“I do not mind.”
“No, Touch the Clouds. My husband would think less of me as a woman if he were to hear that I needed you to fight my battles in his absence. Grizzly Killer is my defender, and if anyone is to put Jumping Bull in his place, it is he.”
“Very well. But I will still be around if you need me.” Touch the Clouds glanced over his shoulder, insuring they had not been followed. “And I swear that if Jumping Bull lays a hand on you, I will send him on to meet his ancestors.”
Her lodge reared before them. Winona stood next to the flap and smiled. “Thank you for escorting me. When Grizzly Killer hears of your concern, he will be very grateful.”
“I wish there were more I could do,” the giant said. “In my heart I feel that my father and Lame Elk are wrong, but my head says I must do as they want.”
“You are the best of friends,” Winona assured him. Stooping, she swung the flap wide and entered. The interior was dimly lit by the glowing coals of her fire, which she promptly stoked. The last of her meager supply of limbs had to be used to rekindle the flames, and she knew she would need more long before morning. With snow on the way, the night promised to be extremely cold.
Donning a buffalo-hide robe, Winona walked outside and headed for the bank of the river where cottonwoods grew in profusion. There she moved among the trunks, collecting downed limbs as she went.
Ahead of the oncoming storm raced brisk northerly winds that rustled the brown leaves overhead and bent the more slender trees. Occasionally the wind howled as if alive. In the village horses were neighing, dogs barking, children yelling. The noise was such that Winona could not hear her own footsteps, let alone anyone else’s.
The search carried her near the swirling water. As she bent over to pick up a slender branch, her gaze drifted toward the lodges and she saw something or someone move in the undergrowth between her and the village. Freezing, she stared at the vague shape and wondered if it was a person or an animal.
A possible answer occurred to her, causing a gasp to escape her lips. Jumping Bull might have seen her leave her lodge, then followed her! And in her haste to gather wood she had left her pistol behind! Slowly she lowered her knees to the ground and set the branches quietly down. Should Jumping Bull attack, she wanted her hands free to defend herself.
Winona reached under her heavy robe and drew her knife. The shape was moving again, advancing toward the river, and would pass within ten feet of her position, on her left. She could not make out many details, but she saw enough to convince her it definitely was a man and not a beast.
Crouching low, Winona clasped the knife close to her chest. She must make the first strike count. A skilled warrior like Jumping Bull would not give her a second chance, so she must go for his throat or his heart. Her own heart was thudding wildly, and to her dismay her hands started to shake. Gritting her teeth, she steeled her will to the deed she must do.
Suddenly the figure changed course, moving directly toward her.
Winona waited for him to step from the bushes, and then, with a low cry of defiance, she sprang.
Seven
Rolling Thunder, greatest of Gros Ventres warriors and next in line—in his own mind if not in the minds of all his people—to be the next war chief of the tribe, was in the foulest of moods, as foul as the raging blizzard that had unexpectedly stranded the members of his hunting party deep in Shoshone territory. He stood in the midst of wildly waving aspens and mentally cursed the spirits for placing him in such damnable straits.
His anger was fueled by the knowledge that they had been very close to the man and the boy when the snowstorm hit. He’d pushed the others hard prior to the change in the weather, so hard they had gained a lot of ground on the unsuspecting pair. In his opinion the two would have been in his clutches before the sun set.
And now? Rolling Thunder glared skyward and wished he was a medicine man that he might use his power to make the snow stop. If it kept falling at the current rate, by morning there would be five feet or more covering the mountain. High, high above, the wind shrieked past the peaks, the siren scream matching his disposition perfectly.
The sound of wood being chopped fell on Rolling Thunder’s ears, and he turned back to the crude but serviceable conical forts his companions were constructing. There were three such shelters, much like those frequently used by the Blackfeet and their allies. Since they had been caught in the aspens and unable to find a convenient cave or other sanctuary, they were making do as resourcefully as they knew how.
In the middle of the forts blazed a fire protected on two sides by lean-tos. When one of the warriors grew cold, as one often did, he would warm himself by the fire for a while, and then resume chopping and aligning the slender saplings used in the building of their forts. Right now it was Little Dog’s turn to rest, and as Rolling Thunder squatted across from him, he glanced up.
“Do not say a word,” Rolling Thunder warned.
“I was not planning to.”
“No? You do not have to. I know what you are thinking. You blame me for this. If I had not insisted on trailing the man and the boy, we would be on our way back to our own country instead of huddled here in these trees. The storm might have missed us.”
“No harm has been done. We can go home when the storm ends.”
“Which should make you very happy,” Rolling Thunder spat. “You never wanted us to come this far.” He pulled his robe tighter around his broad shoulders, and when he spoke next his tone had softened. “Perhaps I should have listened to you, old friend. I do not relish the thought of being stranded here for several sleeps.”
“Maybe it will be less.”
Rolling Thunder made a sound reminiscent of a bull buffalo about to charge. “Listen to that wind! Look at how heavy the snow falls! This is a blizzard, and we will be lucky if we are not snowed in for an entire moon.”
“What does a delay matter? You have your new horse and rifle to take back, and you can tell everyone of the coup you counted on a white man. I would say the hunting trip has been the success you hoped it would be.”
“It would have been more of a success if we had caught Grizzly Killer.”
“If it is him we were after.”
“It is,” Rolling Thunder declared.
“How do you know?”
“I feel it deep inside.”
Little Dog, saying nothing, selected a broken branch from the pile at his side and fed it to the leaping flames. While he dared not admit to it, he was profoundly thankful the blizzard had obliterated every last trace of the tracks they had been dogging, forcing them to abandon the chase. Further incursions into Shoshone territory would be pointless. Thanks to the snow, they all stood to reach their village with their scalps intact. Had he been alone he would have laughed with relief.
“Why are you smiling?”
Taken aback, Little Dog cupped his hands to his mouth and breathed on his fingers to warm them. He was stalling so he could come up with a suitable answer. “I was thinking of my wife and how happy I will be to see her again.”
“You always have been too sentimental,” Rolling Thunder said. “I have three wives, and I would rather be out here than stuck in a smoky lodge with any one of them. Their unending chatter is enough to give any man a headache, and their constant nagging makes me want to throw them all off a cliff.”
“Why insult them so when you know you love them?”
“Do I?”
There was such heartfelt sincerity in the question that Little Dog looked around sharply. He had long held the opinion that the only person Rolling Thunder truly loved was Rolling Thunder. Tactfully, he had never voiced his belief. And he was quite shocked to have his friend practically admit as much.
“Sometimes I wonder,” Rolling Thunder said.
“We all have times where we wish our wives would be eaten by wolves,” Little Dog commented. “They probably feel the same way about us.”
“Do you really think so?” Rolling Thunder said
, his brow creased. “Possibly the wives of other men do, but mine are too content and grateful at having me for their husband to ever speak or think ill of me.”
“What man truly knows what goes on in a woman’s mind?” Little Dog said.
At that juncture Walking Bear joined them and held his hands out to the fire. “If you two are done warming your bottoms, there is still work to be done. One of the forts is not yet complete.”
Little Dog, sighing in resignation since he knew how much Rolling Thunder despised doing menial work, put his palms on the frigid ground and began to push upright. But Rolling Thunder restrained him by pressing on his shoulder.
“You rest, my friend. I will help finish.”
“I must do my share of the work,” Little Dog protested.
“You have already done more than your share and I have not.”
Mystified, Little Dog watched Rolling Thunder walk off. How, he wondered, could someone be so selfish and rude one moment and so considerate and polite the next? Rolling Thunder was a bundle of contradictions, as complicated a man to get to know as Little Dog had ever encountered. There were instances when he wanted to embrace him in friendship; at others he wanted to wring Rolling Thunder’s neck.
Life was so strange sometimes.
~*~
“Let that old blizzard go on forever!” Zach declared contentedly, shifting his feet so they were closer to the fire, so close his moccasins were in danger of bursting into flames. “We’re snug and warm in here.”
“For now,” Nate agreed, gazing anxiously at the constantly shifting white shroud blanketing the landscape outside of their refuge. “If the snow goes on forever, I’m afraid we’ll never dig ourselves out.”
“It won’t,” Zach said, laughing. “I wasn’t serious, Pa.”
Nate touched his son’s knees. “Pull your feet back a bit or you’ll be going barefoot when we leave.”
The boy complied, and bit off a large piece of jerky.
“Go easy there. We don’t know how long our supply of food has to last us.”
“Sorry,” Zach said, and replaced the portion he had not touched in the beaded parfleche on the earthen floor to his left. He was embarrassed that he had been making a pig of himself, and figured it would be best to talk about something else. “How long do you reckon the wood will hold out?”
“A few more hours yet.”
“Then what will we do?” Zach asked, thinking of the bitter cold he’d experienced before his father got the fire going. He’d been as close to being frozen stiff as he ever wanted to be, and he dreaded having to go through the ordeal again.
“I’ll go down to the trees and fetch more,” Nate said.
“In this?” Zach saw puffs of snow blown into the cleft by the squalling wind. Fleeting panic assailed him as he imagined the sheer horror of being left alone should calamity befall his pa. “How will you find your way back?”
“Simple, son,” Nate said, pointing at their piled supplies in the corner. “I’ll tie one end of my rope in here, to my saddle, and the other end around my waist, then go down the slope, feeling my ways along, until I find fallen branches or a tree I can chop limbs off of.”
“But what if the rope isn’t long enough?”
“We have two blankets I can cut into strips to add to it if need be.”
“But what if the rope or strips break or become untied?”
Their eyes met. Nate gave his son a light tap on the point of his chin and stated, “It has to be done. There’s no way around it. We won’t last a day without a fire.”
“I wish the snow would stop.”
“A minute ago you didn’t much care if it snows forever.”
“I changed my mind.”
Smiling, Nate leaned his back against the wall. The warmth and security made him drowsy and he wearily closed his eyes, wishing he could sleep the clock around. Sleep, however, was a luxury he could ill afford until the weather broke and the cold abated. One of them had to keep the fire going at all times, and Zach was hardly old enough to be entrusted with so important a responsibility.
“Pa!”
Nate’s eyes shot open and he straightened, his right hand gripping a pistol. His son was staring at the entrance, but a glance showed Nate only thick snow. “What’s the matter?”
“I saw something.”
“What?”
“I’m not sure, Pa. An animal of some kind. It poked its head in, spotted us, and backed right out again.” Had Zach imagined seeing something? Nate couldn’t help but ask himself as he rose and moved cautiously to the opening. The boy was wound as tight as a fiddle, and Nate knew how a bad case of nerves could play havoc with a person’s mind. He’d checked the cleft floor shortly after starting the fire, and except for a few chipmunk tracks had found no evidence of previous inhabitants. Peering out proved pointless; visibility was now restricted to a foot or two, at best. A blast of wind lashed snow in his face, driving him inside.
“See anything?”
“No.”
“I saw something, Pa. I really did.”
Nate studied the ground bordering the opening, which was covered by three inches of snow, but there were no prints. The wind might have wiped them out, if there had been any there to begin with. He walked back to the fire. “I might as well fetch that wood now as wait until later. The storm doesn’t look like it will let up before Christmas.”
Zachary stood and visibly composed his features. “Right this minute, you mean?”
“No sense in letting grass grow under us,” Nate quipped, yet the boy’s somber mood was unaffected. Taking the rawhide rope, he carried his saddle to within a foot of the opening and looped the end of the rope around it. “What about cutting up our blankets?” Zach asked. “Only as a last resort,” Nate said. He yanked on the rope, testing the knot. “Keep your piece charged and your eyes peeled while I’m gone.”
“Shoot sharp’s the word,” Zach said, stepping to the saddle.
Nodding, Nate made fast the rawhide to his waist, checked his pistols to verify they were still snug under his belt, and slowly edged outward.
“If you need me, Pa, tug on the rope.”
“I will,” Nate replied, amused at the notion of Zach coming to his rescue should he find himself in trouble. One so tender in years quite understandably lacked a mature appreciation of the severe dangers that might befall any wanderer in the wilderness at any time.
A tremendous gust of wind punctuated Nate’s reverie by nearly bowling him over as he moved into the open. Whirling flakes flitted all around him, and he was encased from head to toe in a fine layer of white. Seizing the rope firmly in his left hand, he tucked his chin low and barreled his way down the slope, battling the wind every foot of the way. His body was buffeted mercilessly; at times he felt as if he was being hammered by invisible fists.
And the cold! Now that Nate was away from the warming influence of the fire, the cold sliced into him like a knife made of ice. In seconds he was freezing, his teeth chattering. He might as well have been naked for all the good his buckskins and buffalo robe were doing him.
Somewhere below was the wood they needed. Hunching forward, Nate dug in his feet and made slow but determined progress. Several times he slipped, but each time his grip on the rope enabled him to stay erect. Twice his moccasins banged against rocks. His right ankle started throbbing.
When Nate guessed he had covered twenty feet, he crouched and felt the ground in front of him with his right hand, seeking the precious wood they needed to survive. His frantic fingers found stones by the bushel, rocks by the score, and a few boulders here and there. He also found weeds and a patch of grass. Yet no branches, not so much as a solitary twig.
His fingers were rapidly numbing. Intense pangs racked his lungs. Suddenly his beaver hat began to slip from his head and he pulled it down tight. In doing so he lost his hold on the rope, and as he swung his arm to grab it his left heel went out from under him. Unable to keep his balance, he fell hard.
/> For a moment Nate lay there, annoyed at his clumsiness. A snowflake landed in his open mouth, alighting on the very tip of his tongue. Instantly it melted and he swallowed the drop of water. There were so many flakes filling the air that another immediately flew between his lips and he swallowed again. “We won’t want for water,” he said aloud, and chuckled, envisioning how he must look lying there like some simpleton.
Slowly Nate rose, gathering in the rope as he did. “You’re not beating us, storm,” he declared, then shouted into the raging elements, “You’re not beating us!”
Pressing on, Nate searched faster. Visibility had dropped to less than six inches. His arms and legs were so cold they hardly had any feeling left in them. His toes were either numb or missing. The norther was the culprit. High winds invariably intensified cold temperatures.
Desperation tinged his movements now. They needed wood, and he refused to go back to the cleft until he found some. Swinging right and left, he tried to make sense of the objects his fingers touched. A moment later his right hand brushed against something long and hard. Pausing, he examined it carefully and recognized the smooth texture of bark. His prize was a downed tree limb!
Quickly, Nate seized it under his right arm and stood. As he turned a dark blur moved through the snow. He caught a brief glimpse of something on four legs, and knew his son had indeed seen an animal. But what kind?
Nate warily headed for the cleft. Whatever the thing was, it must have followed him down. Would it attack? Or was it as cold and disoriented by the blizzard as he was? His palm curled around a flintlock.
He must have traveled ten feet when the dark blur reappeared a yard in front of him. So swiftly did the creature move that again its identity eluded him, but he did see enough to roughly gauge its size, which was not half as high as his knees and not more than two feet long. A measure of relief fortified him and on he went. Perhaps it was a raccoon or a bobcat, even a rabbit, he speculated. Although why any wild animal would be so close to him was puzzling.
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