Wilderness Double Edition 11 Page 4

  Unchecked bittersweet memories flooded through Simon: the first time they had met at the market where she worked, their first, fleeting kiss in the back of a buggy, their hectic wedding day, and the bliss of their wedding night.

  Felicity was the only woman Simon had ever known in the Biblical sense. He’d always been so shy in that regard that it had taken him months to muster the nerve to hold her hand. It was safe to say that their wedding night had been the single greatest night of his entire life.

  “Do you love your wife, Nate?” Simon asked.

  The unexpected question made the mountain man glance up sharply. Having lived on the frontier for so long, where folks tended to mind their own business, he tended to forget that Easterners liked to pry into the personal affairs of others. “Yes, I do,” he answered honestly. “She’s my whole life.”

  “That’s how I feel about Felicity. So you’ll have to forgive me if I push too much. If anything should happen to her, I wouldn’t want to live.”

  It sounded to Nate as if the younger man were about to burst into tears again. To forestall that, he said, “I don’t hold it against you. I was your age once.”

  Simon scrutinized the mountain mail’s features. “Not that long ago, I daresay. You don’t appear to be that much older than I am.”

  “It’s not how long a person lives, but how much living they do,” Nate commented. “You’re right, though. I was too young to know any better when I gave up an accounting career in New York City to come live with my uncle up in the mountains.”

  “Where is he now?”

  Nate plucked at a blade of grass. “He died shortly after we got here.”

  “And you’ve been fending for yourself ever since?”

  “A friend of my uncle’s took me under his wing and taught me how to stay alive in the wild.”

  “Really? I wish I had someone to teach me.”

  Nate King offered no reply. But it set him to thinking that maybe he had treated the greenhorn too harshly, that maybe he should give Simon the same benefit of the doubt that Shakespeare McNair, his uncle’s friend, had given him. Do unto others, as the Good Book put it.

  Simon peered toward the camp, anxious to be off. “How long do you think it will be before the slavers fall asleep?”

  Before Nate could respond, a wavering scream rent the night, the scream of a woman in mortal terror. He made a grab for the Bostonian, but he was a hair too slow.

  Simon Ward was off like a shot, plowing through the grass to go save the woman he loved.

  Four

  Hours earlier and many miles to the northwest, Winona King had realized that she was being stalked when her pinto mare swung its head around, ears pricked toward the top of the rise they had just crossed.

  The wife of the man known as Grizzly Killer was a credit to her people. She did not panic. She did not go into a bout of hysteria as some of her sisters from east of the Mississippi might have done. No, Winona King merely firmed her grip on her rifle and guided the mare behind a thicket so that she could spy on her back trail without being seen.

  Winona was a Shoshone – and proud of it. Her people were widely respected by their friends and widely feared by their enemies. Even the notorious Blackfeet, who raided at will over the northern mountains and plains, regarded the Shoshones as fierce fighters.

  Since joining herself to Nate King as his woman, Winona had been in more than her share of tight situations. Her husband’s wanderlust had taken her from the dry deserts of New Mexico to the sandy shores of the Great Water far, far to the west. In her travels she had met many who wanted to deprive her of her life, and she was still around.

  Winona had no idea who was after her this time. Early that morning she had left her children in the care of her aunt and gone off to hunt. She wanted to surprise her man with a new buckskin shirt when he came back from elk hunting. To do that, she needed a fresh hide.

  So for most of the morning Winona had sought fresh deer sign, and on finding it she had followed the tracks to the southeast.

  Now it was late afternoon. A short while ago, while crossing a tableland, Winona had idly glanced back and thought she saw a wisp of dust possibly raised by another rider. She had reined up and waited to see if anyone appeared. When no one had, she’d gone on.

  Then the pinto looked around, and Winona knew beyond a shadow of doubt that she had someone on her trail. Her guess was that it might be a war party of Blackfeet, or of any other tribe with whom the Shoshones were at perpetual war.

  Quite often enemies were content to steal horses, or women. Winona had lost a number of close friends and relatives to marauding bands, and she did not care to share their fate.

  She was not very worried. Her mare had superb stamina. It could hold its own against most any horse. In addition, she had the rifle her husband had bought for her and taught her to shoot, plus a pair of pistols and a knife.

  Nate always insisted that she be well armed when she ventured anywhere. It amused some of the other Shoshone women to see her go around armed like a warrior, but Winona ignored them. Her husband was right. It was fitting that a woman hold her own in all aspects of married life, which included being able to protect herself and her family as well as any man.

  Winona rested her rifle across her thighs and scanned the terrain she had traversed. Nothing moved, not so much as a chipmunk. That in itself was ominous.

  A gust of wind stirred the raven tresses that cascaded down to the small of Winona’s back. She had on a beaded buckskin dress and short moccasins. Around her slim waist was a red sash Nate had bought for her at the last rendezvous. She had protested, saying it was a waste of money. But he had seen the gleam in her eyes when she saw it. And, as always, all she had to do was show an interest in something and he did whatever it took to get it for her.

  Suddenly the pinto sniffed loudly. Winona immediately leaned forward to cover its muzzle so it would not nicker if it had caught the scent of another horse.

  Hundreds of yards off, something materialized among the trees.

  It took Winona a while to make out the outline of a horse and rider, so skillfully did the man blend into the background. He was scouring the brush, seeking her, no doubt. As she watched, another rider appeared. This one was not so skillful. It was a man in a wide-brimmed hat such as she had seen Mexicans wear down in Apache country.

  Winona knew of a half-dozen Mexicans who called the mountains their home. All made their living as trappers or traders. This man, her intuition told her, most definitely did not.

  The pair sat there for the longest while searching for her. Then the skilled one melted into the vegetation and the Mexican followed suit.

  Winona was in no hurry to come out of hiding. Where there were two, there might be more. She planned on staying there until she was sure they were long gone, then she would fly to the village and warn the Shoshones there were enemies in the area. Her uncle Spotted Bull, her cousin Touch The Clouds, and prominent men like Drags The Rope and White Wolf would rouse the warriors of her tribe to hunt down the invaders and either drive them off or slay them to the last man.

  Time dragged by. Winona decided that she had waited long enough. She was reaching for the reins when to her rear a twig snapped.

  Shifting, Winona felt her blood run cold at the sight of a vague form on horseback moving slowly toward her. They had known where she was all along! They were closing in!

  With a slap of her muscular legs, Winona urged the mare into a gallop. Racing around the thicket, she headed to the northwest, making a beeline for the village.

  The next moment two more riders popped up in front of her, barring her path.

  Winona slanted to the left and took a slope on the fly. She bent low to better distribute her weight. At the top she twisted and was perturbed to see four men were now after her. One was the Mexican. Two others were white. The last had the swarthy complexion of a breed.

  At breakneck speed Winona went down the opposite slope. She wound among dense pines
and presently came on a stand of aspens. Into these she plunged, moving into the heart of the stand where the thin trees were pressed so tightly together that the mare had difficulty squeezing through.

  There was a method to her apparent madness. Winona counted on her pursuers following her in. Their bigger mounts would have more trouble than the mare getting through. It should slow them down enough for her to make her getaway.

  But when Winona emerged on the far side and checked to see if her ruse had worked, she saw the riders separate. Two bore to the left, two to the right. They were too smart for her. They were going around the aspens.

  A flick of the reins goaded the pinto onward. Winona held the rifle in her left hand. Her long hair streamed in her wake. A meadow unfolded ahead, so she let the mare have its head. When she was close to the next tract of trees, she looked over a shoulder.

  The four men were still after her. In the lead was one of the whites, a grizzled, grinning lodgepole of a man who wore a round hat made of black bear fur.

  Winona had half a mind to shoot him. Since she might need every shot she had if they overtook her, she raced on. The mare flowed smoothly over the ground and betrayed no sign of tiring.

  It soon became clear, though, that the man in the bear hat had a faster animal. Slowly but surely his sorrel gained. His grin widened. He had a rifle, slung over his back by means of a wide leather strap across his scrawny chest, but he did not try to unlimber it to shoot the mare out from under her. He did, however, take what appeared to be a coil of brown rope from off his left shoulder and held it in his right hand.

  Winona worked her legs, urging the pinto to exert itself even more. The mare had a heart of gold, as her husband would say, and did its best, head low, legs flying. Onward through the forest they sped, hurtling logs, barreling through patches of brush.

  To Winona’s delight, she held her own. The man on the sorrel did not gain on her any more than he already had. The other men were much further behind, so far back that she did not even consider them much of a threat.

  Then, without warning, the forest ended at the base of a steep slope. And not just any slope. It was covered by talus from top to bottom, by broken bits of rock of all sizes. Loose, slippery rocks that offered no firm footing for man or beast.

  Winona had no choice. If she tried to go around, the man on the sorrel would be on her before she got halfway around the hill. She had to go up the talus slope and hope the mare kept its footing all the way to the crest.

  With the thought came action. Winona urged her mare to gallop straight up, and for fifteen or twenty feet they made steady headway. Then the rocks started sliding out from under the mare’s driving hooves. The horse slipped, righted itself, and went on, but slower now, because if it tried to gallop it would lose its purchase and go sliding back down to the bottom.

  A mocking cackle made Winona glance back. The scrawny man was laughing at the mare’s efforts. He had started up after them, his sorrel picking its way with uncanny skill. He still held the brown rope, but close to his leg where she could not see it well.

  Winona smiled grimly to herself. She would give the scrawny one something to cackle about when he got a little closer! Hunching forward to better distribute her weight, she poked the mare gently with the stock of her rifle. The pinto, muscles rippling, climbed steadily.

  A dozen feet higher, and they came to where the talus consisted of mainly small, flat rocks as slippery as shale. The mare lost her footing, recovered, then promptly lost it again. With every step the animal took, the talus spewed on down the slope. It was next to impossible for the horse to plant all four legs firmly.

  Winona patted its neck to encourage it. The animal was slick with sweat and had to be tired, but it gamely plodded higher. More and more rocks clattered out from under it.

  The next moment the mare’s rear legs buckled. The pinto dug in its hooves and tried to push upright, but as it did a whole section of talus under its front legs gave way.

  The next thing Winona knew, the horse was on its belly and sliding downward at a fast clip. She hauled on the reins. The mare tried its utmost to stand but there was no footing at all. Its legs churned. It nickered. It toppled onto its side.

  Winona had to scramble to keep from being pinned. She clung in helpless frustration to the side of her saddle, yet another gift from her adoring husband. There was nothing else she could do until they came to a stop.

  Twenty feet lower, they finally did. Winona carefully stood and stepped back so the mare could rise unburdened. The short hairs at the nape of her neck prickled as that mocking cackle was repeated very close behind her. She whirled.

  The scrawny man sat astride his sorrel not six feet away, gazing at her in frank amusement. “I'll say this for you, squaw, you gave us a hell of a chase. But now you’re ours.”

  A cold fury seized Winona. She gave him a taste of his own medicine, mocking him with a laugh of her own, and said, “You have it all wrong, white dog. Now you are mine.” With that, she brought up the Hawken.

  Fleeting surprise registered on the grizzled man’s face. Then his right arm flicked up and out. The brown rope flashed toward her. Only it wasn’t a rope at all. Too late, she saw it was a whip such as she had seen white men use who drove big wagons pulled by many oxen or mules. A bullwhip, it was called. And this man was a master at using his.

  The tip of the whip wrapped itself around the muzzle of the Hawken. Before Winona could prevent it, the rifle was torn from her grasp and jerked out of her reach. Undaunted, she grabbed for a pistol. Her right hand closed on the smooth wooden grip and she started to swing the flintlock up even as her thumb curled back the hammer.

  The whip cracked a second time, its rawhide coils looping around Winona’s ankles. Just as she aimed and squeezed the trigger, she was wrenched off her feet.

  Winona's right elbow smashed onto the hard rocks. Involuntarily, her finger tightened on the trigger and the flintlock went off. She did not mean to shoot. It just happened. A strident whinny greeted the booming retort of the .55-caliber smoothbore. Lusty curses exploded from the scrawny man.

  The coils around Winona’s ankles slackened. Kicking and wriggling her legs, she cast them off her and pushed to her feet.

  The sorrel was down. A large hole in the center of its forehead oozed blood and brains. Its tongue lolled out, and its body quivered as if it were cold.

  Partially pinned under the dead animal was the man with the whip. He struggled mightily but could not free himself. Glaring at Winona, he snarled, “You bitch! You killed Buck! The best damn horse I’ve ever owned, and you killed him!”

  Winona reached for her other pistol. “Just as I am going to do to you.”

  The scrawny man recoiled. He extended a hand, palm out. “Now you hold on there, squaw! You don’t want to be doing that! I wasn’t tryin’ to hurt you. Just capture you, is all.”

  “I am Shoshone. You are my enemy. There is nothing more to be said.” Winona began to level the flintlock.

  Then a rifle blasted at the bottom of the talus slope. A lead ball whined off nearby rocks. The other three men had arrived. Another was taking aim as Winona ducked down so that they could not see her over the dead horse.

  The man in the bear hide hat continued to grunt and push against his saddle, to no avail. He muttered to himself, a string of oaths such as her husband would never use.

  Winona saw the three men below dismount and climb. One was reloading. His companions had their rifles trained, ready to shoot her when she reappeared. Or would they? Winona wondered. The scrawny one had just told her that they wanted to take her alive. Maybe they would hold their fire long enough for her to escape.

  Using the pinto was out of the question. The mare had kept on trying to rise and had slid another fifteen feet lower. With it had gone Winona’s ammo pouch and powder horn, which she had placed in a parfleche tied to the back of the saddle. She had no way to reload. And her rifle lay well past the sorrel, out in the open.

  The w
ay Winona saw it, her only hope lay in reaching the summit and losing herself in the forest. It would take her pursuers time to pry their friend from under the horse and scale the slope. She regretted having to leave the mare and her effects behind, but it could not be helped.

  Besides, Winona would get them back when she returned with dozens of warriors and tracked the quartet down.

  Girding her legs, Winona wedged the spent pistol under her sash, waited until all three men were looking down at the loose rocks under their feet, and made her move. Springing up, but staying doubled at the waist, she sprinted toward the crest. She zigzagged to throw off their aim. And it was well she did, because a rifle cracked and lead ricocheted inches from her right leg.

  The scrawny man let out with a bellow. “Hold your fire, Owens, you brainless bastard! Comanches don’t pay for cripples!”

  Comanches? Winona mused on the run. What did Comanches have to do with anything? She took five more bounding leaps and suddenly the answer burst on her like an exploding keg of black powder. It nearly threw her off stride.

  The men were slavers!

  Until that moment Winona had assumed they were common bandits, men who roamed the mountains preying on anyone and everyone. Nate and she had tangled with their ilk before. But now she knew the truth, and she was sorry that she had not shot the scrawny one when she had the chance.

  In early childhood Shoshone girls were warned by their mothers to beware the dreaded slavers. Winona remembered her own mother telling her about the vile bands which swooped down out of nowhere and made off with screaming women and young girls. She had been five or six at the time, and the tales had terrified her as nothing else ever had.

  But the slavers never struck once while Winona was growing up. By the time Winona had seen twelve winters, she had come to suspect that the stories were just that. They were meant to keep little girls in line, to keep them from straying too far from the village.

  The winter before Winona met Nate, events had shown her otherwise. One day a group of warriors from another Shoshone band showed up in the village. They were painted for war and wanted the help of Winona’s father and others in hunting a band of slavers who had made off with eight women and four girls.