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  WILDERNESS DOUBLE #9

  17: TRAPPER’S BLOOD

  18: MOUNTAIN CAT

  WILDERNESS DOUBLE EDITION #9

  17: TRAPPER’S BLOOD

  18: MOUNTAIN CAT

  By David Robbins Writing as David Thompson

  First Published by Leisure Books in 1994

  Copyright © 1993, 2017 by David Robbins

  First Smashwords Edition: August 2017

  Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  Our cover features Planning the Approach, painted by Don Stivers, and used by permission.

  This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book

  Series Editor: Mike Stotter

  Text © Piccadilly Publishing

  Published by Arrangement with the Author.

  To Judy, Joshua, and Shane

  WILDERNESS 17: TRAPPER’S BLOOD

  About the Book

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Epilogue

  In the wild Rockies, a man had to act as judge, jury and executioner against his enemies. Only strong mountain men like Nathaniel King could outfight the savage Indians and bloodthirsty renegades roaming the unexplored territory. And when trappers started turning up dead, their bodies horribly mutilated, Nate and his friends vowed to hunt down the ruthless killers. Taking the law into their own hands, they soon found that one hasty decision could make them as guilty as the murderers they wanted to stop.

  One

  Life was good.

  Or so rugged Nathaniel King decided as he rode along the bank of a gurgling stream high in the pristine Rocky Mountains. A free trapper by trade, young Nate had just completed the spring trapping season, and as proof of his skill there were one hundred and seventy-five prime beaver pelts bundled on the three pack animals trailing his big black stallion.

  Nate was already imagining how he would use some of the money he would get at the upcoming Rendezvous when he sold his plews. At the going rate, he stood to earn upwards of nine-hundred dollars, and that was for just the hides he had collected on this trip. During the preceding fall trapping season he had acquired two hundred and ten prime hides which were safely stored in his remote cabin. Added to his current haul, he’d leave the Rendezvous with nineteen-hundred dollars, minus however much he spent for fixings such as powder, ammunition, new traps, grub, and the like, and what his wife spent on whatever struck her womanly fancy.

  In a day and age when the average mason or carpenter made less than five hundred dollars a year, Nate reflected that he was doing right fine. He was justly proud of his ability to provide for his family, and looked forward to the look on Winona’s lovely face when she learned he would finally go along with her plan to buy a fancy rug for their home. She had been pestering him about it for quite some time, ever since he made the mistake of taking her to St. Louis and letting her see how white women lived. Since then he’d been persuaded to install an expensive glass pane in their window, to board over the dirt floor, and make a few other changes that Winona felt improved their homestead.

  Women! Nate thought, and snorted. Men were unable to live without them, yet living with them was sometimes as trying as living with a cantankerous grizzly. Still, as he fixed his wife’s shapely form in his mind’s eye and dwelled on the many grand times they had shared, he realized he wouldn’t trade being married for all the plews in the world.

  The black stallion suddenly nickered, shattering Nate’s daydream. He promptly reined up, hefted the heavy Hawken in his left hand, and gazed in all directions, seeking whatever had caught the stallion’s notice. No mountain man survived very long being careless, and Nate had every intention of living to a ripe old age.

  The streams Nate had trapped were situated on the west slope of the Rockies, well to the north of his usual haunts. No one Indian tribe claimed the territory, yet many hunting and war parties passed through the area regularly. Some of them were Blackfoot, Piegan, and Blood war parties, all of whom would slay and scalp a white man on sight. Nate had to constantly exercise the stealth and caution of a panther if he hoped to see his family again.

  Nate was at the edge of a dense pine forest. Before him unfolded a spacious valley lush with green grass. Beyond the valley reared a solitary mountain crowned by a jagged peak tipped with snow. On the slope of that mountain figures were moving, riders moving from north to south. He counted nine, and although the distance was too great to note details, he felt certain they were Indians.

  For one thing, there were no packhorses, which whites invariably had. For another, the riders were strung out in single file, a customary practice of war parties whether mounted or afoot. And finally, sunlight glinted off what could be the tips of several lances.

  Nate stayed right where he was to avoid being detected. The trapping had gone so well he hated to risk spoiling it by tangling with hostiles. He thought of his four friends, free trappers like himself who had entered the region with him and then scattered to various points to lay their trap lines, and he hoped none of them had encountered the band.

  It took five minutes for the Indians to cross the mountain slope and disappear in fir trees. Nate waited another five before jabbing his heels into the stallion’s flanks and moving down the valley. Warm sunshine on his bearded face and the cries of sparrows, jays, and ravens served to relax him and reassure him that the danger had passed.

  During the eventful years Nate had spent in the wilderness, he had learned to read Nature as some men read books. When the wildlife fell silent, he knew to expect trouble. When the animals frolicked and chattered, all was well. The habits of the birds and beasts, the moods of the fickle weather, and the rhythms of the wild in general were as familiar to him as his own countenance in a mirror.

  Often Nate’s knowledge had meant the difference between life and death. The Rockies were no place for the squeamish, the weak, or the ignorant. Those who didn’t learn fast paid for their laziness with their lives. Of the hundreds of hopeful greenhorns who entered the mountains each year, the majority never got to return to the States.

  Not that Nate ever would anyway. He had grown to love the untamed frontier, to revel in a life of freedom unmatched by anything back East. Here he could do as he saw fit, accountable to no one but himself. There was no boss standing over his shoulder, telling him how to go about his work. There were no deceitful politicians trying to rule his life with their petty laws and rules. He was truly as free as the eagle, ruled by nothing but his heart’s desire. Could any man ask for more?

  Nate shook his head and grinned. He was becoming too wrapped up in his own musings for his own good. Staying alert was the key to staying alive, so he kept his eyes on those fir trees on the mountain until he reached a point abreast of a gap in the hills to his left. Toward this he made his way, knowing that in the next valley over he would find one of his four friends.

  The blazing morning sun climbed to the midday position, and still Nate forged on. Weeks had elapsed since last he had talked to another human being, and he was eager for company again. Loneliness was part of a trapper’s life, a part he had become accust
omed to, but unlike some trappers who preferred to be alone the whole year through, Nate couldn’t wait for companionship when the trapping season was over.

  A red hawk soaring high on uplifting currents caught Nate’s attention. He watched it glide over the hills, and spotted a magnificent black-tailed buck in a clearing on one of them. Had the range been shorter, he would have been tempted to drop the deer.

  Nate’s nostrils tingled to the rich, dank scent of bare earth as he entered the gap. Here little sunlight penetrated. He saw many tracks of elk, bear, and deer, but only four sets of horse prints, and they were so old they were barely visible. He knew who had made them, and he grinned in anticipation.

  The next valley was narrower but contained more vegetation. At a ribbon of a stream dotted with large beaver ponds, Nate turned to the left to follow the waterway to his friend’s camp. He covered two miles, then caught the faint acrid scent of smoke. A little further on he saw a clearing ahead, and to one side, under the spreading branches of a towering tree, a small fire crackled. Four horses were tethered nearby, but there was no sign of their owner.

  Halting, Nate cupped a hand to his mouth and hailed the camp, a practice that prevented those with itchy trigger fingers from making a fatal mistake. “Shakespeare! Where the devil are you?”

  “Right behind you, Horatio.”

  Startled, Nate shifted in the saddle and glared at the speaker. “You ornery varmint,” he declared, feigning anger. “Don’t you know any better than to go sneaking up on someone?”

  Shakespeare McNair threw back his white-maned head and laughed lustily. Then he made a grand show of bowing at the waist, declaring, “So please your majesty, I would I could quit all offenses with as clear excuse as well as I am doubtless I can purge myself of many I am charged withal.”

  “Let me guess,” Nate said, and deliberately guessed wrong. “Romeo and Juliet?”

  “Pitiful. Downright pitiful,” the older man grumbled. “What are the young’uns coming to nowadays? Didn’t you have a proper education?” He came alongside the stallion. “That was from King Henry the Fourth. Part One, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” Nate said. He had long ago discovered the folly of arguing with his mentor over the works of William Shakespeare. No one, absolutely no one, knew the writings of the Bard better than the grizzled mountain man whose nickname was a token of his peculiar literary passion. Shakespeare could quote his namesake by the hour, and to Nate’s knowledge no one had ever proven a single quote to be wrong. “But what’s this nonsense about you having an excuse for scaring the daylights out of me?’’

  “’Tis true, young sir,” Shakespeare said good-naturedly. “I was only helping to keep you on your toes.”

  “You needn’t worry in that regard,” Nate said, moving toward the tree. “The war party I saw earlier did the trick.”

  “What war party?” Shakespeare asked. He was somber now, since he well realized the implications, and he listened attentively while Nate described the band. “Blackfeet would be my guess. This is one of their main routes south to Ute country.”

  “My thinking too,” Nate agreed. Dismounting, he tied his horses, then walked to the fire, and was handed a tin cup brimming with steaming coffee. “They’re long gone by now, though. We can be well on our way before they return.”

  “I suppose,” Shakespeare said. Squatting, he poured himself a cup, and quoted thoughtfully, “Nimble mischance, that art so light of foot, doth not thy embassage belong to me, and am I last that knows it?”

  “In other words, we shouldn’t let down our guard for a minute,” Nate translated.

  “Exactly.” Shakespeare sipped loudly and stared at the bundles on Nate’s pack animals. “Appears to me you did right fine.”

  “How about you?”

  “One hundred and ninety-four plews.”

  “You beat me again.”

  “Did I?” Shakespeare grinned. “Well, I had to work my britches off to do it. Must of scoured the valleys and parks westward for better than forty miles.”

  “The same here.” Nate sat back against a log and took a swallow. “The beaver are becoming harder and harder to find. Each season it gets a bit worse.”

  “And it will continue to get worse,” Shakespeare predicted. “There are just too blamed many trappers. Why, not ten years ago, before the fancy ladies and fashionable gentlemen back in the States took to craving beaver hats and collars and such, there were so many beaver in these mountains that a man couldn’t kneel down to take a drink without bumping heads with one. The critters chopped down so many trees to make their dams, there was hardly any timber left to use for making firewood.”

  “Oh, please,” Nate said, chuckling. “I’m no longer a child.”

  “Don’t believe me if you want,” Shakespeare responded. “I only exaggerated a little.” Sighing, he encompassed the neighboring mountains with a sweep of an arm. “There’s been a lot of change since the trappers moved in, and not all of it has been for the better. If things keep going the way they are, before you know it we’ll have settlers spreading out over the countryside like a swarm of locusts, driving off the Indians and killing off all the game. Out here will be just like the East.” He shuddered. “God help us.”

  Nate shook his head. They had been over the same subject countless times, and nothing he had said had been able to convince McNair that the prairie and the mountains would last forever as glorious bastions of freedom and adventure. Most Easterners wouldn’t think of crossing the Mississippi; they regarded everything west of that mighty river as wasteland, part of the Great American Desert, as explorer Stephen H. Long had called the plains during his brief expedition some years before.

  “I hope I don’t live to see that,” Shakespeare was saying. “I want to remember the wilderness as it should be, wild and uninhabited.”

  “It must be all your white hairs,” Nate joked. “You’ve turned into a first-rate worrier.”

  Shakespeare fixed his narrowed eyes on the younger man. “Your mind is all as youthful as your blood,” he quoted, adding, “You’ll learn, though, One day you’ll see that I knew what I was talking about.”

  Their banter was suddenly interrupted by a crackling in the woods to the northwest. Nate leaped to his feet, his right hand dropping to one of the twin flintlocks adorning his waist. In addition to the pistols, he had a butcher knife in a beaded sheath and a tomahawk tucked under his wide brown leather belt. Slanted across his broad chest were the powder horn and ammo pouch for his guns.

  McNair had also risen. “It’s him again,” he muttered. “Who?”

  “The same contrary cuss who has visited my camp every few days for the past month. If I had any sense, I would have shot the nuisance weeks ago.”

  “Who are you talking about?” Nate asked, tensing as the crackling grew louder. Vaguely, he spied a bulky form moving toward them through the heavy undergrowth.

  “Not who,” Shakespeare corrected him. “What.”

  The brush parted, revealing a young black bear, a male no more than a year old, if that. It squalled on seeing the camp and came forward at a lumbering shuffle. McNair’s horses showed no reaction; evidently they were accustomed to the bear’s visits. But Nate’s animals whinnied and fidgeted.

  “Stand still until he gets to know you,” Shakespeare advised. “I don't want you spooking poor Brutus.”

  “Brutus?"

  “Well, I couldn’t very well call the thing ‘It’ all the time, now could I?” Shakespeare responded testily. Setting down his coffee, he moved around the fire and stood with his hands on his hips. The bear displayed no fear whatsoever as it came right up to the mountain man and rubbed its head against his buckskin-clad leg. “See? As friendly as a Flathead.” Shakespeare stroked the creature’s neck and scratched behind its ears.

  “You’re getting awful softhearted,” Nate said. “Wait until I tell our wives.”

  “We can’t go around killing every animal we see,” Shakesp
eare countered. Reaching into his possibles bag, he pulled out a thin strip of jerked deer meat, tore the piece in half, and gave it to their visitor. The bear knew just what to expect, and delicately took the dried meat between its tapered teeth, then chomped hungrily.

  “Are you fixing to take Brutus back with you?” Nate asked.

  “Not hardly.” Shakespeare gave the bear the rest of the jerky. “This coon might be softhearted, but I’m not as addle pated as you’d like to think.”

  Nate studied the bear a moment. “That’s a nice hide you’re passing up. And all that meat and fat. It makes my mouth water just to think about it.”

  “Oh?” Shakespeare glanced up, triumph lighting his face. “Would you kill that pet wolf your son is so attached to?”

  “Blaze? Never.”

  “Then don’t be poking fun at Brutus.” Shakespeare patted the bear’s front shoulders and the animal flinched and whined. “What’s this? What have we here?” Shakespeare leaned down, examining the fur. “Looks like something got its claws into you.”

  Nate bent over the bear for a look. There were three slash marks, so fresh blood still seeped from them, each at least an inch deep. “Panther, you figure?” he asked.

  “Could have been,” Shakespeare said, although his tone implied he was not quite convinced. Straightening, he surveyed the primeval forest, particularly the various shadows under some of the giant pines. “There aren’t many creatures that will tangle with a bear, even a small one like Brutus.”

  “Another bear would,” Nate mentioned casually.

  “True,” Shakespeare said, his lips puckering.

  The object of their concern was now rummaging in the stack of supplies at the base of the tree, sniffing loudly as it poked its black nose under the flaps of closed parfleches and into whatever other nooks and crannies it could find.

  “Your friend just makes himself to home, doesn’t he?” Nate asked.