Wilderness Double Edition 26 Page 4

  “Little lady,” One-Eye said, “the whole blamed West is Injun country. Up near Canada it’s the Blackfeet. Lower down it’s the Sioux. There are the Cheyenne, the Arapahos, the Utes, the Shoshones, the Bannocks, the Nez Perce. South of here are the Kiowas, the Comanches, the Apaches.”

  “You certainly know your Indians,” Cynthia said. “Is your acquaintance with the truth as broad-reaching?”

  “What does that mean?” One-Eye asked. “Are you saying I’m some kind of liar?”

  Cynthia smiled sweetly. “There are blackbirds and there are doves, and you do not strike me as a dove.”

  One-Eye swung toward Shipley. “Pardon my language, mister, but what in hell does this contrary filly of yours have against me?”

  “That’s enough, Cyn,” Ship said wearily. “We should be thankful he’s white and not after our scalp.”

  “There are whites and there are whites,” Cynthia said.

  “There she goes again,” One-Eye complained. “If she isn’t addlepated, no one is.”

  Ship smiled and changed the subject. “My throat is parched and that water looks delicious.” Sinking onto a knee, he cupped his left hand and dipped it in the spring. “Nice and cool, too.” He sipped from his palm. “You should try some, Cyn. It’s about the best water I’ve ever tasted.”

  “Sure is,” One-Eye heartily agreed. “And the only water for miles around. Which is why you shouldn’t dawdle. Every tribe from here to creation knows about this spring.”

  “I don’t notice you drinking,” Cynthia observed. “Yet you said you were thirsty.”

  “Enough, Cyn,” Ship said. “Must you carp so? Let’s do as he suggests. Fill our water skins and leave before we’re discovered.”

  “I doubt there is anyone else within fifty miles,” Cynthia said, but under her breath so the rangy frontiersman would not hear. Dismounting, she stepped to the packhorse and loudly asked, “Do I do all the work or will you help me?”

  Shipley hurried to her side. “Need you ask?” Out of the corner of his mouth he whispered, “Must you behave so? Would it hurt to be polite?”

  “I don’t trust him.”

  “You never trust anyone. Heck, when we first met, you didn’t trust me.” Ship untied the two water skins and gave the one that was almost empty to her. “You didn’t trust my brothers, either, yet Hiram and Elmer became two of your very best friends.”

  “I wish they were here now,” Cynthia said. “I wish they never went off on their gallivant. I was content in Indiana.”

  One-Eye was watching them intently. “Is something wrong? What’s all the whispering about?”

  “Married talk,” Cynthia answered.

  “Cyn, please,” Shipley said. Squatting, he opened the water skin and plunged the neck under the surface. Bubbles erupted, and he lowered the entire skin.

  “Is it me,” One-Eye said, “or do you two bicker a lot?”

  “Suppose you tell us a little about yourself,” Ship said, “and don’t worry about my wife and me?”

  One-Eye’s grin twisted his scar. “Sure, sonny, sure. Don’t twist your britches in a knot.” He smiled at Cynthia, but she might as well have been carved from granite. “There’s not much to tell, though. I came west in ’40. Heard a heap about the trapping trade and figured I would be rolling in money. Made it to the rendezvous along the Green River. Only thing was, the bottom had fallen out of the beaver market, and that was the last rendezvous ever held.”

  “An uncle told me about them,” Shipley said. “I would dearly have loved to attend one. According to him they were quite colorful.”

  “Sonny, you don’t know the half of it,” One-Eye assured him. “The caravan had pretty near thirty carts and about forty men. Not counting the wagons of the emigrants and the missionaries.” He placed the stock of his rifle on the ground and leaned on the muzzle. “Jim Bridger guided us, and Joel Walker, the brother of Joe Walker, was also along.”

  “I would like to meet Bridger,” Shipley said.

  “He’s a hoot. You’d never guess how famous he is to meet him in person. He’s up there with the likes of Joe Walker, Kit Carson, Joe Meek, and Nate King.” One-Eye spoke the last name with a spiteful rasp.

  “My uncle told me that a lot of Indians attended the rendezvous.”

  “Did they ever!” One-Eye exclaimed. “Why, when we got to the Green River, hundreds of Snakes came to meet us. Shoshones, some call them. Must’ve been every blamed warrior in the tribe, wearing what they take for finery. You never saw so many wolves’ tails, bear teeth, and cougar claws. They favored feathers, too, and pearls, those who could get them in trade. Such a hullabaloo! They rode around the camp three times, whooping and shouting and waving their coup sticks with scalps tied at the ends—”

  Shipley glanced pointedly at Cynthia. “Maybe you shouldn’t talk about scalps and such in front of my wife.”

  “Is she squeamish?” One-Eye asked, and tittered.

  “No,” Cynthia said. “And neither do I suffer fools with much patience. You would do well to keep that in mind.”

  One-Eye did not take offense. “You’re a feisty wench, I’ll say that for you. But back to the rendezvous. Some Flatheads showed up. So did a few Crows. But it was mostly the damned Snakes.”

  “Wait a minute,” Ship said. “A man at Bent’s Fort claimed that the Snakes or Shoshones or whatever you call them are the friendliest tribe anywhere.”

  “So folks say,” One-Eye sourly replied. “But you couldn’t prove it by me.” He tapped his eye patch. “Or by this.”

  “The Shoshones did that to you?”

  One-Eye nodded. “That they did, sonny. Pried my eyeball right out with the tip of a knife.”

  Cynthia stepped to the spring to dip her water skin. “What did you do to deserve it?”

  “Cyn!” Ship said.

  “That’s all right,” One-Eye said. “I expect that of your filly. For her information, I didn’t do anything. But those devils didn’t need a reason. A bunch of Snakes held me down and a buck named Touch The Clouds dug my eye out.”

  “That doesn’t sound like something the Shoshones would do,” Cynthia said.

  Shipley was more sympathetic. “How horrible.”

  “It was worse than horrible,” One-Eye said, and shuddered. “I can remember the feel of the steel as it slid under my eye. I can remember the pain.”

  “We don’t need to hear more.”

  “I couldn’t lift a finger. They had me flat on my back. I howled and I cussed and I begged, but it didn’t do a lick of good. They held me, and the coyote with the knife did the deed.” One-Eye touched his hand to the patch. “Want to see the hole?”

  “Good Lord, no!” Ship replied. “Are you insane? There is a lady present.”

  One-Eye rubbed the patch, then traced his scar with a fingertip. “They did this that night, too, the filthy heathens. Ever since, I’ve hated the Snakes and anyone who has anything to do with them.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Shipley said. “Not if they did it unjustly.”

  “I said that was how it was, didn’t I?” One-Eye snapped. “Or are you starting to act like your wife?”

  “Now, see here,” Ship objected. “You will stop speaking ill of the woman I love. I will tolerate a lot but not that.”

  The frontiersman’s slit of a mouth curled in a lopsided grin. “Whatever you want, sonny. I reckon I don’t hold my tongue like I should. That comes from spending so much time alone. I forget how to act around folk like yourselves.”

  “I doubt that very much,” Cynthia said. “You’re a shrewd coyote, is what you are. That tale of yours doesn’t earn a tear from me.”

  “You’re something, little lady,” One-Eye replied. “Yes, indeed. As tart a tongue as I’ve ever come across.” He turned away from the spring and snagged the reins to his mount. “You don’t need to beat me with a war club. I know when my company isn’t wanted.” One-Eye placed his hands on his saddle. Suddenly he pointed. “I’ll be damned. I warned
you, didn’t I, but you wouldn’t listen.”

  Shipley and Cynthia rose, leaving the water skins, and peered through the cottonwoods to the southeast.

  “What are you talking about?” Ship asked. “There’s nothing there.”

  “You don’t see the dust?”

  “What dust?” Cynthia demanded. “The sky is as clear as clear can be.”

  One-Eye jabbed at the horizon. “There’s dust, I tell you. Injuns. Heading for this spring.”

  Ship moved past him to see better. “Dust is dust. It could be a herd of buffalo or wild horses.”

  “It could be antelope, too, or prairie dogs having a frolic.” One-Eye snickered. “But it’s not any of them. I lied.”

  “You what?”

  “Lied about a lot of it except for the rendezvous and my eye. But I had to trick you until you were where I wanted you and now you are.”

  Shipley began to turn. “You’re not making any sen—”

  One-Eye Jackson swept the heavy hardwood stock of his rifle up and around in a tight arc. His was a Kentucky rifle, an older model reliable at long distances. The butt of the stock was reinforced with a metal plate, and it was the metal plate that smashed into Shipley Beecher’s temple with enough force to nearly split Shipley’s skull. He folded without a sound or a twitch.

  For precious seconds Cynthia was rooted in shock. Then One-Eye Jackson looked at her, and leered, and the spell was broken. “Sic him, Byron!” she yelled. “Sic him, boy!”

  The mongrel came up off its haunches in a blur. Two bounds, and Byron cleared the spring, jaws spread wide to rend.

  It seemed to Cynthia that Jackson was as good as ripped to shreds. But she had forgotten that he had spent years in the wilds, that he was a frontiersman, and that frontiersmen, both the good ones and the bad ones, lived on the razor’s edge of their reflexes every waking moment of their lives. She thought Jackson would be ripped to shreds but she was wrong.

  One-Eye spun more swiftly than a human being should be able to spin, and the same stock that brought Shipley low slammed into Byron’s high forehead. The dog yipped once and fell motionless at One-Eye’s feet.

  “So much for your protectors.”

  Fleeting fear caused Cynthia to back away. Then reason asserted itself, reason and a red-hot wave of anger that filled her veins with molten fire. “You miserable vermin,” she said, and immediately brought her rifle to bear. Hers was a short-barreled rifle made by N. Kiles of Raccoon Creek, Ohio. Only .33 caliber, it was adequate for a man but not anything bigger.

  One-Eye sprang as Cynthia squeezed the trigger. She thought she had him. She thought the ball would core his belly and leave him helpless and near death. But there was no blast, no explosion of smoke and lead. She had not thumbed the hammer back. Instantly, Cynthia sought to remedy her blunder, but Jackson was on her before she could. With a savage wrench, he tore the rifle from her grasp and hurled it a good ten feet.

  “Try to shoot me, will you?”

  Few times in her life had Cynthia ever been struck. Her mother had slapped her on occasion when she was small, but that was it. Shipley never hit her. He was not the type. So the blow to her cheek was doubly enervating.

  “That’s just for starters,” One-Eye Jackson said.

  Cynthia had lost her rifle, but she still had a flintlock pistol tucked at her waist. Frantic, she clawed at it, her fingers wrapping tight. She barely had it clear of her belt when hideous pain and blinding light burst in her head. The world shimmered and shook. She was vaguely aware of falling. A veil of darkness descended but only for a moment or two. Then her vision cleared and she was staring up into the scarred visage of the monster who had laid her low. She got her elbows under her and attempted to rise.

  “No, you don’t.”

  Iron fingers clamped onto Cynthia’s throat, choking off her breath. She pried at the fingers but could not loosen them.

  “That’s it,” One-Eye said. “Fight me. I like it when they put up a struggle. Especially the pretty ones, like you.” His laugh was gleefully vicious.

  Cynthia struggled harder. She tried to rake his good eye with her fingernails, but he jerked back, cackling.

  “You were right, little lady,” One-Eye crowed. “I was following you. I shadowed you and your weak sister of a husband all the way from Bent’s Fort.” With his other hand he caressed her hair. “I don’t need to tell you why, do I?”

  Cynthia attempted to knee him where it would hurt a man the most, but he twisted his hip, deflecting her knee.

  One-Eye licked his lips. “Think of yourself as a bowl of pudding, and me, I have a sweet tooth.”

  Three

  Stark terror welled in Cynthia Beecher, but she fought it down. She was a scrapper, as her grandmother used to say. When she was a child she was often picked on for her small size, and she learned early in life to stand up for herself. Later, but before she met Shipley, she had to ward off the advances of men who seemed to think that being bigger gave them the natural right to let their hands roam where they wanted. She proved them wrong.

  But Cynthia had never been in a situation like this. Never had her virtue, and her life, been in imminent peril.

  One-Eye Jackson put his other hand on her bosom. “I think I’ll rip your dress off and take it from there.”

  Cynthia could count the number of times she had used swear words in her life on one hand. She swore now. “Bastard!” She clawed at his face, but he swatted her arm aside.

  “You’ll have to do better than that, little lady,” One-Eye mocked, then slugged her in the stomach.

  Again, Cynthia’s world swam. She almost cried out, almost gave him the satisfaction of hearing her bleat in fear. Inexplicably, the pressure on her throat eased, as did the weight of Jackson’s legs on hers. Wildly, blindly, she scrambled backward, but he did not pounce. Suddenly the world stopped spinning and she could see again. The only thing was, what she saw mystified her.

  One-Eye Jackson was suspended in midair. He appeared to be floating a couple of feet off the ground. His head was bent at an angle, and he was thrashing his arms and legs.

  Bewildered, Cynthia sat up. It was then she saw the man behind Jackson. It was another frontiersman in buckskins. Only this one had a powerful chest and broad shoulders and stood well over six feet.

  “Who—” One-Eye squawked. “What—”

  Belatedly, Cynthia saw that the other frontiersman had Jackson by the back of the neck and was holding him in the air by sheer strength of sinew, a feat so marvelous she would not credit it as possible were she not witnessing it with her own eyes.

  “You owe the lady an apology,” the newcomer said in a deep, rumbling voice. His green eyes darted to her. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” Cynthia found herself saying. The only thing hurt was her dignity. Shipley was the one in need of attention.

  The giant reached around and stripped Jackson of his flintlocks and knife and tossed them to one side. As if Jackson weighed no more than a feather, the giant flung him to the ground. One-Eye instantly sought to rise and received a kick in the ribs. “Stay where you are.”

  One-Eye looked up. His sweat-streaked face paled. “You!”

  “Me,” the man said. To his rear, propped against a cottonwood, was a Hawken rifle. “You should check on your husband,” he said to Cynthia. Drawing a pistol, he cocked it and trained it on Jackson. “Need I warn you that one wrong move and you will be worm food?”

  “What are you doing here?” One-Eye demanded. “You, of all people!”

  Cynthia rushed to Shipley. He did not stir when she touched him. On his temple was a knot the size of a hen’s egg. Blood trickled from a gash. She felt his wrist and detected a strong but slow pulse. “He’s alive, thank God!”

  “Wet a cloth,” her rescuer said.

  Cynthia dashed to the packhorse. In one of the packs was a washcloth. She hastily soaked it in the spring, then cradled Shipley’s head in her lap and gently dabbed at the hen’s egg. “Thank heaven
you came along when you did, whoever you are.”

  “Nate King,” Nate introduced himself, not taking his eyes off Jackson. “And I’m not here by chance.” He did not tell her about the pitcher. Or about nearly riding the bay into the ground to overtake them before they encountered hostiles.

  “Oh?” Cynthia was too worried about Shipley for the comment to fully sink in. “That awful man would have murdered us if you hadn’t come.”

  “He’s killed before,” Nate said.

  One-Eye Jackson rolled onto his back. “I heard tell you moved way off in the mountains.”

  “I was out for a stroll.”

  “Like hell.” One-Eye’s remaining eye blazed with hate. “You were tracking me, weren’t you? You’ve wanted me dead for years and finally got around to tracking me down.”

  “I wouldn’t soil my hands,” Nate said. “But the Shoshones would like to get theirs on you.”

  Fear replaced One-Eye’s hate. “You wouldn’t!” he gasped. “You know what they would do to me! You can’t let them do that to a white man.”

  “Why can’t I?” Nate responded. “It would be fitting.”

  Cynthia had folded the cloth into a compress and applied it to her husband’s brow. “What are you two talking about?”

  “The Shoshones have an old score to settle with Mr. Jackson, here,” Nate informed her, but he did not elaborate.

  “He told us they were the ones who cut out his eye,” Cynthia said.

  “They would have carved him into tiny pieces, but he got away.”

  Cynthia raised her head. “Wait a minute. He mentioned you, too. Something about you being as well known as Kit Carson.”

  “Kit is probably the most famous scout alive,” Nate said. “Compared to him, I’m small potatoes.”

  One-Eye licked his thin lips. “What do you intend to do with me, King? Are you really going to turn me over to the Snakes?”

  “I should.”