Wilderness Double Edition 11 Page 2

  Then Nate heard an odd noise. It took him a few moments to identify it. Someone was crying, bawling like a baby. Even more surprising, he could tell it was a man. He moved closer and saw a figure on his knees close to the water.

  The bawler had his arms clasped to his belly as if his innards were on fire. In front of him lay a garment of some kind.

  Wary of a trick, Nate slowly walked the stallion to the end of the pines and regarded the man closely. Right away he recognized a greenhorn. The store-bought clothes were a dead giveaway, as were the uncomfortable high-heeled city boots no trapper in his right mind would wear.

  Squaring his broad shoulders, Nate nudged the stallion forward. The man was making so much noise, he never heard. A few yards shy of the camp, Nate drew rein and said quietly so as not to startle him, “Are you in pain, mister?”

  Simon Ward had been so overcome by despair at being unable to find his wife that he had started crying before he could stop himself.

  The young man from Boston had lived in secret horror of this very thing happening ever since they had left the last settlement way back in Missouri. Despite all his bluster to the contrary, Simon had not had much confidence in his ability to protect his wife. For one thing, he was not much of a woodsman. He had managed to keep the supper pot full every night only because game on the prairie had been so plentiful.

  For another thing, Simon had never killed a human being and had no idea whether he could. The old-timers he had talked to in St. Louis and elsewhere had impressed on him that sooner or later he would have to do so. Any man who made his home in the mountains, they had claimed, was bound to run up against hostiles eventually. It was as inevitable as the rising of the sun. And where hostiles were concerned there was only one rule; kill or be killed.

  Simon had not let Felicity know of his worry. He had not wanted her to think that he could not protect her if the need arose.

  Now, to have the love of his life vanish without a trace, virtually paralyzed him. Racked by intense guilt, Simon cried and cried even though he knew that he should get to his feet and go search for her. He just couldn’t seem to stop himself.

  But that had always been the case. Ever since he was a small boy, Simon had reacted to every undue hardship by bawling his brains out. His own brothers and sisters had branded him a bawl-baby. And while he did not do it as often as he once did, and certainly never where others, especially Felicity, could see him, he still had his moments.

  Then someone spoke. Shocked to his core, Simon glanced up. His tears were choked off by his amazement at beholding a huge man who looked to be part Indian mounted on the biggest, blackest horse he had ever set eyes on. They almost seemed unreal to him, phantasms of his tormented mind.

  “Are you in pain?” Nate King repeated, not knowing what to make of the greenhorn’s expression. He looked at the garment, realized what it was, and scanned the area, alarmed. “Is there a woman with you?”

  The reminder jolted Simon like a bolt out of the blue. Surging to his feet, he trained his rifle on the stranger and demanded, “Where is she, damn you? What have you done with her, you miserable heathen?”

  The greenhorn was close to snapping. Any man could tell. Nate mustered a friendly smile and said, “Sheathe your claws, pilgrim. I’m a white-eye, like you. I haven’t done anything to anyone. I heard you cry out and figured I could be of help, is all.”

  “You’re white?” Simon said suspiciously. He had never seen a white man so dark of skin before, not even the mountain men he’d met in St. Louis. And he noticed that this one wore an eagle feather in his hair, jutting downward at the back.

  Nate ignored the implication and pointed at the dress. “Listen, greener. If you don’t need me, that’s fine by this hoss. But if your woman is in trouble, it wouldn’t pay to be too proud. Savvy?”

  Simon glanced down at his feet where Felicity’s garment had fallen. “Oh, God! My wife,” he said, fighting back a rising wave of more tears. His mind in a whirl, he swayed.

  Thinking that the younger man was about to pass out on him, Nate dismounted. “Where is she?”

  “I don’t know,” Simon said forlornly. “One minute she was right here, about to take a bath. The next she was gone.” He motioned helplessly at the woods. “A grizzly must have dragged her off when I had my back turned.”

  “You would have heard it if one did,” Nate said, turning his attention to the ground bordering the pool. “A griz likes to roar when it charges. Half scares most critters to death and makes them easy prey.”

  “Really?” Simon said, running his sleeve under his nose. He was still leery, but it appeared to him as if the newcomer was sincere about lending a hand, and he could use all the help he could get.

  “Your wife never cried out?”

  “No, sir. Not a peep.” Simon indicated the rim. “I was over there, you see. My horse had acted up and I thought an animal might be nearby—” He stopped short when the stranger abruptly squatted to examine a strip of bare earth.

  “It was no animal.”

  “What? How do you know?”

  “Look here,” Nate said, pointing. It had been his experience that most pilgrims could not track a bull buffalo through fresh mud, and he wanted the younger man to see for himself.

  Simon stared but saw nothing except the earth. There were a few smudge and scratch marks with no rhyme or reason to them that he could discern. “Look at what, mister?”

  Sighing, Nate responded, “Step around behind me and take a gander over my shoulder. I’ll outline it with my finger.”

  Complying, Simon watched intently as the mountain man ran a fingernail along the outer edge of what appeared to be a half-moon scrape. “So?”

  “It’s the heel print of a man wearing moccasins,” Nate revealed. “And this here”—he touched a shallow furrow that to the young Bostonian looked as if it had been made by a stick—“is where your wife dragged her foot trying to keep them from carrying her off.”

  “Them?” Simon repeated, his stomach churning as the full import of what the man was telling him sank home.

  “There were two men, both wearing moccasins,” Nate said as he moved along the edge of the pool to where the rushing water entered it. “One was a white man, the other a breed. They came out of those weeds on the other side of the stream, jumped it, and were on your wife before she knew they were there. One must have put a hand over her mouth and grabbed her around the shoulders while the other took hold of her around the legs. She struggled some, but it did her no good. They carried her back across and were long gone before you returned.”

  Flabbergasted, Simon gawked at this brawny wild man with the uncanny ability to read marks on the ground as if they were letters in a book. With this man’s help, he just might be able to save Felicity.

  Then it occurred to Simon Ward that maybe he was being too trusting. After all, he knew nothing about the stranger. And it was odd that the man should show up just minutes after his wife had been taken. For all he knew, the Good Samaritan might be in league with her abductors. Why, it might be, he mused, that this was no mountain man at all, but a common cutthroat.

  Nate was bending to inspect prints near the stream when he noticed the greenhorn give him a mighty peculiar look, the same kind of look a person might give a ravenous wolf that had wandered into camp. Hoping to show the young man that there was no cause to distrust him, Nate straightened and offered his hand. “My manners aren’t what they used to be. I’m Nate King. My family and I live in a cabin southwest of here a fair piece.”

  Simon automatically shook hands and marveled at the strength in King’s grip. He suspected that the man could crush his fingers without hardly trying. “You have a family?”

  “Sure do. My wife, Winona, is a Shoshone. We have a son named Zach and a little girl, Evelyn.”

  Simon believed the man was telling the truth. King’s affection for his loved ones made his face light up like a candle. Simon relaxed a little, since in his estimation it was unlikely a g
enuine cutthroat would be a family man. “I’m Simon Ward. My wife’s name is Felicity.” That was all Simon intended to say, but he went on, unable to stop himself, the words rushing out of their own accord. “We came west to make a better life for ourselves, to live free as the birds, just as you and your family must do. It was my idea, you see. I talked Felicity into it. I told her everything would be fine, that no harm would come to her. I told her I’d protect her no matter what. And then she disappeared and I didn’t know what had happened to her and I was at my wit’s end so I—”

  “Cried?” Nate finished when the younger man hesitated. The emotional outpouring had told him a lot, and none of it raised his opinion of the greenhorn.

  Cut to the quick by the tone that the mountain man used, Simon blurted, “I couldn’t help myself. If something really bad happens, I go all to pieces. My mother says I have a sensitive nature.”

  “What does your pa say?”

  “That I’m an idiot.”

  Nate was inclined to agree with the father. He shook his head and moved on. All this was well and good, but they had a woman to find, and quickly, or the young fool might never see his wife again. “Saddle up. I’ll scout around and be back in a few minutes.”

  Simon opened his mouth to voice a question, but King suddenly leaped across the stream and plunged into the vegetation on the other side. He had wanted to explain further, to let the mountain man know that he wasn’t a whiner by nature, that he simply had the soul of a poet, as one of his teachers had put it. But it would have to wait, he reflected. King had a point. Felicity came first. He hastened to obey.

  Nate glanced back once, then concentrated on the spoor. The men who had taken the woman were skilled. They had left few tracks, and probably would have left none at all had they not been burdened by their captive. Once over the rim of the bench and out of earshot, they had broken into a run. At one point the man in the lead, the white man, had slipped and gouged his knees into the soil. There was evidence of a brief scuffle. When the kidnappers went on, they ran side by side and the footprints of the white were much deeper than those of the breed.

  It was not hard for Nate to determine what had happened. Felicity Ward had been fighting hard to break free every step of the way, and she had caused the white man in front to fall. The man had lost his grip. Felicity had then turned on her second captor, but before she could tear loose, the breed had knocked her out. The white man had then draped her over a shoulder and the pair had gone on.

  At the bottom of the bench were hoofprints. Two horses had been ground-hitched there for quite some time. Both had urinated, one between its legs, the other behind them. That told Nate that one had been a stallion, the other a mare.

  Having learned all he needed, Nate raced to the top of the bench. Ward had saddled a bay and another animal and was hard at work loading the packs.

  “You have a decision to make,” Nate announced. Simon had been so engrossed in his chore that he had not heard the trapper approach. He started, and clutched at one of his pistols. “King! Damn! Don’t creep up on me like that.”

  Nate did not waste a moment. “If we hurry, we might be able to catch them before they get very far. One of them is riding double.” He nodded at the pack animals. “But we won’t have a prayer if we’re dragging them along. It would slow us down too much.”

  “You want me to leave the packhorses?” Simon said, aghast. All the worldly goods he and Felicity owned were on those two animals.

  “And your wife’s horse,” Nate said. “She can ride back with you.”

  Simon was reluctant to do it. He feared that a wild beast might come along and kill the horses or spook them. Or a band of Indians might ride by and steal them. Without those animals, Felicity and he would not last long. But which was more important? he asked himself. His wife, or their personal effects?

  “Give me a minute,” he said, and led the three horses over to the pines.

  Nate swung onto his stallion and waited by the stream. When the young man joined him, he forded and broke into a gallop. At the bottom he showed Ward the hoof tracks, then circled to pick up the trail.

  “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Simon mentioned as the mountain man rode bent low to the ground. “How do you know that one of these men is white and the other is a half-breed?”

  Nate answered without looking up. “Most white men walk with their toes pointed out and take long strides. Indians, by and large, walk with their toes bent in and take smaller steps.”

  “So you’re saying that it’s plain one of them is white. That I can understand. But how can you tell the other is a breed? I mean, if the toes are bent in, maybe it’s a full-blooded Indian.”

  “No,” Nate said, rising. He had found where the tracks led away from the bench, bearing due south. “The second man’s toes are only partly bent in, and he takes long steps.”

  “Oh.”

  They sped on, Nate in the lead, winding among the pines at a reckless pace. Simon Ward was awed by the mountain man’s riding ability. It was as if the man and the black stallion were one. He was hard pressed to keep up but resolved not to fall behind. Not when his wife’s life was at stake. Or worse.

  The idea jarred Simon. Until that moment he had not given much thought to what Felicity’s abductors planned to do with her. Yet it was doubtful they had taken her just to kill her. A burning rage flared in him as he pictured her being abused.

  “Watch out!” Nate King cried.

  Simon blinked and looked up to see a low limb sweeping toward him. At the very last instant he ducked under it and was spared. He saw King shake his head and wished he would quit making a jackass of himself. He wanted to earn the mountain man’s respect, not his contempt.

  If the young Bostonian had been able to read Nate’s mind, he would have been even more upset. Nate was convinced that Ward had no business whatsoever being in the Rockies. The wilderness was no place for amateurs. Time and again he had run into people like Ward, folks whose daydreams eclipsed their common sense, whose hankering for living on the frontier flew in the face of their inability to fend for themselves.

  Nature was a hard taskmaster. There was one unwritten law, and one only, by which the many wild creatures lived; survival of the fittest. Humans were not accorded any special treatment. When they were out of their element, they had to deal with Nature on its own terms. Which meant they were fair game for any prowling grizzly, painter or hostile.

  People like the Wards did not last long. They needed plenty of time to learn how to live off the land, and time was one luxury few ever had. There were simply too many dangers.

  Nate’s reflection ended when the pines thinned. The next several hills were virtually barren. He scanned them for a glimpse of the kidnappers, but they were nowhere to be seen. Slowing, he leaned to the right to better study the tracks. A dozen yards further on the trail changed direction. The two men had angled to the southwest into dense woodland.

  “Why have you slowed down?” Simon asked, drawing abreast of the stallion.

  “Either these vermin know that we’re after them or they’re just being canny,” Nate said. He was about to pick up the pace when his keen eyes spotted a small object lying near the trail. Drawing rein, he slid down and picked it up.

  “What do you have there, Mr. King?”

  “Call me Nate.” Nate sniffed it, then held it up for Ward to examine.

  “Why, that’s part of a cigarette, isn’t it?”

  Nate had thought so too, at first glance. But it wasn’t the hand-rolled variety of smoke favored by some of the trapping fraternity. “This is a cigarrillo. A Spanish brand. I saw a lot of folks using them when I took my family to New Mexico some time ago.”

  “But what would a Spanish cigarette be doing here? Do you think the men we’re after are Mexicans?”

  “No,” Nate said, and let it go at that. The cigarrillo was a disturbing clue, one he would rather not share until he was certain. He prayed that he was wrong a
s he stepped into the stirrups and pressed on.

  The spacing and depth of the tracks showed that the kidnappers were moving at a faster clip. The trail climbed to the top of a ridge, stuck to the crest for half a mile, and went down the other side. Either by luck or design the kidnappers had come on a game trail and taken it south to make better time.

  For the next hour Nate and Simon pushed their mounts to the limit. A few miles to the west reared the regal Rockies, while to the east rippled the endless ocean of grass.

  The trail crossed yet another hill, and as they reached the boulder-strewn crest, Nate abruptly reined up.

  “What is it this time?” Simon inquired as the trapper slid to the ground.

  “They stopped at this spot for a short while.”

  “To rest their horses?”

  Hunkering, Nate probed for telltale signs. Blades of grass had been pressed flat, as if by the weight of a body. Broken stems testified to a brief scuffle. “They tied up your wife. She must have come around and tried to get away. See these footprints? The breed held her while the white man did the tying.”

  “May their souls rot in Hell!” Simon said.

  “Count your blessings,” Nate responded, stepping to his mount.

  “How do you mean?”

  “She’s still alive, isn’t she? And they haven’t tried to force themselves on her. Yet.” Nate saw the young man blanche, but he did not regret being so blunt. Someone should have been equally blunt long before the Wards left Boston. It would have spared them both a heap of misery.

  For the better part of two hours the free trapper and the Bostonian forged southward. At length they came to a wide clearing where there was evidence that many men had encamped for many days. There were so many tracks, all in a jumble, that it took Nate a while to sort them out. When he had, he frowned and gazed to the southeast, the direction their quarry had taken.

  “Why so glum?” Simon wondered. “They’re not that far ahead of us now, are they?”