “Or,” Rolling Thunder said, “a white man and his half-breed son. I seem to remember hearing about a white dog who is living with the northern Shoshones.”

  “All of us heard the story,” Walking Bear interjected. “Don’t you remember? It was four winters ago when we camped for a time with some Blackfeet. They told us about a white with powerful medicine who escaped from their clutches and in doing so killed one of their greatest warriors, White Bear.” He paused. “They told us this white’s name but it eludes me.”

  “Grizzly Killer,” Loud Talker practically shouted. “They claim he has killed more of the giant bears than any man, Indian or white. They say he kills grizzlies as easily as other men kill flies.”

  Rolling Thunder smiled and gestured at the tracks with the leg bone. “Yes! I remember now! This must be him. The fierce Grizzly Killer.” He said the last with marked contempt.

  “We do not know that for certain,” Little Dog said. “The Shoshones have other white friends. It could be any one of them.”

  “What does it really matter if it is Grizzly Killer or not? He is white,” Rolling Thunder said.

  “And that is all that is important,” Little Dog said sarcastically.

  Pivoting, Rolling Thunder swept them with his gaze. “Friends, what do we care about a few paltry elk when we have the chance to kill a hated white? Our wives can wait a while longer for the meat. Just think of the praise they will heap on us if one of us takes this man’s scalp back.”

  Bobcat stood. “It would be quite an honor, especially if this is Grizzly Killer. We would have done what the Blackfeet could not do.”

  “We can prove we are the better warriors,” Loud Talker said, and vented a bloodthirsty war whoop. “I say we go after these two. If the boy is worthy, I will take him into my lodge and raise him as my own.”

  “If he is the son of Grizzly Killer I would like to take him into my own lodge,” Walking Bear objected. “He should grow up to be a strong warrior with potent medicine, a credit to the man who rears him.”

  “I say we kill them both,” Bobcat said. “That way two of us can count coup.”

  Little Dog listened to the ensuing heated discussion in disgusted silence. His friends were letting their yearning for glory sweep aside their common sense. None of them, apparently, had noticed that this Grizzly Killer, or whoever the man might be, was leading them back toward the heart of Shoshone country. Their quarry was no fool. If they continued on, the danger of running into a large Shoshone war party grew with each hour. Little Dog feared they might even be tricked into riding straight into a trap.

  Rolling Thunder had heard enough about what to do with the boy. Clearing his throat to get their attention, he adopted a solemn air and said, “We can decide the boy’s fate when we have caught him. As for the man, it is only a question of which one of us gets to him first. But we must be very careful. We must be on our guard for the Shoshones at all times. I, for one, do not plan to have my hair adorn a Shoshone’s lance.”

  “Why worry?” Bobcat said. “We will be in and out of their country before they know it.”

  “So you hope,” Little Dog told him. Perturbed, he walked to their fire and cut off a large chunk of meat to eat. Squatting with his back to the river, he nibbled and considered whether to waste his breath objecting to their new quest. The others weren’t about to change their minds just because he had an uneasy feeling about proceeding. They would say his nerves were
on edge, or joke he was losing his courage as they had done previously.

  “Why are you not being very sociable this evening?” Little Dog involuntarily stiffened. He hadn’t heard Rolling Thunder approach. For so big a man, Rolling Thunder could move like a ghost when he wanted to. “I was hungry,” Little Dog responded.

  “What is troubling you, old friend?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “Do you have so little respect for me now that you lie to me? What have I done to deserve such treatment?” Annoyed, Little Dog spat softly. “You know very well what you have done. Your heart’s desire has come true and you are going to risk all our lives hunting this white eyes.”

  “If you knew what was in my heart, why did you come along?”

  “Need you ask?” Little Dog said, and crammed a large bite of juicy meat into his mouth. He nearly started when Rolling Thunder’s hand fell on his shoulder.

  “I have always valued your friendship most of all, Little Dog, because you see me as I am and still you count me as your friend. I knew you would guess the truth, but I also knew I could count on you to go along with what I wanted to do.”

  Little Dog had to tuck the meat against a cheek to talk. He intentionally held his voice to just above a whisper. “The others are fools, but I am a bigger fool than all of them put together because I know what could happen and I am too timid to protest.”

  “You can go back if you want. No one would hold it against you.”

  “Perhaps not. But none of them would understand.” Little Dog turned on his heels and regarded Rolling Thunder critically. “They are my friends too. What manner of friend would I be if I deserted them when they need me the most? No, I will stay. I will go along with your scheme, and I hope for your sake that everything works out and White Buffalo is put in his place.”

  “He will be. I am risking my life to make it so.”