Frowning, Davy settled for getting out of there with his hide intact and melted into the willows. Heading due south, he paralleled the river as the Sioux had been doing.
The smart thing to do was locate a ford and cross. In a few days he would be well to the east, safe. In a few weeks he would be home.
There was only one catch. By riding off, Davy would never know what fate had befallen Flavius. He had to try to find him. Only when he knew for certain that his friend was dead would he light a shuck for the rolling green hills and verdant valleys of Tennessee.
Davy held the sorrel to a walk until he was out of earshot of the camp. From then on he maintained a steady lope where the terrain allowed. Hour after hour he forged southward, a cacophony of night sounds attending him. The howls of wolves and the yips of coyotes hardly ever ceased. No sooner would one stop than another took up the refrain elsewhere. Panthers screamed on occasion. Owls hooted their eternal question.
All went well until an hour before sunrise. Fatigue was gnawing at Davy’s mind. Lulled by the motion of the sorrel, he dozed off for short spells, staying on by sheer habit. About the third time he was startled out of sleep by a loud grunt close at hand.
The sorrel came to a stop, ears pricked toward a thicket fifty yards to the southwest. Something moved in its depths, something huge.
Davy brought up his rifle, centering the front bead on the dark shape that appeared. In the gloom he could not quite distinguish what it was. The beast helped him out by striding boldly into the open, trampling the vegetation under its massive bulk.
“Damn!” Davy said.
A grizzly as big as his cabin stood eyeing the sorrel and him as if they were just what the mammoth bear hankered after for breakfast. Sniffing like a bellows, it advanced at a brisk if ponderous gait.
A narrow strip of grass bordered the river. Davy had been using it to make better time. But since it would take him right past the grizzly, he had to find another way around. Taking to the trees would not be very bright, since logs and additional obstacles would only slow the sorrel down.
That left one option. Reining to the left, Davy plunged into the Missouri, the horse wading swiftly out until the water was as high as Davy’s knees. The bear came to the edge and halted. Growling, it pawed at the water but did not enter.
“Don’t care for a swim?” Davy baited it as he came abreast. “I don’t blame you, old hoss. It’s awful cold.”
The grizzly did not appreciate his humor. Suddenly snarling, it plowed in, spraying water everywhere, and barreled toward the sorrel like a steamship toward port. The current had no more effect on it than on a mountain.
“Hee-yah!” Davy cried, raking his heels against the sorrel’s flanks. The horse took a hop, then surged forward, tail held aloft. They were in over Davy’s legs and going farther every moment.
The bear was gaining. It slanted toward them, its coat glistening with moisture, its elephantine head swinging from side to side like a horizontal pendulum.
Davy goaded the sorrel to go faster. It tried its best but the deep water slowed it down, as did the treacherous footing. Twice it slipped and nearly went under.
The grizzly did not slip. Churning the Missouri like a water-bound locomotive, it had less than fifteen yards to cover before it would be on them with raking claws and saber teeth.
Repeatedly glancing at the bear, the sorrel was growing frantic. Davy twisted and brought his rifle up. He had one shot, and that was it. Without his pistols to fall back on, he had to resort to the tomahawk if the bear got that close. Twelve feet remained. Ten feet. Davy could see the bear’s feral eyes clearly, see the lips curling back to expose teeth that put a black bear’s to shame. His thumb curled around the hammer. Another few moments and he would have to shoot.
What transpired next qualified as a miracle in Davy’s eyes. The bear was eight feet away. A short lunge, and it would have them. At that exact moment, a large fish leaped clear of the water in a high, vaulting arc directly in front of the bruin. Its leap was so swift that if Davy had blinked, he would have missed it. Yet the grizzly swiped out a paw with lightning speed, catching the fish before it struck the surface. In a twinkling the bear’s gigantic jaws had clamped shut. It stopped and chewed greedily.
Davy reined toward shore. His sole hope lay in reaching it before the bear. The sorrel seemed to realize the same thing, for it did not slow a bit until they had solid ground under them once again. Pausing only to shake itself, it responded to a flick of the reins by breaking into a gallop.
The last glimpse Davy had of the grizzly was of it chomping on the head of the fish, much as a backwoodsman would chomp on a wad of chewing tobacco.
“Too close for comfort,” Davy said to himself, and promptly forgot about it.
Narrow escapes were part and parcel of a frontiersman’s life. For a confirmed bear hunter, they were more so. Davy had lost count of the number of cornered black bears that turned on his hounds and him and nearly ripped them to ribbons.
One such incident was memorable only because folks in his neck of the woods still talked about it as if it were a feat out of ordinary.
It had been a moonless autumn night made darker by the roiling clouds of an approaching storm. Davy’s hounds had caught the scent of a bear well before sunset and set out after it. The big black, though, heard them coming and lit a rag for the deep woods.
The sun had been down for over an hour when Davy caught up with the pack. They had the bear treed, but it was so dark that Davy could barely make it out. Sighting as best he could, he’d fired and brought his quarry crashing to the earth.
Only problem was, the bear was still alive. Rising in a fury of flying claws and snapping jaws, it had torn into the dogs, tossing them like sticks.
It was no exaggeration to say that Davy had more affection for his hounds than he did anyone or anything with the exception of his wife and kids. Time and again those dogs had risked their lives so his family would have meat on the table. They were loyal, dependable, and devoted.
So when Davy saw them being scattered like chaff in the wind, he drew his butcher knife and rushed to their aid.
In the black of the stygian night, Davy could not tell one end of the bear from the other. He slashed and thought he connected. Just then his hounds closed in again. He found himself caught in the midst of a swirling whirlwind of gnashing teeth and raking paws.
One of the animals slammed into his legs, knocking him onto his back. He’d looked up to see the bear above him, slavering jaws poised to rend.
To his rescue came the hounds, biting and nipping in a frenzy. The black had turned on them, bringing one low with a powerful blow. Then, backing off, it had retreated into a narrow cleft.
Since now only one dog could get at the bear at a time, it held them off, inflicting as many wounds as it received.
Davy regained his feet. After circling around to the top of the cleft, he had dropped onto his belly to stab at the bear’s vitals. But he could not reach from where he was. So, in order to spare his hounds from further harm, he had slipped his legs over the rim and slid to the bottom behind the bear.
It had seemed like a fine brainstorm at the time. Only now he was hemmed in by the steep earthen walls on either side and the bear in front. There was barely room to move, let alone raise an arm. Worse, he could not see past the end of his nose if his life depended on it. The cleft was pitch black.
Davy had put himself into a nice fix. He reached out tentatively to the bear, establishing where to thrust. He barely touched the animal for fear it would realize he was there. Much to his dismay, it did.
Roaring hideously, it clawed at the right side of the cleft as if berserk. Part of the bank gave way, permitting the black bear to bend far enough back to deliver blows that missed by inches. Just a little more room and it would be able to squeeze completely around and pounce.
Davy darted in close three or four times. In each instance the bear drove him back again. He came so close to sinking cold
steel into its body, yet each time he had to leap to the rear or have his own body sliced open.
Apparently sensing that their master was in trouble, the hounds redoubled their assault, snapping at whatever parts of the bear were exposed. So savage was their attack that the bear forgot about Davy for the moment and concentrated on them.
It had been then or never! Davy had dropped onto his knees and ran an arm along the bear’s left side. The black could not help but feel his fingers, yet it had the hounds to contend with. So long as they kept it busy, Davy had a fighting chance of doing what needed to be done.
His fingers had brushed the bears rib cage. Probing for the bottom rib, he found it just as the beast bent nearly in half to turn and face him. Davy had stabbed up and in, the blade parting the heavy hide and the flesh underneath like a hot knife searing through butter.
The black bear had grunted. That was all. Merely grunted.
Davy had thrown himself backward before the bear could retaliate, but it never did. Like a house of cards collapsing in on itself, the black had buckled limply to lie as still as a gravestone.
For some reason Davy had never fathomed, his clash in that cleft became the talk of western Tennessee. Whenever he visited a tavern, the patrons would gather around to hear stories of his exploits. And it never failed that someone would ask to hear about “the bear in the hole,” as most phrased it.
Little did anyone know that there had been dozens of similar close shaves over the years.
Small wonder he gave no more thought to the grizzly before him now.
The encounter had banished his fatigue, though, and for several hours he rode rapidly southward, pausing every so often to give the sorrel a breather.
By the middle of the morning Davy’s eyes were leaden again. He was tempted to stop and rest. But in his state he’d sleep half the day away, allowing the Dakota war party to overtake him.
The warmth of the sun did not help matters much. It made him lethargic, so sluggish that when he had to duck under a low limb, he did not duck low enough and was clipped on the shoulder. Peeved by his condition, he shook his head to clear the cobwebs.
That helped for a short while, but Davy soon realized that he had to catch some sleep, or else. Before he could, he’d best ensure that the Tetons could not find him. To that end, he urged the sorrel into the Missouri to hide his tracks.
A warm breeze fanned Davy’s cheek as he rounded a bend. He was about a dozen feet from shore, just far enough for the current to erase any trace of the sorrel’s passage by the time the Sioux got there.
Try as he might, Davy could not stay awake. His chin dipped, his eyelids fluttered shut. He had no idea he had slept for several minutes until the sorrel nickered and he looked up to discover the stretch of river was not the same.
“Damn my bones!” Davy grumbled. He pinched himself. He slapped himself. He tried singing a rowdy tune popular in taverns. Nothing helped.
Again Davy drifted off. If he had not taken the precaution of looping the reins around his wrist, he would have wound up drenched when his mount suddenly stopped and sidestepped. Only grasping the reins saved him from falling off.
“What’s gotten into—?” Davy began, his vocal cords locking when he beheld a canoe that barred his way. Four swarthy men met his stare with icy indifference. Two held paddles. Two held rifles. The biggest man casually pointed his at Davy and smirked.
“Howdy there, mister. That’s a mighty fine animal you’ve got. Why don’t you climb off it, real slow, so I won’t have to blow your brains out.”
Chapter Nine
Flavius Harris had been hanging around Davy Crockett too darned long.
He tried telling himself that whatever had caused the woman to scream was none of his business. On the frontier a man was expected to mind his own affairs and no one else’s. But he could not shake the persistent notion that if Davy were there, Davy would go have a look-see. That happened to be how Davy was, always doing what he felt to be right.
“Why should I do the same?” Flavius complained, then tied the calf to a stump and jogged downriver toward the scream.
He heard voices before he saw them, four women and five men ringing a small fire. It struck him as odd that all the women were on their knees with their hands behind their backs, until he saw coils of rope around their wrists. Tears streaked the cheeks of the youngest, a fine figure of a maiden who was bent over in despair. The women were Indians, but he could not tell what tribe they were from.
The five men were cut from the same cloth as the four in the canoe. That is to say, they were grungy, greasy, bearded men who had been burned bronze by the sun and hardened whipcord tough by the elements.
They also had the same air about them, an air of simmering menace, of violence lurking just under the surface. They were the kind of men Flavius avoided back home, men everyone except maybe Davy would give a wide berth on the street.
As Flavius looked on, the tallest of the five, whose left eyelid hung half shut, rose and carried a small bowl to the maiden who was crying. Jabbing her with his toe to get her attention, he held out the bowl and said, “Are you ready to eat now, or do I have to get really nasty?”
A short man whose chin came to a point paused in the act of sipping coffee, and snickered. “You’re wastin’ your time, Grist. That filly ain’t about to cooperate.”
“She hasn’t since the day we stole her,” commented a man who appeared to be part Indian. “I say shoot her and be done with it.”
Grist shook his head. “Look at how pretty she is, Jipala. She’ll fetch us a hundred dollars or better, easy, down in your neck of the woods.”
The short man snickered again. “Provided she lasts until we get there. We won’t get a cent for her if she’s half starved. You know as well as me that the folks we deal with like ’em healthy and plump, like ripe peaches.”
“She’ll eat, Kline,” Grist vowed. “If I have to cram the food down her throat a mouthful at a time, the bitch will eat.” He held the bowl in front of the maiden’s face and said something in an Indian tongue Flavius had never heard.
The maiden ignored him.
Kline cackled. “See? What did I tell you? Let her starve. It would serve her right.”
“Shoot her and be done with it,” Jipala repeated.
Grist did neither. With a savage wrench, he twisted the woman’s head so they were eye-to-eye. She did not so much as flinch. He mashed the edge of the bowl against her lips, to no effect. Furious, he set the bowl down, stormed to the fire, and squatted.
A fourth man, whose left arm seemed crippled and permanently bent at the elbow, gestured and said, “Giving up so soon? That’s not like you.”
“I never give up, Weist. You should know that.” Grist carefully plucked at the unlit end of a burning brand and lifted it from the flames. “This should do nicely,” he said wickedly, turning back to the woman.
Flavius divined the man’s intent and half rose to go to her aid. He hunkered back down just as fast. Exposing himself would only get him killed. Whoever these men were, they would not take kindly to meddlers.
The maiden tried to scoot backward, but Grist stomped a heavy boot on her ankle, pinning her
leg. She cried out, then clenched her teeth. “Think that will help?” Grist mocked her. “If so, think
again.”
Flavius did not want to look, but he could not turn away. He squirmed as the brand was pressed against her calf. It made a sizzling sound, like frying bacon. The maiden thrashed, tears streaming down her cheeks. When she could endure the anguish no longer, she threw back her head and screamed.
Four of the five men were highly amused.
The fifth man, whose name Flavius had not yet learned, was the only one who did not. Like Jipala, he had Indian features, with a dash of Mexican thrown in. His countenance was as inscrutable as a rock. He never smiled, never laughed, never showed any emotion. All he did was sit there with a rifle across his thighs, alertly surveying the undergrowth
every now and then.
This was the most dangerous member of the bunch, Flavius concluded, a man who would slit the throat of anyone who riled him with no compunctions at all, a natural-born killer if ever there was one. Someone Flavius must avoid at all costs.
Grist stepped back and wagged the brand in front of the maiden. Again he addressed her in the unfamiliar tongue. This time she meekly sat up, placed the bowl in her lap, and began to eat.
The other three women were studies in despair.
Flavius felt extremely sorry for them, but he did not see what he could do on their behalf. He wasn’t much of a fighter, and those five cutthroats were not about to give up their captives without a struggle. They’d make worm food of him in no time.
Besides, it wasn’t as if he knew the women personally. They were strangers. They meant nothing to him. He could go his own way with a clear conscience.
Or could he?
Flavius looked at them again, his heartstrings tugged by their misery. If Davy were there, he would do something. But Davy was smarter and braver and stronger.
What could Flavius do alone?
Grist had just sat down and was pouring himself a cup of coffee. Kline emptied his cup, smacking his lips. Weist was rummaging in a saddlebag. Suddenly all of them glanced up, directly toward the brush that screened Flavius.
As well they should. For Little Hickory had picked that moment to let out with a bawl that could have been heard clear back in Knoxville.
Flavius dropped lower, fearful of being seen. He thought, Please don’t bawl again! Please! Please! But the calf did, not once but twice.
“What the hell is that?” Kline wondered.
“A deer, maybe,” Weist suggested.
“Idiots,” Grist said. “That’s a buffalo. A mighty young one, if I’m any judge.” Pursing his lips, he glanced at the half-breed who never spoke. “We could use some fresh meat. What do you say, Cuchillo? Care to do the honors?” He smirked. “Jipala can go along if you want some help.”
Sioux Slaughter (A Davy Crockett Western Book 2) Page 9