by Jake Logan
He noticed the creature had ceased its rumbling moan, and he forced his eyes open to see what that might mean. Slocum saw the great bear still poised over him, but leaning as if about to topple—on him.
A desperate surge of strength jolted Slocum awake, and he knew he had to slide himself out from under the damn bear—or he would find himself trapped under a thousand pounds of dead, stinking, bleeding grizzly.
But try as he might, he couldn’t push himself away from the bear. As he watched, it all happened as if the hands of a clock were magically slowed. A last shot, echoing up the steep slope, drove like a hidden fist into the bear’s neck. He saw it enter, watched meat and hair and blood and bone burst out the other side of the bear’s body. With a last agonizing roar, the bear wobbled and crashed straight down on top of him, trapping the knife he’d raised at the last second, and driving the hilt into its gut.
All the air left Slocum’s body in a fast wheeze the second the bear dropped on him. It took but another couple of seconds for the bear to finally succumb to his many wounds from bullet and knife. It sagged all over him, it seemed, and Slocum knew for certain he was about to expire himself. Then he felt something pop near his gut, felt a sudden warm rush all over him. What was that?
The knife, of course, he told himself. He’d been stupid to hold that knife upright at the last second, as if it might help him somehow. But the bear’s near-dead weight had driven it into him, dull end first. And yet, it had punctured the beast’s belly just below the rib cage and now its life juices, its guts, were forcing their way out. He still couldn’t breathe, but it gave him an idea, and he wasted no time in pursuing it.
With what little leverage he had, Slocum worked his aching hand, the hilt of the knife grinding into his own gut. He wasn’t sure what he was trying to accomplish, but that hand was the only thing still able to move, despite the bear’s weight atop him. A trickle of air still wheezed in and out of Slocum’s mouth, but it was a fight he was quickly losing as the bear’s weight crushed his chest.
The knife blade, always honed to a paper-slicing edge, made grim progress into the dead brute’s gut cavity. Keep cutting, keep cutting, he told himself. Maybe you’ll have enough luck to slice your arm free, grab the snowy upslope, and gain leverage enough to push the dead bear off you . . .
But he knew it was an effort doomed to failure. Already he was slipping away again into unconsciousness. And this time, he knew he would not rouse from it.
10
When Delbert Calkins stumbled upon the Cree’s encampment, they seemed surprised to see him, though he knew they had watched him for some time. No doubt they were suspicious—rightfully so, as he was a stranger in their midst.
That very day on the trail, his horse had just about given up the ghost, as his old grandfather used to say. He knew he’d abused it for far longer than he should have, so when he saw the little village—the smoking fire pit in the middle of it all, the few trees here and there with bits of hide and decoration hanging from them, the dark-haired people wrapped in colorful blankets and furs gathering outside in the snow to stare at him—he knew they were his only hope for survival.
Delbert kept on jamming his heels into that stupid horse’s gut until it just stopped lifting its feet up out of the chest-high holes it had been punching in the granular snow.
He sat on the thing, pounding it with his hands, his boots, drumming hard against the belly of the beast. But other than groans and long, snot-filled wheezes, he got nothing more from the horse. Soon it just plain collapsed beneath him, but it didn’t slump down far, as the snow held it up. And then it died. Right there at the top of the hill, overlooking the valley with the river and the Indian camp, so close to salvation and the dumb horse dies.
He kept looking at the Indians, but they only stared at him across the bare little valley, across the river, and up to where he’d crested the ridge overlooking their camp. Didn’t even make motions of coming to his rescue. What good were they?
And so he had to climb down off the dead horse, unstrap his saddlebags, and after double-checking that the familiar bulge in his coat was still there (as he did at least one hundred times a day to remind himself he still had the money from that little Garfield snip’s foolish father), high-stepped down the steep slope toward the river below.
He only made it halfway down when he lost his footing and tumbled, as his old grandfather had also said, “ass over bandbox” to the bottom. On coming to a painful rest up against a boulder, his first thought had been about the money. Another pat, though he made sure to do it without the Indians seeing, and he was pleased to note it was okay.
He spluttered up out of the snow only to see the Indians still staring at him, and though it was too far for him to see well, he didn’t think they were laughing at him.
He also made sure his side arm made it through okay. The holster was closed at the end and the handle strapped down securely. The derringer in an inner coat pocket was still there, too. He might not know much about how to keep that damn horse from killing itself, but he damn sure knew how to use a gun.
And he was sure that despite the fact that he’d gotten turned around, he would soon be on his way. Precisely because he had guns and money. The only things he needed now were food, warmth, and some way out of the damned mountains, a direction toward the Mississippi River, where he could gamble away his “earnings” and figure out where to go, what to do next.
Delbert was also sure that he’d been tailed and chased into the mountains by someone. It was as much a feeling as anything of proof and with substance, but it was such feelings that had kept him alive on the streets of Chicago all those years.
He finally made it across the half-frozen river and the barren flat beyond, and up to the gathered Indians. He hoped to God this tribe was friendly. If not, he felt sure he could take out six, perhaps eight counting his two-shot derringer. But without adequate cover so he might reload, he stood no chance. The ones standing in the front looked to be male and most of them cradled rifles in their arms. He would be lucky indeed, he figured, if they left him alone and unharmed.
They finally shifted their features as he approached. A dog came yipping toward him. One of the men uttered a short, sharp bark of his own and the dog stopped, tail tucked, and retreated. Delbert had slung his saddlebags over his shoulder and now approached with caution, his hands raised and a smile on his face. He drew to within forty feet of the gathered Indians.
He saw their peculiar eyes, dark and liquid, their equally dark hair, silky black and pulled back. It looked as if some of them wore it greased. It was a warmish day for winter, so most of them did not wear any headgear, but he did see a couple of men who wore fur hats.
“Hello there, friends,” he said, trying to look frightened and worried. He even glanced once or twice back over his shoulder. “I am Delbert Calkins. And I am in desperate need of help. A vicious killer is on my trail and I have nowhere else to turn.”
11
Slocum heard a voice, a human voice, as if spoken through water, through gravel, through thunder. It was saying something . . . but what? Was this death? Was this all there was to the long, long game everyone fought so hard to be part of?
He could not see, could barely hear, and yet he . . . felt . . . warmth, and cold and touch? Was something touching him? He worked so very hard to open his eyes, to try to break free from this dream, but it was impossible. And then he slept.
• • •
It was a voice again that woke him. And this time he knew he was not dead. At least he thought he wasn’t. He’d been wrong before about a good many things, so why not now? But something again touched him, dragged across his face, his arms . . . snakes? He worked to open his eyes, vaguely aware that he had tried to do this before and had failed.
Light, gray and fuzzy, wormed its way into his eyes. He pictured a small version of himself pushing his heavy eyelids apart, his muscle
s straining with the effort, and it worked. All at once they fluttered like a moth’s wings, opened, and in the dim, yellow light haloed over his head, he saw a grinning face leaning down close.
He found his voice, heard what he’d intended as a scream come out instead as a whisper, and he said, “Devil Woman of the Rockies . . .”
The mouth of the wavering, leering face opened wide and he heard the same watery whooshing sounds that began to sound a whole lot like low, drawn-out laughter. That was the last thing Slocum remembered for a long time.
• • •
Something touched his lips, woke him. It was hot, burned him. He flinched, tried to recoil, but the movement only brought pain. He heard himself whisper, “What . . . what is it?”
“Broth.” Then as an afterthought, the voice said, “For your throat.” It was a soft voice, a woman’s voice, but there was a hard edge to it, the voice of someone who would brook no foolishness.
“Who are you?” He made his eyes open, and everything blurred, came back into focus briefly, then fuzzed out again, as if he were looking at the bright sun though gauzy white curtains that kept blowing back and forth across an open window. The light hurt, but he wanted it to, wanted to take it all in. Surely he wasn’t dead. This looked too real—the inside of a cabin? He tried to move, and felt the pain again. It seemed to come from all over him, through him, lancing and piercing and throbbing all at once.
“You are alive, in case you were wondering.”
The voice came from his left side. He tried to turn his head, felt the pain again.
“Stop doing that.”
“What?” he wheezed through gritted teeth.
“Moving. I didn’t work for two days to get you patched up so you could rip apart your wounds.”
“Who are you? Where am I?”
He heard the voice sigh. It was definitely a woman’s voice. And not as hard as he’d imagined. But where was she? Then he heard footsteps, boots on wood, and the silhouette of someone blotting out the light from the far window, but the light outlined a form, slender with long hair.
Then she pulled the long hair back, gathering it in one hand, and reached up with the other, tied it back with something. Then she leaned down over him. “I am Sigrid Berglund.”
It was a foreign name, Scandinavian, and her voice bore the strong trace of an accent from such a place.
“And you are John Slocum,” she said.
He stared at her without speaking, trying to puzzle out who she was, what he was doing there, why he hurt so badly.
“You were expecting . . . the Devil Woman of the Rockies perhaps?”
“What? What does that mean?”
“You really don’t remember, do you?”
“No. Tell me what’s going on here.”
“That was the first thing you called me. Devil Woman of the Rockies. I thought it was funny. You are almost dead and the first thing you choose to say to me is that. Insult your savior, good plan, Mr. Slocum.” She laughed, a sound like ringing bells, but bold, with a confidence he’d rarely heard in a woman’s voice.
“Savior? From what?”
“I will say one word and you will probably remember. Maybe not.” She shrugged. “But we have to start somewhere, okay?”
He tried to nod, but it hurt. He whispered, “Okay.”
She cleared her throat and said, “Bear.”
He almost thought she was playing a joke on him, then something, like water dripping through an earthen dam, popped through. The drips became more drips, became a trickle, then a steady stream, then a spurt. Before he knew it, the mud gave way and memories of what had happened flooded his mind.
Slocum’s eyes flew wide open, and he jammed himself back into the bedding hard, wincing at the pain, but needing it, needing its reassuring lancing comfort to remind him that he had fought that grizzly and lived. Somehow, impossibly, with that foul death-dealing beast dead on top of him, he had lived . . . but only because someone had helped.
Someone, he remembered now, with a Sharps rifle had blasted the bear methodically, unmercifully until it had expired on top of him.
“You . . . You shot the bear?”
She stood upright again, folded her arms in front of her. “Is that so difficult to believe, Mr. Slocum?”
He almost chuckled. “Nothing is difficult to believe anymore.”
“Good,” she said.
And though he still hadn’t seen her face because the light was at her back and he was in a darkened corner, he could tell she was smiling.
“Now, let’s get some of this broth into you before you shrivel into nothing. And then the bear will have won. This we cannot let happen, right?”
This time he did nod. “Right.” Then other things occurred to him, things he needed answers to. “My horses . . .”
“They are fine, a few bruises and sore limbs from sliding and running down the slope, but I have tended to them. They are sheltered in my barn.”
“And my things, everything the horses carried? My guns?”
“Also fine. I took the liberty of unpacking your gear and have stored what was not necessary. I used what I needed—your clothes, that sort of thing. The guns and the rest of your possessions I have over there.” She nodded to a spot across the room. “You may have them when you are well. Now enough talk. You must eat.”
12
Within a couple of days, Slocum was well enough to sit up, feed himself with his right arm, and take whatever nourishment Sigrid brought to him. She tended to all his basic needs, changed the bandages on his wounds, and from what he saw, she did a masterful job at stitching up the puncture marks on his shoulder, chest, and arm. The grizzly had also raked his right thigh and landed a few lesser gouges along his abdomen. But even these she tended to, not with a foul-smelling goop he’d seen so many people use, but with pleasant-smelling tinctures and liniments.
“Where did you learn your doctoring skills?”
She did not respond, merely smiled.
Yes, sir. She was dutiful in just about everything, but she was not talkative. Getting her to engage in conversation was like talking to a tree stump. A pretty one, to be sure, but a quiet one.
Still, she did not seem perturbed with him. On the contrary, she hummed while she worked, sang softly to herself, even in front of him. She smiled at him as she changed his dressings, without a self-conscious bone in her body. Almost as if she’d not grown up in the company of others. She was a puzzle to him, and one he figured he’d try to decipher, if only because he had been injured badly in the past, and he knew healing took time.
When she did speak, it was with an air of education, as if she’d been to a fine college back East. But if she hadn’t, the evidence of a homegrown education nestled here in the mountains was all around—the walls were covered with shelves of books.
“How did you get so many books up here in the mountains?”
She smiled at him, kept on humming. By now he knew not to expect an answer. Or if he did get one, it would come later, unexpectedly, and would be brief. Almost as if she considered everything he said. It made him begin to consider his questions to her.
True to form, she spoke some minutes after he had asked his question—so much later that he initially didn’t know just what she was talking about.
“My father. He was a professor back East. They are his books.”
Slocum nodded. So that meant either her father was dead, missing, or had just retired from being a professor and was about the place somewhere. Or any other explanation he’d not thought of. Either way, it didn’t really matter. He wasn’t one to pry into other people’s lives. He was curious about her, however. And that combination made him all the more eager to learn about her.
But he contented himself with watching her as she worked. He still slept a great deal, figured it was his body’s way of healing, but h
e was thankful that her tinctures and salves did an incredible job of keeping the pain at bay. Without her help, he would be dead. Even if he’d managed to survive the bear attack, he would most likely have died of fever beside a paltry little fire at the bottom of the slope. No sir, he owed this woman a great deal. She had saved his life and was still doing it.
Sigrid was a tall, well-built woman, muscled, Slocum assumed, from years of tending to everything for herself—evidence of her father being alive had not shown itself. The wonder of it all was that she was continually smiling, humming, and singing. Hauling wood, carrying water, cutting meat, tending the stove, and changing his dressings.
It was on the third day after he awoke that he thought he heard dogs growling and maybe even a yip or bark. He asked her about it.
“They are my sled dogs.” Then she went back to baking bread.
Now he was more curious than ever. Who was this woman? Unfortunately he spent another few days in near silence, drifting in and out of restive sleep, feeling better with each passing day. He spent some of the time trying to read a book she had brought him, pleased that he had requested such a thing. “I am capable of reading, you know,” he said, offering a smile.
“Of course you can. No man worth anything in life could be illiterate.”
Was that a compliment? An insult? He had no idea, but try as he might, he couldn’t concentrate on the words, not so much because of the pain, but because he couldn’t keep from thinking about Delbert Calkins and how foolish the entire chase had suddenly become in his mind. He’d gone off more for his own reasons than for any particular quest for justice. And it had nearly gotten him killed, given him injuries such that every time he took off his shirt, he’d be reminded.
That afternoon she came to his bedside and said, “You will begin walking today, Mr. Slocum. And tomorrow you will sauna.”