Blood Hunt (A Davy Crockett Western. Book 3) Read online

  Footsteps verified that the pair were behind him. Davy gauged how safe it was by the chirping of the birds and the chattering the squirrels. No one else was abroad.

  After hiking a quarter of a mile to the stream, Davy hunkered to splash water on his face and neck and treat himself to a drink. The Sauk lay flat next to him and dipped his entire head under the water.

  A flat rock enticed Rebecca to sit and drink daintily by cupping her palm. She observed her reflection and bent lower. “Oh, my,” she said. “I look a sight.” Lacking a comb, she made do with her fingers, then smoothed her clothes.

  Davy hiked his shirt to dab water on the knife wound. The blade had creased him, no more, but it stung constantly.

  Rebecca gazed thoughtfully into the distance. “I’ve sure made a mess of my life, haven’t I?” she mused aloud. “And all I ever wanted was to live in peace with the man I care for.” She swiveled her head. “We overheard my uncle, Mr. Crockett. That’s why we cut out. We were afraid you’d do what he wanted and shoot Pashipaho.”

  “My ears for a heel tap if I ever let someone talk me into going against my grain,” Davy said. “I’m no man’s lapdog.” He lowered the shirt. “As for the other, there’s no denying that your life is in a hellacious knot. But it’s been my experience that most knots can be unraveled if a body has the patience and the perseverance.”

  Rebecca smiled wanly. “There you go again. You’re a regular fount of wisdom. Mighty rare for someone who is half horse and half gator.”

  Davy chortled. “Folks in my neck of the woods like to boast almost as much as they like their horns of liquor. Why, at election time, we wear down most of the stumps in the county telling tales that would make a gypsy blush.” Standing, he added self-consciously, “I reckon it’s in my blood.”

  Their conversation had relaxed Rebecca. She hummed as she rose to go. Not so Pashipaho. Wearing a grim mask, he brought up the rear.

  Davy could hardly wait to rejoin Flavius and be on their way. The delay was keeping them from hearth and home, and his powerful hankering to see his wife and sprouts had grown more powerful thanks to Rebecca and the Sauk.

  Their predicament reminded Davy of his courting days, back when he had sparked his first wife, Polly Finley. Just when they thought their nuptials were sewn up, after he had made arrangements with a parson and was all set to tie the knot, her mother had risen in righteous resistance and denied permission. Eventually, the marriage had taken place, but for a while there, he had been as worried as a fox in coon kennel that it would fall through.

  Being opposed by a flighty prospective mother-in-law in no way compared to the ordeal Rebecca and Pashipaho had suffered. But it gave him a different perspective than most. He could sympathize with their plight. Which was why he had gone out of his way to help.

  Davy saw the campsite. Flavius sat with his back to the stump, body sagging, apparently enjoying a nap. Davy grinned—until he realized Norval was missing. “What in the world?” he exclaimed, and moved into the middle of the clearing. Too late, he spied the shadowy shapes lurking along the fringe of the vegetation. Too late, he tried to bring up his rifle.

  “Do it and you die!” snarled one of those shapes, as into the sunlight strode Norval, Cyrus, and John Kayne.

  Chapter Eleven

  For a heartbeat the tableau was frozen in time and place. Then Rebecca Worthington flung a hand to her bosom and backed up, shouting, “Run, my love! It’s a trap!”

  Instead of fleeing by himself, however, Pashipaho leaped forward, snagged her wrist, and spun with her. It was a grand but futile gesture. Futile, in that Norval moved between them and the trees and trained a cocked pistol on the Sauk.

  “You’re not going anywhere, Injun,” the settler said. “We’ve got plans for you.”

  Davy was helpless to intervene. Cyrus had him covered. One twitch and he’d be shot, if the mad gleam in Cyrus’s beady eyes was any indication.

  John Kayne came over. Acting discomfited by what he had to do, he said, “I’m real sorry about this, friend,” and stripped Davy of weapons. “But I can’t risk having you do something we’ll both regret. I’ve no desire to make wolf meat of you.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Cyrus growled, extending his pistol. “Were it up to me, I’d as soon blow his stinkin’ brains out or gut him for the buzzards to finish off.”

  Kayne turned, the muzzle of his rifle ending up a hand’s width from the hothead’s abdomen. “I’ve warned you once. I won’t waste my breath again. He’s given us no call to rub him out.”

  Cyrus snorted. “I don’t cotton to meddlers,” he said, as if that were justification enough to kill someone.

  “We can’t fault a man for doing what he thinks is right,” Kayne said. “Besides, he fought by our side up on that hill. I saw him kill one of the heathens with my own eyes.” Moving a safe distance, Kayne deposited Davy’s arms on the grass. “We’ll stick to the plan, Cy. That’s final.”

  Rebecca had slid around Pashipaho to shield him with her own body from Norval’s pistol. “What plan were you talking about, Uncle?” she demanded apprehensively.

  It was Cyrus who answered, venom lacing each syllable. “We’ve decided to make an example of your red bastard, girl. We’re takin’ him back with us and holdin’ a trial, all legal-like. And then we’re going to hang the son of a bitch, just as legal-like.”

  Norval nodded. “It’ll show the Sauks that our law applies to their kind as well as ours, and it’ll teach them not to rise up against their betters.”

  A brittle laugh rattled from Cyrus. “Folks will come from miles around to see the scum’s neck stretched. We’ll make a holiday of it, with a picnic and a church social and all. Everyone will have a fine time.”

  Rebecca pressed back against Pashipaho. “Dear Lord, no! I won’t let you hurt him!”

  “Let us?” Cyrus said, and guffawed. “Sugarplum, there ain’t a damn thing you can do to stop us.”

  Davy had noticed that despite the loud voices and the commotion, Flavius had not moved. “What did you do to my pard?” he asked.

  John Kayne motioned, implicitly giving permission for Davy to go to the stump. “I’m afraid that I had to rap him on the noggin with a limb. But I didn’t use my full strength. He should come around shortly.”

  Flavius was breathing evenly. His pulse was normal. Davy ran a hand over his friend’s head, finding a bump the size of a walnut. Going to the stream, he filled his coonskin cap. As the cold water trickled down over Flavius’s face, Harris groaned, then coughed, then revived, sitting bolt upright.

  “What the hell?”

  “Relax. You’re still in the land of the living.” Davy stopped pouring and emptied out the rest.

  Pain pounded dully between Flavius’s ears. Wincing, he slowly rose high enough to sit on the stump. He did not need to ask what had happened. The last he remembered was hearing a stealthy footfall behind him, and starting to pivot. “If we ever make it home to Tennessee,” he muttered, “I swear to high heaven that I’m never leaving Matilda again. I’ve learned my lesson.”

  Cyrus tittered. “Too bad others ain’t as smart as you, fat man. We’d all have been saved a heap of grief if my bride-to-be knew her proper place.”

  “Damn you!” Rebecca railed. “I don’t care what my father wants. Drag me back, if you will, but I’ll never marry you. I’ll shoot myself first.”

  “You say that now,” Cyrus said. “But in a few months you’ll have forgotten all about this Injun. In a year, you’ll leap at the chance to be my wife. Any gal would.”

  The settlers wasted no more time. Pashipaho was bound, and none too gently. When Rebecca objected to how hard Cyrus was tying the knots, Cyrus bound her, as well. She and the Sauk were swung onto the horses. With Cyrus leading the sorrel and Kayne the bay, their little group wended their way southward.

  Davy and Flavius trailed the horses and were in turn followed by Norval, whose cocked pistol was rock-steady. A strip torn from his shirt served as a bandage.<
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  Depressed by the turn of events, Flavius hiked morosely along. He had looked forward to being shed of the woman and the warrior. Now they were no better off than they had been earlier—worse even, since it might be days before they were allowed to resume their journey.

  Davy plodded glumly, too, more for show than anything else. Giving up was as foreign to him as the Greek alphabet. He wanted to dupe Norval into believing he had resigned himself to his fate, though, so Norval would lower that pistol and he could turn the tables.

  The afternoon sun blazed a tedious arc. Davy plucked the end off a blade of grass and chewed on it to moisten his mouth. He did not waste his energy trying to persuade Cyrus to be lenient with Pashipaho. Hatred fed on bloodshed, and Cyrus was hate incarnate.

  Out of the woodland hove the hill. John Kayne gave it a wide berth and slowed so drastically that Cyrus complained. “Have you forgotten so soon, boy?” Kayne responded. “He-Bear and his savage ilk are roaming these parts, seeking our scalps. And I’m partial to mine, thank you.”

  As usual, Cyrus scoffed. “Hell, those vermin are hightailin’ it back to whatever pit spawned them with their tails between their legs.”

  “They licked us, as I recollect,” Kayne said dryly.

  “Through no fault of ours,” Cyrus said. “Some of the connivin’ devils were hidin’ in the weeds. They didn’t fight fair.”

  Davy could not resist. “And you did? With those men you had up in the trees?”

  “That was a precaution, nothin’ more. When dealin’ with rabid wolves, anything goes.”

  Some men, Davy reflected, made a habit of bending and twisting the truth to suit their own fancy. For Cyrus to brand the Atsinas as rabid was an injustice to the Atsinas. But when it came to being ruthless, few could hold a candle to the impending groom.

  Davy stretched to relieve stiffness in his back. In doing so, he caught a furtive glance that Pashipaho gave John Kayne and Cyrus. The Sauk was up to something. He saw Pashipaho look at Rebecca, saw the slight bob of her chin.

  They were going to make a break for it. Davy would do what he could, even at the cost of taking a bullet. He tried to catch Flavius’s eye, but Flavius walked as one en route to the gallows, with head low and features downcast. To distract the settlers, Davy cleared his throat and said, “You know, I’ve had runs of bad luck before, but this beats all. Reminds me of the time I was bear hunting. My dogs sniffed one out, and it lit out like its paws were on fire. When I caught up to them, that old bear was skinning up a huge tree. I took a bead, but he dropped quick as a snake into a hole.”

  “Who cares?” Cyrus said.

  “I haven’t gotten to the point yet,” Davy said. Out of the corner of an eye he glimpsed Pashipaho grip the sorrel’s mane. “For no sooner did that bear vanish inside the trunk of that tree than the most godawful roaring and rumbling came out of the hole. And the next second, so did the bear, with an even bigger bear nipping at its hindquarters.”

  “How interesting,” Cyrus commented sarcastically.

  “What’s your point?” Norval asked.

  “My point is that bears and people have more in common than you’d think. We ought to never go poking our noses into someone else’s private space.”

  Cyrus looked back at him. “Strange talk comin’ from a meddler like you, Tennessee.”

  Suddenly Pashipaho whooped and slapped his legs against the bay’s sides. The horse exploded, hurtling into John Kayne and sending him sprawling. Guiding the horse with his legs alone, Pashipaho sped toward the undergrowth.

  Rebecca tried to follow him. She kicked and prodded, but Cyrus held on to the sorrel’s reins with both hands. The sorrel trotted a few yards and stopped.

  “Stop, you!” Norval bellowed, scampering to the left to get a clear shot. “Come back here or I’ll shoot!”

  Pashipaho could have made it anyway. He was so close to cover that in another few bounds he would have been lost among the trees. But on seeing that Rebecca had been caught, he straightened and called out, “I will do as you say! Do not fire!”

  “No!” Rebecca urged. “Keep going! I’ll be fine! You matter more!”

  The Sauk would not listen. Swinging the horse around, he meekly brought it to a halt next to John Kayne, who had risen. Kayne grasped the reins without comment and did not retaliate.

  Cyrus did not share the tall frontiersman’s forgiving mood. Stomping to the bay, he hooked his left hand into Pashipaho’s shirt and heaved, upending the Sauk. Pashipaho hit on his shoulder and attempted to get up, but Cyrus was on him in a whirlwind of maddened blows, battering him relentlessly on his head and shoulders. Under the onslaught, the warrior crumbled.

  “Stop, damn you!” Rebecca raged. She slid off the sorrel, and was seized by her uncle.

  Davy took a step, but the business end of Kayne’s rifle prevented him from taking another. He had to stand there and watch as Pashipaho was pounded and kicked and smashed with the rifle’s stock.

  Cyrus did not relent until he was flushed and out of breath. “Try that again and there’ll be hell to pay,” he rasped, wiping blood off the barrel with a sleeve.

  Pashipaho took a long time to stir. Blood seeped from his split forehead, and one ear had been pulped. His turban had fallen off. Cracked knuckles sought purchase on the earth as he pushed to his knees.

  Someone groaned, but not the Sauk. Rebecca smacked a heel against Norval’s shins. He released her. She darted to the warrior, braced him up, and was brutally shoved by Cyrus.

  “Look at you, girl! Makin’ a spectacle of yourself! If the good people of Peoria could see you now, they’d want nothin’ to do with you.”

  Boiling with indignation, Rebecca said, “Didn’t it ever occur to you, Cy, that maybe I don’t care what they want? That I’d be perfectly content if they, and you, would all just drop dead?”

  Cy raised a hand to strike her but was foiled when Norval scampered between them “Don’t you dare lay a finger on her,” he warned, the pistol now centered on her suitor. “The poor child is mistreated enough by her own father.”

  “You heard her!” Cyrus snapped. “No wonder her pa slaps her around if she won’t clamp a lid on that tongue of hers.” Chest swelling, he bragged, “No wife of mine will ever have loose lips, I can tell you! Once we’re hitched, I’ll see that she shows some respect.”

  “I’ll never marry you!” Rebecca said.

  “Oh?” Chuckling, Cy walked to the bay. “After everyone hears what you’ve done, no other man but me would want to be your husband. We’re destined to be together.” To Pashipaho he said, “This time I’m leadin’ your horse. And I won’t think twice if you act up.”

  The warrior had to be helped on. Rebecca lingered, tenderly caressing his split cheek.

  “Come, girl,” Norval said, prying her away.

  Rebecca jerked free. “Don’t touch me ever again, Uncle. I used to think that you were special, but now I know you’re no better than Cy and his breed.”

  Davy and Flavius trudged elbow to elbow. “I reckon this is another fine fix I’ve gotten us into,” the Irishman confessed.

  “If it ain’t chickens, it’s feathers,” Flavius said, and mustered a grin. “You do have a knack, though. Some men were born to be great painters. Some are wizards at music. You just happen to have a talent for attracting trouble like manure attracts flies.”

  “Lucky me,” Davy joked.

  Soon the raucous chattering of a squirrel arrested Davy’s interest. It was in a tree about seventy yards to their rear, yet it had not uttered a peep when they went by. Hopping from limb to limb, the animal vented its spleen on something in the brush below.

  Davy did not attach much importance to the tirade until a flock of sparrows took frenzied wing to the northeast, approximately sixty yards distant. Whatever was out there was drawing closer. “Kayne!” he whispered.

  The tall frontiersman gave the sorrel’s reins to Norval and waited for Davy and Flavius to catch up. “What’s the matter?”

 
; “Didn’t you hear that squirrel?”

  Kayne scanned the forest. “No. I’ve been mulling over what we’re doing.” His hawkish features were a study in inner torment. “Just between you and me, Crockett, I’m beginning to have my doubts.”

  “About time,” Davy said.

  “Who am I to deny Rebecca happiness? Just because I don’t think it’s right, should I be a party to hanging the man she loves? I’ll admit I look down my nose at his kind, but having him for a husband beats leading apes in hell.”

  The figure of speech was not new to Davy. It alluded to women who died unwed, and stemmed from the general low esteem in which spinsters were held.

  A squawking blue jay flapped skyward from a thicket forty-five yards to the north. Davy and Kayne both slowed, Kayne saying softly, “When will I learn? I shouldn’t have let my mind wander.”

  “Warn the others,” Davy suggested. “And give us rifles. Empty-handed we can’t help much.”

  Kayne hastened to Norval, whispered in his ear, and passed on to Cyrus, who thoughtlessly brought their small caravan to a stop and announced loudly, “Injuns? Are you sure?”

  Flavius swallowed hard. They should have kept going and not let on that they knew they were being shadowed. He was not a violent man, and he had never been given to holding grudges, but it would please him immensely to punch Cyrus full in the mouth.

  Davy spotted rustling grass thirty yards off. Elsewhere, a sapling shook. At still another point, weeds bent. Yet the wind had died. So there was more than one. Whether they were Sauks or Atsinas was irrelevant. Either would be out for blood.

  Cyrus had let go of the bay and was walking back. “Maybe the Tennesseans are trying to trick us,” he said to John Kayne. “I’m not about to hand them a gun until I know for a fact that hostiles are out there.”

  Out of thin air whizzed an arrow. The shaft thudded into Cyrus’s left shoulder, transfixing him and jolting him backward. In sheer reflex he banged off a wild shot, then turned and staggered toward the horses.