Wilderness Double Edition 15, page 13
Evelyn was no fool. She saw right through him. But she nodded, secretly glad she need not brave the darkness and the demons who dwelled in it.
Nate waited for Lou to join him, gave her a reassuring smile, and opened the door. By now the belt of branches had almost burned itself out, but the piles of brush cast enough light to reveal no NunumBi were in the vicinity. Sliding out, he crept to the left and was almost to the corner when she whispered his name.
Lou was pointing at the base of the wall. “Isn’t this where you put that awful thing?” She had been worried she might step on it and had made a point to look for the bundled blanket.
The dead one was gone! Nate crouched, pulling her down with him, and braced for an assault that didn’t materialize. “Go back in the cabin,” he whispered. “I’ll get the rifles.”
“What? Why?” Lou would do no such thing. “I said I’d help you, and I will. Don’t fret on my account. I can shoot as straight as the next fellow.” She hefted her flintlock, hiding the stark fear that threatened to turn her legs to mush.
Against Nate’s better judgment, he went on. Knowing the NunumBi might be out there, watching, made every yard they covered fraught with menace. Rounding the corner, he stalked to where the grooves had been carved in the logs. “You go up first. I’ll follow.” He didn’t want the girl out of his sight.
“Why both of us?” Lou responded. “We can get this over with faster if I stay here and stand guard.”
She was right, but Nate hesitated. A couple of rifles weren’t worth her life. His son was already at death’s door; he’d be damned if he would lose her too.
“Go, Mr. King,” Lou insisted, touching his arm. “I’ll be fine. Really.”
Scowling, Nate faced the cabin, stuck both pistols under his belt, and started up. Twice he paused to scour the woods. At the top, he twisted. “If you hear or see anything, give a holler.”
“They’ll hear me in St. Louis,” Lou quipped, her teeth flashing white. She was putting on a brave front for his benefit.
Nate hurried. The rifles were right where they had been left, along with the parfleche crammed with kindling and the pot containing the coals. Bundling everything in his arms, he retraced his steps and leaned down. “Here. I’ll hand you the Hawkens and—”
Lou wasn’t there.
A low cry came from under the trees. Short figures were swarming over a taller one, who resisted valiantly. Red eyes swirled like tiny shooting stars.
Nate launched himself from the roof. He bent his knees to absorb the shock, but he still landed hard and stumbled, almost falling on his face. By the time he righted himself and set down everything except for one rifle, the combatants had moved deeper into the forest. One or two of the creatures appeared to be clinging to Lou’s shoulders; others had steely arms looped around her lower legs.
“Mr. King! Help me!” she managed to cry before one of the NunumBi clamped a hand over her mouth, stifling her shouts.
Lord help him, Nate tried. He sprinted in pursuit, shrieking a war cry, and a dozen scarlet eyes were fixed on him. Firing into their midst might bring one down, but the ball might also strike Lou, so he didn’t shoot. Nate pushed himself to overtake them, but soon the red eyes were mere pinpoints. Lou’s figure was lost amid the many tree trunks. The NunumBi and their captive were moving away from him with incredible rapidity.
Nate ran another twenty yards. Then he stopped in baffled outrage. They were gone! The NunumBi were bearing Louisa to their lair, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to stop them!
Raising his fists to the heavens, Nate roared. She had been snatched from under his very nose! But the creatures had made no attempt to harm him. Why? Did they want to humiliate him? To show he was powerless against them?
Nate tried to think as he imagined they would. Had they abducted Lou in retribution for the death of one of their own? Was taking her their way of making him suffer for his affront? To what end, though? What would they do with her? The most obvious answer, the reason Apaches and Blackfeet stole white women, didn’t apply. Would they make a slave of her? Torture and then slay her?
For some reason the image of the dead NunumBi’s mouth floated before Nate, and he had a horrific premonition. Those rapier teeth. So sharp. Designed to rip and shred flesh. Human flesh, possibly?
Nate ran to the cabin, snatched the other rifle, and sped to the front. The door was open, his wife just inside with her own Hawken.
Winona took one look at him and blanched. “No!” She’d heard yells and her husband’s bellow and had known something was wrong, but she couldn’t leave her son and daughter alone to investigate.
“Lou’s not dead, but she may soon be,” Nate confirmed. “They grabbed her, and there was nothing I could do.” Shame bent his head as he followed her in, barred the door, and sagged against it. He could never forgive himself. It was his fault, plain and simple. He’d lost his son’s fiancée and maybe his son, all because he’d given his word they could stay to help him fight the NunumBi. All because of his stupid word. Thank goodness Zach was oblivious to what was going on, Nate mused. The shock of Lou’s abduction might be all it took to finish what the poison had started.
Zach King, however, had heard every word. Raw panic surged through him, and he tried with all his might to rise but couldn’t. His body still refused to obey his mental commands. It was just like all the other times, with one small difference. The tips of his fingers and toes began to tingle.
To his dying day Zach never knew with certainty what broke the toxin’s hold. Was it hearing of his beloved’s capture? Was it the tea his mother had forced down his throat? Had the effects of whatever was on the tip of the arrow started to wear off? Or was it a combination of all three?
The tingling spread up his limbs, to his knees and elbows. It hurt—hurt like the dickens—but Zach welcomed the pain. It was proof that feeling was being restored to his body, that soon he might be able to move.
Again and again Zach tried. He willed his fingers to bend, his toes to curl. Neither would, but he didn’t give up. He focused on the little finger on his right hand and kept commanding it to move, move, move. The tingling grew worse, much worse, to the point where, had he been able, he’d have screamed. Then the miracle occurred. He felt his little finger bend ever so slightly, not more than a fraction of an inch. It encouraged him to persevere, to keep at it.
Zach saw his mother walk by, a study in misery. She glanced at him, and he moved his finger again, but in her state she didn’t notice.
“What will you do, Pa?” he heard Evelyn ask.
“Go after her in the morning.”
“Alone?” This from Zach’s mother.
“It can’t be helped. You have to stay and watch over them. If I’m not back by late afternoon, saddle your horses and light a shuck for Shakespeare’s. Go west to the pass so you can stay shy of the NunumBi.”
Zach could move two fingers! The wooden sensation was fading, but not fast enough to suit him.
“No argument, Winona,” his father said. “I’ve got to do what I can. I could never live with myself if I didn’t.”
“What about Zach, Pa?” Evelyn said. She had always been a bundle of questions. “How will we take him with us?”
“Rig a travois.”
Zach would spare himself the indignity. Shoshones and other tribes transported lodges and personal effects on a framework of long poles. They also used the travois to carry the aged and infirm, or pregnant women too heavy with child to walk or ride. No self-respecting warrior would ever let himself be tied to one.
“It is a long, hard climb to the pass,” his mother remarked. “And it is very cold that high up at night.”
“You’re quibbling,” Nate said. “Bundle him in his bearskin robe and he’ll be fine. Go slow on those switchbacks when you descend. And when you reach Shakespeare’s, don’t let him come here alone.”
“I wish there were another way, husband.”
“That makes two of us, wife.”
There was another way, as Zach would show them. He could partly flex his right hand and wriggle his left foot, and he was working furiously on the others. Every part of him tingled now, toe to head, though the tingling was fading in his extremities even as it increased in his chest and neck. Zach’s right hand closed all the way, his fingertips brushing his palm. Pleased, he nearly smiled, forgetting he couldn’t, and the corner of his mouth quirked upward a bit. His tongue rubbed the roof of his mouth.
Zach fought to make a sound, any sound, to get his family’s attention. A tiny whine escaped his lips, but no one heard. He experimented, shifting his eyes to see where everyone was, and his eyeballs moved just as they should have. His ma was by the fireplace, his pa by the door, both about as wretchedly forlorn as two people could be. Evelyn was at the table, her cheeks streaked with dry tears, her chin in her hands.
Look at me! Zach yearned to shout. Another whine had to suffice. His vocal cords were loosening up, but at a snail’s pace. He lifted his right hand an inch off the bed and wriggled his fingers, thinking to catch his sister’s attention. In vain. She was interested only in moping, at which she was an expert. The last time she’d been in the doldrums, she’d sulked around the cabin for a week.
Zach slid his tongue to the front of his mouth, against his upper teeth. He thought he could whistle, but only puffed feebly.
His mother walked toward his father. She had to pass the bed again, and as she did, Zach exerted every ounce of energy he had. A teeny noise, like the cheep of a baby chick, was the best he could do. It was enough to make him want to cry.
Winona was lost in thought, plotting how she could refuse to do as her husband wanted without angering him. She positively refused to leave him. He could rant, he could rave, but unless he trussed her up and threw her over a horse, she was staying at his side, as a wife should.
Still, Winona told herself, it would help to have a reason he would accept. A logical reason, since men were swayed more by their heads than their hearts. She was going by the bed when a peculiar chirp, like the peep of a bird, intruded on her plotting. Her son was staring at her with the strangest expression, his mouth puckered as if he had tasted bitter food. Winona took another step, then the significance slammed her around and she gripped him by the shoulders, squealing, “Stalking Coyote is recovering! Grizzly Killer! Blue Flower! Come quick!”
They did, the air of melancholy replaced by glee. Evelyn clambered onto the quilt and wormed around to her brother’s other side. “His eyes moved, Ma! I saw them! And look at how funny his mouth is!”
Zach didn’t find anything humorous about it. His body was bending to his will, but some of his muscles were going through brief contortions, an aftereffect, apparently, of the paralysis.
Nate gripped his son’s hand and felt Zach match the pressure. “He’s trying to say something.”
“What do you reckon it is?” Evelyn asked.
They would soon learn, Zach thought. His tongue was moving freely, but his vocal cords weren’t quite restored to normal. He grunted. He growled. He gurgled. His father, mother, and sister all leaned toward him, eager to hear his first words. But there was only one that needed to be said. He concentrated, strained, parted his lips, and hummed like an oversized bee. Finally, he ended their suspense by blurting, “No!”
Winona, Nate, and Evelyn looked at one another.
“No what?” Evelyn said.
“No, he isn’t recovering?” Nate speculated.
“No, he doesn’t want more tea?” was Winona’s guess.
Zach sucked in a breath and got the rest out in a rush. “No, none of us are going anywhere! Except after Lou! She’s part of our family now. She’s going to be my wife. So as soon as I can stand, we’re leaving. We won’t abandon her. Do you hear me, Pa? Do you hear me, Ma? You wouldn’t turn your backs on Evelyn or me, and we’re not turning our backs on her!”
Evelyn was flabbergasted. Her brother had never talked to their parents so harshly before, and she tensed for the tongue-lashing he was sure to receive. Unbelievably, neither her father nor her mother was mad. They smiled at him, then at each other. “Aren’t you going to punish him?” Evelyn asked.
“What for?” Nate said, and clapped his son on the back. “A man has the right to speak his mind.”
“But when I do that, you call it giving you sass,” Evelyn pointed out. “And since when is he a man?”
Winona shushed her. “It is not very kind of you to tease him at a time like this. I am very disappointed in you, Blue Flower.”
Zach raised and lowered his arms. He pumped his legs back and forth, the quilt jouncing on his knees. Another five minutes and he would be well enough to get up. “Better go saddle the horses, Pa. It won’t be long now.”
Nate stayed where he was. “I said you had the right to speak your mind. I didn’t say I agreed to do as you wanted. You and I will head out tomorrow at first light.”
“And leave Lou at the mercy of those things all night?” Zach would never agree, not in a million years.
“We can’t track them in the dark, son. They know that. Maybe taking Louisa was a ruse to lure us all outside so they can jump us.” Nate felt it wise not to mention the other possibility, their need for fresh meat. “We need rest, and plenty of it, to hold our own against the NunumBi. I’ll take first watch, your mother will take the second, you can have the third. An hour before sunrise, wake us up. It’s the best we can do under the circumstances.”
Zach heartily disagreed, but he didn’t say so. Pretending to give in, he slumped against the headboard. “I reckon you know better than me how we should go about this. We’ll do it your way.”
“I’m glad you agree,” Nate said, impressed by his son’s maturity.
“I’d like to take first watch, though, if you don’t mind,” Zach said, hastily explaining out of dread that his father would refuse. “I’m too wide awake to sleep, Pa. It’s that stuff they shot into me. It has me jumpier than a frog in a frying pan.”
“It’s fine by me.”
Plans were made. Nate had a few special items he wanted to take. They debated whether to use horses since the animals were skittish around the NunumBi. In due course, husband and wife turned in. Their daughter asked to sleep with them, saying her own blankets needed a washing. The fire burned low.
Zach King sat in the rocking chair, waiting impatiently. As soon as his parents and sister were asleep, he armed himself, silently opened the door, and slipped from the cabin. The love of his life needed him, and nothing was going to keep him from her.
Eleven
Louisa May Clark had never been so afraid in all her born days. She felt the fear in every fiber of her being, knifing outward from her core. And yet, the strange thing was, as scared as Lou felt, she didn’t give in to it. She didn’t scream or faint; she wasn’t seized by paralysis and so weak she couldn’t lift a finger to defend herself.
The opposite took place. Lou’s fear lent her strength, lent her the will to fight back. Just as wood fueled a fire, fear fueled all her desire to go on living. She resisted the NunumBi with all she had, fighting like a tigress or a painter protecting her young.
Their initial rush had caught her flat-footed. Lou had glanced up at the roof, anxious for Nate King to reappear. She hadn’t heard any sounds, she hadn’t had the slightest notion the creatures were anywhere near until she looked around and there they were, almost on top of her with their hands stretching out to seize her.
Lou tried to shout. But the things piled on, over a dozen, some stripping her of weapons, some grabbing her legs, others her arms, while one bounded high onto her chest and clamped a furry palm over her mouth. Then they hauled her into the trees.
The creatures holding her legs started to lift her off the ground. By suddenly shifting her weight, Lou threw them off balance. She yanked her legs free, straightened, and started thrashing and bucking like a horse under the influence of loco weed. A NunumBi holding her arms scrambled lower and tried to get a grip on her ankles, but a foot to the face sent him sprawling. Jerking her left arm loose, she punched and battered those still clinging to her.
Lou experienced a glimmer of hope when Zach’s pa ran to her rescue. She was tiring, though, which allowed the things to swarm over her again. They quickly bore her away from Nate and the cabin. Her future father-in-law valiantly sought to overtake them, but it was like a turtle trying to overtake an antelope. It just couldn’t be done.
Lou’s attempts to throw the NunumBi off became weaker, less frequent. She conserved her energy for when she would really need it, for when the creatures decided to dispose of her. As they surely would, for she was under no illusions about her impending fate. She was going to die. Very well, when the moment came, Lou would strive her utmost to hurt or slay as many of the creatures as she could. She would not die like a lamb led to slaughter. She would not die meekly.
Lou liked to think that her pa, gazing down from the hereafter, would be proud of her. That Zach would be proud of her.
Zach. Dwelling on him soothed her, calmed her, erasing most if not all of her fright. Lou keenly regretted they would never be man and wife. She’d looked forward to that so much. So very, very much. To be denied supreme happiness was tragic. She would have liked to hug him one last time, to kiss him, to whisper special endearments reserved for his ears and his alone.
The scrape of a claw across an arm brought Lou’s reverie to an end. She had lost all sense of direction, but a glimpse of the constellations through a gap in the forest canopy showed the creatures were bearing her to the northeast. Six or seven were holding her, with as little effort as she would hold one of Evelyn’s dolls.
Red eyes floated below her, to the right and to the left. When she stared at any of them, they stared back. Or, rather, glared back, for the blazing redness of their eyes matched the searing hatred they seemed to have for all humans. She wondered if the NunumBi hated people so much because of the great war waged long ago, or whether the hatred was itself the cause of the war. Maybe it was impossible for the dwarfs and humanity to exist in peace and friendship. Maybe the mutual loathing both had for each other was as old as the two races. Maybe it was part of their nature.
