Wilderness Giant Edition 6 Page 12

  Ignacio, true to character, bristled and moved toward her. “I will teach you to hold your tongue, bitch.”

  “No!” Don Varga said. “Enough of this. Release the woman, but keep her guns, her bullets, and her powder. She has my blessing to leave in search of her esposo.”

  Her heart soaring, Blue Water Woman stripped off her pouch and powder horn for them. Willingly, she handed them over, then rotated toward the sorrel. Her eyes caught Nate’s. “I must do it. You can see that, can you not?”

  “Go,” Nate said.

  Blue Water Woman entwined her fingers in the sorrel’s mane and swung up. She gazed at Winona, at the children, and froze, stricken in her soul by self-torment.

  Winona divined her friend’s turmoil. They were more like sisters than friends, the bond they shared second only to the bond they had with their husbands. To soothe her, Winona smiled and said, “We all do what we have to. Do not look back.”

  Whipping the reins, Blue Water Woman rode off before the Spaniard changed his mind. She did as Winona advised, and it made the heartache bearable. Once trees shrouded her, she vowed aloud, “I will be back, my friends.”

  In the meadow, a lump in her throat, Winona watched the vegetation close around the sorrel’s rump. She will save us, Winona thought. Blue Water Woman will free Shakespeare and they will return. She refused to admit the overwhelming odds against it.

  Don Varga clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention. “Let King up,” he commanded. “Tie his hands in front of him so he can ride, and keep them tied until I am convinced he will not give us trouble. We leave for the prairie in ten minutes.”

  The vaqueros had acquired a healthy respect for the power in the mountain man’s blows. Four held him while two others bound his wrists.

  Winona, Zach, and Evelyn rushed to his side as soon as the vaqueros walked off. Winona and Evelyn embraced Nate, Evelyn sniffling quietly, Winona with her eyes shut tight.

  Zach expressed his relief in a different fashion. “If they had made wolf meat of you, Pa, I wouldn’t rest until every one of them was crawling with maggots.” Nate smiled, which was all he could do with his hands tied. He did not let on how disturbed he was by the pledge. Was that what it would come to? Would Zach waste the rest of his life tracking down each and every vaquero involved?

  Don Varga carried a water skin toward them. “A peace offering, señor. To prove I am not the cruel fiend you undoubtedly think I am.”

  Zach could not keep silent. “You could have fooled us, mister. Holding us against our will. Beating my pa. You have a heap to answer for.”

  “Your youth betrays you, boy,” Don Varga said. “When you have children of your own, come to me and we will see if you feel the same.”

  “There is no excuse for keeping us prisoner,” Winona said stiffly. “You have no right. This land is claimed by my husband’s people, not yours.” The whole concept of claiming land as one’s own was silly to her, but since other whites liked to do so, she reasoned the Spanish would as well.

  Nate caught something in the Spaniard’s expression, a crinkling of the eyes and lips that suggested Winona had found a weak spot. But what did Varga care who owned the land?

  “Bear with me,” said their captor. “In a few short months it will be done with. You can go your way, I will go mine, and our paths will never cross again.”

  “You’re forgetting a few things,” Nate said. “The Utes, for one. Whoever ambushed us, for another.” He indicated the lofty peaks to the west. “These mountains might be your final resting place.”

  Vargo gave the water skin to Winona. “Pray that is not the case. For if it is, these mountains could be yours, as well.”

  Eleven

  Twilight claimed the high country when Blue Water Woman was still miles from the plateau where they had lost the trail. She was tempted to keep going. But soon the big predators would be abroad. With the sorrel to think of, and her own safety, she must find a safe haven to spend the night.

  The only weapon the vaqueros had left her was her knife, a Green River blade given to her by Shakespeare. It would not help much against a hungry grizzly or a roving mountain lion.

  She was passing through a belt of pines, the sorrel’s hoofs thudding dully on the thick carpet of needles. A cluster of boulders appeared. Investigating, she found they were arranged in a horseshoe shape, the narrow open end pointing south.

  There was not much for the sorrel to eat, but they would be protected from the brisk wind that invariably sprang up once the sun went down. Even better, the boulders afforded some protection from the wild beasts and would make it hard for anything passing by to pick up their scent.

  Dismounting, the Flathead led the sorrel into the middle. From one of her parfleches she took a short length of rope, which she used to hobble the sorrel’s front legs.

  To lose the animal now would be a disaster. Stranded afoot, virtually unarmed, her prospects of saving her husband would be slim to none.

  Blue Water Woman was not going to bother with a fire, so she did not gather wood. She did go off among the trees, hunting until a fallen limb caught her eye. It was as long as she was tall, as thick as her upper arm, and had not lain on the ground long enough to begin to rot away.

  Blue Water Woman spent the next half hour whittling the narrow end, sharpening it into a long point. Until she could construct a better weapon, the spear would have to do.

  Collecting other limbs, she intertwined them into a barrier across the open portion of the horseshoe. It was too flimsy to keep out, a bear or a big cat if they were determined to get in, but it might slow them down long enough for her to use the spear.

  Supper consisted of a single piece of pemmican. Lying on her side on her blanket, listening to the woodland come alive with howls, snarls, and growls, she slowly munched and pondered.

  Fate had dealt them a cruel blow. Whoever had abducted Shakespeare would not keep him alive forever. And despite Don Varga’s assurance that he would not harm the Kings, she could not shake the feeling that they were in as much danger as her husband.

  Her own situation was not much better. She was up against more than a dozen men, and they had a full day-and-a-half head start. Not that she would ever give up. Blue Water Woman loved McNair too much to even entertain the thought. Having lost him once, she was not about to do so again.

  A smile lit her face as she recalled those early days when they first met, when they were young and headstrong and in the prime of their lives. She had loved him the moment she set eyes on him. Later, she was to learn that he had felt the same way about her.

  Uncaring circumstance had separated them. She had wound up the wife of a warrior who treated her decently enough, while Shakespeare acquired a number of wives over the years. But in their heart of hearts, neither forgot the other.

  Later in life, with their mates dead, they met again, and it was as if the decades spent apart never happened. Their love blossomed anew.

  Shakespeare’s hair had grown white and he was not as spry as he once had been, but Blue Water Woman loved him with just as much passion as she had when the two of them had been as green as grass, as Shakespeare might put it.

  The first time he kissed her, a tingle had shot down her spine to her toes. It had caused her heart to drum madly, her breath to catch in her throat. Never, in all the years she was Spotted Owl’s woman, in all the times he had kissed her, had she ever felt like that. It was both astounding and frightening that a man could provoke such deep feeling.

  Twenty years they had been separated. Twenty years! Sometimes when she dwelled on it, tears dampened her eyes. To have wasted so much of their lives apart! When she thought of the joy that could have been theirs, the many wonderful experiences they would never know, the children they would never have, her soul ached.

  Tearing off more pemmican, Blue Water Woman rolled onto her back and stared at the myriad stars. How tragic life could be. And yet how glorious. She would not trade the years Shakespeare and she had bee
n together for all the yellow rocks or beaver plews in the world.

  True love. That was how the young trapper Nate had once described his life with Winona, and Blue Water Woman felt it fit her life with McNair perfectly.

  True love. When a man and a woman meant to be together found each other.

  As a young maiden, she had laughed at the idea. When friends lavished praise on warriors they admired and raved about the wonderful feelings their love inspired, she had chuckled and said that they were being hopelessly romantic.

  Now she knew they had been right. True love was the greatest of gifts. Precious beyond words. What made it more so was the distressing fact that many people lived their entire lives without ever having experienced it. These blighted unfortunates never felt the thrills, the joys, the unrivaled ecstasy.

  What amazed her the most was that Shakespeare came from an entirely different culture. They had been born thousands of miles apart, yet they wound up side by side. Their peoples were as different as night from day, yet their affection blazed like the rosy glow of a new dawn.

  How strange, how incredible, that they should be drawn to each other over so vast a gulf! McNair was eleven years her senior; she had not even been born yet when he was old enough to help his father work the family farm. She had been in a cradleboard when he held his first job.

  Yet they met and fell in love. Despite the gulf of cultures and years and distance, they were meant to be together. Shakespeare liked to say that their guardian angels were responsible. He claimed the angels often led lovers to each other.

  Blue Water Woman scoured the heavens, thinking about the many invisible spirit beings Shakespeare believed gamboled about in the ether. Were angels real, or figments of white imagination? Did guardian angels truly exist?

  She would like to think they did. Her own people believed in many spirit beings, some of whom could be called on to safeguard those in need. Maybe angels and the spirits of her people were one and the same, only with different names. After all, the Great Mystery of the Flatheads and the Lord God Almighty of the whites had much in common, although the God of the whites was much more stem and took a more personal hand in the course of human affairs than the Great Mystery.

  Blue Water Woman yawned. It had been a tiring day. She shifted onto her left side, folded her hands under her cheek for a pillow, and drifted off. She slept fitfully. The least little noise awakened her. Toward midnight she finally slipped into a heavy slumber.

  She dreamed that she was in a fragrant field of flowers and clover, Shakespeare lying by her side. Whites horses frolicked nearby. When one pranced close and nickered, she smiled at it. The horse nickered again, louder, so she sat up and reached out to rub its nose. Shying, the animal nickered a third time, insistently, as if trying to tell her something.

  Blue Water Woman opened her eyes with a fourth nicker sounding in her ears. Befuddled by sleep, her mind as sluggish as a snail, she sat up and blinked.

  The sorrel had moved nearer and towered above her, ears pricked. It was staring at the barrier.

  Then she heard loud sniffing. Something was out there! Clutching the spear, Blue Water Woman pushed onto her knees and extended her weapon.

  The sniffing grew louder. Whatever it was, it was big. Through gaps in the branches she distinguished a gigantic bulk rendered black by the gloom, a bulk so immense that it could only be one creature.

  Grizzly! Blue Water Woman crouched, her scalp prickling. The brute could smash through her feeble breastwork as if it were made of twigs.

  Her sorrel bobbed its head and started to whinny again. Quickly, Blue Water Woman straightened and covered its muzzle with her hand.

  A rumbling snort was the bear’s response. Branches crackled and snapped as it applied an enormous paw. A hole mushroomed.

  Blue Water Woman braced the spear against her hip. She would be ripped to shreds, but she would not go down without a fight. The grizzly grunted and stopped pawing at the limbs.

  She remembered Nate telling her that bears were the most unpredictable creatures alive. Grizzlies, in particular, were as temperamental as four-year-olds. No two ever acted alike. Where one might flee at the mere sight of a human, another would roar and charge.

  Among the trapping fraternity, Nate King was considered the most knowledgeable about grizzlies. He had slain more of the great bears than any ten trappers. His Indian name, Grizzly Killer, was a tribute to his prowess.

  Blue Water Woman recalled a talk she had with him once. Several years before he had been working a trap line when he blundered onto a grizzly seeking to get at a beaver caught in one of his traps. The bear bristled and snarled. Nate took aim, cocked his Hawken, and squeezed the trigger. But the gun did not go off. Unwittingly, he had gotten it wet resetting the previous trap.

  Out of the water shuffled the bear. Nate had stood his ground, since to run was to invite attack. When the bear growled, Nate did the same. Suddenly elevating both arms, Nate roared and took a few swift steps forward.

  It was an insane bluff, yet it worked. The grizzly had whoofed, spun, and lit out of there as if its hind end was on fire.

  Nate loved to tell that tale. Maybe, just maybe, what had worked for him would work for her.

  Blue Water Woman stomped her feet and roared as best she was able. With bated breath she waited for the grizzly to react. The next moment it did, but not in the manner she anticipated.

  Growling, the monster reared onto its hind legs. It was so tall, half its body was above the barrier. Eyes tinged red by a trick of the pale starlight fixed on her.

  As still as a stump, Blue Water Woman matched the bear’s unblinking stare. It sniffed loudly. Paws that could crush the sorrel’s skull with a casual swipe rested on the top of her frail barrier. Claws the length of her fingers shone dully.

  Snuffling hungrily, the grizzly took a shambling stride. On two legs it was as awkward as a drunk. But once it lowered onto all fours, not a living thing anywhere could withstand its onslaught.

  Blue Water Woman took a gamble. Suddenly bounding toward it, she hollered in her own tongue, “Go away, bear! Find something else to eat!”

  For frozen seconds the grizzly stood stock-still. Then it grunted, lowered itself, rotated ponderously, and plodded into the woods without a backward glance.

  Blue Water Woman did not twitch until the crunching of brush and twigs had faded in the distance. Her legs grew weak and she sank down, astonished she was still alive. “I did it,” she said in awe.

  Or had she? For after she settled onto her blanket and was gazing at the sky, she thought again about Shakespeare’s guardian angels. Could it be that one was up there now, watching over her? Had her voice scared the giant bear off? Or did she have help from an unseen source?

  Who could say?

  Another day. Another ten hours or so of hard riding spent trussed up like a turkey for slaughter. Shakespeare McNair glumly checked the position of the sun. It was close to nine a.m., by his reckoning. Flynt’s band of renegades had been wending their way toward Long’s Peak since daylight.

  Jeb Calloway led the white mare, as usual. And as usual, he hummed to himself, the same tune over and over and over. Evidently, it was his all-time favorite.

  A cry from the rear of the line brought the band to a halt. Shakespeare heard a thud and a groan. Jasper Flynt galloped past.

  Calloway had turned his mount partway around. “It’s Spence,” he reported. “He’s down again.”

  Shakespeare had guessed as much. The wounded man had fallen three times the day before, and twice since dawn. Blood stained his clothes from his neck to his knees, and he was as pale as a sheet. How he had lasted this long, Shakespeare would never know.

  Soon Flynt came clattering forward, drawing rein when he was abreast of the white mare. “That’s one we owe you and your friends, McNair.”

  “He’s dead?” Jeb Calloway asked.

  Flynt curtly nodded. “We’ll ride on until we find a likely place and bury him.”

  �
�That’s awful decent, Jasper,” Calloway said.

  Flynt rolled his eyes. “The only reason I even bother is I don’t want the Utes or anyone else to find the body. If I had my druthers, I’d let the coyotes and buzzards fill their bellies. They deserve to eat like everyone else.”

  Shakespeare observed the deceased being draped over the dead man’s mount. “When Fortune in her shift and change of mood spurns down her late beloved, all his dependents which labour’d after him to the mountain’s top even on their knees and hands, let him slip down. Not one accompanying his declining foot.”

  “I told you to stop jabberin’ that nonsense,” Flynt reminded him.

  “You can’t read, can you, Jasper?”

  “What the hell does that got to do with anything?”

  “Figured as much,” Shakespeare said. “If thou didst put this sour-cold habit on to castigate thy pride, ’twere well. But thou does it enforcedly.”

  Flynt balled a fist and shook it. “One more fancy word out of you, damn your bones, and you’ll eat teeth!”

  “Sorry,” Shakespeare said. “I didn’t mean to rub your nose in your own ignorance.”

  Thunder and lightning danced on Flynt’s thick brows. He leaned toward McNair as if to strike, then swore and trotted to the head of the line. Soon they were on the move again.

  Jeb Calloway clucked at the mountain man. “Keep that up, old-timer, and you’re askin’ for an early grave. Jasper don’t take that kind of guff off of anyone. I’m surprised he ain’t slit you yet.”

  To be honest, so was Shakespeare. Flynt had hinted that he was being kept alive for a definite purpose. What could it be? Knowing Flynt, it had to be something devious, something Shakespeare would regret being part of.

  Another hour drifted by. Mountains flanked them, majestic ramparts thrust heavenward. Most impressive of all was Long’s Peak, rising thousands of feet higher than its nearest neighbor and wearing a mantle of snow.