Wilderness Double Edition 11 Page 6

Stopping, Nate squatted, set down his Hawken, and grasped the Kentucky by the barrel. Presently a burly shape loomed in the darkness, streaking after Simon Ward. The man never suspected that Nate was there.

  Swinging with all the power in his broad shoulders, Nate clubbed the slaver on the side of the head. The man dropped like a poled ox. Nate threw down the busted Kentucky and picked up the man’s rifle instead. Cocking the piece, he spied another slaver and fixed a hasty bead. At his shot, the man screeched, threw up his arms, and toppled.

  Another ragged volley blistered the prairie. Nate was on the move before it rang out, taking the extra rifle along to give to Ward. He had not gone far when a man yelled.

  “Hank is down! He’s bleeding bad!”

  “Forget him!” That sounded like Gregor, and he was awfully close. “I want the son of a bitch who shot him! No one is to turn back until then!”

  Nate peered through the grass, trying to find the leader. Dropping Gregor was bound to distract the others long enough for Simon and him to make their escape. But the wily giant did not show himself.

  Hastening on, Nate soon suspected that Simon must have changed course. He straightened to his full height to see above the tops of the grass, but he could not spot Ward anywhere ahead of him. With a start, he guessed that Simon had gotten all turned around and even then might be heading straight into the arms of the slavers. Pivoting, Nate headed back to save the greenhorn from his own incompetence.

  Unknown to the frontiersman, not a dozen feet away Simon Ward huddled low in the grass. He had glimpsed a large figure to his rear, taken it for a slaver, and gone to ground. Now, as he heard the man move off, he smiled at his cleverness. It proved that he wasn’t as helpless as Nate King liked to think.

  Simon waited until he was sure the man had gone beyond earshot, then he rose and went on. He moved slowly. His right elbow brushed an object at his waist and he almost laughed out loud when he realized he still had both pistols and his butcher knife. In all the excitement, he had forgotten about them.

  It reassured Simon to fill each hand with a heavy flintlock. Now he could defend himself. Using one of the pistols to part the grass as he had seen King do earlier, he hiked for several minutes. No more shouts broke out behind him. Nor did he hear anyone moving nearby.

  Simon chuckled to himself. The high and mighty Nate King would be shocked to learn that he had given the slavers the slip all by his lonesome. Maybe, at last, King would regard him with a smidgen of respect. Simon didn’t know exactly why that should matter to him, but it did. He had never wanted to impress any man as much as he wanted to impress the frontiersman. Maybe it was because, deep down, he liked King, and it would be nice if King liked him, too.

  The object of Simon Ward’s train of thought was at that very moment crouched within spitting distance of several slavers. He had discarded the extra rifle and held a cocked pistol. The slavers were talking in hushed tones, but he heard every word clearly.

  “Two men dead, Gregor. Don’t get riled at me, but I think we should give it up and get the blazes out of here before we lose any more. It’s a mighty long ride between here and Texas. What with all the hostiles hereabouts, we need every man we’ve got.”

  The slaver leader growled like an irate bear. “Damn that greenhorn and his partner all to hell! It galls me to let them get away. But you’ve got a point, Jenks.”

  “What about Hank, Pedor and Vin?” asked the third man. “Can we tote them back now?”

  “Do it,” Gregor said.

  Nate lowered onto his stomach as more slavers joined the trio. Orders were issued. The two men he had shot and the one he had knocked out were carted off. Nate did not move until the tramp of feet dwindled. Then he rose and cat-footed in their wake, seeking Simon Ward.

  It would be totally in keeping with the Bostonian’s character for Simon to be working his way back to the slaver camp to make another attempt to free Felicity. Ward wouldn’t care that he didn’t have a snowball’s chance in Hades of whisking her away by himself. He would get himself rubbed out and leave her worse off than she had been before.

  Nate hoped to keep that from happening. Every few yards he would rise and risk being spotted so he could scan the prairie on all sides. If Ward was out there, for once the man was using his head and not showing himself.

  In the distance the fire twinkled. The chase had covered close to 500 yards, more than Nate had figured. He dropped down when one of the slavers turned, the man’s pale face like a tiny moon against the black backdrop of the plain.

  Suddenly the grass to Nate’s right quivered. Since all the slavers were in front of him, he thought it was Simon Ward and shifted with a smile of greeting on his face. Almost too late he saw the near naked figure of the half-breed and the dull glint of steel in the warrior’s right hand.

  Santiago was like greased lightning. He lunged and stabbed and would have buried his blade in the frontiersman’s chest had Nate not been holding his rifle in front of him. As it was, in the dark Santiago misjudged the position of the barrel and his knife glanced off it.

  Nate felt the blade tear into his shirt close to the ribs even as he threw himself backward. He tried to level the Hawken, but Santiago was on him before he could. The butcher knife cleaved the air. Nate had to let go of the rifle to grab the breed’s stout wrist. The next moment they were on the ground, grappling, rolling back and forth as Santiago strained to thrust his blade into Nate and Nate strained to keep the knife at bay.

  The breed was tremendously strong, one of the strongest men Nate had ever fought. Their faces were inches apart, and he could see the feral gleam of bloodlust in Santiago’s dark eyes. Flipping to the right, he heaved, trying to keep the warrior off balance long enough for him to draw his own knife. As his hand closed on the hilt, the breed’s hand closed on his wrist.

  Locked together, they exerted their sinews to the utmost. Nate blocked a knee to the groin and countered with a head butt to the jaw, which rocked Santiago backward. But instead of weakening, Santiago roared like a berserk grizzly, opened his mouth wide, and swooped his gleaming teeth toward Nate’s throat.

  In the nick of time, Nate jerked his head to one side. The breed’s teeth sheared into the fleshy part of his shoulder instead of the soft tissue in his neck. Excruciating anguish rippled down his body. Blood splattered his skin. Nate threw himself backward to break Santiago’s grip and nearly cried out when his shoulder was torn open.

  Santiago reared up, a patch of buckskin and a flap of skin hanging from his bloody lips. He spat them out, bent back his head, and howled like a demented coyote.

  Nate drove his forehead into the breed’s gut. It was like slamming into a wall. His blow had no effect on Santiago, but it did make Nate’s senses spin.

  Another second, and everything went from bad to worse.

  Santiago wrenched his knife arm loose and arced it on high to deliver a final blow, while from the vicinity of the camp raced other slavers. One killer shouted “Hold on, Santiago! Were on our way!”

  But the breed was not about to wait. Venting a howl of savage glee, he stabbed downward.

  Six

  It was night when Winona King revived. She didn’t open her eyes right away, but she knew it was dark by the cool air and the brisk northwesterly breeze. That, and the small fire crackling a few feet away.

  Winona listened to what was going on around her. Two men were talking in Spanish while a third hummed softly to himself. They had to be slavers, she deduced. But that meant the Indian who had taken her by surprise was one of the band.

  As if to confirm her hunch, a low, clipped voice spoke in the tongue of her husband. “Woman awake, Ricket. She pretend not be.”

  “Is that a fact, Chipota?” answered the voice of the grizzled lodgepole in the bearskin hat. “Well, let’s test her and see.”

  Winona heard someone chuckle. Since they knew she had come around, she was about to open her eyes when searing agony lanced her left arm. Sitting bolt upright, she bit her lip to
keep from crying out and glared at the source of her pain.

  Ricket had taken a burning brand from the fire and pressed it against her wrist. Casting it down, he cackled and slapped his thigh. “You were right, Chipota, just like always. How in the world did you know?”

  The Indian in the breechcloth squatted on the other side of the fire from Winona. In its glow she could note details she had missed earlier. He was an older warrior, in his fifties or early sixties, with wide grey streaks in his long hair. “Her breathing not same,” he explained.

  “Sharp ears you’ve got there,” Ricket said. “Too bad your sprout ain’t along. He’d be right proud of you.”

  Chipota shifted his cold gaze from the fire to the grizzled slaver. “Santiago not sprout,” he said flatly.

  Ricket laughed. “Don’t get your dander up, Injun. It’s not an insult to call someone a sprout. All I meant is that he’s a heap younger than you. And you can’t fault me there.”

  The warrior grunted.

  Winona rubbed the charred circle of skin where the brand had burned her and surveyed the camp. Five horses, including her mare, were off to the right, tied in a string. Two other slavers were playing cards to her left, while the fifth man kept busy cleaning a pistol. She was surprised that they had not had the foresight to bind her. It was a mistake they would rue.

  “So how are you feelin’, squaw?” Ricket addressed her. “That wallop on the head rattle your brains any?”

  “I am fine,” Winona said, when in truth her temples throbbed and she felt a little queasy.

  “Good. We don’t want the merchandise damaged, if you get my drift. We’ve got special plans for a woman of your caliber. Yessiree.”

  “You are slavers,” Winona bluntly declared.

  The grizzled scourge of the mountains and plains snickered. “Nothin’ gets past you, does it, squaw? Yes, we are. And you know what that means. So just behave yourself and we’ll get along right fine. Act up, and you’ll sure as hell regret it. I can guarantee.”

  Winona lifted her chin in defiance. “My name is Winona King, slaver. And it is you who will regret it when my husband learns of what you have done. Grizzly Killer will not rest until he has tracked you down and made you pay.”

  “Grizzly Killer, is it?” Ricket said. “I’ll admit that’s some handle. Maybe around these parts it puts the fear of the Almighty into those who might raise a hand against you, but it doesn’t mean diddly to us, squaw.”

  “It will.”

  Ricket squinted at her and gnawed on his lower lip. “You speak the white tongue better than most whites I know. Which means this Grizzly Killer of yours has to be white himself. What’s his Christian name, woman?”

  “Nate King,” Winona said. She was proud of the fact that tales of her man’s exploits had spread far beyond the Rocky Mountains, just like those of men like Jim Bridger, Kit Carson and Shakespeare McNair. She half hoped the slavers had heard of him, too. It might dispose them toward letting her go rather than face Nate’s wrath.

  “Can’t say as the name is familiar,” Ricket said, dashing fleeting hope on the hard rocks of reality. “I’ll take it he’s a trapper. Company man or free?”

  “Free.”

  “How long has he been livin’ in the wild? A short while?”

  “As many winters as you have fingers and thumbs.”

  “Damn.”

  A slaver sporting a belly the size of a cooking pot raised his head from the five cards in his hand. “What’s with all the questions, Ricket? Who cares about her husband? It wouldn’t matter if he was Andrew Jackson himself. She’s ours now, and that’s all that counts.”

  The older man shook his head in mild reproach. “Owens, I swear that you don’t have the brains God gave a turnip. If you did, you’d have guessed that I was askin’ questions to find out if her man is as tough as she claims. And it sounds like he is.”

  “Oh?”

  “Do I have to spell it out for you? King has lived in the mountains, among the Indians, for over ten years. Think about that. There aren’t many men who can make the same claim. Most die within a year or two up in the high country.” Ricket paused to spit. “That makes this Nate King the real McCoy, a livin’, breathin’ fire-in-his-innards mountain man. And they can be meaner than hell when they get riled.”

  Owens yawned to show how impressed he was.

  “Poke fun at me all you want to,” Ricket said, “But I know what I’m talkin’ about. Remember what Hugh Glass done.”

  “Who?”

  Ricket rolled his eyes skyward. “Lord, spare me from peckerwoods who think with their hind ends.” He folded his arms. “Hugh Glass is a mountain man. One time he got himself mauled something terrible by a big old she-bear. He was so torn up, his partners left him for dead. They took his rifle, his knife, everything. And off they went.”

  “And people say we’re rotten to the core,” another slaver joked.

  “Pay attention,” Ricket snapped. “You see, Glass didn’t die. He crawled for days until he came on a dead buffalo swarming with buzzards and coyotes. Using nothin but a stick, he chased them off and ate the meat himself. That gave him the strength to keep on going. Hundreds of miles he traveled, until he caught up with the men who had done him wrong.”

  Owens laid down a card. “So what’s the point, old man?”

  “If you don’t know, it’s hopeless.”

  Suddenly Chipota rose. “I keep watch. This night. All nights. Grizzly Killer come, I kill.” So saying, he wagged his war club a few times, then moved off into the trees without making a sound.

  Winona wished now that she had not told them about Nate. The gray-haired warrior would prove a formidable adversary, even for him. Her worry must have shown, because Ricket grinned at her and nodded at the spot where the warrior had disappeared.

  “Chipota is the best there is at what he does, squaw. I bet you’ve never seen his like before.”

  “He reminds me of the Apaches,” Winona said. Ricket blinked. “You’ve been down in their neck of the woods? That’s mighty interestin’. And you’re danged near right. Chipota is a Lipan. His people live in the west part of Texas, mostly. The way he tells it, a long time ago the Lipans broke off from the rest of the Apaches and took to livin’ by themselves. Why, nobody rightly knows.”

  “A true Apache would never ride with the likes of you.”

  “In most cases, no. But old Chipota got himself tossed out of the tribe for killin’ another Lipan. He had nowhere else to go.” The slaver snickered. “Him and that breed son of his were wanderin’ across the Staked Plain when we came on them. Our boss could have had us shoot them down like dogs, but Gregor is a savvy cuss. He offered to let them throw in with our outfit, and Chipota agreed.”

  The revelation surprised Winona. “You are not the leader of the slavers? Another is?”

  The man called Owens and another one chuckled. “Do you really reckon we’d be dumb enough to have an old coot like him tell us what to do?” the former declared. “Hell, squaw. We wouldn’t follow him to the outhouse.”

  Ricket frowned. “Pay him no mind, missy. Gregor, our boss, thinks right highly of me. That’s why he put me in charge of this bunch here when we separated to go woman huntin’. Now that we’ve got you, we’ll head for the rendezvous spot. Should take us about two days, maybe three, to get there.”

  The news that there were more slavers was disheartening, but Winona did not show it. She could only keep her fingers crossed, as Nate would say, that he did not come alone to find her. Her uncle and Touch The Clouds would probably join him, as might several of his close friends. There should be more than enough to deal with the slavers. Then she remembered what had happened to her cousin, and she had to suppress a surge of panic.

  “The rules are simple, squaw,” Ricket continued. “You do what we say when we say it. You don’t sass us. You don’t ever try to escape. Behave yourself, and we’ll get along right fine. The choice is yours.”

  Winona had figured as much.
They needed to understand one thing, though. “I have my own rules, as you call them. If any of you lay a hand on me, I will scratch your eyes out. If you try to hold me down, I will tear your face open with my teeth. And if you tie me and then have your way, the very first time I am freed, I will do all in my power to kill you.”

  “Feisty wench, ain’t you?” Ricket quipped. “Well, don’t fret yourself on that score, squaw. Gregor is the one who decides if we get to or not. He’d shoot any of us stupid enough to take a taste without his say-so. You’re safe enough until we hook up with him.”

  Winona did not like the lustful smirk the scrawny man wore. It hinted that she was in for a rude lesson when they rendezvoued with the leader. But what she had told him applied to this Gregor as well. If they thought she was bluffing, they would learn the hard way that she was not.

  It was despicable that any woman should ever be forced to give herself to a man she did not want to be with. Or to do it for money, as Nate said some white women did. It was the very worst of violations. It degraded women to their core. It made them out to be like dogs, to be abused as their masters saw fit.

  Winona had only ever shared her body with one man. Long ago she had decided that he was the only one for her. She would never share herself with anyone else. And if the slavers thought differently, she would show them that she would rather die than let them dishonor her.

  ~*~

  Simon Ward did not move until he was certain none of the slavers were anywhere near him. Then he rose and stood on the tips of his toes, trying to catch sight of the mountain man. He had no luck.

  When a few more minutes went by and still Nate King failed to appear, Simon worried that something terrible had happened. As hard as it was for Simon to believe, it was possible that one of the slavers had taken the trapper by surprise and slit his throat before he could cry out.

  Simon no longer deluded himself about his chances of saving Felicity without the frontiersman’s help. He had nearly gotten himself killed by rushing into the slaver camp the way he had done. As it was, he had a nasty pain in the ribs on his left side where something, perhaps a bullet, had creased him. He’d felt under his shirt, but there was no blood or furrow.