Wilderness Double Edition 25 Page 7

  “I wish he had lived. The two of you would get along like two peas in a pod,” Lou remarked.

  Zach wasn’t so sure. A lot of whites looked down their nose at him for being half and half. To be fair, so did a lot of red men. Sometimes it seemed as if half-breeds were universally despised. And all due to a mischance of birth over which they had no control. Life just wasn’t fair.

  “Are you hungry? Would you like to eat?” Lou asked.

  “The food can wait.” Zach was famished but she was fond of moments like this, and he did not want to spoil it for her. He owed her that much. He wasn’t always the most romantic of husbands, yet she put up with him.

  For a long while they sat as they were, and then Zach kissed her and she melted in his arms, and later, much later, he squinted up at the sky and was surprised to find it was well past noon. His stomach rumbled, spurring him to comment, “We should eat if we want to make it back before dark.”

  “Oh, we have plenty of time,” Lou said. She was not in any rush. Days like this were all too rare and were to be relished to their fullest. She lay on her side with her cheek nestled on his chest, supremely happy.

  “Whatever you want,” Zach dutifully replied. He ran his hand over her hair and closed his eyes, intending to rest a bit, but when a sound roused him and he opened them again, he was stunned to realize there were only a few hours of daylight left. Louisa was sound asleep. He shook her shoulder. “Sleepy head! Wake up! We’ve slept the day away.”

  “What?” Lou slowly sat up. Her mind was in a fog and she had to shake her head to clear it. “How late is it?” A glance answered her question, and she came up off the blanket in consternation. “It can’t be! How could we sleep so long?”

  “I’ll pack everything up.”

  Zach started to rise but Lou placed her hands on his shoulders and pushed him back down. “Stay right where you are. We came up here to have a picnic and by the Almighty, that’s exactly what we will have. We’re not leaving until we eat.”

  Disposed to disagree, Zach swallowed his argument when his stomach rumbled loud enough for her to hear.

  “See? You’re famished.” Lou moved to the food. “It won’t take but a moment.” She gave him generous portions of venison and potatoes, and handed him a fork and a knife. “Dig in.”

  Zach cut off an inch-thick slab of bread and covered it with butter. Nearly a third of the slice disappeared at his first bite. He chewed heartily while spearing a piece of deer meat.

  “Want me to start a fire for coffee?” Lou never much cared for it but the Kings, son and father, were addicted. A meal without it, Zach mentioned once, was like eggs without bacon or flapjacks without syrup.

  “I can go without,” Zach said. He raised the bread to his mouth and leaned back on his other hand. He happened to gaze along the ridge and stiffened.

  The horses were gone!

  In a heartbeat Zach was on his feet, the bread forgotten. Scooping up his Hawken, he ran to where he had left them and saw flattened grass leading south. They had strayed off while Lou and he slept. “Damn me for a fool! I don’t have the brains God gave a turnip.”

  Lou hurried to his side. “They can’t have gone far.” She was confident they would find them quickly.

  “We were asleep for hours.” Zach broke into a jog. “Stay with the blanket and pray you are right.”

  Lou opened her mouth to object to being left alone but closed it without a protest. She should be safe enough. She was more than a fair shot, and her rifle could bring down everything from a wolf to a black bear. Grizzlies were a whole different matter, but her father-in-law had slain the only one for miles around.

  Zach ran to the end of the ridge. He hoped he would spot the horses but they were nowhere in sight. They had drifted into a maze of firs. Half a mile down, a blue ribbon glistened: one of the many streams that fed the lake. It explained where the horses had gone.

  “I should shoot both of them,” Zach declared. But he was to blame. He swore bitterly and was about to turn and go back to Lou when from out of the shadowy firs came a strident whinny of pure terror.

  The horses were being attacked.

  Eight

  Nate, Winona and Evelyn had just sat down to supper when there came an insistent pounding on their door. Winona was on the side of the table nearest it, and pushing back her chair, said, “I will see who it is.” No sooner did she start to pull than the door was forcibly pushed open the rest of the way.

  Blue Water Woman’s normally tranquil features bore the stamp of deep worry. “Please forgive the intrusion,” she said anxiously. “I am worried about my husband.”

  Winona had seldom seen her friend so distraught. Taking Blue Water Woman’s hands, she pulled her inside. “What is it? Has he had an accident?”

  Blue Water Woman looked over Winona’s shoulder at Nate. “He went off to hunt the wolverines and has not come back.”

  “He did what?” Nate expected something like that from Zach, but he credited McNair with more savvy. Rising, he came quickly around the table. “He went after them by his lonesome? Why, in God’s name?”

  Blue Water Woman frowned. “I tried to talk him out of it, but you know how stubborn he can be.”

  “All men are stubborn,” Winona threw in. “They listen to their wives when it suits them.”

  Nate ignored the barb. “How long ago did he leave?”

  “Early this morning. He promised to be back before sunset.” Blue Water Woman gripped Winona’s hand. “I am worried. Very worried.”

  Nate moved past them and out the doorway. The front of their cabin faced the forest, not the lake, a precaution in case of an attack by hostiles. A rosy strip as thin as a quill pen was all that remained of the day; the sun had set half an hour ago.

  Nate’s stomach muscles bunched into a knot. Shakespeare was stubborn, but he always kept his word. If he had promised Blue Water Woman he would be back by sunset, then that is exactly what he would do. He went back in.

  “I have worn out the floorboards pacing,” Blue Water Woman said in a quiet yet tense tone. “I wish he had let me go with him or taken you along but he insisted on doing it himself.”

  “He knows better,” Nate said. McNair was the most experienced mountain man alive and never made mistakes. Or was it a mistake? Nate asked himself. From what Blue Water Woman told them, Shakespeare went off alone deliberately. Nate could only think of one reason his mentor would do that, a reason that chilled his blood and propelled his legs toward the corral. “I’m going after him. Pack a parfleche for me.”

  “Not so fast, husband,” Winona said, emerging. “I am as concerned as you are, but you must not go rushing off.”

  Impatient to do just that, Nate stopped. “Why not?”

  “Night is falling, and you cannot track in the dark,” Winona said. “Plus, you have no idea which way Shakespeare went, and our new valley is much larger than our old one. It would take weeks to search.”

  “I have to try. I can’t stay here and do nothing.”

  Winona responded with her third, and most important, objection. “Alone? That would show the same poor judgment he did.” She glanced at Blue Water Woman. “No insult intended.”

  “None taken,” Blue Water Woman replied. “It was a damn stupid thing for that idiot to do.” She said it harshly but she did not fool any of them.

  “It is better to wait until morning,” Winona said. “In the daylight we can track him. We will all go together, Zach and Lou included.”

  She made perfect sense, but Nate balked at the delay. “I should go on ahead by myself. Don’t fret. I’ll be fine.” He took a few more steps but stopped when his name was called. Not by his wife, but by Blue Water Woman.

  “Winona is right. It would not do to have you wandering around the mountains at night. Too many accidents can happen.” Blue Water Woman paused and wrung her hands. “As much as it pierces my heart, we must wait until dawn to start out after him.”

  “But—” Nate said, and did n
ot say more. Unlike him, they were not letting emotion rule their reason.

  “It is for the best,” Winona insisted. “The six of us can cover a lot more ground. And six rifles are better than one. We could easily drop a wolverine.”

  Nate knew better. Some animals were ferocious beyond belief. He had seen bears that were shot ten or more times, yet refused to go down. Mountain lions that absorbed half a dozen lead balls and tenaciously fought on. “Maybe just the three of us should go. We can leave Evelyn with Zach and Lou.”

  “You will not.” Evelyn had come up behind the women unnoticed. “I am part of this family and I will do what the family does.”

  “Do not argue,” Winona said. “You will be safe here.”

  “Don’t baby me. I am not a little girl anymore, and I resent being treated like one.” Evelyn added, “Yet you do it all the time.”

  “Zach and Lou are not going, either.” Winona refused to give in. “Someone has to look after our cabins.”

  “They can, then. But I am going.” When she was younger Evelyn always gave in to her parents’ demands, but no longer.

  “Not if I say you are not,” Winona informed her.

  “She can come,” Nate said.

  Startled by her mate’s betrayal, Winona looked at him in puzzled appeal. “You side with her against me?”

  “Evelyn has a point. We do treat her as if she is ten years old,” Nate said. “When Zach was her age, we let him hunt by himself. It’s only fair we treat her the same.”

  “But Stalking Coyote is our son,” Winona said. Among her people, the males and females had distinct and different duties. The women set snares for rabbits and caught squirrels and the like, but hunting dangerous game was primarily a male pastime. So was going on the war path.

  Nate was not one of those who regarded females as inferior to men. Most were not as strong physically but they could do anything men could do, and sometimes do it better. “It would not be fair,” he repeated. To forestall a drawn-out debate, he said, “I’ll go tell Zach and Louisa. Give Blue Water Woman some coffee or tea. She can spend the night with us.”

  In ten minutes Nate was saddled and ready. He turned to the cabin to fetch his rifle, and there was Winona, holding it, along with his powder horn and ammo pouch.

  “I thought you might want these.”

  “Thank you.”

  “It hurt, husband. To do what is fair is commendable. But life is not fair, and at times parents cannot be fair, either, for the good of their children.”

  “My mind is made up,” Nate said.

  “What about my mind? Is my opinion worthless?”

  “Don’t put words in my mouth.” Nate hated it when she did that, and she had been doing it since he met her. All women did, according to Shakespeare, who claimed it was God’s way of driving men insane.

  “We are partners, are we not? Isn’t that what you always say? We decide things together.”

  “Can’t we talk about this another time?” Nate sought to avoid an argument. “I should be on my way.”

  “Go, then,” Winona said stiffly. She would let the matter drop for now. But he had wronged her and there would be a reckoning.

  Sliding the ammo pouch across one shoulder and his powder horn across the other, Nate accepted the Hawken, kissed her on the cheek and climbed on his bay. “Keep the door latched while I’m gone.”

  “Have I become stupid?”

  Nate stared at her. Then he flicked the reins and rode north along the lake shore. A strong wind had picked up and the surface was choppy. His emotions were in the same state, as much from the hurt look on Winona’s face as the blunder Shakespeare made.

  It was always something. In the wilderness, every day was a challenge. Hardly a month went by that some new peril did not rear its unwanted head. At moments like this, he sometimes wondered if he made a mistake leaving New York City for the frontier. Then he would think of all the marvelous experiences he’d had and all the natural wonders he’d beheld and all the wild creatures he’d encountered and the tribes he’d met, and most of all, he would think of Winona and Zach and Lou, and know deep in his soul that forsaking civilization had been the best thing that ever happened to him.

  Even so, Nate mused, he could do without the constant dangers. They wore a man down. It strained the nerves to always be alert, always be looking over one’s shoulder and peering into shadows. Yet—and the thought jarred him—he had left the security of their old valley for the unknown risks of this new one.

  “I’m a hypocrite,” Nate said aloud. There was no other word for it. Or—and this thought jarred him, too—could it be that secretly he courted peril? Could it be that, like his son, he thrived on danger?

  “Preposterous,” Nate said, and fell silent. He talked to himself much too much of late. He must break himself of the habit.

  Night had fallen. Nate rode in darkness, the forest to his left. From it came the screech of a jay and the faint crash of underbrush.

  With a sudden start, Nate realized the window of his son’s cabin was not aglow. Ordinarily, they lit lamps as soon as the sun sank. He waited for the glow to appear but it did not, and when he could not take the suspense any longer, he brought the bay to a gallop.

  “Zach! Lou!” Nate hollered when he came within earshot, but there was no answer. No one appeared. The window stayed dark.

  He reined the bay to a stop in a spray of dust. Vaulting down, he took a long bound and stopped cold in his tracks. The door was ajar. “Zach? Louisa? Are you in there?” Again there was no answer.

  Wary, leveling his Hawken, Nate moved to the threshold and gave the door a slight push with the muzzle. He went to enter, and his breath caught in his throat. Near the bottom of the door, clear and distinct, were long furrows in the wood; claw marks.

  “Zach!” Nate kicked the door all the way open and sprang inside. The empty room mocked him.

  The place was a shambles. The table and one of the chairs had been overturned, a cupboard had been opened and the pots and pans scattered about, flour covered the floor by the counter. One of Lou’s curtains was ripped, and a small pillow she kept on the rocking chair had been torn to cottony pieces.

  A musky odor was everywhere.

  “Wolverine!” Nate exclaimed, and ran to the bedroom. The bed, miraculously, was untouched, the quilt tucked and smooth. Gnawing on his bottom lip, Nate scoured the front room for signs of fresh blood. There was none.

  Encouraged, he hastened to the corral. Two of their mounts were missing. The rest were huddled together at the far end but had not been harmed. The most recent hoof prints pointed from the corral gate toward the mountains to the west.

  Nate pondered the significance. Based on the bed and the lack of food odors, he figured Zach and Lou had been gone most of the day. The glutton had entered while they were gone, disported itself and left. But where had they gotten to and why weren’t they home yet?

  Going back in, Nate helped himself to a lantern and lit the wick. He carried it to the doorstep, and hunkered. Tracks showed where the wolverine had angled toward the forest. He raised the lantern aloft but the woods were too far off for its glow to reach.

  Fear bubbled in Nate like hot water in a geyser; fear the wolverine had gone after his son and daughter-in-law. It was the only thing, to his way of thinking, that explained their absence.

  Nate gazed to the south and the light of his own cabin. He had to go after Zach and Lou, and he should tell Winona. But they might be hurt. They might need him. Every minute he delayed might prove the difference between their living or dying.

  “Damn!” Nate fumed, and raced to the bay. Mounting, he reined sharply to the west, and used his heels. Winona would understand. He hoped.

  Riding at night was hazardous. A single misstep could result in a broken leg for the animal, and worse for the rider. On the open prairie it was not so bad, but in the mountains, with low limbs and logs and boulders, it was a fool’s proposition.

  Nate rode as rapidly as he d
ared. Since Zach had not mentioned anything about going up into the high country, they probably had not gone far. A mile fell behind him, and yet another. He neither saw nor heard any trace of them. In vain he scanned the slopes above for sign of a campfire.

  On a wind-swept ridge Nate drew rein. Shifting, he gazed at the light in his cabin far below. He regretted not informing Winona. She would wonder what was taking him so long and head for Zach’s place to find him.

  With wolverines on the prowl. There were four, so far as he knew. They could be anywhere.

  Torn between dread for his son and dread for his wife, Nate hesitated. Should he ride on or head back? He decided to go one more mile. If he did not come across Zach and Louisa by then, he would head back and wait until daylight. He had until dawn to make up his mind whether to go after them or after Shakespeare. It was not a decision he looked forward to making.

  From the ridge he ascended a series of slopes, each steeper than the last. Most was thick with woodland. He was glad when he finally came to a clear slope. The sound of the bay’s heavy hooves on rock echoed loudly in the stillness.

  Wrestling with the decision he must make, Nate arched his back to relieve a cramp. The clatter of pebbles and stones was slow to register. Instantly, he reined the bay sharply to the left and heard it scramble for purchase. It whinnied as it legs started to slide out from under it.

  Coiling, Nate jerked his moccasins from the stirrups and hurtled from the saddle to keep the horse from falling on him. A boulder leaped at his face. He twisted to avoid it but his temple struck hard.

  A black darker than the night engulfed him. Nate was dimly aware of rolling and sliding down the slope, dimly aware of dust in his nostrils and of skin on his hand being torn off.

  Then Nate King was not aware of anything at all.

  Nine

  Shakespeare McNair had been in the woods at night countless times. When he sold beaver plews for a living, he often returned from checking his trap line well after the sun went down. Later, when he lived with the Flatheads, he spent many a night off hunting. Less frequently he joined in raids on enemy villages.