Blood Hunt (A Davy Crockett Western. Book 3) Page 5

  Thunder Heart motioned vaguely north and west.

  “How many suns did you travel to get here?”

  The warrior did not answer.

  “Why did you come?”

  Again the warrior did not move a finger.

  “We know that you have taken a white woman from bad Indians who stole her from her lodge,” Davy signed as best he could. “We thank you for that. But now we want her back.”

  “No white woman,” the man responded.

  “Do not lie to us,” Davy signed sternly. “Tracks do not lie. We want the woman. We want our horses. If you do not give them to us, we will follow your people to your own country and punish them.”

  The warriors mouth quirked upward. “Three of you will do all this?”

  Davy was tired of being played with. “Do not mock me,” he warned. “My friends and I are scouts. We blaze a trail for a large party with many guns. Behind them are even more men with even more guns. Word is spreading throughout our country. Soon a hundred times a hundred men will be on the march, with others to come. We will not rest until our woman is safe or your people are destroyed.”

  Indecision etched the warrior’s face. He glanced at the Kentucky rifle Kayne held, then at the pistol tucked under Davy’s belt.

  “If you know anything of the white man,” Davy pressed on, “you know that we have more guns than there are birds in the air or fish in the rivers. You also know that we do not show mercy when our women have been wronged.”

  Thunder Heart gnawed his lower lip.

  “If you come from the north, maybe you do not know the power of the white man. Maybe you do not know that our medicine is so strong, none have stood before us. The tribes who opposed us and are no more cannot be counted on all your fingers and toes.”

  Davy knew that he was stretching the facts, but it was necessary. Unless Thunder Heart’s people were persuaded to return Rebecca Worthington, there would be hell to pay. The settlers would retaliate. “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” was the byword of the frontier. And if the settlers couldn’t find the culprits, they’d make do with handy scapegoats. Innocents on both sides would pay for the stupidity of a few.

  Davy held his right hand under his chin, close to his neck, fingers folded, then moved his index finger and thumb straight forward. In effect, he was signing, “I speak with a straight tongue.”

  The warrior was glum. “I believe you, white man,” he responded. “But there is nothing I can do. The man who leads my band, He-Bear, has claimed the woman as his own. He will take her to our village and make her his wife.”

  “Even if it costs the lives of his people?”

  “He-Bear cares only about He-Bear,” Thunder Heart signed.

  “But what of the other warriors? Surely they will not let one man bring the wrath of the whites down on your tribe?”

  “They dare not challenge our leader,” Thunder Heart said. “He-Bear would cast them out.”

  In exasperation, Davy threw up his arms and walked in a circle, thinking furiously. Few tribes were organized the same. In some, leaders held limited power, and their opinions mattered no more than those of a common warrior. In other tribes— and this, unfortunately, was one of them—the leaders’ will was absolute; their word was law.

  Davy stopped pacing. Maybe, where force and threats would not work, other incentives might. “Answer me this, Thunder Heart. And answer honestly.” He locked eyes with the warrior. “Would you like to settle this without blood being shed?”

  “I would,” Thunder Heart signed earnestly.

  Davy believed him. Just as all whites were not inveterate Indian-haters, not all Indians despised whites. Reason and tolerance could prevail if given the chance. “Question. Would He-Bear be willing to trade for the woman?”

  “Trade what?”

  Davy hesitated. He had no right to speak on the settlers’ behalf. They might not be willing to keep any promises he made. “For whatever He-Bear wants,” he hedged. “Horses, blankets, knives.”

  “He will want guns.”

  “That is not for me to decide.”

  “Guns,” Thunder Heart insisted. “We took two from the men we fought. But we need many more to keep our enemies from our village.”

  On a hunch, Davy signed, “So that is why your band came south? Your tribe is at war, and the other side is winning. Without guns your people will lose.”

  Thunder Heart did not sign anything. He did not have to. His expression confirmed that Davy’s guess had been right.

  “If I let you go, will you tell He-Bear all that we have talked about? Will you tell him that we are willing to trade—” Davy breathed deep, “and we will give him guns, if that is what it takes?”

  “I will tell him,” Thunder Heart’s bronzed hands declared.

  Kneeling, Davy removed the gag and cut the strips wrapped around the warriors ankles. “My friends and I will wait on top of this hill until tomorrow when the sun is directly overhead. If He-Bear accepts our offer, have him bring the woman. If he does not come, your people will suffer.”

  John Kayne had tensed when Davy freed the warrior. Now he extended his rifle, demanding, “What’s going on, Crockett?”

  “We’re letting him go.”

  “Like hell we are!” Kayne said. “He’s our ace in the hole. We’ll swap him for Rebecca.”

  Unaware of what they were talking about, Thunder Heart nodded at Davy and started to walk off. Two steps he took, and Kayne thrust the rifle against his ribs.

  “This buck isn’t going anywhere,” the settler insisted. “Tie him up and we’ll wait for Norval and Cy to get here.”

  “I’ve made a deal,” Davy said, and detailed his talk, concluding with “It’s the best chance we have of averting more bloodshed. Besides, what harm can it do?”

  “Plenty, if this red fiend and some of his pards decide to sneak back in the middle of the night and slit our throats,” Kayne said.

  “The others will join us by then. We’ll post guards.” Davy did not fault Kayne for being so reluctant. Few whites trusted the red man, just as few Indians had a high opinion of whites. “Please. For Rebecca’s sake.”

  “I’d do anything for her,” Kayne said. Wavering, he gave in and lowered the Kentucky. “I just pray that you know what you’re doing,” he puffed in annoyance.

  Thunder Heart did not waste another second. As lithe as a cougar, he bounded to the east slope and was gone. He did not look back.

  Davy could not help Wondering if he had made one of the biggest mistakes of his life. He had put his trust in a warrior he did not know, from a tribe he had never heard of. How wise was that, with a woman’s life hanging in the balance? If he had misjudged Thunder Heart, Rebecca Worthington would suffer the consequences.

  “So what now, Tennessee?” Kayne asked.

  “We wait.”

  They trudged to the top. Davy suggested they build a signal fire. Kayne moodily offered to collect wood. Presently flames licked the air a full yard off the ground and a sinuous plume of smoke spiraled high into the sky.

  “There. They should see that from miles off,” Davy predicted.

  “Where’s your friend?” Kayne asked.

  Davy had not been overly worried until the question was posed. After all, they had advised Flavius to go slowly and stop every so often. And knowing his friend’s aversion to combat, he had figured that Flavius would show up sooner or later.

  But with the signal lit, and no sign of his companion, Davy grew disturbed. Moving to the edge, he cupped his hands to his mouth and hollered loud enough to be heard back in Tennessee. His shouts went unanswered.

  Kayne added fuel to the fire. “He has to be all right,” he said. “Otherwise, we would have heard a shot.”

  Maybe not, Davy mused, if Flavius had been jumped and overpowered before he could pull back the hammer and squeeze the trigger. “Stick with the fire and keep it high. I’m going to check on him.”

  “Keep your eyes skinned, hoss. Might be th
at those heathens have two captives instead of just one.”

  Praying that wasn’t the case, Davy jumped, coiled, and jumped again. The slant of the slope enabled him to descend swiftly. At the bottom he hollered some more.

  Four crows flapped skyward from the top of a tall tree. Nothing else moved. Darting into the woods, Davy angled to the game trail. Hoofprints and moccasin tracks made by the war party were abundant. Flavius’s tracks should have been impressed on top of them, but they were missing.

  Breaking into a sprint, Davy hurtled along the trail at a reckless pace. He did not chide himself for leaving Flavius alone. It had been the right thing to do. Even so, if anything had happened to the portly grump, he would never forgive himself.

  Presently Davy slowed to examine the trail. He was two hundred yards from the hill, yet Flavius had not reached that point. Avoiding horse droppings, he paralleled the trail for another fifty feet. Suddenly he halted.

  At last Davy had found some of Flavius’s prints. Unaccountably, his friend had stopped and crouched, as the deep heels demonstrated. Then Flavius had turned and gone into the vegetation to the west.

  Davy did likewise. He had brought the bow, and he nocked a shaft. As a boy he had used one many times, playing Robin Hood with his brothers and chums. But he was nowhere near as accurate with it as he was with a rifle.

  The lush forest hemmed him in. Insects were everywhere: ants crawling at his feet, bees buzzing in search of pollen, flies doing whatever it was flies did when they weren’t feasting on rotten carcasses.

  To Davy, his friend’s tracks were like an open book. They led him to a large log where Flavius had sunk to his knees. After crawling to the opposite end, Flavius had risen and dashed to a pine tree. At its base he had crouched, perhaps to scour the area ahead, perhaps to listen.

  Flavius had gone on. Davy started to, then felt the short hairs at the nape of his neck prickle.

  A new set of footprints converged on Flavius from behind a bush. Whoever it was had shadowed him, staying far enough back that Flavius never caught on.

  Davy ran, anxious to learn the outcome.

  In an oval clearing ringed by saplings Flavius had been set on by three men wearing moccasins. Flavius had put up quite a fight, but he was overpowered and borne to the earth. His attackers, though, had not slain him. It relieved Davy to discover that Flavius had walked off under his own power, surrounded by the trio.

  The prints of the attackers raised more questions than they answered. Davy had seen the style of moccasin before. He even recognized one set because the right heel was split.

  Flavius Harris had been taken captive by the same warriors who had kidnapped Rebecca Worthington.

  Chapter Five

  At that exact moment, the man Davy Crockett was worried about trudged gloomily through heavy brush. Whenever he slowed, the sharp tip of a long knife prodded him in the small of his back. “Keep jabbing me with that pig sticker, damn you,” he grumbled after the fourth or fifth time, “and I’ll take it from you and shove it down your throat.”

  The warrior holding the knife merely grunted and prodded him again.

  Flavius blamed himself for being captured. If he had stuck to the trail as he was supposed to do, if he hadn’t let curiosity get the better of him when he heard faint whispering, he wouldn’t be in the pickle he was in.

  It had surprised him immensely when the warriors made no attempt to slay him after they battered him to the ground and relieved him of the pistol. The tallest had hoisted him upright and shoved him into the woods, and they had been hurrying northward ever since.

  In due course Flavius recognized them.

  They were the same warriors who had attacked Davy and him the night before. Their leader was the tall warrior who favored a war club, and who now carried one of Davy’s pistols. Behind Flavius tramped the stocky warrior who had wanted to slit Davy’s throat. The third man carried a lance and one of Flavius’s flintlocks, and had a wicked gash in his side. Of the other two pistols there was no sign.

  What was it Norval had called them? Flavius asked himself. Sauks, or Sacs, as he recollected. He keenly desired to learn what they intended to do with him. As yet they had not bound him or harmed him in any way. And it was somewhat encouraging that the tall warrior had spared Davy when Davy was at their mercy.

  Preoccupied, Flavius did not see a root in his path until his toe snagged it and he stumbled. Throwing his arms out, he managed to stay on his feet. But it earned him another prod.

  “Damn you!” Flavius fumed, whirling with his fists clenched. “You’re so dumb, you couldn’t teach a hen to cluck! Didn’t you see that root? I didn’t trip on purpose.”

  The stocky Sauk glared, blood lust lining his brutal visage. He yearned to use his knife. That much was obvious.

  The man’s attitude just made Flavius madder. “I ought to pound your head in, you yak!” he declared, venting his frustration the only way he could.

  For a second it appeared that the stocky warrior was going to cut him. Poised to slash, the man wagged his blade. Instantly, a tall figure glided between them.

  At a command from the leader, the stocky Sauk lowered his arm and stepped back. The tall one turned, regarding Flavius wearily. “Keokuk will not harm you if you do not give us any trouble, white man. I give you my word.”

  Flabbergasted at hearing flawless English uttered by one of his captors, Flavius blurted, “You speak our tongue? Why didn’t you say so sooner?”

  “There was no need,” the tall warrior responded, and gestured for Flavius to fall into step. “Now, come.”

  “Who are you? Why have you taken me captive? What ‘s this all about?”

  The warrior glanced back. He had a stately presence, accented by the turban-style headdress that framed his high forehead. His moccasins and leggings were finely decorated. Over his broad shoulders was draped a cloak of sorts, made from bear and otter. “Be quiet, white man. We must hurry if we are to take back the woman stolen by the Atsinas.”

  Gambling that the Sauks were not disposed to rub him out, Flavius paid no heed. “I need to know your name. And why I’m your prisoner.”

  “I am Pashipaho.”

  That was all the man would say. So Flavius tried again. “Why did you jump me? Where are you taking me? And how is it that you know the white man’s language?”

  “A missionary taught me,” Pashipaho said.

  “When?”

  “When I had seen but six winters. He came among our people and taught us white ways, and about the white God, and of your Great Father who lives in a stone lodge far away.” Pashipaho paused. “He was a kind man, Father McKenzie. My people thought highly of him.”

  “If that’s so, why are your people trying to drive the whites out?

  Without warning, Pashipaho halted, and Flavius nearly collided with him.

  “The missionary did not take land that had belonged to my tribe since the world began,” Pashipaho said harshly. “The missionary did not take all the fish from our streams and the game from our woods. The missionary did not make my people act foolish from drinking too much alcohol, and he did not try to force himself on our young women.”

  Flavius never had understood why Indians made such a fuss when whites moved into a new area. There was plenty of land for everybody. And white folks had to put food on the table, just like everyone else.

  “We liked Father McKenzie,” Pashipaho said. “We thought all whites were as he was. So when the first trappers and traders came, we did not object. Now we see that we were wrong. Your people can never live in harmony with mine. We should have driven them out when we had the chance.”

  “So you don’t cotton to any of my kind,” Flavius guessed.

  Pashipaho averted his gaze. “I did not say that, white man. Were it true, you and the one who wears the tail of a raccoon on his head would now be with your ancestors.”

  They hiked on awhile, Flavius pondering how best to pry more information from the Sauk. He was surprised whe
n Pashipaho addressed him first.

  “I spent a lot of time among your people, white man. I visited the settlement every day for over a year. I thought that maybe our elders were wrong, that maybe all of us could live in peace.” His voice dropped. “I should have known better.”

  “What happened?”

  “What do you think? Some of the whites at Peoria came to me and shoved guns in my face and told me to leave and never return. So I left. But I could not stay away.”

  “How do you mean?”

  Pashipaho looked around. “What is your name, white man?”

  Flavius told him, adding, “My pard and me are from Tennessee, which is even farther away than the Great White Father’s stone lodge. We’re just passing through. We’re no threat to you or yours.”

  “Well, Flavius Harris of Tennessee, I am sorry for what must be done. If I could, I would not do it. I do not believe in killing a man unless he tries to kill me.”

  “What’s this talk of killing all of a sudden?” Flavius asked. “I told you we came in peace.”

  Pashipaho started to answer, then tilted his head and sniffed loudly. The other Sauks imitated him. Flavius tested the air but smelled nothing out of the ordinary. The next moment, the stocky warrior behind him pressed the knife against his throat and seized him by the scruff of the neck.

  “From here on, follow me closely, white man,” Pashipaho whispered. “Do not make any noise. If you do, you will make Keokuk very happy. Do you understand?”

  Flavius understood perfectly. Keokuk was looking for any excuse to sever his jugular. Gulping, he cat-footed on Pashipaho’s heels.

  The Sauks were ghosts incarnate. They trod on air, or seemed to, for not one made the faintest sound. Bent low, they sped in a beeline toward an unknown destination.

  Not until the acrid odor of smoke tingled Flavius’s nose did he have a clue where they were going. He marveled that the warriors had smelled the campfire from twice the distance he could.

  Muffled voices brought the Sauks to a stop. Dropping to their hands and knees, the warriors warily moved forward. Keokuk stayed close to Flavius, the knife conspicuously close to Flavius’s chest. A short stroke, and cold steel would wind up in his heart.