Wilderness: Northwest Passage/Apache Blood (A Wilderness Double Western #6)

by Robbins, David

  Spattered with gore and blood, Nate faced the slope. To his amazement, their determined resistance had blunted the attack and the surviving Piegans were in full flight. He counted three warriors, one holding a hand to a bloody head.

  “Alice!” Simon suddenly shouted.

  Nate whirled and was dismayed to discover two Piegans were at the wagons. While most of the war party had kept him and the others busy, those two must have snuck up on the women from another direction. One was wrestling Alice on the ground, trying to subdue her by pinning her arms. The second warrior had seized Eleanor by the wrist and was attempting to drag her off. Cora Webster stood with her back against her wagon, rigid with overpowering fear.

  “Reload your guns!” he yelled at Banner, and sprinted toward the conflict.

  The Piegan struggling with Simon’s wife looked up and saw him coming. Letting go of Alice, the warrior stood and unslung a bow that hung over his left shoulder. In a smooth, practiced motion the Piegan drew an arrow from a quiver on his back and nocked the shaft to the sinew string.

  Nate knew there was no way he could reach the warrior before the Indian loosed that shaft, and he tensed his leg muscles in preparation for throwing himself to one side when the Piegan let it fly. But help came from an unexpected source. Libbie Banner abruptly appeared in the Banner wagon, rising behind the front seat, a pistol clutched in both hands. She trained the gun on the Piegan’s back and fired.

  Struck between the shoulder blades, the warrior was thrown forward by the force of the ball tearing through his body. He tripped over Alice and fell to his knees, his stunned gaze on the blood-rimmed exit hole in his chest.

  In seconds Nate was there. He drove the tomahawk into the Piegan’s forehead, splitting the man’s brow wide open, and spun toward the warrior trying to haul off Eleanor Nesmith. The Piegan was glaring at him, and when he started toward them the warrior flashed a knife from a hip sheath and plunged the blade into Eleanor’s bosom.

  “No!” Nate cried. A rifle cracked behind him, but whoever fired missed. The Piegan, smirking in triumph, spun on his heels and ran for the west rim. Nate reached Eleanor’s side as she collapsed and he caught her in his arms, staring aghast at the blood streaming from the knife wound. She tilted her head and locked her eyes on his, eyes eloquent with a mute appeal he would remember for the rest of his life.

  Eleanor’s lips parted. She tried to speak, but all that came out was an agonized groan. Stiffening, she grabbed at his buckskin shirt, her bloodstained fingers smearing red streaks on his chest. Her movements weakened. In desperation she sucked air into her lungs, then frantically attempted to stand. Her legs wouldn’t cooperate. Eyes wet with moisture, she glanced again at Nate, mustered a partial smile, and died.

  Another shot sounded. Nate looked up to see the last Piegan vanish over the crest. Simon Banner was the one who had fired, and he now trotted to the west rim and shook his fist in the air while calling down the wrath of the Lord on the savages. Nate barely heard the words. He gently lowered Eleanor to the grass, closed her open eyes, and stood.

  “Is she dead?” Alice Banner asked, coming up on his right side.

  “Afraid so,” Nate said ruefully. “First her husband, now her.” He refrained from adding that given the way things were going, more of the emigrants might lose their lives before they reached Fort Hall. They’d be lucky if any of them made it.

  “We’ll have to give them a proper Christian burial.”

  At any other time and place the innocent statement would have been thoroughly appropriate, but right then and there, on the heels of the frenetic battle they had just been through and with the hostiles likely lurking below, it struck Nate as so ridiculous that he inadvertently laughed and shook his head.

  Alice was horrified. “Mr. King! What, sir, can be so humorous at a terrible time such as this? Surely not the deaths of two fine people? Eleanor was a sweet, gentle soul who never wished ill of anyone.”

  “I’m not making light of Eleanor’s passing,” Nate said, but before he could offer an explanation both Simon Banner and Neil Webster came up, Webster doubled over with a hand gripping the arrow in his shoulder.

  “Oh, no!” Neil said plaintively, staring at Eleanor. “Not both of them! So much for their dream of owning a prosperous farm in the promised land.”

  Simon hardly gave the body a glance. “What will happen next, King? Have we convinced the savages that they should let us be? You said that if we killed enough of them the heathens would give up.”

  “I said they might leave us alone,” Nate corrected him. “Their next move is anyone’s guess.”

  “What do we do then?” Simon snapped. “Stay here and wait for them to make up their minds?”

  “No,” Nate said, reaching a decision. “We’ll leave as soon as you and I plant Eleanor. We dare not expose ourselves trying to get Harry, so I’m afraid his body must be left for the vultures. Alice and Cora will dig the arrow out of Neil.”

  “You want us to do what?”Alice Banner blurted out. She glanced dubiously at the shaft and slowly shook her head. “I don’t know as how we can do it. Neither of us have much medical experience, and we’ve certainly never extracted arrows or bullets. Why, I’m afraid I’d faint halfway through.”

  Nate suppressed his disappointment. He should have expected as much, given that these were women who had never had to contend with hostiles before. In a way, his own wife had spoiled him. Winona was so marvelously self-reliant that he unconsciously expected all other women to be equally as competent, which wasn’t the case. She could do anything and everything essential to life in the wilderness; she could cook, sew, skin game, tend injuries, cure sickness, ride like the wind, and perform a hundred and one other tasks in expert fashion. She could even fight like a wildcat when the occasion demanded. Until that moment, he hadn’t quite appreciated how perfect she was for him. “Very well,” he said. “I’ll take the arrow out myself.”

  “Thank you,” Alice said. “I’ll help my husband bury Eleanor.”

  Neil Webster had to be helped to the fire. Nate got Cora busy boiling water. She had to be shaken a few times to snap her out of the abject fright that had seized her when the Piegans struck, but once she came around she applied herself diligently to the chore. She also climbed into her wagon and brought out several clean cloths to use.

  Nate made Neil lie on his right side. Unbuttoning the homespun shirt, which was soaked with blood, Nate drew his butcher knife and cut a straight line from the top button to the shaft. Next, he peeled back the drenched fabric so he could examine the wound. The arrow had transfixed a fleshy part of the inner shoulder, below the collarbone, and gone completely through Webster’s body. The barbed tip extended four inches out of the emigrant’s back. “You’re a lucky man,” Nate remarked.

  “Lucky?” Neil said, and grunted when Nate touched the arrow. “How do you figure?”

  “The tip didn’t strike a bone and wedge fast, as some are prone to do. Getting them out is a real chore. More often than not they break off when you try,” Nate said, talking to keep Webster’s mind off of the impending operation. It would be easier to extract the shaft if the settler was somewhat relaxed. He leaned over to inspect where the arrow had poked out Webster’s back. “A friend of mine by the name of Jim Bridger got a couple of arrows in the back once, courtesy of the Blackfeet. One came out easy enough, but the head of the second one was hooked on a bone. So Bridger carried that arrowhead inside of him for three years, until he met up with a surgeon who could take it out.” He smiled at Neil. “You’re a heap luckier. I’ll have this shaft out in no time.”

  “What will you use?”

  “This,” Nate said, holding up his knife. Twisting, he thrust the blade into the fire, letting the flames get the steel good and hot.

  “Oh, God,” Neil whispered.

  “You’ll do fine,” Nate said, hoping he was right. Few jobs were more nerve-racking than trying to remove an arrow from a squealing weakling who wouldn’t lay still s
o the job could be done right. “From the look of things, this arrow didn’t have any poison on it.”

  Neil blanched. “Poison?”

  “Yep. Some Indians like to dip their arrowheads in snake venom or stick them into dead animals. One nick can make a man as sick as a dog. Or dead.”

  “I had no idea.”

  “Indians can be nasty devils when they want to be, but most of them are as decent as any white men who ever lived,” Nate said, gazing at the west rim. Time was of the essence. The Piegans had taken a terrible beating and just might take it into their heads to make another try at killing the emigrants. By all rights he should be keeping an eye out for them, but he was the only one who could remove the arrow. And if it wasn’t extracted soon and the wound cauterized, Neil Webster might bleed to death.

  When the water was boiling, Nate gave instructions to Cora. She knelt and lifted her husband’s head into her lap, then took his hands in hers. Nate dipped a cloth in the water, being careful not to burn himself, and gingerly wiped the skin clean around the arrow, both on the front and the back. Neil flinched but held up otherwise.

  “All set?” Nate asked.

  “Get it over with.”

  Working swiftly, Nate snapped the arrow in half several inches below the feathers. Then he moved behind Webster, braced his feet on Webster’s hips, and used the tip of his butcher knife to open the exit hole a half inch. Placing the knife down, he gripped the shaft with both hands, bunched his arm and shoulder muscles, and pulled with all his strength. The arrow hardly budged. Again he tried, and this time the shaft slid out an inch. By twisting it back and forth, he was able to loosen the arrow enough to pull it out halfway.

  Neil Webster buried his face in his wife’s dress but didn’t cry out. He did groan repeatedly, and he trembled violently every time the shaft was twisted.

  “We’re almost there,” Nate puffed, applying his sinews once more. He could feel the arrow sliding through the emigrant’s flesh as, a fraction of an inch at a time, it slowly came out. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead when at long last he held the slender, dripping shaft in his left hand.

  “It’s out!” Cora exclaimed, and leaned down to kiss Neil on the temple. “Mr. King did it!”

  “We’re not done yet,” Nate said, casting the arrow to the ground. Retrieving his knife, he held the blade in the flames to reheat the steel. Then he squatted in front of Webster. “You might want to grit your teeth,” he advised, and when the emigrant did so, he touched the blade to the hole. There was a hissing noise and the odor of burning flesh assailed his nostrils. Webster stiffened and vented a low sob. Quickly, Nate moved around behind him and cauterized the exit hole as well.

  Neil passed out.

  “My poor darling,” Cora said tenderly, stroking his neck. “He did all right, didn’t he?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Nate replied, rising. He saw his Hawken and the flintlock he had dropped during the battle lying where they had fallen and went to reclaim them, reloading his other flintlock along the way. A glance to the north revealed Simon and Alice Banner completing a shallow grave for Eleanor Nesmith.

  Where was Libbie? In all the excitement, and what with having to operate on Webster, he had forgotten all about her. He looked at the Banner wagon, where he had last seen her, but if she was in there she was lying low. Stopping to bend down and pick up his discarded guns, he glanced to the south, and was amazed to behold Libbie strolling along the rim, a pistol in her right hand.

  “What the hell!” Nate declared. He ran toward her, scanning the slope below, afraid one of the Piegans would be unable to resist such a tempting target. “Libbie!” he shouted. “Get away from there!”

  She paid no heed and kept on walking.

  Furious, Nate covered the distance swiftly, his arms and legs pumping. He jammed the pistol under his belt beside the other one. Libbie heard him as he drew close and started to turn. Grabbing her shoulder, he rudely yanked her back from the edge. “What in the world are you trying to do, girl? Get yourself killed?”

  Her face the picture of sweet innocence, Libbie grinned and nodded. “Something like that.”

  “I don’t understand you,” Nate said, letting go. “One minute you save my hide, the next you’re waltzing around in the open as if you’re just asking for the Piegans to turn you into a porcupine.”

  “No such luck,” Libbie said, her grin replaced by a frown.

  Exasperated, Nate checked the slope. “I don’t know why you’re so all-fired set on killing yourself, but I won’t let you do it. Not so long as I’m the guide of this outfit.”

  “You can’t stop me.”

  “I’ll do whatever it takes. If need be, I’ll have your father tie you up until we reach Fort Hall.”

  “Pa would never do a thing like that.”

  “If he loves you, he will.”

  Libbie’s next words were barely audible. “There are different kinds of love, Mr. King. Some are good. Some are bad. My pa would never tie me up because he doesn’t care whether I keep on breathing or not. To him I’m vermin.”

  “You’re talking nonsense, girl. All decent parents love their children.”

  “Not quite true. All decent parents love decent children. And I don’t happen to qualify.”

  “What—?” Nate said, but she had turned and was trotting to the wagons. Utterly confused, he availed himself of the momentary free time to load the Hawken and his other pistol. To his relief, the Piegans appeared to have gone. At least he didn’t spot any.

  The surviving emigrants were gathered at the fire when Nate returned. They looked expectantly at him, every face betraying anxiety except for Libbie’s. She was too downcast to care about their dilemma.

  “We have two choices,” Nate began. “We can stick it out here until we’re positive the Piegans have left, or we can hightail it now, before they think to regroup and try again.”

  “I say we depart immediately,” Simon stated. “But what do we do about the Nesmith wagon? Simply leave it for the heathens to plunder?”

  “No,” Nate said. “I suppose we should take it with us to Fort Hall. From there we can arrange for a letter to be sent.” He stared at each of them. “That is, if Harry or Eleanor ever mentioned their kin to you.”

  “A brother of Harry’s lives in New Jersey,” Simon said. “At Trenton, I believe.”

  Neil, who sported a fresh bandage and was holding his left arm tucked to his side, faced the Nesmith wagon. “Wanting to do the right thing is all well and good, but who is going to drive this thing? I can’t, and Simon will be busy with his own wagon.”

  “I will,” Nate offered. “We cut out in five minutes.” He walked to Pegasus and brought the stallion over, then used a length of rope to tie the animal to the rear axle. A peek over the back loading gate revealed that the Nesmiths had brought everything they would need to start their new life in the Oregon Territory, and then some. A chest of drawers, a stove, and a plow were among the heavier items packed on the bottom of the wagon bed. On top had gone cooking utensils, clothes, flour, salt, a water keg, blankets, an ax, and much more, all packed neatly and strapped down to prevent slippage on the trail. He was inclined to toss out the plow and a few other big items to make the wagon lighter, but there wasn’t time. The Piegans might surge over the crest at any second.

  He climbed on the wagon, leaned the Hawken beside him on the seat, snatched up the traces, and released the brake. Turning to see how the emigrants were faring, he found all of them ready to go. Cora Webster was waiting expectantly for the word to be given, her wounded husband, his face as pale as a sheet, next to her.

  “I’ll go first,” Nate announced. “Stay close. If the Piegans try to stop us, put your whip to your team and make for the flatland. If they press us, try to discourage them with a few shots.”

  “We know what to do,” Simon Banner growled. “Let’s get on with it, shall we?”

  Nate urged his team into motion and slanted to the west slope. His experience with wagons w
as limited, and he hoped he wouldn’t make a mistake that would cause the Nesmith wagon to flip over on the way down. He knew enough to keep it pointed straight at the base of the ridge and to be ready to use the brake lever should the speed become too great. But the seasoned horses knew their business and brought him safely to the bottom without mishap.

  The Piegans were nowhere in evidence. He suspected the war party had fled into dense forest to the south, which was the nearest heavy cover, and he scoured the woods time and again but saw no one. Once in the high grass he cracked the whip a few times and headed due west. In two hours they would come on a stream where he intended to call a halt.

  Not having slept for so long, and being hungry enough to devour an entire bull elk at one sitting, he found himself becoming drowsy after going a mile. From then on he had to struggle to stay awake, but it was a lost cause. The rolling movement of the wagon lulled him into a dreamy, tranquil state. His eyelids became leaden with fatigue. He dozed off, snapped awake when the wheels hit a rut, then dozed off again. He was on the verge of slipping into a deep slumber when Pegasus whinnied.

  A man living in the wild learned to rely on his horse for early warnings of danger. With its keen hearing and scent, a horse was almost as dependable as a trained watchdog. Those mountain men who lived the longest were those who early on learned to sit up and take notice when their trusted animals neighed in alarm.

  Nate intended to enjoy a long life. So when Pegasus whinnied, his head shot up and he shifted in his seat to gaze at the stallion, which was in turn gazing off to the southeast. Leaning to his left, past the canvas top, he scoured the stretch of open prairie on that side and to their rear. He could still see the ridge and the mountain chain of which it was a part. Other than a flock of sparrows winging their way to the north, all was still. Whatever had pricked the stallion’s interest was either hiding in the grass or else too far off to be seen. But not too far off to be smelled, since a sluggish breeze was blowing from the southeast.

  He shook his head to dispel tendrils of weariness plucking at his brain. There was a chance the Piegans were dogging the wagons, waiting for another opportunity to strike so they could take their revenge. It pained him to think that a guard would have to be posted when the wagons arrived at the stream because he knew who would have to stand the first watch.