At noon he was deep in mountains again. He halted for a brief break, eating more jerky and allowing the stallion to rest. Then he mounted and headed out.
After he covered two more miles, a high ridge appeared. The trail wound along its base, bearing westward because the riders skirted it, but he altered direction and rode to the top of the ridge in the hope of seeing them. No sooner did he rein up than his persistence was rewarded.
Eleven men were less than a quarter of a mile away, camped at the edge of a meadow. He spied a white horse that might or might not be Shakespeare’s. Grinning, he retraced his path to the bottom. The Indians, not expecting pursuit, had stopped for an extended midday rest. Now he would find out what was going on.
He rode to the west end of the ridge, then warily moved into dense woodland beyond. The meadow wasn’t more than a couple of hundred yards off and he exercised the utmost caution as he drew within half that distance and dismounted. After tying the stallion to a low limb, he hefted the Hawken and stealthily advanced until he could see figures moving through the trees.
Nate crouched, going from trunk to trunk, studiously avoiding all twigs and branches in his path. Twenty yards from the band he eased onto his stomach and proceeded to crawl. He glimpsed Indians whose style of dress seemed oddly familiar, although try as he might he couldn’t place them. Then he spotted Shakespeare.
He halted in surprise, his eyes narrowing. The mountain man was conversing with two warriors. Shakespeare’s hands weren’t tied, but Nate noticed something odd. His friend wasn’t carrying any weapons, not even a knife. Since no mountaineer in his right mind would go anywhere unarmed, Nate concluded the Indians had taken his mentor’s firearms and butcher knife. But if so, and acting on the logical assumption Shakespeare was their prisoner, why had the warriors not bound him? At the very least Nate expected to find his friend’s wrists bound.
It made no sense.
Perplexed, Nate inched nearer until he was within ten feet of the band, lying partially concealed under the low limbs of a small pine tree. Another fact struck him as strange. Previously, the warriors had been heading northwest at a rapid clip. Yet now they were idly conversing as if they didn’t have a care in the world and weren’t in any great hurry to reach their destination.
Nate scanned the entire group, striving to piece together some rhyme or reason to their behavior. His brain abruptly shrieked a warning and he felt that something was very, very wrong, but he couldn’t isolate the cause. He studied the Indians, even more closely.
And then he saw it.
With a start Nate realized there were only eight warriors present now, not ten. Where were the other two? He looked right and left and saw no indication of them. Between the time he’d spotted the whole band from the ridge and his arrival at the meadow, the pair had disappeared. He figured they must be in the woods hunting for game.
Thank goodness he hadn’t blundered into them!
He saw Shakespeare peer into the forest and frown. Why? The idea of signaling his friend occurred to him but he discarded the notion as too dangerous. One of the Indians might see him. He crossed his forearms and rested his chin on them, the Hawken at his right side.
A tall Indian approached McNair. He wore fine buckskins and had long, dark, braided hair flecked with spots of gray and adorned with four eagle feathers. Instead of a bow, which was far more common among warriors of all tribes, he cradled a flintlock rifle in his arms.
Nate figured the warrior must be a prominent member of the tribe. The man stopped and addressed Shakespeare, and to Nate’s utter amazement the warrior spoke English.
“It will not be long now, Carcajou.”
The name was familiar to Nate. It was the French word for the wolverine, a denizen of the Rockies reputed to be every bit as fierce as the grizzly, and the name by which several of the tribes referred to the white-haired mountain man. He saw Shakespeare glare at the speaker, then respond bitterly.
“May all your male children become women.”
One of the other warriors laughed.
The tall Indian took the insult in stride. He sighed and gazed into the distance. “How long will you be mad at me, my brother?”
“For as long as the sun shines,” Shakespeare replied. “And don’t call me your brother, Buffalo Horn. You are the lowest, meanest son of a bitch who ever lived and I hope the Blackfeet take your hair real soon.”
Nate was astounded his friend would use such language. Indian men adhered to a strong unwritten code of honor and dignity, and they rarely tolerated personal insults. Then, to compound his confusion, the tall warrior and the same one who had laughed before both did so.
This other warrior, a lean man with a hooked nose and a pointed chin, wagged the war club he held and said, “You know a man must be true to his word. Whether white or Indian, a man’s word is a measure of his worth as a human being.”
Shakespeare bristled. “If I wasn’t so outnumbered I’d teach you about worth, Running Elk, you polecat.”
Buffalo Horn made a gesture as if to say that talking with McNair was a waste of time. “We have been through that once.”
“Don’t remind me,” Shakespeare said.
“I never thought I would live to see the day when you would turn your back on your word,” Buffalo Horn declared. “And after all that happened.”
“It happened twenty years ago, damn your hide,” Shakespeare snapped. “You can’t expect to hold me to it after so much time has passed.”
“It is out of my hands,” Buffalo Horn said solemnly.
“I’ll remember you for this,” Shakespeare promised. “Some day, some way, I’ll get even.”
Nate wished one of them would drop a clue as to the topic of their discussion. He had no idea what was going on. Sliding forward several inches, he cocked his head to listen better. So well that he distinctly heard the click of a hammer being cocked. A heartbeat later he felt the barrel of a gun jab into the nape of his neck.
Chapter Four
Nate froze, knowing the slightest move would prove fatal. He heard someone snicker, and then a pair of moccasin covered feet stepped into view. The gun barrel, however, never moved, which indicated there were two of them. The two missing warriors, he figured.
A young warrior squatted in front of him. Smiling, he wagged a tomahawk he held in his right hand, then motioned for Nate to rise.
Bewildered, Nate complied. The pressure on his neck disappeared, and a second warrior moved around in front of him. This one held a cocked fusee, one of the inferior trade rifles the Indians received from the fur companies in exchange for prime pelts. While fusees lacked the range of conventional long guns, they were every bit as lethal pinned in one’s neck.
The warrior with the tomahawk leaned forward and picked up the Hawken. Rising, he removed both of Nate’s pistols, the butcher knife, and Nate’s tomahawk. He admired the weapons for a bit, then jerked his thumb toward the camp.
Incensed at himself for being taken so easily, Nate walked forward. The other Indians heard him coming, as did Shakespeare, and they turned to regard him with a mixture of curiosity and amusement, but no hostility.
The mountain man placed his hands on his hips and declared testily, “I thought I taught you better than this. How could you let yourself be taken by these half-wits?”
“I was about to ask the same thing of you,” Nate retorted, annoyed at the brusque greeting. After all the trouble he had gone to, he felt a friendly smile at the very least was in order.
A hearty laugh burst from Buffalo Horn. “The cub has a point, Carcajou. What is your answer?”
Shakespeare snorted indignantly. “I have a valid excuse. You curs sneaked into my cabin while I was reading and got the drop on me. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here.”
Running Elk grinned. “And we should thank you for leaving your door open. Otherwise, we could never have sneaked in.”
“Grind a man’s face in it, why don’t you?” Shakespeare snapped, and glancing at Nate he
encompassed all of the band in a single sweep of his arm. “Go, bind thou up yon dangling apricots, which, like unruly children, make their sire stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight: Give some supportance to the bending twigs. Go thou, and like an executioner, cut off the heads of too fast growing sprays, that look too lofty in our commonwealth.”
Nate knew his mentor had quoted William Shakespeare again, although he had no idea from which play the quote stemmed. He saw Buffalo Horn and Running Elk exchange grins and shook his head in confusion.
The warrior who had confiscated Nate’s weapons stepped forward and placed them at Buffalo Horn’s feet. A short discussion in their native tongue ensued, after which the two warriors responsible for his capture hastened back into the forest.
“They will find your horse and bring it here,” Buffalo Horn addressed Nate. “You will need it on the long ride ahead.”
“What long ride?” Nate asked, and faced his mentor. “Do you mind telling me what in blazes is going on?”
“What’s to explain?” Shakespeare rejoined. “It should be obvious. We’re in the clutches of savages who will likely take our hair.”
Buffalo Horn hissed like an angry viper. “That is not true and you well know it, McNair. We will not harm a hair on either of you.” He paused and smirked. “Unless you try to escape, of course.”
“Heathen devil,” Shakespeare muttered, and walked a few yards to the west, turning his back on the Indians.
Stepping to his friend’s side, Nate placed a hand on Shakespeare’s shoulder. “None of this makes any sense to me. You seem to know these Indians. Who are they?”
“Flatheads,” Shakespeare snapped distastefully.
Suddenly Nate recollected where he had seen such Indians before; at the last rendezvous. Various tribes attended the rowdy annual event to trade, sell women, or participate in the contests of marksmanship, horse riding, and other skills. “The same ones who were at the rendezvous?” he inquired, studying them.
“No, a different bunch,” Shakespeare said. “Buffalo Horn and these others are from another village. They weren’t at the rendezvous because they’re afraid to travel so near to Blackfoot country.”
Nate glanced at Buffalo Horn, who had overheard the remark, and saw the Indian scowl.
“Again you lie, McNair,” the warrior declared. “We have been at the rendezvous every year except last year, when we could not come because of a council we were holding with the Nez Percé. Why must you keep trying to make me mad?”
“Because I’m hoping you’ll take a swing at me so I can break your jaw,” Shakespeare responded.
Buffalo Horn looked at Nate. “Please forgive his manners, Mr. King. Most men would not treat their brother-in-law with such disrespect.”
“Brother-in-law?” Nate said in astonishment, then realized the Flathead had called him by name. “Wait a minute. How is it that you know me?”
“Shakespeare has told us much about you,” Buffalo Horn said. “He told us you are not like most whites. You respect our way of life and the earth on which all men must live. He says you are a mighty warrior and generations to come will remember you.”
“He did?” Nate blurted in surprise.
“I was exaggerating,” Shakespeare said defensively. “I was trying to convince them to let me go. Told them you’d be after them if they didn’t.” He snorted again. “I had no idea you’d practically walk into their hands.”
“They found me by accident,” Nate said.
“Accident, hell. Running Elk saw you on that ridge back yonder,” Shakespeare stated. “They deliberately dawdled here to give you a chance to make a fool of yourself. And you accommodated them.”
“They set a trap for me?”
The mountain man nodded. “Buffalo Horn sent two men into the trees to wait for you to show up. He told them to take you alive, otherwise you’d be bald right about now.”
Nate felt like a prize dunderhead. He glanced at the forest to discover his two captors returning with his black stallion, then at Buffalo Horn, the man who claimed to be McNair’s brother-in-law. The thought jogged his memory. “Didn’t you once tell me that you were married to a Flathead woman a long time ago?”
“I may have.”
“Was the woman Buffalo Horn’s sister?”
“Unfortunately.”
Nate’s confusion doubled. When a white man married an Indian woman, the tribe usually adopted the groom as one of their own, just as the Shoshones had done with him. If the Flatheads had done likewise with Shakespeare, why were they taking him against his will? And to where? He posed the question to Buffalo Horn.
“We are on our way to our village,” the warrior answered. “You are welcome to come, if you like. If not, and if you give your word that you will not interfere with what must be done, we will give you back your weapons and allow you to ride off.”
“Just like that?”
“My people have never taken the life of a white man and there is no reason for us to take yours,” Buffalo Horn said. “We have always been friendly to all whites. When trappers come to our village, we feed them and let them stay in our lodges. Even though many of them treat us as inferiors, we know that all men are brothers.”
Nate didn’t know what to say.
“My people are as friendly to whites as your wife’s people, the Shoshones,” Buffalo Horn went on.
“You know about my wife, then?”
“Carcajou told us.”
Shifting, Nate regarded his mentor critically. “Is there anything you didn’t tell them?”
Shakespeare made a show of placing a palm to his forehead and feigning hurt feelings. “Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting. It is a most sharp sauce.”
Buffalo Horn took a step toward Nate. “Do you understand him when he talks like that?”
“Sometimes,” Nate said.
“I never do,” the Flathead said. “I think he does it just to upset other people.”
“Probably,” Nate agreed, and added, “You speak excellent English, though. Where did you learn it so well?”
“Carcajou taught me during the years he lived in our village.”
“And me,” Running Elk chimed in.
The grizzled mountain man sighed. “That’s what I get for being so blamed considerate. I taught them the language, and now they use it to mock me and treat me like buffalo crap.”
“We do no such thing,” Buffalo Horn said, and looked at Nate. “Now, what about you, Grizzly Killer? Do we have your promise you will not try to stop us from taking McNair to our village?”
“Are you fixing to harm him?”
“No.”
Shakespeare pivoted and jabbed a finger at the warrior. “Now who is lying? You have the most horrible fate any man can face lined up for me. Why, I’d rather be skinned alive or eaten by a grizzly.”
“You exaggerate again,” Buffalo Horn said.
Nate couldn’t take the suspense any longer. “What is the fate in store for him? Just what the hell is going on, anyway?”
Buffalo Horn went to answer when another brave called out in the Flathead tongue and pointed to the southeast. Every warrior whirled.
Glancing in the same direction, Nate felt his breath catch in his throat at seeing over two dozen riders on the very same ridge he’d been on when he first spied the Flatheads. He could tell they were Indians and hoped they were friendly, but a single word uttered by Running Elk proved otherwise.
“Utes.”
The Flatheads scrambled for their mounts even as the band of Utes vented war whoops and surged down the ridge toward them. Shakespeare ran to his white horse and swiftly mounted.
Nate found himself standing alone, not a yard from his weapons, the only one still on foot. He glanced at his rifle, wondering if the Flatheads would stop him if he made a grab for it.
Buffalo Horn moved his horse closer. “Pick up your guns. If those Utes catch us, they will torture us to death.”
In a stride Nate was bending dow
n to hastily reclaim all of his arms. In seconds the pistols, knife, and tomahawk were again around his waist and the Hawken in his left hand. He swung onto the stallion and noted with surprise that every Flathead had waited for him.
Barking words in the Flathead tongue, Buffalo Horn led the band to the northwest at a gallop.
Nate fell in beside Shakespeare, his stallion easily keeping pace. He was glad he’d opted to bring the big black instead of his mare. Recently acquired from the same trappers who had tried to trade rifles to the Utes, the stallion possessed remarkable strength and endurance.
The Flatheads quickly crossed the meadow and entered woodland on the far side, staying clustered together, each warrior riding with an air of grim resolve about him.
Glancing at his mentor, Nate saw the same expression on his friend. He knew from prior experience that Indians were capable of perpetrating atrocities every bit as grisly as any ever practiced by white men, especially where warring tribes were concerned. Buffalo Horn had understated the situation. Any Flathead who fell behind or was captured would die a horrible death.
He wondered why the Utes were at least a day’s ride north of their normal range, and an answer occurred to him that made him stiffen in surprise. He might be the reason. If those three Utes he’d slain were part of a larger war party, when the other Utes found the bodies they would have set out to track the culprit down. They had tracked him to the top of the ridge and spied the Flatheads.
Damn. It was all his fault.
Nate concentrated on the task at hand, threading among the trees with the same skill as his Indian companions. He saw Buffalo Horn look back at him two or three times. Why? And what would the Flathead do once they eluded the Utes? Try to take his weapons again? He wasn’t going to permit it, no matter what.
As the chase continued, the Flatheads were goaded on by the distant whoops of their fierce mortal enemies. When the forest gave way to a series of hills, Running Elk took the lead in winding among them.
Wilderness: Vengeance Trail/ Death Hunt (A Wilderness Western Book 4) Page 3