Ice Princess

by Judith B. Glad

  Dumbfounded, William took it. Nobody'd ever shook his hand before. "I'll do that, sir," he said. He hadn't called any man sir since he run away.

  They each wore a pack, carrying bedding and food for their journey, as well as gifts for their friends. Only one mule had been available in the whole of Oregon City and Flower hadn't wanted to leave anything behind. William thought Flower had paid too much for the big gray mule--two of the gold coins--but he wasn't gonna argue. Gettin' out of town was more important than savin' a few dollars.

  * * * *

  "There they go," Bickelow said. He was leaning against the side of the mercantile, picking his teeth. "How big a head start ought we give them?"

  Muller kept his eye on the woman. Who would've thought a squaw could clean up so nice? "Give 'em a day. We know where they're headed, and there's no call to let 'em know we're following 'em."

  He didn't trust Bickelow a foot farther than he could throw him. He was in too much of a hurry, didn't take time to plan things out careful.

  "The way I see it, the farther they are from any settlement, the less likely anybody'll find 'em after we get done. Somewheres up in the hills, past that steep section," Muller told him.

  "I say we do it before then. And we oughta get 'em off the trail, if we can. There's gonna be settlers comin' through anytime now."

  "Don't worry. When I get done with 'em, nobody's gonna find nothing." Muller looked down the road once again. They were out of sight. "Let's go. I want to get drunk tonight. It'll be the last time for a while." The liquor here in Oregon City was a sight better than anything he had in The Dalles. Or farther east, which was where he was headin' soon as he learned where all that gold had come from.

  He didn't have any doubt he'd find out. If the Nigger wouldn't tell him, the squaw would.

  * * * *

  They traveled faster now than when they'd come west. Having the mule helped, but so did being rested. By the afternoon of the second day, they were climbing up to the narrow ridge called Devil's Backbone. William stopped in a space between trees and looked back the way they'd come. There'd been rain the night before, and the air was so clean and clear he could see something moving down by the river they'd crossed this morning --a long ways down.

  He watched for a spell, wondering if it was an elk. He'd seen a small herd of them down there on the way over.

  "What are you looking at?" Flower said, coming up next to him.

  "Don't know. I saw something movin' down there. Looked like it was followin' the road." There were places where so many wagons had traveled that nothing would grow. They showed as narrow, light brown lines in open places between trees. He could see a place like that now. If whatever had moved was following the road, pretty soon it would cross that clearing.

  Maybe he shouldn't worry, but he did. That feller in The Dalles had been real set on findin' out where William's gold coin had come from. And whether there was more of them.

  He didn't seem the sort to give up easy.

  You ain't seen hide nor hair of him since Flower and them hauled you out of there. Stop your frettin'.

  He watched a little longer, but nothing came into view.

  Another day and they were in the narrow valley that led up into the heart of the mountains. "We should reach the Sandy crossing tonight," Flower said, when they paused for a brief meal at noon. "Perhaps we can camp where we...where we did before. At the base of that terribly steep hill."

  William remembered that camp. It was the last time he'd slept with her in his arms. The last time she'd kissed him like anything more than a brother. "We're makin' good time," was all he said.

  He was checking the mule's pack when he heard Beowulf growl, real low and quiet. Looking across the small clearing, he saw the dog had his head pointed back along the trail. His hackles was lifted and his lips drawn back. Quickly William stepped across to where Flower was bent over his pack.

  "Quiet!" he said as he grabbed her arm. He pulled her into the shelter of some brush. "Stay there," he told her.

  She shrank back out of sight. William went back to the mule, as if he hadn't heard nothing.

  Pretty soon he heard horses coming closer. Beowulf's growls got louder. He backed up so he was standing right next to William, facing toward the approaching horses. William laid his hand of the dog's ruff. "Hush up, now. No need to scare 'em off 'til we knows what they wants."

  Three men rode into the clearing. The only one he could see clear was a skinny feller looking too young to shave. The other two stayed back in the trees, where their faces were shaded from his sight.

  William had lived like a hunted animal too long to have much trust in folks. A man who didn't come right out and show his face wasn't somebody he wanted to meet.

  He grabbed his spear, jerked the mule's lead line loose, and swatted the critter on the rump hard as he could. "Git!" he yelled, real loud, hoping Flower would know he was talkin' to her as much as to the mule. Then he ducked into the brush and ran through it fast as his legs would carry him.

  Even with all the noise he was makin' as he fought his way through tangled branches and over piled-up rocks, he could hear a ruckus behind him. Then he stumbled, rolled down a rocky slope, and near ended up in the river.

  "William?" Her call was soft, just loud enough he could hear it over the noise of the water.

  He pulled himself to his feet, picked up his spear, and looked around.

  Flower motioned at him from behind some bushes, a little farther up the river. Just before he reached her, Beowulf came running up, carrying a scrap of torn denim in his mouth. He dropped it to lick William's hand.

  They fought their way upstream, pushing through the dense willows along the bank when they could, moving back among the pines when they couldn't. It was slow going, because they had to stay hid. He reckoned they'd come a mile or so when Flower stopped. She hunkered down beside a rock, taking deep breaths.

  "You all right?"

  "Just winded. But William, I do not believe this is the way we came."

  "I'm pretty sure it ain't. When I came rollin' down the hill, I could see downriver a ways. The crossing's farther on down from there."

  "We must go back, then. There is no other way across the mountain."

  From what he'd seen on the way over, she was right. This was the biggest, steepest, rockiest...well, there just wasn't anyplace he'd seen that beat this mountain.

  * * * *

  Muller cuffed the kid. "You stupid sonuvabitch! Didn't I tell you to call out, warn 'em you was comin' in. Anybody don't do that, he raises suspicions." Useless little puke. Don't know why I let Bickelow bring him along.

  "Let him be, Muller. There ain't nowhere they can go where we can't find 'em." Bickelow lifted the flap of the big pack that was leaning against a tree. "And they won't go far without food, nohow." He held up a gunnysack. "Bacon and cornmeal. We'll eat good tonight."

  The kid wiped the blood from his nose. "You said to ride into their camp. You didn't say nothin' about yellin' at 'em."

  "Damfool," Muller muttered, but he didn't say it too loud. Bickelow was touchy about anybody but him knocking his kid brother around. Now the Injun and the Nigger had gone to ground, he needed 'em both to help search the woods. "See if you can catch that mule," he told the kid, "but don't chase him too far. I want you back here before dark."

  "We ain't got time to chase no mule. We gotta get after 'em before they get away."

  "Bickelow, I thought you said you'd been up this here mountain." Muller dug into the smaller pack. It mostly had clothes and light stuff. Three or four packages. He opened one. "Tobacco!" He sniffed. "Good stuff, too." Better than what he had in his pouch, anyhow. He stuck it into his saddlebag.

  "You doubtin' my word?"

  "Nope," Muller said, tearing the paper off another package. A woman's dress. Silk, it felt like. He rewrapped it. "But if you been here before, then you oughta' know that there's no way out of that valley but back the way they came. And we're going to be there if t
hey do." He slung the pack over his shoulder. There was enough in it to make it worth taking along. "Leave a sign for the kid. I want to get off the trail."

  They'd camp right beside the river tonight, taking turns watching in case the Nigger and the squaw tried to slip past 'em. Then tomorrow morning, they'd start after 'em. He'd only been a little ways along there last year, but he remembered a place where it got real narrow, so a body just naturally stayed to high ground.

  Up there, the ground got real high real quick. And then it got too high and too steep to climb.

  * * * *

  Flower crawled back from her vantage point. "They are waiting for us. No matter how careful we are, they will see us," she told William. In the past few years there must have been a tremendous flood here, for the rocky riverbanks were washed clean of trees. What few plants grew in the sandy soil were scattered and low, pathetically inadequate cover.

  "What if we go on up the river. You reckon we'd find a way over?"

  "There is always a possibility, I suppose." For a moment she regretted her decision to return to Cherry Vale. Only a few days from what little civilization existed here and already they were fugitives.

  Again she saw the words in Everett's spiky hand ...the bastion of civilization...

  If something like that can happen in England, I would be no safer there than here, she told herself. Aloud she said, "I cannot decide, William. Either way we risk our lives, and you should have your choice of how."

  He smiled slightly, and picked up his spear. "Up, then," he said. "Them fellers have guns, and I don't reckon this'll do me much good against 'em. 'Sides, if we go back, we fight where they decide, but if we go ahead, we can maybe pick our spot."

  They walked all afternoon, although Flower's impression was that they made little progress. This whole valley was a vast boulder field, from small ones the size of her fist to giants, as large as a cabin, forcing them to follow a roundabout route, always trending higher on the mountain. The rounded, tumbled rocks rested in sandy, gravelly soil, which made footing difficult and meant that every footprint remained to mark their passage.

  In late afternoon they left the worst of the flood-ravaged area and made better time through increasingly dense forest until darkness forced them to stop. Flower had been gathering fruit whenever she could--dark, sweet huckleberries, seedy elderberries, puckery gooseberries. They burrowed into a thicket of leathery-leaved salal and flattened enough of the flexible branches to create a small clearing. A few of the fat, almost tasteless berries were ripe, so she added them to their supper.

  Beowulf turned up his nose at berries and disappeared, slinking away like the wolf his sire had been.

  Even if Flower had wanted to sleep apart from William, she would not have been able to. The salal thicket was only big enough to conceal them if they stayed close to one another. She went to him willingly when William lay down and held out one arm, inviting her close.

  He was so warm. So strong. So comforting.

  "I am sorry, William," she whispered, once they had wriggled into a comfortable coil. "If only I had not insisted--"

  "You hush, now. You didn't bring them fellers after us."

  "But if I had not been so determined to go to England--"

  "Flower, I told you once, long time ago, that I go where you does...do. I ain't changed my mind none." His arm tightened around her. His breath was warm on her cheek. "Who's to say we wouldn't have got ourselves into just as bad a pickle if we'd gone on back to Cherry Vale?"

  His hand began a gentle stroking up and down her arm. "I been thinkin' on it, and I reckon that Muller, he seen Mist' Em spendin' one or two of them gold coins. So when I showed that one to the boatman, he figured there was more'n just a couple. And maybe I knew where they come from."

  Flower remembered guiltily why he'd been taken in The Dalles. Because she was too great a coward to fight her own battles. Never again, William. You will never again stand between me and my fears.

  "Now the way I figure it, that Muller was just waiting 'til somebody come along with more of them gold pieces Mist' Em made. Something he said--I disremember exac'ly what--told me he'd been keepin' his eye out for 'em. So when you spent that one at Fort Boise, he was bound to get wind of it."

  "How could he? The Dalles is a long way from Fort Boise."

  "Mist' Em, he told me once that news travels faster where there ain't many folks about than it does where's there's lots. That clerk back at Fort Boise, he was powerful interested in your gold. So maybe he told somebody on their way through, or even writ a letter. Pretty soon folks in The Dalles or Oregon City knows there's a Injun woman with big ol' gold coins to spend. How long you figure before somebody comes lookin' for her?"

  "But William, Emmet spent the gold at Fort Boise and at Fort Vancouver. No one came looking for him." Her belly growled and she silently told it that a handful of berries and water had been adequate food.

  "Nobody in their right mind's gonna go lookin' for Mist' Em. Like your daddy say, he's one ol' he-coon." Salal stems crackled as he changed position, pulled her closer against him. "I surely have slept in softer beds than this," he said. "How you doin'?"

  "Better than I would do alone," she admitted, both to him and to herself. "William, I have been thinking..."

  "Woman, you thinks too much."

  "No. Listen to me." She covered his mouth with her palm. "And do not interrupt until I have said all that I have to say." When he nodded, she removed her hand.

  "When my mother died, I felt adrift. Everett had been called back to England the year before. Suddenly I had only my father. And Buffalo was lost without Peaceful Woman. He wanted--no, he needed--to go back into the mountains. When Emmet became his partner, they planned to go into the high country north and east of Cherry Vale, rugged country where they might stay for two or three seasons without ever seeing another human being."

  William seemed about to speak, so she covered his mouth again, briefly.

  "Buffalo would not take me with him. And to be honest, the thought of being so isolated did not appeal to me. I was on the edge of womanhood and I wanted to be where there were other young people." She paused, remembering. "Young men. Everett had filled my head with romantic tales, and I wanted romance."

  "I stayed with Jacques' family for a time, but missed my parents greatly. So when some of the Nez Perce in the valley decided to visit their relatives along the Clearwater, I went along. My mother's family made me welcome, and I was happy there for a while. But I was less happy with the missionaries at Lapwai, for they seemed two-faced. They loved the noble savage and hated the heathen. Because my mother was Nez Perce, they seemed to forget that my father was American. They could only see me as Indian, so they treated me with a certain kindly contempt. It was the first time I understood in my heart that many Americans would call me a half-breed.

  "Two summers ago I went to Waiilatpu with some of my cousins. Although Doctor Whitman seemed somewhat accepting of my mixed parentage, his wife seemed to fear all with Indian blood. I was preparing to return to Lapwai when my father arrived. He came to say goodbye, for he knew even then he was dying." The shock of Buffalo's announcement returned, and she fought the tightness in her throat.

  "I wanted to go with him, to spend as much time as I could with him, but he refused. He wanted to go off into the hills alone, he said, and crawl into a hole to die, just like any wild animal." Swallowing tears, she went on. "I was furious with him when I found that he had gone to his cabin, that he had allowed Hattie to nurse him when he would not let me do it."

  "He shouldn't ought to have done that," William said. He caught her gesturing hand, kissed the fingertips.

  Flower jerked her hand back. "Don't do that!" She tried to scoot a little farther from him, but the springy branches on which she lay pushed her right back against him. She forced herself to think of what she wanted to say. "If only I had arrived sooner. I might have seen Buffalo again."

  "He wouldn't have wanted you to see him at the en
d. He was a proud man, Flower."

  "But I needed to! He was my father!"

  She heard her own words, heard the whine in them. Good God! I sound like a child crying for the moon! And she was shamed.

  "I am sorry, William. I seem to have though only of myself for a long time."

  "Seems to me we all got to think of our ownselves first. Ain't nobody else gonna worry over us like we do."

  "Yes, but--" His words penetrated. "You are a wise man, William. A very wise man."

  "No'm, I ain't. But I watch folks and I thinks about what I sees, and I makes up my mind about things. Seems to me you was at a bad time in your life to have everybody you loved took from you. Then you got treated like you was no-account by folks who should have knowed better. You found yourself a new family, and right when you was feeling like you belonged again, them renegades come along. I reckon you had to think about your ownself, 'cause nobody else was doin' it for you. And if you figured you needed to go somewhere safe, well, that's what you needed to do."

  "But I had no right to ask you to come with me."

  "I don't recall you askin' me. In fact, more'n once you told me to get along home and let you be."

  Was that laughter she heard in his voice? She had done her best to drive him away, yet she had showed him time and again how much she needed him.

  Before she could think of what to say, he went on. "I didn't know what freedom was, all the time I was grown' up. Didn't even know the word. But I was safe." As he spoke, his accent thickened, until he sounded like he had when she'd first met him.

  "I was real safe. Marse Yates, he take real good care of his slaves. I had food to eat, clothes to wear. If I got sick, he call in a doctor, 'cause I's a good field hand. He never let nobody else whup me 'cept the overseer, and when he done it, he made sure I wasn't hurt for good."

  "Of course not. What good would a crippled draft animal be?" she murmured very softly, but he ignored her. Or perhaps he failed to hear her near-whisper.

  "Marse, he woulda' been real mad had he heard the preacher man talk about the place where a man could be king. I remember what he said, just like I heard it yesterday. 'We is poor and we is enslaved but God has give us a kingdom beyond the river and the mountain." He told how there was honey and apples, and sweet water flowin'. Where no man bows his head to nobody, 'cause everybody's all the same.