Wilderness Double Edition 25

by David Robbins

  Lou saw Zach stiffen in agony, saw blood spurt from his shoulder. She also saw the wolverine shift to bite Zach in the neck just as her fingers closed on the Hawken.

  The wolverine had Zach at its mercy but it paused and snarled. That pause proved crucial. It bought Lou the seconds she needed to jam the Hawken’s muzzle against the wolverine’s ear and stroke the trigger.

  Hair, bone and brains spattered Zach. He shoved the glutton off and sank wearily onto his back. He had enough strength left to grin. “It looks like women are good for something after all.”

  “Which is more than women can say about men.” Lou chuckled and hunkered next to him. Awash in relief, she tenderly touched his cheek. “We were lucky.”

  “No,” Zach said. “We were damned lucky.”

  Seventeen

  Nate King was burning up with fever. He was constantly light-headed and weak. In his near-delirious state, he attributed the apparition running toward him to a be figment of his imagination, and blurted, “Now I’m seeing things.”

  Shakespeare McNair came to a stop on the other side of the stream and bent over with his hands on his knees. “I’m as real as you are, Horatio,” he wheezed. “Pinch me and I’ll yelp.” He sucked air deep into his aching lungs. “You are a wonderful sight for this old coon’s eyes, hoss.”

  “You’re real?” Nate repeated, and rose unsteadily. “It’s not the fever?” Emotion gripped him, and he tottered.

  Concern etched Shakespeare’s weathered visage. “What’s wrong?” He waded across and took Nate by the shoulders. “You look about done in.”

  “I have a wolverine after me.”

  “Only one?”

  “What?”

  “I have two after me,” Shakespeare revealed. “It must be they think I’m tastier.” His surrogate son did not grin at his joke, which was a sign how bad off Nate must be. “Where’s your horse? I managed to lose mine.”

  “Same here. I’m afoot.” The dizziness returned, and Nate hobbled toward a boulder to sit. “I need to rest.”

  Shakespeare helped him, saying, “As mountain men, we would make fine store clerks. We have not so much brains as ear wax.” Squatting, he examined Nate’s leg and the tourniquet. “No wonder you are nearly out on your feet. You might want to keep in mind, Horatio, that when you are attacked by wild animals, the general idea is to not let them bite you.”

  Nate mustered a wan grin. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Here I thought it was to let them eat me alive.” A spasm racked him, and he closed his eyes and lowered his chin to his chest. “I don’t mind admitting I am about done in.”

  “I’ll take care of you,” Shakespeare said quietly. He could not say it louder for the lump in his throat. “That is, if you don’t mind lending me your rifle. I seem to have misplaced my guns and my knife.”

  “How’s that?” Nate looked up, and smirked. “You might want to keep in mind that when you are attacked by wild animals, the general idea is to hold on to your weapons.”

  “I would beat you with a tree if I had one handy.” Shakespeare patted the Hawken. “Let me have it and I will keep watch while you rest.”

  “It’s broken,” Nate said.

  “Not exactly our finest hour, is it?” Shakespeare helped himself to a pistol. “These will have to do us, then. And I would be obliged for the loan of your tomahawk.”

  “Help yourself. I can’t hardly swing it, anyway.” Nate leaned on the Hawken, his forehead against the barrel. It felt wonderfully cool on his skin.

  Shakespeare gazed skyward. “What is the o’clock?” he quoted. “Not yet midnight, if I know my North Stars, and I do. Here I reckoned it must be nigh on dawn.”

  “They will come for us before daylight,” Nate predicted.

  “They are here.”

  A growl wafted from out of the undergrowth to the west. Seconds later it was answered to the north. A series of cries was exchanged, their significance as elusive as the wolverines.

  “A family reunion,” Shakespeare remarked. “How touching. I always thought Skunk Bears had no feelings. It just goes to show that all creatures are daffodils at heart.”

  “Do I have the fever, or do you?”

  “You are hilarious, sir,” Shakespeare said, “and would be more so if you had a sense of humor.”

  “No fair,” Nate said, “picking on a man who can hardly think.”

  “You make it too easy, but I’ll let that one pass.” Shakespeare wagged his pistol at a bank overlooking a pool. “There is where we should make our stand. They can’t get at us except from one direction unless they’re partial to a late night swim.”

  “I trust your judgment.” Nate attempted to stand, but his traitorous legs would not cooperate. “Damn. I won’t be of much use.”

  “Use is relative.” Shakespeare slipped an arm under Nate’s. “If I need a distraction, I can always throw you to them and shoot them while they are busy eating you.”

  “It’s nice to be good for something.” Nate grunted as Shakespeare assisted his rise. He placed all his weight on the Hawken. “If you have to, put me down and run for it. I’ll hold them off as long as I can.”

  Shakespeare started toward the bank. “Hold them how, exactly? By auctioning off your body parts to the highest bidder?”

  “Where do you come up with stuff like that?” Nate marveled.

  “When you have lived as long as I have, sprout, genius rolls trippingly off the tongue.”

  Carefully swinging his crutch, Nate responded, “One man’s notion of a genius is another man’s notion of a simpleton.”

  “You are not as helpless as you make yourself out to be.” Shakespeare was enjoying their banter, but he was extremely worried. Nate needed doctoring. He had seen men die from infected bites: horrible, lingering deaths no human being should ever endure. He had to get Nate to the cabins, to Blue Water Woman and Winona. But first there was the little matter of the wolverines. Three of them, three of the fiercest creatures ever to trod God’s green earth.

  Shakespeare had been watching the forest and listening. From the stealthy sounds and furtive movement, he deduced the wolverines were up to something, and it would not be long before he found out exactly what.

  Nate wobbled, and recovered. He was growing weaker. He sought to shrug it off but his usually indomitable will could not muster strength where there was none. He was enormously glad to have stumbled on Shakespeare, but enormously worried that Shakespeare would die protecting him. “I suppose I can’t talk you into leaving me and going for help?”

  “You are as transparent as glass, Horatio,” the older man rejoined. “We live or die together. Friends forever, remember?”

  “Blue Water Woman is right. You are a stubborn cuss.”

  “I take after her.” Shakespeare guided Nate up the bank. “Easy does it. If you fall on me, you big ox, you’ll break my leg.”

  The bank was eight feet high and about that wide, with a wall of earth on the side facing the pool. Shakespeare eased Nate down at the top but held on to the Hawken. “I’ll keep this, if you don’t mind.”

  “Suit yourself.” Nate could not swing it hard enough to use effectively, anyway. He leaned over the edge. The pool was a good ten feet across. There was no telling how deep; four or five feet at the most. A man could wade across. A wolverine had to swim. “I’ll watch this side.”

  “That was the idea.” Shakespeare gripped the Hawken by the barrel and performed a practice swing. He tended to forget how heavy Hawkens were. The hardwood stock could crush a skull like an eggshell.

  Down in the valley, the light in Nate’s cabin window still burned bright. “Winona is up late tonight.”

  “What do you want to bet Blue Water Woman is there, and the two of them are calling us unladylike names and comparing our intelligence to that of tree stumps?”

  “I never bet the sun won’t rise,” Nate said.

  Shakespeare laughed, or started to, but stopped when a four-legged form flowed out of the woods to the w
est. It was well out of pistol range so all he could do was watch as it stopped, raised its head, and stared fixedly at them. “We have company,” he announced.

  “It is a tad late for visitors to come calling,” Nate quipped, seeking to make light of their plight.

  “Some folks have no manners,” Shakespeare responded. “They show up on your doorstep at any hour and expect you to be a fount of hospitality.”

  A second glutton emerged from cover to the south and came halfway to the stream before it, too, stopped.

  “One more and the quadrille will commence,” Shakespeare said, leaning the Hawken against his leg. “Or maybe I should call it a quintdrille.” He chortled merrily. “It’s too bad the rest of the world doesn’t have an intellect as refined as mine.”

  “They do when they’re drunk,” Nate retorted.

  Shakespeare glanced north, then east. Which would it be? he wondered, and had his answer when the third wolverine burst out of the vegetation to the north. This one did not stop. “It’s do or die!” he hollered, and raised the pistol. But he did not fire. Not yet. He needed to be certain. He needed to wait until the wolverine was so close he could not miss.

  Nate drew the other flintlock. When the wolverine to the north broke from cover, the wolverines to the south and the west bounded toward them. He had never heard of gluttons working in packs, but wolves and coyotes did it, so why not wolverines? He figured the one to the west would reach them first so he shifted toward it and took deliberate aim.

  Shakespeare’s mouth went dry. He had tangled with wolverines before but always singly, never so many at once. He fought an urge to take his eyes off the one charging him to check on Nate. Stay calm, he told himself, and we will make it out alive.

  Nate’s arm was shaking, he was so weak. He wrapped his other hand around the flintlock to steady it. Another bout of dizziness nearly caused him to pass out. He could not hold a bead on the wolverine if his life depended on it, and it did. Squinting in intense concentration, he licked his lips and drew back the hammer.

  Another fifteen yards and Shakespeare would shoot. ‘‘Are you all right?” he asked over his shoulder without turning his head, and did not receive an answer. “Nate?” Torn between affection and necessity, he chose necessity. He had to. It would do Nate no good if he were dead. He held his arm perfectly still, and fired. It was as if the wolverine slammed into a wall. The glutton slumped to the ground, but the next second was back up and rushing toward McNair with cold bestial fury contorting its features.

  Shakespeare shoved the pistol under his belt. He barely had time to raise the Hawken when the wolverine was on him. He swung, but only succeeded in driving it back a few feet. It hissed and lunged at his legs. Sidestepping, Shakespeare whipped the Hawken in a blow that ended with the stock connecting with the wolverine’s head. That would be enough to drop most animals, but not the glutton. Undaunted, it lunged again.

  Nate had not taken his eyes off the wolverine to the west, which had thirty yards to cover. Consequently, he was that much more surprised when loud splashing alerted him he had been wrong; the wolverine to the south was the faster of the two, and had reached the stream. He glanced down, and there it was, swimming across the pool with a speed that was disconcerting. It still had to scale the bank and might or might not reach him before the other one, but it was closer, and Nate swiveled and fired.

  Clubbing a wolverine, Shakespeare had discovered, was a lot like swatting a fly on the wing; it took as much luck as anything else. He had swung the Hawken eight times and missed with every swing. The glutton darted right, it darted left, it leaped back out of reach. He kept after it, swinging, always swinging, to keep it away from Nate. Then a shot split the night, and despite himself, despite knowing he should not take his eyes off the wolverine, Shakespeare took his eyes off the wolverine to glance at Nate and ensure Nate was all right. It was only for an instant, but in that instant teeth sliced into Shakespeare’s left leg.

  Nate missed. He had aimed for the wolverine’s head but scored its neck. Blood spurted from a ruptured vein and the glutton slowed, but only momentarily. Snarling and spitting, it reached the bank and clawed up it in a mad rage.

  Nate set the pistol in his lap to free his hands so he could reload. He heard Shakespeare curse, heard the wolverine he had shot snarl. He did not look. He concentrated on the pistol instead. His only hope was to shoot the glutton again before it reached him. Powder, patch, ball, ramrod, he had done it a thousand times, but never as quickly as he did it now. He cocked the hammer and looked up as the wolverine scrambled over the rim. Its mouth was open, its teeth bared to rip and rend. Nate shoved the barrel into its mouth and squeezed the trigger.

  This time Shakespeare knew better. He did not take his gaze from the glutton. But the wolverine tore its gaze from him. It glanced toward the sound of the shot, and finally, wonderful-as-could be finally, Shakespeare smashed the rifle against its head.

  Nate set the flintlock in his lap and took hold of his powder horn. The third wolverine was flying along the stream toward him. It only had twenty feet to cover. He upended the horn over his left hand, pouring the powder into his palm. He had an entire handful when the wolverine launched itself at him, and with a sweep of his arm, Nate hurled the powder in the wolverine’s face even as he threw himself onto his side. The wolverine sailed over him, alighted on all fours, and whirled.

  Shakespeare swept the Hawken over his head. The glutton had sagged but it was not dead. Not yet. He smashed the stock down, again and again and again, stopping only when brains oozed from the split skull.

  Nate drew his bowie. The wolverine was wheezing, sneezing and blinking, thanks to the powder in its mouth, nose and eyes. It glanced up as the bowie arced down, the razor edge nearly severing its neck from its body.

  Whirling, Shakespeare raised the Hawken, stiffened in amazement, and slowly lowered it. “I’ll be damned. Both of them?”

  “I fight better when I’m sitting down.”

  “I think I will join you.” Shakespeare sat and set the blood-smeared Hawken beside him. “I do not mind admitting, Horatio, that I am getting too old for frolics like this.”

  “Dam. I was hoping we would wage war on the Blackfeet tomorrow.”

  “The only thing I want to wage war on is that bottle of whiskey I have hidden away. I figure I deserve to treat myself.” Shakespeare glanced at the bite in his leg, and wearily sighed. “Do you know what the worst part of all this is?”

  Nate nodded. “Our wives will never let us hear the end of it.”

  Epilogue

  “Will you look at them?” Winona King said from the doorway of her cabin. “Loafing the day away yet again.”

  Blue Water Woman was placing plates on the table for supper. “Loafing is what men do best.”

  Over at the counter, Louisa was slicing a freshly baked loaf of bread. “They’ll sure have a lot of chores to catch up on when their holiday is over.”

  All three women spoke loudly enough to be heard by the three men lounging in chairs out in the afternoon sun.

  “Holiday?” Zach sputtered. He did not have a shirt on and was swathed in so many bandages, he resembled a mummy. “Does she think I wanted to sit around twiddling my thumbs the past two weeks? I’d rather be off in the mountains hunting or exploring.”

  “You need to learn to relax, young sir,” Shakespeare advised, lazily stretching. “Learn to take things in stride, like me.”

  “Says the man who nearly killed himself going for help for me,” Nate interjected. “Running all night and most of the next day. At your age!”

  “It was more of a fast limp,” Shakespeare said. “I just didn’t want you dying on us. The comical stunts you pull keep me chuckling.”

  “Name one comical stunt.”

  “You came west to live in the Rockies.”

  Winona stepped over to Nate’s side. “It will be half an hour yet before we eat. Is there anything I can get any of you?”

  “A horse and a saddle,�
�� Zach said.

  Nate held out his hand and Winona tenderly clasped it. “I have all I need right here.”

  Snickering, Shakespeare smacked his chair. “I declare. You two act like you are just wed. Sew your lips together, why don’t you, and save yourselves all that puckering?”

  “Wasn’t he the one who rode all the way to Bent’s Fort for a new mirror for Blue Water Woman for her birthday?” Nate mentioned.

  “Yes, he was,” Winona said. “He is also the one who brings her a bouquet of wild flowers nearly every day in the spring, when they bloom.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Oh, yes. Blue Water Woman says he is the most romantic man she has ever met or heard of.”

  Shakespeare was turning red. “Flatheads lie a lot.”

  “Should I tell her you said that?” Winona asked sweetly.

  “Not unless you want to see me stomped to death.” Shakespeare gestured at the hides stretched on wooden frames. “How are the rugs coming along?”

  “There will be one for each cabin,” Winona said. “The glutton Zach slew had too many holes in it.”

  Nate gazed toward the mountains. “All four are dead. That’s the important thing. Our valley is safe again.”

  The sun had set when the big female came out of the den. As always, she tested the wind for prey and enemies.

  She had not seen her sisters or brothers in many nights, nor had she come across their spoor. They had become vague memories of a different time and a different life. Now she was alone, and she liked it that way.

  The valley was hers. She roamed it as she pleased, with occasional forays into the next valley to the west. Of late she had been roaming farther than ever, compelled by a strange urge.

  On this particular night, her sensitive nose caught the scent of an animal she seldom encountered: a gopher. Gophers lived in burrows and rarely ventured to the surface. But the scent was strong, so she investigated, and was rewarded with the scrtich and scratch of its small claws. It was digging, and had its back to her.