Wilderness Double Edition 14 Read online

  The end was near. Lou’s legs were wobbly, her whole body shaking. Another ten feet was all she could manage. But as she fell to her knees, with doom incarnate almost upon her, she gripped both flintlocks. Lou refused to die meekly, to be slaughtered like a lamb or calf. She would resist as best she was able, and if it was a losing cause, so be it. She could perish knowing she had given her all.

  Jerking the two pistols, Louisa twisted to face the silvertip.

  “I’m awful sorry, son. My big mouth almost got you killed. I just wasn’t thinkin’ straight.”

  “I know,” Zach answered Ben Frazier. “I don’t hold it against you.”

  They were by themselves, nearer the horses than the fire but still close enough for the two men keeping watch, Frank and Billy Batson, to keep an eye on them. Zach had shifted position so his wrists were behind him, and he was frantically striving to loosen the loops enough to slip the rope off.

  “I’ve always liked your pa,” the trapper commented. “An honorable man, Nate King. Worth a hundred of these bastards.” Frazier swept the sleepers with a gaze that sizzled with contempt. “It’s real comfortin’ to know he’s out there keepin’ an eye on us.” Zach kept the truth to himself. One of the Batsons might overhear. And only so long as the band believed his pa was shadowing them would they let him go on living. “How are you holding up?” he said, changing the subject.

  “Not too shabby, all things considered,” Frazier said. “That pemmican and wafer did wonders.” Grimacing, he eased onto his back. “But I hurt like the dickens where that snake in the grass poked me with his pig sticker. And I have enough bruises to last me a month of Sundays.”

  “You’ve stopped bleeding?”

  “Near as I can tell. A little seeps out from time to time, but not enough to fuss about. I’ll live. Don’t worry.”

  “Only until you show them where the gold is.” Frazier scrunched up his mouth as if he’d bitten into a lemon. “It galls me to think they might end up rich at my expense. I almost wish there really were Utes hereabouts just so these scum would be wiped out.” A check of the Batsons showed Zach that Billy was fiddling with the fire and Frank was half dozing. Neither was the least bit interested in what the trapper or he had to say. Just to be safe, Zach leaned to one side and whispered, “How far do we have to go?” Lowering his voice, Frazier responded, “Truth is, I could get us there by sunset tomorrow if I tried. But I plan to take longer. Say, by noon the day after tomorrow. These greeners ain’t likely to realize I’ve hoodwinked ’em. Between the whole bunch, they ain’t as smart as a box of rocks.”

  “You’re taking a chance, though.”

  “What else would you have me do? The faster we get there, the sooner we die. And being dead ain’t exactly high on my list of things to do. Somehow, I’m hopin’ we can turn the tables on these scalawags before we reach Gold Mountain.” Frazier grinned. “Your pa should help in that regard. He’s done more than his share of scrappin’ with hostiles and such, so he’ll likely think of a way to get us out of this tight spot we’re in.”

  Zach wanted to explain the real situation but couldn’t.

  “I reckon this is what I get for being neighborly,” Frazier lamented. “I should’ve gone on about my own business instead of helpin’ this bunch out. But that’s how the hog bladder bounces.”

  The crunch of grass underfoot caused Zach and the trapper to fall silent. Billy Batson, rifle cradled in his arms, hunkered and waited for them to speak. When neither did, Billy said quietly, “I only came over to warn you. Mr. Kendrick said we weren’t to let you do any talking. That if you did, we were to kick your teeth in.”

  Frazier spat on the ground. “And you do whatever he says, right? Slinkin’ around his boots like a suck-egg hound! You ought to be ashamed of yourself! You and your brother, both.”

  The young man looked toward the prone figures. “Keep your voice down!” he whispered. “Wake Mr. Kendrick and there’ll be hell to pay.”

  “Go stand in the fire,” Frazier said gruffly. “As if we give a damn about him or you. You’re small and yellow and few to the pod, boy. I hope your pa didn’t live long enough to see how you turned out. Or are you a slice off the same bacon?”

  “Leave my pa out of this,” Billy declared. “He’s the best man who ever lived. And he was dead set against Frank and me joining this brigade.”

  The trapper was about to make another comment that might anger the young farmer, so Zach quickly said, “Don’t take it personal. You can’t hardly blame us for being short-tempered. Wouldn’t you be, in our moccasins?”

  Billy nodded. “I’m sorry, for both of you. Were it up to me, I’d let you go. But Mr. Kendrick is top dog here, and anyone who bucks him is asking for grief.” Frazier puffed out his cheeks in irritation. “Your boss is evil through and through. And if you go on fetchin’ sticks for him, you’ve got as bad a case of the simples as that Pharaoh at the Red Sea.”

  “I don’t have any choice.”

  “Were you behind a door when brains were passed out? A man always has a choice, young fella. He may not like what they are. But doing right or wrong is for us to decide. Then we have to stand by our convictions, or our decisions ain’t worth a shovelful of chicken tracks. Don’t blame Kendrick for your own shortcomings.”

  “You don’t mince words, do you, old man?”

  “Truth is the truth, whether it’s minced, diced, or hard-boiled. Every man has to skin his own skunk. Ain’t no gettin’ around it.”

  Billy Batson’s head drooped. “I just can’t believe it’s gotten to this point. We were all set to head home, then my brother came down sick. If he hadn’t, we’d of been miles out on the prairie when you came along.”

  “Wishful thinkin’ doesn’t keep the creek from risin’. Question is, are you man enough to help us? Will you give in to Kendrick or your conscience?”

  “I’d like to help,” Billy reiterated. “But—” A cough by one of the sleepers made him jump. “I’ve said too much. If I’m caught, there’s no telling what Mr. Kendrick will do to me. I’m afraid the two of you are on your own.”

  “Well, I tried,” Frazier said as the younger man rejoined his brother.

  “We should have been nicer,” Zach said.

  “We? You mean me. What would you have me do? Beg for his help? I’m too ornery and proud to bend my knee to any man.”

  “Being proud is one thing. Being dead is another.”

  “Hrrmmph” was all the trapper said, and he lapsed into moody reflection.

  Zach had a lot to think about, too. Foremost was Louisa. She had been on her own before, so he wasn’t unduly concerned. So long as she stayed away from the whites, she would be all right. But knowing her as well as he did, Zach expected her to attempt a rescue. While part of him was pleased beyond measure she would risk her life for his, he was worried she would be caught.

  He concentrated on freeing himself. Pain spiked his wrists, growing worse when he rubbed so much skin off, he started bleeding. At the rate he was going, he would rub them raw before he made any headway. But it couldn’t be helped. He must escape on his own before Louisa put her life in jeopardy.

  Hour by hour the fire dwindled, but it wasn’t allowed to go out. Howls and snarls rose on all sides of the bluff, some sounding vaguely human. At one point Zach thought he heard a horse whinny, but he chalked it up to a quirk of the stiff wind.

  The Batson brothers were relieved by Cyrus Walton and Elden Johnson. Johnson sat with his blanket over his shoulders, yawning and shaking his head to stay awake. Cyrus Walton stretched, then walked over, asking sarcastically, “Are you two behaving yourselves?”

  “Go to hell,” Frazier said.

  “Most of us do,” Walton quipped. “But I think you’ll get there a lot sooner than me, old man. Give my regards to his infernal majesty.”

  Since antagonizing the pudgy clerk wasn’t in their best interests, Zach spoke up before Frazier could. “What about that little talk we had earlier today?”

&n
bsp; “What about it?”

  “Don’t beat around the bush. Will you or won’t you?”

  “Help you?” Walton placed the stock of his rifle on the ground and leaned on the barrel. “You must be joking. The way I see it, the situation has changed considerably.”

  “How so?”

  “You lied to me. There aren’t a slew of Utes. There’s just one fella. Your father. Against seven armed men who are ready for him. I don’t think I have anything to lose by siding with Vince and the boys.”

  “You’re wrong,” Zach said. “He’ll kill all of you if you don’t let us go.” Any deception was called for if it saved Louisa.

  “Us now, is it? The old geezer too? So you can steal his gold instead of us?” Walton smirked. “Forget it, King. You almost pulled the wool over my eyes once. Never again.”

  “Is the gold worth dying for?”

  Cyrus Walton chortled. “You never give up, do you? But since you asked, I’ll tell you. Yes, it is. Each of us will go home with enough to last us the rest of our lives. Whatever we want will be ours for the taking. A life of ease and luxury is at our fingertips, and you want me to give it up for you!”

  “Ease and luxury,” Frazier said gloomily. “I thought the same thing once. And look where it’s got me.”

  “You’d still feel that way, old-timer, if we didn’t have the upper hand.” The pudgy man moved off, beaming cheerfully.

  Frazier lay back and closed his eyes. “I should have known it was too good to be true. Nothin’ has ever worked out right for me. Since the day I was born, bad luck has sat on my shoulder like a pet raven.” Zach resumed rubbing his wrists up and down. “Don’t tell me you’re giving up?”

  The trapper averted his face.

  It didn’t matter. Zach wasn’t about to admit defeat. His pa had raised him to believe that where there was a will, there was a way. He would escape—even if he had to scrape his arms down to the bone.

  Six

  The grizzly wasn’t there.

  Dumbfounded, Louisa May Clark gaped at the empty blackness. She blinked a few times, not believing the evidence of her own eyes. Moments before it had been so close behind her, its fetid breath was on her neck. So where was it now? She looked right and left, but all she saw were trees and more trees.

  The bear had vanished off the face of the earth.

  Lou rotated, thinking that maybe it had somehow circled around and was coming up on her from the rear. But no, there were only a small boulder and some weeds. Bewildered, she lowered the pistols but didn’t let down the hammers. Not yet. Not until she was absolutely sure.

  Straining her ears, Lou heard rustling off to the west, then a scratching sound that took her a minute to identify. It was the grizzly, scratching a trunk. “Bear trees” the mountain men called them, boles scarred by claw and teeth marks. Some thought bears did it to sharpen their claws; others were of the opinion it was their way of marking their territory.

  Lou was incredulous. The grizzly had just up and left? Without rending her limb from limb? Not that she was disappointed, but if the bear hadn’t intended to devour her, why had it chased her?

  Then Lou remembered the time two mountain men had strayed into her pa’s camp, and the three had sat around jawing until the wee hours. Naturally, the subject of wild animals came up, and naturally, bears were discussed. One of the mountaineers mentioned how fickle they were. How a grizzly might attack someone it stumbled on one day, but run from another person the very next. “They’re mighty temperamental,” the mountain man had said. “Almost as changeable as womenfolk.”

  The other visitor had related how once he was pursued by a crusty bruin that trapped him in a narrow ravine. He figured he was a goner, but all the bear had done was sniff him a few times, then waltz off. “Maybe he didn’t like how I smelled. I wasn’t due for my annual washin’ for another couple of months.” The remark was meant as a joke, but maybe there was some truth to it. Grizzlies were “all nose and no brain,” according to most folks, so maybe that explained why they would attack one person but not another.

  Lou waited, her heart aflutter, fearing the beast’s return. She should run, but she was too exhausted. The scritch-scritch-scritch of the bear’s claws went on and on. When the noise stopped, Lou’s pulse quickened. She was afraid that now the silvertip would finish what it had started. She raised her flintlocks, peering into the murk to catch sight of the gigantic frame that would soon materialize. Only, it didn’t. Five minutes of quiet convinced her the griz had wandered off.

  Lou sank onto her side and shook as if having a fit, a reaction, she figured, from nearly being eaten. Her jangled nerves were a long time composing themselves. When she was herself again, she lay still, savoring what it felt like to simply be alive.

  She was amazed at how clean and pure the air smelled, at how clear and crisp the sounds were, at how soothing it was to be caressed by the northwesterly breeze, at how marvelous it felt to do something as ordinary as inhale and exhale. Too much of life was taken for granted.

  “Thank you, God,” Lou breathed, and regretfully sat up. She had a lot to do before daylight if she was to save Stalking Coyote.

  How strange, Lou thought, that she liked his Shoshone name so much better than his given name. Especially in light of what happened to her father. She would have thought it would be the other way around.

  Shrugging, Lou hiked to the south. Her pa had taught her how to navigate at night by locating the Big Dipper and using it as a point of reference to find the North Star. Once she knew where that was, figuring direction was easy. All she had to do was face the North Star and extend her arms. To the right was east, to the left was west, and to the rear was south. Child’s play.

  Lou’s relief at being spared by the bear was short-lived. The griz had been one of many that were abroad, their grunts and growls adding to the general din; painters screeched like women in labor, wolves never stopped uttering plaintive wails, coyotes yipped like lost souls. The bestial bedlam made her feel so small, so insignificant, as if she were a tasty morsel just waiting to be eaten.

  The pistols never left her hands. Lou never knew, but a predator might rear out of the shadows, giving her only seconds to react.

  She tried to remember landmarks, specific trees and boulders she had passed, but her whole being had been focused on saving her hide, not on the scenery. For the life of her, she couldn’t recall anything that stood out.

  Lou tried not to dwell on the loss of the rifles and the horses, but she couldn’t help doing so. Being stranded in the mountains meant almost certain death. Even if the stranded person knew how to live off the land, finding water and game were a challenge. She’d heard of one man who was forced to eat rotten meat from a buffalo carcass, of another who had taken to a diet of grass and leaves. Both survived, but barely.

  Lou had the added worry of Stalking Coyote. His life was in her hands. She and only she could rescue him. Without a mount, though, it couldn’t be done. The man she loved might well die because she had been unable to control a spooked horse.

  Anxiety and guilt hastened her footsteps, and for over an hour, by her reckoning, Lou searched and searched, without result. No horses, no rifles, nothing. Worse, she thought the bluff should be visible, but whenever a gap in the trees permitted her to scour the countryside, it was nowhere to be seen.

  Despair enfolded her heart in crushing claws. She was lost! She had gotten so turned around during the mare’s mad dash and her own flight that she was nowhere near where she thought she should be.

  Lou bit her lower lip to keep from crying. Now wasn’t the time for tears. What was it Nate King once remarked? “The secret to staying alive in the wilds is to keep your wits about you. Panic will kill you quicker than a rattler’s bite. Always think things through. Learn from your mistakes. And whatever you do, never give up.”

  Easy for him to say, Lou thought. He wasn’t the one all alone, adrift in a boundless sea of forest and grass. He wasn’t the one surrounded on all s
ides by vicious meat-eaters, or the one who would never forgive herself if anything happened to the man she cherished more than she did her own life.

  Louisa May Clark stopped and turned moist eyes to the heavens. She had prayed for a miracle once and it had been granted. Maybe she should pray for another.

  A foot in the ribs woke up Zach King shortly before dawn. A brisk tang to the air helped dispel some of the bitterness in his mouth. Bitterness caused by his inability to free himself during the night. He had tried and tried, rubbing his wrists until they were covered with blood. Yet the rope never slackened.

  Then Zach had pried at the knots, but they were corded like bands of metal. He couldn’t undo a single one.

  Toward four in the morning his arms had drooped and his fingers had been too sore to move. Zach had fought to stay awake, but his body succumbed to the abuse he’d endured, to the lack of rest and food. Against his will he had drifted into dreamland, sleeping fitfully, plagued by nightmares he couldn’t recollect when he awoke.

  Now, rubbing his eyes, Zach sat up. The members of the so-called brigade were up and about, but as sluggish as snails in cold weather. Ed Stark, stamping his feet next to the fire, was his usual friendly self. “You’re lucky, ’breed. I wanted to cut you to wake you up, but Vince said he didn’t want you bleeding all day.”

  Kendrick was shaking Ben Frazier, who was slow to respond. Annoyed, the big man smacked the trapper, not once but twice, and Frazier snapped up in alarm, his cheek bright red. “What? What is it?”

  “Rise and shine, old man. You’ve got until sunset tonight to show us where the gold is, or by tomorrow morning you’ll be missing a few fingers and toes.” Frazier recovered his wits quickly. “I never told you we’d get there by then. It might be tomorrow sometime.”

  Grinning smugly, Kendrick straightened. “That soon? Hell, for all I knew, it would’ve taken a week. You never said until now.”