Wilderness Double Edition 25

by David Robbins

  The first surprise: She was still alive.

  The second surprise: Her hands were untied.

  In her befuddled state, Winona groggily assumed something had happened, that someone had come to rescue them, and she sat up, blinking in the bright glare of the sun and wishing she had not been so hasty. She was solid pain. Bruises and welts covered her body. Even her scalp hurt from where he had pulled her hair. She licked her swollen lips, swallowed thickly, and took stock. Her hands were free, yes, but her feet were bound with more rope than last time, and the end of the rope was once again secured to the boulder. Dega and Miki were as she had last seen them, watching her, Miki with sadness in her eyes, Dega with an expression she could not assess. “What?” she croaked.

  Degamawaku wanted to tell Evelyn’s mother many things. He wanted to tell her that in all his life he had never witnessed anything like her struggle against their captor. He wanted to tell her she was different from any woman he ever knew, that she was incredible. He yearned to let her know that she had his highest respect and always would, but all he could do was smile encouragement and say, “Haa.”

  “Wonderful,” Winona said, and wearily bowed her head. A scraping noise made her snap it up again.

  Drinks Blood was only a few feet away, braced on his crutches, regarding her, if it were possible, with more hate than ever. His body bore as many bruises and welts as hers, and his buckskins were covered with dirt and dust.

  Winona had the impression he was waiting for her to sign something so she did. “Question. I alive?”

  Twin fires blazed in those pits he called eyes. “You not die quick. You die slow. Cry much.”

  Winona suppressed a shudder. So that was it. He wanted her alive so he could kill her slowly. So he could torture her. “As my husband would say,” she said in English, “you are one sadistic bastard.” The mention of Nate reminded her of Evelyn and Zach, and she turned toward where her daughter had been lying.

  Evelyn was gone.

  A groan tore from Winona and she glanced madly about. The moan became a wail that she choked off. A frail, crumpled figure lay over by the cliff, the yellow of her skin sickeningly vivid. “Question. Why there?”

  Drinks Blood did not answer right away. Smiling, he leaned back on his crutches and folded his fingers on his chest.

  “Why?” Winona signed again, and when he would not respond, she forgot herself and shrieked, “Why, damn you?”

  Drinks Blood lowered his hands. His smile widened. He signed two words. Just two words. “She dead.”

  A great thunder filled Winona’s ears. Her mind twisted and spun. She was not aware that she passed out but the next she knew, her chin was on the ground and she was breathing dust. She sat up, the signal for a deluge. Tears streamed down her cheeks, but she did not care.

  Drinks Blood had not moved. Fingers laced, his flat eyes glittered with pleasure at her loss.

  Winona gave voice to uncontrollable sobs. She knew it would delight him, and the last thing she wanted to do was that, but she could not help herself. Evelyn was gone! The sweetest daughter any woman ever had. Her daughter. Her child. The girl she had raised so lovingly, so devotedly. Dead. Gone. Slain by the inhuman monster leering at her.

  Winona averted her face. She refused to look at him, refused to let him look at her. Through her anguish and her tears she noticed that Miki and Dega were not staring at her but had turned away out of sympathy. Their kindness touched her. Then she saw their faces, saw their wide eyes and their wide mouths, and she looked in the direction they were looking, toward the opening. All of a sudden, her tears stopped. Lightning seared her, and she could scarcely breathe. Her own eyes went wide and her mouth parted. “Zach!”

  Zachary King had been searching for his mother since the day before. When darkness fell, he had stopped and waited to strike out again at first light. He had found where she had been attacked, and he stuck to the sign like a wolverine that had caught the scent of blood. Then the cliff loomed ahead. He had dismounted and was warily approaching on foot when his mother’s shriek brought him on the run.

  Now Zach stood in the opening, his Hawken leveled at the apparition on crutches. He was all set to shoot it in the back, but the shock of seeing his mother so bloodied, battered and bent stayed his hand.

  It was then that Drinks Blood whipped around, adroitly handling his crutches, swinging his stumps under him. He grabbed his knife and froze with his hand on the hilt, staring into the Hawken’s muzzle.

  Winona did not understand why her son was just standing there. “Shoot him, Zach! What are you waiting for?”

  Zach curled his finger around the trigger, but he did not squeeze. Molten lava was oozing up out of his core, out of the secret vault in which he contained it except when, at moments like this, his feelings threatened to run away with him. Shooting would be too quick, too easy. Too painless. The scarred warrior deserved worse. Much worse.

  “Kill him!” Winona cried. She had seen that look on her son before and knew what it portended. “Please!”

  Her appeal dispelled some of the red haze before Zach’s eyes. He blinked, grinned at the warrior, and said, “You heard my ma. Quick it is, then.” He went to sight down the barrel, then noticed the other two captives, the young warrior and the girl in green. The young warrior was tugging against his bounds and bobbing his head and saying the same word over and over again.

  “Do it now!” Winona yelled.

  Zach was trying to make sense of the word the young warrior was saying. Then it hit him. “Ev-lyn.” He glanced at the young warrior. “Evelyn?” he repeated. “My sister? How do you know her?”

  The young warrior kept bobbing his head, as if he wanted Zach to turn toward the cliff.

  Zach did.

  A groan slipped from Winona. “Don’t look, son,” she begged. “You know what it will do to you. Please don’t look. Turn away. Look at me instead.” She said it in a rush while crawling toward him.

  “Sis?” Zach took a step toward the still, sprawled form. He felt as if all the blood were draining from his body. He was lightheaded, and there was a peculiar buzzing in his ears. “Evelyn?” He looked at Winona. “What happened?” He looked at the scarred warrior with the crutches. “What did you do to her?”

  Drinks Blood saw the muzzle of the rifle dip. He savored the shock and the hurt he had caused. “She dead!” he signed. “I kill!” he gloated. Then he did what to him seemed a perfectly natural thing to do. He threw back his head and laughed.

  Zach King swayed. The Hawken drooped to his side. It was the single most awful moment of his life. He might have stood there indefinitely had the scarred warrior not started to draw his knife. Instantly, Zach leveled the Hawken and the warrior stopped.

  “It’s Drinks Blood, Zach,” Winona said. “The one your father told us about. Shoot him, son. Shoot him now.”

  Straightening, Zach took deliberate aim.

  Drinks Blood read his death in the other’s posture but he did not cower in fear. He thrust out his powerful chest and jutted his jaw in defiance.

  “No,” Zach said, and lowered his rifle.

  Winona rose on her elbows. “What are you doing?”

  “He killed Evelyn.” Zach sidled to one side and leaned the Hawken against the cliff. He drew both pistols.

  “That’s it!” Winona cried. “Shoot him with them! Just so you shoot him!”

  Zach set the flintlocks next to the Hawken.

  “Oh, God,” Winona gasped. “You’re not going to do what I think you are going to do? Please, son. Shoot the Heart Eater.” But Zach was not listening. “Kill him!” she screeched, terrified by the thought of losing both her children.

  Drinks Blood glanced from the son to the mother and back again. His scarred brow knit in puzzlement.

  The inner gate in Zach that held back the molten lava was open. The lava boiled and frothed in a seething torrent. The red haze returned, redder than before, redder than it had ever been. Zach stepped away from his guns. His fee
t, his legs, his entire body felt incredibly light. He became aware of his body in ways he ordinarily was not. Once, years ago, he had tried to describe the feeling to his father. The best he could do was that he became his body, if that made sense.

  Winona’s next cry died in her throat. It would do no good. It was too late. All she could do now was pray.

  Zach stepped to within six feet of his sister’s killer, and stopped. He slowly drew his Bowie and then his tomahawk.

  Drinks Blood could not hide his surprise. Or his delight. He drew his knife and war club. Gripping his crutches with his upper arms, he hunched forward, braced for the younger man’s onslaught.

  But Zach did not attack. He hefted the Bowie and the tomahawk. He smiled, a thin, cold, almost cruel smile. Then he sank to his knees.

  “Please, no,” Winona said.

  Before, Drinks Blood had been surprised. Now he was astounded. He stared at the young breed, unable to believe his eyes. Then he laughed. He laughed long and hard, but not in scorn, not in derision. He laughed because here was a warrior he could admire. Here was a warrior he could respect. When he was done laughing, he shrugged the crutches from himself and rose on his stumps. With the tip of his knife he described three circles in the air, each larger than the other.

  Zach tucked at the waist and held the Bowie and tomahawk in front of him. He crouched there, a statue.

  Drinks Blood waited. His brow knit again, and he cocked his head. He feinted with his war club, but the one called Zach did not move. He flicked his knife, but still provoked no response.

  To Degamawaku, the series of developments brought no end of wonderment. First the daughter, then the mother, and now the son. He had never known a family like this. He waited breathlessly for the son to close on the other, but nothing happened. Dega did not understand. Fear was certainly not to blame. The family did not seem to know they were ever supposed to be afraid.

  To little Miki, who had known only terror since Drinks Blood abducted her, this was the moment she had yearned for. The moment when the terrible man who had slapped and punched and abused her paid for his slaps and punches and abuses. To see him waiting there, not doing anything, made her think he did not really want to fight. He must be afraid. The terrible man was scared. That struck her as funny. She laughed, a mocking titter, and said in Nansusequa, “You are a coward.”

  Drinks Blood did not understand what the girl said. But he understood her laugh. He understood that quite well. His ears burned, and his pulse quickened with anger, and he did what he otherwise might not have done. He uttered a lusty war whoop and flung himself forward.

  Zach was ready. He had been ready. He had been in combat many times and he knew the victor was not always the first to strike but the one who struck the surest. Rearing on his knees, he met the rush head-on.

  Drinks Blood swung his war club. Zach countered with the tomahawk. Drinks Blood thrust his knife. Zach parried with the Bowie. Twisting, Drinks Blood aimed a vicious stab at Zach’s groin, but Zach shifted, the blade missed, and Zach arced his Bowie out and up. A trail of scarlet rose in the big blade’s wake. The sharp sting of being cut caused Drinks Blood to retreat a step, but Zach was on him before he could set himself, the tomahawk sweeping at the crown of his head. Barely in time, Drinks Blood swept his war club up to block the blow. In that span of perhaps half a heartbeat, the Bowie was a nigh-invisible streak. Drinks Blood felt it bite into his chest, felt skin and flesh part. He staggered on his stumps and looked down. Blood flowed from a gash as long as his forearm.

  Zach had drawn back a step. He was not breathing heavily. The Bowie and tomahawk were low in front of him.

  Drinks Blood looked up. He sensed it then, although he denied it. He swallowed, braced his stumps, and attacked. This time in silence, this time grimly and soberly and with one intent and one intent only. Not to wound, not to maim, but to kill.

  Zach moved to meet him. Drinks Blood sheared his knife at Zach’s jugular, only to have his blade ring on the Bowie. Snarling, Drinks Blood whipped halfway around and drove his war club at Zach’s head. It was a move that never failed. It failed now. The tomahawk materialized between them. The club was swatted aside. Drinks Blood tried to draw back, but in a stroke too swift for the eye to follow, Zach buried the tomahawk in his shoulder.

  Drinks Blood staggered. His arm numbed and the war club fell. His shoulder was bleeding badly. He stared at Zach, incredulous. That which he had sensed, he now knew to be certain. Drinks Blood could not beat him. There was only one thing to do. He switched the knife from his good hand to his numb hand so he could drop his good hand to the pouch at his waist. The pouch that contained the last of his poisoned darts.

  Winona saw, and screamed a warning.

  Drinks Blood was smiling. He raised his arm to throw the dart. Suddenly steel gleamed, and his hand did a strange thing. It separated from his wrist. Warm crimson spattered his face. He looked up and saw the tomahawk on a downward sweep.

  Zach stood over the body and swung his tomahawk, again and again and again. He swung until his arm hung limp from exhaustion, until there was nothing left of the scarred face but bits and pieces. Straightening, he gazed at his handiwork, then slowly turned and walked to the limp body by the wall.

  Winona did not experience the elation she thought she would. She wanted Drinks Blood dead, wanted him to die horribly, and she got her wish. But she felt nothing, nothing at all. Then came the words Winona would remember and cherish for as long as she lived, the words that meant the difference between a whole heart and a shattered heart, the words that meant everything.

  “Ma! She’s alive!”

  Epilogue

  She opened her eyes. She was in her room, in her bed, deliciously warm and snug under her quilt. The door was open and sounds came from the front room, the clank of a pot, and low voices. Everything was as it should be. “It must have been a dream,” she said aloud. Or more like a nightmare. She remembered it so vividly: the handsome young warrior, the chase, the dart.

  “It was no dream, little one.”

  Evelyn King started and glanced at the person seated in the chair next to her bed. It was the last person she expected to find in her room. “Blue Water Woman?” Shakespeare’s wife smiled. “We have been taking turns keeping watch over you. You had us very worried. It has been three weeks.”

  Evelyn grasped her meaning, and was dumfounded. “Your fever broke a few days ago. Only then did we know you would live.” Blue Water Woman leaned over the bed and placed her palm on Evelyn’s forehead. “Yes. You are on the mend.”

  “It was that dart, wasn’t it?” Evelyn asked.

  Blue Water Woman nodded. “The poison nearly killed you. It was your brother who discovered you still had a pulse. Your mother grabbed you and took his horse and rode like a madwoman to get you here. She refused to sleep, stayed with you day and night until she collapsed. After that, your father made her take turns with the rest of us.”

  “Oh my,” Evelyn said. She went to sit up and was surprised at how weak she felt. Lifting the quilt, she looked down at her nightshirt and could tell by how it clung to her body that she had lost weight. “The one who hurt me with the dart?”

  “Your brother dealt with him.”

  Evelyn’s throat tightened, and she had to cough. “Is everyone else all right? There was someone I met, a warrior who wore green buckskins.” She did not finish what she intended to say.

  “He was a laid up for a week. He and his family are not here now.”

  “Oh.” Evelyn closed her eyes. “That’s too bad. I wanted to thank him. He was nice to me.”

  “He took you against your will.”

  “But he did it nicely,” Evelyn insisted. She did not care to talk about him anymore so she changed the subject. “Would you tell my folks I would like to see them?”

  “Of course.”

  Evelyn supposed she should be giddily happy that she was alive and well, but she felt strangely sad. She heard a commotion, and when she opened he
r eyes, her bed was surrounded by those she loved most in the world.

  Winona’s cheeks were wet with tears of joy. “At last,” she said. “At long last.” She cradled Evelyn in her arms. “You have no idea how worried I have been, daughter.”

  “That makes two of us.” Nate sounded as if he had a cold. He added his long arms to his wife’s.

  “Welcome back to the land of the living,” Louisa said. Zach stood at the food of the bed, his thumbs hooked in his wide leather belt, next to his Bowie and tomahawk. He smirked when Evelyn looked at him over their mother’s shoulder. “Do you suppose you can try to go a year without being kidnapped? It would make all our lives a lot easier.”

  “Thank you,” Evelyn said softly.

  “It’s what brothers do,” Zach said gruffly, and wheeling, stalked out.

  That left the last of them, standing next to Blue Water Woman. Raising his booming voice to the rafters, he quoted, “Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams. I thank thee, Moon, for shining now so bright. For, by thy gracious, golden, glittering gleams, I trust to take of truest Thisbe sight.”

  Evelyn grinned. “Uncle Shakespeare.”

  “Sweet melody to my ears, those words,” Shakespeare said. Apparently, he had caught the same cold as Nate.

  The next several days were some of the best of Evelyn’s life. She had never felt so loved. She was fed and pampered and treated as if she were made of fragile china. On the fourth day her mother announced she needed to get some air. Evelyn was helped into a dress and taken outdoors for the first time since she was stricken. The sun was almost too bright to bear.

  Everyone was on horseback, waiting, which surprised Evelyn, although not nearly as much as the travois attached to her mother’s horse. “What’s that for?”

  “What do you think?” Winona rebutted, and took her hand. “Lie down and I will cover you. We must keep you warm.”

  “This should be fun.” Evelyn had not ridden on a travois since she was a little girl. She remembered the feel of the furs and the poles that formed the frame.