The canoe swung about to head downriver. Shaw and Gallows took over the paddling, and they were quite skilled. Davy had to hold his mount to a canter to keep up.
As yet there had been no sign of Flavius. Davy prayed that his friend was still alive, and that Flavius had the good sense to make for the river after they were separated. It was the only water to be had for miles around, and it provided the only decent cover.
Davy doubted that his friend would have left for home. Not without him. Back in Tennessee there were folks who did not rate Flavius as the best of companions. Too loud, they would say. Too timid, others might add. But Flavius had never given Davy cause to complain. The man would do to ride the hills with anytime.
But was Flavius alive? That was the crucial question. Davy had his fingers crossed, yet it bothered him that none of the Sioux hunting party had seen his friend. Either Flavius had lain low and avoided them, or by sheer luck the Dakotas had not crossed his path.
The morning dragged by. Davy’s fatigue returned to plague him. Rest would have to wait, though, until he was absolutely convinced he had given the Tetons the slip.
By noon the sorrel was in need of a break. Davy waved to the trappers, then reined up. As he was loosening the cinch, the canoe coasted to within a few feet of the bank.
“What’s wrong, friend?” Shaw inquired. “Has your horse gone lame?”
“It needs a breather,” Davy explained.
Gallows gazed up the Missouri. “Is that wise, what with the country swarmin’ with heathens and all? A fellow never knows when those red devils will pop up. You’d be better off resting at the end of the day.”
Davy nodded at the sweaty lather on the animal’s chest. “I’ve been riding all night. If I don’t stop here and now, this horse is liable to play out on me. Then I’d be even worse off.”
“Suit yourself,” Shaw said. “But we have friends camped down the river a piece. They got to be warned. If we push, we can reach them by sunset.”
“Go on, then,” Davy coaxed.
Shaw dipped his paddle in and stroked backward to turn the canoe. “We’ll stay at their camp until morning. Catch up with us by then and you’re welcome to join our outfit for protection.”
“Thanks for the offer.”
Gallows waved. “Watch your hair, friend. I’d hate to see you lose that fine rifle to a filthy Injun. I wouldn’t mind owning that my own self.”
“That’s right,” interjected Clem, the stocky one. “You take real good care of what fixins you’ve got.” Strangely, he chuckled, and was slapped on the shoulder by Gallows.
In seconds the canoe was cleaving the water like an otter. It swept around the next bend, none of the trappers giving a backward glance.
Davy had mixed feelings about seeing them go. Their guns would have helped keep the Sioux at bay, but there was something about the quartet that made him uneasy, something he could not quite put his finger on.
Shrugging off his uneasy thoughts as a result of not enough sleep, Davy allowed the sorrel to drink. While it did, he hiked his buckskin shirt to splash water on his chest, neck, and face. His stomach growled. He was sorry that he had not thought to ask the trappers if they had a scrap of food they could do without. As it was, he would not get to eat until evening.
Fifteen minutes was all Davy could spare. Then he was back in the saddle. For a while it felt so nice to be riding along with the wind in his hair and the sun on his face that he forgot about the Dakotas. His reminder came in the form of a high-pitched whinny to the southwest.
Davy immediately stopped. Off through the trees was a knot of riders, rapidly approaching. He did not need a spyglass to see that they were Sioux. It was the band Black Buffalo had sent to scour the country bordering the river to the west.
Had they somehow seen him? Davy angled the sorrel into the densest growth available and, alighting, pinched the sorrel’s nostrils to keep it from nickering to the mounts of the Sioux, who presently entered the trees and made straight for the Missouri.
They had come to water their warhorses. Nineteen warriors, all told, armed with a variety of weapons. While their steeds indulged, they huddled to confer.
Davy did not take his hand off the sorrel. He would be safe so long as he kept the animal quiet. It fidgeted, stomping a hoof, so he slapped its leg.
A number of the Tetons walked off into the bushes. Davy saw one man hitch down his pants, and turned away. He was startled to see another warrior riding into the strip of woodland from the plain, a straggler whose horse appeared to have a sore foot. He was even more startled when the Dakota looked directly at his hiding place.
Be calm, Davy told himself. The warrior could not possibly know he was there. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he registered movement. Twisting, he saw the same thing the warrior had seen: The sorrel’s tail was swishing from side to side.
The straggler reined his animal toward them.
It was only a matter of seconds before the warrior spotted the sorrel. If he yelled, every last member of the war party would converge.
Davy coiled, marking the newcomer’s progress. The man had a bow in hand and was reaching over his back for an arrow from his quiver. Davy pulled the reins taut. When the Sioux looked down to nock the shaft to the sinew string, Davy vaulted into the saddle, slapped his legs, and exploded from the high growth in a shower of leaves and broken limbs.
At a gallop, Davy deliberately slammed the sorrel into the other man’s paint. Both horses staggered, but the smaller paint was not able to keep its footing and crashed into a briar patch, spilling its rider, whose bow became snagged by thorns.
Davy sped around and out to the prairie, then immediately reined to the left and hugged the vegetation. Whoops and shouts signified that the Sioux had spied him and were rushing to their own horses to give chase.
Nothing ever went right! Davy mused wryly. The sorrel was still tired and could not maintain its swift gait for long. The Sioux would hog-tie him right quick unless inspiration struck.
It did. Spawned by desperation, a lunatic idea made Davy rein to the left again, back into the trees. Weaving among the trunks, avoiding a long log, he galloped to a short slope, which he descended on the fly. Beyond was a gravel bar, poking a third of the way into the Missouri.
The sorrel executed a flying jump, landing in waist-high water, drenching Davy from the waist down. To the north the Indians were flying toward the prairie. None realized that he had doubled back on himself. Not yet, anyway.
Flowers covered most of the opposite bank. The sorrel scrambled up, then shook itself. Davy picked the rockiest route into a cluster of oak trees. Ground-hitching the horse, he pulled his legs up onto the saddle so he could straighten and grab a limb. From his vantage point he watched the Sioux milling about near where he had reentered the trees. In under a minute they did likewise, a powerfully built Dakota in the lead, half hanging from his warhorse in order to better read the sign.
At the Missouri the warriors disputed angrily. Some were for following the river to the south, some to the north, and others pointed at the far side.
Finally they split up. The majority rushed to the right and left, leaving three men to ford the river. Strung out in a row, lances and bows at the ready, they scoured the growth, which was thicker on the east side of the Missouri than on the west.
Davy dropped from the limb onto the sorrel and lit out. It would not take the trio long to find his trail. But he had another trick up his sleeve that might just lose them.
Truth to tell, it was the same trick he had just used. Riding in a wide loop to the south, he plunged into the river again, this time bearing to the south instead of crossing.
The way he had it figured, he was safer there than anywhere else. The warriors who had gone north would never spot him, and the ten or so Sioux who had already gone south were far enough ahead that it was unlikely he would stumble onto them.
That left the three who had crossed the Missouri. By sticking to the water, he ensur
ed they would not find his trail again.
For a while all went well. Davy saw neither hide nor hair of any of the Dakotas. He was closer to the west side than the east, passing under a tree that grew at the river’s edge. Shadows flitted across him as branches overhead blotted out the brilliant sunlight.
Davy did not think anything of it when one of the shadows seemed to move. Then he saw a horse by itself up on the bank. It was the paint he had rammed into a short while ago, the one belonging to the straggler. And if the horse was there, its owner had to be nearby.
A five-ton boulder seemed to slam into Davy’s shoulders, smashing him from the saddle. The breath whooshed from his lungs at the brutal impact. He crashed to earth with his legs in the water, his chest on dry land.
Davy wrenched to the right as a glittering knife thudded into the soil an inch from his ear. Astride his stomach was the warrior who owned the paint. Nicks and scrapes dotted the warrior’s torso and limbs where the thorns had bit into his flesh.
The Dakota hissed a few words in his own language. Davy did not comprehend, but their meaning was not hard to guess. It was probably something along the lines of “Now I’m going to cut out your heart, you white bastard!”
Again the knife flashed, sticking into the ground under Davy’s left arm. Davy landed a right cross to the jaw that swayed the Teton but was not strong enough to knock him out.
Unfazed but wary, the warrior jumped erect and began to work around behind Davy. An old hand at blade fighting, Davy knew just what the wily warrior was up to. He swiftly backpedaled, evading slashes that would have opened him like a gutted fish, until he bumped into a tree.
The warrior seized the moment. Growling, he stabbed high, a feint for his true thrust, which speared low.
Davy came within a hair’s width of never siring more children. The knife thudded into the tree below his crotch. It wedged fast, forcing the Sioux to tug on the hilt. Not about to let the man free it, Davy slugged him twice in lightning succession, rocking the Teton on his heels.
Somewhere down the river, someone was shouting.
The Sioux, having lost his grip on the knife, sprang to meet Davy as Davy slid in close to land another punch. The warrior sidestepped, then pounced, his iron fingers wrapping around Davy’s neck, his thumbs clawing into Davy’s throat. A knee caught Davy in the groin and they both went down, Davy on the bottom again.
Victory shone in the warriors eyes. His shoulders were wide, packed with muscle, and he exerted every sinew in an effort to throttle Davy.
Air no longer reached Davy’s lungs. He tried to inhale again and again but could not catch a breath. Gripping the Sioux’s hands, he attempted to pry them off, but it was if they had been glued to his skin. He heaved. He pushed. There was no dislodging his foe.
Davy rammed a knee into the Teton’s stomach. Once. Twice. Three times. In each instance the man stiffened and grimaced but gamely continued to strangle Davy. A fourth blow, a heel to the kidney, accomplished what the others had not. Crying out, the man jerked a hand behind him.
It was the opening Davy needed. His right fist caught the Dakota under the jaw, partially lifting the warrior off him. His left folded the man’s stomach. A flip to the side, and Davy scrambled into a crouch.
The yelling downriver had grown louder. Whoever it was drew closer by the second.
Starting to rise, the Dakota threw his head high and roared an answer.
Help would be on the way, Davy knew. He had moments to prevail or all would be lost.
In the swirl of combat they had moved from the river’s edge into the woods. Behind the Teton, and perhaps unknown to him, was a log. It was not very long or very high, but it was just what Davy needed.
Suddenly charging, fists windmilling, Davy drove the warrior back. The man was so intent on avoiding the punches that he tripped over the log. With a leap, Davy was on the Dakota before he could rise. A solid jab followed by a left cross left the warrior sprawled senseless on the grass.
Winded, Davy found his rifle, then ran to the sorrel, which had climbed out of the water. The warrior doing the yelling was so close that Davy could hear the twigs crunch.
Taking the sorrel by the reins, Davy dashed to the paint, which nickered but did not run off. Davy remedied that by smacking the stock of his rifle against its flank. It obliged by crashing westward through the brush while whinnying shrilly.
Quickly, Davy steered the sorrel into a thicket. None too soon. A pair of Sioux rushed around the next bend, caught a glimpse, if that, of the fleeing paint, and galloped off after it, never noticing their unconscious companion.
“The luck of the Irish,” Davy said under his breath. Mounting, he hesitated. The shouts were bound to bring warriors from all directions. Since there were fewer to the east, that was the place to be.
Consequently, Davy forded the Missouri River one more time. He took shelter in a ravine that linked the bottomland to a ridge. On a narrow shelf screened by boulders and some pines, he slid off and found a spot where he enjoyed an unobstructed view of not only the river below but the vast grassland beyond.
True to his prediction, the Sioux were gathering from all points of the compass. The trio who had crossed a while ago were now recrossing. One of them must have found the warrior Davy had felled. His whoop guided the rest.
At the same time, the pair who had gone after the paint caught it a few hundred yards away.
Davy closely observed the palaver that ensued. After considerable jawing and gesturing, the band divided itself in half. Some went north, the rest out on the prairie. He nodded, pleased. Their line of reasoning was not hard to savvy. Since the warriors rushing to the south, north, and east had not spied him, they logically concluded he had gone west. Just as he counted on.
Staying put until the last of them were out of sight, Davy forked leather and resumed his trek. He had been delayed so long that it was unlikely he would find the trappers’ camp before nightfall, but he tried his best.
The sun had been gone over an hour when an acrid whiff of smoke tingled Davy’s nose. Until that moment he had been plodding along the shoreline with his head on his chest, so tired that a child with a feather could have swatted him off.
Snapping awake, he searched for the fire that had to be close by. A gust of wind helped. Fingers of flame several hundred feet ahead flared brighter, serving as a beacon.
Soon Davy distinguished a clearing and people—trappers, evidently—clustered near the center. Making no attempt to sneak up on them for fear one of the trappers would mistake him for an Indian and open fire, he rode close enough for them to hear him shout, “Hello, the camp! Garth Shaw, are you there?”
A flurry of activity greeted the hail. Moments later Shaw’s gravel voice responded. “Stranger, is that you? The one in the coonskin cap? You never did tell us your name.”
“Crockett,” Davy said. As he reached the clearing, men materialized on all sides, nine in all, two whose visages hinted at Indian blood. Past them, blanketed by shadows, were other people Davy could not quite make out, people who appeared to be asleep.
“Glad to see you made it, friend,” Gallows said, his gaze lingering more on Davy’s rifle than on Davy.
“Any sign of the Dakotas?” asked Shaw.
Davy gave them an abbreviated version of his clash, ending with, “They’ll be along soon enough. My best guess would be about noon tomorrow.”
A man almost as big as Shaw grinned and said, “Let ’em. We’ll be long gone by then. They’ll never catch our canoes.”
The aroma of perking coffee made Davy’s mouth water. “Mind sharing some of that brew?”
“Not at all,” Shaw said. “Hop on down and help yourself. There’s stew left over if you’re hungry.”
The trappers moved back to make room for Davy to dismount. He was so tired that only then did he realize they had the sorrel surrounded. “I’m grateful,” he declared, but he hesitated, disturbed by a feeling that something was not quite as it should be.
> Over in the shadows someone snorted, then grunted three times and sat up.
“Looks as if our other guest has come around at last,” Gallows remarked. Most of the trappers chortled.
“Who are you talking about?” Davy asked, sliding his right foot from its stirrup.
The man in the shadows was the one who replied. “Davy? Is that you I hear? My God, light a rag elsewhere! These men are slavers, Davy! Slavers!”
Chapter Eleven
A split second before Flavius Harris hollered, Davy Crockett saw two of the shadowy figures near him sit up. Bathed by the feeble glow of the fire, their silhouettes revealed both to be females. In that instant Davy realized who Shaw and the others must be. They weren’t trappers at all. They were the culprits sought by the Dakotas, the whites who made their living by stealing Indian women. The yell of his friend just confirmed it.
That split-second edge saved Davy’s life. For when Flavius yelled, Shaw and company closed in, some reaching for the sorrel’s bridle, some bringing their weapons to bear, others lunging at Davy. But Davy’s rifle was pointing at the ground at Shaw’s feet at that crucial moment. A snap of his wrist, a flick of the thumb, and Davy had the muzzle trained on Shaw’s sternum, the hammer cocked. “No one move!” he directed. “Or else!”
To a man, the slavers turned to statues in their tracks. Shaw stared at Liz, blanching. “You heard him!” he roared. “Anyone who doesn’t listen will answer to me!”
Gallows and a half-breed were nearest to Davy. They obeyed, but they were not pleased. Gallows, in particular, fidgeted eagerly, anxious to grab Davy’s leg and topple him from the saddle.
Davy bent toward Shaw. “Have them back off five steps and lower their weapons,” he commanded. “One wrong move on their part, and come tomorrow the buzzards will be feasting on your carcass.”
Hatred contorted the big cutthroat’s features. “Pull that trigger and you lose your edge. My boys will be on top of you like wolves on a cornered buck.”
Sioux Slaughter (A Davy Crockett Western Book 2) Page 11