By midmorning the boy had covered over a mile. He was trudging along, his head bowed, his soul heavy with gnawing worry, when he smelled the faint but unmistakable odor of burnt flesh.
Glancing up, Zach beheld a once-in-a-lifetime sight. Yards off lay the scattered remains of a horse. The animal had been blasted to pieces, torn asunder by a devastating force that had left the charred head lying twenty feet from the ruptured hindquarters and the front legs jutting from the ground as if they had been hammered into the earth. Grisly chunks of flesh dotted the grass. To one side was a torn parfleche. Elsewhere the blackened saddle was a total ruin.
Zach gaped and gulped. He realized what had happened to the bay as it fled, a fate he would have shared had he still been on it. Stunned, he skirted the remains to the left and stared down into the gully. There was no trace of the Kentucky and there never would be. The flood had swept the long gun away.
Depressed, Zach sat and took stock. He was stranded afoot in the middle of nowhere, a fate many trappers considered certain death. He had a butcher knife and a tomahawk, which would serve him in good stead, and a powder horn and ammo pouch, which would not unless he found another gun in the same caliber. His possibles bag contained odds and ends for starting fires and sharpening blades and such, but no food.
The thought made the boy’s stomach rumble, reminding him he had not eaten since the day before. He gazed out over the plain, seeking game, but there was none to be found. Then his eyes settled on the charred pieces of the bay and an idea cropped into his head that made him shake it and declare, ‘‘No! Never!”
Zach’s belly growled louder. He thought about the Apaches, who ate horse flesh as a matter of course, and some of the other tribes who would eat it when times were lean. Even his Uncle Shakespeare had eaten horse a few times and claimed the meat was quite tasty.
As yet no flies had gathered. If Zach was going to do the deed, he had to do it soon.
Scrunching up his face, he walked to a tempting morsel and squatted. The chunk was warm to the touch, and greasy. He turned it over in his hands, saw a stringy piece hanging down, and took a tentative nibble.
The meat had a distinctive flavor all its own. When his first few swallows didn’t make him gag, Zach bit into a juicy part and chewed lustily. It couldn’t compare to venison or elk steak, but it would do, and do right fine.
Over the next half an hour Zach gorged himself on as much as he could eat. He didn’t know when he’d have his next meal, and he had to stay strong if he was to have any hope of finding his folks again.
Here was another matter that had to be mulled over. Zach figured his parents would come looking for him, and that notion was encouraging until he realized they had no idea which way he had gone. Worse, the storm would have erased every track he’d made. His parents would be unable to pick up his trail.
The boy knew his father and mother were devoted to him, knew they wouldn’t give up until they had scoured the countryside for miles around. He also knew they would concentrate their search on the south side of the Yellowstone since that was where they’d last seen him. They probably wouldn’t even cross to the north side.
As Zach saw it, he had to hike to the river and find a way across. Maybe he’d be lucky and spot his folks. If not well, he’d cross that bridge when he came to it.
Selecting a sizable portion of crispy meat,
Zach crammed it into his possibles bag and stepped to the gully. The water had gone down a little further but not enough for him to safely reach the other side.
Thinking there must be a better spot elsewhere, Zach tramped westward. He wasn’t a good judge of distance so he couldn’t say if it was half a mile along or three quarters of a mile farther that he came to a severe bend where the opposite sides were only a couple of yards apart.
The boy stood close to the edge, gnawing uncertainly on his lower lip. He might be able to make it in one long jump, but what if he slipped? To his amazement the current was still too strong, and he couldn’t understand where all the water was coming from.
Turning, Zach went a dozen feet, then faced the gully. He flexed his legs, wriggled his fingers, and breathed deeply. He could hear the water gurgling and he shut the sound from his mind.
Exploding into action, Zach ran for all he was worth, sprinting to the very brink and hurling himself into the air.
He looked straight ahead, not down, his arms and legs whipping wildly, and squawked in surprise when he landed safely and tumbled.
Jumping up, the boy laughed in triumph at the barrier, wheeled, and trudged to the south. Despite all the activity and the meal he was still cold, so he often rubbed his arms as he might on a winter’s night. It didn’t seem to help much.
Zach had no idea how far he had ridden the day before. But he was confident he would shortly spy the ribbon of vegetation bordering the river, and he stayed confident for the first hour, and the second. By the third he was having doubts, so much so that he had been hanging his head in sorrow over his plight for some time when he idly glanced up and saw the river not a quarter of a mile distant.
Beaming, the boy ran, his young heart soaring at the idea of soon being reunited with his family. But as he neared the Yellowstone it became apparent the reunion would not take place any time soon.
So much rain had fallen to the west as the storm raced eastward that the usually languid river was at flood stage. Surging water had overflowed both banks by a dozen yards, more in some places.
Zach stood and forlornly watched logs, brush, and dead animals being swept down the river at a dizzying speed. For him to try to reach the far side would be foolhardy.
Still, the boy had hope. Just a glimpse of his parents was all he asked. He walked back and forth, scouring the south shore. No smoke from a friendly campfire curled skyward, no movement could be seen. He guessed they were searching farther west and he started to go westward when he noticed a very strange thing.
For a long way in both directions along the south shore, all the trees and undergrowth had disappeared. Zach looked, blinked, and blinked again. It was impossible for trees and brush to up and vanish, yet that was exactly what had happened.
There had to be a logical reason, Zach told himself, and the first idea that popped into his head was that the wind had blown the trees and bushes over just as it had done to the grass. He squinted against the glare on the water, trying to spot downed trunks and busted branches, but there were neither.
Now here was a mystery of no common occurrence, and the boy forgot all about his parents, for a while at least, as he tried to make sense of the barren shoreline. The flood waters couldn’t be responsible because where the banks had overflowed, the trees and undergrowth still stood, only partially submerged. Nor could the heavy rain have been the culprit.
Finally Zach had to admit defeat. He couldn’t explain the mystery. But it should work in his favor, he decided. If his parents were close to the river, he’d see them.
Encouraged, Zach continued to the west, seldom taking his eyes off that far side. He didn’t realize he had been hiking for hours until the long shadows warned him the entire day was nearly gone. Shocked, he stopped under a cottonwood. His body was still sore, his legs ached terribly, and the chill had worsened. As if that wasn’t enough, soon the sun sank in a blaze of red and yellow and night claimed the countryside.
Zach King sat with his slender back to a tree, listening to a growing chorus of howling wolves and yipping coyotes, and wondered if he would ever see his folks again.
Chapter Three
The evening before, at the same time that Zachary King was galloping to the northwest in pursuit of the sorrel, Nate and Winona King were following his tracks westward along the south shore of the Yellowstone River. Or they were trying to, because by now the sky had grown so dark they could barely see the grass at their feet. To aggravate their fears, it had started to rain, and Nate voiced the thought on both their minds, “The prints will be washed out.”
“Would a tor
ch help?” Winona asked.
For an answer Nate pointed at the nearby trees which were being bent nearly in half by the blustery winds. He was walking in front of Winona’s mare, stooped over as he tried to read sign. Straightening, he stared at the river where small waves lapped the shore, then
at the rapidly worsening storm. “Damn!” he snapped.
“We will find him,” Winona said with her customary confidence. “He can’t have gone far.”
Nate cupped his hands to his mouth as he had done twenty times already and bellowed at the top of his lungs, “Zach! Where are you?”
The only reply came from the shrieking wind.
“I shouldn’t have let him go after the horse alone,” Nate scolded himself. “One of us should have gone with him.”
“He is old enough to handle such chores alone, husband. Wise are the parents who know when to keep their young ones close to the nest and when to let the young ones stretch their wings. Fewer feathers are ruffled that way.”
Nate couldn’t resist a grin.” Another one of your Shoshone sayings?”
“More or less.”
Swiveling, Nate gazed toward the prairie to the south. Thanks to the Stygian murk, all he could see were a few sable patches of grass off through the waving trees. “Maybe’s he’s out in the open somewhere. Luck might smile on us and we’d spot him from a ways off.”
“Want me to look?”
A crack of lightning and a blast of thunder made Nate’s decision an easy one. “All right. But if you don’t see him, hurry on back and we’ll go tell Shakespeare.” He paused, his apprehension obvious. “I didn’t like leaving him behind, but he had to stay in case Zach showed while we were gone.”
“You are doing all you can,” Winona said. Leaning down as best she was able given her condition, she kissed him on his upturned lips, then jabbed her heels into the mare and trotted toward the open plain.
Nate watched her go with a sense of sinister foreboding in his heart. He shrugged the feeling off as a case of bad nerves and devoted himself to finding tracks.
For several minutes Nate pushed on with his nose inches from the damp ground, fighting the wind every step of the way and ignoring the barrage of huge raindrops. The tracks took him close to the Yellowstone, which was covered with whitecaps. He wondered if maybe, just maybe, his son had crossed to the opposite shore, then dismissed the notion as ridiculous. Zach knew better than to go into Blackfoot country by himself.
The next instant the heavens unleashed a hellish torrent. Raindrops the size of walnuts stung Nate like liquid hail. Shielding his eyes with one hand, he faced to the south, thinking of Winona out on the prairie in her state, unprotected. Should he go after her or continue after Zach?
There could only be one answer. As much as Nate loved his son—and he loved the boy as dearly as any man living had ever loved his offspring—his wife claimed first priority. Tucking his chin to his chest, he hastened through the trees, the brutal gale pounding him every step of the way.
It was now so dark that Nate couldn’t see his hand six inches in front of his face. He shouted
Winona’s name several times but received no response. Without warning there was a rending snap and a limb hurtled at his face from out of the gloom. He saw the branch and ducked, losing his hat but not any flesh.
The wind, incredibly, became stronger. Nate had to bow into the brunt of the storm to keep his footing. He made tortuous progress, losing a foot for every yard he gained. At last the trees fell behind him and he knew he was at the edge of the prairie.
All Nate saw was a wall of rain falling against a backdrop of near solid black which was illuminated every few seconds by thunderbolts. In the light of the flashes he sought Winona and thought he spotted her far, far out on the plain.
“Winona!” Nate shouted so stridently he hurt his throat. He coughed, tried again. Whatever was out there came no closer, and it occurred to him that he had lost both his wife and son in the midst of the worst tempest he had ever experienced.
What else could go wrong? Nate bitterly asked himself as he took several strides. That was when he heard the new noise, the oddest noise he had ever heard, a noise that raised the short hairs at the nape of his neck and sent his heart to racing even though he had no idea what it might be.
In the distance, to the west, there arose a strange howling roar, a sound not unlike that of a wolf in its death throes only a thousand times louder. No, a million times louder.
Nate faced around, his head cocked, trying to hear better above the squalling wind and the driving rain. It seemed as if the roar was getting closer and closer with each passing second. He had never heard anything like it, although he had a nagging feeling that he should know what it was.
Suddenly the sky changed. It moved of its own accord, seeming to shift and swirl and expand as if imbued with dark life of its own.
Nate squinted, trying to make sense of the motion. In his confused frame of mind he had the impression a huge section of the heavens had detached itself from the rest and was bearing down on him like some supernatural behemoth. The rain slackened slightly, permitting him to see the source of the roar more clearly, and the sight he beheld caused his breath to catch in his throat and his blood to run cold.
A colossal grayish funnel over half a mile wide and thousands of feet high was tearing across the grassland, ripping up the earth at its wide base and sucking trees, grass, and other debris into its maw. A monumental engine of destruction, irresistible in its awesome grandeur, it screeched like a demented banshee as it bore steadily eastward.
Nate looked on the aerial leviathan and was riveted in place with unbridled shock. A single word blared in his brain, over and over again: Whirlwind! It towered above him as high as a mountain, twisting and dancing like a snake about to strike, the mushroom shaped crown rearing so high up Nate had to tilt his head back to see it.
The spell broke, and Nate spun and ran even though he knew the futility of trying to flee.
He was directly in the tornado’s path. He had nowhere to go.
To Nate’s rear the ground churned and was ground to dust or ripped into the air and sent whirling. Sprinting as he had never sprinted before, Nate flinched as the howl blistered his eardrums. He tensed for the doom poised to claim him, his only consolation the fact Winona was far enough south to be spared. About Zach he had no idea, but he hoped the boy had crossed the Yellowstone so the whirlwind hadn’t swept him up.
Nate thought of Shakespeare, waiting at their camp, and wished there was some way of warning his long-time friend and mentor. They had been through so much together, shared so many good times that
Nate was thrown violently forward. It felt as if a giant hand had slapped against his back, and he only kept his footing with the utmost effort. He ran on, the shriek of the wind so piercing it sent goosebumps shooting down his body.
Again was Nate’s back pummeled, and this time he was driven to his knees. He began to shove erect, glancing over his shoulder to see how much of a lead he had on the whirlwind. He had none. The tornado hung in the air above him, its sides spinning round and round and round.
Nate stared straight up at the flared top, so far overhead it appeared to be on a distant planet. He instinctively clutched the Hawken to him, and the next moment he was engulfed in a wall of whirling wind. Like a feather in a gale he was lifted bodily and streaked high into the air.
Now everything happened so fast that Nate had only fleeting impressions of the next few minutes. His senses swam as he tumbled out of control. He had trouble breathing but managed to take labored breaths, and his skin felt as if it was being blasted by stinging sand.
Dimly, Nate was conscious of moving in a great circle over and over again at an incredible rate of speed. He became slightly dizzy and felt his stomach churn. Something bumped into his shoulder, and when he twisted his head he was shocked to behold an entire tree sailing along beside him. He blinked, and the tree was gone.
Suddenly Nate beca
me aware of a quiet pocket of space to one side. He looked and promptly wished he hadn’t, because he seemed to be perched hundreds of feet in the air next to the inner edge of a mammoth shaft. Inside the shaft miniature blue lightning bolts danced in eerie silence. At the very bottom was a circular path of ground, stripped of all vegetation. As Nate watched, the shaft moved, and he realized with a start that he was gazing upon the bowels of the monster that had claimed him.
A hard object rapped Nate’s skull and his vision blurred. Vaguely he realized he was spinning steadily lower, and he wondered if he would be smashed to bits on the earth. Then his whole body was flung outward and cold air struck his face, reviving him.
Nate could hear the whirlwind off to one side. He tried to turn but couldn’t. Gravity had him in its unyielding grip and he knew he was falling. He mentally pictured every last bone in his body being shattered on impact, and braced himself.
Seconds later Nate hit. To his amazement, there was no bone-wrenching jolt, no crack of bones and cartilage. His shoulder bounced once, then he was sliding over slick grass, sliding for yards and yards, and just as he started to slow he hurtled over the lip of a precipice and plummeted,
The next impact was brutal. Nate involuntarily cried out. He tumbled end over end and ultimately smashed into something with such force he was left barely conscious, his chest in agony.
Gritting his teeth, Nate tried to stand. He had to insure Winona was safe and check on Shakespeare. He put a hand under him and shoved, but instead of pushing away from the ground, the ground leaped up to strike him in the face. An indigo cloud formed out of nowhere, enclosing his mind, and he collapsed.
It was warmth that brought Nate around, the welcome warmth of sunshine on his cheek. Dazed, he sat up and blinked in confusion, trying to recollect exactly what had happened to him and why he was sitting at the bottom of what appeared to be an earthen cliff.
Nate touched a hand to his head and winced. His entire body was sore and battered and there was dried blood on his temple. He gazed skyward, saw a puffy pillow of a cloud, and suddenly remembered everything.
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