“Go with him,” Winona said.
Nate did not need more urging. He glued himself to his son’s heels, moving to one side and crouching once they were out. Wedging the Hawken to his shoulder, he waited for more arrows to rain down. But none did.
Zach gazed to the north. A horse and rider were flying toward them. Louisa was riding bareback, her lithe form bent low. She was prudently watching the trees. “That’s my gal,” he said proudly.
The doorway framed Winona. “What are they waiting for? Why don’t they do something?”
“Strange, we haven’t heard a peep out of them,” Nate said, probing every shadow and nook. Warriors had a habit of whooping and yelling when they attacked, but not these.
“Maybe we scared them off,” Winona ventured.
“With a few measly shots?” Nate was skeptical. But if it were a tribe from the far valley, it could be they had never seen a gun. Many tribes were terrified of firearms at first.
In a flurry of hoofbeats and a cloud of dust, Louisa King arrived. She vaulted from her roan while it was still in motion and sprang to her husband’s side. “I heard the shots and came as quick as I could.”
Hardly had she spoken when more hooves drummed, and around the cabin from the south came Nate’s best friend and mentor, Shakespeare McNair, and McNair’s Flathead wife, Blue Water Woman. Both bristled with rifles and pistols and knives and tomahawks. Shakespeare glanced about, bellowing, “How now, Horatio? What is the meaning of this unseemly uproar?”
Nate could always count on McNair to talk like no other man alive. It came from McNair’s fondness for the Bard of Avon. Some might call it an obsession. Decades ago, McNair had come across The Collected Works of William Shakespeare and lost himself in its excellence. McNair had read the volume so many times, he could quote William S., as McNair called him, by the hour. It accounted for McNair’s nickname, which he gladly adopted.
“Well? Answer me,” Shakespeare said, swinging down. “Or have you so much ear wax for brains that you can’t speak?”
“Be nice, husband,” Blue Water Woman scolded. She was remarkable for her finely chiseled features, and for her ability to match wits with her husband. “Is everyone all right?” she asked, handing her reins to Shakespeare.
“So far,” Winona said.
Shakespeare was staring at the reins. A big bruiser of a man, his shoulder-length hair, mustache and beard were as white as the snow that crowned several of the encircling peaks. “What’s this, then? Am I the stable boy?”
“Pay no attention to him,” Blue Water Woman said dryly. “He’s in one of his moods.”
“She puts her tongue a little in her heart, and chides with thinking,” Shakespeare quoted. Then, to Nate, “I hope you know you interrupted my morning nap.”
“What?”
“I take one in the afternoon, too. At my age naps are like chocolate. You can never have enough.”
Temporarily distracted by their arrival, Nate sobered and motioned at the arrows that dotted the ground. “We have company.”
“A friendly bunch, I see.” Shakespeare let the reins drop. Facing the wall of vegetation across the cleared space, he cupped a hand to his mouth. “Thou art a boil, a plague-sore! I find you cowardly and vile!”
“What good did that do?” Blue Water Woman asked.
“It showed them who can yell the loudest.” Shakespeare leveled his Hawken and started toward the trees. “Come, Horatio. Let’s greet them properly. The rest of you, inside.”
No one argued. As the first white man in the Rockies, Shakespeare’s experience was vast, his judgment rarely wrong.
“I wish I could get my wife to listen to me like she listens to you,” Nate commented while catching up.
“Wives always think other men are smarter than their husbands. It gives them an excuse to act superior. Now hush, pup.”
Nate strained his senses but heard nothing, saw no one. He had a fair idea of where the bowmen had been, and warily advanced on the spot. The woods were unnaturally still. Half expecting to be greeted with a war whoop and cold steel, he slipped soundlessly into the undergrowth.
Shakespeare slowed so he could watch Nate’s back. To him, Nate was the son he’d never had, and as dear to him as life itself. Not that he would ever admit it to Nate. Some emotions ran too deep for words.
Shakespeare had been joshing about the nap. He had been behind his cabin on the shore of the lake their homesteads bordered, fishing, when the shots rumbled across the valley and echoed off the timbered slopes high above. It had been the work of mere minutes to saddle the horses, and by the time he was done, Blue Water Woman had rushed out armed to the teeth. A good woman, that gal, he reflected.
The stillness of the forest bothered Shakespeare not one whit. He suspected the Indians were gone. A short search proved him right.
The ground was hard packed and rocky. Nate roved about, seeking tracks anyway. He found a partial heel print and the indistinct outline of an entire foot in some dust. Neither showed much detail, which was too bad. Just as no two tribes made their arrows exactly alike, neither did they craft identical footwear. A clear footprint might tell Nate whom he was up against.
“You’re wasting your time, Horatio. They’re long gone.”
“We don’t know that for sure,” Nate said.
“Yes, we do.” Shakespeare pointed.
Half a mile up, on the very mountain crowned by the pass into the next valley, was a meadow. Crossing it, strung out in single file, were three dusky figures.
“It’s them!” Nate exclaimed.
“I didn’t think it was wood imps.”
“What are we waiting for? Let’s go after them! On horseback we can catch them before they reach the pass.”
“Maybe. Maybe not,” Shakespeare replied. “The question is, do you really want to?”
“Huh?”
“Your way with words astounds me sometimes,” Shakespeare quipped. Placing the stock of his rifle on the ground, he leaned on the barrel. “Follow me on this, son. Say we go after them. Say we do overtake them. What then?”
“I pay them back for what they’ve done,” Nate said.
“Ah. By paying them back, you mean kill them. What do you think will happen when they don’t show up at their village? I’ll tell you. Warriors will be sent to find them. We could find ourselves up to our necks in hostiles. Is that what you want?”
“No,” Nate grudgingly admitted. “But we have to do something. They killed Niwot.”
“I saw,” Shakespeare said. “A shame, that. I didn’t know the lad well, but he was always polite, and anyone with good manners is worth his weight in chipmunks.”
“I can never tell when you’re serious.”
“Watch my nose. It twitches when I’m not.” Shakespeare thoughtfully regarded the distant figures, then said, “This is bad. We can’t post a guard at the pass every minute from now until eternity.”
“What do you suggest? That we pay their village a visit and smoke the pipe of peace?”
“For all we know, they kill strangers on sight.” Shakespeare shook his head. “No, we’re better off avoiding them.”
Nate was mildly exasperated by the notion that they do nothing. “But they know where we are now. They’ll be back.”
“Not if we slam the door in their face.”
“I’ve lost your trail,” Nate admitted. Which was not unusual, given the quirky mental meanderings to which his friend was prone.
“So far as we know, the only way into our valley from the other side of that range is through the pass, correct? So what if we close the pass? They can’t spill our blood if they can’t get to us.”
Nate thought of the defile with its high walls of solid stone. “And how exactly do we go about achieving this marvel? Will you sneeze and bring it crashing down?”
“Sarcasm ill becomes you.” Shakespeare sniffed. “But as it so happens, I have a keg of black powder I can spare. Place it right, and our new neighbors will have to dig
through tons of rock to come a-calling.”
Scratching his chin, Nate nodded. The idea had merit. They could set out tomorrow at first light. It would take most of a day to climb to the pass. Add a few hours to set the charge where it would cause the most damage, and by tomorrow night his family and friends would be safe. Or as safe as life in the wild ever was. He complimented McNair.
“When you have lived as long as I have, Horatio, you learn a few things,” Shakespeare said. “First and foremost, marry a female with brains and some of it is bound to rub off. Second, it’s wiser to avoid a battle than take part in one. Spilling blood is fine and dandy except when some of the blood might be yours.”
“You make it sound as if you are ancient,” Nate said.
“I am, son, I am,” Shakespeare replied. “We are all the sullen presage of our own decay. And of late I have more aches in my joints and bones than I have joints and bones.”
“We all grow old.”
“Spoken like someone in the prime of his life who has no notion of what old age is about.”
“You’ll be around a good long while yet,” Nate predicted, but secretly he was troubled. His friend did appear somewhat peaked. To lose McNair would be the greatest hurt since the death of his mother.
“As a fortune-teller you would make a good bartender,” Shakespeare joshed. “But I like grasping at straws as much as the next jasper. Let’s hope you’re right. And let’s head back.”
Zach and Lou had moved Niwot’s body close to the south wall. Winona was draping a blanket over it while Evelyn looked on.
“Reckon she’ll take this hard?” Shakespeare whispered with a bob of his white beard at Nate’s youngest.
“Not as hard as I would take it if she had been killed,” Nate said. “Or any of you, for that matter.” It was his deepest fear.
Zach and Lou came over, rifles ready. “Anything, Pa?”
“They’ve flown the coop,” Nate said. “We saw them making for the pass.” He related McNair’s plan to ensure the mystery Indians did not return.
“I’ll go with you,” Zach offered.
“One of us men should stay here, just in case.” Winona walked around the corner. “Why don’t all of you come inside? I’ll put coffee on and we can talk this over.”
“I’ll get Evelyn,” Nate said, and went to walk past Winona. Her hand on his chest stopped him.
“She needs to be alone, husband. I heard you say Niwot’s killers are gone, so she should be safe. But stay near the window, just in case.”
Nate not only stayed near it, he opened it so he could hear better. From the side of the cabin came a soft sob that plucked at his heartstrings. No parent liked to see his children suffer. He was gazing at the towering peaks to the west when McNair appeared at his elbow. “What’s on the other side?”
Following his gaze, Shakespeare said. “Mountains and valleys and valleys and mountains.”
“In all your wandering you never set foot in this neck of the country?”
“Hell, Nate, the Rockies stretch from Mexico to Canada and from the prairie to the Great Salt Lake. There’s more I haven’t seen than I have. It would take ten lifetimes to cover every acre.”
Nate would not let it rest. “You must have heard stories. Didn’t a few trappers try their luck hereabouts in the early days?”
“Most of the trapping done was north and east of here,” Shakespeare said. “But yes, I’ve heard stories.”
“Tell me.”
“What for? You can’t tell what’s true and what isn’t. Remember Jim Bridger and that whopper he liked to spout about the time he went to California and came across petrified birds warbling petrified songs in petrified trees?”
“Tell me anyway,” Nate persisted. “There’s usually a kernel of truth to every tall tale.”
Shakespeare sighed. “The Utes say the country yonder is bad medicine. They won’t go anywhere near it. The same with the Paiutes, who five to the southwest. To the northwest are the Diggers, who some say are Shoshones even though they don’t have anything in common with Winona’s people.” He paused. “Due west is taboo for them, too.”
Sudden insight filled Nate. “That’s why we found this valley empty.” He had wondered about that. Rich with game, thick with timber on the slopes and grass on the valley floor, and with a crystal lake fed in part by runoff from a glacier, the valley had everything anyone could ask for. Yet there had been no trace whatsoever of previous inhabitants. “It’s too close to the part of the mountains all those tribes regard as bad medicine.”
Shakespeare gave a light cough. “Actually, Horatio, it’s part of the bad medicine. The Utes say there is a fish in the lake big enough to swallow canoes. The Paiutes call this the Valley of the Hairy Men. The Diggers believe the red-haired cannibals used to live here.”
Nate had heard of the cannibals. A surprising number of tribes had legends about them. It was claimed that back when the world was young, the red-haired cannibals preyed on the unwary, killing countless people, until they were wiped out in a great war. Some tribes believed a few pockets of cannibals still remained, deep in the mountains where no one ever went. Nate had scoffed when he initially heard the story. Just as he had scoffed at stories about lake monsters and thunderbirds and the deadly dwarves and the tree men. Since then he had learned not to dismiss the accounts out of hand.
“I thought you knew all this,” Shakespeare said.
“I don’t care if the valley is supposed to be bad medicine,” Nate replied. “It’s our home now. We will do whatever it takes to keep it.”
“You can count on me,” Shakespeare assured him. “I’m too old to move again. This is where I stay until I’m planted six feet under.”
Nate looked at him. “There you go again with that old-age talk. I notice you have all your teeth yet, and men half your age would be happy to be half as spry.”
“Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks, but I thank you,” Shakespeare quoted. “I just never knew you were color blind.”
Nate started to laugh but caught himself. From around the corner wafted gentle sobs. Evelyn was still shedding her grief.
Shakespeare heard her, too, and said softly, “Oh, lady, weep no more, lest I give cause to be suspected of more tenderness than doth become a man.”
“Losing a friend is hard.”
“That’s not the half of it,” Shakespeare said. “The important thing now is to not lose anyone else.”
Four
Wakumassee of the Nansusequa had been set adrift on the incoming tide of chaos. The idea that the whites intended to wipe out his people was so preposterous, he imagined it must be some strange joke on the part of Reverend Constantine Stilljoy. “But we be friends!” he exclaimed.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Stilljoy sniffed. “Your son killed white men. Your people must pay. It is as simple as that.”
“All my people?” Waku was horrified beyond measure. He could understand if the whites demanded Dega must die. A life for a life was fair; three hundred lives for three was not.
“What is wrong, Father?” Dega asked. “Why are you so upset?” His father had stopped translating and looked ill.
Hunumanima, the leader of the Nansusequa, had been slower to grasp the reverend’s meaning. But now he rose to his full height, rare anger contorting his features. “You no kill my people!”
“I am afraid you have no say in the matter,” Reverend Stilljoy said stiffly.
“But you friend!” Waku reiterated. “You call us children.”
Stilljoy indulged in a wry smile. “You poor, deluded savage. When I referred to you as my children, I used the term spiritually. In God’s eyes all of us are His children. But some of us are closer to Him than others.”
“I not understand,” Waku said. “You say you not like us? Your God not like us?”
“My God is your God, whether you know it or not,” Reverend Stilljoy explained. “But I have been baptized. You and your people have not. My si
ns have been forgiven. You and your people have a host of sins to account for. Surely you can see the difference?”
“No,” Waku admitted.
“How can I make it simple?” Reverend Stilljoy asked himself. “I know. Think of it this way. Have you ever had to take a rod to one of your children?”
“A rod?” Waku repeated.
“Beat them, either with a switch or your hand,” Reverend Stilljoy said. “My father took a switch to me once a week whether I needed a beating or not.”
“He hurt you?”
“Only to keep me on the straight and narrow. Sometimes we are too weak to resist temptation by ourselves and must be helped along.”
Waku’s temples were beginning to pound. “I still not understand.” He doubted he ever would.
“Your people had a chance to walk the straight and narrow and chose not to. Their punishment is perdition.” Stilljoy parted his coat and removed an engraved silver watch from a vest pocket. He opened the casing to check the time. “It should commence any minute now.”
“Father,” Dega said. “Tell us what the white man is saying.”
In the turmoil of the moment, Waku had been remiss. He made up for it now, and no sooner did he finish than his world was forever altered by three things that took place in a span of heartbeats.
“I go!” Hunumanima announced to Stilljoy, and turned to depart, saying in the Nansusequa tongue, “Our people need us. We must leave.”
Thunder pealed, even though there were only a few clouds in the sky, and at the blast Hunu was violently propelled forward, his arms flung out. Simultaneously, the front of his chest exploded in a shower of blood, bone and gore. Tottering, he looked down at the hole in his sternum. “May Manitoa receive me,” he said, and pitched to the ground.
Arthur Forge and the other two white men ran up. Thin tendrils of smoke curled from the end of Forge’s rifle. He drew a pistol. All three trained weapons on Wakumassee and his family.
“You better go, Reverend,” Forge said. “We’ll finish it.”
“In a moment. There is no rush.”
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