It would have to do. Nate couldn’t wait much longer. They could come on the slave hunters at any time. Again and again he raised his head as high as he could and scoured the terrain ahead for a place to make his move. So far, providence wasn’t being kind.
Presently Harrod slowed and rode with extra caution.
Nate could guess why. They were near the clearing where he had left Winona and the Worths.
“Well, that’s peculiar,” Harrod remarked.
“What is?”
“Take a gander.”
Ahead was the clearing. It was empty.
“Where could they have gotten to?” Nate wondered aloud.
“How should I know?” Harrod appeared genuinely puzzled. “I haven’t left your side all day.” He let go of the bay’s reins and rode in a circle, examining the ground. “Looks to me as if they just up and rode off, back the way we came.”
“Why would they do that?” Nate knew Winona as well as he knew himself. She must have had a compelling reason. But for the life of him, he couldn’t think of what.
Harrod contemplated the woods. “My first thought was that the Sioux drove them off, but we’d have heard something.”
Nate decided the time had come. “Maybe it was. The Sioux are clever about hiding their tracks.” He looked up and pretended to give a start. Pointing with both hands across the river, he yelled, “Look! There’s a bunch of Sioux over yonder!”
Harrod fell for the ruse. He snapped around in the saddle, blurting, “Where?”
Nate smacked his arms against one side of the bay and his legs against the other and the bay did what most every horse would do—it broke into a gallop, flying out of the clearing and along the trail to the east.
Harrod bellowed for him to stop.
“Fat chance!” Nate yelled back. The jostling was ferocious. The saddle horn gouged his ribs. He bit at the knots on the rope around his wrist, but he had no more success than before.
“Consarn you, King! How far do you think you’ll get?” Harrod shouted after him.
A good long way, if Nate had any say. He would have a minute, maybe two, before Harrod caught up. They swept around a bend; on the left was a grassy incline lapped by a pool.
Giving the bay another whack, Nate pushed off from the saddle. He landed on his shoulder, the grass cushioning him, and rolled. Wetness wrapped him in its embrace—he was on his belly in the Platte. He scrambled backward. The water rose to his nose, to his eyes. Hooves drummed up above. Taking a deep breath, he hugged the bottom.
A murky caricature of a horse and rider sped past the bank.
Nate heaved onto his knees. Dripping wet, he hopped out. It wouldn’t take Harrod long to discover his trick. The instant the old frontiersman saw the bay without him, Harrod would rein around and hunt for him.
Nate scrabbled up the incline. He slipped, surged higher, slipped again. Digging his toes in, he reached the top.
As yet there was no sign of Harrod.
Regaining his feet, Nate hopped across the trail into the woods. A tree loomed. He tried to avoid it but ran into the trunk. Pain flared. Then he was on all fours, plunging as deep into a thicket as he could go. Thorns raked his cheek, his neck. One nearly took out an eye.
Every muscle aquiver, Nate settled onto his side. He waited for his breathing to steady, then renewed his assault on the knots. They refused to give. He bit so hard, it felt as if his teeth would break.
To the east hooves pounded.
Nate flattened. He couldn’t see the trail, but he glimpsed the old man’s silhouette.
“King? Where are you? I’ve got your horse.”
Nate gnawed at the rope.
“I know you can hear me. You have to be around here somewhere. Pretty clever, what you did. But now you’re on foot. You don’t have any weapons. Think of what that means.”
Nate went on gnawing. It was common knowledge that a man afoot was an early grave waiting to happen.
“What’s this?” Harrod exclaimed.
The silhouette had stopped near the grassy slope.
Nate dug his top teeth into a knot and pried. It gave a fraction but no more.
“So this is where you jumped off? You muddied the water. And here’s a track.”
It puzzled Nate, Harrod talking so much. Did the man really think he would answer? Or was there more to it? He stopped gnawing and peered through the thicket. All he saw was greenery and a patch of blue sky.
A twig crunched.
Moccasins appeared. Harrod was moving slowly, apparently wary of being jumped.
Nate didn’t move a muscle.
The moccasins stopped, and Harrod called out, “Listen, King. You can’t have gotten far. I suspect you can hear me. So here’s something for you to think about.” Harrod paused. “Your wife.”
Nate’s fingers clenched as they would if he had them around a throat and was throttling the life from someone.
“I told you about Wesley. He’s no bluff. He wants those blacks and he will have them. And he won’t let anyone stand in his way. Not you. Not your missus.” Harrod waited for a reply, and when Nate didn’t say anything, he said, “It could be Wesley has her. It could be he has all of them, and he’s waiting for me to show up with you.”
Nate glanced at the empty knife sheath on his hip.
“I know how one like him thinks. He’ll keep your woman alive only so long as it suits his purpose. Then he’ll hand her over to the others. You haven’t met them yet. They’re animals. They’ll gladly slit her throat after they’ve had their way.”
An image of Winona enduring the unspeakable set Nate’s blood to boiling. He grew warm all over.
“Wesley might give her to them anyway if I show up without you just to spite you. Or maybe he’ll set her out as bait to lure you in.” The moccasins turned in a circle. “Where the blazes are you? Why do I feel your eyes on me?”
To vent his anger, Nate resumed his assault on the knots.
“Come out of hiding and I promise there will be no hard feelings. I’ll even cut your ankles free so you can sit your saddle. What do you say?”
Nate touched his belt where his flintlocks should be.
“I thought you cared for her,” Harrod persisted.
Nate bit off an oath.
“The way you went on about how nice she is and all, I didn’t think you’d want them to do the kinds of things they’re going to do to her. What will it be? Don’t you want to spare your woman a fate worse than death?”
The blazing orb men called the sun had followed its daily arc and was dipping toward the horizon. Streaks of pink, red and orange lent beauty to the sunset.
Winona was in no frame of mind to appreciate it. She was winding through the woods on foot, her wrists bound behind her back. A rope was around her neck and linked to Emala, who in turn was linked to Samuel. After him came Chickory and Randa.
“Dear Lord, save us,” Emala prayed. “I will sing of Your power. Yes, I will sing aloud of Your mercy in the morning.” She sighed wearily. “That last was from the Bible, Mrs. King.”
“My husband reads it nearly every night.”
“So he told me. You have a good man there.”
“Yes,” Winona softly agreed. “A very good man.”
“I read the Bible a lot myself. Not Samuel, though. He’s not as religious as me. Fact is, there are days when I wonder if he has any religion at all.”
Winona glanced past Emala at her husband, who walked with his head bowed. “How about that, Samuel? Do you believe in God, or what my people call the Great Mystery?”
“I used to.”
Emala rolled her eyes. “If faith were a flame, I’d be a roarin’ fire and he’d be a candle. If it were stone, I’d be a boulder and he’d be a pebble. Any faith this family has, I’ve had to nurture it like you would a seed.”
“Oh, Lord, woman.”
Emala clucked in reproach. “There you go again. Takin’ the Lord in vain. Who knows the Bible inside and out? Me. Who can
sing any song of praise you can think of? Me. Who prays mornin’ and night that this family will be spared tribulation.”
“Seems to me you need to pray harder.”
“Samuel!”
A shadow fell over them. Wesley had reined his horse around. “Do you two bicker like this all the time?”
“Only lately,” Emala said.
“I’ve listened to all I’m going to. Either talk nice or don’t talk at all.”
“If you don’t mind my sayin’,” Emala replied, “that sounds awful strange comin’ from the likes of you. What you know about nice wouldn’t fill a thimble.”
For a moment Winona feared Wesley would strike her. Instead, he smiled.
“I get it now. You bicker with everyone.”
“You don’t know me,” Emala said. “You only think you do. Sure, I’ve been out of sorts. But who can blame me with all that’s happened?”
“This might surprise you, woman, but I don’t blame you at all. It’s not your fault your kind were dragged to this country. The slave traders are to blame. You should all be sent back to Africa, where you belong.”
Emala shook her head. “I wouldn’t know Africa from France. From what I hear, it’s an awful place, with lions and tigers and snakes and people who eat other people. I was born in this country, just like my mother, and her mother before her, and I have no hankering to live anywhere else.”
“You don’t belong,” Wesley said. “This country is for whites and only whites. Bringing your kind in was a mistake.”
“The plantation owners don’t think so. They work us like mules to put money in their pockets. Without us, they’d go broke.”
“And there’s the real reason you’re here. It’s always about the money.”
As was their wont, songbirds and warblers filled the lush woodland with their paean to the departing day. Goldfinches with their clear notes, larks with perhaps the most musical calls of all, sparrows with their gay chirps, robins with their highs and lows, all combined in an avian chorus.
Normally, Winona enjoyed listening. But today she had something else on her mind.
Winona wasn’t one to delude herself. She never looked at the bright side when there wasn’t a bright side. The slave hunters had to kill her. Nate, too, if they caught him. They knew that she and Nate would do everything they could to stop them from taking the Worths back, even if that meant following them all the way back to the States.
Out of curiosity, Winona asked Wesley, “What are your plans for my husband and me?”
“That depends on you. Give me your word that if I let you go, you and your husband will head for the mountains and leave me free to collect the bounty on the darkies, and I’ll cut you loose.”
Winona hid her surprise. “You would trust me to do as you want?”
“I don’t trust most people as far as I can heave them. But I’ve watched you close. For an Injun, a squaw, no less, you have more sand than most.”
“I am flattered,” Winona said. “And sad. The Worths are my friends. I cannot abandon them.”
“Then you can’t blame me for what’s in store. I gave you your chance and you refused to take it.” Wesley gigged his horse and rode to the front of the line with Trumbo and Olan. Cranston, Bromley and Kleist were at the rear.
Winona slowed and whispered to Emala, “We must try to get away the first chance we have.”
“What are you talking about? We’re tied and on foot. They have guns and are on horses. We can’t get away unless you can help us all sprout wings.”
“I didn’t expect this of you.”
“I have my family to think of. I don’t want them harmed.”
“We must try,” Winona insisted.
Samuel raised his head and said so only they could hear, “Count me in. I’ll do what ever it takes.”
“Got your gumption back, did you?” Emala said. “Here I thought you gave up.”
“Not this side of the grave. I’m over my sulk.”
“What is it my husband read to me once? I remember. ‘Give us liberty or give us death.’ ”
“Lord, help us,” Emala said.
Winona smiled encouragement at Samuel. It was good to see him restored to his old self. Chickory and Randa would do what they had to, as well. But that begged the question: what? They were unarmed and bound. How were they to prevail over six killers bristling with weapons?
The answer came in the form of a whinny.
Chapter Thirteen
Nate King loved his wife more than anything. He loved her more than life. He loved her so deeply, she was part of him. He loved her so devotedly that when other women showed an interest, as had happened a few times, he politely but firmly made it as clear as clear could be that Winona was his one and only, now and forever.
Some men would call that silly. Some would call it stupid. Some would say that only a fool gave himself so completely to one woman. Some would deny there was even a thing like “love,” and say that anyone who believed there was was fooling himself.
But Nate knew his heart and his mind, and when he was with Winona his heart was filled to overflowing with affection and his mind was filled with a deep sense of peace.
Love was real. Love was two hearts beating as one. Love was always caring, and always being there when the one you loved needed you.
Put more simply, Nate had found that Winona was his and he was hers, and that was how it was.
So to hear Harrod warn of what the slave hunters would do to her if he didn’t give himself up tore at Nate as nothing else could. It hurt him where he could be hurt the most: in his heart. He was tempted, strongly tempted, to do as Harrod wanted. But a tiny urge at the back of his mind cautioned him not to.
If Harrod was right and the slave hunters had Winona, then it was up to Nate to stay free, and to free her. And then to deal with the slave hunters.
No one hurt those Nate cared for without paying in the same coin. No one harmed his family—or put any of them in harm’s way—without being held accountable.
As Nate lay in the thicket listening to Peleg Harrod walk off, every fiber of his being burned with anger. Not so much at Harrod, although he’d liked the man and to a degree trusted him, despite Winona’s misgivings. No, Nate was angry with himself for not heeding her. She’d warned him and he hadn’t listened.
Nate renewed his attack on the knots. He pried and bit and tugged until his gums were bleeding and his whole mouth was sore. Bit by bit, slow degree by slow degree, he loosened the first of the knots. It took much too long. Daylight ebbed. The sun was on the rim of creation when the first knot came undone. Nate immediately went to work on the next. Either it wasn’t as tight or he had learned from the first, but he got it undone in a tenth of the time.
Nate sat up and rubbed his wrists. There was still the rope around his ankles but it proved to be easy with his hands free.
He crawled out of the thicket and stood. A cool breeze fanned his face.
Night had fallen. The meat eaters were coming out of their dens and hidden places to prowl for prey. They filled the wild with their cries: coyotes yipped, a fox uttered a piercing shriek, to the west a grizzly snorted, and somewhere out on the prairie wolves howled.
Nate was no fool. He had lived in the wilderness long enough to know that a weapon meant the difference between living and dying. Any weapon would do. A lance. A bow. The only thing was, Harrod had taken his knife and his tomahawk, as well as his guns. Still, there were ways.
Nate made his way toward the Platte River. The myriad of stars lent a pale glow to the woodland. He could see to avoid trees and logs but not far enough ahead to tell whether an enemy, white or red, two-legged or four-legged, was slinking up on him
He came to the bank. Below, the river gurgled and burbled. He slid down, sank to his knees, and plunged in his hands. The water was wonderfully cool on his skinned wrists. It was also delicious. He drank his fill, then splashed some on his ankles.
Stones littered the bottom. Gro
ping about, he found one he liked. It was the size of his fist, thick on one side and thin on the other. He chipped at the thin edge with another rock until it was sharp enough to suit him.
Next, Nate needed a downed limb. Preferably one about six feet long, fairly straight, that didn’t require a lot of trimming. It took a while but he found one. He sharpened it as he hiked.
Harrod was long gone off to the east, back to those who had hired him. Nate bent his steps in the same direction. He figured—he hoped—the slave hunters weren’t far away. A couple of hours at the most, he reckoned, and he would reach their camp.
Brimming with wrath and confidence, Nate set a rapid pace. He felt no fear of the inky woods. The wilds were his home, after all.
But that didn’t mean Nate became reckless. When a bear grunted nearby, he climbed a tree. Splashing told him the bear was in the river, after fish or frogs probably, or cavorting in bear fashion. He heard another grunt, and a mew, and was doubly glad he had climbed the tree.
It was a mother bear with a cub. No animal was more fiercely protective of her young. One whiff of his scent and she would tear down the tree to get at him.
Then Nate saw them, inky bulks with small shadows, wading the Platte. He stayed put until they reached the far side and disappeared into the undergrowth.
Descending, Nate took up his quest. He eagerly scanned the dark ahead, but there wasn’t so much as a glimmer of orange.
By his reckoning an hour passed.
The possibility of being attacked was never far from Nate’s mind. Twice something big crashed through the brush, and he crouched with his spear at the ready. In both instances, what ever it was ran off.
A second hour crawled on the footsteps of the first, and there was still no sign of a campfire. Apparently the slaver hunters were farther away than he thought.
Nate had a disturbing thought. What if they were days away? By the time he got to their camp, they would be long gone, well on their way to the Mississippi.
He would give anything for a horse.
The Big Dipper arced cross the sky until its position told him the time was close to midnight. He was sore and tired and hungry, but he wasn’t about to stop this side of the grave.
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