When Zach first saw the dark spot in the grass, he didn’t think much of it. An animal, he reckoned, an antelope or a lone buffalo. Then he saw how low to the ground it was, and that it was the color of buckskin. Drawing rein, he reached into his parfleche for the item he had helped himself to back at the mercantile.
The brass tube glistened in the bright sun as Zach unfolded the spyglass. He put his eye to the small end and fixed the large end on the distant figure. He took a moment to bring it into focus, then swore.
It was Chases Rabbits. Securely bound, the young Crow was on his knees, his head practically brushing the grass, held there by a rope around his neck that was tied to a stake. Another stake was attached to a rope around his ankles.
Zach lowered the spyglass. There was only one reason for Geist to leave Chases Rabbits out there like that. The devil of it was, trap or no trap, Zach had no choice but to go to his friend’s aid. He held on to the spyglass until he was several hundred feet out. Stopping again, he scanned the ground around Chases Rabbits, then shoved the telescope into the parfleche and rode on at a slow walk. He had the Hawken cocked, the stock on his thigh.
Chases Rabbits looked up. A gag prevented the young Crow from saying anything. Frantically bobbing his head, he uttered gurgling sounds.
Tense with the certainty of being ambushed, Zach gripped the Hawken in both hands and he slid down. “If they’re here, bob your head once for yes.”
Chases Rabbits’s chin rose and fell.
“How many? Bob once for each one.”
Chases Rabbits nodded—one time.
Zach was mystified. All he saw was flat ground. There was nowhere for anyone to hide. He edged closer and Chases Rabbits made choking sounds and jerked his head in Zach’s direction.
Blaze was sniffing at the ground.
Zach looked down and saw that the grass was speckled with brown spots. He bent, and realized the brown was dirt.
The earth heaved upward. A swatch of grass six feet long and three feet wide was flung aside and out of the ground sprang Dryfus. Clutched in his right hand was a long-bladed knife and on his face was an expression of pure hatred.
Zach aimed and fired, but Dryfus swatted the barrel and the heavy ball smacked into the hole he had been lying in. Dryfus held on to the rifle, and wrenched. Zach let it go flying. Backpedaling, he streaked his hand to his bowie and swept the big knife up and out. Steel clashed on steel as he saved his throat from a savage cut. Dryfus snarled and came in fast, his blade a whirlwind. Zach dodged, parried, countered. He had considerable experience in knife-fighting, but so did his adversary. Their blades wove a glittering web of death. A mistake in this fight could be fatal. Dryfus sidestepped and speared his knife at Zach’s chest. Zach blocked, shifted, slashed, and scored, opening Dryfus’s sleeve and the flesh under it. But the cut had no effect other than to incite Dryfus into redoubling his efforts.
Stabbing and cleaving, they circled in one direction and then the other, both so intent on their duel that when the two of them stumbled over Chases Rabbits, their surprise was mutual. Zach came down on his side, and rolled. Dryfus landed on his back but was up in a bound and lancing his knife at Zach’s neck. A lightning dodge, a flick of Zach’s wrist, and his bowie was buried to the hilt in Dryfus’s throat.
Only after the convulsions ceased did Zach yank the bowie out and wipe the blade clean on the dead man’s shirt. Quickly, he cut Chases Rabbits free from the stakes and removed the gag.
Spitting and coughing, Chases Rabbits slowly sat up. “Thank you. Me cannot move much. Arms, legs hurt.”
“They had you tied tight,” Zach said. “It cut off the circulation.”
“The what?”
“The flow of blood.” Zach slid the bowie into its sheath. He examined where the sod had been cut out and the hole dug to hide Dryfus. “I bet this was Geist’s doing.”
Chases Rabbits, rubbing his wrists and grimacing, nodded. “He much clever, that one.”
“Only four of them now,” Zach said.
“But they have women,” Chases Rabbits reminded him. “They have Raven On The Ground.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t do anything to get the love of your life killed.”
“They blame me,” Chases Rabbits said sadly.
“Who does?”
“Flute Girl and Lavender. Maybe more of my people when hear of this.”
“Geist had most everyone fooled. He even had Toad hoodwinked. I’ll speak to your people for you, make it clear how two-faced Geist was.”
“Him have two faces?”
“It’s a white expression. It means a person who smiles at you and acts all friendly while at the same time he’s reaching behind you to stab you in the back.”
“That Geist,” Chases Rabbits agreed.
Zach stood and scanned the prairie. “Where did Dryfus leave his horse?”
“In old buffalo wallow, that way.” Chases Rabbits pointed, his lips compressed against the pain. “We go after them right away?”
“We sure as hell do.”
Chapter Twenty-five
“Dryfus should have caught up with us by now.” Geist paced and glowered, his hands clasped behind his back, his fingers constantly flexing and un-flexing.
“He’s damn good with that knife of his,” Gratt said.
“From what I heard, so is Zach King.” Geist stopped and stared to the west and swore. “Lesson learned. The next time it will be two.”
“Why not all four of us?” Berber asked.
“Two will be enough.”
“You said that about Dryfus,” Berber said.
Geist stopped pacing and turned. “Something on your mind?”
“I’m just saying four is smarter than two.”
“Are you saying I’m dumb?”
Gratt glanced at Berber and gave a barely noticeable shake of his head.
“Yes,” Berber said. “I am.”
“You don’t say.”
“Don’t get me wrong. I’m not bucking to take your place. I’m only saying that if this Zach King is as tough as everyone says, it might take all four of us and not just two.”
Geist walked up to Berber and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Maybe you have a point.” With his other hand, Geist drew a pistol and slammed it against Berber’s temple. Berber staggered, and Geist hit him again, and then a third time. With a groan, Berber collapsed to his knees.
“And maybe if you ever talk back to me again, you’re dead as dead can be,” Geist said.
“Please,” Berber pleaded.
“Please what? Don’t hit you again?” Geist hefted the pistol, then jammed it under his belt. “You’re right. I need you in fighting shape for Zach King.”
“Let me try next,” Petrie said.
“Always save the best for last.” Geist grinned. “Or next to last.” He stepped to where the three Crow maidens lay on their sides, bound fast. “Ladies, I know you can’t understand a goddamned word I say, but I want you to know that after we take care of the half-breed, we’re going to celebrate by treating ourselves to you. Then we’re going to cut your hamstrings so you can’t walk and leave you for the wolves and the coyotes to finish off.”
Gratt was giving a wobbly Berber a hand up. “What’s the next trap going to be?”
“How would I know? I haven’t thought it up yet. Depends on the lay of the land.” Geist scratched his chin. “It has to be something the half-breed won’t expect, like that trick with the sod.”
Petrie had a hand to his brow to shield his eyes from the glare of the sun. “I see trees yonder. Could be a stream.”
Geist smiled. “Ask and you shall receive.”
Zach and Chases Rabbits drew rein well out of rifle range. Zach took the spyglass from his parfleche and swept the belt of vegetation for movement.
“Are them there?”
“I don’t see anyone. But it’s where I’d try next if I was him.” Zach replaced the telescope and gigged the dun.
“Me much want to k
ill them,” Chases Rabbits said. He had Dryfus’s rifle, pistols, and knife. He had also appropriated the man’s ammo pouch and powder horn.
“Some folks deserve to die,” Zach said.
“Them bad people.”
“Whites would call it being our own judge and jury, but this isn’t the States.”
“Sorry?”
“Whites don’t believe in killing bad people outright. They put a bad man on what they call a trial, where one side says how bad he is and another side says he’s not as bad as everyone claims. Then a chief decides whether to throw him in an iron cage or hang him.”
“Apsaalooke banish bad men.”
Zach patted his rifle. “Quick and final is best. Then they can never cause you trouble again.”
The trees were a mix of cottonwoods and oaks. In places the brush was thick. A blue ribbon of water flowed as slow as molasses.
Tracks revealed where Geist and the others had stopped to let their horses drink and ridden on.
Chases Rabbits started to climb down.
“Wait,” Zach said.
“Something wrong?”
Zach raked his gaze over a patch of brambles. He had the sense that something was amiss, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.
“We not take long,” Chases Rabbits chafed. “Raven On The Ground need us.”
“We won’t be any help to her if we’re dead.” Zach looked at the brambles again. Few would choose it as a spot to hide, what with all the thorns. The center of the patch was especially dense, which would also discourage anyone from crawling in. Almost too dense, he thought, at the same moment that Blaze growled.
Details came into focus with sharp clarity—a squat form that seemed to be part of the brambles, but wasn’t; branches that were going every which way, when most grew straight up or at right angles to the main stems; and the dark eyes that were fixed on him with fierce intensity.
Zach snapped his Hawken up. In the brambles a gun boomed. He felt a searing shock to his shoulder, and then his right arm and fingers went numb. He lost his hold on the rifle. As it fell, he dove from the saddle and clawed at a pistol with his left hand. He heard another shot behind him, and Chases Rabbits cried out. The water rushed up to meet him. He came down hard, but the stream was a wet cushion. He managed to hold the pistol in the air so that it didn’t get wet. As he heaved to a knee, he pointed it at the form in the brambles and fired.
A few yards away, Chases Rabbits was thrashing in the stream and turning the water red.
“I’ve got you now, you stinking half-breed.”
Zach whirled.
Berber was on the bank, a smoking pistol in one hand, a cocked pistol in the other. He glanced at the brambles in fury. “You shot him, damn you.” Berber took aim. “Now it’s your turn.” He smiled, and then the top of his forehead exploded in a shower of skin, bone, and flesh, spattering in the stream and on Zach like so much grisly rain.
Hooves pounded, and from behind Berber appeared a giant rider on a black bay, holding a smoking Hawken. He drew rein and stared down at Berber’s body and said, “I don’t much like it when someone tries to kill my son.”
“Pa!” Zach blurted.
Nate King swung down. “Are you hit?”
Zach examined his right shoulder and his arm and shook his head. “I don’t appear to be.” He snatched his rifle from the stream. A gouge on the stock explained the jolt and the numbness. The ball had struck the rifle instead of him.
“Thank God,” Nate said. “I’ve been riding like the devil to catch up to you.”
“You’ve been following us?”
“Your ma and your wife were worried and sent me to find you,” Nate explained. “I came on your trail and have been after you ever since.” He paused. “I had a talk with Toad. He told me everything.”
“There are only two left. If we ride hard, we can end this before the day is done.”
“I should have listened to you. You were right about them. I’m sorry.”
“Toad is decent enough.” Zach tried to wiggle his fingers, and found that some of the numbness was gone. “I reckon I won’t have a problem with him.”
“Remember me?” Chases Rabbits asked.
Father and son turned. The young Crow was sitting in waist-deep water. Blood trickled from under his hand, which was pressed to a wound high on his left shoulder.
“Let’s get you to dry land and I’ll have a look at that,” Nate said. He moved around behind Chases Rabbits and carefully helped him to his feet, then held him as they moved to the bank. He had the younger man sit and hunkered down beside him.
Chases Rabbits winced. “Berber shoot me in back.”
“It went clean through,” Nate said. “The bleeding has almost stopped. You were lucky.”
“Me not feel lucky.”
Blaze came up and sniffed Nate. The big man looked at him and said, “Will miracles never cease.”
Zach went to the brambles. Squatting, he peered in at the man sprawled on his belly. As he’d suspected, it was Gratt. Brambles covered Gratt’s clothes and were even in his hair. It must have hurt, all those thorns sticking in him, but it was good camouflage. “Geist’s idea, I bet,” Zach said to himself.
Chases Rabbits was pale and pasty. “Me not feel so good,” he remarked.
“I’ll bandage you,” Nate said. “In a couple of weeks you’ll be good as new.”
“No,” Chases Rabbits said. “Me never be new again.”
Chapter Twenty-six
From atop a grassy knoll, Geist stared back the way they had come and vented his temper in a fit of lurid swearing. “He can’t have gotten them both. They weren’t you, but they were capable.”
“They should have caught up to us by now,” Petrie said.
“I know, I know.” Geist glared at the three Crow women on their mounts. Suddenly, without any hint of what he was about to do, he drew a flintlock and shot Lavender in the face. She toppled to the grass, twitched a few times, and went limp.
Raven On The Ground was horror-struck. Flute Girl was too stunned to react.
“That’ll give the damn breed something to think about,” Geist said.
“Might make him mad.”
“Good. When a man’s mad, he’s more likely to make mistakes.” Geist commenced to reload. “Now that it’s just the two of us, we need every edge we can get.”
Petrie cradled his rifle. “Leave me and go on. I’ll pick them off and catch up.”
“Them?” Geist said, and swore. “That’s right. I forgot about Chases Rabbits. King probably freed him.” He shook his head. “But no. I want you by my side. When it comes time, we’ll do it together.”
“I can hold them so you can get away.”
“I said no. You’ve been with me from the beginning. The rest were hired help, but you’re more.”
“Together then,” Petrie agreed.
Geist shoved the reloaded pistol into place on his hip. He snagged the lead rope to the women’s horses and used his heels on his own.
Mile after endless mile of grass and occasional flowers unfolded before them. They passed buffalo wallows and prairie dog towns, and antelope that bounded off in incredible leaps.
Geist hardly noticed. He was thinking of one thing and one thing only—how to kill Zach King. His trick with the sod hadn’t worked, and his trick with the brambles hadn’t worked. Now he needed a new trick, the best yet, a trick to ensure that Zach King breathed his last.
The terrain changed. Low rolling hills, some eroded into bluffs, were crisscrossed by washes. Stands of trees were plentiful, the grass high and thick.
Geist studied his surroundings with interest. From the top of any of the bluffs, a man could see a good long way. “I’m getting an idea.”
Petrie followed his gaze. “Put me up there?” Geist nodded. “Where would you be?”
“Down low with a distraction.”
“And the women?”
“They’re the distraction. I could shoot them like I d
id the other one, but once we’ve disposed of King, we’ll want to celebrate.”
“I don’t do redskins.”
“A female is a female.”
“Not if she has red skin.”
“Didn’t you lose your grandfather to some Creeks? Is that why you hate them so much?”
“I hate them because they’re different. They look different. They smell different. They think different. They act different. Andy Jackson had it right. Throw them on reservations or exterminate them. When the last red man is gone, I’ll give a whoop and a holler.”
“That’s the most you’ve talked in a month of Sundays.”
“I don’t keep track.” Petrie looked at him. “We can’t let Zach King get the best of us.”
“We won’t.”
Geist went on searching for the ideal spot. They came around a hill and before them was exactly what he was looking for—a bluff with clefts wide enough to hide a grown man. Thick woods fringed the sides, and trees grew in profusion at the top. “Do you see what I see?”
“It’s perfect,” Petrie agreed.
Geist rode to the base of the bluff and dismounted. The women stared at him apprehensively. It tickled him, having them at his mercy. He inspected the clefts. One had a lip wide enough for him to stand behind and not be seen. “God is on our side,” he joked.
“Don’t jinx it,” Petrie said.
Geist stepped to the horses and grinned up at Raven On The Ground and Flute Girl. “Ladies—and I use the word loosely—it’s time you did more than sit there like lumps. I need to distract Zach King and you are made to order.” He reached up and hauled Raven On The Ground off and steadied her on her feet. She stood uncertainly, unsure what he wanted.
“I’m going to enjoy this part.” Geist chuckled and reached for her dress. She panicked and tried to run, but he was on her before she took more than a couple of steps. She screamed as he hauled her down.
Chases Rabbits simmered with rage and liked it, which surprised him. All Crow children were taught that anger was wrong. For a Crow to give in to it and strike another Crow, or for a parent to strike a child, was considered the worst behavior. So it surprised him that he liked being mad so much. He savored it, as he might savor a kiss from Raven On The Ground. He yearned to count coup on the whites who had taken her, and to redeem himself in her eyes.
Seed of Evil Page 12