Wilderness Double Edition 15, page 10
Winona covered the windows, swinging her rifle from one to the other, primed to shoot if so much as a claw appeared. As the girls sank down beside her, she moved in front of them, screening them with her own body.
“Are they gone, Ma?” Evelyn asked. “Please say they’re gone!”
“I doubt it,” Winona said. The NunumBi were as tenacious as they were vicious. They never gave up. Once they picked a victim, they didn’t rest until their enemy was destroyed.
“Listen!” Lou said. Her arm was tingling with pain, but she could lift her rifle high enough to shoot.
Evelyn’s hands were shaking. “What is it?”
Winona heard the sounds, too. Loud crashing in the woods. She imagined the creatures breaking limbs and tearing out brush, but for what purpose? There was a commotion of some sort, then another heavy blow to the door. Winona had had enough. She fixed her sights on the center of the door and squeezed the trigger at the very moment it was flung inward and her husband burst into the cabin.
Eight
Fear lent Nate King speed he’d never tapped. Fear his wife and the girls were under attack. Fear he’d blundered badly in running off, in leaving them alone, and that they would pay for his stupidity with their lives.
Nothing stood in Nate’s way. He crashed through thickets. He barreled through dense pines. Limbs that snagged him were broken in half or ripped off. He was a bull gone amok, plowing through anything and everything.
Zach had never witnessed his father in the grip of a berserk fury. It was all Zach could do to keep him in sight. Several times he’d hollered for his father to slow down, but he might as well have been yelling at the stars. Now he tried again.
“Pa! Wait for me!”
Nate would have liked to but couldn’t, not when every precious second was so vital, not when any delay might spell doom for Winona and the girls. “Do the best you can, son,” he answered on the fly.
By now Nate’s eyes were so adjusted to the dark that two yellow squares ahead stood out like blazing torches. It was lantern light, spilling from the cabin’s windows. Ordinarily, their thick curtains would keep all but a pale glow from showing. So either Winona had opened them … or they had been torn off.
The breeze brought the acrid odor of gunsmoke, fueling Nate’s terror. Arriving at the clearing, he flew across it without breaking stride, thankful no bodies littered the grass. A voice from inside, his daughter’s, reached him, louder than it should be, and he realized the glass panes were gone, that the windows had been shattered. Lowering a shoulder, he rammed into the door, pumping the latch as he did and spilling over the threshold.
Nate saw Winona, saw the muzzle of her rifle trained on him, but he couldn’t stop. Which was just as well. His momentum carried him past the door at the exact instant her rifle boomed. Wood splintered, showering slivers, but he had eyes only for his wife, daughter, and Lou. “You’re safe!”
Winona thought her heart had stopped. Snapping the rifle down, she sagged against the wall, horrified she had almost killed the man she loved. When he embraced her, she clung to him, as weak as a newborn.
Outside, Zach had just come to the clearing when the blast thundered. Figuring his father was shooting at one of the creatures, he let loose with a piercing Shoshone war whoop and raced on in to join the fray.
Zach stopped short in surprise. His parents were hugging. His sister had her arms around their father’s leg and was quietly sobbing. Beyond them, slumped against the wall, was Lou. Zach had been so engrossed in overtaking his pa that he hadn’t really considered she might be harmed. On beholding her doubled over, wincing as she lifted an arm, his chest constricted. He was to her in one leap, sweeping her up and pressing her close. “Are you all right?”
“I am now,” Lou said.
Zach was counting on spending the rest of his days with her. It never occurred to him she might die. He’d taken it for granted she would live to a fine old age, as if their love bestowed immunity from death. But it didn’t. They were mortal like everyone else. She might live fifty years or die the very next day. The idea of life without her was bleak and unappealing; he’d rather die himself.
Lou was watching the doorway and windows, afraid the attack would be renewed. “Did you see them? Those awful eyes? I’ve never been so scared in my life.”
“You’re safe now,” Zach said.
Nate, overhearing, raised his head to survey the damage. His son should do the same, he thought. Then Zach would appreciate how wrong he was.
Fist-size rocks were everywhere. The walls, the floor, the table and chairs were all scarred, dented, and scraped. Broken glass lay in glittering pieces, and shattered dishes covered the counter. Small clouds of gunsmoke had yet to disperse. It looked as if a war had been waged.
“I wish you’d been here, Pa,” Evelyn said, sniffling. “Those things wouldn’t have dared try to get us.”
Her remark sparked a troubling question. Had the creatures deliberately lured him off? Nate wondered. Exactly how intelligent, how clever, were they? “Tell me everything,” he said, steering Winona to the table so she could sit, “after Zach and I take a few precautions.” The first step was to board up the windows, but to do that they needed wood from the spare room at the rear. Nate shared his plan and turned to go.
“No!” Winona said, grabbing his wrist. “You must stay here with us until daylight. Only then will it be safe.”
Rarely did she dispute him. Nate held her hands, kissed her knuckles. “It has to be done. I won’t take long.”
Winona gripped his wrist. “Please don’t. They are NunumBi, the dwarfs my people have told you about. They can see in the dark, like cats. But they go below ground during the day. Wait until morning, husband, I beg you.”
Nate could count the number of times his wife had pleaded so desperately on one finger. He was inclined to say she must be mistaken, that the NunumBi were no more than figments of Shoshone myth, but after what had transpired, after what he had seen, he couldn’t deny the truth.
“Please.”
Undecided, Nate studied the others. Tears streamed down Evelyn’s cheeks and her lips were trembling. Louisa appeared to be in mild shock. “I’ll stay.” He suggested she take the girls to the back of the cabin. Then, with Zach lending a hand, he barred the door and propped a chair against it, pulled the heavy curtains closed, and spread pots and pans under both windows.
Meanwhile, Winona had bundled Evelyn and Lou in blankets and bid them try to sleep. She hunkered in front of the fireplace, rekindling the flames.
Nate positioned the rocking chair near her but facing the windows, and sat with his Hawken across his thighs. They swapped accounts, Nate aghast at the trial she had endured. A few aspects puzzled him. Why, for instance, had the NunumBi been content to throw rocks when a concerted rush might have overwhelmed Winona and the girls? Was it because the creatures were afraid of bright light, as the Shoshones believed? There had been a lantern on the table the whole time. But about that lantern—why didn’t the creatures simply hit it with a rock? It was almost as if the NunumBi wanted Winona and the others to see what was happening, almost as if the whole attack had been staged to scare them rather than harm them. As if the dwarfs took great delight in toying with their victims.
Another thing, Nate reflected. How many creatures were there? The one that led him into the woods couldn’t possibly have participated in the attack. Zach swore he’d seen two, but based on what Winona said, there had to have been three or four more.
So many questions! Nate mused. Where had the creatures come from? Why had they appeared now, after so many years? Why were they so hostile? Was it as the Shoshones believed, that the NunumBi were by their very nature evil and bloodthirsty? Or was there more to it?
The only thing Nate knew beyond a shadow of a doubt was that he must spirit his family away from there. At dawn they would pack up, throw saddles on their mounts, and be gone before the sun cleared the eastern mountains. He would conduct them to the village of Winona’s uncle, leave them there for safekeeping, and hasten to Shakespeare McNair’s. His mentor was one of the few who wouldn’t think his wits had crumbled to dust, who would help him drive the NunumBi back into whatever pit spawned them. He could also count on Scott Kendall and Simon Ward. Maybe one or two others.
“Husband?”
Nate hadn’t realized his wife was talking to him. “Sorry,” he said. “I was thinking about what to do.”
“What else? We will fight for our home. All of us, together. Just as we discussed.”
“That was before we knew what we were up against,” Nate said, gesturing. “You can’t expect me to expose the rest of you to more of this? We’re leaving. Let the NunumBi think they’ve won. In a couple of weeks Shakespeare and I will show them how wrong they are.”
Winona put down the poker and slid next to him. Affectionately caressing his cheek, she said softly, “You gave your word.”
“So?”
Winona continued to caress him.
“So?” Nate repeated. Her expression was an eloquent rebuke. “You’re not holding me too it, are you?”
“What have you always said about a person who doesn’t keep it?”
Nate King kicked the floor. He kicked the chair. He kicked the wall. He muttered. He glowered. At length his shoulders slumped and he declared gruffly, “Damn me for being an idiot.”
Toward dawn Nate dozed off and was ashamed for his lapse. The merry chirping of a robin snapped his head up. Befuddled, he heaved out of the rocking chair, vigorously shaking his head to clear it. Winona was curled up in a buffalo robe beside the fireplace. Zach, Evelyn, and Lou were deep in slumber.
Nate moved stiffly to the left window and carefully moved the curtain. The sun hadn’t risen yet but would soon. Daylight meant an end to their nightmare, at least until sunset. He had twelve hours in which to prepare, and he intended to make the most of every minute.
Quietly opening the door, Nate slipped outside. The brisk morning air helped invigorate him. With the Hawken cocked he made a circuit of the cabin and the corral. The horses hadn’t been molested and everything else was as it should be.
A golden arch to the east was giving birth to the new day. Nate inhaled deeply, glad to be alive and profoundly thankful his family had not been harmed. His stomach growled, reminding him it was time for breakfast, but rather than wake Winona he went to the spare room at the rear and brought out all his traps, his two shovels, a rope, an ax, and other implements.
Now that Nate knew the nature of the enemy his outlook had changed. Gone was the nagging sense of hopelessness that had sapped his will and crushed his spirit. Uncertainty was like acid, eating at a person’s vitals. He now had the information he needed to wage war on his terms, not the NunumBis’.
To that end, Nate began by setting all his beaver traps. His son had held the right idea all along—only, they had to account for the fact they were dealing with creatures much smarter than the average painter or bear. They had to be as devious as the dwarfs, as crafty as if they were setting the traps for men instead of beasts.
Nate rigged snares next to each beaver trap. He dug pits and embedded stakes at the bottom but didn’t cover them quite well enough to hide them, then dug adjacent pits and used all his skill to conceal the second ones. He set deadfalls, lots of deadfalls, log deadfalls and boulder deadfalls, deadfalls with branches for triggers and more elaborate ones with cord. He bent two saplings crosswise, linking them by rope, the other end a loop hidden by high grass. He broke off straight limbs, sharpened them to points, and arranged trip ropes so that whatever blundered into one was in for an unpleasant surprise.
Wrapped in his work, Nate lost track of time. It was the middle of the morning when he looked up from a hook snare he had just set and saw his wife coming toward him. Her hair was disheveled and she was yawning, the robe still over her shoulders.
“Why did you let me sleep so late?” Winona asked. She couldn’t remember the last time she had slept past sunrise. It smacked of laziness, and among her people sloth was as frowned upon as speaking with two tongues.
“You needed the rest,” Nate said, standing. “Are the others up?”
“Not yet, but Zach was stirring.” Winona stared at the snare, then at a deadfall close to it. “I see you have been busy.”
“Very,” Nate acknowledged. “Tonight those bastards won’t get off so easy.”
The venom in his tone disturbed Winona. One trait of his she most admired was his ability to stay levelheaded in a crisis. “You are taking this very personal, husband.”
“You’re damn right I am.” Nate pointed at the windows. “I don’t care what these things are. I don’t care if they’re as old as time itself. They’ve violated our home. They’ve threatened you and the kids. For that, they deserve to die.”
“They are hard to kill,” Winona observed. “My people have always feared them more than any other. More than the giants, more than the thunderbirds.”
“The Shoshones beat them once. We can do the same.” Nate reclaimed his rifle, which he’d leaned against an oak.
“How? There are only four of us. Five, if you count Blue Flower.”
“We’ll find a way.” Nate hooked an arm through hers and they strolled toward the cabin. “I want all our lanterns filled and ready for use. I want a dozen torches made. Have the girls gather firewood and fill the bin to overflowing. And have Zach load every gun.”
“You have this all thought out.”
Nate had been plotting as he worked. “We’ll need the buckets filled with water. The water skins, too. And whatever else you have handy. Later today we’ll board up the windows.”
Winona stopped. “Is that wise? How will we fight back? Or escape if they break in?”
“You’ll see,” was all Nate would say.
Louisa May Clark slid the strap to a full water skin over her left shoulder and grunted. “Your folks sure are working us to death. If I have to tote one more of these, my arms will fall off.”
Evelyn sighed. “I know what you mean. We have enough water to last a year. We don’t need any more.” She lifted the bucket she had just filled for the third time.
“Your pa seems to think so. I’ve never seen him work so hard. All that brush he gathered. And those branches. What do you reckon he has in mind?”
“I asked him. But all he did was kiss me on the nose and tell me to keep busy.” Evelyn walked toward the trail and her waiting brother. “If I was any busier, I’d keel over from being too tired to take a step.”
“Will you two quit your jabbering and hurry it up?” Zach called out. “Pa and I have a lot to do before nightfall.”
“My, my. Isn’t he grumpy?” Evelyn said, giggling.
Lou didn’t find it quite so humorous. Zach had been irritable all day. Why, she couldn’t guess. She had been meaning to ask him, so as they trudged homeward with him bringing up the rear for protection, she did.
“Me, irritable? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Men, Lou had found, could be almost as pigheaded as the real article. They had a bothersome practice of refusing to admit what was plain to everyone else. Especially when it applied to them. Like horses with blinders on, they saw only what they wanted to see. “You’ve been as grumpy as a badger with a thorn in its paw,” she countered. “What’s wrong?”
Zach pondered whether to say. He was upset because of her. Or, rather, because he’d not been there when she needed him. All day the image of her doubled over in pain had plagued him, reminding him she had nearly died, reminding him he’d almost lost the girl he loved more than life itself. Rather than go into all of that, he simply said, “I don’t want to lose you.”
“Is that what has you out of sorts?” Lou smiled at the depth of his devotion. How sweet of him. “You won’t. So quit fretting.”
Zach didn’t share her optimism. The attack had taught him an important lesson. Nothing in life was ironclad. No one knew from one day to the next whether they’d be alive to greet the next sunrise. If he desired to live to a nice old age with Lou at his side—and he desired nothing more—he must watch over her every waking moment.
“Now that I’ve thought about it,” Lou said, trying to put him at ease, “I don’t think the NunumBi were trying to kill us last night. They could have, easily. But they were content to chuck rocks.”
“Any one of which could have split your noggin,” Zach said. The creatures had a lot to answer for, and if his pa and he had anything to say about it, they would. “Don’t make them out to be something they’re not. They like to torment folks. They enjoy it.”
“Has anyone ever stopped to wonder why? Have they always hated humans? Or is there a reason they do what they do?”
“Who cares?” Zach branded the issue as so much nonsense. “When a grizzly is trying to eat someone, the person doesn’t ask why. When a panther is trying to claw a trapper to shreds, he doesn’t ask why. Everyone knows. It’s what they do, how they are, their nature. The same with the NunumBi.”
“You can’t say that for sure,” Lou argued. “Has anyone ever tried to communicate with them? Get them to change? My ma used to say that the only way to make friends is to be friendly.”
Zach envisioned her offering a hand in friendship to one of the savage little creatures and having it bitten clean off. “And my pa likes to say that you can’t throw a saddle on a buffalo. Some things just can’t be done, and no amount of wishful thinking will make them come true.”
“You never know until you try,” Lou declared, getting in the last word.
Evelyn had been listening with half an ear. “I’ll never try, I can tell you that right now. I’d as soon spoon-feed a wolverine.”
Zach laughed heartily. Every now and then his sister was actually funny. “Or try to sneak up on a skunk.”
