Wilderness Double Edition 13 Page 26

  Simon prayed she was all right.

  A sensation of wetness revived her. Felicity blinked and coughed as water got into her mouth and nose. She sat up, sputtering, and found she was in the cabin by the crackling fire. For several seconds she was disoriented. She couldn’t recall how she had gotten there or what had happened to her last. Vaguely, she recalled Simon being in peril.

  “Up and at ’em, Yankee. We want some supper.”

  Felicity saw Mabel Coyfield standing over her, holding an upended glass. The memory of their clash pierced her like a sword. “Simon!” she cried, pushing to her feet. “Where is he? What have you done to him?”

  “Not what I’d like to do, that’s for sure,” Mabel said. At the table were Jacob and Samuel, sharing the jug. Tinder was in the rocking chair, being doctored by Cindy Lou. Cole hunkered in a corner, cleaning his rifle.

  “He escaped?” Felicity said. The matriarch need not answer. Mabel’s expression was answer enough. A thrill rippled through Felicity, and she grinned. “He escaped!”

  “Only for a while, missy. Soon as it’s daylight we’re fixin’ to hunt him down.” Mabel walked toward the table.

  “And we’ve got the perfect bait,” Jacob said, winking at his wife.

  Felicity didn’t like the sound of that.

  “’Course, we might not have to go to any bother,” Cole said with a wicked leer. “Not if my she-cat of a cousin finds him first.”

  Not until that moment did Felicity realize one of the clan was missing. “Where’s Mary Beth?”

  “Where do you think?” Cole rejoined. “Once she gets on a scent she won’t let up. She’s part wildcat, part wolverine. Once, down to Arkansas, she went after two men who tried to bushwhack Ma and Pa. Tracked ’em for days, she did. Came up on the pair when they were sleepin’ and slit their throats as pretty as you please.”

  Samuel chuckled. His shirt was off and his side had been crudely bandaged. Evidently, the gunshot had not been severe. “That’s my gal. She can lick her weight in fellas any day of the week. Mary Beth never has liked menfolk much, but I reckon you know that already, don’t you, city lady?” The idea of Simon, alone in the wilderness and being stalked by the man-hater, scared Felicity worse than if he were being stalked by a grizzly. “I remember hearing one of you say my husband had been shot.”

  Cole was sliding the ramrod into his rifle. “I thought I hit him, but now I don’t know. We never found any blood.” Mabel gestured at the stove. “Enough jawin’. It’s the shank of the evening. Fix us some vittles, missy. A stew would be nice. Pa shot a rabbit before the light faded. It’s on the counter.”

  Felicity was almost glad for something to do. It gave her time to think. The despair that had afflicted her was gone thanks to Simon being on the loose. Now anything was possible. The two of them together could beat any foe.

  Tinder stood. His jaw was swollen and discolored and he had a nasty gash on his head. Gingerly touching his puffy lower lip, he said, “I hope to hell Mary Beth brings the Yankee back alive. I owe him.”

  Samuel showed no sympathy for his son. “That’s what you get for being sloppy, boy. How many times do I have to tell you? As soon as you shoot, reload. One of these days you’ll be caught with an empty gun and it’ll cost you your life.”

  Cindy Lou slid into the rocker and placed her feet on the stones flanking the fireplace. “If’n it was me, Cousin Tinder, I wouldn’t count on makin’ that feller pay. Mary Beth will likely carve him into little bits and pieces.” Cindy Lou smirked at Felicity. “Wouldn’t surprise me none if she chops off your feller’s manhood and makes him eat it.”

  “You’re pure and utter filth,” Felicity said.

  “Sticks and stones, Yankee. I’m only tellin’ you how it is.” Cindy Lou stretched languidly, like a cat about to lick itself. “It’s a shame, too. I thought your husband was kind of cute.”

  “He’d never soil himself with a harpy like you.”

  Mabel had taken a seat and helped herself to the jug. “Watch that mouth of yours. Get my dander up and you’ll regret it.” Swallowing, she smacked her lips. “Seems to me you ought to be thankin’ my boy. The only reason you’re not breathin’ dirt is because Cole has taken a fancy to you. Although, for the life of me, I’m beginnin’ to question what he sees in such a scrawny snippet.”

  “Ah, Ma,” Cole said. “She is a mite puny, but you said yourself that she’s a peach. And she has a heap of spunk. Look at how she stood up to you.”

  “Spunk is one thing. No brains is another.”

  They prattled on about women Cole had known back in the States, comparing them to Felicity, but Felicity wasn’t listening. Simon occupied her thoughts. Where was he? What was he doing? She tried to put herself in his boots and guess when he would make a bid to free her. Because as surely as she lived and breathed, he would try.

  Opening a drawer, Felicity selected a knife so she could prepare the rabbit. None of the Coyfields showed any alarm at her being armed. But Jacob did draw a pistol and lay it on the table.

  As Felicity sank the steel into the rabbit’s belly, she envisioned it being Mabel’s. As she sliced from front to back, she imagined doing the same to each of the clan. When she cut into the guts, she was cutting into Jacob. When she hacked at the intestines, she was hacking at Samuel. And when she lopped off the rabbit’s head, it was Cindy Lou’s head that rolled onto the floor.

  Felicity grinned. Skinning a rabbit had never been so much fun.

  Simon Ward halted to take his bearings. By his best reckoning he was northwest of the cabin. A mile, perhaps a little more. Ever since darkness claimed the Rockies his senses of direction and distance were as poor as a rock’s. Not that it was anything to brag about during the day. As Shakespeare McNair once joked, if it weren’t for the sun, Simon wouldn’t know east from west.

  Mountain men like McNair and Nate King possessed an uncanny knack in that regard. They always knew where they were in relation to everything else, almost as if they were born gifted with internal compasses. Simon had seen Nate navigate rugged slopes in dense fog as unerringly as if it were a sunny day. He was with Nate one time when they were caught high up on Longs Peak by an early snowstorm. Had Simon been alone, he’d never have made it down alive. Yet Nate guided them through snow so heavy, Simon couldn’t see his fingers at arm’s length.

  Now Simon scanned the heavens for the North Star. Nate had taught him how to find it. All he had to do was locate the Big Dipper. The two stars that formed the side of the dipper away from the handle pointed to another bright star all by itself. This was the North Star, so named because it was always directly above the North Pole.

  Finding it, Simon verified he was where he thought he was. From the ridge on which he stood, a square of light marked hearth and home. He longed to rush there, to tear his wife from the clutches of those devils in human guise. But he must be patient. For her sake, as well as his.

  A convenient boulder offered Simon a roost. Wearily, he sat and leaned on the Kentucky. His side ached worse than a decayed tooth. It needed tending, but the best he had been able to do was splash water on it. Probing with a forefinger earlier revealed the ball had penetrated the soft flesh below his ribs and ruptured out above his hipbone. That it hadn’t struck a vital organ was a miracle. That he hadn’t bled to death was another.

  Simon had lost a lot of blood. Much too much. He’d attempted to stem the flow, first with grass, then with leaves, then with mud from the bank of the stream. Only the mud worked. But he was concerned lest infection set in. According to Nate, more men died from lead poisoning and other complications than from the bullet itself.

  Simon’s eyelids were heavy, his limbs felt as if they weighed a ton. Fatigue gnawed at him, but he shook it off. Felicity was uppermost on his mind. He had to sneak down there, had to spirit her away. But how? What chance did he have alone? Simon wasn’t about to kid himself. His escape had been more a product of luck than cunning.

  A rustling noise brought Simon’s he
ad up. He had heard the same sound off and on throughout the day. When he was on the valley floor he had attributed it to wind rustling the grass. But once he was higher up, where grass was sparse, he’d still heard it. For a while he had just figured it was the breeze shaking leaves.

  Over the course of the past hour, however, Simon had been plagued by a persistent feeling that he was being followed. He’d gone into cover several times to wait and see if anyone came along, but no one ever did. So now he blamed his overwrought nerves.

  Simon started to rise, then thought better of it. Why tire himself more? Sliding off the boulder, he leaned against it and cradled the Kentucky in his lap. Lord, he was spent. He could sleep for a week. But he dared not doze off. In the middle of the night he had to make his way back down. By then the Coyfields were bound to be asleep. He would burst in among them and spirit Felicity out of there. He couldn’t wait.

  Simon’s eyes closed of their own accord. He told himself it would only be for a few minutes. That he wouldn’t drift off. Yet when he opened his eyes next, the positions of the stars had changed slightly. Enough to indicate he had slept half an hour, maybe more. Grunting, he rose up onto the boulder again, where he was less comfortable and less likely to succumb.

  Simon could never say what made him look over his shoulder. He had not heard anything. He had not sensed anything. But he looked, and was startled to behold a shadowy figure almost on top of him, as if it had been creeping toward him and stopped when he unexpectedly changed position. “Who the–” he blurted.

  With that, the figure screeched like a banshee and flung itself at him.

  Nine

  About the same time Simon Ward had been making his escape, much farther north Nate and Winona King were goading their mounts up a steep switchback toward the pass that linked the two valleys. They had held to a brisk pace all day. Horses and riders alike were tired, but Nate refused to rest, even briefly. Not when every minute counted.

  Nate valued friendship as much as he valued family. To his way of thinking, good friends, truly close friends, were family. More than a dozen Shoshone warriors had earned his undying trust, while the number of white friends he had could be counted on one hand. Not that he wouldn’t like more. It was just that so few whites lived in the Rockies. Shakespeare McNair, Scott Kendall, and Simon Ward were the nearest and dearest. There wasn’t a blessed thing Nate wouldn’t do for them or they for him.

  The type of lives they lived was partly responsible. Hardship forged bonds of steel. When two people had to rely on each other or perish, they came closer together than they ever would otherwise. Necessity forced them to open up, to break down the walls that too often kept people from cementing ties of genuine friendship.

  Back in the States it was different. There, a person could pretend to be someone’s friend, all the while talking about them behind their back. There, a person could claim to be a friend, but when they were needed, when the friendship was put to the test, they always had an excuse as to why they couldn’t lend a hand. The proof of the pudding was in the tasting, as the saying went, and too many failed the test.

  A true friend was always there when he had to be. A true friend would give the shirt off his back, the last dollar in his pocket. A true friend listened without judging, shared without expecting anything in return. A true friend was like gold, making even paupers rich.

  Since these were Nate’s innermost sentiments, it’s no wonder he was so anxious to reach the Ward cabin. All day he had been chafing at what he considered their snail’s pace. All day he had been going over in his head the route they must take and thinking of ways they might shave hours off the journey.

  Now, as they came to the top of the switchback, Nate reined up and gazed at a gap in a stark cliff high above. “The pass,” he said aloud.

  Winona nodded. She shared her husband’s apprehension. Although Felicity Ward and she came from vastly different cultures, they had grown remarkably close. Felicity had shown Winona it was possible for white and red women to care for one another as sisters. That not all whites looked down their noses at Indians.

  To be fair, Winona had made other white friends. But few were as cherished as Felicity. The many hours they had spent together, sharing tales of the many silly things their husbands did, had shown them how much they had in common. And in that common soil the seeds of friendship took root and thrived.

  “Care for a drink, husband?” Winona asked, twisting to place a hand on the water skin tied to her saddle.

  “Why not?” Nate said. It was the first they had treated themselves to since they rode out that morning. Swinging down, he accepted the skin and tilted it to his mouth.

  Winona watched his throat as he drank, thinking of how she had nibbled on that spot the night before when they were cuddling in bed. It amazed her sometimes, how after all these years she still loved this man so much. How he still kindled passions no other ever could. How he had become everything to her, and she to him.

  Nate finished and handed the water skin up. “How do you reckon the kids are faring?”

  “Just fine. But I would not call them kids in front of our son. He believes he is a man, and he will not accept being called anything less.”

  “In many ways he is a man,” Nate admitted, “but in just as many ways he isn’t.”

  “Give him time.” Winona wet her mouth, swishing the water with her tongue, then swallowed. “At his age he thinks he knows all there is to know. Only much later will he learn that half the things he thought were true are not and half the things he thought were false are true.”

  “And one day he’ll get to be long in the tooth like us,” Nate joked, “and realize he’s dumber than a stump.”

  Winona grinned. “Speak for yourself, husband.” Capping the skin, she replaced it. Her legs were in need of stretching, so she slid down and began to walk in small circles. “Do you intend to ride straight through?”

  “I’ve thought about it,” Nate said. “But that stretch of trail below the crest is too risky to chance in the dark.”

  Winona knew it well. For half a mile they would have to wind among craggy heights along a path no wider than her husband’s shoulders. A single misstep would plunge them hundreds of feet, to be smashed to pieces at the base. “So we camp just below the rim and start down in the morning?”

  “That would put us at the Ward place by late afternoon,” Nate said. “I think I know how we can get there earlier – say about noon.”

  “I am listening.”

  “Remember that elk trail? The one that forks off below the rim?”

  “It is longer than the trail down the cliffs.”

  “Yes, but it’s also safer, so we could make better time at night. Once below the timberline, it makes a beeline through some foothills to the stream that flows past the Ward cabin. We could push on until close to dawn, make a cold camp for a few hours to give the horses a breather, and be at Simon’s by midday.”

  Winona liked the idea and said so.

  Nate embraced her. The feel of her body against his reminded him of how long it had been since they shared a moment alone. At home Evelyn or Zach and now Louisa were always around. Privacy and parenthood did not go hand in hand. “Too bad we’re in such a hurry,” he commented.

  A grin as impish as Evelyn’s spread across Winona’s face. “On the way back we will not be.”

  “I reckon I’ll take you up on that, lady.” Nate kissed her, reveling in her warmth, her hunger, in how she excited him so tremendously, just as she always did. He had to tear his mouth from hers. “We’d best light a shuck before I get frisky.”

  Winona recollected the last time he had been “frisky,” and her grin widened. “I look forward to our return.”

  They forked leather and continued on, climbing, steadily climbing, until at long last they entered the pass. Towering walls of solid rock reared on either side. Shrieking wind buffeted them, whipping Winona’s long hair and threatening to rip Nate’s beaver hat from his head. The t
emperature had dropped fifteen degrees from what it had been in their valley.

  Once through, they found themselves on a wide shelf. A succession of forested slopes unfurled below in sweeping grandeur, like rolling waves in a sea. A tiny dot in the center of the valley was the Ward cabin.

  Nate checked for tracks. The most recent were those made by Hap and Vin Coyfield a week before. No one had been through since, which was reassuring. He need not worry about Zach and the girls being stalked while he was gone.

  The elk trail was an arrow’s flight lower down. Shadows were lengthening as Nate kneed the stallion into it. Within an hour it was so dark he couldn’t see Winona’s features when he glanced back.

  The lower they went, the easier the ride. Nate started to doze off a few times and had to shake himself to stay awake. One of those times, it was a sound that snapped him awake. They were crossing an open bench when from much lower down wafted an eerie shriek. It sounded human, yet not human. Nate couldn’t identify the source. Painters were known to scream, but this had been different.

  “Did you hear that?” Winona asked. To her it sounded like the screech of a woman in the heat of battle. Shoshone women were sometimes called on to help defend their villages, and would shriek and whoop as lustily as the men.

  “I doubt it was either of the Wards,” Nate said.

  “I pray they are safe, my husband.”

  “You and me both. As safe as Zach and the girls.”

  The mountain man was unaware his statement wasn’t true. For at that very moment, Jess and Bo Coyfield were camped on the shelf on the south side of the pass. They were sore from their long hours spent in the saddle. Jess was also relieved to be alive. “I don’t know about you, Cousin, but that last stretch gave me a few scares.”