Nate thought he understood. The tribe ate the hearts in the belief that in doing so they acquired the special power of whatever, or whomever, the heart belonged to. Thus, eating the heart of a bear lent them the strength of a bear. Eating the heart of a deer made them fleet as deer. And so on. “Question.” Nate amended an oversight on his part. “You called?”
“Drinks Blood.”
Figuring the warrior was confused, Nate signed, “Question. Your people drink blood?”
The warrior placed a hand flat on his chest. “I drink blood.”
Nate sat back. Drinks Blood. Ghost Walker. Stands On Moon. All were unusual names, but then, everything associated with this new tribe was unusual. “Tell me, Drinks Blood,” he signed. “Why cut face?” He ran his fingers over his cheeks to signify running them over the warrior’s scars.
“For medicine,” Drinks Blood answered.
Nate was at a loss. “Medicine” was used by many tribes to allude to the Great Mystery, as they called it. Some whites considered the Great Mystery the same as God. Nate had divined a subtler context. The Great Mystery was God and yet more or other than God. To the Indians, the Great Mystery was not a wrathful deity but more akin to a living force. “Question. Great Mystery medicine?”
Drinks Blood seemed surprised that Nate knew of the Great Mystery. “Yes,” he signed.
Nate digested the information. Medicine was extremely important to most Indians. It had nothing to do with healing herbs or the like, but rather referred to the mysterious power of the Great Mystery. Not power in a physical sense but power in a deeper, spiritual context. Among some tribes, it was common for warriors to go on what were called Vision Quests in pursuit of that power. Among other tribes, the power was believed to be reserved to the medicine men. “Question. All Heart Eaters medicine men?”
Drinks Blood cocked his head in puzzlement. “All Heart Eaters have medicine.” Using his right thumb, he touched the center of his chest. It was the sign for himself, for him personally as opposed to the rest of his people. “Drinks Blood have medicine. But Drinks Blood no medicine man.”
So the power could be acquired by anyone, Nate reflected. “Question. Heart Eaters have chief?”
“Yes. Him eat most hearts be chief.”
“Question. People hearts?”
“Yes.”
Nate suppressed a shudder. Small wonder the other tribes in the central Rockies considered the region taboo. “Question. Many Heart Eaters warriors?”
Drinks Blood did not respond.
“Question. Where Heart Eaters villages?”
Again the scar-faced warrior did not acknowledge the question.
Nate did not want Drinks Blood to clam up when he was learning so much. He tried a different tack. “Question. Why kill Ute near lake?”
“Him enemy.”
“But you not eat heart.”
“Kill enemy. Always kill enemy. Eat hearts no always.”
So they did not kill just for the medicine alone. Nate found that interesting. “Question. Many tribes enemy?”
“All tribes enemies. Bear People enemies.”
“Question. Heart Eaters no have friends?” Nate asked, hoping to learn if the tribe had dealings with any other.
“All people enemies,” Drinks Blood clarified, thereby revealing that his tribe had another trait in common with the Apaches.
There was so much Nate wanted to ask, but he was hampered by the limitations of sign. The Shoshones had about seven hundred signs they used in sign talk. Other tribes used a few more, some fewer. Nate knew about five hundred. He was capable of asking most anything, but he had to take care in how he strung the signs together or his meaning would be lost. He was debating how to pose his next question when Drinks Blood apparently decided it was time to ask a few of his own.
“Question, Grizzly Killer. Why you live Heart Eaters land?”
Nate had been hoping the tribe did not claim his valley as theirs. Now he knew. “I no know your land.”
“Heart Eaters land,” Drinks Blood repeated.
“Live many moons near lake. No see Heart Eaters before you,” Nate pointed out.
“Heart Eaters no come lake often.” Drinks Blood used the signs for “many times” but it meant essentially the same thing.
“Question. Why no come lake?”
Drinks Blood gazed to the north, in the direction of the glacier. “Bad medicine here. Much bad medicine.” Other tribes believed the same thing. Nate had asked Niwot why the Utes shunned the valley and been told that long ago, longer than the memory of the oldest living Ute, a Ute hunting party had visited the valley to hunt elk. They had camped on the lakeshore. Their hunt had been successful, and the night before they were to leave, they were in camp, celebrating, when they were attacked and slaughtered by what Niwot could only say was a “creature of the old times.” When Nate pressed him, the young Ute had said that was how the older Ute warrior described it. “Question. You know bad medicine?”
Once again Drinks Blood stared northward. “Come when sun gone. When moon full. Come outside ice. Kill and kill and kill. Arrow no hurt. Knife no hurt. Go in ice and sleep.”
Forgetting himself, Nate said in English, “You’re saying that something lives in the glacier? That’s ridiculous.” It was a mistake. Some of the friendliness went out of Drinks Blood’s expression, and he stiffened. “Tell me all,” Nate signed.
“No.”
Nate changed to a different subject. “Question. Drinks Blood have wife?”
“Yes.”
“Question. Drinks Blood have children?”
“Yes.”
“I have wife. I have children. We much same.” Nate was trying to impress on him that they had more in common than Drinks Blood might imagine, and thus had no real reason to be enemies.
“We much not same,” the warrior disagreed. “You white. I Heart Eater. You bad. I good.”
“People be people,” Nate signed.
Drinks Blood held his right hand out, palm up. “Heart Eaters,” he signed, and held the hand flat again. Then he held his left hand out, palm up. “People no Heart Eaters.” He placed his left hand in his right hand and then closed his right hand and shook it to signify the right was squeezing the life out of the left. “Question. Grizzly Killer understand?”
“Yes.” Nate was getting nowhere. The other still regarded him as an enemy who must be slain. He tried one last time. “Question. We be friends?”
“No.”
“Question. Friends time in front?” Nate was asking if there was any chance they could be friends at some point in the future.
“No.”
“Why?”
“You be dead,” Drinks Blood signed, and smiled. “You be dead now.”
Something in the way the warrior signed the words, and in his expression, gave Nate pause. It was almost as if Drinks Blood were gloating—or knew something he did not. Then Nate saw that Drinks Blood was staring past him, into the dark at his back. An awful premonition seized Nate and he started to turn, but he was too late and too slow.
Heavy forms slammed into Nate from behind. He was nearly bowled over, and wound up on his knees with his arm gripped by iron hands. Twisting, he discovered he was being held by not one but two Heart Eaters. He realized that Drinks Blood had kept him talking sign so the pair could sneak up close without him being aware.
Nate had taken it for granted there were three warriors and only three warriors. He had seen three crossing the meadow; he had seen three at the talus slope. It did not occur to him there might be more, an oversight that might now prove his undoing.
Growling like the bear the Heart Eaters thought he resembled, Nate sought to wrench his arms free. Although the Heart Eaters were short, they were stocky and strong, and while he caused one to trip and nearly lose hold, he failed to shake them off. And while he was struggling, Drinks Blood had pushed himself erect.
They were going to kill him.
The certainty fired Nate with fury. He refused to die, refused
to accept that he might never set eyes on Winona again. Or Evelyn. Or Zach. Surging to his full height, he whipped halfway around, the power in his shoulders and right arm sufficient to lift the warrior holding that arm clear off his feet and swing him like a sack of flour. Nate whipped him straight into Drinks Blood and both men went down in a tangle, Drinks Blood bellowing angrily in a guttural tongue.
The third warrior still had firm hold of Nate’s left arm. Shifting, Nate started to point the flintlock at the man’s forehead with the intention of blowing his brains out. Nate glimpsed a streak of metal, and his own forehead burst with pain and bright pinpoints of swirling light.
Nate’s knees slammed into the ground. He tried to aim the pistol, only to find it was no longer in his hand. Another blow to the head rocked him. He dived for his Bowie, but his hand seemed to move in slow motion. It was taking forever for his fingers to reach the hilt. Something or someone rammed into the middle of Nate’s back and he was knocked flat. Dimly, he felt hands clamp on to his wrists. He bucked upward, only to have the back of his head cave in.
That was the last thing he remembered.
Pain was the first sensation.
Nausea the second.
The third was jarring brightness when Nate opened his eyes and beheld the sun directly overhead. It was noon. He had been unconscious more than twelve hours. Blinking, he went to shield his eyes with his hand, but his arm would not move. He looked right and then left, and scowled. His wrists were secured to stakes. Glancing down, he saw that his ankles had been accorded the same treatment. He also found that his shirt was gone.
A shadow fell across him. Several shadows, each resolving into a hideous scarred face and a stocky body in buckskins. One of the scarred faces hovered over his, then dipped down.
Drinks Blood regarded him intently. His hands moved in sign language. “Question. You surprise you alive?”
“How do you expect me to answer with my wrists tied?” Nate snapped in English. He was mad. Not at the Heart Eaters, for they had done what every hostile tribe did to an enemy. No, he was mad at himself for letting them take him so easily.
Drinks Blood grunted. “Question. You want know why alive?”
“I can guess.” Nate’s missing shirt was the clue. They were called Heart Eaters, after all, and apparently they preferred to carve the hearts from still-breathing victims rather than dead flesh.
As if Drinks Blood could peer into Nate’s thoughts, he signed, “More medicine when alive. Much strong when alive.”
“I hope you choke to death on the first bite.” Nate tested the ropes that bound his arms. They had done a good job.
Drinks Blood placed his hand on Nate’s chest above his heart. Grinning, he produced a knife. Not his own knife with the crude bone handle, but Nate’s Bowie. He placed the razor tip against Nate’s skin and a tiny drop of blood appeared.
Nate braced himself for the fatal thrust. He had always known this day would come, the day when his luck played out. Life in the wilderness was fraught with peril, and over the years he had survived countless dangers. But no one survived indefinitely.
The thrust did not come. Drinks Blood, his hand resting lightly on the hilt, touched the tip of a finger to the drop of blood, then touched the drop of blood to his tongue. He smacked his lips and grinned.
“Like to play with your victims, do you?” Nate growled.
While Drinks Blood did not understand the words, he seemed to guess their meaning. “No kill now, Grizzly Killer,” he signed.
“You plan to torture me first, is that it?”
Drinks Blood straightened and slid the Bowie into Nate’s sheath, which now hung around his waist. “No eat hearts when day. Eat hearts when night. You understand, Grizzly Killer?”
Yes, Nate did. Some tribes conducted certain ceremonies at night. Fortunately for him, the Heart Eaters did their heart eating under the stars and the moon.
“Much medicine when night,” Drinks Blood signed.
Nate was getting tired of hearing about medicine. He lay quietly as the three warriors filed past. Shifting, he surveyed his surroundings. He was still in the meadow. His saddle and parfleches were off to his right. The parfleches had been opened and upended and the contents strewn about. No doubt, the Heart Eaters had helped themselves to whatever caught their interest.
The bay was where Nate had picketed it. In going past, the three warriors gave the horse a wide berth and gazed at it as if apprehensive it might rear or try to kick them. Their reaction told Nate as surely as words that the Heart Eaters did not have horses, an interesting tidbit to keep in mind for the future.
Nate smiled grimly. The future? He had no future if the Heart Eaters had their way. He must ensure they didn’t.
Drinks Blood and one of the other warriors spread out blankets—Nate’s blankets—and lay down. The third warrior went off toward the pass.
Nate was perplexed by how completely they ignored him. Maybe they felt he had no hope of freeing himself. Maybe they thought they were close enough to stop him if he did.
“We will see about that,” Nate said to himself. He gripped the right stake. He gripped the left. They were solidly imbedded. But it would be another seven to eight hours before the sun went down. A lot could happen in that amount of time.
His face set in grim lines, Nate began trying to rock the stakes back and forth. They would not budge. He tried again and again and again, always with one eye on the Heart Eaters. Over and over and over until his skin blistered and bled and his fingers and wrists were in torment. But he did not stop. He must not stop.
His life was in the balance.
Ten
The afternoon crawled by on turtle’s feet.
Nate King sweated and tugged and sweated and wrenched. Smears of scarlet streaked both stakes. The ropes had rubbed through his skin and into his flesh so that every movement was agony. He clenched his jaw and bore it. He had endured worse. He could endure this.
Nate had once read a newspaper account that said mountain men were a hardy breed. The journalist who wrote it did not know the half of it. The weak and the squeamish never lasted long in the wild. It took a kind fortitude that few men had. The ability to withstand blistering heat and frigid cold. The stamina to go without food and water for days. The readiness to fight for one’s life. Unless a man was hardy enough to do all that, he had no business living in the mountains.
A weaker man would have succumbed to the pain by now. But Nate’s will had been tempered on the whetstone of the raw edge of existence and forged in the furnace of adversity. He could no more give up than he could stop breathing.
The afternoon waned. The sun was half an hour shy of abandoning its throne when the third Heart Eater appeared out of the woods below the pass and made for his friends. Both rose to greet him and an excited exchange took place. There was a lot of gesturing at the pass.
Nate did not like the looks of that. Placing his cheek against his arm, he adopted what he hoped was a look of utter despair. He also shifted his wrists so his hands hid the blood-spattered stakes. The precaution proved timely.
Drinks Blood approached. Whatever news the third warrior had brought pleased him. His fingers flowed in sign. “Many Heart Eaters come, Grizzly Killer.”
“Must make for small portions,” Nate said.
“We make smoke talk,” Drinks Blood signed. “Warriors come village.”
The warrior who had gone up to the pass, Nate realized, had sent smoke signals. Now more were on their way. “So you only have the one village? Thanks for the information.”
Paying no heed to Nate’s muttering, Drinks Blood signed, “Make smoke talk you. Make smoke talk bear man white hair.”
“You told them about me and my friend,” Nate said. “Yes, I got that much.”
“Make smoke talk your woman. Make smoke talk your daughter. Make smoke talk Bear People near lake.”
Going rigid, Nate raised his head. “You did what?”
“Many warriors come,” Drin
ks Blood signed, smirking as he moved his hands. “Many warriors come lake.”
“You bastard.” Nate was horror-struck. Drinks Blood had relayed the news about his family and friends to the Heart Eater village. Winona and Evelyn and the rest would be taken prisoner and subjected to the same fate he would see come nightfall; they would have their hearts cut out while they were still alive. “You miserable, stinking bastard.”
Nate seldom indulged in cursing but calmly and bitterly he called Drinks Blood every foul name under the sun. He stopped only because Drinks Blood laughed, showing that he enjoyed Nate’s dismay.
“If it is the last thing I ever do, I will kill you,” Nate vowed.
“Your heart eat short time,” Drinks Blood gloated. “Tomorrow night eat heart your woman.” He paused as if waiting for Nate to throw a tantrum, and when it did not happen, he frowned, turned on his heel, and rejoined the others.
It was with heightened urgency that Nate renewed his assault on the stakes. When he flagged, when he tired or the pain became too great, he had only to think of Winona and their children having their hearts cut out, and a fresh flood of vitality flooded through him.
The sun came to rest on the peaks to the west. Then, by gradual degrees, the blazing orb slid from sight, growing smaller and smaller until only bands of pink and yellow remained to mark the fading of the day.
The Heart Eaters became more animated than Nate had heretofore seen them. They were excited at the prospect of eating his heart. Excited by the power they believed it would give them, the special medicine they valued more than anything else.
Nate watched them, and he watched the sky. A lot depended on how dark it became before they performed their grisly ritual. Stars blossomed, pale against the twilight. The crescent moon hung poised like a scimitar.
It was the moon they were waiting for. One of the warriors pointed and said something, and all three drew knives and held them in front of them while slowly advancing on Nate. They did not whoop or laugh. A grave solemnity marked their features. The eating of a heart was their holy of holies, and they took part with the utmost seriousness.
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