They knew he was there.
Thirteen
Zach King was rash and headstrong and possessed more than common courage, but he was not a fool. Had he been alone when the giant creature reared out of the night, he would have whirled and bolted to the nearest tree and clambered out of reach with the agility of a squirrel. But he was not alone. His wife was with him, frozen in shock. She could not reach a tree before the thing reached them.
Some men might have tried to save themselves, but not Zach. He would never desert Louisa. She was his heart made flesh, his soul in corporal form. He loved her clear down to the marrow in his bones, and would gladly give his own life, if need be, to preserve hers.
So now Zach jerked his rifle to his shoulder, saying, “When it attacks, I’ll hold it off and you run!”
“Nothing doing,” Louisa said, and stepped up beside him so they were shoulder to shoulder, her own rifle rising.
Zach never loved her more than at that moment, although he wanted to grip her by the arms and shake her until her teeth rattled for not heeding him. But then, she always did have a mind of her own.
The creature, though, had not attacked. It snorted and took a lumbering step nearer, enabling them to recognize it.
Zach’s blood raced faster in his veins. When he first saw it, he took it to be a bear, an illusion fostered by the darkness and the fact he was facing it head-on. But now he could see its horns and forelegs.
Few who lived east of the Mississippi River realized there were two types of buffalo. Most thought of the giant brutes of the plains, wandering in countless millions over the unspoiled prairie. But there were other buffalo. Buffalo that preferred the mountains to the plains. The mountain men, quite naturally, called them mountain buffalo, and in many respects they were much like their lowland counterparts. They grew as big, with the males six feet high at the shoulder and over twelve feet long. They were generally dark brown, and had long tails with tufts at the end. Both the bulls and the cows had horns, wicked black curved scimitars with a spread of three feet or more. The main differences were that mountain buffalo were shaggier, and their dispositions were much more excitable. They usually fled at the sight of man, but when cornered or taken by surprise, they had been known to gore and trample an unwary rider.
Zach felt sure the buffalo would charge. They were so close, he saw stars gleam in its eyes. So close, the wheeze of its heavy breaths was like the wheeze of a blacksmith’s bellows.
The buffalo snorted and pawed the ground and shook its great massive head with those terrible twin horns.
“Do we shoot it or not?” Lou whispered. She trusted his judgment. He knew all there was to know about wild animals, thanks to seasoned veterans like his father and Shakespeare McNair, and his own lifelong experiences.
The buffalo raised its head and stared fixedly at Louisa. Its nostrils widened in a loud sniff.
Suddenly the huge head dipped in prelude to an attack. Zach instantly stepped between the beast and his wife and fixed a bead on the creature’s right eye. The skull was too thick for a lead ball to penetrate.
Lou almost shoved him aside. She would not let him sell his life to save hers. If they died, they died together, as befitted two people who had become one in their heart of hearts.
But then the buffalo snorted again, wheeled, and went off through the vegetation with the speed and stealth of a runaway wagon. The crash and crackling went on for a long time, finally fading to silence.
Zach let out the breath he had not realized he was holding. Lowering his Hawken, he grinned crookedly. “We were lucky.”
“Your father said there was a small herd of them up here,” Lou mentioned. “Fifteen or twenty, I believe.”
“There will be one less before the month is out,” Zach predicted. “I have a hankering for buffalo meat.”
“Let’s keep going.” The incident had heightened Lou’s sense of unease. She never much liked the woods at night, especially the primordial forest of the Rockies. Here the hands of time had stopped. The mile-high mountains and the vast untamed forests that covered them were much like creation at the dawn of all things, when people were few and the wild things reigned.
Zach was extra vigilant from then on. He blamed himself for not spotting the buffalo sooner; his lapses could get Lou killed.
The dense timber was oppressive, rank after rank of pine and fir sentinels choked by undergrowth. In daylight navigating the terrain was difficult enough, at night it was a nightmare. The press of vegetation, the ominous silence broken by eerie cries and shrieks, and the inky blackness conspired to fill them with foreboding.
Zach tried to shrug it off. Neither the wolves nor the buffalo had attacked them, and odds were, anything else they encountered wouldn’t either. Most animals avoided humans.
Ironically, the most dangerous denizen of the wilds was other humans, and fortunately, the only inhabitants of the valley were his family and the McNairs. No tribe claimed it as part of the tribe’s territory, which was strange. No other white men ever passed through because it was so far into the mountains and so far from any established trails. It was theirs and theirs alone, and Zach would not have it any other way.
So there was really no reason for Zach to worry. But he did. He could not shake the persistent feeling that they were not alone, that something had been shadowing them since before they lost their horses.
“It’s spooky out here at night, isn’t it?” Lou said. She would rather talk than have the silence.
“Not really,” Zach said, to put her at ease.
“You don’t think so? I do, and I’m not ashamed to admit it.”
Zach did think so, but men did not let on if they were spooked. “I have never been scared of the dark.”
Out of the blue, Louisa asked, “When will you start on the new room? There’s plenty of time, but we shouldn’t wait until the last minute.”
“What new room?” Zach glanced at her in confusion. Their cabin was done. They had never talked about adding on. He suspected it must have something to do with whatever she said earlier when he was not listening. Her next words proved his hunch right.
“After our talk, we will need one,” Louisa said. “Not a big one, but big enough.”
Big enough for what? Zach asked himself. He was afraid to ask the question out loud.
“I’d say one as big as Evelyn’s will do us,” Lou continued. “I’ll decorate it myself, if you don’t mind.”
“Why would I?” Zach could afford to be gracious when he had no idea in hell what she was talking about.
“Although, now that I think about it, I can’t pick fabric because we won’t know in advance, but if I don’t choose, then there won’t be any curtains and whatnot.” Louisa paused. “What do you think?”
Zach wished they would stumble on another buffalo. Anything to distract her. “I think that whatever you think is fine by me.”
“You can be so sweet sometimes.”
Congratulating himself on his narrow escape, Zach grinned and skirted a log. A blur of motion low to the ground registered on the periphery of his vision. Teeth sheared into his right leg. Involuntary, he cried out as his leg was violently yanked out from under him and he pitched onto his belly.
That was when Lou screamed.
Winona King straightened and announced, “I have waited long enough. Something is dreadfully wrong. I am going after them.”
“At this time of night?” Blue Water Woman shook her head. “What good would it do? It is better to wait until morning.”
Evelyn wholeheartedly agreed. The thought of her mother wandering the woods at night petrified her. “It’s too dangerous.”
To Winona, the perils counted for little when weighed against the lives of her husband and her oldest. After Nate failed to come back from Zach’s, she had ridden over to her son’s cabin just before sunset. The tracks, the shambles, the hoofprints of Nate’s mount, all the pieces solved the puzzle of his absence.
Winona had boiled
with anger. She rarely lost her temper, but it was outright foolish of Nate—and inconsiderate—to venture up into the high country without telling her. She came home to await his return, but as the hours crawled by and her man did not show up, her anger gave way to gnawing anxiety.
Winona hid it well. She had been trained at an early age not to betray her emotions. Shoshone children were expected to behave calmly in a crisis. Screaming, crying, hysterics were frowned on.
Once, Winona had been playing with her doll near the family’s lodge. Shouts had erupted, along with fierce war whoops and loud whinnies. She had looked up, mystified by the uproar, and her mother dashed up, scooped Winona into her arms and ran to the flap. As her mother ducked to carry her inside, Winona glimpsed other mothers and children running to their lodges. She saw warriors race toward the horse herd, some nocking arrows to bow strings, others armed with lances, a few with rifles. It dawned on her that their village was being raided. Her mother had warned her it might happen someday, and that when it did, she was to hide under a buffalo robe until her mother said it was safe to come out.
Winona remembered it being hot and stuffy under that robe. As her mother was pushing her under, her father rushed into the lodge after his bow. “The Blackfeet!” he had shouted, and he and her mother ran back out.
Panic gripped Winona. They had left her alone. She clutched the doll to her so tightly, her fingers hurt. Outside, bedlam reigned. Yells and shrieks and whoops fell on her tender ears in riotous cacophony.
Suddenly the flap opened again, and in darted a strange warrior. One peek, and Winona knew he was not a Shoshone. His hair was different, and he was painted for war. To her, he was the most terrifying thing she ever saw.
The warrior glanced quickly about the lodge. He turned and was about to go back out when his gaze fell on the buffalo robe.
Winona realized she had been shaking with fear. She willed herself to stop, but it was too late.
The Blackfoot had whipped the robe off the ground. Winona recoiled and opened her mouth to scream, then promptly closed it again. Her mother had told her she must not make any noise and that was exactly what she would do.
The warrior cast the robe aside. Grabbing her arm, he jerked her to her feet and peered hard at her face. He raised his other hand, and the lance it held, aloft.
Winona had returned his scrutiny calmly. Inwardly she was terrified, but outwardly she had regarded him with interest. His nose was big and hooked like a bird’s beak. His eyes were so close together, he almost looked cross-eyed. She thought it funny, and grinned.
The warrior gave a little start, then did the last thing she expected; he grinned back. Gently, he removed his hand and said something in his tongue. Then he patted her head, and left.
Winona immediately crawled back under the robe. She stayed there for what seemed forever, listening to cries of war and pain. At last her mother came, and carried her outside.
The Blackfeet had been repulsed, but not without loss. Two Shoshones had been slain, fourteen horses stolen. Coup had been counted on the enemy, and several dead Blackfeet were laid out in a row.
Winona’s mother had taken her to see them. She distinctly recalled gazing down at them from the safety of her mother’s arms and hoping the warrior who spared her was not one of them. He wasn’t, and Winona had giggled in relief.
“Death is not to be laughed at, daughter.” Her mother had misunderstood. “Always show respect, even for an enemy.”
Just one of the many important lessons Winona learned at an early age. Now, with her daughter and her best friend giving her stern looks of disapproval, she said, “They might need help. I cannot just sit here.”
“Do you think it is easier on us?” Blue Water Woman countered.
Evelyn had a better argument. “Aren’t you the one who always tells Zach not to go rushing off half-cocked? Aren’t you the one who always says we must keep our wits about us?”
“I am not your brother,” Winona said indignantly.
“You are acting like him.” Evelyn refused to be cowed. “He always does things without thinking them through.”
A comment about daughters who did not show proper respect for their elders was on the tip of Winona’s tongue, but she bit it off. They were right and she was wrong. She had taken her son to task many times for behaving exactly as she was behaving. “Very well.”
Evelyn was still talking and did not hear her. “Don’t let our feelings get us killed. Isn’t that what you have told us time and again? Like when Zach helped wipe out those traders who were trying to start a war between the Shoshones and the Crows? Or when Zach took it on himself to pay the Piegans a visit after they killed a Shoshone friend of his?” Evelyn blinked. “What did you just say?”
“I will wait until first light, then go.”
“No,” Blue Water Woman amended, “we will wait until first light and go together. Or have you forgotten my husband is missing as well?”
Winona held out her hands and they came to her and each clasped one. “The three of us will go,” she agreed. She was not leaving Evelyn alone with wolverines on the rampage. “Now get some sleep. We will need it.”
Squealing in delight, Evelyn kissed her mother on the cheek. The next moment, though, her bubble burst.
“You will do exactly as I say at all times, daughter. If you do not, you might not make it back alive.”
Fourteen
Nate King’s eyes snapped open. “No!” he cried and pushed to his feet. He swung his pistol from side to side, seeking a target. But there was none. The wolverine was not there. It had not been devouring him. The whole thing had been a figment of his mind.
Cold sweat caked Nate from hair to toe. More dizziness assailed him, and his leg throbbed worse than ever. He loosened the tourniquet briefly, but that did not help. Determined not to fall asleep again, he braced the Hawken under his arm and limped on down the mountain.
Nate’s main worry was infection. Animal attacks were not always fatal, but the infections that resulted from them invariably were. Animals never cleaned their teeth, never gargled. Their mouths became rank with foul odors from all the blood and juicy fat and gore, to say nothing of those that ate carrion. Bits of putrid meat lodged between their teeth and rotted there.
One bite, one nip, was sometimes enough to bring on a raging fever and a slow, agonizing death. Doctors did what they could but once infection set in, surviving was an uphill struggle.
Out here in the wilderness, with no doctor or healer to tend him, Nate would not last long. He must get to the cabin, get to Winona and Blue Water Woman. They knew remedies that would have him spry and hale in a week or two.
Nate wiped his sleeve across his brow, but new beads of sweat formed almost before he lowered his arm. He grew cold inside, as cold as the ancient glacier high on the northwest peak, and he could not stop bouts of intense shivering. Soon he grew hot, so hot he wanted to tear off his buckskins for relief. His skin burned like the surface of the sun, and the sweat worsened until it dripped from his chin like drops of rain.
The trees thinned. Far below, the glow in his cabin window drew Nate on. He did not take his eyes off it. An ache formed in his chest, an ache that had nothing to do with his injuries. His throat became constricted and he swallowed several times to relieve the knot.
“Winona,” Nate said softly. It came out more as the croak of a frog than a tender term of endearment.
The night had gone uncommonly quiet. Nate was more likely to hear if something snuck up on him, but he must keep his senses strained to their utmost. The problem was, he couldn’t stay alert. The alternating bouts of cold and hot befuddled him, and weakened his body. Staying conscious was a feat in itself. Staying alert every second was impossible.
Nate plodded ever lower, a turtle propped on a stick. His buckskins became damp with sweat. Cramps spiked his good leg, and he had to stop twice to lift his foot and pump the leg until the cramps went away.
The whole while, Nate wondered w
here the wolverine had gotten to. It was bound to attack again. It had tasted his blood and eaten his flesh, and it would want a second helping.
Maybe, Nate reflected, this was the night his luck ran out. He had always known it would eventually. No one lived forever. In the wilderness, few even made it past fifty. Shakespeare was a rare exception.
Nate would prefer to die peaceably in bed with Winona at his side, but the wilderness was no respecter of wishes. It was a seething cauldron of violence in which all things came to an end and had no say over when that end would be.
How ironic, Nate mused. All that most people, white or red, wanted out of life was to live happily and contentedly to what the whites called a ripe old age, but life denied most the opportunity. Humans were born but to die. From the moment they came squalling into the world, each and every minute they lived was another minute nearer their grave. They were inexorably, inevitably destined to expire, and there was not a thing they could do about it.
If he could not die in bed, Nate would like die in a blaze of battle, to have his life ended quickly by hot lead or cold steel, or fangs and claws, if it came to that.
Nate chuckled. Here he was, barely able to stay conscious, a shadow of his robust self, a wolverine stalking him, and what was he doing? Reflecting on the vagaries of life and the grim certainty of death. Winona always said he thought too much, and she was right.
Not that Nate could help it. He had always been a thinker. Even when young, when most boys were out playing and roughhousing, he much preferred reading and pondering. He enjoyed feeding his mind as much as feeding his body. There was so much to learn, so much to know, no one person could never absorb it all in a lifetime. Yet another irony. By the time most folks were old enough and seasoned enough to have some sense of what life was about, they were knocking at death’s door.
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