Wilderness Giant Edition 3

by David Robbins

  White Calf was no slouch as a warrior. He swatted the blade aside, then countered with a blow that would have crushed Nate’s knee to bony splinters had Nate not jerked his leg aside.

  Winona, seizing the opportunity, slid off the paint, grasping the reins as she did so it couldn’t flee. She glanced down at her feet, found a small stone, and picked it up.

  Nate was pressing his enemy, slashing repeatedly, endeavoring to break through White Calf’s guard. The Pawnee retreated a few feet, then refused to be budged, his war club flashing in an intricate web of defense that prevented Nate from scoring. Evenly matched, they swung, countered, swung again.

  White Calf’s wrath mounted with every miss. He held the club in two hands, flailing like a madman, lips curled in a bestial sneer. The white man ducked under a high swing, skipped aside from a low swing. It was like fighting an agile wolverine, only more vexing.

  The war club whisked past Nate’s shoulder. He tried to seize the handle, but failed. A desperate tactic was called for if he wanted to prevail. Bounding backward, he flipped the knife in his hand, reversing his grip so he could throw it as he had thrown the tomahawk The blade cut the air almost too fast for the eye to follow, yet not fast enough.

  Instinctively, White Calf had brought the war club in front of his chest to protect himself. The knife hit the haft a few inches above his fingers and glanced off, falling at his feet. Now the only one armed, he roared a challenge and went on the offensive with a vengeance.

  Nate backpedaled. He didn’t dare try to block blows with his forearms or the war club would splinter his bones like so much dry kindling. Prancing right and left, he saved himself time and again from having his head smashed to a pulp.

  Then the unexpected reared its ugly head. Nate’s left heel slipped on slick grass. His leg shot out from under him and he fell on his back. He tried to roll but bumped a boulder. Looking up, he saw White Calf loom above him, the club tilted at the sky. He couldn’t evade the next swing and knew it.

  Winona saw his predicament. She took a step and hurled the stone, throwing her entire weight into the act.

  White Calf, tingling with blood lust, bunched his shoulders for the killing stroke. He felt something shear into his eye, felt blood spurt. Pain rocked him on his heels. Summoning his willpower, he swung anyway, but the delay had cost him.

  Nate shoved on the boulder, catapulting himself to the left as the war club descended. It clipped him, but not hard enough to do real damage. He kicked, ramming the medicine man’s shin, sweeping White Calf’s leg out from under him.

  The Pawnee fell onto his back, then quickly scrambled to one knee, trying to keep his good eye fixed on his adversary. He saw the boulder but not Sky Walker.

  Nate had skipped to the left. Jumping in close, he slammed his knee into White Calf’s face. Cartilage crunched as the nose shattered and White Calf crashed onto his back again. The Pawnee tried to rise, wildly swinging his club. Nate kicked, catching White Calf on the elbow, numbing the medicine man’s arm. White Calf gamely tried to wield the club one-handed but Nate delivered a devastating punch to the jaw that stunned him.

  ‘‘That was for all those maidens,” Nate said, tearing the club from the Pawnee’s grasp and flinging it down the gully. He bunched his fist, raised White Calf’s head off the ground. “This is for my wife.” He punched the medicine man full in the mouth.

  White Calf uttered a sputtering gasp, clawed at empty air, and went limp.

  Nate pivoted, saw his butcher knife. Retrieving it, he stepped to the Pawnee and touched the tip of the blade to White Calf’s throat. “This ends it, you son of a bitch!” His blood boiling, he went to sink the knife in when a soft voice ripped through him like a bolt of lightning.

  “Husband.”

  Whirling, Nate stood frozen, drinking in the loveliness of the woman he was proud to call his mate. She had tears in her eyes and her lips trembled. He tried to speak but his vocal chords were paralyzed.

  “I have missed you so,” Winona said huskily, her heart near bursting with joy such as she had never experienced. She lifted her hands and began to move toward him but he reached her first, taking her into his strong, muscular arms and pressing her close to his broad chest. Winona wanted to tell him that she loved him, that there was no one else in all creation for her, but the words wouldn’t come. Inside her a floodgate opened. Burying her face in his shirt, she did that which she rarely did; she cried, emptying herself of all her pent-up emotions, her accumulated grief and horror and, yes, her love.

  Nate was shocked. He couldn’t recall Winona ever crying before. He held her close, her body quaking gently, and fought back his own tears. Inside his head he seemed to hear surf pounding on a rocky shore, and in his chest there was an intense itching sensation, neither of which made any sense.

  A long time they stood there, neither moving or speaking but saying more in their simple embrace than many couples said in a lifetime of empty chatter.

  The nickering of the horse brought Nate to himself. He coughed, stroked Winona’s hair, and leaned back. “We have to get out of here before the Minneconjous come looking for you.”

  “There is so much I have to tell you,” Winona said, tenderly touching his cheek.

  “Tonight, and every night thereafter.” Nate embraced her, lowering his lips to hers, giving her the sort of kiss a woman would remember the rest of her life. They broke for air and he gazed affectionately into her eyes, expecting to see his love mirrored there. In place of love he saw terror, and too late he realized she was looking past him, not at him.

  A tremendous blow landed on Nate’s right shoulder, driving him to his knees. Swiveling, through a haze of torment he saw White Calf, one eye socket filled with blood, the other eye dilated in murderous madness. The Pawnee was slowly raising the war club for another blow.

  “This is for me!” Nate bellowed, and drove his knife into the medicine man’s stomach, sheering upward into the vital organs under the ribs.

  White Calf released his club, clutched at his abdomen, and tottered. He swung his dilated eye from Nate to Winona and back again, and it was clear he wanted to say something. His lips moved, spewing a dry croak laced with red spittle. He stumbled, fell against the boulder, then sank onto his side, fingers twitching convulsively. When they stopped moving he was dead.

  “You knew him?” Winona asked.

  Nate nodded. “It’s a long story.” He moved to the horse and offered her his hand. “I’ll give you a boost.”

  Winona took a step, then halted, her features locked in astonishment. “No!” she said. “It can’t be!”

  Thinking she was hurt, Nate took her arm. “What is it? The baby?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, Lord! And us without a doctor or a midwife. How bad do you reckon it is?”

  “Get me a broken limb, a stout stick, anything—” Winona urged. “Hurry!”

  “A stick? What good will that do?” Nate responded, confused. Then he recalled that Shoshone women gave birth by squatting and leaning on whatever was convenient, whether it be a branch or a lance or a rock the right size. “You mean now?” he said, thunderstruck.

  “Now.”

  “Can’t you hold it in?”

  Winona hitched at her dress. “A woman has little control over the time or the place.” She eased down. “All that bouncing and the fight have brought it on sooner than I expected.”

  “We’re only a mile or two from the Sioux camp. What if they find us?”

  “Then they can watch.”

  Nate just looked at her, and Winona grinned. He grinned, too, loving her more at that moment than he ever had, more than he had ever thought it possible to love another human being. He might have stood there forever, entranced, had she not gestured impatiently.

  “Are you going to help or must I do it all myself?”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The trappers had their packs in order and were stowing their gear in their canoes. Everyone had a job to do except Shakes
peare McNair, who sat with his back against a tree stump and poked at the fire. A scowl creased his lips when he saw Lane and Abby strolling hand in hand by the river. They reminded him of two others, and the hurt was too awful to bear. To himself he quoted softly, “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio. A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath borne me on his back a thousand times, and now how abhorred in my imagination it is.” His voice broke and he couldn’t go on.

  Just then a commotion broke out at the east side of the clearing. Loud voices mingled with laughter, and through the trees several trappers came, guiding a pair of newcomers who led a single horse.

  Shakespeare stared, and stared. For one of the few times ever he was stupefied beyond measure.

  The newcomers walked straight over and regarded him with twinkling eyes.

  “What do you suppose he is doing?” Winona asked.

  “Sitting there catching mosquitoes in his mouth, I reckon,” Nate answered. “Although I could be wrong. Shakespeare fanatics are a peculiar bunch.”

  McNair so forgot himself, he put both hands on the ground and was going to stand. They stopped him, one on either side.

  “Don’t you dare,” Nate said. “Knorr told us.”

  “One hundred and seventy-eight stitches,” Winona said. “And I thought I had a rough time.”

  “You’re alive!” Shakespeare exclaimed. “Dear God in Heaven, you’re alive!” He hugged them both and bowed his head, and for ten minutes the trappers kept a respectful distance. Finally Shakespeare wiped his eyes and straightened. “Forgive this old coon,” he said gruffly. “My years are catching up with me.”

  “Why do men always think they are being weak when they cry?” Winona asked. “You try to act like you have hearts of stone when the truth is that your hearts are as soft as ours.”

  Shakespeare smiled. “The differences between men and women are too deep to fathom, fair lady, and I hope they always are.”

  “Oh?”

  “It gives us something to ponder when we can’t sleep at night.” Shakespeare nodded at the bundle cradled in her left arm. “New buckskin, I see.”

  “I killed the deer a week ago,” Nate said.

  “Can’t help but notice the way it’s wriggling and cooing. Might I take a gander?”

  Winona parted the folds, revealing the smooth face of the tiny infant. “Meet Evelyn King.”

  “Evelyn?”

  “Remind me to fill you in sometime,” Nate responded.

  Winona carefully passed the baby to Shakespeare, who placed the precious swaddled wonder in his lap. “I will hereupon confess I am in love,” he quoted. “Happy the parents of so fair a child.”

  “I cannot wait to get back and show her off,” Winona said proudly. “I think she is the image of her father.”

  “Insult Evelyn like that again and I’ll keep her for myself,” Shakespeare threatened. Imitating a pigeon, he tickled the child’s chin.

  “Back to normal,” Nate commented. Sighing, he sat cross-legged and saw another woman near the Yellowstone. A white woman, no less! He wondered whether she knew what she was letting herself in for.

  The baby tried to grasp the bottom of Shakespeare’s beard. “Look at this,” he said. “Living proof they can’t wait to get their hooks into a man. I always knew they started young.”

  The mention brought Zach to Nate’s mind, and he asked, “Did you see any sign after the storm? Any on your way here?”

  “Just a band of Blackfeet,” Shakespeare misconstrued. “But these were a newfangled breed. Instead of shooting you, they talk you half to death.”

  “They were the only ones you saw?”

  “Yep,” Shakespeare replied, and was mystified by the acute sorrow that came over his friends. For only a moment, though. “Tarnation. You haven’t heard the whole story yet, have you?”

  “About the bear? Yes.”

  “To hell with the grizzly! I—” Shakespeare began, but did not go on. Two trappers who had gone off hunting earlier were at that moment returning, and behind them bobbed the tousled head of the Kings’ firstborn. “It’s a good thing I’m the one holding little Evelyn,” he remarked.

  “Why do you say that?” Winona asked.

  “I’d hate for her to get squished to death when all of you get to smothering one another.”

  Nate voiced a bitter, dry laugh. “As usual you don’t make any blamed sense whatsoever.”

  “Do tell,” Shakespeare said. He commenced counting, out loud. Winona and Nate exchanged glances and regarded him as if he was touched in the head. The howl of delight came when he reached seven.

  “Ma! Pa!”

  The whole camp turned out to witness the reunion of the King family. Shakespeare was grateful the Blackfeet were long gone or the whole party would have been rubbed out. The rejoicing was so loud, a flock of sparrows clear across the Yellowstone was startled into flight.

  Even Evelyn gave a little jump. McNair smiled at the sweet, innocent babe, and touched the tiny tip of her nose with a calloused finger. “You’re lucky, little one. You have two of the best parents in the world. And if they live long enough, they’ll watch over you and help steer you through this maze we call a life. And maybe, just maybe, when you come out at the other end, you’ll be able to deal with this old world of ours on its own terms and be none the worse for wear.” Settling back, he rested a hand on the thick book beside him, winked at the infant, and said, “Anyone ever told you the story of Romeo and Juliet?”

  WILDERNESS GIANT EDITION

  PRAIRIE BLOOD

  By David Robbins Writing as David Thompson

  First Published by Leisure Books in 1994

  Copyright © 1994, 2016 by David Robbins

  First Smashwords Edition: February 2017

  Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book

  Series Editor: Ben Bridges

  Text © Piccadilly Publishing

  Published by Arrangement with the Author.

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