Sioux Slaughter (A Davy Crockett Western Book 2) Page 10

  Without uttering a word, Cuchillo rose. He wore a blue woolen shirt, leggings, and a breechclout much longer than those Flavius had seen on Indians back in the States. His moccasins were unusual also in that they rose as high as his knees. In addition to the rifle, a long knife hung from his side in a plain leather sheath. Pivoting, he blended into the brush nearest the fire.

  Flavius quietly backed away until he felt it safe to stand, then rose and ran for his life, his heart beating like a hammer. He was almost too scared to think straight. If Cuchillo caught him, he was a goner for sure.

  Forsaking all caution, Flavius sped pell-mell through the growth. Whether he made too much noise now was unimportant. Getting to the dun and getting out of there was what counted.

  Little Hickory bawled once more as Flavius hustled into the clearing. He had half a mind to leave the calf behind, but he sank onto a knee to unfasten the rope from the stump. As he rose, the short hairs at the nape of his neck prickled. He could not say how he knew, but he was no longer alone. He whirled.

  Cuchillo stood between Flavius and the dun. The half-breed glanced at the calf, his forehead creasing.

  “The critter is sort of my pet,” Flavius said without thinking, and felt like a jackass for saying it.

  Again Cuchillo looked at Little Hickory. A peculiar quirk curled the corners of his mouth. Hefting his rifle, he began to circle to the right.

  Flavius automatically circled to the left. He had leaned his rifle against the stump when he untied the calf, but he still had his pistols. Making no attempt to draw, certain that if he tried he would be dead before he touched them, he waited for the half-breed to make the next move.

  The man called Cuchillo came to Little Hickory and stopped. He voiced a throaty chuckle, the first sound he had made, then faced Flavius and slowly started to raise his rifle.

  Flavius had no choice now. He had to do something. So, taking a deep breath, he stabbed his hands to his flintlocks. And, as he had dreaded, the cutthroat was faster. Much faster.

  As if by magic, the ’breed’s rifle was level, pointed at Flavius’s heart. Cuchillo grinned sadistically, as if to say, “You’re as good as dead.”

  Flavius was as rigid as steel. His eyes were on the rifle’s trigger in anticipation of the shot that would end his life. Unexpectedly, behind Cuchillo, there was a rush of motion, the patter of hooves.

  It was hard to say which of them was more surprised when Cuchillo was flung forward as if smashed into by a battering ram. In a sense, he had been. A shaggy, four-legged, knob-horned battering ram that had slammed into his hind end just as it had earlier into Flavius.

  Cuchillo was thrown onto his hands and knees, the rifle sent flying. He landed in front of Flavius and instantly tried to push to his feet. Flavius, on pure impulse, drove his right knee into the man’s jaw with a resounding crack. Cuchillo sagged, stunned but not out. Flavius remedied that by cocking his right arm and planting his fist on the cutthroat’s jaw.

  Soundlessly, Cuchillo dropped.

  Flavius’s knuckles were aching terribly. Shaking his hand, he claimed his rifle, took Cuchillo’s, and climbed onto the dun. Reining northward, he fled, saying to the calf, “Come on or we’re both goners!”

  For once Little Hickory obeyed without misbehaving. In moments they were shielded by the trees, but Flavius did not feel safe until they had gone over a mile without any sign of pursuit. Only then did he realize there would be none. The five men did not have any horses. He recalled seeing several canoes on the shore, but no mounts. “We did it!” he exclaimed. “Will wonders never cease!”

  Little Hickory bleated to hold up his end of the conversation.

  Halting, Flavius shifted to check their back trail, just in case. His thoughts turned to the four women. From what little he had gathered, they were doomed to be taken south and sold. To what purpose? Would they be forced to prostitute themselves? Or was there a more sinister purpose behind their abduction?

  “What do I do now?” Flavius asked aloud.

  The five slavers, or whatever they were, would be on their guard from then on. It would be next to impossible for Flavius to sneak into their camp and free the captives without being caught. Yet how could he live with himself if he rode off without helping?

  A moment ago he had been so happy he could crow like a rooster. Now, depressed, Flavius walked the dun to a stand of saplings and pressed into the center, where he swung down in a small open space. Little Hickory pranced up to nuzzle his leg. Grinning despite himself, Flavius petted the feisty bundle of trouble.

  One thing was clear. He had to get shed of the calf before he could help the women, or it would dog his heels and make a further nuisance of itself. Tying it had proven unwise. The next time a grizzly might hear it bawling, and that would be that.

  Plenty of daylight remained. Why waste it? Flavius climbed back on the dun and headed for the open prairie. He felt awfully exposed and vulnerable leaving the heavy growth. Changing direction to the southwest, he kept his eyes skinned for the calf’s kin.

  Little Hickory ambled merrily along, as content as a hog in mud. Within an hour, though, the steady pace took its toll and the calf flagged.

  Flavius did not stop. Every few minutes he would rise in the stirrups to scour the plain. As yet he had seen deer, he had seen antelope, he had seen coyotes and more of those strange whistling rodents. He had seen a fox and a slew of rabbits, but not a single, solitary buffalo.

  By early afternoon Flavius was about ready to pull out his hair. There were supposed to be millions and millions of bison roaming the grassland, so where the hell were they? Tired, he wiped his forehead with a sleeve. As he lowered his arm, black dots appeared in the distance.

  “More antelope, I reckon,” Flavius remarked, and snorted. Here he was, a grown man, and he had gotten into the habit of talking to a dumb calf as if it were another person. He must have marbles for brains.

  The dots grew bigger, taking on definite proportions. Distinct humps and curved horns framed hairy bulks. It was a small herd of buffalo, at last! Flavius beamed like an imbecile and slowed so as not to spook them.

  “There you are!”

  The calf looked up at him, tail twitching.

  “What are you waiting for?” Flavius demanded, pointing. “Make tracks on over and mingle with your own kind before they mosey elsewhere.”

  Little Hickory stayed right where he was.

  “Didn’t you hear me? Haven’t you caught their scent yet?” Flavius licked a forefinger and held it up, only to learn that the wind was blowing from north to south. “Of course it is,” he groused. “Why should anything go right for a change?”

  Leery of sending them into panicked flight, Flavius approached the grazing animals with the utmost care. He was four hundred yards out before a bull on the fringe lifted its enormous head and spotted him.

  Drawing rein, Flavius waited to see if the temperamental animal would charge. It must not have believed him to be a threat, because it resumed grazing.

  “This is as far as I can go,” he told Little Hickory. “So shoo!” Gesturing, he sought to drive the calf off, but it merely gazed at the herd, uninterested.

  “What is the matter with you?” Flavius snapped. “After all I’ve gone through for you, you have the gall to stand there like a bump on a log?” Sliding from the saddle, Flavius gave the calf a swat on the rump. It moved a few feet, then stopped to stare at him with what he would have sworn was the saddest expression he had ever seen on an animal.

  “I’ve got no time for this nonsense,” Flavius blustered, a lump constricting his throat. He smacked it again, and when it still lingered, he hauled off and kicked it in the posterior. That did the job.

  Squalling like a hungry infant, Little Hickory bounded toward the herd.

  Flavius watched intently, worried that one of the bulls might see fit to challenge the calf. From out of the herd did come an adult, but not a bull. A cow, snorting excitedly, rushed to intercept Little Hickory, and when t
he two met they rubbed against one another, the female licking Hickory’s head just as a cat would lick her kittens. For his part, Little Hickory was beside himself with the buffalo equivalent of pure glee. He gamboled around the cow, kicking up his heels in abandon.

  All’s well that ends well, Flavius figured. Circumstances had apparently brought him to the very herd that the calf belonged to. Mother and offspring had been reunited, so now Flavius could get on with the task he had set for himself.

  There was no hurry, though. Flavius wanted to time it so that he reached the river shortly after the sun went down, and that is exactly what he did. Shrouded by twilight, he slipped into the belt of vegetation without being spotted. So far as he knew.

  Never a wizard at memorizing landmarks like Davy, Flavius was unsure how far he happened to be from the camp of the slavers. As best he could calculate, he was three or four miles to the south.

  Night had claimed the prairie by the time Flavius spied a pinpoint of flickering light through the trees. He’d been worried that the slavers had packed up and paddled off to parts unknown, but they were still there.

  Leaving the dun concealed in some willows, Flavius moved toward the campsite. Nervous as he was, he remembered to employ all the tricks Davy had taught him. He walked on the balls of his feet instead of the soles so as to reduce the risk of stepping on twigs. He also used the terrain to its full advantage by always having something between him and the fire, such as a tree or a bush or a thicket.

  As before, voices confirmed that Flavius was getting close. Crouching, he advanced at a literal crawl, stopping every few yards to listen. The women stealers were having a fine old time, joking and laughing as if they were celebrating at Flavius’s favorite tavern.

  Stupid of them, Flavius thought. It didn’t do to advertise one’s presence in the middle of hostile territory.

  Soon Flavius glimpsed the four captives. They were on the side of the fire nearest the trees, their ankles bound as well as their wrists. The woman who had been tortured had her face pressed to the grass and her shoulders were quaking. The others were, if anything, more downcast than they had been the last time. Two chanted softly.

  The slavers were sprawled around the fire, passing a flask from man to man. At the moment Grist was holding court, declaring loudly, “I tell you, boys, this haul will make our pockets bulge with gold and silver. Well have enough for a month or more in New Orleans. Think of it! Living like kings! Only the best hotels! Only the finest food!”

  “And the finest women,” Kline threw in. “Never forget the women.”

  Grist chortled lustily. “How could I, when they’re my bread and butter?” he responded with a nod at the maidens. Accepting the flask, he took a healthy swallow. “Of course, I can’t take all the credit. If it weren’t for Shaw and his contacts south of the border, we wouldn’t be doing half as well as we are.”

  Weist was adding dead branches to the flames. “You sell yourself short,” he commented. “Your contacts with the Comanches are just as important.”

  “Maybe so,” Grist said, “but the mangy Comanches are too damn stingy most of the time. That last woman we sold to Red Bear should have brought twice as much as she did. She was white, after all.”

  Flavius was shocked. They stole white women too? What manner of men were these that they would treat women, red or white, as if they were cows or horses? Did they have no scruples whatsoever? He crawled a few yards to the left, to a clump of tall weeds. Once the five men fell asleep, he aimed to sneak on in and cut the maidens free.

  Kline was talking. “Let’s just hope Shaw and the others have as much luck with the Minniconjous as we did with the Oglalas. We’d be sittin’ pretty, by God.”

  “Next trip we should hit the Shoshones and the Crows,” Weist suggested. “I favor the mountains. It’s easier to shake anyone who comes after us than it is out here along this godforsaken river.”

  “I wouldn’t fret, were I you,” Grist said. “We’ve been doing this for how many years now? Five? And the stupid Injuns haven’t caught on yet.”

  Kline laughed and slapped his thigh. “I know. Ain’t it glorious! We take their women and they always blame it on a neighboring tribe.”

  “No one’s luck holds forever,” Weist said, breaking a short tree branch in half.

  “Lord, you re depressing,” Grist said. “If you were a fish, I bet the shadow of a sparrow would make you go belly-up.”

  The man with the crippled arm did not take kindly to being the butt of their humor. Glaring, he poked at the fire, muttering, “It’s better to be safe than sorry, as my pa always said. Just because I tell it like I see it doesn’t give you call to step on my toes.”

  “Sheathe your claws, you nit-brain. I didn’t mean anything by it,” Grist apologized. Glancing at Jipala, he said, “What’s your opinion, ’breed? You haven’t said six words all day. Sometimes you’re worse than your friend Cuchillo.”

  Jipala grunted. “I think that all white men talk too much. Listening to you is like listening to chipmunks chatter.”

  Meanwhile, Flavius was crawling closer and closer. He was within a stone’s throw of the women when he glanced at the men again to see how Cuchillo had taken Grist’s remark. To his utter consternation, he realized that Cuchillo was not present and had been absent the whole time.

  But if not there, where was he?

  Behind Flavius the grass rustled. He whirled, or tried to, but this time Little Hickory was not on hand to come to his rescue. His head exploded with pain. The stars danced crazily. And the earth rushed up to meet his face.

  Chapter Ten

  Few things will snap a man out of fatigue faster than having the business end of a cocked rifle shoved into his face.

  Davy Crockett stiffened, raising his arms to show that he was not inclined to resist. His befuddled head clearing, he bestowed his most amiable smile on the scruffy quartet. “What’s wrong, gents? There’s plenty of room for you to swing that canoe on around. This river is wide enough for all of us.”

  “Friendly cuss, ain’t he?” stated the man in the stern.

  “But he doesn’t listen worth spit,” responded the big man holding the rifle. Eyes narrowing, he said to Davy, “I won’t tell you twice to get down, mister.”

  Maybe it was the lack of sleep. Maybe it was the fact that Davy had an instinctive dislike for anyone who pointed a gun at him. Or maybe he was just plain feeling ornery. Whatever the reason, he roosted where he was and replied, “If I had the time, I’d teach you some manners, friend. But as it is, a Dakota war party is dogging my heels and I don’t have the time to waste.”

  The mention of the Sioux alarmed the four. Each brandished a pistol or a rifle and peered past Davy up the Missouri. “The Dakotas, you say?” declared the big man. “Damn it all! Just our luck!”

  A beanpole whose bushy brows nearly hid his eyes gave Davy a stern look. “It wasn’t very smart of you to get the Sioux riled, stranger. What did you do to them?”

  Davy did not feel very kindly disposed toward these men. They were gruff and arrogant and treated him poorly. But they were fellow whites, and if the Sioux caught them, they would be slain even though they were not the ones the Sioux were after. Which they plainly weren’t. The Oglala had mentioned that four women had been stolen, and these men did not have any women with them.

  “It’s not me the Dakotas mainly want,” Davy answered. “I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.” He nudged the sorrel to the right of the canoe, and no one tried to stop him. “They have three war parties out hunting for a pack of no-account white jackals who stole some women from their kinsmen, the Oglalas, three or four days ago.”

  Utter amazement etched the faces of the quartet. “You don’t say!” exclaimed their big leader.

  The beanpole lowered his flintlock. “How is it that the Oglalas think whites are to blame? And how did the Dakotas hear about it so soon? I mean, the Oglalas live a far piece south of here.”

  “The Ogla
las sent a rider who rode his horse into the ground,” Davy explained. “As for your first question, I understand the Oglalas found tracks of white men in some mud along the Missouri. That gave them the clue.”

  “Mighty careless of those whites,” said the big man, who for some reason shifted to scowl at the heaviest of the others. “Wouldn’t you say, Clem?”

  Before Clem could respond, the beanpole smiled at Davy, exposing two blackened front teeth. “My name is Gallows. My friends and me are on our way to the Rockies to join a company of trappers. It’s a blessin’ that we ran into you, mister, or we’d’ve had our hair skinned off. We’re in your debt.”

  “Yep,” chimed in the big man. “What say we hook up and head on back down the river together? Five guns are better than four.” He paused, then held out a hand the size of a bear’s paw. “I’m Garth Shaw, by the way.”

  Davy shook. The man had a grip like a steel trap.

  “Sorry about shoving my gun at you the way I done,” Shaw said. “But not all white men you meet out here are friendly. Some are killers and thieves and worse. I was just being careful.”

  “No harm done,” Davy said. The invitation to join up with them appealed to him. As Shaw had noted, there was strength in numbers. If the Sioux caught up, he’d need all the help he could get. “I like your idea. I’ll stick to the shore and you can stay out in the middle. That way, whether the Sioux come at us from either side or from the rear, one of us is bound to spot them.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Shaw agreed. As one of the others raised a paddle, he said, “How far off do you reckon the Dakotas are, by the way?”

  “There’s no telling,” Davy said, and clucked the sorrel to the west shore. He had been wondering the same thing himself. Depending on how soon the Tetons had discovered he was missing and lit out after him, he had anywhere from a three- to five-hour lead. Probably less, since Struck-By-Blackfeet would be thirsting for his blood.