Blood Hunt (A Davy Crockett Western. Book 3) Page 10

  Chapter Nine

  It seemed like a scatterbrained notion. Two men on foot, no matter how fast they were, could never hope to overtake a pair of horses.

  But the woodland in that locale was particularly thick. The dense undergrowth and tightly spaced trees would slow the sorrel and the bay, would force Pashipaho and Rebecca Worthington to hold the animals to a brisk walk, at best.

  Davy retrieved everything he had been forced to drop and lit out, plunging into the forest at the exact point they had.

  “Hold on!” Flavius hollered, bending to grab his rifle. He did not care to be left behind, not with the Atsina war party still on the loose and thirsting for white blood. Hastily following, he frowned when his friend melted into the greenery. He knew that he must follow as best he could. The Irishman wasn’t about to slow down on his account.

  A carpet of pine needles and fallen leaves enabled Davy to move silently. He traveled over a hundred yards, then glimpsed movement. The fleeing pair were riding as rapidly as the terrain allowed. Rebecca was lighthearted, feeling they were safe; she chattered like a chipmunk. Pashipaho, however, was wiser. The warrior rode alertly, repeatedly glancing over his shoulder.

  Davy stayed low, using the cover to its best advantage, flattening whenever the Sauk started to turn. It would have been child’s play to put a ball into Pashipaho’s back, but he didn’t. Killing someone from ambush simply wasn’t in his nature.

  Eventually the pair would stop, and that was when Davy would make his move. He figured they would keep going for quite some time and had just resigned himself to hours of tiring pursuit, when to his surprise the sorrel nickered loudly and Pashipaho promptly reined up.

  Rebecca cried out, words Davy did not quite catch. She vaulted from the bay and dashed forward to kneel beside a small log.

  The saints be praised! Davy thought. He had them! Gliding noiselessly to the left, within moments he was close enough to see that the object he had mistaken for a log was actually a man, lying on his side. Davy stalked closer, halting behind an oak.

  Rebecca was staring in disbelief at Pashipaho. “You can’t be serious!” she said. “We’ve got to do something. If we don’t, he’ll die.”

  The Sauk’s features grew hard. “I am sorry. We must get away while we can. You are more important to me than anyone else.”

  “But he’s my uncle,” Rebecca said, and rolled the limp form over.

  Norval Worthington was unconscious, a nasty gash on his forehead caked with dry blood. A knife wound high in his chest had stained half his shirt.

  Rebecca bent over her kin. “He’s hurt bad, but with our help he can pull through. I won’t let him die, Pashipaho. Norval has always been kind to me. Twice he stopped my pa from taking a switch to my back. I love him.”

  The Sauk stiffly dismounted. “Your soft heart will be the death of us.” Handing her his rifle, he hunkered and slipped his arms under the settler. “There is a stream to the northeast. We will take him there to clean his wounds.”

  Davy picked that moment to stride into the open and level his gun. “You’re going to have some company, whether you want some or not.”

  Both spun. Rebecca began to bring up the rifle but thought better of the idea. Pashipaho grabbed for the knife on his hip, stopping when Davy shook his head.

  “I’d rather not shoot you unless you’re real partial to taking some lead. All we want is what’s rightfully ours.”

  “Without your horses, the Atsinas will catch us,” Pashipaho said angrily.

  “Not if you’re a smidgen as clever as I think you are,” Davy responded. “You know this area like the back of your hand. The Atsinas don’t. Losing them should be as easy as licking butter off a knife.”

  The crash of brush announced the arrival of Flavius. He had heard voices and put on a burst of speed. Puffing like a fish out of water, he trained his rifle on the turbaned Sauk. “I heard what you said. So pull that pig sticker, if you want. I’m not as forgiving as my pard. I’d as soon snuff your wick for what you’ve done.”

  Rebecca was more practical than the man who had claimed her heart. “We can make do without the horses,” she told him. “Please, for my sake, let it be.”

  Pashipaho released the knife, but sparks flickered in the depths of his dark eyes.

  “Shed it, and the rest of your weapons,” Davy directed. “We’ll give them back when we go our separate ways. Not before.”

  “Turnabout is fair play, I suppose,” Rebecca said, grinning. She had to nudge Pashipaho before he would draw his knife and cast it down.

  “Take us to the stream,” Davy said. “Once we revive Norval, well get him to Peoria.”

  While Flavius covered the Sauk, Davy and Rebecca boosted Norval onto the sorrel, draping him over the saddle. Davy asked her to lead the horse, which she gladly did.

  Flavius was overjoyed to be astride the bay. He’d rather ride than walk any day. Rifle cocked and ready, he didn’t take his eyes off the Sauk once.

  Forty-five minutes later, the woodland thinned near the low bank of a bubbling blue ribbon that bordered a narrow lush meadow rife with wildflowers and butterflies.

  Davy made Pashipaho sit on a stump near the water. Lowering Norval, he peeled off the man’s shirt. The knife had bit deep but had spared major arteries and organs. The head wound worried him more. Although the gash was not severe, sometimes blows to the head resulted in brain damage. He recollected an acquaintance who had received a glancing tomahawk blow to the noggin during the Creek War. The man had not been gravely hurt. Yet when the fellow revived, his mind was gone. The woodsman had been left a human vegetable.

  Rebecca brought wood for the fire. Flavius lent her the tinder box, fire steel, and a flint from the possibles bag he carried.

  Frontier women were versed in a variety of tasks. Learning to start fires was paramount, for without fire, meals couldn’t be cooked, clothes couldn’t be properly washed, and no one could indulge in the luxury of a hot bath.

  At an early age girls were taught how to apply kindling, how to strike a slicing blow with the steel against the flint, how to fan sparks with light puffs of breath so the kindling would flare and set the wood ablaze.

  Soon a small fire crackled warmly. After filling Flavius’s coffeepot with water, Rebecca heated it. From the hem of her dress she cut a three-inch strip over a foot long. This she wet and used to clean her uncle’s wounds.

  Norval groaned when she pressed the folded cloth to his head. He mumbled and shifted but did not come around.

  All this while, Pashipaho sat and glared, a wolf at bay. Flavius made it a point to always keep the Sauk in sight. The warrior was just itching for a chance to jump them, and Flavius was not going to give it to him.

  A stand of cottonwoods flanked the stream. Davy selected the highest and shimmied up it, just as he had done countless times as a boy when frolicking in the woods around the family cabin.

  Near the top the slim bole curled under his weight, so he stopped and gazed out over a billowy sea of green canopies, broken here and there by clearings. A hump on the horizon marked the location of the hill. Other than birds and squirrels and deer, no living creatures were abroad.

  Davy stayed in his roost for close to five minutes. When he was fairly confident the war party was not in their immediate vicinity, he climbed down.

  Rebecca had made a pillow of her uncle’s shirt and slid it under his head. She was wringing her makeshift towel, and looked up at Davy’s approach. Nodding at Pashipaho, she commented, “You must despise us like sin for what we’ve done, Mr. Crockett.”

  “Hate is an expensive proposition, ma’am. It’s sort of like setting your innards on fire. It burns a body all up inside, and never does much more than make you miserable.”

  “Was your father a preacher?”

  Davy chuckled. “Goodness, no. He was a ranger during the revolution against the British. After that he tried his hand at various ways of being poor.”

  It was Rebecca’s turn to chuc
kle. Then she said, “Has anyone ever mentioned that you have a colorful way with words? Maybe you should be a writer.”

  The suggestion caused Davy to slap his leg and laugh. “I’d be the worst who ever took up a quill pen. My problem is that I’d never spell a word the same way twice.”

  “You haven’t had much schooling, I take it?”

  “No more than was forced on me,” Davy admitted. “I turned sour on schooling right early. Blame me, since to hear the schoolmaster tell it, he was the greatest orator to come along since man grew a tongue.”

  Norval Worthington stirred, ending their conversation. Opening his eyes, he regarded them a bit. “So I’m not in the hereafter?” he said with a wry smirk. “I reckoned I was a goner, for sure.”

  “How did you get away?” Davy asked.

  Norval’s brow creased. “I don’t rightly know. I remember He-Bear stabbed me. I fell, and crawled past the fire.” Weakly, he lifted a hand to his forehead to touch the damp strip. “Something brushed my legs. I glanced up, and saw one of those red devils holding a war club. After that, everything is all jumbled.”

  “He must have hit you and knocked you down the hill,” Davy guessed.

  “Probably. I seem to recall getting up and running until I couldn’t run any longer.” Grimacing, Norval twisted his head and saw Flavius holding a rifle on Pashipaho. “Where is everybody else? What happened?”

  Briefly, Davy related the disaster, concluding with “Cyrus, Kayne, and you were the only ones unaccounted for. I was hoping the three of you were together.”

  Norval attempted to sit up. Grunting, he rose partway, then collapsed, gritting his teeth. “Damn! I’m so dizzy, I can’t hardly think.”

  “Take it easy, Uncle,” Rebecca said. “There’s no rush. As soon as you’re up to it, these gentlemen from Tennessee are going to see you safely to the settlement.”

  “And what about you, Niece?” Norval asked. “Are you going back to your pa? Or are you traipsing off with that mangy Sauk?”

  Rebecca tensed. “You know?”

  “Hell, girl. A blind man would have noticed how the two of you were always making cow eyes at one another.” Norval licked his dry lips. “Let’s just say I suspected all along. And when your pa described who jumped him, it didn’t take a Ben Franklin to figure out what was what.”

  “But you never let on?”

  “Why should I? You’re a grown woman. It’s high time you stand on your own two feet and do as you want, not as your pa dictates.” Norval gave the warrior a withering glare. “But I can’t say much of the choice you’ve made.”

  “I love him, Uncle.”

  “So? What does love have to do with anything? You’re letting yourself in for a life of pure hell. Find one of your own kind, someone who has decent table manners and won’t work you to death. In a few years you’ll care for him just as much as you do this heathen.”

  “Never.”

  Norval motioned sharply. “Trust me, girl. I’m a lot older than you. I’ve seen it happen more times than I could count. Many a marriage has started out with the husband and wife hardly liking each other. But in time love sprouts, just like a seed. Plant it in your heart and it will take root.”

  “I care for Pashipaho,” Rebecca insisted.

  Exasperated, Norval looked at Davy. “Tell her, Crockett. She’ll be shunned by her own people. Whites don’t want anything to do with women who take up with Indians of their own free will. They’ll brand her a harlot, or worse.”

  “Do you think I don’t know that?” Rebecca said. “I’m willing to bear the consequences.”

  “So you think,” Norval argued. “But you have no idea what you’re letting yourself in for. It will be worse than anything you can imagine. The day will come when you’ll rue the choice you’ve made.”

  “Maybe so. But until that day, I’m staying with Pashipaho.”

  Norval faced the Sauk. “What about you, Indian? Do you care for my niece?”

  The warrior was as self-assured as the woman he adored. “She is the sun and the moon, the rainbow and the dawn. Do not fear. She will always have a lodge roof over her head, and her belly will never be empty. This I pledge.”

  “Idiots!” Norval muttered. “You’re a pair of young idiots.” He shook a fist at Pashipaho. “What about your own kind? What about those who will look down their noses at her because she’s white? What about those who will want her dead? Will you be with her every minute of every day to protect her?”

  The Sauk’s jaw jutted out. “We do not intend to live among my people. We are going off by ourselves.”

  “Wonderful!” Norval said bitterly. “And who will be there to lend a hand when you need it? Who will act as midwife when Rebecca gives birth? Who will your kids play with as they grow up? Who will you rely on when disease strikes? Or calamity befalls you?

  “We will depend on each other,” Pashipaho said.

  Shaking his head, Norval sank back. “Children! I’m dealing with children here!” Grasping Rebecca’s hand, he tenderly stroked it. “Listen to me, girl. Please. Love isn’t enough. It doesn’t mean you’ll live a charmed life. It won’t put food on your table. It won’t spare you or your children from being massacred—”

  Norval would have rambled on, but Rebecca rested a finger across his lips. “Enough, Uncle. You need to rest. We’ll talk more later.”

  “Damned right we will,” Norval said, and drifted off as soon as he closed his eyes. Rebecca folded his hands on his stomach and kissed his forehead.

  Davy sensed that both she and the Sauk were bothered by the old man’s plea, but neither brought it up. The warrior turned his back to them, his shoulders slumped. Rebecca, rising, stepped toward her man, then abruptly changed direction. She strolled to the stream instead, and stood peering intently into a small pool, as if seeking answers in its depths.

  Flavius agreed with the grizzled settler one hundred percent. It would be a cold day in Hades before he’d agree to any daughter of his wedding an Indian. The blonde and the Sauk were too naive to see that Norval had only their best interests at heart.

  The horses had drifted westward. Davy went to fetch them, ambling along the bank to where part of it had collapsed, forming an earthen ramp.

  Davy happened to look down, and halted. Newly imprinted in the damp soil at the stream’s edge was a single track, made by a man wearing moccasins. He recognized the outline of a Sauk moccasin, with its distinctive curved toe.

  Davy pivoted. Pashipaho had not budged since sitting on the stump. Which meant another Sauk had made the print. Scouring the bank, Davy found more a little farther on. A sizable band had crossed the stream at that point, less than an hour ago, heading eastward.

  Whether it was a hunting party or a war party was irrelevant. Especially if the Sauks had heard the distant gunfire. They would prowl the woods until they located whoever was responsible.

  As if Davy did not have enough to worry about! Hastening to the horses, he led them back and tied them securely to a low limb. Rebecca and Pashipaho were shoulder to shoulder, speaking in hushed tones.

  Flavius had moved to the fire but had not taken his eyes off the pair. He straightened in bewilderment when Davy suddenly upended the coffeepot over the flames, smothering them. “What the blazes?” he blurted.

  “Sauks in the area,” Davy explained, kicking the drenched brands to scatter them and minimize the smoke.

  “Damn!” Flavius groused. “When it rains, it pours.”

  He jabbed a thumb at the warrior and the woman. “Are we really just going to let them waltz on off?”

  “What else would you have us do?” Davy asked.

  The whispered response came not from Flavius, but from the battered man at their feet. “Kill Pashipaho.”

  Davy knelt beside Norval. “In cold blood?”

  “It’s for her own good,” the settler quietly urged. “She’s too immature to know what’s best. If she runs off with that red buzzard, she’s doomed to a life of woe.”
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  “I won’t play God.”

  “Who’s asking you to?” Norval said. His imploring gaze drifted from one Tennessean to the other. “Hell, if you boys ain’t got the stomach for it, then lend me a gun. I’ll do the job myself, here and now.”

  “She’d never forgive you,” Davy remarked.

  “That’s my cross to bear. At least when I pass on, I’ll go to meet my Maker knowing that I gave her the gift of a life worth living.”

  Flavius was torn by the oldster’s appeal. It might be doing the woman a favor, true enough. But Davy had a point, too. Who were they to usurp the role of the Almighty?

  “Please,” Norval implored. “A pistol will do. You can turn your backs until it’s over so no one can hold you to blame.”

  “Except our own consciences,” Davy said. “No, it’s wrong. Their fate is in the hands of Providence. We’ll not lift a finger against them.”

  Norval wrung his hands and sank onto his back. “If that was your daughter or niece, you’d do it. You’re weak, Crockett. You’ve no gumption.”

  Davy was unfazed by the insult. “Maybe so, but I’ll sleep better at night.” He looked toward the stump, thinking he should allow the lovers to leave before Norval found a means to do something they would all regret, and was nonplussed to see them fording the stream.

  “Wait!” Davy cried, springing erect.

  Heedless of the command, Pashipaho and Rebecca bolted, quickly gaining the forest. The Sauk shot a grin of triumph at the white men.

  “No!” Davy shouted, giving chase. The fools were leaving unarmed. And they were heading eastward, in the same direction taken by the Sauk band. “Not that way!”

  Splashing across, Davy reached the trees seconds after they did. Yet they were not in sight. He crashed into the brush, following their sign. The tracks and crushed grass lasted for nine or ten feet, then nothing. The trail ended in thin air.

  It couldn’t be! Davy mused. Stooping, he inspected the last few footprints and discovered a double heel print on those left by Rebecca.

  They had walked backward in their own tracks, Pashipaho so perfectly that his double prints were as one. Rebecca did not have as much practice; she gave it away. Davy backtracked a couple of yards to where they had jumped onto a long log that lay at right angles to their original bearing. They had scooted along the log and in among pines.