Wilderness Double Edition 27

by David Robbins

  ‘This is serious,’ Simon said, going to the door. He listened, but there was no indication Kilraven’s men had heard. It might be they had all gone back to camp except for the watchdog.

  ‘So am I,’ Zach said. If there was anything he liked more than counting coup, he had yet to come across it.

  ‘Where is your horse?’ Simon asked.

  ‘In your corral. My pack animal, too. I thought I would stay the night and head for Bent’s Fort in the morning.’

  ‘Is that where you are bound?’ Felicity asked while carrying Peter to his bed in the corner. They did not have a separate bedroom for him yet. Simon had been meaning to add one, but there never seemed to be enough time.

  ‘My pa sent me to buy supplies,’ Zach explained. ‘And Louisa wants me to get her some perfume, of all things.’

  ‘What is wrong with that?’ Felicity tenderly tucked a blanket to Peter’s chin. ‘Lou is your wife, after all.’

  ‘Buying perfume is for females to do,’ Zach complained. ‘It is not fitting for a man. Besides, she smells fine just as she is except on hot days. And I don’t mind a little stink.’

  ‘Perfume smells better than stink,’ Felicity teased.

  ‘What do you have against bear fat?’ Zach rejoined, and grinned.

  Simon closed and barred the door, then went to the window and drew the curtains. ‘Light the lamp, but keep it low.’

  Felicity hurried to the table. ‘It is a good thing Zach turned down the lamp to surprise us. Otherwise they might have seen him.’

  ‘Who are you talking about?’ Zach rested the stock of his Hawken on the floor and leaned on the barrel. ‘What in blazes is going on? You two act spooked.’

  Together they told him. Felicity brewed coffee and they sat at the table and related every detail of their encounter with Lord Kilraven and the lord’s party. When they were done they sat back and Simon asked, ‘What do you think we should do?’

  Zach King had not expected anything like this. He thought maybe they were having trouble with the Utes, or possibly white cutthroats. Hostiles and bad men Zach knew how to deal with; he disposed of them, permanently, and that was that. A high English muck-a-muck was another matter. Disposing of him might bring the wrath of the federal government down on his head, and after the recent ordeal he went through after he wiped out a bunch of white traders who had tried to stir up a war between the Shoshones and the Crows, he would prefer to avoid another conflict with the United States military. He must be careful how he went about helping the Wards.

  But help them Zach would. They had been friends of his family for years. Zach particularly liked that unlike most whites, they did not regard him as less than they were because he was a breed. They had always treated him exactly as they treated everyone else, and after all the abuse he had suffered at the hands of bigots, both white and red, he valued their special friendship that much more.

  Now, shifting in his chair, Zach idly ran a finger around the edge of his coffee cup and commented, ‘We can’t let this Kilraven get away with it.’

  ‘I couldn’t agree more,’ Simon said. ‘But two of us is not enough.’

  ‘Three,’ Felicity said.

  Simon leaned toward Zach. ‘We need your father and Shakespeare McNair. How long would it take you to bring them?’

  ‘A week to ten days to reach the valley,’ Zach said. ‘A week to ten days to make the return trip.’

  ‘That long?’ Simon asked, dismayed. ‘Kilraven only gave us four days to pack up and be ready to leave.’

  ‘I would like to meet this bastard,’ Zach said, and instantly glanced sheepishly at Felicity. ‘Sorry for the language.’

  ‘That’s perfectly all right. I happen to think he’s a bastard, too.’ Felicity grinned.

  ‘Felicity!’ Simon declared.

  Zach snorted with mirth, then sobered. ‘My pa and Uncle Shakespeare could not make it back in time to be of any help. It’s up to us.’

  Simon’s despair climbed. He liked the younger King, liked him a lot, but Zach was not Nate. Zach did not have Nate’s experience, Nate’s wisdom. Zach was noted for his temper, not his sagacity. Plus one other thing: Zachary King was widely feared as a killer.

  ‘But what can the three of us do against so many?’ Felicity asked, nearly heartbroken. ‘We are no match for them.’

  ‘Not with guns and blades, we’re not,’ Zach said. ‘But what if we beat them another way? What if we outthink them?’

  ‘How is that again?’ Simon asked.

  ‘My pa likes to say there are three ways to best an enemy. One is to be stronger. The second way is to be quicker at drawing a pistol or stabbing with a knife. The third way, the way he likes best, is to outthink them, to be smarter than they are, to use the brain to do what a pistol or a knife or brute brawn cannot.’

  ‘Easier said than accomplished,’ Simon said. ‘Lord Kilraven strikes me as shrewd.’

  ‘Extremely shrewd,’ Felicity amended.

  ‘Then we have to be shrewder.’ Zach tilted his chair back on its rear legs and folded his arms. There had to be a way. His father was always fond of saying any problem could be solved if he thought about it long enough and hard enough. ‘You say this Kilraven wants to set up a hunting preserve? Is that what you called it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Simon confirmed. ‘Then he will advertise in his country and in Europe, inviting those with money to burn to spend it at his lodge.’

  Felicity stirred. ‘Our valley is only a small part of the territory he’s claiming. His preserve will stretch from the foothills into the mountains.’

  ‘This lord, is he familiar with the country hereabouts?’ Zach asked.

  ‘Not that we’re aware,’ Simon said. ‘I had the impression that most of what he knows is hearsay.’

  ‘If that’s so, then maybe we can use his ignorance against him,’ Zach proposed. The germ of an idea had taken root.

  ‘You’ve lost me,’ Felicity said. ‘Unless you mean to ride to the Shoshones and ask their help.’

  ‘We can’t involve them.’ Zach had gotten his mother’s people into enough trouble. Most whites considered the Shoshones the friendliest tribe on the frontier and tended to treat them better than other tribes, and he wanted them to go on doing so.

  Simon was excited by the prospect. ‘There is no need to spill blood. Have Touch the Clouds bring a hundred warriors and surround Kilraven’s camp. I guarantee his lordship will fold his tents and skulk off with his tail between his legs.’

  ‘What if you misjudge him?’ Zach said. ‘What if he decides to make a fight of it? Shoshones will be killed.’ He shook his head. ‘We cannot involve my mother’s people.’

  ‘Then what do you have in mind?’

  Zach swallowed coffee, smacked his lips, and grinned. ‘I’ll keep that to myself for the time being, if you don’t mind. What you don’t know can’t get you beat up.’

  Felicity stared at the small bed in the corner and bit her lower lip. ‘I’m scared, and I don’t mind admitting it. We stand to lose everything we have worked so hard to build.’ She stifled a yawn.

  ‘That won’t happen,’ Zach assured her.

  ‘I wish I had your confidence.’

  ‘I have my pa to thank. Since I was old enough to toddle, he was forever telling me that a King never gives up, never says die, never lets hardship stop us.’

  Simon smothered a yawn of his own. ‘I cannot tell you how much I admire your father.’ He was sincere. Few men ever impressed him as greatly as Nate King. Nate would do anything for a friend, anything at all, up to and including risking his life on their behalf, as he had done for them on several occasions. Simon loved the man as a brother.

  ‘I say we all turn in and discuss this further in the morning,’ Felicity suggested.

  ‘Fine by me,’ Zach said, standing. ‘I’ll sleep out in the barn.’

  ‘You will do no such thing,’ Felicity said. ‘We have plenty of room and plenty of spare blankets. You’ll sleep in here with us—no argume
nts.’

  ‘Careful, Zach,’ Simon quipped. ‘Get her dander up and she’s a regular hellion.’

  Felicity rose. ‘I will not have any guest of ours sleep in the hayloft when we have a perfectly comfortable floor.’

  The truth be known, Zach would rather sleep in the loft. Hay was soft, if prickly, and the scent always reminded him of clover. ‘Here will do, then.’ Another thing his father had taught him was that arguing with a woman was like arguing with a tree. It got a man nowhere.

  Presently, Zach lay on his back with his head in his hand and gazed at the ceiling. He could not get to sleep. He could not stop thinking about the idea he had come up with, and the consequences.

  A sound outside brought Zach up on his elbows. He strained his ears and heard it again, the stealthy tread of someone moving past the front of the cabin. He had Felicity to thank. She had opened the window a few inches to admit the night breeze.

  The tread came to the front door and stopped. Zach’s right hand crept to his tomahawk.

  Over in the corner little Peter mumbled in his sleep. Simon and Felicity were in their bedroom.

  Whoever was outside moved to the window. A silhouette bathed in moon glow played over the curtains.

  Zach rose into a crouch. The Wards had mentioned that Kilraven left a man to watch them. Leaving his rifle on the blankets, Zach glided to the window. He heard the man breathing, heard a grunt, and then the shadow moved on. Zach parted the curtains and peeked out.

  The man was walking off. All Zach saw was his back, but it was enough. Never taking his eyes off the man’s head, Zach raised the window high enough to slip out. He was grateful when it did not catch or creak. Hiking his right leg, he slid over the sill. He had to bend to ease his body out, and then he was flat against the wall, his tomahawk in his right hand.

  The guard still had no idea he was there, and was peering around the corner toward the back of the cabin.

  Zach crept closer.

  The man turned toward the barn and corral. He began to hum to himself, as if he did not have a care in the world.

  Suddenly springing, Zach swept the flat of his tomahawk against the man’s temple. Two blows proved to be enough. The man folded at the knees and pitched onto his chest and face.

  ‘Easy as pie,’ Zach remarked, and hurriedly stripped the guard of a rifle, a pistol, and a knife. Removing the man’s belt, Zach used it to bind his wrists behind his back. He cut strips from the man’s coat and used those to bind his ankles.

  Grabbing hold of the man’s legs, Zach dragged him toward the stream and into a small stand of cottonwoods that grew on the near bank.

  Something snorted, and a four-legged form flashed out of the trees, streaking past Zach in high bounds. He dropped a hand to his pistol, then realized what it was. ‘Stupid deer,’ he grumbled.

  The stream was a silver ribbon that gurgled and hissed as if alive. Zach dragged the guard to the water’s edge. Drawing his knife, he ran a finger along the edge, checking that it was sharp. Dull knives made for early graves. Bending, he dipped his other hand in the water. It was cold, even in the summer. Cupping some, he splashed it on the man’s face.

  Nothing happened.

  Zach had to do it four times before the man sputtered and blinked and his eyes opened.

  Holding the knife so the man could see the blade, Zach said in Shoshone, ‘Tsaangu yeyeika, dosabite sadee’a.’ Translated, it meant, ‘Good evening, white dog.’

  Then Zach pressed the edge to the man’s throat.

  Seven

  ‘Cor!’ the man shrieked. ‘The savages have me!’

  Zach pressed hard enough to cut the skin but no deeper. A dark trickle formed.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ the man screeched, his eyes nearly bulging from their sockets. ‘Please! God! Don’t kill me!’ He started to shake in abject fear and gritted his teeth to keep them from chattering.

  ‘Su’ahaibeidee,’ Zach said in disgust. He gripped the man’s hair as if intending to yank his head back.

  ‘By all that’s holy!’ the man wailed. ‘I don’t want to die! Do you understand?’

  Zach pretended to pause.

  The man was drenched with sweat. Licking his lips, he said in a terror-struck rush, ‘I don’t speak your heathen tongue. Do you speak mine? Do you know English? If you do, if you know any at all, you must know what friend means. I am your friend. Do you understand? Friend!’

  ‘Friend?’ Zach repeated quizzically.

  ‘Yes! Yes! By God, yes!’ The man’s mouth creased in a petrified smile and he bobbed his stubble-flecked chin. ‘I am a friend! I mean you no harm! No harm at all!’

  Zach let go of the oily hair and slowly lowered his knife.

  Tears welled in the man’s eyes. He quaked more violently than before, only this time in profound relief. ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you! You won’t regret this. I am your friend and I can prove it.’

  ‘Friend?’ Zach said again.

  ‘I am new to this country. You are the first bloody savage I have met.’ The man gulped at his own stupidity. ‘Sorry. I meant you are the first Indian I have met. Blimey! I don’t even know what tribe you are.’

  Zach pressed his hand to his chest. ‘Me Blackfoot,’ he declared.

  ‘My guts for garters! I have heard of your tribe.’ The man glanced wildly about for succor that was not there. ‘They say you are the worst of the lot. That you hate whites and kill every white man you come across.’

  ‘Straight tongue, white dog,’ Zach said. ‘We kill Wards. Now we kill you.’

  The man’s relief had been short-lived. ‘Oh God, oh God, oh God! But I am your friend, I tell you! I have never done any of your people harm! Not ever! Why kill me?’

  Zach extended his arm toward the flat-topped hill at the far end of the valley. ‘We see fires. We see many whites.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’ The man twisted and propped himself on his forearms. ‘Listen. Please. Those I am with, they are your friends, too.’

  ‘All friends?’ Zach said, struggling not to laugh.

  ‘All of us, yes!’ the man desperately averred. ‘I can prove it! Take me there, and the man I work for—what do you heathens call them again?—my chief, that’s it, my chief, will reward you for sparing my life. Would you like that? Anew blanket, maybe? Or an axe?’

  Zach shammed mulling the offer over and had to look away when the man briefly forgot himself and smiled slyly at his ruse. It had been Zach’s experience that there was no shortage of idiots in the world.

  ‘What do you say, Blackfoot? Friends, yes? Cut me loose and I will take you there.’

  Bending down, Zach lightly jabbed the tip of his knife into the man’s neck. ‘You lie, white scum.’

  ‘No! No! Honest I don’t!’ the man squealed.

  ‘You lie,’ Zach went on. ‘All whites lie. My people hate white-eyes. My people kill every white.’ He raised the knife over his head as if for a fatal thrust. ‘Now I kill you.’

  To his amazement, the man shut his eyes and began shrilly praying. ‘The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He restoreth my soul—’

  The man went on but Zach did not listen. He was remembering the evening ritual at the King cabin when he was a boy. Every night, without fail, his father read to him and his sister. It might be a short story by Washington Irving or Nathaniel Hawthorne. It might be The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper. One time it was Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Or it might be excerpts from the Bible, especially Psalms, of which his father was especially fond. Zach gave his head a toss to clear it of memories and glanced down. His captive was finishing Psalm 23.

  ‘—and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.’ The man cracked his eyelids and stared at the upraised knife. ‘Well? Are you or aren’t you? I have made my peace. I am ready.’

  Zach let his arm drop to his side. ‘Maybe me not kill.’

  The man craned his neck and gazed skyward at the stars. ‘Thank you, God! I
will never doubt my wife again.’

  ‘What be name?’ Zach demanded.

  ‘Owen. Reginald Owen.’

  Zach pointed to the west again. ‘You go other whites, Reginald Owen. Tell whites leave! Leave or Blackfeet kill!’

  ‘Yes, yes, whatever you want.’

  ‘Leave or all die,’ Zach stressed. He had high hopes it would work. The Blackfoot Confederacy was widely feared, both by other tribes and whites alike. The rest of the Brits, like this one, were bound to have heard of them, and like as not would not want to tangle with a Blackfoot war party. Since reasoning with Lord Kilraven was out of the question, Zach had decided to try another tactic: fear.

  ‘I will tell the man I work for,’ Owen was prattling. ‘I give you my word I will tell him. But what if he won’t believe me? What if he refuses to leave?’

  ‘All whites die,’ Zach growled. He motioned to encompass the cottonwoods and the surrounding prairie. ‘We have two hundred warriors. We attack camp. We kill and kill.’

  ‘Two hundred!’ Owen bleated, and looked about him in terror. ‘Eight times our number!’

  ‘You tell whites!’ Zach commanded.

  Owen nodded vigorously. ‘I will, I will, I give you my word. Trust me when I say none of us want to have our throats slit or our hair taken. Why the hair, anyway? What do you do with it?’

  ‘You stupid man,’ Zach said.

  ‘All right, all right. Forget I asked. I will tell the others. God willing, we will be gone just as fast as we can.’

  ‘Tomorrow by sinking of sun,’ Zach said. He was having fun with his deception, but he had to keep in mind what was at stake. The Wards were counting on him. He must not let them down.

  ‘That soon? You won’t give us a couple of days to rest up?’ Owen said. ‘I don’t know if his lordship will agree. We have tents to strike, packs to repack, that sort of thing.’

  Zach wagged the knife under his nose. ‘By time sun go down!’

  ‘Sure, sure, whatever you want! Just be careful with that great bloody blade of yours.’

  ‘Straight tongue, white dog?’

  Reginald Owen sat up. ‘As God is my witness. Do you think I want my friends massacred by your heathen brethren?’