As if they had communicated by some silent signal, the gluttons began to slink toward him.
To stay in the spruce was certain death. Shakespeare feinted at one wolverine, feinted at the other, then slid the knife into its sheath and dropped feet first from the branch. As he fell he grabbed another branch a few feet lower down and from there swung to another. He spied the carpet of needles through a gap, and letting go, he dropped the rest of the way. He tried to land like a cat but he came down slightly off balance and spilled onto his chest and shoulder.
Overhead, claws clacked on bark.
Shakespeare did not look up. He ran. He darted into the undergrowth and sprinted for his life. If he lived he would come back and search for his Hawken and flintlock.
Growls of rage followed him. A thud warned him one of the wolverines had jumped to the ground. Seconds later the other wolverine joined its sibling.
Since they could trail him using their noses alone and Shakespeare had no way of masking his scent, he made no pretense at stealth. He crashed headlong through the brush, his sole goal to put as much distance between him and his fierce pursuers as he could. He did not hear them chasing him but they had to be.
Shakespeare had a shred of hope to cling to. He had shot both—or else shot one twice, he was not entirely sure—and their wounds might slow them. He was counting on that. Otherwise, they would overtake him before he went half a mile. He would fight them with his dying breath, but the outcome was foreordained.
Shakespeare thought of Blue Water Woman. He would like his last moments on earth to be spent thinking about her. She was the love of his life, and it was a tragic shame they had not wed sooner. That they came together at all was a joy beyond words, even for the Bard.
A boulder hove out of nowhere. Shakespeare veered to avoid it and his foot hit a rock or a root. Down he went. His right elbow struck the boulder, jarring his arm so severely, the knife arced from fingers gone numb. Frantic, Shakespeare crawled after it. He ran his other hand over the spot where he thought it fell but he could not find it. “No!” he whispered. “No! No! No!”
From somewhere to his rear rasped a growl.
Shakespeare pumped into motion, running full-out. A tide of dismay washed over him. The knife had been his last means of defending himself. He did not carry a tomahawk, like Nate and Zach. Without a weapon he stood no prayer whatsoever. As he ran he cast about for a tree limb, a long limb, as thick as a spear, but spotted none that fit his urgent need.
Suddenly Shakespeare realized that in all the confusion he had become turned around, and was running north instead of east. Not that the direction was important. The wolverines would pursue him no matter where he went.
Waiting in the spruce to ambush them had turned out to be a possibly fatal mistake. Sometimes that happened. Sometimes a person did the best he could and it was not enough.
That was part of the reason Shakespeare liked the Bard so much. The original William S. wrote a lot of tragedies, which was fitting since in Shakespeare’s estimation life itself always had a tragic ending; everyone died. People were born and learned and loved and laughed and did all the things people do, and then they died.
To what end? Shakespeare echoed the Bard. Life was like a present wrapped in pink ribbon. You opened it thinking you had a wonderful surprise in store, and the wonderful surprise was the grave.
The Almighty had a strange sense of humor.
A pain in Shakespeare’s side forced him to slow and ended his mental meanderings. He was not a young man anymore. He could only do so much before his body objected.
The pines were thinning. So was the underbrush. Shakespeare was glad in one respect; he could make better time. But if he could, so could the wolverines. He checked over his shoulder for the tenth time in as many minutes but did not see them. He liked to think they had given up, but he knew that was wishful thinking.
Shakespeare was beginning to wonder about the wisdom of moving to the new valley. First they had clashed with a grizzly. Now they were up to their necks in wolverines. What next? Yes, the valley was everything Nate had promised. Yes, it was lush with timber and teeming with game. Yes, it was a genuine paradise. But every paradise had its hellish underbelly.
In that respect the new valley was no different from the rest of the Rockies. Vast regions were unexplored. Thousands of square miles were overrun with a multitude of wild creatures. Many of those creatures were harmless, many others were not. The new valley had its share of both.
When he was younger, Shakespeare did not mind the meat eaters so much. He accepted them as a matter of course, as part and parcel of life in the wilderness. But now that he was getting on in years, he could do without being eaten. He would like to live out his days in ease and serenity.
Up ahead, deciduous trees appeared. Among them might be a fallen branch Shakespeare could use. He tried to go faster but his side refused.
Shakespeare came to a belt of brush and slogged through it rather than go around. He glanced back but the gluttons were still not in sight. It never occurred to him they might have sped ahead of him and were waiting; not until he broke into the open and spied a crouched figure ready to pounce.
Sixteen
Zach King raised his head off the ground. Only a few feet away crouched a dusky wolverine. The animal had ripped his leg open as Zach fell. Now it bared its teeth, hissed and sprang.
It happened so fast, so unexpectedly, that for once Zach’s reflexes failed him. The wolverine was on him before he could rise. He flung out a hand to protect his neck, but that would not stop a glutton.
Something else did. A rifle stock swept from above and slammed into the wolverine’s head, knocking it sideways. The beast recovered instantly, and snarled at the rifle’s wielder.
Lou had reacted without thinking, and did so again. She started to reverse her grip so she could shoot. She glanced down at her rifle as she did, and in that brief heartbeat, a bristly bulk slammed into her, bowling her over. Teeth went for her jugular. The only thing that saved her was that by sheer chance she was holding her Hawken between her body and the wolverine’s, and the barrel was across her throat, preventing the wolverine from tearing it open.
The sight of Lou on the ground with the wolverine on top of her brought rage boiling up out of Zach. He always had a temper, and few things set his temper off like that of a loved one in danger. Molten quicksilver, he threw himself at the glutton, smashing into it and driving it off her. His left arm looped around its neck as his right swooped to his waist, and the hilt of his bowie.
Locked together, Zach and the wolverine rolled and tumbled, Zach striving to free his knife, which had snagged in his buckskin shirt and would not slide from its sheath, and the wolverine striving to get at Zach with its teeth and claws.
They came to a stop. Zach pushed clear and leaped up, the bowie in his hand. Simultaneously, the wolverine regained its footing and without any hesitation charged.
“Zach!” Lou cried, jerking her rifle to her shoulder and pressing her thumb on the hammer. But she was not quick enough. The two of them merged into a furiously battling whirlwind.
Zach had braced his legs as the wolverine rushed him but the brute force of its rush smashed him onto his back. He managed to clamp the fingers of his left hand on the wolverine’s throat to keep its snapping teeth from his own. But he could not stop its claws from tearing at his buckskins.
Bunching his shoulders, Zach stabbed the bowie deep. Once, twice, three times the steel sank to the hilt, but it appeared to have no effect. He flung back his arm to stab again, and suddenly the earth under them dissolved into thin air. For a few harrowing moments Zach thought they had gone over the edge of a cliff, but it was only a drop-off of some fifteen to twenty feet.
Zach hit hard on his shoulder, and shoved. He was vaguely aware that they were on a narrow shelf, and that beyond lay a slope. He pushed upright as the glutton rose and crouched for another assault.
“Come and get me, you son of a bitch!�
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A rifle cracked, and a lead ball kicked up a dirt geyser inches from the wolverine’s head.
Lou could not believe she had missed. She streaked her fingers to a pistol swifter than they ever streaked before, but once again, it was not swift enough.
In an explosion of raw ferocity, the enraged wolverine tore into Zach. Zach locked his fingers on its throat as it drove him toward the drop-off. He tried to push it away, but its claws were hooked in his shirt. He turned—or tried to—and tripped over his own feet.
Zach was in trouble. His back was pinned to the drop-off. He could not move freely, and the wolverine’s jaws would soon reach his neck. He tried to hurl it off but could not.
Lou pointed her pistol. Deathly afraid she would hit her husband instead of the glutton, she held her fire. “Zach! Break free!”
Zach heard her, and in the recesses of his mind a tiny voice angrily roared, What do you think I am trying to do, woman! But he did not reply. Every iota of his being was focused on not letting the wolverine’s slavering fangs reach him. To that end, and to gain space, he thrust the soles of his moccasins against the drop-off, and pushed. As it happened, at the same instant the wolverine gave a powerful wrench that started them rolling, and once they started, they could not stop. They came to the brink of the slope and hurtled over it. Gravity took over. Faster and faster and faster they rolled, the wolverine slashing and snapping, Zach doing his utmost to stay alive.
He buried the bowie to the cross guard and went to yank it out. Suddenly a boulder was in front of them. It was not large, no more than waist high and a couple of feet in length, but they were rolling so fast and hit the boulder so hard, the result was akin to being struck by a cannonball.
Zach was propelled in one direction, the wolverine in another. Pain flooded Zach’s chest and shot up his left arm to his shoulder. He lost all control, and bounced down the slope like a disjointed child’s doll, his arms and legs flapping, unable to arrest his descent. It seemed to go on and on and on, until every sinew and every bone hurt and he felt half sick.
Then, abruptly, Zach came to a stop. He was on his left side facing a dark wall of forest. Twice he tried to sit up. Twice his arms would not work. Finally he made it. Glancing over his shoulder, he marveled at how high the slope was. Other boulders besides the one they had struck sprinkled it from end to end. He was fortunate to be breathing.
Zach smiled, but the smile died as he realized that the wolverine must still be alive, too, and if so, it would take up where they left off.
Hardly had the thought flitted through Zach’s mind than a stygian shape rippled toward him, impetus to scramble erect and reach for the weapons at his waist. But they were gone; his tomahawk, the pistols, he had lost them in the fall.
The wolverine stopped a dozen feet away and tilted its head from side to side as if examining him.
“Want to call it a draw and try again another time?” Zach asked, and was answered with a snarl. “I didn’t think so.”
Like a cougar stalking a fawn, the wolverine circled, its eyes never leaving Zach’s face.
Zach edged toward the trees. If he could get his hands on a club, he would go down swinging. But the wolverine suddenly darted between him and the woods. Crafty devil that it was, it wanted him in the open.
Just then shouts wafted from on high. Lou was calling his name. Zach cupped a hand to his mouth to let her know where he was, but the movement provoked the glutton into throwing itself at him with twice the savagery.
This time Zach stayed on his feet. He got both arms up, his fingers enfolding fur. The wolverine attempted to bite him, but he thrust it at forearm’s length. Claws raked his wrist, his abdomen. He could not hold it there forever. With an oath, he threw it to the ground, but it was back up in flash and on him before he could catch his breath. Down they went.
A mouth full of spikes clamped onto Zach’s left arm. He cried out, and sought to pry the wolverine’s jaws off. When that did not work, he punched it. When that had no effect, he clutched at its side, seeking to push it away. His hand brushed something hard, something stuck in the wolverine’s ribs. Elated, he pulled, and had the dripping bowie secure in his fist.
The wolverine bounded back and uttered a new cry, not a growl or a snarl but a high-pitched sound Zach had not heard it make before, a challenge, perhaps, or a call to others of its kind. The notion jolted him. According to his father, there were three or four wolverines, all told. If another heard the cry and came to help this one—
Zach did not finish the thought. He must end the fight quickly, and not just because another glutton might show up. His arms, his legs, his chest, had all been ripped repeatedly by the wolverine’s claws. Some of the cuts were deep, and bleeding profusely. He was tired and weakening and could not hold his own much longer.
So Zach did the last thing the wolverine would expect. He attacked it. Dashing in close, he speared the bowie at the glutton’s neck but it nimbly leaped aside. Zach slashed sideways and opened the wolverine’s shoulder. Unfazed, the wolverine raked its claws at Zach’s leg, and it was Zach’s turn to spring out of the way.
They faced one another, man pitted against beast in the most primeval of conflicts; brain and muscle against sinew and savagery. It was kill or be killed, the survival of the fittest, and how to survive was one lesson Zach King had learned well over his two decades in the wilderness.
Now, as the wolverine crouched to attack, Zach crouched to meet it. Lou’s shouts were growing louder, but he did not let them distract him. He must concentrate on the wolverine and only the wolverine.
The demon crossed the space separating them. Zach swung, but the wolverine ducked under his blade. Teeth found his thigh, and ripped. In return he lanced the bowie at the wolverine’s back. The tip glanced off bone, digging a furrow in the hide but doing no damage to its vitals.
The wound drove the glutton berserk.
Zach barely had time to set himself, and the carnivore was on him. He stabbed and scored when the wolverine was in mid leap. Grappling, they fell and thrashed about in a wild melee of blood and blade and teeth and claws.
Zach fought with an urgency born of self-preservation, yet even that might not be enough. He was being bitten and clawed to ribbons. He buried the bowie for the eighth or ninth time but he might as well have been stabbing pudding.
In the heat of their frenzied combat, Zach became disoriented. He had no inkling they were near the trees until they suddenly rolled in among them. They passed under a pine and rolled into a thicket. A limb pricked Zach’s cheek. Another nearly took out an eye.
Zach became a madman. He must slay the wolverine. It must not remain a threat to those he loved. He weaved the bowie in a steel tapestry of silver and scarlet. They came apart, and the wolverine was first up. It leaped, and Zach met it with a well-placed foot, flipping the glutton away from him.
Zach rose to meet its next rush, but it did not reappear. Wary of a trick, he stayed where he was. Let it come to him. He hefted the bowie.
Time gave the illusion of standing still. Not a leaf stirred, not a twig cracked. When more than a minute elapsed and he was not set upon, Zach slowly unfurled. Suddenly the brush behind him crackled. He whirled but it wasn’t the wolverine. “Lou,” he breathed. “Be careful.”
“Where is it?” Louisa asked. She had been beside herself with fear when Zach and the creature catapulted down the mountain. Breathless from running, she gripped his arm. Her fingers grew damp with blood. Only then did she notice how badly his buckskins were tom, and the dark stain of the score of claw marks underneath. “Dear God! Look at you!”
“Forget that.” Zach snatched one of her pistols and cocked it. “The thing is still alive. Be ready.”
Lou leveled her Hawken. “Where did it get to?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.” Zach sensed it was near, very near, but now that Lou was there, it was wary.
Lou was appalled. Not by the likelihood of being attacked, but by what the wolverine ha
d done to the man she loved. His shirt was shredded, his pants little better. “We can’t just stand here! You’re bleeding to death.”
“I’ll be all right,” Zach assured her. He had lost a lot of blood but not so much that he could not do what needed to be done.
“Let’s get you to water,” Lou pleaded. “I’ll clean your wounds and bandage you.”
“Forget about me. Pay attention to the woods.”
“The wolverine can wait! It’s you I’m worried about. Quit being so stubborn!” Lou was practically beside herself.
“Women!” Zach muttered. She could not have picked a worse moment to make a fuss. “Why is it you never listen?”
“Men!” Lou retorted. “And I’m listening just fine, to a kettle calling a pot black.” She reached for him. “Please. Let’s get out of here.”
Zach gestured angrily. “It’s not safe, damn it!”
That was when a fierce beast hurtled from the dark. Lou tried to bring her rifle to bear, but the glutton slammed into her, smashing her against Zach, and both she and Zach went down, she on her back with the wolverine on top of her and about to bite her face.
Louisa screamed.
“Nooooo!” Zach swung the pistol with all his strength, clubbing the wolverine across the skull. He did not knock it down but he did knock it off Lou. It coiled as he fired and put a ball into its body about where the heart should be. He must have missed because the shot did not slow it down. It did divert the glutton, though, from his wife to him. He tried to club it but it dodged, and once again he was embroiled in a claw-and-steel struggle for his life.
Lou jumped up to help. The Hawken had gone flying when the wolverine attacked her, and stooping, she desperately searched for it. “Where?” she cried in despair. “Where did it get to?”
Zach sliced his bowie into the glutton’s belly. He had stabbed it so many times that its hair was matted with blood, yet it still refused to die. He stabbed it again, lower down, and in doing so, exposed his neck and shoulders. The wolverine capitalized by sinking its teeth into his right shoulder clear down to the shoulder blade. Inadvertently, Zach dropped the bowie.
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