Knight in a Black Hat

by Judith B. Glad

  And awakened, vowing never to take that chance again. No child deserved to grow up fatherless.

  As she arched against his hand, he rose over her, and took her mouth in a deep, searing kiss. His fingers sought the bud of her passion and found it swollen and throbbing. He circled it, caught it and released it. Easing his touch as she moaned, pressing and rubbing as her breath whistled between clenched teeth.

  Malachi clamped down on the relentless pressure in his own body and covered her mouth with his, even as he intensified his torturous stroking.

  "Oh! Ohhhh!"

  He caught and swallowed her scream of completion, even as his own passion overwhelmed him.

  * * * * *

  Nellie waited while Malachi settled Tom against a log. She wasn't certain that leaving him alone to watch the livestock was a wise thing to do, but they were only planning to be gone an hour or two. She thought they could get to the place where Gertie had shown her the balloon flowers in half that time, if she rode a horse.

  The very thought clenched her belly. Malachi had promised that Rogue was as gentle as a kitten, but she still didn't trust him. He was so big.

  But this might be her only chance to collect them, and an opportunity like this was worth sacrifice. She looked at Rogue where he stood quietly, lipping the heads of a clump of grass. Festuca, she was certain, but which one? Uncle said it was nothing special, although he had been unable to identify it. He had grown quite testy when she'd ventured to press him. She was convinced it was the one she'd seen as standing dead in camps all the way from Idaho City. Well, I've collected enough of it that I can send specimens all over. Surely someone will know what it is.

  "Let's go, then," Malachi said, leading both horses to where she stood. "He's feeling better today, so you can stop worrying about him."

  "Are you sure he'll be able to fire the rifle if he needs to?" Tom's right arm was still strapped to his chest, so his hand movement was limited.

  "Nellie, trust me, I'm not apt to leave him alone if I don't think he can do the job."

  His tone was mild, but she heard impatience in it. "Yes, well, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to question your judgment."

  He tossed her into the saddle and Nellie took a moment to settle her skirts so that they mostly covered her ankles. "Yes, you did," he said, holding the horn and grinning up at her. "You've questioned my judgment every day since we met, and you probably always will. You're a disputatious woman, Nellie Sanders. I don't know why I put up with it." He mounted Buck, edged him close to Rogue.

  "Well, if you don't like it--" Before she knew it, he had her chin firmly in hand and had cut off her words with his mouth.

  "Don't change, Nellie," he whispered. "Don't ever change. I lo-- like you just the way you are."

  Nellie heard what he hadn't quite said. She bit her lip and looked toward the peaks. If she were to have one wish, only one wish, for the rest of her life, it would be to be loved by Malachi Breedlove.

  * * * * *

  "There's My Girl's uncle, all by hisself. Wonder what he's up to." From her perch on the big boulder, Gertie had a good view of the place where the river spread across the valley in half a dozen channels, braiding itself like a young girl's hair. She recognized the old feller by the way he rode--like a puddin' sack perched on the saddle.

  She watched while he got down off his horse and poked around on the ground. Ever' so often he'd bend down and pull up grass or weeds, like they mattered. "Maybe My Girl was tellin' the truth. Sure looks like he's pickin flowers, don't it, Buttercup?"

  The cat lifted his head and stared down at the valley. After a while he growled, a low, warning sound. Gertie followed the direction of his gaze. She couldn't see anything to fuss about.

  "What's out there? A bear?"

  Not moving, Buttercup continued to stare down at the valley. So did Gertie.

  The old feller went on with his posy pickin', wandering along the river bed. Now and then he'd go back to his horse and stuff what he held into a big, funny-lookin' tin can tied behind the saddle.

  Eventually Buttercup went back to sleep. Gertie sat there watchin' the old feller until he disappeared upriver. "If that don't beat all," she said to the sleeping cat. "A grown man, traipsin' along picking flowers like any little girl." She nudged Buttercup. "Wake up, you lazy slug. Let's see where he goes."

  * * * * *

  Nellie was in the common tent the next morning, changing blotters in the pile of specimens she'd collected yesterday--it was a makeshift arrangement because Uncle had taken all the presses with him--when she heard a distant gunshot. She paid it little attention, until she heard another, this one from somewhere closer, then the sound of running feet.

  Curious, she went to the doorway and looked out. No one was in sight, but the spider was lying cattywampus on the fire ring, with slices of bacon half in and half out of it. She snatched up her bonnet, tying it on as she went.

  Tom was lying in the sun just outside his tent, propped up on his good arm and looking toward the east. Then she saw Malachi running toward--no, past--the corral. "What is it?" she called to Tom, hurrying toward him. "What's happened?"

  "Dunno," he said, trying to push himself to a sitting position. "I heard the shots. Then Malachi taken off like his tail was afire."

  "I'll go see."

  "No'm, don't you do that. We don't know what's goin' on and 'til we do, you stay right here with me." He groped inside the tent behind him. "Damn! Can you reach in there and get my holsters?"

  Nellie leaned over and reached past his legs. She pulled out his holsters, heavy with the two dark handguns they held, and handed them to him. They both looked back toward the corral when he had them in hand.

  The wait seemed endless before they saw Malachi reappear, walking beside Mr. Willard's mule. Later Nellie calculated that perhaps five minutes had passed between the first shot and that moment. Mr. Willard was gesticulating wildly, and his voice, faint with distance, sounded excited.

  Or distressed?

  They turned the riding mule into the corral and unsaddled him. Much to Nellie's disgust, both men went to wiping him down. "I'll go see what's happened," she said to Tom, "and I'll come back and tell you."

  Neither man looked happy, she saw as she drew near. The first words she could understand clearly were Mr. Willard's.

  "I set Murphy to trackin' him, and come on over here. Damn him anyhow, Malachi! I told him, I don't know how many times, that he oughtn't go out alone. Stubborn old goat!"

  "I told him too, John."

  Nellie reached the corral fence. "What has happened to Uncle?"

  "He's gone, that's what! Yesterday he told me he was sick, that Murphy and me should take Beckett on up the canyon as far as we could go, then work our way down, pickin' flowers all the way." Mr. Willard kicked at a pile of horse apples, sent them flying. "Never thought a thing about it, the way he's allus takin' fits and starts."

  "Uncle ill? He's never ill!"

  "Well, how was we to know that? Anyhow, we went on up there two, three miles, and took all day comin' down. He was gone when we got back, his horse, too. I didn't think too much about it, just figgered he'd got to feelin' better and gone off on his own."

  "We've all told him not to," Malachi said. He tossed the handful of grass aside and gave the mule a swat on the rump. "Fat lot of good it did."

  "Yeah. Well, anyhow, Beckett said he'd left a note sayin' he'd gone around the hill, on south a ways, and might be late gettin' back. The lad held a piece of paper in his hand, so how was I to know it was all a hoax?"

  Trotting to keep up with their long steps, Nellie said breathlessly, "There was no note?"

  "There was. But come suppertime, Beckett admitted he'd been doin' what he was told, keepin' us from goin' after the perfessor when we found him gone. Then when Kremer didn't show up, Beckett got to worryin'."

  "The fool!"

  "Ahuh! Well, anyhow, Murphy and me found his trail headin' toward the river. But we lost it when he crossed the creek.
I reckon he set Dap to walkin' in the water a ways, but it's hard to tell what with that gravel bottom and the current so swift. By then it was near dark, so we went on back to camp."

  Mr. Willard spat to one side and muttered something Nellie was certain she didn't want to hear.

  "You never found a trace?"

  "Nary a one. I left Beckett and Murph to look around over there some more, and I come on back to let you know." He scratched his chin, and his whiskers rasped loudly against his callused fingertips. "Malachi, I ain't never lost but one mule and never had a passenger hurt in all my years as a 'skinner. This just don't set right."

  With sick certainty, Nellie said, "He went to the river." Uncle had complained just before they left about missing the summer flowering along the riverbanks, claiming that the riparian assemblages were far more interesting than those in the marshes and on the sagebrush flats. Personally Nellie had never seen much more along the many streams that meandered across the valley than willows and the occasional stand of cat-tail or bulrush, but she supposed there was something Uncle knew that she didn't.

  Or he was simply determined to do that which he was told he could not? Uncle did not take well to having his will crossed.

  They arrived at Tom's tent. Malachi gave him a quick brief of events, then said, "We may have to leave you alone again. Will you be all right?"

  "I reckon so. Just make sure I got food and water to last me. And ammunition."

  Nellie thought she heard a note of pride in the young man's voice. Heavens above! He's not at all frightened of being left alone and helpless. Could he be proud that Malachi trusts him to care for himself?

  They moved Tom's tent down to the corral, watered the stock one last time, and made sure that there was feed to last them a day or two. Within an hour they were ready to go. Nellie had initially been surprised that Malachi wanted her with them, but his impatient, "Don't be a fool! Tom's barely able to care for himself!" silenced her doubts.

  She didn't argue when he mounted her on Rogue. "Hold on tight," he said, as he checked her stirrups. "We'll be moving fast."

  Nellie locked both hands around the saddle horn.

  They were able to cross the river without making a detour. "Ol' Ephraim's usually hereabouts this time of day," Mr. Willard commented as they waded their horses.

  "How many grizzly bears are there in this valley?" Nellie said. Anything to keep from thinking of what might have happened to Uncle.

  "Oh, no more'n half a dozen this time of year, and I doubt there's that many, other times. I'd bet they come here for the fishin' then move into the high country later on."

  "So Uncle will be able to collect safely along the river eventually?"

  "I doubt it," Malachi said, dropping back to ride beside her as they slowed to cross a rocky area. "Not until late September, anyhow. My guess would be that the fish will be spawning for several months. This is just the beginning."

  "Oh, my! Does he know that?"

  "I told him, t'other night. He wasn't too pleased about it," Mr. Willard said.

  "Oh, my," Nellie said again. "No wonder he went off on his own. He was quite determined to collect the entire length of the river."

  "Stubborn damn fool," Mr. Willard muttered, just loud enough for her to hear. "He'll get himself killed and blame us for it."

  Chapter Twenty-six

  They met Murphy and Beckett along the creek leading up to the valley where Kremer's party had camped. From the slow shake of Murphy's head, Malachi knew that he'd found little more than Willard had.

  "The professor's got more gumption that I gave him credit for," Murphy said. "I saw a couple of places in the creek where his horse might'a stepped, but never did find where they come out."

  "Any idea which way he went?"

  "The signs I saw--and mind you, they might not mean a damn thing--pointed downstream. But you know how that area is, Malachi. There must be a dozen channels down there, right after all these creeks come together. We could look a week and never find any trace."

  If Willard and Murphy couldn't find a trail, there probably wasn't one. "Spread out," he said. "We'll look downstream first. Nellie, you come with me." He wished to God he could have left her behind, but she would have been no safer back with Tom. The kid probably couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, trying to shoot that rifle with only one arm. "We'll take the west side."

  Once they had spread out, she moved up to ride beside him. "Something terrible has happened to Uncle, hasn't it?"

  "Something's happened to him, that's for sure. But it might not be terrible. His horse could have run off or he could have taken a fall. We could find him sitting fat and happy on a rock by the river."

  "Don't try to reassure me, Malachi. You don't believe any of those scenarios, do you?"

  Sometimes he wished she were not so smart. "No, I don't. If he was fool enough to come down here alone, he's in big trouble. No matter how many times we've told him the grizzlies are dangerous, he persists in believing they're fearful of humans."

  "Gertie told me that the only thing worse than a grizzly is a moose with a calf. She says they're the only animals Buttercup runs from."

  He shook his head, still marveling at the thought of a panther acting like a watchdog. "She's right. Most of the stories I've heard of standoffs between grizzlies and armed humans have the bear winning, hands down." He paused, leaned down to examine a track, and decided it probably belonged to an elk. If he was a better tracker, he'd know for sure. "They're big, something you don't notice at a distance. Willard says a male can weigh up to half a ton. I got close to one once, up in Montana. I was about fifty yards from him. He stood up and huffed at me, and I got out of there fast. At the time, I thought he must be ten feet tall, but I reckon he wasn't much over six or seven."

  "Good heavens! No wonder Buttercup is afraid of them."

  Seeing movement ahead, behind a screen of shrubs, Malachi put out his hand. "Shhh!"

  A moose walked out from the shrubs. A young male, for his head held a modest rack, still covered with velvet. He stared at them awhile, then ambled off toward the west.

  Gradually they worked their way upstream, moving slowly, quartering back and forth so that they covered all the branches of the river and its tributary creeks. Twice, as they approached one of the other searchers, Malachi signaled his lack of success, and got an equally futile wave in return. The farther they went, the more convinced he was that Dr. Kremer's absence was due to more than a runaway horse or a sprained ankle.

  I wish Nellie wasn't with me.

  They ate in the saddle, chewing on smoked venison and drinking tepid water from their canteens. He noticed Nellie squirming more than once, as if she was saddle-sore, but she never said a word of complaint.

  The valley narrowed about five miles north of their present campsite, bringing them all within shouting distance. Willard, who was searching along the middle, came over. "I maybe saw some shod hoofprints, back a ways," he said, too low for Nellie to hear. "No tellin' if they was his, though."

  "Maybe we're looking in the wrong place."

  "Maybe so. But I say we stick with it 'til we get to the narrows, up there." He gestured toward the north, where the river flowed between mountains, through a gap no more than a quarter-mile wide. "If he ain't--"

  A shot sounded from not too far away. Another. A third.

  "Shit!" Willard said. "Murphy's found him."

  Murphy and Beckett were waiting farther on. They were still mounted, their horses standing on a terrace some twenty feet higher than the river and on its opposite side. Murphy waved them forward. Beckett had his face buried in his hands. Malachi turned to catch Rebel's reins. Then he had his hands full, guiding both horses across the stream.

  As they approached, Murphy turned his horse to block their way. "Keep her back," he told Malachi. "It ain't a pretty sight."

  "Uncle?" Nellie said, her voice faint.

  "He's dead, Miss Sanders. There's no doubt of that."

  She bit her
lip, but said nothing. Malachi dismounted, and held up his arms to her. "You and Beckett sit up here while we take a look around. I'll come tell you what we find out."

  She slid down, and clung to him for a moment. Then she pushed herself away, straightened, and lifted her chin. "Mr. Beckett, come and sit with me, please. I don't want to be alone."

  Malachi had a hunch she was more worried about the young manservant's state of mind than her own. Nellie Sanders was a strong, strong woman.

  Nellie sat silently, wishing there was something she could say to comfort Mr. Beckett. He had nearly fallen off his horse, had walked to her with a jerky, uneven stride. Now he sat staring off into the distance, chewing his lower lip. Once in a while a tear would snake its way down his unshaven cheek.

  Why don't I feel anything? He is...was my uncle. Yet his servant is more distressed than I am at his death. All I can think of is what's to become of the expedition.

  "It's all my fault. I helped him deceive the others," Beckett said in broken tones. "If I'd told them that we'd contrived together, he might be alive now."

  "You can't know that."

  "But if I had only..."

  "Mr. Beckett, there is nothing to be gained by thinking about what might have been. Uncle is dead. All the guilt in the world will not bring him back."

  He hunched his shoulders and turned away from her. Nellie said no more. Now and then she heard a pathetic little sniffle. How much longer will they be? What are they doing down there? She was mightily tempted to look down and see what was keeping the three men. Surely they had nothing more to do than prepare Uncle's body for transport back to the camp. He must be given a Christian burial, even if he was to lie in this isolated valley.

  Perhaps that's fitting, considering his reputation was built on exploration of the western wilderness.

  * * * * *

  "I got me a hunch who's doin' it," Willard said, scratching his head. "We ain't seen hide not hair of nobody else since we come in."

  "Murphy said that haunch was cut off Tom's horse, clean as a whistle. Now somebody's took one off the professor." Malachi fought the gorge that rose in his throat.