A Path Worth Taking

by Mariella Starr

  ***

  It was dusk before the men found a place to stop for the night. They took their time and picked an area forming a natural box canyon. There was only one way in and they talked about being able to see anyone coming after them.

  The man holding Beth dismounted and hauled her off the saddle. Her legs collapsed under her as he dragged her to a tree where he untied her arms and then retied them around the back of the tree trunk.

  “Let me have a go at her before you tie her down,” the other man, Beale wheedled.

  “No,” the man who tied her said gruffly. He glared at Beth. “Do you remember me?”

  She slowly nodded her head yes.

  “Good. You killed my brother. We never made it to Fort Laramie. His shoulder set up gangrene, and he died screaming in pain!” He slapped her on her head so hard her ears rang.

  “When your husband comes to find you, I’m gonna kill him real slow. I’m gonna make sure he sees us fucking you and having a good ‘ole time. When we’re finished with you, I’m gonna slit his throat and let you watch him die. When we get through with you, you’ll wish we’d slit your throat too!”

  ***

  “Bring a kitchen chair in here,” Lettie ordered Jasper. “My legs ain’t working, but my head’s working fine. You’ll have to drag the chair with me on it into the other room. I’ll tell you what needs to be done.”

  Jasper did exactly what he was told. He tilted the chair on its back legs and dragged Lettie into Garret and Beth’s bedroom. He found the bottle of whiskey Garret kept hidden in the pantry. Lettie told him to pour the whiskey in a pan and drop all the kitchen knives in it.

  In the bedroom, Lettie had Jasper hoist her onto the bed. She checked Abram first. He had a bad cut on his head and his leg was twisted, but the bone had not come through the skin. She told Jasper to go out and cut four long straight saplings or limbs. She needed them for splints.

  Lettie only had use of one arm, but it was the one she favored. When Jasper returned, she set him to work. She had him get into Beth’s blanket chest and cut strips from the wool blankets.

  When Jasper followed Lettie’s instructions and gave a hard pull to straighten Abrams' leg, the man screamed horribly. The pain brought him back to consciousness.

  “Hold still!” Lettie ordered, slapping a leather belt between his teeth. “We have to do this!”

  Abram bit his teeth into the leather and held on as she and Jasper strapped his leg tightly to the splints.

  “We’ve done all we can for you,” Lettie said. “I have to tend to Jeb next. He’s been shot.”

  Abram grimaced and grunted as he dragged himself into a sitting position. He looked at the older man lying beside him. “Have you ever cut a man open to remove a bullet?”

  Lettie shook her head no.

  “All right, I’ll do it. We need to strap him down. I don’t want him moving whilst I’ve got a knife in him. I worked at an Army camp hospital for a while during the war. Sometimes they got so busy, they didn’t care who did the cuttin’. This ain’t gonna be easy or pretty!” he warned.

  Jasper sat down on the kitchen door threshold and took a rest for the first time in hours. He was the only uninjured adult, although he knew the rest of them didn’t consider him grown yet. He was sure glad Lettie and Abram had been able to do most of the doctoring.

  Abram had a broken leg, which he and Lettie had straightened and splinted. Abram and Lettie had removed the bullet from Jeb’s chest. Abram had done the initial cutting and Lettie had poked around until she found the bullet. It had been all Jasper could do not to vomit, but he fought it, not wanting to embarrass himself. Lettie had used sewing thread to stitch the gaping hole in Jeb’s chest closed. Jeb was still unconscious.

  After they had sewed Jeb’s wound closed, they turned their attention to Lettie’s arm. Abram had done the straightening of it while Jasper had done the splinting and wrapping. After the broken bones had all been sorted out, they had to clean all three head wounds. Abram had used the sewing needle on Lettie’s gash. She, in turn, had used it on his. Then they turned their attention back to Jeb’s wounds.

  Lettie was still unable to walk, so Jasper had to drag her around in the kitchen chair. She said she did not hurt, but telling her legs to move was not doing the job. They were numb and useless.

  There was also little Virgie to tend. Jasper didn’t mind holding the baby, but he didn’t want any part of changing dirty diapers. He also didn’t want to be around when Lettie had to feed the baby since Virgie was still on the tit.

  “When do you figure Garret will be back with Beth?” Jasper asked.

  “Soon,” Lettie said with a determined tone in her voice. “Soon.”

  ***

  Beth was terrified. She was tied and gagged, and she couldn’t do anything about it. She remembered the last name of the man holding her was Clinton. He was insane. He had to be to say the things he did. He took great delight in telling her in detail what he planned to do with her after he killed Garret.

  He and the other man, Beale, started a campfire. Clinton would light sticks in the fire and poke them at her. She had to kick at them to keep from being burned or catching her dress on fire.

  Clinton’s threats seemed to set off the other man, Beale. He wanted to get to her first. With her arms tied behind her back, there was no way she could stop them if they did rape her. Beth had felt helpless quite a few times in her life, but she had never felt this kind of helplessness before. It was pure terror. She feared what they were planning for her and yet she was in more terror of them murdering Garret.

  Suddenly, there was a snap of a twig. Clinton jumped to his feet pulling out a large revolver from his holster and stepping behind a tree.

  Beth could not see where either of the men had disappeared, but she knew they were lying in wait for her husband. She squirmed and screamed through the gag. The ropes on her arms were cut and then Clinton grabbed her and pulled her in front of him as a shield. He wrapped his arm around her throat, lifting her onto her toes.

  Someone pushed Beale out of the shadows into the light of the campfire. Beth was unable to see who held him because they were still in the darkness. She saw a flash of metal by the firelight and a knife slashed across Beale’s throat. He dropped to the ground and didn’t move. Someone backed into the shadows so quickly, she couldn’t see who it was.

  “Come out!” Clinton yelled. “I’ll kill her!

  A man stepped out, but it was not Garret. It was Black Crow.

  “Fucking Injun!” Clinton screamed. He raised his gun and then there was a swish in the air and a thud. Beth was jerked backward and suddenly released, and she fell to the ground. She glanced over her shoulder and choked as bile rose into her mouth.

  Clinton was impaled through the throat with an arrow. He was pinned to the tree trunk while blood gushed from his mouth and throat. He tried to raise his gun again, but two arrows swished and thudded, pinning his shoulder and arm to the tree trunk. The gun fell from his grasp. He tried to say something, but it was only a gurgle as blood spurted from his mouth. He stopped struggling and slumped forward, the arrows holding his weight in place.

  Beth crawled across the ground on her hands and knees and, clawed at the gag with her fingers and when she finally got it down, vomited.

  “You are safe,” Black Crow said, walking to her. His bent down with his bloodied knife in his hand and pulled the handkerchief away from her neck, sliced it and tossed it away.

  “What are you going to do to me?” Beth demanded.

  “Nothing,” Black Crow said, moving back to sit by the fire. “We saw you with them. You are Garret’s woman, and we would not hurt you. Do not be frightened, little one. He will come for you. We will stay until he does.”

  “What will you do with them?” Beth asked, nodding toward Clinton, but not looking at him directly.

  “Leave them for the wolves and bears. They deserve no better. We should take their scalps, except it would only enrage the soldiers m
ore. Those men have done many wrongs, and most of it has been blamed on my warriors. The white man’s army is too stupid to read the signs of what is real and what is fake.”

  “The Army is hunting for you,” Beth said, hobbling to the fire and trying to rub the feeling back into her hands and arms. “We saw the troops. You need to get away before they find you.”

  Black Crow gazed at Beth steadily, and his mouth curved slightly. “You are a strange warrior woman, small one. You are brave like the Nanwuine'nan.” He rubbed his index finger against the side of her nose. Marie had told her was a sign of greeting between Arapaho. “I will stay with you until my men tell me Garret is near.” He made a motion with his hand, and twenty or more Indian warriors all wearing war paint stepped out of the darkness.

  Beth gasped, feeling frightened by their war paint, yet at the same time feeling strangely safe. “Thank you, but I don’t want to be responsible for you or your men being caught. I don’t agree with how your people have been treated. I don’t understand why a person’s color causes so much hatred. Marie Chardon told me you were her brother, by her adopted father’s second wife. She taught me a lot about your people last summer.”

  “Marie is a sister,” Black Crow replied.

  “She is worried about you, too,” Beth added. “You should get away while you can.”

  Black Crow said something to his men, and one of them brought a blanket and laid it on the ground near the campfire. Black Crow motioned toward the blanket. “Try to rest, Little Stands Tall. The moon will be waning before Garret comes.”

  ***

  Garret rode as fast as he could and still keep an accurate read on the trail he was following. Thinking about what those men could do to Beth was driving him mad. He had to get her back alive!

  He was also fighting time, as the shadows of the day grew longer. He was bearing toward the mountains where it would be impossible to read the signs in the dark of the forests. He was becoming a bit frantic and had lit a torch when an Arapaho warrior rode out of the darkness toward him.

  Garret knew this man as part of Black Crow’s band and followed him.

  When Garret rode into the clearing, he could see a small campfire had been fueled recently. The campsite was eerily empty except for a woman lying on a blanket. Garret knew Beth was not alone. Black Crow and his men had simply melted into the darkness of the forest upon his arrival.

  “Thank you!” Garret gave a universal sign with his hands in addition to his shout.

  “Garret?” Beth was awakened by her husband’s voice. He dismounted and gathered her into his arms, hugging and rocking her.

  “Where is Black Crow? He saved me,” Beth told him. “He protected me, and he killed those men.”

  “He’s gone,” Garret said. “Close your eyes, honey. I will hold and protect you for the rest of the night.”

  “How is Lettie? I saw that man, Beale, kick her to the ground.”

  Garret didn’t answer.

  Beth sat up, holding her head. “Tell me!”

  “I don’t know for sure,” he admitted. “I had to come after you. Lettie was hurt, so was Jeb and Abram. I left Jasper there to take care of them. Lettie begged me to come after you.”

  “The deserter named Clinton wanted to kill you,” Beth said. “He blamed us for his brother dying. Did they hurt you?”

  ‘No. Black Crow stopped them before they could hurt anyone else.”

  “Black Crow is a very nice Indian. He calls me Little Stands Tall.”

  Her husband smiled at the innocence of her words. “Most people wouldn’t consider Black Crow nice. He has been kind to you, and I thank him for it.”

  Garret was alarmed in the middle of the night by wolves circling their campsite. He fired his rifle at them blindly in the dark, heard a yelp, and the pack ran off. With a flame at the end of a branch, he found felled wood and dragged it to the fire to build it higher. Beth was so exhausted she remained asleep even when he fired the gun.

  She had admitted to falling on her head and feeling dizzy. One side of her face was red, but she wasn’t swollen or bruised yet. Garret sat beside her all night on guard and alert. He never took his eyes off her.

  When daybreak came, he saw the results of Black Crow’s protection. Beale’s throat had been slit. It was his body the wolves had attacked. Clinton still hung from the arrows in the tree where he had been killed.

  Garret felt no sympathy for them. They had taken on an enemy stronger and more vicious and had been beaten at their own game. Very few white men won a straight-on battle equal against Black Crow. Still, Garret was a civilized man, and he would not leave the bodies as carrion for the wildlife no matter how much he thought they deserved it. Before Beth awoke, he cut down Clinton and wrapped both bodies in the blankets from their bedrolls strapping them onto their horses. If nothing else, he would dig a hole and toss them in. They deserved no consideration, yet leaving their bodies was barbaric.

  Beth was still tired but insisted they leave. She wanted to put this horrible episode behind her and go home.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Jasper was thankful when Garret and Beth came riding in the following day. The boy wanted to be relieved of his duties. Lettie was able to hobble around now. She was stiff and hurting, and she barked out orders worse than the cavalry captain, who had stopped by their place several times.

  When Garret rode in with Beth, Jasper took off saying he had chores to do.

  Garret and Beth had to face the injuries of their friends. Jeb was still unconscious, but his wound had stopped bleeding. Abram and Lettie’s broken limbs were swollen and painful, and all of them looked the worse for their injuries.

  While Beth heated water and began to clean the various wounds again, Garret went to find Jasper. He sent the boy to fetch the doctor in Denver.

  Meanwhile, the summer heat and flies were buzzing around the dead bodies. Garret checked in with Beth, who, although exhausted, was able bodied, which was more than he could say for most of their charges. All he wanted to do was pamper and take care of his wife, except it would have to wait. With Jasper gone, she would have to tend the injured and do the cooking while he did everything else. His first distasteful chore was digging a grave large enough for two men. He took the bodies several miles from the cabin and found a place where it was unlikely the graves would ever be disturbed.

  Beth was kept busy. She did have a good supply of medicines, most of which she had found in the trunks from the barn. She read every label carefully. There were liniments, tonics, and syrups, along with an assortment of dubious medicines and outright snake oils. She was well aware some of the medicines probably were useless, except she thought if it were sold, it must have some medicinal value.

  She knew from her few training sessions as a nurse how to keep a wound clean. She dampened the bandages for Jeb’s bullet wound with diluted carbolic acid and cleaned everyone’s head wounds with alcohol. She found a bottle of Dr. Green’s Blood Purifier and, after discussing it with Lettie, decided Abram and Jeb should be dosed with it. Beth gave Lettie Dr. Watson’s Nerve Restorer. Although she called it snake oil, Lettie swallowed the horrible smelling and tasting elixir, and they could only hope it would help with the stiffness in her back and legs.

  Jeb woke on the fourth day. He was groggy and weak, but making sense. They took turns hand feeding him. Garret dragged a cot in from the bunkhouse and set it up the kitchen of the cabin for him and Beth. Jeb and Abram were using their room, and both of them were still bedridden. Lettie stayed in her little lean-to bedroom with Virgie, as she needed the privacy to care for her baby.

  Beth and Garret lay tightly smashed together on the narrow cot and whispered in the dark.

  Their roles were clearly defined. Beth was the nurse and cook while Garret took care of everything else, he had previously called man work. The deer he and Jasper had brought home had gone rancid, so he dragged the carcasses into the woods. They were still in need of meat, especially now. Everyone knew the sick and hurt ne
eded meat broths, but Garret would not leave the home place. He slaughtered one of his precious steers, and spent a day butchering and hanging the meat in the smoker cabin, and helping Beth fill crocks with salted beef.

  It took eight days before Jasper returned followed by a doctor’s buggy. Dr. Franklin Merritt went right to work examining the injured, unwrapping broken limbs, and palpitating arms and legs. He checked the head wounds, which were mostly healed, and the site of Jeb’s home surgery. The doctor declared all was well and in another month everyone should be much better. It took time to heal broken bones. If they were not recovered by then, they were to come to his office in Denver because he had no intention of making another trip unless someone was on their deathbed.

  Dr. Merritt read all the labels of the medicine Beth was using and said since nothing was killing her patients they could keep taking them, except for the Dr. Watson’s Nerve Restorer. He swallowed a large swig of the tonic, said it was the equivalent of a shot of whiskey, and dropped it into his medical bag.

  “Don’t tell Lettie Dr. Watson’s Nerve Restorer is pure alcohol,” Beth warned Garret. “She’ll have my hide. She was raised a teetotaler Baptist and alcohol was to never pass her lips!”

  After the second week, they decided to do some shifting around. Abram was well enough to be moved into the bunkhouse with Jasper. Although he protested, Jeb was to stay in the cabin bedroom a little longer.

  Garret and Beth went to the bunkhouse to give it a good cleaning before moving the men into it. Unbeknownst to Beth, her husband, had sent Jasper on an errand at the far reaches of their property, and it would be hours before he returned. Once they had cleaned the floors and changed the bedding, Garret captured Beth and laid her down on one of the bunks.

  “It has been way too long since I’ve had any privacy with my wife,” he whispered kissing her.

  She circled her arms around him returning his ardor. “Make sure the door’s locked,” she murmured.